Preliminary House Rules

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Alemnyr
03/27/03 12:11 AM
142.179.143.141

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Energy Weapons

Medium Lasers (Inner Sphere): Damage reduced from 5 to 4. This does not include ER Medium Lasers.

Pulse Lasers: Clan Small Pulse Laser damage increased from 3 to 4. Inner Sphere Large Pulse Laser range changed from 3/7/10 to 4/8/12. All Pulse Lasers now have two firing modes.
1. Rapid Fire: Normal Damage, -1 to-hit modifier.
2. Full Pulse: Damage is reduced to 1dX (depending on laser), -2 to-hit modifier.

Heavy Lasers (Clan): Heavy Lasers no longer recieve a to-hit modifier. Small Heavy Laser heat reduced from 3 to 2.

Ballistic Weapons

Autocannons: All Autocannons (including LB-X, Ultra and Rotary) increase damage by 2. For all autocannon hits (except LB-X firing cluster munitions) roll on Critical Hit Table (2d6) if any armor was damaged by the attack, with the following modifiers.
AC/20 +0, AC/10 -1, AC/5 -2, AC/2 -3
In effect, all autocannon munitions (except LB-X cluster) act similar to HEAP ammunition. The special HEAP ammunition is not available. Rotary Autocannons no longer jam, but suffers a critical hit as an Ultra Autocannon does. Clan LB 5-X range changed from 8/15/24 to 8/16/24. Cluster munitions from LB 5-Xs use the 6 missles column and add 1. Cluster munitions from the LB20-X use the 20 missles column and add 2.

Gauss Rifles: Light Gauss Rifle damage increased from 8 to 10.

Missle Weapons

LRMs: All LRMs recieve a -1 to-hit modifier. All LRMs (even Clan versions) are now hindered by a minimum range of 5. For Inner Sphere LRMs, this is a slight improvement. All LRM 10s have their heat reduced from 4 to 3.

MRMs: All MRMs now have range 5/10/15, instead of 3/8/15. There is no to-hit modifier applied to MRMs any longer.

Equipment

Beagle Active Probe: If the unit carrying a BAP is attacking a target through or into smoke or trees (but not partial cover), the unit recieves a -1 to-hit modifier. If the unit carrying a BAP is acting as an indirect LRM spotter, the attack recieves a -1 to-hit modifier.

---- Thoughts? Suggestions?
Zwischy
03/28/03 04:19 AM
67.4.134.22

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Overall, these rules generally make the whole game MUCH more deadly...it's a lot easier to hit because of many of the range changes, and of course the targeting mods aren't what I'd call overly balanced either. The changes may offhand not seem very large to you, but I've played enough Battletech to know that the devil is often in the details - small changes can have big impacts. Obviously, you play with the rules you like and make the game as deadly (or benign) as you wish, but if you're still trying to play a balanced campaign, here's my take on these changes:


The different firing 'modes' for pulse lasers make them broken, I think, if I understand them correctly. -3 for rapid fire mode, yes? Waaaayy too easy to hit. What if you tossed in a targeting computer? There goes any reason for using light Mechs anymore, who can't dodge the fire and certainly won't stand up to 6 pulse lasers clobbering it at extreme range.

Heavy lasers are overpowering in their damage to weight ratio. That's why you aren't supposed to hit with them very often. The +1 standard mod also offsets Clan gunnery skills, probably another reason the game designers decided to go that way.

I like the mods for LBX cluster damage and bonuses to hit. Perhaps it makes the 20 a bit too powerful, but I understand where you get the idea (it's a large cloud of large bullets, how badly can you miss?!).

Light Gauss: A head hit at 25 hexes allows a possible critical hit already?! Yowch. Though you might actually see them get used every so often in that case.

MRMs: same argument as with the heavy lasers, they do a lot of damage for their sizes and therefore don't need help. There's no Clan gunnery to offset, but there's something even worse - the IS C3 computer. You need the hit mods for these things. Granted, with rules like these, you might actually see someone start to use them...

I like the Active Probe rules. The only thing I'd add is that these bonuses should be null and void when within the range of an enemy ECM suite.
Alemnyr
03/28/03 08:47 AM
142.179.143.141

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Old School Medium Laser:

5 Damage, 3 Heat, 1 ton. with DHS, that makes 2 Damage/ton.

Heavy Medium Laser:

10 damage, 7 Heat, 1 ton. with DHS, that makes 2.22 Damage/ton.

Yes, you're right... it's better than a Medium Laser. But let's look at a Clan ER Medium Laser.

7 Damage, 5 Heat, 1 ton. With DHS, that makes 2 Damage / ton. At almost TWICE the range as an IS Medium Laser. So if the Heavy Medium loses range... it has to gain something... Yep, increased damage / weight.

Now, if the other two Heavy lasers were like this, I would simply delete that House Rule. However, Large Heavy Lasers are 1.23 Damage / Ton, for the same range as an ER Medium, which are 2.00. No Clanner would EVER use a Large Heavy Laser if it also had a +1 to-hit modifier. You'd be much better off using 3-4 ER Mediums, minus of course the possibility of a head shot.

Small Heavy Laser: 3 Damage / ton. ER Small Laser: 3.33 Damage / ton with twice the range.

My point being, Large Heavy Lasers and Small Heavy Lasers are useless, Medium Heavy Lasers are only slightly better damage / weight ratio wise than ER Medium Lasers, but lose quite a bit of range to do it (and take up 3x the crits). So why have the +1 to-hit modifier? What am I missing?

MRMs have a D/T of 1.05 to 1.21. SSRMs or SRMs with Narc have D/T of 1.33 to 1.36. LRMs 15s with Narc have a D/T of 1.00. If you're going to fire long range, don't waste your time with MRMs. You're better off using LRM 15s or 20s, especially if you use a C3 computer. If you're going to fire short-range, PLEASE use the SRMs. MRMs are already gimped enough, no need for the +1 to-hit modifier. However, I feel I may have overstepped things, giving them 5/10/15 range AND no to-hit mod. I might give them a minimum range of 3. What do you think of that?

Light Gauss Rifle is a joke compared to the Gauss Rifle without the damage increase. 0.59 D/T compared to 0.86 D/T, a slight increase of range and an increased minimum range as well. My change brings it to 0.74 D/T. Perhaps I should reduce it to 9 damage (just taking off the armor), which would be 0.67 D/T ??

And the pulse lasers, no no no, I must not have been clear. I apologize. I hate Pulse Lasers. They are too powerful. This is how I meant the rule to "sound".

Take an (IS) Medium Pulse Laser. Damage 6. If you fire it at "normal pulse speed", you get -1 to-hit mod, you do 6 damage to hit. If you want it to pulse "amazingly fast pulse speed", you get -2 to-hit mod, but do 1d6 damage. These numbers are NOT added to the regular mods for being pulse. So basically I'm reducing the pulse laser mod from -2 to -1, unless you want to give up almost half your damage (which seems fair to me).

To finish off, I found your suggestions VERY helpful and VERY well thought out. I hope you aren't offended by my response, I meant none. Such is the 'net for misconstruing my intent with what is registered, however. I fully admit that I could be very well missing something very important with regard to Heavy Lasers and MRMs.

Thanks!
Mike
Zwischy
03/28/03 09:11 PM
65.57.19.6

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Ok, I follow what you say about the heavy lasers. However, I think there's another aspect you need to consider other than just the raw average damage per ton.

How about the cluster potential of the damage? How many Mechs of ANY size can stand up to a single heavy large laser hit? 16 points in one location is hefty. This is probably why the +1 to hit. Perhaps an ER PPC is more efficient, but we can argue that another time. Heavy smalls, I suppose, aren't really justified but they're there for the sake of completeness, or something.

As for MRMs, ok, I understand your argument with the smaller racks. However, how do you deal with the damage potential of a 30 or 40 rack? No LRM can match that potential (though I grant you, it's hard to hit in the upper range of the missile hits table without a lot of luck), and certainly no SRM. So, perhaps, MRMs HAVE their uses after all. I am all in favor of evening out the ranges a bit, though. Maybe they came out with those ranges just to keep some 'flavor' to the weapon - they're medium, not short range missiles, so I suppose they have trouble 'tracking' at short range. However, these are supposed to be 'dumb-fired' LRMs and therefore shouldn't HAVE tracking problems. But perhaps, you could say the missiles still have some sort of rudimentary, leftover tracking from their LRM days and therefore have something of a minimum range yet. 2 or 3 hexes is reasonable.

And on a brighter note, I like your pulse laser ideas. The idea of random damage adds an element of chaos which is always entertaining to say the least.
Alemnyr
03/31/03 02:02 AM
142.179.143.141

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Yeah, only problem being I'm not too sure what to use for the IS large and the Clan medium. Maybe 1d10 and 1d8, reroll the highest value. er... Nevermind, not much of a problem then, is it? Still, I find it a much needed change to make those TC/Pulse 'mechs a bit more reasonable. -3 to-hit? I hope you don't roll all 1s... heh. Thanks very much for your input, I appreciate it.
Cadet
04/02/03 12:23 AM
206.102.32.39

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Let's see:
Inner Sphere Medium: No thanks. I like the IS Med. the way it is.

Clan Pulse Lasers: I don't like the futzing around with the damage. i would prefer seeing the ranges of Clan Pulse Weapons reduced to the same as Inner Sphere. They are already more powerful. Don't need to make them that much more.

Heavy Lasers: It needs the +1 just based on the damage potential. Reducing the heat on the small doesn't help.

Autocannons: Just lower the tonnage and crits.

Light Gauss: I can see that change.

LRMs: I just apply the same minimum range to Clan LRMs that the IS has.

MRM: No thanks. I like the rules as is.

Beagle Active Probe: Maybe.
Does not play well with others.
NathanKell
06/04/03 05:22 PM
67.86.63.119

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I actually like many of these.
1. I'm too fond of 3/5 to give them up.
2. Or perhaps even to 5. SPLs are just *soooo* useless. I agree about the IS LPL, and think your pulse mod fixes are needed (though I'll miss the -2 and concentration). Perhaps have slightly more d than required (i.e. LPL is 2d6) to make up for the fact of averaging much lower, but also maybe use LRM clustering.
3. Oh, totally. HLs are just so useles otherwise.
4. I, like Cadet, would sooner lower the tonnage than disturb the nice 5/10/20 spread of ACs, and wouldn't include the critting (after all no other weapon excepting TC SRMs (yech) and FS AP Ammo (late-game supertech weirdness) have an auto crit chance). If you lower the mass for normal ACs but not RACs and UACs, then they should both /jam/, not crit, as otherwise they'd be left behind compared to normal ACs (!).
5. Oh, totally. The LGR is like the IS version of the Clan SPL.
6. I don't think the -1 modifier is needed. I agree about the LRM-10, though: otherwise it's pretty useless compared to two 5s.
7. This is perhaps overpowering, but I agree that they need all the help they can get. Perhaps a penalty on the Missile Hits Table (to account for crude, easy-to-miss construction?). The thing about MRM-30s and 40s is that perform identically to lots and lots of really inaccurate MLs--they're always in 5pt groups. So I don't see where Zwischy's coming from with the idea of 30 and 40's damage potential.
8. Definitely. If you're not playing Double Blind or campaign or perhaps in ambush territory, the Beagle looks like a pretty poor thing to have.

One thing I'd really like to see is the minimum range modifier for missiles applied to the MHT, not the to-hit number. I mean, the whole point is that at close range less missiles will arm themselves, not that at close range your target is somehow harder to hit.
-NathanKell, BT Space Wars
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
Thomas Jefferson
tgsofgc
08/08/03 11:08 PM
67.4.201.167

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Im always up for house rules, especially for later tech.
Here are my views on the rules you mad.
Laser weights range, I think these are overall fairly balanced except for IS pulse lasers. They weigh twise as much, have half the range, and still run hotter than normal lasers. I liked the idea of the random damage but I would caution against it for one major reason, more dice rolling? Yeah I love battletech and I know others who do to, but in any battletech game you can reach that point where you start saying haven't I rolled enough yet. Maybe these would be better if you were also using someking of weapon tic system.
MRMs I like MRMs how they are, I think despite their lower average damage they are an excellent weapon for their high potential damage. I don't think the +1 is that prohibitive. If you wanted to change the MRM I would encourage you to create longer extreme range brackets for it.
LGR, the LGR has problems. Sure it is long range but not that much longer than a normal gauss and does considerably less damage. I would encourage you to change the damage profile to 9 points so you can't get lucky headblasts at extreme ranges.
Active Probes were always an equipment for roleplayers and so were never made that effective for the normal board game. I like what you did with them.
I think Autocannons are relatively balanced right now. Regular ACs seem primitive while still being useful. Conceptually the LBX rules make great sense but I think they are plenty deadly enough as is with the ability to hole punch and sandpaper in one weapon.
Just my take on the rules.
I find that 'pinpoint' accuracy during a bombing run increases proportionally with the amount of munitions used.
-Commander Nathaniel Klepper,
Avanti's Angels, 3058
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