So, coming back to Folded Steel my thoughts have turned to tier and how it works. In Blades it makes sense that your crew had a tier, it is a game about moving up the criminal ladder and expanding your operations accordingly. For Folded Steel Scum and Villainy will be more of a touchstone where Tier still exists, but it is used to gauge outside factions and the quality of their assets. It is not thematically appropriate to have Enclaves being that concerned with going up in tier (well mostly not appropriate, so I reserve my right to come back to this later)
Where tier, or some version of it rather, does have a place in Folded Steel is in regards to the mechs. Specifically, tier would be a good mechanic to look to to model the different size scales of mechs and how they interact with each other.
Tier 0 Booster Suits – Human scale exo suits
Tier 1 Frames – 15 feet tall
Tier 2 Walkers – 30 feet tall
Tier 3 Goliaths – 60 feet tall
Tier 4 Titans – 120+ feet tall
The higher the tier the more effect the mech provides, but also the more it interacts with the Enclaves resources. During the First Fold it costs more funding to run a tier 1 than a tier 0, and also provides more exposure. During the Second Fold the empire definitely notices and reacts accordingly when an Enclave manages to field a Tier 3 mech.
What this does in addition to providing a loop of gathering resources is create meaningful choices for the players when deploying on a mission. The Enclave’s current position will have to factor into the choices instead of just always bringing the biggest and heaviest mechs in their hangar.
Will the mechs have upkeep costs after each mission or a few missions, other than repair which I’d think would be more of a downtime action?
Would advanced tech allow you to have a smaller mech at a higher tier? (e.g. A tier 1 Booster Suit, it’s not bigger but hits harder/takes more of a beating)
Yes to both. Part of the post mission resolution is going to be upkeep costs (this is another area where tier comes back into the mechanics) which covers the fiction of resupplying the mech back to mission ready status.
Playbook upgrades from both the pilots and the Enclave will allow you to up the mechs tier (with the added benefit of usually not upping the costs associated with the tier of the mech). Some of this will be framed as more advanced tech.
The more you post about this the more excited I am to see it.
Hopefully I will have an example Enclave, Pilot, and Mech to share soon (I teach full time so I haven’t had time to really devote to working those sheets out, but I do have a long weekend and intend to hammer down those templates then)