Balancing ACs, LRMs, and energy weapons in 3025. Or, justifying the AC/5.

[CloaknDagger]

The problem with that is that lasers/PPCs are cheaper than any of those things by an absurd margin. Because ammunition costs shit tons of money. Dump trucks of money. Enough money you can literally build a McMansion out of money, and still have money left over to buy some BattleMechs in order to keep people from stealing it, and a tasteful 3-story bust of yourself made of solid gold for the lawn.

At one point, I worked out that a mercinary company I was running was spending enough on ammunition just sitting in garrison to buy a brand spanking new ASW-8Q fresh off the line from Earthwerks every damn month, without even fighting anything.

Missile ammo is expensive, but Autocannon ammo is very affordable. It's also a completely different manufacturing line than lasers and PPCs. It doesn't matter how 'cheap' lasers and PPCs are if there is no production available for them, which is how you get situations like the Free Worlds League slapping lasers on everything instead of PPCs because they're out of PPCs.

Autocannons are also far more multirole. Flak, Flechette, Precision, and Armor-Piercing ammo on an AC5 can make it superior to PPCs in certain situations, for negligible cost.

[CarcosanDawn]

When your justification for a weapon's existence can equally apply to the Light, Medium, and Heavy Rifle series, perhaps the weapon is obsolete...

[RifleMech]

The problem with that is that lasers/PPCs are cheaper than any of those things by an absurd margin. Because ammunition costs shit tons of money. Dump trucks of money. Enough money you can literally build a McMansion out of money, and still have money left over to buy some BattleMechs in order to keep people from stealing it, and a tasteful 3-story bust of yourself made of solid gold for the lawn.

At one point, I worked out that a mercinary company I was running was spending enough on ammunition just sitting in garrison to buy a brand spanking new ASW-8Q fresh off the line from Earthwerks every damn month, without even fighting anything.

How big was your merc company and how often were they training?

A PPC costs 200,000.
An AC/5 costs 125,000.
That's 75,000 left over for ammo.
Standard ammo costs 4,500.
Precision ammo costs 27,000.
Peacetime ammunition cost is 1/4 the cost of standard ammo.
As long as the unit spends 100% of their peacetime ammunition costs every other month, or engages in combat, they don't risk any skill penalties. If 4,500 per ton is the combat cost of AC/5 ammo, the peace time cost is 1,125. You can buy a lot of ammo for that.

In order: IndustrialMechs are like Support Vehicles: they're not really supposed to be armed at all and the ones that are are very much ass because their rules are explicitly designed to produce that effect. They're at least a little bit better than Support Vehicles because the Crew Requirements aren't kicking you in the ass and they still have the "you can overheat" thing like BattleMechs do.

Support Vehicles can be made for combat. They're just not as good as Combat Vehicles. IndyMechs though are a bit better. They have to deal with autocannon heat but except for ICEs, their engines come with free heat sinks. A FCE comes with 1 heat sink which is good enough to deal with the heat from an AC/5.

You don't need any special rules for vehicle heat, we already have them: anything that isn't a Combat Vehicle, Support Vehicle or Conventional Fighter and also isn't a BattleMech or Aerospace Fighter has the same heat rules: you can fire up to your sink capacity, if you don't have enough spare, tough titty toenails, you can't fire anything more.

Yeah. I can see that being followed.

As I previously stated, the only time an AC 5 is competing with a PPC is when it's in something that is hilariously oversinked (even if that means just 10 SHS), otherwise it's competing with a Large Laser.

If the unit has a standard engine, people go with the PPC over the AC/5 because there's no loss in range with double the damage.

With a Fusion Engine, a LL might be better as that engine comes with 5 heat sinks. With the 9 tons for AC/5 and ammo you can install a 5 ton LL and 3 more heat sinks and have 1 ton left. If you don't mind the loss in range.

With other engines, energy weapons end up being heavier do to heat sinks and power amplifiers than autocannons.

Re Blazer AC 20: the point is that you basically don't have to pull anything else to make that swap. That's the point. If the AC 20 has only a single ton of ammunition, you have a net heat gain of +3. If it has three tons as is common, your net heat gain is one. either way, this is a negligible gain; most things that have an AC 20 simply don't have the room to ride the heat curve hard enough for one or two more heat on the big gun to matter.

Not all units with AC/20s carry 4 tons of ammo. Even if they do, that doesn't mean a BC will fit in place of an AC/20.
Presuming a Mech with an ICE.
AC/20 (14)= +4 ammo+7 heat sinks=25 tons.
BC (9)+16HS+1 PA= 26 tons.
The BC is short 1 ton. More so if the AC/20 has less ammo. If the unit is a vehicle, the AC/20 ends up weighing 7 tons less than the BC. Different engine types and heat sinks will change that though. If it's a Mech with DHS the Blazer ends up being lighter.

The thrust of why I prefer to reduce AC masses is to explicitly not make this kind of swap so easy in terms of impact on the rest of the design. The only reason you see Blazers being massively impactful in their canon uses is because Inner Sphere designer brainrot means they keep trying to replace PPCs with them. Which is a terrible idea.

I'm not sure I follow you. The 2 points of damage the Blazer does isn't enough to replace a PPC that's lighter, with greater range and lower heat. It gets worse against the HPPC and ERPPC. It's an interesting weapon but the PPC is just better.
 

Again: AC/5s are not competing with PPCs. I will repeat this until you stop making this bizarre comparison. PPCs are competing with AC/10s, to whom they are effectively mathematically identical from a design perspective.

It's the AC/5 that gets pulled most often and often for a PPC with the same range. Why swap for a weapon with less range and damage?
A PPC for an AC/10 can work but it's not something I hear about often as the AC/10 is a 10 point weapon.

The tech rating is a nominal factor, but the simple fact is that you pay less maintenance on a PPC than it costs to keep an AC/10 fed in training rounds while sitting in garrison for six months, let alone actually engaging in combat where you can reasonably expect to burn through five-plus full ammo loads over the course of a single day. Let alone weeks of fighting.

Maintenance costs are the same and both will require space parts. But if you can't afford the PPC, you won't be maintaining it.

Ammunition which, I'll remind you, not only has to be purchased, but carried on your DropShip if it's to be of any use. And in universe, there's the additional wrinkle of it has to be the right kind of ammunition, because we enjoy ammo abstraction that isn't the case in setting.

That depends on if you're traveling by dropship and if you can't have it made on the planet you're at. And you can buy a lot of ammo with the AC/5 for the cost of a PPC.

Even in the case of loosing ten crits to the "free" sinks, the calculus is the same; because energy weapons are also smaller than Autocannons so you can still bring oodles of the things. It's just less noticable because of how much simpler BattleDroids is as a system, compared to even the BMR ruleset for BattleTech (let alone the modern one that's a good thousand and change pages even after you strip out the extraneous fluff and formatting.) It's also less noticable because the AC 5 is the *only* Autocannon and the AC/5->Large Laser swap is the most impactful of those; it's simply not impactful enough to make it not always desirable.

Bringing them doesn't mean you can use them. Depending on your unit, you may need to bring heat sinks. That's 2000-6000 each, plus coolant which the rules don't really cover but the universe does mention.

And again, why would I trade an AC/5 that hits at 18 hexes for a LL that hits at 15 hexes, when I can use a PPC that hits at 18 hexes and does even more damage? If you want to, or have to, do it but I wouldn't call it the most impactful. Even if you're limited by crit space a 5 crit AC+ammo can fit a 3 crit PPC and 2 HS.

Missile ammo is expensive, but Autocannon ammo is very affordable. It's also a completely different manufacturing line than lasers and PPCs. It doesn't matter how 'cheap' lasers and PPCs are if there is no production available for them, which is how you get situations like the Free Worlds League slapping lasers on everything instead of PPCs because they're out of PPCs.

Autocannons are also far more multirole. Flak, Flechette, Precision, and Armor-Piercing ammo on an AC5 can make it superior to PPCs in certain situations, for negligible cost.

Good points.

When your justification for a weapon's existence can equally apply to the Light, Medium, and Heavy Rifle series, perhaps the weapon is obsolete...

 
Rifles can't use alternative ammo, have less ammo per ton, can't rapid fire, and have the -3 nerf against BAR8+ armor. Even without the nerf, Rifles would be obsolete against Autocannons. Autocannons are still competitive against Energy Weapons though. How competitive depends on unit and engine type.

[CarcosanDawn]

Right, my point wasn't "Autocannons are equal to rifles", it was that the same logic for keeping Autocannons around when you have contemporary tech (they're all you can afford/easy to build/whathaveyou) is the same as the logic for keeping Rifles around when you have Autocannons.

Basically, Autocannons are to other SW guns as Rifles are to Autocannons.... that is to say, obsolete.

[RifleMech]

Right, my point wasn't "Autocannons are equal to rifles", it was that the same logic for keeping Autocannons around when you have contemporary tech (they're all you can afford/easy to build/whathaveyou) is the same as the logic for keeping Rifles around when you have Autocannons.

Basically, Autocannons are to other SW guns as Rifles are to Autocannons.... that is to say, obsolete.

I don't believe Autocannons obsolete. Autocannons are still effective against BAR-8+ armor and depending on the unit, can be better than energy weapons, especially when alternate ammo is used. ACs vs LRMs are more balanced. It's the free weight heat sinks, especially DHS, that make autocannons look obsolete. Rifles though, even without the -3, are obsolete.

As far as costs, the AC/5 is cheaper than a PPC. The LRM-10 with ammo costs about the same. The LL cost less, but there's also heat sink costs and  coolant costs (200-3000 per ton). They're also all Tech C but I imagine that ACs are easier to manufacture as the AC tech predate LRMs and Lasers. Rifles cost even less and are lower tech but still can't really compete.

[Mechanis]

How big was your merc company and how often were they training?

A PPC costs 200,000.
An AC/5 costs 125,000.
That's 75,000 left over for ammo.
Standard ammo costs 4,500.
Precision ammo costs 27,000.
Peacetime ammunition cost is 1/4 the cost of standard ammo.
As long as the unit spends 100% of their peacetime ammunition costs every other month, or engages in combat, they don't risk any skill penalties. If 4,500 per ton is the combat cost of AC/5 ammo, the peace time cost is 1,125. You can buy a lot of ammo for that.




Support Vehicles can be made for combat. They're just not as good as Combat Vehicles. IndyMechs though are a bit better. They have to deal with autocannon heat but except for ICEs, their engines come with free heat sinks. A FCE comes with 1 heat sink which is good enough to deal with the heat from an AC/5.



Yeah. I can see that being followed.


If the unit has a standard engine, people go with the PPC over the AC/5 because there's no loss in range with double the damage.

With a Fusion Engine, a LL might be better as that engine comes with 5 heat sinks. With the 9 tons for AC/5 and ammo you can install a 5 ton LL and 3 more heat sinks and have 1 ton left. If you don't mind the loss in range.

With other engines, energy weapons end up being heavier do to heat sinks and power amplifiers than autocannons.


Not all units with AC/20s carry 4 tons of ammo. Even if they do, that doesn't mean a BC will fit in place of an AC/20.
Presuming a Mech with an ICE.
AC/20 (14)= +4 ammo+7 heat sinks=25 tons.
BC (9)+16HS+1 PA= 26 tons.
The BC is short 1 ton. More so if the AC/20 has less ammo. If the unit is a vehicle, the AC/20 ends up weighing 7 tons less than the BC. Different engine types and heat sinks will change that though. If it's a Mech with DHS the Blazer ends up being lighter.


I'm not sure I follow you. The 2 points of damage the Blazer does isn't enough to replace a PPC that's lighter, with greater range and lower heat. It gets worse against the HPPC and ERPPC. It's an interesting weapon but the PPC is just better.
 

It's the AC/5 that gets pulled most often and often for a PPC with the same range. Why swap for a weapon with less range and damage?
A PPC for an AC/10 can work but it's not something I hear about often as the AC/10 is a 10 point weapon.




Maintenance costs are the same and both will require space parts. But if you can't afford the PPC, you won't be maintaining it.


That depends on if you're traveling by dropship and if you can't have it made on the planet you're at. And you can buy a lot of ammo with the AC/5 for the cost of a PPC.



Bringing them doesn't mean you can use them. Depending on your unit, you may need to bring heat sinks. That's 2000-6000 each, plus coolant which the rules don't really cover but the universe does mention.

And again, why would I trade an AC/5 that hits at 18 hexes for a LL that hits at 15 hexes, when I can use a PPC that hits at 18 hexes and does even more damage? If you want to, or have to, do it but I wouldn't call it the most impactful. Even if you're limited by crit space a 5 crit AC+ammo can fit a 3 crit PPC and 2 HS.



Good points.



 
Rifles can't use alternative ammo, have less ammo per ton, can't rapid fire, and have the -3 nerf against BAR8+ armor. Even without the nerf, Rifles would be obsolete against Autocannons. Autocannons are still competitive against Energy Weapons though. How competitive depends on unit and engine type.

... I'm gonna be honest here Rifle. Have you actually... Consumed any BattleTech media other than this forum or like, actually played the game
Because your arguments are just making me do a confused headtilt, as you keep bringing up really weird edge cases to explain why the current Autocannons are perfectly fine, and just generally have some really strange ideas about what weapons replace what
(Incidentally you flat out can't replace an AC 5 with a PPC on anything that isn't a BattleMech or Aerospace Fighter - especially on an ICE or FCE vehicle, where they're seventeen and a half tons.)


However, in the interest of fairness, I will address your points here in order:
I don't know where you got that ammunition figure as training munitions are abstracted to one ton per weapon per month (divided by two if you're actually using the specific training/dummy ammo which is half as expensive) and that can add up very quickly when you have a lot of Autocannons to feed.

No, support vehicles cannot really be made combat viable especially well, unless you're in a SV & Infantry Only situation (IE, are Shithole Nowhere Periphery People who exist for pirates to step on), they get little to no armor at BAR 10, after paying for double chassis weight for Armored Chassis, they have full critical slot uses but the exact same number of slots as a comparible size Comvee as they use the same slot formula, and you have a 0.5t crew tax for *every single weapon* even for Autocannons and missiles.
You must also pay IIRC an additional ~8% mass tax for Fire Control so you can, you know, not be getting hit with "lol, base +4 To-Hit, Sucks to Suck", and and just on and on and on, because the support vehicle rules are specifically designed from the word go to not be useful for building combat units. At all.

the unit has a standard engine, people go with the PPC over the AC/5 because there's no loss in range with double the damage.

With a Fusion Engine, a LL might be better as that engine comes with 5 heat sinks. With the 9 tons for AC/5 and ammo you can install a 5 ton LL and 3 more heat sinks and have 1 ton left. If you don't mind the loss in range.

I quote this section specifically because I have no idea what the hell you are talking about here. A Standard Fusion Engine comes with 10 heat sinks; this is sufficient to run an AC/5 to PPC swap (with the spare two tons going into MORE SINKS! one assumes) only in the situations where the rest of the unit's armament is not especially impinging on the existing heat capacity in the ranges you want to be shooting the PPC (or not at all, for ComVees.) Otherwise the choice is always to drop in a large laser, essentially, with four additional sinks to defray the load; most mechs can handle that heat gain (or have other things that can be shuffled around to manage it). The in practice difference between 6/12/18 and 5/10/15 is not especially great, particularly on the sort of platforms which typically mount AC 5s (4/6s & 5/8s, in other words) compared to the three extra damage, removal of Explosion hazard, and the fact that a Large Laser is far more likely to be fired at any given range simply because "it's an energy weapon, might as well;" you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
There are no engines that come with 5 heat sinks as far as I am aware. (Also uh nine minus five is four, not three, so er, Rifle do you have discalcula)

Presuming a mech with an ICE,

Remember that thing I mentioned about weird edge cases? This is one. There's like, a grand total of two BattleMechs with ICE and both of them are Dark Age Nonsense that are agreed to be crap both in and out of universe. The most notable armed Industialmech is the Quasit- explicitly a BattleMech You Have At Home which has a fusion engine, not a conventional ICE or FCE (or Fission I suppose as those do exist...)


Autocannon 20s and Blazers, again, ignoring your weird edge cases about ICE/FCEs again because they're an edge case,

Code: [Select]

AC/20+1 ton Ammo: 15 tons
AC/20+2 ton Ammo: 16 tons
AC/20+3 ton Ammo: 17 tons (the most common amount)
AC/20+4 ton Ammo: 18 tons

AC/20 Heat: 7

Blazer+6 SHS: 15 tons
   Net Heat gain, +3 (16-6=10, 10-7= 3)
Blazer+7 SHS: 16 tons
   Net Heat Gain, +2 (16-7=9, 9-7=2)
Blazer+8 SHS: 17 tons
   Net Heat gain, +1 (16-8=8, 8-7=1)
Blazer+9 SHS: 18 tons
   Net Heat Gain, *zero* (16-9=7, 7=7)
Simply put, you can pretty much straight drop in a Blazer to almost every BattleMech that carries an AC/20 with negligible impact on the rest of the machine's configuration vis a vis heat curves. Yes even with 3025 tech, DHS not required.

I'm not sure I follow you. The 2 points of damage the Blazer does isn't enough to replace a PPC that's lighter, with greater range and lower heat. It gets worse against the HPPC and ERPPC. It's an interesting weapon but the PPC is just better

Yes. Exactly. A PPC cannot be replaced with a Blazer effectively.
The Inner Sphere, however, keeps trying to do that, with the main Blazer usage being the MAD-4X where the PPCs (and basically everything else) are replaced with Blazers and the ZEU-6Y where some bloody lunatic over at Defiance replaced a damn large laser with one, oy.

Why swap for a weapon with less range and damage?
A PPC for an AC/10 can work but it's not something I hear about often as the AC/10 is a 10 point weapon.

You... Are aware that the Large Laser does 8 damage right
Three more than an AC 5. Actual in practice damage over the course of a game actually favors the Large Laser, because the user is more likely to take long odds shots as they don't have to keep ammunition conservation in mind and the mounting platforms are less likely to suffer from Sudden Existence Failure due to ammunition explosions.

Like, there are exactly three places where Autocannons are actually competitive with energy weapons: Combat Vehicles (and other platforms using their heat rules, namely Conventional Fighters and Support Vehicles), AC 2s for DropShips (they're one of the few always accessible choices for Long Range in Aero) or other static emplacements (bunkers, turrets, gun trailers, etc), and the AC/20 specifically for Dropper-chopper ASF as being able to Threshold things with less than 201 armor points is very useful there.
(They're also pretty good for just fekking obliterating other ASF, but have the same "things big enough to carry this will have difficulty being fast enough to employ it to maximum effectiveness" issue as BattleMechs)
(Autocannons aren't "competing" in the role of field guns since you can't take energy weapons for those anyway)

The addition of advanced ACs brings up the LB/10 and 20 as the single best crit seeking weapons in the system after the Silver Bullet Gauss Rifle, but that's very much falling into Niche Use Case territory. And uh, woe, Tacklebox be upon ye because resolving like 25 hit locations between two-three guns is uh Yeah.

And finally.
Again.
Particle Projection Cannons
ARE NOT
Repeat,
ARE NOT
In competition with the AC/5
Not in universe
Not out of universe
The primary competitor to the AC 5
MATHEMATICALLY AND IN LORE,
is the Large Laser.

This particular competition has been the case Since before BattleTech was even called BattleTech. Please, for the love of Blake, Cameron and the deity of your choice, stop comparing AC 5s to PPCs. It's an Apple and Potato comparison.

[Daryk]

*snip*
Simply put, you can pretty much straight drop in a Blazer to almost every BattleMech that carries an AC/20 with negligible impact on the rest of the machine's configuration vis a vis heat curves. Yes even with 3025 tech, DHS not required.
*snip*[/quote]
Thank you for revalidating my thread on that very topic a few (ok, 8-9) years ago: https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,54824.0.html

[Mechanis]

*snip*
Simply put, you can pretty much straight drop in a Blazer to almost every BattleMech that carries an AC/20 with negligible impact on the rest of the machine's configuration vis a vis heat curves. Yes even with 3025 tech, DHS not required.
*snip*
Thank you for revalidating my thread on that very topic a few (ok, 8-9) years ago: https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,54824.0.html

Granted, you can also do that with a block of 6-7 Medium Lasers and approximately all the heat sinks, see our lord and savior the HBK-4P, so there's some actual competition there in terms of "do I want to preserve the decapitation threat and extend my mid-range combat power, or do I want to go Maximum Melee Murder?"

But yeah, a Blazer+Sinks is perfectly viable as a drop-in AC/20 replacement unless you're riding the heat curve so hard that 1-3 extra heat will seriously impact your ability to keep shooting. Which... There's probably designs that do, I just can't name any off the top of my head at this time of night.

Edit: there's also things like the Victor and Blitzkrieg whose entire deal is "I go fast and have an AC/20" where the choice is kinda tricky, but yeah by and large, Lasers Do It Better in regards to the AC/20.

[RifleMech]

... I'm gonna be honest here Rifle. Have you actually... Consumed any BattleTech media other than this forum or like, actually played the game
Because your arguments are just making me do a confused headtilt, as you keep bringing up really weird edge cases to explain why the current Autocannons are perfectly fine, and just generally have some really strange ideas about what weapons replace what
(Incidentally you flat out can't replace an AC 5 with a PPC on anything that isn't a BattleMech or Aerospace Fighter - especially on an ICE or FCE vehicle, where they're seventeen and a half tons.)

Yes, and have I not been clear? On Units with Standard Fusion Engines, Energy Weapons have the weight advantage do to the 10 free weight heat sinks. That advantage increases with the use of Double Heat Sinks. The weight advantage switches to Ballistic weapons when the unit doesn't get free weight heat sinks. That is why you can't just pull an AC/5 out of a unit using an ICE and drop in a PPC.

However, in the interest of fairness, I will address your points here in order:
I don't know where you got that ammunition figure as training munitions are abstracted to one ton per weapon per month (divided by two if you're actually using the specific training/dummy ammo which is half as expensive) and that can add up very quickly when you have a lot of Autocannons to feed.

Campaign Operations page 24.

Ammunition: The peacetime consumption of ammunition by ammunition-using units in the Force is one-quarter of the vehicle Force’s ammunition capacity. This represents ammunition spent to maintain the skills of the Force. Divide a unit’s ammunition tonnage and cost of ammunition by 4 to get the monthly peacetime ammunition expenditure. This cost is based on standard
ammunition even if the unit normally uses alternate ammunition types (e.g., armor-piercing autocannon ammunition or Artemis IV-compatible LRMs). This represents inexpensive training ammunition being expended.

Where are you getting training/dummy ammo for autocannons?

No, support vehicles cannot really be made combat viable especially well, unless you're in a SV & Infantry Only situation (IE, are Shithole Nowhere Periphery People who exist for pirates to step on), they get little to no armor at BAR 10, after paying for double chassis weight for Armored Chassis, they have full critical slot uses but the exact same number of slots as a comparible size Comvee as they use the same slot formula, and you have a 0.5t crew tax for *every single weapon* even for Autocannons and missiles.
You must also pay IIRC an additional ~8% mass tax for Fire Control so you can, you know, not be getting hit with "lol, base +4 To-Hit, Sucks to Suck", and and just on and on and on, because the support vehicle rules are specifically designed from the word go to not be useful for building combat units. At all.

I didn't say that Support Vehicles can be made for combat especially well. I said they can be made for combat.

Where are you getting a +4 to-hit modifier?
Total Warfare pg 206.

Fire Control Systems
If a Support Vehicle does not mount a fire control system, the unit suffers a +2 to-hit modifier. A Support Vehicle with a basic fire control system suffers a +1 to-hit modifier. If the vehicle mounts
an advanced fire control system, no additional to-hit modifiers for weapon attacks apply.

The same page also says how they take damage, and a SV with the Armored Chassis and BAR10 armor take damage like a CV. So SV can be made for combat. And while lower BAR can lead to a penetrating critical hit, if the damage exceeds the BAR level, the lower BAR level can provide more points of armor. Quantity does provide a quality.






I quote this section specifically because I have no idea what the hell you are talking about here. A Standard Fusion Engine comes with 10 heat sinks; this is sufficient to run an AC/5 to PPC swap (with the spare two tons going into MORE SINKS! one assumes) only in the situations where the rest of the unit's armament is not especially impinging on the existing heat capacity in the ranges you want to be shooting the PPC (or not at all, for ComVees.) Otherwise the choice is always to drop in a large laser, essentially, with four additional sinks to defray the load; most mechs can handle that heat gain (or have other things that can be shuffled around to manage it). The in practice difference between 6/12/18 and 5/10/15 is not especially great, particularly on the sort of platforms which typically mount AC 5s (4/6s & 5/8s, in other words) compared to the three extra damage, removal of Explosion hazard, and the fact that a Large Laser is far more likely to be fired at any given range simply because "it's an energy weapon, might as well;" you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
There are no engines that come with 5 heat sinks as far as I am aware. (Also uh nine minus five is four, not three, so er, Rifle do you have discalcula)

Apologies. That should have been Fission Engine. Combat Fission Engines comes with 5 free heat sinks.

AC/5 with ammo is 9 tons.
Large Laser weighs 5 tons and generates 8 heat. The Combat Fission Engine comes with 5 heat sink Add 3 heat sinks to the LL's 5 tons for a total of eight. 5+3=8. That leaves 1 ton left over.

If I'm swapping the AC/5 and I've got the heat sinks, why would I use the shorter ranged, lower damage LL when I can use longer ranged, greater damage PPC?

Remember that thing I mentioned about weird edge cases? This is one. There's like, a grand total of two BattleMechs with ICE and both of them are Dark Age Nonsense that are agreed to be crap both in and out of universe. The most notable armed Industialmech is the Quasit- explicitly a BattleMech You Have At Home which has a fusion engine, not a conventional ICE or FCE (or Fission I suppose as those do exist...)

What exists currently in canon doesn't mean that more won't exist in the future. It also doesn't effect and customs we use on our tables.

Autocannon 20s and Blazers, again, ignoring your weird edge cases about ICE/FCEs again because they're an edge case,

Code: [Select]

AC/20+1 ton Ammo: 15 tons
AC/20+2 ton Ammo: 16 tons
AC/20+3 ton Ammo: 17 tons (the most common amount)
AC/20+4 ton Ammo: 18 tons

AC/20 Heat: 7

Blazer+6 SHS: 15 tons
   Net Heat gain, +3 (16-6=10, 10-7= 3)
Blazer+7 SHS: 16 tons
   Net Heat Gain, +2 (16-7=9, 9-7=2)
Blazer+8 SHS: 17 tons
   Net Heat gain, +1 (16-8=8, 8-7=1)
Blazer+9 SHS: 18 tons
   Net Heat Gain, *zero* (16-9=7, 7=7)
Simply put, you can pretty much straight drop in a Blazer to almost every BattleMech that carries an AC/20 with negligible impact on the rest of the machine's configuration vis a vis heat curves. Yes even with 3025 tech, DHS not required.

You're pointing out exactly why autocannons lose out to energy weapons do to free weight heat sinks.

I wouldn't swap an AC/20 for a Blazer on a King Crab 0000 as it would screw with the heat curve and the bracketing. With 15 heat sinks it can fire it's LL and LRM-15 at a distance and then switch to it's 2x AC/20s and still walk for 0 heat. (8+5+1=14) and (2x7+1=15)
Swap 1 AC/20 (14tons) for a BC+5 HS (14 tons) (20 HS total) and the heat is now
BC+LRM+1-20=+2
BC+LL+1-20=+5
BC+LL+LRM+1-20=+10
BC+AC+1-20=+4
BC+LL+AC+1-20=+12
AC+LL+1-20=-4
Swap both ACs and ammo for 2xBC=+12 heat sinks (27 total)
2BC-27+1=+6
2BC+LRM+1-27=+11
2BC+LL-27+1=+14
2BC+LL+LRM+1-27=+19

I'd keep the AC/20s.

Yes. Exactly. A PPC cannot be replaced with a Blazer effectively.
The Inner Sphere, however, keeps trying to do that, with the main Blazer usage being the MAD-4X where the PPCs (and basically everything else) are replaced with Blazers and the ZEU-6Y where some bloody lunatic over at Defiance replaced a damn large laser with one, oy.

My guess is they were looking to increase damage. The MAD-4X would be okay with DHS but it's got DHS-Ps. The ZEU-6Y isn't a variant I'd make. 

You... Are aware that the Large Laser does 8 damage right
Three more than an AC 5. Actual in practice damage over the course of a game actually favors the Large Laser, because the user is more likely to take long odds shots as they don't have to keep ammunition conservation in mind and the mounting platforms are less likely to suffer from Sudden Existence Failure due to ammunition explosions.

On the other hand, the AC/5's longer range and ammo bomb can allow for shots at greater ranges and be empty should the opponent close.

Like, there are exactly three places where Autocannons are actually competitive with energy weapons: Combat Vehicles (and other platforms using their heat rules, namely Conventional Fighters and Support Vehicles), AC 2s for DropShips (they're one of the few always accessible choices for Long Range in Aero) or other static emplacements (bunkers, turrets, gun trailers, etc), and the AC/20 specifically for Dropper-chopper ASF as being able to Threshold things with less than 201 armor points is very useful there.
(They're also pretty good for just fekking obliterating other ASF, but have the same "things big enough to carry this will have difficulty being fast enough to employ it to maximum effectiveness" issue as BattleMechs)
(Autocannons aren't "competing" in the role of field guns since you can't take energy weapons for those anyway)

Actually, any SV, followed by unit with a combat ICE engine followed by the FCE, and then the Fission Engine do to the number of free weight heat sinks. When they get to SFE, energy weapons end up winning.

The addition of advanced ACs brings up the LB/10 and 20 as the single best crit seeking weapons in the system after the Silver Bullet Gauss Rifle, but that's very much falling into Niche Use Case territory. And uh, woe, Tacklebox be upon ye because resolving like 25 hit locations between two-three guns is uh Yeah.

Okay.

And finally.
Again.
Particle Projection Cannons
ARE NOT
Repeat,
ARE NOT
In competition with the AC/5
Not in universe
Not out of universe
The primary competitor to the AC 5
MATHEMATICALLY AND IN LORE,
is the Large Laser.

This particular competition has been the case Since before BattleTech was even called BattleTech. Please, for the love of Blake, Cameron and the deity of your choice, stop comparing AC 5s to PPCs. It's an Apple and Potato comparison.

The RFL-4D and SHD-2K would disagree.

[Mechanis]

I mean, the -4D is a hilarious "not dying of heat stroke is for sissies" design (36 head generation and 15 singles lel), the Shadow Hawk on the other hand was one of those "barely using the sinks it already had" and is actually oversinked (which, by the way, is really weird for a Drac design, they tend to go"cooling is for sissies" in much the way the Clans do,) since it also pulls the Medium Laser and SRMs.

But the vast majority of the time, people in universe replace an AC 5 with a Large Laser and the vast majority of the time people out of universe do the same, because they're comparable weapons in their total mass and average performance.

The big thing here Rifle is that you don't seem to get that ICE engines are not desirable in setting. the "baseline" engine is a Standard Fusion Engine; that's the thing people want to put in combat vehicles. If you can't get those, then you want FCEs so you don't have to haul petrol around to keep things running.
Fission basically just doesn't even enter into the equation, there's been a few experimental designs and variants that have flirted with the technology but it's pretty much considered a military dead end in setting and the domain of Wacky Periphery Nonsense out of setting due to being agressivly Not Great.


As far as the King Crab goes, that's an example where some rejiggering of the thing more generally is needed - my usual method was to strip out the Large Laser in favor of additional missile tubes, similar to the one that also has the torso PPCs, as an example. But the King Crab is kinda a meme design as it starts anyway.

And lastly;

What exists currently in canon doesn't mean that more won't exist in the future. It also doesn't effect and customs we use on our tables.

It is extremely unlikely that there will ever be additional ICE BattleMechs unless CGL feels like doing a sequel to XTRO: Boondoggles, as the canonical designs were explicitly a desperation measure that went extinct essentially immediately, similar to the RetroTech stuff.
And if you want to bring custom ICE mechs, you can.
Everyone will laugh at you (if only internally) and you will probably lose, since the list of things that will break the engine is long, but you can.
Attempts at combat Support Vehicles are the same way: they're not done in setting for a reason, and that reason is that they freaking suck.


Anyway, we've sort of gotten off into the weeds here, but the gist of things is: Autocannons as we have them do not make sense compared to how they are used in setting; there are several possible ways to fix this, including but not limited to increased damage (such as the common "AC/3, Actually," houserule), more available rapid fire, or otherwise messing with their actual performance; my personally preferred solution is to make it more difficult to simply drop in lasers, PPCs, missile launchers, Gauss Rifles, or some variation or combination thereof to get higher performance whilst making minimal to no impact on the rest of the design by slashing their weights and in the case of the 10 and 20 critical spaces. My preferred values have the most dramatic effects on the smaller two, but those are also the two most in need of help.
And whilst Double Heat Sinks exaggerate this effect, even in BattleDroids the Autocannon(/5) is explicitly a very poor weapon compared to other options, let alone now.

[RifleMech]

I mean, the -4D is a hilarious "not dying of heat stroke is for sissies" design (36 head generation and 15 singles lel), the Shadow Hawk on the other hand was one of those "barely using the sinks it already had" and is actually oversinked (which, by the way, is really weird for a Drac design, they tend to go"cooling is for sissies" in much the way the Clans do,) since it also pulls the Medium Laser and SRMs.

The -4D isn't variant I'd make. The -1K though gets to move and shoot as much as it wants which is a good thing.

But the vast majority of the time, people in universe replace an AC 5 with a Large Laser and the vast majority of the time people out of universe do the same, because they're comparable weapons in their total mass and average performance.

I can think of a Marauder that swapped it's AC/5 for a LL. Nothing else comes to mind. And the usual swap I read about is PPC for the AC/5.

The big thing here Rifle is that you don't seem to get that ICE engines are not desirable in setting. the "baseline" engine is a Standard Fusion Engine; that's the thing people want to put in combat vehicles. If you can't get those, then you want FCEs so you don't have to haul petrol around to keep things running.
Fission basically just doesn't even enter into the equation, there's been a few experimental designs and variants that have flirted with the technology but it's pretty much considered a military dead end in setting and the domain of Wacky Periphery Nonsense out of setting due to being agressivly Not Great.

Who said anything about desirable?   And why wouldn't ICEs be desirable for their cost? If you don't need an expensive SFE, you don't buy it. ICEs are the least expensive engine available. They also have the lowest tech rating and widest availability for engines that can be put in a Mech of CV. ICE also have greater range than Fuel Cells. That makes them pretty desirable.

Fuel Cells can operate in more environments though so they become desirable when you don't want the cost of a Fusion Engine.

Fission engines aren't great but they do come with 5 free heat sinks and your mech can still use it's jump jets. If you can't get a SFE and FCE will limit it's maneuverability Fission is the way to go.

As far as the King Crab goes, that's an example where some rejiggering of the thing more generally is needed - my usual method was to strip out the Large Laser in favor of additional missile tubes, similar to the one that also has the torso PPCs, as an example. But the King Crab is kinda a meme design as it starts anyway.

Missiles can be effective, especially Clan versions. However the hit from a LL is nice. Plus you've got the ammo issue. 

And lastly;It is extremely unlikely that there will ever be additional ICE BattleMechs unless CGL feels like doing a sequel to XTRO: Boondoggles, as the canonical designs were explicitly a desperation measure that went extinct essentially immediately, similar to the RetroTech stuff.
And if you want to bring custom ICE mechs, you can.
Everyone will laugh at you (if only internally) and you will probably lose, since the list of things that will break the engine is long, but you can.
Attempts at combat Support Vehicles are the same way: they're not done in setting for a reason, and that reason is that they freaking suck.

Possibly, or a book in the periphery, or the desperation of the Succession Wars.
Possibly. It'd depend on the mech, I think.
For the most part, support combat vehicles aren't as good, that doesn't mean they don't work.  A Merkava Mk VI or Esteves can go up against combat vehicles. They just can't go up against those of the same weight.

Anyway, we've sort of gotten off into the weeds here, but the gist of things is: Autocannons as we have them do not make sense compared to how they are used in setting; there are several possible ways to fix this, including but not limited to increased damage (such as the common "AC/3, Actually," houserule), more available rapid fire, or otherwise messing with their actual performance; my personally preferred solution is to make it more difficult to simply drop in lasers, PPCs, missile launchers, Gauss Rifles, or some variation or combination thereof to get higher performance whilst making minimal to no impact on the rest of the design by slashing their weights and in the case of the 10 and 20 critical spaces. My preferred values have the most dramatic effects on the smaller two, but those are also the two most in need of help.
And whilst Double Heat Sinks exaggerate this effect, even in BattleDroids the Autocannon(/5) is explicitly a very poor weapon compared to other options, let alone now.

Better rapid firing would help. It's why I like the Solaris VII rules. Yes, it applied to everything but it allowed autocannons to shine.
The Autocannon did less damage but you could install more Autocannons than you could PPCs or LLs and Heat Sinks.

[DevianID]

I think part of the issue people have is that they are using ACs in tonnage balanced mech only games, where damage, not range and alternate ammo/flak, is the only important quality.  So the longest range in the game on the AC2 doesnt mean anything cause its about the medium laser meta.

A while ago, I made rules for 'DIY' autocannons, where you selected your damage/range.  In those rules, 9 hex damage was .7 tons, so you could swap your AC2/L8 for an AC8/L3, both at 6 tons.  Those rules were not BV balanced to be the same... instead they were tonnage balanced for the tonnage crowd.

In that, if you didnt want an 18 range AC5 gun, you could swap your AC5/L6 for an AC11/L3 if you wanted more short range oomph for the same tonnage.  Or if you wanted a bit longer barrel on your AC20 hunchback, you could mod your AC20/L3 for an AC14/L4.

[Daryk]

The swing I took at that approach basically indexed fire rate and bore size, with range tied to bore size only.

[Mechanis]

I think part of the issue people have is that they are using ACs in tonnage balanced mech only games, where damage, not range and alternate ammo/flak, is the only important quality.  So the longest range in the game on the AC2 doesnt mean anything cause its about the medium laser meta.

A while ago, I made rules for 'DIY' autocannons, where you selected your damage/range.  In those rules, 9 hex damage was .7 tons, so you could swap your AC2/L8 for an AC8/L3, both at 6 tons.  Those rules were not BV balanced to be the same... instead they were tonnage balanced for the tonnage crowd.

In that, if you didnt want an 18 range AC5 gun, you could swap your AC5/L6 for an AC11/L3 if you wanted more short range oomph for the same tonnage.  Or if you wanted a bit longer barrel on your AC20 hunchback, you could mod your AC20/L3 for an AC14/L4.

I mean just no?
Like I at least have 100% been at this from a BV balanced, full Fun Rules™, perspective, with a smattering of "and also campaigns slash In Universe logistical problems" as an "also this", because tonnage balance only makes them even more objectively terrible and is completely worthless as a balancing mechanic.


The biggest sticky wicket with doing bespoke whatever-you-want Autocannons is essentially the AC 2, which gets only 90 damage a ton rather than the 100 of all other ACs; and that balancing the range-damage-mass-size values would require vast amounts of work; especially since, if you want to be strictly canon compliant, you should ensure that the 2/5/10/20 and their respective ranges are the objectively optimal choices formulaicly---a process you would have to repeat for every single Autocannon type.


Much simpler to just say "Standard ACs are 3/5/8/12 tons, the 10 is 5 crits, the 20 is 8 crits;
UACs are a ton and slot bigger;
LBX is the same except for the 10 which is a ton lighter;
LACs are 75% mass,
Racs & HVACs are 1.5× mass/slots,

iACs are 2/4/7/11 and the 10 & 20 lose a slot,
cUACs are 2.5/5/8/12 and 1/2/4/7 slots,
cLBX are 2/4/6/9 & 1/2/4/8 slots,
cRACs are as the IS ones but one slot bigger,
PMACs are 1(800)/1.5(1200)/2(1800)/3(2700) tons(kilograms) (Not-Protomechs Round Up),
finis"

A design ends up with spare tonnage? Whatever, something something pre-existing battle damage, who cares, it doesn't effect the game other than being somewhat more suboptimal than it already was. If you absolutely must just slap "Primitive" or "Prototype " or some other derogation in front of the canon ones as appropriate and wave hands as needed ("Something something SuccWars SuccTech" etc)

[FixDis]

I'd just get rid of the Light Autocannons under that ruleset.

[RifleMech]

(snip)
A while ago, I made rules for 'DIY' autocannons, where you selected your damage/range.  In those rules, 9 hex damage was .7 tons, so you could swap your AC2/L8 for an AC8/L3, both at 6 tons.  Those rules were not BV balanced to be the same... instead they were tonnage balanced for the tonnage crowd.
(snip)

I remember those. They're good for prototypes and non standard weapons.

I mean just no?
Like I at least have 100% been at this from a BV balanced, full Fun Rules™, perspective, with a smattering of "and also campaigns slash In Universe logistical problems" as an "also this", because tonnage balance only makes them even more objectively terrible and is completely worthless as a balancing mechanic.

Tonnage worked when I started playing. We didn't even have Combat Values then.

Much simpler to just say "Standard ACs are 3/5/8/12 tons, the 10 is 5 crits, the 20 is 8 crits;
UACs are a ton and slot bigger;
(snip)
A design ends up with spare tonnage? Whatever, something something pre-existing battle damage, who cares, it doesn't effect the game other than being somewhat more suboptimal than it already was. If you absolutely must just slap "Primitive" or "Prototype " or some other derogation in front of the canon ones as appropriate and wave hands as needed ("Something something SuccWars SuccTech" etc)

I wouldn't call having to redo zillions of stats, record sheets, and the books they're in "simpler".

Simpler would be to up the damage for autocannons by improving the rapid-fire rules and the introduction of better ammo that can be used by all autocannons. Then give BV for the new ammo. No changes to stats, record sheets, or books.

Reduce rapid-fire penalties by half for standard and current ammo. (or use Solaris VII)
Improved ammo +1 damage +1 heat? Use old rules when rapid-firing.

I'd go with +2 or +3 (Hello Rifles), but that might be too much unless the risk of jamming/exploding increases too.

Heck why not an an add on like the PPC Capacitor, the Risk Laser Pulse Module and Laser Insulator? Call it improved feed system or something. +.5-1 ton reduces jamming/exploding by half. Can be applied to all autocannons.

[DevianID]

Like I at least have 100% been at this from a BV balanced, full Fun Rules™, perspective, with a smattering of "and also campaigns slash In Universe logistical problems"

So if you are going at this from BV balance, Autocannons are already balanced.  You dont need to change anything, the ac5 is a great cheap weapon in BV.  So it has to be tonnage balance, to fix that itch that the 8 ton autocannon needs to do 'more', despite being BV balanced just fine, because its 8 tons. 
If you think the AC5 BV is fine, but should be 4 tons or shoot twice or whatever, you have a mech v mech tonnage balancing issue not a BV balancing issue.

Campaigns in universe have flak, and presumably use flak because the game rules exist in the lore universe.  Flak is amazing, and its inclusion alone means that no matter how poor the AC5 and extended family is in tonnage or cost, flak is so good and unique to the weapon that the autocannon is never going to be obsoleted, except by artillery which, with the 3x damage given in tac ops is so OP that it makes every other weapon stupid.  So, with the caveat that artillery is wrong and doesn't translate into the lore like it does in the game, autocannons with flak are a necessary part of every force for anti-air cover, which the universe acknowledges as really scary for ground units.

Like, in the lore but also my random campaign games, every lance I make wants an AA platform with 1+ autocannon, cause if an aerospace opfor is rolled up im gonna be in big trouble without it.  And I gladly pay the tonnage for AC2/5/10s in said campaign games, cause they do something I need desperately.

Its only in the artificial game construct of mech only, damage is king meta, with tonnage balance AND before precision is available that the AC5 et all needs a boost.

Like cost especially is misleading.  'Hey, this autocannon, when used with an obscure campaign rule that makes you light ammo on fire, gets kinda expensive!'.  'Yeah, but C company's commander ditched their autocannons for cost, and a pirate air raid got said company commander court marshalled for it.'

Edit: for clarity, I think balancing the AC for tonnage is fine, cause mech v mech is the default way the game is played.  Its a legit criticism that the ac5/2 comes up short in tonnage balanced games that dont include the oodles of optional rules and unit types that make ACs better.  But its also important to call out such balance for what it is!  In lore and full campaign rules there is lots of things that just arnt present in the standard lance v lance tabletop game, so it makes sense if you are playing a lance v lance tabletop game without the optional stuff / lore to have your ACs adjusted to that game experience.  People also buff the flamers a lot (which I hate) because there isnt infantry.  The flamer is the most disgusting OP thing versus infantry with all the optional dug in rules, but youd never know it in mech v mech games, so people like to buff flamers like they want to buff ACs.

[RifleMech]

I don't let weight bother me much and have never used BV. I don't put autocannons in every lance, but I do try to have one in most. I tend to try to get a mix. Energy for ammo independence, Missiles for low heat, specialty ammo, and indirect fire, and ACs for low heat, more ammo and specialty ammo. That way the units can cover each other or keep firing without crippling heat.

People buff the flamer? I can see swapping weapons but I'm not sure how it'd be buffed against Mechs other than have them do heat and damage.

[idea weenie]

Well, sure, my original idea was, as was observed at the time, grossly overpowered for the ground game.  By reducing the armor value that can resist criticals, and cleaning up the spread into nice neat increments that can be easily remembered?  It becomes both less unbalancing/overpowered, and easier to use and remember. 

A 'mech's base Armor at a hit location is 40 (say, an assault) even an AC/20 won't generate the threshold crit on a hit there, but an AC/2 hitting a location with 10 points? crit check even if eight points are left, and if there's nothing in that location (gear wise) to crit, well...so sad, too bad. you still did 2 points of armor damage.

IN the case of an AC/5 you're going to be doing crits quite often on anything below around 65 tons, but probably not a lot of CT front or Torso front crits unless it's on the light side of a Medium. lots of leg and arm crits, and if yiou get in the rear, it's party time.

and of course, head hits get nastier all 'round with an autocannon under this, but head hits are usually pretty nasty and it really only brings it up CLOSE to what you'll do with 7 tons of PPC doing 10 points of damage (enough to strip all the armors off and maybe kill the pilot anyway).

It brings parity and difference, is the idea.  YES, you need 9 tons to fire for 20 rounds with an AC/5, but under this? it's actually worth it to mount when you could mount something else that doesn't need ammo or run out.

The trade being that you get a crit chance all over, but you can still screw up the dice roll or get sometihng innocuous (like a heat sink, or an actuator you don't use anyway outside melee). but more importantly, it makes the Davion fascination with the Jagermech make sense, it makes the 2H and 2D Shadowhawks useful as more than expensive popup targets and mediocre-at-everything 'mechs...

and you don't have to change the record sheets.

Would Gauss Rifles get similar benefits?  I.e. if the remaining armor is less than twice the Gauss Rifle's damage, it gets to make the crit roll as well?

(I went with double damage as that would keep the math easy instead of custom values for the Autocannons)

I don't let weight bother me much and have never used BV. I don't put autocannons in every lance, but I do try to have one in most. I tend to try to get a mix. Energy for ammo independence, Missiles for low heat, specialty ammo, and indirect fire, and ACs for low heat, more ammo and specialty ammo. That way the units can cover each other or keep firing without crippling heat.

People buff the flamer? I can see swapping weapons but I'm not sure how it'd be buffed against Mechs other than have them do heat and damage.

One way to buff the Flamer would be to let it ignore terrain modifiers.  So your Archer decides to hide in the Heavy Woods because while performing LRM indirect fire he doesn't want to deal with a Firestarter.  That Firestarter player then rolls to-hits vs your Mech at 3 hexes, ignoring the trees in the way.

[RifleMech]

One way to buff the Flamer would be to let it ignore terrain modifiers.  So your Archer decides to hide in the Heavy Woods because while performing LRM indirect fire he doesn't want to deal with a Firestarter.  That Firestarter player then rolls to-hits vs your Mech at 3 hexes, ignoring the trees in the way.

 

If the Archer is 3 hexes deep in heavy woods, the Firestarter doesn't have line of site to aim at it.

[Cannonshop]

Would Gauss Rifles get similar benefits?  I.e. if the remaining armor is less than twice the Gauss Rifle's damage, it gets to make the crit roll as well?

A gauss rifle shot is a high velocity bit of inert metal.  An autocannon shot is a high velocity bit of metal with some kind fo secondary charge, so probably not.  Given the range loss at the 'peer bore and weight' range (AC/10 and AC/20) vs. a Gauss, I don't see giving it this ability would be balanced from a playing point of view.  It would literally be too good, even at IS weight ranges.

(I went with double damage as that would keep the math easy instead of custom values for the Autocannons)

I really don't...meh, whatever, my idea sucks anyway so why not?

[HobbesHurlbut]

Change AC/2 to AC/5
Original AC/5 to AC/10
Original AC/10 to AC/15
Adjust heat, damage, and ammo for these accordingly. AC/15 is 6 or 7 shots per ton. Depending on which one is better for balance.

Code: [Select]

Name/Damage/Heat/Min/Range/Weight/Crit/Ammo Count

AC/5 5 1 4 8/16/24 6t 1 20
AC/10 10 3 3 6/12/18 8t 4 10
AC/15 15 5 0 5/10/15 12t 7 7
AC/20 20 7 0 3/6/9 14t 10 5

[FixDis]

Will you increase head internal structure?

[Daryk]

As long as Patchwork Armor is in play, Hardened Armor alone will take care of that.

[Mechanis]

So if you are going at this from BV balance, Autocannons are already balanced.  You dont need to change anything, the ac5 is a great cheap weapon in BV.  So it has to be tonnage balance, to fix that itch that the 8 ton autocannon needs to do 'more', despite being BV balanced just fine, because its 8 tons. 
If you think the AC5 BV is fine, but should be 4 tons or shoot twice or whatever, you have a mech v mech tonnage balancing issue not a BV balancing issue.

Campaigns in universe have flak, and presumably use flak because the game rules exist in the lore universe.  Flak is amazing, and its inclusion alone means that no matter how poor the AC5 and extended family is in tonnage or cost, flak is so good and unique to the weapon that the autocannon is never going to be obsoleted, except by artillery which, with the 3x damage given in tac ops is so OP that it makes every other weapon stupid.  So, with the caveat that artillery is wrong and doesn't translate into the lore like it does in the game, autocannons with flak are a necessary part of every force for anti-air cover, which the universe acknowledges as really scary for ground units.

Like, in the lore but also my random campaign games, every lance I make wants an AA platform with 1+ autocannon, cause if an aerospace opfor is rolled up im gonna be in big trouble without it.  And I gladly pay the tonnage for AC2/5/10s in said campaign games, cause they do something I need desperately.

Its only in the artificial game construct of mech only, damage is king meta, with tonnage balance AND before precision is available that the AC5 et all needs a boost.

Like cost especially is misleading.  'Hey, this autocannon, when used with an obscure campaign rule that makes you light ammo on fire, gets kinda expensive!'.  'Yeah, but C company's commander ditched their autocannons for cost, and a pirate air raid got said company commander court marshalled for it.'

Edit: for clarity, I think balancing the AC for tonnage is fine, cause mech v mech is the default way the game is played.  Its a legit criticism that the ac5/2 comes up short in tonnage balanced games that dont include the oodles of optional rules and unit types that make ACs better.  But its also important to call out such balance for what it is!  In lore and full campaign rules there is lots of things that just arnt present in the standard lance v lance tabletop game, so it makes sense if you are playing a lance v lance tabletop game without the optional stuff / lore to have your ACs adjusted to that game experience.  People also buff the flamers a lot (which I hate) because there isnt infantry.  The flamer is the most disgusting OP thing versus infantry with all the optional dug in rules, but youd never know it in mech v mech games, so people like to buff flamers like they want to buff ACs.

Amazing, everything you have just said is wrong.
A) Autocannons, yes even with Flack or Cluster, are one of the worst options for engaging ASF, as are "every other ground weapon that isn't Artillery and especially Anti-aircraft Arrow which is the only even halfway decent ground based AA in the game (granted, you probably haven't actually played with Aero enough to learn this, because most people don't); the best choice for ground AA is LRMs for mobile platforms (since so many things lack the armor to avoid TACs of 5+ damage), and ELRM for static platforms (landed DropShips, buildings, Mobile Structures). All the fancy pants alt munitions and special rules still don't make Autocannons as good as taking their mass in laser, PPC, Missiles and Sinks, because the fundamental math is against them.
Like this is not news. People who are far more enthusiastic about math and statistics than me have written whole essays (read rants) on the subject, people who think about the lore implications for two seconds immediately start questioning their existance, anybody who has played a serious long running campaign knows intimately that Autocannons end up vastly more expensive than energy weapons that do the same thing (and frankly would drop missiles too if it wasn't for Indirect Fire, Inferno, Smoke, and Thunder munitions), and all the "Autocannons aren't bad in BV" and "oh they're only bad in tonnage" and similar excuses is 100% Copium, because Autocannons are factually the worst weapons in the system by something on the order of two or three orders of magnitude.

And I say that as someone who wants Autocannons to be a thing, because I like the idea. It's just that they need to be militarily justifiable In-Universe for my SoD to remain unbruised, and they're not. Not as we have them, anyway.

I remember those. They're good for prototypes and non standard weapons.


Tonnage worked when I started playing. We didn't even have Combat Values then.




I wouldn't call having to redo zillions of stats, record sheets, and the books they're in "simpler".

Simpler would be to up the damage for autocannons by improving the rapid-fire rules and the introduction of better ammo that can be used by all autocannons. Then give BV for the new ammo. No changes to stats, record sheets, or books.

Reduce rapid-fire penalties by half for standard and current ammo. (or use Solaris VII)
Improved ammo +1 damage +1 heat? Use old rules when rapid-firing.

I'd go with +2 or +3 (Hello Rifles), but that might be too much unless the risk of jamming/exploding increases too.

Heck why not an an add on like the PPC Capacitor, the Risk Laser Pulse Module and Laser Insulator? Call it improved feed system or something. +.5-1 ton reduces jamming/exploding by half. Can be applied to all autocannons.

Tonnage balance has never worked. Looks me in the eye and tell me an Atlas is equivalent to five locusts.
You can't, because it isn't.

BV is hardly perfect and you can cheese it if you try (Hello, "Oops, all Savannah Masters!") but it otherwise works well enough for most purposes; Tonnage however has never worked.
And vis a vis stat redoing: you don't have to do anything. Things aren't required to use their entire available mass, the BV will change not at all, and just because something is slightly more suboptimal than it was already doesn't matter. At worst you put out another raft of Revised books and make some nonsense about propaganda or picking examples with battle damage or just being wrong because all the stats stuff is presented as in universe documents that explicitly can be Incorrect In-Universe.
Of course, it'll never actually happen, and frankly if I were TPTB I'd just say "okay, we're just gonna skip forward to 3525 now, all the Third Star League whatever is ancient history that nobody cares about, tech broke into the next major plateau a few centuries ago and all the old stuff is considered obsolete junk, here's the new stuff" as an excuse to wipe the board and condense the giant walls of equipment and whatever into things that fit on single pages again, but that's a different discussion.

[Cannonshop]

Amazing, everything you have just said is wrong.
A) Autocannons, yes even with Flack or Cluster, are one of the worst options for engaging ASF, as are "every other ground weapon that isn't Artillery and especially Anti-aircraft Arrow which is the only even halfway decent ground based AA in the game (granted, you probably haven't actually played with Aero enough to learn this, because most people don't); the best choice for ground AA is LRMs for mobile platforms (since so many things lack the armor to avoid TACs of 5+ damage), and ELRM for static platforms (landed DropShips, buildings, Mobile Structures). All the fancy pants alt munitions and special rules still don't make Autocannons as good as taking their mass in laser, PPC, Missiles and Sinks, because the fundamental math is against them.
Like this is not news. People who are far more enthusiastic about math and statistics than me have written whole essays (read rants) on the subject, people who think about the lore implications for two seconds immediately start questioning their existance, anybody who has played a serious long running campaign knows intimately that Autocannons end up vastly more expensive than energy weapons that do the same thing (and frankly would drop missiles too if it wasn't for Indirect Fire, Inferno, Smoke, and Thunder munitions), and all the "Autocannons aren't bad in BV" and "oh they're only bad in tonnage" and similar excuses is 100% Copium, because Autocannons are factually the worst weapons in the system by something on the order of two or three orders of magnitude.

And I say that as someone who wants Autocannons to be a thing, because I like the idea. It's just that they need to be militarily justifiable In-Universe for my SoD to remain unbruised, and they're not. Not as we have them, anyway.

Tonnage balance has never worked. Looks me in the eye and tell me an Atlas is equivalent to five locusts.
You can't, because it isn't.

BV is hardly perfect and you can cheese it if you try (Hello, "Oops, all Savannah Masters!") but it otherwise works well enough for most purposes; Tonnage however has never worked.
And vis a vis stat redoing: you don't have to do anything. Things aren't required to use their entire available mass, the BV will change not at all, and just because something is slightly more suboptimal than it was already doesn't matter. At worst you put out another raft of Revised books and make some nonsense about propaganda or picking examples with battle damage or just being wrong because all the stats stuff is presented as in universe documents that explicitly can be Incorrect In-Universe.
Of course, it'll never actually happen, and frankly if I were TPTB I'd just say "okay, we're just gonna skip forward to 3525 now, all the Third Star League whatever is ancient history that nobody cares about, tech broke into the next major plateau a few centuries ago and all the old stuff is considered obsolete junk, here's the new stuff" as an excuse to wipe the board and condense the giant walls of equipment and whatever into things that fit on single pages again, but that's a different discussion.

well, we see a LOT of options to "make Autocannons a thing" on this very thread, from the ridiculous (mine) to the "oops gotta redo almost forty years of record sheets and TRO entries" to "we can bandaid it with Solaris rules".

and of course, the person you're arguing with who thinks they're fine as-is.

Randall Bills said something very wise.

"If it works in your game..."

Thing being, people often don't want to consider that-they want their ideas to be adopted and Those other, crazy ideas to be ridiculed.

Human nature.  Very few people can tolerate being wrong.

especially on the internet.

for example, nobody listens to MY answer, which is to take the most-complete three solutions on this thread, arrange gametime, and play them out to see which one is closest to what you're hoping to achieve.

I know, for example, that nobody's going to test either version of mine.  It's too much work, and anyone who bothers to read and post on a thread like this has their own pet favorite solution.

I didn't find the Solaris Double-tap solution all that useful
but then, my own dice like to roll '2' rather more often than, I suspect, is the average on a to-hit roll, while location rolls tend to be solidly in the 'most irrelevant part of the 'mech' (an empty arm or empty torso bit, or a leg actuator) more often than not as well.

mabye I should check my dice tower or something.

and it was a hassle to re-value the damage values on the various autocannons, which still didn't make them more useful than a PPC swap in your average four on four tabletop with two mapsheets.

the extra damage pip just wasn't very helpful.

but that's MY experience, not someone else's.

[RifleMech]

Amazing, everything you have just said is wrong.
A) Autocannons, yes even with Flack or Cluster, are one of the worst options for engaging ASF, as are "every other ground weapon that isn't Artillery and especially Anti-aircraft Arrow which is the only even halfway decent ground based AA in the game (granted, you probably haven't actually played with Aero enough to learn this, because most people don't); (snip)

LRMs do damage in 5 point clusters. I'm pretty sure there's a few AS Units that can withstand that. There's fewer that can take a hit from an AC/10 and AC/20. Flak Ammo also give autocannons a -1 to hit. So while the AC/2 and AC/5 are as likely to threshold as LRMs, they have a better chance of actually hitting the fighter.

Autocannons don't do indirect fire or all have the alternate ammo types LRMs do but what they do have can be useful.
Armor-Piercing = chance at a penetrating hit.
Flechette = full damage against infantry.
Precision = -2 target modifier
Incendiary = 5+ to start fires, +2 damage to infantry,  +1 night to hit modifier.
Flak = -1 to hit.
Tracer = +1 night to hit modifier.
Caseless = double ammo.

And energy vs weight depends on engine and heat sinks.

Tonnage balance has never worked. Looks me in the eye and tell me an Atlas is equivalent to five locusts.
You can't, because it isn't.

BV is hardly perfect and you can cheese it if you try (Hello, "Oops, all Savannah Masters!") but it otherwise works well enough for most purposes; Tonnage however has never worked.

It worked for us and we didn't have BV when we started playing. We didn't even have Combat Value.

No it isn't. If you want an Atlas to fight something the same as an Atlas, use another Atlas. But equal tonnage doesn't mean use the same units. It means use the same tonnage.

So yeah you can take 5 Locusts up against an Atlas. They'll be harder to hit but the Atlas has range with LRMs. When they get in range to use their MLs they're also in range of the Atlas's MLs, it's SRMs, and AC/20. And the Atlas can fire in every direction, with a target penalty and has almost has a Locust's weight in armor. The Locusts could take the Atlas but they won't be happy doing so.   

And vis a vis stat redoing: you don't have to do anything. Things aren't required to use their entire available mass, the BV will change not at all, and just because something is slightly more suboptimal than it was already doesn't matter. At worst you put out another raft of Revised books and make some nonsense about propaganda or picking examples with battle damage or just being wrong because all the stats stuff is presented as in universe documents that explicitly can be Incorrect In-Universe.

I don't use BV so I may be wrong but wouldn't changing the weight, damage, and/or amount of ammo change the BV?

And no, a unit doesn't have to use 100% of it's mass but can you imagine the problems caused if all units with Autocannons suddenly have tons of weight available? Players are going to want that tonnage filled with something. And since there's players who refuse to allow custom and won't use anything but printed RS, they'll want TPTB to fix those units. How would spending time and money revising hundreds of units and thousands of record sheets to reprint revised books, be a good thing?   

Of course, it'll never actually happen, and frankly if I were TPTB I'd just say "okay, we're just gonna skip forward to 3525 now, all the Third Star League whatever is ancient history that nobody cares about, tech broke into the next major plateau a few centuries ago and all the old stuff is considered obsolete junk, here's the new stuff" as an excuse to wipe the board and condense the giant walls of equipment and whatever into things that fit on single pages again, but that's a different discussion.

Yeah, you might as well start a whole new game.

[RifleMech]

I really don't...meh, whatever, my idea sucks anyway so why not?

I don't think it sucked. I think it was overly complicated but it didn't suck.

for example, nobody listens to MY answer, which is to take the most-complete three solutions on this thread, arrange gametime, and play them out to see which one is closest to what you're hoping to achieve.

I know, for example, that nobody's going to test either version of mine.  It's too much work, and anyone who bothers to read and post on a thread like this has their own pet favorite solution.

I wouldn't mind but am not able to right now. :(

I didn't find the Solaris Double-tap solution all that useful
but then, my own dice like to roll '2' rather more often than, I suspect, is the average on a to-hit roll, while location rolls tend to be solidly in the 'most irrelevant part of the 'mech' (an empty arm or empty torso bit, or a leg actuator) more often than not as well.

mabye I should check my dice tower or something.

That's one reason I favor the Solaris VII rules as the lighter ACs can fire more than once without risking jamming. Otherwise, they'd always jam. It's why I don't double tap with Ultras unless they're field guns.

The other is that it helps balance the weight of AC/s with the heat of energy weapons and free weight heat sinks.

[monbvol]

LRMs do damage in 5 point clusters. I'm pretty sure there's a few AS Units that can withstand that. There's fewer that can take a hit from an AC/10 and AC/20. Flak Ammo also give autocannons a -1 to hit. So while the AC/2 and AC/5 are as likely to threshold as LRMs, they have a better chance of actually hitting the fighter.

Autocannons don't do indirect fire or all have the alternate ammo types LRMs do but what they do have can be useful.
Armor-Piercing = chance at a penetrating hit.
Flechette = full damage against infantry.
Precision = -2 target modifier
Incendiary = 5+ to start fires, +2 damage to infantry,  +1 night to hit modifier.
Flak = -1 to hit.
Tracer = +1 night to hit modifier.
Caseless = double ammo.

Armor piercing is also at a +1 to hit and only comes with half the normal ammo per ton.

Flechette doing half damage to everything else makes it very situational though.

Precision is more correctly just applied against Target Movement Modifier so if a Target generates less than a +2 TMM Precision is not living up to it's full potential and also only comes with half as much ammo per ton as normal.

I am unable to find an Incendiary specialty ammunition for autocannons in the current published rule books. Everything I can find is for artillery, grenades, and LRMs. I checked Maximum Tech, Total Warfare, Tactical Operations Advanced Units and Equipment, Battlemech Manual, and Interstellar Operations. None of these books contained Incendiary ammunition compatible with Autocannons. I even checked the latest version of MegaMekLab, it does not list any such ammunition for Autocannons, as much as it may not be official it does have all official ammunition types.

Flak is -2 but only against airborne targets.

Tracer also does less damage.

Caseless also cannot be combined with standard ammunition or other specialty ammunitions, the gun designated as using it can only use Caseless. It also has the drawback of rolling a 2 ruins the gun automatically and generates a crit check that if it results in a crit must be applied to the autocannon.

That is all current rules as written.

[RifleMech]

Armor piercing is also at a +1 to hit and only comes with half the normal ammo per ton.

Flechette doing half damage to everything else makes it very situational though.

Precision is more correctly just applied against Target Movement Modifier so if a Target generates less than a +2 TMM Precision is not living up to it's full potential and also only comes with half as much ammo per ton as normal.

I am unable to find an Incendiary specialty ammunition for autocannons in the current published rule books. Everything I can find is for artillery, grenades, and LRMs. I checked Maximum Tech, Total Warfare, Tactical Operations Advanced Units and Equipment, Battlemech Manual, and Interstellar Operations. None of these books contained Incendiary ammunition compatible with Autocannons. I even checked the latest version of MegaMekLab, it does not list any such ammunition for Autocannons, as much as it may not be official it does have all official ammunition types.

Flak is -2 but only against airborne targets.

Tracer also does less damage.

Caseless also cannot be combined with standard ammunition or other specialty ammunitions, the gun designated as using it can only use Caseless. It also has the drawback of rolling a 2 ruins the gun automatically and generates a crit check that if it results in a crit must be applied to the autocannon.

That is all current rules as written.

Incendiary ammo is found in Field Manual: Federated Suns.

And yes, some AC ammo are situational or have drawbacks but so do LRMs. There's a lot of them, so I won't list them all, and I can't find Fares, but they each have some kind of drawback to go with their bonuses. Some are situational. Some do less damage. Some are only effective against certain targets. Some have targeting penalties. Some even require additional equipment (Artemis) to function or that another weapons (TAG, NARC) hit first. Some are also incompatible with Artemis so can't be used if Artemis is installed.

Each ammo type can be good or bad but I would also say that AC Flechette ammo is better than LRM Fragmentation ammo since half damage against other units is better than no damage. I'd still use Fragmentation LRMs but it's more situational than Flechette would be.