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DarkAdder
Clan Star Adder
Star Commander
Joined: 10-Jan-2004 00:00
Posts: 604
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 Posted: 21-Jul-2004 14:22 Post subject: Protomechs |
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The more I look at the proto stuff, the more I wonder just how much thought went into these things.
Granted, they look nifty, can do some damage, and make elementals look like kids with sticks, but did FASA really need to make them?
Does anyone use them at all, or are they just 'there'?
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Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
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Wanallo
Federated Suns
Leftenant Colonel
Joined: 02-Jan-2004 00:00
Posts: 671
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: 21-Jul-2004 16:33 Post subject: RE: Protomechs |
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I've never really seen much point in using them. Their a halfway house between Elementals and Mechs. They just seem pointless really.
I've looked at them a few times but never really tried them, just seem a bit pointless?
Maybe thats me, just never took my fancy.
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Constant exposure to dangers will breed contempt for them-Seneca
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Nightmare
Lyran Alliance
Kommandant-General
Joined: 03-May-2002 00:00
Posts: 2214
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| Posted: 21-Jul-2004 23:14 Post subject: RE: Protomechs |
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You forgot the option "haven't used them, but they look nifty".
Some people say protos are incredibly good units. A point of the heavier ones should be able to rip even quality mechs apart. I've never tried them because I don't play clanners. Never seen them used either.
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A tree fall in the forest, and no one is around, and it hits a mime. Does anyone care?
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Blackhand
Draconis Combine
Chu-i
Joined: 05-Jul-2002 00:00
Posts: 334
Location: Canada
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| Posted: 22-Jul-2004 01:45 Post subject: RE: Protomechs |
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Only the poorest clans would ever think of an idea this crazy and hard on the pilots. Blood Spirit, Smoked Jaguar, maybe Hell's Horses, and/or Steel Viper depending on Jade Falcon's opinion.
Its nice, but anything that leaves your pilots with a 3-4 year shelf life before they're completely insane is stupid.
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Vagabond
Mercenary
Mr. Referee
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 5724
Location: United States
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| Posted: 22-Jul-2004 02:38 Post subject: RE: Protomechs |
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Quote:
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On 2004-07-22 01:45, Blackhand wrote:
Only the poorest clans would ever think of an idea this crazy and hard on the pilots. Blood Spirit, Smoked Jaguar, maybe Hell's Horses, and/or Steel Viper depending on Jade Falcon's opinion.
Its nice, but anything that leaves your pilots with a 3-4 year shelf life before they're completely insane is stupid.
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one must consider this in context with clan society.
if you were an aero-pilot who washed out and were given a second chance to fight in combat, would you take it? defintly yes. even the most warden clan still prizes combat prowess above lower caste ability.
in addition, when one consideres the shelf life of mechwarrior and elimentals, mainly elementals, you will see that 3-4 years is not an average life span. statisticaly, most pilots will die before there 3rd mission. with the possibilities of prolonged life being signifanctly higher in mechwarriors. since protomechs like elementals lack ejection systems, there chances of surviving past 3 missions is over 1 to 1000 against.
so the fact that protopilots us EI and go insain is not that important of a factor, when these pilots are probibly desperate to die in combat anyway.
a waist by our and inner sphere standards but not by clan standards. to them, they are infact lessening waist.
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one must work hard to cultivate the mind and body. and one must always cultivate the mind.
//^(^_^)^\\
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Discord
Federated Suns
Sergeant-Major
Joined: 22-Jul-2003 00:00
Posts: 106
Location: United States
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| Posted: 22-Jul-2004 08:28 Post subject: RE: Protomechs |
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Actually, the effects of EI on a Protomechwarrior are nowhere near as severe as those on a Mechwarrior or Elemental. It was something about the way a Clammer Aerospace Pilots body was re-enforced to handle high gee situations.
I rarely use protos myself, being more of a BA or squishy fan, but I've seen them used with great effeciency by a few people.
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Stand to your glasses steady, and drink to your comrade's eyes: Here's a cup to the dead already, and hurrah for the next one that dies.
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Oafman
Draconis Combine
Tai-sho
Joined: 18-Nov-2003 00:00
Posts: 1657
Location: United States
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| Posted: 22-Jul-2004 08:41 Post subject: RE: Protomechs |
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I am way behind in the rules and do not even know what they are. I only play up to about 3057. After that I have no idea what is going on.
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Festina Lente!
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Storm
Draconis Combine
Chu-i
Joined: 06-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 278
Location: United States
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| Posted: 22-Jul-2004 09:10 Post subject: RE: Protomechs |
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My brother (Lancer) has some. I haven't faced them yet. Oversized battlearmor is all they seem to be, alhtough I admit they look pretty cool, and I wouldn't mind some, but I'm a IS player, os I can't really work that in.
Overall, I'm not too worried by them.
Storm
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Storm  "The More that thou sweatest and swearest in training, the less thou bleedest and diest in combat."--Dick Marcinko
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DarkAdder
Clan Star Adder
Star Commander
Joined: 10-Jan-2004 00:00
Posts: 604
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| Posted: 22-Jul-2004 11:24 Post subject: RE: Protomechs |
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Okay, a little back ground info, here. Just so everyone knows.
Protomechs were developed by Smoke Jaguar in an effort to strech their dwindling resources. The logic being, make something 1/10 the size of a mech, and you only use 1/10 the materiels. The piloting system is totally dependant on the Enhanced Immaging (EI) system. The EI is a lattice of sensors and transmitters implanted under the surface of the skin. They give you boosts to your poloting and gunnery skills, but that much strain on your nervous and neural systems drives you over the edge.
Typically, aerospace pilots who washed out are tapped to pilot Protos, due to their small size and geneticly re-enforced skeletal and musculature. The pilots are implanted with EI, then literally plugged into the proto, occupying a 'cockpit' in the protos chest. After that, the pilot thinks about what he wants the proto to do, and it does it.
Protos typically carry small weapons, and odd numbers of missile tubes (theyre outfitted in an odd way, weight per tube instead of per rack.) So its not uncommon to find a proto toting an SRM3, or an LRM9.
Protos, while not as beefy as mechs, are still damn hard to hit. So hard, that even if you score a hit on your roll, the Location Table could downgrade that to a Near Miss. Shot riccocheted or some other fluke.
Unveiled during Operation Serpent, they fiared moderately at best against the SLDF troops. With the fall of clan Smoke Jaguar, the majority of the other clans viewed them as a last ditch failure by a weak clan, and so very few even deigned to fight Trials of Possession for them. So far as I know, only Clan Blood Spirit manufactures and deploys protos in any significant numbers.
Again, this is just informational material, and its been a while since Ive looked in my books to see how extensively protos are being used.
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Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
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Talen
Capellan Confederation
Sang-shao
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 1269
Location: United States
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| Posted: 22-Jul-2004 13:29 Post subject: RE: Protomechs |
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I orignally liked them, cause they reminded me of Gears in Heavy Gear. They filled a roll between simple infanty (even augmented) and the mech. Therre are many cases when a 'mech is too big or expensive for a mission, and Elementals are not enough firepower, or too easily lost. The Protomech does fill a very small niche in Clan society, and thats where is flawed...
Everything in Clan society is rigid, with very little grey to fill the gaps. Everything has a place and use. If it doesnt fit there, it doesnt belong. Smoke Jaguar, being at the end of their rope, didnt care anymore. Most other clans would see it as useless.
Anyways...they are cool in design and execution, but their existance is kinda...iffy.
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"Historians exercise great power and some of them know it. They recreate the past, changing it to fit their own interpretations. Thus, they change the future as well." - Leto II
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Motown Scrapper
Clan Ice Hellions
Galaxy Commander
Joined: 24-Jul-2003 00:00
Posts: 2074
Location: United States
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| Posted: 02-Aug-2004 18:10 Post subject: RE: Protomechs |
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In last years I used a point of Satyrs to devastating effect in the scenario that called for finding hidden bunkers with a line of 5 light active probes that could move at a rate of up to 11 hexes I could scout a large area of terrain very quickly after I found most of the bunkers I used them to savage his scout
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Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have-Rush Limbaugh www.rushlimbaugh.com
Force of nature
Still crazy after all these years
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Blackhand
Draconis Combine
Chu-i
Joined: 05-Jul-2002 00:00
Posts: 334
Location: Canada
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| Posted: 02-Aug-2004 18:43 Post subject: RE: Protomechs |
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As much as this hurts me. I feel like someone just gave me command of a steiner social general and told me to play them in a campaign.
But thats the first sensible use of Protomechs I've ever heard of... THe light BAP on the Satyr makes me think twice about the Protos.
Dang namit.
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SaberDance
Federated Suns
Colonel
Joined: 07-May-2004 00:00
Posts: 837
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| Posted: 02-Aug-2004 22:37 Post subject: RE: Protomechs |
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This is about the only reason I've ever had to use a protomech.
For those of us who are massively too creative: you'll understand.
In high school, 3 friends and I had a lot of legos. Like many high school students, we liked to get them out, build huge armies, and go destroy each other.
Unlike many high schoolers, we used the BattleTech rules as a base for our fights. Much abridged. Your arm gets tired holding up an Aerospace fighter while you role dice. We just decided that a PPC was a Baseball, a laser was a golf ball... Hope your aim was good.
Back to protomechs. I have four good sized shelves of legos. I had the second most legos of the four of us. They are, however, no less than ten years old, my mother having banned what she refered to as "vacuum fodder" at that time.
The one with the most legos had four rooms of legos. I had enough legos to build six very sturdy medium mechs. He had enough to build four companies of (much less stable) heavy mechs. On top of that, he had newer pieces, allowing for much more streamlined mechs, and bigger weaponry. Even after we had limited him to the legos in one room, he still had enough pieces for 24 mechs, 4 aerospace fighters, and a full size dropship.
Have I mentioned that it took upwards of 16 months to build these armies?
Anyway, protomechs. Being as severely outgunned as I was, I took the junk pieces I had left over and made exo-skeletons for my few remaining men (I also had a shortage of pilots, as I had no one with "enhanced imaging," a shortage of nurohelmets, and only 107 men and 1 woman to begin with).
One of the exoskeleton "protomechs" I was particularly fond of had six legs and a scorpion tale. On the end of each leg was a weapon of some type: my favorite was the "heat prod." The Centipede would crawl up on an unsuspecting mech, jab the prod into an ammunition bin, setting off a gigantic ammunition expolsion. Even with CASE, few mechs can really survive having half their side blown out. Poor pilot was in a coffin just barely big enough for him to lay down.
Anyway, the two protomechs I built were hard to hit, well armed, and stealthy, plus they filled out my third lance, giving me a full company, plus support.
After four days of bloody combat, I still lost. But I did bring down 6 of his heaviest mechs and disable 4 more.
M"SD"H
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"Politics is the Art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, misdiagnosing the problem, and applying the wrong solution."
-Groucho Marx
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MEX
Clan Blood Spirit
Star Colonel
Joined: 21-Mar-2002 00:00
Posts: 440
Location: Austria
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| Posted: 27-Dec-2004 02:59 Post subject: RE: Protomechs |
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Quote:
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On 2004-07-22 11:24, DarkAdder wrote:
... So far as I know, only Clan Blood Spirit manufactures and deploys protos in any significant numbers... |
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I only play Bloodspirit because of the Protomechs 
Otherwise i would prefer to not play a Clanner at alll and stick to my favorite faction: The Brotherhood of Randis
In this Years MO i discovered a disadvantage of Protomechs against infantry: They cant make physical attacks against infantry in buldings.
But this is more than compensated by their ability to move with full speed thru buildings without damaging itself or the building.
MfG, MEX
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