Improve Battletech

[consequences]

The simple and easy fix for range issues would be to go vague. Instead of each hex being a clearly defined distance, and each turn being a specific number of seconds, each turn is a turn, and weapons range is expressed in hexes with no translation. Handwave that due to targets trying not to get hit and overheating issues with the kinds of overpowered weapons needed to do significant damage you only get one good shot per turn apart from specific rapid fire weapons, and off you go. Apparent unit size on the battlefield is a holographic representation on the map for the commanders' benefit, not an indicator of actual size.

Equally simple would be to fluff things so that Battletech armor tends to deflect a lot of shots instead of being purely ablative, aka the Painrack armor theory. A 'hit' that causes ablation represents either a skilled shot hitting a defined weak area, or blind luck landing a shot in a sweet spot by chance.

Blah blah blah, fix vehicles, yadda yadda.

[PainRack]

To give a good reason why Battlemechs are around, limit tanks to medium weapons, or make their critical structure so that there are problems. For example: crew compartment can be hit from any side, and is a kill; or one track hit = stationary vehicle. Logical points, but potentially crippling. Or give them no evasive to-hit modifier for pilot skill.

The crits rule already does something similar for tanks and IMO, is the sole reason why tanks survivability used to be limited in the past. Hell, turrets was almost a godsend, because instead of being a limitation, it actually IMPROVED armour for the tank.

Its also the sole reason why I disagree that there's a need to change facing rules. It simply gimped tanks too much and means there's no reason for side armour.

As for scaling.... seriously, apart from "realism" issues, I have no qualms with scaling as it promotes a fast, short range game. I can see situations where it would be nice to actually have a more realistic wargame, so that more tactics and etc can evolve into the game but if one does that, there must be a way of streamlining the rules/hitpoints so that it doesn't get too bogged down.

The House rule of rolling multiple locs for missile hits, streamling reaction phase into one has solves "most" of the game issues regarding bogging down at the moment, but not all of them.

[PainRack]

Equally simple would be to fluff things so that Battletech armor tends to deflect a lot of shots instead of being purely ablative, aka the Painrack armor theory. A 'hit' that causes ablation represents either a skilled shot hitting a defined weak area, or blind luck landing a shot in a sweet spot by chance.

Blah blah blah, fix vehicles, yadda yadda.

I like to point that due to "magic hitpoints", its literally canon that the armour DOESN"T ablate on every single impact in universe. We see this most in the Jade Falcon trilogy but certain other heroes has this too:D

[LaCroix]

Equally simple would be to fluff things so that Battletech armor tends to deflect a lot of shots instead of being purely ablative, aka the Painrack armor theory. A 'hit' that causes ablation represents either a skilled shot hitting a defined weak area, or blind luck landing a shot in a sweet spot by chance.

Blah blah blah, fix vehicles, yadda yadda.

I like to point that due to "magic hitpoints", its literally canon that the armour DOESN"T ablate on every single impact in universe. We see this most in the Jade Falcon trilogy but certain other heroes has this too:D

Imho, that's basically the novel version of a missed to-hit roll - the shot did hit, but hit a sloped/very thick portion of the armor and did no damage. (How else would you explain that someone with a computer-aided targeting missed a 15 m tall humanoid at ~100 meters?)

They should officially state in the game that missed hit rolls mean that the shot was deflected by superior armour and failed to scratch it. It would make more sense.

[PainRack]

Imho, that's basically the novel version of a missed to-hit roll - the shot did hit, but hit a sloped/very thick portion of the armor and did no damage. (How else would you explain that someone with a computer-aided targeting missed a 15 m tall humanoid at ~100 meters?)

They should officially state in the game that missed hit rolls mean that the shot was deflected by superior armour and failed to scratch it. It would make more sense.

Lol. Maybe I should go back to the CBT forum, see if I can convince Cray of my armour theory:D

I mean come on. Everybody here knows that once you add the KE spells, it works:D High miss rate? The armour deflecting shots. Missile Spam? Missiles hitting "weak" spots and Btech going for spray and pray. I mean come on, what kind of idiot fires 6 missiles and miss 2-4 rockets every time, and each rocket hits a seperate loc?

It even explains how damage can be transferred for the game mechanics, and IIRC, there is at least one novel incident where it "looks" like this mechanic was used.

The only thing it doesn't work for is autocannons and MG and frankly, I feel like saying its Magic to explain everything away. Come on, for a galaxy that's using shaped charges for over one hundred years at least, if not since the Soviet Civil War and it took the Davions until 3060 to realise shaped charges can be used for autocannons? *blink blink*.

That's before they dump plasma rifles. Right. Anyone remembers how PPCs themselves ARE plasma rifles? They pull plasma from the mech operating reactor to work afterall. Then there's the pecularities of light gauss and heavy gauss rifle..... Right, so, apparently, the "inert" ammunition is still accelerating tens of meters away from the rifle. I mean, fine, the PPC has that precedent, but over 90m? I mean, seriously.... I can't imagine how a magnetic field that's strong enough to still accelerate a rifle round to reach the speed of anywhere from mach 2 to mach 8, at ranges of more than 300 can't has weapons applications on its own.

[VF5SS]

Well for one thing I'd take out the rule that makes machine gun ammo the most explosive substance known to man. When I used to run games all my players ejected their MG ammo before playing so they'd didn't violently explode.

You know I thought I heard that FASA always wanted to design video games which sort of explains the whole armor is just hit points thing. Ironically Battletech sorta works as the video game MegaMek where it streamlines all the damn record keeping and lets you clicky clicky through the battles. It's like, I can't even figure out the logic behind half the weapons in Battletech. What's the point of an AC/2? Or a small laser (or a Battlemech armed only with small lasers)? Like what kind of play testing did they do back in the 80's? Did they do any?

One thing you might want to discuss if you want to change the armor mechanic to something meaningful is how do you deal with the various ways a Battlemech can hurt itself. Like are they still going to take damage from falls and buildings? I mean I figure if you can take bullets to the chassis then a little fall shouldn't hurt that much. Would punches, kicks, and tree clubs still do major damage? I dunno, just spitballing.

[Stark]

The only thing it doesn't work for is autocannons and MG and frankly, I feel like saying its Magic to explain everything away. Come on, for a galaxy that's using shaped charges for over one hundred years at least, if not since the Soviet Civil War and it took the Davions until 3060 to realise shaped charges can be used for autocannons? *blink blink*.

This is a problem with any roleplaying setting that tries to have a 'current day' with 'events' in line with the real world. I mean, look how stupid it was in Shadowrun when they introduced wireless in like 2071 or something - because in the 80s wireless was a scifi pipedream, and now it's totally ubiquitous.

As developers you either retcon it (which is probably impossible with all the stupid novels, for both brands) or you have to pretend it makes sense something all your players will use everyday is a brand new, exciting technological edge in the new expansion.

I recently read about 'plasma rifles' on sarna, and it's just bizarre. It really looks like they're just throwing weapon ideas at the wall to see what sticks at this point, when the system ALREADY has too many. Actually, Painrack, what 'tech level' is the 'standard' for games these days? I haven't actually played BT since the days of lasers and autocannons, but are things like MRMs and Streaks and Gauss Rifles de rigeur these days?

[Vehrec]

Well for one thing I'd take out the rule that makes machine gun ammo the most explosive substance known to man. When I used to run games all my players ejected their MG ammo before playing so they'd didn't violently explode.

You know I thought I heard that FASA always wanted to design video games which sort of explains the whole armor is just hit points thing. Ironically Battletech sorta works as the video game MegaMek where it streamlines all the damn record keeping and lets you clicky clicky through the battles. It's like, I can't even figure out the logic behind half the weapons in Battletech. What's the point of an AC/2? Or a small laser (or a Battlemech armed only with small lasers)? Like what kind of play testing did they do back in the 80's? Did they do any?

Playtesting was probably done in house, with three guys in the basement of the office. Look, the 80s were not some golden age of game design and a lot of the games from back then had unclear rules, poor design and all kinds of things like that. Look at the original rules for Second edition AD&D for instance. Who ever thought THAC0 was a good idea? Linking ammo damage to the number of shots instead of the size of them is another mistake, but with the rules now so entrenched the possibility of changing them is remote.

With a computer to do the bookkeeping, the game does run much smoother, but this is not a point in it's favor.

[Norade]

Well for one thing I'd take out the rule that makes machine gun ammo the most explosive substance known to man. When I used to run games all my players ejected their MG ammo before playing so they'd didn't violently explode.

You know I thought I heard that FASA always wanted to design video games which sort of explains the whole armor is just hit points thing. Ironically Battletech sorta works as the video game MegaMek where it streamlines all the damn record keeping and lets you clicky clicky through the battles. It's like, I can't even figure out the logic behind half the weapons in Battletech. What's the point of an AC/2? Or a small laser (or a Battlemech armed only with small lasers)? Like what kind of play testing did they do back in the 80's? Did they do any?

Playtesting was probably done in house, with three guys in the basement of the office. Look, the 80s were not some golden age of game design and a lot of the games from back then had unclear rules, poor design and all kinds of things like that. Look at the original rules for Second edition AD&D for instance. Who ever thought THAC0 was a good idea? Linking ammo damage to the number of shots instead of the size of them is another mistake, but with the rules now so entrenched the possibility of changing them is remote.

With a computer to do the bookkeeping, the game does run much smoother, but this is not a point in it's favor.

Another bad system from the 80's and early 90's is anything by Palladium. I mean balance must be a taboo around those parts or something.

[Nephtys]

Game design as a scientific practice instead of nerd fantasy is a recent invention, only really appearing in the 2000s as thinking from science and engineering permeated into that industry.

You can really see it's effects with many traditional games, such as modern wargames (IE, Warmachine, FoW, etc), newer RPGS (4e, Warhammer RPGs) and modern board games (anything Euro or by Fantasy Flight).

Battletech was from the era where people just made shit up without regard for analytically balancing things. And that's why there's nothing more efficient than a brick of Medium Lasers and PPCs, and why shitbags like the CGR-1A Charger or BNC-3 Banshee existed in basic Battletech. And why Machine Guns are the biggest liability on the planet.

[Norade]

Game design as a scientific practice instead of nerd fantasy is a recent invention, only really appearing in the 2000s as thinking from science and engineering permeated into that industry.

You can really see it's effects with many traditional games, such as modern wargames (IE, Warmachine, FoW, etc), newer RPGS (4e, Warhammer RPGs) and modern board games (anything Euro or by Fantasy Flight).

Battletech was from the era where people just made shit up without regard for analytically balancing things. And that's why there's nothing more efficient than a brick of Medium Lasers and PPCs, and why shitbags like the CGR-1A Charger or BNC-3 Banshee existed in basic Battletech. And why Machine Guns are the biggest liability on the planet.

Yeah, though there's no reason not to change your game for the better now that it's known that balance and things are important. The same people that will bitch about any changes will also be the people who's by a steaming turd if it had the brand name and logo on it and cost 1000% too much. Systems like B-Tech and and anything by Palladium are frankly hard to stomach these days when they often don't offer anything that other games don't. Heck, I can make a better system for mech combat by tweaking a few rules from Cyberpunk 2020 and that game still has its issues.

Really there's no excusing companies that don't make any attempt at balance. Even 3.5e was more balanced than what I've seen of a few companies and that's saying something given the literal god killers that can be built.

[Stark]

Unfortunately, people are married to the brand. If they 'fixed' Battletech, people (ie, their small fanbase) would probably react negatively. Look at all the circumlocution people have gone to in order to 'explain' the system as it stands.

If you owned Battletech, you'd probably think that if you changed it, people would be just as likely to go adopt a different mech property than adopt your 're-imagined' Battletech.

[Norade]

Unfortunately, people are married to the brand. If they 'fixed' Battletech, people (ie, their small fanbase) would probably react negatively. Look at all the circumlocution people have gone to in order to 'explain' the system as it stands.

If you owned Battletech, you'd probably think that if you changed it, people would be just as likely to go adopt a different mech property than adopt your 're-imagined' Battletech.

Honestly, I would do something a bit more sly than just to change things. I would market a B-Tech advanced system with the updated rules, make some nice shiny new models for that system, maybe recast some popular old ones, and draw some fans over with that. Once they start to nibble you slowly start to crush out the old rules in favor of the new until you start to reach a point where you've reached saturation in the new system. Those playing the old system get a trickle of new errata and what not while the players of the new system get shiny.

[eyl]

Battletech was from the era where people just made shit up without regard for analytically balancing things. And that's why there's nothing more efficient than a brick of Medium Lasers and PPCs, and why shitbags like the CGR-1A Charger or BNC-3 Banshee existed in basic Battletech.

To be fair, those designs were acknowledged in-universe as crap when they were published.

Unfortunately, people are married to the brand. If they 'fixed' Battletech, people (ie, their small fanbase) would probably react negatively. Look at all the circumlocution people have gone to in order to 'explain' the system as it stands.

If you owned Battletech, you'd probably think that if you changed it, people would be just as likely to go adopt a different mech property than adopt your 're-imagined' Battletech.

It seems to be that the biggest problem is that they're trying to keep things backward-compatible. With a few exceptions, any designs back to the beginning of the game is valid under current rules; keeping it that way limits the changes they can make (they did change Aerospace more extensively over its various incarnations, though).

[VF5SS]

If you owned Battletech, you'd probably think that if you changed it, people would be just as likely to go adopt a different mech property than adopt your 're-imagined' Battletech.

You'd think that, but honestly what other mech property is there to go to? Heavy Gear? haha. I mean just like back in 1984, Battletech really took off mostly out of exception than excellence. There just wasn't any other robot-y game to play back then.

[Stark]

I guess people play various Battletech games that more or less mangle the rules; but the decision-makers probably aren't entirely rational about it. There's a good chance they're either investors who simply want to maintain value or they're fans who grew up with the game and consider its current state 'perfect' or breaking backwards compatibility an 'awful idea'.

RPGs are conservative, I imagine, due to the very attitudes reflected in this thread. 'Don't change that', 'that might be crap but it's core to the sense of the feel of the heart of the game', etc.

[Norade]

I'd be willing to bet that this far into its life D&D 4e has sold more than D&D 3.5e did. The team behind Cyberpunk and Shadowrun eventually updated those rules as well. So not all companies are conservative with their product.

[Stark]

You could change Shadowrun (and SE4 is fucking horrible, but at least it uses dice in a less retarded way) without changing the 'core' of the game for players. If you changed Btech rules, every player's custom designs or rules-sploiting setup, scenario and strategy would need to be reworked. A regular RPG just has to wait until players finish their campaigns and start a new one, and they can adopt new rules; in Btech this is arguably not the case, given the obsession with robot detail and maths cheese in setup.

[Norade]

I'm not going to argue that some changes are worse than others, I'm just pointing out that they do happen.

Also, these fanboys would finally have something new to argue over and new cheese to find. They should be overjoyed at the thought of masturbating to even crazier suit designs.

[Coalition]

It seems to be that the biggest problem is that they're trying to keep things backward-compatible. With a few exceptions, any designs back to the beginning of the game is valid under current rules; keeping it that way limits the changes they can make (they did change Aerospace more extensively over its various incarnations, though).

The other fun is if you updated the design rules, you'd basically be telling everyone their books that have Mech Designs have to be purchased all over again. They might not have to do that with web updates, but that is one of the main concerns behind rebalancing BT.

For a rules update, changing the design system might not be enough of a benefit. More 'stuff' would have to be included

(I used to toss around ideas for an improved Aerotech game, where fuel consumption was a constant multiplied by the mass of the ship vs a chart with fixed breakpoints, where armor points were inversely related to heat dissipation, plus a few other ideas. One of the writers pointed out that if I set up a rule system that worked, people would have to rebuy the ship books, which would discourage adoption of the system.)

[Stark]

They'd have to rework the background too, arguably; whereas in other games the mechanical changes don't impact on backstory (like Shadowrun). If you invalidate builds or depreciate weapons, suddenly all the novels sound retarded.

Changing the way you resolve skill tests has less effect on 'the universe' than changes that will necessarily change the conception of a 'good robot setup'.

[Ritterin Sophia]

You'd think that, but honestly what other mech property is there to go to? Heavy Gear? haha. I mean just like back in 1984, Battletech really took off mostly out of exception than excellence. There just wasn't any other robot-y game to play back then.

Speaking of which: Stark, give up on any semblance of having a life and finally make that Gundam Wargame you were talking about.

[Norade]

I'd be all over that.

[Stark]

I got a bit torn between 'simple combat resolution for fast play and strategic focus' and 'relatively detailed combat for stronger player influence and lower-level focus'. The original, higher-level fast game really just needs playtesting for orders/unit cost balance these days.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Does high-level fast have the stats to where if I have a Gundam it can just ignore Zaku MG fire?