Battletech

[doghead]

Cherish was furious. This was worse than loosing the leadership of the Star. The other Mechwarriors had just given it to her, told her to take it if she wanted it! As if it were no more than an ugly sofa that has been cluttering up someones spare room! How was she supposed to work with deviants like these!

Sorry, couldn't resist. Naught me! Naughty! Naughty!

But seriously, I have found Cherish's IC stuff most enlightening and it has been the source of much of my curiosity about the game. Thanks.

 

[Douane]

I should tell you that Mech Works is faulty, I am unable to build the official variants of the Hellbringer without being told that the mech is overweight. A girl does not like to hear that she is over-weight. I do not know what it is but it keeps coming up as .75 tons over weight on most of the variants. That is what got me to shell out the $45.00 for Heavy Metal plus in the first place, it is a comprehensive Mech, Vehicle, Aerospace, Protomech, and Battle Armor creation suite that has everything that has been in a TRO already in it.

It calculates the XL engine's weight mathematically, ie. half weight for a Hellbringer is 11.75 tons instead of 12.00. It also adds MGs to the direct-fire weapons counting for a Targeting computer. So in case of the primary config, it gives 0.25 additional pod space (due to the lower engine weight) and subtracts 1.00 for a bigger targeting computer, because the MG "pushes" it over the '15.00 limit' for a 3.00 targeting computer.


Might I suggest another mech program as an alternative?

BattleMech Designer 9.71

It's free, seems to calculate okay so far and has the standard mechs (IS and Clans) as pre-built files.


Folkert

 

[Shalimar]

Have any of you heard of a wonderful little free program known as Megamek? It allows you to play the Pen and Paper gamer on your computer, either with a bot playing (quite intelligently) for the other team, or, you can play online and have your friends join in. You can make the map any size, although it tends to slow down at anything larger then a battallion on the field, it is a wonderful little thing. It incorporates all Vehicles, Infantry, and all standard mechs including variants, up to Level 2 rules.

Well, I was bored, so I played around a bit, playing out a few possible scenarios of what would happen if our Star engaged a periphery unit as is quite possible being as we will be starting at the periphery and working inward. The periphery pirates and groups use outdated and shoddy tech, so I gave them a mixed medium/light lance and a mixed heavy/medium lance, all mechs being 3025 era or earlier mechs. Ran through it 3 times, in no case did we lose a mech, although Cherish's Hellbringer wound up on its back with its right leg, right arm, and left shoulder actuator destroyed. This just really emphasizes how much clan technology is then Inner Sphere technology, not to mention Periphery technology. I did give the clan pilots the PnP stats for Trueborn warriors, 3/4 as opposed to the Pirates 4/5 but going by the books the pirates first engaged by wolf were probably 5/6 or 6/7 so it is comparitbly even.

I must say that the Summoner variant that mounts the LBX10, ErPPC, SSRM6, small pulse laser weapons load out is hellish as far seeking out a mechs weak spot, it killed half the opposition 2 games running because of the lbx/ssrm6 shots critting a mech in several spots with one shot. The shotgun effect of the LBX is truly scary, as is an Ultra AC20 firing in Ultra mode, the Stormcrow ended up killing the Battlmaster that was leading the Periphery Bandits 2 times out of 3 because it did 40 damage in 1 shot to the Center torso twice in a row. There were also 4 headshots, 3 with Gauss Rifles, and 1 with an ErPPC.

 

[Shalimar]

It calculates the XL engine's weight mathematically, ie. half weight for a Hellbringer is 11.75 tons instead of 12.00. It also adds MGs to the direct-fire weapons counting for a Targeting computer. So in case of the primary config, it gives 0.25 additional pod space (due to the lower engine weight) and subtracts 1.00 for a bigger targeting computer, because the MG "pushes" it over the '15.00 limit' for a 3.00 targeting computer.


Might I suggest another mech program as an alternative?

BattleMech Designer 9.71

It's free, seems to calculate okay so far and has the standard mechs (IS and Clans) as pre-built files.


Folkert

I cannot get that program to work for me at all, keep getting errors, Jemal, the only mech I want to use is the Hellbringer, the alternate configurations I plan on using are the stock Alt. Configs presented in the TROs. Do you have access to those?

 

[Douane]

I cannot get that program to work for me at all, keep getting errors, Jemal, the only mech I want to use is the Hellbringer, the alternate configurations I plan on using are the stock Alt. Configs presented in the TROs. Do you have access to those?

Oops, works without a glitch for me.


Folkert

 

[Shalimar]

Oops, works without a glitch for me.


Folkert

Well, I do not need it if you have it since you know the configs I will want to use since I am going to want to stick to BT TRO configs quiaff?

 

[Douane]

Aff. In fact, I consider it strangely fitting for you to prefer this particular mech, Cherish.

[]

 

[Shalimar]

Aff. In fact, I consider it strangely fitting for you to prefer this particular mech, Cherish.

[]

I like it for a few reasons, the name not the least of which . I like it because it has ECM so it can lay a blanket cloud of electrical intereference over our entire star from enemy sensors so they cannot pick us up, I like it because it has an active probe that gets to tell me what is out there despite the ECM, and I also like it because in Mechwarrior 4 Mercs I have 8 Lrm 10s on one with BAP and ECM, so I can knock all kinds of mechs on their butts (Not to mention kill them) with only 1 or 2 shots.

 

[Douane]

Indeed. Stupid me, that I even dared to think it might be connected to its status as a favorite of Clan Chicken. (smirk)

 

[doghead]

A mech

Basically, its just a Locust on steroids. The program I use doesn't explain much, so I wonder at how feasible this is. I suspect its not.

Update - completely, once I realised you had to add tonnage for armour separate from allocating it So I seemed to have ended up with a mini Marauder.

45 tons
Internal Structure: Endo Steel II*
Engine: 260 XL**
Movement: WMP 6, RMP 9,
Heat Sinks: 10 (20)***,
Armour Factor: 144 (Ferro-Fibrous)****
:: H 9, CT 18, CTR 9, RT/LT 14, RTR/LTR 8, RA/LA 12, RL/LL 20.
Weapons:
:: Ultra AC 5 (LA), Ammo 20 (LA)
:: Ultra AC 5 (RA), Ammo 20 (RA)
:: LRM 10 (CT), Ammo 12 (RT)
Misc:
:: Anti Personnel Pod (LT)
:: Artemis IV FCS (LT)*****

Left and Right Hand actuator removed.
0.0 Remaining Tons.
18 Remaining Critical Spaces.

* Lighter, uses Critical space?
** I'm not really sure what this means. The XL engine halves the tonnage. Whats the catch?
*** Free sinks? You can click and lose the value in brackets.
**** Seems to suck up more Critical Space. Got heaps of that.
***** MASC Artemis IV FCS (Fire Control System I suspect), Beagle Active Probe, CASE, ECM (Electronic Counter Measures), Anti Missile System - not sure what they are or do.

The generation program gives me "Too many criticals assigned to the head and right arm." I don't have anything in the Head and the right is the same as the left.

And thats all folks. It was fun but now my eyes are all squinty. Still, much easier than doing it on paper. I called it Doggybone.