Princely Products for your Personal, potential power- Prince's Designs megathread

For this idea, blame Thunder and his old 100ton, 1/2/10 jump booster shenanigan 'mech.

This came about from that design, some odd ideas to explain the Raider in TRO145, and an attempt to make MJBs worthwhile to some some rando on the internet who asked the honest question of "why would you ever use these?". The idea and fluff is, that when Bannson was shopping around for ideas to make his own battlemech he had no choice but to explore every avenue available, even ones that would keep him from making a fusion engine for it (at first, naturally).

This is *supposedly* one of those ideas, an idea of what happens when you give an aimchair general-turn-engineer money and a goal to Taco-Bell together the most powerful 'mech he can with as few parts as possible. This dude uses salvaged engines and gyros from the thousands of Locusts produced over the years in old "just good enough" Charger chassis that have been re-strung with I-TSM for additional strength at the expense of tactile motions- reason being, Bannson couldn't build enough effective weaponry that wasn't a retrofitted saw or unguided missile, so why screw around with that at all? Just give the buyer the ability and plans to build handheld guns and make a chassis that can take advantage of that. Finally, he gives it an "eh, good enough" weave of heavy ferro armor both to keep it from dying too fast AND to force the buyer into lucrative purchasing agreements.

And so you get the Meteor, and it's (illegal) Charger cousin. The Meteor only moves enough to position itself for the massive mechanical boosters and it's attempt to gain sub-orbital flight via looney tune's springs. I-TSM affects piloting heavily, but funny enough does not affect handheld weapons since their use isn't based off of the piloting skill. With I-TSM doubling carry weight- and a second weapon on the back under the 50% max weight rule in the lift hoist- the Meteor can carry a  single16-ton gun and still jump 10 hexes, or carry two for a drop to only 7. Of course, swapping between handhelds is a lesson in frustration that takes 3 turns, but it still looks cool.

Obviously it doesn't work- it has no sealing, so for something that jumps 10 it's biggest threat is tear gas SRMs and wind. Smoke could even incapacitate the pilot. The Charger cousin (illegal since only industrialmechs can use I-TSM, for some reason) is the one Bannson would have gone with, but since nobody in their right mind would ever build the massive LTV400 fusion engine again it's little more than an interesting refit.

Also watch the 20 point hits to the legs. I decided to armor up the arms instead, but you might feel otherwise.

Meteor MT-0

Mass: 80 tons
Tech Base: Inner Sphere
Chassis Config: Biped IndustrialMech
Rules Level: Experimental Tech
Era: Dark Ages
Tech Rating/Era Availability: E/X-X-F-A
Production Year: 3132
Cost: 5,343,160 C-Bills
Battle Value: 1,028

Chassis: Unknown Industrial
Power Plant: Unknown 160 Fusion Engine
Walking Speed: 21.6 km/h
Maximum Speed: 32.4 km/h
Jump Jets: None
    Jump Capacity: 0 meters / 300 meters
Armor: Unknown Heavy Ferro-Fibrous
Armament:
    None
Manufacturer: Unknown
    Primary Factory: Unknown
Communications System: Unknown
Targeting and Tracking System: Unknown

================================================================================
Equipment           Type                         Rating                   Mass  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Internal Structure: Industrial                   122 points               16.00
Engine:             Fusion Engine                160                       6.00
    Walking MP: 2
    Running MP: 3
    Jumping MP: 0 / 10 Jump Booster
Heat Sinks:         Single Heat Sink             10                        0.00
    Heat Sink Locations: 2 LT, 2 RT
Gyro:               Standard                                               2.00
Cockpit:            Industrial w/ Adv. Fire Control                        3.00
    Ejection Seat:                                                         0.50
    Actuators:      L: SH+UA+LA+H    R: SH+UA+LA+H
    TSM Locations: 3 LT, 3 RT, 3 LA, 3 RA
Armor:              Heavy Ferro-Fibrous          AV - 188                  9.50
    Armor Locations: 2 CT, 5 LT, 4 RT, 5 LA, 5 RA

                                                      Internal       Armor      
                                                      Structure      Factor     
                                                Head     3            8         
                                        Center Torso     25           30        
                                 Center Torso (rear)                  8         
                                           L/R Torso     17           20        
                                    L/R Torso (rear)                  8         
                                             L/R Arm     13           20        
                                             L/R Leg     17           23        

================================================================================
Equipment                                 Location    Heat    Critical    Mass  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(R) Lift Hoist                               RT        0         3         3.00
Jump Booster                                 *         -         4        40.00
                                            Free Critical Slots: 2

* The Jump Booster occupies 2 slots in each leg.

BattleForce Statistics
MV      S (+0)  M (+2)  L (+4)  E (+6)   Wt.   Ov   Armor:      6    Points: 10
2/10j      0       0       0       0      4     0   Structure:  6
Special Abilities: I-TSM, ENE, SRCH, ES