Author Topic: Revised & New Munitions for Autocannons  (Read 1892 times)

Retry

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Revised & New Munitions for Autocannons
« on: 08 October 2019, 16:41:03 »
This just a rough draft of changes to be made to Autocannon ammunition, to make the standard autocannons, light autocannons, and Protomech autocannons more useful.  The alternative ammunition can also be used in Universal Autocannons: https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=66957.0

Theoretically, one of the advantages standard autocannons is its ammunition versatility.  In practice, it falls far, far short.  The only Niche ammo types I've seen others use are Flak (and usually just for AA Mechs/Tanks), Flechettes (If there's infantry or the vehicle has a cavernous ammo bay), and Precision (Again, if there's room for it).

Note: These changes were drafted using the following general changes to the regular Autocannons in mind: Heat of AC/2 reduced to 0, Minimum range of AC/2 and AC/5 reduced to 0, Ammo load of autocannons increased to 60/24/12/6.  If there's seemingly funky numbers that result from the revisions, it's probably because I was using that as the baseline and not the canon stat values.

Code: [Select]
AUTOCANNON
Ammunition Revisions:

In general, Autocannon Ammunition can be allocated in half-ton or even quarter-ton allotments.

Precision: Now provides a flat -1 to-hit bonus (instead of reducing target movement modifiers by up to -2).  Reduces the
 ammunition load to 2/3rds

Armor-Piercing: Has +1 malus to-hit.  Increases Autocannon damage by +1/+2/+2/+5.  In addition, has an additional
chance for a critical hit.  Reduces the ammunition load to 2/3rds

Caseless:Can be used with regular autocannons.  Caseless doubles the ammunition load, but lacking a case to help eject
heat from the Battlemech results in an increase in heat production when using an AC2/5/10/20 by 1/1/2/3.  Does not
jam on a 2.

Incendiary: Technically an autocannon round with an inferno-equipped tip.  Incendiary rounds reduce the damage of
autocannons by -1/-2/-3/-5, but apply an “inferno” effect as if the target was hit by 1/2/3/5 inferno SRMs.  However,
Incendiary ammo can also go up in flames due to excess heat and follow the Inferno SRM rules as such.

New Ammunition:

Smoke: Aims at a hex instead of a unit.  Fills the hit hex with heavy smoke with height 2 for a length of time equal to
half the damage value of the autocannon (rounded up).

Hypevelocity: Derived and improved from the failed “Hypervelocity Autocannon”.  At the cost of a +4 minimum range
and +1/+1/+2/+3 heat production for the AC2/5/10/20, augments the range brackets of AC2 by +3/6/9, the AC/5 and
AC/10 by +2/4/6, and the AC/20 by +1/2/3.  Reduces the ammunition load to 5/6ths

Anti-Structure: Actually a highly modified High Explosive Squash Head, Anti-Structure fires ammunition with a +1 malus
to-hit but deal 1.5 times more damage to regular and mobile structures, as well as Small Craft and Dropships (fractions
round up).  Uniquely, the Anti-Structure round has the Explosive damage type, not Ballistic.
My reasonings for the changes were as follows:

Precision: Intended to be 1 of 2 "premium" ammunition for the autocannon.  A flat to-hit bonus is easier to remember than it is now, and I was also planning on reigning in the Pulse Laser bonus in a different update, so that -2 had to go (as much as I like it...).  There's more ammo to compensate for the weaker bonus though.

Armor-Piercing: Intended to be 1 of 2 "premium" ammunition for the autocannon.  The canonical AP ammo compares extremely poorly to Tandem-Charge SRMs.  I addressed that by adding a more-direct damage bonus so even if you don't get the crit you still benefit from hitting with them, mostly useful against slow-plodding Assaults than a swift jumping Light (in which case you probably want Precision).  Essentially, the damage boost becomes the primary purpose of AP, while the additional crit chance becomes a bonus.  AC/10 in particular becomes a head-capper with the bonus.

Caseless: Canonical caseless ammo can't be used alongside other ammo, which is the opposite of versatile.  It also jams.  Not only do autocannons not need yet another excuse to be put back on the shelf, really any weapon that fails catastrophically 3% of the time on pulling the trigger really should not be put on the field in the first place.  The obvious solution is to remove both those constraints.  In exchange, Caseless ammo gets a more realistic and manageable drawback in extra heat production, since there's no hot casing to eject with caseless ammo.

Incendiary: The canonical Incendiary ammo from the Fed Suns Field Manual is lame.  It's fluffed as having an inferno warhead but all it does is give a bit more damage against infantry and help light trees on fire (and not as well as an actual inferno SRM).  The revised Incendiary actually acts like an "Autocannon Inferno", reducing damage a bit but having a bit of an unpleasant heat-adding effect for 'Mechs.

Smoke: Has real-world precedent, and I find it useful in TW-style games.  A perfect example of "low-hanging fruit".

Hyper-Velocity: A way to salvage the Hyper-Velocity Autocannon project, which is otherwise a dud (to put it nicely).  Adds a nice, simple, potent range boost when needed, at the cost of some ammo and heat from the extra propellant.

Anti-Structure: There was not really a need for this, I just thought it could be cool to have a HESH-style bunker killer in the Autocannon's repertoire.
« Last Edit: 10 October 2019, 18:47:26 by Retry »

Hptm. Streiger

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Re: Revised & New Munitions for Autocannons
« Reply #1 on: 10 October 2019, 10:58:32 »
As a side note because I did stumble about it in the lore of the Demolisher. And with some caveats those have potential

Binary Propellant - you have two agents that are not explosive for themselves and only get mixed in the chamber. It also allows your gun to "dial the pain" more propellant faster bullets and more bang. 
When you consider modern bullets, for example, FAPDS without explosives you are safe for ammunition explosion - no boom for crit or heat and  of course that ammunition is caseless as well.
So the advantages are nonexplosive ammunition, configurable damage and range, more ammunition per ton
And the drawbacks?
Heat lots of heat because no casing = no heatsink -> the Demolishers AC20 is known for the extensive heat - so we can be sure that a single binary propellant full-powered AC20 might deal 10-12 heat per shot - of course, the chamber is more complex so failure could be possible - turning the gun into a bomb. This might be ok for a tank when your crew can clear the chamber manually but on a Mech... not so great.  Maybe thats the reason the ChemSet is only used on combat vehicles never on Mechs (if the lore says otherwise the lore is wrong)

Daryk

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Re: Revised & New Munitions for Autocannons
« Reply #2 on: 10 October 2019, 18:29:48 »
Word wrap doesn't work in code tags... could you please insert some hard returns?

Retry

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Re: Revised & New Munitions for Autocannons
« Reply #3 on: 10 October 2019, 18:53:50 »
Word wrap doesn't work in code tags... could you please insert some hard returns?
Done.

Daryk

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Re: Revised & New Munitions for Autocannons
« Reply #4 on: 11 October 2019, 03:16:25 »
Cool, thanks!  :thumbsup:

 

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