I don't think you can balance that sort of thing in the unit point generation stage though. It's up to the player to decide to go with a balanced or specialised unit and accept the consequences. Look at games like Warmachine or 40K: there's plenty of close combat units that could be slaughtered by ranged combat units of similar point values - but they'll do the same to the ranged combat unit if they get lose. A balanced force will have something to protect the melee/short range units while they close.
That was my point actually. In the extreme example I had with LRM/SRM carriers, if we looked at the BF stats (i.e. the S/M/L/E damage brackets), we would see the imbalance, where you
wouldn't in BV2 if one was unfamiliar with the units in question. A problem I've seen many times, by newish players not getting a grasp on how different weapon systems interact. This isn't
something that is magically going to make new players competent in BattleTech overnight, but it's a quicker and simpler way than have them run the brackets in their head as they're still
trying to learn game mechanics.
As for dealing with the imbalance itself, well that's why we're here. A lot of the talk so far has been about trying to get accurate number(s) on a single unit, and not a lot on what do we do
when there is actual imbalance at the force selection stage, which I think is a problem. And also why I posed those questions up thread, as I'm of the growing opinion that throwing more
units (or tweaking piloting/gunnery skills) at a force imbalance isn't always an elegant or effective solution.
Okay, so using battleforce stats, how do you have the equivalent of "bring 4-6 units, no more than 8000 BV" for organizing a game? I don't honestly know how BF stats work since I've never used or played, hence the question.
Well Peter Smith used the points method from actual BF play, but I wouldn't advocate it, as has been said, it's been based off of BV2. What's being messed around with is using
the actual BF gameplay stats as the force balancer.
At the very least I would use the weight class number, which is a kind of abstract modified weight system, but where a heavy 3025 'Mech could see itself against three points of Elementals,
instead of say a whole star going by unmodified tonnage. Be aware of course that the weight class concept breaks down when you look at Droppers and Warships, but that could be fixed
for those problems (i.e. small craft get size 4, small droppers go 5 to X, etc.). Also, I'd go off of a summary of either the move, firepower, or armor to bounce off of, to handle tech and other discrepancies.
A Basic Form:
Say instead of a heavy lance sized fight in 3025 (approx. 5-6k BV), you'd go with a maximum weight class of 12, and a total firepower (adding up the ranged brackets) of no more than 32.
To clarify a bit on the weight class a bit, each 'Mech weight class is equivalent to one (i.e. lights are class 1 along with PBI's and BA, mediums 2, etc.).
A little more Advanced Form:
Keep the weight class of 12, but let's do a simple composite of guns/armor/speed by adding up the brackets, say I want to take 4 -6R
Warhammers as a baseline:
4 move + 8 total firepower + 11 armor and structure x 4
Warhammers = 92 total stat points. So weight class 12, 92 maximum stat points.
We can get even more involved from there, but that's the gist of it.
