Otto is the name I use for all of my sci-fi heroes and most of my fantasy heroes in video games. He's clearly the 25th century descendent of the legendary Walter Gunhaver, commander of The Cheat Commandos.
I just need to see if I can edit in a proper image of Gunhaver.
Overall, I like the game. It's a bit of a learning curve on the mechs and scrap, but since I know Inner Sphere era Battletech pretty well it's mostly an interface issue. I still can't ID most mech gear by name yet, though. The gameplay is good, though, and it's pretty forgiving on the command interface. I can't quite gauge where to put my mechs to properly take advantage of their weapons, such as the long-ranged PPC and LRMs. And it's still amusing to me that the AC/2 outranges the AC/5, which outranges the AC/10, and finally there is a short-ranged AC/20. The bigger the gun, the shorter the range. It's like having 17th century cannons instead of high-tech weapons.
Yeah, the Autocannon, a sacred cow weapon created by someone who sacrificed realism for game balance*.
ReplyDelete* Or maybe he just didn't understand how bullets work? I'm willing to lean into "chose game balance over realism" to give him the benefit of the doubt, but back in the day a lot of game weapons were designed by guys who had no clue.
It's probably game balance. The original system only had the autocannon (an AC/5 in later systems), and so you only had non-projectile weapons to compare it to. Making lighter ones that shoot further was clearly there to balance out your choices, so the AC/20 isn't the best thing in the game. Battletech was always about tradeoffs and choices.
DeleteSteve Jackson Games' magazine Pyramid had a comic called Murphy's Rules, where they pointed out illogical rules like this. I remember they did one on the Autocannon, including a cartoon Hunchback.
ReplyDelete