Battletech - Also known as Trannytech

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>Melee Mechs
>Not the Atlas
Two SN PPC, arm blades, and some MML's on an Atlas and you're set.
I'm a Leaguer, so I'm factionally obligated to prefer inefficient 4/6 movement curve assault mechs. Avatar excepted, but at least the League prefers proper Awesomes, not those LRMed Lyran abominations.
 
Word of Blake wasn't as fringe as you might think, remember that they held Earth and while the Sol system isn't what it was under the Star League it was still the single great industrial system in the Inner Sphere. They also made off with most of the FWLN, which was the largest navy in the Sphere pre-Jihad. Sure, most of the fleet was armored in tin foil for some reason (The League had no Staff Writers, it's why the 3050-3067 era is so bad for them in terms of mech designs, with a brief respite in TRO:3055. I'm still salty about the Wraiths ending up in the Confederation.) but it was a huge navy and the Theras are the best new design capital ship in the Sphere. If it's fighter wings are filled out it'll end anything else in space. It's literally a Battletech version of a Battlestar. The Jihad wasn't awful, but Catalyst had to play by Mechwarrior: Dark Ages timeline, so they did their best to make the best of a lot of suck.

I like a lot of the newer weapons, but a lot of them are very specialized. The LGR was never used well by FASA but it's not a bad weapon if you know what you're doing. An 8 point hit with a medium range band out to 17 hexes? It's an AC/2 with teeth, but it needs to be put on a mech fast enough to keep the range open. It's not hard, but FASA went full retard on the refits with it. Snub-Nose works on melee mechs. I want an updated Banshee-3M with a pair of them, then you use it as a bodyguard in your 4/6 heavy fire lances. Or just pair it with that TSMed Grand Titan variant that's RPing as Optimus Prime.

The only post Dark Age stuff I don't like is the Wolves getting to play with Stealth Armor on their new fast Omnis. Fast Clan ER-PPCs with Stealth Armor? That's straight bullshit. But I can't hate on the era, the new FWL mechs are finally solid shit. The Anzu and Carronade are the designs the League has always needed, and the Quasimodo is very clever upgrade to the Hunchback.

Even with those troops having their backs, it feels kind of awkward that some ComStar splinter group fucks up everybody else within this short amount of time. Contrast it with Amaris, who planned out his coup for decades, amassing a giant army and strategically setting up his troops in all key locations, how he manipulated the Star League, the Great Houses and the Periphery alike to put everything in exactly the place he needs it, and when he struck, he struck out throughout the Terran Hegemony. WoB feels so out of left-field in comparison... and it took an axe to many interesting plotlines and developements of the past. It feels like the entire thing about Victor Davion resurrecting the Star League being a waste of time.

I'll admit that I am biased, I primarily see the Jihad era as a cheap shock death to literally anything that I liked about the setting, so it can move on to Dark Ages boring as fuck future with a timeskip of like 80 years. At a glance, the Republic of the Sphere being torn apart by nationalistic attitudes sounds like a carbon copy of the Exodus Civil War on a larger scale...
Again, I am biased, I don't like much of the new technology introduced after the 3060s (even some of the stuff introduced in the 3060s, such as TSM and Stealth Armor to name 2). Maybe I could warm up to it, if I gave it a fair chance, but it's not very appealing.
 
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Even with those troops having their backs, it feels kind of awkward that some ComStar splinter group fucks up everybody else within this short amount of time. Contrast it with Amaris, who planned out his coup for decades, amassing a giant army and strategically setting up his troops in all key locations, how he manipulated the Star League, the Great Houses and the Periphery alike to put everything in exactly the place he needs it, and when he struck, he struck out throughout the Terran Hegemony. WoB feels so out of left-field in comparison... and it took an axe to many interesting plotlines and developements of the past. It feels like the entire thing about Victor Davion resurrecting the Star League being a waste of time.

I'll admit that I am biased, I primarily see the Jihad era as a cheap shock death to literally anything that I liked about the setting, so it can move on to Dark Ages boring as fuck future with a timeskip of like 80 years. At a glance, the Republic of the Sphere being torn apart by nationalistic attitudes sounds like a carbon copy of the Exodus Civil War on a larger scale...
Again, I am biased, I don't like much of the new technology introduced after the 3060s (even some of the stuff introduced in the 3060s, such as TSM and Stealth Armor to name 2). Maybe I could warm up to it, if I gave it a fair chance, but it's not very appealing.
I'd have to dig through all my Jihad books, but the Jihad or something like it had been set up by FASA. The powers that be never planned on letting the second Star League survive, Catalyst is just trapped between what FASA laid out and the Dark Ages because they have to be. The time line has to progress to the Dark Ages. Now they can steer things after, hence the ilclan business and the FWL getting the band back together, and such, but they're stuck with it.

TSM was actually in the first round of tech coming back, I don't know if it used in the original TRO:3050, but it was available. TSM is just very hard to use consistantly and you have to build a mech around it. Maintaining exactly 9 overheat is not as easy as it sounds. Stealth Armor is not a thing I've ever been a fan of either, it has its downsides, but it's one of the obvious shifts in authorial Fiat shifting from the Fed Suns/Fed Com to the Confederation. I find House Liao having a sudden outbreak of extreme competence and sanity, enough to not just hold the line against the Fed Suns but eventually reabsorb St. Ives and such to be even less likely than an extremist branch of ComStar having more toys to play with than people thought they did.
 
Even with those troops having their backs, it feels kind of awkward that some ComStar splinter group fucks up everybody else within this short amount of time. Contrast it with Amaris, who planned out his coup for decades, amassing a giant army and strategically setting up his troops in all key locations, how he manipulated the Star League, the Great Houses and the Periphery alike to put everything in exactly the place he needs it, and when he struck, he struck out throughout the Terran Hegemony. WoB feels so out of left-field in comparison... and it took an axe to many interesting plotlines and developements of the past. It feels like the entire thing about Victor Davion resurrecting the Star League being a waste of time.

I'll admit that I am biased, I primarily see the Jihad era as a cheap shock death to literally anything that I liked about the setting, so it can move on to Dark Ages boring as fuck future with a timeskip of like 80 years. At a glance, the Republic of the Sphere being torn apart by nationalistic attitudes sounds like a carbon copy of the Exodus Civil War on a larger scale...
Again, I am biased, I don't like much of the new technology introduced after the 3060s (even some of the stuff introduced in the 3060s, such as TSM and Stealth Armor to name 2). Maybe I could warm up to it, if I gave it a fair chance, but it's not very appealing.
You realize your talking about Battletech right? The game that had the single most stupid move done in any tabletop game to date with the introduction of the clans. Then followed it up with rules the Clans had to follow to "contain their power" which said rules ended up being a nothing burger because the Inner Sphere had to break their rules just to take them out, which freed the clans from said rules. I kind of wish FASA had gone a different direction with the Clans, like timeskipping to where the balance of power was even. They could have used their books/games to fill in the gaps easily.
 
If you think the Jihad timeline is stupid wait till we get to the new Ilclan era. I mean the Fortress Republic is already somewhat unbelievable (I never saw any Kind of force field tech in the entire Battletech timeline until this point) but now you have the McKennas Pride back in the Wolves army and Alaric looks like a freaking Mary Sue who wins regardless of what you throw at him. The tech f that era sure does look cool though I sometimes think they took too much from the Front Mission Video games (I mean shields in the Bt universe?) I am waiting for Clan Wolverine and the Word of Blake to come back from their graves to save the Is from the coming Invasion of the remaining homeworld Clans (Oh fuck now I have given them ideas) Though a new Invasion from the home Clans seem to be something that might really happen though way back later down the line
 
You realize your talking about Battletech right? The game that had the single most stupid move done in any tabletop game to date with the introduction of the clans. Then followed it up with rules the Clans had to follow to "contain their power" which said rules ended up being a nothing burger because the Inner Sphere had to break their rules just to take them out, which freed the clans from said rules. I kind of wish FASA had gone a different direction with the Clans, like timeskipping to where the balance of power was even. They could have used their books/games to fill in the gaps easily.
I like the clans and I think trying to limit their effectiveness in the game with zellbrigen was a nice touch - though that of course limits its effectiveness on how closely players really follow these rules.

The clans have the better equippement, the better soldiers and they have the strategic advantage (partially, cause ComStar supported them from behind the curtains), but their absolutely stiffling rules of engagement, their culture and their attitude made them vulnerable to the Inner Sphere. Their culture and their rather idiotic notions of honorable combat very nicely originate from the harshness and scarcity of resources in the Pentagon Worlds. To me, this all works together to make a believable threat with a believable weakness, that is smartly taken advantage of by the Inner Sphere to stall their progress towards Terra. It certainly helps that the whole Clan Invasion was a shot from the hip, so to speak, after the Clans feared that IS-scouts had found them and that they had to act fast. Also a nice touch that the clans themselves were divided on the whole "invading the Inner Sphere" thing, which resulted in a split into Warden Clans and Crusader Clans, who sought to get their will by various means of fuckery and some tactical blunders (some even intentional by Warden Clans). I don't know how the clans were supposedly freed from their own rules by the IS breaking them, after all, the Battle of Tukayyid lead to a 15 year truce. The sourcebook on Clans has a pretty chunky table that explains what clan will follow zellbrigen in what way, depending on what their opponent does, and this goes from "disregard zellbrigen at the drop of a hat" to "zellbrigen is an iron law that must never be broken, no matter what my opponent does".

It's a subjective opinion for sure - but I never claimed it would be anything else.
I like the Clan Invasion. I dislike the Jihad. I think everything in regard to the clans has been handled a lot better than the Jihad. Ironically, the Clan invasion feels less "invasive" to the setting than the Jihad, whereas the Clan Invasion was something that happened after the War of 3039, the Jihad threw a wrench into whatever was going on in the Inner Sphere beforehand.

(I never saw any Kind of force field tech in the entire Battletech timeline until this point)
I might be mistaken, but weren't there force-field like shields in Solaris arenas? I think in the novel "Illusions of Victory" there's a mention of that. But then again, maybe it was just super-reinforced glass or something.

The artwork certainly makes it look like some type of glass:
Vangergiff_&_Searcy_fight_15-3062.jpg
 
TSM was actually in the first round of tech coming back, I don't know if it used in the original TRO:3050, but it was available. TSM is just very hard to use consistantly and you have to build a mech around it. Maintaining exactly 9 overheat is not as easy as it sounds. Stealth Armor is not a thing I've ever been a fan of either, it has its downsides, but it's one of the obvious shifts in authorial Fiat shifting from the Fed Suns/Fed Com to the Confederation. I find House Liao having a sudden outbreak of extreme competence and sanity, enough to not just hold the line against the Fed Suns but eventually reabsorb St. Ives and such to be even less likely than an extremist branch of ComStar having more toys to play with than people thought they did.
I had to check, and TSM was available in the original TRO3050, but it states in the back that only one 'Mech has been fitted with the proper myomer (not the vulnerable-to-magic-gas version that the Capellans had) but since my record sheets are cunningly hiding I have no way to check which one it was. However, my guess this lone 'Mech would be the Yen-Lo-Wang, which was explicitly given TSM in the Clan invasion trilogy with the Gauss rifle and the full Clovis Holstein infodump.
And instead of the Jihad, could always go for the FedCom Civil War like in MW4. Love me that Fafnir. Can't think of anything else as shamelessly Lyran except the Steiner Scout Lance.
My suggestion: the Chaos March during the 3058-3060ish period. The place is canonically a honey pot for all sorts of small mercenary units, full of bush wars, local squabbles between the newly independent polities, even balkanised planets for that civil war feel, plus the March is close to Outreach for quick R&R. If the FCCW had been handled differently (ie. not between Katherine Hitler-Davion and shining white Vic but both sides equally grey) I would recommend it in a heartbeat. Seriously, after that one Steiner job in MW4 Mercenaries (you probably know what mission I'm talking about) made me wonder if down the line there was a mission with a briefing of "proceed to Nav Alpha, wipe out the children's hospital and the Hanse Davion Memorial Veterinary Clinic for Puppies and Seal Cubs, bonuses for wasting any grannies at Nav Beta".
 
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I always thought that the introduction of the Clans ruined the game and invited insane power creep.
I'm torn on that thing, cause I like the clans and their ridiculously overpowered tech, but it lead to the powercreep that I dislike that happened later on and went overboard (to my tastes) after the FedCom Civil War. Something about Streak LRMs rubs me the wrong way.

I guess you can use my attitudes pretty nicely to pinpoint when I got into BattleTech: Mechwarrior 3 and the early 2000s novels.
Puts me in a kinda awkward position, I love some of the "later" Mech designs of the Clan Invasion and FedCom Civil War era such as the Fafnir, Devastator, Bushwacker, Uziel, Raven... and of course new variants of classic Mechs, but setting-wise I think the 3025s have a certain straight-forward charm, especially with the more down-to-earth tech...
The latest mech-design that I own a miniature of is the Bruin from 3081, mainly cause I love that design and it doesn't have tech that is more advanced than what you'd see before the Jihad.
 
I like the clans and I think trying to limit their effectiveness in the game with zellbrigen was a nice touch - though that of course limits its effectiveness on how closely players really follow these rules.

The clans have the better equippement, the better soldiers and they have the strategic advantage (partially, cause ComStar supported them from behind the curtains), but their absolutely stiffling rules of engagement, their culture and their attitude made them vulnerable to the Inner Sphere. Their culture and their rather idiotic notions of honorable combat very nicely originate from the harshness and scarcity of resources in the Pentagon Worlds. To me, this all works together to make a believable threat with a believable weakness, that is smartly taken advantage of by the Inner Sphere to stall their progress towards Terra. It certainly helps that the whole Clan Invasion was a shot from the hip, so to speak, after the Clans feared that IS-scouts had found them and that they had to act fast. Also a nice touch that the clans themselves were divided on the whole "invading the Inner Sphere" thing, which resulted in a split into Warden Clans and Crusader Clans, who sought to get their will by various means of fuckery and some tactical blunders (some even intentional by Warden Clans). I don't know how the clans were supposedly freed from their own rules by the IS breaking them, after all, the Battle of Tukayyid lead to a 15 year truce. The sourcebook on Clans has a pretty chunky table that explains what clan will follow zellbrigen in what way, depending on what their opponent does, and this goes from "disregard zellbrigen at the drop of a hat" to "zellbrigen is an iron law that must never be broken, no matter what my opponent does".

It's a subjective opinion for sure - but I never claimed it would be anything else.
I like the Clan Invasion. I dislike the Jihad. I think everything in regard to the clans has been handled a lot better than the Jihad. Ironically, the Clan invasion feels less "invasive" to the setting than the Jihad, whereas the Clan Invasion was something that happened after the War of 3039, the Jihad threw a wrench into whatever was going on in the Inner Sphere beforehand.


I might be mistaken, but weren't there force-field like shields in Solaris arenas? I think in the novel "Illusions of Victory" there's a mention of that. But then again, maybe it was just super-reinforced glass or something.

The artwork certainly makes it look like some type of glass:
View attachment 1776663
Like I said Zellbrigen was a useless thing in the beginning due the Tech difference.
"A warrior has the right to refuse challenges from Inner Sphere units, especially if underhanded ploys are suspected, and has the right to refuse a challenge from a unit of differing weight class if other unengaged units are available."
Clan Stars were taking out IS Battalions, if the IS were doing the "honorable" thing those Stars could most likely take out 2-3 Battalions easily. Almost all of the Clan mechs punch up in their weight size was a big problem too. The only time Zellbrigen would have worked was when they stopped using it, way after Tukayyid when tech parity started happening. But the Clans kind of stopped using it because their rules got their asses kicked in Tukayyid.

Speaking of Tukkayid, the Clans got their asses kicked by their own rules, got soft on IS targets whom they had a tech superiority over aka Comstar pulled out SL era Tech, and fucking writing off Anastasius Focht as a "Paper General". Tex talks has a really nice video on it https://youtu.be/QffouI6OA00.

Now onto the Clan invasion, I dont have a problem with it other than the implementation was completely horrible. The power creep was just too much and the steps to fix it took too long to counter the damage that was done to the game. That's why I think it would have been better to time jump to a more balanced time game wise and use the books and Mechwarrior series to tell the stories before the time jump.
 
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Don't forget such innovative tactics on Focht's part such as "supply depots" and "force mobility and rotation". Almost like firepower and skill is no substitute for actual planning and preparation...
 
Don't forget such innovative tactics on Focht's part such as "supply depots" and "force mobility and rotation". Almost like firepower and skill is no substitute for actual planning and preparation...
Yeah, the clans were defeated by using their own arrogance and their rules against them. They went into the Inner Sphere overconfident after wiping the floor with poorly trained mechwarriors in poorly maintained rustbuckets... and that was after they even set out. When you have powerful mechs that you refuse to mass produce in cooperation with other clans, cause you don't want the filthy hands of these other clans touching your toys in all the wrong places and then go to war with an enemy hundreds of lightyears away without setting up resupply lines, you inevitably end up losing your war.
Tex makes a pretty decent point about this in his MadCat video, where he likens the MadCat to the Wehrmacht's supertanks. Sure, it's nice to have a tank that can punch a hole through 4 Shermans with one shell, but when that tank constantly breaks down, you have no way of replacing them and your enemy just swarms you with cheaper tanks and way better logistics, you're fucked in the long run.

That's what I like about the setting, it's not "Undefeatable supersoldiers invade the Inner Sphere and get defeated anyway somehow", it's a very logical chain of events, where the founding of the clans also lays the foundation for their defeat at Tukayyid.
 
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The power creep was just too much and the steps to fix it took too long to counter the damage that was done to the game.
As someone who's taken several Clan ERPPCs to vulnerables, I'm solidly of the mind that the Clans should have come back armed with the Star League guns they went out with. Just Omni pods, even gimped down to SL tech, would have given the Clans a huge advantage against the spheroids with their introtech 'Mechs when they could configure their rides at will what with the wall-to-wall lineup of SL and Royal 'Mechs. I could gladly accept Star League tech Omnis against introtech, but shit like 35-tonners that mount dual headchoppers that can hit at longer ranges than anything the spheroids have, move like greased lightning AND are piloted by 3/4 Mechwarriors isn't exactly cricket in my book.
 
As someone who's taken several Clan ERPPCs to vulnerables, I'm solidly of the mind that the Clans should have come back armed with the Star League guns they went out with. Just Omni pods, even gimped down to SL tech, would have given the Clans a huge advantage against the spheroids with their introtech 'Mechs when they could configure their rides at will what with the wall-to-wall lineup of SL and Royal 'Mechs. I could gladly accept Star League tech Omnis against introtech, but shit like 35-tonners that mount dual headchoppers that can hit at longer ranges than anything the spheroids have, move like greased lightning AND are piloted by 3/4 Mechwarriors isn't exactly cricket in my book.
I have to admit, I haven't played much of the Tabletop game, so maybe that also explains why I am a bit more accepting of clan bullshit weapons and mechs... does the Battlevalue system work to mitigate the difference in tech? I mean, even without taking the 3/4 pilots into consideration, one star of clan mechs seems to have about the BV of 2 lances of comparable IS mechs.

I mean, on a tonnage vs. tonnage setting, clans are just roflstomping any opponent, I assume. Hell, the Rifleman IIc has 4 clan LPLs, fighting that mech must suck really badly.
 
I have to admit, I haven't played much of the Tabletop game, so maybe that also explains why I am a bit more accepting of clan bullshit weapons and mechs... does the Battlevalue system work to mitigate the difference in tech? I mean, even without taking the 3/4 pilots into consideration, one star of clan mechs seems to have about the BV of 2 lances of comparable IS mechs.

I mean, on a tonnage vs. tonnage setting, clans are just roflstomping any opponent, I assume. Hell, the Rifleman IIc has 4 clan LPLs, fighting that mech must suck really badly.
The BV system actually takes pilot skill into account: the better the driver, the more it costs to field the 'Mech. And yes, the tech difference really is that great: a frontline medium Star (frontline meaning 3/4 Mechwarriors and Omnimechs, the second line and garrison units would have mostly 4/5 freebirth pilots in non-Omni IIC 'Mechs) can easily expect to break an IS introtech medium company, and even more if the dice fall right. If you're playing with the forced withdrawal rule, where certain damage, like hits in a gyro or engine will force the damaged 'Mech to pull out, it's even worse. Tonnage basis is right out with the Clans.

That's where the BV2 (there are two Battle Value systems, BV2 being the newer and more balanced) system helps out. You can field two lances of similar weight class for a frontline Star and depending on their equipment, sprinkle your own 3/4s as pilots. The tech level separation is still humongous, but you can fight rather more equally, especially if you play with the newer Clan zellbrigen rules: some Clans follow a very strict concept of zell, meaning they'll stick to it even if the dezgra spheroids combine fire on them, unless the opposition is bandits or pirates. Yep, even mercenaries get this treatment from the followers of strict zellbrigen. God help you if you're fighting one of the ones who are more liberal or opportunistic regarding their adherence to zell.
 
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I have to admit, I haven't played much of the Tabletop game, so maybe that also explains why I am a bit more accepting of clan bullshit weapons and mechs... does the Battlevalue system work to mitigate the difference in tech? I mean, even without taking the 3/4 pilots into consideration, one star of clan mechs seems to have about the BV of 2 lances of comparable IS mechs.

I mean, on a tonnage vs. tonnage setting, clans are just roflstomping any opponent, I assume. Hell, the Rifleman IIc has 4 clan LPLs, fighting that mech must suck really badly.
I'm new as hell to the game, but seems like BV or C-bills balances it out. Like in the aforementioned Black Pants Legion video on the MadCat (I may or may not have binge watched Tex's videos over my days off), if you go by C-bills, you can get two to three Awesomes or two Atlases for one MadCat. If going by BV, even then, the Awesome is a cheaper choice.
 
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The BV system actually takes pilot skill into account: the better the driver, the more it costs to field the 'Mech.
Yeah, I wanted to highlight that even before taking the difference in pilot skill into account, merely by going by the mechs, 5 clan mechs are in the ballpark of 8 IS mechs.
Interestingly (and unsurprisingly), clanners have worse vehicle crews, so IS enjoys a slight edge over clans in that regard... speaking of which, are tanks worth it in the tabletop game?

With my yard-long list of mechs that I still need to buy, I kinda stumbled over a bunch of vehicles that I just think might be a nice addition (like the Myrmidon, the Bulldog and so on). I already bought a set of Savannah Masters and Hetzers cause they are kinda rad... but this is spiraling out of control. Soon, I'll be able to field an entire regiment of troops.
 
I'm new as hell to the game, but seems like BV or C-bills balances it out. Like in the aforementioned Black Pants Legion video on the MadCat (I may or may not have binge watched Tex's videos over my days off), if you go by C-bills, you can get two to three Awesomes or two Atlases for one MadCat. If going by BV, even then, the Awesome is a cheaper choice.
If you get a Timber Wolf Prime with the standard 3/4 Clan pilot, it comes to 3,777 BV. For this, you can get two AWS-8Q Awesomes with 4/5 pilots for 3,210 BV. Upgrading one of the pilots to 3/4 would bring it to 3,820 BV, and give you some benefit for when the Timber Wolf starts to force targetting penalties on you (they're much faster, so they will have a great deal of control of the battle even outnumbered.) Plus any Clan player who begrudged you a 50-point disadvantage in BV would be a massive twat.
 
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Yeah, I wanted to highlight that even before taking the difference in pilot skill into account, merely by going by the mechs, 5 clan mechs are in the ballpark of 8 IS mechs.
Interestingly (and unsurprisingly), clanners have worse vehicle crews, so IS enjoys a slight edge over clans in that regard... speaking of which, are tanks worth it in the tabletop game?

With my yard-long list of mechs that I still need to buy, I kinda stumbled over a bunch of vehicles that I just think might be a nice addition (like the Myrmidon, the Bulldog and so on). I already bought a set of Savannah Masters and Hetzers cause they are kinda rad... but this is spiraling out of control. Soon, I'll be able to field an entire regiment of troops.
In the table top game vehicles have one advantage over Mechs: they can never overheat. Vehicles must be designed in a way that all the generated heat is immediately vented. So a Schreck PPC carrier has to be outfitted with 30 heat sinks (or in this case 20 since the fusion engine give 10 free heat sinks) . And lore wise the Clanner s might have the more sophisticated fighters but the pilots of the IS outfly them on most occasions.

Heck the lore also states that the Clans lost the capabilitiy to wage war in their drive to become the ultimate warriors. After all warriors are not soldiers.
 
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In the table top game vehicles have one advantage over Mechs: they can never overheat. Vehicles must be designed in a way that all the generated heat is immediately vented. So a Schreck PPC carrier has to be outfitted with 30 heat sinks (or in this case 20 since the fusion engine give 10 free heat sinks) . And lore wise the Clanner s might have the more sophisticated fighters but the pilots of the IS outfly them on most occasions.

Heck the lore also states that the Clans lost the capabilitiy to wage war in their drive to become the ultimate warriors. After all warriors are not soldiers.
But vehicles seem severely more vulnerable. Unlike with mechs, hits are not spread over the entire vehicle, but only over whatever side the attack comes from and the turret, so their armor will be stripped a lot quicker. I guess their lower cost makes them attractive though and stuff like the LRM-carrier is a neat support vehicle... Or you fuck up someone's day with a barrage of like 60 SRM Missiles coming at them.
 
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