The Danger of Being Cool
Thunder. Lightning. The way you love me is frightening.
The other day I was playing with a Lightning Attack Hovercraft on my side in a battle in MegaMekNET. Since that campaign is set in 3025, having a LosTech hovercraft with medium pulse lasers was something I wanted to protect if I could. Plus you have those two one-shot SRMs. I was rushing past a target and I had a chance to fire the right-facing SRM at a distant heavy unit that had moved towards me. I needed a 9 to hit. I got lucky, and hit the target, which was taking damage elsewhere as well, and did some good with the weapon. But I was really tempted to hold off on the SRM4 and hope for a better shot against a better target. Holding off for the cool play.
Have you ever noticed a tendency to play BattleTech for the cool play, rather than the smart one?
I certainly have. Head shots are an awesome and definitive part of the game. Pretty cool right? I like to play units with big guns lie Gauss Rifles and AC/20s, and it’s no lie that that’s because in part I love to see a one-hit kill on the head. But my reliance on cool things can sometimes hurt my ability to win, because my team may not be properly balanced. Everybody wants to see somebody win.
Death and Taxes.
Another cool part about BattleTech is when a ‘Mech tries to jump on top of an opposing unit. Death from Above!!! But to do so requires a huge number, you can’t use any weapons, and deals damage and falling down to yourself. I’ve seen it attempted numerous times recently when a unit isn’t even that badly damaged and when they need a 9 or so to hit. The attempt to do something cool interferes with the desire to play smart and ultimately win.
I get it. This is a game. We play games to have fun. By definition, a cool play is fun. But there are a lot of ways in the game that we try to hard too do the cool thing. It’s dangerous. When have you (or someone you love) pushed a cool play too far? When have you sacrificed the smart play for the fun one?