Battletech
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Archangel of Death
- Posts: 854
- Joined: 28 Jan 2005, 18:15
yes we did, its just having an 8000 range, 2000 damage (using a 100x damage multiplier, made fudging real easy. hit points will be 100x or more, to be determined later) weapon on a medium mech is giving me nightmares about the future issue of balancing. Artillary is very limited in ammo, but should I not make it fire every six second turn? How often should it fire? Should I use a different system entirelly for determining its damage and reload?
Also I need to know what kind of aoe I should be aiming for on the various artillary pieces, what kind of weapon is a Sniper, and the Thumper as well (is it just a light Long Tom?). So basically I'm looking for a whole bunch of ideas for everyone to start thinking over.
Also I need to know what kind of aoe I should be aiming for on the various artillary pieces, what kind of weapon is a Sniper, and the Thumper as well (is it just a light Long Tom?). So basically I'm looking for a whole bunch of ideas for everyone to start thinking over.
Archangel of Death: a medium mech with a Long Tom would give me nightmares too! What medium mech has one though? I don't know of one. A Hollander has a gauss rifle, a Hunchback has an AC20. Both big guns for a med mech. A custom mech could have one I s'pose but at the expense of speed and armour which I am sure FizWizz or myself could knock up some figures for you to work with.
From what I have read in these forums FizWizz is a good source of knowledge and assistance so I don't want to outright contradict anything he has said thus far, but for information and discussions sake:
- standard paper map is 22 inches by 15 inches arranged 17 hexes on the long and 15 on the short.
(Note with hexes you get semi-overlapping rows on the short side)
Given a hex is 30 metres, a map is 510m by 340m.
Rule book mentions that Arty is to be set up in multiples of 500m away from the board. So I guess you can consider a "map" to be 500m =~17 hexes.
I don't know how many Spring units make a metre but hopefully the above assists.
Gameplay wise a possible unit may be, in TRO3025 a LT-MOB-25 Mobile Long Tom Artillery vehicle is depicted (looks a bit like a tank version of a road train with multiple supporting trailers towed by the main gun platform) that has one Long Tom gun and 10 tons of ammo. 50 shots is 5 minutes flat out firing. It has a movement of 2,3 allowing it limited mobility. With 16 armour and only 2 MG's per side it is meat if alone facing anything.
(There are also other vehicles depicted that may or may not be desirable, or TASpring possible, like scout car, mobile HQ, Coolant trucks to cool hot mechs, ammo supply vehicles and MASH.)
A soft tank with one big long range gun and 5 minute of firing is fine by me as an arty piece. Have it shoot every 6 seconds. To start with keep it in the same damage system as the other weapons although area effect damage would be nice. Accuracy should suck unless targeting ground whereupon it should improve over time. All subject to whether it is possible and gameplay balance of course.
I see the Long Tom, Sniper and Thumper as conventional arty, big guns of varying sizes. Arrow IV is of course a different thing being missile based and relatively short ranged arty. I must admit, I never used Sniper or Thumper in a game, not once. Who wants to do next to no damage with arty?
From what I have read in these forums FizWizz is a good source of knowledge and assistance so I don't want to outright contradict anything he has said thus far, but for information and discussions sake:
- standard paper map is 22 inches by 15 inches arranged 17 hexes on the long and 15 on the short.
(Note with hexes you get semi-overlapping rows on the short side)
Given a hex is 30 metres, a map is 510m by 340m.
Rule book mentions that Arty is to be set up in multiples of 500m away from the board. So I guess you can consider a "map" to be 500m =~17 hexes.
I don't know how many Spring units make a metre but hopefully the above assists.
Gameplay wise a possible unit may be, in TRO3025 a LT-MOB-25 Mobile Long Tom Artillery vehicle is depicted (looks a bit like a tank version of a road train with multiple supporting trailers towed by the main gun platform) that has one Long Tom gun and 10 tons of ammo. 50 shots is 5 minutes flat out firing. It has a movement of 2,3 allowing it limited mobility. With 16 armour and only 2 MG's per side it is meat if alone facing anything.
(There are also other vehicles depicted that may or may not be desirable, or TASpring possible, like scout car, mobile HQ, Coolant trucks to cool hot mechs, ammo supply vehicles and MASH.)
A soft tank with one big long range gun and 5 minute of firing is fine by me as an arty piece. Have it shoot every 6 seconds. To start with keep it in the same damage system as the other weapons although area effect damage would be nice. Accuracy should suck unless targeting ground whereupon it should improve over time. All subject to whether it is possible and gameplay balance of course.
I see the Long Tom, Sniper and Thumper as conventional arty, big guns of varying sizes. Arrow IV is of course a different thing being missile based and relatively short ranged arty. I must admit, I never used Sniper or Thumper in a game, not once. Who wants to do next to no damage with arty?
I'm fairly sure that Thumpers are just light artillery cannons. You can find the actual Long Tom on Chaos March, it's an 95 ton I.S. tracked vehicle (funny thing is, it doesn't carry any ammo according to that page. Maybe they don't need ammo because they are behind the battle lines and are assumed to be resupplied regularly? Someone with rulebooks would have to clarify what artillery rules are). It beats the hell out of me what "Sniper" is, though. As far as AoE goes, I guess that artillery shots hit one hex, and damage the adjacent hexes as well, so when you see that the thumper does 5/2 damage, I'm guessing that it does 5 in its hex, and 2 as splash damage. Just goes to show you how weak thumper is. If you want artillery to last longer, go ahead and give it two or four 'turns' between shots to make the ammo last longer. One more thing: Accuracy. I don't know how accurate shells are supposed to be. Arrow IV should be accurate when TAG guided, but a system like that can't really be supported in Spring. Someone will rulebooks would have to inform us on artillery accuracy, unless we just want to go purely with speculation and what balances in Spring.
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Archangel of Death
- Posts: 854
- Joined: 28 Jan 2005, 18:15
My mistake, thought I remembered seeing a Hollander variant with a Long Tom somewhere. 
Now I need clarification on how Rocket Launchers work.
Also, ideas on how to handle rotary jamming would be appreciated. Currently I'm thinking in the area of increasing jamming likelihood while it fires, resetting it if the gun has been idle for a while. Then if it jams, it is jammed for one turn + rand(0,5) turns. With turns at 6 seconds, thats 6 to 36 seconds of jamming.
That helps alot. Even though it also means longer artillary ranges than before, I can deal with that now without that mystery artillary mech floating about my head. Now I can hammer out a bit more on the weapons.- standard paper map is 22 inches by 15 inches arranged 17 hexes on the long and 15 on the short.
(Note with hexes you get semi-overlapping rows on the short side)
Given a hex is 30 metres, a map is 510m by 340m.
Rule book mentions that Arty is to be set up in multiples of 500m away from the board. So I guess you can consider a "map" to be 500m =~17 hexes.
Now I need clarification on how Rocket Launchers work.
Also, ideas on how to handle rotary jamming would be appreciated. Currently I'm thinking in the area of increasing jamming likelihood while it fires, resetting it if the gun has been idle for a while. Then if it jams, it is jammed for one turn + rand(0,5) turns. With turns at 6 seconds, thats 6 to 36 seconds of jamming.
that's a pretty cool process for rotary jamming =). Remember to build other kinds of weapons for AA if you get air-swarmed in a game...
also, IIRC rocket launchers fire dumb-fire rockets (like SRM), except that they fire a single rocket at a time which has a 2/5/10/20 power warhead (unlike SRM). I doubt that they could be intercepted by AMS, but I could very well be just blowing steam here.
also, IIRC rocket launchers fire dumb-fire rockets (like SRM), except that they fire a single rocket at a time which has a 2/5/10/20 power warhead (unlike SRM). I doubt that they could be intercepted by AMS, but I could very well be just blowing steam here.
FizWizz: Regarding arty and rulebook (NB: Battletech Master Rules)
1. No mention of ammo or resupply or purchase of arty units in dedicated Arty chapter. Arty units are what they are I think. You purchase them like you do other units so ammo is what they have. I guess in the boardgame you could buy Ordnance vehicles who can carry 20 tons of ammo.
2. You decide where you Arty will be. IE off which map edge and how far away in blocks of 500m. They have a shell flight table too so if the arty is 1 or 2 maps away it will take one turn for the shell to arrive after firing. IE Fire, next round it arrives at the target. For every two maps, or part thereof the arty is away it takes a turn in shell flight. IE 13 or 14 maps away would fire and then have the shell arrive 7 turns later. Realistic? Likely not. A shell doesn't take 6 seconds to travel 1 kilometre.(And the tabletop uses 10 second turns!) Massively high trajectory?
3. They have arty spotters which can be any unit loaded with TAG(Target Acquisition Gear). Spotters can call fire into a hex. They can also adjust fire so that it is more accurate for the second shot on the same co-ordinates. If you really want this I can type it in word for word if you like. I reckon just go with what can be implemented and balanced in Spring. If people get fanatical (and Battletech people really can) then implement this later. It would require unit to unit communications. Unless a simplefied idea of make the shots more accurate if a unit has Line Of Sight, IE arty less accurate in Fog-of-War fog but more accurate when target or area is visible. Would make unsupported arty attacks on Dropship less effective.
4. There's a whole bunch of how to determine if it hits. Basically, if it does, then it is spot on. If it misses then it will scatter randomly. From the target hex the sides are numbered sequentially. 1D6 determines which direction the shot is varied. Another 1D6 determines how many hexes it is varied.
IE the shot could land anywhere in a 6 hex, 180metre, radius IF it is deemed to have missed. I have had onboard arty miss and shoot itself as it was too close to the target hex, whether you really wanna replicate this though.....
5. Damage is as you said. Main damage in target hex, secondary damage in all surrounding hexes. BUT it is applied in 5 point clusters.
IE that 20 point Long Tom damage on a direct hit could do: 5 points Left Arm, 5 Points Right Arm, 5 Points Left leg, 5 points Right Torso.
It's rolled out on the Hit Locations chart in the boardgame so the 5 point damages could go anywhere or double up or whatever. Main thing is damage tends to being more "sandpapered" all over and not "drilled" in one spot. Unless the mech in unlucky on the charts of course....
Ammo types. All arty can deliver damage (High explosive) or smoke rounds. Arrow IV is special in that it can also deliver a single missile that hits with 20 points in the one location, requires a TAG equipped spotter that does not shoot any other weapons to guide to missile in. Also Clan Arrow IV can be used to deploy 30 point minefields.
Archangel of Death, are you aware of battletech tech levels?
Level 1 is plain old Innersphere
Level 2 is slightly more fancy, InnerSphere and Clan.
Level 3 (not officially Tournament supported generally) Experimentalish. Including Rotary cannons and "Rocket" Launchers. Of course, some of the cool stuff is here.
I am stuffed and gotta go to bed for tonight. Another source of keen Battletech gamers is another game, Megamek.NET. Its on Sourceforge. It takes the board game to the computer in strict terms. Turn by Turn, move by move, roll by roll (thankfully computer does rolls). NOT RTS AT ALL, 2D top down graphics, turn based. It is networked in a similar fashion to the Spring Battleroom, has a decent following of some of the hardest core battletechers out there. You want knowledge of rules combined with computer gaming, they would be it. And if you get hooked and try to play, know that even the lowest ranked players are very good.
1. No mention of ammo or resupply or purchase of arty units in dedicated Arty chapter. Arty units are what they are I think. You purchase them like you do other units so ammo is what they have. I guess in the boardgame you could buy Ordnance vehicles who can carry 20 tons of ammo.
2. You decide where you Arty will be. IE off which map edge and how far away in blocks of 500m. They have a shell flight table too so if the arty is 1 or 2 maps away it will take one turn for the shell to arrive after firing. IE Fire, next round it arrives at the target. For every two maps, or part thereof the arty is away it takes a turn in shell flight. IE 13 or 14 maps away would fire and then have the shell arrive 7 turns later. Realistic? Likely not. A shell doesn't take 6 seconds to travel 1 kilometre.(And the tabletop uses 10 second turns!) Massively high trajectory?
3. They have arty spotters which can be any unit loaded with TAG(Target Acquisition Gear). Spotters can call fire into a hex. They can also adjust fire so that it is more accurate for the second shot on the same co-ordinates. If you really want this I can type it in word for word if you like. I reckon just go with what can be implemented and balanced in Spring. If people get fanatical (and Battletech people really can) then implement this later. It would require unit to unit communications. Unless a simplefied idea of make the shots more accurate if a unit has Line Of Sight, IE arty less accurate in Fog-of-War fog but more accurate when target or area is visible. Would make unsupported arty attacks on Dropship less effective.
4. There's a whole bunch of how to determine if it hits. Basically, if it does, then it is spot on. If it misses then it will scatter randomly. From the target hex the sides are numbered sequentially. 1D6 determines which direction the shot is varied. Another 1D6 determines how many hexes it is varied.
IE the shot could land anywhere in a 6 hex, 180metre, radius IF it is deemed to have missed. I have had onboard arty miss and shoot itself as it was too close to the target hex, whether you really wanna replicate this though.....
5. Damage is as you said. Main damage in target hex, secondary damage in all surrounding hexes. BUT it is applied in 5 point clusters.
IE that 20 point Long Tom damage on a direct hit could do: 5 points Left Arm, 5 Points Right Arm, 5 Points Left leg, 5 points Right Torso.
It's rolled out on the Hit Locations chart in the boardgame so the 5 point damages could go anywhere or double up or whatever. Main thing is damage tends to being more "sandpapered" all over and not "drilled" in one spot. Unless the mech in unlucky on the charts of course....
Ammo types. All arty can deliver damage (High explosive) or smoke rounds. Arrow IV is special in that it can also deliver a single missile that hits with 20 points in the one location, requires a TAG equipped spotter that does not shoot any other weapons to guide to missile in. Also Clan Arrow IV can be used to deploy 30 point minefields.
Archangel of Death, are you aware of battletech tech levels?
Level 1 is plain old Innersphere
Level 2 is slightly more fancy, InnerSphere and Clan.
Level 3 (not officially Tournament supported generally) Experimentalish. Including Rotary cannons and "Rocket" Launchers. Of course, some of the cool stuff is here.
I am stuffed and gotta go to bed for tonight. Another source of keen Battletech gamers is another game, Megamek.NET. Its on Sourceforge. It takes the board game to the computer in strict terms. Turn by Turn, move by move, roll by roll (thankfully computer does rolls). NOT RTS AT ALL, 2D top down graphics, turn based. It is networked in a similar fashion to the Spring Battleroom, has a decent following of some of the hardest core battletechers out there. You want knowledge of rules combined with computer gaming, they would be it. And if you get hooked and try to play, know that even the lowest ranked players are very good.
Very informative.
1. It's still bizarre that the Long Tom doesn't have ammo in its loadout. Maybe it can be assumed to have a steady ammo supply and circumvent the ammo rules to be applied to other ballistics in this TC. Maybe each ammunition round can have a Metal/Energy cost. Maybe you can assume that it carries one ton of ammo regardless. Maybe time between shots can be reduced to every fifth turn or something to counter infinite ammo. Have fun figuring this one out Archangel =). There is another artillery unit I failed to mention, by the way. The Huitzilopochtli is an Clan 85 ton tracked vehicle with Arrow IV and it carries its own ammo.
2. It looks like High Trajectory has to be used to simulate travel time.
4. potential for being 6 hexes off?!?! Looks like the weapon will just have a considerable innacuracy value. The High Trajectory helps with that.
5. I don't think that hit locations are supportable in Spring anyways, so applying damage to the unit as a whole is unavoidable. I don't think that Spring will be able to support special munitions either, so it'll be just HE for now.
1. It's still bizarre that the Long Tom doesn't have ammo in its loadout. Maybe it can be assumed to have a steady ammo supply and circumvent the ammo rules to be applied to other ballistics in this TC. Maybe each ammunition round can have a Metal/Energy cost. Maybe you can assume that it carries one ton of ammo regardless. Maybe time between shots can be reduced to every fifth turn or something to counter infinite ammo. Have fun figuring this one out Archangel =). There is another artillery unit I failed to mention, by the way. The Huitzilopochtli is an Clan 85 ton tracked vehicle with Arrow IV and it carries its own ammo.
2. It looks like High Trajectory has to be used to simulate travel time.
4. potential for being 6 hexes off?!?! Looks like the weapon will just have a considerable innacuracy value. The High Trajectory helps with that.
5. I don't think that hit locations are supportable in Spring anyways, so applying damage to the unit as a whole is unavoidable. I don't think that Spring will be able to support special munitions either, so it'll be just HE for now.
Just make arty a unit, like any other unit. The "Long Tom" is not a unit in itself but a gun to be placed on a unit.
Personally I am rather excited about the possibility of creating the LT-MOB-25 Mobile Long Tom Artillery vehicle in game. Has a Long Tom, has ammo, has movement, albeit slow (like arty should be), so it can move to resupply itself like any other unit. It just cannot move far away from supply, although with 5 minutes straight of fire I think it could range out somewhat. This is assuming 1 shot every 6 seconds which I would prefer not to deviate from as 20(00) points is only the same as an assault mechs big gun and, given the inaccuracy involved, for it to be effective at all it has to have a reasonable rate of fire.
Personally I am rather excited about the possibility of creating the LT-MOB-25 Mobile Long Tom Artillery vehicle in game. Has a Long Tom, has ammo, has movement, albeit slow (like arty should be), so it can move to resupply itself like any other unit. It just cannot move far away from supply, although with 5 minutes straight of fire I think it could range out somewhat. This is assuming 1 shot every 6 seconds which I would prefer not to deviate from as 20(00) points is only the same as an assault mechs big gun and, given the inaccuracy involved, for it to be effective at all it has to have a reasonable rate of fire.
The smallest mech I got a Long Tom cannon on was the Wolfhound. It was slower, and had some armor shaved off, and built up heat like a mofo, but in a light mech match... well, I'm sure you can imagine what happens to a flea after a direct hit from a Long Tom shell. 
Good luck with this guys, I can't wait to see the final product!
Good luck with this guys, I can't wait to see the final product!
Why a long tom?
Why not just use an Arrow IV? 4 maps of range arty support not good enough for you? Just do the Arrow-IV as an accurate (homing) but slow Starburst missile with a hefty blast radius - like the Krog missiles. Either way, you can fit two Ultra AC-20s on a Hunchback IIC, so you should be able to do one Long-Tom into 55T. The real problem is the slots - you'd probably have to go EX engines for weight purposes, and then youd don't have the torso space for it.
Edit: just realised you probably meant the MaxTech snub-nosed versions, not the original L3 artillery versions. The artillery version of the Long Tom took 30 critical slots and thus was impossible to put on a mech without resorting to house rules. Since vehicles don't have critical slots, it actually is remarkably odd that the designers even included a value for "how many critical slots" for the weapon.
Edit: just realised you probably meant the MaxTech snub-nosed versions, not the original L3 artillery versions. The artillery version of the Long Tom took 30 critical slots and thus was impossible to put on a mech without resorting to house rules. Since vehicles don't have critical slots, it actually is remarkably odd that the designers even included a value for "how many critical slots" for the weapon.
yeah, but ballistic weapons do support models, so you'll see a rocket fly through the air. Look at GZ's MLRS or Smerch (sp?) for an idea of what it should generally look like. It would be ballistic because LoS fire is bad for artillery, can't hit anything behind terrain, and Starburst missiles would look downright lame.
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smokingwreckage
- Posts: 327
- Joined: 09 Apr 2005, 11:40
Cool, ArrowIV arty!
I'd love to see any of this in action. Can't wait. BTW, for ALL of what I say about Battletech I am trying to "represent" (can't really represent anything or anyone without any kind of endorsement) the Boardgame Battletecher seeing as the vote indicated this was the preference.
Having said that, I am happy for anything that works first of all, however rough it may be. Iterations can sort balance and new units etc. But that is up to the wonderful techheads to decide. Keep kicking arse guys.
I'd love to see any of this in action. Can't wait. BTW, for ALL of what I say about Battletech I am trying to "represent" (can't really represent anything or anyone without any kind of endorsement) the Boardgame Battletecher seeing as the vote indicated this was the preference.
Having said that, I am happy for anything that works first of all, however rough it may be. Iterations can sort balance and new units etc. But that is up to the wonderful techheads to decide. Keep kicking arse guys.
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jasper_ward
- Posts: 11
- Joined: 21 Nov 2005, 11:44
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Guessmyname
- Posts: 3301
- Joined: 28 Apr 2005, 21:07
Please do add any progress to the wiki page: http://taspring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Battletech
Funny, I always visualised it as being a Starburst missile. At the very least I should think it would be high trajectory. It is artillery after all.FizWizz wrote:yeah, but ballistic weapons do support models, so you'll see a rocket fly through the air. Look at GZ's MLRS or Smerch (sp?) for an idea of what it should generally look like. It would be ballistic because LoS fire is bad for artillery, can't hit anything behind terrain, and Starburst missiles would look downright lame.
Might be interesting to have both classes of Arrow IV - both the artillery "high trajectory" Arrow IV, and the tagged lock-on low-blast-radius missile Arrow IV.
Guessmyname wrote:Please do add any progress to the wiki page: http://taspring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Battletech
Now that finals are over for me, I can look into getting them textured too, which would be awesome.