Why were the Solaris 7 / Mech Duel Rules discontinued?

[Apocal]

They look pretty fun and Solaris seems like an incredibly interesting, somewhat self-contained setting. Were there some serious balance issues lurking?

[Daryk]

I suspect it was just the increased complexity.  Personally, I couldn't afford it when it came out, or before it ceased publication.

[Syzyx]

Having played the Solaris rules for a long campaign I feel confident saying they are a blast. However the humble Machine Gun is king of almost every class fight and that does get problematic given how many you can cram on small chassis. 30 tonners can reliably compete with 100 tonners due to the volume of fire and non-simultaneous fire.

[Daryk]

I got that sense from the little exposure I had to the system... Something having to do with that rate of fire thing...

[Failure16]

Increased complexity over standard BattleTech is likely the primary culprit.  They were fun and really immersed you in a BattleMech duel to be sure. More than a 'Mech on a side got cumbersome really fast though; it wasn't impossible but it wasn't that easy, either. If nothing else, the amount of chits stacking up on the record sheet made the first edition of BattleForce's counters look positively urbane and non-fiddly.

I won't go so far as to say it was a balance issue--looming or otherwise--but machine guns certainly ruled the roost because they had no wait time and still built up no heat. I cannot remember if Clan technology had better recycle times, but their generally better heat curves and lack of appreciable minimum ranges gave them an even better turn-out than under standard rules.

Rolling out 3025-era heavies and assaults was fun. Inspired by the early Battletechnology article about Solaris, we made a run at a 3025 (actually early 3000s) campaign.  A character from that time still runs through my head, decades later...

And Unbound was a decent adventure to run.  So, a great setting brought to life by Stackpole and Kieth in the early days. A wonderful self-contained box set that would have been even better if such a line had been allowed to take off.  And a unique, immersive game-system with some of the most flavorful maps (including its spinoff The Reaches) extant.

But, I feel the same way about BF1, so maybe I'm not the best judge.

[Daryk]

I (for one) would love to hear more about that character from back in the day... Not that I'd want to put a crimp in your other projects...   ^-^

EDIT: Mis-clicked on the emoji...

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I'd imagine that the rules not fitting with anything else FASA was producing at the time might have also been an issue.

[SteelRaven]

In short: nobody liked them.

I would like to see the fluff and the map set make a comeback but the more I read about the S7 Duel rule set, the more it makes me cringe.

[Failure16]

Well, they certainly tried to support it: the aforementioned Unbound and The Reaches were direct lines of support, and I believe at least one of the other contemporaneous MechWarrior modules were involved there. And, of course, preceding the actual boxed set we got to see Solaris front-and-center in Shrapnel (twice directly), the Warrior Trilogy and in BattleTechnology (whose canonicity here is not in question, only that it was--at worst--an advertising organ for FASA at likely little cost to them*)

I really think that, while it is easily seen as BattleTech, it was just complex enough to make it a chore to people who were being driven towards ever-larger battles if the scenario packs being then-produced are even a slight indication.  Well, a Solaris duel and a BattleTech company-level action are no less complex, but maybe people who were reading about the Clan Invasion and had just completed the division-level offensives of the 4SW wanted to game those out...?

As a game-system it was solid. But I have found that BattleTech players as a rule really like to stick with what they know when it comes to the BTU.  See how everything else produced has waned, sometimes almost stillborn, and yet the core rules have remained almost unchanged for over three decades.




*Note, please, that I feel the first year of BattleTechnology under Kieth's auspices was top-notch and a gold-standard of what I expect from the upcoming publication brought about by the recent kickstarter)

[Daryk]

Amen brother on the first BattleTechnology issues!  :thumbsup:

[Failure16]

I mean, the man wrote most of the articles, painted all the covers, drew or photographed much of the internal art, and produced and edited the product.

[Failure16]

The Solaris VII ruleset put you in the cockpit of a BattleMech like even an RPG couldn't do. It was as close to a simulation as you get outside a virtual-reality pod.

It was BattleTech with no qualms; not BF1 or 2 (or even AlphaStrike). The tactics and techniques that had to be developed were different, though, and it had just enough idiosyncrasies so as to make the player have to actually learn it as opposed to just memorizing a few extra rules.

Setting up Target Interlock Circuits, heat management, and weapons' recycle-time were an art that the average BattleTech player probably didn't want to learn.  But those maps, and the attendant sourcebooks, made you want to hire on with a stable, and make no mistake...

[Fat Guy]

However the humble Machine Gun is king of almost every class fight and that does get problematic given how many you can cram on small chassis. 30 tonners can reliably compete with 100 tonners due to the volume of fire and non-simultaneous fire.

This is why.

Completely broken rules. The smaller a weapon, the better it was. The shorter ranged a weapon was, the better it was. The more oversinked a 'Mech was, the better it was.

Note: This ruleset came out before FASA instituted external playtesting. It shows, doesn't it.   ::)

[Mohammed As`Zaman Bey]

The Solaris VII ruleset put you in the cockpit of a BattleMech like even an RPG couldn't do. It was as close to a simulation as you get outside a virtual-reality pod.

  This is what made those rules popular with my group, which played a jet-fighter game, "The Speed of Heat", which you pretty much needed to be a jet pilot to play, the rules were so complex when it came out.

  Solaris VII made for great campaigns and we even used modified rules for small-unit RPG play.

[Failure16]

This is why.

Completely broken rules. The smaller a weapon, the better it was. The shorter ranged a weapon was, the better it was. The more oversinked a 'Mech was, the better it was.

Note: This ruleset came out before FASA instituted external playtesting. It shows, doesn't it.   ::)

That's not a broken ruleset, considering that the actions being shown were inside buildings. I mean, the boxed set is essentially portraying a scaled-up version of a knife-fight in a phone-booth.

There is a hard-limit to how many machine guns one can stick on a chassis, after all.  And BattleTech has never been shy in announcing that, generally, he or she with the most heat dissipation capability relative to their offensive warload wins.  Or are double heatsinks not a thing where you live?

EDIT:  Too true, MZB.

EDIT 2:  If you want to see a good time, run a stock -2R Archer vs. a -3N Rifleman duel under the S7 rules. Or take a bloody Stalker if you want to make yourself cry.  One thing that the S7 rules had against them is they made a standard BattleTech game last relatively longer. Think about it:  you were firing a medium laser a turn on a lot of machines.

[dgorsman]

I wouldn't say completely broken, but certainly some problems.  LRM minimum ranges made them nearly useless.  Many designs that performed well in conventional battles were nearly useless in the S7 arena rules, like the Archer.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

That's not a broken ruleset, considering that the actions being shown were inside buildings. I mean, the boxed set is essentially portraying a scaled-up version of a knife-fight in a phone-booth.

There is a hard-limit to how many machine guns one can stick on a chassis, after all.  And BattleTech has never been shy in announcing that, generally, he or she with the most heat dissipation capability relative to their offensive warload wins.  Or are double heatsinks not a thing where you live?

There are a lot more factors that go into it than that in a standard game, though.  Take a Piranha up against a hypothetical 20 ton Clan mech that mounts the same armor and engine but has a single Large Pulse Laser for weaponry: the Piranha outguns it but is likely to get shredded by that laser long before it gets into range unless it plays smart- victory is possible but difficult.  Under S7 rules, the Piranha is basically running God Mode.

[AdmiralObvious]

S7 rules, while interesting in concept simply had way too many edge cases where something that should be mediocre totally outclassed everything else, in multiple areas. If the rules were tightened up a bit, I assume the ruleset might have lived on. Right now though, if you still have a set of the rules, you can easily point out where there are major flaws.

[Failure16]

There are a lot more factors that go into it than that in a standard game, though.  Take a Piranha up against a hypothetical 20 ton Clan mech that mounts the same armor and engine but has a single Large Pulse Laser for weaponry: the Piranha outguns it but is likely to get shredded by that laser long before it gets into range unless it plays smart- victory is possible but difficult.  Under S7 rules, the Piranha is basically running God Mode.

Okay. Take those two 'Mechs onto a game map, using BattleTech rules.  Now shrink that map by 75%, because that is what happens under the S7 ruleset.  The range on the CLPL doesn't mean as much as it once did, just as the anemic range of the MGs is not so great a hindrance.  And the laser-'Mech will just have to fight smarter, not harder, by using things like Evasion that are available under the ruleset, or choosing his/her moment when to see and be seen.

Or just bribe the fellows in the control-room of the arena, or the janitor holding the keys to the opposition's 'Mech bay the night before.  This is Solaris, after all...

And that's not a joke. Break out your box set and tell me that the ruleset under discussion wasn't indelibly tied into a roleplaying aspect, even if the rules didn't explicitly somehow make it so.  Every aspect of the entire boxset oozed character and immersion.

Truth be told, I never met a group who played the S7 rules as a pick-up game.  But plenty ran campaigns through and because of it.

At the end of the day, just because your favorite 'Mech in BattleTech isn't so great under S7 doesn't make the latter broken. It means you need to adapt if you want to win. And sometimes that means learning new rules, or making those new rules work for you (or against the other guy). Alpha Strike is no different in that some designs from the parent game are better after the transition/lation.

[Greywind]

In short: nobody liked them.

I would like to see the fluff and the map set make a comeback but the more I read about the S7 Duel rule set, the more it makes me cringe.

I liked them. It was different. It worked great for dueling.

[Greatclub]

Funny story, my copy was bought on the west coast, moved to the far east of canada, and then e-bayed two towns over from where they were purchased, to me.

I think that the reason S7 died is the same as the reason renegade legion died - they competed with battletech.

[Apocal]

Right now though, if you still have a set of the rules, you can easily point out where there are major flaws.

I see vaguely similar balance issues as BT, just with a different weapon usurping the ML's throne as standard by which all weapons are judged (and found wanting) but I admit I can't get a proper game going to test it out for myself.

The Solaris VII ruleset put you in the cockpit of a BattleMech like even an RPG couldn't do. It was as close to a simulation as you get outside a virtual-reality pod.

It was BattleTech with no qualms; not BF1 or 2 (or even AlphaStrike). The tactics and techniques that had to be developed were different, though, and it had just enough idiosyncrasies so as to make the player have to actually learn it as opposed to just memorizing a few extra rules.

Setting up Target Interlock Circuits, heat management, and weapons' recycle-time were an art that the average BattleTech player probably didn't want to learn.  But those maps, and the attendant sourcebooks, made you want to hire on with a stable, and make no mistake...

Yeah, it seems really drenched with "right-from-the-cockpit" aspects, which I like.

[Failure16]

Another thing that was nice: it was an intense, intimate gaming experience, best conducted between two opponents.

This is all from a guy who fifteen years ago was posting about a BattleTech variant called TurboTech using BF1 and then more quickly BF2 as a base for standard BattleTech-level combat.

[guardiandashi]

actually the s7 boxed set rules are definitely derived from the standard battletech rules but as mentioned almost everything is 1/4 scale
turns are 2.5 seconds instead of 10
ranges are effectively 4x normal
hexes are 1/4 of normal
weapons have cooldowns as they recycle due to the 1/4 turn lengths
the one than that is arguably broken is the non simultaneous fire and damage, which means if I win initiative I can effectively destroy your unit without you having a chance to respond.

[Daryk]

I could see taking another shot at the S7 rules with AToW time scale (5 second turns). Within the 5 second turn though, I'd be inclined to retain simultaneous fire.

[SteelRaven]

This is probably the most positive collection of post I have ever seen regarding the S7 Dueling Ruleset though i can't help but to think that's where support begins and ends as ever other subject is about streamlineing the rules, not adding more to it.

[Daryk]

The BattleTech forums: Not your typical internet dumpster fire!  :D

[Failure16]

To be fair, non-simultaneous initiative is not intrinsically broken as a gaming concept.  Not having a reaction-fire component doesn't make it better, but it is still a valid core concept. If one wanted to, they could simply house-rule that the Reaction Phase allows for return fire vice simply allowing for BattleTech-style torso twists. But one doesn't need to...because Initiative is rolled for at the beginning of each phase; see below.

I hate to say it, but I think a lot of the naysaying is by people who either never played the rules or simply haven't done so in some time. I will readily admit that I had to pull out the box and peruse it for literally a couple of minutes to refresh my own memory.

In any event, S7 rules are only non-simultaneous if the Expanded Initiative rules (p. 50 of the S7 Gamemasters Book) are in use; and even then Initiative is applied at the start of each individual phase. And a lot of weapons don't have Delays past 1 or 2 anyways (and certain weapons like AC/2s and AMS have 0, just like MGs). There are five range brackets, so while everyone is moaning about the supremacy of the lowly machine gun, it has 12 hexes of range (+5 THM at max), which is a straight-up +0 or +1 THM for nearly very other weapon (excepting the obvious, like Small Lasers).

And the ruleset is *really* tied to MW2 if one wants it to be; more so than I remembered, down to Complex, Simple, and Incidental Actions. They are only 7 pages long, not including the weapons-chart (which only included the 3050ish Inner Sphere/Star League weaponry). And there are more products for it, including the MW's Guide to Solaris VII and of course Map Pack: Solaris VII.  Blaine Pardoe and Loren Coleman had a lot to do with the post-boxed set products, if anyone want to look into primary sources (I, personally, do not).

Man, I do miss these rules.

[Mohammed As`Zaman Bey]

the one than that is arguably broken is the non simultaneous fire and damage, which means if I win initiative I can effectively destroy your unit without you having a chance to respond.

  Initiative rules has always been a problem in games, and I've played a lot of games since the 1960s. Most games use a random initiative with modifiers, while others use action/move points, I've even played war games that used decks of cards to count down initiative. I've also played games that based initiative on skill/equipment, modified with a random roll, as opposed to a random roll modified by a skill/ability, as in BT.

  I lean more towards skill based initiative, as it reduces the importance of chance, and I consider it more a reflection of reality -An elite soldier will take swifter, more decisive action than a green recruit, and when my group tweaked the BattleTroops rules (we called the revisions "BT3K"), better trained units had more action points while below average units had less.

  My group played out small actions using 30mm scale battlemechs, vehicles and minis and we had a blast doing it.

[Sellsword]

Weren’t the weapons heat output multiplied x4 too? I vaguely remember someone taking a berserker in one of our games and only being able to fire 1 large pulse laser due to not have having enough heat sinks. This was turn one and the berserker hadn’t taken any damage.

I remember enjoying the setting and maps much more than the rules.