Feel the Power? Mech Performance Across the Rulesets!

[Daemion]

I have noticed a trend in gaming, in general, and in BattleTech specifically.

Sometimes, adding details can take away from the power level of the machine or unit being detailed.

Or, more rightly, adding new rules and modifiers to flesh out details.

I've always been interested in comparing BattleMechs with combat craft from other franchises, but what's really interesting is that from the many different views on how Mechs function, or how relevant game stats are to 'function in reality', you have an interesting point for cross-overs inside BattleTech itself.

When Total Warfare was released, I noticed that Mechs seemed to be weaker against different combat unit types, though combat against other Mechs was mostly unchanged (with some drastic exceptions).  So, the above view isn't exactly true.

I looked into older rule-sets and I noticed that Mechs from older rules seem more powerful than Mechs out of the latest rules.  I figured I'd break them down as best I can.  There are two major telling factors to compare from - Mechs versus Non-Mechs, and Terrain Modification.

I'm going to break this up into multiple posts, so bear with me, but I'll start with an easy one, since I don't know too much about it.


BattleDroids
I'm working from what little other people were able to tell me, so if anyone has further input, feel free to correct me.

Terrain Modification - I don't know if it was actually possible. I certainly don't know how the rules regarded terrain. So, someone who knows the rules will have to fill this one in.

Mechs versus Non-Mechs - There were only three vehicles to choose from, and they had very limited stats.  Infantry platoons were down to a single small weapon of MG, Small Laser, or Flamer, and a single point of damage wiped out a platoon? Or a squad? Don't quite remember what I was told.

Pretty damn powerful, right?

[Daemion]

2nd Edition

I'm a lot more familiar with this one, and I have the books on hand to reference if I need to, but I'm not going to cite pages for this. I lump City Tech into this, as well as the original AeroTech, which is an interesting beast in it's own right.

Terrain Modification
This was actually part of the core game, and was surprisingly easy.  If you hit with a certain weapon from the list, the woods were knocked down a level.  (General simplification, if the weapon did less than 5 total damage, it couldn't clear woods.  AC/5 was the sole exception.  So, it was generally left to missiles and beam weapons, until the other ACs were added in CityTech.)

Not only could you just clear the woods with a direct attack against them, but you could accidentally clear them while shooting at the target and the shot missed. (Check roll result of 11 or 12.)  I'm not exactly sure, but I think they still had to be capable of performing the clearing attempt to get that check roll. 

You could accidentally or purposefully start fires. The list was a little different for starting fires.

Fun fact: there was no stipulation that clearing woods would put out the flames. (If you think about it, you just turned the fuel into mulch and made the flames worse.) So, even if you knocked down the trees, the flames were still burning for the duration of the game. I bet, if player groups were of a mind, you could have coolant trucks as fire-fighting vehicles trying to put them out.

Another fun fact: Though I saw this rules clarification from a FanPro developer, if you go back and look at the older rules, it still applies - shots could be made against targets beyond long range to expend ammo, or expend heat for whatever reason (Hello, fine-tuning TSM!).  It just was considered a miss. Was that missed shot against a unit in a woods hex? Guess what, accidental fire and clearing check! And, inferno missiles still automatically set the hex on fire.

Buildings then are very much the same as buildings now, although each hex had to be demolished individually. However, buildings could be accidentally set on fire. The target value happened to have the same weapon-based modifiers as for purposefully setting the building on fire, which makes me wonder if purposeful fire starting was meant to be more automatic and the table left for accidental fires.

Yet, another fun fact: Mechs were treated as being at 1 level above the terrain they stood on, and there was never any stipulation about being 1 level tall for entering a building.  So, a Mech could wade into a level one building and it would be visible over the roof.  Do you give it partial cover? Or do you do the full attack against the Mech as normal, and have the building absorb the damage against the legs as per the CityTech damage rules?  They never gave a clear answer on that until the 1-Level tall clause for buildings in, I think, the Compendium, and certainly in the BMR. Personally, I think it should have been up to the player or the group.  Partial cover had its risks and benefits, many people might have gone for any opportunity to apply it.

One more fun fact: You could actually make bases with armored buildings and weight allotments for weapons and ammo and whatnot. I think. If not here, then in the Tactical Handbook, which came out with the compendium.

Mechs Versus Non-Mechs
Versus Tanks - While tanks had anywhere from 4 to 5 locations, a shot landed down any particular facing would only apply to 1 or 2, depending on if there was a turret or not.  Also, if you went from the hit location table and applied some loose creativity, you could auto-immobilize any tank with a side shot. 

Of course, tanks at this level had a small d6 critical hit table that matched the glancing hit table out of Warhammer 40k. You still had to roll on the determining critical hits table, though, so it wouldn't apply unless you rolled at least an 8 on 2d6.

Versus Infantry - Any weapon or attack would do its damage value to the infantry life bar, where each point represented a guy in the platoon.  As the life bar shrank, the damage output for the platoon dropped.  Not as straightforward as wiping out a squad per point of damage, but easy to implement and reference in the game. There was a special exception in the Machine Gun, which could do 2d6 damage against infantry.

I do believe that the 'not in cover' damage bonus is applicable in this set.

Versus AeroSpace - See AeroTech _>

AeroTech
If there is anything that showed the disparity of power level between rulesets, this was the one. Each space hex was 6500 km across. (Sound familiar? It should since that's rougly the diameter of the Earth in Miles.) And, the turn length was in minutes, and the weapons ranges for the ground game were the exact same ranges on those aerospace craft flying around a large portion of a star system. You want to know how fast a Gauss Rifle round went? 22 hexes times 6500km. That's almost reaching light second speed.

Aside: If you want to know where Morgan Kell (?) could get away with using a medium laser to communicate with a Jumpship at the Nadir or Zenith jump point, or put a hole in the solar sail (I forgot what the actual act was, or who did it...) this was what the author was basing it on, because the same weapons on those aerospace fighters were on mechs and tanks.

There was no need for an in-atmo dogfighting scale.  Making a strafing run you got, I think, 3 adjacent lines to track along and anything in that kill zone got hit.

Aerospace were powerful tools, but glass-jawed. They were statted in a fashion similar to Mechs, with a singular week spot and multiple locations beyond 'Nose, 2 Wings, and a Tail'. While the pilot stats were abnormally high, a lot more was required of the pilot, and if that pilot took damage, it hampered performance in the form of modifiers to piloting and gunnery.

Aside: I can't help but wonder if there wasn't some form of rudimentary anti-grav involved in an AeroTech 1 Fighter's make-up, considering the forces involved in moving.  It would make a lot of sense, and any damage to the pilot might also be a failing point in the system.

Fun Fact: LAMs were in the AeroTech Rules. There is a little blurb that LAMs basically the same as their BattleMech counter parts, except where the LAM rules made exceptions. If you were working straight from the rulebook in the BattleTech Manual, without any reference from the TRo or AT1 Boxed set, you could infer that there was a class of (Now) MkIII LAMs that mirrored their standard BattleMech bretheren in stats, but could transform into a fighter or fighter/Mech hybrid, if you ignored the LAM construction stipulations.

But, the LAM rules were always incomplete and needed more clarification in certain instances, like how to damage wings, and whether they completely functioned like VToLs in AirMech Mode, and used either cruising or flanking movement mods.

I can't remember which, but one set of rules had the wings being a fraction of the side torso armor. Question was, did that include front and back? And, if so, did damage to either front or back armor also damage the wing?

Another set, I think the Tac Handbook rules, decided to go flat out giving each wing its own set of armor points, in addition to the side torso armor.  Question then was, did the wing take the damage first before transfering to the side torso?

Yeah. That was a fun can of worms which was left to individual group tastes.

[Daemion]

The BattleTech Compendium
This one was the starting point for what many would recognize out of the BMR.  In fact, between the Compendium and the BMR, there is very little change other than adding weapons and components, though there were some interesting tweaks to things like the targeting computer. I don't remember the details and won't list them here, but I'll make the note.

The Compendium also had something new with its release - Advanced rules! In the form of the Tactical Handbook.  Some of the options were powerful additions to any game. Others, not so much, and come back to my original statement. Sensor Settings come to mind. Weather conditions, like night-time and lights are another, I think, though they might have added that in the Compendium, proper. Memory fails me at the moment. Inertia also, since I'm not in the mood to get up and look through the ToCs.

Terrain Modification
This is where we get into the strength-based clearing attempt rules that are rather elegant. You make your attack to clear woods. After a successful hit, you roll less than or equal to the weapon's strength.  Success knocks the woods down a level. (Why they didn't apply this to buildings for tournament rules is beyond me.)
I think the accidental clearing was removed.

I think Buildings couldn't be accidentally set on fire at this point, and the table for accidentally starting fires was standardized for actual purposeful pyromancy. 

Not exactly sure if this was the rules iteration where Mechs could nimbly squat down and hide under a 1-level tall building's roof or not. Eventually, we get it in the BMR.

The Tactical Handbook added crater-making.  If an attack did 40 points or more of damage to a piece of terrain, it created a crater. I believe this was meant to be something linked, because artillery still only had the Long Tom doing 20 points of damage. Although, an aerospace fighter performing a lawn-dart maneuver might actually qualify.

Mechs versus Non-Mechs
The motive results on the tank's hit location table were clarified, and strengthened.

Conventional Infantry is practically unchanged at this point.

We get the addition of BattleArmor! Specifically Clan Elemental suits.

Did I forget to mention artillery? Honestly, I can't remember if it was in the original City Tech rules, or not. I think they were.  I also can't say if they were part of the core rules here without getting up and looking, though I think they were.  They could have been in the Tac Handbook, but I don't recall seeing something like that from my reading of the book.  Maybe some special munitions for Artillery.

But, it was around. And, certainly by this point, since the Clans were bringing Arrow IV homing missiles with them.

We also got Clan Aerospace fighters (In TRo 3055, actually, and I don't know how close that was to the scrapping of AT1 and the arrival of BattleSpace.)


This leads to a rather interesting transitional period, rules-wise.   
 
BattleTech Compendium: Rules of Warfare
This was both a sad but good state for the rules.  Ground combat is pretty much where it was with the Compendium, but we have new equipment, and clarification on some existing equipment.  Take a look at the targeting computer in the Compendium versus the BMR, or here, to see what I mean.

The only real change to note was the dropping of AeroTech and the adoption of BattleSpace. I have mixed feelings about this, because the Rules of Warfare dropped ground interaction with fighers to a life-bar that had to be powered through. Not what I got out of AT1, at all.

BattleSpace, itself, was okay.  It focused on warship combat and fighters were implemented as squadrons.  I kinda liked the item location chart that the big ships had.  In retrospect, this was highly influenced by the Renegade Legion games.  I don't know if they adopted it because they wanted the systems to be readily recognizable for players wanting to branch out into other FASA products or they were looking to make the two systems cross-over friendly.

I was aware of AeroTech as a product, but BattleSpace was my first purchase for BattleTech space combat, since it was on the shelf by the time I was old enough to go shopping for more things BattleTech.


BattleTech Master Rules
The BMR was the final set before we got the drastic changes in Total Warfare, although some of those changes came out of a sister product, the Maximum Tech advanced rules.

Changes were very little in ground combat.  New equipment and weapons were added. There was one thing I wanted to bring up because the change between the BMR and Total Warfare was drastic, even though it was practically unchanged from the beginning, except for some clarifications on crashing and burning.

Mechs versus Non-Mechs
VToLs!!!  I think of all the combat vehicles, this was the most well thought out unit besides BattleMechs, because I don't recall any real changes from inception in City Tech all the way to the BMR. There might have been some clarifications about how crashing and burning worked.

One big thing, though, the rotor took full damage, and it usually had all of 5 points to it, armor included. So, yes, a standard medium laser could one-shot a copter. So could an AC/5.

Maximum Tech
Maximum Tech added a lot of terrain options, like weather and daytime conditions.

Rules were added for more durable (realistic?) vehicles and their operation. I think this was added because a lot of BT players come from the tread-head profession, and the devs probably received a lot of grief or queries about why tanks sucked so bad.

Aside: the turn modes thing - seriously, if you were going to implement something like that when you have something similar in AT2, why didn't they just go with the thrust/velocity system of AT2?

AeroTech 2
Or, Intercepter -BattleTechized.  The thrust/velocity system of the very popular Renegade Legion game was applied to BT Aerospace combat, and the scales tweaked accordingly, though slightly different for whatever reason. (Dial-out map scaling? 2 Low altitude maps equate to about 17-18 km.)

Damage was definitely more BattleTech, but ASFs weren't as detailed as they used to be in their hit locations, though the hit location tables had some extra detail added.

While still showing some significant power for space ranges, it's not as fantastic as what you had in AT1. At least with AT1, you could put the 70s BattleStar Galactica Vipers and Raiders on the map, and it would feel right, and you wouldn't bat an eye at a Corsair flying alongside them.

Now, not-so-much.

[Daemion]

And, now we get to the current set of rules.

Total Warfare
There were a lot of things out of Maximum Tech that probably got vocal support.  The Randall N. Bills edition of BattleTech incorporated a lot of them, though modified to be more balanced.

The changes were significant enough that unit performance and even terrain performance, while recognizable in some aspects to what came in the BMR, still had some notable differences.

There were some tweaks to physical attacks. For the entire iteration of the game, physical attacks had a set to-hit value which got modified. With Total Warfare, the Piloting Skill is now the base number, with modifiers. And, some of those modifiers were tweaked.

Partial cover was tweaked to a limited version of something out of MaxTech.

There was plenty of new gear, too.

Terrain Modification
Terrain now has terrain factor.  That's not really a bad thing, except for two things.
1) Record Keeping - The Total Warfare rules were touted to be the Tournament Rules for Cons and special events. Record-keeping has always been an issue for tournaments. Why they would require people to start tracking each terrain hex's hit points, and not stick with the more elegant success test and clearing token is beyond me. But, it was done.

2) Power Level. It takes a lot of fire to take down some trees.  50 points to knock a Heavy Woods to a light and an additional 40 to put those logs down to kindling.

The plus side is that now you have a singular theme for your terrain.  Buildings have CF, woods now have TF.

Mechs versus Non-Mechs
Vehicle motive damage is more randomized. I do find this kinda neat. However, shots can now do damage to sides not directly facing the attacker, giving them a little more longevity.

Weapons against conventional infantry now have classifications and do different amounts of damage. Still tracking trooper count versus Platoon damage, though.

We have a plethora of new vehicle types, and some new conventional infantry types, too.

Aerospace is practically unchanged. The Aerospace rules were a direct port out of AT2.
Oh, yeah. I should point out that in AT2, strafing and attack lines were dropped to a single line on the map, btw. This is kinda important, because Total Warfare did add the angle of attack from space combat to ground interaction as well. So, a minor change. There might have been a few others, but nothing that stuck with me.

[Daemion]

Final Analysis
Power Creep? Or Power Drain?

So, when I read through the culture shock that was Total Warfare, after having spent a lot of my BT gaming career under the BMR, I had to work out the logic and narrative the changes brought to how I saw the game interacting with its setting.

I had developed an interesting view of how tech worked in the BTU based on backwards-logiking game performance.

TW took a lot of that and turned it on its ear.  But, I made an attempt, anyway.

Mechs, and armored combat units in general, looked less powerful and accurate compared to older rulesets. Was this a technological decline? Or were the other units starting to see performance changes due to tweaks in manufacturing processes?

That last thought would be easy to accept if it weren't for the change to terrain modification processes.  I find it hard to swallow the idea that plant-life in the BTU has evolved adamantium bark in the few hundred years Mechs and tanks have been burning each other on far-flung planets.

So, Mechs, and armored units in general, have actually seen a Technological decline by ruleset.  And, this brings me back to my original thought. Added details make things appear less powerful, the more you add.

If you take weather, or time-of-day, and apply conditional modifiers, it's not as powerful as something that can simply ignore them to begin with. The Partial cover rules are another example - a loss in accuracy.  Same application with tanks, and conventional infantry.

Every now and then, I put a thought into BattleTech (BMR) versus BattleTech (Total Warfare) and so on.  It's too bad that the official stance on older rules is that they're retconned out of existence, because I've many a time looked at the older rules as something for a golden age of technology.

Think about it. A Machine Gun can do potentially 50 points of damage in TF if you roll right. A Gauss Rifle melon can be placed to take out and injure 15-30 guys with predictable precision - at 3/4 of a kilometer. (Or, it fails, and the few guys it knocked down manage to get back up and walk it off.) Under the Compendium to BMR Rules.

In BattleDroids, a Mech could sweep a laser gun and pick off many of the support weapons in a platoon, leaving the troopers useless against armored opponents.

It's nice to be able to access that kind of power. It's certainly something I miss out of older rules and still run games under them.

Thoughts? Discuss.

[Sigil]

Battledroids included rules for tanks, jeeps and infantry.  All tanks were treated the same.  4 MP, 3 MP if they also fire, 20/10/10/8/5 armor and no internal structure.  Any damage to the tracks, immobilized it.  The SCR-8N Scorpion carried 3 x SRM-6, the HNT-3R Hunter a single LRM-20, and the VDE-3T Vedette an AC/5 and machine gun.

Jeeps had 6 MP, 5 MP if they fired.  It has no locations and take a total of 5 damage before destroyed.  A jeep can carry either a SRM-2 or a machine gun.  Units attacked it suffer a +1 penalty to hit and and damage transfers to other jeeps in the same hex (2 jeeps max / hex).

Infantry were 9-person squads effectively carrying an SRM-2 or machine gun.  They have a single MP and can stack up to 10 in a single hex.  A single point of damage kills and entire infantry unit with excess damage transferring to other infantry units in the same hex.

These rules underscored the BattleMech as King of the Battlefield.  CityTech fundamentally changed the battlefield balance with the introduction of detailed rules, including construction, for buildings, vehicles and infantry.  These changes made vehicles and infantry a legitimate threat to BattleMechs, raising the effectiveness of conventional units across the board.  While BattleMechs still retained their position as King of the Battlefield, they ceased to the be invulnerable machines of destruction they were prior.  C-Bill for C-Bill, it suddenly made alot more sense to to field conventional units, especially for garrison duty or defense as they, in the least, simply overwhelm an attacking BattleMech force.  In TRO 3026, the 5-ton Savannah Master sealed the fate of the BattleMech.

[Frabby]

The original standard Battledroids ruleset had a weapons fire/damage mechanic that is almost unrecognizable by BT standards. Weapons weren't fired individually; instead, you had generic damage ratios for your 'Mechs across generic ranges. In a sense, the entire 'Mech was treated as a single weapon. The ranges were identical for all 'Mechs, but a Wasp would have zero damage potential at long range.
If you scored a hit (based on range and modifiers), the attacking 'Mech's damage potential was cross-referenced against the armor rating of the defending 'Mech to determine damage and effects. There were no hit locations, and critical hits would freeze your 'Mech or disable its weapons for a time, or outright destroy it.

It was only the "expert" level Battledroid rules that played like BattleTech.

Oh, and fun fact: Battledroid "Jeeps" weren't considered vehicles and instead had their own rules that are pretty similar to Elementals.

[The Eagle]

So if I understand your argument correctly,  you're saying that the increase in conventional unit durability indicates a decrease in Mech lethality.  I disagree because it's not a zero-sum balance between the two concepts.  A single Mech can still wipe a full platoon of infantry, they just need the right weapons to do it, for example.

[Sigil]

Under Battledroids expert rules, a medium laser can kill up to five infantry units (45 soldiers), assuming they are all stacked in the same hex.  Under later rules, how many infantry units does a medium laser kill?  This is a decrease in Mech lethality.

[Mech Dingus]

Personally I'm glad that non-mech units have a purpose other than cannon fodder. I never understood why mechs were magically so much better other than they're cool.

[dragonkid11]

Matbe in another universe where Battletech still play like your generic mecha anime then a battlemech would just be op as hell.

[Easy]

cleanup

[Psycho]

A Gauss Rifle melon can be placed to take out and injure 15-30 guys with predictable precision - at 3/4 of a kilometer. (Or, it fails, and the few guys it knocked down manage to get back up and walk it off.) Under the Compendium to BMR Rules.

I think the simplicity of previous rules is a reflection of not giving much thought to the secondary unit types. Using the GR vs. infantry example, when is that platoon going to be bunched up so tightly that a single slug could wipe it out entirely? Standard tactics dictate that the unit would spread out, find cover, etc. and minimize the effect of a concentrated shot like a GR or laser. Think of a single Napoleonic War-era cannon firing at an opposing unit; it will crash through, incapacitating a number of troops, but hardly render the unit a total loss on its own. Now think of that cannon firing on a modern infantry unit. The troops aren't going to be standing in ranks to be mowed down, so how many of them will that cannon shot take out? Sure, a GR will be more powerful than that cannon, but the general effect will be similar. That's why in TW rules explosive weapons deal more damage to infantry than concentrated shots, and smaller weapons that are build to flood an area with small-caliber fire (like MGs) are even more effective. It's not about saying that 'Mechs are less powerful or have somehow lost technology, it's recognizing that some things shouldn't happen the way they were handled previously when you put some thought to it.

[Crimson Dawn]

I think the simplicity of previous rules is a reflection of not giving much thought to the secondary unit types. Using the GR vs. infantry example, when is that platoon going to be bunched up so tightly that a single slug could wipe it out entirely? Standard tactics dictate that the unit would spread out, find cover, etc. and minimize the effect of a concentrated shot like a GR or laser. Think of a single Napoleonic War-era cannon firing at an opposing unit; it will crash through, incapacitating a number of troops, but hardly render the unit a total loss on its own. Now think of that cannon firing on a modern infantry unit. The troops aren't going to be standing in ranks to be mowed down, so how many of them will that cannon shot take out? Sure, a GR will be more powerful than that cannon, but the general effect will be similar. That's why in TW rules explosive weapons deal more damage to infantry than concentrated shots, and smaller weapons that are build to flood an area with small-caliber fire (like MGs) are even more effective. It's not about saying that 'Mechs are less powerful or have somehow lost technology, it's recognizing that some things shouldn't happen the way they were handled previously when you put some thought to it.

It also helps give certain weapons niches that make them worth having.  A great example is the machine gun.  In the current rules the machine gun has a reason to exist (and which fits the fluff found in the TROs) whereas if other weapons can kill a bunch of infantry in one shot why have machine guns at all and why you would choose to have them to kil infantry at all?  Now we have only one weapon who seems to be continually said to be an anti infantry but does not work as one (small lasers).

[Daemion]

So if I understand your argument correctly,  you're saying that the increase in conventional unit durability indicates a decrease in Mech lethality.  I disagree because it's not a zero-sum balance between the two concepts.  A single Mech can still wipe a full platoon of infantry, they just need the right weapons to do it, for example.

No. Actually, it's the changing in how easy it is to destroy terrain that has seen a decrease in Mech/Tank or lethality in general.  If it weren't for that, I'd actually think of the changes as unseen improvements to vehicle and infantry make-up in in-universe terms.

[Daemion]

That's why in TW rules explosive weapons deal more damage to infantry than concentrated shots,

No, they're not, unless you're strictly referring to Artillery and Bombs. Look at the damage divisor for a cluster of LRMs, which is supposed to be High-Explosive (Armor Piercing?) for each missile. It takes a full cluster to take out one guy. Two if the platoon's out in the open.

Honestly, that cluster should be taking out at least one guy per missile.

{2}

Now, a counter example for the gauss round. It's not just more powerful. On a Mech it's coming in at an overhead angle like a meteor and impacting the ground.  It doesn't have to hit a guy in order to injure a group, no matter how spread out if it makes the earth erupt like a mini-volcano.  Depending on how conservative you are about its true speed based on Aero Ranges, it literally is an impacting meteor and that crater explosion could easily involve the entire hex. It's certainly enough to flatten most houses. (Do they really qualify as light buildings? Regardless, a gauss takes out light buildings in one hit.)

edit: {2} - Honestly, this is a rules for rule's sake decision, because you look at the flechette submunitions, and it's a one-for-one damage to infantry for the missiles. The same is true for the AC submunitions.  They wanted to keep the straight damage count lethality, but decided it had to be in a special munition.

Personally I think that's perfect for Militia and sub-standard equiped formation use.

However, BT is far enough in the future that I still believe that front line units should have access to munitions which are capable of doing either anti-armor or anti-infantry damage from the same shell.  It's more expensive in an age that saw a lapse in technology because of active suppression by a covert agency. 

And, I strongly believe that it would have been commonly used across the Hegemony forces, or even for the SLDF, at the height of the golden age. After the start of the succession wars, and the cementing of local power via Neo Feudalism, the elites would only want themselves to have access to such advanced tech. It gives them an upper hand should they have to go to war against their own.

See, that's another thing I actually miss - The technological golden age actually having something to back up the claims.

[Daemion]

I think the simplicity of previous rules is a reflection of not giving much thought to the secondary unit types. Using the GR vs. infantry example, when is that platoon going to be bunched up so tightly that a single slug could wipe it out entirely? Standard tactics dictate that the unit would spread out, find cover, etc. and minimize the effect of a concentrated shot like a GR or laser.

One other thing to consider which is next to impossible to track even for BT: is that point of damage a dead guy? Or one injured enough he can't really keep up with the formation?

A guass rifle round impacting like a meteor from heaven and cratering the ground with the force of a 15" naval shell will knock a lot of guys down, maybe quite a few out, and stun the vast majority of them in such a way that it may take more than ten seconds for the platoon to pick itself up get coordinated, do a role-call, make damage assessment, and get back to fighting.

I bet you the formation would be active again, but the armored combat would be well over or have passed out of range by the time they're ready again.

[Retry]

No, they're not, unless you're strictly referring to Artillery and Bombs. Look at the damage divisor for a cluster of LRMs, which is supposed to be High-Explosive (Armor Piercing?) for each missile. It takes a full cluster to take out one guy. Two if the platoon's out in the open.

Honestly, that cluster should be taking out at least one guy per missile.

Damage divisor of LRMs is Damage/5, divisor of direct-fire ballistic & energy weapons is Damage/10.  So yes, explosive weapons deal more damage than direct fire weapons, twice as much in fact.

A LRM-5 missile weighs 8.33kg, which is about the weight of a typical ATGM IRL.  Presumably not all of that weight goes into the warhead since that'd be physically impossible and the SRM has twice the damage so roughly twice the payload as well.  The regular missiles are usually fluffed to be some sort of "armor-piercing high explosive", so something like HEAT, HESH, or HEDP, whatever the case it's something more optimized at blasting armor off a Battlemech than knocking down infantry.

1 dead per cluster of 5 LRMs seems reasonable for a missile launcher type that doesn't usually have the capacity to target multiple units with its missiles, has quite the time hitting a battlemech-sized target in the first place, and has probably has some sort of HEAT-type warhead and not a regular HE warhead that's equivalent in size to a big grenade.  A single 30-meter hex has an area of 2338 square meters, plenty of room to spread out and hide.

At least I'd find it a bit odd of my Grasshopper's LRM-5, which has troubles connecting all its missiles against a lumbering Ares, had all its individual missiles seek out and incapacitate 5 of 7 squad members hiding out in thousands of square meters of a heavy jungle or forest with the precision of a Predator drone.

However, BT is far enough in the future that I still believe that front line units should have access to munitions which are capable of doing either anti-armor or anti-infantry damage from the same shell.  It's more expensive in an age that saw a lapse in technology because of active suppression by a covert agency.

That's just HEDP, and it's not as effective at either job as a specialized shell.

[Nicoli]

One other thing to consider which is next to impossible to track even for BT: is that point of damage a dead guy? Or one injured enough he can't really keep up with the formation?

A guass rifle round impacting like a meteor from heaven and cratering the ground with the force of a 15" naval shell will knock a lot of guys down, maybe quite a few out, and stun the vast majority of them in such a way that it may take more than ten seconds for the platoon to pick itself up get coordinated, do a role-call, make damage assessment, and get back to fighting.

I bet you the formation would be active again, but the armored combat would be well over or have passed out of range by the time they're ready again.

Far less guys will go down then you are applying. That meteor from heaven is going to expend the vast majority of energy into the ground. Most likely 95% or higher, or it will hit shallow enough it skips. Any kinetic kill weapon is pretty ineffective against infantry, actually pretty ineffective against anything not solid enough to absorb the energy.

You should read up on the cases where Battleships rounds carried so much energy they went right in one side and out the other on destroyers. Or the entire reason why air-burst munitions were created.

[Psycho]

Now, a counter example for the gauss round. It's not just more powerful. On a Mech it's coming in at an overhead angle like a meteor and impacting the ground.  It doesn't have to hit a guy in order to injure a group, no matter how spread out if it makes the earth erupt like a mini-volcano.  Depending on how conservative you are about its true speed based on Aero Ranges, it literally is an impacting meteor and that crater explosion could easily involve the entire hex.

So, by your estimation then, shouldn't GR fire just obliterate a 'Mech with a single hit if it's that powerful? If a hit to the ground would tear up more than 2 square kilometers of earth, what's it going to do to a 'Mech's arm or leg?

You may also want to check your angles. Even if the GR is mounted high on a 'Mech, it will still only be about 10m up. 1 hex is 30m. That's already 3:1. At 20 hexes, it's 60:1. Plot that on some graph paper and see if it looks like the angle of a meteor. Or if you have the space, set up a post 1m tall, then pace off 60m distance. For me, that's a height right around the top of my hip, and the distance is more than half a football field.

Anyway, what you choose to believe about changes in game rules having radical impacts about the power of Battlemechs in-universe is up to you. What you've put out doesn't match my thinking at all. I don't believe the developers at any point decided that they would nerf 'Mechs in-universe by adjusting the game rules. The two aspects simply don't mesh. The rules are there to play a game with in real life. The universe that game is set in is purely fictional. I'm not going to worry about it any more than I already did, which is not at all. Have a laugh about the weapon ranges, and enjoy a game with friends.

[Daemion]

I don't think the nerfing was intentional, but just a by-product of game balance by edition. As I started out saying, there was a lot less detail in the earlier games when it came to other things.  There's a lot of room for interpretation in that.

[Daemion]

1 dead per cluster of 5 LRMs seems reasonable for a missile launcher type that doesn't usually have the capacity to target multiple units with its missiles, has quite the time hitting a battlemech-sized target in the first place, and has probably has some sort of HEAT-type warhead and not a regular HE warhead that's equivalent in size to a big grenade.  A single 30-meter hex has an area of 2338 square meters, plenty of room to spread out and hide.

I see we're thinking on two different tracks here. I'm thinking in terms of futuristic sci-fi where tech is almost magic.

It looks like you're sticking with a hard, modernist extrapolation view. That's what I'm reading out of it, anyway.

[Daemion]

So, by your estimation then, shouldn't GR fire just obliterate a 'Mech with a single hit if it's that powerful? If a hit to the ground would tear up more than 2 square kilometers of earth, what's it going to do to a 'Mech's arm or leg?

No. In fact, it's a testament to Star League engineering that they aren't. There's probably more to it than "Magic Armor"(tm), but that is a big part of it. ;)

[Daemion]

Far less guys will go down then you are applying. That meteor from heaven is going to expend the vast majority of energy into the ground. Most likely 95% or higher, or it will hit shallow enough it skips. Any kinetic kill weapon is pretty ineffective against infantry, actually pretty ineffective against anything not solid enough to absorb the energy.

You should read up on the cases where Battleships rounds carried so much energy they went right in one side and out the other on destroyers. Or the entire reason why air-burst munitions were created.

You haven't seen meteor impacts, have you? They're called craters.

However, from a gameplay perspective, you're partly right. After all, if a Gauss-wielder (It doesn't have to be a Mech) moves a little bit, with a standard IS Gunnery of 4, and is at medium range, it still whiffs the shot if rolling a 6 or less, and that means the infantry platoon takes NO DAMAGE AT ALL.

I didn't say the rules were perfect. I'd much prefer something a little more random when dealing with people blobs, because of their amorphous and erratic nature. On all counts.

Heck, I'm keen on the idea that armored units should be able to pick off support weapons, and that those support weapons should generally be the only effective thing against Mechs and Tanks and other armored units. (Portable SRMs for the win!)

I'm all for a revised BattleTroops or Descent: Journies in the Dark style infantry squad engagement system for the times you need to keep the sledge hammer outside and send in the infantry scalpel to retrieve something which wouldn't survive a Mech's hand busting down the wall. Like boarding a dropship you don't really want destroyed, for example.

And, the game of armored combat is where the Mechs escort said scalpel in its transport and try to keep it alive, coming and going.

[Daemion]

If anyone is aware of under what edtions the other side games of BattleForce 1 & 2, BattleTroops, Succession Wars, and Solaris 7 were released, please feel free to pitch in.

While I may have a copy of BF1 on my shelf, along with Solaris 7, these were late acquisitions, sometime withing the last decade. 

[Retry]

I see we're thinking on two different tracks here. I'm thinking in terms of futuristic sci-fi where tech is almost magic.

It looks like you're sticking with a hard, modernist extrapolation view. That's what I'm reading out of it, anyway.

Yeah, probably.  BT seems to me like one of the "harder" sci-fi universes, with only a fairly small amount of unexplainium.  If wee went futuristic magitech, we'd probably see more things like energy deflector shield thingies which many/most would consider to be distinctly non-battletech-like.

You haven't seen meteor impacts, have you? They're called craters.

However, from a gameplay perspective, you're partly right. After all, if a Gauss-wielder (It doesn't have to be a Mech) moves a little bit, with a standard IS Gunnery of 4, and is at medium range, it still whiffs the shot if rolling a 6 or less, and that means the infantry platoon takes NO DAMAGE AT ALL.

------------

Heck, I'm keen on the idea that armored units should be able to pick off support weapons, and that those support weapons should generally be the only effective thing against Mechs and Tanks and other armored units. (Portable SRMs for the win!)

Meteors usually weigh quite a bit more than 125 kilograms and can hit the surface of a planet or planetoid at ~72,000 meters per second (IIRC).  If BT actually existed IRL I'd bet a decent lump of change that the GR shells are both much slower and much lighter than a typical meteor collision.  Maybe not the best example.

As far as we know, a 7 in your example could be a near-hit that sprays enough debris to incapacitate a nearby rifleman, it doesn't necessarily have to be a "your torso no longer exists" direct hit to an individual soldier.  Since better infantry-scale armors still function against bigger weapons including stuff like Gauss Rifles and AC/20s where a thicker vest wouldn't really help that much on a direct hit, it probably already works like that.  Strat Ops has rules for determining if soldiers in BA or conventional infantry are simply injured or truly dead after an engagement (7+ to survive for IS BA/infantry, 5+ for clan BA because HarJel IIRC), presumably the ones that survive got braised by shrapnel like you describe instead of being vaporized off the face of whatever planet they're stationed on.

Better fleshed out infantry is a worthwhile idea, it'd probably require substantial rework to infantry construction rules, game rules & canon infantry platoons would need reworked.  I was working on something like that once but that's a subject for another thread.

[Nebfer]

Meteors usually weigh quite a bit more than 125 kilograms and can hit the surface of a planet or planetoid at ~72,000 meters per second (IIRC).  If BT actually existed IRL I'd bet a decent lump of change that the GR shells are both much slower and much lighter than a typical meteor collision.  Maybe not the best example.

As far as we know, a 7 in your example could be a near-hit that sprays enough debris to incapacitate a nearby rifleman, it doesn't necessarily have to be a "your torso no longer exists" direct hit to an individual soldier.  Since better infantry-scale armors still function against bigger weapons including stuff like Gauss Rifles and AC/20s where a thicker vest wouldn't really help that much on a direct hit, it probably already works like that.  Strat Ops has rules for determining if soldiers in BA or conventional infantry are simply injured or truly dead after an engagement (7+ to survive for IS BA/infantry, 5+ for clan BA because HarJel IIRC), presumably the ones that survive got braised by shrapnel like you describe instead of being vaporized off the face of whatever planet they're stationed on.

Better fleshed out infantry is a worthwhile idea, it'd probably require substantial rework to infantry construction rules, game rules & canon infantry platoons would need reworked.  I was working on something like that once but that's a subject for another thread.

A Gauss slug in the novels is a 125kg made from nickle iron, possibly with a Depleted uranium core (their are a few references of such), about 70-75% of all velocity quotes mention their hypersonic, heavy gauss slugs are mentioned to be 250kg and also hypersonic. The game rules notably with space rules can indicate much much higher velocitys. At a minimum a Gauss slug produces about 190 megajoules of energy this is 15 times the energy of a modern tank round.
Furthermore many of the older editions mention in their back of the box descriptions mention that a battlemech out guns any 20th century tank, often going so far as to say a battalion of 20th century tanks...

That said I do think B-tech weapons vs infantry have been nerfed a bit to much, I think the basis should of been 1/5th, not the 1/10th that TW went with. As such a gauss rifle would now take out three infantry, six if their out in the open on a hit.
Though I also would of gone with a further damage modifier with infantry armor, going with an extra divisor below the 0.5 modifier to represent civilians or guys with no armor at all. So basically, unarmored, lightly armored (like say a armored vest)/heavy clothing, standard armor (full body or close to) and heavy armor (thick and heavy full body armors).

Though I also think that the infantry need a bit of work to improve them a bit.

---------------
I also noticed that battlemechs seem to have been nerfed in some ways over the years, perhaps unintentional and some buffs could be needed to make them more look better. Im currently in favor of adding a +1MP to their walking speed to all mechs, adding a bonus damage with melee attacks on vehicles and ignoring the first mp spent on turning. With that mechs are now notably faster and more agile over ground vehicles with a powerful vehicle stomping melee attack...

[Kos]

On the one hand I like TW rules for infantry because they're a touch more realistic and gave MGs a purpose. On the other hand I like BMR rules for the 'simple squishy' results.

I think the effectiveness of mech weapons on infantry must come down to a bit of abstraction. Really the number of ways an infantry platoon could be affected by weapons fire are many and the 'troopers killed' has to be a bit abstract. Regardless of how a weapon system (like a GR) operates there are a number of ways it could disrupt and reduce the combat effectiveness of a platoon.

I always imagine that a certain number of casualties on an infantry unit are not actually KIA, instead being wounds that render a trooper incapable of combat, troopers assisting wounded troopers, pinning, or even the occasional trooper bugging out or getting separated from their unit. Heck some KIA/WIAs probably result just from secondary effects like radiative heat from laser fire, or falling or exploding trees, rocks or buildings.

So in the spirit of the thread: Maybe mechs didn't get less lethal, but instead infantry tactics improved as of TW?

[guardiandashi]

To op you missed a rule book or 2 such as battletech the rules of warfare with the atlas on the cover, which was a 2nd edition boxed set book, that i think is essentially battletech,citytech,and aerotech 1 in 1 book.

The gauss rifle round has several descriptions.
1 its the mellon sized nickle iron slug.
2 i don't remember where i saw this, but its a tungsten or depleted uranium rod surrounded with ballistic plastic, with iron "driving bands" it was in the same place where the star league gauss rifles got 10 rounds per ton instead of 8.

My point is when you start actually figureing out just how much firepower battlemechs would be tossing around calling a gauss rifle round an asteroid strike, in some ways, isn't totally wrong.

[mbear]

The original standard Battledroids ruleset had a weapons fire/damage mechanic that is almost unrecognizable by BT standards. Weapons weren't fired individually; instead, you had generic damage ratios for your 'Mechs across generic ranges. In a sense, the entire 'Mech was treated as a single weapon. The ranges were identical for all 'Mechs, but a Wasp would have zero damage potential at long range.

Sounds sort of like how Alpha Strike does damage. Interesting.