BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Game Systems => General BattleTech Discussion => Topic started by: Daemion on 21 July 2017, 14:02:31
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So, I've seen a general discontent regarding the space side of BattleTech. Part of the problem is no Mechs on that Battlefield. Or, if they are, they're hampered for seemingly arbitrary reasons.
But, there are other things, I'm sure, that could be done differently to make the space game better. What are they for you?
I, for one, wonder if Volume shouldn't be a consideration in construction and how damage is applied to large vessels like dropships. Think about it. Combat dropships don't have to be giant metal bubbles because they don't have to carry cargo. Cargo vessels do. But, the bigger the shell, the more surface area you have to spread your armor over. Now, considering I'm one who believes in a 'reactron' style of defense for mobile units, I can see the armor faces in the current game being placed by defensive computers in a position to intercept incoming fire effectively. But, what about when the dropper is sitting on the ground as a giant building with armor? You should be able to pick out spots to hit on the thing, right?
It makes sense that if Mechs have crit tables, ships should, too. Or, for that matter, vehicles, but that's pushing the scope of the thread.
So, what else might not work for you, and do you have a vague ideal for how to fix it?
Discuss.
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I'm happy with 99% of the space game, with only two real quibbles:
The first is a lack of readily accessible record sheets. Plenty of WarShips are available if you know where to look, but not so much for DropShips. A few are available(the latest TROs have been great for this), but for many, you have to make them by hand, or use unreliable ones from the old RS: Aero book or the equally old and unreliable HM:A(both were riddled with errors). This lack of sheets is why aero games are so rare even for me, setup is so much work that I might as well say screw it and play a ground game.
Second are fighter squadrons. They've always seemed needlessly complex to me, with my preference being much closer to how Battleforce treats them. The same record sheet issue exists here as well, with every fighter squadron sheet having to be made by hand.
Everything else is just fine, provided nobody asks me to use the Aero Units on Ground Maps rules.
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Two factors for me.
1. Just the way the construction rules are frankly such a mess. I do tend to think many players underestimate how much of an impact the construction rules do have on the actual game rules and how you need to play certain designs.
2. Balance is much trickier in space. A fight that is supposedly balanced can actually be very much out of balance from the get go or become very unbalanced very quickly because of either issue #1 or even just a couple lucky dice rolls in a much more pronounced way than the ground game.
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Yeah construction rules are difficult same with record sheets. Movement and ranges are equally nuts. The few times I've kinda played around with it, I realized Babylon 5 wars was better at the Sim aspect. I do like fighter squads though it is simpler to deal with stats at the same range. Pocket warships are junk though the inner sphere should have been able to make capable frigates rather than deal with upgunned dropships.
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Only humanoid shaped ground units can operate in space as long as they have jump jets. The "Humanoid" requirement seems arbitrary and nonsensical, since vehicular jump jets are a thing, as are quad mechs.
The ruling that DropShips have K-F stuff in them enough to mess with a jump which is why the have to be attached to a collar. It was to prevent people from filling cargo bays full of DropShips bypassing collar limitations. It causes more problems than it fixes, and seems far more abuse-able that the problem it is meant to fix since now you can just interdict anything by docking a DropShip to it.
The Lack of diagrams explaining the different levels, elevations, and altitudes between the hard ground mechs are standing on and open space. A diagram that not only showed the different levels together, but showed their scale in relation to each other, and the interface point between them would be great.
Lack of terrain. Clouds should have some effect, storm patterns, etc. In space nebula, solar flares (they can effect things throughout a system, so I am not talking about right next to the sun), etc.
The utter lack of range diversity in capital scale weaponry. There are only a couple medium range capital weapons and no short range ones until you get to sub-capital. Every warship is a long range combatant, and that is kind of boring.
The limits on the total strength of a weapon bay coupled with bracketing fire making the strongest individual capital weapons suboptimal choices in every case. They are basically fluff pieces taken because they are scary, not because they are effective.
Fighters not paying in tonnage for their structure, unlike literally every other unit type in the game.
Docking collars being so fragile that expending thrust while anything is docked to them has a good chance of destroying them.
The arbitrary things that can't legally be put on a large aerospace unit, like MASH Units or Field Kitchens. I realize they automatically get the number needed for their crew, but it is illegal to put extra on, so you can't make hospital ships and such.
Screen Launchers being able to cover an entire space hex, but nothing else can? No one has made a warhead that shreds an entire space hex at capital missile range? Really? In fact capital weapon selection in general sucks.
Every aerospace unit capable of flying in the atmosphere and in space can land vertically, except aerodyne small craft. Why? They use almost identical construction rules as dropships, they function in almost the same way, excepting a few other minor things, why can't they land like everything else can? Makes no sense to me.
Ground Vehicles with large crew can ignore many multi-target penalties, but warships with hundreds of crew can't?!?! Seriously who thought that was a good idea? Every single capital weapon has it's own gunner, but they suffer penalties for targeting different things on different sides of the ship?
Sub-compact warships are DropShip sized, but can't be made to fly in an atmosphere. The only one we have in cannon is even shaped like DropShips. I've seen some of those DropShips if they can fly in an atmosphere, anything can.
The weight gap between subcompact and full warship. It bothers me.
Almost everything in the often vague and unclear satellite rules. The only part that is completely cut and dry is the design rules for them. Everything else is a mess.
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Oh, where do I begin? You know what, I'll make it simple: everything. Everything about BattleTech's space combat rules are terrible and deserve a complete re-imagining.
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Good comments above gang.
To add, there is also a lack of interesting elements or pizazz to make Aerospace stand out within the universe which seems overly minimized. I did like the short Aerospace story in the rule book but some more strategic thinking and fleshed out concepts need to be put into the universe. Not sure if there is some fear it will take the thunder away from 'Mechs but I don't see it that way. You can have your epic space themes without ruining the story which is what Star Wars does, for the most part, well enough. It's an aesthetic that needs to be promoted along with the other things in the universe. I'm still waiting for an epic fleet engagement as I see a potential with the Snow Ravens to go full Empire mode a-la-Star Wars instead of the Clan Rent-a-Ship service ferrying convenient plot lines across space, time, and story telling.
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Oh, where do I begin? You know what, I'll make it simple: everything. Everything about BattleTech's space combat rules are terrible and deserve a complete re-imagining.
Thresholding is largely fine, and the concept of tracking altitude and velocity isn't inherently bad.
Otherwise I agree wholeheartedly.
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Also the rule that aerospace doesn't make money, so doesn't get dev time. I want that one to chage too :P
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Part of it not making money is because few people enjoy it. If it was more fun, it'd get played more, and thus could attract more attention and money.
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For me it's less a rules thing and more a universe thing. I'm not here for space battles. My interest in aerospace (and artillery and any other ancillary units) only really extends as far as "how does it compliment my giant stompy robot fun?"
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For me it's less a rules thing and more a universe thing. I'm not here for space battles. My interest in aerospace (and artillery and any other ancillary units) only really extends as far as "how does it compliment my giant stompy robot fun?"
That's a good point, and something that makes me grind my teeth whenever a new rule is invented or someone asks for such. The BattleTech rules have bloated from about 12 pages to seven hardcover volumes. There is no focus to the game anymore. I'm hoping the BMM and TRO:SW help fix that.
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my biggest issue is that I LIKED the original aerotech rules where fighters were essentially mechs in space and the ranges ported straight across, it gave all the weapons advantages and disadvantages for instance the IS ppc vs large pulse laser. IE trading range for accuracy. ETC. don't get me wrong something like the battlespace (or modern rules) may be necessary for fleet level engagements but I personally despise how the "squadron" level construction simplification became the default.
I wonder how battletech would fare if "alphastrike" was the default rather than battletech. and that's where IMO aerospace combat more or less jumped the shark.
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For me it's less a rules thing and more a universe thing. I'm not here for space battles. My interest in aerospace (and artillery and any other ancillary units) only really extends as far as "how does it compliment my giant stompy robot fun?"
In Strategic Operations it has rules for using mechs on the hull of a star ship, but they are kind of incomplete and reference a scenario for just such a thing. The scenario doesn't exist anywhere as far as I can tell. I'd love to have a scenario for boarding an enemy ship with mechs.
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Part of it not making money is because few people enjoy it. If it was more fun, it'd get played more, and thus could attract more attention and money.
I wonder. BattleMechs are the point of BattleTech. Never really understood why FASA expanded to Aerotech as well. But perhaps 80s and 90s were strange times... and i do have vague recollection of someone saying FASA had more imagination than business sense.
Anyway. I've never really delved into AT rules but in principle, i really love the concept of vector-based movement. Which isn't in Total Warfare if i recall correctly... And common sense dictates it needs considerable playing area or otherwise units can easily leave the playing area.
Just some thoughts:
I like designing 'Mechs, and to lesser extent vehicles (mostly to complement 'Mechs for roles unsuitable for 'Mechs) but ASFs don't feel fun to create. Not many things to tweak, XLFEs and advanced armors are automatic inclusions once available. There are no real trade-offs, and many weapons lose their identities in compared to when equipped to 'Mechs. Ideal fighter seems to be an OmniFighter with good mobility and brick-like layer of reflective armor, while having enough cooling and weapons to make short work of others who aren't like this (and Omni-capability allows for anti-Reflec configurations). Expand that to all three weight-types and you're set as fighters go. Not very interesting.
I like to think of ASFs as futuristic scifi versions of real fighter planes but the rules don't really allow this. Less focus on internal weapons, more external weapons. Complete overhaul of weapons: Space fighters do not use same weapons as 'Mechs. Ability to build two-seaters for special purposes (second crew being either a gunner or specialist for, say, EWAR). Stuff like that.
Striking balance between simulation and playability is difficult for sure though. Ideally rules should be somewhere in-between, with optional rules for greater simulation, and alternative rule-set like Alpha Strike for simpler system.
For actually to be attractive to casual players, rules probably should be akin to X-wing, or some other quick-playing game. Though perhaps this corresponds more to Alpha Strike than semi-simulationist system BattleTech and AeroTech are.
That's a good point, and something that makes me grind my teeth whenever a new rule is invented or someone asks for such. The BattleTech rules have bloated from about 12 pages to seven hardcover volumes. There is no focus to the game anymore. I'm hoping the BMM and TRO:SW help fix that.
The BMM is a 'Mechs-only compilation of rules. If you want scenarios or vehicles... well. Guess one needs all those seven books then.
It is not really a new edition of BattleTech. Hell, in a way, there has never been a new edition of BattleTech. We're at 1.7 or something like that, if that makes sense.
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Oh, where do I begin? You know what, I'll make it simple: everything. Everything about BattleTech's space combat rules are terrible and deserve a complete re-imagining.
That...Part of it not making money is because few people enjoy it. If it was more fun, it'd get played more, and thus could attract more attention and money.
...and also that.
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Thrust is confusing. Replace it with simple MPs. Terrain. It needs terrain. All air to ground rules need to be eliminated. All craft can use VTOL targeting rules. And Mechs. Needs more Mechs. And tanks and infantry.
Then it will cease being confusing and Battletech players will play it.I wonder. BattleMechs are the point of BattleTech. Never really understood why FASA expanded to Aerotech as well. But perhaps 80s and 90s were strange times... and i do have vague recollection of someone saying FASA had more imagination than business sense.
The same reason they added rules for infantry or fighting in a city. People wanted to be able to do things and the exiating rules couldn't handle it.
Arguably the big mistake was trying to make a fighter sim rather than simplify it to the point of fast VTOLs.
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BattleMechs are the point of BattleTech.
I honestly hate that statement. With a passion. If BattleMechs were the only point of BattleTech it would have been dead to me decades ago. If I couldn't build cities of buildings and castle brians. If I couldn't build tanks and hovercraft and all the other things in BattleTech besides BattleMechs, I wouldn't play it anymore.
The game has soooooooo much more to offer than BattleMechs. It may be all you or even the average player is interested in, but if that is all there was to it, I guarantee you the player base would be even smaller.
Never really understood why FASA expanded to Aerotech as well. But perhaps 80s and 90s were strange times... and i do have vague recollection of someone saying FASA had more imagination than business sense.
Because once they put a unit in the fluff people wanted to use it in the game. The moment someone had the idea of attacking a grounded DropShip, they needed rules for them. Once there were rules for them on the ground someone is gonna ask , "Why can't I just take off?" and the ruleset evolves from there, until you have chased the DropShip all the way back to it's JumpShip and into the system it came from.
Or to put it simply: Mechs weren't enough for people, anymore than veritech fighters would be enough without SDF-1.
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Speaking of Alpha Strike, I feel Aerospace would fit better in that paradigm than in the munchy Aerotech or Battletech nature. Warships are better abstracted than detailed, would make construction easier.
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The rules are broken, and many people don't know how to play it correctly. If Aero got a nice update with some different updated rules and it was played at a con, it would go a long way.
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I think one of the biggest things is the sheer amount of information that has to be carried over between turns. With ground units, you have to remember: your heat. That's basically it. Sometimes critical damage.
For fighters, you have to remember (in atmosphere):
Heat
Velocity last turn to recalculate for this turn
Altitude
Number of hexes traveled in the current direction (for turning)
And that's just the absolute basics in order to figure out what spaces you can enter this turn, before spending thrust (which unlike on the ground, must be spent before maneuvers are attempted, or after all maneuvers have been finished, never in between).
And then you have to do that for every fighter on the field. It's a mind-numbing amount of things to keep track of above and beyond playing the game.
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Then it will cease being confusing and Battletech players will play it.
The same reason they added rules for infantry or fighting in a city. People wanted to be able to do things and the exiating rules couldn't handle it.
Arguably the big mistake was trying to make a fighter sim rather than simplify it to the point of fast VTOLs.
Granted. Expanding the game from mere 'Mech death match to allow proper scenarios makes sense.
But making everything else as complex doesn't really. And hence my statement about BattleMechs being the point of BattleTech.
Or to put it simply: Mechs weren't enough for people, anymore than veritech fighters would be enough without SDF-1.
Yet AeroTech didn't sell enough to keep it a separate game and it was folded into core rules of BT. And it still doesn't get played (that much).
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Yet AeroTech didn't sell enough to keep it a separate game and it was folded into core rules of BT. And it still doesn't get played (that much).
Yep. I can speculate all day as to why that is, but in the end, all it would be would be speculation. My speculation leans towards the aerospace rules being a complexity nightmare rather than "No one want's to play with spaceships because BattleTech is about 'Mechs." I know my group would be excited to play aerospace it it was a lot more streamlined. As it is now I can barely get them to touch it because of all the moving parts. They especially hate that ECM bubbles are the terrain in space, making the terrain change every time anything moves. They don't have a problem with the construction rules, but they hate using larger ships due to number of dice roles they can take.
I know quite a few people who love the fluff behind aerospace stuff in BattleTech. They love the stories and they love space action, so beyond my own likes and dislikes, I strongly suspect it has nothing to do with "BattleTech is for mechs."
Besides, I think it is better rolled into one game than kept separate. I prefer it rolled together. I just want it improved over the mess it is in (and has been in forever) so it isn't a nightmare for people to play.
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Thinking more on this issue, I don't think it's worth CGL's time to fix the aerospace rules. What do BattleTech's spaceships have to offer the wider gaming public over other, better-known space combat games?
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Thinking more on this issue, I don't think it's worth CGL's time to fix the aerospace rules. What do BattleTech's spaceships have to offer the wider gaming public over other, better-known space combat games?
Counterpoint: Since other, better-known space combat games have really taken off with more casual gamers, why shouldn't CGL try to tap that market?
There's definitely opportunity there, it just involves making a game that doesn't involve tracking four separate variables across turns on top of BattleTech's traditional record sheets.
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I have sometimes used grounded dropships in scenarios and in my experience their IS too fragile, their IS points should be capital scale.
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This surpass surprises no one. The vast majority of DropShips are the spacegoing equivalents of a Higgins Boat with token armor and firepower. They're designed to survive in a defended landing zone or push past a fighter screen that has already been disrupted by their own birds or escorts, no more.
Only very recently have designers started building ships that can haul ground forces and survive pitched combat at the same time.
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This surpass surprises no one. The vast majority of DropShips are the spacegoing equivalents of a Higgins Boat with token armor and firepower. They're designed to survive in a defended landing zone or push past a fighter screen that has already been disrupted by their own birds or escorts, no more.
Only very recently have designers started building ships that can haul ground forces and survive pitched combat at the same time.
It is mostly the ratio between armor and structure, it is highly unsatisfactory to have something instantly pop after the armor is gone.
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My reasons for not playing Aerotech:
Star Fleet Battles - Slow, but playable rules.
Full Thrust
Battlefleet Gothic
Babylon 5
Firestorm Armada
Silent Death
Starfire
Starmada
Star Wars Miniatures
These are all well known and played. Except for Star Fleet Battles, they all play well and at a decent pace.
Battletech has what? Mekton, which nobody plays and is out of production.
CAV which is in production (for how long?) but is overly complicated for combat resolution and has a flawed defensive fire rule.
Warbots rules that I have seen NOBODY play at all.
Robotech which may be the closest challenger for mech combat. Never played it as I am invested in Battletech.
So there are NINE other space combat games that I have played instead of Aerotech. Quite simply Aerotech is in an oversaturated market. There are even more space combat games that I have not listed that are at Starship Combat News that I have not even heard of.
Battletech has what? Robotech which was recently reproduced a couple of years ago. Before that there was CAV which died and then came back recently. So basically, there has been no competition against Battletech. Battletech IS the market for mech combat.
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Oh, where do I begin? You know what, I'll make it simple: everything. Everything about BattleTech's space combat rules are terrible and deserve a complete re-imagining.
oh. I came too late. Nothing to add here. And that's considering I *love* the aerospace aspect of BT.
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The biggest problem with revising aero rules is that any changes to stats or sheets is out of the question, since any such changes would leave the game unplayable for a lack of record sheets. What would you do within that caveat?
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The biggest problem with revising aero rules is that any changes to stats or sheets is out of the question, since any such changes would leave the game unplayable for a lack of record sheets. What would you do within that caveat?
If Aerotech is going to be reworked from the ground up, then we might need new record sheets for all aero units anyway.
And reworking from the ground up might be necessary, as Aerotech needs to be better then the competition to gain a market share.
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That equals dead game because let's be honest, what are the odds of getting replacement record sheets in a timely manner?
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That equals dead game because let's be honest, what are the odds of getting replacement record sheets in a timely manner?
Low.
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If they did something like Star Trek Attack Wing, or the Star Wars version, you wouldn't need record sheets. I would be perfectly happy if they made a very simple version of Aerospace stuff, and then moved all the complex stuff into the RPG side of things (while at the same time fixing the things that are just downright broken and/or make little to no sense at all).
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I think record sheets could still be viable. Federation Commander uses very nice laminated sheets for dry erase markers.
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If they did something like Star Trek Attack Wing, or the Star Wars version, you wouldn't need record sheets. I would be perfectly happy if they made a very simple version of Aerospace stuff, and then moved all the complex stuff into the RPG side of things (while at the same time fixing the things that are just downright broken and/or make little to no sense at all).
Never played them but it made me thunk of two of the longer posts on the previous page.
A lot of people imagine Aerotech (for want of a better word) as something it isn't. There was a comment about building frigates instead of DropShip when frigate is a very fluid word outside of specific times and places. Another is the use of asteroids or solar flares as tactical terrain when they really aren't a big deal because AT plays at being hard SiFi. Heck, there is the perennial trying to shoehorn ship classes into a 1944 USN matrix, or whichever ship based game the poster is playing today.
This is not to say AT does it right. But sometimes players need to realise what is rather than try to make it something else.
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But that's the core issue: what is it? BattleTech's spaceships are a hodge-podge with no unifying theme. The whole thing is 30 years of accumulation. Sometimes that results in pearls, but more often all you get is a pile of muck.
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I think record sheets could still be viable. Federation Commander uses very nice laminated sheets for dry erase markers.
Not until they develop a viable system for creating the sheets. This is obviously a much larger roadblock that gets to the core of the IP mess left by FASA, but we still don't have record sheets for units for different sources that are years old (Prototypes, ER 2750, and 3150 immediately come to mind). Whatever the reasons are, we can't count on CGL to deliver record sheets in a timely manner so I can't endorse completely overhauling anything that requires new sheets.
Are there better sheetless options out there? Yes . Are we likely to see TPTB adopt a major overhaul that completely divorces AT from BT? No. BMM avoiding non-mech units opens the door to tweak the rules for other unit types, a la vehicles and infantry from BMR to TW, but until the record sheet logjam (or whatever unknown reason exists for the holdup), asking for any changes is an exercise in futility.
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Just because they haven't done record sheets lately doesn't mean that they can't produce record sheets.
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All speculative. I only know what I see, including TPTB often complaining about the difficulty of making sheets. I'm guessing with prototypes and others that the effort required to produce them isn't worth the time to profit ratio. Whether it's can't or won't we don't have them.
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This entire thread is speculative, is it not? Like I said before, I don't expect CGL to do anything with aerospace beyond detailing a few new units now and then.
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The biggest problem with revising aero rules is that any changes to stats or sheets is out of the question, since any such changes would leave the game unplayable for a lack of record sheets. What would you do within that caveat?
Gordion knot. Cut it.
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Record sheets are only as difficult as the complexity they are made with. If they are to be as specific as BattleTech record sheets with individual damage bubbles, internal components spread between different areas, etc., then they will be difficult to make. If they are made to the level of Alpha Strike, they could be churned out quite quickly.
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Gordion knot. Cut it.
Record sheet availability cuts the knot. And conveniently solves almost all of my issues.
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Record sheet availability cuts the knot. And conveniently solves almost all of my issues.
Design a game that doesn't require the nightmare backend in order to create sheets. Or design a game that doesn't need typical BT sheets. Record sheets is neither the problem nor solution to the OP. The problem of "What aspects of the space rules are a turn-off for players?" isn't the same as "What problems do players who have no problems with the rules." OK, the problem to the latter is RS. RS will solve lack of RS. RS won't solve rules.
Sorry if the disconnect is on my end.
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maybe try sheets that don't need bubbles for every point. Just subtract damage and put the new total there with numbers. If I recall the bubbles were the most difficult part of making the sheets.
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Having record sheets in no way satisfies my issues with the space rules. I can make my own sheets.
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I think things went bad with AT2. It became less AeroTech than AccountingTech for me. Arithmetic isn't an issue, but keeping track of a couple squadrons on a blank map, while the other player(s) do the same... It got old. I liked the squadron rules, but it was still boring by comparison to BattleTech. I think an Alpha Strike version of AT, AeroStrike, perhaps, might work. Forget the thrust versus speed, maybe by eliminating battles outside of atmosphere, and get it to move faster. I want to like the high altitude map and such, but in the end it just muddies things up when trying to have ground and aerospace units in the same battle.
I'd make ground attacks abstract, give fighters a single pool of armor rather than locations, have their Thrust and Overthrust become like 'Mech MPs, forget tracking fuel, and make their weaponry a single dice roll (and another single roll for location against a 'Mech) rather than rolling for each weapon like for 'Mechs (yes, it'd be devastating applying all damage to one 'Mech location, but fighters are supposed to overwhelm 'Mechs in that manner, so I think it'd work; it'd also make fighters fearsome against ground targets). Make their design rules closer to vehicles than to 'Mechs (right now it's sort of an amalgam).
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but in the end it just muddies things up when trying to have ground and aerospace units in the same battle.
That's exactly right. Air interaction around Ground units must be limited as the combat area is way too small for Aerospace dog fights and takes away too much from the activity we want to influence which is the ground combat. We should not think of "winning" in a ground battle with Air Power but supporting the effort or influencing the outcome. This also adds some interesting options or tools for commanders to think a bit three dimensional on how they might want to employ their limited air assets, wager enemy capabilities or counters, and when to actually use it with how things are going at the ground level. Of course, the rules largely don't feel that way and I agree it needs to be thought out and more inline within the scope of influencing the outcome and not slowing down things.
We do have some interesting examples the way modern games like Wargame:Red Dragon or Steel Division do with air interaction on much larger battlefields. The system Eugen set up is pretty neat and not a heavy burden to the players. The airplanes vector from their home edge, go on a "mission", and will vacate the area assuming their "fuel" (really loiter time) runs out or their ordnance is dropped. All the planes fly at the same flight ceiling and do not diverge from this even if the animation looks like it does. That's it. When their use is up the airplanes must leave the battlefield via their home edge.
I like that particular flow as it adds some interesting things with an element of surprise depending on when the "call is made" and whether the enemy will counter with anything. This is not overly burdensome to ground combat but adds more options to influence it. Also, if you have things like AA units, then you do have a chance to "stun" the enemy pilots without necessarily damaging their jets or having to KO the jet completely. Unless you're suicidal with your jets or just unaware what the enemy has generally you will not lose your jets and most of the time they will evac again for some downtime.
A video from Wargame discussing Air mechanics. The video is a bit dry but I mainly posted that so the flow is understood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I99t_dtrsU
I hope this helps in some way. I always envisioned Aerotech around the way a MechBuster would fly and attack that one 'Mech in the enemy back field that is busted up but just shy of being crippled being husbanded by my opponent striking at the right opportunity.
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@Doom & @Dark Jackal...
It sounds like you guys might want to check out the Battlefield Support rules in the BattleMech Manual (which just dropped), it's about the most abstract rules for artillery and air support to date.
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Yeah, the support powers seem neat. Or General Powers, as i like to call them, since they remind me of C&C Generals (wish that game worked on Windows 10).
Short version:
Air strike options (like bombing and strafing)
Air cover options (chance to negates above powers)
Artillery strike (pre-plotted and called)
Minefields (placed before starting the game)
That's not many but should be enough for casual games that want some spicing up.
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But that's the core issue: what is it? BattleTech's spaceships are a hodge-podge with no unifying theme. The whole thing is 30 years of accumulation. Sometimes that results in pearls, but more often all you get is a pile of muck.
Herding cats springs to mind. Look at this thread. Some point to the construction system. Some point to accountant tech even though it is simplified from AT1. Some want Battletech fidelity. There is no central agreement.
Decide what you want the game to look like and everything flows from that. A tactical squad based game like BT? We can do that. A high level fleet scale game with minimal accounting? It is called AlphaStrike but we can tweek it. Conservation of momentum or abstracted MP based movement? Whatever you like.
Maybe it us two or three rulesets we are looking for? But solve that before working out how to build it.
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Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm saying, and why I feel the aerospace aspect of BT needs a ground-up re-imagining. The developers need to figure out how they want space combat to feel and play, and go from there, no matter how many sacred cows are slaughtered in the process.
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Herding cats springs to mind. Look at this thread. Some point to the construction system. Some point to accountant tech even though it is simplified from AT1. Some want Battletech fidelity. There is no central agreement.
Decide what you want the game to look like and everything flows from that. A tactical squad based game like BT? We can do that. A high level fleet scale game with minimal accounting? It is called AlphaStrike but we can tweek it. Conservation of momentum or abstracted MP based movement? Whatever you like.
Maybe it us two or three rulesets we are looking for? But solve that before working out how to build it.
Determining and creating what the fans and the greater market wants will be a lot of work. I expect that many players wish to have the same scalability that we also have with ground combat, and have Mechs integrated at all levels. I also suspect that only simple battles won't be good enough, but that it ends up as a combined arms system that is able to facilitate several types of missions/scenarios: Trails/Duels, Station defense, Invasion escort, Fleet Battles, Boarding actions, etc.
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You make a fun game that people want to play at prices that are reasonable to produce and affordable to buy. That's a lot right there without all the other baggage of this thread. That's what it is, baggage.
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Yeah the construction rules themselves are frankly a mess but it is because of that mess that so many things at the game play level were written the way they were and make it a bit hard to play and enjoy.
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Yeah the construction rules themselves are frankly a mess but it is because of that mess that so many things at the game play level were written the way they were and make it a bit hard to play and enjoy.
And that's because the construction rules were an attempt to codify the "fiat" stats presented in early sources like TR3025, DropShips and JumpShips, and TR2750. They didn't even succeed, which is why TR3057 has two sets of stats for many units.
You make a fun game that people want to play at prices that are reasonable to produce and affordable to buy. That's a lot right there without all the other baggage of this thread. That's what it is, baggage.
Aye, therein lies the rub. It's why I don't think it's worth fixing right now. Fair or not, any new space combat system is going to be compared to games like X-Wing and Star Wars Armada, and BattleTech's spacecraft just don't have anything unique to offer the general gaming market.
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Oh, where do I begin? You know what, I'll make it simple: everything. Everything about BattleTech's space combat rules are terrible and deserve a complete re-imagining.
My hat is in this ring. And when I mean everything, i mean everything down to core game play elements. I want fighter combat to feel like fighters, not lumbering tanks. Realism be tossed to the wayside. The words vector based movement never mentioned ever again.
And yes, the aspect I'm most interested in is aerospace support.
In my dream world, Warships would be abandoned because everyone eventually decides they aren't worth the cost because aerospace fighters are king, tactically and economically. At best, whgat passes for warships would just be lightly armed, or unarmed carriers. A revelation that the entire history of Warship production has been a waste of time and money. Just build more aerospace fighters. And that Dropships, other than those needed to transport ground based forces, fall into the same category. If they arent transporting sizable ground forces, or act5ing as escort carriers, just have aerofighters. The ideal situation is lots of balanced fighter combat so Mech forces are always safe to get to the ground.
Poof. there. Whole annoying categories of rules gone. I personally wont miss those space battles and pretty much all warship or dropship intensive space combat which felt about as deep and fun as simulating projectile vomiting fights in an empty room.
Then start with a base set of rules that dont involve mech style armor tracking, critical charts, ammo, location charts..heck, the most detailed level of rules to even start with at the base Battletech scale would be something just slightly morte detailed than the way aerofighters work in alpha strike. The abstarct radar map should be the default for anything ground based, and maybe parts of space combat as well.
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Warships are cool and good, and that's the biggest part I disagree with of your post. Granted, I think Warships should be common enough that they're not campaign-level assets, and further that conducting orbital bombardment where reliable accuracy can be measured in "merely" multiple mapsheets of drift should make a given Warship hideously vulnerable even to ground fire. Make them the 'Mech or tank to the Aerospace fighter's PBI in space, but only in space.
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I think smartly made vector-movement game could be AeroTech's niche. When it comes to casual systems, it is difficult to compete with X-wing, and if it is a full-blown simulation... Well, not sure the market support such at the moment at all. (Perhaps the market does support different casual systems and settings but not sure i'd bet on that. Of course the thing that attracts me to BT's aerospace section at all is its partial realism, so i'm not willing to give up on all of it.)
Pure fighter focus could work either way. Not really a fan of WarShips, especially if they don't get art that is more reminiscent of TRO 2750 style, ie semi-realistic (fortunately several newer products have gone back to that at times, like Cruiser-class cruiser).
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MY turnoffs to the space rules:
Alpha Strike:
Where the ground battle rules are focused on mass combat, the aerospace rules are focused on the individual unit. I don't mind abstract rules at all, in fact I think that's a viable direction for CBT's future aero direction. However under Alpha Strike's abstact aero rules, every unit must have a relationship to every other unit, which isn't bad in of itself. But for simplicity's sake, those relationships are completely irrelevant to each other. So, in other words, you can't have a wingman protect a buddy. You can't have your fighters all gang up on one injured flank of a warship or dropship. Etc.
Lack of squadron rules! It'd go immensely far in helping address my above concern, and it wouldn't be hard to do. You can port them over almost word for word from the abstract combat rules in IO.
CBT/Boardgame BattleTech:
They're almost as complex as the ground rules, but don't share enough overlap on their venn diagram. It's complex enough to learn the contents of TW & TO. Learning another game entirely is beyond the patience of most casual gamers here for "one game".
Trying to be "realistic" is just a fools errand on so many counts. The ground game's rules entire paradigm just doesn't translate to exoatmospheric combat. You're compressing 3 dimensional combat onto a 2 dimensional play area. The BTU doesn't have the technologies necessary to create swooping, WWII style dogfighting we're so familiar with in our Sci-fi. You'd have to make a complete and hard break from preexisting rules/record sheets and start from scratch to make a playable space battle game comparable to and compatible with the BMM presentation. Or, and my hope is this is what they're gonna do, just embrace the abstract combat model being trailblazed by IO and AS.
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Aye, therein lies the rub. It's why I don't think it's worth fixing right now. Fair or not, any new space combat system is going to be compared to games like X-Wing and Star Wars Armada, and BattleTech's spacecraft just don't have anything unique to offer the general gaming market.
Currently that is true, but I think that there is the potential (in the universe) to offer greater combined arms combat then other space games.
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I'd be fine with a system that relegated warships to mass combat-only units, and outside of mass combat you use primarily aerospace fighters.
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Warships are cool and good, and that's the biggest part I disagree with of your post. Granted, I think Warships should be common enough that they're not campaign-level assets, and further that conducting orbital bombardment where reliable accuracy can be measured in "merely" multiple mapsheets of drift should make a given Warship hideously vulnerable even to ground fire. Make them the 'Mech or tank to the Aerospace fighter's PBI in space, but only in space.
I'm not saying its impossible to ever come up with a set of rules for BT Warships that would be better than what we currently have. But the games focus is ground combat, and I think we can agree the overwhelming majority of Battletech games played are completely ground focused. So, if aerospace rules are going to exist, the parts that need to be there are those that most connected to ground combat: aerospace fighters and transport dropships.
Theres some even arguments that can be made that the very existence of warships makes ground combat seem irrelevant. (And if they don't, why would you build them given their cost and demand on scare resources)? Even with the generous failing to disregard realism, in Battletech technology, eventually the idea of Warships that can target each other at space ranges, but struggle to hit even the general area of a battlefield from uncontested orbit becomes a bit hard to swallow. And if we make Warships, in setting, so rare that this isnt a factor, then why bother with rules for them in the first place.
In the end, it comes down to being worth the trouble. Sadly, there is only so much 'skull sweat' Catalyst has available, only so many resources to allocate. The business case for a creating a quality working detailed rules set for Warships and assault dropships just doesn't seem to exist.
It comes down to capability, resources, the needs of the game/setting, and at the end, what bang for Catalysts buck spent will they get. Dropships to get mechs to the plant are essential. Hard to have mech combat without a way to get mechs on the planet. Fighter craft are a logical second from that in necessity of needed military units. And if that is all a rules redesign team had to worry about, their burden would be greatly reduced. Beyond that, everything else could be written out, completely, with no great harm to the setting or gameplay, and likely not make a noticeable difference in Catalyst's current bottom line.
And starting form that point of easier goals, maybe they could make a faster, easier, more fun aerospace rules set that would easily integrate with Battletech and Alpha Strike. Maybe more players would invest in a few aerospace fighters. And then, as use across the playerbase increased, the Warship/assault dropship could come back again, with a far more compelling argument for their place.
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As far as "skull sweat", it strikes me an Open Beta would pretty efficiently tap the dedicated fans here. Heck, during the last one CGL was even able to charge for the privilege of participating.
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I think this thread illustrates the exact problem with the Aero rules: too want many people want too many things. :))
Personally I want just as many options for Aero as there are for the ground combat. If I just want to play a quick game with 'Mechs, can do so. Or just a few fighter dogfighting in space. Can do that to. Or do a full on division level invasion from jumping in system to mop up operations, I can do that to.
And I'm with Scotty on this. I really like WarShips. Do we really need them? No, but I like what they bring to the table. I like having capital ship fights. I also like that they follow a certain "Hard SciFi" (using that term loosely maybe). I like not having a Star Trek/Star Wars feel. Yes, vector movement is clunky, and no, I'm not sure I understand it completely (mostly because I rarely play any kind of BattleTech these day), but if I wanted airplanes in space I'd play X-Wing.
At the end of the day, I'm not sure what TPTB could do....
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Just talked about this with friends at our weekly BT game, they know a bit more about other space games than.
If you want to make a space combat game somewhat realistic, your going to need vectoring and accounting tech.
If you want a easier game, your going to need to make a who new game like AeroStrike/AeroSpace as suggested and that will require time, money and effort not being spent on other aspects of BT.
Considering the non-battlemech related stuff hasn't been profitable in the past, it would be a huge leap of faith to do this and hope it will not blow up in their face like before.
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*nods* Yeah. Any which way, it's a huge risk, and something tells me CGL is not particularly interested in taking risks right now.
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Yep, its all about return, and truthfully, developing a new set of aerospace rules on the battletech side, even if easier and more enjoyable, might simply not be worth the effort. Fortunately, the Alp[ha Strike side removes a lot of pain, and its relatively simple to implement on the ground side, so for that game, the status quo isn't so bad.
Dont fix what isn't broken is a saying.I figure "Don't spend a lot of time and money you can't afford to fix what isn't essential" has to be related.
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For those who like it? All power to you.
For those that don't? That's up to you, too.
Myself, I have never met enough players that wanted to play to invest the time into learning the rules. It's difficult enough finding players with more than a few unpainted pewters from the early '90s. Finding someone with aerospace fighters that wants to play is way out of left field.
I don't mind it, but using Battletech to play space battles is kind of like going to A&W for the chicken. Battletroops suffered from a similar issue. There's also good reason why almost everyone's RPG campaigns end up being mercenary mechwarrior units.
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And that's just the absolute basics in order to figure out what spaces you can enter this turn, before spending thrust (which unlike on the ground, must be spent before maneuvers are attempted, or after all maneuvers have been finished, never in between).
That bit always boggled my mind. I don't understand why you couldn't apply thrust on-the-fly. If I'm not mistaken, Centurion and Interceptor of Renegade Legion fame never made such a requirement.
And, of course, the only way to track all the information you stated, is on a piece of paper, like a record sheet. Which consumed time.
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Thinking more on this issue, I don't think it's worth CGL's time to fix the aerospace rules. What do BattleTech's spaceships have to offer the wider gaming public over other, better-known space combat games?
Should we look at a 'non-canon' conversion system and send people to a chosen system that fits BT well?
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Should we look at a 'non-canon' conversion system and send people to a chosen system that fits BT well?
I have some notes on using a variation of the Federation Commander system with BT spacecraft, with heat as the limiting factor rather than power. The problem there is that Amarillo Design Bureau is fiercely protective of their IP - understandable, given their legal struggles - and I really don't want to butt heads with them.
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I have some notes on using a variation of the Federation Commander system with BT spacecraft, with heat as the limiting factor rather than power. The problem there is that Amarillo Design Bureau is fiercely protective of their IP - understandable, given their legal struggles - and I really don't want to butt heads with them.
So, it would have to be a fan project.
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I've managed to convert a large number of WarShips(and a fair number of DropShips) to Starmada AE, if anyone plays that. It's roughly on par with ground Alpha Strike in complexity, with the benefit of actual hexed maps.
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So, it would have to be a fan project.
Well, duh. CGL is not going to fund a new game right now. I'll try reaching out to ADB, see what they'd find acceptable, and if they raise a stink I'll do something else.
Because that's the proper way to interact with twitchy IP holders. O0
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Starmada AE
My google fu is failing me, any chance you could share a link please?
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http://www.mj12games.com/starmada/
I play Admiralty Edition exclusively. Nova is more of a big fleets game and sacrifices too much single-ship detail for my tastes. Unity is the most recent edition. It's 95% the same as Admiralty, but if they wanted my money they'd go all the way. I'm not reconverting dozens of ships across several settings just to play something that works essentially the same as what I already have.
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I'm a bit late to the party, but here, in no particular order, are some things that annoy me or suck the fun out of Aero BT games for me:
- The ships we have were designed over such a wide variety or rules that anything bigger than a fighter (and even some fighters) can be wildly inefficient or broken under the current rules.
- Warship and large Dropship recordsheets can be unusable thanks to the insane number and small size of armor bubbles and the amount of equipment that gets crammed into the small box on the left of the sheet. Not to mention the breakdown of facing and capital/non-capital is not at all helpfully displayed.
- In several eras of play Warships are either nonexistent or sufficiently scarce that they don't do much beyond hover over faction capitals. When they do exist, they are so vastly powerful that nothing smaller than them matters much.
- I've never found warship-scale fights to be balanced, especially when including dropships and fighter squadrons, without a variety of advanced rules that add more paperwork. Also, they tend to be murderous and destroy whole battle groups really fast.
- There is no good way to cost fighters in a ground-map fight in terms of force balancing. This goes for AS as well in my opinion.
- Missiles, Cannons, and Lasers don't feel sufficiently distinct in space, especially at sub-capital scales.
- Important factors that you need to be aware of to make tactical choices cannot be easily represented on the unit, the map, or the unit's recordsheet.
- To many of the detailed rules don't actually add anything fun.
- The basic heat rules for firing bays of weapons are annoying. Actually, the heat rules in general are un-interesting.
With regard to Alpha Strike in particular:
- The Radar map, physically speaking, doesn't have enough room for a decent-sized fight. Scotty even brought a blown-up version to Origins, and we STILL ended up pulling several squares worth of units off the map to keep track of things because we couldn't fit them in the physical space.
- I don't like the engagement system. Too binary with limited tactical choices.
- Virtually every engagement occurs at short or extreme range.
- There isn't much room to maneuver on the Radar map. The Capital map is a little better, but thanks to things getting slower further out it is still difficult to any sort of tactical positioning. I guess I though positioning on the game board would matter in Aerospace like it does on the ground, but that is not the case with the rules we have.
I do like the Alpha Strike rules for Aerospace fighters strafing/striking/bombing on the ground map. The Support version of airstrikes in BMM is nice, but the AS rules are pretty easy to deal with and don't involve a ton of corner cases and caveats. Also, I like the IDEA of space battles with fighters, dropships, and even the occasional warship, but not the rules we have to play them.
I've always though there fleet-scale BT might make an interesting card-battle game of some sort.
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http://www.mj12games.com/starmada/
I play Admiralty Edition exclusively. Nova is more of a big fleets game and sacrifices too much single-ship detail for my tastes. Unity is the most recent edition. It's 95% the same as Admiralty, but if they wanted my money they'd go all the way. I'm not reconverting dozens of ships across several settings just to play something that works essentially the same as what I already have.
Thanks, much appreciated.
I've been considering using Travellor (an RPG) and their spaceship rules. It offers full customization but is a lot simpler.
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I'm not saying its impossible to ever come up with a set of rules for BT Warships that would be better than what we currently have. But the games focus is ground combat, and I think we can agree the overwhelming majority of Battletech games played are completely ground focused. So, if aerospace rules are going to exist, the parts that need to be there are those that most connected to ground combat: aerospace fighters and transport dropships.
Theres some even arguments that can be made that the very existence of warships makes ground combat seem irrelevant. (And if they don't, why would you build them given their cost and demand on scare resources)? Even with the generous failing to disregard realism, in Battletech technology, eventually the idea of Warships that can target each other at space ranges, but struggle to hit even the general area of a battlefield from uncontested orbit becomes a bit hard to swallow. And if we make Warships, in setting, so rare that this isnt a factor, then why bother with rules for them in the first place.
In the end, it comes down to being worth the trouble. Sadly, there is only so much 'skull sweat' Catalyst has available, only so many resources to allocate. The business case for a creating a quality working detailed rules set for Warships and assault dropships just doesn't seem to exist.
It comes down to capability, resources, the needs of the game/setting, and at the end, what bang for Catalysts buck spent will they get. Dropships to get mechs to the plant are essential. Hard to have mech combat without a way to get mechs on the planet. Fighter craft are a logical second from that in necessity of needed military units. And if that is all a rules redesign team had to worry about, their burden would be greatly reduced. Beyond that, everything else could be written out, completely, with no great harm to the setting or gameplay, and likely not make a noticeable difference in Catalyst's current bottom line.
And starting form that point of easier goals, maybe they could make a faster, easier, more fun aerospace rules set that would easily integrate with Battletech and Alpha Strike. Maybe more players would invest in a few aerospace fighters. And then, as use across the playerbase increased, the Warship/assault dropship could come back again, with a far more compelling argument for their place.
We have a game system famous for 'Mechs being more effective at punching each other in the face than at shooting each other at any range, where the most consistently lethal anti-'Mech weapon in existence is a mundane basement sublevel, and the part that violates suspension of disbelief is that Warships might have a hard time landing accurate fire on targets from orbit through atmosphere? ???
When it comes right down to it, I daresay that assuming that somebody, somewhere, wouldn't put as many guns on a Jumpship as its possible to put, and then use it to blow up another guy's jumpship is a little bit of a stretch. From there, it similarly follows that genuine Warships would make a return. Preventing an invasion entirely before it even hits the ground is generally pretty well worth exorbitant cost, barring one that is deliberately arbitrarily large.
Remove effective orbital bombardment from the equation (or just make it suicidally risky), and Warships can function effectively as both the first line of defense and also as the tip of the spear in a campaign setting or narrative focus without totally obviating the need for ground troops.
It would also help if the rest of the Aerospace rules were fun, but that's a different horse altogether.
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It would also help if the rest of the Aerospace rules were fun, but that's a different horse altogether.
That. The thing, and the whole of the thing. Between the complex record sheets, the complex and inconsistent construction rules, the need to keep the AT1 aesthetics in a different game system, etc etc etc, I've just found the barriers to entry too high to justify the effort.
W
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The main thing that stops me is time. If I can't spend the time to get my head around the space rules, how can I expect my group to do so? Especially considering they are largely "casual" battletech players and rely on me for miniatures and rules.
I'd rather just devote my limited time to mech combat. Although it has crossed my mind to adapt some simplified air support rules into it, maybe flames of war style, just to wet the feet. Semi off topic, but does that exist somewhere within the existing set of rules? If so, what book should I be reading?
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We have a game system famous for 'Mechs being more effective at punching each other in the face than at shooting each other at any range, where the most consistently lethal anti-'Mech weapon in existence is a mundane basement sublevel, and the part that violates suspension of disbelief is that Warships might have a hard time landing accurate fire on targets from orbit through atmosphere? ???
Theres many factors of disbelief that you have to accept. But with Warships, having the ability to accurately thrusting targets at vast ranges in space (many not bigger than the patch of battlefield that needs to be hit) but being unable to deliver accurate orbital fire support when in a stable orbit and unchallenged is too much. If you cant do that, you can't do the math to get into space. If you can calculate landing windows from orbit, you can figure out how to accurately drop rods from God.
I can buy some degradation of accuracy from distance due to fear the planet might get a close burst nuke on Warships --another reason I think it would just be easier to handwave away Warships--nukes. Nukes are so much cheaper than Warships. Stigma about using nukes doesn't seem to apply to Warships. But if Nuke defense is a common deterrant, why have a warship building program int he first place? Dont send anything with a precious jump engine anywhere near a planet. Let those fighters and dropships handle it.
And if Warships can deliver accurate orbital support, an unchallenged warship is auto victory for most planetary assaults. if they can't, and you really need aerospace fighters to do accurate fire support..then just have aerospace fighters.
Preventing an invasion entirely before it even hits the ground is generally pretty well worth exorbitant cost, barring one that is deliberately arbitrarily large.
And, though accurately expressing a rational desire, the ability of Warships to do this is completely counter to what the setting wants to have happen.
Just toss warships. Its easy to rationalize. Too costly, too easily killed, masses of aerofighters ferried in by carriers who run, instead of fighting do it better. That what the current rules sort of lean to anyway. theres very little reason to have them, very little to gain from it. Stick to the minimums needed, and what is most likely to get played. It would simplify the dleivery of a better Aerospace system if (and thats a big if) there is ever a decision that aerospace is even worth trying to fix in the first place.
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Just toss 'Mechs. It's easy to rationalize. Too expensive, too easily killed, masses of infantry ferried in by transports who run, instead of fighting do it better.
Careful, when you start bringing things that are "realistic" into it, it might be the kind of unit you enjoy using that gets put under the microscope. Especially since we have a fairly significant preponderance of evidence, at least from the 3rd SW, that 'Mechs unchallenged by other 'Mechs is auto-victory for most raids/assaults.
BattleTech's mechanism of space travel ensures that a fleet response can be mustered in mere hours, if approaching by pirate point. The issue with BattleTech's depiction of Warships is that there have only ever been too many, or too few. Too many, and they become pointless background material, useful only for demonstrating unstoppable might (the SLDF). Too few, and they do exactly what you describe, and make orbital superiority an auto-victory. I therefore submit that a significant but not overwhelming number of Warships is necessary. If the invasion of a semi-major planet, supported by a handful of warships, can be defended against by smaller initial handful of warships reinforced a few hours/days later by a greater concentration of warships that prevent orbital supremacy from being achieved...
Well, that sounds remarkably like what happens with 'Mechs on-planet already, and that's neither boring nor purpose defeating.
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Just toss 'Mechs. It's easy to rationalize. Too expensive, too easily killed, masses of infantry ferried in by transports who run, instead of fighting do it better.
If we were talking about a game that is primarily a space combat game, with 1% of the base (or less) being interested in ground battles, I'd completely agree with you.
BattleTech's mechanism of space travel ensures that a fleet response can be mustered in mere hours, if approaching by pirate point. The issue with BattleTech's depiction of Warships is that there have only ever been too many, or too few. Too many, and they become pointless background material, useful only for demonstrating unstoppable might (the SLDF). Too few, and they do exactly what you describe, and make orbital superiority an auto-victory. I therefore submit that a significant but not overwhelming number of Warships is necessary. If the invasion of a semi-major planet, supported by a handful of warships, can be defended against by smaller initial handful of warships reinforced a few hours/days later by a greater concentration of warships that prevent orbital supremacy from being achieved...
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Then mechs become largely irrelevant the moment orbital superiority is achieved if Warships are a common part of even major raids.
Oh well, its probably moot. If any major aerospace revision happens to core battletech rules, I'll be amazed to see it.
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The point I was making is that making warships more common also makes achieving orbital superiority non-trivial. My analogy was carefully formed, since generally speaking once 'Mechs achieve superiority on the ground a battle is also over.
Orbital superiority isn't nearly as easy to achieve as you might think. Without outnumbering the defenders, it's outright impossible in the span of mere hours to decisively intercept and destroy a Warship that does not want to be engaged. As long as that Warship still exists, bombardment can not be attempted, because it leaves the bombarding ship the next best thing to immobile, which will get it killed in short order by ballistic capital missiles of any stripe.
We have canon examples of fleet battles that have lasted weeks before, without even using the massive fleets of the SLDF. The existence of Warships as meaningful presences doesn't immediately reduce the time to achieve orbital superiority to trivial minutes, and further the existence of Warships that can be used as a mobile reserve would pretty much prevent it entirely outside of a very brief window dependent entirely on the initial attacking force - kind of like 'Mech regiments already work.
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If we were talking about a game that is primarily a space combat game, with 1% of the base (or less) being interested in ground battles, I'd completely agree with you.
Please stop the hyperbole, this is a false equivalent and you know it. The Aerospace Combat section of the boards here have 40% the posts and 60% the topics of the Ground Combat section, even if we extrapolate this and cut it in half (or thirds or quarters) we're still much higher than 1%. Remember, your meta is not everybody's meta. And while I agree with you that a reworking of the space rules are unlikely to happen, for those people who are interested or those who would be with a good rework, it remains something many of us think about.
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... where the most consistently lethal anti-'Mech weapon in existence is a mundane basement sublevel, a
And tank ditches are still considered a effective deterrent to modern armor vehicles.
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Short Version:
Even when you get rid of the record keeping, the basic space rules don't create much in the way of varied and interesting fights. The three big failures, to me, are the recordkeeping, a lack of tactical choices, and the somewhat binary feeling of damage when compared to how mechs sort of degrade and get picked apart.
Long Version:
Most recently, I've been trying out some pure space fights in MegaMek to see how much (or little) that helps. It hides pretty much all of the recordkeeping, which is a huge help, but it is a bit buggy and doesn't implement some of the advanced rules that could have a big effect. So, I've mostly been trying out 'vanilla' space combat. At best, it was OK, but not great
Since you can pretty much make an arbitrarily large playing area, I've tried some stuff on 50x50 and some on around 200x200 hex areas. 200x200 did allow for some slightly different tactics, but even with the program keeping track of the data it was SLOOOOOOW and pretty boring. It was just too easy for things to go zooming past each other and spend the next four or five turns getting slowed down, turned around, and headed back towards something useful. More space didn't really make anything more fun. Maybe it would if I could use bearings-only missiles, but I'm worried at that point it would be nothing BUT missile fire until the racks ran dry, which would take even longer.
On the 50x50 map, it was certainly much easier to stay engaged in some fashion or another, but it was still a little...blah. Fighters COULD be useful but really a fighter squadron felt a whole lot like a dropship with only one firing arc. Again, advanced rules and anti-ship missiles might help with this, but I was trying to play vanilla. Didn't help that there was a bug that would cause crashes when a certain fighter in a squadron got hit! Anyway, on the smaller map, with basic rules, the fights were OK, be were pretty much just slugging matches with about the only tactic being to get in someone's rear if you were small and fast, or to roll when your armor got thin on one side. Dropships only got to exist as long as an nearby warship decided to let them, and fighters really needed to be fighting against one of those warship designs that doesn't have any standard-scale weapons...or the be deployed in vast numbers...vast.
Getting rid of the recordkeeping was enough fun that I kept messing with it, but it didn't really grab me. The tactical depth was a bit lacking, and anything short of a warship tended to go from low on armor to being a cloud of vapor in one or two hits. It didn't have that feel of being broken apart piece by piece and worn down like mechs do. Even the Warships , which take longer to chew through their SI, didn't really feel like they were being taken apart. They maybe lost a bay or two and then flamed out entirely. For me, that is the triumvirate of things that space fleet battles are missing: too much recordkeeping, lack of interesting tactical choices, and doesn't have that same feel of bits and pieces being blow off that Mechs do.
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Pretty much agree with Sadlerbw's comments, but I'll add that while the 'Mechs have to-hit modifiers due to speed and maneuverability, the light ASFs really don't have any defense other than to stay out of the firing arcs of anything bigger, or else take evasive maneuvers which hinders you as much as it hinders them.
Tactically, either you move in close, where you may win initiative and get into someone's blind arc or lose initiative and someone else gets to pound on you for free, or else you sit at range and plink until someone rolls a crit that turns it into a one-sided battle. It's just not that interesting compared to the ground fights, and with a lot less viable options.
The range bands in capital ship combat tend to be "all or nothing", so either you can only fire a few extreme-range guns or else you can unleash everything and the kitchen sink. The big capital scale weapons don't serve much of a purpose other than to look scary, because they can't compare to 10-20 'Mech scale weapons bundled into bays. Again, there are no "interesting" choices.
When there's an "obvious answer", it makes for a poor wargame. The ideal game mechanice is where you have a variety of options, each of which may be "better" under one set of conditions but "worse" in others, and nothing that's a clear unconditional "win button". When there's little or no effective difference between those options, where you need to play them quite differently to get the most out of them, then again, it's uninteresting because your choice doesn't matter.
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The focus I am interested in is improving what is essential to the game, and most likely to get more players to use aerospace units: better ground support integration for normal battletech games, aerospace fighter combat in the atmosphere, and space battles, in that order.
Fighters mimicking flying tanks in terms of resolving damage doesn't get my juices flowing. The complexities of the system just don't seem competitive compared to what other modern space fighter games are doing. Its improving the battletech scale that perplexes me, to make it fast enough not to drag things down, not so burdensome as to make players just ignore it entirely, yet somehow still compatible to the ground units they primarily interact with.
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The focus I am interested in is improving what is essential to the game, and most likely to get more players to use aerospace units: better ground support integration for normal battletech games, aerospace fighter combat in the atmosphere, and space battles, in that order.
Fighters mimicking flying tanks in terms of resolving damage doesn't get my juices flowing. The complexities of the system just don't seem competitive compared to what other modern space fighter games are doing. Its improving the battletech scale that perplexes me, to make it fast enough not to drag things down, not so burdensome as to make players just ignore it entirely, yet somehow still compatible to the ground units they primarily interact with.
I haven't played it, but I've heard Aero really shines in Alpha Strike...
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Ground support aero is very nicely integrated into Alpha Strike. Air-to-air combat has some issues. Not insurmountable issues, but still issues.
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RE: record sheets. Maybe update them to look like Alpha Strike cards, or use a Leviathans-style card instead of dots and bubbles? IIRC Leviathans had a nice record card that would still allow for critical hits and damaged equipment and such, but still be manageable.
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RE: record sheets. Maybe update them to look like Alpha Strike cards, or use a Leviathans-style card instead of dots and bubbles? IIRC Leviathans had a nice record card that would still allow for critical hits and damaged equipment and such, but still be manageable.
It might be an idea to have scales. So each type of unit will have a natural scale in which they can be played fully and units that are outside that scale are abstracted.
Scale 1: ASF
Scale 10: DS & ASF squadrons
Scale 100: DS squadrons & WarShips
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It might be an idea to have scales. So each type of unit will have a natural scale in which they can be played fully and units that are outside that scale are abstracted.
Scale 1: ASF
Scale 10: DS & ASF squadrons
Scale 100: DS squadrons & WarShips
Hmm. So treat ASF as weapon attacks at Scale 100?
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Hmm. So treat ASF as weapon attacks at Scale 100?
I am thinking mostly for aimed criticals, in which players must make decisions between getting that critical vs the survival of the ASF squadrons.
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Hmm. So treat ASF as weapon attacks at Scale 100?
The way several modern naval games treat fighter strikes as essentially the same as missile strikes(aside from some minor changes in how they're defended against, CAP, etc)?
That's not a bad idea, especially for something at the level of Capital Alpha Strike, SBF, or higher.
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It might be an idea to have scales. So each type of unit will have a natural scale in which they can be played fully and units that are outside that scale are abstracted.
Scale 1: ASF
Scale 10: DS & ASF squadrons
Scale 100: DS squadrons & WarShips
I realize not everyone agrees, but if something like this was done I would like fighter scale to be based on essentially the old at1 fighter construction and damage charts.
So fighters would have (for instance) nose, cockpit, r and l wings, and fuselage. And use the individual weapon ranges just like battlemechs.
It's not until you go to drop ship (or warship) scales that you use range brackets.
The advantage of this is essentially fighters become mechs in space yes they are shaped differently and move differently but...
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Fighters mimicking flying tanks in terms of resolving damage doesn't get my juices flowing. The complexities of the system just don't seem competitive compared to what other modern space fighter games are doing. Its improving the battletech scale that perplexes me, to make it fast enough not to drag things down, not so burdensome as to make players just ignore it entirely, yet somehow still compatible to the ground units they primarily interact with.
Thinking about it, this is a construction rules issue, a 200-rating fusion engine will propel a 50-ton ASF 50% then it would a 50-ton tank or 'Mech, change that and you probably change everything.
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I realize not everyone agrees, but if something like this was done I would like fighter scale to be based on essentially the old at1 fighter construction and damage charts.
So fighters would have (for instance) nose, cockpit, r and l wings, and fuselage. And use the individual weapon ranges just like battlemechs.
It's not until you go to drop ship (or warship) scales that you use range brackets.
The advantage of this is essentially fighters become mechs in space yes they are shaped differently and move differently but...
Well if thresholding is throw into the bin, then that could be workable.
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License out to make a rules adaptation for warship-scale combat, comparable to Star Trek attack wing or Star Wars Armada.
BT Warships are perfect for this kind of simplistic play in how they are built without any kind of traversing weapons.
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Well if thresholding is throw into the bin, then that could be workable.
the thing is the at1 hit charts had critical effects without thresholds.
The threshold gimmicks was because they discarded the old rules in total.
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I think the Rules for armada are a little bit better then the rules for attack wing. I just don't want a billion of upgrade cards like you can do for both. Try and keep it simple but yet fun.
I would love a full update for Aerotech rules, and I would be first to buy more Aerotech minis. But the rules need a overhaul and promoted better.
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Ok old black naval gamer here with a few points.
Aerotech really is two game scales wrapped up in one game, you heroic dogfight and a ship to ship game.
The atmospheric vs space movement make for two very diffent roles of each aerospace fighters. And that the constriction rules are based on ground units and you get some odd ducks. Then have the base rules rewritten and units get funky.
The ship to ship game was, in my option, started wrong. No clear vision and no good integration with the basic construction rule. So we have been chasing stats that were never really part of ground game and trying to find a role for them.
My solutions are rather like what the new books put out. The current rules are not bad, but many people don't want to play naval games and it leaves any really understanding of how they work rather lacking. I play Attack Vector and it's off shoot SITS, and they are really great space simulators. But really a step to complex for a universe so focused on ground combat. Full thust is another long time favorite but it's to simple in terms of construction to fit into the Battletech universe. But it all leads back to the two games in two different movements. An alphastrike like ship to ship rule and fighter set would be helpful. The uses of high thrust fighters in atmosphere vs turret bricks in space adds more fun as the fighter types are of more use depending on where they used. Also an alphastrike like interaction with ground units might free up some brain space for ground combat but allow for a dog fight over head.
But in the end it's all just my opinion [blank] [blank]
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What are the turnoffs? SImple: I rushed out and bought Battlespace 2. When my room mate and I tried one of the scenarios (the entry of the task force over Huntress, IIRC), we eache fired one salvo at theend of turn 1 and both sides were dead.
It should not take longer to copy off the record sheets than it does to play the game (also my biggest gripe about Alphs Strike, as an aside).
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For me, that is the triumvirate of things that space fleet battles are missing: too much recordkeeping, lack of interesting tactical choices, and doesn't have that same feel of bits and pieces being blow off that Mechs do.
So, instead of a singular structural integrity, multiple locations with their own IS and maybe a corresponding table of items that get lost or damaged? That sounds familiar. I've been wanting something like that for at least dropships and fighters (and tanks on the ground) for a while.
Mechs in space, but with thruster ports for legs instead of actual legs.
Here's an interesting experiment to try: Create a Fighter as a BattleMech and use the Mech sheet to track damage appropriately, and have them fly around, rolling damage using the Mech chart. See what that gives you.
Edit 1:
Pretty much agree with Sadlerbw's comments, but I'll add that while the 'Mechs have to-hit modifiers due to speed and maneuverability, the light ASFs really don't have any defense other than to stay out of the firing arcs of anything bigger, or else take evasive maneuvers which hinders you as much as it hinders them.
Tactically, either you move in close, where you may win initiative and get into someone's blind arc or lose initiative and someone else gets to pound on you for free, or else you sit at range and plink until someone rolls a crit that turns it into a one-sided battle. It's just not that interesting compared to the ground fights, and with a lot less viable options.
This does remind me a lot of the differences in force builds for the X-Wing minis game. The Tie Fighters have to do a lot of arc dodging to survive, and more often than not, will only be effective when getting in a shot where they're not under the other side's guns. Whereas, the Rebel ships are very direct, able to take hits, and willing to face off. That's fine for quick pick-up games, but it doesn't really bring me back unless it's part of a bigger storyline event. One thing I did find interesting was the potential variety of add-on ordinance, and special roles provided by 'key personnel'. I strongly think that objectives for a scenario would go a long way to spicing up X-Wing once you got bored with team A meats team B and Fight!
I, too, have played the vanilla AT2 space game, with a few ASF squadrons intercepting inbound dropships not far from atmosphere. I can't help wonder if having special ordinance wouldn't help spice things up, as well as typical combat scenarios with objectives. That is one thing ground BattleTech does have: various scenarios to choose from. And, players are encouraged to make up some of their own. I like designing the odd base-capture scenario with turrets to destroy and buildings to capture or disable.
The space game already has plenty of potential for extended campaign play.
It might be an idea to have scales. So each type of unit will have a natural scale in which they can be played fully and units that are outside that scale are abstracted.
Scale 1: ASF
Scale 10: DS & ASF squadrons
Scale 100: DS squadrons & WarShips
Hmm. So treat ASF as weapon attacks at Scale 100?
I am thinking mostly for aimed criticals, in which players must make decisions between getting that critical vs the survival of the ASF squadrons.
The way several modern naval games treat fighter strikes as essentially the same as missile strikes(aside from some minor changes in how they're defended against, CAP, etc)?
That's not a bad idea, especially for something at the level of Capital Alpha Strike, SBF, or higher.
I realize not everyone agrees, but if something like this was done I would like fighter scale to be based on essentially the old at1 fighter construction and damage charts.
So fighters would have (for instance) nose, cockpit, r and l wings, and fuselage. And use the individual weapon ranges just like battlemechs.
It's not until you go to drop ship (or warship) scales that you use range brackets.
The advantage of this is essentially fighters become mechs in space yes they are shaped differently and move differently but...
That all sounds awesome. I too wondered why they abandoned the construction style they had from AT1 for the more nebulous feel they had in AT2, regarding fighters.
Personally, Dropships need to be handled differently, and I still think volume and a series of crit tables should be the starting point, there.
Edit 2: This would be a good opportunity, especially at each level, to really focus on craft roles and maybe allow special unit interaction abilities because of that role. There's not a lot of terrain out there, so maybe we bring in ECM and Jamming bubbles breaking line of sight for ranged attacks, and things of that nature. Squadrons of different types can interact to sacrifice a buddy to keep the firepower alive for a turn when a bomber squadron is under attack by a superiority squadron. Squadrons could use friendly, or enemy, ships as terrain to hide from attack from a particular direction.
I'm just tossing out ideas.
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Just repurpose the Leviathans rules and call it a day.
(ok, fine, you'll have to figure out how to shoe-horn fighters in there, but there was some talk of "size zero" units back in the day).
I'm only somewhat joking in this post...
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Oddly enough, the thought did cross my mind at one point ... O:-)
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Just repurpose the Leviathans rules and call it a day.
(ok, fine, you'll have to figure out how to shoe-horn fighters in there, but there was some talk of "size zero" units back in the day).
I'm only somewhat joking in this post...
Isn't that what we got in BattleSpace? Or, is there a significance between those two?
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So, instead of a singular structural integrity, multiple locations with their own IS and maybe a corresponding table of items that get lost or damaged? That sounds familiar. I've been wanting something like that for at least dropships and fighters (and tanks on the ground) for a while.
Mechs in space, but with thruster ports for legs instead of actual legs.
Here's an interesting experiment to try: Create a Fighter as a BattleMech and use the Mech sheet to track damage appropriately, and have them fly around, rolling damage using the Mech chart. See what that gives you.
That's actually very similar to AeroTech 1.
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Isn't that what we got in BattleSpace? Or, is there a significance between those two?
Completely different games. Ben is referring to the alternate-history game that Catalyst published a few years back, not the ancient and clunky Renegade Legion spin-off.
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Aero needs less detail to start being playable, not more.
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Aero needs less detail to start being playable, not more.
I agree completely.
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Ever tried Battleface? It's like playing AS with spaceships, with a proper hex map.
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Ever tried Battleface? It's like playing AS with spaceships, with a proper hex map.
No, got a link?
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See his sig ;-)
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What he said. It's the existing rules in StratOps for using spacecraft at the Battleforce scale. I'm not talking about the stuff with the abstract map, the stuff that uses a standard hex grid.
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Oh. No, they did not seem that interesting when I paged through them.
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Things that annoy me:
* armor limitation based on internal structure
* internal structure limited by thrust
* fixed bay limit of 70 capital points no matter the size of the Warship
* Battlemech scale weapons obviously outdamaging capital scale weapons on a per-ton basis (IIRC this is why Fire Control tonnage was implemented)
* keeping as much detail for fighters, when you are fighting warships. To me if the scale involves warships, then squadron mode should be the default, similar to platoons being the default for infantry when fighting Mechs
* threshold means you will punch through enemy armor in a maximum of 10 hits, instead of threshold being needed for extra crits
* capital armor vs Battlemech weapons should be able to resist/ignore the basic stuff (similar to an assault rifle shooting at a tank) (Imagine fighters having to roll a critical in order to damage Warship grade armor)
* armor alone affects threshold (should be the internal structure)
* weapons have no difference when affecting threshold (to me lasers should have none, while projectile should be far more effective due to the kinetic impact. Missiles are a funny area where solid impacts deliver more damage, while ranged shaped charge warheads are less likely to be shot down)
To hide as much of the accounting as possible, it would have to be done on the design side. You have a warship of X mass giving you Y surface area, and you add several components to it that increase its surface area. based on that resulting surface area, you get Z armor points per ton. Based on the tonnage, you have a certain number of thrust points. (The goal is to avoid obvious break points by implementing equations, instead of charts, though there will be a lot of designs around the X*50,000 tons due to Dropship Docking Point limitations)
The board game itself never sees that though, you just see that your front arc is down to 150 pts of armor, and the other guy is lining up a pair of 80-rated bays to fire at you. You also try to keep the empty armor side away from the other guy's fighters so they don't shoot up your internals (they can't shoot through the armor, so they look for existing holes).
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Completely different games. Ben is referring to the alternate-history game that Catalyst published a few years back, not the ancient and clunky Renegade Legion spin-off.
Crap! I should have known that, because I helped playtest the system. Doh! [facepalm]
Aero needs less detail to start being playable, not more.
In some ways I agree. But, in some ways, I don't. If for no other reason than the RPG level detail we get with standard BattleTech, I want that kind of detail with ships, too. I've even played around with that detail for tanks and crews, or even infantry squads.
There's a storytelling aspect to Battletech that I sometimes want available for the right moment, but don't want to have to resort to RPG stat layouts for that completely. The level of detail in CBT is just about perfect for that.
But, when it comes to larger engagements beyond the 'perspective' character's scope of knowledge, and you want something resolved simply, with some level of tactical choices and BT aesthetic, yeah, you don't need remotely near that level of detail.
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Thought of a couple more things:
- Why do the vast majority of dropships weight 20,000 tons or less? If I'm counting right, the list of ships which weight more than that is: Mammoth, Behemoth, Tiamat, Castrum. That's it. If you can do almost all of what you want with a dropship using only one fifth of the allowed construction mass...something is screwed up with the construction rules. Dropships should end up with a more even distribution across their mass range like Mechs, Combat Vehicles, Fighters, and Warships.
- Unless you use the advanced heat/firing rules, the Suffren is incapable of firing any weapons in its nose arc. What this says to me is that the 'advanced' heat rule should really be the standard one.
- The mixing of levels of detail in the heat/firing rules. Under standard rules, I have to take the heat for an entire arc if I fire any weapons in it. However, I still have to resolve those weapons bay by bay for damage. It is a confusion and annoying way to split up the abstractions.
- The interaction of AMS/Point Defense and Capital Missiles is not all that balanced and somewhat frustrating to use. First, the AMS rules contradict the damage calculations for any other PD weapon, and they also break the heat-by-arc rule, even if you aren't trying to use the advanced rule that would let you do it. Second, the list of weapons you can use for PD is needlessly restricted. You almost never see any of the allowed weapons on a large craft, so it really only works for fighters that happen to have small lasers. Honestly, is there ANY Aerospace unit that mounts Flamers or Clan Micro Pulse Lasers? Also, the allowed weapons are so low damage its tough to get enough together to destroy a single capital missile, let alone a spread of them. Third, you are supposed to put the weapon into PD mode during the end phase of a turn...regardless of whether they are on a fighter or a Warship bay. Finally, I can completely ignore the whole point-defense rules and use targeting capital missiles instead to use my weapons that can deal non-trivial damage to blow them up. That is WAY more effective, except the way the rules read I can only fire at ONE missile per firing arc on a dropship or warship, and if I do, I can't fire at anything else with that arc. Just...why? The capital missiles are the size of aerospace fighters, so just make the targeting capital missiles stuff the standard rule and forget the PD stuff.
I get that missiles can be powerful thanks to the crit chances and occasional nukes...but the rules for point-defense against capital missiles are not very tightly written, have never felt all that balanced to me, and have too many corner cases and quirks that break other rules.
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I really wish that the Aerotech rules would be changed go more with Alpha Strike rules. It is along the same lines.
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I really wish that the Aerotech rules would be changed go more with Alpha Strike rules. It is along the same lines.
(http://media.tumblr.com/1a9af324602a78ea6a54f427b8a9e45f/tumblr_inline_mkqvbbSuVj1qz4rgp.gif)
Ba-ttle-face. Ba-ttle-face. Ba-ttle-face. Ba...
I keep telling folks who want Alpha Strike in spaaaace. It already exists, and has existed since 2011.
Grab a copy of StratOps. Movement is on page 224. Combat is on the very next page, with much of the ground shooting rules also applicable to space shooting. Advanced movement starts on page 277. Advanced shooting starts on page 292. Rules for creating fighter or DropShip squadrons are on page 326. Rules for moving them are on page 279. Rules for shooting with them are on page 295.
You now have the full ruleset you seek. Yes, they're scattered around, but that puts space combat in the exact same boat as ground combat. Go have fun, after bringing me some Excedrin. That wasn't a padded table.
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You do keep telling us. But I read through those rules, and they did not look fun.
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Then perhaps hexed Alpha Space is not for you. Ah well, c'est la delta-v.
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"C'est la Δ-v" is worth quoting somewhere... Exactly where that is, I'm not sure yet, but I have to tip my hat to that... :)
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Feel free to yoink it. If it makes you money, send me minis. :)
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Games are so much easier after you play them...but finding some that know the Aerospace rules that is a lot harder.
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At this point, your only real choice is to be the rules-fluent space player you want to see in this world.
Also, it's really not very complex. The movement system takes getting used to if your mind has been trained by ground movement, but the rest is either extremely simple, or special-case stuff that's rarely used except in special circumstances. For example, I can honestly say I have never performed a K-F jump during a game. Kinda want to someday.
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I read through the battleface rules last night, or at least I think I did. It looks like, in a nutshell, the unit cards and attack system used in Alpha Strike combined with the standard Aerospace hex movement, sans-maneuvers.
I admit, I only skimmed the air-ground interaction, since I was mostly interested in the use for space combat. However, the AS-style unit stats would solve a number of problems, although it looks like I would need to convert any units by hand. I don't like the movement rules any better or worse than I do in total warfare. They are ok, but still a bit lacking in defensive movement.
Overall, I think I would like it better than StratOps if I was playing with big units or lost of units. Im still. It entirely convinced that the base system is good enough to be worth salvaging rather than tossing and staring over, but battleface does look nicer to me.
In another note, are the Aerotech 2 record sheets a ailable for purchase as a PDF? I don't have a hard copy, and don't really want to buy a used one off the internet, but it looks like that product is the only place to get the recordsheets for most of the stuff in TRO:3057.
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Late to this, but here we go.
Oh, where do I begin? You know what, I'll make it simple: everything. Everything about BattleTech's space combat rules are terrible and deserve a complete re-imagining.
For the most point this, I liked and played AeroTech 1 (AT1), and in one campaign we are still using AT1 rules. Every time they tried to fix the game after that in my opinion they made it worse and more complex. With AT1 you had for the most part mechs in space, or close air support if on the ground map. Now you have glass hammers (Warships) that I just did a quick look and every one that I looked at can kill them self with one, or at the most two volleys, now this may be realistic but what fun is it to set up and first turn of combat game over? Dropships are not really any better, and fighters now are fast movers that can not provide close air support.
The biggest problem with revising aero rules is that any changes to stats or sheets is out of the question, since any such changes would leave the game unplayable for a lack of record sheets. What would you do within that caveat?
And how many times have they rendered sheets unusable? AT1 to AeroTech 2 to BattleSpace, when they changed how you calculate the rounding of armor just of the top of my head.
My suggestion would be to try and find a out of print game that had a good rule set and see if you can get the rights to it, something like AOG Babylon 5 Wars that did not die due to lack of interest or playablity but due to losing the license.
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I'm actually something of a fan of aero v aero on the space map, I really quite enjoy working with the thrust and vectors rather than standard MP. What I will say though is that I use MegaMek for this... I can fully see how this is significantly slower and harder to track for a tabletop.
My big gripe has been that spacemap aero is a lot more luck based than a ground fight. Lack of torso twist gives everyone static firing solutions, provided your players are of fairly equivalent skill and forces are balanced, then the fight is decided mainly on the init rolls. I was a big fan of the f100a Riever, but I noticed quickly that if I lost the init I spent the whole turn thinking evasively and often wouldnt fire at all. If I won init then the 100a moved last and somebody died (it's a heck of a craft)
When playing regular aero matches against some of the MMNet 3025 campaign's players we even set up private rules between the players where we agreed to use an init-streak breaking system to smooth this out. (Theres one built into MegaMek though its optional and defaults off. Works as a cumulative init penalty starting after 2 turns with init)
Having played a few guys a dozen times or more we came to the conclusion that it's still pretty random with this houserule in place and it was given as reason-to-avoid-aero by several community members.
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I really wish that the Aerotech rules would be changed go more with Alpha Strike rules. It is along the same lines.
Especially where Dropships and bigger are concerned. It makes perfect sense to just lump bays into damage blocks by location.
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Squadron rules needed some rework.
I guess another big reason for the turn-off is maybe the number of units to have a proper unit.
Lets say a McKenna....1 ship, 6 dropships, and at least 7 squads of fighters. So one ship would be 14 units on one ship. Sometimes its really hard to control more then 4 units during a battle.
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There's no requirement that a Warship go into battle with full hangars and drop collars...
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What I'd like to see would be a note on each bay listing the weakest weapon in it, and for squadrons it would list the weakest weapon in that arc.
For example, a current ASF with a mix of medium and large lasers in one arc might have it listed as 28-8-8, but it would be changed to (5) 28-8-8. This notes that the weakest weapon in the group is the 5 pt medium lasers, it does 28 pts at short range, but only 8 at medium and long ranges.
The minimum damage is used to calculate if the weapons are able to even damage warship grade armor, or just cause a mild heat issue that can be ignored.
So the above fighter might choose to use a different set of bay arrangements:
LW: (5) 10-0-0
Nose: (8) 8-8-8
RW: (5) 10-0-0
A squadron of 6 of those fighters would look like:
LW: (5) 60-0-0
Nose: (8) 48-48-48
RW: (5) 60-0-0
This may look impressive, but note that the lowest damage is still kept. If the Warship had armor capable of ignoring the first 6 pts of standard damage, that means the armor normally ignores all of the weapons fire from the wing mounted weapons, and the nose weapons only do 25% (1-6/8) of their listed damage (or 12 pts of standard damage). The exception to this is if the Aerospace fighters manage to roll a critical for their hit location, in which case the armor provides no damage resistance (but how often do you roll snake eyes for hit locations).
Note that this is armor resisting the damage. If the armor is gone from a section, those weapons will hit with their full strength with every shot, and no need to roll a critical hit to damage the warship.
This is to make fighters have to work to take down Warships, but Warships have to keep their wounded flanks away from those little buzzards. Fighters going after Warships would have heavy weapons in dedicated arcs, but also lighter weapons to exploit holes made.