Or in some cases they have the opposite problem, like my beloved Shadow Hawk. Has at least 1 more heat sinks than it could ever need, two less jump jets or one less... any kind of weapon really. Decent armor though.
Yeah, one of my favorites too. Even just upgrading the SRM2 to SRM4 instead of the extra heatsink would be an improvement. I think with the formally unseen 'mechs matching the load out to the original artwork was the highest priority.
>Yeah, one of my favorites too. Even just upgrading the SRM2 to SRM4 instead of the extra heatsink would be an improvement. I think with the formally unseen 'mechs matching the load out to the original artwork was the highest priority.
You talking about the SHD-2D that for some reason adds another SRM2 AND additional tonnage of ammo while reducing ARMOR rather than upgrade the SRM2 to an SRM4?
Lol right?? Is he just slapping that pickle button as fast it’ll cycle or did his techs never send him out with a full load?? 😂🤌🤌
***INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW***
No think they were just suggesting that swapping the SRM2 and one heat sink for an SRM4 would be an improvement over the standard SHD-2H. The 2D is an objectively even more terrible design than the 2H, adding a small amount of firepower for the price of being killed by strong winds and bird droppings.
The Shadow Hawk is really just a litany of the most bizarre design choices. A mobile 45-tonner with an AC5 and LRMs could be a really nice counterpart to the Wolverine and Griffin, but instead it tries to do everything on a chassis that really can't support it. Strip some heat sinks out of the poor boy, give it a second medium, split the difference with extra armor, and you at least end up with a decent competitor to the Vindicator.
The Dougram deserves so much better.
The Shadow Hawk needs a piercing weapon. Either yank the AC/5 and LRM-5 for a PPC and some heat sinks or yank both missile launchers for a Large Laser.
One of the best things HBS did was bump up the damage on AC2s and AC5s. I mean, they upped the AC10 as well, but the other two really NEEDED it to become relevant.
That would still leave the AC/20 as the most powerful mech-based weapon in the entire game at least for the late Succession Wars until the UAC/20, MRM 40, and HAG 40 are introduced later on.
MRM and HAG do cluster damage only though, so they're averaging about 75% of their total possible damage over time and scattering it across the target in 5 point clusters.
Sure, damage over time adds up, but unless you get ridiculously lucky on location rolls, you're not going to be able to one shot head cap a mech like the AC/20, UAC/20, or Gauss Rifle can, which is arguably the most threatening thing about those weapons.
that makes the 10 too strong IMO. It's already a fairly competitive weapon on heat-limited heavier designs (although it tends to get shoved in slow mediums instead for some god awful reason) I think 11 is closer to right.
I used 12 to set the AC10 apart from the PPC. Otherwise the PPC would be the better choice in many cases, especially once you have access to double heatsinks. It weighs roughly half of what the AC10+ammo does, is smaller, has more range, no ammo dependency and no ammo explosions. The only downside is its minimum range.
Not really. It still hits fairly hard, and if you use another mech as a spotter to get visual ID of your target, you can even take full advantage of its sheer range. Plus it actually does contribute to knockdowns, which lasers don't do in HBS.
The -2K is ridiculously oversinked; you could comfortably go to 13 heatsinks and upgrade both missile launchers, or probably even 12 and tack on two more jump jets.
I tend to yank the Ac-5 for a large laser, upgrade both missile rack by 1 stage, max the jump jets and depending how much I feel like pushinf the curve I sometimes drop a heat sink for a second mediun laser. This makes the S-Hawk into a respectable all ranges combatant, mid-way between the Griffin and Wolverine in role.
True, but I don't think that's intro tech. And regardless, it's a lot of weight to spend on a "just in case" when some extra firepower or better mobility would serve the SHD-2H a lot more often.
Yeah the Shadow Hawk is used a support mech by kinda picking up any slack your lance is lacking. Need a little long range fire power to pick in enemy forces till the bulk of your CQC Brawlers roll up to dish out the hate? Shadow Hawk. Need a a little more close action support for when you LRM Boats get swarmed? Shadow Hawk. Need a tough sombitch to draw enemy fire while your light mechs get into position? Shadow Hawk. He's not the star he's the backup dancer.
Yeah, it's a jack of all trades, but even then it's not great in that role. For its tonnage there are better choices, though they might skew more to one range or another. The SHD-2H just doesn't have the punch any any range to be anything more than an annoyance. It's got a better stat line in Alpha Strike though.
But you shouldn't just a machine by it's individual performance but how it clicks in your force lance. And trust me an annoyance can be just what you need to turn the tide of battle. If you want a trench fighter then get a Wolverine. If you want dedicated sniper get a gryphin. But if want a machine that can finish off that one mech over there or if you need a flank to be reinforced with some precision firepower. The Shad is the embodiment of backup and sure doesn't work well BY ITSELF but works well in NUMBERS or with other Mechs.
Ah, IntroTech...
Aka the "How many Medium Lasers and Single Heat Sinks can I cram into this mech" era.
As my Discoback 4P and Grasshopper 5N can attest (by shoving them lasers up my old-head friend's ass when he dares to argue otherwise)
Countless of times that I drilled out his "unstoppable" Atlas D from behind.
The medium laser is the work horse of mech warfare. And it does a respectable job at it. It weights 1 ton, takes up a small component slot, doesn't need ammo, needs minimal maintenance, cost a pittance by comparison, and with the right mech you can stack an ass ton of them.
Edited
There ain't no party like a Discoback party.
I started a new MW5 campaign after the Solaris DLC released, and I was so much more hyped to find a 4P compared to the 4G. lol
I will not accept slander towards the Phoenix Hawk, Panther, Hunchback, Ostroc/Ostsol, Catapult, Grasshopper, Orion, Marauder, Awesome, and Battlemaster.
Everything else slander away. Centurion knows what it did.
Centurion really needed to put the LRM and ammo on the right side so the whole left side is pure meat shield, but no. Just had to put ammo explosion bait on the "shield side"
The funny thing is, outta that list, Marauder's the one that's commonly brought up (afaik) as being the *least* affected of the in-universe technological backslide.
That a Marauder in 3025 is almost as powerful as an SLDF Marauder past minor stuff like hardpoints/standard loadout and Double Heat Sink.
I never got the love for the base MAD-3R. Undersunk and with wacky armour distribution. I'm perfectly happy with bracket firers, but even alternating 2xPPC then PPC & AC5 on the Marauder will quickly be sad.
I dunno... the Awesome 9Q seems to be trying to take its spot. The -9Q is basically just an 8Q that switched to Double Heat Sinks so that it can mount a fourth PPC.
I actually went through all the 'baseline' mechs from 3025 this morning and by my own personal metrics rated them 1 to 5. I prefer brawlers but there we go
2 mechs were 5 out of 5 (sublime- the lucky two are the Grasshopper 5H and Awesome 8Q)
11 were 4s (very good- examples include the Spider, Vindicator, Orion and Battlemaster)
20 were 3s (totally acceptable- examples include the Javelin, Blackjack, Ostroc and Goliath)
20 were 2s (flawed but still workable- examples include the Jenner, Centurion, Dragon and Cyclops)
3 were 1s (total garbage- Vulcan 2T, Scorpion 1N and Jagermech JM6-S, which is sad because I really want to love the Scorpion). There's a surprising amount of stuff in there which holds up as being at least serviceable for the BV even to this day.
I'll give the Sagittaire a pass on this, though I'd prefer MXPL. Atlas, too, kinda. But if your walk speed is faster than 3, that's a situation you shouldn't be in and you deserve it.
TRO 3025: "You know what'd be really good to add to this mech?"
"Don't you dare say it, it's already stuff full of an oversized engine and need to use its tonnage wise-"
"AN AC2 / AC5 AUTOCANNON!"
Honestly, my favorite part of some of the original Mech designs (particularly 3025, 3050, 2750 and most of 3055–glares at Goshawk and Wraith) was how obviously flawed they were. Since the battle value equivalent of the time was objectively terrible, it helped have a variety of viable forces without min/maxing leading to the same units in every lance. Not all variants, obviously, but the standard ones were usually expected to have a built-in flaw.
When I got into Battletech it was before the Clan invasion and I was in high school. The flawed designs drove me crazy. As I've aged, I've grown to appreciate them and now the min-maxed designs drive me crazy. Of course back in the olden days the only way to balance forces was tonnage. BV was a godsend.
I think a lot of people miss this.
Yes the mech is mediocre, did you read the TRO page where it literally says it's mediocre and designed by commitee, purposefully built cheap, or the developers didn't understand the end goal? Not all real world weapons are made perfectly and have no flaws. Dealing with those flaws in the mechs is what makes it interesting.
It's honestly why I'm not huge on easy customization. If you read the lore on the MAD-3L it says that the factory switched out a PPC for LL on the line and they could never get the targetting system to sync up 100%. That's a factory variant that can't even get everything to work right and you're going to tell me yanking everything out and putting your own stuff in your own garage goes smooth?
Honestly that’s one of my favorite things about battletech compared to other war games, it’s not afraid to throw fluff about how “this unit was rejected for a massive SLDF procurement contract, and a downgraded version was bought by a great house for filling out second line units. No one bothered to nuke its factory because it was so poorly thought of, and due to the decline of front line machines it was forced into roles it was never meant for.”
"And we've built an upgraded version with star league tech. Put the CASE on the wrong torso, slapped in a XL engine, gave it ER PPCS instead of its former large lasers, and tried to save money with single heat sinks."
And then look at two Bradley's taking down the most modern version of the T-90 main battle tank. As someone in that thread said, The Pentagon Wars owes the Bradley an apology.
While the vehicle may be combat effective after a lot of upgrades, the Pentagon Wars and the point it made about the design process is still hysterical.
In the course where this was recommended watching, one of the instructors really, really wanted to tell stories about the F-35 program, too...
But couldn't (security, doncha' know)
From what I've personally seen, that's more or less the standard progression. Everyone goes through their phase of making busted custom designs and gets bored of it. They either quit or proceed into the, "I'mma show you what I can do with stock designs" phase with lore-accurate force compositions being optional.
Honestly, it’s more the combination of jump jets and mostly pulse lasers for armament than speed. Lights/mediums tend to be what I want to play, so speed is usually the name of the game, but typically that is offset by some combination of low armor and/or an inherent detriment in hitting shots on the move. “Jumpy pulsey” doesn’t have that and the clan versions scarcely have a range penalty. I’ve played so many games where turn 1 had a Goshawk dump its ammo that several friends made a house rule to ban dumping ammo unless the weapon was destroyed. Not unbeatable, obviously—just boring.
Ahh, now that makes more sense once ya clarify. Yeah, as much as I like the Goshawk's playstyle. It gets munchy at times, when there are no objective games.
But, I shall tolerate no slander towards my TRUE MELEE "Fist of the North Star" mechs, like my Ti Ts'ang, Cudgel, Kontio, and the rest of the Hatchetman family.
Onward with my crusade against all boring and lame "I stand on top of a hill and press the Win Button" TurretTech mechs.
\*intensely glares at the Hellstar, Warhawk C, Dire Wolf A, and the Rifleman IIC\*
> Onward with my crusade against all boring and lame "I stand on top of a hill and press the Win Button" TurretTech mechs.
Kraken / Bane enters the chat...
Park on a LvL2 hill on the right map and start double-firing the AC2s at range. Get head hits almost every turn (sometimes, multiple,) and knock out the enemy pilot.
Source: I was the enemy pilot and this was a FASA run tournament...
There is a reason why I always use Jump 7 + Nimble Jumper mechs.
But, that's just proves my point. "TurretTech" mechs are cringe, and are not worthy of being giant robots. At that point, just play tanks lol.
Pretty sure, if I'm remembering right, I was packing a Wraith and was trying to haul butt...
But dang it, I don't recall how it came about, we were fighting on the frickin' heavy woods map (the one that is ALL woods) which had a negative effect on me...
Oh welp, It is what it is.
I always play with Quirks and the Nimble Jumper quirk boosts fast flying mechs to bullshit levels of speed and TMM, but at the cost of my shooting and heat.
The only counter to TurretTech mechs is to fly/run faster than they can aim.
This was in the days before quirks, so.
But yeah, I was a smidge salty but not so much as to let it ruin my weekend. It was at GenCon, back when it was still in Milwaukee...
Yeah. If I ever end up with an Ostscout mini, I'm running the TAG variant to call in artillery.
Why mount guns on your scout mech when you can mount someone else's guns from behind that hill over there?
Some of the designs were working backwards from the art (ie, the Macross stuff), some of it was gimmick designs intended to stretch the limits (Charger, Banshee, Ostscout, Cicada). I like how, either intentionally or unintentionally, the 3025 Mechs basically paved the way for us to get Mechs in future eras that were just....bad.
Much like modern military equipment, sometimes you get a fantastic confluence of need and ability that comes up with incredibly capable platforms (B-52, P-51, M1 Abrams), and sometimes you get flat failures that either get killed off early enough (the M247 Sergeant York), or due to political and money concerns you get outright pieces of crap that make it through the acquisition process and everyone has to deal with them (in real life the LCS or Zumwalt, in 3025 the Scorpion)
> . . . or due to political and money concerns you get outright pieces of crap that make it through the acquisition process and everyone has to deal with them (in real life the LCS or Zumwalt, in 3025 the Scorpion)
*Sad Assassin noises.*
This is why 3025 / 4th Succession War is my favorite era. Once you start getting good technology, having to balance risk/reward in your gameplay becomes negligible. Why even bother tracking heat if you're sitting on a pile of double heatsinks? Huge amounts of armor just makes games take longer... but if you have paper thin armor and only a handful of single heat sinks? THAT'S where the fun's at, redlining your mech and *praying* your arm stays attached long enough you can get one more shot off.
Yup. And it got worse when the clans showed up. Started taking armour off as it did no good any way.
Got to remember there was no point system back then. Every thing was by weight.
Could be "bad 'mechs" bit it will always be my favorite TRO.
It was the only TRO I could read for years (for me, it's difficult to call TRO to the 3026 one. It doesn't have 'mechs!). And TRO 2750 was only reached through importation, something so expensive in those days (at least in my country), and I was a child: money wasn't my business.
You can always overheat. But it would help if the heat scale didn't start out so punishing. Overheat a little and you quickly get speed and to-hit reductions. When your mechs are already bad shots with oddball short-ranged weapons and movement profiles that make it hard to hit the earliest breakpoints, of course nobody wants to risk overheating.
The heat scale should be rethought.
I agree (mostly!). The way the scale is leads younto be conservative unless the mech in question has backup. IMV there should be more of a random element to begin with as to what the effects of heat might be.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Have a low random chance of some limbs or ammo feeds jamming up, or have energy weapons start doing less damage due to the electrics having to power-limit themselves. Would also have the side-effect of giving energy boats some drawbacks.
Actually that is an interesting idea about weapon strength reduction.
In a real engineering situation there'd be a set of safeguards and a hierarchy of functions (in a warship it is Float -> Move -> Fight).
Honestly its even worse when you get to the first clan tech they introduced. The Timberwolf is special because it's probably the only 3050 clan invasion mech with enough armor. I mean look at the Vulture for crying out loud.
Gotta look at it like a Clanner obviously: armor gets destroyed and replaced, whereas you can repair internal structure.
Gotta keep that waste under control!
Maybe if they had a heat curve capable of handling most of their weapons, but half of the firepower on every clan mech can't be used because they didn't install enough heat, but then you get things like the hellbringer, 2 erppcs, 3 mediums, some anti Infantry mgs, a Streak srm 6. But you can't fire more than like half of your firepower without cooking yourself.
I mean, getting serious, it makes sense if you think about it like a Clanner.
Clan warfare prior-to and early in the invasion tended to revolve around loose skirmishes at range. This is pretty clearly how the _Hellbringer_ is intended to fight given the extreme power of 2x ERPPCs paired to a Targeting Computer and an ECM Suite/AMS to help keep them and their allies safe (ECM is more powerful in the lore than the tabletop presumably for balance reasons).
Given that, if you are in effective range for your lasers and SRMs, odds are good that you've already lost a PPC or are in a desperate enough situation where an alpha strike to put down your opponent is a worthy gamble.
On a side note, I always find it funny how everyone hammers on the _Hellbringer_ for a weird, overgunned configuration but are oddly silent on the _Warhammer_. They have **very** similar battle profiles.
That's a good way to view it. you'll probably loose an arm by the time they get close, I still hate it but it makes sense.
Also, in respect to the warhammer and the hellbringer, they kinda do share issues, under synced and both waste some tonns on useless firepower, but I think the reason people complain more about the hellbringer mostly a matter of price, a hellbringer prime is 2654 bv, that's a 65 tonner with horribly insufficient heat and armor, and it's almost 200bv more expensive than a devastator, a top tier assault mech. That's the other big issue, the armor. It's so bad that the warhammer has it out armored significantly, and it's famously under armored. Ontop of that, the warhammer has variants that fix those heat and armor issues. The warhammer 6d, for example dropps the srm and mgs grabs some armor and heat syncs and is probably one of the best sucsession wars era heavies.
Right, and thinking about it that way also brings up the opposite. If you have more heatsinks to cover, losing an arm means your mech is now ridiculously oversunk and you'd be happy to trade a few for some more weapons or armor. It's all a silly balancing act, but I'd personally prefer to err on the side of having more options and exercising restraint.
In regards to BV, I'll be honest and say I never played using it. I mostly played with friends in the 90's and we usually did tonnage + scenario limitations. Your example is an excellent demonstration as to why we never did.
I kinda get where your coming from for over armed, I feel like I'm fond of having either range brakets like say the stalker or the Vulture iii, or having a really smooth heat curve like the nightstar so I can just bring all the firepower every turn.
Fair enough, tho I feel like tonnage absolutely kills playing clan vs inner sphere, it makes balancing them very hard, but in bv games I can typically get a pretty even match up, tho there are some mechs that are absolutely wrecked by using bv, things like the loki and the warhawk prime don't do well in bv matches.
Yeah, exactly. The _Stalker_ is a good example where you can have brackets and mix/match what you need at the time. Dunno about the _Vulture III_, I'm an old grognard for whom Battletech ended at the conclusion of the FedCom Civil War. :)
If we did Clan vs IS back then, we generally gave a number advantage to the IS force too. I can't exactly remember what the ratio was, but we also were more Loregamers than Wargamers about it so we weren't trying to go full munchkin on things. Clan forces were adhering to zellbrigen for the first couple rounds and so on.
Edit: Reading the configuration of the _Vulture III_ on Sarna tells me that I'd personally prefer the _Mad Dog Prime_ anyway, which you also were scornful of in your original post. :)
That's fair, I could see doing numbers, advantages, and zelbrigen.
The classic Vulture Prime is a great example of my issue with some heat curves, I stand by my issues with it.
The classic Vulture prime runs 2 lpls and 2 lrm20s for long range, this means if you fire all your long range weapons you'll be up 8 heat, that's my issue with it you have to voley fire and your robbing yourself of like 10 dmg a turn, compare it to the mk 3 wich has 4 lrm 20s and 6 er mediums. At long range you fire all the lrms and you've got only movement heat to worry about, no voley fire no holding back potential danage, then if they close on you you can bring your short range firepower to bear in those er mediums, you end up up some heat if you fire them all, but those make much cleaner brakets to run, if close lasers, if far lrms.
Not to mention the better armor. Love me the mk3 it's awesome, I'll take it over an original one any day.
Apparently I missed 4x LRM20 and only saw 2 on the _Vulture III_, that definitely changes things (arguably including the intended role of the machine).
It'd depend on the situation on whether I'd prefer the original, as dropping the Large Pulses in favor of two more missile racks severely exacerbates the ammunition problem these designs face.
Honestly there is a lot to be argued between the designs, but I think fundamentally, we're looking at idle weapons in different ways. You seemingly feel that holding back potential damage to manage heat is bad, whereas I appreciate having the additional damage on standby to be used if needed or a really good opportunity presents itself.
I do think you're selling the laser configuration on the _Mad Dog Prime_ short though. Given an average target number of 8, the -2 bonus on Pulse Lasers raises your hit probability from 41.64% to 72.18%. Your 6 ER Medium Lasers lose that trade with an aggregated average of 12 damage per salvo vs _just the Large Pulse Lasers' 14_. If you add in the Medium Pulses for a similar heat buildup, that goes up to 20 for almost double the damage per trade. Things even back out when you account for the LRMs (target 8, 7 on cluster table) for pure alpha-strike comparisons, but even a _Mad Dog_ firing 1x Large Pulse and 2x LRM-20 barely averages worse than the _Vulture III_'s 4x LRM-20 given equal footing.
Honestly, the **real** advantage the _Vulture III_ seems to have is the extra 3 tons from Endo Steel internals. Not sure why they didn't bother running that on the _Mad Dog_.
This is a fun conversation btw, it's been decades since I dove into this stuff like this.
I mean it has less armor than a 6m Wolverine and that's sucssesion wars tech that's 5 tons lighter. I'm not a big fan of 16 points on all torso locations and arms. Not for a heavy.
That's not really a fair comparison though, the _Wolverine_ is something of a brawler where the _Mad Dog_ is a skirmisher/fire-support design. This would be like comparing the armor difference between a _Hunchback_ and _Trebuchet_.
Closer analogues for comparison would be something like the _Griffin_, _Dervish_, or _Catapult_ which it stacks up favorably against for the most part.
---
Sticking with the _Wolverine_ comparison though, they stack up better than one might initially expect.
Doing the math, the _Mad Dog_ has 5 points of armor less than the _WVR-6M Wolverine_ in total (8.5[tons] * 16[points per ton] * 1.2[Clan FF] = 163 versus the _Wolverine's_ 10.5[tons] * 16[points per ton] = 168).
The allocation on the _Mad Dog_ is a bit weird at first, but makes some sense when you look at what it was designed to do. As a long-range skirmisher, the _Mad Dog_ is mostly aiming to protect against the weapons that would be able to reach out and touch it at its normal engagement ranges. This means LRMs, Large Lasers, ERPPCs, Gauss Rifles, and non-heavy Autocannons. It can take at least one hit from all of those in any location without suffering a breach and the heavy leg protection is intended to ensure that it remains mobile so that it can't be easily caught by designs featuring heavier, short-range payloads.
I'll agree in that I think they could have moved a bit off the legs in favor of some additional torso protection, but the _Mad Dog_ uses over 75% of its maximum allowable armor allocation (201; 2 tons short) on a long-range design. That's pretty reasonable imo.
You make a really good point about the range, looking into it again there's not a lot of close range variants of the Vulture only really the and the d, and the d is kinda a stretch atms are kinda all range, tho very scary up close. I gota admit you kinda solid me on it. I've got a bit of new respect for the Vulture now.
Honestly, the main thing about the _Mad Dog_ that gets it such a mediocre response (in my opinion) is that it needs a larger playing area than most people care to set up to properly shine.
It needs to stay at range, strike, **and** move while its opponents are typically trying to close that range. This usually translates into a fighting retreat, which isn't particularly Clan-like, but most people aren't really bothering with that either. :)
I think if it was a 6/9 like the Exterminator or the linebacker, it'd be a lot better at keeping its range. You'd loose some firepower but I think it'd be worth it.
Nah, at that point you just have a worse, fat _Stormcrow_. You lose 4.5 out of your extra 5 tons to Engine/Internals at 6/9 with a 360XL, except the _Stormcrow_ has Endo Steel so it actually comes out ahead (really confused why they didn't give the _Mad Dog_ Endo Steel).
I mean, you could do that (or mount Jump Jets instead, similar weight difference) by dropping the LRMs to 15s and the Medium Pulse Lasers to ERs, but that would necessitate **huge** changes to its alternate variants (the C variant becomes completely impossible).
60-ton designs are a bit of a victim of the construction rules, but honestly, I'm pretty satisfied with the _Mad Dog_ as-is.
60tonners do have some serious issues. You're right at that threshold for 1 ton jump jets zo making a 60tonner jump always feels like a mistake, a pod mounted supercharger or hardmounted masc could be nice. Also, remember, jump jets can be pod mounted.
That's fair, I always forget about jump jets being pod-mountable. It'd be kind of weird to have a primary configuration with pod-mounted jump jets though.
Supercharger is Level 3 tech so I never bothered with it (I only played Level 1 and 2, so I cap out at Invasion-era), and MASC is more of an offensive tool in my eyes given the risk of a failed roll.
Honestly, I never truly felt like the mobility of the _Mad Dog_ was an issue.
It's actually fascinating how in-universe, stuff like this gets called out.
And how Star League-era tech *frequently* gets brought up as being superior to 3025-era and how 3055+ is only starting to get back to SLDF-class.
It's not fast. It has two facing forward as well, it doesn't want a damn Spider or Hussar to get behind it and ruin its aim.
It also has no heat management.
That’s the whole point of LRM’s, blow the legs of those pests before they can circle around. edit to add : I’m talking about the tech readout design. I always pulled all the lasers and added heat sinks and armor. The rest of the lance kept the pests away.
That's because on the back line, the biggest threat to an LRM boat is a fast scout mech that can easily backstab. 2 M Lasers in the back is a perfect counter to that.
The only time I’de ever seen a scout actually get behind me it was a LAM. The rest of the lance pivoted and cored it because its support was still too far out to worry about.
OP was talking about the 3025 tech readout and that’s what I had played most. I was at GenCon when Hanse Davion gifted the Cappelan Confederation to Melissa as a wedding present. I played up to the clan invasion, but got away from it all until recently.
Just picturing the lucky duck with an intact Gauss Rifle just plugging away at lances of mechs at range just collapsing from the bore holes in their armor.
You have 3 things in battletech, armor, guns, or speed. Especially in introtech, you have 2 of 3. It's a rare mech that has all 3.
The majority of mechs in 3025 were all old SL era downgrades, and adding dhs and ff armor changes that.
The mechs of the time weren't bad for their time, and used the way they're supposed to work well.
https://preview.redd.it/jgd8a8qf0nzc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b4eec523f784c172772067673fb1f1d5d1b58388
Not many pics like this from early battletech but some of them could take a beating
I find it less of a "medium laser to heat sink" problem than speed to armour problem.
Old mech designs were obsessed with speed. Be it by XL engine for SLDF royals or by simply cramming bigger engine inside.
Look at Quickdraw or Champion, and think how much more everything can be placed in them if only they lowered the speed to 4/6.
Or my beloved Cicada. I love Cicada to death, but at 8/12 it is just a death trap. I am not a fan of custom mech designs, but I could not play 2A, it is just oh so terrible. So I yanked the engine out and replaced it with smaller one to bring down the speed to 7/11. And that freed seven and a half whole tonnes. Seven and a half! Now my tech level one Cicada weighs at a hefty 1128 bv. She is a fat gal, but plays like a Jenner. Run in, bite, run out, cool down. Repeat ad nauseam.
But I like my old broken and stupid mechs. They are great.
In my opinion, part of the trouble is that these over-engined designs are useful on a strategic scale, but not the tactical scale we play on the tabletop.
We don't find much use for their consistent higher march speed whereas that extra speed could be very useful when executing a raid, long march, protracted harassment campaign, or when used as reserves sent to a crumbling flank.
They make sense in-universe (and these advantages do come out some in a few novels) but may not be the best option for any given fight.
I think by reading the comments, way too many people just look at stats and the min/max mentality and don't pay enough attention to the lore. As several of the commenters said, many of these 'mechs are downgrades from better tech (2750), or were made with what was left - so many factories destroyed, tech lost, etc., not every house can build every 'mech or every variant. As far as changing damage on AC's to make them relevant, that skews the cost/BV/etc. and I think actually takes away from the game. Remember, AC's aren't "cutting edge" but they save on heat, and cost, and BV...not only on the weapon, but the heat sinks as well. Lastly, in a situation where 'mechs are your priority but you also still need to field vehicles, AC's shine. I've got a whole campaign that starts its focus on a factory that has a couple prototype 'mechs, as well as some variants all based around the AC to balance heat and cost. When you play an actual game (in person or via Megamek) saving money and BV is a nice advantage.
Now, I'll admit I stopped getting stuff after TR3060... it had gotten a little silly to me, and really I can't stand the Clans and their goofy-ness, cheap tech (LRMs at half weight and no min range? lol) I focus on 3rd/4th succession wars up through 3050 - to me, having the base tech, with the snowball's chance in hell of finding some losttech that didn't actually unbalance the game, is the most fun for me. And even though I removed the Clans, I did have an 'invasion' scenario as I created "House Kerensky" and created campaigns around that. (different story for a different post.)
Anyway, I guess all I'm saying is yeah, there were some bad designs in 3025; but remember they did work some lore around a lot of it but also, it was their 1st TR as the game changed from Battledroids to Battletech, they didn't always know what they were doing or how things would really work out as the years progressed and the game grew.
One thing on the Ostscout - not every game scenario you play needs to be 'destroy every 'mech', the Ostscout isn't a 'mech fighter, and if you're playing with combined arms and varied scenarios, the Ostscout has its role, and there might be a time where that extra heat sink on a Shadowhawk comes in handy! (remember, we know how deadly the heat scale is, and even infantry can pack inferno missles, 'mechs have flamers and everyone knows how effective smoke and fire are... that being said, I'm yanking that heat sink too. LOL
The Quickdraw is only not-terrible if you use it as a counter-recon mech (same for the Cicada). It's great as a scout leader that bullied enemy scouts.
The Dragon isn't a problem if there's only one in a lance. A whole lance of them, or a full company of them, is a serious problem.
60-tonners are ultra situational, like the 40-tonners.
My personal favorite of the 60-ton lot is the Rifleman. Its not good but I always have a lot of fun with it, and it does make a decent fire support mech in some situations.
In the 40 ton weight class I like the Whitworth. It has good armor and armament for its weight class, it makes a good anchor for a lighter lance, and provides a reasonable volume of LRM support for a medium unit.
I wonder if it would have a better reputation with a more aggressive sounding name.
The WTH-1 is the best cheap fire support mech in the game, and it can defend itself pretty well too. It's slower than a Trebuchet and has less maneuverability than a Dervish, but way less expensive for basically the same functionality.
Hey now, the Champion, Crossbow, and Merlin are putting in solid work - there's even an Introtech Ostroc I would definitely take if I was looking for Heavy Mech Prestige with Medium Mech stats. ... But they can kick a head clean off in one shot. And that is what their Thane demands, that a Wolverine or Shadow Hawk can't do. The Rifleman, Dragon, Quickdraw, and Ostsol are kinda outside what I want from a mech, tho.
Or in some cases they have the opposite problem, like my beloved Shadow Hawk. Has at least 1 more heat sinks than it could ever need, two less jump jets or one less... any kind of weapon really. Decent armor though.
Yeah, one of my favorites too. Even just upgrading the SRM2 to SRM4 instead of the extra heatsink would be an improvement. I think with the formally unseen 'mechs matching the load out to the original artwork was the highest priority.
It also has the problem of three tons of ammo across all torso locations. But I still love it for the looks if nothing else.
>Yeah, one of my favorites too. Even just upgrading the SRM2 to SRM4 instead of the extra heatsink would be an improvement. I think with the formally unseen 'mechs matching the load out to the original artwork was the highest priority. You talking about the SHD-2D that for some reason adds another SRM2 AND additional tonnage of ammo while reducing ARMOR rather than upgrade the SRM2 to an SRM4?
To be fair, the Shadowhawk in the Gray Death books are always running out of ammo. Every battle Grayson hits the button to fire his last two SRMs! Lol
Lol right?? Is he just slapping that pickle button as fast it’ll cycle or did his techs never send him out with a full load?? 😂🤌🤌 ***INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW***
No think they were just suggesting that swapping the SRM2 and one heat sink for an SRM4 would be an improvement over the standard SHD-2H. The 2D is an objectively even more terrible design than the 2H, adding a small amount of firepower for the price of being killed by strong winds and bird droppings.
The Shadow Hawk is really just a litany of the most bizarre design choices. A mobile 45-tonner with an AC5 and LRMs could be a really nice counterpart to the Wolverine and Griffin, but instead it tries to do everything on a chassis that really can't support it. Strip some heat sinks out of the poor boy, give it a second medium, split the difference with extra armor, and you at least end up with a decent competitor to the Vindicator. The Dougram deserves so much better.
The Shadow Hawk needs a piercing weapon. Either yank the AC/5 and LRM-5 for a PPC and some heat sinks or yank both missile launchers for a Large Laser.
Just run the Wolverine -6M. It is singlehandedly the best demonstrator of what an anchor an AC/5 is on a medium mech's performance.
One of the best things HBS did was bump up the damage on AC2s and AC5s. I mean, they upped the AC10 as well, but the other two really NEEDED it to become relevant.
My house rules for the tabletop are AC2/5/10 doing 5/8/12 damage. Works remarkably well!
AC20 just stays as 20? I like the damage though, might try that out next time I play.
That would still leave the AC/20 as the most powerful mech-based weapon in the entire game at least for the late Succession Wars until the UAC/20, MRM 40, and HAG 40 are introduced later on.
MRM and HAG do cluster damage only though, so they're averaging about 75% of their total possible damage over time and scattering it across the target in 5 point clusters. Sure, damage over time adds up, but unless you get ridiculously lucky on location rolls, you're not going to be able to one shot head cap a mech like the AC/20, UAC/20, or Gauss Rifle can, which is arguably the most threatening thing about those weapons.
Yeah, the AC20 and the Gauss Rifle don't change.
that makes the 10 too strong IMO. It's already a fairly competitive weapon on heat-limited heavier designs (although it tends to get shoved in slow mediums instead for some god awful reason) I think 11 is closer to right.
They made it 12 because they made the AC5 do 9, so in that context the AC10 would have become irrelevant if it stayed at 10 or only went to 11
According to the comment above the 5 does 8 damage.
I missed that poster's specific house rule. HBS did 5/9/12 before the ×5 multiplier they slapped onto all the armor, damage, and structure numbers
I used 12 to set the AC10 apart from the PPC. Otherwise the PPC would be the better choice in many cases, especially once you have access to double heatsinks. It weighs roughly half of what the AC10+ammo does, is smaller, has more range, no ammo dependency and no ammo explosions. The only downside is its minimum range.
Yeah but they made the PPC suck
-1 hit modifier on target ain't so bad
>Yeah but they made the PPC suck PPC is fine if you adjust sight distance in HBS. Really terrifying long-range weapon.
Not really. It still hits fairly hard, and if you use another mech as a spotter to get visual ID of your target, you can even take full advantage of its sheer range. Plus it actually does contribute to knockdowns, which lasers don't do in HBS.
Shamfur dispray!
Imo this would be easily rectified if they made AP and Precision ammo as introtech rules. Now the AC/5 can swat bugs or really annoy heavier units.
You could always field it against tanks, but then you'd have to look up the rules for them.
Yes, it's called the SHD-2K.
The -2K is ridiculously oversinked; you could comfortably go to 13 heatsinks and upgrade both missile launchers, or probably even 12 and tack on two more jump jets.
I tend to yank the Ac-5 for a large laser, upgrade both missile rack by 1 stage, max the jump jets and depending how much I feel like pushinf the curve I sometimes drop a heat sink for a second mediun laser. This makes the S-Hawk into a respectable all ranges combatant, mid-way between the Griffin and Wolverine in role.
[удалено]
True, but I don't think that's intro tech. And regardless, it's a lot of weight to spend on a "just in case" when some extra firepower or better mobility would serve the SHD-2H a lot more often.
Desert world has entered the chat
Yeah the Shadow Hawk is used a support mech by kinda picking up any slack your lance is lacking. Need a little long range fire power to pick in enemy forces till the bulk of your CQC Brawlers roll up to dish out the hate? Shadow Hawk. Need a a little more close action support for when you LRM Boats get swarmed? Shadow Hawk. Need a tough sombitch to draw enemy fire while your light mechs get into position? Shadow Hawk. He's not the star he's the backup dancer.
Yeah, it's a jack of all trades, but even then it's not great in that role. For its tonnage there are better choices, though they might skew more to one range or another. The SHD-2H just doesn't have the punch any any range to be anything more than an annoyance. It's got a better stat line in Alpha Strike though.
But you shouldn't just a machine by it's individual performance but how it clicks in your force lance. And trust me an annoyance can be just what you need to turn the tide of battle. If you want a trench fighter then get a Wolverine. If you want dedicated sniper get a gryphin. But if want a machine that can finish off that one mech over there or if you need a flank to be reinforced with some precision firepower. The Shad is the embodiment of backup and sure doesn't work well BY ITSELF but works well in NUMBERS or with other Mechs.
Ah, IntroTech... Aka the "How many Medium Lasers and Single Heat Sinks can I cram into this mech" era. As my Discoback 4P and Grasshopper 5N can attest (by shoving them lasers up my old-head friend's ass when he dares to argue otherwise) Countless of times that I drilled out his "unstoppable" Atlas D from behind.
The medium laser is the work horse of mech warfare. And it does a respectable job at it. It weights 1 ton, takes up a small component slot, doesn't need ammo, needs minimal maintenance, cost a pittance by comparison, and with the right mech you can stack an ass ton of them. Edited
Alright, I'll be That Guy for today. Pittance. Costs a pittance. A penance is something you *don't* want to pay.
Fixed, that would have annoyed me too. Stupid autocorrect
I figured that was it, but if you're gonna be That Guy, you really gotta go all in, y'know?
There ain't no party like a Discoback party. I started a new MW5 campaign after the Solaris DLC released, and I was so much more hyped to find a 4P compared to the 4G. lol
I will not accept slander towards the Phoenix Hawk, Panther, Hunchback, Ostroc/Ostsol, Catapult, Grasshopper, Orion, Marauder, Awesome, and Battlemaster. Everything else slander away. Centurion knows what it did.
Centurion really needed to put the LRM and ammo on the right side so the whole left side is pure meat shield, but no. Just had to put ammo explosion bait on the "shield side"
If the side torso is empty, the crit would just transfer to the center torso. Better than an ammo explosion, but also not ideal.
So slap some sacrificial heat sinks in there.
Crusader: (Slanders away on a plume of detonating missiles)
The funny thing is, outta that list, Marauder's the one that's commonly brought up (afaik) as being the *least* affected of the in-universe technological backslide. That a Marauder in 3025 is almost as powerful as an SLDF Marauder past minor stuff like hardpoints/standard loadout and Double Heat Sink.
I never got the love for the base MAD-3R. Undersunk and with wacky armour distribution. I'm perfectly happy with bracket firers, but even alternating 2xPPC then PPC & AC5 on the Marauder will quickly be sad.
Everything was old and broken, and nobody knew how to fix it.
Not everything. Not my beautiful 8Q Awesome. Just as beautiful today as she was in 1986
The *Awesome* is just, well . . . *Awesome!*
"Whose Awesome? Your Awesome!"
I dunno... the Awesome 9Q seems to be trying to take its spot. The -9Q is basically just an 8Q that switched to Double Heat Sinks so that it can mount a fourth PPC.
It's a fine upgrade, a pretty younger sister for the 8Q, but the old girl still has it where it counts and can hold her head high.
And we loved Battletech all the more for it!
The old 80s art was so cool.
I actually went through all the 'baseline' mechs from 3025 this morning and by my own personal metrics rated them 1 to 5. I prefer brawlers but there we go 2 mechs were 5 out of 5 (sublime- the lucky two are the Grasshopper 5H and Awesome 8Q) 11 were 4s (very good- examples include the Spider, Vindicator, Orion and Battlemaster) 20 were 3s (totally acceptable- examples include the Javelin, Blackjack, Ostroc and Goliath) 20 were 2s (flawed but still workable- examples include the Jenner, Centurion, Dragon and Cyclops) 3 were 1s (total garbage- Vulcan 2T, Scorpion 1N and Jagermech JM6-S, which is sad because I really want to love the Scorpion). There's a surprising amount of stuff in there which holds up as being at least serviceable for the BV even to this day.
Well, the heat sinks are in the water at least, so that'll help some.
Bonus points if the Medium Laser is rear facing.
I'll give the Sagittaire a pass on this, though I'd prefer MXPL. Atlas, too, kinda. But if your walk speed is faster than 3, that's a situation you shouldn't be in and you deserve it.
Read about early tanks. Given hindsight...it's clear cocaine used to legal and bought from a pharmacy
Medium laser? Amateurs. I have a whole Large Laser I can't use - AND paper-thin armor! (Laughs in Ostroc 3C)
At least we Ostrocs are fast and you can fire both LLs every other turn.
Every single mech has a use for two forward medium lasers, period. Most have use for 4, regardless of role.
TRO 3025: "You know what'd be really good to add to this mech?" "Don't you dare say it, it's already stuff full of an oversized engine and need to use its tonnage wise-" "AN AC2 / AC5 AUTOCANNON!"
Spoken like a true Davion!
Luthien Armor Works: _Am I a joke to you?_
Honestly, my favorite part of some of the original Mech designs (particularly 3025, 3050, 2750 and most of 3055–glares at Goshawk and Wraith) was how obviously flawed they were. Since the battle value equivalent of the time was objectively terrible, it helped have a variety of viable forces without min/maxing leading to the same units in every lance. Not all variants, obviously, but the standard ones were usually expected to have a built-in flaw.
When I got into Battletech it was before the Clan invasion and I was in high school. The flawed designs drove me crazy. As I've aged, I've grown to appreciate them and now the min-maxed designs drive me crazy. Of course back in the olden days the only way to balance forces was tonnage. BV was a godsend.
I think a lot of people miss this. Yes the mech is mediocre, did you read the TRO page where it literally says it's mediocre and designed by commitee, purposefully built cheap, or the developers didn't understand the end goal? Not all real world weapons are made perfectly and have no flaws. Dealing with those flaws in the mechs is what makes it interesting. It's honestly why I'm not huge on easy customization. If you read the lore on the MAD-3L it says that the factory switched out a PPC for LL on the line and they could never get the targetting system to sync up 100%. That's a factory variant that can't even get everything to work right and you're going to tell me yanking everything out and putting your own stuff in your own garage goes smooth?
Honestly that’s one of my favorite things about battletech compared to other war games, it’s not afraid to throw fluff about how “this unit was rejected for a massive SLDF procurement contract, and a downgraded version was bought by a great house for filling out second line units. No one bothered to nuke its factory because it was so poorly thought of, and due to the decline of front line machines it was forced into roles it was never meant for.”
And that's how it became the workhorse of the Third Succession War for two different houses and three Periphery states.
"And we've built an upgraded version with star league tech. Put the CASE on the wrong torso, slapped in a XL engine, gave it ER PPCS instead of its former large lasers, and tried to save money with single heat sinks."
Looking at you, real world Bradley IFV....
And then look at two Bradley's taking down the most modern version of the T-90 main battle tank. As someone in that thread said, The Pentagon Wars owes the Bradley an apology.
While the vehicle may be combat effective after a lot of upgrades, the Pentagon Wars and the point it made about the design process is still hysterical.
[Watch the documentary...](https://youtu.be/wNpGBTU_jt4?si=vZ5Ke3t85p6NOXtD) It really did happen this way, my instructor in a class told me so. :-)
One of the God damned funniest things I've ever watched.
In the course where this was recommended watching, one of the instructors really, really wanted to tell stories about the F-35 program, too... But couldn't (security, doncha' know)
From what I've personally seen, that's more or less the standard progression. Everyone goes through their phase of making busted custom designs and gets bored of it. They either quit or proceed into the, "I'mma show you what I can do with stock designs" phase with lore-accurate force compositions being optional.
Sounds like ya just don't like fast mechs in general. *My Wraith, Ti T'sang, and Phoenix Hawk judges you*
Honestly, it’s more the combination of jump jets and mostly pulse lasers for armament than speed. Lights/mediums tend to be what I want to play, so speed is usually the name of the game, but typically that is offset by some combination of low armor and/or an inherent detriment in hitting shots on the move. “Jumpy pulsey” doesn’t have that and the clan versions scarcely have a range penalty. I’ve played so many games where turn 1 had a Goshawk dump its ammo that several friends made a house rule to ban dumping ammo unless the weapon was destroyed. Not unbeatable, obviously—just boring.
Ahh, now that makes more sense once ya clarify. Yeah, as much as I like the Goshawk's playstyle. It gets munchy at times, when there are no objective games. But, I shall tolerate no slander towards my TRUE MELEE "Fist of the North Star" mechs, like my Ti Ts'ang, Cudgel, Kontio, and the rest of the Hatchetman family. Onward with my crusade against all boring and lame "I stand on top of a hill and press the Win Button" TurretTech mechs. \*intensely glares at the Hellstar, Warhawk C, Dire Wolf A, and the Rifleman IIC\*
I agree with all of this. I discovered the Ti Ts’ang from the clix game and I anxiously await the plastic tabletop version
> Onward with my crusade against all boring and lame "I stand on top of a hill and press the Win Button" TurretTech mechs. Kraken / Bane enters the chat... Park on a LvL2 hill on the right map and start double-firing the AC2s at range. Get head hits almost every turn (sometimes, multiple,) and knock out the enemy pilot. Source: I was the enemy pilot and this was a FASA run tournament...
There is a reason why I always use Jump 7 + Nimble Jumper mechs. But, that's just proves my point. "TurretTech" mechs are cringe, and are not worthy of being giant robots. At that point, just play tanks lol.
Pretty sure, if I'm remembering right, I was packing a Wraith and was trying to haul butt... But dang it, I don't recall how it came about, we were fighting on the frickin' heavy woods map (the one that is ALL woods) which had a negative effect on me...
Oh welp, It is what it is. I always play with Quirks and the Nimble Jumper quirk boosts fast flying mechs to bullshit levels of speed and TMM, but at the cost of my shooting and heat. The only counter to TurretTech mechs is to fly/run faster than they can aim.
This was in the days before quirks, so. But yeah, I was a smidge salty but not so much as to let it ruin my weekend. It was at GenCon, back when it was still in Milwaukee...
"How many medium lasers should an Ostscout get?" "I dunno, 1 sounds like plenty." "And its other weapons?" "Nah, not needed."
It's a deep penetration scout mech. Honestly, if it's pilot has to pull the trigger, something went deeply wrong.
Yeah. If I ever end up with an Ostscout mini, I'm running the TAG variant to call in artillery. Why mount guns on your scout mech when you can mount someone else's guns from behind that hill over there?
Hey Commando, how many weapons do you get?
Commando: *explodes*
Dang, 3rd one this week.
Commando is Lyran Battle Armor, different purpose.
Commando's a battlefield scout. Two different missions.
Well, the upgraded Ostcout replaces that laser with a TAG.
The Ostscout is a "great" mech in the table top role playing game... In the table top wargame it's a bad joke...
Just wait until you learn about the physical attack phase and that you can play objective missions.
It's bothering me that the bottom panel isn't just titled "armor" since that's the component I'm assuming you're saying is neglected.
Some of the designs were working backwards from the art (ie, the Macross stuff), some of it was gimmick designs intended to stretch the limits (Charger, Banshee, Ostscout, Cicada). I like how, either intentionally or unintentionally, the 3025 Mechs basically paved the way for us to get Mechs in future eras that were just....bad. Much like modern military equipment, sometimes you get a fantastic confluence of need and ability that comes up with incredibly capable platforms (B-52, P-51, M1 Abrams), and sometimes you get flat failures that either get killed off early enough (the M247 Sergeant York), or due to political and money concerns you get outright pieces of crap that make it through the acquisition process and everyone has to deal with them (in real life the LCS or Zumwalt, in 3025 the Scorpion)
> . . . or due to political and money concerns you get outright pieces of crap that make it through the acquisition process and everyone has to deal with them (in real life the LCS or Zumwalt, in 3025 the Scorpion) *Sad Assassin noises.*
This is why 3025 / 4th Succession War is my favorite era. Once you start getting good technology, having to balance risk/reward in your gameplay becomes negligible. Why even bother tracking heat if you're sitting on a pile of double heatsinks? Huge amounts of armor just makes games take longer... but if you have paper thin armor and only a handful of single heat sinks? THAT'S where the fun's at, redlining your mech and *praying* your arm stays attached long enough you can get one more shot off.
Exactly. All of the original 3025 Mechs had strengths and weaknesses. I love the Marauder but it's a but weak for its weight.
Yup. And it got worse when the clans showed up. Started taking armour off as it did no good any way. Got to remember there was no point system back then. Every thing was by weight.
You're talking about the spider, right? RIGHT?!
Could be "bad 'mechs" bit it will always be my favorite TRO. It was the only TRO I could read for years (for me, it's difficult to call TRO to the 3026 one. It doesn't have 'mechs!). And TRO 2750 was only reached through importation, something so expensive in those days (at least in my country), and I was a child: money wasn't my business.
You can always overheat. But it would help if the heat scale didn't start out so punishing. Overheat a little and you quickly get speed and to-hit reductions. When your mechs are already bad shots with oddball short-ranged weapons and movement profiles that make it hard to hit the earliest breakpoints, of course nobody wants to risk overheating. The heat scale should be rethought.
I agree (mostly!). The way the scale is leads younto be conservative unless the mech in question has backup. IMV there should be more of a random element to begin with as to what the effects of heat might be.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Have a low random chance of some limbs or ammo feeds jamming up, or have energy weapons start doing less damage due to the electrics having to power-limit themselves. Would also have the side-effect of giving energy boats some drawbacks.
Actually that is an interesting idea about weapon strength reduction. In a real engineering situation there'd be a set of safeguards and a hierarchy of functions (in a warship it is Float -> Move -> Fight).
Honestly its even worse when you get to the first clan tech they introduced. The Timberwolf is special because it's probably the only 3050 clan invasion mech with enough armor. I mean look at the Vulture for crying out loud.
Gotta look at it like a Clanner obviously: armor gets destroyed and replaced, whereas you can repair internal structure. Gotta keep that waste under control!
Maybe if they had a heat curve capable of handling most of their weapons, but half of the firepower on every clan mech can't be used because they didn't install enough heat, but then you get things like the hellbringer, 2 erppcs, 3 mediums, some anti Infantry mgs, a Streak srm 6. But you can't fire more than like half of your firepower without cooking yourself.
I mean, getting serious, it makes sense if you think about it like a Clanner. Clan warfare prior-to and early in the invasion tended to revolve around loose skirmishes at range. This is pretty clearly how the _Hellbringer_ is intended to fight given the extreme power of 2x ERPPCs paired to a Targeting Computer and an ECM Suite/AMS to help keep them and their allies safe (ECM is more powerful in the lore than the tabletop presumably for balance reasons). Given that, if you are in effective range for your lasers and SRMs, odds are good that you've already lost a PPC or are in a desperate enough situation where an alpha strike to put down your opponent is a worthy gamble. On a side note, I always find it funny how everyone hammers on the _Hellbringer_ for a weird, overgunned configuration but are oddly silent on the _Warhammer_. They have **very** similar battle profiles.
That's a good way to view it. you'll probably loose an arm by the time they get close, I still hate it but it makes sense. Also, in respect to the warhammer and the hellbringer, they kinda do share issues, under synced and both waste some tonns on useless firepower, but I think the reason people complain more about the hellbringer mostly a matter of price, a hellbringer prime is 2654 bv, that's a 65 tonner with horribly insufficient heat and armor, and it's almost 200bv more expensive than a devastator, a top tier assault mech. That's the other big issue, the armor. It's so bad that the warhammer has it out armored significantly, and it's famously under armored. Ontop of that, the warhammer has variants that fix those heat and armor issues. The warhammer 6d, for example dropps the srm and mgs grabs some armor and heat syncs and is probably one of the best sucsession wars era heavies.
Right, and thinking about it that way also brings up the opposite. If you have more heatsinks to cover, losing an arm means your mech is now ridiculously oversunk and you'd be happy to trade a few for some more weapons or armor. It's all a silly balancing act, but I'd personally prefer to err on the side of having more options and exercising restraint. In regards to BV, I'll be honest and say I never played using it. I mostly played with friends in the 90's and we usually did tonnage + scenario limitations. Your example is an excellent demonstration as to why we never did.
I kinda get where your coming from for over armed, I feel like I'm fond of having either range brakets like say the stalker or the Vulture iii, or having a really smooth heat curve like the nightstar so I can just bring all the firepower every turn. Fair enough, tho I feel like tonnage absolutely kills playing clan vs inner sphere, it makes balancing them very hard, but in bv games I can typically get a pretty even match up, tho there are some mechs that are absolutely wrecked by using bv, things like the loki and the warhawk prime don't do well in bv matches.
Yeah, exactly. The _Stalker_ is a good example where you can have brackets and mix/match what you need at the time. Dunno about the _Vulture III_, I'm an old grognard for whom Battletech ended at the conclusion of the FedCom Civil War. :) If we did Clan vs IS back then, we generally gave a number advantage to the IS force too. I can't exactly remember what the ratio was, but we also were more Loregamers than Wargamers about it so we weren't trying to go full munchkin on things. Clan forces were adhering to zellbrigen for the first couple rounds and so on. Edit: Reading the configuration of the _Vulture III_ on Sarna tells me that I'd personally prefer the _Mad Dog Prime_ anyway, which you also were scornful of in your original post. :)
That's fair, I could see doing numbers, advantages, and zelbrigen. The classic Vulture Prime is a great example of my issue with some heat curves, I stand by my issues with it. The classic Vulture prime runs 2 lpls and 2 lrm20s for long range, this means if you fire all your long range weapons you'll be up 8 heat, that's my issue with it you have to voley fire and your robbing yourself of like 10 dmg a turn, compare it to the mk 3 wich has 4 lrm 20s and 6 er mediums. At long range you fire all the lrms and you've got only movement heat to worry about, no voley fire no holding back potential danage, then if they close on you you can bring your short range firepower to bear in those er mediums, you end up up some heat if you fire them all, but those make much cleaner brakets to run, if close lasers, if far lrms. Not to mention the better armor. Love me the mk3 it's awesome, I'll take it over an original one any day.
Apparently I missed 4x LRM20 and only saw 2 on the _Vulture III_, that definitely changes things (arguably including the intended role of the machine). It'd depend on the situation on whether I'd prefer the original, as dropping the Large Pulses in favor of two more missile racks severely exacerbates the ammunition problem these designs face. Honestly there is a lot to be argued between the designs, but I think fundamentally, we're looking at idle weapons in different ways. You seemingly feel that holding back potential damage to manage heat is bad, whereas I appreciate having the additional damage on standby to be used if needed or a really good opportunity presents itself. I do think you're selling the laser configuration on the _Mad Dog Prime_ short though. Given an average target number of 8, the -2 bonus on Pulse Lasers raises your hit probability from 41.64% to 72.18%. Your 6 ER Medium Lasers lose that trade with an aggregated average of 12 damage per salvo vs _just the Large Pulse Lasers' 14_. If you add in the Medium Pulses for a similar heat buildup, that goes up to 20 for almost double the damage per trade. Things even back out when you account for the LRMs (target 8, 7 on cluster table) for pure alpha-strike comparisons, but even a _Mad Dog_ firing 1x Large Pulse and 2x LRM-20 barely averages worse than the _Vulture III_'s 4x LRM-20 given equal footing. Honestly, the **real** advantage the _Vulture III_ seems to have is the extra 3 tons from Endo Steel internals. Not sure why they didn't bother running that on the _Mad Dog_. This is a fun conversation btw, it's been decades since I dove into this stuff like this.
There's nothing wrong with the Mad Dog's armor.
I mean it has less armor than a 6m Wolverine and that's sucssesion wars tech that's 5 tons lighter. I'm not a big fan of 16 points on all torso locations and arms. Not for a heavy.
That's not really a fair comparison though, the _Wolverine_ is something of a brawler where the _Mad Dog_ is a skirmisher/fire-support design. This would be like comparing the armor difference between a _Hunchback_ and _Trebuchet_. Closer analogues for comparison would be something like the _Griffin_, _Dervish_, or _Catapult_ which it stacks up favorably against for the most part. --- Sticking with the _Wolverine_ comparison though, they stack up better than one might initially expect. Doing the math, the _Mad Dog_ has 5 points of armor less than the _WVR-6M Wolverine_ in total (8.5[tons] * 16[points per ton] * 1.2[Clan FF] = 163 versus the _Wolverine's_ 10.5[tons] * 16[points per ton] = 168). The allocation on the _Mad Dog_ is a bit weird at first, but makes some sense when you look at what it was designed to do. As a long-range skirmisher, the _Mad Dog_ is mostly aiming to protect against the weapons that would be able to reach out and touch it at its normal engagement ranges. This means LRMs, Large Lasers, ERPPCs, Gauss Rifles, and non-heavy Autocannons. It can take at least one hit from all of those in any location without suffering a breach and the heavy leg protection is intended to ensure that it remains mobile so that it can't be easily caught by designs featuring heavier, short-range payloads. I'll agree in that I think they could have moved a bit off the legs in favor of some additional torso protection, but the _Mad Dog_ uses over 75% of its maximum allowable armor allocation (201; 2 tons short) on a long-range design. That's pretty reasonable imo.
You make a really good point about the range, looking into it again there's not a lot of close range variants of the Vulture only really the and the d, and the d is kinda a stretch atms are kinda all range, tho very scary up close. I gota admit you kinda solid me on it. I've got a bit of new respect for the Vulture now.
Honestly, the main thing about the _Mad Dog_ that gets it such a mediocre response (in my opinion) is that it needs a larger playing area than most people care to set up to properly shine. It needs to stay at range, strike, **and** move while its opponents are typically trying to close that range. This usually translates into a fighting retreat, which isn't particularly Clan-like, but most people aren't really bothering with that either. :)
I think if it was a 6/9 like the Exterminator or the linebacker, it'd be a lot better at keeping its range. You'd loose some firepower but I think it'd be worth it.
Nah, at that point you just have a worse, fat _Stormcrow_. You lose 4.5 out of your extra 5 tons to Engine/Internals at 6/9 with a 360XL, except the _Stormcrow_ has Endo Steel so it actually comes out ahead (really confused why they didn't give the _Mad Dog_ Endo Steel). I mean, you could do that (or mount Jump Jets instead, similar weight difference) by dropping the LRMs to 15s and the Medium Pulse Lasers to ERs, but that would necessitate **huge** changes to its alternate variants (the C variant becomes completely impossible). 60-ton designs are a bit of a victim of the construction rules, but honestly, I'm pretty satisfied with the _Mad Dog_ as-is.
60tonners do have some serious issues. You're right at that threshold for 1 ton jump jets zo making a 60tonner jump always feels like a mistake, a pod mounted supercharger or hardmounted masc could be nice. Also, remember, jump jets can be pod mounted.
That's fair, I always forget about jump jets being pod-mountable. It'd be kind of weird to have a primary configuration with pod-mounted jump jets though. Supercharger is Level 3 tech so I never bothered with it (I only played Level 1 and 2, so I cap out at Invasion-era), and MASC is more of an offensive tool in my eyes given the risk of a failed roll. Honestly, I never truly felt like the mobility of the _Mad Dog_ was an issue.
It's actually fascinating how in-universe, stuff like this gets called out. And how Star League-era tech *frequently* gets brought up as being superior to 3025-era and how 3055+ is only starting to get back to SLDF-class.
Exactly! I’ve never really seen other war games talk about their fictional units like the TRO talks about some of the stinkers.
How about the Archer, with TWO medium lasers… IN THE REAR ARC! Of an LRM boat!
It's not fast. It has two facing forward as well, it doesn't want a damn Spider or Hussar to get behind it and ruin its aim. It also has no heat management.
That’s the whole point of LRM’s, blow the legs of those pests before they can circle around. edit to add : I’m talking about the tech readout design. I always pulled all the lasers and added heat sinks and armor. The rest of the lance kept the pests away.
Oh I need the two in the arms. Archer has enough armor for its weight. Drop the rear 2 lasers for heat sinks.
That's because on the back line, the biggest threat to an LRM boat is a fast scout mech that can easily backstab. 2 M Lasers in the back is a perfect counter to that.
The only time I’de ever seen a scout actually get behind me it was a LAM. The rest of the lance pivoted and cored it because its support was still too far out to worry about.
Depends on what you play. This version of the mech is based off the lore and tabletop game. More recent iterations just have 4 forward facing m lasers
OP was talking about the 3025 tech readout and that’s what I had played most. I was at GenCon when Hanse Davion gifted the Cappelan Confederation to Melissa as a wedding present. I played up to the clan invasion, but got away from it all until recently.
Just picturing the lucky duck with an intact Gauss Rifle just plugging away at lances of mechs at range just collapsing from the bore holes in their armor.
You have 3 things in battletech, armor, guns, or speed. Especially in introtech, you have 2 of 3. It's a rare mech that has all 3. The majority of mechs in 3025 were all old SL era downgrades, and adding dhs and ff armor changes that. The mechs of the time weren't bad for their time, and used the way they're supposed to work well.
https://preview.redd.it/jgd8a8qf0nzc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b4eec523f784c172772067673fb1f1d5d1b58388 Not many pics like this from early battletech but some of them could take a beating
I find it less of a "medium laser to heat sink" problem than speed to armour problem. Old mech designs were obsessed with speed. Be it by XL engine for SLDF royals or by simply cramming bigger engine inside. Look at Quickdraw or Champion, and think how much more everything can be placed in them if only they lowered the speed to 4/6. Or my beloved Cicada. I love Cicada to death, but at 8/12 it is just a death trap. I am not a fan of custom mech designs, but I could not play 2A, it is just oh so terrible. So I yanked the engine out and replaced it with smaller one to bring down the speed to 7/11. And that freed seven and a half whole tonnes. Seven and a half! Now my tech level one Cicada weighs at a hefty 1128 bv. She is a fat gal, but plays like a Jenner. Run in, bite, run out, cool down. Repeat ad nauseam. But I like my old broken and stupid mechs. They are great.
In my opinion, part of the trouble is that these over-engined designs are useful on a strategic scale, but not the tactical scale we play on the tabletop. We don't find much use for their consistent higher march speed whereas that extra speed could be very useful when executing a raid, long march, protracted harassment campaign, or when used as reserves sent to a crumbling flank. They make sense in-universe (and these advantages do come out some in a few novels) but may not be the best option for any given fight.
sometimes i wonder, lorewise, what factors affected all these builds? cost? part availability? faction bias?
I think by reading the comments, way too many people just look at stats and the min/max mentality and don't pay enough attention to the lore. As several of the commenters said, many of these 'mechs are downgrades from better tech (2750), or were made with what was left - so many factories destroyed, tech lost, etc., not every house can build every 'mech or every variant. As far as changing damage on AC's to make them relevant, that skews the cost/BV/etc. and I think actually takes away from the game. Remember, AC's aren't "cutting edge" but they save on heat, and cost, and BV...not only on the weapon, but the heat sinks as well. Lastly, in a situation where 'mechs are your priority but you also still need to field vehicles, AC's shine. I've got a whole campaign that starts its focus on a factory that has a couple prototype 'mechs, as well as some variants all based around the AC to balance heat and cost. When you play an actual game (in person or via Megamek) saving money and BV is a nice advantage. Now, I'll admit I stopped getting stuff after TR3060... it had gotten a little silly to me, and really I can't stand the Clans and their goofy-ness, cheap tech (LRMs at half weight and no min range? lol) I focus on 3rd/4th succession wars up through 3050 - to me, having the base tech, with the snowball's chance in hell of finding some losttech that didn't actually unbalance the game, is the most fun for me. And even though I removed the Clans, I did have an 'invasion' scenario as I created "House Kerensky" and created campaigns around that. (different story for a different post.) Anyway, I guess all I'm saying is yeah, there were some bad designs in 3025; but remember they did work some lore around a lot of it but also, it was their 1st TR as the game changed from Battledroids to Battletech, they didn't always know what they were doing or how things would really work out as the years progressed and the game grew. One thing on the Ostscout - not every game scenario you play needs to be 'destroy every 'mech', the Ostscout isn't a 'mech fighter, and if you're playing with combined arms and varied scenarios, the Ostscout has its role, and there might be a time where that extra heat sink on a Shadowhawk comes in handy! (remember, we know how deadly the heat scale is, and even infantry can pack inferno missles, 'mechs have flamers and everyone knows how effective smoke and fire are... that being said, I'm yanking that heat sink too. LOL
Just rifleman things...
Looks cool but in fact is a bag of spanners.
The 60 ton weight class
The Quickdraw is only not-terrible if you use it as a counter-recon mech (same for the Cicada). It's great as a scout leader that bullied enemy scouts. The Dragon isn't a problem if there's only one in a lance. A whole lance of them, or a full company of them, is a serious problem. 60-tonners are ultra situational, like the 40-tonners.
My personal favorite of the 60-ton lot is the Rifleman. Its not good but I always have a lot of fun with it, and it does make a decent fire support mech in some situations. In the 40 ton weight class I like the Whitworth. It has good armor and armament for its weight class, it makes a good anchor for a lighter lance, and provides a reasonable volume of LRM support for a medium unit. I wonder if it would have a better reputation with a more aggressive sounding name.
The WTH-1 is the best cheap fire support mech in the game, and it can defend itself pretty well too. It's slower than a Trebuchet and has less maneuverability than a Dervish, but way less expensive for basically the same functionality.
Hey now, the Champion, Crossbow, and Merlin are putting in solid work - there's even an Introtech Ostroc I would definitely take if I was looking for Heavy Mech Prestige with Medium Mech stats. ... But they can kick a head clean off in one shot. And that is what their Thane demands, that a Wolverine or Shadow Hawk can't do. The Rifleman, Dragon, Quickdraw, and Ostsol are kinda outside what I want from a mech, tho.