Mecha Support?

[Culture20]

A friend of mine ran a mecha campaign by using human scale stats while in mecha, but assuming the mecha are immune to human scale attacks and completely obliterate buildings as if they were scale-appropriate (paper thin concrete and steel). Easy enough; just make no combat interaction between humans and mecha.

[weby]

When using Mecha it generally works well to use them as combatants and run the combat in D-scale using the normal rules instead of running them as maneuvering vehicles. It is fairly easy to convert between the I-scale and D-scale for smashing humans and such...

Since the convention of most mecha games is that mechas are better than conventional vehicles, allowing all personal combat maneuvers for the mechas but limiting other vehicles to a smaller set is one way to help that feeling along.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by David Johansen

IRRC Weapon Stats, Armor, and Hit Points are all based on different formuli and thus incompatible.

You can rederive HP from mass; you can work out the armor from the various armor design articles in various pyramids, and you can use existing ultra-tech weapons or design your own (provided they're beam weapons. Good luck with projectile weapons!).

Costs are also different, but you can find $/lb from GURPS Spaceships for things like drivetrains or power-plants too.

It's a hassle, of course, and a "GURPS Mecha for 4e" would be far easier, but if you want the high level of detail from Mecha now, it can be done.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by weby

When using Mecha it generally works well to use them as combatants and run the combat in D-scale using the normal rules instead of running them as maneuvering vehicles. It is fairly easy to convert between the I-scale and D-scale for smashing humans and such...

Since the convention of most mecha games is that mechas are better than conventional vehicles, allowing all personal combat maneuvers for the mechas but limiting other vehicles to a smaller set is one way to help that feeling along.

This is pretty much what I did for my Mecha Against the Giants. Humanoid mecha were treated as large, really strong, heavily armored, fairly fast characters that could take Steps or accelerate instantly by using a Move maneuver.

My game was using VOTOMS/Heavy Gear style mecha, which have wheeled skates built into the feet. When a mecha was using those, we treated it as a vehicle with acceleration and turning radiuses and all that. Doing that made the pilots drive up to battles and then shift to running around in actual combat, which was the feel I wanted.