[NetEpic ML] Helping Titans Survive the Modern World.....

From: Kelvin <kx.henderson_at_...>
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1999 09:48:33 +1100

At 10:16 PM 12/9/99 -0800, you wrote:
>Kelvin, I like your Armor System, even better than the one in Incoming.
>It would address the armor thickness problem, little titans having less
>vs. big titans having more, without giving up the titan templates.

Thanks.

>A couple of things I don't like about it. It would make all titans even
>tougher than they are now, and I'm pretty happy with thier current
>strenghs and weaknesses. The other problem, as I see it, is that all
>the titans would have to be adjusted and ballanced against each other.
>That would take a lot of work, and playtesting.

O.K. With the overhaul of the current edition of the NetEpic rules, we are
talking about introducing saves for infantry, making them somwhat tougher.
If this is going to be the case, then I think Titans need an increase to
their toughness. I agree that they should not be too tough but currently,
once a titan's shields go down, they are vulnerable to all weapons, even
infantry ones. That's a bit too much for me. Titans are supposed to be
lord of the battlefield. They need the support of other forces, sure but
in the end, they should be kings. We need rules to represent this.

Everyone, don't get me wrong. I think Titans need to be vulnerable and
should be made so that people need to use a bit of tactical thinking to use
them. But in their current form I think they are too vulnerable. I only
seek to make them a bit more survivable.

With the changes I proposed, we can protect the more vulnerable areas of
the Titans (heads, reactors, shield generators, etc) while leaving the rest
of the locations as vulnerable as they used to be. Anti-armour and
anti-Titan weapons can simply do more than one point of damage to the
Armour rating of the location while lighter weapons will on do one point.
This way, the enemy is forced to either concentrate lighter firepower on
the Titan or use the anti-armour or anti-Titan weapons in their arsenal to
take care of it (which is as it should be). Currently, you use
Devastator-style troops to take out the shields and then just unload any
other firepower you have into it. Once unshielded it doesn't take too much
to knock a Titan out. With the increased damage capacity, there is less
guarentee of knocking the Titan down with anything but the most powerful of
weapons (like a Volcano cannon or Quake Cannon).

Yes, points values will probably need to be increased for the Titans, but
by limiting the areas significantly protected by the armour ratings I don't
think they will need to be increased by much at all. On a Warlord for
example, I think the Head and Reactor locations would need 3 points each,
the Legs and Carapace locations 2 (to represent the extra toughness of
those areas) and everywhere else either 1 or 0. All actual Saves for those
areas stay the same (i.e., 1+ for the Head, 2+ for the Reactor, etc). Now
it is harder (but not impossible) to take out a Warlord. It is still
vulnerable to weapons that ignore shields (and I would make them ignore
Armour Ratings as well) such as Warp Missiles, Deth Rays, Tremor Cannons
and Vortex Missiles but infantry and lighter vehicle weapons will have a
harder (and usually longer) time taking the thing down. Gargants would
have very little (at most 2 in the Boiler's front with 1 on the Head, other
Boiler locations and weapons and 0 everywhere else) and the Eldar could
have a similar spread to a Warlord or Reaver. The Imperator and Mega
gargant could have them too, but we'd need to be careful with the Imperator
as it is already pretty darned tough!

>I really do like your idea though.

Thanks. It needs some scrutiny, but I think we could make it work very well.


-Kelvin....

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         "Of course I'm paranoid!
       Everyone's trying to kill me."
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Received on Mon Dec 13 1999 - 22:48:33 UTC