Author Topic: 'Mech of the Week: Mad Cat Mk IV (Savage Wolf) (Read 46221 times)

SteelRaven · « **Reply #90 on:** 07 January 2016, 19:26:20 »

Quote from: Wrangler on 07 January 2016, 19:15:41

Funny thing reading the fluff in the FM3145, it sounded like C-bill is gone and international money doesn't have much value depending on where your guys are
at some points that mercs are bartering with ammunition as form of money.

Considering C-Bills are a ComStar regulated currency, that makes perfect sense.

Arkansas Warrior · « **Reply #91 on:** 08 January 2016, 01:34:56 »

All hail the Fox-bill!

SteelRaven · « **Reply #92 on:** 08 January 2016, 01:43:38 »

(one google search later)

Now back to the Savage Wolf :)

Terrace · « **Reply #93 on:** 10 January 2016, 18:58:29 »

If I may interject here, I believe the outrageous cost of the Savage Wolf is based on two things:

1. They sell them all over the Inner Sphere, so orders pour in from all over the Inner Sphere.

2. The Sea Foxes only have a single factory line producing the Savage Wolf.

These two factors combine to indicate that though everyone has access to the design through the Sea Foxes, they are extremely rare because the output from that single factory is shipped all over the Inner Sphere. You want one? You better pony up the cash, in advance.

cavingjan · « **Reply #94 on:** 11 January 2016, 08:14:33 »

Cbill cost does not take any non-material costs into account. The materials are just that expensive because the costs haven't been changed since they were experimental and first introduced. And that is a long discussion for another thread.

Wrangler · « **Reply #95 on:** 11 January 2016, 22:08:42 »

Knowing or having a basic formula that helps players to adjust for cost of experimental/advanced/production equipment using a adjustable modifier to reduce cost of accordance to it's available would be help with these multiple eras. I know there no big solution to the problem but it's something were going to need.

The Clan XXL mounted Savage Wolf aka Mad Cat Mk IV is going be sore spot if a guy doing merc campaign and needs know cost fix the darn thing when it's damaged.

Miz Anna · « **Reply #96 on:** 23 February 2016, 09:34:59 »

Hello, I love Savage Wolves - I'm a sucker for a pretty face XD - and as a player returning to BT after a fairly long absence, this article and thread have really been valuable to me, the mix of story info and data analysis are really helping me get into the swing of things again. :) Thank you.

I have 4 minis of Savage Wolf Prime W-i-P right now. Basically, all the factions I'm interested in for Dark Age are getting one. :)

Kitsune413 · « **Reply #97 on:** 19 June 2017, 10:34:36 »

Quote from: cavingjan on 21 November 2015, 08:01:47

Is there a unit that only has to deal with offensive operations and never has to deal with defensive operations?

Black Ops Teams.

Which, considering it's price, it's basically perfect for. It probably serves the same role in Mercenary Units. For instance if you are Wolves Dragoons you give it to Natasha Kerensky's unit.

I didn't think about this mech with pilot special abilities but the special abilities that ride the heat curve would be great with this mech.

Colt Ward · « **Reply #98 on:** 19 June 2017, 13:44:05 »

The price reflects 3050's price for hand made XXL engines . . .

. . . not 3140s mass produced Sea Fox XXL engines.

Tai Dai Cultist · « **Reply #99 on:** 19 June 2017, 14:34:23 »

I'm of the opinion CGL hit on an excellent idea in just no longer talking about in-universe monetary costs, even if that does make things awkward for ATOW games.

You just can't get people to agree on how much more or less a given item should cost across multiple eras. Heck, you can't even get people to all agree that the costs would be different in different eras.

PV/BV is an awfully meta measuring method, but it works "good enough often enough" for me.

So how much does a Mad Cat Mk IV cost? "About as much as an Atlas" is as good an answer as "2.3 suitcases full of Space Bucks" but it's IMO much more useful in regards to mercenary acquisitions.

Another thought entirely, if one insists on looking at in-universe currency costs: Given the collapse of the C-Bill and mercenary currency evolving into fungible munitions, is a 75 ton Mad Cat Mk IV worth more than 75 tons of missiles/ammo that serves as "gold" of the Dark Age? The gut reaction is "of course", but would it be, really? If the currency market is gone and Sea Foxes are reduced to bartering, what is a Mk IV truly worth?

Decoy · « **Reply #100 on:** 19 June 2017, 15:34:22 »

First, we need to consider an abstract value of the construction costs and efforts that go into the Mad Cat Mk IV.
Then we need to consider an abstract value of the items that might be used for the Mad Cat Mk IV's purchase.
It'd also be useful if we could have an abstract value of items that might be used to compare against the Mad Cat Mk IV....

We COULD use something like C-Bills.....but you've made your hatred of that method known.

One final thing, it must be an In universe cost. Something tells me that the BV/PV of in universe supplies like spare armor has a BV/ PV of 0

Tai Dai Cultist · « **Reply #101 on:** 19 June 2017, 15:47:00 »

I don't know if the "your" was referring to me specifically, but if so:

I don't necessarily think C-Bill/in-universe currency is a bad way to do it. I just think that if you move beyond the pre-helm discovery era (basically, going on beyond 3025) it ceases to be viable due to the massive economic changes involved in those later eras with respect to the 3025 paradigm. (same is true for going backwards in time to the Star League)

It would be interesting to see a breakdown of what's the value of the raw materials involved in mech production compared to the value added of those raw materials once they're refined/assembled into a finished product... but frankly that's something that can only ever happen as a fan product. If that's a fan product one wants to pursue, more power to you.. but I question how much help it would be to literally any other fan.

BV/PV may not be an ideal way to measure the costs of components, granted. However there is a similar "currency" one could use quite gracefully in similar theme: SPs. You could even "price" entire mechs in SPs, which is what you do in Total Chaos/Alpha Strike campaigns anyway. Delving again into house rules territory, I'd see it quite appropriate for different mechs costing different SPs based on some relationship to their PVs/BVs rather than being priced based on weight class and tech base.

Decoy · « **Reply #102 on:** 19 June 2017, 16:29:13 »

It's just an arbitrary yardstick used to abstract the in universe price. It has nothing to do with an actual economy at this point. For example, my meal yesterday cost the equivalent of two to three c-bills. That only means anything to Battletech fans. I certainly did not pay with c-bills. However, because I know that, I can now price out the cost of the Madcat Mk IV in Superburritos. It's only when we attach more to c-bills that their use becomes more hectic.

In my mind, the ultimate problem with the Madcat Mk IV is that it is pegged to the performance of the Vulture Mk IV. By my opinion, the Madcat Mk IV is worth 1.2 Vulture mk IVs. If the performance of the Madcat Mk IV cannot justify its resource cost, then there are in universe problems with the design.

Kitsune413 · « **Reply #103 on:** 19 June 2017, 16:53:36 »

People are pretty into minutia around here.

That means its just impossible to calculate the differences. Because it would have to make sense we'd have to observe the fluctuation of the c-bill through four succession wars, a clan invasion, a counter invasion, a civil war. a holy war. The collapse of interstellar communications.

So it kind of cuts both ways. The price of an XXL engine is what it is because it was a prototype technology and the gameplay is balanced to keep it out of your hands. They never updated the price when they introduced advanced equipment into the game in 3145.

So on one hand should the XXL engine cost what it does? I'm actually not positive that the price of an Atlas shouldn't be the same as the current price of a Savage Wolf because of inflation.

The savage wolf, for all we know, could cost even more than that.

So that's the problem that battletech faces. C-bills are a gameplay mechanic. But people want them to be reflective of reality. They've always existed just to balance things though.

If we just did a price comparison from a dollar in 1850 to a dollar now and threw it on an atlas 7d should cost 250,276,000 c-bills instead of 9,626,000 c-bills.

So we aren't really using C-bills to balance anything anymore and there is actually no way to to track their inflation and deflation over 300 years...

and that is a problem because I think the most accessible part of battletech is probably this idea that you create your own mercenary unit and throw them into the game. That's like the battletech equivalent of making a pen and paper roleplaying game pc... is a unit.

But a Hellstar and a Timberwolf cost the same amount of money.

So what the game actually needs is a more arbitrary unit of currency. Which they built with the Warchest system. So the real question is how many more warchest points does a Savage Wolf cost?

Kitsune413 · « **Reply #104 on:** 19 June 2017, 16:56:25 »

Also looking into this I just noticed that in the Dark Age combat vehicles are like 9 times more expensive. Salaries have gone up on average .15 percent. The only thing that has gone up by that same percent is health care. So the denizens of the Inner Sphere are now much poorer and because mechs have become way more scarce an AS-7D really is gonna run you 87 million c-bills instead of 9.

Tai Dai Cultist · « **Reply #105 on:** 19 June 2017, 17:01:12 »

Another way to look at the problem of in-universe currency applying equally across very unequal eras as a measure of raw resources involved in manufacture: Whether you call them C-Bills or Space Bucks or what-have-you, a Mk IV costs over 91 million of them (according to MegaMek's translation, which I don't have reason to doubt). Compare that to what else you can buy for 91 million: For starters: ~~5 Leopard Dropships with some money leftover to spare.~~ Half the price of a single Leopard class dropship.

There's absolutely no way manufacturing a 1900 ton DropShip "only" uses twice as many resources as a 75 ton Mad Cat Mk IV.

EDIT: Corrected incorrect math as called out below.

MoneyLovinOgre4Hire · « **Reply #106 on:** 19 June 2017, 17:22:38 »

What, you think those ruby-encrusted spinning knee actuators come cheap?

Kitsune413 · « **Reply #107 on:** 19 June 2017, 17:39:30 »

Actually deep into the dark age a Mk IV would cost you 9 times that much.

So they're roughly a billion c-bills. 828,000,000 to be slightly more precise.

That being said. After Devlin Stones cash for Clunkers campaign good luck finding that stuff everybody else is talking about. "For the Price of 1 Savage Wolf I could have 9 AS7-D Atlases!"

"Well two things. First of all. Devlin Stone recycled all the AS7-D Atlases into Kitchen Appliances. Second of all. They've sucked ever since the Clan Invasion. Haven't you noticed people are waging wars with vacuum cleaners bolted to bicycles right now?"

If you aren't a clan front line unit or a special ops house unit there are other Sea Fox options out there for you.

We made the Koshi and the Black Hawk just for broke Mercenaries. Yes you CAN buy 10 Black Hawks for the price of 1 Savage Wolf. We thought of that. You can also buy 20 Koshi's. We'd love to sell them to you. That's why we made them. If you've got the money you can even get 4 Vulture MK IV's for the same value.

Just watch out for black ops dudes with Savage Wolf long range support.

Kitsune413 · « **Reply #108 on:** 19 June 2017, 17:45:16 »

Quote from: Tai Dai Cultist on 19 June 2017, 17:01:12

Another way to look at the problem of in-universe currency applying equally across very unequal eras as a measure of raw resources involved in manufacture: Whether you call them C-Bills or Space Bucks or what-have-you, a Mk IV costs over 91 million of them (according to MegaMek's translation, which I don't have reason to doubt). Compare that to what else you can buy for 91 million: For starters: 5 Leopard Dropships with some money leftover to spare.

There's absolutely no way a single 75 ton mech involves more resources to build than 5 1,900 ton DropShips. No way.

Yeah. But its in line with other bleeding edge stuff even from the Warchest rules. Clan stuff costs twice as much. Bleeding Edge stuff costs five times as much. Timber Wolves cost 25 grand. Savage Wolves cost four times that. Because their engine is unnecessary. But in practice it really just means that Mercenary Forces can't have it. A great house isn't gonna blink an eye at a 1 billion dollar price tag.

Kitsune413 · « **Reply #109 on:** 19 June 2017, 17:56:27 »

Well... maybe the Davions. They are having a bad day.

Darkwing · « **Reply #110 on:** 22 June 2017, 09:34:12 »

There are a lot of bad days right now.
The RoS is behind the fort
The Davions are being pushed back
The Lyrans have lost Tharkad and been gutted
The Mariks are playing "pick up states", although they might be able to leverage some out of the clan protectorate

The Caps could but have large stashes of nationalism themed mechs
The dragons are in a good position to buy.
The wolves and the dominion possibly.

If I was the fox sharks I would be selling at a unstated "haze a Hazen" sale to anyone who could give collateral to stop the Falcons. Genocide is bad for buisness. However that would most likely be the Lyrans and they are broke because they bought all of ComStars debt. Melissa admitted they had nothing left.

That reveals the big issue with this amazing machine. Those who really need it would be better off with a dozen heavies, and those who could use it don't really need it. To me it's the eccentric sports car of the battletech universe. If you're facing an enemy whose fielding these you know right away they have more money than you to throw at the problem.

Colt Ward · « **Reply #111 on:** 22 June 2017, 09:52:10 »

Couple of things . . . Lyrans still have Tharkad, Alaric gave it back before he skipped home.

The cost for this thing in 3145 rather than 3050s cost is a rounding error. It has the toughest exterior of a heavy cav mech available (equivalent of a 90t max armor design) which means it should be easier to get back into the fight because it can endure more punishment. Compare it to the Falconer, 184 pts of armor vs the Savage Wolf's effective 270s pts. Its also a Omni, which means those budget options you were pointing out are going to take longer to repair- thus out of the fight longer.

Granted you have to have a supply of the armor, but the Foxes are selling.

Wrangler · « **Reply #112 on:** 22 June 2017, 14:28:49 »

The Prices adjustments in the Era Report: 3145 and the Era Digest: Dark Age (Technically 3132-3139)?

Kidd · « **Reply #113 on:** 22 June 2017, 14:40:11 »

The whole "just buy 9 Atlases" argument runs into the problem that you don't have that many Mechwarriors. If you have 100 Mechwarriors and resources for 500 Atlases, you can't buy and field 500 Atlases and you shouldn't buy 100 Atlases; you buy 50 Atlases and 50 Savage Wolfs.

Quote from: Tai Dai Cultist on 19 June 2017, 17:01:12

There's absolutely no way a single 75 ton mech involves more resources to build than 5 1,900 ton DropShips. No way.

Sensational example, but not quite. Little Boy weighed 4.5 metric tons. A Tallboy bomb weighed 5.5 metric tons. Guess which one was more resource-intensive. A little more relatable: the price of an iPhone 1 is $200. The price of an iPhone 7 now is $650. But what dyou think would be the cost of an iPhone-like device in 1990? Literally priceless, if such a device existed.

The weight of the Savage Wolf vs the weight of 5 Dropships has nothing to do with cost. In fact miniaturisation increases cost, not the other way round. You're using rare and exotic materials, advanced manufacturing techniques, and possibly have lots of wastage, like with RL precision ammunition, and all that does increase material cost significantly.

Then again, as we all know, C-bills and costing is borked, so let it lie. Just think of it as a "unit of measurement" rather than an actual currency amounting to a fixed quantity of goods and services. There's nothing really wrong with balancing campaign games with C-bills if the GM controls for other factors such as availability, BV, etc.

Tai Dai Cultist · « **Reply #114 on:** 22 June 2017, 15:00:12 »

Quote from: Kidd on 22 June 2017, 14:40:11

...
The weight of the Savage Wolf vs the weight of 5 Dropships has nothing to do with cost.
...

Actually I agree. I made the example to demonstrate that the C-Bill costs that have been published in the past can't possibly be representative of ONLY being the resources required to construct the units (as is a commonly stated position).

In contrast, I'm of the school that says XXL prices are given for its date of introduction of 3055*. You know, when XXL engines were produced by hand at a rate of a handful of finished products per year or so. In 3055, should a Mad Cat Mk IV have been available, it'd probably be 91 million to build due to the challenges involved in making XXL engines at that time. Come almost 100 years later, manufacturing techniques surely have matured and in this paradigm prices to manufacture XXL engines surely are no longer anywhere near what it cost to manufacture back in 3055. There's no proof the FASAnomics actually DO work this way, but there is logical proof that the alternate view of cost=only a measure of resources can't be the case.

Ergo the reason I've been discussing costs is that I see no reason to see why a Mad Cat Mk IV can't be roughly analogous in in-universe cost to other Clan heavy omnis. Just because it's got a XXL engine doesn't mean it has to cost any more than "slightly" more than a competing XL option. In the 3145 age.

*=since Clan XXL engines debuted even earlier, the manufacturing techniques to mass-produce Clan XXLs (by Clan manufacturing entities) have had even more time to mature than IS counterparts.

Kitsune413 · « **Reply #115 on:** 23 June 2017, 20:19:31 »

Quote from: Darkwing on 22 June 2017, 09:34:12

There are a lot of bad days right now.
The RoS is behind the fort
The Davions are being pushed back
The Lyrans have lost Tharkad and been gutted
The Mariks are playing "pick up states", although they might be able to leverage some out of the clan protectorate

The Caps could but have large stashes of nationalism themed mechs
The dragons are in a good position to buy.
The wolves and the dominion possibly.

If I was the fox sharks I would be selling at a unstated "haze a Hazen" sale to anyone who could give collateral to stop the Falcons. Genocide is bad for buisness. However that would most likely be the Lyrans and they are broke because they bought all of ComStars debt. Melissa admitted they had nothing left.

That reveals the big issue with this amazing machine. Those who really need it would be better off with a dozen heavies, and those who could use it don't really need it. To me it's the eccentric sports car of the battletech universe. If you're facing an enemy whose fielding these you know right away they have more money than you to throw at the problem.

Well the Davions are currently negotiating planets so it's a hard bargain to ignore.

Clan Sea Fox is upset about the Falcons being total psychopaths. But it's obvious we have been supplying the wolves judging on Alaric and Anastasia's rides. Also... we bring news. Which people want in the dark ages, and I'd imagine chocolate probably. Doesn't seem good for warriors to us but there isn't much that makes spheroids like you more...

Kitsune413 · « **Reply #116 on:** 23 June 2017, 20:23:34 »

Also I think the c-bill construction rules existed for 3025 tech when they were so desperate for fusion engines they were field stripping them out of cars. If there is a moment of, "rarity increases preciousness" then no fusion engine should ever cost more than an Inner Sphere Standard Engine. They were practically irreplaceable.

Giovanni Blasini · « **Reply #117 on:** 23 June 2017, 21:01:21 »

Where the heck are you getting the price of a Leopard at around 18 million C-Bills? That's cheaper than a K-1 DropShuttle. The Danais, the cheapest DropShip I can think of, is around 90 million C-Bills.

Caedis Animus · « **Reply #118 on:** 23 June 2017, 23:34:54 »

Quote from: SteelRaven on 08 January 2016, 01:43:38

(one google search later)

Now back to the Savage Wolf :)

It makes it really awkward to know a guy named Atticus Fox who's got a name in a certain film industry, and then seeing this.

Tai Dai Cultist · « **Reply #119 on:** 25 June 2017, 11:04:28 »

Quote from: Giovanni Blasini on 23 June 2017, 21:01:21

Where the heck are you getting the price of a Leopard at around 18 million C-Bills? That's cheaper than a K-1 DropShuttle. The Danais, the cheapest DropShip I can think of, is around 90 million C-Bills.

MegaMek, but somehow in copying the information over a decimal place got left off. Mea Culpa on that. Still, the point I was making remains even though the extreme does not. No way two 75 ton Mechs use the same amount of resources to manufacture as a single 1900 ton DropShip. Ergo, C-Bills cannot be a measure only of resources necessary for manufacture.