Mech of the Week: GRN-D-* Grand Crusader/Grand Crusader II

[Liam's Ghost]

Personally, I always wanted to see a grand crusader that had full on turret mounted LRMs. Or at the very least I have since maximum tech was released.

[glitterboy2098]

Personally, I always wanted to see a grand crusader that had full on turret mounted LRMs. Or at the very least I have since maximum tech was released.

looking at megamek lab, you'd have to do some changes to the design.. the thing is crit packed, and shifting stuff around isn't going to be enough. at a guess, dropping the artemis would free up enough space, but then you'd have 2 extra tons you'd have to figure out how to use.
my suggestion would be to drop the LRM20's down to 15's, and switch to standard Internals. that gets you space for your shoulder turrets, and leaves you an extra two tons to work with, plus enough internal space to actually use it. you could stick that into more ammo (giving it even better ammo endurance) or into some extra lasers or whatever.

[Sabelkatten]

The turrets weight a ton each, so turrets instead of ArtIV is a straight swap. :)

[glitterboy2098]

megamek lab showes them at zero mass, just a crit.. let me check Tactical ops..

ok in TacOps it says turrets weight 10% of any weapons mounted in them. looks like megameklab doesn't handle the mass correctly.

[Tymers Realm]

If it works anything like SSW's use of turrets, you need to indicate, by right-clicking in SSW, that the weapon is assigned to the turret. Once that happens, at least in SSW, the appropriate weight is added.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Which often leads inexperienced people to assign weapon-free turrets to their mechs.

[jklantern]

Which often leads inexperienced people to assign weapon-free turrets to their mechs.

Maybe they just wanted spinning rims on their Mech.

[JadeHellbringer]

Maybe they just wanted spinning rims on their Mech.

Don't we all though? "This week on Pimp My Urbanmech..."

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Put tracks on the Urbanmech so you can convert it into a low-rider.

[Luciora]

Just picked up 2 of the reseen Grand Crusaders.  Time to see what versions to make.

[grimlock1]

And of course the fact the original text had the LRMs rear mounted and fluffed to be able slide over the head and fire in a 360 degree arc.

What pub was that from?  It's portrait layout so not a TRO...

[Maelwys]

For what its worth, according to Xotl, the original Grand Crusader has the Directional Mount Quirk again ( https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=5884.msg1438574#msg1438574 ).

What pub was that from?  It's portrait layout so not a TRO...

Its from the ComStar sourcebook, which had the original Grand Crusader, Nexus and Raijin.

[mbear]

Geg, do you have any plans to update this with the contents of Recognition Guide 23?

[Weirdo]

Honestly, I think the Star Crusader deserves its own article.

[Maelwys]

The Grand Crusader did get two new variants, the 01-X and the 02-B.

[BATTLEMASTER]

I'll at least add the new TRO art for the thing :)



Though I also like the CCG art that was originally posted.

[Maelwys]

So two new variants came to us from  RecGuide 23. The first, the 01-X takes the original fluff of the movable LRM20s to heart and mounts the LRM20s in turrets. The pulse laser batteries are removed and replaced with an (as in singular) ERLL and a battery of medium lasers. The surprising change is an upgrade to the engine, pushing it to a 4/6 curve. This engine change allows for more heat sinks to be stored in the engine, meaning you don't need to find critical space for them. This allows for much better heat dissipation on this variant. The downside is that you lose 2 tons of LRM20 ammo.

I actually like this variant on paper. Better speed, better heat dissipation and an energy weapon that can match the LRMs rather than only being useful up close. It was abandoned because of the complexity of the turrets, but I would be perfectly fine if they had just removed the turrets and slipped in more ammo.

The 02-B is more of a variant of the 01 than it is the 02 and features the same larger engine as the -X variant, though it doesn't increase the heat sink count as much. The weight for the engine is paid for by reducing all ammo, and swapping the LPLs for ER versions. I don't like this variant as much as the 01-X. You're going to want to use the LRMs with the ERLLs and using all 4 at once just isn't feasible. 3 can work, and give you some redundancy if you start taking damage, but I think it would just annoy me after a while.

So kind of a mixed bag, but not a complete waste of time.

[BATTLEMASTER]

I question the value of turret-mounted LRMs unless the pilot is at least a 2-gunnery skill and the 'mech is either repositioning or retreating.  Minimum range becomes problematic unless Clan LRMs are used or hotloading rules.  Or load at least a ton of deadfire ammo.

[grimlock1]

I question the value of turret-mounted LRMs unless the pilot is at least a 2-gunnery skill and the 'mech is either repositioning or retreating.  Minimum range becomes problematic unless Clan LRMs are used or hotloading rules.  Or load at least a ton of deadfire ammo.

Mech Turrets are a bit weird to me.  Between torso twist and arm mounted weapons, I'm not totally sure what they really buy you.  Quad turrets are a different story.

I suppose it gives similar capability to flippable arms but lets you have arm.hand actuators...

Idle thought... Does moving a turret happen in place of torso twisting, similar to how you can't torso twist and flip arms?

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

No.  Turrets rotate independently of the torso.

[Maelwys]

I question the value of turret-mounted LRMs unless the pilot is at least a 2-gunnery skill and the 'mech is either repositioning or retreating.  Minimum range becomes problematic unless Clan LRMs are used or hotloading rules.  Or load at least a ton of deadfire ammo.

The turret is pretty hit or miss (the firing restrictions are pretty limiting as well), but the variant wouldn't really exist except for the original fluff where the LRM20s are described as mounted on a mechanism that allowed the design to fire in a 360 degree arc. (In fact, in the original TRO in the ComStar sourcebook, the LRMs are shown to be rear mounted).

The main winner I think of the 01-X is the secondary battery of lasers that still allow it to defend itself at short range, while in some cases being able to hit an opponent at similar ranges to the LRMs with the single ERLL.

[grimlock1]

(In fact, in the original TRO in the ComStar sourcebook, the LRMs are shown to be rear mounted).

WTF?  That's more than 50% of your payload and it's aft firing?  There are times that I REALLY wonder if some of the weird, sub-optimal stuff that came out of FASA wasn't just mistakes by new people who misunderstood something.

[Wrangler]

WTF?  That's more than 50% of your payload and it's aft firing?  There are times that I REALLY wonder if some of the weird, sub-optimal stuff that came out of FASA wasn't just mistakes by new people who misunderstood something.

No, there was questionable feature on it which wasn't carried over, which allowed the LRMs to change facings. Which was made into design quirk, Directional Torso Mount (LT/RT).

[Maelwys]

WTF?  That's more than 50% of your payload and it's aft firing?  There are times that I REALLY wonder if some of the weird, sub-optimal stuff that came out of FASA wasn't just mistakes by new people who misunderstood something.

As said, it was fluffed that it would allow them to fire forward.

By the time TR3058 rolled around that allowed the Grand Crusader to get a non-sourcebook writeup, that little bit would be gone (and the "smokestacks" would be fluffed as sensor housing for the artemis system)

[BATTLEMASTER]

Heh, I always thought the "stacks" were jump jet nacelles like on the Phoenix Hawk.