Battlesuit build.

[Funksaw]

Sorry - I'm sure someone has done this before, but how would you build a battlesuit that can be worn OR activated via remote control.

 

Here's what I've got so far:

 

The suit is OAF if controlling via remote control.

 

The remote control is also an OAF, but for SFX purposes that's just another way to gain control of the OAF suit.

 

The person inside the suit should get additional armor for the suit, but outside of the suit, that armor only applies to the suit.

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Re: Battlesuit build.

 

Hmmm. This is the point when I prefer the 'build it as a vehicle' idea. Really only appropriate for Mecha-sized things, though.

 

Hrm.

 

I hate to say it this way, but I think you'd need a computer built into the suit to pilot/fight the suit, with a gizmo (Mind Link) to give orders to the computer. The suit's gonna be OIF while you're in it; it really wouldn't get OAF when you aren't. It can be grabbed, sure, but CONTROL of the suit can't be taken away from you by grabbing the suit; it's just a grab, and you can have the computer try and break free of the grab as normal.

 

Alternately, you could build it as normal, then build it again as an automaton, with the 'base character' of the automaton a 10-10-10 character. Add a Limitation on the automaton's existance of 'Only when suit is not inhabited (-1)' or some such. This makes the suit-wearer automatically in control. Actually, I think I like this idea...

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Battlesuit build.

 

Build it as a Vehicle. This character has a Power Armor suit built as a vehicle as a for instance:

 

Mr. Goodspeed

[gojira]

Re: Battlesuit build.

 

Summon: summon battlesuit, Custom Lim: not while battlesuit is being worn or otherwise in use/restrained (-1/2)

 

Buy this power on the PC himself or herself, not as part of the whole battlesuit OIF thing.

 

You'll need to stat up the battle suit as a vehicle separately for it's power-set when operating by remote (which could be very different from it's stats when being worn). Changing into your battlesuit after you've summoned it is just the SFX of activating your powers, or some kind of Instant Change at worst.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Battlesuit build.

 

I want to think about this a bit longer, but my first thought is to build the worn version of the armor as you would normally (including Focus Lim if applicable), and then buy Duplication to allow for the armor running separately, perhaps as an Automaton. The abilities the character gains when wearing the armor could take an additional Limitation, "Not When Duplicated" (size of the Lim depending on how often you see this happening), and the Duplication itself could have OAF (remote control) since the armor would be useless without the control unit.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Battlesuit build.

 

Multiform. One form is the guy in the battlesuit, and the other form is the guy with the animated battlesuit as a Follower.

 

Alternately: buy the animated battlesuit as the character, and the guy as a Follower.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Battlesuit build.

 

Multiform. One form is the guy in the battlesuit, and the other form is the guy with the animated battlesuit as a Follower.

 

Alternately: buy the animated battlesuit as the character, and the guy as a Follower.

Almost exactly what I was thinking.

[JmOz]

Re: Battlesuit build.

 

Multiform. One form is the guy in the battlesuit, and the other form is the guy with the animated battlesuit as a Follower.

 

Alternately: buy the animated battlesuit as the character, and the guy as a Follower.

 

How I did it, but used summoned, Follower works better

[casualplayer]

Re: Battlesuit build.

 

Almost sounds like you could just buy Indirect on many of the battlesuit's abilities (power always comes from battlesuit, doesn't necessarily come from where the character is.)

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Battlesuit build.

 

Almost sounds like you could just buy Indirect on many of the battlesuit's abilities (power always comes from battlesuit' date=' doesn't necessarily come from where the character is.)[/quote']

 

Reasoning from effect, I like it.

 

Buy all of your battlesuit Powers OIHID, with a Naked Indirect to use with any of them with Lockout (they can't be used from him while Indirect is in effect).

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Battlesuit build.

 

*ponders*

 

Okay. You have a suit, and a guy, and the control of the suit can be done from a distance. Groovy. Many good suggestions on how to handle this. I'll just toss out the obvious one:

 

1. Buy the guy. I'm not sure what genre we're in; in a Superheroic setting you can get away with buying your suit, then the guy. In a Heroic or any semi-powered setting, the GM would likely nix this. Unless you're the GM, in which case, hey. But I wouldn't let it happen. So, buy guy, guy buys suit.

 

2. Buy the suit. Determine how powerful you want it to be. When you're wearing a "battle suit" the big difference between an OIF/OIHID and a Vehicle is "who takes the damage." If an attack lands and hurts the suit, it's a vehicle. It an attack lands and hurts the guy, it's a focus/ID function.

 

2a. It doesn't matter at this stage which it is for purposes of remote control. Seriously. Just for how he pays for it. I can purchase a focus that attacks by itself every round, it's just a limitation. There's no big wall between your options and your creativity. Just a matter of how much it'll cost. You can always be generous and just give the guy the full "vehicle points" -- but that's up to you.

 

3. You want the guy in the suit to have "additional armor," but you also want to the suit to take damage. That's easy enough, in the sense that if the suit is unoccupied they're automatically 'attacking the focus.' You don't need anything special for that other than to determine precisely how much damage it can take.

 

Lastly, it's remote controlled, not intelligent, so I would just purchase a fancy Mind Link (there should be some examples in the text, and at least in TUV for this). I do believe there was a thread on it a while ago and I very adamantly said "This is Mind Control, Machine Class of Minds, Only One Mind (the suit, -2)." There was a lot of debate over that, but that's how I'd do it. That way you have a way to model the dice of the effect, and the possibility of interference.

 

My spare change.

[Sociotard]

Re: Battlesuit build.

 

Okay, I need to know a little bit more about what you want the suit to be equipped with (weapons, armor, sensory and communications equipment, etc) and how well you want those systems to interface with the remote (can he see through the cameras on the suit when operating the remote?)

 

Lets say its just a powered, flying, armored suit with blasters:

Powered Suit +30 STR OIF

Armored Suit Armor 10 rPD 10 rED OIF

Booster Jets Flight 15" X8 NCM OIF, 1 continuous charge lasting 6 hours

Blasters10d6 ED, indirect (comes from any direction) OAF, 16 charges

 

Using this build you are protected when you wear it you are strong, protected, you fly and you shoot. If you use the remote control you can make it fly around and shoot targets, but you can't see through its eyes and you can't use it to pick up things (sfx is interface problems).

 

If you wanted it to pick up things, that's stretching or telekineses. If you want to have a sensory link, that's clairsentience.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Battlesuit build.

 

The indirect thing throws me. I know how to reason from effect, but "indirect" doesn't work for me, because the attack isn't truly indirect (i.e., coming from the sky). It's coming directly from the suit. There's no question where it comes from.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Battlesuit build.

 

The indirect thing throws me. I know how to reason from effect' date=' but "indirect" doesn't work for me, because the attack isn't truly indirect (i.e., coming from the sky). It's coming directly from the suit. There's no question where it comes from.[/quote']

 

There usually no question where an Indirect attack comes from. The only thing that makes an Indirect attack special is that it comes from someplace other than the character using it.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Battlesuit build.

 

I'm just saying that if you have a remote turret, which you control from behind a screen, and I'm standing in front of it, and you make the turret fire at me (and after I deal with it I roundly whup up on you) the attack was never indirect.

 

It came from the turret, which I can see and deal with. That you control the turret doesn't make the attack indirect.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Battlesuit build.

 

I'm just saying that if you have a remote turret, which you control from behind a screen, and I'm standing in front of it, and you make the turret fire at me (and after I deal with it I roundly whup up on you) the attack was never indirect.

 

It came from the turret, which I can see and deal with. That you control the turret doesn't make the attack indirect.

 

It does if the turret isn't where I am. There is nothing about Indirect that makes an Attack more difficult to perceive. That would be IPE. At best, onlookers may find it difficult to know where the triggerman is standing. In this case, they'd see the suit, and they'd see the suit shoot people, but they wouldn't automatically be aware of the guy standing over by the tree with the remote control box, especially if that guy was making efforts to conceal himself.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Battlesuit build.

 

Again, no.

 

"A power with this advantage ignores or bypasses intervening barriers between the attacker and the target." The advantage is purchased in levels, depending on the originating point of the attack -- not, however, from a new fixed position. There's nothing about a machine gun turret that says "I bypass walls."

 

So no, this isn't Indirect.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Battlesuit build.

 

I'm just saying that if you have a remote turret, which you control from behind a screen, and I'm standing in front of it, and you make the turret fire at me (and after I deal with it I roundly whup up on you) the attack was never indirect.

 

It came from the turret, which I can see and deal with. That you control the turret doesn't make the attack indirect.

 

But it does make it Indirect in relation to you and the thing you're attacking. You don't need a direct, clear path between you and what you're targetting, and the attack doesn't have to strike the target from your direction. That's classic Indirect. The rest can just be SFX, although you can flavor it as desired with Limitations like Focus, Physical Manifestation, or a Limited speed to move to different attack locations, like a Mobile Perception Point for Clairsentience.

 

Note that the battlesuit that this thread is about is not a fixed turret, but mobile and capable of changing its position relative to the target.

 

All that said, while this is a valid build mechanics- and SFX-wise, Funksaw may be no more comfortable with it for his specific needs than you are, which is fair. There are certainly other reasonable ways to build this which will have mechanical differences and a different "feel," as the preceding discussion illustrates.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Battlesuit build.

 

Fair enough. My apologies to Dust Raven for being dismissive, but I view "indirect" in a very specific light, which may very well not be consistent with the rules as presented.

 

I'm also the cat who can't figure out WTF "indirect" has to do with "hardened." But that's a thread for another time.

[Silbeg]

Re: Battlesuit build.

 

Summon: summon battlesuit, Custom Lim: not while battlesuit is being worn or otherwise in use/restrained (-1/2)

 

Buy this power on the PC himself or herself, not as part of the whole battlesuit OIF thing.

 

Perhaps a different way to handle this (other than the duplication way mentioned by someone) would be to create a multipower...

 

Slot 1) Powers of the battlesuit while wearing it

Slot 2) Summon Battlesuit

 

Since you can be in only one mode, this would be appropriate. It gets a little more confusing if you were expecting the battlesuit to have an MP of its own (in which case this won't really work well).

 

If you wanted to go the duplication route, you could do a similar thing with the worn/standalone powers.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Battlesuit build.

 

Fair enough. My apologies to Dust Raven for being dismissive, but I view "indirect" in a very specific light, which may very well not be consistent with the rules as presented.

 

I'm also the cat who can't figure out WTF "indirect" has to do with "hardened." But that's a thread for another time.

No apologies necessary. I think I see where you are coming from after your previous post. As far as the write-up would go, the battlesuit is the SFX of an Indirect Attack from the point of view of the character purchasing it. I'm over here, in this well defended bunker, with obstacles galore between me and the fight outside. I can use an Indirect attack to originate my attack from outside the bunker, and in this case, the SFX of that is the battlesuit I'm remote controlling. As Lord Liaden says, there are likely a number of other Modifiers on this particular [group of] attack.

 

Also, it's just one potential write-up. Personally I'd with a Multiform with the base form wearing the suit and the second form having Duplication (of the suit going out and doing it's own thing, with appropriate Limitations reflecting the remote controlled nature of it).

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Battlesuit build.

 

I appreciate that. And thank you for pointing that out -- if, in fact that is how Indirect is used (and it explains the "Battle Platform" from the text) then I can see where the SFX combine appropriately with the desired result.

 

In this case, you're saying (and please CMIIW) something like this:

 

Battlesuit: 3d6 RKA, Indirect (Attack can originate from Damn Near Anywhere, +3/4); OAF (Battlesuit/See Text, -1), RSR (To "command" the suit/operate the turrent, etc., -1/2).

 

I see where you're coming from. Mind you, it still confuses the ever living hell outta me, but I see it.

[1EyedJack]

Re: Battlesuit build.

 

Build your armor with a non AI computer that you have some means of communicating with, and the computer can operate the armor as if it is a focus that could be used by anyone. Keep in mind that 1- the armor would operate at the computers ablity, not your character's 2- could cause a game balance issue if abused ( computers don't have stun or con ) 3- a computer could be disabled if a the armor is a breakable focus and took body.

[feralucce]

Re: Battlesuit build.

 

We've done both methods in my Star hero space opera...

 

There were some that were built as vehicles... those were ...not so much generic, but like small mecha (think glitter boy from rifts)

 

and then we've done a couple as foci (think iron man... from iron man...)

 

as a player I prefer the the OIF powersuit over the vehicle, but the vehicle can be a great deal more powerful with the 1/5 ratio on points

 

For the remote... I'd use mind link