wartang
03/19/04 11:32 AM
164.106.170.79
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about how much damage could they do to a mech my brother was trying to convice me that they would be able to inflict 2-5 points.
but any ways he had an interesting idea a civil war 6 pound cannon weighed about 500 lbs. a quatrer of a ton add an electric fireing charge and oyu could still fire itby the way he was mounting them 2 to a crit slot what do you guys think
i love this game
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Cray
03/19/04 03:04 PM
147.160.1.5
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There's a couple of opinions about RL weapons vs BT weapons.
The first is that BT weapons are much more advanced (ignore range for now) than modern or primitive weapons, simply because they are able to defeat the magical armor of BT. The outstanding example of this chain of thought is in the Star League Sourcebook, where a Merkava mkIV is unable to put an armor-piercing round through a thumb's thickness of early Battlemech armor. Looking at some other fluff examples, you see AC/20s that are rapid-firing 150mm (Hetzer), 185mm (Demolisher), and 203mm (Clan UAC/20) weapons. This means AC/20s are firing bursts of shells more powerful than an Abram's 120mm, which can penetrate 30+ inches of steel.
Compared to those, US Civil War-era cannons are irritants only.
Then there's the chain of thought that says real weapons do comparable damage to BT weapons (which I don't have time to cite weapons for). In that case, 2-5 points of damage is correct.
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.
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tgsofgc
03/24/04 01:12 AM
67.4.201.25
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2-5 sounds good to me, you could always run some hardcore math. I would increase the criticals and limit the ammo per ton if you want it to feel primitive though. Just an idea.
Quote:
Then there's the chain of thought that says real weapons do comparable damage to BT weapons (which I don't have time to cite weapons for). In that case, 2-5 points of damage is correct.
Well there is lots of old fan fiction or the lacking rules for converting mechwarrior RPG stats to battletech. While some of the weapon decriptions basically hint at them being basically modern weapons (by real life standards) the damage ends up quite high.
The end result is:
1. Do you feel they are relatively balanced in the game, or at least not unbalancing?
2. Do the rules you choose to use get across the feel you wanted? (for instance if you want them to feel primitive simply make them worse than most the weapons)
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Crystal_Falcon
03/28/04 02:33 PM
198.81.26.77
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Quote:
The first is that BT weapons are much more advanced (ignore range for now) than modern or primitive weapons, simply because they are able to defeat the magical armor of BT. The outstanding example of this chain of thought is in the Star League Sourcebook, where a Merkava mkIV is unable to put an armor-piercing round through a thumb's thickness of early Battlemech armor. Looking at some other fluff examples, you see AC/20s that are rapid-firing 150mm (Hetzer), 185mm (Demolisher), and 203mm (Clan UAC/20) weapons. This means AC/20s are firing bursts of shells more powerful than an Abram's 120mm, which can penetrate 30+ inches of steel.
by that same statment the mechine gun(assumed to be ether '50 or 20mm which does 2 points should be doing nothing. and that clan UAC/20 is only doing ten times the amount. by that i think 2 points is right so as not to unbalance the game. also look at the size of both '50,20mm guns we have in use today. both are faily close to the size of an old 6lbs cannon so half to one crit/ton seems fine to me also they would have only one shot. do the fact that there mussle loaders. instead i think you would have a rack of them(look at the mad cats lrms) and fire all at once like a big smoky shotgun for every cannon it has you add the apropriet crit/tons(1 gun/.5tons-1crit 2 damage. 2 guns 1ton-2crits 4damege,3guns 1.5tons-3crits 6 damage. ect.) make it an OS launcher launcher and you could drop it after the one use. i think that it was ment more as a last ditch hold out weapon. a space filler for when you have a few tons or half tons and a few crits left over.
Cdr. Crystal Falcon of the Crystal Falcon merc. unit
Primary Mech:Adv. Locust A-LCT-102 VTAM(VTOL AIR MECH)
Secondary mech: Talon class power armor. Elemantal type.
Edited by Crystal_Falcon (03/28/04 02:55 PM)
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Diablo
03/28/04 06:33 PM
24.102.197.114
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wouldn't you have to reduce the damage further to accomidate the non armor piercing round ball made of lead not ment to pierce armour better than an iron plate on a ship? the grape shot would make a pretty good anti infantry weapon though... hmm... makes you think what if we replaced machine guns with auto-shotguns for anti infantry work.
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Carthaginian
08/12/04 06:25 PM
68.119.64.166
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Round shot was never meant to knock holes in iron ships- they were designed to skip along the ground and kill troops by bouncing (like a ball). They were used agianst wooden ships because they were the only type of round in service at the time.
By the War between the States, there were several types of cannon rounds:
Used by smoothbore cannon
Roundshot (old-style round cannonballs, made to bounce and break stone walls)
Chain (two smaller balls connected by a chain for damaging sails)
Used by both smoothbore and rifled cannon
Canister (musket/rifle balls encased in a thin canister that would airburst and scatter amongst infantry)
Grapeshot (lager chunks of shrapnel for close shots- like canister but in bags that bust when fired)
Fused (basically a hollow ball filled with powder and having a timed fuse lit by the firing of the cannon)
Used by rifled cannon
Solid Shot (shaped like a modern bullet, and solid cast. Made to penetrate heavy stonework and metal)
Only the rifled cannon really had any chance of knockinga hole in an ironclad- and seldom did. IIRC, there was not a single ironclad on either side sank by cannonfire during the whole war- though many were scuttled to prevent capture (mostly Confederate) or floundered at sea.
I don't think that you would be able to mount thtem on a 'Mech, though- they were allmost exclusively muzzleloaders (breachloaderds were still risky business) so they would only be a one-shot weapon.
Edited by Carney (08/12/04 11:05 PM)
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wartang
08/23/04 05:04 PM
208.18.143.210
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^^^that was basicly my idea^^^
what i was thinking was a low tech one shot cannon
i love this game
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Carthaginian
08/23/04 05:40 PM
68.184.71.137
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Yeah, but they wouldn't dent a 'Mech of any kind. I doubt that they would even do damage to an unarmored Utility Mech... as long as it was well-built.
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Rotwang
08/24/04 07:33 AM
213.118.77.37
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Most ACW cannons fired iron balls. If fired at modern tanks they would most likely shatter under the impact or bounce off.
During WWII steel AP shells could break if they hit face-hardened armour.
If we are to assume that technology did improve significantly over the next 400 years, then it is extremely unlikely that even the heaviest siege guns would pose little or no threat to a battlemech. Mechs appear to be able to take impacts of 120mm cannons without their Structural Integrity being affected, so even the heaviest bombardment should leave a mech mostly unscathed, except for the paintwork.
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Cray
08/24/04 07:43 PM
68.200.104.241
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Quote:
Yeah, but they wouldn't dent a 'Mech of any kind. I doubt that they would even do damage to an unarmored Utility Mech... as long as it was well-built.
Considering that a battlemech's fist or a stumble can damage a mech, I'm sure 1000fps iron spheres will. In fact, that projectile description is suspiciously close to the description of a GR slug.
I say, let one-shot cannons have their way with mechs. It's no worse than physical attacks or GR slugs.
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.
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