Hover Tank Piloting

[idea weenie]

I'm guessing you've never driven a hovercraft before.

What I'd like to see is the realistic result of a hovercraft firing an AC/20.  Like the 35-ton Saladin

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I suspect it's not actually that exciting- autocannons fire in bursts, not a single, high-velocity shot.  And I'm pretty sure I remember Tech Manual or some other source talking about how much built-in recoil compensation they have.  No, the real interesting thing would be firing a Gauss Rifle or Heavy Gauss Rifle (not that I'm aware of any hovercraft that pack the latter).  A Regulator might perform some interesting maneuvers whenever it fires at a target that's to its side.

[DevianID]

Yeah im fairly convinced that ac20s are recoilless.  The ACs are often mounted far off centerline on mechs and tanks, but I have never heard lore about the arm mounted ac20 wrenching a mech around.  So they would have a big bazooka backblast like recoilless rifles to manage recoil.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I'm not sure that it would be possible to mount such a system on a mech.  Certainly it's not reflected anywhere in the art.  Recoil compensation is probably handled more via muzzle brakes, spring or pneumatic-powered devices inside the autocannon, or simply the mass of the gun itself.

[DevianID]

Some of the art has exhaust ports, but not always, on the big cannons(and missiles sometimes too)--thats where I get the recoilless explanation from.  We see no muzzle breaks or slide mechanisms that would shift the cannon forward and back, they are almost 100% always fixed in place directly to the frame, and I dont think a slide mechanism has ever been noted.  The gun mass is pretty tiny compared to what's coming out, and if the gun mass was so heavy to not be effected by recoil of that scale then the mech would tip over.  Since the mech is balanced, the center of mass is, well, centered, and not where the exterior gun is.

So visually, none of the recommendations other then recoilless-ly venting exhaust gas out would work, and of all the ways to handle recoil for a big gun hanging on the side of a turret, going recoilless is the easier option right?  HV cannons are a weird thing, but their gas is thick enough to make smoke effects behind the unit, not in front of the unit, which is further credence that going recoilless with backblast gas is how the ACs manage recoil, not a front smoke cloud coming out the front of a barrel.

[paladin2019]

Given that "autocannon" is simply the class of ballistic weapons that deal a single instance of damage and aren't another named weapon that does the same, any given example of one can have any flavor of technobabble to explain its damage effect. Recoilless rifle, burst of shells, one big slug^TM, HEP, etc., are all valid as the game doesn't really differentiate.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I'm pretty sure I saw somewhere that the big "barrels" on most mechs are actually just external housing with the actual cannon being smaller.  That's why some mechs have such oversized guns, like the trash cans on Emperor or Koshchei.

[DevianID]

That would be a good thing!  The original 70 ton Thunder art showed the 'cannon' was like 1.5 meters wide!

One thing ive been noticing more recently is just how easy the sideslipping rules are for vet/elite pilots.  We have been doing more vehicles in the campaigns and such, and I like urban maps, so when my phoenix hawk failed a skid roll, he died!  Meanwhile, the vtol and hovers at skill 2 piloting can never fail, as unlike my poor phoenix hawk they dont get a penalty based on how far they go.  Its not often I get Urban + Hovers on the same map as mechs, but the extra piloting really did translate to more maneuverability weaving through buildings.   Now, the Urban scenario was pre-announced, so you knew to bring skill 2 hovers if you wanted to be safe. I still dont recommend upping Hover pilot skill for generic hovers on random terrain, but there is a case for it specifically to overtake mechs on pavement at high speeds, where the sideslip versus skidding difference matters.

[paladin2019]

There's also a point to strategically sideslipping if your CV is at the edge of TMM brackets.

[Prospernia]

I want to slap a NAC/100 on a hover-tank.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Don't you mean that you want to slap lift fans and a cockpit onto a NAC/100?