Battletech - Also known as Trannytech

RomanesEuntDomus said:
Yeah... When you really run the numbers, the chances of a pristine vehicle being taken out by a lucky crit to a Gauss are astronomically low.
It's a 1/36 chance for the opponent to roll a crit on the hit-location roll and another 1/36 chance of that hit being a Weapon Destroyed crit.
If that Gauss is going to eat a crit, it's way more likely that you're already eating dirt for dinner and something is pounding its way into your soft, cushy internals...

That being said, I was unfamiliar with how vehicle crits work and the fact you can only hit ammo from behind is a nice touch. I can definetly see why vehicles can be effective against Mechs even though Mechs get a "rule of cool" boost.
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Wait, where are you getting those 1/36 chances?

It's a 2/11 chance for a critical hit through the front (2 or 12 on 2d6), and then a 2/11 (11 or 12 on 2d6) chance to destroy the vehicle outright (weapon destroyed [gauss go kaboom] or crew killed). Still very low, but not that low. (Edit: by comparison, the default AC/20 Hetzer would need a 2/11 chance and then a 1/11 chance to get killed from the front with one shot, since only a crew killed result would do it.)

By comparison, 'Mechs are sturdier because it's only a 1/11 chance for a through-armor crit, and their modules are spread over more locations. Getting a critical on the left torso is never going to kill the pilot or destroy the gyro, for example.
 
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Corn Flakes said:
Wait, where are you getting those 1/36 chances?

It's a 2/11 chance for a critical hit through the front (2 or 12 on 2d6), and then a 2/11 (11 or 12 on 2d6) chance to destroy the vehicle outright (weapon destroyed [gauss go kaboom] or crew killed). Still very low, but not that low. (Edit: by comparison, the default AC/20 Hetzer would need a 2/11 chance and then a 1/11 chance to get killed from the front with one shot, since only a crew killed result would do it.)

By comparison, 'Mechs are sturdier because it's only a 1/11 chance for a through-armor crit, and their modules are spread over more locations. Getting a critical on the left torso is never going to kill the pilot or destroy the gyro, for example.
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If you use the roaming crit rules, does a through-armor-crit result into a destroyed location transfer to the next location? I can't remember yes or no.
 
Capsaicin Addict said:
If you use the roaming crit rules, does a through-armor-crit result into a destroyed location transfer to the next location? I can't remember yes or no.
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Yes. Any hits into a destroyed location, including through-armor crit hits, transfer to the next location over. If you destroyed a Catapult's Left Torso (and consequently blew off it's Left Arm), and then got a through-armor crit on the Left Torso, it transfers to the Center Torso along with the damage from the shot. And if that shot then cracks the armor on the Center Torso and hit internal structure, you get another roll for critical hits. (I think. A little dubious on that one.)

Also, if you get critical hits on an location without anything to hit (either empty or all the modules in the location were destroyed in a previous phase), they transfer as well. For example, you get a through-armor critical on the (undamaged) Right Torso of a MON-67 Mongoose and roll 3 critical hits. Since the RT of a Mongoose contains no modules, all 3 critical hits transfer to the Center Torso. (Ouch.)
 
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Corn Flakes said:
Yes. Any hits into a destroyed location, including through-armor crit hits, transfer to the next location over. If you destroyed a Catapult's Left Torso (and consequently blew off it's Left Arm), and then got a through-armor crit on the Left Torso, it transfers to the Center Torso along with the damage from the shot. And if that shot then cracks the armor on the Center Torso and hit internal structure, you get another roll for critical hits. (I think. A little dubious on that one.)

Also, if you get critical hits on an location without anything to hit (either empty or all the modules in the location were destroyed in a previous phase), they transfer as well. For example, you get a through-armor critical on the (undamaged) Right Torso of a MON-67 Mongoose and roll 3 critical hits. Since the RT of a Mongoose contains no modules, all 3 critical hits transfer to the Center Torso. (Ouch.)
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One of the nice things about Battletech is that the rules really haven't changed much over the years. I think the biggest rule change was that they reworked anti-missile systems (they originally kind of sucked). Sure, new stuff's been added, but the core rules are the same.
 
Capsaicin Addict said:
One of the nice things about Battletech is that the rules really haven't changed much over the years. I think the biggest rule change was that they reworked anti-missile systems (they originally kind of sucked). Sure, new stuff's been added, but the core rules are the same.
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Vehicles were also pretty extensively tweaked since release. They're a lot sturdier now than they were before. Infernos, for example, used to destroy vehicles outright on a roll of 7 or below, for three turns in a row. Now they only cause critical hits with a -2 modifier to the critical hit roll so they can't one-shot vehicles anymore.

But yes, the core rules tend to be very consistent.
 
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Fiddling around, I was reminded of one of the more amusing events from the Clan invasion: Sheliak.

According to Sarna, Sheliak was a low-importance world in Combine territory (it WAS one jump away from Alshain, but then that's not saying much). Their biggest schtick was pro sports, particularly American football, but they didn't have any real military garrison. So when Clan Ghost Bear came a-knocking, the Sheliak government opted for a fairly ballsy ploy: they challenged the Clanners to a game of football, figuring they wouldn't be familiar with the game.

You know, this might've actually worked against another Clan. Sadly, the Ghost Bears were big fans of football -- and fielded a full team of Elementals to play. The Sheliak All-Stars got smacked down comprehensively, 84-3. To their credit, the Sheliak government surrendered, and the Ghost Bears seemed happy with the results even if there wasn't a knock-down drag out battle.
 
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Corn Flakes said:
Wait, where are you getting those 1/36 chances?

It's a 2/11 chance for a critical hit through the front (2 or 12 on 2d6), and then a 2/11 (11 or 12 on 2d6) chance to destroy the vehicle outright (weapon destroyed [gauss go kaboom] or crew killed).
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By dice-roll probability, but I made a bit of an oopsie:

Since there's not only a crit on 2 but also on a roll of 12, it's a 1 in 18 chance (1/36 chance of rolling a 2 plus 1/36 chance of rolling a 12), then the chance of getting an 11 to hit the weapon is again a 1 in 18 chance (1/36 chance of rolling a 5 and 6 plus 1/36 chance of rolling a 6 and 5)... is there a crit verifying roll like with Mechs though? Maybe I glanced over it, but with Mechs, you have to roll for number of critical hits (which can also result in no crits) and it seems vehicles will automatically suffer one critical hit.

In terms of exact probabilities:

You're rolling 2d6 to get a result, so the probability of one specific number (especially towards the lower or higher extremes) becomes smaller and smaller.
So the combined chance of a weapon crit on a vehicle without penetrating the armor is a .308% chance per weapon hit.

The above applies to attacks to the front though, since hits to the side also crit on 8, which increases the chances of crits quite significantly to about 1 in 5 (if I'm not mistaken) and then again a 1/4 chance to hit the gun, so the probability comes out at about 5%.
Attacks on the rear have a chance of 1 in 18 to crit, but the chance of hitting the gun is 4 in 9, which comes out at a 2.46% all in all.

The choice of using a Gauss doesn't really significantly increase the chances of the vehicle being blown up, especially when you manage to keep the enemy in the front arc.
 
RomanesEuntDomus said:
By dice-roll probability, but I made a bit of an oopsie:

Since there's not only a crit on 2 but also on a roll of 12, it's a 1 in 18 chance (1/36 chance of rolling a 2 plus 1/36 chance of rolling a 12), then the chance of getting an 11 to hit the weapon is again a 1 in 18 chance (1/36 chance of rolling a 5 and 6 plus 1/36 chance of rolling a 6 and 5)... is there a crit verifying roll like with Mechs though? Maybe I glanced over it, but with Mechs, you have to roll for number of critical hits (which can also result in no crits) and it seems vehicles will automatically suffer one critical hit.

In terms of exact probabilities:

You're rolling 2d6 to get a result, so the probability of one specific number (especially towards the lower or higher extremes) becomes smaller and smaller.
So the combined chance of a weapon crit on a vehicle without penetrating the armor is a .308% chance per weapon hit.

The above applies to attacks to the front though, since hits to the side also crit on 8, which increases the chances of crits quite significantly to about 1 in 5 (if I'm not mistaken) and then again a 1/4 chance to hit the gun, so the probability comes out at about 5%.
Attacks on the rear have a chance of 1 in 18 to crit, but the chance of hitting the gun is 4 in 9, which comes out at a 2.46% all in all.
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Ah, right. Proper statistical analysis. I appreciate the numbers, but to be perfectly honest with you, when actually playing the game this shit happens way more often than 1/36 of the time. But I'm not going to push it. The road to hell is paved with anecdotal evidence, after all.

Anyhow, what matters is this:
RomanesEuntDomus said:
The choice of using a Gauss doesn't really significantly increase the chances of the vehicle being blown up, especially when you manage to keep the enemy in the front arc.
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Particularly with a wheeled vehicle like the Hetzer, and with how the firing arcs on vehicles are more strict than 'Mechs and you get side shots on them way more often, you're a lot more likely to get a mission kill by ripping out its wheels with motive system crits or breaking internal modules than blowing up the Gauss Rifle from the front. (While the AC/20 version has zero chance to blow up from the front, it's such a small difference as to not make a difference.)

And with 34 effective HP from the front and 26 effective HP from any other direction, it's not going to last very long under fire anyway. Vehicles can mount more armor per location per ton than 'Mechs, but they also have a lot fewer locations to spread damage into (and any location losing all internal structure destroys the vehicle) so they're effectively way more fragile. Can't outshine the big stompy robots, after all.
 
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All that being said, though, only an idiot ignores vehicles. They may not be able to sustain the same kinds of damage a Mech can, but they sure as fuck can dish it out in spades.

And they're cheap, which is good if you're a commander with a tight budget.
 
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Actually, can you do things like go hull-down or use terrain to shield vehicles from certain angles?
 
Capsaicin Addict said:
only an idiot ignores vehicles
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Oooh, I can hear the Clanners yelling "BATCHALL!" already.

Capsaicin Addict said:
They may not be able to sustain the same kinds of damage a Mech can, but they sure as fuck can dish it out in spades.

And they're cheap, which is good if you're a commander with a tight budget.
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Anyway, yes. Vehicles may be much more fragile and generally tactically less mobile and versatile (and paying a huge premium for mobility) than 'Mechs... but they still carry the exact same weapons as a 'Mech. A Gauss slug to the cockpit will kill you from half a kilometer away all the same, whether it was fired by a Hollander, a Yellow Jacket, or an Alacorn.

The purpose of combat vehicles in BattleTech is to supplement 'Mechs, whether as cheap specialized units, or as cheap general purpose elements to add numbers to a formation. The more targets you present to the enemy, the better. After all, any shot going to a vehicle is a shot that's not going to your 'mechs, and vice-versa.


TFT-A9 said:
Actually, can you do things like go hull-down or use terrain to shield vehicles from certain angles?
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Yes, but it's a little tricky and not everybody uses those rules.

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(Source: Tactical Operations, p.21)

Since BattleTech's maps work on 6-meter elevation changes, you need some preparation before the game to define what's a position a vehicle can go hull-down in. And since armor in BattleTech is ablative instead of conventional, you can't do the World of Tanks thing where you park your T29 behind a mound of rubble and just laugh as your bank vault turret front bounces everything. A hull-down vehicle in Battletech is harder to hit (equivalent to being one range bracket further away), but all shots that do hit get funneled to a single hit location. And if that location (whether the front or the turret) runs out of internals the vehicle is destroyed anyway.

Just about the best way to use those hull-down rules is parking long-range direct fire support vehicles behind prepared positions. LRM and other missile launchers can usually stay behind full cover and just fire their missiles indirectly.
 
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TFT-A9 said:
Actually, can you do things like go hull-down or use terrain to shield vehicles from certain angles?
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There are optional rules to go hull-down with vehicles, but it requires additional rules to be in play, such as half-levels or infantry that dug fortifications.
 
In addition, large vehicles can benefit from standard level 1 terrain as if they were hull down (this doesn't come up much as most vehicles of this size are support units, not combat).
 
I think I mentioned it before that I never used vehicles all that much since I don't like how easily they take crits (particularly motive crits), and I'm playing BattleTech for the stompies and not the zoomies, but my BT group always had at least some combined arms action going on and one of the guys was a major vehicle nerd. Like, he actually played Clan Hell's Horses.

Anyway, in our experience ground vehicles in Battletech work best in three specific roles: fire support, defensive operations, and harrassment. These all come as a result of the restrictions vehicles have, compared to BattleMechs: they can't enter certain terrain types, they pay 3 MP for going up a single terrain level as opposed to 2 MP like 'Mechs do, and they're a lot more likely to take critical damage and lose performance as the battle goes on. Really, they're the units that depend the most on terrain in the game. Fire support vehicles need long sight lines, defensive/ambush vehicles (like the Hetzer or the Demolisher) want very tight quarters like urban combat or walled-off bases so they can have the enemy come to them, and harrassers really want lots of wide open spaces they can zoom around.

If you're good at reading the map, you can do a lot of good things with vehicles. But if they take focus fire, end up out of position, or get flanked, they suffer harder than 'Mechs.
 
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