Robotech® RPG Tactics™-License lost, the end is near!

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**solkan**

Does it make me a dirty anime separatist if I'd rather see the Macross, Southern Cross, and Mosspedia models all done in different scales without any regard to this silly "Robotech" nonsense?

**Albertorius**

solkan wrote:
Does it make me a dirty anime separatist if I'd rather see the Macross, Southern Cross, and Mosspedia models all done in different scales without any regard to this silly "Robotech" nonsense?

Being a dirty anime separatist myself, and not caring at all about anything Robotech other than Macross, I would personally not care one iota... but the people who actually like Robotech and want to play with everything at the same time might.

**Talizvar**

warboss wrote:
Alpharius wrote:
I haven't really been paying too much attention to the RPG scene for...a long time now, but is Palladium really a 'force' in RPGs, and has been for 30+ years?
They were one of the top selling RPG companies in the 1990's at the height of their popularity but it has been downhill since then mainly because they refuse to change. The ex-employee behind the scenes post I linked above with my modern parody already lists flagging sales in 2003 and they certainly haven't gotten better since from my fan/ex-fan outsider's view looking in.

Spoiler:

I attended gencon during both periods for over 10 years straight and played palladium games during that time and definitely noticed a distinct drop in GM'ed games from 1994 to 2006 to the point where one year there was only one or two palladium games total in the prereg book whereas in the 90's there were dozens. I can't comment on more recent gencon #s though as I haven't gone in that time; they started pushing their reps very hard to run gencon games right after the KS funded so I'd expect that to have gone up (regardless of the popularity) as they made it a big priority as opposed to previously when the running of the games was largely up to individual GM's with little to no palladium input. I did a quick google search and it appears the only data I know of (the ICV2 rankings as well as the White Wolf magazine rankings I didn't know about) seem to confirm my own (admittedly biased) observations.

1990's: "rising star", "slowly overtaking FASA as the #3 RPG producer"

http://www.rpg.net/columns/designers-and-dragons/designers-and-dragons4.phtml

2000's: not a single listing

http://www.kirith.com/random-wizard/articles/rpg-ranking-by-year.html

Insert disclaimer about wikipedia commonly accepted fallacy here since I didn't vet the original sources of either and am just linking it. I can say for the past five or so years that I have been paying attention to the ICV2 rankings every quarter, Palladium has absolutely never shown up. The rules that were already made fun of back then still are 98% the same and the layout and art (albeit supposedly digital now for the former instead of actual hot glue cut and paste) are just as dated. Even a robotech rpg book I picked up after this kickstarter that was made in the last few years has an abrupt very noticeable change in the spacing and font midway through the book because they couldn't be damned to edit it down to fit into the page count they chose nor bothered to increase the page count by a 16 sheet and generate more material. They simply chose to resize a few chapters of text instead with a button click similar to how in the Coffin rant they couldn't be bothered to properly alphabetize lists because it was too hard to change pages once the hot glue dried.

The same rules that people made fun of in the 1990's are copy pasted into "new" games and editions including RRPGT. Back in the 1980's when clunky cobbled together rules were the norm (like D&D 2e), the Palladium system didn't stand out from the pack negatively in terms of mechanics and the story and breadth of theme shone through. Nowadays when companies build their games from the ground up to work as a cohesive unit (or license systems that have been), their insistence on using a distinctly 1980's style/theme/mechanics system stands out like a poop covered sore thumb. The FFG 40k RPGs show that you can have a retro-feeling rpg mechanics system that works cohesively in the modern era so it's not that Palladium can't have one... they simply CHOOSE not to.

They couch it in terms of not wanting to devalue player book collections but it's more that they physically lost alot of the cover art in their "crisises of treachery" as well as them being unable to redo the books given that they were literally cut and pasted with hot glue together so redoing them is not as simple as opening an old computer file and going to work. I'm a very vocal critic of GW and their recent screw you 2 year book life cycle change but even on a bad day I would wholeheartedly support a company who wants to update an RPG book after 25 YEARS!! And, yes, 20-25 year old rifts books are still completely current offerings on sale on their site with no significantly change made during that time beyond a mid 1990's typo correction or very rare errata.

I am mid-40's and can give a slight difference in perspective but largely warboss's information is well written (good "parody" too).

Palladium had one solid decade of doing "good stuff" they were a good company from 1982-1992.
Weapons and Armor (1982) was my all time favorite, it was well done and set the groundwork for the "open world" that made their system "good".
Palladium RPG (1983) Fantasy
Heroes Unlimited (1984)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1985)
After the Bomb (1986)
Robotech (1986)
Ninja's and Superspies (1988)
Beyond the Supernatural (1988)
Rifts (1990) Tied it all together with a big bow: you could play everything that came before in this world or "rift" to those worlds.

White Wolf came on the scene in 1991 with "Vampire the Masquerade" and blew them out of the water with the story teller system (Ars Magica).
They then published a new focus (Werewolf, Fey...) hit after hit (one every year to 1995) while PB rehashed old product or supplements of existing product.

d20 open license system launched in 2000 and was the next big thing in RPG for years to come.
2000's was where they got into the height of their sliding deadlines.
This was where PB fell off the radar in general (except 2006 "crisis of treachery").

They have been pretty much coasting for the last 25 years other than this KS shot in the arm.

Funny, it is BECAUSE I have some rather fond memories of their decade of good work that this KS feels like my own crisis of treachery.

**warboss**

Lynx7725 wrote:
I find the whole 6mm vs. 15mm thing is because PB seemed to have been stuck on a thought train that says "YOU MUST HAVE EACH MINIATURE PERFECT".

Part of the problem is that they're not perfect because they're they're stuck on that single minded though train. Palladium doesn't manage their goals and expectations based on reality but tries to rewrite history and bend reality to fit their permanent preconceived notions until it is too late. The veritechs have funny looking feet, most models have limited poseability, and there are seams that are definitely NOT on the source designs everywhere across the front of models because of their "mouth watering detail" quest. You see the same thing in the rules with the stupid all or nothing mechanics (dodging, antimissile, etc) as well as the stupid insistence to organizing squadrons based on real world units that make the anime impossible to emulate despite their publics claims of trying to be authentic to the source material.

I see the same thing with cyclones and small mecha in the future. As a minis gamer, I have no problem with 3 to 4 cyclones at the bumped scale above on a 40mm base (they'd be a tiny bit bigger than DZC infantry) and 2-3 invid (two on the base and one "flying" a bit higher would be perfect). That works on a minis table in conjunction with the existing minis and fits the scale of combat they're supposed to fight as. You can always make a special "hero" single cyclone model on a 20mm or 25mm base to keep with the RPG licensing rules as an option (like adding a VF-1S to a valk squadron).

Automatically Appended Next Post:

solkan wrote:
Does it make me a dirty anime separatist if I'd rather see the Macross, Southern Cross, and Mosspedia models all done in different scales without any regard to this silly "Robotech" nonsense?

Yes. You're the guy with the pony tail.

YOU PROBABLY HAVEN'T EVEN WATCHED GUNDAM!!!

**Talizvar**

Warboss: you bringing this scale issue back again?
The threat is awfully high you will catch heck.
I finally found the "scale" page I found way back when:
http://www.macross2.net/m3/forfansonly/zentradiheight.html
What is truly funny is your suggested "fudging" with scale is what was often done within the source material.
Since I am largely focused on the "Macross" era of Robotech I selfishly do not care about the scale change as long as they finish this era at 6mm.
<edit> Ummm also there is this little Battletech thing that these models happen to fit into... except the disappointing "Marauder"(Glaug).

**Cyporiean**

Dirty anime separatist as well, don't care about anything other than the Macross stuff.

And honestly don't care about anything other than getting my Wave 2 items so I can attempt to sell them off.

**warboss**

Talizvar wrote:
Warboss: you bringing this scale issue back again?
The threat is awfully high you will catch heck.
I finally found the "scale" page I found way back when:
http://www.macross2.net/m3/forfansonly/zentradiheight.html
What is truly funny is your suggested "fudging" with scale is what was often done within the source material.
Since I am largely focused on the "Macross" era of Robotech I selfishly do not care about the scale change as long as they finish this era at 6mm.

Yes, Forar tried warning me not to mess with the scale ("Give me 1mm or give me death!" was the threat he reportedly received when suggesting 10mm terrain was ok) but I'm too stubborn. I suspect this is my last gasp of caring. Macross for me is by far the most important era also but I'd like to at least have the possibility of playing with other eras if I ever assemble any minis without it looking like I cobbled together gashapon and 1980's kits from a dozen different sources.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Talizvar wrote:

<edit> Ummm also there is this little Battletech thing that these models happen to fit into... except the disappointing "Marauder"(Glaug).

While I didn't explicitly state it in the picture, with my idea for a sliding scale the macross stuff would stay locked at 6mm. It's already 1/3 out and messing without that would be stupid (so..um.. like a 50/50 chance). 6mm also meshes with battletech (minus the glaug but Btech screwed that up, not robotech!) and changing that would alienate even more consumers. The southern cross and mospeada stuff is what is smaller and can be bumped up in size for ease of assembly (ha! we know that is a priority!) and painting.

**Krinsath**

Lynx7725 wrote:

Spoiler:

Krinsath wrote:

While not as authoritative as lego, I would point out that DreamForge had sculpts I'd characterize as much more complex than RTT sorted out in 2 years give or take. That looks to be about the timeframe that KD:M took as well from the same manufacturer. I'm not sure there's more complexity around in the world of HIPS than those two lines at the moment, though obviously they're dealing with a factory that is quite capable if not quite speedy. So my mildly under-informed opinion would be that given competent communication, 2 years can sort out most of the issues in even the most horrendously complicated kits.

I backed Dreamforge too and received my stuff. There's quite a bit of difference in this case.

Dreamforge went in with quite a bit of experience with 3D modeling for HIPS production, and the guy already spent a considerable amount of his own time coming up with models that he knows can work with HIPS production methodologies. In essence, the guy knew the tech risks and knew his way around the shop, so the risks are significantly lesser in the second KS he did.

Dreamforge hooked up with Wargames Factory, so they had a very experienced production team whose main focus was to do plastic model production. While Wargames Factory's internal miniature design team isn't that good (their plastic kits are ok, but not great), their technological team is very, very good, I'd rate them just a hair below GW's in-house team, and better overall because they had to deal with different customers with differing technology base. So the technology risk there is further reduced because of the experience of the manufacturer.

Dreamforge also had a good grounding in project planning, and he communicated well with his backers, showing them the schedule breakdown (which I didn't bother too hard with), and was able to clearly explain why there are delays. His constant and clear business communications to the backers was reassuring and in the end, sure there are grumblings but the goods delivered.

So it's not 2 years to deliver the product -- it's 2 years (or whatever length it really was) to get plastic out to me, but only made possible by a lot of experience on both sides of the design, development and implementation team.

EDIT: Oh, and it helped a lot that the guy's primary focus for the entire time is to get the project off the table. I think communications between Dreamforge and Wargames Factory was smooth even with the timezone difference because the Dreamforge side had nothing else business-wise that had higher priority. In RRT's case? SNORT.

Sorry to rewind the convo away from the scale, but I did want to point out that even with the knowledge there was a great deal of conversion work and compromise being done. Mark posted pictures of what went on in the process, and how things that seemed like they would work ended up being a pain. However, that and similar issues with KD:M (because I don't think PB is fibbing when they say that these are things that just happen) the key was to communicate and figure out what the options were and which option best combined the vision with reality. I liked Mark's characterization that it is much more negotiation than anything else when it comes to cutting the tool.

Of course, with the company involved here, anything dependent on clear and consistent communication is going to hit a snag or <insert hypothetical math concept here>. I think that was what warboss was getting at, that in 2 years time they should have been able to get all of this out the door, as the lower level of experience would be offset by the lower complexity of the designs. As a question to folks that have all the stuff from Wave 1, how many sprues/tools were made? I'm fairly sure KD:M had a monstrous (/rimshot) tool count, and DFG was similarly insane.

**warboss**

Talizvar wrote:
I am mid-40's and can give a slight difference in perspective but largely warboss's information is well written (good "parody" too).

Palladium had one solid decade of doing "good stuff" they were a good company from 1982-1992.
Weapons and Armor (1982) was my all time favorite, it was well done and set the groundwork for the "open world" that made their system "good".
Palladium RPG (1983) Fantasy
Heroes Unlimited (1984)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1985)
After the Bomb (1986)
Robotech (1986)
Ninja's and Superspies (1988)
Beyond the Supernatural (1988)
Rifts (1990) Tied it all together with a big bow: you could play everything that came before in this world or "rift" to those worlds.

White Wolf came on the scene in 1991 with "Vampire the Masquerade" and blew them out of the water with the story teller system (Ars Magica).
They then published a new focus (Werewolf, Fey...) hit after hit (one every year to 1995) while PB rehashed old product or supplements of existing product.

d20 open license system launched in 2000 and was the next big thing in RPG for years to come.
2000's was where they got into the height of their sliding deadlines.
This was where PB fell off the radar in general (except 2006 "crisis of treachery").

They have been pretty much coasting for the last 25 years other than this KS shot in the arm.

Funny, it is BECAUSE I have some rather fond memories of their decade of good work that this KS feels like my own crisis of treachery.

Thanks! For me, I got into their games (and gaming overall... they were my first!) in 1990 so Robotech was already an established line and Rifts had only a few titles and refined that even more. I liked the goofiness of Heroes Unlimited (at least the "updated" revised version) and bought some of those along with TMNT as a fan of the cartoon. They kept the Rifts popularity going through the 1990's until it started to show its age (at it's core, it is an early 1980's mechanic updated in the late 1980's to MDC). At that point, newer cohesive systems like Heavy Gear and even later more refined Shadowrun editions (like 2nd and on) introduced me to rules systems that didn't feel like they were a mummy made up of a sickly person wrapped up in band aids to make them feel better. I can't comment on the white wolf stuff as I never played it (I found larping to be oddly intimidating as a shy nerd). Once 3rd edition D&D hit along with the OGL glut, it was pretty much the end as you said. Even with it's own latter bloat, I found the d20 system to be far superior to anything palladium came out with and my purchase dollars quickly shifted from buying every rifts book to every core 3/3.5 D&D and Forgotten Realms book instead. During the next decade, I bought only 3-4 books of theirs and even those were mostly revamps of ones I already owned (like Robotech manga stupid sized edition and the RUE core book). When the KS funded, I splurged and got one christmas gift bag of pure robotech stuff. Each time, I was severely disappointed to see the same ol' same ol' 10-15 years after my regular purchases stopped.

edit: Hey, look at that! You can recount a decades long history of Palladium and Robotech and not have it take half of a 19 page post! Imagine that!

**Easy E**

Even though I have a lot of Wave 1 stuff I'm very glad I avoided the KS and just waited for everything to hit retail. It saved myself a lot of pain and agony.

My thoughts on KS at this point: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. I.E. I don't care what Kickstarter is saying, it ain't real until it is on a shelf at my FLGS.

This update..... #Waste ofTime

**Forar**

Two other aspects to keep in mind with The Great Scale Misdirection (err, Debate) are;

A) Line of Sight. Since the game uses a 'real' (ugh) line of sight, imagine trying to sort out LOS for something that's eyes/sensors are 7mm above table level (hell, the base alone shoves that upwards significantly).

B) Multiple minis to a base; tied into A, even if they go with 30mm bases, if they're spread out significantly, then taller things firing down may be able to 'see' one or two on a base even though most of the squad is 'hugging a wall' as it were. And don't anyone dare have a base set with a 'breaching around a corner formation' in a line against an edge, you 'modeling for advantage monster'!

Shooting down probably won't be too hard, but even the 'use an iphone trick' is going to run into issues when the camera lens is bigger than most of the model, at least for some of the smaller units.

If you scale them up for aesthetics, they're now also larger, thus easier to see/attack.

And I say this as someone who still thinks scaling them up wouldn't be a bad idea (heretical as it is, I'm okay with the occasional crime against gaming/humanity).

With the "hiding behind a streetlight" aspect, things that small could feasibly have a massive advantage, and scaling them up removes some of that (for better or worse).

But I'm sure that's been extensively pondered and tested in the months it took them to bring the matter up to us. >.>

**Manchu**

IMO, the models are very cool and the game is fun. I am still not sorry for backing this KS, despite being very critical of how PB has dealt with backers. In all honesty, I think this project is not nearly as bad as we some times make out. The problem is that PB generally and especially Kevin are so insufferably bad at dealing with people that it is all too easy to focus on the terrible to the exclusion of the good.

**Forar**

It certainly doesn't help things.

With good communications/PR, I think a lot of the larger issues could be curtailed or avoided entirely.

Like, Spartangate likely wouldn't have been remotely as big a thing if they'd said "Thank you for the feedback, you've provided a lot of things to bring up with our artists/modelers/the factory, and will get back to you in a week with our findings".

Doubling down with "'his is how it MUST be. Period. Mic Drop' was, at least from my recollection, where things started going downhill rapidly.

**Nomeny**

Albertorius wrote:
legoburner wrote:

If the plastics company is not using current, cutting edge software for this, then all sorts of issues can come into being and all manner of horrible conversions and splits are needed. If the plastics company is more used to engineering projects than miniature projects, then that can also lead to the requirement for converting and resculpting.

Golly, that doesn't sound familiar AT ALL.

I don't get the reference. What do you mean?

**warboss**

Manchu wrote:
IMO, the models are very cool and the game is fun. I am still not sorry for backing this KS, despite being very critical of how PB has dealt with backers. In all honesty, I think this project is not nearly as bad as we some times make out. The problem is that PB generally and especially Kevin are so insufferably bad at dealing with people that it is all too easy to focus on the terrible to the exclusion of the good.

To each his own. The experience of dealing with them has magnified the issues I have with the physical products in all likelihood (if I try to look at them as objectively as possible, I'd give the minis a C- and the rules probably a B- with some caveats that I haven't actually used either). I personally would have preferred saving a couple hundred bucks (between my basic pledge, a couple of add ons, a few gencon minis, and the xmas grab bag) and probably a thousand frustrated posts on dakka over the past two years.

**Sinful Hero**

Nomeny wrote:
Albertorius wrote:
legoburner wrote:

If the plastics company is not using current, cutting edge software for this, then all sorts of issues can come into being and all manner of horrible conversions and splits are needed. If the plastics company is more used to engineering projects than miniature projects, then that can also lead to the requirement for converting and resculpting.

Golly, that doesn't sound familiar AT ALL.

I don't get the reference. What do you mean?

Referring to RRT's models with odd splits and high part counts.

**Lynx7725**

Manchu wrote:
IMO, the models are very cool and the game is fun. I am still not sorry for backing this KS, despite being very critical of how PB has dealt with backers. In all honesty, I think this project is not nearly as bad as we some times make out. The problem is that PB generally and especially Kevin are so insufferably bad at dealing with people that it is all too easy to focus on the terrible to the exclusion of the good.

Oh hell no. It at least delivered something. And in 2 years! I had a KS product that took the better part of 5 years when I started tracking the product (pre-KS), through its vapourware era (pre-KS), backed the KS, to it's KS silence, to final product delivery. The final product wasn't too bad. The lawsuits threatening part I could do without.

Not to talk about the KS that simply did not deliver. At least this one, there's physical product in hand, and there's a sort of commitment from PB to deliver the rest. SC and Invid are a pipe dream at the moment, and I deal in realities.

For the dirty anime separatists.. the consideration is that SC and Invid aren't going to happen without Macross succeeding. Despite that the original series are fairly good on their own, the sad fact is that even Japan had cease to produce kits for them, while Shoji is still cranking out the Valks for Macross. There is a dearth of Southern Cross and Mosepeda products not for years but for decades -- and we are talking about from the nation that originally produced the series, and that is known to remechandize successful anime whenever they can. Future not so bright there.

The likelihood of any product for SC and Invid coming out from this RRT product line will thus be attendant to the success or failure of RRT to generate enough revenue stream for PB to get to SC or Invid. As much as Kevin might want to do the other two era (or even Shadow Chronicles), he still has to care for two things: the bottom line, and how much he can pitch to HG. If Macross RRT doesn't swing, the odds of stuff coming out for SC and Invid similarly slides down the drain.

Sorting out the scale problem, IF Kevin is willing to take inputs, will help to put the possibility of SC and Invid on the table. I like the bugs enough to try to make it work.

**Manchu**

Forar wrote:
With good communications/PR, I think a lot of the larger issues could be curtailed or avoided entirely.

I reckon we'd be in the same boat delay-wise ... but it is easier to take bad news from someone who is being transparent and responsive. Interestingly, it seems Kevin really believes he is being transparent and responsive with this latest update when in reality he continues to blame ND for his own lack of business acumen, asks for more backer dollars as if he's doing us a favor, and shifts the conversation to glories past and pie in the sky speculation about further Robotech development without doing a thing to fulfill his current obligations.

warboss wrote:
I personally would have preferred saving ... a thousand frustrated posts on dakka over the past two years.

Can't really blame that on PB ...

Lynx7725 wrote:
At least this one, there's physical product in hand, and there's a sort of commitment from PB to deliver the rest. SC and Invid are a pipe dream at the moment, and I deal in realities.

Having suffered through outright fraud with KS, I fully agree with your sentiments here. I think we can be certain that Kevin honestly intends to see this through, if for no other reason than because he himself is such a fan. I also agree that Southern Cross and New Generation is currently a non-issue; one more reason why this "re-started" "conversation" (those words both merit separate quotation marks, I think) is so frustrating ... so much of the message devoted to something that is way off in the future and basically nothing about Wave 2. It's a really disconcerting example of how things seem to be done at PB ...

**Lynx7725**

warboss wrote:I see the same thing with cyclones and small mecha in the future. As a minis gamer, I have no problem with 3 to 4 cyclones at the bumped scale above on a 40mm base (they'd be a tiny bit bigger than DZC infantry) and 2-3 invid (two on the base and one "flying" a bit higher would be perfect). That works on a minis table in conjunction with the existing minis and fits the scale of combat they're supposed to fight as. You can always make a special "hero" single cyclone model on a 20mm or 25mm base to keep with the RPG licensing rules as an option (like adding a VF-1S to a valk squadron).

I do FoW, so no problems with platoons of cyclones on a base. DZC is a good comparison since they are actually more 6mm; their infantry are actually a bit oversized IIRC but I'm not that picky.

And yes, you can do the non-default Cyclones as "chara" bust-type models, that can be set as a marker to indicate upgrades. All these we have seen in one form or another in wargaming, and I feel it's this lack of perspective that PB is suffering from.

Forar wrote:Two other aspects to keep in mind with The Great Scale Misdirection (err, Debate) are;

A) Line of Sight. Since the game uses a 'real' (ugh) line of sight, imagine trying to sort out LOS for something that's eyes/sensors are 7mm above table level (hell, the base alone shoves that upwards significantly).

B) Multiple minis to a base; tied into A, even if they go with 30mm bases, if they're spread out significantly, then taller things firing down may be able to 'see' one or two on a base even though most of the squad is 'hugging a wall' as it were. And don't anyone dare have a base set with a 'breaching around a corner formation' in a line against an edge, you 'modeling for advantage monster'!
(....)
But I'm sure that's been extensively pondered and tested in the months it took them to bring the matter up to us. >.>

That's part of what irks me. They can't seem to get the level of play correct. If they want to go FoW style, company-level combat, then some level of granularity have to be sacrificed. If they want skirmish scale, they got the wrong scale now for it -- or at least the wrong monetization model set up. Rules doesn't match purpose, it's a hodgepodge held together by some slick looking art work. The whole system works, but squeaks just enough to make people notice the mismatch -- and add in the slow realisation that this company may have zero idea of what they are trying to achieve... basically, the minis become the solution looking for a problem, and that's a squeaky wheel.

**warboss**

Manchu wrote:

warboss wrote:
I personally would have preferred saving ... a thousand frustrated posts on dakka over the past two years.
Can't really blame that on PB ...

I can when they're the primary reason for that frustration.

**Manchu**

Pretending that these three separate series, which each conceive of a completely different scale of action, are really one thing for the sake of writing a miniatures game will inevitably lead to problems (of which physical scale is just the most superficial). Personally, I don't think it's really justifiable.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

warboss wrote:
I can when they're the primary reason for that frustration.

I don't get what you mean here. You wish you had posted on Dakka less? Or about RRT less? Or that you could have been posting in frustration about some other topic? Or that you could have posted more positive remarks over these past two years? I mean, all of this is solely within your discretion, regardless of how you feel about RRT or PB. Now, I can understand wishing PB had run a better KS, produced better minis, and written a game that you find more fun. But I don't get how you can blame PB for your Dakka posting habits.

**warboss**

My meaning should be obvious. Palladium gave me almost exclusively frustrating and negative things to discuss regarding the first kickstarter that I ever participated in about an IP that I was very interested in. If I'm going to discuss this kickstarter, I'll discuss the current topics at hand regarding this kickstarter which were unfortunately not postivie. They didn't force me to post negative things about robotech but rather gave me nothing else most of the time to discuss except for their latest mistake.

**Nomeny**

Sinful Hero wrote:
Nomeny wrote:
Albertorius wrote:
legoburner wrote:

If the plastics company is not using current, cutting edge software for this, then all sorts of issues can come into being and all manner of horrible conversions and splits are needed. If the plastics company is more used to engineering projects than miniature projects, then that can also lead to the requirement for converting and resculpting.

Golly, that doesn't sound familiar AT ALL.

I don't get the reference. What do you mean?

Referring to RRT's models with odd splits and high part counts.

Oh, I had thought he was referring to some other notable case of development hell.

**Manchu**

warboss wrote:
gave me nothing else most of the time to discuss except for their latest mistake

I (eventually) got miniatures which I duly assembled and a game which I played and enjoyed, both in terms of playing and discussing. As you say, YMMV. It stands to reason that one can negatively influence oneself in these matters, which is the point I was initially making. PB won't change. FFS, here's Kevin's idea of a re-start: spend 19 pages tooting his own horn, blaming everyone else, change the subject, and of course not talking about what he currently morally, ethically, and legally, owes at least 5,342 customers. It's a blackhole man. Only you can resist getting sucked in!

**Forar**

Manchu wrote:
Kevin's idea of a re-start: spend 19 pages tooting his own horn

Yeah, even compared to the usual self-aggrandizement found in their weekly newsletters, this one kind of went over the top.

It got uncomfortable at a few points. Declaring PB the champions of Japanimation/Anime was probably the first point I unironically rolled my eyes at the screen, though between throwing ND under the bus and declarations of *just loving Robotech sooooo much*, it went some strange places.

And everywhere but where we wanted it.

Alt response: "So that's what the kids are calling it these days..."

**warboss**

Manchu wrote:
It's a blackhole man. Only you can resist getting sucked in!

That Robotech thing, I just couldn't give it up. It just gets in your blood or something I don't know.

Sadly, my will for Robotech is about as strong as a Palladium initial release date is firm. :(

**Manchu**

Forar wrote:
"So that's what the kids are calling it these days..."

It replaced the more colorful cliche I originally typed.

warboss wrote:
I can't resist robotechnology of that magnitude.

**warboss**

Hell no. Same for the generic vehicles and proto-invid. The UEDF marines book piqued my interest long ago and the supposed pinky swear we mean it this time not like the last 5 years release date of next month rekindled it a bit... until I looked into my New Gen book from my grab bag two years ago and rediscovered the crappy art in their recent offerings. They had a good robot artist for the two books (Apollo something or other) but it looks like the quality of that too has suffered since with the obvious exception being RRPGT.

**Manchu**

Hi everyone, Wayne here.

Following the big, two-part update from this past weekend, there has been a lot of discussion online about the scale of later generations of Robotech® RPG Tactics™. We think that’s great, and I just wanted to post here to make sure that’s clear: We were not saying that we’re definitely going to go to 15mm, just that we feel we need to talk about it. We want to know what you all think about it, and we’re asking you to really give it some thought.

Here’s an example of what we’re talking about. Those are some 6mm scale Cyclones that backer Bad_Syntax had made, next to a Spartan and a Regult. As you can see, they’re tiny.

Here they are next to a 15mm version he also had made. Now obviously, both of these are just simple 3D prints, and both would have sharper details in the final, manufactured product, but there’s so much more that could be done with the larger figure. Not just sharper detail but also posability, weapon options and other subtle variations that might be lost at a smaller scale.
Of course, we’re also well aware that there are arguments to be made for sticking with 6mm. Besides the satisfaction of having everything in scale with each other, there is also terrain to consider, and a number of other things.

It’s possible that, in the end, we’ll do both – assuming there is sufficient demand to do so. We’ll be researching the feasibility of doing just that. But it’s also possible that this discussion will make it clear we should go one way or the other, or something else altogether that we haven’t considered.

My point is, we want to have that discussion. There’s no reason to be outraged that we’re going to change the scale, because we’re not... unless the community says that’s what we should do. We just want you guys to really think about it before making that decision.

So please, think about. Talk about it. Mull it over for awhile. In a week or so, we’ll post an official poll and ask people to vote on it. We don’t want to do that yet, because we really don’t want unconsidered, snap judgments on this. It’s too important for that. This is a decision that will shape this game line for years to come, and shouldn’t be made lightly.

Thanks, guys. I’ll be posting more about this and other things (most important being Wave 2 of course) soon.

**warboss**

Just like with the gencon vote, *poof* it's now up for debate. If you don't vote, though, your vote will be counted towards the preordained 15mm decision just like last time. (Manchu... it's really hard to not do it!)

In any case, even when they try they miss the forest for the trees. It's a quick mspaint resize so it may be off by a mm or so but here are both 6mm and 15mm in the same pic with the macross minis. Unfortunately for me, the issue is more that the alphas will be noticeably bigger than the VF-1's and the betas will be zentraedi scale from some quick napkin match. That to me is the bigger issue and why I suggested the sliding scale.

edit: removed the previous non-combined pic