Titan Hanger Update: Efficiency Be Damn'd

 

I've added several figurines, three yellow, four green, three blue, and three pink to the Titan Hanger DLC for Tabletop Simulator (TTS). I haven't added their dashboards yet, but in some cases they are just like existing configurations of Titans with just a weapon swap, so I'm not panicking. It's playable, but obviously I need to put up their own dashboards and decks for players that just want to swap out easily. 

Some are not so easily playable. In the case of the configuration of Styxx that leaves off its turret-mounted weapon system and mounts two claws, I think that just swapping in a capacitor should make this configuration perhaps barely playable. I am uncertain quite how this would play out, and I think the best way would be to start in the middle, even in a three or four player game. This means the other players either need to set up in the middle as well, within range of the claws, or away in the danger zone in the outer three squares of the board. Sounds pretty good eh?

Well, there is a configuration of Rhea with two gun batteries and two hands, but also with big arms and digitigrade legs. Literally has more armour, more weapons, and only missing the jump from the thrusters. There is a configuration of Styxx with two turrets, two hands, coolant and capacitor systems, two thrusters, two legs, three extra armour, three sensors, four crew, and two deflectors. Maybe a pair of arms would off-set the higher rate of action.

There is also the two pink configurations, one with all lasers and one with all plasma. I'm actually pretty curious to see how those would fair against Rhea Quaternary with Her guns. I've tried with the all-plasma configuration, and while I lost in that particular encounter, I feel like a path to victory exists there. But lasers right? 

Would that even be fun? 

Give up shields to fire both laser batteries, and the capacitor to fire both macro lasers in conjunction with the fore and aft extra armour. That leaves arms, sponsons for powering digitigrade legs, sensors using junior crew, leaving leg armour to do the majority of defensive work blocking incoming fire. That leaves two senior crew, one junior crew, and the personality. That's for senior crew bonuses. First on the laser batteries, then on the macro lasers once shields are shredded.

Three cog 2 armour piercing shots and one cog 1 armour piercing shot is a knock-out on an unshielded Titan. That's ignoring any work the arms and legs can do. It's also going to need to coordinate those with the sensor for a very deliberate and expensive rounds (arm or sponson, sensor, senior crew, laser battery for 7 cards), probably alternating with a leg activation. 

Titanomachina: Hypothetical Systems Part 2

I mocked up some cards for the hypothetical systems I mentioned in an earlier post, and in doing so also did some thinking. Mainly the thinking was "Would that make sense?" and "Why would anyone want to do that?" These aren't final because they're mock-ups, but I find looking at the cards makes it easier to see how they fit into the game than the raw numbers. I settled on two per system, but three of the systems are specific to a single named system (Rocket Pods) or type of system (Guns and Lasers). For the purpose of these systems I think it's important that they affect a particular system rather than being broad or flexible bonuses like sponsons/turrets and crew. 

Extra Bracing adds an attack or a twist per cog to the next card activated with a range of one. 

A Refractive Collimater adds one tile of range or one shock per cog to systems with the armour piercing trait (lasers).

Rocket Pod Payloads add either an attack or the shield breaker trait per cog to Rocket Pods. Two cogs-worth of Shield Breaker would make it Shield Breaker (2). 

A Gun-Loader adds High Explosive (1) or Armour Piercing to Gun systems. If a gun already has High Explosive (1) then it is upgraded to High Explosive (2). 

Titanomachina: Stealth and Cloaking

 

The recent day of Bisexual Visibility got me thinking about ways to implement stealth and cloaking in Titanomachina. The joke was that line-of-sight is mutual, but putting it in those terms reminded me that there is space in the game's design for removing line-of-sight when it is available, as well as adding it when it isn't (the 'Detect' actions). 

Already in Titanomachina we have tall buildings, hundreds of meters in height and a fifty meters wide, being detected mid-battle only by Titans that are within 1km and engaged in high-powered sensor activity. I like to imagine that is because the Titans are drawn to battle by a recent disaster, the appearance of some sort of attack that encourages the already bellicose Titans to kick off and fight. As anyone who has seen large buildings collapse can attest, there is a tremendous amount of particulate in the local atmosphere, not unlike that of volcanic activity. It makes ranges short and detection a matter of deliberate action rather than a passive thing depending on pre-existing surveys and automatic scans. 

So a system that makes a 100m tall Titan disappear from the targeting systems of another Titan seems pretty reasonable, and falls neatly within the realm of the kind of 'Star Trek/Pacific Rim' combat that I want for Titanomachina. It seems like a system that manipulates line-of-sight in the other direction, that of reducing it, would be logical and something that fits into the Titanomachina ethos of expensive, pro-active defense. 

As is my instinct to over-complicate things, I would ideally want to have this cloaking system be able to cloak the Titan in levels or stages. So the initial stage, at the cost of one other system, would be something that needs a detect action on behalf of an attacking Titan to qualify as a target. Basically the equal of hiding behind a building, which is to say that the attacker knows you're there but cannot draw a lock. Then there would be extra cogs-worth of cloaking, corresponding to the amount of cogs a detection action would need to thereafter target the Titan. 

To restate it a bit, you activate this sort of Cloaking system and your Titan cannot be targeted unless it is detected by at least one cog. Activate this system with extra cogs due to crew, and your opponent will need to match it with Detect cogs. Maybe outgoing attacks reduce this value, as one of the tropes about being cloaked is shooting/punching people gives away your position. 

That is not the only space available for Titan stealth though. In a previous post I posited a hypothetical system that could extend the range of laser weapons by one tile. Likewise one might be able to reduce the range of incoming weapons, or perhaps increase the range between Titans. Quite what you might imagine that to be, or even call it I don't yet know. Given that the Titans employ a gratuitous amount of anti-gravity technology to begin with, there might be something to work with there for 'ludo-narrative consonance,' or perhaps something like the holo-field technology of Warhammer 40,000's alien Aeldari, a kind of distracting projection rather than invisibility. 

There is also the notion of something that might prevent crew from lending their Operate bonus to attacks, since the bonus from crew operating weapons (and other systems) represents the crew getting the most out of the weapon by aiming at vulnerable points, timing the firing just right, and generally making sure the attack is doing the most damage. This sort of thing seems harder to justify, but in a sense is the sort of thing that counter-measures such as flares, smoke dispensers, and whatnot exist to do. As a crewman you're trying to aim your gun at the target, but you can only really fire into the general area because you can't actually see what you're looking at. Probably not very intuitive though, and given how Titans are already wading through a soup of smoke, ash, etc, probably even counter-intuitive. 

Titanomachina: Eurybia Walks!

 While I haven't been able to get Eurybia's model up on Tabletop Simulator, I do have a beautifully printed version that I was able to get onto the table last night for meat-space testing. I was reminded of the advantages of playing live, such as the opportunity to game out the set-up stage of the game, using every dastardly trick in the book to make sure my opponent couldn't sweep the board of my habitats and vice versa. 

My opponent piloted Eurybia Primary, in all Her unpainted grey glory, since he has a better win-record, and would probably suss out any overwhelming effects of Her dual coolant systems better than I could. I took Tethys Primary, as She is a fantastic all-rounder, and would be a good test for Eurybia. Speaking of, Eurybia got the Gracious personality, while Tethys got the Sagacious personality. 

This is how we set up the buildings, with the non-combatant blue and green habitats often capping or blocking off the yellow and pink habitats from easy targeting. Notable was the fact that most of the exposed yellow habitats were close to my opponent's side of the board. 

Deployment for me was a matter of preparing Tethys for an ambush while planning how I would move Tethys into the top-left quadrant of the board and pick off those yellow habitats without letting Eurybia get behind Her, or use Her coolant systems to bombard the heck out of Tethys without worrying about returning fire. Eurybia was set up conservatively, apparently leveraging that edge in sensors and ranged weapons that would see Her just out of the arc of Tethys' gun battery, and the opposite side of Tethys' body from Her macro laser. 

Thins started off relatively slowly, both Titans working to amass an extra card for the next round, while Tethys re-oriented towards Eurybia, and Eurybia starting pushing Her habitat advantage by smashing the first of Tethys' habitats, and using Her coolant systems to deactivate Her initiate crew for use next round. 

Both Titans comfortably flush with power and systems loaded, Eurybia advances to the centre of the board and Tethys advances to meet Her, tearing into Eurybia with Her claw and macro laser, which Eurybia is able to tank on Her shields and armour. Eurybia makes a threatening motion with Her laser blade in return, but having survived the initial clash with relatively minor damage, it's not fired yet, despite Eurybia's crew members lining up to use the power of friendship and teamwork to gut Tethys like a fish. 

Realising that standing in front of Eurybia is begging to be knocked out, Tethys steps back and away, preferring to risk vulcan gun fire rather than a close-range laser blade hit, and manages to block the incoming storm of fire (5 cogs for the first shot, 1 cog each for the following shots, lost because of the block of the first shot takes their designated targets out of contention after pushing Tethys 45 degrees counter-clockwise) on Her left leg, while using both shields systems to pull in shield tokens from Her flanks to prevent the loss of 1/4 of Her armour. Notably, dumping three cards in reaction to Eurybia's vulcan gun attack means Tethys also sacrifices Her cards-in-hand advantage, but doesn't lose the armour...

Here is where I make the decision to back Tethys off from direct confrontation and start working on those yellow habitats with Tethys' gun battery. Tethys keeps going left, working on getting away from the laser blade and rocket pod on Eurybia's own left side, and drawing a bead on those yellow habitats on the west side of the board (the left of the image above). In terms of buildings, the score has been equalised, having started off with Eurybia one habitat ahead. Eurybia gives chase...

I activate Tethys' adherent crew, and post off of a two-habitat yellow building to bring Tethys around to bear Her macro laser on Eurybia while Eurybia swings around to lead with Her left arm. I've moved into the lead, but there are still yellow habitats laying around and Tethys will be reloading Her gun battery soon-ish. Eurybia's scans give Her the initiative, to which I respond by taking it back, and my opponent activates Eurybia's sensor to take it again, now blowing the coolant system to make sure it'll be available next round. Eurybia now has the initiative, meaning She has the edge in the following confrontation. 

This edge means that Tethys eats a face-full of rockets from Eurybia's rocket pod, reducing Her shields to tatters (down to 40%), and leaving Tethys open to whatever Eurybia has to throw at Her. Except that Tethys cannot as Eurybia steps back into cover, leaving Tethys with only sub-optimal targets a macro laser. After some quick, Propeller-aided cognition, I realize this calls for the second oldest trick in the book. Tethys is, after all, ahead on buildings, and if I push that to 6 or more, then it doesn't matter if Eurybia follows up with a knock-out, as Tethys will still win. So Tethys' master crew grabs Her sensor and peers east (the right hand side of the board), and detects a tall pink building where initial scans had indicated a much shorter building. Eurybia cannot let this building stand, and comes about...

Eurybia's adherent crew takes control of Her vulcan gun and annihilates the tall pink building at the edge of vulcan gun range and Tethys comes about and steps forward to likewise pick off yellow habitats off the tops of buildings, exposing more to Her macro laser. But, for various reasons, I decide that Tethys should try to exploit that damaged frontal armour of Eurybia, because although it would be fewer points that the two yellow buildings that are beautifully lined up for a laser, attacking Eurybia should force my opponent to spend Her power on protecting Herself, and that should minimize the counter-attack. Which is does, to a degree, and Eurybia is able to absorb the snap-shot by blocking with Her right side and intercepting with a shields system. 

Eurybia is now ready to square up, and moves left, coming about to shank Tethys, taking the initiate back from Tethys' sagacity with a quick scan. Tethys banks off of a yellow habitat, destroying it, and closes to face Eurybia. Tethys' claw crunches into Eurybia's frontal armour and Tethys smashes Eurybia right into the building on Eurybia's left, demolishing it. Eurybia brandishes Her laser blade, but doesn't activate it until the next round. 

Now Eurybia attempts to stab Tethys in the initiate crew compartment, but Tethys ducks and instead takes the laser blade through the sponson. It's a slightly more acceptable loss, and as Eurybia side-steps, Tethys comes about with a punch to Eurybia's side. Eurybia vents a coolant system, and Tethys has to pour on the gas to smash Eurybia through a block of buildings. Eurybia's master crew operates Her sensor and detects a tall yellow building, but it's not enough, and Tethys spots a pink habitat crowning a blue building instead of executing a body slam to crush Eurybia through another block of buildings (having run out of power thanks to Eurybia performing an emergency coolant venting and nearly freezing Tethys' arm). 

It's a time-out, and the final score is 21-19, with 3 victory points of destroyed systems to Eurybia and 2 victory points of destroyed systems to Tethys, while the building score is Tethys with 19 habitats remaining on the battlefield and Eurybia with 16 habitats. It raises something of a question as to what, exactly, is a comfortable lead as it would not have taken much to push that to a tie, or even a victory for Eurybia. Unfortunately Eurybia wasn't able to indulge in such tricks as using an initiate crew to operate the coolant system and deactivate both a senior crew member and a weapon, but this was Her first time in action and there was some discussion of the economy of a coolant system. 

There's also the matter of set-up. As it currently stands in Tabletop Simulator there's a default set-up and players can add/subtract habitats as necessary for the Titan they're using, but it's a very generic set-up intended to be relatively neutral. In this game I was able to both set up Tethys' pink habitats in ways that were both relatively well protected, and able to keep Eurybia occupied in a section of the battlefield where Her habitats were most exposed. My opponent's early set-up also involved a lot of buildings composed of a yellow habitat capped with a blue habitat, which is good for neutralising those pinky one-cog gun battery shots, but less so for resisting a claw or a Titan pushed through a building with a claw. 

Given then that the battlefield favoured Tethys somewhat, I think it was a good first out for Eurybia, particularly when my opponent was able to use Her coolant system to deny me that last body-slam, which would have seen the score more heavily weighted in my favour. I think the next time I'm playing the game I'm going to be running one of the Styxx configurations with a capacitor and a coolant system, or perhaps take the helm of Eurybia Herself to see what sort of envelop I can push. 

It's also interesting to note what is going on when a player declines to activate a system. It's a bit like in those shows (super sentai, tonkatsu, etc) where fists/weapons/what-have-you are brandished so that they (a) do nothing, and (b) are shown to be available in the future. 

We discussed what would happen when a sponson is deactivated, and I think the best thing (for now) is that a deactivated sponson's arc bonus lasts until the end of the round, unless it's damaged, and deactivating it doesn't need to remove that bonus. 

Titanomachina Hypothetical Systems

As people that have been following this project and blog may know, I occasionally like to brainstorm new systems to cram into the game. These systems would be played prior to activating the weapon they're affecting. 

Ammunition Selector for Guns:

• Add High Explosive (+1)
• Add Armour Piercing 
• Add Shield Breaker

Refractive Collimator - Adds one tile of range to laser weapons 

Rocket Warheads

• Add Detect to Rocket Pod actions
• Add Attack to Rocket Pod actions 
• Add Twist to Rocket Pod actions

Additional Bracing - Add Attack to Hand, Claw, and Buzz Saw weapons

Titanomachina Report and Analysis

The deployment is Styxx configuration 5, nee configuration 2, two plasma shotguns and a macro gun, two big arms, two digitigrade legs, a thruster, a turret, a capacitor, two deflectors, three sensors, three extra armour, and a standard crew. This Styxx starts with 17 habitats on the board.

Arranged against this is Rhea configuration 3, two laser batteries, a macro gun, and a hand, two arms, two plantigrade legs, two sponsors, two shields, one sensor, five extra armour, and a standard crew as well. This Rhea starts with 22 habitats on the board. 

Styxx is Rapacious, Rhea is Gracious. Styxx therefore has the initiative. 

Rhea telegraphs either a heavy punch or a tall building, and Styxx steps into cover, knowing that this will waste Rhea's heavy punch, or exhaust Rhea's lone sensor for three more rounds. Activating Her own master crew, Styxx detects a tall, four-habitat somewhere that is risky for Rhea to shoot, nearly the opposite arc from Rhea's macro gun. However, instead Rhea makes a play for position, using the master crew to operate Rhea's legs, swinging around behind Her own cover and ready to come out swinging.

Styxx brandishes Her turret, and Rhea, taking a moment to scan the battle-field takes notice and the initiative!

Rhea operates an arm with an Initiate crew member, using it to swing forward in front of a block of buildings, and out in front of Styxx. Fortune favours the one with armour! Styxx has Her own Initiate crew blast Rhea with the macro gun. Thanks to Rhea's preparation, blocking the shot with Her armoured right side and intercepting the shot with a shield from Her left back, the shot only wings Her, hammering the presented right side, and bursting shields, but only doing light damage to Rhea's armour. Rhea has even used the impact of the attack to slew starboard and lay Her own macro gun for a reply. This macro gun is operated by an Adherent crew and does far more than light damage to the right side of Styxx, destroying all of it's armour, bursting shields, and knocking Styxx askew. Styxx turns this into a right arm-driven power slide to the left, determined to bring Rhea into range of Her plasma shotguns. Rhea activated Her sensor and notes that the line of sight is blocked by a hitherto undetected yellow habitat.

Rhea moves right, matching Styxx and working to maintain that 4 tile sweet spot where Styxx's plasma shotguns are ineffective, and Rhea's laser batteries can carve Her up. Styxx is still moving through, moving left faster than Rhea can track with Her left-shoulder laser battery, which perforated a green habitat instead. Spotting another green habitat, Styxx is ready when Rhea changed tack and closes sensor-to-macro gun with Styxx; Styxx has Her Adherent crew take careful aim before Rhea blocks the stream of giga-voltage plasma with Her left side, reducing Her shields to 40%, and taking heavy damage to Her armour. The shock to Rhea's own power system sees Her hull crawl with snakes of lightning. Styxx now engages Her right leg, swinging around behind Rhea and outflanking Her!

Suddenly going into reverse as Rhea tenses with Her Master crew at the controls, Styxx backs up between two blocks and dares Rhea to kick Her. Rhea obliges, stepping up to deliver a hard crack to Styxx's left shin, hoping to avoid another plasma shotgun blast. Instead, Styxx fires Her thrusters, leaping over a building to relative safety as Rhea's Initiate crew take over.

Now Styxx is in trouble. She's not out of danger yet. She's up against the edge of the board and low on power, deflectors and armour down to 50%. As Rhea reaches out to seize Styxx, She slips under the yellow Titan's reach, working to distance Herself from being unceremoniously ejected from the battlefield. However, it was a feint, as Rhea's Adherent crew operated Rhea's right-should laser battery, its dual-beams carving Styxx's left leg clean off, for a technical knock-out!

Styxx is defeated 27-23, in the sixth-round. I haven't used Rhea configuration 3 in a long while and while I've been thinking about the potential of those dual laser batteries, it's interesting to experience the down-sides. Rhea is heavily armoured, maybe even excessively so, and perhaps that is actually an advantage, but the arms and plantigrade legs mean Rhea is either hitting hard, or moving fast, or detecting tall buildings. Styxx can combine moving and hitting more effectively, and detect multiple small buildings. Detecting large buildings is a trap, because they can usually be seen from far away, are efficiently leveled, and require a Master crew to spot the vast and obvious building. Operated by initiate crew, sensors can detect two-habitat buildings that can block line of site to Styxx. Likewise they can be used to detect enemy Titans behind known cover. 

Which isn't to say Styxx is easy to use, but that this configuration 5 looks it needs to play for time, and attack an opponent's city rather than their Titan directly. Shooting an opposing Titan in the face with a plasma shotgun is not a trap though, despite the temptation of it. Shooting anyone with such a weapon is a sound tactic, but it needs senior crew. Already a highly powerful weapon, it's also efficient at causing damage for its charge cost. Having a pair should be treated more like having one with a 180 arc. 

I think it's an interesting idea to maybe use Styxx's crew members on Styxx's capacitor. Two plasma shotguns, a Master crew, and a capacitor recovering all five charge cards to press a card advantage. My point is, I think I need to run Styxx the next time I play...

Titanomachina: Myrmidon Mega-Ants Part 4

Since the multi-Titan rules are working out pretty well, I'm back to working on the infantry expansion, the Myrmidon Mega-Ants. 

Ant Decks are composed of unit cards and support cards. The unit cards apply to all units of that type, so a Tactical Ants card enables a unit of Tactical ants to perform an action. Support cards enable a unit with the model represented on the card to perform actions. Ant units have unlimited stacking but occupy tiles like buildings.

Support Cards

·       Scout is an option for Tactical, Support, and Assault Ants.

·       Reinforcements is an option for Tactical, Assault,

·       Command is an option for Heavy Ants

Actions Include

Attack – The unit of ants chooses a range and rolls 1D6 per cog. The target must be in range, line of sight, and arc (arc is 360^o). Each dice result that rolls over the range does a point of damage.

Move – The unit of ants moves a tile per cog. Ants can move into buildings, gaining the line of sight of that building, and being destroyed if that building is destroyed. However, they won’t be destroyed until the entire building is destroyed, not just individual habitats.

Reinforcement – One unit of destroyed Tactical, Assault, or Support ants may be placed on a road tile on the edge of the board.

Detect Titan – All ant swarm units have line of sight to the detected Titan until the end of the round.

Detect Habitat – Place a habitat within line of sight of the unit.

Scan – Increase the swarm’s initiative.

Operate – Increase the cogs of the next action to be declared.

Reactions Include:

Block – enables a unit of ants to switch the attack to a different target on the same tile.

Fall Back – enables a unit of ants to move one tile directly away (‘directly’ by overkill rules)

End-Game/Victory Conditions

·       Knock-Out: All Heavy Ant units are destroyed.

·       Ring-Out – All Tactical, Assault, or Support Ant units are destroyed at end of round.

·       Time-Out – the usual 9 or 18 rounds. 

Right now, as the default, it'll be four squads each of Assault ants, Tactical ants, Support ants, and Heavy ants. In addition to this the swarm will have two each of  the reinforcements card, the scout card, and the command card. These latter cards can be played if the player still has a unit with that model on the board. Reinforcements enable players to re-deploy destroyed units to the table. The scout thing is basically a sensor for the swarm, enabling it to detect the enemy. Finally there's the command card for both enhancing other actions with operation actions, seize the initiative, and sacrificing some units in favour of others with the block reaction.

The notion, of course, is that there is a trade-off between the amount of ants you can have on the board at any given time vs their capabilities. But that is why we do development and play-testing, to see how this makes us feel...

The 5th Titan: Eurybia

Lately I've been collecting art advice in order to take a more active part in producing Titanomachina art. At best maybe people will enjoy it and be inspired, and at worst I'm participating in one of the ineffable rites that separates woman from widget. Since I like mucking around with 3D Build and I saw someone doing some great work with BattleTech miniatures, I decided to start working on a 5th Titan codenamed 'Eurybia.'

The notion was that 3D Build doesn't really do soft shapes, but if I built the Titan from the bones up I could just move shapes around to pose (and re-pose) the figure. Plus I'd seen that experienced artists often drew figures from the skeleton on up to really get proportions and shaped right. Whether I've managed to replicate this, I'm not sure, but the Heisei Gojira-shape I've been going for is working well. 

Additionally I've used the Titan models made by Jason Miller for their hexagonal weapon plugs and proportions, so I'd like to credit him as well. 

Hal-Con 2024 Deck Orders

My current plan for Hal-con 2024 is to run two boards for demonstration gaming. The first is going to be the Titans in their primary configuration, and the second is going to be the Titans in their secondary configuration. Deeply creative, I know... Anyhoo, I've decided on a card order that should be friendly for people who haven't played before because, you know, demonstration games. Each round players will have access to a crew member and a limb, meaning they can move and attack, and see how important the crew is to manage the Titan's systems. They all have an extra armour system to block that first shot, their sponson/turret system to explain the arcs, and their thrusters/jump jets for another source of movement (combined with their sponson so it doesn't feel quite so restrictive). Likewise sensors and capacitors (for the three Titans equipped with them) are front-loaded so that players have a variety of options for that first round, and more importantly a variety of systems to explain in an open-hand. 

I've included the Personality cards for a sense of symmetry, since those cards get put into the decks anyways. These are something like ideal personality/Titan match-ups. Styxx really benefits from the bonus move, Eos is weak on defense, so a bonus repair is handy, Rhea needs to dominate the initiative, and Tethys needs the edge on detecting habitats. 

 

Titanomachina: People in Glass Houses

Okay, so here's a new idea: You can land on however many buildings as can fit in a tile, and it will clear the square. It will also do that much damage to the Titan's legs. So you could jump a Titan two tiles and do eight damage, four damage to each leg. 

Why? 

Two reasons. The first is in answer to the question of wanting to land Titans on buildings. Which is like asking how many glass tables a stuntman can go through, because someone is going to get hurt. 

The second is in answer to how many plate-glass windows you can drop a stuntman because they lose both legs? A block of buildings stacked 3 habitats high will do six damage to each of a Titan's legs. Without shields it will lose both and give away 8 VP of Titan damage to the opponent with the lowest score. 

If players voluntarily avoid it, and use it cleverly and judiciously when they don't, why not permit it? The main argument is that the game will turn into players going Koolaid Man on buildings. But they already do that with abandon when walking. Players clip a building here and there, but only a few are willing to plod face-first through three separate 8-habitat blocks, and it seems to amuse them. 

Titanomachina: What If?

All limbs had their charge cost reduced by 1? So arms and plantigrade legs would just be played by themselves, while big arms and digitigrade legs would cost one card face-down? This puts the Arms and Big Arms on the power curve (1 card played : 1 cog of action), while putting Plantigrade Legs and Digitigrade Legs squarely above it at 2:3 and 1:2 respectively.

Similar cards above the curve include the Turret (1:2), Master Crew (2:3), the Macro Gun (2:4), the Capacitor (1:2), , Plasma Shotgun (3:4), the Laser Blade (3:4), and the Rocket Pod (2:3).

Systems on the curve would be the Initiate & Adherent Crew, the Extra Armours, the Sensors, the Deflectors, the Shields, the Gun Battery, the Hand, the Claw, the Laser Battery, the Plasma Howitzer, Macro Laser, Buzz Saw, the Sponsons, the Jump Jets and Thrusters. All 1:1.

Systems below the curve would be the Vulcan Gun (2:1), at the low end. However, there's a potential (1:3) involving operation with a Master Crew and Initiate Crew. 

It follows, additionally, that all systems on the curve can be pushed above it with a Master Crew. With just a Master Crew operating it, a Vulcan Gun might achieve a (2:5) depending on positioning, but minimally 1:1.

Why though? Aside from the obvious 'feel good' of making it easier for the Titans to move, turn, and fight, the limbs' combined actions are some of the most common actions in the game. It also makes for a better, more defined offset in the most efficient option vs the most efficacious option. Playing a capacitor card is less straightforward too.    

A challenger!

Lately a regular opponent has established a winning streak with the configuration of Rhea that carries two vulcan guns and two macro guns. It's one of the configurations that screams "I am over-powered" by being a Rhea configuration accompanied by so few habitats. Driving down a low habitat score is hard, so you really have to focus on the Titan. Direct, head-on confrontation is very difficult, either being knocked askew by the vulcan guns, or slammed into buildings by the macro guns. Centered on the board this one doesn't need to chase, instead staggering around in spinning circles constantly firing, which is cool, but shouldn't be a no-brainer, and I don't think it is. I think what I need to do is attack from low angles with this configuration of Tethys:

Rockets to clear shields, digitigrade legs for that mule-kick, and lasers to gut and dismember. She has a movement advantage in both stronger legs and a jump jet system. Without a capacitor, Rhea may have an edge in mobility. Certainly I would want the second initiative position, so that agility is not compounded by being an easy target. I think maybe spending a few rounds charging up is possibly the best policy.

In fact, I expect my opponent to commence hostilities by detecting Tethys, and then activating a macro gun operated by the master crew, to hopefully clock me one first and perhaps into a building. This is where it is important that I set up at a low angle so that Tethys cannot take a direct hit from a macro gun and be crushed back into a building. Between the macro gun's high explosive and the vulcan gun's multiple attacks I want a solid two shield tokens on both arms, the front, and both legs. Load shields first in order to realign shields on the fly. So starting with three extra armour, two shields, a digitigrade leg, jump gets, and a sponson. If I have to set up and get ambushed, then that is going to get me turned around without succumbing to the temptation of a solid kick to open hostilities. Moreover I have these all in hand before I start building up to overwhelm Rhea's shields with high explosive, and with laser shield-breaker weaponry. 

Damage per gun, Tethys edges Rhea out by two points, essentially the shield breaker trait on the lasers. At the top end the guns can do extreme damage if they can impact Tethys hard into a building. So don't get popped into a building. Oddly, the easiest way to do this is to avoid physical attacks, use limbs for moving, and focus crew on operating weapons and maybe damage control. At point blank range the guns can almost always choose a center-mass. Two squares away is still in laser blade range. Senior crew on rocket pods, initiate crew on the lasers.  

Titanomachina: July 2023 Rule Book Update

I've updated the rule book. My favorite vendor, BoardGameMaker.com, sells booklets in A5 size with a minimum of 24 pages as I understand it, so I'm trying to build a version of the rule book to fit that. I have something like five pages left, which seems like a good excuse to recycle some material from the Tech Manual, or otherwise think of stuff to add. In the meantime, while it is still something of a work in progress, I'm happy to put it out there in case someone might want to read it before a friend puts them through the ringer.

I'll update again in August as I get things sussed out. Obviously I'm not a graphic designer, but I have a toolbox of technical writing heuristics I've been working to apply, with one of them being to print out the in-progress book and manually mark it up before returning to electronic editing and updates. Maybe I should make some TTS stand-in images. 

In general I'm trying to go from the general, basic information people need, to the specific, arcane information that ironically needs the most explanation: the Impact and Grapple rules are on the last two page spread of the 18 page document before a 19th page for the code of conduct. Along with trying to state rules using a title and only 8 words (or hyphenated words), I want each rule to have a diagram explaining it visually. Obviously I'm not a graphic designer, but I think I'm figuring some concepts out. 

Edit, deleted the google drive link.

Titanomachina on Tabletop Simulator: New Dashboards

 I've updated the dashboard cards on Tabletop Simulator, to put the habitat buildings available to each Titan to set up at the beginning of the game to match the current cost of systems. I've also attempted to make some improvement in terms of the system diagram, trying to uncovered some of the original Loic Billiau artwork, and explicate the 3x3 grid. I've had comments about how the system diagrams should include the 90 degree arcs described in the rules, and I've implemented a card describing how the system diagram maps onto the board, which I think is an acceptable solution instead. This would be instead of the Audacious and Vivacious cards in the basic card packs, with the Audacious and Vivacious cards added in an upgrade pack, and hopefully have their art upgraded one day when I find $200USD a card and Loic is still in business. Where the game is 2-4 players it works out, although I have been working on building out the team game. 

Ive also swapped the weapons on the Styxx Titan configuration 2 & 4 and the Eos Titan configuration 1 & 3 because a physical copy Titanomachina would include 24 weapon cards including left and right-handed versions of each weapon systems and this would reflect that. 

Titanomachina: Developing Capacitors

Capacitors have a troubled history in Titanomachina, as they started from the original notion in Adeptus Titanicus of a Titan have a vulnerable reactor that could be attacked as a kind of one-shot-one-kill way of killing a Titan. I didn't find that mode of play particularly enthralling and so I tried a number of other things including having them draw extra cards to the current 'reactivate the last activated system' While that last thing has worked, per se, it's seriously counter-intuitive and leads to all sorts of weird interactions with the other rules including (and especially) a problem with Operate action whereby a crew-system adds their effect score to the effect score of the next system activated, leading to a nasty edge-case in which such an interaction is simply prohibited (since it would cause an infinite loop). 

Lately, however, I've been considering reverting to the notion of Full Power being an action that allows players to draw cards. At a current Charge/Effect of 2/1 that's not simply a bad idea, it's a bad move on the part of the player to ever use it. Even where we reduce the Charge to 0 you're still giving up one card for another. Now that does have a certain positive effect, especially where you start adding Operate actions before it. That's still extremely pillow-fisted compared to anything else though, as you're essentially trading in cards on a 1:1 (until the Master Crew). It's not great. 

What's not great about it, however, is that it does very little on its own. At Charge/Effect 0/2 suddenly you're giving up one card for two cards. That has some serious possibilities, as it means that where you have a Charge 2 card and a Capacitor left in your hand you can trade in the Capacitor for enough power to charge that Charge 2 card and use it. That a capacitor gives you more power to play with when you discharge it is, to some degree or other, thematically appropriate. Those two cards could also contain a Charge 1 card that can deliver some desired effect, so between providing extra power and extra options, it goes some distance to making up for depriving a Titan of repeating an activation. The simple act of accelerating the player's Titan deck one card ahead could be incredibly useful in some highly specific situations. 

There is also the way this dovetails nicely with the Emergency Power reaction (action played in response to an attack) where instead of re-activating a card with the block or intercept action, it allows a player to draw a card from the top of their deck and play it to block or intercept an attack. There's something of a question about what happens when the card cannot be used to block or intercept, with the default assumption of mine being that the players just put the card in their hand. 

So rather than a kind of replay card, the Capacitor would increase a player's options and the resources to play those options. I think this is the sort of thing I need to play-test first so it's not going into 'production' on Tabletop Simulator at least until January. But it's certainly an idea that I had.

I should note that this came to my mind after once again receiving a comment about how weird it was that Titans could not kick directly forward. I mean, they can after activating a sponson or a turret, but there are still people that find it weird. There's the possibility of moving the legs to the front of the Titan dashboards, but again the thing is that if you're hitting a Titan directly down the middle you're not attacking their legs. Certainly I think it's more about managing expectations, particularly for those who are used to assumptions like those made in games of BattleTech and similar. But it was the notion then of whether to re-orient the dashboards or add Twist to non-sponson/turret systems or some similar fix when it occurred to me that the real problem with turret/sponson systems was that they occur between 1-3 every four rounds with three being not-quite overkill and one being barely enough. Hence the train of thought returning to an earlier version of capacitors and the consideration of reverting in a more successful way. Capacitors will return sponsons and turrets to the player's hand more quickly without needing to add a Twist action to any other systems. 

This also gets rid of an annoying edge-case that makes the game more difficult to explain. The real question is: How does that feel? 

Titanomachina: Some Improvements and Visual Design and More Changes In Progress

 At the outset I should explain that I am not a graphic designer. I don't really get graphic design per se, but in the spirit of the modern era and perhaps a heaping spoonful of caucasity I'm not going to let that bother me as I re-invent the wheel. People say "Why re-invent the wheel?" Firstly, because it is educational, and secondly the skills and machinery required to makes wheels is non-obvious. Anything can be done, but only some things can be done at the cost available, and that's certainly a mindset I feel that 11 years of Titanomachina have ingrained in me. 

That said I've noticed a design inconsistency with Extra Armour and Shields/Deflectors, in that they have an Effect cog under their Block/Intercept action and Weapons/Arms/Legs do not. I feel like this is un-necessarily confusing for players, and slightly confusing for me as well. Originally it was a reminder that Something Ticks Up One (or Down One) when the reaction is triggered, a shield token or initiative place changed, but that's slightly confusing when one considers the Operate action. The Operate action adds its Effect, its cogs, to the total Effect of the action, and it has a neat little serendipitous cue wherein you can visually show this if you stagger your cards slightly when you place them face-up on the table. Additionally, any Effect on the bottom-right of the hand of cards is usually obscured if you're holding the cards in a fan so that you can read the left-hand side of the cards. Operate doesn't interact with Block, Intercept, or Full Power actions so these don't strictly need an Effect value. Likewise damage penalties don't affect Block or Intercept actions. As long as the system isn't destroyed the reaction works. Full Power is affected by damage, with light damage knocking the system out of use (although now I feel like crew should be able to Operate it if only that the activation of the system requires Effect to be greater than 0 but won't change anything if it is greater than 1). So I'm going to take out Effect for reactions. This should have no effect on game-play, and should make learning the game easier. 

Given that, I would like to make a couple of changes.

The first change would be adding a reaction to Capacitors whereby they can be used to re-activate a Block or Intercept system that has already been activated that turn to Block or Intercept. It would involve creating a new icon and adding it to five cards currently in play in Tabletop Simulator.

The second change would be adding an attack to the vulcan gun, the gun battery, and the laser battery. Otherwise these weapon systems would not change, and where combined attacks (like other combined actions) share the same pool of total Effect these systems would need to be operated to get these full 2/3 attacks because they are Effect 1/2 otherwise. It would be like how Arms have Effect 1, but can combined Walk and Attack; they need to be operated to do more than Walk or Attack with Effect 1.

Going back to the Full Power Effect 1 issue, the problem is that Effect 2 or more is pretty harsh. Almost game-breaking unless the system being re-activated is Effect 1. But it does feel cool to have a crew operate the capacitor to make it work if it is damaged. I think I'd have to be pretty clever re-writing the rules to cover this because part of the crew-capacitor issue is that it either bogs down in a loop, or breaks the order of operations. Maybe crew members can be sacrificed to make it work or something. I'll keep chewing on it. 

Speaking of chewing, I'm not quite ready to implement these changes in production yet, which is why I'm putting this out here for comment. I also need to come up with a name for the Capacitor reaction (Emergency Power? Reserve Power?) and perhaps a better icon. 

Titanomachina: Incidental Change?

In the weeks following a change I get to see how the change affects me and my opponents. It's always fun to see what the change will entail because play-testing can be all sorts of different testing in one. Some of the recent changes have been for, essentially, ease of play considerations and so it has been interesting to see how they're used on the board. More to the point it was interesting to see how an inadvertent change has been absorbed. I accidentally reverted a Master Crew's charge cost of operating a system to 1 extra card. That's what an Adherent Crew had been rated for 2/3s of the Effect. It puts the Master Crew over the card power-curve that generally fixes the cost of effect equal to the effect plus traits and trade-offs. Effect 1 is 1 with the extra bonuses figured into its additionals like 1 for the high explosive trait and 1 for the armour piercing trait and trade-offs of 1 for having an additional action (block, intercept) for a total of 4/charge for its human resource cost. 

In other words I have inadvertently changed the game balance by over-powering the Master Card. This means that it should perhaps have its human resources points change to reflect the cost of such a component, and hence the victory points for destroying it. But I think it enhances the game rather than distracting from a flat power curve. It feels good for players to get that +3 bonus. That's going to be an effective move. Being plainly better than the other crew members means that players may attempt to have a crew entirely of masters, but so far like habitats themselves that would be limited by the number of cards available; there are two playable Master Crew cards in the game. 

Now this reaction is moderated by how effective the ease-of-play and other balancing changes figured into the games. So far I'm not really drawing an opinion on holding operating crew members over rounds as it's not really my habit of play. One of my regular opponents makes it their default strategy to, when in doubt, put a crew member on standby to operate whatever system loads next. Too many times I've done this and found myself with a lack of quality targets when it comes time to operate a weapon or generally the wrong system at the wrong time. Maybe I should consider it more when I'm playing next, but especially after Hal-con I'm finding some interesting things out about the cards.

Firstly, it turns that that there's an ideal mix of cards in your hand, and it's not actually the combination that leads to the perfect round-one ring out. The ideal mix of cards in your hand, by my consideration is the combination that lets you engage with your opponent and do something constructive whether it is maximizing the damage you inflict or minimize the damage they do, or simply to dodge out of the way when about to be targeted, or blocking the target. So you need a mixture of defensive and aggressive posture which you can change as the situation changes. For example, you get an enemy in the arc of your Titan's right arm, and then get slewed right by blocking an incoming impact or grapple with your right extra armour , now you have the target in the arc of your Titan's left arm and enough cards to attack with that instead. Alternately you have a healthy 3+ bonus to your next action so that an enemy elects to move behind cover, and when they do you detect a handful of habitat building blocks and perhaps even shoot over the cover after that detect action. There's also stuff like blocking with a weapon and then re-activating that weapon with a capacitor, but mainly being able to take a hit and even use it to your advantage, like using an impact or grapple to get a free turn, or extra armour to capture the initiative. 

The second thing is that reducing a Master Crew's cost doesn't just put them above a rather-flat charge/effect curve, but it increases the number of other cards that may be played and accelerates the game. A master crew operated gun battery is going to hit really hard at the prior charge-cost of just activating the master crew or a macro gun. There's more defensive options at 0 charge these days as well, and it's not just the low-charge cards, but other cards in every deck will now have an extra card floating around that can be used to activate a system that would otherwise want for cards to be played face-down to charge them. This will accelerate the rate of play a decent fraction, but also has a nice crunchy feeling for the players. I may still increase the human resources value of Master Crew, but it's a new addition to the issue list. I'll cross-list it on the fix-list as well, since it is technically a reversion to a previous valuation of the operate action.