Errata Discussion Thread - Questions HERE, not in Errata Threads

[worktroll]

28 RL-10s in a platoon. 14 SRM-2s. 7 SRM-6s (better!) 9 LRM-5s, 3 LRM-15s, or 2 LRM-20s. Yup, they're good ;)

5 IS MLs. One IS ERLL, LPL or PPC. Hmmm, the heavier energy option isn't actually bad.

Would Clan Field Gun platoons get benefit of DHS for cERMLs, cLPLs, etc?

[HABeas2]

Nope. Way I figure it, they'd all have to follow the "vehicle rules" for weaponry. So, if you want a Towed ER Medium Laser, each gun is 6.1 tons; 1 for the gun, 5 for the sinks, plus .1 tons for the power capacitor. That's one towed laser per 7-man squad, or 4 lasers per platoon.

For the LRM-20, the real sickness is apparent between Clan and IS. 10 tons for launcher, plus 1 ton of ammo for an IS launcher -> 2 LRM-20s per 28-man platoon. 5 tons for Clan LRM-20, plus 1 ton of ammo, gets us 3 launchers per 25-man Clan platoon.

An ER PPC? 7 tons + 15 tons for sinks + 0.7 tons for capacitors = 22.7 tons per gun. An IS platoon can drag only one along. Clan version is only 1.1 tons lighter for the same number of weapons per platoon.

- Herb

[pheonixstorm]

W/o looking up the rules, isn't there a minimum crew number for the smaller weapons (besides one)? Love the idea and wish i would have brought it up in the forums much much earlier (thank you whoever asked Herb about it!).

Hope you guys decide to add this. Or at least the missile varieties. Energy would be nice too but might be more of a bother.

[Weirdo]

Energy weapons seems like a stretch to me(you'd need a generator as well as feed those capacitors), but missiles would be nice. Given that such weapons are only available to motor or mech troops, they'd essentially be Katyusha batteries.

I'd request that 'Mech Mortars be added to that list as well. >:D

[Sartris]

Give me star of clan platoons with three streak LRM-15s per point.

An IS platoon with seven SSRM-4s using hidden units would also be suitable to my needs.

[Paul]

why can it not cover energy weapons and missile weapons as well?

Missile weapons: fine, though get ready for some truly heinous firepower. You thought LRM carriers were bad? Clan platoons can wield 4 LRM-20s. Or 1 SRM4 for every 2 troopers. That's literally 48 SRMs every turn. From 1 platoon. "Forever".
IS, you could take 30 man platoons and hand each one a RL-15. 450 damage potential, once. Talk about an anti-Mech claymore.


Energy weapons: no ****** way. It's bad enough we let people use them with just an ICE engine as the generator. Energy weapons ought to be fusion-engine only. Failing that, they should still be out of reach for infantry.

Heck, I think it's too generous for infantry to get the same accuracy out of field guns, without them having to pay for the targeting and tracking gear vehicles and Mechs have.

Paul

[pheonixstorm]

As much as I would love to see where this goes let us not forget what THREAD we are in. Don't you think we should move these past few posts over to general discussion or the developer forum?

[Xotl]

Fair point, pheonixstorm, but in this case, since there's not really a proper place for new rules (since Catalyst doesn't accept external suggestions), and because any change along the lines proposed would have to be implemented as errata, I'm okay with it being here.

But thanks for trying to keep things tidy.  It's appreciated.

[Scotty]

I think energy weapons are fine.  Heat sinks make them significantly less efficient than ballistic guns, arguably to the point that they're actually balanced with each other.

Missiles, I think, need some help getting back down to normal power.  Either a minimum crew requirement, or require heat sinks as well.  Clan LRMs are scary, but when you need 12 tons to field one and at most two hits of any size disable the second launcher on a point, it's a bit more reasonable.

[BirdofPrey]

This may or may not be errata; it was proposed to me outside of forum channels, but it does have me thinking:

Field Guns. At present, they cover ballistic, direct-fire weapons only. But, considering the only requirement is the tonnage for the gun and ammo, and the requisite number of people to fire said monstrosity (equal to the gun's weight), why can it not cover energy weapons and missile weapons as well? The essential rules would work like those for handheld weapons: Energy guns need to add the tonnage of their requisite single-type sinks, plus perhaps energy capacitors to reflect their battlefield batteries, to the total weight, while missiles just use the same weapon tonnage + ammo tonnage rules mechanic as their ballistic versions? Would also include the likes of rocket launchers and Mech mortars, of course.

Anyway, tossing it in as a thought grenade.

- Herb

Funny you should mention that.
I asked about that when Wars of Reaving was announced (there's a line that one of the iATM ammo types disable DE field guns), and was told by YOU it was for just in case purposes.

I could go for non-ballistic field guns.  Energy seems fine, the smaller lasers tend to have better damage:mass ratio after the heatsinks and power amplifiers, but the more damaging ones, owing to heat generation, come out worse than ballistics, so it seems reasonable, though part of me wonders what's generating the power (even with power amplifiers, it seems odd for a jeep to be able to drive a PPC)

Missiles kinda scare me.

I'd assume you can't round the 0.x tons from power amplifiers for crew purposes (eg. have 4 of those 6.1 ton lasers run by a 25 man platoon)

[wantec]

Energy weapons seems like a stretch to me(you'd need a generator as well as feed those capacitors), but missiles would be nice. Given that such weapons are only available to motor or mech troops, they'd essentially be Katyusha batteries.

I'd request that 'Mech Mortars be added to that list as well. >:D

Maybe give the energy weapons larger capacitors (to represent battery packs) and give them a limited number of shots (like BA energy weapons or infantry laser weapons).

[wantec]

Clarification on a recent Errata in the TacOps thread:

Ejection and Abandoning Units (p. 197)
Under "'Mechs", second paragraph (first on the page), second sentence

If the auto-eject function is operational, the pilot will automatically eject at the end of any Phase in which an ammo explosion takes place (the pilot still receives the automatic 2 Damage Points for the ammo explosion; see Ammunition, p. 125, TW).
Change to:
If the auto-eject function is operational and an ammo explosion occurs, the pilot will automatically eject before damage to the 'Mech is resolved (though the pilot still takes 2 points of damage due to ammo explosion feedback; see Ammunition, p. 125, TW).

Just to clarify, if there's multiple explodie things (Gauss, improved Heavy Lasers, ammo, etc) in a single location and one of them is hit, the resulting feedback sets off the autoeject, but the pilot still takes 2 pilot hits. Since this happens before the damage is resolved, if the damage from the first explosion sets off a second explosion, the pilot won't suffer any feedback from the second explosion b/c he's already ejected. Correct?

[Xotl]

That is correct.  Based on this revised timing, ejection will rescue the pilot from the feedback effect from secondary explosions.

[pheonixstorm]

Ok, so heres my take on all things Field Gun/Artillery

First, the rules for a proper Transport Bay might need to be clarified.

Second, for all those who think Missile field guns are OP think again. First you have to deal with minimum ranges for IS gear and the fact that an LRM 20 (IS) only gets 6 shots per ton of ammo. Can you really say that is more powerful than an LRM Carrier? The limit is the ammo for any field gun. 1 ton does not go very far at all. So an IS LRM 20 infantry platoon can only field 2 LRM 20s with 2 tons of ammo. 6 rounds of combat compared to 3LRM 20s and 4 tons of ammo (8 combat rounds). Add to that fact on how easy infantry are to kill. SRMs on the other hand have a longer fighting life due to larger ammo loads, but even then... Infantry die quickly.

While rocket launchers may have no minimum range they do have penalties for their cluster roll IIRC. Not sure if they have a penalty for their to-hit (too lazy to look it up). Considering the balance issues I would not allow any one shot wonders. The other issues we all know of for Field Guns though are plain. Move or shoot? This alone limits their use to defensive roles or as hidden units. Once you shoot though... it won't be long before they are dead from artillery or long range fire. So with the exception or Rocket infantry (OP but would be sooo cool to play with) they might not get the chance to use up much of their ammo before getting killed off.

[A. Lurker]

Well, there is a minimum crew requirement for field gunners already, albeit a low one; you need at least two troopers per "gun". That ought to at least prevent the Clan LRM 5 Point from becoming quite the nightmare it would otherwise be...

[NeonKnight]

My thoughts on Field Guns.

First, based on Construction rules (page 310 and Page 311, Tactical Operations), ammo says minimum two tons. Sure for LRM's and what not, that means way more shots, but also means a lot more tonnage to carry around per launcher.

Second, Field guns require the designation of facing as per the rules for Field Guns page 311, so I am assuming all field guns must face the same direction.

And, that is all.

[Liam's Ghost]

Energy weapons: no ****** way. It's bad enough we let people use them with just an ICE engine as the generator. Energy weapons ought to be fusion-engine only. Failing that, they should still be out of reach for infantry.

I would point out than any size of fusion engine can provide power to as many energy weapons as can be fit on a chassis, and the smallest standard fusion engine weighs less than almost all energy weapons. With that in mind I could see requiring a one ton power source to be included in addition to heat sinks for an energy field gun.

This of course ignores battle armor scale energy weapons, which do run off of battery power and get as big as medium vsp lasers. At the very least I could see those re-purposed as conventional infantry field guns.

Also BA tube artillery. I would squee at a high enough pitch to break all of the glass in this house if we got BA tube artillery re-purposed as light infantry artillery.  Something for a small squad to cart around.

[pheonixstorm]

First, based on Construction rules (page 310 and Page 311, Tactical Operations), ammo says minimum two tons.

Incorrect per 3.4 errata

The platoon receives 1 ton of ammunition per field gun it possesses; each ton may be of a varying type. Ammunition expenditure must be tracked, but only at the platoon level; ammunition is not assigned to any specific gun or squad, and isn’t reduced by personnel loss.

Granted that is for autocannons but should (mostly) hold true for other types.

As for an energy source, I would suggest half ton or full ton fusion generator per weapon. There are/were portable fusion generators listed as equipment in one of the old books. Not sure if it still available though. That way it is tied into each weapon instead of 1 for all weapons (much like heat sinks or ammo are per weapon).

[NeonKnight]

Ahh...color me wrong then...

Still, i will stand by all weapons need to follow same facing.

[Scotty]

Also BA tube artillery. I would squee at a high enough pitch to break all of the glass in this house if we got BA tube artillery re-purposed as light infantry artillery.  Something for a small squad to cart around.

Somewhere, Weirdo just began salivating and does not know why.

[Draco]

Never had a problem with the idea of missile field guns, with the exception that crew requirements get to be really low for SRMs and non-ATM clan launchers. I figured doubling the crew requirements would help reduce the missile spam, and it can be justified in game by saying the extra crew are needed to load all those tubes.

[worktroll]

Thing is, a ballistic fieldgun isn't using hand-loading - it's almost certainly firing from a fixed ammo bin or clip. Otherwise one would be able to posit an ammo carrier alongside a fieldgun giving it greater endurance.

(firstly, they're called autocannons, which really tilts strongly at automatic loading. Secondly, they're the same weapons as 'Mech mounted, and I'm pretty sure 'Mech-mounted autocannons don't get loaded manually. Lastly, although there's no canon on autocannon calibre, there's the whole "large bore firing slowly, or small bore firing hordes", both of which speak against hand-loading.)

One would presume that missile launchers would have similar autoloading functions. And let's not forget Rocket Launchers! 28 RL-10s would be a real rude awakening ;)

[Scotty]

Minimum crew requirements.  Seriously.

[worktroll]

Which then have to be grandfathered against autocannon field gun platoons.

It's too late to go back & totally change the approach taken & have field weapon units as something separate from an infantry formation.

[Scotty]

I disagree.  It doesn't have to be grandfathered against autocannon field gun platoons in either A) the autocannons meet the minimum trooper requirement as a matter of course or B) the minimum troop requirement only applies to towed missile weapons.  Energy weapons are already made roughly balanced by the heat sink requirement.

I fail to see any reason why B can't happen, especially since this is expressly a balance decision.

[ColBosch]

I disagree.  It doesn't have to be grandfathered against autocannon field gun platoons in either A) the autocannons meet the minimum trooper requirement as a matter of course or B) the minimum troop requirement only applies to towed missile weapons.  Energy weapons are already made roughly balanced by the heat sink requirement.

I fail to see any reason why B can't happen, especially since this is expressly a balance decision.

I agree. There's too much potential for abuse without stricter limitations, such as noted with RL-10s. Find the balance point first, then handwave it however needed.

[Alexander Knight]

Which then have to be grandfathered against autocannon field gun platoons.

It's too late to go back & totally change the approach taken & have field weapon units as something separate from an infantry formation.

All extant canon field gun platoons more than surpass the minimum crew per gun.

[BirdofPrey]

I could have swore there was a canon platoon with magshot Gauss cannons

[Sartris]

I could have swore there was a canon platoon with magshot Gauss cannons

ninja'd while I was typing. was going to say...

I forget... can gauss weapons be used as field guns? MagShot is almost as abusable as rocket launchers. Also machine guns.

The lightest autocannon is the LAC/2 at 4 tons.

[Liam's Ghost]

All extant canon field gun platoons more than surpass the minimum crew per gun.

Taurian field gun platoon. 6 light ac 5s manned by 30 men.