CBT to AS conversion and special ammo

[Descronan]

I'm going through the conversion rules. I see that LRM/SRM and AC damage is reduced proportionally by overheat. However, I think this is an unnecessary complication. Its just another calculation on yet another form of damage. The rules already state that you can only use one type of alternate ammo per attack. And if your unit has the IF# ability, it can use alternate ammo.

Further, it just doesn't make sense. Let's look at the Jagermech JM6-1. It has 2 LRM15's which cause 0.9/1.8/1.8. Considering the rule for a minimum of 1 damage, this normally rounds to LRM0*/2/2 if you don't adjust for heat. Since the LRM damage does not exceed the unit's standard damage value, there's no reason why you couldn't give it the LRM ability. Even in CBT, the JM6-A can fire both LRMs and walk and only overheat by 1. This is well within the tolerances allowed by the Alpha Strike conversion.

IMO, the LRM/SRM, AC, and IF conversion should allow you to use full damage for the special ability up to the heat adjusted standard damage. If anything, rounding down to the nearest whole number would be a better/simpler compromise IMO.

Anyway, if you ever rewrite the conversion rules, I humbly suggest streamlining to remove the extra heat adjustment calculation for special weapons. Not only will it be easier to convert, but it will give some differentiation between very similar units.

[nckestrel]

Yeah, if i was starting from scratch, there are a few legacy conversion rules I would change.
Drop the minimum 1 damage needed for AC, LRM, SRM.
Change base damage to round normal, not round up (so it matches special ability damage).
Both of those are no longer necessary because of 1) combining all the special ability damage into base and 2) the miminum damge rule (aka 0*).

Dropping heat from special ability damage can be problematic when a unit has multiple special ability damages.  If you have lots of LRMs and SRMs, you can have a total LRM/SRM over the base if you ignore heat.  And you can't ignore heat entirely because you shouldn't have special ability damages higher than base. A Longbow with nothing but LRMs shouldn't be able to ignore heat.  But i think dropping the minimum and make base and special both use the same rounding would do something similar.

And I'd love to have more special ability damages (pulse, ultra, etc) not just special munitions.  Honestly, special munitions are broken.  Standard ACs, LRMs and SRMs are better than ultras, lbxs, lrm with artemis, etc because of special munitions.  And are better than most PPCs, pulse lasers, large lasers, etc.  (ER Smalls and Medium Lasers have their own OP issues).

But we're not looking to invalidate all the existing unit cards any time soon.

[Alexander Knight]

But we're not looking to invalidate all the existing unit cards any time soon.

I will let you live a while longer then.   

[truetanker]

A little necro here :

Alex? I'll take 'How do you use Multi-Purpose Missiles in AS Infantry Battle Armor for 100, please . '

TT