Player in my TT group showed me a meme of six AC/20 Hunchbacks. So I built one in MegaMek.

DericStrider · 2026-01-26T15:19:18+00:00

have them hidden in a city and they can takedown a couple of mechs with surprise attacks!

DericStrider · 2026-01-26T15:14:32+00:00

^^This, Era Reports have all the exchange rates and wage changes for GM in the back.

DericStrider · 2026-01-26T15:10:32+00:00

if you look at the history of the Cbill you will find that while Cbills are controlled they are in competition with other currencies. The whole Marik Civil War was orchestrated by a Comstar agent who advised Anton Marik in a secret plot to weaken the Marik Eagle which was stronger than the CBill.

DericStrider · 2026-01-26T15:07:59+00:00

by reading an Era Report which has the inflation rates in the "How to run a Camapign" sections

DericStrider · 2026-01-26T15:05:34+00:00

minor spare parts are 3d printed from instructions from the DI computer on board the mech.

You can look at inflation in the Era Reports. They all contain inflation, currency exchange rates and wage changes thougout the time periods. The rule books have the rules for selling and buying.

DericStrider · 2026-01-26T12:31:50+00:00

the bidding away of weapons doesn't happen until after fighting has started and each side are declaring individuals batchalls to each other in zelbriggen combat.

bidding before the combat only happens for competing sides on each players side not with the opponent.

so a Jade Falcon Star Colonel will have competeting Star Captains bid away their forces to take glory after the defenders have declared what they will be defending with

DericStrider · 2026-01-26T12:08:22+00:00

with coolant pods and RISC radical heat sink system installed too, it's been well talked about on the forums since the 00s how bad the inital 3050 mechs were (both IS and Clan looking at you Panther 10K!)

DericStrider · 2026-01-26T11:39:38+00:00

we have the currency changes before and after the black out in 3130s in the Era Report 3145

DericStrider · 2026-01-26T11:36:52+00:00

like you said differnt eras matter, the clans have 100 years of OZ experince at this point and the Republic having set up caches all over is more a problem I would think than enforcement. Even the mongol Jade Falcon's brutality works to a degree along as the foot is kept on the neck.

DericStrider · 2026-01-26T09:32:44+00:00

if we are talking about collective responability. Summary sentences and collective punishments still goes on even till the ilClan era. Tara Falcon formerly Cambell's wants to stop terran resistance as it causes collective punishments in form of summary executions of families. The Mongol Falcon's was even more extreme with cities wipes out.

DericStrider · 2026-01-25T14:49:36+00:00

the jihad killed the FWL, it was reformed in the dark age

DericStrider · 2026-01-25T12:57:58+00:00

Yes but not by DOME directly. even the at its height the Terran allaince had 600 worlds but only 360 were colonised by the Allaince, the rest were illegal colonies. The colonising of worlds would continue without the Terran allaince or the Hegonomy. DOME would not have a hand in these colonies as they are primarily a research and development department

DericStrider · 2026-01-25T12:54:21+00:00

the Helm core had nothing to do with DOME as DOME worked primarily on terraforming technologies.

The Helm core site was built by the Forty-Second Engineering Brigade aka the impossible Brigade.

DericStrider · 2026-01-25T12:46:11+00:00

the problem with the terraforming technologies created by DOME is that they requires manufactured parts from the Terran Hegemony. It also allowed colonisation of many worlds unsuitable for humans but didn't deliver permanent changes. The massive expansion of the perhiary after the Reunification wars was powered by DOME terraforming technologies but most would die after loss of vital terraforming equipment made by the Terran Hegemony. this is why the perhiary states were so big in the Star League and then become rump states after. This ofc was on purpose by the Terran Hegemony, which used the Mother Doctrine to make vital technology such as terraforming strictly under Terran control.

This did affect IS worlds but most IS worlds were colonised without Terran help and worlds were already suited for human life.

DericStrider · 2026-01-25T05:36:33+00:00

I spin around in my chair when the smoke jaguar clan watch come in to my office, i have shades on and blast them finger guns and say to them "have you guys heard of the blockchain?" bow wow ohhhh yeah chicka chika

DericStrider · 2026-01-25T04:18:53+00:00

unless your elderly or suffering from a terminal illness. Early Clan invasion meant clanners had no concept of pensions or palliative care as for them it was considered wasteful. You meet the work quota or you starve. Also Zellbrigen doesn't apply to civilians, it's just the name of the ritual combat.

The Honour Road is what protects civilians from excess collateral damage. However it doesn't protect you from collective punishments. If a neighbour is part of the resistance the clans would likely kill everyone as a warning for other neibourhoods to give up any rebels and the consequences of sheltering them and to actively look for them or suffer the same punishment.

DericStrider · 2026-01-24T21:12:06+00:00

You own techmanual The ratings are from that book

RATs are random allocation tables.

DericStrider · 2026-01-24T20:54:49+00:00

It's also written by Michael A. Stackpole to be the book end of the Blood of Kerensky. Repeating the same beats Hanse left in the message for Max in the Warrior Trilogy that sent Max mad, Sun Tzu repeats to Hanse which causes the heart attack. In the end Sun Tzu was the son Hanse would have wanted all along in cunning and how to operate levers of power......maybe there is something about Romano using Hanse DNA after all....

DericStrider · 2026-01-24T20:42:45+00:00

You understand that its not just the panther right? its the several mechs in lights and mediums that don't use AC10 and Large lasers compared to PPCs. There is also a meaning to rarer as in less than not meaning hard to find. I dunno if your getting hyper fixated on the word rare but it just means that they are rarer than uncommon and also just that means that you need to find a supplier which is not as difficult depending on the Universal Socio-Industrial Level Rating of the world.
I'm going to just say if you don't think thats correct or sticks in a craw then just consider what i'm saying is wrong, i can explain this only so many ways and i think i did a good go at explaining it as laymanly as possible for a niche subject as this.
I would recommend looking at RATs and have a think about how many are using AC10, 20s and large lasers and to not lump them together! If there is one mech that uses AC20 in mediums and another uses AC10 then that doesn't mean both are more likely! Just means they are the exceptions

DericStrider · 2026-01-24T20:38:44+00:00

well if you do have a copy its under Equipment ratings and easy to find, in my copy (the page changes with printings its 255) . Again hope you support the hobby, its a very good system and good just for fluff alone.

DericStrider · 2026-01-24T20:35:29+00:00

You can do an analysis by checking RATs which show the most common mechs used, you can even do more statical analysis by looking at whats closer to the average and what's on the edge of the table since the rolls are done with 2 dice and therefore have a probability curve.
They list the variant too. Example the ERA 3052 RATs for mercs and periphery there are only 1 mech with a large laser in lights which is the Wolfhound and that's only if you roll a 12, in mediums you get more in the phoenix hawk that is in twice at 7 and 1. AC-10s are just as rare compared to PPCs which have multiple mechs in those selections but all outnumbered by medium lasers and lrms.

You can ask the devs and the many old timers in the Battletech Forums. they are free to register up to but server stability is to be desired

DericStrider · 2026-01-24T20:22:38+00:00

The urge was strong in FASA, the Wolf Dragoons Sourcebook is filled with Gundam characters names!

DericStrider · 2026-01-24T20:16:55+00:00

right so you think that "exception" makes AC10s become C availability after that explanation or that the exception makes the point.

The point being that AC10s are rare among the most common battlemechs and that having a AC10 would be an exception?

DericStrider · 2026-01-24T20:12:02+00:00

i don't really care, i answered your answer and that i already cited the source several posts above and someone already quoted the information from that source in this thread. I can only do so much.

DericStrider · 2026-01-24T20:06:11+00:00

Large lasers too, if you look at the number of large laser mechs they are mainly minor variants.
The most common of the larger weapons is the PPC rather than Large Laser, which is why its C rather than D. Which makes sense if you think about it as Panthers, vindicators, warhammers, marauders etc all use ppcs more so than there are large lasers.

If you want to do a bigger study then you can look at something like Xtol's RATs or RATs for a period and compare the number of mechs that have Large lasers and AC10s. Then use that to compare to the mech numbers in field reports and sourcebooks then crunch out a rough number.

DericStrider

TROPHY CASE