Mechanics Update: Core Issues
In Precipice, a mech's core is the bulk of its body. It provides connections for the mech's limbs, which determine how much power the limb receives from the core and in which arcs the limb is exposed. After all, those crucially important legs have to attach to something!
Typically, the core is also where the pilot sits when embarked. One of the earliest ideas for Precipice (and one that is still one of my favorites) is that the Pilot card (a mini card) slots into the "cockpit" area, and can leave by disembarking the cockpit. This has a great tactile feel, and is very satisfying in play.
But as a result of housing pilot, main power plant, and body plan, there isn't a ton of real estate left on the core.
Still, as I moved to testing the three archetypes of the Preview Kit, players reported that the choice of core sometimes felt inconsequential. It wasn't, since it provides differences to power allocation to limbs, but it felt that way to players who didn't yet know how to assess those variances. Perception was more important than reality here, because an unperceived difference was the same as no difference to the player.
Parallel Problems
Meanwhile, two interesting quandaries had been coasting along for some time. Seemingly unrelated, these were:
Some players wanted momentum to go above the hard limit of six. This was niche feedback, but strongly felt by those who reported it! At the current design stage, someone saying “I want to be able to ___” is feedback that is always worth looking at closely. It means part of the fantasy isn’t reflecting in the game mechanics (or some players aren’t connecting the dots on how the designer envisions things).
Size was covering two concepts: dimensions and mass. This abstraction seemed fine at first, but in a game where collisions matter and the biggest object isn't always the most dense, I had increasingly begun to feel that mass warranted some consideration separate from size. I toyed with replacing size with mass, but since size derives from the physical size of the miniature (whether die-cast metal, dense resin, or lightweight plastic), size seemed important to maintain. But I wanted two objects of the same dimensions to sometimes "weigh" different amounts.
As I moved into final revisions of the Preview Kit, I came to the conclusion that both of these concepts warranted living on the Part cards, and the core was the natural place to put them. And fortunately, there was just enough space!
This is how both Mass and Top Momentum ended up on the Core card. While these are new values to track, they're both extremely straightened. Mass is a fixed value, and Top Momentum technically already existed, it was just buried in the rulebook rather than living on the card. This change makes the information a key signal to players as they select their mech cores, each one providing a clearer vision of its strengths and weaknesses.
Of course, mech cores won't be without other wrinkles as the game progresses. After all, mech's in Precipice vary greatly in size and shape. New cores will need to accommodate some wildly different body plans, from the quadrupedal and winged mechafauna of Brandon Perdue’s Swarmworld Arcturus to lumbering, six-legged striders of another Precipice world you’ll see in the coming months!