Hi there! Just released an update that covers a few things.

Wording

Updated wording in a few places for clarity. Thanks very much to False Idol Workshop for help with this!

Tags

Some changes to mostly Armament but some System tags:

• Charge is now +1 die instead of +1 Harm, and only counts from the start of the round. This gives it more of a reason to exist, the every other round situation hasn’t made sense since the v0.3 changes. (Charge+ is now +1 die and Harm.)
• Sighted now gives +1 die and +1 Harm because its condition is more difficult than Scoped.
• Mobile+ now gives +1 Harm if you’ve moved 2+ spaces or +2 Harm if you’ve moved 4+ spaces. This makes it more worth two tags/1 Harm.
• Polished+ now gives +2 Harm if you’re at full in addition to +1 if you’re at greater than half. Again, this makes it more worth two tags/1 Harm.
• Overheat has been changed: now it’s a chance to not be able to spend Tension next round. This differentiates it better from Straining.
• Charge Up is now Intensify because it was way too close to Charge and I don’t know how I thought that was a good idea.

Armaments

This is kind of granular, so feel free to skip forward. Short version is a lot of Armaments got buffed.

So the bigger change I made here was updating Armaments. I got thinking about this change while doing playtesting for the NOVA Faction Turn as well as watching LX-DRAGONSLAYER (as a nearly dedicated Close attacker) at work. The biggest change is that I changed how the farthest Range tags were weighted: Far is weighted higher Harm-wise than Near, which is weighted higher than Close. This is something I’d acknowledged in Systems with my rebalance but only recently decided it was worth doing with Armaments: it’s much more action-intensive to attack at closer ranges than farther ranges, so closer-oriented weapons are stronger and more reliable. While I was there I made a bunch of changes to various Armaments. This is a slight change to like 3/4 of Armaments, so I’ll go over each.

First, the non-tag changes:

• Assault Rifle, Carbine, Handcannon, Kinetic Cannon, Machinegun, Grenade Launcher, Laser Rifle, Revolver Cannon, Shotgun, Shiv, Handgun, Superheated Spear, Laser Cannon, and Spread Launcher gain +1 die.
• Gatling, Plasma Blade, Shiv: +1 Harm.
• Grenade Launcher: -1 Harm.

These changes notably bring half of the 1-die Armaments to 2 dice, and bring half of the existing 3-die Armaments (Assault Rifle, Handcannon, Handgun) to 4 dice. (Grenade Launcher was awkward at 1 die, especially because it’s getting Splash back, and -1 Harm is more than a fine recompense.) Plasma Blade is currently a 5 Harm Armament as well.

Now, tag changes:

• Handcannon lost Close but gained Hot. This basically makes it an improved Handgun and ties it, the Handgun, and the Revolver Cannon together thematically (they all have Hot because mech pistols are cool).
• Grenade Launcher regained Splash, because it was a very awkward design.
• Plasma Blade gained Charge, which makes it a lot more viable with the Charge change.
• Shotgun gained Near but lost Mobile.
  • Shotgun, Machinegun, and Grenade Launcher now have a pretty similar vibe, but with various levels of Splash proc chance vs. direct damage, which makes all of them feel better for it.
• Shiv lost Invigorating. It’s now 2 Harm, 4 dice, Close and that’s it. Very simple, but very effective.
• Superheated Spear lost Piercing/Hot and gained Polished+. Makes it feel a little more interesting (especially for light Frames, and especially for DRAGONSLAYER who will frequently be self-damaging via Straining) and Piercing/Hot didn’t feel very appropriate.
• Energy Spike lost Energy but gained Distracting+ and Mobile+. It didn’t have much character prior, now it feels like a proper electrified melee weapon.
• Laser Cannon is the same, but the Overheat change makes it a lot more viable to spam, which works better with Spin Up+.
• Shell Cannon lost Scoped but gained Charge+. This makes it a little less of just a pure sniper and a little more aggressive for builds who might only want to use it once per turn.

Finally, stock model Frames got rearranged a bit thanks to various changes.

• H1-VANGUARD lost the Electrolaser but gained the Recoilless Rifle. It’s frequently going to be at Far so that makes sense.
• H2-LANCER lost the Recoilless Rifle but gained the Grenade Launcher. With the Handcannon change it needed to gain something and Recoilless Rifle was always a weird fit for LANCER, which is more of a close-range attacker. Grenade Launcher is more its speed in that regard.
• H3-ANGLER lost the Grenade Launcher in favor of the Electrolaser. Suppression Targeting really calls for a reliable Far-range weapon to tag specific nasty enemies and Electrolaser fit the bill. Grenade Launcher was a bit too redundant with Shotgun as well.

Various other changes

• Kinetic Drive Motor’s wording is a little less awkward. I’d had it that way for a very particular edge case (Exit Thrusters) and I decided it wasn’t worth the extra wording to avoid it, it’s better if it’s more readable.
• Numida/VELITE-2 now has 2 Shields instead of 1 Armor. It’s supposed to be a light skirmisher so this feels a little better and gives the Republic a Shielded enemy to bring that mechanic into play.
• ePub version now has Backup Armaments. Oops.

That’s all for now. Until next time!