File: openwarfare.png (382 KB, 764x317)

382 KB PNG

>>41582827
Basic synopsis:

>Earth was decimated in a war against a galactic empire of evolved machines called Cybots, capable of changing form at will
>now exists as an occupied colony world, with humans at the lowest rung of society, trying to eek out a meager existence.
>however, due to some long-forgotten hardware specification, human physiology is compatible with that of the Cybots. Through cybernetic modifications the two can be bonded together, augmenting the abilities of both
>the empire maintains these teams as peacekeepers and enforcers, simultaneously protecting and subjugating their fellows

>within the beurocratic mess that is the empirical government, each branch is looking to prove myself above its fellows. Interdepartmental espionage is not uncommon, and this backstabbing sense of one-upsmanship leads to a variety of dangerous secret projects

>Meanwhile, a human seperatist movement called RUST, using their mechanical knowledge to hijack the corpses of Cybots, launch terrorist attacks against the Empire in the dream of a free Earth. Led by Victor Steel, ex-Empirical Peacekeeper, current high commander of RUST. Installed with high-grade experimental Cyberware, Victor is capable of wirelessly hijacking compatible Cybots' uplink systems.

>operating in secret within the shadows of it all are the Inter-Orbital Confederate Police Agency, a group of space police aided by Cybot seperatists, working against the empire's malefic plans while protecting humanity.

>Within the upper eichelon of the Government are the Engineers, a secret cabal of Cybots with monstrous altmodes and a culture of ritual and mysticism. They are a group of anti-human Mechanical Supremacists, who resent the memory of their creators. Perhaps they remember something of Cybot history they wish to prevent from occurring again?

>>41582855
Got questions? Got ideas?

>what is it?
>where did it come from?
>how does it work, or how does it differ from what we know?
>what can it do?
>are there examples?

Last thread, most of the other threads' ideas have been gathered up in a worldbuilding doc that definitely needs tweaking and proper write-ups.

Additionally, rule considerations were posted, people were looking out to what the Witcher RPG will do with Fuzion, and what we can pick up from that game's lessons and refinements (see >>41548474).

File: Cybot party.gif (509 KB, 324x216)

509 KB GIF

Love that new thread smell.

Last time, there was some talk about Cybot dimorphism. It seemed like most people agreed that there isn't a set design pattern for Cybots, and that each one can look vastly different from another. Some could pattern themselves after humans, with soft polymer faces, some could look much more alien and inhuman, while others could be your traditional boxy robot-(wo)men.

The only features they really necessarily share are multiple modes (and the related kibble,) and the luminescent synthfles bluebox components (which can be recolored for fashion) that run over the internal skeleton like a musculature.

File: image.jpg (300 KB, 728x1084)

300 KB JPG

>>41583160

Yeah, I agree with this. Presumably styles differ across the Empire; at the very least your outer shell could probably change to suit local vehicle styles.

I was also thinking about anatomy, and how the interior atructure of a Cybot worked. It made me think of Franken Fran's Gavrill. Basically, the skeletal structure is partitioned into modular interlocking pieces, which build bonds between them- think of each "block" as having a nanite-built "joint" between them. So when a new vehicle is built onto the skeleton, the MELD components split up the shell and reconstruct the skeleton, and re-attaches the nervous system and bluebox components.

I figure something like this makes more sense than the Transformers movie's "its a special metal!" or something. It's a little less magical, and has an added element of difficulty- since it's not an "easy" process, it makes sense that they would't just swap modes at will.

File: image.jpg (32 KB, 500x300)

32 KB JPG

>>41583697
>that skeleton

So like these, except locked into configurations?

File: image.jpg (67 KB, 620x443)

67 KB JPG

>>41584154

>>41582855
>empirical government
They do a lot of counting and experiments?

File: tumblr_ll1tbt13Fp1qip448o1_500.gif (354 KB, 500x300)

354 KB GIF

>>41584826
I would imagine.

I think that's a gross error that just slipped into the c/p, there. Welp.

>>41585187
>typical day for megatron and starscream.gif

>>41583697
Sounds interesting.

>>41584154
>>41584160
Neato. Can't say I've ever seen these before. Combine with >>41583697 and I can imagine quite a broad range of construction options being more or less feasible if you account for more static structures for limbs and major skeletal components.

File: TF_FoC.jpg (41 KB, 460x215)

41 KB JPG

One of the things I'd suggest for weaponry is basing them off the weapons in this game, there is a nice variety of the guns in their and they each serve a different purpose

>>41589682
Yeah, that was mentioned before with the whole "your arm partially converts into the gun" thing.

>>41589801
Oh, didnt know that. Glad the idea was already out there

>>41589801

Partially, but weapons also integrate into them when fhey pick them up.

In the game, there's actually a system for energy weapons being fueled by the cybot's Own power core.

>>41583697
>>41584154
>>41584160

I like it. I can see each side of the little "block" cells containing a couple locks, and a hole for MELD component to lock onto or weave through. The "tramsforming" seams are where those blocks are unlocked, and the solid bits have the cells all locked together.

This is... Pretty logical, I guess. There'd have to be a few larger cells though to hold internal organs and subsystems though

So what parts need more work than others? Because I think we should try to prioritize what needs to get done

>>41590253
See that worldbuilding doc linked from the Google Drive? Someone already started on compiling the stuff into readable, manageable blocks, maybe shuffle bits and bobbins around. Feel free to write, add (and make the actual original notes smaller in font) and edit.

Additionally, we're awaiting a playtest or two of players trying out revised Fuzion with giant robots.

>>41590253

Yeah, as >>41590516 said, there's a whole doc of stuff compiled that just needs concise writeups. You can pick one of the shorter ones- or if something doesn't have many ideas, why not pitch some?

I'll try going in and adding all the stuff from last thread into it.

>>41590253
>>41590516
>>41590719


https://docs.google.com/document/d/13mBbUqbVGgppTcpmnOEcb1UbExtPpevqHJ-bzSYyloY/edit?usp=docslist_api

You forgot to post the link

>>41591022
>>41590719
>>41590516
I got to thinking on the part of "Humans on other colony worlds." While its not much in terms of worldbuilding for the setting, it may be a spark for a good campaign idea.

In the eyes of our merciful robot overlords, the one thing humans are good for are batteries. They'd probably try to use that to their advantage by deploying cells of one-zeros to the fringe worlds to try to keep the peace or send them to fight against the not!Autobots in secret covert espionage missions.

>>41591200

Makes sense. IOCPA Enforcers go to return a transported human colony back to earth, only for the humans to relay the coordinates of their ship back to the empire.

>>41591200
I thought the empire WAS the Not!Autobots and the Not!Decepticons were the Engineers.

Has anybody thought about how countries are changed on Earth?

>US (or "Oceania" for an '84 reference)
>East Coast US is basically the Sprawl; lots of tightly-wound roads wrapping into each other and going through what were once mountains. The headquarters of many government research and science agencies
>Middle America is runways, suspended highways, and bases. Cybots race across the massive highways that join the megacities. Humans off the grid live beneath the bridges and tracks.
>West Coast US is the other Megacity, with more asian influences in its human culture. Lots of industry here; it houses the military ministries. Has much more crime than the EC, so has tighter police restrictions.

>wester europe/Eurasia
>high-grade engineering happens here
>also the seat of Earthgov

>eastern europe/russia/Eastasia
>the eastasian colonies are where most manufacturing occurs

Not sure about other places. Maybe south america is a dirt-poor free state, due to weather conditions being shit for machines?

>>41592299

Nah the Empire's the not!Decepticons, the Engineers are the not!Unicron's Spawn (http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Unicron's_Spawn)/Sith, and both the the IOCPA and Equalists are the not!Autobots

>>41592400

So we'd need Asia, Africa and the middle east, and 'stralia.

I'm not sure about the Eastern and Western sprawls being the Science and Defense ministry seats though. I like Europe being high-grade engineering, and I like Russia being the manufacturing seat. What could Asia be?

>>41593226
I could imagine that asia along with the rest of the world would have numerous city ruins where humans fought to the end to fight off the cybots. So every-so-often you would come across a desolate city that had yet to be re-purposed that would act as a reminder to humans about their loss

File: image.jpg (255 KB, 1064x696)

255 KB JPG

>>41593497

Ooh, so ruined ghost cities with squatting shanty towns of off-the-grid humans, with Cybot patrols coming through, with the edges being slowly demolished and converted.

File: image.jpg (203 KB, 1273x1005)

203 KB JPG

So here's the weight classes from the Mekton Fuzion plug in, which I think we can adapt.

There's some weirdness here; an IRL cargo jet weighs like 200 tons, not 2 tons. But we can still use it for the damage calcs.

Which classes do you think we should roll together?

File: 1366787396807.jpg (83 KB, 762x668)

83 KB JPG

>>41594497
>big car weighs 800 kg

ahahahahaha a Series 2 Lotus Elise S weighs 860 kilos and it's small enough to fit in a modest-sized living room if you shifted the furniture a bit.

That said, the categories themselves don't seem too bad, just what they claim to represent. Maybe you could conceivably merge some of the microlights?

>>41594497

>Start with Microlight 3
>ML4
>combine 5 and 6
>combine superlight, lightweight
>striker and medium striker
>heavy striker-Medium heavy
>armored heavy-super heavy
>megaheavy

>>41594497

>vokswagon beetle is around 1400kg
>small car: 300kg

wat

>>41595331
Somebody was clearly drunk or from some obscure European country where the roads aren't big enough to support most cars that weigh more than a single metric ton.

>>41594497

Isn't there a weight conversion thing in Mekton?

>>41592400
>equalist freestate of south america
Thats kinda cool. I guess its just abandoned land that they avoid? There's probably not jungle left though, due to the pollution

>>41595840

How bad is pollution, anyway?

>>41596657
I'm guessing pretty bad, mostly from deforestation and mining, yet not as bad as it would have been from the same level of damage done by Earth technologies.

>>41595840
They'd probably leave it mostly alone with routine flyovers to make sure the area is pacified.

>>41597521

So more ecological destruction, but not as much trash and stuff?

I'd assume recycling is a huge thing

>>41597695
Well if you consider re-purposed cybot parts recycling then yes, because a free state not under cybot consistent overlook would be a pretty good place for RUST to be located.

>>41597695
To some degree; I also imagine that Cybot systems are just more efficient in certain ways and thus naturally just a bit cleaner.

>>41597845

I meant for Cybots and their production, but yeah, the Freestate is probably sort of a hellhole.

It may be an Equalist state, but RUST hang out there too- so I'd imagine the freestate is not trusted by most people

>>41597860

I can see this. We can assume Cybot fuel is similar to straight electricity, right? No direct pollution from its expenditure?

>>41598927
Probably, or just severely reduced byproducts.

>using the old logo

awww yisss

>>41583697
>>41584154
>>41584160
>>41589632
Woah, that's so weird. A cool idea though; I like how its a simple explanation for something that seems unrealistic at first glance.

Not to be 'that guy,' but how are we getting around square cube? Somebody suggested antigrav weight distribution, which seemed pretty reasonable.

>>41598927
>>41598961
Neat. They can burn up fuel without any emissions or output, but if it's anything like energon, it would cause emissions when they render the earth fuel to a compatible one.


Speaking of pollution, what reasons exactly would a robot have to avoid pollution, other than for humans' sake? I imagine the ways it interacts with earth's atmosphere would be a nuisance, what with the acid rain and things. Realistically they would probably be better off stripping off the earth's atmosphere entirely.

What if it's for protection from solar radiation? Earth's atmosphere mitigates the damaging effects of radiation in space on their systems, without requiring them to be indoors. The sheer novelty would make Earth something of a curious sightseeing spot.

>>41600022
Acid rain is one issue, exotic pollutants that can cause similar issues for them are another. Some may also find aesthetic value in not completely stripping the biosphere of a world.

File: image.jpg (176 KB, 1528x787)

176 KB JPG

Alright, so I've still been working on Size Classes, because it feeds into nearly every system: damage calculations, movement, character creation... These are what I have so far.

The HIT is the modifier for your chance to aim at that thing, MV is the natural Maneuverability penalty for that frame (so Small Motorbikes take a -1 to their base DEX,) and most other stuff is stat based.

The Base Weight is kind of an average for each vehicle class for collisions. Here's how they work:

DC vehicles' Weight:
>Base Weight + 1 DC per every 100 total SDP/KD of the Frame
Kill Vehicles' Weights:
>Base + 1K * [1/2 total SDP/KD of Frame in Kills]

Collision Damage- DC:
>1DC per 10MOV Moved + Weight
Collision Damage- K:
>1K per 10MOV Moved + Weight

This is simplified from the base rules. It's less simmy, but it's much faster and easier than both sources- I combined Mekton and Basic Fusion's rules.

You can see I split vehicles between Fuzion's two damage two "tiers"- DC rated (DC is human-level damage,) and Kill rated (Kills are obliterating damage.)

Basically Big Guys deal so much damage you'd be dumping buckets of die to damage them and keeping track of 1000's of HP.

When building a Frame, DC ones buy HP at:
>Armor: 1OP= 10KP, 10OP = 1K
>SDP: 1OP= 25SDP, 5OP = 1K

And Kills buy at:
>Armor: 1OP= 20KP, 5OP = 1K
>SDP: 1OP= 50SDP, 1OP = 1K

The two classes are divided by an empty bar on the chart, between the ~7m/20' tall Larges (your Ratchets and Ironhides) and the ~9m/30' high Very Larges (Optimuses and Starscreams.)

I can't decide if I want the class 4 Very Larges to be DC or Kills though; either way they'd be your early boss characters/midbosses; tough, but not insurmountable. The class 5's are where shit's supposed to get real.

>>41600901

Alright, so this is kinda a lot to take in.

I do kinda like the idea of the big truck guys being in the lower size class instead of being with the space ship guys though. It kinda separates the two classes more, you know? The spacers are completely above all the terrestrial guys.

>>41600901

Damn anon, those are some pretty serious numbers.

I really need to get around to reading the rules... This is all greek to me

>>41600901
If Very Large is a Jet or Truck, what are the other ones?

[Transformation noises]

>>41602008

Next one up is cargo jets or space ships, then battleships, then planetoids.

>>41582827
Fuck yeah, tg getting shit done!

I've just watched Gundam, Macross, Votoms, and Xabungle back to back, and boy am I ready for some mecha RPG action.

>>41604543
{Laser Sounds}

>>41594497
>Biggest Mekton bots are only 5.5 tons.
>Biggest Battletech bots are 200 tons

File: image.jpg (268 KB, 1536x1658)

268 KB JPG

>>41606660

Yeah, we've uncovered that Fuzion is real bad with weight. That's why I wanted to use approximations. To be fair I think their weight is balanced for gameplay reasons instead of realism.

The actual rules state that weight should be 1DC per 300DC or 1K per 10 tons, but then just about any mecha could obliterate ANYTHING. Our Planetoid Cybots, if you used the original rules, would weigh 200 tons; I figured throwing around thousands of Kills of damage was overkill, so I took out the concept of tonnage. Who the fuck wants to calculate how much a Moon weighs?

That said, at least that Mekton chart is base weight. Mekton can make some bigger guys.

>>41600901
...I may have to postpone my game then if these are character creation considerations I have to keep in mind. I mean, we already had the idea of just using the general available cars in BGC for vehicle forms at the moment, but if fleshed out stats for various classes become available, I will need to compare them to starting players and hopefully not have crazy amounts of damage, hitpoints or whatnot to consider.

>>41607036

You can use the BGC vehicles if you like for your game. Just ignore the weight column. The divide between DC and Ks prevents the numbers from getting too big.

>>41607215
Eh, worst comes to worst, it just means 'let's try out different rules for a session.'

Admittedly, the first session is mostly getting to know Fuzion, fucking around with the setting (totally stealing that 'hotblooded police trainee bros are apparently link-compatible, link up' entry), and seeing how it clicks before getting into the meatier portions of things.

>>41607348

Yeah I'd avoid trying to make custom vehicles yet for that.

>>41607373
Yeah.

>>41606596
pew pew

>>41607036

Oh noo, I hope you still go through with it. I was excited to see what came out of it.

How much of a curbstomp was the invasion?

>>41612350
Hopefully not quite Battlefield Earth.

>>41612350

Bad. Less widespread death though- but enough to absolutely destroy any sense of hope.

Not sure if Earth surrendered, or was just told "'kay, you're ours now."

>>41612985
I still really like the idea of Earth's cultural monuments being razed

File: image.jpg (45 KB, 500x375)

45 KB JPG

>>41612350
>>41612985
>>41613269

>it's been nearly 75 years since they came
>they took our culture, homogenized our national identities, took our agency
>no landmarks over 100 years old were allowed to stand, replaced with the Cybots' own brutalist monuments and buildings
>in schools, human history is reduced a simple fact: "We were lost, then accepted into the empire."

>>41613985

That's kinda spooky. Somebody coming in and designating what your world does and doesn't need...

>>41614903

Well human culture serves no purpose to the Empire at large

>>41615446

But didnt the Romans allow people to keep their cultures

>>41616569

In a way, yes. You were occupied but kept your religion.

Soviets, however, subsumed your culture into their gestalt nation.

File: Absolutely Haram.jpg (116 KB, 531x471)

116 KB JPG

>>41617932
>that lack of trigger discipline

>>41618030

The image says they're 2hus

Moeblobs are not known for their ability to reason

>>41598058
Another thing to consider is that the Cybots might allow resistance as a vent, allowing just enough to fall under their purview to make them a credible threat, while twisting that threat through media, tough choices to survive (forcing them to make inhuman choices to gain an easy victory, allowing them to survive by committing an atrocity, 'accidentally' allowing needed resources to fall into their hands/nearby).

Think of Emperor Palpatine, but a logical entity. NOT human (read the Ghost of Station X by Brian Clevinger to see an interesting example of a logical AI vs. an emotional AI). Quite unlike a lot of AIs in film and cinema, in that they wouldn't have a grudge against humans, that humans are just there, and that they can join or not join (irregardless, they'll play a part in making the forces more efficient in certain ways).

I get the feeling that certain parts of the Cybot forces are moved around, swapped, and made to do things in ways that don't always seem sensible, fair, or even logical.

I also get the feeling that the machines haven't necessarily polluted Earth at all, quite to the contrary, as the most efficient methods of extraction of anything useful (and that's a pretty low list of things, as space is abundant, and you don't need to pull shit from this planet to another planet FAR AWAY) leave nothing else undamaged/changed. Maybe they're more interested in biological life/strains of bacteria, so Earth might be more lush and far less polluted then otherwise.

>>41619083

Ooh, that's a good point. There was a hook earlier for the party doing a false flag attack that got pinned on RUST.

Reminds me of Brasil, where accidents are blamed on a nebulous terrorist threat.

>Ghost of Station X by Brian Clevinger

Ill have to check that out.

>>41619122
Another possible thing is that due to the destruction of humanity's history (or their access to it, keep in mind that the Cybots might have just scanned everything and then removed what they felt would be distracting), we don't know how they did things, only what they did now.

They could be slowly educating humanity to be independent or ready to become part of the galactic community to a degree. They're not necessarily evil, just controlling.

>>41619122
Oh, and a quick search suggests that that trade along with most/all of his other Atomic Robo work is online for free. Anyone else here who hasn't seen it, should (it has Carl Sagan using future-tech to fight off an invading extra-dimensional entity, and spouting one-liners).

>>41619434
> ready to become part of the galactic community
Perhaps as a fully-integrated Imperial branch?

What if the other alien races (or remaining alien races?) are all mechanical, and easily reconstructed and assimilated into Cybots. A few alterations and reformattings to convert all the Macs into PCs, so to speak. Humans would be a whole new weird thing.

Reminds me of "They're Made of Meat:"
http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html


>we don't know how they did things, only what they did now

I like this. The details of the invasion are mostly erased, save for a few oral accounts; most humans arent even aware of what was lost.

>Cybots might have just scanned everything and then removed what they felt would be distracting

this seems very much up their ally; they'd want to study us to find out how we were connected to the creators.

Plus, imagine a human jacked into cyberspace and coming across a 3D scan of the Pyramids, a monument humans made without the aid of machines.

>>41619579
Or it's broader then that. Or this is the...imagine if life was one giant constantly readapting campaign meant to teach us (the characters shit). Or our society shit. But the Cybots want us to be ourselves, our own race. They don't want to crush us like the europeans did to the americans ~500 years ago.

Best to leave things as broad as possible so people can run anything, but it's one idea.

>>41619702

I think the rules of thumb we can apply to the Empire are that while they aren't malicious, they are cunning and ruthless.

Can anyone tell me about the core system you guys made?

>>41620434

It's Basic Fuzion with a simplified Mekton bolted on and a few extra rules pertaining to vehicular combat.

The biggest mechanical change is a couple things regarding mecha hit locations and robotic characters essentially being treated as being permanently inside power suits.

For the base rules you can check:
https://rtalsoriangames.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/fuzion1.pdf
The gameplay is pretty much the same.


And for our in-progress draft go:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=11OMNA-txbnDXgrhHiNhnPuLJxpzPy2rqAZWljPfUn_k


Somebody else is working on another system though. You could also probably just use Mekton if you wanted, but IMO regular Fuzion is a little more fun.

>>41620530

Nice work, guys.

>>41620530

You forgot to mention that we've got a bunch of additional plugins and modules in the Drive.

>>41621361

Oh yeah, good point.

There's stuff for powers, netrunning, and a bunch of other stuff available too.

>>41620530

So right now, how viable are human characters?

>>41622492
For combat? Honestly, probably not very. Humans will always end up with less HP and damage output unaided. We'll have to add some features besides bonding to make humans more fun.

>>41622761

Damn, that's a shame. You sure we couldn't use artillery cannons and things?

>>41622997

Oh yeah, you can. I was also thinking of electrical traps and EMP weapons that ignore Cybot SDP, but don't effect humans (maybe.)

I think our biggest issue is human armor though, Cybots get into tens of K's of damage, while humans are small targets. Although Fuzion does scale massive damage on a curve, so low HP characters hit by extremely high damage attacks actually take less damage and just get knocked back (like how a very strong villain will knock back your heroes before they realize "he's too strong!!")

>>41623396
>damage scaling for weaklings

So...like how in cartoons civilians just get blasted out of the way by explosions?

>>41623966
Kinda!

Anyway, feedback from the first session of Fuzion Matryoshka Partition. For the most part, I just gave a handout of the Fuzion rules, condensed from the BGC core rulebook and the google drive docs.

Notedly,
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0Bxm6D9KltYzHflVfRkFkWWNIb0FHSEZyajgwbHZSX3k3NHQxeU8zazdPRmxNVVFfNDZ5STQ&usp=drive_web&tid=0Bxm6D9KltYzHfm5tVWhENFJvdkMwTFFnQzdKOElDeUx0cGlnSmkzZm1qdmxZZjZ2XzVnUHc
as from July 22nd.

For the most part, it was equal parts bullshitting, 'bootcamp' and 'police academy.' I had four players, two of which playing the hotblooded police bros as per >>41607348 (I know my players well enough to know what kinda chars they tend to make), one a civilian with a beat cop Cybot friend who aren't so much bonded but have a shared implied history and also street contacts are an option, one street ops bike cop and a human companion/colleague.

I'm quite happy how the players dug the idea of 'muh giant robot' and gave their own spin to transformation and how the encasing/bonding worked. More happy I was with how enthused they were about 'if Robin and Tom are playing the Cybots on patrol, Jenny and Leif are cool with playing their human buddies' so everyone was involved in scenes with banter and in-character responses.

For the most part, it was just in media res putting the bigger APC Cybot copss in civilian pacification mode to try and contain a recent riot. Mostly so I could get a feel for target numbers and the like, how everyone could see how skills interacted, weapon systems and such.

When the riots happened, the other half of the Cybot/human group mostly was trying to investigate crime scenes and local disturbances, again giving everyone a taste of what skill interactions there were for Fuzion.

Some comparisons to GURPS were made.

>>41624840
Continuing.

The gameplay was a little slow at first, character creation being the mainstay of our hours together and trying to work out details, but generally speaking, the setting was well-received, the system could work as-is. I'm gonna have to look over the additions and changes, since I see the rules being changed recently.

Any major considerations at the moment? Probably not. We've mostly assumed 20 CP / 30 OP for the humans, standard points per frame/size for the Cybots, though I did give the two players with APC cybots a free option for non-lethal concussive water blasts. Character creation was lenghty mostly due to the novelty of the system to us, but other than that, players picked up on it relatively quickly.

>>41624840
>>41624880
No particular problems popping up in early gameplay? Any fleshing out to the setting that your players added while you guys played?

>>41626097
>problems?
Nothing outstanding, but again, it was mostly getting acquainted with Fuzion. Not much in-depth digging with mechanics and coming across any major snags.

>fleshing out [...] the setting?
I don't believe I committed immediate questions and responses to paper yet. I'll have to check my notes, but generally, 'earth taken over by not-transformers, overbearing dictatorship, citizenship only for the binary-bonded or examplary service.'

>>41626129
Sounds like a good start at least.

>>41619083
Well, humanity is a precious resource to Cybots since binary bonding improves efficiency of cybot operations by a large factor. So I imagine Earth exports humans to other sectors of the Empire and various sub-Partitions have to petition to be granted a certain quota of humans. And the ways the humans are treated varies dramatically between Partitions - some overlords just treat them as cattle made out of rare earth minerals, others are more practical and enjoy human culture and intelligence, while some radical fringes experiment with equality away from the eyes of the Empire.

>>41624840
>>41624880

Excellent!

If you've got any notes, would you mind doing a little writeup on the drive for us?

Especially of any mechanical things you used or changed.

>>41628694
I'll be able to either in the course of this week, or after next weekend, when I have another session and some actual notes from the players. And some time to translate my notes to English.

>>41628961

Cool. Thanks for all your contributions!

>>41623966

I like this idea

So what other fluff or lore things do we need?

>>41630915

You could work on government structure or biology

>>41631357

I can do a little on government.

I know we've discussed partitional governments being composed of individual ministries for one, right?

File: image.jpg (73 KB, 556x510)

73 KB JPG

>>41631926

So, basing it on https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_the_Soviet_Union, we'd have the central Empire being the "Party," with the the General Secretary being directly overseen by the Emperor/Empress, with the Beurocrats also being empire-wide, and the Legislature dividing up into Partitional Governements

File: image.jpg (56 KB, 408x450)

56 KB JPG

>>41633043

...which breaks down into regional governments

>>41633043

Shouldn't both the party and legislature have partitional branches? Are ministries local or imperial?

>>41633043
>>41631926
>>41633504
>>41634267

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_Soviet_Union

Try looking at this

>>41631357

I think we've got most of biology covered. There was the skeleton stuff earlier, the MELD organs, blueboxes, communication...

>>41636433

Hmmm.... Well, we could use some fleshing out to the world. Other groups and organization; things like that.

Or even specific products and services. Car washes? All shops being drive-throughs? What about planes and choppers, or tanks? (i assume battleships just get things delivered.)

>>41634626
>>41634267
>>41633504
>>41633043

It seems pretty lazy to just copy an existing government organization. At least we could take inspiration from both Soviet and Roman government structure and add some unique quirks based on Cybot biology. Example: You know, they can have minds the size of planetoids, so maybe the huge Cybots are the ones that do long-term planning and leadership as the Partition controllers? They can be called Helmsmen (another communist term).

File: image.jpg (37 KB, 472x289)

37 KB JPG

>>41638825

>helmsmen
I like this.

Roman government had specific classes of government for specific tasks; this could fit with the aspects of the role that Cybot is supposed to play in society; the Peacekeepers could be designated Praetorians under a defense ministry, for example.

I think we might want to avoid being too similar to functionalism, though

>>41639551
>I think we might want to avoid being too similar to functionalism, though

Eh, the concept is generic enough that I think it can be done so long as it's not CALLED "functionalism".

>>41639656

Yeah, we've established altmodes can change, anyway. It's less Functionalism, and more an assigned job.

You could be a motorcycle, APC, Helicopter, or Jet cop, for example. They'd probably draw the line at swapping to an Ambulance, though.

>>41639656
>>41639838

Agreed. It's similar, but any kind of logical oppresive government will be the same

File: 2012-10-19-young_frankenstein.jpg (122 KB, 533x289)

122 KB JPG

>>41641882
dear god.

I started playtesting combat between two copies of the "Example" Cybot on the Drive (Melee only.)

It's a pretty simple little system, but I noticed that, even barehanded, combat could be pretty dangerous. You've got a lot of HP spread between your parts, but once your armor is pierced and you start taking Hit damage (half the damage you take to SDP,) things can get hairy. I used the Called Shots feature as well; I can see it being extremely useful for quickly taking out enemies.

Of course, this was two 'bots standing still and punching each other, but I think the way HP distribution is handled works pretty well. I imagine drones and weaker enemies can just have 1 Hit Location, of course, so you're not spreading your fire across 10 hit areas worth of Armor.

I'm also trying to work out how we should handle Hits and Stun for the Kill rated size classes.

>>41643175
Yep, that's what we did for training purposes too - drones with minimal hit locations (think 1 to 3 at most) and just trying our hand at 'how much points.x do I need to be good at X?'

>>41643197

Yep. Did you try any other actions, like Kicks or Grapples?


I'm thinking of jumping into testing vehicular combat next. This needs a quick rule patch; I've not written it in the doc yet, but right now your speed is:

>your MOV in Robot Mode
>MOV*4 in Vehicle Mode

This is primarily due to vehicles being unreasonably slow, and differentiating the Vehicle and Robot modes' functions more dramatically.

Since Speed is 3kmh*MOV, the Example Bot's Robot mode MOVE speed was 24kmh. Fine for a robot, but slow for a truck. Scaled up then, the Vehicle mode moves at a more reasonable 96kmh.

Granted, this is still in flux, but it's a good rule of thumb for now.