Now I know for any Gundam fans that come across this showcase, they will wonder why I chose the Shining Gundam over say the RX-78 or Gundam Unicorn. I have a few reasons. This series of showcases has been for the purpose of showing the various ways that mechs of a wide variety of styles can be built. For this and the next, I wanted to focus on mechs that are closer to the super robot variety. Yet, featuring a Gundam in the series was long overdue. G Gundam is one of my favorite Gundam series and is known for being the first alternate universe Gundam series, namely asking, what if Gundam, but super robot. Then why Shining Gundam over God Gundam? Well, I wanted to show off a "mid-tier" build. So we're sticking with Domon Kasshu's first gundam. I think you all will find this one interesting.

The Shining Gundam (and many other mechs from its series) are known for doing combat in a variety of martial styles. In fact Domon Kasshu isn't a soldier, he's a martial artist who uses the  "Mobile Trace System" to translate his movements in the cockpit to the movement of the mech itself. Because of this he has a very nimble fighting style. While most of his fighting is done in melee, certain conditions may call on the Shining Gundam to adjust its up close tactics. Namely, to set up the opponent for a finishing blow, known as the Shining Finger, a super heated, open palm strike.

Starting us with the primary parts, Shining Gundam is a front line fighter, because of this, it will be equipped with a Blitz Frame giving it 24 AP. While it may be nimble, that does not mean this gundam is fast when compared to others. It is more equipped to enter combat slowly, or by ambush. To reflect this, we'll give the Shining Gundam a Caballero Booster with a Movement Rate of 1. We will go with a Blitz CPU for 2 Utilities. Since the Shining Gundam is a front line fighter and a super robot, it will need a lot of heat to put behind its weapon systems. To accommodate this, we'll use the Anodyne Radiator to show the player's advancement in the campaign, granting it a Heat Rating of 12.

For the utilities, a Neural Interface to represent the Mobile Trace System, also granting +5 to Mech Piloting. This comes with the chance for feedback from damage to harm the pilot, but this is also a feature of the Mobile Trace System. In addition, we'll install the Overdrive Mode Converter to represent the Shining Gundam's Super Mode which increases the mech's speed and damage output. That said it will deal compounding damage to the pilot the longer it is active.

As for the weapon systems, even though the Shining Gundam is the lower tier mech for this franchise, as a super robot it still packs an abundance of weapons/attacks. In order to incorporate most of these we'll make use of the Mode Shift System weapon mod, allowing a weapon to reconfigure into a second mode during combat, while maintaining its own ammo supply. While this will maximize the HR use while constructing weapon kits, it will also reflect the often used trop of martial artists switching styles during combat. We'll build two weapon systems, and equip this mod on both.

The first weapon system will be Martial Arts (though could have also been labeled as Reinforced Limbs), with a total of 5 heat spent in it. We'll stick with a d4 of damage, but apply the optimization to give it a +3 to final damage. The Rate of Fire we'll leave at 1. Where we will put our added point of heat, is in the Ammo giving it a total of 6. For the effective range, we will naturally use the Melee range. Now for Weapons Mods, we will only add the Mode Shift System. This will let us build a second kit with the same HR value and its own set of ammo, that the player can switch to as an action during combat. In this case, the mode shift, will be the Shining Gundam's Beam Sabers. We'll keep the damage at a d4, and stick with the base Rate of Fire of 1; however, we will optimize the RoF to give it a second attack reflecting the mech having two sabers. Once again, we'll put the extra head into ammo so the sabers have 6 attacks. Once again the range will be melee.

The second weapon system is the Shining Gundam's finishing move, the Shining Finger. For this one we will construct the weapon system with 7 heat. Since it is a finishing move, we will put 3 heat in damage to give it a d8 base damage. We will also apply optimization to the damage to add +3 final damage dealt. (This combined with the WS bonus, and added damage if in Overdrive Mode, can lead to a very devastating attack). We'll leave the ammo at 4 as well as apply the melee range. As stated previously, we will apply a Mode Shift System mod, but to tweak the damage further, we will also add the Incendiary Ammo mod giving an additional +2 to final damage dealt. Since this is our finishing move, we will make the alternative weapon system the Shining Shot, where the Shining Gundam fires energy beams from cannons on its forearms. For this, we will put two heat into damage for a d6. We will copy what we did for the Beam Sabers, and put one heat into RoF with the optimization, raising it to 2. We'll increase the ammo to 6, and lastly, for the effective ranges, we will apply Close and Medium giving the gundam a limited distance attack.

Finally, we'll stock the Shining Gundam with a couple disposables: a flight skid for added mobility, and a bandolier of particle grenades since the mech was known to use smoke grenades in the show.

This build for the Shining Gundam makes for a potent front line fighter with the potential to down opponents quickly, but would need to rely on allies when fighting faster opponents who can keep at range. Next time, I'd like to check more than one box again for the demonstration. I'd like to take a look at a proper super robot, as well as a mech from a comedic series. So next time we'll take a look at building Megas XLR.