48 Minutes To Nap Time

•UNSC weapons offer great mid range utility, limited by not being able to put out the most fire power in a hurry. Scale well with experience investment, with late game perks emphasizing reliability.

•Covenant weapons are generally better at close range, a flatter skill curve with most of their power coming at their tier 1 perks, and emphasize a risk reward playstyle to put out bursts of high damage.

•Not much planned for Brute weaponry. Probably ‘dumb but strong,’ consistent damage with little complexity but using good positioning coupled with action denial perks to choke the enemies options.

•Also batteries are gonna come in different sizes. Pocket (think tools and ammunition), Portable (for armor and heavy weaponry), and Engine (powering machines and vehicles).

•Finally, we’re getting a grid based inventory. Simple to use, and conveniently arbitrary (for me). The size and shape of inventory grids will probably mostly be based off of armor types. UNSC weapons will generally fit in cleanly, whereas Covenant weapons will often take up odd spaces and require some more creativity. THIS IS AN ENERGY SWORD NERF.

No recent updates, my bad, but rejiggering some stuff on paper such as rethinking how perks do their thing, realizing the skill system that I was working off of really won’t translate too well this system, and setting a plan on how to organize in what order I’ll try to work on things.

A tentative idea, but one I’m attached to.

In this era of warfare, batteries, almost as much as the rounds in the air and ships in the sky, drive warfare forward. Nearly every suit of armor has some circuitry and electronic support system, from the marine rifleman’s FoF tracker and waypoint finder to the fleet linking AI of an Admiral’s combat uniform. Special forces scan the city streets under the green glow of VISR, and Covenant Elites take the energy shields for granted as they shrug off a hail of ricocheting shrapnel. But all this could be gone in an instant should their energy source begin to die.

Equipment and armor can be powered down when not needed, losing some or all the bonuses they provide in order to save energy for later. Soldiers can bring spare batteries if necessary, or recharge their gear at special permanent or semi-portable generators. A Spartan may risk powering down their shields during a lull in combat, while a Brute chieftain lets his gravity hammer rest between hunts. For some, none of this is of any concern: the most the average Grunt fodder’s armor provides is a few centimetes of cheap metal and placebo, and a pair of Hunters never missed the gravity wells or holograms of the scrapped ship their shells were harvested from.

Kind of lost track of time today so a quick one explaining my basic combat ideas.

Hits will not be rolled for, but will come from a series of possible bonuses and penalties applied by both attackers and defenders, such as elevation, training, evasion if the defender is aware of the attacker, cover and other potential factors, potentially up to a cap, but maybe not. Each advantage (or defender’s disadvantage) will add a damage die to the roll, each disadvantage (or defender’s advantage) will subtract one. It is possible to not roll at all: ya didn’t hit.

Damage modifiers past this step will also exist but Idk enough of the specifics yet.

Weapons will have range falloff, losing damage dice at set intervals based off the weapon the further away the target of the attack is. Generally, UNSC weapons will have lower base damage, but be less susceptible to damage falloff, and Covenant weapons will have higher base damage but steeper damage fall off at a distance. UNSC will favor mid to long range combat, Covenant will usually have the advantage if the action gets too close. Exceptions obviously exist in Shotguns, Beam Rifles and the like.

This is it. Technically speaking, real progress has been made. Obviously as a one post blog, we still have a long ways to go in many aspects, from formatting (I bullshitted that), writing (I bullshitted that), tagging (I bullshitted that) to finally just deciding how this game might actually work, if at all.

So why’d I start at all? Precisely because I didn’t know how to do any of these things, and ideas slipped away every day I did not put thought to paper (or post, in this case). Better crash and burn and learn a little bit while at least beginning to archive these ideas than lose it all.

That said, I’ll try to post at least one idea a day, folowing the basic format and organization set by Recon. We’ll talk armor, weapons, skills and specialties, different races and factions and even some beginning of real rule setting. I know its a lot of ask from you who already know my shitty track record with bringing even small ideas to fruition, but please support me with asks, submissions, messages and IDEAS(!) if you want to see more from this project. I’ll keep trucking along on my own as well as I’m able, but your motivation will only feed mine.

Ciao, ciao for now

Marines may be the first to fight, but these Marines are firster. Recon can be picked up by any UNSC soldier, but the niche it fills is key to the large scale deployment of marines in new, yet uncharted combat zone.

Recon’s camouflage and navigation bonuses are designed to get a small unit safely throughout enemy lines, while its Main Perk, Cartographer, extends their Navigation bonus and clears the fog of war for any allies following in their footsteps.

Recon is a lighter combat BDU, providing decent armor with minimal weight penalties, and decent storage support for the self sufficient missions its intended for. It doesn’t have the increased hardening of Security and Soldier though, and its users will want to end fights quickly when combat is unavoidable.

Stats:

Armor ++

Weight +

Storage ++

Skills:

Camouflage [Field Craft] +

Navigation (Ground) [Field Craft] +

Main Perk:

Cartographer- Recon constantly records and streams navigation data to the UNSC Battlenet. Any Fog of War cleared by a unit wearing recon counts as Obscured instead of Unexplored for allies passing through later on. Permanent defenses remain visible, and allies know the last known location of enemy units and vehicles spotted by Recon armor, even if that location is Obscured. If a character wearing Recon armor did not see enemy units and vehicles, even if they otherwise cleared the Fog of War, such as if the enemy had concealment or moved into the area after the character moves on, they remain Obscured. Furthermore, all alies passing through terrain mapped out by Recon gain Navigation (Ground)+.