35 replies to this topic

[wolf74]

Well if we look at the Maximum Tech Book Fasa #1700 we get a 4th Weapon Range bracket. Now the Range are basically (Long Range / 0.75). The Two weapons that are out of sync with this are the ER-Large Laser and the ER-PPC, The ER-PPC only get about 91% of the new range and the ER-Large Laser was at 110.5% of the Range the math gives us.
This is the Ext Range Bracket or base 10 (aka +6)
Small Laser Hex: 4 Meters:120
Medium Laser Hex:12 Meters:360
Large Laser Hex:20 Meters:600
ER L-Laser Hex:28 Meters:840 (760 for math)
PPC Hex:24 Meters:720
ER PPC Hex:28 Meters:840 (920 for math)

AC/2 Hex:32 Meters:960
AC/5 Hex:24 Meters:720
AC/10 Hex:20 Meters:600
AC/20 Hex:12 Meters:360

LRM's Hex:28 Meters:840
SRM's Hex:12 Meters:360

[Arctic Fox]

wolf74, on 28 March 2012 - 04:13 PM, said:

Well if we look at the Maximum Tech Book Fasa #1700 we get a 4th Weapon Range bracket. Now the Range are basically (Long Range / 0.75). The Two weapons that are out of sync with this are the ER-Large Laser and the ER-PPC, The ER-PPC only get about 91% of the new range and the ER-Large Laser was at 110.5% of the Range the math gives us.
This is the Ext Range Bracket or base 10 (aka +6)
Small Laser Hex: 4 Meters:120
Medium Laser Hex:12 Meters:360
Large Laser Hex:20 Meters:600
ER L-Laser Hex:28 Meters:840 (760 for math)
PPC Hex:24 Meters:720
ER PPC Hex:28 Meters:840 (920 for math)

AC/2 Hex:32 Meters:960
AC/5 Hex:24 Meters:720
AC/10 Hex:20 Meters:600
AC/20 Hex:12 Meters:360

LRM's Hex:28 Meters:840
SRM's Hex:12 Meters:360

Tactical Operations also has a LOS range bracket, which basically allows nearly all types of weapons to fire at anything the unit can see regardless of range at high penalties to accuracy and damage.

[Pht]

pesco, on 28 March 2012 - 10:47 AM, said:

This good point was brought up in the recent thread on PPCs: I don't know if the 30m diameter for a hex is correct; I'll assume it is. That's 540m longest range for a PPC. I don't remember the figures from MW2 or MW3, but MWLL has it at 700m. Have the devs any comment on how they're doing it with MWO? Not just for PPCs but other weapons as well? I'm sure weapon ranges are subject to tweaking for balance, but maybe there's a general idea.

The range of the PPC is not 540 meters. The normal game doesn't use the full set of rules; extreme range and LOS Range.

Basically, all weapons get their medium range times 2 out past long range ("extreme range") and if memory serves, all weapons that have a long range of 12 or more can attempt to do a line of sight shot, out as far as they can see... which is effectively about 35 miles.

[Zervziel]

Garth Erlam, on 28 March 2012 - 11:33 AM, said:

The ranges seem oddly short because the tabletop needed to make it so the game board wasn't 12 feet wide. Thus, when you hear about 'sniping from long range' it's not quite as far as you'd think. Amusingly, I believe a M16 has roughly the effective range of LRMs.

Yeah, as much as I love Battletech, the canon ranges would only get battlemechs slaughtered. 700 meters for a large laser. The larger autocannons have truly wimpy ranges. I mean as in pathetic. As in we have regular assault rifles today that out perform them. As in their effective ranges is rivaled by trebuchets. Yes, the actual ones.

[Phelan P Kell]

Zervziel, on 28 March 2012 - 05:00 PM, said:

Yeah, as much as I love Battletech, the canon ranges would only get battlemechs slaughtered. 700 meters for a large laser. The larger autocannons have truly wimpy ranges. I mean as in pathetic. As in we have regular assault rifles today that out perform them. As in their effective ranges is rivaled by trebuchets. Yes, the actual ones.

I am always a little disterbed when i try to think of Mechs fighting at 500m or so. Hell i can shoot my FN 5.7 out to 100m and my rifles past 600 no sweat.

yet, somehow a giant mech with a targeting computer shooting rounds far more powerful than mine cant hit past 500?!?!?!? Its crazy.

Everyone should keep in mind that a .50 BMG round is fatal upto and in some cases over 10 MILES!!!!!! (not accurate, but deadly)

[Steamroller Stig]

Garth Erlam, on 28 March 2012 - 11:33 AM, said:

The ranges seem oddly short because the tabletop needed to make it so the game board wasn't 12 feet wide. Thus, when you hear about 'sniping from long range' it's not quite as far as you'd think. Amusingly, I believe a M16 has roughly the effective range of LRMs.

M60 actually and yes the lacking ranged capabilities of advanced battle mechs have been somewhat of an erk for me, in chrome hounds I a great shot could hit moving targets well past 2km, and that game sends tech back to just after WW2

[William Petersen]

Phelan P Kell, on 28 March 2012 - 05:44 PM, said:

I am always a little disterbed when i try to think of Mechs fighting at 500m or so. Hell i can shoot my FN 5.7 out to 100m and my rifles past 600 no sweat.

yet, somehow a giant mech with a targeting computer shooting rounds far more powerful than mine cant hit past 500?!?!?!? Its crazy.

Everyone should keep in mind that a .50 BMG round is fatal upto and in some cases over 10 MILES!!!!!! (not accurate, but deadly)

Shooting a soft, fleshy target is exactly the same thing as shooting a hardened BattleMech protected by advanced armour the likes of which have yet to even be conceived by folks other than sci-fi writers. Exactly the same thing.

[syngyne]

William Petersen, on 28 March 2012 - 06:05 PM, said:

Shooting a soft, fleshy target is exactly the same thing as shooting a hardened BattleMech protected by advanced armour the likes of which have yet to even be conceived by folks other than sci-fi writers. Exactly the same thing.

You're right, it's not.

Shooting a pistol at 100 meters is a lot harder.

[Fachxphyre]

Garth Erlam, on 28 March 2012 - 11:33 AM, said:

The ranges seem oddly short because the tabletop needed to make it so the game board wasn't 12 feet wide. Thus, when you hear about 'sniping from long range' it's not quite as far as you'd think. Amusingly, I believe a M16 has roughly the effective range of LRMs.

Yeah, if you go "by the book" the field manual the US army uses states that the maximum effective range of an m16 is roughly 600m against a stationary point target (ie, a man sized object), 800m against an "area target" (a formation of man sized objects) and 200m vs a moving target. At the qual range, you fire at targets that are up to 400m away, and these are roughly the size and shape of a human torso and head. It does seem a bit silly to expect that the futuristic weapons mounted on giant mechs and tanks wouldn't have ranges measured in kilometers.

[Opus]

Oki, this is my realm, of existence: 12 years as a USMC EOD tech,all I did was work with Missiles, Bombs, and Ammo ( and a few funny things in boxes )

Canon being Canon missile ranges, and such, are...ummm ( grabbing kevlar jacket ) Silly

Missiles using 1980's tech

Hellfire AGM-114 Range 500m - 8Kilometers Fire and forget self tracking to a point. ( so an LRM is only 1000m? )

TOW BGM-71 Range Min 100m - Max 3750 Wire guided ( SRM this is close at Min ranges, but the wire fed unless broken, and the missile goes wireless it will still fly 4000m then hit the ground and detonate. )

Javilin Range 300m - 4500m beam/radio guided ( closer to SRM guidance I guess, but still LRMs at only 700 - 1000? )

Beam Weapons:
1980's tech - Microwave Mine clearance devices ( beams )
I can't mention a lot about this, but there a ton of Google searchs you can read. I know the range is roughly 1200m

and I won't even go into air force beam weapons test, I left before those came to be...


Most Ballistic weapons; Just drool, ok....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun


http://youtu.be/B2_2cCmzovc


So yeah, when I read ""Canon" ranges... Ah its only a game.,., I don't get my knickers in a knot ( so to say )

Edited by Opus, 28 March 2012 - 07:38 PM.

[Namwons]

to give the game ranges a frame of reference, lets compare two similar weapons.

the regular machine gun has a long range of 3=90m (so extreme range would be 4?), compared to the Browning M2 with effective(long) range of 1800m, max 2000m. so with these two similar weapons, if we scale TT hexes to real world weapons, each hex would be 600m.

[Phelan P Kell]

Namwons, on 28 March 2012 - 09:42 PM, said:

to give the game ranges a frame of reference, lets compare two similar weapons.

the regular machine gun has a long range of 3=90m (so extreme range would be 4?), compared to the Browning M2 with effective(long) range of 1800m, max 2000m. so with these two similar weapons, if we scale TT hexes to real world weapons, each hex would be 600m.

That sounds logical to me. besides, i can not really imagine a mech needing much less than a 300m radius area to move and doge incoming fire as the game rules say they can do in their mech.

Okay that settles it for me. one hex is 600m Case closed.

[PewPew]

Opus, on 28 March 2012 - 07:19 PM, said:

Oki, this is my realm, of existence: 12 years as a USMC EOD tech,all I did was work with Missiles, Bombs, and Ammo ( and a few funny things in boxes )

Canon being Canon missile ranges, and such, are...ummm ( grabbing kevlar jacket ) Silly

Missiles using 1980's tech

Hellfire AGM-114 Range 500m - 8Kilometers Fire and forget self tracking to a point. ( so an LRM is only 1000m? )

TOW BGM-71 Range Min 100m - Max 3750 Wire guided ( SRM this is close at Min ranges, but the wire fed unless broken, and the missile goes wireless it will still fly 4000m then hit the ground and detonate. )

Javilin Range 300m - 4500m beam/radio guided ( closer to SRM guidance I guess, but still LRMs at only 700 - 1000? )

Beam Weapons:
1980's tech - Microwave Mine clearance devices ( beams )
I can't mention a lot about this, but there a ton of Google searchs you can read. I know the range is roughly 1200m

and I won't even go into air force beam weapons test, I left before those came to be...


Most Ballistic weapons; Just drool, ok....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun


http://youtu.be/B2_2cCmzovc


So yeah, when I read ""Canon" ranges... Ah its only a game.,., I don't get my knickers in a knot ( so to say )

Different universes though. Even if technology had the same capabilities in both universes, it's likely that the battlemech changed warfare. Because of mech armor technology, current-tech weapons would not be effective. Hellfires, TOWs, etc. are all about making a single, effective warhead hit. When mech has the capability of withstanding many missiles, it then makes more sense to make more warheads hit. (It also justifies close combat)

The simple solution, then, is to shoot many missiles. The problem is that missiles cost a lot and weight a lot. I suppose the LRM is just a dumb missile with basic guidance capabilities and less propellant to save weight while warheads remain just as powerful.

The same rationalization can go for auto cannons. Massive bullets, lower ratio of propellant which is sacrificed to fit more rounds. Still has incredible force from the massive hunk of metal, but less range.

The other solution to the armor problem is to have stronger weapons, which is why Gauss rifles and PPCs were developed. There's also the choice to use thermal energy instead of kinetic energy. That's where lasers come in.

I always think comparing the BT universe to the real world is silly, but there are reasonable explanations(rationalizations) for why the BT universe is the way it is. Personally, I think MW:LL ranges are perfect for gameplay.

[Karl Streiger]

You guys knew that every weapon in battletech is able to hurt you? So giving a machine gun a LOS range - you don't need any other weapon as missiles for indirect fire, machine guns and some laser weapons for aimed shots...Throw away SRMs, ACs, PPCs...don't need them.
The question of range is a question of balancing.

[William Petersen]

Namwons, on 28 March 2012 - 09:42 PM, said:

to give the game ranges a frame of reference, lets compare two similar weapons.

the regular machine gun has a long range of 3=90m (so extreme range would be 4?), compared to the Browning M2 with effective(long) range of 1800m, max 2000m. so with these two similar weapons, if we scale TT hexes to real world weapons, each hex would be 600m.

They're not similar weapons at all, though, the BattleMech M.Gun is far more devastating. Remember when they were testing the armour for the Mickie and their current MBTs couldn't even *scratch* it?

http://users.anet.co...mation/bmh.html Unless this passage has been removed from the canon (or was never part of the canon; I can't find a reference for a sourcebook, but I'm almost positive I originally read it in one x_x).

And let me remind you that is *primitive* armour! Standard armour is 50% more effective! (Primitive armour provides 66% the protection of standard armour, ergo, going from primitive to standard is a 50% increase (66 + X = 100%, X= 33%, 33/66 = 50%).


EDIT: A little poking around on Sarna has me a touch confused, as the Merkava Heavy Tank is listed there as having an LRM 15 (which it mentions was removed for the remote control systems for the test), an AC/5, an SRM-4 and 2 M.Guns. Which obviously deal damage to BattleMechs. So I'm a little confused, as this passage, to me, was the primary justification for the close ranges: they had to dramatically scale up the power of their weapons which had a pronounced affect on the range in the negative direction.

Maybe it's just time for a healthy dose of "suspension of disbelief" so we can have our in-your-face battles as the knights-in-shining-armour of the 31st century battlefield. This poster puts it quite well.

Arctic Fox, on 28 March 2012 - 02:28 PM, said:

The ranges aren't only because of it being a tabletop game. The game's main aesthetic was supposed to feature 'Mechs blasting each other face to face at close range, and that's simply impossible when your weapon's range is measured in kilometers. But there shouldn't really be that much of a problem, nearly all BattleTech weapons can canonically reach out to the horizon, they're just significantly less accurate and effective at anything beyond the usual ranges found in the tabletop game, and I hope that's more or less how it will be portrayed in this game.

Edited by William Petersen, 29 March 2012 - 12:00 AM.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

This is something which has been played out on every BT forum, with many discussions here as well. Just consider soething for a minute. How much fun would this game be if your direct fire weapons could only be done using a high level zoom function. Probably the majority of kills would b using missiles at a target designated by a spotter out of LOS. No one would want mechs mounting anything less than the longst ranged weapons (starting to sound familiar) as if you can see it you can kill it. Maps of course would have to be larger, 25-50 km per side at least. The AC20 would of course be given the realistic range for a weapon of it's calibre (150-203mm) which is probably between 10-30km depending on a number of factors. Do you really think that it would be an enjoyable game. Of course it also wouldn't be MechWarrior. But never mind, lets scrap the game rules in favour of realism.

Quote

[If I see a hex anywhere in our game.. someone's getting a beat down.

No Pennsylvania barns in the background then?

Edited by Nik Van Rhijn, 29 March 2012 - 12:27 AM.