I just looked at the sheets for the Orion IIC, and was forcibly reminded how close and far it is to greatness at the same time.
The Orion IIC is a clan Wolf totem mech, they’ve apparently tolerated only one non-Wolf to ever own one. It starts out a lot like the Inner sphere introtech Orion – 75 tons, 300 standard engine, basically max armor with a slight bias towards the back on the side torsos. 12 DHS isn’t really enough, again very Orion.
Start with the arm lasers, clan ERLL. Superb guns... that blow the entire heat budget by themselves. The big ballistic in the right torso is a gauss with two tons ammo. That’s normal; low, but enough if you’re a bit frugal. A torso SRM 4 has too much ammo at 25, and the LRM 20 (in the arm, which can escape notice) has 3 tons.
The basic firing patterns are obvious. Gauss + 2 ERLL (+1 & movement); followed by Gauss, 1 ERLL, LRM20 (-5 & movement); repeat. Alternating the two is heat neutral at a run. Using the LRMs whenever the lasers don’t have better to-hits is also an option.
When you get in SRM range go gauss, ERLL, LRMs and SRMs. It works, but you’re paying for the largely spare 2nd ERLL you can’t use, and are going to run out of gauss ammo far sooner than the LRM ammo you’re likely to use less of.
It’s a heavy mech with heavy mech durability and clan firepower. You pay BV like it’s a Clan heavy, but it isn’t entirely unreasonable. I just wish I could stop glaring at that third ton of LRM ammo and wishing it was for the gauss or a heatsink.
The one non-Wolf we know of to drive one was Burton Marik-Steiner-Davion, son of Victor and Isis. Why he wasn’t buried under ristar’s I don’t know, but he’s seen driving it as a ROTS paladin fighting the CapCon, so maybe it was just far enough away.
It is significantly customized. He proves that the Marik side of his heritage bred true by putting in an XL engine, although it's at least a clan one. Armor goes up the last pip with ferro, there is a laser AMS you don’t really have the heat budget for, an active probe for reasons, and it jumps.
Yes, it’s a jumping Orion. I’ll wait here for you to stop blue-screening.
Ready?
The ER LL are the same. An ATM 3 is a shiny new toy with two tons of ammo. Good luck getting rid of forty shots; I’d take ER for the good to-hits and HE to cover under the minimum of the next weapon, a HAG 20. 12 rounds of ammo for that is a lot lower than I want it to be. Last on the list is a Streak LRM 15. A S15 is in a weird spot where one ton of ammo might not be enough, but the two provided is excessive.
There are fifteen heat sinks, which combined with two items causing sudden heat spikes (Laser AMS, streaks) forces a choice of firing patterns that often leave heat budget unused or blown.
First pattern; 2 ERLL, ATMs, HAG. Builds movement heat.
Second pattern, same as the first but risking slowing down if the AMS or streaks work. Don’t use both while doing this, it sometimes doesn’t end well.
Third pattern; 2 ERLL, ATM, Streak; pattern for when the numbers don’t justify the HAG, which usually means a cooldown turn. -4/+1 and movement, depending on if the streaks lock.
Fourth pattern; 1 ERLL, ATM, HAG, streaks, laser AMS. Heat neutral at a run if everything activates, -5 or -10 if they don’t.
There are obviously other patterns you can use depending on the situation, but it takes a lot of judgment calls to get the most out of this mech; planning on whether to leave the AMS active even has to happen the turn before. I wouldn’t use a Burton in a bigger fight for that reason, and I’m again looking at a ton of LRM ammo and wishing it was for the ballistic weapon, or maybe a heatsink.
Despite any issues these two mechs have, they still pull their weight.
You know what, I’ll just keep going with the clan Orions
The Orion C is described in TRO 3150. We don’t have a record sheet. This is a shame, because it sounds supurb. A lot of this writeup will be assumptions, but here goes.
It’s based on the ON2-M, which was a civil war era upgrade that brought Marik Orions back to their brickish roots after the 3050s flirtation with XL engines. The 2-M has 224 dots of armor, leaving a little off the arms. The C might do the same, but we know it's ferro-lam. This means that it is at least equivalent to 280, as much armor as an upper range assault mech, or over 400 pips if attacked by Arctic Wolves and Javelins.
The longest range weapon is a clan gauss rifle. It’s safe to assume that there are two tons of ammo. The second gun is a Streak LRM 15. Two tons of ammo is a safe bet, although there might be one.
Up close is where most of the heat budget is spent. Three ER Medium Pulse Lasers generate 18 heat for 21 damage, maximum range 14. They’re an unhappy medium between the clan ER medium and the clan pulse, but with some finesse they can beat either.
All told, this comes to 74 tons, leaving one to be used elsewhere. It might go to putting CASE II in the torsos, or a third ton of gauss ammo so you can pretend it is an energy weapon, or an eleventh DHS. Given that the mech would otherwise slow with heat on a walking alpha, the last might be the best use; we ultimately don’t know what the designers decided.
Boatloads of armor, no XL, and competitive amounts of weaponry sounds like a winner, even if we don’t know if the heat situation is under control. If the assumptions made are correct, it clocks in at about the same BV as an Orion IIC. That isn’t a match-up I’d shy away from.
Edit - a writer has issued
confirmations about some of the above guesses.
Now we move to the even newer Orion C 2, from Rec Guide 19. I’ll start by directing you to
Scotty’s review.I can’t disagree with any of that. It’s a toolbox that doesn’t fit together neatly. It’s hard to go wrong with max standard armor and a pair of clan large lasers (one pulse, one ER). The C 2 tries very hard to spoil that base. If you want to stay in your heat budget the ELRM aren’t really worth using inside the range of the LPL. Outside that is really awkward to use in a standard 2 mapsheet game of battletech.
Of the shorter range weapons, a Streak 4 is reasonable to use irregularly. It’s a fair amount of damage, a single lock-on won’t give you penalties, and the big lasers while walking will slowly dump heat. The ER Medium laser in the right arm is probably better to think of as a spare in case of losing the pulse in the left. If you need a mad minute you can fire all four no-minimum weapons and not risk a shutdown.
In universe I can’t help but wonder if they were designed to soften up superheavies with ELRM from a safe distance. In game, my recommendation would be treat it like a sniper, but with a baby artillery piece on the shoulder for indirect or extreme-range shots.
It is not a horrible investment at 2K BV. If there wasn’t a scenario need for ELRM I’d probably stick with a Thunderbolt C; for 350 BV cheaper you’ll probably get about as much work done.
