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Systems & Settings => Spacemaster => Topic started by: DragonReborn on March 27, 2014, 07:25:49 AM

Title: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: DragonReborn on March 27, 2014, 07:25:49 AM
Hi,

Just wanted to drop a note on the wide range of applications for Spacemaster 2nd edition.

Three years back I wanted to start out with a Battletech / Mechwarrior campaign. We wanted to keep the rules as uninvasive as possible so we started with the older Mechwarrior 2nd Edition rules. Unfortunately they allow only Mechwarrior type PCs to appeal to the crowd and were otherwise totally uninspired. So we moved on to Mechwarrior 3rd edition. It took a while to migrate all the existing PCs and while we were already at it, I spotted "Ten million ways to die" in a local hobby shop. Rolemaster is king when it comes to creative ways to day and so I ventured out to include the critical system into the Mechwarrior 3rd edition rules.
That ... somehow... worked for a ... short ... while. But it never felt really consistent.

So, without further ado, we migrated again. I plowed through the Spacemaster GM book and identified the hooks and handles where the system could be used to implement Battletech Clan Truebred warriors = transhumans, and where skills needed to be added for battlemech and aerospace pilots. My brother in law helped with the Excel and BOOOM, came the day where our first campaign started in the year 3028!

Our group is now almost two years down the road and off exploring the Inner Sphere with guns blazing - based totally on Spacemaster 2nd edition.

Why I mention this? Because Spacemaster - even taken out of Imperium context - is an awesome system. 4 editions of Battletech RPGs haven't gone systemwise where I can take the guys with SM2.

If anybody out there has similar experiences with their favorite settings, I'd love to know what you went through for your conversion.
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: markc on March 27, 2014, 12:59:12 PM
BTW, is your real name Arnold?


I love the pic.
MDC
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: Wolfhound on March 27, 2014, 04:12:29 PM
Actually something that I've been considering for years now is to use Spacemaster, or even HARP-SF after it came out, with the Eve-Online setting.  This would allow for some very interesting options including exploring wrecks and abandoned space stations, or intrigue (beyond what already exists in Eve-Online, which is extremely cut-throat and dog-eat-dog to begin with).

I've got a word doc that I've been slowly building with ideas for it, but just haven't gotten it to the point where I'm ready to test the idea yet (since I'm so busy with other things).  But have several friends who are both Rolemaster/Spacemaster players as well as Eve Online players, so if I did it via an email based game it would probably work okay. 

The biggest issue I've been dealing with there is trying to figure out how best to deal with the integration of the skill systems between them.  Both systems are very mathematically and simulationist oriented and have a semi-hard sci-fi feel to them; but that is where the similarities end.  Eve Online uses a 0-5 skill level (and thus very grainy, but with 2nd, 3rd etc. "tier" skills that go beyond the base skill) that then results in small modifications to whatever you are trying to accomplish, and what those modifications are varies based on the ship and fittings for that ship that you are using.  Whereas Spacemaster that uses a d100 with a skill system that is very smooth with a very large range. 

P.S. I thought the picture was pretty funny also.
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: DragonReborn on March 28, 2014, 12:58:24 PM
Hey thanks,

Naaaaa, I'm not Aanold. But zee Austrian Oooak sure makes a good cover up  8)

Funny enough, I also started with a word document. I would post it here, but it's all in German and I don't know what good that would do. For me, getting Mechwarrior to Spacemaster was about a conversion of principles. If you forfeit those, the game would loose an important aspect.

For instance, Fasa published lots of so called "Life Paths" in it's source books. Players would go through early childhood, schools, etc. until they had accumulated enough skills to jump into the game.
I modified this to work with skill advancement by appointing a level up to each life path stage. Optional events included. This way, the players reached lvl 4 when they finally hit the stage.

Now concerning Eve-Online. It is probabely not possible to integrate a foreign skill system into Spacemaster. As you already mentioned: Spacemaster makes nice use of the very large D100 range.

So the skill itself is not enough to emphasize the results.

How about this: Martial Arts make use of the "Rank" mechanic in which you basically have four levels of the same skill with increasing "effectiveness". The rules provide an advancement that keeps you from leveling up the most effective rank 4 from ground up. Instead you are required to gain a certain proficiency with rank 1, then you can build rank 2 and so forth.

Why not determine the most important skills in Eve-Online, then find their Spacemaster/Rolemaster counterparts. If they don't exist, create them and determine linked stats.
Now declare ranks 1-6 for advancement and discuss with the group what effects should be possible at the individual stages. Levelling up is done following the normal rules. Done!
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: Wolfhound on March 28, 2014, 03:45:11 PM
Thanks for the suggestion.  Had not thought about taking a "rank" type of approach, but that might actually work, will have to think about that option.  Actually the levels in Eve-Online are called Ranks rather than levels if I remember correctly.  But the 0 (zero) that I was referring to was simply not having the skill, so it would only need 5 ranks rather than 6.  But as stated that is an interesting idea for integrating SM and Eve. 

It's been years since I've played Battletech and it was the early version where I don't recall there being much of a "character development" aspect to it (think they added that about the time I was no longer playing as I only participated in a few games shortly after it was released).  So I can't comment much on your explanation of how you integrated Spacemaster into it, but it does sound like an interesting way to handle it. 
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: markc on March 28, 2014, 04:39:43 PM
 I have not looked at the Eve Online stuff but I would bet they have a book on the game as well as character development, some of the books can be a great resource to convert over to RM any computer game.


 I have also liked the MW life path system and have thought about converting it over to SM:P & RMSS but other things have jumped in the way of it.
MDC
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: marcsilvester on April 26, 2014, 08:22:57 AM
Hi, I was reading about you using SM to run mechwarrior/battletech. This is something I have been planning to do for a while. Just a question though....have you converted any of the battlemechs to spacemaster/armoured assault ?
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: markc on April 28, 2014, 12:07:41 PM
marcsilvester,
 What were you talking about on "converted" any of the battlemechs tto SM/AA? I was thinking about just using them as is and using/converting the mods to AA or SS.
MDC
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: marcsilvester on April 29, 2014, 07:30:25 AM
I was actually asking if anyone had converted the battlemechs over to armoured assault but you answered that in your previous reply.

Many thanks
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: pyrotech on April 29, 2014, 12:57:08 PM
Battletech/Mechwarrior has always been a favorite of mine, but to be honest Rolemaster and Spacemaster have always been a bit too rules and chart heavy for me.  So I've been mostly fiddling around with the idea to find a conversion to Harp Sci-Fi.

I've never seen Armored Assault so I am intrigued by looking into how easy it would be to use for a Harp game.  Rolemaster/Spacemaster isn't typically to hard to convert to its HARP equivalent.

But taking a look at DrivethuNOW's Armored Assault pdf I am wondering if anyone else has bought it.  Is it's scan quality really as bad as the later pages of the sample show it?  Those appear to be practically unreadable in many cases.  The quick preview looks great, but the detailed preview is for all practical purposes unusable.

Thanks,

Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: markc on April 29, 2014, 02:27:27 PM
  I like AA as it basically takes the rules from BT and puts it in a RM format. Terrain mods, atmo ect are all in there the only difference is the V construction system which is SM2 and covers all types of V's. The book it a lot bigger than SS and IMHO worth the $ (but I have not checked the $ lately).
 I also like the various vehicle books that provide ready made stuff (as it gives me a good start on things to mod).


MDC
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: marcsilvester on April 29, 2014, 03:03:19 PM
Luckily I managed to get the SM2 boxed set, armoured assault boxed set AND star strike boxed set off ebay sometime in 2012 for around £30, which obviously I was extremely pleased about - so no badly scanned pdf files for me :p
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: markc on April 29, 2014, 07:18:58 PM
That is a good deal. I picked my copy up in a RM/SM lot of over 30 products of ebay in the late 90's.
MDC
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: marcsilvester on April 30, 2014, 06:06:03 AM
Yeah, sounds good to me. Just a case of looking around, as well as sometimes looking in the right place at the right time  ;D
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: pyrotech on May 01, 2014, 01:31:27 PM
Well despite the risks, after looking at the quick sample again (it looked very good) I went ahead an bought the pdf.

I can tell you the scan quality is no worse than I would have expected for any scanned book and is perfectly acceptable by my standards.

Now I just need to read it and see how easy it would be to port over to HARP Sci-Fi.

I'm also looking at building a 100 ton assault mech with the design rules and see how it compares to some Battletech stuff.  Following that I may try a 10 ton Light Mech and see how well it tracks across the size categories.

Is there a spreadsheet for AA vehicle construction in the vault?  I'll have to check.

Thanks,
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: markc on May 01, 2014, 01:42:31 PM
You may also want to up the mass to more than 100 tons or take a look at the AA pre-cons in the AA ship book Armored reserves.


The main problem I have found is that you can include so many weapons and such large weapons in AA on a Mech vs CBT. If you create some basic limits on weapon size vs vehicle size IMHO you can solve those problems.


Other than that I do like the ease of applying multi-mode transport systems to V's and Mech's in AA, but then I also have Aero Tec 1 so I have the rules for making Land-Air-Mech's also.
MDC
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: marcsilvester on May 01, 2014, 01:54:03 PM
The only real problem I could see was the whole tonnage = hits idea.  Somehow, a 20-ton Mech with 20 hits is not that appealing, even with all the armour belt's etc...

What do other people thing? I was looking at just times all tonnages by 10 to get the amount of hits for a Mech/vehicle.
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: pyrotech on May 01, 2014, 05:17:22 PM
I'm still trying to find effective conversion levels for things.

Movement is easy.  2/3 is 2MP, 3/5 is 4MP, 4/6 is 6MP, 5/7 is also 6MP, 6/9 is 8MP, 7/11 is 10MP, and 8/12 is also 10MP.

Battletech weapon ranges have always been bogus so I am not even going to worry about those.

I am assuming right now that standard BT armor is CAT24. Ferro-fiberous and the like would be modeled with advanced alloys.  Armor belts would just be 5 for practically unarmored, 10, for light armored, 15 for medium armored, 20 for well armored, and 25 for max armored mechs.

I'm currently working on weapon damages now though.  I've had a couple basic ideas for quick modeling.  Damage in BT x 2 = Mk # (min 6) is one of them.  The other is Damage in BT + 5 = Mk #.  Both of these would mean normal Mech damage would not exceed Mk. 25 or 40.  I've been looking at "average" hits to determine how survivable a Mech would be with these asumptions.  I haven't been able to hammer this out yet.

Next I think is the power plant stuff.

I'll let you know what I come up with and see if anyone else agrees.

Thanks,
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: markc on May 01, 2014, 07:10:00 PM
  For tonnage I think the conversion from Traveller's 100 tons= 1000 tons in SM2 is a good start. (But I really want you to confirm my observation.)
 This would also mean the min hits would go from 20 to 200, which IMHO is a huge improvement and more realistic.



 As for Mk#'s I just might throw the conversion out the window and make my own unique weapon table and just keep the CBT names and factory names. I would also keep all of the Talents and Flaws (I think they are positive and negative quirks) for the weapons to make them even more desirable.
 As for max MK# I do not have a problem limiting weapons to under Mk 25 or so as in the latest books they have included Navel Weapons and Sub Capital Weapons that I would place in the higher MK #'s in the 30 to 50 range.
 I think I would also either increase the weight of the weapon systems or simply increase the power requirements for weapon. But I am more inclined to increase the power requirements to represent the heat sinks and balance factor for the game.
 If you want to include heat sinks as a design element I think I would still increase the power requirements for the weapons and also include an heat sink design step in the construction rules.   


MDC
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: markc on May 02, 2014, 06:09:04 PM
Also IIRC, if you use the SM:P weapon tables instead of the SM2 weapon tables you can start with MK# 1 weapons and move on up to the higher MK#'s.
MDC
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: pyrotech on May 05, 2014, 05:38:15 PM
Well I completed my first design of a psudo-mech in AA.

My assumptions were:
1) tons = tons.  I still need to play with your idea of tweaking this.
2) it is fine to throw out the totally busted ranges of CBT
3) standard military hull material for CBT is CAT24
4) armor belts * 4 = % of maximum armor the CBT mech carries (so 20-100% max armor capacity in increments of 20)
5) 30 days of fuel
6) Weapon Mk# = CBT damage value
7) Arm weapons are Flexible mounts, torso weapons are fixed mounts
8 ) MIRC represents all the robot parts and controls outside of the walker drive and weapon mounts

Equipment            Rating   Volume   Cost
Mass                           100.0      
Volume                   01.0           300.0   
Hull                           55000.0   06.0           55000.0
CAT                      24.0            21.0           24.0
Armor Belt                   20.0                      400.0
DB                           20.0      
Hit Points                   120.0      
Walker Drive           02.0           62.0            11000.0
Movement Points    04.0      
Jumper Drive           00.0           00.0             00.0
Movement Points   00.0      
Projectile Cannons                   91.2             30510.0
Energy Cannons                      36.0             16500.0
Missile Launchers              00.0             00.0
HUD                                 00.0
Payload Pallets                      00.0             00.0
Microfrequency Rig    06.0           05.6             600.0
Tight Beam Rig            04.0           24.0         80000.0
Sensors                    02.0           12.0           4000.0
Electronic Warfare    02.0           06.0           6000.0
Screen Generator    00.0           00.0              00.0
Fusion Reactor            12.0           12.0        50012.0
Fuel Storage            03.0           00.4            150.0
Control Points            04.5      
Crew                            01.0      
Main Computer            34.0   0       3.4         34000.0
Control Area                     05.0           5000.0
MIRC System            YES          13.0         11000.0
Crew Quarter             NO          00.0              00.0
Life Support            YES          10.0            500.0
Recreational Facility    NO          00.0              00.0
Dispensary                    NO          00.0              00.0
Sick Bay                    NO          00.0              00.0
Security Station            NO          00.0              00.0
Streamlining            NO          00.0
Radiation Shielding    YES                           3000.0
Auxiliary Systems             12.5         11000.0
Remainder to cargo             00.9               04.5
Total                                   100.0        318676.5
Armament   Mark #   Mark Cat.   # Cannon   Mount Type   Mount Cat.   HUD   HUD Cost   Volume   Cost
MLA   15.0   02.0   01.0   Flexible   02.0      00.0   60.0   18500.0
AC   01.0   01.0   01.0   Flexible   02.0      00.0   02.0   11000.0
Blaster   09.0   01.0   01.0   Flexible   02.0      00.0   36.0   16500.0

Magazine #1   16.0                     24.0   830.0
Magazine #2   26.0                     05.2   180.0

Unfortunately I've run out of time to format this pretty.  So that will have to wait till later.

I still need to work more on heat sinks, and missiles.  Then I am going to try my hand at a 10 tonner and see how my assumptions hold on the small side.

Let me know what you think.  Oh and credit to Maurice, I used his spreadsheet to put this together (although I have been fixing some minor bugs in it as I go).
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: pyrotech on May 06, 2014, 02:51:53 PM
Well I've tried the 10 ton mech.

Nothing to post because without bending and/or breaking several rules in AA, you can't build a Walker with MIRC and 1 crewmember with a mass of less than around 35 or so tons.  The walker drive alone requires at least a 20 ton vehicle. 

Faced with either patching multiple aspects of the system, or just trying the CBT tons * 10 = AA tons - the later is looking like a better solution all the time.

I am a little concerned that you may be able to fit too much on a 1000 Tons(AA) mech however.  So that is my next experiment.
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: pyrotech on May 06, 2014, 05:41:26 PM
Well I've tried the 1000 tons to represent 100 CBT tons idea out myself.  It may work.  It means an assault mech has *lots* of hits.  Around 1200 in my test.  If I use my CBT damage + 5 = mk# assumption for weapons it will take around 100 gauss rifle hits to drop one without crits.  That seems high to me.  I can also fit a *lot* of weapons using these assumptions. 

So I'm wondering if I should keep with this x10 rule and change my weapon mk guide, or if I should try the other way around. 

I've been playing around with missiles as well.  They are proving just as problematic as I expected.  For starters there is the AA rules that allow each launcher to dump out a bunch of missles per round.  I guess that makes sense in that AA rounds are 6 times longer than CBT rounds.  I'm currently playing around with the idea that a LRM5 is 1 AA launcher, while a LRM 20 is 4.  This doesn't allow the mech to put as many missiles downrange per minute as CBT however.  The biggest problem with missiles is that in AA bigger missiles go further and hit harder, while in CBT short range missiles hit harder.  I'm thinking of possibly making a special rule for that "SRMs have 1/2 normal range but count as twice the number of missiles for salvo calculations".  I'm not sure if that will help or not, but am thinking that these phantom missiles in the salvo calculation would not count for the maximum number of missiles per salvo on the target size.  So normally a small target can only have 9 missiles per salvo, but with SRMs it would be 9 actual missiles but calculated as 18 (which would allow much nastier hits).

Thunderbolt missile launchers are another problem too.

My next few experiments will be with missiles and trying different mass multiplication factors.  I'm thinking AA mass = CBT mass * 5 might be a bit closer to the survivability and weapon capacity of CBT.  If this doesn't work then I may have to rethink the weapon mk# thing again.

Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: markc on May 06, 2014, 07:57:49 PM
Note from tablet so.not as easy for.me to type as on a PC.

 In Armored Reserves they have an advanced MIRC that basically divides all/most of the mass of parts by 10.
 I also agree that max weapon payload might be a good add to the system/conversion. But even then you have to be carefule IMHO with just what you allow on the MIRC Frame
MDC
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: pyrotech on May 08, 2014, 05:36:58 PM
Well my latest experiment was to try to convert an actual mech to AA.

Changes to my previous assumptions are:

AA tons = CBT tons x 5 (not 10 as I last tried)

Weapon Mk # = CBT damage +6 (not 5 as I last tried, except for machine guns which I kept at mk 6)


Additional assumptions I made were:

Mech frequently for scouting (such as this Pheonix Hawk) would have slightly better sensors and ECM capabilites, but not drastically better.  So I used rating 3 for these instead of 2 as I have previously.

My results look pretty good for the most part:
(sorry the formatting is still a mess - I need to find a better way to format these)
(click to show/hide)

I still need to look at how survivable a mech really is in AA under fire to insure I'm not overgunning or undergunning them.

Still working on missiles and heat sinks.  I've starting looking at ways to model the more advanced tech as well.  XL engines, endo-steel, and ferro-fiberous armor, and Streak Missile systems should be pretty easy.  But ER lasers, pulse lasers, and double heat sinks may need more tweaking.

Any opinions on how this came out?
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: markc on May 08, 2014, 06:19:00 PM
 I think it looks good.


The reason I thought of x10 was to include the heat-sinks and all of the other stuff. I was going to increase the mass/size of weapons above MG stage, at least that was as far as I got.


I also thought that when a mech warrior took damage from heat I was going to have that damage be 20+6d210 or maybe even 10d10 damage. This was do to the fact that in SM2 or SM:P the PC's had more hits and an average Joe in my game had around 50.


MDC
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: DragonReborn on May 09, 2014, 06:39:35 AM
Wow, it's great to see so many people still interested in the Battletech game. Regarding our approach. We do actually like the original BT rules and have looked only for a suitable RPG system to support a campaign. The vehicles constructed inside the BT universe are also pretty rules heavy, especially with regards to the Battle Value system attached to it (since it is only relevant for tournament play, it can be ignored).

Making SM2 fit for Battletech however required a few more skills to be introduced to the character sheets. We added:
- Gunnery Projectile
- Gunnery Energy
- Gunnery Missile
- Piloting Battlemech
- Piloting Conventional (Hovercraft / Tanks)
- Piloting Aerospace

in order to support the complete line up of the Battletech life paths in various source books. The linked stats were the same provided for other gunnery/piloting skill checks and distributed alike for the various professions in our character Excel sheet.

Depending on the amount of skill ranks, the sheet would give you then a BT Gunnery and Piloting value.

We have one character who was a fighter pilot from the start without telling the group. Since he was a really bad Battlemech pilot, he surprised everybody when they could make their escape from an airfield in a stolen shuttle thanks to him ;-).

The Mark system is also present in SM2 and I use it quite a lot when generating weaponry for the group. For example, until recently the guys have had only Mark I projectile weapons that they picked up at various spots. Energy weapons were by definition a lot stronger having at least Mark III. That led to quite some complaining by the types who could only fire with bullets. Lucky for them, they hit jackpot in a derelict research station where they found two prototypes: an assault rifle and a portable machine gun that fires electricity enriched uranium rounds. Talking about a Mark IV projectile gun that requires uranium rounds as well as energy packs and delivers a Puncture and an Electricity Crit on a successfull hit.

I stretched the BT universe a bit when I had hordes of animated lvl2 husks (Resident Evil anybody?) attack them on their way out.

Boy that was a slaughter....


Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: DragonReborn on May 09, 2014, 07:17:05 AM
I translated the two guns just for fun  ;D

See attachment...
Title: Re: Battletech / Mechwarrior with SM2
Post by: pyrotech on May 09, 2014, 10:08:04 AM
By far the most successful campaign I've ever ran in 28 years of GM'ing was a 2 year long Mechwarrior 3rd edition game.  Set just before the FedCom civil war the PCs were Star League intelligence agents working with/for ROM.  Those PCs got mauled by everything from genetically recreated dinosaurs on a failed Star League era tourist-trap planet to Clan Jade Falcon agents and warriors.  But Capellons and Blakists were by far their favorite targets.

The strongest features of that campaign was that 1) the universe is incredibly detailed with background but very open for PCs to make a major impact without changing the course of the whole timeline; 2) the lifepath system worked hand in hand with the detailed background to create a very organic and believable character with a relatively complete history; 3) the damage system tended to maim long before it would kill, allowing PCs to survive high tech weapon fire with prompt medical care.  Unfortunately the system also had some extremely deep flaws as well.

I would love a chance to run my players through the Blakist Jihad with a better set of mechanics.  As I've said before, my preference would be HARP Sci-fi, but it is much easier to convert Spacemaster to HARP than it is to convert Mechwarrior to either Spacemaster or HARP.

My current idea is to start with around 3rd level PCs in HARP (maybe around 5th level for spacemaster, but my experience here is poor).  Using the BT/MW lifepaths I would populate the cultural skills, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd level training packages, then let the players spend their remaining points to flesh out the characters.  I'm not sure yet about event rolls as they can ruin a character before you can even play it without edge points.  Perhaps I will allow a few extra Fate Points at character generation to mimic how edge was used in the lifepath system.

My other goal with these conversion exercises is to start finding a good system to build HARP Sci-Fi vehicles with.  Without a vehicle construction guide yet, it can be a bit challenging to build a new vehicle and have it balance with the existing ones from the book.  I still haven't gotten a copy of SS, but I do have the Spacemaster vehicle law book and now AA to compare against.  I have been able to find decent sets of guidelines to make starships for HARP from Gurps Vehicles, but that system is a bit too detailed for my tastes and the 4e Starships rules are too coarse to allow me to tweak it in.

Regards,