IS Standard Upgrade

[Terrace]

While the IS Standard has been trucking along for nearly a century at this point, I am astonished that no one has thought to do this very simple upgrade to add a very useful capacity.

IS Standard II Laser

Base Tech Level: Standard (IS)
Level          Era
Experimental    - 
Advanced        - 
Standard      3145+
Tech Rating: E/X-X-E-D


BV: 231
Cost: 1,745,320 C-bills


Movement: 1/1/3


Internal: 4
Armor: 36 BA Standard (Basic)

           Internal  Armor   
Trooper 1         1      9   
Trooper 2         1      9   
Trooper 3         1      9   
Trooper 4         1      9   


Weapons                              Loc   Heat 
Small Laser (Right arm)             Squad    1   
Auto-Rifle (Modern, Generic) (APM)  Squad    0   
Swarm Mek                           Squad    0   
Attack Swarmed Mek                  Squad    0   
Stop Swarm Attack                   Squad    0   
Leg Attack                          Squad    0
   


Equipment                                  Loc   
BA Manipulators [Battle Claw] (Left arm)  Squad 
Anti Personnel Weapon Mount (Left arm)    Squad

There. The addition of the Gray Death Standard's Anti Personnel Weapon Mount gives it anti-infantry capacity for almost no weight penalty. Can also come in Flamer and Machine Gun varieties (those in particular would be an infantry trooper's worst nightmare).

[Sabelkatten]

If you want a really significant upgrade to the IS standard remove the Battle Claw and add a second MWM, an APWM, and twin basic manipulators.

Makes the small laser useless, but flexibility goes way up!

[Terrace]

I meant it more as an upgrade of suits already in use, but I suppose if you wanna do something more to it, while keeping the "standard trooper" feel, you could pull the armor off and replace it with 400kg of Advanced Armor, which would finally bring it up to the level of toughness that made the classic Elemental so feared.

I wanted to keep this upgrade undeniably better than the original, but not overly expensive. And, being honest, your suggestion sounds more like something for a more elite unit, while this would be showing up in more lower-priority units that nonetheless use Battle Armor.

[Sabelkatten]

I don't know about that - remove the battle claw to put a MWM on the left arm might be more complicated than just fixed-mounting a small laser and using the saved weight for an APWM, but it shouldn't be that hard. Nothing like rebuilding it with new armor!

Adding an over-the-shoulder APWM would require some more work, but again it shouldn't be that terrible.

[Terrace]

Keep in mind, the IS Standard as-is already has enough spare weight for an APWM in each arm, even in the Laser configuration. I just happen to consider two APWMs per suit to be excessive.

[Ruger]

I meant it more as an upgrade of suits already in use, but I suppose if you wanna do something more to it, while keeping the "standard trooper" feel, you could pull the armor off and replace it with 400kg of Advanced Armor, which would finally bring it up to the level of toughness that made the classic Elemental so feared.

Which is the Amazon...

Keep in mind, the IS Standard as-is already has enough spare weight for an APWM in each arm, even in the Laser configuration. I just happen to consider two APWMs per suit to be excessive.

???

Chassis: 175 kg
Jump Jets: 150 kg
Armor: 450 kg
Battle Claw: 15 kg
Modular Weapon Mount: 10kg
Weapon: 200 kg max (which is the small laser)

175+150=325+450=775+15=790+10=800+200=1000 kg

Where is the extra 10 kg for an APWM in each arm (5 kg each) in the small laser form?

Ruger

[Terrace]

Huh. MegaMekLab doesn't seem to carry the Modular Weapon Mount. That must be throwing my calculations off...

Edit: Nevermind, found it. And yeah, it's coming in 5kgs overweight with a single APWM. Shows what I know...

Still, it could work, assuming that removing the MWM and hardwiring in the weapon on that arm are part of the refit package. No idea how much work that would be...