Drunkard's Walk Forums

Hmmm.

So, in a strategic sense, the Variable Fighter is a weapon whose advantages are hard to beat. It has as much or more range than anything else in the setting, only a fighter plane can catch it, only another variable fighter would want to, and if you equip it with limpet mines or grenades to scale or something, it can do as comprehensive a job wrecking enemy factories and infrastructure as any heavy bomber.

Because a giant robot going OH YEAH through the wall is just as bad for a factory's production schedule as a bomb falling through the roof.

The two ways to deal with that threat are to either intercept the VF before it reaches its target - implicitly assumed, with another VF - or to have defenses on-site capable of dealing with it once it arrives.

In the latter role, I think that the ground-bound Walker is going to have a chance to shine, given that it seems likely that they can afford to carry much more armor and weaponry than a machine that needs to be able to fly in its other mode, and that expected targets can be relatively-easily surrounded by hard pavement suitable for rollerskating on, allowing at least tactical redeployment even in the face of VF mobility.
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

Yep, pretty much, even if the stronger TK defense tends to equalize the greater physical armor with a weaker pilot - though make no mistake, a unit of ground mecha with tanks and infantry to cover their flanks is a highly effective attacking force as well.

For that matter, having a mecha bust through the wall is probably more disruptive than a bomb, since the mecha is quite likely to have guns or missiles to fire at the equipment and a pilot to direct them to greatest effect, instead of hitting kind of nearby and exploding in one place.

Range is even more of a factor than you're assuming, because the mecha are fusion-powered turboprops or turbojets (or turbine generators for ground units) though later production fixed form craft including tanks and ground mecha transport trucks are as well. Pilot endurance is the limiting factor, not fuel.
--
"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

"Tip of the spear, my boy. Oh yes, tip... of the spear."
Ahem.

Makes sense; the mechs can break most opposition, but are limited in numbers and can only be in one or two places at once, while the conventional forces can usually take care of themselves and spread out to hold ground in the wake of the walkers.

And yeah, running on fusion turbines would make a hell of a difference.

Hmm.

So, let's see.

Randomly generated missions would include 'escort bomber formation', 'strike strategic asset', 'attack ground formation', 'attack VF base'...

I feel like a lone walker would be a mid-boss level fight. Definitely enough to roast you if you make a mistake, but not... unmanageable, while enemy VFs would be a straight up even fight, while conventional units would be 'Yay, I get to rampage.'
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

Yes. The tip is what makes it more than a stick, but the shaft is what makes it more than an awkward knife. Very much so.

Edit for edit: there'd also be some defensive missions, and scouting. Once the main invasion rolls in, the scouting and scavenging takes the lead, to get across China/Siberia/the Balkans and back to Europe.
--
"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

And now I'm having Mechwarrior 3 flashbacks.

Which is a good thing.

Man, I want to play in this game more and more.
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

Ah, sorry... the more I think about actually running it as a game, the more the shallowness of my knowledge of WWII history and inexperience as a GM intimidates me. Especially with people I respect as writers better than me at character interaction lining up to play in it.
--
"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

Hmm.

Well, I'd offer, say, three bits of reassurance.

First, regardless of how much self-confidence you may or may not have in your character writing, I've never found it to be an issue. If it is, indeed, a weak point, then it's one that your strengths - your ability to find an idea and concept that's just pure fun, and your talent for comic writing - carry before them without noticeable effort.

Second, one of the strengths of the RP format for storytelling is that it doesn't rely entirely on the skills, inspiration, or aptitudes of just one person. Often, what one player or GM finds to be a weak point, others can pick up on their own. Acyl once ran a game I was in that had forty-one pages of PC interaction before he had to make a single post.

Third, we've got a divergence 22 years in the past and near-human aliens and psychic powers and giant humanoid robots. We're obviously in Deep Pulp territory no matter what happens, and the strong, early divergence can be spun to allow pretty much any change you like.

Or, heck, go the Strike Witches route (no, Razor, not that route. put your pants back on.) and just say it's a completely original world that's Just Coincidentally (andbythatwemeansuspiciously) Similar To Our Own Of The Period.
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

Wow, now I feel better. I'll, er, just read up on MEGS a bit more, shall I?

I need to be more familiar with it if I'm thinking about running a game, and to make sure the system I came up with to give it a finer grain won't break it. Or to see that it really won't do so I can house rule it if the problems are minor or switch outright if it's more fundamental. I really, really like the way it divides up the stats, though, and the way it's open ended while still making it possible to handle vastly different absolute power levels with the same two tables.

How that works, is that AP scores can have + or - in between integer values, representing a 1-point modifier to the dice roll (for the attacker) or target number (for the defender) in the indicated direction since each target number is 2-3 pips difference apart when attacker and defender are in the same league, effectively making the benchmarks double every third step on the scale rather than at each step. This opens the range of scores likely to exist on a mecha considerably, as an example Strength would really only be plausible at four values using RAW (9-10-11-12 at 12-25-50-100 tons of exerted force, 9 being just enough to bust through a concrete wall while 11 is needed to tear up steel armor) while the expanded version ends up with a considerably greater range of differentiation:

It actually works out to be similar to to the Nasu-influenced (okay, several different anime, manga, and games, really) letter scale common in SB/SV quests, now that I look at it. The fact that this ends with a STR 12+ mecha being "leet" is just a humorous coincidence... though looking more closely at the listed benchmarks for what can be damaged instead of lift weight it should probably extend a bit further anyway. I need to get more familiar with it before I say for sure, though, because the pilot's TK would also modify the final value. The modifiers always come after the numerical score, because negative APs are still valid real number values: -2AP of time is one second, -4AP of weight is three pounds, and -6AP of money is 25 cents. -100AP is designated as the cutoff point arbitrarily close enough to zero.
--
"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 know you want to be a Navy aviator, V, but the PCs need to be in the 14th Pursuit Group where the 40 RP-322-I P-38 variants that were absorbed by the USAAC after Britain decided they wanted the normal models arter all were, and later be sent to England anyway (at least at first) instead of directly to the Pacific. Switching them to March from Hamilton is a good idea though - San Francisco is a bit far off for them to respond to incidents in the LA area in a sufficiently timely manner. They need to be in that aircraft specifically because the reason they're detached from the unit and sent over is, as some of the few pilots to have flown in combat with the new aircraft, they're to help familiarize the new pilots when the Brits take delivery of their not-downrated P-38Es, an equipment upgrade you'll get to become well used to during the 10-hour North Atlantic crossing to Bristol.

In other news, the B-25 is confirmed for fusion-turboprop power, so quite a few more of the participants in Doolittle's Raid should be coming back intact, despite the forced early takeoff due to their carrier being detected.

Also, I bagged a copy of the WWII sourcebook for DCHeroes poking through the FLGS bargain bin last night, which while not directly applicable does have a handy timeline and some example normal WWII personnel and equipment.

I'm kind of thinking I may need to rewrite the psi powers I want to fit the setting, rather than try to hammer the RAW DCU based ones into it - not a terrible hardship, and not all that surprising given the somewhat different design philosophy between what I'm doing and standard comic book type powers. Even so, figure on being able to teek at least in the 1-3 ton range unaided. I'm planning to... okay, right now I'm planning to hit the sack, but after I saw some logs I'll start putting together the psi and character stat generation information. How long it will take me to do a creditable job of that, I can't yet guess...

Back to the planes/mecha, not to worry, you can have your 'Cat or Avenger once you do eventually get to the Pacific.

Okay, yeah, I'm done. G'light everybody!

Update edit to avoid triple post:
Well, there's good news and bad news. The good news is, OCR and correcting the many errors takes about half as long as typing the base text I want to modify in manually. The bad news is, that still takes rather a while. Good news again, it's going rather well and gives me time to think about what I want to change/make up, and get familiar with the parts I want to keep. Bad news, there's a lot to be changed or made up. Good news, I'm not too bad at doing that, once I settle on an actual mechanic to use, and doing it this way means I'll have a text file to share via Pastebucket or a similar service for players, since whether you know MEGS/DCHeroes or not there'll be some differences.

News, not good nor bad, I'm probably going to end up with something like skill trees for what you can stunt the basic esper powers into doing, though not too deep, and while it does end up putting some limitations on the whole arrangement it also makes it less expensive to, say, learn to pick yourself up with TK and move under your own power when you get a poece of shrapnel tears your parachute in a scene rather than just taking Flight at character creation... if a bit more chancy due to needing to succeed first at a TK test rather than automatically activating. It's not going to be a superhero flavored game per se, I wouldn't really expect anyone to have more than one or two AP in one or two stunts or oddball abilities like that beyond the basics unless they were going to be an Anima Spiritia equivalent psych-ops character, but as previously mentioned everyone is a fairly strong bust-shit-up type psychic (no precog besides Danger Sense and no Telepathy, but Empathy and most other psychic effects are at least within the realm of possibility) so its ground that needs covering.

Edit 2: Well, sometimes. Other times, the OCR seems to have become a memver of the Enlightened Brotherhood of Dagon... I'h I'nuer may h purcha. ii u)th a sv s)»1 - Fu mr Cusl I.mnlahon L nhlc Again I On Lnaa) Type t .c, elmtri it . magn usm, ln;hi. cus) Ia, ia f'tagn! C'thul'hu f'tagn!
--
"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

Quote:I know you want to be a Navy aviator, V, but the PCs need to be in the 14th Pursuit Group where the 40 RP-322-I P-38 variants that were absorbed by the USAAC after Britain decided they wanted the normal models arter all were, and later be sent to England anyway (at least at first) instead of directly to the Pacific. Switching them to March from Hamilton is a good idea though - San Francisco is a bit far off for them to respond to incidents in the LA area in a sufficiently timely manner. They need to be in that aircraft specifically because the reason they're detached from the unit and sent over is, as some of the few pilots to have flown in combat with the new aircraft, they're to help familiarize the new pilots when the Brits take delivery of their not-downrated P-38Es, an equipment upgrade you'll get to become well used to during the 10-hour North Atlantic crossing to Bristol.

Hmm.

Yeah, that'd probably block my justification for a Navy pilot working with an Army outfit - 'AHHH INVASION WARM BODIES IN AIR NAO PLZ' leading to 'You've worked with this unit, which is understrength and needed on the front right now, you're being seconded to them until a replacement catches up.' A Wildcat jockey wouldn't have enough time in type to be a useful training officer.

...Hmm.

Unless she'd already been 'temporarily' attached to the 14th to evaluate the Lightning for land-based operations like the OTL Corsair started off with. But probably not, I admit, so I'll have to look forward to...

Quote:Back to the planes/mecha, not to worry, you can have your 'Cat or Avenger once you do eventually get to the Pacific.

Disk Two.

Quote:Well, there's good news and bad news. The good news is, OCR and correcting the many errors takes about half as long as typing the base text I want to modify in manually. The bad news is, that still takes rather a while. Good news again, it's going rather well and gives me time to think about what I want to change/make up, and get familiar with the parts I want to keep. Bad news, there's a lot to be changed or made up. Good news, I'm not too bad at doing that, once I settle on an actual mechanic to use, and doing it this way means I'll have a text file to share via Pastebucket or a similar service for players, since whether you know MEGS/DCHeroes or not there'll be some differences.

Even if you don't want to do a Gdoc yourself, I can host one easily enough. I've got more than enough space. The rest, well, I'll be coming at the system pretty much cold, so it's much of a muchness to me.

Quote:News, not good nor bad, I'm probably going to end up with something like skill trees for what you can stunt the basic esper powers into doing, though not too deep, and while it does end up putting some limitations on the whole arrangement it also makes it less expensive to, say, learn to pick yourself up with TK and move under your own power when you get a poece of shrapnel tears your parachute in a scene rather than just taking Flight at character creation... if a bit more chancy due to needing to succeed first at a TK test rather than automatically activating. It's not going to be a superhero flavored game per se, I wouldn't really expect anyone to have more than one or two AP in one or two stunts or oddball abilities like that beyond the basics unless they were going to be an Anima Spiritia equivalent psych-ops character, but as previously mentioned everyone is a fairly strong bust-shit-up type psychic (no precog besides Danger Sense and no Telepathy, but Empathy and most other psychic effects are at least within the realm of possibility) so its ground that needs covering.

I've been kind of considering that Razor's implausible aiming skills might be some kind of precog-based magic timing powers, but really accurate small-scale telekinesis could also guide rounds onto their target, I suppose...
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

Eh, I'd buy it as a variation on Danger Sense, either because an accurate shot cuts down on the immediate danger to the character, or because it also senses danger to those nearby, such as the person you're trying to maximize the danger to as you shoot.

I dunno, she could have completed the training course on the Wildcat but the unit she was supposed to be sent to got delayed in forming, so since training officers hate idle soldiers they put her into the Lightning course as well... then she's part of the scrambles for the Bombardment of Elwood and Battle of Los Angeles, and has actual combat time in type so they send her as part of the training cadre, since they're all detached duty at that point.

When the new Japanese equipment gets rolled out at the Coral Sea is when the "OMG ALL HANDS SCRAMBLE YESTERDAY" signal goes out... but it's the Army pilots in their P-38s who get shoehorned into a Navy command structure at that point, since the variable carrier only has half its intended complement of Navy mecha and the Lightnings can STO/VL in High Lift Configuration hybrid mode, even with full ordnance. Razor, of course, would get added to the Navy wing since it's her native branch of the service.

Then everything goes FUBAR and everyone flies in whatever they can lash together well enough to get into the air, whether it comes from the Army, Navy, Germans, Japanese, Bluo, Russians, or a crazy discredited scientist with a laboratory/hangar on a remote island after you save his beautiful daughter from being kidnapped by aliens.
--
"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

Yyyyyyeeeessss, that... works. That works quite well. And it gives an excuse for doing the anime-esque heterogeneous-uniform thing.

All right. Ready to roll!
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

Ah, if only it were so... but at least the backstory is worked out for her, that much is true. OCR and editing is kind of getting me down, though - the more so since it's technically illegal. I might just yoink a few concepts I like and graft them onto 4C (a retro-clone of the other superhero game from the same period as DCHeroes) instead (mainly the physical/mental/mystical x skill/force/resistance stat structure, maybe exponential increase of numerical values rather than asymptotic if it's not too hard to kick into shape) since that already has a CC0 release.

Which is here, by the way:
http://livinglibre1.wordpress.com/2012/ ... e-edition/

Since I'd kind of have to make up the way I want powers to work anyway, switching to that method now does not represent more than a day or two of lost time, which not having to deal with OCR would more than make up for. That really would end up with being a "new" homebrew RPG, 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

...Man, I've played that one. Face to face, even. It'll be all nostalgic and such.
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

Well, like I say, I'd be modifying it a fair bit, and the most recogniseable bits, the named ranks and Master Table with its colored success intensities, are probably going to be a victim of the switch to an open-ended exponential scale, sadly, as are percentile rolls instead of 2d10 with open-ended DARA crits. The penalties for Killing Combat are obviously also going to get dropped, since it's being adapted for a wartime story, and I'll probably separate character improvement points from Hero Points/Karma as well, since having them be a single "currency" just seems like asking for trouble, and also allows experimenting to find appropriate award amounts and rate of progression more easily.
--
"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

This was a prediction for 1975, made in 1955, but with Bluo tech it could be produced as of game start as a functional concept/show piece.

The severe infrastructure damage of the war and invasion will probably mean it's the 50s anyway before it becomes part of daily life, though.

Here's another page from the same site, with benchmark items for 1942 prices:
http://www.tvhistory.tv/1942%20QF.htm

What Things Cost in 1942:
Car: $1,100
Gasoline: 19 cents/gal
House: $6,950
Bread: 9 cents/loaf
Milk: 60 cents/gal
Postage Stamp: 3 cents
Stock Market: 119
Average Annual Salary: $2,400
Minimum Wage: 30 cents per hour

While I'm at it, here's a couple pictures of a table-top model fusion reactor:


Naturally, the models included in military equipment have a metal enclosure with a small, heavy duty peephole viewport for visual inspection of the reaction, rather than a glass bell, which also serves as the mounting armature for the blue-tech additions that push the energy output over unity and into useful ranges. Jet turbine models use a similar functioning principle but have a flow-through design to exhaust energetic plasma through the turbine and out the rear of the aircraft rather than collecting the radiated energy directly with circulating coolant and electronic pickups.

Info on the RL device in the pictures:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor

Edit: Video of one in operation:

--
"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

Well, I made a modified version of the Master Table... I'm still not sure it's better than a more MEGS-like Action and Result table pair, though. I don't have a web host as such for now, so I stuck it on Pastebin.

http:////pastebin.com/embed_iframe.php?i=CQ5NePyT

Just hit the Download link and tell your browser to open it for viewing, though it'll probably be a bit cramped on anything but very large screens. I'd stick it in a proper image or .pdf file for a final version, but this should give an idea of how it looks, at least. the major disadvantage mechanically speaking is that it limits the result to three intensities of success, which would probably shake out as 1/4, 1/2, and full effect, which would then have to be mathed out instead of being a second (simpler, with no more dice to roll or things to add, just find a row and count columns, then apply the result) table lookup.

Edit: Okay, looking at tht after I haven't been up for 20 hours straight, that table covers WAY too much range, at +-30 orders of magnitude. Even for linear stats, it would probably be a little on the course side... Bare minimum would be to make each step a single digit/OoM value, but I think I'm probably going to go back to the more rigorously tested MEGS version.
--
"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

Yeah, forget the table. It's cute, but this is so much easier:
AV = Acting Value
OV = Opposing Value
TN = Target Number, on 2d10 where Doubles Add & Roll Again except 11, which is a crit fail

The MEGS Result Table is proving a bit harder to grok the inner workings of to design an acceptable substitute for, so since it's a 4C hack anyway I've simulated the effects of the Master Table (with my version of the colors, which runs black-cyan-magenta-yellow ala CMYK instead of black-red-blue-yellow.) Call it the OoM Table, since the steps on it represent (multiple) Order of Magnitude jumps. Incidentally, this also ends the manace of Super Baby from DCHeroes, since no matter how high your crit goes there's only a limited range of effect. This is still not definitively final - I might leave fail/critfals as white and make Black into supercrit territory with added effect over the base, but it's probably pretty close to the shape of things.
--
"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

Well, I've got a pair of Opposed Action and Result tables I like, plus bonus pretty chart for that classic 4C feel. I suppose it's also nice to visualize how your chances fare as opposed to plain columns of numbers, but I doubt its actual utility - it's basically just there to fill out the page.

Opinions, please?

Edit: fixed Result Table error
Edit 2: another one
Edit 3: One more thing...
--
"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

Example of use:

Razor has an enemy in her sights, so it's time to pull the trigger. Her Action Value is Agility (AGI) since aiming a mecha weapon is a matter of skill rather than physical strength, and the enemy's Opposed Value is also AGI. Razor's Agility is pushing the normal Human (or Bluo) maximum at 5+ Metapoints (MP), while the enemy pilot has a still respectable AGI 4-. 4 - 5 = -1, so she'll be checking on the "0 to -1" line of the Opposed Action table.

Valles rolls 2d10 and does quite well, getting 10 and 9 for a total of 19, which is a very solid Yellow result - so far. The + and - of the scores now come into play, Razor's plus adds to the roll total, bumping it up to 20, while the enemy pilot's minus subtracts from the next highest column's Target Number, in this case Black, which is lowered to 20. It's a critical hit!

Now it's time to see how much damage Razor did. The scavenged Zzard blaster gunpod her mecha is carrying has a damage rating of 7- so that will be the Power Value (PV,) while the enemy's fighter is resisting damage with its physical structure, so the Resistance Value (RV) is its Endurance (END) at 7+. 7 - 7 = 0, so Valles will be using the "0 to -1" line again on the Result table. He got a Black success, so the base damage is equal to the MPs of the PV+1, but the signs of both PV and RV also need to be included. Because it is affecting the other character's MPs, the sign on the RV must be flipped, becoming a - in this example. 7 (PV) + 1 (Black result) - 1 (dmg 7-) - 1 (END 7+) = 6, so the enemy fighter's Current Endurance is reduced by 6, leaving it at just 1+ MP. Half of one of the wings is missing, there's a deep gash all down the side of the fuselage with most of the rest scorched black by blaster bolts, and there's a thin trail of black smoke trailing after it. One more hit should do the trick, even if the fighter will only be destroyed outright if its END falls below -7+. Disabled is enough to take it out of the fight though, and a rough crash landing might just finish the job if the pilot doesn't bail out first.

The minimum damage from a successful hit is always 1MP, no matter how many -1's get stacked on through unfortunate stats or rolls.
--
"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 don't have nearly the math chops to give a useful opinion on game-system design beyond 'That seems complicated' or 'That looks familiar, like X', alas.

I do wonder, however, about the fusion engines.

The way the examples look, you could almost just use miniature ones in place of cylinders in an existing reciprocal engine layout, each firing a 'pulse' of fusion activity before being forced to cool down again.

...Also, are the gerwalk and battloid modes actually VTOL capable? I'd been assuming not...
Edit: And whee, I should've refreshed the page before I posted!~

Using the example posted, I can see how thing's'll work, and I think it sounds good, even if, for above reasons, I can't comment more than that. ^_^
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

Gerwalks generally are capable of Very Short takeoffs, basically they take a running step or two and jump, while most battroids can't take off or maintain level flight but can descend slowly enough to land safely from any altitude. The Lightning has mini-jets at the knees (where the oil coolers are OTL) and can actually extend its wings in B and get its engine pods up to high angles, so it can maintain a slow and awkward sort of flight at low altitudes even in B, and the Gerwalk's configuration makes it well suited for taking off with a heavy ordnance load, an intentional part of the design as a long-range "interceptor"/heavy fighter-bomber. Any of them should be able to land on their feet with zero rollout (runout?) in B or G unless they're too damaged to stay intact while trying. The alien mecha, even mook Kloggs, and the UMe-262 are fully VTOL capable in G and can hover or fly slowly in B due to their leg mounted jet engines.

I hadn't actually considered reciprocating fusion-pulse engines... that could work very well for the simpler stuff like heavy trucks and support equipment, but I doubt it would have a cycle time suitable for something high-revving like aircraft engines even if most of the mecha (well, half of them so far modeled) use pop-out propellers intended to have a gang of mini-turboshaft engines positioned around the cylindrical space they retract into. I'd forgotten that little wrinkle myself when we were discussing possible designs for the Navy mecha - it makes for a convenient way to get rid of propeller-chest since Battroids really don't have any business doing things in the air aside from pouncing on a large enemy or suddenly turning around to shoot at that guy who was hard on their tail. Mostly they're for dealing with other battroids, or the larger sort of bioengineered alien critters that escaped into the wild during the original ship's final orbit and crash - bodies designed to maintain and repair starship frames and hull plating can be quite dangerous when separated from their intended work zones and trained cues, and most were in fact designed to be territorial and hostile to intruders to double as an anti-boarding defense. The original ship was a fleet supply vessel so it had quite a few of them aboard, and fertile "alpha" or "queen" types at that.

I'm glad to see that the example makes things understandable - I hope you don't mind having been coopted for it, but since Razor is the only character who's been posted I wasn't exactly spoilt for choices.

For reference, Average Guy On The Street has straight 2Mp stats, while "normal human maximum" (where a powerlifter who can clean and jerk 800lb is a "normal human") is 5Mp, and I'm looking at 4-6Mp as the most likely range for starting PCs thanks to psychic space magic bullshit reinforcing them. A trained professional like a policeman or grunt soldier might have two or even three at 3Mp in their areas of expertise.

Stats are not quite nailed down, but current thinking is thus:
Physical:
Agility, Strength, Endurance

Mental:
Knowledge(? Education? ??), Reason, Willpower

Mystical(? Spiritual? Emotional? Not sure about the group name):
Intuition, Empathy(? Charisma? Qi? Zen? Heart? ???), Psyche - I actually lean towards Heart the most, of the listed options.

Or, organized by their use:
Skill:
Agility, Education(??), Intuition - most common AV scores, the sum of all three is base Initiative.

Power:
Strength, Reason, Empathy(???) - TK works off Reason, Empathy from the stat that I don't want to have doubling up the name. Strength is for face-punching, as usual.

Resistance:
Endurance, Willpower, Psyche - these double as your hit points in each category, as shown in the example above with END.

Minmay/Basara style HRT/PSY attacks, buffs and debuffs are an important factor since a) pilots are so rare that everybody would rather have prisoners than dead enemies, and b) the Bluo and other low-caste types in the Zzard Imperium typically have little exposure/resistance to such things due to their highly-regimented and forcibly ascetic, austere lifestyles. Yes, my Macross is showing again. I am unashamed.

Cinematic Points would be the other entry on your basic stat-block, able to be spent 1 to 1 to raise your Mp for one action. For PCs I'm currently thinking 5 to start that refill between "issues" (to put it in comics terms, since I'm basing it on a mashup of superhero systems) and/or get passed out as rewards for doing something cool. I don't even know about character advancement yet, I have to poke and tweak lots more things before I can even start to figure out how to handle it.

Edit: One more thing - for an analysis of the probabilities of rolling what on 2d10 DARA, look here:
http://www.writeups.org/fiche.php?id=4724

Edit: One more thing: Resources and maybe Reputation would also be standard items for a character stat block, though either one has limited utility for active duty military personnel, whose equipment is supplied by and needs seen to by the service, at least up through the invasion and bombardment.
--
"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 considered the folding-prop thing, but to do it with the 'shallower' radial engine space, you'd need to basically design the blades to accordion up, which seems excessively complex. And anyway, I like the back-engine visual better. ^_^

Wiki lists the DB 605, the inline plant that the Me 109 finished the war with, as having a max of 2800 RPM, and the Allison V-1710 the Lightning used at 3000, both of which I know are a lot lower than a modern car tops out at, so I'm not sure that your reasoning there works out... It's entirely possible that if the 'fusion turboshaft' engine is available at all, then it'd have a lot higher output than the simpler pulsed system, though.

So, a stat sheet for Razor (And I'm perfectly pleased to have her show up as a 'signature character') might look something like...

Agility 5, Education 2, Intuition 4
Strength 2, Reason 3, Heart 3
Endurance 2, Willpower 2, Psyche 2
CP 5/5

...Plus background, visual description, etc?
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

Well, probably. I don't see anything out of line, at least. Steady pay and not needing to use it for a house/food/etc would give her Resources 3ish and being an elite military officer in wartime probably about the same Reputation. Raising her Psyche a point or two might be a good idea also - I think the ability to withstand emotional stress is probably quite important for a soldier, even without the factor of empathic attacks.

Fine tuning with pluses and minuses will need to wait for a completed character generation system, but each one amounts to +1/3 or -1/3 to the Mp value, which is the n in 2^n to convert it to linear measurements, hence the "meta" in Metapoints since the meta key on the old keyboards which used it looked like a carat, and calling them Expo Points becomes confusing with XP. Metapoints also makes it a pun, rather like Skill Value and Skill Bonus do when collapsed to two letter acronyms.

I have a (very large) spreadsheet that covers from -146Mp (1.12e-44, or 11.2 yatterodecillionths, roughly, to get down to Planck time from 4sec at 0Mp) to 100Mp (1.6e30, or 1.6 nonillion) with the calculated values for all the quantifiable measurements I could think of while sleep deprived (which means most forms of energy such as voltage, amperage, temperature, etc. are missing.) I'll copy in just a bit of it, from -2Mp to 15Mp:

-2 0.25
-2+ 0.3
-1- = 0.3
-1 = 0.5
-1+ = 0.6
0- = 0.7
0 = 1
0+ = 1.2
1- = 1.5
1 = 2
1+ = 2.5
2- = 3.1
2 = 4
2+ = 5
3- = 6.3
3 = 8
3+ = 10
4- = 12.6
4 = 16
4+ = 20.1
5- = 25.3
5 = 32
5+ = 40.3
6- = 50.7
6 = 64
6+ = 80.6
7- = 101.5
7 = 128
7+ = 161.2
8- = 203.1
8 = 256
8+ = 322.5
9- = 406.3
9 = 512
9+ = 645
10- = 812.7
10 = 1024
10+ = 1290.1
11- = 1625.4
11 = 2048
11+ = 2580.3
12- = 3250.9
12 = 4096
12+ = 5160.6
13- = 6501.9
13 = 8192
13+ = 10321.2
14- = 13003.9
14 = 16384
14+ = 20642.5
15- = 26007.9
15 = 32768

The linear value is then multiplied by a conversion factor to get actual measurements:

0Mp = 10 feet, 3 meters, 4 seconds, 15 astroseconds, half a breem, $1 (1942), $25 (2014), 25 pounds (as in weight), 3/4 cubic foot, 21,237 cubic centimeters, 11.3 kilograms (yes, I know that disconnects from the cc measurement, it's because an average adult human who weighs and can lift about 200lb and displaces about 3cu. ft. measures 2Mp in each), 16 bytes, or the ability to remember 2 longish words or a 4-digit code with 4sec to memorize it.

Incidentally, the next time someone tells you you've won one million internets, that's 90-Mp, or 10 brontobytes of data storage. Mostly porn.

Edit: One more thing, I totally forgot about the engine revs. THe thing is, 1500 is idling on a modern car, but my understanding is that 500-800rpm was the idle on one from the 40s, and 2500 would be redlining it. The reason to go for a reciprocating design is low-rpm torque anyway, since turbines are much better at high rpm, being generally simpler and not incurring the strain of repeatedly changing direction with every stroke. Plus the idea of a fusion-powered tractor putting away amuses me.
--
"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

...and the forum seems to've eaten my post. OK, so.

Things I originally meant to say: I'd eyeballed those stats for Razor based on the presumption that pushing her accuracy and offense so high, and purchasing the boosted Resources her backstory kind of demands, would require, as they say, compromises, in particular her falling behind on the 'soak' stats. The low Psyche, specifically, would match up to her wealthy, indulged upbringing - she's not used to hardship and wouldn't know how to deal with it right off. Buying that up would actually be part of her character arc.

Things I decided to add after: Fair warning that I'll be going on the road (family reunion) from tomorrow morning to about the 28th, and internet access will be sporadic. Also, having just finished the first season of Strike Witches (the fanservice is as hyperaggressive as reputation would have it, but there's a likeable cast and other solid elements underneath that), I thought you might be interested in this thing, given how much its design made me blink in recognition when I saw it: http://strikewitches.wikia.com/wiki/Warlock
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."