OBT Forum

Since I'm laid up and an Aerospace virgin, I'll take a look.  Got a link?

The one that says Renegade Tech 2.0?

Ok, tomorrow I've got six kids in the house, so Tuesday while the kids are at school/Pre-K would be the earliest playtest.  I'll DL the rules and post any questions tomorrow.

  Many thanks for your time and input, Red Pins; I’ll add you to the credits for the game at first opportunity. 

  For the benefit of those who care, this is the level of abstraction I was considering moving to, at least for capital aerospace.  I was thinking of shifting towards the Full Thrust style of simpler to-hit dice-rolling:

• BattleTech To-Hit: 2d6, trying to roll over (Gunnery + movement/target aspect + range + ECM - bracketing/AA mod)
• Full Thrust To-Hit: 1d6, trying to roll over (fixed TN at given range, abstracting all the above modifiers into the TN)

  So capital direct-fire weapons batteries would go from adding up a long string of modifiers to rolling a single dice per barrel and referring to a range table like the following:

=========	=========	=========	=========	=========	=========
WEAPON	HIT ON 2+	HIT ON 3+	HIT ON 4+	HIT ON 5+	HIT ON 6
=========	=========	=========	=========	=========	=========
LLC	7*	14*	21	28	35
MLC	9*	18*	27	36	45
HLC	11*	22*	33	44	55
=========	=========	=========	=========	=========	=========
LPC	6	12	18	24	30
MPC	8	16	24	32	40
HPC	10	20	30	40	50

=========	=========	=========	=========	=========	=========
MAC (all)	2	6	10	14	18
NGR (all)	4	12	20	28	36
Mass Driver (All)	8	24	40	56	72

* At these ranges, capital laser batteries can target missiles and fighters like point-defence batteries can (each roll of 4 or 5 kills one bird, each 6 kills two and earns a re-roll).  Against ships, the damage-templates would drop off (or not, for KEWs) as already established in RT2.0.

• BattleTech Point Defence (against missiles): modified 2d6 TH roll for each kind of weapon (laser, pulse-laser, PPC, missile, ballistic, AMS etc.).  Each 1 point of Capital damage inflicted on a missile increases the TN of its To-Hit roll by 1, with a TN higher than 12 being an automatic miss; missiles not defeated can still connect
• BattleTech Point Defence (against fighters): modified 2d6 TH roll for each kind of weapon (laser, pulse-laser, PPC, missile, ballistic etc.).  Damage directly done to the fighter/squadron, which may be critical or negligible depending on the nature of the fighter(s)
• Full Thrust Point Defence: PD weapons are abstracted to PD mounts (1 PD die, multiple use) and Scatterguns/Grapeshot (6 or 4 PD dice, but 1-shot).  Defender allocates X total of PD assets to each incoming missile salvo, then rolls Xd6.  Each roll of 4 or 5 kills/deflects one missile, each 6 kills two missiles and gets a re-roll.  Overkill against a given salvo is wasted, and any surviving missiles connect
• RT2.0 Point Defence (current): modified 2d6 rolls by PD beam-bays or PD missile-clusters to-hit, then roll another modified 2d6 on the Cluster Hits table, with each hit destroying 1 missile.  Surviving missiles roll for the number of warheads that hit; anti-missile bays automatically destroy (1d3-1) warheads each.  Any overkill is wasted, surviving warheads connect

  I just wonder how many of our resident aerospace folks are really, really fond of the old BT-style mechanics and their granularity/realism, their feel of the see-saw struggle between offence and defence.  I mean, ideally I would go with the simple options wherever possible to make the game more accessible and faster-playing, but if that’s not what the players want, there’s not a lot of point, is there?