Final Tally of Changes. Part II: Mecha.

Oh boy oh boy it is update time! A day late, yes. Sorry about that but I spent the whole afternoon yesterday under the weather. The good news is that we're printing test copies already so we are very close to the finish line. As usual, what you'll read in the rest of this post shouldn't be much of a surprise if you've been following the blow. I'm going to paste the main dish of the most recent Kickstarter update here, changes in italics are from the Experimental Rules PDF while changes in bold are modifications of the experimental rules or entirely new.

General Changes

• Cores can no longer use Upgrades and Weapons after ejection: The core ejection is meant to give the PC one last chance to retreat in battle, possibly using another Genre Power or two to help their allies before leaving at most. Builds focusing on Support Upgrades and The Beast could use it to keep fighting after being defeated. Especially with the case of The Beast, this was an unfair advantage.
• Impassable Terrain now deals damage to units that are forcefully slammed into it: There's going to be more ways to move enemies around in the expansion, this makes those better and makes Impassable Terrain something more interesting than just a barrier.
• Shooting Weapons no longer gain a +5 range bonus from Aiming, that bonus goes to Long Range Weapons instead: This helps out the melee weapons with reach a little. More importantly, it is now possible to balance guns like Riot Weapon and Bombardment around having short range, which were never intended to be used from the safety of your side's back row.
• All Blasts now have their own unique blast radius between 1 and 4. All other area of effect weapons have been keyworded as either Burst (those that attack enemies around the user) or Line (those that attack all units in a straight line): Most Blasts are size 2, going up to 3 with Artillery Frame. Bursts got a bit of a buff since the experimental pdf in that they only target enemies now.

Upgrades

• Stealth Field is 2 Disadvantages to non-Burst, Blast or Line Weapons: This makes it function like Interference Terrain from the expansion and is a good defensive boost that does not, you know, make you completely immune to like three of every four Weapons in the game.
• Artillery Frame works with all Blast, Burst and Line Weapons and costs 5 less but has the blast radius bonus reduced by 1: Giving the advantage bonus to Bursts and Lines means more options for your build and it is cheaper to compensate for how most blasts lost a 2-3 zone radius overall.
• Invincible Alloy is 20 MP: As per the poll discussed a week ago.
• Guardian of Steel has a reduced range of 1 Zone around the user: Still very strong, but now conditional since it requires proper positioning.
• Resupply can spend multiple uses at once with one Action: As of the preview v2 it takes a while for Support types to get going, but once they do they can pull some really nasty moves and even combo them together... Once per fight. This lets them do multiple combos each Operation, making them more fun to use.
• Supports have a reduced range to just plain Systems: Buuuuut just to be on the safe side, we don't want them pulling those combos from 10+ Zones away while they keep running away from anything threatening, so we're reducing their range to keep them from outshining snipers at their own niche.
• Expansion Pack holds 30 MP and costs 20: I went pretty in depth into this one last update.
• Combining takes up one Action from one participant, not one Action from everyone: It is a small buff, but one worth having for combiners that deploy without combining first.
• Unison Combination costs 10: Just a small buff. I figure there's enough downsides to being combined that this doesn't need to cost 20.
• Component Unit replaced with Super Combination which costs 10 for everyone involved and averages Might, Guard, Systems and Speed: This is a big one, and I'm not a fan of it, but the old Component Unit just wasn't cutting it. One Component Unit attached made your Mecha stronger than a Boss, two made it near invincible and it just got worse from there. I haven't given up on dedicated Component Units though, they are going to make a comeback for the expansion, so I can get them right.

Weapons

• Boosted Lance can no longer be used to escape from Duels: It was better than Slippery Chassis at its own job. Yyyep.
• Antiair Missiles got a buff of an additional Advantage to their use: This more or less doubles the power of Antiair Missiles to a pretty respectable +4 against aerial targets, but it is still a very conditional Weapon. Most flying Mecha can transform out of plane form or, you know, just land. And in space or underwater this is just barely better than a Default Weapon. I'm calling this balanced.
• Rocket Punch has a bonus +2 to its Maximum Range: This makes it useful even with a Systems of 0, even with a meager investment of 10 points into Systems 4 this gets a respectable reach of 7 Zones. This should help duelists close the distance with snipers.
• Assault Rifle now doesn't risk hitting allies in a duel: It is half a Crippling gun now! This should make it much more effective as a general use Weapon.
• Electrosapper Pods is a One Shot that deals bonus Damage equal to your Systems: It is stronger and much more interesting to use now, especially since high Systems builds are the ones most likely to have ways to reload it.
• Resonance Cannon is Slow instead of One Shot: Still an inaccurate gun with short range but now a lot stronger and the bane of Absolute Barrier tanks.
• Superheavy Machinegun is now a Line with Long Range instead of a Blast: This represents the concept much better than a Blast, and while Line is arguably weaker than Blast, having Long Range and not hitting all of your friends with a -4 to attacks is a big upside.
• Beams now have a base cost of 1 energy to their use, but cost 1 less to Boost: This was in the previous set of three polls.