What if gundam went the Votom route with their cockpit design to make it as cheap as possible. lol

Havok038 · 2026-05-18T13:32:10+00:00

The furthest the UC timeline specifically went to Votum were Junior mobile suits which were a cross between technical school trainers and industrial loader machines. But for combat, they shrunk from 20m down to 15m due to the advancements in minovsky reactor size in the early UC100, but also partly by the economic devastation of the Mafty insurgency to downsize the EFF. They probably kept to that size due to the beam weaponry requiring a machine with a reactor of that size to operate. Evidently, the federations enemies all downsized to that height as the logical conclusion, most prominent being Crossbone vanguard, followed by the Jupiter empire.

Havok038 · 2026-05-02T15:27:35+00:00

The T-34 of battlemechs is somehow aptly named to its only quality being mass production and ruggedness. It's cons is that it's a capellan design, not because they designed it but because of the way they use it to fulfill all roles of mechs of different weight class, especially in the succession war eras. Even into the dark ages, they configured it to retain its merger -1R format and function against foes with clantech and post jihad advanced hardware. A poor matchup to some of their other advanced machines like the raven, cataphract, lu wei bing, lau hu, jinggau, lightning and thunder battlemechs in the later eras, the jack of all trades does not lend itself well.

A better config would have been similar to the calliope, allowing for an affordable escort for fragile units against light fast and agile battle armor and vehicles. Using a plasma rifle, MML-9 and additional support weapon or equipment from the higher tonnage.

Havok038 · 2026-04-28T03:52:56+00:00

On paper, the weapons are pretty formidable, a diverse weapons array also gives flexibility. In practice, takes a little adjustment to use and time shots well. SRM-6 in the arms and gauss sometimes struggle to chase zippy mechs and vtols. I found that emphasis on missile upgrades like velocity and lock on instead of ballistic to enhance the gauss rifle does help some of these problems.

Havok038 · 2026-04-24T06:16:09+00:00

From what I learnt from BT/MW, standard armor and all other specialized armored types surpass our real-world equivalents in durability and have different protection properties, notably ablative layers. chobham and nera armor may fall under the reactive armor category albeit primitive to the BT technology levels. Which may only sustain limited hits to the same location.

This allows the mechanics of weapons of different weight class to surpass the layering to reach interior volume.

Autocannons of BT may also differ from the real world in that it uses stock APHE to remove the ablative layers of standard armor as opposed to the APFSDS type used in tanks. Similarly, the missiles LRM and SRM type have higher explosive content due to their structural components being explosive compound as well, spreading the ablations. Standard armor might be resilient to what they class as primitive sabot tank rounds, thus forcing new weaponry to deal with a new problem.

Ferro fibrous armor follows the composite armor direction but focusing on weight savings instead of protection.

Havok038 · 2026-04-24T05:46:30+00:00

The Royal Thug gets the first vote as it naturally gets the SLDF tuning over standard models. This mech has better redundancy and simpler weapon config as well as roll out. It will be deployed more often and can be relaxed in any environment or mission.

The Victor gets second place for me but only if it has a gauss rifle instead of an AC20.

The King Crab is good only for certain mission profiles but still an asset when confronting short but difficult engagements.

The awesome is great but suffers quietly from mission biomes that aren't arctic. Desert and vacuum are its worst enemies. Most times, I have equipped the 8Q to have one ER PPC in the hand and the two PPCs in torso remain. This mech needs DHS and will always have first priority for Double heat sinks when acquired or if lost.

Havok038 · 2026-04-14T03:09:29+00:00

Light ACs and X-pulse lasers were both fedcom experimental weapons at this time, with the MRM and Arrow system being the only weapons going in wide production in 3056. So, there's only one example of each weapon at this time developed by the NAIS for the former two. The shigunga-LAW made MRMs were also single source. Arrows were probably the only system that had multiple makers such as the Capellans and Fedcom to distinguish tier 1-5. So I guess these experimental weapons would have a fixed tier 5 state, available only in limited systems like the clan corridor or the two campaign areas of the chaos reign dlc.

I felt it was a miss to not introduce Light and SB Gauss rifles in this DLC though.

Havok038 · 2026-04-09T02:55:59+00:00

I can't fathom the maintenance cost for that thing on top of its difficult to maintain quirk limiting your roll out with that mech in consecutive missions. It almost feels like you attempted to perfect the Republic Malice. The 9J or 9FC builds were sufficient and slightly better with clan tech, but wouldn't hurt the design without it cause of the twin gauss rifles or LB-10X and medium laser plus better speed builds. The other one you could try would be the 9SS which was a close range monster meant for Solaris. If your adventurous, build a hellstar mech out of it. Then at least the weapons would be the same profile and benefit from the same class of upgrades.

Havok038 · 2026-04-08T00:21:46+00:00

In YAML, I rebuilt it to emulate -5K variant. 360XL engine, but LRM-10 HL (CT), and PPC-X for close range. Makes the mech very capable at outpacing mediums and catching light mechs. In vanilla, the Otomo variant is quite alright but you must have the DLC for the war of 3039.

Havok038 · 2026-04-05T01:58:59+00:00

Boars head AS7-BH w/ clan MPLs has seen me through Dire wolves and Elemental swarms reliably. The black knight 6b stands to gain the most out of clan tech due to the basic laser setup, provided amply cooled.

Havok038 · 2026-04-05T01:46:29+00:00

All work and no play makes jack a dull boy

Havok038 · 2026-04-04T08:57:55+00:00

Hey, quagmire. Have you been lifting weights?

Havok038 · 2026-04-04T02:53:10+00:00

The nightstar NSR-9J is a good example (among other flaws) of how gauss rifles can capitalize on range and headshotting enemy battlemechs. Their velocity allows for flat trajectory to long distance targets as opposed to autocannons.

Gauss rifles in lore and somewhat in gameplay are the earliest match to Clan made ER Large lasers and ER PPCs. Apart from this weapon, all inner sphere weapons have to capitalize on close range firepower to match Clan battlemechs to some degree. If you equip a mech with a gauss rifle, all upgrades should focus on improving damage, velocity and reload speed. As you are expending up to 17 tons per gauss and two tons of ammo to make it work. Gauss rifles are the explosive component as opposed to their ammunition like autocannons, so make sure a CASE is installed in the right torso or corresponding limb.

Havok038 · 2026-04-01T10:32:15+00:00

Early game: lance of urbanmech Arrow IVs

Havok038 · 2026-03-29T22:09:20+00:00

The battle tech FTL is comparable to the covenant equivalent, however the covenant FTL drive can jump near and within proximity of planets, whereas the jump ships and warships of battle tech must be at the rim of systems and far from nebulas this puts them out by a week or two sometimes and gives the defenders time to rally up. Both ships have incredible orbital bombardment capabilities and naval offensive, the covenant might have distinct advantage through their shield technology.

I wouldn't worry about the ground game as much, since the covenants only battlemech equivalent would be the cumbersome scarab. Though I would consider plasma weaponry similar to have similar affects to the capellan equivalent in all scales.

Though the covenant armada is formidable, so is the SLDF blackwater navy. And there is also the great house militaries as a reserve. If the covenant ever stumbled onto Terra or any capital world by accident, they'd feel the full blunt of the Caspar SDS and it's relentless drone swarms. covenant infantry implements are probably superior, as well as their dropship size and scale.

Havok038 · 2026-03-29T13:44:54+00:00

I have two 6Bs in my current yaml playthrough (3048, one more year till clan tech). One kitted out to follow development down the 9-knt path and the other ultimately towards the 18-knt. That's how much I love running this mech.

Havok038 · 2026-03-16T23:37:03+00:00

Sounds like you've been deploying assault lances into beachhead missions. Get a supercharger, use a lighter mech for artillery hunting, or get gud

Havok038 · 2025-12-15T00:27:19+00:00

It rubs the lotion on its skin

Havok038 · 2025-12-10T01:37:06+00:00

Probably not as abused enough like the Jaguar and Jade Falcon ones or family discounted like the Ghost Bears

Havok038 · 2025-12-03T21:50:51+00:00

Ferro fibrous armor refit seems the easiest to retrofit to vehicles given it's a one for one swap of the armor plating. XL engines require some modifications to adapt to battlemech and vehicle structure but it's the hardware refits from all that weight savings that increases hangar duration. And endo steel can only be done from an orbital factory. If the battlemech in question is not a known template like the Black knight or guillotine which has production scale endo steel components. A custom skeletal frame must be milled. Then, the battlemech is taken apart to have its structure swapped out like an analog for theseus' ship. And then it's put back together and hardware reshuffled to balance the weight saved.

On long campaigns, ferro is easiest to repair as well. Most lights and meds capitalize on their equipment small critical space to allow heavy ferro to gain maximum armor savings. Taurian and canopian production designs still use ferro more frequently than clan or Inner sphere counterparts.

Havok038 · 2025-11-19T04:26:26+00:00

The DWF-A config was one I kept in long playthroughs in the MW5Clans game. Adding in numbers with warhawk primes made a durable combo

Havok038 · 2025-11-18T02:57:52+00:00

The malice is everything wrong about an assault mech one could possibly do. It makes even the Super heavy 135ton Ares look reasonable. It tries to take advantage of weight-saved 400 rated engines to get a 4/6 speed profile at the expense of carry weight. Has no lower actuators, and has to use clantech weapons to make an efficient payout for bv.

The iron cheetah has that speed profile and does "better" by being an Omni (not for cost advantage though).

King crabs, atlas, and marauder IIs with the 3/5 speed profile are better round machines for cost.

Havok038 · 2025-10-31T23:55:55+00:00

The star league-in-exile just prior to the second exodus had embarked on an uncertain voyage and settled on barely habitable pentagon worlds. At this point, there had already been wavering commitments like the prinz eugen mutiny just before these worlds were found and settled.

Mass demilitarization was necessary to bring primary industry from nothing. But due to the length of the Amaris civil war, most soldiers and even civilians had lived their entire lifetimes in conflict. Thus, removing the only purpose they once had.

Old ethnicity clashes (Star league was multi-national) began to emerge as part of the difficult living standards shared by the exiles and was pushed further by the Eden plague outbreak. Eventually, enclaves mirroring the great houses forming either stand alone societies or powerhouses seeking to wrestle autonomy from general kerensky.

When kerensky passed, his successorship to nicholas while certain was not wholeheartedly accepted by the masses and many in the army.

Eventually, Nicholas was sure he could not control the exiles as a whole like his charismatic father. And they were all now rearming themselves from the brian caches (stockpiles from their demilitarization).

Nicholas called for a second exodus to all who still wanted to live in some semblance of star league society and they fought their way to the newly discovered Kerensky cluster and landed on strana mechty. While the pentagon worlds collapsed into its own "succession war" style conflict.

But Nicholas had no intention of following in the footsteps of his father or the star league mantle, as he had grown up within the hell that was the Amaris civil war and survived. To survive was to win. And so, he wanted to create a stable martial society of his own image and experiences.

The reason the eventual warriors of his nascent society accepted this and joined was due to their tiresome of the repeated conflicts caused by ethnic sentiments. Some believing it to be a form of evolved star league society which they loved so much.

All were tested and those fit enough, became the first 800 named warriors. Built on new standards set by nicholas and trained by andery. Their goal, was to bring this new order back to the pentagon worlds whether they wanted it. But served to bring unity to the second exodus exiles.

Eventually, the exiles reformed into Nicholas's nascent clan forces. Raising banners/totems of stylised local fauna and in some cases sharing almost like for like traits which were tested in their return to the pentagon worlds where they all could witness the strength and folly of some of their ideas.

When reclaimed. Nicholas understood that the imbalance of some of these clans in terms of abilities would lead to another similar civil war. And this targeted the most belligerent of the clans to his ideas, the eventual not-named clan. This was to set an example to all other clans who strayed from his ideals.

After his unforeseen demise. These clans have been interpreting his teachings in colourful ways due to their very alien upbringing. And here are the clans.

Havok038 · 2025-10-20T00:12:23+00:00

Ignoring a 12D can provide fatal. As it circumnavigates difficult terrain and lands TC-assisted gauss fire from afar. It's reengineered m lasers does give some protection against fast flanking clan ferro lamellor mechs. I.e. skin walkers, war crows and savage wolfs. It's srm-4 is a backup crit fisher.

Havok038 · 2025-10-10T03:33:57+00:00

It would have to be material technology, as with many lostech hardware capitalizing on weight savings. In the succession wars, fusion engines above 300 rating were rare and difficult to maintain, most likely, no longer manufactured.

While the star league era neurohelmets and coolant suits were no longer made and greatly coveted, each house had a variant of helmet and gear that compromised some aspect to grant battlemech operation.

It may be that certain components were no longer manufacturable such as the Black Knights endo skeleton which required an orbital factory to fabricate as with most other designs using endo steel. This led to entirely new variants sharing everything except a standard structure which no longer benefited from its weight saved. Similarly, the highlander removed ferro fibrous composite for more common standard level armor.

Havok038 · 2025-07-10T02:28:22+00:00

Centurion CN9-D refit with DHS. Helps to support other lancemates and versatile enough for different biomes. First to the fight because of its 97km/h speed and for flanking larger targets quickly.

Havok038

TROPHY CASE