What mech weapons FEEL most primitive to you?

[Jeyar123]

So, as one who long tried to follow whatever tech limitations others placed on me for playing, I find the tech levels for equipment really useful. However other than a Really great group I've met up with IRL, I've had some pushback on certain items - in both directions - that what I was picking was too advanced or something should be primitive enough for me to pick. Most of which seems to boil down to feelings it seems to me.

So I ask, for mech weapons, what would you call the "most primitive" to you?
This can be single items or tiers or whatever, but I'm trying to scrape the bottom of mech mountable weapons here relative to your FEEL of it being primitive.

An example is the hatchet, which a lot of people have argued as being super primitive tech for a mech, regardless of its rating as they associate it with stone age warriors and such.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Rifle cannons.

[Gorgon]

MRMs, There is nothing preventing them from being invented centuries earlier.

[Saint]

Rocket Launchers by far.

[Doc Swift]

Artillery.

[DOC_Agren]

Rocket Launchers
Machine Guns
Any Melee Weapons
Dumb Fire Missiles
Rifle Cannons
Artillery (including Cannons and Mech Mortars) but not Arrow

[idea weenie]

AC/20

It is powerful and dangerous, but the combo of large damage and short range makes me think of a blunderbuss rather than a cannon.

[Jeyar123]

Rocket Launchers
Machine Guns
Any Melee Weapons
Dumb Fire Missiles
Rifle Cannons
Artillery (including Cannons and Mech Mortars) but not Arrow

Thank you for the list, but just for clarity, are "dumb fire missiles" MRM and RL or is it one/other/something else? Thanks again in any case.

Also @ Idea, thank you for the description why. While I liked everyone's answers, yours was a first for that system to me and the explanation helped me understand. (Gorgon too had a nice exp., but MRM have been described as primitive by others to me in the past and I wasn't as surprised).😄

[DOC_Agren]

Thank you for the list, but just for clarity, are "dumb fire missiles" MRM and RL or is it one/other/something else? Thanks again in any case.

Also @ Idea, thank you for the description why. While I liked everyone's answers, yours was a first for that system to me and the explanation helped me understand. (Gorgon too had a nice exp., but MRM have been described as primitive by others to me in the past and I wasn't as surprised).😄

Dumb Fire Missiles from here
Rocket Launchers

While I like

AC/20

It is powerful and dangerous, but the combo of large damage and short range makes me think of a blunderbuss rather than a cannon.

Blunderbuss would be the LB-20X but with the AC20 Range

[rebs]

MG's

[JAMES_PRYDE]

AC

[paladin2019]

Anything using ammunition. Thunderbolts and dead-fires (though long superseded by the time mechs show up) over other missiles.

Mech melee weapons are questionable. The level of materials technology to make them durable (vs. a mech's fists or shot off limb) seems rather advanced.

[Metallgewitter]

A Mech with hands is primitive enough. You can just throw stones at your opponent  cool

[Starfury]

Ram plate.

[Elmoth]

Rocket launchers and AC. LRM/SRM are slightly higher. But they are still 20-21st century tech for sure.

[thesilverback]

Machine guns and Autocannons

[beachhead1985]

LRMs.

Astonishingly incapable weapons by any realistic benchmark.

[Failure16]

The ammo-storage and reloading systems for any missile of ballistic weapon system on a BattleMech preclude it from being primitive on the basis that they can fit inside the armored frame and get ammunition to travel safely and quickly from one body part to another under nearly any circumstances (usually involving catastrophic damage).

Still, the inverted, damage capacity, weights, and ranges of autocannons certainly induce feelings of primitiveness. Sometimes I like to envision LRM systems as being actual autocannons, because those too are weapons systems that only make sense in the context of an anime-style visual barrage of buffoonery.

[paladin2019]

LRM systems ... are weapons systems that only make sense in the context of an anime-style visual barrage of buffoonery.

This is exactly what BattleTech missiles are meant to emulate.

Mission accomplished!

[CJC070]

Ballistic weapons in general mostly the fact that even by 3150 we still don’t see a bigger bang for each shot and yet Lasers and PPCs in comparison change significantly.

[Failure16]

This is exactly what BattleTech missiles are meant to emulate.

Mission accomplished!

Umm. Yeah. I am quite sure everyone understands that. It's where the game originated from. 

But it doesn't make it good either (though aesthetics is personal, of course). And, as beachead1985 said first, they are more than simply primitive in their operation and capabilities, though their reloading systems are nigh magical (and the armored covers for the racks seen on many designs must have very impressive hinges and actuation gear considering their vast weight..).

[Jeyar123]

So it is fair to say that LRM and Autocan FEEL primitive to you if the ammo and weapon are in the same location? Just to simplify for my initial purposes. cool

[Failure16]

Roger.

If ballistics had come with an increased TH or Critical chance, or a better range-paradigm (like lasers), or lesser mass right out of the gate (as in, 1984ish) they would seem to have a raison d'etre alongside directed-energy weapons. If missiles did more concentrated or reliable damage, they would seem to have a greater utility for the troopers out in the field. That would make them more realistic within the confines of the setting, and therefore less-primitive feeling.

Note that I am leaving the obvious adjuncts from those two broader fields (like MRMs, RLs, rifled cannons, 500-kilo machine guns, etc.) out of this because I believe those are a bit more universal in this consideration of primitiveness.

This all comes from someone who adores the AC/10 above nearly all. So, while it may not make absolute sense, it is still a viewpoint.

[Daryk]

Not weapons, but Recon Cameras and Remote Sensor Dispensers are both available from Pre-Spaceflight.  And both have tremendous use even in the 31st century... :)

[truetanker]

I ignore the Lorax...

Gimme trees!!1!

That primitive enough?

Best part grab a tree and swing
..

Batter batter up?

TT

[Intermittent_Coherence]

Flamers and battlefists.

[Daryk]

TT has it right in that trees are one-use clubs... ;D

[truetanker]

I'd like to go FULL Pokemon now...

Favorite Poke is Cubone.

So gimme a fresh MegaFauna Femur...

TT

[garhkal]

So, as one who long tried to follow whatever tech limitations others placed on me for playing, I find the tech levels for equipment really useful. However other than a Really great group I've met up with IRL, I've had some pushback on certain items - in both directions - that what I was picking was too advanced or something should be primitive enough for me to pick. Most of which seems to boil down to feelings it seems to me.

So I ask, for mech weapons, what would you call the "most primitive" to you?
This can be single items or tiers or whatever, but I'm trying to scrape the bottom of mech mountable weapons here relative to your FEEL of it being primitive.

Prety much all melee weapons, Machine guns and Auto cannons (BASE ones at least).

A Mech with hands is primitive enough. You can just throw stones at your opponent  cool

Though there's rules for picking up trees/limbs etc, to use as a club, i don't think i have ever seen rules, for 'hurling rocks'?

[AlphaMirage]

There are throwing rules in TacOps and I think Noisel.