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Old Dog
Capellan Confederation
Sang-wei
Joined: 24-May-2002 00:00
Posts: 299
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 Posted: 30-Jan-2004 22:24 Post subject: Proposed Rule Changes! (Oooo, ahhh) |
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Just two lil' bitty ones that we use locally. Thought I'd share, since you've seen one of them in use for a while.
1) Head internal increases to 4, Head Exception on Armor is revoked. (IE, max armor is double the internal (4 internal = 8 armor max) rather than the normal 3-9 ratio.)
This makes math MUCH easier, takes away a rules exception, and makes for a slight increase in head critical hits, which can make for FUN storytelling.
2) Machine Gun ammo doesn't explode. Missiles and AC ammo blows up, just like always, but Machine Gun ammo is destroyed, but doesn't detonate, when hit.
This brings Machine Guns back from retirement, and keeps big Assault Mechs from going up like a roman candle because they didn't have 200 rounds to unload their MG ammo during teh fight. Teh damage that a MG magazine going off did was just outlandish, and removing this, and only this, ammo explosion really brought sanity back into teh games.
There you are.
Old Dog's two lil' tweaky rules. Nothing major, nothing outlandish or whacky or crazy, just a couple lil' ones.
What do you think, gang?
-- Old Dog, tinkering terrier.
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-Mud
ex-Jade Falcon
Bounty Hunter
Joined: 04-Nov-2003 00:00
Posts: 1082
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| Posted: 31-Jan-2004 01:14 Post subject: RE: Proposed Rule Changes! (Oooo, ahhh) |
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| I like the M.G. ammo rule. If I have the opportunity, I will usually strip machine guns the first chance I get. I like the idea of machine guns on the 'mech, and they are mighty handy against infantry as I use a rule which limits the damage many energy weapons can do to infantry, but I have seen too many 'mechs go up from hits to M.G. ammo for me to want to risk my Warhammer or Thunderbolt.
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Steel-Scorpion
Steel Scorpion Mercs.
Mercenary General
Joined: 17-Nov-2003 00:00
Posts: 217
Location: United States
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| Posted: 31-Jan-2004 02:46 Post subject: RE: Proposed Rule Changes! (MG stuff) |
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uhm, kewl rules alterations..
MG stuff... a house rule if mine is that MG ammo Will cook off, unless the players use the slightly less effective "hard ammo".
Hard ammo is twice standard ammo wight, (100 rounds per ton), doesn't explode on crits, but then again the MG might jam when used (roll of 2 to hit), this jam can be fixed with a gunnery check at -1.
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"A 'Mech as powerful as possible, as impenetrable as possible, and as ugly and foreboding as conceivable, so that fear itself will be our ally."Aleksandr Kerensky — On the Atlas
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chihawk
Clan Blood Spirit
Master Bartender
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 8072
Location: United States
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| Posted: 31-Jan-2004 05:46 Post subject: RE: Proposed Rule Changes! (Oooo, ahhh) |
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I'm not certain the head armor rule needs to be changed...but something needs to be done about MG ammo. It is the single most worthless weapon in the game system.
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www.210sportsblog.com
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Mordel
Mordel.Net
Administrator
Joined: 03-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 6061
Location: United States
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| Posted: 31-Jan-2004 08:15 Post subject: RE: Proposed Rule Changes! (Oooo, ahhh) |
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I think it's more effective for the Clans. If you want it on a city fighter or infantry hunter, they only weigh 1/4 ton each. So because of the light weight they are more effective.
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Rarich
Federated Suns
Leftenant General
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 991
Location: United States
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| Posted: 31-Jan-2004 13:06 Post subject: RE: Proposed Rule Changes! (Oooo, ahhh) |
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Half the heat rule for MG ammo. In other words the test number for each heat step is halved to pass. MG ammo WILL cook off, but it is more heat resistant for some reason. More air circulating in the ammo bay or something.
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-Mud
ex-Jade Falcon
Bounty Hunter
Joined: 04-Nov-2003 00:00
Posts: 1082
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| Posted: 31-Jan-2004 13:56 Post subject: RE: Proposed Rule Changes! (Oooo, ahhh) |
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| The weight is not the real problem I think; the problem comes from the ammo. Ammunition carrying weapons always require the designer to accept a certain amount of risk in exchange for the damage potential of the weapon. With most ammunition using weapons, the risk is acceptable because of the high damage potential from the weapon, combined with the fact that it is possible to exhaust the ammunition in the bin by the ending stages of the battle, the time when you are most likely to be severely damaged and hence vulnerable to ammunition explosions. Machine guns fail to meet an acceptable threshold of risk vs. benefit. Their incredibly short range means that on most designs they are hardly ever fired in anger, and they carry so many shots that in most battles keeping track of ammunition expenditure is not even worth the effort.
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Pinhead
The Bloody Clans
Joined: 25-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 1258
Location: United States
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| Posted: 31-Jan-2004 15:50 Post subject: RE: Proposed Rule Changes! (Oooo, ahhh) |
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I agree with Mud...
A better change to the innersphere version might be the ability to load 50 shots in a ton, a 1/2 ton load would only be 25 shots...
Might be kind of interesting.
Pin
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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: 31-Jan-2004 18:02 Post subject: RE: Proposed Rule Changes! (Oooo, ahhh) |
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Quote:
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On 2004-01-30 22:24, Old Dog wrote:
1) Head internal increases to 4, Head Exception on Armor is revoked. (IE, max armor is double the internal (4 internal = 8 armor max) rather than the normal 3-9 ratio.)
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I would prefer that heads were gotten rid of altogether.
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2) Machine Gun ammo doesn't explode. Missiles and AC ammo blows up, just like always, but Machine Gun ammo is destroyed, but doesn't detonate, when hit.
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Machinegun ammo does explode in real life. This rule is okay, but I would modify the regular rules such that ammo does 2 points of damage to the internal structure instead of 200.
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Gangrene
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Gunslinger Patch
Royal Black Watch Regiment
Major
Joined: 04-Mar-2002 00:00
Posts: 1611
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| Posted: 31-Jan-2004 23:54 Post subject: RE: Proposed Rule Changes! (Oooo, ahhh) |
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I've always done MG ammo in 1/4 ton lots when I used to do it all on paper (pre HeavyMetal). With the program, I can simulate this by getting 1 ton of MG ammo and more than one MG on the mech. Back in the paper days the ammo still took 1 crit of course, whether it was a ton or less than that.
I've always liked heads much the way they are, though I could see a rule to give more internal and thus more armor to some assault mechs. Esp. the Atlas. That mech should be able to take more damage to the head if any mech should.
Hmm, the damage from an MG round is from the speeding bullets impacting the target. But in an ammo explosion wouldn't that be the cartridge cases or somesuch rupturing? Maybe like a bunch of little frag grenades, but a grenade can't hurt a mech (well... unless you aim a grenade launcher loaded with white phosphorus at exposed myomers or simply board the mech and drop a white phosphorus one into a myomer access hatch.... but you didn't hear that from me.  ).
Ruptured casings might do damage, but not near so much as the speeding bullet would. And with so many casings to rupture... flames would get them all eventually. But impact would only take out a fraction of them and ruin the ammo feed mechanism.
If the ammo feed is ruined by hitting the MG ammo, shouldn't do much internal damage really compared to the damage done to the other guy if all MG rounds are fired and hit. If the flames did it, well... the poor bastard's probably dead already anyway. Might as well let the mech go boom, nice viking funeral.
But either way, I agree the best way to make the MG stage a comeback is to reduce way down the damage an MG ammo hit does. How about 1 damage point for every 10 rounds of ammo? That could do up to 20 points for the ammo hit, which would pretty much finish the mech or really cripple it bad, but without a boom so big the whole thing just gets obliterated from just the MG ammo getting hit. It would still be bad, but sometimes not lethally bad to the mech.
[ This Message was edited by: Gunslinger Patch on 2004-01-31 23:56 ]
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-Mud
ex-Jade Falcon
Bounty Hunter
Joined: 04-Nov-2003 00:00
Posts: 1082
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| Posted: 01-Feb-2004 00:09 Post subject: FASA Physics strikes again! |
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| It also makes sense technically; machine guns go through LOTS of ammunition. Firing non-stop, a 'mech only goes through six "shots" of Machine Gun ammo per minute. At this rate, it would take a 'mech 33 minutes to expend a ton of machine gun ammunition. I have no idea how long it would take a modern .50 caliber machine gun to expend a ton of ammunition, but I would bet it takes less than half an hour!
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Motown Scrapper
Clan Ice Hellions
Galaxy Commander
Joined: 24-Jul-2003 00:00
Posts: 2074
Location: United States
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| Posted: 01-Feb-2004 02:35 Post subject: RE: FASA Physics strikes again! |
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Quote:
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On 2004-02-01 00:09, -Mud wrote:
It also makes sense technically; machine guns go through LOTS of ammunition. Firing non-stop, a 'mech only goes through six "shots" of Machine Gun ammo per minute. At this rate, it would take a 'mech 33 minutes to expend a ton of machine gun ammunition. I have no idea how long it would take a modern .50 caliber machine gun to expend a ton of ammunition, but I would bet it takes less than half an hour!
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The Browning .50 MG has a rate of fire of 55 rds per minute or 33000 rounds per hour I do nor know the weight of a .50 BMG round but I think that there are more than 33 of them to a Kilogram
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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: 01-Feb-2004 07:11 Post subject: RE: Proposed Rule Changes! (Oooo, ahhh) |
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Fear not, your trigger happy psychopath obsessed with things that do dakka dakka and go boom comes to the rescue! 
Here's the link to the machinegun topic on my page, I edited it and simplified it
http://rt000pui.eresmas.net/Battletech/Rules_revision/machineguns.html
Summing it up:
Just give standard machineguns the rapid fire ability of Ultra autocannons.
As for ammo explosions:
Just asssume a hit on the ammunition will cause a small fire and some rounds cook off, and assume the ammo explosion just causes 2 points of damage. In fact, I would have all ammo explosions cause the damage of a single shot from the weapon and be done with it.
After all, if the internal structure has been damage, chances are the ammo explosion of a single shot destroys the location entirely, so why bother with hundred-point explosions.. ammunition most of the time burns rather than bursting out in a fireball.
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chihawk
Clan Blood Spirit
Master Bartender
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 8072
Location: United States
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| Posted: 01-Feb-2004 07:52 Post subject: RE: FASA Physics strikes again! |
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Quote:
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On 2004-02-01 00:09, -Mud wrote:
It also makes sense technically; machine guns go through LOTS of ammunition. Firing non-stop, a 'mech only goes through six "shots" of Machine Gun ammo per minute. |
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You aren't firing just 2 rounds at the target, you're firing a full auto burst...the "shots per ton" for MG ammo is the number of bursts you have...
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Havoc~Ronin
Federated Suns
Major
Joined: 13-Nov-2003 00:00
Posts: 427
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| Posted: 01-Feb-2004 11:15 Post subject: RE: FASA Physics strikes again! |
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You have a point. The .50 cal could go through a ton of ammo a lot faster than 33 minutes ( and there are faster firing MG out there today). The problem is the wear on the barrel. To fire off a ton of ammo, especially in combat conditions were you are not apt to conserve your barrels, you would burn through a few barrels, thus slowing extending the time it takes to expend that much ammo (plus, they are as hot as a son of a female dog when being excahnged.)
If MG ammo in BT is similar to today's ammo, then a hit to the MG ammo storage location will often not explode. I agree with you on this point. It takes some serious heat to cook off .50 ammo and a strike into a storage location would not generate enough to cause such an explosion. The only exceptions I can see is laser ( extreme pinpointed heat ) and PPC fire. But , even then only the ammo in the exact hit location would cook off and the rest would spill out of the hole. I have seen RPG and 23 mike mike hits on .50 ammo boxes and no ammo exploding ammo. Just .50 cal shells everywhere....
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