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Anyways, here is a rough workup of what the TT game would look like if it took a nod from MWO, going to try and make it so the rules can just be 'dropped in' over the normal rules but I'm not a pro at tabletop so chime in if you see anything you think could work better/more accurately. If something isn't specifically mentioned, assume it's the same as it is in tabletop normally.
Mech build rules; Well, obviously you can mount any engine between the minimum and maximum, so there's big change number one. How to represent that in game? Well you would need a counter system for determining how far a mech moves, a certain number of move points (lets say 10 for theory crafting) gets you through a hex and into the next one. Now, to capture this more refined movement system, you are now only 1 point into that hex. Keep track of this by having the rear facing of the miniature face the side you entered from, and assume you keep traveling in a straight line until you've reached 5 movement points into the current hex. From there, you can either move 5 more points and enter the next hex in any direction you choose (if available/physically passable), or you can move less than that, or upon entering a hex you can turn around and go back, minus 1 move point for every move point you spent in that hex to simulate breaking/turning around and the time involved in that. The number of total movement points you have would be determined by engine rating vs chassis max tonnage. Yeah, that's a lot of math and tracking facings/which heading you are traveling toward, but it would provide a simplified 'real world' style of movement while allowing the MWO build rules, so let's roll with it. If you move 2/3rds of your movement points (round up), generate 1 heat that turn from movement. If you move 100% of your movement points, add another point of heat.
Gyro no longer factors in to the weight, just use the engine weights and max/mins listed
Next up, while we're in the general 'movement' area; Jumpjets. Jumpjets in MWO are not tied to engine speed (currently at least), so theoretically, your spider could have 12 jumpjets and a 100 rating engine. for MWO rules to play, jumpjets would have to adopt a movement point system as well, measuring both height and distance. Distance would be shared with move points, fairly simple. Height would be calculated by the amount of jumpjets onboard, let's say 1 height level per jumpjet (not sure how height levels work in tabletop, someone who's actually played chime in? I would say a 'height level' would equal a 15 meter object, since one jumpjet seems to be able to go over an Atlas, which is supposedly about 15 meters tall.) add 1 heat for each height level achieved with jumpjets this turn.
Armor of course, half the weight, per point, twice as many points per location possible.
Internal structure, same as Tabltetop but with 18 points in head.
Heat dissipation;
Single heatsinks drop one heat every 10 seconds, and add 1 to the maximum amount of heat your mech can store before force shutdown (40 by default). Essentially, your engine holds '30' heat, and since it takes 10 heatsinks to operate the mech at all, you have 40 minimum capacity with single heatsinks (confirmed this in Smurfy's mechlab). Double heatsinks grant 2 dissipation per 10 seconds and 2 capacity per heatsink, so your minimum with DHS is 20 cooling a round and 50 heat capacity before shutdown. Due to the way external heatsinks work, any additional heatsinks past the first 10 regardless if the additional ones are in the engine or not only add 1.4 cooling per second and 1.4 heat capacity. For purposes of removing or holding a heat point, round the cooling ability/capacity of the mech down.
That covers basic battlemech construction, now let's get to the fun part; WEAPONS!
Aiming; To aim, you roll for a hit as normal, then, if it's a hit, you roll for location for each hit. A 1-3 means you hit the desired location, a 4-6 means your aim drifts to a different location. Some weapons like lasers, due to beam firing duration, can have damage hit multiple sections per shot, and be divided as such, so you will need to roll for location for each chunk of damage to see if you hit, this can create partial hits, as if you score a 6 on a duration based weapon, that 'chunk' of damage is presumed to have drifted off target completely. If damage moves to a different section, you may choose any adjacent section on the mech. It is possible to have it move twice if damage is broken into 3 or more chunks, in which case you can move from, for instance, left arm, to left torso, back to left arm. You can attempt to move a 'chunk' of damage to the head, but you must roll a D6 and score a 1 otherwise, choose a different location. Head shots can be attempted on each 'chunk' of damage so long as you hit the CT or head with the previous one.
Criticals; Criticals are rolled as normal, however a critical inflicts damage to an item if it hits it. It must reduce the item's HP to 0 to disable it. This total does not reset if the item is not destroyed, so you can keep chipping away. Engines no longer take critical hits, but can be destroyed if that section is destroyed, considering the equipment we're using is IS only and not Clan, this is acceptable, hopefully MWO will eventually work in critical engine hits and their effects.
Heat; Heat is tallied after each shot fired, for the purposes of inducing in-turn rate of fire to weapons. If shutdown point is reached (heat capacity, basically), then the mechwarrior can override or shutdown. override deals 20 points of damage divided randomly between all internal locations every turn that is spent above heat capacity from start to end. Shutdown prevents all heat related damage and can be used the turn of an override, however it ends the round when used. You can power up at the start of every round, and heatsinks function as normal while shutdown.
Extended range: Basically, I went with 'flip a coin' with 50% past max range and 100% past max range brackets, for 2 different damage values that would fall in that range. You can easily divide it further and get rid of the coin flipping if you want to. Just be sure to math good.
Ballistics;
AC2; 6 tons, 1 crit, 75 shots per ton of ammo. Can fire up to 20 shots in a 10 second round, can spread the shots against multiple targets, however each target after the first reduces the number of shots you can fire from that weapon that round by 2 (basically to simulate 1 second of not firing at the space between targets while acquiring a new target, though I guess you could waste the ammo if you want to). Heat/damage per shot is same as tabletop, range increased to 2150, after 750 meters, flip a coin to see if it does 1 or 2 damage, if after 1500 meters, flip a coin to see if it does 1 or 0 damage. Must roll a hit check for each shot fired. (done to simulate, roughly, damage drop off at extended range) Item has 10 Health, 2 damage 1 heat per shot within normal range.
AC5; 8 tons, 4 crits, 30 shots per ton of ammo. Can fire up to 6 shots per 10 second round. Similar rules to the AC2 as far as how shots are aimed, work, and travel, except it does not lose maximum amount of shots per round when hitting a different target as there's time to adjust between shots. Full damage up to 600m, from 600m to 1050, flip a coin to determine if 5 or 3 damage, from 1050 to 1625 flip a coin to determine if 3 or 1 damage. Item has 10 Health, 5 damage 1 heat per shot within normal range.
UAC5; 9 tons, 5 crits, 25 shots per ton of ammo. Can fire up to 9 rounds per 10 seconds, can split among multiple targets but loses a shot chance for every target change as per the AC2 rules .Can fire up to 18 rounds in a 10 second period when fired in ultra mode w/no jams. Jam chance is 25% per shot, and can occur on single shots, the shot is always fired, and a jam disables ultra mode and reduces the amount of shots you can fire this round by 5. If you have already fired 5 or more shots in normal or 10 in ultra this turn (or any appropriate combination there of, like 2 normal 6 ultra) then the remaining jammed shots detract from your total amount of times you can fire the next round. The jam is assumed to be cleared after the round ends in all cases, but can jam multiple times a round. (using approximation of MWO rules/behavior). Damned mechanics need to work on those ammo feeds... Item has 10 Health, 5 damage 1 heat per shot within normal range.
AC10 12 tons, 7 crits, 15 shots per ton of ammo. Can fire up to 4 rounds per 10 seconds, can split among multiple targets, does not lose a shot if targets change due to time being present between shots. full damage up to 450 m, flip a coin for 8 or 6 damage from 450 to 900 m, flip a coin for 4 or 2 damage from 900 to 1350 m. 10 health, 10 damage 3 heat per shot within normal range.
LB10X 11 tons, 6 crits, 15 shots per ton of ammo. Can fire up to 4 rounds per 10 seconds, can split among multiple targets, does not lose a shot if targets change due to time being present between shots. Use the normal LB-X tables for determining hits, flip a coin for any pellet that hits past 540 m up to 1980 m to see if it does 1 or 0 damage.
AC20 14 tons, 10 crits, 7 shots per ton of ammo. Can fire up to 2 rounds per 10 seconds, if the AC20 fired 2 shots on the previous turn, it may fire 3 shots this turn (4 second cycle time = 5 shots in 20 seconds). It may not fire 3 shots on consecutive turns, but can always fire 3 shots after any turn where exactly 2 shots where fired, provided ammo doesn't run out or the mech doesn't shut down due to heat. Shots can split among multiple targets, does not lose a shot if targets change due to time being present between shots. full damage up to 270 m, flip a coin for 16 or 12 damage from 270 to 525 m, flip a coin for 8 or 4 damage from 525 to 800 m. 18 health, 20 damage 6 heat per shot within normal range.
Gauss Rifle 15 tons, 10 shots per ton of ammo. Can fire up to 2 shots in 10 seconds, can split among multiple targets, does not lose a shot if targets change due to time being present between shots. full damage up to 650 m, flip a coin for 12 or 9 damage from 650 to 1375 m, flip a coin for 6 or 3 damage from 1375 to 1950 m. 3 health, 15 damage 1 heat per shot within normal range.
Machinegun 0.5 tons, 2000 shots per ton of ammo. Can fire up to 100 shots in 10 seconds, Break these into 20 shot 'salvos', for which you roll a hit as normal. for each fired salvo that scores a 'hit', roll a D20, this is how many rounds of that salvo hit the target. You must score at least 20 hits in a turn to deal 1 point of damage with a machinegun (and this is rounding machinegun damage -up-). This tally is tracked between all salvos that hit a single target per turn, salvos can be split between targets, but the totals are specific to each target. If you hit exposed internals, machineguns have 2 additional chances to crit for each hit ( i suggest rolling 3 times per salvo that hits internals to see if a crit is scored, then multiply the number of bullets that hit in that salvo by 12. From this total, for every 20 points deal a point of damage to an internal item. For instance, you have a full salvo hit (20 bullets struck internal). They scored a crit on at least 1 of the crit rolls. Multiply 20 x 12 (20 bullets x 12x crit damage multiplier in MWO). In this example we would have 240, so 12 points of damage to be applied to a critical in that section. Apply the damage to a single critical per salvo as per normal critical hit rules for selecting which part gets crit. Past 90 meters, roll a D10 instead of a D20 to determine how many bullets hit per salvo, up to 200 meters.
Energy;
Small Laser 0.5 tons, capable of firing 3 times in 10 seconds. has a firing duration broken into 3 damage chunks of 1 point each. Use the 'aiming' section above for aiming the initial chunk of damage and then designating the follow up damage until all 'chunks' are assigned. Deals full damage within 90 meters, beyond 90 m to 180m flip a coin for each chunk that hits in order to determine if it does 1 or 0 damage. 10 health, 3 total damage per shot divided into 3 chunks, 2 heat per shot.
- I will continue the rest later, feel free to chip in.
Edited by Monky, 01 March 2013 - 09:30 PM.
