General Discussion and Suggestions

[Fzzr]

Blasting is really handy for a Super that takes levels in Real. I built a Super 10/Real 1 in a Barrelion as a test. The result used that upgrade to make its Main Weapon x3 Big Head Railgun (with Area granted by Versatile) use STR.

[oslecamo]

How does Enduring Code and Pilot Repair interact with Super Nanoarmors?

Eeerr, they work normally? Enduring Code would mean that when your super nanoarmor reaches 0/negative HP you can either remain motionless while it quickly repair or take it off for acting and then putting back on when you're done for it to quickly repair itself. Pilot Repair, well, grants regeneration to the pilot, and if you're killed while outside, putting it on would patch you up. You may want to combine it with sentient in that case since it's kinda harder for other people to make you don your super nanoarmor than is placing them inside the super's cockpit.

Oh, so Enduring Code allows your Regen from Nanomachines to keep running when at or below 0 hp? That's kinda nice.
But I wouldn't be allowed to move until above 0 hp? Not even Spirits can be used? I could see how that'd be tricky to use then...but in the case of specifically Nanoarmors, that's a really nice option compared to the usual having to wait 2d12 hours when it gets destroyed.

You can't use spirits while inside the negative HP robot, but somebody else can throw a repair your way.

Plus hey, if it's the acessories that are imba, then why is the poor Real Pilot so less popular than the Super Pilot?

Maybe in your campaign, but in the one I'm doing, we've got two 'reals' (one moon vanguard with mostly real levels and one engineer), a super, and a ship captain, with not a session going by without someone commenting how absurdly powerful reals are (I've already posted the numbers on how reals at top level are more durable and more damaging than supers and been dismissed, so I won't do so again).

Pointing out that your full party has exactly zero Real Pilot levels is only supporting my argument. Moon Vanguard isn't Real Pilot, part of another project of mine and you aren't even bothering to use full Real Robot rules for them, while you have an actual pure Super Pilot, a Ship captain, and some other class done by somebody else with completely different mechanics than the actual Real Pilot I wrote. The Real Pilot is so unpopular that you'll rather go fetch classes from other places than use a single level of them. It literally doesn't get more unpopular than that. Even the Real Robot rules are so unpopular that you can't bother to make a full character progression out of them while a full Super Robot is around.

Hopefully an oversight: As written, Pilot Repair works on meatbags but not Androids!

Intended since Androids have One With the Machine.

To be fair, in most cases where Die Hard triggers, it's not your turn and you're gonna with you didn't have Die Hard

Not the exact point. It's giving you a Die Hard upgrade that lets you do even less than Die Hard. I don't count the increased lower HP bound as particularly significant with the amount of damage weapons get in here.

How exactly is it worst than die hard?

Die Hard gives you virtually +9 HP to work with.

Let's say you're a super Robot with Nanomachinesx2, Enduring Code and 50 HP.  You're dropped to -9 HP, the limit you could act with Die Hard. Your mecha regens 10 HP at the start of your turn and you can fight just like Die Hard, except you're not super close to dead.

Now let's say something with 100 HP. If you're dropped to -19 HP, Die Hard does nothing for you and you're still dead. But if you're dropped to -19 HP with enduring code, you recover 20 HP to get at 1 positive and can keep on fighting.

Thanks to the regeneration from nanomachines, Enduring Code allows you to act right away after being dropped to negatives, as long as you weren't dropped too down.

You have to take every level of agility to be able to put this to any use. Stop and think about that for a second. You're intending this to be strong and slow... and to use it at all you have to take every single speed-boosting level you can, which gives you dodge bonuses to AC to boot. And then you're still slower than everyone else and, if anybody can stay away, completely unable to project any sort of threat because you're so slow and bereft of range options.

Plenty of ways for a super to get ranged attacks, and there are other ways of moving around other than your movement speed. For starters, your ever-present army of heal bots and battleships that you claim make nanomachines irrelevant could cart you around.

Serious question: why haven't you genericised both super and real robots so they have the same underlying chassis but a different allotment of arsenal stuff, and a selection of premade robots? It seems like it would be far easier to balance to just have mecha as one homogenous system than this bizarre split that just causes difficulty.

This is how I started this project. This is how I will end this project. It's part of the vision that originally inspired me to start writing this. It's part of what makes me keep updating it.

All this about the Arsenal has reminded me one thing, though.

Supers have an upgrade to make ranged weapons use STR. They have no native ranged ability that isn't tied into a maneuver. Bit odd.

Multiclass support. And/or tank transform.

Actually, I'd be of the opinion that since the hardpoint gain is out perhaps it is no longer needed to prevent arsenal increases if you take mysterious power/nanomachines. There is already plenty of upgrades that are interesting enough. Except perhaps with much less arsenal per upgrade pick and a change in the limit per pilot level to make it more linear. After all, whether level 4 or level 20 the amount of arsenal is somewhat just as valuable throughout the entire progression since the arsenal points remain limited by the arsenal options available to a given level.

An interesting idea, but to be discussed later.

[Raineh Daze]

Plus hey, if it's the acessories that are imba, then why is the poor Real Pilot so less popular than the Super Pilot?

Maybe in your campaign, but in the one I'm doing, we've got two 'reals' (one moon vanguard with mostly real levels and one engineer), a super, and a ship captain, with not a session going by without someone commenting how absurdly powerful reals are (I've already posted the numbers on how reals at top level are more durable and more damaging than supers and been dismissed, so I won't do so again).

Pointing out that your full party has exactly zero Real Pilot levels is only supporting my argument. Moon Vanguard isn't Real Pilot, part of another project of mine and you aren't even bothering to use full Real Robot rules for them, while you have an actual pure Super Pilot, a Ship captain, and some other class done by somebody else with completely different mechanics than the actual Real Pilot I wrote. The Real Pilot is so unpopular that you'll rather go fetch classes from other places than use a single level of them. It literally doesn't get more unpopular than that. Even the Real Robot rules are so unpopular that you can't bother to make a full character progression out of them while a full Super Robot is around.

Oh, quit that bullshit. "It's unpopular so it must be weaker" is absolutely ridiculous, or are we suddenly claiming that druids are the most popular thing ever in a vacuum? One: arcane casting has been tied to Super Robots, as has already been said. Two: I'm just going to throw this out, but maybe people just like super robots enough to pick them without undergoing an exhaustive examination of which class is superior? Three: you've changed supers so much in the past six months that pick rates are a completely useless way of evaluating balance--you certainly can't use anything from PS there, since we made these characters four years ago. >_>

To be fair, in most cases where Die Hard triggers, it's not your turn and you're gonna with you didn't have Die Hard

Not the exact point. It's giving you a Die Hard upgrade that lets you do even less than Die Hard. I don't count the increased lower HP bound as particularly significant with the amount of damage weapons get in here.

How exactly is it worst than die hard?

Die Hard gives you virtually +9 HP to work with.

Let's say you're a super Robot with Nanomachinesx2, Enduring Code and 50 HP.  You're dropped to -9 HP, the limit you could act with Die Hard. Your mecha regens 10 HP at the start of your turn and you can fight just like Die Hard, except you're not super close to dead.

Now let's say something with 100 HP. If you're dropped to -19 HP, Die Hard does nothing for you and you're still dead. But if you're dropped to -19 HP with enduring code, you recover 20 HP to get at 1 positive and can keep on fighting.

Thanks to the regeneration from nanomachines, Enduring Code allows you to act right away after being dropped to negatives, as long as you weren't dropped too down.

When you seem to regularly have normal attacks that have levels of damage normally associated with high level spellcasters sitting in the arsenal, quibbling over the exact level of HP it's good for is a bit moot. It's giving you a grace window where you can heal out of it, then an extra 70% of HP where you don't even have the game's original "take one standard action" idea.

You have to take every level of agility to be able to put this to any use. Stop and think about that for a second. You're intending this to be strong and slow... and to use it at all you have to take every single speed-boosting level you can, which gives you dodge bonuses to AC to boot. And then you're still slower than everyone else and, if anybody can stay away, completely unable to project any sort of threat because you're so slow and bereft of range options.

Plenty of ways for a super to get ranged attacks, and there are other ways of moving around other than your movement speed. For starters, your ever-present army of heal bots and battleships that you claim make nanomachines irrelevant could cart you around.

Ah yes, one battleship and the existence of healing items are now an army. Either way, that's not going to help with moving < 30MU up until the point where everyone has a standard speed of 60MU or above. It's not about out of battle movement, it's about combining an essentially melee class with a movement speed that makes it far too easy to be ignored in an encounter entirely. And having to take agility at every opportunity right after taking its thematic opposite.

Serious question: why haven't you genericised both super and real robots so they have the same underlying chassis but a different allotment of arsenal stuff, and a selection of premade robots? It seems like it would be far easier to balance to just have mecha as one homogenous system than this bizarre split that just causes difficulty.

This is how I started this project. This is how I will end this project. It's part of the vision that originally inspired me to start writing this. It's part of what makes me keep updating it.

???

All this about the Arsenal has reminded me one thing, though.

Supers have an upgrade to make ranged weapons use STR. They have no native ranged ability that isn't tied into a maneuver. Bit odd.

Multiclass support. And/or tank transform.

Things unique to supers: nanomachines. Things unique to reals: ranged weapons, usable stealth, multiple types of defences, and (shared with ship captains) healing/refuelling other people. Wonderful.

[YuweaCurtis]

I'm playing a Real Pilot on gitp for what its worth.

[CKirk]

Even the Real Robot rules are so unpopular that you can't bother to make a full character progression out of them while a full Super Robot is around.

...I'm sorry, what? Real robot rules are Just Better than super robot rules. I've shown the values before. Let me go find them.

The Alteisen Riese seems to be overpowered in comparison to other options. It has more HP than is possible on a super robot (the designated tanks) at 400 as compared to the max HP on a super robot being 315 (without Great Plating, which brings it up to 390). It has more natural armor than a super can have at 22 as compared to the 12 a super can have (without Great Plating, which brings it up to 18). It has more DR than a super can have at 40 as compared to 35 (without Great Plating, which does bring it up to 48, if it’s colossal). It has the same EN as a super without batteries, but supers tend to be more energy intensive than reals anyway. It has a +7 bonus to saves, while a super can only have at most +6. It has 125Mu movement speed, while a super's top speed is 85Mu (without Great Agility, which does bring it up to 140, if it's colossal). It has five hardpoints, more than any other unit in the conversion save the Ashsaber. Its weapons, likewise, are incredibly powerful. its Revolving Bunker would take 9 super robot upgrades to recreate (roughly), and that's not including its to hit bonus. While this is partially balanced out by its low ammo count, it's still incredibly strong. The Claymore Avalanche is also a very powerful weapon. It's stronger than anything a super robot can have save a fully Mighty'd twinned heavy weapon, and even that will consume much more resources than the Claymores.

Here we are. You said at the time that the reason for this was because you're a fan of Excellen and Kyosuke (pointing to your profile pic). That doesn't change the fact that Real is in fact stronger than super, with the only saving grace for super not even being super, namely that Arcane Pilot is built as a super derived class.

[Fzzr]

I don't use a Real because Real seems boring to me, not because Super is better. Of course, my favorite mecha shows are TTGL, Gunbuster, Diebuster, Godannar, and Nanoha so it's a matter of taste, really.

[Anomander]

Question: If a support staff medic or scientist starts a lengthy process (Pilot Patch, Direct Link, Operation, Prototype Weaponry and similar), what happens if the process is interrupted? Such as the support staff or the thing being worked on having to go elsewhere or maybe missing concentration checks to stay focused on the task because of, say, a bloody battle going on over the roof of the building that keeps sending debris and tremors all around the workshop.

[SorO_Lost]

The Real Pilot is so unpopular that you'll rather go fetch classes from other places than use a single level of them.

Duh.

I'm the kind of guy that likes an arcane gish so it's not surprising what I'm going to trend towards. But your submissions offer very little in support of that. So for example Baha not being a Arcane Pilot 1 / Real Pilot 13 with a "Real Arcanist" Feat is your fault for not providing it as a viable option worth considering. And complaining that's not "Real Pilot" enough because it has spells kind of misses the point. And like, your love gestated games and already included support for gestated characters in your already existing multiclass Feats too.

[oslecamo]

Plus hey, if it's the acessories that are imba, then why is the poor Real Pilot so less popular than the Super Pilot?

Maybe in your campaign, but in the one I'm doing, we've got two 'reals' (one moon vanguard with mostly real levels and one engineer), a super, and a ship captain, with not a session going by without someone commenting how absurdly powerful reals are (I've already posted the numbers on how reals at top level are more durable and more damaging than supers and been dismissed, so I won't do so again).

Pointing out that your full party has exactly zero Real Pilot levels is only supporting my argument. Moon Vanguard isn't Real Pilot, part of another project of mine and you aren't even bothering to use full Real Robot rules for them, while you have an actual pure Super Pilot, a Ship captain, and some other class done by somebody else with completely different mechanics than the actual Real Pilot I wrote. The Real Pilot is so unpopular that you'll rather go fetch classes from other places than use a single level of them. It literally doesn't get more unpopular than that. Even the Real Robot rules are so unpopular that you can't bother to make a full character progression out of them while a full Super Robot is around.

Oh, quit that bullshit. "It's unpopular so it must be weaker" is absolutely ridiculous, or are we suddenly claiming that druids are the most popular thing ever in a vacuum? One: arcane casting has been tied to Super Robots, as has already been said. Two: I'm just going to throw this out, but maybe people just like super robots enough to pick them without undergoing an exhaustive examination of which class is superior? Three: you've changed supers so much in the past six months that pick rates are a completely useless way of evaluating balance--you certainly can't use anything from PS there, since we made these characters four years ago. >_>

There's something contradictory in there. Druids are divine casters, yet the Divine Pilot seems to be even more unpopular than the Real Pilot, as in people here don't even seem to pretend they exist. Considering all the self buffs in the cleric list, it honestly surprises me.

To be fair, in most cases where Die Hard triggers, it's not your turn and you're gonna with you didn't have Die Hard

Not the exact point. It's giving you a Die Hard upgrade that lets you do even less than Die Hard. I don't count the increased lower HP bound as particularly significant with the amount of damage weapons get in here.

How exactly is it worst than die hard?

Die Hard gives you virtually +9 HP to work with.

Let's say you're a super Robot with Nanomachinesx2, Enduring Code and 50 HP.  You're dropped to -9 HP, the limit you could act with Die Hard. Your mecha regens 10 HP at the start of your turn and you can fight just like Die Hard, except you're not super close to dead.

Now let's say something with 100 HP. If you're dropped to -19 HP, Die Hard does nothing for you and you're still dead. But if you're dropped to -19 HP with enduring code, you recover 20 HP to get at 1 positive and can keep on fighting.

Thanks to the regeneration from nanomachines, Enduring Code allows you to act right away after being dropped to negatives, as long as you weren't dropped too down.

When you seem to regularly have normal attacks that have levels of damage normally associated with high level spellcasters sitting in the arsenal, quibbling over the exact level of HP it's good for is a bit moot. It's giving you a grace window where you can heal out of it, then an extra 70% of HP where you don't even have the game's original "take one standard action" idea.

But you do have "take full turn worth of actions" for that extra 30% of HP which chances are will be significantly more than diehard's measly extra 9 HP, and the extra 70% of HP is still better than being reduced to a pile of scrap. You claimed diehard is plain better, I proved otherwise, so in your own words, "quit that bullshit".

You have to take every level of agility to be able to put this to any use. Stop and think about that for a second. You're intending this to be strong and slow... and to use it at all you have to take every single speed-boosting level you can, which gives you dodge bonuses to AC to boot. And then you're still slower than everyone else and, if anybody can stay away, completely unable to project any sort of threat because you're so slow and bereft of range options.

Plenty of ways for a super to get ranged attacks, and there are other ways of moving around other than your movement speed. For starters, your ever-present army of heal bots and battleships that you claim make nanomachines irrelevant could cart you around.

Ah yes, one battleship and the existence of healing items are now an army. Either way, that's not going to help with moving < 30MU up until the point where everyone has a standard speed of 60MU or above. It's not about out of battle movement, it's about combining an essentially melee class with a movement speed that makes it far too easy to be ignored in an encounter entirely. And having to take agility at every opportunity right after taking its thematic opposite.

Considering your mecha show preferences, I would expect you to be well versed on the ancestral art of riding on top of a battleship instead of inside.

Serious question: why haven't you genericised both super and real robots so they have the same underlying chassis but a different allotment of arsenal stuff, and a selection of premade robots? It seems like it would be far easier to balance to just have mecha as one homogenous system than this bizarre split that just causes difficulty.

This is how I started this project. This is how I will end this project. It's part of the vision that originally inspired me to start writing this. It's part of what makes me keep updating it.

???

Because I like it that way.

All this about the Arsenal has reminded me one thing, though.

Supers have an upgrade to make ranged weapons use STR. They have no native ranged ability that isn't tied into a maneuver. Bit odd.

Multiclass support. And/or tank transform.

Things unique to supers: nanomachines. Things unique to reals: ranged weapons, usable stealth, multiple types of defences, and (shared with ship captains) healing/refuelling other people. Wonderful.

Super Robots have Undetectable and also the smallest mechas for stealth, can take Absolute Barrier and Alien Alloy for multiple types of defenses, plus the Zero State multiplication and Zero Entropy for elemental damage.

Even the Real Robot rules are so unpopular that you can't bother to make a full character progression out of them while a full Super Robot is around.

...I'm sorry, what? Real robot rules are Just Better than super robot rules. I've shown the values before. Let me go find them.

The Alteisen Riese seems to be overpowered in comparison to other options. It has more HP than is possible on a super robot (the designated tanks) at 400 as compared to the max HP on a super robot being 315 (without Great Plating, which brings it up to 390). It has more natural armor than a super can have at 22 as compared to the 12 a super can have (without Great Plating, which brings it up to 18). It has more DR than a super can have at 40 as compared to 35 (without Great Plating, which does bring it up to 48, if it’s colossal). It has the same EN as a super without batteries, but supers tend to be more energy intensive than reals anyway. It has a +7 bonus to saves, while a super can only have at most +6. It has 125Mu movement speed, while a super's top speed is 85Mu (without Great Agility, which does bring it up to 140, if it's colossal). It has five hardpoints, more than any other unit in the conversion save the Ashsaber. Its weapons, likewise, are incredibly powerful. its Revolving Bunker would take 9 super robot upgrades to recreate (roughly), and that's not including its to hit bonus. While this is partially balanced out by its low ammo count, it's still incredibly strong. The Claymore Avalanche is also a very powerful weapon. It's stronger than anything a super robot can have save a fully Mighty'd twinned heavy weapon, and even that will consume much more resources than the Claymores.

Here we are. You said at the time that the reason for this was because you're a fan of Excellen and Kyosuke (pointing to your profile pic). That doesn't change the fact that Real is in fact stronger than super, with the only saving grace for super not even being super, namely that Arcane Pilot is built as a super derived class.

That wasn't the only or main reason. Reals get slightly superior raw numbers in return for less customization.
If the Alteisen Riese was squishier/punier than a pimped super... There would be no reason to pick the real robot. But again what you see with the Alteisen Riese is what you get, while a high level super can be tweaked all around to your whims.

And case in point:

I don't use a Real because Real seems boring to me, not because Super is better. Of course, my favorite mecha shows are TTGL, Gunbuster, Diebuster, Godannar, and Nanoha so it's a matter of taste, really.

So ok you like exciting customization you take the super pilot. The real robot is the "boring but pratical" option, and isn't rendered completely obsolete just because you pimped up your super.

Question: If a support staff medic or scientist starts a lengthy process (Pilot Patch, Direct Link, Operation, Prototype Weaponry and similar), what happens if the process is interrupted? Such as the support staff or the thing being worked on having to go elsewhere or maybe missing concentration checks to stay focused on the task because of, say, a bloody battle going on over the roof of the building that keeps sending debris and tremors all around the workshop.

You need to re-start from scratch.

[Raineh Daze]

There's something contradictory in there. Druids are divine casters, yet the Divine Pilot seems to be even more unpopular than the Real Pilot, as in people here don't even seem to pretend they exist. Considering all the self buffs in the cleric list, it honestly surprises me.

Who knows? Maybe it's because self-buffing is honestly a pretty boring thing to do? Maybe people just prefer arcane casters? Pick rate is not a good way to extrapolate balance. Seriously, outside of competitive-tier gameplay, that would cause MP games no end of hell.

But you do have "take full turn worth of actions" for that extra 30% of HP which chances are will be significantly more than diehard's measly extra 9 HP, and the extra 70% of HP is still better than being reduced to a pile of scrap. You claimed diehard is plain better, I proved otherwise, so in your own words, "quit that bullshit".

No, I claimed that the benefit Diehard gives is superior to the benefit of this option. Diehard's flaw is that you have a fixed death HP that's perfectly reasonable at level one or level two, not so much when you have over 100HP and 10 damage is a rounding error. With the extreme damage going around in the PS game, -30% HP is the same sort of rounding error.

Considering your mecha show preferences, I would expect you to be well versed on the ancestral art of riding on top of a battleship instead of inside.

Gunbuster itself can split into two spaceships moving at relativistic speeds and it's by no means slow as a mecha. Only reason it was on the Excelion was because that thing was rigged to be a bomb that needed to avoid being blown up.

Super Robots have Undetectable and also the smallest mechas for stealth, can take Absolute Barrier and Alien Alloy for multiple types of defenses, plus the Zero State multiplication and Zero Entropy for elemental damage.

Undetectable has been noted as inferior to arsenal options, and stealth doesn't mean anything when you've got auto-detect radars all over the place. So half right: it has them, but they're not viable at the moment. Absolute Barrier has a direct equivalent in Arsenal options that are more energy-efficient to boot. So... elemental damage and healing. We're up to two.

That wasn't the only or main reason. Reals get slightly superior raw numbers in return for less customization.
If the Alteisen Riese was squishier/punier than a pimped super... There would be no reason to pick the real robot. But again what you see with the Alteisen Riese is what you get, while a high level super can be tweaked all around to your whims.

First: the super can have +4 Nat AC. It'll be clear why it doesn't matter (it comes from Growth, for a start) by the end, though, so they can have equal Nat AC... assuming the super grows to max size and takes great plating in an attempt to be the tankiest mecha.

"Slightly". Those are better numbers than a level 20 super before you put the hardpoints to use for customising (+14 AC, +7 DR, immunity to the Power property, more HP, +6 Fort, +7 Ref, and the ability to increase that to +21 AC as a move action... for 2/5 Hardpoints) and you get it a level earlier. To compare that, take the same Great Plated super: 430 to 380 HP,  29 Nat AC to 26 Nat AC. The difference in DR is reduced to 1. Oh, and even taking max agility has a halved dodge bonus, so the mecha's comparable base AC at that point is 41AC against a whopping 46 AC (without the Alteisen going full bore on defence and taking another +7 AC item). But that's not all, because the super is still vulnerable to power weapons--and they're easy to get--the practical AC in that situation is a 46 AC real vs 28 AC super. It doesn't matter if the super puts their one hardpoint into a defensive accessory as it's still worse than what an equivalent Real gets. But wait, there's more! Let's add in size bonuses (since Great Plating needs size to get more HP/AC). To get all that, the Super Robot has to be Colossal, the Alteisen Reise is large. So we're actually looking at final AC's, removing pilot scores as they'll be equivalent, of:
Focused Super Robot - 20 AC; 33 AC against non-Power (+4 Natural Armour from Growth)
Alteisen Riese - 45 AC. (Naturally all this after the nat armour bonuses includes the base 10AC). It can happily increase this bonus to 52AC if it wants to play defensively.

Relevantly, if this Super had the max level of targeting as well, it has the following bonus to its attacks:
+3.
The Riese:
+6. Except even its weakest inbuilt weapon has a +9 bonus, and its strongest has +13, and only its gatling gun isn't a Power and Rending weapon.

This isn't a small difference! You can't focus a super on something and become equivalent to a Real focused on the same thing! They're faster, they have better special weapons, the tough ones are tougher--you can be bigger or smaller but the benefits you get from that are worse!

This isn't a small bonus, it's getting better than something that has to make sacrifices in the thing it's sacrificed for. It's tankier than a super that sacrificed its offence and even its ability to dodge, but hits at least as well as one that didn't take defences and can spend one of its hardpoints to get a +7 attack bonus that gives it a better to-hit than anything except a super making itself smaller and doing less damage! Or it could take one that only gives it a +5 extra (so up to +11, the max targetting bonus), get more range on its weapons, cheaper maneuvers, an extra +7 AC, an extra +70 MU (so nearly an entire Super Robot's speed). Oh, it also has 2 hardpoints left, so it could happily spend those on, say, Reactor IV (can Supers even get that? the wording suggests they can't go past Reactor III) along with either extreme stealth and a perfect radar system, or take Steel Soul, accept the useless AC bonus, but now be waving around a +13 to all saves and the ability to use spirits for 40% less. So they get to be the best at spirits, too.

Meanwhile, anything that can hit the Riese's final AC auto-hits a tanky super robot, who may as well have not bothered.

This is the extreme end, but it's a general development throughout that if you honestly want to customise for ability or to really build for something, you're better off taking 1 or 4 levels of real pilot first (to get access to superior baseline mecha, hardpoints and weapons) and then go over to Super to enhance it there. The only reason to play Super Robots is, shockingly, for liking them.

[oslecamo]

There's something contradictory in there. Druids are divine casters, yet the Divine Pilot seems to be even more unpopular than the Real Pilot, as in people here don't even seem to pretend they exist. Considering all the self buffs in the cleric list, it honestly surprises me.

Who knows? Maybe it's because self-buffing is honestly a pretty boring thing to do? Maybe people just prefer arcane casters? Pick rate is not a good way to extrapolate balance. Seriously, outside of competitive-tier gameplay, that would cause MP games no end of hell.

Self-buffing's boring? Haven't you been paying attention to soro's character, or all the fapping to Codzilla and gishes since forever?

But bigger point being several people like power, and if barely anybody's picking the supposed power option, then it simply can't be that powerful.

Meanwhile severly underpowered options are rarely if ever picked, point.

Exhibit A: the samurai and ninja classes in 3.5. Ninjas and samurais are extremely popular concepts, but since the classes are extremely weaksauce, when was the last time you saw anybody play either?

But you do have "take full turn worth of actions" for that extra 30% of HP which chances are will be significantly more than diehard's measly extra 9 HP, and the extra 70% of HP is still better than being reduced to a pile of scrap. You claimed diehard is plain better, I proved otherwise, so in your own words, "quit that bullshit".

No, I claimed that the benefit Diehard gives is superior to the benefit of this option. Diehard's flaw is that you have a fixed death HP that's perfectly reasonable at level one or level two, not so much when you have over 100HP and 10 damage is a rounding error. With the extreme damage going around in the PS game, -30% HP is the same sort of rounding error.

2nd level super robot: 35 HP (25 base +plating x1)
Plating x 1, Nanomachines x2 (5 points), eternal code (1 point), 1 point leftover in whatever. Recovers 7 HP per turn.

If you're dropped to -6 HP, you get to return to 1 and be ready to fight again right away. Diehard may have a slightly bigger margin of a whooping 3 HP (aka toughness feat, crap tier), but on the other hand eternal code allows you to get an actual full turn worth of actions, and again, it's not leaving you at death's door. At level 3+ eternal code starts pulling ahead on all fields. And even if you drop to, say, -7 to -13 HP, you only sit out one round of combat. And with your army of repairbots following you, they can too patch you up from negatives instead of starting at a wreckage.

Seriously diehard is a big trap. Because if you're still fighting then enemies will keep hitting you and you only stop when you're dead.

Considering your mecha show preferences, I would expect you to be well versed on the ancestral art of riding on top of a battleship instead of inside.

Gunbuster itself can split into two spaceships moving at relativistic speeds and it's by no means slow as a mecha. Only reason it was on the Excelion was because that thing was rigged to be a bomb that needed to avoid being blown up.

Gunbuster's movement speed is irrelevant. The point is that a mecha riding on top of a spaceship is a viable and flavourful option.

Super Robots have Undetectable and also the smallest mechas for stealth, can take Absolute Barrier and Alien Alloy for multiple types of defenses, plus the Zero State multiplication and Zero Entropy for elemental damage.

Undetectable has been noted as inferior to arsenal options, and stealth doesn't mean anything when you've got auto-detect radars all over the place. So half right: it has them, but they're not viable at the moment. Absolute Barrier has a direct equivalent in Arsenal options that are more energy-efficient to boot. So... elemental damage and healing. We're up to two.

Ah, the classic "reals get infinite hardpoints so have everything simultaneously". Alas, they don't. Even your Alteisen Riese example lacks either a radar or stealth system.

As for barriers:

Lightwave Barrier (II) 30 energy, ignored by both beams and missiles.
False Axis Repulsive Field Generator System (III) 45 energy! Over twice the energy maintenance of Absolute Barrier.
Phase Shift Barrier(IV) 5 energy, but ignored by both beams and power weapons (aka everybody has at least one of those).
GN-Field(V) 15 energy, but only against Weapons with ammo, weapons with the Power property and spells/Su abilities/maneuvers. Meanwhile supers have Absolute Barrierx3 blocking 60% damage.
G-Territorry(VI) 15 energy, but we're at level 16 and a super can have an Absolute Barrierx4 blocking 80% damage.
SYSTEM ∀-99 I-Field(VII) 25 energy, more than Absolute Barrier and still only half damage.

So as you can see, more than half the real's barriers are actually less efficient in terms of raw energy/damage, and the ones that are more efficient have significant drawbacks by being ignored by a wide array of weapons. There's some extras here and there, but the Absolute Barrier also gets some of their own.

That wasn't the only or main reason. Reals get slightly superior raw numbers in return for less customization.
If the Alteisen Riese was squishier/punier than a pimped super... There would be no reason to pick the real robot. But again what you see with the Alteisen Riese is what you get, while a high level super can be tweaked all around to your whims.

First: the super can have +4 Nat AC. It'll be clear why it doesn't matter (it comes from Growth, for a start) by the end, though, so they can have equal Nat AC... assuming the super grows to max size and takes great plating in an attempt to be the tankiest mecha.

"Slightly". Those are better numbers than a level 20 super before you put the hardpoints to use for customising (+14 AC, +7 DR, immunity to the Power property, more HP, +6 Fort, +7 Ref, and the ability to increase that to +21 AC as a move action... for 2/5 Hardpoints) and you get it a level earlier. To compare that, take the same Great Plated super: 430 to 380 HP,  29 Nat AC to 26 Nat AC. The difference in DR is reduced to 1. Oh, and even taking max agility has a halved dodge bonus, so the mecha's comparable base AC at that point is 41AC against a whopping 46 AC (without the Alteisen going full bore on defence and taking another +7 AC item). But that's not all, because the super is still vulnerable to power weapons--and they're easy to get--the practical AC in that situation is a 46 AC real vs 28 AC super. It doesn't matter if the super puts their one hardpoint into a defensive accessory as it's still worse than what an equivalent Real gets. But wait, there's more! Let's add in size bonuses (since Great Plating needs size to get more HP/AC). To get all that, the Super Robot has to be Colossal, the Alteisen Reise is large. So we're actually looking at final AC's, removing pilot scores as they'll be equivalent, of:
Focused Super Robot - 20 AC; 33 AC against non-Power (+4 Natural Armour from Growth)
Alteisen Riese - 45 AC. (Naturally all this after the nat armour bonuses includes the base 10AC). It can happily increase this bonus to 52AC if it wants to play defensively.

Relevantly, if this Super had the max level of targeting as well, it has the following bonus to its attacks:
+3.
The Riese:
+6. Except even its weakest inbuilt weapon has a +9 bonus, and its strongest has +13, and only its gatling gun isn't a Power and Rending weapon.

This isn't a small difference! You can't focus a super on something and become equivalent to a Real focused on the same thing! They're faster, they have better special weapons, the tough ones are tougher--you can be bigger or smaller but the benefits you get from that are worse!

This isn't a small bonus, it's getting better than something that has to make sacrifices in the thing it's sacrificed for. It's tankier than a super that sacrificed its offence and even its ability to dodge, but hits at least as well as one that didn't take defences and can spend one of its hardpoints to get a +7 attack bonus that gives it a better to-hit than anything except a super making itself smaller and doing less damage! Or it could take one that only gives it a +5 extra (so up to +11, the max targetting bonus), get more range on its weapons, cheaper maneuvers, an extra +7 AC, an extra +70 MU (so nearly an entire Super Robot's speed). Oh, it also has 2 hardpoints left, so it could happily spend those on, say, Reactor IV (can Supers even get that? the wording suggests they can't go past Reactor III) along with either extreme stealth and a perfect radar system, or take Steel Soul, accept the useless AC bonus, but now be waving around a +13 to all saves and the ability to use spirits for 40% less. So they get to be the best at spirits, too.

Meanwhile, anything that can hit the Riese's final AC auto-hits a tanky super robot, who may as well have not bothered.

This is the extreme end, but it's a general development throughout that if you honestly want to customise for ability or to really build for something, you're better off taking 1 or 4 levels of real pilot first (to get access to superior baseline mecha, hardpoints and weapons) and then go over to Super to enhance it there. The only reason to play Super Robots is, shockingly, for liking them.

Alteisen Riese only has 3 hardpoints, so although you can indeed buff their raw numbers considerably, it also means the poor thing will be unable to find the enemy and unable to set any proper ambush as well. A stealth focused super could run circles around it, or if you want to slug it out throw maximized Absolute Barrier on top that also happens to ignore every single real barrier in melee.

And as a matter of fact Absolute Barrier can make you immune to the Power property too. As early as 4th level.

Multiclassing is a viable alternative, yes. Some people hate it with all their guts and design classes that have negative reasons to ever multiclass, but I worked hard to make sure of real/super being an attractive idea.

[Raineh Daze]

Okay, so I thought it was the one with 5. Minor change: that third attack-bonus? Swap it for the radar/stealth combo option. You still have better to-hit than a super built to be a tank (which is an inferior tank), better stealth than any super, and you can autodetect the stealth super. This isn't costing build resources! If I have some information I can immediately customise for the appropriate foe, because my base stats are equal or better than someone devoting everything to this build. That's good customisation! Being able to take a baseline and add relevant bonuses or weapons! Not "every level you get 4 points to devote to one fixed configuration that can only be changed with a friendly ship captain that took the appropriate feat". I have more customisation options with hardpoints and the potential to choose a different base mecha than I do building once and sitting around forever.

Double bonus: if my mecha is destroyed, I can just get another one with no downsides.

And as a matter of fact Absolute Barrier can make you immune to the Power property too. As early as 4th level.

So from what I'm seeing, supers are perfectly customisable, but if you want to use them decently and not ignore the one thing that apparently makes them a shabby knockoff in stat terms, you're left with no choice but pumping everything into energy and taking a particular barrier option? Such customisation. Mind, they don't have many options anyway in statistical terms--see above about the real having better numbers in every regard even early on with movement speed. Or to hit. Honestly, with the progression, you're not really customising, just alternating between picking something unusual and then spending all your points on maxing some scaling options--which you have to, because ignoring both the AC ones (one seems bad enough) leaves you slow and fragile; ignoring the to-hit ones entirely seems insane because every Real has +'s there and you'll need it to hit AC... yeah, that's most of them gone.

Though now barriers are looking like the equivalent of feat taxes: it's stupid not to take them because oh look half your AC gone.

[oslecamo]

Okay, so I thought it was the one with 5. Minor change: that third attack-bonus? Swap it for the radar/stealth combo option. You still have better to-hit than a super built to be a tank (which is an inferior tank), better stealth than any super, and you can autodetect the stealth super. This isn't costing build resources! If I have some information I can immediately customise for the appropriate foe, because my base stats are equal or better than someone devoting everything to this build. That's good customisation! Being able to take a baseline and add relevant bonuses or weapons! Not "every level you get 4 points to devote to one fixed configuration that can only be changed with a friendly ship captain that took the appropriate feat". I have more customisation options with hardpoints and the potential to choose a different base mecha than I do building once and sitting around forever.

Sistema Voyeur is a quite fine choice, but you should do the math more carefully.
The Alteisen Riese would get Darkvision 480 mu, Blindsense 480 mu, plus you know the location the position of everybody piloting a mecha or wearing metal equipment within 240 mu, Spacesense 480 mu, Blindsight 120 mu plus you can see through fogs as well as obstacles not made of metal as long as they're less than 5 feet thick and within 480 mu.

On the other hand Undetectable x11 gives 330 mu reduction on all of those. So the mecha/metal detection and blindsight are both completely shut down and everything else is reduced to 150 mu. A super with burning justice can easily blast away from outside this range. And take in mind, Darkvision isn't auto-detect unless you make Spot checks too, Blindsense still leaves Total Concealment, and Spacesense won't work against something standing on the ground.

Meanwhile Electronic Nose works by true doublings resulting in:
30 (1) 60 (2) 120 (3) 240(4) 480(5) 960(6) 1920(7) 3840(8) 7680 (9) 15360(10) 30640 (11) mu.

Sistema Voyeur  reduces that by 1/48, which is a 638 mu, rounded down, still more than any of the non-reduced senses of the real! A pure super would thus detect the pure real first with, and if the super's stealthy too, the Alteisen Riese's can only hope to be really lucky to get in blindsense range which still leaves it with 50% miss chance.

Double bonus: if my mecha is destroyed, I can just get another one with no downsides.

Eeerrr, real pilots get assigned with a lower tier mecha if their main one gets blown up.

And as a matter of fact Absolute Barrier can make you immune to the Power property too. As early as 4th level.

So from what I'm seeing, supers are perfectly customisable, but if you want to use them decently and not ignore the one thing that apparently makes them a shabby knockoff in stat terms, you're left with no choice but pumping everything into energy and taking a particular barrier option? Such customisation. Mind, they don't have many options anyway in statistical terms--see above about the real having better numbers in every regard even early on with movement speed. Or to hit. Honestly, with the progression, you're not really customising, just alternating between picking something unusual and then spending all your points on maxing some scaling options--which you have to, because ignoring both the AC ones (one seems bad enough) leaves you slow and fragile; ignoring the to-hit ones entirely seems insane because every Real has +'s there and you'll need it to hit AC... yeah, that's most of them gone.

Though now barriers are looking like the equivalent of feat taxes: it's stupid not to take them because oh look half your AC gone.

As shown above, a stealthy super will be pretty troublesome to target at all. And if you instead focus on getting enough DR and damage reduction, being hit isn't that bad on the first place as you'll be able to shrugg off the damage.

[Anomander]

Question: If a support staff medic or scientist starts a lengthy process (Pilot Patch, Direct Link, Operation, Prototype Weaponry and similar), what happens if the process is interrupted? Such as the support staff or the thing being worked on having to go elsewhere or maybe missing concentration checks to stay focused on the task because of, say, a bloody battle going on over the roof of the building that keeps sending debris and tremors all around the workshop.

You need to re-start from scratch.

Sounds perfect as long as the time it takes to do the task remains the same for the do-over. Keeping track of what was rolled for a given task.
A similar question in the same vein. If multiple support staff work on doing the same thing:
They roll to know who does it the fastest. Then technically there is no point for the others to keep on working on that task since they are slower and they can all move on to work on something else. Should there be a point for them to keep on working to make it faster? Like they all roll once as a group with a modifier with any support staff member leaving or joining the task increasing/decreasing the duration.
Mind, I already find the maximum duration most of these tasks can take to be nothing short of prodigious, though perhaps only impressive when compared to what we do these days. This being future tech and all. I do recall the 5th Element movie reconstructing a body within minutes.

[Raineh Daze]

As shown above, a stealthy super will be pretty troublesome to target at all. And if you instead focus on getting enough DR and damage reduction, being hit isn't that bad on the first place as you'll be able to shrugg off the damage.

Riese has you beat unless you try and be stealthy with a 350m tall robot. And the utility of DR with the amount of damage here is... questionable.

But since this is the second time things seem to have been different and the last edit to Supers was Thursday: how many of these things have been edited since the conversation began? It's getting confusing. <_<

Also, this seems pretty backwards: supers are the sneaky ones and work best small? Eh?

[Fzzr]

Just out of curiosity, to anyone in this thread using a super/in a game with a super: What do the build/tactics look like? Maybe there's some obvious easy thing I'm missing.

Mine is focused around building up Attacker and Predict with non-weapon maneuvers (eg. Chest Blaster) and then using Yell and other spirits with Full Attacks to do spike damage or use weapon-based maneuvers more effectively. Defensive weapons are used as needed to keep the attacker/predict counter going on other targets. Area Melee is another way to keep up Attacker/Predict with multiple targets and also helps with mobility as a secondary effect.

Overall my Super becomes effective against hard targets after two turns. Until then she contributes by cleaning up mooks/soft targets in parallel with building the counter against the real target.

[Raineh Daze]

I have 40STR, so mostly "run at things and try not to die". That's not gone so well even with as high HP and DR as I can get. <_<

[Fzzr]

I have 40STR, so mostly "run at things and try not to die". That's not gone so well even with as high HP and DR as I can get. <_<

How the...

Also what level?

Edit: oh, Super 14, if that post from earlier still applies.

...HOW?

[Raineh Daze]

I have 40STR, so mostly "run at things and try not to die". That's not gone so well even with as high HP and DR as I can get. <_<

How the...

Also what level?

Edit: oh, Super 14, if that post from earlier still applies.

...HOW?

Monster classes and magic items. She's a Colossal-sized living fusion reactor. xD

The dying thing? The damage keeps being so huge DR is meaningless, so it's been all defence-skills and spirits to survive. I took Guts predicated on surviving a hit, so...

[oslecamo]

Question: If a support staff medic or scientist starts a lengthy process (Pilot Patch, Direct Link, Operation, Prototype Weaponry and similar), what happens if the process is interrupted? Such as the support staff or the thing being worked on having to go elsewhere or maybe missing concentration checks to stay focused on the task because of, say, a bloody battle going on over the roof of the building that keeps sending debris and tremors all around the workshop.

You need to re-start from scratch.

Sounds perfect as long as the time it takes to do the task remains the same for the do-over. Keeping track of what was rolled for a given task.
A similar question in the same vein. If multiple support staff work on doing the same thing:
They roll to know who does it the fastest. Then technically there is no point for the others to keep on working on that task since they are slower and they can all move on to work on something else. Should there be a point for them to keep on working to make it faster? Like they all roll once as a group with a modifier with any support staff member leaving or joining the task increasing/decreasing the duration.
Mind, I already find the maximum duration most of these tasks can take to be nothing short of prodigious, though perhaps only impressive when compared to what we do these days. This being future tech and all. I do recall the 5th Element movie reconstructing a body within minutes.

Thing is, they don't really know how long it's gonna take until it's finished. That's why the durations are random in the first place, smallest time is the ideal case scenario where everything goes smoothly, but complications can happen until the last second. So minimum they're all stuck on the task until the fastest one ends and points it out to the others. I could make it rolling after each period of time and this would also lead to theoretically infinite maximum time, but that would be a lot more clunky rolling wise.

As shown above, a stealthy super will be pretty troublesome to target at all. And if you instead focus on getting enough DR and damage reduction, being hit isn't that bad on the first place as you'll be able to shrugg off the damage.

Riese has you beat unless you try and be stealthy with a 350m tall robot. And the utility of DR with the amount of damage here is... questionable.

But since this is the second time things seem to have been different and the last edit to Supers was Thursday: how many of these things have been edited since the conversation began? It's getting confusing. <_<

There's a changelog in the Index with all significant changes. Today there were just some minor typos.

Also, this seems pretty backwards: supers are the sneaky ones and work best small? Eh?

Well as a matter of fact supers are those that often seem to pop out of nowhere in the middle of the city while Axis knows the Gundam is coming with days/weeks/months of warning.

As for size, Undetectable doesn't really care, and the extra damage is nice.

I have 40STR, so mostly "run at things and try not to die". That's not gone so well even with as high HP and DR as I can get. <_<

See, you're a super's fan, I would've expected you to get the pattern-super battles are more drawn out and they always take some time to properly draw out their power. Gundams are the ones that charge right ahead and shoot/stab enemies on the face right away. Mazinger and Getter and whatnot take their sweet time wearing down the enemy before unleashing the finishing move.

Fzzr gets it, and it's how I've been using super NPCs against the party. Build up power until reaching critical mass.

I have 40STR, so mostly "run at things and try not to die". That's not gone so well even with as high HP and DR as I can get. <_<

How the...

Also what level?

Edit: oh, Super 14, if that post from earlier still applies.

...HOW?

It's a gestalt campaign.