Alright. I have been reading on this forum for YEARS now. And I am absolutly humbled and awed by the wealth of knowledge that is present here about the game that haunts my every day. And which I sadly have not played for 13 years now :(
For many months now I have been thinking of writing something myself. I was a player from the late 80s to the early millenium. I hold many different views about mechs and their designs due to playing in that time. That does NOT mean I am a good or better player. I just stood still while the game evolved. And the designs. But as was mentioned in a recent post about the Mech Forces, many newer players have a hard time grasping the original Mechs. Many that were our favourites back then are nowadays frowned upon. Others became popular. So I tried to formulate my thoughts on them in this little story. Please do not hang me or be annoyed by my bad english. I am just a german old fart who tries his best to just let his own ideas come into these great minds populating this forum.
I originally planned to cover the whole original 3025 in one go. But after several hours of writing I was just able to finish the lights. So I decided to post this beforehand and let you guys stone me. I hope to cover the old 3025 and 3050 in the coming weeks/months. But I cannot promise anything. I am not used to writing on a regular basis and this is quite exhausting for me.
All this is NOT ment to criticize or bash any of the other writers here. I personally do not think I ever was as good a player and certainly not as good a writer as anything I read on this forum. I try to add a voice from a time long gone. Add things from back then. And even back then my opinion was fringe at best. I hope, you guys can still enjoy this somewhat.
Wife, in honor of our marriage, in addition to this morsel I give you a vast prize.My love, I give you the Capellan Confederation! Hanse Davion, August 3028 The coolest pimp there ever was! Hanse!!! Retired Mercenary Sumo, Octobre 3062
End of Octobre 3062: A bar on the starports side of town in Harlech. Metall tables and stools litter the place. One holovid showing news about the recent kuritan attack on Markab. Mechs can be seen fighting. The other holovid showing the latest Solaris championships footage. The room is filled with persons from almost ages. All of them show signs of different mercenary companies. Most seem to be soldiers and look well trained. One figure stands out in this setting. An old man. He is quite messed up and out of shape. A messy unkept beard and his wild hair are not the features that stand out, though. It is his body. Nobody would imagine a soldier, let alone a Mechjock being that much overwheighed. A huge belly is the feature standing out to all onlookers. A half empty glass standing in front of him, he looks at the young man sitting next to him.
Yes, I am Sumo. You are indeed searching for me, young man. And stop eyeing my belly. I know I look like Grieg... hell... I heard that unfunny joke one time too often. And yes, my old Teebeutel DOES carry me without reinforced leg actuators. What? You dont know Grieg or the word Teebeutel??? Where the hell do you young jocks learn today? On Antallos? Gosh... you come here and want to buy my Teebeutel and dunno anything? Mate... are you a real jock or not?
Okay... so you wanna hear me story before buying it? Forget it... I will give you more. Get a drink, ima tell you young showoff what REAL mechs are... not those shiny quickscell-produced, untested toys they give out today. My Teebeutel (EDIT: Teebeutel is the german nickname for the Tunderbolt) is some hundred years old, just like ALL decent mechs should be. But im getting ahead of myself. You know much of todays Mechs, but little of what we used back in the days. Consider this a free lesson... maybe you will need it one day, Kleiner.
So... we shall begin with the LOCUST. In german... yes, I still speak it, but im NOT Lyran! its a Heuschrecke. Its just 20 tons. People dismiss it as a part of the bugs and make it sound like it is useless nowadays. Do not do this mistake. It is a totally different beast. Despite not being able to jump, it is MUCH faster. And has more armor. The bugs... im talking about the Wasp and the Stinger... can not take the same beating. A medium laser has a decent chance to do internal damage to them. NOT to the Locust. I cannot remember how often we tried to kill these things... they just wouldnt fall. PPCs, AC10s, LRMs... the Locust shrugged it off and kept running. And running it could. Not many things were faster back then. 129 km/h was lightning fast in 25... Locusts basically had the same damage output like the idiotic Bugs but were way faster AND took a good beating. So basically this was a really fast annoying piece of sheet. Took some dedication to take out and stings you. Go figure, young man. what? EL ARRR EMM Locust??? Do you wanna make me puke or laugh? What a stupid idea indeed. More on LRMs later, young man.
Then we have those Bugs... WASP and STINGER. Well... I always considered them the same. Decent speed, jumping 180 meter and a bit of damage. But armor? LOL Paper tissue. As mentioned before... a medium laser has a decent chance of hurting them badly. If I remember correctly they had 48 points overall... so if you face them you dedicate to them real quick or ignore them. Personally I went for ignoring. Poor the jock who got this as a ride. Wothless piles of junk. Even in light units.
COMMANDOes... oh man... I want to love them. They pack a nice punch. A SRM6 (Sumo speaks not ES AR EM, but make a srmm-sound), a SRM 4, and a medlaser. Woah... you can really hurt somebody there. The maximum damage is
more than many a heavy brought to the field back in the days. I trained hard with them. But they like the Bugs just did not cut it. They cannot run faster than 97 km/h. Which was really good. But just not enough to actually pass the lines and get behind anybody. And you just do not spam those missiles. You need to keep some of that ammo for laters... well, maybe that was my mistake. If you attack slow targets whom you can easily hit... that has an unfortunate side effect: they can usually send you back to momma with their weapons and take the beating. And those enemies you could actually damage... those are too fast to actually try wasting ammunition on. I was always too impatient. My name Sumo... I didnt choose this call sign. It was given to me, mate. Tactics and Strategies are good. But I always preferred to rush in and break those carefully orchestrated fights into slugging matches. Hehe my commanding officers always hated me for that. Well... back to the mech. Its downside is again its armor. It just is not enough for its role. Most enemies will just cough at you and youre gone, mate. Dont you ever forget that. But if you are patient and wait for the right moment... go for it.
JAVELIN. Now this one is nearly the same. But also way better. You have 2 SRMs 6 and you can juuuuump. All the better than the Commando. Still you have these ammo problems and your armor is still shit. But hey... you can JUMP. You wont hit as much but you can stay on the field longer and actually wait for the right moment. Men, these evil things are beasts. And this even has a mentionable variant. Out go these SRMs aaaand in go the meds. WOW... somethimes those engineers really can do their job. Laser weapons, no ammo. What a wet canopian dream, mate. HEAT??? What the hell you babbling about? Heat... let me tell you something. A mechwarrior goes into the cockpit with only a slip and the cooling vest. Why do you think that is so? Ppppffffff... those Chameleons they used back then in the academies prepared you greenhorns much better. I personally prefer cold mechs. But heat should not be an issue when you have a good chance firing your weapons. Actually... this was what these Liao wannabe chinese were known for. Unless their cockpits were saunas, they didnt feel well. We often joked about that. They often took less heatsinks for more lasers into their mashines, mates. That was probably why the old fox could trick them so easily with the triple strength surprise back then. Their military could not wait to get that!!! Well. As I said. Look at the readouts they hand out the acadamies again. And check which mechs were often varianted into heat hogs... many if not most of them were liao mechs. But oh... I think I drifted away from the topic. The Jav is always nice to have, mate. Tricky to use in its original. A killer when its full with meds. Fun to play with.
Talking about fun, here comes the SPIDER. I told you about what kind of beast the little locust can be on the battlefield. Well... take that package and add jumpjets for 240 meter to it. Now there is nothing you cannot outmanouver. It has decent armor, but hey... if you do not jump the full distance and make it VERY hard for anybody to hit you, go back to the academy. It only has two meds. Which is not much. But hey... you cannot hit many things with them anyway hehehe In germany we say: Constant dripping destroys the rock. If you hit things often enough with a mere medlaser or two, you will also bring them down. And one thing is sure: not having LBXs or pulse lasers makes this mech survive very very long. There is not much more to say. You cannot win a fight with a unit consisting purely of spiders. But a spider is a great support mech. Jump Jump Jump Jump and occasionally hit somebody with one or two meds.
URBANMECH... we call it city giant in our language Stadtkoloss... the jocks called it Mulleimer or trashcan... the go to militia mech. What has not been said and made fun of about this mech? It actually has a decent armour compared to the other guys I mentioned until now. Sad thing is, with just 30 km/h speed, everything will hit it. Literally everything and their mom. The cannon is something to behold, though. The AC10 is by any means NOT a bad weapon. small laser? Which small laser? . oh... see? I even forget about that. Oh, one side note. There is one variant that should make you worried. The Liaos actually made one with an ACBOOM. Jep, do not stare at me like that. It is indeed an AC20. Should you meet this in a city, tread vewwy vewwy cawefully. And it has flipping arms even. Jumping behind it often wont do the trick hehehe This one is evil... even if it only has 5 shots for the ACBOOM. Our unit faced one once. None of us dared to come near it. We won the fight. But this thing was still there.
Aahhh next up is the VALKYRIE, the valk. What an utterly useless mashine. Yes, it can jump 150 meter. Yes, it can reach 85 km/h. Yes, she has ok armour protection. But an LRM (again, Sumo speaks it LRMmmm, not ELAREM) 10. 5 tons plus more for ammunition wasted. Those stupid missile launchers. So heavy and clumsy. On a light mech. A waste, I tell you. Even IF you hit, many of the missiles still miss. So expect no more or even less damage from this weapon than the meds do. Yes, it does have further reach, quite so even. But reach is very unreliable to hit anything. I always like brawling. But to actually hit something from far away? PPFFFF... tactical combat from long range??? whoever told you that sheet is either from one of the better units out there or a bookworm who doesnt know what hes talking about (NOTE: if you play 3025 and with no piloting or weapon skill upgrade possible). Go close. Start firing at medium ranges and hope for the best, young man. So this mech is a total disappointment. The Davions churn it out on high numbers, but I didnt see many of them in frontline battles back then. Special ammunitions? Hahaha we did NOT have those back then! Boy... look back. A lance was able to conquer a planet. Many of our mechs were held together with ducttape and hope! Special ammunitions? I can not remember we used those before the damn aliens came upon us in 50. Luckily I was out of their way back then. No, we did not use special ammu types. We fought in groups or alone. None of that combined arms shenanigans, none of these things. Were we better? Pppffff... dunno, dun care. We were different. Our wars were different. Shut up and listen, Kleiner! Maybe you will have to fight oldtimers like me one time. Hell, even Takashi that old, gnarly piece of leather placed his stubborn ass into a mech when he was... what? 70? And you can tell about him what you want, but he held true to his ideas until the very end. Gosh, I personally think that stubborn donkey was more dangerous to the Davions than his flowerpower kid Teddy.
And thus we come to the FIRESTARTER... but first... JOEEE, bring me the usual, will ya? Kiddo here pays for it, alright? Good. Okay, the Firestarter. It always amazed me. The very first Infantry support mech... and the eggheads actually got it right the first time! Thats new, dont ya think? Hehe What have we got? Really good movement profile with 96 km/h, jumping 180 meters. Thats usually enough for the kind of enemies it should face. Infantry and tanks. Armourwise theres nothing to complain about. Enough to do its job there. Weapons: 4 fricking flamers, 2 MGs, 2 meds... a wet dream come true if you plan to dance with tanks and jarheads. Flamers are still the best to pop some cans. They will burst when remotely touched by this thing. Yeah, you gotta get pretty close, but you can do that with this mashine. (EDIT: Old rules made tanks go pop like popcorn when touched by fire). Some MGs for to do all the bloody hands work you actually need to do if some stupid governour doesnt wanna give up when his mechs are destroyed. And on top of that the meds. Remember what I told you about the Spider and the Bugs? This mech is not only really really good at popping tanks and killing mudhoppers (EDIT: mudhoppers is the direct translation for Schlammhpfer which is a word for Infantry forces in you guessed it, german). But it has the weapons of the famous Bugs and their movement/jumping. Its not as fast as the spiders, but with the better armour, it can do the same job if theres no spider around. And flamers and MGs come on top of that against mechs. This is a surprisingly good Mech and you should NEVER ever underestimate this thing. It will stay on the battlefield, it will have fun with your conventionel forces and it can support your Mechs. But what do I know, right? Im just an old, fat idiot. Not a proud, elegant, handsome academy tutor... kiss my button... . Oh and theres more... ever heard the word Mirage? Those dudes on Skye and in the Combine wanted a better mech killer than the old firestarter was. So they tweaked this thing. I guess, Steiners and Kuritan pilots dont need to be taught how to kill infantry and commit warcrimes, eh? Hahaha well... so they set up some different models. The dracs kept two Flamers for those nice BBQ parties they like to do, see Kentares... instead of all else, they added a Large Laser and two smalls. Hey... the first time we hear about the good old large in here. My thoughts on this mech? Not bad for a light mech. Decent punch with the Large.... but not much else. And if you want a good, fast jumping mech with this weapon... there are better options. Well, better... im wrong. There is just ONE go to design if you want that. But thats another story. And then we have the Mirage. The Skye boys took out all the flamers and bolted lotsa armour on it. And two smalls. So, lets look at it... 2 Meds, 2 smalls and 2 guns combined on a fast chassis with jumpjets and lotsa armour... THIS guy is the first real and good backstabber! You will survive getting behind an enemy line... no... an enemies back. And do damage. This is the first real backstabber. If you can get your hands on one and like to be a sneaky basticch... GFI!!! This mashine is worth every credit you need to pay for it.
And on we go... next is the JENNER. The dracs secret pride and joy. Let their bosses and warlords boast about the Dragon and how good it is. Or the Panther... but most drac jocks wanted to pilot this beast. When you face those and its more than one, you know its gonna be a loooong and painful day. Luckily it has some flaws you can exploit... maybe. So, lets take a look. It runs 118 km/h. And jumps 150 meters. Odd ugly duck with his profile, but it does get the job done nicely. Not as fast as the Locust or spider, but still very fast. Weaponwise we have a wooping 4 meds AND on top of that an SRM4. This thing packs the close range punch of many many assaults. Trust me. Even with my good old Teebeutel you do not want this thing go wild in your face. Well, but the weapons of an assault on a light mech? You think theres a catch? There is... even two of those. First, this thing doesnt have much armour. In fact it has the armor of a Bug. Not really comforting when youre supposed to slug it out with things a lot more heavy than you. The other problem is this things heat management. It will get to temperatures which will even make a Liao jock feel slightly uncomfortable. And then it cannot run to safety anymore. And 150 meters to jump just wont help much when you just really really ticked off one of the big guys. Hehehe So this is a mech that really needs friends who keep the enemies attracted. This thing is perfect if one your heavies can lift its skirt like an old whore sighing hey, handsome. Look... so you can hit the guy where it hurts. Pray he doesnt get up after you kicked him in the nuts. And the lady behind you can do the same trick on his friends. One more thing... this is another example of the eggheads getting it right. The Davies and Lyrans light mainstays are Commandoes, Valks and Javs. Now pay attention. ANY Valk meeting a Jenner is toast. It so much outguns AND outruns these piles of crap, its not even funny. And once the Javs and Commandoes run out of ammo trying to hit this thing in a cat and mouse game, they are toast too. If you have the patience I lack AND can somehow forcefully convince another mechjock to give you his or bribe a drac procurement officer into making one disappear from the records on your behalf... do it! You will not regret it. This beast couples great with the Panthers by the way. I will tell you why, soon...
Because first we still need to talk about the OSTSCOUT. Oh... but more important... JOE... make me one Liao menu number 87... of course! The lad agreed to pay for it! Just do it already. Getting hungry over here. Alright. Thats that. Ostscout now. Uff... I HATE the whole OST-series. Dont even know why. But this one I like. Not so much to say. Its more or less a spider. Same speed and jumping, okayish armour. One med instead of two. What else to say? More of a scout, less useful as the Spider. If theres no spider around but this guy... use it all the same. Scout the area, backstab as much as you like and just have fun. Which is better? As if I could tell ya! They are basically the same. This one leaning a tiny bit more to jumping and scouting. Both mechs are fairly rare, both dont have many variants. And ALL are highly respected for what they actually do. But the jocks love them. And for good reasons. They lack a certain punch, but they are a good support and force multiplier. Keep them away from modern pulse stuff and LBXes and you are golden, Kleiner. Cant tell you more here. If you dont find a use for these two... you chose the wrong line of work. Oh... dont let those two antennas fool ya. As with many mechs, it has a normal targeting and com system. Maybe once those made a difference in the field, but not anymore... unless we are talking Quickscell...
And so, we come to the last of the light mechs... the much dreaded PANTHER. God, I love this mashine as much as I love the Teebeutel. I would smack every so called experts when they go on rampage about this guy. Mass production at its best. If you find a drac unit without at least one, let me know. Its unheard of. If your procurement officer cannot find spare parts for this mech, fire him after you gave him a good beating or asskick. This guy is by far my most favourite light mech. Fluid battlefield, combined arms, new warfare... my hairy, wrinkled ASS! This is a heavy support mech in the shape and form of a light unit. It doesnt run fast. Only 64 km/h. It jumps 120 meter which never makes a difference. Armour wise... well. I say it had a good, hard shell. Better than many medium mechs. And now we come to the best part of this diamond, its weapons. It features a PPC and a SRM4. The SRM is a bit neglectable. The Panther was my second mech ever. And it brought me through many many battles. I seldom did anything significant with it. But the PPC. If you didnt sleep but actually listened, kleiner, let me emphasize it for ya: THIS IS THE FIRST LIGHT FEATURING A PPC!!!! Why is that important? Oh my god. You mean this??? Damn what do the academies teach you these days. Okay... the PPC was exactly the Fourth most powerful weapon back then. Outdone only by an ACBOOM and those unreliable LRMS. On top of that, you do not need ammo. So this was actually the most powerful weapon back in the days. You had the AC10, but it used ammo. And you had a very good reach for the weapons back then. 540 meters. Only outdone by the LRM family and some low caliber ACs. So you have one of the most powerful, long reaching weapons back in the days... ON A FRICKIN light mech! Good enough for you, Kleiner? WHAT? Too slow? Youre actually right, Kleiner! But does this mofo need to be fast? With this gun and its minimum range... would you bring this mech to a box fight? Go ahead, be my guest. I say: No! You park this mech on a hill inside any kind of wood. And let it stand there. You got the armor to take some beating and shoot anything on the field. One is not enough to make a difference, you say? Again, youre very right. But look at the lineups the Dracs field. Many Panthers there. And they are cheap compared to other mechs and its tonnage. For the price of 2 of them you just get a medium mech. But you bring 2 PPCs to the field. And most light drac units have more than 3 in their companies. For the price of 3 you can get a decent heavy Mech, yes... but will this Mech have 3 PPCs? If you happen to have 4 in your mechbay, they are worth a good assault mech. Again... show me an Assault even nowadays that has 4 PPCs. There arent many. So I dare say, this is one of the best units back then. Especially if you have more of them. PPC spam at its best. This changes when you bring Clan to the game. But when you do that, everything changes. We saw that, right? This is not a sniper though. It is still a true support mech with a nasty, nasty bite. Now for the best part... you remember we talked about those Jenners a bit earlier? Well... I cannot think of many mechs better suited to raise their skirts and seductivly whisper Juhuuuuuu... than this guy. A PPC will get you the attention you need. And while the guys stare at the PPC hitting their faces, those speedy Jenners move up and kick them in the nuts. Thats what I call drac whore mugging in a dark alley! A lance of two Panthers and two Jenners back then... it cant get much better than this in terms of lights. Why do you think these drac suckers held out as long as they did against the Davies AND Lyrans, while having less in just about everything? Even after those two married and started to gang up on the dracs back then? Good looks, pity on the side of the married couple or anything else? Nope. Im telling ya, Kleiner. These drac light units are a frickin pest to deal with. For any other light unit out there. Even today this tactic still works. With all those shiny new toys and all the eggheads in the universe tinkering about new and better ways to defeat other peoples Mechs... some combinations just ALWAYS work well together. I never understood why most experts do not see this. Yeah, the eggheads messed the upgrades in 3050 up badly. But the drac whore mugging does not need any upgrades!
Like this here doesnt. Also a classic! Rice with meatballs and peanut sauce.... Thank you, Joe! Well. Let me eat for now. Ima tell you more next time, Kleiner.
More lights? What do you mean? Uhm... Kleiner... these were the Lights we HAD back then. Take it or leave it. Yeah... there were some exotic mashines out there. Like the Hussar. But facing one? These exots were so precious, you just didnt take them out to a fight. Only if theres nothing else available. And even if you hate the Bugs like I do, you can literally make streets with them. There are so much lieing around. And they are cheap. You couldnt get Hussars and other exots for market price. They were expensive like gems. And as lights still easy to kill in a real fight. You just didnt face them. Those mechs were whom you faced and whom were regulary used on the battlefield. And now shut it, Kleiner. My food gets cold....
... to be continued if you readers want me to.
