How many is too many (D2, LA Library) Expecting/Open

[Mei-Ling Zhou]

Mei sat at one of the small tables in the otherwise empty Library. A pile of books and loose papers spread out before her. She flipped back and forth between a couple of pages and occasionally looked at her vidphone and sighed.

"There HAS to be a better way."

[Catherine Maia Hayes]

Meet me at the library.

Catherine had no idea what this was about. The library is a stuffy place, but sometimes you need to go there to find important things out. And Goo is a wellspring of fun ideas, so the small Mechwarrior is mighty curious.

Dashing in, taking a quick look around, she soon spots her friend and skips straight into a seat on the chair in front of Mei-Ling.

"Hey Goo, watcha doing there?"

[Mei-Ling Zhou]

Mei looked up slightly startled but quickly grew a smile on her tired face.

"Oh hey Cat, how are you doing? I'm glad you came because I cannot make up my mind on something. It's silly and unimportant and is driving me crazy.

What mech would be the best platform for a shitload of flamers."

She looked like she had lost sleep over the issue, like it was going to consume her.

[Catherine Maia Hayes]

Catherine readily returns a smile, not at all tired or weary, but warm and bright.

"Doing great, Goo. Finally got assigned a sim slot this evening. Laks said she has something special planned, so it'll be fun."

She takes a peek at the array of books in front of Mei-Ling and ponders the question.

"If shitload of flamers is your only care, maybe a King Crab for the surface area. If you strip off all the armour and weaponry, I think you can fit at least forty or so on the thing. Maybe close to fifty."

The small redhead grins. "It'd be utterly useless for anything but being a ridiculous showcase on festivals and stuff."
She pauses and laughs. "It would also immediately shut down and grill the pilot to a crisp. I guess it might even melt itself at that point. But yeah: Shitload of flamers."

[Mei-Ling Zhou]

Mei was still in a bit of a haze and it showed on her face as she listened to her friend but at the words "King Crab" she shook off some of her confusion.

"King Crab? no, wait, sorry. Let me try to explain. I am trying to design a better Firestarter. I love the idea of using heat as a weapon but I'm not in love with the Firestarter. I like it's size and it's speed is good, jump jets are great but I really think that anything that small that is hoping to get in close with the big boys needs a lot more armor and/or be REALLY REALLY fast.

I've been looking at the Hussar but I keep having to change the engine to an XL to save weight and that kind of defeats the purpose."

[Catherine Maia Hayes]

"Okay. That makes a lot more sense." Catherine laughs. "First thing first then. How many flamers do we actually want? What is the absolute minimum we need and what is the wishful thinking amount? Like sixteen flamers can wreck most anybody's day, even if only half of them hit."

"I would say 5 is the absolute minimum. Eight is a low compromise. Ten is a solid goal." She muses.

"What do you think, Goo?" The young Mechwarrior asks her friend. "We decide on that first and then find the best delivery system for that amount. With some luck we can maybe fiddle in some extra afterwards."

[Mei-Ling Zhou]

"Most of my ideas so far have maxed out at 6 but 8 or 10 would be amazing. So far I have been prioritizing armor over more flamers. I've looked at the Hussar, the Ostscout, I have a Jenner with 8 but even with doubles it has heat issues and doesn't gain any armor over the base model."

She rested her head in her hands.

"I wish I could just forget about this, I get this random wild ideas and they take over my whole day. I'm never going to own or build any of these ideas."

[Catherine Maia Hayes]

Catherine soon begins to rifle through the books and take scribbly messy notes, while murmuring to herself.

" .. extreme close range, so it needs jets .."

".. not to slow .. lets try medium, so it can take a beating .."

".. engine should not be XL, better not light either .. this can fit a good couple doubles easily .."

".. armor .. armor .. have to take some off here .. and here .."

".. has to be Endo Steel, no way around it .."

"Goo! I have something!" The small redhead looks up from her notes and shoots her friend a grin.

"Start with a Chameleon. Strip all weapons. You have to replace the structure with Endo Steel and make the Gyro XL. Then you can install 13 double heat sinks and 9 flamers. Use Light Ferro-Fibrous armour and you can put about 9 of it tons on the frame. Nearly as much as it will hold. Here, take a look."

She slides her notes over.

"What do you think, Goo?"
__________

Code: Select all

Chameleon - Goo's flamer edition
Weight: 50 tons
Movement: 6/9/6
Engine: 300 Fusion
Double Heat Sinks: 13 [26]
Gyro: XL Gyro
Internal: 83 (Endo-Steel)
Armor: 152/169 (Light Ferro-Fibrous) 

Weapons (9 Flamer)
Flamer RA
Flamer RA
Flamer RA
Flamer RA
Flamer LA
Flamer LA
Flamer LA
Flamer LA
Flamer HD

Quirks: Easy to Pilot

Cost: 5,028,000 C-bills

[Mei-Ling Zhou]

She hurriedly looked over the specs and looked to be doing some mental math then pounded her fist on the table.

"DAMNIT!" She yelled then let out a long deflated sigh.

"You're still better off with a Griffin-2N. Even with it's potential heat issues a pair of SRM-6s with Inferno is still way better if you want to make someone overheat. You even get a PPC with it." Another sigh. "Why are giant flamethrowers so bad at cooking mechs? Shitty range AND they don't do the thing they SHOULD be really good at. Someone's gotta find a way to make them better."

[Catherine Maia Hayes]

"That'd be slower though. The Griffin-2N may not be fast enough to catch up with most targets, unless you overhaul it from the ground up." Catherine remarks with a small shrug.

"And flamers are bad at cooking mechs, because mechs are tough and designed to deal with lots of heat. Inferno missiles are an attempt to deliver a lot of heat really fast. If flamers really were the choice to go, we wouldn't be lasering, but flaming each other in combat. Right now they are a gimmick to surprise the occasional mech struggling with heat issues and to make sure mechtechs do not get too complacent about heat dissipation. If somebody invents better flamers, things could really change though."

"At least double heat sinks would become even more important." She laughs.

"Hm ... have you considered using small mechs, but in numbers? They could harass and operate in packs."

[Mei-Ling Zhou]

"Yeah, maybe. It's all just pointless theoreticals anyway, no Merc company is going to field a lance of mechs focused upon heat overloading the enemy and I'm not gonna start my own."

She looked up at her friend.

"There is a part of me that desperately wants to be a mech designer instead of a mechwarrior. I love the action but a part of me thinks that helping create the next big thing in mechs would be...Awesome."

She closed the book in front of her and leaned back to stretch.

"UUUuunnnggghhhh. So, what have you been up to Wildcat; is the Clowder ready to rumble?"

[Catherine Maia Hayes]

"The problem with heat overloading your enemy is that even if it works, you still need to take them out somehow. Unless their ammo gets cooked, but then you all too often just end up with shredded scraps of relatively little salvageable value."

"Even if the idea of flaming your enemies down sounds really hot." Catherine jokes with a grin.

"I want to be a mech pilot through and through, but designing mechs is the next best thing to do when I'm not sitting in a cockpit."

The redhead is small enough that she can just lean forward and place her arms on the table to rest her head on.

"The clowder is ready enough, flawed but functional. Wildhog and Ostrich are solid. Mouse still needs training, but we are working on that. How are your Umbral Lords doing?"

[Mei-Ling Zhou]

"As ready as were going to be. Turtle is nervous which is a good sign, he's always nervous just before an engagement so if he wasn't I would be worried. Stella is itching to try out her new mech and Hankey is probably drinking right now. As for me..." She spread her arms wide to indicate the work she's been doing. "I'm just trying to keep my mind off other things and focused on the job. Once I'm in the cockpit I will be fine but right now I am distracted by a lot of things."

[Catherine Maia Hayes]

Catherine giggles softly. "Sounds like you have your hands full with your lance and still need more things to do, Goo? Let's hope things go well then."

She looks down at the table covered in books and notes. "And fiddling with mech concepts is a lot of fun too."

Head still resting on her arms, the small redhead shifts her gaze back on Mei-Ling. "Let's both do our best tomorrow and get things rolling."

[Mei-Ling Zhou]

"Oh no my lance is good. We get along really well but we are all very different, I'm gonna make the rounds soon and just check in on them but thankfully I don't have to micromanage them much and they all have hobbies I enjoy and can share with them. We have a little pre-combat ritual you may witness. It's REALLY weird I know but we huddle up like a sports team and just insult the crap out of each other.

It's a little different this time, it's our first combat as Angels but rather than being sad or nostalgic we're all pretty mad and itching to blow something up especially Hoops; she's the one I'm gonna have to keep an eye on. She had been with the Knights the longest, lost a lot of friends and despite her low rank she had invested a lot of money into the company.

I'm not going to say anything that could jinx us but I believe this is gonna be a great contract."

[Catherine Maia Hayes]

The small redhead blinks at that and asks incredulously. "You huddle up and insult each other? Why?!"

She can understand the feeling mad and wanting to blow stuff up part a little, even if her own reasons are different and she has managed to cool down, thanks to her friends.

"Have Fun blowing stuff up then, Goo!" She encourages with a grin. "Just please make sure you don't destroy any good salvage. And don't be too reckless either. Good Luck tomorrow!"

[Mei-Ling Zhou]

"Yeah good luck to you too and thanks for the reality check. Where are you off to?"

[Catherine Maia Hayes]

"Laks finally got me some Sim time!" Catherine answers excitedly. "Said she has something nasty planned for Easy and me."