To be honest, I way overreached here-there were so many designs, it's hard to choose just one that's Perfect. Here's my Raw-ish notes on EVERYONE's designs, as far as I can make them out.
Wereling: CRM-1AU -Notes: Good firepower, speed, jumpjets, lackluster armor
CN-9AU Notes: Jump jets compensate for lower speed, better armor, less damage potential than standard design, no AI weapon
DRG-1GAU Notes: A Grand Dragon with short range brawling, crippled by right torso loss
AWS-9AU Notes: Another ‘close to attack’ option, slow, doesn’t rely on Med-las to hit 40 damage, but does rely on missiles.
Financing: 0
MaxCarrion: JR7-FA2 Strong infighter, large and expensive, questionable tooling supplies
CRB-27A2 Design extinct, decent direct fire support, Flamer a minor war crime
CTL-A2 Weapons layout looks hardly anything like a Catapult, both missile lauchers on the same side. Decent protection overall
ARN-A2 Melee weapon without TSM, somewhat zombie-ish, relies on Medium lases as it closes distance.
Financing: +1
(SMD) MadCow: JVN-10AR Long range skirmisher, beats the 2M locust soundly.
CN9-AAR Similar armor, higher speed, greater long range firepower/support.
GHR-5AR ‘lightbulb’ design, mid-range infighter/brawler.
CMT-1X: 2PPC, relies on Med-las and SRM to exploit holes.
Financing: -2
Shrapnel:CRM-1NT Quad-mech, slowish but good firepower and some jumping.
VND-1R twice the missiles, but a laser instead of a PPC, and more small secondary lasers.
CPLT-C2AR Deeper ammo bins to keep the fire going all day, and a long-range direct fire weapon adds insult to injury. DHS don’t quite sink all of this, but it’s a solid feeling design
GOL-2AR: Kamea doesn’t like Medium-las boats...but this feels different somehow. It’s still painfully short ranged.
Financing: +3
Darzoni: HSR-240-AU Quick, armored decently, large laser, would it have original electronics? Problems producring tooling anticipated
PXH-3AU It’s a Pheonix Hawk, flamers disliked, very fast and agile.
MDD-09 Feels a bit underarmed and over-endowed with ammo, kind of dull for a 75 tonner totem.
KGC-000AU Feels like something not a KGC, Long-range bombardment and mid-range firepower, somewhat vulnerable at the closer ranges when LRMs can’t arm.
Financing:-1
NullVoid: RN-1T Dedicated recon equipment, anti-infantry laser, good armor. Smaller than other options, but cheaper and a jumper.
GLD-4RT A very WTF design, this thing was a flop, why pay for a flop?
WHM-7T Powerful at range and up close, lots of ‘support weapons’ to counter the lack of fists, ammo protected.
LGB-8T Good long range bombardment, but 4mlas up close again to push it over the damage threshold. Smal pulse welcome for anti-infantry work.
Financing: 0
Daryk: JVN-10AF Slow for a light, and short-ranged-it may not be able to catch hovecraft or VTOLs, but is decent for bullying other light mechs and well armored.
WVR-6MA Trooper wolverine-a close-in fighter with SRMs and small pulse lasers for AI work-but no variant ammo tonnage.
C0R-1A Jumping 75 tonner, with a slightly confusing warload-overlaps somewhat with AWS.
AWS-8A 4 PPCs, 2 Pulse lasers, good design, some Zombie potential.
Financing:+1
ANS Kamas: CMN-1A TAG is interesting, but without artillery missiles, shells or Semi-guided LRMs it’s not useful, procurement of those advanced munitions may be difficult and expensive. Overall a good Light mech hunter, and does compare well to the WLF.
HBK-5A+Varient The hunchback alone is very short ranged and slow but the varient is long-ranged and slow. Tag features again, but synergies are good here if they can waddle close enough to use it.
RFL-4A heyo, thank you SLDF. Very good firepower for a 60 tonner, but does it still have the AA computer?
STK-4A While this lacks ‘put down’ firepower, it has some nice features. TAG is back, and it might add a bit of long-range punch. Damage bands are pretty much 34 and 34,
Financing:+2
DOC_Agren: Javelin AU: The Med-las spam is excuseable,
Centurion AU: Solid armor, but needed as it closes the distance to short range. Depends on medium lasers to fulfill trooper role.
Grasshopper AU A jumping infighter with ER lasers to shoot in, and
Cormerant AU More a sandblaster than a sledgehammer, this design calls for lots of up close work shot in by those big ER lasers. But is it supposed to do the same role as the Grasshopper or what? Armament is nearly identical, and similar to the centurion.
Financing: -3
Gigastrike: CMT-2AU Decent firepower and armor, and what looks like standard speed. Seems to use no foundtech? Points for cheapness, but what’s the point?
GRF-3AU less long-range fire support, more ‘midrange face-puncher’ with double Large Lasers with SRMs to finish the job. Live ammo bombthough….
ARC-5AU: Split firepower and good ammo endurance-and the use of CASE questions why there is none in the Griffin.
BNC-5AU: Another strange design choice-a close in brawler mech (Kamea doesn’t like the heavy secondary armament much but bit her tongue) with doubled AMS-but only one ton of ammo. It can’t stay with the fire-support mechs-it needs to close in, so ‘covering it’s allies’ is clearly impossible.
Financing:0
Hellraiser: Javelin-11G: All small guns Javelin, clearly a vulture-type which might synergize well with the-
Tigris: A bigger wolfhound with LRM firepower, using a smaller engine. Long-range skirmisher, limited by single ammo bin somewhat.
Marauder: Oversinked by a hair at range, very zombie trooper, good long range firepower.
Atlas 1.5: A sort of halfway house Atlas, pulling the large autocannon of a traditional design, but with the large arm lasers of Kamea’s personal ride.
Financing:0
DarthMetool: SHG-2AU Lots of SRMs, medium lasers, jump jets and decent speed-space for two types of ammo as well.
CRB-25AU: small crab, big Blazer, technically head-capping, machine gun w/CASE, good ground speed.
GLT-4AU: short range brawling Mech, with Blaser
MSK-9AU A major deal-breaker-these have been out of production for centuries and nobody is interested in resurrecting the flagship design of the Terran Hegemony, no matter how long they served in it’s armies.
Financing:-1
Wereling’s designs were okay, but miss the requirement for Anti-infanty gear on a trooper. MaxCarrion had too many extinct designs that would be hard to source tooling for. Darzoni’s designs feel like they need a lot of tweaking and improvement. NullVoid would have been a strong contender had the Gladiator, a design which is extinct with prejudice, not graced his lineup. DOC was perhaps too similar in the choice of weapons, and their mechs fail to seperate into distinct roles. Gigastrike pulled together some very Level 2 designs that are period appropriate, but not really appealing. DarthMetool wants to resurect the Crab and the Mackie, which isn’t in the budget. These guys have to make do with oatmeal cookies-without even raisins.
That leaves Hellraiser, ANS_Kamas, Daryk, Shrapnel, and (SMD) MadCow in the running. I award a single Molasses Crinkle to each of you for surviving CUT ONE of the operation, and proceed to CUT 2. Hellraiser has a nice tooling savings in recycling an engine, and good fluff, +2 points. Kamas, your designs show good unity of purpose and can call for artillery easily. Too bad there's not a single Arrow IV launcher for love or money... Minus a point for throwing in an extra variant, but maybe there can be some common tooling between 180 and 200 series engines, and the 240 and 255. Daryk grabs 3.5 ish technologies, I dunno if I should count pulse lasers separately or what. Your engines and parts are all over the place, so you don't recover a point there, and I don't grasp your fluff here. Shrapnel has great fluff, but I'm lukewarm on a design that depends on six Medium-pulse lasers for true face-mulching firepower. +1 point for fluff, -1 point for being slow overall and -1 for odd weapon choices that I can't get excited about, but your funding points might make you a contender anyways. Finally, (SMD) Madcow has good fluff, good designs, overall, I like this a lot, except for a slightly underwhelming assault. +1 point for fluff.
Kamea INTERUPT to deliver special bonus points to those who used 2 or more SLDF designs. +1 point for Hellraiser, Daryk. +2 points for ANS_Kameas, a fellow of wealth and taste who used 3 SLDF designs to cater to a fangirl.
Alexander awards Good Neighbor bonus points to anyone with fluff of a neighboring power. +2 points for Hellraiser, Madcow, and Sharpnel.
+1 point to everyone for Good Logistics, you all pass this one with flying colors.
That's a final total of Hellraiser 6, ANS_Kamas 5, Daryk 2, Shrapnel 5, and (SMD) MadCow 4. Hellraiser is our winner, and will walk away with the Grand Cookie Asortment. ANS_Kamas and Shrapnel, as runners up, you get to share 2-dozen chocolate chips. MadCow takes third, and recieves a dozen of my Pecan Sandies and a sincere 'well done. Daryk, you get an extra Crinkle and a 'better luck next time' man.