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.

[SeeM]

The recent thread on when IS energy weapons become obselete led me to think about what techs will actually become redundant.

It's obsolete, when it's dead. It's like some countries has 3055 upgrades on T-72, or M-60 tanks and some still use classic 3025, stock configuration. And it's not stock only because of hot glue patches everywhere. Battletech is full of that logic and I like it. It can create extremely unbalanced scenarios, which I especially adore.

I see no point of throwing away AC-10. Frontline units with high budget, possibly facing clantech, will opt for Ultras and LB-X. But that's a niche. Every other company will cheap out and AC10 with couple mediums is still fine.

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

Flavor text on "The Hexening" map project says there was <1 new colony per year in the Inner Sphere alone around 3025. I have no idea what this is based on, probably on something. In Star League sourcebook it says, that although Cameron territory was not expanding upon Houses, there was still a crap lot of core systems to colonize. Inner Shpere is huge and there are likely still tens of thousands habitable systems. It's also cheaper and faster to invade others. There is no point in going for deep periphery, even is some explorers did.

[OatsAndHall]

I'd stand by the AC/10 if it's range bands weren't so outdated. There's a lot of weapons that can reach out and touch someone at a max of 15 hexes for the same or more damage. A heavy large laser has the same brackets but pops for 16 damage and doesn't take up anywhere near as much room or weight.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

It's also Clantech, has a +1 penalty on the attack rolls, and generates 18 heat per shot.

[Metallgewitter]

If normal Ac's get outdated will the same then go for the special ammunitions? Or will we see a full complement of "light autocannons" not only Light AC2 and AC5's?

[Cannonshop]

The recent thread on when IS energy weapons become obselete led me to think about what techs will actually become redundant.

Now there are a few pieces of equipment I see that will become obselete but what may surprise some is I actually think it will be SL 2750 tech that will become obselete before their introtech versions.

The first of these is IS Endo Steel - while it is possible to cope with the sheer number of crit slots required on lighter mechs as you get heavier the harder it tends to get. Its already established you need zero-g construction for both IS and Clan versions of Endo Steel so I would expect that once Clan Endo Steel can be produced in bulk by the inner sphere then the IS version will basically go the way of the dodo - the logistic simplicity of only having to worry about two types of structure (either standard or clan endo) rather than three means that even those mechs that do have the space to spare will probably be switched.

On the same line Clan Ferro-Fibrous armour is just plain better than the IS version and should eventually supplant the IS version. Again the logistic simplicity would help dictate the extinction of IS Ferro-Fibrous.

These are probably the big two but there are a few other things that would also replace SL era tech versions - Beagle Active Probe and Guardian ECM for example (although TAG saw no improvement) but given the far lesser degree to which they are used the bulkier version will be around a lot longer, especially as the space and weight savings are less on a per mech basis.

Other than weapons there are two other areas of tech that should _in theory_ lead to IS tech being supplanted - these are double heat sinks - the fact the clan versions only take two criticals make it easier to utilise them (e.g. you can actually fit them in the legs of a mech) which is a big enough benefit that if they can be produced in bulk cheaply enough IS double heat sinks would be phased out and it is even possible that standard heat sinks could be phased out over a longer term - remember when Natasha Kerensky is talking to Phelan she simply says they are more efficent than IS ones i.e. there is only one type of heat sink used by the clans. The other tech is XL Engines - here is the one case where the benefits are blatent but there  has actually been some attempt to justify the continued existance of IS versions with regards to cost.

Fuses and circuit breakers.  Nobody uses them.  (See: pilot hits from ammunition/gauss rifle explosions via neurohelmet feedback.)

The Concept of the technologies are lost to pre-battlemech times...

[Hellraiser]

If normal Ac's get outdated will the same then go for the special ammunitions? Or will we see a full complement of "light autocannons" not only Light AC2 and AC5's?

Personally I hope we get all ACs get down to 1-2 "super" types.

Single Shot w/ EVERY ammo available  (Replaces AC, LAC, & LBX)
Rotary w/ Every Size Available  (Replaces Ultra/RAC)

Ideally it would be to then make everything a Light+Rotary w/ All Ammos, but, maybe that is 2 OP.
Frankly if the BV matches I'm fine w/ it.  Give me shorter weapon tables anyday.

Combine all the Missiles into 4 types too, that conveniently match the 4 AC in size, IE, 2-5-10-20.    No more 3-4-6-7-8-9-12-15-30-40 blah blah.

[AlphaMirage]

Funny enough there are rules in Interstellar Ops for fuses and circuit breakers for ammo explosions but they affect piloting skill so it's a choice.

[Cannonshop]

Funny enough there are rules in Interstellar Ops for fuses and circuit breakers for ammo explosions but they affect piloting skill so it's a choice.

Now that's a puzzler there; if the current is flowing correctly, it shouldn't matter if a powerful enough surge to destroy other circuitry burns it out instead.

(for those who don't know because it's so very obsolete, a Fuse is a bit of wire or metal set up to burn out in the event of a current overload, The idea being to save several hundred thousand dollars of equipment for the price of a paperclip's equivalent worth of metal and a couple seconds of installation or replacement time).

It's all good though-the tech is also lostech in star Trek (witness the explodey consoles about every three episodes.  fuses would've stopped that.)

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

It's all good though-the tech is also lostech in star Trek (witness the explodey consoles about every three episodes.  fuses would've stopped that.)

As would simply not running high-voltage currents through what's merely a display panel and some buttons.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Starfleet runs on charged plasma to power its stations, they're way past the wires-and-fuses stage.

[nerd]

The assumption could be that back in the original BattleTech setting, everyone was operating in BATTLESHORT mode because of technological decay. Safeties overridden so operations could continue.

And nobody thought to put them back!

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleshort)