Awfully convenient how this mech came out shortly after the Lyrans annexed much of the Rim Worlds Republic and quite a few mech factories. Any resemblance it had to the Amaris Rampage was pure coincidence!
I had a fair share myself. I only made it to my age with 9 of my mechs. My regimental unit didn't do well in my absence. But we are rebuilding from the flames post civil war. Aka I left for the army in 2000 aka 3063 and my unit was decimated while I was away haha thank goodness you can buy mechs online, you didn't have the internet back then to buy mechs and had to find a dealer willing to sell, kinda like pre 3045 to post 3055 lol
Hello Grim. The Zeus has always been a 'work horse' of a Mech for any Mech force one wants to assemble. Even post Clan Invasion, the Zeus had its place in the battle order. It is hard to find much that is 'bad' about the design overall, so I won't even try.
My very first heavy ride, I had a Raven, bushwhacker and 2 Griffin's, I wanted a battle master, marauder or Warhammer for wright and didn't know much about the Zeus. It was a mech no one talked about it had on my table. My game stores had lower end weights but the Zeus was the biggest I could find and I couldn't afford the boxes set for the big boys on my 13yo allowed so I bought it. Learned real quick the ac5 is heat friendly but the PPC is enemy unfriendly, take your pick and I loved the speed. I have had a love affair with the average performer for the last 25 years and I lost my mini long ago. I will have another some day but I know how to run one and know fighting one is Abit dicey so stay out of it's right arch and close under it's middle range fast and don't attack from the rear it's nearly as dangerous back there as it is from the front with it's big guns in it's arms as they mentioned earlier. They won't over heat without an alpha strike and that's only with the PPC varients. Solid, reliable, inexpensive and on the table top and RPG replacing parts is easy as any random get lyran unit will have spare parts in delivery if you just wait for delivery lol some disassembly required but free is free. Thanks again GDN, yeah you may be reading sarna but that's fine I still read sarna even though I have read the whole thing hundreds of times. You do your thing and keep going bro. I look forward to the Warhammer. Don't forget to tell how a widow got hers plz it's great lore
Used correctly, it’s a great mech to strip an enemy down at long distance. It’s possibly the most well balanced mixed long range assault mech in the game. If used with a victor/thug, stalker/catapult you have great coverage across the board.
@@darthknux true, I think the misconception about Zeus being a bad mech is wrong though. You have two direct weapons that target areas to perform massive damage, one energy with better performance/weight ratio, one ac5 for great heat dissipation. On top of that you have indirect LRMs to perform sandpaper damage and 2 medium lasers to finish off the enemy. I get that it doesn’t have an impressive short range load out, but it’s made perfect for several heat environments, can outrun and keep enemy assaults at distance whilst also providing a great snipe capability. This mech is pure and simple an absolute beast for harassing the enemy when you compare it to awesomes (which overheat in high temp environments) victors who are pure short range monsters and battlemasters who are again have a little bit more of that mid range role.
@@tplambert never said it was bad, it's a good mech, great even, i was just noting how the oroginal poster said they preferred the battlemaster, when really you'd be better comparing most Zeus to the Awesome 8T or similar long range support assault mechs.
Been playing merc s 2 using the Zeus ( I swap out the auto cannon for a ppc replace the Lrm 15 for a Lrm 5 and added 1 additional L laser and 2 M lasers and finally added some additional armor)
At 5:38 it is explained why Davions did not like the Zeus. The Lyrans used some ugly word like Maintenance in describing it. Far too many sylabels for House HillyBilly.
No matter how many times I play with a Zeus, I have yet to find any faults with it whatsoever. No matter how many variations I come up with I have yet to come up with any overheating problems, or Under armoring the thing. Anywhere from long range sniper, to close range in your face. Turn 4 ton it is one of the best low-end assault class mix I've ever used
@@GrimDarkNarrator FYI, regardless what anybody thinks you do an excellent job of reading the novels. Thank you so much for doing the gray death Legion trilogy. That was one of the first BattleTech book novel set I ever read, back when I was 14 years old. You brought back a lot of good memories.
The Zeus is a solid mech. Not heavily armored for an assault though. A modification I like is to exchange the auto cannon for a large laser. If you have lost tech available go with ER-large lasers and double heat sinks. add extra armor and it's now a beast!
IMO the Zeus is more like an overweight heavy Mech than an assault Mech. The tech level 1 variants have ok speed and range but lack endurance (low armor, low ammo, heat issues). The main issue with the Zeus is the lack of focus. It tries to do too many different things and excels at none. I consider the Zeus to be in the same class with Marauders and Orions. The tech level II variants are much better of course (better range, staying power and armor). In my view the Awesome or the Thug would be a much better exemples of assult class fire support Mechs.
It's hard to beat an Awesome or Thug. The Star League era Thug is impressive. I see the Zeus as like the Battle master, like you said, more of a heavy in performance. @@hermes7587
The clans were so late to the game there are hundreds of mechs that predate anything they made that wasn't a refit of an inersphere design. Even the clans didn't make a new design for almost 150yrs after Exodus. I was there for the unvailing of the clans and played against them at the convention in KC when they were first on the board. I was still learning to use the helm core starleague tech when they got there and I feel they can wait here. There was more than a decade of table top and RPG before the clans so let's be patient people, the SLDF left for 300 years. Let's see the meat and potatoes if the franchise
Zeus is an alright Mech, for one of the lighter chassis designs. But yeah, you loose a arm or torso and you lose 50% of you firepower. It's still a very useful chassis all the same.
Not a fan of the zeus. Most, if not all, of the weapons are in the arms. Lose an arm, or a torso, and you lose half your weapons. Plus the wide frame makes a nice target. It is only good because it is very modular, fairly fast for its size, and cheap to make.
@@lukedudley5030 well considering how far out the clans were when the Zeus was first shown FASA hasn't to my knowledge thought of our even considered the clans or 3039 tech for another 8 years
@@paulhuston9991 when you make a game and hope it goes far you save stuff back to make updates better and thus encourage more money spending it's called future planning or some other stupid 80s buzz word :-) I like the clan mechs but rarely used them in table top they were op with better everything including ranges, damage, weight and so on....their only weakness is heat but the amount of weapons an omni mech carries with careful selective firing you never have to worry about it :-) but yep you maybe right but the clans seem to have always been an idea but didn't make the first edition as it was testing the water..and when the clans did come out they stole all the cooler names for them so no Loki inner sphere mech :-( but after all this I still think the Blackhawk is the best Solaris mech around 10 er med lasers kills anything before you need to worry about the stupid heat levels you just created firing them all :-) Sorry 12 laser :-) in table top arena fights this mech is a beast :-)
FASA had a way of hedging it's bets if it ever had a game breaker. Black library just publishes new edition codex and retcons old rules. FASA had Kerensky out there if the gamers ever got the upper hand with the lore, like the 4th succession war want supposed to play so well on the table top so the war of 3039. 3039 didn't make the dent even with lost tech it was expected to in the table top to balance the power shift from the 4th war so out can Kerensky to "save the day". FASA let the table top campaigns drive the lore and books for notable events and used the plot armor to save the day so to speak, aka hanse was done picking on Lio in the 4th war according to those books so he stopped before full conquest. The cans turned out to in fact be op as a MFr and zelbrigen wasn't good enough, like the 4th war, they plot armored the IS prayers with the death if Leo showers to give us time to plan next year's game convention. We needed it, we were getting totally Eastern alive, my Zeus never got a shit off during the whole clan war, clan ERPPCs can suck it I hate them. So then comstar brings out the comguard, everyone knew about then FASA just made a unit aaaand told us we were playing against the jags and oh BTW we weren't planning house units this year. The idea for the clans may have been there but the 4th succession war was a surprise success to more than capellan confederation leaders. Players, authors and executives almost had a starleague with Steiner-Davion colors, then clan colors. And Dad's couldn't allow a factional Star league it would run the game so when one fix didn't work out another was tried and broke the game, AKA the clans. Thankfully they didn't over fix the clans like they did the fourth succession war lol.
Short answer, probably not, unless someone commissions me to record any. Long answer, I work 3-4 hours literally every day on lore videos, so you can understand why I can't narrate any more audiobooks pro-bono in addition to everything else I do :)
Ah, the Zeus. The light mech in a Steiner recon lance. Couple of fun facts on two of the pilots you mentioned; Nondi upgraded to a Hauptman Omni mech when she became the leader of the LAAF. As for Frederick Steiner, he is more famously known for who he becomes in his 'second life'. Most die hard BT fans will know who I'm talking about
Okay, I take instant issue with your opening line. "Hello there, fellow Battletech aficionados." Stop, just *stop.* You're just reading word-for-word off of Sarna.net. This isn't a labor of love from knowing the source material. It's just an audio book of the unofficial fan wiki of the franchise.
Awfully convenient how this mech came out shortly after the Lyrans annexed much of the Rim Worlds Republic and quite a few mech factories. Any resemblance it had to the Amaris Rampage was pure coincidence!
Haha yeah. I'm listening more for fun... I have a scary amount of battletech knowledge. Apparently my mom even kept my models from when I was little.
I had a fair share myself. I only made it to my age with 9 of my mechs. My regimental unit didn't do well in my absence. But we are rebuilding from the flames post civil war. Aka I left for the army in 2000 aka 3063 and my unit was decimated while I was away haha thank goodness you can buy mechs online, you didn't have the internet back then to buy mechs and had to find a dealer willing to sell, kinda like pre 3045 to post 3055 lol
@@paulhuston9991 thank God comstar now is back to its corporate root and no longer a toaster worshippers.
Hello Grim.
The Zeus has always been a 'work horse' of a Mech for any Mech force one wants to assemble. Even post Clan Invasion, the Zeus had its place in the battle order. It is hard to find much that is 'bad' about the design overall, so I won't even try.
I’m actually happy you didn’t talk about the atlas. And I love the Zeus
Glad to hear :)
Memories of MW 2 Mercenaries *intensify*
/sheds manly tear.
My very first heavy ride, I had a Raven, bushwhacker and 2 Griffin's, I wanted a battle master, marauder or Warhammer for wright and didn't know much about the Zeus. It was a mech no one talked about it had on my table. My game stores had lower end weights but the Zeus was the biggest I could find and I couldn't afford the boxes set for the big boys on my 13yo allowed so I bought it. Learned real quick the ac5 is heat friendly but the PPC is enemy unfriendly, take your pick and I loved the speed. I have had a love affair with the average performer for the last 25 years and I lost my mini long ago. I will have another some day but I know how to run one and know fighting one is Abit dicey so stay out of it's right arch and close under it's middle range fast and don't attack from the rear it's nearly as dangerous back there as it is from the front with it's big guns in it's arms as they mentioned earlier. They won't over heat without an alpha strike and that's only with the PPC varients. Solid, reliable, inexpensive and on the table top and RPG replacing parts is easy as any random get lyran unit will have spare parts in delivery if you just wait for delivery lol some disassembly required but free is free. Thanks again GDN, yeah you may be reading sarna but that's fine I still read sarna even though I have read the whole thing hundreds of times. You do your thing and keep going bro. I look forward to the Warhammer. Don't forget to tell how a widow got hers plz it's great lore
Thanks for the share and the support :)
@@GrimDarkNarrator of course. I told you once you got to mechs you would light fires on the comment board haha
I loved the mechcommander 2 variant with the spike panels on the shoulders. It gave it more personality and cool look
Iirc that variant is Canon as the Zeus-X
Zeus cost 7,617,900 C-bills
Thanks for the extra bit.
Bargain
How much would that be in 21st century US dollars? British pound sterling? Japanese yen?
I love these lore videos! Keep em coming GRIM!
Thank you!
Love the Zeus' look. Loadout is meh. I'll take a Battlemaster any day though.
there our both good mechs.
Used correctly, it’s a great mech to strip an enemy down at long distance. It’s possibly the most well balanced mixed long range assault mech in the game. If used with a victor/thug, stalker/catapult you have great coverage across the board.
Two different roles. Zues is LR support. Most Battlemasters are brawlers or midrange
@@darthknux true, I think the misconception about Zeus being a bad mech is wrong though. You have two direct weapons that target areas to perform massive damage, one energy with better performance/weight ratio, one ac5 for great heat dissipation. On top of that you have indirect LRMs to perform sandpaper damage and 2 medium lasers to finish off the enemy. I get that it doesn’t have an impressive short range load out, but it’s made perfect for several heat environments, can outrun and keep enemy assaults at distance whilst also providing a great snipe capability. This mech is pure and simple an absolute beast for harassing the enemy when you compare it to awesomes (which overheat in high temp environments) victors who are pure short range monsters and battlemasters who are again have a little bit more of that mid range role.
@@tplambert never said it was bad, it's a good mech, great even, i was just noting how the oroginal poster said they preferred the battlemaster, when really you'd be better comparing most Zeus to the Awesome 8T or similar long range support assault mechs.
One of my favorite 3025 assault mechs. It didn’t really age well past 3050 though. Still a solid mech. Love the format, and keep up the good work!
Thanks.
The Zeus - any techs favorit playground. Solid base for upgrades and little goes a long way
Been playing merc s 2 using the Zeus ( I swap out the auto cannon for a ppc replace the Lrm 15 for a Lrm 5 and added 1 additional L laser and 2 M lasers and finally added some additional armor)
At 5:38 it is explained why Davions did not like the Zeus. The Lyrans used some ugly word like Maintenance in describing it. Far too many sylabels for House HillyBilly.
I like most of them except for the owens strider and the commando and the flea
The Zues Rules! Lyran Commonwealth Rules 2!
No matter how many times I play with a Zeus, I have yet to find any faults with it whatsoever. No matter how many variations I come up with I have yet to come up with any overheating problems, or Under armoring the thing. Anywhere from long range sniper, to close range in your face. Turn 4 ton it is one of the best low-end assault class mix I've ever used
I agree :)
@@GrimDarkNarrator FYI, regardless what anybody thinks you do an excellent job of reading the novels. Thank you so much for doing the gray death Legion trilogy. That was one of the first BattleTech book novel set I ever read, back when I was 14 years old. You brought back a lot of good memories.
I like a good 4/6 heavy mech so since the Zeus has the same free tonnage as a 75 ton 4/6 heavy mech I like it too.
Another notable Zeus pilot was Nondi Steiner, sister of Katrina Steiner.
I think i mentioned her.
@@GrimDarkNarrator Ah, yes. I missed that mention.
The Zeus is the flagship mech of the Lyrans. It's loadout is not that remarkable, but it is dependable.
Definitely
I'm looking at the comments and I'm getting the feeling that the Zeus isn't all that great.
The Zeus is a solid mech. Not heavily armored for an assault though. A modification I like is to exchange the auto cannon for a large laser. If you have lost tech available go with ER-large lasers and double heat sinks. add extra armor and it's now a beast!
IMO the Zeus is more like an overweight heavy Mech than an assault Mech. The tech level 1 variants have ok speed and range but lack endurance (low armor, low ammo, heat issues). The main issue with the Zeus is the lack of focus. It tries to do too many different things and excels at none.
I consider the Zeus to be in the same class with Marauders and Orions.
The tech level II variants are much better of course (better range, staying power and armor).
In my view the Awesome or the Thug would be a much better exemples of assult class fire support Mechs.
It's hard to beat an Awesome or Thug. The Star League era Thug is impressive.
I see the Zeus as like the Battle master, like you said, more of a heavy in performance. @@hermes7587
So the Zeus is the Toyota Camry of the Battletech world: Low tech, will never break down, and abundant parts can be found through salvage yards.
Perfect mech :D
Since it is Steiner - VW Passat
im loving the lore GDN keep it up
Thank you.
I like the Zeus, usually packs a good punch and moves well. Now, how about a review of the Cyclopes recon mech, betcha haven't covered that one yet!
I haven't. I'll add that to a future poll :)
@@GrimDarkNarrator Cool beans!!
Good video and did you know that all 4 mechs that you have covered where all inner sphere. I think the next mech you should cover is clan.
I'll get to a Clan one eventually, but for now I let the audience decide and the next one is the Warhammer.
The clans were so late to the game there are hundreds of mechs that predate anything they made that wasn't a refit of an inersphere design. Even the clans didn't make a new design for almost 150yrs after Exodus. I was there for the unvailing of the clans and played against them at the convention in KC when they were first on the board. I was still learning to use the helm core starleague tech when they got there and I feel they can wait here. There was more than a decade of table top and RPG before the clans so let's be patient people, the SLDF left for 300 years. Let's see the meat and potatoes if the franchise
Paul Huston so what’s it matter if the clans come later it’s just lore on the mechs them selfs not the timeline
Great video I love the Zeus its a great mech in the battletech pc game
Zeus is an alright Mech, for one of the lighter chassis designs. But yeah, you loose a arm or torso and you lose 50% of you firepower. It's still a very useful chassis all the same.
versus losing an arm or a torso on which assault mech that isn't the result of? That's true for as a general rule, not specific to the Zeus
Not a fan of the zeus. Most, if not all, of the weapons are in the arms. Lose an arm, or a torso, and you lose half your weapons. Plus the wide frame makes a nice target. It is only good because it is very modular, fairly fast for its size, and cheap to make.
Not a mech I much care to run, but it's one of my favorite for cosmetics. Particularly the art from the Maximum Tech cover.
Why did Lyrian develop the the Zeus but never made & name any of their mechs Thor & Loki? They just let clan mechs take those names.
The writers saved all the cool names for the Clans :P
Those are inner sphere names for the clan mechs:-) maybe they kept the names back knowing there was far superior mechs out there :-)
@@lukedudley5030 well considering how far out the clans were when the Zeus was first shown FASA hasn't to my knowledge thought of our even considered the clans or 3039 tech for another 8 years
@@paulhuston9991 when you make a game and hope it goes far you save stuff back to make updates better and thus encourage more money spending it's called future planning or some other stupid 80s buzz word :-) I like the clan mechs but rarely used them in table top they were op with better everything including ranges, damage, weight and so on....their only weakness is heat but the amount of weapons an omni mech carries with careful selective firing you never have to worry about it :-) but yep you maybe right but the clans seem to have always been an idea but didn't make the first edition as it was testing the water..and when the clans did come out they stole all the cooler names for them so no Loki inner sphere mech :-( but after all this I still think the Blackhawk is the best Solaris mech around 10 er med lasers kills anything before you need to worry about the stupid heat levels you just created firing them all :-) Sorry 12 laser :-) in table top arena fights this mech is a beast :-)
FASA had a way of hedging it's bets if it ever had a game breaker. Black library just publishes new edition codex and retcons old rules. FASA had Kerensky out there if the gamers ever got the upper hand with the lore, like the 4th succession war want supposed to play so well on the table top so the war of 3039. 3039 didn't make the dent even with lost tech it was expected to in the table top to balance the power shift from the 4th war so out can Kerensky to "save the day". FASA let the table top campaigns drive the lore and books for notable events and used the plot armor to save the day so to speak, aka hanse was done picking on Lio in the 4th war according to those books so he stopped before full conquest. The cans turned out to in fact be op as a MFr and zelbrigen wasn't good enough, like the 4th war, they plot armored the IS prayers with the death if Leo showers to give us time to plan next year's game convention. We needed it, we were getting totally Eastern alive, my Zeus never got a shit off during the whole clan war, clan ERPPCs can suck it I hate them. So then comstar brings out the comguard, everyone knew about then FASA just made a unit aaaand told us we were playing against the jags and oh BTW we weren't planning house units this year. The idea for the clans may have been there but the 4th succession war was a surprise success to more than capellan confederation leaders. Players, authors and executives almost had a starleague with Steiner-Davion colors, then clan colors. And Dad's couldn't allow a factional Star league it would run the game so when one fix didn't work out another was tried and broke the game, AKA the clans. Thankfully they didn't over fix the clans like they did the fourth succession war lol.
Do Merlin Battlemech next!
Next one is gonna be the Warhammer per the people's vote. I'm gonna keep giving multiple options via polls in the future though.
Are you ever going to make any more videos reading battletech books?
Short answer, probably not, unless someone commissions me to record any. Long answer, I work 3-4 hours literally every day on lore videos, so you can understand why I can't narrate any more audiobooks pro-bono in addition to everything else I do :)
@grimdarknarrator the Diashi
Do a vod on anubis
I'll add it to suggestions.
Awesome has anybody else even suggested that one lol.
Thanks for the vid.
Ah, the Zeus. The light mech in a Steiner recon lance. Couple of fun facts on two of the pilots you mentioned; Nondi upgraded to a Hauptman Omni mech when she became the leader of the LAAF.
As for Frederick Steiner, he is more famously known for who he becomes in his 'second life'. Most die hard BT fans will know who I'm talking about
No I will have a Zeuse day
I comment tacos. I also like and subscribe.
Sounds good to me.
Better general-purpose mech than the Battlemaster
That one is a future candidate as well.
Would you consider using Battletech art or title the video mechwarrior or battlemech lore
Not sure I get what you mean. This is overall Battletech lore. the Battlemechs are just a part of the universe.
15:33 thug plz.
the thug is in the playlist.
@@GrimDarkNarrator thank you much. I had those technical readouts, good to see there not unappreciated.
FALCON PUNCH!!!
I've tried using this mech a few times and found it not worthwhile. It almost got one my elite pilots killed several times.
I got one
Just spam urban mechs
Seems like a legit tactic.
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!!!!!!!!!!!!
I need the name of the opening song
Check the video description. There's a direct link.
zeus,looks like a thug mech
The thug life chose it.
lol thug mech I am saying lol
Okay, I take instant issue with your opening line. "Hello there, fellow Battletech aficionados." Stop, just *stop.* You're just reading word-for-word off of Sarna.net. This isn't a labor of love from knowing the source material. It's just an audio book of the unofficial fan wiki of the franchise.
That doesn't mean i can't be a fan of the universe.
..do not sound grim.. or dark.. sounds more like ... son of Borat the narrator