text: So far the game is a stripped-down infantry take and control game, what I would call a "40k heart-breaker" (I'm guessing that Heavy Gear itself probably falls into this category), which is fine for what it is, but doesn't really reflect piloting big mecha around.
  A good example is to look at Battletech, as cumbersome as it is, really reinforces piloting these big lumbering mechs. For instance it has rules for: chipping away at armor, damaging internal systems, blowing off limbs, falling down damage, the heat system, etc. Again, very cumbersome and definitely could use stream-lining, but play made it feel like you were piloting and managing these big mechs around.
  Heavy Gear isn't Battletech and doesn't have the same flavor obviously. My understanding is that it's more anime based, and so the Gears aren't so-much big lumbering behemoths. They are cool in different ways (What ways are they cool to you?). The game should capture the essence of what makes a Gear interesting beyond being a walking tank and have rules that reinforce that.
  Actually, I'm pretty sure I have a fair idea of what I want the game to do, and how I want it to play. As above, I want a hyper-streamlined game with emphasis is on moving and shooting for tactical combat. Draped around that are rudimentary close combat and morale rules, with non-mech units coming soon.
  The game is indeed a "stripped-down infantry take and control game", because that's the main sort of game I want. I want a stripped down game, because I am sick to death of overcomplicated games with giant rulebooks overladen with rules on rules. KOGs (Gears) are giant armored suits, so KL is an infantry game. I want the primary mission to be a strategic "take and hold", with Kill Points being secondary. That is the exact design brief I am targeting, so you hit the nail on the head in your assessment.
  I don't like Battletech, at all. But if you look, it's there. Chipping at armor is damage against Hull. Crippled represents internal damage. Falling and Heat are unnecessarily cumbersome, and I don't want the game to be that way. Remember that I am on a page limit, and every rule that I add basically trades off against another rule. So if I add heat, then I need to have a stat for it and rules to manage it. That's not interesting or fun. It's bookkeeping, which is the opposite of fun. You'll note that other armored machine games don't necessarily do those things either. GW does just fine with the Thorpian "Gets Hot!" rule, and I note that players *HATE* that rule. And I don't want rivers and lakes to be the dominating terrain features, so that players can focus on parking their multi-PPC mechs in them...
  Heavy Gear is ripped off from the A.T. VOTOMs mecha anime. AT VOTOMs stands for Armored Trooper Vertical One-man Tank for Offense and Maneuver - or "walking tank". Heavy Gear took made it into a ludicrously overcomplicated RPG like RIFTS and the other crap at the time. KOG goes back to the roots of a military game of walking tanks. And quite frankly, I think a walking tank is plenty interesting enough just being a walking tank. I also think that the core rules of defense (armor) and hull and various guns and such reinforce that theme nicely.
  What's cool to me is that I can put down these 3 pages of rules, with a single stats page per player and be playing very quickly and easily, without fighting a giant rulebook and doing calculations all the time. I can get a newbie up and playing pretty comfortably very quickly. The 2-page spread tells what to do right there. No memorization, no cross-references, not table lookups. Put the unit stats on a separate page, and they have their faction reference right there!