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Why is it that the Weapons that normally require Crew are Allowed to be Centrally Controlled (reloading is a concern) while weapons that normally are autoloaded require local control...

that is, i Could probably build a machine Gun Emplacement
with the Weapons to do the BMR Damage under the Infantry Fire Limits, add armour, ammo would draw from a ton or Half ton of MG ammo...

and add advanced fire control
and get exactly the same weapon and the same modifiers without requireing local control

i mean,
one Light MG = 1
two Light MG = 2
four Light MG = 3
and with the default ammo at the 1 damage rate (80 ammo per gun / 20 shots per gun)that can fire for 4 turns before requireing getting ammo boxes out of stores

mass of 1 Weapon Advanced Turret 30 kg (less ammo) ^ to 500 kg
mass of 2 Weapon Advanced Turret 60 kg (less ammo) ^ to 500 kg
mass of 3 Weapon Advanced Turret 60 kg (less ammo) ^ to 500 kg

well, if what you are saying is true...
THIS is where Support Weapons are Superior to BattleField Weapons, not the Ammo usage cited by the play testor

[translated]
Cray, I see no reason to doubt your Statement that this is what is being used in TRO VA... however, Being able to be fired from a Central Location by the Gunner (under Basic & Advanced Fire Control) or Driver (Under Advanced Fire Control) is where the Support Weapons surpass the Heavy weapons which evidently require 1 Gunner AT THE GUN for every 3 tons of weapons... the Cited Reason for Excluding Support Weapons from SUV's Greated than 5,000 kg was becauseof a Mistake that a playtestor Made in interpeting the Shots in LosTech and BT RPG 3rd Edition Companion's RPG part of the Construction Rules a BATTLETECH ROUNDS of Fire[/translated]

Note, even if the Weapons Crew Wound Up NOT being Required, that would not make any of the Existing Ships Wrong... Redundancy is a "Desired Feature", not an "Issue"

having Local Crew would help in many situations, such as the loss of Advanced Fire Control (it may or may not be a possible Crit... but this would be a "real world" Design Consideration)

then you do not dispute that Support Weapons / Medium Weapons are vastly better under the Crew Requirements rules than BattleField Weapons / Heavy Weapons under the crew requirements system?

the Ammo Issue was someones Mistake in confusing the BTR3e "Shots" Notation with the BattleTech "Rounds" notation

but the Disrepency between the Local Crew Requirements for the Medium & Heavy Weapons is such that Heavy Weapons Loose out...

BattleTech Light MG Slot (Advanced FC Assumed)
a 250 kg BattleField Weapon that does 1 Damage, and draws from a Ton of Light MG Ammo Requires 1 Crew manning the gun, but doesn't have the +2 To hit Penalty normal for Support Vehicles

a 500 kg Support Weapon Mount that does 1 Damage, and draws from a Ton of Light MG Ammo, can be fired by the Driver, and doesn't have the +2 To hit Penalty normal for Support Vehicles


BattleTech (Medium) MG Slot (Advanced FC Assumed)
a 500 kg BattleField Weapon that does 2 Damage, and draws from a Ton of MG Ammo Requires 1 Crew manning the gun, but doesn't have the +2 To hit Penalty normal for Support Vehicles

a 500 kg Support Weapon Mount that does 2 Damage, and draws from a Ton of MG Ammo, can be fired by the Driver, and doesn't have the +2 To hit Penalty normal for Support Vehicles


BattleTech Heavy MG Slot (Advanced FC Assumed)
a 1000 kg BattleField Weapon that does 3 Damage, and draws from a Ton of Heavy MG Ammo Requires 1 Crew manning the gun, but doesn't have the +2 To hit Penalty normal for Support Vehicles

a 500 kg Support Weapon Mount that does 3 Damage, and draws from a Ton of Heavy MG Ammo, can be fired by the Driver, and doesn't have the +2 To hit Penalty normal for Support Vehicles


lets put it this way... this is the first thing I have seen that i can say justifies the Exclusion of "Medium" Weapons from Support Vehicles of more that 5000 kg

actually, its NOT just a fluff consideration

the Support Vehicle with no Fire Control that uses BattleField Class Machine Guns or the Equivelent Support Weapon will leave the one with the Heavy Weapons either Equal or with the advantage as the Support Weapons will be Crew Rating/2 at the Weapon mount and the Heavy Weapons will be Tonnage/3 at the Weapon mount

the Support Vehicle with BASIC Fire Control that uses BattleField Class Machine Guns or the Equivelent Support Weapon will leave the one with the Heavy Weapons disadvantaged as the one with the Support Weapons will be Controlled by a Gunner that can be in the cockpit (1 guner for the entire vehicle as the rules are written) and the Heavy Weapons will be Tonnage/3 at the Weapon mount

the Support Vehicle with ADVANCED Fire Control that uses BattleField Class Machine Guns or the Equivelent Support Weapon will leave the one with the Heavy Weapons disadvantaged as the one with the Support Weapons will be Controlled by the Vehicles Driver or an Additonal Gunner (1 guner for the entire vehicle as the rules are written) and the Heavy Weapons will be Tonnage/3 at the Weapon mount

this makes Support Weapons Vastly Superior as the Support Weapon Version requires Less Crew using Advanced Fire Control than the Heavy Weapon Version... and support Weapons are Supposed to be INFERIOR to Heavy Weapons, this is why they altered the rules to prohibit Support Weapons on Support Vehicles higher than 5000 kg

isnt crew above the target mark additional?
i don't just write, i build spreadsheets covering every thing that i can think of
Support Vehicle with Advanced Fire Control carrying 3 Heavy Machine Guns = 3000 kg + 300 kg with 3 Gunners at each weapon + the Driver

Support Vehicle carrying 3 Heavy Machine Gun Equivelent Mounts = 1500 kg + 150 kg with the Driver being able to fight the vehicle all by him self.. even if aggregation in a mount is disallowed it still allows ALL the weapons to be fired by the driver while increasing the weapon mass by a certain ammount
1: the Ammo Difference was a fallacy... regardless of heavy or Medium
1 Damage from a Machine gun = 5 kg of ammo (should be 2.5 kg or 3.75 kg per)
2 Damage from a Machine gun = 5 kg of ammo
3 Damage from a Machine gun = 10 kg of ammo

or rather, Support Weapons doing BMR Damage should consume ammo at the BMR Rate

the number of additional Crew Required has some effect on the design of the vehicle, if only requireing additional seating


how much ammo is used in the RPG is a Stats issue..
especially when some {person} managed to get Pintle mounted Support Weapons Excluded from Vehicles that mass more than 5,000 kg by misreading the rate of ammo consumption

BattleTech Should model reality where both Reality and the BattleTech Universe has the Same Equipment...
And When it becomes impossible to build a Gun Truck that originally starts with a 2500 kg CARGO capacity (IIRC 5,000 kg GVW) and mounts Infantry Support weapons in various points along the top of the cargo compartment then i have to break out the trout of WHAP





look at the BACR...
this is what it should read

Semi-Portable MG / BT Light MG = (XX shots, 5 kg, 1 BT Round)
Support MG / BT Light MG = (XX shots, 5 kg, 1 BT Round)
Semi-Portable "AC" / BT Heavy MG = (XX shots, 10 kg, 1 BT Round)
Bear Hunter "AC" / Heavy MG = (XX shots, 10 kg, 1 BT Round)

the minimum Ammo in the PG shoudl be enough to fire the Machine Gun at the BattleTech / IPCR required rate of Fire for 3 BattleTech Turns... instead, the BACR leaves the weapon unable to fire more than once at the lowest rate of fire with not noting that


Stats in the BattleTech RPG are STILL stats

I think you are missing something Perkins. It is the simple fact that Battletech is not reality, and reality is not battletech. There are some similarities but they are not points of reference for comparison. If I wanted to play in the real world I wouldn't play Btech.

_________________
"Yesterday is history; Tomorrow is a Mystery; and today is a gift, which is why it is called a present." Master Uguay Kung fu Panda.

You know, some of these posts you quoted were deleted by the mods for a reason, Chris.
Game balance. Combat vehicles need to stay better than support vehicles. It's a minor fluff detail, so you shouldn't get worked up over it.
Chris, if the crew is required by systems on the vehicle, then they get a free ride in medium and large vehicles. In large naval and airship vehicles, they even get free quarters. For example, every crewman on the Torrent bomber gets a 0-tonnage seat because they are all called out by the rules as required personnel.
Now that's a logical fallacy, one of exaggeration.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/f/fallacy.htm#Exaggeration

The high crew requirements of heavy weapons are 0-ton, 0-slot, 0-CB additions to medium and large support vehicles. The size of the gunnery crew amounts to a bloody footnote in the fluff. You cannot claim one weapon is "vastly superior" to another based on something that doesn't even impact game play or vehicle design.

If you don't see how 0-ton, 0-slot, 0-cost crew requirements are only a minor roleplaying issue, then you really need to step back and get some perspective on the matter.
It's a minor difference. Watch what you can do with just heavy weapons:

An Archer carries 2 LRM 20s with 4 tons of ammo. You can replace the LRM 20s with 8 LRM 5s and free up 4 extra tons while maintaining the same average damage output. THAT'S worth paying attention to.

The Archer also carries 4 medium lasers. You can replace it with Clan ER MLs that do 40% more damage and have 66% more range. THAT'S a stat issue worth paying attention to.

1.5 tons difference from some peeshooters with spitball range is a non-issue.
More correctly: it's a stats non-issue.
And stats with no significant impact on gameplay are a non-issue.

As I said, take a breather and get some perspective on this. You're getting worked up over trivia.

_________________
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

"Woo, that was bracing! They don't like it when you shoot at them. I worked that out myself." --Mal, Firefly

"Going bonkers from EI or DNI is pushing it. I mean how many Crusaders or Super Wobbies are sane to begin with...." --RockJock01

no, you'd probably play MicroArmour

but there is no reason that they shouldn't go the last couple of inches to be able to Model what is lacking to Model Current Era Equipment

look at it this way... anything that happened in the real world up to 1985 definately happened in the BattleTech Universe

Thus Any Vehicle, Weapon, or Piece of Equipment that Was In production or Protopotype Stage before 1985 has a chance of being reproduced in some 31st Century World if only on some Tech Level B or C Backwater out in the Periophery

I'm sorry, and this is where you always lose me, but what does any of that have to do with the minimum and gunnery crew requirements??

The rules are what they are, and are spelled out quite clearly with plenty of examples to back it up.

_________________
Doc
"An artist is never appreciated until he's dead."

I am presuming this is an attempt at sarcasm or something I will basically ignore it.
As with many things in the REAL World, just because there is no reason they shouldn't does not automatically mean that there is any reason they should.

_________________
"Yesterday is history; Tomorrow is a Mystery; and today is a gift, which is why it is called a present." Master Uguay Kung fu Panda.

closed, not deleated
True or False: BattleField / Heavy Weapons are supposed to be BETTER than Support / Medium Weapons

True or False: Combat Vehciels are Supposed to be Better than Combat Vehicles

so why are Support Vehciles that use Support Weapons able to operate with less crew (often just the Driver) than Support Vehicles that use BattleField Weapons...
they make the point that the Seats for gunners are included in the vehicles mass in the MFB Example, not in the rules... this conflicts with the "additional crew" in the Support Vehicle Crew and Additional Crew Sections :::shrug::: clearing up the writing would be useful in Tech manual if its not already too late

Still, Requireing more Crew is not a good thing... even if it doesnt affect tonnage

and it certainly makes the Support Vehicles of the 31st Century look inferior to the A-10... why is this a bad thing?

Because the best/only way to model the A-10 is using the Support Vehicle Rules with Bar 7 cap for Armour and a Tech Level B Cap...

i'd rater not have to use the "lost mass" rules to create a BT model of something

not According to Herb when he mentioned on BattleCorps that the Supposed 200 Free BattleTech Shots at 3 Damage for no tonnage from the Semi-Portable "Auto-cannon" is why they rewrote the rules to Disalllow Support Weapons on


Ammo usage had a significant impact on the rules...

also None of the Canon BattleArmour should be able to fire their Machine Guns for more than one BattleTech Turn/Round under their current Stats... each of the Suits should have their mass increased by 5 - 10 kg per turn that they will be fired... the minium mass of ammo per BattleArmour Weapon should be 15 kg for the Lighht & Medium MG, and 30 KG for the Heavy MG...

after all they arent called OS MGs are they?

Trivia that Lead to a Working (or very nearly so) Rules Set being Broken because someone misunderstood the Trivia is HARDLY trivia

i've been calm for the better part of a year and it doesnt looked to have done any good

Because it's a trivial advantage with no game impact.
You apparently read the example incorrectly. See pg111-112, Example 1, "Because the MFB is a Medium Weight Class Support Vehicle, basic crew accommodation is included with the chassis by default."
Tech Manual has it clear, and is doing exactly what I've been saying: medium and large vehicles get gunners free. Just like TRVA handled gunners. Just like CEG handled gunners.

This makes the gunnery crews a trivial point that you've completely blown out of proportion.

Did it ever occur to you that some rules changes are made for nitpicky little things, not End Of The World OMFG issues? This is one of those nitpicky little things, a stats non-issue.
If you're saying that about MGs, when was the last time you actually played? In a game where 10-12 shots is often enough for a battle, 200 (or 2000 or whatever) shots per MG is just overkill. After the first 25 or 30 shots per gun, it just doesn't matter.
Because you're making a mountain out of a molehill. If this was a problem like, say, CASE turning off when a battlemech shuts down, THAT would be worth some hysteria, fast action, and errata. But MG ammo and medium weapon crews are not worth this much heartache on anyone's part.

_________________
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

"Woo, that was bracing! They don't like it when you shoot at them. I worked that out myself." --Mal, Firefly

"Going bonkers from EI or DNI is pushing it. I mean how many Crusaders or Super Wobbies are sane to begin with...." --RockJock01

The rules are very clear about crew.

Extra crew counts above and beyond what is necessarily. I.E. what the size indicates, weapons, and any equipment which requires crew.

If I have a medium vehicle with 1 MG and 2 tons CommEquipment, I would have space for 5 people automatically included(2 medium, 1 for MG, 2 for comm). Now if I wanted to make that crew 10, I would need to allocate seating for those extra five.

Nothing hard about it, and very clear in the rules.

_________________
Doc
"An artist is never appreciated until he's dead."

there is probably some game impact... if you lack the required crew

you may stop caring past the Tournament Rules... but i follow the Rules & Stats as far down as i can... naturally i complain when it stops This || far from the motherlode
you misread what I said...

translated "You have to read the Example to find that tidbit" the rules themselves did not convey that the "additional crew" in that sectoin was dissimilar from the "Additional Crew" in the next section...

after all, the precedent was already set with AT2&R as well as Combat Vehicles
Good... Verbose Clarity is always better than Terse Obscurity... the advantage is that the writers can actualy make themselves understood...

my writing... not so much
Crew Size Still matters...

What Happens when you lack the Crew?
How Little Crew can keep the Vehicle operational?
if it was such a trivial matter, why add it at all?
I can see why Advanced Fire Control has Such an affect in Support Weapons in the Newer, limited Rules (they were aiming at small suppport vehicles with Only one Crew bieing Effective).. but you have yet to say why they opted to have the BattleField Weapons Require Crew...

the only reason that i can think of is to keep heavy weapons off Small Support Vehicles... after all, Crew Costs on Small... where crew is free on medium & Large
Did it ever occur to you that some rules changes are made for nitpicky little things, not End Of The World OMFG issues? This is one of those nitpicky little things, a stats non-issue.[/quote]

if it was a Stats Non-Issue as you claim, then they woudl not have Altered the Rules to Prohibit it...

the Playtestor thought that he discovered the Infantry Weapons Being able to do 200 rounds of BattleTech Fire at 3 Damage for free...

200 rounds of fire from the BattleField Weapon would have Cost 2,000 kg in addition to the 1,000 kg BattleField Model "Heavy" Machine Gun and it appeared to the playtestor that it was an included 2.5 kg of a 25 kg Weapon

a 25 kg Weapon (and ammo) Package that Matches the Preformance of a 3,000 kg Weapon (and ammo) Package was understandably deemed unbalancing enough to rip the Support Weapons out of the Blue Water Cruiser that was slated for publication in House Steiner Hand Book as well as removing them as an option on Support Vehicles as a whole... the posts should still be up on BattleCorps even if you do not believe my word, at least do me the courtesy of Checking it out by checking BattleCorps or Communicating with Herb

then why was it deemed significant enough to make a last minute haphazrd Attempt to alter the rules? that level of Rush does not indicate

Because you're making a mountain out of a molehill. If this was a problem like, say, CASE turning off when a battlemech shuts down, THAT would be worth some hysteria, fast action, and errata. But MG ammo and medium weapon crews are not worth this much heartache on anyone's part.[/quote]

the Weapons that are, already assigned Canon Equivelencie in BattleTech RPG 3rd Edition and BattleTech

Semi-Portable Machine Gun ~ BattleTech Light Machine Gun
Semi-Portable "AutoCannon" ~ BattleTech Heavy Machine Gun
Support Machine Gun ~ BattleTech Medium Machine Gun
Bear Hunter "AutoCannon" ~ BattleTech Heavy Machine Gun

Semi-Portable Support Laser ~ Micro Laser
Support Laser ~ Small Laser
Heavy Support Laser ~ Medium Laser...

is a Medium Laser Significant Enough for you?
How about iif the Power Consumed by the RPG Burst is only enough to 1.55 Damage per 20 power burst... but Despite that both the BACR and the SUVCR were Crediting the Weapon with 5 Damage... why don't I talk about the Lasers that Much? Because i cannot figure out how to adjust the Lasers that are supposedly a single beam... do i have it consume 80 power (treating it like 4 seperate Shots, giving each 20 power shot 3/4ths of a heat point) or do i have it, (despite the fluff) act like a multi-pulse burst and consume 42 shots, making each 20 power shot generate 3/42nds of a heat point)

i Am lost on this.. and i have been trying in a slap dash manner how to get anything to work for the lasers...

at least with the Missiles, every thing works like it should (except for the SRM... but thats because they only converted the Lighter / Less Damaging of the Two BTR2E SRM types in LosTech)

The Machine Guns and the Missiles Are the Easiest to Deal With

yeah, but your explanation almost got me confused again...

Perspective, man. Get some. It's not a big deal if it happens rarely.

Which is worth more attention, a killer asteroid that can kill 6 billion people or cooks not washing their hands? Look at the risks: the rate of dinokiller asteroid impacts is vanishingly low. Unwashed hands kill people everyday. Significance, therefore, is based on not just the impact of an issue, but how likely it is to occur.

Similarly, crew numbers CAN make a difference in a game, a big difference, but the event is so rare that it's a virtual non-issue. It might happen, but you should worry about issues that happen every game.
That's not my point. The point is not how far you follow these rules, but how often they arise. Crewing is a trivial issue for that reason.
This pretty much confirms your loss of perspective. You're hoping for realistic vehicles and weapons, and yet you have to use 23rd Century technology to poorly duplicate real world vehicles. And weapons - BT weapons are nothing like the 31st Century weaponry they're supposed to be. You don't have intercontinental gauss rifles or surface-to-orbit medium lasers or infinite repeaters for hosing down infantry. The game is not realistic on your favored points at all. If this was a mid-20th Century game of steampunk mecha, then you might be onto something. But it ain't. It's a far future game with weapons that are outperformed by US Civil War weaponry for range and accuracy.
Incorrect. Alterations are made on nitpicks all the time. This is one of those trivial areas that the writers worked on to get straight. It doesn't impact many games and it doesn't come up often, but it was noticed and dealt with. It's still trivial.
Chris, I know the incident you're talking about because I was one of those playtesters. I recall the aggravation of the last minute changes to the Jorgamund (sp) and all the time being wasted on frickin' pop-guns. There were serious game issues that needed to be addressed and this wasn't one of them, medium weapons were just a bit of trivia that needed fixing. No one gave a wet fart about medium weapons on a big ship, so it was an easy decision to remove them.

And I do see what Herb said on Battlecorps: "Hardly matters either way."
Did it ever occur to you that minor issues might also be dealt with in a rush because there's deadlines and bigger issues to be dealt with? Get the trivia out of the way so you can handle big issues?

_________________
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

"Woo, that was bracing! They don't like it when you shoot at them. I worked that out myself." --Mal, Firefly

"Going bonkers from EI or DNI is pushing it. I mean how many Crusaders or Super Wobbies are sane to begin with...." --RockJock01

Something that happens rarely Still happens

only Conveying part of what can happen is marginally acceptible in the worthless tournament rules...

but the real rules have to cover as much as possible



Disagree, covered above
why waste my time on things that every one else is looking at...

if its things that the playtestors covered a thousand times why waste my time...

its the things that slipped through the cracks that i can help with...

Like How the IPCR affects the BACR & SUVCR...

for BattleMechs... how many shots per burst is a minor issue because the Precedent for "what the author wants, he gets" has already been established... but i have demonstrated that it is possible to adapt the IPCR to change fluff into stats...

the Less Fluff left as Fluff the Better


Crewing occours in Campaign play.... which means most of the play outside of the Artificially limited Tournament Environment


Neg, look at page 108 of CEG Again as well as the Rules in Mercenaries Supplimental II

Tech Level B annd possibly C as well is current era technology

BattleTech is geared to represent Man Portable & Tank Scale Weapons mounted in Mobile fireing Platforms... it doesnt deal all that much with Capitol Scale weapons.

also, the Ranges are artificially Limited to 48% of their BattleField Ranges... and the BattleField Ranges are WAY less than a weapons actual Maximum Range...

mainly battletech ranges are those at which a Reasonably Trained mechwarrior is expected to be ablle to hit appx 50% of the time... and the Chance of Hitting is dialled into match the percentage of reproted range... i guess it helps in creating the weapons if being a trifle unrealistic
Logical Fallacy "The Reported Ranges of This Weapon are Shorter than the Maximum Range for that Weapon, therefore that weapon has longer range"... the weapons are abstracted, and if Civil War Weaponry were abstracted in BattleTech or BattleTech RPG, they would be equally nerfed...


it WAS a non issue, then someone had a brain fart and made it an issue...

If a Playtestor cannot be expected to get the rules right, how can any one else be expected to do so


much easier to take a playtestors word that something was messed up without verifying it...?

and thats a Minor issue?

NOT verifying an issue
NOT checking something out with a Simple Spreadsheet or even Pen & Paper
NOT looking at the book that was set up as the Authority on Mechwarrior ([naughty] wizkids) to BattleTech Conversions

its just as much a miscarriage as if some playtestor managed to convince them that standard Weapons did BMR damage vs Capitol Scale Targets

and it averages almost the same scale of increase...
it isnt the rule itself that matters
if it was trivia they should have left it in place as is...

but it explains the abbysmal job thhey did... looks like they left the rules in place and simply said "ignore every thing that we trold you how to do because you cannot do it"

do you prefer Squad Leader?
what game do you use for Current era Play?
Have you looked in the primitive weapons section of BattleTech RPG 3rd Edition or LosTech Recently?

Look at the LAM situation... they are dead in the game post 3067, but they are going into Liberation of Terra because the ever existed in the BattleTech Universe



Autocannon/2 & Autocannon/5 are 21st Century Weapons
Machine Guns, Flamers & Rocket Launchers are Industrial Revolution to 20th Century Weapons

look at page 108 Combat Equipment Guide

actually, statistics are what games use

you are mistaking a
concious decision to adapt realworld statistics to fit a shorter playing area
with
an inability to model the statistics

Perkie - Statistic data can be manipulated by the author to fit whatever he/she may need for that moment. Its not an absolute figure, which is what you seem to be wanting in every situation.

Consistantly bashing the authors/creators of this game for making abstractions of future tech in a Sci-fi setting is folly at best, insulting at worst.

Randall explained it best in the opening pages of Total Warfare. If the game were to mirror real-world physics, weapons range and damge capability, then the game would be played outside on parking lots as opposed to table top arenas at YLGS.

I've stopped posting here because of your list of grievances agaisnt this game and its mechanics. Yes there are 'head-scratcher'-rules and quirks, but they get addressed in additional supplements or errata. This game is not perfect, but it has stood the test of time. Contrary to what you might think, the people at the helm are doing a fine job. Give them a break and back down.

_________________
Once more unto the breach.

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By "here", do you mean "threads overun with Perkieness" or "www.heavymetalpro.com"?

_________________
[url=http://www.hitbox.tv/hmpgoose]Goose - The Egyptian God of Frustration[/url]

"He closes his eyes and remembers the night splattered with brightness, the sudden flare of erupting fuel, the mad chase as, supersonic, he bobbed and weaved among the hills and valleys of the Ozarks, the laws on his tail, burning for home …"

Right. So the concept of perspective is a difficult thing for you.
Check. With that hyperbole, you confirm a lack of perspective. A trivial conversion on medium weapons that have negligible battlefield impact is not the same as nerfing standard vs capital scale. Get a grip.
There's just something wrong when a person views a small mistake in an obscure rule as proof that entire improvement on the game is an abysmal job. Ah, here it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasty_generalization

The fallacy of hasty generalization. Take a trivial, small sample and overgeneralize to be representative of the entire fact checking process and the end product. Good going, Chris. You're building your arguments on personal opinion and bad statistics.
Because you might find something productive or useful to comment on.
Then they're not very realistic to begin with, are they? They're artificially nerfed to be nowhere near your motherlode.
Let's start our "BT is way far away from reality" talk there.

The original BT game did NOT model real world statistics in a shorter play area because the accuracies are still all wrong, even noting the artificially limited range. Further, the weapons aren't realistic at all for the technology supposedly available in the fiction.

I don't what real world technological trends or real world weapons you looked at to come to the conclusion that ye olde Battletechnology magazines were doing a good job of modeling reality, but you looked in the wrong spot and did some bad math.
A WW2 German tank crew that got 50% accuracy at BT ranges - even out to 600-700m - would've been taken out of their tanks, sent to the Eastern front, and armed with wooden clubs. That accuracy is crap, Chris. It's far worse than reality.

Hell, if a US Civil War artillery crew had accuracy that bad would be given wooden clubs and ordered to lead charges against fieldworks. A US Civil War 3" rifled muzzleloading cannon would repeatedly put shots into a 2-foot circle at 1000m.

At the high end of TL B, the 1970s-technology Abrams is expected to get 90% accuracy at 3km range while on the move, against a moving target.

Your average AC/5 can't get 90% accuracy at 120m against a moving target when fired by a moving attacker.

The fact that AC/5s, when their range is multiplied by about 5x, start to approach real world cannon range, does not make them realistic. They're still grossly overweight (an Abrams' cannon is barely over 1 ton, including the stabilizers, recoil systems, and targeting computer) and horrifically inaccurate.
I was talking about tank- and man-portable weapons, not capital weapons. In the 31st Century, to destroy a planet, you should just be able to wave your techno-magic wand and watch it go "poof!" An infantry gauss rifle with 10km/s muzzle velocity (primitive 23rd century technology) will be capable of punching bullets up to orbital altitudes. A battlemech small laser should be able to scribble the mechwarrior's name into the surface of the moon. THAT'S realistic technology. Battletech is not close to your motherlode, not by a long shot.
Yeah, take a GOOD look at those, and then take a look at reality. My point stands on two levels.

1) The AC/2 and other low tech, TL B weaponry do a poor job of modeling reality. Their accuracies and ranges are worse than CIVIL WAR weaponry. While you use obscure, non-canon Battletechnology references to show that BT weapons can barely stretch to 1980s ranges, the guns still fail to measure up to real world weaponry performance. Or weights, for that matter. The Abrams' cannon is barely over a ton. Naval autocannons in the 76mm and 127mm range are still much lighter than BT ACs.

2) TLC weaponry should make the most advanced real world weaponry look like crap, but it still can't do it. It doesn't even get close. Then there's TL D, which goes back to my point about intercontinental gauss rifles and surface-to-orbit medium lasers.

_________________
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

"Woo, that was bracing! They don't like it when you shoot at them. I worked that out myself." --Mal, Firefly

"Going bonkers from EI or DNI is pushing it. I mean how many Crusaders or Super Wobbies are sane to begin with...." --RockJock01

All of the above Goose... Its not just limited to Perkie... there are a few others here that spoil good discourse with bashing the creators and writers of the Battletech Universe (As well as other fans of this game).

I am just as guilty of it as anyone else is, and have crossed words with a few of the mods, though I recognize that that individual has much of a right to express themselves as I. Yet droning on and on about how the writers got it wrong and here's the right way of doing it is getting might old.

Is this constructive? Really at this point, its not, it smacks of the arguements that Warhammer 40k players get into over a rules. It gets old.

I know the simplest answer is to breath in, breath out, and move on, however irrational criticism is not limited to HMPro.com, CBT.com or PrivateerPress.com.

_________________
Once more unto the breach.

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But...but...butt... that was the whole purpose of this thread, started by Perkie. You don't have to join in if you don't want to.

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Rick
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[email]rick@heavymetalpro.com[/email] [img]http://www.heavymetalpro.com/countries/flag-us.gif[/img] [img]http://www.heavymetalpro.com/countries/ ... rolina.gif[/img]

* There are 10 types of people in this world. Those who understand binary and those who don't. *

That's what I was thinking....

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And you can leave when you want to, like I'm doing. I misunderstood that his ideas were entrenched to the fanatic level.

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Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

"Woo, that was bracing! They don't like it when you shoot at them. I worked that out myself." --Mal, Firefly

"Going bonkers from EI or DNI is pushing it. I mean how many Crusaders or Super Wobbies are sane to begin with...." --RockJock01

See? That easy!

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you mistake my target

the Authors themselves have Repeatedly stated that the weapons ranges are Abstracted in a manner that would make it possible to play a game at 1/900th scale (30 Meters = 1.3123 inches.. you do the math) without requireing Basket ball courts as playing areas

the FANS are the ones that insist on saying that the ranges in the game mean that the weapons of the 31st Century are inferior to Civil war & WWII weapons

what is sometimes cleverly avoided is that real world weapons would be INTENTIONALLY nerfed in the same manner if they were converted

instead of Insulting the authors with the statement that the weapon reanges are so much shorter than real world weapons of such and so a period... why not just say that the weapon ranges are truncated to make the game playable

Right... the Authors Write the BACR, the IPCR and the SUVCR...

and I am saying that they Got it Wrong...

un huh...

They Got the IPCR Right
they need to get the SUVCR & BACR to agree with it

its Called Consistency

if you wanted to compare the BT weapons to real weapons of present and past you have three alternatives:
- nerf the real weapons as well, wich you can´t because you dont know how much the sci-fi weapons have been nerfed

- un-nerf the sci-fi weapons, wich you cant because of the same reason.

- change the map scale: a hex is not 30 metres but more, again: how much is it?

the only conclusion is that BT is a different universe than RL.

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typos and spelling-mistakes are property of the finder. english is not my mother-tongue.

it is the same...

the Level of Exagerated damage

Yes, its not like Getting Mechwarrior Scale Damage to do Capitol Scale Damage...

Mechwarrior Damage Converts to BattleTech/AT2 about as well as BattleTech/AT2 Converts to Capitol Scale

its Not Hyperbole

a single HMG (S-P AC) Shot does 0.33 BattleTech Damage
a single HMG (S-P AC) BURST does 3 BattleTech Damage

the Naval Laser 35 does 35 BattleTech Damage
the Naval Laser 35 does 3.5 Capitol Scale Damage


both mistakes move the decimal one position



the abbysmal job they did on removing the Pintle rules

enough of the Medium Weapon rules for Medium & larger vehicles are still in place that it wasnt until that conversation on battlecorps that i realized that they had nerfed the rules...

Rather than Editing out all references to Medium & heavy vehicles from every time that medium weapons were mentioned they did it only once
you mean like intentionally taking a series of exchanges about the mistake about ammo and the excision of the medium weapons on medium & above support vehicles and turning it into a broadside against the enntire book?, no, the last couple of books produced?

umm, yeah...


how wasn't making enough of a squeaky noise thhat the palytestors will pay better attention to BattleTech - BattleTech RPG scale conversions in the future productive?


Then they're not very realistic to begin with, are they? They're artificially nerfed to be nowhere near your motherlode.[/quote]

how so?

i can look at the M1904 Springfield and see how its ranges were converted to get the range of the Bolt Action Rifle

i key in the Real World BattleField, Maximum Effective or Maximum Range of a real world weapon and get its BattleTech or BattleTech RPG 3rd Edition Range

thats figureing out what point on the bell curve to put the Number and then having it automaticly populate from there

its a Spreadsheat... not a magic wand

and its possibly as reliable as mr raisley's reverse engineering of the CV & BV System

yes, they probably cut a few corners with setting the Percentage of range to loosly match the percentage chance of missing (3% chance of hitting = 100% of long range) but the statistics correlate otherwise


in ranges? or accuracy at those ranges?
whos to say that the base chance at hitting is for a zero zero....

note, shut down / immobile targets get a -4 To hit Bonus... thats a significant increase to the hit

A WW2 German tank crew that got 50% accuracy at BT ranges - even out to 600-700m - would've been taken out of their tanks, sent to the Eastern front, and armed with wooden clubs. That accuracy is crap, Chris. It's far worse than reality.
how many of them would it take to do one damage? two damage? 5 damage, 10 Damage, 20 Damage?

lets see...

-1 Targeting Computer Bonus
+4 Gunnery Skill (Reasonably Skillled)
+1 Fireing on the Move
+1 Moving Target

so... a 4x multiple in range is insurmountable?

so, in BattleTech thats 83% of the AC/2's Combat Range is 720 Meters, with a 28% chance of hitting (without registerable movement or Targeting Computers...

in BattleTech RPG (Factoring in the +1 Gunnery that a Boot Gets, and the +2 Gunnery Bonus for advanced Fire Control,
3400 Meters - Extreme Range, which is a 55% chance at hitting...
Factoring in the +1 From the Targeting Computer that Translates to a 65% chance at hitting...

true, there is a 25% difference between 90% and 65%... but there is a curious sort of Symmetry between the 25% hit chance reduction and the BattlleTech Range being 1/4th the Reported Range

you're slightly off in comparing the Abrams Cannon to the AC/5... its more likely the AC/2 than the AC/5

6000 kg for Weapon, Mount, Aiming, Targeting System, Autoloading System, Cooling, etc
an exageration of 6x from Barrel / Weapon Weight to BattleTech Weapn Package Weight is what I have been stating all along.

reference the 25 kg Weapon that, mounted on a BattleMech takes up 1000 kg
its a 40x Multiplier... but with the +50 To hit Modifier for fireing 149 Shots to do 3 BattleTech Damage it might be necessary to provide sufficient recoil compensation

reference the 40 kg Weapon that, mounted on a BattleMech takes up 1000 kg
its a 25x Multiplier... but with the +15 To hit Modifier for fireing 40 Shots to do 3 BattleTech Damage it might be necessary to provide sufficient recoil compensation

but comparing the 155 mm Howitzer to the Sniper Artillery piece seams to come up with the 6:1 multiple




quote="Cray"]
2) TLC weaponry should make the most advanced real world weaponry look like crap, but it still can't do it. It doesn't even get close. Then there's TL D, which goes back to my point about intercontinental gauss rifles and surface-to-orbit medium lasers.[/quote]

when was the last time that you saw a BattleTech weapon claiming to be a 78 mm WWII Vintage Cannon?

if the AC/2 is equivelent to a L44 / M256 gun...

then the 75 mm WWII cannon is... significantly less effective especially if the ranges are plugged into the same bell curve


457 Meters... umm... this is gonna suck...
right... thats the same range profile of the BattleTech Light Machine Gun... and i am cheating and assigning it 457 as the "long" or "combat" range in the BattleTech RPG 3ed Scale.. well that might not be cheating come to think of it... thats the range at which the weapon penetrates a RHAe plate 76 mm thick
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/75_mm_US_tank_gun#M3_2

i wish i was smart enough to build the sheet to convert Thickness of RHAe to BattleTech damage (i keep trying... its sooooo trying)