Vehicle Movement Types

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KamikazeJohnson
02/08/14 07:55 PM
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With the exception of construction considerations (tonnage restrictions, cost, etc.) are there any advantages to Wheeled or Tracked movement on Ground Vehicles?

As I understand it, Wheeled and Tracked don't skid using Flank Movement in Clear terrain, and Tracked can enter Light Woods...seems like a pretty tiny tradeoff for Hover's massive Suspension Factor and ability to cross Water hexes.

Mainly curious if there's any compelling reason not to use Hover movement on a tank less than 50 tons.
Peace is that glorious moment in history when everyone stands around reloading.
--Thomas Jefferson
ghostrider
02/08/14 09:59 PM
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I believe it is in the construction part that causes the main reasons to use tracked and wheeled vehicles.
I have seen like 2 canon maps that hovers and wheeled vehicles would have difficulty moving thru.
Cost is another factor. Hovers are harder to maintain.
As well as weapon capacity. Hovers require x% of the unit be engine weight. I was to say atleast 10% but it might be 20%.
With the weight issue, they tend to have lighter armor as well.
They do have the bonus of not having issues in rough terrain.
Retry
02/08/14 10:30 PM
67.239.109.174

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Without using vehicle effectiveness to reduce the amount of times your crew turns to death because of TACs? Not much.

If you do? Well, getting hit for tracked and wheeled motive systems won't be quite as big a deal. But for hovercraft, if you get hit, you have a great chance of losing your motive systems. And exclusively for hovercraft, a slow hovercraft is a really dead hovercraft.

Vehicles can generally get more armor and weaponry than hovercraft as long as they aren't stupidly fast.
KamikazeJohnson
02/09/14 11:49 AM
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Just found the answer I was looking for...didn't notice the Vehicle Type Modifiers or the Motive System Damage Table: +3 for Hover, +2 for Wheeled. Makes Hovercrafts even more ridiculously delicate than I thought they were.

So, complete list of differences:

Hover: Huge Suspension Factor allows much higher speed. Fragile Motive System. No Woods Hexes. Water Hexes allowed. Minimum Engine Size (20% total tonnage). Max 50 Tons. May skid while flanking on any terrain.

Wheeled: Small Suspension Factor. Slightly less fragile Motive System, Most restricted by terrain (no Woods or Rough/Rubble). No Minimum Engine Size allows design to sacrifice speed for firepower/armour. Skids on Pavement only. Max 80 Tons.

Tracked: No Suspension Factor. Most durable Motive System. Light Woods and Rough/Rubble allowed. No Minimum Engine Size allows design to sacrifice speed for firepower/armour. No Weight Limit. Skids on Pavement only.

So the Vehicle Type Modifier on the Motive System Damage Table is significant, but IMHO even Tracked Vehicles are fragile enough that their best protection is speed. A few quick mock-ups show that while a Hovercraft may run at 8/12 or 9/14 at minimum engine size, a Wheeled Vehicle uses the same engine tonnage at about 6/9, and Tracked at 5/8, so in order to mounts additional equipment, non-Hovercrafts need to slow down to 4/6 or so...slow enough that such a vehicle can expect to be immobilized with a single volley as soon as it's in range.
Peace is that glorious moment in history when everyone stands around reloading.
--Thomas Jefferson
Retry
02/09/14 12:06 PM
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I could have swore it was +1 for wheeled.

But yeah, the stack of penalties takes Hovercraft from "godly" status to "don't so much as touch the damn thing if you want to live" status.

Tracked vehicles should rely on armor, not speed. Though they have more durable motive systems, hits that slow 'em down are still fairly common enough that you can't rely on it for long.
KamikazeJohnson
02/09/14 12:21 PM
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Actually, the best protection most tanks get is being next to more dangerous targets, or simply staying out of harm's way (indirect LRMs anyone?) Let's face it, even a single motive hit turns a 4/6 tank into a turret. Slow tanks pretty much have to rush out to where they can affect the battle even if they lose mobility, and then just hope they don't die...
Peace is that glorious moment in history when everyone stands around reloading.
--Thomas Jefferson
ghostrider
02/09/14 03:11 PM
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I've said it before. Because of the high chance of criticals done to vehicles, a single hit doing a single point of damage can take them out of the game with ease.
Not being hit is the key to it all. Speed is great for that, but there are alot of the times you can not use it.
The fact that on a bad crit you are likely to lose the crew on half of the non movement crititcal hits. Engine/ammo explosion and crew killed hits. Case can modify this but alot of tanks do not have it.
Retry
02/09/14 04:04 PM
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tac ops vehicle effectiveness.

Don't blame the tanks for the stupidity of the rules.
ghostrider
02/09/14 09:19 PM
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I don't blame combat vehicles because the game designers wanted mechs to be the all powerful gods of the battle fields. They could have done it a little easier.
I still say that any potential critical should roll like a mech and only crit on a 7+ on 2d6. Most people hate this because it means they can't wade through a battalion of vehicles with a machine gun mech.
Retry
02/09/14 09:20 PM
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Vehicle Effectiveness helps vees a lot.

Mechwarriors wallow in horror though.
His_Most_Royal_Highass_Donkey
02/10/14 02:54 PM
172.56.32.118

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It sounds like this tac ops vehicle effectiveness thing is there just to make the game even more lopsided in favor of the BM.

This is why I like large numbers of light or ultra like vehicles. No matter how lopsided they make the rules you can still die from large numbers of wasp stings and it takes time to kill each and every wasp.
Why argue if the glass is half full or half empty, when you know someone is going to knock it over and spill it anyways.

I was a Major *pain* before
But I got a promotion.
I am now a General *pain*
Yay for promotions!!!
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