'Mech Mortar, as currently written, need a few tweaks (in my opinion). I've played or seen (no joke) more than a hundred games with these things involved over the past 10 years. I came to the following conclusions (or
we did, since it's a server/community):
+ Air Burst has a 100% hit rate on a cluster table. No other cluster weapon, to my knowledge, does this. i.e.: you get hit with 3 x Mortar-8 air burst shells, you have 24 die rolls for damage. If this was the shaped-charge ammo, you'd roll on the cluster table. This makes air burst
extremely powerful, IMO.
Air burst should roll on the cluster table.
+ Their BV doesn't match the above ability whatsoever and is dirt cheap for the damage, crit-seeking, and pilot KO ability it inherently possesses.
Either the air burst ability should change, or the BV should reflect this ability.+ Indirect fire and Direct Fire rules don't make as much sense as they (easily) could. IRL, spotters are integral to any mortar team and a 'Mech's targeting system is doing the "spotting" when the MechWarrior fires -ANY- weapon, indirect or not. It's quite silly to think that having a direct view of the target makes it 66%
harder to hit than if you just closed your eyes.
A unit should be able to self-spot for a +1 penalty due to firing in the same turn (in addition to any other modifiers it incurs on itself).
Should be something more like:
"Mech Mortars are considered indirect fire weapons and may not fire directly, giving them a permanent +1 to-hit penalty.
If a non-infantry unit has walked, ran, jumped, or fired in the same turn as it spots for the 'Mech Mortar, or if the Mortar unit has direct LOS to the target, add the spotter's to-hit penalties incurred by these actions to the firing unit's attack roll. This is in addition to any LOS modifiers incurred by intervening terrain.
Example:
Mech A is firing its Mortar-2 at a target unit 10 hexes away and has direct sight, with no terrain intervening.
Proposed: 4 (Gunnery) + 2 (Medium Range) + 1 (Indirect Fire) + 1 (Spotting unit fired this turn) = 8
Current: 4 (Gunnery) + 2 (Medium Range) + 3 (Direct Fire) = 9