Titanomachina: Building Profiles

 

Lately it had occurred to me that giant robot games, particularly of the miniature kind, were based on numbers. Some people hate numbers. They don't want to count, order, or perform arithmetic operations. Many board games therefore hide numbers under the hood, so to speak, using components to represent quantities spacially and structurally. But a quadrant of the giant robot crowd wants numbers to contrast, compare, and evaluate. They don't want a game, but a universe they can comprehend and understand. It's where you get lines like 'Fifty diesel engines per muscle strand' in Pacific Rim. Utter nonsense, but important for signifying that something is big and powerful. Likewise BattleTech players and Warhammer players are constantly comparing numbers. It seems the players want to know what their robots do. 

The dashboard above details which systems that the Titan Rhea has on board, and where they are located. It also notes the cost of all these systems, in that Rhea can placed 21 habitat blocks on the board. The unstated assumption is that all Titans and their habitats add up to 65 Human Resource points. 

Altogether the systems add up to 23 charge, because they include the personality card. One could say that this is the power rating of a Titan like Rhea.

Speed-wise one would note that Rhea could move 6 tiles in four rounds using only Her limbs, and 10 tiles when Her thrusters are factored in. Adding in Her crew, Rhea has a top-speed of 17 tiles every four rounds. The fact that Her limbs only cost the four limb cards themselves speaks to an agility that is hard to explain if you haven't experienced them. But they can be expressed as the number 4, as in the amount of power (including the system being activated, so systems with charge 0) required to get those 6 tiles, and 8 for 10 tiles including the thrusters. 

Likewise the combination of damage from Rhea's weapons could be 8, including the armour piercing, high explosive, and shield breaker rules although it's only four cogs. Whether the hand technically counts as 'firepower' is also an open question. 

Type: Rhea

Length, beam, draft

Powerplant: 23

Cruising Speed: 6

Top Speed: 17 

Agility: 5

Shielding: 6

Armament: 3

Armour: 5

Crew: 4

Sensors: 1

Type: Tethys

Length, beam, draft

Powerplant: 23 (24)

Cruising Speed: 6

Top Speed: 19 

Agility: 5

Shielding: 6

Armament: 3

Armour: 4

Crew: 4

Sensors: 1

Type: Styxx

Length, beam, draft

Powerplant: 23 (24)

Cruising Speed: 10

Top Speed: 19 

Agility: 4

Shielding: 4

Armament: 3

Armour: 3

Crew: 4

Sensors: 3

Type: Eos

Length, beam, draft

Powerplant: 23 (25)

Cruising Speed: 6

Top Speed: 19 

Agility: 5

Shielding: 4

Armament: 3

Armour: 3

Crew: 4

Sensors: 1