Mecha Weaponry
 

This is perhaps a somewhat minor thing, but the way weaponry is laid out for mecha in Mecha and Manga, the items are either easy-to-lose or hard-to-lose devices based on whether they're handheld or mounted. In addition, the mounts apparently need to be bought up as complementary features. It would be nice if the program handled this automagically. ^_^ You know, along with making the features that are powers work like Armor, Stealth Systems, Improved Plating, etc.

Also, one of the archetypes has a mecha which he does not actually own (it's "purchased" by his benefit, essentially his organization allowing him to use it). It would be nice to be able to load/save mecha, vehicles, and minions for characters. Although, in some ways, this goes back to the earlier post about being able to cut/paste (or save/load) power sets.

I definitely want to make the Mecha upgrades "work" - i.e. Armor adding ranks of protection, and so on. I didn't have time to do it before the last release, unfortunately, but it's on the to-do list.

For the weapons, are you suggesting that adding a mecha weapon should automatically add an appropriate device and weapon mount?

Your last point about being able to save/load child heroes is already on our to-do list. :)

Indeed. The way the book expresses it, there are mounted weapons and there are hand-held weapons, which correspond to easy-to-lose and hard-to-lose devices (I feel like there ought to be just plain weaponry that covers stuff like the beam weapon embedded in the chest which can't be swapped out, but that's probably just covered under Powers). I just figured on bringing it up before you write up a Weaponry tab and then have your players asking why it doesn't use the same terminology as the book.

^_^ Cool.

By the by, there are a few other oddities. Like when I took a character with two languages and created a Mecha for her, the Mecha came up with a warning that I could learn an additional language.

Side note: I'm in a discussion with someone on the ATT about the weaponry costs and they referenced the Chapter 1 option of reducing the cost for devices and equipment for TLs lower than the current one and how this may account for some of the cost differences in the Mecha design. I don't know whether this would be an option you would want to include for HeroLab, particularly since the TL of most equipment and items is not well defined.

Personally, I feel that the penalty for higher TLs is all that is needed, that people choosing a lower TL already have their lower cost, but the option is out there and may account for some of the differences between the mecha and the book and the calculated cost.

On the same vein, since certain systems are Basic or Complementary depending on the TL of the setting, maybe adding a sort of curtain menu to set it and, consequently, activating or deactivating the options accordingly might be a good idea.

When I was building sample mechas to test them, I just used devices to do it - add a device and made the Blast power part of it. I can think about adding another way to do it, but there's already a way that works fine, so it'll be pretty low on the to-do list.


Thanks, I'll take a look at this.

The TL stuff you guys mention is a big can of worms. :( If you want to give a mecha a discount for using a low TL weapon like a giant sword, the best way is probably just to give it the giant sword at full price, then give the hero a few bonus PP to compensate for it.

Or maybe a Custom Drawback called "Lower Tech Level" that is really just a coupon to refund some points? **Quickly ducks. Just trying to help.**

I would like to see all the mecha & manga along with all the warriors & warlocks templates in the program as well.

Ah, therein lies the problem that templates are not really very buildable in the editor. Or rather, you can build them, but you can't apply them. Colen has stated in one of his earlier posts (can't remember exactly where) that this is indeed something that they are working on.

As a side note, Colen, were I to write up the templates as characters in a portfolio, would that help you at all once this does become implementable? Or will the formats be different enough as to make this effort futile?