Artillery and Bombs: a couple questions on their value.

[sadlerbw]

In an effort not do derail the PV revision yet again, I'm going to re-post some questions I was asking about Artillery and bombing over there. I don't tend to play with these things often, so I don't have a good grasp on how well they work and where they might be un-balanced currently. So, what do you think about:

- What TMM is currently 'balanced' for arty/bombs? Meaning, at what TMM is it currently fair that arty gets to ignore it for the PV you pay to bring the arty in the first place? For all the extra mods you take in the first place, at what point is ignoring TMM enough of a help to 'break even' on the PV spent to bring artillery in the first place.

- Are bombs and artillery equally costly, PV wise, and equally useful? Seems like they have similar effects, but different restrictions. Is one noticeably better or worse than the other, for the PV cost?

- Are arty/bombs broken at the low end? If they are too poweful against TMM 4+ units with barely any armor, are they way too expensive for TMM 0 or 1 units with piles of armor? Basically trying to see if ONLY high TMM is a problem, or if low TMM is also a problem, but in terms of bombs/arty being not worth it.

- Is TW any better at balancing artillery or bombs? Not saying we can be bad if TW is, but if all the extra rules in TW still couldn't get artillery to be 'fair' against high movement mod units, maybe it isn't something we can fix with just PV costs.

- Is arty still that good if there is a flight time? Ok, so the whole ignoring TMM thing isn't that awesome if you don't plan ahead and guess correctly about where a high TMM unit will be when it lands. That is no small thing, especially once the enemy knows artillery is in play. So, is artillery really much of a counter if there is a non-zero flight time? With zero flight time, yeah, it is a pretty solid counter to anything fast,  but once you have to start playing guessing games about where it will be, it seems much less powerful against high TMM units.

- Are homing rounds fine? I mean, you have to hit with TAG, which doesn't ignore TMM as far as I can tell, so is Arrow IV homing and Copperhead OK as is?

Any thoughts and experiences from folks who use this stuff more than I do are welcome.

[Scotty]

Alright, first round, all of these answers will be short and sweet.

- What TMM is currently 'balanced' for arty/bombs? Meaning, at what TMM is it currently fair that arty gets to ignore it for the PV you pay to bring the arty in the first place? For all the extra mods you take in the first place, at what point is ignoring TMM enough of a help to 'break even' on the PV spent to bring artillery in the first place.

Artillery damage is valued at [4 x <damage>], so an Arrow IV piece will add 8 PV to the unit's total, because an Arrow IV does 2 damage when it hits with a standard missile.  A Long Tom is 12 PV, Thumpers and Battle Armor tube artillery are 4 PV each.  Bringing them is not particularly expensive, on the order of a single PPC in normal damage (1 damage at all ranges is, coincidentally, 4 PV).  The point at which this break-even happens really depends on the unit using them.  For infantry, it's somewhere around the area of "literally always worth it forever".  For something like a Destrier, that's a trickier question.

- Are bombs and artillery equally costly, PV wise, and equally useful? Seems like they have similar effects, but different restrictions. Is one noticeably better or worse than the other, for the PV cost?

See above for artillery.  Bombs, on the other hand, are free.  Fighters can carry a number of them equal to their SZ, so their numbers are strictly and explicitly limited in a game.  Additionally, each bomb carried reduces the thrust of the fighter carrying it by 1.  Since movement across zones is determined primarily by thrust points (below 7 = one zone, 7-9 = two zones if you start outside the inner ring, 10+ = two zones all the time), this can mean that a heavy fighter can take a hefty penalty for using bombs at all, or literally nothing could change.  Thrust is also important in dogfights, so carrying bombs puts you at a disadvantage.

Artillery is generally better than bombs, thanks to its infinite ammo on an AS scale, and its ability to be fired every turn.  Bombs make up for this by being able to cluster damage slightly better (a fighter can drop every bomb it has in one turn), and for being able to draw a flight path to just about anywhere at any time when it enters the battlefield.

- Are arty/bombs broken at the low end? If they are too poweful against TMM 4+ units with barely any armor, are they way too expensive for TMM 0 or 1 units with piles of armor? Basically trying to see if ONLY high TMM is a problem, or if low TMM is also a problem, but in terms of bombs/arty being not worth it.

In my experience, bombs and artillery are pretty well balanced against units with decent armor.  The amount of armor they have means that artillery is more useful as a "don't go there or it'll hurt" for terrain features, or as little extra bits of damage that add up over the course of a game.  Against small units, the ones with little armor, they're fists of an angry god.  That's true pretty much of all of them, but the slow ones are already cheap enough (and won't be getting more expensive) that it's not nearly as much of an issue.

- Is TW any better at balancing artillery or bombs? Not saying we can be bad if TW is, but if all the extra rules in TW still couldn't get artillery to be 'fair' against high movement mod units, maybe it isn't something we can fix with just PV costs.

No idea.  I don't think it's really a comparison that's easy to make, or one that matters overmuch to how they function under Alpha Strike.  Artillery in TW isn't a standard level rule, and the games play so differently that the interaction between units and artillery is... well, Alpha Strike is very much a different game, in that respect.

- Is arty still that good if there is a flight time? Ok, so the whole ignoring TMM thing isn't that awesome if you don't plan ahead and guess correctly about where a high TMM unit will be when it lands. That is no small thing, especially once the enemy knows artillery is in play. So, is artillery really much of a counter if there is a non-zero flight time? With zero flight time, yeah, it is a pretty solid counter to anything fast,  but once you have to start playing guessing games about where it will be, it seems much less powerful against high TMM units.

Against fast units?  Not even a little bit.  It goes from being God King of ****** You Mountain to not even worth bringing to the field if your target isn't going to get within 34".  At least, against someone who knows what they're doing.  Against a predictable player, it's still good and useful, mostly by denying good cover and terrain that fast units use to make themselves even harder to hit.  Against normal units, it can still be useful, but is much less reliable.

I've raised this one in other circles a couple times, but it always comes down to "flight times aren't something we want in standard play", and that's something I agree with.

- Are homing rounds fine? I mean, you have to hit with TAG, which doesn't ignore TMM as far as I can tell, so is Arrow IV homing and Copperhead OK as is?

Homing Rounds are... different, for reasons you just mentioned.  You do have to hit with TAG, but if you do it fixes the target number at a low number (that I don't recall off the top of my head).  It's a good way to get the numbers driven way down, and it lets you use the skill of your spotter instead of the skill of your artillery unit.  If you puts points into your spotters, it's amazing.  The downside is that if you miss with the homing round, it just vanishes.  No scatter, no drift.  Sometimes scatter is a good thing.  There's actually a really hilarious use for a Malice variant that I'll talk about later. :D

tl;dr Artillery is well balanced against most things, but against fast and flimsy things where it can remove them from the field with little luck and even less effort, those things are considerably overvalued.  Bombs have major drawbacks, but those drawbacks don't really show up until fighters are on both sides (at which point not taking bombs could be the better option).

[nckestrel]

http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=40232.msg1192537#msg1192537
Artillery damage PV was changed to x6, and x3 for extra radius (long tom).
Arrow IV is 12 PV, Long Tom is 27 PV.  (They were 12 and 28 PV before the damage reduction/PV multiplier increased).

[Scotty]

I stand corrected.  That said, it doesn't change too terribly much my assessment above.  Arrow IV at 12 points is absolutely worth 3/3/3 over the course of a game against most targets.  Being able to fire indirectly without a spotter is great.  Being able to ignore TMMs is great.  The damage adds up quickly.  Against things with thick armor, it's a minor nuisance and contributor.  Against things with thin armor it is an existential threat from which there is no counter or escape.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

I mentioned it in the PV reevaluation thread, and I'll mention it again here.  I think it's a better idea for bombs to begin to have a PV cost rather than increase the PVs of CFs and AFs.

[Scotty]

I would agree with that if they did not impose the disadvantages they did on fighters for carrying them.  Actually, I agree with that in principle, but suspect we would disagree on a reasonable cost.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

yeah its a fine idea, but the rub is indeed "well then exactly how much PV for a bomb then"

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Another thought about Bombs vs Artillery:

I don't really consider them to be in the same league in terms of effectiveness, even though they both ignore TMM.  Artillery can, iirc without any skill upgrades, stack bonuses and readily available (lance-given) SPAs to be auto-success attacks.  Bombs, not so much.  Plus unless the stars align or you're fairly lucky, your bomber dies on the turn it drops its bombs.  Artillery keeps coming round after round.  Every round until you manage to get some infiltrators to the other side of the board to kill it.

[Scotty]

Our experiences regarding aero differ, despite my inability to roll higher than a 3 for control rolls.  I don't frequently lose bombers unless there's not a better target for my opponent, and there's usually (deliberately) a better target.  But that's not really what's in question here, and I think if we continue down this tangent it'll be more akin to arguing at each other from either side of a road that's still going to same direction.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Our experiences regarding aero differ, despite my inability to roll higher than a 3 for control rolls.  I don't frequently lose bombers unless there's not a better target for my opponent, and there's usually (deliberately) a better target.  But that's not really what's in question here, and I think if we continue down this tangent it'll be more akin to arguing at each other from either side of a road that's still going to same direction.

Certainly not trying to argue with you; I value your expertise and insight into AS very much.

I guess you could say, in a different way, my point was Artillery is much more effective than Bombing is.  I'm pretty sure you're right in that we both agree on that.  I don't know tho, continuing to spitball... what if a turn's worth of artillery ammo cost PV, in a way like Bombs hypothetically could.  If artillery wasn't guaranteed to be "overhead" every turn of the game, it would perhaps serve to "nerf" artillery.  Maybe even a FoW or BMM style "roll to see if artillery is available this round" mechanic could address it.

Still, OTOH, if high TMM squishies get their points more "fairly" assessed in that you really would be considering taking a fattie in their place.. I don't know that it's necessarily a bad thing that they still get countered by hyper-accurate artillery.  The mere threat encourages you to take some artillery-resistant fatties rather than nothing but squishies. And giving reason to take fatties rather than minxy squishies was (even if unofficially) part of the point of the PV reeval, far as I understand.  Plus: even if a minx and a fattie are fairly balanced in PV, the minx always has an inherent advantage in raw movement score.  I'm pretty sure you and I both see that as a significant edge.  Fatties not being countered by 2 point aoes actually may be a fair tradeoff for the raw movement disparity?

[Scotty]

I am more concerned that this change will result in small fast things being decidedly sub-par.  If balance has actually been achieved, a force of all small, fast things should still be viable - it just shouldn't be the most viable thing.  There is no other kind of unit besides the ones with very little health to their name in the first place (with the possible exception of aero) that can be countered so hard and so easily than by bringing 10% of your PV in artillery units, if that.

EDIT: Actually, I take that back.  There's one other kind of unit that's vulnerable to utter counter.  Slow units with no medium/long range damage.  Coincidentally, they also get a discount for exactly that reason.

[sadlerbw]

Gonna throw something out here about bombs and see what you think: The cheapest generally available bomb truck I could find was the Planetlifter Air Transport. It's BOMB2 and only 8 PV. Since it does virtually nothing else aside from cargo carrying, I think you could say that AS currently doesn't value bombs at any more than 4PV each. Could be more, but not less.

Now, if you bring three of those, its 24PV. Its gonna take them three turns to get to the central zone, but from then on out, you can have them take turns hitting the ground map one at a time. If they only drop one bomb per run, then you get a minimum of three (assuming they all crash and die) and a max of six turns of 2-point 2" radius AoE attacks. Is that as valuable as two Thumper Gun Trailers? Seems like no, especially since virtually any opposing aero forces can ruin that plan. You can get slightly more reasonable and use a Mechbuster for 12PV that could conceivably do something to other fighters trying to shoot it down...but probably not. The Planetlifter is 2A/3S, and the Mechbuster is 1A/3S, so it doesn't take much to knock them out of the sky before they even make it to the central zone. Especially with the thrust deficiency from being conventional and also carrying two bombs. I guess you could use Jump Bombers, which MIGHT survive a hit or two if they roll well, but they are 10PV and only carry one bomb each.

So, do bombs justify lowering the PV of fast units? Considering the weaknesses and the PV cost of the units trying to get them to the ground, it seems like they don't. The absolute cheapest you can get bombs is 4PV per bomb, and that only works if you are completely unopposed in the air. If you need something that might actually survive a hit on its way in, you are probably more like 10PV minimum per bomb to get a single bomb on the ground. That's pretty expensive compared to what it costs to bring Artillery, and doesn't seem to justify giving the fast units that could get erased by one or two bombs a break. Paying 10PV so I can get a chance to erase a Dasher H on a 6+ after it has had at least three turns on the board to wreak havoc seems plenty fair already. We are talking about units that, by their very nature, move really fast and have a good chance of getting into engagement range on turn one or two if they want to.

I'm not 100% sure how cheap a bomb carrier would have to be, or how tough it would need to be, before I felt it WAS too powerful against light units. I'm thinking if you had something that could reliably get a bomb to the central zone for 4-5PV per bomb without getting shot out of the air, it might start to cause problems. At that price, you can bring enough bombs to pretty much guarantee a 3-health unit is going to die for 20PV, which is less than most of the really dangerous 2-3health units cost. So, I guess if you could prove to me that it is really hard to intercept and shoot down Planetlifters for a reasonable cost, I might change my mind.

[Scotty]

Bombs aren't currently valued under Alpha Strike.  I thought I was fairly explicit on that one; finding the cheapest unit that can carry bombs and extrapolating the costs based on a Special that does not have a cost associated with it is not how costs work.

Bombs are also not the primary motivator here, artillery is.

That said, something like the Corsair V-12 that I mentioned already is a good example of a good bomber.  Enough armor to take a couple hits (adding a new target the opponent must shoot is a big advantage), enough bombs to wipe a small fast thing from existence with contemptuous ease (6+ to hit with a skill 4 pilot, period, that won't change without pre-existing damage on the fighter), and enough guns to continue engaging other things after it drops its payload.

[Xotl]

Yes, I think artillery is the main qualifier here.  Bombs can't be ignored, but artillery is the key.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Yes, I think artillery is the main qualifier here.  Bombs can't be ignored, but artillery is the key.

I think the most elegant fix is to address the rules regarding accuracy.

However, if only PV balancing is on the table, what about this idea:  Make having SPAs that increase artillery accuracy be different than other SPAs in that they jank up the unit's PV.  IMO artillery is only a problem when it's hyper-accurate.  Yeah bombs may need 6+ to hit, but if artillery needs higher than 4+ I'm not trying very hard to stack bonuses.  Most of those bonuses are coming from the spotter and spotter's specials, but SPAs from force building are also integral.  Perhaps you don't want to add them into the baseline assumptions for PV balancing, and if so fine.  In my view that's all the more reason to say that if you are going to use SPAs, and those SPAs are helping to make artillery be a problem, then have those SPAs come with the fix to the problem they bring.  Maybe 5PV per pip of accuracy a SPA gives, per point of artillery damage the unit can dish out?

[sadlerbw]

I was mostly trying to convince myself that we can pretty much ignore bombs for now. Your experiences at the table are valuable, but I don't trust them completely. Just laying out my reasoning in case any of it is glaringly wrong or disputed. I know the PV system doesn't explicitly provide a cost for bombs. That's part of the reason I was trying to back into some sort of reasonable valuation for them. Without even a reasonable guess at what a bomb costs, it is pretty much impossible to ever answer the questions, "at what point are bomb-carrying units too cheap?"

So, on to artillery, which DOES have a defined PV cost (mostly), and can have some stacked to-hit modifier issues beyond rather than getting suck at Skill+2. The hypothesis to be proved or disproved there is that it is powerful enough to de-value fast, high-damage units that it can kill in a single hit, but NOT powerful enough that artillery is simply over-powered in general.

To help (well, help ME at least) figure that out, is any of the following false?

- With a non-zero flight time, Artillery is not over-powered against any fast unit.
- Artillery is not over-powered against a fast unit if it takes more than two hits to kill it.
- Artillery is only over-powered when combined with multiple, stacked to-hit modifiers.
- Units which are slow and can be destroyed in one or two hits are NOT over-valued due to their vulnerability to artillery.

I'm just trying to treat this like a science project. Come up with a hypothesis, and then test it.

[sadlerbw]

Oh, one other thing. Are SCA's and SPA's technically part of the base game, or are those technically advanced rules? Even though I like them, I think they count as advanced, and maybe we shouldn't be trying to include them in the conversation. Not sure.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

To help (well, help ME at least) figure that out, is any of the following false?

- With a non-zero flight time, Artillery is not over-powered against any fast unit.
- Artillery is not over-powered against a fast unit if it takes more than two hits to kill it.
- Artillery is only over-powered when combined with multiple, stacked to-hit modifiers.
- Units which are slow and can be destroyed in one or two hits are NOT over-valued due to their vulnerability to artillery.

I'm just trying to treat this like a science project. Come up with a hypothesis, and then test it.

#1: with a flight time, artillery can only go after immobile targets or serve as a sort of area denial tactic.  POIs are public knowledge, and if you do try shooting at a mobile target your opponent can take advantage of the way artillery has to scatter in one of 6 pre-determined directions, and go in any one of the other infinite directions possible.  Even with a couple inches of movement, most units can get out from under any possible 2" aoe from a known POI.  (if playing in hexed maps instead of on wargame-style terrain, the unit has to move a hex off a straight hex row from POI hex, same idea, but less than infinite options available)

#2: I'm not sure this one will ever be more than an opinion call.  I don't just take artillery every time I play, I take at least 2 tubes.  (Schiltrons are a favorite for me).  So long as SPAs are in play, you can very plausibly have enough bonuses to make artillery hit on 2+.  Auto success.  And with 2 Arrow IV launchers, that's 4 automatic damage to anything within 42" of the launcher (standard rules).  Maybe that's broken, but again if so not necessarily because it kills anything with 4 total pips dead no matter what.. it's because it's so easy to get to auto-hit territory.  In advanced rules, it's kind of bizarre that homing rounds are the less accurate option when they need all of 4+ to hit a TAGd target.

#3: See #2.

#4: No comment, not sure I follow where you're going.  As is, it's pretty easy to just point at a target and tell your opponent "that one takes 4 damage..".  Implications from there are inherently opinions.

Oh, one other thing. Are SCA's and SPA's technically part of the base game, or are those technically advanced rules? Even though I like them, I think they count as advanced, and maybe we shouldn't be trying to include them in the conversation. Not sure.

Fair enough... but artillery with optimized SPAs is hardly the same thing as artillery with no SPAs.  Auto-hitting artillery has different implications for balance in the environment than artillery that needs say 6+ to hit like bombs do.

[sadlerbw]

#4: No comment, not sure I follow where you're going.  As is, it's pretty easy to just point at a target and tell your opponent "that one takes 4 damage..".  Implications from there are inherently opinions.

Lemme splain: Lets say you have some slow, low-health unit (I'd say like infantry, but they are a bit special), say an SRM carrier (TMM 1, 2A/3S). Would you say that, in terms of being able to murder-fy that unit in two hits, Artillery is more powerful than any other unit putting out the same damage as the arty tube, or about the same.

It's hard to compare to auto-hits, for sure, but lets try. Say you have something like a Ballista tank, which is basically a tracked Sniper artillery piece. Costs 25PV. On the other hand, you could get a Jenner K for 26PV with A2/S3, 2/2/0ov1. Does the sniper have an advantage killing the SRM carrier over the Jenner K? Or, when the target is sufficiently slow and weak, is artillery no better than your average mech?

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Lemme splain: Lets say you have some slow, low-health unit (I'd say like infantry, but they are a bit special), say an SRM carrier (TMM 1, 2A/3S). Would you say that, in terms of being able to murder-fy that unit in two hits, Artillery is more powerful than any other unit putting out the same damage as the arty tube, or about the same.

I wouldn't say that artillery is a more powerful option than any other in such a case.  I'd consider it a waste of resources to take that unit out with artillery, tbh.  Things that are easy to hit and don't take much damage to kill.. are easy to kill.  Any old thing can do it... I'd say it's more efficient to save artillery for hitting things that everything else has a hard time hitting.  Bad analogy perhaps, but using artillery to kill a SRM carrier is kind of like using a laser-targeting, heat-seeking flyswatter to kill a fly.  Any old flyswatter will do...

Of course, there is the "kill it from way the hell over here where it can't shoot back" factor in favor of Artillery taking out an ambusher like a SRM carrier, but I'm not sure that's completely relevant to the balance issue.   I think range vs range is already fairly done for PV?

It's hard to compare to auto-hits, for sure, but lets try. Say you have something like a Ballista tank, which is basically a tracked Sniper artillery piece. Costs 25PV. On the other hand, you could get a Jenner K for 26PV with A2/S3, 2/2/0ov1. Does the sniper have an advantage killing the SRM carrier over the Jenner K? Or, when the target is sufficiently slow and weak, is artillery no better than your average mech?

In terms of killing that high-TMM target like a jenner, there simply is no substitute for TMM-ignoring AoEs.  Demoralizer SPA just taking away their TMM comes in as a close second, however.  But WRT to your example, if I had the Jenner I'd be much more wary of the Sniper than the SRM carrier.  Sure the sniper will require multiple hits to kill the Jenner and the SRM will overkill-explode the Jenner in one hit... the Sniper is mathematically likely to *get* those hits whereas the Jenner need only fear lucky dice from the SRM carrier.

[sadlerbw]

Sorry, head cold is making me a bit slow here. Pretty sure you read the example differently than I had intended, but you still answered my question so no big deal!

Ok. So another question, are artillery attacks where a valid line of sight exists REQUIRED to us direct attacks, or can they still choose to do indirect? I don't the the base rules actually forced you to make a direct attack like TW does, but it may have been changed in the errata and I just missed it.

What I'm thinking about is, if zero flight time is required, and that only work on targets within 34" of the firing unit, how viable is it for fast units to use that speed to get close enough to establish a line of sight and remove the option for indirect fire? If artillery can still choose indirect even when they can see you, it's moot though.

[Scotty]

Under standard rules artillery, flight times do not exist below 42", and attacks can not be made beyond this.  There's a heaping helping of errata on the issue.  Direct Fire attacks are not required to target units.  They may actually target the ground directly beneath a given unit, meaning that direct fire artillery will feature on average a 7+ to hit with no help from anything else in the form of a skill 4 pilot firing at long range (+4) and standing still (-1).  In some cases it's actually easier to fire indirect, but that's still a better than even chance of hitting everything in the game.

[NeonKnight]

Under standard rules artillery, flight times do not exist below 42", and attacks can not be made beyond this.  There's a heaping helping of errata on the issue.  Direct Fire attacks are not required to target units.  They may actually target the ground directly beneath a given unit, meaning that direct fire artillery will feature on average a 7+ to hit with no help from anything else in the form of a skill 4 pilot firing at long range (+4) and standing still (-1).  In some cases it's actually easier to fire indirect, but that's still a better than even chance of hitting everything in the game.

Well, here I will agree that that does indeed pose an issue, and should not be that simple.

First, I would argue that artillery should never benefit for the 'stand-still' bonus. Why? Simple rules balance. Why should a unit gain it's full TMM if it moves more than 1" (page 32), or gain careful aim if it move less than 1"? One could argue that artillery normally works by 'lobbing' shells to the target for balance purposes artillery should not gain the stand still bonus.

Infact, the following rules errata both point to conflicting concepts anyways:

http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=45579.msg1049476#msg1049476

Which mentions that artillery indirect fire is never modified by attacker movement which is different from Indirect Missile fire (which does benefit):

http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=45559.msg1049240#msg1049240

Easier I would say to just rule:

Artillery fire (both direct and indirect) never benefits from standing still.

That said, I am still at a loss as to what a simple mechanic should be fore the attack rolls under standard rules. Range Penalties plus an artillery modifier? maybe say a flat +2 for artillery attack? This would make a direct fire artillery attack at long range with standard skill a +10, +11 for indirect. Maybe bring in the spotter rules allowing the roll a -1 bonus for each consecutive round attacking the POI?

Again, hard to say.

[sadlerbw]

In my PDF of the standard rules, it says 34" for a 0 flight time, and I downloaded the v2.2 errata last night and didn't see where that was changed. 42" looks like it is the maximum range for drawing a line-of-sight for ground units. Regardless, it does look like you are correct, and having a valid line of site to a unit or a POI does not REQUIRE the artillery to make a direct-fire attack. Well, that gets rid of any ideas about countering zero-flight-time artillery by running up to where it can see you to force a direct-fire attack. I'm pretty sure I have a problem with this, and as far as I can tell your 7+ math is totally correct...which I KNOW I have a problem with! Ok, I'm going to put that idea aside for now, although the more you folks explain to me, the less happy I am about several of the things Artillery can do.

The next thing I want to try to do is figure out how much 'better' Artillery is at killing fast units than another mech would be to try and get some sort of idea how much value artillery might be taking away from those units. I've got a good grasp on the mods for mech/mech combat, and I think I get the standard artillery mods now, so the only question I have is, what what SPA/SCA's are you stacking, and what sort of spotters are you using to buff your artillery beyond base rules? Despite SPA/SCA's being 'advanced', I'd still like to know what you folks are actually using. Also, are you predominantly using Homing rounds, or un-guided artillery?

EDIT: Neon, sorry to kind of ignore your post. I'm thinking about it, but I want to get a better idea of how bad things might be before commenting on what we might want to do about them. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking you could make the spotter a much more important part of making artillery effective, because then you have something in line-of-sight that an opponent can kill to counter the power of artillery without making un-spotted artillery a total waste.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Make sure you're maintaining a distinction between advanced and standard rules.  Under advanced rules, it *is* still 34" for 0 flight time.  Under standard rules, it works like a standard IF attack (that happens to always resolve at long range, no matter what the true range is).  There's no flight time for LRMs, there's none for artillery either.  There's also no such thing as alternate munitions under standard rules, so no homing rounds either.  (however, see below for what TAG does for artillery in standard rules)

Modifiers for standard rules artillery:
+4 for long range
+1 for Indirect fire
(both of the above are a hard requirement, you can think of an artillery attack as being skill+5 before beneficial mods come in to play)
-1 for artillery staying stationary
-1 for spotter staying stationary
-2 for spotter having TAG or PRB (only -1 for PRB if your artillery is a tube of some sort; all the more reason to use Arrow IV launchers)
(before SPAs, you're looking at skill+1 very much of the time, skill+2 if you can't afford to have your spotter go stationary)
-1 for SPA:Oblique Attacker or Oblique Artilleryman on the artillery (given via Fire Support and Artillery Fire lances, respectively)
-2 for SPA:Forward Observer on the spotter (given via Recon Lance)

stack 'em all on a 4 skill, and you hit on 2+.  No need to even roll.

[Scotty]

Forward Observer was errata'd to -1 instead of -2.  That said, you're not required to fire indirect, so your math arrived at the correct number regardless.  You merely fire directly at the ground right next to your target, and the blast will hit them for the same damage as if you were shooting at them directly.

It means that a skill 4 Schiltron can erase anything with four or fewer health with inevitable impunity.  There is no stopping it before it kills at least one, probably closer to three or four units while it hides outside of line of sight.

[sadlerbw]

Before I try to dive into rules-lawyer mode, when you say 'advanced rules', are you talking about A) Anything p.62 or later in the Alpha Strike rulebook, or B) Anything in the Alpha Strike Companion? I was using advanced rules to mean B, anything in the companion. I was under the impression that you can't even use artillery at all without the rules on p.73-76 of the rulebook, but want to make sure we are using 'advanced rules' the same way.

That said, I'm not seeing where the 42" and some of the other stuff is coming from. I'm looking at p.74 of the rulebook, and in the table there it says: Distance 34", Flight Time 0; Distance 90", Flight Time 1*, etc. On the same page, the Time In Flight section says: "The damage from any on-board artillery attack will be delivered in the same turn it is fired. For any artillery attack made beyond 34 inches in range, consult the Off-board Artillery Flight Time Table to find the number of turns the attack will take from the turn it is fired to the turn it actually strikes." To me, those two sentences are slightly contradictory. Does being on-board override all flight times no matter how big the board is, or does the 34" limit still apply? Regardless, neither of those sentences says 42" is the limit for zero-flight-time. I looked in the v2.2 errata and didn't see any changes to that table or wording. Is there something in the forum thread, but not the v2.2 PDF about it that I'm missing?

You may very well be right, I'm just thinking, how would I prove that to one of my friends sitting at the table if they called me on it?

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Ok if you're using artillery in your game, the very first thing you do with your opponent is decide *which* rules you're using.  Advanced or Standard.  They don't overlap, each one exists entirely distinct of the other.

Advanced rules are in the pdf/dtf, but have seen some errata.
Standard rules are *only* in the errata.  Standard rules ignores p73-76, as well as all the errata for same.  They only use their own rules.  And they never say they have a flight time, so they don't have one.  Again, LRM's never say they have a flight time, so would you argue LRM fire beyond 34" should have a flight time because advanced rules artillery does?

(standard rules for artillery are on pages 2-3 of the v2.1 errata, I don't have a 2.2 copy handy just at the moment.  but it should be similar... remember errata for advanced rules have nothing to do with standard rules, and vice versa)

[sadlerbw]

Ahh, I see it now. Missed the page number for that section, so I was thinking it was tied in with the advanced rules. Thanks for straightening that out for me. NOW the 42" makes sense.

Let me try to add references for all this, just to double-check this is all accurate. So, you can still do direct or indirect. Your direct to-hit mods are, with no advanced rules:

Artillery Unit's Skill, p.5 errata, references p.34-44 rulebook for standard attacks.
Attacker Range Mod, Long Range [+4], p.5 errata, to-hit number section
Attacker Movement Mod [+variable, can be -1 for standstill], p.5 errata, references p.34-44 rulebook for standard attacks.
NO TMM mods (including immobile) for POI targets (and why would you ever choose to shoot at a fast unit when you have this option?), p.5 errata, to-hit number section.
NO spotter bonuses. nothing in the rules says you get them for direct fire, so you don't.
Terrain Mods between attacker and target [+variable], p.5 errata, to-hit number section does NOT say these are ignored, so standard attack rules in effect.

For indirect fire it is:

Artillery Unit's Skill, (same as above)
Attacker Range Mod, Long Range [+4], (same as above)
Attacker Movement Mod [+variable, can be -1 for standstill], (same as above)
NO TMM mods (including immobile) for POI targets, (same as above)
Indirect Fire penalty, [+1], rulebook p.37 Misc. Modifiers table.
Spotter Range-to-Target Mod [+variable], p.3 errata, New Indirect Fire text
Spotter Movement Mod [+variable, can be -1 for standstill], p.3 errata, New Indirect Fire text
Terrain Mods between Spotter and Target [+variable], p.3 errata, New Indirect Fire text
Spotter has a Probe special, not covered by ECM, [-1], p.5 errata, Indirect Fire section.
- OR -
Spotter has TAG special and artillery is Arrow IV, not covered by ECM, [-2], p.5 errata, Indirect Fire section.


Looks good. I was able to map pretty much all of what you were saying to the published rules. Congratulations, you do, in fact, know what you are talking about! However, there are a couple things about this that stand out to me. First, the PRB, LPRB, and TAG specials are otherwise handled in the Advanced rules section, but they are included in the standard rules for artillery. Maybe letting you have access to those bonuses without asking you to use the advanced arty rules is a mistake? I know folks can pick and choose advanced rules, but if you pick the standard 'easy' artillery and then take advanced specials/rules that help counteract the difficulty of landing shots in the 'hard' rules...well, you are kinda choosing to be unbalanced. It wont fix everything, but maybe Probe/Tag don't belong in standard rules. I'm sure there was already a huge fight about that somewhere that I missed, but I'll throw it out there anyway.

Second, stacking standstill mods is probably a bad idea. Honestly, I'm not sure we should include standstill mods at all for artillery attacks, but at the very least we probably don't need to include the movement and range mods from BOTH the spotter and attacker since it appears that can be used to get a -2 to-hit by having both stand still. I vote take the range mod from the attacker and movement mod from the spotter, but I'm open to other ideas.

Third, I don't like the indirect fire at units in line-of-sight. Yeah, yeah, I know, you are shooting at a POI that happens to be a millimeter away from their feet. Still seems cheesy and overpowered to me. I think I'd prefer if direct fire attacks didn't ignore TMM, regardless of target type, or you were not allowed to choose a POI which would include a unit that you have direct LOS to. Otherwise, there is virtually no reason to use direct fire on a unit, even if you can see it, and that seems wrong.

Finally, how in the world did Watchdog (WAT) end up in standard rules! Maybe instead of having the WAT special, it should have just granted ECM and LBRB to the units that had it. That or maybe we can add it to the list of 'probe' specials in the errata. Of course, it looks like there are only 15 units on the MUL that even have this special, so it might not matter!

EDIT: One more thought. What if we don't let Forward Observer stack with PBR/TAG, or say it replaces the mod for those specials? Combine that with not letting both spotter and attacker add -1 for standstill, and it pulls you back from the brink of auto-hit silliness.

[nckestrel]

Scotty suggested elsewhere having Forward Observer do something other than a to-hit modifier.  Let a unit spot for multiple indirect fire attacks. 
The problem with just saying things don't stack, is that canon is that what those are used for.  Taking a Recon Lance, that grants forward observer, and then putting RCN/TAGs units in it and being told you have wasted one or the other is frustrating. 

I'd like a flat +1 to-hit modifier on all area effect attacks (artillery and bombs).  And removing the RCN to-hit bonus and making TAG then just a -1.  I think those two, along with changing Forward Observer, would get Artillery to a more reasonable level.

Direct Fire: Skill 4 + Long 4 +1 Area Effect = 9+ standard.  8+ with standstill.
Indirect Fire: Skill 4 + Long 4 + 1 Area Effect + 1 Indirect = 10+ standard, 9+ with standstill.  Then 8+ with TAG, 7+ with Oblique Attacker.
Standard Non-AE Long Range Attack for comparison: Skill 4 + Long 4 +1-4 TMM = 9-13+ standard, 8-12+ with standstill.   Then 6-10+ with Sniper.