BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Player Boards => Fan Designs and Rules => Topic started by: Retry on 18 March 2020, 16:08:42
-
Intended to be used with the modified autocannons in the TW Equipment Tweaking thread. Posted here instead of there because this is an entirely new piece of equipment, and also because that thread is months old at this point. Link to that thread: https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=67081.0
Autocannon Recoil Compensator
Introduction Date: 2650
The AC Recoil Compensator follows the introduction of the successful UAC/5 nearly a decade after its original introduction. The original UAC/5 drastically improved the effectiveness of the Autocannon; while the fire rate remained essentially unchanged, advanced recoil management mechanisms implemented in the Ultra Autocannon allowed for far more accurate fire, helping to make every shot count. The Autocannon Recoil Compensator is an attempt to bring some of the improvements to the common standard autocannon in a modular add-on package. The AC Recoil Compensator was well received, mitigating much of the inaccuracy inherent in the autocannons once installed. However, being an add-on upgrade for a weapon not originally designed to use it, an Autocannon with an AC Recoil Compensator is still not as effective as a UAC designed with the recoil management devices from the ground up.
The supply of AC Recoil Compensators was kept artificially low by the Star League, who exclusively used them to modernize some of their older hardware. After the collapse of the Star League, the Recoil Compensators went extinct during the Succession Wars shortly after the UACs, and were rediscovered around the same time as well. The Clans, though they never "lost" the AC Recoil Compensator technology, prefer their own native UACs and modified LB-Xs and so don't use the technology on front-line units.
Weight: 1 ton
Space: 1 crit
Tech Level: Standard
Tech Base: IS
Game Rules: Any AC equipped with the Autocannon Recoil Compensator removes the +1 to-hit penalty that is inflicted when used in rapid-fire mode. Additionally, most alternative ammunition types (Precision, AP ammo chief among them) are not designed for use with the AC Recoil Compensator device, and so a safety mechanism prevents Rapid Firing these types of ammunition. (Firing at the regular fire rate still works fine, however).
Construction Rules:Standard, Light, Protomech, and LB-X ACs can all install the Autocannon Recoil Compensator at the cost of 1 extra ton and 1 extra crit slot on a Battlemech. The equipment must be placed in the same slot as the Autocannon that the AC Recoil Compensator is enhancing.
Combat Vehicles, Dropships, and Fighters consider the enhancement as part of the weapon system, for the purpose of tracking weapon slots.
-
Given one plays with rapid-fire rules, this seems sensible enough.
Question though - can UAC do rapid-fire a) instead of standard double-tap, or b) on top of (eg. for 4 shots)? (away from rulebooks). If so, then this kinda renders them irrelevant.
-
Given one plays with rapid-fire rules, this seems sensible enough.
Question though - can UAC do rapid-fire a) instead of standard double-tap, or b) on top of (eg. for 4 shots)? (away from rulebooks). If so, then this kinda renders them irrelevant.
It's intended to be used with my earlier thread on TW tweaks. In that, rapid-fire rules become standard (non-optional) for ACs, and the ACs in general have certain properties shuffled around.
Basically, non-ultra ACs can "Rapid-Fire", which is basically like the old UAC cluster rolls but with a +1 to-hit penalty when using them. This equipment removes that to-hit penalty, making a modified AC function like the old UACs.
The Ultra ACs have an improved version called "Double Tapping". Instead of rolling to-hit once and then rolling on the cluster hits table, you roll to-hit for each shot, which increases the chance of hitting at least once drastically and also significantly increases the average expected damage. Basically, Double Tapping an UAC is equivalent to single tapping with 2 regular ACs.
Essentially what it boils down to is that when all other things remain equal, these new double-tapping UAC will deal ~40% more damage than a rapid-firing regular AC w/ the AC Recoil Compensator, which incidentally is about the same damage bonus that canon rapid-firing UACs currently have on single-firing ACs. Basically, the UAC and AC both rapid-fire, but the UAC is much better at it.
I hope that answers your question.