Coming back and being completely fair, the Sarna entry made today is very well written and actually seems to have cared to use lore and fluff in a way that PGI has never really done before, making me wonder if this was Catalyst-aided/written or if writing for it was given to someone whom genuinely cared about what he or she was doing.
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Roughneck
This said, my only complaint is that there was an oversight in Battletech variant naming conventions:
Numerical entries in non-Star League 'Mech variants did not denote different variants, but different generations. For example, the Shadowhawk 1s were introduced in 2467 and was the 'first generation of Shadow Hawks'. Shadow Hawk 2s are 2nd generation made in the 2752, and the Shadowhawk 5s are 5th generation which only started to be produced post Helm Memory Core in the 3033+ years such as the 5M in 3048. Gaps exist for custom made filler, naturally as they always do in Battletech games.
The outlier is the SHK 3K being made in 3070+, however this is because it is a next gen upgrade made directly to a Shadowhawk 2K. This is significant, because there is a nearly 2 meter difference in height between the SHK 2's and the much heavier armored and more spacious SHK 5's which are bigger for the sake of being able to stuff large components in them i.e. XL engines, double heatsinks, etc. In the case of the 3K, a complete overhaul of the mech while keeping the same skeleton and engine, drops heatsinks and changing to 'heavy ferro' armor allowed it to manage to carry doubles heatsinks and more armor than the old 2nd gen, but otherwise the 2 generation wasn't really capable of hauling them due to their very compact size compared to the 5th generation.
The Shadowhawk 2D2 is an upgrade to the Shadowhawk 2D(avion) chassis in 3049. While the Shadow Hawk 5D is an whole new generation overhaul of the original design D(avion) in 3062.
In other words, while upgrades to a variant that didn't change armor and structure types weren't complex enough to warrant a new generation number for non-Star League mechs, massive changes to the overall design (which you wouldn't see in something that was just produced using an industrial mech chassis) would warrant new generation names to show that incredible innovation. (Kintaros were official Star League mechs from the get-go and their variants are non-faction-specific).
The letters in non-Star League mechs denote the factions that favor or have officially adopted the design. So in the case above, the SHK-K is Kurita, D is Davion, H is Star League but originally denoted 'Hegemony' as in Terran Hegemony before the Star League became what it had. M is Marik and as is typical with Marik designs it sports all the best stuff since they didn't lose it like most, mainly due to staying out of battles of attrition.
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The Roughneck entry already has '3' generations of the mech...
The 1A, 2A and 3A... interesting, but I think these could have been 1A, 1A2, and 1A3.
The only Roughneck that meets the conditions for a second gen is actually the hero. There are other times when special conditions exist, but uh, there's no mention of major defects or flaws which had to be fixed or experimental versions that were scrapped.
Just a lore-connoisseur's nitpick.
This said I do like the look of the mech.
Edited by Koniving, 04 December 2016 - 07:29 AM.
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Cathy, on 04 December 2016 - 12:48 AM, said:
