Author Topic: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X  (Read 18611 times)

Hellraiser

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #30 on: 21 January 2018, 12:41:49 »
Ok, I've pretty much accepted that the IS LB 10-X is one of the best guns in the entire game when you're looking for the main gun for an Inner Sphere tank, but I've heard that the Clan version isn't held in the same regard. Why is this weapon system considered so good in one tech base, and not the other?

As JHB & Kidd stated.
Its not that it isn't a nice gun, its just not an "Uber" improvement over the IS model, that's all really, it lacks "Clan Wow!" factor.


  But yet I can't think of a single Clan 'Mech, standard or Omni, where it's mounted on what I would call a favorite variant or configuration. Ultra 10s, sure, but not LBX.

I think there is a KitFox modeled after the original A variant that used the LB10 w/ 2 MPL that is a solid design but its hard to get past using, you know, a KitFox.
That said I like it as a more accurate version of the A.  Still not my favorites though which are the JJ models (S&E).

As for being a "favorite" configuration......hmm...... The Warhawk-A is my favorite for its BV economy so that one qualifies.
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Demiurge

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #31 on: 31 January 2018, 17:33:00 »
I'd start with wondering who came up with the introductory weapons in the first place.
You know, the basic AC/5 vs PPC. Medium laser stats (really, the thing is one of the best weapons in the game still). MG ammo. Flamer compared to MGs and small lasers (it didn't generate heat back then, and even now that is merely an option). Stuff like that.


It's really amazing that this game has never had a 2nd edition.  Not like the minor rules touch-ups in Total Warfare.  I mean like, a total revamp the way WOTC does for their pet franchises.

Because let's be honest here; there's a lot that's clunky and unbalanced, and the only thing that makes the game work are a bunch of unspoken gentlemen's agreements that nobody is going to be obnoxious and bring too many cluster table weapons that bog the game down or too many clan pulse lasers or whatever.

Empyrus

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #32 on: 31 January 2018, 21:50:38 »

It's really amazing that this game has never had a 2nd edition.  Not like the minor rules touch-ups in Total Warfare.  I mean like, a total revamp the way WOTC does for their pet franchises.

Because let's be honest here; there's a lot that's clunky and unbalanced, and the only thing that makes the game work are a bunch of unspoken gentlemen's agreements that nobody is going to be obnoxious and bring too many cluster table weapons that bog the game down or too many clan pulse lasers or whatever.
It is rather odd considering that most tabletop games do tend to get refreshed editions. BT is an oddity in that.
Amusing too. Consider: There are people who still want to play old editions of DnD and Warhammer and whatever else, or even create retro-like editions/house rules. BattleTech? Eh, it is the same old, in good and bad. Met someone in the summer who was surprised to see BattleTech being played, and was highly interested to hear the game was more or less as he remembered it.

It is possible back in the FASA days, they didn't really think it to be worth it: Keep people happy by having maximum compatibility. I mean, every single time there's a new DnD (or Warhammer or whatever) edition, people do freak out.
Alternatively, perhaps FASA didn't think BT would really retain its popularity long enough to bother with such an idea. Just pump out expansion materials until people stop buying them, and then forget about it. Honestly think this was the most likely reason.
Or perhaps they never figured out HOW, while keeping the game simulation-like. I've thought about various ideas but they really need some heavy-duty reworking for the game, if not ground-up rebuilding it. Not a simple task by any means, depending on what kind of limits one places for a revamped edition.

As for post-FASA eras, reworking the system was probably off the table for financial and perhaps even licensing issues (while MWDA existed, reworking BT probably could've been seen as competition). It just wouldn't be cost effective to redo everything. Or at least it would be highly risky, if old people would quit over having to rebuy all their 'Mech books, new people would have to be found in sufficient numbers... yet if that would fail, it would be the end.

Radical changes to BT aren't exactly welcomed though. MWDA was immensely popular at its high though its nature didn't lend to a long-term game, but regardless of that, it was highly divisive among old-school fans. I can't say if Alpha Strike is popular or not but it certainly is divisive at times as well.
Personally i would not have any trouble with radical reworking as long as the game stays simulation-like (Alpha Strike is too abstracted for my tastes). Market research probably ignores people like me though.

Hellraiser

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #33 on: 31 January 2018, 23:30:44 »

It's really amazing that this game has never had a 2nd edition.  Not like the minor rules touch-ups in Total Warfare.  I mean like, a total revamp the way WOTC does for their pet franchises.

Because let's be honest here; there's a lot that's clunky and unbalanced, and the only thing that makes the game work are a bunch of unspoken gentlemen's agreements that nobody is going to be obnoxious and bring too many cluster table weapons that bog the game down or too many clan pulse lasers or whatever.

As someone who finds the way 40K or D&D have had 1/2 dozen-ish editions in the last 20 years, to be really annoying & a blatant grab to suck up our $$, I'm thrilled that BT has stayed pretty much the same.


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Scotty

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #34 on: 01 February 2018, 00:48:13 »
Today I learned that improving a product is a blatant cash grab.

D&D 2.0 was better than AD&D.  3.0 was better than 2.0.  3.5 was better than 3.0.  5th edition is better than 3.5 (we don't talk about 4th edition).  Warhammer 8th edition is staggeringly better than 7th edition.  They practically rewrote half the rules from the ground up, and it shows in better gameplay.

I'd pay an extra $40 every few years in a heartbeat if it meant the rules were actually getting better.
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Kidd

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #35 on: 01 February 2018, 03:27:47 »
Might it be argued that Total Warfare is, in some ways, a Classic Battletech 2.0? Just one with 90% similarities that is...

Empyrus

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #36 on: 01 February 2018, 10:28:53 »
Might it be argued that Total Warfare is, in some ways, a Classic Battletech 2.0? Just one with 90% similarities that is...

TW/BMM compared to earlier BT is perhaps a bit less than DnD 3.0 to 3.5. Mostly same but some stuff fixed.

Demiurge

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #37 on: 01 February 2018, 15:13:37 »
As someone who finds the way 40K or D&D have had 1/2 dozen-ish editions in the last 20 years, to be really annoying & a blatant grab to suck up our $$, I'm thrilled that BT has stayed pretty much the same.


I'd pay an extra $40 every few years in a heartbeat if it meant the rules were actually getting better.

I think you can have updates that are blatant cash grabs and updates that are not.  I think you can also fail to update a game enough to keep it competitive.

Total Warfare had a noble goal; smooth out Battletech, streamline some of the rules, and put all the essential rules into a single book so that a GM wouldn't need a giant stack of books to keep everything straight all while keeping nearly 100% backwards compatibility with previously published material.

This worked pretty well, but that was more than a decade ago.  A GM can keep track of all the rules, unless the players want to play the new material, in which case they need Total Warfare and one of the new sourcebooks to tell them how all the fancy new toys work.  This is clearly a problem, otherwise we wouldn't keep having threads on this very forum titled things like "Hey, I am getting back into the game because I played it a lot when I was stationed in Germany waiting for Ivan to roll through the Fulda Gap, and WTF are variable-speed pulse lasers and improved jump jets?!"

Meanwhile, Heavy Metal Pro is advertised on a website so embarrassingly web 1.0 that it's being picked over by archaeologists, and there is still no officially supported computer port of the game.

Oh, and we still have A-pods, MGs still have four times the ammo efficiency of autocannons, the most heavily armored portion of a mech is the only one that can randomly be penetrated before the armor is stripped off, ultra and rotary autocannons can both jam, but the unjamming rules are different, and clan energy weapons are so much better than everything else it's unclear if they were originally intended for this game system or not.  There's a lot that could be done to improve matters.

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #38 on: 02 February 2018, 07:41:00 »
Most certainly, a new "edition" with improved rules could be very beneficial to the game. If it didn't change the construction rules, maybe with rare exceptions, it would actually be backwards-compatible with all previous publications that didn't fall into those exceptions.
However, doing that well would certainly involve some risk - not necessarily from people being upset, I doubt battletech lends itself to drastic changes in function, but due to a proper, gentle rework requiring lots of thought - it costs time and money, and then plenty of people would actually have to buy it.
... I doubt that'll ever happen just because we discuss it in a thread about a weapon.^^

Speaking of comparing it to a HAG; the HAG20 compares somewhat unfavourably to the LRM 20, which is a weapon you could also use instead of an lbx if you're only out for more than one crit while doing some damage.
I believe LBX weapons will always have their niche, and it being a niche is probably the reason the IS is better at it.
To not entirely drop the "Battletech 2.0" discussion, how could we streamline the usage of LBX when not using megamek?
Handle it as clusters scaling with amount of pellets, then get crit bonuses?
In megamek, I've found clusterspam outright dangerous in the few games I played, but it's probably more dangerous for your health if you do it analogue.
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Hellraiser

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #39 on: 02 February 2018, 22:41:47 »
Today I learned that improving a product is a blatant cash grab.

D&D 2.0 was better than AD&D.  3.0 was better than 2.0.  3.5 was better than 3.0.  5th edition is better than 3.5 (we don't talk about 4th edition).  Warhammer 8th edition is staggeringly better than 7th edition.  They practically rewrote half the rules from the ground up, and it shows in better gameplay.

I'd pay an extra $40 every few years in a heartbeat if it meant the rules were actually getting better.

Clearly we have different ideas on "better", or perhaps how much better it needs to be to make a new version vs errata.

We also have different ideas on what a new edition costs for either of the games I mentioned because I'm positive I paid loads more than $40. 
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Scotty

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #40 on: 02 February 2018, 23:48:10 »
An 8th edition codex is $40.  D&D 5th edition Player Handbook is $50.

Since every single model I owned in 7th edition still has rules in 8th, that seems to be the cost of upgrading the edition.  Since you only actually need the PHB to play 5th edition, that's the cost of upgrading the edition.

Everything else you buy is part of playing the game, and that doesn't change whether it's 40K or BattleTech or Heavy Gear.
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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #41 on: 05 February 2018, 09:53:32 »
[ unsubtle hint ]Hey, how 'bout them clusterguns? [/ unsubtle hint ] [copper]
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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #42 on: 05 February 2018, 11:23:04 »
I am thinking that as said before, the main issue with ballistic weapons and the Clans was that they we good but not the really good that you had with energy and missiles. Why take an UAC/x when it could jam or the LBX that is still heavy and critical using. ERPPC, ERML, LRM/x are all just better.

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #43 on: 05 February 2018, 16:27:57 »
Clans can use SRMS for crits. Poke the enemy with energy weapons first, then swoop in and fill the holes with SRMs.
I mean, Clan SRMs are pretty damn good. Consider the SRM-6: 1.5 tons, up to 12 damage, average 8, low heat, 9 hex range.
One can easily replace a LB-10X with bunch of SRMs, heat sinks and medium lasers. Maybe include a supercharger or MASC.
« Last Edit: 05 February 2018, 16:30:33 by Empyrus »

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #44 on: 05 February 2018, 23:19:54 »
Compare that to an IS LB-10X where there are multiple weapon systems that range out at 18 hexes.

Yep, LB-10X/heavy PPC is one of the best weapon combos for the IS.

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JadeHellbringer

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #45 on: 05 February 2018, 23:22:14 »
Clans can use SRMS for crits. Poke the enemy with energy weapons first, then swoop in and fill the holes with SRMs.
I mean, Clan SRMs are pretty damn good. Consider the SRM-6: 1.5 tons, up to 12 damage, average 8, low heat, 9 hex range.
One can easily replace a LB-10X with bunch of SRMs, heat sinks and medium lasers. Maybe include a supercharger or MASC.

While that's technically correct ("The best kind of correct!"), there's a few holes to poke in the theory.

+First, the range factor. An SRM ranges out to 9 hexes max (12 for Streaks). An LB-10X, however, has considerably greater reach- which not only means a longer MAXIMUM range, but longer ranges for the medium and short range brackets. That's never a small consideration, particularly in the kind of fast-moving and wild fights that Clan warfare tend to become. Speed is a double-edged sword in a situation like this- while it's true that the range disadvantage of an SRM can be made up for on a fast-moving strike platform that can dash in quickly to deliver the missiles (Dasher Prime, Arctic Wolf, etc.), just as relevant is a quick unit with an LB that can use its speed to keep moving back and hold that range advantage longer (Ryoken C is a great example of that setup).

+Another factor is that while SRMs work fine for the job once in range to do so, an LB-10X (or HAG) get easier shots on aircraft than other weapons. That's not really a factor in many tabletop environments, but in actual warfare keeping someone from bombing you into the stone age is pretty important. The one time you get aerospace fighters overhead from a smart opponent and you don't have something handy to get rid of those planes, you'll regret it. (I still feel ill thinking about my experience dealing with a couple of angry Corsairs- my poor Falcons didn't have a good day, and the only Mech I had that was able to shoot back with decent numbers was a Kit Fox B- and its LB-10X!)

Look, I'll never say SRMs suck. They've been my go-to weapon since my earliest days of Battletech thanks to their light weight, utility, and power. But just because both weapons crit-seek doesn't mean one is clearly the better choice over the other- after all, if the LB is hitting two turns before the SRMs are in range, that's two turns in which one has a distinct advantage over the other- one that could even end the battle before an SRM even fires.
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Empyrus

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #46 on: 06 February 2018, 12:53:36 »
For AA work i'm inclined to use LB-5Xs or HAGs. The former offers even better range and is lighter, while the latter offers more range and has more raw damage. LB-10X works for sure, but it is not my prime choice.
Amusingly, the LB-10X is the perfect example of a generalist weapon: Jack of all trades but master of none. Unfortunately the Clan tech advantage makes such generalist weapons less valuable, it is quite possible to pack multiple specialist weapons for given weight.

I will grant you that LB-10X has range advantage over SRMs.
But my theory is based on a sufficient fast and mobile 'Mech long/short bracketed weapons and sufficient armor it can shrug off enemy hits while closing in for the kill.

I'm not much of a Clanner to be honest. My next step would be to go melee and pummel the enemy to death if it is still standing. It is not enough to shoot an enemy to death from distance, let's make it personal and do it where i can see the face of my enemy.
(If we go for distance, i'm inclined just to level everything with artillery or ortillery. I am both very pragmatic and bloodthirsty. Not exactly a good combination in my experience.)

Kidd

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #47 on: 06 February 2018, 13:36:37 »
What if Clan LBXs got a cluster roll bonus? Say +2.

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #48 on: 06 February 2018, 14:07:17 »
What if Clan LBXs got a cluster roll bonus? Say +2.
This would increase average hits to 8. That might work, at least within the context of Clan technology. Agains Inner Sphere tech... well, i guess it wouldn't change that much given the Clan tech is already so much better in general.
OTOH, it would make other Clan ballistics a bit worse perhaps. While this thread is specifically about the Clan LB-10X, in truth nearly all Clan ballistics suffer when compared to their missile and energy weapons.

The Clan Ultras could be tweaked likewise with no major issues, perhaps. Though Ultra-20 with two hits probable would be pretty damn terrifying.
One can argue the Clan Gauss Rifle's advantage is its low heat, meaning it can be paired with other weapons easily unlike the Clan ERPPC. But what about when the options are Ultra/10 that probably hits for 20 points total and doesn't produce much heat either?
Of course, if Ultras are not tweaked, LB-types are easily far more favored, as if they weren't already.

This is just theory, maybe it works in practice even though on paper it might have awkward effects.
« Last Edit: 06 February 2018, 14:09:07 by Empyrus »

Rage

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #49 on: 06 February 2018, 22:08:41 »
Massed SRMs in place of the LB-10X are only useful if it's on something stupid fast to be able to deliver them like the Fire Moth or Mist Lynx or even the Gargoyle, which mixes LBX and SRMs to be able to do some damage as it closes to bring them to bear. In regards to the HAG being a superior weapon, it's really not, but it's a good way to get LRM damage at the same range of an LB-5X (or old school IS AC/2).

Oh, and Hellbie? You must really be getting old as the Kit Fox Bravo has an Ultra AC/10, not an LBX. That's the Prime, and it's only a class 5. :P

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #50 on: 08 February 2018, 10:26:35 »
In my favor, I also haven't played a game of Battletech in a good year and a half. I'm bound to be a little rusty at this point.
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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #51 on: 08 February 2018, 14:10:23 »
In my favor, I also haven't played a game of Battletech in a good year and a half. I'm bound to be a little rusty at this point.

Yeah. Plus it's not a very popular design to use, like, ever, despite it being your favorite faction's go-to Light 'Mech. Forgetting what exactly is on it outside of maybe the Alpha configuration is to be expected. I'll still say it's 'cause you're old, though, but that's also to be expected. ;)

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #52 on: 09 February 2018, 01:36:57 »
Actually, screw the 'A' config- not that it's BAD, but it's become a backup plan only if I can't use an E. I usually find E configs boring, but... jump jets, a headcapper, and oh by the way an ATM that we crammed on with the remaining weight? Yes plz. (Even modded one recently using IWM parts and jump jets left over from a Pariah)
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Rage

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #53 on: 09 February 2018, 18:58:31 »
Actually, screw the 'A' config- not that it's BAD, but it's become a backup plan only if I can't use an E. I usually find E configs boring, but... jump jets, a headcapper, and oh by the way an ATM that we crammed on with the remaining weight? Yes plz. (Even modded one recently using IWM parts and jump jets left over from a Pariah)

Eh, I only mentioned the Alpha because _everyone_ gushes about the Gauss Rifle.. or at least they seemed to way back when, anyway. Echo is damned fun but expensive as hell, though.

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #54 on: 11 February 2018, 18:40:28 »
Eh, I only mentioned the Alpha because _everyone_ gushes about the Gauss Rifle.. or at least they seemed to way back when, anyway. Echo is damned fun but expensive as hell, though.

Yeah, jump jets and a headcapper will always do that to you. If you're paying in BV, it's a tough sell, but if you're just building a thematic force it works quite well.

I do love the A, particularly in invasion-era games when it can use the range on that rifle to compensate for the Coors-can armor, but even then there's better options out there. It's just too much of an attention-getter- justifiably, the enemy demands killing it as soon as possible, because DUH. And more often than not, a competent enemy will do just that.

(Side note, the simple swap of dropping the rifle for an Ultra-20 to make a half-assed Hunchback ripoff is a lot of fun in a city fight. Again, it won't last long because it CAN'T, but with only five double-tap shots to begin with you won't have to worry much about longevity- it'll run dry or it'll drop, but it'll cause some serious problems before it does. In an old Refusal War campaign, one of these dropped a Timber Wolf B and a Pouncer Prime before dying at the hands of an Ice Ferret D- and even then it took the Ferret's leg off in the exchange.)
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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #55 on: 15 February 2018, 21:28:47 »
Fundamentally, crit-seeking is not an effective way to kill things in a clan techbase.

"But," you say, "that doesn't make any sense at all!  Clanners got the same rules on critical hits as anyone else!"

True, they do, but you have to look at these things in terms of opportunity costs and likely target cross section.

An LBX-10 does an average of 6 points of damage when firing cluster ammo and 10 when firing solid shot.  Of note, it also does six individual points of damage, each with a chance for a critical hit.

So, there is a straightforward opportunity cost of hitting for a bunch of damage in one place vs hitting for less damage several times.  There is a less obvious opportunity cost of hitting with the LBX or hitting with another weapon.  The ability of the LBX to fire two types of ammo is like hedging; over the course of two turns you can opt for opposing strategies so you don't get locked into one strategy that's not competitive.  Thing is though, if it turns out that just doing damage to things is more competitive than going for critical hits, then the LBX might not be worth the extra tonnage.

In the clan tech base critical hits are not an efficient way of killing mechs vice just shooting them to death.  Remember that a mech has seven (eight if you count the head) hit locations.  So an LBX is hitting each hit location on average less than once.  When you take into account that certain locations get hit more, sure, an LBX-10 cluster hit gives a good chance of center torso hit (66.5% probability with six hits and a frontal shot).  So if you shoot a mech with a stripped center torso, you have a good chance of hitting the stripped center torso and rolling for a critical hit.

Here's the thing; critical hits rolls aren't particularly devastating.  More than half of the time they do nothing.  The average number of actual critical hits from a hit against a bare location on a 'mech is .61.  Not only that, a mech can take multiple gyro and engine hits before it dies.

Clan forces are mech heavy, and clan forces spend most of their time fighting other clanners.  LBXs are far more effective against vehicles and aircraft, but the majority of targets a clan mechwarrior worries about are other mechs.  The LBX-10 is not a particularly efficient gun for killing mechs.

Going back to the example of an opponent who has a stripped center torso, sure, you can do nasty things to them with an LBX-10 and possibly get lucky and finish them off quickly.  Do you know what else you could finish them off quickly with?  Literally any other gun.  A mech with a stripped center torso is 2/3s dead already!  You've gotten through the armor, and that's the hard part!  Just pile on damage and they will fall soon!  The LBX-10 is not a good weapon for piling on damage because it has a bad damage/weight ratio compared to... basically any other clan weapon that isn't an autocannon.

So the whole can-opener/crit-seeker combo may be effective in the IS tech base, but in the clan tech base you're better off just hitting them with a bunch of massively overpowered energy weapons until they die.  Why bother with the LBX-10 when you can have an ER-PPC?  It's really only good at knocking down things with wings, rotors or tracks.

UnLimiTeD

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #56 on: 16 February 2018, 08:22:07 »
I think what you sum up here is pretty much correct.
But then, it's also more of what has already been said: Yes, the niche for LBX weapons is smaller with the clans, less relevant - but more than that, it's just not that great a weapon compared to others.
In the IS, not only does the weapon have a significant function in fighting nearly everything that isn't a mech - and that'll be the majority of the opposition - it also fares better compared to other weapons when just using it to fire solid shot.
Factoring in Ammo and heatsinks, the LBX is 13 tons; A PPC is 12 tons. That's actually very little opportunity cost once the heatsinks in the engine are used up. And it's crit efficient, to boot.
So clans not only get less out of it, they also pay more for it.
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gyedid

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #57 on: 04 March 2018, 06:24:31 »
OK, so I had to go and revisit the stats for the Clan LB-X family.  I had misremembered the stats for the LB-2 and LB-5; I had thought they were each 2 tons lighter than their standard IS counterparts.  They are not, they're only 1 ton lighter, and bulkier to boot.  So there is no consistency to the LB-X family.  But the smaller calibres make up for that with a considerable range boost over their standard counterparts; the Clan LB-10 is the only member of the family that does NOT get such a range boost.  Well OK, it does, compared to a standard AC/10, but not vs. the IS LB-10.

The unimpressive nature of the Clan LB-10 becomes clear when you try and make it the centrepiece weapon of a chassis like the Gargoyle, overengined, oversinked, and where pod space is at something of a premium.  Take the Prime and replace the paired LB-5s with a -10.  Sure you saved 4 tons, but you also lost 6 hexes of range. 

If you're designing around the LB-10, 12 tons (10 for the weapon + 2 for ammo) eats up more than half your pod space.  How do you fill out the remaining 9 tons with something attention-grabbing?  You need either range or power; a single ER PPC still seems underwhelming, especially when several lighter designs do that better.  Pretty much all of the available options still seem like they force an LB-10 centred config into a role hunting vehicles and infantry.  So why not spend the extra 2 tons and upgrade to a Gauss rifle?

Cheers, Gabe
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Kidd

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #58 on: 04 March 2018, 08:42:34 »
Take the Prime and replace the paired LB-5s with a -10.  Sure you saved 4 tons, but you also lost 6 hexes of range.
Add an ER Large Laser
Quote
If you're designing around the LB-10, 12 tons (10 for the weapon + 2 for ammo) eats up more than half your pod space.  How do you fill out the remaining 9 tons with something attention-grabbing?  You need either range or power; a single ER PPC still seems underwhelming, especially when several lighter designs do that better.  Pretty much all of the available options still seem like they force an LB-10 centred config into a role hunting vehicles and infantry.  So why not spend the extra 2 tons and upgrade to a Gauss rifle?
Spend 2 tons upgrading to a Gauss instead of filling out the 9 tons with say an ER PPC and 3 DHS?!?! Am I missing something?!

gyedid

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Re: Talk to me about... the CLAN LB 10-X
« Reply #59 on: 04 March 2018, 10:50:52 »
Add an ER Large Laser

I had thought about that actually.  It's got pretty much the same range profile as the LB-5, is like having two of them together, and does a solid 10 concentrated points.  And the heat sinks are already there.  But the resulting config still isn't the ranged vehicle-buster that the Gargoyle Prime is.  With ER LL/LB-10/2 SRM6, this is more of a generalist.

Spend 2 tons upgrading to a Gauss instead of filling out the 9 tons with say an ER PPC and 3 DHS?!?! Am I missing something?!

That's still only 2 weapons, and the Garg doesn't need the extra sinks with those 2 particular weapons--unless you just want them to pad ammo and engine crits.  Clan ER PPC/LB-10?  The Huntsman B already does that job for 25 tons less.

Other solutions I thought of:
--2 ER LLs and a 3rd ton of ammo (slug) for the LB-10.  3 solid 10 point hits, 2 at range with no ammo expenditure, with option to switch to crit-seeking on one of them, AND heat-neutral, is something I can get behind.  Still not great for a Clan 80-tonner, but considering the Garg is really an overbulked 65-tonner, run with it.
--ER PPC and 3 medium heavy lasers.  Yes, not an alpha baby, but gives you the ranged potential headcapper + 10 points from slug ammo closing in, followed by those 3 short-range 10 pointers to make juicy holes for the cluster rounds.

It's strange, but in Clan tech, you almost have to think of the LB-10 as a secondary weapon.

cheers,

Gabe
So, now I'm imagining people boxing up Overlords for loading as cargo.  "Nope, totally not a DropShip.  Everyone knows you can't fit a DropShip in a WarShip!  It's...a ten thousand ton box of marshmallows!  Yeah.  For the Heavy Guards big annual smores party."
--Arkansas Warrior, on the possibility of carrying Dropships as cargo in Warship cargo bays.

TERRAN SUPREMACY DEFENSE FORCE.  For when you want to send the SLDF, but couldn't afford the whole kit and kaboodle.

 

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