"Battletech to Hero" Topic

Anyone have pointers to build the 12 meter battlemechs into Hero System terms?

I have an idea for a game using the Hero system to run big battle games with simplified combat and damage rules, and I'd like to use my BT minis for this game.

I'm planning to run a game with "realistic" ranges and add Heroics and Ros stuff to expand the the battlefield. I have an idea what the end result will look like, with infantry zipping around in LAVs and Strykers, trying to demo charge the mechs or bunkers or whatever I put in the game.

They have tanks in Hero, that are "6,4 tons" or so, and have Body and Defense stats for armor and hull specifications.

A proper Abrams tank weighs about 65-70 tons from what I read, so getting these stats into line with Battletech mechs would be cool.

Gun ranges will be in the 60-90 inch range with 50 yards to an inch. Getting mech stats inline with these ranges is mostly guesswork…Let's say LRM launchers give you 1.5x the range of an Abrams tank cannon. LRMs can be used for indirect fire also with a spotter unit, so they become more viable weapons like this.

Autocannons could have about the same ranges as tank cannons. Derive the rest of the weapon ranges from the ranges of the Battletech games itself, given these comparisons.

Mental fatigue setting in, so I'll just leave these ideas here.

Do you have Robot Warriors, the Hero System giant robot book? link

There was a actual hero System book put out to do Giant Robots. It was called Robot Warriors and was in print long enough to get to at least 3rd edition.

A PDF version is available from Drive Through RPG, 8 bucks.

That would be a good place to start.

EMCKinney!! Curse you! You beat me by 1 minute.

bpmasher has some good ideas. However, if you use BT speeds and realistic ranges, you get parking garages armed with cruise missiles.

I'd suggest higher speeds for the mechs and allowing crouching to take cover behind terrain.

If you want weapons realism, make lasers essentially auto-hit weapons if the first is stationary. Reduce cannon and autocannon damage with range to account for drag sliwlimg the shells. You'll have to decide if you want atmospheric dispersion to affect laser damage over range.

Aye, BTech weapons are game artifacts and not realistic by any stretch of the imagination. Real world weapons would rip those mechs apart before they even got close enough to engage. For example, the M-1's effective combat range is 2km and it is wicked accurate. So, in game terms it would be doing called shots at 66 hexes with a high probability.

"Huh, two or three head shots and those walkers just kind of fall over." :-)

Oh, the lowest price I have seen is $4.95 USD here:
link

One solution for the gun "problem" would be to make the mech weapons canon (there are plenty in the Battletech books) for the setting, so the tanks and the mechs would wield the same weapons. Gauss cannon for an "Abraham" tank for example. Rename and refresh the units! :)

I thought about the issue of heat build-up, and it would be simplest to take the 0-30 scale of heat tracking and bolt it on to the game. Just come up with the effects and bolt on the Battletech mechanics on there, with tweaks of course.

I'll check out Robot Warriors, but now I have the core 5th revised book, and it has fairly simplistic vehicle construction rules. Hit locations would be copied off the humanoid characters, and I'd use the mech record sheets to track what the mechs have in what location. Lots of bookkeeping etc. but could be worth it.

Hero has a "power framework" that could work for multiple weapons of the same type doing different things.

Oh man I checked out the vehicle rules again and the vehicle rules only have "length" and "width" stats to them. No height. Wonky stuff with the vehicle rules, seem like an afterthought to allow guys to build custom vans and sports cars for their characters…

Robot Warriors might be my next stop.

On the upside, the armor vs. internal structure would work since Hero has DEF (armor) and Body (hit points) stats for vehicles.

The closest thing to an assault mech would be to give it size 9 on the table (call it height 8, and width 4 = 16 meters tall and 8 meters wide), and plate it with armor to add tonnage. Unfortunately, Hero System doesn't really give weight for armor or weaponry the mech might have. This is a puzzle to figure out a solution for.

Call it so each point of Resistant Defense (say 30 on the front and 20 in the sides and back), and have those armor points weigh a ton each. Now we have a Size 9, 16 meter tall assault mech with 50 tons of armor on it (sounds weird yes…maybe add all the weapons to this weight, so that each point of armor weighs half a ton). Let's say it can carry all the weapons on it with 55 Strength score. It also has 19 points in internal structure (Body). Let's call this the Atlas.

Now on to tinker with the weapons in this hack…

Back at this project. I decided to include hit locations and critical hits into my version of the game. The base Hits (ex. Body/4= Hits a unit has) value becomes the "chassis" of the battlemech or vehicle that every other value is calculated by. So take the base Body of a vehicle, divvy it up by 4 and you have (on average) 3 Hits for a mech or vehicle.

Dividing the mech into hit locations, you assign the torso (2xHits), limbs (1xHits), head (-1 Hit), rear (1xHits). You do the same for armor (dividing DEF by 4) and multiply per hit location.

Adding morale rules to see whether a pilot/unit can act in a given phase (friction). Successful activation (morale) roll = unit can take action that phase.

Also a lance/star commander can rally "pinned" mecha to get them into the action again.

To-hit rolls and damage rolls are separate, so you can hit a mech at any distance allowed by the weapon, but damage will be variable according to the distance traveled and the POTENTIAL damage (10d6 for autocannon/20) can cause anywhere from 1 to 10 hits.

I worked out an example mech using my damage/armor calculations.

Battlemaster BLR-1G

Body: 15 (Hero) -> 4 Hits

Hits multiplied for hit locations as follows:
Head (-1 Hit) – 4 Hits
Center Torso – 8 Hits
Left/Right Torso – 6 Hits
Legs/Arms – 5 Hits

Armor values as follows (1.5x multiplier):
Head – 6
Center Torso – 12
Left/Right Torso – 9
Legs/Arms – 8

I also ruled that each 6 scored on a damage die reduces location armor by 1.

You can also use the Hero System to create different types of ammo for ballistic weapons, for example the armor piercing advantage in Hero can halve a locations armor value before causing hits to that location.

Mechs can take punishment, but given the armor degradation plus possible special ammo use we get to acceptable results. Take into account that the Battlemaster is an assault mech in Battletech canon.

edit: Rear armor values:
Center Torso – 4
Left/Right Torso – 3