We all know that when faced with Battletech scale is not important, at least that is what we keep telling ourselves ;-) Ral Partha didn't care, IWN doesn't care, Wizkids didn't care, so why should we...
But 'N-scale' is defined rather unprecisely:
Depending upon the manufacturer (or country), the scale ranges from 1:148 to 1:160.
N scale is considered generally compatible with 1:144 scale for miniature wargaming.
So we have a range of 1:144 to 1:160 for gaming, only a 16 point difference ;-) But that is pretty big, an inch is anywhere from 3.66m to 4.06m ~10% difference, not a huge difference (I realize while I type this). But the mathematician still wants a fixed scale, so what would be your actual scale preference for 'N-scale' gaming, if you have any? DP9 uses 1:144 for Heavy Gear, but even that isn't accurate (they had vehicle dimensions in older books).
My current point of view is that "anything that looks good and isn't obviously out of scale" is good enough, but if at all possible I aim for consistency.