Cray
04/18/02 06:32 PM
12.78.124.247
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100-ton assault mechs - feh.
100-ton tanks - piffle.
200-ton superheavy tanks - amusing.
300-ton naval vessels - thppppt.
500-ton naval vessels - heh.
All these, all of them, are but trifles compared to many (cover the eyes of minors reading this post) Real World vehicles. I need not mention 10000-ton cruisers or 90,000-ton Nimitz-class CVNs, nor the 250,000-ton oil tankers that ply (cover the eyes of minors reading this post) Real World oceans.
No, I rant here today to speak of something else.
www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/nasafact/count3teaf.htm
www.flatoday.com/news/space/stories/2002a/localstoryA10280A.htm
Each crawler, sans shuttle, is 3730 tons. It gets 1 mile per 500 gallons. It only has 5500 horsepower, not even 4 times that of a 70-ton Abrams, and isn't armored in the usual sense.
But this Crawler provides an interesting (cover the eyes of minors reading this post) Real World basis for Heinlein's huge land cruisers, Steve Jackson's Ogres, Keith Laumer's Bolos, and John Ringo's SheVas. Tanks as big as ocean-going warships - imagine it.
You didn't? Then your inner munchkin is too tightly shackled. Let him free, just for this thread.
Yeah, that feels better, doesn't it? Alright, since these super-duper-heavy tanks are the size of dropships, I shall vaguely, faintly start with dropship rules for designing these Munchkin Abominations. Make no mistake - they are Munchkin Abominations.
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FLUFF ORIGINS
For the most part, "super duper heavy tanks," aka "crawlers," aka "Ogres" aka...heck, hereafter, "Munchkin Abominations," or MAs, gain their origins in spaceport crawlers. While aerodynes have wheels to roll around on starport tarmacs, spheroid dropships are rather more limited. For this reason, in the cases they need to move without launching, there are MAs (often called "crawlers" by long and ancient tradition) to shuffle their multi-thousand-ton butts around a starport. (See: cover Field Manual - Federated Suns).
These behemoth land vehicles are almost always restricted to prepared roads and landing fields that can support thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of tons of mass. The vast majority are only seen at starports, where they go largely unnoticed for children's shows and Big Engineering shows on the local Discovery channel. However, some mad scientists, dictators, and armchair generals get the idea of turning them into weapons of war.
Performance as war machines are almost uniformly poor - only similarly incompetent enemies are unable to quickly destroy MAs with flights of conventional fighters and bombs or a bit of artillery. With armor and weaponry mostly comparable to dropships, a poorly screened MA is often vulnerable to even a company or two of mechs or conventional forces.
BATTLETECH USAGE
As noted, the near-exclusive use of MAs is as starport "crawlers." These are typically 5000- to 10000-ton, 4- to 6-track giants intended to carry common military and civilian dropships. The titanic, 8-tracked General Motors Crawler-X (not to be confused with a dozen other "Crawlers" in service) is 50,000 tons. Despite its record mass, it is relatively common for a MA and is normally used to move Mammoths (and much smaller spheroids) around starports. Due to their large size, most are built locally at starports. Only GM has successfully produced a design that is used on multiple planets since the collapse of the Star League. Its "Crawler-X" is shipped in pre-fabricated sections, with as many parts as possibly built by local manufacturers.
There have been perhaps a dozen record instances of MAs used as war machines. One turns up in some accounts of the Roebinood legend behind the J. Edgar hover tank (see TR:3026). This legendary "mobile weapons platform" is generally described as having multitudes of conventional weapons and ranges from 100 to 1,000,000 tons, depending on the teller's familiarity with military technology (or lack thereof).
More recently, Amaris (of course) built 3 "Titans" (and planned regiments of them) to provide Terra with mobile SDS bases against Kerensky's coming invasion. These 10,000-ton vehicles apparently mounted mid-range naval autocannons. Two were incapacitated by Terran rebels in their hangars by the simple expedient of ruining their simple steel tracks with primitive thermite grenades. The third, a well-known threat to SLDF intelligence, was destroyed by a squadron of SLDF fighters while it fired inaccurately at SLDF warships overhead - flight time for ground-to-orbit NAC fire was even more troublesome than flight time for naval fire support. Like a lot of Amaris's R&D efforts, the Titans stunk. Amaris engineers skipped providing credible suspensions for the Titans and stuck too closely to the slow-and-steady starport crawlers when it came to movement - their top speed was rumored to be 10kph, and motor burnouts were frequent.
In 2932, a dictator of Utopia (a Periphery world torn between 7 nations since the collapse of the Star League) ordered a super-tank built to crush all his foes. This ICE-powered, 20,000-ton MA performed exceedingly well - it frequently won battles by its sheer presence. On the other hand, Utopia had been settled by pacifists who had deliberately destroyed all their records regarding war and strife and thus had little experience with violence (beyond the domestic abuse) when the Wars began. Eventually, the dictator's MA was destroyed when one of the onboard marine detachment lit up a local herb cigarette around the notoriously leaky fuel lines. The 200,000L of fuel (150km worth) lit off and gutted the "unstoppable" behemoth. (Inner Sphere commanders reckon that a company of 3025-era assault mechs probably could have destroyed it.) A 2985 Capellan expedition to investigate the crawler determined that it was both more primitive but considerably more effective than Amaris's Titans. It had a 32kph top speed and credible rough terrain capability (using a mixture of improved suspension and terrain flattening), and its geared-down electric motors were actually undertaxed.
More recently, an MA incident involved the FRR planet Backwater, near the Periphery. Backwater is little talked about in the FRR or official histories because it is the dumping ground of losers for the FRR. I don't mean down-on-their-luck losers, I mean Losers. The folks who Just Don't Get It. (A fine example of a Backwater inhabitant is the loser cop in the movie Super Troopers, the one who started the movie on dispatcher duty.) Backwater was relatively populous - the losers had been breeding and received a steady influx of immigrants (castoffs from the rest of the FRR, and DC before it.) When challenged by the Ghost Bears in early 3050, the planetary militia commander asked a lot of questions about the Ghost Bear challenges, how they worked, who the Clans were, etc. He quickly figured out the Obvious loophole in Ghost Bear challenges: he could send one vehicle to fight one GB mech in a "trial of possession" for the whole planet, and get them to never come back if the militia won. This was too easy. Backwater's militia was built around Bun Bun, a 7,000-ton MA equipped with what amounted to a light NAC. Backwater announced it was sending a single (snicker) heavy (snicker) tank to challenge (snicker) the Ghost Bear's best mech. The Clan observers were immediately dismayed when Bun Bun rumbled into sight (10km away) and, predictably, Bun Bun won the trial. Bun Bun's first shot missed by nearly 60 meters, but this still blew Ghost Bear's Masakari on its butt. Bun Bun continued this infrequent, inaccurate bombardment for 7 more shots until the mangled Masakari got inside Bun Bun's main gun's minimum range. Bun Bun was faster than the damaged Clan omnimech by this point, so it closed, crippled the mech further with its secondary weapons (a munchkin load of AC/20s), and then rolled over the mech and its mechwarrior. The Ghost Bears agreed they would leave, per the pre-battle agreement. Two weeks later, a GB warship dropped by and blew Bun Bun off the map in rather un-Clan-like but perfectly understandable gesture. Backwater remains free of Clan rule to this day, but no one wants to use it for staging raids against the Clans. The inhabitants are exceedingly annoying and no one can stand their bragging about how they destroyed an 85-ton mech with a single tank. "(Snicker). See, the Clans didn't know the tank was gonna be 7000 tons, and we told it was just one tank, which was true, get it? We really CRUSHED that Clan mech…."
The Periphery desert world of Nova Terra near the Steiner border, apparently a former RWR planet, uses "land battleships" to transport its mech and conventional vehicle units over long distances. These "land battleships" are rather unique in that they can retract one of their 10 track pods at a time for maintenance (desert sands are a high wear environment; the battleships were built to reduce the wear on smaller vehicles, which could not cross continental distances on Nova Terra reliably). The battleships come in a number of shapes and sizes; there is thought to be about a dozen on Nova Terra. They are heavily protected because the Nova Terrans seem to recognize the land battleships are vulnerable, not unstoppable, war machines.
Finally, Archon Katrina Steiner ordered the construction of several MA's in 3065 when the FC civil war turned against her. These were to be equipped with naval PPCs and provide a final defense against the (completely unlikely) invasion of Tharkad.
CONSTRUCTION RULES
*MAs can be 1000 to 50,000 tons, in 1000-ton increments.
*MAs are always tracked vehicles.
*MAs have an internal structure equal to 15% of their mass, +5% if they will cross unprepared terrain, and +5% more if they will mount naval autocannons and/or naval gauss rifles.
*MAs are considered to have a structural integrity equal to their internal structure mass divided by 50, round down.
*MAs mount armor like Aerodyne dropships: 4.5 tons per SI is allowed, ferro-fibrous is allowed, and there is an armor bonus equal to the MA's SI for each armor facing. 36,000 to 50,000-ton MAs get 4 points of protection per ton of standard armor.
*MAs take damage like dropships. Note this includes an armor threshold.
*MAs get 1 cruising MP per 10% of their mass devoted to fusion engines. MAs that will cross unprepared terrain must devote 15% of their mass per MP to fusion engines. ICE MAs, as usual, double engine mass. ICE MAs typically have a 150km unrefueled range. Flank is calculated normally: 1.5x cruising, round up.
*MAs have the option of "0MP" movement. These calculate engine mass as above as if they would have a half MP of movement. They may move 1MP per minute (1 MP per 6 BT turns; 1.8kph) at cruising speed, or 1 MP per 30 seconds at flank speed. This is the typical movement of starport crawlers, which do not like to make the 100m+ tall spheroids on their backs sway.
*MAs need controls like a typical ground vehicle: 5% of their mass.
*MAs mount mech-scale weapons like dropships, per AT2. Pick firing arcs, beware of control tonnages.
*MAs may mount any capital scale weapon they have tonnage for; see rules below.
*Generally, MA weapons are mounted on turrets, but the MA's bulk occludes a 360-degree field of fire. Hence the normal arcs of fire for MA weapons are ascribed to these "turrets" or sponsons. However, both Backwater's and Katherine Steiner-Davion's MAs mounted their capital-scale weapons in a single, massive turret. Full 360-degree, real turrets on MAs mass 20% of the mass of the weapons they mount. Turrets carrying conventional weapons must still be BIG to fire around the bulk of an MA and capital-scale weapons require a lot of bracing.
*Crews. MA crews are sized like civilian dropships (for starport crawlers) or military dropships (for combat MAs). "Short haul" MAs (less than 8-hour operation periods) are actually capable of eliminating much of the required crew, reducing it to a driver or driver and gunner. The 50,000-ton GM "Crawler-X" typically operates with just a driver and is able to position itself with millimeter precision. However, many military MAs operate with large crews to provide damage control, ongoing maintenance, and better handle the weapons. Military MAs with full crews ignore multiple-target penalties (per MaxTech optional crew rules).
*Crew tonnage. "Short haul" MAs do not need to assign tonnage to even a very large crew - this is covered by the control tonnage. MAs that will operate for extended periods should assign crew and passenger quarters at half the tonnage of spacecraft - life support needs are considerably reduced for an MA on an inhabited planet, thus reducing the mass of quarters.
*Cargo Handling Equipment: For 10% of an MA's mass, the MA is set up to get under, hoist, keep titanic loads level over subtle terrain changes. This is exclusively seen in starport crawlers.
SIZE MATTERS
*The typical MA is a thick square, about half as high as it is long and wide (not counting ground clearance).
*Volume two cubic meters per ton, typically, much denser than a dropship of comparable tonnage.
*This means the base dimension (length or width) of a MA is [cube root] (2x tonnage). A small, 2000-ton MA is about 16m x 16m x 8m. A 50,000-ton crawler is 46x46x23m. A 10,000-ton MA is about the largest that fits into a single hex at 30x30x15m.
*Ground clearance is typically about half the height (making ground to top height 1.5x body height), enough room to give the track pods room to individually pivot. This is not a hard and fast rule - the Nova Terran land battleships rarely have more than a 6m clearance (the normal hydro-magnetic suspensions are variable between 3 and 9m), while the Amaris Titans had a mere 2m of clearance on hard ground.
*Body height cannot be less than 3m per 10,000 tons, rounding up.
*Between ground clearance and body height, the overall height (in levels) of an MA (for determining line of sight, water crossing, etc.) is equal to its height in meters divided by 6, rounding normally. Both 5m and 8m high MAs are considered level 1. 9m and and 12m high MAs are level 2, etc.
*MAs need not be sized per the above equation. 2 cubic meters per ton is the usual result no matter who builds the MA, but length, width, and height can vary in any manner necessary to get a total amount of cubic meters equal to twice the tonnage. Nova Terran land battleships are often two or three times as long as they are wide to ease dune and crevice crossing.
*For purposes of occupying space with other units, stray artillery fire, etc, any MA that stretches beyond 30m in width or length occupies some (or all) neighboring hexes, and is considered centered in one hex. The typical 50,000-ton MA thus is considered to occupy 7 hexes.
*The Utopian and Nova Terran MAs introduce a difficult concept for BT: extensive unit stacking. The Utopian MA frequently lined its sides and top deck with infantry platoons to provide supplemental firepower. Nova Terran MAs caught in surprise attacks would often put mechs and infantry on their decks. I'm still trying to figure out how many mechs and infantry you could pack onto the surfaces of an MA.
USING CAPITAL WEAPONS
*Capital weapons use AT2 rules, with modifications to interface them with BT and surface-to-surface fire.
*Ground-to-space fire is basically like orbital bombardment in reverse. Capital missiles cannot be used (they...uh...can't survive Max-Q during launch...yeah...), and naval gauss rifles and autocannons have a one-turn arrival time. Which means they are basically useless against anything but space stations or unsuspecting craft in unpowered orbits.
*A given capital weapon on an MA can only be fired once every 6 Battletech turns, or once per AT2 turn. They are slow to reload/recharge.
*All vehicles and targets under 200 tons are considered to be "fighters" (per AT2 rules) when engaging them with capital scale weapons. Such small targets are difficult to hit.
*Against ground targets, capital weapons have a minimum range of 17 hexes (one map board).
*Capital weapons have a range in BT map boards equal to their AT2 space range in hexes. Capital weapons with extreme ranges can thus fire across quite a few kilometers.
*Naval autocannons have surface-to-surface flight times of 5 boards per turn. Their muzzle velocities are considerably higher than normal artillery. Similarly, naval gauss rifles have surface-to-surface flight times of 10 boards per turn.
*Capital weapons make surface-to-surface attacks with accuracy and scatter just like orbital bombardment, per AT2 rules. Flight times and ranges are as noted above.
*Naval lasers and naval PPCs have distinct line-of-sight issues at long ranges: the curvature of the typical planet limits them to engaging targets about 10km/20 boards away (allowing for rather elevated mounts and targets on flat terrain). How lower and higher terrain affects the range is beyond the mathematical effort I want to put into this. Besides, most of you will never use one of these in actual combat, so it doesn't matter.
MOVEMENT
*May change one hex face/turn no matter how many MPs are available. However, changing facing does not cost any MPs. "0MP" MAs may change one hex face per 6 turns, again costing no MPs to do so.
*MAs not designed to cross unprepared surfaces immediately become 0MP MAs when they leave the super-hardened starport surfaces they were designed for - even normal roads turn into low-traction rubble beneath their mass. MAs that were already 0MP vehicles not designed for unprepared surfaces become immobile off such super-hardened surfaces, perhaps being able to creep back to the starport surface after several hours of strenuous effort and terrain destruction.
*MAs ignore terrain movement modifiers for the most part. Super heavy woods cost 1 extra MP per hex (or halve 0MP MA movement - 1 hex per 12 turns at cruising speed), as does "soft" terrain like swamps. Rubble, rough, light woods, ice, heavy woods - none of these are noticed by MAs. They are simply treated as flat, normal terrain.
*MAs ignore light and medium building MP penalties. Heavy buildings cost 1 extra MP per hex to move through, while hardened buildings cost 2 extra MP per hex to cross through. If this costs more MP than the MA has, the MP is considered a "0MP" MA for each building hex it crosses through. They may ignore basements as noted below under crevice crossing.
*Level changes. MAs are not good cliff climbers. While many of the war MAs are known for their ability to flatten small hillocks and large sand dunes, identifying hills that can be flattened by an MA would be rather difficult. Therefore, ignore that except for writing fluff. MAs can only change levels 1 level per hex they advance. Width is an issue: multi-hex-wide MAs cannot climb hills where a hex to one side does not change levels at the same rate as another the MA occupies. Changing a level costs 1 extra MP as normal.
*Crossing crevices and canyons. Multi-hex-long (2+ hexes) MAs can cross level drops that are only one hex wide. For example, a 2-hex long, 2-hex wide MA rumbling over a level 4 plateau encounters a straggling canyon in front of it. The canyon winds through the plateau but the part of it in front of the MA is only 1-hex wide for several hexes of its length. The MA may cross this canyon without going through a level change. Had the MA been 1-hex long it could not have crossed (it would have fallen).
*Crossing water. MAs designed for prepared surfaces cannot cross water - they flood and ruin their track pods. Other MAs, with their enormous heights, can wade through water that would drown lesser conventional vehicles. MAs with normal ground clearances can wade through depths of water equal to 2/3 their height in levels, round down. MAs with lower ground clearances can wade through depths of water equal to half their height, round down. Wading costs 1 additional MP per hex (reducing 1 MP MAs to "0MP" movement) unless the water is level 0, in which case it is ignored as usual. At the GM's discretion (or player consensus if no GM is used in the game), the bottom of the body of water may be considered "soft" terrain for additional movement penalties, or "hard" terrain, or a mix of both depending on the map and players' whims. This should be agreed upon before the game begins.
*In deeper water, MAs tend to float. Floating MAs can move 1 hex per turn unless they are "0MP" MAs, in which case time to move from hex to hex is trebled. They do not have rough waters well and probably doomed in open oceans.
*Flattening terrain. Terrain for which MAs ignore movement modifiers (rubble, rough, light woods, heavy woods, etc.) is reduced one step toward flat terrain as if they were attacked by mech weapons. However, an MA can reduce terrain that even weapons fire cannot. Rough and rubble terrain become normal flat terrain after an MA's passage, and any woods are reduced to rough. If a multi-hex long MA moves through terrain, the terrain is subjected to repeat "flattening" passes. Woods reduced to rough by the first hex of an MA become flat terrain by the second (and possibly third) hexes of MA length.
UNUSUAL COMBAT RULES
*MAs provide excellent hard cover for other vehicles, mechs, and infantry. High ground clearance MAs are treated as light woods for obstructing the view to a target (assuming, for some reason, an attacker isn't shooting at the MA). Note that, depending on ground clearance, only the legs of a mech may be exposed. Low ground clearance MAs are simply targets that must be shot through before combatants on the other side can be hit.
*Ramming. Normal ramming rules would have any MA simply annihilate a target by tapping it. One tenth of their tonnage multiplied by even fractional MPs can result in hundreds or thousands of points of damage. Instead, treat ramming the MA as if the rammed vehicle or mech fell as many levels as the relative movement between the MA and the rammed unit. An MA moving at 3 MP that hits a mech moving toward it at 5 MP means the mech is hit as if it fell 8 levels. High ground clearance MAs that have 1 level of ground clearance cannot ram vehicles on the same level as they are; MAs with 2 levels of ground clearance cannot ram mechs.
*Squish. After being rammed (or simply run over by a high ground clearance MA in the first place), a vehicle or mech takes an obscene amount of damage. An MA driver can make a normal ramming attack but declare he is attempting to squish a "crunchy" instead. (A 'crunchy' is any non-MA ground unit to MA crews). Damage is equal to one-tenth the mass of the MA, applied in 5 point groups to the rammed target. Hit location is determined as if the mech fell. The side that would've taken damage from the fall is the one that takes the brunt of the squishing damage. A rammed target may also be subsequently run over in the same turn it was rammed. If a mech fell from ramming damage, it can be targeted for a ramming attack. Vehicles immobilized by movement system damage from the ramming can also be targeted for a ramming attack.
*Squishing take 2: Squished tracked and wheeled vehicles are automatically immobilized from massive movement system damage. Any squished unit's turret is automatically frozen, including those of mechs. A mech must roll to see if it suffers critical hits for each of its (remaining) limbs, even if armor is not penetrated. Resulting critical hits are only applied to actuators. These effects are applied after any other damage and critical hit rolls.
*Flattening buildings. When an MA drives through a building, it applies normal squishing damage to the hex(es) of the building it drives through. Very few buildings survive an MA's visit. Note the first hex of a multi-hex long MA does the damage to the building, meaning additional hexes will be flattening the building's rubble into flat terrain.
*Attacks from above and below. High ground clearance MAs present the unusual problem that vehicles, infantry, and sometimes even mechs can run under them, and many can have units actually land on their backs. MA underside and topside armor are just considered parts of the front/side/aft/turret armor as usual, but MA weapons are typically perimeter-mounted and thus ill-suited to fire between the MA's "legs" as it were. MA may thus have "top" and "bottom" arc weapons suited for hosing the area under and over them. Due to the obstruction of the vehicles' tracks, "bottom" arc weapons may only fire at targets ahead or behind the vehicle. "Top" arc weapons can usually fire in any direction, but cannot fire at targets lower than the top of the MA.
Oi, MAs are complicated ain't they? It's all in their sheer size.
EXAMPLE 1: GM "Crawler-X"
Tonnage: 50,000 tons
Terrain: Prepared surface
Length: 46m (3 hexes)
Width: 46m (3 hexes)
Height: 39m (7 levels, ground clearance of 3 levels)
Internal Structure: 7500 tons (Structural Integrity: 148)
Engine: 5000 tons, fusion
.…Cruise: 1
.…Flank: 2
Controls: 2500 tons
Armor: 100 tons (4pts/ton)
....Armor/Location: 100 + 148
Crew: 14 (1 driver + 13 techs and dropship wranglers)
Weapons:
….None
Cargo Handling Equipment: 5,000 tons
Cargo: 29900 tons
Note: The "Crawler-X" can carry a majority of all spheroid dropships without speed reduction. Only a fully laden Mammoth reduces it to "0MP" movement.
EXAMPLE 2: BUN BUN
Tonnage: 7,000 tons
Terrain: Unprepared surface
Length: 24m (1 hexes)
Width: 24m (1 hexes)
Height: 18m (3 levels, ground clearance of 1 level)
Internal Structure: 1750 tons (SI: 35)
Engine: 2100 tons
.…Cruise: 2
.…Flank: 3
Controls: 350 tons
Armor: 150 tons (14pts/ton)
....Armor/Location: 525 + 35
Crew: 20
Crew Quarters (Steerage): 50 tons
Weapons:
….1x NAC/10 (turret)
.…12x AC/20 (3 front/side/back)
.…60 tons AC/20 ammo (5 tons/weapon)
.…60 tons NAC/10 ammo (300 shots)
Cargo: 312 tons
Notes: I am embarrassed I was not able to mount Bun Bun's NAC/10 on a turret, nor find a BT weapon with 1-shot per 16 tons like the Bun Bun in "When the Devil Dances" by John Ringo. I'm also embarrassed to ascribe Bun Bun to Backwater. Bun Bun was one of the shields that kept America safe from the alien hordes.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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NathanKell
04/19/02 09:40 PM
24.44.238.62
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I guess I'll have to read Ringo's #3; I've been (unforgivably) ignoring Webscription for the past six months or so. No more of that, especially since 1633 is on the way {I don't think I ever read an Eric Flint book that didn't have me rolling within seconds}...
Anyway, back to topic:
Being a fan of air (err, more rightly naval) power I can't say I'm as interested in titans (or Land Leviathans, to use Michael Moorcock's book of the same name which features them prominently) except as targets--or, in rather the same light as fuel trucks and people-movers, a necessary but unglorious unit needed for space trade (when the beanstalks aren't available, of course  ).
Though I appreciate the sheer munch scale of them...but it just ain't right, the [black-] sailor in me says, to have such a thing on land.
I also think you may want to make the engine tonnage exponential in some way, to keep it in line with other ground vehicles...perhaps (MP * 10)^1.1 percent. That shouldn't be terribly steep.
The "squishing" rules are particularly...interesting...
-NathanKell, BT Space Wars
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
Thomas Jefferson |
Cray
04/19/02 09:52 PM
24.165.244.231
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>{I don't think I ever read an Eric Flint book that didn't have me rolling within seconds}...
Rolling with laughter?
Well, if you aren't a fan of Bolos and Ogres and land leviathans, than I can see these falling a bit flat for you. But they'd make great Master Villains' vehicles in a MW campaign. Some tinpot dictator without the sense to build a credible military force builds a super tank instead, the heroic PCs must defeat it...perhaps escape from the dungeon in its bowels, that sort of thing.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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NathanKell
04/19/02 10:24 PM
24.44.238.62
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Though flat isn't the word! :P
And yes, ROTFLMAO. No author but him could make me read (shudder) fantasy.
Well, I certainly agree that they make great Evil Things...well, anything Great, actually...
I wasn't saying this was not a masterpiece (it is, as usual), just that it wasn't necessarily my type of masterpiece. Well, somewhat.
1. Leviathan appeals.
2. Lots-o-guns appeals
3. Land doesn't
{man, I need a new letter to start my lists with...}
Two out of three ain't bad. 
But for the *really* big stuff you need space. Lots of space. Now, where is there lots of space? Ah! Low orbit!
Helloooo monitors!
-NathanKell, BT Space Wars
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
Thomas Jefferson |
Cray
04/20/02 08:45 AM
24.165.244.231
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Cool.
Speaking of which, use military dropship heat sink calculations to figure out how many heat sinks MAs start with, if it's fusion-powered. As military aerodynes if it matters - I don't have AT2 handy.
Heat build up is like vehicles, but MAs can have a LOT of energy weapons, so the integral number of heat sinks is important.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Kottos
04/21/02 02:09 PM
146.186.20.64
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>Heat build up is like vehicles<
Does that also refer to the effects of inferno SRMs? It would really hurt to lose a several thousand ton munchkin abomination to anything with an SRM rack.
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KamikazeJohnson
04/21/02 02:38 PM
209.202.47.12
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I would think that something that size would be simply too large to be significantly affected by Inferno SRMs...a little splotch of goo would cause a "hot spot" (possibly some role-playing potential here), but shouldn't significantly affect the entire machine
Peace is that glorious moment in history when everyone stands around reloading.
--Thomas Jefferson
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Cray
04/22/02 04:42 PM
12.78.119.180
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Infernos affect MAs as they do mechs: some extra heat.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Cray
08/25/02 04:19 PM
12.91.130.60
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bump
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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NathanKell
08/25/02 04:52 PM
24.44.238.62
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I can appreciate this more now that I finally got around to reading When the Devil Dances.
And bumping is fitting, since now Bun-Bun has competition from "Roland"...
-NathanKell, BT Space Wars
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
Thomas Jefferson |
Cray
08/25/02 06:25 PM
12.91.130.60
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Bun Bun is cool. Either the little furry psychopath or the 7000-ton tank.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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NathanKell
08/25/02 06:31 PM
24.44.238.62
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The former? Can't say.
The latter? Oh yeah. Cat-kill indeed.
-NathanKell, BT Space Wars
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
Thomas Jefferson |
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