Variable Missile Use

[Armitage72]

I'm currently reading "A Rock and a Hard Place", the relatively new Grey Death Legion novel. In it, there are several references to firing only part of an SRM or LRM rack's capacity. For example, an Archer fires 4-6 missiles at a time to conserve ammo during a prolonged combat and a Commando fires a single SRM to kill a sniper.
This would obviously make tracking ammo more complicated, but I'm curious if anyone has tried anything like this in a game. (Or maybe it's an optional rule hidden in one of the books and I just don't remember.)

[Daryk]

I think the closest we get rule-wise is the ability to buy launchers by the tube for protos and BA.

[garhkal]

One of the Btech guys i gamed with when i was in London, had a HR that let one shift DOWN the fire of LRMs or SRM's by a cat..  So a 20 pack, could drop to a 10 pack, (so you could shoot it twice per load of ammo), or 5 pack..  Or a SRM 6 could be shot as a 4 or two pack.  A four could be shot as a 2 or 1 pack..

[Greatclub]

It's a Houserule, but... I'd call it in line with the dial-a-laser rules.

Would make book-keeping a hair more complex, having to keep track of how many missiles have been removed from the 120/100/90 missile rack.

[Failure16]

I have never done this for missile racks. But I have toyed with allowing autocannons to act as any cannon beneath them (so an AC/20 could mimic an AC/2-10 while an AC/5 could only act as an AC/2 when desired). That wasn't game breaking.

But it is a bit different than simply shooting fewer missiles on a given turn. I cannot see why it would be an issue as a houserule.

[Wolf72]

I would like something along those lines for RLs ... downgrade to a pack level to increase range, or even down to a 5-pack and lose the hit penalty

[RifleMech]

One of the Btech guys i gamed with when i was in London, had a HR that let one shift DOWN the fire of LRMs or SRM's by a cat..  So a 20 pack, could drop to a 10 pack, (so you could shoot it twice per load of ammo), or 5 pack..  Or a SRM 6 could be shot as a 4 or two pack.  A four could be shot as a 2 or 1 pack..

I like it.

[truetanker]

So a MRM-40 firing as a MRM-5?

TT

[BATTLEMASTER]

I'm currently reading "A Rock and a Hard Place", the relatively new Grey Death Legion novel. In it, there are several references to firing only part of an SRM or LRM rack's capacity. For example, an Archer fires 4-6 missiles at a time to conserve ammo during a prolonged combat and a Commando fires a single SRM to kill a sniper.
This would obviously make tracking ammo more complicated, but I'm curious if anyone has tried anything like this in a game. (Or maybe it's an optional rule hidden in one of the books and I just don't remember.)

I vaguely remember this being allowed in the RPG, but that was from skimming a book years ago at my FLGS, and I didn't buy the book.

My headcanon says that missile salvos actually consist only of a few missiles at a time (less than 10), which break into submunitions when they get close to the target.  That reconciles the missile rules with the artwork where it's not physically possible to store 120 missiles for a launcher, or a LRM-20 launcher only has 12 or 15 missile ports.  Perhaps that's what the author was going with.  YMMV.