Barbagula pricing problems, and more pricing problems!

Medieval fantasy mechs powered by steam, magic, or the labor of a thousand slaves.

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Guesty the Guest

Barbagula pricing problems, and more pricing problems!

Post by Guesty the Guest »

Well I was just looking at the base cost of the Barbagula and couldn't help but notice it doesn't add up.

Steam Powered Huge: +600
One Large Lance: +30
One Huge Changler +120
Stone Armor: +40

Now, not counting labor as a base cost, because labor can vary, this comes to a total of 790!

Am I missing something? Cause the Barbagula doesn't have any lowered stats? I havn't even checked to see if the total cost is right either, due to the base cost being so off! Actually I just did it out, and the total cost, with fast legs +5% base and 2 more PUs, +20% base, comes to 2987.5. Of course this doesn't factor in labor. The reason I don't factor in labor is because I think this should really depend on how much went into it. If you had more labors make your mech, you'd have to charge that much more to sell it.

Also for the extra PUs, it says it costs +10% of the mech's cost per PU, but it also says that they come as two PUs. So does this mean its actually +20% for the basic package of PUs? Why not just write out that it costs +20%... Also I take it these round down?

Anyway, I really do like this system, but I don't want to have to double check every mech's cost! Is anyone else finding some problems?
Reese
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Post by Reese »

actually, using optimal numbers with common labor, the cost of labor will always be the same

optimal numbers being 10 common per 1 overseer

Barbagula...
material cost of huge mech (600g)
stone armor (hardness 8 ) for huge (40g)
960 man-hours * 1.3 GP/ 80 man-hours (15.6g)

base cost: 655.6g (rounded up to 656 in entry)

+2 pu (weapon mounts) 20% base (131.12g)
+25% speed (+10ft) 5% base (32.78g)
Large Lance (30g)
Huge Changler (120g)

total: 969.5g

plus 2000g base cost for steam mech:
2969.5g

yes, this is 30.5g short of the listed price, but 3000 is much prettier to look at ;)

30.5g might account for the cost of hauling in the 6000 pounds of iron you need for the structure of the mech (as well as the other miscilanious materials...)
Namfoodle "Sparklediver" Raulnor
{Wounds -12; HP = 11/23}
Guesty the Guest

Post by Guesty the Guest »

Ah I see, I was counting weapons as base and not as add ons. But it still does fall short.... Sure that one number is pretty to look at, but in essance it is off, and even if there is an addition to cost of transportation it should say so in the description. I mean otherwise it can be misleading. But thanks for clearing the rest up! I was all freaking out. I just got the other two dragon mech books so now I'm making mechs!
Reese
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Post by Reese »

yeah, base cost s very specifically defined in the second paragraph on page 85 as the cost of "materials plus armor plus labor"

and, yea, that 30g is unaccounted for, and it's not a price you would normally add to mech construction (so far as i'm concerned)

my guess is an editor decided to pretty up all of the numbers somewhere along the line and changed it (D'oh!)

an extra point of strength or a few extra HD could account for most of the missing 30.5g (1 point of strength would cost 25g, 1 hd would cost approximately 16.67g...) but there'd still be some missing money

(i never thought about it, but... you could improve each stat to the next best mech size's level in that catagory by doubling the base and labor costs :twisted: if you've got the 3000g to throw around for a barbagula, the aditional 200g is almost negligible...<only 2 stats are improved from one size to the next in this case> assuming you can find the coglayer skilled eough to draft up the desired design changes...)
Namfoodle "Sparklediver" Raulnor
{Wounds -12; HP = 11/23}
Guest

Post by Guest »

Yeah its not so much for me building a mech but the players. I'm starting them out at fourth level cause thats what they had gotten up to in the last campign before we stopped to play Dragon Mech. Cause Dragon Mech rocks my pants! At first they didn't seem to into it, but now they really like it. One is a figther/coglayer, the other is a clockwork ranger, rogue, and coglayer, another one is a mech jocky pilot/figther. So it would be quite interesting, we aren't playing in the dragon mech world though, moved it to Forgotten Realms. They just felt too cramped in the Dragon Mech world I guess. But that doesn't mean their won't be lunar dragons... Heh heh.
Reese
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Post by Reese »

regaurding incremental deficiencies... (this to goodman) it is technically possible to reduce a mech's cost to 0 (not including labor) by lowering all stats to equal the next worse mech size catagory

is the cost (well, discount) for building in incremental deficiencies supposed to be 1/6 the base cost of the mech (which could technically allow a base cost of 0) or 1/12 the base cost (which would mean that lowering all 6 lowerable stats would drop the cost to 1/2)
Namfoodle "Sparklediver" Raulnor
{Wounds -12; HP = 11/23}
goodmangames
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Post by goodmangames »

I don't know where that extra 30.5 gp comes from. I have my old mech stats calculator here and it matches the figures you have above (which are right). So, uh, I dunno. Inflation since the book was published? ;)

As for the incremental improvements, they are indeed supposed to be divided by 6 (to represent the 6 aspects of the mech that can be improved: Str, Dex, Fort save, Ref save, speed, or HD). In my games, nobody ever tried to build a subpar mech in order to skimp on gold, so I didn't spend a lot of time on that possibility... but that certainly makes sense. You're right the same calcs don't really work in reverse, for incremental deficiencies. I'll have to take another look at that one of these days...
Joseph Goodman
Goodman Games
www.goodman-games.com
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