New Marine Book

[Seto Kaiba]

Space-truckin', Seto. I see that big flatbed and I see adding a small hab module for extra space(admittedly at the loss of some cargo capacity). Combat capability? My campaign was field-mounting machine gun pintles and even small turrets on DLs for convoy work in the badlands. A little Mad Max elbow grease and there's potential for the DL-88. And did I mention the katyushas? Or even some hangar-queen surplus destroid shoulder missile launchers?

That's really more the domain of house rules and fan customizations... the RPG's largely sticking to variants whose existence can be demonstrated via the source material without a novella's worth of verbal calisthenics this time around.

Still, it would definitely have made more sense to include the Centipede instead of a suspiciously well-armored freezer truck.

[taalismn]

Still, it would definitely have made more sense to include the Centipede instead of a suspiciously well-armored freezer truck.

IceGuard Commando: "...that's right, nothing suspicious about this truck...just move along....that's it...just go about your business and leave us alone..."

[mech798]

Note that single things like the DL88 or the mega-tuna transport would be nicely suited for short PDF only adventures.

Because honestly, there's no reason why battletech overtook robotech-- robotech has more of an anime presence, has more people who notice it, and should be able to attract more gamers. the problme is solely in the fact that it takes literally years between releases...and then the releases are pretty subpar. Again, that's not a policy calculated to keep the game or IP going, which makes me think that Seto is right--HG has largely written off robotech unless the movie fairy comes and rescues them and the movie fairy has better things to do with her time.

[eliakon]

Battletech overtook Robotech for a host of reasons....one of the most important though is that there is room in the Battletech fandom for differing opinions with out fear of the Orthodoxy Police attacking you if you propose something novel.
This allows people to Do Stuff.
The other reason is that the Battletech universe is acknowledged to be larger than just the tiny segments we see in say, the novels. There is an implicit understanding that there is Stuff Off Stage, and that thus someone else can explore that with out being ridiculed as going off the script.

These two things allow for much faster production of material, and wider amounts of it. Which in turn means that the game appeals to more people because its more open.

[glitterboy2098]

Battletech overtook Robotech for a host of reasons....one of the most important though is that there is room in the Battletech fandom for differing opinions with out fear of the Orthodoxy Police attacking you if you propose something novel.
This allows people to Do Stuff.
The other reason is that the Battletech universe is acknowledged to be larger than just the tiny segments we see in say, the novels. There is an implicit understanding that there is Stuff Off Stage, and that thus someone else can explore that with out being ridiculed as going off the script.

These two things allow for much faster production of material, and wider amounts of it. Which in turn means that the game appeals to more people because its more open.

petty much.
if you want to have a battle on planet such and such during the 4th succession war, you don;t tend to get "well stackpole never mentioned that planet being attacked so you can't do that. why don't you play the battle of Tikonov?"
the worst you tend to get is a "well, that planet is a bit behind the frontlines of that war. why don't you consider an objective raid scenario for the game?" type response.

robotech has a lot of openness built into the new canon. we have evidence from HG's recent canon materials that the UEEF was planting some colonies between 2022 and 2044. colonies give new locations for adventures, new political plots, open up the setting to include things like dangerous zentreadi fleet fragments and space pirates. we have evidence in the RPG (no no evidence contra-wise in the show) for non-UEG independent nations on earth. which opens the setting up for intrigue and lower intensity/smaller scale conflicts on earth, not to mention giving plenty to do between the major invasions.

likewise the RPG establishes the Malcontents and zentreadi remnants were an ongoing concern on earth well past 2014.. Khyron just becomes one of the more ambitious ones, but not the only one. even in the 2nd ed game, you have zentreadi remnants all the way up to the invid era!

not to mention some of the evidence that the UEG is more fractious than it might be assumed. the post-rain of death situation shown in the last couple macross period episodes, andthe ASC's mention of a fuedal system, suggest the UEG itself is basically an assembly of member city-states.. which opens up a lot of additional intrigue options, since not all those states are going to be unified in goals, ideals, and loyalty.

what robotech needs is fans willing to admit that these all exist, and who will stop trying to stop others from exploring them.

and more than some blink and you'll miss it civilian stuff, the RPG needs books to expand on these themes with some guidelines and created examples, so that GM's and players can focus on keeping the feel of the setting while exploring these 'off screen' materials.

[mech798]

Problem is, that's not the fans problme-- that's HG's problem, because we see very little of that. Palladium sneaks some of it through, but the HG stuff? Pretty much the implication is that the only people who matter period are the main characters, and the narrative universe is tiny and based on recycling the older steting plots such as 'why putting your magic box on a battleship is a bad idea".

[Colonel Wolfe]

what robotech needs is fans willing to admit that these all exist, and who will stop trying to stop others from exploring them.

I wish that were possible. To discuss the rpg and not be bombarded with half quoted out of context information that shoots down anything that expands the setting. I'm greedy though. I want expansion and everything in the show.... without someone quoting the osm every thread saying that is wrong

[Seto Kaiba]

Because honestly, there's no reason why battletech overtook robotech-- robotech has more of an anime presence, has more people who notice it, and should be able to attract more gamers. the problme is solely in the fact that it takes literally years between releases...and then the releases are pretty subpar. Again, that's not a policy calculated to keep the game or IP going, which makes me think that Seto is right--HG has largely written off robotech unless the movie fairy comes and rescues them and the movie fairy has better things to do with her time.

To be frank, the BattleTech franchise overtook Robotech for a variety of reasons... but chief among them was that it's a big, open setting that the game's authors have more or less a free hand to exploit however they see fit. Their only major stumbling block was "the Unseen" designs, and they seem to have largely learned their lesson about being wholly dependent upon IP owned by an outside entity.

If you wanted to distill it down to a single point of difference between the two that made the difference between success and failure, it'd have to be that FASA and its successors set out to build a world... Harmony Gold (and Revell) didn't, not until it was far too late. They just wanted to market the products they'd licensed from Japan.

Even Harmony Gold has admitted that there really wasn't a directed effort to create a coherent Robotech setting until after the development of the Robotech 3000 series was canned and management decided to make a fresh start under new leadership in 2001. They made a valiant effort, after cleaning house by jettisoning the morass of internally contradictory efforts at world-building by their licensees, but with just the 85 episodes to go on there simply isn't enough material to build the kind of wide-open setting its primogenitors and more successful contemporaries have. Some fans point to the vague, contradictory allusions to a canceled space colonization program in Prelude as an attempt to grow the setting, but in practice it's just hanging a lampshade on the story's limited scope.

Considering that Palladium Books' world-building efforts in Robotech 2nd Edition are hamstrung by Harmony Gold's insistence upon staying canon-adjacent, they're still doing a pretty good job even if the result does feel a bit unsatisfying to those of us who'd been expecting a playground the size of a galaxy or three like we'd find in Palladium's other work.

what robotech needs is fans willing to admit that these all exist, and who will stop trying to stop others from exploring them.

Clinging to the dead, deprecated material won't really grow the setting... getting new material out that takes the story (both literally and figuratively) to new places will.

Problem is, that's not the fans problme-- that's HG's problem, because we see very little of that. Palladium sneaks some of it through, but the HG stuff? Pretty much the implication is that the only people who matter period are the main characters, and the narrative universe is tiny and based on recycling the older steting plots such as 'why putting your magic box on a battleship is a bad idea".

They've fallen into much the same trap that the Star Wars "Expanded Universe" did... every critical event in the galaxy has to revolve around the same handful of schmucks who appeared on screen, and the new additions to the cast are expies of the existing characters (e.g. in Sentinels, Shadow Chronicles) or unmentioned relatives and close friends of the core cast, or at least share some significant, previously-unmentioned past with the character (e.g. Edwards).

That, I think, is what bothered me most about the Marines book... it's not even about faffing about in the background of the show's main events, it's about being somewhere vaguely adjacent to the plot without actually having any role or influence in it.

[Tiree]

Considering that Palladium Books' world-building efforts in Robotech 2nd Edition are hamstrung by Harmony Gold's insistence upon staying canon-adjacent, they're still doing a pretty good job even if the result does feel a bit unsatisfying to those of us who'd been expecting a playground the size of a galaxy or three like we'd find in Palladium's other work.

You know - you say this. I don't see this at all.

Case in Point: UEEF Marines, Genesis Pits, and New Generation.

Palladium has gone off reservation so much, I believe HG is rubber stamping as they originally did. It was only the writer who decided to stick close to canon and run things through HG that you had any semblance of HG actually caring about the RPG.

[Seto Kaiba]

Considering that Palladium Books' world-building efforts in Robotech 2nd Edition are hamstrung by Harmony Gold's insistence upon staying canon-adjacent, they're still doing a pretty good job even if the result does feel a bit unsatisfying to those of us who'd been expecting a playground the size of a galaxy or three like we'd find in Palladium's other work.

You know - you say this. I don't see this at all.

Case in Point: UEEF Marines, Genesis Pits, and New Generation.

The point was not that they're 100% canon-compliant, but that their contents are at least "adjacent to" the canon setting.

Up to the point where the New Generation book was released, they were sticking fairly close to canon, the only major deviations in there being bumping up the number of survivors and alluding to the existence of rival nations after the 1st War. New Gen did start going off the rails a bit, but it did it in a way that was at least halfway plausible within the context of the official canon and/or OSM with stuff like IMUs*. Genesis Pits was the same way, it was a departure from the official setting but in a way that was technically plausible within the context of the Invid's canon capabilities. It wasn't until the Marines book that the RPG truly lost the plot, in the most literal sense.

They did some passable worldbuilding in those books. It's not fantastic, but it's at least workable, and it's more than we're getting from Harmony Gold with Robotech dead in the water.

Palladium has gone off reservation so much, I believe HG is rubber stamping as they originally did. It was only the writer who decided to stick close to canon and run things through HG that you had any semblance of HG actually caring about the RPG.

With the Marines sourcebook, I agree... and, indeed, said something quite similar earlier in this thread.

My suspicion, which is not based on anything concrete or irrefutable, is that Harmony Gold's management let Marines past without editorial review because they no longer think animated Robotech is salvageable in the wake of Robotech Academy.


* Yes, as weird as it sounds, kit-bashing mecha in the field is something that has occurred in the OSM. Specifically, in the Macross OSM, in both canon and non-canon narratives. The best-known "improvised" field design is the Phalanx destroid, that was developed in the Macross's onboard factory and produced using spare parts from other Series 04 destroids.

[eliakon]

what robotech needs is fans willing to admit that these all exist, and who will stop trying to stop others from exploring them.

I wish that were possible. To discuss the rpg and not be bombarded with half quoted out of context information that shoots down anything that expands the setting. I'm greedy though. I want expansion and everything in the show.... without someone quoting the osm every thread saying that is wrong

I have the same sort of greed then....
I will freely admit that I am not a massive Robotech fan. But I could be. You see I am a really big Palladium Gaming fan. I have every single book that they have ever published, I buy the shadow updates, I have even been working on material that I would like to submit.... And Robotech is part of that, so yes, I have every single Robotech Game book. And I have the entire animated series. And I would be willing to buy most other stuff IF I thought that it was relevant to my ability to have fun, and I didn't think that trying to have that fun would trigger religious wars.
When I propose an alternate history scenario in the Rifts forum, or the Heroes Unlimited forum people say "Hmmm, lets see how that works on its own merits" If you do that here your flamed down by "That cant have happened, your violated the sacred canon. DIE INFIDEL!" OF COURSE it can't have happened, it was an alternate history...for [i]a game[/i]...because games never follow the exact setting exactly as written that is what makes them games and not shows. The problem is that there are too many people that want the game materials to simply be the show in written from, they want the game books to be nothing more than technical read out books and not really have anything that could ever diverge in anyway from the holy script. And that is a Bad Thing. Because that is not how you attract gamers to your line, that is how you make sure that they stay far away. Which is sad because Robotech already has a built in lure...the rest of the Palladium Games makes it possible to Do Stuff.
I bought the RTT book. Not because I want to play RTT....but because I was interested in seeing if I could use the material in it for my Heroes games for the next time a giant monster attacks a city....
But I now have that book....

[ShadowLogan]

They've fallen into much the same trap that the Star Wars "Expanded Universe" did... every critical event in the galaxy has to revolve around the same handful of schmucks who appeared on screen, and the new additions to the cast are expies of the existing characters (e.g. in Sentinels, Shadow Chronicles) or unmentioned relatives and close friends of the core cast, or at least share some significant, previously-unmentioned past with the character (e.g. Edwards).

While the bulk of the Star Wars EU probably does revolve around the main characters from the movies, there are also parts that turn those main characters into cameo characters for individual works and instead build upon new characters completely or use bit characters from the movies. And when you get the writers away from the movie period/adjacent to it that really work against this idea of yours. Case in point the 9 book X-Wing Series (Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie are not the focus), Med-Star Series (2 or 3 books set in the Clone Wars period, movie characters are cameo level), there is a Clone Wars book(s) arc that focuses on a unit of clone commandos IIRC, Darth Bane has his own book (set way before any of the 6 movies), Old Republic line also has Reven (set before Bane) that ties into the KotoR1&2 video game (though I don't think the author did any bit indepth research on K2), then there is the "Darkforces/Jedi Knight" material (video games, book) that don't focus on the main characters but their own unique characters (not saying cameos don't happen). Then there are the comic/graphic novels that expand upon that further. I'm sure there are books/products that have been released that I'm not thinking about to.

So to say the Star Wars EU depends upon the same handful of characters to be involved for every critical event is not the case by any stretch. Granted Star Wars is a completely different beast compared to RT.

New Gen did start going off the rails a bit, but it did it in a way that was at least halfway plausible within the context of the official canon and/or OSM with stuff like IMUs*. Genesis Pits was the same way, it was a departure from the official setting but in a way that was technically plausible within the context of the Invid's canon capabilities. It wasn't until the Marines book that the RPG truly lost the plot, in the most literal sense.

I do not know about you, but some of the Invid experimental stuff seems out there for what the Invid are known to have done within canon IMHO. My biggest gripe with the IMUs if you read the fluff text is that the IMUs in general are supposed to come across as one-offs/unique/limited-edition/custom-jobs, but the examples provided are more like a roundabout way to get new "production" mecha into the mix.

[Seto Kaiba]

While the bulk of the Star Wars EU probably does revolve around the main characters from the movies, [...]

So to say the Star Wars EU depends upon the same handful of characters to be involved for every critical event is not the case by any stretch. Granted Star Wars is a completely different beast compared to RT.

The comparison was valid enough that you immediately knew where I was going with it, and admitted there's some truth to it... so let's leave it at that and split no further hairs over it.

I do not know about you, but some of the Invid experimental stuff seems out there for what the Invid are known to have done within canon IMHO.

Not THAT far out there... we know they've done cyborgs (Rainy Boy/Dusty Aires), mutated mecha into new forms (how the Regess made the Enforcers), replicated extinct life forms, and even turned existing lifeforms into horrible alien monsters (seen on Optera during Prelude). It seems fantastical and silly on a couple levels, but most of what's in there has prior precedent.

My biggest gripe with the IMUs if you read the fluff text is that the IMUs in general are supposed to come across as one-offs/unique/limited-edition/custom-jobs, but the examples provided are more like a roundabout way to get new "production" mecha into the mix.

This is true, though admittedly the scale problems involved in the sample IMUs bothered me more... and I'll never shake the feeling that the art for the Marines destroids was originally intended to be IMU art. After all, the bloody things are made out of Alpha, AGACs, VF-1, Tomahawk, and Condor parts.

[mech798]

They've fallen into much the same trap that the Star Wars "Expanded Universe" did... every critical event in the galaxy has to revolve around the same handful of schmucks who appeared on screen, and the new additions to the cast are expies of the existing characters (e.g. in Sentinels, Shadow Chronicles) or unmentioned relatives and close friends of the core cast, or at least share some significant, previously-unmentioned past with the character (e.g. Edwards).

That, I think, is what bothered me most about the Marines book... it's not even about faffing about in the background of the show's main events, it's about being somewhere vaguely adjacent to the plot without actually having any role or influence in it.

Yeah. this is a huge problem. The thing is, there should be room for books where you have nothing to do with the main character,s, never see them, and yet have a real impact. And that doesn't mean "hey, we ran through the adventure to find the address for the magic box so the main characters can now do important stuff." It means having settings on earth, on colony worlds, places far away.

but the problem is, Robotech cannot do that, because HG, channeling 1980s GI Joe storytelling skills, made a storyline that only has one important part to it. Getting the SDF-3. Everything else is unimportant. It's like trying to have a B plot of a man having a tender reunion with his daughter when the A plot is the terrorist getting ready to nuke the city.

There's also teh fact that why should we care, because we've established that "Canon" is a series of ever nastier bad guys attacking ever fewer humans until in Robotech 11, it's Galactus vs. the last living man.

The critical failure, IMO, was in deciding that another Doom HAD to come right after the INvid left. They could have just let things go for a while narrative, opened out the setting, but they just had to go with: YOU THINK YOU'VE DEFEATED MY WEATHER DOMINATOR, JOES! HA! YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS COMING NOW!

Interestingly enough, Exalted's 3rd edition took the opposite route, explicitly reducing the imminent doom level so that saving a village became important again, instead of "yeah, yeah, yeah, saved the village. Who cares. Now let's stop the Yozi's from eating creation."

[Seto Kaiba]

Yeah. this is a huge problem. The thing is, there should be room for books where you have nothing to do with the main character,s, never see them, and yet have a real impact. And that doesn't mean "hey, we ran through the adventure to find the address for the magic box so the main characters can now do important stuff." It means having settings on earth, on colony worlds, places far away.

but the problem is, Robotech cannot do that, because HG, channeling 1980s GI Joe storytelling skills, made a storyline that only has one important part to it. Getting the SDF-3. Everything else is unimportant.

That isn't just true for the Shadow Chronicles setting... that's been true for every Robotech "Saga", and every RPG book going back to 1st Edition. Unless you put aside the actual Robotech setting, the most your players can actually do is goof off behind the scenes without really affecting the plot. Each saga is a one-track story which leaves very little room for anyone else to affect the events of the war. The 1st Edition RPG tried to band-aid the problem with the Malcontent material and EBSIS, but that's gone now and never really was enough to properly address the problem.

The Marines book could have been... SHOULD have been... the fix to the problem. Harmony Gold and Palladium had a wide open, (officially) completely undocumented part of Robotech's in-series chronology to play with, completely bereft of a hero main character (thanks to the de-canonization of the Sentinels series) that should have offered almost unlimited latitude for world creation and unrestricted space adventure shenanigans. Instead, we ended up with RCCs for five excellent arguments that Tatsunoko and Harmony Gold should've pulled the plug on Sentinels the minute Sukehiro Tomita left the project. I know they're still canon via Prelude, but the RCCs are largely useless. Nobody in an RPG wants to play the damsel in distress, especially not when the distressed damsel is too tall by half to pilot a robot. We could've had alien planet and species creation tables, the open "sandbox" creative latitude the game has been missing.

The critical failure, IMO, was in deciding that another Doom HAD to come right after the INvid left. They could have just let things go for a while narrative, opened out the setting, but they just had to go with: YOU THINK YOU'VE DEFEATED MY WEATHER DOMINATOR, JOES! HA! YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS COMING NOW!

I've got less of a problem with the 4th Robotech War starting almost immediately after the conclusion of the 3rd than I do with the whole affair being bloodily ripped off from Battlestar Galactica (concept) Macross: Do You Remember Love? (the plot's progression).

[ShadowLogan]

Not THAT far out there... we know they've done cyborgs (Rainy Boy/Dusty Aires), mutated mecha into new forms (how the Regess made the Enforcers), replicated extinct life forms, and even turned existing lifeforms into horrible alien monsters (seen on Optera during Prelude). It seems fantastical and silly on a couple levels, but most of what's in there has prior precedent.

I agree we have examples of replicated extinct life forms and cyborgs from the show. I should probably have added I'm separating the Regent and Regis demonstrate use of the technology. The Regis doesn't seem like the type to go for a lot of the rolls that can be had on the genetic table (spliced Dino-sapiens, PC based, the only one that seems to make any sense is the True Invid-Human Hybrid) and even some of the Cybernetics seems out of place based on Dusty (Cyber Antennae, Whip, blaster, blades, tentacles). As far as the Regent is concerned it would seem to fit HIS use of the GP, but not really the Regis IMHO.

This is true, though admittedly the scale problems involved in the sample IMUs bothered me more... and I'll never shake the feeling that the art for the Marines destroids was originally intended to be IMU art. After all, the bloody things are made out of Alpha, AGACs, VF-1, Tomahawk, and Condor parts.

Scale issues I can sort of work around in depicted artwork, the only IMU with a main issue in the art work is the Ares, and one can always go with shortened barrels (though by the rules anything w/n 6ft difference is not supposed to cause an issue with scale, so the Ares can work though its depiction is off). I haven't seen/read Marines yet, it is low priority in getting it.

That isn't just true for the Shadow Chronicles setting... that's been true for every Robotech "Saga", and every RPG book going back to 1st Edition. Unless you put aside the actual Robotech setting, the most your players can actually do is goof off behind the scenes without really affecting the plot. Each saga is a one-track story which leaves very little room for anyone else to affect the events of the war. The 1st Edition RPG tried to band-aid the problem with the Malcontent material and EBSIS, but that's gone now and never really was enough to properly address the problem.

I agree that the setting can be very limiting if you try to recreate the series as your focus, but if you shift the focus to inter-periods or areas not addressed you actually have a good deal of freedom. In some respects you still have to work w/n the established events, but if you can keep those events away from established events (like no terrorist will succeed in nuking Monument City, but nothing stops them from nuking New Detroit in the 20s) everything is peachy.

I know they're still canon via Prelude, but the RCCs are largely useless. Nobody in an RPG wants to play the damsel in distress, especially not when the distressed damsel is too tall by half to pilot a robot. We could've had alien planet and species creation tables, the open "sandbox" creative latitude the game has been missing.

If you want generic tables for new alien planets and species, two of the Rifts Phase World Books can be easily adapted IINM (one deals with the creatures themselves, the other is more "star system" than species), Heroes Unlimited also has the "alien" category of super heroes that can help in that respect, and one of their later source books to. Palladium probably could have adapted these tables for use in Marines instead of the mass reprinting reported, or even direct the reader to those tables in those books to help add variety.

If you are looking for more aliens and such, Rifts (and I include Dimension books here) has a lot to offer in that respect, though covering their actual world/tech base is usual "light" to non-existent in many cases (usually its just the RCC and fluff), leaving you to flesh them out yourself or get stale in terms of hardware options. Rifts offers over 147 non-human Races to play with (some may not be appropriate for RT) just based on a partial language count (some of which use shared languages so the number is actually higher), most fall in the "light" description I mention, but a minority are more "developed" and probably usable in RT to varying degrees (which might require a bit of 'rework' to fit better depending on one's preference).

[Kagashi]

Seeing that Carpenters crew had been living on his Tokugawa for the past 15 years (which means a 2015 launch), there is a canon hook that can be used for a pre-Pioneer initiative to locate the Masters planet. After all...in 2022, how did the UEG know *where* to send the Pioneer mission? Who told them where to go? This has not been explored in any canon RPG, novel, show, movie, or comic yet. That would be a cool adventure book.

You could introduce Tokugawas and Vulture Fighters in that book, and possibly things like the Wolfe Fighter in the flashback scenes. Id imagine quite a few VF-1s would have accompanied, but after 15 years, Carpenter's complement of veritechs could have been obsolete, which is why he didnt use them when he went back to Earth during the 2d Robotech War.

Perhaps these Tokugawa's sent out ahead of the Pioneer mission were to maintain a no-contact order, track protoculture signatures, and simply find the Masters Planet. They may have even have located some of the Sentinels planets, but with no sign of the Masters, they simply documented and moved on. Only until locating Tirol did they relay the coordinates to Earth and meet up with the rest of the Pioneer mission in 2022/2025. Then in 2029/2030, the one ship returns to Earth as reinforcements (Carpenter). Since the Pioneer mission left with battling the Zentraedi in mind, any engagements these ships might have had would have been with Zentraedi and/or Border Fleet ships (how else would they know to disguise the SDF-3 as a Border Fleet ship? Exedore could have told them I guess.) But these ships would have never have engaged the Masters main fleet or the Invid as they were both surprises to Carpenter. But this would be a good book to introduce the missing Zentraedi and Masters ships that were supposed to be detailed in the spaceship book.

[Jefffar]

At one point there were going to be two Marines books. Perhaps an older vision had a lot more of these details captured.

[Seto Kaiba]

I agree we have examples of replicated extinct life forms and cyborgs from the show. I should probably have added I'm separating the Regent and Regis demonstrate use of the technology. [...] As far as the Regent is concerned it would seem to fit HIS use of the GP, but not really the Regis IMHO.

That's fair... after all, the Regess was more of an aloof observer and scientist, where the Regent was a cackling Saturday morning cartoon show villain worthy of Captain Planet or He-Man. (Though one must wonder if she was administrating ALL the Genesis Pits on Earth, or just the ones closest to Reflex Point.)

Still, like I said, what's in the Genesis Pits book is a bit "out there", but it's still technically within the bounds of canon possibility.

I agree that the setting can be very limiting if you try to recreate the series as your focus, but if you shift the focus to inter-periods or areas not addressed you actually have a good deal of freedom. In some respects you still have to work w/n the established events, but if you can keep those events away from established events (like no terrorist will succeed in nuking Monument City, but nothing stops them from nuking New Detroit in the 20s) everything is peachy.

That's half-true, at least. Yeah, you have more narrative freedom if you try to work in the gaps between the sagas, but you don't really have an antagonist that can have any broad impact on anything. Between the Macross Saga and Masters Saga, there really aren't any significant antagonists... the Zentradi malcontents have largely come down with a bad case of dead, and therefore don't really pose much of a threat, and any rival government isn't going to be able to muster much, offensively, vs. the UEG's monopoly over military manufacturing.

If you want generic tables for new alien planets and species, two of the Rifts Phase World Books can be easily adapted IINM (one deals with the creatures themselves, the other is more "star system" than species), Heroes Unlimited also has the "alien" category of super heroes that can help in that respect, and one of their later source books to. Palladium probably could have adapted these tables for use in Marines instead of the mass reprinting reported, or even direct the reader to those tables in those books to help add variety.

They really should have adapted those tables to the Marines book... it would've been a lot more valuable to the player than stats for the established alien species.

Seeing that Carpenters crew had been living on his Tokugawa for the past 15 years (which means a 2015 launch), there is a canon hook that can be used for a pre-Pioneer initiative to locate the Masters planet. After all...in 2022, how did the UEG know *where* to send the Pioneer mission? Who told them where to go? This has not been explored in any canon RPG, novel, show, movie, or comic yet. That would be a cool adventure book.

Depends how Tommy and co. want to handle it... the way canon presents it, there was some advance reconnaissance away from our solar system, but the first real effort to reach the Masters' homeworld was the SDF-3's Pioneer mission. Of course, the new Marines book kind of torpedoed the adventure there, and followed the old comics route by having them fold directly there (with no searching necessary, as the Zentradi knew exactly where it was).

Id imagine quite a few VF-1s would have accompanied, but after 15 years, Carpenter's complement of veritechs could have been obsolete, which is why he didnt use them when he went back to Earth during the 2d Robotech War.

Not so sure about that either, since the Marines book makes it out that the Marines were cheerfully using Super Valkyries until they were replaced by Beta fighters in the late 2030's and early 2040's.

[Seto Kaiba]

At one point there were going to be two Marines books. Perhaps an older vision had a lot more of these details captured.

So, is it definite, then, that we're not getting a 2nd Marines book?

[Kagashi]

Id imagine quite a few VF-1s would have accompanied, but after 15 years, Carpenter's complement of veritechs could have been obsolete, which is why he didnt use them when he went back to Earth during the 2d Robotech War.

Not so sure about that either, since the Marines book makes it out that the Marines were cheerfully using Super Valkyries until they were replaced by Beta fighters in the late 2030's and early 2040's.

Was Carpenter a Marine? He said he was part of the "Robotech Elite Expedition". Was that a Navy initiative? Is it a part of the Pioneer mission? Something different? The Marines may have used Supers, but whatever Carpenter was, he didnt have any under his command.

[ShadowLogan]

That's half-true, at least. Yeah, you have more narrative freedom if you try to work in the gaps between the sagas, but you don't really have an antagonist that can have any broad impact on anything. Between the Macross Saga and Masters Saga, there really aren't any significant antagonists... the Zentradi malcontents have largely come down with a bad case of dead, and therefore don't really pose much of a threat, and any rival government isn't going to be able to muster much, offensively, vs. the UEG's monopoly over military manufacturing.

An antagonists do not need to have that broad impact though, it all depends on the focus. And we do have some antagonists to play with, there is no reason the agtagonists have to be "big guy on campus", they can be smaller scale:
-Zentreadi Malconents likely survived in some form after Khyron, they aren't as well organized or have the numbers. Depending on what they choose to focus on, they can have broad impact for a given region
-Space Pirates. We know Earth/Earth-Forces have encountered them from the show. Who they are, how they are equiped, etc, is unknown so would require a bit of work for the GM
-Urban Warfare is a mentioned as a driving requirement in the RPG for the next generation of mecha (TRM saga)
-How much freedom do individual member states have in their relations? How do states settle disputes, etc.
-Counter Terrorist/Criminals & Espionage (humans)
-colonization/exploration (both space and underseas)
-PC/radiation induced mutations

They really should have adapted those tables to the Marines book... it would've been a lot more valuable to the player than stats for the established alien species.

However those aliens have been "updated" to some extent officially now. While adapting the tables is certainly possible, it should be recognized there are still limits to what they can cover. There might also be some blindspots in terms of coverage that the writers (HG, PB, etc) see/willing-to-see.

Not so sure about that either, since the Marines book makes it out that the Marines were cheerfully using Super Valkyries until they were replaced by Beta fighters in the late 2030's and early 2040's.

That doesn't mean that every ship/base is/can-be equipped with Valkyries though by 2029-30. The Beta was ready for testing in 2036 and declared operation by 2037 (2E RPG established date), the Alpha entered mass production in 2031 (2E RPG established date). This suggests the Valkyries are unable to sustain themselves into the 2030s in meaningful numbers, like some other older designs (conbat, condor both of which are actually newer).

[Seto Kaiba]

Was Carpenter a Marine? He said he was part of the "Robotech Elite Expedition". Was that a Navy initiative? Is it a part of the Pioneer mission? Something different? The Marines may have used Supers, but whatever Carpenter was, he didnt have any under his command.

If we take it in context with what's officially said about the Tokugawa-class, it probably doesn't matter if his forces were from the Marines or not at the time they appeared in the show... they weren't front line troops, so they likely wouldn't have been issued the best equipment available. The Tokugawa-class as a whole was removed from the front lines because the design was just about useless in a ship-to-ship fight, and subsequently retasked to rear-echelon transport duty.

Maybe at one point, before the UEEF decided the ships were useless in a fight, his forces might've been issued better equipment.

Not so sure about that either, since the Marines book makes it out that the Marines were cheerfully using Super Valkyries until they were replaced by Beta fighters in the late 2030's and early 2040's.

That doesn't mean that every ship/base is/can-be equipped with Valkyries though by 2029-30. The Beta was ready for testing in 2036 and declared operation by 2037 (2E RPG established date), the Alpha entered mass production in 2031 (2E RPG established date). This suggests the Valkyries are unable to sustain themselves into the 2030s in meaningful numbers, like some other older designs (conbat, condor both of which are actually newer).

The Marines book doesn't really give enough information to conjecture how widespread the VF-1's deployment was, just that it was the most common older mecha in service and that they held onto them for a very long time.

[Jefffar]

At one point there were going to be two Marines books. Perhaps an older vision had a lot more of these details captured.

So, is it definite, then, that we're not getting a 2nd Marines book?

I haven't seen part 2 mentioned in a while, but I have no source of information beyond any of the rest of you

[mech798]

At one point there were going to be two Marines books. Perhaps an older vision had a lot more of these details captured.

So, is it definite, then, that we're not getting a 2nd Marines book?

I haven't seen part 2 mentioned in a while, but I have no source of information beyond any of the rest of you

Given how long part 1 came out, I'd say thesigns point to "unlikely."

[Seto Kaiba]

I haven't seen part 2 mentioned in a while, but I have no source of information beyond any of the rest of you

Given how long part 1 came out, I'd say thesigns point to "unlikely."

Eh... I'd hesitate to cite Palladium's persistent problems with production timelines as evidence that a second Marines book isn't in the cards anymore. On the other hand, that "the powers that be" aren't talking up Expeditionary Force Marines in plural anymore doesn't augur well for the existence of a second volume.

I wonder if they simply didn't find enough viable material in the Imai Files, or the setting is too vague and nebulous to do much with when Harmony Gold barely acknowledges that they once used to have stories in that part of the timeline.

[Tiree]

I doubt that we will see a book 2. Kevin usually will state "Oh there is so much stuff..." and "we can't fit it all in one book" then he makes 2 books at about 120 pages. Marines was 256

[glitterboy2098]

personally i want to see a "revised".. with the continuity issues with HG's canon and the RPG fixed.

[Kagashi]

personally i want to see a "revised".. with the continuity issues with HG's canon and the RPG fixed.

Me too, but then I realized I was just paying Palladium for twice for their mistakes.

I paid for RUE twice because of so many mistakes in first printing.

I did it for the Shadow Update to fix errors from the earlier printings of Free Quebec, Coalition War Campaign, and Juicer Uprisings.

I paid for tSC and Macross, just to pay again for the macronized sized books. Doublely so for tSC since that one fixed a lot of errors and had added material.

Now Im going to pay them another 20 bucks for them to fix a timeline in Marines? Especially since I ALREADY DID THAT with the RAW version AND provided feedback which they ignored? No. They owe us errata on the Cutting Room Floor for this one.

[mech798]

I wonder if they simply didn't find enough viable material in the Imai Files, or the setting is too vague and nebulous to do much with when Harmony Gold barely acknowledges that they once used to have stories in that part of the timeline.

I think that's the issue. Eventually, they're either going to have to stop-- or accept that yes, this mech/ship/vehicle, was never seen in the show/concept artwork/thing the designer scribbled on a napkin. That's especially true given the problems surrounding Macross IP material.

Honestly, it may be getting close to the time to let the property lie fallow.

[ShadowLogan]

The Marines book doesn't really give enough information to conjecture how widespread the VF-1's deployment was, just that it was the most common older mecha in service and that they held onto them for a very long time.

How do we define "older mecha" though? In terms of Veritech availability: the VF-1 is old as everything else is either canceled programs (-4/5/7) newer (-6/8/9/10) or unknown (-2/3). So it doesn't seem like the VF-1 has a lot of compitition in the VT areana from other "older" mecha, and even overall we still have to ask "what is 'old'?". Now nt-B mecha being added to the mix does complicate things, but again what is meant by "common" the VF-1 might just edge out those others in terms of numbers.

I wonder if they simply didn't find enough viable material in the Imai Files, or the setting is too vague and nebulous to do much with when Harmony Gold barely acknowledges that they once used to have stories in that part of the timeline.

I think they relied to much on the Imai Files and similar material to expand the setting to begin with. If they where going to redo the Imai designs to have that IMU vibe it would have just been easier to do proper IMUs without treating them as IMU in the fluff and not use the material at all.

[glitterboy2098]

personally i want to see a "revised".. with the continuity issues with HG's canon and the RPG fixed.

Me too, but then I realized I was just paying Palladium for twice for their mistakes.

I paid for RUE twice because of so many mistakes in first printing.

I did it for the Shadow Update to fix errors from the earlier printings of Free Quebec, Coalition War Campaign, and Juicer Uprisings.

I paid for tSC and Macross, just to pay again for the macronized sized books. Doublely so for tSC since that one fixed a lot of errors and had added material.

Now Im going to pay them another 20 bucks for them to fix a timeline in Marines? Especially since I ALREADY DID THAT with the RAW version AND provided feedback which they ignored? No. They owe us errata on the Cutting Room Floor for this one.

thing is, the changes needed to fix things are too extensive to do with just an errata release. your basically looking at rewriting at least a third of the book.

and it needs fixing because A) it doesn't mesh with the existing RPG and is going to cause a lot of confusion, and B.) people who haven't read things like prelude or payed close attention to HG's canon are going to see this and think "well, this is the most recent book so it must be accurate" and we'll get utter chaos. mnot to mention that future authors for the RPG are going to look at it, think "this must be the current canon", and every book we get from here on will just get worse and worse in terms of continuity.

we need a definitive "no the first printing was wrong, here is the corrected version, ignore the 1st printing"...

[Seto Kaiba]

I doubt that we will see a book 2. Kevin usually will state "Oh there is so much stuff..." and "we can't fit it all in one book" then he makes 2 books at about 120 pages. Marines was 256

Marines was 158 pages... it's about the size of a regular book if you take out all of the unnecessarily reprinted material from other books.

I wonder if they simply didn't find enough viable material in the Imai Files, or the setting is too vague and nebulous to do much with when Harmony Gold barely acknowledges that they once used to have stories in that part of the timeline.

I think that's the issue. Eventually, they're either going to have to stop-- or accept that yes, this mech/ship/vehicle, was never seen in the show/concept artwork/thing the designer scribbled on a napkin. That's especially true given the problems surrounding Macross IP material.

Mercifully, the Macross IP is off the table for this kind of desperate plundering thanks to it not being owned by Tatsunoko. The problem with the Imai Files, which I voiced back when Marines was first announced, is that 99% of what's in the Imai Files just isn't aesthetically consistent with Robotech's official designs. Some of them might look cool, most just look awkward, but only the select few designs from right around the time production actually began look like they might belong in the show. They've used the vast majority of those already, so what's left?

They've run out of viable material to build books around, with the exception of the canceled ships book, and they've run out of the viable pre-production material they have access to...

Honestly, it may be getting close to the time to let the property lie fallow.

It was that time fifteen years ago, when Robotech 3000 spun in and crashed so hard it killed the franchise... all they've done since is repeat past failures. The Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles "movie" is the first episode of a canceled series, just like Robotech II: the Sentinels. Robotech: Love Live Alive is a repeat of Robotech: the Untold Story, a "movie" made from pre-existing non-movie material that failed to launch. Robotech Academy was a repeat of Robotech 3000, a show concept that fundamentally misunderstood what fans wanted and bombed early in development because of it.

The franchise is just retreading old ground, waiting for outside salvation that isn't coming.

[Tiree]

I doubt that we will see a book 2. Kevin usually will state "Oh there is so much stuff..." and "we can't fit it all in one book" then he makes 2 books at about 120 pages. Marines was 256

Marines was 158 pages... it's about the size of a regular book if you take out all of the unnecessarily reprinted material from other books.

You are correct, it is 158 pages, 156 pages of content, 2 pages of advertisement, and a cover.

I was mis-remembering 156 as 256

[Kagashi]

personally i want to see a "revised".. with the continuity issues with HG's canon and the RPG fixed.

Me too, but then I realized I was just paying Palladium for twice for their mistakes.

I paid for RUE twice because of so many mistakes in first printing.

I did it for the Shadow Update to fix errors from the earlier printings of Free Quebec, Coalition War Campaign, and Juicer Uprisings.

I paid for tSC and Macross, just to pay again for the macronized sized books. Doublely so for tSC since that one fixed a lot of errors and had added material.

Now Im going to pay them another 20 bucks for them to fix a timeline in Marines? Especially since I ALREADY DID THAT with the RAW version AND provided feedback which they ignored? No. They owe us errata on the Cutting Room Floor for this one.

thing is, the changes needed to fix things are too extensive to do with just an errata release. your basically looking at rewriting at least a third of the book.

and it needs fixing because A) it doesn't mesh with the existing RPG and is going to cause a lot of confusion, and B.) people who haven't read things like prelude or payed close attention to HG's canon are going to see this and think "well, this is the most recent book so it must be accurate" and we'll get utter chaos. mnot to mention that future authors for the RPG are going to look at it, think "this must be the current canon", and every book we get from here on will just get worse and worse in terms of continuity.

we need a definitive "no the first printing was wrong, here is the corrected version, ignore the 1st printing"...

True, but I dont want to have to pay for it. When my steak is overcook, especially waiting an hour to get it after it was promised at 15 minutes, I usually get it for free because they want me to come back later...

Publish a PDF and send in the cover of your 1st printing hard copy. Those whom send in covers of the hard copy get the corrected PDF for free.

[Seto Kaiba]

You are correct, it is 158 pages, 156 pages of content, 2 pages of advertisement, and a cover.

Subtract out the reprinted material, and the page count drops by 23 pages to 133.

[yell0w_lantern]

After 20+ years, I've accepted that in Palladium Books products, inconsistencies are a feature not a bug. That horse is as dead as the one about being late on releases.

I think I would use the 1st Edition Sentinels Destroids with a MDC boost to compensate for the 1e>2e armor creep. The UEEF Marines designs don't really fit for me either. I did see, somewhere on the interwebz, a Battletech Longbow that the artist clearly based on the Alpha's battloid mode. It was a lot cleaner looking and more like what I would envision for Mospeada-inspired versions of the UEDF detroids.

These new "Robotech Extreme" designs from the Marines book should work nicely for that Robotech/Rifts crossover suggestion from Rifts Conversion Book 1, you know, where the SDF-3 accidentally defolds in the Rifts universe. That's what I plan on doing, if ever I use them.

[wyrmraker]

Having read the new Marines book, I have to wonder if Telemechanics would work on an Inorganic, or even an Invid mecha, given their creation...

[devillin]

True, but I dont want to have to pay for it. When my steak is overcook, especially waiting an hour to get it after it was promised at 15 minutes, I usually get it for free because they want me to come back later...

Publish a PDF and send in the cover of your 1st printing hard copy. Those whom send in covers of the hard copy get the corrected PDF for free.

Why ruin the cover of a perfectly good book? Send in the title page, that way you don't destroy the integrity of the book.

[devillin]

If we take it in context with what's officially said about the Tokugawa-class, it probably doesn't matter if his forces were from the Marines or not at the time they appeared in the show... they weren't front line troops, so they likely wouldn't have been issued the best equipment available. The Tokugawa-class as a whole was removed from the front lines because the design was just about useless in a ship-to-ship fight, and subsequently retasked to rear-echelon transport duty.

Maybe at one point, before the UEEF decided the ships were useless in a fight, his forces might've been issued better equipment.

Since the new storyline was going in the direction that the UEEF was actually founding colonies in their push to Tirol, I always figured that those single mode aerospace fighters were just colony designed local defense fighters to free up the veritechs for frontline combat. By not having the complexity of multiple modes, the mecha factory on a starting colony should be able to kick out a bunch of these with minimal resources. Each fighter would represent the need and resource availability of the colony that designed and built it. So if one colony had a large orbital belt, a fighter with stubby wings would be more desirable than one with larger wings. Another colony might have a shortage of the crystals needed to focus the laser weapons, so they designed their fighters to be more missile heavy. etc. If the UEEF had decided to delegate the Tokugawa-class to transport or defense duty, then it would figure that when they offloaded their VF-1s or Alphas, they would take on a complement of fighters from the colony they are defending. If would make getting spare parts a lot easier if your home port is manufacturing them.

In the end, you would end up with one fleet showing up on Earth with one type of fighter, then a second fleet showing up later on with another type of fighter.

[Kagashi]

True, but I dont want to have to pay for it. When my steak is overcook, especially waiting an hour to get it after it was promised at 15 minutes, I usually get it for free because they want me to come back later...

Publish a PDF and send in the cover of your 1st printing hard copy. Those whom send in covers of the hard copy get the corrected PDF for free.

Why ruin the cover of a perfectly good book? Send in the title page, that way you don't destroy the integrity of the book.

Its a horrible book. Ill likely use it for kindling for my next fire.

[gaby]

What do you think of each of the Marine,s Occs?

[Lt Gargoyle]

What do you think of each of the Marine,s Occs?

I think we only needed two OCCs. A officer and Grunt. Officers would have a lot of the same base skill with a couple to show their level of training and schooling. And all grunts would be given MOS packages to show them apart. Marines basic training is the same, they are elite infantry soldiers.

[Kagashi]

I think we had OCCs in the core book already. A page or two of the differences between tSC time period and the Marines time period (different mecha assigned for example) would have been just fine.

Seriously, RPGs only need like 10 OCCs total. I hate OCCs for OCCs sake, otherwise you end up being Rifts.

[dataweaver]

OK; I ended up losing my copy of the IMAI files when my hard drive crashed, so I can't consult them; and I just now placed my order, so I haven't had a chance to look at the new designs myself. When you talk about "IMAI destroids", is that the set of pre-production MOSPEADA Destroid designs that included the likes of the Tiger?

[Seto Kaiba]

OK; I ended up losing my copy of the IMAI files when my hard drive crashed, so I can't consult them; and I just now placed my order, so I haven't had a chance to look at the new designs myself. When you talk about "IMAI destroids", is that the set of pre-production MOSPEADA Destroid designs that included the likes of the Tiger?

You won't find much in the way of unaltered Imai Files material in the Marines book... just a few of the Riding Suit variations and that light mobile gun carriage on four legs.

[mech798]

I think we had OCCs in the core book already. A page or two of the differences between tSC time period and the Marines time period (different mecha assigned for example) would have been just fine.

Seriously, RPGs only need like 10 OCCs total. I hate OCCs for OCCs sake, otherwise you end up being Rifts.

Rift's does have a sort of good reason-- lots of OCC's have "real weirdie" powers that don't fit well. but yeah. Robotech isn't htat-- the difference between Scott Bernard and a recon soldier is the skills he's taken, not whether or not one can fire laser beams out of their eyes.

[Kagashi]

I think we had OCCs in the core book already. A page or two of the differences between tSC time period and the Marines time period (different mecha assigned for example) would have been just fine.

Seriously, RPGs only need like 10 OCCs total. I hate OCCs for OCCs sake, otherwise you end up being Rifts.

Rift's does have a sort of good reason-- lots of OCC's have "real weirdie" powers that don't fit well. but yeah. Robotech isn't htat-- the difference between Scott Bernard and a recon soldier is the skills he's taken, not whether or not one can fire laser beams out of their eyes.

Right, so why do we need Storm Commandos, or the Genesis Pits OCCs? Just use an older OCC, like a UEEF OCC, and adjust the starting mecha, starting gear, and the MECT skill for the appropriate mecha of the era. Heck, Masters OCCs are the most versatile OCCs in the Megaverse. No matter what army they are in, they have access to pretty much any skill ever existed in Robotech. So why do you need more OCCs? To get +20 SDC more than the next guy in an MDC game where 6 MD will vape you anyway?

[Kagashi]

OK; I ended up losing my copy of the IMAI files when my hard drive crashed, so I can't consult them; and I just now placed my order, so I haven't had a chance to look at the new designs myself. When you talk about "IMAI destroids", is that the set of pre-production MOSPEADA Destroid designs that included the likes of the Tiger?

Yes, the likes of the Tiger, Boxer, Jaguar, and Cougar.

[dataweaver]

Frankly, they need new names, if only to avoid confusion between the Cougar Destroid and the Cougar Inorganic.