From: carlton@apollo.hp.com (Carl Hommel)
Subject: BTECH: Mech Editor available for ms-dos
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 21:36:40 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

I have uploaded the file meched32.zip to the UMich archive.  It should
be available after the usual delay.  Use ftp or /afs to access the
file after it becomes available.  I do not have the time to email
copies of the file; however, I am willing to ftp it to a limited number
of other sites that will make it available to others.

Mechedit is a BattleMech editor written by Henry Link.  Version 32
supports 3025, 2750, 3050, 3055, and Clan mechs.  This is not a game.
It merely allows you to quickly create and modify Mechs.  You will need
an MS-DOS system or emulator.

Below is the readme.txt file I wrote to describe the program.  Future
postings will include the additional files mentioned below.

Carl Hommel
carlton@apollo.hp.com






This file is not part of the original mechedit distribution.  It
discusses some implementation bugs in Mechedit 3.2, and my additions to
the files.

I got a copy of the 1990 version of mechedit from someone in my gaming
group.  Unfortunately, Henry Link, the author, is no longer at the
phone number listed in the program.  I called the Strange Quark BBS, at
(614) 236-2028, and sent email to the sysop.  He said that other people
had called his board looking for Henry, but Henry hadn't logged on in a
while, and had never talked with the sysop about his game.

Be that as it may, I downloaded version 3.2 of mechedit - which you now
have.  However, it did not have any of the old 2750 or 3025 mechs -
just some badly transcribed copies of the 3055 mechs.  Worse, the data
files from the old mechedit were incompatible.

So, I embarked on a two week project of spending several hours a night
printing out the data sheets from the old mechedit, and typing them
into the new one.  I included the 2750, 3025, and 3050 mechs, as well
as all the variants.  Note that I was working from the books and the
old mechedit writeups, and not from the record sheets in the BattleTech
books.  Thus, some of the printouts will be in error.  Sorry.  As I
have a philosophical objection to the 3055 mechs, and I won't buy that
book, they are not included in this archive.

Here are some bugs in the mechedit 3.2 version:
1.  It computes Ferro-Fibrous fractions differently than FASA.  Thus,
    FASA says that a mech should have 207 armor points for 15 tons,
    mechedit only allows 206.  I usually took the extra point off of
    the rear center torso.
2.  It rounds .25 ton fractions to .5 tons.  This is only a problem for
    mechs with both XL engines for X.25 tons and Endo Steel for Y.75
    tons.  Mechedit insists that you have 1/2 ton less than FASA
    allows.  I usually took this off of MG ammo.
3.  When you hit <Pg Dwn> while loading a mech, to go to the second
    page, the list is off-by-one.

I have included the mech.doc from the original mechedit.zip archive.
Note that the 3.2 version already includes the weapons editor.

Also included is a data sheet speed.lst showing, for each speed, the
tonnage that will allow the most payload.  Ie, if you want to build 
(using standard 3025 rules) a mech that moves 5/8/0, then you should
use a 60 ton mech.  This will give you 29 tons to use for weapons,
armor, and ammo.

I have included a perl program, listmch.pl.  It translates the output
from the Status Sheet into a one-line per mech format.  I used this to
generate the file mech.lst.  Perl is a widely available and massively
useful freeware program.

Mech.lst is wider than 80 characters.  However, it can be used with
useful Un*x utilities like grep and sort to answer such questions as:
o What mechs have PPCs?
o What is the heaviest mech that can go 5/8/0?
o What mechs are under or over armored compared to other mechs in their tonnage?

I spent the time to type this stuff in in order to gain an
encyclopediac knowledge of what the available "standard" mechs were.  I
hope you find it useful also.  For example, check out the following
mechs.  They are suprisingly (for FASA) well-designed...
    JVN-10F Javelin 
    FS-9M Mirage   
    HBK-4P Hunchback
    WVR-6M Wolverine
    BNC-3M Banshee 

My electronic mail address is carlton@apollo.hp.com .  It is an "Internet"
address, and can be reached from many of the online services and some BBSs.

Copyright (c) Carl Hommel, 1992
Permission to freely redistribute in an electronic format is granted.