Where Are The Fourth Generation Ballistic And Missile Weapons?

[SCC]

True enough, but you don't have to go with to-hit mods, changing range, tonnage, crits, and heat are all possible, and so is damage for energy weapons as they aren't defined by damage.

[Sartris]

It's not really that, although those two limits certainly intertwine. One of the big issues you run into with new weapons is only having two D6 to roll for weapon hit. If you have 11 available options, +/- 2 is a significant variation of probability, this limits the kind of modifier you can apply to new weapons and instead we end up with a heap of niche capabilities, as the game engine just can't take the pressure of more general modifiers.

probably one of the reasons why we don't have a dark age iteration of the tactical handbook / max tech / tacops. IO adds and consolidates some experimental gear, but it's not on the scale of a full-blown experimental tech book - and a decent portion of it is "flash in the pan" type stuff like the RISC series.

Imo we're at the point now where in the 3140s and beyond, clantech should be filtering in and replacing the myriad of IS options and the new wave of tech innovations should be improved versions of that consolidated techbase pushed out by the sea foxes / wolves / bears / shadowy research labs

[The_Livewire]

It's not really that, although those two limits certainly intertwine. One of the big issues you run into with new weapons is only having two D6 to roll for weapon hit. If you have 11 available options, +/- 2 is a significant variation of probability, this limits the kind of modifier you can apply to new weapons and instead we end up with a heap of niche capabilities, as the game engine just can't take the pressure of more general modifiers.

I've wondered how 3d6 would change things, what the new targets would need to be, etc.  Would make Ultras and MASC more reliable at the very least.

[Nightlord01]

probably one of the reasons why we don't have a dark age iteration of the tactical handbook / max tech / tacops. IO adds and consolidates some experimental gear, but it's not on the scale of a full-blown experimental tech book - and a decent portion of it is "flash in the pan" type stuff like the RISC series.

Imo we're at the point now where in the 3140s and beyond, clantech should be filtering in and replacing the myriad of IS options and the new wave of tech innovations should be improved versions of that consolidated techbase pushed out by the sea foxes / wolves / bears / shadowy research labs

Realistically speaking, Clan tech should have been being produced in the Inner Sphere, by Spheroids long before it was. Unfortunately the game and general RW peacetime have influenced this well beyond it's usefulness to the plot.

WWII proved, with amazing clarity, just what a pressed nation will do when they are under threat, including development of brand new industries and their attendant feeder industries (I'm looking at you, aviation). That was five years!. In 15, such as the truce with the Clans, at the very least the DC and FC/LA would have commissioned a full Clan tech manufacturing system, particularly when you consider that the reintroduced technologies would have faced similar issues. Cost is no issue for a nation facing devastation, that's something to worry about once hostilities cease.

[Sartris]

Realistically speaking, Clan tech should have been being produced in the Inner Sphere, by Spheroids long before it was. Unfortunately the game and general RW peacetime have influenced this well beyond it's usefulness to the plot.

WWII proved, with amazing clarity, just what a pressed nation will do when they are under threat, including development of brand new industries and their attendant feeder industries (I'm looking at you, aviation). That was five years!. In 15, such as the truce with the Clans, at the very least the DC and FC/LA would have commissioned a full Clan tech manufacturing system, particularly when you consider that the reintroduced technologies would have faced similar issues. Cost is no issue for a nation facing devastation, that's something to worry about once hostilities cease.

certainly a combination of game-driven decisions required a liberal application of FASAnomics. I'm thinking that even with the molasses-paced economies of scale in the fictional BT FUUUUUUUUUUUTURE, superior systems will be coming to the fore by the 3150s and 60s.