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[Hat]

Probably cheaper to replace with single heatsinks.

Also, damage was relatively high and salvage pretty low this mission.

Regardless, my understanding is that it’s not permitted.  If I’m wrong, let me know. I’ll get the numbers figured out.

[deadlyfire2345]

Probably cheaper to replace with single heatsinks.

Also, damage was relatively high and salvage pretty low this mission.

Regardless, my understanding is that it’s not permitted.  If I’m wrong, let me know. I’ll get the numbers figured out.

To replace the 1T of anything (IE the ML to something else like 1T armor or a heat sink) would end up being considered a custom and has to follow the custom rules as such. Its a time waster sure, but is not that bad in the end.

[deadlyfire2345]

That being said, I was able to repair my Rifleman to whole, minus the gyro I pulled from it to customize and sell the Grasshopper. Since I am not changing the engine size to where the gyro needs to be replaces, would it be possible to start on its customization now until I get all the parts I need to fully customize it?

[agustaaquila]

That being said, I was able to repair my Rifleman to whole, minus the gyro I pulled from it to customize and sell the Grasshopper. Since I am not changing the engine size to where the gyro needs to be replaces, would it be possible to start on its customization now until I get all the parts I need to fully customize it?

You can start a customization, just remember that once the custom tag applies all times take the x2 modifier.

[Darrian Wolffe]

I understand Mike’s point about the just accept the way it is and will, but I disagree with this assessment.

(sorry for the delays; I SAID I wasn't going to get around to much until Monday at best).

A quick point:

You can't do anything to a vee without a mechanic, and we aren't allowing mechanics for Lance Leaders, simply as a way of restricting the scope of the campaign logistics burden.  Lances are intended to be purely Mech units, and not allowing lance-level access to Mechanics is one way to enforce that.  This is a completely arbitrary restriction, but one being universally applied.  Every Lance Leader who gets vees as salvage has to deal with the same problem. 

This campaign is intended for a variety of players with a WIDE variety in how much spreadsheet work they're willing to accept, and the rules are written in such a way as to ensure that the people who are willing to do that extra work aren't getting a game advantage over the people who aren't.  If vees were scrappable and you could pull components off of them, that's a tremendous parts advantage to the people who are willing to track an extra category of personnel and all their maintenance and working hours and so forth.

So yes.  It's an arbitrary restriction for purposes of gameplay.  It is, however, being applied to everyone equally.

[Hat]

Rob, no worries.  I expected it was for simplicity and had no doubt it was being applied to everyone equally.

[Ice]

Question regarding endo steel equipped mechs like mikes royal Hermes

So the leg itself is a tn7 before scrounge well connected reputation
Endo steel is advanced tech right? If so would that make the leg a tn10 plus scrounge etc?
I know we can't pay to upgrade a mech into endo steel but I would think we could get the parts to repair it
Also with ferro and endo internal slots how does that get affected when customizing as far as moving them around? Are those slots stuck as is?

Primary reason for asking is the royal shadowhawk if we salvage it


Damn auto correct - fixed few words

[Timberwolfd]

Might as well add ferro-fibrous armor to Ice's customization question.

Also, can we buy fully assembled limbs? Or any level in between limb bone and fully assembled?
Basically, can I buy an arm that comes with actuators installed? And armor? And weapons?
I would assume that only standard variant limbs would be on the market...

[Darrian Wolffe]

Also, can we buy fully assembled limbs? Or any level in between limb bone and fully assembled?
No.

Endo steel is advanced tech right? If so would that make the leg a tn10 plus scrounge etc?
Yes.  You're replacing a location (TN7), which is created via advanced-level tech (TN10).  As is always true in BattleTech, the higher applicable TN overrides the lower one.

I know we can't pay to upgrade a mech into endo steel but I would think we could get the parts to repair it
Yes, you can.  See above for the TN.

Also with retro and endorsed internal slots how does that get affected when customizing as far as moving them around? Are those slots stuck as is?
The new slot layout is now "stock" for your customization.  If you want to move them around, that's another customization.  If the limb is destroyed, it must be restored to "stock" (ie, what you customized it to be now) before being customized again.  This would also apply to Ferro armor slots or Endo slots as well; if you were to add Ferro, once those slots are assigned, they're fixed unless/until you perform a customization action to move them around again.

[Hat]

Hi Rob,

We'd talk briefly about the possibility of building a mech from effectively the ground up over time.  Given that I've got engines and currently nothing to put them in, I thought I'd make a proposal. 

Buiding Over Time
A unit to be built over time must have an active plant to purchase from.  The "core" of the mech must be purchased all at once and should match an existing variant.  TSM being perhaps something to figure out.  This includes:
1. Structure
2. Musculature
3. Cockpit
4. Life Support
5. Sensors
6. Actuators
7. Case (if appropriate)

What is left at that point is the engine, gyro, heat sinks, armor and weapons.

If the Engine and Gyro are not purchased at the same time, they would still require a factory to install them, as they are considered a Class F refit.

So as Example 1, if I wanted to build from scratch a 70 Ton Mech, I could pick a Warhammer as it's in production, but not a Grasshopper as there's no factory churning them out.  I'd have to buy an existing one or capture one to get it if that's what I had my heart set on.

I could buy the core of a Royal Thunderbolt, but even without the Gyro and Engine it would still run 739,400.

200,000 Cockpit
  50,000 Life Support
130,000 Sensors
130,000 Musculature
104,000 Endo Steel
 13,000 Upper Arm Actuators (2)
   6,500 Lower Arm Actuators (2)
 10,400 Hand Actuators (x2)
 19,500 Upper Leg Actuators (x2)
 10,400 Lower Leg Actuators (x2)
 15,600 Foot Actuators (x2)
 50,000 Case (RT)
739,400 Total

Getting the Core together is what also ensures that the Mech retains all of its quirks and allows it to be Standard rather than Customized from a very early point.

Thoughts?

With a sweep of his...

Hat

[Black Omega]

11. From the rules "Green begin at a TN 9+ (Skill Rank +0), and are not considered Regular until reaching 7+. For ease of use, the 8+ skill target will not be tracked; save XP until you have enough to reach Skill Rank +3." If +0 is a 9+ TN, wouldn't +3 then be a 6+ TN (Veteran)?

Typo.  That should say "Skill Rank +1", not "Skill Rank +0".  So if a PC came out of character creation with a Small Arms skill of +3, they would be have a Regular skill rating (7+) in Small Arms.  This is an artifact of the Against the Bot program, and we're having to adapt to be able to use said program (otherwise all the contract $$ values will be wrong).

For what it's worth (because you're coming at this ruleset without context), our last campaign disintegrated, and this campaign ruleset was written from scratch in 3 days so we could play the following month after the previous campaign ended.  We've had a few revisions since, but everyone's aware that strict RAW readings of the ruleset will make the whole thing fall apart.  Because again, written in 3 days with no editing passes.  Basically, as a guideline, if the bulk of the rules are intimating one thing, and a single word or number somewhere makes it work the opposite way, then go with the bulk of the rules. 

Rob, would you please confirm my thinking here?  A reg doctor [TN 7+] corresponds to skill lvl 3 in medicine.  To advance from reg to vet, one needs to raise medicine skill to lvl 4 which is 4*7 = 28 xp.  To advance from vet to elite [TN 5+], medicine skill must be raised to lvl 5 [5*7=35 xp over vet.  Correct?

[Darrian Wolffe]

We'd talk briefly about the possibility of building a mech from effectively the ground up over time.  Given that I've got engines and currently nothing to put them in, I thought I'd make a proposal. 

OK, I've been kind of waiting for this question or a question like this since the top of the campaign, because it ALWAYS comes up in anything having to to with C-bill costs and Mech maintenance, and has done so for damn near 30 years.

No, you cannot simply buy the parts and build a Mech from scratch.  This is also true for every other vee, aircraft, spacecraft, and vehicular unit in the game.

Why?

Because it's always, universally, cheaper to just buy the parts and assemble them than to actually buy the completed unit.  Look at TechManual, pg 285 (or older rulebooks; this is not a new thing CGL introduced).  Every mechanized unit in the game adds up the total cost of their assorted parts, and then multiplies that amount by a Final Cost Modifier (which is usually tied to tonnage).  20-ton Mechs are 20% more expensive than the actual cost of their parts, while 100-ton Mechs are 100% more expensive; DropShips are multiplied by a flat x28 or x36 modifier, and IIRC WarShips have a x45 modifier. 

Allowing people to buy parts and assemble them results in a whole host of problems in terms of having any difficulty at all in your games.  For example, want a DVS-2 Devastator in 3040 instead of at least 3058?  The parts are all out there; just buy them individually and assemble them.  More prosaically, it means that the actual marketplace becomes completely pointless, as does salvage to a lesser degree, because you don't have to go out and find that UltraMech you've been searching for: you can just buy the parts (considerably easier than trying to find the UltraMech) and just build it yourself. The amount of money the unit saves on building Mechs instead of buying them completely dwarfs the cost of sitting around for a calendar year while people wait for the parts to get to them and make the necessary rolls for assembly.

For this reason, I'm sorry, but I cannot countenance the complete scratchbuilding of Mechs from component parts.

Rob, would you please confirm my thinking here?  A reg doctor [TN 7+] corresponds to skill lvl 3 in medicine.  To advance from reg to vet, one needs to raise medicine skill to lvl 4 which is 4*7 = 28 xp.  To advance from vet to elite [TN 5+], medicine skill must be raised to lvl 5 [5*7=35 xp over vet.  Correct?

That should be correct, yes.  At our current rate, a doc should gain between 5-10 XP per year (MVP and Best at Table awards included), so it should take a regular doctor the better part of a decade to get from Regular to Elite.

[Hat]

<snip>

For this reason, I'm sorry, but I cannot countenance the complete scratchbuilding of Mechs from component parts.

I knew there was something I was forgetting.  Part of the discussion had also been the cost of the mech's "core" outside of individual parts.  This was basically the listed value of the mech with all individual components subtracted such that assembling your own was the same cost as purchasing it complete.  If the answer is still no from a concept / headache perspective, that's fine.  The intent was not to game the system, just not have to pay for components that would be coming out and sold back for a fraction of their value.

To the example, with all "core" parts including Cockpit, sensors, musculature, actuators, frame, life support and sensors (so no engine, gyro, heat sinks or case) the "core" cost for the Royal Thunderbolt would be 2,489,677 C-bills.  You'd then need to add an engine, gyro, heat sinks, armor, weapons and equipment.  Or if you really wanted to start piecemealing it together completely from scratch with cockpit etc. it'd be 1,800,277 "base" plus start adding parts.  Each mech would need to be figured out, but I could put together a spreadsheet for it if desired.

I'm fine with this approach, but again, if it's too much of a headache, don't worry about it.

With a sweep of his...

Hat

[Hat]

Understanding this is not likely to go anywhere, Rob's comment did make me curious just how under cost the component approach was to 'Mechs.  It ranged from 506M for a Hornet to 4.9MM for a Banshee.  I went through a list of IS mechs that are in production as of 3047 as noted on the Battletech Wiki (through individual page review).  I then baselined all of the mechs using Solaris Skunk Werks through the following process.

1. Reduce heat sinks to 10 single
2. Remove jump jets (if any)
3. Ensure engine, gyro and all components are standard
4. Ensure armor is standard and reduce to 0 tons, 0 points
5. Remove all equipment

This gave me a stripped down cost.  I then removed the engine, gyro and structure as I expected those would be items people would rather not buy then sell back.  The actuators, musculature, cockpit, life support, sensors remained for the price listed below.  On top of the "base" cost you'd have to add an engine, gyro, internal structure, heat sinks (if other than 10 standard), armor, equipment and weapons.  If I did the math correctly, taking the base cost and adding the components mentioned at standard prices should match each variant.  I did not check multiple variants to ensure that the pricing was consistent.  I tried to stick to L1 tech variants as the baseline.  Here's what I found, again mostly for my curiosity (sorted by weight and then name).

 Base Cost    Tons   Mech
 $571,200    20   Flea
 $505,867    20   Hornet
 $581,867    20   Locust
 $577,440    20   Stinger
 $577,440    20   Wasp
 $688,750    25   Commando
 $817,840    30   Javelin
 $943,840    30   Spider
 $648,300    30   UrbanMech
 $796,720    30   Valkyrie
 $1,065,150    35   Firestarter
 $1,089,008    35   Jenner
 $1,122,317    35   Ostscout
 $910,543    35   Panther
 $926,842    35   Raven
 $1,299,546    40   Assassin
 $1,452,134    40   Cicada
 $1,256,880    40   Clint
 $1,256,880    40   Hermes II
 $1,252,400    40   Vulcan
 $1,047,066    40   Whitworth
 $1,203,325    45   Blackjack
 $1,220,290    45   Hatchetman
 $1,476,790    45   Phoenix Hawk
 $1,215,070    45   Vindicator
 $1,399,333    50   Centurion
 $1,722,000    50   Chameleon
 $1,405,333    50   Hunchback
 $1,632,667    50   Trebuchet
 $1,875,434    55   Dervish
 $1,889,074    55   Griffin
 $1,889,074    55   Kintaro
 $2,185,450    55   Scorpion
 $1,315,000    55   Shadowhawk
 $1,889,074    55   Wolverine
 $2,154,400    60   Dragon
 $2,010,400    60   Merlin
 $2,154,400    60   Ostroc
 $2,154,400    60   Ostsol
 $2,169,760    60   Quickdraw
 $2,000,800    60   Rifleman
 $2,272,258    65   Catapult
 $2,300,143    65   Crusader
 $2,272,258    65   JagerMech
 $2,300,143    65   Thunderbolt
 $2,603,306    70   Archer
 $2,593,786    70   Cataphract
 $2,603,306    70   Grasshopper (Not available for purchase until 3049)
 $2,806,116    70   Guillotine
 $2,584,266    70   Warhammer
 $2,916,250    75   Flashman
 $3,003,750    75   Marauder
 $2,916,250    75   Orion
 $2,951,120    80   Awesome
 $3,873,787    80   Charger
 $3,525,253    80   Victor
 $3,520,933    80   Zeus
 $3,960,476    85   Battlemaster
 $3,255,175    85   Longbow
 $3,255,175    85   Stalker
 $4,413,760    90   Cyclops
 $3,644,080    90   Highlander
 $4,905,823    95   Banshee
 $4,472,000    100   Atlas

If there's an interest I can post the Excel file I created.  I would also expect that if it's possible to buy a partial mech, delivery time would be significantly longer than 3 weeks.  Likely at least a couple of months plus the 3 weeks as a thought.

With a sweep of his...

Hat

[Hat]

So what happens generally with salvage on a mission and does it matter whether it's solo or standard?