BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Game Systems => Strategic Combat => Topic started by: CapricornNoble on 26 July 2023, 07:52:21
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Campaign Operations has rules regarding skill loss, and states that lost skills can only be regained through combat experience. How are elite personnel ever trained, then? What is the in-game mechanic to represent something like US Army Rangers firing more rounds in 6 months-year than most Soldiers might in their whole 4-year enlistment? This all started when looking at the costs associated with Targeting Computers, when trying to correct the lack of first-round long-range accuracy from tank main guns. So it got me thinking.....why can't I just give my tank gunners more time on the range, so every tank in my army is Gunnery Skill 3 instead of 4. I want to at least be able to crunch the numbers on what the extra range time would cost, at scale, compared to TarComps. Are there no rules for this, or am I missing some passage somewhere? I understand there are skill advancement rules in AToW but they don't seem easily applicable to conducting Unit Level Training. (https://www.thelightningpress.com/unit-training-management/)
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When linked up with A Time of War, that would most likely be mitigated by Career checks.
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AToW gives you 100 XP per year after majority (which is different for Inner Sphere/Periphery characters and clanners). Conversely, if you're contemplating a child prodigy, it's -100 XP per year before that. The difference between 3 and 4 Gunnery could be less than 100 XP, so that's probably a decent yardstick.
I'm not really sure what pokefan means by "Career checks"? ???
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AToW gives you 100 XP per year after majority (which is different for Inner Sphere/Periphery characters and clanners). Conversely, if you're contemplating a child prodigy, it's -100 XP per year before that. The difference between 3 and 4 Gunnery could be less than 100 XP, so that's probably a decent yardstick.
I'm not really sure what pokefan means by "Career checks"? ???
The Career skill is used for downtime training, which can get you XP towards skills relevant to the chosen Career.
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Do you have a page reference? My search-fu is failing me...
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AToW p. 334.
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Thanks! I'll dive into it over the weekend... :)
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Campaign Operations has rules regarding skill loss . . .
IIRC, Campaign Operations also has monthly training costs which is something like 1/4 of ammo costs which is really too much. We had other topics on this, and while it was nice to see it actually come up, most prior service agreed it was too much.
I am not sure if IRL tankers have this but MLRS has training munitions that the used 6-pack tracks being loaded and unloaded, giving the launcher a proper count of active rounds. The mission is then 'fired' for however many rockets needed and the pod is pulled to be cycled through a re-arm point. NOT being a live fire lets the launcher crew 'fire' more missions as part of training than would be practical for the real rounds . . . so you can go through more missions/scenarios in a few days than you might actually execute IRL overtwo or three times that time period.
Considering modern tanks use laser range finders and other sensors, you can tactically train w/o firing off rounds. FUEL, rations, and range time are the restrictions rather than ammo costs. With BT tanks using lasers, it makes it IMO real easy to practice with those- of course, same with mechs with lasers. Initiation to War has a noble's mech forces using mech-scale MILES gear.
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OK... initial impressions of the page 334 rules:
Wow... someone writing those rules has experienced garrison duty! Poor bastards! :/
It can just about reach the 100XP per year during character creation. Again, someone writing this stuff has experienced this!
The Training rules on page 334 ALSO reflect someone who has "been there". I think all those modifiers are appropriate. :)
To be clear, those rules make it HARDER to get to the generic 100 XP per year the character creation rules grant.
Overall, I'd say these rules align to general RPG norms: take all you can during character generation... everything after that is going to be HARDER! ;)