Author Topic: Pulse Laser Cluster Damage  (Read 1694 times)

Colonel Sanders Lite

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Pulse Laser Cluster Damage
« on: 11 March 2013, 00:10:22 »
This is a question for more veteran players mainly.  I seem to remember pulse lasers doing 5pt cluster damage at some point in the games history, but for the life of me, I can't remember when.  Anyone know when, or is my mind playing tricks on me?  I gave my copy of bmr away after I switched to total warfare, and my old compendium's pages are falling out. Namely the several pages before the color inserts, which includes the pulse laser equipment rules section...  Could have been maximum tech or one of the other old optional rule books, but I think I gave most of that old crap away.
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Weirdo

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Re: Pulse Laser Cluster Damage
« Reply #1 on: 11 March 2013, 00:11:31 »
I know of no rueset when this ever happened.
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Diablo48

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Re: Pulse Laser Cluster Damage
« Reply #2 on: 11 March 2013, 00:40:08 »
While I have never heard of anything in canon that would support this, it may have been a house rule based on the fluff of the Pulse Lasers.  I have considered giving them the option to work like energy versions of the LBX ACs so it is entirely possible you ran into someone who used a take on this based off LRMs at some point.


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Colonel Sanders Lite

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Re: Pulse Laser Cluster Damage
« Reply #3 on: 11 March 2013, 00:53:16 »
Yeah, it could have been fluff based, but I'm really not sure.

IMO though, speaking from experience, the -2 to hit and cluster together is an ob combo, at least for clan tech.  It just makes the ultimate crit seeker.  If is tech was all that was to be considered, where the mpl really only has two hexes where it outdoes the standard ml, it wouldn't be too bad.  Maybe it could work for both if you where rolling the damage on the cluster table as well though, but back then the cluster table was definitely smaller and we where just using base damage in clusters.
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Diablo48

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Re: Pulse Laser Cluster Damage
« Reply #4 on: 11 March 2013, 01:04:19 »
Yeah, it could have been fluff based, but I'm really not sure.

IMO though, speaking from experience, the -2 to hit and cluster together is an ob combo, at least for clan tech.  It just makes the ultimate crit seeker.  If is tech was all that was to be considered, where the mpl really only has two hexes where it outdoes the standard ml, it wouldn't be too bad.  Maybe it could work for both if you where rolling the damage on the cluster table as well though, but back then the cluster table was definitely smaller and we where just using base damage in clusters.

Any time you talk house rules things get fuzzy, but I was personally thinking of doing an exact copy/paste of the LBX rules so they would operate like normal lasers with no bonus or as cluster weapons with a -1 to hit in 1-point groupings.  That would be perfectly reasonable with Clan tech, but the IS versions might need to be given the same range as the standards to be worth using.


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Charlie Tango

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Re: Pulse Laser Cluster Damage
« Reply #5 on: 12 March 2013, 22:14:39 »

Sounds like a house rule to me.
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Re: Pulse Laser Cluster Damage
« Reply #6 on: 13 March 2013, 00:23:03 »
Sounds like a house rule to me.

I concur. The BattleTech Compendium (c. 1990) has pulse lasers with the same stats as they appear today.  Same with TRO 2750 and the original TRO 3050. Were the stats published in any book before TRO 2750 in 1989?


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Hersh67

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Re: Pulse Laser Cluster Damage
« Reply #7 on: 13 March 2013, 09:39:54 »
I concur. The BattleTech Compendium (c. 1990) has pulse lasers with the same stats as they appear today.  Same with TRO 2750 and the original TRO 3050. Were the stats published in any book before TRO 2750 in 1989?

Neg.

2750 is where we first hear of the Pulse Laser and TRO: 3050 is where we see the first Clan version. 

Colonel Sanders Lite

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Re: Pulse Laser Cluster Damage
« Reply #8 on: 14 March 2013, 14:02:39 »
Well, that's pretty clear.  Thanks guys.
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