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Depends on what you're evaluating. If you're evaluating BV they have negative cost. Takeing a Charger, giving it an extralight engine and using the tonnage savings for two ground mobile HPGs and a pair of heatsinks makes it cost less BV. If you're evaluating C-bills or Star League Dollars or Kerenskies or Kroner or whatever other in-universe currency they're almost never worth it unless they permit something that simply isn't possible with standard engines. If you're evaluating your force based on its dropship footprint they can be awesome. Especially for tanks. For a lot of tank applications, an extralight engine is the difference between needing a 100 ton bay and being four mobility crits from complete immobility and needing a 50 ton bay and being five mobility crits from complete immobility. But even for mechs being able to build 10-15 tons heavier for a given movement rating can improve your combat power per bay if that movement rating is fast enough to at least somewhat qualify for "speed is armor".

A video about Protomechs or aerospace would be cool

Thunderbolt my beloved

Fire Moth H is my clan go to for psychology shenanigans 😂

Orion and Wraith have nice plastic models. I've never heard of the Perseus, I'm guessing that's an IWM model.

Laser heatsinks are great for this. Especially if you play with custom rules limiting heat dissipation in a vacuum. Gives them an actual purpose other than usage on niche maps with harsh temperate conditions.

The Berserker is hands down my favorite all time mech, and while specialized it's not terrible in a mid range shoot out especially in the C3 variant my favorite. But once it can use that surprising speed to close in, there is legitimately no mech safe from it. Especially with tsm active it can obliterate almost anything once it set to work.

What about configs that have harjel? or custom loadouts where you add it? Definitely more than a couple random clan mechs that have vacuum configs. does that change the battle plan?

Underwater tactics video next? 🤞

Urg, I hate LRM5

I really enjoy your videos but I do disagree with some of your conclusions. For instance the charger with the lrms is great to safe guard weak fire support units

AC2 is unironically worth considering in vacuum

Interesting stuff. I definitely want to try a vacuum game. Come to think of it, it's one of the only places I'd ever bring a SHD-2D or SHD-2D2.

Oh THAT vacuum I thought you meant like, tactics independent of other things, in a vacuum so to speak

I played a 1v1 using the lunar base map from the alien worlds map pack and got stomped by a veteran tabletop player who brought a Crossbow A. We played with vacuum rules. Still salty about it

I am seriously not a fan of the vacuum rules in Battletech. The breach aspect makes little to no sense to me. Rather, I think vacuum should reduce the heat dissipation of mechs, depending on vacuum type. For instance, a hard vacuum or trace atmosphere would reduce heat dissipation of a mech by 50% (round down). So a mech with 15 SHS would dissipate only 8 heat per turn while in a hard vacuum. Also surprised you didn't bring up using protomechs in vacuum as a Clanner. They're everything you could want and more; cheap on BV so you can bring lots of them to the field, no PSRs to worry about if running low grav rules, and losing a few isn't that big of a deal. Their low armor is even less of a deal thanks to breach checks, and the "Near Miss" hit location is better than any amount of armor anyway.

Another good tactic is Heat, heat is harder to dissipate in vacuum, you can use Inferno, Flamer, Plasma, what ever.

Remember the Ravens' Ferro-Lamellor armor effectively makes you immune to LB-X cluster ammunition in a vacuum, completely nullifying any hits with a damage value of 1. It makes sense considering how much the Ravens care about space combat.

Those AI-made 'mechs look like... well... AI-made garbage.

I swear, I think that the Mechs like the Vulcan, and the Clint and Commando variants with the AC/2, are supposed to be used in vacuum battles pretty much exclusively.

breaches hurt because pneumatic systems will try to explosively enter that vacuum through seals and such, while hydraulic systems will cause any air in that system to cavitate, damaging pumps. the high pressure of such systems will also risk catastrophically blowing lines during the explosive decompression during a hull breach. I expect a mech will shut down its decompressed sections rather than risk this damage. I think under the repair rules in the mercenaries handbook. repairing breached sections by exposure to vacuum is like a half hour of tech time by itself, because of this failsafe. same with water. the mech detects the breach and shuts exposed systems down before water can destroy those systems. just dry the mechs internals out, reset your mechs computer and no biggie, the mech is back in service in an hour or so.

The low-gravity rules help to push up TMM so heavies aren't wrecked en masse by lights with LRM5s

Cool topic, but even art that´s irrelevant to the topic is better than.. this

Doesn't HarJel help in vacuum?

Good video, but could have done without the subpar AI art

One nice thing about odd map conditions, such as vacuums or gravity differences, is that if they are part of a series of matches with fixed lists they can force interesting list building decisions.

8:01 indeed

Instructions unclear. Brought Fafnir FNR-5X and nothing else.

Artillery cannons are nice in vacuum also

Doesn't ferrollamma armor or impact resistant armor give a breach resistance? I'm remembering something that did, but can't recall what, it was from the post 3050s.

The lunar rovers had a massive 0.25 HP motor and was designed for 6mph and clocked in at about 11mph max. For comparison, a Craftsman 110 riding mower has a 17.5 HP engine and is rated for about 5 mph. Unfortunately a quick google didn't tell me the weight or loading capacity of the Craftsman, nor was I able to find information on the performance of the Lunar Rover when it was tested planetside. Also, yes, a lot more goes into how fast something goes than HP, but I've used vacuum cleaners with higher HP motors than the lunar rovers.

Nonsense, low gravity rules rock! Nothing quite like crippling your mech cuz you gotta go fast!

SBGRs and nothing else.

Would love mo e videos like this

So the old designs (and minis) were all well and good for the 80s and 90s. But going into the 2000s they looked extremely dated. So when MWO hit it and those models got made into 3d printable files is when i re-discovered my love for Battletech. What was said below already is that MWO gave all the mechs a unified design language in terms of weaponry and armor plating. And i really appreciate it that Catalyst picked up on the same design language. But i find their minis a bit too soft around the edges. They look "washed out" if that makes sense?

Well this rating is only usefull if you look at them in a vakuum...with no BV rating for your armies. Have fun engaging an assault mech with barely 1k BV + 3 other lights in a sub 2.5k BV army, on a desert plane battlefield. The charger will run right at you with his 8 run speed and fuck your other little mechs up in melee. Just one example, theory and practice is far off with this ranking.

With advanced rules if the armor is breached you do have the ability to power down the gauss rifle. You can't fire it, but it can reduce your vulnerability.

I assumed the Snake was fluffed as a Elemental Hunter, was it was Cappie and they were not on the front lines of the clans and really had NO idea and did it for marketing to try and sell it to those fighting Elementals... ... and the Venom has always just looked sleek and vicious. Fun to play.

No love for the Commando?

I would move the ice storm adjacent to your mech on the opposite side of the Shrek to both take advantage of my speed and accuracy while also minimizing the possibility of the Shrek shooting my mech.

I'm surprised some mechs didn't make the list. WVR, AWS, ERS, TBT, JLN, PHX, B#-HND, come to mind. With that said its nice to see some mechs that don't usually find their way into the spotlight get some love.

Kurita mechs have the best toilets.

The Orion seems 2M saeems to only have case in the lrm ammo torso not on the gauss.

a little surprised you didn't talk about any of the Kurita Shadow Hawks. the standard version sacrifices its mixed firepower for a PPC in the LT shoulder cannon, and later versions giving it a heavy PPC with C3 too.

I've found myself slowly drifting toward House Steiner over the last few years, so this is good info! Hope you also include the Periphery states in this video series. I'm quite curious about your picks for my favorite faction, the Taurians... :) Would the Brahma or Marshal make your list? The world wonders.

No Commando

What about the Charger CGR-SB? It's like an Awesome 9Q's disappointing sibling. It looks pretty good if you don't despise Large Lasers. Also I didn't ever notice it until tonight when I was looking at Lyran Charger options...

Like every one of the mech that where mentioned in this video and agree. I do love the Wolfhound. It’s a good recon hunter killer. I have a well-played line up that could contain a Nightsky, Commando, Razerback, P-Hawk and Wasp WSP-3S. The lance normally does recon hunter killer. Some Steiner mechs that were missing. I am shore this would rain on the second video of good Steiner mechs part two. Considering what was shown, I am a little surprised about the Devastator being the one called out for Steiner. I normally consider Devastator a Davion Mech as they hogged most of the production orders. To name those that merit mention the Emperor, Lynx, Scarabus, Talon, and Uziel. These mechs also have versions that are good with a high reputation like the Uziel. The Emperor has a variant that fits into LB 20-X line ups. The Lynx and Talons are good, as they are all energy, working together from 3058. The Scarabus is often called the scare bus.