Tincan Nightmare, on 03 December 2017 - 02:54 PM, said:
Where is this info coming from? It's not in any of the old TRO's, it certainly wasn't in that first edition of MechWarrior:RPG, it isn't even on Sarna (unless I am seriously screwing up the search.) Is this something your getting from newer Catalyst products (not in Techmanual) that came out recently? I keep seeing people bring up things like the AS7 Atlas being a 'seventh generation Atlas' and the DDC being a 'Davion Dual Cockpit' and now your explanation of the Blackjack's and Hunchback's ammo storage, but can't find any canon source for any of this info. I am seriously inquiring about this, as I have been a BT junkie for decades now and seriously want to know where this info has been published. Especially this 'exterior' ammo storage that was vulnerable to a through armor critical, never heard of that in any edition of the earlier rulebooks up to the current Total Warfare rulebook.
Didn't I just show you? Mechwarrior RPG if you mean the repair equipment and such. Leg thing should be in there, if not it might be in City Tech. I do know it's in the same one this image is in.
Thinking about it, I think that's under CityTech. Its the same one where basically most mechs carry their AC/5s and PPCs in their arms as guns rather than mounted into the bodies.
You know, back when they had the Good art.
It was a nod to the old art and little nickknacks in BattleTechnology about screwy addon rules like sniping, reloading your AC/5 and missile launchers, etc. Expanded but ultimately forgotten rules, only some of which ended up in later editions. You know they had "Shields" in the expanded rules as early as 1987? But its either TW or StratOps or MaxTech (don't remember which) that reintroduced them officially.
(if you're talking about the mechs and ammo feeds, there are novels. I know most focus on major details about planets and **** but some of them do focus a little on the mechs and weapons themselves.
Far as 7th gen Atlas, it's in the name. AS7-D. AS8-D. AS9-D. What do you think it stands for? The number changes with massive factory-produced revisions to the design which shells off the factory floor, instead of derivative overhauls and changes.
Keep in mind the 7th generation is the first implementation of an Atlas that actually got Kerensky's approval, meaning there were 6 models before that ....didn't meet expectations.
(note I call it generation, Battletech actually calls it "Model" but that's easily confused with Variant and where this is explained uses both words to describe different things, for example the Kurita Variant of the 7th Model. Honestly I think that's confusing as ****, wouldn't Kurita model of the 7th variant make more sense? But then there's other issues especially if you go to translate that weird ****. So I use Generation instead. It's easier, it lets you know there's a fuckton of time between Hunchback 4 and Hunchback 5... in fact there's nearly 500 years in between and even then there's Hunchback 4 original [Komiyaba Type VII skeleton] that's been around for 500 years and has all kinds of refit kits available but is too damn small to fit XL engines and double heatsinks in... and Hunchback 4 'Classic' which started post 3030 (exact year???) because Kali-Yama Weapons Industries got the rights, redesigned it from the ground up and made a new model for Marik dubbed the HBK 5M, and then used this skeleton to create the 'Classic' to supply brand new ones to the field of this once diminishing machine.. but purposely doing it so that the refit kits produced by the Marian Hegemony and other businesses would be absolutely incompatible, but Kali-Yama was happy to produce 'real' versions of the 4G derivative refits (and as such gained all the profits).. as well as ensured to market their new model as being able to house double heatsinks, just gotta move part of the ammunition from internal storage to an ammo drum which is notably smaller than the original 4G's drum, both in part due to the Kali-Yama's Classic being half a meter taller, another three quarters of a meter thicker overall and because the drum only needs to hold a single ton of ammunition instead of two, as there was room enough to fit it inside allowing for such weight to be dedicated to its larger slightly more imposing girth over the original 4G.. That was noted as not really making it any more imposing, due to the drastically smaller size of the Kali-Yama 'Big Bore' which was only 120mm and was more like a giant 3 shot burst rifle with "a few bursts" per reload as opposed to the Tomodzuru 180mm with its terrifying autocannon that could fire single shots or bursts with 4 shots per reload. (A reload being a single tick on the ammo "round" counter).
That source:
You know it's the 7th because of the nomanclature. Numbers typically represent models and generally increase. There are outliers such as a Shadowhawk 3 appearing in 3070 long after Shadowhawk 5, but this is actually very important to Shadowhawks, as the SHK3 is much smaller than the SHK5. In order to fit endo-steel, double heatsinks, an XL engine, it had to be bigger (TRO 3025 under Atlas D and then TRO 3039 under Atlas K will give you exactly what I'm talking about, emphasizing that the Atlas was too small to fit in a PROPER LRM 20, so they did a 5 tube rapid reload launcher. Nothing restricts the LRM 20 in tabletop, hell it's already there, but in lore the Atlas is too small to fit a proper LRM 20... the only Atlases to carry a proper LRM 20 in the 7th generation [I call them generations, they're technically models and what constitutes a new model is major design reform/drastic changes in terms of size, shape, look, skeleton, etc. There's few exceptions, the "Classic" Hunchback 4 versus the original Hunchback 4 is one such exception; you can tell them apart by their skeleton and [I assume] minor physical features such as 120mm AC/20 instead of a 180mm AC/2, more room internally, ability to expand to double heatsinks if you move the ammo and that they are described as larger and clumsier than their original cousins. Largely in part to a new manufacturer [Kali-Yama Weapons Industries] and a new skeleton [Crucis Mark V instead of Kobiyama Type VII]). You can find what I'm talking about on Hunchbacks in TRO 3025 Original or Revised and TRO 3039, both under Hunchback 4G. Notice the drastic changes in parts? TRO 3039 mentions only hints of what happened in a single novel which better chronicled the huge changes to Hunchbacks as a subplot.
TROs are just cliffnotes of mech lore with pictures. The others you mentioned are just rulebooks with some info, and yes TechManual has a bunch of **** (a LOT of it ripped word for word from the "no longer canon" BattleTechnology magazine. "Not canon anymore... but lets copy the **** from it and resell it to you!")
As for where I'm getting it all?
Welp... I did some reading and I keep logs when I find interesting **** (only some of them shown here). Mechwarrior 1st, second, third, fourth and Battletech RPG are all fantastic reads for interesting minor details.
Click to enlarge any. Basically, I got a LOT of ******* books and little urge to play MWO... so I read about mechs hoping for a better game.
As for working out nomanclature... Part of what helped me unlock it is the Flea. Read the story of the "Trooper" Battlemech, later after so many terrible failures rebranded (on their first successful build that made approval) as the "Flea-4."
Why 4?
The Trooper had 4 total complete redesigns before one actually worked and that was renamed the Flea.
The gap is stuff lost to time or left there for players to fluff out. (According to the 1st Sommerset Strikers animated series companion sourcebook in a "Designer Notes" on pages 94 and 95, in reference to their fluff the system they use is they have a few writers create the core story, they have other authors create minor stories in various areas to help flesh out the universe, the mechs, the planets, and that they deliberately leaves gaps in things like mech model numbers and variant designations so that the players can then fill these gaps.)
Then there's the jump to Flea 14.
Notice something about it? An attempt to create an UltraLight Battlemech. It failed horribly.
15 becomes very common, 16 is contracted by Wolf's Dragoon into exclusive production. Then there's 17 which is the standard variant of 3025. But then there's no 18? Why not? Then 19 has 3055/3060+ tech on it.
Take a look at the Mauler, yes it starts with a Rassalhague and Kurita variant on the 1st model. Note this kinda screws with the lore and the nomanclature and makes me question if the R stands for Rassalhague at all. The "K" is described as an overhaul; I think the reality is the K should be the main variant and the R be the overhaul... but that's me picking bones with the lore and the Mauler's confusing use of the established nomanclature. What does hold consistent is that numbers are vastly different models. The 2R is a total rework, not an overhaul. A 1R can't be made into an actual 2R though you can replicate the equipment. 3R states itself to be an upgrade but that doesn't mean they used the 1R as a base model.
Anyway, most of it is fluff, some of it is minor conjecture. For example, this layout is entirely fluff built from 3025, 3050, and three novels.
The image text is slightly off. The 100mm was one of the largest COMMON calibers of its time, not the largest. King Crabs were sporting Deathgivers at 120mm several years before the Atlas finally "qualified" for mass production, and the Hunchback 4G was rocking the 180mm 4 shot magazine Tomodzuru Mount Type 20 LONG before then. The fluff however made it sound like it was the biggest thing they could pull from their ***. Which makes shifting through conflicting fluff a pain in the ***.
But as the 1st Sommerset Strikers Designer Notes point out, their fictional narrators are unreliable giving things from their perspective based on their knowledge, beliefs and emotional state at the time. (An example, stating that an Atlas towers over 25 meters tall while in a terrified state... when the
tallest 'Mech until sometime after 3065 is the Executioner, which is canonically listed as
14.4 meters tall.) As such conflicting information will be given or sometimes said narrator is just completely wrong.
What I derive from that is take conflicts with a grain of salt and unless someone at Catalyst steps in about every little detail, in FASA's words, its our universe too, so decide how we will interpret it.
Edit: Mkay, done adding/correcting stuff in this post. Sorry for all the notifications you probably got in the process!
Did one more edit, sorry.
Edited by Koniving, 03 December 2017 - 05:28 PM.
2
