Drunkard's Walk Forums

Mmmnah, ugly plane plus ugly transformation doesn't just add, it multiplies. The main reason the L-133 project stalled out was the USAAC was skeptical about how useful jet propulsion would actually be, but in this setting it's well proven by the surviving kloggs, it's just the ability to make a reliable one with the available tools/materials/knowlege that's the problem. Even the VP-38 is actually a turboprop hybrid, with small turbines replacing the OTL oil coolers in the booms/at the knees.
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

Found my Richtofen lineage - Manfred's brother Lothar was his second in command, and though he had a few bad injuries that kept him grounded was even more effective when he was in the air, and he survived the war - first working on a farm, then in industry while married to a duchess, but that was dissolved in 1922 after the birth of two children. Though offered a commercial piloting position, he was intrigued by the advanced flying machines of the Blues and joining a reverse-engineering team, as the danger
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

sense and low-grade psi that had helped make him so effective were enough to activate a mecha, if not to use it to its true potential. That the pilot whose machine they were attempting to understand, repair and duplicate was the top ace of the crashed ship's defense squadron made it inevitable that he would also be called on to teach the operation of earth planes so they could compete, that she was a woman was a more severe challenge but one a hard won respect and mutual love of the sky overcame. When
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

their own daughter Carmen (his first wife having persueded him to use a different name for their first child) showed signs of that same yearning as she grew, who was he to deny her the sky? And so, the legend of the Red Baroness began, allowed to adopt the livery of her famous uncle and for propoganda value...

(Always be afraid of the enemy in the red mecha. ALWAYS. It doesn't matter what series, era, or species, the red one is Bad News with a capital BAD and a star next to it.)
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

Huh... I just realised there's a very good reason to use the L-133 as the first US variable jet fighter: the transformation I'm thinking of for it is almost exactly the same as a chulogg stretchedto about double length, with the difference made up by having the knees and elbows kept straight. This is with a modified design that puts intakes at the wing roots and the guns in the dinky nose oval to give them air cooling, mind you, so it's not as strict to the real outline as the Lightning and Shinden.
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

I think I'll call the BB as "IJN Hiei" after the surface ship lost at Guadalcanal, and her debut post reconstruction being to crush the Allied defenders in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, supoorting the convoy to retake... I forget where without the wiki page open. Unless a better point pops up... I really need a ww2/alt history buff to collaborate on fitting the story as outlined into the war's timeline and designing realistic reactions/butterflies, I guess. Or something else to push mecha into wide use.
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

My apologies to everyone else writing things and looking for comments in the forum, I will catch back up eventually but now it's obsessive project mode time. Progress is incremental, but having actual milestones set so it doesn't feel like those increments are insignificant makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD. The same kind of difference as watching your xp counter slowly fill while side questing in an rpg...
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

Okay Roman Fanboy, I have a start on your chance to put a fist in Mao's face - Shortly after the transfer to the Pacific Theater the PC's mecha squadron is assigned to bail the Flying Tigers out in China, as their planes are not competetive against the new Japanese variable Shinden. This at least gets you nearby, though I'm still blank on why the KMT and CCP's nominal alliance would break enough for an Allied strike to be called on Chinese Communist Party leadership. I promise though, if you can come up
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

with a plausible rationale I'll include the ability to land and debark so the PC can personally put the boot in.

It'll probably also be important for post-invasion/pre-counterstrike salvage operations, a rescue mission or two, etc., but mainly it's to let the player punch historic jerks in the face. Possibly Stalin and Hitler too, my current thinking is to have you ship be driven west by the aliens until linking up with surviving forces in Europe (the battleship as well, leading to several skirmishes over
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

supplies and salvageable material) so the Red Baroness becomes playable in the late game, shortly followed by the Total Earth Republic Resistance Alliance (or some such thing) being formed, now including the BB, to begin the counter-attack, the large numbers of ground mecha already present in that theater having made it the only region able to mostly remain out of the Blue fleet's control.
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

Valles Wrote:Transformation-wise, you could try adapting the VA-3 Invader's transformation scheme to the Glostor Meteor. Or the early British carrier jets tended to share this wild twin-tail layout that would also have potential.

A) Gone are the dark days of PSP web browsing! My laptop lives again! Hurray! No more post card length multi-posting! Supeer yay! I can fill out my handwritten design doc while transcribing it to digital text! Not exactly yay, but neccessary and then I can actually get more than fragmentary pseudocode notes underway, a definate YAY!

B) That aside - the VA-3 is actually quite similar to the FBz-99, Pheyos, and Queadlunn Alma, the outlines of the latter two (particularly if you cross that with the submarine form transformable illustration in Mekton Zeta) being quite like the Ushakov LPL flying submarine... which I really, really want to use. So much. They still wouldn't work as a direct ripoff, but I'm pretty sure I can make that beast into a variable device...

http://www.hitechweb.genezis.eu/submers ... rcraft.htm (page is in Russian, scroll down a bit for a render and three view drawing)

I'm thinking the carrier will be the USS Furlong, mostly because it's fun to say. Still open to persuasion, though.

Here's a copy of the current bullet-points list, though there are still quite a lot of notes yet to transcribe:

* The alien ship _Pakkarl_ crashed in 1920, scattering wreckage worldwide
. * Bluo very-near-human pilots and leaders absorbed into human population
. * Jel'eid laborers and techs work for whoever gives them orders
. * various semi-intelligent maintainence robots and organisms form lairs
. * main crash site in the Sea of Japan, raised/rebuilt by IJN as battleship
. * electronics, engine and materials technology advanced over OTL
. * Justification for WWII was to unite the earth for coordinated defense
. . * alien empire conquers or exterminates all civilizations discovered
. . * alien empire also follows master race (Zzard) / clent races model
. . * Earth is on the frontier, so they'll arrive sooner or later

* Create your own pilot and wingmen or recruit NPCs
. * Bluo or Human/Bluo halfblood
. * male or female (rarity of mecha pilots requires gender equality early)
. * age 15+ (likewise early enlistment with parental consent)
. * inital play USA only, New Game Plus allows English, German, or Japanese start
. * create up to four characters to be pilots/wingmen and switch at any time
. * a small initial pool of NPC pilots is provided for a quick start to play
. * storyline aces can be recruited through special events

* Increase your skills and learn new psychic techniques
. * Skills and passive techniques are always in effect
. . * Skills are numerical from 1-100, and add to mecha stats
. . . * ENDurance (HP and sprint duration)
. . . * STRength (lifting, hitting, climb rate)
. . . * SPeeD (running/flying and reflexes/animation rate)
. . . * AGiLity (dive/roll/turn rate)
. . . * ExtraSensory Perception (radar and most techniques)
. . . * PSI power (energy pool tapped for techniques)
. . . * RECovery (speed of PSI/HP/sprint/ammo regeneration)
. . . * MarKSmanship (accuracy with bullets and beams)
. . . * Heavy WeaPons (accuracy with missiles and cannon)
. . . * CooKiNg (affects wingman morale)
. . * Skills are raised by using them or with XP totaling 10x current score
. . . * One rapid fire weapon hit = 1 MKS
. . . * One swarming missile hit = 2 HWP
. . . * One lift, punch or single-shot hit = 5 STR or MKS or HWP
. . . * One activation of psi technique = 10 to PSI
. . . * One fill of the PSI meter = 10 REC
. . . * Finish mission with high HP = 10 END
. . . * Avoid damage with a sprint = 10 AGL
. . . * One countermissile hit = 5 AGL
. . . * One wing party = 20 CKN
. . . * One sucessful mission = 5 CKN
. . . * Finsh mission quickly = 10 SPD
. . . * One 1st place in race event = 5 SPD plus prize
. . . * One 2nd place in race event = 10 SPD plus prize
. . . * One 3rd place in race event = 20 SPD plus prize

(Edit: those are XP applied to the skill, not whole skill points. Generic XP gain is sparse but allows for raising infrequently used skills to reduce time grinding when you get a new unit that carries heavy missiles or a cannon or when encountering enemy psy-ops units the first time, when wingman morale becomes important to resist the effect.)

. * All pilots begin with Danger Sense, Direction Sense, & TK
. * Danger Sense tree contains mental/emotional effects
. . * encourage and strengthen your allies
. . * demoralise enemies and even make them defect
. . * specific techniques TBD
. * Direction Sense tree contains informational effects
. . * locate resources and enemies
. . * specific techniques TBD
. * TK tree contains physical/energy effects
. . * telekinetically manipulate items and controls
. . * create shields and energy blasts
. . * increase the power of your attacks and stretch ammunition supply
. . * enhance the speed and durability of your mecha
. . * specific techniques TBD

* Pilot transforming mecha/aircraft based on WWII designs
. * US
. . * P-38 (USA/New Game Plus English starting mecha)
. . * L-133 (fit into number scheme as P-58)
. * German
. . * Fw190 (New Game Plus German starting mecha)
. . * V-2
. . * Ho229
. . * Me262
. * Japanese
. . * J7W1 (New Game Plus Japanese starting mecha)
. . * J7W2
. * Russian
. . * Ushakov LPL

* Salvage and capture alien mecha
. * Klogg space-optimized fighter
. * Chulogg atmosphere-optimized fighter
. * Boloss attack/bombardment unit
. * unnamed Bluo ground mecha
. * unnamed Zzard command mecha

* Scavenge for Terran materials, Alien technology, and Barter goods
. * Salvage wreckage from battlefields and lost fragments of the Pakkarl
. * Trade with or raid local settlements, Jel'ied colonies, and alien lairs

* Create new designs based on alien high technology
. * Monarch psy-ops optimized variable jet fighte.r
. * Skate twin engine variable jet fighter
. * Variable HiMAT with cockpit/nose from x-19 (single jet engine)
. * Raven flying wing variable jet bomber
. * Saint Rod(ney) variable contragravity destroyer
. * user-supplied/DLC models

* Battle with guns, lasers, missiles, and psychic powers
. * interchangeable gunpods and external missiles
. * modify, replace, and upgrade internal weapons

* Customize paint scheme and colors
. * change tint of existing schemes
. * user-supplied/DLC skins

(Edit: Your energy effects will be a color chosen during character creation, no matter which mecha or weapon you're using)

* Fly missions in multiple theaters and environments
. * Western European theater
. . * Temperate/plains and urban environment
. . * Escort bombers into enemy territory
. . * Defend London from V-2 attack
. * Pacific theater
. . * ocean and island environment
. . * Attack enemy convoys and defend your own
. . * Air cover for Marines in the islands
. * India/Burma theater
. . * tropical mainland and island environment
. . * Support the Flying Tigers
. . * punch Mao in the face
. * Far East theater
. . * steppe and arctic environment
. . * evade and destroy pursuit from the invasion force
. . * travel west to link up with surviving terran armies in Europe
. * Eastern European theater
. . * steppe and temperate environment
. . * punch Hitler and Stalin in the face
. . * ally with remaining human forces against the invading Bluo fleet
. * African theater
. . * jungle and desert environment
. . * support tanks and ground mecha against the main Bluo landing force
. . * construct space infrastructure with equatorial launch sites
. * Orbit
. . * open space and lunar environment
. . * incite the fleet to defect with psy ops
. . * finish off the fanatics and the Zzard commanders
. * Enemy Side missions and pilot creation available after Eastern Europe
. . * fly as opponent force in previously completed mission scenarios
. . * available as training excercises for existing pilot or new wingmen
. * user supplied/DLC maps and missions

RE the Saint Rodney, it's a design based on Momo's Saint Rod weapon from original Xenosaga, It would probably be better called a cruiser than a destroyer, come to think of it. Other ships of the class will be John, Paul, George, and Silas, probably one or two more. Each one will likely have a jet-converted LPL in high-visibility yellow as an auxiliary craft.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

Huh, I seem to be missing some of the detail from later, where one of the ENemy Side missions puts you as Carmen Richtoffen supposedly demonstrating the new variable Horten flying wing fighter-bomber, but actually the backup to make sure that Operation Valkyrie succeeds in killing Hitler so the remaining German leaders can work together with the rest of the surviving human military to repel the Zzard invasion. There's a complication to it, of course, in that Eva Braun is actually a powerful ESPer herself, and catches you just before you can get into the mecha and get the job done, but what brought this back to my attention was this Mythbusters episode:


While I'm at it, if I could successfully resurrect my full notes again, would anyone be interested in playing this by posts using a) Mekton, b) WEG-D6/Open d6/Star Wars RPG, or c) the MEGS/DC Heroes game system? BESM/Tri-Stat would also be an option, but doesn't really scale well enough for both human action and giant mecha. Yes, the general outline of events is kind of laid down, but so would it be with any WWII game, and there's a lot of wiggle room in there for how well various operations go, and especially in the later stages for how well the players diplomance, scavenge and manage resources to keep their equipment operational and supplied with fuel and ammunition.

I have a bad tendency to get enthusiastic about projects for a few days or weeks and then move on to the next thing, but if I managed to get to where I (as a noob GM who's only run two game sessions, ever) felt I had done adequate prep work for this kind of massive campaign, the social obligation of players waiting on it would pretty certainly keep my head in the game.
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

...I really should know better, but my memories of Mekton have faded enough for me to be willing to put up with it for the sake of the game concept. I played SWRPG briefly but never really grokked its mechanical action system - otherwise it'd be perfectly reasonable. MEGS/DC I know nothing about. Tri-Stat I could see handling in kind of the way Star Trek Online does, with different 'character models' for different zones and action types.

Other alternatives I'd suggest taking a look at would be Evil Hat's Fate system; I'm not personally familiar with any Mecha rules for it, but it's so easy to hack, and so popular with people who like to do so, that I'd be very surprised indeed if they didn't exist. Or, if you like a crunchier option, Dream Pod 9's Silhouette is probably most familiar as the ruleset behind Heavy Gear and the ancestor of its wargame cousin, but it very comfortably runs their other in-house Mecha Setting, the space-based Jovian Chronicles, which started as a Mekton module.

Either way, MECHA IN WORLD WAR TWO is too sweet a hook to pass up. You have an applicant, sir.
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

What day, and what time?
I've not used (or read, really) any of those systems, but I've got the WEG SW books, and have no problem with the idea of learning Mekton.  BESM less so, but eh.  Why not?

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My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.

Eh, not soon, I'm afraid... though with definite interest expressed, it's closer to being on a front burner than it would have been. I'll see if I can poke out the bits I know I wrote but apparently didn't post anywhere, at least.

Despite mecha being what they're both about, I'm actually a bit inclined against Mekton for this, specifically because it's very crunchy, and I'd prefer something a bit more freewheeling in terms of how stat levels are assigned to them and how improvements are made. Valles, was it the system itself that you burned out on, or events in a game? If it's not going to drag up too much bile I'd like to know what sort of thing I should avoid.

OpenD6 and BESM (well, Tri-Stat dX, which is pretty much Silver Age Sentinels minus any setting info, and equidistant from BESM 2nd and 3rd editions, in the points of a triangle kind of way) have the virtue of being available as free PDFs without the need for an eyepatch and parrot, but the MEGS system is summarized in an eight or so page recap section in DC Heroes 3rd ed., so it shouldn't be too hard to excerpt if it came down to it. The trouble with MEGS is kind of the opposite of Mekton, though, because each Attribute Point value is double the previous, so it goes up too fast to allow for much variation from one mecha to the next within the same rough level of ability - part and parcel of the "Exponential" in "Mayfair Exponential Game System." It's actually the part about thesystem that I like the most, but just like Mekton with it's happy-nerd crunch it feels like a bit of an awkward fit in my mind - I kind of want a smoother progression than "mook mech, starter mech, mid-season power-up, boss" where a mook can just barely scratch a boss if they roll really, really well.

In any case, I'd have a LOT of prep work to do before I'd feel comfortable even trying to run even a semi-historical setting, as my knowledge of WWII mostly amounts to having seen a few movies, aside from the wikipedia pages perused to get this far in outlining the game events. It would probably end up as a sort of collaborative-writing-with-RPG-task resolution style thing even then, but that's kind of my ideal for RPGs anyway, since if you're not working together to tell an awesome story as a group there's kind of no point to it.
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

Actually, I can give the core mechanic of MEGS pretty quickly, though my terminology is probably off due to only having read through it myself for the first time in the past couple of days:

Stats are separated into Affect/Oppose, Effect Strength, and Resistance, for each of Physical, Mental, and Mystical, for a total of nine stats plus Initiative and Hero Points in a standard stat block.

roll 2d10 versus a target number determined by checking the doer and doee's affect/oppose stats on a chart, then see how much damage was done by comparing the strength versus (permanent) resist stats, this depletes the current total of the relevant Resist stat. With the same value of act/oppose stats, the target number is 11, while versus an opponent whose stat is five points higher than yours (32x more powerful) the TN is 18. Doubles add and roll again, but two ones is a critfail even if it comes at the end of a series of other doubles rolls.

If an action wouldn't change something's resist stat (picking up a steel block, for example, doesn't damage it, so no need to roll) then as long as the doer's stat is enough to accomplish it there's no roll required. Stats can be "pushed" by spending Hero Points, which also stand in for XP, but the way this is laid out in the rules is one of the things I'm a bit iffy on myself. Yes, it's two table lookups to deal with, but the way it actually works to use really appeals to me for a superheroes game. For mecha, though, I'm not so sure.

The mechanics of the d6 system are simple for the most part, just a standard dice pool with crits determined by an extra Wild Die, and even a 1 on the Wild Die is not necessarily a "critical failure," just "something happens that causes a complication." I'm mildly against dice pools, but not so much that the other aspects of the system don't still attract me. OpenD6 is the system that I lean to the most strongly at the moment for this, actually. In particular, you can crunch through the spell/psi power/etc. creation worksheet in about two minutes, as opposed to taking that long just to look up the pages you need in, say, Champions. Exploring it was a large part of the inspiration for YAPPIE/YIPPIE/YORKIE/whatver I call it this week, actually, and realizing that I was pretty much just rewriting it with different terminology and a dice size bump is why I only poke at that homebrew when a bunny really starts bouncing on my head.

Tri-Stat is roll-under on two dice of size X (variable depending on the campaign) with basic characteristics also divided in physical, mental, and mystical stats rated from 2 to 2X, plus a wide selection of skills and special abilities rated from 1 to X (with a few exceptions that cap lower or could go higher.) Some things about it are pretty cool, others come at what seems like an obvious point from a completely backwards direction - frex, if you have a character who's strong but not agile, you give them the Body score for the higher of the two, then use a Disadvantage to lower the other. It also tends to be a whole lot of miss-miss-miss or defend-defend-defend outside the middle range of stats for the power level, even when doer and opponent are evenly matched numerically.

Edit: fixed MEGS explanation, it's a defender 5 Attribute Points above you that's got a target number of 18 on 2d10, not 3AP. That small change and the way attribute contests work has now veered me sharply toward MEGS, after skimming through the OpenD6 and SWRPG2ER combat sections and failing to find any hints for dealing with cross-scale combat (human-on-vehicle, etc.) I'd probably need to define the various ESPer powers from scratch, but the existing powers list for DCHeroes can serve as a guide for that... I dunno, my confidence is not particularly high on the idea in general.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

MEGS is decent for what it is. But ISTR at one time you had to stat out and pay points for your pocket knife. Most likely the 1st edition of DC Heroes.

Amusingly enough... There's a story going around the gaming world about how a baby can knock the earth out of orbit if they roll well enough throwing a pacifier across the room by RAW.

The stats and results scale exponentially, hence the "E" in the name. Someone with a stat of "3" is Twice as good as someone with "2", and eight times as good as someone with "0."

Superman's physical Stats are 25 across the board.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

So. Sorry, no quotes, because Yuko won't fucking do what it's told. Ahem.

The Mekton game - run by our own Ian/Sil/Dragonflight - had other problems, which I'd summarize as people wanting different things from the game, compounded by imperfect communication, but by the time those came to a head, I was well and truly burned on the system. Rolling three critical failures in five rolls will do that in even the most perfect system, and I've since found my spiritual home in Fate and the even-more-free-wheeling PDQ, so I was never a good match for the system anyway.

But, like I said, I'm willing to cope with it again if needs must, and I'm willing to learn a new system also.
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

When I said 'what day and what time', I was thinking schedules.  If you were going for, say, Friday nights, that would work.  Tuesday mornings- for example- wouldn't.
Also, you're making me want to work on my cyberpunk Gundam setting again.  Curse you. ^_^

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My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.

Foxboy: Well, yes, the Earth would take 79ap Strength to move, and if you assume it also has that for all physical stats a baby with the minimum 1AP character stats (which would still be a superbaby, since it could lift 50lb. overhead) could indeed do 1 RAP of damage to the earth, reducing its structural integrity by half... if he rolled 195 by continually getting doubles on (Edit: 2d10.) He could even do 2 RAPs of damage, cutting Earth's damage capacity to 1/4, if he got 205, but that's as far as it goes. You'd have to actually have 79 Strength or be able to "push" to it by spending Hero Points (which I'm still not clear on, but doubt can stretch it more than one or two AP worth) to actually move the earth, but doing so wouldn't require a roll because just moving it doesn't do damage. (Gotta love comic book physics!) 70s Superman really was crazy strong. The thing is, "Superbaby knocks earth from its orbit! The end is nigh, say scientists! President calls on heroes for a solution! What will you do now?" sounds like an interesting superhero story to tell, to me, so I don't see that as being a problem. Besides, if Superbaby can stonewall Darkdeath Evilman for the days it takes to train a nobody schlub into a new Unlosing Ranger, she probably could knock the world a little loopy.

As for pocket knives... I'd guess most would be +0 or +1AP Strength, 1AP body. Nothing difficult or expensive about that, just a really simple Gadget.

Valles: Ah, yeah, that. One of the rules for any campaign I GM will be to make sure your character can function as a part of a team, mechanically and psychologically. Refer back to "if everyone works together to tell an awesome story, everyone wins" for why.

Bluemage: For a forum game (probably on SV to avoid eating Bob's page views, and drum up another 2-4 players for a party) it would be more a matter of "as soon as everyone responds, or (24hrs | 48hrs | some agreed upon period) has passed" than a strict schedule per se. That said, I would prefer for it to move faster than Ian's tends to, though the group there now at least seems to get along well enough. (I joined the game about a month IC time after that, but a year or so RL.) My own schedule is too irregular to really lock something down to be a solid Game Night block.

Edit: Fixed stupid dice size
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

Work as part of a team, and have it understood ahead of time what kind of game that team is going to be taking part in, yeah. I'm presuming that you'll want to be setting things up so that all of the PCs are mecha pilots, correct? Will we be assuming that all PCs are working for the same nation or at least on the same side to start with, or will there be a "I respect you, my enemy" period before teamup, or will Plot start after whatever international conference brings the warring nations together against the invasion?

A couple of design ideas.

The Hawker Typhoon - and maybe most other inline single-engine fighters - you can do by setting it up so that the shoulder blocks are integrated into the fuselage just behind the engine firewall, and the upper arms are pretty much entirely the landing gear bays. The forearms are formed by folding the cannon mount areas double over each other, while the wingtips become small shields. The inner trailing edge of the wings either form decorative trailing winglets or fold and layer over the shoulders, adding bulk. The head, if any, is just a camera module, sandwiched above the shoulder blocks in fighter mode and swinging up and forwards during transformation. The cockpit is surrounded by a reinforced cage, and rotates down and forward, so that its 'roll cage' is the structural support of the battloid's waist. The legs, obviously, form the tail area, possibly with the stabilizers forming up into a bundle that lies flat against the mech-mode's back.

The alternate engine placement in the Bell P-39 Airacobra could let you do something really interesting and different, I imagine - arms in the nose, with the prop being around one wrist and the other being a GUN HAND, maybe? Offcenter cockpit so that it and the engine are side-by-side? But the full visualization isn't coming to me.

The Bell P-59 Airacomet could have the rear sections of the nose come apart to fold around the cockpit as additional armor, while a block underneath the cockpit folded forwards to become the hips. The engine nacelles are the thigh sections, with the wings accordioning up into a skirt design and the calves and legs form the lower parts of the tail, including the ones aft of the hip-block but still between the engines. The shoulders and arms, of course, are extended straight back behind the cockpit as the upper parts of the tail, and then the final enpennage folds into armor plating along the outsides of the arms? Or if the wings attach to the cockpit block rather than the engine nacelles, they could end up as bundles on the back and able to deploy a la hang glider.

Finally, I know how to arrange a mech around a radial engine without making it a hunchback - although I admit that I'm not sure how the idea would adapt to a low-wing plane when I'm picturing a Grumman TBF Avenger. To transform, the pilot rotates to face 'backwards', then again so that he's lying on his back - with his head towards the original direction of flight. The rear half of the crew cabin slides forward, compressing so that the pilot's feet are just short of the ball turret (has to be an actual ball turret, notably), and the tail surfaces split in half and slide up to overlap the cabin, with the actual control surfaces laying over the exposed glass as armor. The wings are anchored to the hip block, below the pilot, which slides back until it slots in place behind the ball turret - the legs and feet are pretty much the entire middle level of the hull, and accordingly go with the hip block and split and reveal themselves. The arms were locked in place 'underneath' the legs, on the upper sides of the payload bay, and now they pop outwards anchored to the engine block and rotate upwards, with the payload bay attached to whichever arm corresponds to the pilot's dominant side. Once all that's happened, the nose and engine block can rotate down and back ninety degrees to slot into place where the hips and thighs used to be, binding the battloid's back together, and the head-turret with the nose MGs pops up and rotates in place to face them 'up', and now you have the mech lying on its back in flight while the prop's blades rotate to reverse directions.
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

My intention is for everyone to be a pilot, yes - support staff on the base or carrier they fly from wouldn't be impossible, but would only really have much to do around the middle of the game when salvage and jury rigging become critical.

The number of mecha types are limited, because ESPers with strong enough talents to be pilots are rare (almost entirely half-aliens or full blood Blues) and ones who can subvert physics enough to move a mecha with the at or above human-relative-to-size reaction times needed for a flying mecha are rarer still. Germany, for example, with an 85-90% success rate in finding and training their espers, has just a couple thousand not counting the ones snapped up by the SS and Propaganda ministry, some barely old enough to reach the controls. The rest of the military machine has to make do with conventional weapons, despite that fact that they can barely scratch a mecha pilot and give about as much resistance as tinfoil to mecha weapons, thanks to the heterodyne-boosted bullshit space magic that makes mecha viable in the first place. I'd be starting the group off from the beginning as American pilots who fly the initial issue of dumbass varient-specced P-38s the Brits turned down, responding to a mysterious UFO over LA on Feb 25 1942,

Edit: Link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Los_Angeles

before being sent to Britain as training cadre for their new squadrons. Pretty much follow the loose outline above, in other words, though with 4-6 players instead of a solo PC. For the Operation Walküre segment, I suppose you'd need to draw straws for who gets to be Carmen and who has to be her wing (or the other way around, since the generics could easily be their regular characters with a name change) since having one player solo an important battle is if anything worse than a long "cut scene" interlude covering one. Or, I suppose, it could be left off screen, but Carmen vs. Eva is the one boss fight I actually have a clear idea of, so I'd hate to cut it. For more flexibility, I'd probably allow similar "minor changes and a different name" pilot substitutions at the theater changes or any time-skip if someone wants to play as a member of a different allied nation, and salvaged or captured enemy craft are pretty much a requirement once things really go off the rails when the invasion fleet swings in.

Edit2: Might start with the Bombardment of Elwood on the 23rd if anyone wanted to play a Japanese-American, so they could have combat time against the IJN in their favor and avoid being hustled off to the internment camps.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

I'd figured that the four listed German designs would be the maximum number for a given nation, yeah. I was more just spitballing ideas, all of them with their own reasons.

The Typhoon got a nod because I figured that it wasn't that likely that the Brits wouldn't develop their own native design, and having it be the Spitfire seemed kind of cliche. I figure it'd be reasonable to include on those grounds.

The Airacobra because it seemed to offer interestingly different visual and layout options. I didn't particularly expect you to be interested in it from anything more than a 'designing transformations is fun' perspective.

The Airacomet because, brutal honesty, I find the L-133 really doofy looking and wouldn't fly it on a bet and the Shooting Star would be tricky to transform. I didn't figure you'd go for it, either.

The Avenger, well, I wanted to try working out my notion for the engine-on-the-back layout, and figured that another mech for the 'starting faction' would be appropriate from a gameplay perspective - and that a bomber/heavy attack type would be a good tactical distinction. If I had to pick one design to really lobby to add, it'd probably be this one, because I like the heavy-duty brute approach a lot.

Plotwise, what about retooling Walkure's context? Like, if Hitler knew the alien Main Fleet was coming and had been in communication with them, putting together some self-serving I'll-backstab-you-later treaty like the OTL one with Russia, and Walkure was kicked off by people in the Wehrmacht finding out about this and deciding that it Would Not Do. If the setup phase was long enough, or the conspiracy felt the need to put together an anti-alien unit on the sly to do something to protect the Earth, then Carmen and the others could've ended up working with the Allies even before the formal end of hostilities. Which brings the anti-alien unit into things backing her up when word comes that the assassination plots have failed and they need to do something about Hitler now.

It's kind of stretch, given real history, but heck, game logic.
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

Nah, Hitler started the war on the basis of uniting humanity to fight the aliens, so he wouldn't team up with them (That's Mao, at least probably... I did promise RomanFanboy the chance to punch him in the face, and there's got to be something to make him split with the KMT earlier than OTL for that) - it's just that he's absolutely stuck on uniting humanity under his leadership and between that and Stalin having much the same attitude the war in Europe just doesn't end until some percussive maintenance is applied. Calling in outside assistance doesn't really fit with the goals of Walküre either, it's supposed to be something the new leadership can point to and say, "See, we got rid of that crazy guy and his buddies, now let's sign a treaty to end this on an even basis so we can kick the Zzards out of Africa already!" where involving Allied forces in it turns it into something that can be seen as a military defeat, especially if there's only one mecha of their own involved.

As for the L-133, yes, the RL design is on the goofy side, but a few changes of proportion (enlarging the canopy and the turtle deck behind it is the main one, plus wing root air intakes) and it's suddenly nowhere near so bad. MeV-262's will be in better supply anyway, after Walküre and the truce/alliance. For bombers, there'll be the Russian LPL, the Horton 229 Brunhilde as a fighter/bomber, and my original Raven, remolded to look less like a 90's vintage stealth bomber. As for heavy bombers, the kind of internal volume they need doesn't work well with a variable device, and their sheer mass makes them less effective for the effort than putting the same resources into two or three fighters that can fly as escorts for a normal bomber. There's a variable aircraft carrier and for Operation Alien Overlord a variable space cruiser class, though.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

OK, scrap that idea for Walkure, then. Having players sub in for alternate-nation doubles of their main characters can work, but it feels inelegant, somehow. A pity...

Hmm. Or that could work...

OK, so, assume that the historically modeled Operation Walkure uses a larger bomb, or that Eva just panics, and rather than Der Fuhrer being treated on-site, she whisks him away by teleportation to some secret hospital or bunker that she knows is secure - leaving the conspiracy to assume that he's been killed, and move ahead with their plans with all due force and speed. So the plan works, and nobody knows he's alive.

Until he contacts the SS, secretly, and gains their support to come back and regain control over the Reich, MUAHAHAHAHAA. Depending on how you want do set the silliness dial, he could be limping on canes, in a wheelchair, or Der Unaufhaltsam Cyberfuhrer! And it'd be during the counterstrike against that, that Eva and Carmen get their appointed duel.

Moving the L-133's engine intake to the wing roots rather than the nose will do a lot for its looks, yeah.

I hadn't considered the possibility of one of the German aircraft filling the fighter/bomber role I'd pictured for the Avenger, but in retrospect it makes sense. I'm still not convinced that the US Navy would be willing to let an Army bird like the Lightning be the US's only variable fighter in the immediate pre-war era, or that the US in general would leave the niche unaddressed, and I like the transformation I worked out for the Avenger a lot, though, so I'll keep up the puppy eyes about that for another round... It could also be adapted to the Wildcat, if you'd prefer that the Navy's entry be a fighter, although I admit I prefer the value of a bomb-bay full of boomstick.

I actually don't recall ever seeing a picture/description of the Raven - a flying wing, I take it?
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."