Author Topic: Equivalent G/P skill of MechWarrior PC game player characters  (Read 1020 times)

BATTLEMASTER

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I was wondering what folks would think the G/P skill on tabletop would be for the MechWarrior PC game player characters.  I was thinking maybe 2/0 considering that your 'mech can't be knocked down in most of the games, and the player can be an accurate shooter.  How about applicable SPAs?  Thoughts?
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Apocal

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Re: Equivalent G/P skill of MechWarrior PC game player characters
« Reply #1 on: 01 January 2020, 12:39:59 »
I was wondering what folks would think the G/P skill on tabletop would be for the MechWarrior PC game player characters.  I was thinking maybe 2/0 considering that your 'mech can't be knocked down in most of the games, and the player can be an accurate shooter.  How about applicable SPAs?  Thoughts?

A TT gunnery 4 pilot in a stationary mech will miss a non-moving target with medium lasers at 200m better than half the time. In comparison, a decent player with a few dozen hours playing MWO not only will virtually never miss in the same situation, but also can reliably pick and drill out a specific component on the target mech under the same circumstannces. Think gunnery 1 for someone passably decent, with serious players going to negative numbers (i.e. able to snapshot a running light's leg off and follow up by putting all six of their next shots straight through its CT or CTR, while the pilot is desperately torso-twisting at the same time).

But really, it is a apples to oranges comparison. Range errors mean little since most projectiles fly straight and level enough to hit the height of a mech while the angle errors are 100% misses except at point-blank. TMMs are a huge, inaccurate abstraction compared to angular velocity vs. range, where being fast at long range generally doesn't mean you are harder to hit than a guy at a middling pace at face-hug range. And you can accidentally reduce your angular velocity to zilch while still staying at full throttle, thereby becoming a figurative sitting duck at 100kph, if you point your legs in the direction of anyone shooting at you.

SteelRaven

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Re: Equivalent G/P skill of MechWarrior PC game player characters
« Reply #2 on: 01 January 2020, 14:08:46 »
My table never starts at Green level as it makes the simplest task a challenge. If I was doing a RP campaign, maybe I would start with Boot Camp set up for those who never played BT before but from my experience, a fight between two Green MechWarriors il can be  tedious unless their dice are on fire.

Note: MechWarrior Online actually had a knock down mechanic in the earliest days of the closed beta but was removed. It was way too easy to knock down a mech by having a Jenner ram it at full speed with no real way to prevent the fall.
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Sartris

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Re: Equivalent G/P skill of MechWarrior PC game player characters
« Reply #3 on: 01 January 2020, 14:18:21 »
Green pilots are indeed a nightmare. In chaos campaigns I start the player force with a pool of five recruitable regular pilots on the bench. As an incentive to keep pilots from getting killed or captured, they got green pilots after that. One mission with greens is usually all it takes to show them why you don’t want five gunnery

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BATTLEMASTER

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Re: Equivalent G/P skill of MechWarrior PC game player characters
« Reply #4 on: 02 January 2020, 09:01:31 »
I usually play games with 3/4 or better pilots to keep everything moving.  4/5 just bogs things down, especially with introtech.

Isn't there an SPA that allows a pilot to target components without a targeting computer?
BATTLEMASTER
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Kovax

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Re: Equivalent G/P skill of MechWarrior PC game player characters
« Reply #5 on: 02 January 2020, 10:08:24 »
I was in one campaign where if you took one Veteran MechWarrior, you also had to take one Green, but the rest were Regular.  Same went for vehicle crews, where one vehicle could have a Veteran crew, but then one had to be Green.  Any further recruits came in as Green.  You learned that you had to quickly train up at least one Green MechWarrior by running them in almost every battle, otherwise you risked not having enough Regulars to cover for injuries or losses.  Running the Veteran and some Regulars in every battle, and leaving the greenies home, would be a short-term strategy doomed to failure in the long run.

As said, what you can do in the MechWarrior series games is nothing like tabletop play, and there's no way to compare the skills involved.  The hit ratios on the tabletop only make sense in scattered cover, where the target only appears momentarily between obstacles.  In an open field with an unbroken line of sight to target, the hit rates should be nearly 100% at the ranges in the game, even with current technology.  Computerized tracking should easily adjust for changes in speed and direction, since anything with that much mass cannot change its movement vector all that quickly with the amount of traction available on most terrain.  Picture 50 tons of Battlemech moving at 45 miles per hour tearing a deep rut in the ground as its foot slides out from under it during a rapid turn....

Apocal

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Re: Equivalent G/P skill of MechWarrior PC game player characters
« Reply #6 on: 02 January 2020, 11:43:02 »
Isn't there an SPA that allows a pilot to target components without a targeting computer?

The Marksman SPA in CamOps, but only with a single weapon.

Colt Ward

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Re: Equivalent G/P skill of MechWarrior PC game player characters
« Reply #7 on: 02 January 2020, 12:03:57 »
Green is fine, I THINK if you are playing a more detailed game and/or have a clear mechanic to improve pilots that scales the cost the better they get and offer options like buying SPAs or AToW applicable skills for mechwarriors, vehicle crews, or BA.

As for game conversions . . .

MechCommander 1 had pilots listed as Green/Reg/Vet/Elite so you could figure out their Gunnery & Piloting from the listed stats and assign some SPA-like qualities since it included jumping and sensor abilities.  Somewhere on my home PC I had a list of what the skills should be for every named pilot along with SPA notations.

MechCommander 2, I cannot exactly remember but I am sure it would not be that hard either.


Might be referring to 'Human TRO' which IIRC lets you act like a TC.
HBS Battletech?  Lol, I am compiling a list with bio-blurbs for all the blue (backer?) pilots and will figure out their skill levels for table top & SPAs.  Honestly, I would expect HBS max'd out pilots to be elite IS pilots with SPAs . . . I wonder if you can finish the campaign without having 6-8 pilots with 10/10 skills?
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Daryk

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Re: Equivalent G/P skill of MechWarrior PC game player characters
« Reply #8 on: 02 January 2020, 16:07:18 »
The CampOps version of Human TRO gives +1 on determining critical hit rolls.  The AToW Companion wasn't that generous.

 

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