What tech actually becomes obselete

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I'm pretty sure that Battletech's age of expansion ended five or six centuries before the present.  Also, there are no aliens.

[glitterboy2098]

I'm pretty sure that Battletech's age of expansion ended five or six centuries before the present.  Also, there are no aliens.

i'd argue it's age of organized expansion ended with the Reunification war. before that while the core states of the Inner Sphere had more or less stopped expanding, the major nations on the periphery were still expanding, albeit at a slower rate. the Star League pretty much ended that when they conquered the periphery and put puppet governments into place and wrecked their economies to keep them tied to the star league.

[RifleMech]

I'm pretty sure that Battletech's age of expansion ended five or six centuries before the present.  Also, there are no aliens.

Yes there are. And they taste like chicken. 

[Starfury]

ATMs will remain in use simply because of their versatility.  Personally I see heavy lasers, IS pulse lasers and heavy gauss rifles going away in favor of improved heavy lasers, Clan pulse lasers and IGRs.  Even pirates and minor Periphery powers have access to Clan tech, though very limited.

[garhkal]

But that wouldn't be all that changes because you've suddenly got a bunch of tonnage to work with.

True, the Archer C is a vast improvement over the Archer 2R and only costs 334 more BV2.

How's about a stealth armor suite.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

There are a lot of options.

[Marveryn]

the laternate ammo types mind you where introduced in FM FS and it was pretty clearly an attempt by FASA to make old style autocanons have a niche again.

the weird things is that the ammo should also work for LBX or ultra as they dont really use a special bullet but use the same one in either a faster right or a in the case of lbx have a different variety.  LBX guns are kind of a sabot ammo where not all cannons can fire yet i dont see any reason why the gun can not be eventually be modify to accept the other varieties.

Of course i am most likely wrong in this and someone that is more familiar with how ballastic barrel cannon works may have a better idea why lbx and ultra can not be modify to accept the new types.

[Von Jankmon]

And thats what I'm driving at - the technologies I've identified are those that there is a version that is better or as good as in every single aspect if you are able to manufacture in bulk and those those likely to become obsolete. The interesting thing is most of them _aren't_ the intro tech technologies used in 3025 but instead the 2750/3050 technologies developed by the Inner Sphere thanks to the Helm memory core and the Clan invasion.

I would disagree, a lot of battleship technologies are lost because the manufacturing and maintenance processes are lost.  Stoking engines is a lost art, as is casting heavy ordnance barrels.  The key is that thee processes were never computerised and relies on inherited human skill of generations of craftsmen.
At this stage we would need to reinvent heavy naval cannon before we could build them.

Taking this back to the 31st/32nd century, we have to parse between those technologies we can simply restart and those that require skilled craftsmen.  Because most technologies could be restarted via access to the Helm field library we can assume that most schematics could be applied directly.  But while the core was quickly distributed, despite Comstar's efforts, mass production of recovered technologies took some time.  This is especially so with naval technologies.  I think this is not just because of reconstruction of naval yard infrastructure but the training of an 'orphaned' generation of naval dock workers that lacked the generational on the job knowledge.
This is also why post-Jihad warship production is not likely to return.

[Caesar Steiner for Archon]

On the other hand, if you look at the ships that were made with institutional knowledge, and then the ones that were made by people reinventing the entire concept from old notes, there's no comparison. Clearly, if they do return, they'll all be so optimized that they look like hellstars in space.

[Hellraiser]

Clearly, if they do return, they'll all be so optimized that they look like hellstars in space.

I'm not sure I'd go that far.

I will admit, most of my "SLDF Unit 2.0" to drop the Cargo Bay down a bit, but its usually from like 19% Cargo to 13% Cargo.

I don't care for custom designs (or canon) when I see them sitting at 3% Cargo etc etc.

You can make a ship more effective w/o completely "Hellstar-ing" it.

Little tweaks usually.

Often you don't even half to touch Cargo, you can just get tonnage from more optimal weapons choices.

For example:

4 NL35 v/s 3 NL45.   The 2nd will hit Extreme Range & do the same damage.  But does lose out in the Bracket mode.

Twin NAC35 v/s NAC40 allow for 70 point bay instead of 2 40's.

Removing NAC10's that aren't at least "Lola-III" sized bays for bracketing, otherwise they are just inefficient tonnage v/s NAC20's

MAXing the Armor Tonnage regardless of the Armor Type (which may be limited by Cost or Access issue).
 The tonnage to Max is so small it's not worth going to 95%+ coverage.

The biggest thing I see is when a bay has WAY less than 20 guns in it.
I mean, if your cap bay is 2 HNPPC, then stick 18 ML in there for Anti-Fighter coverage at least.
Something, ANYTHING, fill up some space for minimal use of tonnage.
The SLDF ships are fluffed w/ having "smaller" weapons protecting them but only a couple actually have them from TRO:2750.
They were supposedly showing you just the capital guns, but, we did see I think Congress & Vincent? that had some non-capital so it throws off the whole "they were really there" but then why do 2 of them have a couple pop guns & nothing had full "Bays" of them.
Every ship could use some basic "Filler" guns that would do next to nothing to change cargo.