Gyros: Someone Esplain to me......

[The_Caveman]

Four times, but how much of a 'Mech will you have at that point?

That's what the Hardened Armor and Reinforced Structure are for. Throw in an armored torso cockpit and you can build a 100-ton quad that will shrug off anything short of a nuke.

[Caedis Animus]

I'm pretty sure that could still take a nuke as long as it wasn't in the "Insta death" radius.

EDIT; A proof of concept, either way.http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=55382.0

[Cryhavok101]

Considering you can make a nuke small enough to do only a single point of damage, "take a nuke" is a very vague thing. I can make battle armor that can take a nuke lol.

[Arkansas Warrior]

That's what the Hardened Armor and Reinforced Structure are for. Throw in an armored torso cockpit and you can build a 100-ton quad that will shrug off anything short of a nuke.

Total armament?  1 medium laser. ;D

[SCC]

Total armament?  1 medium laser. ;D

Not even that, a 100-ton quad moving 3/5 with compact engine, HD gyro, max hardened armor Reinforced Structure and torso mounted cockpit has zero tonnage for weapons

[Caedis Animus]

Which is why you click on the link to the design I provided, as opposed to talking about unit construction  ;)

I'd rather that becomes a discussion there than here.

Anyways, a good question is what the public opinion of the XL Gyro is compared to the other types. I personally consider it pointless; It takes up more space, obviously, meaning you'll have a prone unit a lot faster.

[Cryhavok101]

I've used XL gyros on light mechs that needed just one more ton, and any hit to the center torso was going to destroy the mech anyway, so the extra crit space it took up didn't matter.

Overall, I don't like them though.

[The_Caveman]

Not even that, a 100-ton quad moving 3/5 with compact engine, HD gyro, max hardened armor Reinforced Structure and torso mounted cockpit has zero tonnage for weapons

3/5 is pointless with hardened armor (it's actually 3/4), just accept that your toughness will compensate for being 2/2 and you can have a turreted heavy PPC and angel ECM on that bad boy. Or a Clan PPC, and add on laser AMS if you want to be a jerk.

[massey]

Four times, but how much of a 'Mech will you have at that point?

That's my head canon reason for why nobody bothered with it before.  There's a lot of really specialized equipment that has significant trade-offs.  Armored heavy duty gyros, XXL engines, reinforced internal structure, things like that would have been possible in the Star League era, but unless you're cramming all those things together into one unholy-expensive special snowflake of a mech, they aren't useful enough to have really entered production.

The inclusion of all this stuff in later eras pushes my suspension of disbelief.  I keep thinking "nobody would bother to build this".

[Scotty]

Four times, but how much of a 'Mech will you have at that point?

Against LBXs and SRMs?  Most of one.  A standard gyro has a roughly 21% chance of being hit once during any incidence of damage to the center torso.  A compact gyro has a 14% chance of the same, a reduction of nearly a third.  Armoring either doesn't actually change the odds of taking a hit to the gyro, but it does increase the time to cripple from two hits to four.  A standard gyro, on average, will be crippled after five individual hits.  A compact gyro, on average, will be crippled after seven hits.  Armoring them bumps the math up to 10 and 14, respectively.

That's way, way too many hits to be worth it on anything 50 tons or less, but the vagaries of chance mean that the odds of catastrophically losing your 'Mech to the first crit drops sharply once you start armoring things.  Armored, Compact, and Heavy-Duty Gyros don't get put in things because they're going to make your 'Mech last X or Y more turns on average, they get put in things so that even if you suffer a catastrophic TAC on the Center Torso you can mostly shrug it off and keep fighting.

It's bad luck insurance, and I have horrible luck with gyros, so I put them on anything I can.

EDIT: Armoring a Heavy-Duty Gyro brings your chances of being crippled by a single hit (by gyro destruction) down to roughly zero.  There's a very low chance that you take three engine crits, which at that point is literally the only thing that can remove your 'Mech from the fight.

[Caedis Animus]

Aside from the usual pilot death and CT destruction, or destroying both legs.

[Scotty]

I addressed that already in the post.  My assertion that literally the only thing that can remove your 'Mech from the fight is three engine crits is within the context of Center Torso TACs.

[Caedis Animus]

I addressed that already in the post.  My assertion that literally the only thing that can remove your 'Mech from the fight is three engine crits is within the context of Center Torso TACs.

Didn't think of that, sorry.

[Hellraiser]

I've used XL gyros on light mechs that needed just one more ton, and any hit to the center torso was going to destroy the mech anyway, so the extra crit space it took up didn't matter.

Overall, I don't like them though.

Agreed.

I've also toyed with them on something like the Excalibur, big gyro on a long range fire support frame, something that isn't likely to be getting pounded repeatedly up close.

[ThatPirateGuy]

If you play with forced withdrawal rules a destroyed gyro is a mission kill.

Heck one gyro hit and one engine hit is a mission kill.

Those facts make the gyro enhancements much more tempting.