Somehow I miss the rapid in those systems.
Why do you use cluster weapons?
afaik to hope for crits or if using the TacOps Crit Rule to sand blast the armor.
so for the second - the sand blast effect - roll cluster table (or use a MarginOfSuccess matrix) - roll 1d6 - if its 1-4 upper location other wise the legs (no head)
- Option 1: Apply damage equal for example 8 hits... 5 hit zones....1 in each arm and 2 in each torso
- Option 2: Apply damage beginning with CT->LT-LA-LT-CT-RT-RA-RT (ok 8 is a bad example but you might got it)
for the crit change statistic:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQdfdkdgh7kr0ggyU1jagdRLqpartMyyXhkAwrv7k2aHl3xZuafuWwASoBL92j-PexGd3B2Q50Esg45/pubhtml?gid=611513549&single=true
If you're talking about the evenly split damage method, there's a naration going on in my head regarding how the damage is applied. A lot of missiles are simply High-Explosive in one fashion or another. It's been stated to be so in many variations of LRM description through the books. Same would go for a stream of shells, or the machine-gun grape-shot that is the LB-X. SRMs are the sole exception where I'd consider a role for location for each. I'd be more willing to consider such a thing for something as overwhelming and evenly distributed as an Artillery or Ortillery or Nutillery blast.
One of the things I failed to mention is that if I did it as I described above, Weapons with certain damage groupings would still count as so many hits to a location, when the overall damage is divided by the grouping size.
So, let's look at an Artillery blast from an Area-Saturation Arrow-IV round. (I believe they still do 20 damage) Instead of rolling for 4 locations for 5-point groupings, you roll one location and calculate damage spread. Say it goes to the right torso.
(Let's face it, some of you roll less than average more often than not, and the damage placement is telling. I have a guy in our group that tends to damage the right side more than not. Also have a guy who happens to damage the left more often than not. :-[ )Anyway. As described above, that's four locations total. Guess what? That's four groups of five applied to the arm, the torso, the center torso, and the leg. If it were the center torso, down the front, that would be five groupings of four.
However, say that was an LB-X 20 cluster. Average cluster roll of 7, resulting in 12 1-point damage groups. Down any side torso, that's 3 points of damage to each location, each point counting as a single hit. That means, any shots that might breach armor will tally toward the number of crit chances to roll for.
Interesting Idea Moment - One of the things that can potentially add to time and dice rolling is multiple chances for critical hits. I wonder if we can't sum that up into a single die roll for each location suffering a crit, with any subsequent potential hits adding a modifier to the die roll, like a +2. Thoughts?
Now, I will admit that this is for a very static style of combat, and I've come to envision Mechs as being far more mobile, and active, in my mind's eye. I even have come to attribute the random hit location roll to active defensive programming by the machine itself, which would explain the high failure rate of weapons that are in all actuality 'point and hit what you're aiming at', like lasers and PPCs.
As such, this system fails to bring into account defensive moves like raising an arm to take a hit that would have struck the head, side torso, or what-have you.
The only way I can think of re-incorporating that without going back into multiple location rolls would be a little more interaction with the defender, and a little more use of the under-utilized piloting skill. An opposed piloting roll allows the controller to use an arm to shield a torso/head location that might be normally hit. With single shot weapons, this is where the random location table comes into effect. But, in cluster shot situations, the arm could double up on damage to take a group of hits off an adjacent torso.
But, honestly, massed pairs of dice (the box o' doom or the fistful of death) has worked well enough for our group that it's staple practice. We even teach beginners to do the same when we have such an occasion.
Still, I'm open to this thought exercise, and gives me some ideas for a Real/ModernTech or AnimeTech BT mod that emulates modern combat aesthetics.