Sphere Robot Wars Mechanics

Basic Concepts

(warning: may not be entirely systemic as yet)

These rules exist to allow for fairly quick and dirty mecha-scale combat, in simplified wargame format. They are intended to be played using a webboard which once I properly figure out will be sent around.

Sphere Robot Wars (henceforth 'SpRW') has two types of units. They are Craft which are small, fast things like airplanes, mecha, ground vehicles, etc and Ships which are large objects including not just (war)ships but fortifications and land-battleships.

Unit Stats

Everything in spRW has a series of stats that defines how fast they fly, how tough they are, etc.

Unit Stats

Speed: A straight-line measure of how fast something goes in MP per turn.

Agility: How agile something is; this provides both offensive and defensive benefits.

Evasion: A measure of intrinsic difficulty in striking a target. It's approximately an inverse correlation to target size, though things like stealth and ECM can also factor in.

Armor: A measure of resistance to weapons fire.

Structure: A holistic measure of how difficult something is to damage, even after armor has been broached.

Hits: How many points of damage something can take before exploding violently.

Weapon Stats

Range: How many squares something can shoot.

Accuracy: The modifier to attacking fast, agile targets.

Penetration: The weapon's ability to punch through armor

Blast: The weapon's effectiveness in inflicting grievous damage to large targets.

There's also other stuff like sensors and stealth, but we'll leave that for the moment.

Character Stats

Piloting is the core stat here, and controls most of your specialties.

Piloting: Adds to Agility

Dodger Specialty: Adds to Evasion

Speed Demon: Adds to Speed

Sharpshooter Specialty: Adds to Accuracy on ranged weapons

Swordmaster Specialty: Adds to Accuracy on melee weapons

How it Works

Craft do not have a Structure, and defend with Agility and damcon with Armor.

Ships do not have an Agility stat and they defend with Armor and damcon with Structure.

In the simplest form the rules take the form of a stat-modified rolloff, though there's a bit more to it. Specifics can come later.

Building A Robot

This could get long. Some example stats follow. Anything in bold has a defined effect but I'm too lazy to write out how it works just yet. Trust me on this.

Beam Rifle

A basic beam rifle. Generic.

Range 10, accuracy +5, penetration +3, blast +0

Beam Cannon

A larger energy cannon, typically fitted to the shoulders of mobile suits.

Range 15, accuracy +3, penetration +5, blast +2

Pulse Gun

A fairly compact energy weapon that spits out a hail of shots.

Range 6, accuracy +7, penetration +1, blast +0

Plasma Gun

A stubby, short-ranged weapon that fires a blast of semifusing plasma. While the actual amount of fusing materiel is tiny, it's enough to threaten ships.

Range 4, accuracy +0, penetration +6, blast +4

Particle Acceleration Cannon

A massive weapon that can cut through most armor like a proverbial knife through metaphoric butter. Generally only found on mobile armors, super robots or warships.

Range 20, accuracy -2, penetration +10, blast +8, 3 damage

Linear Gun

A very high rate of fire coil gun, the Linear Rifle was for a long time the mainstay of mobile suit, tank and infantry armament, up until he advent of energy fillers and reactors small and powerful enough to supply a beam rifle.

Range 8, accuracy +5, penetration +0, blast -2, burst +2

Rail Gun

More powerful but somewhat slower firing than a linear rifle, rail guns tend to launch larger, slightly faster projectiles than a linear gun.

Range 12, accuracy +2, penetration +5, blast +2

Heavy Rail Gun

A larger, clumsier railgun meant for anti-ship work.

Range 15, accuracy +0, penetration +8, blast +4

Bazooka

A venerable and widely used anti ship weapon, the use of a bazooka converts any mobile suit into an anti ship striker.

Range 4, accuracy +0, penetration +8, blast +6, 3 shots, 2 damage

Giant Bazooka

880mm of explosive fun.

Range 4, accuracy -4, penetration +12, blast +12, 2 shots, 3 damage

Panzerfaust

A light, relatively agile weapon that fires a stabilized but usually unguided warhead.

Range 4, accuracy +0, penetration +8, blast +6, 1 shot, 2 damage

Missiles are to come once I settle on the specifics of how they work and more importantly, how big their bonuses should be.

Bits remain unworked-on. I know this'll make FBH sad, but they're currently low priority.

Special Powers

Everyone loves being an Aleph, but in addition to that, mecha protagonists are infamous for all sorts of added awesome. This section covers both and is currently pretty blank.

Determinator

"I don't know the meaning of the word 'surrender'!... I mean, I know it, I'm not dumb... Just - not in this context."

Every level of Determinator gives your machine +1 Hit

Made of Iron

Your character shields are so strong they extend to your mecha.

Every level of Made of Iron gives your machine +1 Armor

Gunslinger

You can use two weapons in your mecha's hands (one each), effectively doubling your attacks without needing to have something like paired shoulder cannons.

High Level Control

What Alephs do best

Add your Aleph stat to any attack roll involving Aleph Bits.