A longbow (for example) is in fact completely useless. Even a 30-trooper platoon would only do 0.3 damage, which rounds down to zero. Math matters, and TPTB did some.
And a million bows? The point was an illustration of meaningless detail.
And what about a million Zeus Heavy Rifles? If a small arm can viably damage a Mech, then swarm tactics become very devastating.
Life is cheap in the BT universe and a million peasants armed with a heavy rifle would be a viable defence. That means the amount of force required to conquer a world most increase.
But we're getting away from the point.
You can't have a BattleTech universe without Mechs.
You CAN have a BattleTech RPG without fifty pages dedicated to replicating a miniature wargame.
You believe the RPG should extend the tabletop game.
Why? It adds nothing to the tabletop game, we have Campaign Ops, but the RPG is hobbled with the continuing insistence on duplicating rules already given.
You should indeed be able to drop your character into the board game but that requires small updates of a handful of skills. Destiny spends thirty pages on conversions and tactical combat links that could be swapped out with the sentence "use the board game". AToW devotes even more space.
And both lack what I would consider core aspects of a tech based RPG such as vehicle rules. You cannot justify adding the Tactical Rules by suggesting players can't be expected to have the board game, and then excuse the lack of core functionality by pointing players to the board game.
As I keep saying...what I want from a BattleTech RPG is an RPG set in the BattleTech universe.
What you want seems to be a way to provide stats for your pilot and an alternate rule system.
In essence, what you appear to want is a game where you spend your time inside a Mech cockpit. That game is the tabletop game and the thin veneer of RPG stats can't hide that AGoAC is the game best suited for that.
What I want is a game which follows what I do OUTSIDE the cockpit. On foot. On a car. Driving around and interacting with people in universe.
That, to me, is an RPG. Sure...piloting a Mech and Mecha would be important aspects of the game...but the primary focus are the players, the characters and the way they interact with NPCs.
Should a player team be able to defeat a Mech?
IMO...no. In an RPG, the challenge would be to outthink the pilot.
Or to obtain the weapons needed to defeat the Mech.
You want to damage a Mech? Why not spike the warriors meal the night before? Or go hunting for a batch of infantry portable anti Mech missiles?
In short...do what you would do in any other RPG game.
But you pit a soldier with an M16 against an Abrams...do you think he'll have any success destroying the tank?
You have a game system that is supposed to allow for players who are scientists, journalists, detectives, explorers, and more....
But if they don't have a Mech, what then?
Mechs are important to the universe....but just as they aren't the focus in BattleTroops, AeroTech or BattleSpace, they should not be the focus of a BattleTech RPG.
The focus of a BatleTech RPG should be the characters.
The focus should be on the party.
And a Mech should simply be part of the universe, a vehicle for the players to use, an enemy for them to defeat.
Because the RPG game is an RPG game, and not a substitute ruleset for the boardgame. A game where the hero is the pilot, the scientist, the explorer rather than the vehicle. Or should (IMO) be.
Both AToW and Destiny are hobbled by the focus on Mech combat. As was MW3 and even MW2 and MW1. They are lacking certain critical information...vehicle rules, critters, universe info. The focus on the trying to fit Mechs into the game has also led to various compromises in the mechanics. Compromises which, again IMO, are detrimental.
Conversely....if you do want an RPG which does focus on Mechs, then that too is hobbled. The BT RPG is a hybrid, an unfocused mess that can't decide what it wants to be and suffers as a result.
Now...I would never advocate removing Mechs from the game, though I would argue focussing the game on small military teams...special forces which employ a variety of archetypes...might lead to a more focussed outlook. But there is a vast difference between removing from the game and shining the spotlight on the PCs instead
If we want a game that focuses on Mech combat, we have AGoAC
The RPG should focus on the characters, should be an RPG and should fold Mech combat into a fully realised vehicle combat system, integrating Mech scale units by incorporating existing rules rather than providing alternate rulesets.
But anyway, I think I'm going round in circles on this.