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Tyyr wrote:

Vulcan wrote:I will remind you of the design process for the FB-111, that started with a contract for a U.S. Navy fighter, and ended with an aircraft TOTALLY unsuited for the Navy's needs...

And if the final result had a top speed of 200 mph, could carry only a single 500 lb. bomb, and had an operational range of 80 miles it would have been a screw up on the order of ohhh, the entire Jagermech series. The FB-111 wasn't great, but it's not Sentinel bad.

Let's go over that again. A fighter in the U.S. Navy - you know, the service that specializes in flying planes off of boats - made with landing gear that couldn't withstand the stresses of catapult lauches OR arresting gear landings. And wasn't worth spit in it's designated air-to-air role either! There's a reason the Air Force version is the FB-111, not the F-111.

Congress, on the other hand, thought it was magnificent because it catered to their needs - jobs on their districts. Regardless of whether it met the actual needs of the Navy.

And that sort of thing is how you wind up with things like the Jagermech (which actually does do well at its primary role - shooting down aircraft. Not so well vs. Aerospace fighters, true, but against conventional fighters and VTOLs it is Death Itself).

oh dear oh dear... Are we comparing our national defense to the 'fail' list of incompetent mechs in a fictitious 3025 era. I'm sure the list goes on and on, right? (the ten dollar rolls of toilet paper for the pentagon budget in the 80s come to mind).

So who sucks?

jagermechs (who weren't even good at their primary role), charger, cicada, shadowhawk, vulcan, Hermes II (an AC/5 on a 40 tonner are you kidding me?) urbanWRECK (PPC variant much better), banshee (95 tons of fail), goliath (gimpy rules), stinger (machineguns?!), dervish (arm ammo), shadowhawk (schizophrenic applications), stalker (WAAAY too much heat), phoenix hawk (poor weapons placement), ANYTHING with an AC/2, that's just to name a few, but I could probably pick through more than half the mechs in 3025 and find design flaws that are no-brainers to the gamer mind, but integral to the plot. I assume we are all in agreement about this. They weren't meant to be good.

But what was good? Grasshoppers were IMO an excellent efficiency mech, as were Valkyrie, Awesome (duh! hence the name), Vindicators (Vindicated house Liao from totally sucking), and... I want to nominate a couple others to the list of 'mechs-that-don't-suck-from-3025'.... Quickdraw... so fast, so jumpy, so MEDIUM-LASERY, and with the heat sinks to keep it real. Same thing with the Grasshopper. With something like the 5/8/5 quickdraw, backmounts are awesome in-game, just look bad on paper, but when you play it, you notice. Crusader also never ceased to amaze me with its staying power. That is a truly multi-faceted weapon output, and, while heat complaints arise, realize that it has two completely different capabilities. It was not meant to fire all its weapons, but its optimum weapons for a given range, with armor to let it stand. Its weapons, as were the 'Stalker' weapons, were obviously intended to be in different range brackets, not all fired at once, but carefully designed to have this punch at this distance and that punch at that distance. I thought that was pretty cool when I finally realized the crusader was actually really well thought out for its heat sinks.

oh dear oh dear... Are we comparing our national defense to the 'fail' list of incompetent mechs in a fictitious 3025 era. I'm sure the list goes on and on, right? (the ten dollar rolls of toilet paper for the pentagon budget in the 80s come to mind).

So who sucks?

jagermechs (who weren't even good at their primary role), charger, cicada, shadowhawk, vulcan, Hermes II (an AC/5 on a 40 tonner are you kidding me?) urbanWRECK (PPC variant much better), banshee (95 tons of fail), goliath (gimpy rules), stinger (machineguns?!), dervish (arm ammo), shadowhawk (schizophrenic applications), stalker (WAAAY too much heat), phoenix hawk (poor weapons placement), ANYTHING with an AC/2, that's just to name a few, but I could probably pick through more than half the mechs in 3025 and find design flaws that are no-brainers to the gamer mind, but integral to the plot. I assume we are all in agreement about this. They weren't meant to be good.

But what was good? Grasshoppers were IMO an excellent efficiency mech, as were Valkyrie, Awesome (duh! hence the name), Vindicators (Vindicated house Liao from totally sucking), and... I want to nominate a couple others to the list of 'mechs-that-don't-suck-from-3025'.... Quickdraw... so fast, so jumpy, so MEDIUM-LASERY, and with the heat sinks to keep it real. Same thing with the Grasshopper. With something like the 5/8/5 quickdraw, backmounts are awesome in-game, just look bad on paper, but when you play it, you notice. Crusader also never ceased to amaze me with its staying power. That is a truly multi-faceted weapon output, and, while heat complaints arise, realize that it has two completely different capabilities. It was not meant to fire all its weapons, but its optimum weapons for a given range, with armor to let it stand. Its weapons, as were the 'Stalker' weapons, were obviously intended to be in different range brackets, not all fired at once, but carefully designed to have this punch at this distance and that punch at that distance. I thought that was pretty cool when I finally realized the crusader was actually really well thought out for its heat sinks.

Don't stats like this often ignore 'real world' considerations like logistics? I don't remember Battletech having much for out-of-combat concerns. (There's some campaign rules for maintenance and such, but I don't remember any system to show stuff like the Urbanmech being really easy to repair or something.)

I always liked the Mad Dog (Vulture).

Never managed to get the Biasi studios one in 28mm (much as I wanted one).

I did at one stage have a bunch of 1/72 scale battlemechs though (From "Fang of the Sun, Battle armour Dougram" and "Crusher Joe" (and a couple of Macross ones). Was fun when mates and I would play with the rules from the compendium for terrain (and a 2" hex size so all movements were doubled and in inches").

We did that. The cool games though were when a freind of ours dad bar got closed down for an off ramp we ended up with on of those 7'x11' [i think] pool tables in his garage. 3x 250lbs pieces of slate. Normaly when somone would hit the table mini's would fall over, on this one the player went over.

Battlemaster with Comand Cockpit...Nuff Said

You start with this:

Guitardian wrote: ...stalker (WAAAY too much heat)...

And then go to this:

Crusader also never ceased to amaze me with its staying power. That is a truly multi-faceted weapon output, and, while heat complaints arise, realize that it has two completely different capabilities. It was not meant to fire all its weapons, but its optimum weapons for a given range, with armor to let it stand. Its weapons, as were the 'Stalker' weapons, were obviously intended to be in different range brackets, not all fired at once, but carefully designed to have this punch at this distance and that punch at that distance. I thought that was pretty cool when I finally realized the crusader was actually really well thought out for its heat sinks.

Either you're talking about a different 'mech in the first statement, or you're being dreadfully inconsistant, because both Crusader and Stalker have much the same 'range bracket' firepower theories. I personally think the main flaw with the Stalker is that it has too much LRM ammo (12 per launcher would have done just fine), freeing extra mass for some much-needed armor. Other than that I think the Stalker is pretty darn good.

Nah... It's not inconsistent. The crusader is either all LRM range, or all ML/SRM range (plus the little machineguns and its weight for kicking if you end up really close). The Stalker confused me with those awkward range large lasers which are a temptation to fire in conjunction with either the short dishout or the long dishout. Its always tempting to take that extra shot hoping for the best, but then you end up high on heat and missing anyways. The Crusader never gave you that option, so didn't encourage risky heat management shooting like the Stalker did. Tell me it isn't tempting to 'go for it' with a large laser at medium range... then you tack on your movement, your target movement, maybe some minor heat buildup, and all of a sudden you need 10+ or 11+ and just shot your heat way up. I think large lasers are best used in conjunction with either other large lasers, or AC-10/AC-5 because of the comparable range. It falls in the 'neither-here-nor-there' range bracket. Don't get me wrong I loved LL, but I just find that they don't mix well with the optimum range of any other weapons but their own kind.

The Larges on a Stalker are to be used at any range past 6. Until you get closer the Mediums have worse numbers, and they can be used pretty easily with either set of missile launchers.

And if you have a heavy armor target, at close range I tend to keep using the larges for hole punching ability.

Don't be afraid to mix it up with the Stalker, the Larges are far more important than the Mediums on it. The mediums shouldn't be in play unless you are in short range for them, or the target is already heavily damaged.

Favourites by time period and weight class:

Classic 3025 IS
Light- Jenner
Medium- Wolverine-M
Heavy- Grasshopper
Assault- Highlander

Clan Invasion 3050 to Op Bulldog IS/Clan
Light- Wolfhound 2/Dragonfly
Medium- Wraith/Ryoken
Heavy- Dragonfire/Madcat
Assault- Devastator/Daishi

I remember the first time my bud used a lance of Wraiths against me... I had what could be considered a 3025 era combined arms force: Led by a Cyclops, lots of strange Cnc type units, a few urbanmechs (on a forest board) and some light tanks. He had a lance full of wraiths. Oh good lord did he just completely slaughter me. Jumping 7 every turn, shooting pulse so they can still hit but I JUST CAN'T HIT THEIR J7. SOOOOoooooo very lopsided matchup. We laughed about it the next time I played him and I only took a force full of targetting computers. I didn't like new-tech though anyways. I don't see how anyone can bring down a lance of Wraith. They jump so far, so fast, and still shoot straight, AND they have good armor, before you know it there's one in every fire arc and their hitting your slow mech in the back no matter which way it turns, and you STILL CAN'T HIT!. ugh.

For the 3025 era, in terms of looks its all about the warhammer for me. If I had to pick a middle ground stock mech it would be the Hunchback. Medium mechs were supposed to be the most common mech, and up close nothing hits like a Hunchback.

If I myself had to pilot a stock mech, I would have to go Griffin. The Griffin had a great 'stay the eff away from me' ability, and if you personally were slugging it out in the btech universe I doubt very much you would want to be in anything slower or shorter ranged than a griffin... Hello lance of assault mechs, goodbye lance of assault mechs, Ill be over here running away from you now.

Nothing worse than being cut down by a superior force cause you choose to ride in a 100 ton metal monster like an Atlas that, while scary, cant get out of a bad situation.

After the 3025 stuff, a lot of the mechs started to bleed together, especially since they tried to fill the 'unseen' mech gap with similiar designs that were not nearly as cool. For example, how many Marauder stand ins did they make? The Dragonsfire, Maelstrom?, Bandersnatch, and Nightstar all come to mind as Marauder/Mad II wannabes--they may not be bad designs game wise, but they dont feel the same as a marauder did.

As an aside, my fav late period IS mech would have to be the Avatar omni... The thing has character despite being an omni, with its hard wired weapons and case since when it was unveiled IS omni-tech was still wacky. Also, the video game mechs had some GREAT potential, but for some reason they mucked up so much of the rules for the TT versions. IE, the Uziel was simply fantastic looking, and became the cover art for many a publication, BUT the base version was the beyond dumb--the LB2x version instead of the video game dual PPC version made less than no sense. They also hit the Thanatos and Osiris with the nerf bat--though the Argus was made awesome in retrospect.

Guitardian wrote:I remember the first time my bud used a lance of Wraiths against me... I had what could be considered a 3025 era combined arms force: Led by a Cyclops, lots of strange Cnc type units, a few urbanmechs (on a forest board) and some light tanks. He had a lance full of wraiths. Oh good lord did he just completely slaughter me. Jumping 7 every turn, shooting pulse so they can still hit but I JUST CAN'T HIT THEIR J7. SOOOOoooooo very lopsided matchup. We laughed about it the next time I played him and I only took a force full of targetting computers. I didn't like new-tech though anyways. I don't see how anyone can bring down a lance of Wraith. They jump so far, so fast, and still shoot straight, AND they have good armor, before you know it there's one in every fire arc and their hitting your slow mech in the back no matter which way it turns, and you STILL CAN'T HIT!. ugh.

The Wraith's biggest weakness is that exact tactic. You KNOW exactly what it is going to do every turn. It can't do anything else. All you have to do is position yourself so that the Wraith is FORCED to jump somewhere where you have multiple units getting decent shots at it. Don't move anymore than walking, and just move around relatively clustered, so when one comes in, most of your units get shots on it. Make sure you have a few pulse lasers yourself, and the enemy will soon find it isn't worth it to jump in close due to volume of fire.

@DevianID


Regarding the Hunchback: yes it hits hard. It is also fairly slow and has no range and very little AC/20 ammo for a prolonged fight. We used to just always target the hunchback first if one was brought, and skirt around it as it advanced, so it never survived to use its ammo much. Its powerhouse reputation was also its weakness.

Regarding the Griffin, I completely agree. Those always seemed to be the last one standing in a battle where the rest of the lance was wiped. Something to do with being fast and long range and good armor. Only complaint about that guy is that he has no weapons that fire up close, and it could get mobbed by light fast short range mechs like wasps and spiders and such, and be unable to shoot. Fortunately Griffin was often in a lance with some other mech who was more short-range oriented (hunchback?), to swat away the 'bugs' (thats what we call 'em)

You want something different, we got two.
1] The Stinger Drill! everyone Takes a stinger, a 4/5 Pilot and One Map Board.

2] The 100 Ton-Maxi:
3025 Tech
Each Person is alloud to take up to 100 Tons in any combination
When your Mechs are finaly taken out you can bring out another 100 tons.

These two will kill an evening.

Anpu42 wrote:You want something different, we got two.
1] The Stinger Drill! everyone Takes a stinger, a 4/5 Pilot and One Map Board.

2] The 100 Ton-Maxi:
3025 Tech
Each Person is alloud to take up to 100 Tons in any combination
When your Mechs are finaly taken out you can bring out another 100 tons.

These two will kill an evening.

Combine the two! everyone gets a stinger and a custom 100 tonner. That would be a beer soaked, pretzel eating fun evening!

"the stinger drill" such a funny concept. One of the best concept games we played was the origional Black Widow Company versus Cranston Snord's Irregulars. See... the Black Widow had better mechs (they had a marauder) on the heavy end, while Snords Irregulars had better pilots in some pretty janky mechs. Cranston Snord's book was possibly the best battletech fluff they ever made. Who doesn't love the 'gang of misfits' idea as heros, and detest the Draconis serving 'corporate power-bitch' enemy. I even had a crush on young Rhonda Snord when I was about 11 years old. That pose with that RPG slung over her shoulders... that unit ROCKED... and ALL of their mechs SUCKED!

I no longer have the book (Its been 20 years) but if I recall.... their command lance was Snord's Archer, 'Shorty' Sneed's converted phoenix-hammer hybrid (one of the best mechs ever made), Deb H'Chu (gazoontheight) with her PILOT:2 GUNNER:1 skills in a thunderbolt with problematic weapon systems, and that nerd guy I forget the name, Jake something (Sorenson?), with a warhammer with almost no leg armor.... attack lance was a Wolverine with structure damage to the left torso, a Shadowhawk (RHONDA!) that sucked, a Crusader (who was their rock), and a Rifleman (the loose cannon)... followed by a Recon Lance of 2 wasps, a locust, and a PHX... all piloted by brothers with sibling rivalry and such (the thomlinson brothers)... now thats a game.

Compare it to the Black Widow Company...
Warhammer, Marauder, Battlemaster, Archer
Griffin, Griffin, Wolverine, Phoenix
Rifleman, Stinger, Stinger, Wasp

The difference is that Snord had the pilots, while Natasha had the mechs. Those were good games. Natasha had 4/3 pilots and 5/4 pilots. Snord had failed junky mechs, but 2/1 or 1/2 pilots in many of them.

The problem was Natasha herself should have been a much better pilot. She always had very poor stats in the old books because they were written before she was fleshed out as a Clan badass. I don't think she was really ever below a 2/2 myself, maybe even better. By the time the Clan invasion rolls around she is in her 70's (if not 80's) and a 0/0 pilot.

Well the matchup was good. Remember Cranston Snord's Irregulars and The Black Widow Company books came out before anyone at FASA had even concieved of The Clans. Kerensky was just a tough bitch in charge of a lance of other tough veteran types. Snord was a lucky and extremely talented misfit in charge of a bunch of other elite misfits, but stuck with mech who all had special rules for how broke down they are. That's why the matchup was good. According to storyline, perhaps Natasha should have been a better pilot/gunner in her later years, but usually she was known for the exploits of her whole company, not just herself and her black widow warhammer. The whole company, (given 3025 early books with only the origional 14 mechs to choose from), was pretty damn efficient. (who wants a pair of griffins instead of a undergunned shadowhawk and a pre-damaged wolverine, for instance?) Who wants a locust when you can get a wasp? Snord was deliberately poorly equipped by the game designers, but made up for with extraordinary pilots. That's why that matchup was always so fun. In fact, most of my Btech games in Jr. High involved the matchup of those two companies.

BAWTRM wrote:You seem to forget that Battletech system is one where only the basic rules have changed over the years,

Yes, playing 3025 is perfectly valid and I do it quite often. The issue was that we weren't describing the game rules but the setting. The old school Mad-Max style setting was where CBT started back in the 80's but that time period of the game's history only lasted 3 or 4 years because in 1990 they advanced the story to the clans in 3050 and the setting hasn't had any resemblance to the Mad-Max style in twenty actual years. The rules are still valid, the mechs are still valid, but the setting you were describing was horribly out of date in reference to the game's fluff.

The Stinger's MG's really aren't that bad a choice. Back in the day when combined arms was something that happened only in the fluff they had no real use on the game board but today those MGs give the Stinger a job it can handle, infantry hunting. Honestly, it's a twenty ton mech, it's not like it's any good for a stand up mech to mech fight no matter what you hang on that frame.

The Stalker is an excellent mech and a case in point for why mechs that are willing to get hot are real killers in the hands of an experienced player. Yeah, it's brackets aren't perfect, but in 3025 those large lasers were nasty and having a pair backed up by that kind of missile spam was brutal. Sure you built some heat up but in 3025 if you aren't willing to flirt with an ammo explosion occasionally you aren't playing the game.

The Wraith is very very meh. In universe it's incredibly expensive and overweight light scout mech. It's on the wrong side of the exponential weight curve for engines meaning it's powerplant eats up WAY more tonnage than it should and costs a fortune. It's motive performance is equaled or exceeded by smaller, cheaper mechs even in the time-frame of its creation, and IS pulse weapons have never been that great. Move forward just five years game time when IS ER lasers start to appear and the medium pulsers are antiques, move forward another ten and that large pulser is easily substituted for a snub PPC, or heck, trade it for a PPC when the Wraith was designed. You'll get a better mech either way. In universe there are smaller, cheaper mechs that can do the same thing for much less expense. Out of universe in game terms it's a one trick pony who's maneuverability and low heat load mean it costs you way more in BV than it's capable of returning.

Yeah well my Wraith matchup was just plain uneven. I mean, a mobile command truck, a SRM carrier, a couple of pegasus hovertanks and vedette light tanks with their whopping AC/5, a 3025 cyclops, some rifle infantry (completely worthless against something that quick) and a couple of 3025 era Urbanmechs... versus 4 wraith. In a heavy forest board. Kind of an easy kill for the jumpy blasty "you can't hit me" guys as my far out-tonnage but massively slow 'command HQ' group was getting raided and slugging around like morons. I was elated when a single AC/20 shot from the Cyclops actually hit, only to find out that it just shot up some torso armor and the Wraith was still just fine systems-wise. Oh well, my experience is perhaps just due to the bad matchup technologically, but it left me with a fear of those things.

That's a very bad technology match up. Wraiths are many things, underarmored isn't one of them. Against a bunch of pin pricks like your section was capable of putting out you'd be up a creek. Your only real hope is to wipe a torso section and get a kill that way thanks to the IS XL engine.

I'd call that a match-up that's completely out of time frame!

Unless you'd intentionally want to portray what happens when some minor Periphery power with obsolete equipment encounters a far more advanced IS-lance (with terrain favoring the IS forces too), then such a game seems an excercise in futility.

I had once introduced a player to 3025 Battletech and we had played a good amount of games. He had some good experience with them and was a canny opponent. He didn't know anything about the background though.

So I planned out a game to (rudely) introduce him to the invading Clans. I took a mixed star (one of each weight category and an extra medium) and he got free choice out of any 3025 Mechs he wanted to take for more than twice the tonnage I had.

Of course he smelled a rat but we had played some pretty strange scenarios already so he expected to find himself in disadvantageous terrain. Much to his surprise he found his force on a large, almost completely open map facing just 5 enemy mechs.

Then came the introduction to Clan weaponry, armour and engines. He had pretty much a Phelan Kell experience when he finally managed to land a solid hit on one of my mechs and only found armour.

He lost his complete force, I lost a single mech. It was a big laugh for both of us though (he's a cool guy for whom the game is more important than the outcome) and we started to play all kinds of IS vs Clans or Clan vs Clan battles afterwards and he really got into the background as well. And some very lobsided games as well with rearguard actions and all.

But that was all intentional. Your game sounded like a pick up game where no previous agreement had been made. And that just doesn't work in Btech.

That and you dumped vehicles in woods. It doesn't get much more sitting ducks than that. Your options are incredibly limited on where you can be so even if you're double blinding he knows exactly where you've gotta be with the bulk of your force and with an Urbie's speed they're nearly stationary turrets in woods.

Nah not a 'pickup game'. It was an intentional scenario. My 'C3' and its bodyguard who outweighed the attacking raiders by about 3x, but they... happened to penetrate to the rear to take out my command (think about it... Cyclops and mobileHQ, plus some scant defensive vehicles and ploddy little Urbanwrecks) The whole thing was story oriented, and that's why it went down so disgustingly bad. That's what happens when some advanced, quick raiders get behind your line and hit you in the jimmy. In campaign, the result of that slaughter was that the rest of the battles we played were done 'blind', where I had to set up mid-board, and whatever attacking lance got to choose where it came on board from since I no longer had communications. Fun fun fun (even though I ended up just trying to get back to the dropship with whatever was left of my scattered forces by the end of the campaign) House rules and creative scenarios are much easier in a game where you don't have to win tournaments against TFG and WAAC.

My C3 Command Lance always had an "Motorized Infantry Rilfe Company". It was always paid for when we used the BPV system.
C3 Command
-Mauler
-Hatotato-Kaze
-Atlas
-Huang
-12x Foot Rifle Platoons

I would just sit back and let the Ifantry park at my feet. You would be amaized to watch Light Mechs not want to get within Rifle Range.

Anpu42 wrote:My C3 Command Lance always had an "Motorized Infantry Rilfe Company". It was always paid for when we used the BPV system.
C3 Command
-Mauler
-Hatotato-Kaze
-Atlas
-Huang
-12x Foot Rifle Platoons

I would just sit back and let the Ifantry park at my feet. You would be amaized to watch Light Mechs not want to get within Rifle Range.

How exactly did you justify having a Yu Huang in a Combine lance?

Ral Partha used to sell premade lances, of which I had a couple... The notable one was the 'Regimental Command' including the ever-present Cyclops (for its computer fluff), an Atlas (the bodyguard), Ostscout (for its sensor fluff) and some other medium mech I don't remember. I always took that to be the 'standard', much like you don't look at the words 'fire lance' and not think 'Archer'. I always thought that was the whole point of a Cyclops (they kind of suck, but in fluff they have very sophisticated communications) was running a regiment from behind the lines. Regimental scale C3 aren't meant to be full of big beefy tough guy mechs, those brawlers go on the front line. It's mostly fluff. In the techs readout several mechs are attributed with special out-of-game advantages/disadvantages that don't effect game play at all (the Ostscout's sensors, the Hermes II's ability to transmit accross a planet, the Cyclops C3 computer, the Javelin's front-heavy tendancy to fall on its face, faulty ammo feeds and a weak mount on the Marauder's AC/5 etc). In game they made no difference, but out-of-game, for story line purposes, those kinds of little things are what turned playing Mechwarrior into a RPG as well as a board game.

Mattlov wrote:

Anpu42 wrote:My C3 Command Lance always had an "Motorized Infantry Rilfe Company". It was always paid for when we used the BPV system.
C3 Command
-Mauler
-Hatotato-Kaze
-Atlas
-Huang
-12x Foot Rifle Platoons

I would just sit back and let the Ifantry park at my feet. You would be amaized to watch Light Mechs not want to get within Rifle Range.

How exactly did you justify having a Yu Huang in a Combine lance?

Maybe its the Tso ??????? I dont remeber it has been years.

I put together a lance once just using the 'reject' pilots in the bios in 3025... I don't remember all the names, but I just found all the 'YOUR FIRED!!' kind of personalities and assumed they all got together. I know one of them was Fadre Sing, infamous insubordinate Centurion pilot and heavy-mech hunter.

If anyone still has the 3025 book you can look up the pilots and I'm pretty sure you would recognize the gang of thugs I was trying to work with.

Centurion
Jagermech
Assassin
Commando (LL mod)

Hey anyone remember 'Wilsons Hussars' from the 'mercenaries' book? Those guys were so much fun too. Their crap mechs in no particular organization versus 'Team Banzai' with all their super-sophisticated mech refits (and that Elvira chick jumpship pilot in her Orion), makes for a fun evening too. 4 elite pilots in elite mechs versus a whole company of the galaxy's biggest losers.