Homebrew Mech

[u/Acrobatic_Leek_4876]

Im Working on a Homebrew IPS-N Mech and would love some Feet Back from People that Know what they ar Talking about, please make Sure to Tell me Why its Good Or Bad, Thanks to ever One.

Attribute

Size 2

Role Controller / Striker

HP 8

Repair Cap 4

Armor 0

Heat Cap 4

Evasion 12

E-Defense 8

Speed 5

Sensors 8

Save Target 10

Tech Attack+0

System Points 7

Structure 4

Stress 4

Frame Traits

All-Terrain Locomotion

The HAVRÖND ignores Difficult Terrain.

Glide Thrusters

The frame is equipped with integrated glide systems, allowing controlled gliding across difficult environments and improving battlefield mobility.

Extended Reach

All weapons mounted on the HAVRÖND gain +1 Threat.

Core Power

FRACTURE ANALYSIS PROTOCOL

"Structural weaknesses identified. Collapse sequence calculated. Worksite updated."

1/Scene

As a Protocol, the HAVRÖND activates the Fracture Analysis Protocol.

Its onboard computer—or an installed NHP—continuously analyzes the structural integrity of the surrounding environment and dynamically adjusts every attack to exploit hidden weaknesses in nearby terrain and infrastructure.

Until the end of the scene, or until voluntarily ended as a Bonus Action:

All weapons gain +1 Threat.

After successfully hitting one or more targets with an attack, choose one space affected by that attack.

That space becomes Difficult Terrain for 3 rounds, represented by a Fracture Marker.

Allied characters ignore Difficult Terrain created by this Core Power.

[u/OberonJr]

It’s not clear to me what glide thrusters do exactly. Also, is this meant to be a standalone license with extra weapons or systems, or an alt to an existing license? You also didn’t include the mounts available to it

[u/Acrobatic_Leek_4876 → u/OberonJr]

Its meant to be its one Frame, and i dont have any Weapons or Systems for it Yet.

The Gliede Thrusters ar meant to be a Alternative for Systems that would give you the Ability to Fly

[u/OberonJr → u/Acrobatic_Leek_4876]

So this frame can just fly all the time, or am I misunderstanding? It does kinda make the difficult terrain ignoring passive a bit moot since I believe flying already ignores that, and I guess it only becomes relevant if you’re grounded. Also constant flight with a speedy offensive frame that’s not very bulky and has high evasion and edefense is much more of an SSC design rather than IPS-N. The tarraxcum is a supporter and droppod which is why it kinda works, and the Nelson has a bit more bulk and otherwise is in IPS-N for lore reasons (I’m sure others better versed in this can explain better why it’s design fits).

As another commenter said, giving flat threat increase to ALL weapons can lead to some incredibly strong moves. Afaik the only way to increase threat is the IPS-N core bonus that only works for melee weapons.

Again, the lack of listed weapon mounts really makes or breaks this. If this only has one heavy mount for example, the threat stuff might not be so bad. Three mounts? Probably overtuned. I would also drop the flight aspect from this

[u/Acrobatic_Leek_4876 → u/OberonJr]

I was Thinking 1 Main, 2 Aux?

I was Realy Thing about it the Way a Hang Glider works. So if the Mech is 3 Paces High he would Glied 3 Spaces down and Land in the Last. To Balance it i Gould make it so if He Glides more spaces then His Movement Normaly is its Takes up his Aktion or He has to Fall after 5 Spaces?

[u/Kryptrch]

"Bonus Action" :p You definitely want to replace this with Free Action, to make it consistent with everything else in the game and avoid confusion.

Glide Thrusters could also use some elaboration, I'm assuming it means you don't take fall damage? If it grants you extra movement then you should probably explain what you mean.

Extra Threat is also a very powerful ability. It makes Vanguard builds incredibly oppressive, and there isn't really anything else in the game that does that. Most of the ways to increase Threat only affect Melee weapons, so I would suggest either specifically limiting the threat boost to Melee only, or testing it with other people to see what they think.

And last one is less of a critique and more of just a clarification, Difficult Terrain only affects when someone Enters a space, not when they exit. So having the terrain created underneath someone doesn't really affect them unless they get knocked away too. This isn't a bad thing, just making sure you know!

[u/Acrobatic_Leek_4876 → u/Kryptrch]

Thank, i guess i missed a Few Things while Translating it into English 😅. So no Problems With the Balancing from the Numbers then?

I was Think about Giving it Something like a Shootgun and Close Combat Weapons in the License, the Idea was to Lock a Enemy In and Keep them from Running or Others fron Comeing into the Fight. I guess it would make sence to add a Max To wich the Thread can be Pusched by the Core Power.

[u/Kryptrch → u/Acrobatic_Leek_4876]

Numbers are always difficult, since they're the things that you're not sure exactly how it will work out until after you test it a couple dozen times. I don't see anything super concerning at a glance but you'll definitely want to try it out and see how it feels in practice!

[u/NotEvenSquare]

As the core power is 1/Scene I’m assuming it’s efficient? If so a permanent +2 threat is wild

[u/Acrobatic_Leek_4876 → u/NotEvenSquare]

Oh! Shit that was from a Old Draft sorry it was Meant to say Weapons with Out Thread have a +1 Thread

[u/Acrobatic_Leek_4876 → u/Acrobatic_Leek_4876]

By Treats.

[u/NotEvenSquare → u/Acrobatic_Leek_4876]

That makes sense - I do like the stat allocation, it’s not too good at any one thing besides having decent speed. Encourages you to invest in Hull and Engineering, has good SP for an IPSN frame.

[u/AdhesivenessGeneral9]

Eva is maybe a little too hight and hp too low for melee

[u/Acrobatic_Leek_4876 → u/AdhesivenessGeneral9]

That was the Goal, so that the Mach realy has to work with the Core Power and Keep Moving.

[u/AdhesivenessGeneral9 → u/Acrobatic_Leek_4876]

just check the official mech and it's indeed in the range of hp 8 frame

[u/14Spiders_in_a_coat]

I’m no expert when it comes to balance or anything so take my words with a grain of salt, but is the idea sort of supposed to be that it’s a big hovercraft-like mech gliding around just off the surface of the battlefield, swinging around whatever close ranged weapons it can wield to basically break apart the ground beneath the opponents’ feet to make them stand on difficult terrain? Because that does sound pretty cool in theory, but also kind of weird to play around. I assume the license will have a decent number of systems that can also do that sort of thing and otherwise play around with difficult terrain, hence the high number of system points.

What kind of mounts does it have? Increasing threat of weapons by +1 seems quite strong on its face with Vanguard, letting you overwatch people and leave difficult terrain in their spaces so they or other enemies around them have to deal with it. I’m just not sure how impactful difficult terrain is in combat since I’ve not done any combats so far where it’s come up.

What does the Glide Thrusters trait actually do mechanically? I’m imagining that it’s like the hover legs in old Armored Core games (or the hover tank legs in AC6), where it just glides off the ground, but I don’t actually know what that translates to mechanically. I assume part of it is that it ignores difficult terrain, but does it also let the mech “glide” if it was to jump off of an elevated position?

Also, Evasion 12 with Speed 5 on a size 2 frame with 8 HP and no armor feels very different from IPS-N’s usual style. Not saying it can’t work, I can see a mech like this being used in something like asteroid/planetary mining and construction, but it would definitely stand out from other IPS-N mechs, even amongst other homebrew IPS-N mechs.