The GiantitpAnime Fans' Visual Novel (now planning settings and routes)

[kamikasei]

From now on, I'm always going to quote the person I'm actually responding to, rather than assuming people know that I'm referring to the poster above me from context. I was talking to Prime32.

Oh, I know. But he was responding to me, and your response was different to the one I would have made, so...

[nothingclever]

In addition to explaining things with science I propose we put in some Newtype style stuff where certain people just have "it" while others don't. "It" being some vaguely explained psychic ability to exceed normal expectations for human pilots so we can justify anything happening in the story. One person could fight five other people to a standstill despite all of them being equally skilled because the one person is just especially in tune with his psychic senses at the time of the fight.

[Cubey]

Why not make the explanation of why some people rule and others don't, dependant on the route!

Siela: sheer power of COURAGE!

Kara: determination, in the samurai way of "someone who is ready to die (for the other person, maybe?) is stronger than someone who isn't".

Kamia: either deal with some kind of evil, twisted powers; or alternatively - nothing, everyone has the same level of mortality. Named characters are in for nasty surprises.

[13_CBS]

Progress update and stuff left to do:

1) Finalize the characters outside the context of a plot or setting. I consider this my top priority at the moment. Kamia's personality has been pretty much finalized. We're good on this, I think.

2) Finalize details on the robots: at the moment, it looks like a humanoid, functional (Sutherland-esque) model for both BTSs and PLANTs are favored. The specific art will come later. We're still somewhat divided on what to do for weapon systems, however. Also, Roag and Han still need robots.

3) Lay down the foundations for a setting (so far we have: far future, evil cultist empire vs our good empire, high school (I'm thinking about an Academy + Combat School space station, combining both a stereotypical Japanese high school and big robots)): We haven't gotten much farther than this here, I'm afraid.

4) Start integrating everything together: figure out how the characters and robot fit into the setting, etc. Haven't gotten much farther.

5) Figure out and plan a plot for each route (start, a middle, and an end) Pending.

6) Figure out and plan the details for each route, plot-wise (where to put choices, bad ends, etc). Pending.

So, now that we've mostly agreed upon using functional, humanoid robots, we need to finalize details on weapon systems. So far, we've had suggestions for a mixed armament of energy weapons, projectiles, and missiles.

Edit:

In addition to explaining things with science I propose we put in some Newtype style stuff where certain people just have "it" while others don't. "It" being some vaguely explained psychic ability to exceed normal expectations for human pilots so we can justify anything happening in the story. One person could fight five other people to a standstill despite all of them being equally skilled because the one person is just especially in tune with his psychic senses at the time of the fight.

Very interesting, but I'm a little uncertain of what you mean. Can this mysterious attribute be reliably called upon during battle, or does it happen spontaneously? What does it exactly do for a Primary Pilot?

[Prime32]

In addition to explaining things with science I propose we put in some Newtype style stuff where certain people just have "it" while others don't. "It" being some vaguely explained psychic ability to exceed normal expectations for human pilots so we can justify anything happening in the story. One person could fight five other people to a standstill despite all of them being equally skilled because the one person is just especially in tune with his psychic senses at the time of the fight.

Gravion did it weirdly, where "it" was something as mundane as tolerance to high g-forces. It still had a dramatic name - the "G-Factor", and, well, God Gravion's design probably would break most pilots' necks (seriously, piloted rocket punches?).

[kamikasei]

For "why are some people special", I would suggest making it a mundane, but poorly understood, aspect of genetics / brain structure that just makes them better at interfacing with synched pilots. That wouldn't make people better individual pilots, but better main pilots of combining mecha. You could then incorporate Cubey's idea and have each path interpret the reason for or consequence of this facility ("I believe in you, who believes in me!" "Zen composure" "The more open you are to your baser impulses, the more commonality you can find with the minds of others...").

[KnightDisciple]

For "why are some people special", I would suggest making it a mundane, but poorly understood, aspect of genetics / brain structure that just makes them better at interfacing with synched pilots. That wouldn't make people better individual pilots, but better main pilots of combining mecha. You could then incorporate Cubey's idea and have each path interpret the reason for or consequence of this facility ("I believe in you, who believes in me!" "Zen composure" "The more open you are to your baser impulses, the more commonality you can find with the minds of others...").

I'm liking this method of thinking. It doesn't feel overdone or overwhelming to the rest of the plot, but gives a nice special edge to the pilots.

[13_CBS]

For "why are some people special", I would suggest making it a mundane, but poorly understood, aspect of genetics / brain structure that just makes them better at interfacing with synched pilots. That wouldn't make people better individual pilots, but better main pilots of combining mecha. You could then incorporate Cubey's idea and have each path interpret the reason for or consequence of this facility ("I believe in you, who believes in me!" "Zen composure" "The more open you are to your baser impulses, the more commonality you can find with the minds of others...").

So, for each Primary Pilot...

Furi: Becoming emotionally detached or doubting his sense of morality weakens his piloting abilities, while a strong will to promote his own brand of justice and becoming deeply attached to other people amplifies his skills.

Siela: Feeling and acknowledging fear and doubting her own abilities weakens her, while feeling confident and brave strengthens her.

Kara: Losing control over her emotions makes her less synchronized--being calm and in control makes her more synchronized.

Kamia: Having positive emotions towards her brother strengthens her piloting; having negative emotions towards him weakens it.

Ritt: Uhh...I got nothing. Any ideas, Knight?

Roag: Feeling as though things are out of his control limits his abilities, while feeling in control amplifies them.

We'll also need some for Illa...

[KnightDisciple]

I'm open to other suggestions; the stuff you've used for other pilots pretty much covers anything I have off the top of my head.

[13_CBS]

It's unfortunate that I'm blanking on Ritt (and I was struggling to come up with stuff for the others)...just goes to show how much I know about the characters.

[hanzo66]

For my character, he doesn't necessarily pilot his thing by himself. His mech is AI-Assisted to some extent, controlling stuff like advanced movement. The AI of course has a Genki Girl personality and often gets into arguments with her creator. Han of course handles the weapons targeting and such.

[Fri]

Furi: Becoming emotionally detached or doubting his sense of morality weakens his piloting abilities, while a strong will to promote his own brand of justice and becoming deeply attached to other people amplifies his skills.

Even after I said that just ignore my dream at this point, it still amazingly fits my dream. In my dream, we failed to move the giant robot, and after I said some hot blooded speech for not giving up, we managed to 'synchronize' and move the mech for the first time.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Gravion did it weirdly, where "it" was something as mundane as tolerance to high g-forces. It still had a dramatic name - the "G-Factor", and, well, God Gravion's design probably would break most pilots' necks (seriously, piloted rocket punches?).

So Zechs Merquise and Graham Aker are the best pilots for Gravion? Maybe throw in Max and Milia, although I'm fairly sure their VF-22s had limiters to keep them from going too fast too furious and exploding like Guld did...

[Terraoblivion]

So Guld is more durable than the YF-21? If he could withstand g-forces strong enough to tear a fighter plane apart he pretty much have to be the best pilot for Gravion ever.

And Kami's idea makes sense. And they can really all be seen as tying into the same thing that we can explain with technobabble or psychobabble or whatever, should we want to, while still manifesting radically differently.

[Cubey]

So Guld is more durable than the YF-21? If he could withstand g-forces strong enough to tear a fighter plane apart he pretty much have to be the best pilot for Gravion ever.

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Except that he actually dies from g-forces in the movie version of Macross Plus. He doesn't die in Alpha 3 because it's SRW.

[Terraoblivion]

I was refering to what Nerdo said, which was that the YF-21 couldn't withstand the g-forces, not that he couldn't.

[Nerd-o-rama]

No, I meant that the YF-21 and its limited-production upgrade the VF-22S had limiters so that the pilots didn't accidentally liquefy themselves with G-Forces, which

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Guld proceeded to do as soon as he released said limiter. I didn't mean the YF-21 exploded, I meant Guld did.

[13_CBS]

Alright, weapon systems for Task force Root of Spring:

There are 2 basic weapon systems in our setting that are designed to do direct damage (that is, blow the **** out of stuff): directed energy weapons and kinetic energy projectile weapons (missiles exist but...I'll explain that later). Each have their own uses, advantages, and disadvantages.

Directed energy weapons:

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For variety, let's include all sorts of cool stuff like lasers, plasma, etc. These weapons require large amounts of power and complex mechanisms to function, but they're handy when logistics are a problem since, in the end, they just need spare parts + engineers + some fuel for the reactor. No need for resupply when deep into enemy territory, no sir. Ships armed with energy weapons include larger capital ships and interceptors (which can't always afford to fly back to another ship for rearmament).

The primary purpose of energy weapons is to disable enemy shields. They can do hull damage, and against smaller ships they're deadly, but against larger well-armored hulls they're not the most efficient of weapons.

Plasma does more damage per shot but has lesser range. Lasers do less damage per shot but can be fired from a greater distance. To appease the dark gods of HARD SCIENCE, energy weapon reactors can be fueled by Phlebotinum.

Kinetic energy projectile weapons (KEP weapons):

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Any weapon that relies on kinetic energy to do damage instead of chemical (missiles) or thermal (energy weapons) effects. The newer ships of the Imperial Navy uses railguns (not to be confused with coilguns) to accelerate heavy projectiles, while the older ones use chemical propellants. All vehicles in the 8th Fleet use magnetic rails to launch projectiles.

Projectiles do high damage against hulls, and even a frigate has a chance to deal good damage against the heaviest of capital ships. However, they're lousy against shields, so using KEPs on hulls requires the target to have lowered shields first. Special projectiles can be modified to explode after they've penetrated deep into an enemy vehicle--these are called High Explosive Kinetic Energy Projectiles (HEKEPs).

KEPs are excellent for punching through armor. HEKEPs, due to being less dense, don't puncture armor quite as efficiently, but can explode, dealing greater damage to ship subsystems. KEPs and HEKEPs typically use depleted uranium as ammunition.

Before I move onto missiles, I need to show you how shields work...

Defensive Accelerated Particle Screens: (DAPS)

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Shields in the setting work by showering a flat plane with fast-moving, high energy particles, kind of like a waterfall. Projectors on the hull of a vehicle send these particles streaming from one point on the hull to another, and any object of significant mass gets deflected and heavily damaged upon contact with the screen--even high-velocity pieces of depleted uranium are turned aside. The screens also protect against micrometeroids and debris (potential source of danger, anyone?).

I did say "flat plane", but in reality the particle screen is actually convex (curves outward away from the ship), promoting deflection. Redundant shield systems insure that there are no gaps in the screens.

Unfortunately, while this system offers great protection against KEPs and HEKEPs, the particle screens cannot interact in any real way against directed energy weapons, and since the screen projectors need to be somewhat near the surface, energy weapons are useful for destroying shield projectors.

So, with that out of the way...

Missiles:

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Missiles are not so much weapons as much as they're delivery systems. Thus, "missiles" in the setting are more like maneuvering and propellant packages. There are two kinds: plasma missiles, and chemical explosive missiles.

Plasma missiles are essentially long-range directed energy weapons. At a certain range, energy weapons become useless since the energy that they contain disperses and weakens the farther they travel. Plasma missiles get around that by containing a certain amount of plasma in a physical shell that contains all of the energy until it reaches a DAPS, then unloads the energy payload which will go right past the DAPS and hit the enemy hull.

Chemical explosive missiles often follow up right behind a salvo of plasma missiles, and work pretty much the way they do today: use chemical explosives to blow stuff up. They come in two varieties: high explosive to deal damage to systems, and armor piercing penetrate armor.

The typical missile salvo thus looks like this:

High Explosive -- Armor Piercing -- Plasma--> ((DAPS---||Enemy Hull

Plasma missiles disable shields, armor piercing destroys armor, high explosive finishes the job.

Missiles are excellent for hitting very long range targets since they can't simply maneuver out of the way. At closer ranges, however, they're wasted.

So, those are the weapon systems available. There are others, like EMP weapons, tractor beams, etc. but I'll get to those later.

...speaking of technology, we need a FTL travel system.

Coming up: armament for each type of ship in Task Force Root of Spring.

[Prime32]

So what about melee weapons? I want to dual-wield beam sabers.

[Terraoblivion]

That looks fine, CBS. And some phlebotinum should solve our general problems for us. However, i think that perhaps we should focus on more important setting aspects for the moment such as the nature of the military we will in some vein or another be working for.

In that regard, i'd argue going for the most cliche answer and make it work for a global federation. One that starts out being a valiant, upstanding guardian of humanity in Siela's route to being just another branch of baby eating villainy serving the cosmic horror in some form or another in Kamia's route, with just being fairly nasty and pragmatic in Kara's.

However, is anybody all that certain about what the status of the academy is at the moment? A military academy, that in part takes orphans in and trains them as i understand it. Where would it be? Japan for maximum clichéhood?

[Prime32]

Well, Tokyo is the Centre of the Universe.

Also: any American characters must be loud, with blonde hair and blue eyes.

[nothingclever]

I support the global federation idea as well as having the academy set in Japan.

Mostly unrelated to the thread but speaking of mecha, I'm downloading and will soon be watching the full remastered VOTOMS television series. I just had an idea, we could say mechs used to be designed like those in VOTOMS before we moved on to the current advanced mechs in our story. This would establish some history for mech use instead of having them spring up out of nowhere.

[KnightDisciple]

For Ritt's power up/power down ideal, maybe something with "honor" or some such?

On FTL: some sort of hyperspace. I really like Honor Harrinton universe hyperspace; it combines science, SCIENCE!, and "space is an ocean", all at once.

[Prime32]

Mostly unrelated to the thread but speaking of mecha, I'm downloading and will soon be watching the full remastered VOTOMS television series. I just had an idea, we could say mechs used to be designed like those in VOTOMS before we moved on to the current advanced mechs in our story. This would establish some history for mech use instead of having them spring up out of nowhere.

Have you seen Gundam 00? There are some old mechs in use at the start of the series which look like humanoid crosses between tanks and tower cranes.


If someone can draw some ship designs I can come up with a combination sequence to PLANT mode.

Here's an idea: one ship is specialised for hyperspace travel - it can project a "bubble" over other ships to carry them along with it. Because of the demands of this task (and the fact that it is often a prime target for enemies) it is heavily armoured.

In PLANT mode it detaches a cylindrical "core" containing an artificial singularity and releases the safeties in one direction, causing it to extend from an opening on one end. Basically, this means the PLANT has a sword made out of a black hole. The remainder of the ship is used as a shield, and since its reactor is freed up from containing the singularity (and it is connected to the combined reactors of the PLANT) it can also open into a Wave Motion Tuning Fork.

If a black hole is too much, we can come up with some other kind of dangerous Phlebotinium.

[13_CBS]

However, i think that perhaps we should focus on more important setting aspects for the moment such as the nature of the military we will in some vein or another be working for.

That's very true: however, I was prioritizing our robots for a reason.

Edit:...reasons which I should probably explain.

I'm working on this project not just because it's fun and awesome but also because I really do want to see Fri's dream, or at least some version of it, adapted into a Visual Novel. The applicable parts of Fri's dream were essentially that: there was a giant multi-part robot, and a bunch of people from this forum were in there. Thus, the main things to adapt from the dream is the giant robot and the forum members in the form of characters. And THAT is why I've been focusing so much on the characters and the robots, and their associated details: they're the main things I want to adapt and portray in this VN, and everything else I want to build around the characters and the big robots.

In that regard, i'd argue going for the most cliche answer and make it work for a global federation. One that starts out being a valiant, upstanding guardian of humanity in Siela's route to being just another branch of baby eating villainy serving the cosmic horror in some form or another in Kamia's route, with just being fairly nasty and pragmatic in Kara's.

Sounds great!

However, is anybody all that certain about what the status of the academy is at the moment? A military academy, that in part takes orphans in and trains them as i understand it. Where would it be? Japan for maximum clichéhood?

I was actually envisioning it as being a space colony for some reason I dunno, I guess I just felt that sci-fi robot stuff should always take place in space.

IIRC, I think we were going to actually drop the whole "everyone is an orphan" angle and make only Furi and Kamia orphans. I think.

Here's an idea: one ship is specialised for hyperspace travel - it can project a "bubble" over other ships to carry them along with it. Because of the demands of this task (and the fact that it is often a prime target for enemies) it is heavily armoured.

Well, the Ceres-Class ECFs don't have too much to do at the moment. Maybe they could take up on that role?

If a black hole is too much, we can come up with some other kind of dangerous Phlebotinium.

No offense, but I'm not quite agreeing with you on the weaponized black holes for some reason...maybe it's because of the astronomy class I took. At the very least, we'll need another dollop of phlebotinum to explain why the PLANT isn't damaged by its own black hole sword.

But then again, something ridiculous like a sword made out of a freaking black hole does fit the super robot stuff pretty well. I'll have to think on this, but ultimately it's up to you guys.

For Ritt's power up/power down ideal, maybe something with "honor" or some such?

Well, he does have that whole "knight" theme going on. Perhaps feeling like being honorable and noble towards an enemy strengthens his piloting, while wanting to trick and fight dirty weakens it?


Edit:

So what about melee weapons? I want to dual-wield beam sabers.

Well, I already said that energy weapons are inefficient at penetrating armor, while projectile weapons can't really penetrate shields. A shielded and heavily armored PLANT would be a pretty tough nut to crack with a melee weapon.

...how would you feel about a chainsword with energy-coated teeth?

[nothingclever]

Have you seen Gundam 00? There are some old mechs in use at the start of the series which look like humanoid crosses between tanks and tower cranes.

Yup. I've also watched all of Gundam Universal Century. It'd be cool to say historically mechs were used in construction like in that series and in combat on a smaller scale in our story.

I was actually envisioning it as being a space colony for some reason I dunno, I guess I just felt that sci-fi robot stuff should always take place in space.

If we have space colonies we could take the idea of the space colonies farthest from Earth rebelling just like in Gundam.

[13_CBS]

If we have space colonies we could take the idea of the space colonies farthest from Earth rebelling just like in Gundam.

For what purpose? For explaining how the cultist empire came about? Something else?

[nothingclever]

For explaining how the cultist empire came about?

Sure. It's just a suggestion though.

[13_CBS]

Alright then.

So...everyone's fine with the weapons systems? I have more to add to it later.

[kamikasei]

For what purpose? For explaining how the cultist empire came about? Something else?

Eventually, human expansion reached a point where, as viewed from one particular colony, The Stars Were Right.