What are “Super” Robots? And what makes them different from “Real” Robots?
Units in Super Robot Wars can be described in one of two ways:
Super robots are the kinds of robots you see in shows such as Mazinger Z or Getter Robo. Most super robots have these things in common:
- They are larger, taller and bulkier than other robots – sometimes they are hundreds of meters tall!
- They are able to take a large number of hits from enemies.
- Their power sources and weaponry lean towards the fantastical – laser beams, weapons that pop out of nowhere (and that usually get thrown), Rocket Punches, and more.
Real robots are the kinds of robots you see in shows such as Mobile Suit Gundam or Full Metal Panic. Most real robots have these things in common:
- They are much smaller than super robots – the standard seems to be somewhere around 20 meters high.
- They can’t take very many hits from enemies, so they prioritize mobility and dodging attacks.
- Their power sources and weaponry lean towards the conventional – rifles, missile launchers, the classic Gundam head-mounted vulcans, and flying attack drones.
How do battleships fit into this equation?
Battleships in SRW are treated the same as any other robot; they often have high defenses as befitting of a battleship, and are piloted by a crew as opposed to a single person, but are not as mobile as actual robots and will generally need to remain stationary in order to attack enemies. One of the Big Deals™ about SRW V is its inclusion of the Space Battleship Yamato, which is from a series that does not traditionally have any robots.
Tell me more about pilots.
Each unit has one Main pilot and up to three Sub pilots. Main pilots are the ones with the combat stats and special piloting skills; Sub pilots have none of those.
Each pilot has access to a list of Spirit Commands they can invoke during battle. These Commands can do things such as increase accuracy and evasion, heal robots, and more. As the unit fights and defeats enemy units, its pilots will level up and gain additional Spirit Commands.
Spirit Commands are cast using Spirit Points (SP) that gradually regenerate during battle.
What kind of stats do robots and pilots have?
Hoo boy. Pilots, robots and the robot’s individual weapons all have different stats. Starting with the pilots:
- Pilot Level
- Focus, which has also been referred to as Willpower in prior games, is a measure of how serious the pilot is getting during battle. Each pilot starts the battle at 100 Focus, and through battle it can rise to a maximum of 150. Having higher Focus lets a pilot use stronger weapons, activate special skills/abilities, and generally raises their stats during battle.
- SP, for casting Spirit Commands. Pilots always enter battle with 50% of their maximum SP, and gain 5 SP per in-game turn.
- Score, indicating how many enemies the pilot has defeated.
- A list of the pilot’s Special Skills. I’ll be going over these on a unit-by-unit bases, but you can view a comprehensive list of them all here. Some skills have levels; these levels can increase as the pilot levels up.
- A list of the pilot’s Spirit Commands, and how much SP it costs to use them. Again, you can view a comprehensive list of them all here.
- The pilot’s combat stats:
- CQB (for melee damage)
- RNG (for ranged damage)
- SKL (for critical hit rate and special skill activation rates)
- DEF (for reducing damage taken)
- EVD (for evasion rate)
- HIT (for hit rate)- The pilot’s Terrain rankings. Pilots have individual rankings for fighting on the ground, in the air, underwater, and in space. An A-rank indicates average ability, an S-rank gives a performance boost to the pilot’s stats, and anything below will weaken them instead.
- Finally, upon reaching a score of 60 or more, the pilot will unlock their Ace Bonus that gives a unique boost based on the pilot. Reaching a score of 80 or more will unlock a Great Ace Bonus that is the same for all pilots; they get to enter battle with 75% of their maximum SP instead of 50%, and also start the battle with 1 ExC Point.
Next we move on to the robot’s stats:
- Unit size, ranging from the small (S) to larger (Battleships are usually around 2L). Larger units deal more damage to, and take less damage from, smaller units.
- HP value. If it reaches zero, the robot is removed from the battle and you, the player, will be stuck with the repair fee.
- EN (Energy) value. Energy is used by robots when attacking with certain weapons; flight-capable robots also use energy to stay in the air.
- The robot’s combat stats:
- Armor (for reducing damage taken)
- Mobility (for evasion rate)
- Sight (for hit rate)- The robot has its own Terrain rankings, separate from the pilot’s. The two sets of rankings are averaged together in order to determine the unit’s actual terrain rankings.
- Move value, for how many squares on the map the unit can move in a single turn.
- Terrain Type values are used to show if it is even possible for the robot to enter Air, Ground or Water terrain. You’ll never see a submarine in the sky, for example.
- Power Parts are items that can be equipped to the robot to give it better stats or new abilities; robots can have a maximum of four parts equipped, although many will only have two or three available slots for parts. (List here)
- Special Abilities are to robots as Special Skills are to pilots. (List here)
Finally, let’s look at the weapon stats. Each robot has a select list of weapons with the following stats:
- The symbol to the left of the weapon name is used to tell if the weapon is melee-based (fist) or range-based (target).
- To the right of the weapon name is the weapon’s class type. Most weapons are classless, but some weapons are MAP attacks (can hit multiple enemies) and some are Combination attacks that require adjacent allies to use.
- Next we have a list of weapon attributes, shown by single-letter squares:
- C is for Counter Weapon. Robots are attacked and then counterattack if able. If counterattacking with a Counter Weapon, the counterattack will happen first 100% of the time.
- S is for Special Effect. These attacks inflict status effects if they hit.
- P is for post-movement attacks, translated into its literal meaning of Move and Fire. If an attack has this symbol, you can use it after moving first. If the attack does NOT have this symbol, you can’t move your robot if you want to use the attack.
- B is for Beam Weapon. Beam weaponry behaves differently against some units, such as those equipped with anti-beam armor.- Weapon damage; bigger is better.
- The range of the weapon, which is how many squares away from this unit that the weapon can hit from. MAP Weapons will sometimes have a fixed range.
- Each weapon gives an individual bonus to Hit and Critical rates when used.
- Weapons are either ammo-based (they have a fixed number of uses per scenario), or EN-based (they subtract from the robot’s EN when used). You can’t use a weapon if it has no ammo or if you can’t pay its EN cost.
- The robot’s stronger weapons may have a Required Focus value, which is the minimum amount of Focus the pilot needs in order to be able to use the weapon.
- Some weapons have a Required Skill that the pilot needs to have in order to use the weapon. For example, a lot of the UC-era Gundam robots require a Newtype pilot to use some of their weapons.
- Weapons ALSO have Terrain rankings! The pilot/robot Terrain rankings were for boosting defensive stats; Weapon Terrain rankings are for how much damage the attack would deal to an enemy in that kind of terrain.
- The weapon’s special abilities. Inflicted status effects would be listed here, as well as special attack properties like Ignore Size and Barrier Buster.
- Custom Level; you can increase the strength of the robot’s weapons, up to 10 levels. We’ll be covering this in a future update.
There’s a lot of stats!
That there are, my friend. That there are…
Can you go over Terrain again?
For pilots and robots, their Terrain rankings are averaged together. A pilot with an S in ground combat, and a robot with a B in ground combat, gives an overall A-rank for ground combat. If the unit is fighting on the ground (any kind of ground – open fields, forests, cities, etc), their ground Terrain ranking is applied.
- S-rank raises the unit’s defense/hit rate/evade rate
- A-rank is the default; no changes
- B-rank and anything below that will lower the unit’s defense/hit rate/evade rate
Because 99% of every unit ever will not have a good underwater Terrain ranking, it’s a good idea to keep them out of the water when possible.
For Weapons, a better Terrain rank means it deals better damage when attacking an enemy unit on that Terrain.
How does the pilot’s Focus increase?
- If a unit attacks, is attacked, or dodges an attack, the pilot gains 1 Focus.
- If a unit defeats another unit, it gains 2 Focus.
- When an enemy unit is defeated, all of your allied units gain 1 Focus.
For example, if an allied unit attacked and defeated an enemy unit, it would gain 1 (for attacking) + 2 (for defeating) + 1 (from the unit being defeated) = 4 Focus.
I think I read something about an “ExC point”…
ExC, standing for Extra Command, is a new system introduced for SRW V. Your units in battle can hold up to 10 ExC points, and gain them via the following:
- 1 ExC point for defeating an enemy.
- 1 ExC point for gaining a level.
- 2 ExC points if multiple enemies are defeated via a MAP attack.
- Battleships gain 1 ExC point for every 10 enemies that are defeated.
ExC points can be spent on Extra Actions, which are very similar to Spirit Commands:
- Boost Dash (2 ExC): +2 Move, ignores obstacles and terrain penalties.
- Direct Attack (2 ExC): Ignores robot size differences and enemy unit’s defensive abilities.
- Smash Hit (3 ExC): Guaranteed Critical Hit on next attack.
- Multi Action (3 ExC): If this unit defeats an enemy, it can move and attack again.
Battleships also have an additional set of actions called Extra Orders:
- Emergency Recovery (1 ExC): One ally unit within eight squares is moved inside of the battleship.
- Boost Focus (2 EXC): One ally unit within four squares gains +10 Focus.
- Boost ExC (3 ExC): One ally unit within four squares gains +2 ExC points.
- Restore Action (5 ExC): One ally unit within five squares, that has already acted, can move and attack again.
Is there any other important information I should know about before we start the LP?
I’ll be going over any additional gameplay elements as they appear/as I remember them/etc. Please feel free to ask any questions and I’ll do my best to respond! As you can probably tell from the number of times I’ve linked to it, the Akurasu wiki is a great resource for SRW game knowledge.