Dante Direct! December!

HELLO :3

So! Welcome to another Dante Direct, man I should find another name for these things. The Last Dante Direct of 2024!!! WOOOOOOO

First and Foremost, I’d like to take a moment to step back to the grand picture. 

A Brief Reflection of Everything. 

So! My own journey into Lancer has been a fast one. When I came into Lancer I had been in my final year of undergrad. I had known of Lancer for about…2 years at this point and it was always something outside of my periphery. On a whim I looked at a few reddit posts in March, and I was hooked. 

Fast forward to April, I would start to actually play, and found my desire to run for lancer grow and grow. I had been a GM for DND at that point, but it never really clicked. And I found that passion to start doing GM work for Lancer grow. Then the first draft started. I knew I wanted to base Dante as a reflection of my own studies. Architecture was a massive part of my life for the last 3 years, as well as studies on the human condition and archeology. I always loved storytelling and so I wanted to reflect all of these in Dante. Shout out to the very first draft which had the Fractal Moon as a Ronanapour-esque city as the original concept was closer to Black Lagoon. It was after I came up with the initial ideas for Iris 7, I realized my angle! 

Fast forward to May/June, I was ready, sent out the call and got lord 44 applications. 2 weeks later, the party was set and once again, Dante would not exist without my extremely cool and amazing players in the Syents & Synners Campaign. Satellite 2571, Charon_, PersonMan_reborn, Echidna3, and Renenutet. Shout out to Tasper’s Monsters, Mutants, & Miscreants or T3M, Especially for putting up with the constant LCP changes and being patient with me as I learn, create, stumble, and learn some more! 

Now it is December! Good LORD time flies when you’re having fun! A decent chunk has changed for the better since then! Including graduation from undergrad, moving back home, starting my first job, buying my first PC. 

And So! Some Meta data fun facts to bring out the year

The (meta)data. What does it mean???

For anyone who doesn’t know, you can track your Itch data and see how many times people have visited, etc. 

Total views for the page? 111 at time of writing! I am honestly very proud of this in general, especially being such a small obscure project, people just coming in to check this out means alot to me. 

Total Downloads? ~40ish This is trickier. The reason why it is tricky is every time I would update the LCP, I would take down the old one. In addition, when we hit October, I added the Traveler’s guide to the mix. 

It’s safe to assume people were at least downloading the LCPs as they got updated. 

So how do I feel about this? 

Honestly? Quite Happy! When I started this project I didn’t know how far I would get. I decided to start it because I wanted to prove to myself I could do something like this, that I could make something that resonated with people in some regard. So here we are 6 or so months later! 

Speaking of, what’s coming next? In December, in the few months ahead, and just in general?

What’s Next? 

Well, as of December? A wee rest till end of year. 

The problem with writing all the time or working on one or two aspects is you start running out of gas. At the beginning of the project, I wrote Alot. And I haven’t really had time to go back and redevelop alot of what I wrote in the original Field Guide. Besides just doing general Session Prep and Living, I want to go back in and start to edit sections of both guides, adding in the new information, updating old information, and going from there. 

In addition I have been so concerned about general balancing and getting the frames ready, learning the game deeper as well as working, I have fallen behind on a couple things I want to develop more. 

The best ideas come from a brief rest. I will still be busy! But it will be mostly getting some new writings in and developing other things. 

A massive shoutout to Bargonauts for his constant interests in the Dante Solar System which has caused me to flesh out factions and the world even more!

What about After December? Well the best part of having a stable job is being able to finally spend money without guilt and/or dread! I intend to commission art. Various scenes, the mechs, small doodles, etc. All for this project. 

A big goal I will be dreading is learning how to use indesign so I can do templating and other such activities so everything works and functions! 

Running more playtests as well! This has been very important and one of the big goals is to make sure this doesn’t break the system/turn people away-both GMS and Players. 

Speaking of playtests, I have to thank my playtest players for doing some testing for me! As I mentioned in the November document, a decent chunk of changes have happened due to my wonderful playtesters! So before We finish it out with the changes, I have a few more people to thank! Thank you to BreeBird, Satellite 2571, PersonMan_Reborn, Nailmarco, and HookedSteward for Breaking the content and Entering Dante (bad pun I know!)

AND SO. WE COME TO THE BALANCE AND NEW THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN PUT IN

Balance Changes and new greebles

New things! More exotics have been added to Dante! A silly little side goal of mine is when I have my playtesters, as a thank you, I asked them “what is an exotic you would like to see?” 

And the Results were wonderful! First on the List is the CDRS-07. Cynosure Derived Replicant Strain-07. That’s weird…how did OPVS/C get access to this and what is the Ninja NHP doing? Well does it matter? You can now willingly cascade. 

Next is the Compound Interest Shotgun. Man that Piper guy is really scary, thank god I’m not going in debt. O now I am. And he’s giving me a choice. My legs, my arms, or my ears. Welp. Here is a gun that allows you to force the GM to make really hard choices. 

The most heart warming items are the Vows of Eternity and Vows Beyond Eternity is a vow and a piece of jewelry. You know, showing love to those you care about, especially your partners, is important. Does it matter if its a man who loves logistics and his NHP wife. Show your love to that special character or NHP in your PC’s life. 

Finally we have a sword, no bow, no wait, smg? It's the KAMI Multitool Created by a an NHP who’s gender is sand in the pants. In all honesty it doesn’t matter when you have a fluid multitool that can function as 3 weapons in 1 for the low price of 2 mounts. 

Balance Changes

And now onto the final part. And rather than doing the balance yapping like normal, let’s change it up! Considering it’s the end of the year, let’s do this with 3 categories: Frames that have been a slam dunk, Frames that were middle ground, and frames that were my problem children. 

Let’s start with Slam Dunks! These Frames are Frames that I have been happy with. The ones who even from the first draft did exactly what I wanted them to, and only needed a few updates here and there to work better. 

No frame embodies this more for me than Tswaing! Tswaing was a treat to create and concept out from the jump, and so far, it is my most popular frame with my players! And it’s no wonder why. It’s wonderfully esoteric, the flavor is infectious, and even from the jump, it did something simple which is nuke that guy right there. The main changes this time around have actually been to give it more tech options that weren’t just hostile. Every single hacker frame has invades, but also has general tech actions that can help. 

So, the license changed a bit: 

Phageware Capsid Suite got combined with Cultivated API Array, giving you 2 decent simple hacking options. 

In the LL2 Slot, we have Immunogenic Back Door, which allows you to bolster 2 allies as a full tech, or share a condition/status to 2 enemies.

Finally, Forgery only deals 2 burn now. These changes were to give the Tswaing License different tools at every LL that you wouldn’t mind taking on other frames. IBD’s dual bolster could be great for something like Kutozov at LL4, or CAA could be good for say goblin or minotaur. 

The next Slam dunk is my second most popular frame because of how silly it is, the Fu. The Fu did indeed start out as a joke but has some genuinely fun melee tricks up its sleeves that makes it a very unique and hard to juggle playstyle of being half sized melee. As well as that it is a l

The major change to Fu is actually due to an oversight. It has no way to natively return the weapons it throws. Whoospie. That has now been remedied in the frame traits!

The third and final slam dunk is the Kaali! The Kaali has always been a fun one to me and it really embodies the spirit of OPVS/C and encapsulating the silliness really well. 

The only change is the squall line booster! It’s now a mod which makes the Kaali very soundly into assault type frame. (which I need to update. Whoospie!) Now we get to the middle ground! These ones were mechs and systems that did need a bit of help to get to the place I wanted them to be. 

Next we go to the Middle of Road. These frames I was happy enough with, but they needed a few tweaks here and there

First in this section is Nordlinger. Nordlinger is one of my favorites due to small guy big gun, and that makes me uber happy. However, I finally carved out its niche. First and Foremost, becoming less reliant on lock-on. There are still systems and traits that deal with locko-n, as Saprophage likes it, but I wanted to flex Nordlinger more to be able to support as well. Thats why everything that gives health now gives overshield instead, and the overshields can be used for health or heat reduction whcih is an interesting angle. 

To that end, Spore Sapper is no more, and thermobloom has been moved to LL1. Instead, at LL3, we have a new Heavy Weapon that gives drones on hit that make it easier to hit. 

I am very happy with Nordie Changes. 

Magra, Shao, and Paw had no real changes between last version and this version. Magra especially only needed length/ending clause clarifications while Shao and Paw stayed unchanged. 

I am very happy where the 3 of these are for right now. If anything, I’d need to see them tested before I make any other changes. 

Finally, we get to the problem children. These are the frames that constantly go through revisions and tweaks because I am annoyed and frustrated with how they work in some form or they aren’t quite right. 

At the top of this list is The Chicxulub. 

A common meme I have is if I’m unhappy with the LCP, it’s Chicx’s and Tae Kwons fault. 

This is true because Defenders, like shotguns, are hard for me to get right. 

First and foremost, a new frame trait that converts your shield effects into small bursts of damage. I still need to tune this somewhat, but I like the idea behind it. I am happy with Lighting Rod Pylons. A shield that becomes a grenade just Fits, and honestly may become the frame’s throughline of destroying your shields for extra effects.

Flashover Tethers redirect damage to you, which i think is a fun ability. 

These 3 changes are very simple, but I’d want to see how well they work together before making more decisions. 

Next up is the other problem child, Tae Kwon. 

Tae kwon has constantly struggled with its own identity. Making reaction based frames is quite difficult as it gets into the issue Chicx had. How do I make this frame without pulling from Gorgon or Tortuga, the Reaction Masters?

The issue with Tae Kwon wasn’t the license, but rather, the frame itself. So, we make it do something a bit different. Barre form now allows for grapples and Rams as a reaction, giving you some very funny things. As well as that, the core active works akin to sentinel: 1/T reactions instead of 1/Round as long as you are engaged. 

Finally, Polyrhythem Hijack pulls an amber phantom and allows you to split your turn into smaller chunks for a reaction. 

The result is something that doesn’t take away from the other defenders, but still feels like playing Mono-blue flash in MTG. 

Finally, we have the biggest boi, Vredefort. Vredefort’s biggest bane was its gun. While yes Big Barb gun is fun, It was just too hard to make work, especially on a frame that causes similar complexity issues to Sunzi.

The issue at this point like Tae Kwon was in the frame itself. So we cleaned up the wordings and Old Aphelion is gone and dead. Instead, the core power now turns heat into a black hole. And the new weapon makes an orb that chases people around the map. Paried with the many movement blocking tools the Vrede has, it makes the Vrede quite dangerous as license now, great for drone, deployable, and just “big boom” builds. 

If you have made it this far, I thank you for your time. 

Thank you for your continued interest and support, as well as reading these far too long dev-notes.

Happy Holidays and Cheers to 2025 from RedXi!