Author Topic: Striker High-Mobility Battle Armor  (Read 3353 times)

Black_Knyght

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Striker High-Mobility Battle Armor
« on: 16 May 2016, 17:12:25 »
So I was playing around with the Battle Armor aspect of MegaMekLab, and after a bit of fiddling came up with this design. Since I haven't yet seen a Battle Armor design this fast or mobile I thought I'd post it here for your thoughts and opinions. It's time period was randomly set at 3065 when I was working it up.

Striker High-Mobility Battle Armor - MML

Code: [Select]
Striker High-Mobility Battle Armor
IS Adv. Medium Battle Armor

BV: 261
Cost: 4,341,000 C-bills

Movement: 5/5/3

Internal: 6
Armor: 42
                     Internal    Armor
--------------------------------------
Trooper 1                   1        7
Trooper 2                   1        7
Trooper 3                   1        7
Trooper 4                   1        7
Trooper 5                   1        7
Trooper 6                   1        7

Weapon                         Loc  Heat
----------------------------------------
Machine Gun (Right arm)        Squad     0
Machine Gun (Portable) (APM)   Squad     0

Equipment                      Loc
----------------------------------
Mechanical Jump Booster (Body) Squad
Jump Booster (Body)            Squad
Armored Glove (Right arm)      Squad
Armored Glove (Left arm)       Squad
Demolition Charge (Right arm)  Squad
Demolition Charge (Left arm)   Squad
BA Advanced (Body)             Squad
BA Advanced (Right arm)        Squad
BA Advanced (Right arm)        Squad
BA Advanced (Left arm)         Squad
BA Advanced (Left arm)         Squad

worktroll

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Re: Striker High-Mobility Battle Armor
« Reply #1 on: 16 May 2016, 17:34:13 »
Unfortunately the way MML is formatting the output makes it incredibly hard for me to understand what this suit does :(

Movement 5/5/3? Having some problems with that. Note that normal max jump for a medium suit is 3. Jump boosters will make that 4. Mechanical jump boosters don't add to that - they're instead of, IIRC, and have other limits (like not allowing swarm attacks when used). They can give you an extra ground move MP.

I also assume 6 points of Advanced armour, a BA-scale MG in the right arm, and an anti-personnel MG somewhere else.

Sorry, just not grokking it.
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Black_Knyght

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Re: Striker High-Mobility Battle Armor
« Reply #2 on: 16 May 2016, 18:57:32 »
The main MG is a standard anti-mech Battle Armor version, while the secondary is a man-portable anti-personnel version. Not a heavy on firepower design, but pretty nimble. And I thought with the Demolition Charges as an added bit of nastiness it MIGHT be an interesting, if unconventional, battle armor design.

Maybe this will help, in addition to the data above:
« Last Edit: 16 May 2016, 19:04:09 by Black_Knyght »

worktroll

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Re: Striker High-Mobility Battle Armor
« Reply #3 on: 16 May 2016, 19:25:58 »
Okay, makes better sense now.

Putting the weight of the jump booster in to only get two MP seems a little inefficient. I'd be inclined to either drop all the jump - you do have the mech jump booster for that occasional "leap of faith", after all ;) - or drop the mech jump booster for max jump.

One other thing to think about - the LMG. Twice the range of the standard; not quite half the weight. Two LMGs are often better in a home-brew than one MG.

W.
* No, FASA wasn't big on errata - ColBosch
* The Housebook series is from the 80's and is the foundation of Btech, the 80's heart wrapped in heavy metal that beats to this day - Sigma
* To sum it up: FASAnomics: By Cthulhu, for Cthulhu - Moonsword
* Because Battletech is a conspiracy by Habsburg & Bourbon pretenders - MadCapellan
* The Hellbringer is cool, either way. It's not cool because it's bad, it's cool because it's bad with balls - Nightsky
* It was a glorious time for people who felt that we didn't have enough Marauder variants - HABeas2, re "Empires Aflame"

Black_Knyght

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Re: Striker High-Mobility Battle Armor
« Reply #4 on: 16 May 2016, 19:39:57 »
Given that this was entirely an unintended design and not an max-optimizer design, I was actually more surprised that I achieved that kind of mobility at all. I have yet to see an official design that could move like this one could and couldn't help but wonder what effect that mobility could have on a battlefield.

I consider the LMG, but didn't like it's reduced damage. Being new to dealing with and designing Battle Armor I also didn't realize you could mount two of them. Might play with that a bit now that I know.
« Last Edit: 16 May 2016, 19:53:27 by Black_Knyght »

Black_Knyght

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Re: Striker High-Mobility Battle Armor
« Reply #5 on: 16 May 2016, 19:45:51 »
Okay, fiddled around with your suggestions (WorkTroll), and found I couldn't keep the same movement rate or any better with ANY other combination.

Also, using twin LMG's was only possible by reducing the overall speed and armor.
« Last Edit: 16 May 2016, 19:54:06 by Black_Knyght »

sillybrit

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Re: Striker High-Mobility Battle Armor
« Reply #6 on: 16 May 2016, 20:37:48 »
Mechanical jump boosters only add 1MP to ground movement, and jump boosters add nothing, so the maximum ground movement available to a medium bipedal suit when using mechanical jump boosters is 4MP, not 5MP.

To achieve the 3MP of jump movement, then given the presence of the jump boosters this would require 2 jump jets. Medium jump jets only mass 50kg each, while a jump booster masses 125kg, so they're not efficient on a medium or lighter unless you're aiming for 4MP.

While legal, a medium suit with twin armored gloves cannot conduct anti-mech attacks or mechanized battle armor operations. Twin basic manipulators add both abilities and also cost zero mass. Basic manipulators can still have a very glove-like appearance - see the Achileus or Infiltratror Mk II from TRO3058 for examples.

Demol charges aren't a canon item - they're probably a holdover from very old rules. They used to be 'ammo' for leg attacks, but for many rules iterations any medium or lighter bipedal suit with the appropriate manipulators can perform leg attacks.

Assuming all the currently fitted equipment, there's 35kg and 1 slot remaining. With the jump booster replaced by a 3rd jump jet, there'd be 110kg and 3 slots remaining.

To keep to the speed theme you desire, I'd drop the armor to 6pts and add a 3rd jump jet while still retaining the jump booster. That would give 4MP for both ground and jump movement. There'd be 25kg and 1 slot remaining, so you'd be looking at relatively fluffy options if you're wanting to retain the symmetrical manipulators, so that'd mean something like extra ammo for the MG, heat sensors, extended life support, power pack, mission equipment, etc.

Black_Knyght

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Re: Striker High-Mobility Battle Armor
« Reply #7 on: 16 May 2016, 20:52:54 »
Well damn.

That took EVERYTHING that made this design interesting and tosses it into the trash. Sounds like MegaMekLab is totally worthless for making Battle Armor, since it's so out-of-whack.

Liam's Ghost

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Re: Striker High-Mobility Battle Armor
« Reply #8 on: 16 May 2016, 20:59:59 »
Unfortunately the way MML is formatting the output makes it incredibly hard for me to understand what this suit does :(

Movement 5/5/3? Having some problems with that. Note that normal max jump for a medium suit is 3. Jump boosters will make that 4. Mechanical jump boosters don't add to that - they're instead of, IIRC, and have other limits (like not allowing swarm attacks when used). They can give you an extra ground move MP.

I also assume 6 points of Advanced armour, a BA-scale MG in the right arm, and an anti-personnel MG somewhere else.

Sorry, just not grokking it.

Okay, I think see what's going on with the movement, it's a glitch in megameklab.

The movement listed in the readout indicates a move of five ground, three movement (using the same format as mechs, walking/running/jumping). This is actually impossible by the mechanics (at least with an inner sphere tech biped suit), and in this case is caused by a glitch with the mechanical jump boosters. Mechanical jump boosters add an additional point to running MP, and for some reason, megameklab lets you add another MP on top of that after you add the mechanical jump booster.

(The same glitch also happens with the clantech battle armor myomer booster. It's especially annoying because if you're not familiar with how megameklab does things, you can end up adding the illegal mp because the program doesn't display the bonus you already get in the MP box. The glitch will even pass the program's validation system).

So it's really a problem with megameklab. I also have no idea where the demolition charges come from. Megameklab lists it as a zero mass, zero slot item, but I can't find any indication that it's a piece of actual battle armor equipment. The same is true of the vibro-shovel, mine (mine dispensers are separate items that actually have mass),  bridge kit, or light minesweeper.

...

At least there's not a monitor design option.


All that being said, the concept of the suit is interesting.
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Liam's Ghost

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Re: Striker High-Mobility Battle Armor
« Reply #9 on: 16 May 2016, 21:05:10 »
Well damn.

That took EVERYTHING that made this design interesting and tosses it into the trash. Sounds like MegaMekLab is totally worthless for making Battle Armor, since it's so out-of-whack.

It's not totally worthless. It's just... you have to know all the rules in advance and learn the program's quirks to get the best use out of it. Or, to put it better, it's better than nothing, mostly. Some of the time. The record sheets turn out nice for the most part.

In terms of the suit, it's not a total loss. Consider mission equipment as an option. Basically a storage bay that can carry stuff like demo charges and other handy things. Just make sure you have leftover kilograms when you build the suit.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

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Black_Knyght

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Re: Striker High-Mobility Battle Armor
« Reply #10 on: 16 May 2016, 21:15:25 »
The ONE interesting point of the design was it's apparent mobility.

Taking that away reduces it to an ineffectual under-armed armor. Even the Demolition Charges, which might've added some interesting color to it, are useless.

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Re: Striker High-Mobility Battle Armor
« Reply #11 on: 16 May 2016, 21:20:15 »
In that case, have you considered a quad battlesuit?

A light or medium quad suit can have a base ground mobility of 5, and you can still add a mechanical jump booster to raise it to 6. No regular jumpjets, though.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

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Black_Knyght

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Re: Striker High-Mobility Battle Armor
« Reply #12 on: 16 May 2016, 21:52:37 »
Interesting...

Though if I do so it won't be with MML  ;)

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Re: Striker High-Mobility Battle Armor
« Reply #13 on: 17 May 2016, 20:54:50 »
You may be interested in the Buraq, which is the only canon suit to be able to move seven hexes on the ground.  It's actually the fastest battle armor suit in the game, outpacing even the Sylph VTOL suit.
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