Re: Mecha Modeling Advice
I have my own questions for this board.
I am designing a military giant robot type mecha. Like most military equipment they are subject to modifications, upgrade kits, applique armor, etc. They are supposed to be extremely adaptable and able to fight anywhere... These mecha do service as everything from tanks on the ground to interceptors, space superiority, and anti-shipping strike vehicles in space.
1. The mecha has only a small interal weapon (a light VRF gauss gun for anti-missile / anti personnel work); the rest of the weapons are either carried or mounted on hard points. The weapons are pretty obvious: just build them as vehicles, with no movement. This gives the weapons, shields, vernier pods, ECM pods, drop tanks, etc., Def, Body, etc. I think that might even work better than just buying them as powers on the mecha (if someone has a better idea, i would LOVE to hear it!!!!).
How would you go about representing hardpoints, though? I figure there are four of them: two large hardpoints on the torso/backpack and two smaller ones on the arms / shoulders.
2. One of the weapons is a "cluster" warheard. When it gets to the target area, it disperses a bunch of submunitions; in the fractions of a second available, the submunitions try to acquire targets and detonate. The result is supposed to be an AP killing attack on the acquired target and blast for anything in vicinity. Since the actual device is a "SATuration NUclear Cluster" (SATNUC - stolen from Ogre) the blast is not trivial. How would you model that? I was thinking an RKA AP attack PLUS an explosive attack, but I was wondering if anybody had a better idea.
3. What about explosive effects in space? Most of the explosive effect of a weapon is not transmitted in vacuum. Explosive weapons have to rely kinetic effect of shapnel or flechettes; nukes rely on radiation effects (heat, light, and EMP ARE radiation effects...). Would "Only in an atmosphere -1/4" be an appropriate modifier for explosions in a campaign that included lots of space combat? Is there a better way to model this?
Thanks!