MTR-** Maelstrom75-ton Inner Sphere BattleMechSource: Technical Readout 3058 UpgradeCamo Specs Online Link"Straight lines are for Robes and Clanners. Real BattleMechs have curves."
This week we'll be discussing the
Maelstrom series. TRO 3058 will be twenty years old next month, and it's almost a century old in-universe, but the
Maelstrom series has remained useful for its entire existence. Its early models were capable cavalry designs for the era, the electronics-heavy Civil War variants left them well-prepared for the Jihad, and the updated 3145 NTNU variant uses advanced technology to become a dangerous cavalry design once again.
Start at the beginning?The first version of the
Maelstrom, the MTR-5K was actually a Star League design that never saw production until GM dredged it up in the late 3050s. As such, it only uses technology that was available to the Star League. However, as a latter-day Star League design, it manages to use that technology well. A 375 XL engine gives it that nice 5/8 movement typical of cavalry designs. It mounts the maximum amount of armor for its weight, which helps cover the vulnerability of the XL. Additionally, less than a quarter of the armor is rear-mounted. The Maelstrom is very much a FRONT TOWARDS ENEMY kind of design. It doesn't spend critical slots on endo-steel or ferro-fibrous armor, instead saving the space for the nineteen double heat sinks that let it run its all-energy arsenal.
The fact that its entire battery is low-tonnage energy weapons means that the MTR-5K actually packs a decent punch for its size and era. One ER PPC, one ER Large Laser, two medium pulse lasers, and a small laser to use the last half-ton make for a decent arsenal, but its most dangerous laser might be the TAG in the right torso. I say might be, because it doesn't do anything on its own, but just a couple Arrow IV tubes on your side can turn that one-ton laser into the
Maelstrom's most powerful weapon. The fact that it has enough heat sinks to fire both the long-
and short-ranged guns at the same time further augment the
Maelstrom's ability to run in and spot targets.
That sounds pretty handy. You said there were variants?Yeah, and they're all pretty good! GM licensed the design to Telfar in the DC and Norse-Storm in the LC, who came up with a couple of variants that place more of an emphasis on electronics. The first removes two heat sinks and downgrades the pulse lasers to standards in order to add Guardian ECM, a Beagle Probe, and another pair of small lasers. That's the MTR-6E. Norse-Storm, apparently appalled at the notion of something so pedestrian as "bracket firing" or "overheating ever," came up with the MTR-6K, which is the same except with a standard PPC and large laser. That actually makes the MTR-6K fairly substantially
oversinked, but the ability to shrug off an engine hit is at least
somewhat handy when you have less rear armor than a 3025
Dragon.
Some time passed, the Jihad happened, and by the end Telfar had the only
Maelstrom production lines. By 3145, they started making an upgraded version that got back to the
Maelstrom's heavy cavalry roots. The MTR-7K has a fancy new endo-steel frame, an engine supercharger so it can go even faster, and a nasty new array of weapons. The ER PPC was upgraded to Clan tech, the large laser became a
heavy large laser, and the secondary laser array became a trio of X-pulse lasers. So, it runs far hotter than its predecessors, but it's got a nice range of options for how it uses its heat. The PPC is a no-brainer, and then you can throw in the pulse lasers against stuff that's hard to hit or the heavy laser against easier targets.
The powerful electronics are still there, but now in the form of a Boosted C3 slave. Instead of spotting for Arrow IV, the MTR-7K can spot for
anything.
Well, anything with Boosted C3.Okay, yes, true. That actually is sort of a problem, too, since the Combine doesn't have any non-assault designs with single Boosted C3 Masters. That's not to say that spotting for a
Naginata or
Gunslinger or
Cyclops isn't useful, but...that's it. For the moment, those are the choices for single masters.
EDIT: Those are the choices for single Boosted masters, but there's been some errata I didn't know about. Apparently Boosted and regular C3 can connect to each other just fine, so there's actually a pretty huge array of options! Older masters won't afford the same benefits as a totally Boosted network, but they're still much better than nothing. All is well!On the other hand, given that 3150 is a strange and unsettling place where the Combine has a border with the Capellans and not the Lyrans, maybe they could make a deal for a few
Vandals. Those would make for a very nasty Boosted C3 supercharged cavalry pack.
Even an older
Maelstrom will still be useful in the the Dark Age era. The firepower is no longer particularly impressive in a world with widespread Clan tech, but the TAG is more useful than ever with the introduction of semi-guided LRMs, along with several more generations of Arrow IV designs. The electronics of the -6E and -6K may not be state-of-the-art anymore, but they're still worth having. Even almost a century after its introduction, you can put a MTR-5K
Maelstrom in practically any lance and get a fair amount of utility out of it.
How do I get a fair amount of explosions out of it?The
Maelstrom series has a bad problem with rear armor. It's not just that the armor is a tempting target, it's that so many of its weapons are mounted in the torso, particularly the ones with the pulse bonus. The
Maelstrom is plenty fast for a heavy 'Mech, but even the -7K isn't so fast that other designs can't get behind it. Since its introduction, the development of fast, well-armed medium and light 'Mechs has probably been the most worrisome problem for the
Maelstrom family. A medium laser and a single SRM will go internal on the side torsos, and a second SRM will go internal on the center. How many designs can
you think of that are faster than a
Maelstrom, and big on SRMs and medium lasers? I can think of quite a few.
Reflective armor is also a problem, although perhaps less of one than it might seem. It thoroughly screws over the
Maelstrom's guns, to be sure, but the
Maelstrom is also heavy enough that its physical attacks will devastate reflective designs, and it's fast enough for that to be a concern. Also, for older
Maelstroms with Arrow IV support, TAG is pretty much an instant death sentence for reflective designs. On the other hand, things that are really fast, well-armed,
and reflective (I'm thinking of the Gunsmith in particular)? Yeah, that's a problem.
Infantry are another pretty good way to deal with
Maelstroms, or at least make them go away. None of the various upgrades have added any antipersonnel weapons, although the ones will pulse lasers should do okay against battle armor. The reflective armor on Kishis, upgraded Fusiliers, Raiden IIs, and Zous will mitigate even that.
Really, on the modern battlefield, the biggest danger to
Maelstroms might just be the IS XL engine. Yeah, it's got maximum armor, but so many of its newer competitors are better protected in some way or another (whether it's a Clan XL like on a
Sphinx or just an abnormally huge amount of armor like on a
Shiro). Shooting things a lot until they die has never really gone out of style.
I thought you said it was good!I still think it's good! It's just that now it's an older design in a world with a lot more advanced technology, and so of course it's not going to be the best at everything, or even
anything. What it
is, is good
enough at
enough things that it's still well worth having, and I think that's pretty cool.
What do you all think? It's been actively produced by three major factions for the better part of twenty real-life years. I'm sure people have stories.
