Interest Check

[ZGMF-X28A Nu-Liberty]

> A One Year War setting, but instead of using the TV series timeline as our backbone, we establish a continuity blending together favorable elements of the compilation film trilogy, Tomino's novel trilogy and Yas' Origin manga, shakes things up a bit and gives us more to play with

> A side-story set either between the end of the One Year War and the start of the Gryps Conflict or the end of the First Neo Zeon War and the start of the Second Neo Zeon War, similar to 0083 in terms of scope and structure but competently executed and rather than leading directly into a greater conflict merely hints that there is trouble on the horizon

I like both of those but I really feel like the 2nd option more. Nice ideas.

Okay, I happen to have an idea for a storyline based on the second option.

Set following the events of ZZ, this focuses on the "trial by fire" of the newly-established Londo Bell, stacked against a group of dedicated and desperate remnants of Neo Zeon. We'd see the Jegans in action for the first time, get the chance to toss in some unexpected mechs (maybe even a predecessor to the vaunted Nu Gundam), see how Londo Bell became the organization we see in CCA and Unicorn and maybe lay the foundation for the world we see in those entries.

[Dark Duel]

I'm going to be blunt here: Those are some good ideas I'm seeing. But I, personally, have zero interest in another OYW RP. I feel like there is so much more storytelling potential that is being ignored in the latter part of the Universal Century, especially post-100, that I would much rather explore that instead.

[ChaoticSheep1]

Well some of what I said can be in the later UC. Mars Zeon they seem to be well and kicking.

Also I did have an idea for Victory. But I dont want people stealing it.

[Crosswire40]

I'll also say that I'm not really interested in a One Year War roleplay or something involving Gryps. I love Zeta and the original Gundam, but I'd really rather do something with the Late Universal Century due to how under developed a lot of it is.

Really I'm torn between Gundam F91 and Victory Gundam like I was before.

Oh and to answer some of your earlier questions Dark, the Zanscare Empire invaded and took over numerous colonies in various Sides. I also believe they took over a city or two on the moon. However they never completely took over any one Side or area in space to my knowledge, which left them contested in many different areas at once.

As for Side 1 there was a tremendous amount of fighting there. A majority of the Zanscare fleet was tied up there fighting the colonial fleet which was later bolstered by the Federation once they became involved in the war.

Though honestly I don't know if playing as strictly the Federation would be a very good idea in a Victory Gundam roleplay. The Federation in Victory is crippled with corruption and outright inept leaders that strangle their own forces with Red tape. They're also using 30 year old mobile suits and ships that are even older then that.

They're vastly out preformed by the Zanscare military who despite being technically smaller are incredibly well armed and very well organized and led. So having a Victory Gundam roleplay that focused on the frontier Colonies would be pretty boring for the Federation characters who would get stuck with archaic mobile suits while Zanscare Players get all the cool stuff.

That's why I want to have the Victory Gundam roleplay kickoff on Earth. So the Federation and League can work along or at least beside each other, balancing out one another's issues (The League's lack of man power and the Federation's horribly outdated suits and gear) to pose a ragtag threat against the seemingly unified Zanscare forces.

[ChaoticSheep1]

We could always go back and make a prequel rpg of somesort in F91/Crossbone.

But If I could I'd change my vote from ZZ to Victory as I have to agree with your statement.

[Crosswire40]

We could always go back and make a prequel rpg of somesort in F91/Crossbone.

True. That's another reason for my confliction. As much as I enjoy the idea of a Victory Gundam roleplay, I'd rather much hit F91 and cover the Cosmo Babylonian Civil War first. If we skip it and just cover Victory it won't feel as exciting to do F91.

[ChaoticSheep1]

Well I feel that the downside's of having a continous story between F91 and V is that...

Too much time has passed. like an odd 30-40 years I believe. So most of the older cast should have either retired or are in an officer position or desk job. I think some things can help mitigate this problem. Such as cameos of the older cast members, mecha and perhaps important plot devices from the previous series to add a stronger feeling of connectivity.

Honestly I've completely rewritten this post like five times now trying to articulate what I'm trying to say. So I guess I'll just leave it like this and get some points across. Basically I don't think the impact wouldn't be that big as both series are too different scope wise and timeline wise.

[Dark Duel]

I'm personally in love with F91's Formula-series mobile suits - the F90, F91, F97, etc...the F99 I think is kinda goofy-looking though. So I just mainly want to do something with that.
I do agree with Chaotic that the two of them - F91 and V - are too far apart chronologically to be easily connected into a single story. IIRC, F91 takes place around UC 122-123, whereas V takes off in UC 0153, three decades later. So any continuity of characters would be close to impossible - the only thing we can count on is ships and mobile suits from the 120s still being in service in the 150s, which I think is the case in the series from what I know.
So it would have to be one or the other. I would rather do something in the F91 era, but I'd be fine with either one.

[Crosswire40]

Both of you bring up very good points. After a lot of though I've decided that I'm going to run a Victory Gundam roleplay. As nice as it would be to play F91, I have a lust for Victory that can't be thrown away. Besides since the Earth Federation is made up of old, outdated suits, they're bound to have loads of the older Formula models still around.

F71s, Hardyguns, the limited production F91, those F97-E's got mass produced for a short period, and I bet an F90 unit or two is still kicking around! Now that I think about it the Earth Federation forces might have more suit diversity then I first thought, they're just older is all!

So you'll get to have fun with the Formula units Dark! How does that sound?

Oh and HAPPY NEW YEARS Eve

[Dark Duel]

There's also the F99 Recordbreaker to take into account as well - though I do think that particular suit looks rather goofy myself, but it's mainly the head with that ginormous crest on top. I suppose one could consider the F99 a predecessor to the V2 of sorts

[Crosswire40]

There's also the F99 Recordbreaker to take into account as well - though I do think that particular suit looks rather goofy myself, but it's mainly the head with that ginormous crest on top. I suppose one could consider the F99 a predecessor to the V2 of sorts

All the F99 models were destroyed during the battle with the Jupiter Empire and all relevant data and schematics were lost in the attack on the SNRI moon facility that was working on them in Crossbone Gundam: Steel Seven. Anaheim managed to 'recover' some of the data and later gave it to the League to develop the V2.

Though I did find an interesting picture relating to some weird variant of the F99 called the F99R R Gundam. It's probably what they intended the finished Gundam-esque versions to look like.

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/gun ... 0416151036

[ChaoticSheep1]

Actually a certain PMC aiding the Zanscare empire may just have some of the data as well, there might be a certain MS in Ghost called the Phantom Gundam that uses data from it and the Amakusa. It can transform and has a really, really bad copy of the Wings of Light.


Although if we are going to go straight to Victory we can just go back to F91 and have some of the plot threads in Victory lead into it and we could be like "So thats how that happened!".


The V2's origins also lay in SNRI's F90 project as one of the F90 Cluster Gundam units was given to the League Militaire that gave them the data for the Core Block in the V1.

[mcred23]

I'll just throw my name in as being not really interested in the OYW setting, but for a different reason: I've done pretty much everything within that setting. Earth stuff on every continent? Check. Space stuff at every stage of the war? Yep. The Zeonic Civil War scenario coming from Gihren's Greed that ChaoticSheep suggested? At least twice that I can remember...

Though honestly I don't know if playing as strictly the Federation would be a very good idea in a Victory Gundam roleplay. The Federation in Victory is crippled with corruption and outright inept leaders that strangle their own forces with Red tape. They're also using 30 year old mobile suits and ships that are even older then that.

They're vastly out preformed by the Zanscare military who despite being technically smaller are incredibly well armed and very well organized and led. So having a Victory Gundam roleplay that focused on the frontier Colonies would be pretty boring for the Federation characters who would get stuck with archaic mobile suits while Zanscare Players get all the cool stuff.

The Federation isn't quite that bad off, and I'm just going to quote myself responding to you from the thread we had on Victory from a few years ago:

The Federation in Victory is in an interesting position. Their political leaders clearly don't give much of a damn about what is going on, but their military does to the point that quite a few of them either help the League Militarie on occasion (Such as by giving them ships or whatnot) or even to the point of units disobeying orders and fighting the Zanscares (Such as the Bagley Team, and much later on, Mubarak Stern bringing in IIRC three whole fleets). Of course, they seem to have no problems letting the colonies or civilian groups fight each other to their hearts content, and Zanscare military is essentially based on the Federation Forces that had once been based at Side 2 (The BESPA thing), so clearly not all of their military is still loyal to the government or they've gone native or whatever, but enough still seem to support the Federation...

All that said, the EFF is using outdated equipment (The Javelin, their main space MS, being 30 years old, and their ships are even older), but based on what we see of Stern's forces late in the show, both their troops and equipment are in no way ineffective. Most of what we see of Federation troops in Victory (And prior to that, in F91) shows them to be pretty well motivated and trained, able to fight pretty well against enemies with far more modern equipment under less than ideal circumstances. In the big battle that spans the last few episodes of Victory, it's a predominantly Federation fleet (With one or two League Militarie ships) that goes head to head with the Zanscares, and both sides seem to pretty much wipe each other out, so it's not like the Zanscares with all their modern equipment just brushed them aside. In short, the Federation military is still a force to be reckoned with, but the political side of the Federation that controls them is a bad as it ever is...

As far as the technical details of what the Federation would be using, if they'd still have F91-era stuff roaming around, that's another detailed subject entirely, but I wouldn't mind getting to run around in a Javelin.

[Crosswire40]

The Federation isn't quite that bad off, and I'm just going to quote myself responding to you from the thread we had on Victory from a few years ago:

I remember that!

However just because they put up a fight doesn't mean they didn't lose a lot of their initial battles at least on Earth. In space they did alright if Side 1 and the last battles are any indication, fighting on par or to a standstill with the more advanced Zanscare troops. However on Earth the Federation lost just about every on screen fight they had in the series.

The first Jamesgun that showed up was shot down with almost no opposition and the Federation units that attacked the Motorad Fleet when it first/shortly after it landed were wiped out.

I'm not saying the Earth Federation is useless, but the fact is Zanscare got as far as they did because of the weakness and political corruption within the Federation. That weakness should be reflected in the roleplay and make the jobs of the Earth Federation characters that much harder, driving them to disobey orders and assist the League just like they did in the show.

Besides Zanscare's initial invasion was pretty successful from the looks of it and I want there to be a sense of desperation from the League and Federation troops, at least during the initial month or two in game.

Also, how should we handle what mobile suits pilot characters get? I was thinking of asking for player preference and then assigning them machines, opening customization options and other units to choose from as the roleplay goes on and their characters survive/increase in skill.

[Dark Duel]

S.O.P. in my experience is that each faction starts with a limited number of production-model and limited-production mobile suits available to players, with high-performance/prototype units being highly restricted in availability.
Customizability is usually somewhat limited, but that of course is up to you. Any modifications, however, are always subject to mod/admin approval.

[Crosswire40]

S.O.P. in my experience is that each faction starts with a limited number of production-model and limited-production mobile suits available to players, with high-performance/prototype units being highly restricted in availability.
Customizability is usually somewhat limited, but that of course is up to you. Any modifications, however, are always subject to mod/admin approval.

Alright so that's just how it's normally done? Sweet. I already have a list of all the units available to all the factions so it's just a matter of labeling availability given the starting date of the roleplay. However I'll admit that I have a thing for prototypes, high performance models, and customized machines. I mean...they're just so cool!

Still it wouldn't be reasonable if we had too many super suits running around so they'll be restricted as they normally would.

However I think I'll give players plenty of opportunities to customize their units, at least for the Federation and League anyway. They're stuck using the same machines basically through the entire war while Zanscare gets a diverse number of machines and equipment.

So I think it's only fair that while Zanscare players get more toys to play with and opportunities to get better machines, that Federation and League players get to personalize their units more. After all the League basically combined what was left of the Reinforce and a Squid-Class ship without so much as a second thought so they're perfectly willing to modify things if they need or think it'll give them an advantage of some kind.

[Dark Duel]

I do agree up to a point. However, I still think that there needs to be some limits in terms of what one is able to do customization-wise, otherwise everyone is gonna want to be running around in WoL-equipped über-mechs. And that's a good way to prematurely kill a good RP.
But reasonable modifications - something like custom weapons or whatever, within certain limits - I have no problem with.

Of course, something like a custom color scheme or something, that's fine. But I do think that no matter what you end up deciding, any more extensive modification should be subject to mod approval for that exact reason.

As for prototypes, I'm not saying they shouldn't be used at all. But they should not be available to just anyone.
Let me use one example. Let's say we're doing an F91-era RP. Your starting lineup could be something like this:
CROSSBONE VANGUARD
Mass-production: Den'an-Zon, Den'an-Gei, Ebirhu-S. Unrestricted availability - anyone can get one of these.
Limited-Production: Berga-Dalas, Berga-Ghiros. Restricted availability - only 2-3 of each, awarded either at moderator discretion or on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Prototype/Hi-Spec: Vigna Ghina, Vigna Zirah. Only 1 per model available - assigned at moderator discretion, usually to faction/unit leaders.
FEDERATION
Mass-Production: Jegan, Jesta, Heavygun. Unrestricted availability - anyone can get one of these.
Limited-Production: Hardygun, G-Cannon. Restricted availability - only 2-3 of each, awarded either at moderator discretion or on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Prototype/Hi-Spec: Gundam F90, Gundam F91. Only 1 per model available - assigned at moderator discretion, usually to faction/unit leaders.

This is just one example.

[Crosswire40]

I do agree up to a point. However, I still think that there needs to be some limits in terms of what one is able to do customization-wise, otherwise everyone is gonna want to be running around in WoL-equipped über-mechs. And that's a good way to prematurely kill a good RP.

But reasonable modifications - something like custom weapons or whatever, within certain limits - I have no problem with.

Of course, something like a custom color scheme or something, that's fine. But I do think that no matter what you end up deciding, any more extensive modification should be subject to mod approval for that exact reason.

Yeah of course there needs to be limitations on customization otherwise players might try to give their Mobile Suit a chainsaw *ick or something crazy like that. The level of customization I'm thinking of are more along the lines the RX-79(G)Ez-8 Gundam Ez8 from 08th MS Team or the RGM-79C GM Type C "Wagtail" from Traitor to Zeta.

Nothing ridiculous or unreasonable, just mods that have an effect and are actually satisfying to have done opposed to "your cockpit has a cup holder now."

I understand the importance of keeping customizations regulated for the sake of balance and keeping a focus on smart writing, but at the same time I don't want to hurt the enjoyability of the roleplay purely for the sake of realism. So limitations will be in place and moderator approval will be required for mods, but I'd like players to have options.

That and I'm worried too many people will join Zanscare because the alternatives are a faction that uses antiques and a faction that uses two types of mobile suits (though there are variations of the Gun EZ)

Not helped by the fact that the Victory Type is going to be very scarce for the League during the start of the way.

[ChaoticSheep1]

Question. Is BESPA a PMC or at least has a Paramilitary branch? I got the implication that most Zanscare pilots are from BESPA. Am I wrong, although I think those militia pilots from when they were infiltrating Side 2 weren't.

Honestly I don't really feel like playing a Zanscare pilot right now. But If people need to RP two characters or more I'd be up though.

Today I have this massive cold... So ummm.... the question I have been avoiding is Newtypes. Can we be one? And how powerful? Will there be a cap? How will the mods/admins recieve NT privedges. How will they work? etc.

[Crosswire40]

Question. Is BESPA a PMC or at least has a Paramilitary branch? I got the implication that most Zanscare pilots are from BESPA. Am I wrong, although I think those militia pilots from when they were infiltrating Side 2 weren't.

Honestly I don't really feel like playing a Zanscare pilot right now. But If people need to RP two characters or more I'd be up though.

Today I have this massive cold... So ummm.... the question I have been avoiding is Newtypes. Can we be one? And how powerful? Will there be a cap? How will the mods/admins recieve NT privedges. How will they work? etc.

BESPA is a branch of SNRI that defected to the Zanscare Empire and began designing/producing Mobile suits and equipment for them. They aren't a PMC, I'm not even sure why you would think that. As for their pilots it's believed a lot of BESPA's test pilots as well as the Federation garrison located in Zanscares home colon defected as well, which is probably the origin of the 'Yellow Jacket' nickname.

I think a lot of characters in the series referred to Zanscare's forces as 'BESPA' ether out of a misunderstanding of what BESPA actually is or that it was shorter to say then Zanscare.

As for Newtypes, that's something I'm willing to be a LOT more strict about. Having one or two Newtypes in the roleplay and maybe having Zanscare slice open a few troops and make them Cyber Newtypes (as was hinted at what happened to Katejina in the novels) I don't think it should be something players can just ask for.

Honestly I'm tempted just to just establish a limit for the number of Newtypes in the Roleplay and make a list of all the active characters. Then as the roleplay goes on I just roll to determine what few individuals awaken as Newtypes. Players will be informed and be given the option to turn down the offer in which a re-roll will occur.

Or something like that. Newtypes are NOT something you can horse around with.