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Thank you so so much!! Honestly your videos have been what kept my love of this project alive when I was having my doubts! I'm also chomping at the bit to dive headlong into Steel Hearts Black but I gotta get 0.14 out the door and give some other projects some love before that haha ~ Can't wait to get it done tho! (Hopefully before Monster Hunter Wilds totally takes over my free time.....)

Thank you so much for saying so!! Art can mean so much more when you're not doing it for an audience but for the love of a vision you have ^^ I'm excited for you to bring your vision to life too!

The way that this film just shot to the top of my "Watch Next" list is difficult to understate - The soundtrack is absolutely beautiful too!! Thank you so much for sharing ~

Eerie, novel and absolutely sublime - Sinjin blends an evocative necromancy system with a Zone expedition worthy of the greats like STALKER and Annihilation. It feels familiar enough to easily grasp as a GM, while doing plenty to blaze new trails and bring its unique setting to life ~ I really can't recommend this enough!

You assume correctly! I'll add it to the ever growing list of patch notes

Heya!! Thanks for all the feedback! Some of these questions have already been answered elsewhere on here but I'll try to get back to this in the next week! Right now I think my time would be better spent editing in the answers to the book itself and then I'll copy paste those passages here to answer your questions :)

It's been months since this came out and I still find myself drifting back to it. Something about this pamphlet's tone, texture and execution is incredibly enigmatic. It's a pamphlet that never fails to spark my imagination and create a sense of place in its sparse few pages. And it's a module that I'm incredibly happy to have read and keep rotating back to every now and then.

Hiya!! Thank you for the kind words and the awesome questions!!

Yeah that's some of a slew of Typos that are getting fixed in 0.14 ((Soon...ish... probably...))

So two handed parts actually fully break if either one of the slots is broken! ((It's a major tradeoff of these otherwise very powerful weapons)) One of the advantages of Super Robot Helm is you're halving the chance of this happening (and freeing up an arm slot). The reason 2-handed parts spread their text across 2 "parts" is just to make use of the space, it's all meant as one contiguous part. ((Of note though, if it break it only counts as 1 Part Break))

Hope that helped clarify things for you!

Thank you so much!! I'm happy it resonated with you and wish you the absolute best in your Meteor-crashed session!!

Got a question about this and just wanted to update here how those bottom tree perks are unlocked. You only need to purchase the nodes DIRECTLY and NON-CONSECUTIVELY attached. You don't need every single Node on the bottom tree to get those perks, just the ones that have one line connecting the node's side to the perk's side (each bottom tree perk is only connected to 2 nodes). Some people were confused because technically "attached" and "connected" could mean the nodes are all chained together. Y'all seem pretty smart, but just in case I wanted to have the clarification out there.

Similarly regarding PAA generally you're not allowed to give your actions to other players. Every player MUST act before actions refresh. Not at the start of the round. If you're finding certain players are never acting to prioritize other players you probably are getting this rule wrong.

So Players A and B could use 4 actions in a 4 PPA encounter then during the next allied phase they'd have no actions left. They need to wait for Player C (the last party member) to use their 2 actions before all 3 of them get their actions refreshed ((leaving 2 actions to be taken during this Allied Phase split between the 3 players)).

This is stated a few times in the book but the same group who was confused about the connections wording got confused about that.

Sounds very exciting!! Hope your campaign goes great and I'm excited to hear how the story unfolds!

Firstly thank you so much for the kind words!

So the included Midas units / The August are functionally what "Enemy MECs" end up looking like - One of the unfortunate things about the way the game ended up hashing out is that Enemies and Players are working on completely different DMG and Armor pools, so two players could nuke each other concerningly fast.

Thus "Enemy MECs" usually end up being tweaked enemy units to have similar flavor to existing MEC parts but executed differently. I've never had the GM generating SYN or anything like that. ((However the enemy MEC fights I have run have been an absolute blast! The balance is just tough to strike - It's something I'm looking to correct in a future spin-off project and by releasing more premade Enemy MEC content).

Did that answer your question?

Question 1) So Kinetic Regen needs a wording Tweak - It's per 5 DMG you /roll/ ((so it doesn't proc multiple times in an AoE nor Proc off of flat Status Effect DMG - You roll DMG, add any bonuses from a Stratagem and that outgoing number, no matter how many targets its applying to or what their soak is, is what Kinetic Regen scales off of)

Question 2) Nope! Beacon of Hope Procs automatically so you don't blind your allies at all!

Question 3) I always use gribblies to sort of "teach" boss mechanics ((like how Fenrir's gribblies teach you the importance of freezing against that boss)) - Or sometimes I'll set them up so they're mostly good at sticking on Status Effects which the Boss can then capitalize on. Hopefully those two pieces of advice can help get your mind turning.

Question 4) I'm not sure if it'll be in the next update but I'd love to write a primer on the EDA! The gist is that they're hella bureaucratic and most laws come down to a vote between the 9 Bastions (where Meru usually abstains or Quorikancha doesn't vote for obvious reasons. Of the 7 remaining, Babel, Kunlun, Duat and Avalon nearly always vote together.

As a result Asgard is soon to be forced to release the technological secrets behind its mass purification, causing a LOT of discontent among its largely nationalist populace.

The current leader Duncan Ragnarson is an old guard who'd survived the Awakening as a child (so he's nearly 106). He believes that EDA unity is important and is a big believer in mutual cooperation etx. His sons (all test tube babies in some variety) though...

Oldest is Halfdan (40) who oversees a large amount of Asgard's military manufacturing and deployment. He's fiercely loyal to the vision and cause of his younger brother Sigurd.

Bjorn (33) is the Defender Captain of Asgard, constantly fighting Wyrms on the frontline. Jolly, boisterous and incredibly skilled, he's been kept in the dark about his brothers' machinations for world domination.

Sigurd (28) has a snake's tongue (not literally) - A charming diplomat and a ruthless tactician he plans to put his father in a coma so he may ascend to power and use his Bastion's zeal and frustration to wage a war of conquest against the EDA, leaving him as the sole authoritarian ruler of Earth.

His cover for this initiative has been slowly heavily arming and defending Outlander/Freeroamer settlements (often without their input) to expand his physical territory. He also seeks to build a new Bastion as his new military base of operations: Niflheim.

Ivar (19) is a soft spoken Neurosensitive who requires a wheelchair due to an immune system disorder that makes cybernetics out of the question. Kind, empathetic and a bit mousey, Ivar has also been kept in the dark on these world domination plans. I usually have Sigurd use Ivar as a pawn who'll be sent to another Bastion as a kind of peace broker or olive branch ((though Sigurd would shed no tears if he died)) - Conversely Ivar is deeply affected if any of his brothers die, and the more who go down the more he'll use his piloting skills and blossoming Neurotype abilities to seak revenge.

Hope that gets some ideas flowing!

Question 5) So yes a lot of them just do mechanical stuff BUT biomodding is very real and it's not uncommon to see someone who's modded themselves into a biological cat girl.

Question 1: Upgrades only! It's essentially the "cost of a frame" since a fresh frame comes with 150k of upgrades! ((That said I've definitely bent this rule once or twice for players that realllllly want that extra starter part))

Question 2: Nope! That SYN comes out of thin air! Harmonizer is an incredibly strong support option!

Question 3: That's a Once Per Allied Phase, so you essentially announce that you're going to redistribute everyone's SYN at some point in the Allied Phase (probably discussed before hand) and whoever opts in is a part of it. Lets say we have 3 players who opt in, Mike (at 4 SYN), Lucy our Harmonizer (at 5 SYN) and Humbaba the Terrible (at 10 SYN). When a redistribution happens you can think of all 19 of that SYN going into one pool and then it can be divided out between players up to their Max SYN.

So maybe Mike gets 12, Lucy takes none and Humbaba holds on to 7. ((Or perhaps if Mike had Unshackled he could get 18)) - The key to using this is knowing / discussing who needs Synergy when singe you can only use it once per allied phase as a free action (unless players want to spend an Action to proc it)

It's a powerful ability that can help funnel dice into someone who needs shields or a DPS getting ready for a huge DMG dump!

Does that answer your questions? ((Happy to clarify anything else you need!))

Alright I'm (sort of) gearing up to do another editing pass for 0.14 (including some new pages) - If you're interested in bouncing some ideas or taking an early peak at some stuff definitely shoot me an email and we can swap Discords!

Granted there's already a few edits in here that I can tell you that you won't see ((ex: Molded / Molding are both used properly as the Verb tense of "Mold" as in mildew, while using Moldering would be more about it being decrepit))

That said I really appreciate your bit on Flying rules though - I think it could use a diagram for sure! ((Will probably do a whole page on the Z-Axis to really break it down))

And seriously thank you so much for catching all these!! I do most of my work past 2 a.m. after work so it means the world to have someone be able to proof read this without terminal sleepy brain.

In theory yes!! That's generally how it works - The buy back is not what I remember on that though because I think it used to be at 10? ((Also I have no idea why I added the +2 SYN to each ally - I think that was at a time where I was overtuning that MEC because some folks were complaining Melee builds were too weak so I had to shuffle a whole bunch of stuff down to give Martial Artist slightly more kit))

I might tune it down slightly (or more likely cap that DMG at 15 or something - Direct DMG in general needs another balance pass since its sources are so varied) - But the idea is it's a more or less guaranteed one-hit against non-boss enemies ((in general non-boss enemies are meant to go down very fast, usually within the first attack or two of getting hit - Something I'm trying to emphasize better in 0.14))

The draw back on Roundhouse is meant to be that it's a bit pricey to buy back and that you don't generate SYN for others ((again why I'm puzzled that I ever added the +2 SYN to allies)).

Re; it being on a Starter Part - Players can (and will as I've both seen and done) build a lot of very strong combos out of that list because they're all balanced to be taken to the end of the game.

That said Roundhouse will probably be getting a minor nerf ((In one of the campaigns I'd played in it was my staple part for obvious reasons but even then it got a minor nerf of only having one charge + at the time it generated no SYN which is a v bog part of how that part works // pseudo balances itself))

It is absolutely a net zero! (and yeah I give players the mercy of that part breaking instead of the actual core) - This (ostensibly gag part) is one of a handful of Fabled parts that are based off the three campaigns I ran ((I'm planning on breaking them out into their own category eventually)) the dual core in particular was built as a result of a hilariously failed operation by a PC trying to make their own Fabled part with an inept science crew. He'd joked about wanting to make a dual core to scam people earlier in the campaign and so his vision was later realized ((an immortalized in print))

This would be a great thing to clarify! The answer is actually no - Only Skill Dice the players roll to deal DMG will ever generate SYN. Thank you for saying something! I'll definitely add a clarification into 0.14!

I totally forgot to reply to this, BUT this absolutely rocks!! I really dig the directions you're taking this ((especially bringing the system back into a more deadly orbit - health bars got kinda bloated over the game's life span XT ))

Having the rotating Techniques slot is an addition that's particularly exciting and the vibes in general seem rad!! 

Re; Team Attacks - Group Synergy dumps can be a really cool way to do this while keeping to a tighter balance, or perhaps techniques with Chances? - Alternatively you could build a whole new system on top of this that's /literally/ an all out attack type vibe with each character having a difficult/unique Trigger and once one player procs theirs everyone can join in ((just spitballing here)

Hecking wow thanks for such a thorough pass!! I'll take closer look at these whenever I come back to this to work on 0.14 (probably won't be for a while)

Heya! Fantastic question - For print-and-play I've just added these as PDFs into the Zip in the "Kitbash" folder - These'll probably get a "Form Fillable PDF" treatment ~eventually~ - Hope these help // excited to see what you make!!

Oh absolutely!! I always encourage people to remix what they like in my works and make it their own ^^ It's flattering to hear that you're vibing with the systems so much and exciting to hear about what you're cooking / how you're remixing it!

You're also welcome to release it commercially if you'd like ^^ My only requests are that you give a shout out in the credits to me/Steel Hearts for whatever mechanics end up inspiring you // you send me a link so I can purchase a copy when you release it >:3 ((And likewise if you ever want to bounce your ideas off someone or get a second set of eyes on the system, let me know!))

Ahhhh this is so cool!!! ((Especially cool because when I first made Laz Whisps the first thing I got excited over was "someone is going to combo this with Geist Sniper and it's gonna rock" haha))

Best of luck to the Viori Sancti!

These are both typos! ((Thank you for catching this)) Usually when you see those it's something escaping find/replace. Also very excited to potentially hear more about your Sniper Witch build >.>

Thank you for making this!! It came out so good!

Compelling, thoughtful and concise - You made something potent here. The character sheet and the way it burns is just masterful design.

Now to figure out when I can get my friends around a fire next...

Oooo this is cool! I especially love the Betylsynthesis perk! (Clever name too!) Definitely giving me motivation to release more monsters ((Sirens are great because they can essentially cause dmg scaled on how much SYN the party is sitting on))... eventually heheh... And also hopefully have a form fillable sheet for custom units in 0.14 ^^

Thank you for all these awesome questions! ((It's really helping me flesh out this FAQ page with a lot of common "edge cases"))

In that instance you'd be allowed to either Boost or Shield at Instant Speed! ((Or even crack a Flash Action and have 2 SYN left over which is something I've seen Playtesters pull when they're rocking highly self optimized endgame MECs))

AoEs only ever roll DMG once - If you caused an elemental detonation, that dice boost applies to the whole AoE! ((It's why elementalists really benefit from AoEs!))

For Burning Players can safely remove it from themselves with SYN or an ally using any variety of Actions. If you take a Once Per Allied Phase Action and have burning that will still proc the DMG though. Likewise burning Tension is another way to safely remove Burning.

Hiya! Firstly thank you so much for the feedback! It's stuff like this that helps every version get clearer and cleaner - My replies in order:

> So Shields always start at zero at the beginning of combat and I somehow neglected to mention this anywhere! I've adjusted the intro to Shields line but I really like your side bar idea! (I think it'd go well with an FAQ page I'm adding in Ver 0.14 that covers things like empty equipment slots) - As for whether or not they carry over depends on if you preform a Synergy Dump (pg. 29)

> Yeah Episode generally means "session", however I keep this vague so that if you have a long arc of things happening that make more sense for one episode across two sessions ((or like me have run 8 hour sessions that more consist of 2 episodes) it's not as restrictive - I'll add a line somewhere to clarify this.

> Correct! I'll add a clarification for this somewhere.

> Yep! It all stacks! This is getting added to the FAQ page I was talking about.

> Yes! Any time SYN is generated (unless explicitly said otherwise) it gets divided up as usual. ((Will also get added to the FAQ Page))

> You're only able to generate SYN for yourself if you've built into it with stuff like Kinetic Regen or Optimize. In the event that you do you'd treat it like Overflow SYN (also addressed on Pg. 29)

> The Perks are (eventually) getting an index that spells out all their weird interactions. In an AoE you roll DMG once, that DMG is the DMG you'd regain SYN from ((ex: You hit 3 enemies in an AoE and roll 15 DMG - You'd gain 2 SYN and each enemy would take 15 DMG)) - If say one of the Enemies were Charged and then switched to burning (adding another 5 DMG), you'd gain 3 SYN!

> Yep! That means they can happen once per phase (Enemy and Ally) giving a total of twice per Turn Cycle. Also that is absolutely a misprint and a good catch! Curious as to where the other ones are ((This is why I need to not write after an 11 hour shift at work like I am now haha))

> You can pick a two-handed weapon (and it only counts as one part) - This makes them especially valuable for a starter MEC!

> You're right! Granted you'd only be able to do this once per turn cycle (twice with unrelenting) and wouldn't be doing a lot of DMG with it ((and also sacrificing your options to use Interventions to defend yourself) - Bard Core has gone through a LOT of iterations and likely may see more. One change you may see is that +4 SYN going down to +3 (or maybe even +2). The majority of Steel Hearts was playtested with 4-5 Players, in which that extra 4 SYN helps but isn't felt quite as hard because each player is only getting one.

> This is an awesome early game support build that you could easily stick with and flesh out! If the clarification you needed was "does this work like this?" - yes it does! Especially strong in smaller groups where that 20 SYN is getting divided between fewer people ((granted you'll have less health between you all). Would pair vvv well with a melee DPS who can dump all that SYN into some heavy hits.

> I'm not sure what the clarification you're looking for here is? But it does sound like you've got a good TOR/COM build in mind!

> Lordy this is such a good catch - I just pushed an update to the download files, thank you so much for seeing this. ((And thank you again for all the feedback! -- Sorry for any spelling errors in this reply, it is very late and my brain's a bit fuzzy from dealing with customers at work all day))

Wow!!! These are super cool!! Thank you so much for putting these together and sharing them!

Ooo that's a great catch!! Pierce DMG was the original name of Honed ((so it's just Honed DMG that deftly avoided the Crtl+F replacement haha)) - Thank you for the heads up!

Hey all! Sandro here ~ 

There have been more than a few requests for some kind of Discord for Steel Hearts. Unfortunately I don't really have the time or energy (or frankly desire) to run such a Discord, BUT I figured some kind of pseudo-forum like the ones offered by Itch Communities might be helpful!! I'll try to check up on these now and then to answer questions and such, but unfortunately as I work full time, I won't have a lot of time to do moderation.

So some general rules of thumb:

- Don't be a jerk. Try to be nice to each other.

- Don't be a bigot. Steel Hearts is by its nature very queer and attempts to celebrate the multiculturality of our planet Earth.

- Keep things focused. After all this is a forum about a mecha game, so try to keep things relatively relevant to mecha or the game at hand.

I've never run a forum before, but hopefully this'll give some of you the opportunity to talk amongst yourselves, leave feedback (your comments and encouragement help this project thrive!) and share any cool stuff you've made!

There's no Discord yet! ((Unfortunately I really don't have the time to moderate or manage such a thing)) Though I am considering adding forums to this game page ^^

To your first question: There is no roll to hit! All attacks hit (You're in a giant advanced robot after all) - All you need to do is roll for damage :)

To your second question: Soak starts at zero. You can gain Soak by taking specific parts, but it'll max out at 4 soak. However the Steel Weave MEC Perk on the upgrade tree allows you to have a maximum of 5 Soak. ((As do certain parts which break this rule in very specific and explicit ways to my memory))

Hope that clears up any confusion :) Let me know if you have any more questions!

So unfortunately the way that Itchio works, the only way I can "update" a file is by uploading it under the same name. My biggest recommendation would be to check the Version that your PDF lists (on the front cover of the mechanics shop and the credits page of the core rules). You should be able to cross reference it with the full downloads of both of those in the "demo" section to get the most up to date version ((or you can always redownload the full Zip which will always be fully up to date! ... minus the Cross Overs which I save to fully add in until I finish updates to the main stuff))

That said I'll deffo add a note into the Zip of which version the folder is!

This is something I'd like to do eventually! Unfortunately Affinity Publisher (where I do all the layout) doesn't have a function for exporting Form Fillable PDFs - I'm looking at a few programs that'll let me edit the existing PDFs, but I want to make sure they look good and the spacing stays consistent. Probably not something you'll see til the next big update though DX

Heya thank you so much for the kind feedback!! So it somewhat depends ((though the most recent version Zero.13 goes into a bit more depth)) - The general answer is around 12x12 spaces for a given combat encounter - Though sometimes using a series of tight 3x5 platforms all on the same field can be fun ((as can be using the full battle map!))

Absolutely! Steel Hearts' mechanics sits somewhere in the middle of the two, so depending on the kind of campaign you run and the aesthetics/challenges you bring, you could easily tip the vibes either way ~ Plus the way Gravities can add DMG to your ATKs is already pretty Super Robot-esc! (And some of the Fabled Parts can help give a frame of reference for adding "signature move" parts, if that's what you're looking for)

Feel free to grab a free community copy and you'll hopefully see what I mean. If there's specific elements that you want advice on to make more Super Robot-esc, I'd be happy to help :)

Thank you so much for the kind words!! I hadn't even thought about using that art for VTT Tokens, but that's a great idea!! I'll look into adding those next update ~

Firstly thank you so much for the kind words!! I'm glad you're enjoying it so far and can't wait to get more into your hands one day ^^

I really dig the idea of expanding some of the progression advice and more specifically putting that advice in the MEC Shop. (And giving new Players some more explicit tips for the Upgrade Tree! Specifically that they should try to focus on maxing out one Stat, then just shop around for Perks that synergize with their build ~ I think more than anything a few examples might help. )

You're right in thinking that MECs start with 3 Parts (Normally any 3 Parts from any Starter Class) as described (re: buried) on Pg. 18 / 26 of the Core Rules. Which 3 Parts is up to Players themselves, but I'd love throw in some more advice in the back of the Mechanics Shop that more explicitly spells out what to look out for ((There's some advice on Pg. 70 of the mechanics shop that dives into both these topics, but it's*very* brief, and could definitely be broken out into a more conversational 2-page spread)).

General rule of thumb in terms of GMing / Progression (as discussed a bit on Pg. 71 of the MS and Pg. 42 of the Core Rules) is to throw money at Players to either Upgrade or buy new parts, and also to slowly unlock the mechanics shop and what non-Starter Classes are available as your campaign progresses. ((And tune accordingly depending on how many sessions you're running - Ex we've played plenty of one shots with "Any Parts, 18 Upgrades" MECs, but also a few with middle of the road "6 Starter Parts, 200k C in Upgrades - If there's anything I /really/ want to expand in this game, it's GM and Progression advice, so it's incredibly helpful to hear what kinds of questions are coming up!! Thank you again for asking ^^ )

Finally, re; A Discord - I've considered it, but for right now I'm not sure I have the time or energy to mod XD This game has been a labor of love while I work a full time service job, and maybe if it starts to /really/ take off I'll think about it ~ But for now I'm just happy to have it in people's hands and to get excellent one-on-one feedback like this ^^