BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
Catalyst Game Labs => BattleTech Game Rules Questions => Supplementary Rules => Topic started by: monbvol on 13 December 2017, 12:20:33
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I was doing some math to determine what a Property could support in terms of garrisons and found another issue in the salaries between A Time of War page 335 and Campaign Operations page 25.
The Rank modifiers differ between the two.
As an example of what I'm talking about a Regular Mechwarrior with Rank 4 should pull in 2,500 C-bills a month according to A Time of War while Campaign Operations puts the same Mechwarrior pulling in 2,000 C-Bills a month.
So less a question since I know newer takes precedent over older and more of making you all aware that there is yet another disconnect.
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Noted. I'll get some errata rolling.
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Alright, so I think the following tweaks to ATOW p. 335 would finish bringing it into line with CO p. 335:
ATOW p. 335 starts:
"Third, determine the rank multiplier. Divide the amount of Rank Trait Points the character has by 6 if he does not have the Officer Field, and by 3 if he does have the Officer Field."
CO p. 25s table lists it as:
Officer: x1.2
(Rank Trait Points/3)+1, minimum 1
Continuing to change ATOW would require the following minor tweaks:
Third, determine the rank multiplier. Divide the character's amount of Rank Trait Points by 3 and add 1, and multiply the result by 1.2 if an officer.
In the following example, three sentences would be changed:
Jorge is an officer and a company commander (Rank 5), so his Rank Multiplier is (5 / 3 + 1) x 1.2 = 3.2.
His total salary multiplier is 1.00 + 3.2 = 4.2, and so Jorge earns 6,300 C-bills per month, or 57,600 C-bills per year. If he worked for a mercenary company, his salary multiplier would be 4.7, and he would make 7,050 C-bills per month, or 84,600 C-bills per year.
Did I miss anything?
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I was pretty sure that is how the math was supposed to work but the lack of examples in Campaign Operations, especially in the example forces not seeming to take any Rank besides Officer onto account made me not 100% sure and it does raise some questions about if it may cause payrolls to spike a bit fast.
But for now I think that does cover it. If I come across anything else while working on force building for more strategic layers of play from AToW to Battleforce/Campaign Operations I'll be sure to let you know.
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Okay found something new for you guys to sort out related to this.
Mostly a procedural question of what the final intention is supposed to be as far as do you guys want the Rank modifier to salary to allow Enlisted past a certain point to make more than some of the lower Ranked Officers or do you want Officers to be universally paid more than Enlisted.
With the current Rank(minimum+1)/3+1 starting at E8 you can make more money than an O1(3+2/3 versus 3.2+1/3).
If you guys want to ensure Officers always make more I would recommend changing the Campaign Operations divisor to 6. Less work than changing all of AToW's examples and charts and ensures Officers make more in all but the most unfavorable edge cases*.
*AToW's chart tops out at E12 which would net a modifier of 3 under the Rank(minimum 1)/6+1 revision while O1 nets 2.2+2/3.
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Okay Daryk just pointed out that I may be doing the Officer salary adjustment incorrectly. So the above may not be entirely correct.
But that does just make where an Enlisted can start making more money than an Officer shift a bit.
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If you guys want to ensure Officers always make more I would recommend changing the Campaign Operations divisor to 6.
Aren't there real world cases where senior noncoms make more than junior officers?
Less work than changing all of AToW's examples and charts and ensures Officers make more in all but the most unfavorable edge cases*.
My abiding terror is changing Campaign Operations examples and tables, which are much larger and more extant than ATOW's. ;)
This issue's current a live one as some other bugs are being worked out of the CO wages section, so I don't have a definitive answer for this just yet.
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Yes there are cases where Enlisted can make more in real life but Battletech isn't real life. Hence making sure what the intention is.
Plus I've been applying the Officer modifier wrong anyway so dividing by 6 would just even out the pay more than anything else so the jumps are not as big and like I said as far as I can gather from Campaign Operations it would only require changing the one number on the chart on page 25. Whereas changing AToW to be Rank/3 would require more re-writing as it's actually got examples that use Rank to calculate pay.
Still though fair enough not changing the tables and examples any more than you have to for Campaign Operations.
I know a fair number of issues can be ignored by not tracking detailed Rank but it also creates certain logic issues doing so and there will always be nutjobs of fans who'll want to do detailed Rank tracking and making the two mesh will require some work.