Abandoned and dead-end tech

[FedComGirl]

No. There will always be those who are willing to suicidally die for their cause.

[WarGod]

http://bg.battletech.com/forums/battlemechs/jumpy-death-bot-a-show-case-of-dead-end-tech/

ask and you shall recive I couldn't get the fission engine to quite work with out dropping down to a 3/5 movement profile

[GreekFire]

The Ultra AC/2 appears to be an absolute piece of dead-end tech in the Inner Sphere, first appearing on the JagerMech III in 3058 and then appearing on a grand total of *two* other 'Mechs, Vees or Aero units since. And no, 'Mech designers, this really isn't a challenge to use it more. Please let it die.

[Weirdo]

Would a Infantry fired Davy Crockett count as obsolete dead end?  Weapon that will likely wipe out the poor shumks infantry unit dumb enough fire it since it has crapy range.

First introduced in the 1950s or so, and still used at this point in the timeline? I'd hardly call a weapon system that lasts a millennium as dead-end tech.

[Erkki]

How about the heavy-duty gyro? Is there a reason to ever use it and not just compact gyro and fill the empty crits with say heat sinks etc?

[Alexander Knight]

Sure.  Soaks an extra crit before it hits the engine.

[Col Toda]

So we moved on to Proto and light mechs .   Protomechs have one niche to take key infrastructure in an urban environment quickly .  If they are already in place dug in battle armor ; gun emplacements and combat vehicles stationed at these places before the protomechs arrive they die badly if such forces are out of position when the protomechs arrive to take these positions long enough to get elementals there they tend to keep the position . As a defensive unit it sucks compared to elementals  gun emplacements and combat vehicles ( time and resouce permitting . ) I play inner sphere so I just try to make the formor happen as much as possible .

Light mechs require an XL engine to move fast enough to be a viable unit so it comes at a price tag equal to about 3 combat vehicles with fuel cell engines .  The result the light mech is less than ideal for defensive purposes . Every attacker has to haul it's forces interstellar distances along  with it's crew so the attacker might very well not have the option of exchanging the light mech with combat vehicles because most rent drop ships as opposed to buy and tailor the bays for optimal use . As a result the presence of light mechs still happen despite efficacy and economy . Medium mechs tend to be at the break even point  ; heavy and assault mechs tend to be a win .

[martian]

Light mechs require an XL engine to move fast enough to be a viable unit so it comes at a price tag equal to about 3 combat vehicles with fuel cell engines .  The result the light mech is less than ideal for defensive purposes . Every attacker has to haul it's forces interstellar distances along  with it's crew so the attacker might very well not have the option of exchanging the light mech with combat vehicles because most rent drop ships as opposed to buy and tailor the bays for optimal use . As a result the presence of light mechs still happen despite efficacy and economy . Medium mechs tend to be at the break even point  ; heavy and assault mechs tend to be a win .

I can't say that I agree:
1) Many 'Mechs can move quite fast even with Standard engines: HER-3S2 Hermes moves 9/14(18), for example.
2) Mobility: Light 'Mechs can be equipped with Jump Jets ...
- Spider can jump over or on high cliffs where your vehicles can't climb no matter what you would do (unless you specifically bring extinct or very rare units).
3) Passability through the terrain
- BattleMech has advantage that it can easily go to many places where vehicles either can't enter at all, or with difficulties - no matter how many vehicles you have. Heavy Woods. Underwater. City landcape. Vacuum of space.

I know about many good Light 'Mechs with standard engines - SDR-8M Spider, HER-3S1 Hermes, MON-67/70 Mongoose or DRT-4S Dart, etc.

[marauder648]

This is neither obsolete or dead end but I found this picture amusing



It just looks startled after the guns fired kind of

*BOOOOOM*

"OH SWEET BLOODY HELL WHAT WAS THAT!?"

[Istal_Devalis]

Clan equipment: Remember that the maintenance/repair checks on Clan gear is a bit tougher then normal IS gear, unless you're playing Clan. That extra cost can built up over time. I also see a lot of people making the fallacy that just because something COULD be available that means it always will be, in enough numbers to be consistent. The base rules don't really take into account things like supply chains. Sure, the Sea Fox might be happy to supply you ERPPC's for your mech now, but what happens a few years down the line when they ramp up the price, or just decide it's not in their best interest to sell it to you anymore?

Mechanical Jump Boosters: Well...if you're sticking with low tech engines it might be worth it. You cant fit on regular jump jets and that heat would be a killer even if you could. Still a bit niche though.

Thunderbolts: I think they get underestimated a lot, honestly. So long as you don't bring Clan equipment into the equation (See stuff above), they compare pretty favorably to a lot of other IS gear. Just don't aim them at anything with an AMS.

[Wrangler]

Are Listen Kill Missiles consider to be dead end or just a nitch weapon?

[Deadborder]

Are Listen Kill Missiles consider to be dead end or just a nitch weapon?

Dead, buried and gone to dead-end-tech hell

[martian]

Are Listen Kill Missiles consider to be dead end or just a nitch weapon?

My opinion: Neither the first nor the second.

Being the "dead end" would suggest that their evolution has ended. But that would not be true, as ARAD missiles can be considered the next evolutionary step of LK Missiles.

And I don't think that today LK missiles have any niche. They are dead, but not dead end.

[idea weenie]

Could be they get some sort of guidance system add-on like Artemis and Apollo.  Call it the Athena system, to stick with the "children of Zeus whose names start with A" theme. 

I'd be happy if I could put a Swarm upgrade on Thunderbolt missiles.  Enemy units clustered together?  Toss a Thunderbolt-20 with Swarm at the group.  Next turn watch them scatter.

Unless they have AMS, so it can't be used that often.  But then you toss LRM-5 at the AMS equipped unit over and over.  If it doesn't engage the LRM-5, it takes damage.  If it engages, then that AMS uses up ammo (not sure about laser AMS and how many times per BT turn it can fire).

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

How about the heavy-duty gyro? Is there a reason to ever use it and not just compact gyro and fill the empty crits with say heat sinks etc?

I recall someone running the numbers for Compact and HD Gyros when you armored them and the HD was practically immune to destruction- you were almost assured of having the center torso get destroyed before you lost the gyro.  But I could be misremembering that (and you were paying a fair amount of tonnage to get that effect).

[martian]

I recall someone running the numbers for Compact and HD Gyros when you armored them and the HD was practically immune to destruction- you were almost assured of having the center torso get destroyed before you lost the gyro.  But I could be misremembering that (and you were paying a fair amount of tonnage to get that effect).

T-IT-N13M Grand Titan has armored HD Gyro (among other armored items).

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

T-IT-N13M Grand Titan has armored HD Gyro (among other armored items).

Yeah, pretty much everything but the lasers in that monster are armored.

[Shatara]

Thunderbolts not getting special munitions is one of those arbitrary things that really bugs me. There's no good reason that any fancy warhead or seeker that you could strap to a tiny little LRM or SRM won't fit on a big honking missile 2-10 times the size. The lack of torpedoes is even more egregious, since the torpedo rules are pretty much "Just like normal, but underwater", along with the lack of anything that even superficially resembles the 21" beasts that have been the standard since WWII.

Rifle munitions are similarly annoying. There really isn't autocannon munition in the game at present (except AP, and arguably Precision) that wouldn't work from a plain straight-tube cannon. Especially since many of these munitions are actually listed as predating the autocannon in TM/TO...

I've actually got a listing of proposed T-bolt munitions burried in the fan rules board. I wonder if I should bump it, maybe add some Rifle stuff...

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I think the lack of rifle specialty munitions is more due to the fact that the only places Rifle Cannons are being built are on extremely low-tech worlds that can't produce standard autocannons.

[Shatara]

I wasn't aware HE with a timed fuse, which has been around since at least WWI, is 'high tech'...

[jklantern]

This is neither obsolete or dead end but I found this picture amusing



It just looks startled after the guns fired kind of

*BOOOOOM*

"OH SWEET BLOODY HELL WHAT WAS THAT!?"

For some reason, I imagine more of a Kool-Aid Man-esque "OH YEAH!"

[SCC]

I wasn't aware HE with a timed fuse, which has been around since at least WWI, is 'high tech'...

That's what Rifle's are already using, I think that AC's use something else, likely higher-tech explosives. That said there's no logical reason why you can't make rounds from higher tech stuff on higher tech worlds, and given that Rifles are coming back in quite likely they should be in production

[Arkansas Warrior]

For some reason, I imagine more of a Kool-Aid Man-esque "OH YEAH!"

And when I read that, I heard it in this voice instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rTzJIxBHKc

[FedComGirl]

Standard Autocannon rounds are usually (HEAP_ High Explosive Armor-Piercing, or Hype-rvelosity slugs. The Zeus 75 AC/20 fires hyper-velocity depleted uranium armor penetrators (HDUAP). The Partisan Heavy Tank fires proximity-fused rounds at airborne targets. The fuses are disrmed and they become normal impact rounds against ground targets. They don't sound too different from what we have now or have used in the past.


The lack of Availability of alternative Rifle Cannon ammunition should be because so few manufactures produced Rifle Cannons by the time they made a come back. Their existence shouldn't be. They should be widely available during the beginning part of the Age of War. Becoming less so as autocannons gradually replace them. Also if XTRO:1945 is cannon or partially so, the Tiger Tank's fluff talks about how the eighty-eights were previously used to fire anti-aircraft flak. Other rounds like white phosphorous/incendiary rounds were also mentioned in the XTRO:1945 thread. If there were alternative cannon munitions during WWII there should be alternative cannon munitions leading up to and during the Age of War. It shouldn't be any problem to allow the rifle cannon to use all available munition types available.

[marauder648]

'Rifles' are what we've got now AFAIK but the big thing with an AC is that its not a single shot weapon like a modern tank weapon.  AC's in the B-tech universe are often described as firing a burst so one squeeze of the trigger and one shot in the board game actually can equal a burst of anywhere between 3 - 10 rounds going off at once.

But I know that trying to equate weapons to their modern equivalents is utterly pointless when you encounter the range issue  of almost all weapons in game (for example the reverse ranges of ACs, the heavier ACs should have the longer ranges by todays standards).

[Kovax]

When's the last time we got a 'Mech with a One-shot launcher?  I remember seeing one on a QKD model in 3050 and wondering "What were they smoking?".  I can kind-of see it on a lightly armored "shoot and scoot" converted paramilitary or pirate vehicle, but not on a real combat unit.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Not counting Rocket Launchers?

Hmm, off the top of my head there's the War Dog (an especially foolish choice, since it has 2 OS launchers and could therefore switch them out for a ton of ammo), and the Daishi C, which uses a one shot SSRM4 because it hasn't got space for anything else.  I think there have been a few more.

[Pa Weasley]

Linebacker G has a pair of improved OS Streak SRM 2s.

[martian]

When's the last time we got a 'Mech with a One-shot launcher?  I remember seeing one on a QKD model in 3050 and wondering "What were they smoking?".  I can kind-of see it on a lightly armored "shoot and scoot" converted paramilitary or pirate vehicle, but not on a real combat unit.

As for SRMs:
P1E Perseus - Record Sheets: 3067 unabridged - about two years ago
Linebacker Alt.C. G - Record Sheets: 3145 - New Tech, New Upgraded - a year ago

As for Rocket Launchers:
- Technical Readout: 3145 - a year ago.
MS-1A/P Mortis - torso-mounted RL-10
TN-10-O Tenshi - knee mounted RL-10s
CVR-T1 Cadaver and WSP-3P Wasp - torso mounted RL-10s

[Wrangler]

Rocket Launchers aren't dead, their still inexpensive easy to mount on any unit.  No one going think their dead end and abandoned since the Periphery are actively using them.

One-Shot SRMs on other hand due to their bad weight, are properly more dead end unless someone stuffs one into one.  There Improved version of them, but I'm not sure if their as effective.