BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat

BattleTech Game Systems => A Time of War => Topic started by: bblaney on 06 July 2013, 08:54:49

Title: So I want to design am mech design engineer...
Post by: bblaney on 06 July 2013, 08:54:49
What skill should cover it?

Career/ Mech Engineer
Tech/ Weapons
Tech/ Myomer
Tech/ Electronics
Tech/ Mewchanical
Tech/ Jets

Advantages:

Tech Empathy

This would be someone that can picture all parts of a mech, every bit and piece
Title: Re: So I want to design am mech design engineer...
Post by: Coldwyn on 06 July 2013, 09:16:56
Just sitting in the garden, relaxing and enjoying the sun, so I don´t have my books with me and write this from memory, so excuse any errors:

Try to go this route:
- Blue Collar
- Prep School
- Military Enlistment, fields: Basic Training, Technician/Military, Technician/Mech (tech/military is better than tech/civilian)
- Tour of Duty (Exp to fields)

This should cover all bases.
Just make sure you have some good ranks in Career/Soldier and Career/Technician, as they cover the "generalist" approach in that regard.
I´m not so sure about Tech Empathy. Feat learner seems to be the overall better choice and I never cared to find out if both stack. The bonus to skills checks in non-combat situations bored me, as me as gm don´t roll outside of combat or stress, so I ignore that. Tech skills are keyed to dex and Int, the +3 TP points could be spent better in improving these overall attributes, especially Dex.
Title: Re: So I want to design am mech design engineer...
Post by: Tai Dai Cultist on 06 July 2013, 11:41:07
If you wanted to cover every aspect of a mech's tech base, you missed tech/nuclear

However, I don't think it'd be standard for a mech to be designed by one person.. much like in the real world it'd be a team of engineers that design it, each working on their own aspect of the design.  If you want to make a Lead engineer character, he might get away with being a specialist in only one or two areas but a good, basic +1 or +2 in all tech skills.. but that sort of character would instead really be focused on leadership/management/administration type skills.
Title: Re: So I want to design am mech design engineer...
Post by: Coldwyn on 06 July 2013, 13:19:17
@TDC

You, too, seem to forget the overarching skills, career/technician.
Title: Re: So I want to design am mech design engineer...
Post by: monbvol on 07 July 2013, 00:24:00
Tech Empathy and Fast Learner do stack.  I actually had to create a supplementary table linked in the first post here (http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,228.0.html) that shows all the possible interactions for what impacts the XP costs of skills.

Career/Mech Designer probably would be the key skill but like others I would consider it much more of a team effort to actually design a mech and still require the various other Technician skills as well as Administration and Appraise.