Leyline Press Blog

Salvage Union is a post-apocalyptic Mech game where players assume the roles of scrap salvagers. We, as the developers, aimed to create a gameplay experience centred around the core concept of salvaging. To achieve this, we drew inspiration from the 'Gold for XP' system in early editions of Dungeons and Dragons. This system tied experience points to the discovery of gold, with each piece of gold found translating to 1 Experience Point for the player character. This encouraged exploration and strategic thinking as the goal became to explore the environments in the game to discover the gold, rather than to simply defeat the monsters. In Salvage Union, we sought to establish a similar connection between the importance of scrap and exploration.

Salvage Union is a tabletop RPG set in a post-apocalyptic world where players take the role of Mech Pilots who salvage scrap in the wastes. They live together within a ‘Union Crawler’, a giant Mech that acts as a home base. The game uses a gear-based progression system, where the Mech's advancement is determined by its Chassis (base stats), Systems (external hardware like weapons), and Modules (internal hardware like hacking chips). Progression in the game involves finding new Mech components or scrap to craft them. There are six "Tech Levels" that represent increasing power and access to more tools and abilities.

Our core design goal with Salvage Union was to create a simple-to-learn mech tabletop role-playing game, which retained the essence of the genre while vastly simplifying its mechanics and learning curve. One key aspect that makes mech games appealing is the ability to customise your own unique mech, fine-tuning its various options to your tastes. In Salvage Union, we wanted to intertwine this customisation with the role of salvagers scouring the wasteland for scrap. This blog explores the challenges myself, Panayiotis Lines  @panny_lines, and Aled Lawlor,@aledlawlor, encountered in developing a salvaging and crafting system for Salvage Union that met these design goals....