OBT Forum

'Meh' designs... how funny, that is like saying "your TRO has words".

EVERY TRO, canon and otherwise, from 3025 to 3085, is full of 'meh' designs.  Heck, munchy ones aren't even that common.  Its better for the universe to not have everything tweaked and munched out with 4xERPPCs and 60 HS.


I still hate the Dragonfly and Oculus

Well, at least there isn't anything completely stupid looking (usually due to barrels that meant he unit can't carry over 1 shot of ammo in the entire torso) like the....

Fafnir
Ninja To
Garm
Thunder Stallion
Tai Sho
etc, etc.

Or nearly every protomech...


I still think most of the clan vehicles from TRO3060 (a couple hovers excluded) are uglier than anything in this book, well, except the Dragonfly/Oculus

Every TRO has some 'meh' vehicles to everybody   However, this one IMO has a lot of really good looking designs compared to most, though CGL has been getting a bit better lately.

Some I looked at and thought don't really care for it but don't completely hate it.

Well, hey.  It's a start.

EDIT: For Cent13, something I hate.  Out of all the DCMS Designs you have 4 with a C3 Slave, none of the vehicles and none with a C3 Master Computer - that I hate DCMS saw C3 tech as their salvation against the Clans.  They were putting it on everything even with refits.  New builds would have at least a slave.

You might expect that, and it could be argued they did see C3 as an advantage.  I certainly find it so.  But it is not a silver bullet or a universal panacea.  If used correctly, it does give you quite the advantage, but it is pretty easy to disrupt.

I humbly submit that the DC is *not* a single person, that there were several people involved in making that kind of decision.   I think they knew how hard it was to run a C3 lance and did not have the time to train everyone who occupied a pilot's seat.  I posit that the DC military would choose to add C3 only to units that would benefit from same, rather than dropping it into everything that swam, walked or flew.

Thus we have machines without C3 which work just fine.  Maybe variants will come out later with C3 as the DC better integrates the units with the existing forces.  Maybe they will come out with C3 Master-equipped machines in a few years.  After all, the moratorium with the Clans is coming to a close in 3067.

I know you expected more.  I am sorry to disappoint those expectations.  But dropping a C3 into everything would have precluded trying out the newer technologies - CASE, AMS, new weapons, Streak systems.  The only place I felt C3 was absolutely required was in the FedCom Werefox line - and that was hardened by ECCM.

Cent13

something I would have expected to have C3 was the Crinos with those three Gauss Rifles would have been nice.

I think so, too.  It would have cost us the two ERML, which provided some close-range backup, but I am sure that by 3065 there will be a variant with C3 to make better use of the gauss rifle's long reach.

I think I could probably do that with lots of designs so you could say this TRO is like any other official or none official.  You'll find pieces that jump out and you think great.  And others that with a tweak work nicely.

Very true.  Some pieces will pop, others will appear to be incremental, and still others will be a waste of page space.  A lot depends on the type of game you play.  I would never field a Crinos because I prefer more mobile forces, but my friend Bill could take a lance and make some serious hay.

Overall I am really enjoying it

so you have my thanks for the work put in alone.

Thank you.  If you take any of these designs and play with them, my work will have been worth it.  Even if you just get a kick out of reading it, I'm a happy camper!

Cent13

Reading a little more I have one glaring issue with multiple designs.

Several LRM-5s instead of a single LRM-15 or LRM-20.

I know looking at it as a designer (I'm the same) you can get more on with multiple small systems instead of one large.  But in universe it wouldn't make sense to put on multiple small launchers.  It would increase their maintenance and costs.  If you don't have the tonnage for an LRM-20 you put on a 15 and add Artemis.

I do that sometimes myself. Never made sense to me that the LRM weight wasn't a straight up the ladder process.

it is these two questions that make most fan TROs and fan AU fall flat.  anyone can create a "What if VSD died horribly in a fire?" AU or a "The only 6 Battlemechs you will ever need SRM 4, PPC, and Medium Laser edition" TRO.  it takes a certian kind of fan to take the quirks of the universe and embrace them rather then correct them.
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I agree totally.  And there *ARE* a good reasons to take 4xLRM5s with 2 tons of ammo over 1xLRM20 with 2 tons of ammo.

#1.  TWO tons of ammo, one could be mines, one regular
#2.  4 systems means a lucky critical won't take out your entire LRM system
#3.  You can engage FOUR targets in a turn (if there were 4 infantry squads you'd be thankful)

No matter how screwed up any design you can say in TRO3063 is, there is a *more* screwed up canon design.  This product wasn't meant to be munchy, but to have some units that just weren't all that great or more specifically, not that great *for you*.

Enjoy it for what it is, as good a fan product as has ever been created without creating an AU (and arguably even then) and don't try to nitpick on why the designers did A or B.