MechaStellar VER11 Design Goals – Pilot Skills – Focus & Valor Evolution

In designing MechaStellar VER11 we wanted to make a few Quality of Life improvements, both for readability, usability, and overall gameplay flow. Click here to see the MechaStellar VER11 roadmap.

Focus and Valor for MechaStellar went through the most changes while developing VER11, so we wanted to cover their development in depth in this post.  Focus and Valor were each trying to find their own distinct niche while remaining different from the other, a struggle we also had with Flash and Iron Wall.

In VER10 Focus was [M-1] HIT or DEF on a 3+ for this roll.

Very simple, very easy to remember, well loved.  We didn’t want to change it.

But early on in VER11 development as we were trying to simplify things and remove all the complexity that crept into VER10 we were looking at Elite units.  Initially, they were giving a Flat +1 HIT for Elite units and +1 Hit & DEF for Ace units.  That eventually changed into Elite = 4+ Hit / DEF and Ace = 3+ Hit / DEF which was well loved by playtesters.  This concept of upgraded Target Numbers (TNs) for Hit and DEF would eventually become the basis for the VER11 Elite unit system.  You can read more about that here.

VER11 Elite Units

Around this time we had settled on identities for Flash and Iron wall and were very satisfied with both.  We realized we wanted Focus to be offense only (rather than the VER10 HIT or DEF) that way Flash and Iron Wall were the distinct defense skills and you never had to decide which was better, Defensive Focus or Flash.

Because, Elite units now passively raised your target number we would have to do something with Focus, because it would not be less useful than before, and for Ace units it would provide no benefit.  We experimented with a few ideas.

  • Reroll misses
  • Bonus dice
  • Bonus Hits
  • Improved Trigger (i.e. Bullseye 9+ to 8+)
  • Bonus DMG

Reroll misses was initially good, but immediately stumbled with the barrage rules with questions of “does this apply to the initial roll, both rolls?”  Since barrage was well loved we would rather change focus than redo all of barrage.

Bonus dice was a novel concept and could definitely hits that dramatic feel of Heero Yuy somehow making that critical shot with the Twin Buster rifle and emptying your Morale Point (formerly Momentum) pool.  But while awesome for dramatics, it felt like a trap because a player could squander all their Morale Points, meanwhile the Valor skill was a more efficient use of resources.  (But more on Valor later).

Bonus Hits was decent, but not exciting.  Devs discussed making it +3 Hits to oppose Flash.

Improved Trigger was very exciting, but there would be time where it would do very little (you rolled no dice that were close to your trigger so Focus was worthless) or insanely good (you rolled a bunch of 8s and your Crit on a 9+, focus and you gain a bunch of Crit hits).  The devs considered keeping the original rule (Focus = 3+ to Hit) but if you’re an Ace, then instead Focus becomes Trigger TN+1.  Powerful but limited to Aces.  But as mentioned still very variable.

Bonus DMG was too powerful for [M-1] but we kept trying it for a long time. It was also stepping on the toes of valor.

The Devs also discussed “Maybe regular Focus does this, but [Ace] focus does this.”  For example, basic focus was +1 Hit or +100 DMG, and Ace Focus gave both. 

We had many options to consider here.  But ultimately we needed a way for grunts (or anyone really) to break through a tough defense.  Valor obviously can work but it’s a huge investment.  So that means Focus should be the breakthrough option.  Here’s a DEV conversation on that topic.

Focus improving dice outcome is probably the desired emotional outcome plus it links up with old systems but will be the hardest to balance I think…… on the other hand, we don’t really have way to make attacks breakthrough when defender rolls well. 
To use an example, Justice Gundam has incredible defenses, so even when a squad of high performance grunts  like Jegans or GM IIIs attack it, they aren’t making it through.

Ok, well this is where a skill should help. So Valor can already be used as breakthrough (but it’s expensive, and do you really want to burn M-4 on your grunts?). So the thought is that Focus should be the breakthrough button.

Yeah

and while the “improve hit chance’ has been common for a very long time; if we are changing the identity where Ace = Hit on a 3+, Elite = 4+, Grunt = 5+; then maybe we probably shouldn’t let Focus interfere with that.  Keep it simple and so less cognitive load. 

I agree with that, likewise less mental math

less “ok do I want to hit better, do I want a better trigger” just a very simple I hit better and certain elite units hit EVEN better than that. downside is in the past, Kamille in Zeta gundam with +X Hit traits, was a monster to be reckoned with

What if Focus gave you an automatic trigger?

What do you mean?

Like, Focus and turn 1 die into a 10 which is a hit and a trigger.

oh that’s good, really good.  Let’s try it.
 

Eventually all these ideas wound up with 2 Skills.

  • Focus = After rolling dice turn 1 die into a 10.  (Final version in the rules, although it did change another 4 times before reverting back to this)
  • Sure Strike = Improve your change to Hit.

While Focus would become the Trigger button, giving you a chance to do something awesome with your gun.  Sure Strike would help your unit hit.

There was a lot of discussion on sure strike and how it would interact with Elite units.  Initially Sure Strike was Hit on a 3+.  Later it became, improve Hit TN+1, so if you hit on a 4+, now you hit on a 3+.  But with Ace units becomes 3+, the Dev’s experimented with Sure Strike hitting on a 2+.  This….got a little crazy with barrage weapons and micromissiles as playtesters can attest.

Eventually, Sure Strike for the sake of simplicity and minimizing mental math just became [M-1] +2 Hits.

And at the end of the day, VER11 launched by combining both these skills into one.

Focus [M-1] Wow, the Lieutenant’s skills haven’t changed since the One-Year War

On your Turn, after rolling ATK dice turn one d10 into a 10 OR gain +2 Hits.

Valor Evolution

Valor started off with the VER10 [M-3] = +5 Hits.  Then we tried [M-2] = +3 Hits (+5 with Barrage weapons).

We tried doing +3d10 attack dice, with Barrage = +3 Hits.  This was decent and fun, but as we were developing the “dice roll only” core mechanic, we realized that we had very little dice to play with.  On a 10d10 max for attack, if Frame + performance capped out at 4 dice, Combat Role (Battler / Sniper / Firepower) was another +2 dice, that only left 4d10 left for weapons, so 2d10 for a rifle and 4d10 for a machine gun.  Valor would have to drop down to +2d10 to fit in that framework such that rifles cap at 10d10.

Ultimately, we decided to move away from the skill giving bonus dice, that way it gave more flexibility for weapons, if you wanted to have upgraded weapons, like twin linked rifles for instance.

Eventually we came up with the Valor phase where the attacker goes into overdrive and gives it their all and try to force through an attack even if the defender managed to initially block.  Valor would give bonus dice (outside your 10d10 pool) as a bonus attack roll.  This was awesome!

Since Valor was expensive we also gave Valor a rider ability.  Either DMG+100 OR Strike a Finishing Blow.  Finishing Blow meant if any hits from the Valor phase got through they would have to make a Finisher Save which would either deal a lot of damage or cause system damage like removing an arm, leg or head. 

Each time we updated Valor we would often end up updating Focus.  Focus was +1 Hit.  Then +2 Hits.  Then improved change to Hit (TN+1) which included the regular attack and the valor phase.  Then later improve Trigger by 1 (this would later become the ability of the Power stat).

At one point we were considering

  • Focus phase (bonus overdrive phase + dice)
  • Valor phase (bonus dice + finishing blow)
  • Focus Phase (bonus overdrive phase)
  • Valor (Finishing blow)

Focus = bonus phase was awesome at first but quickly became a slot because people would do it for every attack.  Still the Valor = Finisher idea persisted, and was very well liked, because one Dev came up with an idea that during the Finisher phase a Super Robot could have its weapon change.  For example, Gurren Lagann’s drill attack becomes GIGA DRILL BREAKER during the Finisher phase. 

So with Valor being settled on the Dev’s continued to work on focus, with various ideas of bonus dice, bonus hits, improved trigger, etc.  As the weapon triggers were slimmed down (bombard was removed for example, and siege was reworked to have the trigger matter a lot), Focus = +1 Trigger became the winning idea.

Meanwhile a separate Sure Strike skilled was developed to help Hit, either improved TN (Hit on a 3+ or 2+) or bonus hits (+3 Hits or +2 Hits).  Ultimately, as noted above, both of these were combined into a single Focus Skill giving the option for a bonus trigger or bonus hits.

We still had to figure out how to make Valor work as a useful skill and an awesome Finisher. 

We still enjoyed the VER10 rules of gain bonus dice = to the Round.  We went through a few variations to make Valor feel worthwhile for its cost.

The most math heavy involved rewarding ones Morale bonus so Valor dice = Round + [10 – your Momentum] so if your pilot had Morale 3+ you were rolling Round + 7 dice.  Quite powerful!

The morale effect later became, you can use Morale for your TN instead of your normal Hit TN, this way Guy Shishio with Morale 3+, Hit 5+, now hits on a 3+

We also briefly tested Trigger TN = Morale, but that was absurd lmao

We tried Valor = 3 + Round, or Valor = 2x Round dice.  All of which felt too powerful for [M-3]

Eventually we settled on Valor dice = Elite Level + Round.  It rewards your elite units using Valor while not making it too powerful for an [M-3] skill.

[Elite] Valor [M-3] We’ll crush the Hyakki empire once and for all!
• Enter the Finisher Phase: Roll Finisher dice = Elite Level + Current Round.
o Finisher Dice use your Morale TN if it is better than your Hit TN.
o Add any Hits or Triggers to your original attack

Lastly we had to figure out sequencing.  At what point do you pull the trigger on Valor.  Before or after the defender commits with Flash / Iron Wall.

This went through  A LOT of playtesting in both versions.  Eventually we opted for the fastest and cleanest sequence which you’ll see in the VER11 rules.

Tilt the Odds in your Favor
Both sides roll dice at the same time, then Attacker and Defender decide on Skills.

  1. Calculate Current Unblocked Hits = Total HITs – Total DEF
  2. Gain bonus +DEF equal to the Cover or Shield or Armor Level
  3. Attacker decides to use Focus [M-1] OR [Elite] Valor [M-3] (FINISHER PHASE PG. 21)
  4. Focus – After rolling ATK, turn a d10 into a 10 OR gain +2 Hits.

While Valor and Focus are very straightforward now, we’d like to thank our playtesters for their continued patience as these two skills were developed, changed places and eventually got to the end product.  Could not have done it without you.  Thank you!

MechaStellar VER11 Design Goals – Pilot Skills

In designing MechaStellar VER11 we wanted to make a few Quality of Life improvements, both for readability, usability, and overall gameplay flow. Click here to see the MechaStellar VER11 roadmap.

Updating Skills from MechaStellar VER10 to VER11 took a lot of time, a lot of patience and the ability to try many different methods to find the best fit for each skill with the new “dice roll only” instead of “dice roll + bonus” core mechanic for VER11.  Focus and Valor received the most updates so we will cover those indepth in the next post.  For this post we’ll cover the remaining skills.

To start, we knew that Morale Point [M] generation (formerly called Momentum) would be smaller and less guaranteed than VER10, so we wanted to make skills as cheap as possible while not making them so cheap they became too powerful.  We tried to set  a baseline of [M-2] for most skills, with [M-1] reserved for a useful but not super powerful skill, and [M-3] or [M-4] for a very powerful skill.  Let’s start with Zeal.

Zeal

Zeal has changed the least moving from VER10 to VER11, it’s still a skill that gives you bonus actions you can use for extra attacks or for utility actions.  The biggest change is that Zeal is no longer a pay what you want ability, it’s no longer M-1 for +1 action, M-3 for +3 actions.  Instead, it always gives you +2 actions.

While this does remove a little tactical flexibility, it remarkably speeds up decision making by removing a gigantic layer of “ok I could do this, and if I have this many actions I could do this, and then…” which sometimes led to choice paralysis in some players.  Now it’s a simple, use Zeal, gain +2 actions.

We’ve also tightened how bonus attacks work, if you attack the same target twice, or attack with the same weapon twice is will not use up both of your 2 actions.  Early on, ther ewere some concerns about what happens when you use Zeal and only need 1 action.  Since then we’ve added 3 more Combat Actions to the core rules, Lock on, Sensors Sweep, and Battle-Cry, in addition to Accelerate there are many valuable options you can use your 2 actions on besides just attacking.

There was a Brief time where we created an action that would turn one of your weapons into a Support weapon (using the VER10 rules) this way you could live out your Armored Core fantasies, of firing your rifle and shoulder missiles and pulse laser gun all at the same time.  Like VER10, this ended up being more trouble than it’s worth, and the ultra simple, ultra effective “Havoc” upgrade covered that “unload all weapons” fantasy much better with significantly less rules and headaches.  We’ll cover Boost / Power / Havoc evolution after we do Focus / Valor.

Initially, we set Zeal at [M-3] since it was often the most powerful skill in late VER10. However, as we continued to fine tune weapon balance, and expected unblocked hits dropped to 0-2 Hits we felt comfortable returning Zeal back to [M-2], the small bit of symmetry, 2 Momentum for +2 actions, makes it easier to remember as well.

Flash

We’re going to go over this one more in depth for the Boost / Power / Havoc post.  But for now here are the highlights.

We started off with [M-3] Flash = +5 DEF, same as VER10

Then we moved to [M-2] Flash = +3 DEF

While developing Barrage which initially gave you bonus exploding dakka dice = Triggers rolled, we previewed a system where Flash would do the same thing.  For example the Flash skill would have a Barrage 7+ effect, every 7+ rolled meant you could reroll those dice.

Later, when Barrage was upgraded to, all hits (not just triggers) are exploding dakka dice, we tried the same thing for Flash.

While mathematically it works out, we did run into a lot of player psychology issues where players were hesitant to use Flash because they didn’t roll that well.

Eventually we settled on the final version of Flash which lets you reroll your entire defense dice pool (hit or miss) making it stronger than barrage.  All for the low cost of [M-2].  This was a huge hit with playtesters.

Iron Wall

Iron Wall struggled a lot to maintain an identity in VER10, competing with Flash as a defensive skill and eventually trying to be an Anti-Zeal skill which would give you a decent +3 DEF bonus for the whole turn.

For VER11 we tried with that for a little bit but quickly realized that we wanted Iron Wall to feel DISTINCTLY DIFFERENT from Flash.

While Flash was doing the 7++ Barrage effect, we were considering have Iron Wall give you a 10+ or 9+ DEF Crit option.  (One of the bigger changes from VER11 is that there are no longer automatic 10s are Crits).  It was ok, but still made Flash and Iron Wall feel very samey.

We came up with an idea during the development of the expanded Saving Throw system, that Iron Wall could provide defense and also improve your saving throw.

Later on, we simplified it further to a very simple “Pass a failed Armor Save”

Now that’s a valuable skill!  Iron Wall started off at [M-2] but after considerable playtesting we decided that [M-1] was the best fit.

Alert

This is a new skill, although players of the older Super Robots Wars games will remember this skill name.

Alert was created just to give a little more flavor to Warships and Kaiju monsters, which as of this time we don’t really want them to use Flash.  Alert gives you the benefit of Cover (something Kaiju could do in the past) and also improves your Trigger number for counter weapons like your CIWS Anti-Air batteries on Warships, but also counterattacks like Godzilla’s tail sweep or Crimson Typhoons kaiju throw.

Currently, we did setup the mechanics that if we wanted to let Warships / Kaiju to use Flash they could and it would not be unbalancing (both units have super high HP but smaller defense dice pools).  We could also let Mobile Suits use Alert.  But for right now, we want to preserve the distinction between these weapon types, and Flash / Alert is doing that for us.  That many change in the future based on player feedback.

Next post we’ll discuss the evolution of Focus & Valor.

MechaStellar VER11 Design Goals – Quality of Life Improvements

In designing MechaStellar VER11 we wanted to make a few Quality of Life improvements, both for readability, usability, and overall gameplay flow. Click here to see the MechaStellar VER11 roadmap.

We’ve used the extra space to increase font size and make profiles a little bigger and easier to read.  We’ve included mech armories on the profile page so you can quickly swap out weapons for the intended machines, and even Elite pilots, quickly inserting Norris Packard into a Gouf Custom.   Of the dozens of OYW war variants we’ve made those simplier to take a basic profile and swap a weapon to represent the variant.

VER11 Weapon Triggers

The genesis of weapon triggers and the expansion of armor saves into weapon saves meant some reorganization was needed on the basic MechaStellar profile.  During this time it also gave us some time to implement the updated Elite pilot system which provides passive benefits to a unit like improving the TNs to Hit, Defend or Morale. 

VER11 Elite Units

These upgrades were in lieu of the previous VER pilot traits like Hot Blooded or Renowned Pilot or Headhunter which saved some considerable space.  Rest assured these traits will continue to exist in some form or another, returning as other pilot upgrades or bonus objectives.

Speaking of Bonus Objectives, these were formerly optional rules in VER10 but now they’re integrated into the core rules and on the mech profile.  Certain famous units will have built in bonus objectives like “Gundam Rising”, “Operation Meteor”, or “Gundam Fight, Ready, Go!”.  These bonus objectives are a powerful way to earn VP besides just destroying your opponent.  In a SRW style game, rather than drown yourself in objectives, instead you only choose one Bonus Objective to achieve each battle.  The full list of bonus objectives can be found at the end of the MechaStellar core rules document beneath the Vs. Mode header.

While we continue to update Mech profiles to VER11, we’re also going to update the Co-op rules and mission packs.  We’ve simplified the design math extensively so you’ll notice that almost all Mechs will be in 50pt increments.  This makes it far easier to army build, and it means you’ll have a lot of flexibility in the co-op campaigns to bring whatever low cost 50pts mech you want.

VER11 Core Mechanic

Although VER11 has made a lot of things easier and simplified a lot of design math, unfortunately one area that has remained complicated has been weapons.  While in the previous versions, weapons were independent of mech’s inherent characteristics like Frame, Performance or Combat Role (Sniper, Battler, Raid, etc.) which instead provided bonus Hits or Defense, because VER11 has switched to a “dice roll” only system those characteristics now affect a weapons dice.

That said, we’ve simplified and consolidated a number of the Combat Roles to make the rules for Gundam Build Fighters easy.  We’ve also included at the end of each section for Gundam’s Federation vs Zeon an armory list with many weapons having an easy 50pt price tag to swap in or out, or to add a bonus weapon while still making army building easy.  There are also simple instructions on how to remove and swap weapons with a simple formula to add dice based on the units Frame, Performance and Combat Role.  If it looks daunting at first, we promise it’s quite easy after you do it once or twice. 

MechaStellar VER11 Design Goals – Momentum & Pacing

Note, Momentum points have been renamed to Morale Points in VER11, we’ll be referring to them as Morale Points in this post.

While making MechaStellar VER11 we wanted to update the gameplay in a lot of ways, especially with how Momentum (now named Morale Points) and Pilot Skills worked. Before we start deep diving on Pilot Skills we wanted to revisit Morale Points (formerly Momentum) and how the overall speed of gameplay has changed.

As mentioned in the previous post, Morale Points (formerly Momentum points) now come from one of two sources

  1. Make a Rally Save when you activate a unit.
    1. Make more Rally Saves if they are [Elite] and/or a [Warship]
  2. At the end of the Round gain Morale Points for each Control Point [CP] you control

#1 replaces Momentum Shifts that have been a staple for several years now.  Instead of gaining Morale Points from specific movements.  In VER11 we experimented with several ideas like moving closer to the enemy, starting or ending in engagement range, simply being in the opponents half of the battlefield, etc.  Here’s a DEVchat on the topic

Momentum shift = End a move action within Melee Sensors (2nd value) of an enemy unit or control point. 

Yeah that’s simple, but if you say end engagement range of an enemy OR A CP, it helps make Bullseye more valuable. 

Oh and I wanted to add, if you lose the move closer to nearest enemy part, then it’s harder to chase an enemy, i.e. GM 4″ vs Dom 8″.  The GM moves 8″ total trying to chase, the Dom moves 16″, you get no Momentum because you can’t end in engagement range. 

Ohhh I see.  But if we leave it as move closer and each move action is a momentum shift, couldn’t the GM gain M+3 from move move accel?  I feel like that’s way too much

Yeah….it’s cool if you’re the last model on the field for a heroic charge, but not if there’s a whole army there

For a lot of reason, we eventually left that mechanic behind and moved to a simple and easy to remember mechanic that rewards your high morale pilots.  Now your unit generates it upon activating, with high Morale characters having the best chance to generate Morale Points for your army.  It also lets you now at the start of your turn exactly how much Morale points you can spend, without having to hope you can earn more later.

That said, it does make Morale Points more rare, while VER10 was notable for being able to spam pilot skills almost every Turn, that’s less true in VER11.  You need to be judicious with how you spend Morale.  That said many skills are cheaper than before.

With slower Momentum generation it means the gameplay is now more focused on capturing CPs.  In VER10, with how easy it was to gain M+2 via a momentum shift on your turn, often times the boost from CPs at the end of the Round might not have even been necessary, with several playtesters reporting they maxxed out at M=10 at the end of the round via CPs 70% of the time.

Now CPs would be the focus, but we also wanted to make getting to the CP and fighting over it a bigger part of gameplay.  That means shortening movement across the board.  Later in VER10, many units moved from Move 4″ to Move 8″ after the Hexastellar update where everything moved to increments of 4″ instead of 2″.  Some units had Move 12″, some had 16″.

With very high moves across the board it meant some long range weapons felt useless, while short range weapons, with a power boost for their poor range, were getting used all the time.  It also meant if you shot someone, a fast character could easily melee you next turn.  Here’s a DEVchat on that topic

Take for instance an enemy that attacked you at range 24″.  With move 8″, you can move 16, you have a melee threat range of 4″, that’s 20 of the 24″ already.  One accelerate action puts you in melee instantly.  Perhaps these moments should be more rare.

While fun, and definitely has the Gundam Vs gameplay feel to it, it wasn’t for everyone.  It also made it trivial to bounce around Control Points all over the board.  We made the design choice to lower movements across the board, and make movement upgrades very expensive.  Not only does this affect capturing CPs, it also greatly reinforces role identify, where Raid and Battler types with their inherent move bonus, don’t feel like weaker roles, because in the past other units could easily purchase Move upgrades.  Now, almost no units purchase move upgrades.  Here’s a DEVchat on the topic

MOVEMENT

Make OYW Move 4″ by default and 8″ for Raid & Battler

Also, let’s consolidate Melee+Battler, Raid +Interceptor, the roles aren’t too different now

A lot of good can come from anchoring basic units at Move 4″, Raid = 8″, Jets 12″ it makes you want that role because only that role can move fast (and capture CPs, or get Tactical Advantage etc.)

Yeah but what about Tallgeese or fast units like Justice who aren’t really Raid or Battler types?

We can let them upgrade movement but it will cost a shit ton of points so you need to consider if that’s worth it.  Like if it costs 100 or 200pts for a move upgrade, you might want to invest those points in pilot or mech upgrades instead.

Oh, and thinking more on it, smaller base movements makes transforming MS more special (and the ability more worthwhile) by giving a nice move boost at the expense of melee defense. 

CPs are harder to capture Round 1 unless you are bringing a Raid, Battler, or Aircraft.  This made the game feel more leisurely in a good way, while allowing those 3 specific roles a chance to shine.  Round 1 had each player advancing and popping off shots at max range, then Round 2 to 3 the real fight for CPs begins.  The Bullseye weapons are great for letting you choose your target and also becoming stronger when the target is on the CP. 

Round 3-5, those high speed units can try to avoid combat, and dodge and weave in the oppponents deployment zone to try and capture their home CP.  It made for a lot of fun battles where there were reasons to do something besides attack actions every turn.  Overall, we think you’ll enjoy the new game pace in MechaStellar VER11.

MechaStellar VER11 Design Goals – Saving Throws

While making MechaStellar VER11 we wanted to update the gameplay and make it overall less lethal while still allowing for some lethal spikes in gameplay that are ideally player controlled. One of the biggest steps to making this design goal a reality was the update of the Saving Throw or [Saves] system. Saving Throws have been greatly expanded in MechaStellar VER11, in retrospect it’s a very simple and elegant change but it did take us a while to get here.

In VER3 – 10 Saving Throws were almost universally Armor Saves, saves you rolled against an Armor Penetrating weapon the majority of which were beam weapons and heat weapons.  Depending on the VER sometimes kinetic weapons had PEN albeit much lower, and various melee weapons had PEN.  An Armor Save worked like this:

  • Armor Save
    • Make a number of Armor Saves equal to the number of unblocked Hits your unit took. (Max 5)
    • Roll a d10, if it is equal to or exceeds the weapons Armor Penetration you pass. 
      • VER8-10 If you fail, take 1000 DMG.
      • VER3-7: If you fail, the unit is destroyed. 
        • [Elite] units could spend [M] to avoid death.

MechaStellar has always had the ideal of emulating the persistent lethality present in the universal century of Mobile Suit Gundam, but over the years we’ve adjusted how armor saves worked to make games either more fun, more balanced or both.  VER11 takes this two steps further.

Step 1 = Barrage Weapons

These weapons have very high rate of fire, so we realized we needed to change something.  So for Beam Machine Guns all of them gained a special note saying [AP Saves = 500 DMG], this way if the beam machine gun is pumping out 10 hits (failed saves = 500 DMG) while the rifle only gets 5 hits (failed saves = 1000 DMG), they end up roughly even.  Naturally, weapon balance doesn’t always work that perfectly, but that’s the initial goal we set.

Step 2 = # of Saves = Triggers

Previously the number of Saves would be equal to the number of unblocked hits.  So if you got 5 times, you were making 5 saves. 

While developing the weapon Triggers system, we experimented with some triggers like Pierce, Siege and Finisher generating Saves if you roll the Trigger.  It worked out amazing for beam weapons.

Suddenly you could take 9 hits from a beam rifle, but because of an unlucky roll the attacker only had one Crit Trigger, meaning you only had to roll 1 Armor Save, then take 9 low damage hits.  In the previous system it was 9 Hits and then 5 Armor Saves which was often super overkill for most units that weren’t a Super Robot, and even then it was catastrophic.

Now games would no longer potentially end early because of one lucky attack that absolutely obliterated a model while you lacked any momentum to protect the unit. There was one major downside.  Triggers = Saves is great, but……what about weapons that didn’t have Armor Penetration?

A while ago we had removed Armor PEN from all regular weapons like rifles, bazookas etc.   Those weapons could never benefit from that, which was a bummer.

Then the Eureka moment

“What if we just made alternate Saves for each weapon type”?

Again simple in hindsight, but never really occurred to us before.  The impetus for this idea came from several competing ideas we were working on.

Suppression Mechanics on Machine Guns

Some wargames try to simulate suppression from machine gun fire by making morale worse or pinning a unit down and stopping their movement, we were trying to do this with machine gun traits already.  Then we realized we could just make a “Mobility Save” where failing it could limit your movement.

(It was originally named Suppression Save, SP, but we didn’t want two S saves, and so Stun (or Stagger) kept ST abbreviation while Suppression became MB mobility Saves.)

Shield Breaks via Siege weapons or Finisher Phase

At this time Shields were extremely cheap in development and no longer modified your defense dice, so having one blow up was easy, involved no sheet changes and was encouraged because of how cheap they were.  Figuring out how to do that was difficult.  At the time, the Siege trigger was blowing up cover so we expanded it to include Shields, but it wound up with some weird sequencing issues.  We also tried to do the same with the [Finisher Phase], which was still pretty rare.  We stuck in a position where shields were cheap and hard to blow up, so everyone wanted one.

To solve this, we had the “Break Save”.  All our regular weapons like cannons and bazookas which had 0 Armor Penetration, now had a reason to use a Save, a BR Break Save, which could blow up Shields on a failed save or cause damage.

Expanded Design Space for Weapons

Thanks to Step 1, we realized these saves didn’t need to do 1000 DMG either.  MB could be 500 DMG, Break Saves could be 500 or possibly higher.  Barrage MB weapons could be 200 DMG. 

We no longer had blank space on the Save column of a weapon profile for non-beam weapons, and best of all, because all weapons now had a reason to invest into improved Saves, it made it much easier to balance weapons.  All the weapons that used to have 0 Armor Penetration used to have very high damage.  Instead of 700 or 800 DMG bazookas they were now 400 or 500 DMG. 

Likewise, our problems with machine guns having no where to invest points into attack dice, we could now put those points into better Barrage Triggers, or high mobility saves.  This game a lot of design room for all kinds of weapon types and was a tremendous win for the DEV Team.

Of course, we couldn’t forget ST Stun Saves or PP Push/Pull Saves.  While these existed in VER9 as special Armor Saves, like 6S or 8P; we could now formalize them as separate saves in MechaStellar VER11.  The mechanics got simpler and easy to use and we were able to shrink down the Push / Pull and Stun Saves special rules from 1 page down to 1/2 a page. 

Overall the Save system was full of numerous wins.  Weapons were easier to balance and less deadly.  Saving throws, especially beam weapons were less deadly, all other weapons gained utility by possibly causing movement penalties, action penalties, forced movement or shield breaks.

With the universal rule that Saves = Trigger Now every weapon follows the same format

  • Roll attack.
  • Count hits.
  • Count triggers.
  • Hits = damage.
  • Triggers = saves.
  • Done.

There were definitely some concerns about lethality especially beam weapons going down. Here’s a DEVchat on that topic

HP is way too high if weapons are only doing like 1 Save per attack. Even worse if Iron Wall can let you take the beam shot…

Yeah, that’s a good point and Iron Wall is a cheap gurantee

To use Guncannon as an example, if the enemy has M=2 (and they almost always will) I would never use beam rifle when I could use cannons, because cannons will actually deal damage, when beam rifle gets even 4 hits through, if on average I pass 2 and Iron wall passes the other 2, I take no damage

So either Iron Wall needs to become M-3 or we need to make beams dangerous again

I guess we could change Iron Wall to maybe do +1 DEF & Pass 1 Save for the rest of the Turn . That also makes it Anti-Zeal

Yeah but then it’s stepping on the toes of Flash again, we’re trying to keep the two very distinct swim lanes now

True, true. What about Focus?

While lethality is down overall, it’s still very possible for your [Elite] and [Ace] pilots to still be very deadly.  We’ll cover Pilot skills in depth in the future, and the most basic skill allows you to turn 1 die into a 10, meaning you can always add +1 Trigger and thus +1 Save to the target.  Rest assured, if the dice are aligned Amuro can still one shot a Zaku with a beam rifle, and a beam saber is often no question. 

On the other hand, we’ve had battles of 3 man squads of Zakus and GMs go 2-3 rounds of melee without wiping each other out.  It’s led to some really fun moments on the tabletop with “WAIT HE SURVIVED”, “NO WAY, THE LONE SURVIVOR JUST KILLED 2 GUYS”.  We hope you get to enjoy moments like these as well with the new and improved MechaStellar VER11 Save system.

MechaStellar VER11 Design Goal – Finisher Evolution

In making MechaStellar VER11 we had a lot of new and interesting design challenges to improve the game.  Our overall goal to take VER10 and make it faster, more fun and easier to teach.  Finisher is the 2nd most modified Trigger since we started developing VER11, coming in right after Barrage.  Ultimately, Finisher was removed as a Trigger but we thought the development process of ups and downs, repeated dead-ends then eventually repurposing Finisher into an alternate system would be worth the deep dive.  So keep reading below.

At the start of VER11 Finisher had the following ability.

  • Finisher
    • When target is below 50% HP, each Trigger deals +1 Hit.  (Can Stack with Critical)

This is probably the simplest and cleanest version of Finisher we ever had looking back on it.  It was also quite potent making it the most commonly used combination trigger, combining with Critical, Bullseye, Siege, etc making every combination deadly.

On the flip side, it was completely inferior to Critical outside of Combination triggers.  That meant we were always looking for different ways to implement Finisher.  Finisher in VER9 and VER10 went through many different revisions providing several different frameworks, some loved, some hated by players.  Finisher in VER11 is major improvement over all previous versions, both from a balancing, thematic, and enjoyment perspective.  But before we get to the [Finisher Phase] let’s go through Finisher’s evolution.

With the VER10 Finisher Rules of make X+ Hits to Trigger a Finishing Blow we tried with

  • Finisher
    • Each trigger lowers the number of unblocked hits needed for a Finishing Blow.

This was very similar to VER10 but didn’t help our lethality problems, or all the problems we had in VER10 so it was scrapped.  It also had a number of sequencing problems when it came to attack and defense, when a targets shield could be used, and whether it would be broken (by the finisher).  Here’s a DEV chat on the topic.

How about a system where Finisher trigger immediately activates Finisher phase?

Only way this works is to make defender roll first, then attacker, then finisher phase. 

Yeah, but sequencing gets clearer for Shields / Siege

Ok, but it gets ugly because now you have to commit to Flash / Iron Wall before knowing the attack.  I mean yeah, it might have that Gundam EX Vs feel, but has big potential for feels bad moments; and heavily lets the attacker probe defenses without burning momentum.  Again not a bad thing but probably not a good sequence, even if it gave us fun nostalgia for VER 4-9 with defender rolling vs attack.

At the start of VER11, the number of Saves you rolled was still equal to the number of unblocked hits (capped at 5).  Same as VER10.  We were looking at ways to modify this and make the game less lethal, since high attack beam weapons were still extremely lethal.  One option was Finisher.

  • Finisher
    • Each Trigger generates an unblockable Hit.

This way a Finisher weapon was creating Saving Throws regardless of the opponents defense roll.  A novel concept, but ended up being a mess for mental math later.  Around this time we were also developing the saving throw system in parallel which we’ll cover in the next post.  At the start there were only Armor Saves (just like VER10) with some unique ones like Stun versions or Push / Pull versions.  We then added in a “Finisher Save”.  Here’s some DEV notes during this time period

Next version – Finisher triggers generate Finisher saves if there are any unblocked hits.  But that gets weird with armor saves and finisher saves having different generation mechanics, Armor Saves is one per hit, Finisher Saves is per trigger , probably confusing for new players.

Next version – Finishers are just Crit weapons, but a passive bonus in the Finisher phase, they cost more than Crit weapons (maybe too strong and doesn’t help me blow up shields, without going to finisher phase)

Next version – Finisher weapons all have Siege (thus every roster can deal with shields now) and also a bonus during Finisher phase, which is Crit on trigger, they cost more than regular siege weapons

Next version – Finisher does generate finisher saves.  Turn ARM PEN weapons into PEN 8+, now all saves depend on triggers {{this is when we prototyped what became the final Saving Throw system}}.  Save = Triggers lowers lethality on beams, if we kept it as unblocked hits = saves then finisher saves would be super overkill. 

However, it can get kind of weird if you have more saves than hits, do you still cap saves with hits?  What happens if you get 5 Triggers and thus 5 Saves but there only 2 unblocked hits; okay well I guess 2 Hits and 5 Saves.  Alright, but what about squads?  How do I split up 2 hits and 5 saves across 3 units???  {{We eventually solved the Squad issue}}

Next version – Unified trigger and save mechanic.  [E]nergy weapons and Finisher weapons cause armor saves and finisher saves respectively, where # of Saves = # of Unblocked Hits (Max 3).  The trigger for these weapons raises the save cap by 1.  For example, Finisher 8+, roll 2 8s, the cap is now 5, better get 5 unblocked hits through to maximize that

Next version – Finisher = Crit if target HP<50%, or Tac Adv (Blindside, high ground etc.).  Maybe anti grunt if we do Frame 1-2.  Conditional = Bonus in Valor phase.

Next version – That was way too complicated, let’s revert back.   1 Trigger = 1 Save.  If there are 0 unblocked Hits then there are 0 Saves.  Otherwise, Hits and Saves are not dependent on each other.  How about we just get rid of Finisher Saves for now, and Finisher = Each Trigger is DMG+100.

This became our go to Finisher for the longest time.

  • Finisher
    • Each Trigger gives DMG+100 to each unblocked Hit

That said, as hinted in some of the DEV Notes earlier, we had also been developing a [Finisher Phase] system simultaneously.  Eventually, we combined that concept with the Valor skill such that using Valor meant entering the [Finisher Phase] on your attack.  Valor was extremely well loved by playtesters.  But more on its development later.

As we developed the Finisher Phase we also realized that we no longer needed to have separate Finisher weapons.  You didn’t need to have “Drill Attack”  and “Giga Drill Breaker” as separate weapons, each costing separate points (and often a lot of points).  Instead you could “Drill Attack”  who’s special ability was “[Finisher Phase] Role change to Breaker”.  Thus your regular weapon with Pierce as its Trigger switches to a combination trigger like Breaker (Pierce + Crit) during the Finisher Phase. 

We could then apply this to various fighters, GaoGaiGar’s Heaven and Hell going to [Finisher Phase] Role Change Overkill, Wing Zero’s Twin Buster Rifle max output would [Finisher Phase] Role Change to Dominate, Sky Gridman having a laser circus would [Finisher Phase] Role Change to Swarm. It created a lot of distinct possibilities with minimal mechanics needed, instead reusing what was existing.

Your super robot could attack normally and when you wanted to fully commit to the attack and use Valor, suddenly you cut loose, do the impossible and make a massive powerful attack.  It meant we no longer had to make Finishing moves dependent on Momentum (now Morale Points), or Power, or single use, etc.  It was just dependent on you using the Valor skill.   Everything was finally coming together.

Now that the [Finisher Phase] system (and the 1 Trigger = 1 Save System) was completed we realized it was time to say goodbye to Finisher as a Trigger.  It was a fun way to start of VER11’s development, but now it’s true power was codified in a distinct game mechanic, satisfying one of our design goals to leverage existing systems rather than create new mechanics.  In this case, leveraging the valor skill (which itself went through a dozen iterations) and weapon abilities to build out the finisher phase creating dramatic and anime accurate moments on the tabletop.

MechaStellar VER11 Design Goals – Bombard & Siege Trigger Evolution

In making VER11 we had a lot of new and interesting design challenges to improve the game.  Our overall goal to take VER10 and make it faster, more fun and easier to teach.  Weapon Triggers definitely fulfill the more fun part and so far its been fun to teach new playtesters that “yes you can blow up cover with your first attack then fire on the exposed target with your next attack”.  Bombard and Siege went through a lot of revisions, one eventually being removed while the other was heavily modified until it reached it’s final form which we’ll discuss in this post.

At the start of VER11 development Bombard and Siege had the following abilities:

  • Bombard
    • If the target has no Cover, each Trigger is a Critical Hit. 
    • Bombard was priced cheaper than Crit, a CRIT 9+ weapon is the equivalent of a Bombard 8+ weapon.
    • Typically used on Cannon types and some missiles
  • Siege
    • Each Trigger rolled blows up 1 level of Cover, i.e. reducing Level 3 to Level 2 Cover or Level 1 to Level 0.
    • If you attack Cover directly the weapon trigger becomes Siege, if it was already siege, improve your Trigger TN by 2, i.e. Siege 9+ to 7+
    • Typically given to Bazookas, some missiles and some melee weapons

We went through several variations of each trait, trying to preserve the combined arms combination where Siege weapons benefit bombard weapons.  Siege was a tricky beast, we were experimenting with Siege also destroying or weakening Shields / Armor as well as Cover.  Triggers could blow up Cover, or lower a targets shield or armor level by 1.  Whether it was permanent or temporary was still up in there.  Here’s one DEV conversation

I think I figured out how to fix sequencing on Siege

and make the rules text shorter

so each Siege trigger lowers Cover or Shield bonus by 1.  Cover is permanently lowered, Shield is for the rest of the round (synergy by activating bazooka unit first).  The iron wall skill reactivates the shield bonus

To permanently break shields, we’ll have to rely on Finisher weapons

so finisher needs to be common either on common weapons like a beam saber

or maybe on everyone’s generic close combat [cc] attack

At the time of this discussion, Finisher weapons were updated to cause a “Battle Damage” save which could blow up a shield first and foremost, and if target had no shield then it might cause system shock like severe damage to a (weapon), leg (propulsion) or head (main camera).  This eventually morphed into “Break Saves [BR6+]” and “System Shock” Saves which we’ll discuss later.  Likewise, we’ll talk about the Finisher Trigger in the next post.

While we made headway with the shield breaking philosophy moving into Break Saves, Siege continued to be a difficult Trigger to work with, if we wanted to have Siege affect a targets Shields, Armor, or Defense in addition to blowing up cover. Sequencing in particular for the attack action (dice rolls -> triggers -> skills -> bonuses like Cover and Shields -> Defender skills) and Siege was quite messy since the Trigger would occur before the Defender could use Skills, so having a Skill that would prevent your shield from blowing up got messy in the sequencing.

So Amuro would use either Flash or Iron Wall depending on who he’s fighting, so we could have Flash or Iron Wall skills prevent your Shield from being reduced or broken

Yeah, but right now defender doesn’t choose skills until after attacker has resolved attack and triggers which means Siege triggers can reduce the Shield to 0 before the defender even chooses skills

right..well, we could have the skill restore the shield bonus, like if you used Iron Wall this turn, restore your Shield bonus

it feels like we’re just making this more complicated than it needs to be

Likewise, we run into problems if we give Siege a passive bonus like +1d10 ATK if target has no shield. Does that activate if the target started with a shield, but then your triggers blow up the shield, at that points do you add the extra die. All that spawned this DEV conversation.

I don’t like Siege being deadspace if target has no shield or cover

Run through several ideas, best thematic one is that Siege provides system shock saves (Battle Damage) if target has no shield or cover bonus. 

However, for sequencing the cleanest way to do this is to make sure this trigger only happens if you start the attack and target has no Cover / Shield bonus.  Basically attack 1 needs to annihilate that shield bonus, while attack 2 can cause battle damage.

Our VER11 Design Goal was to make things fast and fun without being overly complicated. Obviously these weren’t working so we tried a few more ideas. We also briefly considered Siege Triggers creating a “DEF penalty” like so

  • If target has Level 0 Cover each additional Trigger is -1 DEF bonus on this ATK only
    • DEF Bonus includes Shields / Barriers / Armor etc and is Min. +0 DEF.
    • i.e. Level 3 Cover, 5 Triggers, Level 0 Cover and target has DEF-2 (Min 0)
  • Problem of course being, -DEF is the same as +HIT, so it’s mathematically about the same as CRIT but with a limit that DEF can’t go below 0.  This idea went belly up as well.

We considered Siege Trigger = +100 DMG if target has no shield bonus.  But that stepped on the toes of Finisher, and also became a self-feeding ability since Siege also weakened shields.  Not to mention the sequencing issues of does this apply during an attack when the shield is destroyed or not?

Eventually we moved on to just allow for Siege and Bombard weapons to have deadspace, times when the triggers won’t happen, but give them an always on passive instead.  And so we got:

  • Bombard (Passive): If target has a Shield gain +1d10 attack
  • Siege (Passive): If target has no Shield gain +1d10 attack

Shields were much cheaper at this point of development, because Break Saves could wipe them out.  And so we added these passives that way if your opponent had an all shield army, you were incentivized to bring Bombard weapons.   This was okay for a bit but felt kind of gamey.  While we were going through another pass on the rules to trim things that felt excessive, complicated or redundant, we eventually we got rid of Bombard, since Bullseye was taking over the no-cover Trait. 

So then what do we do with Siege?

Siege was a fan favorite ability, and we held onto this Trigger until the final week.  It was so popular that we even included  a gameplay example in the core rules to reenact a favorite tactic of Justice Gundam which was to throw it’s beam boomerang and try to destroy a piece of cover.  If they lucked out on the die roll and sliced through that building, they then used its cannons against the exposed target (Bombard weapons gave a Crit vs targets without Cover).  The player who discovered that combo still thinks they are a genius =)

That said, Siege did eventually change.  Not because of that combo, no in fact we loved it and everyone loved the “Trigger = Blow up that many levels of Cover”.  The problem became that, if there was no Cover then Siege did nothing.  And late in development 50% of Combo triggers were Siege + another ability.  So having 1/2 of your combo trigger be useless if the target had no cover felt rather underwhelming. 

One of the goals of the recent combat redesign has been making every weapon trigger feel both intuitive and exciting.

Siege triggers destroyed Cover was awesome! It produced some spectacular moments where a lucky roll could flatten an entire defensive position, but it also had a few downsides:

  • The trigger was only useful when Cover was present.
  • Occasionally you would roll 0 Triggers and not interact with Cover at all.
  • Siege didn’t combine well with other trigger abilities.
  • It limited the design space for Super Robot finisher weapons.

The new direction is to separate the battlefield role from the trigger effect.

Siege Passive

  • Reduce the target’s Cover Level by 1.

Instead of hoping to roll enough triggers to demolish terrain, Siege weapons now always accomplish their primary purpose—they weaken enemy fortifications.  This makes Siege more reliable while reducing swingy outcomes where one lucky attack completely erased multiple terrain features.  With Cover removal moved to a passive ability, Siege triggers are free to become something universally useful.  The current direction is:

Trigger

  • Generate +1 additional Save.

This creates a clear distinction between the defensive-breaking roles.

  • Critical = More Hits
  • Pierce = Harder Saves
  • Siege = More Saves

Rather than punching through armor like Pierce, Siege represents overwhelming structural damage—more systems failing, more secondary explosions, and more catastrophic impacts.

This also opens the door to much more interesting combination triggers. Previously, many Super Robot finisher attacks defaulted to Breaker, because it was the only melee combination that consistently felt rewarding.  With Siege becoming a universally useful trigger, there is now room for another powerful melee archetype, Overkill.

Breaker

Critical + Pierce

Each Trigger becomes:

  • +1 Hit
  • +1 Save TN

This represents concentrated penetration—drills, lances and radiation attacks designed to punch through or lethally bypass heavy armor.

Overkill

Critical + Siege

Each Trigger becomes:

  • +1 Hit
  • +1 Save

Rather than piercing, these attacks simply overwhelm the target through sheer destructive force.

This is a much better thematic fit for weapons such as giant hammers, rocket punches, pile bunkers, and other crushing finishers.

MechaStellar VER11 Design Goals – Barrage Trigger Evolution

In making MechaStellar VER11 we had a lot of new and interesting design challenges to improve the game.  Our overall goal to take VER10 and make it faster, more fun and easier to teach.  Weapon Triggers definitely fulfill the more fun part and so far its been fun to teach new playtesters that “yes you do get to roll another bucket of dice” and see their smiles in response.  Since Barrage was the genesis of weapon triggers, and also the one that experienced the most changes we wanted to write about it first.

For Reference here’s how the Barrage discussion started

Enfilading fire = We could make Barrage an anti-squad weapon.  But then it would only be useful against squads and not useful every game.

Sustained fire option = We could have barrage convert failed failed hits into hits, low power, not too exciting, and doesn’t keep parity with other weapons

Triple Crit option = Maybe Barrage triggers could be worth 3 Hits instead of Crit which is 2 Hits.  Fun and definitely a hail of gunfire.

Dakkadakka option = threshold hits generate extra dice.  Very fun, but we now we have an issue of weird mental math with dice overflow.  Like start adding dice to your pool, but then if it goes over 10d10 then it’s extra hits.  It’s not too strong but it’s not smooth at all.

SuperDakka option = What about an option where you reroll the trigger dice.  And keep reroll trigger dice until you stop rolling triggers?  This was max. fun, but then one playtester demonstrated how annoying it can be when you “pick up, and drop a die” and magically it keeps landing on the same number. 

Indeed, even Buzzsaws will have the Barrage trait

From there we settled on the following:

  • Barrage 8+
    • Every 8+ is an exploding hit, after counting Hits & Triggers.  Reroll all your Trigger dice for bonus Hits.  This reroll is considered a separate roll and does not count against the 10d10 dice cap.

Now we had to sanity check this in a couple games to see how powerful this is compared to Crit weapons.  As mentioned in a previous post, we decided against all weapons have CRIT on 10s and instead CRIT would only be for certain Triggers like CRIT or BULLSEYE.  

So rolling a 10 on Barrage was just a regular hit (that you got to roll again).  Barrage has been the most fun ability, but statistically it’s slightly weaker overall than Crit, but it does have a higher chance of getting at least 1+ (albeit lower DMG) hits through.

The DEV Discussion looked like this:

We need to explain how to pick up dice in quick dice section.  First remove the 1s and 2s.  Then pick up all hits that are not threshold, i.e. Barrage 8+, pick up 3-7 as hits, and count your hits.  Then pick up the threshold and count (don’t forget crits) and reroll them, then final count.

Actually maybe we should remove crits.

Definitely remove crits

Okay so if Focus moves back to +1 Hit and Hit on a 3+, then we need to make barrrage always hit on a 3+ otherwise we have a massive sequencing pitfall where players might scoop dice before focusing then forget how many 3+ they had.

At the time we were developing Barrage, some of the pilot skills were getting Overhauled.  Focus would no longer be the “Hit on 3+” skill because now elite pilots were already hitting on 4+ or 3+.  Later, one of the in development pilot skills would let you hit on a 2+.  With all that in mind, we realized we would have sequencing issues with barrage. 

If you wait for the reroll to declare skills, do you then have to go back in time and count those dice with the better Hit Target Number?  What if you declare it before the reroll, but then it didn’t matter because all your reroll dice were Hits anyways. 

  • From that discussion we decided that:
    • Barrage (Passive): This weapon always hits on a 3+. 
    • [Anti Squad] Elite Pilots get +1 Hit per Model, Ace Pilots also get +2 Hits per model in enemy unit.

Eventually, the “Anti-squad” effect got moved into an upgrade ability. 

We were also considering a combined arms ability where Barrage causes a Suppression effect if the target is <50% HP they must make a Morale Save or lose a Move Action.  This would combo with Bullseye which Crits against crippled targets that have only one move action.  Ultimately, this train of thought let to “Mobility Saves [MB6+]” which we’ll discuss in the Saving Throw post.

Since Trigger and Skills were in parallel development paths, we had to keep updating Barrage as well.  When the “Hit on a 2+ Skill” went through testing, Barrage instead turned into

  • Barrage (Passive): The Hit on a 2+ Skill is [M-0] for Barrage weapons, however,  you may not use the Zeal skill.

Eventually that skill was removed entirely (who knows, it may reappear one day), so Barrage just reverted back to

  • Every 8+ is an exploding hit, after counting Hits & Triggers.  Reroll all your Trigger dice for bonus Hits.  This reroll is considered a separate roll and does not count against the 10d10 dice cap.
But it did end here….

But it doesn’t end there.  In the last week of VER11 development we came to a breakthrough.  The other Triggers had hit roughly even parity, but Barrage still lagged a bit behind, a fun trigger but mathematically slightly weaker than all the others.  While we were doing the very last round of testing, one DEV asked:

Is there any reason why we only reroll the triggers?  What if we rerolled all Hits instead?

The reasoning was that we didn’t allow for rerolls to spawn Triggers.  The reason was, back then, before we developed the Save system, we didn’t want any more triggers or saving throws because that could cause an insane tidal wave of damage.  If they reroll all those dice, players might mistakenly assume they could hit and trigger again.

However, since the Save system also finished its parallel developed, the number of saves was drastically reduced per attack action, and Barrage weapons all had 1/2 DMG saves we realized there was no longer a reason to prevent additional Triggers or Saves.  And we so we come to final barrage.

  • Barrage
    • After counting up Hits & Triggers, remove all Misses then reroll the remaining dice one additional time adding any new Hits or Triggers to the original total.

First Count your Triggers (especially for Barrage) – Place a different color die showing the number of Triggers. This marker reminds you how many saves it will cause later.  Pictured above the unit hits on a 5+ and will Barrage on 8+.  They placed a different color d10 showing the number of triggers [3].  The player then removes any misses like the [1&2] then sifts through the Hits [6] and Triggers [8,8,9]. 

Barrage – At this point the player says to their opponent “OK, 4 Hits and 3 Triggers”.  Then the attacker  picks up successful (TN 5+) dice [6,8,8,8] and rerolls them into [5,5,10,10] = +4 Hits and +2 Triggers.  “Ok, 8 Hits and 5 Triggers, your turn for Defense”. 

Next post we’ll talk about the evolution of Siege & Bombard.

MechaStellar VER11 Design Goals – Sensors + Target Lock

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In making MechaStellar VER11 one of our design goals was to repurpose existing stats to accomplish some heavy lifting on core mechanics instead of having to rely on specific traits or abilities.  Like the Morale stat before it, Sensors became part of this paradigm shift, becoming an invaluable stat to boost your weapon Triggers.

In VER10 we debuted Dual Sensors profiles for Snipers and Firepower types, to represent how they had advanced sensors for long range combat whether it be sniping or long range bombardment / indirect fire, while the second value referred to their regular Sensor value.  We also upgraded sensors to let it be both offensive and defensive, giving you a bonus d10 to ATK or DEF if the target was in your sensors range.  It was a good idea on paper, but was often forgotten until later leading to many times where an attack was finished and one player went “WAIT, I forgot I got +1d10 to DEF because you’re in my Sensors range”.  We wanted to avoid that situation in the future.

Still, we had to come up with an idea that would make Sensors valuable, not just for shooting characters.  Something that would benefit melee centric characters.  We experimented with a few mechanical ideas, but actually one of the Dev’s had a great idea about Sensors as a utility instead of a combat stat.  And so we have the “Sensors Sweep” action.

Sensors Sweep

Designer’s Note: This is a mission-oriented action to earn VP. Create a narrative or use one of these examples: “Locate a missing scientist”, “map the battlefield”, “find the asteroid demolition charges”, “New Mech telemetry”, or “Analyzing Reactor Signatures”.

  • VER11 Scan a Control Point (CP) or enemy unit within Close Range Sensors, neither of which have been scanned before. Gain VP = 10x [Your Frame + Performance Level].
    • If you are able to capture that CP, do so immediately.

The idea for this action was pulled from the VER10 Wargame rules for “Actions on Objective” which said:

It can represent searching for a missing pilot / scientist, secret cache of equipment, or top–secret design information.  It can also represent performing necessary actions to complete the mission like setting demolition charges to break apart an asteroid or destroying the power conduits in a colony laser.

Now it’s integrated into the MechaStellar base game as a fun and useful utility to earn VP while playing the game.  It’s a great way to simulate the various mecha shows, both real robots and super robots like Dancouga pictured above where each mission (or episode) isn’t centered around fighting but instead a very specific plotline like locating a missing person, making contact with rebel forces, finding the enemy mind control machine etc.

We briefly considered letting it generate Morale Points (Momentum) but decided against it.  However, it has become an extremely useful ability to capture a CP without having to end your turn on top of the CP.  Giving players one more action to use instead of burning 100% of your actions attacking the enemy.  Also very valuable for our strategists with a cheap low performance rear echelon unit.

Long Range and Close Range Sensors

That said we still wanted that second sensors value to have more meaning, and we knew that Sensors = Defense bonus would not be returning.  So we took some inspiration from Armored Core and now we have a Long Range Fire Control System (FCS) and Close Range FCS.  So a Sniper might be Long Range Sensors 24″ and Close Range Sensors 0″, meanwhile a Battler is 0″/8″ and a Versatile unit is 8″/8″ which gave a really strong unit combat role identity.

The Long Range sensors would improve shooting attack while close range sensors would improve melee attack.  Initially we were hesitant to give melee a boost, since in VER10 every unit had a “Close range stat” of 8″, but then we decided to make that melee or versatile types only, so now those units would get a bonus with beam sabers while snipers and firepower types would not.  Likewise, your melee monster isn’t getting a shooting bonus. 

From there we also adjusted which weapons would count as melee, making the cutoff roughly 20″+ = Shooting and <20″ = Melee, so Vulcans moved into the melee category, and considering how many melee monstrosities rely on vulcans it actually worked out pretty well.  But unfortunately, added about 6 hours of work for our layout editor.  Sorry….

Last but not least, we are bringing back “Sensors = Starting Deployment range” from previous editions, but this time only for Close Range sensors.  This way you’re melee and front line versatile units can start further away from the table edge, and also allowed us to drastically simplify deployment rules.

As for bonuses, as we mentioned in the Elite unit post, we were trying to eliminate bonus dice abilities to give us more range to work with when developing weapon dice and combat roles, so Target Lock instead provides an extremely powerful “Improve Trigger Target Number by 1”.  So if you normally Crit on a 9+, if you get within sensors range you can now Crit on an 8+. 

Very powerful and very worthwhile, so for those of you worried about Rapid Fire being removed meant we would go back to castling, there is still a very powerful incentive for getting closer or for upgrading your Sensors with the Unit Upgrade rules.  We’re also experimenting with making sensors boost a freebie for advanced grunts to make grunt units cheaper across the board.  We’ll see how that works out!

In the next post we’ll start the deep dive on weapon triggers.

MechaStellar VER11 Design Goals – The Genesis of Weapon Triggers

While making MechaStellar VER11 we had to fix some core balance problems that arose at the end of VER10, in doing so we’ve created an entirely new weapon system called “Triggers” that we’re really proud of, and we’re sure you will enjoy on the tabletop.  Read on for a discussion on how we got here and the genesis of “Weapon Triggers”.

At the end of VER10 we were doing some heavy testing on Warships as well as small size units like Aura Battler Dunbine, VOTOMS, and soon to be Code Geass by popular request.  At the end of VER10, power creep led to Machine guns having a base 10d10 attack dice, and were capped at DMG 200.  So for a small size machine gun you would see on a Knightmare Frame or Armored Trooper, if we lowered DMG to 100 we’d have to raise one of the other stats. 

One option was to raise the rapid fire stat, say from +2 Hits in Rapid Fire range to +5 Hits in rapid fire range.  Another option was to increase the attack above 10d10, with those dice being auto hits.  So a 15d10 machine gun rolled 10d10 with +5 auto-hits.  While the damage wasn’t very high by default, it was a bit demoralizing having so many auto-hits coming at you and having no realistic way to completely dodge the attack. 

Then once you toss in pilot upgrades, a legendary soldier like Chirico could be pumping out high volumes of hits on attack and counterattack while also racking up Finishing Blows. Finishing Blow proved to be a very troublesome system, that was awesome for super robots but absolutely busted for any machine gun units, especially small units.  We’ll deep dive on Finisher in a separate post.

Still you might be asking?  “Well if this is a big problem for small size units, why not just get rid of small size units and make them use the same weapons as everybody else?”

And that’s a valid point!

  •   Problem #1   For people who like versimilitude the 2m mech having the same damage profile as the 18m mech doesn’t feel great.
    • Still it’s an abstraction so we can make do.  
    • But then we also have these two problems.
  • Problem #2 – Unfortunately problems were popping up on normal sized units too, especially when you add Squads into the mix.  
    • Plus machine guns + rapid fire was either overkill or unsatisfying.
  • Problem #3 – Rapid Fire heavily encouraged, getting super close, all the time, and sometimes felt like a punishment for rifles and bazookas who were heavily balanced around 1-2 unblocked hits, where rapid fire range feeling like a requirement to attack any evasive units.   Something had to change.
    • For Warships Rapid Fire range was essential to making them functional

So the DEV Team started working on “Barrage” as a trait that machine guns have, that let them feel like machine guns.    Barrage was going to be a DakkaDakka type trait where rolling 10s were exploding dice that could be rolled again.  This way, the small machine gun could be DMG 100, but have a bigger Barrage trait, i.e. [Barrage 8+].  Then the question came up, well does Barrage and CRIT stack?  So 10s are worth double but also explode into more dice?   If it’s Barrage 8+ are those also Crits?  Generally, the Devs felt it should be Crit and Barrage because it might get complicated.

So the DEV Team asked a simple question.  “What if we got rid of rapid fire?”

“What if you got rid of rapid fire?  Replace with battlefield roles like Barrage, Bullseye, Counter, Finisher, etc.”

Now that’s a novel idea.

Getting rid of rapid fire meant we no longer had to worry about going over 10d10, we didn’t have to worry about machine guns spiking up to incredible number by virtue of being 12″ closer, we didn’t have to worry about some weapons being ineffective until you get closer forcing you to always move in for our staple weapons of rifles and machine guns, and especially Warship guns.  We wouldn’t have to worry about writing rules to benefit or not benefit machine guns, i.e. DMG<300 or ATK>7d10, we could just say “This bonus applies to Barrage weapons”, and it make it way easier to calculate weapon points without half a dozen nested if statements.  This would solve a lot of problem we have had over the years.

Suddenly we would open up a whole new design space for each weapon type, giving them all a Battle Field Role, where rolling this number or better would trigger a special effect; thus the name “Weapon Trigger” was born.   Here’s a copy paste from the Dev notes doc, that shows our initial brainstormed ideas from that day for triggers and even a few melee weapon ideas. 

Weapon Trigger Brainstorming

  • Crit 10+ = Crit on a 10 like usual
  • Counter 7+ = Only these weapons can Counter, but during Counterattack they instead hit on a 7+
    • We can combo this with the Intuition Skill  – Gain Counter 9+, if you already had counter then improve the number by +2
    • To avoid this becoming super long we should not let the attacker get a counterdefense, but you can still use shields, cover, etc. to block.
  • Barrage 8+ Exploding dice on 8+, each 8 means rolling extra dice. This will be a separate dice pool so we don’t have to worry about the 10d10 cap.
    • Because there’s a lot of sequencing issues with pilot skills, this weapon should probably Auto Hit on a 3+, Elite units instead gain bonus Hits per model in the squad making it a great anti-squad weapon
  • Bullseye 8+ These weapons Crit on a 8+ vs a unit on a CP or a unit with <2 Move Actions (crippled).
    • Can target any unit, elite units gain a +HIT bonus
    • Can cause System shock saves to cripple legs
  • Bombard – Crit on Targets without Cover.  Trait for cannons, will combo well with Bazookas (Siege)
  • Siege 10+  Rolling this number blows up one piece of cover.
    • Define cover by levels like 1-3, which gives +1-3 DEF.  Each time a piece of cover is blown up lower the level by 1. 
    • Maybe Siege should also blow up Shields which was really common in 0079
    • Simplest might be blow up shield instead of weakening, so if it’s a level 2 S2 Shield, then you need 2 triggers to blow it up, 1 trigger doesn’t hurt it, which would ease the bookeeping burden.
    • Maybe using the Iron wall skill means your shield can no longer be broken that Turn, but then we run into a weird timing issues for the attack action…
  • Finisher 8+ =  8s are crits when target is below 50% HP

What about Combination Triggers?

  • AOE = Barrage (Anti Squad) + Siege (Anti Cover)
  • Breaker = Pierce + Finisher
  • CIWS = Barrage + Counter
  • Dominate (Warship) = Bullseye + Finisher?
  • IDF = Siege + Bombard?  
  • Overkill = Crit + Finisher?

Weapon Type Brainstorming

  • Drill = Pierce
  • Scythe = Finisher
  • Saber = Crit or Counter?
  • Axe = Crit
  • Hammer = Siege
  • [CC] =  Bombard or Counter?

A lot has changed since then, some triggers like Barrage have merged, others like AOE and IDF have become separate bonus Traits, but overall many Triggers are still very similar to their original incarnation. Before we start the deep dive on Weapon Triggers for Barrage / Bullseye, Bombard / Siege, and Finisher we’re going to take a small detour for Sensors and Target Lock which instead of bonus attack dice will instead modify a units Trigger value.