So, before Total Warfare came out, I'd been working on my own system to make infantry "work" in Battletech.
This is the result.
Damage Types
All Battletech Weapons now have one of the following damage types:
P - Point-fire weapon
B - Burst-fire weapons
F - Flechette weapons
H - Heat weapons
All Gauss Rifles, PPCs, and non-pulse lasers gain the damage type 'P'.
All autocannon, pulse laser, and missiles gain the damage type 'B', unless they specifically use ammunition which gives them another damage type.
All machine guns gain the damage type 'F', as do Flechette missile and autocannon rounds (but such rounds divide their base damage by 2).
All flamers and plasma weapons gain the damage type 'H', as do Inferno SRM rounds.
Against hardened targets, most damage types are identical. The exception is 'H' weapons, which increase a unit's heat scale instead of dealing damage if that unit has a heat scale, but otherwise function identically to 'F' weapons.
Against infantry, 'H' and 'F' weapons kill 1D6 troops per point of damage that they deal, 'B' weapons kill 1 soldier per point of damage, and 'P' weapons kill 1 soldier, plus 1 per 10 full points of damage. As standard infantry take damage, you must choose and destroy any support weapons whose crew requirements can no longer be fulfilled.
Infantry Weapons
There are no longer seperate "infantry support weapons".
All types of infantry ballistic rifles have a range of 1/2/3 and a damage of 1B. All types of infantry laser rifles have a range of 2/4/6 and a damage of 1P. All types of infantry VLAW/MRM/rocket launchers have a range of 5/10/15 and a damage of 1B.
Additionally, the following Battletech weapons are now considered support weapons, with the following crew sizes:
SRM-1: 1, 2 shots
LRM-1: 1, 2 shots
Light Machinegun: 1, 20 shots
Machinegun: 2, 15 shots
Heavy Machinegun: 3, 10 shots
Tsunami Gauss Rifle: 2 (4/8/12 range, 1P damage), 16 shots
Magshot Gauss Rifle: 3 (3/6/9 range, 2P damage), 8 shots
"Hellbore" Micro Laser: 1 (1/2/3 range, 2P damage), 15 shots
Small Laser: 2, 15 shots
Medium Laser: 3, 15 shots
Micro Pulse Laser: 2, 15 shots
Small Pulse Laser: 3, 15 shots
Medium Pulse Laser: 4, 15 shots
ER Micro Laser: 2, 10 shots
ER Small Laser: 3, 10 shots
ER Medium Laser: 4, 10 shots
Flamethrower: 1, 15 shots
Heavy Flamethrower: 2, 15 shots
Infantry must be constructed per squad, using a squad size of 5 (Clan), 6 (ComStar) or 7 (Inner Sphere). Each squad member gets one personal weapon (a ballistic rifle, laser rifle or one-shot VLAW), and additionally contributes as 1 crew member for a support weapon. Once a squad is designed, that squad counts in all ways as a single battlearmor trooper and may be assigned into any infantry platoon, with the exception that its personal weapons may be fired while moving, while support weapons can only be fired if the entire infantry platoon does not move. An infantry platoon always has the movement of its slowest squad or battlearmor component.
Infantry may mount either heavy armor or a jet pack, which either takes up their personal weapon slot or their support weapon slot. Heavy armor reduces the damage from 'F' weapons to 1 trooper killed per point of damage, but does not affect other damage types.
Mechanized infantry of all types is constructed using the light Support Vechicle rules, with the exception that such vehicles can mount Battlearmor weapons. Such vehicles combine all their armor into a single facing, and do not gain a 'Flanking' MP value; they use their normal Cruise MP as their full MP, but do not have a facing (and thus do not spend MP to turn). They are still subject to the movement restrictions of their locomotion type. Each mechanized unit otherwise operates on the battlefield as a battlearmor.
In a platoon or battlearmor squad, each unit (individual infantry squad, mechanized infantry vehicle or battlearmor) in that squad makes its own attack rolls, and chooses which weapons it will fire separately.
