The Mercury System, Pt II

A few weeks back I talked about making a new, worse, more-restrictive, version of omnimechs. Points:

-I wanted them to have construction-level costs

-I wanted pod restrictions

-I threw in at the last minute that I wanted pod weight penalties

The hardpoint system borrowed from the Battletech video games seemed like a good answer. How else do you restrict omnimech loadouts?

Terms

First, lets define some terms. 

'Mechs using the Mercury System are not omnimechs, but we will use 'omnimechs' to describe them for simplicity. "Mercury-type omnimechs" would probably be the most accurate phrase, but we won't worry about that right now.

Traditional omnimechs have "pod space," the tonnage and unused crits into which new equipment can be installed. Those pieces of equipment are called "pods." Pods used on traditional omnimechs are nearly identical to those same pieces of equipment which aren't pods ("pod-mounted"). In the Mercury System, pods will differ from non-pod equipment in some way.

In the Mercury System, we'll be using the concept of hardpoints, which are tonnages and crits that are subdivisions of pod space. They will still mount pods, but they will have restrictions on the pods they can mount. 

Options

There are a few ways to restrict hardpoints and modify pods. Let's explore them.

Basic Hardpoints

Each hardpoint doesn't sweat weight, but is a set of critical slots which can only carry one of four basic equipment types (and associated gear, like ammo and Artemis IV systems): Energy, Ballistic, Missile, and General (EBMG). A mech might have six Right Torso slots dedicated to Energy weapons, and 14 slots on the Left Torso and Left Arm dedicated to ballistics, and 2 slots for Missiles in its Center Torso, with the rest being General Purpose. 

Increase structure weight by 50% (round up)

Increase pod weight by 10% (round to the half-ton) and if that doesn't change tonnage (everything weighing less than 2.5 tons), add a critical slot to it.

Under these rules, something like a Timberwolf would go from 27.5 tons of pod space to 23 to 23.5. With two LRM 20's at 5.5 tons each, then 2 ER Lg Lasers at 4.5 tons each, then 1 ER Medium, 1 Medium Pulse, 2 tons of LRM ammo, and an ER Small at their regular cost, but two crits each, that's 25.5 tons of equipment filling 27.5 tons of pod space. It prefers small equipment at the expense of critical space.

Alternate configurations like the D could still mount missiles and energy weapons, and we could even possibly keep a 6-crit ballistic slot to account for the B configuration's Gauss Rifle, though it would be tight.

Advanced Hardpoints

These would work the same as Basic Hardpoints, but instead of using the EBMG types from the Basic Hardpoints, it creates a new classification system of General, High Energy/Coolant (HEC), Advanced Targeting & Tracking (AT&T), and High Energy/Coolant plus Advanced Targeting & Tracking (HECATT).

The structure multiplier is based on the most sophisticated hardpoint in each location, with locations that have HEC and AT&T having a higher multiplier than locations with just General hardpoints and locations with HECATT hardpoints having a higher multiplier than just an HEC or AT&T hardpoint.

Each type can house weapons and equipment meant for the lower type. I went on about this in the first Mercury System post, so I won't retread that. This one is my favorite, but it's making a new, ad-hoc, categorization of equipment.

In this one, the Timberwolf's lasers would be 6-crit HEC hardpoints in the arms and 5-crit AT&T hardpoints in the torsos. The HEC hardpoints could accommodate that Gauss Rifle and the PPCs, while the torso crits could hold the SRMs and ATMs that many other configuations use.

With General hardpoints in the head and legs, and AT&T or HEC hardpoints in the arms and torsos, the tough structural surcharge comes out to around 5.5%. That's actually within the rounding range of the Timberwolf's Endo-Steel structure and costs nothing.

Now, these numbers are all just placeholders. If making a Timberwolf doesn't cause any significant weight changes, those numbers need to be bumped up. Then again, Endo-Steel is supposed to make things lighter. Maybe the 50% multiplier for Basic Hardpoints is too severe.

Because the Advanced System doesn't have pod penalties, I'm carrying over the ones from the Basic Hardpoints.

We could also flip it around and reverse it. Basic, AT&T, and HEC equipment could all have different tonnage and crit surcharges when they become pods. Some could have the penalties rounded into oblivion and become more viable for omnimech mounting, while others could round the other way. This probably works best with fractional accounting.

Keyword Hardpoints

All his hemming and hawing about keywords is pointless when Battletech already has equipment categorizations: Direct Energy, Pulse, Direct Ballistic, Electronics, Point Defense, Melee, Missile, Area Effect, Performance Enhancement, Engine, Targeting System, and (presumably?) Gyros.

Those categories would be very restricting. We could tune up some of them. Gyro and Engine would be cool until we realize that even if we removed a standard gyro to replace it with a compact version, we couldn't use those slots for anything else.

We could, like with the Advanced Hardpoints, create a tier system.

Tier I: Melee, Direct Ballistic, Performance Enhancement

Tier II: Missile, Gyro, Engine, Targeting System.

Tier III: Direct Energy, Pulse, Electronics, Area Effect, Point Defense

Blah blah blah, Lower-Tier Pods have a smaller tonnage/crit surcharge than the larger ones. Tier III has a higher structure cost, etc.

Tech Hardpoints

One Battletech system which is simple, which is already applied to all equipment and which details sophistication is the Tech Rating system.

I hate it because I think it's arbitrary, but all Battlemech equipment is rated--effectively--D, E, or F. Slap those letters on some collections of crits known as hardpoints, apply structure and pod surcharges and you can create a variety of omnimechs with different loadouts and sophistication.

Simpler than Simple

All those other systems seemed pretty similar in editing so I put them all together. This one doesn't worry about anything except crits. Crits are broken into hardpoints and only one piece of equipment can fit into a hardpoint (including ammo and linked equipment like Artemis IV).

It's very simple and very intuitive. Because no matter how you split your crits it's going to have advantages and drawbacks, I'd do away with the weight penalty to structure.

Pod penalties could remain in place. You could even have dedicated pod equipment which could fit multiples into one hardpoint. There is very little equipment solely for omnimechs.

Block Hardpoints

Focus on hardpoints so far has been as groups of crits. Tonnage has been treated as a pool we can pour into crits for whatever purpose. This is for a reason. 

Block Hardpoints link tonnages and crits. Now, a 'mech can have more tonnage in Block Hardpoints than its podspace because Block Hardpoints only indicate maximum tonnage for the hardpoint. Actual tonnage will vary.

Type I: <=1 ton, 1 crit

Type II: <=5 tons, 3 crits

Type III: <=10 tons, 6 crits

Type IV: <=15 tons, 12 crits

By implication, Block Hardpoints don't work with equipment greater than 15 tons. Double heat sinks are a problem. If we knock all the crits up by 1, Clan DHS work okay. If we knock it up by 2 then IS DHS are good, but Type I Block Hardpoints will take up A LOT of crits in an omnimech.

Like the Simpler than Simple approach, this is so restrictive I don't want to apply additional surcharges.

This version will definitely favor larger weapons over smaller ones, with fewer overall configurations. No matter how we dial the tons:crit ratio.

Feed Weights

This was generally pitched by Skiltao. The notion is that each piece of equipment has a Feed Weight. That's based on its damage, technology rating, heat if it's an energy weapon, and overall tonnage. Simpler weapons (like hatchets) devote very little of their tonnage to feeds (energy, coolant, ammo, data) while others devote a higher percentage (PPCs, UACs, C3M, etc).

A hardpoint can be any number of criticals and support (and weigh) a certain Feed Weight. It can then carry weapons whose Feed Weight total is equal to or less than that. 

This means that omnipods cost less to ship and carry, omnimechs are slightly less efficient (percentages of weapon tonnage), and configurations are limited. 

It is widgety as hell. I think it would need an accompanying Feed Weight table for all equipment, for when you're trying to find the last 1.34 tons of equipment for a loadout.

But then, I want to change all pods anyway, so aren't I just asking for a huge chart?

Pods and Such

So much of this reckoning and I've only got two ways to change pods. One of them is very complex and the other is almost insultingly simple. 

I wanted to cap feed weight percentage to 15%, though I don't know why. Why not 50%? Anyway, let's call it 15, to testing then recalibrate.

To make it quick and dirty, let do minimums, maximums and maths.

Damage: 

Feed Weight % += Damage/8 (round up) %

Heat: 

Feed Weight % += Heat/6 (round up) %   [Energy weapons only]

Technology Rating:

Feed Weight % += Tech Rating Numerical Value * 2 - 7 %

Tech Rating Numerical Value

A = 1 (-5%)

B = 2 (-3%)

C = 3 (-1%)

D = 4 (1%)

E = 5 (3%)

F = 6 (5%)

Add all the feed weight percentages and take that percentage of the equipment's weight.

Making a 'mech with that would be tough. Just make the 'most sophisticated' loadout, then run down the other variants with the missing tech.

Dang, this was about to be other ways to mess with pod tonnage. Something to continue brainstorming on.

Okay, but how else do you restrict omnimech loadouts?

Heat - A heat penalty of, say, +1 heat for every 3 a system generates would make energy weapons and some missiles prohibitive. That makes omnimechs a de-facto strike force focusing on ammo fed weapons.

Ammo Feeds - Add half a ton to ammo bin weight. This basically does the opposite. Omnimechs would become strategically very advantageous, despite being energy boats on the battlefield.

Tech Sophistication - Battletech does have a very stupid set of tech levels. They essentially run from D to F, with D being the bare minimum tech for battlemechs, F being the best Clantech, E being the stuff in between, and most equipment being artisanally scattered across the three by Salt Bae. A maximum sophistication of all equipment on the 'mech, with a structure surcharge (D 1%, E 4%, F 7%) would be a simple way to do that.

The thing is that tech levels are so broad that I feel they don't really provide that feel we're looking for. Also, tech levels have never been a part of construction before so I feel like this breaks taboo a bit (even though at least two of the systems above do the same thing).

Gross Weight - Each section can't carry more than 20% of the 'mech's weight in gear. That means Kit Foxes built under this system couldn't carry Gauss Rifles anymore. Something like a Firemoth couldn't carry anything larger than an ER Large Laser. 

It probably wouldn't be a significant drawback for a heavy 'mech, but would still be stifling to smaller ones. 

One Big Hardpoint - What a lot of these alternatives dance around but don't really address is the idea of doing away with the hardpoints above and just making the entire mech one big, restricted hardpoint. The whole 'mech can only carry ballistics or it can only carry High Energy weapons or below, or it has a general Feed Weight that it can carry which is basically just shifting weapon weights again.