| ManDrake |
| (Newbie) |
| 08/17/08 03:33 PM |
| 72.58.51.45 |
Re: Dual Cockpit?
|
Despite how it's been portrayed here, the Dual Cockpit design is fairly balanced if you are using MechWarrior rules, but it states that there isn't any way to balance it if you are playing Battletech. The bonuses are only a -1 to piloting and Gunnery. But it requires an additional skill and if you change partners, you have to relearn the skill again with your new partner, costing you skill points and time to get back up to speed to get the bonuses. At the start you get an +1 until you've trained long enough. Additionally if one of the crewmen is taken out somehow, you can't do anything at an above average level. Additionally the technology required to sync up two neuro-helmets and the computer systems in a battlemech aren't easy to do either. Requires high level techs to make it work, it's not something a couple techs could do in their free time on a dropship. It requires some serious hardware and experience to make it work. There were a handful of additional bonuses, Dual Cockpit mechs have a different movement modifier chart, and aren't as effected by movement modifiers themselves. In the age before targeting computers, DNI, VRPP, EI, C3, C3i, and so on, it was definitely a way to gain a lot of advantages without as much expense. But in the world that existed after those technologies were introduced, it's doesn't provide many more bonuses than those technologies provide a player.
As for the BattleMaster, there was some debate on if they used a real "Command Console". There are two variants of the command console, the version from the tactical handbook which only weight 2 extra tons, and then later on it was reinvented in Maximum Tech and suddenly it weights 3 tons. Ironically they also have a variant of the BattleMaster listed in the description of dual cockpits section as well, so there are a range of possible versions depending on what point of Battletech history that you look at them. But according to game mythos Kurita got working models from Comstar in the 3050 Technical Readout. And those were suppose to be real versions of the Command Consoles from the Tactical Handbook.