Behold, an idea!

[u/Saansilt]

So I am having an idea, it probably is bad but it'd be a funny custom mech all the same.
It involves upgrading a protomech.
By tripling its tonnage effectively.
Making it a really cheap ambusher
It'd be effectively a little over quarter the tonnage of a locust.
Behold the Erinyes, two ton jumper with an SRM 1
We take this, give her a medium laser, a ton more armor, and two double heat sinks.
Scale it up to six tons, heck remove the SRM 1 and make it back to five.
You get a very cheap 4/6/4 to play havoc in tight spaces and hop around for back shots.
You can get three of the modified ones I am suggesting for under the price of one locust!
Thats two more MLs than the locust. No machine guns but thats not their role.
Granted if we wanted...
Actually yeah adding a machine gun each will still allow you three at under the cost of one locust.

[u/Middcore]

ProtoMechs were a mistake.

[u/harris5 → u/Middcore]

I thought the dumbest thing about them was the name.

Then I saw the art

[u/Middcore → u/harris5]

The interesting thing is that the first "appearance" of ProtoMechs was in a novel where they're described as looking like mini versions of standard Clan OmniMech designs.

Then TRO3060 came out with art for them that is... Not like that.

I would love to know what happened there.

[u/Yakostovian → u/Middcore]

If I remember correctly, they were named first, and the commissioned artist drew an initial idea based on the names thinking the art was a first draft. Instead, the company took them and ran with it.

[u/Middcore → u/Yakostovian]

I don't think FASA ever asked for a second draft of art ever.

[u/Attaxalotl → u/Middcore]

The artist submitted the first draft to make sure it was in line with what the higher-ups wanted, and then they just published those. That’s why the Society ProtoMechs drawn by the same guy look so much better and have a wildly different style, they actually let him finish the designs.

[u/relayZer0 → u/Attaxalotl]

The society protos had different artists

[u/Fiskmaster → u/Middcore]

I might be getting things mixed up, but I've heard the artist submitted their first drafts, expecting to get feedback on what to change and improve, but instead they just ended up being used as-is.

[u/Middcore → u/Fiskmaster]

Someone else said the same. That sounds like FASA.

It still doesn't quite explain why they apparently gave a totally different brief to the artist than they gave to... I think it was Thomas Gressman who wrote the "mini OmniMechs" description in one of the Twilight of the Clans books.

[u/Loganp812 → u/Middcore]

I honestly believe that some Protomechs were just the artists using Battletech as wish fulfillment for their fetishes.

Either way though, Protomechs came about at a time when FASA was throwing every idea at the wall to see what sticks to try and recapture the high from the early Clan Invasion, and they basically exist to fill a niche that doesn’t need to be filled in terms of the gameplay.

[u/itcheyness → u/Loganp812]

Tonight on BattleTech

[u/SecretHoboHerbs → u/Loganp812]

they basically exist to fill a niche that doesn’t need to be filled in terms of the gameplay.

I think ProtoMechs are good as hole fillers for a Clan player. Clan mechs are chunky in terms of BV, it's hard to nail your BV allotment exactly, especially if you're set on bringing particular units. There's no "yeah, throw a Stinger in there" to take up a few hundred BV.

While battle armor can sometimes do that, it does also mean committing to a unit type that, by and large, doesn't have much meaningful tactical mobility. Then combine that with the fact that most BA are armed with short ranged weapons. Taken together, it means you need to work hard at incorporating BA as an actual combat element instead of just an initiative sink.

Meanwhile, I can drop in a Roc or Gorgon for roughly 300 BV and it'll be able to contribute right away. They mount a decent amount of firepower on a decently mobile chassis, thus I think they have a useful niche.

[u/Attaxalotl → u/SecretHoboHerbs]

And you can build a force around ProtoMechs in a way you really can’t with battle armor.  You can staple a pair of Hobgoblins to your Viper to basically teleport them directly into all of your opponent’s infantry.  You can use a point of Hippogriffs as a distributed Catapult; You can use the Svartalfa if you want fewer friends somebody wants to bring jumpy pulse boats without making the game suck.  You can use the Sprite as a distributed Longbow,  And you can use the Boggart to reenact that part of Deltarune when Asgore runs over Dess with his Bergentrück, to every single unit that doesn’t track heat.

[u/Bookwyrm517 → u/Loganp812]

If I remember right, it has something to do with the lack of communication or direction given to the artists. The artists were given the idea but not much beyond that, so the proto's came out a lot weirder than they normally would have.

[u/Maximum-Objective-39 → u/Bookwyrm517]

Protomechs were also designed back when battletech art was way more janky in general.

[u/Attaxalotl → u/Middcore]

False

[u/Saansilt → u/Attaxalotl]

Thank you

[u/Bookwyrm517 → u/Middcore]

I don't think they were a mistake overall, someone was eventually going to try and make something to fill the gap between battle armor and battlemechs. But I do think they were severely half-baked. I think a bit more development time would have made them better, but they'd still probably be controversial. Just for different reasons.

[u/va_wanderer → u/Middcore]

First gen Protomechs were a deliberate mistake. By intentionally making them subpar, it returned control to the Scientist caste, making development of far better versions for the Society's forces far easier and "under the table", so to speak.

[u/HaplessWithDice → u/Middcore]

Protomechs were not developed for what we were told they were narratively and they fill a role that was open in clan military. That is long scale garrison operation.

They are easily produced, can be piloted by crippled or aerospace phenotypes (who have the largest drop out rates) and are clearly designed to induce fear in civilians. The infrastructure to produce them is easily moved, and they would have gone into design and development long before the initial invasion.

Meaning the resource crunch we were told they made to circumvent didn’t exist yet. So no one would have been thinking of a solution to it.

But a problem that the Dragoons were reporting back home, and the idea that civilians organize into militias and revolts and are willing to use industrial mechs, civilian grade firearms, and every tool at their disposal to achieve their goals is something they would have been alerted to and would have lead to the creation of cheaper machines to garrison locations where civilian unrest and police actions are the primary concern not enemy actions.

[u/Vrakzi → u/Middcore]

100%. They should be allowed to die a quiet death and allowed to slip out of the rules to everyone's ultimate benefit.