As you know, I've been doing surveys about Battletech equipment for BattleMechs. I finished Round 1 a while back and now we're in the home stretch of Round 2.
Looking at the numbers, I plan about eight rounds. That's, frankly, an exhausting amount of work to know that Double Heat Sinks are great and Flails are ridiculous. I do not do this because it is easy or reasonable, I do this because I like to make numbers do things.
As always, I'll leave these up until some time on Friday. Any votes from any sample size are welcome. Comments are always welcome. I thought I understood some of this equipment until some folks started talking about them, and just reading what equipment does doesn't always say how it works on the battlefield.
Just a few notes (survey links at the bottom):
I've posted these primarily on Reddit and a little bit on my Mastodon. Reception has been muted. I think it's been aided by featuring certain match ups. I choose match ups that are close, but I also sometimes choose matches that aren't close to provoke a response. I haven't noticed more or less engagement based on either one, but popular equipment in the post title always seems to get more engagement.
I kept mixing up AP Gauss [Clan] and Magshot equipment, so I had to write a little essay about it out of shame:
I have once again mixed up the Anti-Personnel Gauss Rifle and the MagShot Gauss Rifle (frequently called simply, “MagShot”). Both are half-ton gauss systems that explode for three points of damage and have the range brackets of a medium laser and pissweak damage, but they are very different systems.
The Anti-Personnel Gauss Rifle–or “AP Gauss” to the sort of people who use contractions and spit in the street–is a refined Clan technology weapon created by the best clan, former best clan, and/or Bridesmaids of Kerensky, Clan Jade Falcon.
It was created for battle armor to be used on battlearmor around 3069. Nice. It shoots flechette-like rounds fast enough to punch through even the protection of battle armor. The “AP” could stand for “armor piercing,” but battle armor don’t count, either in naming conventions or in the Inner Sphere at large.
The ability to throw a bunch of metal into a gun and shoot it accurately with a magnetic field seems like the kind of thing that would be difficult to do without a cluster hits roll. I mean, do they not hit each other? Are they aerodynamic? Shotgun shells are round and LBX clusters cover a good area, but gauss rifle ammo is established to be just metal. Perhaps “AP” stands for “anti-physics,” but then we’d have to call warship PPCs APNPPCs, and that sounds like a juvenile joke.
This is tight tech because it’s a full level of technological sophistication over the MagShot. Something it earns with one additional point of damage to vehicles, a few dice of damage to infantry, and 10 fewer shots per ton. What happened to you Clan tech? You used to be OP.
The Magshot, crafted by the garbage people of Space’s Hell Donut, specifically the monarchist elites who use battlemechs to oppress their worker classes. That’s not very specific, the ones who use state propaganda and empty cultural trappings to excuse and ignore their inexcusable war crimes. I mean, the Inner Sphere state which only agrees to peace and rules of war insofar as unquestioned arrogance leads them to believe they’ll benefit most from them until they decide to violate it.
I mean the yellow one.
The MagShot is like if a machine gun wrote a suicide note, but stopped halfway through. The MagShot is like if you copied off the stupidest kid in class. The MagShot is like if you hated recycling so much you made a gun out of recyclable metals and used it to shoot more recyclable metals across random battlefields. The MagShot is like the weapon a BattleMech would have if it was a stick figure man turned into a ‘mech by a wizard. The MagShot is like if you asked CGL to make a lighter AC/2 and they decided to troll you. The Magshot is like if you were worried you might need a friend’s attention when your ‘mech’s horn, radio, and arms are broken.
It was designed for battle armor, and if they had any human compassion they would have kept it.
I've also started to create custom 'mechs which use standard equipment plus equipment from the poll. They're listed below.
Shepherd - A 50-ton omnimech with a 6/9 movement profile off of a XL Engine and DHS. The variant posted carried 6 jump jets, 9 MMLs, an Angel ECM, ERPPC, and 3 Heavy Machine Guns. Pretty bland.
LightJagerMech - A 55-ton 'mech with LACs instead of standard ACs with specialty munitions. Some ER lasers and decent armor. Chameleon LPS is added because it fit and was on the list.
Marquess - My first superheavy. A 2/3 175 tonner with Ferro-Lamellor Armor, 3 Anti-Missile Systems, Large Pulse Laser as primary weapons, Harjel Packs, and Small Pulse Lasers. It's fluffed as a custom job for a war tourist nobel, hence the overweaning defensive systems.
Dezgra Hunter - A Clan 'mech with talons and Triple-Strength Myomer. Paired with Artemis V, a light TAG, and Heavy Flamers, I like it in spite of itself. It doesn't carry enough ammo to justify the Laser Heat Sinks, but it's a technical showcase.
CruSEAder - I made the first one of these as a troll entry for a design challenge based on single heat sinks. I mean, everyone made Machine Gun and Small Laser carriers. But working underwater gets you 6 heat dissipation for free. Underwater Movement Systems and X-Pulse Lasers tied to a Targeting Computer seemed like a way to go. I figure there are underwater settlements in the Inner Sphere. But I don't know there are that many units for defending them.
Azmad - This was originally made in Round 1 as an Elon Musk joke, but I'm recycling these guys to showcase technologies. I have enough custom 'mechs. Yes, giving a quad 'mech an XXL engine and Mechanical Jump Boosters is a lot. I mean firing arcs are a flaw in quads that MJBs amplify. On the other hand, it sounds cool as shit.
Actual Surveys
Round 2, Survey 1 - Angel ECM versus Improved ATMS
Round 2, Survey 2 - Light ACs versus Apollo FCS
Round 2, Survey 3 - Anti-Missile System versus Null Signature System
Round 2, Survey 4 - Laser Heat Sinks versus RISC Advance PDS
Round 2, Survey 5 - ATMs versus Targeting Computers
Round 2, Survey 6 - Swords versus Rocket Launchers
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