Mech design decisions that make no sense

[Atarlost]

the 1/2/3R's do only have a single bin, but that wouldn't prevent the use of special ammo. it just means they'd have to go all in.

and an AC5 is superior to an AC2 for anti-aircraft work when you consider that most of the fighters in service at the time could be thresholded by a 5 point hit, and all but the heaviest could be thresholded by a 3 point flak hit. a 2 point standard hit or a 1 point flak hit from an AC2 is always going to just chip away armor, but the AC5 has a pretty good chance of actually doing some crits. giving it twice the chances to hurt a fighter (the pilot check for the hit, and the chance to degrade the fighter's performance with internal systems damage)
if you can't fit a full LB10X, an AC5 is your next best bet. probably why the RFL-3N Rifleman used paired AC5's instead of AC2's as well.

In the Marauder example, using flak ammo with only one bin means sacrificing 25% of firepower against everything else.  Using an AC-2 only sacrifices 17% because it allows more heatsinks.  The SLDF has ASF as its first defense against hostile ASF, and if needed all those PPCs can also fire anti-air.  Saying that general purpose mechs need flak guns to hit aircraft is equivalent to saying that general purpose mechs need pulse lasers to hit other mechs. Using the PPCs means lacking a -2 modifier, not being unable to shoot up at all. 

[Firesprocket]

Warhawk B can make a certain amount of sense when you consider that several planets in the Kerensky Cluster are broiling hot.

I somehow doubt that was a major concern when it was designed.  The Smoke Jaguars territory didn't consist of an abundance of area that the planetary temperature would need to concern themselves with large heat spikes that would  in turn degrade the opponent ability to fight due to environmental heat due to normal or below average heat disbursement.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

No, but the Jaguars liked raiding their neighbors.  They really didn't design a lot of mechs with defense in mind.

[The_Caveman]

And the B configuration may not have been devised by the Jaguars.

OmniMech loadouts don't have to be developed at the factory, they can simply be improvised in the field (it's downright bizarre that specific omni configs appear on faction RATs, kind of defeats the purpose).

[massey]

Omnis can have crazy configurations without much in the way of an explanation, because you can change them so quickly.  It isn't expected to be permanent in any way, so it really doesn't matter what they're carrying beyond the immediate needs of the mission.

I think the most likely reason for such a configuration would be that each Cluster carries a certain number of spare parts, but not enough to give each mech in the unit every optimal configuration.  You go in asking for your normal weapons loadout, and the techs are like "I'm sorry, but the Star Colonel decided he wanted us to mount eight PPCs on his Daishi today.  We have... (looks through inventory list) a Gauss Rifle, if you want that.  And some medium lasers.  And some SRMs.  How does that sound?"

As mechs suffer damage, and your supply of spares runs low, some mechs are going to end up with sub-optimal configurations.  In fact I think it would be strange if they didn't have some head-scratchers.  The fact that the Inner Sphere identifies this particular setup as a recurring pattern (enough to call it "alternate B") may mean that it served some specific battlefield role, or that it wasn't that uncommon to start seeing shortages of PPCs and large pulse lasers.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

It occurs to me that the Masakari B would also be useful if you were, say, fighting the Hell's Horses and were therefore expecting a lot of vehicles and Elementals.

[Colt Ward]

Lol, and did not mind fighting in the fire.

Which is interesting, the Clans have several designs that are almost made for fighting in fires- Gargoyle Prime, Warhawk B, and a few others.  Often times the way the configs are balanced between Energy & Missile/Ballistic and carrying the DHS to bracket or fire most weapons (looking at Dire Wolf W & Stormcrow B/D/I) they can in game rules play fight through forests better than IS mechs.  Which makes the Ghost Bear's situation for the forest fire on Tukayyid a bit of a headscratcher.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Yeah, the rules for fire have always been a lot less fearsome than fiction made it out to be.  And the Bears have a lot of mechs that are very high on heat dissipation.

[Firesprocket]

It occurs to me that the Masakari B would also be useful if you were, say, fighting the Hell's Horses and were therefore expecting a lot of vehicles and Elementals.

It would be very similar to the Gargoyle prime in that it is probably what the design would be best at.  The difference here is that the presence of a gauss rifle makes the Warhawk undergunned and excessively supplied with ammo for it's secondary weapon when compared to the horribly tundergunned Gargoyle prime.  For anti tank and anti battle armour for the revival era and before the Warhawk A would be far better at that task.  Just because he has a single head capper doesn't make it sensible.

[Kit deSummersville]

They're powered by the most powerful thing in the BTU: Writer's Fiat.

Clearly you aren't familiar with the pay scale of the gaming industry.

BT authors have Writer's Kia, not Fiat.

[Sartris]

Clearly you aren't familiar with the pay scale of the gaming industry.

BT authors have Writer's Kia, not Fiat.

"He has a Ford Fiesta-priced influence on the BTU" -Randall, probably

[mmmpi]

And the B configuration may not have been devised by the Jaguars.

OmniMech loadouts don't have to be developed at the factory, they can simply be improvised in the field (it's downright bizarre that specific omni configs appear on faction RATs, kind of defeats the purpose).

I honestly had assumed that they were preferred load-outs, either because of that clan's culture, or due to those configs being seen often in their forces.

Having said that, the parts available issue does make sense too.

[truetanker]

I've always wondered why there wasn't a Marik Large Laser Warhammer variant until the 7M came along in '49.

Supposedly, a PPC shortage forced them to use LL's on all their mechs, including the Flea -aka Trooper, Marauder and Awesome... ( MAD-3M, AWE-8R and -8T respectfully ).

TT

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

You'd think they'd have taken the PPCs off Warhammers to retain them for Awesomes.

[truetanker]

I believe FWL on had one or two factories producing PPCs full time, but they couldn't keep up with demands, stock pile only went to those of Prestige units or sold for almost TWICE the value... if they were ever sold... I did know, somewhere, that they paid highly for any salvaged ones found... one of the TROs or novel... can't remember. I do know they were strapped for them...

Which is why they wanted Steiner tech badly... I think it was the original Banshee-3S write up... could be wrong.

TT

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I know there was something about that in the original TRO 3025.

[(SMD)MadCow]

There was a bit about keeping Shreks around as mobile blood banks for the PPCs in the Awesome entry.

[BloodRose]

The Shogun.
The fluff states that it was originally conceived as a close quarters Mech, and from the look of it they got as far as slapping on the SRM-6's and the Jump Jets and then decided that what a close quarters mech really needed was a battery of two LRM-15's and, for a primary weapon, an ERPPC, resulting in a weird hybrid assault mech that really wants to be at long range but is equipped for CQB manoeuvring and severely undersinked, meaning it cannot fire the ERPPC more than twice in a row before having to stop and cool off, less so if it also fires the LRM's as well. Ironically the lowtech Succession Wars era variant is actually better as it 'downgrades' the ERPPC to a regular PPC, thus eliminating some of the heat issues.
Combine the high heat issues with the heavy reliance on ammunition and you have a recipe for disaster (assuming its low ammunition tolerances last long enough)

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Well, the Shogun 2H from Operation Klondike is apparently the original version and it's superior at close-range fighting due to double heatsinks and replacing the SRM 6s with 4 SSRM 2s as well as a medium laser and a medium pulse laser.  Still not a fantastic in-fighter, but the way the Star League fielded mechs in companies it would have worked pretty well.

[RoundTop]

According to fluff it was also supposed to be an urban fighter. That makes the lrms make sense for indirect.

[Ruger]

The Shogun.

But...but...it's a jumping Stalker!!!

Ruger

[garhkal]

There have been a lot of mechs over the years that have been less-than-optimized.

But sometimes, there's a mech that's built in a way that just leaves you saying "what were they smoking?"  I'm interested in hearing what people think are some of the worst offenders.

A big one for me is the Cerberus.  Eleven tons of armor doesn't come close to being sufficient, but that's compounded by wasting tonnage on a pair of rear-facing machine guns and two double heatsinks (giving it 24 heat dissipation on a mech that can only generate 19 on a standing alpha strike).

Any Canon mech that carries a weapon, such as a ML or such, in the same arm it has the hatchet!

Narc on an Archer, or any other LRM boat for that matter. By the time you can hit with IS-Narc, you can't hit with LRMs, and odds of being able to back off afterwards aren't great against most foes.

It makes sense on the stalker, as that's a brawler with LRM as something to do as it gets close. Kintaro has more SRM than LRM. Sorta works on an Orion, that's a general purpose mech that works as a brawler/spotter. The -5S Archer is a mess, the SRM are streaks that can't even use the Narc, and two tons of ammo for four tubes is four times what it needs in it's primary role.

That's a good call. 

But then that Goliath w/ 2 tons of MG ammo shows up & THAT one stands out as something that just can't be excused.
Really, 2 Tons of MG ammo?   The PIRANHA doesn't even need 2 tons of MG ammo.   I don't honestly care what you do w/ that extra ton, but ANYTHING would have been an improvement over a 2nd ton of MG ammo.    /boggle.   There really is no excuse for that one.   Its not sub-optimal, its just some designer intentionally being a jackass IMHO.
Honestly its the kind of thing that should have been errata'd the way they fixed the DHS issue on the Clint, Pixie-3M, Blackjack & Scorpion from 3050.

Unless a mech has 20 machine guns on it, 1 ton of ammo is MORE than adequate...  Let alone 2.

OK, 5 pages in and nobody has mentioned the single biggest design sin in all of BattleTech?

The MAD-5A Marauder II.

"Let's put the CASE in the torso the ammo isn't in!"   ???

I've always assumed that was a willful misprint, that the exes decided was too funny to correct.

Another of my pet peeves..  Putting on a single SRM-2 streak, with a full ton of ammo.
If you are gonna do that, at LEAST put 3 of the blighters on...

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Any Canon mech that carries a weapon, such as a ML or such, in the same arm it has the hatchet!

I'm willing to accept that if it's just one laser to protect the mech from having an exploitable blind spot, but when it's a mech like the Axman with 3, you're completely right.

[Sartris]

this looks like a job for the fist fire spa

[AdmiralObvious]

I'm just gonna point out that, if you really wanted to turn an IS missile boat into a brawler, all you needed to do was hot load the missiles.

The Shogun can deal quite a hammering when you do so at SRM range, and the ERPPC, while probably going to cook off the ammo enables it to close to melee ranges and use said SRM racks.

It's a unique case, where you can pretty easily turn it into a brawler if the tech sets it up right, and that's largely without modifying any of the base configuration.

[Greatclub]

TacOps optional rules; I'd be cussed out if I tried to pull that at my regular table.

[AdmiralObvious]

TacOps optional rules; I'd be cussed out if I tried to pull that at my regular table.

As I mentioned in a previous post in a different discussion. All optional rules are mandatory for our group!

[Firesprocket]

As I mentioned in a previous post in a different discussion. All optional rules are mandatory for our group!

There is also probably a good portion of people in this thread that weren't part of that differentthread that know that you play with all optional rules.  I'm glad you've given us a heads up.  While there is no real science behind this statement, it's a fairly safe bet that most in this thread aren't playing all of the optional rules. 

That all being said, hot loading LRMs have quite a bit of downside that in an advanced rule setting I'd not want to hot load my LRMs in a mech.  Hot loading in a tank is another matter entirely, but we aren't talking about tanks.

[AdmiralObvious]

There is also probably a good portion of people in this thread that weren't part of that differentthread that know that you play with all optional rules.  I'm glad you've given us a heads up.  While there is no real science behind this statement, it's a fairly safe bet that most in this thread aren't playing all of the optional rules. 

That all being said, hot loading LRMs have quite a bit of downside that in an advanced rule setting I'd not want to hot load my LRMs in a mech.  Hot loading in a tank is another matter entirely, but we aren't talking about tanks.

True, I'm just making a guess as to why things are as they are. Same as others have mentioned before with the Solaris IIV ruleset.

I have a habit of by default including TacOps rules, because I feel it rounds out the game better and it's all canonical (except for the 4 shot engine explosion rules, and ammo explosion acting as though it was a artillery explosion). Granted, I'm fairly sure that no tournament actually uses TacOps in their games, for less headaches of the GM.

People pick and choose optional rules, Hot Loading the LRM is one rule that seems to make sense for general play though. The major downsides to overcome the minimum range seems fair to me to be a standard rule.

[truetanker]

People pick and choose optional rules, Hot Loading the LRM is one rule that seems to make sense for general play though. The major downsides to overcome the minimum range seems fair to me to be a standard rule.

So you DO Hot Load your Kraken 3?

TT