BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Player Boards => Fan Articles => Topic started by: BATTLEMASTER on 17 March 2015, 16:51:27
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(http://www.sarna.net/wiki/images/e/e9/Ryoken_2.jpg)
Source: Sarna.net
(http://i.imgur.com/y2yGMbE.jpg)
Source: MechWarrior Online
The Stormcrow is regarded by many as the best Clan omnimech available. It is hard to believe there is no current article about this fantastic chassis! Let us see what makes the Stormcrow so wonderful, and how it has earned the moniker “Doomcrow” among those in the MechWarrior (Online) community!
The 55-ton Stormcrow, a Clan Hell’s Horses design, has its roots in a standard battlemech design called the Corvis, also designed by the same Clan. The Corvis has a mass of 40 tons, and takes considerably less resources to produce than the Stormcrow. Perhaps this is why the Corvis was still in production well into the Jihad era alongside the Stormcrow, but the Stormcrow is a superior war machine in all aspects.
A few Stormcrow prototypes, which were said to look like Corvis chassis with omnimech attributes, were produced at Tokasha MechWorks in time for the Battle of Tokasha. Unfortunately, the prototype Stormcrows in addition to other forces were not enough to keep Tokasha MechWorks from falling into the claws of Clan Ghost Bear. At some point, Clan Snow Raven got a hold of the Stormcrow design schematics and perfected the chassis into what was commonplace during Operation Revival. (I am not sure how the design went from the Bears to the Ravens.-BLR)
In the year 2930, sixty years after the factory started producing the slightly smaller Nova, the Stormcrow entered mass production. It seems likely that Tokasha MechWorks wanted to streamline production for the Stormcrow by reusing arm and leg assemblies from the older and more readily available Nova, rather than take more design aspects from the Corvis. It is worth noting that the Stormcrow’s first production run predates production of another highly regarded Clan omnimech chassis, the 75-ton Timber Wolf, by fifteen years.
When the Stormcrow hit the Inner Sphere in Operation Revival, there is no doubt that it caused a lot of trouble for Inner Sphere armies who encountered it. Like the Timber Wolf, its combination of speed, firepower, and durability was unheard of. The Stormcrow’s frame allowed for configurations that made it the faster equivalent of common Inner Sphere battlemechs heavier than itself, like the Marauder, Archer, and Zeus. The DCMS troops who encountered the Stormcrow code-named the omnimech “Ryoken”. (After a quick Google search, I could not find the meaning of the word. I assume it is some kind of obscure Japanese weapon because naming a war machine after a type of inn makes no sense to me. Maybe it is Japanese for “Doomcrow”?-BLR)
Let us take a look at this 55-ton chassis. Light, bulky materials are a major reason why the Stormcrow is such a great design. Ferro-Fibrous armor of the Compound H17/2 variety makes up the omnimech’s skin, providing as much protection as possible for the armor type on a chassis this size. The head section is armored as much as the special transparent armor can allow. The center torso can take a class-20 AC hit with some armor left, while the side torsos can only take a Gauss rifle or Clan-spec ER PPC without breaching. The rear torso sections are quite well-protected compared to some other Clan omnimech designs. The rear center torso armor will burn away when touched by a Clan ER Large Laser, while the rear side torso armor will stop a Clan ER Medium Laser without giving way. The arms will stop a Gauss rifle from removing all the armor there. That is important since many standard Stormcrow configurations rely on arm-mounted weapons. The legs are armored similarly to the front center torso, each being able to stop a class-20 AC and have some armor integrity left.
Looking beneath the ablative armor plate of the Stormcrow, is a set of Endo Steel bones which make the Model MHO-7E chassis. At the heart of this military vehicle is an extra-light fusion reactor with a power rating of 330. This reactor makes the chassis extremely agile for its size and allows the Stormcrow to reach speeds up 97 kph. Keeping the base chassis cool are the ten double heat sinks that come built into the reactor. Compared to other Clan omnimech designs that took part in Operation Revival which packed as many integral heats sinks into the reactor as possible, this is an odd design choice. But it works in the chassis’ favor by contributing to its pod space.
This combination of design characteristics gives the Stormcrow a large amount of pod space for its size and mobility. The chassis can hold up to twenty three tons of weapons and equipment, which is 4.5 tons less than half the maximum allowed mass for the chassis. The chassis’ speed and armor coverage make its war load even more deadly, being able to quickly bring weapons to bear where needed the most as well as taking punishment when enemy weapons manage to find their mark.
The Primary standard configuration consists of an ER large laser and ER medium laser mounted in each arm, with a third ER medium laser mounted in the head. Each arm is equipped with a hand actuator. (Depending on different artistic renditions of the Stormcrow, the hands might be as massive as the Nova’s as depicted on the cover of “The Dragon Roars”, or really small and unable to reach beyond the laser barrels as traditionally depicted. MechWarrior Online actually extends the hand actuators beyond the laser barrels so that they would actually be useful for picking up objects or throwing punches.-BLR) Combined with the chassis’ mobility, the Stormcrow can keep all targets from getting too close, while being able to dish out plenty of firepower. This configuration allows the Stormcrow to stay on the battlefield for a long time without ammunition supply lines since it is purely energy-based. Despite the high-heat Clan energy weapons, twelve additional double heat sinks allow the MechWarrior to run and gun throughout the entire skirmish. While doing this, even running through burning terrain will not affect heat efficiency. Even if a Primary-configured Stormcrow was somehow soaked in hot plasma or inferno fuel by enemy weapons, the omnimech can move out of range of those weapons and leverage the advantage of Clan ER lasers.
Standard configuration A equips a LRM-20 in the right arm with two tons of ammunition. A quartet of medium pulse lasers is mounted in the left arm. Both arms are equipped with hand actuators. A Streak SRM-6 sits in each side torso, with a ton of ammunition dedicated to each launcher. This configuration can easily destroy fast, light vehicles with its combination of pulse lasers and Streak SRMs, but it is also a potent adversary for battlemechs. While not having the endurance of the Primary configuration, the A configuration is still capable of attacking targets at all ranges while having the enhanced accuracy of pulse lasers available a medium to short ranges. Trigger discipline must be used when equipping a Stormcrow with the A configuration since no additional double heat sinks are mounted. A few medium pulse lasers and an LRM-20 can be let loose while closing in on a target. The range brackets of the medium pulse lasers and the Streak SRMs match perfectly, and all the weapons can be fired while keeping heat buildup low.
Standard configuration B excels at combat at medium and short range. In the left arm sits an Ultra AC/20 with two tons of ammo in the adjacent side torso. In the right arm, what might look similar to the right arm of a Primary-configuration Nova, are six ER medium lasers surrounding a massive fist. Three double heat sinks are added to help cope with the heat generation possible with this configuration. A MechWarrior can fire the Ultra AC/20 at maximum rate without having to worry about heat problems, but the lasers pose the greatest overheating risk. Five of the six ER medium lasers can be fired without the ill effects of overheating, which looks like the best thing to do while closing with a target to get into the autocannon’s short range bracket. At close range, the Stormcrow B can let the heavy gun rip at maximum firing rate accompanied with two ER medium lasers. If the MechWarrior feels comfortable bleeding some speed due to overheating during the firefight, a third ER medium laser can also be fired.
Standard configuration C consists of a large pulse laser mounted alongside a hand in the right arm, and an LBX-AC/10 in the left arm with three tons of ammunition. There is a medium pulse laser mounted in each side torso. While it is easy to say that this configuration is good at attacking fast enemy targets, especially tanks, it can also easily shoot down aircraft thanks to its class-10 LBX cannon’s ability to shoot cluster rounds. The Stormcrow runs pretty cool in this configuration. If you want to avoid the effects of overheating, let a single medium pulse laser cool down every firing cycle.
Standard configuration D mounts a LRM-20 in each arm, with three tons of ammunition per launcher. Each arm also mounts a hand actuator. The left torso has two SRM-2s sitting in it, each with a ton of ammunition. The right torso has a Narc beacon launcher with two tons of ammunition. The Stormcrow D can attach a Narc beacon to a target, run behind cover, and indirectly launch forty LRMs at the target. Despite the all-missile armament, a ton of SRM ammunition can be loaded with inferno missiles, causing problems for vehicles and infantry, as well as to heating up opposing battlemechs. Like the Primary configuration, the D configuration allows a MechWarrior to run and gun all battle without overheating.
Standard configuration E mounts an ATM-9 and an ER medium laser in each arm. Alongside each ATM is three tons of ammunition. Both arms have hand actuators. In each side torso sits two ER small lasers. An active probe is mounted in the head to discover hidden enemies or to aid in attacking targets through wooded areas. Two double heat sinks accompany the armament. The flexibility of the ATM launchers allows the Stormcrow E to inflict damage at all ranges. However, the nature of the missile system means that the closer you are to a target, the more damage you can cause. The firepower of this configuration can be overwhelming at close range, with different ways of dishing it out. A MechWarrior can launch HE ATMs as well as fire the medium lasers while running for zero heat problems. A small laser or two can also be fired if the MechWarrior is willing to bleed speed due to the effects of overheating. Or all the lasers can be fired along with a missile launcher with very little heat gain.
Standard configuration F is a conventional force’s nightmare. Each arm mounts a plasma cannon with three tons of ammunition. Alongside each plasma cannon is a pair of AP Gauss rifles, with a ton of ammunition per pair. Two ER medium lasers and an ER small laser sit in each side torso to let the configuration deal with harder targets. The plasma cannons act as super-sized flamers against all targets. They are effective at raising a target battlemech’s temperature, and are excellent at melting tanks and infantry. Despite the addition of two double heat sinks, a MechWarrior has to choose which weapons to use based on the types of opposing enemies, as all the plasma cannons and lasers cannot be fired at the same time without causing major heat problems for the Stormcrow. If facing a battlemech that will easily succumb to the effects of overheating, fire both plasma cannons and two ER medium lasers, or one plasma cannon and four ER medium lasers if more damage is desired.
Standard configuration G is very similar to the B configuration. The Ultra AC/20 is replaced with a lighter HAG/20 with two tons of ammunition, mounted in the left arm. Five ER medium lasers are mounted in the right arm, surrounding a fist. Six double heat sinks are added as well, making this configuration of the Stormcrow cool-running, which further sets it apart from the B configuration. At the expense of hole punching and head chopping, this configuration will not overheat while firing all weapons and running. In addition to running cooler, the G configuration’s HAG enhances the chassis’ anti-aircraft capabilities.
Standard configuration H is very similar to the Primary configuration. The big difference is that the ER large lasers are replaced with heavy large lasers. The hand and lower arm actuators had to be left off the arms in order to make room for the massive lasers. These two head choppers come at the price of higher heat generation, inaccuracy, and shorter range. The Stormcrow H can fire both heavy lasers and two ER medium lasers while overheating a little bit. The heavy lasers can be continuously be fired on their own without causing overheating, while a pair of medium lasers can be triggered every other firing cycle to keep overheating effects to a minimum. Despite the shorter range of the heavy large lasers compared to the ER versions, the heavy large lasers have the same range brackets as ER medium lasers.
Standard configuration I is reminiscent of a smaller Timber Wolf in its Primary configuration. Each arm mounts an ER large and medium laser above a hand. Each side torso contains a LRM-15 with one ton of ammunition for each launcher. An active probe is mounted in the head. Although three more double heat sinks are added, this configuration can benefit from bracketing fire as this configuration has nowhere near the heat capacity of the Primary Timber Wolf configuration it emulates. Use the ER large lasers to attack from long range. At shorter ranges, let loose the ER medium lasers and the LRMs. (This configuration is based on the stock Stormcrow configuration from MechWarrior IV: Black Knight and MechWarrior IV: Mercenaries.-BLR)
During the Wars of Reaving, The Society standardized configuration Z within their ranks. Each arm mounts an iATM-9 with three tons of ammunition, along with an improved heavy medium laser. Each arm has lower arm actuators without hands. Two double heat sinks are added, along with a Nova CEWS in the head, and a supercharger in the right torso. The supercharger allows the Stormcrow to reach speeds up to 129 kph. Combined with the high bursts of speed and the firepower of the advanced weapon systems, the Stormcrow can easily get at the weaker rear armor of enemy battlemechs and vehicles and quickly destroy them. The Nova CEWS acts as an ECM suite, an active probe, and a C3 system linking up to three units at once, and allowing for network reconfiguration on the fly. So not only can the Stormcrow Z use its speed to backstab opponents, it can also operate as a fast spotter. Again, the MechWarrior has to decide which weapon to cool down every other firing cycle or risk overheating the Stormcrow Z. Remember that the Nova CEWS generates heat as well.
There is one known Stormcrow custom configuration used by a notable MechWarrior. Star Captain Brone Kotare of Clan Smoke Jaguar piloted a Stormcrow while fighting Inner Sphere forces during Operation Bulldog. He used a configuration which is quite similar to the A configuration, but different in weapons layout. The right arm holds five ER medium lasers surrounding a fist, while the left arm just has a hand. The left torso contains two Streak SRM-6 launchers, each with a ton of ammunition. The right torso contains a LRM-20 launcher with two tons of ammunition. Three additional double heat sinks are added. Star Captain Kotare probably used the ER medium lasers to punch holes into armor, then used the missiles to seek out the weak spots created by the lasers. Two ER medium lasers can be fired alongside all the missile launchers without overheating the Stormcrow.
It is easy to see why the Stormcrow is such a popular chassis. It is highly mobile, incredibly tough, and carries half of its mass in weapons and equipment. It can circle and pummel slower targets with little effort, and do so at range thanks to its Clan-tech arsenal. When the Stormcrow is caught under fire, it can use both its speed and armor to get out of trouble. Its standard configurations allow the chassis to fill many roles and excel at all of them.
Let us discuss this wonderful omnimech. It certainly deserves it!
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Funny, Was just talking on IRC this morning about the Stormcrow being one of my favorite 'Mechs to use in MWO. As I had put it to a friend, "It has the speed of a light, the armor of a high-end medium, and the firepower of a heavy." My current favorite configs have been the A and a sort-of combination of the Prime and the B, since there's not a straight B-set of arms on there. Right arm ER Large, Side torso ER Meds, and the UAC/20 in the left arm.
As for the pen and paper game, I'm not a clan fan but it's one of the 'Mechs that the Draconis Combine had access to in the FCCW-era unit tables, and one I took full advantage of. A Stormcrow Prime with a heatsink swapped for a C3 slave rig is a sick little surprise in a properly configured company.
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One of of my favorites and it has very few "poor" configurations. My favorite is the C due to the low BV value in game. The LPL and LB-10x can drop two twenty point groups or shotgun and use the other smaller lasers.
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IMHO it's the best medium in the entire game. Almost every configuration is nasty. I haven't played past the Jihad, is it still the beast it once was?
Great write up.
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It's so good, it's commonly called the Rybroken.
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Like the Timber Wolf, the Storm Crow possibly has the best balance of armor, speed and pod space
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Funny thing, i searched for Stormcrow article just this morning, and was very disappointed i didn't find one... What a wonderful surprise it was to find this now.
"The chassis can hold up to twenty three tons of weapons and equipment, which is a little more than half the maximum allowed mass for the chassis."
I presume you mean "little less than half..." because half would be 27.5 tons for Ryoken. Were you perhaps thinking of the Corvis when you wrote that?
EDIT Also, i'm not sure the Stormcrow shares its leg assemblies with the Nova. Side-view shows they're slightly different, not to mention the whole attachment system is different (the Nova shares its legs with the Viper for sure, both mechs lack hips rather the legs are attached to their shoulders).
I'd note that the arm actuators (they're kind of creepy really, being so small) in MWO are probably not longer than in the original art... rather its lasers are shorter. Maybe. Hard to say, for at least in the MWO concept art it has unusually long laser "barrels".
I think it was a pretty good medium mech in Mechwarrior IV (single player), good loadout options if i recall right, and jump jets.
In MWO, it gets a lot of praise, deservedly.
One very notable thing in the chassis is the utter lack of jump jet equipped configurations.
Which is kind of odd actually, given that it could easily mount 6 of them in the side torsos. Indeed, it seems this is its weakness in the official configurations, though with its speed and armor, this is not a big weakness.
Were the jump jets hard-mounted under early rules? And thus later configs just followed the trend of the originals?
(Interestingly, it seems the Stormcrow is not 100% optimized, the sweet spot tonnage for 6/9 mech would be 50 tons apparently... EDIT Oh, wait, apparently the difference is negligible while 55-tonner also has a bit more armor...)
EDIT We need an article for the Corvis now as well...
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I think its my favourite Clanner mech. I wouldn't mind the side torso armour layout canting a little more to the front, but that's my only issue with it. The Prime is solid if a bit boring but pretty logical. Needed more of those on Tukkayid. The A is my preference, with the B there if expecting heavy/assault mechs or armour. The C is solid and sensible. They also work pretty well with BA, since the arm mounted guns mean they can fire on the way in to unload them. This, along with the Mad Dog and Ebon Jaguar, cemented me as a Jaguar fan when playing Invasion-era Clans.
Good write up.
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An absolute favourite of mine, and one of the first 'Mechs I played. Having little or no idea what I was doing I used the A version and took down a Mad Dog using the MPLs and LRMs without thinking about heat. Very lucky 'Mech for me ever since. >:D
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Bloody hell this thing has a LOT of variants! Great reviews though of probably one of the best Clan Omni's that no matter its age can still happily and gladly kick ass.
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"The chassis can hold up to twenty three tons of weapons and equipment, which is a little more than half the maximum allowed mass for the chassis."
I presume you mean "little less than half..." because half would be 27.5 tons for Ryoken. Were you perhaps thinking of the Corvis when you wrote that?
EDIT Also, i'm not sure the Stormcrow shares its leg assemblies with the Nova. Side-view shows they're slightly different, not to mention the whole attachment system is different (the Nova shares its legs with the Viper for sure, both mechs lack hips rather the legs are attached to their shoulders).
Good catch. That was a straight-up math failure on my part :-[
As for arm and leg assemblies being shared between the Nova and Stormcrow, I consulted the omnimech image gallery available on the BattleTech homepage (which is awesome). They look like matches to me aside from the arm attachment points on the Nova. I can see Clan scientists and engineers being able to modify the hip joint by filling the hole where the Nova's arms were once mounted.
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Look at the Koshi and Dasher, their legs are identical in the original TRO art and the omni-mech's modular nature would to me say that their designers made as many parts, joins, actuators etc interchangable and went so far to include entire arm assemblies etc. As was mentioned in the Stormcrow's review it does a few times sport an arm that is pulled off a Nova. The Clan scientists would probably design parts within certain weight classes, so to produce a single hip type assembly that could be incorperated into anything in the 20 - 35 tonne range. The Fire Moths dinky lil baby hands get re-used on the Stormcrow so the whole actuator assembly is probably near identical.
Hellbringers, Summoners and Mad Cats seem to share the same arm assembly save the Summoners AC mounting, the legs of the Summoner/Hellbringer look near identical and could probably be replaced like for like in a repair bay (at least the skeleton/internal structure/joints, you've of course got differing amounts of armour to consider so this would NOT be a field job to swap/replace).
Of course this goes out the window as you get heavier but yeah, Dire Wolves and Warhawks sharing the same legs, you bet ya. They just reinforced the structural integrity/bones but physically identical, thus easier to make.
The whole system points to being supportive and mutually inclusive, omni-tech just aint about the weapons, but its the whole mech itself near as damn it.
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The 55-ton Stormcrow, a Clan Hell’s Horses design, has its roots in a standard battlemech design called the Corvis, also designed by the same Clan. The Corvis has a mass of 40 tons, and takes considerably less resources to produce than the Stormcrow. Perhaps this is why the Corvis was still in production well into the Jihad era alongside the Stormcrow, but the Stormcrow is a superior war machine in all aspects.
A few Stormcrow prototypes, which were said to look like Corvis chassis with omnimech attributes, were produced at Tokasha MechWorks in time for the Battle of Tokasha. Unfortunately, the prototype Stormcrows in addition to other forces were not enough to keep Tokasha MechWorks from falling into the claws of Clan Ghost Bear. At some point, Clan Snow Raven got a hold of the Stormcrow design schematics and perfected the chassis into what was commonplace during Operation Revival. (I am not sure how the design went from the Bears to the Ravens.-BLR)
TRO 3050 Upgrade has the info you're searching for.
The fall of the Tokasha MechWorks to Clan Ghost Bear in 2921 apparently resulted in the scattering of the early pre-Ryoken prototypes to other Clans. Interestingly enough, it was the Snow Ravens—despite their greater emphasis on aerospace forces—who fielded the finalized version of this so-called “second generation Omni” by about 2930, drawing on technical schematics and components obtained in their trade with the Ghost Bears. Since then, the solid performance of the Ryoken has assured this ’Mech a place in every Clan’s touman, with numerous factories scattered throughout the homeworlds.
So while the Horses made the first prototypes, the final working version we all know and love/hate was made by the Snow Ravens after receiving the schematics from the Ghost Bears who captured Tokasha from the Horses.
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Good catch. That was a straight-up math failure on my part :-[
As for arm and leg assemblies being shared between the Nova and Stormcrow, I consulted the omnimech image gallery available on the BattleTech homepage (which is awesome). They look like matches to me aside from the arm attachment points on the Nova. I can see Clan scientists and engineers being able to modify the hip joint by filling the hole where the Nova's arms were once mounted.
The legs are actually subtly different. The overall shape is similar though. The footpad is smaller, thinner, the thigh is shorter, and the protrusion in the knee joint is a bit different.
The arms are shared.
(I base my comparison to what's in the Legend of Jade Phoenix omnibus. The side views of all 16 original Omnimechs is great, though the Timby lacking arms is annoying.)
However, i haven't looked at other images, perhaps the legs are shared with the Nova (and Viper) in other pictures?
In any case, thanks for the good overview of the chassis.
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IMHO it's the best medium in the entire game. Almost every configuration is nasty. I haven't played past the Jihad, is it still the beast it once was?
We get the Septicemia in the Jihad era (or rather the homeworld clans do). It's a tick slower at 5/8 and has 10 fewer points of armor, it gains an extra base sink and 4 tons of pod space. It's canon configurations run from devastating to bizarre (one had a weaponized mobile HPG). But it can bring a whole lot of hurt. I wouldn't say its better than the Stormcrow but awful close. Comparing the two is like comparing the Timber Wolf (as the Stormcrow) to the Night Gyr/Nova Cat cousins. You trade speed for guns but both are very very good.
I'd put the Septicemia not even with the Stormcrow but the closest second we've seen.
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The scary thing about the Stormcrow is that, as effective as its canon configurations are, they don't fully exploit the chassis in the way that, say, some Timber Wolf or Septicemia configurations do. For example, with 23 tons of pod tonnage, the Stormcrow can nearly duplicate the Sep E's dual peepers, TC, and ER med backup (minus the Nova CEWS, of course), all on a faster 6/9 chassis. Some Clan omnis seem to have reached their full potential, but I don't think the Stormcrow has.
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The scary thing about the Stormcrow is that, as effective as its canon configurations are, they don't fully exploit the chassis in the way that, say, some Timber Wolf or Septicemia configurations do. For example, with 23 tons of pod tonnage, the Stormcrow can nearly duplicate the Sep E's dual peepers, TC, and ER med backup (minus the Nova CEWS, of course), all on a faster 6/9 chassis. Some Clan omnis seem to have reached their full potential, but I don't think the Stormcrow has.
I was thinking something along the same line when I fist found the Storm Crow H, replace the Heavy Large Lasers with ER PPCs and your half way there.
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How would people like a Stormcrow with jump jets? The normal kind, pretty sure you can't stuff that many improved ones into it.
There ain't no canon config with JJs...
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A 6/9/6 Stormcrow would be like catnip for me. But then, given my unhealthy affection for Phoenix Hawks that shouldn't really surprise me.
Karl
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As I noted in my Guillotine IIc article, the Stormcrow can mimic the Guilotine Iic 2 (4xERML, ERPPC, SSRM-4, ton of ammo, 17 DHS, and 6 jump jets for 2553 BV can be crammed onto the fifty-five tonner.) Sad for the Guillotine Iic 2, but a win for the Stormcrow :)
http://bg.battletech.com/forums/fan-articles/bonus-'mech-of-the-week-guillotine-iic/msg963995/#msg963995
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Cold I just checked out the Septicima on Sarna.... Wow. [drool] [drool]
I've browsed through that TRO several times, but I never noticed it. I need to pay better attention. I may of just found my Nova S replacement. }:)
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As I noted in my Guillotine IIc article, the Stormcrow can mimic the Guilotine Iic 2 (4xERML, ERPPC, SSRM-4, ton of ammo, 17 DHS, and 6 jump jets for 2553 BV can be crammed onto the fifty-five tonner.) Sad for the Guillotine Iic 2, but a win for the Stormcrow :)
http://bg.battletech.com/forums/fan-articles/bonus-'mech-of-the-week-guillotine-iic/msg963995/#msg963995
Why does that sound pretty terrifying? Headcapper, crit-seeking, reasonable range, reasonable cooling, good mobility...
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How would people like a Stormcrow with jump jets? The normal kind, pretty sure you can't stuff that many improved ones into it.
There ain't no canon config with JJs...
That would be perfect on so many levels, versatility, power, survivability, mobility, probably why none in canon. :'(
Not that it's ever stopped me from plugging them in whenever I feel like it, this is an Omni after all. >:D
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Cold I just checked out the Septicima on Sarna.... Wow. [drool] [drool]
I've browsed through that TRO several times, but I never noticed it. I need to pay better attention. I may of just found my Nova S replacement. }:)
Get Wars of Reaving Supplemental for the REAL Septicemia record sheets. TRO 3075 has the Sharks field data on what they saw before they got out of Dodge. They missed quite a bit.
That supplemental also has everything you need on the Septi's evil little brother and monster big brother, as well as a few scary proto's.
You know the more I look at the Stormcrow the more I think it may be the most optimized chasis of the original omnis. Not so much the best base chassis (I think the Timberwolf wins that) but th best mix of base chassis and canon configurations. It really is done right.
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The Ryoken, Mad Cat and Daishi are arguably the only 3 truly well designed chassis of the original 16 OmniMechs.
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The Ryoken, Mad Cat and Daishi are arguably the only 3 truly well designed chassis of the original 16 OmniMechs.
I'd put the Executioner in that bracket too, sure its often quite heavily over sinked, and got a fairly limited amount of pod space, the armaments its got do well to use that space.
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It's funny, maybe the guys who came up with the Ryoken name did a play on the Japanese name. Ryokan. Which is a name for a Japanese Inn.
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Ryokan brand DCMS roach motels, eh? They can Checkin but they Can't Checkout. >:D
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Although we may not know without contacting the original writers, I think the original word was supposed to be "Ryouken," which means "Hunting dog." Yeah, there's a big difference between "ryo" and "ryou" - it stretches out the "o" sound.
Only real reason I think of this is because I did a bit of research when I realized, "In what way is the Ryoken a passport?" (that being what ryoken actually means in Japanese). Could be that the guy picked a name from a dictionary, and didn't realize that the u was actually kinda important. Or it could have been one of those dictionaries that uses the Ö for the sound, and he didn't think it was important...
Erm. Yes, definitely one of my favorite Clan mediums; sadly, when it comes to Alpha Strike it isn't quite as optimized. 12" is still only a +2 TMM modifier, but it does class as a Skirmisher... and compared to most Skirmishers, it has a SHOCKING amount of firepower. Anything that can deal 5+ damage in a single hit on a chassis smaller than Assault is good (hell, a lot of Inner Sphere assaults don't hit that benchmark!), and the Stromcrow has several configs that do that and more.
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actually that explanation for the name sounds resonable..
especially since the Combine already had the Ryuken (http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Ryuken), and the author may have altered the spelling to distinguish the mech from the combine unit, not realizing the spelling is really important when transliterating from japanese..
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Maybe it's called that because it's going to punch your ticket.
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Maybe it's called that because it's going to punch your ticket.
I was above that joke. :p
But since the DCMS also had the Hagetaka (vulture), I thought another animal-inspired name, especially one fitting the Stormcrow as well as ryouken (it's not the dopey Looney Tunes kind of hunting dog; it's the kind that courses you to death slowly, never stopping its howling as you bleed out over the winter snow trying to escape).
The only problem with submitting it as errata is - "YOU WANNA CHANGE ONE STINKIN' LETTER IN A NAME AFTER TWENTY YEARS?!" I mean, gee, the only time it's been mildly embarrassing is a long time ago when a mecha-obsessed Japanese buddy asked me if the name of this interesting design was, "Seriously, passport?"
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To be fair to the writers: the online translate I looked up also read 'Daishi' as 'Cardboard' rather than Great Death. The Kanji in a Japaneses name apparently can make a big difference that's not always translated to English.
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Well, take comfort in that asian words simply aren't meant to be romanised, so a lot of force fitting is expected.
The Stormcrow Prime is a great generalist for striker / cavalry units. Too bad it looks quite ugly in the PC games.
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To be fair to the writers: the online translate I looked up also read 'Daishi' as 'Cardboard' rather than Great Death. The Kanji in a Japaneses name apparently can make a big difference that's not always translated to English.
We-ell... it's a compound word, which isn't used outside of Battletech - you'd have to look up "Dai" and "Shi" by themselves to find it. From the "let's make a compound word!" angle, "ken" is a strong contender (can mean "sword," "The Way of" as in official samurai and Zen stuff, and "fist" has an archaic reading that comes out "ken" like Street Fighter's Shoryuken), but "ryo"...
There are two kanji read as "ryo" by themselves (instead of as part of a word, like "ryoken"), both of which are EXTREMELY archaic (hell, I didn't know about either of them!) but there's a whole HOST of "ryou" kanji to pick from. There are... well, OK, there are ways to find "ryo" in words that come out to "strength", but you'd have to know enough Japanese to realize that a word which comes out to "Way of Strength" or "Strength Sword" sounds just as dumb about 'Mechs in Japanese as it does in English.
Possible "ryou" kanji to pick from a dictionary include such goodies as "Hunt" (but not "TO hunt") and "Dragon". Making a compound word from the kanji for "Dragon Sword" sounded a bit too complimentary from the DCMS, and you sure as hell can't hunt with a sword!
That's why I think they looked up something like hound dog or hunting dog, found it romanized as either "ryooken" or "ryöken" (both legit ways dictionaries used and still use to represent the long o sound), and simplified the name. Absent an actual writer's note like the ones for Hagetaka, Daishi, and Koshi, or actually convincing the writer to remember something he did a quarter of a century ago to fill a deadline, though, we won't know.
....This... really makes it seem like I spent a lot of time thinking about it, doesn't it? I haven't, really! Only about 15-20 minutes when my hikkokimori buddy asked me about it and we decided where it had come from, and maybe 45 minutes on these posts about it.
Uh, yeah. The Stormcrow is friggin' awesome. I hope that, for my birthday this Saturday, I'll have money to buy one for my Ghost Bears Cluster - definitely gonna mod it as running, but I'm not sure what variant I'll mod it AS. It's definitely going into the Nova, as its speed and armor makes it perfect for ferrying Bearhunter Gnomes into the middle of an enemy formation.
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I love this medium weight monster. on of my ghost bear stars has 2. My currenrtly under construction jade falcons field one.
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I do have a request: I've been trying to create a Alpha Strike version of the Ryoken with a custom configuration: 5 ER Medium Lasers, 1 ton Targeting Computer, 1 TAG module, 2 pod-mounted DHS, 1 Arrow IV system (with 2 tons of ammo). What would the damage, heat, Overheat values be? Would the armor and structure values change too? The A-IV and ammo would be mounted in the Left arm... any help would be greatly appreciated...
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Custom mech discussions should be taken to the Fan Designs board (https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?board=16.0). The mods get twitchy if we discuss them other places.