Jump Jets, CCW's and Mechwarrior minis

[kiladecus]

Well, it YOUR game, so if you say it doesn't use up the slots, then by all means, I will do that!

As far as the Bp being 3, 4, and 5... if you think that makes more sense, then I will adjust that. It makes it difficult to judge the cost of something if you aren't the person making it.

Having an extra Bp and a slot to put something in there may have made a difference in my game.

By the way, it was just a 14 point playtest of the Medium Mech vs. a Jump Troop with a Missile launcher and the Medium Tank. I wanted to test the balance of the game. In MANY games, 150 points worth of Mechs might actually be worth 300 points of infantry and vehicles (just throwing out numbers to make my point).

This game TRULY is balanced. That is one reason I love it SO much!

Thanks for your input.

[kiladecus]

Actually, I was thinking about this and it really seems to be going against the primary concept of WYSIWYG if the Jump Jets seem to be integrated into the frame. You should be able to see clearly what units have what...

Now, if WaffleM would place the Jump Jets on the actual legs themselves, then that would work as well...

Just my thoughts.

[WaffleM]

I've always thought that Jump Jets should be a torso option rather than placed only in the legs. Rockets in the legs would cause a lot of stress on the hip joints and so any jets in the feet should mainly be for maneuvering or additional thrust instead of primary propulsion. So I could see making a set of Jump Legs but they maybe should go with a Torso Jump Pack. And yes, I know I'm talking realistic engineering stresses on a science-fictitious (Is that a word? It should be!) vehicle. I'm funny like that and I just want the miniatures to look like they make sense, instead of looking at a miniatures and saying "that would never work".



I guess it also depends on what the Jump Jets would accomplish in the game: "leaping tall buildings in a single bound" or making rushing "faster than a speeding bullet" or both? Would they allow jump shots over obstructions or even limited hovering at higher elevations?

[Dagger]

They basically allow you to move from point A to point B while ignoring obstacles and other units...

I was thinking of something simple like small exhaust ports that can be glued where ever the play likes them... legs, torso, whatever... nothing too big or fancy.

[kiladecus]

Well, I haven't measured the distance between the two torso critical slots, but if they were the same distance apart for each of the similar-sized torsos (light, heavy, etc.) then you could make a piece that had the jump jets on them, and it could be "U" shaped and it would slide into the torso slots like other equipment, only instead of two pieces of equipment sliding into two slots, the "tabs" (for lack of a better term) would each slide into a slot, and the jets would be suspended between them on the back. This would eliminate small, fiddly pieces, and allow them to still fill the two slots on the torsos.

Then again, just my thoughts.

[Sarcastro1]

I was bored the other day so I thought about modifying how the slot system works. The three slot sizes (light, medium, heavy) allow for one weapon/equipment to be mounted in a like slot. A weapon/equipment that is one size larger takes up two slots and two sizes larger takes up all slots. Going the other way, a weapon/equipment that is one size smaller allows two pieces to be mounted in a slot while two sizes down allows for 4 pieces to be mounted. You could even mix/match slots (a large slot allowing for 4 small weapons or a medium and 2 smalls).

Weapon slots are “banked” so a crit to a particular slot takes out all weapons/equipment in the slot. For weapons that are taking up multiple slots a crit to any slot assigned to the weapon/equipment causes the loss of that weapon/equipment.

For example: I want to recreate one of my favorite BT mechs, the Hunchback. I take a medium chassis, one heavy cannon that takes up the right arm and right torso, a twin lined laser in the other torso and a small laser in the left arm (I have half a slot left in the left arm now but I’m going to leave it empty.) With my remaining points I can take either: 60pts of armor or 40pts and an extra heat sink. This is pretty darn close to my 50 ton BT equivalent. Yes, I would do more damage actually taking two medium cannons, two lasers and write off the small laser but then it’s not really my Hunchback.

Here’s another example: The Orion. With the new system I get a large chassis, large missile, medium cannon, 2 medium lasers and a medium missile (and a half a slot left over if I want it – AMDS maybe?) and 70pts of armor. Not a bad copy of the 75 ton mech. Of course, I’m going to have horrible, horrible heat problems if I unload all of this at once (7 heat if I don’t move – yargh) but I suddenly also seem a lot scarier now that I have the extra weapon on me.

I’m not sure if it’s game breaking or not. I do think that it might make heat a bigger part of the game as folks are tempted to put on more, lighter weapons rather than fill the slots with just one item. Hopefully I’ll get to try it out this weekend (along with more CC rule tests.) I really just like the idea of the added flexibility w/o much added complexity. How about a light mech with a heavy missile or better yet, the ECTS suite? One slot crit and it’s useless BUT if you can protect it you get a cheap (but fragile) EW unit. I might be more inclined to put the AMDS or RGMS on a heavy if I know I could also put another weapon (or three) in that same slot.

Thoughts?

[kiladecus]

That would allow the Hallander to be made.

[Dagger]

You've stumbled upon the direction that 2.0 is taking... multiple items per hardpoint. You may notice that on the original 2.5d models there is only one slot per hardpoint, but the new 2.5d models have multiple slots per hardpoint. This is to accomodate both construction variety and multiple items per hardpoint.

The idea is to make unit design less restrictive and make it easier to create Mech Attack designs based on models other than the included 2.5d paper models.

You will be able to mount multiple items per hardpoint, but when a critical hit destroys a particular hardpoint you will lose every item mounted there.

Also there will be no size limit... put that Heavy Laser on a Light Mech if you want, but there won't be much Bp left for anything else.

I have some draft rules typed up if you'd like to give them a go... PM me with an email and I'll send it over.

[sarcastro01]

Introduced about 10 people to this game at a local con this year. All in all a great couple of games and several folks were asking where they could get the rules from so they must have had a good time! We used the following house rules:

No limits on weapon sizes - we allow a mech to carry any size equipment on it within its BP limit (except for CC weapons - see below.) Want to mount a heavy cannon on a light mech - fine. The fact that you only have a single weapon and almost zero armor will show you the error of your choice....

Banked weapons - weapons of the same type may be banked together in a single location. For example, in our games I built a Thor with 2 med lasers in each arm, a large missile in one torso and an AMS. If the location is destroyed you lose the entire bank of weapons. The one person who took advantage of this rule was really able to lay down some horrendous damage but in the end the multiple overheats opened some nasty gaps in the armor and his opponents were able to score some easy crits late in the game.

Non-weapon equipment - I decided that the systems available would actually be small enough that they could take up interior space on the mech (they're mostly electronics) so rather than burn a slot on mounting one of these pieces we allow you to pay the build points and just put a note on the mech instead (you can still fill out torso slots though if you really want.) If a critical hit is rolled on a location that has nothing in it you lose one of these equipment pieces instead. For example, we mounted the AMS internally on the Thor (just to test this system out). When the Thor got two crits to one of its arms the first crit took out the lasers in the arm and the second the AMS system. Since it was the only system he had any further hits to the arm resulted in re-rolls on the table as normal. Again the BP system meant you still had hard choices to make in taking equipment but it also meant that more folks were taking that equipment instead of skipping it to save that slot for weapons.

CC weapons - from my original post a long, long time ago. Laser damage for slashing/cutting weapons and missile damage for crushing/bludgeons. Must be purchased at the same weight class as the mech (you can't put light CC weapons on a heavy for example) and they cost 1/2/3 BP depending on the mech (light/med/hvy). Opposed rolls for CC (like ramming) with the following modifiers: +1 if you have more CC weapons than your opponent, +1 if you rushed, +2 from the rear. CC attacks generate zero heat.

Firing when engaged in CC - I couldn't find anything that forbids it but we decided that there would be a -1 modifier if you fire at a target you're engaged with. This represents being shoved around, slammed, or, if the mech is shorter than you, maybe you can't get the torso to bend down enough to shoot where you want to.

Disengaging - we went with an opposed roll rather than rolling against your speed. Heavy mechs really have a hard time disengaging from anything when I would believe they would be able to shoulder past/step over most anything other than another heavy. We gave a +1 bonus if you had a CC weapon (waiving a knife in a guy's face when he doesn't have one should encourage him to let you go), +1 if you were in the opposing mech's back arc, and +1 if you had a higher speed value than your opponent. We also decided that as long as you were not leaving base contact that you could turn to face an attacker and even move around the outside of the base to help clear firing/charge lanes for other mechs without a roll.

[Dagger]

Great ideas... most of them are along the lines of the next version. I think I'm going with a more abstract approach for CC weapons and their damage. Having a CCW enable a Mech to make a CC attack, having two CCWs gives the mech a bonus to hit. The damage profile is dependent on the size of the attacking and target unit (simple table).

[sarge]

I've been using the following house rules for jump jets:

They cost 2BP for light mechs and 4 BP for medium mechs.

They add 3 MV for light mechs and 2 MV for medium mechs. 

It generates 2 heat.

Jump Jet equipped mechs can't use rush.

The Jump Jet equipped mech can't land on other mechs because of the streaa from doing so.

Its what I use because I hated Death From Above in BattleTech.

[Dagger]

Nov 19, 2014 14:32:24 GMT -5 sarge said:

Its what I use because I hated Death From Above in BattleTech.

Ditto... It's not something I would ever consider trying if I were an actual Mech pilot. You don't see real-world tankers ramming each other do you?

[Techpriest]

Picked up a Hachetman figure so have been reading over the ideas for melee weapons. Lots of good ideas, but I really want to keep the game "action movie" fast and easy to learn. Here is my idea: melee weapon is 1 point, takes no slot, gives +2 to the ramming roll.

I also have a Firestarter so will be looking at the ideas for flamers next.

[oberon]

My question is irrelevant.