Katydid KTY-1D
Mass: 25 tons
Tech Base: Inner Sphere
Chassis Config: Biped
Rules Level: Introductory
Era: Age of War/Star League
Tech Rating/Era Availability: D/C-E-D-D
Production Year: 3020
Dry Cost: 1,841,667 C-Bills
Total Cost: 1,842,167 C-Bills
Battle Value: 614
Chassis: Bergan VII Standard
Power Plant: GM 200 Fusion Engine
Walking Speed: 86.4 km/h
Maximum Speed: 129.6 km/h
Jump Jets: None
Jump Capacity: 0 meters
Armor: StarSlab/1 Standard Armor
Armament:
2 Martell Medium Lasers
2 Martell Small Lasers
2 SperryBrowning Machine Guns
Manufacturer: Fassil Metals
Primary Factory: Gangtok
Communications System: Garrett T10-B
Targeting and Tracking System: O/P 911
Overview:
Gedarm "Anvil" Sentayhu Fassil was a periphery mercenary mechwarrior who knew
his way around the mechbay almost as well as the cockpit of his firestarter. He
fought in many engagements while compitent, suffered many combat injuries. As
such he spent lots of time on "light duty" in the matainence bays.
When his company commander died of a heart attack shortly after a contract that
devastated the unit, Anvil was left as the sole owner of a firestarter, several
broken locusts in salvage, some auxiliary vehicles, and the 60% payed bank note
on a leopard. He was also the employer of four mech techs and six astechs with
no units to rebuild.
Anvil was done fighting. He sold the Leopard note off for a jumpship ride to
Gangtok, 100 acres of land, and a year of foodstuffs. Two of the mech techs and
all the astechs went with him. They landed the leopard on the property,
unloaded, handed the exchanged paperwork for the land and leopard with the
local government, and started a different sort of war. The property was divided
in to 8 sections, the largest of which would become Fassil Metals, a periphery
scrapyard and maintenance shop.
This worked well for about a decade, most of the work was on vehicles,
industrial and civilian industrial units. However the Fassil family continued to
buy periphery salvage and do the occasional custom refit for better off merc
companies or mechwarriors. Eventually Fassil Metals began their second stage,
fabrication of new but simple components, and basic production.
Unfortunately, some eighty percent of Fassils material was still salvage. Even
a decade of build up didn't mean a complete factory, essentially they had
permanently parked a salvage truck and repair vehicle in a yard and built a
building around them. Their access to raw materials and new components was
better than a salvage team, but not on a development level. So Fassil and his
clan had to make something from what they had. Most of that was locust
components.
Anvil knew how fragile the locust was, especially some of the non-standard
missile variants, he also knew how easy they'd be to reinforce. So they worked
out a prototype design, risked it all on 5 brand new GM 200s they could import
for an extortionate shipping fee, and built the first Katydids.
Capabilities:
The Katydid is essentially a "rat-rod" locust 1v. Fassil and his team rebuilt
and fabricated new reinforced structure to support the GM 200. This
reinforcement meant that any improved speed was lost, but it also allowed for
extra plates of StarSlab armor to be mounted. The extra half ton of armor
improved the protection of weapon mounts and rear engine housing.
While the heavier chassis meant the 200 couldn't improve the speed of the
Katydid, it did mean the power output would support more lasers. As such, a
second medium and the two martell smalls from a locust 1e was added to the
weapon loadout.
Fassil and his teams attempted and failed to re-create the ammunition
protection of past eras. He wanted to remove the bomb of a huge ammunition bay
completely, however he'd made agreements with two merc units to purchase before
construction. The customers wouldn't budge on their demand for machine guns. As
a compromise, Fassil's team put an extra 250 kg armor plate directly on the
ammunition door, and reworked its loading mechanism. This cut the magazine
space in half, but made replacing magazines much easier.
Deployment:
The prototype Katydid stayed at Fassil property, Fassil's daughter learned
basic mech handling in it along side Fassil in demonstrations and defense of
the salvage yard from pirates and during the civil war, the Directorate.
Gangtok's planetary defense forces preordered the first two production units of
the Katydid as replacements for locusts they'd lost in their fight to evict
Taurian forces in 3019. The units performed well during the Aurigan civil war,
but survived only a few more conflicts than the locusts they replaced. When the
civil war was over, the defense forces offered to rebuild the salvage yard in
exhange for more Katydids. The Fassil family now produces and maintains
Katydids for GPD and the Aurigan Coalition at two units per year.
Two mercenary units preordered a Katydid each at essentially the cost of the
new engine. Their units performed well, but by the time they wanted to order
more, the Aurigan Civil war had come and gone, and Fassil was locked into an
exclusivity contract with GPD.
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Equipment Type Rating Mass
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Internal Structure: Standard 43 points 2.50
Engine: Fusion Engine 200 8.50
Walking MP: 8
Running MP: 12
Jumping MP: 0
Heat Sinks: Single Heat Sink 10 0.00
Heat Sink Locations: 1 LL, 1 RL
Gyro: Standard 2.00
Cockpit: Standard 3.00
Actuators: L: SH+UA R: SH+UA
Armor: Standard Armor AV - 72 4.50
Internal Armor
Structure Factor
Head 3 8
Center Torso 8 10
Center Torso (rear) 4
L/R Torso 6 8
L/R Torso (rear) 3
L/R Arm 4 6
L/R Leg 6 8
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Equipment Location Heat Critical Mass
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Machine Gun RA 0 1 0.50
Small Laser RA 1 1 0.50
Medium Laser RA 3 1 1.00
Machine Gun LA 0 1 0.50
Medium Laser LA 3 1 1.00
Small Laser LA 1 1 0.50
MG (1/2) (100) Ammo CT - 1 0.50
Free Critical Slots: 42
BattleForce Statistics
MV S (+0) M (+2) L (+4) E (+6) Wt. Ov Armor: 2 Points: 6
8 2 1 0 0 1 0 Structure: 2
Special Abilities: SRCH, ES, SEAL, SOA
