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Battle Dress Control

How do people run this for skill rolls needed

Do you guys use Drive, or Pilot perhaps, or do people say humanoid controlling so its skills like Balance, Jump etc

Partly for people in B/Dress but also for a vehicle that is essentially a robot battledress and what skills would be sensible to design into the suit.

At the moment Ive used balance and so on for specific skills plus drive skill as a catch all for anything else.

Any comments welcome

Tim
 
Originally posted by myrmidon:
How do people run this for skill rolls needed

Do you guys use Drive, or Pilot perhaps, or do people say humanoid controlling so its skills like Balance, Jump etc

Partly for people in B/Dress but also for a vehicle that is essentially a robot battledress and what skills would be sensible to design into the suit.

At the moment Ive used balance and so on for specific skills plus drive skill as a catch all for anything else.

Any comments welcome

Tim
Looking at the BD`s picture in THB, I`d say it`s simply used as a normal set of armor... the Feat would be used for the optimal usage of it`s capabilities, maintenance and the like.

AFAIK, you don`t "Drive" or "Pilot" a BD... you *wear* it


were it bigger, à-la Heavy Gear, then I`d say Piloting/Driving would be in order...

As an aside, anyone converted Gears from DP9`s Mecha sourcebook to T20?
 
The Armor proficiency feat takes care of the basics the same way being bipedal takes care of walking straight. The Pilot skill should come into play if you are actually flying a suit of BD, though.
 
Wll the consensus so far seems to be just do character skill rolls - so I think I'll go that route with the robots brain skills.

I was looking in one BITS supplement and it was discussing this with the proviso that they used Battle Dress skill for any area not covered by personal skills or instead of...hence me considering Drive as the alternative skill for BD users - anyone see merit for a fall back like that?

Tim
 
If you`ve read Star Ship Troopers it`s pretty strait forward. Sensors inside the suit move the armor as you move your body. Tilting your head sideways changes your com channle. Kicking your head back like a horse changes your scopes from normal to infared to low light ect... There is also a lot of power you have to get use to. You can punt a Ford pickup in battle dress but picking up an egg is verey difficult.
 
In one of the BattleTech novels they also discuss the internal controls of Elemental Armor (ahem) :rolleyes:

Interesting things were brought up, like pointing at the target with the first two fingers, while curling the last two fingers over the curled thumb to fire the equipped weapons. This was explained as an easily trained, yet wholly unnatural gesture, unlikely to be accidently or unconsciously done. This supposedly makes the weapon safer for friendlies.

IMTU, I assume that the Battle Dress skill (or Pilot/Drive Battle Dress skill) applies to all onboard systems other than weapons. This would include sensors, flight modules and so on. Like all of us, I own rescources from each different incarnation of Traveller, and I freely admit to cherry-picking the stuff I like.
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One resource I liked so much that it became the definitive source on Battle Dress, IMHO. It's an article in MTJ#1 called "Dressed to Kill: an Intimate Look at Battle Dress".

Just gotta love that title, eh?
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TTFN,
 

As an aside, anyone converted Gears from DP9`s Mecha sourcebook to T20?
Good GOD, no! Bringing 'Mech (or Mecha or Heavy Gear or ACAV or....) into Traveller???? No thanks! Those Mad Cats and Daishis gave me hives enough the FIRST time around!!!! :eek:
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Here's a question that's probably been asked before, but I didn't see it on the boards - does BattleDress count as a vehicle for purposes of damage adjustment (both in damage it deals out and damage it takes.) That is, does the 5-dice reduction still apply?
 
Originally posted by rambler:
Here's a question that's probably been asked before, but I didn't see it on the boards - does BattleDress count as a vehicle for purposes of damage adjustment (both in damage it deals out and damage it takes.) That is, does the 5-dice reduction still apply?
Its stats are listed under the vehicles section, so it makes sense. Plus that explains how Battledress can take so much punishment.


Shane
 
Hum....

I`d like to have an Official (Hunter?) answer to that...

because either they are BFA (Big effing armor) or TPA (Tiny Puny Armor)...

If they`re a vehicle they`re pretty awesome, if not they pretty much sucks as a very high-tech powered armor suit...

Was the T20 BDress designed as a vehicle only for the possibilities the desing sequence offered, or is it *REALLY* considered as a vehicle?
 
I`ve seen this discussion before. :rolleyes: One of the solutions that came out of that was this. BattleDress is considered a “small vehicle” and gets a three dice reduction instead of five.
The person who came up with this compromise, Who’s name escapes me at the moment, had a whole system for dice reduction based on vehicle size. Sadly I was unable to stee...er copy that system and so I don`t have it. :(
 
I have revised vehicle scale rules that I've posted before (A modified version of rules from tjoneslo).

My house rules contain the following rules designed to make a larger difference between vehicles such as Battle Dress and Main Battle Tanks.

Based on it's size, the TL13 Medium Battle Dress in the THB would only get a 3 dice scale reduction, while an Intrepid tank from TA6 would get a 6 dice scale reduction vs personal scale weapons.


Revised Scale Rules

When firing smaller scale weapons at larger scale targets, reduce the number of damage dice according to the following table:

Target Personal Weapon Vehicle Weapon Personal Weapon
Size Vs Vehicle Vs Ship Vs Ship_________
Small 0 -2 -7
Medium -2 -3 -8
Large -3 -5 -10
Huge -5 -7 -12
Gargantuan -7 -8 -13
Colossal -8 -10 -15

(The above chart may not be lined up properly).


I also make it harder for personal scale weapons to score critical hits on vehicles of Huge size or larger, only halve the AR on a critical hit instead of ignoring armor, have a max AR based on size, halve the effect of Armor Piercing rounds on larger scale targets, and give a damage bonus to vehicle/ship weapons firing on vehicles smaller than Huge.

I've adopted these rules to make combat a little more realistic (No destroying tanks with handguns etc.), while trying not to over complicate things.
 
Originally posted by Ganidiirsi O'Flynn:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />
As an aside, anyone converted Gears from DP9`s Mecha sourcebook to T20?
Good GOD, no! Bringing 'Mech (or Mecha or Heavy Gear or ACAV or....) into Traveller???? No thanks! Those Mad Cats and Daishis gave me hives enough the FIRST time around!!!! :eek:
file_21.gif
</font>[/QUOTE]Why when WW1 artillery would slaughter most FASA Battlemechs? Imagine what an Intrepid/Trepidas class heavy tank would do?
 
Bah. WWI artillery would probably have trouble with BT mechs, artillery of that era isn't very accurate and BT mechs are pretty fast. Even a WWII tank would probably have trouble targeting battletech mechs.

Of course, no modern design would have trouble with BT mechs, simply because they have really long accurate ranges (order of magnitude longer than BT; a TOW would have a long range of 125 hexes in BT), plus they're quite accurate.
 
Ok I hate to add fuel to this fire, but as a long time Btech player(not as long I've played Trav mind you) I have to say that short of modern heavy artillery making multiple hits your average mech regardless of system will just keep coming at you with an evil grin. The relative description of advances in materials science (Even for 3025 era Btech) yeilds armors with greater strength and penetration resistance than anything we know of today. Modern HE based weapons would be near ussless, Kinetics like APFSDS rounds would be of some effect but limited.

Feel free to fire at will now....
 
The problem is that Mech's in Battletech are run with the computing power of a commador 64. I dont belive battletech is a good balenced reference. Expecially compared to how technonocially grounded Traveller is.

I only recently go into Traveller but I started out my gaming days as a Battletech player.

I am inclined to favor the technological principles of Traveller before I would BTech.
 
Originally posted by Aramond:
Ok I hate to add fuel to this fire, but as a long time Btech player(not as long I've played Trav mind you) I have to say that short of modern heavy artillery making multiple hits your average mech regardless of system will just keep coming at you with an evil grin.

Feel free to fire at will now....
Considering the description of the weapons that are effective on them (machineguns, for example) modern guns will at least scrape armor off. The problem a mech would have is basically that your average TOW launcher is basically a missile doing 1-2 points of damage, rear-mounted, with a range of 30/60/120, on a 7/11/- vehicle. In open terrain, any moderate speed mech can't possibly win, because the enemy can hit it at will from beyond weapons range, and is fast enough to stay out of weapons range.
 
You haven't read Starship Troopers, have you?

I'm afraid I have to agree with Aramond on this one. Starship Troopers has the original BD designs.These things are not slow, Battle Dress has the exact same reflex as it's pilot. And keep in mind that Battle Dress is usually equipped with a Grav belt for better mobility. There is also the jump tecneque. Can leap tall buildings in a single bound. They can almost fly with a jump.

Feel free to curl up and die. :D
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You haven't read Starship Troopers, have you?

I'm afraid I have to agree with Aramond on this one. Starship Troopers has the original BD designs.These things are not slow, Battle Dress has the exact same reflex as it's pilot. And keep in mind that Battle Dress is usually equipped with a Grav belt for better mobility. There is also the jump tecneque. Can leap tall buildings in a single bound. They can almost fly with a jump.

Feel free to curl up and die.

--------------------
Never Underestimate the Power of Stupid People In Large Groups!
I dont disagree that BattleDress is one tough cookie, just that I dont feel battle-tech makes for a solid techbase to reference from.

I have read starship troopers. Their aint nothing like a Y-Rack poppin Nukes on every bounce or that one bomb that says 'I am a bomb, Im going to explode in 3, 2, BOOM!'. Maruader's? wasent that what they called them suits?

personally I would prolly compare vs Heavy-Gear Gear's. They would certainly be bigger but I figure a Heavy-Gear would just be a Walker-Version of a main battle tank. larger version of Battle Dress capable of carrying vehical scale weaponry.
 
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