At the core of Mechasys is its Mecha Creation System. It’s the reason I created Mechasys; I wanted a way to build awesome mecha in Genesys for campaigns of any theme. It took over a year to get the system to the point where it could be playtested, and went through further revisions after that. We’re (hopefully) only a couple weeks away from releasing Mechasys to the community. As a preview, I wanted to walk you through a rudimentary example of how that mecha creation system works.
Building the Avatos
I’m going to share a basic walkthrough of the construction of Mechasys’s iconic mecha, the Avatos. The framework for what we can build starts with Session Zero. During Session Zero the player group determines construction requirements and limits for any mecha the players build. Let’s assume the following construction requirements were set:
All mecha are Silhouette 3
Consumables Rating is six hours
May choose any Chassis
No Characteristics may be higher than 4
Frame Build Point (BPs) pool is determined
R&D Build Point pool is determined
Phase One - Build the Frame
Based on these requirements, the Avatos is going to be a Silhouette 3 mecha with a six-hour Consumables rating (meaning it can operate for six hours before it needs maintenance). We have a set amount of BPs to spend on the Frame, and another pool of BPs to spend on equipment and upgrades. For the sake of this blog post, we’re skipping the exact BP number crunching details.
The Avatos is going to be a mixed-range mecha; able to engage targets at close range and at a distance. Looking through our choices, we elect to go with the Striker chassis with its good Brawn, Agility, and Willpower.
Since we want to engage in both melee and ranged combat, let’s buy up the Avatos’s Brawn to 3. This helps out the Avatos’s Hull Trauma Threshold and Hard Points as well. We decide we also want the Avatos to “look cool”, so we buy up the mecha’s Presence 3. Presence for a mecha not only covers how cool it looks, but also the amount of work that went into the mecha’s design. As we’ll see later several upgrades have values that are based on a mecha’s Presence.
That uses up all of our Frame BPs, so we move on to equipping our mecha.
Phase Two - Equipment
We now move on to the R&D (Research & Development) Phase of mecha construction. First we need to decide what the Avatos’s mecha’s locations are. Mecha locations include arms, legs, heads, and wings. We want a humanoid mecha, so we decide that including the torso (which all mecha have) the Avatos has a head, two arms, and two legs. Locations are important because they determine where weapons and equipment are mounted. If any locations are destroyed during play, and equipment in those locations are lost.
We’ll mount the mecha’s cockpit in the torso, so a lucky Critical Hit to the head doesn’t take out the Avatos. With two arms and two legs, the Avatos can make brawl attacks. The Avatos can use hand-held weapons because the arms have hand servos. Having two legs gives the Avatos the “walking” movement system for free.
If we want the Avatos to be able to fly, we can purchase a Flight system and mount it in the torso. We can increase the Avatos’s speed at this stage as well. This is also the step where we can set how many pilots the Avatos needs, and if it can carry any extra cargo or passengers.
Phase Three - Weapons
Now it’s time to arm our mecha. There are forty different weapons to choose from. They range from rotary cannons and bazookas to sniper beam cannons and volley missile launchers. They also include heavy beam sabers, siege axes, shields, and rocket punch attacks. Looking over our BPs and the available weapons, the Avatos ends up with a hand-held beam cannon, two hand-held beam swords, a defensive vulcan gun in the head, and an arm mounted shield.
Phase Four - Upgrades
Upgrades are “mecha talents.” There are 35 upgrades to choose from. If we want to give the Avatos some defensive capability, we can purchase the Anti-Missile upgrade, which negates one hit from an explosive weapon (for a cost). We can toughen up the Avatos by purchasing Armor Plating for +1 Armor, and a couple ranks of Reinforced Structure to boost the Hull Trauma Threshold. Finally, let’s pick up the Beam Coating upgrade, which allows the Avatos to spend strain to reduce incoming energy damage by an amount equal to the mecha’s Presence.
The ADM-01X Avatos
And that’s it! Here’s how the Avatos looks when we’re done. The walkthrough here was fairly abstract and skipped much of the crunchy details, but I hope you got a good sense of how mecha are built in Mechasys.
The Avatos also graces Mechasys’s cover, beautifully drawn by artist Ardian Hidayat. As I promised last week, here’s a preview of the Avatos as it appears on the cover.
This is only a part of the larger artwork from our cover, and the Avatos is only one of the two mecha depicted. Want to see the rest of this image, and in glorious full color? You only have to wait a little bit longer. Mechasys is coming soon!