CombatSystemConversion

Overview
This page is about how to convert your character to the new combat system (aka TACS). For other points of interest, see:
 * A page dedicated to pricing your Original Character (OC) is referenced heavily here
 * A guide to the new combat system is referenced as well and is required reading before moving on
 * A page dedicated to GettingCharacters: how to get them and their associated limits is not referenced specifically but may be useful reading as it contains some new policies
 * If you are trying to create or equip a character and you are drawing a complete blank, here are some Sample Builds and Sample Attacks.
 * Send any additional questions to Hazard, or your nearest available Conversion Staff member and we will get them onto this page. We will keep a running list of questions and answers.

Feature Characters
If you only play Feature Characters, congratulations! You can pretty much ignore all of this. The conversion team is going through and manually editting FC stats for the new system. In some cases this will involve stat decreases to better reflect traditional tech-spec scores. In most cases, your stats will be largely the same. FCs have an advantage in that many of them have features or abilities that are not available to standard OCs.

The FC process will work something like this:
 * 1) Conversion Staffers will post a "batch" of FCs they have converted to bboard 26
 * 2) In this post, Converters will invite current players that have upgraded these FCs to @mail them
 * 3) Note that if you are NOT currently playing this FC or if you PERSONALLY have not done any upgrades to them, you should not @mail anyone
 * 4) Upgrades will be verified against the Upgrades account
 * 5) Conversions will be 'signed off' by Hazard and completed

Original Characters
You are invited to submit your OCs for conversion. The LEAST amount of work you have to do is as follows:
 * Rebuild your attacks using this template
 * Send an e-mail to the Application Box with the subject:  conversion
 * Please include any justification you feel is required in your e-mail
 * If you wish to do more, continue onwards
 * After 2 weeks we will disable the legacy combat system. After that, any inactive OCs will need to be converted before they can participate in combat again.

Alt-Humans
If you have an old Militant or Benefactor, use the following guidelines:

Since they arrived here in our universe, Alt-Humans (Militants and Benefactors) have been able to access their considerably advanced "power armor" technology. Using an advanced derivative of Transformer subspace technology, Alt-Humans were able to "summon" their armor from nowhere. This was made possible through a number of microscopic alternate dimensional "holes" between our universe and theirs. Unfortunately for them, our universe can only sustain so many "connections" at once. Since the last major travel between us and the Militant dimensions (2017), we've had a number of connections to newer alternate dimensions. Among them are the distopian future of "Here Comes Tomorrow" and more recently the twisted "Mirrorverse."

So what does all of this pseudo-techno babble mean? It means any connection to the /ORIGINAL/ Alt-Human (Militant) universe is severed. It means no more Militant-style subspace technology. It means no more summoning of power armor. The crafty alt-humans that remain may have been able to salvage some parts of their power armor but otherwise the armor is trapped in alternate-dimensional subspace for all eternity.

When an alt-human gets converted to TACS they will lose their power armor "mode". Then they will be re-made into a 58-point character to put them even with other humans. (Alt-Humans were originally 70 points) They are welcome to keep all attributes from their primary mode -- including increased size and other non-human attributes -- if this keeps them at 58 points. They will have the opportunity to create an vehicle for themselves in the usual fashion, including spending extra CP on it as occurs during human character creation. How they get this exo-suit is up to approval of CharStaff. For the remaining Benefactors, they should have easy access to EDC equipment and can upgrade it with whatever they have left. For the remaining Militants, this will require a slightly trickier back-story but there are plenty of possible paths.

PS: If you don't know what I am talking about please ignore this!

Template
Use this conversion template when you send your e-mail please. As mentioned above, the bare minimum you need to fill out for an OC is the Attacks section.

Stats
Your stats will remain the same. You will, however, notice a tiny (+3) bump in your scores. This is to reflect the fact that we have moved from the Legacy system (where a '6' equals anywhere from 57 to 66) to the NEW system (where a '6' equals a more logical 60 to 69).

Mode-Variable Stats
In the new system your alternate-modes can have different stats than your robot mode. For example, Broadside is very agile as a robot but as a giant aircraft carrier? Not so much. During the conversion process for Original Characters, we will allow you to differentiate your alt-mode stats to a degree.

Please note that when making mode adjustments, you can't adjust your mode1, as one of the purposes of the mode adjustment is to let people improve altmodes to make using them more desirable.

Core stats, the stats that are universal to your character like Endurance or Intelligence, cannot be changed between modes. Armor and size don't count for this purpose either. The mode-adjustable stats are: Strength, Accuracy, Firepower, Agility.

A few guidelines:
 * You may not lower an alternate-mode stat below 3
 * You may not raise an alternate-mode stat above 8

Essentially your net offsets must remain zero. This is covered under Mode-Variable Stats.

Energon
Since you already read NewCombatSystem you know that the new base energon level is 50. For 95% of people, this will not change. For the other 5% of people, their energon will be lowered depending on if they have any ammunition-based attacks

Armor

 * Regular Transformers will not have to do anything special to armor. Whatever armor you have now will be translated into the new 0-100 base system, where 50 points is the new average.
 * Junkions will have their primary robot mode armor reduced to 20 to comply with the newjunkion armor limits. To compensate, you have the ability to be patched over and over again during combat. You can also still junkdive when you are on the Planet Junk.

Protection
These are another new feature. Protection acts as type-specific armor. You can think of characters like Inferno and Hot Spot, who are specifically mentioned as being resistant to FIRE-based attacked. During the conversion process, you can elect to have protections for your OC but it is not required. It is left to the discretion of the player.

If you would like your OC to have resistances, you must "pay" for them with offsetting weaknesses. This is covered under Protection. Remember that these are done per mode.

Attacks
This section heavily references the attack pricing rules

This is the fun part! Let's break it down into steps. Basically we want to "liquidate" all of your legacy attacks into their CharGen point values and add them all up:
 * 1) You can use the +attackpool command and skip the next step, or if you don't want to take our word for it, have a go at calculating it manually:
 * 2) Take all of your attacks and assign them a value based off of their CHARGEN COST.
 * 3) You can find point values in news melee attacks and news ranged attacks
 * 4) Laser is worth 2 points
 * 5) Plasma is worth 6 points
 * 6) E-Axe is worth 5 points
 * 7) Special is worth 5 points
 * 8) Area-Melee and Area-Ranged are worth 6 points
 * 9) Freebies are worth 0 points
 * 10) Add up all of these points. This is your ATTACK POOL.
 * 11) You will build new attacks for yourself using this pool using the attack pricing rules.
 * 12) These can go in either mode
 * 13) These can be of any type (within reason -- remember your e-mail will still need to get approved!)
 * 14) Maximum damage level for any attack can not be higher than your current highest-ranked attack.
 * e.g. if your best attack is Plasma you may not have any attack higher than damage level 6 through the conversion process

Attack Conversion Rules

 * If you have Energy_Axe or Energy_Sword in the legacy system, and you are converting this attack explicitly, you can use two damage types (IMPACT + ) without paying the extra 1 point
 * Attacks must fufill the standard attack limits

Attack Conversion Notes

 * There is quite a leap to make from the old legacy attacks and the new attacks. For example, in the old system, Galvatron has THREE separate 'cannon' attacks: cannon, cannon2, and GalvCannon. The last one (GalvCannon) has some well-known nasty side-effects. In the NEW system, Galvatron need only have one attack. Why? Pay attention to our list of attack creation tips.
 * Thanks to the dodge-bonus you get in vehicle mode, you will probably be spending more time in your alternate mode in the new system. Why not show it some love and beef up those feeble mode2 attacks?
 * Some helpful players have created a list of sample attacks. How helpful!

Attack Examples

 * Your Special attack (worth 5 CP) can become a Level 0 Attack with the Stun Effect (0 CP + 5 CP for Stun = 5 CP total)
 * Your Repeat attack (worth 5 CP) can become a Level 1 Attack with the Repeat Effect (1 CP + 4 CP for Repeat = 5 CP total)
 * Your Drain attack (worth 6 CP) can become a Level 0 Attack with the Feed and Drain Effects (worth 3 CP each for 6 CP total)
 * Your Ram attack (worth 6 CP) can become a Level 6 Velocity Attack (worth 6 CP)
 * Your Area_Ranged attack (worth 6 CP) can become a Level 4 Area-Ranged Attack (also worth 6 CP)
 * Your Area_Melee attack (worth 6 CP) can become a Level 4 Area-Melee Attack (also worth 6 CP)

Abilities
Abilities are mostly the same, but there are some new ones and some current ones have changed slightly. But you've already read NewCombatSystem so I won't bore you with the details! Also I am sad to report that one ability has been eliminated FOREVER. *sob*


 * For a complete list of abilities see !combatinfo ability
 * Some abilities have dropped in price. In this case, you will get the difference back in CP to spend on something else within reason:
 * Pilot (-1)
 * Space-Pilot (-2)
 * LR_Radio (-3)
 * Enhanced_Senses (-2)
 * Sorry, this is still restricted for people with the Seeker Package
 * Interception (-2)
 * Some abilities have gone UP in price. Lucky you! No extra charge for these. You can thank me later:
 * Flight (+1)
 * Space-Flight (+2)
 * Demolition (+2)
 * One ability has been removed. If you had Infiltration (hello, one active OC that I know of) you will instead receive the SNEAK ability and 2 CP to spend on something else within reason.
 * There are four new abilities. (For now!):
 * Inspire (3)
 * Refuel (4)
 * Resupply (4)
 * Crackshot (4)
 * You can attempt to buy one of these by "liquidating" some current abilities and/or attacks you have (described above).
 * e.g. if you have Scout but would rather have Crackshot you can "liquidate" scout into 5 points and buy Crackshot for 4 points.
 * You can swap points between attacks and abilities WITHIN REASON. This will be heavily scrutinzed by Conversion Staff.
 * Your safest bet is to just wait and get one of the new abilities by spending AP on an upgrade at some point in the future. We will try to limit new abilities to those who it makes sense for. (e.g. not EVERYONE is a sniper and needs Crackshot, sorry!)

Skills

 * Since skills now cost '3 per 1 CP' instead of the previous '1 per 1 CP' if you spent CP on skills when you originally created your OC, you can pick two free skills per CP spent.

FAQ

 * What is my "Total Attack Pool"?
 * This is covered in the attacks section. Short version:
 * Take all your old attacks
 * figure out their CharGen Cost (from news area attacks or news melee attacks)
 * Add them all up. This is your total CP you can spend on new-system attacks
 * What happens to my freebies?
 * All freebies are replaced by the global freebies (see !globals) these are attacks anyone can use and rename (+help !attackname)
 * What happens to my level 1 and level 2 attacks? (fire, laser, sword, smash, etc)
 * They also go away (don't worry you still can spend the points as described above)
 * What is the difference between attack level and attack cost?
 * "attack level" is not a real thing. What people are talking about here is probably "damage level". So in the old system your "Gauss" was level 5. This is by far the most important feature of any attack: the "damage level".
 * Your "attack cost" is a combination of all of the costs associated with your attack. This is described in the attack pricing rules. In most cases your attack cost is the same as your damage level. (e.g. a plain vanilla Level 5 attack costs 5 CP) If you start adding extra features (like Area-Attacks, extra Damage Types, and special Effects) your cost will go up. Some special Effects are "bad" and can make your total cost go DOWN.
 * Check out the very helpful Sample_Attacks for some... help.
 * Energy Sword & Energy Axe - When you say you can convert over an energy sword/axe and get an extra damage type, is that as a vanilla attack or could I add an effect to it?
 * The extra point is only if you are doing a "straight conversion" so, you are just making a "Level 4 Melee Impact + " for your Energy Sword or a "Level 5 Melee Impact + " for your Energy Axe.
 * If you are going to modify it or add effects you do not get the free "+ " extra damage type
 * I don't want offsetting weaknesses. Can I buy resistances after the conversion with AP?
 * Sorry, probably not.
 * Will new OCs still get 80/58 CP to build with even though they have to pay for armor in mode2 and some of the abilities cost more?
 * Yes we will stick with the 80/58 number. In general the costs even out: mode2 armor is usually very low, and characters can save a lot of points in the new system because they don't have to spend as much on attacks. If you had laser (2) and plasma (6) in the old system that represented different levels of the same attack, that would cost you 8 points. In the new system you would only need to buy the plasma (6) because you can "pull" an attack to a lower level.
 * If you are a human, you CAN upgrade your stats during conversion, using leftover CP from attacks or abilities. This is because we have removed most of the limits on human stats. See the Human Character Rules. Note that this doesn't mean you can raise anything above an 8 or get around any other rules.
 * May I have an area-ranged or area-melee attack with the Repeat effect?
 * Probably not. At this point, area attacks with Repeat are considered a bit too bonkers for normal characters and are to be reserved for really nasty TP villains.
 * May I use AP during the conversion?
 * Sorry, no. You can buy lots of upgrades after, though.