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Battletech: What rules would you have written differently?

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Karasu:
So, I've been playing this game for a fair few years now, and over time I've had my fair share of house rules and alternative equipment.  Many of them became obsolete as rules are changed, optional rules become more codified and additional rules are written.  However, there are a number that I still harbour a fondness for.  A couple of them are vaguely feasible, others would require re-designing hundreds of mechs.

Engine Hits / Heat Sinks
I'm not sure if anyone else has this feeling, but it has always really bugged me that a 60-rated engine with 2 single heat sinks in it and a 400-rated engine with 16 double heat sinks in it both produce the same amount of waste heat when damaged.  If I had my way, engine critical hits would effectively destroy half of the heat sinks 'hidden' in the engine.

LB-X Autocannons
I wanted something that makes LB autocannons feel different from LRMs, but not take forever.  The solution was to treat it a bit like an area effect.  Roll location once only.  That location and all locations touching it on the damage transfer diagram (except Head) are hit.  They take damage equal to 1/5 of the AC class.  LB-2s become pointless.

Ultra Autocannons
Similarly for UACs.  The solution for this one is not to roll on the cluster chart, but just roll on location twice sequentially.  If the second hit is somewhere not adjacent to the first hit, it misses.

And a couple of construction rules

Ferro-fibrous armour
Why couldn't it have been a nice straightforward 18 points per ton for basic Ferro-fibrous?  Then Clan and Heavy FF are 20, and Light FF is 17.  So much easier to calculate.
In my head, I can't understand why making more efficient armour means you can carry less of it by mass ratio.  In my alternate reality battletech, the armour limit is by mass, not points.

Alternative construction materials
Here's an interesting excercise.  What if all those things that take up critical locations without being discrete equipment had fixed distribution of slots, like Project Blue Shield?  Endo-Steel always uses 3 slots in each Arm and Side torso and 1 slot in each leg.  TSM is one in each side torso and limb. Etc.  It creates more items that are mutually exclusive, thus requiring compromises and interesting decisions at the design stage.

Daemion:
I know I have a few things that I've done differently that we still employ often in some of my groups:

Demolition Attempts
Remember in the BMR how you simply had to roll less than or equal to the weapon's strength to see if it cleared a hex of woods by one level? Pretty elegant and didn't need a lot of record keeping. Well, I applied the same to buildings, while allowing for weight of occupants to cause early collapse.


Infantry
Some of the things about infantry in either the BMR or Total Warfare, or whichever rule set you use, has always been a little too abstract for my taste. Here are a couple of things I've contemplated, though not necessarily implemented:

Static Damage Dealt to Conventional Troops
I've always been of the opinion that all damage dealt to conventional infantry should be random. All of it.


Infantry Attacks and Modifying the Cluster Table
I never really understood the need for a to-hit roll regarding conventional infantry and making attacks, especially against each other. Something I've been playing with lately (and applying to a BattleTech/40k interface) is simply having them roll straight on the appropriate cluster chart for the squad size, and modify the result via application of to-hit mods as negative modifiers, like how the new AMS works on determining number of missiles striking a target.


Mechanized Infantry
I haven't really finalized anything on this, but it has always been in my head that the intrinsic vehicles for Mechanized Infantry should have a hit-point line and be grouped like a Battle Armor squad. They should be subject to motive hits and destruction like normal vehicles and be a target as well as the infantry squad each carries. If they're 'open-topped' then some of that damage should be able to splash into the troop compartment. Or an attacker should be able to shoot either the vehicle or the troops on its back.

garhkal:
Quad mech's Piloting bonus cause of 4 legs, extends to things such as Kicks and charges as well. 

I like that engine issue, but i also felt that rather than each engine hit just ramps up your heat scale, you could have a lowering of power output.  So energy weapons would do less damage/range, and movement gets hampered.

monbvol:
I have thought about instead of being a percentile increase FF should be just a point boost.  I never finalized the progression but I wouldn't mind testing out yours to see if it works well enough.

I rather like the idea of MASC, ES, FF, and other specialty items that consume criticals have to be placed in specific manners.

Some I've thought about(to avoid arguments I won't go into specifics on some):

Engines have rating/25 round down critical slots for Heat Sinks and do not come with free heat sinks.  Main reason I haven't committed to it yet is I think it makes Inner Sphere Double Heat Sinks a little too questionable of an upgrade but I do like that it makes Compact Heat Sinks  much more useful and makes the ammunition based weapons a bit more attractive due to lower heat.  Still needs tweaking overall.

Change the AC stats.  Even with the above modification they still need to go on a diet and trim down some.  I have tested out some changes that I'm mostly happy with but I still debate that I might have to go a bit farther in my revisions.

Gauss Rifles produce more heat and need power amplifiers like energy weapons.  To help compensate Heavy Gauss Rifle now does consistent damage but has a slight range drop off and Light Gauss Rifle has a slightly increased range.

Combat Vehicles don't get a free pass on any heat generated.  In other words everything needs heat sinks.  Combat vehicles would also no longer receive a suspension factor.  To compensate shielding would no longer be required and ICE would weight the same as light fusion with fuel cell weighting the same as XLs.  Rotors would also no longer receive reduced damage but only actually take damage on an additional roll of 2d6 of 8+.

I have actually started thinking about having the lower arm and hand actuator take up specific locations on the critical chart and can only be moved for dedicated physical combat weapons.  Weapons would no longer be splitable across locations and likewise cannot be split through lower arm and hand actuators.

Dedicated physical combat weapons are now reduced to one type as far as rules are concerned but may take any appearance.    So a weapon may appear as a hammer or sword but for abstraction's sake no matter the appearance they all follow the same rules.  Dedicated physical combat weapons now do 3 points of damage per ton invested in them and occupy one critical slot per ton.  Weapons that weight less than 5% of the mech's weight round up receive a -1 to hit bonus while weapons weighting more than 5% of the mechs mass round up but no more than 10% receive no modifier.  Any weapon massing more than 10% of the mech's weight receives a +1 to hit modifier for every 5% above or fraction there of.  If a dedicated physical combat weapon receives a +1 to hit modifier and/or is located in the leg a piloting skill roll with the same modifiers applied to the target number to avoid falling.

Punching and kicking without a dedicated physical combat weapon, or instead of one if one is mounted but no longer functional or for some reason the pilot/player wishes to make use of the limb itself instead of using the weapon applies a +2 to hit modifier and like above a missed kick results in a +2 modifier to the pilot skill roll target number in addition to any other modifiers due to damaged leg actuators or damaged gyro.

Critical hits that roll on an empty slots or locations that have already been critically hit(except for shoulder and hip actuators) do nothing further.  In the case of shoulder or hip actuators roll 2d6 again, limb becomes severed on an 8+.  Critical hits that result in a specialty armor or internal structure critical location cause another 1 point of damage for every 5 points, or fraction there of, of the attack that generated the critical.  This damage is applied to the appropriate structure in question(for example ferro fibrous would apply the damage to armor in the location to the opposite facing if an opposite facing exists, if no armor remains to the opposite facing or no armor is left no further damage is to be applied).  In the case of damage applied to internal structure no further critical hits are generated.  This damage never transfers to the next location.  Only Hardened Armor and Ferro Lamelor armor provide their benefits to this damage if such armors are mounted on the location in question.

Damage transfer now requires a roll on 2d6.  12, damage transfers normally. 8-11 only 1 point for every 5 or fraction there of transfers.  All other results have the damage fail to transfer.

Ammunition criticals or weapons that explode when critically struck roll 2d6 and only explode on 8+ and carry no further risk of exploding.

CASE also allows for ammo dumping with no possibility of enemy fire triggering the ammunition.

worktroll:
I find the infantry rules not high-level enough.

- Standard infantry weapons should not be able to damage combat armour. Low BARs, maybe, but you can empty an AK-47 against an Abrams all day and really not disable it. One-shot weapons should be provided, representing your LAWs/RPGs/etc.

- Squad-level light weapons allowed as exceptions to the above - one per squad - maximum 1 ton, representing HMGs/TOWs/that sort of thing. A "PBI mortar" providing something not unlike the BA artillery used by Centaur suits might be an extension.

- Heavier field weapons are their own unit, with its own crew, tow & ammo carriers abstracted under standard Mechanised rules. You can still stack a field gun unit in a hex with one infantry platoon, if you choose.

- Motorised infantry handled more like BA squads. So a Hoverbike unit might be 4-6 hoverbikes with random damage allocation, and hits per unit just like BA. Limits on size - the Savannah Master and Gabriel sit at the point where you'd have to decide whether to treat them as a squad or as single vehicles.

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