There isn't a cost for gear in the Mechanoids world, they can make all their own gear once they have found the needed resources, and accessed the technical knowledge. Finding the resources, forming the equipment and allocating it to a module or drone is all that is required. Advanced equipment will also require some research and programming, as will be noted.
Players who have human characters will need to use the inbuilt SW costs, or find some other suitable system they can use, if they wish to use a cash based economy. In the scenarios where humans still exist most of the economy is barter based or a controlled market (as in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress).
Also be very aware of the fact that an item made by a mechanoid is made for the mechanoid and is not usable by a human. It may not even be usable by another mechanoid.
Mechanoids are metallic beings, and as such the effect of many types of weapons becomes redundant, a mace or a sword or a spear are pretty much all the same thing against a metallic being made of living metal. There are some advantages to some weapons but generally the heavier it is the more likely it will cause damage. Because of this a level of generalisation can be assumed.
The main effort required in obtaining gear is to find the correct resources and then implement them into a working design. It’s a simple matter to make a mace, a lump of iron, but a much more complicated matter to make a Dark Matter Generator, or a Warp Core Generator.
To buy things takes time (a week) and effort, mainly a Streetwise skill roll vs 4, but you can also use a Craft skill to locate materials relevant to your craft. You can use Common Knowledge for Common materials.
All items will be rated as follows:
Common 0 1d6+1 allotments
Uncommon +2 1d3+1 allotments
Rare +4 1 allotment
Very Rare +8 1 item
Primitive, Modern: may be modifiers depending on the legality of the item.
Advanced: extra -2 to all rolls
Advanced+: extra -4 to all rolls.
Illegal: extra -4 to roll
Proscribed: extra -6 to roll.
So each week anyone with Streetwise may search for one type of item (common, uncommon etc). They should have a list of items ahead of time to match the possible number that can be generated.
Multiples of the same item are possible.
An allotment can be a single item, or a gross of them, whatever seems appropriate.
Multiple people can co-operate to achieve a result.
Some places may be better than others when it comes to finding stuff. The city of Tyre is a major merchantile hub for the entire region and GMs may allow +2 to the above finding roll in such a city. On the contrary, some cities are remote or poor and may suffer a negative, such as Thebes due to the political situation there.
Extra successes can be used to reduce time (x2/3rd each), or to increase allotments.
Rare and Very Rare items can be resolved as a extended task, requiring a number of successes to achieve, and requiring multiply weeks and rolls.
As CMx2 carry the entire knowledge of the human race it is only a matter of accessing the required information to determine how to make things. This will, for simplicity, be based on a Smarts roll. To keep things simple we will extend this to humans as well, as long as they have access to a reasonable data source (the SpaceWeb). If for some reason they do not have access to a library then apply modifiers of -2 per technology level above Primitive. Remember that no one can make an item of a technology level they do not possess.
There are physical resources and intellectual resources.
Physical resources are materials gathered from the environment and converted into devices. There are a number of different types of materials, vaguely grouped by their nature and how they are used. Some resources are constructed from other resources, or have pre-requisites that require other resources.
Intellectual resources are such things as programs and skills required to run the various components that a mechanoid attaches to itself.
Mechanoids will find resources in their adventures, they will salvage resources and they will make resources (from other resources). Once you have collected/manufactured the right resources you will be able to construct something of use, a weapon, a drone or module, a system. Mechanoids are able to do this using their nanites to directly manipulate the materials, and thus the materials are not usable by humans (or even other mechanoids unless shared).
Mechanoids vs Human Gear
Humans will need to purchase everything with credits, unless they are a Weird Scientist. They can maintain what they buy with the Repair skill, but cannot create anything unless they invest in the approrpiate skills or edges, which is very unlikely. Human used gear that is captured or found can also be used and maintained as normal.
Mechanoid created gear however is special and generally can only be used by the mechanoid that created it, because its nanites will infuse the object. Humans cannot use mechanoid created materials at all. Mechanoids can use human gear. If they modify it in some way however it becomes mechanoid gear.
For simplicity all gear should be flagged as 'human', 'alien' or 'mech-x' (where x is the mech that created it). If it is human then anyone can use it, if it is mech-x then generally only that mech can use it. If it is alien then generally only aliens can use it, but it is possible that an individual may be able to learn to use it.
It is possible to restrict an items usage rights using bio-metric security devices, that is another matter unrelated to this topic.
Following is a list of the various types of resources, lumped into groups for convenience.
Constructors (Cs): (Poor - Average - Good - Excellent)
Common Constructors are the normal materials with which anything is built, mostly they are metallic based (as wood doesnt hold up well in space) but some components are organic. Tools required to handle constructors are nanites and a normal toolkit. Better quality constructors represent better purity, more advanced processing, better suitability and improved techniques.
Eg: iron, steel, copper, zinc.
Conductors (Cd) - Semi-Conductors (SemC)- Super Conductors* (SupC) - Bose-Einstein Condensates* (BEC)
Conductors deal primarily with electricity, control and storing the flow of electricity around the system. More advanced electronics naturally tend to require more advanced conductors. Super-conductors require a cold environment (although near room temperature super-conductors can be used), whilst condensates require near absolute zero conditions which require a supporting 'containment' device.
Eg: silicon, germanium, gallium arsenide, aluminium gallium.
Silicates (Sil) - Iso-Silicates* (IS) - Crystals (CR) - Rare Crystals (RC) - Pure Crystals* (PC) - Super-Crystalates* (SC)
Silicates and crystals provide data storage capacities of enormous magnitudes, as well as light modifying properties. Whilst Iso-silicates and Super-crystalates are required for the more advanced particle collection systems of Cosmic Ray and Gamma Ray Generators. Pure Crystals are those manufactured in a pure and clean environment.
Light Constructors (LCs) - Heavy Constructors (HCs) - Super Constructors* (SCs)
Light, Heavy and Super constructors are advanced constructor materials used in special ways (such as Carlson Hives using carbon linings to reinforce metallic honeycombs) that result in extremely strong materials, or materials resistant to environments that would normally erode them. Transparent Aluminium was one of the first such materials produced. Carbon crystal iron polymers completely revolutionised the way containment vessels were built and allowed for the building of the first plasma generators.
Light Metals (LM) - Heavy Metals (HM) - SuperSolids* (SS)
Rare metals broken into light, heavy and super heavy for convenience. Supersolids are a group of metals that exist high up the atomic tables and are extremely difficult to produce but have amazing shielding properties. Eg: Neutronium, Collapsium.
Rare Earths(RE) - Super Rare Earths*(SRE)
Exotic materials usually only required in very small quantities to impart some form of variance to the property of another resource.
Fuels: Fossil (FF)- Hydrocarbons (HF)- LightGases* (LG)- HeavyGases* (HG) - HeavyIso* (HI)- LightIso* (LI) - Dark Matter* (DM) - Anti-Matter* (AM) - RareIso* (RI).
Fuels are required to provide a source of energy for the generator, allowing it to convert the fuel into a form of energy usable by the system. Wood is a common fossil fuel. LightGases are used in fuel cells, Heavy Gases are used in Fusion, HeavyIso are used in Fission, LightIso are used in cold fusion and RareIso are used in Ion and Arc generators.
*Items generally must be manufactured and will rarely be found as a random reward.
Physical resources are most commonly found by salvage (eg: from a ruined building), but can also be retrieved from a naturally occurring source (eg: mining). The richest source of resources however are other mechanoids, which we will call recycling. Mechanoids will use a simplified system for generating rewards that moves the details of the process out of the general game play. The GM will simply decide on a reward class and the content of the reward will be determined later when your mechanoids have had a chance to sift through it.
A reward group is initially just a mass of material. Time and skill (salvage) must then be used to extract resources from that material. Even items stolen from other mechs will take time to be converted so that your mech can use them. The base time for all of these actions is 24hrs.
Reward classes will be as follows:
Crap - mostly useless organic or inorganic rewards but may contain some simpler materials such as Constructors.
Junk - small amounts of common constructor materials, occasional other usable materials.
Common - reasonable amounts of common constructor materials and an occasional better item
Rich - good quantities of materials, mostly common and generally something better.
Rare - small quantities of uncommon materials.
Advanced - some advanced materials
Super - a good quantity of advanced materials
Rewards can also be modified by being labelled as '-' or '+', such that Junk can be Junk- or Junk+. A '-' reward indicates reduced quantities (increase the target number +2). A '+' reward will indicate a desired materials is present, in that players may select a suitable material from the reward group and at least one amount of that material will be present, plus they may still roll for more.
When time allows a reward can be converted into specific materials by rolling on the following tables.
The quantity target in the tables ( the number at the intersection) is the base number required to find one unit of the resource. Each raise after this will mean an extra unit. Unless otherwise indicated all rolls use a single d6, a wild dice is used for some resources that are very plentiful and indicated by a ^ symbol next to the target.
Eg Cs(P) has 4^, so you would roll 2d6 and take the best result. Each success and raise indicates one unit of resources.
Some edges (Treasure Hunter) or Action Cards (Bountiful Resource) may alter the base dice type used.
After one player has performed the required work (24 hrs) they may roll for each possible outcome from one reward group. Several players may work together to reduce the time required, but only one result roll is made per reward.
Eg after 24 hrs your mech would roll once for each resource indicated in the reward, so you may end up with quite a few resource units.
The quality of rewards available is left to the GM to decide. More than one type of quality of reward may be present.
* The Forage/Mining column gives the value required if these skills are being used to locate a specific resource from a known field. This generally requires 24 hrs of work and a single skill roll. A success with the skill roll allows the player to roll against the selected resource type to see how many resources they have found. The GM should rate the 'field' being foraged/mined the same way they rate rewards, which determines what can be rolled for, but only a single resource type is gained. Team work can reduce the time required and aid the roller.
Manufactured resources should be chosen rather than randomly rolled as some require quite sophisticated setups to maintain.
Some resources can be manufactured from other resources (in fact this is often the only real way to ensure a source for some of them). The following table gives details.
Quantity targets are used when players try to manufacture the material, a success yields one quantity, each raise an extra. Unless otherwise noted the time period for this is one week. An x before the value indicates it is extracted from other base materials rather than constructed.
Resources are the raw material that are required to be expended to extract the manufactured goods. 'Reqs' are manufacturing facilities that must be available, but are not consumed. With a good roll you may get more goods than your starting materials, so be it.
Credits are the normal listed price, although Dark Matter and Anti-Matter is generally not available on the open market.
Cs(G) + Circ + LG + Sil
Reqs: CONV+PROC+CNTL
Micro (*), Small (S), Medium (M) & Large (L)
Micro (*), Small (S), Medium (M) & Large (L).
Small fCells are 100g, medium is 200g and large are 400g.
eCells and kCells are 25g, 50g, 100g and 200g but they can be any shape. eCells and kCells created one level of tech above their requirement will 20/40/80/160g..
mCores are 5kg, 10kg and 20kg.
rCores and sCores are container sized objects and weigh several ton.
Larger power packs are available and follow the size and charge trend of doubling with each step. Each grouping of three gains a new name and uses the S/M/L format, powercells become powercubes (S/M/L), become powerslabs (S/M/L), become powerstacks (S/M/L) etc.
Powerpacks can be chained together in various ways, such as a belt, bandoleer or a backpack and linked to a weapon with a cable, this makes the weapon unwieldy and inflicts a -1 penalty to hit. Powerpacks carried externally will become a targetable location. If hit they will explode and do 1d6 per 6 charges. At 3d6 the next dice is used to move to a larger template, so 4d6=3d6+small template. This convserion will happen with each even dice of damage, so 6d6=4d6+medium and 8d6=5d6+large etc.
Costs listed are for Small, Micro is 75%, Medium is x2, Large is x4.
Manufacturing Units.
PROCessors, EXTRactors etc are manufacturing units that are required to produce an item but are generally not consumed doing so. These can be imagined as cargo container sized units (which may deploy into a larger format when in use) that can be linked together to form a manufacturing chain as required.
MU come in a small form factor by default, medium is 2x small, large is 2x medium etc.
A Mechs manufacturing unit is usable only by the mech that created it, unless shared. Humans would need to order a unit in from an appropriate source, and would pay for labour on top of the listed price. If a mech wanted to build a unit that humans could use than add labour costs and divide the new price by 100.
Time & Labour
As a rough guide a mech can perform labour equivalent to 100Cr per day.
Labour units are equal to the Quantity Target x Time units x 7. Labour unit costs are:
Labour Poor 10
Labour Average 20
Labour Good 30
Labour Excellent 50
Which labour you use may determine the outcome.. reliability?... more....
Modern (Mo), Advanced (Ad) & Advanced+ (A+)
Where indicated items may come in Modern, Advanced or Advanced+ technology levels. A Modern item must be constructed from modern or better materials, an Advanced item from advanced or better, and an Advanced+ item from advanced+ materials, assuming such levels of material exist. The cost to produce the base item is listed at the lowest tech level.
Where an item is tagged as Advanced, then Cs(G) are assumed. Where is is tagged as A+ then Cs(E) are assumed.
Where not indicated, but a specific level of tech may be required in the materials listing, then each increase in TL will add 25% to the cost.
Salvage is the recovery of resources from existing usable forms, such as other mechs you have destroyed or captured. It may also be possible to salvage from a naturally occurring source, such as a laboratory that is still in reasonable condition. Salvage will generally target a specific reward class rather than a randomly generated reward. You will know what is available and attempt to recover some type of resource that is known to be present. The success of your salvage requires a Salvage skill roll (at -2 unless in Salvage Mode, see Professional Edges).
Eg: you find the exposed remains of an ancient concrete and steel building. The GM rules that the building will yield Crap, Junk and Common resources. Each Mech can pick a type of reward group they wish to roll for and commit one work unit (24 hrs) to the task. Roll against your Salvage skill to determine how many rolls you will be permitted, one roll per success and raise. The roll on the appropriate reward table to determine what you found.
Foraging and Mining are used to recover resources from a naturally occurring source, in its naturally occurring form. To set up a mine (or forage) you need to find a site that will be appropriate for the type of resource you wish to obtain. This may require an initial investment of time to setup.
Once established the mechs can make Forage/Mining skill rolls each work unit to determine how many units of the specified resource are produced, target numbers for a single unit in a single work day are indicated in the above tables, raises will yield extra units.
The quality (Crap, Junk, Common etc) of the operation must be decided by the GM, as too may the quantity (poor mine vs rich mine etc). Some mines may yield more than one type of resource, eg crystals and pure crystals. This is left to the GM to decide.
Note that a forage/mine operation can be any naturally occurring source of the required material, you can mine a ruined building if the GM thinks it has plentiful materials present (more likely you would mine a city block but some large buildings may be appropriate). Gases can be mined from the atmosphere, so a mine for simple gases can be set up anywhere there is an atmosphere. Encourage your players to use their imaginations
Instead of recovering resources from things you find, you may be able to integrate a whole module/device into your Mech, this will be explained elsewhere.
Constructor materials (Cs) can be interchanged with the different qualities of Cs available. The Gear listing will give a normal quality required for a normal item. Lesser quality materials can be used but the item with perform with an appropriate -1 per level of quality used. Better quality materials can be used but unless indicated the only benefit these will yield will be in areas such as weight (10% less per level) or structural strength (20% more per level).
For Melee weapons the use of Cs(P) will result in a weapon with -1 toHit and -1 dam. Use of Cs(G) will give +1 dam, and Cs(E) +1 toHit and +1 dam.
A cost guide is: (Materials + (target to create squared x10)) xTechLevel (1,2,3,4,5), eg spear costs (10+(4x4x10)) x1= 170.
Addons increase the base target number and this reflects in the price, eg a Heavy Spear would be (15+(4+2)x(4+2)x10) x2 = 750. Essentially when you add on a feature it is the same as remaking the object.
Objects may have traits...
Unwieldy: -1 to hit.
Unreliable:
etc
The base weight of weapons that do d4 damage is 4lbs, for those that do d6 damage it is 8lbs. The cost is the base materials modified by the processing target (4=x2, 6=x3, 8=x4 etc)
*Exclusive, cannot be used with any other item so marked.
Projectile weapons that fire bullets or arrows/quarrels, do not require tracking of ammunition as the mechanoid is considered able to produce such materials on the fly. Grenades and other more powerful weapons will require tracking , and will have an Ammo note in their notes.
*Exclusive
A Force Shield responds to disturbances of the magnetic and other fields around its core generator. It can detect metal based objects and wave based beams. It responds proportionally to the attacker but in doing so draws power very quickly and there for inefficiently. The amount of power used is equal to the amount of damage inflicted divided by 4, rounding down (min of 1).
EG: a laser rifle does 3d6 and rolls 13 damage. This means the shield would require 13/4=3 (round down) power to stop the attack.
If insufficient power is available then the shield rolls for burnout (1-3 on d6) and fails to stop any damage.
Shields have a maximum amount of damage they can handle, either 12 or 16. If the incoming damage exceeds this then burnout may occur, roll 1-3 on a d6 and the shield fails and will not work till repaired. In either case the shield instead stops only half its normal limit, 6(Advanced) or 8(Advanced+) points of damage from that attack, the rest pass through.
Starting Modes are:
Some of the other advanced options are:
Size: this modifier is applied to the base size of the mech, so +1 would make the normal size of a mech 0 (normally -1). This impacts Toughness and to hit mods.
*Multiped has a stability modifier of +3, but only counts -1 for recovery rolls.
Capacity: the number of devices that may be added to the HP/Drone. The value in brackets is the maximum size of any device that can be added.
Armour: the basic armour value of the HP/Drone, this may be increased by using extra slots. When a drone is parked in a HP it uses the better of the two armour values.
Power Capacity: the basic number of power points the drone may store onboard independet of activation and maintenance costs.
Abilities: allocated to the various attributes of a HP/drone with the exception of SP. This is done at the time the unit is created, unless upgraded.
Size: the size of the drone, which reduces slots in the HP.
Technology: the minimum required Technology Level of the Mechanoid
Movement: the types of movement options the drone will have, see the Transportation Modes table.
Fuel: Has a material input required to make it continue to work. At the start of each session roll the dice type indicated, if a 1 is rolled then a unit of the listed fuel is expended. Combustion engines use a unit of fuel EVERY session. If a significant break is taken the GM may call for another roll. At the end of any session where Salvage, Recycling or Mining/Foraging are used the GM should also ask for a fuel roll.
Heat: gives off sufficient heat to require control measures. System will require a Cooler (for Heat) or Cooler+ (for Heat+).
Containment: requires a heavily protected environment to work. Containment+ indicates complex containment requirements.
Collectors: requires large areas to make efficient.
Starter: requires a large burst of energy to begin.
Shields: gives off life threatening emissions
Structure: the overall weight and strength of the power plant. Lt=STd4 Mod=d6 Hvy=d8 Vhvy=d10
Speed: power generation speed is Normal=1/hr, Fast=Rapid Recharge, Vfast=Imp Rapid Recharge.
Output in energy points. P=pollutants - dangerous by-product result. N=Noise issues. Alphaware technology starts at -10 to this value, beta and gamma at -5.
SHUTDOWNS: any power source can suffer a shutdown, lack of fuel, lack of access, over heating, damage and disruption can all cause a shutdown. Targeted attacks can result in a shut down. Some power sources may not be able to be run all the time.
Simple robots (called Robbies by the locals) abound on the moon. Before colonisation the lunar surface was littered with robots that had been shot up there to carry out re-processing, to construct bases and numerous other duties. Many of those robots still survive, and an army of new ones have taken their place. Players may buy robbies and use them to perform specific tasks based on a skill set they may have. Robots are simple to complex machines, they have no intelligence other than what their programming allows for.
For game purposes you will buy a robot pre-configured with software and hardware appropriate for the task chosen. To change the role of the robot will require a complete refit. Robots have very limited capacity to handle change, and safe guards built into them generally result in a shutdown when circumstances exceed the abilities of the robot. All commercial robots have the Three Laws hard coded into them. Only Mad Scientists are able to build a robot without the Three Laws (and serves them right). Robots cannot be creative, they do not originate thought or new concepts.
All robots are based around the work load of a man over 24 hours. So a base model might be rated as having 1 ManDay equivalent and will thus be assumed to be able to perform the work of one man over a 24 hour period. Bigger or better robots will have higher ratings and thus be the equivalent of many men. Robots of course do not require rest and can do far more work than a man could, but this factor will be represented in the price of the robot, not its rating.
Robot Rating in MD (ManDays)
Cost to buy: MDx500 credits (base model, new)
Maintennace: 5% a month
Refit: 10% of cost.
Size: 1+(MD/2)
Breakdown value: var on quality, base new is 4.
Improved skill set: +1 to roll, 1000credits x Size
Robots will have a breakdown value which is rolled every week (if less then once per task). A failed breakdown roll indicates the task is reduced and the robot needs extra maintenance. A critical fumble means it failed comepletely and should be salvaged.
Robbies do not have any nanites like a Mech does, and because of this are very susceptible to sequestration attacks by Mechs. All Robbies will have a SM and SP value of 1d4.
Controllers - ability to extend Control Range. These can be equipped to a drone as one of its devices, or it might be simply a device like a large grenade that can be tossed or dropped as required. It must be within LOS and LOC of the Master but then acts as if the Master were in that spot as well for determining LOC.
Repeaters - extend LOS
Nanite Power Collectors: ability to intercept nanite beams and steal their power.
Wiretap -
Optical Tap -
Automatic Self Righting,
Flip Protection Plating,
Emergency Stabilisers