Hardened Armor: Yes or No?

[Drewbacca]

Given the choice, what would you use Hardened Armor? What is you thought about it in general and in comparison with other types or armor?

[Luciora]

I've fallen in so much love with the Commando Freyr.  Yeah I miss that extra run point, but it can jump to compensate.

[Scotty]

Hardened Armor is good for making things more durable than their frames can typically make them.  It directly increases durability as a function of tonnage spent.  As such, if you can get enough tonnage out of moving to an XL engine to armor the side torsos more than you could put on the center torso and still come out ahead, it's a pretty good idea.

Less of a good idea if you have a poor piloting skill, mind.  And definitely not a good idea to double-dip on 'technically more durable but make PSRs more difficult' equipment like Torso-Mounted Cockpits.

Overall I'd say it's of good use on higher end Lights through Mediums, because they tend to suffer most from the proliferation of high-powered offensive equipment through the Republic and Dark Ages.  Having a Light 'Mech that can just sort of shrug off a Gauss round makes your scouts significantly more durable, and losing 1 MP off of 11 or 12 doesn't hurt nearly as badly as losing it off of 5 or 6.

[Empyrus]

Useful in carefully designed 'Mech. But it will cut into payload, so it will be hard to make good use of it. Durability without firepower is of limited use, for other targets with more firepower may draw more fire. Of course, a durable 'Mech is likely to finish a fight after everyone else has pounded each other to pieces.

Too bad the armor can't be used in OmniMechs. Frankly there's no reasonable reason for that limitation.

[I am Belch II]

Its the best way to make a zombie mech. Just make a mech with harden armor and move forward and that's about it. Good for a assault of a main base where speed isn't needed.

[RoundTop]

For less downside, put it on a quad. It'll reduce the piloting penalty's impact

[garhkal]

My thing with 'hardened armor' is it doesn't (TO MY POV) seem really worth it..  It costs a HELL of a lot more, weighs (iirc) twice as much as regular armor for the same # of protection points, but allows 'double protective value'..  SO in effect, you are paying for the same "armor points" as regular, just in taking double the tonage of hardened armor..
So a 90 tonner, which maxes out (normally) at 279 points of armor, "Costing" 17.5 tons of weight to get, takes now, 35 tons to get there.   BUT in effect gives exactly the same protection (unless i am missing something here)..  All on top of giving a PSR penalty..

[God and Davion]

It is good for mechs (due to the issues with the piloting skill check), very good for quads and THE CHEESE for tanks. An assault tank with 30 tons of armor and armored motive system is the stuff of nightmares.

[guardiandashi]

My thing with 'hardened armor' is it doesn't (TO MY POV) seem really worth it..  It costs a HELL of a lot more, weighs (iirc) twice as much as regular armor for the same # of protection points, but allows 'double protective value'..  SO in effect, you are paying for the same "armor points" as regular, just in taking double the tonage of hardened armor..
So a 90 tonner, which maxes out (normally) at 279 points of armor, "Costing" 17.5 tons of weight to get, takes now, 35 tons to get there.   BUT in effect gives exactly the same protection (unless i am missing something here)..  All on top of giving a PSR penalty..

yes and no
remember yes it takes 35 tons to max out at 279 total armor, but for all practical purposes you don't have 279 armor, you have 558 points of armor.  it also is really resistant to penetration, so while ap munitions do "full normal damage (effectively double damage) to the hardened armor, they do NOT get critical checks until the armor is breached.

[Crimson Dawn]

Does this slow down game play at all since you have to halve damage all the time and things like that or is not that bad for most people?  When I was reading it it just sounded more complicated than it needed to be and I thought it could slow the game down.

[Sartris]

It is good for mechs (due to the issues with the piloting skill check), very good for quads and THE CHEESE for tanks. An assault tank with 30 tons of armor and armored motive system is the stuff of nightmares.

 >:D

[ColBosch]

Does this slow down game play at all since you have to halve damage all the time and things like that or is not that bad for most people?  When I was reading it it just sounded more complicated than it needed to be and I thought it could slow the game down.

"Divide by two" isn't hard for most people. The alternative would be producing record sheets with twice as many armor bubbles, which would be more cumbersome.

[Sartris]

you just go to Xs on the bubbles. Nine damage XXXX/. The only slowdown is how much longer it can take to kill the jerk who brought it (i'm usually the jerk)

[Scotty]

My thing with 'hardened armor' is it doesn't (TO MY POV) seem really worth it..  It costs a HELL of a lot more, weighs (iirc) twice as much as regular armor for the same # of protection points, but allows 'double protective value'..  SO in effect, you are paying for the same "armor points" as regular, just in taking double the tonage of hardened armor..
So a 90 tonner, which maxes out (normally) at 279 points of armor, "Costing" 17.5 tons of weight to get, takes now, 35 tons to get there.   BUT in effect gives exactly the same protection (unless i am missing something here)..  All on top of giving a PSR penalty..

Your math is a little off, in the backwards direction.  Five tons of Hardened Armor gets you 40 points.  The same five tons of Standard Armor gets you 80 points.  But the 40 points of Hardened Armor will take 80 points of damage before it's all gone.  Effectively you get identical protection for the same tonnage.  The benefits of Hardened Armor are resistance to critical hits, and the ability to put more effective points of armor onto a single location than you can with standard armor (see: my first post in this thread).  The drawback is -1 to Run MP and +1 to PSRs.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

It is good for mechs (due to the issues with the piloting skill check), very good for quads and THE CHEESE for tanks. An assault tank with 30 tons of armor and armored motive system is the stuff of nightmares.

Unfortunately, with all the tonnage that's going to eat up, even if you go with an XXL engine you're still going to be stuck with annoying your enemies to death.  Or having a BA squad play Personal Space Invader on you for twenty or thirty rounds while everyone else avoids you.

[Retry]

It is good for mechs (due to the issues with the piloting skill check), very good for quads and THE CHEESE for tanks. An assault tank with 30 tons of armor and armored motive system is the stuff of nightmares.

Eh, even if you go with something crazy like a 100 ton 3/5 XLE tank with an armored motive system, you only have ~25 tons available for armament for IS tech and ~30 tons for clan tech.  The motive system upgrade is extremely heavy.  I'd hope an armoring system that weighs as much as a Gauss Rifle would be able to nullify those bloody motive crits, 'cause a modest modifier sure doesn't seem worth 15 tons.

Bipeds?  Maybe, but that PSR and movement modifier can hurt you more than the hardened helps.  I'd genuinely be tempted to just stuff Reinforced Structure in there as an alternative and call it a day, it's not as heavy and the protection occurs after the breach but it does provide a slight modifier to crits without the PSR and movement penalty.

Tripods?  Its inherent stability and quirks in their movement capabilities mostly offsets Hardened's disadvantages of lower running MP and PSR penalty.  So I'd say it's a very good idea that's just waiting to happen.

Quads?  Oh yes.

[chaosticket]

My thing with 'hardened armor' is it doesn't (TO MY POV) seem really worth it..  It costs a HELL of a lot more, weighs (iirc) twice as much as regular armor for the same # of protection points, but allows 'double protective value'..  SO in effect, you are paying for the same "armor points" as regular, just in taking double the tonage of hardened armor..
So a 90 tonner, which maxes out (normally) at 279 points of armor, "Costing" 17.5 tons of weight to get, takes now, 35 tons to get there.   BUT in effect gives exactly the same protection (unless i am missing something here)..  All on top of giving a PSR penalty..

It gives half as many points, but they each take 2 damage. Effectively you have 1-1 trade off. In that case you are gaining extra protection from armor-piercing autocannon ammunition, tandern charge missiles, and some other weapon.

Its real gain is that you can BREAK the usual limits on effective armor. Effectively you can double-up on armor points. Imagine a 35 ton mech with the armor of a 70 ton.

On heavier mechs it means you dont have to load them with as many weapons as possible. You can actually make them very resilient.

The most major fault isnt actually any of that. Its that Re-Engineered Lasers IGNORE Hardened Armor's benefits. Effectively they just do DOUBLE damage, so you have have a Medium Re-Engineered Laser to 12 damage for 2.5 tons.

This thread is still up in "Ground Combat" by the way. https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=61322.0

[garhkal]

yes and no
remember yes it takes 35 tons to max out at 279 total armor, but for all practical purposes you don't have 279 armor, you have 558 points of armor.  it also is really resistant to penetration, so while ap munitions do "full normal damage (effectively double damage) to the hardened armor, they do NOT get critical checks until the armor is breached.

So in essence, its like having two lots of armor plating..

Your math is a little off, in the backwards direction.  Five tons of Hardened Armor gets you 40 points.  The same five tons of Standard Armor gets you 80 points.  But the 40 points of Hardened Armor will take 80 points of damage before it's all gone.  Effectively you get identical protection for the same tonnage.  The benefits of Hardened Armor are resistance to critical hits, and the ability to put more effective points of armor onto a single location than you can with standard armor (see: my first post in this thread).  The drawback is -1 to Run MP and +1 to PSRs.

Ahh.. Gotcha.  Been a long time since i read the add on armor types..

It gives half as many points, but they each take 2 damage. Effectively you have 1-1 trade off. In that case you are gaining extra protection from armor-piercing autocannon ammunition, tandern charge missiles, and some other weapon.

So if one's not using all those specialty ammo types, its not really worth it to worry about taking hardened armor..

[Moonsword]

Folks, don't post custom designs in here.  Those go in Fan Designs and nowhere else.

[Brakiel]

Something I didn't see mentioned is that Hardened is the only specialty armor which doesn't take critical slots. That makes it a lot easier to build into units, especially at the heavier end of the spectrum and quads which are liable to be crit starved.

[iamfanboy]

Folks, don't post custom designs in here.  Those go in Fan Designs and nowhere else.

I... Sorry. I let my enthusiasm for Hardened go to my head.

So if one's not using all those specialty ammo types, its not really worth it to worry about taking hardened armor..

Lights. Lights and Hardened go together like peanut butter and bananas. They can easily buy the added Piloting skill to compensate for the Hardened problem, while carrying an adequate - for a light - warload and becoming much tougher in the bargain.

A 20-ton 'Mech with 3 ERMLs that moves 10/14 and can take a Gauss Rifle hit anywhere but its arms - including its head - is easily done. A 35-tonner that moves 7/10, has 168 effective points of armor and totes 12 tons of weaponry is within reach with lots of XL tech - and who cares about the extra crits, because they're behind armor that protects from crits! At 5/7, the same design drops 8 effective armor and one ton of weaponry, but with an SFE it's a serous zombie with 30 points of armor on its front center torso. A 35-ton scout that moves 9/13, has a 'mere' 128 effective points of armor, and carries a Bloodhound, Angel ECM, and TAG with four more tons for weaponry is also available.


Basically, light 'Mech movement and weaponry with medium/heavy 'Mech armor. This is a good thing.

[chaosticket]

Something I didn't see mentioned is that Hardened is the only specialty armor which doesn't take critical slots. That makes it a lot easier to build into units, especially at the heavier end of the spectrum and quads which are liable to be crit starved.

The Benefits of Hardened armor:
Immune to Armor-piercing effects.
Can break effective Armor Point limit by a factor of 2.
Does Not use any additional critical slots (rare on armor)
Not limited by specific types of damage.

Drawbacks: Have to spend more tonnage to break armor point limit.
Penalty to Maximum Run Speed
Penalty to Pilot checks
More Expensive than standard (not absurdly though)
Re-Engineered Lasers do effectively Double Damage.

I like Light mechs best when combined with Hardened Armor as its unexpected to have them as durable.  Ferro-fibrous and Endo-seteel are pretty standard as they have more slots than tonnage to spend. Extralight Engines are optional and expensive, but still worth it.

I can make an Urbanmech with Hardened Armor that can swarm anything. I call it the Roachie.

[Weirdo]

How does it compare to the canon Hardened Urbie? :)

[JadeHellbringer]

How does it compare to the canon Hardened Urbie? :)

"Noooothing compaaaares to youuuuuuuu..."

[klarg1]

Your math is a little off, in the backwards direction.  Five tons of Hardened Armor gets you 40 points.  The same five tons of Standard Armor gets you 80 points.  But the 40 points of Hardened Armor will take 80 points of damage before it's all gone.  Effectively you get identical protection for the same tonnage.  The benefits of Hardened Armor are resistance to critical hits, and the ability to put more effective points of armor onto a single location than you can with standard armor (see: my first post in this thread).  The drawback is -1 to Run MP and +1 to PSRs.

It's also worth noting that there are valid numbers below "max armor". Hardened armor allows you to break the normal armor maximum on a Battlemech and increase your protection, with the drawback that you become more vulnerable to certain weapon types. (Do cluster munitions still do full damage against hardened armor? I recall that being one of the big drawbacks.) Even mounting 25 tons of armor on that hypothetical 90 tonner is a major change from the previous limit of 17.5 tons. Sometimes I think we sometimes get too fixated on full-armor-or-nothing.

On the other hand, it's one of the only ways to mitigate the head as a vulnerable location on a heavily-armored juggernaut. Nothing says "Is that all you got?" like taking a gauss slug to the face without missing a beat.

As with so many things, hardened armor has a role, but is not applicable to all use cases. It gives, and it takes.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

It's also worth noting that there are valid numbers below "max armor". Hardened armor allows you to break the normal armor maximum on a Battlemech and increase your protection, with the drawback that you become more vulnerable to certain weapon types. (Do cluster munitions still do full damage against hardened armor? I recall that being one of the big drawbacks.)

No.  Hardened armor now takes two points of damage per pip, no rounding, so LB-X BBs just do normal damage against it.  You no longer are especially vulnerable to cluster rounds (though Anti-Ballistic armor is) but on the flipside you no longer have extra protection against the 20 damage PSR threshold.

A 20-ton 'Mech with 3 ERMLs that moves 10/14 and can take a Gauss Rifle hit anywhere but its arms - including its head - is easily done. A 35-tonner that moves 7/10, has 168 effective points of armor and totes 12 tons of weaponry is within reach with lots of XL tech - and who cares about the extra crits, because they're behind armor that protects from crits! At 5/7, the same design drops 8 effective armor and one ton of weaponry, but with an SFE it's a serous zombie with 30 points of armor on its front center torso. A 35-ton scout that moves 9/13, has a 'mere' 128 effective points of armor, and carries a Bloodhound, Angel ECM, and TAG with four more tons for weaponry is also available.


Basically, light 'Mech movement and weaponry with medium/heavy 'Mech armor. This is a good thing.

Another advantage of using lights over heavier units: one of the most effective anti-Hardened Armor weapons is Armor Piercing autocannon rounds.  Since they already impose a +1 penalty to hit, light mechs that are still moving 7/10 or 8/11 are a lost less vulnerable to being shot than slower mechs.

[RoundTop]

Rather than using a fan design.. here is a light that uses hardened well:

Rokurokubi.
35 tons
Goes 7/10.
XL engine, endo-steel internals, XL Gyro

It has 12 hardened on each arm and side torsos (taking 24 damage to go in)
16! on the center (taking 32 damage, that is heavy mech levels)
7 on the head (for 14 points)
4 and 5 armour on the rear (8/10 repectively)
Sword

Now take your weapon pick:

IS ER PPC (1286BV2)  or LAC/5 w/2 tons ammo. (998BV2)

So that is a light mech that can take a hell of a lot of damage, can generate a +4, and can plink you at range all day, or go specialty ammo and hunt your lights (precision) or assaults (AP) or infantry (flechette)

Yeah. Hardened on a light or even a medium is freaking sweet.

[Retry]

Rather than using a fan design.. here is a light that uses hardened well:

Rokurokubi.
35 tons
Goes 7/10.
XL engine, endo-steel internals, XL Gyro

It has 12 hardened on each arm and side torsos (taking 24 damage to go in)
16! on the center (taking 32 damage, that is heavy mech levels)
7 on the head (for 14 points)
4 and 5 armour on the rear (8/10 repectively)
Sword

Now take your weapon pick:

IS ER PPC (1286BV2)  or LAC/5 w/2 tons ammo. (998BV2)

So that is a light mech that can take a hell of a lot of damage, can generate a +4, and can plink you at range all day, or go specialty ammo and hunt your lights (precision) or assaults (AP) or infantry (flechette)

Yeah. Hardened on a light or even a medium is freaking sweet.

The ERPPC version is nice, not such a fan of the LAC/5 though, shorter range and half the stopping power.  You're not going to plink someone with immunity unless you're fighting, like, an Ontos or something.  I wouldn't count on generating a +4 movement modifier consistently since you need a perfectly straight line of 10 hexes with no forests/elevation changes/etc to manage it.

Lights are all well and good, but I'm personally more fond of the "Great Turtle" design philosophy for Hardened Armor implements.

[Brakiel]

My problem with the Rokurokubi is that 2 tons of the very limited payload is eaten up by the Sword on the common -4T and -4K models. The -4K can get away with it thanks to the ERPPC, but it really hurts the -4T. That 5-points of damage from the Sword isn't really much; the design is begging for either TSM or a swap out for Medium Lasers. I'd rather take the -4X variant if at all possible - not only because it gets a Clan ERPPC, but because it gets a better melee weapon and recovers the 1 run MP by switching to Ballistic Reinforced Armor.

[ColBosch]

"Noooothing compaaaares to youuuuuuuu..."

*shoots Eli Palmer* Oops, sorry, wrong song.

The Rokurokubi suffers from "clickitis," sadly. Its variants are far better designs than the base model.