BattleTech 'Mercenaries' Kickstarter - Playtest Portal for New Core Rulebook

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**Vulcan**

Kagetora wrote:
Bob Lorgar wrote:
except for the fact that there were some mechs which were highly disadvantaged because they were practically walking bombs asking to be killed by one.

Thunderbolt?

Pretty sure it had a ton of MG ammo in the CT. IIRC.

Under normal rules a ton of MG ammo in the ARM will still gut the whole 'mech. Even an Atlas (17 arm internals, 21 side torso internals, 31 center torso internals, and the MG ammo has only done about 1/3 it's total damage...).

While I'm in general fine with ammo explosion rules as-is - ammo explosions are the great equalizer - having even a HALF ton of small arms ammo being able to gut any 'mech seems excessive.

**Ghaz**

From the Playtest Forum

Xotl wrote:We talk about the logic behind both in the livestream. But in brief:

Cutting side tables saves room and lookup time: unambiguously good. Cutting side tables further rewards attackers who have the skill and/or speed to hone in on weak enemy side torsos, or defenders who have the skill and/or speed to keep a damaged side torso shielded from enemy fire. In theory: good. In practice: might make mechs too easy to delete, especially those with XL and XXL engines. Broadly, we think it offers better tactical gameplay while simplifying things. We’ll see.

The ammo explosion change is about trying to make a rule that makes for interesting gameplay while pleasing both people who want ammo explosions to hurt a lot and people who want it to hurt less than it does now. There is no objective correct answer here: it’s a pure vibes approach to a purely vibes gameplay issue. If people like the result, we’ll change it. If they don’t, we’ll axe it. It will be hard to make a pure gameplay argument for this, though perhaps something comes up that makes the rule unusable at the table that we missed in our discussion and limited private playtest phases.

You’ll notice there was nothing about realism in there. That’s because frankly we’re designing a game 1st, and a reality simulator for thirty-first-century millennium giant robots somewhere around 34th.

Looking forward to your playtest reports.

**BrookM**

I've seen interesting discourse so far on these two proposed changes, will be using them in our upcoming campaign.

**Kagetora**

Vulcan wrote:
Kagetora wrote:
Bob Lorgar wrote:
except for the fact that there were some mechs which were highly disadvantaged because they were practically walking bombs asking to be killed by one.

Thunderbolt?

Pretty sure it had a ton of MG ammo in the CT. IIRC.

Under normal rules a ton of MG ammo in the ARM will still gut the whole 'mech. Even an Atlas (17 arm internals, 21 side torso internals, 31 center torso internals, and the MG ammo has only done about 1/3 it's total damage...).

While I'm in general fine with ammo explosion rules as-is - ammo explosions are the great equalizer - having even a HALF ton of small arms ammo being able to gut any 'mech seems excessive.

Yeah, but the point was you could hit the TBolt in the CT with a single leftover LRM missile in a grouping and get a CT Crit, kaboom.

Did it happen? Once or twice in my BT gaming experience (although not with just that LRM hit). Was it hilarious? Yes. Was it stupid? Also yes.

**OrlandotheTechnicoloured**

Back in the 'good old days' the risk of ammo explosion was one of the downsides of ballistic weapons which generated less heat than energy weapons

managing ammo and explosions vs managing heat and weapon weight

but energy weapons suffer far less of a heat penalty now with more efficient double/clan heat sinks etc so i guess removing at least some of that penelty from ballistics is probably warrented

(although i personally found the original version of both made for a more interesting game)

**Albertorius**

OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Back in the 'good old days' the risk of ammo explosion was one of the downsides of ballistic weapons which generated less heat than energy weapons

managing ammo and explosions vs managing heat and weapon weight

but energy weapons suffer far less of a heat penalty now with more efficient double/clan heat sinks etc so i guess removing at least some of that penelty from ballistics is probably warrented

(although i personally found the original version of both made for a more interesting game)

Agreed, except maybe for the medium laser, which is still stupidly good at every era.