BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Player Boards => Fan Articles => Topic started by: grimlock1 on 09 November 2017, 10:22:54
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Are shoulder turrets worth it? They cost mass and crits. The only drawback to flippable arms is it hurts on in melee, standing under Tac Ops, and smash 'n grab objectives.
Turrets give torso mounted weapons a 300 degree field of fire, but a regular arm mounted weapon can match that with a torso twist.
On the other hand, turrets can give you defense against backstabbers without locking any weapons to the rear...
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Personally i prefer flippable arms as you get TWO lots of weapons going into the rear!
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I can see one edgecase where turrets would be handy, in cases of 'Mechs that have split crits on, say, an LB20-X or Arrow-IV mostly in the arms, since your arcs get restricted in those cases.
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IIRC, you cannot flip arms and torso twist in the same turn.
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I can see one edgecase where turrets would be handy, in cases of 'Mechs that have split crits on, say, an LB20-X or Arrow-IV mostly in the arms, since your arcs get restricted in those cases.
True you can't flip with split crits.. BUT if you have split crits anyway, you wouldn't have a need to get rid of the hand/lower arm actuators..
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I am strongly in favour of turrets. Not that I actually had a chance to use them, but the concept.
It allows a mech with full arms, with all the advantages you called, to still have weapons pointing wherever, and then there is obviously the question of "why not both"?
Hands help standing up, and if your arms are not full, provide additional criticals that could be hit.
Further, with a multi-target mech, or strong pilot, a turret would allow a large engagement angle while still keeping the main battery pointed forward.
Finally, there's the advantages it could provide in AS.
Of course, the costs aren't always worth it, but at worst it's a crit and 1.5 tons, the heaviest mechs normally have that.
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One area that could really shine for turrets is AMS. It does have a 60 degree blind spot, but certainly better than any other mount besides a head or quad turret.
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But doesn't AMS already strike out against any missile attack, regardless of the arc its coming from? So in essence it already is turret mounted.
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AMS only triggers if the missiles are incoming from a valid arc. Per TW 129:
Any time a Missile Weapon (see p. 113) makes a successful
to-hit attack against a unit carrying an AMS, and the missile
weapon strikes in the attack direction covered by the firing
arc where the AMS is mounted, the AMS will automatically
engage with the following results:
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AMS should really be treated as if it was in a turret already.
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AMS only triggers if the missiles are incoming from a valid arc. Per TW 129:
Any time a Missile Weapon (see p. 113) makes a successful
to-hit attack against a unit carrying an AMS, and the missile
weapon strikes in the attack direction covered by the firing
arc where the AMS is mounted, the AMS will automatically
engage with the following results:
Seems that was something changed from the days of the old btech compendium..
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It is indeed a change from the way it used to be back in that book. The description oh how the AMS works in the compendium is more or less as you recall it.
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Can AMS even be installed in a turret?
On a mech, I mean.
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Can AMS even be installed in a turret?
On a mech, I mean.
Tac Ops doesn't have any restrictions in the construction rules for mech turrets...
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I generally prefer to save the mass and crits and avoid turrets on bipeds, but they are very worth it on mechs with no arms to flip.
Cheers,
LCC
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I generally prefer to save the mass and crits and avoid turrets on bipeds, but they are very worth it on mechs with no arms to flip.
Cheers,
LCC
Agreed. Unless I have a good reason not to, I use turrets on all my quad mech designs. Sometimes even give it the 4-ton Tripod cockpit so it can have a dedicated gunner (against the construction rules, I know, but I don't care).
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Despite all these cogent arguments, there's a part of me that still does a little squee when I tinker with packing a Timby D's Streaks into turrets.