Are jumpjets needed?

[Primus203]

Exactly what it says on the tin. Do you think jump jets are a necessity. Why or why not.

If yes how much jump MP do you think is necessary and how much is overkill.

I will note that the vast majority of my designs don't have them to get a bit of extra armor or other capability but I wanted to see what everyone else thought.

[idea weenie]

I see Jump Jets as needed, up to the Mech's Walking speed, as that gives Mechs far more flexibility in strange terrain.  Mechs are often deployed to weird terrain, and in 3025 the ability to relocate anywhere within 3, 4, 5, or 6 hexes facing in any direction regardless of the intervening terrain is a very useful capability.  Later generations the ability is still useful.

High speed Mechs (i.e. original Locust) are mainly useful in flat land, but any sort of Rough Terrain, or trees, or a giant crevasse, and that Locust has to take a detour.

[AlphaMirage]

Depends on role in my opinion. They do preserve some mobility in medium or heavy Mechs with a high heat load like the Guillotine or many Clan Mechs. Particularly in broken terrain they are crucial and can provide ways to remain unengagable via terrain masking. Additionally if you say want to execute a hot drop to establish an LZ they are very useful.

[Primus203]

So in your experience what's the minimum jump MP that will deal with most stuff 90-95 percent.

[AlphaMirage]

5 as it neutralizes the +3 Attacker Movement Modifier while not being to heavy or heat intensive while being enough to jump over hills or other common forms of concealment. If you have fast ground speed and nothing else to do with an extra ton 7 is also good and gives you a positive TMM vs AMM. Although if you only hit 4 with heavies it can be used defensively when you are running hot.

[Daryk]

I think they're usually necessary.  Ideally, you have just enough to get over a TMM break point (3, 5, 7, or 10).

[Hellraiser]

... with a high heat load like the Guillotine or many Clan Mechs. 

Wait what?  The Guillotine?   One of the coolest running mechs around?  24 Weapon Heat, 22/25 Heatsinks based on 2750 or Intro tech versions.
I'm not sure that is the mech I'd use for an an example of "hot running".

[Hellraiser]

Exactly what it says on the tin. Do you think jump jets are a necessity.

Sometimes.

[AlphaMirage]

Depends whether you upgrade it, Penetrator, Falconer, Starslayer or Uziel are perhaps more apt

[PuppyLikesLaserPointers]

Exactly what it says on the tin. Do you think jump jets are a necessity. Why or why not.

If yes how much jump MP do you think is necessary and how much is overkill.

I will note that the vast majority of my designs don't have them to get a bit of extra armor or other capability but I wanted to see what everyone else thought.

I'd think it's a must. Because it lets the unit to move beyond it could and also more chance to dodge the attacks. For example, a 100 tons mech with 3/5/5 movement lets it enjoy +2+1 TMM, despite of being a 100 tonner. A 85 tons mech with 4/6/7 movement has +3+1 TMM, and a 55 tons mech with 5/8/10 movement has +4+1 TMM. Although those suffers the penalty for jumping when they shoots, but the TMM isn't something could get without a jumpjet on their weight class.

Also unlike the ground movement which should account for turning, it only need to think about 3/5/7/10 MP for you can just go the exact maximum hexes and also allowed to turn without spend any further MP.

[AlphaMirage]

I think IJJs and Partial Wings are however terrible additions to the game. I blame the LAMafia it's out of character for the setting IMO.

[Daryk]

They're heavy enough I don't think they're a problem.

[Mechanis]

very much depends on what you expect the thing to do, how heavy the mech is, and what you are arming it with.

It's not like MechWarrior where you always want to have them so you can pull sequence breaking shenanigans, jump jets on the table have their uses but certainly aren't a must have for every role and design.

I think IJJs and Partial Wings are however terrible additions to the game. I blame the LAMafia it's out of character for the setting IMO.

the hecc are you on about? IJJs are so heavy they're barely usable on anything that's not a slow Medium or average Heavy, whilst PW is a straight gimmick that's hugely weight and slot inefficient for what you get from the things, read 1-2 extra Jump MP.
There's no "LAM Mafia", if their was, they would suck less (and probably have kept the absolute cancer of the original rules, rather than getting a thorough beating with the Nerf bat)

[Hellraiser]

Although those suffers the penalty for jumping when they shoots

This combined w/ the shear mass your giving up to get those movement rates leaves most of those mechs as "paper tigers".

Oh sure, they look good on paper but using them on the map sheet is rarely the results you want to have.

It's like a Dasher-H.   The backstabbing sounds soo good.  But most of the time you miss w/ 50% or more of your shots & the one's that hit don't stack on the rear torso.
So you end up getting smashed w/o actually pulling off your 1-turn kill.

I've played w/ a Jumping TSM Puncher more times than I can count & I can't honestly say if I ever once landed a TSM 12 point to the head to KO a mech.
More often than not the Jumping & the Heat modifiers means I'm missing the target with guns & fists.
If you want to KO a head, just spam LRMs & MLs at a target, you'll get head hits often enough when you combine a LRM Carrier w/ Komodo.

Then there is the total loss of firepower.
4-6-7 sounds cool for an 85 tonner till you realize that w/o clan weapons/tech your likely ending up with an IS XL &/or the firepower of a mech barely half its weight.

[PuppyLikesLaserPointers]

This combined w/ the shear mass your giving up to get those movement rates leaves most of those mechs as "paper tigers".

Oh sure, they look good on paper but using them on the map sheet is rarely the results you want to have.

It's like a Dasher-H.   The backstabbing sounds soo good.  But most of the time you miss w/ 50% or more of your shots & the one's that hit don't stack on the rear torso.
So you end up getting smashed w/o actually pulling off your 1-turn kill.

I've played w/ a Jumping TSM Puncher more times than I can count & I can't honestly say if I ever once landed a TSM 12 point to the head to KO a mech.
More often than not the Jumping & the Heat modifiers means I'm missing the target with guns & fists.
If you want to KO a head, just spam LRMs & MLs at a target, you'll get head hits often enough when you combine a LRM Carrier w/ Komodo.

Then there is the total loss of firepower.
4-6-7 sounds cool for an 85 tonner till you realize that w/o clan weapons/tech your likely ending up with an IS XL &/or the firepower of a mech barely half its weight.

Which I will not deny. It won't be the 'same' weight class with the other mechs with the same tonnage. And as I said already, required to be jump to be functional means it always suffers the accuracy issue.

But anyway, it's the 'better' medium, after all. A 4/6/7 85 tonner isn't powerful as much as a battlemaster. A 3/5/5 100 tonner isn't powerful as much as a standard atlas. But a 4/6/7 85 tonner would be better than an assasin, for example.

[Primus203]

So if I limit myself to dealing with terrain obstacles how much jump do i need to deal with most of it.

[Daryk]

It depends on the map, but 3 would probably do the trick on most.

[Charistoph]

I think they're usually necessary.  Ideally, you have just enough to get over a TMM break point (3, 5, 7, or 10).

"Necessary"?  Probably not, but they are far too useful to dismiss casually.  And yeah, those break points are good guidelines. 

However, there are some maps where going just a little farther will provide additional benefits, like jumping from Woods to Woods.  A Phoenix Hawk might be able to make it on a single hop, but a Wolverine couldn't.

So if I limit myself to dealing with terrain obstacles how much jump do i need to deal with most of it.

3-4 in most cases I've seen, but I've been on a few rare maps (usually like some of the Alien Worlds and I think one Tukayyid map) which could use a good 5 or even more to move effectively.

[PuppyLikesLaserPointers]

Even if put aside the uses of the improved jump jets, even for the 100 tonner it only needs six tons to add the 90m jump distance, and a jump MP of 3 would allows the mech to react against various situations better. 1 would be... only work as the fixed devices for the combat drop instead on the most times. 2 is questionable as well, although the infamous urbanmech does have 2 as default. But at least 3 means it provides some distances and allows to jump over the elevation at once.

So compared by the rewards, only extra 6 tons for an assault mechs and about 5~6 for the heavy are too good to be underestimated. It does have its downsides, such as also hampering your own aim as well, but usually the standard jump jets isn't heavy that much for their weight.

[DOC_Agren]

Needed is a strong word, they have some roles and sometime they can be a surprise.  as other said, if you look at a mech of equal weight, those with JJ have given up something to be able to fly.

I used to have a bone white Warhammer called "White Man" who had a Jump Jets.  Was a surprise when it was used.

[EPG]

I would say any light or medium mech ‘needs’ maximum jump jets (up to its walk MP) the weight penalty isn’t that big at 1/2 ton per MP and the added maneuverability for units with generally low armor is going to keep them out of a lot of trouble. 

Much more situational for heavies and assault mechs.  For them, jump jets are usually about getting into good firing positions.  This makes them pretty useful for mechs with mostly short ranged weapons who get a lot of benefits from being able to move to and from cover or areas with restricted firing arcs on their way into range.  However for mechs that have plenty of long ranged firepower they aren’t super useful - you are going to be able to take decent shots from wherever you are, so the need to close range quickly regardless of the terrain just isn’t as important. 

Obviously there will be specific maps or scenarios where this division doesn’t work, but it’s a good place to start from.

[Daryk]

That's a good way to put it! :)

[DevianID]

So if you are playing with most of the advanced weather/terrain/environment special rules, you want jump jets on everything.  Cause sometimes you will roll into a situation where your ground MP is useless.  If you dont use lots of the advanced maps or environmental effects, your need for jump jets goes way down.

For example, the Tukayyid map for Prezno river is pretty tough to cross without 5ish jump jets, like thats the whole point of the map and the story in the Novel the map is based on.  If you include that map in your random pool, you will want jump capable mechs more then if you play on grasslands.  Same if you dont see lots of elevation or buildings/city fights.  In the city maps, the ability to hop over certain building clusters gives you a big advantage, and it depends on the size of building where your JJ break points are.  On the new city map they made, there were 9 height, 8 height, 6 height large city block clusters, as well as rings of 4 and 3 height buildings.  So having 6 jump MP was significant for clearing the 6 high cluster--the 6 jump mech was outmaneuvering the 5 jump Nova/black hawk because of that, and that was a feature of the map I really liked.

As a rule of thumb, the cost of standard jump jets across the board is usually worth it on most slower designs.  On faster designs, like 8/12 and above, the 4 hexes of run MP start to match the reach of jump jets.  You can plot the ring of hexes you can get to with jump jets versus running MP.  IE, jump 1 has a 6 hex reach, jump 2 has a 6+12 hex reach, jump 3 a 6+12+18 hex reach, ect.  Ground 1/2 has a 5 hex reach, ground 2/3 has a 13 hex reach, ground 3/5 has a 42 hex reach, ect.  So the higher the run speed, the closer to jump levels of mobility you get if you assume a 2 MP reduction cause of average terrain interference running pays compared to jumping.

Further, while jumping is less accurate, the guaranteed TMM is crazy strong.  Like, take a victor.  It has short range guns, so as its closing the distance it gets a guaranteed TMM of 2 using jump jets, and pays no opportunity cost because its guns arnt in range anyway.  Especially with woods, as jumping into woods costs no extra MP, so you can hop from woods to woods for a net hit bonus greater then the net penalty you take from jumping.  So for any unit that want a guaranteed level of defense jump jets are a must have.