Why the strange range/movement numbers?

[Sterling]

So, new poster here.

Up front, I love the Cthulhu tech idea. However, after reading through the book (first game is going to be today! Wish me luck, I'm DMing) I am less and less pleased with the crunch side of it.

One thing that I find pretty irksome is that the range figures for mech-scale combat are.. wonky, to say the least.

You have things that move 18ypt. And things that move 108ypt - cautiously! Heck, a couple things move at 27yds per turn, just to make sure having a grid scale of 6 is not 100% valid. You have weapons with 15yard blast radii, but other weapon ranges are divisible by 25... and then you have weapons with 1500 yard max ranges to make sure that movement doesn't matter on an open field. Or if you can fly. And many things can fly using magic 'hover' tech that makes flying a non-choice for anything that can. And the suggested scale is 10 yards per hex or grid square - the one thing that all these numbers NEVER seem to be divisible by is 10. Only jumping works on 10s.

So... what was the thinking here? I'm curious why these figures were deployed into the book. I realize the reccomendation is that you not try to use minitures at all (or wait for the miniatures combat rules, which hopefully refactors things).

I'm also curious about the seeming huge value of the charge beam. Just from cursory examination, the fact that it's overwhelming dice can reliably blow past armor rolls, plus the fact that it makes a double action aim/shoot + drama die boostage a virtual non-decision for any armed with one, seems to trivialize much of the combat.

It bothers me that simple things like having evenly divisible movement/range/effect ranges, which seems like such an easy thing to make reasonable, were not done. I have to assume that either actual play-mechanics were not a consideration, or that there's some logic here I'm not grasping.

My only real solution, given that I currently feel like Ctech combat is ONLY playable as cinematic storytelling, is to convert everything over to a playable system where players have real, rules supported choices about armament and tactics, which is what my players want. Anyone have recommendations for this? I'm currently considering MechtonZ, because the rules in it allow for a huge amount of flexibility in terms of rebuilding the mecha to MTS specs while keeping all the flavor of the current mechs. But MTS combat is only a few steps up from my percieved view on Ctech combat, it works, but it can be a grind.

Anyway, we're going to try 10yard scale straight-up Ctech combat in my first session tonight, I'll give you guys an AAR of how it went, and I hope my concerns are proved invalid.

[Fransens]

I can't answer most of your questions, BUT the cautious speed I can:

The cautious speed is nothing more than the speed where you can fire a weapon or do other actions WITHOUT a penalty for moving while doing something else.

It's not how fast somebody can actually stealth around. ^_~
That's what I thought first, but after reading the combat section again at a later date I found the modifier for actions while moving. =]

Hope this helps at least a bit.
As for miniature - I couldn't care less since I use the cinematic approach more with a bit of visual aid for the players - and me - by drawing battle-maps and erase around there. Though I could - I reckon now - use coins for the mecha/power-armor... yes, that would help. ^^

But its more to remember stuff than an actual miniature game for me/us.

I'll wait for the miniature-game for that. ^_~

-Fransens

[Skywalker]

[Mike V]

[Skywalker]