Mobile Structures - Rule discrepency.

[Thunder]

The rules for how to use a Mobile structure, and how to convert a mobile structure are at odds with each other.

In Alpha Strike pg 96 mobile structure segments are described as, "these units are actually treated as multiple, conjoined segments—
each with its own armor, structure, and firepower"

In addition on page 97; "Critical hits that stun or kill a mobile structure’s gunners affect only the weapons in the affected section"

Both rules are based on the premise that each segment of a mobile structure has it's own firepower.

Now the kicker.
pg 103 AS:C; "unlike armor and structure values, weapons are not dispersed by section."


So how is this supposed to work?
First option I have is to change the conversion rules.  Each segment is calculated individually, firing arc for a section is defined by placing the large unit firing arcs diagram over the center of the mobile structures hex footprint.  Hex's within that arc fire in that arc.

Second option is to modify the rules of using them, but instead of having critical hits affect sections, have them affect firing arcs.

Other problems.
What do you do with weapons that really only fire up, like say sub capital laser -3's? (In the center hex, surrounded by hex's of equal level, just to make things complicated.)

[nckestrel]

Yes, that's a problem.
That will take some time to fix.  The conversion rules were changed without changing the gameplay rules.  It will take some time to straighten that out and will require errata.

[nckestrel]

p58, "For units with multiple attacks (such as DropShips
and mobile structures), a Weapon Hit critical will reduce the
damage values at all ranges in a randomly-determined arc by 50
percent (round down, to a minimum of 0)"

[Thunder]

Not really relevant to the current problem of Segments vs Arcs for critical hits and unit degradation as it takes damage;  but,  Pg 58 deals with Aerospace critical effects. (And is copy and pasted in a few other places.)

AS Pg 97, has Mobile Structure critical effects;
"A critical hit to a mobile structure’s weapons will reduce the structure’s overall weapon damage values at all ranges by 1 (including those assigned to special abilities,  such as LRM, SRM, TUR, and so forth)."

Could toss that one on the pile, consolidating rules to simplify things is a good idea.  On other hand having individual sections of a mobile structure (Of which I am currently going for Arcs over segments to minimize record keeping.) lose effectiveness in a less random fashion feels right to me.

The difference is that mobile structures do have segmented structure locations, while say a dropship only has its core structure.  Assigning a random arc to take the critical hit on a dropship makes sense since there is no directionality.


Other maybe problems.  SDS-M stats do not increase point value.  Which might be broken considering the high PV cost of other artillery systems.  (Also, the errata for the ground attack AOE size didn't eliminate the 4" full damage radius after switching from a 6" radius to a 6" template.)

Completely random commentary, There are a fair chunk of rules for Mobile structures, which is odd because they're kind of an edge case unit that won't see much play normally.