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The Opinions in this post express my veiws on improving the Robotech RPG, and are mine alone. argueing or flamebaiting me will not make me change these, so lets discuss improving the RPG calmly here.



It is well that war is so terrible— otherwise we should grow too fond of it.- Robert E. Lee, the Battle of Fredericksburg (13 December 1862)

Part 1: (note: i have gone back and edited a few of my suggestions to be more clear.)

this starts a short summary of the needed improvements on the Robotech RPG. please be aware that i am not too worried about sticking to closely to canon. inflexible settings are not as fun to play, for there is no chance for player's to shine. if only what was seen in the show is possible, there is no room for hero's other than the show's characters. and that would be boring. instead, i hope to find a happy middle ground that preserves playability and GM freedom while also preserving the feel of the orginal show.

i'll be working through the books systematically. changes due to new harmony gold material will be taken from the Robotech.com Infopedia

the first 3 books are the Robotech RPG, the RDF Manual, and the Zentreadi Handbook. these three books should really be combined into a single 'Robotech the RPG: Macross Saga' book, as all three are required to play a macross saga game. i will not be covering the game mechanics, since those will be corrected when the RUE ruleset is applied, so aside a few comments at the end of this summary, i will leave it alone for now.

first up are the OCC's. for the most part, i rather like these OCC's. while others have suggested employing a MOS system to reduce the number, this really is not feasible. there is little training a VF pilot, a Destroid pilot, or a Mechanical engineer would have in common. my only issue is merely how few skills these OCC's receive. each OCC receives only 22 skills, nearly half that of most other palladium OCC's. in addition, around 2/3rds of these are selected from a very limited list that forces the character to focus entirely on the military aspect. in addition, many important skills automatically received due to basic education and military training are not present as OCC skills. such as basic and advanced mathmatics, navigation, wilderness survival, WP Rifle, languages and literacy. (for fairness, the last two had not been developed for the ruleset at that time.) these problems need to be adressed for an updated version of the game.

next up are the mecha. Harmony Gold has now adopted the Orginal source material naming convention for the mecha. so the following names should be changed:
old matchbox name = Official Harmony Gold/OSM name
VF-1 Veritech = VF-1 Valkyrie Veritech Fighter
The Excalibur = MBR-04-VI Tomahawk
The Gladiator = MBR-07-MK II Spartan
The M.A.C. II = HWR-00-MK II Monster
The Raider X = ADR-04-MK X Defender
The Spartan = SDR-04-MK XII Phalanx

this is merely the first change. the major change will be the VF-1. again adopting the OSM material, the VF-1 now has new performance and weapons loadouts. VF-1A VF-1J VF-1S VF-1D
airspeeds drop in fighter and guardian mode, while the battloid mode gains limited flight options.
in fighter mode, the speed is:
Max speed at sea level: Mach 1.4
Max speed at 10,000m: Mach 2.71
Max speed at 30,000m: Mach 3.87
guardian mode flight speed drops to 500 kph, or 312.5 miles per hour.
the battloid flight option clocks in at 194 kph, or 121 miles per hour, only slightly faster than it's waking speed of 160 kph (100 mph)

the new armament is the GU-11, and 2 wing hard points, each able to mount a trio of Medium range missiles, a box launcher of 15 short ranged missiles, or long range missiles in a one inner, two outer arrangement. since the two wing hardpoints can carry seperate loads, this gives a variety of loadouts possible.

in addition, a new varient is available. the VF-1R. this is basically a VF-1J with a heavy machinegun added to a new head assembly. according to HG's fluff, the MG is an automated anti-missile system. personally, i never thought it looked like a gun, but an AMS would be useful.

RPG stats wise, the VF-1 is fairly good. aside from the armament and speed upgrades to fit HG canon, it needs very little improvement. upper arm and leg statistics should added to bring it in line with more recent stat block set ups, (and the orginal arm and leg values should be turned into the lower arm and leg values). likewise, the GU-11 cannon damage and range seems a tad low for 55mm. perhaps switching to a 5d6 md single round, 1d6x10 short burst, and 2d6x10 long burst would help, as would increasing the range to 2 or 3 miles. also, the GU-11 does not use clips. it has a internal magazine. now, official OSM has the magazine is about 3x the capacity of the clips the RPG used, so you don't loose any capacity. the Headlasers seemed a little weak, but giving them a pulse mode (which is seen in the show) would help alliviate that. perhaps 3D6 md for a 3 shot pulse? that would bring the VF-1J to 6D6 md and the VF-1S to 12D6 md.

the 'Super' veritech doesn't exist. instead, the VF-1 has FAST pack (Fuel And Sensor Tactical) options. extra engines and fuel tanks mounted on the back and legs, plus extra medium range missile launchers on the arms and back. these would be seperate hit locations.

whats really neat is the entirely new Veritech available. the VF-4 Lightning. totally new stats will be need for this.


the Tomahawk is pretty much unchanged, though the stats as is need a little tweaking. an upper leg location should be added, and the MDc as a whole upgraded by at least 25%, to reflect the 'walking tank' design. this would make it much more durable than the VF-1. since the Vf-1 was built for mobility, and the destroids for firepower, that is no problem.

weapon wise the mecha is fine, though the Particle cannon probably would need an upgrade in damage to match the one done to the GU-11. 3D6x10+20 md would make these weapons very powerful anti-vehicle weapons.

The Spartan is pretty much unchanged. like the Tomahawk the armor needs to be improved by at least 25%, to reflect it's 'walking tank' nature.

for the Monster see's only a minor change. the laser arms never existed, and should be relegated to 'optional' armament. the missile arms are standard, and can only fire long range missiles. the Armor needs to be doubled across the board, since this isn't a 'walking tank', it's a 'suffling battleship'. as with the other mecha, an upper leg hit location needs to be added. the 406mm cannon need to be majorly improved. the stats for the 406mm cannon from the CSS Chi-Town should be substituted. (RIFTS Sourcebook 4: Coalition Navy, Pg. 84)

likewise, the Defender is mostly unchanged. like the other destroids, the MDC needs at least a 25% improvement, and an upper leg location added. weapon wise, the Autocannon are standard, though the laser cannon can be kept as optional armament.

the same goes for the Phalanx. the armor needs updating (again, at least 25%), and an upper leg location added. the missile pods are limited to Long range missiles only.


Vehicles. Vehicles. where to start. ok, first, the Lancer fighters. the Lancer Fighter was actualy a Warship! what the RPG calls the unmanned lancer II was the actual manned Lancer fighter. this is a simple fix. just toss a pilot compartment onto the Lancer II. the warship is harder. new stats will be required.

the A.R.M.D. platfrom is a little under armored (it needs at least a 5X improvement), and the weapons need renamed to avoid confusion. (for example, the 'medium anti-warship missile launcher' doesn't fire medium range missiles, but rather high powered LRM's)

the Space shuttle needs a real name, and needs some hit locations for the engines added. plus, the shuttle needs a large booster rocket to reach orbit, not unlike the modern shuttle.

the Searcher SFV is pretty much fine as is.

the Cat's Eye Recon aircraft is mostly ok, though the sensor systems need a note to indicate that the sensor information can be shared with other units. (like with modern AWACS).

the LVT needs a minor overhaul, it's wing hardpoints are shown with bombs, not missiles, although missiles should be an option. but whats most notable is that it has a central bombbay and conformal MRM mounts, which give it much more fire power than the current stats indicate. plus, it's pretty obviously not VTOL.

the Falcon fighter is mostly good. flight speeds need changed to be altitude dependant (for more realism), and this fighter really was VTOL, or at least STOL. weapons wise it's good, but the RPG overlooked a pair of 20mm cannon in the wingroots. (suppossedly gatling, but those would never fit.)

the ghost is pretty much fine as is, though i'd like some details on the AI that runs it, and how the operators combat stas transfer to the remotely piloted versions.

the Tunny needs a Tail hit location, and there is no way that craft is a VTOL. it's also big enough to carry a Mecha or two in it's cargo bay, though the mecha would have to be on it's back and strapped down.

the Fanjet, and Howard LH-2000 helicopter need to be SDC, since they're civilian.

the Sea-Sergeant needs to have more MDC, and some room for passengers.

the Comanchero is pretty much fine, as are the land rover, and RDf motorcycle. the 'Dune buggy' was actually a limo, and as such needs to be listed as such. (it would be an armored limo though, so you could leave it MD)

the personal weapons section is pretty much ok, though a few improvements could be made. the 'laser pistol' is actually a laser rifle in the show (at least according to max. from the size and shape, it looks more like a rocket luancher or grenade launcher.)

the 'laser rifle' was actually a conventional rifle. (looks to based off the FN-FAL)

the 'heavy laser rifle' is fine as is.

Character wise, the stats will merely need updating to match changes to the OCC's.

for the SDF-1, the main changes will need to be the addition of flight speeds, and clairification of the main gun. actual damage stats should be added, instead of 'destroy's everything'. i would recommend 1D6x1,000,000 md to everything in the path of fire. this is the same effect, but now you can make a good arguement for why planets don't vaporise when shot. in addition, the beam is not a mile wise, while it does spread a bit, it's shown as no more than a half mile wide, if that. remember, the SDF-1 is 3/4th's a mile long, and the beam is nowhere as wide as the ship is long.




now to the RDF manual. drop the random hit tables. they don't work for palladium. the system already has a nice combat mechanic, and random hit tables don't improve it, just slow it down.

the GU-12 needs to be modified a bit. instead of fireing bursts of 100mm shells, it should be single shots of 105mm shells. damage wise the results should be the same, with something like 40 shots in an internal magazine. (100mm rounds are HUGE.)

the EP-1 energy weapon pod is nice, and can probably be kept as is, just with a damage increase.

the Tanks should be re-thought entirely, though into what i don't know.

the AWAC-EC-33 needs the same update as the Cat's eye.

the 'turbo-fanjet' is civilian, and as such should be SDC.

the Glamour VC-33 is pretty much fine as is, though like most of the other aircraft it's not VTOL.

the UF-14 Interceptor wasn't RDF, although it might have been used by them later, it was a fighter affiliated with the anti-UN rebels, so it's anyone's guess as to who built it.

the Deadalus and Prometheus work pretty well. one note is that we see some of the class 'flying' in space and the atmosphere, implying that they had anti-gravity ability. this seems a bit odd, but if the ships had artificial gravity for their decks, it's possible the system could be employed to make anti-gravity. artificial gravity would allow smooth operation regardless of ship attitude, thus allowing greater operation ability. the Prometheus could do with fewer destroids and more Veritechs, but thats a minor quibble. (just switchout 2/3rd's the Tomahawks for Valkyries.)

the underwater rules need updating, using the RIFTS:Undersea's material to balance it a bit more. (note: unless the veritechs can super-cavitate, their 'flight' speeds should be limited to under 100 knots.)

the Soviet refits of the RDF mecha could use some improvements. mostly more powerful stats for the replacement weapons. these mecha should stand at least some chance when fighting other mecha.

the refitted zentreadi pods need much more improvement. instead of 23mm cannon, the pods could fit 120mm cannon with no problems. the officer's pods could mount much heavier weapons than the recoilless rifle and light AC's. more like a 6inch naval gun and snub-nosed 120mm cannon in the arms.

the refitted Soviet fighters are nice. they need the same weapon damage upgrades as the other mecha, and should see an improvement in armor as well. (as it is, the SDc stats listed are about right. the MDC versions would be around 10x tougher. just divide the sdc by 10)


ah, the zentreadi. this book was nice, and i'll be lumping the main book stats in with these for symmetry.

first off is the zentreadi equipment. the light armor is ok, though we need stats for the heavy armor.

the rifle needs to be changed to single shot-short burst-long burst, to bring it in line with the newer rules.

the laser pistol needs to have an actual ammo capacity. it either uses very large E-clips, or has a built in powerplant. either way, it will run out of energy/fuel at some point.

the blast rifle and other zentreadi weapons from Ghost ship need to be added in, for completeness.

mecha wise, every single vehicle needs at least +50% to the current armor. they may be easy to kill, but not that easy. there is no reason why an SRM should be able to one shot kill a battlepod.

i'd also recommend giving their zentreadi names (Regult, Gluag, Nousjadeul-ger, ect.) more prominance, where possible. this helps make them feel less like 'random badguy of the week' and might make players more interested in playing a zentreadi only campaign.

weapons wise, the pods need a major overhaul. battlepods are eggshells with hammers, but the current stats gave them peashooters. the weapons on the pods need to be on par with the RDF weapons, to make them a real threat. up them by 50% and it would be work better.

the main alteration's i'd make on the weapon loadouts are on the 'artillery' pods. the light arty pod would be firing MRM's or LRM's by missile scale, and the Heavy Arty pod would be firing missiles larger still. perhaps this is a good place to import variants of the 'cruise missiles' from Phase world.

likewise, the officers pod armored vehicle has missile launchers, not laser cannon, probably MRM's by size.

the pods sizes need fixing. currently, the pods are the same size as zent's. this is pretty much impossible, since zent's have to fit into the cockpits, and most of the pods are legs! the pods are about 50% too small currently.

the forcefeilds on the fighterpod and the officer's pod armored vehicle should be dropped, or at least listed as rare. they never existed in the show.

The Theater scout needs a major size increase, it's the size of a small warship. it also has a folddrive.

the powered armor needs a few revisions. the male armor can fly quite well in the atmosphere, at least as well as a VF. this would give it superior space handling as well. weapons wise it needs the same upgrades as the other zentreadi mecha. oh, and it's running speed needs to be recalculated. it's impossible to get a 40mph result from a full sized zent. not if the speed is 3x normal. most would end up running similar speeds as a VF.

the female powered armor needs only slight improvement, aside from the general armor and weapon damage upgrades. the forearm lasers should be able to fire in pulse mode, doing triple damage each, making it very lethal. the missile launchers need to have their volley sizes increased. in the show, the FPA could volley all 84 ready missiles at once, although that was in a random barrage.

the re-entry pod is far too large, the fluff has it right with 24 battle pods as capacity. pretty much ignore the 480# listed.

the Zentreadi OCC's could stand a little improvement. the addition of the Pod, PA, and HTH specialist from strike force would help to flesh them out a bit, and the regualr troop and officer OCC's should be modified to fit the strike force set up.

the zentreadi size and stats are a little off. most zentreadi are not 50 feet tall. most barely exceed 40. in general, a full-sized zentreadi is 6X larger than when it is micronized. (making the normal size around 36 feet.). the weight modifier of 100x is about right though, mass scales faster than size. the strength, and endurance stat mod is also fine. the hitpoints also can remain the same. P.S. should stay normal strength, and not supernatural or exceptional, to keep things balanced. already they can lift several tons. rules for inflicting MD punches and kicks using the regular HTH skills hould be added.

the zentreadi warships are decent, just a few modification's. first, only the Flagship has a maincannon. all the others make do with massed conventional weapons and or megalasers. there is a 'gunship' the size of a scout mounting a maincannon (this is what Khyron kamakazi's the SDF-1 with), but that needs stats.
the flagship has a maingun, but no megalaser. the destroyer has a megalaser, but no maingun. the commandship, landing ship, and scout lack both.
as far as stats go, they're fine. i would drop the .XXC speeds though, at those speeds the trip from pluto to earth would be days, not months. the ship speeds from phaseworld are a good guide as to what the large ships are capable of.

Huh? the only "official" souce I have found on the GU 11 says this

I kind of agree,and also kind of disagree in that both the books and other places refer to the VFs in the first series has having improved armor, and yes the super is realy just upgrades weapons and boosters straped onto an existing fraim using the armor atachment mounts


you would also have to upgrade the TBP and other Zentradi mecha because otherwise that things a OSK on any pod and has way too high a chance to OSK every other Zentradi mecha, I want a game thats a challenge, not something thats the RPG version of shooting dead fish in a barrel


Theirs times you dont bother with stats, a gun that is capable of punching through a basalt mountain and still have enough enegery available to blow up a starship is a special efect. you might as well list the Mega damage of the main gun of the deathstar.

ok first you want us to go by the osm, now you want us to ignore it? the gun is listed as 100 mm not 105 mm, and quite frankly the thing is probably fireing whats basicaly a 100mm version of the 40mm grenaid, not a 105mm tank round

apart from the fact that thoes things repetedly get destroyed on screen by missles that clearly miss them and hit buildings behind them and are often taken out by lighter weapons, lets face it the TBPs are the Zentradi version of the red suits in Startreck TOS

ok a couple of other points

you want to upgrade the firepower of the RDF gear, because its too low, but you also want to upgrade the armor of the Zentradi mecha becuase they are too easily destroyed,

um

thats a zero sum game, your just inflaiting the stats but to balance it your inflaiting the stats. if you continue down this route, the main gun of a VHT will have to do 1D4X100 but to balance that even the light Bioroids will have to have 500 Main body MDC

please remember that from the palladium systems pov Robotech represnets the START of Mega Damage technology on earth, basicaly prior to that Tanks were bascialy SDC structures(granted with lots and lots and lots of SDC) so basicaly a 1D6X10 AP-SRM is literaly the same as a TOW missile, and 5D6-1D4X10 is the damage that a standard 105 mm tungsten AP round will do.

And THAT is the nature of power creep, which is something that I screamingly hope to avoid (or minimize) in any new Robotech game.

I also agree on lumping the three books together to form one rulebook/sourcebook as if Palladium does renew the license, I think that would be the first logical step.

A few points I want to point out:

1. GU-11: I agree that the M.D.C. damage in the original books was too low, but given the rounds size, I think they should still be moderately stronger than want you suggested. Perhaps 4D8, 1D8 x 10, and 2D8 x10?

2. SDF-01's Main Gun: When the blast hit a target dead on, it disergrated it, so applying M.D.C. damage seems futile. The M.D.C. listing if fired upon a plant makes sense if regards to the Rain of Death attacks. Also the SDf-01 needs Deck Plans added to it like it was later done in Macross II.

3. Monster/Mac II: Question, since you didn't list the Monster as needing an increase in M.D.C., do you feel that its neccessary or fine as it is? I personally feel that the current M.D.C. doesn't do it justice. Also perhaps a firing penalty for it main cannons against non-warships or moving targets.

4. Zentraedi: Based on Milia/Miriya's official height stats, it appears that full-sized Zentraedi are 5x taller compared to when they are micronized.

5. The Zentraedi ships this time should reflect their actual stats and not the novels. Also, the M.D.C. seemed way in comparision to the actual sizes such as the Scout ship having more M.D.C. than the SDf-01. Those need to be addressed this time being.

6. I agree with Killer Cyborg's statement.

I like your approach to corrections as many are ones I also like to see, but I also wanted to input my thoughts as well.

huh, i guess the sources i found were wrong. well, adjusting the shells fired per burst can keep the 200rd magazine while giving more shots per mag.


a later improved version of the regular VF could be used under the 'super' moniker, kinda a MK-II version with better armor and electronics. heck, thats how i ran it in the game. i just didn't want to suggest too many new vehicles without some sort of evidence saying they are needed. the -1R and the VF-4 are now HG canon, and thus would need to be provided. an upgrade VF-1 would merely be a nice thing to have.

you'll notice i did. as it was, most weapons could OSK pods anyway.

one of the reason's i'd want stats is to allow distinction with the Synchrocanon of Invid Invasion. currently, both have the same damage 'destroy's everything'. plus, my example about planets is only the tip of the iceberg. what happens when you shoot a RIFTS rune weapon with the maingun? one 'destroy's everything', the other 'cannot be destroyed'. they had to erratta that (no effect), but it would be easier to assign an actual damage rating.

i know, but part of my reasoning is to create zentreadi mecha people might actually want to pilot. perhaps 2X is too high. i would like at least a 50% increse in MDC, preserving the 'redshirt' feel while making them just survivable that people don't shout 'killer GM' when players are forced to use regular pods.

remember that the standard missiles of the RDF tend to be in the MRM and LRM sizes, and when you see SRM's they're always fired in multi-missile volleys. so the pods do not need to be OSK'ed by a single SRM to still be considered weak.


only a zero sum game for the RDF vs. zent's. part of the balancing i'm trying to do is also Zent Vs. Zents, and RDF Vs. RDF. this way, when earth mecha fight earth mecha, it's not 3 minutes of stand and deliver before you manage to hurt them. it still takes a bit, but not as long. the upgraded Zent's will also mean they can take on the invid mecha for a change, which i haven't posted yet.

as for the ASC scomment, bioroids could use a slight MDC increse, but more like a 25% or so. they're agile, not armored in the show. and the VHT doesn't need that powerful of a cannon.




you'll notice that the show has the human grasp of reproducing and utilizing the alien tech as pretty good in macross. they just didn't know how some of it worked fully. later on in the show the only tech improvements that are noticable in mecha is size. the RDF needed 50foot mecha to fit the weapons of the sufficent power they wanted. the later mecha had components of similar power levels, just much smaller.

the main improvements humanity seems to have acheived (ignoring star travel for now) is in the compact energy weapon's area.




actually, i suggested doubling the current MDC. that would bring it to 800 mdc for the mainbody. it's 80 freaking feet tall, carries (4) 16inch guns, and is built to take on warships. seems kinda odd the stats had it only slightly more durible than a veritech. in the show, we see them shrugging off hits that would serverly hurt a VT. so it sems kinda silly to leave it at the low values.




shoot, i never noticed that.



what i'm doing isn't powercreep, per say. the game is long overdue for fixing some of the flaws. and one of those flaws is the powercreep that did occur orginally. the cyclone and it's weapons are considered epitomies of powercreep in RT.

by taking the lackluster stats of the larger mecha and improving them, i can take things like the EP-40 and leave them mostly alone, and not have to worry about the fact that infantry weapons are more powerful than their contempary mecha scale versions. basically avoiding the same kinds of problems RIFTS has where a tank laser is 1d6x10md, and a laser rifle is also 1d6x10md, despite the tank gun being 10x larger/suppossedly more powerful.


plus, by improving the guns, and leaving the armor mostly alone, this answers the "things are way too survivable" people, while still allowing RT stuff to be brought into other palladium MDC setting and not suck.

Part 2:

"The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected."
-Sun Tzu

next up we have the RDf accellerated Training program, Zentreadi Breakout, Ghost Ship, and Strike force. these four can easily be combined into one or two single, Reconstruction era sourcebook/adventure books. thes 4 books contain enough campaigns and additional source material to make it worthwhile.
personally, i'd rewrite parts of this to create a single epic campaign taking the players across the reconstruction globe. starting off with the training missions (retraining as a special ops group), then assignment in space leading to the ghostship, discovering a link onboard to South east asia, which leads to the events of Strike force (the mind altering Flower of Life would be a good link), which leads the players eventually to south america where the Zarian group has become embroiled in the Zentreadi Breakout events. i tried this before with some players, it never panned out. (we had to stop meeting halfway through the ghost ship module due to scheduling issues.)



ok, first up is the RDF accellerated training. pretty much this is fine as is. the random NPC charts should probably be dropped in favor of a simpler method, they seemed pretty worthless. not sure how to fix those.
for the missions, i'd place more emphasis on these being Wargame scenarios in simulators or as part of an TRADOC type set up. of course, a section on turning these missions into non-simulated adventures should be added.
otherwise, this book doesn't add much else. no new gear or vehicles, aside from a single 'experimetal' aquatic Tomohawk variant.



next up is ghostship. this one has some neat stuff, and some fairly weird stuff.
whats neat: Cloaked zentreadi scoutship, the debries ring, and space pirates.
whats weird: ASC mecha in use long before they were developed (i'm looking at you AGACS!), 'ninja' Zentreadi (oy), giant rats, and space pirates....

the deckplans for the scout are very helpful, now all we need are plans for the destroyer and we'd have plans for every stated zent ship. (gunboat not withstanding).
the section on space combat is nice, my hatred of the 'mach in space' system not withstanding. that i have house rules for, as does everyone else, so no biggie. i do think that the space combat section needs updating though. speeds are way too slow (ignoring the constant speed issues, the craft should be 'faster' in space than the atmosphere.). personally, if i had to keep the system, i'd just double the listed flight speeds when in space. those without a flight speed gain speeds equal to their ground running speed.

the sections on the RDF, ASC, and EBSIS in space are nice, though just drop the AGACS(AJAX) entirely, that didn't exist until a few years before the masters arived, and didn't seen full production until late in that war.
space pirates....both the neatest and the silliest idea every. these pirates are more well armed salvagers.not a bad set up, though i'd want more info myself. who funds them? who buys from them? where do they operate out of? is there a 'tortuga station' built into a old zent wreck somewhere they use as a homebase?

thats pretty much it for this book. i would like to see more info on the space enviroment though. we know now that the RDF was sending out recon/colony fleets all the way up to the war with the masters. who were they, where did they go? also, are there other space stations both pre- and post- rain of death up there? who owns them and what do they do? what are the mars and jupiter bases we keep seeing in later books?



ok, now strike force.
this always looked like a great adventure, i really wish i had been able to run it. since i haven't, i'm not going to try to comment on it.
of course, the real reason people buy this book is the new mecha. all those neat prototypes.
most of these aren't bad. the VF-1X sets the stage for the alpha and vindicator, and is actually not as good as the VF-1, which helps keep it's prototype status beleivable. i don't see anything wrong with this one.
the veritech car isn't bad, i do wish they had fluffed it as a reconstruction era design instead of a REF one, it's the only vehicle thats out of place. and it definately isn't going to be of much use off earth. a simple rewrite of the fluff would fix things. and for goodness sake, get some decent art for it. it looks ridicoulus. like anyone would mistake that for a car? it's a plane with wheels.
the power armor and Tornado can be left alone, they're fine as is.
the new destroids merely need the same weapons upgrade i advised with the main versions. other than that, upper leg and arm locations need to be added to those that lack them, the Rl-2 missile rifle on the LIB needs renamed (the RL2 already exists as a shoulder carried launcher), and the Gladius' disruptor missiles need to redesignated as a standard missile size to simplify things.
the T-99 is nice, it just needs upper arm and leg locations.
VTOL mecha need a class name, to seperate them from VTOL helicopters and regular jets. otherwise they just need weapon updates to bring them in line with the other RDF mecha.
the Zarian battlepods fall under the same modifications as the other normal zentreadi mecha. (so they remain superior as intended)

the setting info on south east asia is great, though i'd want some expansion. we know what veitname looks like now, what about malaysia? Borneo? ect.
the small section on Manaus in Brazil was nice, the idea of a Zentreadi city...



last we have Zentreadi Breakout.
the setting information is nice, it really sets up the SA region. the early ASC stuff is nice too.
adventure wise, i can't say much, since i never got to run it. but it looks fun.
thats about it for this book.
personally, i'd like a bit more on the refitted battlepods and destroids used by the SA nations (and perhaps the zent rebels. ), i'd like to see material on the rise of the Merchant Republic.

ok your still not getting it

Zentradi Vs Zentradi is irrelivant, RDF Vs RDF is irrelivant. Boosting the stats is still overall the wrong way to go around the problem, because you end up inflateing EVERYTHING including thoes SRMs and the machin guns on the 6X6 just to keep pace.(and by the way, useing the "over powered" Cyclone to justify boosting the stats is just flat out munchy

the reality is that if the head lasers can take out a battle pod then obviously the ZBP is little more than a Jeep with a heavy weapon. Frankly they are little more than a heavy/fast infantry unit, the male power armor was probably a medium infantry or special forces unit,

in fact we are better off going over the units on a case by case basis and not just maching gunning everthing at once.

let me reiterate:

The Opinions in this post express my veiws on improving the Robotech RPG, and are mine alone. argueing or flamebaiting me will not make me change these, so lets discuss improving the RPG calmly here.


Munchkin is in the eyes of the beholder.
i do not see these suggestions as munchkin. if you do, that is your opinion. i am not forcing you to use these suggestions, i am merely voicing my opinions on what i think needs to be fixed, and how i would do it.

since you have already said that you consider this munchkin, there is no reason to say it again. i would like to see your evidence as to why you think so, and i would love to hear your idea's as to how to fix things.
just start your own thread if you do, please. do not try to steal mine.



back on topic,
the missiles, as well as the machineguns and other anti-infantry weapons don't need up grading. they are fine.

i am merely suggesting that the Anti-Vehicle weapons be able to actually take out vehicles. and for that, it is easier to upgrade the firepower, than to nerf everything else.

the armor upgrades i am suggesting are merely to correct a few issues in design. destroids are walking tanks designed to take damage, yet they have no more armor than a VF-1, which was designed for mobility, not protection. to fix this, i recommend improving the destroid armor slightly. the MAC was worse, and suffered the same problem, so i suggested it's armor upgrade.
the zentreadi stuff is frankly pathetic, and while it's that way in the show, there is no reason for it to be that pathetic. upping the armor slightly keeps the same feel, but insures that a kid with a slingshot won't be able to kill zents.

as for the role of the battlepod and other units, tell me something i don't know. that is not the point.

as for going over the units case by case, we'd have to do that in any case. but unless there is some overall plan to set balances and keep things unified, you'd just see the same kind of escalation as in RIFTS.

ok lets stop for a second

Existing main gun of the excaliber is has a damage curve of 30-52.5-75
Volied so that they are Pared the damage curve is 60-105-150

that means:
on an "Average" shot the main guns will
Kill or seriously injure if not outright kill most first level Zentradi with or without armor, and kill a main battle pod , Two average shots will take down a OBP or MPA,
three average shots will take down a FMA

your solution will make the guns
50-120-200 single shot or
100-240-400 paired

in order to break even the light battle pods armor will need to be beefed up to at least 120, and since your idea is to beef up the pods in the first place I suspect you intend the TBP to have at least 150

and a medium range missle only does 2D6X10 damage AT MOST

so your also going to have to beef up the Medium range missles

and the head lasers, and everything else.

and realise that it is unlickly that the military will be replacing their existing mecha with less armor and firepower, so the next generation gear will be an upgrade, and so forth, and so on.

the revised battlepods would be 80 to 90.
the PA's would be between 250 and 300.

the missiles do not need upgrading, as you can always launch more than one missile at a target. that's why mecha have those huge launchers. machineguns do not upgrading, as those are intended for anti-infantry, which are low to no MDC targets. the headlasers only need slight upgrades, giving them a pulse option fixes them.


as for the tomahawk, send it up against itself. orginal: (2x) guns of 30-52-75.
300 armor.
using average damage: it takes 3 paired shots to kill another tomahawk.

my upgrades stats: 375 armor, 40-130-190 damage per gun.
it takes a little under 2 paired shots to kill another tomahawk. the mecha is still balanced, it's just a bit more lethal.





actually, the later mecha, like the alpha and beta, the REF destroids, will have similar weapon and armor levels, just be half the size.

the Logan and ASC battloids will need major rewrites, but they needed them anyway, we all agree on that.

Ummm, I don't know what show you watched, but its clear in Robotech that the armour plating on the Bioroid is quite thick, on the order of a foot thick or more of armour plating. Whats more, it has a definite glacis slope which would help deflect some incoming fire. Then there is the fact that in Southern Cross and Half Moon we see Bioroids survive multiple hits that should cripple them, but because of redundant systems, it keeps going.



Wait, you want to increase the damage done by the 55mm cannon round, but decrease the damage done by the 105mm (not to mention 220mm particle beam) cannon?

thus the armor increase. they need more than the 200 they have now, but 500 is going a bit too far. a 25% to 50% increse would take to 250 or 300, which is sufficent.





a single 55mm in mine is 6d6md. the VHT's cannon would be around 3d6x10 or so (a good 50% higher than the current), in either ballistic or energy form.

my comment was in regards to his 'the VHT will need 1d4x100 to balance' comment.




you guys keep jumping ahead of my posts.

1. I agree that Zentreadi mecha should have a slight increase in their armor values. I would hope that they increase the TBP to around 80 M.D.C. to the Main Body, and the Officer's Pod to 130, the Male Power Armor should stay about the same, and the Female Power Armor to 180 - 200 M.D.C., the same M.D.C. that the VF-1's Main Body should be lowered to since they were not as heavily armored as the Destroids.

2. The Bioroid's armor should be increased to 300 - 350 M.D.C., but as you said not to ridiculous portions like 500 M.D.C. Since R.S.C.F. mentioned its armor layout, then adding a 10% reduction to damage it takes is feesible. One thing I would want to address is the ridicoulously high arm shields on some of the mecha. 200 M.D.C. on each arm of the Spartas is fine, but 600 is ungodly high.

3. Certian wepaons should be increased in power such as the Monster and the VF-1's gunpod, while later mecha should be examined at a point by point bases.

your not getting it at all

keeping things in scale with everthing else = no net change, wich makes the entire project worthless

Increasing lethality without a matching increase in defence is counter to your stated goal of trying to balance the game, Basicaly your turning whats suposed to be an Anima action based roll playing game and turning it into a One Shot Kill crapshoot.(granted thats kind of hard to do, the way Anima seems to handle combat on a large scale is that you have one or both sides sending in huge swarms of combatants charging at eachother like some weird parody of the early British tactics in WWI, Perferably useing lots of mecha thats at least tecnhicaly obsolete on one or sides, which is somehow suposed to show just how skilled the core charaters in their state of the art weapon systems are as warriors.

As for the TBP its suposed to be that craptastic, Its infantry. trying to treat it like anything remotly like a Main battle tank is as stupid as sending jeeps that are armed with a 40mm automatic grenaid launcher after T-80 tanks. Zentradi tactics are bascialy straightforward, the Zentradi fleet is suposed to take out any defending fleet and any areo- space fighters, then bomb anything that remotly looks like its a planetary defence from orbit, then send in the infantry to mop up. Putting it bluntly in that situation you probably need a haz mat suit and mops more than armor and weapon systems.(which ironicaly is why Macross series basicaly jetisoned the ground mechs and went with VF fighters, the developers realised that basicaly the odds of needing heavy ground units is vanishingly small, and the best defence is to keep the fight completly off the planet in the first place since a ground based "tank" mecha cant get off the planet unless its on a spaceship, and once an invasion fleet shows up very few units this side of the "Offical" MAC II or the spartan can even hit anything in orbit, (and even then all the invasion ship has to do is go into a slighly higher orbit and then just fire at will)

The game is already a oneshot kill situation.

what i'm trying to do is balance not only the giant mecha, but the Cyclone and infantry as well.
you yourself have called the cyclone overpowered. this is mostly because it has armor and firepower on par with the lighter battloids and veritechs, correct?
but if the larger mecha have more armor and more powerful weapons, it's not as overpowered. it is more logical to upgrade the other mecha than to nerf the cyclone. (although some changes will be needed.)
i'm also trying to find middle ground between the 'hero mecha' endurance in the show, and the 'redshirt' mecha also seen.


now, before you tell me again how "i'm not getting it at all", i would like YOU to tell me how YOU would fix the same RPG problems.

it is easy for people to say 'that will not work', but it is harder to say 'here is how we will fix it'. i am trying to fix some of the problems, and i would prefer that instead of telling me how wrong this is, you would help me find a solution.

My goal, in designing a game like this, would be to sit down and watch an episode of the series, chosen at random, and play pretty close to that (but with better voice acting for Minmei, more situation-appropriate facial expressions from Dana, and Annie being left in the dust)

Mostly I would fix the bloody Cyclone. Bascialy that thing IS the problem. the solution is not to go around with a bloody air pump and inflate everything around it to the point where you cant fire a secondary weapon without leveling an area the size of new yourk

wich, ironicaly, is exactly what I did in our campain

most laser pistols do 1D6 including the Galant in standard mode, that one other laser rifle is actualy a carbine which could be dismantled into a pistol, useing it as a carbine uped the range to whats listed, as a pistol it was limmited to 1/10th the listed range
the laser rifle mode takes 6 charges and does 3D6 damage on a heavy pulse
the Galant also uses a non rechargable capacitor system(you can see the capacitor ejecting in a couple of episodes)

main body is 50 MDC for the light unit, 75 for the heavy unit.

as for the other weapon systems, I tweeked a lot of thoes down in either power or range and deleted the "energy force feild" on the arm blade sheild.

Mostly I would fix the bloody Cyclone. Bascialy that thing IS the problem. the solution is not to go around with a bloody air pump and inflate everything around it to the point where you cant fire a secondary weapon without leveling an area the size of new yourk

wich, ironicaly, is exactly what I did in our campain

most laser pistols do 1D6 including the Galant in standard mode, that one other laser rifle is actualy a carbine which could be dismantled into a pistol, useing it as a carbine uped the range to whats listed, as a pistol it was limmited to 1/10th the listed range
the laser rifle mode takes 6 charges and does 3D6 damage on a heavy pulse
the Galant also uses a non rechargable capacitor system(you can see the capacitor ejecting in a couple of episodes)

main body is 50 MDC for the light unit, 75 for the heavy unit.

as for the other weapon systems, I tweeked a lot of thoes down in either power or range and deleted the "energy force feild" on the arm blade sheild.

However, even that solution has some flaws as well, as your stated conversion of the Cyclone still has body armor M.D.C. that is much higher than the TBP. Realisiticaly speakng, the Cyclone would still have a lower armor rating than the "crappy" TBP.

Also, this it still doesn't address the fact that Veritech aircraft had armor ratings comparible to ground mecha which in isn't very accurate at all. A VF-1 shouldn't have only 50 M.D.C. less armor than a Tomahawk, the difference would be much greater. Realistically speaking some mecha M.D.C. values will have to be inflated to better matrch their performance shown in the series. That would also apply the opposite as well in regards to aircraft mecha and the Cyclones.

As far as human sized M.D.C. weapons, everyone pretty much agrees that those were vastly overdone and majorly unbalanced were most outperformed mecha weaponry, or were simply "tank killers." Please only make M.D.C. hand-held weapons applicible.

first off

by the time of the Cyclones have been around, its at least 20 years later, and this time Humans, who tend care about whether or not their own speices survives a firefight, will have had some time to come up with better survivability,

Second, its not that hard to cut down the armor on that to 25 or 35 MDC

Your statement is true, as long as the general understanding that the Cyclone was never meant to be a frontline fighter and was a survival mecha at best for downed pilots. Also, the downgrading to 25 to 35 M.D.C. is more realistic, and is the approach I've done in prevoius games. To make up for its lack of armor give larger mecha penalty to target it due to its small size in comparison.

Personally I like how the system was written originally.

Yes the Cyclone had a lot of MDC. That was understood because this was a "Heroic Game" where the main characters (Players) needed to survive.

But in the sake of this thread... this is my solution:

Give everything 1 MD - I mean EVERYTHING.

Now for named characters, give them a temporary bonus of 200 MDC that regenerates at 10 MD per hour. It also regenerates Ammo at 20 shots per hour and 5 missiles per hour. This should get about right as how the show turns up.

How so?

I do think the Cyclone is overpowered by a signifigant margin.

I also think that some of the other mecha have been nerfed somewhat - especially in terms of the big guns.

So I do a mixture of upgrade the other mecha and downgrade the cyclone.

Lets be honest, I think everyone has made modifications that suit there gaming needs.

Also I am sure I'm not the only one who bought Rifts: UE with the sole purpose of using it to update my Robotech game.

I plan on just doing the same with any new Robotech books, that may come out.

the cyclone is in my mind a heavy infantry unit, designed to take on larger mecha. as such, it needs the protection to shrug off most mecha mounted anti-infantry weapons (which in RT tend towards 1d4 to 2d4), as well as the lighter anti-vehicle weapons (which tend to be 3or 4 D6's, up to 1d4x10)

with 200 MDC, it can even take a hit from the larger anti-mecha cannon and still function, though one is all it will be able to take. (after that hit though, the suit might as well be gone.)



the main 'over powered' arguement comes from the fact that it has almost as much armor as a destroid.

but as i've pointed out, the protection serves it's purpose. so if the protection is correct for the role, would it not make more sense to increase the armor of the larger units so that they are protected for their role? if a destroid has 400 armor, and a cyclone can take 200, the cyclone is less overpowered. (it's still potent, but the effect is less.)



personally, i've always figured that 50 of the 200 mdc the cyclone has is the CVR armor, so a more accurate count would be VR-052: 150, and VR-038: 100.

i've also always figured part of the problem is that the Logan has only 150 mdc, being twice the size, and people have a tendancy to assume Size corrilates with protection. the cyclone is half the size of the logan, and yet has almost half again as much MDC. so it throws people off. i plan to up the protection of the logan anyway, since it doesn't make much sense to build something so lightly armored.



i must admit, my opinions on this are colored by battletech, where powered armor such as elementals are designed to take down mechs, and are extremely hard to take down by infantry due to the amount of armor needed to protect them from vehicle scale weapons (of which they can only take one or two hits from, usually.)

But that is not the spirit of Robotech.

If it were, then Macross would be filled with tiny, Robert Heinlein-esque powered armour suits, rather than big-ass transforming planes.

Robotech is all about giant machines killing other giant machines (or hordes of slightly less giant machines.) Even when you get into the New Generation era (and, by default, Robotech II), the emphasis is one big transforming machines of death. Why did they build the Legios otherwise?

I am inclined to agree that the Cyclone is a survival mech... or a small stealth unit used for infiltrating Invid and Robotech Master facilities.

I think that's what's most people are concerned about if Palladium renews the Robotech license, readjusting the M.D.C. values to more accurately reflect the show without having to inflate too many of the other mecha in the process. Sure, some mecha will probably see some sort of increase in M.D.C. (like the Monster), but it's much easier an more accurate to lower the M.D.C. of the Cyclone rather than inflate all other mecha M.D.C. around it in comparison. The Cyclone IMHO, was never meant to intentally go head-to-head in heavy combat with much larger mecha. As far as the CVR-3, I hope Palladium gets rid of all M.D.C. body armor other than the Cyclone system altogether this time around.

a quarter ton of metal and ceramic sneaking around?

as for survival mecha, sure. remember that the cyclone was made during the pioneer mission. so the veritech pilots will have to survive being shot at by invid and robotechmaster giant mecha.

as a survival mecha, it gives pilots the ability to take on the average 'trooper' mecha of the invid, masters, and zentreadi and win. these are mecha carrying weapns designed to kill other mecha, but that have no qualms about turning them on infantry.

as for my arguement about it being heavy infantry, the Battler has 16 mini-missiles. thats pretty massive firepower for just a survival suit. likewise, look at the EP-37 and the EP-40. those are weapons designed for heavy infantry use, not survival.


it may be used for survival, but most likely, it was likely orginally designed for combat, and then seconded to other roles.

Well, also look at it this way. There are some anti-tank infantry units out there right? Although they have a role in taking out tanks, they aren't meant to take out tanks in direct confrontation am I right? The Cyclone most likely started out as a survival mecha and was later adapted for specialized roles such as for ambush and recon missions. That's were the additional weaponry came to part.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but... the Pioneer (SDF-3) mission was put together to go force a peace with the Robotech Masters... knowing nothing of the Invid until the fleet arrived at Tirol.


So... all that New Generation hardware must have been designed to fight the Masters, Cyclone included. Maybe, since they expected to use it in the cities of Tirol, it's supposed to be a small, urban combat unit...?

No it doesn't that is one of the many errors PB made.



To be honest the cyclone was not designed until the mid-late 2030's well after contact with the Invid.

not unlike the PA concepts the army is looking into in reality.

a cyclone has roughly the same combat effectiveness of a bioroid, just in a slightly smaller form. (bioroids being about 15 feet or so.)

the VR-038 is probably around the MDC levels the early cyclones had, the stuff you see in new gen would be after some master's tech could be applied, making it more durable.

most likely the compact storage mode was just a way to reduce storage space. redesigning the veritechs to be able to carry one was probably a later development.

Funny thing is, I was considering dropping the MDC of the Cyclone to 100 + 50 for the CVR-3 for my Robotech/Three Galaxies Campaign, but my players threw a fit. They agreed that it should have less armor, but they weren't willing to play in said armor if it offered less protection. One thing we did agree on is to include that new light armor in the PTSC comics at roughly half the protection of CVR.

Yeah, alot of people agree that the Cyclone's M.D.C. is way to high in comparision to other mecha, but instead of lowering it, they would rather have the other mecha be inflated in comparision. However, the problem I see with this is that you're going to have much longer combat situations if you're pitting say 400 M.D.C. Veritech's after one another. And increasing the damage factor in weapons to compensate for this is basically scaling everything up, which is in reality no different than scaling evrything down.

Uh, not exactly. The Pioneer Mission was formed with three objectives (all stated explicity or implied in the show):

1.) Find the homeworld of the Robotech Masters (neither the UEF nor the Zentraedi knew where it was) and destroy their ability to make war. In other words, they were going to pound the snot out of the Masters, not make peace with them. A declared state of war already existed between the UEG the Masters, since the start of the 1st Robotech War.

2.) To solve the riddle of protoculture

3.) To colonize the stars in an effort to ensure mankind's survival.




Sound reasoning...

I know I am late in asking this question, but are you sure about only the Flag ship only having a main gun type weapon? Because in Force of Arms, when the Zentradi attacked Earth, a lot of ships, it looked like almost all of them, opened up in the front like they had a main gun on them.

The Rineunadou Lojmeuean-class Monitor (try saying that mouthful of gobbledigook 3 times real fast), which was left out of the original publishing of the Robotech RPG. It was essentially a cannon ship, much as the SDF-1 design was a cannon ship as well. In fact, the SDF-1 is not unique as there were other SDF-vessels that were shown fighting during the collapse of the original Robotech civilization (visual cue from Khyron's Revenge).

uRRG File on the Monitor

A Cyclone's major advantage is it's mobility. It's small size, and AutoDodge, make it a PC favorite.

But I found it nearly as potent, even after halving the MDC values (100 & 75 respectively, and 50 of that came from the CVR-3 armor).

Realistically, the most powerful weapons in the game top out at 75 to 80 MD, so a cyclone can take a hit, and still get out of dodge. Heck, against Invid and Masters mecha, it can even survive better! The big damage makers in that setting do 6d6 and 1d4x10 damage, respectively... (excepting missile barrages)

Also, with giant mecha having x2.5 to x4 the MDC, players actually willingly choose to get into the (non-AutoDodging) powerhouses. Remember, in the show, Scott jumps at the chance to get into the Alpha, rather than his Cyclone (even though he's more efficient in a Cyclone... ;D ).

It just seems to fit better to me, since the Cyclone is supposed to be something of a "last ditch effort" in mecha, compared to the larger Mech's...

actually, the leap dodge is not an autododge.

it's just a dodge that requires you to leap.

i think we figured that out a while back.

given the performance in the show, it probably should get an autododge in a revised version, though i'd say with no bonuses to balance out the MDC of the suit.

Originally posted by glitterboy2098:

Really?
Check out Sentinels, pg 57.
Or Invid Invasion, pg 31.

The main problem everyone seems to have is the cyclone being munchy compared to everything else. The solution most groups I've played in used was two fold.

Number one: Damage bleed, most human and some masters mecha have an RPC. After the Main Body has been reduced to 50% or less allow some of the damage to bleed off to the RPC, this will give a 50 to 200 M.D.C. increase across the board to many types of mecha.

Number two is a little more complicated, but use system damage. I tend to assign a structural integrity rating to all mecha ranging from 20% to 50% of main body. After the mecha has take this damage it starts receiving systems damage which might give combat penalties. The cyclone of course doesn't have this rating and starts receiving penalties as soon as it is hit.

Finally I have all Masters, SC, and REF mecha as laser resistant, except the cyclone. This doesn't make much difference, but it does help some.

The main problem with the Cyclone is the M.D.C. itself. With 200 M.D.C. to the Main body, (150 with the light variant) and essentially an additional 50 M.D.C. from the CVR-3 body armor, you have a 7ft. tall powersuit, that has the same M.D.C. as a 42ft. VF-1 Valkyrie, nearly as much M.D.C. as 29ft. Alpha Fighter and more M.D.C. than a Logan, Bioroid, and all Zentraedi mecha. (various sizes but all much taller than a Cyclone) Unfortunately, the Cyclone never showed to have that kind of durability in the show. Remember this is Robotech and not Battletech were powersuits of this kind are common. The Cyclone was a survival mecha, and not a frontline unit that can take as much damage as its larger mech counter parts.

Inflating the other mecha to compensate this will make playing sessions much longer and increasng the weapon damage in addition to this is basically scaling everything up, which is no different than scaling everything down. Applying additional penalities to the Cyclone really doesn't change much IMHO, as it still doesn't address its high M.D.C. rating.

and again, fixing the bloody cyclones makes more sence than trying to go back and boosting ALL of the other mecha so that everthings ballanced.

And mecha powered by plotonium?

I really don't see so as adding M.D.C. as much as making better use of what is available. I get very upset at losing a mecha with 250-300 main body leaving me sitting in a nice, shiny, mostly undamaged 150-200 RPC.

As to nerfing the Cyclone, I tend to find 200/150 M.D.C. to be about right. Especially as the Pincer has a single attack that on a lucky hit can easily do 120 M.D.C. I know I could fudge the rolls to prevent this from occurring, but I find that rather distasteful as well.

Sounds good to me. But I am just trying to get the game in line with the show. They somehow always have missiles by the next episode. No matter how much damage there is, it always seems to be repaired by the next episode. And if it is not a named character they die really quickly...




As a GM I had taken out a character in his cyclone with one well placed hit. Natural 20, nearly max damage... failed to dodge, and failed to parry.

guys lets try to keep this Robotec related and not Voltronor some other system