Author Topic: Ideal ammo per weapon?  (Read 18088 times)

Teulisch

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #30 on: 25 February 2019, 16:10:47 »
I think the amount of ammo you need for a fight depends on the scale of the conflict. for lance vs lance, 10 to 12 shots will work. however for a larger conflict, combat will likely take longer. on a company scale, 20+ shots is closer to what you may need. you may also need more ammo is your weapons primarily use ammo and your target is fast enough to be impossible to hit at long range, like a spider jumping(+1) 7 or 8(+3) to and in woods(+1 and up). and if you have to move in order to keep in range, that also makes the enemy harder to hit.

a lot of mech design (and vehicle design in general) assumes a short match of less than 10 rounds. a campaign that tracks ammo across matches would make energy weapons a lot more useful overall, and make the question of how you resupply your mechs with ammo an important question. the J-27 is a good investment if you rely on ammo for a lot of mechs, and rather mandatory for any mobile support of such a unit.

if you run out of ammo for any reason, it really changes the balance of the battle. and having fast mechs draw fire may be a really good strategy if your goal is attrition of enemy resources. some people will actually designate targets they need a 12+ to hit, building heat and wasting ammo.

Kovax

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #31 on: 27 February 2019, 11:28:54 »
some people will actually designate targets they need a 12+ to hit, building heat and wasting ammo.
If you've got a ton of AC/2 ammo, it's practically free (around 6000 C-Bills per ton), only builds one point of heat, and you've got 45 shots.  Why not take the shot?  That scout pilot is now more likely to stay clear of you for the rest of the game after that shot, because he knows that you're willing to take the shot even at poor odds, he's not doing anything useful by having you waste a trivial amount of ammo, and he doesn't want to risk dying.  That LRM-20 rack, on the other hand, is expensive to reload, only carries enough missiles for a few shots, and builds a moderate amount of heat?  Why waste the ammo on a bad shot?

Like in most other "good" sets of rules, there are times when you DO want to try something, despite common wisdom being that you "never" do that.  Knowing when to follow the normal procedures, and when to ignore them, is where you separate the Regulars from the Veterans.  Ignoring the normal procedures without understanding the implications separates the Novices from the Regulars.

Tangoforone

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #32 on: 28 February 2019, 11:59:07 »
I suppose I may be a Regular, but even in a campaign I will take potshots at the enemy if I can.  I will sort out supply lines if I need to.  If Julius Caesar could keep his supply lines open and secure with livestock pulling rickety-ass carts across Europe, then I can find a way to supply a technologically advanced army funded by a multi-planet controlling superpower.  Give me that 12 to hit on an AC20 at long range against a Locust.  It is always worth the psychological damage that it incurs in the enemy.  Especially if it hits.

Daryk

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #33 on: 28 February 2019, 20:01:12 »
PSYOP requires a certain cool that not everyone has, but I can imagine you have it...  ;)

CDAT

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #34 on: 02 May 2019, 23:06:24 »
For the most part I think between 10 and 15 per weapon with 12 being the sweet spot, however there are some exceptions to that mechs like the Crusader I like only the one ton per LRM-15, fire off the 8 rounds and then close to finish them off with your SRM's and ML (you should drop the MG ammo in lobby or first round if you have a version that has them). This keeps you from having the walking bomb happen.

Kovax

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #35 on: 03 May 2019, 11:17:18 »
'Mechs like the Crusader, Catapult, Trebuchet, and Whitworth aren't entirely "long ranged support", they're quite capable of functioning as brawlers once the LRM ammo is gone.  As dual-purpose designs, they don't need to carry quite as much LRM ammo, and may actually benefit from running out before they start to lose too much armor.  A standard Archer, on the other hand, doesn't carry enough secondary firepower to be an effective line 'Mech (a 40T Whitworth packs 50% more short-range firepower than a 70T Archer), although it's weight makes it viable to some degree as a melee unit.

As said, in a campaign situation, you may want to carry more ammo than normally needed for one battle.  That, of course, is assuming that the first battle leaves you with enough armor to use that extra ammo in the second fight before you explode.  Having twice as much as you need is probably overkill, unless you're expecting a series of easy fights where you don't take much return fire, but need to take out a lot of targets.  In most cases where you hold the field at the end, you're only going to hold it long enough for your tech teams to salvage as much as possible, or until some other unit arrives to relieve yours, then you head back to base for reloads and re-armoring.  You want a couple of rounds left in case something does show up to contest the field, but usually the enemy has already spent all or most its available forces in the area, and is retreating back to its own base for repairs and reloads.

Then you have the occasional battle where you've got to finish off some target in hard cover at bad odds for your ammo-dependent weapons, from safely outside of their gun range.  Basically, if you can sit there and plink away, there's nothing they can do to save themselves without coming out of cover, so they're just hoping you run out of ammo and have to close, where it will be a more even match.  In such cases, there's never "too much" ammo.

Also consider the RFL-2c model (NOT a "IIC" Clan design), which mounts dual AC/10s and respectable armor, but no secondary weapons.  It WILL run out of ammo, but there's simply nothing that could have been sacrificed to add another ton without seriously compromising the design in some way.  I want the amount that it has, only because no more will fit.

Gigastrike

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #36 on: 03 May 2019, 11:38:21 »
I'm sure you could throw together an extensive equation based on percentage of weaponry which relies on ammo (by damage), likelihood to hit (gunnery, ideal firing range, ability to maintain ideal firing range, and enemy speed and terrain if you have the luxury of knowing that ahead of time), expected battle length (based on weight of enemy force vs. allied damage output)...

I don't think it would be complex math, just super in-depth.  It would become messy towards the end, though, since the result would have to be based off of damage rather than tons of ammo.  You'd need to consult a chart to get tons of ammo/weapon.
« Last Edit: 03 May 2019, 11:40:59 by Gigastrike »

Alsadius

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #37 on: 03 May 2019, 11:53:10 »
I'm sure you could throw together an extensive equation based on percentage of weaponry which relies on ammo (by damage), likelihood to hit (gunnery, ideal firing range, ability to maintain ideal firing range, and enemy speed and terrain if you have the luxury of knowing that ahead of time), expected battle length (based on weight of enemy force vs. allied damage output)...

I don't think it would be complex math, just super in-depth.  It would become messy towards the end, though, since the result would have to be based off of damage rather than tons of ammo.  You'd need to consult a chart to get tons of ammo/weapon.

With a slightly improved BV system as regards ammo, you could do it pretty easily - drop a ton of ammo and add something new(or drop something else and add a ton), then see if BV goes up or down. But when it's per-ton and not per-shot, that's not a great system.

massey

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #38 on: 03 May 2019, 14:02:59 »
It depends what the role of the unit is.  Wasn't there a mech with 40 shots of Gauss Rifle ammo?  Hell, with something like that, you can afford to take shots on 11s and 12s all day long.  In-universe, that mech would be able to engage in a long series of small battles without reloading.  You could probably find all sorts of great uses for it, you can walk backwards and fire at a mech with shorter ranged weapons and not worry about running out of ammo.  But it's clearly not optimized for maximum blasting like other designs might be.

An Archer is designed for fire support, while a Stalker is designed to march forward and fire until its ammo bays are empty (by that point, it'll be close enough to switch to large lasers and then SRMs).  So the needed amount of ammo depends on the role of the mech.

garhkal

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #39 on: 03 May 2019, 15:29:42 »
One question i just thought of..  Are we just discussing standard ammo for the weapons in question, or specialty ammo that halves the # of shots a ton??
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The_Caveman

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #40 on: 03 May 2019, 18:27:36 »
It depends what the role of the unit is.  Wasn't there a mech with 40 shots of Gauss Rifle ammo?

War Dog.

Ironically the same design includes a pair of single-shot Streak-2s.
Half the fun of BattleTech is the mental gymnastics required to scientifically rationalize design choices made decades ago entirely based on the Rule of Cool.

The other half is a first-turn AC/2 shot TAC to your gyro that causes your Atlas to fall and smash its own cockpit... wait, I said fun didn't I?

Apocal

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #41 on: 04 May 2019, 05:24:48 »
War Dog.

Ironically the same design includes a pair of single-shot Streak-2s.

Jesus, that is terrible.

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #42 on: 04 May 2019, 10:14:53 »
Jesus, that is terrible.

and they're leg-mounted

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The_Caveman

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #43 on: 04 May 2019, 11:02:19 »
Had they been available at the time, a pair of RL/15s would have been a great swap-out for those Streaks without putting a torso ammo bomb into an XL engine 'Mech. I otherwise like the War Dog, it can spam that Gauss all day long without needing to close to short range. Great for keeping slow-moving assaults pinned down since even a 100 tonner can't laugh at a Gauss hit. As new toy era designs go it's okay.
Half the fun of BattleTech is the mental gymnastics required to scientifically rationalize design choices made decades ago entirely based on the Rule of Cool.

The other half is a first-turn AC/2 shot TAC to your gyro that causes your Atlas to fall and smash its own cockpit... wait, I said fun didn't I?

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #44 on: 04 May 2019, 11:15:33 »
yeah, i've actually found it to be an adequate heavy. it's a penetrator's goofy cousin.

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The_Caveman

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #45 on: 04 May 2019, 13:56:18 »
Oh, and in the old days, you could put Inferno warheads in Streak-2s. Using one-shot launchers let you pack that on as a quick infantry deterrent or to shut down an overheating Clan 'Mech without also having to carry a full ton of dangerous Inferno rounds. So it wasn't an inherently terrible idea in the context of the time.
Half the fun of BattleTech is the mental gymnastics required to scientifically rationalize design choices made decades ago entirely based on the Rule of Cool.

The other half is a first-turn AC/2 shot TAC to your gyro that causes your Atlas to fall and smash its own cockpit... wait, I said fun didn't I?

Apocal

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #46 on: 05 May 2019, 12:37:03 »
Oh, and in the old days, you could put Inferno warheads in Streak-2s. Using one-shot launchers let you pack that on as a quick infantry deterrent or to shut down an overheating Clan 'Mech without also having to carry a full ton of dangerous Inferno rounds. So it wasn't an inherently terrible idea in the context of the time.

Anti-infantry deterrent, sure. But shutting down a clan 'mech with only 4 heat? One time? For four tons of weight?

And did infernos used to be much more dangerous to carry around in the old rules or something? Because the War Dog isn't really a mech I'd look at and think you'd need to ride the +10 heat curve with. You did write 'inherently' and all, but this specific implementation is sorta bad.

dgorsman

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #47 on: 05 May 2019, 12:48:49 »
At the time, infernos would be +6 heat per turn for a given number of rounds, increased by the number of hits.
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massey

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #48 on: 05 May 2019, 12:57:28 »
3 rounds per missile, so 2 Streak 2s would be 12 rounds of +6 heat.

The_Caveman

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #49 on: 05 May 2019, 14:08:58 »
While +6 heat isn't necessarily a guaranteed shutdown, applied to a Clan machine that is already marginal in heat performance like a Nova Prime or Hellbringer Prime it would be a serious handicap, generally forcing at least one weapon system to be taken offline until the fire went out. But used against aggressive warriors who were used to running hot to begin with, it could turn a mild overheat into a shutdown roll and a significant overheat into an ammo explosion roll.

It actually rather annoys me the degree to which Infernos have been nerfed. You need a 6-pack launcher now to average the old amount of heat increase and they took away the burn duration that made perfect sense on a napalm-based weapon. They're barely worth the risk of carrying them anymore. Now, vees having a 58% chance per turn for 3 turns per missile to be flat-out destroyed was broken, I'll give you that. But the rules for 'Mechs were fine as they were.

Anyway, while the extra heat avoid rolls are bad enough, with 50 rounds in the bin that deplete extra-slowly due to Streak tech, you also have to worry about criticals.
Half the fun of BattleTech is the mental gymnastics required to scientifically rationalize design choices made decades ago entirely based on the Rule of Cool.

The other half is a first-turn AC/2 shot TAC to your gyro that causes your Atlas to fall and smash its own cockpit... wait, I said fun didn't I?

dgorsman

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #50 on: 05 May 2019, 15:03:38 »
Streaks only fire streak ammo now, not infernos.  And realistically it's a *lot* easier to work with in-game, and consistent with the process for plasma weapons.

An SRM2 hits for +2/+4 heat, which is pretty much the same.  As a one shot, not that great but good for an ammo-fed weapon.  An SRM6 will hit for ~+6/+8 heat, and as much as +12.  That's a trade-off I can live with.
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The_Caveman

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #51 on: 05 May 2019, 17:30:23 »
Streaks only fire streak ammo now, not infernos.

I'm not sure which is dumber: Infernos magically only being able to be fired in pairs, or Streak missiles magically only being able to carry explosive heads.

An Inferno Streak-6 would have been annoying, but no moreso than 3 Inferno Streak-2s.
Half the fun of BattleTech is the mental gymnastics required to scientifically rationalize design choices made decades ago entirely based on the Rule of Cool.

The other half is a first-turn AC/2 shot TAC to your gyro that causes your Atlas to fall and smash its own cockpit... wait, I said fun didn't I?

Iceweb

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #52 on: 06 May 2019, 02:34:25 »
The other thing to remember is that (in my understanding) OS weapons don't have an ammo supply so they can't explode when hit or when you get too hot. 

With single heatsinks those extra heat rolls for the infernos got real scary real quick, back in the old days.  But somehow the Wardog could max it's heat to 30 and shutdown and there would be no risk of an inferno explosion, cause the OS weapon can't explode. 

Hptm. Streiger

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #53 on: 06 May 2019, 05:57:22 »
I think the amount of ammo you need for a fight depends on the scale of the conflict. for lance vs lance, 10 to 12 shots will work.

I think you're prone to a common misconception. More Mechs doesn't result in more spend ammunition. The important factor is the composition.
When you have a true lance vs true lance situation and boost it up to 3x true lance vs 3x true lance the ammunition consumption stays the same.

It's interesting when you look at the vehicles in use. For example a Shadow Hawk 2H and a Wolverine 6R facing an Awesome and a Javelin.  The mediums will hardly have enough ammunition to finish the fight - although they have 20 rds. and its not even a lance vs lance engagement.

On the other hand, 20 rounds for the AC5 when facing an Awesome would be enough for a Zeus. (I usually ran out of LRM ammo 8rds are undeniable low)
Same for the mediums in the first example turn the Wolverine into a 6M and the 20rds for the SHD are enough.

Its the damage potential that matters. The Awesome has 240 plates of armor.
So estimated for destruction:
  • AC2: avg 126 hits (worst case 161)
  • AC5: avg 47 hits (worst case 61)
  • AC10: avg 22hits (worst 33)
  • AC20: avg 9 hits (worst case are 16)
While the average damage needed for the destruction goes down with increased caliber the max damage stays almost the same.
 
So the simple question of the OP is not that simple.
20rds on that Rifleman might be enough because of those large lasers.... shoot lasers, cool down, shoot acs cool down, shoot laser.... those 20 are as effective as the 20 on the Marauder. And they are clearly more effective as the 20rds per gun for the JaegerMech

snewsom2997

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #54 on: 09 May 2019, 13:53:53 »
2 to 3 tons is generally enough for all but biggest ammo hogs like an AC20, Arrow IV, or ATM12.

I'll put 4 tons of AC20, or ATM12 Ammo on a mech, 3 Tons of AC10, RAC5, LRM15, LRM20 ammo, and 2 Tons, of RAC2, AC2, LRM10 ammo.

Alsadius

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #55 on: 09 May 2019, 14:32:29 »
2 to 3 tons is generally enough for all but biggest ammo hogs like an AC20, Arrow IV, or ATM12.

I'll put 4 tons of AC20, or ATM12 Ammo on a mech, 3 Tons of AC10, RAC5, LRM15, LRM20 ammo, and 2 Tons, of RAC2, AC2, LRM10 ammo.

That's a really generous allocation. ~20 rounds of fire is usually too much for most games I've ever seen.

The_Caveman

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #56 on: 09 May 2019, 17:53:07 »
That's a really generous allocation. ~20 rounds of fire is usually too much for most games I've ever seen.

I've burned through 40 shots in a single match before. It just depends on the scenario.

But as a rule I'd say divide your tonnage by two and if you have more shots than that, you're probably not going to live long enough to use them all.
Half the fun of BattleTech is the mental gymnastics required to scientifically rationalize design choices made decades ago entirely based on the Rule of Cool.

The other half is a first-turn AC/2 shot TAC to your gyro that causes your Atlas to fall and smash its own cockpit... wait, I said fun didn't I?

Daryk

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #57 on: 12 May 2019, 18:37:08 »
2 to 3 tons is generally enough for all but biggest ammo hogs like an AC20, Arrow IV, or ATM12.

I'll put 4 tons of AC20, or ATM12 Ammo on a mech, 3 Tons of AC10, RAC5, LRM15, LRM20 ammo, and 2 Tons, of RAC2, AC2, LRM10 ammo.
90 rounds for a non-rotary AC/2?  Really?  ???

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #58 on: 15 May 2019, 14:42:38 »
you might have to knock over a hardened building from 24 hexes?

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Re: Ideal ammo per weapon?
« Reply #59 on: 15 May 2019, 16:40:39 »
90 rounds for a non-rotary AC/2?  Really?  ???

I've only got the one AA gun, I'm gonna be at it a while.  :-[
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