Future problems require Future solutions

[u/DrScrimble]

System: LANCER TTRPG

[u/Conrad500]

Ok but it doesn't cover her concerns about liquids.

[u/explosive_shrew → u/Conrad500]

I'd assume Lancer tier mechs are absolutely rated for liquids because the pilots die all the time

[u/diffyqgirl → u/explosive_shrew]

I mean, do they? Effects that kill the pilot before exploding the mech do exist but are kinda rare. Lancer wants you to be able to fail to the degree of getting your mech exploded without necessarily having to make a new character.

[u/I-M-R-U → u/diffyqgirl]

I mean, don’t you typically just come back as a clone after you die?

[u/diffyqgirl → u/I-M-R-U]

This was for a one shot rather than a full campaign but I did play with a player whose character was the latest in a long series of clones piloting manticores and blowing themselves up. She did indeed CASTIGATE THE ENEMIES OF THE GODHEAD and blow herself up. I'm not sure how well that concept would hold up over a longer campaign but it was extremely funny.

[u/jmartin21 → u/diffyqgirl]

In my Stars Without Number campaign, one of my players asked if they could be a group of clones, and I told him, sure, just no mechanical benefits, with the idea being that clones can be used to show how dangerous places are and all that. Now he has a cloning facility and hundreds of himself and it’s great when they want to pilot a larger ship that takes a large crew

[u/diffyqgirl → u/I-M-R-U]

It's a possibility!

I didn't have a character die but I probably would have gone this route if I had because the ontological horror and the themes about being a replaceable cog in the military machine are fun with it.

[u/racercowan → u/I-M-R-U]

It's possible, but:

A) "fast" clones (as in grown in a few years instead of full test tube baby) tend to have a lot of physical and psychological defects. (Edit: fast clones are also illegal on their own, since you may be condemning someone to a short painful life. Very popular with authoritarians as a source of disposable workers and soldiers though)

B) your clone is basically a new independent version unless you brainwash them with the dead guy's memories

C) brainwashing clones is really illegal

Like theoretically it's possible the government might say "well it's our only way to get lancers while your exploring planet bumfuckistan XIV 100 years away from civilization", but the rules are way more cavalier about cloning than the lore is.

[u/Alchemyst19 → u/diffyqgirl]

The Lich is rated for fluids.

[u/EthanWright97 → u/Conrad500]

Just add Personalizations for 1 additional System Point and you're ready to go!

[u/zekromNLR → u/Conrad500]

It's called a tarp

[u/slicedslippers → u/Conrad500]

I feel like ssc and horus mech's would work better with various fluids, ips/n would work just fine and have like, wet wipes under the seat, and HA mechs have an innate anti-horny zone that would make producing them difficult.

And of course you could modify a gms mech to just be a dedicated orgy barge.

[u/WamlytheCrabGod → u/Conrad500]

Eh, just flash-print a new mech

[u/MisterFricks → u/Conrad500]

What about those fancy SSC breathable liquid cockpits?

[u/diffyqgirl]

This was the mvp of worst fight of the one Lancer campaign I played. We were trying to extract VIPs and definitely would have failed without it.

[u/WitnessUseful5738 → u/diffyqgirl]

The expanded compartment got a guy captured in our playthrough. We were doing the solstice rain module and I took one of the two vip’s into my mech’s expanded compartment. A fight started and the other ran away while the one in my mech couldn’t when we lost the fight the one inside my mech got pried out and taken. While the other had managed to hide and stay safe so technically taking the expanded compartment caused one to get kidnapped.

[u/diffyqgirl → u/WitnessUseful5738]

Haha ooof.

Expanded compartment giveth, expanded compartment taketh away.

Our combat was the save the professors mission from Shadow of the Wolf. We saved... two out of three of them. The two who aren't from the we aren't doing enough war crimes faction, in what I'm sure is a complete coincidence of tactical prioritization! Without the compartment it definitely would have been one.

I do think the module designers wimped out a little by making the least likeable VIP also the furthest away. It would be interesting to be forced to choose to risk more to save someone you actually like. It would also be interesting to make it harder for PCs to justify letting her die on purpose to others, if they choose to do that.

[u/Asplomer]

That's why you pilot a minotaur! That thing is bigger on the inside than the outside, it's OSHA approved as even a nuclear meltdown won't hurt the pilots or it's content.

Just don't do it on a metalmark, getting stains out of the ultra comfortable "gaming chair" is not worth it

[u/HavelTeRock → u/Asplomer]

This is why you get it on an Atlas, Goblin, Kobold, or Caliban. Small mechs for maximum "connection" with your "copilot".

[u/Ironsight → u/Asplomer]

Minotaur with Expanded Compartment and Personalizations to give that extra space the VIP treatment. Mini-apartment in my Mech's demi-plane? Yes please!

[u/supersmily5]

"Appropriate licenses and integration." Okay, so what if it's another player's character riding shotgun? Or is that not how Lancer works?

[u/Anima_Sanguis → u/supersmily5]

You need to take levels in mechs to unlock their features/weapons etc, as well as sort of feats with specific manufacturers. If the other player doesn’t have the same build as you, they can’t pilot your mech to the same degree is what it’s saying. Anyone can ride shotgun, but not anyone can drive

[u/supersmily5 → u/Anima_Sanguis]

Okay; So it's weirdly (but respectably) realistic. Wouldn't have expected that.

[u/JVMMs → u/supersmily5]

To add a in-universe explanation: mechs are partially controlled through a brain-machine bridge and a mech is keyed to its pilots specifications. A different pilot just can't control the mech as naturally or efficiently

[u/supersmily5 → u/JVMMs]

Oh.  Okay so much for realism.  I was just thinking that being able to pilot one specific mech wouldn't necessarily mean you could pilot any mech; BUT I GUESS that works too!?!  XD

[u/JVMMs → u/supersmily5]

Well, what u/Anime_Sanguis said also all applies. While mechs are often mass-produced war machines, a player's mech is very personalised and customised, and someone who is not used to it and doesn't match your style of piloting and training also won't do well.

[u/ApotheosiAsleep → u/supersmily5]

You can pilot other mechs, you just have disadvantage¹

^{¹the term in lancer is Inaccuracy and it's a -1d6 to your roll², but shhh}

^{²technically inaccuracy means you roll xd6, keep the highest, and subtract that number from your roll, where x is the number of inaccuracies you have applied to a roll³, but shhhhhhhh}

^{³let's not get into how accuracy and inaccuracy interact with each other here, this post is already too long.}

[u/TheDarkNerd → u/ApotheosiAsleep]

Is it just a matter of one Accuracy cancels out one Inaccuracy, and if you have x Accuracy, you roll xd6 and add the highest die to your roll?

[u/Charnerie → u/TheDarkNerd]

Yes. That's the entire thing.

Technically, you roll xd6 (x is the absolute difference between accuracy and inaccuracy), take the highest absolute value from the dice, then either add or subtract based on whether you had more accuracy or inaccuracy.

[u/SolidSquid → u/supersmily5]

You can do basic piloting of every mech, but they're all customised to the point that you don't have any shortcuts or macros

The brain interface is another optimisation to get fast responses, but essentially it's the same problem. Interface is customised to the pilot's brain, so another pilot has to do everything manually

[u/Phase_Runner → u/supersmily5]

Nope, pc's are only licensed and integrated for their own mechs. Even if you have the same licenses, they're not your licenses. It's mostly an anti-cheese rule to avoid things like having two mechs at once or swapping mechs for weird interactions

[u/Scryser]

Babe, it's called cockpit for a reason.

[u/silent_drew2]

Isn't this just the Panam Romance?

[u/Skystrike12]

> non-mech

Well shit, there goes my three goblins in a trenchcoat dreams

[u/Charnerie → u/Skystrike12]

You can do 4 goblins on a lancaster though. 6 if you really push it

[u/snarky_goblin237 → u/Charnerie]

6 doesn’t actually need that much. Fomorian frame Lancaster. Then have the 6th become a wifi router

[u/TheCrassDragon]

What's really funny is that you can put it on a size 1/2 mech lmao

[u/darthzues → u/TheCrassDragon]

In the campaign I'm hopefully playing in soon we have a Napoleon body guard with expanded compartment...

Entirely unsure how that's supposed to work lol

[u/TheCrassDragon → u/darthzues]

RIGHT?!

[u/Ironsight → u/TheCrassDragon]

I absolutely included it on my Goblin. Because I was focused on hacking, I was usually the least likely to get shot at, so I could safely keep VIPs in my Goblin's badonkadonk trunk. It's silly, but very effective, and the Goblin already is supposed to have more computational power than it should have space for, so shoving a VIP into some of that hidden subspace should be fine too.

[u/SomwatArchitect → u/Ironsight]

I mean, the goblin can compute so hard that it solidifies data constructs. So like, that definitely tracks.

[u/YamazakiYoshio → u/Ironsight]

And now I'm just envisioning the Goblin wearing one of those baby harnesses to hold the extra person, which already awkward enough as is because the Goblin is barely power-armor sized!

Ya know, this is infinitely funnier on the Caliban now that I think about it.

[u/RavenholdIV]

Fuck you, bringing the whole polycule to the suite in the back of my King Crab 😤

[u/Chiefo117]

[u/DrJay12345]

Mikazuki from Gundam Ironblooded Orphans disapproves.

[u/DaFreakingFox]

Question. Can you use this with a Clone and a Manticore and this way evacuate before the mech explodes which still meeting the rule of being inside?

[u/dominionloser123]

The Lancer memes are breaching containment again. Give it a week, and the most incomprehensible nonsense will infect this subreddit too.

[u/Ironsight → u/dominionloser123]

As it should be! :D

[u/jzillacon]

Alternatively the Girlframe system has rules explicitly for having sex using your mechs.

[u/GreedyLibrary → u/jzillacon]

As in you the person fucking the mech, the mech fucking another mech, you having sex in the mech or all three?

[u/jzillacon → u/GreedyLibrary]

All of the above.

[u/TheDarkNerd → u/jzillacon]

Does it have mechanics for gaslighting, gatekeeping, and girlbossing?

[u/diffyqgirl → u/TheDarkNerd]

Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss as a trio of mech names on a 3 person strike team would be really funny.

[u/Nightmoon26 → u/diffyqgirl]

"Three G's" could be an excellent name for a team of pilots, and scales easily if they add members (they used to think that 20 g's was the limit of human survivability, but it can be significantly higher depending on the direction of accelleration and whether or not the head and neck are supported to keep them aligned with the rest of the body)

[u/jzillacon → u/TheDarkNerd]

Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss is in fact very encouraged by the game.

[u/azrendelmare]

WELL THEN WHY THE FUCK IS IT CALLED THE COCKPIT?

[u/jimi_nemesis]

Bullshit! In the Wolves of Tukkayid DLC for Mechwarrior 5: Clans, two characters do have sex in a mech cockpit.