the shape of things to come

fi ghter, aerodyne Small Craft, spheroid Small Craft, aerodyne
DropShip or spheroid DropShip). The sheet must have all
data fi lled in for the Fighter/DropShip Data Block (including
name, tonnage, engine and Thrust Points). All equipment slots
must be allocated on the Weapons and Equipment Inventory
(including shots per weapon, where appropriate). All extraneous
armor and Structural Integrity points must be blacked out
on the Armor Diagram.
In the case of aerospace units, weapons allocated in groups
are treated diff erently on the record sheets, based on unit
type. For fi ghters (conventional and aerospace), weapons are
grouped by the same type but may be fi red individually in
combat. Thus, when listing the heat and damage values of a
weapons group, these values should be presented as the value
for a single weapon in that group (for example, a listing for 2
ER large lasers in a single fi ghter location would state “2 Large
Lasers” under the Quantity and Weapon columns, but show
8 for Heat and 8 for damage at Short and Medium ranges,
refl ecting just one weapon fi red. Small Craft and DropShips,
meanwhile, always fi re in full weapon bays, so if the 2 large
lasers noted for the fi ghter were assigned to a single laser
weapon bay on a DropShip, they would receive a Heat Value
of 16 and a Damage Value of 16 at Short and Medium range.
Once all of the information is completed on the aerospace
unit’s appropriate record sheet, the designer may compute
the Cost and Battle Value for the unit and bring it into Total
Warfare game play.
OMNIFIGHTERS
When completing the record sheet for an OmniFighter, it is
highly recommended that the designer create one sheet specifi
cally to serve as the base confi guration, with none of the
weapons or equipment installed that may appear on the Primary
and Alternate configurations. Copies of this base
confi guration record sheet (noting all unused tonnage as pod
space) can then be used to quickly generate record sheets for
the other confi gurations.
Robert verifies that all of the valid
data blocks are completed on his Conventional
Fighter Record Sheet,
including the ’Mechbuster’s full
name—“’Mechbuster (Laser Variant)”—in
the line for the fighter’s Type, checking off
that its Tech Base is Inner Sphere, that its tonnage is 50,
and noting its Safe Thrust as 5 and its Max Thrust as 8.
He also makes sure that its Structural Integrity of 5 is
demonstrated with 5 un-blacked circles in the grayshaded
central area on his fi ghter’s Armor Diagram. He
also lists the weapons properly on the fi ghter’s inventory,
noting the quantity per location, heat per weapon
and Damage Values per weapon at each range bracket
(Short, Medium, Long and Extreme) as shown on the
appropriate Weapons and Equipment Tables (for
example, the Buster’s Nose-mounted medium lasers
would be listed as “3” under QTY, “Nose” under Location,
“Medium Laser” under Type, “3” under Heat, “5” under
Short Range and blank under Medium, Long and
Extreme ranges). After making sure that no extraneous
circles for armor and heat sinks remain un-blacked,
that the heat sink values are correct and the proper
number of external stores boxes are left clear, Robert is
ready to compute the Battle Value and cost for his
’Mechbuster and bring it to play.
Repeating similar steps to Robert,
Scott must also be sure to save a copy of
the Aerospace Fighter Record Sheet for
his Sabutai’s base chassis with no
added weapons or heat sinks beyond
those determined before Step 5, to serve
as a template for future confi gurations.
He then fills out the Primary configuration he has
already generated using a copy of the base chassis
sheet.
Repeating the same steps as Robert,
Bruce completes his Astrolux’s Aerodyne
Small Craft Record Sheet. But as
the Astrolux has no weapons, his main focus is assuring
that the craft’s Thrust, armor and SI are noted properly,
and that its crew, passenger and cargo values are
appropriately recorded in the Notes block.
Chris begins filling out his
Nekohono’o’s Spheroid DropShip
Record Sheet in the same manner as
Robert and Bruce, noting basic data
such as tonnage, thrust ratings, vessel
class name, armor, SI and heat sink values. He must
enter the weapon data somewhat differently than
the fi ghter designers, however, with each weapon bay
treated as a single line of data that includes its weapon
bay class (for example, “Capital Missile (Kraken-T)”), its
fi ring arc (“Nose”), the combined heat for all weapons in
the bay (“150”) and the combined Damage Value of all
weapons in the bay at each range bracket the weapons
can reach (“30” for Short, Medium, Long and Extreme
range brackets). Chris must also sum up the heat for the
entire fi ring arc and enter this in the DropShip’s Heat
Data block, providing values that can be used to quickly
determine which full arcs may be fi red without exceeding
the vessel’s heat capacity.
Other data that Chris must fi ll out includes the number
of fighters and Small Craft the vessel may be
carrying (“6/9” for this vessel), their launch rate (“4/4”
here, as both the fi ghter and the Small Craft bays have
2 doors) and the number of lifeboats and escape pods
(“0/6”). The crew values must also be filled in. Like
Bruce’s Astrolux, the crew, passengers and cargo values,
including the arrangement of any specialized bays,
must also be described in the unit’s Notes block. For
instance, the Nekohono’o’s fighter bay may be listed
under Notes as: “Bay 1: Fighters (6) 2 Doors”.
For her Arcadia-class DropShip,
Dawn follows the same steps Chris used
to complete his Nekohono’o’s record
sheet to fi ll out her Aerodyne DropShip
Record Sheet.
INTRODUCTION
CONSTRUCTION
BASICS
BATTLEMECH
CONSTRUCTION
INDUSTRIALMECH
CONSTRUCTION
PROTOMECH
CONSTRUCTION
COMBAT VEHICLE
CONSTRUCTION
SUPPORT VEHICLE
CONSTRUCTION
CONV. INFANTRY
CONSTRUCTION
BATTLE ARMOR
CONSTRUCTION
AEROSPACE UNIT
CONSTRUCTION
WEAPONS AND
HEAVY EQUIPMENT
INFANTRY WEAPONS
AND EQUIPMENT
COSTS AND
AVAILABILITY
BATTLE VALUE
INDEX
RECORD SHEETS
199