Sure is. And I think I just figured out how.
Remember the infantry record sheet and how damage reduces based on casualties? And I hardly need to say more, do I?
Simple, basic infantry rules column for the number of troops in a hex. Fewer the troops, the higher the TH penalty. 1-50.
Sorry, I meant that your original quote
here had the comment "I wanted to try and figure out a rule for where the more troops you had in the hex, they harder they were to hit,"
I figured you meant that the more troops there were in the hex the easier it would be to hit, and wanted to confirm.
Now that is a very interesting idea. Particularly if we stick to a basic sliding scale for additional D6s of damage/per people in the hex. But we're also sliding towards a mass murder simulator now with riots and I don't know if we need extra rules for that. I'll think about this more though.
To me it isn't really extra rules, just more damage if you have more people present in a hex. You can design an 80-person platoon with eight 10-person squads, but you can also expect to take lots of casualties when those platoons are hit. The limit of 30 is from existing rules, and the +1 per 10 is because I wanted easy math.
I think I already said there is a lot I don't see happening during game turns. I'm cool with medics working between games. We're not "That other game"---love that we all know who we're talking about. Yeah; no "Saved wounds" here.
Ah, gotcha. I wanted to make sure the option was open for multiple medics in a platoon, not just the one.
If I get what you're talking about here, you mean that particular shade of weirdness where under RAW the support weapons dictate the range of the personal weapons? Sorry, I can't go there with you. That was immersion-breaking for me. I'm just happy they erratted that it worked with hand to hand weapons.
I wanted it where weapons had their own range, so you can't grab a few long-range weapons and use those to boost the existing short-range high-damage weapons.
But it sounds like you already separated them, so that is good.
I'm not particularly worried about limiting it that way, because even with two-man teams for many support weapons, half your people still have small arms, as a minimum. It's only weird for me if you have some contrivance where there is an immobile support laser platoon where everyone is gunner for a laser and it just doesn't move. That's just an edge case it's easier to just say "You can't do that, it's too silly". Even fortress troops need ammo bearers.
Ah, okay. That makes a degree of sense of SRMs and similar, but how would I handle things like support lasers? Semi-Portable Autocannon? Grenade Launchers?
Satchel charges I got you covered on. They are "Disposables". Marked off as used, same as LAWs. And your odds are likely better spamming a target with LAWs than doing an AM attach anyways.
For support Weapon troops, they would likely be carrying a sidearm rather than an assault rifle. So they have the special weapon they can fire at targets, but if they get flanked or run out of Support Weapon ammo then they would only be using Pistols/SMG vs the opposing troopers using Sniper Rifles and assault rifles.
For weapons too heavy for a single person to carry, you'd divide up the weapon into as few parts that people can carry, and use the extra mass available for extra ammunition.
I.e. imagine a Support laser that masses 26 kg. The troopers can only carry 10 kg beyond their current loadout so the Support laser is split between 3 troopers. 3 Troopers can carry 30 kg total, so there is 4 kg remaining. Those 4 remaining kg are used to carry the ammunition for the Support Laser. If each shot of the Support Laser requires a 1 kg battery, then the Support Laser would look something like:
Support Laser + 4 shots:
3 troopers per squad to carry
Each extra trooper per squad allocated to carry ammo for the Support Laser provides +10 shots
So you could have a 3-person squad with a Support Laser that only has 4 shots, but adding a 4th trooper changes that to 14 shots.
So a 24-person squad with eight 3-person squads would be rolling on the '8' column of the Cluster table and have 4 volleys.
A 24-person squad with six 4-person squads would be rolling on the '6' column of the Cluster table and have 14 volleys.
Semi-portable Autocannon if it is too heavy for the troopers to move would almost be a light building with the autocannon installed in it.
Grenade Launchers would be the troopers each mounting a grenade launcher under their rifles and carrying a few extra grenades. Each grenade does not do a lot to a Mech, but enough of them 'might' do some damage. Or the grenades might get the Mechwarrior's attention.