Has anyone tried the following out in CBT?...

Pulse lasers treated as per the rules for targeting but if they hit, roll on the missile hit table in the appropriate column.

Inner Sphere weapons use the LRM-5 column and multiply by...
1 for Small Pulse Laser
2 for Medium Pulse Laser
3 for Large Pulse Laser

Clan Weapons use the SRM-6 column and multiply
1 for Small Pulse Laser
2 for Medium Pulse Laser
3 for Large Pulse Laser

This represents damage done.

Group the damage into 5-point groups as for LRMs and ATMs and then roll to see where the damage starts. 5 points is dealt to this location. The defending player may then assign the next point group (if applicable) by choice. It must be to the same or an adjacent location. The attacking player chooses the next location which must again be either the same location chosen by the defender or the adjacent location. Alternate until all damage is assigned.

Essentially this represents the fact that Pulse lasers represent a stream of individual pulses. These tend to create variable damage which may be more or less than a normal laser. When hit by a pulse laser, a defender can attempt to turn away from the shot to expose a less-damaged area but similarly an attacker can "track back".

Is it workable?

Nope, though I have seen people suggest trying to use a Pulse laser like you would a LBx cluster shot- to represent the pulse lasers going all over the enemy 'mech, and receiving a similiar bonus.

It is odd that the Pulse lasers receive a significant bonus to hit, and yet work much like autocannons and machine. (Hand held Pulse Laser rifles and handguns act as energy machine guns in the Roleplaying game in fact)



Sorry Kotch. It's a neat idea- and something I haven't seen before but it looks really broken.

Take the Clan Large Pulse laser. If you roll on the SRM6 table, there is only a 28.78% chance of dealing 9 damage or less. Which is about roughly what the current rules deal (10 damage).

That leaves a 72.2% chance of dealing more than 12+ damage.

There is an 8.3% chance you'll be dealing a whopping 18 damage, or 80% more damage than normal.

The damage aside, I'm not quite sure how to feel about the way you have the locations that are hit determined. While it comes off fair, initially, I can see it being exploited- damage to a 'mech could produce problems. It's hit in the arm, defending player has to pick the side torso, and the last player can then choose the leg or CT. While initially small (about 5 damage with the Clan large Pulse) that can be deadly to a lighty.

Or worse yet, if the 'mech is missing a side torso, the damage may have to go to the head.


How about instead you roll on the appropriate missle column:

ATM3 -Small pulse; Micro Pulse
LRM5 -Clan Small Pulse
SRM6 -Medium Pulse
SRM6 -Clan Medium Pulse (add +1 number of missles that hit)
ATM9 -Large Pulse
LRM10 -Clan Large Pulse

Each 'missle' that hits deals 1 damage. Group the damage into 5-point damage groups, as you do with LRMs and ATMs.

Then determine the location normally for the first 5 damage. If a second cluster is necessary then it is dealt to the next location along the 'damage transfer diagram'

In the case of head hits, you transfer to the CT, and CT shots have their damage applied normally.

Ex: A Clan Large Pulse laser hits for eight damage, and you roll right leg. Five damage is dealt to the right leg, and then you act as if the leg is 'destroyed'. The next location along the diagram is the right torso, so the left over 3 damage is dealt to the right torso.

Ex2: An I.S Medium pulse hits for the full 6 damage, to the head. Five damage is applied to the head, and the left over 1 damage goes to the CT

Ex3: An I.S Medium Large laser hits for 7 damage, and hits the CT. All 7 damage is applied directly to the CT.

Nah. I can't see the laser scattering that much. Id' prefer sticking with the targeting bonus. The idea is/was that the laser would stay on the target spot longer and pulse adding more damage, where as a standard laser fire a quick beam. When you talk about the scatter issue,it starts to sound like someone using the laser anti-missle system as a primary weapon. now that could be a nifty lvl 3 idea. :)

I'm saying keep the targeting bonus but make the damage variable.

It always narked me that you got a bonus to hit because a lot of shots were being fired so you could "track" your fire like a tracer - and yet the damage was fixed and all to one location.

I like Phad_Vickers' suggestion but I was trying to get it so that the average damage was the amount the weapon usually dealt. In the case of the Inner Sphere, using the LRM-5, LRM-10 and LRM-15 columns works fine. For Clan the LRM-5 works for the Small Pulse Laser. But we need an average of 7 and 10 for the Medium and Large.

Maybe just use the LRM-10/LRM-15 columns and add 1 to the number of "hits" for Clan Medium and Large?

And maybe if the risk of rolling too high is an issue then we just roll one die and add 3? Would that be better? In fact, thinking about it I'm wondering if I shouldn't break a Cardinal Rule and use a D8 + 1 for Inner Sphere and D10 + 1 for Clan or something ... :)

Bear in mind lately I use the Solaris duelling rules so complexity isn't an issue but "realism" is!! Pulse lasers were made much weaker (relatively) in the duelling rules (and so were targeting computers but that's a whole other story).

How 'bout streamlining it so the targeting bonus(which is a negative modifier) is also added to the damage roll? ;)

So what'm saying is :: you get -2 to hit , and -2 to the damage chart roll . The highest you can roll is a 10 , lowest is a 2(or if you wanna be mean , then 0) . I'll leave you to use the damage chart you prefer.

The other alternative is of course drawing up your own chart :)

BUT ... hafta say it IS a nice idea!

Hmm. New table. Now that's an idea. :)

If your intent is to attach realism, the targeting bonus is most accurate. "Pulsed" high energy lasers versus "continuous wave" high energy lasers are more accurate because they reduce the effect of thermal blooming. That is the scattering of the coherent beam due to the air through and around the beam expanding, and therefor changing its index or refraction (effectively pushing the beam around randomly).

Even the model of the machine gun works best with a bonus to hit, when considered against "hard" targets. With multiple shots, your chance to hit increases, but your chance of a damaging or penetrating shot does not. This is different in a "soft" target, where every hit would be a penetrating hit.

Perhaps you should apply the rule to exposed sections, only.

-Andy_in_Indy

Actually if you fire a burst of ten rounds from a machine gun and compare it to a single shot not only is the chance of hitting increased but you will probably hit with more than just one slug. As such your damage is increased because even if each slug has the same chance of penetrating, the chance of penetration is replicated.

If "P" is the probability you penetrate then the chance no slugs penetrate is (1-P) to the power of the number of hits.

So let's suppose you have a one in twenty chance of penetration and hit with seven slugs. You have a three in ten chance that at least one slug penetrated.

So statistics mean you are more likely to hit with at least one. However some will miss. And some will be ineffectual. Hence Pulse (and any other rapid fire weapon's) shots only make sense if you boost the to hit chance AND randomise the damage.