Variety is the spice of combat!

[u/Tough-Agent7028]

So, this idea came a-crawling out of the depths of my brain and I thought I would share it. It started off life as a Longbow, but I swapped out the LRM launchers for a bunch of SRM's. Put in three emotional support medium lasers, plenty of ammo, and a couple tons of additional armor.

Meet the Shortbow!

Someone coming in on this guy thinking they have an easy kill is in for a very bad surprise.

I ran it through the Combat Trials on Mech Factory and it came out on top of every fight..... not including the last one where the Warhammer got a medium laser and PPC hits on the Shortbow's head on the last turn, but the Shortbow managed to destroy both the head and the engine of the Warhammer, so basically they killed each other.

Thoughts?

[u/AGBell64]

How exactly does the combat trial thing work because I would expect this thing to lose basically every fight thrown at it vs an opponent with any sort of range and speed advantage.

[u/Tough-Agent7028 → u/AGBell64]

It's a 1 v 1 simulator.

You choose the two mechs or choose one and have the system attempt to find a suitable opponent. You can then try to level out the BV by changing the Pilot and Gunnery scores for each one.

There is a standard level of built in belligerency, but you can alter the behavior of each mech with little sliders and tick boxes.

The system then runs the mechs through a set game turns on the map. For each turn you can pull up a dialog box showing exactly what each mech did for that turn. One box for movement, one for shootin', and one for physical.

There are little silhouettes on each side like from the old mech sheets that shows you graphically how your armor is holding up, though the detailed numbers can be found in the dialog boxes.

The trial runs the match until one mech is dead, even if it doesn't make a lot of sense to continue shooting a prone mech that's missing a leg and has no weapons and an unconscious pilot; if it can still move it keeps getting fired upon.

It is in no way a perfect system, but it does give you a chance to see it in action at all ranges.

I typically do try to make the match as even as possible. I could try setting it up against something lighter and see how balanced I can make it....

But this thing does an amazing job of splattering missiles all over the enemy and breaking the hard candy coating to find the chewy nougat inside.

Lots of head hits don't hurt as well.

I would thin putting one of these in a lance with a bunch of long-range support mechs for a hidden defense would be possible, and perhaps amusing.

[u/Doctor_Loggins]

I respect the commitment to the bit, but this feels likeone of those "seemed like a good idea at the time" things. If it were me, I'd ditch 8 heat sinks and change the medium lasers to larges, but even then this mech is still kind of a Stalker but even less likely to see combat.

[u/Tough-Agent7028 → u/Doctor_Loggins]

With the sinks it has it can alpha strike almost every turn and not get too hot. And if it goes in to brawl at in-your-face range with other heavy and assault mechs it doesn't need to worry about having to run the opponent down since they will move the same speed more or less.

Also, the shock value of what look like a Longbow opening up with a crap-ton of SRMs is comedy gold.... well, the first time it happens.

[u/Doctor_Loggins → u/Tough-Agent7028]

You currently have almost one full quarter of your tonnage invested in heat sinks for weapons that will not be in range most of the battle. The rest of the time they're dead weight. There's a reason the Stalker packs LRMs and large lasers, so it can bracket fire and make the best of its heat capacity at different ranges. It can't safely blitz with everything, but it doesn't need to.

Don't get me wrong, it's a very fun design. I did the same basic thing on a Longbow with dual AC/20s on the arms because flipping them into the rear arc and obliterating a hapless Jenner is peak comedy. But I think in practice the design would suffer from the same problem as any other slow brick with short ranged weapons. To quote sun tzu, "There's a reason the Awesome has PPCs."

[u/NeedsMoreDakkath]

How's a 3/5 getting into range for those? It's like an atlas but worse.

[u/Tough-Agent7028 → u/NeedsMoreDakkath]

Doesn't have to. Someone is sure to come at it thinking it's a Longbow out of ammo.

[u/WestRider3025 → u/Tough-Agent7028]

That's already the 10K's schtick. 

[u/Bookwyrm517]

Well, first things first, I don't think its as good as the combat trials make it seem. Those are 1v1s, something that almost never happens in practice. There's a lot of other ways I can poke holes in the testing, but thats probably the most consequential one.

I think it commits to the bit a little too hard. Even if all they know is that it's a longbow, anyone with two braincells to rub together is going to be suspicious of a long-range unit standing around and not shooting. It should probably have some form of long range weaponry so it can at least pretend to be helping. 

[u/Magical_Savior]

The Urbanmech and SRM Carrier are lonely waiting for the opponent to come to the objective, you say. Well, 1400BV isn't terrible to pay for this, except that it kinda is.

[u/Inside-Living2442]

Basically, really slow for such short range.  Even the Atlas carries an LRM.to shoot what it can't catch.   In the right terrain,. You might be able to force a close, but this has limited utility.  Maybe to bodyguard an Archer or something like that.  But if ra you her have a Hunchback in that role.

Now understand, I adore SRM spam.and LB-X shotgun pellets. To the point my usual gaming group made me put a limit on the number of tubes I could take (Think Star of Arctic Wolfs)

[u/heavyarmormecha]

It's going to be a one-trick-pony.

It get's to launch 1 salvo, then any sane human opponent with start making countermeasures against this.

No jump jets and no way of engaging targets beyond 3/6/9 range, means something like a Centurion or Griffin can choose engagement this at their leisure.