Battletech: How and What would you change

[Akalabeth]

Hmmn, what would I change?

1. Victor-Steiner Davion
2. Phelan Kell
3. Kai Allard
4. Wolf Dragoons
5. Kell Hounds

I'd neuter and/or kill 'em all. ESPECIALLY the Wolf's Dragoons.

[M-Rex]

What the Hell! When I joined I got a paddle ball with a broken string.....

I'll be speaking with that recruiter.

[RedMarauder]

Eliminating the 3 minimum range for standard PPCs and going from (at least) 6 to 4 minimum on IS LRMs.  Newer technologies would have improved even these old workhorses and put new models on the market.  No, not an ERPPC, but a Standard PPC with no minimum.  What keeps them from doing this?

And if they can't give us lighter models of the standard IS LRMs, then a reduction in the minimum at the very least.  I'm still not understanding the reason/technology for why they can't simply construct a missile payload/launcher that eliminates this defficiency.  The reasons given in canon do not, in any way, satisfy me given the rate at which humans utilize and advance technology in the real world and In-Universe.

And if you must have "aliens," Then I vote for actual catgirls in-universe.  C'mon, Battletech is in dire need of them.       

[MoparMessiah]

Hmmn, what would I change?

1. Victor-Steiner Davion
2. Phelan Kell
3. Kai Allard
4. Wolf Dragoons
5. Kell Hounds

I'd neuter and/or kill 'em all. ESPECIALLY the Wolf's Dragoons.

Ben Rome killed the Wolf's Dragoons a long time ago

[Tressel]

Only major changes I would get rid of are the Jihad and DA. Both are just ridiculous.

[Fear Factory]

Eliminating the 3 minimum range for standard PPCs and going from (at least) 6 to 4 minimum on IS LRMs.  Newer technologies would have improved even these old workhorses and put new models on the market.  No, not an ERPPC, but a Standard PPC with no minimum.  What keeps them from doing this?

No.  Just no.  For one, PPC's are powerful enough and overused as they are right now (at least they always have been at my table when I used to play a lot).  PPC's are not supposed to be short range weapons anyway.  Two, if you really want to drop the PPC minimum, then use the "disengage field inhibitor" (something like that) rule in TacOps.  It's balanced enough.

EDIT:  You have the SNPPC.  That's your standard PPC without the minimum.



Honestly, I kind of like BattleTech as it is.

[mensa12345]

I would revise the whole starship combat system to something like Babylon 5 wars or Renegade Legion.  The warships now are basically really big dropships.  Also, I don't see how the tech drop could be as disasterous as it is portrayed.  I understand how space based assets could have taken a serious beating, but most mech factories are in the deep interior of the realms (or are now that the wars have gone on a while), and there's never been any major fighting on any of the homeworlds up through the 4th succession war.  I see why there would be a major loss of capacity, but not the actual knowledge to build it.

[Nebfer]

Cut the planetary population to about 1/4th it's currently is, so it went from roughly 3 billion to about 800 million on average, Tech A worlds will still have multi billion populations, Tech B & C would have populations of around 1 billion, D&F no more than 500 million.
Also mention that the old numbers where the populations before the succession wars, wiping out ~80% of your population in like 50 years or less is likely to cause problems.

Increase the military size by 300%, regiments become brigades basically (this makes most houses have 220+ mech regiments).
Also flesh out the infantry and tank units a bit more, with some notable regiments and brigades. And provide some indication as to their numbers.
Also if need be add a group if lightly armed infantry that are not only effective on infantry, their main function is for COIN and rear area security.

Provides some numbers on militias, if only basic. 
Increase the number of jumpships, 200,000 should be good enough


Increase fuel use for dropships, jumpships and warships at lest 5x, with a few more increments available, armor mass also should be increased.

[monbvol]

I'd either shrink and/or Balkanize the Inner Sphere to the point that the force sizes and jumpship fleets make sense.

Rules wise:

Instead of minimum range making it harder to hit with LRMs it'd apply a penalty to the cluster hit table with anything less than a 2 being treated as a 2.

No minimum ranges on the Autocannons.  Even the Gauss Rifles.

Up the heat of all the Gauss Rifles.  4/6/8 Light/Standard/Heavy should be fine.  Heavy Gauss adjusts to 22 damage across all bands and has a +1 to hit modifier.  Heavy Gauss Rifles can be turret mounted.  If a 30 ton Long Tom can be turret mounted and direct fired without minimum range penalties then a Heavy Gauss doing 22 and having no minimum isn't that much of a stretch.

Floating crits standard.

Artillery standard.

Everything is expressed only in terms of hexes and turns.

+1 for fixing the fuel consumption problems of dropships, jumpships, and Warships.

[Lorcan Nagle]

either increase the BV for ECM or decrease it for C3.  And revise FSM so it's useable for larger games.

[Daemion]

One of the common things found with the so-called "25mm" scale for human figure miniatures is that the minis end up 28mm tall or larger. This is handwaved away as being "heroic" scale. Well, by a similar process of reasoning, aided by the prospect of a couple of beers, I hereby declare the BT universe to be a "heroic" universe.

I actually like this! Because I've come to associate the magic qualities of tech in BT as very much aspects of a science fantasy tactical adventure game. It's hard to back up as a hard core sci-fi war game, like Centurion, Ogre, Star Grunt II, Dirt Side and... many others.

No beer necessary for me.



Anyway, changes I'd make? Well, there are two categories. The first is stylistic. The second is for ease of game-play.

- Primitive infantries and technologies (minor to major)
Studying the statistics of BT infantry, I've come to conclude that they are either cream of the crop or outfitted with some pretty awesome stuff. Stuff that not everyone should or will have access to. So, I've been throwing around some thoughts on the majority of your infantry, be the main army, weekend warriors, or the police. They can't move and shoot in the same turn, or get a hefty penalty.

I'm also wanting to honestly field ancient space flight and pre-space flight combat units and have a different scale game that allows them to function against each other as intended, potentially at greater ranges, but be meshed into a BT game if needed to show just how drastic Star League engineering really is. This means range boosts for any Post Height of Star League technology against said units.

Unique expressions of Star League engineering at its height. The fun with wildly varying rules sets is that you can mix and match, if you choose. Some of the older games bring things that make units following those rules seem ultra potent. Being able to clear woods with mearly a successful to-hit compared to the BMR's secondary strength test is nice, as long as the weapon meets certain pre-conditions first. Being able to kill tanks with a strong crit or immobilize them outright, instead of just a few points of motive damage here or there or hoping for that high crit roll is cool.  Aerospace Fighters that engage at interplanetary ranges instead of merely outside of atmosphere is really neat. Stuff like that.

While I did give the potential for remnant shrinking technology in buildings, I asked what other people thought and they said it sounded stupid. So, Mechs can opt to plow through a level one building as if it were depth one water in regards to partial cover and LoS, instead of crouching down and crawling through.

Some things I have changed are just a mental imaging thing. This is supposed to be a high-tech future, and so when I think about combat units, I've concluded that almost everything is heavily automated. Piloting and Gunnery improvements are not a pilot's master of forceful control of a machine, but instead knowing when to let it do its thing.

Example: Choosing targets is a matter of picking a target with a high projected probability of success fast enough and clicking on it with whatever weapons you want to hit it and in what order. The faster its done, the faster the battle computer can whip up a solution that will work when the weapons are recharged/reloaded.

For that reason, the HUD in a neurohelmet is probably a sight to behold. Enemy combat units are easily depicted behind terrain, and probably have projection fields indicating their potential trajectories. You'll know early if they'll most likely be in sight or not.

This depiction is far from Canon, though. However, because of it, I often look at PoV depictions in fiction and have concluded that the main characters have crap stats, but but-loads of lemon dice in regards to those particular events.

It's fun to realize that Mechs are very much machines and move less like humans in the rate-of-step department, and are probably programmed to give a pilot a smooth ride with a controlled gate, no less. They're fast. Some are very fast.

There's nothing in the rules that says the cockpit actually gets hot as long as Life support is functioning. Therefore, I don't think mech cockpits are truly that uncomfortable as long as you're wearing the right gear and everything's working properly. The people in the novels need to have a stern talking-to with their technical staff.


Some stuff I did as a means to really cement the power of BT tech, and also as a means to streamline game-play. I've always liked how the BMR handled clearing woods. It was simply and not that hard to track. So, I went that way with some tweaks for buildings as well, allowing their stats to be tracked by mere application of tokens on the map. Much better than trying to keep track of every building's actual CF in a dense urban environment.

I can go on and on, but this is all I have time for, and covers the majority of my views.

[Yu Kigono]

I'm going to be totally unexciting and say I choose to change nothing. Except MAYBE reducing populations a bit to make military sizes make a bit more sense. Otherwise I'm pretty satisfied.

[Daryk]

My two cents:

1) I love the idea of simple weapons being available during the Succession Wars.  The Blazer Cannon needs company!

2) I also agree that PA(L) should be available in the Succession War era.  We had space adapted exoskeletons for a long time, but the current rules make them impossible without full on battle armor quality armor (i.e. you have to have at least one point of no kidding armor for an exoskeleton to be sealed).

3) As far as fixing fuel consumption for naval units, I'd drastically drop strategic thrust, but keep consupmtion the same.  By drasitcally, I'm talking a factor of 5 or 10.  Tactical thrust and fuel consumption would stay the same.  This is an evolution of the house rules I posted on the old board where you could build "fighter" (tactical thrust only) or "small craft" (strategic thrust capable) over a widely overlapping tonnage range

4) For weapon ranges, I'd just throw the old BattleTechnology extreme range rules in to play.  That keeps the game mostly the same, but eliminates the "your bullets stop here" phenomenon.  In general, I prefer the way those rules just made realistic ranges simply very hard vice impossible.

[Sagan]

Nuke throwing by Herb is on top of my list. Lost a lot of my favorite units during the Jihad.

[Nebfer]

A few more of my thoughts, particularly on the OPs coments

We now have rules for primitive mechs, so what if during the years between ~2870 and ~3020 say a considerable amount of the innerspheres battlemech production was comprised of mechs that where built to primitive standards. By 3020ish they had recovered enough to build regular battlemechs, though by 3050 many mechs where still "primitive" only to get slaughtered by the clans. Just think a Timberwolf vs a Marauder 3R is one thing, but what if the Marauder was only 3/5, with less armor and firepower?

Though Items like Machine guns (light and heavy), and rocket launchers would be a decent addition to "primitive" battlemechs of the late succession wars.

For Lost tech some might be an interesting counter point and allows for some basis for study when they get the blueprints available in 3028. As well as a small perk for "boss" units.
Though add in the Strat ops quirks like accurate weapons and improved cooling, can also be a useful thing to give them.

I also think the clans could use a larger starting point, have a larger exodus, that runs into a unknown colony in the pentagon area of a few million.

Continuing where I left off in my last post
expanding
Aerotech units will have a 5x fuel increase at strategic rate, and add 4 more brackets (spaced at every 500kt starting at 500kt). Net result a 2.5 million ton ship at 1G will be using about 800 tons of fuel per day. Dropships and Jumpships will also have an increased fuel use rate.
Armor will have a 15x weight increase, the maximum armor tonnage will have to get adjusted to deal with the extra mass.  A Leviathan would have something like 100,000 tons of armor now...
The KF drive will have to also be reduced in weight a bit to deal with the increased fuel use and armor mass.

Ballistic naval weapons will have their shot mass upped by a factor of 10, i'de like some real mass to these projectiles. 1.2 tons dose not seem right for an NAC-40 for me, 12 tons however...

I would also increase the mass of dropships by around 1.5 to 2x their current mass, and where possible reduce their size, Say an Overlord only being 80 meters tall instead of ~110m. This is to help accommodate their armor and fuel increase as well as allowing for some useful cargo and allow for support staff. Not to mention make them less of a "balloon" than they are currently.

Edit:
Also I would make it so that not only do Rifle cannons get a -3 damage on Bar 8+ armor, current B-tech weapons would have a ~2+ damage on BARs ~2-7. making them a bit more capable in that time frame, and showing that they indeed are better weapons.
Also I might think about making "IS" chemical lasers, for the say ~2000 to ~2350 era. Though perhaps not as good as their solid state counter parts...

[Rael]

I wouldn't change anything. Not from slavish fetish for canon but just because I don't have a problem with anything. When units and characters that I like die off, that just adds to the BT universe's pathos (and is a major reason why I liked the Jihad so much).

[Akalabeth]

Ben Rome killed the Wolf's Dragoons a long time ago

Correct me if I'm wrong but they survive the Jihad do they not?
Therefore they are not dead.

[Fear Factory]

Correct me if I'm wrong but they survive the Jihad do they not?
Therefore they are not dead.

I'm glad they (and other munchtastic units) got the beating they deserved.

[Paint it Pink]

I think changes to the rules would fall into either changes to the back ground and changes to the rules of the game.

For the back ground the world populations is the big one I would want to see revised. However, even this problem goes away if you move the BattleTech timeline forward and this strategy is by far and away better than retconning the past, as one can redraw the picture of the state of the Inner Sphere and neatly side-step everything.

As for the ranges, I tend to agree with the old BattleTechnology magasine rationale.For the game rules I would do the following:

1. For board games keep movement as cost per hex, but double the firing range. For miniature gaming make each hex equal to four inches, but movement points only equal to two inches.   
Reason: to balance the emphasis on manoeuvre from simplified facing changes with firing range while speeding up play.

2. For movement now all units just count the number of hexes (board-game), or inches moved (tabletop), and add a free facing change at the end of the turn only. Quad mechs can move sideways down the line of the hex, or just step side-ways in tabletop miniature games, effectively retaining their side-slip advantage. 
Reason: taking a leaf out of MechWarrior: Age of Darkness quick play. 
Addendum: this effectively adds three movement points to all mechs and vehicle, which compensates for doubling the range of the weapons.

3. Roll 4D6, and discard two results, for combat to calculate whether or not all the weapons that the unit has hit or miss. 
Reason: reduce number of die rolls, which means quicker fire resolution.

4. Roll  4D6, and discard two results, for all the missile weapons fired to get an average of number of missiles hit e.g: you fire five LRM launchers of say three fives, and two 10s, you would then roll on the 35 missile to hit table, rather than for each launcher in turn. 
Reason: replaces boxes of dice with one table and remove design artifacts that can affect game balance from game play and resolve damage quicker.

5. Ammo explosions are calculated as the value of one round of the ammo cooking off when they explode. However,  after applying the internal damage, roll again on 2D6 (the usual roll of plus eight) to see if more critical damage is done to the mech (if the ammo bay is hit again, this too will explode one round and so on).   
Reason: reduce number of times dice need to be rolled and therefore speed up the game, but still allows for catastrophic explosions.

6. Ferro-fibrous armour, endo-steel count and empty slots count as valid locations for an internal hit and need not be re-rolled.
Reason: to again reduce number of times dice need to be rolled and therefore speed up the game.

7. Head hits do not automatically kill the pilot, instead the auto-pilot is assumed to eject the pilot, unless of course there is no ejection system or auto-eject is turned off for some reason. Pilots only die from wounds received. 
Reason: emphasis on heroic RPG, rather than pure wargame play.

8. Initiative to be governed by using cards, which will randomise what moves when during a turn.
Reason: stop gamesmanship and calculating the best unit to move last, which slows down the game.

[Psyckosama]

I think I covered this in my podcast Arbitration before, but it always bears repeating.

Okay.

a total Retcon and redesign of the unseen for the succession war period.   I want to grab Brent Evans, lock him in a room full of Bristol Board and pencils and pens and a poster of the Wolverine II and say "You get a six pack of beer and a pizza for every unseen you recreate along these lines."  and if it is not up to snuff I will have a small monkey with a taser shock him.

I agree. I think the last part is why the "retcon" idea for the succession wars failed in the voting. We need that monkey with a stun-gun.

Oh well, maybe when Mechwarrior comes out the PTB can be persuaded to use the awesome looking retconned Warhammer in the least... after all, if they use it that means that Harmony Gold was told to STFU and GTFO in court. They'd be damned fools not to milk the game for as many potential players as possible.

some minor gripes- The Word of Blake, no I would not remove the Manei Domini, if anything there would be more of them.  I would have the aknowleged Divisions be greater then the Ten out there, Make the Shadow Divisions an Even Twenty, on top of forty standard (so we have sixty, get it?)

I agree. Keep the MD. The Cyborg supersoldiers is a major part of the Blakest's charm... and like I said, I like Cyberpunk.

Warden Clans- why was it that only the Diamond Sharks were receptive (let alone enthusiastic) about Victor Steiner Davions invatation for normalized relations?

Yeah. That was silly.

Kai Allard Liao is much more charming when he has confidence issues

Agreed.

MadCapellan presents Battletech would look like the following:

Fewer planets, probably 80% or so of what there are now.

I'd keep them the amount they are personally, just more backwater crap holes. Heck, I'd have it so there are planets (mostly half-abandoned colonies, see the Age of War/Star League Era maps) that while technically are part of a successor state haven't actually seen official visitors for the past 120 years.

Replace all current BattleMech regiments with Brigades

Kinda steals away the mystique of "One lance can garrison a world" I'd say.

Jumpships would never approach being lostech, and transport fleets would be 100x larger.

I'd go with the retconned numbers which are well in the tens of thousands. Keeps them rare without being SUPER rare.

Clarify that the militaries of the Inner Sphere have massive lowtech infantry formations that allow the conquest and peacekeeping of their planets, but which can't even scratch a 'Mech's paint.

Good idea.

Reorganize warship designations so that what we currently classify as light cruisers are super dreadnaughts, frigates are battleships, destroyers fill the cruiser role, and all the picket ship roles are replaced by Pocket Warships, which existed since the Star League.  This may require a revision to dropship thesholding or max armor rules.

Um. I'd have to disagree with you on that one. I'd just make the heavier warships less common myself.

The Federated Suns is far too blandly homogenous.  I'd give it little duchies within the Marches, each with their own personality and some with their own military formations, from hoity, intellectual Achernar, to wild, open Chisholm, to oppressive police state Kittery.

This. Is. AWESOME! I like it!

The Draconis Combine would be portayed with more nuance and less immorality. 

Good idea. Right now they're pretty much The Empire if it was ruled by a Japanese Samurai Stanley Whiplash. From the way the Succession Wars era books read, I'm sure Takashi Kurita ties at least one innocent maiden to the train tracks a month just because he can.

The Capellans would still lose the 4th Succession War, but it wouldn't be such a one-sided romp.

Agreed! If you read the NIAS book on the war the Fed Suns was surfing a wave of Author Fiat 20 meters high.

Clan society collapses completely during the Jihad, with leaving only the Nova Cats, Wolves in Exile, and Ghost Bears surviving.  The Falcons, Wolves, & Horses would be destroyed by the rebellions of their own lower castes, the Blakists, and Inner Sphere forces reclaiming their territory.  The Diamond Sharks would morph themselves into a multi-national manufacturing concern.  The Ravens would never survive the move from the Homeworlds.  Nobody knows what happened to the homeworlds.

Oh come now...

Yeah, definitely this. Especially some of the obvious steps back like MRMs, Rocket Launchers, etc. It's much like suggesting that the US Army's tank development line went M48 to M1 Abrams, then after winning the Cold War, they developed from scratch the M60 to replace the M1.

Cool. Honestly though designs should be been simply retconned back. They're just so... OBVIOUS. What is a rocket launcher but a whole bunch of infantry LAWs assembled in a box.

This is more than minor if taken to it's logical conclusion because it ties into one of the fundamentals of FASAnomics, which is that worlds don't really care whose flag is flying from the DropPort, so long as no atrocities are committed and the taxes are excessive (which FASAnomics also tells us that they must not be, otherwise armies would be rediculously large).

I'd cut populations dramatically myself... Rather than the average being 3 billion a planet, it's more like 20 to 100 million with only the larger more advanced planets like district and national capitols getting into the billions. I'd make Terra still by far the most populace planet in the Inner Sphere... and maybe have it so the terraforming of Venus and Mars stuck, making it so Sol's population was actually large enough to rival many Major Periphery states... makes the massive armies of WoB Jihad feel like much less of an ass-pull.

I actually like this one a lot. If the standard mechwarrior is running around in an up-gunned IndustrialMech, then even your family Locust takes on a new shine. Especially if the Industrial Mechs are mounting the Retrotech cannons and lasers instead of modern equivalents....

Heh. I think it makes the Succession Wars more heroic myself.

Once more, I like it a lot. And this is probably not as extreme as you suggest. There is already some fluff to indicate that the Bounty Hunter's Marauder was Lostech-equipped.

Cool. But I'd have it be more than just The Dread Pirate Boba Fett.

Makes sense, and once more probably not as extreme if it's done RetroTech style.

Awesome. :D

Honestly I think it would allow for you to explain how they can take and hold planets. Normal worlds might have large formations of standard infantry, but the attackers are bringing power suited infantry to the game as a force multiplier allowing a single squad to be as dangerous as a platoon thanks to superior speed, agility, and weapons loadout. While it makes elementals a bit less of a shock, it does add to the "everything you've got but better" vibe.... OMG they're out space marineing our space marines!  :D ;D

Yeah, my personal opinion about the clans is that they can just mis-jump themselves to the Far Country, so I can't contribute much there.

They're not so bad once you mod them to make sense... and if most of what they're fighting consists of Retrotech, well suddenly a cluster of omnis slaughtering a regiment makes much more sense.

Sounds fun.  I'm game.

There is just something visceral about the courageous mercenaries making a full burn away from a planet in their battered old Leopard, narrowly escaping the teeth of a Combine Warship, burning for the asteroid belt, set on reaching the Jump Ship that is hidden in the pirate point of one of the local gas giants and its largest moon......

I'm tempted to name said Leopard... the FALCON!  :D

Definitely interested in this aspect.

That said, I wouldn't have it be common at all off of capitol worlds and planets in the former Terran Hegemony that managed to getting blasted to crap.

Yeah, Genetic modification, while the logical outcome of our current technological progress, taints the flavor a bit for me. But that's because the major appeal of BattleTech to me is that 1,000 years in the future, we still haven't 'evolved' past ourselves.

I wouldn't go much farther than they do with the True Borns. Generally they're just people, just with different features... in fact I think it plays into that. We haven't evolved past ourselves. We've tried, but in the end the best we've gotten are pretty people with pointy ears.

Hmmn, what would I change?

1. Victor-Steiner Davion
2. Phelan Kell
3. Kai Allard
4. Wolf Dragoons
5. Kell Hounds

I'd neuter and/or kill 'em all. ESPECIALLY the Wolf's Dragoons.

[stupid]

There are plenty worse characters than them. For example Mary-Tzu Liao.

And if you must have "aliens," Then I vote for actual catgirls in-universe.  C'mon, Battletech is in dire need of them.     

Battletech is at its heard a Real Robot Anime! I don't see them being overly common, but Canopian Cat Girls sounds just PEACHY to me!  ;D

Cut the planetary population to about 1/4th it's currently is, so it went from roughly 3 billion to about 800 million on average, Tech A worlds will still have multi billion populations, Tech B & C would have populations of around 1 billion, D&F no more than 500 million.
Also mention that the old numbers where the populations before the succession wars, wiping out ~80% of your population in like 50 years or less is likely to cause problems.

Only 1/4? I'd go more like 1/10th! Maybe more! I can see Tech-A being a 1-2 billion, Tech B being around 500 million to a billion. Tech C would be about 100 to 500 million. Tech D would be about 50-100 million. Tech F would be 50 million on a good day.

Increase the military size by 300%, regiments become brigades basically (this makes most houses have 220+ mech regiments).
Also flesh out the infantry and tank units a bit more, with some notable regiments and brigades. And provide some indication as to their numbers.
Also if need be add a group if lightly armed infantry that are not only effective on infantry, their main function is for COIN and rear area security.

Easily done without changing a damned thing. Look at the PDF forces in Hot Spots, expand on them a bit to make them more logical, now apply those to every planet in every successor state. Play UP the warrior nobility role of the Mechwarrior. Most of their time is spent on thier landhold defending it, only leaving for war when the nation needs them or when they're called to do their stint in the regular standing army. And remember, they'd go beyond just their mechs or Aerospace Fighters. Like the knights of old they'd have men at arms... conventional tanks, infantry, maybe even a couple primitive mechs for brought their for their prized servants or so their second sons can make a proper warriors' living without having to join the house armies in hope of earning a 'mech.

Play this and the house armies suddenly become a minority force in their own states with the bulk of the military being in the hands of the pretty nobility... heck this could also make the Fourth succession war make sense... Hanse Davion literally hit house liao with EVERYTHING. He called the Mechwarrior Nobility to Crusade.

Increase the number of jumpships, 200,000 should be good enough

Kinda takes away some of the charm that...

Increase fuel use for dropships, jumpships and warships at lest 5x, with a few more increments available, armor mass also should be increased.

Rules issue but yeah. At the same time drop the amount of fuel needed to charge a KF drive and run station keeping thrusters. Honestly they'd only need to make the odd micro burn once in a while. Who cares if you're theoretically falling into the sun if it will take you 35 years to reach it. A short adjustment burn every couple weeks would solve that no problem.

My two cents:

1) I love the idea of simple weapons being available during the Succession Wars.  The Blazer Cannon needs company!

Indeed they do! More quirky weapons and options! Coolant tanks would also be great for the era.

2) I also agree that PA(L) should be available in the Succession War era.  We had space adapted exoskeletons for a long time, but the current rules make them impossible without full on battle armor quality armor (i.e. you have to have at least one point of no kidding armor for an exoskeleton to be sealed).

I'd have them keep the BA qualities... Like I said above, power armored infantry would make good marines for dealing with the scores of cheap foot sloggers on the ground with their AK-Clones. Just make the armor heavier and maybe make it so you can handle full sized 7 man infantry squads in the rules. Even if you gave them the obscenely heavy Prototype armor, you can still give a BA squad move 3 on the ground, personal weapons, and a squad support weapon. With that level of firepower, durability, and mobility the things they do to conventional infantry is just too dirty to put on a public form.

3) As far as fixing fuel consumption for naval units, I'd drastically drop strategic thrust, but keep consupmtion the same.  By drasitcally, I'm talking a factor of 5 or 10.  Tactical thrust and fuel consumption would stay the same.  This is an evolution of the house rules I posted on the old board where you could build "fighter" (tactical thrust only) or "small craft" (strategic thrust capable) over a widely overlapping tonnage range

Mind reposting it?

4) For weapon ranges, I'd just throw the old BattleTechnology extreme range rules in to play.  That keeps the game mostly the same, but eliminates the "your bullets stop here" phenomenon.  In general, I prefer the way those rules just made realistic ranges simply very hard vice impossible.

I believe its already in TacOps

A few more of my thoughts, particularly on the OPs coments

We now have rules for primitive mechs, so what if during the years between ~2870 and ~3020 say a considerable amount of the innerspheres battlemech production was comprised of mechs that where built to primitive standards. By 3020ish they had recovered enough to build regular battlemechs, though by 3050 many mechs where still "primitive" only to get slaughtered by the clans. Just think a Timberwolf vs a Marauder 3R is one thing, but what if the Marauder was only 3/5, with less armor and firepower?

I agree completely and think they'd be in production even past the Clan Invasion era as most planets can build primitives without having to import parts... though at this point even the petty nobles would be able to afford proper Succession Wars era tech, leaving the primitives and armed argo-mechs to the milita.

Though Items like Machine guns (light and heavy), and rocket launchers would be a decent addition to "primitive" battlemechs of the late succession wars.

Same with MRMs which are in essence reloadable Rocket Lauchers.

For Lost tech some might be an interesting counter point and allows for some basis for study when they get the blueprints available in 3028. As well as a small perk for "boss" units.

Though add in the Strat ops quirks like accurate weapons and improved cooling, can also be a useful thing to give them.[/quote]

Never hurts to cheese your high level nobles esp if you're running a RPG game so they're properly nightmarish without making them all 0/0 Living Gods. Makes them memorable. "Wait  a second...  15 damage at this range... and he almost hit me with his lasers this far out... OH MY GOD, THAT ATLAS HAS A GAUSS RIFLE AND ER LARGE LASERS!"

I also think the clans could use a larger starting point, have a larger exodus, that runs into a unknown colony in the pentagon area of a few million.

I'd make it billions and actually have the civilian population have shrunk since their conquest due to the warrior caste's gross mismanagement and piss poor allocation of resources. I'm sorry but little Timmy is going to have to go hungry because the money is being diverted to the construction of a new Congress to replace one that was totaled in a Trial of Refusal last week, which also means its another 100 hour work week, and by the way Grandma is getting close to sixty so you should try and see if you can get enough food and time saved up so you can throw a part in her honer before she's ordered to report for mandatory euthanization...

Makes it clear why the Crusaders (Who would be BY FAR the worst offenders IMHO) would be so hype to invade the inner sphere. They can either ease up on the lower castes or simply enslave additional people to feed their wasteful, fundamentally flawed way of life.

Continuing where I left off in my last post
expanding
Aerotech units will have a 5x fuel increase at strategic rate, and add 4 more brackets (spaced at every 500kt starting at 500kt). Net result a 2.5 million ton ship at 1G will be using about 800 tons of fuel per day. Dropships and Jumpships will also have an increased fuel use rate.

I Like it... though I'd make the amount of fuel needed for station keeping almost negligible.

Armor will have a 15x weight increase, the maximum armor tonnage will have to get adjusted to deal with the extra mass.  A Leviathan would have something like 100,000 tons of armor now...

I also like it!

The KF drive will have to also be reduced in weight a bit to deal with the increased fuel use and armor mass.

Or you could cut into the obscene amount of cargo weight...

Ballistic naval weapons will have their shot mass upped by a factor of 10, i'de like some real mass to these projectiles. 1.2 tons dose not seem right for an NAC-40 for me, 12 tons however...

Depends on how fast its going I'd say...

I would also increase the mass of dropships by around 1.5 to 2x their current mass, and where possible reduce their size, Say an Overlord only being 80 meters tall instead of ~110m. This is to help accommodate their armor and fuel increase as well as allowing for some useful cargo and allow for support staff. Not to mention make them less of a "balloon" than they are currently.

Works for me. I'd reduce their costs though to match the current so its still reasonable to have characters own them.

Edit:
Also I would make it so that not only do Rifle cannons get a -3 damage on Bar 8+ armor, current B-tech weapons would have a ~2+ damage on BARs ~2-7. making them a bit more capable in that time frame, and showing that they indeed are better weapons.
Also I might think about making "IS" chemical lasers, for the say ~2000 to ~2350 era. Though perhaps not as good as their solid state counter parts...

I'd change them so against BAR8+ armor they roll on the cluster chart to determine damage. Makes them able to damage mechs while still being a bit of a crap-shoot.

Going to add some additional ideas and refinements here and to the OP in a little bit. Just want to post this reply so if firefox crashes it doesn't eat the reply.

[Psyckosama]

I think changes to the rules would fall into either changes to the back ground and changes to the rules of the game.

For the back ground the world populations is the big one I would want to see revised. However, even this problem goes away if you move the BattleTech timeline forward and this strategy is by far and away better than retconning the past, as one can redraw the picture of the state of the Inner Sphere and neatly side-step everything.

How would you explain killing 90% of the IS population then?

As for the ranges, I tend to agree with the old BattleTechnology magasine rationale.For the game rules I would do the following:

1. For board games keep movement as cost per hex, but double the firing range. For miniature gaming make each hex equal to four inches, but movement points only equal to two inches.   
Reason: to balance the emphasis on manoeuvre from simplified facing changes with firing range while speeding up play.

Well, I wasn't planning on rules talk but you gave me some ideas...

I'd make it one inch/two inch myself so you don't need a table the size of a gymnasium floor myself.

2. For movement now all units just count the number of hexes (board-game), or inches moved (tabletop), and add a free facing change at the end of the turn only. Quad mechs can move sideways down the line of the hex, or just step side-ways in tabletop miniature games, effectively retaining their side-slip advantage. 
Reason: taking a leaf out of MechWarrior: Age of Darkness quick play. 
Addendum: this effectively adds three movement points to all mechs and vehicle, which compensates for doubling the range of the weapons.

Could work. I'm thinking make it so turning costs one inch or a successful piloting check.

3. Roll 4D6, and discard two results, for combat to calculate whether or not all the weapons that the unit has hit or miss. 
Reason: reduce number of die rolls, which means quicker fire resolution.

I like that one... but I'd make it three D6.

4. Roll  4D6, and discard two results, for all the missile weapons fired to get an average of number of missiles hit e.g: you fire five LRM launchers of say three fives, and two 10s, you would then roll on the 35 missile to hit table, rather than for each launcher in turn. 
Reason: replaces boxes of dice with one table and remove design artifacts that can affect game balance from game play and resolve damage quicker.

Comes off a bit cheesy there...

5. Ammo explosions are calculated as the value of one round of the ammo cooking off when they explode. However,  after applying the internal damage, roll again on 2D6 (the usual roll of plus eight) to see if more critical damage is done to the mech (if the ammo bay is hit again, this too will explode one round and so on).   
Reason: reduce number of times dice need to be rolled and therefore speed up the game, but still allows for catastrophic explosions.

The exsisting ammo rules aren't that bad...

6. Ferro-fibrous armour, endo-steel count and empty slots count as valid locations for an internal hit and need not be re-rolled.
Reason: to again reduce number of times dice need to be rolled and therefore speed up the game.

Makes crit seeking useless.

7. Head hits do not automatically kill the pilot, instead the auto-pilot is assumed to eject the pilot, unless of course there is no ejection system or auto-eject is turned off for some reason. Pilots only die from wounds received. 
Reason: emphasis on heroic RPG, rather than pure wargame play.

I'll agree, but add getting shot out of an exploding cockpit should still cause high probability of severe injury.

8. Initiative to be governed by using cards, which will randomise what moves when during a turn.
Reason: stop gamesmanship and calculating the best unit to move last, which slows down the game.

Keep your dirty cards off of my battletech you foul heathen! [tickedoff]

[Psyckosama]

Here are some expansions of the ideas I posted in the OP (also will be placed in the OP) with ideas taken from other people.

(Moderate) Shrinking Clan populations. This feeds in with the idea that they conquered a periphery state. Due to the warrior caste's gross mismanagement and piss poor allocation of resources the civilian classes have been steadily shrinking since the formation of the clans. The simple fact is that, with a few exceptions (Diamond Sharks I'm looking at you), the Warrior Caste doesn't know how to run an proper economy or a functional bureaucracy and frankly most of them couldn't be bothered to learn. I'd have the Crusader clans for the most part be the worst of this lot. The simply fact is that at their current rate the clan way of life is simply not sustainable. They have two options. They can moderate themselves and try trim the fat and learn the art of statesmanship rather than acting like a rampaging barbarian hoard, or they can find a nice juicy new conquest to give them the treasure and manpower to continue their gross military indulgence.

This makes the Invasion of the Inner Sphere an issue of cultural survival to the Clans, especially the crusaders who tend to be the most wantonly extravagant of the bunch.

Minor/Moderate/Major?) Cull the populations. The number of people in the IS breaks the rest of the setting. Make it so worlds are fast less populated. With the exception of major worlds like regional and district capitols, populations should be reasonably small. As a rule of thumb I'd say Tech-A being a 1-2 billion, Tech B being around 500 million to a billion. Tech C would be about 100 to 500 million. Tech D would be about 50-100 million. Tech F would be 50 million on a REALLY good day. There will be exceptions. Some primitive worlds might have populations that breed like bunnies, while some advanced worlds might have a high level of tech but be hostile to human life. Then you'd have Terra which I think should have by IS standards a obscene population. I think it would be better if Comstar kept up the Terraforming on Venus and Mars (or it was established enough not to punk out the moment they turned their backs) giving the Sol system a population more in line with that of some regional districts... making it a VERY intimidating target on a REALLY GOOD day.

(Moderate) Many more clan second line troops. Add additional levels to the trial of position. Make is to the person proctoring the test has the right to put students who failed but he believes still have potential retest for a place in a Solahma unit. Use the Hells Horses way of selecting into secondary services the standard with drop outs and free births in even the most ideologically strict of clans being given the chance to become standard infantry, starship crew, and vehicle drivers. Make use of a significantly large paramilitary police that is well trained in suppressing civilian revolts but according to the rules of Zel are technically psudo-warriors at best and cannot be committed to a battle between warriors. One of those convenient little rules to find ways to sidestep at convenience when facing the Zergling rushes of milita infantry that can be found in the Inner Sphere...

(Moderate) Power Armor Equipped Space "Marines". This expands on Succession Wars Power Armor. Have the "Marines" of the setting be an elite force that like 'mechs are organized to allow a maximum level of force in as light a package as possible. High level of training levels, decent firepower, high mobility, and heavy armor allows a small squad to match and exceed the ability of a standard platoon. They're used in invasions to back up the 'Mechs and help root out the swarms of crap milita infantry that you can find almost anywhere by the crapload. Also plays into the whole "We can do anything you can do better" theme of the Clans. Sure it takes away some of the OMG! factor of seeing a Toad for the first time, but elementals still represent a major paradigm shift as they're simply bigger, stronger, better armed and more mobile than anything they'd previously conceived of... not to mention that unlike Marines they can literally rip apart a 'mech with their bare "hands"

(Moderate) Warrior Nobility: I mentioned it above and now I'll go into detail. I think that the majority of a successor states' military should be tied up in the lower nobility. Mechwarriors, Aerospace Jocks, even skilled marines and owners of high tech vehicles should all be lower level nobility with a small landhold dedicated to giving them the resources to keep their weapons functioning, their skills sharp, and the ability to raise men at arms (militia) to help defend the realm. The standing military should consist of Knights fulfilling their feudal obligations, students of the elite academies paying off their training with a term of service, sons and daughters of the nobility looking to ply their trade and maybe earn a landhold of thier own, Mercenaries, and the Successor Lord's own men at arms who are looking to protect their homeland or advance in the world.

This allows massive forces in wars while in (relative) peace the forces are much reduced because the knights are at home tending to their obligations. Also makes Mercs far more useful. Feudal obligations are complicated and slow to deal with and while it allows them to raise a ton of men when need be, it also is extremely slow, especially if the lower level nobles don't want to go as they can lawyer you to death dragging out the process even more. Mercs are simple. Give them money, point them at target, and they break things. They EXPENSIVE and contracts are a pest, but compared to the various obligations among the feudal warrior class its down right simple. Along those lines I'd also raise the income of your average mercenary unit about ten times to come in line with the level of wealth and station found among the corresponding members of the feudal warrior class.

You can have cheap fast and effective. You want cheap and effective, wait for the Mechwarrior-Knights to move their butts. You want cheap and fast, you call of levy of the milita off some worlds and hope you have enough meat to jam the other guys grinder. You want fast and good, you open up your check book, swallow your pride, and pay someone to do it.

(Moderate) Privateers. State Sponsored pirates. How would that work you ask? Simple. X unit has a service contract from Y Successor State that gives them leave to commit to "objective raids" against their enemies. Payment is completely in salvage rights with minimal support offered. In other words, a fancy way to describing your standard 17th century Letter of Marque and Reprisal.

(Moderate) I liked the mention of someone else of adding more subdivision to the Federated Suns for flavor.

(Major) MONKEYS! Everything is better with monkeys. Everything.  ;D

Minor: For the love of god, do not use the support Vehicle rules to build primitive combat vehicles and Conventional Fighters! Make dedicated rules like you did for ASFs and MEchs! Here's my example: http://www.classicbattletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,5415.0.html

[Maelwys]

Some relatively simple ones...

1) Through Armor Criticals are standard :)

2) ComStar doesn't forget everything the Star League knew. They may not have the factories or the infrastructure necessary to build everything, but they've got the knowledge. They were using Royals, but didn't tell anyone because quite frankly, it wasn't anyone's business what exactly the ComGuards were using. I'm sure the FedSuns didn't tell ComStar everything about their army. The reason some of their HPGs are jury-rigged is because they're trying to keep 1000+ HPGs running, and are worried about building more factories to produce more parts.

3) No more tech slides. If the creation of modern tech gets pushed back any further, we'll have rules for Davion forces with prototype Star League equipment attacking into the CapCon during the 4th Succession War. Infact, push it back up to the late 3040's. Now everything previously published makes sense, and the War of 3039 makes sense once again.

4) If the Unseen happens again, then all new mechs will be created to replace the Unseen, rather than downgraded 2750 designs. Or atleast the fluff for the downgraded versions won't invalidate the 2750 fluff.

5) Royals get explained away better. ComStar just didn't tell anyone...which isn't that big of a deal since they probably don't have alot left over after Tukayyid, and because it isn't too longer before the IS has surpassed them. "Hey, be happy we're selling you Warship engines, now shut up." The Clans just didn't mention it because they don't have alot after the Pentagon Wars, and because the majority of Clans that have made it to the Inner Sphere use Clan `Mechs almost exclusively. If the Blood Spirits or Goliath Scorpions had invaded, it might be a big deal, but not really for the Clans that did show up. The book revealing the Royal designs, and all subsequent ones are prefaced with something like "We realize this introduces possible inconsistencies in earlier products detailing various forces. Feel free to take into account the new designs when creating forces where they would be appropriate. Yes, we realize this is a retcon, but we hope its one that makes the universe more enjoyable."

I'd probably do something with the nose bay of the Suffren, but that could just be me.

[Daryk]

...
Mind reposting it?

I believe its already in TacOps
...

a) If I can find it, sure.  I'll start digging through the archive shortly.

b) Only partly.  TacOps partially implemented the "Extreme" range band, but omitted the "Maximum" range band.  Maximum is where you get lasers to the horizon, but with a +11 to hit penalty, and reduced damage.

and before I forget: c) Snimm was asking after the Fighting Choppers unit down in the Non-Canon Units section.  I reposted some of the original thread there.  Hope you don't mind.

[RedMarauder]

No.  Just no.  For one, PPC's are powerful enough and overused as they are right now (at least they always have been at my table when I used to play a lot).  PPC's are not supposed to be short range weapons anyway.  Two, if you really want to drop the PPC minimum, then use the "disengage field inhibitor" (something like that) rule in TacOps.  It's balanced enough.

EDIT:  You have the SNPPC.  That's your standard PPC without the minimum.



Honestly, I kind of like BattleTech as it is.

Disengaging the field inhibitors isn't good enough.  What's the explaination for the ERPPC not having them and the standard having them?  To my knowledge they haven't explained this in canon.  Once that's been done, then I'll be satisfied.  What's to stop them retroengineering the tech that takes away the minimum for ER models to the standard? 

[Psyckosama]

a) If I can find it, sure.  I'll start digging through the archive shortly.

Thanks.

b) Only partly.  TacOps partially implemented the "Extreme" range band, but omitted the "Maximum" range band.  Maximum is where you get lasers to the horizon, but with a +11 to hit penalty, and reduced damage.

Oh? Sounds interesting... post 'em please?

and before I forget: c) Snimm was asking after the Fighting Choppers unit down in the Non-Canon Units section.  I reposted some of the original thread there.  Hope you don't mind.

Fine by me! Link me please!

[Lorcan Nagle]

TacOps also has LOS range rules.

[Daryk]

Found 'em!  But man, apparently I'm slow on the keyboard today...

TacOps also has LOS range rules.

Thanks!  I had missed those somehow, even though they're right below the extreme range rules on page 85.  They simplify the original BattleTechnology implemenation somewhat, from what I remember of it.

Thanks.

Oh? Sounds interesting... post 'em please?

Fine by me! Link me please!

In reverse order:
Choppers Link

Posting the BattleTechnology rules will take a bit more time, unless they're already somewhere else on the internet.  They were 4-6 pages as I recall, and included tables.

And finally, my proposed Small Craft House Rules (discussion thread in the archive here, I didn't post the rules until reply #22):

"Small Craft"
The designation "Small Craft" now applies to any craft 500 tons or less.  This class is further broken down into "light" and "heavy" sub-categories, with "light" constituting craft 100 tons or less.  All Small Craft may be designed under either the Tech Manual "Fighter" or "DropShip/Small Craft" rules with the following modifications:
1) Craft designed under the "DropShip/Small Craft" rules have a minimum crew of:
     one at 50 tons and below,
     two at 51-100 tons, and
     three above 100 tons.
2) Non-pilot crew members of craft designed under the "DropShip/Small Craft" rules count as gunners when determining gunner requirements (i.e. a craft with a crew of two may have up to six weapons without incurring a requirement for an additional gunner, while a crew of three can handle 12 weapons),
3) Craft designed under the "DropShip/Small Craft" rules determine free heat sinks using the military or civilian DropShip entries in the table, depending solely on their military or civilian designation (i.e. only civilian Small Craft use the "Small Craft or DropShip (Civilian)" entries). 
4) Small Craft designed as "DropShips/Small Craft" may employ "bay" quality crew quarters (to a minimum of .25 tons).
5) Small Craft designed as "Fighters" may employ Large Fusion Engines as described in TacOps, to include XL and Light models, but not XXL.
6) Small Craft designed as "Fighters" have a minimum crew requirement of one per 100 tons (round up).  Each crew member requires a "cockpit" (3 tons) that includes an ejection seat and redundant life support systems.  Small Craft not designed as "Fighters" do not have ejection seats.
7) All Small Craft refer to the Aerospace Fuel table as normal (i.e. those 400-500 tons only receive 70 points per ton).  Those designed as "Fighters" do not dedicate weight to fuel pumps.
8 ) Military Small Craft designed as "Fighters" have one external hard point per five tons, to a maximum of 20.
9) Small Craft designed as "DropShips/Small Craft" have integral ECM capabilities as described for "Small Craft" in StratOps.  Those designed as "Fighters" do not.
10) Small Craft may not mount Capital weapons, but may mount Sub-Capital weapons.

With regard to movement and combat:
1) Light Small Craft may employ  "Squadron" deployment rules in appropriate combat situations (i.e. large numbers of units on either side).  Heavy Small Craft may not.
2) Small Craft designed as "Fighters" make use of the heat scale.  All others operate under the zero net heat principle.
3) The last two initiative sub-phases are modified to read: "7. Heavy Small Craft, 8. Light Small Craft"
4) Advanced Initiative Modifiers for Light and Heavy Small Craft are +3 and +0, respectively.  These modifiers replace the existing Fighter and Small Craft entries on p. 63 of StratOps.
5) Craft designed as "Fighters" use the "Fighter" rules for Vertical Landing and Liftoff.  All others use the DropShip/Small Craft rules (to include self-inflicted damage).
6) To hit modifiers for capital weapons are adjusted as follows:
     Light Small Craft +5 (+3 for Capital Lasers in AAA mode)
     Heavy Small Craft +3 (+1 for Capital Lasers in AAA mode)
7) To hit modifiers for sub-capital weapons are adjusted as follows:
     Light Small Craft +3 (+1 for Capital Lasers in AAA mode)
     Heavy Small Craft +1 (+0 for Capital Lasers in AAA mode)

One later addition: "Light" Small Craft cubicles are identical to Fighter Cubicles.  "Heavy" cubicles are 50 tons plus the largest tonnage to be housed.

[Daryk]

Either my Google-fu is extremely weak, or BattleTechnology issue 0201 is still copyright protected.  At the very least, it seems no one has uploaded a scan.  I'll have to dig it out of my collection and summarize, so it will be a while (i.e. probably not today).

[Fear Factory]

Disengaging the field inhibitors isn't good enough.  What's the explaination for the ERPPC not having them and the standard having them?  To my knowledge they haven't explained this in canon.  Once that's been done, then I'll be satisfied.  What's to stop them retroengineering the tech that takes away the minimum for ER models to the standard?

Good point.  Honestly though...  I have no idea.  The only obvious reason would be game balance but there would be nothing stopping them from making it a non-succession wars era gun.