Marco

The Marco was the first true jack-of-all trade ExplorerMech (outside of unique retrofitted BattleMechs that had previously served in such a role ).

Although the Marco is a solid design, StarCorps Industries' whole ExplorerMech project was deemed a grand failure in retrospect. Development was difficult, and before finally succeeding with the letter "M", many prototype designs including the Amundsen (dating back to 2666), Burton, Cook and DaGama turned out to be failures, some of them catastrophically so; the (unnamed) functional precursors of the Marco from the program were specialized machines for specific environments. As it turned out after the Marco debuted in 2712, there had never been a large market for ExplorerMechs to begin with, and production was discontinued in 2720 after only eight years; StarCorps managed to sell two production runs of mostly -6 and -7 series models to the SLDF in what seems to have been a not-so-clean deal.

By 3070, only few Marcos were still known to exist, all of them of the -6 and -7 series.

Created as the ultimate expeditionary vehicle, the Marco was built with military grade technology to meet the needs of explorers. It was described as a customizable BattleMech frame without weapons, albeit it was still created and rated as an IndustrialMech and not to proper BattleMech standards.

The Marco has environmental sealing in all its locations to keep hazardous environments out. It features a collapsible two-man cabin mounted on its rear torso which can only be used when the 'Mech is stationary, and a small observation platform bridging across its shoulders.

Weapons and Equipment
The Marco features a salvage arm in its right arm, a search light mounted in its center torso, and a military grade Small Laser mounted in its left arm, while its hull is protected by four tons of Heavy Industrial grade armor.

With the collapse of the Star League, General Aleksandr Kerensky took a number of Marcos with him on the Exodus. After the establishment of the Star League in Exile and the death of General Kerensky, the Pentagon Cluster colonies fragmented into warring factions known as the Pentagon Powers and these groups would create armed refits from the Marcos they had available; the most common of these refits became known as the MR-8D, a less common as MR-8E. It was noted that the -6 and -7 series models produced for the SLDF featured an integrated satellite uplink, remote-controlled floodlights, and a modular tool mount on the right arm. Although the MR-8D and -8E are said to derive from the limited number of -8C models that Kerensky's Exodus fleet had brought, the fact that neither refit retains the jump jets suggests that they could well have been -6 or -7 models.

The final -8C production model, which was only introduced in 2719, featured three jump jets in the left torso for a total jump range of 90 meters, and 2.5 tons of cargo space in the right torso; the previous -6 and -7 models had no jump jets and used the tonnage for communications equipment.

Variants

 * MR-6 : The first (known) production version of the Marco lacks the jump jets and cargo capacity of the later MR-8C. Instead, the MR-6 features 4 tons of Communication Equipment in the right torso. BV(2.0)=295


 * MR-7 : Introduced three years after the MR-6 in 2715, the MR-7 is similar to the earlier version, reducint the communication equipment by two tons to make way for a 1.5-ton cargo hold and a Remote Sensor Dispenser which was added to the left torso to expand the explorer team's sensor radius. BV(2.0)=295


 * MR-8D : Introduced in 2801, this field refit of the standard MR-8C removes all the standard equipment including the jump jets, retaining only the Environmental Sealing. In the place of the rest of the standard equipment, the MR-8D carries a Large Laser in the left arm and an SRM-4 with one ton of ammunition in the right torso. Ten heat sinks cool the weapons. BV (2.0) = 436


 * MR-8E : This refit version, introduced at the same time as the -8D, similarly removes all equipment and jump jets and sports twelve heat sinks to disperse the heat from two Medium Pulse Lasers in the right torso and two Medium Lasers in the left arm. BV (2.0) = 476

Design Quirks
The MR-8C Marco features the following Design Quirks:
 * Extended Torso Twist
 * Bad Reputation
 * Obsolete (2720)