Are Tech Readouts from 1992 compatible with Total Warfare?

[BiggRigg42]

A friend of mine is offering me his 3055 Technical Read out--it was printed in 1992 by FASA. Is this balanced for my Total Warfare/A Time of War campaign, or is it only balanced for an earlier edition of Battletech?

[cavingjan]

The units in there are still valid for TW.

[Wildonion]

Technical Readout 3055, and the other earlier tech readouts, will work just fine with Total Warfare/A Time of War, as the stats for those 'Mechs are pretty much unchanged. (I can't think of any designs from that book that have received an errata that changes them.)

[YingJanshi]

For the most part, yes. At least, as far as 'Mechs go. Vees and Aero units changed too much with Total Warfare.


I think the only real change was in how Ferro-Fibrous armor was rounded. I think (and I could be entirely wrong), but any pre-TW 'Mech with FF should delete 1 armor point. (But it's not such a big deal with for a casual game.)

[RoundTop]

The construction rules pretty much didn't change (other than adding new equipment).  The changes were mostly about rules. Classic designs are still fully valid

[massey]

There have been a couple of tiny little changes to the rules over the years that will affect certain designs.  But it's as someone said above, that basically means a few designs lose one armor point from somewhere.  One or two designs lose a half-ton of machine gun ammo, that sort of thing.  The changes are so minor that it's really not worth worrying about.

The construction rules in Battletech have remained mostly the same since the very beginning, at least for Battlemechs.

[Hellraiser]

Since original 3055 there have been 2 changes that will affect "some" units in the TRO.

Fractional Accounting & Ferro Rounding.   (Both of which I hugely disagreed with, grrr)

The first is much older & saw a few designs loose a heatsink or 1/4 ton MG or some other minor change.

The 2nd came with TW which is rounding down instead of rounding at .5.

Neither change was needed.  They could have left Rounding as was, it invalidated roughly 50% of all FFA using Record Sheets & BV's.

The Fractional should have been at 1/4 ton instead of 1/2 ton to account for all the units that previously had XL's or Clan MG's using that 1/4 ton. 

It would have kept a lot more RS's as valid & still fixed the issue of the .05 accounting that was affecting many vehicles.

I would get the TRO for nostalgia reasons, but the stats you see may have been tweaked in some way or another for 1/2 the units in it.

[mbear]

BlackJack Jones set up a list of units that were affected by the Ferro-Fibrous rounding change. Here it is.

[Kit deSummersville]

There might have been an issue with Artemis IV and missiles mounted in the CT for a few 'Mechs as well.

Plus the Orion got tweaked from it's original stats way back when.

[grimlock1]

AMS was reworked in TW, so older designs have way more AMS ammo than they need.

[Skyth]

If memory serves, some sources had LRM-15's taking 3 crit spaces and others 2 crit spaces.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

There might have been an issue with Artemis IV and missiles mounted in the CT for a few 'Mechs as well.

Plus the Orion got tweaked from it's original stats way back when.

IIRC, that was just the Commando variant in Record Sheets: Upgrades and it was considered invalid before TW came out.

[Kit deSummersville]

IIRC, that was just the Commando variant in Record Sheets: Upgrades and it was considered invalid before TW came out.

I thought there was a FWL heavy or assault that did the same thing, but I could be getting old.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

It's possible.  FWL is the faction I've paid the least attention to over the years.

[Sartris]

I thought there was a FWL heavy or assault that did the same thing, but I could be getting old.

the Perseus D originally had the Artemis IV module for the CT-mounted SRM-6 in the head.

[Kit deSummersville]

the Perseus D originally had the Artemis IV module for the CT-mounted SRM-6 in the head.

Aha! My memory is still working 15-20% of the time.

[Ryumyo]

If I remember right, Artemis IV was allowed to be head mounted if the center torso had a compatible missile launcher and no open slots. It would be in the Battletech Master Rules : Revised Edition -Fasa 1707, page 131. I think the option started to be allowed in the Battletech Compendium rulebook that preceded it.

[Ryumyo]

I almost forgot, even though the new edition supersedes the older editions rules wise for the TROs, it's nice having the older books for reference material at the very least. I do so for when I'm building a mini or just want to see the differences between editions. Handy for when the Mech's artwork gets revised ( unseen ) / updated or from different perspectives.