Change to Traditional Firing Order?

[Nastyogre]

Traditional Battletech tactics tell us to fire big guns first and little guns and cluster-style weapons last. The reason for this is the "punch-through" capacity of the big weapons. Ac/10's and 20's, PPC's and Large Lasers can make holes in enemies and then the smaller weapons can "crit seek" in the holes made by the big guns.  (Just talking 3025 level tech here but it could apply to level 2 tech) This was the traditional way to fire weapons for years. It works and works well. We have all seen a big gun act as a "can-opener" and watched with glee as the missiles find their way in to strike critical components and blow ammunition bearing units sky high.

If you use the optional rule for modifying crit roll by weapon size. I believe this  fundamentally changes how we want to conduct our firing order. "Sandblasting" style weapons LRMS and SRMS might be better used to degrade various areas of opposing units and then allow the big guns to fire last in the hopes of punching through and using their positive modifiers on the crit roll to do incapacitating damage to the enemy.

I've witnessed this a number of times lately where the big gun punches in cripples an enemy mek because of a +2 or +3 modifier to the roll. This also begs a different role for a number of units. Several units lack real punch despite their size. Perhaps the best example is the Shadow Hawk. It is armed with a number of weapons that lack real hitting power. It does have a number of weapons and does a pretty good job of "sandblasting" a target. (reducing its armor overall without penetrating the armor) It would seem that it is more useful precisely because it distributes damage in this fashion. Pair the Shad with the ubiquitous Griffin or Enforcer and you are no longer hoping for that "Golden BB" to get a tac crit, but you don't much care where the Shad hits the target. A few rounds of fire and most mediums will be in danger of taking a devastating crit in multiple locations.

The traditional method would have you hoping your missile landing where the big gun has opened enemy. The new thinking allows you to not care where either sort of hit lands too much. The "bee-stings" merely need to be numerous and the "sledgehammer" can do its work wherever it happens to land.

Have you all been doing this or have you found the traditional method is still more effective in downing enemies? Is this so obvious that when the rule changed everybody started shooting in a different order? I still see many opponents cutting loose with the punch through weapons first to follow with the clusters.

Is this really a zero sum situation? You are still talking about the same amount of damage in any one spot. Does the increased number of chances at a crit with the cluster weapons counteract the increased chance of a crit from higher damage weapons?

I still think against vehicles cluster weapons are vicious. Vehicles that take large LRM or SRM strikes or fusillade of medium lasers to the side or rear are probably in big trouble. So I think more opportunities for the crit with cluster weapons still tips the scales away from big guns on vees. (Though a PPC to the side of a tank is still a scary thought to most players I'm sure) Also because, most tanks have somewhat more armor per location than meks do and because the lions share of hits on a vee will hit the side the mek is firing from, until you are actually punching the vees armor on the facing side, the traditional firing order is probably more effective.
So my idea for changing  tactics would really apply only to meks.

Thoughts? Fish? Rotten Vegetables?

[Onisuzume]

Perhaps the best example is the Shadow Hawk. It is armed with a number of weapons that lack real hitting power. It does have a number of weapons and does a pretty good job of "sandblasting" a target. (reducing its armor overall without penetrating the armor).

Which is why the Kuritan version is better: LRM-5 and PPC, sandblaster/critseeker and holepuncher.

Thoughts? Fish? Rotten Vegetables?

Neko in a dress.

[bakija]

If you use the optional rule for modifying crit roll by weapon size. I believe this  fundamentally changes how we want to conduct our firing order. "Sandblasting" style weapons LRMS and SRMS might be better used to degrade various areas of opposing units and then allow the big guns to fire last in the hopes of punching through and using their positive modifiers on the crit roll to do incapacitating damage to the enemy.

I don't know that it will actually make that much of a difference--little weapons (i.e. the ones that do 5 points or less per hit; i.e. LRMs/SRMs/LBX Cluster Rounds/forests of MLs) have a 1 less that usual chance of scoring a crit on a hit, which translates to 28% instead of a 42%, which is significant, but still, not that big of a deal given how many small weapons tend to hit when you are using them like this, and the weapons that have an increased bonus for a crit (i.e. 11-20 damage) tend to be pretty few and far between (Gauss/Heavy and Clan ER PPCs/AC20s).

I suspect that in the grand scheme, firing the little guns first followed by the bigger ones might result in a slightly greater number of crits happening with the advanced crit rules, but probably not so many that it'll make that much of a difference, and in the grand scheme, the strength of the "lots of little hits" attacks will still be the increased likelihood (just 'cause you roll lots of dice when you hit someone 16 times for 1 each with an LBX AC20) of rolling "2"s and "12"s on the hit chart.

That being said, if using the advanced crit rules, following a doctrine of "little weapons first, heavy weapons second" is unlikely to work *worse* than the other way around.

[cavingjan]

It will all depend upon what is shooting. An AC20 should probably go last but if it is a AC10 or PPC with an SRM rack, let the SRM go last.
An AC20 will need to have at least 4 SRM missiles hit to compete for better odds.
An AC10 will only need to have 2 SRM missiles hit to compete for better odds.

Odds of an AC20 causing at least 1 crit: 72%
Odds of an AC10\PPC\LL causing at least 1 crit: 42%
Odds of 1 SRM missile causing at least 1 crit: 28%
Odds of 2 SRM missiles causing at least 1 crit: 48%
Odds of 3 SRM missiles causing at least 1 crit: 63%
Odds of 4 SRM missiles causing at least 1 crit: 73%
Odds of 5 SRM missiles causing at least 1 crit: 81%

[bakija]

It will all depend upon what is shooting. An AC20 should probably go last but if it is a AC10 or PPC with an SRM rack, let the SRM go last.
An AC20 will need to have at least 4 SRM missiles hit to compete for better odds.
An AC10 will only need to have 2 SRM missiles hit to compete for better odds.

Odds of an AC20 causing at least 1 crit: 72%
Odds of an AC10\PPC\LL causing at least 1 crit: 42%
Odds of 1 SRM missile causing at least 1 crit: 28%
Odds of 2 SRM missiles causing at least 1 crit: 48%
Odds of 3 SRM missiles causing at least 1 crit: 63%
Odds of 4 SRM missiles causing at least 1 crit: 73%
Odds of 5 SRM missiles causing at least 1 crit: 81%

I'm not, like, a statistical genius or anything, but I'm thinking that these odds are based on "if all those SRM missiles hit the same location". Which isn't likely to happen. So not really much of a comparison--the initial point is that if you can degrade armor all over with lots of little hits, and then bust through with a bigger gun, you have a better chance of a crit overall. I'm not overly convinced that the advantage gained from switching the order of weapons when using the advanced crit table is all that significant, but I can see where it might be.

I'd still be inclined to fire the little weapons second, as busting a hole in someone with a big gun followed up by some SRMs or something often can give you 2 crit rolls instead of 1 (i.e. if you are hitting a location with, say, 9 armor with an SRM and a PPC, if the SRM hits first followed by the PPC, you get one crit roll of 8+; if they hit in the other order, you get two crit rolls of 8+ and 9+), and if you are hitting the same location multiple times, those multiple little weapons provide multiple crit rolls (with, say, 11 armor on a location, getting hit by a PPC and 5xSRMs [by pure absurd chance], if the PPC hits second, you get one crit roll of 8+; if the SRMs hit second, you get 5 crit rolls of 9+).

[Weirdo]

Interestingly enough, I've found that this is often the way you want to go in space combat. Because of thresholding rules, you want to start off with your smaller guns that can still threshold the target, and then follow up with the big hammers to quickly finish off extremely tough internal structure. Your very small guns you still want to fire last, since they won't even threshold a WarShip, and so need to strike internal structure to achieve anything useful. The exception to that is the extremely small stuff that won't even do 2 points capital damage, as those will have their damage rounded down to nothing against structure, and so need to be fired at armor.

Small->smallest->big->very small. Weird, huh?

[Cannon_Fodder]

Our group does: All Energy first, ballistic second, then missiles last. In each group the largest damage weapons first then move down in damage.

[bakija]

Our group does: All Energy first, ballistic second, then missiles last. In each group the largest damage weapons first then move down in damage.

Just, like, as an arbitrary house rule? How come? The rules let you fire in whatever order you'd like.

The point at hand is that if using the advanced crit rules, you might benefit from firing small volley weapons (i.e. guns that do damage in 5 point or smaller chunks) first to remove armor and then fire the big guns second, so as to maximize your crit chances. I don't know that I buy that it is going to be significantly more effective (as the "lots of little hits" going through holes in the armor is still going to give you more crit chances than the secondary big guns), but I can at least see why someone might try it out.

[Cannon_Fodder]

Just, like, as an arbitrary house rule? How come? The rules let you fire in whatever order you'd like.

Yeah, just an arbitrary house rule. It just seams to make sense that the energy would hit first, then ballistics, then missiles being the slowest would hit last. Large damage weapons hitting first to punch holes in the armor then the smaller weapons to exploit those holes is also beneficial for the players for getting crits.

[worktroll]

Nastyogre,

I'll stick with the big-then-small approach, for the following reason. Say you have a 'Mech with 16 points of front CT armour. Say you fire a Gauss Rifle and an SRM-6 at it; they both hit the CT location, and 4 of the SRMs make it.

if you do littles first, you end up reducing the armor from 16 to 14, 12, 10, 8, then -7, with one chance of critical.

If you do bigs first, then you go from 16 to 1, -1, -3, -5, -7 - four chances of critical.

While that's somewhat artificial, it does indicate the trend - the larger number of small hits produce a greater chance of making a critical in a hole made by the bigger weapons.  Yes, when (say) firing ER lasers and LRMs - which produce middle-sized damage groupings - it doesn't tend to matter as much, especially when firing at heavy armour. But as a rule of thumb, big before little tends to pay off.

W.

[Demos]

Ditto.

The small first - big boom later applies only in special circumstances. Like the armor is 20 and you hava a MPL and gauss. Than I'd fire the MPL first, hoping fo a devatating critical, IF the gauss hits the same location.
If the armor is lower or you have more smaller weapons (bunch of ML) than I'd mostly use the "normal" order of fire. Quantity over quality.

[Col. Dash]

Relatively new/old but didnt realize it mattered but now that it is listed hmmmm. We just go from top down in the weapons we are firing on the data sheet.

[bakija]

Y'all seem to be completely glossing over the basis of this thread--use of the advanced crit table, where weapons that do damage in small chunks have a smaller chance of doing crits than weapons that do damage in larger chunks--an SRM only scores a crit on a 9+ (instead of an 8+); a PPC scores a crit on an 8+; an AC20 scores a crit on a 6+.

Again, I don't know that firing the small weapons first to degrade the armor so that the larger weapons can have the better chance of getting a crit is going to outweigh the potential of multiple (albeit cruddier) crit rolls that you can get from firing the small, multiple hit weapons second. But it is at least something to consider.

It just looks like people responding are not noticing this part of the equation.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I don't think that enough people bother playing with that rule for it to matter.  Honestly, I'd only bother playing that way if I was also using the Glancing/Direct Blow rules as well.

And according to the table on page 74 of TacOps, an SRM (damage grouping of 2) still scores a crit on an 8+ (+0 modifier).

[bakija]

I don't think that enough people bother playing with that rule for it to matter.

That certainly may be the case, but the difference is the very basis of this thread.

Honestly, I'd only bother playing that way if I was also using the Glancing/Direct Blow rules as well.

I dunno--of all the TacOps rule, it is kind of one of the easiest and cleanest to use. I've used it a bunch, but don't use it all the time, based on who I end up playing a given game with. It makes bigger guns better at causing crits and little ones (SRMs, MLs, etc.) worse. Which is not a bad direction to tilt things, for my money. As anything that makes Medium Lasers even a little less effective is good for my money :-)

And according to the table on page 74 of TacOps, an SRM (damage grouping of 2) still scores a crit on an 8+ (+0 modifier).

Go look at the chart again. Using the advanced crit chart, you get crits on:

2-8: No crits.
9-10: 1 crit
11-12: 2 crits
13-14: 3 crits
15+: Limb blows off

with the following modifiers:
1-5 Damage: +0
6-10 Damage: +1
11-15 Damage: +2
16-20 Damage: +3
21+ Damage: +4

So a small damage value (i.e. SRM, LRM group, ML, SL, MG, etc.) has a 1 worse than standard chance of a crit (i.e. they only crit on a 9+); a PPC, AC10, LL, etc. has the same chance of getting a crit as under the regular rules (i.e. 8+); a Gauss Rifle, HPPC, or Clan ERPPC has a better than usual chance (i.e. 7+); an AC20 has a significantly better than usual chance (i.e. 6+).

So in the grand scheme of things, the little guns (i.e. SRMs) have about half the chance of causing a crit using the advanced crit rules as with the regular ones (i.e. a 28% chance instead of a 42% chance). Which is why Nastyogre suggests that firing the big guns after the little guns is a good plan.

[Devens]

Our group does: All Energy first, ballistic second, then missiles last.

This is how I do it.  I do it this way because that would be the order of fastest to slowest flight time.  This it would also be the most likely order the weapons should hit.

[Rael]

Sure, if the mechs always fire all their weapons at the same instant, but they could just as easily fire a Gauss first and a battery of medium lasers a second or two after.

[bakija]

This is how I do it.  I do it this way because that would be the order of fastest to slowest flight time.  This it would also be the most likely order the weapons should hit.

Well, sure, except that there are concrete advantages to picking the order of your weapons. Using the regular rules, firing large guns first to make holes and then small guns (SRMs, LBX clusters) to try and get lots of crits is tactically sound. If using the advanced crit rules, you might want to try it in the other order, to take advantage of large guns having better crit numbers.

I mean, I'd never tell you to not arbitrarily pick a firing order if you want to do that, but the game lets you choose the order you think is most advantageous, so you might as well do that.

[cavingjan]

I'm not, like, a statistical genius or anything, but I'm thinking that these odds are based on "if all those SRM missiles hit the same location".

It is based upon hitting the same location. Not much I can do about that without picking specific locations and facings.

[Nastyogre]

Thank you all for the input... hmm. I'm no stat wizard but I think my 'trolling" (which wasn't trolling) for input has brought to light the things I need to consider. I'm going to try and do "the maths."

As I see it comparing the chances of getting a crit with a higher "crit class" of weapon to the chances to dropping a +0 mod weapon.

For this to work I'll have to take into account the chances of "slipping" one in.
I might be able to consider the chances when there is more than one area that the smalls or bigs can penetrate.
Example. An AC 20 will wreck almost any location on any light mech made. (there might be a couple of 35 tonners that can take it to the CT) Compared to an SRM  that AC 20 has a much better chance of scoring a crit than anywhere that little srm 2 can hit. It would take a number of gaps in the armor for that SRM to equal the AC 20's chance of scoring a crit.
That is the most extreme example of course. I'll see what I can figure out and post it. I might post some things AS I work it out to see if any of you who are mathematically inclined can poke holes in my thinking.

[bakija]

Example. An AC 20 will wreck almost any location on any light mech made. (there might be a couple of 35 tonners that can take it to the CT) Compared to an SRM  that AC 20 has a much better chance of scoring a crit than anywhere that little srm 2 can hit. It would take a number of gaps in the armor for that SRM to equal the AC 20's chance of scoring a crit.
That is the most extreme example of course. I'll see what I can figure out and post it. I might post some things AS I work it out to see if any of you who are mathematically inclined can poke holes in my thinking.

I'm pretty sure that someone up above made the salient point of (which I completely agree with):

If you have an AC20, fire the SRMs first to soften the armor so wherever the AC20 hits, it will go through and have a good chance of scoring a crit. Otherwise, you are probably still better off firing the SRMs after the other not AC20 guns.

(and by "SRM", I mean "Weapons that do small hits of which there are probably a lot", i.e. SRMs, LRMs, piles of MLs, LBX cluster munitions, whatever. By "not AC20" guns, I mean PPC/LL/AC10/etc).

As even though the PPCs have a better chance of scoring a crit, the possibility of multiple crit rolls that come from opening holes with PPCs and the like and following up with SRMs probably still outweighs the lower chance of scoring a crit with those guns.

[Nastyogre]

I myself made the point. The question is, where is the break point for firing "small weapons" vs large, larger and largest weapons. No weapon does more than 20 in a single hit does it? Yes HAG's and MRM's but those are cluster weapons broken into smaller groupings. Those are as I defined them "sandblaster" or "crit seeker" weapons.

EDIT: Heavy Gauss Rifle... 25 so its worth looking at the +4 column. Though I generally only play level 1 tech. One more column of data isn't exactly heavy lifting.

Its also situational. Until I do the math (which I am doing right now) my guess is a PPC might be better than an SRM 2 or LRM 10 (each with only two groupings max) but probably not better than an SRM 6. Also the number of places the crit seekers can find and the hole punchers can actually punch comes into play.

It gets pretty complex but I bet I can find a fairly solid break point.

Edit: I should also consider the likelyhood of hitting any given spot considering firing direction. Additionally, crit-seekers provide a variable number of hits. An SRM 2 for example will produce 1 hit 58.3% of the time and 2 hits 41.7 % of the time.
The LRM 10 (an analog of the SRM 2) has a slightly different chance. 16.7% chance to produce 1 hit, 83.3% chance to produce 2 hits. Remember this is number of hits not damage. So the chance to score a given number of hits should also be considered.

Damn I wish I had gone further than college algebra or remembered more of it, I'm sure I could design an equation that would show all this but damn if I could write it.

[bakija]

Its also situational. Until I do the math (which I am doing right now) my guess is a PPC might be better than an SRM 2 or LRM 10 (each with only two groupings max) but probably not better than an SRM 6. Also the number of places the crit seekers can find and the hole punchers can actually punch comes into play.

I think where the issue hinges is, as noted, that a big gun followed by a small gun can result in multiple crit chances where a small gun followed by a big gun generally doesn't. And even with the lower crit chance on the small guns, having those extra rolls are going to be advantageous.

Going back to the basic example of a mech has a location with 9 armor left. If you hit it with an SRM and then a PPC, you get one roll of 8+ for a crit. If you hit in the reverse order (i.e. PPC then SRM), you get 2 crit rolls for 8+ and 9+. If there is exactly 10 armor, yeah, you are better off with SRM and then PPC (as then you get 1 crit roll in either case, and one is at 8+ and the other is at 9+). In reality, most of the time, it will be neither--there will either be too much armor or not enough armor for the firing order to make a significant difference. But in the end, I'd generally tend to err on the side of "more dice rolled for crits" over "fewer, but better die rolls".

[Nastyogre]

You understand correctly, the number of critical rolls decides it.

A location with 9 points of armor receives 1 chance at a critical (disregarding tactical crit rolls) if you shoot SRM, SRM, PPC.
You have the Chance of 2 if you shoot PPC SRM SRM.

It isn't just that simple however. We really need to look more broadly at the idea. We have to consider whether or not the SRMs will hit the location the PPC shoots at. If they don't it doesn't matter one way or the other.
If the SRM's hit two separate locations (which is likely the PPC has two opportunities to strike a degraded location.

I am also considering the "Floating crit rule." It pairs well with the other advanced critical tables.
Even without it, when considering a target with degraded Torso armor the chance for roll of a 2 should not be discounted. Indeed, it makes a difference on whether or not a PPC or a 2 hit weapon (SRM 2, LRM 10) produces a better chance for a critical. Using the Floating Critical rule adds that 2.8% chance to get a critical regardless of armor to every possible location. This makes cluster weapons that much better at producing critical hits.

I know some of you probably think this is statistically irrelevant or that cluster weapons (or fusillades of small weapons) out-weigh larger weapons in all cases. I don't think its true, I'm not sure its statistically relevant. Though looking at the tables I've made it looks like cluster weapons that produce only 2 chances to hit may not be as good as the +1 class of weapons. The +2 and higher class of weapons are probably better at producing crits than the 2 hit weapons. 3 hits seem to be better than everything except a Heavy Gauss.

Figuring in the probabilities of each weapon makes it more interesting. The SRM 2 being much worse at producing 2 hits than the LRM 10 even though each produces a maximum of 2 separate hit locations.

[Jackmc]

How come? The rules let you fire in whatever order you'd like.

Mostly because it's meta-gaming in a game where all weapons fire is supposed to happen simultaneously.  Because of this almost everyone I know who isn't an unrepentant munchkin (not saying it necessarily crosses the line into munchkinism jsut that munchkins do tend to use every tool at their disposal) fires in the order they are listed on the record sheet. 

-Jackmc

[bakija]

Mostly because it's meta-gaming in a game where all weapons fire is supposed to happen simultaneously.  Because of this almost everyone I know who isn't an unrepentant munchkin (not saying it necessarily crosses the line into munchkinism jsut that munchkins do tend to use every tool at their disposal) fires in the order they are listed on the record sheet.

Uh, ok? Axe to grind much?

All weapons fire is not "supposed to happen simultaneously". Weapons fire in the order that you decide that they fire in, specifically (see: TW pg 37 that says "weapons are resolved in the order that the player firing the weapons desires", more or less).

As the order in which you fire your weapons has a not insignificant impact on the outcome of the fire phase, deciding what order to fire your guns in seems just as much an interesting aspect of the decision making process of the game as where you move. I mean, players could just move their units forward at all times to avoid appearing "munchkiny" too. Oh, wait, that would be silly. As is just arbitrarily ordering your weapons fire instead of picking an order that is advantageous for whatever reason.

[bakija]

It isn't just that simple however. We really need to look more broadly at the idea. We have to consider whether or not the SRMs will hit the location the PPC shoots at. If they don't it doesn't matter one way or the other.
If the SRM's hit two separate locations (which is likely the PPC has two opportunities to strike a degraded location.

The problem here is that you are then crossing into "unreasonably difficult math".

All you have to work with, on a practical level is:

-Assume you have 2 weapons hitting the target (the specific example isn't actually that important--just something similar). A PPC (doing 10 damage) and a single SRM (doing 2 damage). Assume that they will both strike the same location. Which is more advantageous? The big one hitting first or the big one hitting second?

As noted, you can come up with examples where either is more advantageous (if there is exactly 10 armor on that location, hitting first with the PPC is better; if there is less than 10 armor on that location, hitting with the PPC first is better; if there is exactly 1 more armor on that location, hitting first with the SRM is better; if there is 2+ more armor on that location, it is irrelevant). But if you start factoring in "well, the SRM probably won't hit the same location as the PPC", it all becomes mostly moot. There are a lot of situations where the order is irrelevant (they have a lot of armor, and there is no situation where the volley is going to bust the armor; they have very little armor left, and most weapons are going to hit internal structure anyway). Where it becomes relevant is in a small window of situations, and you kinda have to assume that weapons will hit the same location to make the argument have any significance.

[Jackmc]

Uh, ok? Axe to grind much?

Nope, just giving another viewpoint in response to your question.  You will specifically note that I never said you were wrong for doing so and even went to far as to say that while I consider it meta-gaming, I do not consider it inherently munchkinish.

All weapons fire is not "supposed to happen simultaneously".

Unfortunately I am not near my core colelction and only have the TW pdf's, but I am pretty sure that the older editions said that every thing happened simultaneously.

-Jackmc

 

[Nastyogre]

The VERY old versions of the rules explained that a game turn was representative of a specific period of time.  I want to say it was a minute. Thus it was easily long enough for lasers and AC/s to cut loose and for missiles to fire afterwards and "crit seek" all during the same game turn. Or the reverse.  Especially considering the rather short range all of the weapons have in the game. All units DO fire simultaneously, all weapons do not. Its the way the game works.

Arguing over the "reality" of the rules is pointless. Its not relevant to the topic of the post, indeed it distracts from the post.
As the OP please stick to the topic, its not an easy one to discuss. If you all want to talk about whether or not this is all "munchkinism" I frankly don't care. The game works in the way it works. Start your own thread.  Thank you to those who have kept the discussion on topic.

I play Btech in a fairly competitive environment. Figuring this out might help me, it might help you too. (if you use these rules of course, if you never do then it doesn't matter at all) While I might agree that playing with a "pure probability" approach might be less than enjoyable. In cases where shooting my AC 20 Last nearly triples my chances of a critical hit? I think I would be stupid not to take that into consideration.

[Jackmc]

Its not relevant to the topic of the post, indeed it distracts from the post.

LOL, you expect to stay on-topic on CBT.com?  For real???  That's like setting a bunch of ADHD's in front of a strobe and then expecting them to conduct a 7 hours discourse on the merits of iambic pentameter.

drift happens...



-Jackmc