Well spank my chassis and call me Susan!
I was certainly excited when I first saw this. Decent dodge and a fair swag of shielding.... I've said it before and I'll say it again, love a shield.
Then I took a second look, and realised that it was 5 tons too light for my command Smilodon, and I cried.
Then I realised what would still be able to use it and I took a third look.
If you have to take a third look, there something about it that means there's more to it than meets the eye.
Now I will say upfront that this advice is not for those who are working their line up for the first time. If your battle line consists of 40 to 60 ton mechs that can use this, you shouldn't be even considering a purchase. You need to be spending your hard earned Niodes on good shielding and Auto Repair.
If you are thinking about buying anything else, you are either so rich that you aren't going to bother listening to me, or you should start using your hairdryer in the shower to save time. Either way, removing yourself from the gene pool would be a service to the rest of us.
No, I'm looking at these with the jaundiced eyes of a veteran. And that's not a euphemism for me being old, even if I can remember a time when the Galaxy didn't have Pot Noodles....
You see, at a certain level, tonnage and the associated specialist classes that go with them start getting categorized by the way that the battle flows.
The first type is obviously your mainline heavies, 75 ton plus and unless you can get insane crit kill and / or damage multipliers, a grinding war of attrition. It also bears pointing out that this is going to be where the vast bulk of your funds are going to be ploughed in to.
The second are the lights, from Red Ants at the bottom up to maybe 30 or 40 tons. These fights are lightening fast. If you are hit, you are dead. The weapons are just so powerful that its almost impossible not to one shot your enemy. Speed, dodge and accuracy are what really count.
Then you have the third category, ranging from perhaps 35 and 40 tonners up to 70s. The gals and guys that excel at these tonnage classes are some of the nastiest pieces of work in the game and are pound for pound hard as a brick in the face. Through a combination of higher armour points and better shielding, these mechs can take a couple of hits, maybe 3 at best on the heavier classes. Overcharge weapons and crit kill are still low enough chances to be an exception rather than a norm. Punching a hole and swarming a line are the order of the day.
It is fair to say that these folks are not necessarily right in the head...
The issue for them is one of survivability. If a Red Ant is killed by trample or splash and a Boreas can simply shrug it off, these mechs (while able to survive it) have had their effectiveness halved by that collateral damage... what could once take 2 hits is now a single shot kill.
So what can a Telemtry Kit do for them?Lets start with book values. 30 Niodes, 515 Ferrite and 430 Bioptics for a dodge rating of 13 and a whole raft of collateral damage shielding. Weight range band is 40 to 60 ton mechs. Now that dodge value is as good as the best Crystal piece in the weight bracket, so no loss there. There is also ZERO penalties or vulnerabilities with this kit.
Previously the only protection for these classes when not in the front line was either Calibrated Joints or the Anti Matter Dome. The first sacrifices dodge and only gives trample shielding, but since it is a crystal system it is certainly worth consideration. The Anti Matter Dome does give superior Splash, Fork and Trample resistance while sacrificing an amount of shielding, but the big problem is that it does bring into play a vulnerability to laser fire. These classes see a lot of laser fire, especially when going for that elusive crit kill that will break a line.
Of course the biggest mechs on the front line will not wish to give up their Untuam Actuators with higher dodge and a speed hit to boot. The best defence against incoming fire is still to shoot the enemy first or failing that to not be there. But the lighter ones, slightly further back? They have suddenly got a second very valid option to keep them in the fight longer once it reaches them.
The biggest problem though, is the expenditure justification. Niodes spent on your big attack formation will always pay themselves back. Niodes spent on a secondary formation had better be useful for blocking enemy attacks as a specialist or for hunting a good number of enemy specialists.
Maybe for once its a good thing that I'm not right in the head, because I really really want some of these and being mad as a meat axe, I don't need to justify anything.
The Raccoon speaks the truth.... Wibble...
Submitted by David McCallum #701548