Battlemechs That Are Considered "Extinct"

[Daemion]

No they don't, pretty sure somebody (Herb while he was Line Dev?) said that this isn't true anymore, if it ever was.

That may not be true, now, but the notion definitely seemed to drive the creation of TRos in the past, and that leads to the Chassis glut we have today.

[SCC]

I figure that FASA was probably like a lot of modern day companies that are heavy on the bro-culture and the people running it aren't exactly doing the best job. FASA might well have used a very simple and poor system which only put the TRO sales data against the cost to make it, CGL probably puts sales for the TRO and it's associated RS volumes against the costs to make them (RS may well sell much worse), plus the costs of errata and things like the MUL.

There's also the possibilities that the TRO gold mine has run out, or that the much decreased rate of plot advancement hampers TRO releases

[Daemion]

LAMs were not "going strong" by any means. Their numbers were in constant decline for centuries, and many operable LAMs suffered from shortages of parts and equipment that they simply could not replace. There's numerous mentions of LAMs being stuck in one mode or unable to properly transform because of missing or damaged components. The low-rate production from LexaTech and the warehouses were not keeping ahead of losses by any means.

Those mentions could be the proverbial interesting circumstance that gets a mention, and not the common case. Also, look at the changes in fiction as each new mention comes out and note what side of the Harmony Gold Suit line that stands.

So, a lot of the stuff you're mentioning is mostly speculation, and not hard fact. There definitely seems to be two biases regarding the proliferation of LAMs and their current activity. Until a sourcebook comes out singing 'The wicked LAM is dead' a la Wizard of Oz, and a Dev confirms it, I'm definitely exercising the 'it's your game' and 'What Colbosch said' policies.

Finally, I don't see how the Firestarter is a rare 'Mech. Yes, it's original factory was destroyed, but that was not until some point in the Third Succession War. Even then, Coventry Metal Works picked up production and continued to do such continuously until at least 3145. The Firestarter is frequently seen in units across all five Successor States, Mercenaries and the Periphery. Furthermore, unlike a LAM, it does not require specialised parts, and could easily accept components "donated" by another 'Mech. There's really no comparison between the two.

The Firestarter is said to be rare. It's only deployed at regimental levels and carefully so, because is so specialized, like another Mech series constantly talked about, or the Ostscout.  #P  Sure, every house has one. It may even be seen in Company or Battalion formations, especially for irregular style forces like mercenaries that decide they must have one. But, you don't see them fielded in groups. Not like a lot of other Mechs. A lance of Dragons or Panthers I won't bat an eye at. Nor a lance of Locusts, Stingers, or Wasps. But a full lance of Firestarters? Only in Mech Commander or other computer games.

And, depending on source, most Firestarters were actually being maintained from parts warehouses for a time. For me, I kinda like wrapping my head around the notion of trying to reconcile the new fact with the old fact. It's quite possible that many units with a Firestarter could only pull from parts warehouses, not being able to get fresh replacements from the nuFactory at all or right away.

It was the Succession Wars, after all.

That aside, a couple other things.

I've seen way too much in newer books that are supposed to be a reprint of the older source material keeping mechs alive that were slowly going the way of the dodo by suddenly bringing up some factory putting out new chassis somewhere. Honestly, they've shown that with enough work, there are plenty of garage shops that can assemble Mechs from scratch and keep a design alive. The Goliath is said to have some of those on various worlds. It doesn't have to be one of the large ones that seem to be the default.


Clan Tech is possible in the Inner Sphere, now that they've had a chance to backwards engineer it, and those weapons can be made the same way as a lost chassis. The only reason it hasn't taken on as mainstream output in the IS has so much to do with infrastructure. With the destruction of the Jihad and the reformations of the Republic, I imagine that old infrastructure can readily be upgraded post 3150.

How many old designs will have to undergo new upgrade refits or be scrapped then?

[Deadborder]

I've seen way too much in newer books that are supposed to be a reprint of the older source material keeping mechs alive that were slowly going the way of the dodo by suddenly bringing up some factory putting out new chassis somewhere. Honestly, they've shown that with enough work, there are plenty of garage shops that can assemble Mechs from scratch and keep a design alive. The Goliath is said to have some of those on various worlds. It doesn't have to be one of the large ones that seem to be the default.

Guess what? FASA did that, and usually very quickly too.

A lot of the fluff in the original TRO:3025 was contradicted by FASA within a year or two with the House books. They handed out production lines for plenty of supposedly rare and production extinct designs, including the Goliath and, yes the Firestarter (and a few others I can think of as well). This is stuff that has been in print since the eighties, for the bulk of Battletech's existence. In many cases, the only source that claims a lot of 'Mech designs are production extinct is TRO:3025, which was very quickly internally contradictory and apparently quietly filed away.

Once again, outside of TRO:3025, there isn't a single source that says the Firestarter is particularly rare.

[Col Toda]

Nothing really goes away . Solaris VII Stables machine parts and make new unique mechs or reproduce some nostalgic mech for advertising purposes . After the Jihad even LAM tech information is sufficiently available if they so choose to build them . The WOB even revisited discontinued chassis to for shock and Awe purposes . The Xanthus quad with the mech mortars do a credible job between air burst and semi-guided ammo against infantry , battle armor, and light units .

[Empyrus]

Once again, outside of TRO:3025, there isn't a single source that says the Firestarter is particularly rare.

Which source indicated the Firestarter was usually attached at company (or was it higher?) level to units?
If it was done like that, then it probably ain't a common 'Mech (as in found just about every company or battalion by late Third Succession War) but it won't be a rare one either, considering how many companies and battalions there were during the Star League era.

[skiltao]

outside of TRO:3025, there isn't a single source that says the Firestarter is particularly rare.

TR:3050 agrees that Firestarters are rare. The description is comparable to that for Ravens and Hermes. Not that TR:3050 is infallible either, mind you; but you don't throw out the whole text just because one aspect of it is flawed. The 1980's House books put a lot of 'Mechs into production, sure, and maybe the intent was even to put every 'Mech from TR:3025 into production. Yet the general rarity described in TR:3025 still seems relevant: Goliaths are in production, but only minimally; Spiders, Cicadas and Vulcans are in production, but again, not in large numbers and they're still not common in general. There's no reason to think the Firestarter would be different.

By the 3050s, there weren't "thousands" of LAMs. There probably wasn't even hundreds.

There was still a factory making them, or at least one model (Which was more then could be said for several designs at the time) so even if EVERY SINGLE LAM in service in the IS was lost fighting the Clans they wouldn't have become extinct. It was the loss of that factory combined with the fact that LAMs don't have parts compatibility with either 'Mechs or ASFs that killed them.

At least in the 3025 Free Worlds League, LAMs pop up as often as assault 'Mechs do. So even if one or two notable battalions are lost, there would still be quite a few, and the FWL sat out most conflicts up to Guerrero. I can buy the Federated Commonwealth and Capellan Confederation losing most of their LAMs by 3050, but the Free World and Combine populations would've survived longer. (If we're going to kill them off, may as well do in the FedCom Civil War, where "we had nice things and then we tore it all down" is the theme of the day.)

[Wotan]

As long as we have no hard numbers on any single mech model of ...
- how many mechs a specific factory is producing per year
- how many mechs are lost in combat per year
- how many mechs are rated unserviceable because of missing spare parts per year
... you can't argue about rare or not rare.

There are few examples were we have hard numbers - and even that can only be true for a specific time. Numbers like the Valkyrie from TRO3025 with 130 per year are very rare. I remember a list of production rates in the first Housebook Marik. Therein we have a range from 4 Goliath to 31 Wasp. Even if that list is retconned we still have more sources of productions less than 12 per year than we have production in hundreds.
Without hard numbers it is always easy to explain specific mechs are rare - even if you have a factory still working. With the same ease you can argue that the same mech is omnipresent.
There is a reason why the official sources avoid hard numbers. So we all can find the right arguments for our own home-grown games.

[Col Toda]

I do not believe any mech will  ever be truly extinct . The WoB brought a lot back . Solaris VII Stables bring forth unique mechs with fabricated parts so should a manufacturer sponsor them having them make a formally extinct model to announce or celebrate the occasion would make sense . As for all the WoB Celestial Mechs huge numbers have gone unaccounted for , gone to the hidden worlds and just about fifty bit players and every major government has a bunch squirreled away for some deniable  black op at some future time . So nobody believes they are extinct .