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[Timberwolfd]

A thread for comments on campaign rules as suggested by Rob today.

Issues to address include distributed fire by opfor players intentionally damaging multiple units to drain player war chest points and anything else you want to recommend.

My recommendations:
1. Make an armor damage only repair category. Maybe 1 point/5 tons of unit weight as a starting point. This would reduce the impact of distributedays fire and bring wcp into closer alignment with AcccountTech.

2. Change the modifier on repair of custom units to 1.2 instead of 1.25 so that a standard weight unit will result in a whole number. For example, a 75t customized unit results in 93.75 under the current rules and 90 under the proposed change. The difference in final result is minor, while the calculation is the same as for a punch.

Feel free to post your ideas.

[ItsTehPope]

suggestions:

For the pilot that suffered a random BB to the head:

Mission 1 StCmdr Dave plays and takes an unfortunate SRM to the head.  As he is not an infantryman, he survives but has a point of pilot damage.  Dave sits out Mission 2, either through the bidding process and/or dumb luck and is healed for mission 3.  Not this only would apply for a pilot with one point of damage only.  If he has 2 or more, well, to the med bay with you.  This rule may not always be in place if a set of missions are fast tracked.  Maybe tie in with repair availability, I dunno.

Repairs:

Break the repairs cost down into a "Not bad" and "Bad" following Forced Withdraw for damage.  Getting a bunch of armor popped off, maybe losing a laser or two isn't too bad, but anything torn up in epic form will require more time in the shop to get squared away.

[Ice]

I wouldn't say that its necessarily about just trying to scratch as much toys as possible. I mean a MechWarrior is gonna put as much damage as possible into as much as possible. That's the theory I have about being a pilot especially faced with better equipped piloted foes. That damage in turn 3 may relate to a crit chance in turn 7. I mean even on the final turn its dump as much as possible to try and kill something. it goes both ways and rightly so its the objective to kill as much as can and cripple as much as can as opfor. I cant fault someone for hitting my dire wolf in the back with a large pulkse and it be perfectly fine and spend 100 wcp just to repair one torso rear of armor its absurdly over priced for just that I would think. There are times when blocking the targeting of retreating mechs vehicles pilots is understandable as some are pcs or a so absurdly easy target to kill and is mission critical. I do think that the tonnage itself in weight for 6 points of armor is a bit high. The light medium heavy crippled categories maybe a good idea to go from. Crippled being 100% own weight in wcp basically to repurchase the mech itself or enough repairs to do so heavy would be say 75% tonnage wcp medium 50% wcp and light 25 % wcp I think the ammo is pretty fair as is. This is all before the modifier for custom variants. So the 1.2 instead of 1.25 to make it easier for those 5 off ton mechs to calculate is a good idea plus cheaper for those units in much heavier fighting. Id like to stay away from account tech as much as possible since nobody wants to keep track I sure don't. easier to say hey half my armor is gone half my mech is gone half my weapons are gone etc.

[Ad Hoc]

Suggestions for repairs:

Pod Items
Damaged cost to repair would be  same as if being swapped for another item. ex for omni mech to repair a er lg. laser would 4 WCP.

For repairing armor,
Option 1:  Cost is 3 WCP  1/2 ton  or 5 WCP for 1 ton.  If you only need 5 points of armor you still by 1/2 ton, but any unused points are not stocked piled and can not be used for another mech.

Option 2:  Same as Option 1 but unused points can be used another mech in your force. 


Ex. At the end of mission I have 5 mechs with armor damage.  I add up all the points of missing armor.  Mech 1 8   points, mech 2 50 points, mech 3 25 points , mech 4 6 points, mech 5 60 points = 149 points

Option 1
Mech 1 1/2 ton armor 3 WCP
Mech 2  3 ton armor 15 WCP  2 armor points not repaired
Mech 3  1 1/2 ton armor 8 WCP 1 armor points not repaired
Mech 4  1/2 ton armor 3 WCP  2 points not used
Mech 5  3 1/2 ton armor 18 WCP 4 points not repaired
Total WCP = 47

Option 2
149 points / 16 per ton= 9.31 tons.  I purchase 9 tons armor and distribute those points among damaged mechs as I wish. Leaving 5 armor points not repaired.
Total WCP = 45

 Or purchase another 1/2 ton and repair all armor.
Total WCP = 48

Internal Structure Repair
8 points = 5 WCP
Actuator Repair = 5 WCP
Any Limb or Torso destroyed, engine or gyro hits requires full mech repair.
Head capped mechs:  mech tonnage / 4 = WCP to replace head.

Player can choose to do full repair as listed in current rules if cost of individual repairs are greater than full repair cost. 

*************
In regards to shooting up a force just to make a player spend more WCP.  I feel that an OPFOR player should play the force they are given to its fullest potential to obtain their objective(s) and/or prevent the Clanner from obtaining theirs.  The job of OPFOR is not to eliminate a players WCP reserve.  I feel that the campaign is designed for everyone to have fun, not to try and utterly destroy a players resources. 

[phlop]

As an OPFOR player, you are supposed to play to win. If that means hitting mechs and all you do is armor damage, so be it. All damage costs WP to repair. Those are the hazards of winning the bid.

[agustaaquila]

I am in favor of a break at TW crippled definition.  This achieves an objective of being simple to check and verify, while also accomplishing the hidden campaign objective of getting more people used to straight TW play. 

[Darrian Wolffe]

OK, these are all good comments.  I'm going to try something that ends up hopefully satisfying everybody (yeah, I know).  We'll try it for logistics after the game on May 14th (which is the last Dark Caste mission) and get people's opinion's then, and then given that feedback we'll finalize something for the remainder of the campaign.

Mech, ASF, and Vehicle Repair Errata v1
Condition 1: 30 points or less of JUST armor damage - 5 WCP to repair
Condition 2: 31+ armor, or ANY form of internal damage (structure, equipment, etc), but not "crippled" as per TW - 1/2 tonnage in WCP to repair (round up)
Condition 3: Crippled as per TW definition, but not destroyed** - tonnage in WCP to repair
Condition 4: Destroyed (any result that qualifies as a mission kill**, including CT IS destruction and triple engine hits) -  25+tonnage in WCP, or you may replace the unit using normal replacement rules (50+new unit tonnage in WCP)

Let me sum up what this does, because there is some give and take here. 

Give: Repairing minor damage becomes MUCH easier, without having to do a great deal of bubble-counting (if we want to count bubbles, we could run a full AccounTech merc campaign after this one ends...).  This should also somewhat de-incentivise spreading around damage *just* to screw players (I've witnessed a fair number of secondary-target ML shots against pristine Mechs just to cost WCP).  30 damage generally requires more than just a desultory amount of fire during the last turn of the game.  This should also INCENTIVISE Clan players to weigh Forced (or Voluntary) Withdrawal very heavily, because it will preserve a good lot of WCP to keep a unit from being totally destroyed, which now is much easier.  Do recall that the Clans are all about minimizing waste...

Take: Classifying a unit as "destroyed" is now WAY easier to do; whereas before it was immensely rare (technically, the only way to *completely* destroy a Mech is to kill all of the CT IS, but between CASE and lack of OPFOR HE damage, it becomes nearly a pointless classification; almost all units die to stuff like engine hits).  This should be VERY easy for everyone to remember what "kills" a unit; if damage removes the Mech from the initiative order, it's counted as "destroyed". It is technically possible to have a headshot on an otherwise pristine Mech which qualifies the unit as "totally destroyed", but weighing the rarity of that event against how common it'll be to save a ton of WCP from the minor damage levels, I feel confident that this will more than balance out in player's favor in the long term.  There is a single exception to Condition 4.

**EXCEPTION: If the crew EJECTS from or ABANDONS the unit, dies from accumulated crew hits, or withdrawals from the game board, it is removed from the initiative order but does not enter Condition 4.  The actual damage to the unit determines the Condition Level.


Finally, I want to address this:

As an OPFOR player, you are supposed to play to win. If that means hitting mechs and all you do is armor damage, so be it. All damage costs WP to repair. Those are the hazards of winning the bid.

As an OPFOR player, you ARE in fact supposed to play to win.  You should be playing as best as you can to win the SCENARIO and achieve your stated objectives.  I want the OPFOR to be trying their very best to achieve their in-scenario objectives, or to deny the PCs their in-scenario objectives, during every single game.  However, almost never will that include firing a single IS ML at an undamaged Assault Mech as a secondary target while actually *saying*, "I'm just shooting this to force you to spend WCP."  Playing to win the metagame is not one of the OPFOR goals at this time.  Attacking with the sole goal to hurt a PC in their WCP is playing the metagame, not the board game.

There is no way I can be inside the OPFOR's actual heads.  I cannot know whether you're firing that single weapon at Unit A because everything else on the board is focus-firing Unit B and that's all you have that can reach them, you're planning to hammer Unit A next turn, and you just ran out of time/turns.  I also cannot know whether you're firing that single weapon at Unit A because you have no actual hope of hurting the unit and are instead just trying to cost the player WCP (which is an out-of-game concept that the OPFOR should have no knowledge of).  I have to trust that each of you are leaning more towards the first example, rather than the second.  If you're legitimately shooting up several Mechs and all you do is armor damage, that's the game.  If your INTENT is to screw the PC out of WCP, then you're in the wrong. 

[phlop]

Let me clarify, I meant that I as the OPFOR will always play to win the scenario. I would expect the other players to do the same.
The causing a player to spend WC on damage is part of the game. If a player has been run out of WCP's, he can't bid on the next scenario. This increases my odds of winning the next bid and possibly getting more WCP's. Just my take on playing OPFOR.

[Timberwolfd]

The issue was that the rules made those ML hits do ridiculously outsized wcp damage. Bringing repair costs more in line with actual damage avoids situations where the clan player faced full tonnage wcp costs to repair a ML hit. Now opfor and clan player are now on more even playing fields for damage dealing and recovery. It also brings costs more in line with AccountTech where a point of armor is 5 minutes to repair and trivially cheap.