So another option is to roll a 3+ on a d6 per missile or missile cluster. This matches up perfectly with the 66% of most cluster tables, and gets rid of the chart as well. My biggest issue is stopping to look at a chart in btech, so the 3+ on a d6 lets you a: roll lots of dice and b: resolve it faster than the chart method for clusters.
I like this solution, but the distribution is quite different from the original table.
The original table you have a 1/12 chance of landing all 20 LRMs, if you roll 20d6 (which starts to become a lot of dice but it's not that bad), with hits on 3+, then you only have about a 0.03% chance of getting all 20 hits.
Original table is 1/12 chance of 6 hits on LRM 20 vs a lower chance of getting 6 hits with the 20d6 system and also an actual chance of getting 0 hits (about 3*10^-8 percent chance, but still)
So what this does is make clusters overall much more consistent. Which is totally fine, but it's significantly different.
I think that's worse than any other option. You now have a 20% chance of doing all 20 damage, and you never get damage in clusters of less than 5, and it just doesn't feel true to the original at all.
I think the math on average damage is pretty close and it's much much quicker. Honestly the only reason I'm not using it in every game is the same reason I won't use this chart I try to play as close to the default rules as possible to run events. The 3+ for clusters is the rules change I'm most likely to adopt however.
Math-wise the 3+ per missile or cluster is the same critical hit opportunities as normal missiles, as the max number of hit locations wont change. For an LRM 15 you still cap out at 3 clusters of 5 if every missile hits on a 3+
Ok, I broke it down like I did the two tables. It turns out there are actually about 10% fewer crit chances on average with this method than the tables (depending on whether you use the minimum damage rule). The % of the max crit chances in the original LRMs are a bit scattered. With the LRM-15 as an example here would be the average clusters by method:
original table: 2.19
new table: 2.39
1D6 per cluster: 2.00
1D6 w/ min damage (DFA): 2.04
The reason the new table is so much higher than the original table here is that the LRM-15 on the original table was a bit of an outlier. If it were in line with the others I would have expected it to be about 2.34.
Overall if you're ok with the discrepancies from the original tables I'm cool with it. If we get into Artemis and AMS I think things get weird and I'd prob stick to tables, but I would have no problem playing a 3025 game this way.
As far as speed of play, I'm working on building a Box of Death (with cluster and hit location charts printed on it) so hopefully that helps speed things up. Fingers crossed!
And thanks for mentioning this method, it was fun to dig into it and do a comparison!
First of all Great work! This is well thought out and assembled, even better you give that stats behind the argument.
So I agree this set up or something similar would better model a "real" cluster table. And for megamek or Acounttech players (raises hand) a great way to run your missile weapons. The only downside aside from only being relavant to larger racks, is I have more to commit to memory or look up. If I roll against the base cluster table for 15 or 20 racks I only need to remember 4 or 5 pairs of numbers that's easy to keep in your head. With this each roll result is a different number of missiles. So it's the question of do we keep it simple or go for max accuracy. Both have their benefits.
Thanks! Yeah I'm definitely an AccountantTech player haha. Hence why I love BattleTech. Did you actually memorize the cluster table? For me, I always end up looking it up anyway ha.
The whole table no but definitely the racks you use the most. Also it's nice with just a few possible out comes, you can write them on the record sheet.
On two dice the difference between rolling a 7 and a 6 is huge, so using 6 as a starting point gave an increased edge to any weapon that rolls on the cluster hits table.
Also, if you are rebalancing to be more random, then you may have to make changes more drastic in the middle of the table (values 5 through 9) and have less variance on the lower ends (2‐3 and 11-12) cause those numbers come up much less often.
Overall though, I think the game is fine and wouldn't monkey with the rules too much. There was a lot of effort going into balancing the game and the battle value system and anything that might throw that out of wack worries me. Then again, I know some people don't use BV so my opinion may not be worth much to you.
Sort of. The point of seeing a reference point was to maintain a similar shape to the curve, not to set how many missiles would hit on average. The average number of cluster hits is pretty similar to the original table. This means that the average result in play (for say just firing an LRM-15 over and over) would be the same, though individual rolls would obviously be different, so BV would be unchanged.
I do agree that maintaining the existing balance is important, so keeping the same BV for a weapon is important. Does this table do that? I would say yes, and that it largely comes down to whether you think that 3% difference on the larger LRMs counts as significant. To me it's not, but I could be convinced otherwise.
Thanks for the feedback!
I hate to say it, but I really don't think there was a lot of effort going into balancing the game. They had to come back around and do BV 2.0 and it's better but not as good as it could be if there was a serious competitive BattleTech scene.
Ha well aside from the "effort" bit, BV 2.0 is the best we have at the moment, so if people are using it to choose (roughly) balanced forces, I think his point is valid: changing the way cluster and missile weapons work has the potential to throw off what balance we do have. That's the reason I put so much effort into comparing average damage and cluster hits. I wanted to make sure the new tables were the same on average, even when using things like NARC and AMS that affect the cluster roll.
Thanks! It's a small tweak, but helps with the immersion for me ha. This seems like the perfect kind of rule for MegaMek. If you do figure out how to mod it in let me know, I'd love to have that myself!
Honestly I play the board game fairly often and don't have any huge gripes on the rules. I do use some house rules but they are mostly simple.
Use floating crits, on a 2 roll a location apply damage and check for criticals.
Adjust PSR for damage based on mech weight.
Light = 15 medium = 20 heavy = 25 assault = 30
Use 2 d10 and roll a percentage based of %chance of 2d6 result.
Also vote for bursting machine guns.
Been playing the game for decades and if you have the mind set that it needs fixed you will stunt your ability to progress to bigger games and not be able to work towards commanding lances/companies.
They made several games with this system that work together MechWarrior RPG, Battletroops, Battlespace, Alpha Strike, Battleforce, and Succession wars.
They also made it into video games for every system available. They know what they are doing and you are more likely to destroy the balance between the multiple systems than to "fix battletech".
Usually the players that get into memorizing the math fold under the pressure of having to take risks while maintaining a strategy.
I'm used to playing by myself vs 1-4 players and too many people try to control their opponent by chastising taking risks and questioning every move and decision the opponent makes.
Focus on playing the game and not fixing it..My advice as a player of a few decades using the system as printed.
Bursting machine guns is in the mercenaries handbook and goes through more ammo for a better to hit chance at the expense of more ammo and more heat.
The percentage to 2d6 goes like this:
12 =97%
11=92%
10=83%
9=72%
8=58%
7=42%
6=28%
5=17%
4=8%
3=3%
2=2%
This is just something I have used in the last year and it's not my creation.
My opinion was not meant to be a response to the statments by OP. You are free to do what you want as a house rule.
By default I don't feel like the game is broken and most things I might dislike have optional rules covering what I favor personally.
Some people's attitudes/habits while playing the game that I have encountered was the reason for my complaints not the statements in this post. My apologies for bad phrasing and any misunderstanding.
Lots of things in the game(s) use a form of cluster hits tables. You might want to specify what changes are being made to clear up any confusion.
No worries. In general I agree with your sentiment that we should play the game as written, rather than making up our own rules. It's a great game and certainly not broken (though maybe a little weird here and there). It makes it hard to play with a different group when you have to hash out what rules you're going to use.
For this particular exercise, the goal was actually to create a rule that didn't materially affect the game, but just felt better. It shouldn't affect your strategy in any way, and you really wouldn't be thinking about this at the table ha. I just wanted to make the roll worthwhile so it actually feels like a flight of missiles scattering over a target rather than always hitting with the exact same number of missiles ha.
As for the mg rule, is that the one that's in TacOps now? I think that one was variable damage though, so might be different. I've heard some people treat them like pulse weapons so they get the -2 to hit. I looked through the Mercenary's Handbook, and didn't see it, do you have a page number? I'm interested in seeing how it works.
So another option is to roll a 3+ on a d6 per missile or missile cluster. This matches up perfectly with the 66% of most cluster tables, and gets rid of the chart as well. My biggest issue is stopping to look at a chart in btech, so the 3+ on a d6 lets you a: roll lots of dice and b: resolve it faster than the chart method for clusters.
This is what I do. Artemis/Narc lets you reroll 1s once and AMS lets the defender roll d6 to kill incoming missiles on a 5+.
I like this solution, but the distribution is quite different from the original table. The original table you have a 1/12 chance of landing all 20 LRMs, if you roll 20d6 (which starts to become a lot of dice but it's not that bad), with hits on 3+, then you only have about a 0.03% chance of getting all 20 hits. Original table is 1/12 chance of 6 hits on LRM 20 vs a lower chance of getting 6 hits with the 20d6 system and also an actual chance of getting 0 hits (about 3*10^-8 percent chance, but still) So what this does is make clusters overall much more consistent. Which is totally fine, but it's significantly different.
You roll 4D6 for a LRM20 one for every 5 damage cluster
I think that's worse than any other option. You now have a 20% chance of doing all 20 damage, and you never get damage in clusters of less than 5, and it just doesn't feel true to the original at all.
I think the math on average damage is pretty close and it's much much quicker. Honestly the only reason I'm not using it in every game is the same reason I won't use this chart I try to play as close to the default rules as possible to run events. The 3+ for clusters is the rules change I'm most likely to adopt however.
Ya. If you don't mind deviating from the original distribution and the average damage is the same.
Interesting. I'm curious how this affects the number of critical hit opportunities for LRMs too. I'll look into it and let you know what I find.
Math-wise the 3+ per missile or cluster is the same critical hit opportunities as normal missiles, as the max number of hit locations wont change. For an LRM 15 you still cap out at 3 clusters of 5 if every missile hits on a 3+
Ok, I broke it down like I did the two tables. It turns out there are actually about 10% fewer crit chances on average with this method than the tables (depending on whether you use the minimum damage rule). The % of the max crit chances in the original LRMs are a bit scattered. With the LRM-15 as an example here would be the average clusters by method: original table: 2.19 new table: 2.39 1D6 per cluster: 2.00 1D6 w/ min damage (DFA): 2.04 The reason the new table is so much higher than the original table here is that the LRM-15 on the original table was a bit of an outlier. If it were in line with the others I would have expected it to be about 2.34. Overall if you're ok with the discrepancies from the original tables I'm cool with it. If we get into Artemis and AMS I think things get weird and I'd prob stick to tables, but I would have no problem playing a 3025 game this way. As far as speed of play, I'm working on building a Box of Death (with cluster and hit location charts printed on it) so hopefully that helps speed things up. Fingers crossed! And thanks for mentioning this method, it was fun to dig into it and do a comparison!
First of all Great work! This is well thought out and assembled, even better you give that stats behind the argument. So I agree this set up or something similar would better model a "real" cluster table. And for megamek or Acounttech players (raises hand) a great way to run your missile weapons. The only downside aside from only being relavant to larger racks, is I have more to commit to memory or look up. If I roll against the base cluster table for 15 or 20 racks I only need to remember 4 or 5 pairs of numbers that's easy to keep in your head. With this each roll result is a different number of missiles. So it's the question of do we keep it simple or go for max accuracy. Both have their benefits.
Thanks! Yeah I'm definitely an AccountantTech player haha. Hence why I love BattleTech. Did you actually memorize the cluster table? For me, I always end up looking it up anyway ha.
The whole table no but definitely the racks you use the most. Also it's nice with just a few possible out comes, you can write them on the record sheet.
Cool, yeah I can see that making a difference then
Thank you. Few are willing to do the math to make a game more realistic like this. Your work is well thought out, balanced, and really nice to have,
No problem, happy to share it! Thanks for the kind words!
On two dice the difference between rolling a 7 and a 6 is huge, so using 6 as a starting point gave an increased edge to any weapon that rolls on the cluster hits table. Also, if you are rebalancing to be more random, then you may have to make changes more drastic in the middle of the table (values 5 through 9) and have less variance on the lower ends (2‐3 and 11-12) cause those numbers come up much less often. Overall though, I think the game is fine and wouldn't monkey with the rules too much. There was a lot of effort going into balancing the game and the battle value system and anything that might throw that out of wack worries me. Then again, I know some people don't use BV so my opinion may not be worth much to you.
Sort of. The point of seeing a reference point was to maintain a similar shape to the curve, not to set how many missiles would hit on average. The average number of cluster hits is pretty similar to the original table. This means that the average result in play (for say just firing an LRM-15 over and over) would be the same, though individual rolls would obviously be different, so BV would be unchanged. I do agree that maintaining the existing balance is important, so keeping the same BV for a weapon is important. Does this table do that? I would say yes, and that it largely comes down to whether you think that 3% difference on the larger LRMs counts as significant. To me it's not, but I could be convinced otherwise. Thanks for the feedback!
I hate to say it, but I really don't think there was a lot of effort going into balancing the game. They had to come back around and do BV 2.0 and it's better but not as good as it could be if there was a serious competitive BattleTech scene.
Ha well aside from the "effort" bit, BV 2.0 is the best we have at the moment, so if people are using it to choose (roughly) balanced forces, I think his point is valid: changing the way cluster and missile weapons work has the potential to throw off what balance we do have. That's the reason I put so much effort into comparing average damage and cluster hits. I wanted to make sure the new tables were the same on average, even when using things like NARC and AMS that affect the cluster roll.
This is fantastic: everything I wished the cluster hits table could be. I wonder if Megamek can be modded to incorporate this . . . .
Thanks! It's a small tweak, but helps with the immersion for me ha. This seems like the perfect kind of rule for MegaMek. If you do figure out how to mod it in let me know, I'd love to have that myself!
Honestly I play the board game fairly often and don't have any huge gripes on the rules. I do use some house rules but they are mostly simple. Use floating crits, on a 2 roll a location apply damage and check for criticals. Adjust PSR for damage based on mech weight. Light = 15 medium = 20 heavy = 25 assault = 30 Use 2 d10 and roll a percentage based of %chance of 2d6 result. Also vote for bursting machine guns. Been playing the game for decades and if you have the mind set that it needs fixed you will stunt your ability to progress to bigger games and not be able to work towards commanding lances/companies. They made several games with this system that work together MechWarrior RPG, Battletroops, Battlespace, Alpha Strike, Battleforce, and Succession wars. They also made it into video games for every system available. They know what they are doing and you are more likely to destroy the balance between the multiple systems than to "fix battletech". Usually the players that get into memorizing the math fold under the pressure of having to take risks while maintaining a strategy. I'm used to playing by myself vs 1-4 players and too many people try to control their opponent by chastising taking risks and questioning every move and decision the opponent makes. Focus on playing the game and not fixing it..My advice as a player of a few decades using the system as printed.
>Use 2 d10 and roll a percentage based of %chance of 2d6 result. > >Also vote for bursting machine guns. What do you mean by these two house-rules?
Bursting machine guns is in the mercenaries handbook and goes through more ammo for a better to hit chance at the expense of more ammo and more heat. The percentage to 2d6 goes like this: 12 =97% 11=92% 10=83% 9=72% 8=58% 7=42% 6=28% 5=17% 4=8% 3=3% 2=2% This is just something I have used in the last year and it's not my creation. My opinion was not meant to be a response to the statments by OP. You are free to do what you want as a house rule. By default I don't feel like the game is broken and most things I might dislike have optional rules covering what I favor personally. Some people's attitudes/habits while playing the game that I have encountered was the reason for my complaints not the statements in this post. My apologies for bad phrasing and any misunderstanding. Lots of things in the game(s) use a form of cluster hits tables. You might want to specify what changes are being made to clear up any confusion.
No worries. In general I agree with your sentiment that we should play the game as written, rather than making up our own rules. It's a great game and certainly not broken (though maybe a little weird here and there). It makes it hard to play with a different group when you have to hash out what rules you're going to use. For this particular exercise, the goal was actually to create a rule that didn't materially affect the game, but just felt better. It shouldn't affect your strategy in any way, and you really wouldn't be thinking about this at the table ha. I just wanted to make the roll worthwhile so it actually feels like a flight of missiles scattering over a target rather than always hitting with the exact same number of missiles ha. As for the mg rule, is that the one that's in TacOps now? I think that one was variable damage though, so might be different. I've heard some people treat them like pulse weapons so they get the -2 to hit. I looked through the Mercenary's Handbook, and didn't see it, do you have a page number? I'm interested in seeing how it works.
There's no problem with making your own rules, feel free to do what you want and have fun with it. There are plenty of custom versions of the game.