Constellation: Frame Construction

We're building giant robots. Continuing from all the Constellation setting stuff (and rambling).

A frame is a humanoid machine that stands usually about fifteen meters tall on average. The standard models of frame used by Starfall have minor variations, with their constituent nations having their own specialized frames and Constellation fielding their own highly specialized frames called Eidolons.

 

X'cale

Standard frames consist of two legs, two arms, a torso, and a head. 

• Legs contain specialized armored servos and small ground effect system thrusters to allow smooth movement on the ground.
  
• Torsos are a frame's core where everything attaches and where the frame's power plant is housed. 
• Heads are usually humanoid in appearance or similar to a turret or mounted camera array and carry the majority of sensors that feed into the cockpit as well as communications equipment. 
• Arms have armored servomotors typically with actuating hands to allow for universal weapons loadout and on the fly swap outs.

The cockpit is a human-sized egg shaped armored metallic sphere housed usually in the head of a frame, though some models allow for installation in the chest which enable more armor for the pilots but make emergency ejections a more time consuming process. Cockpits contain a seat, controls, and a bank of screens tied directly into the frame's computing systems and sensory feeds, with very little room for personalization.

Power plants are micro fusion reactors at the core of the frame and are linked to heat radiators across the frame. Guardian type frames used in city defense typically swap these reactors out for high-density batteries. 

Eddie Mendoza

 

Some frames are specialized with integrated systems and weaponry, but those tend to be reserved for elite units and R&D. Standard frames available to player pilots at the start of a game come 3d printed or nanofabbed and then have their kits installed based on the constraints of economy, mission necessity, and pilot whimsy. These Tabula Rasa or TR frames come in three varieties:

TR-1 Specialist: 2 weapons, 4 systems

TR-2 Balanced: 3 weapons, 3 systems

TR-3 Assault: 4 weapons, 2 systems

Below is a list of some weapons and systems that might be available for installation:

System	Description
Survival Kit	Contains flares, a life-raft, and enough food and medical supplies for one week.
Micromanipulators	Human sized and smaller tool-tipped arms that can extend from a hand. Used for doing precise work without leaving the cockpit.
Advanced Passive Sensors	Full suite of passive sensors providing light spectrum analysis (UV, IR, etc), thermal sensors, EM sensors (detecting electromagnetic radiation from electronics, weapons, shields, etc).
Tracing Package	Can trace communications transmissions, radar emissions, and other active sensors to their source.
Communications Jammer	Can jam all communications in a 5 mile radius.
Guidance Dazzler	Reverse-engineered from biological samples, the guidance dazzler allows near perfect protection from beyond visual range guided munitions.
Early Warning Radar	A phased array antenna that can detect significant movement within a ten mile radius.
Target Uplink	Advanced analytic subroutines provides tactical data for a pilot analyzing a target and highlighting weapons, compositions, and expressed systems.
Silent Running	Insulation and directed emissions allow a frame to move near silently as long as no other systems are used.
Frictionless Spray	Can coat a 20x20 meter area in a spray that reduces friction, causing slippage.
Goo Spray	A sticky spray that coats a 20x20 area and makes movement more challenging.
Turbocharger	Allows 10 seconds of enhanced performance for all weapons, propulsion, shields, etc. Hinders performance of all systems afterwards until repairs can be made.
Active Camouflage	Provides a limited cloaking system that works against the mark 1 human eyeball but not much else. Lasts until another system is used.
Albatross Drone	A remotely operated reconnaissance drone that can scout out areas as long as it's within line of sight of the operator.
Heat Shunt	Huge coils that can be deployed to rapidly vent heat while stationary.
Ground Effect System	Small propulsors and thrusters to allow hovering over terrain and dramatically increase speed.
Thrusters	Large thrusters that allow for subsonic flight.
"Woodpecker" Beacon	Can fire a small drone that attaches to a target, allowing finite tracking of the target's location as well as enhancing attacks against it.
Sunburst Flare	High powered flare drone that acts as a miniature, stationary sun for a time.
EMP Hardening	Hardens systems against EMP and electrical attacks.
Impact Plating	Additional staged armor plating to protect against kinetic attacks.
Directed Jammer	Jams sensory data for frames when aimed at them.
Smoke Chamber	Triggerable smoke that can obscure your position.
Escape Thruster	Limited use thrusters that allow a frame to boost quickly out of imminent danger.
Nuisance Drones	Six hummingbird drones designed to seek a painted target's sensors and harass them with directed light, sonic emissions, and suicide dives. Programmable and highly configurable.
Booster	Limited booster allows high speed movement in short bursts.
Grapple Locks	Deployable latches that help adhere the user to a target they're touching.
Belt Feeder	Motorized belt feeders rapidly replenish ammunition for projectile weapons.
Precision Controls	Enable last minute recovery from risky situations or sudden attacks for skilled pilots.
Bastion Emplacement	Series of deployable plates and ground anchors stick the frame in place and provide additional protection from incoming fire.
Patch Foam	Emergency deployable hardening foam that can patch damaged armor and protect vital components. Usable on self or other frames.
Spotter Radar	Provides targeting information for other weapons to enhance their attacks. Can be fed to allied frames.
Shock Absorbers	Rubberized kinetic absorbers diminish damage dealt by ramming, impacts with obstacles, or falling.
Point Defense Guns	Short range guns designed to counter missile swarms and nearby drones.

Weapon	Description
Harpoon	Gas powered harpoon that can be electrified or reeled in.
Cutter Axe	Rotating bladed metallic plates that can rip through tissue and deal heavy damage to metal.
Foam Gun	Sprays globs of fat solidifying metallic foam that can obstruct weapons, seal ports, jam thrusters, and restrict movement.
Demolisher Blade	Huge hunk of metal with a sharpened edge just as likely to smash as to slice. Slow.
Shock-Whip	Long barbed whip which can deliver an abrupt electric shock.
Chainsaw	Rotating chain blade for chewing through tissue and light metal objects.
Lance	Armor-Piercing lance, prone to breaking off in targets.
Anti-Material Rifle	Long range rifle designed to counter heavy armor. Slow.
Flamethrower	Close range weapon that can set targets on fire.
Shredder Gun	Close range shotgun that fires metallic flechettes that chew apart their targets.
Battle Rifle	Standard medium range and reliable projectile weapon.
Thermal Blade	Heavy blade that combusts targets and overheats systems. Hot.
Short Range Missiles	Short range missiles with line of sight targeting to track evasive targets.
Long Range Rockets	Blanketing long range rockets that can suppress and harass hardened targets. Slow.
Caustic Sprayer	Close range sprayer filled with caustic acid.
Rocket Launcher	Standard high powered two-handed rocket launcher for explosive medium range effects. Slow.
Directed Microwave Emitter	Heats liquids in biological material. Ineffective against metallic objects. Highly effective medium range anti-personnel weapon. Hot.
Electromagnetic Pulse Gun	Precision EMP gun effective at medium range that can disrupt electric systems. Hot.
Railgun	High power armor piercing projectile launcher. Hot. Slow.
Ablative Shield	Thick shield comprised of layers of ablative metal.
Pile Bunker	Melee weapon that fires a spike forward with a chemical charge for maximal armor-piercing. Slow.
Paintball Gun	Rifle that fires balls of ink that shatter on contact with a target. Commonly used in training, can also be used to blind sensors, eyes, and can be laced with biological or chemical agents.
Catapult Launcher	Simple scoop launcher designed to load anything that can fit in it and accelerate it at a target. Commonly used for junk, boulders, cobbled together explosives, etc.
Power Punch	Rockets embedded into fists provide for high impact power punches.
Rending Claws	High heat sharp claws designed to shred armor.
Chaingun	Rotating medium range projectile weapon highly effective at suppressing fire.
Beam Cannon	Precision energy weapon. Hot. Slow.
"Loiter" Drone Mortar	Fires an arcing drone high above the battlefield. The drone can loiters in the air for a time and can be propelled at a target at any time.
Concussion Rockets	Concussive rockets that can disrupt targets. Highly effective on unarmored targets.
"Swarmbat" Missiles	Drone launcher that fires a large missile drone that deploys its own micro-missile swarm after a target.

Some exotic systems and weaponry may be available from benefactors, discovered in abandoned laboratories, or recovered from wrecked adversaries. Here are some examples:

System	Description
Active Cloaking	Advanced active cloaking that protects from most average sensors, passive and active- though reconnaissance specialized sensors might still pick you up. Lasts until another system is used.
Gravity Lens	Advanced sensor that can convert gravitational waves into sensory data, allowing trained users to see around obstacles within visual range.
"Wallhack" Radar	Provides a limited view of objects through solid walls. With the right tuning, this can allow a user to see frames or other large metallic objects through solid matter by emitting an extremely high frequency pulse.
Panoply Field	Disperses a field of nanobots that provide sensory data, allowing a scan of everything exposed to airflow within 1 mile given time.
SIMS Sniffer	Measures paracausal perturbations to detect SIMS use and manifestations, provides a heads up if they're targeted at the pilot.
Refractor Shields	Generates a shaped EM field that can refract light, hinders beam weapon attacks from anything beyond close range.
Hard Light Shields	Exotic technology that produces a heavy shield around the frame, reducing projectile impact, refracting light, and dampening explosions.
Shadow Imager	A combination of holo-projectors and directional jamming produces the illusion of multiple copies of the frame. Most effective on light frames.
Synchronizer	Device that enables SIMS users to operate their frames as though through a brain-machine-interface and dramatically enhances their SIMS abilities. Requires significant training to use effectively.
Kinetic Dynamo	Absorbent plates and materials allow the frame to absorb kinetic attacks and translate them directly into increased power.
Oracle System	Battle AI that monitors a target. With enough combat data, can provide limited projections of what a target would do given the pilot's actions.
Thalia Attractor	Abnormal instrument that can turn certain death into a slight comedic mishap. Not guaranteed to work past the first time. Highly experimental.
Immortan System	Swarms of nanomachines can be deployed to repair damage and even replace limbs.
Weapon	Description
Destroyer's Palm	Coats the frame's hand in gleaming nanomachines that dissolve whatever the hand touches. Heat.
Beam Saber	Prototype melee energy weapon that can melt armor.
Vacuum Projector	Micro-annihilator that can create temporary spheres of vacuum space, interfering with projectiles and disrupting emplacements and movement.
Chest Cannon	Extremely high power energy weapon fed directly from the frame's core. Heat. Exposes core.
Rust Missile	Missile with a payload of metal-dissolving nanomachines. Limited life, but shreds through metal quickly.
Thermite Slime	Medium range slime-launcher. The slime is a sticky mixture of chemicals and nanobots that slowly gum up their target and then heat up a thermite reaction. Highly effective against armor unless scraped off.
Interference Beam	Extremely high power directed beam weapon that deals no direct damage but interferes with a frame's power plant, forcing a full restart. Slow. Heat.
Lightning Cannon	Ball lightning projector. Medium range. Heat.
Heat Dump	Melee weapon that drives a spike into a target and dumps all heat from the user into the target. Slow.
Calliope's Mirror	Advanced sonic weapon that cancels sound waves by listening to their input and outputting directed sonic energy back at the emitter.
Balloon Spear	Experimental spear gun with questionable application. The Balloon Spear fires spears designed to grapple onto/into targets and then explosively inflates a helium balloon at their end.
Rail Cannon	The big brother of a railgun, the rail cannon is a spinal mounted magnetic accelerator that fires a 3 meter rod across great distances. Can pierce meter thick armored plates. Heat. Slow. Set up.
Drill Crab	Rocket propelled drone that attaches to a target and begins drilling into its core. Programmable and configurable.
AE Rifle	Constellation designed Anti-Eidolon rifle with limited ammunition. Projectiles designed to counter manifested materials.
AE Spear	Constellation designed Anti-Eidolon spear designed to easily pierce manifested materials.
Cryospiker	Spike thrower that freezes an area on impact.
Nuclear Bazooka	Tactical nuclear warhead delivery system.

Kagami Moto

Specialized Frames

While TRs are the most easily accessed frames, there are many many variants employed by different factions across the planet. Doing favors or missions for them (or capturing them in battle) can give access to some of these specialized frames.

Starfall:

TR frames are the bread and butter for Starfall forces, with some elite units using altered frames.

SE-1 Hektor: 3 weapons and 3 systems with a built in shoulder mounted spear.

SE-2 Cybele: 2 weapons and 4 systems. Specialized drone printer allows rapid reproduction of lost drones.

SE-3 Thisbe:  4 weapons and 2 systems with a built in active camouflage system.

TR-4 Proteus: Extremely variable, 6 universal mounts with a basic weapons-lathe allowing printing of weapons on the fly.

Germania:

Germania's elite frames specialize in kinetic feeds, emphasizing bulk application of projectile weapons. 

GA-06 Messenger: 3 weapons and 3 systems with a built in belt feeder.

GA-99 Herald: 2 weapons and 4 systems with a built in rocket-hammer.

GA-57 Judgement: 3 weapons and 3 systems with a built in rail cannon.

ALR:

Thanks to the environment they are usually fielded in,  the ALR uses high heat weaponry and systems with a specialization in beam weaponry.

Hellion: 3 weapons and 3 systems with a built in advanced turbocharger with 2 uses before needing repair.

Snowbird: 4 weapons and 2 systems with built in thrusters and GES.

Classique:  4 weapons and 2 systems with a built in charge bank enabling rapid fire of energy weapons.

Bharin Empire:

The Bharin frames tend to specialize in melee combat thanks to their use mostly as city-defense frames and police action units. 

Wu Wei: 3 weapons and 3 systems, equipped with a built-in panoply field and precision controls.

Tigerstripe: 2 weapons and 4 systems, built-in rending claws.

Elephant Shark: 4 weapons and 2 systems, built-in bastion-emplacement.

New Alexandria:

NA mostly uses the Starfall frames, but has two elites of their own. 

NA-04 Apollo: 3 weapons and 3 systems, Apollo has modified Sunburst Flare drone designed to attach to a target and overheat them.

NA-14 Artemis: 3 weapons and 3 systems, the Artemis is equipped with a resolution amplifier that allows increased range for most weapons.

UADP:

UADP frames all come with additional reinforcement or armor of some kind as a way of surviving their highly dangerous wilds. 

Grizzly: 4 weapons 2 systems with built in impact plating.

Jaguar: 3 weapons and 3 systems with built in shock absorbers and escape thruster.

Bison: 4 weapons and 2 systems with a built in early warning radar.

Nomad:

Nomads field just about anything that works and can be highly experimental. With plenty of TRs of their own taken from compromised printers, expect to see cobbled together machines when fighting with or against the nomads.

Dozer: 3 weapons and 3 systems, the Dozer has in-built boosters and shock absorbers and tends to rely on ramming.

Cobra: 2 weapons and 3 systems, has a built-in shock whip.

Midnight Sun:

Midnight Sun tends to field unique frames for all of their missions as well as hijacking target frames for surprise.

Joker: 2 weapons and 3 systems, kitted with built in advanced spoofing equipment to imitate friendly frames.

Gunhazard: 4 weapons and 2 systems, equipped with a built in holoprojector for setting up ambushes.

Volkharev Initiative:

The VI doesn't usually field traditional frames, instead fielding modified demons or frames with demonic components.

Alkahest:

Most Alkahest frames are unique to the user in every way- many of them being TR frames with salvaged Constellation synchronizers and manifested equipment and weaponry- making their function and form unpredictable.

Constellation:

Eidolons are a divergent branch of mechanized armor evolution. Being more humanoid in shape but with longer arms and agile movements. Their cockpits are armored synchronizers and most Eidolons use a combination of manifested attacks and equipment to augment their loadout with more training and efficiency than the paramilitary Alkahest frames. With a trained operator these are extremely lethal to unprepared pilots.

Mk 1 Eidolon: 3 weapons and 3 systems with an in-built synchronizer. 

Frame Improvement

Gavin Manners

With enough resources and time, a pilot can work with a frame they're familiar with to make modifications to it. This could be building in equipment, improving performance, or just specializing the paint job.

These alterations though are tied to that specific frame and have to be maintained. If that frame gets fragged during combat then all of the alterations made to it are lost too and the pilot has to begin with a fresh frame. 

Worlds, Dice, Freedom

 

When I was young, I always enjoyed maps and gazetteers. I spent huge, formative parts of my childhood unattended and wandering libraries, browsing through history books with big beautiful maps and photographs, art histories and gallery books, and of course fantasy. Opening a fantasy book as a kid and finding a detailed little map sprawling across its first pages felt like discovering a a well in the forest. What more did its depths hold? How deep does it go? What lives in there and makes it its home? I would spend notebooks drafting my own maps; worlds painted out by maps alone covered in symbols and cramped notes, forgotten at the turn of the page for the next world. Picking up books began to have that same sense of wonder and curiosity as finding a new painting in Super Mario 64 and diving in to see what lies beyond.

Getting into the RPG scene, this fascination with maps and worlds held strong. For me, reading an RPG setting book was interesting only so much as I was drawn in by the world- my eyes glossing over any of the fiddly mechanical bits. Eventually, when I started running my own games, I was increasingly frustrated by those mechanical bits- the crunch that gunked up the game and slowed it down. I was interested in discovering stories, spinning tales of adventure and mystery, not interested in any way in identifying where in a five by five square a character was standing and whether or not they got an attack of opportunity on a fleeing goblin. 

Jon Juarez

Years later and with many, many games, systems, and sessions under my belt I am still presented with the problem of translating the grandeur of setting and world from headspace into meatspace. The problem, as near as I have been able to tell, is with systems and the tyranny of the character sheet and rulebooks in general. 

The crimes of the character sheet have been talked to death, but to summarize my issue with it is that the character sheet becomes the lens through which a player views and interacts with the world. The statistics and abilities listed on the sheet become the be all end all- the definition of how a player through the avatar of their character is allowed to interact with the game world. I encountered this problem most commonly when I started running TTRPGs and was running through 5e. I had players who had never played before who were laser focused on what their sheets said they were allowed to do, and I had players with a great deal of 5e experience who would likewise defer to the character sheet for all of their abilities and actions. Similarly, I've played in games run by 5e only DMs who have their own lock ups with doing things outside of the defined modes of play as highlighted by the sheet and the rules. 

Looking at it from a design perspective- the issue appears to me that the character sheet provided a tool- a hammer, and if you give a player a hammer then everything gets hit with a hammer and only a hammer. Likewise, when your system is focused entirely on the procedures of combat then the game gets mired in the application of the procedures of combat. While that may be some people's jam, increasingly I'm realizing that I prefer to run a game in the fiction of the game as opposed to the interface of established rules and restrictions. 

Free Kriegsspiel Revolution

 

And, conveniently, there's already a word for this thing I'd like to try. The Free Kriegsspiel Revolution, the ultimate in rules light (dependent), unshackling worlds from the burden of systems. Many links below, but the summary hits the exact notes of the problem I've been trying to put a name to for years: Play Worlds, Not Rules. It's changing the layer of player interaction in the game from interaction with the system as an intermediary for the game world to interacting directly with the game world.

I don't want to get too far in the realm of using words like proceduralism and diegesis here, but check the additional reading below if you're into that. For me, the form FKR takes is the simplest game of:

• Referee describes the situation
• Players ask questions about the situation
• Referee answers questions
• Players describe actions they take
• Referee describes the effects of these actions on the situation
  

No numbers or attributes, just characters and situations.

At the moment, I don't think I'll go fully diceless- at least on my end. As a GM I love random tables- but in general I plan to embrace dicelessness. Hearkening back to Constellation, which I ran earlier in the year, the vast majority of that was diceless and it ran smoothly. For an FKR style game to work, there are two things that are critically important: 

1. Mutual trust between the players and the GM. The players must trust that the GM will make rational rulings and judgements and is not biased against or for the players. Likewise, the GM must trust that the players are reasoning agents in their own regards. 
2. The GM must have a strong sense of the world and communicate it to (or with) the players.

This style of gaming reminds me of when I started running games and didn't have access to a printer for character sheets, so we would just use notebook paper and go. The sense of storytelling freedom where you don't need to box your imagined settings into the ill fitting restraints of a defined system is extremely freeing- and it makes all those old setting books still applicable- "Any rulebook can be pillaged and have its meat enjoyed as the skeleton rots in the sun, however a FKR referee will only consume whatever agrees with the world" - Weird Writer. For my own works I think I'll need to look at how I want to portray worlds and scenarios in a new light.

No gods, no kings, no rulebooks

Slaughter all of your sacred cows

 Play Worlds, Not Rules

Anyways, here's some cool maps I like while I ruminate more on this. Maps are fantasy. Make more maps.

Break!!

The Gackling Moon

Yoon-Suin

Ace Combat Strangereal

Mekton, Algol II

Hubris

UVG map snippets

Bone Age

I Roved Out

Kill Six Billion Demons- excellent RPG map material

 

Additional Reading:

A researcher at heart, increasingly I have three dozen tabs open when I write a post- so here they are.

FKR Non Exhaustive Analysis by Weird Writer to Roll to Doubt

Focus on the World series from Sam at Dreaming Dragonslayer

Diceless Violence, Decisive Combat, and Diceless Resolution by Sam at Dreaming Dragonslayer

A Way of Free Kriegsspiel Revolution  by Sam at Dreaming Draognslayer

FKR - Free Kriegsspiel Revolution by Larry Hamilton

Rules Heavy - Worlds and Classes by Chris McDowall

HUDLESS Adventure Gaming by Sofinho at Alone in the Labyrinth

Less Rules to Do More: Advancement by Justin Hamilton at Aboleth Overlords

Yes, You Can Resolve Action Without Dice And Do It For Years by Jim Parkin at d66 Kobolds

Non-Authoritative FKR Core Gameplay Loop Tutorial by Wizard Lizard

Dear Players, Description Is Not Fluff, It's Meat by Wizard Lizard

What is Artpunk? by Patrick Stuart at False Machine

What does diegesis have to do with games? by Nikoten at Pathika

A Manifesto For Proceduralism by Gus L

New Simulationism by Sam Sorenson 

The Tyranny of "Rule" from Labyrinth Lesbian 

Against Procedurality by Miguel Sicart

Matrix Games by Tom Mouat

JOESKY TAX

I have NOT been paying my taxes lately, so here's a table of cool lanterns I'm proud of from my Bars Aplenty supplement.

• Howler: A wolf’s head bronze lantern that howls when wolves are nearby.

• Insurance Policy: An inconspicuous lantern with a dead-man switch that explosively combusts two hidden flasks of fire oil three seconds after released.
  

• Sealamp: An orb of swirling sea glass with a handle on top, can be used to light the way underwater. The lantern fish inside must be fed every day.

• Puppeteer Lamp: This lamp has cutouts of monsters and animals that can be used to project false shadows to trick the unwitting.

• Spirit’s Lantern: An old wrought iron gravekeeper’s lamp. Once per night a spirit can carry this lamp for an hour. Follows simple instructions.

• Blasphemer’s Flame: This skull shaped lantern is powered by a Vampiric Flame. It runs for one hour for each HP fed to it.

• Cannibal: When unhooded, this lantern consumes any light source within 30 feet.

• Dragon’s Head: Forged from heartsteel, this legendary lantern can be blown into to make a dragon breath attack. 3 charges, must be recharged by being hit with a real dragon breath attack.

• Thief’s Accomplice: When shone, this lamp only illuminates the most valuable thing in the room.

• Twin Lamp: A double sided fairy-wrought lamp. One side casts light, the other casts darkness.