Gigaton, on 21 April 2012 - 04:23 AM, said:
It has been, actually:
All is subject to change, naturally.
Okay to close this subject once and for all, for all those who have not played tabletop (the rules they are using for mech construction)
I give you the following:
A mech is considered to have a "Hardpoint" for every weapon of a given type it possesses. Each mech still must follow canon rules for tonnage and critical space, however you will not be able to mount 15 medium lasers.
A mech has 12 "critical" spaces in the Arms, and Torsos (left, center, right), and 6 in the head and each leg, but some of these "critical" slots are filled with things that cannot be moved based on the chassis.
Arms all have Shoulder actuators, others may have upper arm, lower arm and hand actuators all which take up one "critical" slot. The centurion for example has a gun on its right arm, so it does not possess a "hand" actuator, but has a hand on the left, therefore it possesses the "hand" actuator.
So in the centurion, the left arm has Shoulder, Upper Arm, Lower Arm actuators (3 slots) and 9 free slots for weapons and equipment, where its right arm has shoulder, upper arm, lower arm and hand actuators (4 slots) and 8 free slots for weapons and equipment
In all mechs center torsos there are only 2 "free" slots out of the 12, because the engine takes up 6 slots and the gyro takes up 4. If you use a Light or an extra-light engine (which lowers the weight of the engine by 25 and 50%respectively) it will also take up 2 critical slots if light and 3 critical slots if extra-light in the right and left torso.
The right and left torso's have 12 free slots, unless you use a light or extra light engine
Legs have only 2 "free" slots each due to Hip, upper leg, lower leg and foot actuators
The head only has 1 "free" slot due to the presence of the cockpit, life support and sensors, which take up a total of 5 slots.
So using the Centurion as an example lets take a look
Example :
The Centurion has :
2 Medium Lasers (1 Ton each, 1 Critical Slot Each) In Center Torso
1 AC 10 (12 Tons, 7 Crits) In Right Arm
1 LRM 10 (5 Tons, 2 Crits) in Left Torso
So it has
2 Energy Hardpoints
1 Ballistic Hardpoint
1 Missile Hardpoint
This would matter in the above because although the Centurion has 2 energy hardpoints, you only have 2 critical spaces to play with, so you could remove 2 medium lasers to replace them with a Large Laser, which is 5 tons and 2 crits. you couldnt place another energy weapon because you have no more "critical" spaces left in the center torso. Likewise the Large Laser weights 3 more tons than the 2 medium lasers, so you would have to find that weight.
Now if you can place weapons where-ever you would like on the mech, but are limited to hardpoint restrictions, its not as bad because I can have a max of 2 energy weapons on the centurion, but can move them to say...the right torso, where I have 12 free critical slots, and could mount, say a PPC, or 2 Large Lasers. But as I understand it, you cannot, the hardpoint is "hard-slotted" to the location of each weapon in the base variant.
Again you must satisfy tonnage and critical space requirements and are limited in how many of each type of weapon you can mount. This is what they are calling "Hardpoints"
The weapons MUST stay in the same location on the mech, in which weapons placed in the head or center torsos become a problem as they generally cannot be replaced due to the lack of "critical" space.
Just as a second example to make sure you guys understand the hardpoint system :
The Jenner JR7-D mech has 4 Medium lasers and 1 SRM 4
so it has 4 Energy Hardpoints and 1 Missile Hardpoint, but those weapons only weigh 6 Tons....so while you have 4 Energy hardpoints, you dont have enough tonnage if you strip all the weapons to even mount a single PPC (7 tons 3 crits). If you freed up another Ton, by removing armor, heat sinks, downgrading the engine etc, the you could mount a single PPC, as long as you had 3 critical slots available in the location of one of the energy "hardpoints"
Let me know if you guys have questions and I will answer to the best of my ability....this is very interesting because it prevents "boating" which is the loading up of one specific type of weapon, mainly is used to load up on lots of LRMs, PPCs, medium lasers or Large Lasers....
Basically think of the Awesome mech, it is a "PPC Boat"...where as the Catapult is a "Missile Boat"
I took this from my post from our unit forums, so ignore the part about answering questions....
Edited by Azantia, 21 April 2012 - 11:00 AM.
10
). I wouldn't argue if people wanted to replace the AC20 with a Gauss Rifle as although it completely changes the attack profile, it remains a ballistic mech.
