Bibliographical notes, editorial changes, extra rules and everything else!
Release dates:
StarDate 3/1 - February 1987
StarDate 3/2 - March 1987
StarDate 3/3 - May 1987
StarDate 3/4 - 3rd quarter 1987
StarDate 3/5 - 3rd or 4th quarter 1987
StarDate 3/6 - 4th quarter 1987
StarDrive 1/1 - 1st quarter 1988
Please note:
"author or illustrator tbd" = to be determined = not clearly marked in the article. If you know more, please let me know!
pages ran consecutively throughout all six issues of Volume 3
all record sheets created with Heavy Metal programmes, all BV = BV 1
listed kph speeds were very much part of the "fluff" in these articles; I used today's standardised speeds on the pages, original speeds supplied here
'Mechs:
Ultralight 'Mech introduction: StarDrive 1/1, p. 6, author John A. Theisen. Introduction to the article which included an Ultralight for each House and the StarLeague.
Junior: StarDrive 1/1, pp. 6-8, author John A. Theisen, illustrator tbd. Part of the Muster of Mini-'Mechs.
Listed speed: 46.3 kph / 69.9 kph
'Mech quirk: The first Head Critical Hit: Sensors only adds a +l - not +2 - penalty modifier to the To-Hit Number. The second hit still destroys the sensor. Cut from 2nd paragraph of "Capabilities".
'Mech quirk: If in Depth 1 water, roll 4+ each turn to avoid shutdown, 6+ if in Depth 2, or 10+ if in Depth 3. If shutdown occurs, the Mech Warrior may attempt to restart normally; the 'Mech will not automatically restart. Cut from 3rd paragraph of "Capabilities".
Slowpoke: StarDrive 1/1, pp. 8-9, author John A. Theisen, illustrator tbd. Part of the Muster of Mini-'Mechs.
Listed speed: 23.9 kph / 38.8 kph
'Mech quirk: If spares [for either the communications and/or targeting systems] cannot be found, replacing either system requires a Technician with a minimum Skill Level of 4. Cut from 3rd paragraph of "Capabilities".
Mite: StarDate 3/6, pp. 435-436, author tbd, illustrator Gideon. At the time, the Wolf's Dragoons book (featuring the Davion Hornet) had obviously not been released yet.
Listed speed: 108.0 kph / 162.0 kph
Ambassador: StarDrive 1/1, pp. 13-15, author John A. Theisen, illustrator tbd. Part of the Muster of Mini-'Mechs.
Listed speed: 112.1 kph / 177.3 kph
'Mech quirk: There is a 5 percent chance that any Ambassador encountered will be equipped with 1D10 Star League heat sinks, which may be removed and mounted into any other BattleMech or vehicle. Cut from 4th paragraph of "Capabilities" - before the advent of any official double heat sink rules!
'Mech quirk: There is a 1 percent chance that each jump jet will ice over for every minute exposed to sub-freezing temperatures in which the jets are not fired. If either jet is fired while clogged-determine randomly which jet is affected, if necessary - the resulting explosion will destroy the jet and cause 4 points of damage to the rear center torso. Cut from 5th paragraph of "Capabilities".
Apollo: StarDrive 1/1, pp. 10-12, author John A. Theisen, illustrator tbd. Part of the Muster of Mini-'Mechs. The variant was a logical conclusion from the description of the text, the designation, I would say, presented itself.
Listed speed: 66.7 kph / 91.1 kph
'Mech quirk: If the center torso is hit - armor or internal structure - roll 5+ to avoid having the machine gun jam. Otherwise, it is out of service until a Technician can clear it, a task requiring Skill Level 1+ and half an hour. Cut from 3rd paragraph of "Capabilities".
Foxfire: StarDrive 1/1, pp. 12-13, author John A. Theisen, illustrator tbd. Part of the Muster of Mini-'Mechs. The poem is from BattleTechnology 0203, p. 58, as part of the More than Warriors section that featured regularly in the early issues and contained poems and songs!! Whether Theisen had already composed the poem when writing for StarDate or was inspired by the section in BattleTechnology is open to speculation.
Listed speed: 96.6 kph / 142.2 kph
'Mech quirk: During the third and subsequent consecutive turns of running, the 'Mech produces 4 heat points per turn not 2. Cut from 2nd paragraph of "Capabilities".
Stiletto: StarDrive 1/1, pp. 9-10, author John A. Theisen, illustrator tbd. Part of the Muster of Mini-'Mechs.
Listed speed: 63.4 kph / 90.4 kph
'Mech quirk: [The cramped internal structure is inconvenient,] increasing by 25 percent all repair times that involve an elec, sensor, fusion, or gyro kit. Cut from 2nd paragraph of "Capabilities".
Flea: StarDate 3/1, pp. 4-5, authors (and illustration?) Forest G. Brown and L. R. "Butch" Leeper. Probably the introduction of the Flea to the BattleTech universe. The only time that the change of designation from Trooper to Flea is covered. Stats have long become canon, hence no record sheets. The FLE-15 erroneously allocated 4 armour points too many (1 point was later removed from each front side torso and leg).
Listed speeds: FLE-4 - 62.9 kph / 97.6 kph; FLE-15 - 63.7 kph / 98.3 kph
Hedgehog: StarDate 3/5, pp. 322-326, author tbd, illustrator Gideon. This was obviously a StarDate homebrew - notice the Utica brand names! (StarDate was published in Utica, MI) Used the Tripod Rules by David "MacAttack" McCullough to bring it somewhat into line with what can conceivably be used in a CBT game. The table at the bottom was created with the help of BattleMech Designer. MacAttack also created a Record Sheet, which I suggest you use (and no, the Hedgehog does not, to my knowledge, use the "Goldfish Technology Base"). The original Hedgehog strangely utilised a Pitban 285 engine; the speed was erroneously given as 9/13. The 7 tons of armour were originally allocated as following: Body - 22, Leg Mountings (= Upper Legs) - 12, Legs - 16; I used MacAttack's suggested armour values. The smoke projector weighed in at 1 ton, 4 criticals, which nicely allowed me to use the relatively new rules for Grenade Launchers, Vehicular (VGL) from Tactical Operations, p. 315 (ammunition rules pp.363-364).
Listed speed: 91.8 kph / 132.5 kph
Suggested 'Mech quirk: kicks from the Hedgehog are resolved on the Punch Location Table.
Longbow: StarDate 3/2, pp. 57-59, author tbd, illustrator tbd. The introduction of the Longbow to the BattleTech universe. Stats have long become canon, hence no record sheets. As you can see, the Longbow LGB-0W originally was the Longbow LGB-OW. It was also, for lack of other words, better. It lacked the SL and only carried 1 ton of LRM5 ammo. The armour was a somewhat more respectable 10.5 tons, allocated H-9 - CT-23/10 - R/LT-20/8 - A-15 - L-20. The (very poorly formatted) write-up in Sorenson's Sabres changed that. The LGB-8C is, in fact, the LGB-7Q. It was 2 tons overweight, as it originally carried 2 additional ML in the side torsos, firing into the rear arc.
Listed speeds: LGB-OW - 43.7 kph / 63.7 kph; LGB-8C - 33.6 kph / 53.2 kph
Suggestion: If you want to field the Longbow LGB-8C, use a LGB-0W model and LGB-7Q stats.
Pillager: StarDate 3/5, pp. 318-321, author Jack Freeman, illustrator Gideon. Armour allocation of Matchmaker was not specified; placed it myself.
Listed speed: 34.7 kph / 52.1 kph / 61 meters jump
'Mech quirk: NOTE: the Pillager needs only 3+ to punch, instead of 4+. Cut from 5th paragraph of "Capabilities". Translates into a -1 to hit bonus with Total Warfare rules.
Vehicles:
Gremlin: StarDate 3/4, pp. 207-208, author Jack Freeman, illustrator tbd. The Firebug needed to mount different types of flamers to meet the described specs; maybe Flamer mounts on vehicles had not yet been fleshed out in 1987? The precedents of Technical Readout: 3025 were the Patton and the Packrat - both utilised fusion engines. Armour allcoation of the Pixie was not specified; placed it myself.
Listed speed: 79.6 kph / 119.4 kph
Quicksilver: StarDate 3/4, pp. 205-206, author Jack Freeman, illustrator tbd. I have included only the Small Laser option out of the four armed variants mentioned. Even this one - still leaving the most armour, would be a horrible deathtrap. Armour allocation was not specified; placed it myself. My advice: stick with the base model and drive like a bat out of hell.
Listed speed: 131.5 kph / 201.8 kph
Shillelagh: StarDate 3/6, pp. 433-434, author tbd, illustrator Gideon. The MG variant mounts the armour given in the write-up and should be considered the standard configuration! The Shillelagh simply mounted a 'Mech Flamer without any of the extras that such an energy weapon requires (were Vehicle Flamers only introduced at a later stage? - See Gremlin Firebug, above). Armour allocation of variants was not specified; placed it myself.The way the reduced-LRMs-more-armour variant was worded, I left the MG as secondary armament on that one.
Listed speed: 50.3 kph / 81.9 kph
Off the Shelf:
This was a regular column in StarDate. It would introduce a real piece of 20th century military hardware, discuss it and then usually present stats for an appropriate games system. For aircraft, this ususally was Top Gun, for vehicles Battletech (the gun for just about every major RPG!). The following articles were published:
StarDate 3/1 - F-20 Tigershark; MiG-29 Fulcrum
StarDate 3/2 - M1 Abrams
StarDate 3/3 - BCS-1S Starship One
StarDate 3/4 - Heckler & Koch PSG1 sniper rifle
StarDate 3/5 - C-130 Hercules
StarDate 3/6 - Grumman X-29
StarDrive 1/1 - Armored Cars
Note: there was another regular column called Inventive Ordnance. This introduced anything from MechWarrior utensils (such as a Grenade Launcher with a lose set of rules in SD 3/1) and game variant rules (such as rules for Smoke in the wake of the Hedgehog in SD 3/6) to AeroTech units (the Wombat and Cavalier, listed below). Basically a column that was on the other end of the spectrum from Off the Shelf: it invented 31st century (or Star Trek)military hardware, yet functioned mainly in a universe-building way with limited use for standard gaming.
Armored Cars: StarDrive 1/1, pp.60-62, author tbd, illustrator tbd. Off the Shelf article. This article had the worst formating of all the StarDate forays into BattleTech. In part, that was because weight was still allocated in half tons, fractional accounting was used for internal structure, controls and turrets, and completely redundant heat sinks were randomly mounted. In other parts, the fact remains that engine weights were off, and so were most total tallies; the internal structure correlated to the total weight in only two of these five.. I tried to reconstruct them with modern rules, keeping all stats intact while making them as unique as possible.
Alvis Saladin: 15.5 tons, 1.2 tons internal structure, 45 ICE engine, 1 heat sink. At 16 tons and without the heat sink, this one worked like a charm! No further changes were needed.
Panhard ALM: 17.5 tons, 1.6 tons internal structure, 85 engine, 6/8 speed (!), 1 heat sink. To differentiate it somewhat from the other designs, I opted to go with the internal structure on this one. To carry the MG, I also had to chose the slower of the two possible speeds. The last change was increasing the MG ammunition to a full ton - it originally only carried only half of that!
BRDM-1: 16 tons, 1.7 tons internal structure, 60 engine, 4 heat sinks. Due to the copious spare weight of the Heat Sinks, I could add amphibious equipment (Tactical Operations, p. 303) modification, staying true to its description. Finally, the last extra ton could be allocated to infantry - the BRDM originally was an IFV, after all.
Renault BVC-90: 17.5 tons, 1.75 tons internal structure, 85 engine, 6/8 speed (!), no heat sink. To differentiate it from the Cadillac, I opted for the faster speed on the Renault. However, this necessitated an more noticeable increase in weight. The half-ton of MG ammunition is true to what is noted in the article.
Cadillac Gage V-600: 17.5 tons, 1.75 internal structure, 70 engine, 1 heat sink. This one remained virtually unchanged. It needed to drop .5 tons, but the heat sink accounted for both that and the cancellation of fractional accounting. Yes, this one (like the Panhard and Renault) always only carried .5 tons of MG ammunition.
Finally, one can note that this article also does a relatively poor job of recreating these designs - not in the context of the BT universe, but merely relatively speaking. The BRDM-1 is stated to have a maximum of 10 mm armour, the Saladin 32 mm; the former, as a BT unit, carries the heaviest armour of all of them! The Panhard is stated to weigh 5500 kg in real life, yet weighs three times as much as a BT unit. All of them apart from the BRDM mount an AC2, even though the Saladin and Panhard are much older than the Renault or Cadillac (the former of which is deliberately described to have a powerful cannon). Nevertheless, it is nice to have a collection of near-useless fluff-serving designs, much in the spirit of the MechWarrior 1st edition vehicles.
Listed maximum road speeds: Saladin - 72 kph; Panhard - 90 kph; BRDM - 80 kph; Renault - 92 kph; Cadillac - 90 kph
Abrams: StarDate 3/2, pp. 99-103, author tbd, illustrator tbd (if any). Off the Shelf article. The text on my page is the general description found on p. 99. There was another page of a hypothetical Q&A. Stats of both the M1 and M1A1 were supplied for BattleTech, The Revised Recon, Twilight: 2000 and real life. There was a photo, 4 technical drawings (side, top, front and rear views) and the reproduced picture, which may have either been an illustration or an edited photo.
The editing for BattleTech was very inaccurate. The M1 weighed in at 60 tons, the M1A1 at 63. Both moved at 5/8, yet fielded 250 engines. In fact, apart from the weight, the only other difference was the main weapon (AC5 on the M1, AC10 on the M1A1). The speed needed to drop down to 4/6 at which stage the M1 became unworkable because it was so underweight. I thus discarded it (there is no reason for it to be able to carry 2+ platoons of infantry, especially if the M1A1 does not). Effectively, the weights for every single stat of the M1A1 were slightly off, with the exception of the armour, the MG and their ammunition (1 full ton). By dropping the speed to 4/6, the 63-ton Abrams could field exactly what was noted, with the exception of having to drop down the MG ammunition to .5 tons.
Listed speed: 50 kph / 70 kph
Suggestion: if you are using Tactical Operations, exchange the 255 ICE engine for a 315 Fuel Cell. It is a one-to-one swap (!!) that brings up the Abrams' speed to 5/8!
Infantry:
Infantry Armor Intoduction: StarDate 3/4, p. 214, author tbd. Inventive Ordnance article: Body Armor. This, at first, presented a real problem as I was not going to include any MechWarrior hardware on my page. However, the article was simply too elaborate - and the art far too gorgeous - to ignore. As I said, these were a problem: they presented stats for Traveller: 2300, StarTrek the RPG and MechWarrior 1st edition. Unfortunately, these were not even complete by today's standard and some of them (possibly the Phoenix and definitely the Emperor) completely break with what has since been established as canon. For a brief time I had contemplated rebuilding them as battle armor, by simply not giving the Nine Lives any stats, making the Phoenix a PA(L) and the Emperor a suit of somewhere between standard and assault size. However, that requires an in-depth knowledge of stats-transfer between MW 1st edition and TechManual rules (with all the intermediate steps in-between).
Should someone be able to assist me here, I would appreciate it. This would greatly enhance this portion of the TRO and enable me to include all the MechWarrior gear from StarDate (and BattleTechnology)! Please e-mail me! Needed would be: a sample of MW1/2 stats for some established canon Battle Armor suits; a formula to transfer MW1/2 weapon stats to MW3 and then, in turn, to TechManual CBT standards.
In the meantime, TacOps came to the rescue. On pp. 317-318 it shows stats for �nfantry armour of conventional platoons. The Nine Lives obviously was the equivalent to the basic Ablative/Flak armour, so I could just transfer the stats from that. The Phoenix is a Sneak Suit, Camo, with double the armour to reflect its energy weapon-absorption capabilities. These were derived from the description in the text, as was its rarity; the year 3020 was a pure invention on my part. If you can reference the Thompson's Haven incident described in the text, once again, please tell me so! Finally, the Emperor was devised off of that. Seeing as the damage absorption capacity was 1.5 times that of the best suits described in TacOps, and it is just so much beefier than the other two suits, the "E" was deemed a necessity, even though it is not supported by the text. For the prices, I had two choices - use the Traveller or the Star Trek prices; MW had no costs! I had the TacOps price for the Ablative/Flak armour: 800 c-bills. This was the exact amount of currency as the StarTrek price and exactly double of that of the Traveller suit. I could then chose either the StarTrek prices as presented, or double that of the Traveller stats (the assumption being that the multiplier remained linear). I decided on the latter, as the prices were higher (and the Emperor claimed to cost as much as a medium 'Mech! Something absolutely not true even with the higher price). The prices of StarTrek would have been 25,000 and 50,000 for the Phoenix and Emperor, respectively. For the notes, I will present some changes made to the Emperor and their write-up for MechWarrior so you can cross-reference these yourselves.
Note: please refer to Tactical Operations, pp. 317-318 for the rules to use the given performance statistics.
Nine Lives: StarDate 3/4, p. 214, author tbd, illustrator Gideon. Part of the Inventive Ordnance - Body Armor article. MechWarrior - Reduces by 1/2 all damage taken from slug throwing weapons and stops 1 points of energy weapon damage. Absorbs 30 points of damage and protects the torso and limbs.
Phoenix: StarDate 3/4, p. 215, author tbd, illustrator Gideon. Part of the Inventive Ordnance - Body Armor article. MechWarrior - Reduces by 1/2 all damage taken from slug throwing weapons and stops 5 points of energy weapon damage. Absorbs 30 points of physical damage and is not affected by energy weapon damage. It protects the entire body.
Emperor: StarDate 3/4, p. 216, author tbd, illustrator Gideon. Part of the Inventive Ordnance - Body Armor article. MechWarrior - Reduces by 3/4 all damage taken from slug throwing weapons and stops 3 points of energy weapon damage. It protects the entire body. Add +5 MP's to any movement on foot. Has 4 heat sinks - use BattleTech heat scale.
Note: changed weight from 8 to 1 ton (!!) to keep it somewhere in the realm of the BattleTech universe. In the same vein, changed its speed from 130 to 30 (!!) kph.
AeroTech Units:
Fighter Introduction: StarDate 3/3, p. 127, author John A. Theisen. Introduction to the article Five of a Kind. Note that unlike in the following year's A Muster of Mini-'Mechs article, Theisen did not include information on manufacturers, "Battle History" and "Pilots". Stats for the five fighters were summarised separately on pp. 132-133.
Gadfly: StarDate 3/3, pp. 127 & 129, author John A. Theisen, illustrator Gideon. Part of the Five of a Kind. AT1 armour allocation: Cockpit-10, Nose-9, Wings-6, Fuselage-13, Engine-6.
Ariane: StarDate 3/3, p. 131, author John A. Theisen, illustrator Gideon. Part of the Five of a Kind. AT1 armour allocation: Cockpit-13, Nose-23, Wings-11, Fuselage-29, Engine-11.
Siren: StarDate 3/3, p. 130, author John A. Theisen, illustrator Gideon. Part of the Five of a Kind. AT1 armour allocation: Cockpit-14, Nose-31, Wings-17, Fuselage-43, Engine-16.
Traverse: StarDate 3/3, p. 129, author John A. Theisen, illustrator Gideon. Part of the Five of a Kind. AT1 armour allocation: Cockpit-13, Nose-45, Wings-28, Fuselage-48, Engine-24.
Cyclone: StarDate 3/3, pp. 130-131, author John A. Theisen, illustrator Gideon. Part of the Five of a Kind. AT1 armour allocation: Cockpit-16, Nose-62, Wings-39, Fuselage-62, Engine-32.
Starship One: StarDate 3/3, pp. 163-165, author John A. Theisen, illustrator tbd. Off the Shelf article. This is the one OtS article that completely breaks the rules (which is why it is listed amongst the AT units). It supplies Top Gun stats and instructs to use them as guide lines for MechWarrior RPG campaigns. However, unlike all other OtS articles, it does not discuss the Beech Starship One, but uses the real life performance and mission profile to invent a 22nd century spotter plane. I cut the first and last paragraphs, which simply elaborated what I just stated.
Another project: I may recreate a support vehicle based on the real-life / Top Gun stats supplied - sometime in the distant future! ;-)
Wombat: StarDate 3/2, pp. 90-92, author tbd, illustrator tbd. Inventive Ordnance article. Stats are supplied for MechWarrior [sic - really, they mean BattleTech] and Traveller: 2300. MkI weighed 39 tons, MkII 36.4! They carried 10.8 and 3.7 tons of cargo, respectively. Constructed for AT1, with these armour allocations: MkI: Cockpit-12, Nose-12, Wings-10, Fuselage-16, Engine-4; MkII: Cockpit-12, Nose-12, Wings-10, Fuselage-10, Engine-2. The armour had to be reduced (restriction on conventional aircraft).The text clearly desribes MASH capabilities, so I added a theater to each of these. The OS-SRM2s on the MkII were explicitly stated - as of the TechManual, OS launchers are part of 3025 technology. The rear facing Vehicle Flamers were originally two "Fuselage"-mounted Slayer Launchers. The Slayer was a recoilless rifle-type weapon introduced in StarDate 3/1's Inventive Ordnance article. As recoilless rifles cannot be mounted on combat vehicles and the text distinctly states that only 2 MGs are sported by the MkII, I chose to replace the Slayers with Vehcile Flamers of identical weight. The large cargo holds that remain on the record sheets are due to the MkI mounting 4, the MkII 8 extraneous heat sinks!!
Listed speeds: 370 kph / 740 kph
Note: the Record Sheets show the MASH theaters at 4 tons - I did enter them correctly at 3.5 tons. This has something to do with HMAero's output, it is not an error per se.
Note: deleted the following sentence from the 1st paragraph of "Deployment", about the forward aid stations: To be seen in a future issue of STARDATE. This statement was never followed up.
Fighter quirk: use the Flotation Hull rules found in TacOps, p. 302.
Cavalier: StarDate 3/3, pp.181-184, author C. W. Hess, illustrator tbd. Inventive Ordnance article. Originally weighed 600 tons, had to be changed to conform to AT2 rules. Stats otherwise identical, with the following exceptions: COURIER: (but not the transport) only carried 1 ton of ammo for each LRM launcher; doubled that to conform to AT2 requirement of 10+ shots per weapon; miraculously, the cargo tonnage remained the same. TRANSPORT: originally had 230 tons of cargo, separated into the two bays (150 and 80). However, it also stated that this space could contain up to 16 (!) light vehicles. Using the current rules, the available 242 tons cargo space became 4 light vehicles and 42 tons of cargo. Correspondingly, the following changes were undertaken in the text:
changed tonnage from 600 to 800, 1st paragraph of "Description"
changed tonnage from 100 to 200, 6th paragraph of "Description" (Small Craft Bay)
changed 150 tons of equipment to 4 light vehicles, 7th paragraph of "Description"
changed tonnage from 80 to 40, 8th paragraph of "Description" (an exact tonnage of 42 would have been unrealistic in the write-up)
changed a pair of light ground vehicles to a light ground vehicle, 3rd paragraph "Notable Ships" (all that would fit)
AT1 armour allocation: Nose-90, Wings-75, Fuselage-140, Engine-100.
Ship quirk: In fact, the compartment is so crowded that there is only enough room for two sets of weapons targeting controls, meaning weapons may only be targeted and fired from two arcs per turn. Cut from 12th paragraph of "Description".
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