|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I made 4 mechs for my starfinder group to play with this weekend. Going through the process of making these mechs I had a few thoughts, some of which I've seen here already.
I made my 4 mechs to be different from each other and to be single pilot mechs (I can give stats later when I have my sheet with them on). I did intend on a 2 seater but I got burned out designing 4 in a row.
1. Mech Points and distribution
My players are level 8. That gives them 120 MP each. For these purposes I wanted each to have their own mech, so that leaves each with a Tier 6 mech. Mechs supposedly give the user a 3 level boost for CR and fights (according to the rules, although that does mention for mechs with a tier equal to the players level), which means their fighting ability is not that much better than without their mechs (supposedly). I understand that I can merge the points for a bigger multi seat mech, but that wasn't my purpose here.
I ended up building each mech as a tier 8 mech. Without massive in depth analysis, my personal feeling here is to just allow players to build a mech with a tier equal to their level and give each MP as per a mech of that level. If they wish to be able to use multiple people in one mech, give them 1/4 - 1/2 of the individual mech points to account for this.
2. HP progression
There has been mention of it elsewhere here, but just adding for completion. There are two parts. First, calculating HP was a bit complicated. Increasing the amount of HP you get for each level geometrically means it is a drawn out process to work out the HP when creating a mech at higher levels. There is no simple Y x tier. Its not hard (I used a spreadsheet to do it quickly) but it is annoying.
Second, HP Advancement/Hit Point Progression. Two terms for the same thing. One from frames the other from limbs. Rename both to one or the other.
3. Flight vs Recon frames
As others have mentioned, recon is pretty much straight up better. Aux slots (to me at least) appear much more useful than frame slots.
4. Limbs
Lower limbs are good. I had no real issues with them. Upper limbs were not too bad. A couple of points linked to points below, mostly costs of some weapons and being able to get extra upper limbs through an aux slot.
5. Power Cores
Until I see play with these, the numbers and differences are a bit esoteric. However I did notice that the special power cores didn't really enthuse me. The aeon core was the most interesting, but the others were meh. But others may like them I suppose.
6. Weapons
First main issue I had. I was making mechs with different limbs and I wanted my flight one to be gundam like with a sword and shield. I was going with powerful arms to get the strength boost for the melee, until I realised that for whatever reason the only shield required 2 slots. That meant I had to go with the only upper limb with 3 slots.
Next up, again something that has been mentioned, there is no generic melee attack for mechs. For some of mine I added a hammerfist just in case. However it would seem more elegant to allow mechs to have a generic slam attack. This also leads to most melee weapons having low damage. I feel this is because they add strength to damage where guns do not. Again without in depth analysis I can't comment specifically, but it seems like this was mostly because of special options each has.
Thirdly, I do like the idea of varying weapon costs based on the level of their weapon which is independent of that of the mech. No weapon used extreme damage, although I imagine this is just because this is the playtest.
In general the weapons seemed reasonably interesting and a mixed selection of abilities, although since I was planning on a single enemy encounter I focused more on those types of weapon.
7. Aux slots
Interesting and I can see their utility in the future. I'm seeing them as part expansion bay, part extra systems from starships. For those who would want 4 arms etc, I can see this being a good spot to add that option in. However, it seems that not all the frames have unique options, either due to this being the playtest or because nothing came to mind. This does mean that certain frames become more enticing with these slots.
So in general, I enjoy the mech building rules but there are a few spots that seem unnecessarily complicated. I will return with feedback after my players have had their fight.