Fighter of the Week, Issue #023 (repost) - Rapier

[Trace Coburn]

RPR-100 Rapier - 85t, TRO2750

Originally posted 27 Apr. 2005.

  All proposed fan-variants should be posted in the corresponding "FotW Workshop" thread.

  Despite its fugly, asymmetric (and decidedly unaerodynamic) portrayal in the artwork, the SLDF's RPR-100 Rapier demands respect as a dogfighter and attack platform, and to my knowledge it is the only ASF to have its own long-running holodrama - "Wings of Glory", which related the exploits of the fictional Captain McArthur Purvis Fullerton and his equally fictitious 2525^TH Independent AeroWing.  Tharkad's Bauer Industries must have had a lot of cash and/or clout to commission a 3V series and keep it going for multiple seasons, but I gather it didn't hurt their sales any.  ::)

  An eighty-five-ton spaceframe turning out 6/9 performance on a standard fusion engine arguably gives up too much payload volume for its own good, but it also lets the RPR-100 turn with or out-perform most fighters in its weight bracket.  Twelve tons of standard armour in a 63/40/49 configuration is decent enough for its size; it's vulnerable to ML thresholding across the wings only, but since there are no weapons systems there to be TAC'd in such fashion anyway, it's less of an issue.  Five tons of fuel isn't really noteworthy either way, but the armament fraction certainly is: employing double heat-sinks - twelve of them, to be precise - the RPR-100 mounts a fearsome arsenal in its nose, including a Cavalier Industries LRM-10 with a ton of ammo, a pair(!) of PNDR "Piledriver" PPCs, and an RNG "Ranger" AC/20 with two tons of ammo.  (Love the PPCs' name, BTW - 'Piledrivers'?  Sheesh, why not just call 'em "FYVM" Mk.3's and be done with it?  ;D)  Look at that arsenal again, folks: this is the aerospace equivalent of a boardgame-player plunking the love-child of a Cyclops and a Warhammer down on a battle-map and saying to his opponent, "Make your choice, pal: die far away, or die in close."  }:)
  Now, granted, the heat-dissipation isn't perfect up close (+7 on an alpha-strike!), but it isn't meant to be; this is an almost archetypical bracket fighter.  At Long range, you have the LRM-10, which is not awe-inspiring on its own but will break the concentration of many smaller birds; close to Medium, and you can throw in both PPCs and remain heat-neutral; at Short range, you with-hold the other systems and give him a dose of high-velocity 120mm goodness, with a one-hit punch that is guaranteed to crit any fighter flying bar none.  And the beautiful thing is, even if you run out of ammo, you can fight your way home with the PPCs - you'd be surprised how many people will give that sort of firepower a very wide berth, even if they know you can't back it up with anything else.  :P
  The Rapier is admirably flexible, too; it needn't stick to air-to-air duties alone.  In the attack role, it can carry fifteen tons of bombs at 3/5, which is an attention-getter in anybody's book; a strafing pass from twin PPCs will alarm almost every ground-pounder out there; a full strike has that same Cyclops/Warhammer "Aw, frak me!" horror to it; and when a squadron can generate Capital bays of 4 points for its LRMs, 12 for its mid-range PPCs and another 12 for its short-range ACs, I'd say they'd be welcomed as anti-shipping platforms too.
  All in all, I LIKE this bird.  }:)

  Offensively, Rapiers are utility players, equally useful in dogfighting or attack roles, though I'd be quite happy holding them for Medium-range fire-support too.  You need to keep some escorting interceptors close, though - as the Rapier lacks weapons on its wings or aft, it is very vulnerable to beam- or aft-aspect attacks, so you need someone to discourage that sort of riff-raff.  Remember your mantras, and you should avoid most trouble.

  If you want to take Rapiers out of the picture, never, ever go head-to-head with them at Medium range or closer - that's a good way to commit a very spectacular suicide to little real effect.  If you want to hit them head-to-head, do it at Long range, with heavy LRM racks, ER beams, or Gauss weapons - and when he tries to close to Medium range, break off and find an easier victim.  'Slashing' attacks from the flank are a better idea, as they have no wing-mounted weapons to fend you off, and of course, hitting him from behind is the best idea.  Medium and 'heavy medium' fighters like the Shilone, Stingray, Corsair, Transgressor or the Eisensturm would be your best bet, primarily the 3050 variants - they can turn with the RPR-100 if need be, but can pound it from Long range so that need shouldn't be.  ::)  Even better would be something like next week's the S-4 Sai or the Visigoth, which can both outgun the RPR-100 at range and out-turn it in a dogfight.  ;)

  All of this said, there are some things really bug me about the Rapier.  The looks, which I can't change :'(; the relatively inefficient LRM-10, which is arguably a mere token as far as long-range weapons go; the lack of rearward or wing-mounted weapons for self-defence; and the thinnish armour.  The last can easily be fixed by [VARIANT PROPOSAL(S) REDACTED]

  [VARIANT PROPOSAL(S) REDACTED] All proposed fan-variants - including my own - belong in the corresponding "FotW Workshop" thread: http://www.classicbattletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,2155.0.html

  Be advised: the attached .txt transcripts of previous runs of this thread contain numerous reader-proposals for variants.  I'll try to change those out for 'sanitised' versions of those threads when I can, but I can't promise it'll be soon - that's a lot of ground to cover.  ;)

[Trace Coburn]

RPR-*** Rapier (TRO3050 Updates)

Originally posted 19 Sept. 2007.

  One of the designs whose 're-envisioned' art became a 'teaser' for TRO3050U, one must say first-off that the re-envisioned Rapier just looks a hell of a lot better now than it did back in TRO2750.  The old art was a little... out of proportion, which probably limited player enthusiasm for the design itself just a tad, but with a new depiction that shows the type as being not only more photogenic than we first thought but also moderately bad-ass, we now find ourselves rather more understanding of its star-status in the holo-series "Wings of Glory".  :D
  I should also note here, as I seem to have forgotten to do so beforehand, that the Rapier got some face-time in the Blood of Kerensky series, where Carew fought a pair of ComStar RPR-100s over Tukayyid and smoked one of them, claiming the pilot as a bondsman.  As their arsenal and performance during this engagement did not significantly deviate from the stats provided in TRO2750, one can only presume that any 'improved' Rapiers which might have been available to the Com Guards were either committed in other sectors :D... or were with-held from deployment to Tukayyid by Mad Myndo Waterly, so that she had a bigger hammer with which to beat down the Great Houses and 'bring them to Blake' once Operation: SCORPION succeeded and the Clans were beaten.   @p? >:(

Continuing the tradition of "Speed, more speed!" The Rapier is a quick turning 6/9 fighter, that manages to back up its speed with an impressive firepower. Twin PPCs backed by an AC20 and a LRM10 spelled the doom for many a wary foe, while an innovative targeting and tracking system made this design an SLDF-only special, despite it being produced on Tharkad. Once some of the advanced technologies were removed (such as the targeting system) the design was allowed to be used by the Lyrans.

  In itself, this is a very interesting factoid, and one that I seem to have overlooked in earlier examination of this type.  If one discounts the 'generic' starfighters (which TPTB seemingly do, even though the Lyrans supposedly build every single one of those types), the main glaring problem with the Succession Wars LCAF fighter arm is its dearth of 6/9 dogfighters - the few F-90 Stingrays left in Commonwealth territory after Star League 1.0 did a 'BSOD' being just too few and far-between to make a major difference.  However, if the Rapier was licence-built in the Commonwealth for LCAF fighter-jocks before and during the early stages of the Great Family Spat, the Lyran realm is/was producing a fairly impressive dogfighter (if one whose mass-profile is a little, erm, 'Lyran').  ;D  I'm almost surprised that the Lyrans had that much good sense....

Class/Model/Name:  Rapier RPR-102
Mass:              85 tons

Equipment:                                                              Mass
Power Plant:  340 Fusion                                                27.00
Thrust:  Safe Thrust: 6
      Maximum Thrust: 9
Structural Integrity: 8                                                   .00
Total Heat Sinks:    16 Single                                           6.00
Fuel:                                                                    5.00
Cockpit & Attitude Thrusters:                                            3.00
Armor Type:  Standard  (192 total armor pts)                            12.00
                           Standard Scale Armor Pts
   Location:                            L / R
   Nose:                                 63
   Left/Right Wings:                  40/40
   Aft:                                  49

Weapons and Equipment      Loc        SRV    MRV    LRV    ERV  Heat    Mass
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Autocannon/20            Nose        20     --     --     --    7     14.00
  Ammo (AC/20) 10          ---                                           2.00
1 Large Laser              Nose         8      8     --     --    8      5.00
1 Large Laser              Nose         8      8     --     --    8      5.00
1 LRM 10                   Nose         6      6      6     --    4      5.00
  Ammo (LRM 10) 12         ---                                           1.00
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS:                                                    Heat: 27     85.00
Tons Left:                                                                .00

Despite the factory being safe on Tharkad, the advanced heat sinks and targeting system were soon gone, and production faltered, even with a lowtech version waiting in the wings. The RPR-102 dropped the PPCs for two large lasers, alone with 4 single heat sinks (by now the factory was unable to produce double heat sinks). The reduction in weapon heat [and] the extra heat sinks helped, but you would still be limited to about half your weaponry at once (note: as I'm writing this, the record sheet has the 102 with double heat sinks, while the fluff clearly states it's a low tech Succession Wars variant and has single heat sinks... with 16 DHS the design is massively oversinked). This design wouldn't be popular, and the design would slowly disappear (except for in ComStar) over time.

  ... but then again, 'Lyran good sense' has always been something of a contradiction in terms.  :D  IMO, what really hurts the RPR-102 is the retention of the LRM-10, especially given the plethora of other, dedicated missile-platforms available to the LCAF (Lucifer and Chippewa, anyone?)  I would never advocate removing a BFG like an AC/20 from a Lyran-built starfighter (me, commit heresy against Lyran design philosophy? :D), but a "lurm-ten" is a different story, and I never really understood what it was doing on a mid-to-short-range brawler like the Rapier; the -102 can afford it even less than the high-tech model, and all it really does is use mass that might otherwise allow the type to reach its full potential as an instrument of badassery.  :(
  On the other hand, as the RPR-102 stands you can hit the other guy with twin laser-cannons all day without building any heat (no bad thing, as you'll recall from last week's Update), and if you get close enough, you can change out one laser for the BOOMSTICK OF DEATH AND PAIN and enjoy a -1-per-turn cool-off.  ^-^  Further, when you Strike enemy 'Mechs, you should have enough 'cool-off' time between passes that you can afford to alpha the whole lot and declare the LRMs last, hoping for the Ranger and lasers to have punched a hole in the armour and exposed something sensitive... like an ammo-bay or a gyro.  }:)  In all fairness, so long as you pay careful attention to what weapons-mix is appropriate to the moment's tactical circumstances (which shouldn't be too hard to those who 'learn(ed) the ropes' on the Succession Wars and "Basic" technology), the Rapier -102 isn't really bad; it's just... not that great.  :(

Class/Model/Name:  Rapier RPR-101
Mass:              85 tons

Equipment:                                                              Mass
Power Plant:  340 Fusion                                                27.00
Thrust:  Safe Thrust: 6
      Maximum Thrust: 9
Structural Integrity: 8                                                   .00
Total Heat Sinks:    20 Double                                          10.00
Fuel:                                                                    5.00
Cockpit & Attitude Thrusters:                                            3.00
Armor Type:  Standard  (240 total armor pts)                            15.00
                           Standard Scale Armor Pts
   Location:                            L / R
   Nose:                                 80
   Left/Right Wings:                  60/60
   Aft:                                  40

Weapons and Equipment      Loc        SRV    MRV    LRV    ERV  Heat    Mass
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 PPC                      Nose        10     10     --     --   10      7.00
1 PPC                      Nose        10     10     --     --   10      7.00
1 PPC                      Nose        10     10     --     --   10      7.00
1 Medium Laser             RW           5     --     --     --    3      1.00
1 Medium Laser             LW           5     --     --     --    3      1.00
1 Medium Laser             Aft          5     --     --     --    3      1.00
1 Medium Laser             Aft          5     --     --     --    3      1.00
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS:                                                    Heat: 42     85.00
Tons Left:                                                                .00

However, during the Star League era there were two other variants. The first was the -101, which dropped the LRM and AC for another PPC giving it 3 in the nose, and a medium laser in each wing, with 2 facing the rear. 20 DHS keep this design cool running, allowing it to deliver devastating strafing runs with little need to cool off between runs (in fact, unless it's firing both its rear weapons, it has no need to cool off). Extra armor lets you laugh at ground fire, except for those golden BBs.

  Holy Holly Hokala: three particle-cannons - and no heat-worries?  :o  Maelwys is right on the money: this one is meant as a Strafer O' Doom, and man alive, does it measure up to that standard!  By the same token, it's also going to be very nasty if used in strength as an anti-'Shipping system: a squadron's PPC bay comes to no less than 18 Capital damage, meaning that many SL-era vessels, (including the SLDF's own Black Lion battlecruisers) could expect to 'roll for crits' particularly light escorts like Lola-III and Essex destroyers, are going to be hurting in a hurry if those guns were ever turned on them, even under the current Squadron rules.  A flying Awesome that should never need to worry about 'pattern fire', the RPR-101 makes a formidable addition to any unit's line-up, and it should be used without hesitation.  About the only thing that worries me a little is the armour distribution - the stern is vulnerable to ML TACs, and it needn't be; shaving a point off of each of the other three facings (thus 79/59/43) will negate that threat without meaningfully weakening the nose or wings.  (Maybe they wanted to leave some form of vulnerability to the design?  ???  More on this issue over in the Workshop.)

Class/Model/Name:  Rapier RPR-200
Mass:              85 tons

Equipment:                                                              Mass
Power Plant:  340 Fusion                                                27.00
Thrust:  Safe Thrust: 6
      Maximum Thrust: 9
Structural Integrity: 8                                                   .00
Total Heat Sinks:    14 Double                                           4.00
Fuel:                                                                    5.00
Cockpit & Attitude Thrusters:                                            3.00
Armor Type:  Ferro-aluminum  (232 total armor pts)                      13.00
                           Standard Scale Armor Pts
   Location:                            L / R
   Nose:                                 78
   Left/Right Wings:                  58/58
   Aft:                                  38

Weapons and Equipment      Loc        SRV    MRV    LRV    ERV  Heat    Mass
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 LB 10-X AC               Nose         6      6     --     --    2     11.00
  Ammo (LB 10-X) 20        ---                                           2.00
1 ER PPC                   Nose        10     10     10     --   15      7.00
1 ER PPC                   Nose        10     10     10     --   15      7.00
1 LRM 10                   Nose         6      6      6     --    4      5.00
  Ammo (LRM 10) 12         ---                                           1.00
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS:                                                    Heat: 36     85.00
Tons Left:                                                                .00

The second variant, the -200, continues to give us hope that the basic 2750 designs weren't really the Star League's best. The PPCs are replaced by ERPPCs, allowing it to reach out into the long range bracket. Two extra heat sinks are added, and like the Blakist Hammerhead, the AC20 is replaced by a LB10-X. 14DHS isn't enough to Alpha, or even fire both PPCs without overheating, but an alpha is just +6, putting it just over the level [needing] a control roll. However, judicious use of your weapons should allow you to overcome the heat problem and to make the lives miserable of your opponents. Extra armor in the ferro-aluminium type means that if you do have to worry about cooling down, you have the armor to survive the return fire (mostly).

  A fairly classic 'punch holes/find-crits' weapons combination makes the RPR-200 a solid all-range fighter, even if you do need to watch your heat... but with the LB-10X to do your crit-seeking and two particle-cannons reaching into the Long range bracket, the LRM-10 becomes even more of a useless appendage, and arguably an active handicap.  Maelwys rightly cites fire-discipline as crucial, but I'm afraid his maths was a little off: an alpha-strike generates 36 heat against a dissipation-capacity of 28, creating an overheat of +8 :(; worse, there's little need for such an overheat, since dropping the missile-rack would let you load on enough DHS to cover all of that heat and touch-up the armour on the aft, which is unfortunately vulnerable to the 'threshold threat' of a medium laser.  :'( 

Class/Model/Name:  Rapier RPR-300
Mass:              85 tons

Equipment:                                                              Mass
Power Plant:  340 Fusion                                                27.00
Thrust:  Safe Thrust: 6
      Maximum Thrust: 9
Structural Integrity: 8                                                   .00
Total Heat Sinks:    11 Double                                           1.00
Fuel:                                                                    5.00
Cockpit & Attitude Thrusters:                                            3.00
Armor Type:  Ferro-aluminum  (232 total armor pts)                      13.00
                           Standard Scale Armor Pts
   Location:                            L / R
   Nose:                                 78
   Left/Right Wings:                  58/58
   Aft:                                  38

Weapons and Equipment      Loc        SRV    MRV    LRV    ERV  Heat    Mass
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 PPC                      Nose        10     10     --     --   10      7.00
1 PPC                      Nose        10     10     --     --   10      7.00
1 Heavy Gauss Rifle        Nose        25     20     10     --    2     18.00
  Ammo (Hvy Gauss) 16      ---                                           4.00
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS:                                                    Heat: 22     85.00
Tons Left:                                                                .00

A final variant has made an appearance during the Jihad, because despite having total WarShip superiority over Tharkad, [the Word of Blake] weren't able to knock out production facilities (though across all of the Lyran Alliance, factories are being treated much better than they are in say, the Draconis Combine). The PPCs remain, while the LRM and AC are dropped to make room for a Heavy Gauss Rifle. A heat-sink is removed to make room for 4 tons of ammo, while the heat-sinks are returned to the doubles from the Star League Era, making the machine heat neutral. It's easy to see this design smacking units out of the sky, though the damage potential isn't all that much greater then the original Rapier.

  Y'know, this concept looks awfully familiar for some reason.  I'll give it some time - it'll come to me soon enough....  ;D
  Apart from the armour on the stern remaining a little less than stellar, there's nothing at all wrong with this model: it's an alpha-baby that retains the short-range punch of the original's AC/20 and has better long-range hitting-power than that dinky LRM-10 ever delivered, both in a single system.  Even if the pilots can't get adequare support from missile-platforms and/or Long-range shooters (and if not, why not?  I understand that Tharkad's Eisensturm factory remain in business throughout the Jihad, flying EST-Os off the assembly-line and straight into the fray!), the RPR-300 has a bright future ahead of it: a future of making life un-fun for the Blakers.  }:)

  I'd just like to make one more observation before I get to the Workshop: the armour-layout-for-tonnage on Rapier models -101, -200 and -300 appear to have been 'auto-allocated' by HM:A (though said software also tells me that the -200 and -300 are missing one 'free' point of FA, albeit an armour-point that may be no more than a rounding error).  There's certainly nothing wrong with using HM:A; it's a powerful creative tool, as many users (including myself) will eagerly attest.  However, just punching 'maximise armour' and retaining the default allocation that results does speak to a certain... I don't want to say 'laziness', since TPTB and their minions are killing themselves trying to keep up with the release-schedules and such time-pressures can get to the best of us, but I get the impression that they may have become so pressed for time that HM:A wasn't so much a creative tool as it was a crutch.  :(

  [VARIANT PROPOSAL(S) REDACTED] All proposed fan-variants - including my own - belong in the corresponding "FotW Workshop" thread: http://www.classicbattletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,2155.0.html

[Trace Coburn]

RPR-100b Royal Rapier – TRO3075

Originally posted 3 Sept. 2008.

  RPR-100b Rapier: Adding three double heat sinks, the RPR-100b replaces the PPCs with large pulse lasers.  The LRM launcher is upgraded to a 20-rack mated to Artemis IV fire control, and three tons of ammunition are stored in a CASE-protected magazine.  A new aft-mounted medium pulse laser covers the fighter's rear.  An XL power plant frees the mass required for these changes.

  ... for the life of me, I can't make out whether the RPR-200 revealed in '50U (also a model 'exclusive to the SLDF's Royal [formations]', you'll recall!) is meant to represent an earlier form of the "Royal Rapier", a different version deployed in parallel (as a team-mate, perhaps?), a disinformation piece that proved viable in its own right, or a combination thereof.  :D
  Nonetheless, the improved accuracy of the LPLs (compared to the PPCs), the added missile-throw-weight (more missiles, smarter missiles, and deeper magazines - the latter with CASE-protection to boot!), and the addition of a tail-gun make this a pretty formidable platform in its own right, though the armour... oddly reflects the SLDF's 'normal' attitude towards armouring its weapons-platforms, which is to say it implies an assumption of numerical superiority (and success despite losses amongst your 'zerglings').  (A change to ferro-aluminium might not have been out of order, but the project may have faced budgetary problems.  :D)  That said, mixing RPR-100b's and -200s into a formation would make for a wicked combination - the -200s provide Long-range capability with their ERPPCs, while the -100bs excel at Medium and Short ranges with their LPLs and AC/20s; indeed, in air-to-mud work the -100bs might make the first passes, with the -200s following to exploit armour-breaches with their LB-10X pellets.

  [VARIANT PROPOSAL(S) REDACTED] All proposed fan-variants - including my own - belong in the corresponding "FotW Workshop" thread: http://www.classicbattletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,2155.0.html

[Maelwys]

I can do math, really!  :D

[Neufeld]

The Rapier, now that is a brutal design that I like. However, *insert standard complaint about armor being not enough for MLs/cluster hits*.
I would prefer that there would be more AF designs that would not need a trip to the maintenance shop for armor redistribution.

The big question about the Rapier is the role, it seems to me that they made it a good jack-of-all-trades that has slight flaws in all roles. If this was wise or not is a big question.

[Moonsword]

It needs armor but this is an excellent bird.  I lean toward the RPR-200 as a dogfighting sledgehammer but in general, it's a very nice platform.

[Arkansas Warrior]

I'm a big fan of the flying Awesome RPR-101.

[nerd]

1.  The new art makes it look a lot better.

2.  The pod on the wing switched sides.

3.  Said pod reminds me of WWII night fighters with radar installations.  See this picture of an F6F-3N Hellcat.

[Jackmc]

Tharkad's Bauer Industries must have had a lot of cash and/or clout to commission a 3V series and keep it going for multiple seasons, but I gather it didn't hurt their sales any.  ::)

The eyeroll is uncalled for.  Given the price of the Rapier, they were paying approx. 2/3rds the cost of single fighter per season, before advertising revenues.  Now consider that compared to your average contract for the Rapier which would have been measured in the hundreds of units, if not thousands.  In otherwords, dirt cheap marketting with a measurable impact. 

That's kind of why real life defense contractors pay money to get their products featured in movies, tv and video games.

Oh yeah, and the reason everyone likes the second picture better is probably because it's essentially an A-6 with a different tail.


-Jackmc

[Arkansas Warrior]

I just like it because the wings are the same size.

[FedSunsBorn]

I just like it because the wings are the same size.

This.

[Moonsword]

I just like it because the wings are the same size.

Ditto.  I don't really care that it looks like an A-6.  The artwork looking a hell of a lot nicer and being properly scaled is what really sells that image to me.

[lowrolling]

I am a fan of the flying fighter-carrying heavy gauss rifle.

[Lyran Archer]

I'm confused about the history of this ASF. They are continuously being built on Tharkad right up until the Jihad, but they are mainly a ComStar fighter?!?! I gather the 102 and 300 varients are distinctly Lyran, however. How common would these be in the Lyran armed forces throughout the SSWs?

[Moonsword]

The word TRO3050U uses is sporadic, not continuous.  It wasn't in continuous or particularly large-scale production on Tharkad during the Succession Wars and "never regained its prominence" to quote the TRO.  By virtue of not being shot at, ComStar's stockpile apparently wound up as the single greatest concentration of Rapiers left.

And yes, the 102 and 300 are both Lyran birds.

[Lyran Archer]

Why oh why were the Lyrans mass producing the Chippewa W5 all through the SSWs when they could have just as easily been mass producing the Rapier 102?!?!  @p?  [metalhealth] [soapbox]  [madflame]  [wildandcrazy]  [tickedoff]  [##]

I seriously cannot fathom the tissue paper Chippewa W5 being the main Lyran heavy fighter for half a millenium (500 years!) (yes, again, five hundred years!) when the Lyrans were, all along, also themselves producing such quality designs like the Rapier 102 and even the Thunderbird!  ???

It's simply boggles the mind past the point of sheer ridiculousness!  :o
 

[blitzy]

The Chippewa is bigger then the Rapier.  Lyrans have no use for scout fighters.   ;D

*runs and hides

[glitterboy2098]

IMO, what really hurts the RPR-102 is the retention of the LRM-10, especially given the plethora of other, dedicated missile-platforms available to the LCAF (Lucifer and Chippewa, anyone?)  I would never advocate removing a BFG like an AC/20 from a Lyran-built starfighter (me, commit heresy against Lyran design philosophy? ), but a "lurm-ten" is a different story, and I never really understood what it was doing on a mid-to-short-range brawler like the Rapier;

IIRC, the way the range brackets work out, it can start peppering the target with the LRM's as it closes, adding the PPC's closer up, and then switching to the PPC/AC20 1-2 punch point blank.

at least, that was probably the idea.

[Sjhernan3060]

Has any used thevroyal version? If so how did it work out?