I know this is a long shot but I am going to ask anyway.

I am a long time reader of the MechWarrior series. While some of the new DA series are by old time authors that know what they are doing others have me constantly rolling my eyes. "Seargent Drat" the mech that has not moved in 20+ years is rearmed by one person (that has never done this before) with missles that were just sitting around for 20+ years, flips the ON switch and goes to town. Give me a freeking break.

That being said I would like to make a stab at at least writing some short stories. However, I have virtually no access to technical specs. Little things like weight, armament, speed and all that are vital to making the story believable and not eye rolling groaners.

Can anyone point me to a web site or even some books that I might be able to scrounge up someplace?

Thanks

ralphredjou@comcast.net

Well you have come to the source of the milk my friend. Just do a google search for info online and try Amazon.com for the technical books. Thats where allot of us get those sort of things.


I go down to the sea again.
To the lonely sea and sky.
And all I ask is a tall ship,
And a star to steer her by.

Unfortunately there are no tech readouts or sourcebooks of any real kind for Dark Age (though they are the core of Classic Battletech).

However, I think there's a publication of CBT record sheets for the Dark Age mechs for people who want to play in the DA era with CBT rules. No fluff, just stats here.

e.g. http://www.warehouse23.com/item.cgi?FPR10983

Thanks for the link Jaegerurbie but that's not quite what I was looking for.
Whether Classic or DA really does not matter for my purposes.
I really kick myself now as I had almost all the Classic books but then FASA tanked I gave them all away because the series was dead.

Lets take a Fox Armored Car as an example.
How much does it weigh?
How many wheels does it have? Does it even HAVE wheels?
How many crew?
What weapons does it have? What are their ranges? Cyclec rate?

What is the differance between a regular medium laser and a ER one? Sure, it has extended range but what does it trade off for that advantage? Weight? Slower firing? Runs hotter?
How does that compare to a pulse medium laser?

The DA books are so vague the author can say virtually anything and mo one would have a clue. One person could say it has 6 wheels, another could say 4 or 8 and how would we know.

In the story I am writing the hero has a prototype EMP gun. A device that looks like the M-79 "blooper" grenade launcher from the Vietnam era.
Anyway, he is sneaking up on troops engaged in combat and is going to demonstrate the effectiveness of this weapon. I plan on him zapping a few infantry, a powered battle suit, a couple vehicles and a small mech.
The infantry is simple as is the armored battle suit. However, lets take the Fox again. Does it have an energy main weapon? How will a EMP affect the various systems of the vehicle. What ARE the various systems on the vehicle?

I find this very frustrating.

An EMP is likely to have little to no effect on any BattleTech or Dark Age vehicle; remember that these things take PPC shots fairly often, and a PPC is getting dangerously close to directed lightning. Their systems would be hardened against the electrical surge of PPC hits...and EMPs.

***
"Gunnery control, fry that ****er!"-nuclear1, HLP, on what the GVD Psamtik really meant in the first mission of Freespace 2.

"Oh great, now even the United States frikkin gubment is boating ER Large Lasers..."-Black Caesar

You might want to check out www.classicbattletech.com

New releases -- http://www.classicbattletech.com/cbt_update_newreleases.html

Maybe Combat Equipment would be interesting to you --
http://www.classicbattletech.com/cbt_products_sb.html#CombatEquip

You could pick up a latest copy of the Master Rules for general questions --
http://www.classicbattletech.com/cbt_products_rules.html#Battletech

I have been thinking about a PPC blast. To be used as a weapon an energy a beam has to be focused and directed. It would also have to be something that would not just be grounded out by a big hunk of metal that is often standing on wet ground if not ice or water.

Whereas a laser is focused beams of (light) electrons a PPC would have to take particles of matter and accelerate them to near speed of light velocity in the direction of the focus elements, the barrel of the PPC holding these focus elements.
I imagine it would be similar in principle to a Gauss weapon but using bits of matter instead of big chunks of iron and near light speeds instead of “merely” hypersonic.

I could also see this process generating lots of static electricity and producing the “lightning bolt” effect displayed in cover art. I.e. a main beam of raw power with “ropes” of lightning crawling along the beam. The ropes would be brief flashes of static electricity as the whole process would be over in micro-seconds but cover art lives forever.

I can also imagine that it would make a big difference what “bits of matter” you are accelerating and that you would want to either want to supply them or create them just before launching them. Since I have never seen anyone talk about PPC ammo I assume you create something like a plasma ball. That would also be supported by the pre-fire glow that is often reported. A contained nuclear flame (the plasma ball) traveling at 186,000 miles per second (speed of light) would only have a life of milli-seconds before going out. That would be the effective range of the weapon and I can see why it would be pretty devastating.

In DA #4 A Silence in the Heavens, Paladin Crow uses an extended range medium laser to trigger a lightning strike on a Ryoken II Battlemech which then falls over in a smoking heap.
I have seen movies of people doing this exact same thing on television. They use small rockets to create smoke trails which the lighting follows to ground.

In Paladin Crow’s case I would guess his weapon left a vaporized trail of water droplets that the lightning followed until it encountered the large metal mass of the Ryoken II.
Lol, I can also imagine what would have happened if his energy bolt had been too far from the Ryoken II for the lightning to jump over. Fried Paladin. But then again, since the writer (Martin DelRio) was going for this effect I don’t imagine a miss was going to happen.