BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Player Boards => Fan Articles => Topic started by: RebelRunner on 21 February 2014, 21:31:21
-
I'm looking into picking up a WarShip for a narrative idea I have involving a derelict WarShip being recovered in the Periphery (ex-Circinus Federation worlds, I think), and have tentatively settled on the Baron-class, as I want a modestly compact ship and the model looks quite awesome.
What are the Baron's strengths/weaknesses? I know it's a 3/5 with a single ASF squadron and some capital missiles, but that's the extent of my knowledge...
-
Actually, it's 2/3 due to having to be slower than the Essex II from TRO:3057. Still, it's absolutely brutal against ASFs thanks to all those naval lasers, plus it's capable against dropships and lower-end warships it would likely encounter like the Zechetinu or Impavido. Bracketing is a very beautiful thing.
-
What he said. It's slow and weakly armored, but it can reliably deliver heavy hits at long range and beyond. It'll crumple quickly if anything it's own size or bigger gets into decent firing range, but is a deadly threat to most Corvettes, any just about any DropShip short of the modern PWSes.
-
The Baron carries three different guns- three white shark tubes, some 10 NAC/10s, and over 20 NL/35s.
It's slow and underarmored, but the wall of light it produces is fantastic. I really want to make one as an escort for larger ships, with added sub-capital weapons for anti-aeros and bucketloads of LAMS.
-
Despite the middling armor and low thrust, the naval laser batteries of the Baron rock, and it gives the ship a clear role in a task force.
Oh, and it got used as the M-4 SDS drone. :)
-
the naval laser batteries of the Baron rock, and it gives the ship a clear role in a task force.
Disco inferno
-
The visuals are kinda irky with a clear "up" and "down", but then again most modern illustrations are;
Given how the ship is slow and of moderate size, it looks like a decent ride to keep in service with low maintenance.
But Warships aren't coming back. :-\
-
They could come back. :)
-
Thanks for the feedback, guys :) :) I think I chose well; this fits pretty well with what I'm looking for the ship to accomplish.
Oh, WarShips could come back economically speaking. There just doesn't seem to be a need for more than a dozen or so per Successor State, except for some sort of frigate with several docking collars. Perhaps an up-to-date Robinson-class??
-
Thanks for the feedback, guys :) :) I think I chose well; this fits pretty well with what I'm looking for the ship to accomplish.
Oh, WarShips could come back economically speaking. There just doesn't seem to be a need for more than a dozen or so per Successor State, except for some sort of frigate with several docking collars. Perhaps an up-to-date Robinson-class??
Doesn't the DC still have an old Robinson that's being used as a space museum?
-
Warships are kind of a mistake similar to nuclear bombs.
The star league stockpiled them. Then came the coup. Then came the succession wars.
The succession wars were probably lesson enough never to do it again. But when the clans had them the states needed them.
They are wmd's. If you build them the other guy builds them to counter.
I like giant space battleships too. But look at what they do to planets in the succession wars and the wars of reaving.
I think we like the ideal of giant warships slugging it out with eachother. But the reality is what happens when they have defeated the other warship.
-
You can load plenty of nukes on a dropship.
Even a Heavy ASF.
Ultimately, it's the universe/game system that it doesn't fit in; With the thousands of worlds, even large scale use of nuclear weapons would not necessarily result in casualties that anyone making the decision would miss. The WoBs Asteroid Bombardment vessel, if it exists, was a WMD in the modern sense. Using a nuke in a space battle where the worst result would be the destruction of a few ships you wanted to see dead anyways isn't in any way morally objectionable all by itself.
What I expect to see, however, are armoured jumpships; Well, I don't actually expect to see them, but they would make sense of a sort.
I think we're derailing the thread. :D
How would you go about a modern variant?
Reduce the laser broadsides by one each to add a few small SCLs and LAMS? Might be able to resuse the energy feeds and heatsinks.
Well, and maybe plaster on 50 extra tons of armour.
-
Ultimately, it's the universe/game system that it doesn't fit in; With the thousands of worlds, even large scale use of nuclear weapons would not necessarily result in casualties that anyone making the decision would miss.
Whoa now. This isn't Warhammer 40k. Your average planet in Battletech is one large city based around a Starport. So hitting it with a nuke can essentially cripple the planet.
What I expect to see, however, are armoured jumpships; Well, I don't actually expect to see them, but they would make sense of a sort.
Those are warships. :)
-
Whoa now. This isn't Warhammer 40k. Your average planet in Battletech is one large city based around a Starport. So hitting it with a nuke can essentially cripple the planet.
Those are warships. :)
I don't really agree that most planets only have one city, but even assuming that was true, the people making the strategic decisions aren't really going to notice if you kill a few backwater worlds that don't produce much of anything worthwhile. Hell, there's probably a good number of woes in each state that receive more federal aid than they produce, and the national government would actually be better off if you got rid of them.
-
Doesn't the DC still have an old Robinson that's being used as a space museum?
Nope, they have a Samarkand (Block II) Class Aerospace Carrier, which is the Togura. The ship was mentioned in the in TRO:3075's entry for the Samarkand being in rather bad shape and barely servicable as a museum.
The two Robinsons captured by the Kurita fate aren't clear, it was only mentioned they were taken that it. The Kyushu-class Frigates are based on the date gleemed from the captured Robinsons.
-
I don't really agree that most planets only have one city, but even assuming that was true, the people making the strategic decisions aren't really going to notice if you kill a few backwater worlds that don't produce much of anything worthwhile. Hell, there's probably a good number of woes in each state that receive more federal aid than they produce, and the national government would actually be better off if you got rid of them.
While a lot of battletech worlds are populated because they could be populated. I get the feeling that if you nuke out a world that was say... agricultural... then that worlds ability to export food to the next planet over on a planet that isn't particularly effective at raising food but digs up tons of diamonds starts to starve which affects diamond output which effects the ability to build mech armor on the next world over that really needed water from the first planet.
So while hitting the world of Vixen which is primarily tourist related skiing probably isn't tactically significant most worlds in battletech live in an ecosystem of other worlds and disrupting one can kind of suck for the rest of them.
-
While a lot of battletech worlds are populated because they could be populated. I get the feeling that if you nuke out a world that was say... agricultural... then that worlds ability to export food to the next planet over on a planet that isn't particularly effective at raising food but digs up tons of diamonds starts to starve which affects diamond output which effects the ability to build mech armor on the next world over that really needed water from the first planet.
So while hitting the world of Vixen which is primarily tourist related skiing probably isn't tactically significant most worlds in battletech live in an ecosystem of other worlds and disrupting one can kind of suck for the rest of them.
Not really, they don't have nearly enough shipping for that level of interdependence. Worlds don't depend on interstellar food shipments for staples, and the tourism planet isn't actually a tourism planet. It's a planet which gets interstellar tourism, which is in itself so rare as to be a thing worth mentioning but far from enough to actually mean anything at a planetary economy scale.