Five Star Stories MEKTON!

[Nu Soard Graphite]

MORTAR HEADD WEAPONRY:

Mortar Headd weapons can run the gamut from machineguns and lasers to swords and beam blades (called Spaads).

Beam Weapons:
Ranged beam weaponry like lasers and plasma weaponry are quite common equipment on most Mortar Headds. While most MH's have very powerful beam weapons at their disposal, they are mostly relegated to anti-personnel and anti-vehicular roles (Headdliners preferring to bring melee weaponry to bear against other MH's). If one looks at the weapons layout of the Led Mirage (I know, not the typical MH, but one of the few with a complete writeup for us to go by) it mentions anti-personnel lasers and "anti-material" lasers (probably for vehicles like Air Barrel) as well as "Demonlition Blasters" (no clue). Thus lasers seem to be fairly standard equipment. I would suggest damage to be around 4K to 6K with unlimited shots (ezlaser should have no problem powering a basic laser weapon), all-purpose option, and no Warm-up. Optionally, these can be made with a burst value. BV2 or BV3 should be good. Much more than that qualifies the weapon as a "Laser machinegun" which is what a Birarkema is. Building a Birarkema, it should be at least 6K with increased range (I suggest at least 150%) 1 turn Warm-up time (actually a cool down period) with an infinite number of shots (stemming from Ezlaser and high capacity batteries built into the Birarkema housing) and a BV of at least 5 (infinite BV is not unreasonable). Remember that the Rogue Mirage is equipped with two of these babies. (I will post a complete mock-up of the Rogue Mirage's Birarkema weapon shortly)
I have no idea what "blasters" are. Are they plasma weapons? Particle Beams? Projectile based? Nagano has yet to say, but these weapons are mentioned on both the LED Mirage and the Bangdoll. For now we will assume they are some sort of Plasma or particle weapon and assume they fit into the Beam weapon category. For Blasters, I would make them at least 8K damage (maybe even 10K) Buster Launchers are also Beam weaponry of a sort, but there are some special considerations when building them and I will cover these items in their own section. Don't forget to use space efficiency so that the weapon can easily fit into the location it is placed in, which most commonly seems to be the head (MH eye lasers seem to be very common) or Torso and Arms (shoulders). Anti-personnel lasers are more than likely placed in the feet or knees of the MH.

Energy Melee Weapons:
These are normally represented by a MH carrying a Spaad. They are pretty standard as Beam Swords go. Hot Knife Through Butter effect (-4 SP to the armor of the location hit!), fairly accurate (at least +1) and with a damage yield of at least 6K (but more likely closer to 8K). While Spaads don't do much damage compared to metal Speids, they do penetrate armor extremely well and are easy to carry. Most Spaads are written up with the limited use limitation (10 turns max) but also the rechargeable option as well (which evens out when you couple it with 10 turn use limitation) and oftentimes the Quick option. (MH's can wield Spaads very very quickly because of the low mass involved)

to be continued...