jeffro
Jeffro's Gaming Blog: Car Wars, Star Fleet Battles, Ogre, Battletech, and more!
[FASA] Missing 'Mechs Revisited
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I guess it's just as well that the "missing mechs" are gone. Although it's hard for me to conceive of the Battletech universe without the units that appeared in the original 3025 catalogue (er, I mean, Technical Readout...), those original Mecha were the source of many an irritation.
The problem was that the design system seems to have been made first before the decision came out to use those licensed mecha images. You could not design the most of the mecha pictured in the 3025 Readout!!
A classic example is the Rifleman. If you look at the picture, it should have 4 humongous lasers. The design in the Readout specified two lasers and two autocannon. To make matters worse, the Rifleman couldn't fire even two of his lasers without generating lots of extra heat.... Grrrr....
Then compare the Marauder to the Warhammer. The Warhammer's PPC's should be meaner and longer ranged. The autocannon on the Marauder should be much meaner than an AC/5. The Warhammer should have 6 monstrous single shot rockets-- not to mention an extra pair of LRM/10s in the side torsos.
And speaking of rockets... where exactly are these mechs supposed to store all the reloads? From the pictures, the Archer should have at most one or two reloads. (Those are mighty big rockets in there....)
The problems go on and on. Robotech weaponry simply does not exist on the basic lists of the original BattleTech game. The 'mechs look good... but their designs don't really match their pictures. I guess it's a good thing then that these Robotech mechs are being removed. Even though they were the Cannonical Mechs of the game for so long, they still don't really fit with the Battletech idiom anyway!
I guess it's just as well that the "missing mechs" are gone. Although it's hard for me to conceive of the Battletech universe without the units that appeared in the original 3025 catalogue (er, I mean, Technical Readout...), those original Mecha were the source of many an irritation.
The problem was that the design system seems to have been made first before the decision came out to use those licensed mecha images. You could not design the most of the mecha pictured in the 3025 Readout!!
A classic example is the Rifleman. If you look at the picture, it should have 4 humongous lasers. The design in the Readout specified two lasers and two autocannon. To make matters worse, the Rifleman couldn't fire even two of his lasers without generating lots of extra heat.... Grrrr....
Then compare the Marauder to the Warhammer. The Warhammer's PPC's should be meaner and longer ranged. The autocannon on the Marauder should be much meaner than an AC/5. The Warhammer should have 6 monstrous single shot rockets-- not to mention an extra pair of LRM/10s in the side torsos.
And speaking of rockets... where exactly are these mechs supposed to store all the reloads? From the pictures, the Archer should have at most one or two reloads. (Those are mighty big rockets in there....)
The problems go on and on. Robotech weaponry simply does not exist on the basic lists of the original BattleTech game. The 'mechs look good... but their designs don't really match their pictures. I guess it's a good thing then that these Robotech mechs are being removed. Even though they were the Cannonical Mechs of the game for so long, they still don't really fit with the Battletech idiom anyway!
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