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Skills Explained

Some common questions on the skills.

1)  Logistics and Weight Management are ‘Command Skills’, and can only be taken by one member of the team.  They would become unbalanced if every lance member took them.

2)  Officer Duties – This skill allows a player, on any turn where they are not in combat, to perform in the role of their chosen officer specialty.  For example, if a player chooses ‘Personnel’, the team could requisition 2 Personnel per turn (one for the Personnel Officer, and one for the player with ‘Personnel’ skill.)  If the player takes this skill, and chooses any of the Mechanic skills, the team will need to hire 6 technicians, as a full Mechanic team consists of a lead tech and 6 technicians.  They can be hired through a Personnel office at a +1 Bonus.

3)  Intelligence Officer – The Intelligence officer is the one area of the game where the GM has more leeway, and because of it’s high costs, it has significant potential long-term value to a team.  The Intelligence Officer has 3 main functions, one on the battlefield, and 2 off.  Their battlefield functions comes from acquiring and using Intelligence equipment, mainly Satellites.  Their are several tiers and software satellites can run, and they can provide several benefits such as Initiative Bonuses, knowing exactly when enemy reinforcements will arrive on-site, revealing mine-fields, estimating enemy force composition, and approximate enemy positions if they are attempting to ambush.

Second, Intelligence officers can seek out special missions, including character background missions.  For example, one member of our current team is seeking the people who killed his parents.  The Intelligence officer can help complete those kinds of tasks.  Additionally, the Intelligence Officer can seek out missions the players can take regardless of having a contract in place.  For example, they could attempt to find hidden pirate bases, lightly defending mining or less lightly defended production facilities.

Finally, the IO can attempt to locate Lostech caches of weapons and equipment.  The players would need to organize missions and logistics to attempt recovery, which can be costly, but the rewards could potentially be huge. (or not so huge, depending on the size of the cache)

4)  Contract Law – These bonuses apply during contract negotiation.  There are several contract clauses that need to be hammered out as a contract is offered, such as Salvage Terms, how much in support costs the employer will pay, and what type of Command structure the players will be subject to.  A category reroll allows a player to reroll the result of any contract roll, and choose which of the 2 results to take.  A bonus to a contract roll provides a bonus modifier to be added to the contract roll.

5)  Shiny and New! (Light and Medium)  If a player’s mech is destroyed in combat, a player may choose an appropriate light or medium mech to replace it instead of rolling randomly.  Heavy and Assault mechs will always be random.

3 Responses to “Skills Explained”

  1. Shopach says:

    Dude, can I has correct your English pl0x? 🙂

    • tbiaslorin says:

      Blah blah blah! When you start your own blog while running your own business, you may correct my English.)\=)

  2. MekMaster says:

    Hey, I think this all looks cool. Do you have people to play this with? And it there room for one more?

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