3025 - How Common was LosTech?

[Von Jankmon]

I believe the 'no lostech' standard was a truism.  It was mostly valid to the point that you could expect not to encounter it and for purposes of the game you did not have access to it.  But it ALWAYS existed.

At first lostech would be found in palaces and certain preserved monuments like the Solaris arenas. And even in in the early ages lostech searches happened and were occasionally successful.  The very first scenario packs included individual units with lostech added to them.  I remember a Stuka with undescribed but what was likely ferro-fibrous or ferro-aluminium armour taken from a looted Star League bunker.  As the game becomes more open due to RPG's computer games etc the door to lostech must be opened to prevent the subgenre of game from becoming stale.
There were also 80's new content additions to the technology, such as freezers and listen-kill missiles, and don't get me started on Team Banzai.

Now a steady access to lostech is a part of the game.  I do not consider that an imbalance.  So you can buy an ER Large Laser or a gauss rifle, but can you install it, or maintain it, or integrate it into your weapons loadout.  It is not that simple.  Lostech obsolescence goes a lot further than not having gun in hand.  Most mercenaries or prospectors who find lostech saw it as a payday, not an upgrade.

[Caesar Steiner for Archon]

I believe the 'no lostech' standard was a truism.  It was mostly valid to the point that you could expect not to encounter it and for purposes of the game you did not have access to it.  But it ALWAYS existed.

At first lostech would be found in palaces and certain preserved monuments like the Solaris arenas. And even in in the early ages lostech searches happened and were occasionally successful.  The very first scenario packs included individual units with lostech added to them.  I remember a Stuka with undescribed but what was likely ferro-fibrous or ferro-aluminium armour taken from a looted Star League bunker.  As the game becomes more open due to RPG's computer games etc the door to lostech must be opened to prevent the subgenre of game from becoming stale.
There were also 80's new content additions to the technology, such as freezers and listen-kill missiles, and don't get me started on Team Banzai.

Now a steady access to lostech is a part of the game.  I do not consider that an imbalance.  So you can buy an ER Large Laser or a gauss rifle, but can you install it, or maintain it, or integrate it into your weapons loadout.  It is not that simple.  Lostech obsolescence goes a lot further than not having gun in hand.  Most mercenaries or prospectors who find lostech saw it as a payday, not an upgrade.

If people want to play with Gauss rifles, there's plenty of opportunity to do so. There is no reason that we "need" to make it a thing in 3025, and having around takes away from what people who actually play the era like about it.

[glitterboy2098]

to be honest questions like these are why i wish catalyst would make a "Era report: Late Succession Wars". sure we have a ton of FASA era books about the period of the 3rd and 4th succession wars, but the game's advanced enough that we need to address parts of it that FASA never bothered to do. and an era Report would be good for both introducing the period to new players, and for answering questions like "how rare was lostech" and how to incorporate stuff that didn't exist when FASA helmed the game (like industrialmechs, fuel cell vehicles, primitives, various weapons technologies, etc)

[BrianDavion]

Also a lot of that stuff was from the earliest days of the game. I agree, if we could get an era report for 3052 and 3062 then for god's sake why can't we get "era report: 3025"?

[beachhead1985]

This is one of those aspects of the game that makes less sense looking back than it did at the time.

Originally, LosTech meant working or restorable military equipment or civilian infrastructural items that could be put back into use or repaired and made functional. A cache might have anything from tanks with full-armour and functional weapons to LAMs, but it wouldn't have an ER Large Laser, because that didn't exist yet in the rules.

The fluff made allusions to superior star-league-era equipment, but didn't give you a playable example of it. Some passages used the decline of technology to explain away bothersome elements of the game itself; mainly the abominably-short-ranges the game worked with.

Even a pristine factory-to-cache Marauder couldn't act like an SLDF mech, because age had caused the computers to degrade.

In retrospect; once products like TRO:2750 came out, it began to seem weird that no-one ever found a cache with a working Gauss Rifle or ERPPC in it.

But after the earliest scenario packs, you started to see examples of the first operational recovered LosTech, because common-sense was eroding the GrimDark Mad-Max-ness of the original works, resulting in "Freezers". Even then, you wouldn't find "Freezers" in a cache because they were a new-fangled retrotech bootstrapping of DHS technology.

For a long time, there was a disconnect between the fluff (Novels) and the sourcebooks in terms of what was and was not available when and in what quantities. More recent works have done a lot to rationalize this.

But we're still stuck with this perspective that makes a core aspect of the early game seem different based on what angle you come at it from.

BT:PC made things a lot worse. While it's arguable how canon MWO is and when it takes place and how the timeline unfolds...from early on, the storyline of BT:PC is supposed to be largely canon and it pivots on massive quantities of advanced tech being available to the player fairly easily and far earlier than it should be. So, if you come to the tabletop game from these two later games, the way most players engage with the earlier or classic eras seems skewed.

If I was to run a classic-era campaign now, set in the late 3rd-4SW era, I'd have a *very* hard time realistically insisting that it was entirely impossible to come across real LosTech in a LosTech cache. At the point I, as a GM am saying that you, the player, who has beat all the rolls to actually find a LosTech-whatever in the cache, are stuck with a varied-degree of lemon you have to replace some/all of the gear on to make it work, I'm just bending over backwards to keep you from having a treat.

Opinions will vary; some might say: "The advanced systems just do not work" and you have to replace them, others that they do, but they can never be replaced, repaired or replenished. There is no way I could give myself a pass on making a player replace every piece of advanced equipment on their dusty new toy, it's just not fun.

What I would do is make it a maintenance hog, with items that are nearly impossible to repair and that essentially cannot be replaced once they are gone. In some cases that might include ammo too. But if a player or their party actually manage to: A) Find a cache. B) The cache has potentially useful stuff in it that has not rotted out. C) They can recover *something* of the cache. D) Something they recover is lostech and finally: E) it works...Do I really need to be that stuck on them having an Ultra-AC/5? Or even a Gauss Rifle? No.

But why?

Because later canon explicitly allows for all of this. There is the TBH(IIRC) story of a farm using an heirloom lostech ECM suite to spoof some Kuritans, MW: By Blood Betrayed (novel) describing Hopper Morrison re-equipping most of a pirate band with SLDF mechs recovered from a cache and even TRO: 3039 has the fluff for the Hussar giving a functional ER Large Laser to some bandit waster on Astrokazy who acts as an enforcer for one of the local petty nobles.

If it's *my* game, I can just ignore all that, but frankly I feel I lose credibility with myself when I do things like that.

We almost had an alternative with how the early fluff for the Dark Age was written, with that era approaching a "MadMax-Redux" feel with Clantech in the mix. But later works have moved away from the effects of disarmament causing what amounts to a military tech-collapse.

[phoenixalpha]

I look on lostech in the 3025 game as pretty much a no no. Yes you can find it, I'm sure even the specs and stories still exist in the 3025 era. In fact... we have many many examples today for this.

So some 50 years ago humans walked on the moon.... could we do that today? Nope. We lack the infrastructure to build  a rocket to get us there. Its not that we lack the knowledge to do so, we just dont have the kit to build it. Do we have reusable human piloted space shuttles that can take off and be reused? Nope. We have them in museums and we know how to build them.... but we cant and dont.

Even with extreme examples - we dont know exactly what greek fire was and that was thousands of years ago. Roman concrete still is mainly a mystery. It's been around for thousands of years still standing, but can we make it? maybe... but it's too costly compared to modern concrete. So bang for your buck - modern concrete is used.

So why would you spend hundreds of thousands of cbills on an ER Large Laser that is 3+ centuries old and needs repairing every battle and might or might not work when you can have an off the shelf Large Laser that works 100% of the time. Even if we take out the factor that in the 3025 era, ComStar went bananas over the mention of LosTech, its not worth it from a cost and sustainability standpoint.

[Alan Grant]

Historical: War of '39 gives us a lot of prototype versions of Level 2 weapons. Generally just not as good as the full thing but it does give you some Level 2 to play with.

I could see an Era Report: 3025 providing something like that. Imagine a slew of weapons and equipment items with an (LT) next to them. Essentially new weapons, new pieces of equipment, but not as good as their full Level 2 counterparts.

For example among the Prototype weapons we have the Gauss-X. It requires one additional critical slot and on a dice roll of 2 it jams per the ultra autocannon rules.

Perhaps the Gauss Rifle (LT), a LosTech Gauss Rifle that has been restored to working order, has something similar going on. It's essentially a different weapon with its own rules.

But that wouldn't even be the whole story. It could provide some rules and tables for determining if you've found LosTech or not. What you've found, what condition it's in and so on.

It might provide rules to determine if you've been able to restore it to working order, or not. On the high high end of the best results, maybe you do actually restore it to full capability (so a fully functional Gauss Rifle, not the (LT) version). But it would be framed in such a way to make that kind of thing very rare and very difficult to achieve. On the lower end of the spectrum even if you found something, it doesn't work and you weren't able to get it to work (and maybe even broke it further trying). While achieving the (LT) working weapon occupies a middle ground of the good outcome results.

I think something like that could add some fun nuance to the LosTech aspects of the game in that era. It would make it a pain in the butt, but offer players something better than a strict policy of no you can't have LosTech, or yes you can have boat loads of it. I think it would make some players more grateful to even have small amounts of LosTech, because they had to jump through some hoops to get even that much to working order.

Also to me, even if a group of players did get their hands on several LosTech items, if it has a lot of funky quirks like the Gauss-X. To me that actually contributes to the setting a bit. Yes they have some good toys... but they take up more space (and/or) weight, they tend to jam or generate more heat, and have other quirks that just generally mean they aren't as good as factory new Level 2 tech.

That still makes looking into the future eras of BT and imagining a Level 2 tech future a tantalizing prospect. As opposed to feeling like someone has time-traveled a bunch of equipment to the wrong era.

[Metallgewitter]

You have to consider though that in 3025 the technological decline has reached it's lowest point or is even really slow reversing. For example in 3013 House Davion raided Halstead Station and uncovered an old Star League library. They managed to get those texts back to New Avalon and Hanse Davion spend vast amounts of money to start research in these texts, basically the start of the NAIS. This is probably the best known example but other Houses tried the same. Plus warfare had evolved to at least try to spare the important part of civilization (Jumpships and it's manufacturing for example)

But it would have probably took much more time had the Gray Death Legion not managed to extract the Helm Memory Core from the old Helm supply depot. This core contained more knowledge in one piece then the IS had access to (except Comstar of course). and if Era Report 3052 is any indication only after said discovery were the nations even able to produce SL tech (2750 technology to be precise) a few years before the start of Operation Revival

Gamewise you can probably have your unit stumble upon some sort of supply cache that might even contain 'Royal' versions of SL Mechs. Remember those were the SL Mechs that actually held most of the advanced weaponry and equipment the Star League used to produce. Mechs that at that time were also considered "small prodcution runs" by Comstar as they had mostly inherited Regular Army gear instaed of Royal Army gear. Though finding a Star League vintage pristine Marauder or Battlemaster in itself would be a boon

[phoenixalpha]

You have to remember that ComStar (sorry a *rogue* ComStar Precentor, totally not under orders from ROM/First Circuit) killed over 12 million people so that the Helm Core wouldn't fall into the "wrong hands". They aren't going to blink twice about destroying someone who pops up with a Gauss Rifle (which would be pretty obvious in battle).  ComStar faked a full battalion of Death Commandos right down to the serial numbers to attack New Avalon to try and destroy the NAIS/Helm Core.

[Metallgewitter]

Or sending an armada of white painted unmarked ships and fighters to destroy a Black Lion Warship in Taurian space. Another point: when the Outworlds Alliance began producing the brand new Merlin it was considered a fluke. But after the introduction of the Wolfhound, Hatchetman, Raven and Cataphract Comstar considered launching a new Operation Holy Shroud. But this time they didn't follow through with it as they considered the IS too stubborn to slide further into technical decay and that it would still take long until they even might get a real turnaround

[OatsAndHall]

Within the lore, LosTech wasn't common in 3025.  The Helm Memory Core wasn't found until 3028 and, before that,one of Comstar's primary focuses was keeping it out of people's hands. With that being said, it's fun to toss in hidden SLDF weapons caches into 3025 campaigns to keep the game interesting. The last campaign I GMed had run it's course with the 3025 tech so I introduced a large SLDF weapons cache (each player got a Star League mech). Then I had the merc group taking gigs but being hunted by Comstar at the same time. It made things entertaining.

[BrianDavion]

You have to remember that ComStar (sorry a *rogue* ComStar Precentor, totally not under orders from ROM/First Circuit) killed over 12 million people so that the Helm Core wouldn't fall into the "wrong hands". They aren't going to blink twice about destroying someone who pops up with a Gauss Rifle (which would be pretty obvious in battle).  ComStar faked a full battalion of Death Commandos right down to the serial numbers to attack New Avalon to try and destroy the NAIS/Helm Core.

a single gauss rifle isn't that big a deal,. the reason why comstar hit the NAIS the way they did was because a dedicated research insisute that had already acheived considerable results in rediscovering lostech had just aquired the helm core, a complete SL computer core.

[House Davie Merc]

Whenever there is talk about Lostech everybody goes strait to weaponry, double heat sinks,
or other advanced equipment for ON battlemechs or vehicles.

I seldom hear anyone talk about the OTHER technologies that would be unbelievably valuable.

Years ago in a running 3rd Succession War campaign we decided to add some of our own made
up Lostech and rules.
During one campaign a Merc unit got a hold of programmable maintenance and repair equipment
that drastically improved repair times and increased the level of repairs they could perform while
on their dropship.
The effect made them able to take on Battalions with a company of mechs that they could repair
and return to action far faster then the enemy in a completely different surprise location.

Mech scale weapons and tech aren't the only Lostech.
The Star League had a ton of advanced repair, medical, and terraforming tech.
Satellites , drones as well as a bunch of other stuff we tend to forget about.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I don't think I've ever seen it mentioned anywhere about the Star League having advanced repair equipment that made repairs faster and easier.

Even the Clans don't seem to have anything like that.  The modular design of omnimechs makes repairs faster because you can more easily take damaged equipment off and stick a working replacement in, but that's all I can ever remember seeing about repair differences.

[phoenixalpha]

They had garment machines that cleaned, mended and returned the garment to "new" quality. It was portable, consumer usable and was in relatively wide spread usage. :) The SL book says so.

If that aint spiffy lostech I dont know what is

[Metallgewitter]

I don't think I've ever seen it mentioned anywhere about the Star League having advanced repair equipment that made repairs faster and easier.

Even the Clans don't seem to have anything like that.  The modular design of omnimechs makes repairs faster because you can more easily take damaged equipment off and stick a working replacement in, but that's all I can ever remember seeing about repair differences.

The Star League invented the basis for that with it's modular weapon mounts. Though that system was in it's infancy and I think it was only used on the Mercury and the Dragoon Mechs (well the civil war pretty much disrupted any notion of widespread use). And yes the SL had several tehnologies that were lost to the war. Heck no one has managed to actually replicate the Caspar drone system (according to the lore the Blakists only made a plae imitation) and most of the tech the Department of Megaengineering used is still lost. But also there were manufacturing technologies to speed up production, make more efficient materials and so on. A lot of those were rediscovered with the Helm memory core.

[Alan Grant]

If you have Jihad Hot Spots: Terra. Page 166 or so talks about life on Terra and as part of that, the state of their technology.

I think that offers a good baseline to consider when thinking about non-military Lostech. At least in some categories, things haven't advanced much since the First Star League. But Terra also hadn't suffered much of the Lostech phenomena either. It talks about how ComStar took steps to ensure that while some exports did occur, there were tight controls to keep a lot of the more advanced technology from leaving the Terran system.

Talks about how people live and work. The high level of automation dominating manufacturing and agriculture. Talks about how medical technology gives people a lifespan of around 150 years or so, and is just about the best anywhere except perhaps for Clan "trauma" medicine. Their lives aren't just longer either, they seem to remain more productive for longer. It says many Terrans only start families around midlife (70) after they've had a multiple marriages, a couple careers and have built up a financial portfolio that can support a family. They are only considered to be exiting midlife around age 110.

Talks about how a lot of people work from home 20-30 hours a work, often with robotic assistants (a situation it says, not seen anywhere else since the fall of the Star League). Talks about intelligent software to help manage efficient paperwork. How some people spend a lot of their lives in virtual computer universes while others are great sports lovers or hobbyists.

Talks about how fusion powered civilian cars are common on Terra (if/when you go that route at all, sounds like incredibly fast and efficient public transportation options are prevalent in many parts of Terra). And except for rural areas, manual control of vehicles is forbidden on many major roads. So they have some pretty sophisticated self-driving vehicles. For those wealthy folks (apparently there are a lot of wealthy folks on Terra) who can afford VTOLs or fixed wing aircraft, a lot of those fly themselves as well.

I touched on the highlights, there's more in the book. The point being, I think it offers some good inspiration for non-military Lostech.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

The Star League invented the basis for that with it's modular weapon mounts. Though that system was in it's infancy and I think it was only used on the Mercury and the Dragoon Mechs (well the civil war pretty much disrupted any notion of widespread use). And yes the SL had several tehnologies that were lost to the war. Heck no one has managed to actually replicate the Caspar drone system (according to the lore the Blakists only made a plae imitation) and most of the tech the Department of Megaengineering used is still lost. But also there were manufacturing technologies to speed up production, make more efficient materials and so on. A lot of those were rediscovered with the Helm memory core.

Modular weapon mounts, yes, but I can't think of anywhere that describes an automated repair gantry that stuffs myomer bundles into the mech or replaces armor on its own or otherwise does a lot of the work for the tech.  There's a few things in some of the computer games, but it's not really clear if that's actually lostech or just the top of the line equipment you can buy if you actually have the C-Bills to invest back into your mercenary company instead of living hand-to-mouth all the time.

[House Davie Merc]

I don't think I've ever seen it mentioned anywhere about the Star League having advanced repair equipment that made repairs faster and easier.

Battletech Technical  Readout 3025 : Battlemech Repair Facility.  The First TRO.

That's the first place I remember the equipment being mentioned but it's in several other
places as well. Some burried in the books.
To my knowledge official rules about the specific tools and computers involved weren't published.
Unofficial rules were published by people working for the company in various Fanzines over the years.
Most of this stuff is now considered apocryphal and not (or no longer) canon.
Somewhere in at least one of those were missions to raid damaged Battlemech Repair Facilities for
the purpose of recovering those advanced tools and equipment.
This is OLD info that's pretty hard to find.
The lack of rules on non-combat advanced tech is why we came up with some of our own .

Knowing when to go by the book and when to create something from old legends that fit a game is RPG 101.

[idea weenie]

Whenever there is talk about Lostech everybody goes strait to weaponry, double heat sinks,
or other advanced equipment for ON battlemechs or vehicles.

I seldom hear anyone talk about the OTHER technologies that would be unbelievably valuable.

Years ago in a running 3rd Succession War campaign we decided to add some of our own made
up Lostech and rules.
During one campaign a Merc unit got a hold of programmable maintenance and repair equipment
that drastically improved repair times and increased the level of repairs they could perform while
on their dropship.
The effect made them able to take on Battalions with a company of mechs that they could repair
and return to action far faster then the enemy in a completely different surprise location.

Mech scale weapons and tech aren't the only Lostech.
The Star League had a ton of advanced repair, medical, and terraforming tech.
Satellites , drones as well as a bunch of other stuff we tend to forget about.

So something like an ARTS bay for Mechs?  It repairs at the same rate as a human technician, but it can work 24/7 while the technician can only work for 8 hours/day.

[House Davie Merc]

So something like an ARTS bay for Mechs?  It repairs at the same rate as a human technician, but it can work 24/7 while the technician can only work for 8 hours/day.

Similar yes. It would also have other tremendous advantages over a human technician.

It doesn't have to have enough oxygen to breath, isn't as temperature sensitive, has
a much higher lifting capacity, doesn't die from comparatively low levels of radioactivity,ETC.
Automated units could sometimes work on multiple jobs at the same time as well.

I could swear that I remember reading something about semi-automated surgical procedures as well.

[RifleMech]

I believe there's rules for mothballed equipment. I know there's rules for salvage. Between the two, found items could be in a variety of conditions. Brand new to in need of repair. It's finding those things that's hard. Most have already been found, used and destroyed by 3025. It can still happen. There's a couple old scenario books where that happens but it isn't an everyday occurrence.

I am also starting to think that Comstar won't go after everyone who might Lostech. Sometimes rumors are rumors but it depends on the weapon. Between extended range, pilot skills, and a variety of reasons why a mech might run hot it'd be hard to track down every rumored ER Large Laser or ER PPC or autocannon. Gauss Rifles though would stand out like a beacon, as would some ammo types
 but they'd get used up quickly.

Depending on the weapon, I'm if people would use them. Sure they're tempting but unless there's ammo, a repair manual, and spare parts, and maybe DHS, lostech items are of limited use. They're be better off trying to sell it. And that's where they'd get Comstar's attention.

To let researcher's know they're likely to send a message over the HPG. Comstar could easily intercept those messages, pretend to be the NAIS or whomever, buy the items and the location they were found, and then make sure they have a missjump on their way to their next contract.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I believe that between the Helm Core and other examples that have shown up over the years, and just the fact that lostech hunting has been a big part of Battletech since the beginning it's quite obvious that Comstar has never had the ability to stamp out everyone who stumbles across a bit of Star League gear. It's only when someone finds something big, like a Core or a Brian Cache that's mostly intact that they got active.  And even then they didn't always succeed.

[RifleMech]

Sounds right. :)

[glitterboy2098]

honestly part of the reason i figure you see so little actual lostech use in the era (from an in setting perspective), is the fact that the stuff is in fact valuable.. if you are working for a military or corporation, anything you find is going be claimed by higher ups and sent off to be studied. just hope your bosses give you a bonus for finding it.
if you are a private entity like a merc unit, or just a surveyor/treasure hunter, any sort of lostech is going to be viewed as a payday waiting. you'll get more out of it by selling it (to a successor state's government or a corporation) than by using it yourself. if you are a merc, and you find a crate with a few medium pulse lasers in it, that's like finding a couple month's pay.
so odds are the successor state R&D departments have a fair sized stockpile of star league weaponry.. it's just being examined and dissected and so on in an effort to figure out how they were made.

and frankly, i wouldn't be surprised if comstar didn't covertly operate a number of front companies posing as the brokers which mercs and other private individuals would use to sell off such finds. which would result in a lot of the finds ending up in comstar's logistical network, and thus not in an R&D program somewhere.

[House Davie Merc]

and frankly, i wouldn't be surprised if comstar didn't covertly operate a number of front companies posing as the brokers which mercs and other private individuals would use to sell off such finds. which would result in a lot of the finds ending up in comstar's logistical network, and thus not in an R&D program somewhere.

I have always imagined that Comstar had agents that showed up at any auctions that advertise having Lostech as their main draw.

Also those underground, behind the scenes, crime syndicate type auctions would have had Comstar operatives either involved
in the bidding or watching who bought the items to "make sure they had a safe trip home".

[RifleMech]

With Lostech often being on the frontlines, it's going to get destroyed first. Add in nukes, ortillery, and targeting factories and those that survived would quickly run out of parts to repair and replace them, as well as techs to do the job. Then add in a couple hundred years of lostech prospecting, I can see there not being a lot of lostech left to find.

Comstar having their own agents at auctions and false front research centers to buy up lostech finds makes a lot of sense. 

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Realistically, lostech caches should have been tapped out long ago but since it's so iconic to the setting, it still happens that somebody accidentally stumbles onto some from time to time.

[Metallgewitter]

Realistically, lostech caches should have been tapped out long ago but since it's so iconic to the setting, it still happens that somebody accidentally stumbles onto some from time to time.

Considering nobody has found a copy of the full Prometheus database yet it is not far off for SL caches to be undiscovered. Just think of all those planets that "died" when the Sucession Wars kicked of and the terraforming technology failed or planets were nuked out of existence

[BrianDavion]

Considering nobody has found a copy of the full Prometheus database yet it is not far off for SL caches to be undiscovered. Just think of all those planets that "died" when the Sucession Wars kicked of and the terraforming technology failed or planets were nuked out of existence

I haven't found a tiger in my basement, that doesn't mean if people keep going to my basement they won't eventually find one, it might just mean there's no tiger in my basement. Likewise it's possiable there simply AREN'T any fully intact Promethus Databases left