EDIT 9 April: Clan fixes, House updates to take into account new production data. See replies 152 and 165 on page 7 for details.Please check back on occasion for updates; I'll keep the thread title updated with the date of the last changes.
CONTENTS:
- random mech and vehicle assignment tables by faction for 3028, 3039, and 3050
- a rarity guide
- Quirks
I decided I needed new random assignment tables, since the ones on the website and in Combat Operations are out of date and in general a little lacking as far as I was concerned (not to knock the work that must have gone into them: god after redoing mine about 5000 times I understand that all too well).
My faction tables date to 3028 (on the eve of the 4th Succession War), to 3039 (at the opening of the War of 3039), and to 3050 (Clan tables covering the initial invasion through to Tukayyid). ALL machines appropriate to the eras that have been published in an official Battletech product are here, along with every single published variant. Also included are tables providing Quirks (as found in Strategic Operations).
At this time they only cover from the late 3rd/early 4th Succession Wars to 3050 (though more 3050 tables are coming, as well as 3057 tables). I'd like to eventually cover even later eras, but each is exponentially harder than the last (and so slower in arriving) due to a lack of info on exactly how the new designs of an era replace older ones phased out, destroyed, or no longer in production, as well as there being less info on modern eras in general. In addition, my work handling errata and with the MUL Team eats up most of my Battletech free time.
The tables all use 3D10 percentile (aka D1000), and are ranked according to Battle Value v2, so a low roll gets you a low-BV model. As such, rolling high won't necessarily get you the heaviest machine, but it should get you a better one.
I've also created an availability ranking system based on the fluff, so you can at last have an idea of not just what's available, but how common it is. I rated each machine's availability on a ten-point scale. The scale is only meant to represent how common that particular unit is within both its weight class and the force in question. It is not meant to give an accurate picture of total numbers produced or in service in all factions: besides the fact that hard production numbers are almost never found, different weight classes have different deployment ratios.
If a machine is not listed with a faction it's not to say that that machine cannot be found there at all, but rather that there is no significant amount and no native supply. Ultimately in the chaos of the Succession Wars it's perfectly feasible to see at least one of any machine in the ranks of any faction, but these tables merely attempt to depict typical native deployments. I felt otherwise you might as well just place every machine in every faction, which seems to me to be a rather dull and flavourless way to handle it. See the pdf for a more detailed explanation on these sorts of issues.
If you're going to print it, know that it's in Landscape format (the sideways layout used in the Technical Readouts) rather than Portrait/Standard.
DOWNLOAD:
It's a 75-page PDF (5,772 KB) hosted here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/357573/3028-3050%20Faction%20Assignment%20%26%20Rarity%20Tables%208.2.pdfEXTRAS:
1) Note that thanks to the efforts of Netzilla and Battlemaster, these charts are now included in Megamek.
2) BigDuke66 has created an excellent tool that includes a random mech generator and the ability to creating random forces based on faction, era, and unit quality using the data from my charts. Want to generate an entire regiment at once? Now you can. It also takes my D1000 random deployment tables and, through graphs in Microsoft Excel, provides a clear visual representation of them for every single faction. Strongly recommended. Current version is using Table version 8.07.
Mechs
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/357573/3028-3050%20Faction%20Assignment%20%26%20Rarity%20Tables%208.2%20MECHS.odshttps://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/357573/3028-3050%20Faction%20Assignment%20%26%20Rarity%20Tables%208.2%20MECHS.xlsx (limited functionality)
Vehicles
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/357573/3028-3050%20Faction%20Assignment%20%26%20Rarity%20Tables%208.2%20VEHICLES.odshttps://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/357573/3028-3050%20Faction%20Assignment%20%26%20Rarity%20Tables%208.2%20VEHICLES.xlsx (limited functionality)
3) Link to partial pdf compilations of previous editions of this thread from the lost forums (there are some gaps, and the very first thread from late 2007 is completely lost):
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/357573/3025-3039%20Faction%20%26%20Rarity%20Tables%202008-05-08%20-%202009-01-17.pdfhttps://dl.dropbox.com/u/357573/3025-3050%20Faction%20%26%20Rarity%20Tables%202009-06-29%20-%202010-02-05.pdfI am open to and would greatly appreciate feedback on anything: typos, missing elements, disagreements on who got what or how much of it, etc. If you want to reuse any of this in another work, feel free to - I just ask that you provide a link back to this thread as credit. If you find a use for this, please bump the thread.
Special thanks goes to BigDuke66, Frabby, Matti, TJHairball, Netzilla, ralgith, Battlemaster, and nckestrel for help and fact-checking above and beyond the call of duty.
