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SIGSEGV posted:Battletech physics are endlessly mind-boggling. At least shadowrun ones have an excuse. The Battletech ones have the same excuse, they just don't realize it yet. Some half-insane dragon is responsible for Battlemechs working because of magic, and the scientists of Battletech are so terrible at science they don't realize it.
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Aug 17, 2017 17:38
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Sounds plausible to me. Let's go with it. I like it when the rules are played straight just to the point of absurdity, which is hilarious for everyone involved, and then the GM makes a reasonable decision to pull back from the abyss of motorcycles blowing up an entire coastline due to suddenly exceeding 6c. although that was pretty good to read about - once.
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Aug 17, 2017 17:42
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Occasionally you end up with rules errata that makes you realize you missed some fun times somewhere too. Like the old D&D errata that the spells that let you Summon Creature require you to summon the creature at ground level and in an appropriate environment, specifically so people could no longer use it to summon a blue whale with the target "10 feet above that guy's head" to whale bomb them. I guess the two separate ones are to prevent people just using elephants on land as the closest substitute, and then people not summoning whales or other aquatic creatures on an incline and doing whale bowling instead.
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Aug 17, 2017 17:48
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What altitude are the helos at?
RA Rx fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Aug 17, 2017 |
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Aug 17, 2017 19:32
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RA Rx posted:What altitude are the helos at? Altitude doesn't apply to VTOLs, they're at Height 4.
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Aug 17, 2017 19:55
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PoptartsNinja posted:Altitude doesn't apply to VTOLs, they're at Height 4. Do you count vertical range? If yes, in any sort of diagonal average, or the number of hexes straight up/down to the target's altitude before a 90 degree turn towards the target hex? Edit: It's not counted. Hunchback might do well in 2130, I think VTOLs have regular movement modifiers, and they probably came in at full speed and are at +2 to hit (and +4 to be hit), in which case they'd all be at 10+ with their HE ammo, or 8+ using their ER ammo. RA Rx fucked around with this message at 08:57 on Aug 19, 2017 |
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Aug 17, 2017 20:08
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 "Star Commander Drumf, they have a Jagermech!" "Aff, we will beware of its anti-aircraft capabilities. I am surprised it survived a fight with our ground forces." "Sir, the Jagermech is killing everyone, stay away!"@PTN: Is it a typo that Roughneck 3 has SRM 6s with no medium or long range at 6 and 9 respectively, and thus only a short range of 3? Looks like it may be a typo? AAAAA! Real Muenster fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Aug 17, 2017 |
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Aug 17, 2017 20:24
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RA Rx posted:Do you count vertical range? The only time that matters is with the altitude rules. VTOLs can voluntarily move into the altitude map but it's suicide for them to do it. VTOLs use ground ranges, which means an AeroSpace Fighter can shoot one down from kilometers away without any risk of return fire. The only time a VTOL has an opportunity to fight back is if it stays in the normal play area. PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Aug 17, 2017 |
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Aug 17, 2017 20:29
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I thought ASFs used normal mech-sized weapons? How are their ranges so different?
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Aug 17, 2017 20:57
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KnoxZone posted:Gotta give the pilot of the HO credit. He just lost both of his arms and side torsos, endured the agony of an ammo explosion, got kicked right in the gyro, and has still somehow remained standing. Well, I'm not really in a good position to engage the Donars so I may as well give the Summoner a reason to pay attention to me. I'll probably move to 0925 and fire on it. Won't be great shots but at least I can remind it I'm around.
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Aug 17, 2017 20:59
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Artificer posted:I thought ASFs used normal mech-sized weapons? How are their ranges so different? I think it's something like the weapons all have that level of range, but some combination of mech armor + omnipresent target fuzzing of some kind reduces their effective ranges to the just under 1km we typically see on mech mapsheets. Yakumo posted:Well, I'm not really in a good position to engage the Donars so I may as well give the Summoner a reason to pay attention to me. I'll probably move to 0925 and fire on it. Won't be great shots but at least I can remind it I'm around. You can get 8s on the summoner from 0726, which are on the decent side of reasonable.
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Aug 17, 2017 21:07
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Gwaihir posted:I think it's something like the weapons all have that level of range, but some combination of mech armor + omnipresent target fuzzing of some kind reduces their effective ranges to the just under 1km we typically see on mech mapsheets. I could if it didn't involve rough terrain, sure. It's 2MP per hex in this area of the map. Moving to 0925 is 5 of my 6 MP as it is.
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Aug 17, 2017 21:11
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On the bright side the Summoner ran, so it's only at +2. Standing still might be an option if you want to drop a PPC (at 7+ either way) for your SRMs at 7+ and 4 heat (2 weapons heat, 2 running heat) to get back to 0 heat, and you might draw fire from the Stone Rhino if anyone else is attacking it. If the Summoner chases the Naginata further southeast you don't gain too much by going southwest. RA Rx fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Aug 17, 2017 |
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Aug 17, 2017 21:15
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Artificer posted:I thought ASFs used normal mech-sized weapons? How are their ranges so different? Once you move into the Altitude Map weapon ranges are drastically increased. Same with space, you see stuff like ER Larges and LRM batteries mounted as point defense weapons but their ranges in space are immensely increased.
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Aug 17, 2017 21:19
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Well there's less air up where planes fly so of course weapons have much more range. And there's even less air in space. It's only logical, really.
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Aug 17, 2017 21:40
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For some reason I thought that was just cosmetic, and not actual rough terrain. Oh well, 0925 still gets you short PPC range so that's totally good.
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Aug 17, 2017 21:48
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They're calibrated differently. The Ferro-aluminium and aluminium-carbide armors that AeroSpace Fighters use are nowhere near as tough as `Mech armor, and can be damaged farther out. BattleMechs are made of heat resistant ultra-durable extremely light ceramic-metal composite materials that are simultaneously ablative, puff into laser-blocking vapor when extreme heat is applied, and shatter-resistant. BattleTech is a universe where everything got tougher and lighter but where processing power never really exceeded the Apple IIe. You can drop a `Mech from space on a burn-up trajectory and still have significant pieces of it to salvage afterwards. A `Mech can survive being buried in molten lava with minimal armor damage provided it doesn't have ammo, didn't have any armor breaches, and the lava is in the process of cooling down. I mean, assuming the `Mech wouldn't just float safely on the surface (it probably would). This is an order of magnitude more durable than anything in the real world. Likewise, "pavement" in BattleTech is implicitly referring to ferrocrete, which is the same ceramic-metal composite they use for `mech armor mixed with cheaper concrete to fill volume (and presumably without the laser-ablative effect). `Mechs can walk on Ferrocrete without cracking it, which is why it's slippery for them: it's nearly as tough as they are. You can land a DropShip on it without making a glass crater. It's why I don't tend to track skids etc on surfaces I feel should be normal concrete. Anything a `Mech can shatter by stepping on shouldn't be that much of a traction hazard. I have no explanation for ice though. `Mechs shouldn't have any trouble with it, it just makes for an amusing in-game hazard without having to be Ice-9 or anything weird like that. `Mechs don't exactly have rubber treads on the bottoms of their feet, and they're warm enough I imagine they'd lose traction in a hurry. I got off on a weird tangent again: TLDR, ASF weapons and BattleMech weapons are just calibrated differently. AeroSpace Fighters make better use of their optimal range, while BattleMechs were intentionally crippled by the Star League to keep them from being too powerful, and everyone bought in because the Great Houses and the Clans and etc. all loved the romantic concept of heroic noble Space Cavalry on giant metal steeds more than the liked the idea of actually winning.
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Aug 17, 2017 22:06
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In short, Battletech runs on stupidity because everybody in it is stupid.
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Aug 17, 2017 22:08
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Zaodai posted:In short, Battletech runs on stupidity because everybody in it is stupid. Just like the real world. It's why I love it.
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Aug 17, 2017 22:10
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Jew it to it! posted:I think moving South would still be best for now, especially since the Southern Donar swarm can bracket the Southern lance and trap the Naginata between the Summoner and them. If the Mauler can start activating the monitors in the north and have at least 1-2 of the I think Battlemaster should keep heading south as well; get behind the H6 and engage the Donars while making the Stone Rhino chase you, give the 'Sag' a chance to keep stalking it. Yakumo posted:I hate to be a spoilsport, but I think what the Mauler needs to do right now is hide behind that wall. I'm having a little trouble making out which set is which but I'm pretty sure that the top group of Donars is the set carrying missiles, and the Mauler's in no shape to deal with that, especially while sitting at 10 heat. He needs to cool down and he needs some backup. Up to the Mauler I suppose; I would argue that if we don't pop the secondary now and have those gunboats provide some overwhelming support up North, we'll be overrun between the 8 helos, the Stone Rhino, and Summoner. Yakumo posted:I'm noticing that the primary target specifically calls out the reinforcements and not the mechs that were already here. Which is probably for the best, a lot of us are about ready to fall apart. We can't really just ignore them, but we should probably pay more attention to the newcomers. Agreed; taking out the 8 helos isn't technically the issue. Its how do we do it with both the Summoner and Stonerhino on the board, without being shot to rags from their combined crit-seeking power. Gwaihir posted:. . . meanwhile the SGT would be at medium range. So you could do something like moving to 1418 for the SGT while the Battlemaster just moves forward one hex and unleashes on the Donars for the moment. I like moving to 1418 and taking a shot at the southern Donars; there's no shot at the Stone Rhino from there, and I want to keep stalking it. PoptartsNinja posted:. . . while BattleMechs were intentionally crippled by the Star League to keep them from being too powerful . . . How's that, exactly?
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Aug 17, 2017 23:14
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CourValant posted:How's that, exactly? It makes sense. The Star League Era is well known but is more legend than fact. If you view what we do know from the perspective that the Star League were the "good guys" then of course, it's not true. That's the narrative we've been presented, and it has no reason to lie. Except the Terran Hegemony were never the good guys, and had every reason to deceive the Great Houses--just as the Great Houses had every reason to play along, because as long as their wars remained minor BattleMech skirmishes they were never in any real danger. When things fell apart, it wasn't because BattleMechs were unstoppable wonder weapons, it was because Nukes are unstoppable wonder weapons. BattleMechs play into the feudal narrative the Star League had already sold the Great Houses on. They're the perfect stand in for the Knight in Shining Armor or Samurai Warrior that only the wealthy could afford to keep and equip. The first Mackie singlehandedly wiping out an entire regiment of tanks? C'mon. I mean yes, PPCs were a new technology, but that's something a Mackie's not exactly capable of doing. Once they sold everyone on the "The Most Powerful War Machine Ever" line, and the Great Houses started measuring their military might not in manpower but BattleMechs, the Star League had a far easier time manipulating the Great Houses into relative docility. They could always release a new technology that kept them ahead of the curve and forced the Great Houses to scramble playing catch-up to keep parity with one another, and no one had any reason to start threatening Nukes when they could just have giant robot proxy battles instead.
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Aug 17, 2017 23:39
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PoptartsNinja posted:It makes sense. The Star League Era is well known but is more legend than fact. If you view what we do know from the perspective that the Star League were the "good guys" then of course, it's not true. That's the narrative we've been presented, and it has no reason to lie. Except the Terran Hegemony were never the good guys, and had every reason to deceive the Great Houses--just as the Great Houses had every reason to play along, because as long as their wars remained minor BattleMech skirmishes they were never in any real danger. Ah okay, now I get you. I've been trying to read through the Reunification War Sourcebooks (my goodness they're dense), and no, the SLDF are definitely not the 'good guys'. They just happened to control the printing presses. Nothing will ever surpass having 'Black Ocean' naval supremacy, I suppose.
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Aug 17, 2017 23:52
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That's pretty much it. Warships obsolete other weapons but you can't parade a warship through the town square. BattleMechs make a ton of sense if they're almost entirely for show, if you can afford to waste billions of space dollars on giant robots that can be seen by cheering (or rioting) crowds from blocks away then you probably already have a big enough space navy to nuke everything. That they're actually usable weapon platforms in-universe is probably a happy accident.
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Aug 17, 2017 23:56
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PoptartsNinja posted:BattleMechs are made of heat resistant ultra-durable extremely light ceramic-metal composite materials that are simultaneously ablative, puff into laser-blocking vapor when extreme heat is applied, and shatter-resistant. ...and now, just... try not to think about how much damage they take from falling over, even if all they do is tip over onto soft ground. Because in light of the above, anything more than "no damage whatsoever" is inexplicable.
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Aug 18, 2017 00:02
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Leperflesh posted:...and now, just... try not to think about how much damage they take from falling over, even if all they do is tip over onto soft ground. Because in light of the above, anything more than "no damage whatsoever" is inexplicable. It's not the fall that damages them, it's taking the melee attack from something that has a sextillion tons of weight advantage on them. 
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Aug 18, 2017 00:08
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Leperflesh posted:...and now, just... try not to think about how much damage they take from falling over, even if all they do is tip over onto soft ground. Because in light of the above, anything more than "no damage whatsoever" is inexplicable. Armor plates battering one another. It's supposed to be "you fell on an arm and twisted the actuator wrong" or "you fell on your arm and punched some of your torso armor off" more than "you fell on some dirt and your armor exploded"--but `Mech armor is at least semi-ablative, so falling just hard enough for some ablative armor detonation wouldn't be that unreasonable. And once you're down to structure damage pretty much anything goes. 
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Aug 18, 2017 00:09
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Nah. I understand those are the standard explanations, but they don't hold water. The plates would rub when you walked around, or landed every time you jumped, or when you brushed against a tree. Their ability to rapidly destroy each other would be exploited by other weapons. Mech armor takes often takes more damage from tipping over onto dirt than it does from weapons designed specifically to destroy it: if the plates are so generally fragile that they fall apart significantly just due to minor impacts, they'd be far too fragile to withstand high explosives. And if you're twisting arms and stuff, you'd take internal damage. There's no reasonable explanation, it's just how the game rules work in order to make a fun game and nothing more than that: damage penalties from falling over incentivizes physical combat and other actions that could potentially topple a mech, and mech rasslin' is good clean fun.
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Aug 18, 2017 00:21
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I didn't think the Mauler could trigger the secondary objective, the Donars and I think the retreating Epona have line of sight to the towers. If he can it may be worth it after all. Up to him.
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Aug 18, 2017 00:25
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Leperflesh posted:Nah. I understand those are the standard explanations, but they don't hold water. The plates would rub when you walked around, or landed every time you jumped, or when you brushed against a tree. Their ability to rapidly destroy each other would be exploited by other weapons. Mech armor takes often takes more damage from tipping over onto dirt than it does from weapons designed specifically to destroy it: if the plates are so generally fragile that they fall apart significantly just due to minor impacts, they'd be far too fragile to withstand high explosives. And if you're twisting arms and stuff, you'd take internal damage. This is the same armor that can't be damaged by an Abrams main cannon shot, but could be damaged by the M2 machine gun mounted on the same tank. It's inherently completely retarded.
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Aug 18, 2017 00:26
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Yakumo posted:I didn't think the Mauler could trigger the secondary objective, the Donars and I think the retreating Epona have line of sight to the towers. If he can it may be worth it after all. Up to him. I'll allow it. They can't see any `Mechs.
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Aug 18, 2017 00:30
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Zaodai posted:This is the same armor that can't be damaged by an Abrams main cannon shot, but could be damaged by the M2 machine gun mounted on the same tank. It's inherently completely retarded. Exactly, although the Abrams thing isn't really codified in the rules, right? Just fluff? Or does this reference some pre-SLDF-era game mode?
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Aug 18, 2017 00:40
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Leperflesh posted:Exactly, although the Abrams thing isn't really codified in the rules, right? Just fluff? Or does this reference some pre-SLDF-era game mode? I don't know about the tank itself, but the main gun would be something like the primitive tech "Heavy Rifle" (Or would it even by the light one?)
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Aug 18, 2017 00:42
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SIGSEGV posted:Battletech physics are endlessly mind-boggling. At least shadowrun ones have an excuse. Until someone throws a grenade into a sealed lead vessel and creates enough explosive force to rival the big bang.
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Aug 18, 2017 00:48
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Leperflesh posted:Exactly, although the Abrams thing isn't really codified in the rules, right? Just fluff? Or does this reference some pre-SLDF-era game mode? It's primitive tech but I don't know which specific weapon. So it can do damage, but a pittance per shot, even compared to some of the machine guns on battlemechs actually being M2s (albeit in arrays).
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Aug 18, 2017 00:48
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Leperflesh posted:Exactly, although the Abrams thing isn't really codified in the rules, right? Just fluff? Or does this reference some pre-SLDF-era game mode? The "light rifle" can't damage modern armor at all thanks to the rules on rifled cannons taking several points of damage up front when used against such armor. Found my Tac Ops, the rifles deal 3 less damage to any armor with BAR of 8 or better, which is generally anything but certain support vehicles and civilian cars. They do 3, 6 and 9 damage and have 12, 15, and 18 long range for considerably less weight but more heat than similar autocannons. dis astranagant fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Aug 18, 2017 |
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Aug 18, 2017 01:20
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PoptartsNinja posted:BattleMechs play into the feudal narrative the Star League had already sold the Great Houses on. They're the perfect stand in for the Knight in Shining Armor or Samurai Warrior that only the wealthy could afford to keep and equip. The first Mackie singlehandedly wiping out an entire regiment of tanks? C'mon. I mean yes, PPCs were a new technology, but that's something a Mackie's not exactly capable of doing. It's not BattleMechs themselves that were the breakthrough, it's the armor. The first company of Lyran Mechs walked through an entire battalion of Marik tanks because they couldn't penetrate the armor, so the only damage they took was when one pilot rolled an ankle walking through a trench (on their way to step on the Captain-General). Gwaihir posted:I don't know about the tank itself, but the main gun would be something like the primitive tech "Heavy Rifle" (Or would it even by the light one?) The guns on modern tanks are actually inferior to the primitive rifles, so something even less than the Light Rifle. The evolutionary track is basically Main Tank Gun -> Rifled Cannon -> Autocannon. Defiance Industries fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Aug 18, 2017 |
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Aug 18, 2017 01:30
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PoptartsNinja posted:I'll allow it. They can't see any `Mechs. Quoting so this doesn't get lost in the background chatter. Mauler, time to Become Legend. Sakura, Sakura!! 
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Aug 18, 2017 03:37
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Guess you should roll those dice on reckless movement to get in the boat pen!
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Aug 18, 2017 03:51
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Time to  .Battletech armor is actually really bad against blunt force. Like, horrifically bad. If you actually look at the original SLSB, it mentions that the armor achieves its tensile and anti-penetrative strength from woven diamond technobabble bullshit along with some kind of iron-titanium equally bullshit. Diamond has a stupid high tensile strength, which means things trying to pierce it can just stay home. But it has a very low fracture strength, which means physical attacks over a broad surface area will shatter the layer like it is literally glass. This is also why most autocannon shells are described as high explosive, and why a bunch of 8 kg missiles can rip reasonably large chunks of armor to pieces.
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Aug 18, 2017 04:16
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Strobe posted:Time to So, Steiner Dueling Rules was in fact the best way to take down Clanners after all?
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Aug 18, 2017 04:19
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