Author Topic: Mech design decisions that make no sense  (Read 142966 times)

Colt Ward

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #390 on: 17 April 2019, 09:08:54 »
Fafnir can arm flip.

admittedly I'd rather have one MPL than the 2 ER Medium for back-scratching purposes, but it isn't defenceless.

Sure, never said it was defenseless . . . but I would rather face a pair of ERMLs from 1 hex away when using a Phantom H.  Especially when I punch through the back armor, if I get a crit its going to hit HGR and explode.  Its a bigger pay off than going after the Atlas which has a few crit spaces with ammo in the torso.  Torso gauss rifles and backstabbers go together like peanut butter & jelly.
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MoneyLovinOgre4Hire

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #391 on: 17 April 2019, 10:08:13 »
They aren't. I have an early draft at home and it doesn't have any significant changes. The biggest change I've seen in a draft from the FASA days to final print was that the Thunderhawk initially had DHS.

Now there's something I wish they'd kept.
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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #392 on: 17 April 2019, 10:36:50 »
They aren't. I have an early draft at home and it doesn't have any significant changes. The biggest change I've seen in a draft from the FASA days to final print was that the Thunderhawk initially had DHS.

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grimlock1

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #393 on: 17 April 2019, 12:02:31 »
Sure, never said it was defenseless . . . but I would rather face a pair of ERMLs from 1 hex away when using a Phantom H.  Especially when I punch through the back armor, if I get a crit its going to hit HGR and explode.  Its a bigger pay off than going after the Atlas which has a few crit spaces with ammo in the torso.  Torso gauss rifles and backstabbers go together like peanut butter & jelly.
Or toothpaste and orange juice, depending on which unit is yours.
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Empyrus

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #394 on: 17 April 2019, 14:13:02 »
Still, the strangest are the ones that mount CASE for Gauss and Plasma ammo, and the rest of the ammo was either on the wrong side or energy-based.
Well, CASE for Gauss ammo may be for the gun if it is in the corresponding arm. The Gauss explosion damage might transfer to center torso, so minimizing engine damage is good idea (even worse, head damage if torsos are badly damaged).
It is also possible that the CASE exists in case the Gauss rifle needs to be replaced with conventional ballistic weapon in the field. Might be overplanning, but then again salvage and field customization are time honored traditions within BattleTech.

As for plasma ammo, the only plasma designs with CASE that i remember are field-refits. Eg CPLT-C6, which is a field refit made from C5s, by pulling the Arrow IV and slapping a couple of Plasma rifles there. Do remember that CASE requires factory-level refit, but Arrow IV to PRs isn't.
So, it is there for sake of fluff. I approve such things, even if it leads "nonsense".

MoneyLovinOgre4Hire

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #395 on: 17 April 2019, 14:57:04 »
The real headscratcher about the Catapult C6 is why it mounts six tons of PR ammo.
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bluedragon7

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #396 on: 17 April 2019, 15:06:45 »
On the Marauder with the CASE in the torso side with the LB X I always imagined that in WD duty they would replace it in the Field with a clan Gauss and suddenly CASE was in the right position ;-)

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #397 on: 17 April 2019, 15:07:09 »
The real headscratcher about the Catapult C6 is why it mounts six tons of PR ammo.

Capellan anti-insurgency operations.
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Empyrus

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #398 on: 17 April 2019, 15:17:13 »
The real headscratcher about the Catapult C6 is why it mounts six tons of PR ammo.
"Let's see how much of this plastic stuff we can fit in!"

At least it ain't running out anytime soon, one can fire at anything anytime they want. Also good for torching everything, and i mean literally everything.

Colt Ward

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #399 on: 17 April 2019, 15:21:40 »
The real headscratcher about the Catapult C6 is why it mounts six tons of PR ammo.

Endurance . . . or it carries spare mags for its buddies, like the ammo bearer for a heavy MG.
Colt Ward
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MoneyLovinOgre4Hire

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #400 on: 17 April 2019, 16:16:15 »
"Let's see how much of this plastic stuff we can fit in!"

At least it ain't running out anytime soon, one can fire at anything anytime they want. Also good for torching everything, and i mean literally everything.

Well, it is a Jihad design, so I guess I can approve of wanting to kill the Wobbies with fire.
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Colt Ward

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #401 on: 17 April 2019, 16:30:36 »
I really need to find the .wav file from the original Privateer to put on my phone that applies . . . 'Burn in Righteous Fire!' . . . any time I see a Wobbie running a Plasma Rifle design I hear that in my head.
Colt Ward
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"We come in peace, please ignore the bloodstains."

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The_Caveman

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #402 on: 17 April 2019, 17:25:00 »
Just as long as there are no wasp-filled Gauss rounds.

What about glue filled SRMs?

Or some sort of....spaceship drive using a moving counterweight. It might make a sound like "bop!"
Half the fun of BattleTech is the mental gymnastics required to scientifically rationalize design choices made decades ago entirely based on the Rule of Cool.

The other half is a first-turn AC/2 shot TAC to your gyro that causes your Atlas to fall and smash its own cockpit... wait, I said fun didn't I?

Sharpnel

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #403 on: 17 April 2019, 17:53:16 »
What about glue filled SRMs?

Or some sort of....spaceship drive using a moving counterweight. It might make a sound like "bop!"
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Liam's Ghost

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #404 on: 17 April 2019, 18:17:43 »
Waaaandering back to the original topic, I wish to nominate the humble Stinger.

Specifically those Stingers being built alongside the Wasp during the succession wars. The fluff tells us (and the listed design quirks affirm) that the Wasp is simply a better chassis over all. It doesn't have the tiny cockpit, it's easy to handle, easy to maintain, and even has the whole extended torso twist.

Sure, the Stinger has machine guns the Wasp lacks, but converting a Wasp to a Stinger's armament hardly seems an unreachable goal. Especially for the smaller states that so heavily depend on them (both are a staple of all three of the periphery states) it seems unnecessarily resource intensive to build both designs when streamlining down to a single common chassis (with and without machine guns as needed) would be a better option. Especially when battlemech production is so scarce.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

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Luciora

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #405 on: 17 April 2019, 18:38:12 »
You mean like the Wasp 1K?

Waaaandering back to the original topic, I wish to nominate the humble Stinger.

Specifically those Stingers being built alongside the Wasp during the succession wars. The fluff tells us (and the listed design quirks affirm) that the Wasp is simply a better chassis over all. It doesn't have the tiny cockpit, it's easy to handle, easy to maintain, and even has the whole extended torso twist.

Sure, the Stinger has machine guns the Wasp lacks, but converting a Wasp to a Stinger's armament hardly seems an unreachable goal. Especially for the smaller states that so heavily depend on them (both are a staple of all three of the periphery states) it seems unnecessarily resource intensive to build both designs when streamlining down to a single common chassis (with and without machine guns as needed) would be a better option. Especially when battlemech production is so scarce.

The_Caveman

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #406 on: 17 April 2019, 18:53:04 »
Waaaandering back to the original topic, I wish to nominate the humble Stinger.

Specifically those Stingers being built alongside the Wasp during the succession wars. The fluff tells us (and the listed design quirks affirm) that the Wasp is simply a better chassis over all. It doesn't have the tiny cockpit, it's easy to handle, easy to maintain, and even has the whole extended torso twist.

Sure, the Stinger has machine guns the Wasp lacks, but converting a Wasp to a Stinger's armament hardly seems an unreachable goal. Especially for the smaller states that so heavily depend on them (both are a staple of all three of the periphery states) it seems unnecessarily resource intensive to build both designs when streamlining down to a single common chassis (with and without machine guns as needed) would be a better option. Especially when battlemech production is so scarce.

That's a bit like asking why the Toyota Corolla exists when the Honda Civic is out there. Competing manufacturers trying to reach the same market. The Star League clearly had no qualms about producing multiple equipment models for the same role.

And in the LosTech era, BattleMech production scarcity is exactly the reason to keep both chassis around. You might have to deal with a shortage of Wasp parts that doesn't affect the Stinger and vice-versa. Building Wasp structures might require processing of a peculiar cobalt-tantalum alloy that your Stinger factories lack the infrastructure for. You could change the design spec, but that might take years of testing before it was battle-ready.

They don't have the ability to simply reconfigure the factories at-will to match their ideal procurement strategies. Part of the charm of the LosTech era is having to go to war with the army of thieves and whores you have on hand (literally, in the case of DCMS chain gangs).
Half the fun of BattleTech is the mental gymnastics required to scientifically rationalize design choices made decades ago entirely based on the Rule of Cool.

The other half is a first-turn AC/2 shot TAC to your gyro that causes your Atlas to fall and smash its own cockpit... wait, I said fun didn't I?

Empyrus

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #407 on: 17 April 2019, 19:20:24 »
You know what's amusing? That the Wasp, a Hegemony original, wasn't upgraded to Royal standards but the Stinger was  ;D

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #408 on: 17 April 2019, 19:39:46 »
Keep in mind I'm not asking for everybody to get a stalker's combat computer or an Ostscout's sensor system here.  ;D I simply find it hard to believe that the Wasp's superior ergonomics and roomier cockpit would be difficult to replicate.

(I'm also aware of the inherent minefield of trying to argue which design quirks would be easily replicated and the kind of nightmare it would be for the devs if people started demanding such things were fully codified. It was just an idle thought)

You mean like the Wasp 1K?

Kind of, but on a larger scale.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

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Empyrus

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #409 on: 17 April 2019, 20:22:03 »
I would assume the Stinger's designers skimped on some things. I mean, if you make the cockpit smaller, it doesn't use so much materials, and is cheaper...

MoneyLovinOgre4Hire

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #410 on: 17 April 2019, 21:35:08 »
It's a Quickscell mech?
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Empyrus

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #411 on: 17 April 2019, 22:13:19 »
It's a Quickscell mech?
Originally Earthwerks, but evidently built with same principle.

EDIT I'll note that the Stinger's popular because it is cheap, it can do recon, and it functions reasonably as training 'Mech. There's always demand for such, enough that there's space for at least two nigh-identical 'Mechs.

The_Caveman

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #412 on: 18 April 2019, 00:17:23 »
I would assume the Stinger's designers skimped on some things. I mean, if you make the cockpit smaller, it doesn't use so much materials, and is cheaper...

Theoretically speaking, smaller head, therefore less likely to take a headshot. And a 50/50 chance that an incoming round hits the (relatively) well-protected torso versus the exposed head.

Nevermind that on a 20-tonner you can easily have more head armor than anything else <_<
Half the fun of BattleTech is the mental gymnastics required to scientifically rationalize design choices made decades ago entirely based on the Rule of Cool.

The other half is a first-turn AC/2 shot TAC to your gyro that causes your Atlas to fall and smash its own cockpit... wait, I said fun didn't I?

MoneyLovinOgre4Hire

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #413 on: 18 April 2019, 00:22:40 »
Though the Stinger doesn't.
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massey

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #414 on: 18 April 2019, 05:44:55 »
I always took the "small cockpit" to mean that it had bad ergonomics, not necessarily that it was actually smaller.  Stuff just wasn't quite in the right place -- you bang your head when getting in, whack your knee against a hard corner, the ejection lever is in a weird spot, etc.

Things like that are routinely ignored by the people who make the purchasing decisions.  The actual interior volume of the cockpit might be the same as the Wasp, but somehow things just aren't quite right.

Empyrus

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #415 on: 18 April 2019, 07:47:00 »
I always took the "small cockpit" to mean that it had bad ergonomics, not necessarily that it was actually smaller.  Stuff just wasn't quite in the right place -- you bang your head when getting in, whack your knee against a hard corner, the ejection lever is in a weird spot, etc.
Reminds me of something that was said about the F-35 and its large helmet, that the helmet gets in way when trying to look behind or so.
I would assume bad ergonomics might mean outdated controls. Like, a big difference between late Soviet and Western fighters was that the West focused a lot on ergonomics, making it easier to focus on flying. Soviet fighters may have been as good, but old-style controls (good for conversion training from older models) didn't allow true capabilities to be be exploited.

Here's the funny thing. The original WSP-1 has "hard to pilot", the later Wasps don't. Suppose one reason was that upgraded Wasps upgraded the controls... while the Stinger more or less copied the old layout while making things just a bit more cramped. OK, "hard to pilot" and "cramped cockpit" aren't strictly identical quirks, but the effect is more or less the same.

grimlock1

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #416 on: 18 April 2019, 11:47:46 »
Reminds me of something that was said about the F-35 and its large helmet, that the helmet gets in way when trying to look behind or so.
I would assume bad ergonomics might mean outdated controls. Like, a big difference between late Soviet and Western fighters was that the West focused a lot on ergonomics, making it easier to focus on flying. Soviet fighters may have been as good, but old-style controls (good for conversion training from older models) didn't allow true capabilities to be be exploited.

Here's the funny thing. The original WSP-1 has "hard to pilot", the later Wasps don't. Suppose one reason was that upgraded Wasps upgraded the controls... while the Stinger more or less copied the old layout while making things just a bit more cramped. OK, "hard to pilot" and "cramped cockpit" aren't strictly identical quirks, but the effect is more or less the same.
Ergonomic improvements were a bit of a double edge sword in the F-16.  The reclined seat let pilots pull a bit more G, but unless you had the head rest dialed in right, it quickly lead to neck and shoulder complaints.
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Liam's Ghost

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #417 on: 18 April 2019, 14:21:58 »
So to undermine my original statement, I double checked the stinger's list of quirks in Battlemech Manual and found out it has the rugged quirk. So while the Wasp is easier to maintain, the Stinger can go longer without maintenance.

So there's that reason to keep it in service.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

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Kit deSummersville

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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #418 on: 18 April 2019, 14:47:41 »
Ah, the AK-47 vs. M-16 argument.
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Re: Mech design decisions that make no sense
« Reply #419 on: 18 April 2019, 17:01:30 »
The M-16 is "easy to maintain" vice "rugged"?  I mean, I buy that AK's don't need maintenance as often, but I'm not so sure maintenance is actually any easier on the M-16 (having disassembled and cleaned a few).  Parts that small are that small...

 

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