Author Topic: CO Infantry Stats  (Read 6196 times)

Maelwys

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CO Infantry Stats
« on: 07 September 2019, 02:21:39 »
Alright, so I'm playing around with CO again to figure out the various rules and I can't seem to figure out how to calculate the ammo cost for an infantry platoon. They even have an example, and I have to admit, its making no sense what so ever.

Any one able to help?

Daryk

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Re: CO Infantry Stats
« Reply #1 on: 07 September 2019, 04:25:13 »
Certainly!

Here's the example from CO:
Quote
Conventional infantry should refer to rules for ammunition costs and weights (see pp. 260-285, A Time of War) and are assumed to carry five reloads for their weapons as a standard combat load. If the infantry are armed with non-plasma energy weapons and are often stationed with fission- or fusion-powered vehicles (i.e., they spend a maintenance cycle with such a vehicle after a maintenance cycle involving combat), then the ammunition cost is divided by 10, because their power packs may be recharged for free and only worn or damaged packs need replacing.

So, for the bog-standard Auto Rifle, go to page 266 of AToW.  It's "Cost/Reload" value is 80/2.  This means a single "reload" is 2 C-Bills.  Looking to the column on the left, you see the "Shots" value is 30, so that means a "reload" is 30 rounds.  But CO only cares about "reloads" not "rounds".  Five reloads would cost 10 C-Bills (5 x 2 = 10), which is the per trooper.  To get the peacetime per month cost, you divide that by 4, for 2.5 C-Bills per month.

Now, for energy weapons, it's a little trickier.  Looking under "Laser Rifle" on page 267, you see a single dagger where the reload cost should be.  That note refers you to page 306 (the Power Pack table).  Page 306 gives you a wide variety of Power Packs to choose from, and really, only you or your GM limit your choices.  For your purposes, I'd choose the "Standard Power Pack" at 5 C-Bills a pop, so five of those would be 25 C-Bills.  Dividing by 10 yields 2.5 C-Bills per trooper.  Dividing by 4 yields 0.625 C-Bills per month.

Hopefully that helps!

EDIT: Thanks to Maelwys for the corrections!
« Last Edit: 07 September 2019, 10:05:30 by Daryk »

Maelwys

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Re: CO Infantry Stats
« Reply #2 on: 07 September 2019, 09:58:09 »
Sure, except the example a few pages later has you doubling the ammo requirements.

Quote
Consulting the power pack entries (p. 306, A Time of War), Arnold figures the Standard Military Power Pack would apply, and each infantryman (per Step 4b) should carry 5 of those heavy packs. Doubling that consumption per month to represent training, Arnold notes that consumption is 400 CB and 40kg per trooper per month...

Also, the first line from the ammo section is
Quote
The peacetime consumption of ammunition by ammunition-using units in the Force is quarter of the vehicle or infantry Force's ammunition capacity.

Nothing in the rest section seems to negate that line, so you should still be dividing the infantry's ammo costs by 4.

And yet, the example has you DOUBLING it.

Daryk

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Re: CO Infantry Stats
« Reply #3 on: 07 September 2019, 10:03:42 »
Good catches, thanks!  I skipped over that first sentence in the instructions about dividing by 4, so both my examples above should be divided by 4 as well (I'll edit that in shortly).

I have no idea why the example of the next page doubles the consumption.  And picking military packs is just the S4's way of padding their salary.  For training, you issue the cheapest packs, and save the "good stuff" for combat.

Maelwys

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Re: CO Infantry Stats
« Reply #4 on: 07 September 2019, 19:47:42 »
guess its to the Rules question thread for the correct answer.

Maelwys

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Re: CO Infantry Stats
« Reply #5 on: 10 September 2019, 11:30:47 »
Got a response or two.

https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=53442.msg1544678#msg1544678

Basically you still have the 5 loads per gun, but then you double it for training, then keep the divide by 10 if you're using non-plasma weaponry and have a way to recharge them.

Daryk

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Re: CO Infantry Stats
« Reply #6 on: 10 September 2019, 17:37:14 »
That's how I interpret Cray's posts as well (with a few PMs in between)…

Maelwys

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Re: CO Infantry Stats
« Reply #7 on: 12 September 2019, 18:42:32 »
Its kind of a shame. The CO rules look interesting at times, but the amount of bookkeeping basically made people involved go "Nope!"

CapricornNoble

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Re: CO Infantry Stats
« Reply #8 on: 13 September 2019, 08:14:54 »
Its kind of a shame. The CO rules look interesting at times, but the amount of bookkeeping basically made people involved go "Nope!"

I dunno why. It's the 21st century, just plug it all into Excel/LibreOffice....

I've got a spreadsheet right now where I've plugged in all my homebrew designs to calc their Operating Expenses. Then I have another sheet where I list all the vehicle types in a battalion, reference the other sheet with the operating expenses, and it spits out both a purchase price and an annual operating cost for these battalion-sized "building blocks". You can crunch the budgets for entire House militaries with CO and a little bit of time in a spreadsheet. It's how I'm designing my AU factions.

Maelwys

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Re: CO Infantry Stats
« Reply #9 on: 14 September 2019, 00:13:16 »
Oh sure, you can eventually set it up to run pretty well, but the set up can definitely be daunting. Looks like I might get a chance to play around with it more. We'll see.

Ursus Maior

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Re: CO Infantry Stats
« Reply #10 on: 17 September 2019, 07:12:06 »
I did something like that for my ongoing campaign. Man, going from a mixed battalion house force to almost an RCT sure blows up book-keeping chores.  :))

Re: 21st century: What I would absolutely love CGL to do, is deliver us Excel or Google files for these kind of things with new products. BattlTech has always been in love with its accountant side of gaming. We love that, too, don't we? No need to remain stuck in the 1980s, though. >:D
liber et infractus

Maelwys

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Re: CO Infantry Stats
« Reply #11 on: 17 September 2019, 10:41:42 »
Yeah, we're trying CO rules for the first contract to see how it goes. Fuel costs suck, and I'm also stumbling across little errors in CO as we go, but nothing too major.

Daryk

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Re: CO Infantry Stats
« Reply #12 on: 17 September 2019, 16:47:45 »
Eventually, you will embrace fusion engines for ALL your friends... the initial investment can be steep, but it pays off (eventually)...

Maelwys

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Re: CO Infantry Stats
« Reply #13 on: 17 September 2019, 22:04:15 »
Yeah. Ammo costs are up there too. "Wait, how  many tons? And how much in c-bills?! You did quarter it, right?"

I did make up a CO in ATOW, which was fun. And I didn't break everything, like I could've, so we'll see.

Daryk

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Re: CO Infantry Stats
« Reply #14 on: 18 September 2019, 03:37:25 »
Cool!  I look forward to hearing more about the unit...  :thumbsup:

pheonixstorm

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Re: CO Infantry Stats
« Reply #15 on: 22 September 2019, 21:48:57 »
You might also want to check out the errata thread for other infantry related changes if you haven't already seen them.

Maelwys

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Re: CO Infantry Stats
« Reply #16 on: 23 September 2019, 07:32:56 »
Yeah, the change in spare part percentages, IIRC.

Maelwys

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Re: CO Infantry Stats
« Reply #17 on: 23 September 2019, 22:43:16 »
Cool!  I look forward to hearing more about the unit...  :thumbsup:

You can check out the beginning of the Neon Kunoichi in the Fan Units section.

Daryk

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Re: CO Infantry Stats
« Reply #18 on: 24 September 2019, 03:20:49 »
Cool, thanks!  :thumbsup: