use of vehicles

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ghostrider
07/16/16 07:29 PM
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A recent post does make me wonder why bother using vehicles in the newest era. The bs about mechs being rare doesn't really fit the background. The idea of maintenance and payroll over the long term does seem to over ride the extra cost of a mech. And with the constant repairs of movement crits does make it seem like vehicles in the post jihad eras are almost pointless except when used it massed quantities. Mobile artillery and cargo/support units seem to be the only thing that seem to be worth anything.

The idea that fuel for a fusion engine is unlimited, and allows units to travel around worlds until the leg actuators and such fail. Never needing fuel does tend to destroy using ICE.

Battle armor seems to be more useful then vehicles in combat anymore. They have about the same range as other units anymore, and much easier to deploy and recover then vehicles ever will be. Jets on them make it possible.

Has anyone else started getting this feeling?
happyguy49
07/18/16 09:17 AM
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Vehicles are so prominent and vastly outnumber Battlemechs in the universe because of scarcity. It is my understanding that only a few dozen worlds in all of human space have Battlemech factories, with factories that make advanced critical components, such as fusion engines, being even less common. Whereas many hundreds if not a few thousand worlds can make basic ICE vehicles.

A quartermaster of a backwater garrison would certainly much rather spend his money and logistical capability on mechs instead of vee's MOST of the time (arty, ammo trucks, scout hovers/VTOLs, weapon carriers and maybe very-well designed MBTs would be the exception, as well as wet navy stuff on water-rich worlds) but s/he doesn't have that option.

If vehicle vulnerability bugs you, use the tech that is designed to mitigate it, such as Hardened Armor, Armored Motive System. You can also use the advanced alternate rules for de-nerfing vehicles. (Tactical Operations, page 107)
ghostrider
07/18/16 12:28 PM
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The story of the game is mechs are rare, yet the number of mechs from 3025 to 3049 (clan invasion) more then doubled though there were still wars and raids.

The argument brought up the fact that with the new equipment, vehicles have fallen that much further behind. Except for superchargers, there really isn't much to allow a vehicle a burst of speed, and they still can not go into forbidden terrain (except on a road and flying units). They tend to cost almost as much as a mech,
A mech costs more to maintain then a single vehicle, most of the time, but you need 2 or more to really be able to defend with them, and attacking is that much more difficult. Now with the idea of jets being put on them, makes it easier to drop them, but most still have the issues of having to unload on land.

The tech as the armored motive system and such is nice, but limits what they can use yet again. It seems like the latest round of upgrades have made alot, of combat vehicles obsolete anymore.
And this does not touch it is easier for mechs to be more useful in non combat roles for garrison duty as well. Such as rescue operations when buildings collapse on civilians.

There is an issue with the limited factory theory, since things like fusion engines are used in vehicles as well as mech and other things. There is no numbers for vehicle production like mech production, which would show the lie of this. I will grant the assembly plants for the mechs themselves is more limited then most, but from the sounds of the story line advancing, most of the 'issues' of old have greatly diminished.

One other thing has gotten my curiousity up. If oil comes from dinosaurs deteriorating, and seems to be found on all worlds, does that mean the developers are suggesting each world had life on it that formed oil? This is in question of making fuel for ICE on all worlds. I find this unlikely.
CrayModerator
07/18/16 06:36 PM
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Quote:
ghostrider writes:

A recent post does make me wonder why bother using vehicles in the newest era. The bs about mechs being rare doesn't really fit the background.



Except for the part where 'Mechs are still outproduced by combat vehicles at 5 and 10 to 1 rates. Vehicles are simpler to build and may be assembled in many more locations than 'Mechs. It takes a lot longer to train a MechWarrior than a vehicle crew, too. That is very much part of the background canon.

Quote:
The idea of maintenance and payroll over the long term does seem to over ride the extra cost of a mech.



Not nearly. The purchase costs of a 'Mech runs into the millions and tens of millions, while annual MechWarrior salaries are around 10,000CB per year. Maintenance and spare parts outside of battle damage are also low. Salaries can add up to be a large part of a combat force's ongoing costs, and fuel and ammo even larger parts, but those are all fairly small compared to purchase costs. I recommend reviewing Mercenaries Handbook 1st or 2nd edition, any Mechwarrior RPG, or Campaign Operations. Salary, ammo, and purchase prices have been published and consistent for nearly 30 years.

Quote:
And with the constant repairs of movement crits does make it seem like vehicles in the post jihad eras are almost pointless except when used it massed quantities. Mobile artillery and cargo/support units seem to be the only thing that seem to be worth anything.



If you're playing a non-campaign, non-roleplaying game of duels then, yes, vehicles are not worthwhile. However, you were incorrect about your earlier statement of 'Mech availability vs. that of vehicles. Not every planet can acquire, support, and maintain 'Mechs, while vehicles are much more manageable and easy to acquire. So, you get vehicles or you've got infantry only.

Quote:
The idea that fuel for a fusion engine is unlimited, and allows units to travel around worlds until the leg actuators and such fail. Never needing fuel does tend to destroy using ICE.



Fusion engines are great when they're available and you have technicians who know how to maintain them. They really shine in campaigns because fuel is a high cost and cargo tonnage issue for mobile units. However, fusion engines don't grow on trees and neither do their technicians.

Regarding battle armor, they have the problem of rarely moving more than 3 hexes per turn and often only 1 to 2. In open fields, they're easy targets for even sluggish, heavy tanks. Or that's been my experience.

Quote:
Has anyone else started getting this feeling?



Not really, but I seem to have a different perspective on what canon says about 'Mech-vs-vehicle availability and the availability of personnel for each. You might want to try the Objective Raids series to look at 'Mech factories compared to vehicle factories.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.


Edited by Cray (07/18/16 06:43 PM)
Akalabeth
07/18/16 11:55 PM
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Quote:
ghostrider writes:

The story of the game is mechs are rare, yet the number of mechs from 3025 to 3049 (clan invasion) more then doubled though there were still wars and raids.



This statement seems disingenuous. Like, you have heard of the Gray Death Memory Core right? The discovery that halted technological decline and allowed for new technologies, repaired and expanded factories, etcetera. If there is EVER going to be a doubling of mech numbers it is going to be during THAT time period.
happyguy49
07/19/16 08:38 AM
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Quote:
ghostrider writes:

There is an issue with the limited factory theory, since things like fusion engines are used in vehicles as well as mech and other things. There is no numbers for vehicle production like mech production, which would show the lie of this. I will grant the assembly plants for the mechs themselves is more limited then most, but from the sounds of the story line advancing, most of the 'issues' of old have greatly diminished.




Indeed, there was probably close to an order of magnitude more Inner Sphere yearly mech production in say, 3067 than there was in 3025, due to the Gray Death core being discovered and the truly existential threat of the Clan invasion.

Mechs are probably still going to be relatively scarce though, because of all the insane destruction of the FedCom civil war, the Jihad, and all the other conflicts of the second half of the 31st century. That was a few decades that were almost as destructive as the first succession war. Whole worlds including very advanced tech-production worlds, DEAD. (Galax, Outreach, Galedon, Gibson, many many many others.) That is a great deal of war industry (not to mention many tens of billions of people) gone in nuclear fire, or apocalyptic plague, or massive orbital bombardment; pick your end-times scenario.

Quote:
ghostrider writes:

One other thing has gotten my curiousity up. If oil comes from dinosaurs deteriorating, and seems to be found on all worlds, does that mean the developers are suggesting each world had life on it that formed oil? This is in question of making fuel for ICE on all worlds. I find this unlikely.



Fossil fuels form from decaying organic matter (mostly plants) on Earth, and would likely form on any similar world. A world that was a green living world when discovered has had its ecosystem going for millions of years before humanity colonized it, so such a world would have exploitable fossil fuels.

However a world that was a dead rock when discovered, even if it was terraformed in Star Leauge times, would not have had anywhere near enough time to form fossil fuels.

That said, the chemicals needed for ICE engines aren't required to come from fossils, they are actually all over the place; they can also be found in comets, weird moons such as Titan, other sources would abound.
ghostrider
07/19/16 04:46 PM
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The helm core was a big help. The issue is with the fluff and novels suggesting alot of those very factories were being built BEFORE the core came out is and issue. The planet Victoria, I believe mentioned in the double blind novels was done in less then 10 years The least likely house to be able to build anything that quickly.

But the point of vehicles being produced up to ten times the amount of mechs shows economics doesn't exist, or at the very least, is horrible inaccurate, as supply and demand would change prices of said units. Also the idea the mech units, sometimes regiment in size were formed and alot of them did not have mech on hand to do so. They bought them on the market. If the houses were that mech poor, they would have snatched up any and all mechs they could and fix them all. The same could be said of planetary governments.
And one more thing along this line. The issue of vehicles costing almost as much as mechs.

And unless they changed it a same experienced level tank crew makes the same as a mech warrior. So your 10k c-bill mech warrior is the same 10k you would pay a vehicle crew. As per the original merc handbook. And most will have more vehicles then mechs.

And one last thing about numbers. These don't take into account wob/comstar units that were made.
As they changed fusion engines, I take it they do not require radio active elements any more, so that limitation went out the window.
ghostrider
07/21/16 12:49 AM
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I am going to have to take a look in some of the books I have, as a few suggested production was shut down in order to rush build supporting factories to bring in upgraded weapons and such. And a few of the advanced mechs were limited by things like endosteel and ferrous fiber armor as they are space factory only items.
And if I recall, a few factories were also placed on hold to incorporate some of the newer materials into the buildings themselves.

Which all leads to the fact the core did not create the boom. It helped advance technologies back to star league time. Most of the increase was started before the tech was gotten from the core.

And the supposed lack of trained personnel to build these very factories would put the building later in the time line.
As noted in the actual resource books, 10 rtcs were created right before the 4th war. Over 1000 mechs popped out of thin air, according to their own accounting. Since they don't have vehicles listed, the over 3000 of them for the rtcs is questionable.
Now that sounds disingenuous.
Akalabeth
07/21/16 02:06 PM
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Define "a lot"? What percentage? Without going through the factories one by one, which I am never going to do, it's impossible to know how many came about before or after the helm core. Also I believe it's been stated that the Houses were already rebounding before the helm core, evidenced by Triple Strength Myomer and early DHS technology. The helm core just opened the floodgates further.
ghostrider
07/21/16 04:58 PM
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Ok. So you are not suggesting the helm core was the reason for the increase in production as the one post looks like it was the case.

Since the game does not list space factories and such that were left over from star league, that were needed to increase the production further, there is no way to say what percentage was built before the helm cores information was finally released. Even the main factory of defiance added things to it, once the information was released, and in the 20 year update, it suggested they increased production before the information was out.
And as is the case of some factories, they were just fixed up and started as this wave of rebuilding was going on. One of the books suggested Anduria had started up a ppc factory without the fwl government ok'ing it. This was one the fwl has shut down to keep the output out of the hands of that rebellious community. How many more factories were like that and not listed?


Which brings up another question. How long does it take to design a mech?
It sounds like decades at least, even with upgrades. The idea that some of the more advance components were easily integrated into existing designs in a couple of years sounds like the time line wasn't kept. Even a simple variation might take years to do right.
To introduce something like ferrous armor, trying to allocate the extra criticals to keep the mech balanced would take a few years. But it seems once the armor was released, units that used it were coming off line that used it.
I know that was to keep the stuff relevant, but it shows an inconsistent time line.
Simply running extra coolant lines to the erll that replaced the normal ll takes time to do properly.
Akalabeth
07/21/16 06:46 PM
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Decades to design a mech? Don't think so. There are many descriptions that describe mechs going from drawing to battlefield in a year or two.
ghostrider
07/21/16 08:52 PM
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Yes. That seemed to be the case once the game got off the ground. The hatchetman was being touted as the first new mech design in a long while in the davion house book, the original one. Made it sound like it was in design phase for a long while. Then the wolfhound.
During the clan war, they had quite a few that seemed to be done in the year or two. Not sure if they were trying to suggest the newer tech allowed them to do it easier or not.

But this is moving from the feeling vehicles are looking like a bad deal anymore. They cost almost as much as mechs, without the benefits of one. I understand part of this, but the idea of cheap throwaway units has not really shown itself, as vehicles were intentioned to be. Or that is the way I seen implied by reading the fluff of the rules and tros.
happyguy49
07/21/16 10:07 PM
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Quote:
ghostrider writes:

But this is moving from the feeling vehicles are looking like a bad deal anymore. They cost almost as much as mechs, without the benefits of one. I understand part of this, but the idea of cheap throwaway units has not really shown itself, as vehicles were intentioned to be. Or that is the way I seen implied by reading the fluff of the rules and tros.



They cost almost as much as mechs? A Hetzer costs less than 700,000. A somewhat equivalent mech, lets say a 3025 Hunchback, costs 3.5 MILLION. Top speeds are the same. Sure, with superior mobility and a couple of backup lasers the Hunchback would win a 1v1 duel with a Hetzer more than 50 percent of the time, but no way in hell a Hunchback could kill FIVE Hetzers. Probably not more than 2, 3 if it is lucky.

There are dirt cheap tanks you can flood a battlefield with and overwhelm by numbers, (Hetzer, Po, Zhukov, Striker, Partisan, the cheaper weapon carriers, others.) Those are your "cheap throwaways".

There are also XL-engine-carrying, latest-technology-having, flagship MBT's such as the Alacorn, Behemoth II, G�rteltier, Heimdall, Narukami, etc. that can cost 20 million bucks or more. I would rather have a 20 million dollar assault mech almost all of the time, not that they aren't VERY dangerous tanks to anything other than a well designed modern assault mech.

But a well designed modern tank, (to me that means Hardened Armor, no exceptions) with just a regular fusion engine or an even lighter fuel cell, can economically kick all kinds of ****, especially in a small group. Rommel Howitzer, Kelswa, Pollux ADA, Challenger Mark 15, all are solid designs that only cost a few million. Five or six of them can destroy a far costlier mech force (a medium/heavy lance of mechs) almost all of the time. Several tanks are also artillery/MBT combo designs that couldn't be outranged even by a light fast mech with an ELRM.

...what do you want? You want cheap disposable armor? It's there. You want a 20 million dollar tank that makes no economic sense? Also there. The most cost-effective yet capable machines are in the middle.
Drasnighta
07/21/16 10:24 PM
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The Helm Core enabled many things with factories:



New Factories to be Built.

Mothballed Factories to be Reopened.

Current Factories to reopen Mothballed Lines when the Technology was lacking.

Destroyed Factories to be Rebuilt.

Current Factories to Expand for the first time in Millenia.

Automation to be Reintroduced to some Factories
CEO Heretic BattleMechs.
ghostrider
07/22/16 02:49 AM
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The core helped do all of that, but it wasn't the only cause of it. Some, like defiance were putting out more units and opening some of the unused lines before the core's information was extracted from the core. Others done up as well before the information was obtained. And without it, the space factories would still be inactive, as the need for them would not be there.
As stated, it helped, but wasn't the only reason production increased.

The example of the hertzers verse a hunchback is interesting. Now put those same units up against a phoenix hawk in the terrain that is normally used. No city fighting, but having areas the mech can fire longer ranges and not worry about the tanks being able to follow. Though the idea that the fluff for the hertzer suggest only roads, most allow it to go where wheeled vehicles can go.

With the prices of the more effective tanks, you show why I wonder about vehicles in the newer eras. Artillery tanks need spotters. Otherwise, they are almost useless. Yes, a c3 system helps if the enemy doesn't have ecm, but how many can go up the side of a cliff without a road?
Mechs like the clan Naga, have the same capabilities of the artillery tanks, and are more mobile. They normally can get into range to kick the tanks if needed.

The argument seems to be based on what seems to be normal playing style. You create the force on the spot. Not actually deal with what would really be there. And this does not go over to being the attacking force with vehicles.
But then this deals with things other then bv created scenarios.

And the statement of well designed modern assault unit. That could be downgrade to any well designed mech. And that is why I started wondering if vehicles will have as active a role in the future of the game. To use the er or pulse weapons, they need fusion engines or lots of weight to heat sinks. That is a big cost for a 'throw away' unit.
Using ammo weapons is their biggest advantage, and most of the people here seem to agree, the lack of munitions is a down fall. Something alot would not bother with. So an srm carrier can do some horrendous damage to a mech, it is more likely to die without firing a shot if people know about it ahead of time.

With using vehicles, you end up having to separate them trying to keep and enemy in range. Either hills, trees, even water causes them to have to split up, or have a few vulnerable to fire alone. Having them in prepared positions that don't move doesn't always happen.
Akalabeth
07/22/16 06:43 PM
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I honestly wouldn't worry too much about when one factory started when. The writers will make up whatever, regardless of the confines of logic.

Was just looking at Defiance Industries for example. During the Jihad, Hesperus was attack and taken over by the Word of Blake and afterwards, WoB sabotaged much of the facility. Sounds like the downfall of Defiance Industries right? NOPE! Because they secretly found a secret underwater factory hidden in the Rim Worlds Republic territory and secretly refurbished the place and still made lots and lots of battlemechs. How fortuitous. And the idea of a secret factory supplied solely by submarine sounds like the most ludicrously expensive and inconvenient thing ever.

Or the FedCom civil war, devastated the armies of the two participants. But the Davions for example rebuilt much of their mech forces straight away by just pulling stuff out of storage.

Very few conflicts in Battletech have lasting consequence. Which to my mind kinda defeats the purpose.
ghostrider
07/23/16 11:45 AM
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I find this very funny.

Defiance has 2 almost impervious factories now, once they rebuild the primary one. And the clans missed it entirely.
I could see a research base with the ability to assemble a prototype, but nothing larger.

And Davion. The supposed rare mechs. To rebuild after a devastating war, while not only not employing them to begin with, they had all the units upgraded and ready to use. Logic? Is that what you use to figure out what's for diner?

Thanks for the laugh. I needed it.

Now back to use of vehicles.

If you had limited funds and had to create a force that would be used for offense and defense, would you actually use the more expensive combat vehicles?
Support vehicles are a no brainer.
And this is not the horde idea being in use. This means the scorpion nest idea isn't being used.
Just curious if those here would run straight mechs for their forces. It sounds like most would.
Akalabeth
07/23/16 07:44 PM
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Yeah the reasoning I heard is that Davion replaced their older machines with new builds from say 3055, 3058, 3060 etcetera. The old 3025 era mechs went into storage. Then after the civil war, a lot of their mechs were destroyed, so they brought the old clunkers out of storage and upgraded them.

Specifically from Field Manual updated page 123 "by the end of the Civil War the AFFS had lost roughly half its combat strength . . . officers have assembled huge teams of military and civilian engineers, techs and mechanics to delve into the thousands of square kilometres of mothballs on worlds like Novaya Zzemlya and Bryceland, and rebuild and recondition 'Mechs, tanks and fighters sent there decades earlier. Already, these teams have brought several key regiments back to life with this refurbished equipment."

Note that in 3062, the Federated Suns Strength was:
86 Battlemech Regiments, 2 Battalions

In 3067, after 5 years of "hell" and losing "half their strength", in FM: Updates they're
66 Regiments, 2 Battalions


Dunno who did the math at FanPro, but 66 is not 50% of 86. Not by a long shot

Incidentally, it's not even half of their 20-year update strength which was 104 Regiments, 2 Battalions


So bottom line, the numbers are pretty bullshit. Just know that there are more tanks than mechs. They're easier to make. Easier to produce. But FanPro and CGL try very hard to maintain the status quo I find in terms of the story. Big things happen, and most often very little changes.
Retry
07/24/16 12:07 AM
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The existence of regiments is not binary though; You don't have to have either a 100% strength regiment or no regiment at all. Groups of that size are not measured by percentage of strengths. If you have a 100-mech called the XYZ Mech Division whittled down to 50 mechs in a brawl, it is still considered to be the XYZ Mech Division even though it is nowhere near its optimal strength. It would continue to be the XYZ Mech Division until it were to take so many casualties that the group simply disbanded or were literally annihilated, like if their housing dropship/warship were destroyed or if they were hit by a nuclear bomb.

I'm not saying FanPro didn't do some lazy math, but the fact that only 20 regiments were deemed "lost" in a 86 regiment military force is not mutually exclusive with the half-strength claim.
Akalabeth
07/24/16 12:46 AM
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If you add up the strengths of the various regiment it still comes up to just shy of 50 Regiments. Which is much closer to "roughly half" than 66 regiments is, If you take the roughly half literally, then the FedSuns recouped what, 7 Regiments worth of mechs in five months? Which could be anywhere from 756-1260 Battlemechs depending on the number of Battalions? Which doesn't seem to sit well with the claim that it will decades to recover.
ghostrider
07/24/16 10:59 AM
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I think they are using the numbers of mechs, not the name of the unit to figure out the remaining units still working.
A disturbing idea did come up with the numbers. I wonder if the Davions did lose enough to get near 50% but their stores brought them up the to 66 regiments and 2 battalions. This is disturbing as that would suggest then had over 10 regiments of mechs just lying around.

I would like to know the answer to this, as it means the factories put out that many MORE mech then they suggest to make the 86 regiments total, so they could store the 10 regiments, if this is the case.
It also calls into question why they didn't distribute the older mech to garrison/militias. Even slowly upgrading them while there would have been a much better idea then letting planets suffer.
Drasnighta
07/24/16 01:08 PM
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Concentration of force, perhaps...


Scattering them about means they can be defeated in little chunks, when the attacking forces are outweighting them *anyway*...

Keep them in storage, keeps them away from combat, so they can be brought out - after the fact - to overwhelm an exhausted opposition.


Which is kinda what they tried to do, I think....
CEO Heretic BattleMechs.
ghostrider
07/24/16 02:33 PM
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I can agree with that, but that is not saying you have to put a single lance on each world in your borders. A full battalion would have gone a long ways to slowing down invaders. And with the civil war, I doubt the lyrans would not have activated those mechs to defend Katherine. She was the 'rightful' ruler at the time.

Still leaves the question of number of mechs produced. All those in storage means that many plus those destroyed were built.
So the statement of numbers being bullshit is very much the case.

And a side note about using them to counterstrike. Wouldn't that mean they should have been upgraded when the attacks started? Even exhausted, the greater range of the newer weapons would still cause alot of casualties.
Retry
07/24/16 03:50 PM
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Quote:
But a well designed modern tank, (to me that means Hardened Armor, no exceptions)



There's a few problems with that.

First, Hovercraft, VTOLs, and WiGEs cannot mount Hardened armor whatsoever. VTOLs and WiGEs aren't exactly tanks, sure, but restricting "well designed modern tanks" to hardened armor effectively excludes Armored Fighting Hovercraft from being considered well-designed entirely.

Second, a concentration of equipment usually leads to a concentration of counters by the opponent. While removes crit-causing effects of AP ammo and TC Warheads, both of these versions of ammunition deal their damage like they were facing standard armor: so essentially double damage versus a Hardened Armored opponent. Both of these can be fired from either standard autocannons or SRMs, which are extremely common. If your primary MBT fleet was converted entirely to hardened armor, then Re-Engineered Large Lasers would become an appealing weapon for your opponents as well.

If you need to increase general protection while reducing the effectiveness of AP weapon systems, Reactive and Ferro-Lamellor armor works just fine with better protection against certain threats and without the double-damage phenomenon. They can also be mounted on VTOLs and Hovercraft.

If you must have the -2 crit chance, then it's worth noting that light tanks generally can't survive that long to get critted anyways.
Akalabeth
07/25/16 02:42 AM
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If you want to protect a tank from criticals, give it side-mounted weapons. That will protect it infinitely more than hardened armour ever will because those weapons can soak up to two criticals each which would otherwise destroy the engine.

A -2 to criticals makes criticals no less common than your average battletech critical, as a result of 8 will be reduced to 6 which is still a critical. Which, if the critical doesn't apply it will move up and up and up until it hits something that all vehicles have.

Actually in addition to adding side weapons. Add a .5 ton cargo bay as well. That will soak up even more criticals and at a lot less weight than hardened armour.

Beyond that, maybe armoured motive system. Not sure what effect that has as I've never used it.
happyguy49
07/25/16 08:57 AM
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to Retry:

Fair points on hovers, wiges, etc. Ferro-Lamellor is the ideal armor for those types of units. -1 on crit rolls, and damage reduction of all attacks. Good stuff! Probably hard to source though, being Clan tech. For IS tech only air (and air-ish, vtol, wige, hover,) units, I would rock Heavy Ferro Fibrous. It has the highest 'points' of damage absorption per ton of any armor type, requires a huge amount of crit space on mechs, but hardly any vehicles need all their possible item slots, so Heavy Ferro is the best choice for IS only vees. (I feel the same way about the justifiably-maligned Inner Sphere XL engines.. the only downside on vehicles is a slot reduction. They don't turn tanks into deathtraps like they do mechs.)

Yes some specialized weapons can do regular damage to hardened, I consider that acceptable. Clans don't even use standard ACs, Re-engineered lasers are rare and are even more inefficient than 3025 lasers. The biggest reason Hardened Armor is my default for all wheeled/tracked tanks is the crit reduction! Vehicles are soooo vulnerable to lucky BS crits. Hardened means that even if you get a crit chance roll, to actually get a crit one must roll 10 or above, starting with only the minor ones like driver hit, weapon malfunction, etc. Even a natural 12 can't instantly kill the vehicle anymore. (12-2=10, so you'd have commander hit, weapon destroyed, or engine hit, depending on the attack angle.)

to Akalabeth:

You misunderstand what hardened armor does regarding crit rolls. It doesn't make a vehicle or mech less likely to have a crit roll; it means that the subsequent target number to determine whether or not there even WAS a crit is modified by +2. (i.e, the roll on the 'Ground Combat Vehicle Critical Hits Table' is modified by -2.)

Including a couple small side/rear weapons, a token cargo bay, are actually very clever ideas. I'm re-reading the rules and I realize how if there isn't a side weapon, cargo, etc. you get to hit the next highest roll result, which could be an engine crit, 'crew stunned', and so on. I'd much rather lose a machinegun or half ton cargo bay in that instance
ghostrider
07/25/16 12:53 PM
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Too bad a pods can't be used on vehicles. Would be nice to rid infantry snooping around vehicles and don't explode when hit.

Kind of interesting what sneaky things you can learn by asking things.
Since I don't remember seeing you have to list what is stored in the cargo, for those that are a little more realistic about things like fuel, normal gas cans with extra fuel would always work well without the explosion. Little issue with using the rules against themselves but valid.
Retry
07/25/16 02:45 PM
68.103.19.152

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Quote:
Too bad a pods can't be used on vehicles.



...Yes, they can.
Akalabeth
07/25/16 03:04 PM
64.251.81.66

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Quote:
happyguy49 writes:

to Akalabeth:

You misunderstand what hardened armor does regarding crit rolls. It doesn't make a vehicle or mech less likely to have a crit roll; it means that the subsequent target number to determine whether or not there even WAS a crit is modified by +2. (i.e, the roll on the 'Ground Combat Vehicle Critical Hits Table' is modified by -2.)

Including a couple small side/rear weapons, a token cargo bay, are actually very clever ideas. I'm re-reading the rules and I realize how if there isn't a side weapon, cargo, etc. you get to hit the next highest roll result, which could be an engine crit, 'crew stunned', and so on. I'd much rather lose a machinegun or half ton cargo bay in that instance



No I understand the effects of hardened armour, the point is with vehicles though that it doesn't matter if the roll on the crit table is reduced because on a vehicle, the crit is just going to go up the chart until it hits something juicy.

So at best, it reduced the crit chance to 41.6% instead of 72%. So 30% chance reduction. Which to be fair is nothing to sneeze at. But even two crits on a side of a vehicle will still be an engine hit unless it mounts some side weapons. The vehicle can only take crew stunned once. Add two light machine guns and a cargo bay and suddenly you can take up to 7 crits before you take an engine hit (assuming good rolls).

But the way crits works means that a vehicle like say a Demon is in some ways much more survivable than a Fury, even though a Fury has tracks and much more armour.
ghostrider
07/25/16 06:35 PM
66.74.61.223

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Must be something new with the A-pods. The wiki is saying they are mech only. I know the newer stuff can not be put up for so much time.

Interesting reading the B-pods and M-pods. Almost makes me want to make a fast hover and run it thru a formation of infantry and battle armor. So a drone that can do so as well, so you don't risk expensive things like fusion engines.
happyguy49
07/31/16 05:05 AM
98.30.242.159

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A-Pods and B-Pods suck, but regarding M-Pods, they can be nice. Put just one big energy gun on a fusion powered hovertank to use the 10 free sinks, then fill the rest of the space with a dozen or so M-Pods. Swoop in fast, then detonate all or most of them at point blank range.. 15 points of scatter damage per hit. (say 7-9 per hit actually hit, looking at a hundred damage points possible, all in 1 point clusters; lots of potential floating-crit rolls.) The energy cannon, a ppc or large laser, keeps the design useful before/after its M-Pod strike.
ghostrider
08/01/16 12:37 AM
66.74.61.223

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Speaking of M-pods, the idea came up to incorporate them into aero bombs, possibly make a launcher for them, or even mount them on the end of a missile.

Any thoughts on this?

Even downgrading the damage to make it more workable would be fine as well, such as the missile warhead or launcher.


Edited by ghostrider (08/01/16 12:38 AM)
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