Thomas Hogarth, on 11 July 2012 - 12:40 PM, said:
Your refit requires renting out factory floor space to perform the conversion: it cannot be done in a 'Mech bay. The cost of parts, and parts alone, is 1,298,333 C-Bills. This does not include the cost of paying the techs since that cost is peanuts compared to everything else. The refit would take 60 and a half days under the best of circumstances. It might take twice as - or even three times as - long if the tech isn't a very good tech. How much do you think it would cost to rent out a factory for six whole months? Remembering that the output of a 'Mech factory is spoken for years in advance, of course.
Just because you theoretically can do something doesn't mean you should see it every day. Otherwise we'd all be commuting to work in Harrier jump jets or the like.
Why would it require the factory? The idea of refitting engines for xl engines in dropships, and even repairing them in the field is completely canon. Admittedly, it's not going to be performed under ideal conditions, but it can be done. The Master Rules on page 91 lists the total replacement time of an engine at just 360 minutes. That's 6 hours from start to engine calibrated and battle ready.
Just going out on a limb here, but an engine in battletech is probably connected to the chassis with engine mounts, a wiring harness to distribute the power, and data connection cables to control and monitor the output. So to swap it out, you will need a gantry crane and the tools to get at it. Since all 'mechs are required to under go service, I would guess that engne access is actually fairly simple in most designs. Figure the key pieces of the rear armor are hinged, with access points in the front to get at the front engine mounts, and attachment points built into the the engine housing to make crane connections easy.
Now retrofitting a larger engine or an xl would require access to a machine shop to fabricate the specialty parts, mostly new mounts, and may require the removal of all the armor on the back of the 'mech for access. So a more reasonable estimate would be a total turn around of a month in the styx with makeshift equipment and the tech phoning it in. A week to 2 weeks in a properly fitted 'mech bay or fully equipped dropship. And under a day if you have access to the factory, where you can grab a half completed chassis and a dedicated crane. Mind you, this is just for the engine. Any other changes will add their own replacement time to the mix.
All of this is just a long way of saying that I am a fan of custom jobs. I just think the game should include incentives and rules in place to keep the designs on the side of canonical and away from the absurdity you got in some of the earlier games.
3
