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Drv3 mecha sizing fix

Alex Hart

FM of NDC
🎖️ Game Master
I was looking at DRv3 and I noticed a few mistakes made with the sizing of mecha. This issue wasn't present elsewhere, so I decided to bring it up here.

Based on the examples we're given, light mecha should be from 3 meters in height to 5 meters in height, medium mecha should be from 5-10 meters in height and heavy mecha should be anywhere from 10 meters to 20 meters in height.

The reason that heavy mecha are from 10 to 20 meters is that then it starts to move into the category of light starship, which is anywhere up to 100 meters.

A bunch of recent mecha will either have to be reclassified or their sizes will have to be adjusted.
 
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Despite the classifying name 'mecha', the references for the mecha scale were far more inspired from other vehicles, especially the flying ones.

Light Mecha's reference point was the shuttlepod, Medium mecha is for larger shuttles and fightercraft, while Heavy Mecha was meant for much larger craft, with the NASA Orbiter shuttle being the benchmark for it.

Earlier draft actually had this category called 'Vehicle' (as in, Anti-Vehicle), but it was argued to me that mecha ought to still fit because it was short for Mechanics/mechanical - which, as you'll observe if you eye the homepages of various sci-fi animes, can apply for tanks just as much as planes, shuttles and giant robots. So, I conceded the point and left it as "Mecha".

What you need to take away from that is that it doesn't only cover the big robots. As for the drastic scale increase between Heavy mecha and Light starship, so far as I was concerned it was as designed. Growing the heavy mecha more turned them into mini-spaceships, which did not seem desirable regarding what was already established in the setting. Thematically, SARP had a sharp constrast when it came to other things and then ships. Having the mecha tiers alone actually made ships far more assailable than they were before.

If after that you still beleive the values listed are a mistake, you need to propose replacement numbers and run them through Wes to get his approval for it. For my part, I can't answer for what the mods let through: I'm not one.
 
Well My minor gripe is not the clarification, it's that the examples given didn't jive with the suggested sizes. And I did propose replacement numbers.

Based on the examples we're given, light mecha should be from 3 meters in height to 5 meters in height, medium mecha should be from 5-10 meters in height and heavy mecha should be anywhere from 10 meters to 20 meters in height.
 
Oh, sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you were quoting the numbers that were already up. Yeah, that's a whole lot smaller than what I put down.

Well, if you want change, like I said, that's up to Wes. I think the values I set down are fine, but it's up to him to decide.
 
I was a fan of having a big jump from heavy mecha to starships, but I felt that your sizes for them were way too large, to the point of absurdity. To make a heavy mecha class fighter or mecha it would have to be at least 40 meters tall/long, which is silly for most purposes.
 
Then maybe there are no heavy mecha fighters? o_O

Or there are, and they are accordingly beastly. Or are actually a dropship, big gunship, etc...

Either way, you're not forced to fill the heavy mecha category with things you don't think belong there.
 
Regardless, I feel that we should change the sizes of the categories to fit the examples that YOU gave in the table.
 
RPG-D RPGfix
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