Do away with mech machine guns dealing mech damage.

[Tangoforone]

Kind of a convoluted title, but the thought would be to turn all mech-scale machine guns into anti-infantry weapons only. We could then give a new damage value to their ammo when the bins get lit up, and probably just reduce amount of ammo in them. Essentially machine guns would act like AMS, but for infantry and battle armor.

Let's be honest, machine guns are primarily brought to shoot infantry, and are mostly useless against mechs. Well, the above solves the ammo bin explosion problem and gives clearly defined purpose to MGs.

Some might say, "well I like to crit seek with them at short range" to which I say an srm2 is probably better suited to crit seeking than an MG, so why not just bring that?

In any case, let me know your thoughts!  Would this fundamentally destroy the game? Is the Battlemaster now rendered completely useless? Let me know

[Major Headcase]

I totally agree with this! Machine guns blowing holes in high tech mech armor and needing HALF A TON of ammo has always bothered me... It's one of those things in Battletech I have to struggle to ignore since it seriously breaks my immersion in the setting.
I love the idea of them autofiring at infantry that get within range, but with a severely limited ammo capacity vs the current humongous bins.

[carlisimo]

My biggest problem with this is that we'd be telling new players that the Locusts in their starter boxes (and soon, the Stingers in their Command Lance packs) are doing absolutely nothing with 10% of their mass and have a maximum damage potential of 5 until they buy a big and relatively complicated rulebook and start using infantry. 

I like to think of mech-mounted machine guns as 20mm or 25mm cannons.  The 30mm Avenger on the A-10 weighs almost two tons if you include its ammunition (600 lbs without), and has some effect on armor.  Feels like a bit much for a BattleTech "machine gun" but a lot closer than a .50 caliber.

[Insaniac99]

I like to think of mech-mounted machine guns as 20mm or 25mm cannons.  The 30mm Avenger on the A-10 weighs almost two tons if you include its ammunition (600 lbs without), and has some effect on armor.  Feels like a bit much for a BattleTech "machine gun" but a lot closer than a .50 caliber.

It's not that fire off.  Quickcell makes a 20mm Gatling Gun that's a "machine gun".  Most of the others caliber isn't stated.

[Agathos]

If too much ammo is your problem, add more machine guns 

[Sartris]

If too much ammo is your problem, add more machine guns 

A piranha pilot wrote this

[House Davie Merc]

My 3025 era Phoenix Hawks say NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooo !!!!!!!!!!

For some mechs in the pre-double heat sink era those MGs are absolutely necessary .

They allow units in a high risk/reward category to take those risks and overheat so they can
make an opening in the enemies armor and keep fighting while hot .

The extra 2 points of damage per hit also makes a PXH-1 able to force a PSR if they
hit with  the large , 2 medium , and at least 1 MG .

If you take away the mech damage from the MG then many 3025 era fast units loose
to much of their limited attack power .
The ability of some units to lightly damage mechs, damage vehicles,and still slaughter
infantry is what makes them versatile enough to be worth using .

[Tangoforone]

My biggest problem with this is that we'd be telling new players that the Locusts in their starter boxes (and soon, the Stingers in their Command Lance packs) are doing absolutely nothing with 10% of their mass and have a maximum damage potential of 5 until they buy a big and relatively complicated rulebook and start using infantry. 

To be fair, Catalyst just dropped Clan Invasion with Battle Armor, which I do believe Mech MGs should deal damage to.  Personally I would take one look at the MG variant and move on over to whatever the other one was in the AGOAC.

I would probably classify the A-10 Warhog's gun as an AC-2 or AC-5 personally, especially when looking at the range.

As for the Phoenix Hawk, if it takes an alpha strike, with MGs as the finishing touch, to force a PSR then it probably isn't a mech designed for forcing PSRs (IMO), especially since you need to be within 3 hexes to even hit with the MGs.  That is very dangerous territory for many light and medium mechs.

I will grant that I am coming from a Total Warfare mindset, so it does make some units rather 'irrelevant' until infantry are introduced, however there are plenty of variants of those mechs that don't utilize the machine guns; the Stingers first variant I see on Sarna is the 3G, which has another medium laser.  Those variants were probably made for the same reasons I stated, both in-universe and IRL.

I just see Bergan Industries supplier quality in a conversation with a buyer; "we didn't design them to fight a Thug.  It has machine guns!  Fine, you want something to fight a Thug with?  I'll tell our engineers to strap SRMs on it.  No, I'm not covering this under warranty.  Owner's Manual specifically states not to fight Thugs with this mech."

[Sartris]

If it’s on the mech scale weapons list and isn’t a zero-hex range defensive system (eg ams, a-pods), it should be powerful enough to do damage to mechs

I would reduce the ammo per ton, sure, but it’s already a mostly fringe weapon system

[Minemech]

As for the Phoenix Hawk, if it takes an alpha strike, with MGs as the finishing touch, to force a PSR then it probably isn't a mech designed for forcing PSRs (IMO), especially since you need to be within 3 hexes to even hit with the MGs.  That is very dangerous territory for many light and medium mechs.

Mechs like the Phoenix Hawk, and Hermes II Mercury can be particularly effective backstabbers due to those machine guns. You fire them last, hoping to force, or exploit an opening. That they can add a PSR is a bonus. At worst, they wash, or add extra damage.

[Iceweb]

While this whole thread should probably be in fan rules, I would love an official rule that all ammo doesn't explode when hit, but just 1d6 rounds.  The rest of the ammo in that crit slot would be unusable of course for the rest of the battle.  The standard rules for determining if equipment in a crit slot was repairable or totally wrecked could be used for campaigns, but for morale you should probably throw it out.

[Giovanni Blasini]

No.  Just no.

[CJC070]

I can see both sides of the argument however ultimately I believe that machine guns should do damage to mechs.  I also believe they should do damage to infantry further than a few hexes but that may cause complications in figuring out damage and as a 3025 guy the fewer complications the better.

[Major Headcase]

I just... no...its my biggest pet peeve in Btech (I love you, game, but you're drunk!)
A Battlemech is supposed to use futuristic armor that absorbs charged particles, lasers, and 120mm cannons on rapid fire... a 20th century main battle tanks gun is represented in the game as a "primative" Rifle weapon... how can ANY weapon penetrate that on a single burst and be called a "machine gun" with an effective range of 90 meters???
So  machine gun really means "extra-light autocannon" then? Since its described here as most likely 20 mm or more. The Bradley IFV has a 35 mm chain gun that will not penetrate Abrams front armor (but will pen the side armor of 40+ year old Soviet tanks, thanks to AP rounds), so this future machine gun must be SERIOUSLY powerful!!
Brain....hurting....beginning to grey out...seeing spots.... mommy, help....
 
My 3 favourite mechs are all card-carrying MG lovers (Warhammer, Crusader, Phoenix Hawk) so this division in my heart is tearing me apart!! (Queue bad acting)
Make the MG a single 1/2 ton package, INCLUDING the ammo (50 bursts would be plenty! For any game) that mows down infantry and lightly or unarmoured vehicles, and paints pretty pictures on mech armor with smeared lead...

[Charistoph]

Kind of a convoluted title, but the thought would be to turn all mech-scale machine guns into anti-infantry weapons only. We could then give a new damage value to their ammo when the bins get lit up, and probably just reduce amount of ammo in them. Essentially machine guns would act like AMS, but for infantry and battle armor.

Let's be honest, machine guns are primarily brought to shoot infantry, and are mostly useless against mechs. Well, the above solves the ammo bin explosion problem and gives clearly defined purpose to MGs.

Some might say, "well I like to crit seek with them at short range" to which I say an srm2 is probably better suited to crit seeking than an MG, so why not just bring that?

In any case, let me know your thoughts!  Would this fundamentally destroy the game? Is the Battlemaster now rendered completely useless? Let me know

So make them like Rifles?  I did feel that was an odd dichotomy when you put "Machine Guns" next to that...

[Kovax]

If it weren't for all of the old record sheets already out there, I'd recommend including essentially unlimited ammo (enough for a single engagement, so no need to track it) as part of the 0.5 tons for the weapon (the weapon's integral ammo supply could explode, if the weapon is hit, for something like 5 points of structure damage).  I would retain the 2 points of 'Mech damage at up to 3 hexes or possibly reduce it to 1 damage (still useful for crit-seeking), but extend its range against UNARMORED Infantry to that of a Medium Laser (3/6/9): it can fire out to 9 hexes, but loses enough velocity over that distance to make it useless against hard targets.

[Iceweb]

I would be interested in a new weapon system that had a SRM range, and a self contained ammo package, that did no damage to modern armor; but caused a crit check to be rolled on a hit target for each location that had no armor remaining. 
Basically spraying low damage stuff that could shred mynomer and other components but just had no effect on 31st century metallurgy.  Of course it could have AI against PBI and still do 2 points of damage to a BA target, as the armor may be enough to ignore shells but the squishy guy inside isn't quite as resistant.   

[idea weenie]

I would be interested in a new weapon system that had a SRM range, and a self contained ammo package, that did no damage to modern armor; but caused a crit check to be rolled on a hit target for each location that had no armor remaining. 
Basically spraying low damage stuff that could shred mynomer and other components but just had no effect on 31st century metallurgy.  Of course it could have AI against PBI and still do 2 points of damage to a BA target, as the armor may be enough to ignore shells but the squishy guy inside isn't quite as resistant.   

Sounds like you could just use a different SRM warhead type.  A heavier fragmentation head so it does lower AI vs infantry, but does damage against BA and Mech internals.  Similar to the B-Pod vs the A-Pod

[RifleMech]

I just... no...its my biggest pet peeve in Btech (I love you, game, but you're drunk!)
A Battlemech is supposed to use futuristic armor that absorbs charged particles, lasers, and 120mm cannons on rapid fire... a 20th century main battle tanks gun is represented in the game as a "primative" Rifle weapon... how can ANY weapon penetrate that on a single burst and be called a "machine gun" with an effective range of 90 meters???
So  machine gun really means "extra-light autocannon" then? Since its described here as most likely 20 mm or more. The Bradley IFV has a 35 mm chain gun that will not penetrate Abrams front armor (but will pen the side armor of 40+ year old Soviet tanks, thanks to AP rounds), so this future machine gun must be SERIOUSLY powerful!!
Brain....hurting....beginning to grey out...seeing spots.... mommy, help....
 
My 3 favourite mechs are all card-carrying MG lovers (Warhammer, Crusader, Phoenix Hawk) so this division in my heart is tearing me apart!! (Queue bad acting)
Make the MG a single 1/2 ton package, INCLUDING the ammo (50 bursts would be plenty! For any game) that mows down infantry and lightly or unarmoured vehicles, and paints pretty pictures on mech armor with smeared lead...

Battletech Armor is not Real Life Armor. If it were nothing that did less than 10 points of damage would penetrate Mech Armor. BT Armor is better at defeating single big hits more than lots of rapid hits.

The best way I can illustrate it is use the split target rules for Autocannons and compare that to a Rifle Cannon. With the autocannon split damage rule, damage to each target is half, so a half burst from an AC/20 would do 10 points of damage. That's 1 point more than the a Heavy Rifle Cannon. If we bring fluff into things that AC/20 was firing a 10 round burst. That's ten 2 point rounds being fired.

Now if this were Real Life Armor the AC/20 might be effective against older tank armor but to defeat modern tank armor you'd need a Heavy Rifle Cannon. So against BT Armor its lots of little hits doing more damage than one big hit.  To further amplify that, we just happen to have an AC/2 that also fires 10 round bursts. That's .2 points of damage each. That's less than some infantry weapons, but like infantry weapons the damage adds up. And since mech/vehicle scale machine guns have been fluffed at being up 30mm I don't have a problem with them being considered mini-autocannons and doing 1-3 point of damage depending on the type.


Now for an all in one MG/ammo package, there are older rules one could apply. TechManual used to have a rule where small items were added and rounded up to the nearest half ton. Infantry weapons just happened to have their ammo included in the same crit. There was also an older rule in Combat Equipment but it took two crits.

[CrossfirePilot]

Funny,  since there was a related autocannon thread i've been thinking about this a lot as well.  MGs are useful but i hate that they are a 200pt bomb.  Worse than any other weapon. 
Couple ideas I like are:
1. Ammo bin explosion is only 2pts damage total.
2. Ranges are: Short 1-3, Med 4-5, Long 6
3. 50 shots per ton.

[Major Headcase]

 
Don't get me wrong, I will happily keep playing BT and use machine guns just as always. I know it's a made up world with made up science that has exactly 0% relative correlation to the real world. I'm totally fine with that. Absurd MGs don't break the 4th wall completely for me. I still enjoy the game.
But on that same vein, there are NO real world logical contortions that can explain away how the games magic atomic Machine Gun bullets would really do what they do. And I'm okay with that.
... I mean, at least FASA didn't use "tachyons" to explain all its magic science back in the day... 

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I know it's getting time for bed when my first response to that is to make a pun about how that would have been tacky.

[Major Headcase]

I know it's getting time for bed when my first response to that is to make a pun about how that would have been tacky.

..yon... 

 

[RifleMech]

Funny,  since there was a related autocannon thread i've been thinking about this a lot as well.  MGs are useful but i hate that they are a 200pt bomb.  Worse than any other weapon. 
Couple ideas I like are:
1. Ammo bin explosion is only 2pts damage total.
2. Ranges are: Short 1-3, Med 4-5, Long 6
3. 50 shots per ton.

I don't think there's any rule where you have to have a full ammo bin. Just what's the max number of shots for a full ton of ammo or in Machine Gun's case half ton of ammo.  And if it's allowed there's the rapid fire rule for machine guns. It generates heat but uses up ammo fast.

[Mendrugo]

A piranha pilot wrote this

Linebacker I

[Wolf72]

fuel for fire: What about better MG ranges, but the rounds come equipped (ie worse grouping) with HGR style parachutes? ... the longer the range the less damage and the less d6 v infantry.

PB: 4 dmg, 4d6
short: 3 dmg, 3d6
Med: 2 dmg, 2d6
long: 1 dmg, 1d6
extreme: 0mdg, 1d6

would drop the rapid fire rule as a rapid burst of 1d6 x4 could be pretty devastating if you roll a 6 .. for a half-ton (or 1/4) weapon is absurd.  Although, it would feel like MW 2 again! I felt like a god in my MAD IIC with all MGs and one SPL (it made it seem like a tracer/targeting laser) ... some JJ for fast zipping, everything was toast with a short burst.

[CrossfirePilot]

with the 200 pt ammo bomb, kinda makes me wonder how anything made it out of the Succession Wars that had a set of MGs?

[Sartris]

Writer fiat said they did. A critical slot protected by Setting Armor only explodes when Drama is required

[Agathos]

Linebacker I

That's a nice one, but I was actually thinking about the Timber Wolf N at the time. Four machine guns to a half ton of ammo seems pretty reasonable.

[Wolf72]

Writer fiat said they did. A critical slot protected by Setting Armor only explodes when Drama is required

on TT I think it has a target designator so your brother can roll his first shot and crit you where your unused full ton MG ammo is ... 3025 MAD v WHM