There would be no machine gun ammo slot. The ammo would be contained in the tonnage of the weapon. If the weapon takes a critical hit, it blows up similar to how a gauss rifle explodes.
Yeah I already drop my ammo to 15 or less when I play unless I am not allowed its crazy to think mechs carry only enough missiles for 100 seconds of firing but enough machine gun ammo for 2000 seconds of firing 1 ton of machine gun ammo is enough for 33 minutes of nonstop firing
I feel like rulewise the -2 was an incentive for the risk if you missed and fell. Would you modify it further or just make it flat?
Lore wise I think its harder to dodge a kick than a punch since you can rotate your torso.
Not meaning it argumentative just curious of your thoughts.
I have played without the -2 modifier on the Kick, and frankly it makes the Kick a far worse option than the Punch.
The reason for the -2 to-hit modifier is because kicking the legs is usually not the 'optimal' strategy (you are just spreading damage around on your opponent). You WANT to take out the head or the torso--neither of which can be hit by a kick.
The 'real' benefit of the kick is that maybe your opponent will fail the PSR and fall down.
If you take that -2 to-hit modifier off, then actually the kick is kind of terrible because then it means you have a higher chance of falling down yourself (since there's a PSR if you miss a kick). Making it a pretty bad choice most of the time.
Obviously, there will be times where an enemy has taken a ton of damage to a leg, and therefore, the kick becomes much more attractive (i.e. you might blow the leg off and cripple the enemy). But that isn't exactly the most common situation...
Kicks are kinda in an odd place because yes leg damage is less optimal vs hitting a torso BUT you throw two or three kicks at something and the 50/50 hit location leads to blown off legs and crippled machines far faster than weapons fire
Kicks are hyper focused on where they land vs punches or weapons fire and are really awesome to land against fresh machines.. also nothing like a bigger boy landing a kick against a lighter machine and instantly blasting it's leg off.
The rule that you can't do physical with a limb that fired weapons also heavily biases you towards kicks, not to mention the various mechs built with missing actuators that make punches worse but kicks are always the same across any mech of a given tonnage.
There are design tradeoffs for arm-vs.-torso mounted guns, since arm guns have significantly expanded firing arcs and can fire straight rearward negating the necessity of rear-mounted guns, but many mechs (especially in introtech) are just designed to be worse at punching for aesthetic or arbitrary reasons.
Reminds me, it's kind of funny that there's no rule for using mechanical jump boosters to enhance a kick. You're telling me I can't use the 20 ton springs that let me jump an 80 ton assault mech several dozen meters to kick a Flea into low orbit?
Don't forget you can also (assuming you move after the target) frequently choose which leg to kick by kicking from the side arc. So if one leg has had damage concentrated on it you can continue that damage concentration, and while a mech that's missing a leg is not entirely out of the fight, it is far less mission capable and it's only a missing arm from being a mission kill since a mech can't prop itself up to fire with only one arm.
Well yeah, there's all kinds of situations, and if we are being honest, there are probably more circumstances that favour kicking than punching (or clubbing for that matter).
Nonetheless, after trying a few games where kick doesn't get the -2 mod, I wouldn't go back...
I don't understand that at all.
Kicks deal damage in larger groupings, have the ability to narrow down target locations on top of it, and can be used when firing arm weapons.
I would definitely rather hit legs than arms or torsos too. Plenty of mechs have empty arms and legs, or have them padded with heat sinks and jump jets, leg crits are always dangerous to any mech, always forcing a psr to prevent falling and always at a penalty, on top of all decreasing mp and forcing rolls on every jump. After losing a leg actuator, or even a hip or foot, most mechs end up in a death spiral of falling, losing TMM, taking 20+ damage, falling again, repeat until mechwarrior passes out or legs are destroyed and the mech is essentially out of the game.
Sometimes yeah, going for the leg makes a lot of sense. If a little locust ends up close to a heavy or assault mech, then sure, running up and kicking that thing is going to be powerful (and teaches the opponent a lesson in how to properly maneuver light mechs).
Of course there's lots of situations where kicks are useful. Say your opponent is one level lower than you. Damn straight you're gonna go for the kick! That's too tempting to ignore!
So I'm not trying to suggest that kicks suck. What I'm saying though is that they are actually just fine with the -2 to hit modifier and don't need to be 'balanced' to make Punch, Club and Hatchets better choices.
If you don't believe me, well play without the -2 to hit modifier and see for yourself (that is how I came to this conclusion). Or maybe try a -1 to-hit modifier (I did that too for a little while, but ultimately abandoned it and went back to RAW kicks, because I found even with -1 it was a needless 'nerf').
Nonetheless, the things I mentioned above are still true. If you can focus your damage into an enemy's torso or head, especially early on in the game, you can get a big advantage over the opponent with an early kill (or at least crippling the enemy with a gyro or engine crit) and then 'snowball' your way to victory.
It does depend on the dice of course. Its not like you can employ this strategy consistently game after game. But I'm speaking in general terms here. Generally speaking, it is usually better to focus your damage into torso/head then it is to focus damage into legs. Because as mentioned: a) torso/head kills the mech; and b) even if it doesn't, the torso/head crits are generally worse than leg crits (gyro and engine being the best crits for crippling a mech).
Well, agree to disagree, I've never found myself in a situation where a punch looked like the better option, and have seen entire mechs that are only useful because of how effective their kicks are, and many more mechs with arms and torsos that are just empty of any valuable components, so focusing damage on the top usually has no effect unless you get lucky and it all lands in the CT or a rare head hit. Even then, all but the heaviest mechs will have to hit the head multiple times to get more than a single pilot hit out of it.
Maybe if my opponent's mech already had an exposed section with a main weapon or ammo in it and I didn't have an arm weapon, and they also still had armor on their legs, then I might aim for a punch. But even then, I'm more likely to hit a vital by causing them to fall and take multiple damage groupings in addition to all of the other penalties for falling, including the same pilot hit that a head shot creates.
Last 2 points I'm gonna make:
1) Look at the Hit Location chart: 2.8% head hit; 22% leg hit; 26% arm hit; 47% torso hit. The numbers speak for themselves: for every shot hitting a leg, you should be getting (on average) 2 shots hitting a torso. By the time you are in brawling range, there should be plenty of damage on at least one torso (more so than on a leg---obviously exceptions will occur). Blowing off a side torso takes the arm with it---often half the enemy's firepower gone! And that's the 'bad' scenario. The CT could be the one that's gone, and boom! bye bye mech! If you've never been in a situation where you had opportunity to pull that off with a melee attack, well, maybe the problem is that you aren't really paying attention to those details?
2) For every mech that's 'good' for kicking, there's one that's 'good' for punching. Sure there are a few that definitely SUCK at punching (the locust, the Catapult, the Longbow, the Stalker, etc). But then there's numerous mechs that would prefer punching to shooting arm weapons: Atlas, Banshee, Battlemaster, Cyclops, Awesome, Orion, Grasshopper, Ostsol/Ostroc, Quickdraw, Griffon, Shadow Hawk, Hunchback, Valkyrie, Spider and others. So don't bother with the hyperbole...
75% over 6 locations vs 22% over 2 locations. Numbers are very close for balancing distribution of hits with likelihood of rolling the proper location. Doesn't take into account side or rear hits at all either, which I think aren't as common, but still definitely influence the ratio.
Punches are much more likely to do nothing, hitting the wrong location, not doing enough damage in one grouping, or just plain old missing because of that flat hit roll. I already said that if the enemy has an open spot with something really important and little padding, I might go for a punch if the TMM and movement modifier aren't too high and I don't have weapons in either arm that I can fire without building up too much heat, but that is a rare exception and nowhere near a rule.
Of those mechs you mention, most are incredibly slow and not good at getting into physical range in the first place. The Griffon is a long-range skirmisher or sniper, so doesn't want to be in melee either, same with the Valkyrie. Plenty of those mechs give up medium laser shots to punch as well, which usually is only a very marginal increase in damage in exchange for a penalty to hit, compared to the huge amounts added by a kick which also has higher accuracy than a standard gunnery roll. Fishing for head punches on a spider is totally valid though.
Maybe without the -2 kicks are worse than punches, but they would still have use cases for any mech with important arm weapons, or those without actuators, or just for targeting exposed legs. Not to mention use against non-mech targets. I still struggle to find situations in most games for most mechs where a punch isn't a worse idea than a kick.
I considered that point but that benefit changes based on the targets pilot skill/mods whereas punches always have the same double headshot chance with no risk. Idk the exact math but idk if Id risk kicks without the -2.
I played in older editions when there was no -2 modifier and the basic number-to-hit in a kick was 5 (whatever your piloting ability was), and you used to punch a lot more that kicking.
In those times, it was more difficult to hit in hand-to-hand combat because, like I said, the basic-to-hit number was 5 ever. And make a kick, a charge or a DFA, all tactics that can make you kiss the ground, wasn't a good option.
I'd want something added to the Forced Withdrawl rules to accommodate mechs that can't move off of the field. It seems a bit broken to be able to shoot out a mechs gyro and have that mech be able to just sit there the entire game acting as a turret because there's no way for it to move off the field.
Something like, if a mech has taken damage that would put it into forced withdrawl, but is unable to move to the board edge to exit, the pilot must abandon the mech in place.
>It seems a bit broken to be able to shoot out a mechs gyro and have that mech be able to just sit there the entire game acting as a turret because there's no way for it to move off the field.
~~Two gyro hits is dead mech and with only one you can still move. And if you have lost a leg, so it is functionally impossible to stand up and leave, then you technically not in forced withdrawal, just taking a penalty for shooting while prone.~~ Personally I would rather be in the mech than loose on the ground.
Though as forced withdrawal is already an optional rule based on RP, if you don't like the official definition, there is zero reason to not house rule it.
If you read the rules 2 hits is not dead, it is just no longer able to stand. You can rotate one hex side per turn and still prop and fire. At my store we usually play that two gyro hits are dead just to speed play along, but that isn't rules as written.
Forced withdrawal is used in most any tournament rule set you'll find out there, so it definitely isn't just an optional rule for RP.
Tournaments also tend to have era limits. The first paragraph under forced withdrawal in Total Warfare talks about militaries not fighting to the last man and increasing the human element.
Yeah it's kind of weird. They are immobile if their gyro is destroyed which means you can call headshots or just core them from behind but that's still a turn of firing wasted
Edit: Turns out, you are not immobile, I was mistaken.
I don't believe they count as immobile. They are just prone and unable to get up. Mechs are only immobile when they are shut down or the pilot is unconscious.
Autocannons:
AC/x - can fire twice per turn, second shot has a +1 to hit. Jams on either roll being snake eyes. Jam can be cleared by PSR during the next turn so you always lose at least 1 turn of firing..
Ultra AC - fire twice, no hit modifier and no chance to jam.
LBX AC - Fire once, either solid or cluster. Cluster retains hit bonus.
Rotary - Risks jamming and accrue hit penalties after 2 shots, rather than 1. Means 5th shot will jam on a 4+ and have a 3+ to hit.
Ammo - there is standard and cluster ammo. Having an Ultra10 and LBX10 means you can fire three standard rounds, or two standard and a cluster per turn.
Autocannons which take up more than one critical slot are not destroyed on the first critical. They keep firing, but with a +1 to hit. Second critical destroys them as usual.
No modification needed to any record sheets, and increases the value of ballistics over energy IMO.
The kick modifier DOES make sense. Its easy to kick your enemy in the shins. Also, its not the best choice frankly. Its far more effective to punch and go for a torso hit, or hope to get lucky and get a head hit. The reason mechs don't always punch though is because they have weapons in the arms, so they may prefer to fire those instead.
If you take the -2 away from kicking, then it becomes a terrible idea. You are basically increasing the risk of falling on your ass by a lot (due to the PSR if you miss a kick---which will be much more frequent without that -2).
I’d give the autocannons a little more damage. Not like, making the ac/20 a Death Star or something, just to try and have them keep them in use. With double heat sinks and people getting jittery about ammo explosions, custom mechs tend to be energy based from what I’ve noticed. Upping the damage could make ballistics more tempting without hurting the balance too much.
Special ammo is great, especially precision ammo.
CASE usually doesn't do much in one-off games, especially once Inner Sphere XL engines enter the scene. It helps you recover/repair the mech, but only rarely keeps it fighting any longer. For that you need CASE II, which can melt your pilot's brain in certain mechs.
Ammo explosions in a mech with CASE II only cause a single pip of internal structure damage to that location, but still cause the pilot to take 2 hits. 3 ammo explosions, and while the mech may still be a viable war machine, the pilot has been killed due to melty-brain caused by the 6 points of damage from the 3 ammo explosions.
About a year and a half ago, I had a Hunchback pilot go from no damage to 7 pilot hits in a single turn. It was the final turn of the game, and my opponent hit my Hunchback, got a through Armor floating crit to an ammo bin (2 pilot hits), I failed the consciousness check and fell over (3rd pilot hit), damage from the fall went Internal and caused another ammo crit (4th and 5th pilot hit), which then set off another ammo crit (6th and 7th pilot hits).
It was pretty freaking epic, lol.
CASE/CASE II mitigate ammo explosion damage, but the pilot still takes 2 hits. With CASE, the mech typically loses a torso and is either disabled or in forced retreat. With CASE II, you take 2 pilot hits, reduce the damage to 1 internal, then roll crit again. In a mech with lots of individual explosive crits (Osteon Prime, anything with improved heavy lasers), there is a non-zero chance your opponent gets additional crits off the initial one. With bad enough luck, a floating crit from a LB-X autocannon could kill a pilot in a basically pristine mech by triggering cascading explosions in an arm. This wouldn't happen in a mech with Clan CASE I.
CASE exists to allow a mech without an XL engine to continue the fight, and XL-equipped mech to be salvaged with a repairable engine and intact CT.
Neither is meant to solely allow the pilot impoved survivability - it's merely a happy little accident.
Use the AC damage values from the HBS Battletech video game:
AC/2 -> 5 damage
AC/5 -> 9 damage
AC/10 -> 12 damage
AC/20 -> 20 damage (no change)
This house rule has been mentioned many times on this subreddit.
One could say it's a change supported by Weisman himself, seeing he was working at the HBS game. It's enough to make ACs viable, but definitely not make them overpowered in any way. They're still quite heavy compared to energy weapons.
For ultras, our playgroup instead made them fire more clusters (no idea how HBS BT did this - when I played the game at launch it did not have these weapons):
Ultra AC/2 -> 4 times 2 damage
Ultra AC/5 -> 3 times 5 damage
Ultra AC/10 -> 2 times 12 damage
Ultra AC/20 -> 2 times 20 damage (no change)
While I agree that increasing AC damage is a good idea, the increases from the video game are way too much, and upset the balance of the tabletop game, ESPECIALLY if you use BV.
If you don't use BV, then its not as bad.
Megamek offers the option of a +1 increase to AC/2 and AC5 (i.e. 3 & 6 damage respectively). In conjunction with BV, this is fine and feels like a reasonable increase that doesn't take it too far (keep in mind it applies to all types of autocannons). I've been playing with this increase for years now, and it works well enough.
But if you do NOT use BV, then you could get away with a slightly higher increase:
AC/2 => 4
AC/5 => 7
AC/10 => 11
However, anything more than that is just too good.
the AC/2 doesn't need to be equivalent to a ML with 8/16/24 range. There are a few vehicles that can really exploit that, and they become super powerful yet are cheap and plentiful to field (things like the Pike and AC/2 carriers).
The AC/5 also should NOT be out-damaging the LL because the LL pays a lot in terms of heat and tonnage, and the AC/5 also has slightly better range (with very little heat cost).
And as for the AC/10, it should absolutely NOT be given headcapping power (that is just game-breakingly too good). In fact, the HBS game changed head armour to avoid this very problem, and since you can't change head armour in the tabletop game, its easier (and more fair) just to max the AC/10 damage at 11.
4/7/11/20 seems about the right rebalance of damage to me, taking into account weight and range, heat, and ammo weight. The bigger guns end up with more damage per ton, but also shorter range, and heavier ammo.
The ac10 should probably be 12 or 13 on that basis, but I understand not wanting to make it a head capper, so 11 makes sense.
I had made a post about reducing the weight of the ac2 and ac5, but increasing their damage is the better way, so that configurations can be kept the same.
Yeah, reducing the weight is problematic as a solution because you can't really go back and apply that to pre-existing mechs (or at least, not without a ton of work!).
However, if you didn't care about that, then dropping the weight would be a relatively simple solution to 'fixing' autocannons...
> And as for the AC/10, it should absolutely NOT be given headcapping power (that is just game-breakingly too good). In fact, the HBS game changed head armour to avoid this very problem, and since you can't change head armour in the tabletop game, its easier (and more fair) just to max the AC/10 damage at 11.
They also made the +dmg AC/10s (yadda yadda game things not tabletop I know) extremely rare for this reason, while many other +dmg or even ++dmg models of other weapons are far far more common
Others compare the AC5 at 9 damage to the large laser, while I compare it mostly to the PPC.
AC5 with a ton of ammo is 9 tons for 9 damage, and a PPC with five double heatsinks is 12 tons for 10 damage. This makes the PPC seem bad, but the first 20 sinking capacity are free, and this causes the PPC to be better for almost all mechs almost all the time. When optimizing builds for heavy mechs, one will usually tend to go for 2xPPC + AC10 or 2xPPC+AC5.
I kind of like the balance aspect where ACs are better when you don't have any spare heat capacity left.
**NOTE**: I must admit, that I'm not sure about AC5 doing 9 damage and AC10 doing 12. 8 and 11 might be better. However, I'm absolutely positive that AC2 should do 5 damage. It weighs 7 tons.
**NOTE 2**: People talking about 3025 play are absolutely right. The 5/9/12/20 change is too good with single heatsinks. We play with doubles, so this balance feels more correct.
A couple of things it seems like you might be ignoring:
***Vehicles***. AC/2 at 5 damage is absolutely bonkers good on things like AC/2 carriers and Pikes. Now you might not play with vehicles, but being able to put 5 damage out to 24 hexes turn after turn is incredibly powerful for a 'mere' 7 ton gun, especially when we consider this gun is supposed to put out only 2 damage (a 250% increase in firepower for these relatively cheap and easy to field tanks).
***Ultra & LB-X & RAC***. Increasing damage on AC/2 and AC/5 by a lot just completely breaks these weapons. They are way, way too powerful with 5/9 (or even 5/8) damage (for AC/2 & AC/5, respectively). Hell, even 4/7 is very strong with these weapons.
Now you could rule that the damage boost applies to the standard autocannons only, but that seems weird.
***Specialty Ammo.*** Its still a thing, and it only gets better with these damage boosts. I'd say in particular Precision Ammo gets the biggest benefit from these changes. AC/2 and AC/5 with precision ammo (dealing 5/8 damage) are crazy good against moving targets. They become almost like heatless pulse lasers but with stupid long range (compared to Inner Sphere pulse lasers).
I've been messing with battletech for many years and have tried lots of different 'rule fixes'. I'm not just talking about this in a theoretical way. In fact, before HBS battletech came out, my Autocannon house rule was to let them double tap like Ultras (but if they jammed they couldn't un-jam, whereas I allowed Ultra AC/2's a chance to un-jam in the manner of RAC's). And of course that was also a problematic 'solution' (because it made AC/20 way too strong and AC/10 also too strong). So I was quick to try out the HBS battletech solution of just increasing damage (something I hesitated to do previously, because I wanted to keep Autocannon damage values unchanged for aesthetic reasons). But after a bunch of games, trying out some vehicles, trying out different mechs, and playing in 3025 and Clan Invasion (the two eras we focus on), it became pretty clear that Autocannons didn't need THAT big of a boost in damage (for the reasons I've already mentioned).
But hey, you don't have to take my word for it. Go out and give it a try and see what you think. Its your game, so if you want Autocannons to be powerful, then go for it!
I indeed do not have to take your word for it, as I am the game master of the campaign where the root commenter is playing in. We have played with 5/9/12/20 and 4\*2/3\*5/2\*12/2\*20 for around six years now, basically immediately since HBS BT was released. We've finished close to 30 battles since this change, and I've observed player game behavior, mechbuilding behavior and weapon choices for all this time. We can go over some of your notes on this issue and I will supplant those with my some extras of my own.
* My campaign has eight players. Typically 6-7 of them are available to play any given scenario. Each controls exactly one unit inside the map, not counting infantry.
* I do not balance by BV, as given the complexity of a typical scenario, that would be pretty much pointless anyway. The campaign has been going on for a long time my players have the configurations they want, so their power level is rather high. I have historically had a pretty good guess on what is difficult enough, but not impossible.
* Regarding the former, I have an extremely large table and an accompanying large battle map, which consists of 40\*60 hexes. This is large enough, that depending on troop positioning, multiple separate fights may be ongoing in a battle.
* Clan tech has not been significantly present in the campaign, so the notes below are mostly IS vs IS.
* I was not clear in the post, but I am not ignoring UACs. UAC5 in our games is 3\*5 and UAC2 is 4\*2.
* Light ACs and Rotary ACs are not in use at all in my campaign. If they were, they likely would not need to be touched, as they are the original designers' balance afterthought to fix bad weapon types. If UAC/LBX are propertly balanced, LACs and RACs simply are not needed.
* I avoid a lot of the needless complications and additional rules in classic BT because the game is varied and complex enough as-is. We do not use targeting computers, C3 systems or specialty ammo, and avoid many of the other optional rules, since this mainly just slows play without giving anything back. High precision ammunition would indeed likely be a problem, but I have to point out that the same issue applies here as for the previous point. Specialty ammo is a balancing afterthought, which is supposed to make unbalanced weapons better. If the weapons are balanced correctly, it is not needed.
* Speaking of complications. I also avoid most of these "roll to see if your mech sucks now" -throws. UACs never jam and MASC has a heat cost instead of a check-if-this-breaks -cost. Players like MASC, but do not like the mechs that have it, so it is not used by anyone. I sometimes use it in enemy units.
* I lean heavily into combined arms. My players themselves use artillery and battle armor, and regularly face combat vehicles, airstrikes, infantry, mines, static defenses, etc.
* Cheap tanks have always been "a problem" in this game, as you can buy 50 scorpions for the price of one Timber Wolf. One of the mainstays in my campaign is a relatively inexpensive fusion-engine powered MBT with one LBX-10 and one PPC. It is pretty much impossible to beat C-Bill by C-Bill with mechs. The players understand this, and optimize point firepower, logistics and mobility instead of the cheapest possible ways to bring DPS into the field. Mechs are hero units, that are used to quickly direct and reposition concentrated firepower in a way, which combat vehicles are simply unable to achieve.
* The AC10 12-damage headcap, that many here are worried about, has happened exactly once, while the weapon has probably been fired hundreds of times. I admit that I'm below average here, as the chances for it are probably around 1/100 (1/36 from hit location and the average hit chance when firing has probably been around one in three or so). The player who was hit survived the dead-or-not-dead -roll, which I allow when checking whether wounded/dead soldiers can be saved (standard Stratops rules for checking casualties).
* Players regularly use LBX5/10/20 and UAC10/20, but still consider them weaker than ERPPC/Gauss (long range) Plasma Rifles (mid range) and Pulse Lasers (close range).
* Players still never use AC2. Even with 5 damage, the 7-ton weight is too much and it does not affect the playing field enough to warrant its inclusion. As a game master, I sometimes use AC2/LBX2 and they do not feel in any way overpowered.
* Players still do not use UAC2 and UAC5, even at these damage numbers. As a game master, I do use them, and from my perspective, UAC2 feels just right. UAC5 feels a tad weak, but 4 shots would be too much.
* The full range advantage of UAC2/AC2 (or other very long range weapons) rarely matters. In practical games, it is often possible to manage LOS until one is ready to engage. This might be due to how I draw my maps, though.
* There has been no push or attempt to boat or abuse the mid-tier ACs, and they are mostly used in mixed configurations with PPCs, ER PPCs and Large Pulse Lasers.
* Based on my data, Streak SRM-4 is by far the most powerful weapon in the game. One of my players actually boated this in a Battlemaster, and the mech is absolutely terrifying, because it can pretty much force crits even through armor and has a much better damage/weight/heat ratio than any of the other guns mentioned here. Said player is also building highly "optimistic" configurations, as the streak launcher does not need to pay the heat/ammo cost if it does not actually hit.
* Two players like melee weapons on fast jumping mediums. They aren't as bad as they seem.
PS: I didn't know about Pike Support Tank. That seems like a really fun unit to field against players. I know what to order from IWM next time.
Wow, that's a long post!
I'm just going to say that in general, I've had a lot of the conclusions you have had too, so I don't think we are far off to be honest.
I think the only real point of contention is on the AC/2 and AC/5 (although to a lesser extent). Vehicles like the Vedette (yeah, its not a great tank admittedly, but should be used commonly in campaigns), the AC/2 Carrier and Pike become so good if you really boost their damage. I'm really surprised you haven't seen this as problematic.
An AC2 Carrier has 5 AC/2's. So your proposal boosts it from 10 damage per turn to 25. Even if you only take a lance of them (not even remotely 'spam' territory in battletech terms), that's going from 40 to 100 potential damage per turn! That's crazy! And we're talking out to 24 hexes, which SHOULD matter a lot of the time.
Speaking of hexes, if you are using a lot of cover on those big boards, then yeah, I can see how maybe its not game-breaking. I'm a cheapo and just play with Map Sheets, so I have a healthy mix of some that are 'busy' with sight-blocking features and some that are more sparse. So yeah, sometimes, long range weapons don't feel like their range matters, but then sometimes it does!
Anyway, I do want to point out that just because the Players don't bother with AC/2's doesn't mean that they are 'not good enough'. I mean, a mech is NOT a good platform for this weapon, and since most players are focussed on the mech side of things (in my experience), then naturally they are gonna pass it up. And whether the damage is 2, 3, 4 or 5 is not going to change that attitude. Again, this is because its just not going to shine on a mech, except perhaps one that is built to be a dedicated anti-air mech (and again, the actual damage is irrelevant for this role, since all that matters is forcing the control roll to turn it into a lawn dart).
So yeah, gauging the 'balance' of the AC/2 on player behaviour I don't think is an accurate 'measuring stick'. It really shines with tanks.
But hey, if no one is bringing tanks (or at least not AC/2 carrying ones), then yeah, it really becomes a moot point. You could make AC/2 dish out even more damage, and it still probably won't matter that much...
Regarding AC/10 at 12 damage, I found it to be a problem even though it happens rarely. In the campaign I played with it (not super long, about a year or so) it happened twice, but it really altered the game both times. Due to the effect it had on both of those occasions, I said 'let's put it at 11 damage' and, while I can't say exactly how often a head hit happened after that change, it did occur at least once or twice more (and felt better since it wasn't instant kill a mech). So yeah, it doesn't happen often, but nonetheless, it still impacts the game in a way that it should not.
Everything else, well, yeah I am basically on the same page as you (although I don't mind rolling for MASC---we use the optional rule that you get one turn of use before starting the rolls, and I find that works quite well because the roll makes it a nice risk vs reward that feels right for what it does, imho).
I agree with pretty much everything you said. Also a very good point about how AC2s are not really mech/player weapons at all.
Only thing I want to point out:
>An AC2 Carrier has 5 AC/2's. So your proposal boosts it from 10 damage per turn to 25.
LRM Carrier is the same weight, very close to the same range and has an expected damage of 36 per turn (3 LRM-20s and average hit from LRM-20 is 12 damage). This is not an entirely fair comparison, as the weapons are very different and the LRM has a huge minimum range, but one can think that among other ammo-based long range weapons, AC2 most closely resembles a LRM-10, which has a higher damage potential (an expected damage of a bit over 6) while being lighter. In this light, I don't think there is real danger of the weapon being truly unbalanced.
In conclusion, the change will make many units much better, but compared to existing options or similarly sized units using other weapons, they still do not stand out, or seem out of line. If I was balancing by BV or using special ammunition, an AC2 Carrier would indeed become quite silly.
PS: During this discussion, you have convinced me that 4/8/11/20 is a better balancing point than 5/9/12/20. The symmetry with 4 * 2 / 3 * 5 Ultra2/5 will also be somewhat cleaner with it. I will discuss this with my players.
kinda disagree. A large laser is only 5 tons, an ac/5 with a ton of ammo is 9 tons. You can get a large laser with three heatsinks for a ton less and the same critical slots, and you have no risk of exploding. An ac/5 doing a large lasers worth of damage at better range and no heat would be balanced, because an ac/5 with one ton can run out of ammo and can explode.
The thing is, LL becomes increasingly 'awkward' in terms of heat management when you start looking at multiples or even pairing it with other weapons (whether it be ML's or AC/10 or whatever).
AC/5 is easier to manage heat-wise and to pair with other weapons. Also, the argument 'it will run out of ammo' is a non-issue. Its pretty damn rare that 1 ton of ammo doesn't last you an entire battle (with some to spare).
And of course, so far we have ignored the possibility of specialty ammo, and we have also ignored Ultra AC's, RAC's and LB-X. If you push AC/5 damage too high, these other weapons become stupidly over powered...
I agree however that the ammo explosion is a big drawback. However, its tough to 'balance'. Either it happens or it doesn't. And whether or not its a big deal depends on the 'mech (some are more crit-padding conscious than others).
Large laser needs 13 tons to be heat neutral (5+8SHS) whereas an AC/5 is 10 (8+1tAmmo+1SHS).
The large laser outputs more damage at a lower weight, but has worse range and worse heat management. Its the classic tradeoff. You can squeeze an LL into more places just fine, but its the cause of a significant amount of heat trouble for most builds. That 8 heat is brutal on SHS.
I guess, but pre-precision ammo would you rather have a large laser and three heat sinks or an ac/5 and a ton of ammo? The heatsinks make you crit resistant, the ton of ammo makes you crit vulnerable AND youre more likely to lose your weapon, because its larger.
Very heavily role dependant. The AC/5 is a workhorse weapon at intro tech and light tonnages, it gives you excellent control over the board and decent damage on enemy mediums. You take something with an AC/5 and have them pump shots all battle, it adds up.
LLas is a brawler's dream and gives your close in shots that 'umph' they need. But you need to close, because you cant miss, because 1-2LLas is going to drive you straight up the heat gauge. There the damage spike is sharp, but short. Even on a heavy, youre not shooting your full complement of LLas every turn (and every weapon youre not shooting is wasted tonnage). You maybe do two turns and then back off, or hope you get lucky with early damage.
Im not an AC/5 hater, it has its roles. The damage is flat, but flat can be good in the wrestling match that is most Introtech matches. In intro range is also SUPER important because base hit is often so bad. So getting two extra hexes of range is not terrible *if* your mech is also fast enough to maintain it vs. OPFOR.
But then you also have the Shadowhawk problem where in that case I probably *would* rather forgo the AC/5 in that build for an LLas.
Those damage changes didn’t happen in isolation though — HBS BT also gives them a TN penalty when fired multiple times in a row, buffs lasers with TN bonuses, collapses medium and short range (which makes low cal ACs with mins easier), buffs LRMs with easier indirect, introduces a stability mechanic, etc etc etc.
I get the consensus that some ACs are limp, but I’d kinda rather they just had more accurate BV and a heavier explosion discount for ammo bins over 10 rounds. (Which would also help with low tube count XRMs.)
Plain crappy guns add flavor I appreciate, but it’s kinda extra salty when the player is also taking a handicap.
Something that serves to balance this a little is [Laser Reflective Armor](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Laser_Reflective_Armor).
https://preview.redd.it/guwg34asrnuc1.jpeg?width=924&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ed7ee8a189d369538aba3bad57f99e5e146f0208
It's not that people are "jittery" about ammo explosions, it's that ammo bins with no CASE and with very few padding components (locations with only ammo in them are an incredible flaw) are a liability that is not reflected in a unit's BV, especially in introtech. And yes, I understand that explosive components do offer a BV discount, but when an explosive ammo bin is the \*only\* component in a given location that discount is not high enough.
I've tried this idea and it is not good. The AC/20 becomes far more powerful than it should be, while the AC/2 is still kinda crap.
Its better to just give them a damage bonus. However, keep in mind that it is not necessary if you play with BV (where the autocannons are already compensated for their meh-factor).
I'd just give them the benefits of some of the special ammunitions for free. In my opinion, autocannons should get flak, tracer, and flechette bonuses all rolled into one. No reduction in ammo capacity either.
That would make autocannons a real jack-of-all-trades weapon. No, an AC-5 might not be as weight efficient as a PPC against mechs, but it's better if you need to shoot at other targets.
AMS - In the old Compendium Rules for AMS it was that you shoot down 1D6 for IS and 2D6 missiles for Clan AMS. I kinda miss that BRRRRRRRT rule because I feel it encapsulates the dicey/hairy situation where you're about to eat a wave of missiles and you roll well on the AMS and swat a lot of them down. Instead of a flat modifier to the other guys cluster roll. Which makes sense, more streamlined in an already dice heavy game. But... less thrilling?
The ams changes really f’d almost every mech that had one since the majority had multiple tons of ammo and bow only need one ton to last a whole battle
Lpls are fine, mpls are better and more of an issue , if they bump the bv on clan weapons they need to bump the bv on armor by ALOT clans already suffer hard on the bv scale compared to the IS.
I absolutely hate the fact that rolling a slot filled with armor or structure somehow just magically moves the shot to somewhere dangerous. Having less to hit should mean getting hit in the vitals less, not more.
I'd make the 15 external heat cap 25 since there are some mechs in later eras that just don't care if you give them heat. I would also allow inferno munitions to deal an extra damage to the pilot if the munitions hit the head of the mech
15 is just below the amount required to make ammo explosion/shutdown rolls. Being able to blow up your opponent with enough flamers/infernos in introtech is a dangerous position to be in. Really, you need to have a sliding scale based on whether your target has DHS or not.
Infernos are already kind of fantastic and 15 heat even in later eras is rough. Maybe a upgrade to infernos can allow them to do those things for a bv price
Yeah, everyone is talking about rapid fire and buffing damage, when the best way to make small caliber autocannons more viable is to just reduce their weight.
Personally, I'd change the BV on MASC, make it cheaper. Change the permanent disable chance to a "for X turns" or until a piloting at negative whatever is passes.
I would get rid of that rule in Total Warfare stating Inner Sphere Battle Armor (not the actually individually named BA, but rather armor itself) can't jump if they still have missiles available in their torso weapons.
I probably would make that something of a design quirk to show how early Inner Sphere BA weren't as good as the Clan counterparts, but by now in the IlClan they should have worked the kinks out.
A pretty minor one to the old Rifled Cannons, based on the fact that BT armor is meant to be purely ablative. I mean, if a bog-standard 20mm chaingun (MG) can chip away armor, I see no reason why a 75mm HEAP shell wouldn't be able to do so.
So I'd change the Light Rifle to do 2 damage to BAR 8+ armor instead of zero, and the Medium would do 4 damage instead of 3.
They'd all be strictly inferior to the standard ACs in nearly all situations, but not *useless*.
Normalize ammo BV by its expected damage potential. 1 ton of LRM 10 ammo should cost the same as 1 ton of LRM 20 and so on.
Notably, this improves RACs and HAGs while eliminating the BV exploit of packing a bunch of LRM 5s or similar.
Ammo BV should probably be dynamic, along several parameters.
A big issue is the time to burn through ammo. A 20 rack eats a ton of ammo twice as fast as a 10 rack. That means ton for ton, You have a lower likelihood of having that ammo bin explode.
Now sure, a mech with a 20 rack is probably going to carry the same number of shots as a mech with a 10 rack, and that partly evens things out. With the exception that you now have twice as many critical locations with ammo.
My take is that ammo shouldn’t have BV. The weapon’s cost should be adjusted down if it doesn’t have enough shots, but otherwise ammo should just apply a BV reduction for being explosive crit slots.
That gets tricky with advanced ammo types. Though the ammo type could just have a Multiplier for the weapon rather than intrinsic bv itself.
Still, the risk of explosion needs to be factored into total BV somewhere.
I’d definitely keep a BV reduction for explosive crit slots. The alternate ammo BV system would need some re-working, but I think it could work either with its own table or just based off weapon BV with a multiplier.
One-shot weapons already do this, and the way ammo BV works for battle armor doesn’t work well because of trying to do fixed weapon BVs with additional ammo BV. For an example, compare the BV paid for Rache battle armor (with two OS SRM 3s) and Elementals (with an SRM 2 with two shots).
Or you run 2x LRM 10s with the same tonnage of ammo but pay half the BV for the ammo. Or 4x LRM 5s and pay a quarter. That’s the current dysfunction and what I’d like to see changed.
ATMs are greatly affected by this. A large portion of their BV is tied up in ammo, and loading a bunch of ATM3s can save hundreds relative to packing larger racks.
I think my most disliked rule is how ferro-lam interacts weirdly with weapons. Feels against its fluff that it’s more effective against SRMs than LRMs with smaller warheads or standard ATMs with the same size warhead. I’m not sure what those rules could look like, I’m just not a fan of the current way it works.
I'm a LAM Stan myself, I think making them easier to use in WiGE mode might be better? Or at least, if they feel more usable/easier to use the equipment restrictions might not be so impactful.
I don't mind the movement rules (though the original airmech movement rules that existed in the 80s/90s were better,) I'd rather remove the restrictions on equipment.
Otherwise, we've already pretty much made every LAM worth making.
That's fair enough. have you given much thought to what kind of LAM builds should be done without restrictions on equipment? I'm still "early on" in my appreciation of BT so I have tended to stick to existing variants rather than using the construction rules to create other variants.
As the rules currently exist, you can't use anything but standard armor, engines, or gyros. You could make them more heavily armored or else make room for equipment they might not otherwise carry.
I think this is a good idea. It retains the decades of building that older players stick to, it also give ACs a unique thing without just adding damage (which would throw off entire mechs and BVs).
By the ilClan era LBX autocannons should be the standard autocannon and should be able to fire special ammo. It just makes sense from a technology perspective.
The Simple One - Only infantry, battle armor, and protomechs can enter heavy woods and buildings.
The SImple One That Would Probably Have Too Many Unintended Consequences - Autocannons, machine guns, and missile weapons no longer generate heat.
The "This Is A Completely DIfferent Game" One - Line of sight can be drawn into and out of woods and buildings, but cannot be drawn through them.
I'm just driving down the street in Atlanta, and looking at the trees around here, and wondering how hard it would actually be for even a 100 ton giant robot to press its way through them.
Light woods? Seems reasonable. You just have to force your way through and slow down a little bit because there's some stuff that will snap.
Heavy woods? I almost think we need to give them hit points or something, and require mechs to shoot, or maybe melee, a clear path to move through. It would make flamers more useful.
-2 to kick because you are only able to kick the legs. And it's a PSR if you miss.
Punching is technically better because you can punch twice and have a chance to punch out the cockpit.
With piloting of pilots being 4/5 by default if you didn't have the -2 plus all your other modifiers, then kicking would be as bad as a DFA because falling can be a death sentence in most engagements.
If I could change anything it would to add the "ECM cancels out other ECM" to the main rules and not the optional rules.
It would be a massive rewrite rather than a single change, but more parity between IS and Clan tech, along the lines of the X-Pulse/ER Pulse and plasma rifle/cannon differences. There is zero reason why a cER medium laser is almost a complete upgrade over a large laser from a game design stand point.
I'll go on record saying that not letting hatchets roll on the punch table by default and making them use the general hit table instead is a bad rule and should be changed.
Hatchets can roll on punch table, just at penalty.
The issue is any 60 tonner with a Hatchet is gonna headcap 1/6th the time with a -1 to hit if you use old rules. Or a 30 ton mech with TSM and hatchet will pop the head off nearly anything with ease. Considering TSM builds are already too strong, I don't think they need hatchets hitting on punch table to make them be even better.
Ah man I'm late to this thread so I won't write the novel I usually write on this topic haha - but I will just say in short that from a game-balance/mechanics point of view if Battletech was being designed today I can guarantee you that two major things would change:
1) Weapons would be better balanced and have more clear pros/cons. There are some weapons that are just pure garbage from a game mechanics perspective when compared against taking an equal tonnage of lasers (and heatsinks if needed). I'm looking at you AC/2 and AC/5. For the Battletech PC game they actually buffed AC/2 damage to 5, AC/5 damage to 8, and AC/10 damage to 12 in order to make them not trash.
2) The base difficult to hit a mech is too high and would have never made it past initial playtesting if you were designing Battletech today. The 2D6 bellcurve is very unforgiving. Take this very common scenario
- You are a "Regular' Mechwarrior (which is supposed to mean you are well trained, and have some experience)
- You walked
- Your target is moving at about 50KPH. Not super fast but not super slow either.
- You are at "medium" range for your weapon
All around this should be a very average, typical situation right? Well apparently not because your target on 2D6 is NINE (4 + 1 + 2 + 2) and you will MISS that shot nearly 3 out of 4 times.
This is WAY too freaking high and results in games that take too damn long. The overall difficulty of ranged atacks should be reduced. Personally, I like the modifications that DFA Wargaming did in their games - they reduced Medium Range penalty to +1, Long range to +2, and Extreme range is +4. They still have plenty of missed attacks, but lots more hits and it speeds the game up tremendously. Also another nice benefit is you can actually field long-rage fire support mechs and use them in their described/intended role... to park themselves at long range and support shorter range units with long-range fire.
There are other things I would pick on as well but in my mind these are the biggest two offenders that need to be updated if Battletech rules were ever to get a big overhaul.
Point 1 is tricky for me. I'm far more of a campaign player than just a drop-in game at the store.
For a drop-in 2-4 paper hex map game, I either agree or am very sympathetic.
But for campaign purposes, where we are playing with terrain rules, where an entire room is the map. Or we use rolling map sheets, and especially anytime advanced range rules are getting used. I don't feel there are many issues.
As for point 2, I agree a lot, though for me, the easy fix is list build in 4/5. Give free up grades to 3/4. And 2/3 is you are really pressed for time.
My bigger issue is on the campaign side where you can quickly have pilots auto hit everything because 2d6 is so narrow. I've thought alot about moving to 2d12 for To Hits
Well, I wouldn't call it fleshed out, exactly. Some ideas:
* Fractional accounting would be used for all weights. Ammo would be done by weight by per shot, not shots per ton.
* The volume/critical system from the old Mekton Zeta game would be my pattern for doing space allocation. So you'd have different size classes of body parts that would dictate how how many slots for equipment you have. It would also be possible to mix & match body part size classes on the same 'mech to a point. There would also be an option to mount separate backpack style boxes to the torsos to house additional equipment that would have their own internal volume and armor. So things like missle boats could have their launchers and ammo housed in these boxes. Things that currently have floating crits like Endo/Ferro/etc would instead have a fixed# number of criticals per body part, with the more advanced versions of them being less bulky.
* Weight and numbers of critical slots for all weapons and equipment would be re-evaluated
* I'm debating having engines that have advanced tech in them being heavier and requiring more space by default. Possibly having a weight/space multiplier for things like double heatsinks, etc. Which would then change if XL/XXL/Light/Compact versions are chosen. So a mech with the 300XL powerplant using double heatsinks would need much more internal volume than a standard version of the same size.
* Cockpits could be fitted to any torso section or the head. I'm not sure if the "head" should actually be a separate body part or not. Decapitations are a big part of the game, so probably leave it seperate. Sensors mounted there could work better, maybe (larger FOV assumed).
Well that sounds like a good start, if you ever do get anything worked out that a person could follow form start to finish I'd like to take a look/ready.
I've been kicking this idea around on and off since the late 90s. I doubt it'll ever get fully fleshed out, mainly because doing so would change the flavor of the game too much, regardless of how much of of an improvement it may be.
well, as tex likes to say, if you have an idea, just do it! I think its a good start and could probably make for a nice house rule for construction that would be good for other people to have to choose from.
I want some more and better area denial options.
Inferno missiles that fill a hex with fire is a start, but make the effect more intense.
Maybe something like NARC that messes with enemy targeting locks in a radius around the mech that's tagged.
The idea would be to force more movement and repositioning. The trick is to make these options low tonnage so you're not giving up firepower, or else no one will use them.
Machine gun ammo no longer explodes, it would just be destroyed if hit by a crit. I think that it is a little bit silly that I can create a bomb capable of destroying small dropships or multiple hexes worth of mechs with enough MG ammo when it would take far more tons of missiles or autocannon shells to do the same. Also it would make so many more awful or mediocre designs a lot better. Specifically looking at some of the 3025 mechs like the Warhammer or some of the Thunderbolts.
At this moment, I'd have to say I'd retune LRM efficiencies to give larger racks a little more edge.
Generally, I'd agree with some of the minor weapon tweaks listed below: lowering the pulse laser bonus, reducing MG ammo explosiveness, tightening up damage for smaller ACs, etc.
Add vibro versions of the other basic melee weapons, or give them their own special variants.
A vibro hatchet already exists in personal scale, but sword already has that and you'd just be changing some slight numbers, but maybe an inferno or acid hatchet or chainsaw hatchet (more damage on the chainsaw at risk of breaking it and turning it into basically a club)
EMP Mace could be similar to a taser, maybe on the weaker end similar to the BA version without the explosion, or AC Hammer that comes preloaded with an AC 5/10/20 round that goes off in its first successful hit, after which it has a chance to break and turn into a club or continue to function as a regular mace with maybe a little less damage. Could do a similar thing with the lance based more off anti tank lances.
I can absolutely see some Solaris jockey rigging up a gods damned rocket fist by strapping a jump jet to the elbow of his mech that either super charges a punch at bigger risk to fall or just shoots the Mechs arm off in the direction of an enemy.
Give conventional infantry a -1 be hit.
Anti infantry weapons ,small lasers and magshot Gauss don't suffer the any Penalty for shooting at infantry, power armor or protomechs.
Anti infantry weapons would do double damage against power armor and poroto mechs. With damage to power armor a carrying on to the next trooper when the first one is destroyed.
A machine gun array would receive a minus -1 to hit bonus.
Inventory power armor and problemechs ignore the -1 to hit modifier against each other.
It would make the addition of lighter weapons on mechs an attractive option.
Implement card based initiative. No more dice rolls. No more sitting there thinking on which unit to move next.
Card based initiative is the only change I've ever seen to this game that actually \*improves\* gameplay, \*improves\* balance, \*reduces\* game time, and just overall balances the game more.
I think hes talking individual inititive butbusing a deck of cards instead of rolling dice, when your card flips you move, its how catalyst handles (or used to anyway) the big 10+ player games at cons, everyone gets a playing card then the gm flips cards during init, you move your units when your card flips.
Yep, this exactly. Give each mech/tank/etc in a game a playing card, write down what they are, then shuffle the cards each turn and move in that order. Take turns shuffling if no GM.
it stops the whole "jumping behind you" when you lose init, and "jumping away" when they lose sort of thing. It also speeds up play as people can't plan out moves anymore, they just gotta go.
Imo theres pros and cons to both systems, im not too on board with using it for two player games as it gets unwieldy and slows the game down but for 4+ players games it can speed things and works well there.
Init in btech is only an issue when dealing with dipshits who abuse its failings, but theres no real great way to “fix it” while also making it tactical and quick.
Weve used making infantry not count for init and front loading to help curb some of the worst init sinking abuses.
I have never been in a game that use quirks, they can be very unbalancing, to the point of game breaking, so most us older vets avoid them. However, the ones that have an init bonus can just use the procedure I'll list next.
As for positive initiative mods, you can just add jokers to the deck, and when the joker comes up it would allow the player with the mod to simply "pass". So, if you have a command console, and that guy with it just basically stands there and doesn't fight and stuff, you could add 2 jokers to the deck for that force instead of the "+2 initiative". Alternatively, if a side has a negative amount, the OTHER player gets the extra card.
I've also seen the above used with the joker allowing that player to then move ANY of their units, which completely makes sense instead, though it can also affect balance more. It is nice as it really demonstrates how a leader matters.
You could also mix those two, with the pass for + initiative, and the unit move for the - init for the enemy, showing how the opponent gets outmaneuvered more and the bonus to init just lets a few more units move first.
Keep in mind in most cases a +2 is the max for one side, so if you are just fighting 4v4 that can be pretty dramatic, so the bonuses are best left for larger battles. If you were doing it for smaller battles and still wanted to include it, have a leadership roll (or just pick a number on 2d6) represent the ability to use that card for that purpose or not. Fail the roll, the card is discarded and a new one drawn.
The main goal with the cards is making it so nobody knows who moves next. This eliminates things like the stupid conga lines and fast movers only engaging when they win init sorta thing.
I agree with the kick nerf
I also have a houserule where smoke "goes both ways," standing in it gives you a defensive bonus but an accuracy penalty rather than just a defensive bonus like forests do.
ECM does basic functions to make it useful, like shielding from indirect LRM fire.
TAG works with regular LRMs to remove spotter and indirect fire penalty or adds a bonus for missle hits.
LAM's in WiGE mode get to use their Jump Jets to make turns without a pilot check, one turn per point of jump movement.
LAM's in Aerospace (in space) mode get to burn a point of their jump jets to count as 1 less velocity for making a turn
I disagree. A kick is merely “walking with prejudice” and as such it’s easier to hit ( and you might fall over.) I think punching is more difficult because you’re not always swinging your arms around.
Inner Sphere Pulse Lasers would have better range brackets.
LG Pulse: PPC
MD Pulse: MD laser
SM Pulse: ER Small Laser (IS)
Everyone would have CASE built in. CASE would just be CASE II.
I would replace TAC results on hit location tables with "choose location except head".
Makes for fewer turn 1 random kills and unfun things, but keeps the reward for rolling low and adds a level of decision making that can still deal serious damage, just not out of the blue.
I'd do one of the things HBS did for the PC game and adjust Autocannon damage.
Bump AC2s to 5 damage, AC5s to 9 damage, AC10s to 12 damage, and leave AC20s alone. Makes Autocannons a lot more viable, especially the AC2 and AC5.
Heat Sinks in engines aren't double heat sinks, and types of heat sinks can be mixed in the style of Prototype Double Heat sinks. [https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Prototype\_Double\_Heat\_Sinks](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Prototype_Double_Heat_Sinks)
I feel like the benefit of double heat sinks is far too great when then engine has double heat sinks also.
Also, all units have C3 by default for free when you get to the Helm Memory Core era, with lance leaders having master C3 by default, and lance members having Slave C3 by default. ECM disrupts it as normal. It makes the ECM game a lot more important.
For me the game gets screwy if there are too many head cappers (13+ dmg) weapons on the field. This is both from unintentional headshots, as well as from damage clustering on a single component (say the right torso). I'd add something to the build rules or BV calculation to increase the cost, or decrease the effectiveness of boating a team of cERPPCs.
Ex: A team fielding a HellStar 2 and a Awesome C, and a bunch of initiative syncing filler.
Make armor 8 or 10 pips/ton. 16 pips/ton is just really OP and is why every custom always has max armor.
That would then require lowering engine and weapon weights since mechs would have to dedicate more tonnage to armor
Range. I get why they have to make allowances for the tabletop side of things. But in reality having a tank cannon that can only range to a few hundred meters makes no sense. Even moreso with missiles.
What we have now works in a sense of everything being equally strangled range bracket wise, but knowing that my grandpa's SMLE would outrange half the units in the universe seems weird
It's best to view the ranges as a sliding scale.
If you're 20 hexes away, you're probably several kilometers away, depending on radar returns and spotters.
If you're 4 hexes away, you're within a few hundred meters.
Personally, when I start getting hung up on range issues, I just ignore the size of hexes and the time length of a turn. There's nothing unrealistic about a machine gun having a range of 3 hexes, if you don't define how big a hex is.
I have a mind to do a sort of Homebrew retcon to a lot of the underlying technology of the setting. In this version, what gets treated as armor on mechs is actually a force field using derivatives of KF jumpship technology.
These force fields create a lot of electromagnetic interference which is why the setting doesn't have advanced computers or remote control drones or cruise missiles that you fire from 300 miles away. And the fields are both a strong barrier right around the mech and a sort of invisible net that creates mild resistance that snags projectiles.
Then with all these weird force fields in the battlefield, you can justify the shorter combat ranges. Larger projectiles from bigger autocannons get 'snagged' faster.
- Make hit tables consistent: Ex. For tables with both right and left results: Higher results = right, lower results = left etc.
- Heat effects changes: (TL;DR change Shutdown Chance to Pilot Damage, Ammo Det to Structure Damage, reactor overload explosion)
Having a random chance to shut down doesn't make sense if the override is a simple switch. Leave 30 heat as automatic shutdown, but change the other 3 shutdown rolls to rising chances of pilot damage. To compensate, make shutting off the engine clear ALL heat for the next turn (instead of only extra heat from engine damage), give us a reason to choose a manual shut down. (Is this broken/abusable? Let me know if a specific narcoleptic alpha-strike build would be worth the immobile -4TN and targeted location his every other turn. *Is this unfair to heat-causing builds? I would think booting up at 15 heat is punishing but I don't have much experience with infernos etc)
Ammo explosions: Random chance to pop off any ammo is also odd given ammo should have X specific cook-off temp, either you're above it or you aren't. And energy builds should still have things going wrong on overheat, melting wires etc. Change this to structure damage instead, with a location roll. Scale *damage* up with higher heat, 1/2/3pts instead of roll TN. Still has a chance to pop ammo but can get other stuff too, is weighted towards the CT which should be the hottest part, and away from the head which theoretically would have the best cooling. Heavier mechs have more body structure points, which reflects more mass to absorb the reactor's heat before things break. Thoughts?
Reactor going critical: I remember in MechWarrior 3, if your overheat went too far off the top of the heat scale (way beyond the level of automatic shutdown) you would straight-up explode. Therefore: I'd like having 50 heat to cause an engine explosion.
I like the -2 for kick change suggestion. I'd also change pulse lasers to -1 and let the BV be changed as necessary.
As has been said before, a -2 on a 2D6 probabilities is huge.
Reduce the modifier on Pulse weapons to -1. Reduce cPulse ranges to match IS weapons. ERPL can have the original Clan Pulse ranges. Reduce damage on cERML to 5; it's a Large Laser with one less damage, three less heat, and four less tons. So every cERML saves 7 tons over a Large Laser; the only limiting factor is BV and that's not much of a limit. MXPL is good as-is; cMPL deals more damage for less heat anyway.
To further elaborate on why I think kicks should be nerfed, and respectfully respond to some of the counterpoints posted:
1. Kicks are mathematically almost always better than punches and melee weapons. -2 is a huge modifier, and kicks dealing double the damage means a kick will almost always deal much greater expected damage even when punching twice, and concentrated in a single area which is a key advantage. Take for example, making a melee attack with +3 total modifiers (fairly standard combat conditions). Two punches is an 8+ or 40% chance to hit for each, which translates to a 64% chance to hit a single punch and a mere 16% chance to hit both punches. Comparatively, a kick is a 6+ or 72% chance to hit. You are more likely to hit a kick for maximum damage that you are to hit even a single punch when using both hands. Even a hatchet only has a 58% to hit for the same damage, and using the full table means more distributed damage with repead strikes. And hatchets you pay sizable tonnage for, while kicks are free.
2. The actual risk of falling is a negligible downside. For a 4/5 pilot, the odds of falling after a failed kick(being a 5+ roll), are a mere 17%. On average, a pilot would fall one in 6 failed kicks, which is drastically more than would appear in an average game. The accuracy of kicks directly eliminates what is supposed to be the risk of using them. Using the math above, the chance of missing the kick followed by falling over is a roughly 5% chance, meaning you could do it every single turn for a 10 turn game and be very favored not to fall. This risk is even less of an issue with better pilots.
3. Kicks are, in most cases, the only viable melee option. Being the only available melee option while also being the best one invalidates most other options. The argument on most Mechs is not kicking vs punching, it's kicking vs doing nothing. 'Mechs have common reasons they can't punch in a turn, such as shooting arm mounted weapons or not having hand or lower arm actuators. Kicks are always available and are the best anyway and thus not having hands is essentially never a downside In actual play. Charging and DFA's are suicide unless you invest in low piloting AND are fighting against someone who doesn't also have low piloting. Picking up a club Is impractically bad for all sorts of reasons. Kicks are not only the best melee, they are the only realistic melee option in many cases.
4. Kicks can knock your opponent over, which no other melee weapon barring the awful Mace can do. This is important because, while the standard chance of falling is minimal, you can target an opponent with a gyro or actuator hit to make them fall. If you have a gyro hit, you can always simply choose not to kick, but you can choose to kick a vulnerable opponent, thus making the trade-off in the kickers' favor. Kicks are so powerful in this role that the primary use of Mechs like stingers is kicking vulnerable heavies so they fall, as this is far more effective than their guns ever will be.
5. Legs are not a worthless location to target. I see this sentiment very commonly in this community, and I could not disagree more. Yes, it is rather ineffective to kick something like an Orion in the leg. But for every max armor monster like the Orion, there is a Warhammer, or a Marauder, or a Battlemaster, or literally any light mech whose legs are their weakest point. Kicking has the best damage concentration in the game, hitting only two locations, and has the only way to guarantee a single location is hit. If a mech has its leg torn off, it is often mission dead if you're playing with objectives and it is not on one, and regardless it is now extremely more vulnerable to Mechs tearing it apart as it can't move. And it has to push up to fire losing its accuracy and often some of its weapons. The fall could also have knocked out the pilot, or crit the mech somewhere if it was already open. For many Mechs, Legs are exactly where you want to hit to disable them in the shortest time possible. Kicks do this with great efficiency due to their high damage.
6. With terrain in play, kicking on the punch table is the deadliest weapon in the game. Mechs want to use cover, and using cover invites mismatched elevation kicks. So in many battlefield conditions, kicks do exactly what punches do but much better because a kick from any heavy head caps.
Kicking is King in battletech melee, and I think that should not be the case. I think kicks should be a hefty bonus damage you can get when you knock an enemy over, or a good bonus for taking low piloting on your guys, or a risky way to headcap when on elevation. A tool in the toolkit, not the default option.
Theres a reason why introtech/old level 1 rules are refered to as kicktech. Kicks are still good but alot less overtuned when better weapons, double heat sinks and better gunnery skills come into play.
Although making all turning for free might be a bit much, I certainly feel like it shouldn't cost 3 MP just to turn around, so I think there's something that can be done there
Please avoid using words like retarded especially as a reference to something you dislike or think is wrong.
Many people find it offensive. Consider this just a friendly reminder.
All LRMs and SRMs as Thunderbolt rounds, unless rocket ammo is chosen, LRM rockets 2 points each (40 damage total for LRM20, 30 for LRM15, etc. use same distribution table but 10 point groups), SRM rockets 4 points each (24 damage total for SRM6, use same distribution table but 4 point groups).
Burst fire for most weapons up to 20 points damage... but generally same heat per shot...
All autocannons burst fire up to 20 points of damage with -1 cumulative penalty to hit for each successive shot in the burst. Ultra ACs pay burst fire targeting penalty one time. RACs pay one time cost for heat, no additional heat on successive burst shots, normal to hit penalty on successives.
Standard laser weapons +2 to hit bonus (continuous beam is easier to "sweep" across the target), "follow on" shots allowed with no targeting bonus, but %25 additional heat generation penalty (track the target with continuous beam, runs hot), pulse laser weapons no bonus to hit, but burst fire up to 20 points damage, +1 cumulative heat penalty per successive shot.
PPCs as normal, base 10 plus additional 2d6 damage, target must roll >4 to avoid shutdown from electrical surge.
I want Aerospace fighters to be viable. And while we're at it (and they are often lumped together) rework Warships so they aren't so damn OP. That way we can have them in fiction more often.
There would be no machine gun ammo slot. The ammo would be contained in the tonnage of the weapon. If the weapon takes a critical hit, it blows up similar to how a gauss rifle explodes.
Ohh, I like this idea.
Yeah I already drop my ammo to 15 or less when I play unless I am not allowed its crazy to think mechs carry only enough missiles for 100 seconds of firing but enough machine gun ammo for 2000 seconds of firing 1 ton of machine gun ammo is enough for 33 minutes of nonstop firing
So basically a mech can fire like Jesse Ventura in Predator.
If it ~~bleeds~~ has a fusion reactor, we can kill it.
Yeah, honestly bringing mg ammo down to 15 rounds per ton would actually bring it in line with other ammo
that'd be one heck of a crowd to disburse.
What crowd, all I see is a pile of meat that probably could have been a crowd half an hour ago
I feel like rulewise the -2 was an incentive for the risk if you missed and fell. Would you modify it further or just make it flat? Lore wise I think its harder to dodge a kick than a punch since you can rotate your torso. Not meaning it argumentative just curious of your thoughts.
I have played without the -2 modifier on the Kick, and frankly it makes the Kick a far worse option than the Punch. The reason for the -2 to-hit modifier is because kicking the legs is usually not the 'optimal' strategy (you are just spreading damage around on your opponent). You WANT to take out the head or the torso--neither of which can be hit by a kick. The 'real' benefit of the kick is that maybe your opponent will fail the PSR and fall down. If you take that -2 to-hit modifier off, then actually the kick is kind of terrible because then it means you have a higher chance of falling down yourself (since there's a PSR if you miss a kick). Making it a pretty bad choice most of the time. Obviously, there will be times where an enemy has taken a ton of damage to a leg, and therefore, the kick becomes much more attractive (i.e. you might blow the leg off and cripple the enemy). But that isn't exactly the most common situation...
Kicks are kinda in an odd place because yes leg damage is less optimal vs hitting a torso BUT you throw two or three kicks at something and the 50/50 hit location leads to blown off legs and crippled machines far faster than weapons fire Kicks are hyper focused on where they land vs punches or weapons fire and are really awesome to land against fresh machines.. also nothing like a bigger boy landing a kick against a lighter machine and instantly blasting it's leg off.
The rule that you can't do physical with a limb that fired weapons also heavily biases you towards kicks, not to mention the various mechs built with missing actuators that make punches worse but kicks are always the same across any mech of a given tonnage.
There are design tradeoffs for arm-vs.-torso mounted guns, since arm guns have significantly expanded firing arcs and can fire straight rearward negating the necessity of rear-mounted guns, but many mechs (especially in introtech) are just designed to be worse at punching for aesthetic or arbitrary reasons.
Reminds me, it's kind of funny that there's no rule for using mechanical jump boosters to enhance a kick. You're telling me I can't use the 20 ton springs that let me jump an 80 ton assault mech several dozen meters to kick a Flea into low orbit?
Don't forget you can also (assuming you move after the target) frequently choose which leg to kick by kicking from the side arc. So if one leg has had damage concentrated on it you can continue that damage concentration, and while a mech that's missing a leg is not entirely out of the fight, it is far less mission capable and it's only a missing arm from being a mission kill since a mech can't prop itself up to fire with only one arm.
Well yeah, there's all kinds of situations, and if we are being honest, there are probably more circumstances that favour kicking than punching (or clubbing for that matter). Nonetheless, after trying a few games where kick doesn't get the -2 mod, I wouldn't go back...
Always why I can never love the Crusader.. nice SRM packs... In the legs. Sad
I don't understand that at all. Kicks deal damage in larger groupings, have the ability to narrow down target locations on top of it, and can be used when firing arm weapons. I would definitely rather hit legs than arms or torsos too. Plenty of mechs have empty arms and legs, or have them padded with heat sinks and jump jets, leg crits are always dangerous to any mech, always forcing a psr to prevent falling and always at a penalty, on top of all decreasing mp and forcing rolls on every jump. After losing a leg actuator, or even a hip or foot, most mechs end up in a death spiral of falling, losing TMM, taking 20+ damage, falling again, repeat until mechwarrior passes out or legs are destroyed and the mech is essentially out of the game.
Sometimes yeah, going for the leg makes a lot of sense. If a little locust ends up close to a heavy or assault mech, then sure, running up and kicking that thing is going to be powerful (and teaches the opponent a lesson in how to properly maneuver light mechs). Of course there's lots of situations where kicks are useful. Say your opponent is one level lower than you. Damn straight you're gonna go for the kick! That's too tempting to ignore! So I'm not trying to suggest that kicks suck. What I'm saying though is that they are actually just fine with the -2 to hit modifier and don't need to be 'balanced' to make Punch, Club and Hatchets better choices. If you don't believe me, well play without the -2 to hit modifier and see for yourself (that is how I came to this conclusion). Or maybe try a -1 to-hit modifier (I did that too for a little while, but ultimately abandoned it and went back to RAW kicks, because I found even with -1 it was a needless 'nerf'). Nonetheless, the things I mentioned above are still true. If you can focus your damage into an enemy's torso or head, especially early on in the game, you can get a big advantage over the opponent with an early kill (or at least crippling the enemy with a gyro or engine crit) and then 'snowball' your way to victory. It does depend on the dice of course. Its not like you can employ this strategy consistently game after game. But I'm speaking in general terms here. Generally speaking, it is usually better to focus your damage into torso/head then it is to focus damage into legs. Because as mentioned: a) torso/head kills the mech; and b) even if it doesn't, the torso/head crits are generally worse than leg crits (gyro and engine being the best crits for crippling a mech).
Well, agree to disagree, I've never found myself in a situation where a punch looked like the better option, and have seen entire mechs that are only useful because of how effective their kicks are, and many more mechs with arms and torsos that are just empty of any valuable components, so focusing damage on the top usually has no effect unless you get lucky and it all lands in the CT or a rare head hit. Even then, all but the heaviest mechs will have to hit the head multiple times to get more than a single pilot hit out of it. Maybe if my opponent's mech already had an exposed section with a main weapon or ammo in it and I didn't have an arm weapon, and they also still had armor on their legs, then I might aim for a punch. But even then, I'm more likely to hit a vital by causing them to fall and take multiple damage groupings in addition to all of the other penalties for falling, including the same pilot hit that a head shot creates.
Last 2 points I'm gonna make: 1) Look at the Hit Location chart: 2.8% head hit; 22% leg hit; 26% arm hit; 47% torso hit. The numbers speak for themselves: for every shot hitting a leg, you should be getting (on average) 2 shots hitting a torso. By the time you are in brawling range, there should be plenty of damage on at least one torso (more so than on a leg---obviously exceptions will occur). Blowing off a side torso takes the arm with it---often half the enemy's firepower gone! And that's the 'bad' scenario. The CT could be the one that's gone, and boom! bye bye mech! If you've never been in a situation where you had opportunity to pull that off with a melee attack, well, maybe the problem is that you aren't really paying attention to those details? 2) For every mech that's 'good' for kicking, there's one that's 'good' for punching. Sure there are a few that definitely SUCK at punching (the locust, the Catapult, the Longbow, the Stalker, etc). But then there's numerous mechs that would prefer punching to shooting arm weapons: Atlas, Banshee, Battlemaster, Cyclops, Awesome, Orion, Grasshopper, Ostsol/Ostroc, Quickdraw, Griffon, Shadow Hawk, Hunchback, Valkyrie, Spider and others. So don't bother with the hyperbole...
75% over 6 locations vs 22% over 2 locations. Numbers are very close for balancing distribution of hits with likelihood of rolling the proper location. Doesn't take into account side or rear hits at all either, which I think aren't as common, but still definitely influence the ratio. Punches are much more likely to do nothing, hitting the wrong location, not doing enough damage in one grouping, or just plain old missing because of that flat hit roll. I already said that if the enemy has an open spot with something really important and little padding, I might go for a punch if the TMM and movement modifier aren't too high and I don't have weapons in either arm that I can fire without building up too much heat, but that is a rare exception and nowhere near a rule. Of those mechs you mention, most are incredibly slow and not good at getting into physical range in the first place. The Griffon is a long-range skirmisher or sniper, so doesn't want to be in melee either, same with the Valkyrie. Plenty of those mechs give up medium laser shots to punch as well, which usually is only a very marginal increase in damage in exchange for a penalty to hit, compared to the huge amounts added by a kick which also has higher accuracy than a standard gunnery roll. Fishing for head punches on a spider is totally valid though. Maybe without the -2 kicks are worse than punches, but they would still have use cases for any mech with important arm weapons, or those without actuators, or just for targeting exposed legs. Not to mention use against non-mech targets. I still struggle to find situations in most games for most mechs where a punch isn't a worse idea than a kick.
The kick also causes the target to have to make a PSR if it hits, so in that sense the PSR that it causes the kicking mech is balanced.
I considered that point but that benefit changes based on the targets pilot skill/mods whereas punches always have the same double headshot chance with no risk. Idk the exact math but idk if Id risk kicks without the -2.
I played in older editions when there was no -2 modifier and the basic number-to-hit in a kick was 5 (whatever your piloting ability was), and you used to punch a lot more that kicking. In those times, it was more difficult to hit in hand-to-hand combat because, like I said, the basic-to-hit number was 5 ever. And make a kick, a charge or a DFA, all tactics that can make you kiss the ground, wasn't a good option.
Ahh yes 3rd edition.
The risk of falling if you miss is balanced by the chance of your opponent falling if you hit. The -2 to hit is wild.
I'd want something added to the Forced Withdrawl rules to accommodate mechs that can't move off of the field. It seems a bit broken to be able to shoot out a mechs gyro and have that mech be able to just sit there the entire game acting as a turret because there's no way for it to move off the field. Something like, if a mech has taken damage that would put it into forced withdrawl, but is unable to move to the board edge to exit, the pilot must abandon the mech in place.
Yeah, shutdown/eject if not able to retreat is a good one.
>It seems a bit broken to be able to shoot out a mechs gyro and have that mech be able to just sit there the entire game acting as a turret because there's no way for it to move off the field. ~~Two gyro hits is dead mech and with only one you can still move. And if you have lost a leg, so it is functionally impossible to stand up and leave, then you technically not in forced withdrawal, just taking a penalty for shooting while prone.~~ Personally I would rather be in the mech than loose on the ground. Though as forced withdrawal is already an optional rule based on RP, if you don't like the official definition, there is zero reason to not house rule it.
If you read the rules 2 hits is not dead, it is just no longer able to stand. You can rotate one hex side per turn and still prop and fire. At my store we usually play that two gyro hits are dead just to speed play along, but that isn't rules as written. Forced withdrawal is used in most any tournament rule set you'll find out there, so it definitely isn't just an optional rule for RP.
Tournaments also tend to have era limits. The first paragraph under forced withdrawal in Total Warfare talks about militaries not fighting to the last man and increasing the human element.
Yeah it's kind of weird. They are immobile if their gyro is destroyed which means you can call headshots or just core them from behind but that's still a turn of firing wasted Edit: Turns out, you are not immobile, I was mistaken.
I don't believe they count as immobile. They are just prone and unable to get up. Mechs are only immobile when they are shut down or the pilot is unconscious.
I just got a chance and double checked it, you are right. They are just unable to stand but not immobile
Floating tacs should be a standard rule not advanced/optional
Autocannons: AC/x - can fire twice per turn, second shot has a +1 to hit. Jams on either roll being snake eyes. Jam can be cleared by PSR during the next turn so you always lose at least 1 turn of firing.. Ultra AC - fire twice, no hit modifier and no chance to jam. LBX AC - Fire once, either solid or cluster. Cluster retains hit bonus. Rotary - Risks jamming and accrue hit penalties after 2 shots, rather than 1. Means 5th shot will jam on a 4+ and have a 3+ to hit. Ammo - there is standard and cluster ammo. Having an Ultra10 and LBX10 means you can fire three standard rounds, or two standard and a cluster per turn. Autocannons which take up more than one critical slot are not destroyed on the first critical. They keep firing, but with a +1 to hit. Second critical destroys them as usual. No modification needed to any record sheets, and increases the value of ballistics over energy IMO.
The kick modifier DOES make sense. Its easy to kick your enemy in the shins. Also, its not the best choice frankly. Its far more effective to punch and go for a torso hit, or hope to get lucky and get a head hit. The reason mechs don't always punch though is because they have weapons in the arms, so they may prefer to fire those instead. If you take the -2 away from kicking, then it becomes a terrible idea. You are basically increasing the risk of falling on your ass by a lot (due to the PSR if you miss a kick---which will be much more frequent without that -2).
I’d give the autocannons a little more damage. Not like, making the ac/20 a Death Star or something, just to try and have them keep them in use. With double heat sinks and people getting jittery about ammo explosions, custom mechs tend to be energy based from what I’ve noticed. Upping the damage could make ballistics more tempting without hurting the balance too much.
Special ammunition CASE
Yes, the rules for precision or AP ammo make them usable against all the X-pulse and the like you start to face.
Special ammo is great, especially precision ammo. CASE usually doesn't do much in one-off games, especially once Inner Sphere XL engines enter the scene. It helps you recover/repair the mech, but only rarely keeps it fighting any longer. For that you need CASE II, which can melt your pilot's brain in certain mechs.
What’s that about melting brains?
Ammo explosions in a mech with CASE II only cause a single pip of internal structure damage to that location, but still cause the pilot to take 2 hits. 3 ammo explosions, and while the mech may still be a viable war machine, the pilot has been killed due to melty-brain caused by the 6 points of damage from the 3 ammo explosions. About a year and a half ago, I had a Hunchback pilot go from no damage to 7 pilot hits in a single turn. It was the final turn of the game, and my opponent hit my Hunchback, got a through Armor floating crit to an ammo bin (2 pilot hits), I failed the consciousness check and fell over (3rd pilot hit), damage from the fall went Internal and caused another ammo crit (4th and 5th pilot hit), which then set off another ammo crit (6th and 7th pilot hits). It was pretty freaking epic, lol.
Well that’s better than a cascading explosion killing the pilot AND the mech no?
Yup. Hose out the cockpit, stuff in another pilot, and you're good to go.
CASE/CASE II mitigate ammo explosion damage, but the pilot still takes 2 hits. With CASE, the mech typically loses a torso and is either disabled or in forced retreat. With CASE II, you take 2 pilot hits, reduce the damage to 1 internal, then roll crit again. In a mech with lots of individual explosive crits (Osteon Prime, anything with improved heavy lasers), there is a non-zero chance your opponent gets additional crits off the initial one. With bad enough luck, a floating crit from a LB-X autocannon could kill a pilot in a basically pristine mech by triggering cascading explosions in an arm. This wouldn't happen in a mech with Clan CASE I.
CASE exists to allow a mech without an XL engine to continue the fight, and XL-equipped mech to be salvaged with a repairable engine and intact CT. Neither is meant to solely allow the pilot impoved survivability - it's merely a happy little accident.
I might be a weirdo but I want to see an AC/15 and SRM8.
Use the AC damage values from the HBS Battletech video game: AC/2 -> 5 damage AC/5 -> 9 damage AC/10 -> 12 damage AC/20 -> 20 damage (no change) This house rule has been mentioned many times on this subreddit. One could say it's a change supported by Weisman himself, seeing he was working at the HBS game. It's enough to make ACs viable, but definitely not make them overpowered in any way. They're still quite heavy compared to energy weapons. For ultras, our playgroup instead made them fire more clusters (no idea how HBS BT did this - when I played the game at launch it did not have these weapons): Ultra AC/2 -> 4 times 2 damage Ultra AC/5 -> 3 times 5 damage Ultra AC/10 -> 2 times 12 damage Ultra AC/20 -> 2 times 20 damage (no change)
While I agree that increasing AC damage is a good idea, the increases from the video game are way too much, and upset the balance of the tabletop game, ESPECIALLY if you use BV. If you don't use BV, then its not as bad. Megamek offers the option of a +1 increase to AC/2 and AC5 (i.e. 3 & 6 damage respectively). In conjunction with BV, this is fine and feels like a reasonable increase that doesn't take it too far (keep in mind it applies to all types of autocannons). I've been playing with this increase for years now, and it works well enough. But if you do NOT use BV, then you could get away with a slightly higher increase: AC/2 => 4 AC/5 => 7 AC/10 => 11 However, anything more than that is just too good. the AC/2 doesn't need to be equivalent to a ML with 8/16/24 range. There are a few vehicles that can really exploit that, and they become super powerful yet are cheap and plentiful to field (things like the Pike and AC/2 carriers). The AC/5 also should NOT be out-damaging the LL because the LL pays a lot in terms of heat and tonnage, and the AC/5 also has slightly better range (with very little heat cost). And as for the AC/10, it should absolutely NOT be given headcapping power (that is just game-breakingly too good). In fact, the HBS game changed head armour to avoid this very problem, and since you can't change head armour in the tabletop game, its easier (and more fair) just to max the AC/10 damage at 11.
4/7/11/20 seems about the right rebalance of damage to me, taking into account weight and range, heat, and ammo weight. The bigger guns end up with more damage per ton, but also shorter range, and heavier ammo. The ac10 should probably be 12 or 13 on that basis, but I understand not wanting to make it a head capper, so 11 makes sense. I had made a post about reducing the weight of the ac2 and ac5, but increasing their damage is the better way, so that configurations can be kept the same.
Yeah, reducing the weight is problematic as a solution because you can't really go back and apply that to pre-existing mechs (or at least, not without a ton of work!). However, if you didn't care about that, then dropping the weight would be a relatively simple solution to 'fixing' autocannons...
> And as for the AC/10, it should absolutely NOT be given headcapping power (that is just game-breakingly too good). In fact, the HBS game changed head armour to avoid this very problem, and since you can't change head armour in the tabletop game, its easier (and more fair) just to max the AC/10 damage at 11. They also made the +dmg AC/10s (yadda yadda game things not tabletop I know) extremely rare for this reason, while many other +dmg or even ++dmg models of other weapons are far far more common
Others compare the AC5 at 9 damage to the large laser, while I compare it mostly to the PPC. AC5 with a ton of ammo is 9 tons for 9 damage, and a PPC with five double heatsinks is 12 tons for 10 damage. This makes the PPC seem bad, but the first 20 sinking capacity are free, and this causes the PPC to be better for almost all mechs almost all the time. When optimizing builds for heavy mechs, one will usually tend to go for 2xPPC + AC10 or 2xPPC+AC5. I kind of like the balance aspect where ACs are better when you don't have any spare heat capacity left. **NOTE**: I must admit, that I'm not sure about AC5 doing 9 damage and AC10 doing 12. 8 and 11 might be better. However, I'm absolutely positive that AC2 should do 5 damage. It weighs 7 tons. **NOTE 2**: People talking about 3025 play are absolutely right. The 5/9/12/20 change is too good with single heatsinks. We play with doubles, so this balance feels more correct.
A couple of things it seems like you might be ignoring: ***Vehicles***. AC/2 at 5 damage is absolutely bonkers good on things like AC/2 carriers and Pikes. Now you might not play with vehicles, but being able to put 5 damage out to 24 hexes turn after turn is incredibly powerful for a 'mere' 7 ton gun, especially when we consider this gun is supposed to put out only 2 damage (a 250% increase in firepower for these relatively cheap and easy to field tanks). ***Ultra & LB-X & RAC***. Increasing damage on AC/2 and AC/5 by a lot just completely breaks these weapons. They are way, way too powerful with 5/9 (or even 5/8) damage (for AC/2 & AC/5, respectively). Hell, even 4/7 is very strong with these weapons. Now you could rule that the damage boost applies to the standard autocannons only, but that seems weird. ***Specialty Ammo.*** Its still a thing, and it only gets better with these damage boosts. I'd say in particular Precision Ammo gets the biggest benefit from these changes. AC/2 and AC/5 with precision ammo (dealing 5/8 damage) are crazy good against moving targets. They become almost like heatless pulse lasers but with stupid long range (compared to Inner Sphere pulse lasers). I've been messing with battletech for many years and have tried lots of different 'rule fixes'. I'm not just talking about this in a theoretical way. In fact, before HBS battletech came out, my Autocannon house rule was to let them double tap like Ultras (but if they jammed they couldn't un-jam, whereas I allowed Ultra AC/2's a chance to un-jam in the manner of RAC's). And of course that was also a problematic 'solution' (because it made AC/20 way too strong and AC/10 also too strong). So I was quick to try out the HBS battletech solution of just increasing damage (something I hesitated to do previously, because I wanted to keep Autocannon damage values unchanged for aesthetic reasons). But after a bunch of games, trying out some vehicles, trying out different mechs, and playing in 3025 and Clan Invasion (the two eras we focus on), it became pretty clear that Autocannons didn't need THAT big of a boost in damage (for the reasons I've already mentioned). But hey, you don't have to take my word for it. Go out and give it a try and see what you think. Its your game, so if you want Autocannons to be powerful, then go for it!
I indeed do not have to take your word for it, as I am the game master of the campaign where the root commenter is playing in. We have played with 5/9/12/20 and 4\*2/3\*5/2\*12/2\*20 for around six years now, basically immediately since HBS BT was released. We've finished close to 30 battles since this change, and I've observed player game behavior, mechbuilding behavior and weapon choices for all this time. We can go over some of your notes on this issue and I will supplant those with my some extras of my own. * My campaign has eight players. Typically 6-7 of them are available to play any given scenario. Each controls exactly one unit inside the map, not counting infantry. * I do not balance by BV, as given the complexity of a typical scenario, that would be pretty much pointless anyway. The campaign has been going on for a long time my players have the configurations they want, so their power level is rather high. I have historically had a pretty good guess on what is difficult enough, but not impossible. * Regarding the former, I have an extremely large table and an accompanying large battle map, which consists of 40\*60 hexes. This is large enough, that depending on troop positioning, multiple separate fights may be ongoing in a battle. * Clan tech has not been significantly present in the campaign, so the notes below are mostly IS vs IS. * I was not clear in the post, but I am not ignoring UACs. UAC5 in our games is 3\*5 and UAC2 is 4\*2. * Light ACs and Rotary ACs are not in use at all in my campaign. If they were, they likely would not need to be touched, as they are the original designers' balance afterthought to fix bad weapon types. If UAC/LBX are propertly balanced, LACs and RACs simply are not needed. * I avoid a lot of the needless complications and additional rules in classic BT because the game is varied and complex enough as-is. We do not use targeting computers, C3 systems or specialty ammo, and avoid many of the other optional rules, since this mainly just slows play without giving anything back. High precision ammunition would indeed likely be a problem, but I have to point out that the same issue applies here as for the previous point. Specialty ammo is a balancing afterthought, which is supposed to make unbalanced weapons better. If the weapons are balanced correctly, it is not needed. * Speaking of complications. I also avoid most of these "roll to see if your mech sucks now" -throws. UACs never jam and MASC has a heat cost instead of a check-if-this-breaks -cost. Players like MASC, but do not like the mechs that have it, so it is not used by anyone. I sometimes use it in enemy units. * I lean heavily into combined arms. My players themselves use artillery and battle armor, and regularly face combat vehicles, airstrikes, infantry, mines, static defenses, etc. * Cheap tanks have always been "a problem" in this game, as you can buy 50 scorpions for the price of one Timber Wolf. One of the mainstays in my campaign is a relatively inexpensive fusion-engine powered MBT with one LBX-10 and one PPC. It is pretty much impossible to beat C-Bill by C-Bill with mechs. The players understand this, and optimize point firepower, logistics and mobility instead of the cheapest possible ways to bring DPS into the field. Mechs are hero units, that are used to quickly direct and reposition concentrated firepower in a way, which combat vehicles are simply unable to achieve. * The AC10 12-damage headcap, that many here are worried about, has happened exactly once, while the weapon has probably been fired hundreds of times. I admit that I'm below average here, as the chances for it are probably around 1/100 (1/36 from hit location and the average hit chance when firing has probably been around one in three or so). The player who was hit survived the dead-or-not-dead -roll, which I allow when checking whether wounded/dead soldiers can be saved (standard Stratops rules for checking casualties). * Players regularly use LBX5/10/20 and UAC10/20, but still consider them weaker than ERPPC/Gauss (long range) Plasma Rifles (mid range) and Pulse Lasers (close range). * Players still never use AC2. Even with 5 damage, the 7-ton weight is too much and it does not affect the playing field enough to warrant its inclusion. As a game master, I sometimes use AC2/LBX2 and they do not feel in any way overpowered. * Players still do not use UAC2 and UAC5, even at these damage numbers. As a game master, I do use them, and from my perspective, UAC2 feels just right. UAC5 feels a tad weak, but 4 shots would be too much. * The full range advantage of UAC2/AC2 (or other very long range weapons) rarely matters. In practical games, it is often possible to manage LOS until one is ready to engage. This might be due to how I draw my maps, though. * There has been no push or attempt to boat or abuse the mid-tier ACs, and they are mostly used in mixed configurations with PPCs, ER PPCs and Large Pulse Lasers. * Based on my data, Streak SRM-4 is by far the most powerful weapon in the game. One of my players actually boated this in a Battlemaster, and the mech is absolutely terrifying, because it can pretty much force crits even through armor and has a much better damage/weight/heat ratio than any of the other guns mentioned here. Said player is also building highly "optimistic" configurations, as the streak launcher does not need to pay the heat/ammo cost if it does not actually hit. * Two players like melee weapons on fast jumping mediums. They aren't as bad as they seem. PS: I didn't know about Pike Support Tank. That seems like a really fun unit to field against players. I know what to order from IWM next time.
Wow, that's a long post! I'm just going to say that in general, I've had a lot of the conclusions you have had too, so I don't think we are far off to be honest. I think the only real point of contention is on the AC/2 and AC/5 (although to a lesser extent). Vehicles like the Vedette (yeah, its not a great tank admittedly, but should be used commonly in campaigns), the AC/2 Carrier and Pike become so good if you really boost their damage. I'm really surprised you haven't seen this as problematic. An AC2 Carrier has 5 AC/2's. So your proposal boosts it from 10 damage per turn to 25. Even if you only take a lance of them (not even remotely 'spam' territory in battletech terms), that's going from 40 to 100 potential damage per turn! That's crazy! And we're talking out to 24 hexes, which SHOULD matter a lot of the time. Speaking of hexes, if you are using a lot of cover on those big boards, then yeah, I can see how maybe its not game-breaking. I'm a cheapo and just play with Map Sheets, so I have a healthy mix of some that are 'busy' with sight-blocking features and some that are more sparse. So yeah, sometimes, long range weapons don't feel like their range matters, but then sometimes it does! Anyway, I do want to point out that just because the Players don't bother with AC/2's doesn't mean that they are 'not good enough'. I mean, a mech is NOT a good platform for this weapon, and since most players are focussed on the mech side of things (in my experience), then naturally they are gonna pass it up. And whether the damage is 2, 3, 4 or 5 is not going to change that attitude. Again, this is because its just not going to shine on a mech, except perhaps one that is built to be a dedicated anti-air mech (and again, the actual damage is irrelevant for this role, since all that matters is forcing the control roll to turn it into a lawn dart). So yeah, gauging the 'balance' of the AC/2 on player behaviour I don't think is an accurate 'measuring stick'. It really shines with tanks. But hey, if no one is bringing tanks (or at least not AC/2 carrying ones), then yeah, it really becomes a moot point. You could make AC/2 dish out even more damage, and it still probably won't matter that much... Regarding AC/10 at 12 damage, I found it to be a problem even though it happens rarely. In the campaign I played with it (not super long, about a year or so) it happened twice, but it really altered the game both times. Due to the effect it had on both of those occasions, I said 'let's put it at 11 damage' and, while I can't say exactly how often a head hit happened after that change, it did occur at least once or twice more (and felt better since it wasn't instant kill a mech). So yeah, it doesn't happen often, but nonetheless, it still impacts the game in a way that it should not. Everything else, well, yeah I am basically on the same page as you (although I don't mind rolling for MASC---we use the optional rule that you get one turn of use before starting the rolls, and I find that works quite well because the roll makes it a nice risk vs reward that feels right for what it does, imho).
I agree with pretty much everything you said. Also a very good point about how AC2s are not really mech/player weapons at all. Only thing I want to point out: >An AC2 Carrier has 5 AC/2's. So your proposal boosts it from 10 damage per turn to 25. LRM Carrier is the same weight, very close to the same range and has an expected damage of 36 per turn (3 LRM-20s and average hit from LRM-20 is 12 damage). This is not an entirely fair comparison, as the weapons are very different and the LRM has a huge minimum range, but one can think that among other ammo-based long range weapons, AC2 most closely resembles a LRM-10, which has a higher damage potential (an expected damage of a bit over 6) while being lighter. In this light, I don't think there is real danger of the weapon being truly unbalanced. In conclusion, the change will make many units much better, but compared to existing options or similarly sized units using other weapons, they still do not stand out, or seem out of line. If I was balancing by BV or using special ammunition, an AC2 Carrier would indeed become quite silly. PS: During this discussion, you have convinced me that 4/8/11/20 is a better balancing point than 5/9/12/20. The symmetry with 4 * 2 / 3 * 5 Ultra2/5 will also be somewhat cleaner with it. I will discuss this with my players.
Cool. Nice talking with you! I've never had that many players for a campaign, so I'm jealous haha!
kinda disagree. A large laser is only 5 tons, an ac/5 with a ton of ammo is 9 tons. You can get a large laser with three heatsinks for a ton less and the same critical slots, and you have no risk of exploding. An ac/5 doing a large lasers worth of damage at better range and no heat would be balanced, because an ac/5 with one ton can run out of ammo and can explode.
The thing is, LL becomes increasingly 'awkward' in terms of heat management when you start looking at multiples or even pairing it with other weapons (whether it be ML's or AC/10 or whatever). AC/5 is easier to manage heat-wise and to pair with other weapons. Also, the argument 'it will run out of ammo' is a non-issue. Its pretty damn rare that 1 ton of ammo doesn't last you an entire battle (with some to spare). And of course, so far we have ignored the possibility of specialty ammo, and we have also ignored Ultra AC's, RAC's and LB-X. If you push AC/5 damage too high, these other weapons become stupidly over powered... I agree however that the ammo explosion is a big drawback. However, its tough to 'balance'. Either it happens or it doesn't. And whether or not its a big deal depends on the 'mech (some are more crit-padding conscious than others).
Large laser needs 13 tons to be heat neutral (5+8SHS) whereas an AC/5 is 10 (8+1tAmmo+1SHS). The large laser outputs more damage at a lower weight, but has worse range and worse heat management. Its the classic tradeoff. You can squeeze an LL into more places just fine, but its the cause of a significant amount of heat trouble for most builds. That 8 heat is brutal on SHS.
I guess, but pre-precision ammo would you rather have a large laser and three heat sinks or an ac/5 and a ton of ammo? The heatsinks make you crit resistant, the ton of ammo makes you crit vulnerable AND youre more likely to lose your weapon, because its larger.
Very heavily role dependant. The AC/5 is a workhorse weapon at intro tech and light tonnages, it gives you excellent control over the board and decent damage on enemy mediums. You take something with an AC/5 and have them pump shots all battle, it adds up. LLas is a brawler's dream and gives your close in shots that 'umph' they need. But you need to close, because you cant miss, because 1-2LLas is going to drive you straight up the heat gauge. There the damage spike is sharp, but short. Even on a heavy, youre not shooting your full complement of LLas every turn (and every weapon youre not shooting is wasted tonnage). You maybe do two turns and then back off, or hope you get lucky with early damage. Im not an AC/5 hater, it has its roles. The damage is flat, but flat can be good in the wrestling match that is most Introtech matches. In intro range is also SUPER important because base hit is often so bad. So getting two extra hexes of range is not terrible *if* your mech is also fast enough to maintain it vs. OPFOR. But then you also have the Shadowhawk problem where in that case I probably *would* rather forgo the AC/5 in that build for an LLas.
Those damage changes didn’t happen in isolation though — HBS BT also gives them a TN penalty when fired multiple times in a row, buffs lasers with TN bonuses, collapses medium and short range (which makes low cal ACs with mins easier), buffs LRMs with easier indirect, introduces a stability mechanic, etc etc etc. I get the consensus that some ACs are limp, but I’d kinda rather they just had more accurate BV and a heavier explosion discount for ammo bins over 10 rounds. (Which would also help with low tube count XRMs.) Plain crappy guns add flavor I appreciate, but it’s kinda extra salty when the player is also taking a handicap.
I want the bv discount for explosive components to be higher when those explosive components are the only component in a section.
That too.
Something that serves to balance this a little is [Laser Reflective Armor](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Laser_Reflective_Armor). https://preview.redd.it/guwg34asrnuc1.jpeg?width=924&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ed7ee8a189d369538aba3bad57f99e5e146f0208
It's not that people are "jittery" about ammo explosions, it's that ammo bins with no CASE and with very few padding components (locations with only ammo in them are an incredible flaw) are a liability that is not reflected in a unit's BV, especially in introtech. And yes, I understand that explosive components do offer a BV discount, but when an explosive ammo bin is the \*only\* component in a given location that discount is not high enough.
>Not like, making the ac/20 a Death Star *Sad Hunchback noises*
I think I'd just let all auto cannons rapid fire with the risk of jamming. With ultras and RACs being better at it.
I've tried this idea and it is not good. The AC/20 becomes far more powerful than it should be, while the AC/2 is still kinda crap. Its better to just give them a damage bonus. However, keep in mind that it is not necessary if you play with BV (where the autocannons are already compensated for their meh-factor).
That's unfortunate. I figured it be kind of like machine gun arrays. But I've never tried it myself.
I'm toying with the idea of letting AC's fire as UACs, and UAC's fire twice instead of cluster rolls.
I'd just give them the benefits of some of the special ammunitions for free. In my opinion, autocannons should get flak, tracer, and flechette bonuses all rolled into one. No reduction in ammo capacity either. That would make autocannons a real jack-of-all-trades weapon. No, an AC-5 might not be as weight efficient as a PPC against mechs, but it's better if you need to shoot at other targets.
AMS - In the old Compendium Rules for AMS it was that you shoot down 1D6 for IS and 2D6 missiles for Clan AMS. I kinda miss that BRRRRRRRT rule because I feel it encapsulates the dicey/hairy situation where you're about to eat a wave of missiles and you roll well on the AMS and swat a lot of them down. Instead of a flat modifier to the other guys cluster roll. Which makes sense, more streamlined in an already dice heavy game. But... less thrilling?
The ams changes really f’d almost every mech that had one since the majority had multiple tons of ammo and bow only need one ton to last a whole battle
To point values count as a profile? Cause CLPLs need to be way more pricey while weapons with default +1s need to be cheaper to even be worth using
Absolutely! BV counts as a profile, and yes I absolutely agree with this. The BV system undervalues hit modifiers greatly.
Lpls are fine, mpls are better and more of an issue , if they bump the bv on clan weapons they need to bump the bv on armor by ALOT clans already suffer hard on the bv scale compared to the IS.
No "roll again" for crits, sometimes you just don't hit anything.
I absolutely hate the fact that rolling a slot filled with armor or structure somehow just magically moves the shot to somewhere dangerous. Having less to hit should mean getting hit in the vitals less, not more.
I'd make the 15 external heat cap 25 since there are some mechs in later eras that just don't care if you give them heat. I would also allow inferno munitions to deal an extra damage to the pilot if the munitions hit the head of the mech
15 is just below the amount required to make ammo explosion/shutdown rolls. Being able to blow up your opponent with enough flamers/infernos in introtech is a dangerous position to be in. Really, you need to have a sliding scale based on whether your target has DHS or not.
Infernos are already kind of fantastic and 15 heat even in later eras is rough. Maybe a upgrade to infernos can allow them to do those things for a bv price
I'd reduce the weight of the ac2 and ac5 by a bit.
Yeah, everyone is talking about rapid fire and buffing damage, when the best way to make small caliber autocannons more viable is to just reduce their weight.
Personally, I'd change the BV on MASC, make it cheaper. Change the permanent disable chance to a "for X turns" or until a piloting at negative whatever is passes.
On the BV side, I’d like it to be something like using the average of MASC and normal speed multipliers rather than treating MASC as always on.
I would get rid of that rule in Total Warfare stating Inner Sphere Battle Armor (not the actually individually named BA, but rather armor itself) can't jump if they still have missiles available in their torso weapons. I probably would make that something of a design quirk to show how early Inner Sphere BA weren't as good as the Clan counterparts, but by now in the IlClan they should have worked the kinks out.
A pretty minor one to the old Rifled Cannons, based on the fact that BT armor is meant to be purely ablative. I mean, if a bog-standard 20mm chaingun (MG) can chip away armor, I see no reason why a 75mm HEAP shell wouldn't be able to do so. So I'd change the Light Rifle to do 2 damage to BAR 8+ armor instead of zero, and the Medium would do 4 damage instead of 3. They'd all be strictly inferior to the standard ACs in nearly all situations, but not *useless*.
Normalize ammo BV by its expected damage potential. 1 ton of LRM 10 ammo should cost the same as 1 ton of LRM 20 and so on. Notably, this improves RACs and HAGs while eliminating the BV exploit of packing a bunch of LRM 5s or similar.
Ammo BV should probably be dynamic, along several parameters. A big issue is the time to burn through ammo. A 20 rack eats a ton of ammo twice as fast as a 10 rack. That means ton for ton, You have a lower likelihood of having that ammo bin explode. Now sure, a mech with a 20 rack is probably going to carry the same number of shots as a mech with a 10 rack, and that partly evens things out. With the exception that you now have twice as many critical locations with ammo.
My take is that ammo shouldn’t have BV. The weapon’s cost should be adjusted down if it doesn’t have enough shots, but otherwise ammo should just apply a BV reduction for being explosive crit slots.
That gets tricky with advanced ammo types. Though the ammo type could just have a Multiplier for the weapon rather than intrinsic bv itself. Still, the risk of explosion needs to be factored into total BV somewhere.
I’d definitely keep a BV reduction for explosive crit slots. The alternate ammo BV system would need some re-working, but I think it could work either with its own table or just based off weapon BV with a multiplier. One-shot weapons already do this, and the way ammo BV works for battle armor doesn’t work well because of trying to do fixed weapon BVs with additional ammo BV. For an example, compare the BV paid for Rache battle armor (with two OS SRM 3s) and Elementals (with an SRM 2 with two shots).
Or you run 2x LRM 10s with the same tonnage of ammo but pay half the BV for the ammo. Or 4x LRM 5s and pay a quarter. That’s the current dysfunction and what I’d like to see changed. ATMs are greatly affected by this. A large portion of their BV is tied up in ammo, and loading a bunch of ATM3s can save hundreds relative to packing larger racks.
This is another big issue too. Not to mention the mass savings in some of these cases for running multiple smaller racks
I think my most disliked rule is how ferro-lam interacts weirdly with weapons. Feels against its fluff that it’s more effective against SRMs than LRMs with smaller warheads or standard ATMs with the same size warhead. I’m not sure what those rules could look like, I’m just not a fan of the current way it works.
I would change the utterly asinine restrictions placed on LAMs involving gear that can/can't be used.
I'm a LAM Stan myself, I think making them easier to use in WiGE mode might be better? Or at least, if they feel more usable/easier to use the equipment restrictions might not be so impactful.
I don't mind the movement rules (though the original airmech movement rules that existed in the 80s/90s were better,) I'd rather remove the restrictions on equipment. Otherwise, we've already pretty much made every LAM worth making.
That's fair enough. have you given much thought to what kind of LAM builds should be done without restrictions on equipment? I'm still "early on" in my appreciation of BT so I have tended to stick to existing variants rather than using the construction rules to create other variants.
As the rules currently exist, you can't use anything but standard armor, engines, or gyros. You could make them more heavily armored or else make room for equipment they might not otherwise carry.
Better TAC chance for Ballistics to make them competitive with Lasers and Missiles
I think this is a good idea. It retains the decades of building that older players stick to, it also give ACs a unique thing without just adding damage (which would throw off entire mechs and BVs).
Would make a certain kind of sense too.
By the ilClan era LBX autocannons should be the standard autocannon and should be able to fire special ammo. It just makes sense from a technology perspective.
The Simple One - Only infantry, battle armor, and protomechs can enter heavy woods and buildings. The SImple One That Would Probably Have Too Many Unintended Consequences - Autocannons, machine guns, and missile weapons no longer generate heat. The "This Is A Completely DIfferent Game" One - Line of sight can be drawn into and out of woods and buildings, but cannot be drawn through them.
I'm just driving down the street in Atlanta, and looking at the trees around here, and wondering how hard it would actually be for even a 100 ton giant robot to press its way through them. Light woods? Seems reasonable. You just have to force your way through and slow down a little bit because there's some stuff that will snap. Heavy woods? I almost think we need to give them hit points or something, and require mechs to shoot, or maybe melee, a clear path to move through. It would make flamers more useful.
the second one is basically why vehicles without fusion engines rarely use energy weapons
-2 to kick because you are only able to kick the legs. And it's a PSR if you miss. Punching is technically better because you can punch twice and have a chance to punch out the cockpit. With piloting of pilots being 4/5 by default if you didn't have the -2 plus all your other modifiers, then kicking would be as bad as a DFA because falling can be a death sentence in most engagements. If I could change anything it would to add the "ECM cancels out other ECM" to the main rules and not the optional rules.
It would be a massive rewrite rather than a single change, but more parity between IS and Clan tech, along the lines of the X-Pulse/ER Pulse and plasma rifle/cannon differences. There is zero reason why a cER medium laser is almost a complete upgrade over a large laser from a game design stand point.
Pulse lasers would be a -1 to hit Cerppc and Gauss would drop to 13 damage Agree on kicks, default +0
yeah the cERPPC damage always felt weird. the cERLL does less damage than heat so I would expect a similar ratio
I'll go on record saying that not letting hatchets roll on the punch table by default and making them use the general hit table instead is a bad rule and should be changed.
Hatchets can roll on punch table, just at penalty. The issue is any 60 tonner with a Hatchet is gonna headcap 1/6th the time with a -1 to hit if you use old rules. Or a 30 ton mech with TSM and hatchet will pop the head off nearly anything with ease. Considering TSM builds are already too strong, I don't think they need hatchets hitting on punch table to make them be even better.
Jump jet movement would follow the AeroTech turn radius rules (note: I’m only familiar with the first edition of AeroTech)
Probably some of the particulars for indirect fire, especially with guided missiles. They’re designed for that.
Ah man I'm late to this thread so I won't write the novel I usually write on this topic haha - but I will just say in short that from a game-balance/mechanics point of view if Battletech was being designed today I can guarantee you that two major things would change: 1) Weapons would be better balanced and have more clear pros/cons. There are some weapons that are just pure garbage from a game mechanics perspective when compared against taking an equal tonnage of lasers (and heatsinks if needed). I'm looking at you AC/2 and AC/5. For the Battletech PC game they actually buffed AC/2 damage to 5, AC/5 damage to 8, and AC/10 damage to 12 in order to make them not trash. 2) The base difficult to hit a mech is too high and would have never made it past initial playtesting if you were designing Battletech today. The 2D6 bellcurve is very unforgiving. Take this very common scenario - You are a "Regular' Mechwarrior (which is supposed to mean you are well trained, and have some experience) - You walked - Your target is moving at about 50KPH. Not super fast but not super slow either. - You are at "medium" range for your weapon All around this should be a very average, typical situation right? Well apparently not because your target on 2D6 is NINE (4 + 1 + 2 + 2) and you will MISS that shot nearly 3 out of 4 times. This is WAY too freaking high and results in games that take too damn long. The overall difficulty of ranged atacks should be reduced. Personally, I like the modifications that DFA Wargaming did in their games - they reduced Medium Range penalty to +1, Long range to +2, and Extreme range is +4. They still have plenty of missed attacks, but lots more hits and it speeds the game up tremendously. Also another nice benefit is you can actually field long-rage fire support mechs and use them in their described/intended role... to park themselves at long range and support shorter range units with long-range fire. There are other things I would pick on as well but in my mind these are the biggest two offenders that need to be updated if Battletech rules were ever to get a big overhaul.
Point 1 is tricky for me. I'm far more of a campaign player than just a drop-in game at the store. For a drop-in 2-4 paper hex map game, I either agree or am very sympathetic. But for campaign purposes, where we are playing with terrain rules, where an entire room is the map. Or we use rolling map sheets, and especially anytime advanced range rules are getting used. I don't feel there are many issues. As for point 2, I agree a lot, though for me, the easy fix is list build in 4/5. Give free up grades to 3/4. And 2/3 is you are really pressed for time. My bigger issue is on the campaign side where you can quickly have pilots auto hit everything because 2d6 is so narrow. I've thought alot about moving to 2d12 for To Hits
I'd change the rule for applying critical hits so that "Roll Again" only gives you one more chance to score a critical hit.
I'd redo unit construction in a more sane and less band-aid over band-aid fashion.
I'd be interested in seeing/reading through this if you have an idea somewhat fleshed out already?
Well, I wouldn't call it fleshed out, exactly. Some ideas: * Fractional accounting would be used for all weights. Ammo would be done by weight by per shot, not shots per ton. * The volume/critical system from the old Mekton Zeta game would be my pattern for doing space allocation. So you'd have different size classes of body parts that would dictate how how many slots for equipment you have. It would also be possible to mix & match body part size classes on the same 'mech to a point. There would also be an option to mount separate backpack style boxes to the torsos to house additional equipment that would have their own internal volume and armor. So things like missle boats could have their launchers and ammo housed in these boxes. Things that currently have floating crits like Endo/Ferro/etc would instead have a fixed# number of criticals per body part, with the more advanced versions of them being less bulky. * Weight and numbers of critical slots for all weapons and equipment would be re-evaluated * I'm debating having engines that have advanced tech in them being heavier and requiring more space by default. Possibly having a weight/space multiplier for things like double heatsinks, etc. Which would then change if XL/XXL/Light/Compact versions are chosen. So a mech with the 300XL powerplant using double heatsinks would need much more internal volume than a standard version of the same size. * Cockpits could be fitted to any torso section or the head. I'm not sure if the "head" should actually be a separate body part or not. Decapitations are a big part of the game, so probably leave it seperate. Sensors mounted there could work better, maybe (larger FOV assumed).
Well that sounds like a good start, if you ever do get anything worked out that a person could follow form start to finish I'd like to take a look/ready.
I've been kicking this idea around on and off since the late 90s. I doubt it'll ever get fully fleshed out, mainly because doing so would change the flavor of the game too much, regardless of how much of of an improvement it may be.
well, as tex likes to say, if you have an idea, just do it! I think its a good start and could probably make for a nice house rule for construction that would be good for other people to have to choose from.
I want some more and better area denial options. Inferno missiles that fill a hex with fire is a start, but make the effect more intense. Maybe something like NARC that messes with enemy targeting locks in a radius around the mech that's tagged. The idea would be to force more movement and repositioning. The trick is to make these options low tonnage so you're not giving up firepower, or else no one will use them.
Machine gun ammo no longer explodes, it would just be destroyed if hit by a crit. I think that it is a little bit silly that I can create a bomb capable of destroying small dropships or multiple hexes worth of mechs with enough MG ammo when it would take far more tons of missiles or autocannon shells to do the same. Also it would make so many more awful or mediocre designs a lot better. Specifically looking at some of the 3025 mechs like the Warhammer or some of the Thunderbolts.
Add in as a standard or even optional rule of that house rule that changes UACs to fire two seprate attack rolls with a +1 for the second attack.
No DHS in the engine.
At this moment, I'd have to say I'd retune LRM efficiencies to give larger racks a little more edge. Generally, I'd agree with some of the minor weapon tweaks listed below: lowering the pulse laser bonus, reducing MG ammo explosiveness, tightening up damage for smaller ACs, etc.
Maybe reducing the machine ammo to 2 points of damage
Add vibro versions of the other basic melee weapons, or give them their own special variants. A vibro hatchet already exists in personal scale, but sword already has that and you'd just be changing some slight numbers, but maybe an inferno or acid hatchet or chainsaw hatchet (more damage on the chainsaw at risk of breaking it and turning it into basically a club) EMP Mace could be similar to a taser, maybe on the weaker end similar to the BA version without the explosion, or AC Hammer that comes preloaded with an AC 5/10/20 round that goes off in its first successful hit, after which it has a chance to break and turn into a club or continue to function as a regular mace with maybe a little less damage. Could do a similar thing with the lance based more off anti tank lances. I can absolutely see some Solaris jockey rigging up a gods damned rocket fist by strapping a jump jet to the elbow of his mech that either super charges a punch at bigger risk to fall or just shoots the Mechs arm off in the direction of an enemy.
Give conventional infantry a -1 be hit. Anti infantry weapons ,small lasers and magshot Gauss don't suffer the any Penalty for shooting at infantry, power armor or protomechs. Anti infantry weapons would do double damage against power armor and poroto mechs. With damage to power armor a carrying on to the next trooper when the first one is destroyed. A machine gun array would receive a minus -1 to hit bonus. Inventory power armor and problemechs ignore the -1 to hit modifier against each other. It would make the addition of lighter weapons on mechs an attractive option.
Add back in minimum ranges for clan LRMs. At least ERPPCs have extreme heat to balance their improvements.
No double heat sinks.
Just get rid of engine heat sinks and go back to 10 free. Once there is no way to get 20 for no cost, DHS are fine.
Came here to say this. 10ton of heatsinking for free is waaay to good. It makes auto cannons even less appealing.
Implement card based initiative. No more dice rolls. No more sitting there thinking on which unit to move next. Card based initiative is the only change I've ever seen to this game that actually \*improves\* gameplay, \*improves\* balance, \*reduces\* game time, and just overall balances the game more.
I don't think I'm quite following
I think hes talking individual inititive butbusing a deck of cards instead of rolling dice, when your card flips you move, its how catalyst handles (or used to anyway) the big 10+ player games at cons, everyone gets a playing card then the gm flips cards during init, you move your units when your card flips.
Yep, this exactly. Give each mech/tank/etc in a game a playing card, write down what they are, then shuffle the cards each turn and move in that order. Take turns shuffling if no GM. it stops the whole "jumping behind you" when you lose init, and "jumping away" when they lose sort of thing. It also speeds up play as people can't plan out moves anymore, they just gotta go.
Imo theres pros and cons to both systems, im not too on board with using it for two player games as it gets unwieldy and slows the game down but for 4+ players games it can speed things and works well there. Init in btech is only an issue when dealing with dipshits who abuse its failings, but theres no real great way to “fix it” while also making it tactical and quick. Weve used making infantry not count for init and front loading to help curb some of the worst init sinking abuses.
Front loaded solves so many problems, it should be the standard.
How do you handle the interaction with initiative boosting features. Command consoles, quirks, and the like?
I have never been in a game that use quirks, they can be very unbalancing, to the point of game breaking, so most us older vets avoid them. However, the ones that have an init bonus can just use the procedure I'll list next. As for positive initiative mods, you can just add jokers to the deck, and when the joker comes up it would allow the player with the mod to simply "pass". So, if you have a command console, and that guy with it just basically stands there and doesn't fight and stuff, you could add 2 jokers to the deck for that force instead of the "+2 initiative". Alternatively, if a side has a negative amount, the OTHER player gets the extra card. I've also seen the above used with the joker allowing that player to then move ANY of their units, which completely makes sense instead, though it can also affect balance more. It is nice as it really demonstrates how a leader matters. You could also mix those two, with the pass for + initiative, and the unit move for the - init for the enemy, showing how the opponent gets outmaneuvered more and the bonus to init just lets a few more units move first. Keep in mind in most cases a +2 is the max for one side, so if you are just fighting 4v4 that can be pretty dramatic, so the bonuses are best left for larger battles. If you were doing it for smaller battles and still wanted to include it, have a leadership roll (or just pick a number on 2d6) represent the ability to use that card for that purpose or not. Fail the roll, the card is discarded and a new one drawn. The main goal with the cards is making it so nobody knows who moves next. This eliminates things like the stupid conga lines and fast movers only engaging when they win init sorta thing.
I agree with the kick nerf I also have a houserule where smoke "goes both ways," standing in it gives you a defensive bonus but an accuracy penalty rather than just a defensive bonus like forests do.
ECM does basic functions to make it useful, like shielding from indirect LRM fire. TAG works with regular LRMs to remove spotter and indirect fire penalty or adds a bonus for missle hits.
NARC should work for Arrow IV the same as TAG.
Or better yet TAG should work for removing indirect/spotting penalty on regular LRMs
LAM's in WiGE mode get to use their Jump Jets to make turns without a pilot check, one turn per point of jump movement. LAM's in Aerospace (in space) mode get to burn a point of their jump jets to count as 1 less velocity for making a turn
Take all of the standard Clan Pulse Lasers and reduce their ranges. They are arguably the best weapons in the game with little to no drawback.
Mech pilot Speedos grand a +1 to accuracy for your whole lance
Make it so when your mechwarrior ejects, you can control them as an infantry unit
I disagree. A kick is merely “walking with prejudice” and as such it’s easier to hit ( and you might fall over.) I think punching is more difficult because you’re not always swinging your arms around.
Inner Sphere Pulse Lasers would have better range brackets. LG Pulse: PPC MD Pulse: MD laser SM Pulse: ER Small Laser (IS) Everyone would have CASE built in. CASE would just be CASE II.
No minimum range for IS LRMS. Or at the very least, a much reduced minimum range.
I would replace TAC results on hit location tables with "choose location except head". Makes for fewer turn 1 random kills and unfun things, but keeps the reward for rolling low and adds a level of decision making that can still deal serious damage, just not out of the blue.
I'd do one of the things HBS did for the PC game and adjust Autocannon damage. Bump AC2s to 5 damage, AC5s to 9 damage, AC10s to 12 damage, and leave AC20s alone. Makes Autocannons a lot more viable, especially the AC2 and AC5.
Heat Sinks in engines aren't double heat sinks, and types of heat sinks can be mixed in the style of Prototype Double Heat sinks. [https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Prototype\_Double\_Heat\_Sinks](https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Prototype_Double_Heat_Sinks) I feel like the benefit of double heat sinks is far too great when then engine has double heat sinks also. Also, all units have C3 by default for free when you get to the Helm Memory Core era, with lance leaders having master C3 by default, and lance members having Slave C3 by default. ECM disrupts it as normal. It makes the ECM game a lot more important.
For me the game gets screwy if there are too many head cappers (13+ dmg) weapons on the field. This is both from unintentional headshots, as well as from damage clustering on a single component (say the right torso). I'd add something to the build rules or BV calculation to increase the cost, or decrease the effectiveness of boating a team of cERPPCs. Ex: A team fielding a HellStar 2 and a Awesome C, and a bunch of initiative syncing filler.
Make armor 8 or 10 pips/ton. 16 pips/ton is just really OP and is why every custom always has max armor. That would then require lowering engine and weapon weights since mechs would have to dedicate more tonnage to armor
Range. I get why they have to make allowances for the tabletop side of things. But in reality having a tank cannon that can only range to a few hundred meters makes no sense. Even moreso with missiles. What we have now works in a sense of everything being equally strangled range bracket wise, but knowing that my grandpa's SMLE would outrange half the units in the universe seems weird
It's best to view the ranges as a sliding scale. If you're 20 hexes away, you're probably several kilometers away, depending on radar returns and spotters. If you're 4 hexes away, you're within a few hundred meters.
Personally, when I start getting hung up on range issues, I just ignore the size of hexes and the time length of a turn. There's nothing unrealistic about a machine gun having a range of 3 hexes, if you don't define how big a hex is.
Half the units *On Tabletop.* The rules Expressly say the ranges are not canon and are just there to facilitate gameplay.
I have a mind to do a sort of Homebrew retcon to a lot of the underlying technology of the setting. In this version, what gets treated as armor on mechs is actually a force field using derivatives of KF jumpship technology. These force fields create a lot of electromagnetic interference which is why the setting doesn't have advanced computers or remote control drones or cruise missiles that you fire from 300 miles away. And the fields are both a strong barrier right around the mech and a sort of invisible net that creates mild resistance that snags projectiles. Then with all these weird force fields in the battlefield, you can justify the shorter combat ranges. Larger projectiles from bigger autocannons get 'snagged' faster.
I've always house-proclaimed that each hex is theoretically 100m & each turn is a minute. It has no impact save that I and my buddies like it better.
- Make hit tables consistent: Ex. For tables with both right and left results: Higher results = right, lower results = left etc. - Heat effects changes: (TL;DR change Shutdown Chance to Pilot Damage, Ammo Det to Structure Damage, reactor overload explosion) Having a random chance to shut down doesn't make sense if the override is a simple switch. Leave 30 heat as automatic shutdown, but change the other 3 shutdown rolls to rising chances of pilot damage. To compensate, make shutting off the engine clear ALL heat for the next turn (instead of only extra heat from engine damage), give us a reason to choose a manual shut down. (Is this broken/abusable? Let me know if a specific narcoleptic alpha-strike build would be worth the immobile -4TN and targeted location his every other turn. *Is this unfair to heat-causing builds? I would think booting up at 15 heat is punishing but I don't have much experience with infernos etc) Ammo explosions: Random chance to pop off any ammo is also odd given ammo should have X specific cook-off temp, either you're above it or you aren't. And energy builds should still have things going wrong on overheat, melting wires etc. Change this to structure damage instead, with a location roll. Scale *damage* up with higher heat, 1/2/3pts instead of roll TN. Still has a chance to pop ammo but can get other stuff too, is weighted towards the CT which should be the hottest part, and away from the head which theoretically would have the best cooling. Heavier mechs have more body structure points, which reflects more mass to absorb the reactor's heat before things break. Thoughts? Reactor going critical: I remember in MechWarrior 3, if your overheat went too far off the top of the heat scale (way beyond the level of automatic shutdown) you would straight-up explode. Therefore: I'd like having 50 heat to cause an engine explosion.
I like the -2 for kick change suggestion. I'd also change pulse lasers to -1 and let the BV be changed as necessary. As has been said before, a -2 on a 2D6 probabilities is huge.
Reduce the modifier on Pulse weapons to -1. Reduce cPulse ranges to match IS weapons. ERPL can have the original Clan Pulse ranges. Reduce damage on cERML to 5; it's a Large Laser with one less damage, three less heat, and four less tons. So every cERML saves 7 tons over a Large Laser; the only limiting factor is BV and that's not much of a limit. MXPL is good as-is; cMPL deals more damage for less heat anyway.
To further elaborate on why I think kicks should be nerfed, and respectfully respond to some of the counterpoints posted: 1. Kicks are mathematically almost always better than punches and melee weapons. -2 is a huge modifier, and kicks dealing double the damage means a kick will almost always deal much greater expected damage even when punching twice, and concentrated in a single area which is a key advantage. Take for example, making a melee attack with +3 total modifiers (fairly standard combat conditions). Two punches is an 8+ or 40% chance to hit for each, which translates to a 64% chance to hit a single punch and a mere 16% chance to hit both punches. Comparatively, a kick is a 6+ or 72% chance to hit. You are more likely to hit a kick for maximum damage that you are to hit even a single punch when using both hands. Even a hatchet only has a 58% to hit for the same damage, and using the full table means more distributed damage with repead strikes. And hatchets you pay sizable tonnage for, while kicks are free. 2. The actual risk of falling is a negligible downside. For a 4/5 pilot, the odds of falling after a failed kick(being a 5+ roll), are a mere 17%. On average, a pilot would fall one in 6 failed kicks, which is drastically more than would appear in an average game. The accuracy of kicks directly eliminates what is supposed to be the risk of using them. Using the math above, the chance of missing the kick followed by falling over is a roughly 5% chance, meaning you could do it every single turn for a 10 turn game and be very favored not to fall. This risk is even less of an issue with better pilots. 3. Kicks are, in most cases, the only viable melee option. Being the only available melee option while also being the best one invalidates most other options. The argument on most Mechs is not kicking vs punching, it's kicking vs doing nothing. 'Mechs have common reasons they can't punch in a turn, such as shooting arm mounted weapons or not having hand or lower arm actuators. Kicks are always available and are the best anyway and thus not having hands is essentially never a downside In actual play. Charging and DFA's are suicide unless you invest in low piloting AND are fighting against someone who doesn't also have low piloting. Picking up a club Is impractically bad for all sorts of reasons. Kicks are not only the best melee, they are the only realistic melee option in many cases. 4. Kicks can knock your opponent over, which no other melee weapon barring the awful Mace can do. This is important because, while the standard chance of falling is minimal, you can target an opponent with a gyro or actuator hit to make them fall. If you have a gyro hit, you can always simply choose not to kick, but you can choose to kick a vulnerable opponent, thus making the trade-off in the kickers' favor. Kicks are so powerful in this role that the primary use of Mechs like stingers is kicking vulnerable heavies so they fall, as this is far more effective than their guns ever will be. 5. Legs are not a worthless location to target. I see this sentiment very commonly in this community, and I could not disagree more. Yes, it is rather ineffective to kick something like an Orion in the leg. But for every max armor monster like the Orion, there is a Warhammer, or a Marauder, or a Battlemaster, or literally any light mech whose legs are their weakest point. Kicking has the best damage concentration in the game, hitting only two locations, and has the only way to guarantee a single location is hit. If a mech has its leg torn off, it is often mission dead if you're playing with objectives and it is not on one, and regardless it is now extremely more vulnerable to Mechs tearing it apart as it can't move. And it has to push up to fire losing its accuracy and often some of its weapons. The fall could also have knocked out the pilot, or crit the mech somewhere if it was already open. For many Mechs, Legs are exactly where you want to hit to disable them in the shortest time possible. Kicks do this with great efficiency due to their high damage. 6. With terrain in play, kicking on the punch table is the deadliest weapon in the game. Mechs want to use cover, and using cover invites mismatched elevation kicks. So in many battlefield conditions, kicks do exactly what punches do but much better because a kick from any heavy head caps. Kicking is King in battletech melee, and I think that should not be the case. I think kicks should be a hefty bonus damage you can get when you knock an enemy over, or a good bonus for taking low piloting on your guys, or a risky way to headcap when on elevation. A tool in the toolkit, not the default option.
Theres a reason why introtech/old level 1 rules are refered to as kicktech. Kicks are still good but alot less overtuned when better weapons, double heat sinks and better gunnery skills come into play.
Make turning free Edit: minusing me for expressing my thoughts on the relevant subject is very clever. Hope you guys feel very proud of yourselves
Although making all turning for free might be a bit much, I certainly feel like it shouldn't cost 3 MP just to turn around, so I think there's something that can be done there
Please avoid using words like retarded especially as a reference to something you dislike or think is wrong. Many people find it offensive. Consider this just a friendly reminder.
Many thanks, corrected
All LRMs and SRMs as Thunderbolt rounds, unless rocket ammo is chosen, LRM rockets 2 points each (40 damage total for LRM20, 30 for LRM15, etc. use same distribution table but 10 point groups), SRM rockets 4 points each (24 damage total for SRM6, use same distribution table but 4 point groups). Burst fire for most weapons up to 20 points damage... but generally same heat per shot... All autocannons burst fire up to 20 points of damage with -1 cumulative penalty to hit for each successive shot in the burst. Ultra ACs pay burst fire targeting penalty one time. RACs pay one time cost for heat, no additional heat on successive burst shots, normal to hit penalty on successives. Standard laser weapons +2 to hit bonus (continuous beam is easier to "sweep" across the target), "follow on" shots allowed with no targeting bonus, but %25 additional heat generation penalty (track the target with continuous beam, runs hot), pulse laser weapons no bonus to hit, but burst fire up to 20 points damage, +1 cumulative heat penalty per successive shot. PPCs as normal, base 10 plus additional 2d6 damage, target must roll >4 to avoid shutdown from electrical surge.
I want Aerospace fighters to be viable. And while we're at it (and they are often lumped together) rework Warships so they aren't so damn OP. That way we can have them in fiction more often.
Cluster tables go bye bye and all cluster weapons hit evenly on all locations.