Stuff you don't fight with a 10 ton mech. |
A hidden penalty is hiding in the construction rules of The Battletech Compendium. It's the units of 1 ton or 1/2 ton per part added. Some of the math results in values much lower than a half-ton, but rounding dictates either full ton or half-ton depending on the reading.
Personally, I modify that rule to be 1/4 ton because .75 and .25 are just as easy to add as 1 and 1/2. It's not a "grab" to do this, it is just convenient to pair .75 tons of gyro to a 1/2 ton machine gun and 1/4 of ammo. It's not battle-effective, but it makes a lot of mechanical sense from a manufacturing point of view.
One way to analyze mechs is to build them backward. A 10-ton mech needs a 3-ton cockpit, 1 ton of Internal Structure, an engine, and a gyro. The engine and gyro weights are linked. On the table below, everything in parentheses uses my 1/4 ton rule.
Mech Tonnage | Cockpit | Internal Structure | Engine Rating | Gryo Size Rating/100 | Engine Tonnage | Remaining Tonnage |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
10 | 3 | 1 | 100 | 1 | 3 | 2.0 |
10 | 3 | 1 | 90 | 1 | 3 | 2.0 |
10 | 3 | 1 | 80 | 1 | 2.5 | 2.5 |
10 | 3 | 1 | 70 | 1 (0.75) | 2 | 3.0 (3.25) |
10 | 3 | 1 | 60 | 1 (0.75) | 1.5 | 3.5 (3.75) |
10 | 3 | 1 | 50 | 1 (0.50) | 1.5 | 3.5 (4.0) |
10 | 3 | 1 | 40 | 1 (0.50) | 1 | 4.0 (4.5) |
10 | 3 | 1 | 30 | 1 (0.50) | 1 | 4.0 (4.5) |
10 | 3 | 1 | 20 | 1 (0.25) | 0.5 | 4.5 (5.25) |
10 | 3 | 1 | 10 | 1 (0.25) | 0.5 | 4.5 (5.25) |
As you can see, the 1/4 ton rule modification doesn't do much at all except for the extreme last two cases. It does make a difference in larger mechs.