Field Guide to Suldan

[swift mesa]

Yeah, that's correct.

You can make it but not maintain it at all.

[south narwhal]

-- HORUS Gorgon @ LL6 --
[ LICENSES ]
  C&H RETIARIUS 2, HORUS Gorgon 3, C&H SABREUR 1
[ CORE BONUSES ]
  Auto-Stabilizing Hardpoints, The Lesson of the Open Door
[ TALENTS ]
  Demolitionist 3, Skirmisher 2, Siege Specialist 2, Duelist 1, House Guard 1
[ STATS ]
  HULL:2 AGI:2 SYS:0 ENGI:4
  STRUCTURE:4 HP:21 ARMOR:0
  STRESS:4 HEATCAP:9 REPAIR:4
  TECH ATK:+1 LIMITED:+2
  SPD:5 EVA:10 EDEF:12 SENSE:8 SAVE:17
[ WEAPONS ]
  FLEX MOUNT: Tangler Cannon (Scrambler Rounds)
  MAIN MOUNT: Shock Lash (Auto-Adjusting Weight) // Auto-Stabilizing Hardpoints
  MAIN MOUNT: Vorpal Gun
[ SYSTEMS ]
  Monitor Module, Slingstone Charges x4, Personalizations

I'm not sure if Scrambler Rounds are worth it, though. 2 SP is a lot, and I could grab Hex Charges.

"Invisible outside range 10" isn't very much, especially on a weapon whose range is 10.

[wintry palm]

Those rounds on Gorgon sound hilarious with Basalisk.

Remember, it basically locks the enemy from being able to rush past and attack your Artillery allies. Not only that, Impaired from the Lash along with Soft Cover from Scramble Rounds means your target would have a VERY difficult time attacking anyone.

[nova ridge]

Hoping that compcon v3 will allow for them

[south narwhal]

Can you Overwatch through Ibeji if a hostile character starts movement in the threat of one of the echo's weapons?

[dusk arch]

Yes, though note that you can still only by default overwatch 1/round, the echo doesn't give you a second one

[south narwhal]

Still, it's a massive increase in area.

[south narwhal]

Also, how do Blowout Panels work against stuff like Sniper's Mark or SCL which deal 1 structure damage directly?

[dusk arch]

If there's no spillover damage, there's nothing to resist

"1 structure damage" doesn't equal "X number of HP"

so you take 1 structure damage directly and your HP is the same as always, just like usual

[green vapor]

Question regarding Termite

If it yeets a Thermal Smoke

catching someone inside

and then it gets blown up

when does the smoke dissipate?

[dusk arch]

These are the general guidelines that I use for this sort of thing:

1). If something lasts until the end of the NPC's next turn, say, and that NPC dies, the effect ends (because there's no way for a dead character to have a next turn)
2). If something lasts an indeterminate amount of time (mines, a Priest's Dispersal Shield which gives resistance to the next X attacks, etc) then that sticks around even after the NPC dies
3). Stuff like "this NPC hits you with a debuff that lasts until the end of your next turn" continues to last until it expires as normal (because its expiration isn't tied to the NPC, but to the target)```

[sacred storm]

question

If I field approve brass ignorant mod the warden and he's stabilized with his superheavy gun, and the knockback pushes him, can I still reload him now that he's destabilized?

[dusk arch]

being loaded by an ally is a property of the CSSW's emplacement mode

if the CSSW isn't in that mode, you can't reload it that way

[sacred storm]

that's fair

Thanks for helping me clear up the confusion!

[median rock]

One message removed from a suspended account.

[foggy pulsar]

it's not a Ram, so size difference would only come into account if the affected frame has Heavy Frame or a similar trait saying it can't be proned by smaller characters.

[median rock]

One message removed from a suspended account.

[dusk arch]

Lancer is a game of specific rules overriding generalities

The general rule is "you can get knocked prone"

more specific rules may affect that in certain ways

in regards to ramming, smaller mechs can't even attempt to ram bigger ones at all, it isn't "you can ram them but they resist the prone," it simply doesn't let you do it period

Heavy Frame is a trait that says "anyone smaller than this mech can't knock it back, push it, pull it, or prone it in ANY way" etc

There isn't a general "smaller mechs can't force move/prone bigger mechs" rule

[median rock]

One message removed from a suspended account.

[opaque ginkgo]

I got some play experience with the ACR on LL11 and was told it might help to talk about it here

In one word, it was amazing

I put it on an OC looping tokugawa with integrated mrack and an uncle shatterhead

Thanks to roland, opcal, nuckav, I can consistently fire the ACR for 4d6+6, with nanocomp and paracausal mod negating most defenses out to range 22

3d6+3 as burn actually procced twice, completely obliterating some multi-structure mechs with average Eng

For mechs with flat immunity to burn or energy, I used Ammo Case to convert the final damage type to Explosive

The combo got banned going into LL12 heh

[dusk arch]

Yeah that'll probably happen. LL11-12 is kind of already the wild west as far as the game goes, in my experience, so while that does sound pretty potent, it doesn't sound tremendously out of line with what else you can do by that point in the game

"Put a juicy ranged weapon on a tokugawa" has been a go-to build for a long while, Smartgun Toku is like the standard "Toku Meta" for people who want long range, consistent, reliable damage

[south narwhal]

And if you're OC looping, you could probably do Warp Rifle.

[opaque ginkgo]

Yes I think thats fair. The LL12 Paracausal Iconoclast Zheng ended up being pretty much the same output wise. I think a "soft" balancing patch for GM at that level could be to make the player pay the full cost of the 2 mods

So 6 SP instead of 4 SP

If they want both nanocomp and paracausal

[dusk arch]

The point cost reduction is a thing but it's worth noting you're paying for the points with license levels

both Nanocomp and Paracausal mod are 5 license levels to take

[dusk arch]

this is a VERY slept on combo imo

[opaque ginkgo]

Yeah that is our group's next experiment on the Toku

[dusk arch]

slightly less raw damage but the ability to teleport someone up to 10 spaces is probably more than sufficient to make up for it

it stacks with roland, you can do all the Toku juice stuff, overcaliber, nuclear cavalier, etc, it's a main so it works with ammo case, etc

[opaque ginkgo]

Toku as a license seems to scale nicely with extra LL, so any "limit break" piece of gear seems to work rather well when put on it

[dusk arch]

Basically the Tokugawa is extremely strong with any sort of mid to long range main weapon that it can just stand off from a distance and shoot consistently

I'm also going to go out on a huge limb here and say that I think Paracausal Mod is somewhat overrated as far as it goes

it's not NOTHING, but the NPC catalogue isn't necessarily overflowing with tons and tons of resistances, and the ones that do exist can often be negated by other means...unless you're the nearest person to the Cataphract then you don't have to care about Point-Defense Shield, Stampede Defense is one Fragment Signal away from being turned off, etc

I guess about the most consistent uses I can see regularly occuring are ignoring Hunker Down and ignoring the Scourer's energy resist which is probably like the main thing that a super-juiced Tokugawa might feel a pinch from, but even then, like, the Scourer has 15 HP at Tier 3 which is pretty low for a striker

it is entirely possible to dump a super ultra mega supreme mondo damage shot into something like that, have it cut in half, and still structure them

[opaque ginkgo]

In my case I also had squads and an ultra avenger. But I do see your point. Because I shot people and they exploded, it felt like paracausal was good and strong. But there was a good chance the NPCs would have crumpled without the mod anw

[dusk arch]

and from a pure "I want no-reduction damage" stance, my personal take is that an ally with FABI Mods gets the job done smoother, comes online quicker, and doesn't take up 4 of your own SP

that is admittedly contingent upon someone being willing to play the role of FABI Mod Dispenser and maybe no one in your group does and that's fine, but if everyone is collaborating on an experiment to grief the most NPCs the hardest, I genuinely think there's a case for it being more powerful than Paracausal Mod as far as it goes

Paracausal takes the lead if/when you're doing multi-attack spam stuff, the classic Asura Everest HMG thing

[eager cedar]

FABI also has save or prone on top of everything else and a little bit of movement for spice - as long as you get it consistently and aren't doing six attacks, it's very obviously better.
of course that's also why it's 2 SP and not 4, 'as long as' means you have to avoid jammed, they have to avoid jammed, avoid being murdered, etc etc

[jade thicket]

I think the significant bit was that all the squads I was fielding just got shredded

I personally think comparing with FABI is a bit disingenuous because the quick action cost on a separate mech is significant

[dusk arch]

idk man but "disingenuous" is pretty forceful language for this

that is admittedly contingent upon someone being willing to play the role of FABI Mod Dispenser

like I say this right here

[jade thicket]

Ok, sorry about that but it's kinda apples to oranges to me

[dusk arch]

and I know for a fact fabi mod whips ass

[jade thicket]

Came off a bit too strong

FABI absolutely does whip

[dusk arch]

like, people have complained about it before

for basically doing the "this is trivializing my resistance-oriented opfor" stuff

[jade thicket]

I think ACR-M was an "issue" in that it basically flattened gameplay drastically, but only on one specific build at a very high level

[dusk arch]

like I think two things can be true at once:
1). super stacked ACR on a LL11 Tokugawa with all the bells and whistles wrecks shit
2). there are other ways you could be doing that too

[jade thicket]

So I think it's not a "huge" concern but something a GM needs to consider when making opfor -- they need to challenge that player more actively by proactively going after them instead of relying on durability/cover

[dusk arch]

like, someone could also be playing a swallowtail and doing point-and-click shredded

I'm going to also issue somewhat less of a hot take by this point in lancer's lifecycle which is that I think "ranged X tokugawa" is probably the fundamental flattening agent in a lot of cases

[jade thicket]

However, Tier 3 straight up is the Wild West balancing wise since typical considerations of opportunity cost, SP, etc are much more lenient

frankly you're probably right there

[dusk arch]

as noted earlier, Smartgun Toku has been a go-to formula for "how do I do real good damage at long range while ignoring lots of friction" and the crux of the issue is fundamentally how the toku itself works w/r/t range

Like, to be clear: I absolutely do believe what you said happened happened, it's not "oh well you did it wrong" or something

I just also think that if someone was doing Paracausal Smartgun that you'd be seeing similar output with some shuffling of the deck chairs, or like the aforementioned Warp Rifle build which trades some raw damage for "your NPC is now 10 spaces over thataway"

The Tokugawa just sort of does this with any halfway decent ranged main weapon

[eager cedar]

yeah I don't think this is actually all that different from paracausal smartgun tokugawa, they're all builds you can assemble at LL6 that let it fire a gun wherever it wants and do damage no questions asked

[dusk arch]

"Flattening" is definitely a word I'd be inclined to use for it, particularly because it's really the obvious decision when compared to the alternative it presents which is to dive into melee while Exposed

[jade thicket]

yeah I'm thinking about it and I think my final conclusion is really "yeah, Tokugawa scales harder with LL than other stuff"

Just how it is when you give out an unrestricted bonus damage boost, I suppose

[dusk arch]

This discussion actually reminds me that I spitballed some Tokugawa stuff a little while back when I was talking with valk

When the Tokugawa is in the Danger Zone or Exposed and attacks with a weapon that deals any amount of energy damage, all bonus damage becomes burn.

SUPERCHARGED
When the Tokugawa is in the Danger Zone or Exposed, it gains +2 Speed.

LIMIT BREAK
Protocol
You overclock the Tokugawa's systems, shunting additional power into its weapon systems at the cost of instability. You gain a Limit Break Mark, and until the end of your next turn, your ranged weapons gain +5 Range, your melee weapons gain +1 Threat, and your melee attacks deal +3 bonus damage on hit. Additionally, all of your weapons that would deal kinetic or explosive damage instead deal energy damage. You can only have one Limit Break Mark at a time, though you may still use this protocol even if you already have one.

Whenever you are hit by a ranged or melee attack, the attacker may consume the Limit Break Mark to deal +1d6 bonus damage; that attack's damage can't be reduced in any way. You may clear a Limit Break Mark by taking the Stabilize action.

You also automatically gain the benefits of this protocol whenever you are Exposed.

Radiance
Active (1CP), Protocol
For the rest of this scene, all attacks against you are made with +1 Difficulty, and all of your weapons that deal any energy damage gain +5 Range if they are ranged or +2 Threat if they are melee.

These bonuses stack with Limit Break, for a total increase of +10 Range and +3 Threat.```

[jade thicket]

This is interesting!

[dusk arch]

none of this is tested or going to become some formalized "rebake" project or whatever, but the big issues I think exist with the Tokugawa as it exists are:
1). Exposed is an extremely brutal and very unbounded penalty to face in exchange for the bonuses, to the point where the sanest strategy is to minimize the risks whenever possible, and the form this usually takes is to commit heavy into range
2). If you (the general "you") want the Tokugawa to be a daredevil beam saber swinging hotshot, you can't bake in an equal number of bonuses for ranged playstyles directly into a risky kit

So I think a combination of making the bonus damage melee only and also making the condition for gaining that damage less multiplicatively brutal is a good starting point

[opaque ginkgo]

I would love to try this toku!

Super interesting

[dusk arch]

+1d6 damage isn't like "oh I love taking this" but it's not "the sniper now does 40 damage to me"

[jade thicket]

I think the Toku really suffers from a "what you expected" vs "what you got" dichotomy yeah

[dusk arch]

I do like preserving build diversity by the expanded range and think I'd try to keep that, but then your choices are between a safe, conservative, lower output build, and a riskier but more rewarding close-range build

[jade thicket]

IMO a big part of Lancer's strengths is mechs offering intuitive and evocative playstyles, and if the license and blurb says "run in with beam sabers" and the gameplay says "no, actually you're best off as a sniper" that's an issue

[dusk arch]

yeah

it's something I've felt with the toku for a while

[jade thicket]

I'm very glad the Enkidu is available cuz of that

[eager cedar]

yeah that's kind of the tokugawa problem. part of it is also like, the range increases the tokugawa has access to are dramatically longer than the threat increases. so even if you do want to do melee, the difference between 'wow! I have threat 5 on this impact lance!' and 'wow! my annihilator has range 15!' is pretty damn big - you have to solve not just for the problem of immediately dying if anything shoots you, but also your actual technically still very short range.

threat is much less scary when one of the options for avoiding overwatch is 'shoot the tokugawa until it explodes'

(that and there's no significant reward for doing melee besides slightly higher base damage codes or specific effects you can't get on ranged weapons - and the higher base damage is somewhat irrelevant if all your attacks have guaranteed bonus damage!)

[south narwhal]

I only found out the Pesilat is size 1 today. I thought it was size 1/2 this whole time.

[dusk arch]

It'd be in a rough state for a mech that wants to grapple if that was the case

[south narwhal]

I just judged from the art. It kind of looked powersuity?

[tribal kelp]

Quick rules question, when the Sagittarius kills an enemy with their bow, do they stay hidden or does the dead enemy make a systems save as normal?

[idle stirrup]

Since you can sort out the on-hit effects as you wish, you can have the save be before the damage is applied anyway

[dusk arch]

Strictly speaking I think you have the idea backwards, if I'm understanding the concept correctly. The question is if you, the Sagittarius, kill someone with the bow, is there still a save to see if you remain hidden?

So you're correct that on-hit stuff goes in any order you want. If I hit someone with a knockback 2 weapon that does 1d3 damage, I can do the damage first, then the knockback, or the knockback and then damage

So in this case the bow is doing damage, then forcing a save. If you do damage first and this destroys the target, there's nobody to make a save (as dead characters do not make saves), and thus the need for a save is largely irrelevant

Having the save come BEFORE damage would be counterproductive because it would give the target a chance to break your hidden before dying

[idle stirrup]

But wouldn't you lose hidden if you don't force the save? As you would normally when you attack an enemy while hidden and destroy them

[dusk arch]

I think my ruling on this in the past has been that if you stealth kill someone it doesn't break hidden because the condition for that is "the target passes a Systems save" and targets that can't pass saves on account of being dead can't do so

The general rule is "attacking from hidden breaks hidden," but specifics beat generalities in lancer's priority tree, and the Blackjacket has more specific rules regarding making attacks from hidden

[knotty zinc]

Wanted to pop in and say im a huge fan of the Specialty License concept

Both from the perspective of i always love more options when buildcrafting, especially ones that tend to higher power on the merit of tradeoffs (requires a license point and investment into a particular manufacturer to get the later ones)

But also because i feel it fleshes the manufacturers out a bit more, having equipment that isn't tied to particular frames makes a lot of sense to me

If the vast majority of mech users are going to be using GMS, it seems like it would make sense to offer more piecemeal equipment packages that users can pick and choose from to meet their needs as opposed to a full set of equipment associated with an entirely different frame

[dusk arch]

It's definitely one of the concepts that's gotten wider appreciation over time

[grand zenith]

has anyone used the dueling rules to represent a doubles format match? I have two players who both want to be part of a single team and i have a tag team of enemies - i figure just doubling the opponent hp and letting them take turns one after the other would be fine, right?

[gloomy vault]

So...anyone in here ever played with a C&H mech? If so what are your thoughts? I heard a hot take that whatever a C&H mech does, another mech from another license/manufacturer can do better. So I wanna get a few opinions.

[dusk arch]

This is kind of funny next to the hot takes that Suldan stuff is OP

[gloomy vault]

Seriously? XD

[dusk arch]

We've got both kinds of takes, OP and underpowered

[gloomy vault]

Some of his takes are esentially like: "Why use Kalista when you have Blackbeard and Lycan?"

Or Pesillat being bad because Improvised Attacks are a FULL action (Whichi I didnt know until now, I am still new to Lancer) And should use the Goblin Instead XD

[gloomy vault]

Fair enough.

[dusk arch]

Well the reasons to use the kalista over the Blackbeard is you're looking at two different playstyles

The Kalista is significantly tankier and more durable over the long haul

[eager cedar]

personally I think some of the suldan stuff is on the stronger end, but it's not really... above the power level of 'just shoot them with a HMG a lot'

[gloomy vault]

Right? That's my line of thinking too.

[dusk arch]

The Pesilat meanwhile does use improvised attacks but also marries them to free action invades, which means your full action is equivalent to a barrage

[gloomy vault]

I hadn't thought about this, but now that makes some sense whenever I try to make a build using a C&H mech, like Sabreur.

[dusk arch]

Plus it gets bonus damage, so if you take the obligatory brawler 2 investment the IA is going to be doing like 3d6 damage

[south narwhal]

If it hits, which isn't guaranteed.

[eager cedar]

the only thing that I'd note as being 'too strong' so far is uncertainty trap and that's more because it's just a nightmare system for the GM

[gloomy vault]

Right? it now actually makes sense more sense with the Full action context. Turning an improvised attack into a super heavy weapon essentially, with a free invade to boot if grappling.

[dusk arch]

It's not, though it does get reliable as well

[south narwhal]

It's harder to get accuracy on IAs than regular superheavies.

[dusk arch]

Not even if grappling

You can get it off just an IA

[gloomy vault]

Goes to show I still have a lot to learn.

[south narwhal]

Thinking about Improved Armament Duelist Pesilat.

[gloomy vault]

Which, by the by, I am currently using the Nelson Flight Type. Love doing just a casual 4d6 damage in one hit XD.

[dusk arch]

This is a take I haven't actually encountered before

[eager cedar]

(and like the awkwardness of, like, the pesilat has two distinct invades that are variants of eject power cores which is a lot of 'basically the same take this guy out of the round' invade to have - that's not necessarily a strength problem, just a 'oh you can do some variant of obliterate a turn three times a scene per character if you also pick up H0R_OS 1')

[gloomy vault]

Oh MAN I TOO had a thought about doing that at some point 0.o

[south narwhal]

-- C&H PESILAT @ LL6 --
[ LICENSES ]
  IPS-N Blackbeard 1, IPS-N Tortuga 1, HORUS Balor 1, HORUS Goblin 1, C&H PESILAT 2
[ CORE BONUSES ]
  Improved Armament, Overpower Caliber
[ TALENTS ]
  Duelist 3, Hunter 3, Skirmisher 2, Pankrati 1
[ STATS ]
  HULL:4 AGI:0 SYS:2 ENGI:2
  STRUCTURE:4 HP:21 ARMOR:0
  STRESS:4 HEATCAP:8 REPAIR:7
  TECH ATK:+4 LIMITED:+1
  SPD:5 EVA:10 EDEF:12 SENSE:5 SAVE:14
[ WEAPONS ]
  FLEX MOUNT: Chain Axe // Overpower Caliber
  AUX/AUX MOUNT: Tactical Knife / Tactical Knife
[ SYSTEMS ]
  Crashing Avalanche Module, Siege Ram, Synthetic Muscle Netting, H0R_OS System Upgrade I, Scanner Swarm, Armament Redundancy, Personalizations, Falling Star Module

[eager cedar]

part of it is like, tracking - it often gets triggered during the enemy turn so it then lasts a full turn and a half~, plus the overhead of figuring out what actions you(the GM) can do and in what order accounting for that trigger

rupture is arguably more powerful, but it's also way easier to think about.

[south narwhal]

I just wonder why I'd want the Kalista over the Gajasura. Demon's Fang rules way too hard.

[eager cedar]

I think that comes out more in play than by looking at them side by side. the kalista has more outright survivability/sustainability, but the gajasura is just going to baseline hit harder.
(also, I'm not sure - can you Berserker Drive on an attack that'd take you from 1 to 0 structure? it seems like you shouldn't be able to without briareos but looking at the core book implies technically you should be making useless stucture rolls when going from 1 to 0)
regardless of that though the kalista is just generally more repair-efficient

[south narwhal]

Though the other problem with the Kalista and Gajasura is that it has the literal worst stats in everything except bulk and repairs.

[gloomy vault]

Worst stats huh? Nevertheless, the Kalista and Gajasura are some of my Faves in Suldan just looking at them. I Totally am not thinking about the Motorized Tetsubo....nope, totally not.

[jade thicket]

being overspecialized in The Best Stats ain't the worst thing to be

[swift barn]

well
the Sensors on the Kalista are 5

(as is the Heat Cap, which certainly isn't 4, even if it isn't great)

and 8 Repairs is, fucking insane (which makes sense, it's paying the price)

[dusk arch]

Yeah like part of my philosophy with mechs like the kalista is if you want more balanced generalist frames, those already exist in abundance

Things like the Kalista are specialist designs for people who want something that isn't really on offer elsewhere

[swift mesa]

Specialist mechs get to be weird and specialist

[dusk arch]

Lancer notably lacks a lot of big chunky melee bruisers, the closest is the Zheng

[swift mesa]

Also: I feel like 'bulk and repairs' is a pretty solid amount of things to be good at stat-wise 😛

[dusk arch]

Most melee oriented mechs tend to be fast and middling to fragile in terms of durability

[swift mesa]

As bulk is the gate that every weapon coming your way need to get through.

[dusk arch]

The Balor also exists but is kind of a weird "wannabe generalist" in several respects

[wintry palm]

That does explain the mechs feeling OP and weak simultaneously. They are much more specialized, meaning the advantages in favorable situations are higher than most, but when in an unfavorable situation, you suffer even more than others.

[wintry palm]

I find most melee to fall under 1 of 3 categories.

1. Decent to high Movement with high Evasion.
2. High Health and/or Armor but low Movement.
3. Moderate to low Evasion and Durability but High Movement along with a Damage boost.

[eager cedar]

the balor is legitimately super weird - it's like maybe one of the only frames that could be called 'multi-attribute dependent' in the way some D&D classes are.
it needs:

• hull, to scale up its health and thus scale up its regen
• agility/speed(or some sort of mobility) to help with being a short-range speed 3 attacker
• systems/tech attack, if you're going in the direction of Thinking Tomorrow's Thoughts or just teching stuff(this can be offset with scanner swarm, but then, again, speed)
• engineering, because it has a heat cap of 4.

this usually gets simplified out to 'hull and engineering' because you can solve for speed in a couple ways, including having your team hand-feed you enemy mechs like a baby bird, and 5 sensors makes tech attacking somewhat unappealing when you could just hit them.

(you can also solve the speed problem with more range.)

[dusk arch]

Yeah, and so while you can look at the Balor as a bruiser in that way and certainly be effective, I think it and the Kalista still show some meaningful distinctions in terms of what they and the licenses are geared towards

[eager cedar]

yeah for sure. the balor's license doesn't have durability tools like the kalista does

[dusk arch]

A lot of Balor builds tend to end up going more "a ranged guy you don't want to close in on"

[eager cedar]

and its license supports that better, even, than the presented fantasy of 'big guy who closes in and grapples and regens forever'.

[south narwhal]

I think I like Gajasura as a Main Melee spammer with a situational heavy.

[wintry palm]

Balor is like Jason Vorehees. They would just walk up to you menacingly, tanking everything that is thrown at them, and eliminate anything that gets close

[tribal kelp]

Answering the question in the main rules chat in advance: comp/con seems to think the extra armour from the brace is specific to the melee assault shield mode of the 96. It's also listed specifically under the melee profile in the book itself, so it's safe to say it only applies while in that mode.

[grand zenith]

from the dueling rules: I assume these are referring to the same thing, yeah?

[mossy tide]

forgot to say, so im a bit late, but ty. 😛

[south narwhal]

How much does a Gajasura look like a Kalista?

[harsh parcel]

What should happen to the Shield Array Drone of a mech targeted by Time Split?

RAW I think it just patiently waits for you to exist again, although this breaks its intended behavior of following you around like a doting grandmother

I genuinely have no idea how to rule it RAI other than it stops existing just like the target mech does

the implications of which are that the Shield Array Drone's loyalty transcends linear time

[green vapor]

For the purposes of using the AGL, i have a few questions.

1: Can transported units operate the grenade launcher from within the carrier? I don't think so, since sharing the Carrier's space is not equivalent to adjacency, correct?

2: If there are two carriers on the field with Auto Grenade Launcher side by side, are they allowed to fire each other's grenade launchers since they are both 'mechs'?

Or are they supposed to be treated as 'Vehicles'?

[eager cedar]

1. adjacency includes sharing your space, so they can.
2. generally carriers won't be size 1/2, but if they were, they could.

(though it's ambiguous what 'transport' means - it's the same wording as the vehicle/ship templates - the Carrier has its own example of 'transport' with Rapid Deployment.)

[green vapor]

Yeah it was supposed to be custom size 1/2, transports either a scout or a mirage. Basically a tuktuk auto-rickshaw with machine gun and grenade launcher bolted on, and I was wondering if they could do the funny after disembarking their passengers.

[south narwhal]

Thinking about this build.

-- C&H SABREUR @ LL6 --
[ LICENSES ]
  C&H SABREUR 2, IPS-N Nelson 2, C&H CHARIOTEER 2
[ CORE BONUSES ]
  Auto-Stabilizing Hardpoints, Superheavy Mounting
[ TALENTS ]
  Executioner 3, Hunter 3, Skirmisher 2, Duelist 1
[ STATS ]
  HULL:2 AGI:0 SYS:0 ENGI:0
  STRUCTURE:4 HP:17 ARMOR:0
  STRESS:4 HEATCAP:4 REPAIR:5
  TECH ATK:-1 LIMITED:+0
  SPD:5 EVA:12 EDEF:6 SENSE:10 SAVE:13
[ WEAPONS ]
  SUPERHEAVY MOUNT: Tempest Charged Blade (Auto-Adjusting Weight) // Auto-Stabilizing Hardpoints
  FLEX MOUNT: SUPERHEAVY WEAPON BRACING
  MAIN/AUX MOUNT: War Pike / Peregrine Seeker Glaive
[ SYSTEMS ]
  Personalizations, Armament Redundancy, Bulwark Mods, Deployable Reconnaissance Carbine, EVA Module

[flat crescent]

Am I allowed to respec out of the prerequisites for a specialty license and keep the specialty license? Are there rules for that?

[dawn sedge]

Like any other license, you loose access to it if you don't meet the prerequisite, like you would loose access to goblin III and its gear if you already didn't have access to goblin I & II.

[flat crescent]

That is what I figured, just needed to double check myself

[slim holly]

Please let me know if this is not the place to ask this but since TEMBLOR PULSE-FIELD GENERATOR is not unique it’s possible to have more than one. But I assume its effects don’t stack. Is that correct?

[dusk arch]

It's unique

Might be an lcp error

[slim holly]

Oh yeah

[dusk arch]

If it wasn't the effects wouldn't really stack, no

but it is

[slim holly]

Good to know

Moot question but I’ll ask anyway. Why wouldn’t it stack if it wasn’t unique?

[dusk arch]

Identical effects in lancer don't generally stack in that sense, it would (if you somehow activated both things) just create a set of indistinguishable, identically sized areas and the effect would occur once

there's no such thing as Double Slowed or Double Difficult Terrain or Double Wandering Nightmare or whatever

[slim holly]

Yeah that makes sense. Thanks!

[coarse crescent]

Hi Hello, just wanted to ask for confirmation on whether or not spotter 3 allows you to give an attack to the Sentry drone from IPS-N Vigil. I'd imagine not since while it says it has a turn it can attack on it doesn't say that it can skirmish specifically, but I wanted to make sure.

Tried looking for that answer but discord search is failing me

[median jungle]

The description of Sentry Drone states that it doesn’t benefit from your talents, and I do believe that Spotter 3 falls under that umbrella

[coarse crescent]

I'd thought that was more specifically for the attack it makes but then would that mean it also gets none of the benefits from drone commander?

[dusk arch]

1). It's not a skirmish so it can't do things that allow people to skirmish
2). You can use Drone Commander etc on it, but the drone making attacks doesn't get the benefit of or proc any of your talents that would be associated thereof

[coarse crescent]

Thank youuuu

[wintry palm]

I am curious. I don't know if this was already asked as it isn't a rules question. If you rather not answer simply say so and I would respect your answer.

Question: Which mech from the book is your favorite? Which alternative Frame is your favorite? And if you could change/update something what would it be?

[worldly bay]

I was going strolling through memory lane as I was revisiting my Mercenary campaign, which had Suldan as our allowed third party. I remember having a lot of fun with the NPCs in the book, have there been any revisions?

[ionic badger]

Valkyrie is I think the main one, in no longer being a multi attacker

[dusk arch]

I've done two rebakes as a sort of side project, but I'm not sticking to any sort of schedule, it's "when I feel like it, as I feel like it"

#1334655875679260692 message

[worldly bay]

I'm aware of the NPC rebake, it's on my list of things to pick up once my next paycheck comes around, I was just poking in to see if there was anything else new since the last time I touched Suldan

Blood Money has me kicking around the idea of running my mercenary campaign again when my current campaign ends, and the first time I ran players used a few Suldan mechs, and I had Suldan listed as one of the possible destinations they could go after they leave the Long Rim

[dusk arch]

No what I mean is I've done two Suldan NPC rebakes specifically

you asked if I'd done any revisions

[worldly bay]

Ah

I'll be sure to look into those when I get home!

[south narwhal]

I wondered where a Comet would get a Heavy Nexus, given that its talent mentions them but it can't mount Heavy weapons and can't take Superheavy Mounting. But then I remembered you also had Scrounger.

[dusk arch]

also power at a cost is a thing that exists

[south narwhal]

I decided that the Kangto inside my Charioteer is just the same mech but with some bits blown off.

[meager laurel]

does the Saboteur Drone have access to the regular jockey actions in addition to it's unique ones or does it only have acess to it's unique ones?

[dusk arch]

The normal ones as well

You gain the additional ones when using the saboteur drone

[slim holly]

Hello! I was ondering if the wording "ignore" in the worden's frame traite carries any special meaning in lancer. Specifically, is it telling the player that the heat doesn't get created, or that the heat is created but just not applied? To be even more specific (though this is not a Suldan system) the Thermite harpoon cannon from Intercorp licenses says "on hit: Any Heat generated by Overkill is instead taken by the target. If the resulting Heat exceeds the targets Heat capacity any results occur before damage is inflicted." My assumption for how this interaction works is that the Worden gen's heat from overkill and rather than ignoring it, that heat would be transferred, because the harpoon is an on hit effect that checks for overkill while the worden's trait is during damage?

[eager cedar]

I think the Worden's specific wording would make that a positive interaction - the Worden ignores the first point of heat it generates from Overkill each turn. if that heat is going anywhere else, redirected, etc, it's not ignored by the new target.

(Smokestack Heat Sink would have a slightly different interaction, I think? since it cares about heat actually dealt - the worden would resolve overkill first, ignore a point of heat, then the smokestack would eat the remaining heat.)

[slim holly]

yes this is helpful thank you

[empty spoke]

Whats the primary purpose of the matador and what kinda talent/build recommendations are there?

[eager cedar]

the matador is for if your GM loves witches, mirages, priests, and other tech attackers, smart weapon havers, and systems save causers. because it can make them have exceptionally bad times trying to do, uh, anything.

there's no particular lean to it besides that and a slight 'get close to enemies' focus so everything else depends on what you focus on and what degree you actively defend or just have 'fuck this tech action' in your back pocket

(one notable thing, though, is that IFF Spoofer isn't a reaction, so you can do it while stunned or jammed etc - particularly important if you happen to be lightningrodding things like Chain or Petrify onto yourself)

Grease Monkey 2 is probably a good pickup specifically because of this, honestly. you're likely to be taking a billion conditions if you're playing a matador, so easily clearing them(and heat) might be a good shot

Nuclear Cavalier 2 is good in the other direction since it's an extra reward for being in the danger zone on top of Hostile Architecture.

[dusk arch]

To elaborate on this, the Matador is a "tech deterrence" platform. It isn't anti-tech in the way things like ICEOUT Drones are, which make it harder for people to hack anyone protected by them, and it doesn't work like the //SCORPION V70.1 system which makes it more punishing to miss tech attacks. The Matador frame itself and a number of its associated systems operate on the principle of punishing successful hacks, that is to say that the Matador (or someone using its equipment) still has to get hacked first, but it then gets to punch back

So rather than saying "I will make it harder for you to hack," it's a choice/punishment thing, do you WANT to hack me or my nearby allies? Are you okay with the consequences of doing so, or would you rather do something else?

[eager cedar]

scorpion is a pretty good pickup for the matador, though. just ask the witch 'do you want to give up tech attacks and start doing improvised attacks or are you good being damned both ways'

[empty spoke]

hmm okay thanks, new campaign is starting up at LL2 and this is my first time with the supplement so Ive been trying to get a bearing of all the news goodies to look at

how would one want to start off using this frame at LL2? The GM is a player I have played with but its my first time playing with them as a GM so I honestly dont know their stance on using tech attackers

but I guess if the presence of an anti-tech frame deters them from spamming or using a lot of tech npcs then thats the purpose of the frame fulfilled lmao

[dusk arch]

Outside of its more specialized functions, the Matador has high base HP and heat cap, good speed for a size 2 unit, and Guardian

[eager cedar]

high evasion, too.

[dusk arch]

you can simply build it as a big, reasonably tanky all-rounder

it has lower-than-average repair cap, bad sensors, and bad tech stats, but a decent non-heavy mount spread and good SP

[empty spoke]

aim to have more supportive esque weapons and systems then? that logic knife and an assault rifle for reliable?

I would have thought turret drones but im unsure

[dusk arch]

Turret Drones are really hard to go wrong with, imo

[empty spoke]

what would you reccomend for ll2 systems?

we are using crisis catalog too

so far I have this

[ LICENSES ]
  C&H MATADOR 2
[ CORE BONUSES ]
  N/A
[ TALENTS ]
  Grease Monkey 3, Vanguard 1, Scrounger 1
[ STATS ]
  HULL:3 AGI:0 SYS:0 ENGI:1
  STRUCTURE:4 HP:19 ARMOR:0
  STRESS:4 HEATCAP:9 REPAIR:5
  TECH ATK:-2 LIMITED:+0
  SPD:4 EVA:10 EDEF:6 SENSE:3 SAVE:12
[ WEAPONS ]
  FLEX MOUNT: Shotgun (Weapon Hardening)
  MAIN/AUX MOUNT: Tactical Melee Weapon / Viral Knife
[ SYSTEMS ]
  BEARTRAP Counterintrusion Tracer V. 2.3, ECM Launchers x2, Turret Drones x3 ```

[fickle pewter]

Would guerilla 3 work with Orchis' Royal Guard, considering guerilla happens before combat 'starts'?

(Tagging in my DM, since we're both interested in the answer @mint crane )

[eager cedar]

there are a few possible answers, I think

• it's not 'between its turns' so the orchis can move any number of spaces before its first turn(powerful, might not be intended but works as written)
• it's not 'between its turns' so the orchis can't move at all(countered by the fact that the orchis can move any number of spaces with royal guard during its turn)
• something akin to the ruling for reactions before first turn where the orchis takes from its next 'between turns' period if it royal guards before its first turn(not supported by the text but a plausible balancing mechanic)
• it's a 'between turns' period so it can only move up to speed+1 spaces before its turn, then it gets to do it again after it takes its turn

this honestly isn't even a suldan question because surely it'd come up for the orchis if, say, anything took its turn before it in the first round

[fickle pewter]

Fair point, might put this out in a bigger chat for more eyes on it 🙂

[empty spoke]

Could anyone point me in a direction towards some suldan sprites? More specifically the Matador

[worldly bay]

I was reading through once again and I was reminded of a house rule I made in my merc campaign a few years ago; for the Comet's core power, in a zero-G situation (where elevation is abstract and falling isn't an issue, so not underwater), the Comet was allowed to select which direction was "down" for its core.

Beginning of the campaign was set in the Long Rim, so we had few of those.

[worldly bay]

Something that did come up in that campaign was considering travel times and lead-time for plot stuff; I was rooting around to see if it was mentioned anywhere how far Suldan was out from its nearest blinkgate, and I was surprised the travel time was only 90-ish days out

[tropic sundial]

On a comet between the archer and harrier nexi, which one would be the better choice to put on? Assuming you're putting two of one nexus

Or would putting one of each be a better choice?

[eager cedar]

that's kind of a 'it depends on what you're doing' question. harriers are better if you're focusing on applying lockon and you want to ensure damage even when you don't attack, while archers are better for just doing a bunch of upfront damage and then backing off to reload. it's not a straightforward 'which is better' - and it has three mounts so you could do two of one plus one of the other, anyway.

(aside: is the damage ping of harrier nexuses supposed to do friendly fire?)

[dusk arch]

it specifies hostile characters

[eager cedar]

oh huh, must be a lcp issue then

(it just says 'all targets')

[dusk arch]

Ah, yeah, that's not accurate then.

[tropic sundial]

Thinking of doing like a close-mid ranged drone & nexus striker focused build for a future campaign

Using a lot of homebrew aside from Suldan

Like far field, intercorp, enhanced combat, legionnaire etc

[eager cedar]

then the archer nexus would probably cost too much in terms of action economy to go for, imo.

[tropic sundial]

So double up on harriers then?

[tropic sundial]

I am also probably gonna take mount retrofitting and use vavyava missiles on one of the main/aux's

[knotty zinc]

Really enjoy the design of Forward Observation Suite on the charioteer

Tinkering with a ll3 build with that frame and i like how it encourages that daring support playstyle

You could stay at your 15 sensor range but why not live dangerously

Its also cool how it neatly synergises with the Targeting Relay for further risk/reward. Do you take the guaranteed lock-on for your striker teammates or consume it to gamble on hitting the beacon to potentially get persistent lock-ons for several turns after that

And given it's a free action you feel less bad about stabilizing to reload the Relay because you can still provide at least 1 lock on that round

Looking forward to making the most of infiltrator/guerilla synergies

[latent fossil]

Questions on the Chimera for one of my players,
Is the listed evasion in the TALON drone statblock for anything if the TALON drone is already specified to use your mech's evasion?
And, I assume TALON drones use your actions for any attack, including reactions? So if you've already attacked with Overwatch in a round, the drones can't Overwatch themselves, right?

[south narwhal]

That's why I took Reinforced Frame on my Charioteer.

I grabbed Worden 2 for MASS Pack, then both systems from Overlord.

[dusk arch]

Re: the evasion, if this is a comp/con thing then you can assume it's a limitation of comp/con as a program, the actual pdf itself takes precedence in all circumstances
Re: TALON drones and actions, correct, the drones themselves do not possess their own inherent actions, they simply serve as weapons which the Chimera can make use of. Think of them in terms of the Ghast Nexus

[light moss]

okay so question about the Parvati-Class NHP's Shining City feature: is this meant to incur burn on each structure someone makes contact with for the first time, or is it burn on the first time someone makes contact with any structure

Like my current group's whole thing is using the Sunzi's accelerate option to put a bunch of hazards in a line and toss people into it, so if 3 of these items were on that line and someone hit all of them, would they take a total of 6 burn, or only two?

[dusk arch]

Only 2

Any time someone goes through any component of the Shining City, that counts as their proc of it

Being moved into further components of it within the duration doesn't proc it additionally

so you can't cheese grater someone by shoving them through three hardlight emplacements at once

[light moss]

Gotcha! That's what felt right but I didn't want to fuck over my player unfairly

[wintry palm]

[ LICENSES ]
  HORUS Hydra 2, HORUS Goblin 1, SSC Swallowtail 3
[ CORE BONUSES ]
  Full Subjectivity Sync, The Lesson of the Open Door
[ TALENTS ]
  Heavy Gunner 3, Centimane 3, House Guard 2, Drone Commander 1
[ STATS ]
  HULL:4 AGI:4 SYS:0 ENGI:0
  STRUCTURE:4 HP:21 ARMOR:0
  STRESS:4 HEATCAP:5 REPAIR:6
  TECH ATK:+1 LIMITED:+0
  SPD:7 EVA:13 EDEF:10 SENSE:8 SAVE:16
[ WEAPONS ]
  Integrated: TALON Drone
  MAIN MOUNT: Autopod
  HEAVY MOUNT: Ghast Nexus
[ SYSTEMS ]
  ATHENA-Class NHP, Lotus Projector, Tempest Drone, Tempest Drone, Personalizations```
An aggressive drone user is a concept I have been wanting for so long in Lancer, so I was excited when I first saw the Chimera mech. But the low defensive stats and short attack range is something I am having difficulty working around. I feel like I am missing something. Any help? I am trying to use Swallowtail to make the Talons more mobile and crit much more often.

[south narwhal]

One of my friends is also running an Athena Chimera. Remember that it's not limited to Sensors.

Also, I might suggest Held Image instead of Open Door.

[wintry palm]

Yeah, the thing about Chimera is that it seems it wants both Open Door and Held Image but I needed more Evasion as Chimera has the same HP & Evasion as the Hydra but 1 less Armor.

[south narwhal]

I'm worried about that 5 HC.

I'd go 4202.

[wintry palm]

That would bring HeatCap to 7 but Evasion down to 11.

I swear, if Talons could inherit Armor I have been using Sloped Plating instead.

[south narwhal]

Even so, I'd still also take Autostab over FSS. Centimane only triggers on crits, so you want accuracy.

[wintry palm]

I was afraid not investing in Evasion heavily, than the Chimera and it's Drones would be hit too often with no way to reduce the damage

[south narwhal]

Given that your Talon drones are repaired for free after every rest, you should be basically using them as ablative armor.

[wintry palm]

0.0 reread the PDF instead of Comp/Con. They do inherit Armor.

18 HP & 1 Armor Drones that auto repair would be pretty durable

[wintry palm]

[ LICENSES ]
  IPS-N WORDEN 3, HORUS Goblin 1, HORUS Hydra 2
[ CORE BONUSES ]
  Sloped Plating, Auto-Stabilizing Hardpoints
[ TALENTS ]
  Centimane 3, Heavy Gunner 3, Drone Commander 2, Walking Armory 1
[ STATS ]
  HULL:4 AGI:2 SYS:0 ENGI:2
  STRUCTURE:4 HP:21 ARMOR:1
  STRESS:4 HEATCAP:7 REPAIR:6
  TECH ATK:+1 LIMITED:+1
  SPD:6 EVA:9 EDEF:10 SENSE:8 SAVE:14
[ WEAPONS ]
  Integrated: TALON Drone
  MAIN MOUNT: Autopod
  HEAVY MOUNT: Ghast Nexus // Auto-Stabilizing Hardpoints
[ SYSTEMS ]
  PUPPETMASTER, MASS Pack, Counterfire Suite, Turret Drones x4, Personalizations```
So what about something more like this? Multiple ways to apply Lock-On and half damage doesn't stack so Heavy Gunner + Tracer Rounds can still dish out anywhere between 2-5 damage to two targets while also bringing in Talons closer for their full damage.

[south narwhal]

MASS Pack only works on Launchers and Cannons. You can use it with Autopod, though.

[wintry palm]

If that's true, it may need to go back to the drawing board

What would you suggest for the build?

[south narwhal]

Honestly, MASS Pack Autopod is still a good idea. You can typically load it first turn.

And it still moves your drones.

I'm doing that with a Charioteer. In order to qualify for Reinforced Frame, though, I picked Overlord instead of Worden 3.

[wintry palm]

For FCS Relay?

[wintry palm]

I have to say, MASS Pack on Autopod is funny as it reapplied the Lock-On that was just consumed. It may be worth using Lesson of the Held Image over Auto-Stabilizing Hardpoints since FCS Relay already gives Accuracy. I want to abuse Pack Guidance to have my Talons flank the enemy, getting in close to hopefully crit from the accuracy from Aggressive Heuristics.

[south narwhal]

I've got both Relay and Mithra.

[worn pawn]

Does this include stressing/structuring?
I'm gonna have an Agrippa teammate likely with this in 2 LLs and I'm probably gonna be running a weird build where I stress a lot

[dusk arch]

In all instances, stuff you take from being structured or stressed doesn't count as self-inflicted

[worn pawn]

awesome sauce
ive never really had to think about it til this build

never planned on getting structured/stressed befire

[south narwhal]

Honestly, if you're concerned about stress, I'd worry more about being exposed.

[tacit rampart]

Just out of curiosity, is the reason the Reaver’s Displacement Lash doesn’t have tier scaling damage is because of its Legion Body? Just curious, it always struck me as unusual

[wintry palm]

I have a question about the interaction between the Monarch ability "Seeking Payload" and Warden system "MASS Pack". MASS Pack half the damage but Seeking Payload says damage can not be reduced in any way. Would it or would it not affect the reduction in damage from MASS Payload?

[dusk arch]

"deal half damage" isn't a reduction

[eager cedar]

it's still halved - halved isn't a 'reduction'

[dusk arch]

you also can't use paracausal mod to bypass the drawback on hyperdense armor

[eager cedar]

reductions are only enemy-side things, like armor, resistance, etc

[wintry palm]

Thanks, I thought so but wanted to be sure. Still a very strong combination.

[worldly bay]

The campaign im planning on using Suldan in next is initially set in the Long Rim; if someone is planning on using the Charioteer, are they significantly impacted by the majority of combat scenes being in 0G conditions?

[south narwhal]

As a Charioteer player in a 0G mission right now, I still took EVA. The core requires it.

-- C&H CHARIOTEER @ LL6 --
[ LICENSES ]
  HORUS Goblin 1, IPS-N WORDEN 2, IPS-N OVERLORD 1, C&H CHARIOTEER 2
[ CORE BONUSES ]
  Reinforced Frame, Kangto Endochassis
[ TALENTS ]
  Spotter 3, Grease Monkey 3, Iconoclast 2, House Guard 1
[ STATS ]
  HULL:4 AGI:0 SYS:2 ENGI:2
  STRUCTURE:4 HP:24 ARMOR:0
  STRESS:4 HEATCAP:7 REPAIR:4
  TECH ATK:+3 LIMITED:+1
  SPD:6 EVA:12 EDEF:10 SENSE:15 SAVE:13
[ WEAPONS ]
  FLEX MOUNT: Autopod
[ SYSTEMS ]
  Unstable NHP, MITHRA-Class NHP, H0R_OS System Upgrade I, MASS Pack, Armament Redundancy, EVA Module, Personalizations

-- GMS KANGTO @ LL6 --
[ STATS ]
  HULL:4 AGI:0 SYS:2 ENGI:2
  STRUCTURE:4 HP:22 ARMOR:0
  STRESS:4 HEATCAP:7 REPAIR:4
  TECH ATK:+2 LIMITED:+1
  SPD:4 EVA:8 EDEF:10 SENSE:8 SAVE:13
[ WEAPONS ]
  FLEX MOUNT: Autopod
[ SYSTEMS ]
  Unstable NHP, MITHRA-Class NHP, MASS Pack, EVA Module

I've got Grease Monkey and Kangto to handle the Repairs 4 with Hangar Queen.

[worldly bay]

My next campaign is going to be with Blood Money, and anyone that chooses Suldan as their supplement (only allowing one 3rd-party supplement per player, from a pre-approved list) has a real boon for long operations with the Kangto

For anyone unfamiliar, Blood Money switches the normal mission structure of Lancer for a series of three player-chosen "Jobs" which themselves can vary from one to three combat scenes

The ability to buy resources and have a base to assist you is a big factor in combatting the atrrition

[mossy tide]

Can i attach these to myself, because i am a character, and unlike alot of other things it dosent say "allied" character

[south narwhal]

No, you're never a valid target unless it specifically says so.

[mossy tide]

Ty o7

[mossy tide]

i keep wanting to take the kangto CB, but i allready play tanky mechs that dont die that much, but a big part of me wants MOAR ways to not die lol

[trim sand]

I still really like the expansion of GMS basic guns from this - and many of the smaller micro-licenses, which I think gives much needed texture and available options to not have people just think "Oh I should fill out this license first"

[wintry palm]

Agreed, I do like the new systems that utilize Lock-On to make it much more useful for the whole team and not just the Artillery/Striker, the mechs and alt frames feel like their respective factions, and the micro-licenses are great for additional systems/utility that feel like a specific faction but don't have a dedicated license.

[light moss]

Oh yeah I was running a Swallowtail in my most recent long-term campaign and the Comet liscence was such a blessing for that, so many cool fuckin combos

[wintry palm]

Every new license brings new and fun combos. But I would admit, I would love an opportunity to try the Chimera. I have been wanting an aggressive Drone user. I am a bit worried that the Defensive stats seem a bit low , especially for a Striker but feel that i need to see for myself. I see so many people talking about the new Licenses but rarely does anyone mention any of the Alt Frames.

[worldly bay]

I'm secretly hoping that a player uses the Kallarani in my prospective Merc campaign, I love it's simplicity

Good barrages, plenty of versatile weapons

And an incredibly brutal drone, lol

I like the Nexus as well, it's fairly simple but getting a support option as well is nice

The accuracy from barrages can also be used to make triggering Centimane with it more likely

[wintry palm]

Happy you love it, I am just not a huge fan of licenses mostly stocked by weapons.

[south narwhal]

Kallarani is really just a C&H Everest.

[worldly bay]

I mean, all the base game manufacturers have their line mechs

Tortuga/Raleigh, Metalmark, Pegasus, Sherman/Gilgamesh

[worldly bay]

I mean, it has one extra weapon than most weapon-heavy licenses, and that one also counts as a system

Though I do admit I'm not too huge a fan of the shield gun, it's a bit underwhelming for the cost

[tacit rampart]

Raleigh being a line mech is very questionable due to how gimmicky it is mechanically and how it didn’t see many sales in lore

[wintry palm]

I personally like having more options than just shoot.

[worldly bay]

It would be more confusing if the Kallarani wasn't filled with guns

[wintry palm]

Not saying that it wouldn't, it is never without a weapon perfect for the job. Definitely an aggressive Everest.

But out of curiosity, has anyone tried the Hydra Alt "Chimera" ?

[swift barn]

you can define "line mech" in a billion ways

[swift barn]

we personally feel like it fits just since like. it's something of a mid-ranger but it's, very arbitrary

[granite marsh]

it's only a line mech if it's from the line region of space france. otherwise, it's just a sparkling striker

[languid cosmos]

a line mech is a three mount (including a heavy) size 1 mech with roughly average stats

[south narwhal]

The Sherman is a line mech because of the Solidcore.

[worldly bay]

The Raleigh is noted as IPS-N's failed line mech.

Exceptions and rules, etc

[dusk arch]

"Line mech" isn't even really a thing I view as being primarily diegetic in concept anyway

Line mechs are balanced, flexible general purpose three-mounters with a heavy

The Raleigh is basically the IPS-N equivalent of that regardless of in-universe popularity

[worldly bay]

I mean it's literally stated for most of them

Or... I thought it was. Thought it said something about that in the Metalmark lore

[dusk arch]

The Pegasus definitely doesn't, and nowhere in the Metalmark or Sherman do they talk about it in terms like "line mech"

[worldly bay]

Swallowtail is the one I'm thinking of that says that, mb

[dusk arch]

"The Metalmark is the backbone of Bella Ciao's mil-spec chassis line" is one thing, but the Swallowtail itself talks about being "especially popular among the rank and file troopers of Constellar Security forces."

ah yeah

so like, I don't discount those, but I also don't think there's anything to suggest the Line Mechs people refer to are inherently positioned as such in-universe in ways that are distinct

The Sherman being the Number Two mech behind the Everest to me is making more of a statement about HA's position in the setting than the Sherman's, if that makes sense

[worldly bay]

I think I was mixing details of pre-release community stuff up

While you're here, I had been looking at some chat history to see which Battlegroup hull would make for a good player base, and you mentioned that you pictured the Iphiginia as a modded Superior-class; is that still true, or has that changed since you made the Ebro as Union's pocket carrier?

[dusk arch]

Nah I stand by it being a frigate because that changes the dynamics of things both in terms of what it represents and what the Iphigenia is capable of. An Ebeo like the Rio Grande is a bit more of a general purpose thing and a little more "hands off," but a frigate is even by itself approaching things more armed, the Suldan mission isn't diplomatic

A frigate is also more capable of things like performing orbital fire support, poking at the satellite defense grid, etc

[south narwhal]

If the Warthog has Nanocomp, or Arcing/Seeking from some other source, can you use its secondary fire mode against two targets if you don't have line of sight to them? Or does specific beat general there?

[dusk arch]

I'm not quite sure exactly what's being asked here, sorry

what would the specific that's beating the general be?

[south narwhal]

When you fire this weapon you may choose one or two targets within range and line of sight up to 3 spaces away from each other. If you choose to attack two targets, this weapon's damage becomes 1d6 kinetic damage instead.

This makes it sound like it would require LOS even if the weapon gained Arcing or Seeking.

[dusk arch]

This weapon can attack two targets at a time up to 3 spaces away from each other. If you choose to attack two targets, this weapon's damage becomes 1d6 kinetic damage instead.

this is what the pdf says

I'm guessing this is an lcp thing

[south narwhal]

No, I got it from the PDF. I may not have the latest version.

2.2.2. that'd do it.

[dusk arch]

Okay I just double checked the pdf off the itch page to make sure I'm not also somehow- ah okay yeah

[south narwhal]

Sorry about that. :V

[dusk arch]

At any rate yes, you can nanocomp the warthog and use the split fire against targets out of LoS provided the "within 3 spaces" is still abided by

[worldly bay]

I'm getting the mental image of the bullet curving from the Fallout video of Ian opening fire with an SMG, except it's a bullet jumping over cover

https://youtu.be/oN8RejRo8Rg?si=7jR0UexICdpnz-OC

[south narwhal]

I'm thinking something like this, then.

-- HORUS Hecatoncheires @ LL6 --
[ LICENSES ]
  IPS-N WORDEN 2, SSC Swallowtail 1, HORUS Balor 2, HORUS Hydra 1
[ CORE BONUSES ]
  Auto-Stabilizing Hardpoints, The Lesson of the Held Image
[ TALENTS ]
  Heavy Gunner 3, Spotter 3, Siege Specialist 2, Drone Commander 1
[ STATS ]
  HULL:4 AGI:0 SYS:0 ENGI:4
  STRUCTURE:4 HP:19 ARMOR:0
  STRESS:4 HEATCAP:9 REPAIR:5
  TECH ATK:+1 LIMITED:+2
  SPD:5 EVA:10 EDEF:10 SENSE:10 SAVE:13
[ WEAPONS ]
  MAIN MOUNT: Mortar
  HEAVY MOUNT: "Warthog" GPMG (Nanocomposite Adaptation) // Auto-Stabilizing Hardpoints
[ SYSTEMS ]
  MASS Pack, Lotus Projector, Armament Redundancy, Personalizations

[wintry palm]

Hmmm, it's an interesting idea. But I would look into Goblin over Hydra. Trade "Personalizations" and "Mortar" for the Autopod as it would not only allow for more damage but Autopod is a Launcher, so Mass Pack can allow it to put Lock-On back onto the target at the cost of only 1 damage from 3 to 2.

[south narwhal]

Well, the point is to put MASS Pack on the Warthog and fire it with Heavy Gunner, because half damage is binary.

I picked Hydra because I thought I'd have enough SP for Puppeteer.

[wintry palm]

Nothing in the description of Mass Pack states it can only affect 1 weapon at a time. It can take a second Quick Action but it should still work

[south narwhal]

True.

[wintry palm]

Also, for someone who wants to be in Heavy Gunner range, your Evasion is low for a mech with no Armor. Perhaps trade 2 ENGI for 2 AGI

[south narwhal]

It's going to have Soft Cover most of the time, and be out of LOS when terrain permits.

[wintry palm]

So on average an Evasion of 14 (11 to 16). You are not using your Heat Cap or limited systems so increasing Movement to 6 and Evasion to 12+1d6 (13 to 18) would probably be more helpful more often.

[trim sand]

An extra 4hp and a repair might also be worth considering, if you really feel movement 6 is excessive.

[languid cosmos]

Hp is always, always useful

[wintry palm]

I would still recommend Agility as Heavy Gunner shuts down if your target hits you first. Increasing Evasion could help you dodge attacks to keep them targeted

[south narwhal]

True. And I think Held Image might also be excessive. I could take a third level of IPS-N for Reinforced Frame.

Though it's not something I'm actually playing, so :V

[wind patrol]

I’m famously dogshit at evaluating power levels, but is the Calvary Sword better than the Heavy Melee Weapon in every way or am I missing something?

[ionic badger]

it's not strictly better, the Heavy Melee has higher damage

Heavy Melee is 2d6+1, avg 8 damage
Anti Cav Melee is d6+3, avg 6.5

the Anti Cav having Accurate and higher threat does make it quite good too though, especially with Executioner, you just do give up on some raw damage for it

[wintry palm]

I personally think Accuracy and higher Threat would be more than a fair trade for the 1.5 average damage loss.

[ionic badger]

it's giving up on most of the damage bump of being a heavy, for more tags

which is pretty normal

[wintry palm]

Doesn't matter how much damage you can deal if you don't hit your target

[ionic badger]

it's definitely good
just not strictly better than the Heavy Melee or out of line IMO

[worldly bay]

It's easier to get more accuracy than more damage, though.

[ionic badger]

Especially in melee, with stuff like Pankrati

[gray thistle]

Saboteur Drone living rent free in my head. I can't beat its sheer coolness with anything I come up with without ending up with something similar 😔

[gray thistle]

Hope you don't mind me cribbing some of its things, if you do I'll scrap it: #homebrew-design message

[dusk arch]

yeah it's fine

[south narwhal]

Hmm, Kai, do you have any tips for making homebrew chassis wings that are not just balanced but fit the flavor of a mech?

[dusk arch]

didn't see this earlier, but idk if I have any specific tips per se, chassis wings are very small, condensed versions of their parent mech, I think what you want to do is identify a gameplay niche for a chassis wing to occupy and see if that meshes with a particular mech for parentage

[worldly bay]

Something I noticed is that they also let you bring something narrative about the mech to the forefront, like how the Barbarossa can serve as an auxiliary weapon because their intended function is to be a bunch of extra floating guns in a fleet combat

[tacit rampart]

Do y’all think I should houserule the Reaver Whip Damage to have tier scaling? (Like +1 damage per tier)

[dawn sedge]

your table, your rules man. Nobody is going to batter down your door because You Did Not Follow The RuleBook To The Letter (You Heathen). And if worse come to worse, you can just rollback the changes

[tacit rampart]

I’m not asking for permission I’m asking for advice

[south narwhal]

I wish the PDF had a table of contents.

[dusk arch]

It should have bookmarks, unless something broke

yep just checked the itch download, bookmarks are there

[south narwhal]

Ahh. I guess it's just that my reader on mobile doesn't have bookmarks that I've found. :V

[desert saffron]

can siege specialist 3 on a Tangler Cannon do dmg?

[worldly bay]

Yes and no, yes you are doing damage with the tangler cannon but the source is your talent, not the cannon

[manic laurel]

@dusk arch So, uh. my autism and my graphic design brain went a little nuts and had a mighty need to give Suldan a proper layout (mostly because I'm very visual and was having a hard time the 'wall of text' working layout). I did it entirely for myself and my Lancer group, but I can drop it in here if you want it?

[dusk arch]

uh okay sure, if you want to

[stable chasm]

does the Sagittarius's Blackjacket Combat Bow still automatically lose hidden when it does a reaction attack, like an overwatch or an attack from Scylla or Monitor Module, due to reactions in general breaking hidden? or are they considered part of the attack, making it not automatically break hidden unless the enemy succeeds on their save?

i read the weapon's description as only precluding breaking hidden via the attack and its results, while the attack would be a result itself of the reaction which would drop hidden first, but i'm not really confident enough to be sure

[manic laurel]

I know, it's weird, but I figured why not let others benefit from special interest meets professional ability.

[tacit rampart]

Oh damn

That’s really impressive

[manic laurel]

thanks!

[dusk arch]

damn, this is an insane amount of work

[manic laurel]

It did take a couple of weeks working on it in my spare time. Hence the offer 😂 Please feel free to use it.

[dusk arch]

I believe (though searching the discord backlog is frustratingly unreliable) that my ruling on this in the past has been in line with your thoughts, that Hidden breaks upon taking reactions, and the Blackjacket doesn't have a carve-out for that the same way it does saves generated via the attack, so making a reaction attack with it will break Hidden

[tacit rampart]

I was neither expecting the whole document nor this level of quality- it looks straight out of 1st party now. A couple weeks seems relatively fast from my PoV

[manic laurel]

That was the goal! Book layouts are one of my specialties, and honestly the number of times I've read something and yearned to give it a professional treatment--this is the first time I've actually let myself, though.

The Suldan material is just. So good.

So it's my gift to the community.

[stable chasm]

thank you!

[worldly bay]

Suldan looks great and proper

All the 3PP material I intend to use now has the proper treatment

[gray thistle]

This is amazing! My favorite homebrew now looks extra shiny.

[worldly bay]

My only quibble is that the images aren’t at the same quality as the original PDF, but I think that either Kai would need to do that or you’d need access to the originals.

Additionally, the Pilot Gear is lacking the table that tells you the stats of the weapons

[dusk arch]

The original document uses the original images but my guess is pdf conversion downscales them

It's up to cat, but I'd be happy to provide access to the originals

[manic laurel]

Yeah, I'd be happy to update the images!

[manic laurel]

I'll take a look and fix that

[manic laurel]

Thanks to @dusk arch for the original images, and @worldly bay for noticing I'd missed the Pilot Gear tables!

[steep bronze]

I created a very minor change to the tactical webbing since I think compcon features have been added since this was first made so that equipping it adds 4 SP. This was a super quick and dirty fix I did for my own character but thought I would share it.

[worn pawn]

If you use a spatial threader or system optimizer secondary effect for a bolster on an ally, is that effect also applied to an ally you're bolstering through packmule?

[dusk arch]

Yes

[silk notch]

Is this the place to ask for rules questions on the Field Guide NPC weapons?

[worn pawn]

probably

[silk notch]

wicked... A question on wording - the effect of this weapon, is that just a permanent bonus effect? The nightmare gets accuracy on tech attacks within range 3, all the time; or is it only on enemies attacked by this?

[dusk arch]

It's just a passive effect the weapon grants

[silk notch]

OKAY nice cool

[worldly bay]

Those are the most common thing I've put on nightmares, I love melee hackers

[raw mantle]

Is it just me or is the slug gun a bit too strong?

[dusk arch]

Did it come up that way for you in play?

[wintry palm]

I would say that it's relatively balanced. 2d6+6 AP is strong but Range 5 is short for a Cannon. Not to mention the Loading property and 33.33% chance to knock yourself prone if you fail a HULL check makes it balanced. Strong but forces you to build and take turns with it in mind. So high risk high reward.

[dusk arch]

I know that @tribal canopy had someone running it in their campaign for a good while, maybe they can weigh in

[dusk arch]

Broadly speaking this is where I look at it. If you want a heavy weapon that does really good damage and has minimal drawbacks, it's pretty hard to not just point to the GMS Heavy Machine Gun which is Range 8 and does 2d6+4 damage without needing to reload

Inaccurate is a penalty, but it's a penalty that gets less impactful over time, and can be much more easily mitigated than Loading in the sense that the answer to that drawback is a passive core bonus that's always on, while in order to maximize loading weapon uptime you're probably going to have to invest SP and centralize your turns around reload/overcharge looping

the upside of loading is there's some stuff you can hook into it if you want to double down, roland chamber and the like, but it does still arguably take up more of your real estate and mandate more of your gameplan than "point HMG at MAN"

in exchange for this you get higher flat damage, AP (which itself is generally estimated to be worth like +1.5-2 damage on average in a vague sense) and Overkill which is a tag that has both upsides and downsides, in particular in this case given that A). Overkill here means it can knock you on your ass, and B). random spikes of Overkill heat probably aren't things you want to have to deal with if you happen to be doing some sort of OC looping with a weapon

[tribal canopy]

It wasn’t too strong tbh

Basically the same as the raleigh heavy imo

In terms of power

[raw mantle]

isnt it a prone on the enemy?

[raw mantle]

it was more of a shock to the rest of the group that it had overkill, AP and 2d6+6 dmg

[wintry palm]

If you trigger Overkill, the weapon forces a HULL save on the wielder, knocking you prone if you fail the save.

[south narwhal]

And the prone is more likely if you're increasing the damage.

Also, again, Loading, as well as Overkill making OC looping it dicey.

[raw mantle]

overpower caliber?

[south narwhal]

Overcharge looping. You overcharge to fire, then stabilize to clear all heat and reload.

But yeah, it's Loading and has another downside, as well as having a shorter range than HMG.

[wintry palm]

The threat of being knocked Prone is pretty dangerous on its own. You can't safely chase after an enemy before firing the weapon or you would be knocked down and vulnerable to counter attack. This encourages a more stationary play style, or moving after firing.

[languid cosmos]

Or flight

[south narwhal]

Flight is an investment - either 3 SP, or a core bonus. Unless you can fire it while flying with something like RBJJ and not get knocked prone.

Though that is still a cost. You can't OC loop that way.

[ionic badger]

Loading and very short range

Loading is a really big downside

[south narwhal]

You know, it sucks that Stable Structure doesn't even help with the Reitarius or Slug Gun.

Because those are checks, not saves.

Anyway, my thought is that Rowan Reitarius would really have fun with a Duelist build, but it's got a Heavy Mount. It also wants Siege Ram, though, so...

-- C&H RETIARIUS @ LL6 --
[ LICENSES ]
  C&H RETIARIUS 2, IPS-N Tortuga 2, IPS-N Nelson 2
[ CORE BONUSES ]
  Auto-Stabilizing Hardpoints, Integrated Weapon
[ TALENTS ]
  Duelist 3, Hunter 2, Skirmisher 2, Vanguard 2
[ STATS ]
  HULL:4 AGI:0 SYS:0 ENGI:4
  STRUCTURE:4 HP:23 ARMOR:1
  STRESS:4 HEATCAP:11 REPAIR:6
  TECH ATK:0 LIMITED:+2
  SPD:4 EVA:7 EDEF:8 SENSE:10 SAVE:15
[ WEAPONS ]
  INTEGRATED WEAPON: Tactical Knife
  FLEX MOUNT: Shock Lash (Thermal Charge) // Auto-Stabilizing Hardpoints
  HEAVY MOUNT: Daisy Cutter
[ SYSTEMS ]
  Armament Redundancy, Bulwark Mods, Siege Ram, Personalizations, Rapid Burst Jump Jet System

As you can tell by the edit, I made two builds based on homebrew mechs with Heavy mounts and ram bonuses. :V

[tacit rampart]

With RBJJ you’re technically supposed to fall when the movement ends, aka when you skirmish

[tacit rampart]

That’s supposed to be erratad to affect both

[south narwhal]

Even with the errata, it still only affects saves.

[south narwhal]

No, because you can RBJJ and skirmish in the middle for Tactician 2.

[tacit rampart]

Oh oops

[tacit rampart]

Doesn’t RBJJ specify that you fall at the end of your movement? And if you interrupt the movement with an action the movement ends? Or am I misinterpreting?

[south narwhal]

You can move, take an action, and continue your move.

[eager cedar]

the thing you can do with the slug gun is, because it's prone after attacking, you can use skirmisher 2+spaceborn 2 to guarantee 4 movement on turns you fire it without remaining prone.

it's also a cannon so siege spec 2 can get in there as well.

[south narwhal]

That's 2 points of talent investment that you normally wouldn't take.

[eager cedar]

if I was aiming to use the slug gun it's where it'd lead me.

[cloud gulch]

chat i need some good ideas for ambush tactics grunts to use (i want to be as evil as possible)

[lapis whale]

Operators

Surround someone

[wintry palm]

Prepared Scouts and Witches

[jade thicket]

Specters in a circle

[desert saffron]

drag down

[empty spoke]

Are there any other third party supplements NOT recommended to use alongside Suldan? With broken combos etc

[dusk arch]

The big one people used to cite is the Morgana from Liminal Space, in conjunction with the Enhanced Systems Upgrade core bonus

[worldly bay]

In my planning for my next Merc campaign, I'm setting out the "one 3PP per player" thing, with some exceptions

(Legionnaire, Blood Money gear, and some of the talents from Maximum Threat being the exceptions)

And I'll watch for and litigate any weird inter-mech interactions as they come up

But given we're going to be using the Blood Money job structure, I expect savvy players that stick with Suldan to pick up the Kangto

[languid cosmos]

I tend to go with "dont mix third party mech level content"

Talents licenses etc

Pilot gear is fine, triggers are fine

except the madrigal

(Which is first party exotic anyway but still)

[swift mesa]

Yeah, turns out 'mech carefully tailored for the precise amount of heat you can get out of the game by default' and 'thing that gives more heat' get way too happy in the same build.

[worldly bay]

I was planning on using the Specialty Licenses as Tier 3 rewards for the Blood Money shop, though, they fit into that niche very well

[worldly bay]

@manic laurel Minor issue, the HA Foundry specialty license doesn’t have the tags for any of the profiles of the Modular Rifle

[manic laurel]

Appreciate the catch!

[knotty zinc]

heyo! apologies if this has been asked before, but do colony nexii from the Comet license equipped in a /aux slot benefit from the stacking damage mechanic? my intuition says no but i wanted to be sure

[eager cedar]

iirc it's not 'bonus damage' so it works just fine

[knotty zinc]

neat!

[south narwhal]

Its damage code is basically 1d3+X.

[tropic sundial]

Can anyone give a more detailed description of what the demon's fang might look like?

[finite needle]

well whatever you want lmao

[south narwhal]

My feeling is that it's a jagged blade that's enameled to look like bloody bone or maybe a tooth.

[worldly bay]

https://youtube.com/shorts/3ZlAdtKD-eA?si=pjg_E-Afh_yce58k

If any of my players take Devil! Black, referring them to this sketch

[finite needle]

hmmm i got quite curious about sagittarius

has anyone tried it? what are your thoughts overall?

[sick needle]

Sagittarius is very much an all or nothing frame. It's incredibly good at what it does (hiding and playing Green Arrow), but it's incredibly squishy and is very dependent on the map layout. Its effectiveness is also partially determined by if/how the GM counters you. If you're going to play it, I recommend learning the Hidden rules inside and out, consider what you want to do with it, and think about your overall party composition and what role you'll play within it.

[finite needle]

we have one hb melee fighter, one lycan with gorgon systems and scylla to protect it and swallowtail

[sick needle]

hb?

[finite needle]

homebrew

[sick needle]

Ahh

Well, it sounds like it could be a good complement to your party. Just be aware of its shortcomings and vulnerabilities, build towards its strengths, and have fun finding cover to hide in.

[tropic sundial]

Can anyone suggest me a grappling gajasura build at ll6 for a campaign? Vanilla stuff is fine but we are using a ton of homebrew aswell so suggesting stuff from the lcps is recommended

The lcps we're using are

• field guide to suldan (obv)
• field guide to dpok
• Shadow of Gehenna
• field guide to Jovo
• prototype pattern groups
• intercorp licenses
• enhanced combat alt frames
• legionnaire
• blood money
• Union Far Field//albatross
• and stellar codex

[tropic sundial]

Incorporating the bruiser talent would also be cool, it's a nice talent

[jade thicket]

That's a LOT of homebrew

I'm pretty sure there's some slightly nutty grappling related things in Intercorp's Heracles license

you definitely want good ol' Duelist 3, Pankrati 2, and maybe some Bruiser?

[worldly bay]

I specifically try not to mix 3rd party unless specifically designed to do so

[south narwhal]

Honestly, the thing you do with Gajasura is attack with the Demon Fang every turn, or as much as possible, and have the Heavy mount be something more situational. Cyclone Pulse Rifle is perfect for that because it requires no investment.

[tropic sundial]

Why specifically CPR and not something melee?

[south narwhal]

Because if you're going Gajasura, then you want to use the Fang every turn if possible. And it hits like a Heavy despite being a Main.

The CPR is for like if a witch shows up in reinforcements.

[tropic sundial]

I see I see

Interesting

[south narwhal]

And because you can't Autostab or OpCal the Fang, and your core power is an Efficient free action, you should take Universal Compatibility as your first core bonus. Insane levels of sustain.

[tropic sundial]

Yeah I kinda overlooked that when taking my first bonus

I took all environment movement

🥀

Would the motorised tetsubo be good?

[tropic sundial]

Anything else you recommend? Also hi tanoshii!

[jade thicket]

tbh I'd also avoid mixing the HBs and second Zemyla's suggestion -- something fire and forget for the heavy is good. maybe even Daisy Cutter?

[south narwhal]

Does Synchronicity (Efreet 1, Spatial Threader) let your ally fly if you fly?

[south narwhal]

The Kallirani's Core Power is listed as a Protocol, and a Burst 5 instead of a Blast 5.

[dusk arch]

Nope

[finite needle]

i guess air here functions as kind of an obstruction

because for a non flying mech air is indeed an obstruction

[dusk arch]

Broadly, nothing in lancer can force a mech to fly in that way

You also can't use knockback to knock someone into the air

[manic laurel]

I will get that adjusted

[green vapor]

Re: the conscript NPC, not mechanically but lore/setting wise

I think of the phrase: The scariest thing for a pbi to encounter is something that doesn't die when shot at.

The mechanised chassis can be said to be queen of the land battlefield (or king, but the apex predator is still artillery), and royalty wears a crown, but this is a really shitty crown.

Imagine what it must be like to be a conscript mech pilot: understanding that you are literally there to hold a position and maybe provide a speed bump in the face of professional troops so that others can have time to get to your position.

Your guns might as well as be peashooters, your engines are underpowered, your frame utilises clunky software that is better used to teach people how to walk than to navigate the rage of war, and if you somehow win the survival lottery they'll just send you into the next hopeless mission.

And worst of all: you're already considered luckier than the PBI by virtue of being in a mech.

Being in this rustbucket, but at the very least you get to carry around a boomtube that can give you a chance of making it past your first engagement.

[south narwhal]

That's why I want to, at some point, have the same two conscripts show up with bigger templates in subsequent missions.

[south narwhal]

Hmm.

-- C&H KALLARANI @ LL6 --
[ LICENSES ]
  C&H KALLARANI 2, HORUS Pegasus 3, SSC Death’s Head 1
[ CORE BONUSES ]
  The Lesson of the Open Door, Integrated Weapon
[ TALENTS ]
  Centimane 3, Stormbringer 2, Tactician 2, Gunslinger 2
[ STATS ]
  HULL:4 AGI:2 SYS:0 ENGI:2
  STRUCTURE:4 HP:21 ARMOR:1
  STRESS:4 HEATCAP:8 REPAIR:6
  TECH ATK:+1 LIMITED:+1
  SPD:5 EVA:10 EDEF:10 SENSE:8 SAVE:15
[ WEAPONS ]
  Integrated: Typhoon Airburst Projector
  INTEGRATED WEAPON: Nexus (Light)
  FLEX MOUNT: Nexus (Light) / Nexus (Light)
  FLEX MOUNT: MC-DWA Wasp Nexus / MC-DWA Wasp Nexus
  HEAVY MOUNT: Mimic Gun
[ SYSTEMS ]
  Armament Redundancy, High-Stress Mag Clamps, Eye of HORUS, Personalizations, Rapid Burst Jump Jet System

Multirole Armament is for getting the Mimic Gun bonus.

The other thing the Kallarani license makes me think about is this.

-- IPS-N Caliban @ LL6 --
[ LICENSES ]
  IPS-N Caliban 2, C&H KALLARANI 3, IPS-N Zheng 1
[ CORE BONUSES ]
  Auto-Stabilizing Hardpoints, Integrated Weapon
[ TALENTS ]
  Executioner 3, Siege Specialist 2, Skirmisher 2, Vanguard 1, Hunter 1
[ STATS ]
  HULL:4 AGI:2 SYS:0 ENGI:2
  STRUCTURE:4 HP:19 ARMOR:2
  STRESS:4 HEATCAP:7 REPAIR:7
  TECH ATK:-2 LIMITED:+1
  SPD:4 EVA:10 EDEF:8 SENSE:3 SAVE:14
[ WEAPONS ]
  Integrated: HHS-075 “Flayer” Shotgun
  INTEGRATED WEAPON: Type-17 Boarding Pistol
  HEAVY MOUNT: Type-96 Shield Gun (Supermassive Mod) // Auto-Stabilizing Hardpoints
[ SYSTEMS ]
  Armament Redundancy, Total Strength Suite I, Personalizations, Rapid Burst Jump Jet System

[quick aurora]

heads up/error report, ibeji still calls itself a protocol in the pdf and lcp currently available on itch (though the action type is correct on both)

[finite needle]

[ LICENSES ]
  IPS-N WORDEN 2, IPS-N OVERLORD 1, C&H KALLARANI 2, C&H SAGITTARIUS 1
[ CORE BONUSES ]
  Sloped Plating, Autoextinguishers
[ TALENTS ]
  Leader 3, Spotter 3, Stormbringer 2, Siege Specialist 1
[ STATS ]
  HULL:4 AGI:0 SYS:2 ENGI:2
  STRUCTURE:4 HP:19 ARMOR:2
  STRESS:4 HEATCAP:8 REPAIR:6
  TECH ATK:+3 LIMITED:+1
  SPD:4 EVA:8 EDEF:12 SENSE:8 SAVE:13
[ WEAPONS ]
  Integrated: Typhoon Airburst Projector
  Flex Mount: Shroud Missiles
  Flex Mount: Scavenger Nexus
  Heavy Mount: "Warthog" GPMG
[ SYSTEMS ]
  MASS Pack, MITHRA-Class NHP, Holo Charges x3```

the only reason this idea exists is the fact that typhoon is launcher, so as far as I understand it, mass pack can be applied to it

so yeah here is your support kallarani

(who definetly can still wreck with warthog)

[gloomy vault]

» Test Nelson Flight Type // TEST NELSON FLIGHT TYPE «
LL6
[ TALENTS ]
Executioner 3, Duelist 3,
Ace 2, Brutal 1
[ LICENSES ]
IPS-N Nelson 2, C&H KALISTA 3,
IPS-N Tortuga 1
[ CORE BONUSES ]
Superheavy Mounting, Auto-Stabilizing Hardpoints
[ MECH ]
« CERULEAN SONIC-BOOM »
IPS-N NELSON FLIGHT TYPE
H:4 A:0 S:0 E:4 SIZE:1
STRUCTURE:4 HP:19 ARMOR:0
STRESS:4 HEAT:10} REPAIR:6
ATK BONUS:3 TECH ATK:0 LTD BONUS:2
SPD:6 EVA:12 EDEF:7 SENS:5 SAVE:13
[ WEAPONS ]
Flex Mount: SUPERHEAVY WEAPON BRACING
Main/Aux Mount: Tiger Claws / Segment Knife
[ SYSTEMS ]
Siege Ram, OGOUN-Class NHP, ERA Layering

So I was bored and decided to make a Nelson FT with Kallista's Tetsubo and other stuff. I'm sure if I focused less on the Ramming and more on Nuclear Cav, this might be even more scary, but I was only theorizing for fun, so...here it is lol.

EDIT: just realized the copy/paste clipboard didnt add the motorized Tetsubo with Thermal charges mod....wow, thats a weird glitch for Comp/Con V3 XD

[digital sapphire]

The horus specialty license "Thirdeye" re uses the narrative description for the "Logos" specialty license.

[worldly bay]

Planning my Mercs campaign and I'm looking at Suldan pilot gear, specifically the weapons that also take up a gear slot; I'm considering waiving that because Blood Money's pilot weapons all have a secondary narrative effect

[toxic dirge]

Does the range and damage for this weapon in IPS-N specialty license one mistaken ?

[worn pawn]

that looks very wrong

correct tags and effect

it's threat 1 and deals 1d3-2 kinetic according to comp/con

[toxic dirge]

Seems like the effect of gladiator's weapon spiked shield is wrong,

[toxic dirge]

The breacher in re doesn't has any effects , it suppose to have ?

[tacit rampart]

@manic laurel heads up on some bugfixes above

[manic laurel]

Thanks all, I will take a look

[manic laurel]

Went through and double-checked all the equipment/mech/npc data. I won't guarantee I caught all the errors, but I can hope!

[worn pawn]

Does Tactical Webbing take a whole mount or can you for example mount it with an Assault Rifle on a Main/Aux mount?

[dusk arch]

the whole thing

[worn pawn]

dang

[dusk arch]

if you could get 4 SP for free for the cost of one aux weapon on a main/aux that would be extremely busted

[toxic dirge]

kai, when will u continue the rebake of suldan npcs, i could only find gladiator and conscript.

the ogre is not having a very characteristic focus as a striker different from berserker, so me and my Pls all hoping for a rebake for him

[dusk arch]

if/when I feel like it

[sick needle]

Our Agrippa decided to forego the Deployable Bridge on a sitrep where it could've been useful.

[pine forge]

Hey@dusk arch, does Ogre provokes Overwatch while doing this?

[dusk arch]

It can, yes

[pine forge]

Thank you :)

[dusk arch]

To be clear, overwatch is "when moving out of someone's threat," so it won't proc it if it's just rushing down one person, but if there's some other way for it to proc it (the movement carries it out of another hostile's threat, the target it's rushing down has Vanguard 3, etc) then the movement doesn't inherently ignore those reactions

[pine forge]

Is it though? On comp/con it says 'A hostile character starts any movement (including BOOST and other actions) inside one of your weapons’ THREAT.'

In my previous quesiton I meant "Can my player attack with Overwatch Ogre when it does that reaction?"

[dusk arch]

Yeah if the threat radius is large enough, but if it knocks someone back 3 spaces it probably won't be starting movement in that radius

If it's only 1 space it may happen, but only if the threat radius is, again, large enough

Generally "moving in someone's threat" will be them trying to slip past or leave the fight, there are times that may not be the case, but when knockback is involved it can reset the "starting in threat" part of that equation

[tacit rampart]

I feel that’s pretty common if the target has any CQB weapon

[dusk arch]

Maybe, but you aren't always fighting the decksweeper

[pine forge]

Ok got you! Thanks!

[south narwhal]

It's more likely if you've got threat 2 and make the save.

[dusk arch]

Yeah, it's mainly likely to come up if the target passes the save

[wheat moth]

Excuse me, I would like to confirm something.
Shield Array Drone of Sabreur, if i stop in a way that the drone is beside the enemy, it still counts as adjacent to that enemy right? And it is an ally, so Tactician still works? And if I move away when the Drone is Adjacent/overlap with the enemy, it will trigger enemy overwatch to be able to attack that Shield Array Drone?

[eager cedar]

definitely yes to the first two - it's a drone which is a character so it'll trigger adjacency and engagement(though it's only size 1/2 when doing so) in the whole size 2 area it takes up, and thus counts as adjacent for tactician 1.

for the last one I suspect the answer is no - based on the fact that it's immune to forced movement that'd cause it to break adjacency, and it's modeled as a similar effect to orchis's royal guard which ignores both engagement and reactions. while it doesn't say that it ignores reactions or engagment when mirroring movement, if it did obey engagement, that would easily cause it to break adjacency. on that basis of similarity it makes me expect it should also ignore reactions.

[wheat moth]

Alrighty. Thanks~

[trim sand]

Personally I'd err on the slightly conservative side of saying it's immune to the engagement but would likely still provoke the reaction as it starts moving when within threat. That said, wouldn't surprise me to be wrong about the intent here.

[trim sand]

---

Unrelated to above comment, in the Suldan Revised pdf (the pinned one) the Sabreur frame's Core Power is listed as "Deploy Anchorpoints". It doesn't mention anchorpoints, though, and that's the same as the one from the Retiarius.

Going back a few versions, the Sabreur used to have "Ancillary Battle Consciousness", which I suspect is what it's meant to be.

@manic laurel since you posted the most recent PDF I'm pinging you about this, but apologies if you're not the appropriate person, I wasn't certain.

(Checked, and it's still showing "Deploy Anchorpoints" for Sabreur's core power even in the 05-12-26.pdf version)

[manic laurel]

Ah, I was really hoping I'd found all the errors. Thanks, I'll update.

[trim sand]

Thanks! The latest PDF looks very nice, and I appreciate having all the layout and typesetting and such when browsing it!

[worldly bay]

Looks like it accidentally got the name of the core from the Retiarius

Speaking of which, the Blast Chain has the wrong name (listed in the entry as shock lash) and flavor text from the Pesilat’s Dipping Swallow Module

[manic laurel]

yeah, there was a lot of cutting and pasting to keep the layout the same. thanks as always for the catches. I'm used to having someone do an editing pass on my layouts after 😅

I think I've removed all the previous versions, and those edits are made here. @dusk arch if you want to pin this one.

[worldly bay]

Did this version go back to the low-res art?

[manic laurel]

no, that's all the higher res art. I can export it at a higher resolution, but it'll be a bigger file size

here is the print res version, but it is a whopping 93 Mb (as opposed to the 7Mb the exported for web version is)

[worldly bay]

I mean thats about twice the plain format pdf on itch.io is

[manic laurel]

yeah, it's export at 300dpi instead of 72

[rancid valve]

i kitbashed a gajasura because i think it's neat

[worldly bay]

I just spent about an hour codifying the Suldan hooks into possible Blood Money jobs

With the addition of a few "filler" jobs, like some lucrative Arclight jobs to give players opportunities to make a bad name for themselves (but worth a lot of manna), organizing some as narrative hooks, and ordering some hooks (like Heavy Weather happens if Scavenger Hunt isn't taken), I think it maps out to a good 4-5 LLs

Planning for my Mercs campaign, I was placing Suldan in a small group of nearby worlds near Sia Kangri station

[odd merlin]

I lovee Suldannn!

My baby is in here