u/Nearby_Branch6055

Posted this in another thread, might as well repost it as an individual post.

Back in the 90's I submitted to MechForce North America the concept of Clan OmniLasers.

The theory of them was imagine the Large Pulse Laser and the ER Large Laser (at this time, I believe 1994 or so and heavy lasers were not out yet) . Consider the parts of the each laser that actually has more or less the common parts that are mostly the same would the BASE of the weapon. There would then be a dial of some sort where the components that make it a ER or a PULSE laser could be 'reconfigured' and DIALED INTO POSTION to make it one or the other at the push of a button for action the next round. The equipment would be bulkier but still lightweight.

By that, a Clan Large Omnilaser would weigh 5 tons, take up 6 critical slots I think was the proposal. A medium one would weigh 2.5 tons, take 4 critical slots. A small would be 1.5 tons, 3 critical slots.

So at beginning of a battle, the mechwarrior could have it set at ER setting to take advantage of the longer range, but as the fight progresses and it gets closer you switch to PULSE setting and continue fighting.

I presented as coming from Clan Ice Hellion, as this weapon would be very valuable for their light mechs, where it could do the job of a Pulse and ER for light weight and a much reduced savings in pod weight. I mention that in heavy and assaults mechs, its not as valuable as heavy and assaults would be better off with just separate ER Laser/Pulse laser combos.

I got the card from MFNA that they had received my submission but nothing ever came of it.

Obviously if done later in the 90's I would have included the heavy lasers into the combination. I would imagine these would weigh 7 tons take up 8 critical slots for heavy lasers; 3 tons&4 slots for mediums; 1.5 tons and 3 slots for small ones.

this particular rule option I know for a fact was inspired from Iron Man comics in the early 1990s. I don’t remember who Iron Man was fighting, but he decided for some reason to shunt all those repulsors and force field power into his main chassis to increase his physical strength in order to accomplish something. He might have been fighting The Rhino or someone like that.

My brother and I noted that and we started speculating how that might work in battletech. This was done at a time where we were not aware of Triple Strength Myomers.

I believe the role we came up with is a mech could start with all his energy weapons, deactivated, and the energy shunted to increase the overall physical abilities of mech.

I think we rolled that it meant that standing still still generated one heat point; walking generated two points of heat; and running generated four.

I think we agreed were like +2 to your movement and we gave a bonus to physical attacks don’t remember the actual parameters.

We ruled that if you wanted to restore your energy back to your energy weapons, you either have to shut down for a full round like you had overheated and would be back to normal the next round

Or you could, if you made a successful pilot in feat roll could restore everything that round but if you didn’t, it would also shut you down immediately we use a base number of four and then it was plus one for every individual energy weapon that you wanted to turn back on so for example, the widow to turn on her Warhammer energy would be a 10 minus piloting skill roll to successfully repower her energy weapons while turning off the advantage above. I think we ruled that Gauss rifles were considered energy weapons because of their power draw.

Don’t remember using it that much

I mentioned this somewhere online, and it seemed to go over pretty good so might as well bring it up here.

Back when I played Battletech religiously (late 80's thru late 90's), we tried a lot of different tactics and builds and load outs. We noticed that almost everyone that used missiles used Artemis FCS. Hardly anyone ever used NARC Beacons, and TAG was never used as we hardly ever used off board artillery.

Reading about things in real life guidance systems inspired the following rule change that we used a lot.

***Improved Guided Missile technology are compatible with all 3 of the above listed systems. They stack as follows.

If you fire your missiles on a target with only ONE of the above features, it grants the +2 to the missile cluster to hit table, the rule that we are all familiar with.

If you fire your missiles on a target with TWO of the above systems in place (ie, you are firing an Artemis FCS on a target that is also being hit by TAG), the your TO HIT roll is at -2, and your missile Cluster to hit is at +4. Not only are you more likely to hit your target to begin with, but now even more missiles hit.

If you fire your missiles on a target that is under ALL THREE (you have a Artemis FCS, target has been hit with both a NARC beacon and TAG individually), then your missile to hit roll hits on an unmodified +5 to hit and ALL YOUR MISSILES will hit the target.

If the target can get inside a Guardian ECM bubble it cancels out the NARC beacon but not the TAG or ARTEMIS.

And basically if that happens you either have to get out of range of the missile launchers, take out the TAG user, or you are in big trouble.

Worked very well.

Ted Turner reported dead a few minutes ago on CNN. no doubt he played a part in building WCW and cable tv up.