Is it okay to post mecha stats now?

[dataweaver]

I'm not interested in posting mecha stats for Robotech or Macross, though I am curious if Palladium is okay with it considering that they no longer have the license. Or is it off limits now because they don't have the license and don't want to risk a Harmony Gold lawsuit?

That said, the main thing I'm interested in would be posting original mecha stats that are inspired by, but explicitly not intended to be part of, Robotech or Macross, even as fanfic. Would that be okay?

Ditto with other game stats, such as original OCCs.

[Seto Kaiba]

I'm not interested in posting mecha stats for Robotech or Macross, though I am curious if Palladium is okay with it considering that they no longer have the license. Or is it off limits now because they don't have the license and don't want to risk a Harmony Gold lawsuit?

It's unlikely their position on the matter has changed.

It was off-limits before both to protect Palladium's original IP (e.g. the game system) and to protect it and its partners from litigation from the owners of any IPs being converted without permission. All that's changed now that Palladium no longer has the license to Robotech is Harmony Gold and its partners now number among potential complainants instead of potential codefendants.

That said, the main thing I'm interested in would be posting original mecha stats that are inspired by, but explicitly not intended to be part of, Robotech or Macross, even as fanfic. Would that be okay?

If it's based on those IPs, that'd mean it was derivative of them... I'd assume the answer is probably "No".

[Peacebringer]

I never saw the point in posting mecha-stats. I mean, I spent one summer-break converting all, Battletech, Technical-Readouts, 3025, 3026 (my favorite) and 2750 to Palladium's system and then spent the rest of the summer playing Battletech to Robotech rules. Stats are easy to come up with.

[Seto Kaiba]

I never saw the point in posting mecha-stats. I mean, I spent one summer-break converting all, Battletech, Technical-Readouts, 3025, 3026 (my favorite) and 2750 to Palladium's system and then spent the rest of the summer playing Battletech to Robotech rules. Stats are easy to come up with.

There are a lot of folks who lack the time, or the familiarity with the material, to do that.

Of course, the reason Harmony Gold stepped in and insisted that there be no conversions to/from Robotech is because the fans who were so inclined only too often appropriated designs from the Macross franchise for that purpose... which became very dangerous after Harmony Gold soured its relations with Macross owners Big West and Studio Nue in 1999.

Spoiler:

For example, if you were to look at Kenneth Olsen's site Robotech Research, you'll find most of the "new" Robotech designs for the Macross Saga era there are taken from Macross games or Macross concept art. If it looked to Big West like Harmony Gold were, however tacitly, endorsing infringement of their IP it would have spelled big trouble in court.

[Peacebringer]

There are a lot of folks who lack the time, or the familiarity with the material, to do that.

It's really easy though. At the time, I had only a few months experience playing Robotech and zero experience playing Battletech, but the TRO had a mathematical-rhythm to them that was easy to figure out.

[Kargan3033]

I never saw the point in posting mecha-stats. I mean, I spent one summer-break converting all, Battletech, Technical-Readouts, 3025, 3026 (my favorite) and 2750 to Palladium's system and then spent the rest of the summer playing Battletech to Robotech rules. Stats are easy to come up with.

Do you still happen to have those files?, if so would you send them my way and thanks in advance for your help.

[taalismn]

I never saw the point in posting mecha-stats. I mean, I spent one summer-break converting all, Battletech, Technical-Readouts, 3025, 3026 (my favorite) and 2750 to Palladium's system and then spent the rest of the summer playing Battletech to Robotech rules. Stats are easy to come up with.

Do you still happen to have those files?, if so would you send them my way and thanks in advance for your help.

I too would appreciate seeing these.

[jaymz]

Is easy to make stats? Yes.

Is it easy to make accurate stats that make sense as well as feel right? Not so much depending on what you are making stats for.

Battletech is one of those things that if you can come up with a way to do it, then yes it is VERY easy to do. (I've done so myself though most of it is hand written though my "conversion formulas are codified online)

Trying to get things like Robotech or Macross to be both accurate, make sense, and usable is a bit trickier though. Same with Gundam and several other setting like Yamato, Star Wars, Star Trek, so on and so forth.

Why? Because unless you have some sort of source of specific quantifiable data to work with, then you are literally pulling numbers out your butt. Add to that, that in the case of having to pull numbers out your butt, it is rare that anyone will actually agree as to how good or bad something is.

I wasn't happy with the Robotech stats as they were and I want to also write up Macross material for my own use as well.

Seto can attest to the fairly lengthy conversations he and I had about Macross, as well as Gundam to some degree, for me to try to make my stats as accurate and playable as I could.

Then there is trying not to be biased as to how good something is. The 'net is FULL of people who think they wrote great stats only for those stats to be so overpowered due to nothing more than their own personal bias in regards to that item than frankly the item is effectively unusable and makes no sense for the world it was written. Then there is what world are you writing this up for? Are you writing up Star Wars/Trek for use in Phaseworld? Are you writing up Gundam as a replacement of sorts for Mutants in Orbit? All of this matters when writing stats.

So yes, at it's core, writing up stats is in fact very easy, even more so when you do it a a lot. In reality though, it is many varying levels of difficulty.

[jaymz]

As for posting stats....it's a no no in general for any game.

Tech specs you can do, just no game stats.

[dataweaver]

That's unfortunate; because it means that I'm not able to post stats where palladium books has the ability to Monitor and edit them; nor am I able to post them in a forum where the palladium books fan base is most active and most able to provide constructive criticism for them.

[jaymz]

Honestly dude, I'd say Palladium fans are actually more active on Discord or Facebook.

Me? I run my own FB group and my personal wiki with everything I've typed up (which is only a fraction of what I have had written) for Palladium or anything else readily available.

[dataweaver]

Maybe it's because I'm getting old (I'm 50); but for some reason, I just can't get into Discord. And I have reservations about Facebook and its policies that make me disinclined too get involved there, either. Oh well.

[jaymz]

Well it's there if you wish to use it is all I can say then.

I'm 49 myself and don't use discord much either. FB I use a lot for a wide variety of reasons.

[Jefffar]

Stepping in officially, the no game stats on Forums of the Megaverse is still in effect regardless of Palladium's relationship with the IP holder as a way to protect both Palladium and the individual poster from possible copyright infringement complications.

For the record, soliciting Palladium conversions of copywritten material is also against the forum rules, so those who have done so in this thread need to knock it off as well.

Palladium does encourage fan created content. For example https://palladiumbooks.com/community/fa ... ed-content

You can read Palladium's policy, including a limited lisence disclaimer that can be used on your own websites here https://www.palladiumbooks.com/index.ph ... net-policy

[Peacebringer]

I read that Kevin watched like thousands of hours of Robotech to get the MDC-stats right. I was like, wow, that's a lot of cartoon-watching. I wouldn't be that picky, but there's gonna be a player that will be.

I might convert to AT: Votoms (Fuzion-rules); Mekton is nice, but, serious, the rules are all over the place and hard to understand and was Mike on pain-killers when he wrote that?

Battletech's OK, but it's been done to death.

I might create an Zendtraedi pre-history game or, a REF vs. Colonials; I want to get away from the canon stuff to more of, what ifs.

I never saw the point in posting mecha-stats. I mean, I spent one summer-break converting all, Battletech, Technical-Readouts, 3025, 3026 (my favorite) and 2750 to Palladium's system and then spent the rest of the summer playing Battletech to Robotech rules. Stats are easy to come up with.

Do you still happen to have those files?, if so would you send them my way and thanks in advance for your help.

Well, they're all on a 3.5" disk somewhere at my parents' house formatted for a LCD electronic-type-writer so even if I found the disk, there's no way I could actually read it; which is a shame because I'd like to see how my grammar and writing improved since I was in high-school.

[ShadowLogan]

Well, they're all on a 3.5" disk somewhere at my parents' house formatted for a LCD electronic-type-writer so even if I found the disk, there's no way I could actually read it; which is a shame because I'd like to see how my grammar and writing improved since I was in high-school.

You can still find External 3.5" Floppy USB Floppy Drives around (not likely in brick-stores, but online you can find them). The one I bought a few years ago is a bit temperamental (OS wise*), but it does work.

Now the File Format used by your electronic type-writer might be harder to crack but should still be doable but it might take some digging to find a program to open them (I have ancient MS Works files that I can still access without Works).

*

Spoiler:

It worked without issue using WinXP as a Virtual Machine Guest

I had issues with it in Windows10/7, which had something to do with the MS supplied driver's signature, and Linux which was more a matter of setting up.
Once taken care of though it does work.