Hardened Armor: Yes or No?

[haesslich]

You guys are aware this is errata, right, and not some random musing by a guy with a Mod Beemer, right?

"Number of pips removed" is now the standard by which PSRs are judged.

Translation - the PSR isn't because the AC20 does 20 damage to your armor, but because the AC20 took off 20 points worth of armor, which means a sudden loss of mass which puts the gyro off balance?

[Paul]

Translation - the PSR isn't because the AC20 does 20 damage to your armor, but because the AC20 took off 20 points worth of armor, which means a sudden loss of mass which puts the gyro off balance?

Yes, or in the case of Hardened Armor: only 10 pips are removed: no PSR.
Same with F-L armor: 16 pips removed = no PSR
20 LRMS hit on Reactive: 10 pips removed = no PSR

Only 5 Hardened left on a location hit by an AC20: 5 armor pips removed + 10 internals: no PSR
The Internals are actually Composite (who does this?) 5 armor removed, 20 internals: PSR time

[Paul]

I should actually add:

For fluff reasons: mass isn't often removed from a 'Mech, but materials are rendered useless. So doing 20 damage points to something doesn't remove X amount of mass per se. Destroying a location doesn't remove it's mass, just renders it as useful as dead weight scrap.
As such, the PSR isn't just caused by loss of mass.

[Retry]

Translation - the PSR isn't because the AC20 does 20 damage to your armor, but because the AC20 took off 20 points worth of armor, which means a sudden loss of mass which puts the gyro off balance?

20 points worth of standard armor weighs the same as 10 points worth of hardened armor so that isn't it.

Yes, or in the case of Hardened Armor: only 10 pips are removed: no PSR.
Same with F-L armor: 16 pips removed = no PSR
20 LRMS hit on Reactive: 10 pips removed = no PSR

Only 5 Hardened left on a location hit by an AC20: 5 armor pips removed + 10 internals: no PSR
The Internals are actually Composite (who does this?) 5 armor removed, 20 internals: PSR time

A LRM20 that gets all of its missiles in hitting Reactive would remove 8 pips (4 clusters of 5 points rounds to 2 points per cluster)

[chaosticket]

Ultimately the question is if Hardened armor also to falldown checks. If it increases the threshold, good. If not youll just be knocked down and killed regardless of your total.

[Weirdo]

Per Xotl and company, that question has been answered.

[Paul]

A LRM20 that gets all of its missiles in hitting Reactive would remove 8 pips (4 clusters of 5 points rounds to 2 points per cluster)

Yeah, that's what I get for typing too rapidly and not thinking it through. Thanks for the catch.

[JadeHellbringer]

Yeah, that's what I get for typing too rapidly and not thinking it through. Thanks for the catch.

I do that when I'm talking all the time. It's how I keep getting in trouble with the police, I start talking about my next deal to smuggle faberge eggs into the country and pretty soon people are knocking on... my door...

...sonofa...

[Paul]

I do that when I'm talking all the time. It's how I keep getting in trouble with the police, I start talking about my next deal to smuggle faberge eggs into the country and pretty soon people are knocking on... my door...

...sonofa...

I'm beginning to notice that your every heist relies on the use of your prison wallet.

[Daryk]

I think the bottom line here is that Hardened Armor is more awesome than most of us thought... That's not necessarily a bad thing...

[marcussmythe]

Im actually pleased by this.  Hardene has several bad drawbacks.  This helps.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I think the bottom line here is that Hardened Armor is more awesome than most of us thought... That's not necessarily a bad thing...

Yes.

[mbear]

I'm beginning to notice that your every heist relies on the use of your prison wallet.

Resisting urge to make a joke.

I think the bottom line here is that Hardened Armor is more awesome than most of us thought... That's not necessarily a bad thing...

No it's pretty good actually. And I just imagined an Awesome with Hardened armor and peed a little. That would be scary as hell.

[Alsadius]

I just imagined an Awesome with Hardened armor and peed a little. That would be scary as hell.

One of many designs where the weight savings from DHS does some amazing things. You can keep the mech identical except for a HS swap, not even bother with ES or an (X)LFE, and nearly max out the Hardened Armor cap. BV2 goes from 1605 to 2064, to give a quick sense of how much you've just improved the mech, and the price difference is only about 600,000 C-Bills.

When I get some time, I may post some Hardened Armor designs over in Fan Rules, just to play with this idea a bit. Simple upgrades(and there are none simpler than DHS swaps in terms of effect on the unit) are a fun little design area.

[marcussmythe]

Does run into the drawback that most assault and heavy designs do with hardened... dropping from 5 to 4 move on a run is damned painful.

Hmm.  While your stripping the heat sinks out and installing doubles, is there room for TSM there?  Even if it is hard to juggle in combat, we could at least use it to raise our operational speed back up to 5....

[Brakiel]

It seems questionable to take Hardened and TSM on any design meant to fight at range. Taking the +1 penalty to hit and the loss of granularity in heat management doesn't seem worth it just to get your movement back. The Hitotsume Kozo or a hypothetical TSM-equipped Rokurokubi, both of which have speed and a melee weapon, are better templates for the Hardened/TSM combo.

[marcussmythe]

It seems questionable to take Hardened and TSM on any design meant to fight at range. Taking the +1 penalty to hit and the loss of granularity in heat management doesn't seem worth it just to get your movement back. The Hitotsume Kozo or a hypothetical TSM-equipped Rokurokubi, both of which have speed and a melee weapon, are better templates for the Hardened/TSM combo.

Here, I am more interested in speed between engagements (where otherwise hardened armor would cause it to fall behind even other assaults) than on map speed during tactical combat (where an AWS is just going to find some partial cover heavy woods and put down roots)

[Scotty]

Speed between engagements is generally assumed to be Cruising/Walking speed, which are unaffected.  Unless you're suggesting that the pilot keep the heat pegged at 9 for multiple hours of sustained running?  That sounds... unwise.

[marcussmythe]

Speed between engagements is generally assumed to be Cruising/Walking speed, which are unaffected.  Unless you're suggesting that the pilot keep the heat pegged at 9 for multiple hours of sustained running?  That sounds... unwise.

Point.

[Drewbacca]

Hardened armor on a scorpion, yay or nay?

[Brakiel]

I think we're treading pretty close to the Fan Designs prohibition here.

Generally speaking, people seem to agree that Hardened on a quad is good. Doesn't eat into the limited crit slots, and the inherent stability of quads offset Hardened's +1 to PSRs. Bonus points if the design is still fast enough to still have 1 or 2 MP left over after hitting its maximum TMM. A 6/8 can still hit a +3 TMM in something other than a straight line, whereas a 5/7 will most of the time max out at +2.

[JadeHellbringer]

Hardened armor on a scorpion, yay or nay?

I would think that depends completely on what you're looking to do otherwise with it. Just saying 'I'm cramming hardened armor on!' without any real goal can be mixed. The quad bonuses would help with the PSR penalty, butone of the Scorpion's claims to fame over its 55-ton counterparts like the Griffin is that it's a little quicker- you lose that straight-up with hardened armor. What role do you want your Scorp to play? That really makes a difference on whether or not the upgrade makes sense- if mobility is important, don't waste your time.

As Brakiel said, I'm happy to see what you brew up, but taking it down to Fan Designs is a must.

[Iceweb]

Unless you're suggesting that the pilot keep the heat pegged at 9 for multiple hours of sustained running?  That sounds... unwise.

 

That said I have always wondered how long the average pilot could do it, if his TSM mech was ordered to "GET HERE NOW!"

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I suspect that keeping a mech that hot for more than 5-10 minutes would start causing significant problems with its systems.

[marcussmythe]

Yall are likely right, now that I think about it.

Interesting fluff question on the flip side - does a Mech with RISC Supercooled Myomers hold up better under extended heavy use?  The ability to sustain a full run would be an interesting operational/strategic bonus for an otherwise pretty poor system.

I may fluff it that way on my own designs to help justify it.  :)

[Drewbacca]

I would think that depends completely on what you're looking to do otherwise with it. Just saying 'I'm cramming hardened armor on!' without any real goal can be mixed. The quad bonuses would help with the PSR penalty, butone of the Scorpion's claims to fame over its 55-ton counterparts like the Griffin is that it's a little quicker- you lose that straight-up with hardened armor. What role do you want your Scorp to play? That really makes a difference on whether or not the upgrade makes sense- if mobility is important, don't waste your time.

As Brakiel said, I'm happy to see what you brew up, but taking it down to Fan Designs is a must.

I am looking at ways to potentially upgrade using everything from standard to experimental tech. I like the Scorpion, always have, but it is one of the mechs where 3050 did not do it justice. I look at the Great Turtle and think that with rhe cockpit in the right place is a solid quad. Tge Barghest as well. I will work on some options of the Scorpion and other classics with Hardened Armor, post them in the designs section and link back here.


https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=61720.0

[JadeHellbringer]

Yall are likely right, now that I think about it.

Interesting fluff question on the flip side - does a Mech with RISC Supercooled Myomers hold up better under extended heavy use?  The ability to sustain a full run would be an interesting operational/strategic bonus for an otherwise pretty poor system.

I may fluff it that way on my own designs to help justify it.  :)

Safe bet: Anything involving the words 'RISC' and 'extended heavy use' will end in unspeakable tragedy. It may not be immediate, but it won't be more than a few minutes.  ;D

[grimlock1]

Yall are likely right, now that I think about it.

Interesting fluff question on the flip side - does a Mech with RISC Supercooled Myomers hold up better under extended heavy use?  The ability to sustain a full run would be an interesting operational/strategic bonus for an otherwise pretty poor system.

I may fluff it that way on my own designs to help justify it.  :)

SCM automatically gives a mech the Difficult to Maintain quirk.

[Retry]

Safe bet: Anything involving the words 'RISC' and 'extended heavy use' will end in unspeakable tragedy. It may not be immediate, but it won't be more than a few minutes.  ;D

I'd broaden that range to anything involving the words 'RISC' and 'use' myself

[marcussmythe]

While ‘difficult to maintain’ is not 1:1 in opposition to ‘high sustained cruising speed’, its a good thing to remember. 

To get this back on topic - does the ruling above change anyones mental math on Hardened Armor RE:  Falls?  If it takes 40 (or more) damage to trigger the PSR, the pnealty on the role is less of a worry to me.