warboss wrote: It makes me smile a little to see that the brawler mamba uses the same underhanded grenade launcher position as I converted mine into years ago.
That's... the way it is supposed to go, that one
That's not how the old art showed it traditionally.
Maybe you're thinking of the original pit viper gear art? That one was the inspiration for me in flipping it upside down.
warboss wrote: It makes me smile a little to see that the brawler mamba uses the same underhanded grenade launcher position as I converted mine into years ago.
That's... the way it is supposed to go, that one
That's not how the old art showed it traditionally.
Maybe you're thinking of the original pit viper gear art? That one was the inspiration for me in flipping it upside down.
Look at the thumb of the left hand . Also, the ironsights are on the right.
JohnHwangDD wrote: I think there's a reason why they no longer show the plastics alongside the metals.
Is there a good place to go and see the metals all in one go?
They have a gallery on their website www.dp9.com but it's neither complete nor easy to navigate. Sadly, your best best is a google image search for each. Here's a group shot of the stock metal versions of the kickstarted models (minus the King Cobra). Honestly, I don't newcomers will care much about the differences just like they didn't/don't between the blitz metals and the tacticals until someone points them out. It's like the differences between a 2nd edition metal marine and a 2000 era plastic one.
Not sure how long it'll take to have them retire the metal lines...
*insert "I'd do a sad face if I could still care, but really, I'm just going to shrug and say what a waste" here*
Ebay metal starter deals are probably your best bet for the stuff at a discount if you want the metals. Then just buy the boosters of less popular gears as needed. The game has traditionally been mismanaged after every boost it gets in popularity and stores that decide to sell it get rid of the stock later. Miniature Market and especially Cool Stuff inc used to sell it (as did Wayland and the Warstore) but I don't see any HG minis on those sites anymore. Cool Stuff inc used to be my go to place for them as the HG stuff was usually at 50-90% off in their clearance section for years. I basically bought their entire stock of King Cobras (some of which were in the 2006ish packaging) back in 2014.
JohnHwangDD wrote: I think there's a reason why they no longer show the plastics alongside the metals.
Heh, probably for the better. For them. Anyways, if they are cheap, they are good enough to start with.
What "cheap" means in DP9ese remains to be seen, though.
Yup.
I'm assuming "cheap" means "no price increase relative to existing metal product. For 2016. No promises for 2017." Do you want to take the over or under for that?
warboss wrote: Ebay metal starter deals are probably your best bet for the stuff at a discount if you want the metals. Then just buy the boosters of less popular gears as needed. The game has traditionally been mismanaged after every boost it gets in popularity and stores that decide to sell it get rid of the stock later. Miniature Market and especially Cool Stuff inc used to sell it (as did Wayland and the Warstore) but I don't see any HG minis on those sites anymore. Cool Stuff inc used to be my go to place for them as the HG stuff was usually at 50-90% off in their clearance section for years. I basically bought their entire stock of King Cobras (some of which were in the 2006ish packaging) back in 2014.
There's quite a bit of HG Southern Army stuff on eBay, but I've no idea what I'd want, need or what will still be legal/viable/etc. in the near future!
Ebay and Amazon. Starters, squads, lots and armies will come for sale at substantial discount (-40%, or more) if you just keep your eyes open for them. Ideally, you get a Starter (Strike & Fire Support), Recon, and GP squads for whichever force(s) you like.
From a minimalist head-to-head standpoint, 2 Starters (Strike & FS each) are nearly ideal, especially if you're liking and getting the "good" (i.e. most brokenly powerful) factions (PRDF / Pax River / Paxton; Black Talons; NuCoal / New Coalition).
You should definitely wait before you buy until the final 2016 version of the living rulebook comes out as that will be the print version in starters. The ETA was last week with no update so far. It obviously might change in the future (hence the living part) but at this rate it should be good for a year. In any case, you can't go wrong with having a 2:2:1:1 ratio of troopers (Jaegers), commandos (Mambas), fire support (Cobras), and scouts (iguanas). If you just stick with the basics for now, you can get a feel of your favored playstyle and then build from there once you know the stats.
Jul 4 2016
Post Kickstarter Update #68: Updated Living Rulebook ebook Now Available to Download!
1 Comment
2 likes
We just updated the Heavy Gear Blitz - Tabletop Wargaming - Living Rulebook ebook today (July 4th, 2016). Its available now on the DriveThruRPG website at the following link for free download.
We also included a Changes Log to see whats changed from the fall 2015 Living Rulebook Beta edition ebook. Updated Weapons Sheet and new Objectives Selection Sheet have been added to the other free downloads included with the ebook.
Heavy Gear Blitz - Tabletop Wargaming - Living Rulebook Cover.
We'll be finishing up the Quick Start Rulebook, to be included in the Core Starter Sets, this week and sending it off to the printers once its ready.
Quick note for our International Backers we plan start sending out payment requests for the international shipping costs later this week.
Got the email and the dakka bump as well. Thanks! I took a quick peek and like the revised much smaller list of UAs. I'm not so much a fan of the cover though as it kind of looks like the plastic 3d files just plopped into a background and color added. The sensor eyes are definitely plastic'y. I miss Ghislain...
I have no idea if that is a good thing for non-CEF players (i.e. balanced) but congrats regardless! From the kickstarter comments a few days ago:
Creator Dream Pod 9 3 days ago
@ LanceCPL210. For retialers we only plan to offer the 4 army box sets at $59.99 USD each and the 2 player starter set (north and south armies with the quick start rulebook) at $89.99 USD and the Quick Start Rulebook at $19.99 USD. These will also be available thru the Dream Pod 9 Online Store and a bit later in the year we'll make individual plastic sprues available to purchase, but only thru the DP9 Online Store.
That seems fair (especially if those are the retail prices and an online retailer discount it further); if those are the discounted prices that the retailer will then mark up 40-50% then not so much. I'm glad they're making a more sensible 2 player starter instead of 4 player like in the KS... that's another suggestion I made years ago that was (until now) ignored.
warboss wrote: Got the email and the dakka bump as well. Thanks! I took a quick peek and like the revised much smaller list of UAs. I'm not so much a fan of the cover though as it kind of looks like the plastic 3d files just plopped into a background and color added. The sensor eyes are definitely plastic'y. I miss Ghislain...
If it helps any, that's what it is, so... and so do I, yeah.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
warboss wrote: I have no idea if that is a good thing for non-CEF players (i.e. balanced) but congrats regardless! From the kickstarter comments a few days ago:
Creator Dream Pod 9 3 days ago
@ LanceCPL210. For retialers we only plan to offer the 4 army box sets at $59.99 USD each and the 2 player starter set (north and south armies with the quick start rulebook) at $89.99 USD and the Quick Start Rulebook at $19.99 USD. These will also be available thru the Dream Pod 9 Online Store and a bit later in the year we'll make individual plastic sprues available to purchase, but only thru the DP9 Online Store.
That seems fair (especially if those are the retail prices and an online retailer discount it further); if those are the discounted prices that the retailer will then mark up 40-50% then not so much. I'm glad they're making a more sensible 2 player starter instead of 4 player like in the KS... that's another suggestion I made years ago that was (until now) ignored.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing... if those are final retail prices it would be a fairly decent starting point... But I'm not sure it will be, since the army boxes went for $65 each during the KS. Hopefully they will be posting the final retail prices soon.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Based on the pricing being "$x9.99", I think those are MSRPs.
KS prices were in $CAD, so hopefully you're right.
According to the internet, $65 CAD would be about $50 USD, and above they said $59.99 USD ber army box, so that's probably MSRP, yeah.
Hm... so that ill be about a dozen plastic minis for around 54 euros. That's... actually not that good, TBH, taking into account the size of said minis. Still, a big price reduction for Caprice.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Some clarifications posted:
Those are going to be the Suggested Retail Prices (SRP) that customers will pay in stores, we sell them to our retailers and distributors at a discount on the SRP:
Northern Army Box (14 plastic minis) $59.99 USD
Southern Army Box (16 plastic minis) $59.99 USD
CEF Army Box (15 plastic minis) $59.99 USD
Caprice Army Box (10 plastic minis) $59.99 USD
Two Player Starter Set (includes Northern Army, Southern Army, and Quick Start Rulebook $89.99 USD
Quick Start Rulebook (full color, softcover) $19.99 USD
So it will cost $209.97USD SRP get all the same 4 armies of plastic miniatures and quick start rulebook (buying the Two Player Starter Set plus CEF and Caprice Army Boxes) included in the War for Terra Nova Core Starter Set backer reward packages that we'll be mailing out. The Kickstarter backers pledge of $115 CAD (about $90.00 USD with the present exchange rate) to help us get the expensive plastic injections molds made, which gets them a pretty amazing Core Starter Set or army box backer thank gift reward package.
This makes the entry price level just $59.99 USD for new players getting into Heavy Gear Blitz and they have a nice sized army of plastic miniatures and can download the free Living Rulebook ebook. Or $79.98 USD for an army box of their choice and a printed copy of the full color Quick Start Rulebook. Or $89.99 USD for the Two Player Starter Set with North and South Armies (30 plastic minis) and a copy of the Quick Start Rulebook.
We hope that with the new rules, new plastic miniatures, and good entry level pricing we should be able to better compete with the other games on the market and build the Heavy Gear Blitz player base over the next year. Also the fact our new Plastic Miniatures are being Made in the USA and the new Quick Start Rulebook is being printed in the USA should help as well.
JohnHwangDD wrote: A Games Workshop Tactical Squad is $40 USD, so you'd get 15 comparably-sized Space Marines with all their bitz for the same $60 USD.
Thing is, GW is not exactly cheap, you know . And according to their minis breakdown, it's between 10 and 16 minis for $60.
It is not stupid expensive like it was until now (for americans, that is, we dirty europeans will pay a tad more than that :p), but it isn't very cheap, either.
As I recall, GW sees themselves as the Rolls Royce of gaming, with pricing to match. And their SM plastics re relatively affordable within that context. The Pod following GW pricing is about what I had expected.
The key difference being that GW's plastics are leaps and bounds better than what the Pod is selling.
Nomeny wrote: GW is selling Heavy Gear miniatures now?
Dreadnoughts... the OG gearstrider.. and something that belongs in HG almost as much!
I think the prices are a big improvement. With 14-16 minis in a polar faction set for $60 USD, that's effectively 3 squads (one gear short for the north, one extra for the south) using the old 5 man squads for $20 each. That's half the price of the old metals in squad boxes and only a little bit more than the price of a single metal FS gear by itself. I think that's a big improvement and the numbers probably only get better once you compare with the very price heavy larger resin Caprice and CEF models.
Does anyone know why there is a 2 model discrepancy in numbers between the polar factions? What's included in each? IIRC they had the same numbers unlocked (and then later relocked due to poor curreny choices by dp9). I thought they had parity between the two.
The difference is that South gets 3 Drones instead of 1 Recon Gear!
Ah, yes, thanks. I forgot about the drones. While technically, yes, they're correct that they're individual models via the in game rules from a modelling perspective it's like saying a rocket pack is a whole different "model".
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing... if those are final retail prices it would be a fairly decent starting point... But I'm not sure it will be, since the army boxes went for $65 each during the KS. Hopefully they will be posting the final retail prices soon.
I don't recall the exact currency conversion at the time but, looking at some of my earlier posts during the campaign in this thread, it looks like DP9 said $80 USD was $92 CAD.. so $1.15 CAD for $1 USD at that time. A single army box pledge was $65 +$15 shipping CAD so around $56.50 plus $13 shipping USD for KS backers. The typical online store discount for indy companies like DP9 is 20-30% ($42-48) and they frequently have more reasonable shipping rates due to not being international (and sometimes free shipping over a certain amount). If anything, the online retail deal will probably be better if all you want is a single force. This may not apply to you though due to the tertiary currency conversion and extra international shipping though. This is all dependent though on an online store actually carrying their products again which with my simple search last week indicated isn't currently the case.
Also, adding dice has the Ork effect, where the results get more and more consistent, and therefore predictable. Rolling 5d6 for a 3+ skill gives a vastly more consistent total than rolling 3d6 for a 4+ skill.
One thing that is being missed is how additional dice interact with the roll. There's two systems going on at the same time - the traditional Silhouette system where adding more dice results in a more predictable final result before the augment is calculated. As you add dice you trend towards 6, such that you can (mostly) expect a 4-5-6 on 2D6 and a 5-6 on 5D6.
The augment is a separate system, which benefits as you throw more dice. So a 2+ gains roughly +1 for each dice you throw, whereas a 6+ does not. That layers ontop of the Sil system to give you higher results as you accumulate dice (modifiers).
And FWIW, going from 4+ to 3+ adds roughly 0.7 to the final total. Numerically, one might as well add +1 for the 3+ over the 4+. At least, assuming that I've made no systemic error in calculating my totals (based on the examples in the rules, I think I'm doing it correctly).
The problem with straight modifiers is that they completely swamp the dice once the delta becomes +2 in on direction or the other. I.e. if you're throwing 2D6 +2 and I'm throwing 5D6 -2, you're vastly more likely to win. This is been present in every version of HG - find the best modifier you could, and you're golden. The augment process is intended to weaken the modifier, especially with the higher augment values. The theory is that it allows tactical choices (that add dice to the pool) to be magnified for high augment models, and minimized for low augment models. A tank with PIL 6+ rolling 5D6 will consistently get a 5-6 value; but a Gear rolling a PIL 2+ on 5D6 should expect 8-11.
JohnHwangDD wrote: My observation is simply that, for the result that the Pod is getting, the HGB mechanics may be unnecessarily complex.
Entirely possible - but straight modifiers with Sil have significant problems. You have to go to D10s to get enough space to let straight +1 modifiers have some impact without completely flooding the dice result.
What are your thoughts, Ice, on the current close combat rules (assuming you've looked at them even)? They seem a bit deadly. I recall you wanting them to be deadly as a reward for running the risk of getting into combat in the first place but I'm not sure it's working currently as intended. It feels like the sources of close combat extra d6 has ballooned significantly and you can get squads of gears that routinely cripple other trooper gears and deulists that reliably one shot them (>50% of the time) at relatively cheap prices for both. I'm a bit concerned about the close combat power level to be honest.
@Ice, I was just sharing what my simulations came up with. I suspect others can confirm something similar from a statistical standpoint.
Re: 2d6+2 vs 5d6-2? That's completely intuitive, as the equivalent is 4d6 vs 3d6.
Also, 2+ and 6+ are exceedingly rare among standard gears. The vast bulk of HG combat stats are 4+, then a few 3+, then a few 5+.
Most 5+ / 6+ are EW actions that really should be absorbed into the core mechanics. OTOH, it's a logical mismatch for the realism of the universe vs the game that gets played.
But it's OK. I get that you were going for a finer gradation than what I would prefer.
warboss wrote: What are your thoughts, Ice, on the current close combat rules (assuming you've looked at them even)? They seem a bit deadly. I recall you wanting them to be deadly as a reward for running the risk of getting into combat in the first place but I'm not sure it's working currently as intended.
The original intent was to make melee deadly enough to warrant dodging 2-3 rounds of shooting. The game was structured (I hesitate to say balanced, because it wasn't) around the idea of a 18" nominal range, with 6" movement. A shot at 18" range in the open should generate 1-2 points of damage 70% of the time with autocannons / missiles. Gears would have 3-4 hits - so basically you were trading not dying for two rounds for a chance at melee. The odds weren't in your favor, so melee weapons needed to be strong enough to make the trade-off worthwhile.
I've not looked at the current version of the rules, but I know they started slapping Agile (+1D6 defense I think) on everything under the sun. I think that was a reaction to people being horrified at how easily Gears died under the alpha system. I know it was a particular point of concern for the Vegas crew, because they played on basically open boards, whereas the game was built around more dense boards. They were basically playing on Warmachine boards, whereas I was testing on boards somewhere between Infinity and 40k levels of detail. At that time, you'd be looking at 4D@4+ versus 2D@4+ for a shot in the open at 18-24" range, which could cripple or kill with some luck. It felt like they kept dialing back the brutality so I'm not surprised if you're back at the situation where melee feels too strong.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
JohnHwangDD wrote: @Ice, I was just sharing what my simulations came up with. I suspect others can confirm something similar from a statistical standpoint.
Re: 2d6+2 vs 5d6-2? That's completely intuitive, as the equivalent is 4d6 vs 3d6.
Hurm. I've run the numbers (quite a bit - see my Aurora articles about it) and that doesn't seem right. The outcomes of 2D+2 aren't similar to 4D; the 2D+2 will yield 6,7,8 on most rolls, whereas 4D will yield a 5,6 on most rolls. The outcome of 5D-2 will be 3,4 most of the time, whereas 3D yields mostly 4,5,6 (at a higher rate than 2D). In a 'take-the-highest' system adding dice shifts the final result towards 6, whereas adding modifiers shifts the entire curve.
So no, I'd take 2D+2 over 4D any time. MRondeau and I wrote up an article about Sil system dice systems - if you're curious, you can find them on Aurora 5.6, 6.1 and 6.2 - or check the source document.
If that wasn't what you were driving at apologies - I assume you're talking about a 'keep-highest' system like Sil above.
Also, 2+ and 6+ are exceedingly rare among standard gears. The vast bulk of HG combat stats are 4+, then a few 3+, then a few 5+.
Yup. Playtesting was supposed to figure out where to land most things. I started with only the absolute outliers at 2+ (Cheetah) and 6+ (Tanks), but figured most things would move around a bit. 4+ was supposed to be the baseline with room to move up or down for things like the Jaguar or Tiger. 3+ and 5+ should be fairly common though.
Most 5+ / 6+ are EW actions that really should be absorbed into the core mechanics. OTOH, it's a logical mismatch for the realism of the universe vs the game that gets played.
Yeah, the different mechanic for EW was something I really wanted to get rid of. I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now - I would rather have keep a consistent approach. I had hoped to replace it with a flat target number, but didn't get enough testing in before I handed the reigns over. This and the cover system were the two big failings I wish I'd gotten to correct before leaving.
That's pretty funny. It's amusing the we now consider 40k boards to be "dense", when I recall when a couple small buildings and a couple tree stands to be typical terrain. I do like the notion of dense (>50%) terrain for skirmish games.
I do like how you were trying to balance melee as an option, where I'm OK having melee as a strictly inferior option compared to direct shooting - but that's a function of the VOTOMs-type anime that I believe forms the basis of how Gears would fight. ____
ETA - To clarify, I wasn't saying that the 2d+2 isn't equivalent to 4d; I was noting that (2d+2 v 5d-2) would be comparable to (4d v 3d) in a general sense of which side should win in a (highest+adders) format.
Quite frankly, I think you did a good job with what you were able to change. Getting rid of the multiplication is a huge help.
JohnHwangDD wrote: That's pretty funny. It's amusing the we now consider 40k boards to be "dense", when I recall when a couple small buildings and a couple tree stands to be typical terrain. I do like the notion of dense (>50%) terrain for skirmish games.
Well, we're weren't playing with Infinity levels of terrain, but they were denser than 40k boards. I'd say 60% of the surface was covered, typically with walls, buildings or dunes. I'll try to dig up some photos if I can. I was trying to stay faithful to the source material which makes Gears out to be sitting ducks if they are in the open. The system was structured that way - a tank on a open board was basically unstoppable, because that's the way the fluff read. So that's the way I tried to shape the rules.
I do like how you were trying to balance melee as an option, where I'm OK having melee as a strictly inferior option compared to direct shooting - but that's a function of the VOTOMs-type anime that I believe forms the basis of how Gears would fight.
Yeah, that's my preference as well - but giant axes and swords sell well. People should get to play with the minis they like, IMO. So I had the option - but made it very high cost v. reward. That let people play to their preference, they just needed to work if their preference was close combat. That said, we played a few times on urban boards - and Gears quickly destroyed tanks, but were picked off by infantry in turn. That seemed to fit the fluff, so I was happy with the outcome.
warboss wrote: What are your thoughts, Ice, on the current close combat rules (assuming you've looked at them even)? They seem a bit deadly. I recall you wanting them to be deadly as a reward for running the risk of getting into combat in the first place but I'm not sure it's working currently as intended.
The original intent was to make melee deadly enough to warrant dodging 2-3 rounds of shooting. The game was structured (I hesitate to say balanced, because it wasn't) around the idea of a 18" nominal range, with 6" movement. A shot at 18" range in the open should generate 1-2 points of damage 70% of the time with autocannons / missiles. Gears would have 3-4 hits - so basically you were trading not dying for two rounds for a chance at melee. The odds weren't in your favor, so melee weapons needed to be strong enough to make the trade-off worthwhile.
I've not looked at the current version of the rules, but I know they started slapping Agile (+1D6 defense I think) on everything under the sun. I think that was a reaction to people being horrified at how easily Gears died under the alpha system. I know it was a particular point of concern for the Vegas crew, because they played on basically open boards, whereas the game was built around more dense boards. They were basically playing on Warmachine boards, whereas I was testing on boards somewhere between Infinity and 40k levels of detail. At that time, you'd be looking at 4D@4+ versus 2D@4+ for a shot in the open at 18-24" range, which could cripple or kill with some luck. It felt like they kept dialing back the brutality so I'm not surprised if you're back at the situation where melee feels too strong.
Agile is one about a third of gears (typically the commando and scout ones) and less than a quarter of other stuff and apparently has been toned down. A tie in this version of the game (MOS0) is a "hit" and you go on to calculate damage... agile turns an MOS0 into a miss.
I ran a scenario through a dice roller program someone posted on dp9forum and a Jager shooting at a hunter out in the open at its LAC's optimal range will generate an average of about 1.5 damage a turn (so dead in 4 turns roughly)... and that's the optimal scenario. Factor in a suboptimal shot or two coming in, cover, other defensive modifiers (still more common than offensive ones), etc.. and the practical damage a turn is lower. The damage at arm's reach and cutting each other with light vibro blades is also 1.5 damage a turn. The issue though is withclose combat optimized units IMO. For example, a veteran hunter xmg with the melee gear upgrade and vet ability (16pts) overkills a full health Jager 50% of the time (and has an average damage of 5 with his vet reroll)... and you can take a squad of them.. and the xmg takes 0.78 damage per turn under OPTIMAL conditions coming into melee range. Duelist are even more powerful.
Obviously this example is a nearsighted one with the two models alone on the battlefield (apply salt as needed) but it still concerns me.I suppose with open battlefields that it might be a fair fight with focused fire (the hunter is 6pts compared to 16pts for the xmg above) but as it stands I doubt it'll take anyone more than 2-3 turns to get into close combat with some enemy model using top speed double moves unless he or she deploys at the back edge of their own deployment on a 4x4 table (the standard) and the enemy does the same. Once you reach that first target, the rest is just hopping along from one to the next if you weather the snap fire. I fully admit I haven't tested it out but my powergamer sense is tingling. Also, I'm just using northern models as an example as I'm more familiar with them at the moment but similar scenarios exist with the other TN factions (haven't looked at the off worlders much).
IMHO the main problem is not really melee combat being brutal (it probably should be decisive, once you get there): it's that with the current rules the rest of the damage tend to be too low. For example, an optimal LAC shot against a Hunter/Jäger/whatever should have a decent chance of crippling the Gear, IMHO.
warboss wrote: Agile is one about a third of gears (typically the commando and scout ones) and less than a quarter of other stuff and apparently has been toned down. A tie in this version of the game (MOS0) is a "hit" and you go on to calculate damage... agile turns an MOS0 into a miss.
Hurm... I'd have to run the numbers, but offhand that's an incredibly powerful boost. The opposed system (Sil and then mine) tends to generate ties in the most common case, so modifying that result is going to have an out-sized impact. For instance, in a straight Sil comparison switching from '0 means miss' to '0 means hit' flips the percentages from 40% in the attackers' favor to 60% on 2D v. 2D. So taking that most common case and making it a miss is probably stronger than a +1D, because that dice has a chance not to contribute to the result. As usual people probably thought that was 'toning it down' and - not understanding the math - ended up doing the opposite of what they hoped for.
That's speculation mind you; I went to verify the numbers with my calculators and found they have gone away. I'll have to rewrite them in order to give a definitive answer.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Albertorius wrote: IMHO the main problem is not really melee combat being brutal (it probably should be decisive, once you get there): it's that with the current rules the rest of the damage tend to be too low. For example, an optimal LAC shot against a Hunter/Jäger/whatever should have a decent chance of crippling the Gear, IMHO.
To me, this is the main point. Back in the Alpha, a LAC shot in the open was almost a guaranteed 1 point of damage, and 4 points wasn't out of the question (down in the 5% range). Gears only had 4 points (a Hunter was 3/1) so crippling it on a single hit happened more than once in my playtesting. As I speculated above, I bet they have intentionally made it less brutal over time. That works against the premise which was to build a game where things died quickly, so you shifted the battle-size from 10-15 to 20-30 models per side instead.
warboss wrote: Agile is one about a third of gears (typically the commando and scout ones) and less than a quarter of other stuff and apparently has been toned down. A tie in this version of the game (MOS0) is a "hit" and you go on to calculate damage... agile turns an MOS0 into a miss.
Hurm... I'd have to run the numbers, but offhand that's an incredibly powerful boost. The opposed system (Sil and then mine) tends to generate ties in the most common case, so modifying that result is going to have an out-sized impact. For instance, in a straight Sil comparison switching from '0 means miss' to '0 means hit' flips the percentages from 40% in the attackers' favor to 60% on 2D v. 2D. So taking that most common case and making it a miss is probably stronger than a +1D, because that dice has a chance not to contribute to the result. As usual people probably thought that was 'toning it down' and - not understanding the math - ended up doing the opposite of what they hoped for.
That's speculation mind you; I went to verify the numbers with my calculators and found they have gone away. I'll have to rewrite them in order to give a definitive answer.
FWIW, I did the calculations in the previously mentioned dice roller. The results were as follows:
GUN 4 optimal LAC vs ARM 6 PIL 3 Agile
52.3% chance of doing any damage, 1.28 average damage
GUN 4 optimal LAC vs ARM 6 PIL 3
60.9% chance of doing any damage, 1.36 average damage
According to the program's creator, the results are gathered by brute force (iirc that is the Monte Carlo method JohnHwang mentioned a few weeks back) supposedly running a million random trials and grouping the results into percentages. Most agile target gears are PIL 3 (Mambas, Jags, iggies, Cuirassier, Gladiators, etc) so I used that as the stat so it's not exactly the 2D vs 2D equal comparison. Bumping it up to a GUN 3 MAC at optimal vs the same imaginary targets:
60.3% 2.12 Agile
76.2% 2.28 Non-agile
The usual disclaimers about me not actually coding the program or having the wherewithall to check it apply.
Doesn't MOS=0 currently have a 50% chance of doing 1 hull?
What level of lethality were you looking for? Obviously, it's less than 4 rounds, but more than 1, right?
As GW famously noted for WFB, 1 model kills 1 model as fast as 100 models kill 100 models or 1,000 models kill 1,000 models. Merely increasing the model count doesn't really change the pace of the game.
Albertorius wrote: IMHO the main problem is not really melee combat being brutal (it probably should be decisive, once you get there): it's that with the current rules the rest of the damage tend to be too low. For example, an optimal LAC shot against a Hunter/Jäger/whatever should have a decent chance of crippling the Gear, IMHO.
To me, this is the main point. Back in the Alpha, a LAC shot in the open was almost a guaranteed 1 point of damage, and 4 points wasn't out of the question (down in the 5% range). Gears only had 4 points (a Hunter was 3/1) so crippling it on a single hit happened more than once in my playtesting. As I speculated above, I bet they have intentionally made it less brutal over time. That works against the premise which was to build a game where things died quickly, so you shifted the battle-size from 10-15 to 20-30 models per side instead.
@ IceRaptor and Albertorius:
I agree with you both. Gears now btw are standard 6 boxes of damage with the hunter at 4/2 and most gears at 3/3. In the scenario you presented (a Jager vs Hunter), an optimal LAC burst has a 65% chance of doing any damage, 24% to do 3 or more (your crippled example), 12.9% to do 4 or more (your destroyed), and 1.7% to overkill a full health target. From the GMG videos I've watched, you can still overkill gears but it seems like that is generally limited to the big dice roll variances with large MOS using upgraded weapons. This is without actually playing myself but it seems deadlier but not significantly so (mainly due to every gear going to 6 damage boxes whereas previously it was 3 standard in blitz). It doesn't seem like it'll promote bigger battles to be commonly played as a standard but rather allow the current default size (2-3 squads of 4-5 gears each per side) to be played to conclusion in a reasonable time frame. Even with low model count armies at the last Gencon "championship" tournament back in 2013, the only battle to actually get past turn 3 in two hours iirc was a super low model count Talon vs Talon battle. I'm guessing that will change rather than the rules raising the standard model count much higher.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
JohnHwangDD wrote: Doesn't MOS=0 currently have a 50% chance of doing 1 hull?
What level of lethality were you looking for? Obviously, it's less than 4 rounds, but more than 1, right?
As GW famously noted for WFB, 1 model kills 1 model as fast as 100 models kill 100 models or 1,000 models kill 1,000 models. Merely increasing the model count doesn't really change the pace of the game.
Not technically unless the pen and armor are also equal. MOS+PEN=ARM gives you a 50/50 chance of doing 1 damage. If you get an MOS 0 with a Heavy anti-tank missile (PEN 10) vs a ferret gear (ARM 4, not agile), it goes splat.
As for the 1 model vs 100 vs 1,000, that's not necessarily true. Calculating, grabbing, rolling, determining results, and removing dice and models from the table means that there is a linear relationship between the pace and model count in GW games. The math isn't any more complicated and the time may not increase noticeably in a virtual environment (i.e. a computer game using the rules) but in tabletop practice it most definitely does... just not at a 1:1 ratio.
Sorry, yeah, I was thinking the base case where Pen=Arm. Sorry.
For the 1 v 100 / 1000, if you resolve in blocks of 100 / 1000, it's the same, which is what GW was getting at back when people wanted to know how 12 or 16 models (WFB 5E-6E) could represent massed infantry.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Sorry, yeah, I was thinking the base case where Pen=Arm. Sorry.
For the 1 v 100 / 1000, if you resolve in blocks of 100 / 1000, it's the same, which is what GW was getting at back when people wanted to know how 12 or 16 models (WFB 5E-6E) could represent massed infantry.
Ah, sorry, I didn't get that meaning from the reference. In GW's "defense", that's a common hand wave in historical wargaming. I remember my second game ever of historical minis when I was told I'd be commanding a large army of figures representing thousands of troops in a massive battle. When I got to the group DBA game, my Roman Legion was about couple dozen 15mm tiny little low detail blobs on a half dozen strips of metal. Needless to say I was a bit disappointed.
According to the program's creator, the results are gathered by brute force (iirc that is the Monte Carlo method JohnHwang mentioned a few weeks back) supposedly running a million random trials and grouping the results into percentages. Most agile target gears are PIL 3 (Mambas, Jags, iggies, Cuirassier, Gladiators, etc) so I used that as the stat so it's not exactly the 2D vs 2D equal comparison.
What POW is a LAC sitting out now? They are supposed to be 1 point about Hunter armor, so that MoS 0 = 1 damage. If a LAC is POW 6 vs. ARM 6 I'm not surprised that the numbers are where the program is calculating them - that's shifted the balance further towards defense, again. To be fair I may be forgetting changes that happened on my watch (it's been 2 years!) but it sounds like there's been a slide towards less lethality overall.
My recollection is the spread was supposed to be POW 7,8,9 (LAC, MAC, HAC) vs. ARM 6,7,8 (Hunter, Mamba, Grizzly) . I know they added the wonky 0 = 4+ damage rule (which I loathe), but I think that was shortly after my departure.
Yeah, expectation vs reality...I really want to do a true scale historical /ancients game with modern plastics. But with 5mm figure blocks. Really well-sculpted blocks with 100s of heads each for an army that looks like an army. Then I want to do Asian battles. Where the blocks are 1000s each.
The latest version of the HGBTTWGLRB has Jager at AR6 and 6/7/8 AC Burst:1 Split:2. VB is 7/8/9 AP:1/3/5.
IceRaptor wrote: What POW is a LAC sitting out now? They are supposed to be 1 point about Hunter armor, so that MoS 0 = 1 damage. If a LAC is POW 6 vs. ARM 6 I'm not surprised that the numbers are where the program is calculating them - that's shifted the balance further towards defense, again. To be fair I may be forgetting changes that happened on my watch (it's been 2 years!) but it sounds like there's been a slide towards less lethality overall.
My recollection is the spread was supposed to be POW 7,8,9 (LAC, MAC, HAC) vs. ARM 6,7,8 (Hunter, Mamba, Grizzly) . I know they added the wonky 0 = 4+ damage rule (which I loathe), but I think that was shortly after my departure.
Current LAC is POW 6 with Burst 1 (+1d6 to attack rolls) and Split 2 (may split attacks between two targets). A Hunter's Armor is 6, with 6 damage points.
IceRaptor wrote: What POW is a LAC sitting out now? They are supposed to be 1 point about Hunter armor, so that MoS 0 = 1 damage. If a LAC is POW 6 vs. ARM 6 I'm not surprised that the numbers are where the program is calculating them - that's shifted the balance further towards defense, again. To be fair I may be forgetting changes that happened on my watch (it's been 2 years!) but it sounds like there's been a slide towards less lethality overall.
My recollection is the spread was supposed to be POW 7,8,9 (LAC, MAC, HAC) vs. ARM 6,7,8 (Hunter, Mamba, Grizzly) . I know they added the wonky 0 = 4+ damage rule (which I loathe), but I think that was shortly after my departure.
Yup, the autocannons are 6/7/8 but your armor values stayed the same in that example. I don't recall when that changed (or even recall that it had frankly) as I largely didn't pay attention to the rules for about 2-3 years beyond just looking occasionally at the army construction parts. The average damage with just that 1pt pen increase goes from 1.47 to 2.10 in a hunter vs jaeger fight.
edit: I was ninja'd by the Spanish Inquisition! I didn't expect that....
Automatically Appended Next Post:
JohnHwangDD wrote: Yeah, expectation vs reality...I really want to do a true scale historical /ancients game with modern plastics. But with 5mm figure blocks. Really well-sculpted blocks with 100s of heads each for an army that looks like an army. Then I want to do Asian battles. Where the blocks are 1000s each.
I didn't expect thousands of minis but what I did expect going in was warhammer fantasy (this was around 1993-1994ish) sized blocks of formations but with 15mm figs to simulate the mass battles. What I got was 8-12 15mm blobby figs each glued to a pair of metal strips 4" long and 1/2" wide for my formation. :(
IceRaptor wrote: What POW is a LAC sitting out now? They are supposed to be 1 point about Hunter armor, so that MoS 0 = 1 damage.
My recollection is the spread was supposed to be POW 7,8,9 (LAC, MAC, HAC) vs. ARM 6,7,8 (Hunter, Mamba, Grizzly).
Yup, the autocannons are 6/7/8 but your armor values stayed the same in that example.
edit: I was ninja'd by the Spanish Inquisition! I didn't expect that....
JohnHwangDD wrote: Yeah, expectation vs reality...I really want to do a true scale historical /ancients game with modern plastics. But with 5mm figure blocks. Really well-sculpted blocks with 100s of heads each for an army that looks like an army. Then I want to do Asian battles. Where the blocks are 1000s each.
I didn't expect thousands of minis but what I did expect going in was warhammer fantasy (this was around 1993-1994ish) sized blocks of formations but with 15mm figs to simulate the mass battles. What I got was 8-12 15mm blobby figs each glued to a pair of metal strips 4" long and 1/2" wide for my formation. :(
Spoiler:
So the LAC is supposed to be +1d6 *and* 7v6? Or just 7v6?
Also, you got double-ninja'd.
I don't want 1,000s of figures, I want 1,000s of heads... Basically really bumpy blocks with textured sides.
JohnHwangDD wrote: So the LAC is supposed to be +1d6 *and* 7v6? Or just 7v6?
Yes; the base-line for the system was a ATK:4+ DEF:4+ Hunter with AC: 7 (Burst:+1D) vs. Arm: 6 Jager with 3/1 damage. In the open add +1D. So typical shot of 18" should be 4D@4+ vs. 2D@4+, 7v6. Crippled was half your pool, rounding up (which became -1D because pools rarely went over 4D).
Burst also used to be a pool - so you could throw allocate those dice how you liked (against separate targets). 3x 1D rolls, a 2D + 1D roll, or a 3D roll versus 1 target.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Thanks, yeah, that's a far more lethal environment. And not unreasonable based on the fluff of light armor and big guns!
Much more lethal. Overkill from full health is the single most common dice result (lumping 4, 5, and 6 damage hits together since they're effectively the same result.. overkill) at 24% of shots. If you fire an LAC at optimal range from a hunter to a jager, you'd at do at least a point of damage or more 73% of the time and cripple the target or worse 39% of the time. A commando gear like a Mamba shooting at a hunter with an MAC would overkill it from full health 46% of the time! That is some votoms level carnage that would definitely lead to higher model counts and less record keeping... but probably not be appropriate for skirmish model counts. I've got some interesting ideas on that...
warboss wrote: That is some votoms level carnage that would definitely lead to higher model counts and less record keeping... but probably not be appropriate for skirmish model counts. I've got some interesting ideas on that...
Keep in mind that's against a sitting duck target - they aren't in cover (+1D, +2D, +3D) and you have a clear LoS. Having just some cover flips that to 3D@4+ vs 3D@4+.
Which goes back to - melee needs to be lethal to be worthwhile.
Very true, Ice, and it feeds into the almost infinity level of terrain you were advocating. I'm just not sure that level of terrain is likely for most players (past, present, and future). GMG for instance has plenty of terrain and they had lots of out in the open shots in their videos. Time I suppose will tell.
warboss wrote: Very true, Ice, and it feeds into the almost infinity level of terrain you were advocating. I'm just not sure that level of terrain is likely for most players (past, present, and future). GMG for instance has plenty of terrain and they had lots of out in the open shots in their videos. Time I suppose will tell.
Yup. It's definitely a mistake I made when setting the foundation of the game. I wanted a more lethal setup - and the community response (judging from changes made in the Beta forward) was against that approach. I just hope it ends up being good enough to let them continue the line for a bit longer.
Ouch! Just got my IOU for shipping to the UK. $76 shipping for the core set + decal sheets and the b/w reference sheets. Not entirely sure how EU friendly that is..
warboss wrote: That is some votoms level carnage that would definitely lead to higher model counts and less record keeping... but probably not be appropriate for skirmish model counts. I've got some interesting ideas on that...
Keep in mind that's against a sitting duck target - they aren't in cover (+1D, +2D, +3D) and you have a clear LoS. Having just some cover flips that to 3D@4+ vs 3D@4+.
Which goes back to - melee needs to be lethal to be worthwhile.
Yeah, exactly: basically in a situation where Gears would be at its greatest disadvantage. Which hopefully would make them use their surroundings more tactically, and would also have the side effect of being true to source regarding the tanks-Gears relationship in the setting.
I'd personally add a "dodge" bonus if the unit did nothing but run/evade for the turn, but other than that...
That said, smaller tables with more terrain would be better for the game, I think. 4x4 should probably be the standard for a medium to big game. Hopefully with lots of terrain and at least some hills and the like.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Siygess wrote: Ouch! Just got my IOU for shipping to the UK. $76 shipping for the core set + decal sheets and the b/w reference sheets. Not entirely sure how EU friendly that is..
Hah! I was expecting something like this... now if any store would actually stock HG over this side of the ocean again, I'd probably be able to get it cheaper than with the KS.
Albertorius wrote: Yeah, exactly: basically in a situation where Gears would be at its greatest disadvantage. Which hopefully would make them use their surroundings more tactically, and would also have the side effect of being true to source regarding the tanks-Gears relationship in the setting.
I'd personally add a "dodge" bonus if the unit did nothing but run/evade for the turn, but other than that...
That said, smaller tables with more terrain would be better for the game, I think. 4x4 should probably be the standard for a medium to big game. Hopefully with lots of terrain and at least some hills and the like.
IIRC, Gears get +1d6 for cover, or +1d6 for running at fast speed. Or are you suggesting an extra, 2nd bonus die?
Once the game goes 4' deep, you're kind of wanting a dedicated 4x6' gaming table. OTOH, if you're nominally only 3' deep, then you're back to a 3x5' kitchen table with a preferred 3x4' game area.
JohnHwangDD wrote:
IIRC, Gears get +1d6 for cover, or +1d6 for running at fast speed. Or are you suggesting an extra, 2nd bonus die?
Once the game goes 4' deep, you're kind of wanting a dedicated 4x6' gaming table. OTOH, if you're nominally only 3' deep, then you're back to a 3x5' kitchen table with a preferred 3x4' game area.
I suspect Albertorious means something like the old "We're in trouble!" action that gave you a bonus +1 to defense. I suppose now it would give you a bonus to pilot skill. Also gets me thinking...
Siygess wrote:Ouch! Just got my IOU for shipping to the UK. $76 shipping for the core set + decal sheets and the b/w reference sheets. Not entirely sure how EU friendly that is..
Please tell me you're joking... are they really expecting you to pay roughly 70% of the cost of the pledge for shipping? After all those EU friendly jpegs on the kickstarter? How much of that is due to the butt whoopin' the Gbp has taken thanks to the brexit vote?
JohnHwangDD wrote: IIRC, Gears get +1d6 for cover, or +1d6 for running at fast speed. Or are you suggesting an extra, 2nd bonus die?
Once the game goes 4' deep, you're kind of wanting a dedicated 4x6' gaming table. OTOH, if you're nominally only 3' deep, then you're back to a 3x5' kitchen table with a preferred 3x4' game area.
I admit I'm not sure how exactly how it works right now: I was indeed thinking about +1d6 for running.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
warboss wrote: Please tell me you're joking... are they really expecting you to pay roughly 70% of the cost of the pledge for shipping? After all those EU friendly jpegs on the kickstarter? How much of that is due to the butt whoopin' the Gbp has taken thanks to the brexit vote?
Seeing as they're asking in $... nothing? If anything, if they got a quote in pounds for a shipment, it would end up being cheaper.
I would have been unimpressed paying $76 when the pound was strong against the dollar for exactly the reason you said, Warboss - it's almost the price of the core set again. Paying $76 NOW is definitely a bitter pill to swallow.
The initial estimated shipping costs IMO were quite high and would have prevented me from backing as a new international backer but these new ones seem about 30-40% higher. I suppose the almost year of delays since the original due date hurt that estimate's accuracy even more. Then compound that with the precipitous drop of roughly 15% in the GBP due to the brexit and you have more issues. I really don't envy backers right now.
I particularly like how they're reneging on the Canadian postage charges, planning to charge them an unknown extra above and beyond the 15 CAD they originally estimated and collected in the Pledged Manager.
Quick question: if the international shipping costs are what it's being qouted here (and talked about in the comments section) and they are shipping everything from their HQ via US Post International First Class Package... how is that in any way or form "UK and EU friendly"? Weren't they supposed to send a big shipment to the UK and send from there? Because this way you'll have to pay VAT and customs charges, too.
EDIT: Oh, I see they are going to do a batch shipment for UK/EU backers... hm, somehow it doesn't jive too much with their explanations of USPS costs per package weight, if they are doing a batch shipment... huh.
It's hard to support the Canada Post prices when it's on the verge of a strike. I'm currently holding off on ordering anything because of it, and the private companies have rescinded their on-time delivery guarantees because people that really need their packages have redirected all their mail through them (Purolator, UPS, etc).
brettness37 wrote: Classic. I paid a year and a half ago, but someone at GenCon will have theirs built and painted before I ever get mine.
It certainly is a dick move. If they are doing that, they should be sending their stuff to backers at the same time at the very least.
Automatically Appended Next Post: ...wow. And Robert, in his infinite wisdom, has deleted my posts at the pod forum and has given me a warning for saying that it was not kosher to sell to the regular public before backers.
He apparently really wants to get rid of me... and of criticisms, of course.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh, hey! I've just received a barrage of PMs from the Pod forums: I have been informed that I have received a third warning, that I have been banned and that I have been banned on perpetuitiy because I am a troll.
Seeing as I have not posted absolutely anything since the post from which Robert gave me a second warning, and that he said it was for saing that it was, quote, "a dick move", and he did not allow profanity (flexible rules, dontcha know)... it's nice to see you can get a permanent ban for doing nothing.
Thanks, Robert, now I won't be able to just post a single comment at your forum and be done with it: now I will have to post stuff everywhere else, where people will see it.
Classy move from DP9 there.
From the boxing, we can see he's clearly aiming at the 'Murica market, and willing to sacrifice every other demographics to do so, like the backers, especially the EU ones.
I can't say I'm very surprised by the whole thing, but I remain amazed by the lengths the fans will go to support the company when it's shafting the backers. Especially when it is.
At this point, it'd be almost rude of Robert not to shaft the fans and backers, when they (the former, mostly) look so happy with it.
I'm a backer and I don't feel like I'm being shafted. I supported the KS to support the company, not to make a pre-order. DP9 needs to have product available for passers-by at Gencon because it's a great way to get the word out.
As for Albertorius being banned from the DP9 forums, you're a guest there and you made yourself unwelcome. Such is the nature of forums I suppose.
Nomeny wrote: I'm a backer and I don't feel like I'm being shafted. I supported the KS to support the company, not to make a pre-order. DP9 needs to have product available for passers-by at Gencon because it's a great way to get the word out.
As for Albertorius being banned from the DP9 forums, you're a guest there and you made yourself unwelcome. Such is the nature of forums I suppose.
I literally said that "selling at GenCon before even starting to send first to backers is kind of a dick move" and that it was PB tried to do but failed. Which it is, and even a "zero tolerance" profanity moderation would at most only have merited the first warning I got, not to the second warning and permanent ban. A forum is not (usually) a dictatorship. Unless you're Kevin Siembieda or adhere to his worldview.
The thing about forums is that it's their house and their whims. It's the owners prerogative to boot you out whether or not you're following whatever guidelines they may have posted on the door before you were invited in.
I mean, it doesn't matter if you or I think you weren't being rude or trollish, it matters whether the owner and his or her moderators thought you were, and more importantly whether they liked you.
HudsonD wrote: Classy move from DP9 there.
From the boxing, we can see he's clearly aiming at the 'Murica market, and willing to sacrifice every other demographics to do so, like the backers, especially the EU ones.
I can't say I'm very surprised by the whole thing, but I remain amazed by the lengths the fans will go to support the company when it's shafting the backers. Especially when it is.
At this point, it'd be almost rude of Robert not to shaft the fans and backers, when they (the former, mostly) look so happy with it.
Wow. Just saw that packaging. That's shameful. Time to deport Robert, since he apparently does not want to be Canadian.
Patriotism for a foreign country, now that's special. Of course, that won't prevent him from claiming any and all subvention for being a small Canadian company.
Nomeny wrote: I mean, it doesn't matter if you or I think you weren't being rude or trollish, it matters whether the owner and his or her moderators thought you were, and more importantly whether they liked you.
And that right there is the important part of this.
Of course, it just serves so that what I would just might have posted there (and basically get buried and ignored) to be now posted elsewhere with more traffic...
Not that HG gets much traffic anywhere, of course.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
mrondeau wrote: Wow. Just saw that packaging. That's shameful. Time to deport Robert, since he apparently does not want to be Canadian.
Patriotism for a foreign country, now that's special. Of course, that won't prevent him from claiming any and all subvention for being a small Canadian company.
I'm pretty sure people here would do a double take if they saw this at a FLGS. Not that they will, because the stores here won't touch it, but... still, interesting decision.
You know, for a company that supposedly like their fans and want to do good for them, DP9 is really quick to make criticism disappear. Instead of, you know, addressing the issue, improving, or, at least, acknowledging that not everyone like their decision.
It's almost as if DP9 affection for a fan is proportional to how much that fan boost their ego.
Quick! I need a labelled data set to train a model predicting the likelihood of someone being banned vs the likelihood of someone getting a new game just for them!
Albertorius wrote: Thanks, Robert, now I won't be able to just post a single comment at your forum and be done with it: now I will have to post stuff everywhere else, where people will see it.
Guess they never heard of the Streisand Effect in Quebec.
It certainly is a dick move. If they are doing that, they should be sending their stuff to backers at the same time at the very least.
I think I agree with your "kind of a dick move" statement below more. It's certainly not friendly and they would have been better served keeping one person at the office shipping while they also sold at gencon. I understand how important gencon is to their bottom line and in terms of exposure but this feels like a short term gain move at the expense of long time fans... in other words the classic DP9 modus operandi. The cornerstone for me though is whether they actually ever promised anything of the sort (backers first!) ala Palladium. If they didn't, it's not a good idea and certainly not nice towards the backers but I wouldn't hold them to a promise they didn't ever make.
...wow. And Robert, in his infinite wisdom, has deleted my posts at the pod forum and has given me a warning for saying that it was not kosher to sell to the regular public before backers.
He apparently really wants to get rid of me... and of criticisms, of course.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh, hey! I've just received a barrage of PMs from the Pod forums: I have been informed that I have received a third warning, that I have been banned and that I have been banned on perpetuitiy because I am a troll.
Albertorius wrote: Thanks, Robert, now I won't be able to just post a single comment at your forum and be done with it: now I will have to post stuff everywhere else, where people will see it.
Guess they never heard of the Streisand Effect in Quebec.
They had Celine Dion before they shipped her to us. Just as pompous and annoying but less of an internet meme.
As for Albertorius being banned from the DP9 forums, you're a guest there and you made yourself unwelcome. Such is the nature of forums I suppose.
It shouldn't be carried out in such a petulent manner. The forum rules shouldn't consist of a single sentence amounting to "displease the ruler and off with your head!". That's not good community interaction, especially when your community is so small.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
HudsonD wrote: Classy move from DP9 there.
From the boxing, we can see he's clearly aiming at the 'Murica market, and willing to sacrifice every other demographics to do so, like the backers, especially the EU ones.
I had to look for it at the forums as I didn't see the box art in the update. Yeah, it's in your face flag waving tassles on the jacket cowboy hat wearing. I think they could have accomplished the same thing without the Team America: feth yeah! attitude by putting it prominently on the side or back like Spartan Games does with their Halo boxes and the made in the UK equivalent. If you look at those sides, you instantly see it but it's iirc not on the cover... multiple times... at the top... waving.
I'm kind of sorry for Wunji because before this his posts reassured me a lot about his HG: Dreadnoughts project, and was actually interested in it.
Now, though? Well, I don't think I'll touch it with a 10-foot pole. Is it unfair for Wunji? Well, yes, but, well... who sleeps with children wakes up wet, as we say here (and get you minds out of the gutter ).
Albertorius wrote: Thanks, Robert, now I won't be able to just post a single comment at your forum and be done with it: now I will have to post stuff everywhere else, where people will see it.
Guess they never heard of the Streisand Effect in Quebec.
Nope, we are quite aware of it. We don't use that name, but we know about how trying to suppress news can be counter productive.
Also, just like Beiber, Celine Dion is the US problem now. They know what they did.
(lose a key hockey game, and pay her more, respectively)
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh, hey! I've just received a barrage of PMs from the Pod forums: I have been informed that I have received a third warning, that I have been banned and that I have been banned on perpetuitiy because I am a troll.
Now that certainly is a dick move. :(
It is actually more than that: it's thought police. "I don't like what you're saying on the KS comments, so I'm going to ban you on the forums for no reason at all, because I can't actually do anything about it on KS". Real classy.
I went in on the KS pretty heavy, hoping it was a sign that the new leadership was turning things around, listening to the fans, joining the modern game companies in updating their range to more affordable high quality plastics.
As this wears on, it's pretty obvious they are soldiering on and I will probably never see this stuff in a retail environment, let alone thriving in the gaming community.
What new leadership? Iirc Dav has been there in some capacity (usually production) for almost a decade and Robert ha been there (previously marketing or somesuch) for twice that. Is there someone else there now? I agree though with the sentiment/hope that things had changed more in tone and style but these recent decisions feel a whole lot like classic Dp9.
Well, I just posted my disappointment with the latest news. Took less than an hour for someone to put up a full essay on how awesome the Podpeople are, and I should be grateful that I'm getting MOST of my investment back. They even used Al here as an example of what would happen if I continued to respectfully tell them I was upset . Granted someone else told that first guy to shut up so there seems to be some difference of opinion in the Pod Bay.
So yeah, there are some people using your banning to "pour encourager les autres"
Alberto, did you also get banned from the facebook group for something you did on another site that was completely within that site's rules? Is Robert or Dave a mod there as well?
warboss wrote: Alberto, did you also get banned from the facebook group for something you did on another site that was completely within that site's rules? Is Robert or Dave a mod there as well?
Am I banned from their Facebook? Huh. I don't think I've ever checked it. I don't really do facebook. I guess he just doesn't want to get reminded that I exist. Shame that he can't do the same on KS.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mmmpi wrote: Well, I just posted my disappointment with the latest news. Took less than an hour for someone to put up a full essay on how awesome the Podpeople are, and I should be grateful that I'm getting MOST of my investment back.
Pod fans, as it turns out, tend to start wearing blinders the moment they get in contact with Robert. Much like Kevin Siembieda, I am told that he can be quite charming and friendly in person. Of course, when you don't play ball you find that it's just a thin veneer.
They even used Al here as an example of what would happen if I continued to respectfully tell them I was upset . Granted someone else told that first guy to shut up so there seems to be some difference of opinion in the Pod Bay.
So yeah, there are some people using your banning to "pour encourager les autres"
Yeah... that's John Prins for you. I guess that will get him points or something!
Honestly speaking, the only thing I will miss is that I spent more than ten years hanging out there and met a lot of cool people there. Of course, most if not all of those people (who, as has been pointed out, can be pretty much matched with people involved with the development or release of DP9 games) are banned too, so it's not like there's too much lost there anyway.
I like to think about the ban as Dream Pod 9's birthday gift from them to me, just 10 days early!
Automatically Appended Next Post:
JohnHwangDD wrote: I can't say I'm surprised. Or feeling like I missed anything.
That's everyone, I find. It's a rare bird that'll cheerfully take gak from a guest without tossing them out. Most people don't know how to phrase constructive criticism, or communicate that criticism to an audience in a positive manner outside of an educational or sports relationship, as well.
Nomeny wrote: That's everyone, I find. It's a rare bird that'll cheerfully take gak from a guest without tossing them out. Most people don't know how to phrase constructive criticism, or communicate that criticism to an audience in a positive manner outside of an educational or sports relationship, as well.
...you do know that I've been 12 years commenting on the forums, don't you? If it were how you paint it, I'd have been gone the first month.
Let me be clear: we have tried to offer constructive criiticisms in all possible ways known to man, more times than you can possibly even imagine. When you see, repeatedly, the same behaviour from a company, once and again, resulting in bans mostly to previous partners/rabid fans/friends/helpers at cons, and in each and every case the only factors that remain are all in one side... where the problem is becomes clear.
We have offered constructive criticism. And help, mostly for free, and have rowed for years against the current that is the stupidity of it all. And each and every time, some fresh new face tells us that no, this time it will be better, that this time it is going to change, if only we put a little something from our part...
Well, now I can't even if I wanted to.
EDIT: And hey, if you don't believe me, go check the forum. I have literally thousands of posts there. One of the biggest Reputation values, too.
Nomeny wrote: That's everyone, I find. It's a rare bird that'll cheerfully take gak from a guest without tossing them out. Most people don't know how to phrase constructive criticism, or communicate that criticism to an audience in a positive manner outside of an educational or sports relationship, as well.
This, in a nutshell, is the problem: paying customers are not guests.
Incidentally, it's hard to offer constructive criticism when "you were wrong" is considered to be a personal attack.
warboss wrote: Alberto, did you also get banned from the facebook group for something you did on another site that was completely within that site's rules? Is Robert or Dave a mod there as well?
Am I banned from their Facebook? Huh. I don't think I've ever checked it. I don't really do facebook. I guess he just doesn't want to get reminded that I exist. Shame that he can't do the same on KS.
I don't really do facebook either but I figured I was in the minority on that. I was more referring to Brandon's group page for HG. I assume DP9 has a facebook page as well but haven't ever actually checked that I can recall.
Nomeny wrote: That's everyone, I find. It's a rare bird that'll cheerfully take gak from a guest without tossing them out. Most people don't know how to phrase constructive criticism, or communicate that criticism to an audience in a positive manner outside of an educational or sports relationship, as well.
This, in a nutshell, is the problem: paying customers are not guests.
Incidentally, it's hard to offer constructive criticism when "you were wrong" is considered to be a personal attack.
It is a personal attack. You say: "You're right, of course, but I found that xyz worked like this, and it could have worked like that..."
Also, being a paying customer doesn't entitle you to anything except the product you paid for, and maybe I'm wrong but DP9 does not charge a fee for posting on their forums. And most places will 86 you regardless of payment if they decide you are unwelcome.
I know he feels entitled, but sorry, no guest or customer is entitled when they signed an agreement when joining the forum, like this one, stating that they can be turfed at any time for any reason.
Now maybe the Pod should have taken his advice, I can't say. It's not relevant to be Pod deciding they no longer want him in their forums.
Nomeny wrote: Now maybe the Pod should have taken his advice, I can't say. It's not relevant to be Pod deciding they no longer want him in their forums.
You're still not listening. It's not my advice. Is anyone's advice that isn't delivered with grovelling adoration or what they already wanted to do.
And what I feel entitled to is to not be arbitrarily banned for saying "dick" once, because we all know that's an excuse, but it's the one they stated.
You may want to re-read what you just wrote. Because you're not entitled to avoiding arbitrary banning, and describing people that like DP9s creative direction as 'grovelling' might explain why you're no longer welcome on the DP9 forums. Calling it an 'excuse' is silly: they didn't need an excuse: their house, their rules.
Nomeny wrote: You may want to re-read what you just wrote. Because you're not entitled to avoiding arbitrary banning, and describing people that like DP9s creative direction as 'grovelling' might explain why you're no longer welcome on the DP9 forums better. Calling it an 'excuse' is silky: they didn't need an excuse: their house, their rules.
How many times are you going to tell me that "I'm wrong"? Don't you say that's a PA without sugar coating?
mrondeau wrote: Incidentally, it's hard to offer constructive criticism when "you were wrong" is considered to be a personal attack.
It is a personal attack.
You are wrong.
Being called or proven wrong is not automatically a personal attack but rather is usually a difference of opinion or frequently a simple statement of fact. It is only a personal attack if accompanied by insults, a lack of any corroborating evidence, and/or foul language. For instance, the guy on the dp9forums who is claiming that DP9 is set to deliver EVERYTHING they planned to when they rolled back two funded models/stretch goals because of unwise monetary decisions on their part. Telling him that he is wrong is NOT a personal attack but rather a statement of fact and a correction of his erroneous and/or ignorant post. You can't control what people unreasonably take offense to but you can post things in a way that is not objectively offensive. You seem to be conflating the two.
Depends on the mod and which forum. On Palladium sites or to a lesser extent periodically on DP9 (like now judging from Alberto), probably not long. On more consistently reasonable sites like here, usually it'll be just fine as long as the tone isn't actually insulting. I can think of one or two mods (one of which isn't actually a mod anymore) that would be the exception to that statement but overall you are free to disagree within reason here. Don't get me wrong... I think it is reasonable to give albertorius a strike for using profanity but not to permanently ban him because of it (especially when the supposed third strike happened on another site). That's just plain vindictive.
Also, I saw the rumbl link in your sig and it reminded me to check and see if any new players popped up near me. The closest is still just shy of 200 miles away. :( *fingers crossed for gencon*
So do you suppose his tone could be insulting? I think it depends on whether he's had a history, the tone of that history, and so on. Needless to say it's history as well now.
I'm shirt on local opponents too, but once I have forces available to lend I'm looking forward to work on that.
warboss wrote: Don't get me wrong... I think it is reasonable to give albertorius a strike for using profanity but not to permanently ban him because of it (especially when the supposed third strike happened on another site). That's just plain vindictive.
Yeah, even I would tend to agree with that if they're being stringent with profanity.
Well, not unless your skin is paper thin and the only words you ever hear are those trumpeting your greatness.
Fact is, switching things up to prioritize GenCon over backers is a dick move.
And it's contrary to what they have in the FAQ on the main page:
Will my rewards be packaged for retail?
These rewards will be for the models and components selected only. Final packaging and casting for retail will be completed only after the rewards due to our backers have been cast. This is to keep the total time to completion as short as possible
But then again, the Pod promised more minis when they were collecting money, then took some away after they'd gotten it.
Nomeny wrote: That's everyone, I find. It's a rare bird that'll cheerfully take gak from a guest without tossing them out. Most people don't know how to phrase constructive criticism, or communicate that criticism to an audience in a positive manner outside of an educational or sports relationship, as well.
Incidentally, it's hard to offer constructive criticism when "you were wrong" is considered to be a personal attack.
It is a personal attack. You say: "You're right, of course, but I found that xyz worked like this, and it could have worked like that..."
You might think so; however, unless you're part of the ancient blood-oath inner circle, trying to be that reasonable when explaining why you know something will not work (or has never, ever, worked) once Robert has decided otherwise is in fact still considered an insult.
warboss wrote: Don't get me wrong... I think it is reasonable to give albertorius a strike for using profanity but not to permanently ban him because of it (especially when the supposed third strike happened on another site). That's just plain vindictive.
Yeah, even I would tend to agree with that if they're being stringent with profanity.
Indeed - I got my warning for a post Robert didn't like then got a ban for answering his warning by email, without ever having posted again.
Nomeny wrote: So do you suppose his tone could be insulting? I think it depends on whether he's had a history, the tone of that history, and so on. Needless to say it's history as well now.
According to his public posts here, his first warning was criticizing the Space Landship Yamato fluff introduction and the response warning was silent and swift... but then Alberto's tone softened when Wunji actually engaged in a conversation about the matter and explained his thoughts. See the difference in the two methods of response to criticism? The second strike (that I didn't even see since I don't check there daily) was for calling the gencon sales prior to any backer shipments kind of a dick move. That one (as I said above) does warrant a possible strike in the strictest sense as he definitely could have phrased that without profanity (and, no, I'm not talking about using faux profanity like prick). The third rapid fire strike was for the same thing said on kickstarter probably posted the same time; that's a vindictive move on DP9's part especially since it resulted in a permaban of a long time customer and dedicated fan/forum poster. I disagree with their actions on the first and third strikes (especially the third). If they had a problem with his posts on KS they should have reported him there instead of vigilante permanently punishing him twice on the forums for a post that wasn't against the rules of the venue it was actually posted on.
And it's contrary to what they have in the FAQ on the main page:
Will my rewards be packaged for retail?
These rewards will be for the models and components selected only. Final packaging and casting for retail will be completed only after the rewards due to our backers have been cast. This is to keep the total time to completion as short as possible
That's a good catch on the quote but I don't think it's contrary. The rewards for backers have been cast... they're sitting in boxes apparently at the warehouse of the caster. The packaging and casting for retail theoretically did come after that (even if it just meant that the last 5 boxes of sprues to pop out of the machine were artificially designated as "retail" after the fact). The FAQ says nothing about actually *delivering* the rewards to backers before selling at retail but is only concerned with casting. Again, I don't support the decision by DP9 but I don't see anything in that FAQ that actually promises backers first dibs. It's simply just ungrateful and inconsiderate of them to do so.
What irks me is less the selling at GenCon, than it is the selling at GenCon while the rest of their staff just sits there back at the office. They still "theoretically" have a shipping department, some of whom could be putting KS bundles together. Hell hire a few temp workers to round out the work load. There are plenty of jobs they can do with the bundling that doesn't require putting the final selections into boxes, such as printing shipping labels, or stacking like sprues.
Someone on at the Pod Bay forum said that the GenCon first thing is better because the sprues are actually closer to the con than Canada. Personally though that doesn't help. I don't see Rob and Dave boxing and shrink wrapping starters in their hotel room.
I'm upset by it because they "should" be doing both.
Also, while "Your Wrong" can be a personal attack, 95% of the population have a tendency to follow it up with constructive criticism which keeps it from being personal.
Automatically Appended Next Post: That of course assumes that there actually is a staff, and not just Rob and Dave in a strange Odd Couple arrangement.
The convention "season" and the end of a major project (like this one) are typically when most of a company has little to do, they just ended a project. Besides from the few regular orders they get, what are they working on for editing? How about rules development? Do they have a customer support section? Translation department (it is Canada, so both English and French)? And is their shipping department that overloaded that they can't work on their "Biggest project of the last two years"? Besides, it's not like shipping isn't going to be working on this anyway. Why wait?
Automatically Appended Next Post: So there is potentially quite a few staff who would be sitting on their hands (actual numbers may vary) who could be pitching in for this. And yes other companies do things like this (looks at the Raging Heros KS).
I don't think there is anyone other than Dave or Robert on the books. They used to have John as well as volunteers and freelancers but I don't recall hearing about any one else on the actual premises since John left for HGA. I'm not exactly in the know though so add salt as needed.
Nomeny wrote:
(Disagreement) is a personal attack.
Well, I couldn't disagree more with you
More seriously, for the benefit of the people that might be reading this thread, DP9 (and PB, and anyone else) have every rights to be total jerkasses on their board whenever they see fit. Being a total jerkass when you can, is called "being a total jerkass", by the way.
Mmmpi wrote:
That of course assumes that there actually is a staff, and not just Rob and Dave in a strange Odd Couple arrangement.
That's a big assumption you're making there, let me tell ya...
They even used Al here as an example of what would happen if I continued to respectfully tell them I was upset . Granted someone else told that first guy to shut up so there seems to be some difference of opinion in the Pod Bay.
So yeah, there are some people using your banning to "pour encourager les autres"
Yeah... that's John Prins for you. I guess that will get him points or something!
Actually, that was CrouchingGrizzlyHiddenCheetah that was saying 'hey don't complain somebody just got banned'. Mmmpi just stated he was unhappy about it and he didn't get warned/banned. No, the forum isn't a totally free and open exchange of ideas, what game company owned forum is? One of the forum rules is basically "Don't make disrespectful comments".
Calling it a 'dick move' is pretty much a disrespectful comment. Not really profanity in my books (really, really mild).
So okay, you got warned over it - your second warning in 2 weeks - then you literally called Robert out over it on the KS page. I don't know Robert that well - literally met him once at an Ottawa convention - but calling out people directly like that seldom ends well. Was the third warning (i.e. banhammer) appropriate? I think it was an overreaction, but you were definitely pushing it. It wasn't the same forum, but it was the same conversation.
FWIW, I'll miss your presence on the forum. I hope you can still enjoy Heavy Gear for what it is, even if you don't like the guy in charge. And for the record, I got lots of stuff from Marc and Jean for writing/keeping the FAQ, but I've never gotten a thing out of Robert I didn't pay hard cash for.
John Prins wrote: Actually, that was CrouchingGrizzlyHiddenCheetah that was saying 'hey don't complain somebody just got banned'. Mmmpi just stated he was unhappy about it and he didn't get warned/banned. No, the forum isn't a totally free and open exchange of ideas, what game company owned forum is? One of the forum rules is basically "Don't make disrespectful comments".
I can't go check the forum, so I guess I should take your word for it.
Calling it a 'dick move' is pretty much a disrespectful comment. Not really profanity in my books (really, really mild).
"Dick move" is an idiom. And a pretty accurate one, in this case.
So okay, you got warned over it - your second warning in 2 weeks - then you literally called Robert out over it on the KS page. I don't know Robert that well - literally met him once at an Ottawa convention - but calling out people directly like that seldom ends well. Was the third warning (i.e. banhammer) appropriate? I think it was an overreaction, but you were definitely pushing it. It wasn't the same forum, but it was the same conversation.
It is, as I said, above, thought police. Same thing as if I would have been banned for posting it here. And as the only explanation I got was "You Troll now your banned forever" via a PM that I can't go check because I'm blocked from the forum, well... I can't even be sure it was that, now can I.
What I am sure of is that I got multiple threatening mails from him because I complained too much about the KS, and a threat to "oust" me for only pledging $1, before I had to remind him that I had said as much myself in multiple ocassions, and as far as threats went it was a fun one. So I'm pretty sure that the profanity is not it. Seems like it's just that I apparently was pointing out too much stuff that he'd rather people was not reminded of.
And seeing as I couldn't freely post at DP9 either because I'm being "too negative", because "I used profanity" (nevermind that it is an idiom) or because Robert didn't like what I had to say about it, what would you have me do? After all, I have been censored multiple times on his forums already, and not because the post was too profane, but because I said things Robert did not like. Ask Balance if you prefer, if my word is not enough, as it clearly isn't. He should have all the info you need.
FWIW, I'll miss your presence on the forum. I hope you can still enjoy Heavy Gear for what it is, even if you don't like the guy in charge. And for the record, I got lots of stuff from Marc and Jean for writing/keeping the FAQ, but I've never gotten a thing out of Robert I didn't pay hard cash for.
I don't really think I will miss the forum, TBH. Too many of the people whose posts I enjoyed have left/been banned themselves over the years, and coupled with the ever increasing drift towards full on sci fantasy and me being mainly interested in the setting part of the license, well...
As for enjoying HG for what it is, well, right now it has soured me towards DP9, but also towards Arkrite and Fusion Core Studios (but not to Stompy Bot, though, because they never did anything I am interested in). Maybe it will change with time, who knows.
I already have everything I need out of HG after all, so it's not a big loss.
I have enjoyed the majority of our conversations at the forum, though, so take care.
Also, given that "my gak" is saying "dude, selling stuff financed via KS before sending it to the backers is a dick move", well... see if it doesn't apply to you better than me.
John Prins wrote: No, the forum isn't a totally free and open exchange of ideas, what game company owned forum is? One of the forum rules is basically "Don't make disrespectful comments".
I don't suppose that courtesy was extended to albertorius when 11badger apparently called him an ass a week or two ago in the landship thread and then bragged about doing so yesterday? Since the post is still there on the forum, I assume the policy is only applied against alberto. I guess it's ok to be insulting as long as you're pro dp9's latest decision (and preferably in some sort of sponsored arrangement with them apparently) insulting someone who is not. As Hudson said, it is 100% within DP9's rights to apply a double standard on their forums but let's call a spade a spade and not suggest that there is a blanket rule on disrepectful comments.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Albertorius wrote: It is, as I said, above, thought police. Same thing as if I would have been banned for posting it here. And as the only explanation I got was "You Troll now your banned forever" via a PM that I can't go check because I'm blocked from the forum, well... I can't even be sure it was that, now can I.
I didn't realize that they also IP blocked when they did that. Depending on how broad the block is set, you can sometimes just unplug your home router and get a new address as long as your ISP doesn't use static addresses. Barring that, you could read it on a web enabled smart phone as well. Smilodon, did you get IP blocked as well?
I'm gone for a few days and look what happens when I leave you all unsupervised. Gosh.
Albertorious, I want to say sorry, I feel for you, etc., but.... you're not really missing out on anything anyway, are you? Although, this, in my book, is the proverbial "third strike" in terms of forum-dickery from the TPTB. (The others have been discussed ad nauseum here.) But I must say, I feel kinda snubbed to not also have been banned. Aren't I enough of a troll??
In therms of the other bs: "Wooo! Canadian game made by Canadians with a setting based on Canada and Canadian cities and people! ENJOY YOUR COMPLIMENTARY AMERICAN FLAGS!!!" I mean, I get it. There's more of them than us and you'll make more money off them. But, guys. Come on.
John Prins wrote: No, the forum isn't a totally free and open exchange of ideas, what game company owned forum is? One of the forum rules is basically "Don't make disrespectful comments".
I don't suppose that courtesy was extended to albertorius when 11badger apparently called him an ass a week or two ago in the landship thread and then bragged about doing so yesterday?
You're right, the rules aren't applied consistently. Another of the forum rules is 'Leave the sorting out of bad posts to the moderators', so yeah, 11Bullets should have been warned for both disrespect and trying to be a moderator.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Firebreak wrote: In therms of the other bs: "Wooo! Canadian game made by Canadians with a setting based on Canada and Canadian cities and people! ENJOY YOUR COMPLIMENTARY AMERICAN FLAGS!!!" I mean, I get it. There's more of them than us and you'll make more money off them. But, guys. Come on.
Designed in Canada, molds cut in Hong Kong, casting in America, boxed and shipped from the province of Quebec. Needs more flags.
Canadians aren't into plastering the national flag all over stuff. It's actually kind of off-putting to try American-style jingoism in your marketing with Canadian national symbols. Playing up the Made in the US for the massive American market seems wise to me. I'm no expert on sales and marketing though.
It sort of was. It's not nearly as explicit as White Scars = Mongols, but the Buck-man used to mention once in a while that they'd base such and such citystate off, like... how people thought of Montreal, or something. More in-jokes and less on-the-nose than most wargames do. Perhaps "inspired by" would be a better way of putting it.
I'm sure one of the older fans - ah, sorry, trolls - can correct/expand on that in the main thread, if you like.
Oh, OK. Got it. Not being familiar with Canada, beyond the fact that you guys invaded and marched on the Capitol just over 200 years ago... And we did a fine job of kicking the Frenchies out 250 years ago as a result of the French and Indian War!
warboss wrote: I didn't realize that they also IP blocked when they did that. Depending on how broad the block is set, you can sometimes just unplug your home router and get a new address as long as your ISP doesn't use static addresses. Barring that, you could read it on a web enabled smart phone as well. Smilodon, did you get IP blocked as well?
Oh, there are multiple ways to hide/change your IP to avoid the block. But... why would I want to do that, given everything? They (they being the Pod mainly, and Robert in particular, but also a number of fans there) clearly don't want me there, so... eh, better rip that band aid and be done with it.
Well not to go too off topic but no "Canadians" actually did anything to the White House. That was British troops. And you burned our capital, too. But there were "Canadian" men who distinguished themselves in militia service, particularly around Niagara where they earned some of the first battle honours of any Canadian unit, and that unfortunately is a fact that usually gets conflated in myth and misinformation.
Firebreak wrote:I'm gone for a few days and look what happens when I leave you all unsupervised. Gosh.
So it's your fault, then!
Albertorious, I want to say sorry, I feel for you, etc., but.... you're not really missing out on anything anyway, are you?
I've decided to define it as my birthday present from the Pod a week earlier. You can extrapolate from there
Although, this, in my book, is the proverbial "third strike" in terms of forum-dickery from the TPTB. (The others have been discussed ad nauseum here.) But I must say, I feel kinda snubbed to not also have been banned. Aren't I enough of a troll??
Clearly you're doing something wrong
John Prins wrote:You're right, the rules aren't applied consistently. Another of the forum rules is 'Leave the sorting out of bad posts to the moderators', so yeah, 11Bullets should have been warned for both disrespect and trying to be a moderator.
Bah, water under the bridge, you know.
JohnHwangDD wrote:The Pod being who they are, why would he want to go around the IP block? If these aren't people he'd have a conversation with, just stay away.
That's basically it, yes.
Wait, Terra Nova is Canada?
Is PAK Quebec? All the more reason to NUKE IT FROM ORBIT!
Firebreak wrote:It sort of was. It's not nearly as explicit as White Scars = Mongols, but the Buck-man used to mention once in a while that they'd base such and such citystate off, like... how people thought of Montreal, or something. More in-jokes and less on-the-nose than most wargames do. Perhaps "inspired by" would be a better way of putting it.
I'm sure one of the older fans - ah, sorry, trolls - can correct/expand on that in the main thread, if you like.
A whole lot of Terra Nova's locations are straight out from Canada. For example:
Albertorius wrote:Oh, there are multiple ways to hide/change your IP to avoid the block. But... why would I want to do that, given everything? They (they being the Pod mainly, and Robert in particular, but also a number of fans there) clearly don't want me there, so... eh, better rip that band aid and be done with it.
Fair enough. Me.. I'd probably be curious to see how the topic progressed for a few days.
A whole lot of Terra Nova's locations are straight out from Canada. For example:
Nomeny wrote: Also, being a paying customer doesn't entitle you to anything except the product you paid for, and maybe I'm wrong but DP9 does not charge a fee for posting on their forums. And most places will 86 you regardless of payment if they decide you are unwelcome.
Certainly a company is entitled to ban someone who is being disruptive or abusive on their forum, but we do need to remember one thing. Company forums like DP9 or other game manufacturers host are not charity efforts, or done out of the goodness or their hearts. They are fundamentally different than fan run forums like Dakka or Warseer. Company run forums are marketing tools to generate interest in their products. Being arbitrary or unfair when banning people from company forums just generates bad word of mouth which is exactly the opposite of what the forum should be for. Just look at the fallout here or people complaining about DP9 and saying they won't do business with them again.
I'm just saying. I'm not that fussed about the Gencon/KS backer issue. I'd rather see the game be a commercial success than not, and I understand exposure at Gencon is important for that. I'm just commenting on what I perceive as poor public relations choices regarding their forum management.
Conversely, people that didn't like his posts, and there are some, will feel more inclined to recommend the forum to friends getting into the DP9 universes. While Albertorius may feel that he was unfairly or arbitrarily banned, others on the DP9 forums felt that it was long overdue. I'm personally surprised that he managed to last as long as he did, given the tone of his posts, and his adverserial relationship with the Pod. I'm inclined to believe that it's a good public relations choice from the perspective of making their forum a place where fellow enthusiasts can...enthuse. It's not like Albertorius can't come and complain about it in venues like Dakka, after all, and perhaps feel more at home among fellow, like-minded people.
I mean, I get the hurt feelings that follow from being banned from a forum where passionate feelings about something are expressed. I've been banned from a few places in my time, and I've come to terms with the fact that they weren't my places, and the topics weren't anything I should have bothered to be riled about. You get banned, you understand that you're no longer welcome, and you move on. Frankly I think I'm better for it, as moving on is healthy, and you can't argue your way into anyone's good graces.
On a positive note, on the front page of DP9.com: "We have put the New Heavy Gear Blitz Plastic Miniature Army Boxes, Two Player Starter Box, and new Quick Start Rulebook up for Pre-Order on the Dream Pod 9 Online Store. Please note that orders with these new Pre-Order products will only start shipping after all our Kickstarter Backer Reward Packages have been shipped out in August."
warboss wrote: I didn't realize that they also IP blocked when they did that. Depending on how broad the block is set, you can sometimes just unplug your home router and get a new address as long as your ISP doesn't use static addresses. Barring that, you could read it on a web enabled smart phone as well. Smilodon, did you get IP blocked as well?
I don't think so, but I'm not sure if my ISP uses a static address or not.
So far as I remember just clearing cookies & cache made the forum visible; not like I ever visit it all that much over the course of a year anyways.
And as pointed out by others the Pod has also never bothered slapping down those fan-friends acting as ''moderators'' in the past, and that clearly hasn't changed any coming into the now; always good for a healthy internet community but not atypical either.
It does get so old that for any gaming venue folks are always treading across eggshells to avoid somehow antagonizing the inevitable yet quite often tiny percentage of ultimate fan-friends that merely get replaced in a never-ending stream, who're all the while frothing over any perceived attack.
brettness37 wrote: Hahaha, they've announced their next Heavy Gear Blitz Kickstarter for Peace River, NuCoal and Utopia.
"Listen! We haven't fulfilled our last project, but get fired up for the next one!"
Who does that?
Is that verbal news from gencon? Or is there a link? I wonder how the timing for that will work. They've already announced that the Space Landship Yamato spinoff will be crowdfunding a month or two after gencon so that's a whole lotta searching potentially for the same dollars in the same couch. As for who does it, plenty of companies unfortunately as Alpharius said.
judgedoug wrote: If anyone is selling their pledge I might be interested in picking it up! PM me if you are.
At $60 msrp iirc, the single army pledges (and free rules download) are a reasonable alternative option especially with online discounts and free shipping if someone ends up carrying them. I don't have a model pledge (only in for a buck) but I asked a year ago about buying a quarter of a pledge and got no responses either.
If the announcement is true (not saying it is, I just have not seen either way), it might help explain the... eagerness... to try to avoid bad publicity.
brettness37 wrote: Hahaha, they've announced their next Heavy Gear Blitz Kickstarter for Peace River, NuCoal and Utopia.
wow, Utopia, really? ...the faction so long ignored or nerfed it has never been a viable stand-alone force on the tabletop in any version of HG:Blitz!.
I'm not even sure there was ever a dozen solid supporters of the faction at the same time years back, let alone in NuBlitz, and even the most ardent supporters were not always fans of the sculpts.
And a mold was what, around $15K, that would need to be collected for converting that one faction to plastic models - I was surprised by the 1K backer numbers for this KS, but with Utopia as part of another, not sure I can see that happening again.
Robert has said on the forum that the next Kickstarter is in the planning stages, but that he'll have finished renders and cost quotes in hand before the campaign starts. One would hope the second one goes a bit smoother, because you can hardly call your mistakes learning experiences the second time around.
I don't recall seeing anything about the contents of the Kickstarter, but I'd assume it's Peace River and NuCoal at the very least. Utopia looks cool but as others have mentioned, there are very few Utopia players in general (it seems). Then again, getting Caprice into plastic seems to have increased interest in that fashion, so, maybe?
judgedoug wrote: If anyone is selling their pledge I might be interested in picking it up! PM me if you are.
At $60 msrp iirc, the single army pledges (and free rules download) are a reasonable alternative option especially with online discounts and free shipping if someone ends up carrying them. I don't have a model pledge (only in for a buck) but I asked a year ago about buying a quarter of a pledge and got no responses either.
I probably have more than I need depending on what parts you want, if you want to PM me.
DP9Gen Con News: Peace River, NuCoal, and Utopia Kickstarter in Development for 2017!
Following the success of the Heavy Gear Blitz - War for Terra Nova - Kickstarter, which made possible our new plastic miniatures for the North, South, CEF, and Caprice Factions of the game, we are happy to announce that a second Kickstarter is in development for 2017. This time, we’ll be making the core models for the Peace River, NuCoal, and Utopia Factions as plastic miniatures.
So yep, absolutely confirmed: DP9 joins the illustrious company of all the other companies that announce a KS before even fulfilling the previous one. Although in this case they have started selling the stuff, and they have only announced it, not started, and the chances for the first one to be fulfilled before this one launches are high.
As Smilodon says, I'n not sure of how big of a market there might be for it. I have 5 NuCoal squads mint in boxes that I got from a firesale, and I have not even touched the things...
That said, I 've come to realize that the NuCoal would have worked much better if they had amalgamated with the Peace River/Paxton refugees... it even works perfectly to create inner frictions!
Vertrucio wrote: Well, so long as you hold on to the glimmer of hope and keep buying into this, DP9 will keep on giving you the shaft that you pay them for.
Even continuing this thread, or building fan rules, just furthers their own crappy practices.
Nah, I don't plan on. Anything I might end up doing (if anything at all it is) will be for the RPG, which is now outside their hands.
Albertorius wrote: Nah, I don't plan on. Anything I might end up doing (if anything at all it is) will be for the RPG, which is now outside their hands.
I too bought into Heavy Gear for the RPG when it was first available in 1995 (hides behind pile of HG/JC/T8/GKRPG books). I feel the RPG future for this has been abandoned as far as we can forsee. Has been years since my gaming group had any interest for this game...
Oooooo a NuCoal KS! I can't wait to see the 400 new hoverlaser gearstriders they get! And surely with Dreadnoughts coming it's the perfect time for NuCoal to get a landship fleet large enough to rival both poles.
(Wait they... don't already have landships, do they?)
DP9Gen Con News: Peace River, NuCoal, and Utopia Kickstarter in Development for 2017!
Following the success of the Heavy Gear Blitz - War for Terra Nova - Kickstarter, which made possible our new plastic miniatures for the North, South, CEF, and Caprice Factions of the game, we are happy to announce that a second Kickstarter is in development for 2017. This time, we’ll be making the core models for the Peace River, NuCoal, and Utopia Factions as plastic miniatures.
So yep, absolutely confirmed: DP9 joins the illustrious company of all the other companies that announce a KS before even fulfilling the previous one. Although in this case they have started selling the stuff, and they have only announced it, not started, and the chances for the first one to be fulfilled before this one launches are high.
Thanks for the info. I'm actually ok with that in 2017. They can announce whatever plans they want as long as they don't actually take a crowdfunding penny in payment for them until fulfilling the already delayed and preempted for gencon sales kickstarter. If it's in 2017 (hopefully spring), it might not step on the toes of their licenseed landship game crowdfunding either with a good 4-6 months in between.
That said, I 've come to realize that the NuCoal would have worked much better if they had amalgamated with the Peace River/Paxton refugees... it even works perfectly to create inner frictions!
I never thought of that but that would have been a believeable major 3rd TN faction as the combined badlands force instead of magically expanding two relatively minor ones *poof* suddenly in global powers after major disasters. Combining the two also would have given them the model variety they'd need as a faction instead of jamming free rules for zero points into them.
Vertrucio wrote: Well, so long as you hold on to the glimmer of hope and keep buying into this, DP9 will keep on giving you the shaft that you pay them for.
Even continuing this thread, or building fan rules, just furthers their own crappy practices.
You're planning on showing them how it's done, right?
As Smilodon says, I'n not sure of how big of a market there might be for it. I have 5 NuCoal squads mint in boxes that I got from a firesale, and I have not even touched the things...
That said, I 've come to realize that the NuCoal would have worked much better if they had amalgamated with the Peace River/Paxton refugees... it even works perfectly to create inner frictions!
Or they could have just retconned those communities to be way bigger. Terra Nova is supposed to be something in to order of 300 million people, so if NuCoal has 8-15 million bodies, them having a real army isn't unreasonable when polar leagues run in the 30-50 million range. As it stands, NuCoal runs what, 3 million people, even though a big chunk of that is GRELs.
I'd love to paint a NuCoal army, but I'm so lazy in getting my other stuff painted it's unlikely to happen. I may end up speed-painting my Caprice plastics.
Nomeny wrote:I got the impression Heavy Gear was sci-fi combined arms. Mecha, rather Robots. YMMV I'd imagine though.
JohnHwangDD wrote:
Nomeny wrote: Maybe with a broader base of fans and plastic miniatures available there will be Utopia fans out there.
Yeah, but the Utopia minis are just awful.
HG is a Giant Robot game, and the Utopia stuff is *not* robots!
That said, I'm curious to see what sort of funding they'll get.
You're both equal parts right and wrong. Heavy Gear is not a Giant Robot game but rather a robot game (they're not giant, even with the new stupid gear striders). Just look at any picture of a titular gear next to it's pilot and you'll see it has very little in common sizewise with Voltron, Robotech, or any real giant robot property. It is also not a combined arms game but rather it's a robot game that ALSO includes combined arms for variety. The difference is in the focus of the game. If you want to see what the focus is, just look at the name of the game and every cover of every edition to see what this IP is really about.
Since you're a professional painter, I suggest taking a look at the differences between the plastics and the metals. There are some stylistic differences as well as design compromises to get them into plastics. I figure if you didn't know that already then you might want a heads up since you'll be looking at those figs for a while potentially.
JohnHwangDD wrote: The non-robots exist just to make the robots look good.
Unless it's a tank. Tanks do bad things to gears all the time. Part of the justification for gears is that Terra Nova has a lot of very rough terrain that even tanks struggle with.
No. It's not "Heavy Tank" (i.e. 1/144 Flames of War). It's not "Heavy Combined Arms" either. HG is a game in which the Giant Robots are the star, and everything else is secondary. Warboss is 100% correct about this being about the robots.
As for how "giant" they are, I'm guessing probably 99% of the time, it makes no difference whether the robots are Eva-sized or SM-sized. So I'm sorry if "Giant Robot (tm) (R) (C)" makes people feel bad. If it makes people feel better, I'm happy to refer to it as a "big robot" game, or a "large robot" game. or whatever the preferred nomenclature might happen to be.
John Prins wrote: Or they could have just retconned those communities to be way bigger. Terra Nova is supposed to be something in to order of 300 million people, so if NuCoal has 8-15 million bodies, them having a real army isn't unreasonable when polar leagues run in the 30-50 million range. As it stands, NuCoal runs what, 3 million people, even though a big chunk of that is GRELs.
They could have done that, although it would have put in jeopardy all the rest of the population numbers of the zone, and IMHO there was no real reason to do so. Instead, they decided to move there millions of people via a secret journey through thousands upon thousands of kilometers of desert without much in the way of supplies and without anyone noticing until they arrived >_>.
Having the NuCoal on the 8-15 million people range would have put it in the same population values as the WFP, which would be way too much IMHO. 3 million is still the biggest power in the Badlands and much bigger than PR ever was (and they already buffed up a lot the pop numbers).
Well, I suppose that's one reason for NuCoal to go so heavy into getting gears, considering they can play a similar role to infantry. A gear heavy force would let them inflate the combat power of their limited population. And while a desert isn't the ideal combat zone for a gear (as said tanks would tear them a new one rather quickly), the gear's increased mobility over a foot squad would let them cover ground for patrolling and limited strikes without needing an APC component.
Finally came up with something to justify (at least to myself) for why NuCoal would have put so much into developing gears so quickly, if not their success at it.
As for numbers, here's a history tidbit for you. In 1776 the US Colonies had a population of 2.5 million. Of those, roughly 1/3 were pro-rebel giving a recruit able population of 833,333 people before factoring in whether someone was fit to join or not. Of that available population, the main Continental (Rebel) army could field about 27,000 men; not including smaller armies elsewhere in the colonies. Assuming we only count the main force as what to draw on, NuCoal could theoretically have an army of about 81,000 men. Not including sand riders or GRELs. That does include any logistics units however, so actual combat available would drop from anywhere to 1/2 to 1/5 of that total, though you could make up some of the extra logistics from the "other detachments" I mention but didn't include in the above 81k.
Not a world conquering force, but it's big enough not to be a complete push over (such as against raids and commando strikes), and I'd think that neither League would want the other to gain control of and would possibly join in to help fight off a major attack from the rival pole.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, no I didn't notice all the Heavy Gear name references I made until after I posted.
JohnHwangDD wrote: The non-robots exist just to make the robots look good.
Unless it's a tank. Tanks do bad things to gears all the time. Part of the justification for gears is that Terra Nova has a lot of very rough terrain that even tanks struggle with.
Yeah, MBTs will clean up a squad of gears in the open, and gears holding objectives rather than attacking are wasted too.
A gear holding an objective isn't a waste. A squad of gears is.
And sometimes you have to fight out in open terrain. But neither plains of desert is actually table flat. There are alot more rolling hills and dunes in both than people typically acknowledge.
JohnHwangDD wrote: If people are playing desert battles, plains battles, they are doing it wrong. Wargames need terrain.
This is something people miss about Heavy Gear all the time. If you're playing with 'open' terrain in the majority, then you're playing a game that favors tanks. It works fine IF both opponents just bring gears to play, but once one guy decides to bring tanks vs gears, the balance gets thrown off. Give gears lots of cover and make it hard for tanks to move (urban, jungle, mountain) and it swings the other way.
This isn't like Battletech, where tanks suck because the game won't let them be good. The game is called Heavy Gear but tanks are still tough and have gobs of firepower, and they cost more than gears because of it. People mostly play Heavy Gear for the robots, so that's what you'll see people field most of the time.
JohnHwangDD wrote: If people are playing desert battles, plains battles, they are doing it wrong. Wargames need terrain.
The two aren't mutually exclusive. You have rolling hills, rocks, the occasional village on plains battles as well as dunes, rocks, pyramids, ruins, and oasis on desert tables.
It was originally founded around 1681 as french Fort Kaministiquia and abandoned around 1758-60 when New France fell. The North West Company restablished it as Fort William around 1784.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mmmpi wrote: Well, I suppose that's one reason for NuCoal to go so heavy into getting gears, considering they can play a similar role to infantry. A gear heavy force would let them inflate the combat power of their limited population. And while a desert isn't the ideal combat zone for a gear (as said tanks would tear them a new one rather quickly), the gear's increased mobility over a foot squad would let them cover ground for patrolling and limited strikes without needing an APC component.
Finally came up with something to justify (at least to myself) for why NuCoal would have put so much into developing gears so quickly, if not their success at it.
Smaller powers using Gears instead of more specialized stuff is absolutely logical, as you can make Gears do just about anything and you only need one pilot per Gear, even though they have significant limitations against stuff like tanks and the like.
Using Chasseur Hover Gears on the mostly rolling plains of the Barrington Basin, where they will be noticed miles away and are nowhere near as fast or as tough as PAK's Hovertanks, though... not so much, and that's even before taking into account the enormously expensive they are to operate or the fact that Erech and Nineveh joining the NuCoal is kind of questionable at best.
Also, so many new Gear designs coupled with them being so advanced (basically better than equivalent polar designs at everything) without previous experience other than refurbishings and no real budget, design or manufacturing capabilities to speak of compared with the rest of the world's design teams is mostly Deus ex Machina.
As for numbers, here's a history tidbit for you. In 1776 the US Colonies had a population of 2.5 million. Of those, roughly 1/3 were pro-rebel giving a recruit able population of 833,333 people before factoring in whether someone was fit to join or not. Of that available population, the main Continental (Rebel) army could field about 27,000 men; not including smaller armies elsewhere in the colonies. Assuming we only count the main force as what to draw on, NuCoal could theoretically have an army of about 81,000 men. Not including sand riders or GRELs. That does include any logistics units however, so actual combat available would drop from anywhere to 1/2 to 1/5 of that total, though you could make up some of the extra logistics from the "other detachments" I mention but didn't include in the above 81k.
Not a world conquering force, but it's big enough not to be a complete push over (such as against raids and commando strikes), and I'd think that neither League would want the other to gain control of and would possibly join in to help fight off a major attack from the rival pole.
The main reason for the NuCoal to ally itself is the PAK: a full infantry brigade and two hovertank brigades in active with the means to rapidly equip and deploy around 100.000 additional GREL troops and a total. That alone makes it a local power not to be trifled with.
Original NuCoal had around 550k inhabitants not counting Port Arthur that got retconned in the NuCoal book to around 1.35 million, not counting almost 200k from Erech and Nineveh (formerly 55k) or the 1.35 million of Port Arthur (formerly 370k). Personally, I prefer the former number because they make more sense with the rest of TN, and I'll be using that as my analysis will be for my Terra Nova (or in other words: Your Terra Nova Might Vary: Mine is Like This).
Given your above numbers, the NuCoal could have a theoretical army of around 5% the total population, or around 27.500 people, counting support personnel, which would be in line with army sizes per population in the rest of the globe. Given that they have a manufacturing base for some stuff (maily automotive) in Fort Neil, that Lance Point makes them independent, petroleum-wise, and that they would need to open new manufacturing plants to equipd too much people (or buy from other sources), I'd go for the 1/5th total combat personnel, with a larger pool of support, which would give us a total combat personnel of around 5.500, with a heavy slant towards Gears.
So, roughly, they could probably manage to field around 10 Gear regiments fully equipped, maybe a full armor regiment, 2-3 support battallions and probably a full infantry regiment deployed at company-level and fully motorized (You have Fort Neil there, so...). Which is quite a bit, all told.
Merging the with the Peacer River survivors, would give the NuCoal the lion's share of the PRDF (deployed mostly out of the city, but the whole air wings and the command echelons got blasted) and at the very least the main Paxton Arms's Skunk Works design teams, which would allow the NuCoal to develop and build assembly lines for their newer stuff.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, no I didn't notice all the Heavy Gear name references I made until after I posted.
JohnHwangDD wrote: If people are playing desert battles, plains battles, they are doing it wrong. Wargames need terrain.
The two aren't mutually exclusive. You have rolling hills, rocks, the occasional village on plains battles as well as dunes, rocks, pyramids, ruins, and oasis on desert tables.
Agreed. "Desert" and "infinite plains" are not exactly the same thing.
Smaller powers using Gears instead of more specialized stuff is absolutely logical, as you can make Gears do just about anything and you only need one pilot per Gear, even though they have significant limitations against stuff like tanks and the like. .
Gears are cheap thanks to mass production. The Polar powers benefit from this a lot (and Paxton, who supplies both polar and smaller powers). NuCoal probably doesn't have the volume to get the cost-savings associated with the really big production runs. It would have made a lot more sense for NuCoal to be using Paxton gears, as the price difference is enormous.
Still, I can see that being bootstrapped in relatively short amounts of time, but the bigger sticking point for me is research time for new gears. If they were just putting out cosmetically different knockoffs of Polar/Paxton gears, it would have made lots more sense.
A Gear is a highly-complex military machine. If we compare to the real world, the cheapest things the US used to field were armored HUMVEES at a cost of $200k each. They are being replaced by $500k-$1M MRAPs. If you move up the tech level, a Predator drones was $4M, and they are being replaced by $7-15M drones.
If we try to equate Gears to equipment, there is no way that a basic, mass-production Gear (e.g. Hunter) is less than $1M (like a MRAP). The sheer complexity of a Gear's articulation, miniaturization, motors and SMS suggests we're in the $4M range to produce.
That's about 20-25% cheaper than a M1 Abrams MBT, but it's not like fielding an infantryman with a rifle.
Plus there's the training aspect. Plus logistics, etc. Militaries are expensive, and now we're talking about land battleships?
Sure there's magic technology, but Gears are not rifles, and small countries are not outfitting 5% of their population with them. The economics just won't work. Pretending you have a whopping 50% of the population working, it's 10 workers per soldier. Each worker therefore shoulders 10% of the cost of the gear, or $500k taxes. That's 10X the current average American household income! And it assumes there's no bureaucracy or admin cost, no civil government.
I'm just not seeing it from a dollars and cents standpoint.
Actually a squad of gears might actually be cheaper. I found this just the other day (http://www.marketplace.org/2011/02/22/economy/globalist-quiz/cost-soldier-deployed-afghanistan) and it mentions that the cost for deploying one infantry man (just one guy) is 1.2 million. So following that theory it costs 36 million for just one platoon (including logistics costs). So if one gear pilot is about the same (biggest offset being the pilots better pay, which doesn't change things by much), you could be looking at around 15-20 million to deploy and support a squad of gears, which has the firepower of a company of infantry at the least. While this was in US dollars, I wouldn't imagine that it would be much difference in scale using the local economy. Also, before anyone else brings it up, the article was specifically about deploying to isolated regions with poor infrastructure, which pretty much sums up what most of NuCoal territory should be like.
My biggest reasoning for why gears would be attractive is that they minimize man power. Five guys (one pilot, and back in base 3 mechanics/janitors/cooks/logistics, 1 command staff/whatnot) compared to a squad (10 infantry, 40 support personal assuming a 1/5 ratio for combat to non-combat support). And the gear has far more firepower, is more comfortable in harsh environments (A/C is cheap), and has added mobility integrated into it, rather than needing APCs/trucks. A gear heavy army would let them stretch their manpower farther than conventional infantry.
That would be cheaper too. A squad of ten (using US pay scale) led by a Sargent and corporal costs $209,498 in pay. A 2nd Lieutenant earns $35,668.80. That's yearly of course. Than you have the 10 times larger logistics. Maintenance would be roughly the same. The squad would need an APC or a truck, while the gear is a gear, but gears are, despite their complexity, designed to be rugged, so most of it's non-combat maintenance should be mostly upkeep. So they'd be about the same though with a truck edging out for being cheaper to keep running.
A Gear is a highly-complex military machine. If we compare to the real world, the cheapest things the US used to field were armored HUMVEES at a cost of $200k each. They are being replaced by $500k-$1M MRAPs. If you move up the tech level, a Predator drones was $4M, and they are being replaced by $7-15M drones.
If we try to equate Gears to equipment, there is no way that a basic, mass-production Gear (e.g. Hunter) is less than $1M (like a MRAP). The sheer complexity of a Gear's articulation, miniaturization, motors and SMS suggests we're in the $4M range to produce.
I think there's a bit of a disconnect here, probably because you think that Gears are exclusively combat machines. They are not. They are offshoots of the construction and work machines that terranovans were already using and which were firstly brought from Earth almost 2 thousand cycles ago. "Out of the setting", they were also designed so that every piece of technology used in the basic Gears with the exception of the "black box" (the ONNET) was already able to be produced at the time of the writing (halfway the 90s): that's why all the internal parts of the Gears are hydraulics instead of myomer fibers or somesuch, why they use ICEs instead of more esoteric engines, and so on and so forth.
That's about 20-25% cheaper than a M1 Abrams MBT, but it's not like fielding an infantryman with a rifle.
No, of course it's not like fielding an infantryman with a rifle, but they are not just 25% cheaper than a MBT. Let's talk numbers a bit.
These are terranovan civilian work Gears:
These or other similar models are used throughout the whole globe in a multitude of jobs. Rovers, bandits, mercenaries, militias and marshalls everywhere use uparmed and armored variants for raids or defense (those would be roughly equivalent to our real world's technicals). A regular wrok Gear costs around 10.000 to 30.000 marks/dinars.
Now, this is an Elan, a northern utility vehicle similar to a jeep or Humvee:
The regular, unarmed and mostly unarmored version costs 31.500 marks/dinars, and there are more expensive upengined, upgunned and uparmored versions, and a really much more expensive spotter version, too (345k marks), but given all the upgrades is basically another, much more specialized vehicle.
Now, a regular Hunter/Jäger costs 221k marks/dinars new, and the polar leagues have been churning them out for centuries by now. Comparatively, a regular MBT goes for around 1.5M each, with the more specialized variants costing a lot more.
Plus there's the training aspect. Plus logistics, etc. Militaries are expensive, and now we're talking about land battleships?
Absolutely! In the training respect tanks are comparatively more expensive because you have to train multiple crewmembers, but Gear pilots have more specialized training. There's also the fact that you need to train the Gear's ONNET too, of course... and yeah, logistics are very expensive ^^
Sure there's magic technology, but Gears are not rifles, and small countries are not outfitting 5% of their population with them. The economics just won't work. Pretending you have a whopping 50% of the population working, it's 10 workers per soldier. Each worker therefore shoulders 10% of the cost of the gear, or $500k taxes. That's 10X the current average American household income! And it assumes there's no bureaucracy or admin cost, no civil government.
Firstly, I've taken the 5% quote mostly out of my ass, but I seem to remember it was in the ballpark for TN, which is heavily militarized usually, and much more in the "current" timeline after basically two world wars (by whic I mean, I seem to remember having read it, but not from where).
Secondly, that 5% would not be combat personnel, but total personnel, including all the logistics. Combat personnel would be a fraction of that.
As for cost on the Joe Average NuCoal tax payer. No clue. I'd suspect that most conventional infantry would be US style national guardsmen (part timers) though that wouldn't save the NuCoal gov. that much in the end.
Assuming what I wrote in my previous post is accurate at all to NuCoal's situation, they might have a smaller, but "better" (cost effective) equipped military. maybe only using .5-1.5 of their already small population in the military.
John Prins wrote: Gears are cheap thanks to mass production. The Polar powers benefit from this a lot (and Paxton, who supplies both polar and smaller powers). NuCoal probably doesn't have the volume to get the cost-savings associated with the really big production runs. It would have made a lot more sense for NuCoal to be using Paxton gears, as the price difference is enormous.
NuCoal would also need to create the manufacturing plants needed to build Gears, since they don't have much in that regard. The logical way would have been to turn to Paxton or buy used, or refurbishing work gears for militia work and the like.
Still, I can see that being bootstrapped in relatively short amounts of time, but the bigger sticking point for me is research time for new gears. If they were just putting out cosmetically different knockoffs of Polar/Paxton gears, it would have made lots more sense.
Exactly, yes, and that's been my point for years. Had they fielded variants of Bears, Pythons, Hunters, Jägers, Tigers, Sidewinders, Ferrets and similarly dated or mass produced Gears (meaning, stuff you can extrapolate from and build without needing too many resources or development brainpower) it would have made a lot more sense. Most of the actual minis could have been used as-is.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mmmpi wrote: As for cost on the Joe Average NuCoal tax payer. No clue. I'd suspect that most conventional infantry would be US style national guardsmen (part timers) though that wouldn't save the NuCoal gov. that much in the end.
Assuming what I wrote in my previous post is accurate at all to NuCoal's situation, they might have a smaller, but "better" (cost effective) equipped military. maybe only using .5-1.5 of their already small population in the military.
There's a reason they sought to ally with Port Arthur, all in all...
Assuming the previously used 3 million people for NuCoal, and using Russia as an example (not as well off economy, not as well off infrastructure, relatively heavily militarized) let's see what we get. The average Russian makes $7,400 dollars a year*, and pays 13% in taxes. That's $957.84 in taxes a year (let's say $1,000 for easier math). Times that by 3,000,000 people. NuCoal's government(s) have 3 billion dollars for it's entire annual budget. Admittedly that's to cover everything; military, infrastructure repair, improvement and upgrades, economic stimulation, keeping itself payed, ect. Russia spent 7.5% of it's tax money on it's military. So for NuCoal, that would be $225,000,000 for the military.
*I used the pre-embargo average
Automatically Appended Next Post: *Some* more advanced designs might be reasonable. One or two of the cities (can't remember which just now) do weapons testing for the polar leagues. That would give experience into building one or two new designs.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Fort Neil has the test pilots. Also, a large amount of polar equipment might be implied as five out of eight sub lists have allies: north/south/both.
Definitely could have showed it better if that's what was actually intended though.
My econ numbers were tied to the rapid militarization of the Badlands, and the impossibility of them suddenly fielding massive forces of Gears.
If you're saying that a Gear replaces a Bulldozer, then a basic civilian Gear would be comparable to a Cat D7-series which costs $500-600k each.
A Heavyweight D11 is $2.2M, only half the cost of a $4-5M M1 Abrams MBT.
By ratios, a Hunter Gear is still going to cost at least $1M, maybe $2M. This is roughly consistent with the "dinar" thing of a 1.5Md MBT vs a basic 220kd Gear.
If your 5% is the total military population, then we're only talking 1.5% of the population actually carrying weapons in the military, so the econ holds up a little better.
Mmmpi wrote: *Some* more advanced designs might be reasonable. One or two of the cities (can't remember which just now) do weapons testing for the polar leagues. That would give experience into building one or two new designs.
I think you're mistaking Fort Neil (home of Neil Motor Works) and Fort Henry (home of the Fort Henry Weapons Testing Range). That said, NMW has aquired the rights to produce spare parts and provide mainteinance for the Bear and Den Mother Gears after Northco phased out production.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
JohnHwangDD wrote: My econ numbers were tied to the rapid militarization of the Badlands, and the impossibility of them suddenly fielding massive forces of Gears.
If you're saying that a Gear replaces a Bulldozer, then a basic civilian Gear would be comparable to a Cat D7-series which costs $500-600k each.
A Heavyweight D11 is $2.2M, only half the cost of a $4-5M M1 Abrams MBT.
By ratios, a Hunter Gear is still going to cost at least $1M, maybe $2M. This is roughly consistent with the "dinar" thing of a 1.5Md MBT vs a basic 220kd Gear.
If your 5% is the total military population, then we're only talking 1.5% of the population actually carrying weapons in the military, so the econ holds up a little better.
Mmmpi wrote: *Some* more advanced designs might be reasonable. One or two of the cities (can't remember which just now) do weapons testing for the polar leagues. That would give experience into building one or two new designs.
I think you're mistaking Fort Neil (home of Neil Motor Works) and Fort Henry (home of the Fort Henry Weapons Testing Range).
I was going off of P. 147 (PDF 148). Fort Nell (not Neil like I previously said). It's fluff blurb says they "invented" the Sampson hover APC, worked on the Gallic series of gears. Under special rules has licensed fabrication Sidewinders and Ferrets, and Test pilots.
Mmmpi wrote: I was going off of P. 147 (PDF 148). Fort Nell (not Neil like I previously said). It's fluff blurb says they "invented" the Sampson hover APC, worked on the Gallic series of gears. Under special rules has licensed fabrication Sidewinders and Ferrets, and Test pilots.
Current rulebook? That one takes it's stuff from the NuCoal book. I have...significant issues with that book. "Current" stuff simply does not really make sense with the older. I prefer to use the older.
JohnHwangDD wrote:Oh, please. Next, you'll be telling us that Han shot first.
I'm... not exactly sure what you mean by that. Why would I say otherwise? It's clear as day
Mmmpi wrote:I only really have access to the newest book.
Ah, sorry. Well, the Sampson, all the Gallic designs, the test pilot program, the license to build Sidewinders and Ferrets (which in and of itself is suspect, as it's weird that they would be so buddy buddy with both Northco, Keimuru and Territorial Arms to get that sweet of a deal with no previous experience)... all of it was created wholecloth and introduced on the NuCoal book. It kind of strains credibility, so I just completely ignore it in my Terra Nova.
In my Terra Nova the "Gallic" designs are mainly cosmetic variants of existing and proven polar and Paxton Gears, which seats much better with my sensibilities, and the Sampson is just a locally refurbished HPC-64, same way as the Fusiliers are the locally assembled/fixed HTs used by the second PAK brigade. And as I don't need to sell minis but I need the setting to make sense to me, it works for me well enough.
Well, looking at the stats, a chasseur is basically a hunter or jager that has a lest accurate auto cannon (no split fire), and had it's frame weakened to add hover-skates (3/3 rather than 4/2, and SMS is H:9" rather than G: 6"). It doesn't have room for the panzerfaust or hand grenade either. One could say that hover aside, it's just a cheap knockoff. Actually, hover keeps it from just being a cheap knock off.
The current fluff for it (newest book) says:
"The Chasseur is the primary trooper Gear in
production for NuCoal, the HAPF and PAK. The
ability of the Gear to maintain speed with hover
vehicles makes the Chasseur a versatile unit.
The interchangeability of parts shared with the
Jager Gear simplifies repair and the ability to
match the mobility of the CEF invaders is an
additional plus for all three armies."
So it really IS a jager knock off... At least now.
Went through the other vehicles, and had a bit written out for them, but realized it's just be saying things you already agree with. Mostly about how Neil Motorworks somehow managed to mass produce seven designs (Chasseur Mk:2, Boa, Arbalestier, Lancier, Fusilier, Voltigeur, and Sampson) that had to have their designs massively alterered (MK:2), practically redesigned from the ground up (Boa), or brand new invented (everything else). Same to a lesser extent with Javelin Systems (Espion, Hussar).
But the rest of the designs are based on stuff that could easily be salvaged, or based on something the new fluff says they already have a license to build. You could even argue that the Chevalier is really just a bulked up Sidewinder rather than a grizzly/cobra knock off.
Also, as I said earlier, most of the sub-lists have allies: North/south/both, and one could take that as the use of salvage except for Lance Point which is apparently occupied by Southern Troops.
On an unrelated note, what are the Gallic designs? The ones with french name?
Finally, the way the font in the book is. At 100% size it looks like Ft. Nell. At 106% It's suddenly reveled to be Ft. Neil. Go figure.
The Chasseur is actually a Territorial Arms design, and yes, it's just a regular Jäger with Hover SMS instead of wheels. They were'nt able to sell it to the SRA, so they ended up selling the design and production rights to Erech and Nineveh, who used them in their militias.
The reason why the SRA didn't buy it was mainly due to a very limited autonomy coupled with horribly expensive mainteinance and deployment costs. Erech and Nineveh, being among the foremost gas producers of the globe, didn't much worry about costs, and didn't need extended deployment ranges.
Problem with it for the NuCoal in my Terra Nova is that Erech and Nineveh don't really have many reasons to join (not many economic reasons [actually joining the NuCoal might put them at odds with their main polar markets], location wise they are very far off the main NuCoal territories, and being important for both the poles and in the middle of the Badlands polar armies tend to leave it alone for fear of escalation), so they are independent.
That, coupled with the horrid operational costs and low deployment range makes the Chasseur a design very unsuited for my NuCoal (and no, making it magically operationally cost effective just because didn't happen either... one of the defining points of HT vehicles in setting is low Deployment ranges and high operational costs. Just being named "NuCoal" doesn't change the setting bible, for me at least).
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mmmpi wrote: Went through the other vehicles, and had a bit written out for them, but realized it's just be saying things you already agree with. Mostly about how Neil Motorworks somehow managed to mass produce seven designs (Chasseur Mk:2, Boa, Arbalestier, Lancier, Fusilier, Voltigeur, and Sampson) that had to have their designs massively alterered (MK:2), practically redesigned from the ground up (Boa), or brand new invented (everything else). Same to a lesser extent with Javelin Systems (Espion, Hussar).
Hehehe, yes, basically.
But the rest of the designs are based on stuff that could easily be salvaged, or based on something the new fluff says they already have a license to build. You could even argue that the Chevalier is really just a bulked up Sidewinder rather than a grizzly/cobra knock off.
Actually, the Chevalier should be based off the Bear/Den Mother: NMW already has license to build parts for that one, so it's the logical step.
The Sidewinder or Tiger derived Gear should be the Cuirassier. But first you'd have to find a reasonable way for companies from opposite (and opposing) poles to all sell production rights to the same company.
On an unrelated note, what are the Gallic designs? The ones with french name?
Basically the all-new designs presented in the book, plus the "new" Chasseur, now not a gas guzzler because of Deus ex Machina:
On the subject of deus ex machina, I think I've figured out the least awful way for Terra Nova to win against Earth.
While I assume that, if it appears in print, it will be magical Prime Knight/Dune knockoff stuff, what would make the most sense, to my mind, is if the fleet that disappeared at Jerusalem shows up. Having been converted and turned against Earth, it smashes the CEF fleet, and is destroyed itself in the process. Still a silly out, but better than literal magic, and even if it doesn't end the war immediately, it allows for Terra Nova to have orbital and space operations again. (Which means they can send their new landship invasion fleet abroad! Hurray! -_- )
Of course, I've never been one to take two quotes as proof Terra Nova is going to win anyway. They will win, because protagonist, but I've just never felt that the odd reference here and there to things in the 60s and later is proof.
The CEF and the Earth are basically on a self destruction course, so I would hope for a way to shore up dissent on Earth using the lack of results of the CEF to enact a change of leadership and a renewed openness towards the colonies, finally admitting to them and themselves that they need the help of the colonies to save Earth's biosphere.
Then a large number of the CEF fleets would go rogue, and in them the GRELs would start rebellions when the news of Earth's GREL emancipation reached them, so they would form some sort of fifth column/underground railroad inside the rebel fleets, which would allow a lot of cool thematic parallels with slavery.
Basically, I would love to see a "win" ending, defined by humanity not self destructing itself but still with a place for a not-Hitler's last stand.
Ahtman wrote: If someone has a place to host them I picked up my KS pledge at GenCon and can take pictures of the sprues.
Dakka has a nice, free, and easy to use gallery that I recommend.
I wasn't sure if these would be eligible to use for Dakka gallery tbh. The Google Pics idea is pretty good as well and seems sort of obvious in hindsight. I will get some pictures up later today.
Whatever works best for you, Ahtman. I would point out that there are official dakka articles that consist entirely of sprue pics to document the parts as well as hundreds of sprue pics in the dakka gallery including my own sprue pics for the swap shop. As long as it is wargaming related (which sprues are), it's good. I'd just recommend clicking the "don't vote on these" option on the pics to save gallery mod the effort of doing so.
The old editions made a big point of this - especially with regards to the vehicle build system - that anything that could be fully 'mass produced' was significantly cheaper because a lot of automation technologies could be brought to bear that weren't cost effective in small runs. You can find modern examples of this all over the place. Foxconn in China used to make Apple and Samsung components largely assembled by hand. Now they're deploying thousands of robots to take over the simpler tasks.
The average military gear was 'expensive' only when compared to the non-military version. Construction gears could be had for the modern equivalent of the price of a car. Things like tanks and aircraft were far more limited in production, so their per-unit price was far, far higher. You could get 6-7 gears for the price of a single main battle tank. A single gear had the power of an entire infantry company (or more) and required 1 pilot. If manpower is low, gears are the low cost solution - at least compared to tanks or striders.
Yes, it was a contrivance, but the setting is built around it.
It would appear that TN has a different concept of "mass production" compared to what we have on Earth. Your Foxconn example is particularly flawed. Apple has sold something like 1 BILLION iPhones since introduction in 2007.
NuCoal having 3M population of a moderate city and maybe 1% piloting Gears, means they would have a maximum of 30,000 units.
The "mass production" scale is off by several orders of magnitude, and is simply not comparable. It's like saying the 3M population of all of NuCoal itself is directly comparable to your personal household of 1-4 people.
Maybe contact with PAK let them install CEF fuel cells? Maybe they send Chasseur patrols out with tanker support.
As for Ft Neil having contracts for both sides, no clue. Someone in intel. dropped the ball. Though stuff like that has happened in real life. It could even have been the Ft. Going: Hey you two arn't fighting right now, but need parts, we're already making Jager parts, why not just slap "hunter" on a few crates and ship them north. Not knowing when they started too, it could be due to the CEF invasion too. Adding an additional manufacturing center could be critical. Finally, it's possible both sided do know and are using it/trying to use it to spy on each other, ala we now know what you're upgrading.
@Firebreak:
As long as it's not a 40K style draw. Winning due to magical unicorn gundam schoolgirls on rollerblades (MUGSOR) would be sub-optimal, but at least it would mean the story is moving.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And now that I think about it I should do that for any gear striders I end up with...
Make a KADA army of magical girl wanna be strider pilots...
where's my pink paint and rollerblade conversion kit!
Automatically Appended Next Post:
JohnHwangDD wrote: It would appear that TN has a different concept of "mass production" compared to what we have on Earth. Your Foxconn example is particularly flawed. Apple has sold something like 1 BILLION iPhones since introduction in 2007.
NuCoal having 3M population of a moderate city and maybe 1% piloting Gears, means they would have a maximum of 30,000 units.
The "mass production" scale is off by several orders of magnitude, and is simply not comparable. It's like saying the 3M population of all of NuCoal itself is directly comparable to your personal household of 1-4 people.
Mass produced just means built in batches, using an assembly line (as opposed to one by one by hand). The F-22 is mass produced, but they only made 193 of them.
Granted several of the gears listed say they're produced by "Various", so they very well could have some that are built by hand.
As long as it's not a 40K style draw. Winning due to magical unicorn gundam schoolgirls on rollerblades (MUGSOR) would be sub-optimal, but at least it would mean the story is moving.
Honestly, of the many concerns I have regarding Heavy Gear and it's future, the story moving isn't one of them. If the game and company survives, they'll move things along. Probably. Now, I assume it's going to move in a stupid direction I won't like, but there's always the possibility of something else happening.
And now that I think about it I should do that for any gear striders I end up with...
Make a KADA army of magical girl wanna be strider pilots...
where's my pink paint and rollerblade conversion kit!
Some concept art from the next kickstarter for nucoal posted elsewhere previewed supposedly at gencon. I wasn't there so can't verify it myself though. At least its not a gearstrider but rather a gear/hovercar ala the Hussar tank strider and another contribution from their HAPF absorption into Nucoal. The color scheme seems off for Nucoal though as I thought they were supposed to be light blue.
Spoiler:
Rumor is that it'll come with bits for rollerskates and a single MCW horn for the head. Supposedly the fluff says it can only be piloted by teenage females as they seem most susceptible to old HAPF brainwashing techniques. Trollololol.
Mmmpi wrote: Maybe contact with PAK let them install CEF fuel cells? Maybe they send Chasseur patrols out with tanker support.
The CEF has the very same low Deployment ranges and energy hog HT movement systems. It would change their fuel need into electricity needs, but you need to create electricity out of something, anyway. The core problem would not change. For the CEF it works out because they have very streamlined energy requirements, having hydrogen as their main source for fuel and ammunition, via fusion reactors.
But even if the NuCoal had access to enough fusion reactors to do it (they don't), consider this: a CEF battle group consumes nearly a million liters of hydrogen per week on standby status, and around double or triple that amount during active duty (and even more during heavy combat situations). The PAK has currently 2 armored brigades, each one made up of 3 regular battle groups, 1 support group and a support company). That's already strain enough as hydrogen requirements for the NuCoal even if they didn't use it for anything else.
As for Ft Neil having contracts for both sides, no clue. Someone in intel. dropped the ball. Though stuff like that has happened in real life. It could even have been the Ft. Going: Hey you two arn't fighting right now, but need parts, we're already making Jager parts, why not just slap "hunter" on a few crates and ship them north. Not knowing when they started too, it could be due to the CEF invasion too. Adding an additional manufacturing center could be critical. Finally, it's possible both sided do know and are using it/trying to use it to spy on each other, ala we now know what you're upgrading.
That last part might make sense if Northco and Territorial Arms still were making Sidewinders and Bears/Den Mothers. They are not, and that's the whole reason why they have offloaded the parts manufacturing to other companies: they've mothballed the assembly lines and most of the surviving vehicles have been sold to Badlands militias and the like, while the few left in the polar armies are on militias or similar paramilitary groups. Or the WFP. Or the MILICIA. Still, it is weird to have all the contracts falling into the hands of the same company, particularly given the polar enmities and the current political situation.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And now that I think about it I should do that for any gear striders I end up with...
Make a KADA army of magical girl wanna be strider pilots...
where's my pink paint and rollerblade conversion kit!
The old editions made a big point of this - especially with regards to the vehicle build system - that anything that could be fully 'mass produced' was significantly cheaper because a lot of automation technologies could be brought to bear that weren't cost effective in small runs. You can find modern examples of this all over the place. Foxconn in China used to make Apple and Samsung components largely assembled by hand. Now they're deploying thousands of robots to take over the simpler tasks.
The average military gear was 'expensive' only when compared to the non-military version. Construction gears could be had for the modern equivalent of the price of a car. Things like tanks and aircraft were far more limited in production, so their per-unit price was far, far higher. You could get 6-7 gears for the price of a single main battle tank. A single gear had the power of an entire infantry company (or more) and required 1 pilot. If manpower is low, gears are the low cost solution - at least compared to tanks or striders.
Yes, it was a contrivance, but the setting is built around it.
That's a bit of an oversimplification:
In HG, every vehicle has a Production type, which defines the stage of development that a particular vehicle has reached (remember, all this comes from the RPG, it would have no bearing on the minis game other than setting).
Prototypes are hand-crafted and often one-of-a-kind, making them outrageously expensive. Early production runs often still have a bug or two left in them that has yet to be worked out. Mass production runs produce cheap, reliable machines. Limited production runs improve product quality and increase cost. Scratchbuild designs are lovingly hand-crafted with little or no planning. The production type will also define how much care is put into each unit built and how many will be built on average (the "#" column).
Production type defined a number of things: firstly, it defined how many will be built on average (for example, that number for a Testbed Prototype was 1-3, while for a Limited Production vehicle it was 5-500). It also defined how many "Lemon Dice" you had to roll for the design, and how many of those were for design flaws and how many for production flaws (the idea was that you rolled the design defect dice to see how many defects had surfaced during testing, and the production defect dice for your particular machine, to see if it had any problem), as well as the final cost multiplier.
For example, a Testbed Prototype had 12 Design Flaw dice, 2 Production Flaw dice and a cost multiplier of x100. Meanwhile, a Limited Production unit had 1 Design Flaw die, 2 Production Flaw dice and a cost multiplier of x2, whereas a Mass Production unit would have 2 Design Flaw dice, 3 Production Flaw dice and a cost multiplier of x0.5.
Of course, a vehicle would first need to pass through most of the "regular" production types (Testbed Prototype, Early Prototype, Late Prototype, Early Production) before all the kinks were worked out for mass production,so the actual cost to reach that stage would be a lot higher. That means that unless a vehicle would be produced in very high numbers, it would end up being built as either Early Production or Limited Production, with a much higher per-unit cost.
As to prices, there are not really many prices for civilian vehicles on the books, TBH, but a regular 5-ton trucks cost around 8.500 marks/dinars, whereas a Longrunner, which is a specialized long-range desert caravan truck with space for 8 passangers plus driver and 200 m3 of cargo space go for 20k marks/dinars. Also, a one-man Flea short range helicopter costs less than 40k.
One of the things that surprises me is that NuCoal doesn't have any of the armed civilian vehicles like Antelope and Wallabys. Or civilian versions there in. It seems like something that a group founded on a collection of badlands militia would have.
warboss wrote: Some concept art from the next kickstarter for nucoal posted elsewhere previewed supposedly at gencon. I wasn't there so can't verify it myself though. At least its not a gearstrider but rather a gear/hovercar ala the Hussar tank strider and another contribution from their HAPF absorption into Nucoal. The color scheme seems off for Nucoal though as I thought they were supposed to be light blue.
Spoiler:
Rumor is that it'll come with bits for rollerskates and a single MCW horn for the head. Supposedly the fluff says it can only be piloted by teenage females as they seem most susceptible to old HAPF brainwashing techniques. Trollololol.
You joke, but she WAS piloted by a teenage boy, in Headmasters.
Been so long since I have messed with the metal it is hard to make an honest comparison. Just from recollection it has much of the detail, but not 100% tbh.
On their own it is a very sturdy, hard plastic. Each Gear is its own sprue and has several options for when making it. Each sprue also has the name of the Gear that it makes on it, which is nice. I would almost put it on par with the GW plastic for durability and detail. On the other hand it comes with Hex bases that have slots in them but none of them use the slots so that will need to be filled in.
The book I am really not happy with. It looks like it was printed at Kinkos with low weight paper. It has some nice illustrations in it but it feels cheap. I was hoping for something a bit better put together.
Yeah, I didn't want to get too deep into it. Another advantage gears had was that any factory making gears could probably be retooled quickly and inexpensively to make almost any gear (Hardhats today, Jagers tomorrow!), where things like tanks and striders would need a hell of a lot more to retool a construction equipment factory. That and gears didn't have the weapons integrated into the vehicle - all hardpoint mounted or handheld - being mass produced by Paxton, probably.
To a degree. You could switch a grizzly production line to the engineering version fairly easily, but there wouldn't be much in common between a hunter line and a grizzly line. While there would be similar machinery, the different in size and design would require the change.
Real world version, A B1 bomber plant can't just start making 737's, even if they're both planes and about the same size.
Mmmpi wrote: To a degree. You could switch a grizzly production line to the engineering version fairly easily, but there wouldn't be much in common between a hunter line and a grizzly line. While there would be similar machinery, the different in size and design would require the change.
Real world version, A B1 bomber plant can't just start making 737's, even if they're both planes and about the same size.
Yeah, basically: variants of the same model would be relatively easy to retool, but Hardhats versus Jägers would be like trying to make Humvwees in a Ford Pinto plant.
OTOH, as John says, having manipulators and hardpoints many civilian models can be pressed into combat with relative ease. That's why many militias and bandits use upgunned Hardhats and the like.
Mmmpi wrote: One of the things that surprises me is that NuCoal doesn't have any of the armed civilian vehicles like Antelope and Wallabys. Or civilian versions there in. It seems like something that a group founded on a collection of badlands militia would have.
That has more to do with the fact that the designers wanted to make a wargame faction who had everything cool than with anything else. Simply put, nobody bothered to flesh it out except when it came to "cool models". That's why the NuCoal have armadillo beast riders with exploding lances instead of, say, off road vehicles.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mmmpi wrote: Does that mean you'd have HMMV's that burst into flames at the drop of a hat?
Mmmpi wrote: To a degree. You could switch a grizzly production line to the engineering version fairly easily, but there wouldn't be much in common between a hunter line and a grizzly line. While there would be similar machinery, the different in size and design would require the change.
Real world version, A B1 bomber plant can't just start making 737's, even if they're both planes and about the same size.
I think it's worth noting that flexible manufacturing is a thing today. We're not talking just variants of a chassis, either. The nearest Honda plant to me builds both Civics and CRV on the same line (a line that also built, in the past, the Odyssey, Ridgeline and MDX and ZDX). One manufacturing line making sedan, SUV, minivans and psuedo-truck-SUV-hybrid things and luxury sport utes.
Granted, you have to build a production line to be flexible from the start, but that gets easier the better your robotics gets.
I haven't been keeping up on new developments in manufacturing. That's good to know. It seems like there would still be a rough size limit however, with one line able to make cheetahs and Ferrets, but would have to be retooled to make hunters and tigers. At least in theory.
On another note, NuCoal has several gears listed as "Various", typically in my experience when I've seen that in the past it means small shop, rather than small/medium factory. Very likely hand tool/hand crafted rather than on an assembly line. Does the established back story for the faction bear that out?
Mmmpi wrote: I haven't been keeping up on new developments in manufacturing. That's good to know. It seems like there would still be a rough size limit however, with one line able to make cheetahs and Ferrets, but would have to be retooled to make hunters and tigers. At least in theory.
On another note, NuCoal has several gears listed as "Various", typically in my experience when I've seen that in the past it means small shop, rather than small/medium factory. Very likely hand tool/hand crafted rather than on an assembly line. Does the established back story for the faction bear that out?
That's an interesting question, and the answer is yes and no. Prior to NuCoal being a playable faction, the established backstory was essentially "Some badlands towns hang out at parties together, and Paxton makes fun of their club." Within the confines of their backstory NOW, the "small shop" idea fits at least the Jerboa. It's made by a company that makes nothing else, and it's more or less a bodymod/tuner package/aerokit for the Ferret anyway.
Mmmpi wrote: I haven't been keeping up on new developments in manufacturing. That's good to know. It seems like there would still be a rough size limit however, with one line able to make cheetahs and Ferrets, but would have to be retooled to make hunters and tigers. At least in theory.
You might not get a line building Cheetahs and then Grizzlies, but it's not outside the realm of possibility either. Gears range in metric tonnage from 5 (Ferret) to topping out around 10 IIRC. It really depends how much the factory spent on flexibility in the first place. At some point it's just going to be cheaper to make more factories rather than spend extra money on maximum flexibility.
Note that there is considerable downtime switching from one to another. Also, that's just final assembly - tool and die is very expensive and time consuming to switch over. For the size of these things, I doubt they could possibly switch the dies in less than a week. Probably 2 or 3 weeks.
Mmmpi wrote: Which in some ways would have made more sense if NMW was the one making it. Seeing as they build ferrets.
I was referring more to the Chasseur, the Cuirassier, and the Chasseur Paratrooper.
Those just plain don't make sense. Just roll with it . But in the case of the Chasseur I guess they are counting the Erech and Nineveh production (nevermind that they don't have a need whatsoever of a PT model, of course).
Automatically Appended Next Post:
JohnHwangDD wrote: Note that there is considerable downtime switching from one to another. Also, that's just final assembly - tool and die is very expensive and time consuming to switch over. For the size of these things, I doubt they could possibly switch the dies in less than a week. Probably 2 or 3 weeks.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Note that there is considerable downtime switching from one to another. Also, that's just final assembly - tool and die is very expensive and time consuming to switch over. For the size of these things, I doubt they could possibly switch the dies in less than a week. Probably 2 or 3 weeks.
Perhaps the topic of real life manufacturing techniques extended to a fictional planet thousands of light years away and thousands of years in the future deserves its own thread or switch to the general thread since it's not really applicable to this KS specific thread? (unless of course DP9 isn't making the sprues in the USA now but rather on TN in the distant future and transporting them across space/time to Quebec!)
JohnHwangDD wrote: Note that there is considerable downtime switching from one to another. Also, that's just final assembly - tool and die is very expensive and time consuming to switch over. For the size of these things, I doubt they could possibly switch the dies in less than a week. Probably 2 or 3 weeks.
Getting the equipment ready takes months. Installing it takes a week. Once it's in place, switching models takes minutes.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Note that there is considerable downtime switching from one to another. Also, that's just final assembly - tool and die is very expensive and time consuming to switch over. For the size of these things, I doubt they could possibly switch the dies in less than a week. Probably 2 or 3 weeks.
Getting the equipment ready takes months. Installing it takes a week. Once it's in place, switching models takes minutes.
Given the setting and tiny volumes under discussion, the notion of hypermodern JIT / LEAN techniques seems beyond farfetched.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Given the setting and tiny volumes under discussion, the notion of hypermodern JIT / LEAN techniques seems beyond farfetched.
I don't know why. While the setting assumes a fairly realistic technological base, versatile robotics manufacturing is less complex than walking military IFVs by a long stretch. Research and development of a good platform is likely a far bigger issue, especially with the rise of NuCoal.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Thanks, yeah, that's a far more lethal environment. And not unreasonable based on the fluff of light armor and big guns!
Much more lethal. Overkill from full health is the single most common dice result (lumping 4, 5, and 6 damage hits together since they're effectively the same result.. overkill) at 24% of shots. If you fire an LAC at optimal range from a hunter to a jager, you'd at do at least a point of damage or more 73% of the time and cripple the target or worse 39% of the time. A commando gear like a Mamba shooting at a hunter with an MAC would overkill it from full health 46% of the time! That is some votoms level carnage that would definitely lead to higher model counts and less record keeping... but probably not be appropriate for skirmish model counts. I've got some interesting ideas on that...
Firing a not-Jager firing a not-LAC at a not-Hunter is most commonly doing nothing 55% of the time, but 20% it's destroying the target, and crippling 25% of the time. A not-Mamba or not-GREL Frame is going to do better, of course. While a target in cover would survive far better.
While the concept was to have Infinity levels of terrain, for this to be a cover-driven game, in playtesting, I was having difficulty scrounging up enough cover to make it not auto-kill. Hence the recent rework.
Thoughts and comments preferred in the lethality thread. Thanks!
Did a quick look through of my Southern Minis. All of my Jagers had the same "patch" over the engine vent part. But no other glaring deformities. Haven't gone through the rest of my stuff, but 8 jagers have the engine flaw pictured.
looking at the spreu preview (http://dp9forum.com/index.php?showtopic=17392), it's hard to see, but the same flaw "might" be there. Which means that this was done either on purpose, or the Podbay knew about it (possibly too late to change).
I'm probably going to paint mine like it's a filter screen or something.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I feel I need to point out specifically: the engine part is EXACTLY the same as the one pictured in the link above.
I would say it's clearly either a mould defect or a plastic buildup on the mould that has not been removed:
Also, looks like more people (well, american people anyways ) is getting pledges and building and painting stuff. I'm... not very much awed by the results:
New plastic Kodiak versus old metal Kodiak:
New plastic Hunters; you can see they are the new ones by how big their range of movements is >_>
New plastic Black Mamba versus old Mamba (actual comment on FB: #anorexiaisreal):
@Mmmpi... That sucks. It's definitely then either a mold error or an error in the process (like not enough pressure or a reduction in the injection time) that didn't allow the plastic in that one spot to get to the recesses before cooling.
@Albert... Thanks for the pics. I lol'd at your hashtag. While I strongly prefer the metal kodiak (heck, the RAFM metal one even more!), I think the pic differences are exacerbated by the lack of the base and the different positioning of the rocket pack. Either way, it definitely looks like it went on a diet. As for the mamba pic, it looks like they took the small arms and hands of the old tactical scale and instead of bumping them up to be proportional they did the opposite and slimmed down the rest of the model to tactical limb scale. Not a fan of that...
Is it just me or are they just offensive to the eyes? Like I'd almost always prefer plastic over metals but these sculpts look like anaemic versions of the originals with some very strange choices in terms of what parts have been scaled up or down.
This coupled with (from what I can see) piss poor placement of the mould lines pretty much is the last nail in the coffin for my interest in picking this up, which is a shame cos I've finally found my box of old metal hunters.
That's about as bad as my Old Glory minis. Except that those Old Glory minis are single-piece metals in rubber molds, and they are HUGE and CHEAP, so that sort of sink and pebbling is to be expected.
For HIPS product, the surface finish and sink is completely unacceptable, and is mind-boggling how it could have gotten past any sort of QA/QC.
Say what you like about the RRT plastics having too many parts to capture the likeness, but at least they didn't suffer from obvious production flaws. The RRT minis at least look like what they're supposed to look like, and they were popped correctly with decent quality plastic and proper fill. Kind of a tough call between getting 30% of what you paid for, but at acceptable quality when built, vs getting 100% of the stuff, but in unplayable condition... ____
ETA - after looking (and LOLing) though the rest, only the Caprice mounts are "good". The Frames are acceptable. North is not good. South is plainly bad. And they're going to KS PRDF and the rest? Good luck with that...
Question: Does anybody have metal (resin?) Mounts to compare? Are Mounts supposed to be that big?
A couple things come to mind about the casting quality:
DP9 had a third party manufacturer make these initial sprues. Said company probably has a QA division, and from their perspective and under terms of their contract, they probably think the parts are fine. This company probably makes tupperware and plastic sporks (or foons) by the millions, and certainly doesn't understand the exacting details that miniature gamers and modelers expect from their "Little Plastic Toy Soldiers" (which is probably what the manufacturer thinks about Heavy Gear).
Looking over some of the posted stuff so far- it doesn't look any worse then some of the older GW plastic mini's when they first started coming out. Mold lines are mold lines, and if you really want some bad ones, then check out some of the Privateer Press' new starter battle boxes with the colored plastic. Oh boy, could I say a few things about that! or crack out the new Battletech Box Set from Catalyst Games and check out those plastic mechs. If anything, there will be more prep work required on these models, but I'm excited about the modeling posibilities- battle damage, posing... you're really going to be able to give your gears some personality beyond the paint job, and that is great!
If you consider this the new "standard" for DP9, then the only way they have to go is up from here, right?
Tamwulf wrote: A couple things come to mind about the casting quality:
DP9 had a third party manufacturer make these initial sprues. Said company probably has a QA division, and from their perspective and under terms of their contract, they probably think the parts are fine. This company probably makes tupperware and plastic sporks (or foons) by the millions, and certainly doesn't understand the exacting details that miniature gamers and modelers expect from their "Little Plastic Toy Soldiers" (which is probably what the manufacturer thinks about Heavy Gear).
Looking over some of the posted stuff so far- it doesn't look any worse then some of the older GW plastic mini's when they first started coming out. Mold lines are mold lines, and if you really want some bad ones, then check out some of the Privateer Press' new starter battle boxes with the colored plastic. Oh boy, could I say a few things about that! or crack out the new Battletech Box Set from Catalyst Games and check out those plastic mechs. If anything, there will be more prep work required on these models, but I'm excited about the modeling posibilities- battle damage, posing... you're really going to be able to give your gears some personality beyond the paint job, and that is great!
If you consider this the new "standard" for DP9, then the only way they have to go is up from here, right?
Honestly speaking, they look like what I'd expect to find in a Space Crusade box or similar (re: boardgame) 25 years ago. Only those were monopose and (mainly) monopart.
As to the manufacturer, do you mean the mould manufacturer, or the company that's doing the actual sprue pops? Because that last one supposedly works in the plastic plane kits market.
As to Privatee Press, I won't touch their PVC stuff. But in plastics, they appear to be doing nice enough...
Or rather, spectacularly well:
The comparison is interesting, and I'd really like to know more about that factory in Shenshen, Guang Dong, China.
While the CEF frame posing shows that you can put them in a more dynamic position with cutting, pinning, and gap filling, the standard poses are *really* static with the cheetah looking particularly bad in that pic above. I'm glad I have enough metal gears and only went in for the comments/updates; I can buy the Caprice stuff at retail if/when it appears online. The rest I wouldn't bother with personally though I see the value in it at a substantial discount to the metal prices. For those with the minis, did the mamba's sensor head get mangeld in the front by some dull clippers or an old hobby knife? Is the attachment point to the sprue right on the front of the head over the cyclops sensor eye?
I'm also curious what lessons learned will carry over to the next batch of factions in next year's kickstarter.
The... the HANDS! Good lord that's not acceptable. Everything else, well, they're... passable? I mean they are by no means up to snuff and most of their competitors blow them out of the water, but, they are fine.
I'd make the comparison of using Micro Machines to play X-Wing, but those little suckers are $3 a piece and a lot more detailed, so that would be unfair to them. XD
But hey, at least they're getting these kinks out before the important armies come down, right?
Checking my Jager sprues, I see the same problem with the V-Engine vents, but can't seem to find the dimple on arms. I'm guessing the dimple might be an artifact from a particular batch.
As I don't have any of the original blitz scale metals to compare against, I think theyr'e about par with the Battletech 3rd edition/Citytech 2nd edition plastics which are from the mid to late 90's. Not as good as the original RAFM scale metals, but strangely, I don't miss those very much.
Cost of everything in a North/South/CEF/Caprice plastic set: $60.
Example: North
4 x Hunter plastic miniature parts sprue & hex base
4 x Jaguar plastic miniature parts sprue & hex base
2 x Cheetah plastic miniature parts sprue & hex base
2 x Grizzly plastic miniature parts sprue & round base
1 x Kodiak plastic miniature parts sprue & round base
1 x Ferret plastic miniature parts sprue & hex base
Cost of everything in metal:
GP Squad: $32
Strike Squadron: $35
Cheetah 2-pack: $18
2 Grizzlies: $37
Kodiak: $19
Ferret: $10
Total: $152
So, if you want four sets of resin arms at $8 to modify four of your Gears with cross-chest poses and add that to a $60 starter set, is that really such a dent in your wallet?
Well, for starters, the arms are "online only", which means in my case I won't be taking advantage of any possible online discounts, that I will need to pay DP9's shipping charges and that I will have to pay VAT and customs charges to get them (and also give money directly to Robert Dubois, which I'm, plainly, not going to do). USAnians will get a better deal, sure.
OTOH, right now I can go to ebay or Amazon and buy metal boxes for $18-20 each, included shipping, because for some reason they're being sold for that.
And that's not even taking into account the fact that IMHO the plastics look less detailed, less poseable right out of the box and plain worse.
Sure, there are deals like those out there. So grab them while you can. Personally, I'd grab a couple myself if I could, except most of my money is being spent on just getting by right now.
As for your deal with Robert, that's one of those matters I don't have any control over.
But as far as poses, sorry, I've already shared a couple on Terra Nova DMZ that were fairly well posed for my tastes, and all it required was some Loctite and a Xacto blade.
Edit: Also, in reference to your VAT, we've already seen that they try to do their best to fit the boxes as tightly as possible to avoid unnecessary size to rising VATs Europe-ways and out in Australia and elsewhere.
Those figures aren't complete.
Why not compare the 60$ plastic 14 minis starter with the actual metal mini starter, that features 16 minis for 132.26$ ?
At a glance, yeah, the plastic is quite lower, but there are two more minis, Tigers, at 18$ a pair, are absent from the plastic starter, so lets remove this from the metal starter, we're now 60 against 114, for 14 figs.
Those improved arms are standard in the metal versions, but 2$ each if you want with a plastic box. That's 24$ (not counting the minis that can't be upgraded that way) added to get similar function to the metal minis, so the final price is actually 84$, against 114$.
So, in the end, you're saving 26% off the metal starter, by going with inferior, poorly-proportioned minis, less-detailed minis. I won't mention the poses, as I can hear the white knights rushing in to claim that plastic is easier to repose than metal, which is true, but the metal minis don't need reposing quite as badly as the stiff plastic ones, either.
Anyway, DP9 delivers a subpar, poorly designed, "good enough for the fans" product yet again. Who's actually surprised there ?
BrandonKF wrote: Edit: Also, in reference to your VAT, we've already seen that they try to do their best to fit the boxes as tightly as possible to avoid unnecessary size to rising VATs Europe-ways and out in Australia and elsewhere.
I suspect you're thinking shipping costs there, not VAT . Packing has no bearing on VAT and customs charges.
Shipping costs, IIRC the online store has a flat shipping rate past a certain amount.
As to the actual plastic minis, I would personally not buy them, not just compared with the metal ones, but period, with the exception of the Caprice ones that look quite good indeed. The rest would be competing against any other plastic kit I would want to buy, and as most of those would be GW or Perry kits, or Bandai ones, well... I already have more than enough Gears as it is anyway.
That said, I can certainly see the appeal of the new boxes at 50% off compared with RRP metals for people that mainly wants to play.
Mmmpi wrote: Huh, when I first looked at it I thought they were being sold in sets of six.
Go misreading! Yeah, $2 for two arms is GW's playbook.
I actually think $1.00 CAD is a fair price for a resin gear sized arm bit personally. I have more of an issue with the plastics having only one arm pose and even the metals suffered with that issue. About a half dozen of my gears have had limb reconstructive surgery as I attempted to give them better and/or more varied arm poses (not so much the legs though... only did that once). In the end, while I don't actually prefer the end result, you get what you paid for with the plastics compared with the metals (except for caprice... not sure about the CEF since I never owned any).
That said, I can certainly see the appeal of the new boxes at 50% off compared with RRP metals for people that mainly wants to play.
Agreed. I'd probably recommend completely new players getting a single faction starter for $60 (assuming that hasn't changed since) but I'd let them know about the quality (and price) difference though. I probably wouldn't recommend the plastics to veteran modelers or those that prioritize the hobby over playing.
Well, @warboss, the plastics don't have just one arm pose. There are three arms and three legs apiece per sprue.
The Caprice model sprues were made in the same way. When you're finished assembling, you have additional body parts left over. If you choose a Kadesh and glue it together, you have a Kadesh, and the Aphek bits are just extra.
We made some suggestions about creating extra leg parts, but considering the cost efficiency of tooling new sprues, that's unlikely. However, I'll likely just throw together the Caprice models, glue them on, and wait until I can afford more.
In the meantime, if folks are really interested in playing with just one starter set (never mind that you could feasibly get two of these for $120 and have ten Accos and ten other Mounts), it's probably best to buy some raw magnets and a drill bit.
If folks are truly worried about quality difference?
I'm not going to appease everyone, but I will say that I AM pleased with the Caprice and CEF models especially. I have bought the metals, and I have the plastics, and they're exceptionally well built. There are some dimples and flashing on the jump jets of the Kadesh and Meggido bits, but that's all that was on that sprue part for me.
There are some exceptionally tiny moulding crackling on the MHT-95.
I'll probably post more pics to my blog as I continue on. @Nomeny, thanks for the compliment, just keep in mind most of those are from the folks at Terra Nova DMZ. I'm by no means a great quality painter.
BrandonKF wrote: Well, @warboss, the plastics don't have just one arm pose. There are three arms and three legs apiece per sprue.
Yes and no. Thanks for pointing that out though as it has indeed changed since the last time I looked at the sprues in detail way back.
Just from peeking at the test pops and doing limb counts, it appears some of them have extra limb options while others don't. It appears we're both incorrect but you're admittedly less so.
Spoiler:
In any case, I don't think they spent that space on the sprue very well if the third limb options give generally so little variety in posing without resorting to clipping, regluing, and gap filling. I mentioned it earlier but I think DP9 would have been better served by making a separate weapons sprue that they included with each squad instead of repeating so many weapons on each sprue. Crossed chest arms IMO absolutely should have been included on the sprue in addition to kneeling or running legs on every sprue. YMMV.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
BrandonKF wrote: The Caprice model sprues were made in the same way. When you're finished assembling, you have additional body parts left over. If you choose a Kadesh and glue it together, you have a Kadesh, and the Aphek bits are just extra.
*snip*
I'm not going to appease everyone, but I will say that I AM pleased with the Caprice and CEF models especially.
I was aware of the Caprice stuff but that isn't exactly an apples to apples comparison. With caprice, you're doing the equivalent of putting the mamba and jager on the same sprue and mixing and matching the parts to get the actual model you want. That's not the same thing as having multiple jager arms on a jager sprue. In any case, we agree on the Caprice models being the standout release both in terms of relative quality and price savings. It's the only faction box that I have an itch to pick up at retail (assuming HG products make it back to online stores again).
BrandonKF wrote: Yep. You're right about the extra limb options. Sorry, I have too much plastic in front of my face, and I'm only working with one set.
If we'd had the backing to fully allow for it, an additional weapons sprue would have been nice with cross-chest options. Maybe for the next one.
I hope they take that into account the next time. I'd give them 50/50 odds on it personally. Now that you're posting here regularly (at least for this 24 hours!), any updates on the rpg that you can share?
HudsonD wrote: DP9 delivers a subpar, poorly designed, "good enough for the fans" product yet again. Who's actually surprised there ?
Was anybody really expecting the Pod to deliver plastic minis that actually matched the metals and CAD drawings they showed in the KCs?
Because, aside from the Caprice minis, they completely failed to do that.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
warboss wrote: Just from peeking at the test pops and doing limb counts, it appears some of them have extra limb options while others don't. It appears we're both incorrect but you're admittedly less so.
Spoiler:
Looking at those test pops, you can see on any of the thicker parts that no consideration was given toward shrinkage - look at the sink marks on the backpacks, for example. Those are supposed to be flat, not concave.
Looking at those test pops, you can see on any of the thicker parts that no consideration was given toward shrinkage - look at the sink marks on the backpacks, for example. Those are supposed to be flat, not concave.
I suspect Robert was George and Dave was Jerry. Not sure who Elaine is at Dream Pod 9 though...
HudsonD wrote: DP9 delivers a subpar, poorly designed, "good enough for the fans" product yet again. Who's actually surprised there ?
Was anybody really expecting the Pod to deliver plastic minis that actually matched the metals and CAD drawings they showed in the KCs?
Because, aside from the Caprice minis, they completely failed to do that.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
warboss wrote: Just from peeking at the test pops and doing limb counts, it appears some of them have extra limb options while others don't. It appears we're both incorrect but you're admittedly less so.
Spoiler:
Looking at those test pops, you can see on any of the thicker parts that no consideration was given toward shrinkage - look at the sink marks on the backpacks, for example. Those are supposed to be flat, not concave.
I was expecting decent-quality miniatures for a good price.
I knew that the CAD drawings were early prototypes that never got off the ground, so I wasn't expecting them to be perfect.
I also knew (and those who followed the continual updates knew) that some miniatures were left out.
And considering that I've seen what happened with other Kickstarters, I'm quite pleased with this work. Do I want replacements? No. Do I want the guys at the Pod to investigate and keep Models LLC in the loop so that I and others can act as a larger form of quality control, fixing issues like these? Yes.
warboss wrote:I hope they take that into account the next time. I'd give them 50/50 odds on it personally. Now that you're posting here regularly (at least for this 24 hours!), any updates on the rpg that you can share?
We finished up a couple sections and are getting layout done for them.
There are a couple other projects that are ongoing.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Was anybody really expecting the Pod to deliver plastic minis that actually matched the metals and CAD drawings they showed in the KCs?
I was extremely hopeful that they would. I fell in love with the game because of the metal minis from the Blitz line - their proportions and aesthetics really struck a nerve in me. I'm disappointed that the plastics didn't capture that same magic, because I really wanted them to. The Pod succeeding would end up giving me more sculpts that I really want to own - but alot of the recent moves just haven't scratched that itch.
I guess I have to come to grips with the fact that I'm more a fan of XactoBoy's work, than the Pod's work. I think he's the driver behind the sculpts that I loved so much.
BrandonKF wrote: True, and also the man behind the art that inspired Xactoboy. Ghislain.
I think Xacto taking Gislain's drawings and giving the models an 'appropriate' sense of proportion was what did it for me. I don't like the tactical era minis, for instance. I like that the plastics have a similar eye for scale across models, but they certainly didn't keep a good scale within each model. The arms and legs look weedy compared to the Blitz sculpts to my eye. Only the Caprice sculpts capture the right style IMO - and those are basically straight translations.
I guess I have to come to grips with the fact that I'm more a fan of XactoBoy's work, than the Pod's work. I think he's the driver behind the sculpts that I loved so much.
BrandonKF wrote: True, and also the man behind the art that inspired Xactoboy. Ghislain.
I think Xacto taking Gislain's drawings and giving the models an 'appropriate' sense of proportion was what did it for me. I don't like the tactical era minis, for instance. I like that the plastics have a similar eye for scale across models, but they certainly didn't keep a good scale within each model. The arms and legs look weedy compared to the Blitz sculpts to my eye. Only the Caprice sculpts capture the right style IMO - and those are basically straight translations.
Basically, the upper torsos and arms appear to have been hit hardest in the size department, which likely causes the rest to look tinier as a result after "shrinkage".
warboss wrote: The hips also frequently feel off to me/look awkward as well but I can't quite put my finger on why.
Oh, I do, and I pointed it out during the KS: the hips are a single, unmoving part now, whereas in earlier models they are two pieces that actually are part of the legs, which allow them to act as what they were designed to be: armored skirts for the upper leg articulation that fold up when the leg goes up. With the single piece hips, you lose a lot of movement range there, which also makes the legs stiffer and the torso longer and much more unmoving.
Yeah, that's exactly what I was talking about earlier.
Also... am I the only one that finds it hilarious that the Jaguar now was a ginormous head, given that it has had "Annoyance: cramped head space" since forever? I mean, really ^_^
So I think the "The models are fethed up but it totally doesn't affect the look we promise; oh and by the way since we were too stupid to set aside some money for potential problems so we're not going to make any attempt at fixing this" comment on facebook just did me in for DP9 as a company for good.
Firebreak wrote: So I think the "The models are fethed up but it totally doesn't affect the look we promise; oh and by the way since we were too stupid to set aside some money for potential problems so we're not going to make any attempt at fixing this" comment on facebook just did me in for DP9 as a company for good.
Huh... link? Because that sounds... dumbfeth stupid, to me.
EDIT: Well, now I know that some stuff doesn't get caught by the profanity filter ^^
Automatically Appended Next Post:
JohnHwangDD wrote: It appears the Pod learned a lot from Palladium in the past year, right down to the "STFU, peasants!" approach toward customer service.
The small issues do not effect game play or the overall look of the models once assembled. There is not much we can do at this point about these small issues as all the plastics have already been popped and delivered to us by Models LLC for all the backer reward packages and we have shipped over half the packages to backers already and getting replacement parts made and shipped out would be very costly. Most of the dimpling can be fixed by players with a little bit of modeling putty to fill-in the area before painting. For the missing "X" detail on the upper left side of the Mounts Hips the missing detail can be painted on or just paint the hips part black so the missing detail is not noticeable.
"So yeah, we would need to pay money to fix the defects of people's models, but we don't wanna, so feth you, just use some putty or something and leave us alone, you peasants. [PalladiumSpeak]Also, it's totally not our fault. [busthrowing]It was all those fethers at Models LLC who fethed up the moulds[/busthrowing] Totally NOT our fault[/PalladiumSpeak]". Real classy stuff.
Good luck with the next KS.
I find the part about "issues not effecting(sic) game play" particularly hilarious. No gak, Sherlock. If you had sent cardboard cutouts instead of plastic miniatures gameplay would not have been "effected" either. Talk about non sequitur.
Seeing as they have decided that they don't want to send replacements to backers, now I wonder what will be their answer to the rest of their customers. I mean, will they give the same answers to regular customers when they reach them regarding the sprue defects, or are only the backers the ones to get special treatment, here?
I hope this release is just for the general mold defects, seeing as two of my Cheetah sprues don't have torsos. Not, "there's a chunk of torso shaped plastic", but "shouldn't there be a torso here?".
I'm hoping that "not being able to assemble the model" counts as effecting game play.
Also, I was suprised to find out that my hover tanks (and presumably all of them ever made for the KS) have hollow bottoms. I was expecting to be gluing a top to a bottom, but the main body is all one piece, and if not for the built in flight peg, would make a lopsided candle holder.
Mmmpi wrote: I hope this release is just for the general mold defects, seeing as two of my Cheetah sprues don't have torsos. Not, "there's a chunk of torso shaped plastic", but "shouldn't there be a torso here?".
I'm hoping that "not being able to assemble the model" counts as effecting game play.
Well, going by their update, it would seem to depend on how widespread the problem is. If it's only you, they might replace it. If it's generalized, you seem to be SOL
It it is widespread, and going by their update, you might just get a "just fix it with a little bit of modeling putty" recommendation
Mmmpi wrote: I hope this release is just for the general mold defects, seeing as two of my Cheetah sprues don't have torsos. Not, "there's a chunk of torso shaped plastic", but "shouldn't there be a torso here?".
I'm hoping that "not being able to assemble the model" counts as effecting game play.
I would absolutely say that it is significantly different/worse from the other miscasts. Have you posted a pic on the dp9 forums to make them as well as the community (so they can check their own sprues) aware of this?
Automatically Appended Next Post: For those who went in on the kickstarter (or downloaded the files), what's the difference between the HG quick start rulebook on drivethrurpg and the living rulebook? I assume the former has more hobby stuff (building, painting, terrain, etc) but I'm referring to the rules. Is there more art in the quick start rulebook? Any advanced rules or scenarios missing from it?
Seeing as they have decided that they don't want to send replacements to backers, now I wonder what will be their answer to the rest of their customers. I mean, will they give the same answers to regular customers when they reach them regarding the sprue defects, or are only the backers the ones to get special treatment, here?
I assume the Pod will take a page from Prodos, and treat retail customers better than KS backers, because those customers can initiate credit card disputes & chargebacks that KS backers cannot.
However, unlike Prodos, the Pod will not charge retail buyers less than what backers paid. The Pod is more like Palladium in that regard.
Mmmpi wrote: I hope this release is just for the general mold defects, seeing as two of my Cheetah sprues don't have torsos. Not, "there's a chunk of torso shaped plastic", but "shouldn't there be a torso here?".
I'm hoping that "not being able to assemble the model" counts as effecting game play.
I would absolutely say that it is significantly different/worse from the other miscasts. Have you posted a pic on the dp9 forums to make them as well as the community (so they can check their own sprues) aware of this?
Automatically Appended Next Post: For those who went in on the kickstarter (or downloaded the files), what's the difference between the HG quick start rulebook on drivethrurpg and the living rulebook? I assume the former has more hobby stuff (building, painting, terrain, etc) but I'm referring to the rules. Is there more art in the quick start rulebook? Any advanced rules or scenarios missing from it?
Yeah I just emailed them a few minutes ago.
If they tell me to mold my own missing parts than technically they're giving me permission to make any DP9 model I want on the grounds of "I don't have it" (and yes I know they won't agree with me on it)
As for the QS rule book, so far what I can see is that it only has model rules for what's availible in the KS (and starter boxes). So for north there are no Wiesel or razorbacks for example, just hunters, ferrets, cheetahs, jaguars, grizzlies, and kodiaks. They do have all the sublists for north/south/CEF/caprice. Rules wise it looks mostly the same as the HGBLRBB, though they added a "learn the rules" scenario that I don't remember from the HGBLRBB. It's just a quick play learn how the rolling and stats work demo mission.
Most of the dimpling can be fixed by players with a little bit of modeling putty to fill-in the area before painting. For the missing "X" detail on the upper left side of the Mounts Hips the missing detail can be painted on or just paint the hips part black so the missing detail is not noticeable.
Aren't I enough of a troll??
