Spiffy New Armor LLC- Or which armor would you produce for a upgrade kit?

[Colt Ward]

3125, ten years after you inherited the title of nobility from your predecessor and you finally have the funds to invest in the start up- Spiffy New Armor LLC- you had been telling your liege about for the last fifteen years.  A new armor producing plant that can pre-fabricate pieces to a specific design for upgrade kits. Research during that time laid out all the steps needed to acquire the equipment not only to make the armor but shape it for mechs, vehicles and other applications. But your first product needs to be a winner. You are going to buy the equipment to produce Hardened, Reactive, Reflective, Ballistic Reinforced or X along with buying or building the molds and the equipment to properly shape it to the required forms to sell individual armor upgrade kits . . .

But which armor are you going to start with? Hardened, Reactive, Reflective, Ballistic Reinforced or Impact Resistance Armors?

What is the first mech you are going to create the shape of the armor for? Warhammer? Awesome? etc

Does which House you live in make a difference in what armor & mech you choose?

[RoundTop]

There are several generations of armour there.

If you like assault mechs, hardened is great, but it makes you slower, piloting +1. In exchange, double effective armour, but 1 point BBs deal double damage (1 point marks off 1 bubble, which normally 2 points would).

Reactive is great against ballistics, but does nothing against energy.
Reflective is great against lasers, but nothing against ballistics, and takes more damage under certain circumstances.
Ballistic Reinforced reduces damage, including negating BB weapons.

Honestly, if you can, go with Ballistic Reinforced. But if you just need armour, have good pilots, and are ok with slow, hardened.  If you border with Davion space, go with Reactive.

[glitterboy2098]

if you border the clans, use Reflective. clan energy weapons are murder incarnate and the clans are not as melee happy as the inner sphere so the drawback to reflective is reduced.

ultimately Reflective might be more lucrative over all, since you can later expand your operations to providing Reflective armor for Aerospace fighters which is very much the new gamechanger.

[Colt Ward]

glitterboy, I was wondering if someone was going to bring up Reflec being a good option to later put it on ASF/SC.

Due to the nature of the Clans and changes in the 3120s . . . my original pick was for Hardened Armor to let fire support designs to hang in the fight longer.  The particular design to build the kits for?  Warhammers- two ERPPCs for some ranged punch, tactically you are not needing to really do more than walk when Warhammers are part of assault & heavy formations so the loss of speed does not matter as much.  Standing far in the back, they are less likely to draw enough fire to risk being forced to roll the PSR.  For the assault formations, it makes the Warhammer a pocket heavy to assist holding the line, and it is widespread enough that it should be a large market . . . and from what I can tell none of the various models except the Liao Stealth Armor has any of the more advanced armors mounted.

[glitterboy2098]

with hardened though, unless you are freeing up lots more mass somehow, it doesn't really offer much of an advantage to a refit. it offers about the same protection per ton.. the advantage for the type is just you can mount more tons of it by your weight class.

[Colt Ward]

Cuts down on TACs & penetrating weapons . . . plus the head can get more armor though I am not sure that is a advantage among fire support mechs.

[JPArbiter]

Honestly, i would skip the mechs and do heavy ferro fibrous kits for milita vehicles, as most armed vehicles at least in rules can have the item space to accomodate.

Universal up armoring kits from apollo to canopus!

[Psycho]

 but 1 point BBs deal double damage (1 point marks off 1 bubble, which normally 2 points would).

Not if you use TO. It's something we've played with a few times locally, and have had reason to look up the current rules for.

[Mattlov]

If you like assault mechs, hardened is great, but it makes you slower, piloting +1. In exchange, double effective armour, but 1 point BBs deal double damage (1 point marks off 1 bubble, which normally 2 points would).

Point of order, this is incorrect for hardened armor.  It is the old MaxTech version.  It was "fixed" in Tac Ops, page 281.

[glitterboy2098]

Cuts down on TACs & penetrating weapons . . . plus the head can get more armor though I am not sure that is a advantage among fire support mechs.

my point is that 10 tons of hardened armor doesn't really offer much advantage over 10 tons of standard armor. it makes you slower and makes it harder to pilot, but there is little additional protection. the advantage of hardened armor is that you can carry more tons of armor, but on a refit you rarely can manage to lighten the mech to fit say, 20 tons of armor on instead of 10. and TAC's and AP ammo is just not common enough to make it worthwhile.

Reflective though means that the most potent weapons around, lasers and PPC's, do far less damage. and since with the advent of DHS energy weapon heavy loadouts for mechs have become a lot more common, replacing 10 tons of standard with 10 tons of reflective gives you a major boost to your protection over all.

[Sartris]

i've been pulling a ton of numbers on usage rates for new designs between 3050 and 3150 lately. Reflective is a good bet. Usage rates for energy weapons, both Inner Sphere and Clan, are much higher - especially starting in the late 3060s (aka PPC-palooza).

[Kit deSummersville]

But which armor are you going to start with? Hardened, Reactive, Reflective, Ballistic Reinforced or Impact Resistance Armors?

Leather armor. Kit looks good in leather.

[Sharpnel]

Leather armor. Kit looks good in leather.

I'll take your word for it. It's not a sight I would want to see.

[Kovax]

I'd consider a Reflective Armor kit for all of those aging P-Hawks out there, or else some other more recent popular medium scout/skirmisher design.  The biggest fears of those designs are pulse weapons (which offset your movement modifiers) and the big guns (with enough reach to put you in short range from a distance) which are mostly energy-based (PPC variants, ERLL, ERML, etc.).

[snewsom2997]

I am one to keep certain armor types to 1 or 2 weight classes.

Hardened, Assaults and Super heavies only
Ferro Lamellor Fast Mediums, Heavies, Assaults, and Super Heavies.
Reflective: Lights, Mediums, Fast Heavies
Reactive: Mediums, Heavies and Assults
CL Ferro Fibrous, All Mechs Vehicles, ASFs
IS Heavy Ferro Fibrous, Vehicles, ASFs
Stealth Armor: Lights, Mediums, Fast Heavies

To be honest if making an Armor Factory, I'd just spend the Money buying CL Ferro Fibrous, CL Ferro Aluminum, and CL Ferro Lamellor specs and equipment from the Sea Foxes.