Improved Called Shot...am I missing something?

[Robotech_Master]

I've got Sabercat, trained him up to 10 Tactics. Per this wiki page[battletech.gamepedia.com], he's supposed to have "Improved Called Shot" which makes him twice as likely to make called shots, but he seems to have exactly the same percentage chance as anyone else.

Am I missing something here? (So to speak.)

[wesnef]

"Improved Called Shot" there, likely is just referring to the standard called shot improvement at Tactics 6. Not any special ability beyond what any pilot can have.

(i.e - the Unique pilots don't actually have bonus abilities that no-one else has. That wiki just makes it look like it's something special.)


The only non-mod Double Called Shot bonus I'm aware of is the one that the Marauder has.

[Kaerius]

There's improved called shot at tactics 6, and called shot mastery at tactics 9.
What they do is increase your chance of hitting the part you called. Check what that pilot's chance of hitting a headshot is. Without either, it's about 2%. With both it's about 18%, with both and Marauder chassi it's about 33-35%.

Marauder with a pilot that has called shot mastery can precision shot head and kill mechs without destroying other parts(letting you salvage the full mech). There's a guide in the guides section.

[Urban Legend]

OR, throw a couple of those maxed out AC-20's on an Atlas and use precision shots to the head. Generally only one of them has to land. Lower percentages, but I get a pretty decent number of headshot kills and full salvages :) And if they miss the head but hit somewhere else...well, hey, it's still 120 damage FTW.

[Kaerius]

Originally posted by Urban Legend:

OR, throw a couple of those maxed out AC-20's on an Atlas and use precision shots to the head. Generally only one of them has to land. Lower percentages, but I get a pretty decent number of headshot kills and full salvages :) And if they miss the head but hit somewhere else...well, hey, it's still 120 damage FTW.

Don't need to use AC-20 for one-shot-kill headshots. Gauss rifles, ER PPCs, and AC-10++(Kali Yama) will also do it. (And you can fit 3 AC-10++ in the side torso of a few mechs...)

[Robotech_Master]

Well, at least it's nice to know I wasn't missing anything.

I've discovered that as long as you're careful to keep a good rep with the pirates, the black market can be an amazing source of lostech. Seems like every other port has a Star League mech variant of some kind in triple-salvage sale. It's gotten to where I just go ahead and buy them, store them, and sell the chassis back, and now I've got gauss guns and double heat sinks coming out my ears. :)

My preferred lance is two -MAZ Bull Sharks with a gauss gun in each arm, a Star League Marauder with a Gauss Gun ++ and lightened arm weapons to make room, and a Star League Atlas II. Sometimes I'll sub in another such Marauder, or a Star League Highlander if I need jump, or a lostech-retrofitted Grasshopper for more jump, or a Star League Phoenix Hawk if I need a lot of jump.

[Gustuv Wynd]

Before I get called shot mastery I will always target the side torsos...seems like I get more head shots that way. Really I shouldn't say "seems" since I have actually documented where I hit when I call a shot and side torso scored the best. I think it makes you miss the called shot, but the base hit still succeeds. So it has to hit, but can't hit where you are aiming.

[Doombringer]

It rolls to hit first, then if it hits the target area weight is multiplied by 2 (then again by 2.4 if tactics 6+, then again by 3.75 if tactics 9+) (Marauder multiplies this by another 2.4)
From the front base head to hit chance is 1/81.
So with 9+ tactics it becomes 1x2x2.4x3.75 = 18/98 headshot chance (43.2/123.2 with Marauder)

Multi-shot weapons have their headshot *multiplier* divided by 2 for each shot after the 1st (so half as likely with 2nd shot, 1/4th with 3rd shot, 1/8th with 4th...)

EDIT: post below is correct, I have fixed it.

[danko9696]

Originally posted by Doombringer:

Multi-shot weapons have their headshot chance divided by 2 for each shot after the 1st (so half as likely with 2nd shot, 1/4th with 3rd shot, 1/8th with 4th...)

What's divided by two is not the chance itself but the bonus multiplier. That doesn't make a huge difference aiming at the head but it does for other locations and guarantees chance never gets bellow a regular shot.

[Rooknewb]

Theory crafting, and bean counting is fine and all, but its Battletech, not SpreadSheetTech.

Here is what I did (Before they added the very sexy Star League era Marauder). I got a Marauder (I really ran 2). I got gunnery and tactics to 10 (on 2 pilots). My dream set up (which I only had 1 of, the other Marauder was as close as I could get) was 2 ERLL++ 2ERML++ 2ERSL++ and 1 UAC5++ (I ran 2 UAC2++ for a while but they stopped working for this toward the end of the campaign, so switched to 1 UAC5++).

Best practice I found before using precision shot head with the Marauder was 1) Target lock target. 2)Drain all its evasion 3) Position Marauder in front AND above target 4)Aim at head with 50+ Resolve. There is room for slop, and other factors, if you can knock the target down it helps, you can do it from the side but it has a lower success rate.

I'd say I had around a 75%+ record of 1 shotting every single mech I encountered (except bosses) doing this. It was just disgusting.

The Star League era Marauder has double heat sinks in the engine so base -60 heat not -30 like the other 2 variants so I would assume is superior, but forces you to use an UAC5++ instead of the 2 UAC2++'s I originally used. IIRC one of the Marauders has 0 ballistic torso slots, and the support slot is head not arm. Those arm slots are key for the +aim they give for arm mounted weapons.

Sure, crunching numbers is great and all, IIRC (and its been 20-30 years) the Small Laser and ER Small Laser on paper were the most efficient weapons in Table Top Battletech(Using damage, heat, weight, and weight of heat sinks). But, in practice, they pretty much sucked due to the 3 hex range which meant Medium Lasers and ER Medium Lasers pretty much ruled. Until I saw a Marauder in the PC game, I just piled on ML, and would take missile slots for LRM5's to drain evasion and just melted everything with unfocused beams of coherent light, until I got a Marauder and they became focused beams of coherent light. It was seriously disgusting. I almost felt bad about doing it, but watching assaults go down with 1 alpha from a Marauder made me feel much better about it.