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Do I need to change my Update thread title?

-Brandon F.

Only to add the Kaiju.

No Kaiju here. -hides Knifehead plushie behind back-

-Brandon F.

Edit: New developer shot from Assault:

 warboss wrote:
I'm sure the buffed stats and reduced TV they generally get doesn't hurt as well but each of those $50+ purchases is likely replacing a $22 gear model like a Kodiak or King Cobra or even a $35 strider like the Naga that the player otherwise would have bought which ends up with added $$ in the coffers. I just wish that the gear strider development (at DP9 and on Terra Nova in the fluff) wouldn't completely stifle strider and existing large gear expansion. On the one hand, it makes sense from a business perspective but only because DP9 has screwed the pooch so often so many times in a row over the years and forced themselves into a deep, dark, dead end corner.

ferrous wrote:
The irony is that the King Cobra and Kodiak used to fill the same niche, but had gakky stats, I wonder how many first time players they permanently lost when the new player fielded their stupidly expensive both monetarily and in-game TV model, to have it basically do little to nothing. And that was through several iterations before they bothered to patch them into some sort of usefulness. (And again, stupid optional patch rules are all sorts of annoying and rife with problems, it certainly doesn't help anyone who buys a book and never goes to the company website for updates)

That is probably my biggest gripe about the GS models. All the time and effort put in by other folks to try and make most all of the models be at least somewhat useful in-game because there were clearly problems, and to reflect how they got written up in whatever blurbs they did get for Blitz!, is always being nullified by hasty and poorly informed decisions that inevitably do the exact opposite. No matter what reality has proven to be true.

People should be able to play with the miniatures they buy; but in effect the Pod keeps making it so that "No, this is what you will play with because it's how we want the game to work, so we can sell this or that model, even if it proves to be a poor performer. If you don't like those models, 4Q. You're either with us, or against us, no matter what you buy or have purchased. We surely can survive without you as doubtful friends. Our internal problems, caused by people who are no longer associated with DP9, must be resolved in our own way without unwarranted interference from those who don't understand our processes and haven't proven their loyalty."

Like y'all said, new players won't know any of that so they will tend to buy the biggest eye-catching centerpiece model they want whether it is viable within the ruleset or not, and whether it is disliked by many other players or not. Because if someone does show up with one of those models you can only either say you won't play with them, when there already may not be anyone else locally, or choose to play that other person, and thus end up playing exactly how the Pod wants you to play anyways rather than what you personally might want out of the setting. It's a very unfair situation to place people in, on either side of the issue, even more so if a particular model intentionally breaks the ruleset in some way.

And it's had a noticeable effect on the already quite small HG community during the past (4) years since NuCoal came out. GS are indeed probably good for one-off sales, but then under the typical point values most forces are intended to function at I have to wonder how many other multi-pack models or squad boxes aren't being bought for that same price to fill out the rest of that player's army list. It's got to be a very fine line, big sale versus steadier sales of smaller items. Then there is also the mentioned possibility that if it doesn't function to match it's sculpt for that much of an $$$ investment the Pod probably lost a player. Which I believe IceRaptor and some others said previously was the big problem with the Blitz!-era Mammoth. Impressive, and utterly useless.

Same deal with all of the Arena models that got new packaging and sculpts. It's no wonder DP9 had to come up with another game along those lines so those miniatures could continue to sell instead of sitting in bins.

The updates to fix things that don't actually get fixed and errata nonsense has just been insane though, considering they do the exact same thing with each and every product they put out until they choose to drop the matter entirely. The only exceptions to this that I can think of off-hand are Drop Bears and maybe the Field Support Guide, depending on what could be considered an error or not with some of the changes.

I think the only reason players didn't leave in droves after Paxton and North was that this time there wasn't a physical book folks might have purchased only to have it be re-released multiple times rather than doing it right once. It really makes me sad though when folks say the Pod listens to player feedback, considering most of us that I guess could be called "haters" know TPTB more than likely heard beforehand that something probably wasn't a good idea or had problems but chose to go ahead anyways.

Possibly changing their minds down the road after being so bloody stupid in the first place is not a good business practice at all. But DP9 keeps doing exactly that, over and over again.

 warboss wrote:
In the end, the stand is largely academic as I don't actually get many games in regardless with my first HG game since last Autumn this past weekend.

 Easy E wrote:
I was vaguely interested in Heavy Gear..... then I read the angst in this thread and decided against it.

 Chemical Cutthroat wrote:
That said, there's also folks who like the world and are doing something with it, like Warboss' modified ruleset, and Brandon's Gear-Finity write ups. The company may blow, but the models are cool, and the setting is really interesting. So there's nothing stopping those interested from doing their own thing.

Given the gak-fit(s) Robert has had over folks debating the field guides and subsequent releases related to those books I'm a little surprised quite a lot of fan-created content hasn't faced a similar pruning under the excuse of "copyright infringement" given how fast anything he doesn't like to see disappears or gets a nasty "explained from our perspective this is what really happened, which is right, even if it's wrong, especially if we caused the issue(s)" response elsewhere.

I know I keep harping on this, but it boggles the mind that the Pod honestly does not care if they alienate players at any point, as if the setting is widely enough known that the "official" community doesn't suffer each time somebody gets fed up with it, or a potential player won't try out whichever version of the game because of the bad blood about the interwebz.

One indicative thing I saw was that the numbers of folks over on the BGG site who list themselves as owning particular HG items has taken a very sharp nosedive from the 2e/3e and early Blitz! years. Apart from Kannik with the Aurora e-zine I can't tell that the Pod even has any quasi-official representation on one of the biggest gaming databases that currently exists. But it seems to be largely the same things as mentioned here or on RPG.net; "I may have heard about it once or twice but no one I knew ever wanted to play."

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As a side note, when putting up my previous post I did some fact checking on the prices mentioned above and found something interesting that I never saw. The arena twin-katana Cobra is now a "rally" cobra. We were joking about the "rally" mammoth in play testing but I guess the pod decided to put large semitrucks into a game about little sports cars. LOL.

Think I'll shove off to my own HG thread now. If ya'll need to hit me up I'm all eyes there. Peace, all.

-Brandon F.

 warboss wrote:
As a side note, when putting up my previous post I did some fact checking on the prices mentioned above and found something interesting that I never saw. The arena twin-katana Cobra is now a "rally" cobra. We were joking about the "rally" mammoth in play testing but I guess the pod decided to put large semi-trucks into a game about little sports cars. LOL.

Looks like that got done sometime around the official Badlands Rally release, by splitting some heavier models off from the two-pack "Hired Guns" for Arena.
Some of those heavier FS models are indeed a tad jarring for that micro-setting though, and must not fit on the track very well.

But I didn't catch the change either until I was checking back in December to see what those kind of boxes physically contained so that the models used in the Field Support Guide ended up with workable loadouts.
I had forgotten how pricey some of those individual terrain pieces are though.... and they aren't very big at all in the PDF rulebook pics on page 16, given that most Gear's are usually about ~2" tall.

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How do people even use rpg.net? That site is always incredibly slow for me.

ferrous wrote:
How do people even use rpg.net? That site is always incredibly slow for me.

It must have to do with the bandwidth or something versus the number of guests and members viewing the site, because it happens here too on occasion, as well as for Google.
I've also had where this site or RPG.net won't even load, everything just stays on the previous page or goes to a blank window/tab while the activity icon spins away.

Although sometimes loading G+ too fast or with too many pages blue screens my PC as some kind of memory allotment error even though it has the 8 gigs of RAM allowed by this version of the (x64) OS, so maybe that could be the issue.

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Man, I go out for a couple of weeks, and miss so much...

Ok, I want to know, who came up with the Metal Cat ?

The name or the gear type/role? If the former, no idea. If the latter, DP9 in the 1990s under the name Silver Cat, a less maneuverable but more heavily armored cheetah variant.

 HudsonD wrote:
Ok, I want to know, who came up with the Metal Cat ?

 warboss wrote:
The name or the gear type/role? If the former, no idea. If the latter, DP9 in the 1990s under the name Silver Cat, a less maneuverable but more heavily armored cheetah variant.

Apart from the HPZ [Poacher] & IRP [Magma] loadouts being rolled into a single type of [Wildfire] variant to save on option lines and reduce swap spam this model is completely unchanged [Armor 13 & DEF 0/1/2] from the source documents the test group was given, most of which dated back as far as April 2012.

Which is when Brad Bellows, Michal Onsrud, Dan Strother, and Saleem et al were the dev team - which now seems to consist entirely of Dave MacLeod.


Although I noticed there is also a mistake in that original spreadsheet, in that the Metal Cat's TV cost is correct but there is an [SLHC] cut+paste error, as the various Cheetahs are entirely [LHC] models.


The tester's don't get to name things; that is reserved for TPTB.
Although they might, rarely, accept a suggestion or two that agrees with what they had already decided, that may or may not make it into future re-releases or publications.

Usually they don't though, so it tends to be pretty pointless.

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So... apparently now fragmentation cannons are not supposed to be anti-gear weapons... >_>


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 warboss wrote:
The name or the gear type/role? If the former, no idea. If the latter, DP9 in the 1990s under the name Silver Cat, a less maneuverable but more heavily armored cheetah variant.

Well... somewhat. The Silver Cat was an up-armored version of the Cheetah, yes, and it had lower speed and maneuver... but it also had better ECMs, ECCMs, Sat uplink, upgraded sensors and comms... it was a very different machine from the Metal Cat. Also, the Silver Cat is in the book too ^_^

 Albertorius wrote:
So... apparently now fragmentation cannons are not supposed to be anti-gear weapons... >_>


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 warboss wrote:
The name or the gear type/role? If the former, no idea. If the latter, DP9 in the 1990s under the name Silver Cat, a less maneuverable but more heavily armored cheetah variant.

Well... somewhat. The Silver Cat was an up-armored version of the Cheetah, yes, and it had lower speed and maneuver... but it also had better ECMs, ECCMs, Sat uplink, upgraded sensors and comms... it was a very different machine from the Metal Cat. Also, the Silver Cat is in the book too ^_^

Yeah, it isn't a perfect comparison but the idea for a slower, less maneuverable armored cheetah (as opposed to the equally maneuverable Strike variant) existed long ago which was my point. I'm not necessarily defending it as I see it largely as reactionary to how hard it is to actually hit a cheetah and unneeded on the tail end of blitz... but it doesn't cost any players $$ to use and they can still just upgrade to regular cheetahs as needed by playing NG so there are bigger dragons to slay IMO.

As for the frag cannon, in DP9's "defence", it never was really any good against gears in blitz outside of 6" either so being useless against them in the alpha is just a continuation of existing utility. As a +1 crappy range weapon, it was roughly the equivalent of an LAC at most ranges in terms of anti-gear effectiveness and we all know how great the LAC is... well... all of us except a certain developer of course.

 Albertorius wrote:
So... apparently now fragmentation cannons are not supposed to be anti-gear weapons... >_>

What are they supposed to be good against in the fluff? If I had to hazard a guess, they should be good against lighter gears, that's probably how I would try to tailor their usage.

Frags used to be equal or better than LAC against Gears. That makes them anti-gear weapons.
They were also filling upgrade spaces that would otherwise have been used for other anti-gear weapons, not anti-infantry weapons.
They were treated and used as anti-gear weapons.

And besides, a Gear Sized shotgun is pretty badass.

I think at that size it is just a grapeshot napoleonic cannon with a handle to hold it by.

 warboss wrote:
I think at that size it is just a grapeshot napoleonic cannon with a handle to hold it by.

Pump action grapeshot napoleonic cannon!

Which is still pretty badass.

Aww man. This means that when I finally get around to buying a Cheetah Paratrooper and converting it to carry a frag cannon and MRF.. it might be illegal AND crap

ferrous wrote:What are they supposed to be good against in the fluff? If I had to hazard a guess, they should be good against lighter gears, that's probably how I would try to tailor their usage.

According to the Tech Manual, "their main function is providing highly accurate, short range firepower. For that purpose, they shoot fragmentation ammunition to augment the chances of causing damage". They are also usually mounted on vehicles as main weapon against multiple opponent types (MP variants mainly) or urban/close quarters assault.

mrondeau wrote:Frags used to be equal or better than LAC against Gears. That makes them anti-gear weapons.
They were also filling upgrade spaces that would otherwise have been used for other anti-gear weapons, not anti-infantry weapons.
They were treated and used as anti-gear weapons.

Exactly. Also, it was a nice weapon in 2nd Edition: half the range of a LAC (BR1 instead of 2) and x7 instead of x8, but +1 Acc and +2 RoF if the shot hit.

Chemical Cutthroat wrote:And besides, a Gear Sized shotgun is pretty badass.

Ditto!

warboss wrote:I think at that size it is just a grapeshot napoleonic cannon with a handle to hold it by.

Only with ceramic penetrators

 Albertorius wrote:

warboss wrote:I think at that size it is just a grapeshot napoleonic cannon with a handle to hold it by.

Only with ceramic penetrators

That explains it. When was the last time you saw someone throw a plate at an armored car and had it do anything more than scuff the paint? Now I know why I never had much luck with Frag Cannons.

 warboss wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

warboss wrote:I think at that size it is just a grapeshot napoleonic cannon with a handle to hold it by.

Only with ceramic penetrators

That explains it. When was the last time you saw someone throw a plate at an armored car and had it do anything more than scuff the paint? Now I know why I never had much luck with Frag Cannons.

Maybe that means that they're supposed to penetrate ceramic? As opposed to ceramic that penetrates?

 Chemical Cutthroat wrote:
Maybe that means that they're supposed to penetrate ceramic? As opposed to ceramic that penetrates?

They're talking about ceramical composites. The Tech Manual states that "discovery of new fabrication processes during the first centuries of the third millenium allowed to create highly resistent ones, and are used in various applications". Apparently they are used in many armor composites, too.

EDIT: ...or in other words...
blablablabla *fluff* GIANT MOTHERFETHING SHOTGUN!!!

Looks like its a rule of cool weapon? Okay. I think it stretches things a bit. (Why don't they use the same magic fluff ceramic penetrating stuff in an AC? It would net you more range and a faster muzzle velocity, so even better penetration...) But eh, people love giant shotguns.

Also glad they are getting rid of Impact, it was an unneeded complexity.

ferrous wrote:
Looks like its a rule of cool weapon? Okay. I think it stretches things a bit. (Why don't they use the same magic fluff ceramic penetrating stuff in an AC? It would net you more range and a faster muzzle velocity, so even better penetration...) But eh, people love giant shotguns.

Also glad they are getting rid of Impact, it was an unneeded complexity.

Probably they are, at least some models (the fluff part about the ceramic material from the Tech Manual is refering to a particular weapon, the SG20 from TA, used in the Water Viper). In general, the idea of the weapon is that it's good against lightly armored vehicles (that is, gears) and infantry, mostly (I guess) for the same reasons: they fill the air with munitions that are mostly deadly, and while they can't penetrate heavy armor they do fine against light one.

At least that's my take on the weapon: as effective as a LAC (less in some circunstances, better in others) in general, so appropiate for light armor hunting, and also good against infantry. What baffles me is the Pod people stating now that it's only an AI weapon... most gears carry APGLs by default, do you really need much more close range AI power?

As to Impact, must say I'm out of the loop with the Alpha. I kinda lost interest some time ago, so haven't been reading.

ferrous wrote:
Looks like its a rule of cool weapon? Okay. I think it stretches things a bit. (Why don't they use the same magic fluff in (X)? It would net you more range and a faster muzzle velocity, so even better penetration...) But eh, people love giant (X).

 Albertorius wrote:
What baffles me is the Pod people stating now that it's only an AI weapon... most gears carry APGLs by default, do you really need much more close range AI power?.

I think this and this says it all about the kind of logic being used for all that in the Heavy Gear setting.

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I think it's simply a matter of offering it up as an either/or choice prior to the game.

Either it's going to be a wicked anti-infantry unit, or it'll be a wicked anti-Gear unit.

That's how I'm running it anyway.

All in all I get where Cerb's coming from with the older Tech Manual rules showing the Damage of the weapon at x7 in comparison to the x8 damage of a LAC, but that was partially offset with Accuracy +1 to the LAC's Accuracy 0, plus its shorter range.

Then we had a plethora of frag cannons enter the scene with Locked and Loaded and Heavy Gear Blitz!, and we summarized it as a miniature snub cannon, giving the impression it was a powerful close-range shotgun.

I believe a compromise of the two would be best.

As for the technology, I'm well past determining World War II tech and looking at current technologies that I'm familiar with. It changes the game little, just adds to the fluff.

-Brandon F.

BrandonKF wrote:
All in all I get where Cerb's coming from with the older Tech Manual rules showing the Damage of the weapon at x7 in comparison to the x8 damage of a LAC, but that was partially offset with Accuracy +1 to the LAC's Accuracy 0, plus its shorter range.

Well... actually, no, and you're forgetting the free +2 RoF from the frag ammo when hits.

Due to how the armor bands and Acc/Man worked, the FGC was marginally more effective against trooper Gears (the +1 Acc compensated for the range difference most of the time, and it had an effective x9 DM. Also, as engagement ranges were a lot shorter back in the day [due to wanting modifiers even more], a 1-hex shot was not really unusual... plus, that was 50 meters).

But it was a lot better when used against scout and elite gears. Both had Man bonuses, that the FGC compensated, and the effective x9 DM meant that it could do light damage to elite gears with MoS 2. So usually, it was a pretty nice improvement.

And also... you were able to change the ammo and put solid shots. That changed the weapon to x14 DM, Acc 0. Which was nice.

 Albertorius wrote:

BrandonKF wrote:
All in all I get where Cerb's coming from with the older Tech Manual rules showing the Damage of the weapon at x7 in comparison to the x8 damage of a LAC, but that was partially offset with Accuracy +1 to the LAC's Accuracy 0, plus its shorter range.

Well... actually, no, and you're forgetting the free +2 RoF from the frag ammo when hits.

Due to how the armor bands and Acc/Man worked, the FGC was marginally more effective against trooper Gears (the +1 Acc compensated for the range difference most of the time, and it had an effective x9 DM. Also, as engagement ranges were a lot shorter back in the day [due to wanting modifiers even more], a 1-hex shot was not really unusual... plus, that was 50 meters).

But it was a lot better when used against scout and elite gears. Both had Man bonuses, that the FGC compensated, and the effective x9 DM meant that it could do light damage to elite gears with MoS 2. So usually, it was a pretty nice improvement.

And also... you were able to change the ammo and put solid shots. That changed the weapon to x14 DM, Acc 0. Which was nice.

Which I was wondering about, with Brandon's Thunder Run rules, since in Infinity you can select-fire Boarding Shotguns to either do AP shots or your more typical 'shotgun' burst. I was curious if the Frag Cannons might share similar rules.

Slugs are a great way of doing lots of kinect damage after all!