Steel Hearts (Ver. Zero)

House Rules for Kinetic Mecha Tactics · By SandroAD

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Steel Hearts (Ver. Zero) community

Automated MEC Sheet now available

A topic by PistilWhip created Mar 24, 2024 Views: 276 Replies: 10

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PistilWhip249 days ago (1 edit)

This game crossed my desk recently and piqued my interest. In the interests of facilitating experimentation, I created a version of the MEC sheet as a Google spreadsheet with lots of automation.

Stats, upgrades, costs, and even perks are all tracked by the sheet, though I haven’t yet populated a database for e.g. dropdown lists. It would require a lot of data entry, but it’d be pretty convenient.

Anyway, here’s the sheet link. Let me know if you use the sheet, and please share any feedback you might have. Thanks.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16ZbiPMeLnERHt2knWZ5wxXMSv5-nQYD0u8Y8jrG6eCQ/edit?usp=sharing

PistilWhip248 days ago (3 edits)

I’ve added a changelog to the sheet, but I’ll also maintain one here:

v1.0: Release
v1.1: Fixed Soak formula; added Cargo tracking; added Enhancement tracking
v1.2: Added Introduction sheet; enabled viewer comments; populated Parts sheet; added Focus glossary
v1.21: Fixed an error with the Psychotech perk detection.
v1.22: Fixed other perk errors; fixed part bonus calculations.

SandroADDeveloper247 days ago(+1)

I'm speechless!! This is absolutely stellar work and I will 100% be using this if I ever run another online campaign >.>

Thank you so much for making this and I hope your Mecha adventures have been rad!!

PistilWhip247 days ago

I’m glad you like it! There’s still more features to be added; today I’ll be tackling the massive task of data entry because I’ve spent so long skimming the Parts list for Stat Boosts that I might as well(TM) put them into a sortable list. More than 175 MEC Parts is one of your selling points, so I have some work ahead of me, lol.

I haven’t actually run the game yet. Making this sheet was my second step into campaign prep (the first being reading, of course). It’ll be much easier for me to run and players to get into if they have an automated tool like this. I’ve made a few spreadsheets like this now, so I’m getting the hang of it.

Keep up the good work! I’ll be looking forward to future releases, and I’ll try to keep the sheet up to date. (On that note, I need to include the version supported by the sheet somewhere…)

PistilWhip246 days ago (4 edits)

Ah, data entry for the 180+ Parts was a nightmare, but it’s finally done, lol. Normally I would’ve just made an edit to the changelog post and called it a day, but I ended up going way off the rails and making a lot of executive decisions that I wanted to explain and justify in a separate post.

Setting aside typos, errors, and straight-up missing Focuses, the big thing for me is that having only two Focuses really limits the ability to search/filter for parts, especially when Stat Boosts and Rolled Stats (i.e. Stats used for ATKs and Stratagems) compete for that space. There are also some rare cases where the Stats for a Part’s Basic ATK and Stratagems are mismatched, which makes choosing the appropriate Focuses difficult. I ended up carving out Stats and such into their own columns, and reprioritizing certain Focuses.

MEC Stat Focuses were mostly deprecated, since the spreadsheet can already be sorted by one of the Stat Boost columns. Only one that stuck around was Stat Boost in the case of multiple Stat increases since I thought that might be valuable information.
Element Focuses were entirely deprecated for the same reason. There’s just columns with checkboxes to show what Elements each Part is capable of using.
Most Status Effect Focuses were deprecated, with the exception of Versatile (can apply 3+ different Effects) and new Free [Effect] Focuses for the handful of Parts that have “Once per Allied Phase, apply [Effect].
There are also a handful of Basic ATKs that automatically apply Effects; these were termed “Basic [Effect]”.

I could go on, but my core philosophy after stripping out the Focuses with low information content was to determine which effects I would be most disappointed in missing after a search. Movement, Negate, and SYN effects stood out to me as being particularly valuable.

To help make my thought process a little bit more transparent, I added a Focus glossary with this sort of information. Together with the added instruction sheet/cells, I hope to make the sheet a bit easier to handle. That’s also the reason I chose to hide the detailed columns (Basic ATK/Stratagem Stats, Focuses, Elements/Effects), so that the Parts sheet doesn’t look too intimidating. The most important cells for number of parts bought/equipped and the Stat Boosts thereof remain exposed.

Ultimately, it’ll probably be difficult for me personally to “earn back” the time spent on the data entry, but I still think it’s worth it. Hopefully my deviations from the text aren’t received too harshly, haha.

EDIT: Part of it is the divide between the needs of a PDF and the strengths of a spreadsheet. Real estate in a page layout is very valuable. The Part listings could probably be rearranged to have ATK/Stratagem Stats separate. Each MEC does have its potential Elements listed beneath their Stat Focus and Team Focus, but that assumes all of its Parts are taken. So, Elements would probably be better off including in the Part listings themselves. Further, since the costs of most Parts are standardized (10,000c for Squire Parts; 15,000c for the vast majority of Parts, and 20,000c for two-handed Parts and the Gaccha Core), the Part cost could probably be a fair bit smaller if necessary to fit other information.

I took advantage of having a spreadsheet to pack information in a relatively dense space, with some concessions to readability. It was the sort of thing like, “I can, so I ought to”. While it ventures firmly into homebrew territory, I think that having more information empowers the user to make better decisions. The spreadsheet isn’t a replacement for the rulebook, but it provides a good starting point; some Focuses already invite further investigation with their vagueness, e.g. Utility.

I’ll stop rambling now, lol. Turns out I have a lot to say about the game. Hopefully that comes across as enthusiasm and constructive criticism.

SandroADDeveloper246 days ago

Ooooooo this is all spectacular food for thought! (And actually has me really thinking about re-designing the visuals of a few a few things) - There's definitely some vestigial design after 3+ years of dev (a good example being how big the prices are even though that's all but standardized) and focuses in general kinda fell by the wayside in favor of just getting the game done ((and I still really need to do that 0.14 editing pass cause woof the typos)).

This honestly has me wanting to repurpose that "Cost" spot for the specific "Stat" focus of each part, then replace "Focus" with like "Utility" and pick like 9 keywords that there's a glossary for and each part would likely have 2 ((Though TBH I've been considering getting rid of the "Focus" spot altogether cause I question its ultimate utility vs listing the Element and Stats the part uses for quick ref)).

It can't be said enough how cool it is to see someone deep dive into this game like you are, and this feedback is the kind of sublime "fresh eyes" constructive criticism that I really treasure ((and seriously it's amazing you got through all 180 parts - Heck writing descriptions for all of those was a huge part of why I needed to take a looooong break after getting the beta out)). Honestly this is helping motivate me to keep plugging away at 0.14, so thank you fr.

SandroADDeveloper246 days ago

Additionally - I absolutely adore the focus Glossary you put together! It feels all-at-once accessible, but also covers a lot of the most important bits!~ ((Also I need you to know I just kept saying out loud "This is so fucking cool" as I was exploring how you organized all the parts and did the glossary just ahhhhh spectacular work on this!!))

SandroADDeveloper246 days ago

Sorry to triple post on your awesome work here but it got my mind absolutely buzzing - Technically the MEC Shop's layout was done waaaay long ago and desperately needed an update (especially to improve the gutters at least a bit) - So taking in your feedback and some aesthetic flares I've been wanting to try out here's a before / after of what I'm working on (ignore that I forgot to update the Knight Core's title)

PistilWhip245 days ago (2 edits)

I’m glad that you find my feedback valuable! And all that better that it’s helping to encourage you, too. It’s plain to see that a lot of time and effort went into the rules here, and as a fledgling/aspirant game designer myself, I wanted to do my part.

I think the new layout works great. De-emphasizing the Part type and cost shouldn’t be a problem, because the page setup follows a standardized Helmet : Core : Maneuver : Option : Arm : Arm scheme, so players can already intuit the type of Part by its position on the page, and have a place to sanity check without it taking up too much space. And the costs are already mostly standardized as discussed.

The main thing that stands out to me is those Parts whose Basic ATKs and Stratagems are mismatched. I don’t think the mismatch itself is a problem. The big ones are the Banshee’s two weapons and the Beast Tamer’s Guided Spear. If those mismatches aren’t in error, then they paint a picture of, “Attacking with the weapon requires X stat, but unlocking their full potential requires Y stat.” This is particularly fitting for the Guided Spear, since MOB/DUR lines up with physically manipulating the spear, while COM/TOR represents the guidance tech.

I would want those kinds of mismatches to be made clear on the Part sheet of a MEC, so I’m not “surprised” when I scroll to the Stratagem sheet. On that note, I would appreciate a “Source” field on the Stratagem sheet so I don’t need scroll back and forth checking what Stratagems come from which part. I did a lot of that while verifying the data entries, lol.

But yeah, going back to a previous reply, I think that if Focuses and other keywords are to be used, they need to be called out somewhere in the text. I got partway through the starter frames before I decided, “Yeah, no, this ambiguity is going to trip people up” and made a glossary.

I do have some more feedback to share that I might collect in a separate post, though part of me might want to wait until v0.14 since I expect some of the changes might already be addressed in some form. Either way, the sheet is mostly feature-complete now; I don’t intend to pre-populate the Stratagems sheet because a) The Horrors of Data Entry 2: Electric Boogaloo and b) players are only going to have a handful of Stratagems available in practice, so they’d either need to hide or delete a lot of “irrelevant” rows for their specific builds. At least with the Parts sheet, players only need to look at it as long as it takes them to adjust their equipped Parts.

Until next time, signing off. Keep up the good work!

EDIT: Ah, I did have one quibble that I wanted to put out there. I think having “Stat Boost” as a keyword has some unnecessary overlap with the Boosting mechanic. I think something like “Stat Tuning” or something would improve clarity. I also notice that some specific Parts have Stat Boosts that are in-line while others are separated into their own lines. The Necromancer’s Death Scythe actually has both:

[Stat Boost] : +1 FIN : +1 COM

[Stat Boost] : +5 Max Shields

[Stat Boost] : +1 Soak

Instead of, for example:

[Stat Boost] : +1 FIN : +1 COM : +5 Max Shields : +1 Soak

Though the latter would be subject to word wrap, of course. I guess that’s two quibbles, lol.

SandroADDeveloper245 days ago

Ahhh yeah there's a few parts that have errors / vestigial bits of what their old Stats used to be ((So Guided Spear would just be TOR/COM across the board) - The reason I dropped splitting things out too much was to hone in on a level of simplicity that felt more approachable (and evened out Stat balance across the parts). In the case of Beast Tamer I think the whole MEC used to be DUR/MOB before getting switched a few months before 0.1 released - And yeah I definitely want to add a Focus Glossary of some kind.

Re; Stat Boost, I was actually thinking about that last night! (So that's very good feedback that it might actually be worth changing) Tuning might be a good replacement word too, might even use it! In terms of certain Stat Boosts being In-Line with each other and others not, the main thinking there was the desire to split off boosts to your DMG Stats vs Basic stuff like Speed/Soak/Armor etc - Generally I find it a little better for readability ((Often the only time these things will go in-line with each other will be to save space if absolutely needed)) - I'll definitely do some thinking on that presentation though.

Re; re; any feedback pre-01.4 I'm pretty open to any feedback! (Just know it may take a while or as you said may already be on the docket) - If it's balance tuning a LOT of stuff is still subject to change and rejiggering (and also as I've had to clarify in the past, the game's balance favors feel over any degree of wargamey-fairness - The big thing I try to avoid is any "instant pick" parts that are just too good not to go for, but most (most) of those have gotten stamped out - especially because so much of the game's difficulty comes from familiarity with systems and moment-to-moment choices even a "beginner" encounter could wipe one party while being a breeze for another- I think it's why I'm really hammering home that these are house rules and every GM is going to need to season to the taste of their party. What I build for it is appropriate for the skill level of my tables and the way I run the game, so your mileage may vary - By my estimation the game is relatively easy and about building a super cool engine, then getting into combat and having to improvise when that combat/enemy's gimmick comes into play or when something unexpected happens... and then being a super fragile human for the rest of it that can only solve so many problems with a giant war machine...))

There's a whole laundry list of typos that need going through. Additionally (as I think was posted in one of the updates?) the main rules are getting a few extra pages to cover things like empty part slots, two-handed part breaks, going point by point on what each MEC Perk does AND on top of all that Biomes/Units and Data Packs are getting fully reworked to be more drag-and-drop friendly (Since the game works best when you're making your own bespoke encounters). But if there's rule bits you feel could use some fleshing out or more explanation let me know and I'll add it to my list!! ((And thank you again for some of (if not) the best feedback I've gotten on this game outside of my playtesters))

PistilWhip245 days ago

Yeah, making Stats uniform would make things easier. From an outsider’s perspective, I couldn’t always tell whether the mismatches were intentional. I erred on the side of sticking with the book where it wasn’t an obvious error.

Stat Boost I think the fact that the MEC Stats are in all caps makes them distinct enough from the likes of Armor, Shield, Soak, and Speed, and the X : Y format does a lot for readability on its own.
Feedback I’m probably going to split it off into a separate, dedicated topic, but to respond to your points here, I think there aren’t any “instant picks” for all scenarios, so good job with that. Though, you might want to put a DMG cap on the Martial Artist’s Roundhouse Kick, from the Cyber-Thighs Part. Direct DMG is already powerful, and Speed can get quite high if you build around it (>30). That it gives SYN on top of that is icing on the cake. It’s stopped from being an instant pick by the need to build around Speed, but the ceiling on the payoff is quite high.

I did see your posts about v0.14, and (silently) updated the Perks on my sheet to match. It was Kinetic Regen and Overclock specifically that merited new text.

There’s also an edge case with the Knight Core, which allows two Option Parts to be equipped. Is the second Option Part tied to the Knight Core specifically, so that if the Knight Core suffers a Part Break, that Option Part is lost? This might be one to use an in-line Stat Boost to expand the effect description.

More will come in a future post. Still doing a bit of recovery from the data entry, haha. This game has been a brainworm for me for the past few days, so I’m taking time to catch up with other things I let slack during my fixation period.

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Steel Hearts (Ver. Zero)

Automated MEC Sheet now available