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The Night Star is an IS 95 ton assault battlemech built on the Maurader frame. All but one model has an engine range of 190-345, the exception being the 9FC which is 190-400. The 10P has ECM. and the 9S has jump jets.
Overall Impressions: It's slow. Maybe not annihilator slow, but just the next step up. You'll see this a lot when we get to comparisons. It also has a lot of fire power concentrated in the arms, thankfully they are fairly small targets compared to everywhere else. They are very tanky. Sadly a lot of this is focused in the CT, with one variant being able to go up to more than 150 armor in the CT and another having over 100 structure in the CT. Like the Maurader before it the side torsos tend to be great big targets and your more likely to die (or at least lose 99% of your weapons) from losing your sides.
Variant Notes:
The NSR-10P is the ECM variant. It's also the variant with dual ballistics in the arms. Sadly for some reason it has hand actuators which lowers the space for these ballistics. The heaviest load you can do is a pair of AC5s in each. It would be far better if they stripped the hand actuators so we could at least do UAC5+AC5. I would even be ok stripping the lower arm actuators for dual UAC5. Otherwise you get a head energy hard point and a right torso energy hardpoint limiting your energy weapon options. The 10P also has CT/LT/RT structure quirks.
The NSR-9FC is the fastest Night Star with a 400 engine cap. Even with a 400 rated engine you only get up to 68.2 kph, however it does give you more heatsink engine mounts. Each arm and the head each get one energy hardpoint and the right torso gets 2. Each arm also has a single ballistic hard point. This variant has some good energy build potential with it's torso mounts letting you mount a heavy pair of energy weapons. The YAW, Pitch, Turn, Accel, and Deccel rates are all different than the others and it has CT/LT/RT structure quirks.
The NSR-9J has some of the best energy options with 2 hard points in each arm, one in the head, and 1 in the right torso. It, of course, also has a ballistic hard point in each arm. The arms help make this a solid energy 'boat', though it will cut into your ballistic options. The 9J has CT/RT/LT/LA/RA armor quirks.
The NSR-9P is one of my favorites with a ballistic in each side torso and each arm for 4 total. This lets it do 4xUAC5 builds like the slightly heavier King Crab. It's only energy hard points are a single mount in each arm. The CT missile hardpoint is basically redundant, even with the 15% missile cooldown quirk. The 9P has CT/LT/RT structure quirks.
The NSR-9S can make a decent zombie with both CT and head energy hardpoints. It's also got ballistic mounts in each arm, mounts that because of the lack of hand and lower arm actuators can hold all but the largest IS ballistics (the LB-20X and heavy Gauss requiring a side torso to fit). This means UAC-20s, AC-20s, and Gauss rifles are typically what will go in here. Each torso also gets a single energy hard point. It's also the jump jet variant which gives it some mobility options the other lack. It has ballistic cooldown quirks and CT/LT/RT structure quirks.
The Wolf Phoenix is a odd mirror of the clan Maurader IIC Scorch. It however lacks the ballistic hardpoints of the Scorch, instead having a pair of energy hard points in each arm and a pair of missile hard points in each side torso. Like most NSR variants it has CT/LT/RT structure quirks.
Comaprisons:
Banshee: At 95 tons it matches the Nightstar. However the Banshee make far better energy boats. They are worse ballistics mechs, however, with only the 3E (with it's triple AC5 loadout) coming close.
King Crab: 5 tons heavier, but similar speeds (with larger engines), similar long torso styling, and heavy ballistics focus makes them a very close match. I find the NSR tankier with less fragile arms and higher mounts for the arms than the KC. If the 10P was changed to offer dual AC5 in the arms by pulling the effectively useless hand actuators, the NSRs would rival the King Crab in it's most common classic builds.
Maurader IIC: Coming in at 10 tons lighter and a more energy focus, the Maurader IIC gets the advantages of clan weapon size and weight savings to more than rival the NSR. It can use XL engines instead of light engines in the NSR and weapons like the clan LB-20X take up less space than their IS counterparts letting you put them in arms. Add to this smaller double heat sinks and you see exactly why the clan tech is just so good. It's also going to be faster since it's lighter going nearly 10 kph faster with a 400 rated engine than the NSR-9FC with the same engine. While technically the IS Maurader going the same direction as the clan IIC, they fill different roles in the game with the IIC being a fast assault and the NSR being a 'tank'.
Final Thoughts: If it only had to compare to IS mechs it would score very well. However, with the clan Maurader IIC in the game (which pretty much killed the Warhawk on the clan side already) the NSR just doesn't feel as good. It's slower, but tankier and it needs this tankiness because it's not mobile enough to escape fire.
Edited by Shadey99, 25 October 2017 - 05:32 AM.
