Mecha Review in Battletech Compendium - 10 Ton Mechs

Stuff you don't fight with a 10 ton mech.

10 and 15-ton mechs don't work for Battletech. Mechs of these sizes are punished by the math. Every cockpit is 3 tons. Every mech requires a gyro that weighs a ton per 100 units of rating. Tack on the internal structure of 10% of your maximum loaded weight. 

A hidden penalty is hiding in the construction rules of The Battletech Compendium. It's the units of 1 ton or 1/2 ton per part added. Some of the math results in values much lower than a half-ton, but rounding dictates either full ton or half-ton depending on the reading. 

Personally, I modify that rule to be 1/4 ton because .75 and .25 are just as easy to add as 1 and 1/2. It's not a "grab" to do this, it is just convenient to pair .75 tons of gyro to a 1/2 ton machine gun and 1/4 of ammo. It's not battle-effective, but it makes a lot of mechanical sense from a manufacturing point of view. 

One way to analyze mechs is to build them backward. A 10-ton mech needs a 3-ton cockpit, 1 ton of Internal Structure, an engine, and a gyro. The engine and gyro weights are linked. On the table below, everything in parentheses uses my 1/4 ton rule. 

Mech Tonnage	Cockpit	Internal Structure	Engine Rating	Gryo Size Rating/100	Engine Tonnage	Remaining Tonnage
10	3	1	100	1	3	2.0
10	3	1	90	1	3	2.0
10	3	1	80	1	2.5	2.5
10	3	1	70	1 (0.75)	2	3.0 (3.25)
10	3	1	60	1 (0.75)	1.5	3.5 (3.75)
10	3	1	50	1 (0.50)	1.5	3.5 (4.0)
10	3	1	40	1 (0.50)	1	4.0 (4.5)
10	3	1	30	1 (0.50)	1	4.0 (4.5)
10	3	1	20	1 (0.25)	0.5	4.5 (5.25)
10	3	1	10	1 (0.25)	0.5	4.5 (5.25)

As you can see, the 1/4 ton rule modification doesn't do much at all except for the extreme last two cases. It does make a difference in larger mechs. 

Just looking at that chart I built, there is hardly any room for weapons, ammo, and armor. If you slap 2 tons of armor on the mech with an engine rating of 100, you have a crazy fast mech that can only engage in melee. That won't last long at all but there is a case for an unarmed scout. 

At the other end of the spectrum, you could have a mech with a move of 1 or 2 toting good armor and small weapons but they will never get into range of a bigger mech. 

In order to understand a 10-ton mech, you need to consider what every mech can do. They move. They have a reactor for power and heat sinks. Mechs tower over the terrain and protect the occupants. These advantages aren't enough for combat, but they may take a role in combat support. 

Every 10-ton mech can lift loads and move things fairly rapidly with a footprint smaller than a vehicle of equal size. They can provide power and sensors at a base. These are your jeeps, your radars, and your delivery vehicles. In terms of Battletech, these are more targets of opportunity or a terrain piece to dodge around. Sort of like shooting up the parking garage. 

Where they do make sense is in the RPG Mechwarrior. The characters need appropriately themed transportation. A 10-ton mech with an engine rating of 100 is a sprinting Maserati while one with a rating of 10 is a robot-themed bulldozer. 

They have their place but they don't have to be combat effective.