OR Reverse Trikes & OR Subs HC Questions ?

[swordtart]

Sadly being in front of someone in a reversed trike means they can pick whether to hit your rear or either side armour without penalty (remember the -2 for out of arc fire applies only if they are out of your side arc of fire and they will be in both side arcs if they are in your rear arc).

1) That means you have to armour 3 sides equally heavily rather than bulking up on rear armour as is usual with a tail-end charlie.

2) A common tactic for tail end charlies is to put a massive damage sink in a rear cargo slot that has to be destroyed before any can pass through to the crew or plant. With a reversed trike any damage that penetrates the side will go to a random compartment. That probably means you have to component armour all of them to get the same level of protection. Unlike bikes CA for trikes takes up the usual space.

Generally it's usually harder to break off the engagement when you are in front. Unless you go OR they can go where you go. Even if you go OR they can still target your sides while you leave the road (and probably close the distance). You might be able to out accelerate them, but that will eat into your space budget.

There is a reason that real world fighters come up from the rear rather than fly in front with reverse pointing guns.

[swordtart]

Originally Posted by Racer

AND even a Medium Reverse Trike has 5 Spaces to use for Weapons/Equipment - unless Gas Powered , a Compact only has 4 Spaces .

But the compact has a much higher mass budget even with an unmodified chassis (even taking into account the heavier plant and the extra tire weight).

The extra space doesn't help with the primary benefit of a trike which is linking side and rear weapons. 3 is 3 linked 1 spacers on sides and rear (or one 3 spacer somewhere), 4 is two linked on 2 facings.

Dropped weapons gain no advantage with trike (of whatever orientation).

If you loose one tire you are toast. There is a 1 in 12 chance that the solo rear tire gets hit by any strike on the rear armour. The only way to hit the compacts tire is by aiming at it at -3.

[swordtart]

Maybe we should post some designs ;)

[Racer]

Okay how about this one - used Combat Garage , but unfortunately can't cut-and-paste on my phone .

Test OR Trike : Reversed Medium Trike , Extra Heavy Chassis , Off Road Suspension , Large Cycle PP w/PCs , High Torque Motors , 10-pts CA (Power Plant) , 3 OR PR Tires , Driver w/SWC & Body Armour & PFE & 10-pts CA , HMG Left w/10pts CA , Hot Smokescreen Back , Heavy-Duty Shocks , Overdrive , Link HMG-SS , Link HMG-HTMs , Plastic Armour : F30 , L40 , R40 , B40 , T10 , U10 , 2 Fake WGs Front , 2 5-pt Wheelhubs Front , 5-pt CWG Back , Acceleration 5 (+5mph w/HTMs) , Top Speed 90mph +20mph w/Overdrive - Top Speed 67.5mph w/HTMs , HC 3 - (4 Off Road) , 2,520lbs , $12,914 .

Made this one a bit of a Brick - it has heavier Armour & a Heavier weapon than my similarly priced OR Compact 'Bouncing Cat' on Combat Garage . Swap a few points of Armour for a Brushcutter as needed .

[43Supporter]

Originally Posted by Racer

Another advantage is that almost all Trikes are under 4,000lbs & that makes them easily Air Droppable with a Single Vehicular Parachute . Extremely handy for Military type scenarios .

You ever see _Deadpool 2_? Yeah -- that's about the most-accurate depiction of a para-drop ever shown in an action movie... particularly the bit about how no one ever lands where they're supposed, and most of them are, to put it politely, "combat-ineffective" when they do land. :)

Originally Posted by Racer

AND even a Medium Reverse Trike has 5 Spaces to use for Weapons/Equipment - unless Gas Powered , a Compact only has 4 Spaces .

The test design you posted is interesting; but it does show where all those extra spaces tend to end up going: CA to make up for the generally-weak Body armor on trikes.

For a particularly nasty "backfire" design: Take a _Blastmaster_ trike, drop the FE, and make it a Reverse Trike -- four RLs is nothing to sneeze at. (If one is into tire-shredders, take the basic _Sprite_ design, drop the turret, and add a a couple more Flechette Guns....)

[Racer]

During our Military Campaigns , most of our 'dropped' vehicles are set down by Helicopter or VTOL Airplanes . Vehicular Parachutes are only used if there's not any other options - but it's still there if needed . We've used & improved on various items from the NOVA pages & elsewhere - low level extraction pallets for Cars & Trikes dropped out of the back of Cargo Airplanes & so forth .
We've added rules for Engineering skill ( to pack vehicles , set parachutes & cargo restraints etc ) & Pilot skill ( to keep aircraft steady , get cargo dropped in right place etc) all add to rolls of making sure vehicles are landed upright & on target .

[swordtart]

Originally Posted by Racer

Okay how about this one

Hmm that's a lot of effort and money to just put a single HMG on your target.

I'll have a look tonight to see how an equivalent compact bears up.

[swordtart]

Originally Posted by Racer

Link HMG-SS , Link HMG-HTMs

I am not quite sure why you would link this way? I can understand linking the HTM to something to save a firing action, but as you need to deactivate the HTM for the overdrive to work, surely you would need a link for that as well (i.e. HTM linked to Overdrive (switching one on and the other off) and that link linked to HMG).

Also if you are attacking astern, why would you drop smoke into your own LOS? Recall that we were discussing an offensive engagement to the rear, not a defensive one.

As both HMG and SS go simultaneously does the SS affect your own to hit modifier?

It couldn't if you were firing out of the side arc as the SS counter placement is outside that arc, but if firing into the rear arc you would be firing through the counter. I am assuming here that we can't use the default LOS rules ( measured from the centre of the side of the counter the weapon is fired from) as otherwise the body of the trike would block LOS to the majority of the rear arc (which isn't how it is supposed to work). I am therefore assuming that for trikes LOS and range are measure from the side of the arc you are firing into (so centre of rear of counter for side weapons firing into the rear arc).

With a projectile based weapon (i.e. HMG in this case) you could argue that by the time it deploys the projectile is already on it's aimed path and the to hit would be unaffected. If you were using a laser however it would deploy at the same time as the laser fired and therefore would still block the beam. If we rule otherwise (e.g that the laser beam is out of the counters path before it deploys) we are arguing that weapons fire is not simultaneous (with significant implications to other rules).

As an aside, do we believe we can set a SS to automatic fire from a link to another weapon, or is only a single shot? Otherwise we would need weapon timer to achieve a continuous stream. I have always assumed that single shot and continuous are separate firing controls and thus you would need a link for each mode.

[swordtart]

Originally Posted by 43Supporter

... Flechette Guns....)

Never saw the point in them.

Compared to a bog standard MG it is quite cheap (both the weapon and the ammo). The weapon itself is also 50 lb lighter (though the ammo weighs the same). You are also 6 to hit.

But you are going to need it as you can ONLY target tires and pedestrians both at -3. You cannot damage anything else (including even a fake wheel guard in many interpretations). Against pedestrians grenades win every time as you only need to get within 2" to cause almost as much damage (I would use a drive-by flechette discharger and not even need a to-hit roll).

They don't remove wheels either in my opinion. The wording in Classic is "enemy gunfire, mines and grenades" but the weapon options in the rules since have so far outstripped them that this wording is obsolete. To remove wheels rather than just tires you need to be able to do damage to vehicular components (so even though a flame cloud is not gunfire, as it can damage armour, it can remove wheels).

You are almost always better off with conventional weaponry, which can be used against the rest of the vehicle (if only to cause HS hazards). If you hit a wheel guard with an MG at least you can degrade it rather than have it shrug off your spray of pointy plastic nonsense time after time.

End-EX

[juris]

FGs are about the worst weapon in the game - the ultimate anti ped weapon is the MML with explosive ammo. Just fire at the ground within 2" and multiple peds die. Two linked MMLs do 2DD burst effect.

Also, should trikes need smart links for R&L weapons? I say no trikes need all the help they can get. This is their main advantage, don't penalize it. The smart link was clearly designed to allow turreted weapons to link to other vehicular weapons. It was something they added to the rules after trikes were introduced, and trikes have always been allowed to fire side weapons together.

Yeah, I don't know how linking a MG to a SS would work if you wanted to fire the SS on automatic. I assumed this wasn't possible but I can't point to any rule that says you can't.