Am I doing damage value groups wrong?

[GoblynByte]

Help me out, please! I had a discussion at our group that caused me to question how I've been doing something and re-read the section on damage value groups and I might be over thinking it. I thought I had it down, but maybe I've been doing it wrong all this time!

A mech hits with all 6 missiles of a SRM 6. Per the chart, each missile does 2 points of damage with a damage value grouping of 2. So, he rolls for 3 separate hit locations and each of these tree locations will be hit with 2 missiles each causing 2 points of damage. So 3 separate locations will take 4 total points of damage.

Right?

[Liam's Ghost]

While that would speed up play, you'd actually roll six times. The damage value grouping indicates the total damage each separate group would inflict, in this case two points per group (or a single missile per group).

[GoblynByte]

So the cluster group is a function of damage, not number of missiles?

[Liam's Ghost]

Yep.

[GoblynByte]

So, I guess I wasn't doing it terribly wrong. The same amount of damage was being delivered in the end. Just more grouped together than what was intended.

Okay, thank you!!

[Frabby]

I recall that I found the damage clustering in BattleTech unintuitive back when I first started playing tabletop BT... but I grew into it.

[R.Tempest]

 Does this change with a Streak Launcher?

[Sartris]

The only change with streaks is that you always hit with all the missiles

So if you hit with a streak srm 6, you roll six locations and apply two points of damage to each of those locations

[R.Tempest]

Ah. so the Streak only locks on to the target as a whole. not a specific location on the target. Pity.

[Nastyogre]

I think follow the leader LRM's will strike the same location or have some increased chance. Experimental tech.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Follow-the-leader LRMs all hit in the same location, but the penalty to hit is a problem.

Missile clusters get really weird when you use standard or HE rounds in ATMs: you're dealing 5 point damage clusters with missiles who's damage per missile does not divide evenly by five.  Don't think about it too hard.

[Colt Ward]

Yeah . . . ATMs IMO really call for a revision of their damage- ERs act like LRMs while Stds & HE should act like SRMs.  The division of a 2 or 3 damage pt missile between locations is something I never questioned until someone else brought up the different nature on another topic.

To the OP- each single missile hitting a single location is one reason SRMs are considered crit-seekers.

[Col Toda]

The Clan ATM has bigger launcher sizes than the MML but I think not only does damage in groups of 5 but tends to be direct fire only . Like the MML and standard launchers far better because of it .