Re: Battledress Volume & Mecha in Traveller
For the person who asked about the volume capacity of battledress
last week, there isn't any. The volume of all added gear is _in_addition_
to the base Storage Volume listed. The only controlling factors are
weight (by exoskeleton class) and power (by power supply).
Onwards...
<[email removed] (Alexandre Pedneault)> says:
> I'm a new Traveller player/gamemaster and I intend to do a campaign which
>will include some mechas. ( Yeah, like the Mobile Suits in the Gundam
>series) Did any of you had that idea before? If you did, please share
>your results with me.
I first had this idea back when Robotech was new. Unfortunately, all
I had to work with was a combination of MegaTraveller and Striker. I've
still got a page of "ideas" around here somewhere for integrating
humanoid transforming vehicles into the Traveller rules.
Fortunately I discovered Mekton soon after. This game allowed me to
play with "mecha" in an otherwise straight SF setting and not worry
about the mechanics mix.
The next edition of Mekton (called Mekton II, though it's really the
third edition) was even better for this, since it came right out and
said that since mecha combat _looked_ like two guys in funny suits, it
should be played that way. Mekton II uses the same set of mechanics for
both scales (human and "giant robot") with differences only for scale
and such things as catastrophic powerplant failure. This idea will
drop into TNE (or any earlier edition) without any problems.
I've always been of the "What a NEAT toy!" persuasion regarding
Traveller in general and vehicles in particular, and thus I prefer my
mecha small. The various hardware in the Robotech conglomerate of
stories (Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada for the initiated) is
about as big as I want to get, though I confess to a fondness for Dynamo
Joe and the Gunbuster.
But to business. What Traveller is missing first and foremost if
you want to do giant robots of any sort, is _arms_. The arms presented
in the Robots rules (both versions) are too small and too poorly
described to be of much help. Instead of sitting down and working out
the whole spectrum of possible sizes and strengths, you should limit
your work to the range you intend to work in. Unfortunately, this range
is rather broad even in the Gundam material (The "O"'s secondary arms
all the way up to the Alpha Azire; gulp!). Find a smaller range or
risk loss of interest.
Arms should be defined by inherent characteristics (volume, wt, power,
cost), and by how much volume and/or weight can be added to them in the
form of hardware. The Armor building section in FF&S does this correctly
for our purposes: Volume is calculated last, based on the Storage Volume
(Volume of the skeleton, armor, power and control for mecha) plus the
added volume of other stuff (weapons, flight systems, streamlining, etc).
Another point of definition is the "quality of movement". Do your
Traveller mechs move like Anime mechs (ie. like humans in funny suits),
or are they stiff, slow, and of precarious balance? A good example
of the two classes would be Ultraman vs. an Imperial ATAT. If you
just want one of these then the Legs in FF&S (and earlier rules) require
no modification. If you want both at the same time (but in different
mechs) then two classes of legs will be required, as well as a provision
for "Agility" in the MT Starship sense: more excess power = better
ability to dodge, weave, and otherwise parrot human motion.
The Anime motion style gives its own excuse for the existence of
large humanoid vehicles: a vehicle that can react to terrain, dodge
shells, and aim weapons as fast as a human can will earn a place on the
battlefields of the future. If you go for the ATAT style of movement,
then your designs have to have some other advantage of survivability,
(ATATs have unreasonable amounts of armor, for instance) or they'll
never get very big. Conventional vehicles with turrets and heat- or
laser-guided munitions will hit a slow-moving, clumsy and TALL mech
every time.
While I have considered going further in this direction, I find that
I can get away with designing my desired suit in Mekton II (using the
Mekton Advanced Construction Manual for odd stuff), then convert the
armor, weapon damage, and range scales to Traveller. Mekton already
has a characteristic which will convert nicely to TNE Initiative,
and which already applies to both human and giant scales.
Note that Mekton and the ACM produce results similar to the Cyberpunk
Maximum Metal book, but slanted toward the Anime style instead of the
'Punk/realist style of MM. I haven't tried the GURPS approach, but
I understand that it will produce a few more of the details that
Traveller designs often have: powerplant Megawatts, tonnage to some
decimal value, etc. It really depends on what feel you want for your
mecha.
James Kundert
[email removed]
[email removed]