Streamlining Battletech?

[Nicoli]

That's very optimistic in my own experience. Even 2 vs. 2 wasn't have been doable in an hour's time, mostly because of constant rules lookups and without involving anything from TacOps. Or indeed, anything past basic introtech mechs and weapons. Two lances with full gear options and including rules from TacOps for a pair of new players in under an hour? That would probably be ten minutes per turn, tops, and even then it might not conclude merely based on 4/5 pilots missing damned near every shot early on.

Yeah, that is because of the 3 things I pointed out. You a good example of a better concept for how our maps should look take a look at this picture of a map from Heroes Of Normandie. Instead of telling us what the terrain is and then making you go look up what the effects are of that terrain, they graphically represent the effects of the terrain directly on the map and the art show you what it is. Not only is a system like this easier to teach and play, but it drastically opens up map design as the map creators are not limited to table of predesigned terrain types. Obviously their system would not work directly for Battletech because it is designed for the "Heros of XXXXX" system which is Square based to begin with; however, Something similar can and should be done for battletech as it moves the information you need to play Battletech out from behind a chart or table to right in front of you.

I have made the experience that larger battles play much faster. There are so many units that its impossible to find the perfect move, so people simply move instead of "testing". Another thing is the fire concentration of large battles... especially when moving information of coherent units (lance of Thugs) - you have 4 units with the same range and heat profile and its likely that they all produce the same toHit number.
What also helps (for me) is to have a "pivot table" (can be written down fast before the battle - those 1minute of time will safe you lots of time when calculating stuff (you don't need to sum all the numbers 4+2+2+whatever - you simple see the "movement dice" of the target a 4 you did run, its the medium range so the second table... row-column...you have a value. Try it, you safe 50% of your time for getting the toHit number.

That is another solution that fixes the issue with the rules by finding a way to ignore them as a player. The fact that you have to consider that is an example of a broken rule and we need to figure out a way to do it better so the consideration isn't required.

Indeed.  And it ignores another point: not everyone is looking for an ultra-fast playing game.  Taking an afternoon to play a game isn't less enjoyable than rushing through something in an hour.  Otherwise games like chess, scrabble, or Monopoly would be gone.

Players could just roll some dice and the highest roll wins.  Fast, yes; you could do that dozens of times in an hour.  Not a whole lot of fun though.

I don't mind a slow game that takes a while, but I want it to be because the pacing of the game is deliberately slow or epic or because I am just chilling out and relaxing with friends not because the ruleset's action resolution is overly lengthy. My favorite boardgame is Twilight Imperium which can easily run 5-6 hours. It's not because any of the mechanics are overly hard or take a long time to resolve, quite the opposite in fact. What makes it take so long is the scope of the game and the thinking and negotiation that each player is doing. In a 3 hour game of Battletech, I spend about 20min thinking and 2h 40min in resolving me and my opponents decisions. I want those times much closer together if not flipped and in good modern games they are closer together or flipped.

[Apocal]

Yeah, that is because of the 3 things I pointed out. You a good example of a better concept for how our maps should look take a look at this picture of a map from Heroes Of Normandie. Instead of telling us what the terrain is and then making you go look up what the effects are of that terrain, they graphically represent the effects of the terrain directly on the map and the art show you what it is.

Oh, you were referring to "ought" rather than "is." I misread your post then.

[Tangoforone]

I think something that could be reworked is the initiative system, as well as the opening turn of movement.  We spend a good 5 to 10 minutes per round figuring out who needs to move how many pieces and in what order, followed by each player debating which piece should move, then that player figuring out where they should move.  Yes, this is partly because of the players, but it is because the rules encourage and allow for it. 

A card system or something of that nature, implemented into the rules, could speed up the movement gameplay.  Draw a card that represents a unit, that unit has to move.  Sure it can screw one player if that players units have to move or they have many more units than the opposing player, but so can lots of things.  Fog of war and all that.  Just include a deck of cards from 1 to 50, assign each unit a number and leave the rest out.  Shuffle the deck at the end of each round, and start drawing cards.  This way you at least remove the time it takes to figure out in what order units need to move and how many each player needs to move.  That's basically an entire chapter of Total Warfare reduced to 1 page.

This could or could not speed up the game, but I think it would be interesting to increase the tactics and fog of war.  For the first few rounds, not a lot goes on.  Maybe an AC2 or ERPPC shot goes off, but rarely does anything happen; units are just getting into position.  Implementing a Chain of Command style system where you have these potential locations of enemies could speed up gameplay in the first few rounds as you move an entire group together instead of a bunch of individual units.  I think it would need to be modified for Battletech, but a system like that could increase the fog of war and decrease the amount of time people spend on the first few rounds where only movement and pot-shots are occurring. 

[Nicoli]

I think something that could be reworked is the initiative system, as well as the opening turn of movement.  We spend a good 5 to 10 minutes per round figuring out who needs to move how many pieces and in what order, followed by each player debating which piece should move, then that player figuring out where they should move.  Yes, this is partly because of the players, but it is because the rules encourage and allow for it. 

A card system or something of that nature, implemented into the rules, could speed up the movement gameplay.  Draw a card that represents a unit, that unit has to move.  Sure it can screw one player if that players units have to move or they have many more units than the opposing player, but so can lots of things.  Fog of war and all that.  Just include a deck of cards from 1 to 50, assign each unit a number and leave the rest out.  Shuffle the deck at the end of each round, and start drawing cards.  This way you at least remove the time it takes to figure out in what order units need to move and how many each player needs to move.  That's basically an entire chapter of Total Warfare reduced to 1 page.

This could or could not speed up the game, but I think it would be interesting to increase the tactics and fog of war.  For the first few rounds, not a lot goes on.  Maybe an AC2 or ERPPC shot goes off, but rarely does anything happen; units are just getting into position.  Implementing a Chain of Command style system where you have these potential locations of enemies could speed up gameplay in the first few rounds as you move an entire group together instead of a bunch of individual units.  I think it would need to be modified for Battletech, but a system like that could increase the fog of war and decrease the amount of time people spend on the first few rounds where only movement and pot-shots are occurring.

I actually think the HBS system works fairly well for Initiative and could probably be adopted wholesale.

[Tangoforone]

I'm not so sure I concur with the HBS initiative system.  Depending on how it is implemented, it encourages everyone to just pass on their turn until the 'Phase 5' where the assaults would move, then you are just stuck with the same process we have now of choosing what to move and when.  Unless you are going to allow units to attack directly after movement (which would heavily encourage lighter units) or you are going to force units to move during the phase they are allocated for (which then gets rid of the incentive to withhold light units until the last phase), there is no incentive to implementing this in the table top game in my mind.

I would even say it doesn't work in the HBS system, since in the late-game lights get out-performed by heavier mechs anyways.  The incentive to withhold a units movement until the last phase so it can 'move twice' is not matched by bringing a lance of heavy and assault mechs that can just weather the fire until their turn.

[Crimson Dawn]

A long game can be a lot of fun however you want the game to be long for good reasons and not the wrong ones.   Funny thing about Monopoly is that a lot of people will tell you that it can be a slog but many times it feels that way (and takes so long) is that people do not play by the actual rules and rather use house rules (often times not even knowing they are houserules such as getting money on free parking or not using properties up for bid if you decide to not buy it all of these houserules significantly slow down the game).

So Monopoly is a good example of the discussion, though in its case the "bad" rules are unintentional house rules.  The house rules make the game significantly slower and that can make people feel like it is a slog but if you use more of the actual rules the game goes much faster.

That is what some are wanting.  They want the rules to be made so that it runs like actual monopoly whereas they feel the current rules have issues like house ruled monopoly that slow the game down and may not bring enough to the game to make it truly worth it.

[Nicoli]

I'm not so sure I concur with the HBS initiative system.  Depending on how it is implemented, it encourages everyone to just pass on their turn until the 'Phase 5' where the assaults would move, then you are just stuck with the same process we have now of choosing what to move and when.  Unless you are going to allow units to attack directly after movement (which would heavily encourage lighter units) or you are going to force units to move during the phase they are allocated for (which then gets rid of the incentive to withhold light units until the last phase), there is no incentive to implementing this in the table top game in my mind.

I would even say it doesn't work in the HBS system, since in the late-game lights get out-performed by heavier mechs anyways.  The incentive to withhold a units movement until the last phase so it can 'move twice' is not matched by bringing a lance of heavy and assault mechs that can just weather the fire until their turn.

The late-game issue with lights in HBS comes more from the stupidly high gunnery skills and the ablative movement modifiers combined with the default way of making the game tougher by just throwing more units at you. Lights are pretty much useless in Battletech already if you run a campaign to the point where all the pilots are 0 gunners, if you ran it where you lost move modifier every time you were shot at it be just as bad. In the mods for the game that remove the first two things lights remain quite useful and survivable in PvP where your not forced to face up against twice your weight and numbers. Lights can actually be used to do hit and run attacks, it's not nearly as bad as you think.

[Apocal]

I actually think the HBS system works fairly well for Initiative and could probably be adopted wholesale.

Unless you are going to allow units to attack directly after movement (which would heavily encourage lighter units) or you are going to force units to move during the phase they are allocated for (which then gets rid of the incentive to withhold light units until the last phase), there is no incentive to implementing this in the table top game in my mind.

Offsetting the lighter mechs' disadvantages in firepower by providing them with built-in opportunities for backshots would probably do a lot of keep them viable in the face of stuff like vet/elite gunners, targeting computers, pulse lasers, etc. Not necessarily survivable -- it only takes one good shot to lay out a lot of otherwise fine light mechs or low-end mediums -- but they would actually have more of a role than BV-filler.

[Nicoli]

Offsetting the lighter mechs' disadvantages in firepower by providing them with built-in opportunities for backshots would probably do a lot of keep them viable in the face of stuff like vet/elite gunners, targeting computers, pulse lasers, etc. Not necessarily survivable -- it only takes one good shot to lay out a lot of otherwise fine light mechs or low-end mediums -- but they would actually have more of a role than BV-filler.

Yeah, light mechs are not really supposed to be getting stuck in as they are primarily recon/raiders and will almost always go pop once faced with anything that doesn't blow away in a stiff breeze. The few lights that can play in a big boy fight are all pretty much long range skirmishers where they survive on distance and speed as opposed to getting into a hugging fight.

[dgorsman]

Going to swing back to something regarding simplifying ultra cannons.  Rather than roll for each, or use the cluster hits table, why not use the hits adjacent location method?  When using double rate don't roll at all for the second hit; apply the whole damage to the rolled location and half at each adjacent location.  Gives a good reason to use them without being too over powered and keeps things simple.

[Thunderbolt]

One of the key things that have to be done with a v2 of Battletech is to run every rule through the "rule of 200". Basically how does the rule work if you have to do it 200 times a game. This is especially important in Battletech because we can customize units and such to cause that to happen. One LB-X 20 isn't a major time sink, 16 are. This was why I came up with (though  I'm sure I wasn't the first) the adjacent location damage value for cluster weapons, it does a good enough job representing the weapons but is fast enough that having to do it 200 times a game isn't troublesome.

Battletech is a game that is very mechanic focused, best summed up by the Tactical Operations tag line "we got a rule for that". What Battletech needs it a player focused rework, overhauling how the players interact with the rules and game information. Most of the elements in Tactical Operations should be standard rules of the game if the mechanics are rewritten with the player using them in mind.

Take building destruction, the mechanic works but isn't optimized in anyway for the players to interact with it well. Currently every building hex has a HP pool that has to be individual tracked by writing it down on a separate sheet of paper. Mildly annoying if you have just a few buildings a nightmare in full set of city maps. Give buildings a damage threshold number, and put it on the map(another pet-peeve of mine with Battletech), whenever a weapon hits the building roll a D6 add it to the damage of the weapon. If it beats the threshold you put a damage token on the hex. At the end of any unit activation where a building gets a damage token roll a d6 add the number of damage tokens and if that beats the threshold the building collapses in rubble.

This is the type of stuff Battletech needs to be looking at in its changes. Stuff where your making the tracking of information easier, less looking up or writing stuff down, using things like tokens and dials to track information. We as players have created a bunch of shortcuts and player aids to track information because the core game doesn't do a good job at it.

that's a good set of ideas, and reminds me of Squad Leader, which I always felt essentially relied on the "law of large numbers" to simulate "hit points" and what not

If you do it the BT way, and keep detailed track of hits & damage, eventually (say) you blast off all the target's armor... with the effect of getting chances for criticals after so many hits

Whereas the "thresholds" system relies on repeated rolls, each with some % chance of a critical, chosen appropriately such that after the same number of hits, one will overwhelmingly likely have (also) gotten criticals…

sometimes sooner, others later, but on average the same "end of the day" results

and meanwhile, you never needed to keep track of detailed damages -- rather merely roll against more-or-less set thresholds over and over and over

one could apply the same method to 'mechs (and other units also), converting AF to an "armor threshold"... perhaps by dividing AF by number of locations... or even by number of criticals -- just a thought, for anyone interested in rules promoting smaller, more compact units which are harder to hit

[Nicoli]

that's a good set of ideas, and reminds me of Squad Leader, which I always felt essentially relied on the "law of large numbers" to simulate "hit points" and what not

If you do it the BT way, and keep detailed track of hits & damage, eventually (say) you blast off all the target's armor... with the effect of getting chances for criticals after so many hits

Whereas the "thresholds" system relies on repeated rolls, each with some % chance of a critical, chosen appropriately such that after the same number of hits, one will overwhelmingly likely have (also) gotten criticals…

sometimes sooner, others later, but on average the same "end of the day" results

and meanwhile, you never needed to keep track of detailed damages -- rather merely roll against more-or-less set thresholds over and over and over

one could apply the same method to 'mechs (and other units also), converting AF to an "armor threshold"... perhaps by dividing AF by number of locations... or even by number of criticals -- just a thought, for anyone interested in rules promoting smaller, more compact units which are harder to hit

I wouldn't use thresholds with mechs, You run into the issue that some weapons may not be able to damage a mech. Good in theory, bad in practice. It works with buildings because they are a tertiary/supplementary part of the rule set. You don't have a unit sheet to track damage of buildings and tree hexes and whether or not some weapons can damage them or not is fairly irrelevant to the core game. But when you come to mechs and the other secondary combat units in the game, having weapons that may not be able to damage other units basically obsoletes a majority of weapons. It could be doable but would require about as much shake up as Alpha strike so your best to just run that.

A lot of the clean up needs to be little stuff first. Simple stuff like replacing "1. Hip" with "1.Hip (+2 Plt Skl)". The record sheets in general are an example of wasted opportunity. Instead of putting the rules on the record sheet where there is plenty of space, your instead forced to go look up a chart. pips not being in rows with 5 point sections marked out. It's amazing how much minor stuff like that nickles and dimes you to death on time and its quick to fix.

Once you start doing that you notice the rules that need cleaned up to allow it to happen more often. Such as if you create a cardboard heat dial, if you simplify the heat scale down to 4-5 bands you can put the heat modifiers on the dial. That cleans up more space on the record sheet.

[Thunderbolt]

I wouldn't use thresholds with mechs, You run into the issue that some weapons may not be able to damage a mech. Good in theory, bad in practice. It works with buildings because they are a tertiary/supplementary part of the rule set. You don't have a unit sheet to track damage of buildings and tree hexes and whether or not some weapons can damage them or not is fairly irrelevant to the core game. But when you come to mechs and the other secondary combat units in the game, having weapons that may not be able to damage other units basically obsoletes a majority of weapons. It could be doable but would require about as much shake up as Alpha strike so your best to just run that.

A lot of the clean up needs to be little stuff first. Simple stuff like replacing "1. Hip" with "1.Hip (+2 Plt Skl)". The record sheets in general are an example of wasted opportunity. Instead of putting the rules on the record sheet where there is plenty of space, your instead forced to go look up a chart. pips not being in rows with 5 point sections marked out. It's amazing how much minor stuff like that nickles and dimes you to death on time and its quick to fix.

Once you start doing that you notice the rules that need cleaned up to allow it to happen more often. Such as if you create a cardboard heat dial, if you simplify the heat scale down to 4-5 bands you can put the heat modifiers on the dial. That cleans up more space on the record sheet.

not quite what I mean

If say, some 'mech has a AF of 18, and a ML does 5 damage, then it "should" start get criticals after 4 hits

so, you set things up, such that a ML has something around a 1/4 chance of getting a critical on every hit... on average, after 4 hits, a critical will have resulted

more like that...

say, something vaguely like Damage / AF = % of critical per hit, and you roll d100 or percentile dice against said %

criticals (reflecting damaged armor) would subtract from the AF (or add to D) or something along those lines

could be made to work with 2d6 also

[Nicoli]

That, fails the "rule of 200" for me as you'd be figuring that out all over again for each weapon pretty much everytime you shoot with it. Now that custom dice are cheap to make I'd just make a d12 with sides indicating how many criticals you got and just roll that with your hit location. Have a symbol to represent a risk of a crit that only counts if the weapon or ammo gives a bonus to crits.

[Thunderbolt]

Advanced Squad Leader (considered realistic) incorporates armored units utilizing a "thresholds" sort of system which does not require a lot of separate record keeping

One could apply a similar to system to BT armored units also

[Nicoli]

Advanced Squad Leader (considered realistic) incorporates armored units utilizing a "thresholds" sort of system which does not require a lot of separate record keeping

One could apply a similar to system to BT armored units also

Threshold systems in ASL also restricted weapons from dealing damage to units if they couldn't do enough damage. Which would require quite a significant rework of core mechanics. Also I don't think "Realistic" is a good target as it leads to things like the cluster hit table and the rule set we have now in many cases. "A good enough abstraction" is a much better goal. Record keeping of damage for mechs is not nearly an issue due to the relatively low number of units per side as compared to the amount of time to get to that resolution.

[MechWarriorFox]

Personally, we'll have to face the fact that we'll have to split the system in two, anything more realistic will have to be done in 'the background' on games like Battletech while the actual tabletop will have to get more streamlined with optional rules for more and more realism with big ass warnings stating that using these rules will slow down gameplay.

At least that is my two cents on the matter.