BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
Catalyst Game Labs => BattleTech Game Rules Questions => Strategic Operations => Topic started by: Cryhavok101 on 29 August 2016, 14:56:11
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The rules for the Naval Tug Adapter (TO pg 335) seem to allow a dropship with sufficient thrust and the towing adapter to to a warship that has crashed back up off a planet into space. Though I don't think any current cannon tugs would do well at it, if anything, I think I could design a custom one too. Wierdo indicated this might be an oversight, and recommended I ask about it over here.
Can a dropship with a TUG adapter and sufficient thrust tow a warship back up into space?
If yes, does the dropship suffer the +5 penalty for the warship being out of control, when it tries to dock for tugging, or is that penalty negated by the fact that the warship can't move under it's own power and is resting still, on the ground?
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Per p. 335 Tactical Operations, "naval tug operations may only be performed in space." That sort of nixes WarShip recovery from planets.
Skipping past that, there's several practical issues to consider before lifting a WarShip from a planet.
First, per Total Warfare p. 78-80, out of control (e.g., crashing) WarShips would take 250 standard points of damage per point of velocity to the nose when crossing the space-atmosphere interface row. Orbital velocity over Earth is about 26 hexes per turn. A WarShip destroyed in a high speed closing engagement as it approached a planet might be moving at over 1000 hexes per turn. There's a good chance the WarShip will be confetti showered over the landscape.
The descent of a WarShip in atmosphere is one atmosphere row per turn, during which (per p. 79 TW) it only slows by 1 hex per turn. If it exceeds the safe velocity of a rows, then per p.79-80 it takes an additional 5 standard points of damage per point of velocity over the safe limit. An orbital velocity WarShip might still be moving at 20 hexes per turn when it passes into row 1 and the ground row. That's not a lot of damage compared to capital armor, but a WarShip doesn't crash because its armor was in good shape.
The final crash (p. 81 TW, p. 63 SO) does a relatively modest 2d6 x 10 x Velocity standard points of damage, but the average result is about 1400 points (140 capital) for a WarShip that started at orbital velocity.
So, there's a good chance you'll only have metal confetti waiting for a tug, or salvage freighter DropShip. But if you get past that issue and have a relatively intact WarShip on a surface, then you can start considering the problems of lifting it.
There's a matter of lift orientation. Space tugs push; the tug needs to be under the WarShip to get it off the ground. Even if it can hover over the WarShip and pull it up, there's the issue of fusion engine proximity damage to anything underneath the Spheroid DropShip (p. 88 TW). BT isn't a game of anti-gravity and harmless glowing engines like Star Trek; a crashed WarShip with a tug over it would want to pull a Wall-E (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiR3AvNZklk). ;)
Then there's a matter of capacity. A 100,000-ton DropShip tug with 12 safe thrust (about the max you can manage and still have tonnage for the frame and other necessities) still needs 2 safe thrust to lift off from a 1G planet (p. 88 TW), meaning (per p. 335 TO's thrust recomputation) the tug can only push small wrecked WarShips into orbit - nothing over about 500,000 tons in 1G.
WarShips under 500,000 tons are the ones least likely to survive entry since they don't have much armor.
But if you stretch the definition of "space" to include a vacuum planet (that's not the intent of the TO statement, though), and the WarShip landed at low velocity then it's probably intact and you might find a way to load it onto the nose of a tug and push it into orbit.
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Per p. 335 Tactical Operations, "naval tug operations may only be performed in space." That sort of nixes WarShip recovery from planets.
Ah okay, I missed that line. Thanks.
As to the rest of it, the question came up in a discussion about intentionally lawndarting a warship, which you would presumably do as close to velocity 1 as possible so as to minimize the damage. I have had a warship still technically functional laying on the ground. Most don't have the armor to take that kind of damage though. In my case it was a custom designed flying brick of armor. I haven't looked through the canon designs to see if any are able to do the same.
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Placing this here so it goes under official rules answer:
In regards to the damage a WarShip takes when crashing into a planet. As the aforementioned thread suggested, we did miss something in scribing down the rules. The absolute intent of a WarShip hitting the ground is dead WarShip. To that end we failed to include velocity factors.
On p. 63 change:
"Otherwise it will fall one Atmospheric Row per space turn until it reaches the ground hex row, where it automatically crashes (see, p 81, TW)."
To:
Otherwise it will fall one Atmospheric Row per space turn until it reaches the ground hex row, where it automatically crashes. Damage is applied as per p. 81 TW with the following modifications. All damage is Capital Scale. WarShips take a base damage as determined by their weight. For every 100,000 tons, they take 10 points of Capital Scale Damage. In addition to any velocity imparted by its own thrust, a WarShip accumulates 1 points of velocity for every altitude layer it descends. This means a WarShip that had 1 point of velocity on entering the Interface layer would have an impact velocity of 12 when it hit the ground, eleven altitude levels down (per the low altitude table, p. 81 [/i]TW).
What this means is that a WarShip will take a minimum of 88 points of Capital Scale damage and up to 528 points of Capital Scale damage plus 10 points for every 100,000 tons (So the minimum damage a Fox Corvette would take is 118 points.
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That will cover most any cannon design, but if the intention is to autokill the ship on impact, it should be focused on one location. As it is currently applied in 10 point clusters, getting spread out means some of the tougher canon designs might actually survive... not that they would ever see space again.
Also I feel compelled to point out that some of my custom designs had upwards of 2000 points of capitol scale armor in each location and would survive that fall intact guaranteed. May I make a recommendation that the 2d6 roll get multiplied by the "10 per 100,000 tons" instead of that damage being added on at the end?
It would look like 2d6*(10 per 100,000 tons)*velocity (min 12), which would come out to a maximum for a 2,500,000 ton vessel starting a fall with 1 velocity: 12(2d6)*250(weight)*12(velocity)=36000, versus what you seem to be proposing, which is 12(2d6)*10*12(velocity)+250(weight)=1690 for the same ship?
Or do I have these equations wrong?
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We'll review this further before final errata. For now go with what's above.
I'd also point out the just because it survives doesn't mean it is going anywhere. A WarShip on the ground can't take off no matter what condition it's in. In an opposite of TO's motto (There's a rule for that), there are no rules for WarShip take off. Because they can't.
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We'll review this further before final errata. For now go with what's above.
I'd also point out the just because it survives doesn't mean it is going anywhere. A WarShip on the ground can't take off no matter what condition it's in. In an opposite of TO's motto (There's a rule for that), there are no rules for WarShip take off. Because they can't.
Yep, once I got pointed to the no towing in atmospheres, I realized that. Now my current plan for it (because as long as it could possibly survive, I will use a rule lol) is for what I am dubbing "hostile Colonization." Where the warship in question is basically a colony seed and it uses itself to smash into the people already on the planet and replace their settlement with your new one. As their GM, my players expect outrageous things like this from new villain factions that pop up. Now I just need to figure out what they would salvage the K-F core for... but that is a different discussion.
Thanks for straigtening me out on the atmospheric towing and letting me know about the change to warship crash damage.
Does this crash damage apply to collisions with exceptionally large asteroids as well, or just planets with atmospheres?
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Asteroids would be under ramming rules. No atmosphere.
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We're adding the following to the Total Warfare errata, on top of whatever went on above that I don't have time to go over :) :
Crashes (p. 81)
⑤ Replace the first paragraph with the following:
If a unit’s altitude matches the level of the hex it occupies and it does not attempt to land (see Landing, p. 87), it crashes. If the unit was Out of Control when the crash happened and is a DropShip or larger craft, it is destroyed. Otherwise, the unit’s controller rolls 2D6, multiplying the result by 10 and then multiplying again by the current velocity of the unit. If the unit had no velocity when it crashed, use a value of 2 for velocity when calculating damage. The final result is the number of damage points the unit suffers.
Apply damage to randomly determined locations in ten-point groups. If the unit is a fighter, aerodyne DropShip or aerodyne small craft, use the Nose Hit Location Table for the appropriate unit class. If the unit is a spheroid DropShip or small craft, use the Aft Hit Location Table instead.
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This looks good.
It does make me wonder if we should give DropShips a bonus on Lawn Dart rolls, however that's another thread and another discussion.