I was playing around with Heavy Metal Vehicle yesterday, and was thinking,"why are there no Helicopter Gunships in BT?" I've used Warriors before , and think the LRM version is alright, and use the AC 2 pretty well for what it can do, but why no "EEEEEEP, QUICK SWAT IT!!!!" VTOLs? I made a cheese Warrior with 5 LRM 5s by changing out the SRM and AC 2, and switching from a ICE to a fusion, I'm sure you can do a 2 LRM 10 one same weight specs. Switching to a flying SRM 4 platform would be pretty fearsom as well, as 40 SRMs would be visious as well.
Thought, opinions, thrown objects welcome!
(Throws an object)
alright, first, you have your weight limits: 30 tons is tops, and the worst weight with VTOLs-you end up being simultaneously incredibly slow, easy to hit, and vulnerable. The movement factor for a 30t VTOL (Suspension factor) means you'd be better off doing a hovertank (which doesn't crash when it loses motive systems-VTOLs kinda do that.)
While they HAVE nerfed the hit location table on VTOLs to unrealistic levels of durability (mostly to make slow VTOLs like the Yellowjacket moderately viable, where they really weren't under BMR and earlier iterations of the game rules), You still can lose a rotor pretty easily-which means dying quickly and messily from hits that will only annoy your techs on the hull.
With VTOL units, "Speed=Survival", and the very
bottom of your survivable movement curve, is 8/12 under current rules, (and 10/15 under BMR era rules).
thus, while you can schlep more weapons on a VTOL of a given weight/movement profile than you can on a 'mech, with the ability to ignore terrain at times, you're not going to get into 'pants-wetting firepower' without also going into 'easily killed by even an urbanmech' territory (for instance, anything with an LRM larger than 5 can shoot one down in a single volley no matter HOW much armor the hull has, even with the Munchtek (Maxtech) derived "Damage reduction to rotors" in play.)
(The earlier ruleset was actually more realistic-attack helicopters in reality have been dropped routinely by small-arms fire and the method they trained us to do it, was to aim ahead of the rotor hub, leading the direction the chopper is flying.)
this doesn't mean you can't build a highly effective VTOL unit within the restrictions of the generation and ruleset, but it's not going to be "Uber" powerful regardless of era.
Prior to the nerfing that was given it in TRO 3039, the H-7 was a good example of an
effective design, out performing the Clan equivalent (The Donar) in actual play on maps larger than 'one sheet postage stamp'. This has to do with the impact of being able to rack up a total movement bonus of plus five, while still being able to turn, climb, and drop, while having a long-range weapon with a hard chaser. (AC/2 with Infernos in the SRM racks). But it's not a "OMG they have choppers!!" thing, because that's not how tactical doctrine in Battletech works. (that role belongs to 'mechs).
otoh, faster VTOL units do grant some edge on the momentum of a battle, and provide effective harassment and exploitation options (depending on the design).
what doesn't come up, however, are 30 ton units that are, in fact, effective. even with the changes to the ruleset to make them viable, the existing 30t units are still borderline useless pop-up targets that are easily dispatched or unable to get into effective position thanks to the sideslip rule. Generally, the can't move fast enough to actually use terrain to avoid being spotted/shot on lost initiative, and lack the cruise speed to take advantage of having the initiative without flanking, whie being highly visible (In line of sight) at the levels where a sideslip into terrain isn't likely (for example, a Yellowjacket that shows itself will either be an easy target, or be flying high enough to be in easy engagement for weapons that completely strip it of movement bonuses, such as LBX or HAG fire.)
(Sideslip requires a PSR when you flank, and if you're trying to screen behind terrain, you become really very likely to become part of the terrain, since damage reduction doesn't apply to lithobraking checks against terrain.)
all this means you don't use VTOLs like you use 'mechs or tanks. They're not static units and trying to use them as such, is a mistake.