'Mech of the Week: Mad Cat Mk IV (Savage Wolf)

[Kitsune413]

I think the cost of the Mk IV's XXL engine maybe a problem for some merc units.  Specially if they need do repairs depending on campaign rules for a merc unit.  If their using abstract repair system like say Warchest System, it may not be not a problem.  Older rules, i think it be bit more difficult especially when you may play it you need go to the Sea Foxes to get your engine parts from, never mind destroyed weapons.

Funny thing reading the fluff in the FM3145, it sounded like C-bill is gone and international money doesn't have much value depending on where your guys are
at some points that mercs are bartering with ammunition as form of money.

Weapons and equipment have an incredible mark up in the dark ages. A combat vehicle sells for 9 times it's value...

So bullets are worth alot.

[Kitsune413]

MegaMek, but somehow in copying the information over a decimal place got left off.  Mea Culpa on that.  Still, the point I was making remains even though the extreme does not.  No way two 75 ton Mechs use the same amount of resources to manufacture as a single 1900 ton DropShip.  Ergo, C-Bills cannot be a measure only of resources necessary for manufacture.

It could be the cost or scarcity of resources. Whatever they are doing to make XXL engines so light can be incredibly expensive. It may require zero g conditions like some armors in battletech.

Clan Sea Fox seems to be the primary manufacturer and it seems like they have incredibly competent materials engineers based on ferro lamellar armor.

So it's possible it's a combination of materials that can be both rare and hard to produce and that would drive the value up substantially.

It's unlikely that manpower is related to the price. Unless the inner sphere version costs even more to produce. But that's not typically something the gaming system is capable of simulating anyways.

Also because clan Sea Fox manufactures things in a fairly socia list way and the process is probably automated. Which doesn't mean it is. They hand build Nissan gtr engines. XXL engines might have to be hand assembled too. But it's very unlikely.

So it's probably simply that it uses crazy memory metals or something and they are hard to get or manufacture. They engines are gigantic. Just really light.

[Kitsune413]

Also keep in mind that battletech is an imperfect economics simulator. Just like it's imperfect at engine heat transfer and in game weapon ranges.

Ideally, economically, for it to be battletech-ish we would want an economy system that is realistic. But also fun. It's a tough line to walk because battletech players really, really like granularity.

[Scotty]

Weapons and equipment have an incredible mark up in the dark ages. A combat vehicle sells for 9 times it's value...

So bullets are worth alot.

No, it doesn't.  There is a very big difference between vehicles and equipment being expensive, and the C-bill having cratered as a useful currency.  A loaf of bread in post-WWI Germany cost 100 million marks.

This kind of thing, ultimately, is a big reason I think the C-bill is an absolutely garbage way to determine anything at all except maybe how much something costs in 3025 up to (being charitable), the mid-3050s.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

It could be the cost or scarcity of resources. Whatever they are doing to make XXL engines so light can be incredibly expensive. It may require zero g conditions like some armors in battletech.

Clan Sea Fox seems to be the primary manufacturer and it seems like they have incredibly competent materials engineers based on ferro lamellar armor.

So it's possible it's a combination of materials that can be both rare and hard to produce and that would drive the value up substantially.

It's unlikely that manpower is related to the price. Unless the inner sphere version costs even more to produce. But that's not typically something the gaming system is capable of simulating anyways.

Also because clan Sea Fox manufactures things in a fairly socia list way and the process is probably automated. Which doesn't mean it is. They hand build Nissan gtr engines. XXL engines might have to be hand assembled too. But it's very unlikely.

So it's probably simply that it uses crazy memory metals or something and they are hard to get or manufacture. They engines are gigantic. Just really light.

I think we're in complete agreement.  All sorts of in-universe factors beyond "how many kilos of raw materials are required" must be going into C-Bill "pricings"*.  Scarcity of resources necessary for XXL engines, for example, can be completely different situations in 3055 and 3145.  Maybe you need some new alloy that makes XXL tech possible. And that alloy, being just invented and all, is in extremely short supply and that can be part of the C-Bill price that makes an XXL engine so high in 3055.  But a century later, that alloy that XXL tech hypothetically depends upon is no longer new and it follows that the alloy is now presumably more generally available.  That hypothetical factor is no longer a reason for a 3055 C-Bill price still being static into 3145.

*=that is, while prices in C-Bills were being given.  I've said it before and I'm saying it here again: I think it was a very canny move on CGL's part to just drop that yardstick and I heartily approve.

[Kidd]

Er, not quite. Scarcity cannot be part of the C-bill cost equation because factoring it in involves market pricing and fluctuations, and we are agreed I think that that would really break C-bill cost formulas. And that includes labour costs, because those fluctuate too.

So end of the day, the formula can possibly only account for very simplistic material costs. Well, it is a simple formula anyway...

[Scotty]

So end of the day, the formula can possibly only account for very simplistic material costs. Well, it is a simple formula anyway...

Alternate theory: there is no formula, C-bills are a fiat currency by every single possible definition of it, and costs were never intended to represent anything concrete in any way, shape, or form; or if they were, they did a terrible job of it.

This is FASAnomics we're talking about.

[Kitsune413]

No, it doesn't.  There is a very big difference between vehicles and equipment being expensive, and the C-bill having cratered as a useful currency.  A loaf of bread in post-WWI Germany cost 100 million marks.

This kind of thing, ultimately, is a big reason I think the C-bill is an absolutely garbage way to determine anything at all except maybe how much something costs in 3025 up to (being charitable), the mid-3050s.

I'm confused about the disagreement? You started with, "No it doesnt" but I'm not sure why.

The price of a knife in the dark age is twice as much. Small arms cost six times as much.

Also can you link me to your engine tables? I'm wondering what the most efficient weight is for an XXL engine... just for curiositys sake.

It doesn't seem like the savage wolf is a really efficient platform for it. Simply because it doesn't seem to out perform the timber wolf. But the timber wolf was min maxed so I understand the game play need to make it seem like something is different about this new improved one.

[Iron Mongoose]

I'm definately one of thouse who feels that prices in BattleTech are better ignored, but in the case of this mech, I might point to a difrent reason to ignore the cost:

Does a nation with a tax base of a trillion souls really care about cost when buying ten or twenty high end mechs for prestige mechwarriors?

If it was an Enforcer or Vindicator or Panther, and they plan was to build them en mass, then absolutly we'd be looking at cost and we'd be worried about 10% here and there (though even then we're only looking at a hundred or so a year).  But for any Fox customer they're not looking at this the way the Wolves looked at the Timber Wolf (then one would want to talk cost) but as a luxury item.  This the mech mech you give out along side giving someone a planet as their personal fiefdom, so thouse who are truely exceptional warriors who have given a lot to their nation (or who are just super duper connected).  So even if it were 90 million c-bill equivlant, who'd really care?

That said, of course, C-Bills are broken for a plethora of other reasons, so I don't mostly dwell on it.

[Kitsune413]

Alternate theory: there is no formula, C-bills are a fiat currency by every single possible definition of it, and costs were never intended to represent anything concrete in any way, shape, or form; or if they were, they did a terrible job of it.

This is FASAnomics we're talking about.

Which is why I think we need to create a better fiat currency that is more fun.

In the older products cbill cost was a way to balance forces. Like... the old 3055 mercenary handbook everything was based on c-bills.

So on one hand when we talk about price fluctuations we should also probably acknowledge that most data we have on the cbill is from 3050-3085.... but since we blanket stretch that back 300 years....

Because the biggest thing is that inflation should have happened. In 3145 salaries are adjusted on average .15 percent.

But cbill prices should do that every year from inflation... and they should be massively higher anyways post helm because the gdp of countries should skyrocket when they go through the fusion age again... just like the gdp should have cratered when they fell from a fusion age to the 1980's.

But the c-bill being relatively stable isn't weird outside of the clan invasion because it's the currency of a neutral faction. It's the house scripts that should be all over the place...

But then the Jihad happened and the c-bill should have actually died then.

They should change to the fox credit as the universal currency. We promise it will be ok.

[Scotty]

I'm confused about the disagreement? You started with, "No it doesnt" but I'm not sure why.

The price of a knife in the dark age is twice as much. Small arms cost six times as much.

My disagreement stems from the idea that these things "cost" more than they used to, when what has actually happened is the C-bill has devalued in a significant way.  Their cost has not changed relative to any more stable currencies.  A combat vehicle does not cost nine times what it used to in Kroners, or M-bills, or Kerenskys.

This is why I hate C-bills.  "Balancing" for C-bills even back in the heydey of 3055 was poor, and the concept of balance-by-cost is one that could die a lonely death and I wouldn't care in the slightest.  It's fine for determining the composition of units on a macro scale (i.e. House Davion fields XXXX number of 'Mechs and has a budget of YY billion C-bills), but at a small scale it's completely useless as 'balance'.

[Kidd]

It's fine for determining the composition of units on a macro scale (i.e. House Davion fields XXXX number of 'Mechs and has a budget of YY billion C-bills), but at a small scale it's completely useless as 'balance'.

Why? I kinda take the opposite view; its at high-level strategic games that things like Warships-vs-100s of ASFs and the question of GDP, inflation, etc. start becoming relevant enough to bugger FASAnomics hard. At the unit level though, its more straightforward - buy 8 3025-tech Assaults or 1 3145-tech Savage Wolf?

[Kitsune413]

My disagreement stems from the idea that these things "cost" more than they used to, when what has actually happened is the C-bill has devalued in a significant way.  Their cost has not changed relative to any more stable currencies.  A combat vehicle does not cost nine times what it used to in Kroners, or M-bills, or Kerenskys.

This is why I hate C-bills.  "Balancing" for C-bills even back in the heydey of 3055 was poor, and the concept of balance-by-cost is one that could die a lonely death and I wouldn't care in the slightest.  It's fine for determining the composition of units on a macro scale (i.e. House Davion fields XXXX number of 'Mechs and has a budget of YY billion C-bills), but at a small scale it's completely useless as 'balance'.

The c-bill still exists as a unit of measurement. It's the basic unit of currency measurement in battletech. So in 3145 a Davion bill is worth about 2 cbills. Which means that a battlemech costs you five times as much instead of nearly ten times as much.

If you live in the Republic of the Sphere your unit of currency is pretty standard to the inflation so battlemechs cost about the same...

And the relative scarcity of war materials has driven the price of those war materials up. So mechs cost way more and are hard to find. Which is why merc groups are running around in vehicles and battle armor way more.