BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Game Systems => Ground Combat => Topic started by: Crow on 08 January 2018, 06:51:20
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So I'm building a Mech battalion for a Amaris Civil War game and I was planning on bringing at least two lances of Royal Shadow Hawks. What do you think about the idea? Cheap tactic or awesome?
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This is the timeframe that has Annihilators being developed with four LB10X.
Get your dice and start rollin'.
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Are you expecting that many VTOLs & tanks?
Personally I do not see the problem, its not like you are talking about a army of Royal Sentinels.
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Only eight clusterguns for a non-intro-tech battalion? What happened to the rest?
Eight LB-X in a battalion is an undersupplied battalion.
Eight LB-X in a company means the player is slightly quirky about liking LB-X.
Eight LB-X in a lance might be pushing it. If most of them are -20s.
Build yourself a DoomBox and rock and roll. 8)
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Go LB-X Carriers!
Add some LRM-5 love with those twin LBs!
Crow think about this, 4 LB-X Carriers and Royal Von Luckners oh my...
TT
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Well...since it's Star League Era it should realistically be a full battalion of the same 'Mech so...
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I went for the third option but I guess you're worried about being a a bad sport?
I guess if you think it's a bit beardy, maybe it is? Are you playing to win or have fun? I guess that's the only question that matters.
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Are you playing to win or have fun? I guess that's the only question that matters.
More like "Does your opponent have a sense of humor" being the most important question. If offbeat and radical stuff on the table is the norm, go for it. If there's nobody already named Richard in the group, and the usual play style is "don't be a Dick", then you might want to re-think your lance composition.
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You could use slugs... Radical idea, I know.
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I admit I’m a huge fan of LB-X ACs (my personal ride is a KGC-005 }:) ), though I usually go more slugs on a unit that has backup guns or some other cluster maker, like an MML or SRM since unless it’s crit or die, 2 LB20-X cluster rounds I need the same turn is overkill. I ought to make a dice box though...
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I don't see a problem with it. LB-10s average out to 6 pellets per hit. That means 24-48 shots if they all hit. If you had multiple SRM launchers it wouldn't be that much different. Just make certain to have enough dice to roll them all quickly and a quick box set up for the purpose wouldn't be a bad idea. I have a box set up for 20 pellets, but haven't had to use them all that often.
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The players in the AToW game I run have decided that the more LBX pellets one puts out, the better. Of the five PCs, three have 'Mechs with LBX on them. And a fourth has a Silver Bullet Gauss, so yeah
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B, with a side order of A. I think the real problem with wasn't introducing DHS, but rather not but a limit on the number clusters a unit can generate, after all the Alcorn would probably be less fun to play if it mounted 3 LB-10X's instead of triple Gauss.
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For its tonnage, the Alacorn could mount 4 LB10-Xs in place of the GRs and add a ton of ammo.
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I admit I’m a huge fan of LB-X ACs (my personal ride is a KGC-005 }:) ), though I usually go more slugs on a unit that has backup guns or some other cluster maker, like an MML or SRM since unless it’s crit or die, 2 LB20-X cluster rounds I need the same turn is overkill. I ought to make a dice box though...
There is a very nice little app for Android that, among other things allows, will roll on the cluster table, and give locations. It also lets you modify the Cluster hits roll to account for AMS, Artemis, HAG range, etc.
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For its tonnage, the Alacorn could mount 4 LB10-Xs in place of the GRs and add a ton of ammo.
Or a C3S >:D
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Only eight clusterguns for a non-intro-tech battalion? What happened to the rest?
Eight LB-X in a battalion is an undersupplied battalion.
Eight LB-X in a company means the player is slightly quirky about liking LB-X.
Eight LB-X in a lance might be pushing it. If most of them are -20s.
Build yourself a DoomBox and rock and roll. 8)
LOL, I think I might disagree & say that your level's might be a bit overkill.
Having a LBX Autocannon on 1 out of every 4-5 mechs is hardly under-supplied.
Having them on 2/3 of your company is way past quirky.
Having 2/Mech is a dedicated ADA platform in any era.
For the OP, the question comes down to how often are you playing that entire battalion?
If its on Megamech then who cares, if its on the table top, then your bigger problem is moving/shooting 36 units by yourself in something that will get done before next week.
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I think you went rather extreme on the possible choice of "cheap" or "awesome". 8 LBX10s shouldn't be an issue for most players unless they are brand spanking new. Assuming that half of them will hit, and then you'll likely hit with an average number of pellets, that leaves you with far fewer then 80 potential pellets, ignoring the streak 2s.
What it should come down to is how well can you manage those dice rolls and hit locations? Some people overestimate their ability to control units and burn up a lot of game time. That is going to be the main issue, not that you reduced your damage output significantly to try and crit seek. If you are not used to controlling such units in that number then either practice running them at home, or start at 50% and then add more of those units over time.
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Upon further consideration if you came to a game I was GMing with a force full of LB-10X's I'd enforce the following conditions:
You supply the Box of Death.
You must memorize the hit location charts
Limit of one critical hit and for vehicles one motive hit per turn, with cockpit hit counting as crits.
And if choice of such weaponry becomes endemic, reducing range on cluster mode.
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I was agreeing right up until that 4th item. The game has hard counters to LBX spam, and the weapon is balanced already.
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Upon further consideration if you came to a game I was GMing with a force full of LB-10X's I'd enforce the following conditions:
You supply the Box of Death.
You must memorize the hit location charts
Limit of one critical hit and for vehicles one motive hit per turn, with cockpit hit counting as crits.
And if choice of such weaponry becomes endemic, reducing range on cluster mode.
Really, REALLY glad you and I probably don't live within five hundred miles of each other. I don't care how far I drove to get to a game or how long it's been since I played: A GM tries to pull that on me, I'm turning around and driving home, then and there.
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I was agreeing right up until that 4th item. The game has hard counters to LBX spam, and the weapon is balanced already.
Only one I can think of of Ferro-Lamuer, and that's not available in the era he seems to be wanting to play.
Also note that this is designed to prevent loss of forces to to large numbers of 'lucky' crits
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Hardened will also make getting those crits harder . . . or you just stay further than 18 hexes away until you have wrecked some of the carriers.
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Hardened will also make getting those crits harder . . .
Not available in time-frame
or you just stay further than 18 hexes away until you have wrecked some of the carriers.
There's more option then I thought for this, but maybe Weirdo could often his opinion on how likely this is to be doable? I don't think there's going to be a lot of design's that are effective beyond this range in that time-frame.
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Really, REALLY glad you and I probably don't live within five hundred miles of each other. I don't care how far I drove to get to a game or how long it's been since I played: A GM tries to pull that on me, I'm turning around and driving home, then and there.
The cancer of the game, GMing. Making sure that someone does not cause the game to come to a complete stop is one thing, but changing the rules to punish the use of a particular weapon or playstyle is something that can cause a lot of problems.
I second the idea that I would rather not play if people are going to effectively cheat as others stand around mindlessly accepting the home rules. They might not like lbx clusters flying at them, but chances are they like to use certain things that someone else could declare to be abusive for whatever reason. I would rather step away and let them implode.
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The cancer of the game, GMing. Making sure that someone does not cause the game to come to a complete stop is one thing, but changing the rules to punish the use of a particular weapon or playstyle is something that can cause a lot of problems.
I second the idea that I would rather not play if people are going to effectively cheat as others stand around mindlessly accepting the home rules. They might not like lbx clusters flying at them, but chances are they like to use certain things that someone else could declare to be abusive for whatever reason. I would rather step away and let them implode.
I completely agree. LBX clusters are hardly the most OP thing in the game and if you've ever had a pilot cherry-pitted out of some sort of heavily armoured gauss monster or something then that's a feature of the game, not a bug that needs fixing...
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Upon further consideration if you came to a game I was GMing with a force full of LB-10X's I'd enforce the following conditions:
You supply the Box of Death.
You must memorize the hit location charts
Limit of one critical hit and for vehicles one motive hit per turn, with cockpit hit counting as crits.
And if choice of such weaponry becomes endemic, reducing range on cluster mode.
You wouldn't get to GM around here.
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This isn't in response to someone wanting to bring a single LB-10X, it's in response to someone wanting to bring a bunch of them, very different response.
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This isn't in response to someone wanting to bring a single LB-10X, it's in response to someone wanting to bring a bunch of them, very different response.
We saw that. Give other posters´ reading skills some credit, okay?
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Upon further consideration if you came to a game I was GMing with a force full of LB-10X's I'd enforce the following conditions:
You supply the Box of Death.
You must memorize the hit location charts
Limit of one critical hit and for vehicles one motive hit per turn, with cockpit hit counting as crits.
And if choice of such weaponry becomes endemic, reducing range on cluster mode.
1. Everyone should had a "Box-o'-Death". Cheap to make and speeds up most dice rolling.
2. And again every moderately experienced player should have those tables already memorized.
3. I can kind of see where you are coming from with that, it still feels like too much streamlining. Might as well play Alpha Strike at that point.
4. As far as I'm concerned, if someone's only recourse is to nerf/penalize or outright ban equipment/units/game mechanics than that person is a both a bad tactician and a bad sport.
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4. As far as I'm concerned, if someone's only recourse is to nerf/penalize or outright ban equipment/units/game mechanics than that person is a both a bad tactician and a bad sport.
I agree in principle, but would caveat that when spooling up new players. I'm teaching a friend right now and I'm enforcing a temporary prohibition on stacking equipment that grants a gunnery bonus for custom mechs. He can have pulse or tar comp or AES, or VDNI, but only one. Cannon designs are exempt and I'm intentionally avoiding those.
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Why are you running with customs when trying to teach a new player the game?
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Sounds like the new player can do customs but the instructor is avoiding mechs that stack . . . or I read it that way.
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I did too, but I'm wondering why mech customization would come out while someone is still trying to get the basic rules down.
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4. As far as I'm concerned, if someone's only recourse is to nerf/penalize or outright ban equipment/units/game mechanics than that person is a both a bad tactician and a bad sport.
You do realize that some people might find bringing large numbers of LB-X equipped 'Mechs in the same light? And that if the match that I drove two hours to take part in ends quickly because someone gamed the odds by using LB-X spam I'm not likely too be happy?
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You do realize that some people might find bringing large numbers of LB-X equipped 'Mechs in the same light? And that if the match that I drove two hours to take part in ends quickly because someone gamed the odds by using LB-X spam I'm not likely too be happy?
I accept that it slows the game down, but LBX spam simply isn't that powerful. Why do you find it so offensive?
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You do realize that some people might find bringing large numbers of LB-X equipped 'Mechs in the same light? And that if the match that I drove two hours to take part in ends quickly because someone gamed the odds by using LB-X spam I'm not likely too be happy?
If the game ends too quickly, play again!
At the end of the day, I'd far prefer an opponent to spam LB-Xs instead of something really good, like Clan PPCs. One of the nastiest mechs I ever played against, the guy had a mech with like 15 Clan Streak SRM-4s. You just agreed beforehand whether you'd be bringing custom designs, and you knew if you were, everybody was gonna take stuff like that.
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I did too, but I'm wondering why mech customization would come out while someone is still trying to get the basic rules down.
You're both reading correctly. I'm letting him have fun with it.
1. Everyone should had a "Box-o'-Death". Cheap to make and speeds up most dice rolling.
2. And again every moderately experienced player should have those tables already memorized.
Also, there are some easy web or Android based programs that roll clusters and spit out locations, crits too.
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I accept that it slows the game down, but LBX spam simply isn't that powerful. Why do you find it so offensive?
It's more that LB-X are the worst manifestation of the 'cluster is king' phenomenon in BT's rules, where the number of times you hit your opponent is more important then how hard you hit them.
If the game ends too quickly, play again!
At the end of the day, I'd far prefer an opponent to spam LB-Xs instead of something really good, like Clan PPCs. One of the nastiest mechs I ever played against, the guy had a mech with like 15 Clan Streak SRM-4s. You just agreed beforehand whether you'd be bringing custom designs, and you knew if you were, everybody was gonna take stuff like that.
That may not be possible, if the game was supposed to take 3 hours but it's over in 1, but you only have a 3 hour hole, you can't exactly play a 3 hour game. Also that kinda requires who ever brought the LB-X spam to have another list picked out.
As for the other bit, that's why we have BV, which can't account for the random luck factor LB-X brings.
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...cluster is king...
Oh, this I've GOT to hear...
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It's more that LB-X are the worst manifestation of the 'cluster is king' phenomenon in BT's rules, where the number of times you hit your opponent is more important then how hard you hit them.
That is a load- for most games involving some form of combat, the number of times you hit a opponent is usually more important than how 'hard' since it generates an accumulation of damage. Except as cited the cERPPCs which can take the head off a single mech out to 23 hexes, or gauss rifles at 22, or Arrow IV over the space of mapsheets, or any of those other ranged headcap weapons.
Our game is based of probabilities (like other combat games), so the more you hit the more chances at a desire-able result you get. Its also why vets instructing rookies will tell them to roll for the location of damage from biggest hit to smallest hit- the chance that your 15/10/8/5 hit will open the insides of a mech/tank/ASF/DS/WS to critical damage. Hey look, how hard you hit (overall) DOES matter when crit-seeking!
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I've been in a lot of games where players banked on TACs.
They pretty much all wound up sanding the armor on mechs but rarely did anything significant. To be successful, you've really got to punch holes in the armor before you start crit-seeking.
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I suspect that megamek might inflate the perception of crit seekers. I've played games where a custom mech packing 7 streak 6's, and bank on seeing at least 1 critical check for every turn where 6 or more Streaks locked on.
I think that some RNG algorithms might make the odds of a double result more likely.
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I suspect that megamek might inflate the perception of crit seekers. I've played games where a custom mech packing 7 streak 6's, and bank on seeing at least 1 critical check for every turn where 6 or more Streaks locked on.
I think that some RNG algorithms might make the odds of a double result more likely.
Most computer based RNG's have this tendency to 'get stuck' for won't of a better term, on certain numbers, MM does have a work around in their card system, but you have to manually select it.
That is a load- for most games involving some form of combat, the number of times you hit a opponent is usually more important than how 'hard' since it generates an accumulation of damage. Except as cited the cERPPCs which can take the head off a single mech out to 23 hexes, or gauss rifles at 22, or Arrow IV over the space of mapsheets, or any of those other ranged headcap weapons.
Our game is based of probabilities (like other combat games), so the more you hit the more chances at a desire-able result you get. Its also why vets instructing rookies will tell them to roll for the location of damage from biggest hit to smallest hit- the chance that your 15/10/8/5 hit will open the insides of a mech/tank/ASF/DS/WS to critical damage. Hey look, how hard you hit (overall) DOES matter when crit-seeking!
Yes, but cluster weapons are, to my limited knowledge, unique to BT
I've been in a lot of games where players banked on TACs.
They pretty much all wound up sanding the armor on mechs but rarely did anything significant. To be successful, you've really got to punch holes in the armor before you start crit-seeking.
A way to limit this might be to apply a modifier to TAC roll based upon cluster size.
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Wait. We're talking about players who don't usually accomplish much of note in a game, and you're trying to make their performance worse?
I'm trying really hard to reconcile your words with the way Battletech actually works....but I just can't do it.
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There is a modifier for TACs . . . after I get that 1 in 11 chance, I then have to roll a 8 or better to see if anything else happens.
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There is a modifier for TACs . . . after I get that 1 in 11 chance, I then have to roll a 8 or better to see if anything else happens.
Don't you mean 1/36?
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Don't you mean 1/36?
Yeah, that is the curve, I just meant 1 of 11 results- but putting out that number helps drive home the probability.
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Let's do math.
Lb 10x in cluster mode, shooting on a 7 (-1 to hit) for 60% chance if hitting on 2d6.
Then cluster table roll, averaging a 6.
6 locations, each with a 1/36 chance of a crit, and 1/36 chance of a head hit. So 2/36= 1/18, so 5.5% [drool] chance of head or tac on each pellet. x6 (average pellet) is 6/18, or a 33% chance one hits the head or tac (with 6 hitting).
For eac tac, there is only a 40% chance of doing anything (8+). So we can modify the numbers above with its chances.
So that 2/36 = 1/36 (head) + 1/90 (tac). That gives us a 7/180 chance of crit or head. Which is 3.8% per pellet.
So 6 pellets gives us 23% that one will crit or head on a 6 pellet hit.
Now let's look at a gauss rifle. It has better range brackets, but I'll ignore that for now. Target number of 8 (we gave the lb -1), which is 40% to hit.
And head or tac is the same 3.8% as an lb. The difference is that an lb has to hit the head up to 6 times, but the gauss will kill it immediately. Even if there is no tac, it has a very good chance of punching through armour, which the lb does not.
So yes the lbs have a higher chance, but it isn't as high as to guarantee anything, and the gauss (or any other large weapon, doesn't spread damage around.
In a battle of 4 on 4, with one side having 2 gauss rifles each (or even 2 ppcs each) and the other with dual lbs, firing only cluster, I would expect the lbs to lose almost every time.
Why? Damage grouping is a huge advantage in battletech. That is why the ac20 and her are feared, but the lrm20 is only respected.
And heck, a streak srm6 has the same odds as an average lb10, and does double the damage, for less tonnage and more ammo!
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@RoundTop, yes, but the OP wanted to bring 8 LB-10X's and your not accounting for the effects of head hits
EDIT: ADDENDUM: to expand on that, you analysis doesn't seem to take into account that every head hit means that 'Mech suffers the pilot suffers a -1 to all future rolls, if he doesn't pass out. You're also not accounting for the -1 each crit gives.
It's this variablity you've got to watch out for, it takes outcomes away from the players and places it in the hands of the dice.
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And how much damage would he be doing if he'd chosen to bring mechs loaded for simply punishment ability? Say, bringing 4 iHGRs? Or a mess of PPCs? He wouldn't be likely to get as many crits, but he'd be shooting limbs clean off a lot faster.
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EDIT: ADDENDUM: to expand on that, you analysis doesn't seem to take into account that every head hit means that 'Mech suffers the pilot suffers a -1 to all future rolls, if he doesn't pass out. You're also not accounting for the -1 each crit gives.
Ummm...That's not a rule that I'm aware of.
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Yeah, neither of those is actually a thing. My guess is house rule he's been using so long he forgot it was unofficial.
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Well...he could be thinking that DNI is standard....which is also wrong, but at least it's got rules like that.
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Head hits only cause a consciousness roll at time of hit, nothing more. no lingering effects beyond the con roll.
You would not believe how many house rules people have without realizing that it is not official rules. I've spent many hours at gencon in rulebooks showing people.
And if he has 8LBx's, then that is likely on 4 or 8 mechs, and I cna think of some pretty good counters to that with big guns. That -1 to all rolls thing is completely not a rule.
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Damnit, I thought uit was a bit out, but I thought there was a penalty involved somewhere, maybe it's just for head hits and piloting rolls
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Head hits do not affect piloting rolls.
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You use slug until the armor has a few holes in it . Then you use thr cluster as a crit seeking weapon . It has the potential of knocking out an enemy unit upwards of 2 turns sooner for taking more time in one or 2 turns. I submit the takes too much time opinion is put out by those who use it wrong or Clan mechs with only 1 ton of ammo ..
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So I'm building a Mech battalion for a Amaris Civil War game and I was planning on bringing at least two lances of Royal Shadow Hawks. What do you think about the idea? Cheap tactic or awesome?
well...it sounds like you're expecting to fight...ME. I know, I know, geographically impossible, (or unlikely) but that's the kind of force many of my groups in the past started adopting to counter My...proclivities. Espl. in BV balanced saturday games, where last saturday we'd get a BV total and told "Build a force to this plus or minus 10%, and no, not telling you what the terrain is."
of course, at the height of it, back in the day, before Total Warfare and the addition of FSM, (which forced everyone to re-do their accountantech at the venue, leading to 'game days' with about two turns and the store closes since we burned up six hours recalculating...) The reason for this was my tendency to run lots of conventional stuff, and those LBX's became a HELL of a lot more useful. (also: Infernoes).
I honestly don't see a problem with your force layout, It's something I'd advise anyone facing ME in a blind game take (but make sure you have some units with infernoes in there too).
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... we'd get a BV total and told "Build a force to this plus or minus 10%, and no, not telling you what the terrain is."
Sounds like 90% of the TW or AS games I've played in the last...over a decade, now, with the addition that you also never knew beforehand the faction, tech level, or even era of your opponent's force. :)
It should be noted that a lot of the weapons that are effective at countering a Cannonshop or Me-style force are also effective at hurting mechs, albeit sometimes in different ways(plasma, for example).
With that in mind, there's not much reason to NOT prepare as if you're going to face a conventional-heavy force.
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Most computer based RNG's have this tendency to 'get stuck' for won't of a better term, on certain numbers, MM does have a work around in their card system, but you have to manually select it.
It's how the software generates a "random" number. There are ways to affect it a little bit to make it a bit more random, such as "seeding" the generator before it happens, but it is limited.
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Sounds like 90% of the TW or AS games I've played in the last...over a decade, now, with the addition that you also never knew beforehand the faction, tech level, or even era of your opponent's force. :)
It should be noted that a lot of the weapons that are effective at countering a Cannonshop or Me-style force are also effective at hurting mechs, albeit sometimes in different ways(plasma, for example).
With that in mind, there's not much reason to NOT prepare as if you're going to face a conventional-heavy force.
we always treated it as 'part of the challenge", you roll with the army you've got, rather than an army tailored to a specific situation. FSM changed things a LOT-because it created a situation where the optimal solution if you actually wanted to play, was to dump everything into as few units as possible and hope for a duel.
which gets boring quick, since both sides end up in Clan energy-boat-assaults parked at 'medium' rolling dice until someone falls over.
Our group dumped FSM from BV calcs as it took the bulk of the actual 'fun' out of the game, and moved to using a change to the initiative rules instead, setting the initiative order to a 'front loaded' system that inherently limits 'initiative sinking' effects for asymmetrically numbered forces.
(For some reason, this still wound up with roughly even chances of victory-when the smaller, and usually heavier/more advanced forces were played right. I've lost more than a few weekend fights while still tehnically outnumbering the other side. esp getting sloppy with my tactics.)
but the point is, massed LBX isn't a bad way to go, if you have the dice to do it. I'll echo others in that the transparent 'fishingtackle' box with 2 dice in each compartment, shaken-shaken-slam! (shake multiple times, slam on the table to drop 'edges' onto flats) is a great way to handle massed hit locations, and a nice little 'dice tower' for your to-hits or PSR's are nice additions, and can be a real boon for speeding up turns, even in lance/company battles or fights where you've got lots of weapons firing instead of just one.
We used to have a display-board with the hit location chart and cluster charts displayed at large scale, just so that it was easier to quick-reference for new players and spectators when Dave was doing 'gamestore' matches for his Commando credit.
With all the supplementary charts in TW now, I think we'd need a bigger display board.
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It's how the software generates a "random" number. There are ways to affect it a little bit to make it a bit more random, such as "seeding" the generator before it happens, but it is limited.
The problem is that computers normally use the system clock to generate the seed, so even if your generating a new seed every time a dice is rolled it's not going to be very different from the last seed.
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The problem is that computers normally use the system clock to generate the seed, so even if your generating a new seed every time a dice is rolled it's not going to be very different from the last seed.
True, and that is the point I was making. Some programmers allow for a seed to be manually installed, which gets around clock generated one, but it is still rather limited.
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Unless we're talking about the very bottom mud pseudo-random number generators, you won't see biases unless you play a lot, like hundreds of games. They are just fine for normal gaming.
It is not like normal dice are accurate either, they're not exactly manufactured to high precision.
In our RPG that has lasted for years, everyone's dice have their quirks we've become familiar over the years. One friend's d20 seems to roll more 1s and 20s and 19s than it probably should, while my brother's d20 on the table seems to be landing 16s quite a lot. Ultimately the biases are minor enough they never affect games in practice, even if they aren't statistically what they should be.
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Lol my agent looks at his GenCon dice and what they roll . . . then stares across the table to see what the GenCon dice he brought back for me roll. His complaint that the dice he brought back for others roll better usually is valid . . .
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There is a story about a local player who sat down with a couple of hundred dice and tested them until he had a couple of sets that matched his dice rolling needs.
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There is a story about a local player who sat down with a couple of hundred dice and tested them until he had a couple of sets that matched his dice rolling needs.
I heard it was Hellbie... Or was it Jelico? ;D
TT
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There is a story about a local player who sat down with a couple of hundred dice and tested them until he had a couple of sets that matched his dice rolling needs.
I thought this was standard practice.
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As someone, who while learning the game had 5 out of 7 mechs i was using sporting lots of SRM/LRMs, and having to roll all those things out, i wouldn't say having a # of mechs with LBs would be any worse..
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There is a story about a local player who sat down with a couple of hundred dice and tested them until he had a couple of sets that matched his dice rolling needs.
I thought everybody did that. (well, except me, I don't have that kind of patience.)
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I don't. I just grab 4-6 pairs of d6, and go with it.
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I switch dice if the previous ones roll badly :P
D6s only though, have two 36-packs of those.
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True, and that is the point I was making. Some programmers allow for a seed to be manually installed, which gets around clock generated one, but it is still rather limited.
The thing is that then you'd have to give a new seed for every roll. Or at least a new seed every round.
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The thing is that then you'd have to give a new seed for every roll. Or at least a new seed every round.
Actually it's the other way around. A new seed will likely end up biasing the rolls, a good RNG will provide a perfect distribution over its (large) number of results.
Of course there are a lot of bad RMGs too, but the #1 problem people have with computer "dice" is almost certainly that the results are there to see for longer. Roll twenty to-hit rolls with dice and most people won't remember that ten of them was one short, but see the printout in MegaMek and they'll be swearing to high heaven... ::)