[Questions/Discussion] Lancer Skills and Attributes

Lots of great info here. I will be happy to address this when i have time later today.

 

First off, great eye to spot this. This was actually intentional but not overtly explained, but I will do so now:

When we started the first campaign oh so many years ago, the character creation process was much more detailed and itemized. Every XP point was accounted for; you were given 'x' amount of XP and then you spent it on your skills as needed. The problem with this is it pretty much required someone who was familiar with the system to walk a new player through from beginning to end. This new system we have now was a compromise between the old way and my need to streamline the process because of my relatively busier schedule.

I'm actually not opposed to your idea, but it does require a bit more math and double checking people's work. Perhaps the best solution is for everyone to just pick their base stats (with the system we have now) and get everything else sorted (including starting units). Then, we can adjust skills as needed and address remainder XP afterwards.

Also, don't forget that the old skill level cost sheet has been tossed out (i posted that in the admin update thread). Skill costs are now calculated by:

Skill Level x Skill Multiplier (which can be found on your roll20 character sheet)

Here is an example:


For example: Currently, Gunnery is at Lvl 4. If I wanted to raise it to 5, it would cost 20 XP (skill level 5 x multiplier of 4).

Ability costs remain unchanged.

 

I thought All-Weather only *reduces* the penalty for PSR (Pilot Skill Rolls) in inclimate weather, but according to the description Tzeentch does appear to be right. It also affects ALL PSRs as far as I know. Either way, I'm inclined to leave it be under the reason for "quality of life". Anyone who has played BT with horrendous weather conditions knows how the game becomes almost unplayable without these abilities to counter it. I've done away with the "ability limit" of the last campaign (some restrictions still apply on the most powerful ones) so all players have equal access to getting these weather abilities. I've left it up to the individual what they want to prioritize.

Also, players will know going into missions what the weather conditions will be so you can somewhat avoid the worst conditions by waiting them out (somewhat similar to how Shogun 2 handles weather at the beginning of combat).

 

Yeah, Sensor Geek ability is very underrated and often overlooked. It's a great skill for people that are a bit more subtle in their tactics. We are playing with inclusive rules and ALL em interference rules turned on. Stealth armor will also be in play (with some limitations to it). There will be a lot of options for players. Only stealth options that WON'T be available is the Null Signature + Chameleon suite which has been largely replaced by newer versions of it.

Both Remote Sensors & Sensor Drones are equipment you can put on any unit. The first is a stationary cheaper version and the second one pretty much functions exactly like the UAV in MWO, except there is no time limit on either. However, they can be destroyed quite easily and you have a limited supply of both (exact number I have yet to figure out, but they will be balanced as needed).

More info on them can be found here: http://www.theskjaldborg.com/index....lancer-abilities-equipment.10480/#post-257144

 

Yeah, that is admittedly confusing, but I was trying to be as concise and literal as possible and couldn't think of a better way to fit it on the sheet. I put the Nat.Apt.s in with the other "Veteran" abilities because they ARE mutually exclusive (ex.you can still only have ONE vet gunnery ability), but the Nat.Apt.s also ignore the normal Skill Lvl 4 req. that most Veteran Abilities require. Hindsight being what it is, I just realized after "requires Lvl 4 skill" I could put (except Natural Aptitude). That should help clear up any confusion.

The Nat.Apt. abilities simulate a person who is a "naturally gifted" pilot that lacks formal training. These abilities are particularly useful to people who want to forgo better Gun/Pilot skills in favor of a more "well rounded" character with good support/secondary skills. It artificially caps your Gun/Pilot skills at Lvl 4, but when you feel you are ready, you can drop the Nat.Apt. ability to improve your base combat skills. The assumption is that once you reach "elite" status, it is assumed you have gained some more formalized skill and the Nat.Apt. ability is lost in favor of more refined experience.

 

I've tried to stay true the "feel" of Battletech as much as possible, but keep in mind we are trail blazing quite a bit past what some of the official rules state. A lot of stuff has been heavily simplified and a few things have been completely rewritten specifically for the purposes of saving time and headache.

So remote sensors and UAV drones are in, but they both essentially function as any conventional vehicle would. The remote sensors will function EXACTLY like a 1 ton ground vehicle with no movement and the UAV will function EXACTLY like a 1 ton VTOL (limitations of megamek prevent them from being smaller than 1 ton). In both cases, these "units" will be unarmed and unarmored. In both cases, treat them the same as you would any other unit you directly control (ie. unlike the Tactics skill, Abilities are unit/character-specific). To use sensors drones/pods, a player will manually spawn them in during any turn the same way they would any other unit when reinforcing. There's a way to do this in megamek using .mul files that will be explained later. However, the supply of sensors and UAV you carry will be manually tracked by the player/Admin. A lot of this will basically fall under "house rules", but it should be fairly simple to keep track.

P.S. - If it turns out to be more beneficial, I might have the sensor drones be categorized technically as "Battle Armor" and tweak their values as necessary. The reasons for this are technical ones specifically dealing with how megamek classifies units (and "valid unit" rules), but the end result will be roughly the same as described above.

 

For now, I expect all dropship action to happen strictly "offmap". You will be able to upgrade your dropship with additional support functions eventually, but I have not had time to flesh out the details. However, I certainly want to do something like what you have in mind. Here's a WIP list...

Dropship Upgrades

• Space Efficiency - double your drone capacity per hangar slot (manned units are still limited to 1 per slot)
• Drone Controller - allow your Handler to assume direct control of any friendly drone from the dropship; carries a +1 penalty to Gunnery & Piloting
• Reinforced Bulkheads - increase tonnage limit of each hangar slot from 75 to 100 (this stacks with Space Efficiency)
• Turret Pod Launcher - allows orbital insertion of defensive turrets
• Recon Pod Launcher - allows orbital insertion of sensor pods
• Siege Cannon - for orbital bombardment against stationary targets; functions similarly to off-map Long Tom
• Advanced Countermeasures - additional defense against anti-air hostiles
• Upgrade # of hangar slots or buy larger Dropships (undecided on this); max slot limit will be 8 (don't want battles to get too big).
  (I don't want battles getting too huge).
• NOTE: two conventional vehicles =/< 50tons follow the same rules as drones regarding slot space.

Regarding Space Efficiency: remember that drones are normally controlled by the AI so even though you get double the amount compared to manned units (which you can control directly), expect to have a lot more "casualties" with drones. As a result of this, you can expect drones to also be much cheaper to purchase and replace.

Regarding Drone Controller: this only works if your Handler is not deployed on the mission and remains on your dropship. Manned units can also be equipped with "Drone Hybridization" which allows their pilot to do the same thing, but they cannot move or attack with their own unit while they are busy controlling another drone.

Regarding Countermeasures: your dropship is powerful, but not invicible. Enemy anti-air may prevent it from offering support on your mission. Countermeasures helps prevent them from chasing your dropship off. Dropship combat itself is handled "offmap" with a single pass/fail dice roll. While your dropship may fail to offer support during a mission, for simplicity sake, it is never outright destroyed (well... never say never).

More about this way later. Obviously, a lot of balancing will have to go into this. I want to make it happen, but it is low priority at this point.

 

I think that's correct. The PSR checks for low/no light conditions is a particularly annoying rule in BT (multi-billion dollar war machines with no basic infrared sighting? wtf). All-weather alleviates this I believe.

Keep in mind that 50% of the time you won't have any low-light issues to worry about and only maybe 15% of the time will it actually be particularly rough without it. You can also use spotlights as a cheap alternative, but those have other drawbacks.

 

^I missed this one.

I can definitely see extraction missions with dropships happening eventually, but not any time soon because of my schedule limitations. Will need to spend more time balancing mission parameters and whatnot.