#rh.ask

[ross-hollander]

Fuck it, Blow-Forward CASE. Intentionally built for close range ammo heavy walkers or armor. If your vehicle's stowage is penetrated, all the ammo goes up in the bin, and the armored bulkhead collapses outward into a shaped charge lance.

Shoot this asset if you dare.

Firing!

Shot hit! [ :) ]

Shot pen'd enemy armor! [ >:) ]

Enemy ammo bins cooking off! [ :D ]

Enemy ammo bins cooking off! [ :0 ]

[ross-hollander]

Despite having won four Succession Wars, Martell medium lasers remain a mystery.

No one has ever seen one being built, only ever maintained.

No one has ever seen one being packed for shipping, only delivered.

They seem to spontaneously generate out of thin air in any and all 'Mechbays across the Inner Sphere even when no weapons are in storage—no documented evidence of this behavior exists in Clan 'Mechbays.

Furthermore, the location of the headquarters of Martell is unknown. It may have once existed on Terra but those records are contradictory.

Endless sifting through the requisition and delivery files has proved a loop; Martell lasers appear to just manifest. One warehouse orders them from another, and that one got them from another- at no point does anyone seem to have bought them. They get scavenged left and right- almost always in surprisingly good condition, stolen, grifted, but never actually manufactured.

The possibility exists, of course, that some time ago somebody simply ordered two billion Martell mediums, and that one shipment has been arming the Sphere and beyond ever since. But the fact does remain- if you don't keep careful count, you can take a pallet of 20 Martells, and unload what turns out to be 21 of them.

(We all know how business got done in the halcyon heyday of the League. They'd sign procurement contracts for anyone.)

[ross-hollander]

btw briseno, the maker of taco shark among other things, is also just out there on bsky, she's great.

I'm never one not to spread the word of a good artist. Consider this Automaton-themed Marauder:

I can just see four of them appearing out of nowhere, ragdolling me halfway across the map to where I die instantly from the impact.

[ross-hollander]

The thing that people don't realize is that some things are eternal. And I do mean this in the most unfortunate way.

In 2015, when the United States joined the Western Alliance, the B-52K was grandfathered in for lack of a good strategic bomber. While admittedly gerontic in the age of stealth fighters, standoff weapons, defensive missiles, and directed energy point defense echoing its predecessors had kept it in service, and little else could match sheer weight of ordinance.

In 2315, as the Terran Alliance became the Terran Hegemony, remaining stocks as well as a production line of B-52-4s were pressed into service as special use ASF for heavy bombing.

During the Star League years, B-52s fitted with the new armor technologies and modern engines would serve as rare but useful niche tools in the SLDF's air arsenal.

During the last battles of Terra and the Republic of the Sphere, the leviathan Grierson-G would outright come to blows with venerable Grierson-IICs, using their LRMs in air to air engagement alongside antimissile weapon fires.

Today, in 3152, the Airborne Arrow-IV Carrier has become the principal heavy bomber ASF of the new Star League.

They who say death and taxes are the only certainties of existence thereby reveal their ignorance of the more recently-added third in the triumvirate: the BUFF.

[ross-hollander]

I think Canopian cuisine sucks. Not even the stuff found in the slums, just in general. It's all sensate dreams and other crap but it's like the whole planet's categorically incapable of serving something not for pre-consumation consumption.

Can I just have a normal fucking biscuit sandwich.

First of all, yes, Canopian food is exceptional. Top-notch stuff, often if not always. But second, as all we skin-having, water-drinking humans know, what you eat and how you eat are often intertwined, and there are more subtle variations in dining culture across the Sphere and beyond than you could shake any stick at.

In certain Rasalhague worlds, cereal and milk is a lunch food, not a breakfast. Blood had been spilled in the Draconis Combine over what constitutes 'sushi' and which version of it is superior. The Clans, generally speaking, believe the core ice cream flavors to be chocolate, vanilla and blueberry. On more worlds than you might guess, horse or dog are seen as perfectly acceptable cuts of meat, while on others, steak is peasant slop, and the refined dine on crackers and salad.

And, on Canopus, dining is something one does at leisure. There is no such thing as a hurried meal; the average lunch takes two hours, and progresses at civilized pace, appetizers and cocktails first, then salad or starters, soup, and only then the entree, followed up by a cake or pastries. (This is remarkably short- over the decades, Canopians of age shall lament to you, the young'uns have started bolting their food, not even a fruit platter intermission or after-meal mints following dessert.)

In essence, there's no "snack culture" there. The frequent admonishing to children of Canopus running amok in the kitchen is that people sit and eat, and pecking is for birds. Very all-or-nothing like that. Even their field rations are packed for a thoroughly comprehensive meal. Off-worlders having just a cup of coffee and muffin- and that without company at the table! -is seen as a bizarre foreign practice on which politeness forbids comment.

[ross-hollander]

The question I have always had about the Hetzer is thus: If you can make an incredibly cheap tank which has a platform for a AC20 and works like a mobile gun/SPG then surely you could make a incredibly cheap mech? Zuhama II (licensed by Kwikscell inc) 25 rated fusion engine AC20 with 1 ton ammunition Chassis: welded steel frame Speed: 10/21km No armour 22.5 tons Construction cost is lower but the market price is 1,000,000 C-bills. You could get 10 of these for 1 Atlas. So: Would you buy the Zuhama II? The cheapest mech design I can reasonably make with a AC20?

Now, if I'm reading this right, you seem to be offering a 'mech with five shots of AC/20, a completely bare frame, slower than an UrbanMech with the second-weakest grade of engine known to exist (apparently there's a 10-grade engine, but nothing known to be powered with it).

First of all, you clearly have an extremely bright future at Kwikscell. Nobody could be a more natural fit for the company.

But, second, among the other reasons that most people would be able to determine- this is a 'mech essentially assured destruction if somebody spits at it; even assuming the pilot survives- somehow I'm not sure the budget has room for an eject seat -that still means a new Zuhama every time. And that means that every time you replace it, you're resetting the clock on the pilot getting over neurohelmet feedback for the 'mech. Always keep that in mind: like shoes, a factory-fresh 'mech is harder to handle than one broken in already.

So not only will they be piloting an un-CASE'd ton of AC/20 ammunition and a gun with the barest excuse for legs and neither mobility nor protection, they'll probably be doing it with splitting headaches and nausea. When it comes to the field of combat economics at that point- Inner Sphere Standard battle armor is 400,000 a suit, and, quite frankly, six guys with binoculars, a rangefinder and an SRM launcher are probably even cheaper.

[ross-hollander]

can u put a watermark on ur cake post so I can share it with the homies w proper credit?

Of course, thank you for asking.

[ross-hollander]

it fucks me up a little that bt has disposable rls as opposed to InfSRM launchers so you could just kit like a squad of 16 guys with them and at least prevent a zone from being freely overrun without killing most of them.

mechwarrior really does fuck up regular concepts of armor defense...

Well, it's true that there are no disposable one-shot Inferno SRM launchers. However, we are not beyond hope. The stock Inner Sphere infantry platoon has four elements: three maneuver and one support. The maneuver elements don't pack any sort of heavy weaponry, beyond machine guns or grenade launchers, but the support element frequently field such things as portable SRM launchers.

Now, it is verifiable that Inferno rounds come in SRM format, and that a foot-portable SRM launcher can fire anything a 'mech-mounted one could. Thus, by regulations, sixteen guys could in theory crew three Inferno-equipped SRM launchers, and if dug in to defend an area could prove a not-so-easily-dislodged barrier to anything with a heat gauge trying to seize said area. Or anything with skin, really.

(BattleTroops, p.34, Classic BattleTech RPG, p.137, TechManual, p.230.)

Why no expendable Inferno launchers? Your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps it simply never got made, perhaps it did but fell to lostech, perhaps there was never a niche for it. Like, maybe it was determined that having just the one Inferno shot would never be enough to make it a safe bet- best to leave the weight off the troopers, and let the support squad handle the missile business.