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 Cyporiean wrote:
Are you planning on trying to get the game into distribution? That's one of the biggest factors that keeps our prices nearer to PP's (needing to factor in making profit on a 60~70% discount).

Doing my best on that, the goal of the kickstarter will be to raise costs to cover the printing, molds, art, etc so I can cover the inital developement. Once everything is taken care of it should be available to general retailers if all goes well.

I also plan on doing some convention events and tournaments as well.

 RiTides wrote:
That's a handy size/scale picture, thanks!

Just so I'm clear, that's a heavy mech and a quad, so you haven't put a price on the quads yet (if they're on 120mm, obviously they're going to be more, that just makes sense).

Can't wait

To be super clear yes that's a heavy mech and a quad. Estimate on the heavies is in the $30ish range. There is no costs estimate on the Quad yet as it's big as hell and I have no way to know yet as it's much bigger than anything I've previously cast.

If you need any help with Technobabble, rules review, etc, I'm happy to help.
I have a long history with babblese and creating rules.

(For example - the Mercury Helix Drive could be ran using a catalyst with burst of energy stored in a starter battery, vaporising then charging the Mercury with the crystal helix, that creates high intensity bursts of UV radiation, that are absorbed by capacitors, the energy charged used to partially to recharge the starter battery, the remaining energy being flushed into the mechs systems, while the energized mercury discharges, cooling and returning to its liquid form.
The Catalyst being a relatively rare material (only recently discovered in this futureverse) that makes the mercury vapour 'burn' brighter than it would normally, and with greater intensity than would normally be expected.
However, it's a relatively short-term burst of unique energy that's only usable by the electronic muscle system.
- This is just off the top of my head, I'm sure I could come up with better with more thought.
Also, I love giant robots )

That scale is amazing. If I had to find an issue with it, is that it dwarfs my Battletech N Scales. But that's not an issue.

 paulson games wrote:

 Cyporiean wrote:
Are you planning on trying to get the game into distribution? That's one of the biggest factors that keeps our prices nearer to PP's (needing to factor in making profit on a 60~70% discount).

Doing my best on that, the goal of the kickstarter will be to raise costs to cover the printing, molds, art, etc so I can cover the inital developement. Once everything is taken care of it should be available to general retailers if all goes well.

I also plan on doing some convention events and tournaments as well.

May I suggest that you talk to Mark Mondragon "NoseGoblin here on Dakka) about his DreamForge Games Kickstarter. It went really fabulously, and he probably can help you with tips to make sure you have a successful Kickstarter that won't drive you crazy.

Looking forward to seeing more!

-C6

I've already been in contact with Mark, he's a very nice and helpful guy. Gave me some really good insights on how to approach this and some leads to check on for production.

That's sweet since I'm planning to be supporting both of your companies. Different scales, so not even in competition (although there could be some crossover with the 15mm walkers he made for the Kickstarter, but that was more to bring them in line as proxies for 28mm non-titans, as his game itself is 28mm).

I am sooooo gonna be broke and on my way to divorce...........

Oh yes, Paulson is just as deserving of our support as Dreamforge.

So would the lighter mechs be closer to that 25ish $ range?

 paulson games wrote:
The Privateer Press warjacks that size sell for between $35-$60 depending on if it's a charater or not. Their large 120mm base stuff start around $85 and heads upwards of $135.

I'm aiming to keep the heavy mech in the $30-$35 range if possible. Light mechs will probably be in the $20-$25 range.

I'm going to try and keep the price on my quads down as I don't want anything quite that high in price. But i won't have a firm price on those until I have a physical model to calculate volumes from. Unless you are planning on an insanely huge battle a player wouldn't need more than one quad, at skirmish level they are pretty much your entire force save for maybe 1-2 light scout mechs.

Prices right now are just a guess-timate until I have the final printing costs back and I know exactly how much resin and silicone I'm using.

See above Mathieu emphasis mine.

Good. I've always loved the light-mech feel. Much to my chagrin, I must say, as they rarely could hope to bring a heavy mech down.

The tons system of Battletech wasn't properly balanced, I always felt. Since each mech has to pay it's tonnage in gyro, engine, cockpit and support systems, it was always wiser to have fewer mechs of a heavier tonnage. It didn't really scale right.

I dunno... I tended to do alright with lots of lighter mechs when I played...
Then there was the comedy of putting short-barreled Long Toms on light mechs....

The medium weight NorAm mech wasn't sitting quite right so we sent it back to the mech bay for modifications to bring it a bit more inline with the feel of the light & heavy. It wasn't bad but something seemed a bit off and the design didn't come off quite as strong as the others. The new changes are subtle but I think they improve the look.






One of the things I'm working on with the mechanics is how the armor and weapons scale. In battletech it always bugged my that a light mech and an assulat mech can boith carry exactly the same large laser. It does the same damage regardless of what mech is using it. So for my system as mechs get bigger they not only have a few extra damage boxes but the firepower of their weapon also scales up as well. A good pilot in a light mech can still damage or even kill bigger mechs, but if you are in a light mech you definately do not want to get hit by a heavy or quad as their weapons can peel through light armor like butter. (Light mechs are meant to rely on speed for their defense).

This is actually realistic (in a sense, there are general unrealistic things about giant robots as war machines, but the rule of cool is definitely in their favour).

If you look at modern armoured vehicles, they tend to fall into a few specific categories.

Very lightly armoured (ie an armoured jeep), these vehicles have enough armour to stop a machinegun, but a heavy machinegun can punch through and any sort of cannon, rocket or missile should obliterate them.

Light armour (ie an APC) that is resistant up to heavy machineguns and sometimes light automatic cannons, but a medium cannon and any kind of anti-tank weapon should demolish them.

Medium armour (ie an IFV). At this level a vehicle is impervious to anyting less than a medium autocannon and depending on the range and angle it can shrg off those too. We often see enhanced armour packages that prevent light anti-tank rockets and missiles from scoring a killing blow either. Of course a full on anti-tank gun, tank cannon or heavy anti-tank missile should still do the job.

Heavy armour (ie a tank) you need an anti-tank weapon to even hope of getting through this armour, and even then that might not be enough.

Now the trick with this is yes, on a lightly armoured platform (ie a HMMWV) you can put a weapon that can defeat heavy armour (ie a TOW launcher). of course if you sit still in a gunfight with that heavy armoured platform, there is a very good chance of it killing you before you can kill it because even its secondary weapons will rip you apart. So that is why the lighter armoured platforms need speed, agility and the ability to hide.

Another fun thing is that armoured vehicles tend to hae their armour biased towards the front and the heavier the armour you get, the greater this discrepancy becomes (ie there have Abrams tanks knocked out from the rear with a 25mm cannon despite having armour that should stop a 125mm cannon from the front). This is something that works in favour of more mobile units as they can position themselves for their shots to be more effective.

I hope Paulson's game has a mechanic that reflects this somewhat. I also hope that when armoured vehicles are added there is a realistic depiction of the relative capabilities of armoured vehicles and mecha (ie Armoured Vehicles should be about a weight class ahead of mecha in terms of firepower and armour).

I like both the old and new concepts above and they're similar. Although I definitely prefer the NorAm look over the Neo-Bloc generally...

Wowza, the scale looks completely fantastic. I am so freaking excited about these sculpts, especially the quads - they look incredibly cool. Consider me a subscriber.

Woahdamn. Awesome designs and it looks like they're going to be pretty damn big. I predict that a decent chunk of my disposable income is going to be going Paulson Games' way.

I'm not digging on the appearance of the quad legs, and I think it has to do with the feet. It looks like the legs of two guys doing squats back to back. It just looks awkward and ungainly to me.

I know spider style pointed feet would be out (too much pressure to be practical, but perhaps some sort of foot that either look like it's moving in the path of travel (ie, parallel to the body) or can be omi-directional. And is there anything wrong with a six legged mech? I'd think they'd be more stable.

There is nothing inherently wrong with a hexipedial, octopedial or even centepedial mecha, but there are design considerations that come into place as you go. One of the biggest is that the more limbs a mecha has, the greater the surface area compared to its internal volume is.

This may not seem like a big deal, but when you need to protect a mecha with armour it's huge because it means that for any given weight of armour on your mecha, the armor will be thinner. So by adding extra legs you need to decide if the reduced protection (or increased weight from adding extra armour to compensate) is worth it.

Jefffar wrote:
There is nothing inherently wrong with a hexipedial, octopedial or even centepedial mecha, but there are design considerations that come into place as you go. One of the biggest is that the more limbs a mecha has, the greater the surface area compared to its internal volume is.

That's true, but it's offset (typically) by the decreased ground pressure the mecha exerts to some extent, which allows you to have a heavier load capacity than a bipedal mecha for a given bit of terrain. Whether or not that increase in weight corresponds to greater or lesser defensive capability can depend greatly on the backstory. If it's simply more armor == better armor, than quads should typically have equal or at best slightly better armor (assuming that legs are armored more heavily towards the front). If it's a matter of active shields or some other techno-magic, then all bets are off, and the quads could be significantly more durable.

Either way, I think they look pretty neat. I can't wait to see what Spaceman Spiff makes one of them into.

The way the quad legs are set up is so that they'd be able to move in any direction without needing to turn. The "torso" functions simular to a tank turret where it can rotate and change facing. This allows the Quad to change direction from it's current posistion simply by rotating its torso on it's axis and going in a new direction, allowing them to turn on a dime even if it's done at a relatively slow pacing.

They are already slow and requiring extra time and lateral distance for turning would futher weaken them vs faster moving mecha. Most of the combat takes place in urban enviroments where maneuvering space for such a large mecha can be a limitation. A full 360 degree range of motions is why their legs look a bit awkwards with each leg/foot facing at an outwards angle.

A six legged animal can side step but it's more complicated as they still tend to built for forwards/backwards movements (or sideways in the case of a crab) The extra legs also place a limit the range movement of the foremost and rearmost legs making hard turns a bit more complicated.

If a Quad loses a leg there's a good chance of it falling, they can remain standing (or stand back up) on 3 legs but they are considered immobilized at that point.


Their role is pretty much to be a heavy duty firing platform, like a mobile gun turret or artillery piece they have the capacity to get into posistion but spend most of their time firing from stationary point.


.

 paulson games wrote:
The medium weight NorAm mech wasn't sitting quite right so we sent it back to the mech bay for modifications to bring it a bit more inline with the feel of the light & heavy. It wasn't bad but something seemed a bit off and the design didn't come off quite as strong as the others. The new changes are subtle but I think they improve the look.






One of the things I'm working on with the mechanics is how the armor and weapons scale. In battletech it always bugged my that a light mech and an assulat mech can boith carry exactly the same large laser. It does the same damage regardless of what mech is using it. So for my system as mechs get bigger they not only have a few extra damage boxes but the firepower of their weapon also scales up as well. A good pilot in a light mech can still damage or even kill bigger mechs, but if you are in a light mech you definately do not want to get hit by a heavy or quad as their weapons can peel through light armor like butter. (Light mechs are meant to rely on speed for their defense).

For me, I like the old pic. I like the larger window and bigger cockpit. Also maybe because the left gun is pointed at us the pose looks better as well.

As for the Battletech system, I liked it. Yes while it doesn't seem right that a light mech has the same lazer as an assault mech, I believe it was balanced. Everyone can use the same weapons, so it all comes to speed vs armour vs weapons. Everyone is on an equal playing field.

Now if criticals actually made a difference then you can do that. By that I mean, you "buy" critical spaces. Non of this small mech has 10 crits, a medium has 15 etc etc, you buy them for weight or tonnage. This way you make your small mech and it can be as small or big as you want (in a small mech category) and not have wasted criticals. So this way you want a small lazer has 1 crit, and a another small laser but bigger damage has more crit. This way everything is on the same scale other wise, it's just going to turn into everyone taking bigger mechs because the weapons are better and the small mechs can't compete.

That is why Battletech is good. All the mechs are on the same scale using everying the same. So while it may not seem right, it was at least balanced. The light mech doesn't get penalized for picking to be a light mech while the heavy mech gets a bonus because it can pick the light mech weapons as well as assault weapons.

Apologies if this has already been brought up and I missed it, but is there going to be some readily available properly scaled terrain offered up as well?

On a side note - I (and some others in a group) are working towards opening a game store, and I would love to have these on the shelves.

 Alpharius wrote:
Apologies if this has already been brought up and I missed it, but is there going to be some readily available properly scaled terrain offered up as well?

There's a huge amount of model railroad terrain much of what comes prebuilt and is really high quality. Pricewise it's typically cheape rthan GW terrain too. Right now I'm assembling a list of differant companies that have suitable stuff. When I have some of the mech prototypes in hand I'll show differant scales shots with the terain to give people an idea of what works well with them.

I'm looking into laser cut stuff but honestly I don't think it can come anywhere near the quality of the stuff companies like Kato put out. It's at a very good price point and amazing stuff.


http://www.katousa.com/N/Unitrack/structures.html

Their modern style buildings are awesome. Robin Fitton has been putting them to awesome use with his Gruntz tables. http://www.gruntz.biz/ He's got a pretty kick ass game too, although it's a bit more focused on the infantry and combined arms aspect.

Here's his Gruntz gallery: http://www.flickr.com/photos/inrepose/sets/72157625970078995/with/5461640223/


.

 paulson games wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Apologies if this has already been brought up and I missed it, but is there going to be some readily available properly scaled terrain offered up as well?

There's a huge amount of model railroad terrain much of what comes prebuilt and is really high quality. Pricewise it's typically cheape rthan GW terrain too. Right now I'm assembling a list of differant companies that have suitable stuff. When I have some of the mech prototypes in hand I'll show differant scales shots with the terain to give people an idea of what works well with them.

I'm looking into laser cut stuff but honestly I don't think it can come anywhere near the quality of the stuff companies like Kato put out. It's at a very good price point and amazing stuff.


http://www.katousa.com/N/Unitrack/structures.html

Their modern style buildings are awesome. Robin Fitton has been putting them to awesome use with his Gruntz tables. http://www.gruntz.biz/ He's got a pretty kick ass game too, although it's a bit more focused on the infantry and combined arms aspect.

Good luck with your endeavor. I'll definitely purchase something and see how the game mechanics work out. If I really, really, like it, like it I'll throw some substantial green your way.

I would like to see something new in this hobby. And if it sort of Dakka Grown then more power to it.

Edit: I also like Dream Forge Games as well. In business sometimes you go by your gut. I like what Paulson Games is doing. By July I'll find out what kinds of investments I need to make for the next 6 months. -Adam.

I have a question. will the mech be plastic kits or resin casts? I think I might have to purchase one or two just to build as kits for display..

mullet_steve wrote:
I have a question. will the mech be plastic kits or resin casts?

From 1st page of the thread:

 paulson games wrote:

Mechs will be resin and aproximately 60-70mm in height.

Those terrain pieces are nice - but rather pricey too.

I'll have to see what else might be available... I need a good table full of terrain for a game like this one!

It may be possible for warmill to rescale their pods and other scenery for 15mm scale with minor headaches.....

What I'll probably do is put together some properly scaled buildings that people can print off on card stock. I've built a few which hold up decently to game play and can support plastic and resin models placed on top. Old school metal dreads will probably cave them in however. It's not as cool as nice plastic terrain but they look pretty good for being fairly cheap, a ream of cardstock and 1-2 things of printer ink and you can make a small city.


I spent part of the afternoon getting the first model blocked out. I'm setting up a WIP thread so I don't keep clogging up the News & Rumors section whith stuf fthat belongs in a subforum. When I get a final version of the models complete I'll post them here but in the meantime I'll be using the other thread for WIP stuff.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/511518.page#5348960