Lunar Mecha Mech Generation (v1.0)

Changelog

This is where you design your mech! I'm assuming that you've already built a PC using the main chargen rules and have a good idea of how you want your mech to function. If you haven't decided what kind of mech you want yet, there are two schools of thought. Either you should work it all out independent of the system, then try to find rules that fit your mental image, or you should look over the Features and Parts and see if they inspire you.

Just to repeat, mecha have the following important attributes:

Level
Mecha have a Level too, and it also goes from 1 to 30. Like PC level, mech level increases gradually over the course of the game, but unlike PC level it requires that actual upgrades be made to the mech, so you can fall behind if you don't spend enough time tuning up.
Mecha Primary Stats
The reason there six Fighter Primary Stats but only three Pilot Primary Stats is because half of your stats while piloting come from the mech. These are the three Mecha Primary Stats, which belong to the mech itself. These stats (Frame, Handling, and Enchantment) use the same scale.
Traits
Each mecha comes with three descriptive Traits, like "Large, Gunner, Mobile," or something along those lines. A mech's Traits determine which Features can be easily installed in it, but they have no other effect. If you want to make a paper-thin mech with the Tough trait, whatever.
Features
Features are like mecha Edges -- they apply minor permanent benefits. Features aren't learned the way Edges and Skills are. Instead, a mech's Level determines how many it can have. When the maximum goes up due to levelling, you have the option to upgrade the mech at a hangar or workshop.
Break Thresholds
The real measure of mech damage is Breakage, not HP, since mecha can fight even at 0 HP. Mecha have six Breakage Thresholds, one for each of their five locations (Head, Body, Arms, Legs, Wards), and a final Wreck Threshold. When the mech has accumulated as much Breakage as a given location's threshold, that location is permanently broken. For example, if your Head Break Threshold is 4, you are under permanent Head Break whenever you're at 4+ Breakage. The mech is completely ruined and inoperable once it reaches its Wreck Threshold.
Other Stats
Mecha also have a slew of other stats that don't come up in chargen -- they have all the same Derived Stats as humans for interoperability of the two systems, and also a few more to boot. In general, mecha have higher ratings than humans in stats that involve power, damage, and damage resistance, and comparable ratings for reaction, accuracy, and evasion.

Designing Your Mech

Again, I'm presenting a step-by-step walkthrough for designing a mech, but you don't need to follow these steps exactly. You might start out by seeing a particular Feature you want to build your mech around, then setting the stats and traits to accomodate that, for example.

Step 1: Choose Traits and Order Breakage Thresholds

Each mech gets three traits from the following list, which I assume is self-explanatory. Traits separated by a slash are mutually exclusive -- you can be Large and Light, for example, but not Heavy and Light or Large and Small. You may want to look at the Features document before you pick these out, as they'll influence your choices there. Beyond limiting your Feature choices Traits have no effect on the game system.

MECHA TRAITS: Large/Small, Heavy/Light, Strong, Mobile, Tough, Modular, Generic, Fighter/Gunner/Caster

Now, you have to decide what order your Breakage Thresholds are going to go in. The final threshold, the Wreck Threshold, is always 12. This represents the amount of Breakage that totally destroys your mech. The remaining five thresholds are each keyed to a particular hit location (Head, Body, Arms, Legs, and Wards). When you reach the threshold for a particular location, that location is considered permanently broken until breakage is reduced.

Your five location thresholds are 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10. However, you can order them however you want. The low thresholds represent parts of the mech that will break quickly, so you should give those to the areas that you consider least important, and save the largest threshold for whatever part you consider critical. Just as a reminder, the five break effects are as follows:

Head Break
The mech's head is damaged, and with it the sensory array. A Head Broken mech can't perform actions based on the Head, and finds its Hit/Accuracy/Evade penalized as though Blind.
Body Break
The mech's chassis is severely damaged -- not enough to injure the pilot, but enough to put the fear of God into him. A Body Broken mech can't perform actions based on the Body, is at -3 Physical defense, and loses HP constantly as though Poisoned.
Arm Break
The mech's Arms are broken or severed. For giant monsters this may correlate to wings rather than arms. An Arm Broken mech can't perform actions based on the Arms (which includes most attacks) and is thrown off-balance and constrained, impairing it as though Addled.
Leg Break
The mech's Legs are broken or severed, crippling it. A Leg Broken mech can't perform actions based on the Legs and is immobilized as Bound, which has the incidental effect of knocking it out of formation and preventing it from adopting new formations.
Ward Break
The mystic Pilluan wards inscribed into the underside of the mech's armor have been compromised, throwing its magical energies out of balance. Kaiju and Dragons lack wards and so are generally immune to this condition. A Ward Broken mech pays double the MP for all skill activations and is at -3 to all elemental defenses.

Strategy: You may wish to leave the trait selection until you're ready to pick out Features, if you're trying to fine-tune your mech's abilities. Your choices should still make sense, of course!
Beyond the general principle of "give the stuff you value the most the highest thresholds," Body Break has what's probably the most severe consequences, followed by Ward Break.

Step 2: Choose Stats

Starting mecha are at Level 5 -- the bottom of the barrel for military mecha, but much better than the civilian equivalent.

How effective a mech/pilot team is depends half on the pilot and half on the mech. During character generation you chose your three Pilot Primary Stats. The other half of this equation comes from the three Mecha Primary Stats, which you're going to pick now. You have 45 points to divide between Frame, Handling, and Enchantment. As usual, stats must fall between 1 and 30.

Frame
Physical power is summed up in the Frame stat. Frame represents mass, solidness, and sheer power. Mecha with high Frame are like walking tanks. They may be large or small, but they're tough. Frame is the main factor in determining a mech's HP, and it also contributes to its attack power and resistance.
Handling
Handling, the mech's ease of use, is the factor that matters most to novices. All mecha are difficult to pilot, but a mech with a good Handling score is easier than most, and with a veteran pilot at its controls it can move with the elegance of a dancer. Handling contributes to a mech's weapon attack accuracy and its ability to avoid the attacks and offensive spells of its opponents. It also helps to determine the initial action order at the beginning of a fight.
Enchantment
Mecha are inherently magical: they contain magical batteries at their core and are etched with intricate mystic patterns. Enchantment represents the care and effort that has been put into a mech'a innate magic, as well as the degree to which its shape and design serve its function as a conduit for supernatural energies. Enchantment is the main factor in determining the size of a mech's MP reservoir, and it contributes to the power and accuracy of its spells.
Your mech's primary stats combine with its traits to determine what Features it has easy access to. The stat requirements tend to be fairly lenient, but you should still check them out first if you're aiming for a particular Feature.

Step 3: Allocate Defense Values

Humans are very balanced and thus have the same rating (1) for all their elemental defenses. Mecha, on the other hand, are often strongly skewed toward particular elements, so they can vary much more.

Your mech's Physical Defense is 5. Its elemental defenses average 5, but they can vary considerably. You have 40 points to split among the eight elemental defenses (Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Nature, Thunder, Light, and Darkness). No value can be set to less than 0 or more than 8 during this step.

Step 4: Choose Features

The number of Features a mech can support depends on its level.

Mech Level

036912151821242730

Max Features

56789101112131415

PC mecha begin with the maximum number of features they can hold. Since your mech will be Level 5 to start out, you can select 6 Features. Features for which you lack the required traits and stats count as double against this limit.

Features cover an extremely broad range of benefits. Although you get to pick quite a few, you'll find that your options get used up quickly -- each skill group you want to be able to use while piloting requires a separate Feature, for instance.

Step 5: Equipped Parts

You get to choose a few Parts for your mech for free: you can pick out a single basic weapon for it, and you also get to choose two non-weapon Parts, each with a single Rarity 0 trait (except the Enabler trait, which is its own thing). For a list of such traits as well as more info on parts, consult the separate gear file.

In addition to the stuff you get free of charge, you can buy more. You begin with quite a bit of money (500 S) to split between your personal gear and your mech's equipment. Just remember that most mech parts are too big to carry around on missions, so buying way more parts than you have slots might be a bad idea.

Repair and Maintenance

Suffering Breakage

HP are not as important to mecha as they are to living creatures. While a person is dead or near death at HP 0, a mecha is simply battered and low on power. Modern mecha have sophisticated self-repair systems and can continue fighting even at 0 HP if their pilots are willing to subject them to the strain. However, mecha's self-repair systems are much more limited than those of living creatures, and they can't repair many kinds of severe structural dama ge. A mech that is knocked to 0 HP, damaged while already at 0 HP, or damaged by an amount in excess of its Armor rating takes a level of Breakage. it's even possible for an extremely powerful blow to inflict multiple points of Breakage at once, though this can only happen if it leaves the mech with 0 HP.

As described above, a mech that sustains breakage equal to its Wreck Threshold is totally ruined. A wrecked mech is designed to be salvageable and can usually be piloted back to base very slowly and carefully, but any further damage it takes disables it for half an hour and adds even more breakage. Breakage beyond the Wreck Threshold doesn't matter in combat but increases the amoun of repair work needed. At the GM's option, really severe breakage (say, twice the Wreck Threshold) might destroy a mech beyond repair, but since a wrecked mech generally stops taking damage this is unlikely to come up.

Repairing Breakage

Mecha breakage demands time-consuming repairs. Without the aid of specialized magic it can't be done in battle, and even then only the most rudimentary repairs are possible without proper facilities and equipment. Worse still, pilots are trained only to perform simple repairs and maintenance. If a mech is seriously damaged in the field it needs to return to the base for servicing. Even a mecha that has been utterly ruined can be put into emergency mode to limp back to a nearby base or transport vehicle, but during this time it is incapable of battle and any further damage harms the pilot and puts the mech out of commission for another half hour.

Fixing a single point of breakage is more difficult the more breakage there is. Minor scrapes can be repaired in the field by pilots with basic training, but you can't even begin repairs on a badly broken mech without facilities, equipment, and expertise. One consequence of this is that the first points of breakage repaired are the most difficult, while the remainder get progressively easier as the total breakage decreases.

The following table lists the materials and repair time required per point of breakage fixed. Three levels of expertise and equipment are given: the first (Basic) assumes rudimentary training and a field kit, the second (Good) assumes engineer training, appropriate tools, and an assistant, and the third (Ideal) assumes talented engineers with state-of-the-art equipment and a team.

Current BreakageBasicGoodIdeal
1-2none/1 hournone/30 minutesnone/15 minutes
3-61 part/6 hours1 part/2 hoursnone/1 hour
7-103 parts/2 days2 parts/4 hours2 parts/2 hours
11-15impossible4 parts/1 day3 parts/6 hours
16+impossibleimpossible4 parts/12 hours