BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Game Systems => General BattleTech Discussion => Topic started by: Korzon77 on 31 July 2011, 21:20:10
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Since according to the PTB we're getting a tech manual for that period.
The thing is, that bigger numbers are getting boring.
BUt, btech is not about transhumanism, OGRES or fighting with networked drone swarms. It's mainly about mechs and a retro future look, so I'm wondering what sort of tech could be included without either just getting into "It's a gauss gun, only BETTER" or risking changing the setting so that it isn't battletech.
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Personally, I'd love to see a BattleMech 2.0 that actually is "a BattleMech, only BETTER" -- but I know it won't be coming in 3150 since it's not all over the fiction. Someday, maybe.
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I get the feeling that there hasn't been much technical advancement by 3150 due to a prolonged era of relative peace.
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Get ready: treble heat sinks.
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A few more pieces of experimental to become more common, but that's it mostly IMO. Working on refining what's in the pipe but no massive leaps due to the peace
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Gundams :D ;D
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Gundams :D ;D
Gunmen ;)
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Probably 100 ton to 200 ton mechs, new jumpships-ones capable of moving about insystem, new LAM designs, and Inner Sphere Protomechs.
In the end-recreating the wheel and improving it.
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Gunmen ;)
Oh and to date myself-
Gunbusters
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I have a feeling that we'll never see IS Protomechs.
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Oh and to date myself-
Gunbusters
Yes! Maybe they can turn a gas giant into a Black Hole Bomb. I claim Buster Machine III for the Capellan Confederation!
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Consolidation of experimental technologies and their wider spread deployment.
What I would like to see are mech vairents becoming extinct.
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I expect that we'll see mechs built with the same capabilities that we come up with in the fan design forums, aka mechs that aren't intentionally flawed. Most of the 3025 tech could be used without fear of munchkinism, and the no longer experimental tech can be used intelligentlly without going overboard. It will allow us to get new units to smash each other with, but still keeps the feature creep under control.
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Well, by roughly 3150 - ie the timescale of the MW:DA game - we've seen TS:EMP ('Mech-sized tazers), tripod 'Mechs, 'Mechs over 100 tons, and the realisation that the AC-2 (and its LB-2X and UAC-2 brethren) are the ultimate weapon (at least by the number of times they appear on assault designs :P ). Nothing that earth-shaking (apart from the 200-tonners)
W.
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Clan light fusion engines or a medium class gauss rifle for the inner sphere. Perhaps new and exciting Narc munitions to make them relevant again.
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I have a feeling that we'll never see IS Protomechs.
Well, Blakists had something that was close apparently, and secret evil ComStar faction has access to VDNI, but I think its more likely we'll finally see the new unique ComStar 'Mechs and DropShip rather than that so soon in proceedings
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I took the liberty of cross-checking Warrenborn's tech list with Sarna's and came up with the following military tech that we don't have by 3085. If there's any popular demand, I'll go back and make any necessary edits and maybe try to extrapolate what some of these things actually do.
Ammunition:
Armor-Piercing Explosive Rounds
Concussion Ammo
Extended-Range Ammo
Fire Shot
Haywire Missiles
Heat-Seeking Ammo
Homing Beacons
Queen Bee Ammo
Viscid Incindiary Fluid
Armor:
Ablative Armor
Heat-Dissipating Armor
Heavy Armor
Impact Armor
Reinforced Armor
Combat Units:
Colossus-Class 'Mechs
Quad-Vees
Defense Systems:
Advanced Anti-Missile Systems
Advanced Point Defense
Close In Weapons Systems
Viral Decoy Jammers
Viral Homing-Beacon Jammers
Heating & Cooling:
Emergency Coolant Systems
Heat Sink Override Kits
Radical Heat Sinks
Lasers:
Hyper Lasers
Refocused Lasers
Miscellaneous:
Hot-Drop Shielding
Overchargers
Seismic Dampeners
Myomer:
Improved Myomer
Supercooled Myomer
Offensive Systems:
Advanced Pulse Modules
Continuous-Fire Mode
Saturation-Fire Mode
Other Weapons:
Bunker Busters
Deforesters
Inferno Flamers
Plasma Guns
TSEMP
Repeating TSEMP
Repairs:
Harjel II Auto-Repair Systems
Harjel III Auto-Repair Systems
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Get ready: treble heat sinks.
Followed closely by bass heat sinks? :D
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Followed closely by bass heat sinks? :D
One-upping the Jade Falcons, the Inner Sphere makes heat sinks that release their heat as sound, thus paving the way for more legal troubles involving Macross 7.
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Next, replacing jump jets with jive jets! Disco elementals, baby! ;D
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Next, replacing jump jets with jive jets! Disco elementals, baby! ;D
Which only work if you have a mini aquarium in the heels! Woo!
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Which only work if you have a mini aquarium in the heels! Woo!
Light and Heavy Clan ERPPCs, variable clan lasers, new RACs, area-attack munitions, uh...good question.
I can see IS protomech development, actually, especially after 80 years of fighting the things - it won't be AS advanced as the Clan rides, more mechanical in nature, but...I could dig it.
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Next, replacing jump jets with jive jets! Disco elementals, baby! ;D
They can join in with the stormtroopers
(http://media.moddb.com/images/members/1/97/96059/test1.gif)
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Sorry, I think we'd see only some new selected new weapons and equipment, like an EMP weapon (or improved taser).
The colossus class. IS Protos hopefully not.
Mostly most of the experimental/advanced stuff would be TL and advanced, like in the TRO: Prototypes.
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Clan RAC's and Clan Variable Speed Lasers. These would make my day. Also new Ammo for ATM's to increase their use and actually make them a viable choice.
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They can join in with the stormtroopers
Isn't that one on the right a little short for a StormTrooper? ???
w ;)
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Ammunition:
Armor-Piercing Explosive Rounds
Concussion Ammo
Extended-Range Ammo
Queen Bee Ammo
Viscid Incindiary Fluid
Armor:
Ablative Armor
Heat-Dissipating Armor
Impact Armor
Reinforced Armor
Combat Units:
Colossus-Class 'Mechs
Quad-Vees
Defense Systems:
Advanced Anti-Missile Systems
Advanced Point Defense
Close In Weapons Systems
Viral Decoy Jammers
Viral Homing-Beacon Jammers
Heating & Cooling:
Heat Sink Override Kits
Radical Heat Sinks
Lasers:
Hyper Lasers
Refocused Lasers
Miscellaneous:
Overchargers
Seismic Dampeners
Myomer:
Improved Myomer
Supercooled Myomer
Offensive Systems:
Advanced Pulse Modules
Continuous-Fire Mode
Saturation-Fire Mode
Other Weapons:
Bunker Busters
Deforesters
Inferno Flamers
TSEMP
Repeating TSEMP
Repairs:
Harjel II Auto-Repair Systems
Harjel III Auto-Repair Systems
I trimmed down the stuff that we already have stuff for(even if it is named differently,
somethings just already exist)
From the culled list:
Fire Shot is just incendiary ammo
Homing Beacons are NARC, while Haywire "missiles" are the Haywire rounds for iNARC
Heat Seeking missiles already exist in game(get a bonus for how hot the 'mech they are shooting at is!)
Heavy Armour is likely Ferro-Llamelor, or even Heavy Ferro(basicly, that gear represents having more armour)
Emergency Coolant Systems are the well known coolant pods we already have.
Hot-Drop Shielding is the ablative cocoons we have had for years for droping 'mechs in from orbit
Plasma Guns are...just that, Plasma weapons(IIRC< they do no damage to 'mechs, so are likely Plasma Cannons)
I am sure alot of other things in that list might also be already represented in some way, however.
BTW: I am looking forward to Advanced Anti-Missile Systems! I plan to build a 'mech that is JUST those!
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Ablative armor? All BT standard ground armor is ablative.
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Ablative armor? All BT standard ground armor is ablative.
Yeah...IIRC, the gear card made it sound like something that went over the existing armour,
or an advancement on the standard battletech armour. It could be argued that it is actually
Ferro-Llamelor..but...
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Would seismic dampeners be a pair of very large slippers?
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Yeah...IIRC, the gear card made it sound like something that went over the existing armour,
or an advancement on the standard battletech armour. It could be argued that it is actually
Ferro-Llamelor..but...
Sounds like armor pods to me. (which we have rules for)
For the post-Blackout gear, you mostly want to look at the RISC stuff. That's all the hyperadvanced, high risk, high reward experimental tech.
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treble heat sinks?
What about improved Inferno rounds? Not only creating a torch but also creating a temp. magnetic field that makes the magnetic shielding for the fusion instable...
wasn't there some rules once?
However... is a heat sink able to reduce heat when the exhaust is burning?
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treble heat sinks?
What about improved Inferno rounds? Not only creating a torch but also creating a temp. magnetic field that makes the magnetic shielding for the fusion instable...
wasn't there some rules once?
However... is a heat sink able to reduce heat when the exhaust is burning?
You're thinking of EMP missiles. Created an instability within a fusion engine's magnetic field that inflicted a heat burden on the mech. EMP missiles also caused a +1 penalty to-hit on the target. Experimental, and IIRC actually extinct.
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We have tracks, what about Hover Legs for 'mechs? Just to give it a high-speed movement option for crossing terrain; and easily done as a prototype in-universe. Take a pair of Maxim Mk IIs with 265 engines replacing the current engine, cargo, and weapons, have an Annihilator step on each one; weld the contact points down and each Maxim carries a 50 ton load. And now you have a 5/8 Annihilator.
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We have tracks, what about Hover Legs for 'mechs? Just to give it a high-speed movement option for crossing terrain; and easily done as a prototype in-universe. Take a pair of Maxim Mk IIs with 265 engines replacing the current engine, cargo, and weapons, have an Annihilator step on each one; weld the contact points down and each Maxim carries a 50 ton load. And now you have a 5/8 Annihilator.
that will become a nice kill for a single soldier with a anti material rifle }:)
(damaging the hover skirt) and you see 100tons diging the dirt
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"The bigger they are, the more likely you are to win Inner Sphere's Funniest Home Videos when they fall"
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new jumpships-ones capable of moving about insystem,
They call those warships.
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They call those warships.
They call those JumpShips, too. As useless as they are for tactical mobility, a JumpShip's transit drive is quite sufficient for moving around a star system.
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I was thinking of something more along the lines to allow jumpships to cut transit time from ship to planet, not being armed and armored for combat. Jumpships don't always need a military use.
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Thought you can't apply thrust with dropships docked anyway.
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Nanite armor repair systems? Drone Battlemechs? Anti-grav (tank) units?
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I trimmed down the stuff that we already have stuff for(even if it is named differently,
somethings just already exist)
From the culled list:
Fire Shot is just incendiary ammo
I don't think you're right about that. Fire Shot is a R.I.S.C. weapon, none of which have been debuted yet. Also, judging from the AoD rules, it heats up not only the target but the surrounding units as well. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't there's a current BattleTech weapon that does that sort of splash damage.
Homing Beacons are NARC, while Haywire "missiles" are the Haywire rounds for iNARC
You're definitely right about the Homing Beacons, but I'm not sure if the Haywire Missiles being the same as the Pods. The Missile affects defensive systems while the Pod affects targeting.
Heat Seeking missiles already exist in game(get a bonus for how hot the 'mech they are shooting at is!)
You're right about these too.
Heavy Armour is likely Ferro-Llamelor, or even Heavy Ferro(basicly, that gear represents having more armour)
Or Ferro-Aluminum. Either way, you're right.
Emergency Coolant Systems are the well known coolant pods we already have.
Emergency Coolant Systems are R.I.S.C. gear and WizKids introduced a separate card for coolant pods. The ECS definitely a post-3085 technology.
Hot-Drop Shielding is the ablative cocoons we have had for years for droping 'mechs in from orbit
That was my initial thought as well, but it's a R.I.S.C. piece and it's pretty clear it's armor, not a cocoon. I think it might be a special type of armor that allows 'mechs to hot drop without a cocoon.
Plasma Guns are...just that, Plasma weapons(IIRC< they do no damage to 'mechs, so are likely Plasma Cannons)
I agree.
I'll repost an edited list soon.
And one more prediction: more and more Inner Sphere manufacturers will unlock the secrets of mass producing Clan weapons.
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Pulse Lasers for the inner sphere upgraded to X Pulse range, Inner Sphere versions of the AP Gauss
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Nanite armor repair systems? Drone Battlemechs? Anti-grav (tank) units?
The big problem with nanotechnology, as put forward by nanotech eutopians, is that there is no way to power the damn things. The proponents tend to ignore the problem by pointing out that no one wonders how viri and bacteria are powered, and then go right back to describing nanites doing things requiring orders of magnitude more power than is available to viri and bacteria. Will nanites repair armor? Definite yes. Will nanites repair armor faster than a trained tree sloth? Definite no. In fact, the difference between nanite armor production and coral reef growth favors the polyps (economies of scale). The grey goo problem of nanowarfare is no worse than weaponised ebola (dreadful enough, thank you, but the human body already has nanites-- white blood cells-- capable of mounting a defence, if the attacking nanites can be tagged for destruction).
If HPG's and KF drives work by generating wormholes, anti-grav units are only an engineering problem, as all of the heavy lifting has been done.
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The big problem with nanotechnology, as put forward by nanotech eutopians, is that there is no way to power the damn things. The proponents tend to ignore the problem by pointing out that no one wonders how viri and bacteria are powered, and then go right back to describing nanites doing things requiring orders of magnitude more power than is available to viri and bacteria. Will nanites repair armor? Definite yes. Will nanites repair armor faster than a trained tree sloth? Definite no. In fact, the difference between nanite armor production and coral reef growth favors the polyps (economies of scale). The grey goo problem of nanowarfare is no worse than weaponised ebola (dreadful enough, thank you, but the human body already has nanites-- white blood cells-- capable of mounting a defence, if the attacking nanites can be tagged for destruction).
If HPG's and KF drives work by generating wormholes, anti-grav units are only an engineering problem, as all of the heavy lifting has been done.
Reality and Battletech go hand in hand like a drug induced hallucination and engineering a fusion reactor ;-)
The nanites could be powered wirelessly by the fusion reactor, should have a lot of power for that. Maybe even use bricks/blocks or pellets of armor and the nanites only fuse them together at the right place.
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Reality and Battletech go hand in hand like a drug induced hallucination and engineering a fusion reactor ;-)
So that's how they made the D-Engines of Cthulutech! ;D
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If HPG's and KF drives work by generating wormholes, anti-grav units are only an engineering problem, as all of the heavy lifting has been done.
K-F drives don't work by generating wormholes. StratOps says that very bluntly. The ComStar sourcebook indicates HPGs work by the same basic hyperspace mechanics as K-F drives, so this is a non-starter.
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Gauss Autocannons (GACs) or maybe Rail ACs instead. The GAC/RailAC has a variable choke and variable power, so you can fire any type of AC round. It can also be used as a mortar to fire mortar rounds indirectly. It solves the problem of ACs being underpowered and overspecialized compared to energy weapons.
Improved Armor technology would swing the pendulum from WWI/II-ish nature of large mech armies fighting with increasing lethal weapons back to small mech units with better survivability.
Bigger, single missiles. LRM/MRM/SRM/etc. are replaced with Thunderbolt style variants with lighter launchers and heavier missiles. This is necessary to defeat improved armor and to help speed up the game. Fewer missiles would be carried.
Bigger Rocket Pods replace RLs (and LRM/MRM/SRMs). The big launcher, small ammo paradigm of missiles is replaced by RL style rockets. Bigger rockets to help defeat improved armor, and a single RL system replaces a plethora of LRMs, MRMs, SRMs, etc..
Energy weapons would run off of capacitors. You can run with just enough capacitors to fire the big energy gun or to fire just the short range energy weapons, but not both. Or you can mount enough capacitors to alpha with everything. Losing a capacitor means you might not be able to fire all your energy weapons or have to fire them a reduced power. Capacitors would also add the "explosive ammo" liability to energy weapons to tone them down compared to ACs.
CASE II is standard on everything.
Basically, start off with fewer weapons systems and start the era with fewer mechs and focus more on tactics instead of having a crazy number of mechs that seem to mount a random assortment of weapons at varying movement speeds.
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Gauss Autocannons (GACs) or maybe Rail ACs instead. The GAC/RailAC has a variable choke and variable power, so you can fire any type of AC round. It can also be used as a mortar to fire mortar rounds indirectly. It solves the problem of ACs being underpowered and overspecialized compared to energy weapons.
But doesn't make much sense. I mean, even given that a lot of things, mostly about armor, don't.
Energy weapons would run off of capacitors. You can run with just enough capacitors to fire the big energy gun or to fire just the short range energy weapons, but not both. Or you can mount enough capacitors to alpha with everything. Losing a capacitor means you might not be able to fire all your energy weapons or have to fire them a reduced power. Capacitors would also add the "explosive ammo" liability to energy weapons to tone them down compared to ACs.
Power amplifiers. Why would you need to mount power amplifiers if you have a nuclear engine?
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But doesn't make much sense. I mean, even given that a lot of things, mostly about armor, don't.
What doesn't make sense?
AC rounds have varying weight and propellant charges. The propellant is replaced by electro-magnetism to propel the round. You can vary the power you put into the gun to vary the range. Gauss/Rail guns float the round via magnetism so you can, in psuedo-science theory, use any size round (up to the max size limit of the gun.)
Additionally, instead of firing inert slugs, the GAC/Rail AC would still fire normal HE/Penetrator type AC rounds. Meaning, instead of relying completely on kinetic energy for damage, the rounds would be fired at slower AC style velocities and would rely on the round warhead type to do damage.
This would let you fire anything from a long ranged AC2 round to a short ranged AC20 round to a mortar round from a single weapons system.
Power amplifiers. Why would you need to mount power amplifiers if you have a nuclear engine?
No, I mean capacitors. Existing BT energy and gauss weapons have integral capacitors. You apparently cannot draw power fast enough from the engine to fire a laser or PPC. So you have to store up energy in a capacitor in order to release enough energy in a very short amount of time.
By making capacitors separate from the energy/gauss weapons, you make the weapons a bit lighter and give energy weapons an ammo-ish quality (i.e. do I have enough capacitor energy to fire all the energy weapons that I want/need to.) It would also provide the ability to under or over charge energy weapons.
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Since according to the PTB we're getting a tech manual for that period.
The thing is, that bigger numbers are getting boring.
BUt, btech is not about transhumanism, OGRES or fighting with networked drone swarms. It's mainly about mechs and a retro future look, so I'm wondering what sort of tech could be included without either just getting into "It's a gauss gun, only BETTER" or risking changing the setting so that it isn't battletech.
Wait when did they say we are getting a new tech manual for the 3150 time frame?
Though at some point it's better to say this weapon simply is better than what they had in 3070... You know real tech progression...
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The noon BattleChat on Sunday.
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Not a new Tech Manual... just a new TRO with some new tech in it.
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Oh, TechManual, not TRO.
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...I realize new tech is inevitable, but I think its hit a limit for a while and we'll see it become more refined and common. It's going to take some kind of major "breakthrough" to change the basis of a mech; the 100-ton limit is one, crit spaces might be another.
I think I'm becoming a grognard - there's enough tech choices for me by the end of '85, but there's more on the way.
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I'd say 3150 tech will be nice and simple.
What was experimental in Techmanual is now Advanced tech, what was advanced is now standard.
From evidence thus far not much new experimental stuff
Oh and here is Colossal construction rules - this is how bad they really suck the ones already built are as optimized as you get. (probably not this bad but I hope they really suck)
Other than that I'd be surprised if there is much else or much point... unless we get new novels that introduce new stuff or new source books.
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We already have a good look at the years leading up to 3150 with the MWDA units and novels. TRO Prototypes for 3090 tech advancement table likely covers a large part of what we'll see. I expect we'll see a few more technology label changes related to the tech/rules levels as some advanced/experimental equipment moves into production with only a few brand new advancements. It won't be as simple as Experimental = Advanced and Advanced = Tournament though since Prototypes already shows some Experimental moving straight to Tournament Level for 3090 play.
This will be settings things up nicely for an eventual revision of the current core rulebooks, it will be interesting to see how that is approached and if IO will beat TW 2 out the door? I'm in no hurry but TW's time will come (along with TM, etc), Compendium 1990, Master Rules 1998, Total Warfare 2006. It's wild speculation but at the same time 2014 fits a pattern... }:)
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To clarify something, advanced rules gear is frequently in standard production but may not be appropriate for tournament level play. For instance, HVACs aren't tourney because they depend on the smoke rules.
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Reality and Battletech go hand in hand like a drug induced hallucination and engineering a fusion reactor ;-)
The nanites could be powered wirelessly by the fusion reactor, should have a lot of power for that. Maybe even use bricks/blocks or pellets of armor and the nanites only fuse them together at the right place.
There are two problems with powering nanites, the first is getting the power to the nanite and the second is not destroying nanites with the power. The amount of energy needed to blow apart a nanite is measured in electron volts. Wireless power transmission has the fun limitation that the amount of energy taken up by the receiver is proportional to the area of the receiver. For nanites, this is on the order of 10^-16 square meters, so you can do the math on the energy density of the field. A nasty effect is that it will take potentials of a few millivolts to electrically power a nanite and they are only tens of nanometers long, so the electrical field strength will be tens of millions of volts per meter, a stress that no insulator, not even a hard vacuum, will support.
A big problem for nanite armor repair is that the damage is almost always on the outside, and even anthrax can only endure battlefield conditions as a dormant spore. If nanites cannot repair armor during a fight, they must be compared to a tech who is much faster, can handle blocks that are much more massive, and is much better at identifying battle damage.
K-F drives don't work by generating wormholes. StratOps says that very bluntly. The ComStar sourcebook indicates HPGs work by the same basic hyperspace mechanics as K-F drives, so this is a non-starter.
I did say "If". However, unless K-F drives and HPG's do not warp space, at all (outside of warping space from their mass), the physical possibility exists for anti-gravity, even if the engineering problems are insurmountable. The one hope that we (you, me, and everyone else in real life) have for FTL travel is that while no easy mechanism suggests itself to accomplish that goal, General Relativity does not absolutely forbid it. If we happen to live in an eight dimensional universe and can produce negative matter (bizarre stuff that is repelled by gravity), FTL, anti-gravity, and time travel become real, as opposed to hypothetical, possibilities (there are no shortage of physicists laboring to modify GR to make time travel absolutely impossible, but they have yet to succeed).
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That was my initial thought as well, but it's a R.I.S.C. piece and it's pretty clear it's armor, not a cocoon. I think it might be a special type of armor that allows 'mechs to hot drop without a cocoon.
Actually...the orbital drop cocoon as is fits very much into the RISC concept. Think about the risks associated with an orbital
drop. You can hit the atmosphere wrong and burn-up, you can fail to trigger jump jets or fire them at the wrong angles, and crash.
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Reality and Battletech go hand in hand like a drug induced hallucination and engineering a fusion reactor ;-)
Sigged!
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Negative matter might be bette named "negative mass"
Nanites won't be in 3150. It's pointless to even think they might. I doubt that level of tech will ever make it into btech, along with antigravity.
If you ever played Renegade Legion, then you know how nasty Gravtaks would slaughter mechs.
(think shielded, 800 ton tanks that can move over 1000 KPH., and in some cases survive nukes)
I would expect new electronic devices (eg TSEMP, which act like buffers/debuffers for the game) some new weapons and possibly new armor. They aren't going to go all super tech on it all of a sudden, because it would render everything else obsolete.
Probably more prototech toys, potentially the status of warships in that era (eg refitted Potempkins the Sea Foxes are using, etc)
Battletech doesn't advance quickly, and very things render older units completely obsolete overnightt. (biggest inew tech probably double heat sinks still).
With the 3150 era, we'll certainly get some new tech, but it's not turning into Star Wars. It's likley there will be a lot of primitive tech units in that book as well.
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What doesn't make sense?
AC rounds have varying weight and propellant charges. The propellant is replaced by electro-magnetism to propel the round. You can vary the power you put into the gun to vary the range. Gauss/Rail guns float the round via magnetism so you can, in psuedo-science theory, use any size round (up to the max size limit of the gun.)
You absolutely don't want to have propellant firing inside the inner workings of a railgun. It would likely end quite badly. Like, worse than a 2 on an HVAC badly, as the friction from the accelerating round ignites all the other rounds waiting their turn.
Additionally, instead of firing inert slugs, the GAC/Rail AC would still fire normal HE/Penetrator type AC rounds. Meaning, instead of relying completely on kinetic energy for damage, the rounds would be fired at slower AC style velocities and would rely on the round warhead type to do damage.
A different ammo type for Silver Bullet Gauss, then. The massive disparity between AC round size and firing rate is also something I wouldn't overlook the importance of in attempting to make a "one size fits all" ballistic energy weapon.
This would let you fire anything from a long ranged AC2 round to a short ranged AC20 round to a mortar round from a single weapons system.
It seems to be about as useful in concept as the Clan ATM. It's mating together several weapon types, combining their weaknesses (well, the weakness of an HVAC and the gauss rifles) but not their strengths.
No, I mean capacitors. Existing BT energy and gauss weapons have integral capacitors. You apparently cannot draw power fast enough from the engine to fire a laser or PPC. So you have to store up energy in a capacitor in order to release enough energy in a very short amount of time.
The description of power amplifiers mentions that they consist of banks of capacitors, as per page 235 of the TechManual. Presumably, the nuclear reactor engines of BT manage to supply enough power to make a shot all in one go, since a PPC puts out enough energy to equal a 1 kt yield nuke detonated in vacuum, albeit over a much smaller volume. Optional overcharging rules for PPCs allow a Heavy PPC to equal just slightly over three times that much energy.
By making capacitors separate from the energy/gauss weapons, you make the weapons a bit lighter and give energy weapons an ammo-ish quality (i.e. do I have enough capacitor energy to fire all the energy weapons that I want/need to.) It would also provide the ability to under or over charge energy weapons.
Under and overcharging are already incorporated in optional advanced rules, albeit not for everything (lasers can power down, PPCs can overcharge). There's also the PPC Capacitor, but it's more of a safe-ish overcharger, and has its own performance issues that don't match up with ammunition-using weapons; the only similarity it has is in reacting like some of the more unstable autocannon types when a 2 is rolled.
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I'd suspect that not only would we have a fair bit of 3025/3050 unit designs extinct by then, but it would probably be past time to obsolete a number of weapon designs
and replace them with newer tech. Mostly for simplification of play and unit construction, possibly to introduce new battlefield roles/specializations/gameplay not present
in the current rules. Completely wild guessing here, will be interesting to see what pans out.
-Standard Autocannons fully replaced by LAC's and the other AC types. Possible removal of LB-X type outright if an advanced cluster munition was done in a similar manner to AP and precision
(Half ammo count, maybe an additional critical roll in ammo explosions, etc.). Ultras might go the way of dodo if newer RAC models were handled correctly.
-Star League type Pulse lasers replaced by X-Pulse or better.
-Standard Lasers might just be considered obsolete and pulled in favor of the ER models, just as the Clans did.
Standard PPC's probably just gone by then, possible ER/Snub variants of Light and Heavy PPC's doing the same to those types. Possible Clan versions of the various PPC technologies.
-Streak missiles possibly becoming just a half-ammo count special munition, getting rid of the specialized launchers.
-Greater tendency towards ATM/MML type tech, heavier reliance on special munitions. Possible retirement of SW-era launchers, with MRM's likely out of the picture totally.
-Possible second generation iOS launchers that are only a quarter/half ton per shot, but have some sort of penalty, such as they get a minimum range that is
the same as their short range.
-Some consolidation on missile guidance tech. Either some new tech that takes a bit here and there from Artemis/NARC/Semi-guided/etc. as a comprehensive system, or refinements
that obsolete parts of the field (for example, a lighter iNARC launcher that obsoletes the Star League tech NARC's).
-Consolidation/reorganization/refinement of C3, ECM, Active Probes, TAG, and Communications Equipment. At least changes with an eye towards speeding game play with them,
and to make constructing a force with improved electronics less of a pain in the neck.
In gameplay terms, I'd suspect the BV gaps between factions to shrink quite a bit. An IS/Clan fight probably would be more like 6-8 vs. 5 instead of what we have now.
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From what I've seen of "IS vs. Clans" fights in the dark ages, both sides have the same amount of Clantech in them. ><
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From what I've seen of "IS vs. Clans" fights in the dark ages, both sides have the same amount of Clantech in them. ><
Good. The slow rate at which the IS is backwards-engineering clan tech is positively unbelievable.
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From what I've seen of "IS vs. Clans" fights in the dark ages, both sides have the same amount of Clantech in them. ><
True, but I have to take clicky-tech with a grain of salt. Given that most of the in-game factions are from the RoS, and even
back in 3085 the republic has a lot of Clantech. I'm sure the best house formations and top-tier Merc units have a fair bit as well, but I'm
doubtful that's the composition of your average bread-and-butter house unit, or militia unit, or hard-luck Merc unit.
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Good. The slow rate at which the IS is backwards-engineering clan tech is positively unbelievable.
Not really, the problem they had wasn't reverse engineering them, but the lack of advanced enough (read orbital) factories to make the parts required in the first place. The NAIS had a lot of stuff reverse engineered within a couple years, they just couldn't make the stuff on a large scale because it had to be handcrafted. If you can make 20 IS tech mechs for the cost of 1 clan tech mech, the choice is generally obvious except for a very few exceptions (special forces, etc)
The IS spent the last few hundred years blowing up the factories necessary, while the clan style of warfare prevented that (post Klondike)
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You absolutely don't want to have propellant firing inside the inner workings of a railgun. It would likely end quite badly. Like, worse than a 2 on an HVAC badly, as the friction from the accelerating round ignites all the other rounds waiting their turn.
You misread it completely.
An AC round is comprised of the bullet/warhead on top of a case filled with propellant. A Gauss AC/Rail AC round would just be the bullet/warhead. The propellant, shell, primer, etc., all go away in a Gauss/Rail AC. (This would also provide more rounds per ton of ammo.)
Instead of propelling a single solid slug of metal at hypersonic speeds like a GR does, a Gauss/Rail AC would propel a burst of AC warheads at the slower speeds of a normal AC. In other words, instead of propelling a single fast slug that relies on kinetic energy, the Gauss/Rail-AC would propel a slower moving burst of AC warheads that do damage the same way that normal ACs do.
Being able to vary the power of the shot and being able to use different sized AC rounds, the Gauss/Rail AC could fire anything from an AC20 burst to an AC2 burst to a mortar round. Imagine if a HGR could be dialed down to shoot a normal GR or Light GR slug with matching ranges? Same idea, but applied to AC rounds/warheads.
The description of power amplifiers mentions that they consist of banks of capacitors, as per page 235 of the TechManual. Presumably, the nuclear reactor engines of BT manage to supply enough power to make a shot all in one go, since a PPC puts out enough energy to equal a 1 kt yield nuke detonated in vacuum, albeit over a much smaller volume. Optional overcharging rules for PPCs allow a Heavy PPC to equal just slightly over three times that much energy.
TacOps, page 321 mentions that Improved Heavy Lasers have capacitors. And I'm mostly sure that other articles/fiction/whatever have mentioned that PPC and lasers make use of built in capacitors.
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I took the liberty of cross-checking Warrenborn's tech list with Sarna's and came up with the following military tech that we don't have by 3085. If there's any popular demand, I'll go back and make any necessary edits and maybe try to extrapolate what some of these things actually do.
Ammunition:
Armor-Piercing Explosive Rounds
Concussion Ammo
Extended-Range Ammo
Fire Shot
Haywire Missiles
Heat-Seeking Ammo
Homing Beacons
Queen Bee Ammo
Viscid Incindiary Fluid
Armor:
Ablative Armor
Heat-Dissipating Armor
Heavy Armor
Impact Armor
Reinforced Armor
Combat Units:
Colossus-Class 'Mechs
Quad-Vees
Defense Systems:
Advanced Anti-Missile Systems
Advanced Point Defense
Close In Weapons Systems
Viral Decoy Jammers
Viral Homing-Beacon Jammers
Heating & Cooling:
Emergency Coolant Systems
Heat Sink Override Kits
Radical Heat Sinks
Lasers:
Hyper Lasers
Refocused Lasers
Miscellaneous:
Hot-Drop Shielding
Overchargers
Seismic Dampeners
Myomer:
Improved Myomer
Supercooled Myomer
Offensive Systems:
Advanced Pulse Modules
Continuous-Fire Mode
Saturation-Fire Mode
Other Weapons:
Bunker Busters
Deforesters
Inferno Flamers
Plasma Guns
TSEMP
Repeating TSEMP
Repairs:
Harjel II Auto-Repair Systems
Harjel III Auto-Repair Systems
Is this a list of what tech they mention in the DA timeline? Like on the unit/equipment/pilot cards?
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Is this a list of what tech they mention in the DA timeline? Like on the unit/equipment/pilot cards?
That's exactly what it is.
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lets all waddle our way thru the DA stuff . Do we really need anymore tech at the moment? I havent even used some of the stuff that came out the last couple years. Lets slow down & play the heck out of what we have been given over the last few years & let the CBT kids step back & take a breath.
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lets all waddle our way thru the DA stuff . Do we really need anymore tech at the moment? I havent even used some of the stuff that came out the last couple years. Lets slow down & play the heck out of what we have been given over the last few years & let the CBT kids step back & take a breath.
Let's ignore what you said and get mroe tech.
Nobody is making you upgrade the tech you play with. It's just available for those that wish to use it.
We need more tech.
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God I hate doing this, but I can't resist...
I'd suspect that not only would we have a fair bit of 3025/3050 unit designs extinct by then, but it would probably be past time to obsolete a number of weapon designs
and replace them with newer tech. Mostly for simplification of play and unit construction, possibly to introduce new battlefield roles/specializations/gameplay not present
in the current rules. Completely wild guessing here, will be interesting to see what pans out.
-Standard Autocannons fully replaced by LAC's and the other AC types. Possible removal of LB-X type outright if an advanced cluster munition was done in a similar manner to AP and precision
(Half ammo count, maybe an additional critical roll in ammo explosions, etc.). Ultras might go the way of dodo if newer RAC models were handled correctly.
The fluff of how many of the autocannons work would keep this from happening. While I can see LAC's really keeping the old standard AC's out of frontline forces, it wouldn't be effective to make an LAC of every std. Autocannon- the ranges would become too short. Also, many of the construction aspects of the guns would keep some of these things from happening, like RAC's making UAC's obsolete- can you imagine how much recoil would come about from a RAC-20 on full auto? Or how inaccurate a double shot of UAC armor-piercing rounds would be?
-Star League type Pulse lasers replaced by X-Pulse or better.
I can see the LPL waning away, but not the normal SPL and MPL- some units might not be able to upkeep X-Pulse, and the lower heat is always a factor.
-Standard Lasers might just be considered obsolete and pulled in favor of the ER models, just as the Clans did.
Standard PPC's probably just gone by then, possible ER/Snub variants of Light and Heavy PPC's doing the same to those types. Possible Clan versions of the various PPC technologies.
These I also really doubt. The Clans got rid of the standard lasers and PPC's because they had upgraded the damage so much from them- and yet many of their dropships and warships still mount old Star League-era laser weaponry. Also, with all the newer PPC types available to the IS, people forget how powerful two PPC's an be, especially when you only need one extra DHS to make a 'mech that can run and fire off two 10 point hits each turn.
-Streak missiles possibly becoming just a half-ammo count special munition, getting rid of the specialized launchers.
Much of the fluff around the launchers suggests that a big part of it also has to do with the launchers themselves, so that's doubtful. I would however like to see the clans adapting those "Advanced SRM's" for battlemech use.
-Greater tendency towards ATM/MML type tech, heavier reliance on special munitions. Possible retirement of SW-era launchers, with MRM's likely out of the picture totally.
I can see MRMs leaving, but SRMs/LRMs? Hell no. MML's can't nearly compete with the throw-weight of a dedicated LRM, and will always be bigger than the SRM's they can replace. Also, ATM's lack any advanced munitions, and until they get any I'd rather stick with those old standbys.
-Possible second generation iOS launchers that are only a quarter/half ton per shot, but have some sort of penalty, such as they get a minimum range that is
the same as their short range.
I could see this. More akin to the Marian RL's- just a tube and firing circuit, with a heavy firing penalty and a much lighter weapon.
-Some consolidation on missile guidance tech. Either some new tech that takes a bit here and there from Artemis/NARC/Semi-guided/etc. as a comprehensive system, or refinements that obsolete parts of the field (for example, a lighter iNARC launcher that obsoletes the Star League tech NARC's).
Eh, I'm not too keen on lumping all the systems together, but something that could make NARC and Artemis work in cohesion would be awesome.
-Consolidation/reorganization/refinement of C3, ECM, Active Probes, TAG, and Communications Equipment. At least changes with an eye towards speeding game play with them, and to make constructing a force with improved electronics less of a pain in the neck.
That would be a big game-changer (especially with all the C3 and ECM nowadays) but I think it's asking a lot. Speeding it up means simplifying, and at this stage it'd be difficult.
In gameplay terms, I'd suspect the BV gaps between factions to shrink quite a bit. An IS/Clan fight probably would be more like 6-8 vs. 5 instead of what we have now.
I would hope so. Some of the clan players I went up against in BV got absolutely shafted.
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You misread it completely.
An AC round is comprised of the bullet/warhead on top of a case filled with propellant. A Gauss AC/Rail AC round would just be the bullet/warhead. The propellant, shell, primer, etc., all go away in a Gauss/Rail AC. (This would also provide more rounds per ton of ammo.)
Instead of propelling a single solid slug of metal at hypersonic speeds like a GR does, a Gauss/Rail AC would propel a burst of AC warheads at the slower speeds of a normal AC. In other words, instead of propelling a single fast slug that relies on kinetic energy, the Gauss/Rail-AC would propel a slower moving burst of AC warheads that do damage the same way that normal ACs do.
Being able to vary the power of the shot and being able to use different sized AC rounds, the Gauss/Rail AC could fire anything from an AC20 burst to an AC2 burst to a mortar round. Imagine if a HGR could be dialed down to shoot a normal GR or Light GR slug with matching ranges? Same idea, but applied to AC rounds/warheads.
Seeing as how there are heinous mounting restrictions on a HGR, I'd say that it would be a waste of a ton of ammo to fire a LGR round out of it.
TacOps, page 321 mentions that Improved Heavy Lasers have capacitors. And I'm mostly sure that other articles/fiction/whatever have mentioned that PPC and lasers make use of built in capacitors.
Yes, and the transmission of reactor to capacitor to weapon is to protect it from overloading when hooked up to the unit's nuclear reactor, because the nuclear reactor is not the weak link there, straining to recharge the weapon over time. It's a high-pressure baffle holding back a flood. Given a week's buildup, it can rachet and fold the universe around itself with the energy it's stored, which means that, in terms of how weapons act on the battlefield according the to rules, you won't be waiting for a capacitor to recharge for what could be considered a limited amount of time in an engagement. That problem is for battle armor and troops with battery-powered support weapons and small arms.
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Much of the fluff around the launchers suggests that a big part of it also has to do with the launchers themselves, so that's doubtful. I would however like to see the clans adapting those "Advanced SRM's" for battlemech use.
Personally, I would love to see the "Dual Purpose" missiles like are on the Undine adapted for
Battlemech use...
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- 5th Generation ballistics... in essence, refinements to gauss technology and the arrival of special munitions for them. Product improved autocannons of all types to represent an era of refinement a relative era of peace, much akin to the golden century magically giving the clanners all their super tech. In essence, we don't see all the old autocannons disappear, just better, smaller, more efficient models beginning to arrive of the types already in existence.
(5th generation referring to Succession War/Age of War era as 1st, Star League/Rediscovered as 2nd, Clanner invasion era as 3rd, Civil War/Jihad era as 4th, and 'next' generation as 5th)
- 5th Generation Energy Weapons - Refinement of the variable pulse laser technology towards a unified laser mount. Bulkier but with a switch to allow it to act as an ER, a Pulse, or a Variable Pulse laser to give more versatility over the current generation of laser. Laser arrays... akin to the MG array... perhaps even leading to a wider variety of Binary laser cannons... in the small and medium or even ER variants.
- 5th Generation Missiles - Refinements in missile defenses and the ever increasing use of ECM might see the current generation of streaks or guidance systems slowly diminish. The marked return of the heavy missiles akin to the thunderbolt launcher. The larger missile allowing for penetration aids to spoof and confuse the AMS systems and the ability to have the special guidance integrated into the missile itself, making ECM jamming difficult. A short ranged model to mimic the SRM it is replacing and an improved thunderbolt long ranged model to match the LRM launchers in their reach. Costly and why many of the older launchers will still be in use but starting to see a possible use. Even if it is not an adoption of improved thunderbolts, an improvement and diversification of smart munitions independent from their launchers.
- 5th Generation Defenses - Refinement of at least the Inner Sphere produced armors in terms of size. Put the old dog of saying that the Inner Sphere can not produce clan tech armors due to lack of space factories to sleep. If the 3060s were indication of how fast they can build, that shouldn't be a factor. Don't make the Inner Sphere armors match exactly the clanner stuff but make a general block refinement in the critical slot size across the board so it isn't so crippling.
Layered Armors - Nothing is so mean as knowing someone is taking anti-energy armor and throwing ballistics at them... or the same but reversed with lasers verse anti-ballistics. Sandwiched armors detailed at instillation. A layer of reactive backed by a layer of reflective and finally a standard or ferro-carbide layer to catch the last bits on a location.'
Improved Armored Components and Motive Systems - Reduce the weight requirements to these technologies.
So in general, 5th Generation vehicles and mechs should be better protected and armed than their brethren 70 years prior. It was understood that the chaotic period that marked the 50's through 80's meant that nothing was allowed to completely fall out of service just due to need and desperation but there has been seven decades to allow reconstruction and time to allow old material to fall out of production... at let the 1st generation stuff start to disappear from front line units... now the home of only the national guard or the lowest tier mercenary and minor groups. The surplus of 2nd and 3rd generation stuff should be enough to let that become the bargain basement/lower front line. 4th should be bread and butter of the front line. 5th generation should be the elite gear starting to see getting into the hands of the general units.
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...I realize new tech is inevitable, but I think its hit a limit for a while and we'll see it become more refined and common. It's going to take some kind of major "breakthrough" to change the basis of a mech; the 100-ton limit is one, crit spaces might be another.
The biggest problem with going above 100-tons is the increasing diminishing returns - you quickly get to the point where you're better off with a lighter design.
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Seeing as how there are heinous mounting restrictions on a HGR, I'd say that it would be a waste of a ton of ammo to fire a LGR round out of it.
/facepalm
Ok. I'll use smaller, more precise examples. How would feel if an AC/20 could fire AC20, AC10, AC5 or AC2 rounds (plus mortar rounds) at their respective ranges?
That's one of the big proposed advantages of a Gauss/Rail-AC weapon. Instead of the weapon determining range, the ammo determines the range. It's a truly flexible AC style weapon that complements the Mech's ability to fight anywhere and would eliminate the need to have a truly ridiculous amount of hyper-specialized AC mechs (or omni configs) such as the Hunchback versus the JagerMech. You would need fewer secondary weapons to cover any range gaps which would free up weight for range-specific or specialized ammo to use in the Gauss/Rail-AC. Logistics in general would also be easier.
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/facepalm
It's a valid concern - you can only mount something that fires (i)HGR rounds in places where you can mount an (i)HGR. Doing otherwise will, as noted in the fluff of the weapon, tear off the location due to recoil.
Ok. I'll use smaller, more precise examples. How would feel if an AC/20 could fire AC20, AC10, AC5 or AC2 rounds (plus mortar rounds) at their respective ranges?
That's one of the big proposed advantages of a Gauss/Rail-AC weapon. Instead of the weapon determining range, the ammo determines the range. It's a truly flexible AC style weapon that complements the Mech's ability to fight anywhere and would eliminate the need to have a truly ridiculous amount of hyper-specialized AC mechs (or omni configs) such as the Hunchback versus the JagerMech. You would need fewer secondary weapons to cover any range gaps which would free up weight for range-specific or specialized ammo to use in the Gauss/Rail-AC. Logistics in general would also be easier.
Only for units large enough to use it. For everything else, you'd still be stuck with different weapon types. Also, the recoil on multiple gauss shots might not be so easily controlled, given the existence of the HAG and the manner in which it deals damage (as a cluster instead of a tight grouping).
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Personally, I would love to see the "Dual Purpose" missiles like are on the Undine adapted for
Battlemech use...
I second that. Add some SRM version, too.
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Well sense this is some of the items we have seen in DA... Though It would be nice to see what was said on these cards... goes looking...
Ammunition:
Armor-Piercing Explosive Rounds
Technically is not B-tech ammo already HEAP? Though the card indicates that it ignores "armor"
Concussion Ammo
Higher chance of being knocked over?
Extended-Range Ammo
Hyper velocity ammo with out the gun? which is what the card says, twice the range...
Fire Shot
it's a heat producing round, possibly for ballistic weapons
Haywire Missiles
Heat-Seeking Ammo
Homing Beacons
B-tech has these already in one form or another
Queen Bee Ammo
The card indicates that it ignores all to hit modifiers except range based ones. (or something like that)
Viscid Incendiary Fluid
Infernos that cause heat over a longer time? (vs the single turn)
The card indicates that it's for the fluid gun, and it's just the Incendiary fluids.
Armor:
Ablative Armor
Technically B-tech armor is already ablative, so this has to be a form of applique armor, modular armor? Per the Card it ignores AP ammo
Heat-Dissipating Armor
Armor that functions like a heat sink? which is what the card says.
Heavy Armor
do not know what this one dose, but it's not the same as hardened armor
Impact Armor
the card indicates it takes less damage from close combat attacks
Reinforced Armor
per the card it reduces the attacks from ballistic weapons by 2
Defense Systems:
Advanced Anti-Missile Systems
the card indicates adjacent units can be protected
Advanced Point Defense
it's hard to say what this realy dose, it indicates that other units can use the pilot's modifiers over theirs.
Close In Weapons Systems
A weapon that can attack targets in it's own hex.
Viral Decoy Jammers
cancels out decoy systems
Viral Homing-Beacon Jammers
cancels out homing beacon systems
Heating & Cooling:
Emergency Coolant Systems
Heat Sink Override Kits
Radical Heat Sinks
This one adds an extra point of coolant over regular heat sinks, as for the other two I do not know
Lasers:
Hyper Lasers
Per the DA card it adds 50% more range and damage over regular lasers, at lest from what I can see
Refocused Lasers
an odd one, it can hit any unit in a line it seems
Miscellaneous:
Hot-Drop Shielding
likely just ordinary drop pods
Overchargers
It's not a supercharger, as thats also a card, perhaps a improved version?
Seismic Dampeners
the card indicates that indirect fire can not be made on this unit with it dampener active, not dose Streak ammo work...
Myomer:
Improved Myomer
+1 to melee attack per the Card
Supercooled Myomer
can not find info, but perhaps reduced heat effects on movement?
Repairs:
Harjel II Auto-Repair Systems
Harjel III Auto-Repair Systems
Both of these per the cards indicate they repair one point of damage, perhaps in B-tech they could remove one critical hit...
In addition to these theirs
Experimental Pulse, the Ultra Pulse, produces lots of heat
Back up power, if the unit is shut down it can still move
Re-engineered Laser, ignores reflective, heavy and hardened armor effects
Refined Pulse , production model of the "ultra Pulse", slightly less heat...
Melee Hardening, reduces melee damage
Alternative Firing Mode , can fire out to 2x it's regular range
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Let's ignore what you said and get mroe tech.
Nobody is making you upgrade the tech you play with. It's just available for those that wish to use it.
We need more tech.
I stand by what I say. Errors get made when things get rushed. playtesting stuff out properly takes time. I understand the point of only those who want to play with it will but I try to keep games fair & open to all players. I got burned too many times by wizkids with constant rules & game changes that were not well thought out.
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God I hate doing this, but I can't resist...
The fluff of how many of the autocannons work would keep this from happening. While I can see LAC's really keeping the old standard AC's out of frontline forces, it wouldn't be effective to make an LAC of every std. Autocannon- the ranges would become too short. Also, many of the construction aspects of the guns would keep some of these things from happening, like RAC's making UAC's obsolete- can you imagine how much recoil would come about from a RAC-20 on full auto? Or how inaccurate a double shot of UAC armor-piercing rounds would be?
A few comments here-
1. Scaling often gets shafted for the sake of weapon balance. I doubt a LAC-20 would be stuck at a six hex range for example, and I would also expect the bigger LAC's wouldn't
get the same tonnage savings as the smaller guns (and they probably would get bloated by a couple of crits as well).
2. The range thing- yeah RAC's and LAC's are fairly short range, but they are also some of the more effective types out there. Part of my assumption is that AC's stop playing the range game
with energy weapons, and stick to what they have doing fairly well lately- utility and close-range buzzsaws.
3. I can see why people would assume that larger RAC's would be 6x fire rate, but that wasn't my intention. If a RAC-20 could just double tap and be able to be unjammed, it still would obsolete the Ultra-20. I tend to be of the camp that the Ultra's/RAC's need to have different maximum fire rates, since it makes the 2 series useful, and the 20's not the end all, be all gun.
4. Not sure where you are getting that UAC firing AP rounds is coming from. If you are referring to the LB-X bit, it is a bit of a crapshoot, but I can't see the developers supporting
all six lines of IS Autocannons (if you include the HVAC) in the future. They have a hard enough time getting folks to use any of the 2 series or the ultra/LB-X 5 most days, and any kind of
addition without killing off at least a couple of the lines off is probably going to make things worse.
These I also really doubt. The Clans got rid of the standard lasers and PPC's because they had upgraded the damage so much from them- and yet many of their dropships and warships still mount old Star League-era laser weaponry. Also, with all the newer PPC types available to the IS, people forget how powerful two PPC's an be, especially when you only need one extra DHS to make a 'mech that can run and fire off two 10 point hits each turn.
Nitpick time- a lot of the old tech on Clan dropships/Warships never got upgraded simply because it was rarely used due to safecon. As for your other point, we're just at different opinions here.
Much of the fluff around the launchers suggests that a big part of it also has to do with the launchers themselves, so that's doubtful. I would however like to see the clans adapting those "Advanced SRM's" for battlemech use.
I will admit it is probably the most unlikely prediction here, but tech marches on, and we'll see what we get.
I can see MRMs leaving, but SRMs/LRMs? Hell no. MML's can't nearly compete with the throw-weight of a dedicated LRM, and will always be bigger than the SRM's they can replace. Also, ATM's lack any advanced munitions, and until they get any I'd rather stick with those old standbys.
Not with the current generation anyways, hence 'ATM/MML type tech'. Even it stuck with more traditional LRM/SRM setups, the IS is overdue for replacement launchers for the SW-era stock.
Eh, I'm not too keen on lumping all the systems together, but something that could make NARC and Artemis work in cohesion would be awesome.
That would be a big game-changer (especially with all the C3 and ECM nowadays) but I think it's asking a lot. Speeding it up means simplifying, and at this stage it'd be difficult.
In both cases, I'm not trying to suggesting total homogenization, more of a case of getting them to play together well. Getting the right spotters for your missile boats, proper electronics cover
for your force, etc. in just force assembly can be a headache these days. Some of that speeding up I was implying was just being able to 'grab and go' and not have several tons sit completely useless due to incompatibilities.
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Given that a home RPG game involved a H-K drive accident sending the party to the year 3500, our group has actually given something like this some thought.
Our answer? The refinements and homogenation of technology over an extended time will lead to an effective return to the Level 1 rules only using 50 meter hexes, everything has CASE II for free, and the addition of fluff that each point of damage/heat is about twice what it used to be.
NOTE: all of the following is just FLUFF. Our actual battles play out using standard 3025/Level 1 game rules.
Advanced targeting and electronic counter-measures end up cancelling each other out so that the battlefield is an ECM/ECCM saturated zone where targeting has to be at visual range to even hope for a successful lock.
The various laser and particle beam technologies converge into an ER heavy pulse weapon where the improved accuracy is just barely enough to keep up with the improved targeting jammers spoiling your aim. Hosing your target with fire and hoping to hit is the order of the day.
Similarly, those same targeting limits lead to melding the raw power of gauss weaponry with the rapid-fire capabilities of the traditional autocannon. The future autocannons are actually automatic gauss cannons firing hails of shells down field in hopes of damaging their target.
Missiles carry more deadly payloads for their size, but also have to pack insane amounts of ECCM just to have a hope of hitting their targets. Salvo-firing multiple missiles is the only way to guarantee an even partial hit.
All these weapons with their increased outputs of course build up about twice the heat of their 3025 equivalents, such that the improved double heat sinks (now taking up just one critical slot each) of the day can just barely keep up.
In the future the bulk of XL engines has been eliminated and MASC technology improved to the point that it is completely safe and standard to all designs. In this future a 75 ton Mech mounting a standard (for the time) 19 ton fusion engine could attain a top ground speed of 108 kph (a 75 ton Mech in 3050 with a 19 ton XL engine and MASC would also have a maximum speed of 108 kph). Refinements to jump jet systems would allow that same 75 ton Mech to hurl itself up to 200 meters with just 4 tons of jump jet equipment (and taking up just 4 critical slots).
Likewise, refined hardened armor and reinforced internal structure allow these future Mechs to stand up to the immense firepower of those future weapons. Improved Triple-Strength Myomer material that keeps both its strength and reaction time at normal operating temperatures helps make use of the improved power output of the engine for both motive speed and for inflicting damage in melee combat (i.e. "double" damage to keep up with the "doubled" armor).
Level One Rules... they're the wave of the future! ;)
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Okay, this I can do and not look like an opinionated ****** at the same time.
Ammunition:
Armor-Piercing Explosive Rounds
I had some fan-based stuff that had the munitions (the acronym starting with an L) carry a timer from the original impact/explosion, remarking that they used heavier, denser propellant for the rounds and a secondary explosion to attempt to deal critical damage, or to damage inside of already-existing armor. The card says it can "defeat" other armors and deals damage to anything in base contact (i. e. infantry) so it's probably a very heavy round that, like normal AP rounds, halves the level of ammo to keep the damage the same and to add a larger explosion. Note that it's RISC gear, meaning it always has a chance to fail when used.
Concussion Ammo
A optional rounds that appears to still do damage, concussion ammo affects non-mech units, giving them an "Order token"- denoting that it's "shocking" or "stunning" tank crews, armor, and infantry. Probably just another standard autocannon munition.
Extended-Range Ammo
Another standard AC munition. This one increases doubles your overall range (out to a maximum of 16 inches) but takes away 2 from your overall base damage (or base attacking/targeting value, I can't really tell which).
Fire Shot
Another RISC gear, that if fails the target gains two "clicks" of heat. When it strikes a target, you have to measure from the center dot 6 inches around, and you give 1 point of heat to any 'mech that is within those 6 inches.
Haywire Missiles
Optional gear. When it hit an opponent, it does no damage, only disrupting their electronic gear (i. e. C3, ECM, electronic camo...) Basically iNARC Haywire pods.
Heat-Seeking Ammo
Exactly what it says on the tin, this gets a +1 to it's attack rolls (or a -1 to us) for each click on the enemies heat dial. Probably missile ammo- I think BT has this somewhere...
Homing Beacons
NARC, basically. Of note, Clan wolf begins to use this a lot in the Wolf Strike expansion.
Queen Bee Ammo
RISC gear that (surprisingly) doesn't fall off. Basically acts like NARC, but it acts for just the ballistic type, leaving it up for interpretation. Note that the wording of the card Potentially denotes that opponents firing at the attacker gain the same benefits too.
Viscid Incindiary Fluid
A Fluid gun firing inferno rounds. Nothing new here.
Armor:
Ablative Armor
This is the only type of armor that can resist Armor-Piercing ammo in AoD, undoubtedly giving it some enhanced anti-ballistic properties. I presume that it's something along the lines of a "Refined" Hardened armor, like someone tried to keep the anti armor piercing/critical hit nature of the heavy stuff without the hit to speed, piloting, or weight.
Heat-Dissipating Armor
Probably an outgrowth of the Fire-Resistant battle armor-scaled plate. It subtracts heat for being attacked, not heat that it builds, so like it's armored cousins it would probably be immune to fires and flamers, and would really take the bite out of plasma weapons.
Heavy Armor
"Grey" armor in-game, it always subtracts 1 damage from an attack to a minimum of 0. Could potentially be from a patchwork of armor including Hardened, or it could be from a new armor type or the actual build of the machine.
Impact Armor
Reduces damage from physical attacks and "Special" attacks (i. e. charges, punching/stomping) to 2 damage. Since it also ignores the agility gear, I'd call it an offshoot of Hardened armor.
Reinforced Armor
Decreases damage from ballistic attacks by 2 and has the chance of defeating armor-piercing ammo. Like Heavy/Grey armor, I see it as either being a Hardened armor offshoot, or something that caomes about from the actual construction of the 'mech.
Defense Systems:
Advanced Anti-Missile Systems
Advanced AMS, or "purple" for armor, is an AMS system that engages further out from the unit that not only lowers damage done to itself by ballistics, but also lowers damage to other units in base contact with it. The Lyran Padilla Anti-Missile Tank (yeah, you heard me) uses it and it's somewhat long range to form formations of anti-missile and point defense.
Advanced Point Defense
Another bout of RISC gear (meaning it can destroy itself if used) APD allows a unit in base contact with the 'mech carrying the RISC gear to use the 'mechs defense value instead of their own, and also allows it to be modified by their pilot and camouflage- basically beefing up anything close by with a (potentially) much higher defense as a "bunker" tactic. I have NO idea what a BT analogue would be.
Close In Weapons Systems
Infantry who move into base contact with a 'mech carrying this gear (if in front of the 'mech) take one click of ballistic damage. Probably just a fancier way of saying "Machine gun".
Viral Decoy Jammers
RISC gear that allows all friendly units to ignore a gear called "Decoy", which forces you to roll a second time against their defense (meaning that you could miss on a second attempt and miss completely). Like most RISC gear, can destroy itself.
Viral Homing-Beacon Jammers
Weird RISC gear. Only activates when declared at the beginning at your opponents turn, it forces your opponents 'mechs to ignore any effects from their Homing Beacon/NARC equipment.
Heating & Cooling:
Emergency Coolant Systems
Only activates when shutdown on the dial (Showing three radioactive symbols), the unit looses 2 heat, doesn't shut down, ignores heat effects and gains an order token. It is also RISC gear, and if a roll fails for it's use it may do 2 damage (pushing, which cannot be lessened by anything) to the unit mounting it. Probably an offshoot of the coolant pods.
Heat Sink Override Kits
RISC gear that allows a Mech to fire both their primary and secondary attacks at one target in the same turn, provided they are in range. the RISC roll is made before the second attack, and if it fails the unit is dealt one pushing damage. No real analogue in CBT, however it could be a tool that allows you to fire a wepaon more than once i na turn at the expense of it failing.
Radical Heat Sinks
Adds 1 to your overall vent rating but has a chance of "falling off" each time a vent order is issued (where the 'mech just sits and vents built-up heat). Probably something akin to the old 3039 "Freezers" that used corrosive coolants.
That's all for now. I have a life you know!
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I can see MRMs leaving
I declare a trial of grievance!
Personally, I'd think it more likely for MRMs to be developed even further, either with special ammunition, or an improved MRM system which does have a basic guidance system on the missiles.
No-one will make jokes about MRMs then.
And even so, MRMs can still be fairly effective weapons (using my MRM-MAD as an example 6× MRM-10 and a LL).
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Well, we now have the Apollo FCS, for "improving".
I really like the idea, however; make like an "Enhanced MRM" with an integral Apollo FCS, which still suffer a -1 on the cluster hits table from their lack of a guiadance system but gain range brackets like that of the Large laser; and gaining special munitions, of course. That would actually make them worthwhile.
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...and gaining special munitions, of course.
Dunno, it should fire dumb ammo. I could see maybe something like smoke, incendiary and frag, but nothing more - sophisticated.
And yes, the Apollo is great. A shame that it's not used more widely in official - especially combine - designs.
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After today, all I want is iATMs for IS Clans so I can refit a Turkina D and have it be even more appalling.
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IATMs and Nova CEWS please as regular clan systems.
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Things I would like to see in 3150
Triple Heat Sinks
Improved Engine Shielding housing more heat sinks (Rating/20 instead of rating/25)
Ultra Gauss Rifles
Omni Engine and Omni Gyro mounts to make chassis more versatile
And yeah SUPER HEAVY MECHS!!!!!!
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Uh...no.
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Things I would like to see in 3150
Triple Heat Sinks
[...]
Ultra Gauss Rifles
Why would you need triple heat sinks if you had Ultra Gauss Rifles? #P
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IATMs and Nova CEWS please as regular clan systems.
Spoilers - not everyone has access to that information yet!
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Why would you need triple heat sinks if you had Ultra Gauss Rifles? #P
LOL
I have used that stuff before, was rather nasty and fun also. It is to current clan tech what they were to IS tech in 3052.
Also had the clan versions of a light gauss rifle and heavy gauss rifle, they were very fun.
Gauss Rifle/5
Gauss Rifle/10
Gauss Rifle/15 (This is what we have atm)
Gauss Rifle/20
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I'd love to see more experimental stuff go to advanced or TL as needed. I'd also like to finally see more Clantech cross the line onto Inner Sphere designs. It need not be on all of them, but a 3050-style TRO with a lot of transition designs with a mix of old and new tech would be a nice thing to see. I figure after nearly 100 years the IS may finally crack the barrier to getting a steady supply of Clantech, especially considering how many clans are now close allies to Inner Sphere states at that point. Between the Ghost Bear Dominion, Raven Alliance, Clan Wolf-in-Exile, Republic of the Sphere and the continued trade from Diamond Shark I figure the 50-60 years of relative peace between 3090 and 3150 will likely result in at least a few factories getting upgraded to make more advanced clan equipment (especially since without a whole lot of fighting going on at that time the IS will probably need to start manufacturing their own replacements for Clantech since they can't just rely on salvage).
It need not become the standard on all designs of course but seeing some basic Clantech on Inner Sphere designs would make a lot of sense at that point. For the Inner Sphere to continue to not utilize Clantech in standard designs a century after contact would be a bit hard to swallow. At the same time improvements and advances on their own unique tech (and possibly the Clans getting their own versions of Inner Sphere tech) would also be fun. As a Lyran more gauss love will never be a bad thing (specialty ammo would be nice).
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One thing that should definitely be included is the Enhanced ER PPC. The briefing prepared for Chandrasekhar Kurita in Jihad Secrets: the Blake Documents seems to imply that the data extracted from the journal of Victoria Parrdeau includes design schematics for the Stag, Stag II and Pulverizer. Even if that isn't the case, it seems clear that anybody whom Chandy shared the briefing with will now know that the NER PPC is theoretically possible... and he was apparently going to distribute it as widely as possible. The NER PPC is a stepping stone on the route to the Clan ER PPC that can be built with Inner Sphere tech - what Successor State wouldn't want to recreate it?
RAC/10s and RAC/20s should be included.
So should the TSEMP and its Star League-era forerunner the Centurion.
Maybe Clan-tech Heavy and Light Ferro-Fibrous armor? With multipliers of 1.40 and 1.10 and crit requirements of 11 and 4 respectively?
Inner Sphere Ferro-Lamellor armor that takes up 20 crits?
An Improved Blue Shield that can operate without failure for longer?
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Why would you need triple heat sinks if you had Ultra Gauss Rifles? #P
For the Streak-RAC-Pulse-Heavy-Plasma-ER-PPCs ?
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For the Streak-RAC-Pulse-Heavy-Plasma-ER-PPCs ?
You forgot that it also needs Armor Piercing-Flak-Precision special ammo that now works for energy too.
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For the Streak-RAC-Pulse-Heavy-Plasma-ER-PPCs ?
Meh, nothing that broken, but would allow more optimized energy based designs.
Think a Masakari that had no heat problems at all with 4 ER PPC's and could actually carry some ERML's.
They were just some things a GM I played with liked, I used a Daishi that carried 4 ER PPC's and some other weaponry, was a long time ago.
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Meh, nothing that broken, but would allow more optimized energy based designs.
Think a Masakari that had no heat problems at all with 4 ER PPC's and could actually carry some ERML's.
They were just some things a GM I played with liked, I used a Daishi that carried 4 ER PPC's and some other weaponry, was a long time ago.
Ah, that would be called a Hellstar.
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Meh, nothing that broken, but would allow more optimized energy based designs.
Think a Masakari that had no heat problems at all with 4 ER PPC's and could actually carry some ERML's.
They were just some things a GM I played with liked, I used a Daishi that carried 4 ER PPC's and some other weaponry, was a long time ago.
Teah, that sounds pretty good. How about medium pulse lasers that can shoot 10/20/30, do 18 damage and can finally use targeting computers to aim at specific areas (including the head)? Because it's so powerful, it would be 2.5 tons and do 5 heat. Those triple heatsinks should take care of any problems though.
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The last Society Cell launch a devastating HPG broadcast causing major feedback into Neurohelmets :D.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXULwgzezUg&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXULwgzezUg&feature=related)
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I'd like to see some innovation in the field of energy weapons. Something besides PPCs and lasers. Not just a modification or alteration of existing weapons, an entirely new type of gun.
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Like Plasma guns?
If your going ammo less, you are gonna have to use lasers, ppcs, or flamers. Personally I think the ammo-less flamer makes little sense and it should be retconned to death. That's me though.
TSEMP seems to be an energy weapon.
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I'd like to see Improved Ultra Autocannons that can unjam and CASE III that completely negates ammo explosions (but still leaves the ammo unusable).
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A canon LAM design that carries Arrow IV.
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I'd like to see Improved Ultra Autocannons that can unjam and CASE III that completely negates ammo explosions (but still leaves the ammo unusable).
For CASE III, were you also talking about it stopping the feedback? Otherwise, it wouldn't seem to have very little to differentiate it from CASE II.
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The idea of technology stagnating during peace time is foolish and smacks of willful ignorance of real world geopolitics and the "no guns in my sword and sorcery world" mindset of fantasy fans even though the timeline has moved forward 200 -500 years.
Technological advances can come in iterative and innovative flavors:
Iterative
New ways to charge Jump drives which allows faster jump travel. All of them are financially less viable than waiting two weeks to charge up a drive and thus are only used by the megawealthy or those who have time sensitive situations that allows them to mentally overcome the financial burden of using them.
Biocybernetics.
Cybernetic augmentations are useful in many ways but for many cultural reasons people don't want to be toasters. Genetically created enhancements that can be attached like machine parts will become all the rage especially at this time period where it is affordable for what counts as upper middle class in the Innersphere.
Consolidation of Autocannons.
No more rotary, LBX, Hyper, supercalifragilisticespialidshis cannons.
Just one autocannon that does it all with some additional improvements. Takes multiple critical hits to be disabled unlike missles and energy and has increased inavailability and dropped in repair requirements.
Garage Factories and Neural Suits
Tanks were handwaved as being inferior to mechs for weak reasons. This won't be that much better but it will be improvement. Essentially some companies should find a way to make the manufacturing of mechs more accesible which leads to the rise of garage factories. Neural Suits are an advancement over the helmets that gives a pilot the ability to interact with a mech with an efficeincy far beyond what a tank team to do. Mechs can have a reaction time that allows them to gain better iniatiative against non-mechs accept for infantry and firing resolution rules that allows them to hit a non-mech accept for infantry without getting hit back in the attack phase unless certain conditions are met.
Innovative
Broad Blanket COmmunicator
A new form of transmission that is mildly slower and vastly less secure than HPGs but is far more accesible for the above average citizen to use. This leads to in upheaval in communications just like the priniting press toppeled the written work of relgious institutions which in turn was overthrown by radio and television which are now being usurped by the internet.
Crypto-currency
With the advent of the BBC interstellar commerce is radically altered with a currency that started to form in Terra before jumpships and has flourished in certain local markets of the Innersphere. This currency is based on providing goods and services based on a credit rating. Your rating can be lost andd gained as you buy and sell to other people respectively. The credit transactions are continually verified by bit mining machines to prevent the system from being manipulated. The downside is that none of this currency is backed by a government so it is only valuable to whoever buys into it. Considering the nature of the innersphere this wil create a lot of good scenarios for conflicts.
Mind-Links
This is exclusively a clan innovation where people use cybernetic enhancements to merge their thoughts so they can think as a single entity. Yes this is anathema to the clans as we generally know them but ever since the Protomech program started it was obvious this was going to be their best long term solution to the instability their proto-warriors faced. IMO this should eventually force a cultural revolution across every facet of their society because to compete with proto-warriors with mindlinks you are going to need links yourselves and the warrior caste influences how all the other castes acts.
Magentic defenses
Armor increases in toughness greatly while internal structure is more prone to critcal hits as a new standard in defense is developed in blunting currently known offensive weapons.
The Dyson SPhere Bubble
Not exclusive to the clans but the only ones willing to commit to such projects. One clan that originally two before a recent absorption was on the brink of economic destruction after their war. In a desperate gambit they pool their resources to create a half assed Dyson Bubble to power the engineering projects they were originally fighting each over for, one being a new recycling techniques that separates compnents with amazing accuracy into reusable materials, the other was a new type of minuature robot that could till almost any planet into farmable land.
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I don't see technology as having necessarilly stagnated as it seems to simply have hit the limit for what is possible in several areas.
We're used to a world where Moore's Law (Computer speeds doubling every 18 or so months) prevails. However even Intel's engineers say eventually we'll hit the limit. Current transistors require more and more cooling as the power is fed through smaller and smaller areas.
Material engineering (most of battletech's basis) isn't a limitless thing, eventuallyyou simply hit limits. You can't build stronger armor, or you can't forcemore energy through a laser within a certain amount of time. Most of battletech's systems have compromises in order to reach those limits as they are.
I think more of the technology in TRO-3150 should be buffer or debuffer technology (think targeting computers or stealth armor) rather than actual weapons systems.
There's no need for better heat control, in the game itself, unless it comes with serious compromises in order to maintain balance. For example, a triple heat sink that can only work for a certain amount of turns before it goes down to being a single heat sink. Or perhaps is explosive.
For Autocannons, it could be a simple reordering of them into more sensible lines.
Long Caliber, Medium Caliber, and Short caliber this affects the range and the tonnage of the weapons. (replacing Light and HV cannons with an easier to understand system for new players) LBX should be merged wtih the other specialty ammos available to ACs, and RAC and UAC should be merged into a multicannon system with various multiple fire being available for spending more tonnage.
So for instance a 4 barrel Long Caliber autoCannon 10 coudl fire up to 4 rounds in a turn, and would have the longest range available to the AC-10s. If firing singly it coudl fire specialty rounds. A single barrel Short caliber AC-10 coudl fire a single round only, and would have the shortest range available for an AC-10
Various equipment would boost the performance, for example a recoil stabilizer would give better cluster performance to guns firing multiple rounds.
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The Dyson SPhere Bubble
Not exclusive to the clans but the only ones willing to commit to such projects. One clan that originally two before a recent absorption was on the brink of economic destruction after their war. In a desperate gambit they pool their resources to create a half assed Dyson Bubble to power the engineering projects they were originally fighting each over for, one being a new recycling techniques that separates compnents with amazing accuracy into reusable materials, the other was a new type of minuature robot that could till almost any planet into farmable land.
Beyond the amount of mass required to build a "Dyson Shpere", or the amount of effort that goes into it, the real issue is what any Battletech group (or individual) would have a use for that amount of energy?
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The Clans always had this wierd issue that their worlds weren't rich with resources. Recycling materials is not efficient in general partly because of the energy consumption. Using the Dyson Bubbble to extract a huge amount of energy more efficiently than whatever the any faction could hope to do without it would be an extreme way of addressing clan resoruce issues. The farming idea is just something additional I pulled out of my butt.
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Yeah, and taking apart worlds to build that Dyson bubble wouldn't stretch the clans resources.
No faction in the btech universe has ever been anywhere near the level of technology or resources to build a Dyson Sphere. It would take far more than even the Star League at it's height's capability.
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Ofcourse it would take out all of their available resources. The gambit is about making a huge initial and crippling investment for something that would over time would pay for itself. Besides I'm not even suggesting a Dyson Sphere. There are other alternatives to wrapping man made objects around a star to gather energy that doesn't require making a fully enclosed sphere, hence the bubble.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dyson_Bubble.png)
The innersphere certainly had and still has enough resources to make a sphere let alone a bubble. Knowledge is an issue but not a large hurdle depending on the time period. The time frame of building one in 3150 is the more absurd problem which is why the Bubble is "half assed." The project can be declared by the faction to be finished but anyone with a crticial analysis would say the construction projection is far from stable and can create long term maintainence problems that it shouldn't have.
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Beyond the amount of mass required to build a "Dyson Shpere", or the amount of effort that goes into it, the real issue is what any Battletech group (or individual) would have a use for that amount of energy?
Build the mother of all jump drives and move their entire star system closer to Terra? ::)
There's simply nothing else I can think of that would require anywhere close to that amount of energy.
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Teah, that sounds pretty good. How about medium pulse lasers that can shoot 10/20/30, do 18 damage and can finally use targeting computers to aim at specific areas (including the head)? Because it's so powerful, it would be 2.5 tons and do 5 heat. Those triple heatsinks should take care of any problems though.
Hmmn, what I propose is a logical advance, what you propose is way beyond that. Yeah Triple Heat Sinks would be nasty, but not as nearly nasty as you think.
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Double heat sinks were the single most game-changing technology in level 2. One of the Clans' key edges is the ability to pack more of them in, especially with their even more deadly energy weapons. What you're proposing is to make them even more powerful, especially with the ability to pack even more into the engines. People are going to be very skeptical of that.
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Going by recent trends, streak technology will become more common, and start to show up on alternate ammo.
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Going by recent trends, streak technology will become more common, and start to show up on alternate ammo.
Streak Infernos: An all new reason to keep a copy of Jane's or the OED handy at the gaming table.
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They used to have Inferno SSRM-2s. Brutal stuff. Now, if there was an Inferno SLRM-20, or Inferno MRM-40, I would go hide somewhere, and/or only use things that either had fire resistant armor, or never tracked heat. [blank]
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Believe me, you don't want to see what they do to vehicles under TW rules, either.
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Streak Infernos: An all new reason to keep a copy of Jane's or the OED handy at the gaming table.
Personally, I'd rather see Streak MRMs.
or only use things that either had fire resistant armor
Well, we got that fo Battle Armour (or maybe just the clans?), so it wouldn't be too impossible to eventually see it 'Mech-scale.
Inferno MRM-40, I would go hide somewhere,
Indeed, either that, or be the one using it.
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Man, carrying inferno SRMs makes mechwarriors nervous enough, and you want them to carry MRM-40-loads of them? That's just mean.
Plus, 15 max heat, so it's kinda overkill. Although, they could be more like incendiary LRMs and not inflict heat and do less damage to 'Mechs, but be able to slaughter non-'Mechs and set ANYTHING on fire.
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Personally, I'd rather see Streak MRMs.
Pfff, you're not munchkin enough. Streak RLs.
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Man, carrying inferno SRMs makes mechwarriors nervous enough, and you want them to carry MRM-40-loads of them? That's just mean.
Plus, 15 max heat, so it's kinda overkill. Although, they could be more like incendiary LRMs and not inflict heat and do less damage to 'Mechs, but be able to slaughter non-'Mechs and set ANYTHING on fire.
Yeah, they'd have to make rules for burning water.
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Yeah, they'd have to make rules for burning water.
That's uhm, really possible. Arsonists will sometimes use rocket fuel to create a fire so hot that it breaks down water (say from the firemen's hoses) into hydrogen and oxygen, thus fueling the fire. Nuclear fuel could accomplish the same. However, you would want these working on top of the water, otherwise the fire would be smothered.
And then there was Love Canal where the water was so polluted that it actually caught on fire.
In short, never underestimate what you can accomplish with technology...
As for MRMs and the heat limit rule, I imagine that, like tracer rounds, you don't need all the missiles/rounds to be of a particular type. Meaning, a single MRM40 salvo could contain 20 incendiary and 20 normal missiles.
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I know you can burn water, but the point I was trying to make it's that an MRM-40 streak inferno is a bit overkill...
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The Clans always had this wierd issue that their worlds weren't rich with resources. Recycling materials is not efficient in general partly because of the energy consumption. Using the Dyson Bubbble to extract a huge amount of energy more efficiently than whatever the any faction could hope to do without it would be an extreme way of addressing clan resoruce issues. The farming idea is just something additional I pulled out of my butt.
Someone (Ithink it was Cray) calculated the power output of a Leopard class dropship's transit drive, which came out to ten percent of the Earth's total insolation. So the entire sun's out put is only ten times the ratio of a 1 AU radius* spherical surface area divided by the area presented by the Earth [10*4*(150,000,000/5500)^2], or thirty billion leopard class dropship engines. Thirty billion seems like a huge number, until you try to manufacture nearly three hundred million billion (3*10^17) square kilometers of collector (admittedly, you need less collector area if you build it to a smaller radius, but even a sphere at the radius of mercury will need close to 5*10^16 square kilometers and keeping it from boiling into space becomes an issue).
Fusion power, as implied by battletech fluff, destroys the notion of scarcity. Making heavier atoms by bombarding lighter atoms with protons or neutrons (as appropriate) is time consuming and energy intensive, but energy in the BTU is cheap as dirt.
* If my guess of an AU being 150 million kilometers is wrong, please scale my number accordingly.
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Pfff, you're not munchkin enough. Streak RLs.
Isnt that just a iOS missile launcher?
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Isnt that just a iOS missile launcher?
Only if you're with the Clans and get Streak LRMs. And then, they aren't anywhere near as light as RLs...
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TechManual 3150 eh?
- More advanced vehicles, some using double heatsinks
- Inner Sphere counter to ProtoMechs--essentially ultra lights
- LAMs. Yeah, I went there.
- I wouldn't mind an upgraded BattleMech with the weapon technologies to back up that claim: New BattleMech design and tech halves all heat generated by weapons due to superior whatever. All sorts of things.
- Better Omni technology allows for the pod-installation of alternative motive types, so that we can play underwater and in space or some toxic/other environment and alter but not degrade the experience.
But I don't think they'll move in this direction, it loses too much of the feeling of continuity with 'Mechs.
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TechManual 3150 eh?
- More advanced vehicles, some using double heatsinks
- Inner Sphere counter to ProtoMechs--essentially ultra lights
- LAMs. Yeah, I went there.
- I wouldn't mind an upgraded BattleMech with the weapon technologies to back up that claim: New BattleMech design and tech halves all heat generated by weapons due to superior whatever. All sorts of things.
- Better Omni technology allows for the pod-installation of alternative motive types, so that we can play underwater and in space or some toxic/other environment and alter but not degrade the experience.
But I don't think they'll move in this direction, it loses too much of the feeling of continuity with 'Mechs.
LAMs are in TRO 3085, and I'm pretty sure there are some omni designs with pod-mounted UMUs.
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Only if you're with the Clans and get Streak LRMs. And then, they aren't anywhere near as light as RLs...
Considering RLs don't have guidance systems...not likely. They're oposite ends of the spectrum.
Streak Tbolts...those might be interesting...I would expeect the larger missile to be easier to get better systems, rather than guiding 20 LRMs, your'e just guiding a single large missile with more room for electronics. Lots of room for variations on the Tbolt theme.
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Probably some of the stuff from MW:DA- notably the Ares 'mechs and the Horses' new vehicle type that was mentioned. I want to say it was called a 'quad-vee' ? A vehicle with legs?
There's also that EMP terrain card, I think it's what Worktroll mentioned.
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So we have weapons like pulse and VSPLs that are more accurate at close range. What about advanced missile weapons that flip the range brackets? +4 at short, +0 at long?
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So we have weapons like pulse and VSPLs that are more accurate at close range. What about advanced missile weapons that flip the range brackets? +4 at short, +0 at long?
Check minimum range. May not be called the same, but that essentially gives you the same tactical use. Artillery is also similiar.
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So we have weapons like pulse and VSPLs that are more accurate at close range. What about advanced missile weapons that flip the range brackets? +4 at short, +0 at long?
There were optional targeting systems in Maximum Tech (and I believe it's predecessor, the Tactical Handbook) that did that. There were a few- the last was the variable system, that let you switch between the different range settings in the End Phase (essentially all systems in one).
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Check minimum range. May not be called the same, but that essentially gives you the same tactical use. Artillery is also similiar.
Not really. LRMs still have +4 mod at 20 hexes. Artillery has its own bulk of rules.
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The tactical use will be to avoid nearby ranges and provide support fire. Nothing's changed. LRMS are often used for long range by unmoving mechs to soften up the opposition. They avoid nearby fights. So yes, the tactical use stays the same. Your proposal would certainly be more effective, but considering that the area covered by a long range radius is much higher than the area covered by a short range or medium radius, I think it might be a bit too effective to maintain balance. Such a weapon would need signifigant penalties. As is, an ELRM can usually fire at everythign on a map at medium range.
The minimum range system already covers the basic tactical use of that style weapon. You can call it somethign else, but it doesn't really change it.
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Considering RLs don't have guidance systems...not likely. They're oposite ends of the spectrum.
I don't think that the suggestion was serious in the first place. ^VVVVVVV^
Streak Tbolts...those might be interesting...I would expeect the larger missile to be easier to get better systems, rather than guiding 20 LRMs, your'e just guiding a single large missile with more room for electronics. Lots of room for variations on the Tbolt theme.
That would save you from firing if it didn't lock on, and not much else.
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Tbolts are pretty heavy ammo, so that's signigicant. So logn as it doesn't dobule the weight of the launcher...
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The minimum range system already covers the basic tactical use of that style weapon. You can call it somethign else, but it doesn't really change it.
Ok. It's boring. I was keeping some of the crazy stuff to my self... but if you insist ;)
Area of effect weapons like hyper-flamers that hit 5 hexes in a line or hexes adjacent to the mech.
Subterranean units
Sprayers that create columns of particles that act like chaff and mess with missiles that pass through them
Anti-building munitions (not so crazy)
Missiles that can take indirect routes to the target
Launchers that can split fire between targets
Vehicle turrets with infantry compartments that can detach and act as a fixed position / pillbox
Weapons designed to alter terrain
Narc pods that temporarily simulate sensor hits
... stop looking at me at like that.
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Tbolts are pretty heavy ammo, so that's signigicant. So logn as it doesn't dobule the weight of the launcher...
Given that most Streak systems tend to do that, one would imagine that it would at least add a bit of extra weight, which might end up being self-defeating.
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LAMs are in TRO 3085, and I'm pretty sure there are some omni designs with pod-mounted UMUs.
Considering it's for a TechManual hopefully we'll get rules to build the LAMs (if they're included). I don't know about the pod-mounted UMUs, but again that's only a small part of an "advanced" Omni system.
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LAMs are in TRO 3085, and I'm pretty sure there are some omni designs with pod-mounted UMUs.
There are. Several of the older Clan omnis that didn't have fixed jump jets received U configurations featuring UMUs.
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There are. Several of the older Clan omnis that didn't have fixed jump jets received U configurations featuring UMUs.
Yeah, I saw those on the MUL. They were all "IS general" I think too, which I thought was weird.
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Actually, I found myself considering laser-guided artillery shells. Does anybody have a better idea how they work?
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Actually, I found myself considering laser-guided artillery shells. Does anybody have a better idea how they work?
Are you asking how do the rules for them work? They're already in TacOps (Copperhead and Arrow IV Homing).
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Are you asking how do the rules for them work? They're already in TacOps (Copperhead and Arrow IV Homing).
...No, RL laser-guided artillery SHELLS. My understanding is that american battleships use a helo to spot over the horizon for their main guns - but it was Tom Clancy or something. Do they even exist?
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...No, RL laser-guided artillery. My understanding is that american battleships use a helo to spot over the horizon for them - but it was Tom Clancy or something. Do they even exist?
They exist, but why bother when you can use GPS or inertial guided rounds. For the most part laser guided munitions are becoming outdated.
And why use the main guns on a battleship when you can fire a cruise missile from a sub, or launch bombers from a carrier? Anything in modern warfare doesn't translate well because Battletech is about feild warfare rather than assemetric attacks or "police actions. Different tools for different jobs and such.
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...No, RL laser-guided artillery SHELLS. My understanding is that american battleships use a helo to spot over the horizon for their main guns - but it was Tom Clancy or something. Do they even exist?
Yes they do in fact the B-tech is named after the real life one, being the M712 Copperhead.
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...No, RL laser-guided artillery SHELLS. My understanding is that american battleships use a helo to spot over the horizon for their main guns - but it was Tom Clancy or something. Do they even exist?
They would have been based on the M172 Copperhead guided explosive round, for the 155mm howitzer. The battleship version would have been a saboted eight inch round fired from the 16 inch guns. As keeping the battleships in commission was beginning to fallout of favor, the 8" version never got past the design study stage.
The Copperhead was fired 90 times in Desert Storm, and a few times in the invasion of Iraq. It has a minimum range of 3km and a maximum range of 16km (7 to 30 mapboards).
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For Autocannons, it could be a simple reordering of them into more sensible lines.
Long Caliber, Medium Caliber, and Short caliber this affects the range and the tonnage of the weapons. (replacing Light and HV cannons with an easier to understand system for new players) LBX should be merged wtih the other specialty ammos available to ACs, and RAC and UAC should be merged into a multicannon system with various multiple fire being available for spending more tonnage.
So for instance a 4 barrel Long Caliber autoCannon 10 coudl fire up to 4 rounds in a turn, and would have the longest range available to the AC-10s. If firing singly it coudl fire specialty rounds. A single barrel Short caliber AC-10 coudl fire a single round only, and would have the shortest range available for an AC-10
Various equipment would boost the performance, for example a recoil stabilizer would give better cluster performance to guns firing multiple rounds.
I totally agree that SOMEthing needs to be done with autocannons. While the fluff around these 'underdog'systems is neat, they're just not favored anymore. I love the idea of making LBX just a munition. One of the benifts of having AC is the variation of ammuniton. The weapon can adapt to different scenarios at the cost of dependence of logistics. Combining the UAC and RAC should happen as well. Just make the number shots varey for each weapon. RAC2, 8shots. RAC5,6shots. RAC10. 3-4 shots, RAC20,2-3 shots. As for the range difference Just give Stanard AC longer range than RAC.
I wish they implemented some thing like the AC's though to energy weapons.
"How big is the Large Laser?" Tech Trainee
"Around 5 tons."Head Tech
"Wow, thats big, what about the Small laser?
"Thats about 500lbs."
"Wow, thats big......too........"
It just makes it harder to implent new weapons with "large", or "Heavy". Better to have Laser300, Laser500, Laser800, or LaserER500. (numbers are dmg with 00,FYI) When MICRO lasers came about i crapped a CAR! Are we going to get Nanolasers, or Picolasers next?
I'd Like to see Different Muntions for Thunderbolts
(lol, low yield tactical nukes to make you REALLY appreicate AMS, AAMS.)
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A brand new series of AC might be interesting... Herb has stated he wants to make new tech that's strictly better than what's currently available (at least I think I read that).
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A brand new series of AC might be interesting... Herb has stated he wants to make new tech that's strictly better than what's currently available (at least I think I read that).
There is electro-thermal chemical propulsion. The chemical reaction of the propellant is controlled by an electric current, so the barrel can be kept at optimum pressure to maximise muzzle velocity. the other advantage is that the propellant is very insensitive and may not explode without the current. So we get AC's that approach gauss velocities with non-explosive ammo and non-explosive guns. HVAC ranges from standard AC's
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And energy weapon heat loads for things that need ammo.
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There is electro-thermal chemical propulsion. The chemical reaction of the propellant is controlled by an electric current, so the barrel can be kept at optimum pressure to maximise muzzle velocity. the other advantage is that the propellant is very insensitive and may not explode without the current. So we get AC's that approach gauss velocities with non-explosive ammo and non-explosive guns. HVAC ranges from standard AC's
There's nothing to suggest that autocannons don't already work like that. Given the descriptions of the naval autocannons, it's quite probably that they already do, and that the explosions are a byproduct of getting a projectile up to a sufficient speed that it can reasonably strike a fast target dozens of kilometers away.
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And energy weapon heat loads for things that need ammo.
I wouldn't mind that honestly in light of the extended range of things these days. Doubling or even tripling the head of the existing low end (2s and 5s) to get something better wouldn't be killer honestly... or at least say the HV ACs get refined over a few decades to a degree that finally gets rid of the explodes on a 2. Keep the smoke, that's fun! We already have now broken rapid fire, shot guns, and lights... a reliable 'ER' autocannon would be nice. Let the stock and lights labor on as the specialty ammo carriers, just having a reliable vehicle answer to ER energy weapon ranges without turning to one of the monster gauss rifles isn't too much to ask.
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I'd like to see improved reactive and reflective ammo that doesn't suffer as much against other types of damage.
Something else that might be interesting would be energy weapons that fire multiple times like UACs and RACs, or missile launchers that can fire at multiple targets.
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They exist, but why bother when you can use GPS or inertial guided rounds. For the most part laser guided munitions are becoming outdated.
BECAUSE! We have the Sniper, Thumper, and Long Tom! And even better, they are TAG-guided, LIKE ARROW IV's. Better yet, I expect their rounds to be cheaper than the artillery missiles, AND they outrange Arrow IVs to boot!
I totally agree that SOMEthing needs to be done with autocannons. While the fluff around these 'underdog'systems is neat, they're just not favored anymore.
...I'm still working on the unique technology for my AU - this is definitely going in.
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BECAUSE! We have the Sniper, Thumper, and Long Tom! And even better, they are TAG-guided, LIKE ARROW IV's. Better yet, I expect their rounds to be cheaper than the artillery missiles, AND they outrange Arrow IVs to boot!
And all of them are both less powerful and currently significantly harder to come by than homing Arrow IVs. Yes, including the Long Tom, which is every bit as expensive as the Arrow IV round.
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And all of them are both less powerful and currently significantly harder to come by than homing Arrow IVs. Yes, including the Long Tom, which is every bit as expensive as the Arrow IV round.
...Oh, damn. I haven't been able to check that. Actually, it occured to me later that the effort to make artillery tubes would be much more than the rockets.
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And all of them are both less powerful and currently significantly harder to come by than homing Arrow IVs. Yes, including the Long Tom, which is every bit as expensive as the Arrow IV round.
How about a 'cruise missile' with a target-able Arrow-esque warhead instead of just a dead reckoning launch that moves about as fast as an elderly old man (ensuring even a speed 1/2 unit won't be anywhere in the same area code of the target hex) and thus only useful for explaining why we don't see a bunch of castle brians everywhere?
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How about a 'cruise missile' with a target-able Arrow-esque warhead instead of just a dead reckoning launch that moves about as fast as an elderly old man (ensuring even a speed 1/2 unit won't be anywhere in the same area code of the target hex) and thus only useful for explaining why we don't see a bunch of castle brians everywhere?
The fundamental problem there isn't the accuracy, it's the flight speed, but they're useful for hitting just about any sort of temporary emplacement. Suddenly having a couple of CM/50s slam into someone's base is going to be a massive disruption, especially if you aim at the barracks/tent area or manage to nail someone's ammo dump. The cruise missiles obviously aren't intended for being fired into an ongoing tactical engagement.
As for Castles Brian, they're not erected everywhere because most factions have neither the technology nor the resources. Not much of a point to it in a lot of cases, either. Cruise missiles had nothing to do with that - by the time they came along, the heyday of the Castle Brian was nearly three centuries gone.
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"Wow, thats big, what about the Small laser?
"Thats about 500lbs."
Yes, very nice.
Except that BT uses the Metric System, so that'd be 500kg.
About twice as heavy as what you say.
It just makes it harder to implent new weapons with "large", or "Heavy". Better to have Laser300, Laser500, Laser800, or LaserER500. (numbers are dmg with 00,FYI) When MICRO lasers came about i crapped a CAR! Are we going to get Nanolasers, or Picolasers next?
There's Intermediate Lasers in fanon.
Its a step between medium and large lasers. http://www.solaris7.com/Fiction/FictionInfo.asp?ID=796
IS-tech only, though.
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Yes, very nice.
Except that BT uses the Metric System, so that'd be 500kg.
About twice as heavy as what you say.There's Intermediate Lasers in fanon.
Its a step between medium and large lasers. http://www.solaris7.com/Fiction/FictionInfo.asp?ID=796
IS-tech only, though.
Yeah i really never knew until i had to think about it. Wasn't sure is a ton was a 'ton' or a 'tonne'. Thanks for clearing that up. Im actually aware of this Fanon. (I also like the idea of AC/15.) I was just making the suggestion of renaming the lasers so it makes it more sensable and easier for catalst to make what ever energy weapon they want instead of "smaller than large, but bigger than intermediate" lasers, or "Extra Extra Large Laser".
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Its common sense, really, when Battle Armour and such all use Kilograms for the weight of things.
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Honestly IS tech needs to catching up to Clan stuff.
The clans have had their advanced lasers, missiles and PPCs since at least 2854 (reference the Coyotl). Since the Exodus happened in 2784, and then a second exodus in 2801, that means that the clans seem to have pocket wizards and the IS are intellectual morons.
In the span of roughly 70 years, or 53 years, the clans created laser weapons and missiles that were more than twice as effective as their IS counter parts. The IS, even ignoring everything up to the Helm core, still gives from 3037 to 3150 or roughly 113 years, including have examples of clan laser tech from 3050 onward (i.e. 100 years), to have played catch up to the clan laser tech which has basically stalled since 2801.
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Honestly IS tech needs to catching up to Clan stuff.
The clans have had their advanced lasers, missiles and PPCs since at least 2854 (reference the Coyotl). Since the Exodus happened in 2784, and then a second exodus in 2801, that means that the clans seem to have pocket wizards and the IS are intellectual morons.
In the span of roughly 70 years, or 53 years, the clans created laser weapons and missiles that were more than twice as effective as their IS counter parts. The IS, even ignoring everything up to the Helm core, still gives from 3037 to 3150 or roughly 113 years, including have examples of clan laser tech from 3050 onward (i.e. 100 years), to have played catch up to the clan laser tech which has basically stalled since 2801.
By 3050, the I.S- on it's own, was able to reproduce most of the lost Battlemech technologies of the Star League that they had lost to the succession wars. (XL Engines, Ferro-Fibrous armour, double heatsinks, ER Large Lasers, LB-X 10s, UAC 5s, etc.)
By 3055, the I.S was producing its own Battle Armour, ER and Pulse Small and Medium lasers, SSRM 4s and 6 racks, the Lbx 2,5, and 20, the Ultra 2,10 and 20, and all technology that the Star League never quite achieved.
By 3060, they could produce Clan technology (See Maximum Tech) and had working prototypes of X-Pulse Lasers, Hyper Velocity Autocannons, Light Autocannons, Angel ECM, Light Engines CASE II etc. -all technologies that significantly surpassed the Star League era. In additional, they had developed entirely new weapons such as Light and Heavy Gauss Rifles, C3, Stealth Armour (that is arguably better than Null-Sig), stealth armour for BA (that was the basis for the void-sig) that puts the Chameleon light shield to shame, as well as things such as Blue Shield, XXL engines, Reflective armour, Tandem Charge SRMs and LRMs, and Extended Range LRMs. Most of which was completely innovative and puts the Clans to shame in that field (The Clans are typically limited to making improvements of existing technologies). Don't forget the Direct Neural Interface from the NAIS...
By 3067 we've got technologies that arguably surpass their Clan counterparts (MMLs and Plasma Rifles) as well as gear the Star League never even dreamed of- C3i, Heavy PPCs, Light PPCs, etc.
By 3075, the I.S are producing Clan grade Prototypes (XTROs)
Hell, the Clans showed up in 3050- the I.S took less than a decade to begin churning out their very own Omnimechs (Draconis Combine comes to mind. By 3058, they had Omnimechs in full production and on the front lines. This means no later than '54 or '55 they had working prototypes).
It's not just knowledge. You don't take a Clan ER PPC, open it up and say 'Gee, well that's how it's done...wow, we're stupid'.
If you go back in time to Apollo 11's moon landing- where all of NASA's equipment could be summed up by today's pocket calculator, and gave them an Intel i7 Processor...do you really think they could replicate it within a couple of years? They didn't have the knowledge back then to even conceive a microprocessor, let alone the facilities to create one from the 1970s. We're seeing the same thing here. There's far more than just the technology of the weapon- there's the materials that go into it, the refinement, the infrastructure (The Clans brought their own facilities to the I.S, and have to convert I.S factories up to Clan grade before they can produce Clan 'mechs, remember?)
To use the CPU example, modern day (Clans) introduced a modern microprocessor to the 1950s (I.S). Within 5 years, they were producing the equivalent to the 1970s processors (basic Star League) and within 10 years they were producing early 1990s (advanced beyond the Star League). They could also produce modern CPUs (Clan tech) but only by hand and at great cost. Within approximately 15 years, the I.S has narrowed the gap so much, I'd say they were mass producing the equivalent of early 2000s CPUs.
If the vitriol about the Dark Age Era is to be believed, and based on the XTROs, the I.S will likely be producing Clantech by 3100.
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If the vitriol about the Dark Age Era is to be believed, and based on the XTROs, the I.S will likely be producing Clantech by 3100.
At which point it should probably cease to be called Clantech and instead just be general equipment in any sort of 3150 TRO. The less efficient 3050-era Inner Sphere versions could then be relabeled as "Primative" models (i.e. Primative XL Engines, Primative Ferro-Fibrous, et cetera).
Actually, I think the thing I'd most want to see in the form of new tech for 3150 are a new set of standard basic energy and ballistic weapons that are superior to the original 3025 baseline models without any tradeoffs (ex. the Clan ER medium laser is generally superior, but has a worse damage-to-heat ratio than the standard medium laser).
For me those new baselines might be...
Small Laser: 1 heat, 4 damage, 0/1/3/4, 0.5 tons, 1 crit
Medium Laser: 3 heat, 6 damage, 0/4/8/12, 1 ton, 1 crit
Large Laser: 8 heat, 10 damage, 0/7/14/20, 4 tons, 1 crit
PPC: 10 heat, 12 damage, 0/6/12/18, 5 tons, 2 crits
AC/2: 1 heat, 2 damage, 4/8/16/24, 40 shots per ton, 3 tons, 1 crit
AC/5: 1 heat, 5 damage, 3/6/12/18, 20 shots per ton, 4 tons, 2 crits
AC/10: 3 heat, 10 damage, 0/5/10/15, 10 shots per ton, 6 tons, 3 crits
AC/20: 7 heat, 20 damage, 0/3/6/9, 5 shots per ton, 7 tons, 4 crits
SRM/LRM/MG/Flamer: Use current Clan versions (already superior to baseline versions in every way).
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I posted my own version of the lasers here (http://www.classicbattletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,9320.0.html).
Not as good as full clantech, but somewhat better than standard IS tech.
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At which point it should probably cease to be called Clantech and instead just be general equipment in any sort of 3150 TRO. The less efficient 3050-era Inner Sphere versions could then be relabeled as "Primative" models (i.e. Primative XL Engines, Primative Ferro-Fibrous, et cetera).
Actually, I think the thing I'd most want to see in the form of new tech for 3150 are a new set of standard basic energy and ballistic weapons that are superior to the original 3025 baseline models without any tradeoffs (ex. the Clan ER medium laser is generally superior, but has a worse damage-to-heat ratio than the standard medium laser).
For me those new baselines might be...
Small Laser: 1 heat, 4 damage, 0/1/3/4, 0.5 tons, 1 crit
Medium Laser: 3 heat, 6 damage, 0/4/8/12, 1 ton, 1 crit
Large Laser: 8 heat, 10 damage, 0/7/14/20, 4 tons, 1 crit
PPC: 10 heat, 12 damage, 0/6/12/18, 5 tons, 2 crits
AC/2: 1 heat, 2 damage, 4/8/16/24, 40 shots per ton, 3 tons, 1 crit
AC/5: 1 heat, 5 damage, 3/6/12/18, 20 shots per ton, 4 tons, 2 crits
AC/10: 3 heat, 10 damage, 0/5/10/15, 10 shots per ton, 6 tons, 3 crits
AC/20: 7 heat, 20 damage, 0/3/6/9, 5 shots per ton, 7 tons, 4 crits
SRM/LRM/MG/Flamer: Use current Clan versions (already superior to baseline versions in every way).
Wouldn't mind seeing a new base line like that... though that would have to push the old 'primitive' level into what could be considered 'archaic'.
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there is no gap between Clan or IS in 3150, IS used clan tech while Clan uses IS tech, found it really difficult to understand some battles in the Dark Age novells. When I take a look to CBT - DarkAge conversations there is almost clan tech in use. (Tundra Wolf, Jupiter, HellStar, Hellion, BehemothII, SM1...)
However with X-tech it is always a pleasure to counter clan tech, blue shield and reflect armor vs. Warhawk or Hellstar is always great fun
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The Raptor OmniMech was actually in production by May of 3052. Helluva feat in reverse-engineering. Of course, it was a first-gen Omni, probably only able to accept DCMS standard equipment but still.
Clan-tech should be the "Level 2" of the 3150 era. Expensive, but not out of reach, and common to the well supplied. A century has passed, which is plenty enough time to establish the industries necessary for Clan-grade engineering.
Then, the Homeworld Clans invade again with better gear...
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Then, the Homeworld Clans invade again with better gear...
Or worse gear since they apparently just executed everyone with any ability or initiative in their scientist castes.
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I don't want clantech produced by IS factions. If I wanted Clantech in the IS, I'd run Ghost Bear, Wolf, etc. If the successor states want to develop new tech that goes in new directions, cool. Just don't give me a table full of lasers from 1990.
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Or worse gear since they apparently just executed everyone with any ability or initiative in their scientist castes.
Yeah but those that remained are probably not trying to hold back the Clans technologically. It'll take a few generations, but by 3150 I assume they've managed to do a few new things. Like applying ProtoMech armour to BattleMechs...
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Yeah but those that remained are probably not trying to hold back the Clans technologically. It'll take a few generations, but by 3150 I assume they've managed to do a few new things. Like applying ProtoMech armour to BattleMechs...
I don't know, historically purges have had pretty long lasting negative effects. I can see a reasonable au where the purge of the scientists results in the clan homeworlds sinking back to 3025 levels and eventually getting invaded by the IS clans.
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Potential Wars of Reaving spoilers:
However, the Scientist purge was more or less done by the end of the Wars of Reaving, and the summaries afterwards show growth for all the Clans involved.
Clan Stone Lion even began acquiring new Bloodnames after they were declared clean, meaning there were still some Scientist around who were more or less competent. And their industries are still intact.
These Clans didn't declare, well, Jihad, on their Scientists like the Jade Falcons did. I don't think a reversion to L1 tech is in the offing for the Clans. At worst, they keep their Jihad-WoR era tech.
WoR ends on 3085 I think. 65 years is a lot of generations of scientists, combined with the Spirits' former colony worlds rich in resources and I think they may just surprise us with their tech.
Oh yes, time to see the dawn of the Extra Extended Range Pulse PPC on a quadruple sinked 'Mech.
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Marwynn...I think that the current crop of Clan Tech is pretty much the extent of how the Star league tech
can be further refined. We will have to see stuff like the Plasma Cannon, Heavy Lasers, and ATMs to
see new developments in Clan Tech. That said: I fully expect if/when the Homeworld Clans invade,
we will see iATMs, Electro armoured Protomechs with Fussilade launchers. Depending on how far they
are willing to go to fight the Inner Sphere, we might even see Nova CEWS in use...
But, I do not think we are going to see ER PPCs with longer range and more damage/accuracy...I really
think those are at their limit...
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I'm okay with the IS getting Clan tech (heck, they've already started) as long as Clan-designed units remain superior. For instance, while the IS is making its version of the Hellbringer and just being happy it works, the Clans can make more stuff akin to the Hellstar, units that make the most of scarce resources. From what we've seen so far, that appears to be the case (with exceptions). The new Falcon designs in particular intrigue me. Partial wings and talons can lead to some really cruel designs. The Gyrfalcon might use pitiful little ACs, but if it ends up moving 5/8/7 and kicking like an 85-tonner, I'll be completely okay with it. If the Shrike ends up with a pair of UAC-5s as its main weapons, I'll understand if it goes 4/6/5 and can tear legs off with a single kick. And if the Clans figure out TSM...that way lies madness. The TSM Berserker is only tolerable because you can usually stay away until you hurt it badly enough. If the Clans start making things that hurt that bad (and, really, talons without TSM are pretty close) while being quick and tough to hit, then the whole "don't let Clantech stay at range" strategy will need some reevaluation.
The new missile technologies will also probably make a difference. While Ben has dashed my hopes of seeing iATMs in the IS (even though it could totally make sense grumble bitch whine moan complain), Artemis V and Streak LRMs both open some pretty ferocious possibilities. Streak LRMs are very dense, so they're pretty easy to stick on bigger crit-packed Clan designs, SLRM-15s in particular. As good as Clan LRMs are, SLRMs are vastly more crit- and heat-efficient and they play with other stuff much more nicely. Artemis V, on the other hand, is great for smaller stuff with crits to spare. It's only half a ton more than Artemis IV but so incredibly better that I can't imagine using LRMs without it. More accurate, and EVEN MORE cluster bonus. Good deal. While the Mad Cat III needs more armor and ammo, it could probably credibly compete with a Longbow in ranged fire support.
As for the newer Clan lasers...less astounding, but still good news for their continued superiority. Improved Heavy Lasers still do preposterous amounts of damage by IS standards, and even the old ones do okay. The Morrigan and its variant are some of the scariest things I've played against recently, and there's always the Solitaire. Firepower on small things is not an arena the IS will be able to touch the Clans in any time soon. ER Pulse lasers are...usable. Sometimes. The new Mad Cat II uses them badly, since normal lasers and a TC would be entirely better (losing the full pulse bonus makes them a lot less useful). Still, coupled with some low-heat weapons (and maybe a TC so normal ER lasers aren't just better) they could be a potent new toy.
Throw in endo-composite IS, Ferro-lamellar armor, and adoption of the new IS gyro types, and I don't see the Clans losing their tech edge for a very long time if their new designs are built well.
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By 3050, the I.S- on it's own, was able to reproduce most of the lost Battlemech technologies of the Star League that they had lost to the succession wars. (XL Engines, Ferro-Fibrous armour, double heatsinks, ER Large Lasers, LB-X 10s, UAC 5s, etc.)
Unless the timeline was revised in the years between when FASA went under and Catalyst took over, XL engines, Ferro armor, Double heat Sinks, ER-Large Lasers, LB-10-X and Ultra AC 5s all were reintroduced not by IS reproducing them on it's own... but from data in the Helm Core.
Even if we did accept that the IS was able to reproduce those techs without the Helm Core, that's again just reinforcing my point that given the time involved there is absolutely no reason for IS equipment to lage so far behind.
By 3067 we've got technologies that arguably surpass their Clan counterparts (MMLs and Plasma Rifles) as well as gear the Star League never even dreamed of- C3i, Heavy PPCs, Light PPCs, etc.
MMLs are not better than clan grade LRMs except in the most contrived of examples. Plasma rifles it's a toss up depending on what it's being used for. Heavy PPCs are just very inferior clan ER-PPCs... which makes no sense given the time involved, the IS's ability to produce clan ER-PPCs and the avalability of actual models to study. Light PPCs are nice for the IS to replace the derpy ACs, but basically inferior to clan ER-Medium Lasers.
It's not just knowledge. You don't take a Clan ER PPC, open it up and say 'Gee, well that's how it's done...wow, we're stupid'.
Execpt clearly, yeah you do, as the IS has done it with the vast majority of clan tech (reference IS omnis, IS battle armor, the IS replicating Clan tech from salvage around 3053, IS techs mounting and repairing clan equipment on IS machines...).
Every time you point to the IS making big leaps in tech (omnis in less than 10 years, C3, able to produce clan tech in less than 10 years), it just reinforces my point that it makes absolutely no sense for the IS to have lagged so far behind for so long, even if you entirely toss out the succession wars and count only from 3037.
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Every time you point to the IS making big leaps in tech (omnis in less than 10 years, C3, able to produce clan tech in less than 10 years), it just reinforces my point that it makes absolutely no sense for the IS to have lagged so far behind for so long, even if you entirely toss out the succession wars and count only from 3037.
Remember that all the Inner Sphere advancements from the start of the Clan Invasion, that duplicated Clan Tech in some way, shape, or
form, had two things going for them that the Clans did not have:
1) Working examples to try and figure things out from.
2) A sense of urgency to try and bring themselves up as fast as possible to face these invaders on somewhat comparable footing, at least.
I would actually go so far as to say that the only things that were truly new concepts for the Inner Sphere were the Plasma Rifle
and Magnetic Clamps. RACs are just up-scaling a machinegun to AC size, using the developments in trying to lighten their ACs
to the CLan levels, Heavy and Light PPCs/Gauss are just bigger/lighter guns, and MMLs are just figuring out a different method of
feeding ammo in(to try and duplicate the Clan ATMs).
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Unless the timeline was revised in the years between when FASA went under and Catalyst took over, XL engines, Ferro armor, Double heat Sinks, ER-Large Lasers, LB-10-X and Ultra AC 5s all were reintroduced not by IS reproducing them on it's own... but from data in the Helm Core.
I never said they weren't. They needed to ramp up the infrastructure, test it, and move on from the prototypes. Check the Historical for 3039, where prototypes of those technologies exist, and are used with defects. (Double Heatsinks don't fit into the engine, ER Large laser produces extra heat, the UAC5 jams easier etc.)
Within a few years those flaws had been fixed, they were being produced for far cheaper and distributed in far greater numbers.
MMLs are not better than clan grade LRMs except in the most contrived of examples. Plasma rifles it's a toss up depending on what it's being used for. Heavy PPCs are just very inferior clan ER-PPCs... which makes no sense given the time involved, the IS's ability to produce clan ER-PPCs and the avalability of actual models to study. Light PPCs are nice for the IS to replace the derpy ACs, but basically inferior to clan ER-Medium Lasers.
MMLs aren't comparable to LRMs. The I.S doesn't sit down with a pair of dice and say 'Okay, our MMLs don't do as much damage per ton as the Clans. Back to the drawing board'.
They're meant to be versatile, and are far better at that than the Clans' attempts (See ATMs)
Execpt clearly, yeah you do, as the IS has done it with the vast majority of clan tech (reference IS omnis, IS battle armor, the IS replicating Clan tech from salvage around 3053, IS techs mounting and repairing clan equipment on IS machines...).
If that was true, I.S BA would have Harjel (or equivalent) in their armour. They wouldn't have to eject their spent missle tubes before being able to jump.
They opened them up, got some ideas, and were able to come up with similar designs that aren't quite as effective.
As I said earlier, they can replicate Clan technology according to Maxtech. They have to do that by hand however. It's far too complicated and expensive to do it under mass production. In the laboratory, a scientist could replicate the Clan UAC20. On a factory line? Not so much. They were able, however, to gain enough insight to be able to create their own versions.
Every time you point to the IS making big leaps in tech (omnis in less than 10 years, C3, able to produce clan tech in less than 10 years), it just reinforces my point that it makes absolutely no sense for the IS to have lagged so far behind for so long, even if you entirely toss out the succession wars and count only from 3037.
And you have yet to make any point as to why. I know the difference between a CAT5E cable and a CAT7A cable. That doesn't mean I can grab a CAT5 and turn it into a CAT7, even though they both are just made up of copper and plastic.
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Yeah... but the by hand only really made sense honestly for the 3050s. By the 60s, the process should have been worked out, key equipment needed isolated and developed. Yes, the Jihad hit and that just kicked everyone's tables over... both clanners and IS alike... except for clan munchy bear who seemed was smart to move ahead of time to bring their toys with. The rest of the clanners didn't get to have that time to maintain their magic super advantage... especially in light the home lands being shut down and burning the bridge right after.
If anything, the IS clans (Minus clan broken bear) should be downgraded in tech rather than kept at their lofty top dog standard... or not very far head of their much larger (even post Republic formation) IS cousins who should, by 3150, have more than just got the clan tech mastered but produced in amounts far greater than the clanners could ever dream of, even in the heights of their 'golden' century.
Really, the 80's and 90's should have seen enough clan techs who had defected due to disenfranchisement or been captured, enough hardware, and enough technical material to fall into IS hands to reproduce nearly anything currently in service. After all, if the Helm core was able to pretty much hand the IS the Star League era on a silver platter... all that should pretty much have been given over when the kitties joined the dragon and that information would have leaked out to everyone within time (battletech really is terrible about keeping secrets within one state for any appreciable amount of time, some ice cubes have lasted longer in furnaces than a secret in the sphere).
In essence, the clanner/IS tech bases should go right out the window for a new standard, otherwise it will soon be broken up as the Homeworld Clans (They are terrible people who won't play with other people's toys and won't share) / Frontline IS (the old clan/top line IS toys/newly developed hybrid stuff) / Second Line IS (the old IS toys/Succession War stuff, those leftover medium lasers we find in someone's basement next to a crate of old Mosin Nagants) / Archaic (Hey look another crate of Mosin Nagants, where do these keep turning up at?)
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I don't see why there would be any tech-progression at all:
After the 1st SW, the IS still had HPG communications and the governments were strong and organized...and the tech *still* regressed!
By the DA, governments are weaker (if they haven't imploded like the FWL) and there's the HPG blackout. Why would tech progress under those circumstances? It ought to be a replay of the 1st SW, where the most common tech is the easiest to produce...in other words, a return to 3025-era tech.
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It ought to be a replay of the 1st SW, where the most common tech is the easiest to produce...in other words, a return to 3025-era tech.
Except that's not the most common tech by that point. The most common tech by that point in time would be the Tournament legal tech. Go take a look through most of the Field Reports sometime. Introductory tech is in the minority. A lot of the Introductory tech variants aren't even in production prior to the Jihad.
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I don't know, historically purges have had pretty long lasting negative effects. I can see a reasonable au where the purge of the scientists results in the clan homeworlds sinking back to 3025 levels and eventually getting invaded by the IS clans.
It's more than just a purge of scientists. The homeworlds have also purged the tainted clans, which pegs the homeworlders as being reactionary. This could mean that the homeworld clans adopt the pre-IS invasion clan standards (i.e., rigid adherence to zell) and tactics (fight as warriors, not soldiers.) It would require an insane technological advantage to make up for the fact that the IS and IS Clans have adapted to the honor (and hide)-bound tactics and strategies of the past and would defeat a second 3050 style clan invasion.
I would be more interested in the social, strategic, tactical and logistical "technology" that the untainted homeworld clans would need to develop for a successful second IS invasion.
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The big problem with the Clan/IS tech divide is that the tyranny of numbers says that for every single brilliant, one-in-a-million level clan scientist, an Edison, there are enough comparably bright individuals in the inner sphere to populate Menlo Park. Once the I.S. stops systematically blowing up research institutes, IS technology should not only catch up to the Clans, it should actually surpass it. Compared to the Clans, the IS has unlimited resources, so it can fund all plausible lines of research, not just the one deemed most likely to succeed. For every team studying a working example, there can be several teams working with blank sheets of paper and the knowledge that it can be done.
Claims that Kerensky took all of the best minds with him on the Exodus do not hold water. First and foremeost, he had to establish viable colonies with no additional outside support. As esoteric research does nothing to support colonization, while the colonization is in progress, researchers must be pulling their weight in setting up and supporting the colony and only conduct research in their spare time. He could have taken some of the best minds, but would have to leave the vast majority behind. He will take the best researchers he can find, but the bulk of the exodus is made up of various technicians and engineers.
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They needed to ramp up the infrastructure, test it, and move on from the prototypes.
Which the IS was able to do in less than 10 years for every peice of tech you listed. The helm core was discovered in 2028, by 3037 the DC had working units witht he tech and were mass producing it. By 3050 all of that tech and more was avalable to all the houses.
There is no logic that supports the clans, which have a fraction of the IS numbers getting the advanced lasers and missiles with in 70 years at the most, despite having to compeltely rebuild from dirt once they found the Pentagon worlds, and then having to do so again with second exodus, and yet the IS, with greater resources by far, and more time, and with working examples of the tech, and actual plans on how to make it... can't?
That's flat out does not work.
MMLs aren't comparable to LRMs.
They aren't, because the clan LRMs are better in almost every conceivable way.
A clan LRM 20 has better ranges, and no minimum range than an MML 9 for it's long range munitions, as well as being lighter and more compact. it can use all the LRM munitions that the MML can, and does more damage even at short ranges than the MML 9 does using SRM ammo, and hits more easily than an MML 9 using SRM ammo at any range greater than 3 hexes, and the MML requires at least 2 tons of ammo to get that flexability.
The MML can... use inferno rounds and tandam charge rounds?
You can argue that "it's not about the dice" but that rings hallow when you actually examine the problem from the persective fo someone in the universe: Yes the clan LRM 20 only does 1 point damage at short range than the MML 9 (which may be unquantifibale in universe), but it's hitting roughly 40% more often, and measurably takes up less weight and space and at long range it's doing more than 200% of the damage than the MML 9.
And you have yet to make any point as to why. I know the difference between a CAT5E cable and a CAT7A cable. That doesn't mean I can grab a CAT5 and turn it into a CAT7, even though they both are just made up of copper and plastic.
Because that's entirely the wrong analogy.
I make CAT5e cables and have the entire North American content behind me. You have cuba, but figure out how to make CAT7a in less than 70 years. Now, I get a hold of some of your CAT7e.
Explain why it now takes me 100 years, with examples, and plans, and research and production abilities that dwarf yours that I still can't produce CAT7a?
- IS has had 30 MORE years to copy the tech than the clans had to just come up with the tech
- The IS has thousands of times more resources in both personal and materials than then clans did
- The IS didn't have to rebuild every city from dirt, and has had research and production facilitys for far longer and in greater numbers
- The IS has samples of the technology, and plans to produce it
- IS factories have been retooled to produce clan spec equipment already
- The IS has shown that it can reproduce tech in less than a decade from plans and put it into full production, and has shown this multiple times
So, given that the IS has had every concievable advantage over the clans in getting to clan tech missiles and/or lasers, why hasn't it?
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One of the reasons for the Clan/IS divide is to differentiate between the two. If the Inner Sphere is able to convert everything to Clantech, why have Inner Sphere tech at all? The whole idea behind Clantech is to have the Clans be a different force that relies on fewer numbers but more advanced tech, and to give Clantech to the Inner Sphere you pretty much render the Clans into Inner Sphere minor powers.
This is like someone arguing that in Starcraft that the Terrans should be reverse engineering Protoss technology and putting it to use. It completely ignores the -gameplay- reasons why differences between the Terrans and Protoss exist. Overall, All this realism discussion is kinda pointless considering that overall, Battletech is already a very unrealistic universe. See: FASAnomics, K/F Drives, HPGs, the Fortress magic shield, the unrealistic fusion reactors, and the hundred other things where detailed discussion would result in millions of dead catgirls.
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It's more than just a purge of scientists. The homeworlds have also purged the tainted clans, which pegs the homeworlders as being reactionary. This could mean that the homeworld clans adopt the pre-IS invasion clan standards (i.e., rigid adherence to zell) and tactics (fight as warriors, not soldiers.) It would require an insane technological advantage to make up for the fact that the IS and IS Clans have adapted to the honor (and hide)-bound tactics and strategies of the past and would defeat a second 3050 style clan invasion.
I would be more interested in the social, strategic, tactical and logistical "technology" that the untainted homeworld clans would need to develop for a successful second IS invasion.
Adders didn't use zeil when attacking tainted clans or the society. Essentially, they turned their Warden attitude towards protecting the Clans from the IS "taint" rather than the IS from themselves (or other Clans). They didn't cut out their brains. The Adder Khan is very reasonable and intelligent, very far from reactinary. Since he's the defacto ilKhan, that influences all the Homeworld Clans very strongly.
If you're getting this impression from reading the WoR, then you may want to go back and reread it. The Clans may have a different approach to warfare, but they're not blithering fools. They can addapt, and they DID adapt during the WoR, the ones that didn't are dead.
I think the kind of enormous steps people seem to be suggesting for technology by 3150 are rather ridiculous. It took the entirety of the Star League centuries to develop the helm technologies. The Clans brought those technologies another step up over centuries.
The Inner Sphere lacks the high end "parts" factories to be able to reproduce clan tech in mass production, and I'm pretty certain they'll still lack those factories in 3150. You want to know why?
Because TPTB aren't going to get rid of everything that makes the clans interesting, it woudl be a stupid move on their part, getting rid of the tech gap. All of a sudden the clans are what? Slightly better trained mechwarriors, and that's it? BOOOOOOOORRRRIIINNNGGGGG! It's like Tolkien describing Orcs as "meanies"
The gap HAS to remain between Clan and IS technology, otherwise they're essentially cutting off one of their own feet. Clan fans would hate it, and it would reduce the diversity in cultures and factions in the game, while serving utterly no good story line.
While this may be metagaming, it's still a huge part of the decision making process. Combining IS and Clan tech just doesn't help anyone.
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The difference is that while Terrans are trying to reverse-enginer Protoss technology it is fundamentally different from Terran tech.
Now, you're right. The distinction exists to create a distinction. But it's 3150. A full century after the Clan invasion, with trade and potentially stolen plans from Clan factories in the Inner Sphere.
The distinction between Clan and IS now isn't technological, it's philosophical. It's the meat, not the 'Mech that makes the Clans the warriors they are. In an even battlefield with Clan tech on both sides it should come down to skills and tactics, which the Clanners are supposed to be superior in.
I'm all for the divide between IS and Clan tech when it was still fairly new, but the Clans' presence in the Inner Sphere is bound to influence their technological base.
One of the reasons cited in MaxTech I think it was, was that the Clans' equipment used materials that weren't common (or commonly harvested) in the Inner Sphere. Just like with Warships, a whole industry had to be created from the ground up to gain those materials.
Even with the losses in the Jihad, the IS (for the most part) should have bounced back by 3150 and have more than enough resources to start making Clantech the standard.
I don't see why there would be any tech-progression at all:
After the 1st SW, the IS still had HPG communications and the governments were strong and organized...and the tech *still* regressed!
By the DA, governments are weaker (if they haven't imploded like the FWL) and there's the HPG blackout. Why would tech progress under those circumstances? It ought to be a replay of the 1st SW, where the most common tech is the easiest to produce...in other words, a return to 3025-era tech.
Umm what?
The 1SW had blackouts as well. The tech regression was due to the IS gleefully bombarding the crap out of research institutions and military production centres with a helpful hand from ComStar.
The Dark Age-era blackout may have stultified the Inner Sphere but for the last 50-60 years the Sphere had been progressing and researching and rebuilding. A few short years of silence is not going to make technology regress, especially since the relatively small scale of combat occurring.
There's no way 3025-era technology is going to become the standard in the 3100s. The industries are not broken or shattered, there are people around who are third or fourth generation students of a recovered Star League core.
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Well, they'll have better lumber mech technologies. Better construction mech technologies...
The greatest driving thing for military technologies has historically been warfare. 65 years isn't that long a time in battletech years. Especially not for tech development. Especially not for military tech development if there havn't been any major wars.
I think there will be a few new toys, but not the fundamental upending some people seem to be expecting.
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The distinction between Clan and IS now isn't technological, it's philosophical.
Except it doesnt effect the gameplay, which makes an entirely worthless difference at a gameplay point of view.
If we make Clantech the Inner Sphere standard, it would pretty much result in the Clans becoming little more than minor factions with wierd cultures, Inner Sphere tech itself would go the way of the old 3025 Level 1 tech, and pretty much it would reduce diversity in the universe.
The difference is that while Terrans are trying to reverse-enginer Protoss technology it is fundamentally different from Terran tech.
Funny how that explination works perfectly for the Terrans and the Protoss, but you seem to refuse to let it slide for Inner Sphere and Clan.
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I think the kind of enormous steps people seem to be suggesting for technology by 3150 are rather ridiculous. It took the entirety of the Star League centuries to develop the helm technologies. The Clans brought those technologies another step up over centuries.
Except this isn't true, as I've already shown. The clans hit their tech 'peak' for lasers and missiles in 2854 as those components were used on the Coyotl mech as a production model. Since the exodus happened in 2784, that means the clans developed their advanced lasers and missiles in 70 years or less, and then stagnated on it until the present day.
There wasn't even 1 century of development to get from IS level lasers and missiles to clan level in full production for the exodus fleet. It makes no logical sense that the IS cannot have done the same thing give the plans, a longer time (just counting from 3037), more raw materials, man/brain power and a far larger industrial base.
The Inner Sphere lacks the high end "parts" factories to be able to reproduce clan tech in mass production, and I'm pretty certain they'll still lack those factories in 3150. You want to know why?
Because TPTB aren't going to get rid of everything that makes the clans interesting, it woudl be a stupid move on their part, getting rid of the tech gap. All of a sudden the clans are what? Slightly better trained mechwarriors, and that's it? BOOOOOOOORRRRIIINNNGGGGG!
The IS doesn't lack parts. Factories have been retooled to produce clan spec equipment, and new factories capable of producing clan spec equipment have been built in the IS. Given the raw materials and industrial force available to any house as opposed to the clans, let alone the entire IS, that makes even less sense.
In the 3050s inability to produce clan spec equipment might have been an argument. 100 years later, it most certifiably is not.
The gap HAS to remain between Clan and IS technology, otherwise they're essentially cutting off one of their own feet. Clan fans would hate it, and it would reduce the diversity in cultures and factions in the game, while serving utterly no good story line.
While this may be metagaming, it's still a huge part of the decision making process. Combining IS and Clan tech just doesn't help anyone.
- The universe/story makes more sense.
- BV becomes easier to balance, combats between forces become more balanced.
- No old stories are impossibly and new ones emerge.
- New technologies can be created rather than continuously making 'slightly different but basically worse' stuff.
- You can see even more diversity in designs with mixed tech "Yeah it has a clan ER-Large, but we had to go with regular IS mediums to save costs and heat."
I'm not seeing any problems besides ideological complaints.
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Funny how that explination works perfectly for the Terrans and the Protoss, but you seem to refuse to let it slide for Inner Sphere and Clan.
Terrian and Protoss tech works on fundamentally different technological principles (i.e. good old terrain mechanical vs wtf crystal psychic machine stuff). Clan and IS are fundamentally the same technology.
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Because the Protoss rely on psionics in their technology. The Clans based their improvements on well-known (by 3050) Star League tech.
It's not the same at all. It's like the modern US going back to the M4 Sherman, rediscovering how to make the M1 Abrams, then fighting a splinter US faction that never forgot how to make the M1 and is now fielding an M3 Abrams III. They capture a few, realize the refinements made are within their reach (it's not powered by their minds or anything like the Protoss.)
The tech makes sense for the Inner Sphere, it's just difficult to build.
The Terrans don't even know where to start with Protoss tech. The best they've been able to do is analyze some crystals and shield tech. And they only had what, 3 years?
Yes, it does affect gameplay. The Clanners' skills should be reflected when you're playing.
If we make Clantech the Inner Sphere standard, it would pretty much result in the Clans becoming little more than minor factions with wierd cultures, Inner Sphere tech itself would go the way of the old 3025 Level 1 tech, and pretty much it would reduce diversity in the universe.
They are minor factions with weird cultures. Weird, warrior-like cultures that produce pound-for-pound the meanest MechWarriors in the Inner Sphere.
It's not like the gap hasn't already been closed. Despite the ton-for-ton efficiency of Clantech in the Jihad era, the Inner Sphere has caught up in variety and other technologies. On the tabletop, BV2 balanced games often place Clan players in something of a disadvantage if the IS player gets to play with all the new toys.
Note though, I'm talking about the Inner Sphere Clans. The Homeworld Clans (if any) are probably able to make a new kind of Clan tech. Or not.
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The IS doesn't lack parts. Factories have been retooled to produce clan spec equipment, and new factories capable of producing clan spec equipment have been built in the IS. Given the raw materials and industrial force available to any house as opposed to the clans, let alone the entire IS, that makes even less sense.
Where in the world did you get the impression that IS factories have been retooled to produce clan spec technology? Ohh I know, from factories the CLANS have retooled. That's rather disingenuous don't you think?
In the 3050s inability to produce clan spec equipment might have been an argument. 100 years later, it most certifiably is not.
Considering the lack of warfare in the intervening time, I think you're going by what you wish for more than what is likely.
- The universe/story makes more sense.
- BV becomes easier to balance, combats between forces become more balanced.
- No old stories are impossibly and new ones emerge.
- New technologies can be created rather than continuously making 'slightly different but basically worse' stuff.
- You can see even more diversity in designs with mixed tech "Yeah it has a clan ER-Large, but we had to go with regular IS mediums to save costs and heat."
I'm not seeing any problems besides ideological complaints.
The problem is that the clans are a popular group of factions in the game. Removing the toys that help make them popular wouldn't be a good business move. It gets rid of any reason to have factions like the Diamond Sharks/Sea Foxes.
I'm sure there are IS factions or units using a large amount of clan tech, but I don't think we'll be seeing IS factions other than clans reproducing clan tech in large quantities.
There's been no incentive to do so, considering the small tiny size of armies, it's simply cheaper to buy that tech from a Sea Fox merchant than to build a trillion c-bill factory to make...4 mechs a year.
So it would be a bad business move on the part of Catalyst. Some people enjoy using the smaller units, but higher tech of clans. Just having a different culture won't cut it.
It's would be a foolish move to retool factories at an enormous cost when you can simply buy the good stuff from a Sea Fox factor. Mechs are relatively cheap compared to factories.
The IS have been embroiled in a peaceful era. There has been very little incentive to get super high tech. The Republic may have taken over some WoB technologies, but when you're involved in peace, the highend war technologies don't spit out quite as fast.
Clan tech is like getting a magic weapon in a video game. They're simply better. Getting rid of the difference would be bad for the game. People worrying about balancing the game better by getting rid of the different technology levels simply aren't enjoying it in the first place.
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Well, all the Tech in TM makes sense seeing how factions were throwing everything they could at the Word of Blake.
For the Dark Age I want to see a lot of technology going extinct. When everything kicks back in, the most essential/easy to find technology (based on fluff, NOT game performance) getting upgraded or refined (this can be positive or negative).
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Clan tech is like getting a magic weapon in a video game. They're simply better. Getting rid of the difference would be bad for the game. People worrying about balancing the game better by getting rid of the different technology levels simply aren't enjoying it in the first place.
Actualy, getting rid of the tech level diffrence would be good for the game. Realistically the IS should have Clan Tech by now in full production. The clans should have some advancement also, but not anywhere near as fast as the IS advancement is since the Clans would need to start from scratch with no higher tech examples to work from.
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Actualy, getting rid of the tech level diffrence would be good for the game.
Care to explain why? Realism is not going to cut it, Battletech is not a realistic universe by any stretch of the imagination, so please stop using it in an argument.
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Where in the world did you get the impression that IS factories have been retooled to produce clan spec technology? Ohh I know, from factories the CLANS have retooled. That's rather disingenuous don't you think?
Considering the lack of warfare in the intervening time, I think you're going by what you wish for more than what is likely.
You're referring to the Falcon and Ghost Bear retoolings. One the IS side Irain Battlemechs Unlimited was able to produce clan -grade lasers through a mix of contracts and "some spare technical staff." TharHes Industries of Tharkad produce Clan-spec LRM 5s, though in limited numbers, the Defiance Manufacturing Annex can produce Ultra ACs to clan specifications. Defiance Industries produces XL engines to clan standards. As examples. Those are all roughly around 3075. There are still issues with cost and speed of manufacturing, but they've still got 75 years work it out, and it only took the clans 70 years to get there despite being part of the EXODUS with no industrial base, no where near the man power and no examples or plans for it.
The problem is that the clans are a popular group of factions in the game. Removing the toys that help make them popular wouldn't be a good business move. It gets rid of any reason to have factions like the Diamond Sharks/Sea Foxes.
There are 3025 purists, removing the toys isn't going to prevent anyone but a small fanatical section from playing, and at worse they'll just stick to the time era they like, like lots of players and groups already do. This also doesn't do anything to remove the factions, it means that you get clan off their collective butts and have them start making new tech to keep ahead of the IS instead of sitting on the same lasers from 200 years ago. Oh, look new toys for everyone....
I'm sure there are IS factions or units using a large amount of clan tech, but I don't think we'll be seeing IS factions other than clans reproducing clan tech in large quantities.
There's been no incentive to do so, considering the small tiny size of armies, it's simply cheaper to buy that tech from a Sea Fox merchant than to build a trillion c-bill factory to make...4 mechs a year.
Look, XL engine tech was rediscovered by the IS in 3035 by the Lyrans. By 3055, 20 years later, every house had XL tech, and every house had rank and file production mechs with XL engines. Every argument that you would try to level about cost, or difficult, time, retooling or need of materials is pretty much defeated by that example.
Even if we accept that it will take the IS just as long as it took the clans, despite the number of advantages they have at this point compared to the clans, they should have clan level tech in standard production before 3150, if they started from scratch in 3080.
So it would be a bad business move on the part of Catalyst. Some people enjoy using the smaller units, but higher tech of clans. Just having a different culture won't cut it.
It's would be a foolish move to retool factories at an enormous cost when you can simply buy the good stuff from a Sea Fox factor. Mechs are relatively cheap compared to factories.
The IS have been embroiled in a peaceful era. There has been very little incentive to get super high tech. The Republic may have taken over some WoB technologies, but when you're involved in peace, the highend war technologies don't spit out quite as fast.
We're not talking about creating new techs from scratch, we're talking about catching up to existing tech that's all over the place. Better fusion engines, improved lasers, better cooling technologies all have massive applications on the civilian side. No house is going to stop trying to tool up to produce weapons that are more than twice as effective as what they have now either. The IS isn't ever at peace, it's a coldwar at best.
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Care to explain why? Realism is not going to cut it, Battletech is not a realistic universe by any stretch of the imagination, so please stop using it in an argument.
- BV becomes more balanced, with fewer points of putting one side or the other at a disadvantage.
- More designs open up when you're able to freely mix clan and IS tech, both from a rules and story (i.e. campaign) perspective.
- Newer equipment can be made for the clans to show them moving forward in tech, and to keep the differentiated from the IS.
- We can stop making/using terribly bad weapons like IS Pulse medium lasers and AC/5s which should probably lower the BV of your machines.
As for realism, BT is not perfect, but it's pretty much better than the vast majority of herp durp sci-fi stuff. In fact BT looks like a science text book when you compare it to mechaton z or Warhammer 40k. Plus it's not that it has to be 100% realistic and perfect, it's that not having this happen is a glaring and blaten continuity issue that needs to be explained.
I'm sorry if something making sense isn't an aceptable answer, but yeah, it makes sense.
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- BV becomes more balanced, with fewer points of putting one side or the other at a disadvantage.
Except doing that pretty much balances it by having everyone use the same equipment. Thats not really balance.
- More designs open up when you're able to freely mix clan and IS tech, both from a rules and story (i.e. campaign) perspective.
Why mix tech when you can just make Clan versions of Inner sphere equipment and not even bother?
- Newer equipment can be made for the clans to show them moving forward in tech, and to keep the differentiated from the IS.
This pretty much puts us back to square one with the Clantech/ISTech divide, except it will be Clantech/Clantech MK2... while rendering Inner Sphere level 2 in the same spot as Inner Sphere level 1, completely worthless and used only by completely obsolete units.
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Except that's not the most common tech by that point. The most common tech by that point in time would be the Tournament legal tech. Go take a look through most of the Field Reports sometime. Introductory tech is in the minority. A lot of the Introductory tech variants aren't even in production prior to the Jihad.
Exactly, when it hits 3150 then 3050 will be the new 3025. ;)
Old Stormcrows will have stormcrow lines on them and be called classics while Hunchbacks will be seen on whatever passes for a History Antique show in the Inner Sphere.
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Old Stormcrows will have stormcrow lines on them and be called classics while Hunchbacks will be seen on whatever passes for a History Antique show in the Inner Sphere.
Except there's that new Hunchback being produced by the Republic. ;)
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What do you guys honestly think of faction-specific technology?
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Personally, one of BT's draws for me is the lack of distinct faction-specific technology. If the Clans and IS technology levels merged, I'd be perfectly fine with it, speaking as both a clan and IS player.
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Except there's that new Hunchback being produced by the Republic. ;)
Lots of Ford cars being made to but specific versions are classic.
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What do you guys honestly think of faction-specific technology?
I'd like a smattering... each major faction hanging on to 3-5 pieces of tech they basically have a monopoly on.
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What do you guys honestly think of faction-specific technology?
I think what's been done since the start of the Jihad is the smart way to go about it. It stays faction specific for a period of time, slowly trickling out to a wider distribution.
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I think what's been done since the start of the Jihad is the smart way to go about it. It stays faction specific for a period of time, slowly trickling out to a wider distribution.
I love the idea of Faction Specific Tech, but this makes more sense to me.
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Realism is not going to cut it, Battletech is not a realistic universe by any stretch of the imagination, so please stop using it in an argument.
And is now part of my signature...............
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What do you guys honestly think of faction-specific technology?
It makes for a better army list. That is infact the very reason I don't want faction specific technology to become normal. I like the idea that everyone plays by the same rules, barring the differences in Clantech, and that anyone can put a particular toy on a 'mech if they feel the need. So keep the FWL love of Light Guass, nobody but the Combine should mount very many MRMs, and every Cap Con lance should contain at least one Plasma Rifle*, but all of them should be options everyone can select occanionally. Though I would like to seethe first units mounting "off-faction" tech be slightly less efficient in their designs for flavor.
* This statement is based of of the variety of quality units that make use of the weapon, most which would serve well in any unit.
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Except doing that pretty much balances it by having everyone use the same equipment. Thats not really balance.
Actually, that's exactly balance. In fact it's close to the text book definition of balance. You might want to say boring, but then you'd have to explain how the IS all having the same tech isn't boring now, or how all the clans having the same tech isn't boring now.
Why mix tech when you can just make Clan versions of Inner sphere equipment and not even bother?
Really? No, really? Did you completely ignore the whole premise of my argument? There is NO REASON for IS tech to be so far behind Clan tech. Letting the clans use IS grade tech doesn't solve or explain why the IS is still using the same lasers/missiles when they clearly should be producing better, especially by 3150.
This pretty much puts us back to square one with the Clantech/ISTech divide, except it will be Clantech/Clantech MK2... while rendering Inner Sphere level 2 in the same spot as Inner Sphere level 1, completely worthless and used only by completely obsolete units.
Nope, that's a guess by you, and it's not only short sighted, it shows a lack of vision and a clear bias. 'Different' doesn't have to mean "always better." ATMs are a great example of this (iATMs less so). TO carry this example out further...
The IS gets up to clan grade launchers by 3150. However they don't develop ATMs, instead sticking with MMLs and improving those. Now, you have better balance, because the LRMs are perfectly equal, and it makes sense in universe, but how the clans and the IS approach variable use racks is significantly different with the divide between ATMs and MMLS. So you have divergent techs with similar rolls rather than 'weapon A is twice as effective than weapon B because A MAGIC WIZARD DID IT.'
WHich is what I've been saying all along.
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And is now part of my signature...............
Yeah... BT has realistic trends, and rules that it follows. That it's not real world doesn't mean we can't have logical discussions about what would realistically happen in the universe given those rules and trends that have come before. That it's not a 100% perfect world simulation doesn't matter. We can talk about how realistic battletech is not in the definition of 'real to life' but under the definition of 'showing a sensible and practical idea of what can be achieved or expected' with in the BT universe.
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So keep the FWL love of Light Guass, nobody but the Combine should mount very many MRMs, and every Cap Con lance should contain at least one Plasma Rifle*, but all of them should be options everyone can select occanionally. Though I would like to seethe first units mounting "off-faction" tech be slightly less efficient in their designs for flavor.
* This statement is based of of the variety of quality units that make use of the weapon, most which would serve well in any unit.
I believe what they're talking about is tech restricted to a particular faction, not as a preference. I.e, if Light Gauss Rifles were still faction specific, you wouldn't see them on any unit other than one designed by the Leaguers.
Having MRMs available to the Lyrans would allow the odd Lyran unit to be built with MRMs, while the Draconis Combine could produce several more designs with them as they prefer that weapon.
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I believe what they're talking about is tech restricted to a particular faction, not as a preference. I.e, if Light Gauss Rifles were still faction specific, you wouldn't see them on any unit other than one designed by the Leaguers.
Having MRMs available to the Lyrans would allow the odd Lyran unit to be built with MRMs, while the Draconis Combine could produce several more designs with them as they prefer that weapon.
I figured that is what was intended. As I said I dislike that idea, but to each their own opinion. I do like the idea of faction preferred equipment, but I don't want to get into the parody range that some units go for. (Seriously, how many IJJ, Partial Wing, Claw/Talon melee 'mechs do the Jade Falcons need?)
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I figured that is what was intended. As I said I dislike that idea, but to each their own opinion. I do like the idea of faction preferred equipment, but I don't want to get into the parody range that some units go for. (Seriously, how many IJJ, Partial Wing, Claw/Talon melee 'mechs do the Jade Falcons need?)
I love specific faction tech. It adds more character to each of them, but like he said it can get pretty silly(talons #P). Its just what make it great, the idea that each faction is trying to gain the upperhand with better tech. And with that, the other factions trying to obtain that technology, slowly distributing it.
[qoute]and to give Clantech to the Inner Sphere you pretty much render the Clans into Inner Sphere minor powers.
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PLEASE GOD YES! OH I WOULD REJOYCE SEEING THIS! Not only would this be a great ironic twist in BT history, but i would finally have the last laugh at all those munchkins...
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Maybe not so much faction "specific" but rather faction "specialty".
Look to 3025. Everyone had the same level of technology, even if the Mariks found it difficult to make PPCs. More or less, everyone had it all in varying amounts. But the FedSuns preferred ACs, the Mariks Lasers (and LRMs), Kuritans PPCs, the CapCon the AC20s I think, and the Lyrans... well, anything big and heavy.
That said, a few new House-specific technologies would make sense given the relative quiet of the last few decades. Surprise, the DCMS has been using LB2Xs and LB5Xs because all the PPCs had to go back for a factory-refit since they are now able to make Clan ER PPCs with a different colour, or something. A characteristic Great House tech would be great, it could just even be weaponry.
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We've seen what 3150 era tech is like already. It's what we have now with Advanced/Experimental being a bit more widespread. Arguing what SHOULD be seems to be missing the point. I doubt we'll see to much stuff that's 'new' new. Maybe some improved versions of current experimental/advanced tech and some more drifting between Clan and IS 'exclusive' tech.
And the reason the IS doesnt bother to much with replicating Clan Tech (in universe) is it's relatively easy to get, so long as you have the money. The Clans, and the Sea Fox especially, have become another set of factories to buy equipment off of. It's cheaper to just buy a Marauder IIC from the Sea Fox then it would be to completely upgrade your Marauder factory, and it's supporting infrastructure, to Clan tech.
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and to give Clantech to the Inner Sphere you pretty much render the Clans into Inner Sphere minor powers.
Time marches on. Once upon a time Rome, Spain, Britain, and Japan were all great imperial powers. Then time passed them by. By 3150 its been a century since the Clans burst onto the scene in the Inner Sphere. Few living humans even remember a time when the Clans DIDN'T occupy their now traditional territories.
I've been a Northwind Highlanders fan since they were working for the Cappies. They have one world and no unique technology at all. Doesn't keep them from being immensely interesting to me. Why would the Clans be any different?
Frankly, the struggles of a minor power attempting to become something greater or hold onto something they view as important is FAR more interesting to read about than how some uberpower faction steamrolls everything in its path.
One thing to remember as well is that the IS Clans now have access to the vast resources and population bases their Inner Sphere holdings, along with a couple generations for their subjects to adapt to the ways of their Clan overlords. Likewise, the Clans have had a century of interaction with the Inner Sphere as well. Except for the most fanatic members, trade and interaction with the rest of the Inner Sphere is going to make an impact.
While I doubt the number of Trueborn would increase dramatically (they are the warrior elite after all), I could easily see the IS Clans being able to vastly increase the size and scope of their second-line forces via Freebirth recruiting (many of whom hope to become part of the warrior elite if they prove themselves, regardless of how likely that prospect might be).
The warrior elite? They still fight like the Clans, mostly against other Clan warriors and IS factions that still take the concept of honor and individual combat seriously. Its their massive second-line armies that hold and expand their territory against the factions that treat combat as war instead of an honor duel.
Really, I think losing their technological edge makes the Clans more interesting. Nothing remains interesting for long if it remains static and unchanging. Seeing how the IS Clans have adapted to a century of life within the resource rich and culturally diverse Inner Sphere is a gold-mine for interesting stories.
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Time marches on. Once upon a time Rome, Spain, Britain, and Japan were all great imperial powers. Then time passed them by. By 3150 its been a century since the Clans burst onto the scene in the Inner Sphere. Few living humans even remember a time when the Clans DIDN'T occupy their now traditional territories.
You're bringing up that entire 'realism' thing. That's unhealthy in Battletech.
I'm still having a hard time understanding how in a world of big stompy robots, instant FTL, and people running out of Unobtanium, that 'tech progression' is the big 'that's not realistic' flag that gets tossed up. If you want to complain about THAT, look no further then the Pre-Helm Memory Core IS. 300+ years of technological stagnation and regression, and it's all due to Comstar's HyperAdvancedSuperNinja ROM agency somehow managing to wipe out anyone with more then 2 active brain cells.
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It's cheaper to just buy a Marauder IIC from the Sea Fox then it would be to completely upgrade your Marauder factory, and it's supporting infrastructure, to Clan tech.
No, right now in 3080ish that's true. In 70 years time, that's not going to be true. It makes no sense that it's going to remain the same 'cost' for the IS, which we can't even quantify because the actual cost to make clan spec equipment in the IS isn't ever covered as anything more than off-hand 'it's really expensive.'
Even despite the expense, the Houses (and independent companies) are already factually trying to (or have in some cases) setup factories to produce clan spec equipment for themselves. You don't rely on a third party for your military tech.
You're bringing up that entire 'realism' thing. That's unhealthy in Battletech.
BT has realistic trends, and rules that it follows. That it's not real world doesn't mean we can't have logical discussions about what would realistically happen in the universe given those rules and trends that have come before. That it's not a 100% perfect world simulation doesn't matter. We can talk about how realistic battletech is not in the definition of 'real to life' but under the definition of 'showing a sensible and practical idea of what can be achieved or expected' with in the BT universe.
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PLEASE GOD YES! OH I WOULD REJOYCE SEEING THIS! Not only would this be a great ironic twist in BT history, but i would finally have the last laugh at all those munchkins...
I want this too. But for the opposite reason.
I won't be labeled a munchkin just because I like the Clans.
Plus, all the closet munchkins could finally be outed. You know, the ones that berate the Clans as munchkins, yet whine about how the I.S can't build Clan tech or protomechs...
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Even despite the expense, the Houses (and independent companies) are already factually trying to (or have in some cases) setup factories to produce clan spec equipment for themselves. You don't rely on a third party for your military tech.
Except that's a large part of Battletech's history as well. When you start to look closely at which factions produce which designs, you quickly see that trading is rather common, even between mortal enemies. In the post-Jihad era, it becomes even more prevalent.
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You're bringing up that entire 'realism' thing. That's unhealthy in Battletech.
So is leaving everything static and unchanging. Static and unchanging is boring.
By the same token, did you just read my first paragraph and then do a reactionary kneejerk without reading the rest?
You know... the parts about a struggling minor power being more entertaining to read about and play (everyone loves an underdog)? Maybe the part about the IS Clans also having access to the immense resources and manpower of their occupied territories which would go a long way to keep them from becoming minor powers?
The idea that the Inner Sphere powers would not catch up to the Clans in terms of technology isn't just 'unrealistic' its downright immersion-breaking. It would be a blatent reminder that Battletech is just a game with ficitonal fluff created just to justify game mechanics instead of a coherant fictional universe that also has a game associated with it.
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So is leaving everything static and unchanging. Static and unchanging is boring.
By the same token, did you just read my first paragraph and then do a reactionary kneejerk without reading the rest?
You know... the parts about a struggling minor power being more entertaining to read about and play (everyone loves an underdog)? Maybe the part about the IS Clans also having access to the immense resources and manpower of their occupied territories which would go a long way to keep them from becoming minor powers?
The idea that the Inner Sphere powers would not catch up to the Clans in terms of technology isn't just 'unrealistic' its downright immersion-breaking. It would be a blatent reminder that Battletech is just a game with ficitonal fluff created just to justify game mechanics instead of a coherant fictional universe that also has a game associated with it.
'IS gets clantech' isn't the only option for advancing. It's the easiest. I'd rather ISTech advance in new directions.
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Except that's a large part of Battletech's history as well. When you start to look closely at which factions produce which designs, you quickly see that trading is rather common, even between mortal enemies. In the post-Jihad era, it becomes even more prevalent.
Keep in mind that this was a very common practice in medieval times and BattleTech deliberately apes some medieval notions. Nations may preferentially trade with people they're not fighting - the Lyrans had a lot of dealings with the Suns and Confederation, for instance - but the old House books make it very, very clear that the Houses were trading with each other through the Third Succession War.
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I just honestly want to see the parallel weapons get merged, replaced, and combined... not a wholesale adoption of the entire clan tech base.
Ferro and endo finally getting to be equalized with the older stuff being maintained only because of the mass of block obsolete stuff still using it with piecemeal refits where possible. Clan XL becoming the new standard with the older Star League era stuff kept in production for the same reason people keep making after market parts for old cars... or it is actually a bit cheaper on the pocketbook. Let the DHS become a nice standard of 2 crits but let the clans keep their laser heat sink and the inner sphere... ummmm.... right, moving on.
That would be the ONE thing I would kill for... to actually show that clan tech IS more expensive... as it currently stands, there is little to no actual difference between the costs. Both factions ER PPC costs 300,000 c-bills so where is the conversion price between the techs? Both medium pulse lasers run 60k... why NOT buy the clanner laser if available? Why not invest the money so we don't have to outsource!
So yes, make all the baseline ERs and Pulses equal. Make the SRMs, LRMs, and Streak SRMs equal. Make the base Ultra, LB-X, and RACs equal (now that they stupidly gave the clanners the RAC). If both sides have it, make them equal but put a premium on the C-bill price (which means the designers might actually have to think for two seconds on the economics of their game)... since there is already a premium in terms of BV2.
Pretty much, let the IS and Clans start moving away from each other in parallel techs, away from the 'both do the same but one is just automatically bulkier and inferior despite both being developed within a few years of each other thanks to magic wizard stuff'. That will actually be nice for the game instead of having to hear the same complaint for two decades of why the heck is my ER Large Laser such a complete joke compared to the other guy and so on and so forth.
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I want this too. But for the opposite reason.
I won't be labeled a munchkin just because I like the Clans.
Plus, all the closet munchkins could finally be outed. You know, the ones that berate the Clans as munchkins, yet whine about how the I.S can't build Clan tech or protomechs...
So true, why bash the clans when they will eventually be the norm?
Will the IS eventually manufacture clan tech? Possibly, is it good for the game, no, UNLESS the clans go to their next step in tech also.
So yes if you want the IS to make clan tech, sure, but let the clans go to their next step so there is some variance
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The problem with moving to a new post-Clantech Clantech is that Clantech is already pushing at the edges of the game's numbers. Fundamental changes affecting normally fixed values, such as improved ferro-lamellor or hardened armor and reinforced structures that significantly increase real protection and are competitive in tonnage terms, are going to be increasingly necessary to bring sufficient toughness to meet weapons on that level. At the same time, that imposes significant problems to people who aren't using those systems because they don't have the damage-dealing capabilities that armor exists to counter. They also won't have the toughness to absorb damage like that. Balancing that without turning BV into even more of an unnatural kludge is a major headache.
Is it insoluble? No. Is it good for the game? I don't know and I'm not in a good position to judge it; my own views are pessimistic on that point given that we're still fighting out whether Clantech was a good thing over two decades later. Keep in mind that the Powers That Be are responsible for the health of the game line, not just whether or not developments are logical within the game's narrative.
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For the love of god... I never thought I would have to repeat myself but apparently my message is not getting through people's thick skulls:
Realism is not going to cut it, Battletech is not a realistic universe by any stretch of the imagination, so please stop using it in an argument.
Realism is not going to cut it, Battletech is not a realistic universe by any stretch of the imagination, so please stop using it in an argument.
Realism is not going to cut it, Battletech is not a realistic universe by any stretch of the imagination, so please stop using it in an argument.
Realism is not going to cut it, Battletech is not a realistic universe by any stretch of the imagination, so please stop using it in an argument.
Realism is not going to cut it, Battletech is not a realistic universe by any stretch of the imagination, so please stop using it in an argument.
Realism is not going to cut it, Battletech is not a realistic universe by any stretch of the imagination, so please stop using it in an argument.
Are you people getting it now? How many times do I have to repeat myself for you people to get it?
Actually, that's exactly balance. In fact it's close to the text book definition of balance. You might want to say boring, but then you'd have to explain how the IS all having the same tech isn't boring now, or how all the clans having the same tech isn't boring now.
The problem is that it also imbalances the geopolitical game because the Clans do not have the massive economies and numbers of the Successor States. If Clan technology was given to the Successor States, you would have to make the Clans the raw numbers and economic power of the Successor States. Are you willing to see the Clans become equal in size and numbers to the Successor States? Because that is what it would take to put things back into balance after Clantech was given to the Successor States. As it is, the Clans' advanced technology is justified by the fact their economies and armies are much smaller, they need the advanced tech to deal with greater IS numbers, and if you take that away you basically turn the Clans into minor states that would be incapable of posing a threat to the Successor States, effectively eliminating them as interstellar players.
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Time marches on. Once upon a time Rome, Spain, Britain, and Japan were all great imperial powers. Then time passed them by. By 3150 its been a century since the Clans burst onto the scene in the Inner Sphere. Few living humans even remember a time when the Clans DIDN'T occupy their now traditional territories.
I would compare the clans to the spartans. In the Persian Wars and the later Pelopennesian War, the spartans were a military power. When the romans started to expand their city state, they were in decline. When the romans conquered Greece, the spartans were a curious looking culture that people travelled to gawk at. I think that it was in the Bab5 pilot that Londo laments "Come see the great Centauri Republic! Open nine to five, Earth time.". That pretty much sums up Sparta's end-- not with a bang, but a kaching of tourist coinage. Once the inner sphere can counter their superiority in warships, the clans are going to decline. While the IS is still reverse engineering their technology, the clans can make serious coin selling it, but short of clan tech being made of complex proteins harvested from living things not found in the inner sphere, if the clans can make it, so can the IS.
For the love of god... I never thought I would have to repeat myself but apparently my message is not getting through people's thick skulls:
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Are you people getting it now? How many times do I have to repeat myself for you people to get it?
You have touched upon one of the great problems of the fluff of the BTU-- it lacks verisimilitude. The technology and arms race in the lensman series is far less realistic than the BTU, but the way things interact makes it seem more realistic than the BTU. Too much of the BTU is variations of "because a writer thought it would be cool", so the BTU seems to be a massive collection of Fridge Logic.
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For the love of god... I never thought I would have to repeat myself but apparently my message is not getting through people's thick skulls:
Are you people getting it now? How many times do I have to repeat myself for you people to get it?
The problem is that it also imbalances the geopolitical game because the Clans do not have the massive economies and numbers of the Successor States. If Clan technology was given to the Successor States, you would have to make the Clans the raw numbers and economic power of the Successor States. Are you willing to see the Clans become equal in size and numbers to the Successor States? Because that is what it would take to put things back into balance after Clantech was given to the Successor States. As it is, the Clans' advanced technology is justified by the fact their economies and armies are much smaller, they need the advanced tech to deal with greater IS numbers, and if you take that away you basically turn the Clans into minor states that would be incapable of posing a threat to the Successor States, effectively eliminating them as interstellar players.
We are getting it... honestly, why should we care at all about fluff in any way or what is happening in the next scenario book or plot line advancement or what year is coming is there is not some form of internal consistency to the setting? What it seems to be said by so many other people far more eloquently is that the Clans don't make sense from a consistent view within the universe itself.
To continue to hide behind a strawman that the ingame universe is not 'realistic' and there for has no need for 'realism' is garbage. Might as well just invite space aliens and uplifted war-dolphins into the setting but those would not be consistent from an in-universe perspective.
What seems to be slowly evolving here is a view that more than just a few seem to be wanting a reasonable progression of the setting from an internally consistent with the established fluff written. There are volumes of it out there... the prototype books are showing this is coming. In fact, it seems that this merger might as well be spray painted on the Great Wall of China so we can see it from space.
This segment is not asking for realism from the sense of 'hard sci-fi' or real-world politics or economics or sciences or military logic... take a look through the forums and it is pretty well obvious to all to see since we have terms like 'FASA-nomics' that it isn't based in reality/realism. What they are asking for is INTERNAL CONSISTENCY. That things that have occurred within the setting continue along trends that can be predicted and that thing things that came before it influence what is to come after... without resorting to space wizards did it... which is about the only thing keeping Clan tech from being mass produced... to preserve the dying ember of the superior state of the clans...
Despite losing their home worlds, despite decades of near constant combat grinding the pre-war elite down to mush and depending on younger clones and freeborn that still somehow magically show up better, despite the fact that they have the administrative capacity that rivals some barbaric tribes with their warrior's first attitude, despite a good majority of the Inner Sphere clans pretty much looking like they were in shambles post Jihad/WoR, and despite having a population base and territory size that even makes the Capellan Confederation look like a right super-power.
Despite all this, we are to believe from an internally consistent viewpoint of the setting that the Clans are to continue keeping the edge in both technology and piloting skill despite pretty much ever bit of fluff screaming out otherwise just to keep some players happy at their superiority... that is even more unrealistic and unbelievable that something so simple as the Inner Sphere getting to stop using the lesser versions of Pulse Lasers, ER energy weapons, XL engines, the DHS, autocannons, missile launchers, and other common Star League derived technologies.
So if asking for an internally consistent setting that can use the fluff of it's own books to support itself is 'realism'... and I am supposed to not look at that... then I gladly welcome the alien invasion headed by the three head wolverines who look at the lost Minnesota Tribe as demigods and want to bring the holy light of the tribe back to the people from whom they originated. That is what happens when you discard consistency, you open the door to that.
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So if asking for an internally consistent setting that can use the fluff of it's own books to support itself is 'realism'... and I am supposed to not look at that... then I gladly welcome the alien invasion headed by the three head wolverines who look at the lost Minnesota Tribe as demigods and want to bring the holy light of the tribe back to the people from whom they originated. That is what happens when you discard consistency, you open the door to that.
Wasn't that in Masters and Minions? Or was that the plot to the sequel to Far Country? Honestly, with all the weirdness in some of the books I wouldn't find it all that suprising.
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No, right now in 3080ish that's true. In 70 years time, that's not going to be true.
BT has realistic trends, and rules that it follows. That it's not real world doesn't mean we can't have logical discussions about what would realistically happen in the universe given those rules and trends that have come before.
in RL, sure? In Battletech? No. Tech develops and distributes MUCH more slowly in Battletech then it does in RL. We see this time and again. Heck, we already know they dont do so, as the IS HASNT matched the Clans technology in 3150. We know this as an established 'fact' of said universe.
This is why I brought up the stagnation that effected the IS after the Succession Wars. Exactly how, and why this isnt realistic has been brought up before, but for 300 years, nothing advanced. By all rights, the IS SHOULD have left the Clans, and their limited population/industry in the dust. The Battletech universe just doesnt advance at all, unless it's crucial for the story, or they start running out of interesting mixes of tech for a TRO.
Advancing the Clans just doesnt do anything for the universe. By having two seperate tech bases, it doubles their options when building new toys, and gives one side something to strive form in terms of story rewards. They're better off, for meta reasons, in having two parallel, but not quite even, sets of tech for both, especially once you start bringing in mixed tech designs.
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What it seems to be said by so many other people far more eloquently is that the Clans don't make sense from a consistent view within the universe itself.
You know what? You're right. 'so many other people' don't like the Clans, let's just wipe everything since the Clans came out. Let's make Battletech make sense again. Let's go back to just before the Clans were introduced- good ol' 1989, let's wipe out the past 24 years of Battletech fluff. Afterall, we had a whole ~3 years of fantastic development consistency, and it's only the next quarter of a century of development that doesn't make sense at all.
Let's go back to those House books that weren't inconsistent with eachother. So what if a planet with a couple billion civilians can be conquered by 4 guys in light 'mechs? And the Cappellan Confederation didn't jive up with the rest of the Inner Sphere- where nearly every one of its systems had at *least* 3 habitable worlds on it? That it's production and economic weight should have crushed the Federated Suns wholesale?
Let's not forget such gems as the Great Houses owning...what was it? 80% of all the Jumpships in the entire Inner Sphere, which should mean the entire Sphere should just collapse?
While we're at it, let's return to the time when mermaids existed through genetic modification in the Periphery, because that certainly doesn't jive with the setting like the Clans' eugenic program does. I mean, Christ, engineering someone with a fish tail is one thing, but the ability to swap DNA into a fertalized egg is OBVIOUSLY far too gone.
And because 'so many other people' disagree with the Clans, clearly all the players that came in through the collectable card game, the video games of the past two decades, the television show, Wizkids' MWDA...they're clearly such a minority.
Yes, let's do that. It's about time we fixed this 'Clan' problem once and for all. They've only been planned from the beginning and only been in the game for the past 4/5s of Battletech's entire history.
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I love specific faction tech. It adds more character to each of them, but like he said it can get pretty silly(talons #P). Its just what make it great, the idea that each faction is trying to gain the upperhand with better tech. And with that, the other factions trying to obtain that technology, slowly distributing it.
[qoute]and to give Clantech to the Inner Sphere you pretty much render the Clans into Inner Sphere minor powers.
PLEASE GOD YES! OH I WOULD REJOYCE SEEING THIS! Not only would this be a great ironic twist in BT history, but i would finally have the last laugh at all those munchkins...
Honestly I'm much more comfortable with a considerable amount of Clan Technology going extinct.
Things like their double heat sinks, endo steel, ferro fibrous, electronics, are OK. However, seeing the weapons get on the same level as the Inner Sphere would be interesting to see. Something like them getting bumped down to the star league/klondike tech level and refining it from there. Things like ATM's, HAG's, their lighter and more powerful weapons, all going down as a result of the Wars of Reaving/leaving the homeworlds.
Maybe then they can dive into things like MML's, some kind of special class of laser weapons between pulse and er, and possibly some kind of multi-function autocannon (like an ultra autocannon, which weighs about the same as standard autocannons, but it can act like an Ultra and LB-X cannon but have a risk of "jamming" instead of the stupid circut blowing out) all within the range levels of the Inner Sphere so it's not broken. Things like ProtoMechs can stay. Shoot, it would be neat to see Enhanced Imaging become standard tech, and I would welcome that with open arms. It's unique.
But hey this is the kind of stuff I would enjoy.
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What it seems to be said by so many other people far more eloquently is that the Clans don't make sense from a consistent view within the universe itself.
Care to explain how the Clans violated the internal consistancy of battletech? I read the rest of your post and all I saw were strawmen and complaints about the Jihad/Wars of Reaving that have absolutly nothing to do with the Clans as they were introduced.
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There are people out there who don't like the Clans but I actually find most of them interesting. Klondike really enforced this.
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You know what? You're right. 'so many other people' don't like the Clans, let's just wipe everything since the Clans came out. Let's make Battletech make sense again. Let's go back to just before the Clans were introduced- good ol' 1989, let's wipe out the past 24 years of Battletech fluff. Afterall, we had a whole ~3 years of fantastic development consistency, and it's only the next quarter of a century of development that doesn't make sense at all.
OR... we can go forward and accomplish the same thing by accepting that the Clans as they existed in 3050 at the start of their glorious invasion were not a sustainable force in history any more than the mighty Japanese Navy that swept across most of the Pacific in 1941 was. Indeed, the association is quite apt and deliberate on my part.
Like the Clans, the IJN had the concept of "decisive battle" along with a warrior code. During the lead-up to WWII the Japanese devoted considerable resources into modernizing their navy (nearly 32% of their annual budget). They were the first nation to launch a purpose designed aircraft carrier (at a time when the Battleship was considered the king of the seas). They were the first navy to mount 14 inch and 16 inch guns on a Battleship and the only navy to ever mount 18 inch guns. They launched the first destroyer with dual-5 inch guns capable of anti-aircraft fire. They had the best torpedo in the world until after the end of WWII. The carrier launched Zero fighter had better range and performance than any rival US warplane and their pilots had more experience in the air. In the build-up to Pearl Harbor the Japanese matched (in 1940) and then exceeded (in 1941) the United States naval production.
After the intended knockout blow of Pearl Harbor (and the British, Austrailian, and Dutch forces drained by the war in Europe) the Japanese swarmed through the region with no more than token resistance. The HMS Repulse and Prince of Wales were sunk by a Japanese attack off Malaya on December 10. Thailand surrendered within 24 hours of the Japanese invasion. Hong Kong fell on December 25. The US bases on Guam and Wake Island were lost. Japan went on to invade Burma, the Dutch East Indies, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Rabaul, Malaya, Singapore, Bali and Timor. They started air raids against Australia and crushed the Allied forces in the battle of the Java Sea leading the surrender of Java and Sumatra. They drove the British Navy completely out of the Indian Ocean which prevented the Allies from being able to provide material support to the Chinese Nationalists. They conquered the Philippines and occupied the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska.
Sound familiar? A seemingly unstoppable military force armed with advanced weapon systems carving out vast swathes of territory from the established empires?
And what happened to them is the same thing that happened to the Clans... their forces' needs taxed their population and resource base to the absolute limit as they pit themselves against another power which, while woefully unprepared for the threat initially, had a greater resource base than the rest of the world combined. Once the US got itself kicked out of its complacency the defeat of the Japanese Empire was inevitable.
The only chance the Japanese and the Clans ever had of winning was a decisive knockout blow that convinced the other side to just give up without a fight.
All the advanced technology in the world just can NOT make up for the disparity in resources. It didn't matter that the Germans actually fielded the world's first JET FIGHTER that outperformed Allied warplanes in every single way because the Allies could afford to lose a dozen planes to shoot down one of the jets because they could build two dozen planes in the time it would take the Germans to build one replacement jet. The Clans simply didn't have the resources to knock out the Inner Sphere's production capacity and that is why they were always going to lose.
Someone upthread lamented that allowing the Inner Sphere to have Clantech would relegate the Clans to minor power status. I've got news for you. They already are, and indeed, always have been, minor powers that never really stood a chance against the combined forces of the Inner Sphere. Their tech and the power of surprise just temporarily gave them the ability to punch way above their weight class and the Annihilation of the Smoke Jaguars was their Hiroshima and Nagasaki (also apt as the Japanese surrendered on bluff that we had an arsenal of nukes waiting in the wings when we'd literally shot our wad on those two... likewise forces at home were already conspiring to undermine the very alliance that made the Annihilation of the Smoke Jaguars possible in the first place).
Historically speaking, the high point of the Clans was 3050, after which their importance to the Inner Sphere waned signicantly. And there's nothing WRONG with that either. People still break out WWII miniatures to refight battles that were and that might have been regardless of the fact that we already know the ultimate outcome of that war. People still refight the Battle of Waterloo even though the era of British and French dominance has long since past.
Just because the Clans are minor powers doesn't make them any less interesting. If you want to play them in their heyday set your battles in the 3050's. If you want to play them where THEY are the underdog trying to hold onto their customs as the universe threatens to pass them by (I'm now imagining some sort of "Dances with Wolves" parallel with regards to the Clans) then 3150 would be the time to play.
Heck, some might even come to romanticize the Clan ways the same way we do the Samurai, the Knight, and/or the Native American warrior and want to emulate their ways (wasn't that even the whole point of Steel Wolves? Weren't they mostly Clan wannabes akin to SCA'ers turned post-apocalyptic survivalists?). Seeing just how the Clans adapt to life in the Inner Sphere across the span of several generations is frankly going to be half the fun... seeing which traditions they do their best to hold to and which they surrender to pragmatism across multiple generations of leadership. How do the first generation of Trueborn to have been born in the Inner Sphere handle leadership when it passes to them? How do their occupied Inner Sphere subjects adapt or change after nearly five generations of rule by the Clans? How much of the Clan way do they adopt? How much of their ways do their Clan occupiers adopt?
There's a LOT more interesting stuff going on in the Clan future that doesn't hinge a bit on their level of technological advancement relative to the rest of the Inner Sphere.
And that tech level IS going to even out a lot over the subsequent 80 years... especially when you've got the Japanese/Clan Sea Fox selling cheap microprocessors/ClanTech to anyone willing to buy it (and yes, I had to ride the Clans/Japanese Empire to the bitter end).
The Battletech Universe of 3150 is not going to be like that of 3050... and that's a GOOD thing.
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Care to explain how the Clans violated the internal consistancy of battletech? I read the rest of your post and all I saw were strawmen and complaints about the Jihad/Wars of Reaving that have absolutly nothing to do with the Clans as they were introduced.
Nothing is wrong with them as they were introduced... well, except for the auto-broken nature of things early on. They were the great galactic steam rollers who hit with a force of unmitigated strength. They were unknowns... we didn't know if they were the vanguard of a massive imperium or what.
Then they were explained. The tight web of now having to fit within the setting starts to form. We soon find out that the invasion was the work of decades, if not centuries, of preparation. Stockpiles of equipment and a very tiny industrial base compared to any of the major and some of the minor Inner Sphere powers. It was believable that with the very frugal state of fighting within the clans, the predominance of dueling, that such a force over the course of two centuries could be amassed.
The invasion hits. It is a perfect storm that if it had hit a few years later, MIGHT not have been so effective. The IS is caught with it's pants down. We know them as the might that they had. The books continue and things slowly start to wear on this stockpile. Tukayyaid kills a whole lot of this pre-war generation... leading to a new generation to come up. More books arrive, more details. We start to get an internally consistent view... things don't add up. Suddenly, we are given the Brian Caches, the vast supplies of stockpiled goods... to help make up for the fact that the vaunted industrial base of the clans can't meet the ferocity of fighting or absorb actual loses from fighting an enemy that won't duel.
We have now established within setting an internally consistent way things are able to function but this is not a perpetual motion engine here. Things get worse for the clans. Operation Bulldog, fighting between the Falcons and the Wolves, infighting between Hell's Horses and about anyone they can get their hands on it seemed, the exodus of the Bears (which didn't go QUITE as well as they hoped), the flight of the Ravens to the IS (DEFINITELY didn't go as well as they had hoped), the Jihad, and the WoR and destruction a good deal of things that remove the Homeworlds from the equation of power within the Inner Sphere and putting a good deal of the IS based clans on their hind ends in less than desirable straights.
They are honestly not what I would call a 'super power' anymore... their time has come and gone thanks to nearly 20 years of writing them into minor power status. Perhaps if they were unified under a single banner, they might be... but it is almost laughable to assume such a thing will ever occur considering the way things have progressed.
To assume that the IS based clans are able to not only rebuild but somehow maintain their technological advantage within the realm of the universe is actually flying in the face of the facts that have already been established within setting. This is also in the face of the Experimental books already having their tech being cracked (finally). To keep them separate after another 70 years just to maintain some false differentiating state between the two powers that only made sense during the invasion era and was already starting to seriously waver as the setting moved into the Jihad would be flying against the face of what has already come before it within the universe.
It would be tossing out the progress being made in game just to allow players to feel special about themselves because they are playing the mega-vehicles and swear allegiance to clan (Insert an animal here) while for some reason, despite proof being out there that we may soon see the Star League era inefficient garbage slipping away for at least 'modern' (read here Clan tech) incarnations or just consigned to realm of second line units, is ludicrous. It is actually downright pandering to a certain subsect who want to feel extra special because they want to play trueborn pilots who are all masters at warfare and have mega-warmachines that allow them to scythe through their uneducated enemies like a hot knife through butter. That worked twenty years ago but time moves forward, supported by the fluff in setting.
TL:DR - Clan/IS separation was okay 20 years ago when they first arrive... illogical in current time frame when the field has changed dramatically.
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Sound familiar? A seemingly unstoppable military force armed with advanced weapon systems carving out vast swathes of territory from the established empires?
The IJN had no advanced weapon systems whatsoever.
All the advanced technology in the world just can NOT make up for the disparity in resources. It didn't matter that the Germans actually fielded the world's first JET FIGHTER that outperformed Allied warplanes in every single way because the Allies could afford to lose a dozen planes to shoot down one of the jets because they could build two dozen planes in the time it would take the Germans to build one replacement jet.
A large portion of Germany's loss in World War II can be attributed to the fact that the top German leadership was full of idiots whom had no idea what they were doing.
Someone upthread lamented that allowing the Inner Sphere to have Clantech would relegate the Clans to minor power status. I've got news for you. They already are, and indeed, always have been, minor powers that never really stood a chance against the combined forces of the Inner Sphere.
The Lyran Commonwealth and Free Worlds League would beg to differ. Even the Draconis Combine failed in their attempt to stab the Nova Cats in the back while the Cats were fighting the Combine's war against the Bears.
Historically speaking, the high point of the Clans was 3050, after which their importance to the Inner Sphere waned signicantly.
Their importance has waned significantly, but even then they are still important. The Clans remain very big movers and shakers in 3144. When I said the Clans would be demoted to minor powers, I was looking more to the Tikonov Republic and the St Ives Compact as examples. Those are minor powers that had very little bearing on the universe as a whole, and barely were able to last a few years before they were simply annexed by the much bigger Successor States. That would be the future of the Clans if the Inner Sphere was allowed to retool their entire infrastructure and industry to Clantech.
There's a LOT more interesting stuff going on in the Clan future that doesn't hinge a bit on their level of technological advancement relative to the rest of the Inner Sphere.
Their technological advantage allows them to retain a bit of relevancy in the overall storyline, which they would not have if the Successor States were able to mass-manufacture Clantech on their own.
The Battletech Universe of 3150 is not going to be like that of 3050... and that's a GOOD thing.
The MUL seems to indicate that the Inner Sphere in 3133 gets their clantech the exact same way as they had in 3052: Salvage or Trade.
We have now established within setting an internally consistent way things are able to function but this is not a perpetual motion engine here. Things get worse for the clans. Operation Bulldog, fighting between the Falcons and the Wolves, infighting between Hell's Horses and about anyone they can get their hands on it seemed, the exodus of the Bears (which didn't go QUITE as well as they hoped), the flight of the Ravens to the IS (DEFINITELY didn't go as well as they had hoped), the Jihad, and the WoR and destruction a good deal of things that remove the Homeworlds from the equation of power within the Inner Sphere and putting a good deal of the IS based clans on their hind ends in less than desirable straights.
At the same time, though, the Inner Sphere goes through the Jihad which extensively wrecked their economies and military production, so pretty much everybody is being knocked down more or less evenly... well, unless your a Ghost Bear (Actually, the Ghost Bears got out of the Clan Homeworlds relatively unscathed compared to the other Clans)
They are honestly not what I would call a 'super power' anymore... their time has come and gone thanks to nearly 20 years of writing them into minor power status.
Again, the Lyran Commonwealth and Free Worlds League would beg to differ.
This is also in the face of the Experimental books already having their tech being cracked (finally).
You forgot to mention that the Inner Sphere later decided that it was not worth upgrading to Clantech and dropped it completely. The Dark Ages and the MUL support this, as there is no Inner Sphere-built Clantech to be found.
It would be tossing out the progress being made in game just to allow players to feel special about themselves because they are playing the mega-vehicles and swear allegiance to clan (Insert an animal here) while for some reason, despite proof being out there that we may soon see the Star League era inefficient garbage slipping away for at least 'modern' (read here Clan tech) incarnations or just consigned to realm of second line units, is ludicrous. It is actually downright pandering to a certain subsect who want to feel extra special because they want to play trueborn pilots who are all masters at warfare and have mega-warmachines that allow them to scythe through their uneducated enemies like a hot knife through butter. That worked twenty years ago but time moves forward, supported by the fluff in setting.
Lets face it, take away the realism argument and you have no leg to stand on. That is why you people keep defaulting to it.
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Adders didn't use zeil when attacking tainted clans or the society. Essentially, they turned their Warden attitude towards protecting the Clans from the IS "taint" rather than the IS from themselves (or other Clans). They didn't cut out their brains. The Adder Khan is very reasonable and intelligent, very far from reactinary. Since he's the defacto ilKhan, that influences all the Homeworld Clans very strongly.
If you're getting this impression from reading the WoR, then you may want to go back and reread it. The Clans may have a different approach to warfare, but they're not blithering fools. They can addapt, and they DID adapt during the WoR, the ones that didn't are dead.
The HomeWorld Clans have regressed. They use zell within the untainted clans in order to prevent the damage that total war causes. Future generations of warriors are going to know nothing but zell as a means of fighting. They're still fixated on genetics. They still have the caste system. They're still stuck with resource poor worlds.
Even if the Clans rebuild, they still have some seemingly insurmountable obstacles to another invasion of the IS. They have to rebuild their warship and jumpship fleets. They still have a ridiculously long logistical trail. The IS and IS-Clans know the location of the Home Worlds which leaves them vulnerable to counter attack. The IS-Clans took a lot of Clan technology and expertise with them and the IS worlds have greater resources to build and improve upon Clan tech, so the HomeWorld Clans most likely won't have a tech advantage.
Because TPTB aren't going to get rid of everything that makes the clans interesting, it woudl be a stupid move on their part, getting rid of the tech gap. All of a sudden the clans are what? Slightly better trained mechwarriors, and that's it? BOOOOOOOORRRRIIINNNGGGGG! It's like Tolkien describing Orcs as "meanies"
The gap HAS to remain between Clan and IS technology, otherwise they're essentially cutting off one of their own feet. Clan fans would hate it, and it would reduce the diversity in cultures and factions in the game, while serving utterly no good story line.
Or, maybe the Clans as high-tech alien invaders plot card is played out and it's time for something new? The BT universe isn't static and the writers are quite happy to shake things up a bit. The HomeWorld Clans are cliche and irrelevant unless TPTB re-invent them.
While this may be metagaming, it's still a huge part of the decision making process. Combining IS and Clan tech just doesn't help anyone.
BattleTech 2.0? A total revamp of the game rules? IMO, the game rules are starting to get clumsy and are running into scalability problems in terms of weapon damage, armor, and equipment effects. For example, armor BAR and the damage reduction of newer armors is a bit clumsy. BT 2.0 armor might be modeled on penetration over albation as weapon lethality increases.
Or maybe it's time shift the game's historical background? We started with MechWarriors in a feudal society that moved to Renaissance Europe to WWII style warfare back to a heavily balkanized Dark Ages type setting-ish. What historical paradigm is 3150 going to be modeled on?
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So what's wrong with Clan Technology going extinct? Heck, even crap like C3 that gets abused? Throwing this crap across the board isn't going to solve anything.
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Lets face it, take away the realism argument and you have no leg to stand on. That is why you people keep defaulting to it.
But that is a much better argument than just saying 'Clans need to stay special because of space magic that always makes them better and no matter what, no matter what gets developed, it will always be automatically smaller, lighter, cooler, and more damaging than anything the Inner Sphere has plus with super pilots genetically created to be better at everything' which is what the current clans hide behind... despite evidence to the contrary within an internally consistent universe.
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For the record, I <3 space magic
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So what's wrong with Clan Technology going extinct? Heck, even crap like C3 that gets abused? Throwing this crap across the board isn't going to solve anything.
There is still the balance issues between the Successor States and the Clans to contend with... the Successor States are many times larger than the clans, they have much larger militaries, that is the reasons why the Clans have clantech to begin with, is to balance out quantity with quality.
But that is a much better argument than just saying 'Clans need to stay special because of space magic that always makes them better and no matter what, no matter what gets developed, it will always be automatically smaller, lighter, cooler, and more damaging than anything the Inner Sphere has plus with super pilots genetically created to be better at everything' which is what the current clans hide behind... despite evidence to the contrary within an internally consistent universe.
Nice strawman. Care to actually address my arguments?
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BattleTech 2.0? A total revamp of the game rules? IMO, the game rules are starting to get clumsy and are running into scalability problems in terms of weapon damage, armor, and equipment effects. For example, armor BAR and the damage reduction of newer armors is a bit clumsy. BT 2.0 armor might be modeled on penetration over albation as weapon lethality increases.
In your opinion. Not mine, and not that of many other fans of the game as is. You wanting a "total revamp"doesn't mean the majority of fans do, nor does it mean your preference would be the best business plan. Looking at the history of battletech development, and the fact that a total revamp would render all current TROS obsolete, and I suspect that you're in for a disappointment.
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The IJN had no advanced weapon systems whatsoever.
Point of order: The IJN's Type 93 and Type 95 torpedoes were the best in the war.
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In your opinion. Not mine, and not that of many other fans of the game as is. You wanting a "total revamp"doesn't mean the majority of fans do, nor does it mean your preference would be the best business plan. Looking at the history of battletech development, and the fact that a total revamp would render all current TROS obsolete, and I suspect that you're in for a disappointment.
I wasn't clear with my point. The HomeWorld Clans have, for the most part, regressed back to their orthodox initial starting configuration. As myself and others have pointed out, it doesn't make sense for TPTB to rehash the Clan alien tech boogie man invader scenario. The HomeWorld Clans don't have the resources to be a meaningful threat to the IS/IS-Clans.
Yet, as you pointed out, the HomeWorld Clans are/were a major storyline component and have their fans, so it would be a waste/disappointment for the HomeWorld Clans to go gently into that good night. Instead of using writers fiat to stomp over what little suspension of disbelief that BT has by keeping the HomeWorld Clans as a technologically superior foe waiting to turn the IS upside down, the TPTB could be planning on either a complete overhaul of the historical paradigm/plot/story and cast the HomeWorld Clans in a new role (ex: a RL example would be the USSR splintered into individual countries with Russia trying to reclaim it's lost Soviet-era Glory) or TPTB could introduce some game changing technology that turns Mech warfare upside down (ex: RL examples: blitzkrieg, air power, industrialization, etc..)
Examples of game changing Mech warfare would be a migration to larger, smarter missiles instead of lots of LRMs, or finally replacing traditional propellant autocannons with gauss "autocannons". Instead of albation, the new magic armor could rely heavily on DR (damage reduction) instead.
Long story short, the TPTB might have written themselves into a corner and it's time for new storyline and technology paradigms to emerge. (Which translates into new fiction, new rulebooks, new TROs, all of which (hopefully) equals income.)
the fact that a total revamp would render all current TROS obsolete, and I suspect that you're in for a disappointment.
IMO, the TROs are already obsolete. The sheer number of mech designs available has gotten silly and unwieldy .
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So, when the IS finally catches up to the Clantech what excuse do we give that the Clan's are just going to sit there and not develop their own advanced gear?
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Point of order: The IJN's Type 93 and Type 95 torpedoes were the best in the war.
It is more like the German's Tiger tanks. Certainly impressive when it came to range and firepower, but they were huge and very prone to explode, and were actually responsible for sinking a good number of Japanese ships on their own. It also had absolutly no effect on post-war torpedo design (infact, the German electric acoustic torpedoes would end up being further developed in the United States into the Mark 37, which would serve the US Navy until the 1970s).
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So, when the IS finally catches up to the Clantech what excuse do we give that the Clan's are just going to sit there and not develop their own advanced gear?
Duh. The real reason for Operation Revival: the Clanners wanted to get their hands on stupid pills.
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I disagree that the Homeworld CLans can't still be a threat. The Jihad just blew the crap out of most military factories and units in the IS, the Homworld clans have a clear leader (Star Adders tell them to jump, and the HW Clans ask how high?
How is the IS supposedly going to gain all this technological prowess when for the next 65 years it's concentrating more on civilian technology, we already know that's what it's doing and going to continue doing.
TPTB have stated that after the WoR, there's going to be around a 5 year gap before more products encompassing deep periphery factions. So in a way, you're getting your wish, the Homeworld Clans aren't going to be arround. However there's nothing to stop them from changing more in the mean time.
As for resouces. That's an easy enough answer. What do you think owuld happen if the Clans took over the Hanseatic League for example? Dozens of new worlds to stripmine or what have you...A relatively weak defense. The Hanseatic League is low hanging fruit, and I suspect it will fall within the next century.
BAR 10 armor is standard, Ferro Lamellar is essentially Bar 11, not all that complex to me, BAR 12 would behave in a similiar manner, but better, and weapons designed to penetrate taha sort of armor would be easy enough to describe.
The Clans have also developed new weapons systems that use less resources (eg Protomechs) and "smarter missiles" as you mentioned iATMs are about the smartest missiles you can find in the game.
The entire IS is already cast as feuding factions of a once powerful star league, why do the same thing with the Clans. The homeworld clans are getting at least 65 years to change, do you honestly expect them NOT to change?
They have a new concern, the taint, from which they must protect themselves, they've got higher techs to build on than the IS, and while they admittedly just went through a highly destructuve war, so did EVERYONE ****** ELSE!
Duh. The real reason for Operation Revival: the Clanners wanted to get their hands on stupid pills.
Bears got in the Wolf and Davion pharmacy and stole the Fiat pills.
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...Gah. I have to agree with some of all this.
IMO, the TROs are already obsolete. The sheer number of mech designs available has gotten silly and unwieldy .
[applause]
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Hopefully once we hit 3150, the MUL will show us more designs that have become extinct. There are currently nearly 200 variants are no longer around by the Republic era (excluding 3067). Granted, that's well short of 10% of all variants, but I expect that list to grow substantially when we come out of the time warp.
I see nothing wrong with introducing some new designs if they kill off a few. And I suspect that we'll lose more than we gain.
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IMO, the TROs are already obsolete. The sheer number of mech designs available has gotten silly and unwieldy .
It wouldn't be so bad if FASA hadn't over-saturated the market with four different TROs (not counting 3058!) over a ten year in-game period. I think making 3085 such a fat tome was also a bad idea. TRO's should be like Prototypes: short, lots of different unit types and more variants than new designs.
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TRO's should be like Prototypes: short, lots of different unit types and more variants than new designs.
Personally, I'd rather go the other way. More new designs and way less variants. Too many designs have traveled so far from their style and roots.
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That's because most new variants are of ancient designs; I think we're getting close to triple digits on the number of Archer variants. The Apollo, meanwhile, has about three. So how about more Apollo, Enfield and Sirocco variants and less repeats of TRO: 3025 designs?
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That's because most new variants are of ancient designs; I think we're getting close to triple digits on the number of Archer variants. The Apollo, meanwhile, has about three. So how about more Apollo, Enfield and Sirocco variants and less repeats of TRO: 3025 designs?
I'll drink some of that Kool-Aid
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Well some of the 'TRO bloat' is the simple fact that the core game and construction rules have managed to stay unchanged during the games lifetime.
It's very unlike other game systems- 40k obviously with the army lists, but even DnD had to revamp their Monster Manuals with each version of the game.
I have no issue with the number of TRO's that have gone out, it's more an issue so many designs have stayed in operation in the course of the main plot.
And to echo Sartis' comment, the MUL list needs to start showing more designs extinct, not only by 3150, but by the DA actually- hopefully a lot more of the
"To be Announced" entries for the Republic Era of the MUL change to "Extinct". Right now we've got 'Mechs from TRO:2750, 3025/3039, 3050, 3055, 3060,
3067, Project Phoenix, 3075, 3085, and Prototypes in some level of use by the end of the Jihad.
At the very least it's past time to junk the SW tech variants remaining given that even the Periphery powers are producing Star League tech (or better) designs.
I doubt anyone would shed a tear if all the IS refits from 3050 got junked as well, it's not as if most of those said designs didn't get another version in 3085 as a
main article or the ONN section. The collapse of C*/WoB should mean many of those designs from 2750 onwards should be on the way out as well. If TPTB were even a
bit more ambitious, the factories damaged/destroyed in the Jihad wouldn't resume building their old designs when/if reconstructed, and move on to newer
ones. That would leave us with the Clan section of 3050, and the bulk of 3055 onwards. But then again, CGL might suprise me and get real aggressive and say that
TRO:3085 is the 'Baseline TRO' moving forward, given the number of designs present should be able to provide a minimum number of 'historic' units to back up newer TRO's.
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That's because most new variants are of ancient designs; I think we're getting close to triple digits on the number of Archer variants. The Apollo, meanwhile, has about three. So how about more Apollo, Enfield and Sirocco variants and less repeats of TRO: 3025 designs?
Well....3067 was unpopular, wasn't it? I mean..why else would IWM minis from 3060 and 3067 end up not selling well and being archived?
Admittedly, that is something that has always bothered me: The only things that ever seem to get canonical upgrades are the
oldest designs and then you have the newest designs being built with all the new toys. At the same time, you see fewer designs like
the Jagermech III and Awesome 9Q, where they take older and newer tech and merge them into something actually amazing to see.
But, yes, let's see some Viking, No-Dachi, Lao Hu, Hellfire, Lobo, and Bowman upgrades using all the new fun toys!
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Well....3067 was unpopular, wasn't it? I mean..why else would IWM minis from 3060 and 3067 end up not selling well and being archived?
Admittedly, that is something that has always bothered me: The only things that ever seem to get canonical upgrades are the
oldest designs and then you have the newest designs being built with all the new toys. At the same time, you see fewer designs like
the Jagermech III and Awesome 9Q, where they take older and newer tech and merge them into something actually amazing to see.
But, yes, let's see some Viking, No-Dachi, Lao Hu, Hellfire, Lobo, and Bowman upgrades using all the new fun toys!
Well obviously newer designs wouldn't have as many variants (outside of omni's of course). But we should be seeing more variants of the
newer designs. At best, most of the 3055/58 crowd had maybe one variant beyond the base model to start, had another tacked on when the
those TRO's got 'upgraded', and another in 3085 ONN.
As for the mini thing, it does boil down to a 'bang for the buck' problem, not all that dissimilar to the 'omni problem' with TRO's and miniatures.
If one isn't being strict about what variant a mini is (not that I want BT to end up like 40K), an Archer might as well be as much as an omni
as a Timber Wolf. Even if you strictly consider that miniature one variant you still get more value over a newer one, because you often can use
it across a number of game eras, where the newer chassis are only valid from the point of their introduction onwards. It's one of those things that
can really only be solved by moving forwards in timeline, and adding more variants to the newer designs, and killing off a whole lot of the old variants still around.
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Long story short, the TPTB might have written themselves into a corner and it's time for new storyline and technology paradigms to emerge. (Which translates into new fiction, new rulebooks, new TROs, all of which (hopefully) equals income.)
Or you do BT 2.0, lose 80%+ of your fanbase because everything they have from the rest of the universe is obsolete/not compatible with the new system and they simply throw up their hands, say "**** it" and go off and play something else. Lots less income going to be coming in at that point. ::)
If you're going to level the playing field, level it all at the level of "everybody now has Clan tech", get rid of the disparity in tech levels and go from there.
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I wouldn't mind seeing the tech bases merge. Keep the old stuff around, but let properly cutting edge equipment combine Clan weight and space efficiency with IS flexibility -- like, say, autocannons with Clan LB-X model stats but the full range of now standard-compatible alternate ammo types in addition to standard and cluster. Advanced technology inevitably gets spread around in both real life and the BT universe because, if nothing else, everybody has somebody else they're worried about and wants to have an edge over just in case.
I mean, BattleMechs remained pure Terran Hegemony 'factional' tech for exactly how long, again?
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There is still the balance issues between the Successor States and the Clans to contend with... the Successor States are many times larger than the clans, they have much larger militaries, that is the reasons why the Clans have clantech to begin with, is to balance out quantity with quality.
This presumes (mistakenly, I believe) that the TPTB intend to keep having the Clans as a major power and opponent to the Inner Sphere when the past 20 years of setting development has been about how elements of the Clans have split off and joined or otherwise merged with various pre-existing Inner Sphere factions (first the Dragoons, then Wolf-In-Exile, then the Nova Cats make a deal with the Draconis Combine (and then the RotS), then the Diamond Sharks move in as free traders, the Ghost Bears and Ravens make deals with Inner Sphere powers, and the Scorpions become el Scorpio Imperium).
By all accounts the Clans look to be moving firmly into minor powers status with their only prospects for not being so laying in doing the unthinkable and presenting a unified front and compromising with their ancient rivals.
Nice strawman. Care to actually address my arguments?
Your arguments are that realism and logic shouldn't count and that the individual Clans should magically remain at major power status despite everything inside the Battletech Universe telling us they should fall to minor power status on par with the Taurians or the Magistry (who are nothing to sneeze at; just not in the Suns' or Lyrans' or Combines' league).
Trying to address the argument "BUT... I WANTS IT!!!" is just a waste of everyone's time.
The IJN had no advanced weapon systems whatsoever.
Their torpedoes were the most advanced in the world during the war. At the start of the war their Zero fighters outperformed everything in the Allies' arsenal. They also mounted the largest guns ever (18 inchers) on their battleships (no other navy in the world used guns that large). What kicked their butts was their lack of production capacity compared to the United States.
A large portion of Germany's loss in World War II can be attributed to the fact that the top German leadership was full of idiots whom had no idea what they were doing.
And the Clans' reliance on might-makes-right leadership where the winners of one-on-one physical duels get to be the generals instead of say, people who demonstrate an actual grasp of strategy, was not sheer idiocy?
The Germans produced vastly superior tanks, had the devestating 88's (good for ground attack as well as anti-aircraft) and fielded the world's first JET FIGHTER, but were hamstrung by a poor industrial base that literally could not compete with the Allies (at least not after the US got involved... the disparity in production numbers between the US and the rest of the world during the war are STAGGERING). They also had shoddy leadership from the get go.
In other words, the Axis powers of WWII are actually a wonderful model of what befell the Clans, and probably their long term future as well. Once they had the crap kicked out of them both Germany and Japan were re-built under new leadership and became allies of the United States.
The Lyran Commonwealth and Free Worlds League would beg to differ [about the Clans being a minor power].
So would the British, the Chinese, and even some of the Americans during 1941 when the Japenese juggernaut rolled across the Pacific. Then they hit the limits of their supply chains and production capacity and got steamrolled by the Allies whose monthly production capacity exceeded their annual capacity.
By the same token, what sort of power is Japan today (here's a hint: they have no military to speak of, their economy has been stagnating for the past two-decades, and they got hit by a major tsunami not too long ago)?
Those are minor powers that had very little bearing on the universe as a whole, and barely were able to last a few years before they were simply annexed by the much bigger Successor States. That would be the future of the Clans if the Inner Sphere was allowed to retool their entire infrastructure and industry to Clantech.
And because they're the Clans that means magic pixie-fairies are going to come and save them from the inevitiable crush of human history?
You say "the Clans would become a minor power" like its a BAD THING. It is neither good nor bad. It simply IS. Things in 2011 are not like they were in 1911. Entire EMPIRES formed and fell to ruin inside those hundred years. Time marches on.
What keeps BattleTech interesting is that it marches on too. We aren't perpetually stuck in 3025. Nations are born. Nations fall. Alliances shift. Leadership changes hands. Its that continued change over time that gives BattleTech much of its versimiltude and makes it so engrossing. What you're asking for is for them to make a special magic exception to what's made BattleTech such a great setting because your favored faction won't be keeping its major power status.
Their technological advantage allows them to retain a bit of relevancy in the overall storyline, which they would not have if the Successor States were able to mass-manufacture Clantech on their own.
My favorite faction has always been the Northwind Highlanders (you might say I'm a HUGE fan of the Clans... Gunn and MacKenzie to be specific :D ). They've NEVER had a unique technology base. At best they've had ONE WORLD under their control. Doesn't keep them from being relevant to any story someone would care to tell about them.
By the same token, my Highlanders ended up shut out of pretty much the entire Jihad story due to the blockade. It didn't bother me because it made sense to the story. For the Jihad campaigns I created MacKenzie's Company; a small group of Highlanders who'd been delayed getting back to Northwind when the Wobbies started their blockade. They were a mixed company (just one lance of Mechs, two of vehicles, an air lance, a platoon of battle armor and a couple of platoons of infantry) who never did anything world-shaking during the Jihad, but the stories I created out of the characters involved made it interesting for me.
Basically what you seem to be saying is that Clans don't have an interesting enough society or heritage to make them interesting on their own. The only thing that makes them interesting is a Mary Sue tech advantage. That's just SAD really.
Personally, I think there's more than enough in the Clans to keep them interesting even if they had shown up with just Star League-era tech back in 3050.
The Dark Ages and the MUL support this, as there is no Inner Sphere-built Clantech to be found.
The MUL (and by extension the units that Dark Ages stories had available to use) were also put together off existing game assets. The XTRO's and Prototypes are the first products to seriously look at putting out canon units using mixed technology.
As additional TRO's come out that include mixed tech, I'd expect those MUL's for 3150 to change significantly.
Lets face it, take away the realism argument and you have no leg to stand on. That is why you people keep defaulting to it.
Let's face it, take away magic-pixie fairies and you have no leg to stand on. Your argument resides entirely on the demand that rational human beings throw away their rationality because you want the Clans to always be major players in a universe that evolved past them.
Edit: spelling and grammar.
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This presumes (mistakenly, I believe) that the TPTB intend to keep having the Clans as a major power and opponent to the Inner Sphere when the past 20 years of setting development has been about how elements of the Clans have split off and joined or otherwise merged with various pre-existing Inner Sphere factions (first the Dragoons, then Wolf-In-Exile, then the Nova Cats make a deal with the Draconis Combine (and then the RotS), then the Diamond Sharks move in as free traders, the Ghost Bears and Ravens make deals with Inner Sphere powers, and the Scorpions become el Scorpio Imperium).
By all accounts the Clans look to be moving firmly into minor powers status with their only prospects for not being so laying in doing the unthinkable and presenting a unified front and compromising with their ancient rivals.
...and then Clan Wolf and Clan Jade Falcon eviscirate large portions of the Free Worlds League and Lyran Commonwealth, and it looks increasingly likely that the Nova Cats are going to break off and directly fight the Combine, and, oh yes, the Ghost Bears and Ravens? They are still in charge. By the way, the Dragoons are not even clan.
Their torpedoes were the most advanced in the world during the war. At the start of the war their Zero fighters outperformed everything in the Allies' arsenal. They also mounted the largest guns ever (18 inchers) on their battleships (no other navy in the world used guns that large). What kicked their butts was their lack of production capacity compared to the United States.
I already refuted the torpedoes. The IJN Torpedoes were a type of torpedo that other countries had long abandoned research into because of how unstable and explosive they were. This was later validated when a good number of IJN ships were sunk due to how easy it was to make the torpedoes go off.
As for mounting the largest guns, yes, it was impressive until you realized the Yamato had exceptionally poor fire control system and that, if it ever came to ahead against the smaller but far more advanced Iowa class BB, it would have sunk.
As for the Zero? It was certainly an impressive design and I will give you a point for that, but also very fragile which would later prove to be the design's undoing.
And the Clans' reliance on might-makes-right leadership where the winners of one-on-one physical duels get to be the generals instead of say, people who demonstrate an actual grasp of strategy, was not sheer idiocy?
No more idiotic than having people in charge based on who they are related to.
The Germans produced vastly superior tanks
German tank superiority did not come into play until 1942, when the Tiger I was rolled out. Until then, the Germans actually had inferior tanks to the Russians and the French.
They also had shoddy leadership from the get go.
The Military leadership was dangerously competant, after all, they did pioneer a level of combined arms and tactics that would later come to symbolize the Blitzkrieg, and have managed to defeat the far superior French/British army in 1940.
And because they're the Clans that means magic pixie-fairies are going to come and save them from the inevitiable crush of human history?
...because those same magic pixie-fairies saved the Successor States? I am sensing a double standard here.
What keeps BattleTech interesting is that it marches on too. We aren't perpetually stuck in 3025. Nations are born. Nations fall. Alliances shift. Leadership changes hands. Its that continued change over time that gives BattleTech much of its versimiltude and makes it so engrossing. What you're asking for is for them to make a special magic exception to what's made BattleTech such a great setting because your favored faction won't be keeping its major power status.
Curious, I dont see you making that same argument for the Successor States, whom have more or less remain unchanged with the exact same dynasties in charge since 2750. The only one you could possibly argue for is Free Worlds League, but they recently reformed with the same Marik dynasty in charge. I guess Status Quo is king after all.
Doesn't keep them from being relevant to any story someone would care to tell about them.
Except they arent relevant to the universe as a whole. You could take the Northwind highlanders out of the universe entirely, and it would change absolutly nothing.
Personally, I think there's more than enough in the Clans to keep them interesting even if they had shown up with just Star League-era tech back in 3050.
Then it would have been even more difficult to explain how they would have been able to threaten the Successor States from a population base of barely a billion.
Let's face it, take away magic-pixie fairies and you have no leg to stand on. Your argument resides entirely on the demand that rational human beings throw away their rationality because you want the Clans to always be major players in a universe that evolved past them.
In a universe that has evolved past them? Who died and made you Line Director? As delusional as you are about it, the Clans still remain powerful players even in 3144, so to say that the universe has moved on from the Clans is about as laughable an argument as saying that the universe has moved on from the Successor States, which, if you had not noticed, it hasnt.
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On another note, after reading A Bonfire of Worlds (yes, finally) I think Clantech becoming Standardtech isn't in the pipeline. The book finishes in 3143-3144 and while Clantech was widely used there were still plenty of standard 'Mechs.
I think that the current Level 2 and Advanced and some Experimentals will become the new Level 1. And Clantech will be the widely accessible (for the rich or well-connected) Level 2.
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I think that the current Level 2 and Advanced and some Experimentals will become the new Level 1. And Clantech will be the widely accessible (for the rich or well-connected) Level 2.
I think even that comparison is stretching it. You are right in that it will be accessible to the rich and well-connected, but at the same time IS Level 2 quickly became ubiquitous due to the Successor States pretty much throwing a huge amount of resources to ramp up production. We wont see this with Clantech, considering that it is certain that the manufactuers of Clantech will remain the Clans, and that the Inner Sphere will have to either purchase or salvage theirs.
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I have to agree with the general sentiment of the last few posts. The finer details are debatable and open for plenty of tweaking to suit the plans of TPTB but we've seen enough from the DA era fiction and setting material that it seems clear that clan tech won't be standard in 3150. Yes the Dark Age material is limited with much of it focused on the RotS but the later material gave us enough of the metaview to show that such a spread of clan tech manufacture just isn't happening. The availability is more widespread for those with the wealth and/or connections and there may still be some low volume clan tech manufactured by the Inner Sphere powers, but it's not standard issure for even the average front line troops. There's a huge disparity between the haves and have nots when it comes to military equipment. As others have mentioned this does make game balance more difficult but the upside to that is we will have an ever wider variety of matchups and game types to choose from.
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We wont see this with Clantech, considering that it is certain that the manufactuers of Clantech will remain the Clans, and that the Inner Sphere will have to either purchase or salvage theirs.
Doesn't one of the new TROs mention that the Davions are building/have built a Clan ER Med Laser factory by the end of the Jihad?
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(...Actually, I was going to put this in a new topic, but since this thread was at the top of the list, it caught my idea and thought I'd put it here, too.)
I was pondering the use of a system like a limpet mine to hold pressurized tanks of firefighting aerosols on an armored vehicle. How much and what might they be able to support?
I use trailers, so I'm familiar with the way their use costs me a reduction in speed - would something like this attached to the exterior of a vehicle affect it in the same way?
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Doesn't one of the new TROs mention that the Davions are building/have built a Clan ER Med Laser factory by the end of the Jihad?
Pulse, not ER.
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Doesn't one of the new TROs mention that the Davions are building/have built a Clan ER Med Laser factory by the end of the Jihad?
Who says that it doesn't get destroyed sometime between now and 3140?
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Doesn't one of the new TROs mention that the Davions are building/have built a Clan ER Med Laser factory by the end of the Jihad?
Which isnt really saying much.
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Doesn't one of the new TROs mention that the Davions are building/have built a Clan ER Med Laser factory by the end of the Jihad?
Not that I've seen. It could be in Prototypes (which is well after the end of the Jihad) but the line that that claim is usually referring to is the line in XTRO Davion in the Pendragon fluff which indicates that the Department of Military Commmunications and Research has hand built 18 Clan ER Mediums.
Hardly a Factory.
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TRO Prototypes mentions that they're building medium pulse lasers, but it also notes that the production of the Fulcrum Hybrid's medium pulse lasers is suspected to take as long as most of the rest of the tank.
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Hopefully they make X-pulse lasers the new standard of IS pulse lasers. It has been dragged on to long and made zero sense other then to make sure the clans are more awesome! An increase of the range of AC 2 and 5s would be nice. A slight decrease in tonnage of the 2 and 5 ACs of all classes. Removal of the +1 to hit for MRMs and maybe a slight decrease to their heat.
The thing about the game is that things is that things should always be improving. If one side improves their weapons, the other side is working on their defense at the same rate, and vice versa. No one is going to end up with a war in real life where one side is using Zeros against Raptors. Instead, what you have is Russia and China working on stealth figthers of their own. So while things are constantly advancing, they are always being matched so that no side gains a huge advantage over the other.
In BT the clans somehow....managed to gain a significant advantage and maintain it. I do question things when the IS creates something and over night the clans have the same, but with longer ranges, less weight, even less heat! The clans get to enjoy an advantage, but the IS can never have one, not even a questionable one at that without the clans coming out with something to match it over night.
Then again, it would come down to playing not a 3025, or 3050, or even 3060+game, it becomes "we are playing a 3054 and 11/12th game, on the date of october 18 at 22:05".
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No one is going to end up with a war in real life where one side is using Zeros against Raptors.
Of course, in the real world, a Zero would not stand a chance against a Raptor(despite the fact that the Raptors
are all currently grounded due to issues with their oxygen supply to the pilots). In Battletech, however, a
500 year old design, with a skilled pilot and proper tactics can take down the most advanced things on the battlefield.
In BT the clans somehow....managed to gain a significant advantage and maintain it. I do question things when the IS creates something and over night the clans have the same, but with longer ranges, less weight, even less heat! The clans get to enjoy an advantage, but the IS can never have one, not even a questionable one at that without the clans coming out with something to match it over night.
The only thing like that I can think of is the Clan RACs, which are just longer range, but take up more space, and are experimental.
The Inner Sphere developed MMLs from inspiration from the Clan ATM Launchers, the Clan Plasma Cannon does generate more heat
then the IS version, and does weigh less, but it does no damage against 'mechs. I have not seen Clan versions of Variable-Speed Pulse
Lasers, and the Clans took several RL years to develop their own version of the Small Cockpit, and it is not better then the IS version.
Honestly, I do not know of any cases where the clans turned around and "overnight" souped up IS tech...
Then again...I wish the Clans still made the Klondike-Era Streak Launcher Prototypes for the 4's and 6's....those things are far
and away better, in my opinion...so what if they don't do the "Don't lock, don't fire"...they hit more often!
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It's probably because they're heavier, especially with the way Clan designs later came to frequently run short of ammunition.
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I wish the Clans still made the Klondike-Era Streak Launcher Prototypes for the 4's and 6's....those things are far
and away better, in my opinion...so what if they don't do the "Don't lock, don't fire"...they hit more often!
The Prototype Streaks also only had a range of 9 compared to the finalised versions 12 and weigh 50% more.
Of course, if you REALLY want the prototype Streak 6 system...have you compared the Prototype Streak SRM 6 with a Clan SRM 6 with Artemis V?
SRM 6 with Art V - Weight 3 tons, Crit Slots 3, -1 to Hit, +3 Cluster Roll, Range 9
Streak-CP SRM-6 - Weight 4.5 tons, Crit Slots 2, -1 to Hit, +4 Cluster Roll, Range 9
Streak SRM-6 - Weight 3 Tons, Crit Slots 2, No change to hit, Max Cluster roll, Range 12
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You know...I always thought the only difference between Art IV and Art V was the -1 bonus to hit...
Good to know they actually made it a more significant improvement.
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You know...I always thought the only difference between Art IV and Art V was the -1 bonus to hit...
Good to know they actually made it a more significant improvement.
While hardly an expert on the Dark Age, I was under the impression that Clantech was a RotS/Clan thing (If anyone could build Clantech en mass it should be Terra.) So the general guidelines I'd like to see.
RotS
Paladins, Advanced/experimental Clantech
First Line troops - Clantehch
Second Line troops, SLDF levels
Great houses (and MoC)
Elites - Clantech (bought/stole from Clans, RotS)
First line SLDF tech
Second Line standard tech.
(Non-Clan) Periphery
Elites - Yeah...
First Line SLDF Tech
Second Line Standard/Retrotech.
Council of six
Elites-Clan experiental
First Line - Clan Standard
Second Line SLDF tech
There are exceptions of course, this is just general thoughts.
Also logistics are an issue. Haumptan Second Line buys a Clan ER PPC. Good until it breaks, then he'd better hope for a snubbie or extra ton.
As to new toys, for the IS...
Head Hunter Rounds (finally)
Better Autocannons
ER Light PPCs
ER Heavy PPCS
ER Snubbies
Bigger MMLS
MMLs that can fire streaks.
Stable TSM
NER PPCS
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Re-reading some Wolverine stuff and I remembered that they had something called Enhanced ER PPCs. Essentially, IS ER PPCs but dealing 12 points of damage. A good in-between weapon and something that I can see happening 83 years after the Heavy, Snub-nose, and Light PPCs' debut.
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ER Heavy PPCS
I'm not sure there's a reason to develop these over upgrading factories to produce clan spec ER-PPCs. I also suspect heat generate would be prohibitive at 20 or 22. At that point you're going to be better off in all but the most edge of cases mounting a gauss instead.
I would love some ER Light PPCs though.
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Re-reading some Wolverine stuff and I remembered that they had something called Enhanced ER PPCs. Essentially, IS ER PPCs but dealing 12 points of damage. A good in-between weapon and something that I can see happening 83 years after the Heavy, Snub-nose, and Light PPCs' debut.
I think they're abbreviated NER PPC (see above)
I also think they should be IS tech 3150. IF for no other reason, the Wolverines built them, and from a mechanical POV, they're back to burning through the head armor and threatening a crit for ferro-Lamenor armored mechs.
They might make ER PPCs obsolete. I don't really worry about that.
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(Non-Clan) Periphery
Elites - Yeah...
>:/! >:/! >:/! >:/! >:/!
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While hardly an expert on the Dark Age, I was under the impression that Clantech was a RotS/Clan thing
Clantech is a Clan/Whoever can afford it, deal.
If you want it, the Sea Fox will sell it to you for a reasonable price. There's no evidence, that I've seen, that any of the Clan tech stuff we've seen in the DA came from non-Clan origins. All the dossiers we've see point out that all the Clan in IS hands mechs we've seen were either salvaged, bought, or otherwise acquired from the Clans. The only possible exception I've noticed is the Jaguar's sneak peek fluff, which indicated it's built by an IS company, but incorporates ATMs. Of course, it doesnt say where they got the ATM's, so it's possible they've got a deal with the Sea Fox too.
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RotS
Paladins, Advanced/experimental Clantech
First Line troops - Clantehch
Second Line troops, SLDF levels
Great houses (and MoC)
Elites - Clantech (bought/stole from Clans, RotS)
First line SLDF tech
Second Line standard tech.
(Non-Clan) Periphery
Elites - Yeah...
First Line SLDF Tech
Second Line Standard/Retrotech.
Council of six
Elites-Clan experiental
First Line - Clan Standard
Second Line SLDF tech
SLDF tech is severly out dated by this point. I'm not giving up my ultra10s or ER Mediums any time soon, and you can have my Streak 6s when you pry them from my cold fingers. And Plasmas, RACs, and Vehicular Stealth are all new tech. In many cases Clan gear isn't the ideal option either, since they don't produce stealth and C3 based technology. I'd figure that many (IS and some Periphery) units would use the tech that was recently added to Tournament Legal in place of Clan gear.
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SLDF tech is severly out dated by this point. I'm not giving up my ultra10s or ER Mediums any time soon, and you can have my Streak 6s when you pry them from my cold fingers. And Plasmas, RACs, and Vehicular Stealth are all new tech. In many cases Clan gear isn't the ideal option either, since they don't produce stealth and C3 based technology. I'd figure that many (IS and some Periphery) units would use the tech that was recently added to Tournament Legal in place of Clan gear.
Poor choice of words on my part. By SLDF I meant Inner Sphere 'non-introductory' tech
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Is there room in the Clan arsenals for Clan Light PPCs? Or is that role occupied by something else? It seems to me that they would fall in performance somewhere between ERMLs and ERLLs.
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Here is my $0.02.
I'd rather see improvements on what tech we have now with less disadvantages, then huge leaps in tech with major disadvantages.
I think Triple Heat Sinks are a none starter. Any mech you build now starts with 30 HS at no cost. Add 10 heat sinks, and you are now shedding 60 heat a turn. Unless you weapons are generating 10+ heat per shot you may as well take heat out of the game. I see DHS that only take up 1 slot instead of 2. That is a realistic follow on to what already exists.
In regards to weapons I would like to see some new items come out instead of "ER Light weight, Penetrating Large Laser". I'd just called it a "Photon Cannon" or something. I'd also add some kind of new damage dynamic. The roll on the hit location chart and it damages that location and the two adjacent locations (or something). Maybe it does 1 point of damage, and 1 internal (with no chance of a crit).
As far as armor, keep it what it is now, just have it take up less (or no) internal slots. I always thought that was a stupid rule. Same with endo-steel.
Engines should weigh 25% less but take up the same number of slots as a standard engine.
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That honestly doesn't sound completely unreasonable.
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Poor choice of words on my part. By SLDF I meant Inner Sphere 'non-introductory' tech
Fair enough. But I still think that the "Star League" equipment (and the weapons that fill out the sets) aren't nearly as impressive as some of the things that have come out of IS labs lately. Some of the electronics and armors allow for specialized designs that can beat Clan mechs (in certain conditions, and breaking zellbrigen, but still legitimate wins). That says to me that some units might trade Clan tech for Advanced/Experimental IS gear.
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The cutting edge inner sphere tech has overshadowed much of the SLDF 'lostech' but Double Heatsinks are SLDF tech and are still awefully impressive. The Chameleon & Null-Sig systems are still nasty bits of work as well.
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I really don't think the weapons need much improvemnets. Remember these weapons have often been in use for 500+ years, they're near or at the end of the development train. They simply can't be improved.
Armor and heat are similiar. These are technologies that have been worked on for many centuries, there's no good reason for them to take a sudden jump in quality.
What I see as technologies that have room for improvement are support techs, things that affect how other systems work. (eg Stealth tech, targeting computers, plasma(heat)guns, and so forth.)
Making a better gun isn't going to add to the game, it's simply going to make you cross out more circles (or the same if armor tech gets better at the same rate)
What are we going to do when Ultra Improved ER PPCs are doing 2 20 point hits at 30 hexes?
Do things like improved Blue SHields that affect Plasma technologies (they should) or improved triple strength myomers with localized heating (honestly, can't people figure out that if they put them in a heated flexible pipe, they're going to work all the time?)
We don't need better guns, in fact I think they would be bad for the game. We need technologies that help define units roles within a unit (for instance leadership technologies gain a bonus for initiative, expanding on that might make the various units more interesting)
Better guns are frikking boring. A few variations on the theme won't hurt, but look at the lists we already have versus what's actually used most of the time.
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Better guns are frikking boring. A few variations on the theme won't hurt, but look at the lists we already have versus what's actually used most of the time.
[applause]
That's why there's a lot of new equipment and units in my AU, but only 3 (or 4) new weapons.
[edit; 7!?! Ok, at least 4 of them are just derivitives. But no more.]
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Is there room in the Clan arsenals for Clan Light PPCs? Or is that role occupied by something else? It seems to me that they would fall in performance somewhere between ERMLs and ERLLs.
When you have one ton ERMLs, with a range of 15? Yeah, I dont think they really need them all that much.