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**Balance**

Mike1975 wrote:

Why would anyone on their right mind do 200 points for one faction in a game be worth more or less than 200 for another faction? Where did that come from?

I'm not saying it's the right thing for a Robotech Game or a WWII game, but that's basically what Flames of War does. All stats are noted as Early War, Later War, or Mid War (plus the spin-offs for other wars, and I'm not sure how the Pacific stuff fits in?) 1,000 points of Early War is not designed to be compatible with 1,000 points of Late War and might be extremely broken... Evens stats change for units that exist across the eras. It makes sense, in their case, because they don't consider it to make sense to have an early-war French tank company fighting a late-war British Anti-Tank Infantry Company or similar.

I could see that for RRT, especially if there's some weird licensing term that forbid inter-era play being supported by the devs. This seems unlikely, but I've heard Harmony Gold is 'interesting' to deal with. I kind of hope there was some thought about this with earlier game design... The RPG, for example, always seemed like they designed it around making whatever mecha the PCs were expected to use roughly so tough, then designing around that. Which led to the previously discussed Cyclones that are more heavily armored and armed than Battlepods that dwarf them...

**warboss**

Balance wrote:
Mike1975 wrote:

Why would anyone on their right mind do 200 points for one faction in a game be worth more or less than 200 for another faction? Where did that come from?

I'm not saying it's the right thing for a Robotech Game or a WWII game, but that's basically what Flames of War does. All stats are noted as Early War, Later War, or Mid War (plus the spin-offs for other wars, and I'm not sure how the Pacific stuff fits in?) 1,000 points of Early War is not designed to be compatible with 1,000 points of Late War and might be extremely broken... Evens stats change for units that exist across the eras. It makes sense, in their case, because they don't consider it to make sense to have an early-war French tank company fighting a late-war British Anti-Tank Infantry Company or similar.

I could see that for RRT, especially if there's some weird licensing term that forbid inter-era play being supported by the devs. This seems unlikely, but I've heard Harmony Gold is 'interesting' to deal with. I kind of hope there was some thought about this with earlier game design... The RPG, for example, always seemed like they designed it around making whatever mecha the PCs were expected to use roughly so tough, then designing around that. Which led to the previously discussed Cyclones that are more heavily armored and armed than Battlepods that dwarf them...

I know it exists for FOW but so do other players going into that established game. The opposite is true here. We were told that they're planning on working on all three eras and that they've chosen 6mm; I've seen those quotes personally on the internet when I did a search (they're in the Craven Games and MTV Geek interviews). I haven't been able to find the exact quote where they said that all three eras would be playable against each other but admittedly I haven't combed every murmur and press release from during and directly before/after the kickstarter nor their kickstarter comments made by the ninjas at the time. If they had started out by saying it wouldn't be the case and that you wouldn't be able to cross-era battle and that subsequent eras would be at a different scale, I'd have accepted their decision and be defending it right now.. but they didn't. At best, they "hinted" otherwise (and probably flatout said it somewhere). It wouldn't have affected my pledge as I frankly pledged for the (now abandoned) skirmish level of game but it did raise expectations that they're now probably going to dash. There also is no reason that FOW couldn't restat everything to make them compatible to a degree but also the figs in FOW have a fair amount of cross compatibility as well. I'm guessing that the infantry (except for maybe upgrades) are still usable from early to late war if you're playing a country that was active in both (like the UK or Germany) and some vehicles came through as well. That won't be the case with this. The other very important difference is that FOW has more than two real factions per era that you can play unlike Robotech. The cross-era play was supposed to give players the model and playstyle variety that it would otherwise lack.

In any case, they've dug yet another hole for themselves by simply not being open, honest, and upfront from the beginning which frankly seems to be the only thing they know how to do (other than apologize and promise to do better next time). They promise the moon, muddy the waters with vague statements, and then dash hopes at the expense of their customers. If there is something in their license that prevents it, they seemingly just recently found out about it like with the sudden ability to make vehicles that they previously said they couldn't or Harmony Gold changed their mind. In the RPG, I believe they have all three eras together in the New Gen book via the "frankenmecha" or some such where they bolt on stuff to earlier era mecha ala Mad Max to simulate the rundown nature of the resistance to the Invid at that point. Could the exception to that extend to minis? Possibly, but they certainly didn't mention that ever back when they were advertising the game and that all three eras would come out.

**Mike1975**

ALL, PB should have an update on the scale up shortly....I have emailed and received an email from Kevin himself. I was trying to glean PB's intentions with the last updates and understand because it was kinda contrary to what I understood the times we had conference calls.
I really think this all came up since many want 10mm or larger for small New Generation bashes. When you are getting what you want you typically don't speak up and if you want something else you tend to speak up a lot. Those loud voices are likely what PB was hearing. The idea is that RRT is a large scale combat game. Think of it more in line with the larger battles that you've seen or the Sentinels battles from the books. Anyways, I don't want to add too much but later today we should have an update/clarification.

**Forar**

As for the Skirmish, I occasionally give some thought to simply halving the squad sizes. Use Support Cards in place of the normal Squads, allow for 1 Special per mini-squad, cut points in half or more.

So instead of a 300 point game with up to 14 VT's on the table, you have a 150 point game with up to 7 VTs.

Where this stumbles a bit are odd number mixed units, like being unable to recreate a smaller version of some of the Zentraedi squads (like 9 pods/1 officer, and 6 pods/1 officer/1 recon). This could feasibly be attended to simply by allowing a pair of 'mini-supports'/specials/whatevers. It could also have issues with other effects that require sharing a squad with other units (less units to feasibly share with), and things like the Zentraedi ability to recover pods that die within LoS/range of an Officer's pod. Bringing back 3 Pods in a turn (~18 points worth) holds more value in a 150 point game than in a 300 point game, obviously.

Also this would dramatically change the power of upgrades, since paying (say) 10 points to enhance 4/8/24/etc mechs is more valuable than paying 10 points to enhance 1/2/4/etc mechs.

Note that this is just one dude who hasn't playtested gak brainstorming and thinking out loud. Not an ironclad and heavily tested theory. Merely a hypothesis.

If it played well, and if it were fun, it would essentially cut the figures necessary to play in half. Assuming ranges were kept the same, it'd still require a fairly large playing area.

And if a 1J card were created, Warboss would get to fly his proper Vermillion squadron! :-D

Edge cases like wanting to have a 1J/1A pair rather than two 1A's (as is found on the Support card) could be addressed similarly to how Command Destroids are handled; pay a little extra, maybe use up a 'support card slot', get improvements accordingly.

Again, just thinking out loud here. I'm not sure if it'll ever actually get tested, merely something that has been rattling around in my head for, well, a couple of years at this point. I've always been interested in the idea of smaller scale conflicts, juxtaposed against the love that many have of potentially putting hundreds of figures on the table at once.

Edit: I swear to dog, if we get a fourth fething update on this history/LE/scale string and zero info on Wave Two, I might actually have to call them and give them a piece of my mind, long distance charges be damned.

**Lynx7725**

Mike1975 wrote:
ALL, PB should have an update on the scale up shortly....I have emailed and received an email from Kevin himself. I was trying to glean PB's intentions with the last updates and understand because it was kinda contrary to what I understood the times we had conference calls.
I really think this all came up since many want 10mm or larger for small New Generation bashes. When you are getting what you want you typically don't speak up and if you want something else you tend to speak up a lot. Those loud voices are likely what PB was hearing. The idea is that RRT is a large scale combat game. Think of it more in line with the larger battles that you've seen or the Sentinels battles from the books. Anyways, I don't want to add too much but later today we should have an update/clarification.

*Grumble*

This just makes PB look more and more like a bunch of lost puppies being led around all over the place by people who may not know what the hell they are doing.

10mm is workable I suppose. The thing here is that regardless of the scale they eventually choose, they are going to find that Cyclones (and Invid Enforcers, I bet) are going to create a lot of issues for their gameplay. If they throw money to create bigger minis then later realise they have to rework the rules to go with the multi-infantry base approach, they might also find that smaller minis would have worked better. Then we get back to square one.. End of day, PB's priorities seem to be to achieve artistic perfection in the minis more than having a balanced delivery approach to the whole product.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Forar wrote:

Edit: I swear to dog, if we get a fourth fething update on this history/LE/scale string and zero info on Wave Two, I might actually have to call them and give them a piece of my mind, long distance charges be damned.

I think it's not that they don't have anything to update, it's just that they don't have anything they think it's interesting to update. Usually by this stage it's more of small discussions with various parties about production-related items. Sometimes it's commercially confidential information, other times it's just that they are so involved that they don't realise us outsiders have no inking of what's going on.

I'm actually not so worried about Wave 2. One thing positive about the communications so far is that we know PB/ Kevin is very keen to get things moving again. The only real headache is whether they have the cold hard cash to move it through. Unfortunately, such information is also financially sensitive and can create company problems if they talk too loosely about it, so I don't expect to hear anything on that until it's way too late.

**warboss**

Forar wrote:

Note that this is just one dude who hasn't playtested gak brainstorming and thinking out loud. Not an ironclad and heavily tested theory. Merely a hypothesis.

If it played well, and if it were fun, it would essentially cut the figures necessary to play in half. Assuming ranges were kept the same, it'd still require a fairly large playing area.

And if a 1J card were created, Warboss would get to fly his proper Vermillion squadron! :-D

And Dakka and the Palladium forums would be a quieter place for it!

As for your analysis, I find no problems with it at first glance and I have at least double your play experience. Just follow Palladium's lead and don't think about the actual math in that claim too long... (zero xp times two equals...)

**Killionaire**

Just do a rough logarithmic scale and be done with it. It's what FFG's doing with Star Wars Armada since the scale difference between the largest ships and smallest would otherwise be too great.

As long as you can go and say 'I can see how these 6mmish humanoids could fit in my 35mmish plane', then that's fine.

Separating 'generation's is an incredibly stupid idea gameplay wise. Else instead of 1 game with 6 factions, you then get 3 games with 2 factions each. I suppose that pleases the two people in the world who want a Genesis Climber Mospeda only game, whoever they are.

Same with not balancing for cross-generational play, as Flames of War honestly made a huge mistake with that. Even if your 'early gen' stuff is weaker than later gen, just price accordingly.

You can make incredibly detailed miniatures at those tiny scales that still capture the essence of the things they're supposed to represent. It also creates a feeling of 'Oh wow, that mecha is big!' when you compare it to the scale of Zentraedi pods or the Valkyries. Doing it otherwise would be just insane and throws out all size relationships..

**warboss**

Mike1975 wrote:
ALL, PB should have an update on the scale up shortly....I have emailed and received an email from Kevin himself. I was trying to glean PB's intentions with the last updates and understand because it was kinda contrary to what I understood the times we had conference calls.
I really think this all came up since many want 10mm or larger for small New Generation bashes. When you are getting what you want you typically don't speak up and if you want something else you tend to speak up a lot. Those loud voices are likely what PB was hearing. The idea is that RRT is a large scale combat game. Think of it more in line with the larger battles that you've seen or the Sentinels battles from the books. Anyways, I don't want to add too much but later today we should have an update/clarification.

I'm curious to see what they'll say. I put in my 2 cents (both literally and physically with a phone call) for the first time direct to Palladium. I wonder if they'll also mention that obscure thing that almost no one remembers about called wave 2 as well.

As an bit of a side note, I just went to the kickstarter to try and evaluate Forar's post a bit closer regarding the skirmish rules and all the files they posted to the kickstarter like the PDF rules previews and sample force org charts as well as the embedded youtube videos are gone/404. They used to be hosted on some weird soda pop site like www.dammommasboys.com/sodapop but now come back as 404. I didn't check youtube to see if they actually yanked the videos or if kickstarter removed the links with their new tablet friendly annoying format.

**Forar**

And another update lands;

Update #181 Jun 11 2015
More 6mm vs 15mm Thoughts

Hey, Everyone. It’s Kevin Siembieda.

This sentence from an email I recently received seems to reflect the sentiment of many of you:

“I was a bit perplexed by part of the latest update....there was a lot of trash talk on 6mm stuff.”

No trash talk of 6mm was intended whatsoever. Ironically, Palladium has NO plan nor personal desire to depart from 6mm. Nor do you have to convince me of the quality or value of a consistent 6mm (1/285th) scale.

Personally, from day one, I have always wanted to see all generations of Robotech® done in the same scale. If for no other reason than it has never been done and would be freaking awesome!

HOWEVER, we have had a number, and I mean a good number of Kickstarter backers raise the issue and ask us whether we are considering doing a larger scale for some of the smallest Robotech mecha – namely man-sized units like Southern Cross soldiers, the Invid and most notably, the Cyclones.

I thought it was a valid question. And since we have had so many people ask it, I wanted to make sure that we are still on the right path with 6mm (1/285th scale). I used myself as an example only to represent that I understood how and why those suggesting a larger scale might feel about it. AND IF that might be the way the majority of the backers and RRT supporters feel, I want to know about it NOW, not later. From a manufacturing and design point of view, as well as for wargamers, 6mm throughout seems, to all of us at Palladium, the way to go. Most of the arguments in favor of going larger were more important to collectors and those who want these figures as display pieces, which is a segment of our backers that we didn’t want to just dismiss. Thus, the discussion.

I'm just trying to make sure that Palladium gives you, our RRT Kickstarter backers, what YOU WANT. And I want you to think about it so that if and when we say yes, we’re sticking with 6mm scale, there can be no issues later when the pieces are in that scale.

So please, don’t any of you feel perplexed. But please do let us know what YOU want. That’s the entire reason for my raising the question. And I raised it in the strongest possible way so there could be no confusion or doubt. I really want YOU all to really think about what you want from these game pieces.

In fact, I made the case for 15mm as strongly as I did purely to make people really stop and think about it, rather than dismissing it out of hand. My only regret is that it seems to have made some people push back even stronger precisely because they thought I was trying to steer them in that direction.

The only reason Palladium would even consider deviating from 6mm is if this conversation suggests that the vast majority of you might want larger figures (of any size scale, really). Personally, I would be shocked if that happened.

Of course, ALL the new convention exclusives and Earth Defender figures are at 6mm (1/285th) scale. Speaking of which, we’ll be posting the stats and data for how these units function and impact combat in the RRT game for you to see. That’s coming soon.

So please really think about this, talk about it amongst yourselves and let us know your thoughts on the matter.

Wayne will post a poll, probably next week, after there has been time for everyone to think about the subject. PLEASE participate in the poll. Please only vote once, because we are only counting the actual numbers in the poll, and we want them to be accurate.

This helps Palladium in a number of ways, because it will give us an absolute true indication of what you want, but it also gives us an idea if there is a large enough interest for us to consider making both sizes available; 6mm first and maybe 10mm or 15mm later. The idea of offering two sizes in the same package, upon further consideration, is wasteful because those who have no interest in the other size may just toss them out. But unless you tell us otherwise, 6mm is what we plan for ALL RRT game pieces.

Again, I want to make clear that the only reason we are even having this discussion is out of respect for the RRT Kickstarter backers who raised it in the first place and our desire to give you the game YOU want!

– Kevin Siembieda, Publisher

*facepalm*

*halfhearted jazzhands*

**warboss**

I'm just trying to make sure that Palladium gives you, our RRT Kickstarter backers, what YOU WANT.

I thought it was obvious... new wave 2 info posted in a Kickstarter update for the first time since late February.

At least he clarified whether or not he initially planned 6mm for all eras and inter-era play at the top so I don't have to comb through all the comments, murmurs, and updates. Very minor win for me...

**Noir**

So the answer is.... if it not 6mm it is the Kick Start backers fault?

**warboss**

Noir wrote:
So the answer is.... if it not 6mm it is the Kick Start backers fault?

Or Ninja Division's... or the Chinese factory's... or his various brokers'... or Wayne's... or the guy who stole his doodles... or the backers. Anyone who works with him automatically gains the "Life is Cheap" ability. Additionally, Kevin Siembieda is always allowed to dodge a volley of more than 4 simultaneous instances of blame and has 1+ anti-fault lasers with the rear fire special ability.

**Joyboozer**

Mike1975 wrote:
ALL, PB should have an update on the scale up shortly....I have emailed and received an email from Kevin himself. I was trying to glean PB's intentions with the last updates and understand because it was kinda contrary to what I understood the times we had conference calls.
I really think this all came up since many want 10mm or larger for small New Generation bashes. When you are getting what you want you typically don't speak up and if you want something else you tend to speak up a lot. Those loud voices are likely what PB was hearing. The idea is that RRT is a large scale combat game. Think of it more in line with the larger battles that you've seen or the Sentinels battles from the books. Anyways, I don't want to add too much but later today we should have an update/clarification.

Why aren't we receiving any updates on the status of wave two? Why is the issue of scale for the next generations an issue more important than wave two?

**Noir**

Joyboozer wrote:
Mike1975 wrote:
ALL, PB should have an update on the scale up shortly....I have emailed and received an email from Kevin himself. I was trying to glean PB's intentions with the last updates and understand because it was kinda contrary to what I understood the times we had conference calls.
I really think this all came up since many want 10mm or larger for small New Generation bashes. When you are getting what you want you typically don't speak up and if you want something else you tend to speak up a lot. Those loud voices are likely what PB was hearing. The idea is that RRT is a large scale combat game. Think of it more in line with the larger battles that you've seen or the Sentinels battles from the books. Anyways, I don't want to add too much but later today we should have an update/clarification.

Why aren't we receiving any updates on the status of wave two? Why is the issue of scale for the next generations an issue more important than wave two?

Because, Kevin wants to wait until he has enough money to produce Wave 2. Before he talks about it.

**Alpharius**

What's Wayne's job at Palladium?

**Forar**

As a 'throwback Thursday' thing, let's see where this project was a year ago today (give or take a day);

UPDATE: Robotech® RPG Tactics™ goes into manufacturing!

645 Comments

Like
104 likes
We are absolutely thrilled to announce that Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Wave One has gone into manufacturing. This is one of the reasons we have been so busy the last few weeks, as we double- and triple-checked all aspects of the product: made final tweaks and adjustments to the packaging of the main box, expansion packs and rule book, finished designing the instruction sheets, as well as a number of advertising items, getting final approvals from Harmony Gold, and dealing with all the other aspects related to the product and manufacturing! Whew. Heads spinning. Looks great. Very exciting.

We are proud of the final product and confident you’ll find it exciting, fun and gorgeous. We can't wait to get Robotech® RPG Tactics™ Wave One into your hands. More details to follow as we nail down a shipping schedule.

Are all things perfectly equal? Of course not. Larger product line, but fewer figures per backer. Probably less to ship across the ocean, but greater complexity in packing and shipping to backers themselves. No longshoreman strike (that I know of), but who knows what other aspects of Murphy's Law will step in.

Long story short, they aimed for Gencon and went into production in June and barely made Black Friday.

As it stands, they had 5 sprue renders to show off ~104 days ago and since then we've had silence and distractions.

Not boding well here...

**Merijeek**

Alpharius wrote:
What's Wayne's job at Palladium?

Fluffer.

**JohnHwangDD**

Update #181 Jun 11 2015

Hey, Everyone. It’s Kevin Siembieda.

Palladium has NO plan

So please, don’t any of you feel perplexed. But please do let us know what YOU want. That’s the entire reason for my raising the question. And I raised it in the strongest possible way so there could be no confusion or doubt. I really want YOU all to really think about what you want from these game pieces.

So please really think about this, talk about it amongst yourselves and let us know your thoughts on the matter.

Wayne will post a poll, probably next week, after there has been time for everyone to think about the subject. PLEASE participate in the poll. Please only vote once, because we are only counting the actual numbers in the poll, and we want them to be accurate.

This helps Palladium in a number of ways, because it will give us an absolute true indication of what you want,

Again, I want to make clear that the only reason we are even having this discussion is out of respect for the RRT Kickstarter backers who raised it in the first place and our desire to give you the game YOU want!

– Kevin Siembieda, Publisher

:rolleyes:

Although I do believe Keven when he wrote "Palladium has NO plan ".

Also, where's Wave 2?

**Merijeek**

Ask tipster@palladiumbooks.com.

**warboss**

Don't forget to put in the subject of the email "missing stuff" in clear reference to the lack of progress updates. If that doesn't work, ask cypher on the KS comments for the publicly posted contact number for Kevin.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wow...just peaked at the KS comments... already 400+ and its been only about an hour and a half. Most don't seem to be about the scale issue but rather wave 2.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
never mind...Dave Simpson seems to be having a comment spam meltdown.

**Merijeek**

Yes, but if you read around his spasms (or just wait til he gets banned and his posts wiped) you'll see a couple people taking the scale thing seriously and the rest saying "screw this where's my Wave 2".

**Manchu**

WAVE 2 WAVE 2 WAVE 2

Oh nevermind let's just talk about stuff we haven't already paid for instead ...

**Alpharius**

Some of guys are something else over there in the KS Comments section!

**Merijeek**

Compliment me all you want, I'll never do Wayne's job!

**JohnHwangDD**

Alpharius wrote:
Some of guys are something else over there in the KS Comments section!

I love reading RRT comments - makes Dakka seem so peaceful.

**Merijeek**

JohnHwangDD wrote:
Alpharius wrote:
Some of guys are something else over there in the KS Comments section!

I love reading RRT comments - makes Dakka seem so peaceful.

Only because Dakka is ~~policed by jackbooted fascists~~ moderated so well.

**Manchu**

Pick up the can, Merijeek.

**Alpharius**

And since no one answered me, I Interneted it myself!

Wayne Smith, Editor, Special Projects, Rifter® Editor-in-Chief

http://palladiumbooks.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=211&Itemid=206#Wayne

Kevin's bio on that same page is...pretty interesting.

**Manchu**

Alpharius wrote:
And since no one answered me

Hold up there:

Merijeek wrote:
Alpharius wrote:
What's Wayne's job at Palladium?
Fluffer.

**Merijeek**

Alpharius wrote:

Kevin's bio on that same page is...pretty interesting.

I'm pretty sure most Presidents don't get biographies that long.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Manchu wrote:
Pick up the can, Merijeek.

Man, your post makes a lot more sense once the picture loaded.