Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Another possible example would be the Command. & Colours games (Ancients, ACW, Memoir '44, WW1) which are sold as games using wooden blocks on a hex map but which are commonly played using miniatures on hex-based terrain.

Pretty sure the lack of funding boils down to the squandering of the HG license overall.

Haven't had time to read through the crap storm and fighting here. But let's be frank, HG can't even touch Dystopian Wars in terms of name recognition, miniature quality, and actual releases. This isn't the fault of this new game, but it is Dream Pod 9s fault for not maintaining their brand.

I think the concept of big land ships, large ground scale war is a good one. After all, that's basically what DW is (but with a crappy ruleset).

Decouple this idea from HG, create a bigger universe and more designs with a similar look. Sculpt actual ground unit models instead of stand ins, show what the rules will be like, and even show a table in play, and you've got a recipe for a successful kickstarter.

 Vertrucio wrote:
Haven't had time to read through the crap storm and fighting here.

I don't think either exist (at least in relation to the Dreadnought project) in the thread recently. A year or two back for Blitz? Sure... but not now for this offshout. Pessimism/realism with a large dose of constructive criticism though abound.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrandonKF wrote:

While I suppose that using flat counters is fine for a starter set, or even as a freebie for aspiring players who don't have the funds, I'd much rather use miniatures, even if they're only a straight color plastic that can later be painted to the owner's desires. Heck, even OGRE Designer Edition's 2.5-dimensional OGREs were of interest to me when I see them.

Your point about the grander design as funds came in is noteworthy, and something I personally would have to keep in mind. Which brings me to the below:

I'd much rather use minis as well but it's a potential lower cost starting point for both players (total cost of the starter set) and Fusion Core (as a KS initial funding goal). Thanks for posting and keeping us updated, btw.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Albertorius wrote:

Strategic level wargames, which seem to be the level you guys are going for. The above is a turn of Ardennes '44, but it's just an example. You can of course replace the actual chits for more pleasing minis, as long as you provide the same info in a similar way.

Minis as counters instead of chits is definitely very doable with the above.

It is a difficult time of the year, that's for sure. Black Friday, christmas sales and everything else eats up people's disposable income, so anything that people might find interesting but not that interesting probably falls by the wayside, or there's simply a need to prioritize. I would also advice to cancel now, rethink your strrategy and come back stronger come february or whereabouts.

Thanks for the example. Yeah, when talking about "strategic" level gameplay for an entire region, that is the style of game that comes to mind. It's not my personal preference by any means though and as you said you can indeed replace the chits with small minis when using larger hexes or a normal map (or alternately use cardstock tokens where 2d like FFG board games or faux 3d like Ogre).

I hadn't thought about Black Friday but that could (in addition to John's mention of Kingdom Death) suck up funds. I don't think spending money on a kickstarter that won't likely arrive till late next year or worse makes for a good Xmas gift this year under the tree. Printing out the cover page and stuffing that in an envelope just doesn't have the same effect on young or old gamers.

@John: I didn't realize Kingdom Death had gone up so high so fast. Even with little overlap in genres, I'm guessing it is sucking up lots of funds as you said from both speculative resellers as well as cross genre interested gamers. I last looked on the thread when it was at 1 million and people were still complaining about the last campaign's lantern set that they got a full refund for... I wish that was an option two years ago with Robotech.

The timing could be better I guess, but blaming such a failure on the timing, or the Kingdom Death KS is just lazy.
The Dystopian Wars KS is doing quite ok on its own, despite facing the same issues.

 Albertorius wrote:
You shouldn't really be looking at BTech or Heavy Gear in this instance, actually. That's not really what we're talking about when we say "hex and chits" games, even though we played those on hexboards. You should be looking to something more like... well, this:

Strategic level wargames, which seem to be the level you guys are going for. The above is a turn of Ardennes '44, but it's just an example. You can of course replace the actual chits for more pleasing minis, as long as you provide the same info in a similar way.

Minis as counters instead of chits is definitely very doable with the above.

Hex and chit is the most natural approach for this, for a grand strategic battle with naval-size units. However, you're doing a minis game. Physically, I'd look at Command and Colors (Memoir '44 / Battle Cry / BattleLore 1E) for they handled hex-and-minis gaming - it's quite elegant for the scale, and the hexes are well-sized at just over 2" across. Ogre Miniatures is also a nice hex-and-minis game.

Regardless, your minis are prossibly too big for the scale of game that you envision. Smallest unit should be 3/4" long, largest <2", if you intend a sense of scale and any significant positioning prior to engagement. OTOH, if it's a no-tactics, no-maneuver 40k furball, then huge minis are fine.

Albertorius wrote:

BrandonKF wrote:
So you do. Very often, in point of fact.

We will continue to discuss this, you know, until I'm dead and buried. Hopefully not for awhile.

One could argue that I did it not often enough, taking it all into account. But it's not just me, as you know.

Right now I'm trying to provide alternate solutions for the problem, though.

BrandonKF wrote:
But I've grown rather fond of open boards, rather than the old 90s-style Battletech and hexboards of Heavy Gear. OGRE, I give a pass, because it's simple, quick, and plays fast.

Heavy Gear Dreadnoughts was intended to play much in the same way, only with more freeform templates. Cut out some cardboard, mark it with the terrain, maybe use a printed terrain sheet to represent the type of terrain in that area, lay it out on the battlespace, and voila.

You shouldn't really be looking at BTech or Heavy Gear in this instance, actually. That's not really what we're talking about when we say "hex and chits" games, even though we played those on hexboards. You should be looking to something more like... well, this:



Strategic level wargames, which seem to be the level you guys are going for. The above is a turn of Ardennes '44, but it's just an example. You can of course replace the actual chits for more pleasing minis, as long as you provide the same info in a similar way.

While I suppose that using flat counters is fine for a starter set, or even as a freebie for aspiring players who don't have the funds, I'd much rather use miniatures, even if they're only a straight color plastic that can later be painted to the owner's desires. Heck, even OGRE Designer Edition's 2.5-dimensional OGREs were of interest to me when I see them.

Minis as counters instead of chits is definitely very doable with the above.

Of course, quite a few hardcore fans themselves mentioned that they just simply do not have the funds to Back at this time, and I understand that fully. And we do have to deal with the fact that we are in 'competition', so to speak, with other Kickstarters.

It is a difficult time of the year, that's for sure. Black Friday, christmas sales and everything else eats up people's disposable income, so anything that people might find interesting but not that interesting probably falls by the wayside, or there's simply a need to prioritize. I would also advice to cancel now, rethink your strrategy and come back stronger come february or whereabouts.

AndrewGPaul wrote:Another possible example would be the Command. & Colours games (Ancients, ACW, Memoir '44, WW1) which are sold as games using wooden blocks on a hex map but which are commonly played using miniatures on hex-based terrain.

One could argue that you didn't enough, Albertorius, but then, one could also argue that I didn't argue enough in the past. I often chose a 'wait and see' approach. I've grown rather tired of waiting though, as I expressed elsewhere. But I think you and I both have our minds set in those matters, and we'll continue to discuss options to work around that. You do bring valuable information and points to the foreground, which I appreciate, since I do tend to think in far larger terms than others might comprehend as feasible.

The chits included in that example picture provided in that picture of Ardennes '44 are a bit tightly packed for the ideas Fusion Core has in mind, far as I know. It works great for a strategic level of command, but lends itself to very wooden (pardon the pun) interaction.

Dreadnoughts' Ground and Air Units includes slightly more data than OGRE, or those described in Command and Colors games, or Ardennes '44.

Chiefly, Maneuver, Movement, and Attack. All dependent on which type of terrain you're in.

A couple other stats included are Regroup and Power.

That's just a basic overview, of course.

Vertrucio wrote:Pretty sure the lack of funding boils down to the squandering of the HG license overall.

Haven't had time to read through the crap storm and fighting here. But let's be frank, HG can't even touch Dystopian Wars in terms of name recognition, miniature quality, and actual releases. This isn't the fault of this new game, but it is Dream Pod 9s fault for not maintaining their brand.

I think the concept of big land ships, large ground scale war is a good one. After all, that's basically what DW is (but with a crappy ruleset).

Decouple this idea from HG, create a bigger universe and more designs with a similar look. Sculpt actual ground unit models instead of stand ins, show what the rules will be like, and even show a table in play, and you've got a recipe for a successful kickstarter.

Sorry, decoupling from Heavy Gear isn't going to happen, Vertrucio, as far as I'm aware. Frankly, I wouldn't want it to.

There's been some fighting here and there throughout the years in this thread since I first joined in and have had a listen to what everyone had to say.

That doesn't change. There's always going to be some fights between people who are passionate about ideas.

What does change is how we come to agreements about those finer points.

warboss wrote:

 Vertrucio wrote:
Haven't had time to read through the crap storm and fighting here.

I don't think either exist (at least in relation to the Dreadnought project) in the thread recently. A year or two back for Blitz? Sure... but not now for this offshout. Pessimism/realism with a large dose of constructive criticism though abound.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrandonKF wrote:

While I suppose that using flat counters is fine for a starter set, or even as a freebie for aspiring players who don't have the funds, I'd much rather use miniatures, even if they're only a straight color plastic that can later be painted to the owner's desires. Heck, even OGRE Designer Edition's 2.5-dimensional OGREs were of interest to me when I see them.

Your point about the grander design as funds came in is noteworthy, and something I personally would have to keep in mind. Which brings me to the below:

I'd much rather use minis as well but it's a potential lower cost starting point for both players (total cost of the starter set) and Fusion Core (as a KS initial funding goal). Thanks for posting and keeping us updated, btw.

It's what I do.

HudsonD wrote:The timing could be better I guess, but blaming such a failure on the excuse, or the Kingdom Death KS is just lazy.
The Dystopian Wars KS is doing quite ok on its own, despite facing the same issues.

I addressed Dystopian Wars in my previous posts. I wish them the best. I do the same for those behind Kingdom Death.

I call it a learning experience. Moving on.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Hex and chit is the most natural approach for this, for a grand strategic battle with naval-size units. However, you're doing a minis game. Physically, I'd look at Command and Colors (Memoir '44 / Battle Cry / BattleLore 1E) for they handled hex-and-minis gaming - it's quite elegant for the scale, and the hexes are well-sized at just over 2" across. Ogre Miniatures is also a nice hex-and-minis game.

Regardless, your minis are prossibly too big for the scale of game that you envision. Smallest unit should be 3/4" long, largest <2", if you intend a sense of scale and any significant positioning prior to engagement. OTOH, if it's a no-tactics, no-maneuver 40k furball, then huge minis are fine.

Heheh, no, John, Fusion Core wasn't interested in doing the furball.

The big miniatures were because, well, frankly, they look great, plus, they give some added 'weight', if you will, as to the abilities and presence a landship has in the battlespace. They're powerhouses. Even strider and tanker crews get a chill when they know the enemy has even one landship in the vicinity.

At the current TV costs for a standard game, you might be able to bring at most half a dozen of the vessels to the battlespace, but you wouldn't have much room for Ground Units, and without those, you're shooting yourself in the foot (figuratively). Ground Units, like Infantry, Heavy Gears, and Tanks, can control Objectives, which is the primary means to gain Victory Points. You could also destroy the Objective with a Landship Artillery Strike (or an Air Unit Bombing Strike) and deny it to the enemy (and in some Missions, that's the case), but most of the time you'd suffer a ding to your Victory Points, because you're eliminating a valuable strategic or tactical asset to your own forces in the process. Wipe out too much, you're liable to end up in front of the amirals and admirals (depending whether you're South or North) explaining your 'strategies' when you decided to lay waste to a target filled with civilians caught in the crossfire.

Short run to the hangman's noose from there.

Strategic Strikes also cost you TV, and include orbital artillery, tactical nuclear warheads, and antimatter warheads, but again, you're likely going to suffer Victory Point loss at the end of game because you're using valuable assets, and unless you garnered major Victory Points from the act, you'll have a Pyrrhic victory on your hands. You might not end at the hangman's noose, but you'll be demoted to an out-of-the-way outpost where you won't be handling such precious materials so carelessly. But hey, maybe someone will give you a second chance (unless again, you struck a civilian target in the process). In addition, they're expensive, and the chances are that something might not go according to plan. Launch a tac nuke or antimatter missile, and it gets intercepted before it strikes the target, and you just lost more Victory Points because you wasted a valuable asset "and like a poor marksman, you keep missing the target!"

By contrast, a Maelstrom Landship, for example, would pack (roughly) 8 Air Units (about 80 TV), and 10 Ground Units (100 TV). That would mean 1 Maelstrom and 18 Units in total, roughly about half the force you could bring to a standard 500 TV game, a quarter of your force for a division-strength operation at 1000 TV. That's a lot of usable forces to accomplish Objectives, and still put a hurt on the enemy.

Anyway, the size of the miniatures will likely be discussed more, as well as other matters.

Edit: As for why include more miniatures than you could feasibly deploy (if you have two of everything, but they cost so much, why include them in the Starter Set?), I believe that was part of the plan to include the modular kits later on in the Stretch Goals. Rather than have multiples of the same variant, you could build each individual vessel, with one of each sub-class, so to speak, and thus have flexibility in choosing which vessel you brought to which engagement.

BrandonKF wrote:
One could argue that you didn't enough, Albertorius, but then, one could also argue that I didn't argue enough in the past. I often chose a 'wait and see' approach. I've grown rather tired of waiting though, as I expressed elsewhere. But I think you and I both have our minds set in those matters, and we'll continue to discuss options to work around that. You do bring valuable information and points to the foreground, which I appreciate, since I do tend to think in far larger terms than others might comprehend as feasible.

I was thinking more about the time when the Cat was originally presented, really ^^. I hope you forgive me if I'm too brash or if I say something out of line in the heat of the moment. I do mean well, even if I'm more interested in keeping the setting I like going forward and less in making it more widely appealing.

As to the larger terms comment, if that's regarding the population scaling that's being discussed, it's not so much that we don't comprehend them as feasible (they're kind of iffy from a population growth POV, of course, but that's another thing), but rather that we don't feel there's an actual need for them. To each their own, but you're in a much better position to muscle your opinion into the setting,

The chits included in that example picture provided in that picture of Ardennes '44 are a bit tightly packed for the ideas Fusion Core has in mind, far as I know. It works great for a strategic level of command, but lends itself to very wooden (pardon the pun) interaction.

Dreadnoughts' Ground and Air Units includes slightly more data than OGRE, or those described in Command and Colors games, or Ardennes '44.

Chiefly, Maneuver, Movement, and Attack. All dependent on which type of terrain you're in.

A couple other stats included are Regroup and Power.

That's just a basic overview, of course.

Interesting, thanks for the roundup. That amount of information seems very doable on a minis base, tbh (take a look at the amount of information crammed on a X-Wing base, for example).

The above was an example on what I personally (and I think most boardgamers and fands of the genre) think when talking about "hex and chits" game, rather than a suggestion for your game. The above depicts units from a really big offensive (we're talking millions involved here, and thousands of... well, everything), and I believe your game is meant to represent actions with much smaller forces, so it should be proportionate to that.

That said, the above and other games like the aforementioned Memoir '44 are a good representation of something I feel would fit the kind of game you seem to be going for:

Heheh, no, John, Fusion Core wasn't interested in doing the furball.

The big miniatures were because, well, frankly, they look great, plus, they give some added 'weight', if you will, as to the abilities and presence a landship has in the battlespace. They're powerhouses. Even strider and tanker crews get a chill when they know the enemy has even one landship in the vicinity.

Great as they may look, I think that form should follow function. IMHO, if the current version of the mini is too big for the intended purpose, then it should be remade to fit the function.

The last part feels kind of strange to me, because that's simply not the way I think regular troopers in in the setting would go around thinking about landships. I mean, it's on another whole scale, after all, like a base or our modern wet fleets. Mostly, they will worry about what they bring with them (for example, if the USA moves a fleet, people in the zone gets worried about the air power it brings with it, or the marines it carries). The actual weapons on the ships seems to me the lesser of the threat.

At the current TV costs for a standard game, you might be able to bring at most half a dozen of the vessels to the battlespace, but you wouldn't have much room for Ground Units, and without those, you're shooting yourself in the foot (figuratively). Ground Units, like Infantry, Heavy Gears, and Tanks, can control Objectives, which is the primary means to gain Victory Points. You could also destroy the Objective with a Landship Artillery Strike (or an Air Unit Bombing Strike) and deny it to the enemy (and in some Missions, that's the case), but most of the time you'd suffer a ding to your Victory Points, because you're eliminating a valuable strategic or tactical asset to your own forces in the process. Wipe out too much, you're liable to end up in front of the amirals and admirals (depending whether you're South or North) explaining your 'strategies' when you decided to lay waste to a target filled with civilians caught in the crossfire.

Short run to the hangman's noose from there.

Strategic Strikes also cost you TV, and include orbital artillery, tactical nuclear warheads, and antimatter warheads, but again, you're likely going to suffer Victory Point loss at the end of game because you're using valuable assets, and unless you garnered major Victory Points from the act, you'll have a Pyrrhic victory on your hands. You might not end at the hangman's noose, but you'll be demoted to an out-of-the-way outpost where you won't be handling such precious materials so carelessly. But hey, maybe someone will give you a second chance (unless again, you struck a civilian target in the process). In addition, they're expensive, and the chances are that something might not go according to plan. Launch a tac nuke or antimatter missile, and it gets intercepted before it strikes the target, and you just lost more Victory Points because you wasted a valuable asset "and like a poor marksman, you keep missing the target!"

By contrast, a Maelstrom Landship, for example, would pack (roughly) 8 Air Units (about 80 TV), and 10 Ground Units (100 TV). That would mean 1 Maelstrom and 18 Units in total, roughly about half the force you could bring to a standard 500 TV game, a quarter of your force for a division-strength operation at 1000 TV. That's a lot of usable forces to accomplish Objectives, and still put a hurt on the enemy.

Anyway, the size of the miniatures will likely be discussed more, as well as other matters.

Edit: As for why include more miniatures than you could feasibly deploy (if you have two of everything, but they cost so much, why include them in the Starter Set?), I believe that was part of the plan to include the modular kits later on in the Stretch Goals. Rather than have multiples of the same variant, you could build each individual vessel, with one of each sub-class, so to speak, and thus have flexibility in choosing which vessel you brought to which engagement.

Thanks for the rundown.

You now, since your comment about units getting depleted and the like, I've had something stuck on my mind: resource point economy.

From a strategic point (and this would work beautifully for a hexes game), it would be nice if landships and ground bases generated a certain amount of "resource points" each turn, that they could later either distribute to units to keep them supplied (if you have a supply line to them, of course), use to effect repairs on themselves or stuff on their hex, or spend to launch air attacks or artillery/ortillery strikes, for example. Something similar to how Focus points work in Warmachine, actually...

 Albertorius wrote:

BrandonKF wrote:
One could argue that you didn't enough, Albertorius, but then, one could also argue that I didn't argue enough in the past. I often chose a 'wait and see' approach. I've grown rather tired of waiting though, as I expressed elsewhere. But I think you and I both have our minds set in those matters, and we'll continue to discuss options to work around that. You do bring valuable information and points to the foreground, which I appreciate, since I do tend to think in far larger terms than others might comprehend as feasible.

I was thinking more about the time when the Cat was originally presented, really ^^. I hope you forgive me if I'm too brash or if I say something out of line in the heat of the moment. I do mean well, even if I'm more interested in keeping the setting I like going forward and less in making it more widely appealing.

As to the larger terms comment, if that's regarding the population scaling that's being discussed, it's not so much that we don't comprehend them as feasible (they're kind of iffy from a population growth POV, of course, but that's another thing), but rather that we don't feel there's an actual need for them. To each their own, but you're in a much better position to muscle your opinion into the setting,

I am, but I also listen to what is told to me. Recall my previous numbers versus now. That's in large part due to the observations you, the other playtesters, Arkrite and Fusion Core brought up.

Less is more in that instance.

Interesting, thanks for the roundup. That amount of information seems very doable on a minis base, tbh (take a look at the amount of information crammed on a X-Wing base, for example).

The above was an example on what I personally (and I think most boardgamers and fands of the genre) think when talking about "hex and chits" game, rather than a suggestion for your game. The above depicts units from a really big offensive (we're talking millions involved here, and thousands of... well, everything), and I believe your game is meant to represent actions with much smaller forces, so it should be proportionate to that.

That said, the above and other games like the aforementioned Memoir '44 are a good representation of something I feel would fit the kind of game...

For a starting point, in my humble opinion.

It's worth discussion.

Heheh, no, John, Fusion Core wasn't interested in doing the furball.

The big miniatures were because, well, frankly, they look great, plus, they give some added 'weight', if you will, as to the abilities and presence a landship has in the battlespace. They're powerhouses. Even strider and tanker crews get a chill when they know the enemy has even one landship in the vicinity.

Great as they may look, I think that form should follow function. IMHO, if the current version of the mini is too big for the intended purpose, then it should be remade to fit the function.

The last part feels kind of strange to me, because that's simply not the way I think regular troopers in in the setting would go around thinking about landships. I mean, it's on another whole scale, after all, like a base or our modern wet fleets. Mostly, they will worry about what they bring with them (for example, if the USA moves a fleet, people in the zone gets worried about the air power it brings with it, or the marines it carries). The actual weapons on the ships seems to me the lesser of the threat.

Yes, but that's because we live in a world where ships can't cross land or deal with aerial threats on the fly with directed-energy weapons. Now imagine if said task force could maneuver over land with the troops. Now you don't know where precisely it's hiding, and it's firepower can flex with the forces it supports.

However, I know that folks are still iffy about the large scale, so it's something to think about.

Thanks for the rundown.

You now, since your comment about units getting depleted and the like, I've had something stuck on my mind: resource point economy.

From a strategic point (and this would work beautifully for a hexes game), it would be nice if landships and ground bases generated a certain amount of "resource points" each turn, that they could later either distribute to units to keep them supplied (if you have a supply line to them, of course), use to effect repairs on themselves or stuff on their hex, or spend to launch air attacks or artillery/ortillery strikes, for example. Something similar to how Focus points work in Warmachine, actually...

That's where Turns, Cycles, Command Points, Regroup, and the Recovery and Reserve tracker come in.

Each Turn lasts one Order, plus whatever Orders the active player uses with Command Points. Once he or she is finished, the other player starts their Turn. Either player can call a Cycle at the end of their Turn, or wait. As long as the Cycle continues, Command Points don't regenerate.

Each Unit has SIG. The worse the SIG, the more worn out they are, the easier they are hit, the quicker they go to the Scrapyard. You can burn a Turn Order or Command Point Order to roll to Regroup, replenishing them and decreasing their level of SIG. But again, CPs don't regenerate until a Cycle is called. If you want, you can also roll to Withdraw the Unit to go to the Recovery tracker.

Any Units that you withdraw from the field at diminished capacity go to their respective stage of Recovery, and don't move up the tracker until a Cycle is called. However, calling a Cycle to move your Units up the Recovery tracker gives the OPPOSING player their full Command Point pool.

So, you can try to burn out your opponent’s CPs by waiting a long time, but if a majority of your forces are in Recovery because of wear and tear, your opponent can conservatively maneuver to accomplish Objectives unopposed.

BrandonKF wrote:
I am, but I also listen to what is told to me. Recall my previous numbers versus now. That's in large part due to the observations you, the other playtesters, Arkrite and Fusion Core brought up.

Granted. I may not agree with you on the current numbers, but they certainly look much better now, and you've been listening.

For a starting point, in my humble opinion.

It's worth discussion.

Sure, of course. As I said, it was just an example to make the idea clearer.

Yes, but that's because we live in a world where ships can't cross land or deal with aerial threats on the fly with directed-energy weapons. Now imagine if said task force could maneuver over land with the troops. Now you don't know where precisely it's hiding, and it's firepower can flex with the forces it supports.

However, I know that folks are still iffy about the large scale, so it's something to think about.

Actually, terranovan dry navies still must face much of the same problems than curren wet ones do:



Landships don't fly, after all, they just hover a couple meters above ground, and the orography, woodlands and the like of the terrain will have a much greater impact than water will have on a regular ship (water is kind of flat most of the time, unless there's a really big storm). While you keep yourself to the Badlands you're mostly OK, but even there if your ship is on the Barrington Basin you're not going to go nowhere near the Karak Wastes with it, and on a less general level, the moment you reach any significantly hilly terrain you will need to find an alternative route.

There are few ways to hide landships, too, given the amount of radiation (and well, sand clouds) they generate, unless they stay grounded, which would have its own sets of problems. They're easier to hide than fixed bases, sure, but it's not like currently nations don't keep tally of other countries' assets. I don't think that will be changing anytime soon.

That's where Turns, Cycles, Command Points, Regroup, and the Recovery and Reserve tracker come in.

Each Turn lasts one Order, plus whatever Orders the active player uses with Command Points. Once he or she is finished, the other player starts their Turn. Either player can call a Cycle at the end of their Turn, or wait. As long as the Cycle continues, Command Points don't regenerate.

Each Unit has SIG. The worse the SIG, the more worn out they are, the easier they are hit, the quicker they go to the Scrapyard. You can burn a Turn Order or Command Point Order to roll to Regroup, replenishing them and decreasing their level of SIG. But again, CPs don't regenerate until a Cycle is called. If you want, you can also roll to Withdraw the Unit to go to the Recovery tracker.

Any Units that you withdraw from the field at diminished capacity go to their respective stage of Recovery, and don't move up the tracker until a Cycle is called. However, calling a Cycle to move your Units up the Recovery tracker gives the OPPOSING player their full Command Point pool.

So, you can try to burn out your opponent’s CPs by waiting a long time, but if a majority of your forces are in Recovery because of wear and tear, your opponent can conservatively maneuver to accomplish Objectives unopposed.

That sounds quite interesting, thanks!

As long time Steve Jackson Games Ogre player, I can say that there are various issues from having 6mm or 1/300th miniatures on a map where the ground-scale is one hex per 1500m, which is approximately a mile.

Removing the hexes and making the movement free-form doesn't make the problem disappear as anyone who has played Ogre Miniatures will tell you, because if you increase the nominal hex size to match the models one ends up having to play on very large areas, and the game play is affected by the conversion from area (hexes) to point-to-point measurement.

I've done a lot of this in the past, and at one level I wish the recen Ogre Minis KS had bitten the bullet and down-scaled the miniatures to 2mm or 1/700th scale – then at least Ogres would have fitted inside one hex: and don't get me started on the asinine comment made by an SJG spokesman that Ogres are big! They're not that big, not 3000m long kind of big.

So, the relevance of the above to the discussion of Ogre in relation to Dreadnoughts is hopefully obvious. The miniature to ground-scale is an issue.

Personally I would make the ground-scale larger, because while I might not like the disparity in Ogre, it can clearly be made to work, and therefore offers a solution that keeps large models fighting over maps.

Oh yeah, gosh another twenty odd pages to this post. However popular HG is or is not, it sure can generate a shed load of discussion.

 Paint it Pink wrote:
As long time Steve Jackson Games Ogre player, I can say that there are various issues from having 6mm or 1/300th miniatures on a map where the ground-scale is one hex per 1500m, which is approximately a mile.

don't get me started on the asinine comment made by an SJG spokesman that Ogres are big! They're not that big, not 3000m long kind of big.

Personally I would make the ground-scale larger,

Ashley, I agree that there are *HUGE* issues with the way Ogre Minis are scaled. They look great, but aren't realistic at all. esp. at 2" per hex. Really, one needs to look at games of Ogre Minis as playing out an Overrun situation.

The Ogre minis are consistent scale. I get that. Shrink by more than half, LTs and LGEVs would be too small to wrangle. Even at 1/500, LTs and LGEVs would be difficult to handle. Ogre is a hex-and-chit game - that's where the scale makes sense. Not at 1/285 // 1/300 scale.

As this is a new line, I would do both: shrink the minis *and* increase the ground scale.

 Paint it Pink wrote:


Oh yeah, gosh another twenty odd pages to this post. However popular HG is or is not, it sure can generate a shed load of discussion.

Despite what sometimes feels like DP9's earnest efforts to dissuade them in the past, there are a couple of fans still passionate about the IP here. Thanks for the OGRE insight.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Ashley, I agree that there are *HUGE* issues with the way Ogre Minis are scaled.

I suppose there is no way to avoid reading that for the next four years in a Trump parody voice. huuuuge!

The Ogre minis are consistent scale. I get that. Shrink by more than half, LTs and LGEVs would be too small to wrangle. Even at 1/500, LTs and LGEVs would be difficult to handle. Ogre is a hex-and-chit game - that's where the scale makes sense. Not at 1/285 // 1/300 scale.

As this is a new line, I would do both: shrink the minis *and* increase the ground scale.

I only care about consistent scale within a class of vehicles and relative scale out side of that. For instance, in this type of game the landships should be consistently scaled with each other and bigger than any other model... but those other models don't have to be in the same scale as the dreadnoughts. For instance, if they make a variety of gears then those gears should be to scale with each other with the largest gear dwarfed by the smallest strider... but that smallest strider can be a different sliding scale as long as that scale is consistent between striders (and probably tanks as well).

That works, too. As long as the sliding scale doesn't get ridiculous (buildings and people being the problem areas).

But here, the issue is with a 25m long Ogre in a 1500m hex, where the model is 100x ground scale. You can get away with 100x in naval & space games, but ground scale shouldn't go above 10x.

Agreed. It would be nice if Wunji responded to *any* of this (whether here, on the KS in an update or comment, on facebook, smoke signals, etc) in the past week as his company's first kickstarter is slowly bleeding to death.

Personal issues require his immediate attention. I won't elaborate further, as it is strictly private. However, I've told him and I tell you, I am continuing writing, and editing, and copy editing.

I'll discuss the finer points brought up above when I'm not at work, which will be a few hours from now.

BrandonKF wrote:
Personal issues require his immediate attention. I won't elaborate further, as it is strictly private. However, I've told him and I tell you, I am continuing writing, and editing, and copy editing.

I'll discuss the finer points brought up above when I'm not at work, which will be a few hours from now.

I appreciate your responses, Brandon, and especially their timliness but I'm guessing your not the one making the final call on things. The lack of response is troubling for a kickstarter; if it funded but later things went sour either personally or professionally, would this be the type/lack of response to expect as a Dreadnought backer in 2017+? I'm not asking you to elaborate further but personal issues, even if very serious, don't preclude five minutes of attention for a week unless Wunji himself is seriously incapacitated (which at that point it would be his responsiblity to delegate that to someone like you). I don't expect problems to be solved nor issues completely addressed in that five minutes but the complete lack of any effort for the past week on his part as this falls apart is absolutely grounds for concern both now and for a future potentially revamped project (especially in addition to the apparently serious issues present within the campaign that contributed to it not funding like scale issues and no gameplay demos).

BTW, Ogre Miniatures closed a lot stronger than I would have expected, at $125k.

This campaign having lost money 6 days over the last week shows it's past the time to pull the plug and regroup.

Oh hey, familiar names and faces.

Checking in on this: It's pretty clear there's a few factors. I haven't played any HG in like 2 years, when there was that whole prior-to-new-edition clusterfeth of half-baked armoy books and the like.

In this case with this new Dreadnaughts game... there's many issues. One thing alone: I don't find the models appealing. They're uncharismatic lumps with some polygon angles. Is that our scifi game, about apparently robot jeeps and hovertanks? Because that's not what draws people in. The old Vortex-class Carrier is awesome: It looks and feels great. Even when not in a cheesy video game cutscene. These new guys are bland.

Comparing it to a chit and hex game? My god, that's one way to ensure the game dies in obscurity. Chit and Hex are all incredibly niche.

A strategic scale game is great. That can be cool. I recently got way into the Homeworld Deserts of Kharak prequel (which incidentally, is about land-carriers dueling in the deep equatorial desertlands...) and it's a fantastic idea. But execution is key.

To clarify, the ground scale that they talk about for this game is 20km per inch (1/780,000 scale) - what would normally be handled as hex-and-chit.

At that scale, 4 feet on the gameboard is 960 km. That is just under 600 real world miles. That is enough to encompass the entire Bos-Wash corridor, dipping down to Richmond, and grabbing a bit of Maine! Manhattan would be about an inch long. As an in-scale terrain item, the Statue of Liberty would be 1/2500 of an inch tall (<<1 mm).

Or, one could battle from Detroit to Washington on the same tabletop, with the Blue Ridge Mountains cutting across the bottom, and Lake Erie cutting across the top.

If gaming in the West, the Grand Canyon is less than 1 cm deep.

1" = 20km is a patently ridiculous scale for miniatures gaming, but works fine if you're playing hex-and-chit games of the Battle of the Bulge.


OTOH, the miniatures are 1/2500 scale, which should really be 1/2400 to match existing naval wargaming. At this scale, 1:1 minis:ground scale is possible, and probably desirable. Manhattan being 2 miles (3.2km) wide means it's 4 feet wide on the tabletop. Of course, Gears are only 2mm tall...

1/1200 is even better due to the inclusion of land elements. A Gear stands 5mm tall, like 1/300 human infantry. Under this scheme, a 12 cm landship model is "only" 150m long, which is still ridiculously large for a land vehicle. If you downscale the biggest landships to 9 cm, then they are a little over 110m long - that is not completely implausible. That's roughly the size of the Goodyear Blimp / football field. It would be ponderously slow, but one could imagine it moving across some open ground.

Albertorius wrote:Landships don't fly, after all, they just hover a couple meters above ground, and the orography, woodlands and the like of the terrain will have a much greater impact than water will have on a regular ship (water is kind of flat most of the time, unless there's a really big storm). While you keep yourself to the Badlands you're mostly OK, but even there if your ship is on the Barrington Basin you're not going to go nowhere near the Karak Wastes with it, and on a less general level, the moment you reach any significantly hilly terrain you will need to find an alternative route.

There are few ways to hide landships, too, given the amount of radiation (and well, sand clouds) they generate, unless they stay grounded, which would have its own sets of problems. They're easier to hide than fixed bases, sure, but it's not like currently nations don't keep tally of other countries' assets. I don't think that will be changing anytime soon.

They can hover a little farther than a couple meters off the ground. That's been the impression for a long time.

They don't use hover-fans to float, so sand clouds aren't generated by their repulsors. Their thrusters might throw some up, but those are usually designed for forward momentum, not vertical.

In addition, they utilize thick EW screens, through a variety of units. Those will be detailed in the fluff.

warboss wrote:
I appreciate your responses, Brandon, and especially their timliness but I'm guessing your not the one making the final call on things. The lack of response is troubling for a kickstarter; if it funded but later things went sour either personally or professionally, would this be the type/lack of response to expect as a Dreadnought backer in 2017+? I'm not asking you to elaborate further but personal issues, even if very serious, don't preclude five minutes of attention for a week unless Wunji himself is seriously incapacitated (which at that point it would be his responsiblity to delegate that to someone like you). I don't expect problems to be solved nor issues completely addressed in that five minutes but the complete lack of any effort for the past week on his part as this falls apart is absolutely grounds for concern both now and for a future potentially revamped project (especially in addition to the apparently serious issues present within the campaign that contributed to it not funding like scale issues and no gameplay demos).

No, I don't make the final call on things. But as the Kickstarter's collaborator, as a Heavy Gear promoter and writer, as a fan, and as a virtual friend - even if that doesn't count for much - I feel it's my duty to stand in the gap.

Paint it Pink wrote:
So, the relevance of the above to the discussion of Ogre in relation to Dreadnoughts is hopefully obvious. The miniature to ground-scale is an issue.

Personally I would make the ground-scale larger, because while I might not like the disparity in Ogre, it can clearly be made to work, and therefore offers a solution that keeps large models fighting over maps.

Oh yeah, gosh another twenty odd pages to this post. However popular HG is or is not, it sure can generate a shed load of discussion.

Killionaire wrote:Oh hey, familiar names and faces.

Checking in on this: It's pretty clear there's a few factors. I haven't played any HG in like 2 years, when there was that whole prior-to-new-edition clusterfeth of half-baked armoy books and the like.

In this case with this new Dreadnaughts game... there's many issues. One thing alone: I don't find the models appealing. They're uncharismatic lumps with some polygon angles. Is that our scifi game, about apparently robot jeeps and hovertanks? Because that's not what draws people in. The old Vortex-class Carrier is awesome: It looks and feels great. Even when not in a cheesy video game cutscene. These new guys are bland.

Comparing it to a chit and hex game? My god, that's one way to ensure the game dies in obscurity. Chit and Hex are all incredibly niche.

A strategic scale game is great. That can be cool. I recently got way into the Homeworld Deserts of Kharak prequel (which incidentally, is about land-carriers dueling in the deep equatorial desertlands...) and it's a fantastic idea. But execution is key.

JohnHwangDD wrote:To clarify, the ground scale that they talk about for this game is 20km per inch (1/780,000 scale) - what would normally be handled as hex-and-chit.

At that scale, 4 feet on the gameboard is 960 km. That is just under 600 real world miles. That is enough to encompass the entire Bos-Wash corridor, dipping down to Richmond, and grabbing a bit of Maine! Manhattan would be about an inch long. As an in-scale terrain item, the Statue of Liberty would be 1/2500 of an inch tall (<<1 mm).

Or, one could battle from Detroit to Washington on the same tabletop, with the Blue Ridge Mountains cutting across the bottom, and Lake Erie cutting across the top.

If gaming in the West, the Grand Canyon is less than 1 cm deep.

1" = 20km is a patently ridiculous scale for miniatures gaming, but works fine if you're playing hex-and-chit games of the Battle of the Bulge.


OTOH, the miniatures are 1/2500 scale, which should really be 1/2400 to match existing naval wargaming. At this scale, 1:1 minis:ground scale is possible, and probably desirable. Manhattan being 2 miles (3.2km) wide means it's 4 feet wide on the tabletop. Of course, Gears are only 2mm tall...

1/1200 is even better due to the inclusion of land elements. A Gear stands 5mm tall, like 1/300 human infantry. Under this scheme, a 12 cm landship model is "only" 150m long, which is still ridiculously large for a land vehicle. If you downscale the biggest landships to 9 cm, then they are a little over 110m long - that is not completely implausible. That's roughly the size of the Goodyear Blimp / football field. It would be ponderously slow, but one could imagine it moving across some open ground.

These comments deal with material I want to handle collectively, so I'm keeping them together, and they also address Paint-it-Pink's mentions as well.

First, downscaling the landships in actual size to 110 meters in length isn't going to happen.

For reference, this is the Fleet Scale landship miniatures at present (all of which are 1/4000 in miniature scale) with their Gear/tank/aircraft counters (cast in 1/350 miniature scale):



This is the Vortex:



The Vortex is 285 meters long.

So, it's almost as long as the Susano-O, which is rated to be roughly 310 meters in length.

In reference to Killionaire's mention that the models are uncharismatic lumps - this is the Khan. It's 260 meters in length.



The Vortex gets a pass in looks because it's designed like a retro aircraft carrier, but insofar as looks, the Khan and its fellow Southern landships aren't much different from the current line-up, like the Sanguinaire and Khagan (a modernized version of the previous Khan):

The Sanguinaire is currently the tiniest of the landships that will appear:



As you see, it's rated at 230 meters in length.

Let's compare and contrast some more.

Here is the Iowa:



Here is a Ticonderoga-class cruiser.



And here is an LCS, the Independence, part of the inspiration for the current Dreadnoughts:



So, looks-wise, the Independence isn't 'regal', in the sense of the older Iowa, but it's functional.

One of our biggest talking points about Heavy Gear is 'hard science fiction'. "Hard" can mean different things to different persons, but I personally feel that it's ultimately wrapped up in a sense of verisimilitude that such a design could actually exist in the minds of the gamers.

I look at the Vortex, I see a cool design, but, even as a teenager, I recognized that the deck layout was hazardous in some respects. You have two landing strips that aren't much wider than the aircraft they're designed to launch, both joining at the center elevator to lower to the hangar below, and their flight path is directly over the helipads from the aft sector.

Now, I look at the Maelstrom:



Forward ramp for launching STOL conventional winged aircraft or VTOL aircraft with less thrust than needed for their vertical take-off, offset landing strip that's wide enough to accommodate possibly three aircraft (or one larger transport aircraft) without having to shutdown the helipads/VTOL pads on the aft deck, reasonable accommodations to use the aft end as a landing strip for aircraft if they need more runway...

It's function over form (and, in the case of the Khagan, improving function, since the runway is no longer coming out the sides, as it does with the Khan, but instead, like the Sanguinarius and Imperatrice, is located on the top of the vessel).

However, as Fusion Core shared in their last update:

" We like where the size is; it doesn't take up too much table space, still looks plenty impressive, and as a game piece, is right about where a human-sized player picks it up and gets the sense that it's an important item.

Our 3D-printed prototype models are kind of a halfway stage in the plastics design process. The 2D art of the landships is our main reference for mood and look of the ships; ideally, we want that feel to carry through to our final miniatures as much as possible. However, at 1/2500 scale, many details have to be exaggerated in order to a) be visible and b) hold paint. There's also a general desire for "greeblies," distinct textures, ridges, and depressions that help add dimension to a miniature without the need for airbrush shading. Finding a comfortable compromise between these often-conflicting requirements isn't easy.

Although the 3D printed miniatures have limited details, they help us find answers for the aforementioned concerns by allowing us to physically work with model size, proportions, and gross detail. For example, after building and handling the Susano-O prototype, we found that we might need to exaggerate the size of the gun turrets just a smidge, to make them more visible when looking down at them on a table and to make the gun barrels easier to paint and handle. We also found that the missile hatches, while perfectly visible in the 2D art, are just a pebbly pattern on the physical model, necessitating a redesign of the hatches for the miniatures. Panel line abundance and thickness are also concerns, and we do want to be able to add some more sharp lines to make washes and highlighting more effective.

That said, these ship designs are intentionally less "busy" than many modern sci-fi vehicles. We really tried to inject a sense of an object that's built for a purpose (even if that purpose is wholly fictitious), so the hulls needed to have a sense of solidity to them, and the armaments had to be of reasonable size. We know that's a departure from traditional miniatures gaming, which tends to maximize table appeal with wild silhouettes and massive weaponry, but if there's a niche for us to fill, this is certainly the best way to find out."

So, it's not unlikely that, like the Fleet-scale vessels, the Dreadnoughts will have certain proportions (namely, around the weapons) enlarged to make them easier to paint and visually more appealing.

As it stands, making them smaller will make this more difficult, however, it will be something to review and discuss.

-----

In regards to the ground scale.

The way that I see Heavy Gear Dreadnoughts, this is intended as a 'low' strategy game, at least in respects to my personal terminology.

Instead of controlling entire divisions or corps, you're in command of a task force that roughly equals a regiment to brigade-sized element. However, that element has the advantage of large war vessels for support and transport, in addition to the capability to deploy armored personnel carriers, tanks, striders, or Heavy Gears, and, if you so choose, what I term "higher-level" assets. A company of Heavy Gears is equivalent in manpower to a modern U.S. Army armor company, roughly 85-100 men and women. Heavy Gear regiments run about 400-500 men and women, with 250 Gears, plus attendant technicians, infantry support, and headquarters unit.

Each 'counter' in Heavy Gear Dreadnoughts contains roughly a platoon of 12-20 Gears, with maybe an IFV or two in support. An infantry battalion in Heavy Gear is roughly 800 men and women, most mounted in either APCs, like Badgers or Caimans, or mounted on ATVs, or, in some cases, living cavalry mounts. The largest vessel, the Susano-O class, can carry over 100 Gears, plus several companies of tanks, a couple companies of infantry, and more. The smallest, the Borasco, carries 30 Gears, a couple infantry companies, and no tanks.

This is 'low-level' in the case that you're not bothering with all the tactics that you deal with in Heavy Gear Blitz. It comes down to operating in a limited scope, a sector of responsibility, and using your units and landships wisely to accomplish whatever mission objectives are given to you over a course of days or possibly a week on the outside. Each Unit counter during maneuvers and engagements assumes that the lieutenants, rangers, sous-sergents and others "in the thick of it" are nominally efficient and capable of doing their jobs without you micromanaging them every step of the way. You tell them to go someplace, they will go there by the best means possible, they'll maneuver their units into all the different formations possible to assume the best offensive and defensive postures, and you're left with the 'big picture'.

Is 20 kilometers in an inch too much? Possibly. It will be discussed.

--------

With all that in mind, I'd like to thank you all for your thoughts. And I would appreciate it if you all continued to provide feedback.

However, I did want to underscore that the size of the landships themselves isn't going to change, at least in-universe terms. These aren't Goodyear blimps. And there are certain expectations that will be clarified - and perhaps overturned - with new revelations in the fluff.

Okay, I've spent awhile composing this, and I need to hit the sack eventually, but I'm off to go do some other things.

Also, long time no see Killionaire. You should stick around more often, or come visit in the Terra Nova DMZ, there's a lot more activity of late.

BrandonKF wrote:
They can hover a little farther than a couple meters off the ground. That's been the impression for a long time.

That's... not at all what the Technical Manual says, and the Tech Manual is the setting tech bible. Actually I overstated the height. The Tech Manual says the following (fast translation, I only have access to the spanish version of the book here):

"Thanks to a combination of magnetic repulsion technology and ground effect, this gargantuan ships hover a few centimeters above the sands of the Badlands and the polar savannas, which they patrol as is they were oceans".


You know, just like a regular hovercraft, which is what they were supposed to work as, only writ larger and with added technobabble to justify the size.

If you guys are changing that, it will certainly be a heavy retcon with very deep implications for the setting.

They don't use hover-fans to float, so sand clouds aren't generated by their repulsors. Their thrusters might throw some up, but those are usually designed for forward momentum, not vertical.

...yes, yes they do. They are even right there on the original pics! That's what the vectored thrusters are.

In addition, they utilize thick EW screens, through a variety of units. Those will be detailed in the fluff.

That's all well and good, but 1) That don't do nothing against visual detection (see above, and well, that's what sats do all the time) and 2) A zone where you can't see a thing due to active EW covering is eve more conspicuous than a blip on a radar. They will know there's something there and will veryfy with visual sensors.

Not to distract from the discussion of futuristic gear-capable cruise liners:

I decided to use the Rumbl service the Podbay was advertising, well use again as the last guy I challenged never actually answered me. I'm close enough to Canada that I decided to challenge Rob himself to a game.

Wish me luck?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, assuming that somehow the Dreadnoughts game gets off the ground (anti-grav joke there folks) and I actually get some of the stuff, would it be bad form to model one of them with Jabba and friends partying on the back? I can make a sarlacc terrain piece if I have to.

 Mmmpi wrote:
Not to distract from the discussion of futuristic gear-capable cruise liners:

I decided to use the Rumbl service the Podbay was advertising, well use again as the last guy I challenged never actually answered me. I'm close enough to Canada that I decided to challenge Rob himself to a game.

Wish me luck?

Congrats! I haven't check it since it was first mentioned here a while back (late last year?) but the closest person at that time was hundreds of miles away. Hopefully, a few more popped up in between. EDIT: Just checked... 198 miles away for the closest opponent. :(

Also, assuming that somehow the Dreadnoughts game gets off the ground (anti-grav joke there folks) and I actually get some of the stuff, would it be bad form to model one of them with Jabba and friends partying on the back? I can make a sarlacc terrain piece if I have to.

Only if he's the original fat guy in a fur jacket like a space Henry VIII!

Has anybody ever been to the desert? It's not flat. It has giant hills and dunes.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Has anybody ever been to the desert? It's not flat. It has giant hills and dunes.

We have a couple in our country. I can attest to that ^^. Still flatter than hills or mountains, though xD.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Has anybody ever been to the desert? It's not flat. It has giant hills and dunes.

National Training Center, and Iraq, Kuwait, and Qatar.

And if you brought in Jabba as the original fur jacket, he'd likely only be the size of half a pinhead. X-3

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Has anybody ever been to the desert? It's not flat. It has giant hills and dunes.

If they're keeping the old RPG fluff Albertorius quoted where they float only a few centimeters above the sand then an outcropping of rocks just large enough for a child to sit on could potentially stop a mighty dreadnought. They'd have to have dedicated reconaissance landscaping teams clearing the way in front of the landship like in curling.



LOL, some fluff might need to be changed (but not to the extent of the now apparently and thankfully abandoned space landship yamato idea).

 warboss wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Has anybody ever been to the desert? It's not flat. It has giant hills and dunes.

If they're keeping the old RPG fluff Albertorius quoted where they float only a few centimeters above the sand then an outcropping of rocks just large enough for a child to sit on could potentially stop a mighty dreadnought. They'd have to have dedicated reconaissance landscaping teams clearing the way in front of the landship like in curling.

I always took the "few" as a "few hundreds" TBH, because going by the pics it what it felt like. Still, to me it clearly was made that way to make them even more of a shout out of actual navies, as in, that way they would be limited in their movements by the oceans as much as regular ships are by, only these oceans were made of sand (they even say that much in the Making of a Universe book.

If they can fly over mountains and main geographic markers, one would need to ask why they didn't the extra mile and made them able to fly or exit orbit, seeing as spaceships exist in the setting.

Then again, a White Base equivalent feels quite a bit out of place in the setting.

Design Works

Heavy Gear is the result of nearly two years of collective development. The foundations for the world of Heavy Gear were laid down in September 1993, when we sat down over coffee to jot down some notes and scribble sketches about a world that was waiting to come out. In the months that followed, the game designers worked on the Silhouette game engine while the writers and various creators brainstormed to merge everyone's ideas into one harmonious whole. Not much later, inspired by various excellen British TV series (Dr. Who, Blake's 7, Red Dwarf) and Babylon 5, we came up with the concept of the over-arcing storyline and developed ways to adapt it to a game universe in a consistend, believable manner.

The universe evolved rapidly. We knew we wanted "giant robots", but we wanted them to make sense. They had to be smaller than traditional Japanese mecha, more functional and built to last. We needed something closer to human proportions, something which would not dominate the battlefield but would turn an ordinary soldier into a sort of super-infantry. Something that would be closer to super-equipment, super-gear. From there, we were a step away from the name of those vehicles: Gears...

We wanted the Gears to be very cool, so we got started on them even before we knew exactly just how they would work. After viewing a tape on the real-world V-engine, we snapped our fingers and said, "THAT'S the perfect engine for a Gear! It's simple, it's reliable, it's easy to maintain and it runs on any combustible fluid". Anmd so, the Gears came to have the V-engine in their backpacks. Sketch after sketch, the machines took shape. As the world evolved around them, we decided that hard, gritty science fiction would be the norm. The overall technology would be patchy and imperfect, but cool-looking. The Gears themselves are a perfect example of this: a super-advanced computer (actually, a neural net) in an old-tech body with nuts and bolts everywhere.

1993? VOTOMS hit the air in the mid-80s!

The landships don't exactly make sense, especially in the notion of a giant desert with high winds - that's what creates the huge dunes in the first place!

 Albertorius wrote:

I always took the "few" as a "few hundreds" TBH, because going by the pics it what it felt like.

A few hundred centimenters is by definition a few meters... and now we're back full circle to Brandon's initial quoted altitude. LOL