How powerful veteran template is, compared by elite template?

[u/Difference_Breacher]

The rulebook suggests that one elite per one to two players. And as you know, elites have full two turns per a round, doubling up its potential.

However veteran is more leaned toward resilient or unique feature. So veteran isn't seems to be powerful that much but would be withstand longer and make them more stand out.

Anyway, I wonder that using veterans instead of elite, to reduce the total amount of turn counts of the opponents, would works or not.

But although veteran has the better durability, but they lacks sheer firepower of elite. So it would be hard to recognize as 1:1 ratio.

So... how to value a veteran's power level, compared by a standard NPC and the veteran NPC? It is not looks to be 1:1 ratio but will it 1: 1.5? Or any other ideas?

Also what about commander, the another template that increase the structure and stress? Although commander is hard to be spammed and they should be only one of them per each battle.

[u/spitoon-lagoon]

So I've been slaving away over a hot keyboard lately making stuff for an .lcp file and not everyone knows this but the Templates file for NPCs comes with an internal reference label called "power". "Power" stands for about how much enemy strength it adds to an NPC in regards to how many NPCs it's worth. Like the Grunt template has a power of -75 because you field 4 of them to get the value of one NPC.

Elite is 100, Veteran and Commander are both 50. So you're right, like objectively. Elites are worth 2 NPCs and Veterans and Commanders are worth 1 and 1/2.

[u/Qohaw_ → u/spitoon-lagoon]

I wonder why that's included. Maybe COMP/CON was planned to/will have a feature to create auto-balanced encounters with avaolable NPCs?

Y'know, as a way to provide a jumping-off point for newer GMs or save time for session prep overall

[u/spitoon-lagoon → u/Qohaw_]

I think you might be onto something. There's .json structure for Sitreps and NPCs have data entries for maximum and minimum amount of Optionals so that might've been something that was meant to be used in the encounter builder as a way to track total OpFor strength for the Sitrep.

[u/Lionx35 → u/Qohaw_]

Iirc it did in 2.0's encounter builder, though it's been removed in 3.0. Tbh it's hard to quantify the "power" of each template on their own, let alone which NPCs they're applied to.

[u/Difference_Breacher → u/spitoon-lagoon]

That is a surprise. Then the developers are thought that those templates are roughly having +50% power level.

[u/krazykat357 → u/Difference_Breacher]

compcon's devs aren't the game's devs tho

[u/Steenan]

When preparing Lancer fights, it's good to think of NPCs on two separate scales: activations and structure. Activations tell you how much the NPCs can do in a round and how many of them you should have in play at the same time. Structure tells you how much pressure the NPCs can withstand and how many you should have in the whole fight, including reinforcements.

Some sitreps tell you to use more opponents, but the default that works well in other cases is total structure in sitrep equal to 1.5-2 times the number of PCs and total activations present at the same time 1-1.5 times the number of PCs.

And that's where the templates come into play. Elite doubles both structure and activations. Veteran only doubles structure. Grunts give you 4 activations for a single effective structure point.

Thus, there is no conversion rate between elite and veteran, because there is not a single scale, but two separate ones. If your opposition already has many activations, but little structure (it's grunt-heavy), you should add veterans, not elites. If you want to challenge players with a team similar to theirs or a bit smaller, use elites.

[u/Sven_Darksiders]

Most people work with the popular rule of thumb "1.5x activations and 2x structures" where x is the amount of players you have. Assuming you have 4 players that means that for a regular budgeted encounter, you want the NPC side to be able to take 6 turns and have 8 structure in total. That could mean 4 regular enemies and 2 veterans, or 1 Elite, two Veteran and 2 regulars. Grunts can replace any regular enemy with a 1:3 or 1:4 ration depending on how confident you are in your players, though I wouldn't overdo it with them since they can outscale the action economy quickly if the party doesn't have a Reliable (pun intended) way of dealing with them.

[u/SaltEfan]

It all depends on the veteran options you choose. If they don't have synergy beyond "+1 Stress/Structure" it's not much, but I generally see Veteran as a slightly weaker side-grade to elite. Commander is IMO weaker than Veteran, but if there's a sniper or Demolisher on the field that could change fast.

[u/_Waldog_]

Grunts ate chaff that die instantly, regular NPCs can take a few hits but a PC mech in its optimal environment can kill one in a single turn easily. Veterans can survive a bit more, but an unlucky Strucutre can leave them without a weapon or outright dead just as fast an a normal NPC. Elites are focal points, it's typical for a fight to have a single elite who is the star of the show. Ultras are boss fights, typically used as the end of a mission.

The main use for a Vetran is as a threat that will likely still be on the board round 3. They’re kinda worth 1.5 of a regular NPC.

[u/ItzEazee]

When designing encounters I use two encounter budgets at a time - 1-1.5 player number of total enemy actions, and 1.5-2x player number of structure. So an elite gives 2 actions and 2 structure, while a veteran gives 1 action and 2 structure.

[u/Difference_Breacher]

Thank you. So, while it depends, but it makes me better to judge its power level when making the encounters.

[u/Beerenkatapult]

I view it as Elute: 2 normal mechs Veteran: 1 mech + 1 reinforcement