LCF-R** Lucifer - 65t, TRO3025
Originally posted 16 Mar. 2005. All proposed fan-variants should be posted in the corresponding "FotW Workshop" thread. For all the malevolence of its designation, the
Lucifer is actually something of a mixed blessing to a force commander: it can lay down a daunting amount of firepower, but the rest of its performance sheet is nothing to get excited about.
I'm actually inclined to deal with the fluff first, since it's so, um,
colourful. On the basis of its fluff alone, calling the
Lucifer flawed would be the height of generosity. Comms and T&T systems that can't take a little jarring or outside EM interference? The designers obviously forgot that these systems would be deployed on a
combat aircraft, where EM-dense environments and a bucking-bronco flightpath were the norm rather than the exception. Slow speed - such that it was dubbed "The Dragger" by its pilots - capacious (almost excessive) ammunition stores, and a refit that
deleted the ejection system? Taken in conjunction with all the other faults - brother, you couldn't get me into a
Lucifer's cockpit for love or money. >:(
The fluff does assess the
Lucifer accurately, though: the LCF-R15
Lucifer is clearly intended as a attack platform, specialising as a Dropper chopper. The Steiner
Lucifer is a story of guns, mediocre turning performance (5/8 with five tons of gas), guns, indifferent armour (63/38/37, immune to ML/cluster thresholds only on the nose, with its huge magazine), guns, decent heat capacity (20 SHS)... and did I mention "MY GOD - IT'S FULL OF GUNS!"? ;D The nose houses an LRM-20 with five(!!!) tons of ammo and twin large lasers, with twin small lasers in each wing and an ML aft to keep the tailgaters honest. That decent heat capacity isn't quite enough to keep the nose guns blazing all the time - a 3-3-2 pattern is recommended, leaving out the missiles every third turn to keep the heat-curve under control - but you're still putting enough hellfire and brimstone down-range to really scorch the sinners. ;D The small lasers are more afterthought than serious backup weapon, but they can nudge anyone who gets suicide-close (and, under current rules, act as limited point-defence from enemy missiles). And check this out: a full squadron can put a DropShip into a hurt locker hard and fast, being that it generates a 7-Capital-point LRM bay and a 10-point LL bay. :o
Lucifers should not
ever be committed to a fight alone or unsupported. While
Seydlitz and
Stingray units rush into the fray, LCF-R15s should hang back and 'shoot them in', providing fire-support; they have one-salvo-kill capability against lighter enemy birds, and they can soften up mediums and heavies quite nicely, thank you. By preference, once the main enemy fighter force is fully engaged with one's own interceptors and dogfighters, a well-escorted
Lucifer squadron or two should skirt the main fight and give the opposition's DropShips a warm "Welcome to the Lyran Commonwealth!" And, of course: never, ever forget the mantras.
Want to counter a
Lucifer unit? Draw off their escort with a flight or two of dogfighters, then go gunning for them with another one. Marik players have the
Stingray, while Kuritans can take their pick of the
Slayer or
Shilone, either of which will eat the
Lucifer alive in a dogfight. Kurita-model
Lucifers (see below) might also work for this, but given their abysmal armour, I would
not recommend trying it.
[VARIANT PROPOSALS REDACTED] All proposed fan-variants, including my own, belong in the corresponding "FotW Workshop" thread: http://www.classicbattletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,1915.0.html In 3025, we have two other models of
Lucifer. The LCF-R20 gives away the missile rack for three more heat-sinks and twelve more tons of armour, turning into a 135/80/73 flying brick that can shrug off large laser hits with impunity and alpha its energy weapons (fore and aft) for no heat deficit. Meant for sustained combat according to the fluff, the LCF-R20 can hang-and-bang all day. Unfortunately, it lost its only Long-range weapon to do it, and I'm not sure that it's a worthwhile tradeoff. Still, it's a platform with its uses, and is probably favoured by mercenary units who can't afford too much in the way of ammo expenditures, so YMMV. [shrug]
The other 3025 variant is the Kurita-built LCF-R15K
Lucifer II - the one that has a bad case of Multiple Personality Disorder and can't decide who/what it really is. (I'm half-convinced that the 'K' in the designation stands for 'Kermit', because this one's straight from the Muppet Show. ::) ) Packing a 260 engine that gives it the same 6/9 thrust curve as most other DCMS medium/heavy designs, the -R15K deletes eighty percent of its LRM ammo to install an SRM-6 and a ton of ammo. This means that the -R15K can empty its LRM racks in a mere six turns and pile into close action, salvoing all its nose weapons for no heat build-up, which would seem to encourage the aerial equivalent of the tactics used by the CPLT-C1
Catapult... with one problem. Installing the bigger engine cost the -R15K four and a half tons of armour, giving it 30/24/26 coverage, which goes beyond 'stupid' into '
suicidal' territory - not to mention a ton of fuel goes 'buh-bye' as well. >:( This one can't make up its mind what it wants to be; if it's supposed to be a strict fire-support platform that could keep up with the others DCMS mediums and heavies, it should have left off the SRM rack and kept more of its LRM ammo; if it's meant to be a dogfighter, it should downsize or delete the LRM rack for more armour and/or SRM racks; in trying to do both of those jobs, it's managed only to be equally abysmal at both. Kurita players should stick with the
Shilone - which actually
can do both jobs quite well, thank you very much. :D
3049 AND BEYOND The updated versions of the
Lucifer come to us by way of AT2, rather than a TRO. Hey, don't ask me why, pal, I only work here; the PTBs don't explain 'emselves to little people like me. ;D (That said, things were later clarified by the 2008 release of TRO3039 and RS3039, which compiled the
Lucifer variants and gave them brief writeups.)
The Steiner LCF-R16
Lucifer gets a thorough 'foundtech' colonic - and feels a great deal better for it. ;D The heat-sinks are directly converted to doubles, the nose lasers are upgraded to ERLLs, and the LRM rack loses three tons of ammo but gains an Artemis-IV FCS, all of which greatly improve range and effective throw-weight. The aft medium laser gets traded out for a medium pulser (losing no effective range under the bracket system but picking up a very useful -2 BTH bonus), and the wing small-laser pairs give way to single SSRM-2 mounts in each wing, improving range (albeit at the price of an unpredictable firing pattern and heat-curve and no PD capability), while the armour gets upgraded to a 67/39/37 loadout of ferro-aluminium to save a little more weight.
Unfortunately, lacking AT2 myself I can't find a proper reference for this version; I got the weapons layout and basic stats from a .txt file I picked up on-line somewhere, but I've found a couple of typos in that files already; the summary page at Mechground.com seems to agree with the basic weapons layout but gives only a summary without any useful details; the Chaosmarch.com version and the -R16's official RS:AT2 HM:A file are actually duplicates of the -R15's [must tell Rick about that one.... :-X]; and my reverse-engineering in HM:A according to the .txt file's stats comes up a ton overweight. The only way this weapons-layout could be right and still come in on-weight is if they used ferro-aluminium armour to save that extra ton, but if they did, there are still three armour points unaccounted for. "One of us is very confused, and I'm honestly not sure which." :-\ Would someone with a copy of AT2 and the LCF-R16's stats therein please convert them into HM:A TRO format and post them here so we can see WTF? :-X In any case, this is a very useful spaceframe: the added reach of the lasers makes the enemy's life at Long range even more miserable, as does the Artemis'd LRM rack (with a one-third improvement of effective damage), and given that a full fore-and-aft alpha-strike generates 38 heat against a dissipation-capacity of 40, you can blaze away for as long as your ammo lasts. ;D
On the other hand, the LCF-R15KR still can't make up its mind. An XL engine and ferro armour lets it keep its movement curve and improve protection a touch (34/24/26) while shaving off seven tons; the SHS -> DHS, LL -> ERLL, and aft ML -> aft MPL swaps are also made here, and another ton of fuel is welcome; however, the rest of the upgrade is highly dubious, adding(!) a second SRM-6 and another ton of SRM ammo to the nose and exchanging the wing-mounted SL pairs for single SPLs. An alpha-strike of all forward weaponry yields a +2 heat deficit, the armour's almost as thin as before, and ammunition endurance hasn't increased a whit. The guys working on the LCF-15K/-15KR must be the dregs and/or stoners of the DCMS' aerospace design establishment, because there's no way that the folks who drew up the original
Shilone could possibly be this dumb. (About the only thing that they
did get right was the SL->SPL upgrade, which gives the PD suite a slightly better chance of protecting your ass from enemy fire, but it's not enough.)
[VARIANT PROPOSALS REDACTED] All proposed fan-variants, including my own, belong in the corresponding "FotW Workshop" thread: http://www.classicbattletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,1915.0.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. ;) Repost PS: looks like this is another FotW that sank without trace when reposted after the '05 Crash. I guess folks didn't enough care enough about the Lucy to use the second opportunity to bash it. ;D
