Isn't 3rd ed/AToW on a different damage gradient? One of the things I liked about MW2 was taking a mechanic from the parent game and expanding it - the pilot damage/consciousness table. One of the more intuitive designs I've seen. Also, I like the damage locations and effects. You could practically outfit a Mech Sheet to rep a human, if you wanted to.
I have no problem if you can't get a direct conversion from MW2 to MW3 or AToW. Fudge things if you have to, but err on the side of the chart that is the basis for MW2.
Example: the Battle Rifle out of TW- it's supposed to do about half a point of BT damage. A point of BT damage roughly equates to a full kill for a single person. So, there you go.
This question had more to do with ranges then damage.
On damage I can just do cross comparisons to existing MW2 weapons and get a round about dice code.
The issues come with the ranges.
There seems to be a soft cap of around 30 hexes for Small Arms in MW2, where this is not the case in AToW. I would gues that they where trying to limit the range in MW2 to fit on smaller mapboards.
Example: The MAUSER 960 ASSAULT SYSTEM has a range of 55(15)/170(34)/365(73)/740(148) in AToW but the ranges for MW2 are 1-7/8-15/16-30
##(**): #-range in meters, *-range in hexes.
And this is an ongoing issues with most range weapons.
1. I could come up with guess ranges that fit the MW2 limits.
2. I could run conversions of all weapon ranges to match the AToW stats, from what I can tell at this point it shouldn't hurt the system at all.
Example: New MAUSER 960 ASSAULT SYSTEM ranges: 1-15/16-34/35-73 (dropping Extreme range), or I could even cut them in half (round up) and get 1-8/9-17/18-37 which would be closer to MW2 Ranges, but I would have to do it to all weapons including those already present in the game.
I have no stance on this, yet, since I haven't done proper campaigns with this system.
The table would handle eras like the Starleague (No Clans, higher starting priority for Terrain PCs) and Clan golden age (less powerful Phenotypes do to the young age of the Clans breeding program)
The era Affiliations could take up considerable room.
I'm fine with the CBT being the go-to for armored combat. The only exception I have would be ProtoMechs and Battle Armor.
Not sure what you mean by your exceptions.
1. You want them to follow MW2 rules and not CBT?
2. You want them to have their own system?
3. I'm reading to much into it
I'm actually okay with additional rules, especially if they're optional. Maybe you should look into making a GM book or set of guidelines when it comes to enforcing character creation packages based on where the campaign is to start.
Only issues I have seen so far with putting backgrounds in, are the same ones that cropped up with Affiliations.
1. Character get a lot more skills then they normally would.
2. Unlike the AToW/3rd character creation system MW2 gives skills in full values not points and due to the way skills are advanced in MW2 have a Small Arms skill of 2 and then getting Small Arms skill of 1 doesn't equal 3 as skills level 3 would cost 6 points and the above example equal 4.
Have thought about making Background packages something a character can buy at a discounted price, but this seems to bring on its own problems due to the limited skill point you get at the start.
If I put them in they would need to have the same requirement I used for the Affiliation.
Everyone must have them or no one gets them.
only way to balance them.
I want to see this simplified a bit so we could do a quick-and-dirty BattleTroops level game. Any suggestions on how far to condense the damage? Any suggestions for stock infantry, minor character variations, and faction armor/weapon packages? By era?
The Standard Kits are listed in AToW so it shouldn't be to hard to put together a loadout list for the average trooper.
As for weapons, I was under the impression that BattleTroop had a unit breakdown and weapon load out example in it already.
And a quick aside, do you have the MW2 Companion?
It has IMHO great infantry/Battlearmor rules.
If you are looking for something more.
This would have to be a project down the road as I am currently only working a Options for the MW2 rules right now.