Payn;s Ponderings@ Battletech General Discussions

[MGibster]

So my preferred mechs are all old school Inner Sphere. The bulk of my BT experience is pre-clans and these choices are mostly sentimental rather than based on effectiveness.

Light - Locust: This is an iconic mech. When I think of BT, the Locust is one of the first mechs that comes to mind.
Medium - Phoenix Hawk: Again, iconic.
Heavy - Warhammer: Again, iconic.
Assault: Atlas: Iconic, and seeing this bad boy take the field was always a pleasure. I'm a simple, simple man.

 

[payn]

So my preferred mechs are all old school Inner Sphere. The bulk of my BT experience is pre-clans and these choices are mostly sentimental rather than based on effectiveness.

Light - Locust: This is an iconic mech. When I think of BT, the Locust is one of the first mechs that comes to mind.
Medium - Phoenix Hawk: Again, iconic.
Heavy - Warhammer: Again, iconic.
Assault: Atlas: Iconic, and seeing this bad boy take the field was always a pleasure. I'm a simple, simple man.

Its a brave mechwarrior that pilots a Locust!

 

[MGibster]

Its a brave mechwarrior that pilots a Locust!

One of the problems I've had with BT, whether in video game or table top, is that there's usually no reason not to take your heaviest mech into the fight. If you have a choice between a Warhammer (70) and two Panthers (35), then you take the Warhammer. There's a good chance the Warhammer will down a Panther fairly quickly and survive with little damage to itself. It might be different if you're playing a total war campaign and you have vehicles and other objectives.

 

[payn]

One of the problems I've had with BT, whether in video game or table top, is that there's usually no reason not to take your heaviest mech into the fight. If you have a choice between a Warhammer (70) and two Panthers (35), then you take the Warhammer. There's a good chance the Warhammer will down a Panther fairly quickly and survive with little damage to itself. It might be different if you're playing a total war campaign and you have vehicles and other objectives.

Yeap, thats the age old question. Do you try and simulate a world in which there are all these mechs but they are finite, or just play the game and not worry about all that?

 

[TheHand]

One of the problems I've had with BT, whether in video game or table top, is that there's usually no reason not to take your heaviest mech into the fight. If you have a choice between a Warhammer (70) and two Panthers (35), then you take the Warhammer. There's a good chance the Warhammer will down a Panther fairly quickly and survive with little damage to itself. It might be different if you're playing a total war campaign and you have vehicles and other objectives.

In some of the more rpg-style campaigns I've run over the years, I've created scenarios where using scout mechs makes sense (where speed might be more important), or gave them special home-brew rules for recon and sensors. But yeah, it takes some effort to give them a viable role.

(And the Cicada remains trash regardless of scenario).

 

[payn]

In some of the more rpg-style campaigns I've run over the years, I've created scenarios where using scout mechs makes sense (where speed might be more important), or gave them special home-brew rules for recon and sensors. But yeah, it takes some effort to give them a viable role.

(And the Cicada remains trash regardless of scenario).

I love coming up with missions that have objectives that are not just kill everything.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I know it’s a distortion of my memory by time, but the only mechs I can remember piloting (by name) were all Phoenix Hawks and Panthers. At the very least, I must have played other stuff in the computer game.

 

[MGibster]

Yeap, thats the age old question. Do you try and simulate a world in which there are all these mechs but they are finite, or just play the game and not worry about all that?

I think this is a difficulty most table top miniatures games suffer from save for some of the historical games. You want the game to be set up such a way that each player gets a fair shake. For the sake of game play, you ignore things like C-Bill cost, logistics, and a myriad of other factors in order to have a fun, playable game. What ends up happening is that you end up frequently seeing the same mechs on the table over and over again while mechs like the Cicada aren't ever seen. But this is hardly a problem faced by BattleTech alone.

Maybe it'd be good to incentivize taking some of the less common mechs? I'm not quite sure how to do that though.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think this is a difficulty most table top miniatures games suffer from save for some of the historical games. You want the game to be set up such a way that each player gets a fair shake. For the sake of game play, you ignore things like C-Bill cost, logistics, and a myriad of other factors in order to have a fun, playable game. What ends up happening is that you end up frequently seeing the same mechs on the table over and over again while mechs like the Cicada aren't ever seen. But this is hardly a problem faced by BattleTech alone.

Maybe it'd be good to incentivize taking some of the less common mechs? I'm not quite sure how to do that though.

Give each player a tonnage-based limit each scenario. To balance for the fact that things don’t scale linearly, give bonus tonnages to teams/players using multiple mechs below the max.

For instance, if the scenario gave each player 100T to shop with, someone using 2 mechs of 90T combined weight, they get an extra 25T to work with (total weight up to 125T). Someone else using 3 mechs of 75T combined weight would get an extra 50T to work with (150T total team weight). (Exact tonnage bonuses would probably need play testing.)

 

[Jagga Spikes]

I played Cicada in MegaMek and was pleasantly surprised. It's awesome at running about and kicking stuff.
As for Warhammer vs two Panthers, properly conducting such fight would be boring for most players. Map would gave to be huge (about twice ppc range), panthers would have to split to encircle and snipe, and if one of them drops other would disengage and retreat.
When I run campaigns, I set BV loss limit at which force admits defeat, and is allowed to retreat. Other force might be able to claim salvage, tho not always; for example, when conducting covert ops.