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Ares
Clan Jade Falcon
Star Colonel
Joined: 20-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 737
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 Posted: 25-Jul-2002 18:22 Post subject: RE: Is Battletech over-balanced? |
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Ok, it's true hitting a human target just about anywhere will stop them. How about sea-skimming missles designed to use sonar to smash into fuel bunkers on carriers?
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Gangrene
Federated Suns
Leftenant General
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 939
Location: United States
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| Posted: 25-Jul-2002 18:27 Post subject: RE: Is Battletech over-balanced? |
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On 2002-07-25 18:22, Ares wrote:
Ok, it's true hitting a human target just about anywhere will stop them. How about sea-skimming missles designed to use sonar to smash into fuel bunkers on carriers?
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Yeah, that's more like it. But its still a little different because the missile using sonar corrects itself in its course, so luck is a much reduced factor.
So if your LB-X cluster shot homed in on exposed weapons . . . now you're talking.
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Gangrene
[ This Message was edited by: Gangrene on 2002-07-25 18:28 ]
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Vampire
Free Worlds League
Lieutenant Colonel
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 912
Location: Spain
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| Posted: 25-Jul-2002 19:14 Post subject: RE: Is Battletech over-balanced? |
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On 2002-07-25 14:58, Gangrene wrote:
Reading a thread at CBT about the uselesness of omnimechs
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Excuse me? why are Omni'Mechs "useless"? what are you smoking? I wanna! 
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made me consider the nature of Btech combat. It does seem that a lot of the weapons fulfill the exact same roles with only minor variations.
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yeah, there are so many things around, that there is going to be a certain degree of redundancy.
(snip about weapons)
Perhaps the game has become over-balanced. What do you think?
well, some rules can be improved, but in the 3025 game weapons are "overbalanced" not only for gaming balance, but because it reflects a situation of stagnation and technological decay. If anybody invented a "wonder weapon" the consequences for the setting would be devastating. So let's not open the Pandora box of the arms race if you want to preserve the original setting.
After 3050, I don't think the game is "overbalanced", as demonstrated by munchkins, case in point the Pulse laser targetting computer combo.
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Vampire
Free Worlds League
Lieutenant Colonel
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 912
Location: Spain
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| Posted: 25-Jul-2002 19:21 Post subject: RE: Is Battletech over-balanced? |
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I feel vindicated
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The original statement I made was "And name any real life weapon that tries to justify its usefulness in statistical chances of finding a weak spot." Note I didn't say "statiscal chances of hitting the target." So called "crit-seeking" is relying on a certain amount of luck beyond just hitting the target. I think most military pundits would frown on weapons designed to hopefully hit the right place, as opposed to just hopefully hitting the target.
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And that's why I find rolling separate locations for each SRM such a folly, that way they are useless from a game mechanics stand point, discounting the fact that the vehicle hit location table is so bad that it actually gives them an advantage.
Separating SRM hits makes no sense, grouping SRMs in a single place does, on game mechanics consideration, compared statistic analysis with the other weapons, the realism standpoint, and all the fluff descriptions from TRO 3025.
Weapons are made to punch big holes in armor, with very rare exceptions under very specific circumstances.
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Ruger
Lyran Alliance
Hauptmann General
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 1929
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| Posted: 25-Jul-2002 19:35 Post subject: RE: Is Battletech over-balanced? |
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On 2002-07-25 17:59, Gangrene wrote:
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On 2002-07-25 17:41, Ruger wrote:
No...IIRC, most modern tanks fire penetrators that go INTO the tank, spraying molten metal from the penetration into the interior to kill the crew or explode the ammo, or damage other critical components...
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What do you mean "No"? What do you think I meant when I wrote "They shoot a round designed to incapacitate or destroy the target in a single hit"? They are designed to kill in a single hit.
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ONLY because they penetrated the armor rather than bouncing off and then got something internal that was CRITICAL...ie, they do a BTech roll location hit of 2 and get the crit(s)...
Of course, modern weapons get these types of rolls on roll locations of 2-5 and 8 through 11 (if not more)...
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And please say you haven't boughten into Cray's "magic armor" spiel.
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BTech armor IS what we'd term magic today...it is ABLATIVE TO ALL FIRE...we haven't come up with this sort of protection yet...all of our current armor types CAN be penetrated...with BTech armor it is FAR harder to do this...
And as someone once said, "all magic is is sufficiently advanced technology."...or something to that effect...
Ruger
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Gangrene
Federated Suns
Leftenant General
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 939
Location: United States
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| Posted: 25-Jul-2002 20:26 Post subject: RE: Is Battletech over-balanced? |
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Hey chihawk, why is there a "RE:" in the title? I did not put that there.
Vampire said:
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Excuse me? why are Omni'Mechs "useless"? what are you smoking? I wanna!
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Hey man, I said I read it. I did not say I agree! A guy named Cray is arguing that point at CBT (in the design forum I think). One of his arguments is that since a lot of weapons have overlapping capabilities, there is really not a need for a lot of mech variation (or something like that). I do agree that the weapons overlap a lot.
Vampire said:
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well, some rules can be improved, but in the 3025 game weapons are "overbalanced" not only for gaming balance, but because it reflects a situation of stagnation and technological decay.
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Yeah, I know. But I don't always want to play in the 3025 era, and I like to open the Pandora's box of the arms race. I don't really want to preserve the original setting, as you called it. We already have that, and we can go back to it whenever we want. 3025 Btech is a good game, but the attempts at maintaining that balance with the presence of new or star league tech has not been good for the game, IMO.
When I originally played I used to group SRM's. I'd like that to be an official rule.
Now on to Ruger . . .
Ruger said:
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ONLY because they penetrated the armor rather than bouncing off and then got something internal that was CRITICAL...ie, they do a BTech roll location hit of 2 and get the crit(s)...
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Yeah, but its still a punch weapon and not at all like an LB-X "crit-seeking" weapon. Real military vehicles don't have loads of unused space or expendable material underneath the armor. When the armor is penetrated, they are screwed.
You have boughten into Cray's spiel! Say it isn't so . . .
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[ This Message was edited by: Gangrene on 2002-07-25 20:28 ]
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Vampire
Free Worlds League
Lieutenant Colonel
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 912
Location: Spain
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| Posted: 25-Jul-2002 20:44 Post subject: RE: Is Battletech over-balanced? |
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look at what the cat dragged in..
1) be careful when dragging things from other boards.
2) It's bad form criticizing somebody that's not present, but let's just say that I don't agree with everything Cray says, there's nothing "magical" about Battletech armor, wish it was!
and well, saying the Omnimechs are "useless" .. rolls eyes. Perhaps he has a point in regards to game mechanics, but the advantages of the Omnimech are self evident.
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Gangrene
Federated Suns
Leftenant General
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 939
Location: United States
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| Posted: 25-Jul-2002 21:52 Post subject: RE: Is Battletech over-balanced? |
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I didn't think I wrote anything harsh about Cray, just that he had a "spiel."
This topic is of my own interest, and was only inspired at CBT. I don't want to debate the usefulness of omnimechs. Plus I would rather hear from people on this board then from other boards.
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Cadet
ComStar
Lieutenant, SG
Joined: 17-Mar-2002 00:00
Posts: 495
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| Posted: 25-Jul-2002 23:22 Post subject: RE: Is Battletech over-balanced? |
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On 2002-07-25 21:52, Gangrene wrote:
I Plus I would rather hear from people on this board then from other boards.
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Even from me?
*gets misty-eyed*
Well I think the whole problem is that armor is never penetrated. I like the idea that certain weapons (laser, PPC, gauss) would penetrate armor every time and seek crits, but do little armor damage, while missile and AC weapons knock chunks of armor off.
But that's just me.
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Gangrene
Federated Suns
Leftenant General
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 939
Location: United States
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| Posted: 25-Jul-2002 23:52 Post subject: RE: Is Battletech over-balanced? |
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*sob* Cadet . . . I love you, man (in a way that does not challenge my heterosexuality). Here, have a beer.
I have toyed with the idea of giving weapons damage profiles where they do both external and internal damage. Something like 8 external / 2 internal for an AC10. Plus there would be a chance for crit, perhaps modified based on the type or class of weapon used. This opens the door for different factors of construction, maybe layering armor or having crit placement make a larger difference.
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[ This Message was edited by: Gangrene on 2002-07-25 23:53 ]
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Shadowking
Kell Hounds
Captain
Joined: 22-May-2002 00:00
Posts: 365
Location: United States
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| Posted: 26-Jul-2002 07:21 Post subject: RE: Is Battletech over-balanced? |
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You want a real life weapon that relies on luck? Try a flak gun. Saturate the airspace where enemy planes are flying through and hope you hit something.
As for real armor piercing weapons, I believe there use to be some AC in the now defunkt BT Tac Handbook wayback when that actually did both armor and internal damage, but it's been a while since last i read through the book.
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Sarkkahn
Draconis Combine
Tai-i
Joined: 12-Jul-2002 00:00
Posts: 394
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| Posted: 26-Jul-2002 12:04 Post subject: RE: Is Battletech over-balanced? |
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On 2002-07-25 23:52, Gangrene wrote:
*sob* Cadet . . . I love you, man (in a way that does not challenge my heterosexuality). Here, have a beer.
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Gangrene
[ This Message was edited by: Gangrene on 2002-07-25 23:53 ]
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I'm glad that you said that part that says In A way that doesn't challenge my hetrosexuality
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Jade_Dragon
8th Sword of Light
Sho-sho
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 1324
Location: United States
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| Posted: 26-Jul-2002 12:56 Post subject: RE: Is Battletech over-balanced? |
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Not at all. I play BattleTech because units are NOT killed with a single penetrating hit, or are at least rarely killed in such a way.
I guess brutal slugfest appeal to me.
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Stinger
The Knights of Chaos
General
Joined: 30-Apr-2002 00:00
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Location: United States
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| Posted: 26-Jul-2002 13:03 Post subject: RE: Is Battletech over-balanced? |
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Their is a B-Tech weapon that does allow for this. The Tandem charge SRM round. It still only does 2 points of damage 1 to external armor and 1 to the internal armor. Apparentely they changed the rules so in order for it to CRIT all of the external armor needed to be gone.
Now it does fall under Lvl 3 rules. But When my friends and I have used it it made the ARM boats the most feared piece on the battlefield. (We also changed the rules back to allow a crit when it was hit). They also became the first units destroyed everytime.
But the Uac20 is by far the scariest current weapon in B-Tech just since it can deliver 40 points to a mech and then fire other weapons as well.
I have found though that with the diverse weapons people find their favorite and use mainily that type. I tend to shy away from ammo based weapons, and fighting in our campaings tends to be long and drawn out, leaving the Ac's and missiles useless.
If we changed the rules around so that all of the weapons have a penetration factor, then you still end up with the same problem.
Example:
Ac10 8 external 2 internal
PPC 8 external 2 internal
LG Laser 8 external 2 internal
Ac2o 16 external 4 internal
Uac20 16 external 4 internal (x2)
Erppc 10 external 5 internal
CErppc 10 external 5 internal
This is a general list using weapons of the same damage value. But it could be customized to make certin weapons penetrate better. The obvious advantage goes to the heavy "Ultra" slugthrowers. But again ammo (or lack thereof)does come into play.
Ya know I think if you look in the makimum tech book there is rules for armor piercing rounds for the Ac's. I dont rember how good they were but I seem to rember them. Ill have to look .
Stinger
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If it's "creepy" to use the Internet, military satellites, and robot aircraft to find a house full of gorgeous young models so I can drop in on them unexpected, then FINE, I'm "creepy". Howard Wolowitz. BBT.
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Gangrene
Federated Suns
Leftenant General
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 939
Location: United States
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| Posted: 26-Jul-2002 14:44 Post subject: RE: Is Battletech over-balanced? |
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On 2002-07-26 13:03, Stinger wrote:
There is a B-Tech weapon that does allow for this. The Tandem charge SRM round.
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There is also the L2 AP warhead for regular AC's. Both are a good start, but not quite brave enough. The AC ammo should retain the same number of shots per ton.
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I have found though that with the diverse weapons people find their favorite and use mainily that type.
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I tend to lean towards laser, buts that's because I'm lazy and don't want to keep track of ammo.
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If we changed the rules around so that all of the weapons have a penetration factor, then you still end up with the same problem.
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Yeah, but you don't have to change it so that ALL weapons have a penetrating factor. As I said, it can be varied by type or class of weapon. Just because an AC/10 is 8/2 doesn't mean a PPC would have to be 8/2. Anything smaller, or pulse lasers, I would not even give a penetrating value.
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