Battletech Welcome to the Jungle

Speaker4thesilent

Crazed Deplorable
And with an XLFE even more fragile...
Yeah, it's a close quarters combatant, survivability is a must.
Sorry to break it to you, but it’s a 45-tonner. It is fragile by definition.

An XLFE means it can be made sufficiently killy that it is much more likely to do unto the enemy before the enemy can do unto it. No point in building a bruiser until you’re into the Heavyweight bracket.

That said, an LB-10X to make life interesting for things fast enough to play keep away from the Choppa would be a solid improvement. A 45 ton ‘Mech that can headcap. How horrifying.
 

Atarlost

Well-known member
As I’ve mentioned before, if you go full or even mostly LRM, you lose a lot of the potential of an Assault ‘Mech chassis. An LRM platform wants to stay back or ideally out of sight entirely and bombard the enemy without the enemy being able to respond. But an Assault Mech is meant to soak up damage.

They are the platonic ideal of the Distraction Carnifex ploy, because if you ignore them to hit more fragile targets, they’re closing in on you the whole time, punishing you for ignoring them, but if you focus fire on them, they just eat up the damage and ask for more.

You're confusing LRM platform with indirect fire support platform. LRMs can be used for indirect fire support, but they can also be used as damage dealers in plain sight. The ability to stand in the open substantially improves effect per LRM tube due to improved accuracy.

An LRM-20 with SHS does an average of 12.694 damage per hit for 18 tons (12 shots). A PPC with SHS does 10 damage per hit for 17 tons.

An LRM-20 with DHS still does 12.694 damage per hit now for 15 tons (12 shots). An ERPPC with DHS does 10 damage per hit for 14.5 tons assuming you value the half of the eighth freezer it doesn't need as a half ton saved. You can get more heat included medium lasers with the ERPPC, but you can get two of them with the LRM-20. An LB-10X with both ammo types does 10 or 6.482 damage for 14 tons. An ERLL does 8 damage for 11 tons. A gauss rifle does 15 damage in 17.5 tons, again counting a half used DHS as half a ton.

I think you didn't have Artemis IV, but that would boost the LRM-20 to 16.25 for 16 tons.

LRMs are competitive in damage per ton with the advanced long range weapons even without advanced technology apart from DHS. And that's in a direct fire role. Indirect fire opportunities are pure bonus. So long as there are any limits on advanced weapon availability LRMs

You're also ignoring the size of your threat bubble. Going from PPCs or LB-10Xs to LRMs increases your threat bubble by as much as going from putting your LB-10X on a Longbow to putting your LB-10X on a Clint. And when a Clint moves to hit the far edge of its threat radius in one direction it reduces its threat radius in the other. If you base your threat bubble on long range weapons you can't be drawn out of position.

The Longbow ... doesn’t fill this role. It vomits LRMs in slightly heavier amounts than the Archer does, sure. But, uh. It’s actually pretty underwhelming in other ways. If you want a fifty LRM throw weight, you can get there with a tank much more easily, much more cheaply, and without occupying a slot in your assault Lance that can be better filled by, say, an Awesome or a Battlemaster.
You're not thinking about how to make the Longbow fill the role because you seem to have a blind spot for direct firing LRMs. You use Longbows exactly like you use Awesomes. You stick them in plain sight on or partially behind a ridge and make the enemy choose between being hammered by long range fire or letting themselves be enfiladed by your battle line trying to get under their minimum ranges. You try that with LRM carriers behind the ridge, but you risk the enemy either not backtracing the LRMs in the heat of battle or killing your tanks before you can reinforce if they're a little more successful in pressing home the charge than you'd like. More short range backup weapons would be nice but it's nothing that can't be solved by sticking a couple Demolishers on the reverse slope.

You're also comparing to the Archer's alpha strike not its sustained damage output. The Archer can not consistently put 40 LRMs downrange because it has 12 heat worth of LRM tubes but only 10 single heatsinks. If it's standing still it can put out an average of 35 per round and if it wants to move it drops to 30 or 25. The Longbow is still putting out 50 LRMs every turn until the bins run dry. When you take cooling into account and compare within the same tech level you can see that the Longbow is getting quite a bit in trade for its assault mech speed even if some of it is wasted on excessive cooling.

I also I am thinking in terms of a Lance force structure. The Commonwealth loves the Zeus. It has an enduring love affair with the design, likely because Defiance produces them in greater numbers than any other Assault ‘Mech due to the combination of two lines and their relatively light weight (also, because they’re fucking DefHes, and the only way you beat their production numbers is by cheating.)

Not really applicable to the longbow discussion, but you're thinking in terms of weight not movement. It is not sensible to deploy Zeuses in assault lances unless you have a shortage of slow assault mechs. With their movement profile they should be either leading heavy lances or mixed with Battlemasters and old style Banshees in assault-in-name-only lances.

The other sort of issue is that with the improved technology that’s becoming available, LRMs aren’t as efficient as the more advanced weapons. I’m not saying they don’t have their niche, because they absolutely do, but the ERPPC/ML meta is real.

Looking at the numbers above they're more efficient than most of the advanced weapons. Catachan is having trouble with the Gauss line so those aren't on the table. The ERLL is more efficient. So would be an old style PPC, but both of those fall behind in range.

The old Longbow has an issue with inadequate medium lasers, but so long as you bodyguard them with something like a hunchback per lance they're entirely competent to stand on a hill and make the enemy pay attention to them and unlike tanks survive that attention without having to be towed to a repair depot. With just DHS and CASE the Longbow could have quadrupled its medium laser armament with tonnage to spare without touching its LRMs at all. This might even be too much short range firepower as if an enemy realizes there's no advantage to be had at short range he might refuse to take the bait.

Sorry to break it to you, but it’s a 45-tonner. It is fragile by definition.

An XLFE means it can be made sufficiently killy that it is much more likely to do unto the enemy before the enemy can do unto it. No point in building a bruiser until you’re into the Heavyweight bracket.

That said, an LB-10X to make life interesting for things fast enough to play keep away from the Choppa would be a solid improvement. A 45 ton ‘Mech that can headcap. How horrifying.

There's a spectrum between a bruiser and something that will disintegrate in a stiff breeze. Just because a thief can't wear full plate is no reason to leave him in street clothes and use constitution as a dump stat. Sometimes he won't kill his target with a single backstab or one of his target's buddies will decide to go after him not the fighter. There is no such thing as killy enough to not need to maximize survivability unless you're fighting under Clan dueling rules. Not at least until you get into something like CannonShop's nuke spam retrotech warships.

What there's no sense in is mounting a hatchet on anything slower than 5/8 or anything without TSM.
 

Lancelot

Well-known member
Sorry to break it to you, but it’s a 45-tonner. It is fragile by definition.

An XLFE means it can be made sufficiently killy that it is much more likely to do unto the enemy before the enemy can do unto it. No point in building a bruiser until you’re into the Heavyweight bracket.

That said, an LB-10X to make life interesting for things fast enough to play keep away from the Choppa would be a solid improvement. A 45 ton ‘Mech that can headcap. How horrifying.

With endo and a XLFE that is more then enough room to max the armor, add an ECM to get close, that lbx10 to be used on any gashes the ax makes and you've got a 45 tonner that can kill assaults. Add in Masc when it comes out, or don't just forget about those 3x strength myomer and it becomes a killing machine. If such a hatchetman was as successful as you'd think it's likely the Axman would come out a decade sooner
 

Vilegrave

Well-known member
Sorry to break it to you, but it’s a 45-tonner. It is fragile by definition.

An XLFE means it can be made sufficiently killy that it is much more likely to do unto the enemy before the enemy can do unto it. No point in building a bruiser until you’re into the Heavyweight bracket.

That said, an LB-10X to make life interesting for things fast enough to play keep away from the Choppa would be a solid improvement. A 45 ton ‘Mech that can headcap. How horrifying.
Thats generally what i was thinking, the canon Hatchetman was generally considered pretty fragile to begin with yet was still fairly successful and popular with FedCom so i figured the space saved with an XL engine could be used to make it even scarier (maybe up the armor + speed for a generalized upgrade while adding an LB-10X for headcapping potential like you said).

After throwing it in MML adding an XL engine, Endo and the LBX gives it an extra 6 and a half tons (7 and a half tons if you remove the extra heatsink) to play with so theres plenty of room to upgrade it.

The Hatchetman does not want XL engines, the hatchetman wants MASC and jump jets.
Any reason you couldn't add the MASC and jumpjets (though it does already have 4 JJ's in the stock configuration) using the space saved by the XLFE? Would also be able to up the
engine speed to make the MASC more effective and be capable of mounting even more JJ's.
 
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Speaker4thesilent

Crazed Deplorable
Any reason you couldn't add the MASC
Because MASC is still Lostech.

The Hatchetman does not want XL engines, the hatchetman wants MASC and jump jets.
And the Hatchetman wants an XLFE for Speed is Dodge Rating reasons. Moving from 4/6/4 to 5/8/5 thresholds you to the next higher targeting penalty on tabletop. For a more true to life approach, extra engine power means more acceleration and better ability to generate a miss via changes in Delta V, as well as an improved ability to charge into melee with the Choppa.

It is an ammo-dependent design, so it can be kited if you’re enough faster than it is. Honestly, though, the Hatchetman is going to be on the back burner for a while. Expect it to come out quite a bit later than it did in canon. Same as the Wolfhound.
 

Blasterbot

Well-known member
If it comes out later that means it has an opportunity to integrate all this new tech. even just the quality of life advanced nuerohelmets would have some great effects added. even just engine DHS means you can slap on a single high heat weapon like an ER large laser or ER PPC with a small torso mounted secondary armament to fire while engaging with the hatchet. endo and ferro weight savings are their own considerations.

with DHS, Endo, and an ER PPC with a hachet we got like 4 tons to play with for a secondary armament on a 5/8/5. if you want an LB you do need an XL. if you do go XL I think you might be able to push to a 6/9/6 if you want. got 6 tons left on that so if you go LB you are prolly over cooling. though a mech that doesn't need DHS could have some use cases as everything is going to be wanting all the DHS they can get their hands on for the foreseeable future.
 
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Blasterbot

Well-known member
I think putting to much bells and whistles on a mech will make it not cost effective. StarCorp got it right by mixing the regulars stuff with new stuff. Keeping the cost down somewhat.
think in 2 lines you want cheaper second line units for garrison duty and very elite units on very important specific worlds and to be deployed via the very limited FTL transport you have. limited jump ships means you can only transport so many mechs so those mech need to be as good as they can be even if it is expensive.

also Nobility will try and buy the best of the best gear to either increase their status or chances of survival should they or their children be called on to deploy.

either way Endo structures and DHS are probably going to be the new standard for a mech because of how good they are. that said those older designs will probably not be scrapped and instead be relegated to planetary militia units along the borders with great houses and some finding their way to the areas by the periphery to help deal with the occasional pirate raid.
 
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Speaker4thesilent

Crazed Deplorable
There's a spectrum between a bruiser and something that will disintegrate in a stiff breeze. Just because a thief can't wear full plate is no reason to leave him in street clothes and use constitution as a dump stat. Sometimes he won't kill his target with a single backstab or one of his target's buddies will decide to go after him not the fighter. There is no such thing as killy enough to not need to maximize survivability unless you're fighting under Clan dueling rules. Not at least until you get into something like CannonShop's nuke spam retrotech warships.
You misunderstood me. I always try to keep any ‘Mech I build at it near max efficient armor.

What I was saying is that even at maximum armor, a 45 ton ‘Mech is pretty squishy. Squishy enough that the extra speed and/or weaponry an XLFE can buy you is worth more than the vulnerability it adds to the side torsos.

I think putting to much bells and whistles on a mech will make it not cost effective. StarCorp got it right by mixing the regulars stuff with new stuff. Keeping the cost down somewhat.
Yeah, cost is always a concern. Even the Lyran Commonwealth doesn’t actually have an unlimited budget.

Though, again, for people who aren’t familiar with the BruceQuest price fix for XLFEs, putting one in a ‘Mech won’t literally double the price once they’re in full production. The ‘list price’ on the Phoenix is right at 10,000,000 C-bills for the first production run, because every other XLFE that the CAC is building is turning into an actinic firework the first time they power it on. As they fix the quality control issues, price will drop, reflecting that the cost/unit of production is falling. By the time they get to the third year models or so, final ‘list price’ will actually be 6,200,000 C-bills. Still more expensive, but not absurdly expensive.
 

Thaoes

New member
I'm not a Battletech player so I don't know the ins and outs of desiging a mech but I would have thought that some thought would have to go into, when desiging a mech, what might have to be done to it so that if in the field when repairing it what happens if you cant replace a XLFE and possibly have to try to shove a normal FE in one. Especially when you are porentially on the front lines at the end of a long logistics chain and potentially have run out of easy to access stock and your commanders are screaming for mechs to be put back into the field.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
I'm not a Battletech player so I don't know the ins and outs of desiging a mech but I would have thought that some thought would have to go into, when desiging a mech, what might have to be done to it so that if in the field when repairing it what happens if you cant replace a XLFE and possibly have to try to shove a normal FE in one. Especially when you are porentially on the front lines at the end of a long logistics chain and potentially have run out of easy to access stock and your commanders are screaming for mechs to be put back into the field.
Most often those lostech downgrades strip off a couple of tons of armor to accommodate it. Sometimes it loses a weapon or two. The Black Knight has such a downgrade, f'rex, trades in its endosteel skeleton and loses 2 tons of armor to remove the lostech when it becomes the BL-7-KNT in the Succession Wars.
 

Thaoes

New member
Most often those lostech downgrades strip off a couple of tons of armor to accommodate it. Sometimes it loses a weapon or two. The Black Knight has such a downgrade, f'rex, trades in its endosteel skeleton and loses 2 tons of armor to remove the lostech when it becomes the BL-7-KNT in the Succession Wars.

I was talking specifically about if any thought had gone into thinking about what to do about Lostech using machines when they get gutted in the field and you might for instance not have a spare XLFE knocking about to put in one, or don't have Endosteel structural members to put into place, or hell just potentailly dont have any replacement weapons that might have the weight reduction on them to put into place.

I imagine it would be looked on unfavourably if you couldn't just say to front line techs, 'if you can't replace this part use this and, drop x weapons and x amount of armour and your good to go'.

Afterall you don't want mechs getting damaged and essentially turning into hanger queens on the frontlines if you don't have the logistics to replace what could be scarce parts with no alternatives available.

Edit: This is specifically new build machines, or any designs that are being developed now, I'm sure already known designs have all this mapped out for them already.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
I was talking specifically about if any thought had gone into thinking about what to do about Lostech using machines when they get gutted in the field and you might for instance not have a spare XLFE knocking about to put in one, or don't have Endosteel structural members to put into place, or hell just potentailly dont have any replacement weapons that might have the weight reduction on them to put into place.

I imagine it would be looked on unfavourably if you couldn't just say to front line techs, 'if you can't replace this part use this and, drop x weapons and x amount of armour and your good to go'.

Afterall you don't want mechs getting damaged and essentially turning into hanger queens on the frontlines if you don't have the logistics to replace what could be scarce parts with no alternatives available.

Edit: This is specifically new build machines, or any designs that are being developed now, I'm sure already known designs have all this mapped out for them already.
Eh, the Inner Sphere techs tend to be good at figuring out how to kitbash broken pieces of junk back into working order, or at least kitbashing them into something that can walk and still fire at the enemy. The Grey Death Legion managed to rebuild a wrecked DropShip into a steamboat in a few hours to escape a Combine attack, that's pretty hard to beat for ingenuity at scavenging.
 

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