Category: Design Goals

MechaStellar VER11 Core Mechanic Update

In making VER11 we wanted to improve on the Core Mechanic from VER10. VER10’s biggest change from 5-9 was to change the core mechanic from “Attacker declares target, and defender rolls” to “Both attacker and defender rolls”, something we hadn’t done since VER2.  This core mechanic remarkably streamlined the game, having both Shooting and Melee use the exact same mechanic and gave us a lot more design space to use, since now a unit could have improved attack of defense, each rolling their own dice pools, whereas previously we only had 1d10 of Evade per shot meaning we were constrained on a units Shooting and Evade bonus.

It was a big success and made the game significantly easier to teach resolving our #1 FAQ of “Why can’t I roll dice to attack”.  That said, keeping units balanced against each other and allowing higher performance units to dominate meant giving bonus +HITs and +DEF.  While not a huge burden, it did introduce additional mental math to the game. 

One of the guiding philosophies behind Version 11 has been deceptively simple:

Can we remove one more calculation from every attack?

Over the past several versions, Mecha Stellar has steadily moved away from passive bookkeeping and towards active decision making. Momentum generation has been simplified. Weapon abilities have become more distinct.

What if passive HIT and DEF bonuses simply disappeared?

It Started With A New Playtester. Interestingly, this discussion didn’t begin with mathematics. It began with language. One of our newest playtesters, who is bilingual in Japanese and English, repeatedly stumbled over mechanics that experienced wargamers barely think about. When they saw:

Beam Rifle

  • ATK 5d10
  • +3 HIT
  • HIT on 5+
  • CRIT 10+

They continually expected the +3 to modify the dice rather than the final result. Experienced players perform these calculations almost automatically, but new players don’t have years of wargaming habits to fall back on.

VER10 Attack process

Resolving the attack requires players to:

  1. Roll attack dice.
  2. Count successful HITs.
  3. Add passive HIT bonuses.
  4. Roll defense dice.
  5. Count successful DEFs.
  6. Add passive DEF bonuses.
  7. Add Shield and Cover.
  8. Compare the totals.

None of these steps are individually difficult. However, they occur during every single attack. That raised a simple question.

Why Are Players Doing This Math At All?

The profile generator already calculates:

  • Weapon bonuses
  • Role bonuses
  • Performance bonuses
  • Frame bonuses
  • Pilot bonuses

Players never actually perform that arithmetic themselves. So why are we still asking players to perform the final arithmetic every single time they attack?

One of VER11’s design principles was “what can we change to make this game the faster and easiest to teach”.  So we started experimenting with removing bonus +HITs and +DEF entirely.

VER11 Dice Pool Development

First we had to decide how we would get rid of these bonuses. Were we going to roll them into the attack dice pool, have them affect your target number (TN) to hit, or something else entirely. For a quick thought exercise we ran a game and just took every +HIT or +DEF and turned it into bonus dice instead just to feel how swingy the variance would be. Instead of:

Instead of Beam Rifle

  • ATK 5d10
  • +3 HIT

Simply put: ATK 8d10

Likewise, instead of: Evade 7d10 +3 DEF

Simply print: Evade 10d10

It was a super simple idea to implement but unfortunately…several problems immediately appeared.

Concern #1 – Reliability

One of the biggest arguments against removing passive bonuses was consistency. Flat bonuses make advanced machines feel reliable. A veteran rifle currently attacking with:

5d10 +3 HIT is remarkably dependable.

Changing that to: 8d10

Creates roughly similar averages…but noticeably more variance. Elite machines would occasionally roll poorly. Initially, I wasn’t convinced that was acceptable.

Concern #2 – Weapon Identity

Another concern quickly followed. If every passive bonus simply becomes more dice…would rifles and machine guns begin feeling too similar? Fortunately this was resolved as we were developing the weapon trigger system which created Barrage weapons (machine guns), crit weapons (rifles), siege weapons (bazookas), etc

Dice Pool Warfare

The initial model worked well, but we weren’t sure exactly how we wanted to build the dice pools for each unit. We had to develop a system where the WEAPON, PERFORMANCE, MECH COMBAT ROLE, PILOT all influenced this dice pool.  Of course, we had to keep this within the 10d10 dice cap, since exceeding that cap proved disastrous for late stage VER10.

We wanted a system where units started off around 4-6 d10 and could max out at 10d10.  With 4 inputs of Weapon, Performance, Mech Combat Role and Pilot, it was going to be very hard to keep this within the 4-10d10 limit.

The first step was to flatten performance, initially 1-4, with One Year War = 1-2, Zeta = 2-3, CCA+ (F91, G-Reco, etc.) = 4, which roughly corresponded to dividing all current performance by 2.  Later when dice were at  a premium it was further collapsed into 1-3, with 1 = OYW, 2 = Zeta, 3 = CCA+.  We also flatted Frames to 1 (grunt) 2 (superior unit) and kept the high Frame units provide a performance boost, this way original RX-78-2 Gundam (Frame 2, Performance 1) was on the same playing field as the average Zeta grunt like the Hizack (Frame 1, Performance 2.) 

While flattening performance does take away a lot of the nuance we had before on building mobile suit profiles and making each one very distinct, MechaStellar still has a lot of levers we can pull with both combat role and equipment loadout that we can still make the dozens of GM, and Zaku variants / descendants feel different from one another.  The tremendous upside is that people can much more easily field older models vs newer models, using their favorite models without having to dive deep into an upgrade system.  With our goal of making it easier and more fun to teach newer players this was a huge boon.

With Frame & Performance providing a bonus of 1-4, that limits what space we have avaialble if we want to keep all weapons around 4-10d10.  Now we only have 6d10 left to play with on our maximum limit.  And we still have to factor in the Weapon’s base dice, Combat Role (Sniper, Battler, etc.), & Pilot.  And also consider if there will be any other bonuses, like Target Lock gaining +1d10 ATK.

Mech Combat Roles & Pilot

This became a really challenging problem for the design team with essentially two camps.  We know we couldn’t have both pilot and mech role provide the same exact bonus because we had a limit of 10d10 and not much space left.  Earlier in the development of VER11, when we still had +HITs and +DEF, pilots gave a bonus +1 Hit and +1 DEF, with those gone we would have to decide what to do.

CAMP #1 (including this author)

  • Pilots should improve the number of dice rolled
  • Mech Combat Roles should improve your chance to Hit (Sniper Shoots on a 3+, Battler melees on a 3+, versatile Shoots and Melees on a 4+ etc.)

CAMP #2

  • Mech Combat Roles should improve the number of dice rolled
  • Pilots should improve your chance to hit (Sniper pilots shoot on a 3+, Brawler pilots melee on a 3+, versatile pilots hits and shoot and evade on a 4+ etc.)

Both camps had good reason for how this fit the verisimilitude of piloting a mech.   We went back and forth on this a lot and prototyped two different types of profiles for VER11, which was quite a burden on our layout editor but we’re grateful for them doing double the work.  While neither camp was wrong, and both options worked well we eventually decided on Camp #2 since it felt more correct that the pilot was improving the odds, while the machine was providing the ceiling.  In essence, only a true pilot could bring out the full potential (DEF on a 3+) for the Tallgeese (DEF on a 3+ with a huge defense dice pool) or a Gundam Dynames (Shoot 3+ with a huge def dice pool).

We had rebalanced all combat roles at the start of VER11, in VER10 a role would have a bonus ranging from +0 to +4, while in VER11 it ranged from +0 to +2 shortening the variance.    So before a Sniper might be +4, a firepower unit Shooting+3, a Raid unit Shooting +2 etc; this has all been collapsed down to a max of +2 on Shooting or Melee.  This meant we could do either +2d10 dice, or improve target number (TN) to hit like 5+ to 3+. 

But on the pilot side of things, we had simplified everything that Elite pilots HIT and DEF on a 4+, while an Ace unit HITs and DEF on a 3+.  But later on, we had the idea to further expand this.  Since one of VER11s goals was to reduce the number of “oh I forgot I have this ability” we ended up moving all previous pilot traits to optional upgrades, while all pilot bonuses became passive bonuses, allowing a unit to improve their TN for shooting, melee attack, melee defense, evade or morale.  We found it a lot better to have pilots modify TNs for both attack, defense and morale keeping it all one unified mechanic, rather than pilots improve Morale TN but provide bonus dice to combat.

Finalizing Weapons Dice

So with our goal of 4d10 – 10d10 on the dice pool we have the following.

  • Frame & Performance 1-4
  • Mech Combat Role 0-2
  • Pilot 0 (but improves your TN to Hit or DEF)

With a cap of 10d10 that leaves us with (-4d10 Frame / Performance, -2d10 Mech Combat Role) = Weapons can at most be 4d10.

So we set the majority of weapons with attack dice of 2d10 to 4d10.  Weapons will be further differentiated by their Triggers which we’ll cover later.

Likewise for Defense, a mobile suit would be 3d10 Evade and 1d10 Melee DEF plus similar bonuses on Frame, Performance, and Combat Roles.  Super Robots would often be 2d10 Evade 2d10 Melee DEF with flexibility there for the slower Big O or Ideon types and the more agile Daitarn or Raideen types.

MechaStellar VER11 Roadmap

MechaStellar VER10 had a long run and it was a significant departure from VER 5-9 which had the paradigm of you attack with a flat number of shots and your opponent rolls dice to evade.  Instead VER10 set a new paradigm with both the attacker and defender rolling dice to HIT and DEF.  This solved our #1 FAQ of “Why can’t I roll dice to attack?”.  VER11 will continue with that paradigm, reusing a lot of the same rules and thought processes from VER10 while cutting down on the number of things you need to remember on a mech profile and trimming down mental math.  VER11 will have the following major changes.

We will also cover these in depth in their own separate posts.

Removal of Bonus Hits & DEF

MechaStellar VER10 would have you roll your attack dice then apply a modifier, for example 6d10 + 3 HITs, so if you rolled 4 Hits your total would be 7 Hits.  Likewise for Defense.  VER11 is removing these modifiers and it will simply be dice pool vs dice pool, i.e. 6d10 vs 5d10; and whoever rolls best wins.

This had the advantage of being much faster with less mental math.  It also becomes more exciting because the variance on attacks or defense is much, much higher.  Sometimes you’ll have 6-10 hits, othertimes you might have one or none.  Likewise, this is also the biggest disadvantage.

That said, MechaStellar VER11 is significantly less lethal than previous versions.  And Pilot Skills will let you either mitigate that variance or multiply it, leading to some dramatic moments on the tabletop.

Mech Performance has also been flattened from 1-10 to 1-3 to represent three different eras. It’s now significantly easier to field your favorite units like the 08th MS Team even against superior models from Char’s Counterattack and still hold your own or reenact you favorite scenes like Unicorn’s Torrington base or Kondoh’s Revival of Zeon.

Rest assured, that unit roles like Sniper, Battler, etc. which provided bonus Hits or Defense before will still improve your unit.  Likewise, elite pilot bonuses like Barrage / Bullseye etc. have been folded into the Weapon trigger system, as well as passive pilot bonuses.

Weapon Triggers

The biggest change to VER11 is the inclusion of Weapon Triggers and the removal of Rapid Fire.  While working on small size units you would see in Dunbine, Votoms, or Code Geass, our previous paradigm of low damage but massive +HIT bonuses was not working out.  We were looking for alternate ways to make machine gun types weapons effective, without the tidal wave of hits they were causing.

This eventually led to the development of the “Barrage Trait” for machine gun type weapons that gave you a lot of extra dakka on your rolls while preventing weapons from going over the 10d10 attack dice cap.  Barrage was instantly a huge hit at the playtester tables, and eventually spawned the question of “should other weapons have Trait’s too?”

To do so, Rapid Fire, one of the last legacy items from our 40k roots was eliminated and replaced with Battle Field roles like Barrage Bullseye, Siege, AOE, etc.  Which were all big successes.  Eventually we decided that “Rolling a 10 = CRIT” should be removed and instead replaced with the weapon trait.  For example Barrage 10+, Siege 10+, Bullseye 10+.  Then for the sake of weapon balance the “crit numbers” now called “Trigger numbers” would change to be Barrage 8+ or Bullseye 9+ etc.

Weapon Triggers were the longest development items in the 4 months of VER11 dev time (April through July).  There will be multiple Design Goals posts featuring weapon triggers, how we prototyped them, the mechanical dead ends and the final products.  Since that will likely be a weeks worth of posts, those will come at the of the VER11 Design Goals series.

Here are some sample Triggers. Additionally, the number of saves you roll is no longer equal to the number of unblocked hits.  Instead it’s based on the number of Triggers rolled, making the game significantly less lethal when you cannot avoid a hit.

  • Critical weapons still Crit (2 Hits instead of 1).
  • Barrage weapons roll lots of dakka dice without needing to be in Rapid Fire range.
  • Bullseye weapons can target any unit and gain Crits vs targets without cover.
    • Elites no longer ignore the targeting rules
  • Siege weapons blow up cover and generate 2 Saves per Trigger.
    • See more on Saves below
  • Pierce weapons improve their Save i.e. Armor Penetration for each Trigger.
  • Counter weapons are the only weapon that can counterattack by default.
  • There are also Combination Triggers that combine 2 of the above Triggers.

Saves

Armor Saves are no longer the only Save in the game.   Now each weapon has a Save assigned to it, and all weapons can force a Save every time you roll a Trigger.  Since Saves are now tied to Triggers instead of Unblocked Hits, only lucky rolls are lethal.

  • Armor Penetration (AP) = Standard Pass the Save or take 1000 DMG
  • Stun Save (ST) = They remove actions or deal 500 DMG
  • Push / Pull (PP) = These Move the target or deal 500 DMG.
  • Break Saves (BR) = This weakens the targets Shield / Armor or deals 500 DMG.
  • Mobility Saves (MB) = The target loses a Move action or takes 500 DMG.

Morale

Momentum have been renamed to Morale Points.  You now gain Morale by making a Rally save at the start of your turn or from Control Points you captured at the end of the round.  Morale Point gains are more rare but Pilot Skills are now cheaper.

Pilot Skills & Elite Units

Pilot Skills have been revamped, with Flash and Iron Wall having clear identities.  Many Skills are now cheaper, while Valor is now integrated into the Finisher system.  Boost / Power / Havoc are now tied into skill usage for Flash / Valor / Zeal. 

Elite Units now have built in passives like improved TN to HIT, DEF or Morale.  Captains play just like regular pilots while Captains orders and Pilot Traits are now upgrade options.

MechaStellar VER11 Design Goals Schedule

  1. VER11 Core Mechanic
    1. Removal of bonus HITs and DEF
    2. Dice pool warfare
    3. How Mech roles & Pilots now provide bonuses
  2. Elite Units
    1. Passive bonuses from Elite Units instead of “remember this trait” making it easier to run a SRW game
    2. Traits and Captain’s orders moving to upgrade options
  3. Pilot Skills
    1. Revamped and cheaper pilot skills
    2. Boost / Power / Havoc and the Finisher Phase
    3. Multiple posts on the evolution of pilot skills
  4. Morale
    1. Changing the pace of Momentum regeneration
    2. Taking the 3 separate momentum generation systems and unifying them
    3. Adjusting roles and mech stats to play into Momentum generation and CP captures
  5. Weapons and the genesis of Triggers
    1. Target Lock & Triggers
    2. Barrage Trigger Evolution
    3. Siege Trigger Evolution
    4. Finisher Evolution
  6. Expanding Saving Throws beyond Armor Saves
    1. Adjusting lethality of the game

The desired end state for MechaStellar VER11 is to make this version the most fun but also the easier version to teach to you and your friends. As you’re reading through the design goals posts, if you see an opportunity to make the game more fun, simpler or easier to teach, please don’t hesitate to comment and let us know. Thank you all for your support and loyalty over the years.

MechaStellar VER10 Retrospective – Timeline Post

In this post we wanted to share a brief timeline of VER10. In the next post we’ll go more in-depth in some of the mechanics.

VER10 had a lot of iterative development, making small or minor tweaks to the core rules to either fix loopholes, broken combos we didn’t foresee, or just for clarity.  A lot of rules from 2024 survived all the day to 2026, with tweaks of course.  As a retrospective we thought it would be fun to look through each update and count which ones survived all the way till the end.

March 2024 – Begin VER10 DEV Playtest

May 2024 – Begin Closed Playtest

System Debuts

  • Core Mechanic for shooting lets attacker and defender both roll (VER4-9 had only the defender roll Evade vs Shooting)
  • Melee Clash now follows the same mechanic, overall attack gameplay was streamlined and much faster
  • Barrage / Bullseye and Dodge / Guard moved to Elite only abilities
  • All units can move twice by default
  • Rapid fire is now listed on the unit profile
  • Armor Save bonus was removed
  • Older Pilot Skills moved to the Climactic Events section
  • New Pilot Skills mirror their SRW inspirations with simplifies and more straightforward uses (+5 Hits, +5 DEF, etc.)
  • Mech Profiles moved from 6 per page to 4 per page, to improve readability with larger text areas
  • Machine guns and beam pistols got a Support ATK / DEF mechanic which encouraged having squads of units in close proximity
  • Auto-hit weapons of AA Missiles and Vulcans proved to be a big problem with the OG version of Finishing Blow.  This problem would come full circle when testing out small size units 2 years later with a new version of Finishing Blow.
  • Shields – Switched to a defense bonus at the expense of Evade dice.

August 2024 – VER10 Open Playtest

Starting off the roster we have Mobile Suit Gundam UC – One Year War (OYW), Gundam Wing, Mazinger, Getter Robo

The DEV version of VER10 had very low lethality with HITs vs DEF often had 0-1 expected hits with most weapons, and machine gun types averaging 3-4 Hits.  Because of this, the balance between Valor (bonus hits) and Zeal (bonus attack actions) was probably the best the game ever had.

As VER10 hit the open playtest stage and certain game elements became modified, the expected number of hits started creeping up.  About a year later, we noticed that Zeal was often the preferred skill for most high end units, beating out Valor.

SEP2024

  • Space Battleship Yamato Released
  • Combattler V, Voltes V and Shin Mazinger updated to VER10
  • Core Rules Updates –
  • Counter became universal on all units [Lasted most of VER10]
  • Finishing Blow became universal on all units.  [Lasted all of VER10]
  • Sensors now gave a boost to Defense as well as Offense [Lasted all of VER10]
  • Support Attack for E[X]plosives got stronger [Lasted all of VER10]
  • Momentum shifts went from M<3 to M<5 [Lasted all of VER10]
  • Zeal text was updated to avoid the gamey’ness of using zeal to them trigger a momentum shift [Lasted all of VER10]
  • Various points and VP adjustments. 
  • VP would later skyrocket near the end of VER10.  At the start the RX78-2 was 8VP (most units were 3-12VP), at the end it was 280VP (most units are 50-500VP)

October 2024

  • Updates to Combat Roles [Revised many times]
  • Added Unstoppable, Assault and Heavy Arms roles [Throwback to VER6, lasted all of VER10]
  • Updated size [Revised many times]
  • Updated HP Math [Revised many times]
  • Updated points for Shields [Revised many times]
  • Updated Indirect Fire
  • All units got +1 defense die [Lasted all of VER10]
  • Allowed the Power stat to be used to fuel weapons [Lasted all of VER10]

NOV 2024

  • Garmillas Fleet from Yamato added
  • Most of AEUG, Titans units updated to VER10
  • Dual Sensors added for Firepower and Sniper Types [Lasted all of VER10]

DEC2024

  • G Gundam Added
  • Updated the Wargames Supplement which included many unit upgrade rules
  • Core Rules Updates
  • Battle-Tested level added to Elite pilots for well trained but often nameless pilots [Lasted all of VER10]
  • Updates to Morale
  • Updates to Commanders orders

JAN2025

  • GoLion (Voltron), GoShogun, Brygar and Baxingar added to the roster
  • Converted Gundam X and G Gundam to VER10
  • MechaStellar VER10 Gameplay Example added featuring Zeta Gundam + Guncannon vs Gouf Custom and Gundam GX-9900 [This example is now painfully out of date.  Please forgive us ='( ]
  • Added rules if you break the 10d10 dice cap [Lasted all of VER10]
  • Updated Target Lock to be bonus dice
  • Updated Crash
  • Updated Boost
  • Updated starting Momentum
  • Units with multiple pilots like Combiners and Warships, now have pilot traits always active instead of the previous “choose 2” gimmick.
  • Size HP bonus revised again
  • Captain’s Orders updated
  • Warships can now use Focus & Iron Wall [Lasted all of VER10]
  • Moved “Improvise” from Pilot Skill to “Events”
  • Removed reroll from most weapons
  • Removed VP penalties from Simple Battle
  • Updated various upgrade traits

FEB2025

  • Updated Turn A Gundam to VER10
  • Gundam Build Fighters rules updated to VER10

MAR2025

  • Converted many G Gundam fighters to VER10
  • Updated Finishing Blow to be roll d10s for potential 1000 DMG
  • Added Retaliate as a Counterattack option for VER9 feel
  • Updated Climactic Events and Battlefield Hazards module

APR 2025

  • Gundam SEED added to the roster
  • Zeal became limited by the current Round to prevent alpha strikes [Lasted all of VER10]
  • Revised AOE weapons again

MAY2025

  • More Gundam SEED units
  • Converted Secondary Objectives to VER10

JUN2025

  • More Gundam SEED units
  • Warships got a massive force multiplier update
  • Updated VP again
  • Updated HP again
  • Updated Finishing Blow again

JUL2025

  • Gundam SEED Stargazer added

SEP2025

  • Updated Battle Damage to VER10
  • Updated Starting Momentum [Lasted until the end of VER10]
  • Updated Finishing Blow again
  • Armor Saves back to 3 dice
  • Massive balance patch to HP, Move, Sensors to move everything to a base of 4, i.e. Move 4″/8″/12″ etc. and complete updating of points, weapons, etc.

OCT2025

  • Gundam SEED Astray added
  • Rebalanced Warships & Large Units
  • Updated many pilot traits to have a base of Hit on a 3+ or DEF on a 3+ [Lasted all of VER10]

NOV2025

  • Added Aura Battler Dunbine
  • Added a flow chart for rules summary

DEC2025

  • Added more units for Dunbine
  • Rebalanced all small size units and also warships

FEB2026

  • Added in the long awaited Char’s Counterattack (Jegan and Gearas) to the Roster
  • Added Dancouga to the Roster
  • Added a Squad System
  • Retooled Support Weapons
  • Returned Counter to be Elite only
  • Armor Saves back to 5 dice
  • Updated Finishing Blow again [Lasted almost until the end of VER10]
  • Added in “Elite Levels”
  • Changed what counts as “Elite Upgrades” and thus affects Elite levels
  • Added a speed upgrade
  • Massive change to HP and VP
  • Allowed for certain weapons to go above the 10d10 attack dice cap [Eventual deathknell for VER10]

MAR – JUN 2026

  • Added Dangaioh and Zeorymer to the roster
  • Added Nu Gundam and Sazabi
  • Issues identified by an all-star player involving small units, trait stacking, counter + finishing blow dominating the battlefield
  • Extensive playtesting of small size units and finding the limits of the current VER10 design space with regards to number of attacks and Finishing Blow.

MechaStellar Monthly Roster Update – June 2026 – VER10 Released + Ra Cailum and Rewloola

Hello everyone, this month’s update VER10 is finally released with only two major changes, one is adjusting the Finishing Blow mechanic so it’s not hyper lethal with high rate of fire weapons like machine guns. The 2nd is removing the defense dice bonus for Elite Squads. We’ve also included a one page cheat sheet in the Core Rules. Lastly the Ra Cailum and Rewloola as the iconic warships of Char’s Counterattack have been added to the MechaStellar Roster.

Recently we’ve been doing a lot of testing with small size units and small size weapons, this includes the recently released Aura Battler Dunbine, as well as future series requested by our playtesters. Unfortunately, while Finishing Blow has been working well with Super Robots, it has been absolutely unplayable with small size units gaining an immense advantage. This is due to small size weapons breaking the 10d10 dice cap and getting too many auto-hits.

Ironically, while writing a MechaStellar VER10 retrospective on the 2 years of updates, we had an issue with auto-hit weapons (like vulcans) and Finishing Blow from the very start, so we’ve come full circle on this.

While the change to Finishing Blow in the Core Rules does completely curb the problem, still small size units have not been very satisfying to play from the perspective of Playtesters. As for the DEV Team we’ve been struggling to make small size beam machine guns work with Yamato’s starfighters as examples.

We’ve been hard at work the last 2 months trying to resolve this problem. We’ve also taken a lot of playtester feedback onboard regarding the rules getting a little complicated in VER10. While brainstorming problems we eventually started calling the rules draft VER10.5. But when we finally made an R&D breakthrough we realized the core gameplay had fundamentally changed.

And so the next rules update will be VER11.

VER11 is going to reuse 70% of the same rules as VER10 but it will be different in 3 key areas.

  • The Rapid Fire stat is removed and instead each weapon is given a battlefield role giving each weapon type some unique gameplay advantages. Barrage type weapons (i.e. Machine Guns) have been a playtester favorite.
  • Pilot Skills are being reworked to make each skill have a distinct use. The Valor Skill has turned into an extremely fun skill to use.
  • Making the game easier to teach to a new players. This includes updating how Saves work and better integrating the Morale stat.

The next post will be a VER10 retrospective looking at the timeline of various changes.

After that we’ll preview some VER11 rules and then eventually some design goals posts. Please keep in mind while we’ve been aggressively playtesting, a lot of things will be subject to change. When VER11 hits open playtest, we’ll keep VER10 online just like we did for VER9.

If you’re interested in trying out the DEV copy of VER11 please contact us on social media.

https://linktr.ee/mechastellar

MechaStellar Design Goals – Squad System

In our previous post we talked about changes to Support ATK / DEF, and how in this update we needed a new mechanic to represent the old gameplay of letting your grunts support each other and become more deadly.  With this we created a Squad system with the goal of making it as simple and easy to use as possible.  We took some inspiration from the Official Gundam 1/400 Tactical Battles rules which also features a Squad System (complete with base-to-base mechanics) and tried to streamline that idea as much as we could into MechaStellar.

For Squads we wanted a very simple way to boost their effectiveness.  The old Support ATK system was perhaps too generous, since it allowed you to gain bonus  hits on any attack.  Thus you would  often see a pair of machine guns supporting a bazooka unit (I know, I’ve certainly done it a lot myself), allowing for the weapon machine guns to get +2 hits on the very high damage bazooka.  It was a very effective combo.  Unfortunately it didn’t just apply to grunts, but also your overpowered units like a Gundam or Mazinger.

The Squad system wanted to provide a simple attack bonus to your grunts, without providing a massive attack bonus to your already powerful units.  Afterall, the intent is to improve you grunts, and let them fight against tougher opponents and help break through their defenses.

So for squads we allow you to pair up similar units, and you get bonus attack dice from your squad members when using the same weapon.  I.e. +2 machine guns from your squad mates gives your Squad Leader +2d10 attack dice, 1 bazooka and 2 machine guns does not give you bonus dice.

This ended up being a simple and easy to follow system, but we had to build in some limits so you weren’t pairing up Leos with Wing Gundam or Heavy Arms to immediately give them a huge attack bonus for a relatively cheap cost of +2 Leo units.  So to pair up similar units they would have to have the same Role and the same performance.  This lets you pair up various kinds of Zaku variants, it also lets you pair up Mass produced units, for example in the future you might have a Nu Gundam + MP Nu’s in a squad.

Lastly, we needed a way to make this worthwhile for Ace units.  We had a lot of success using the squad system with Battle-Tested pilots like the Cosmo Falcons / Tigers from Space Battleship Yamato, but overall, the system was not great for Ace Pilots like the Black Tri Stars.  The simplest fix to that, was to let Elite units gain a Defense bonus, so your Black Tri-Stars were getting +2d10 on Attack dice, but also on Defense dice, massively improving their survivability.

We also updated the Coordinated Attack event for the Black Tri-Stars, and we updated Tandem Fighter to be support focused, while also making it powerful if you lose one of your three Aces.  So the Black-Tri Stars with Tandem Fighter still fight very effectively when they are down to only 2 members.

We really enjoy the new squad system but there are likely still some wording loopholes we missed.  If you notice any, or just break the game in general, please let us know.  You can shoot us an email or contact us on social media.

MechaStellar Design Goals – Support Weapons

Support Weapons were a big update at the very start of VER10, they were one of the last big design changes before VER10 moved from closed playtest to open playtest.  Support Weapons replaced the previous “Overwatch” trait on weapons like Machine Guns and Beam Pistols with Machine Guns gaining Support Attack to represent firing on the enemy while Pistols got Support DEF to represent them being a last ditch sidearm when the enemy closes in.

Time has certainly flown since then, and with many revisions as well, we are currently at REV 121 of the Core Rules.  This last update had some major changes to Support Weapons and also added in a related Squad system which we’ll tackle in the next Design Goals post.

Support Weapons were a fun mechanic and allowed for your grunts units like Zakus and Leos to support one another, allowing for your cheapest and most common units to get a few bonus hits for themselves and allies.  Occasionally we would get feedback that it’s not the same as the Support ATK/DEF system present in Super Robot Wars, but that system if implemented in MechaStellar would be remarkably too powerful, essentially allowing for two units to completely unload on an enemy (or allow two units to defend against one). 

Recently, and by recent I mean in the last year, we have gotten feedback pretty consistently that Support ATK / DEF while fun and helpful, is also slowing the game down pretty dramatically.  The reason for this comes down to measuring.  For those who do virtual tabletops it might be no problem since you can instantly measure with an electronic tool, but on physical tabletops having to measure (and often pre-measure) to make sure your units are within each other Support ATK / DEF range was causing turns to take very long times.

This was a very big impact on large model count games (10-30 modes).  Since large model count games was what MechaStellar was originally built for, we are very sympathetic to the woes of those players.  So we decided to revise Support ATK / DEF.

The new model is more closer to Armored Core style gameplay, where you utilize your various weapons against a single target.  Firing off a shoulder missile pod to corner your target before firing your Kurosawa rifle, using a pulse gun to keep the enemy at bay while strafing around.  Of course we also see this in Gundam, especially for units with lots of weapons like a Full Armor Gundam.  So the updated Support ATK / DEF system is meant to evoke that feel.

The new Support ATK / DEF system lets you set your Support Weapons into Support Mode and give yourself that support bonus.  This also coincides with changes to Zeal, which limits the number of attacks on a single target to two attacks (any combination of Shooting or Melee).  This limit actually harkens back to VER3, the simplest system which gave every unit one shooting and one melee attack (a big departure from the action point system of the previous VER2).  VER10 building off this simplicity but gives you more flexibility so you can do two shooting attacks, or two melee attacks, or Zeal to make 2 Attacks against several targets. 

That said, we removed Support ATK/DEF from many weapons and upgraded them.  Instead we wanted Support ATK/DEF to be more rare, like a shoulder mounted minigun, or to be reserved for missiles.

While Support ATK / DEF is in a different niche, we needed a new mechanic to let your grunts function great on the tabletop.  The Tactician trait was updated to let you give a Support Bonus to another unit.  And next we have the Squad system we’ll cover in the next post.

MechaStellar Design Goals – Finishing Blow

Finishing Blow has gotten several important reworks in VER10.  The most recent revision allowed for it to be more commonly activated while preserving the potential massive damage it had in its original incarnation.  This version gave you automatic +1000 DMG for every die above 10d10 when you strike a Finishing Blow.  It was working really well for Super Robots, like GaoGaiGar and Gurren Lagann, but…we  were having issues on the Real Robot side.

The problem though, was that High Rate of Fire weapons became exceedingly good at striking a Finishing Blow.  While this can be a really cool moment and something you’d see in Getter Robo Armageddon, Macross, Votoms and the more grounded Gundam series, the problem is how often should this be happening.  And furthermore, how deadly should this be.

To reference a recent battle report from one of our all-star players.  They were using the “Build Fighters” rules to make a custom unit reflecting the VOTOMs franchise, and his opponent brought the fan favorite 08th MS Team.  While in this battle they had a lot of fun with a highly agile unit vs a slow and steady team.  Finishing Blow was a friction point for the game, with the lighter Votoms unit racking up Finisher after Finisher for thousands of damage.  While fun, it didn’t feel very accurate for a unit to get obliterated from a common machine gun.  And what’s worse is that the machine gun was significantly better at dealing Finishing Blows than say a Giga Drill Breaker or Shining Finger.

There were a couple ways to approach this and solve the issue.  Some earlier attempts worked decently but were a little complicated or math heavy.  Then we had a curve ball with a weapons rebalance that was ongoing with changes to the Support ATK / DEF system.  We needed a way to give machine guns a bonus to compensate for losing Support ATK (we’ll discuss this more in the next post).  The solution was to remove the cap on Attack of 10d10, since the core rules turns those bonus dice into bonus Hits (or DEF).  We were also testing out Size-1 units like Dunbine and some other fan requested prototypes, and the very small machine guns needed to be over 10d10 at DMG 100 in order to be balanced against their 10d10 DMG 200 counterparts.

So with all that in mind we had to rework Finishing Blow many time.  What we settled on was to keep some of the benefit of rolling above 10d10, so if you get 11+ d10 on Finisher Saves, it increases the target number by 1 (and this also stacks with the level 2 Pilot Trait – Burning Passion).  This keeps a strong desire to get above 10d10 while not being overbearing with a machine gun dishing out 7000 DMG.

We also needed provide another avenue for those bonus dice above 10d10, that way it matters whether you have 11d10 Finisher saves or 21d10 Finisher Saves.  One Dev had a very unique idea of turning those bonus dice into Victory Points.  There was already a mechanic in place for gaining VP if you scored 10,000 DMG, so we thought it would be fun to allow for Finishing Blow to score Victory Points as well.  So those bonus dice give +10VP each, and gives you a chance to win the game with an ultimate attack, instead of by sheer attrition.

While it seems like a simple change, we went through a couple months of playtesting various kinds of Finishing Blows, and honestly we were pretty relieved to find one that’s still powerful but not too powerful.  Hope you enjoy!

MechaStellar Design Goals – SEP25 Update – QoL Adjustments

The latest update has quite a bit of changes both to the Core Rules, Wargaming supplement and the Unit Profile sheets.  In this post we’ll cover a brief overview.   Which we’ve broken into three segments.  Some of these we will cover more in depth in follow-up posts.  For the first segment let’s cover Quality of Life QoL updates.

HexaStellar Update

The forthcoming Gundam Assemble will introduce Gundam wargaming on a  hex scale to the world.  We’re really excited for it!  We also wanted to make MechaStellar compatible with Hexes (and also square grids) for people who don’t like using tape measures.  We’ve made all ranges divisible by 4 for Sensors, Movement, and Weapon ranges.  In general, around half of all units ended up receiving a movement boost, so you should have some more mobility in your games.  We’ve also updated facing rules to be easier to use with hexes where turning 90 degrees is not as easy.

Challenge Update

We got some feedback from a regular player that Challenge had a big loophole where if you are down to a 1-on-1 game, the player going second wouldn’t be able to challenge and thus it would invalidate a lot of the challenge focused pilot traits if they lost initiative.  We’ve fixed this and now allow for Challenge to be declared before any unit activates.

Pilot Traits

Recently we’ve got some playtest feedback that some of the Pilot Traits were getting a little too lethal.  Previously Reaper (+2 Hits, +2 Crits vs Challenge) and Ruthless (+4 Hits on Counter / IDF / AOE) were so powerful on a turn by turn basis, that even relatively nimble mobile suits were still getting one shot even when maxing out defense bonuses.  We haven’t done an overhaul on pilot traits for a while, so we took our old notes along with the new feedback.  Overall, we ended up consolidating a lot of pilot traits to having a shared Level 1 origin, that branches out to a stronger or more varied Level II effect.  A lot of the insta-picks like the level 1 version of Reaper, are now Level 2 only for that reason.  Overall, we’re happy with pilot traits becoming a little simpler and easier to remember while taking away some of the lethality there.

Oh and as a bonus you can now take a 2nd Level II trait in the upgrade rules.  Look forward to this on the Captain Harlock sheets.  (Do note, Warship rebalances are taking a long time, so they likely won’t be ready for another couple weeks).

MechaStellar Design Goals – SEP25 Update – Balance Update

The latest update has quite a bit of changes both to the Core Rules, Wargaming supplement and the Unit Profile sheets.  In this post we’ll cover a brief overview.   Which we’ve broken into three segments.  Some of these we will cover more in depth in follow-up posts.  For this segment let’s cover Balance Updates.

(Also, Super Robots have been updated on the game downloads page)

Points Update

We’ll start off with the upgrade options for available for your units.  A few new ones were added, a few were updated, and VP in general was streamlined where +50pts now equals +5VP, with the exception being Performance the biggest driver of VP increases.  

The most commonly picked upgrades for Playtesters were one of the ‘Free Skill’ upgrades such as Superior Instincts (Flash), Overzealous (Zeal), Fearless (Valor) and Persist (Iron Wall).  And there’s a reason for that, at the time 50pts for a [M-3] free skill was a steal, especially so when Momentum was always critically low for aggressive players. 

We confirmed this on the Dev team where a very cheap 250pt unit and a partner unit with a wealth of upgrades including free skills ended up hammering a 1000pt Freedom and Justice over and over again.  (Battle Report forthcoming).  The free skills were the driving victory factor here, after bumping up the point cost the gameplay became more fair.  We tries several adjustments in this test series  but eventually settled on +100pts per level which we find to be a bit more fair, while also making other options more viable for their points cost.

As a silver lining, we’ve removed the type restrictions on Flash / Iron Wall.  We’ve also raised the cap by 50pts on Unit Upgrades (although the Free Skill upgrades are exempt from that).

Elite Bonuses

These have been reworked a bit mostly on the melee side, since one option was proving to be much better than the other.  Now both have an equivalent with Bullseye/Barrage, and a bonus effect like making it harder to counter or easier to disengage.  Similarly, the upgradable bonuses you can give your pilots, have been split on the Melee side similar to Bullseye and Barrage.

Speaking of Barrage, we’re also rolling back changes for ‘Auto-Hit’ effects.  Barrage no longer gives auto-hits on +Hit weapons, instead it’s limited to giving auto-hits only if you go over 10dice of attack.  AOE weapons were proving to be too potent, blasting through cover with enough auto-hit effects to wipe out virtually any unit.  Now Heero Yuy has to try a little before vaporizing the target.  Fortunately, all machine gun types weapons were rebalanced and for the most part are all stock 10d10 on attack, so barrage remains the best (and most thematic) choice.

Weapons Update

As mentioned above there were big changes to AOE weapons and machine gun type weapons.  We also did a big overhaul of high damage weapons.  We noticed that some of the melee weapons were remarkably high damage and it only took a couple hits to cleave through heroic type units.  We’ve since adjusted how much damages boosts are worth and you’ll see a lot more reasonable damage numbers on melee weapons, bazookas and cannons.

Similarly, beam weapons are now generally -100 DMG but +1 PEN across the board to further differentiate their feel from conventional kinetic weapons.  Weapons with a [Free Attack] special clause went up again in points costs, and so were rebalanced to be weaker at their same price, or significantly higher in points which affects units like the Gouf series for instance. 

Lastly, but certainly not least the points weighting for attack dice has increased again with this primarily affecting DMG 300+ or PEN 5+ weapons.  Many of these weapons either went down in dice to around 6-7d10, or they went up in points costs as you’ll notice in the unit profiles.

Unit Update

Doing a complete overhaul of all weapons and shields necessitated a rebalance of all units.  So you’ll see a lot of points adjustments, or some units stayed the same points costs but had to be adjusted elsewhere such as lowering their HP or sensors.  HP went through another overhaul, some reoccurring feedback we’ve gotten is that the heroic type Frame 4+ units like Gundam’s, often feel too fragile compared to a grunt suit.  We’ve adjusted the HP formulas (and VP formulas) such that higher Frame units have consistently higher HP while also trying to maintain the lethality where the average grunt can still and will be destroyed by a well placed beam rifle shot.

On top of that, a lot of our more rare units got a lot of care and attention on their rebalance.  G Gundam as a whole has moved up to 1000pts each, representing how they are the finest machines their country put out.  Likewise, the Wing units has a good boost to better represent their grunt killing prowess.

Super Robots also received considerable glow ups, as the Gundam sheets have been overall increasing in costs it’s time to make some of the iconic Super Robots significantly more expensive, and thus more powerful as well.  Some classic favorites will retain their cheap 250pt version, while others are getting bumped up to 750-1000pt options.  Do note, that even a cheap unit with a bouquet of unit upgrades can still menace significantly more expensive units if you play them right.  That’s one of the fun options we’re happy to keep designing around in MechaStellar.

MechaStellar Design Goals – SEP25 Update – Finisher

In a previous post we talked about several items in the MechaStellar SEP 2025 roster update. In this post we’ll cover Finishing Blow, now named Finisher, in-depth.

Finishing Blow has often been a little anemic or too insanely strong dealing enormous amounts of damage.   While the second one is perfect for your average episode Super Robot Anime, it’s not always great for game balance but does make for some awesome moments if you pull it off in Round 5.  We wanted to capture that feeling and make it more likely, more useful, and more deadly without being too overbearing.  Here’s what we came up with.

The last update to Finishing Blow was as follows:

If you have enough hits (i.e. 7+) then roll a d10 for each unblocked hit, every 10 is a Finishing Blow worth 1000 DMG.

There were various effects that lowered the number of hits required like Hot Blooded, and a few effects that made Finishing Blow deal even more damage.   Before this, Finishing blow was further limited, requiring “Finisher” type weapons. 

It was a good distinction at the time, but we opened it up over time and recently we had machine guns kicking off finishing blows luckily.  Nice if you want to replicate the opening scene of Mobile Suit Gundam 0080, but sometimes got a little too common and didn’t quite feel right when Machine Guns were dealing 7000 damage on an exceptionally lucky roll.

For the current iteration of Finishing Blow, now simply titled Finisher.  It’s still open to all weapons as long as you’re lucky enough to get 10 unblocked Hits.  Or, it’s an automatic chance anytime your weapons has Finisher+X. 

What’s more, Hot Blooded (and a few other traits which have been absorbed into the fold) now give Finisher+1 on all weapons.  So Ryoma in Getter 1, is dealing Finishing blows with a Getter Gatling or Getter Machine guns. 

The Finisher+X system remains the same, giving bonus dice to roll.  The major difference now, being that if you wind up with more than 10 Finisher dice, the remaining are automatic successes.  So if you had 13 Finisher dice, there are 10 to roll and 3 that are automatic (+3000 DMG). 

Speaking of Finisher Dice, we moved these over for the Defender to roll.  One is for consistency, that way they are rolling Armor Saves and Finisher Saves so there’s less back and forth.  At one point, we were considering putting Armor Saves and Finisher on the same dice roll, but we opted against that. 

Lastly, the formula for Finisher now includes the Current Round.  This is a mechanic we like a lot and has shown up in a few other places.  And it represents how battles become more pitched and deadly as time wears on.  With this, as Round 5 comes on for your Super Robot Showdown and you bring out your strongest weapon, the odds of getting lots of unblocked hits and a massive Finishing Blow increases (and an even better chance of cracking 10k damage, piercing the heavens and scoring +100VP). 

More importantly, the Round mechanic actually provides an incentive to wait a little before going all out on effects like Valor or limited use abilities / events.  Because in later Rounds you have better odds of striking that ultimate blow.  Hopefully, this will further adjust playstyles to avoid alpha strikes.