I like having them handheld, because it lets you drop it if need be, either to pick up one of the rare guns, a club of somesort, or something else valuable worth picking up.
What I'm getting at is, if Iran, North Korea, etc. -- North Korea being a total shithole -- could develop nuclear weapons in the 20th century, why would it be hard for the Word of Blake in 3060 or whenever?
Because it wasn't exactly easy for North Korea and Iran. You need lost of specialized equipment, lots of engineering know-how that is unique and not really based on any pre-existing technology, lots of testing, etc.
It doesn't matter if you know how to build fusion reactors or space ships or whatever, because those aren't anything like a nuclear weapon. Even having the theoretical information on how to do it won't help that much. It will still take decades and lots of resources expended to develop any kind of production capacity for functioning warheads.
So is the Word of Blake in a worse position than North Korea and Iran? As far as doing it from scratch goes, the US made its first bombs in the span of about 6 years, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that delivery systems aren't a problem in the BattleTech timeline.
What would be a reasonable timeline in BattleTech for the nukes thing? "Decades" seems extremely long, enough time to start a new Cold War and talk about nonproliferation treaties again.
The real problem with the Jihad is that it basically comes too soon after the FCCW and a ton of other big shake-ups to the setting. Skip ahead a bit, let there be a period of relative peace and stability, then go nuts with the crazed religious fanatics bombing everyone back into the stone age.
This. If the Jihad was 50, or even 100 years after the FedCom civil war, it might be believable. But not even a year passes between the end of that and the Blakists attacking Tharkad and New Avalon, apparently.
They pretty much outed him and forced him into hiding once he decided to break with them, and then they made someone more agreeable captain-general. After killing parliament.
That's retarded.
Thank you for your input.
Seriously, you don't become the leader of one of the great Houses by being an idiot who gets beaten by some two-bit bad guys.
I mean, how could they possibly expose him without also exposing that they are the ones who did it and having the entire FWL try to kill them?
And even then, the biggest damned thing about the Jihad was that it wasn't something that was planned, at least not actively. The "secret" troops were meant to be sent against the Clan homeworlds after the Word was voted in as a full Star League member at the 67 Whitting conference. Most of the largest battleships in their fleet were actually meant for other purposes. And then the Lyrans, FS, and Capellans withdrew, and all of it was turned against the inner sphere in a vain attempt to force the houses to re-form the Star League.
a) Both of these plans are terrible.
b) Why did all these people withdraw from the Star League?
Let me rephrase that as "She wasn't quite crazy enough to plunge the inner sphere into another war on the scale of the first two succession wars just to make a point."
If she had had nukes, she would have used them to try and assassinate the leaders of each House. And by assassinate I mean nuke New Avalon, etc all.
Just so we're clear on this, we do know who the real Thomas Marik is, and what he's doing, right?
the US made its first bombs in the span of about 6 years
And AFAIK the Manhattan project was a huge investment, and even then they only had two. It took at least several more years to reach the "nuke the entire world three times over" level we have now.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
What I'm getting at is, if Iran, North Korea, etc. -- North Korea being a total shithole -- could develop nuclear weapons in the 20th century, why would it be hard for the Word of Blake in 3060 or whenever?
Because it wasn't exactly easy for North Korea and Iran. You need lost of specialized equipment, lots of engineering know-how that is unique and not really based on any pre-existing technology, lots of testing, etc.
It doesn't matter if you know how to build fusion reactors or space ships or whatever, because those aren't anything like a nuclear weapon. Even having the theoretical information on how to do it won't help that much. It will still take decades and lots of resources expended to develop any kind of production capacity for functioning warheads.
So is the Word of Blake in a worse position than North Korea and Iran? As far as doing it from scratch goes, the US made its first bombs in the span of about 6 years, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that delivery systems aren't a problem in the BattleTech timeline.
What would be a reasonable timeline in BattleTech for the nukes thing? "Decades" seems extremely long, enough time to start a new Cold War and talk about nonproliferation treaties again.
What I'm getting at is, if Iran, North Korea, etc. -- North Korea being a total shithole -- could develop nuclear weapons in the 20th century, why would it be hard for the Word of Blake in 3060 or whenever?
Because it wasn't exactly easy for North Korea and Iran. You need lost of specialized equipment, lots of engineering know-how that is unique and not really based on any pre-existing technology, lots of testing, etc.
It doesn't matter if you know how to build fusion reactors or space ships or whatever, because those aren't anything like a nuclear weapon. Even having the theoretical information on how to do it won't help that much. It will still take decades and lots of resources expended to develop any kind of production capacity for functioning warheads.
So is the Word of Blake in a worse position than North Korea and Iran? As far as doing it from scratch goes, the US made its first bombs in the span of about 6 years, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that delivery systems aren't a problem in the BattleTech timeline.
What would be a reasonable timeline in BattleTech for the nukes thing? "Decades" seems extremely long, enough time to start a new Cold War and talk about nonproliferation treaties again.
Ok, as soon as I can pick up an axe that weighs the same as your total armor, we can give it a shot!
I'm pretty sure the axe would trash you though.
What about an axe that weighs as much as my gun, against an armored target?
Battletech as a setting operates under the assumption that innovation is something that no longer happens.
[strike]Ever.[/strike]
Well, unless the storyline specifically calls for it and even then they don't do a very good job. For one faction to suddenly reverse their collective lobotomy and ramp up production of new and scary things is completely out of character, and so people throw tomatoes at the idea.
Basil on
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Der Waffle MousBlame this on the misfortune of your birth.New Yark, New Yark.Registered Userregular
edited July 2009
Addendum to quote tree vs. hamham no.2
One of the very first things that was done by the blakists after the initial chaos, and effectively isolating the Lyran, Capellan and Davion leadership was to play the different sub-factions against eachother.
In the Lyran Alliance, Skye was agitated into action by a false-flag attack by FWLM Warships. In the Fedsuns, troops in the Draconis March went into action after hearing of POWs being taken into DC space, Duke Hasek too the opportunity to beat the shit out of the Capellans (just 'cuz). Clan Snow Raven went on a rampage after their home fleet was nuked by a freighter flying the Kurita crest. The Taruians take advantage of the situation and start invading the Federated Suns, and the Marian Hegemony decides to pick a fight with the Circinus Confederation.
One of the very first things that was done by the blakists after the initial chaos, and effectively isolating the Lyran, Capellan and Davion leadership was to play the different sub-factions against eachother.
In the Lyran Alliance, Skye was agitated into action by a false-flag attack by FWLM Warships. In the Fedsuns, troops in the Draconis March went into action after hearing of POWs being taken into DC space, Duke Hasek too the opportunity to beat the shit out of the Capellans (just 'cuz). Clan Snow Raven went on a rampage after their home fleet was nuked by a freighter flying the Kurita crest. The Taruians take advantage of the situation and start invading the Federated Suns, and the Marian Hegemony decides to pick a fight with the Circinus Confederation.
Because clearly, no one has learned not to fall for these kinds of things even though they have been done dozens of times before.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
I like having them handheld, because it lets you drop it if need be, either to pick up one of the rare guns, a club of somesort, or something else valuable worth picking up.
I dislike having no hands on a mech.
For me it depends on the role. Many mechs are basically walking gun platforms, and having no hands doesn't hurt their design.
When i think about giant mechs with hands, for some reason stuff like Gundam and laser swords always comes to mind. Though I will say that Votoms strikes a good balance.
The Ishtar mech, from the series Gasaraki also stands out to me as another good design with an arm-mounted melee weapon in addition to handheld weapons.
Hiryu02 on
Sev: Your gameplay is the most heavily yomi based around. Usually you look for characters that allow you to force guessing situations for big dmg. Even if the guess is mathematically nowhere near in your favor lol. You're happiest when you have either a 50/50, 33/33/33 or even a 75/25 situation to go crazy with. And you will take big risks to force those situations to come up.
Also, I am willing to accept Word of Blake taking down th HPG grid or whatever. But how does this cripple the Suns, Commonwealth, and Combine exactly? Each of them has their back-up black box networks that are designed to prevent an Interdiction from slowing them down too much.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
Also, I am willing to accept Word of Blake taking down th HPG grid or whatever. But how does this cripple the Suns, Commonwealth, and Combine exactly? Each of them has their back-up black box networks that are designed to prevent an Interdiction from slowing them down too much.
My understanding is that none of the Successor states are crippled by the HPG network crash, just vastly, vastly inconvenienced.
The Black Boxes weren't exactly mass-produced or universally distributed; used only for high priority military communications. So a lot of your basic commerce and such aren't going through, disrupting your politics and economies.
And did the Combine have Black Boxes at all? It's something Victor would have turned over, but I thought that was just a FedCom thing.
I like having them handheld, because it lets you drop it if need be, either to pick up one of the rare guns, a club of somesort, or something else valuable worth picking up.
I dislike having no hands on a mech.
For me it depends on the role. Many mechs are basically walking gun platforms, and having no hands doesn't hurt their design.
When i think about giant mechs with hands, for some reason stuff like Gundam and laser swords always comes to mind. Though I will say that Votoms strikes a good balance.
The Ishtar mech, from the series Gasaraki also stands out to me as another good design with an arm-mounted melee weapon in addition to handheld weapons.
Understandable. I just prefer the hands, due to the fact mechs are supposed to be versatile, that is their whole point of existance.
If I just wanted a weapons platform, I'd use a tank.
Also, I am willing to accept Word of Blake taking down th HPG grid or whatever. But how does this cripple the Suns, Commonwealth, and Combine exactly? Each of them has their back-up black box networks that are designed to prevent an Interdiction from slowing them down too much.
My understanding is that none of the Successor states are crippled by the HPG network crash, just vastly, vastly inconvenienced.
The Black Boxes weren't exactly mass-produced or universally distributed; used only for high priority military communications. So a lot of your basic commerce and such aren't going through, disrupting your politics and economies.
And did the Combine have Black Boxes at all? It's something Victor would have turned over, but I thought that was just a FedCom thing.
The Combine captured and reverse-engineered some during... I think it was the '39 war? They used one to send a message to Hanse informing him of the Clan's plan to attack Luthien.
Anyway, the idea seems to be that WoB takes down the HPGs and then plays the local factions off against each other, or whatever. But with the black boxes, the Suns for example would still be able to keep places like the Draconis and Capellan Marches in line.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
My biggest problem with the blakists is that I fundamentally just dislike them. They don't fit in the theme of battletech which is dark ages Europe plus Mongols. OK so comstar is the church and then when the clans come we kind of see a crusade (albiet against the Mongols instead of the Turks). WOB just never really fit in with that dynamic. They were the churchier church. And then they find sanctuary in the Free Worlds League. Basically the brits in space who have the only semi functional democracy in the entire inner sphere let a whole bunch of super fundamentalists come in and take over their hugely valuable HGLs. Even though fake Marik was a bit of a Blakist he doesn't really have the authority or political clout to do something like that. The Blakists just never made sense.
Neaden on
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Der Waffle MousBlame this on the misfortune of your birth.New Yark, New Yark.Registered Userregular
They pretty much outed him and forced him into hiding once he decided to break with them, and then they made someone more agreeable captain-general. After killing parliament.
That's retarded.
Thank you for your input.
Seriously, you don't become the leader of one of the great Houses by being an idiot who gets beaten by some two-bit bad guys.
I mean, how could they possibly expose him without also exposing that they are the ones who did it and having the entire FWL try to kill them?
They blamed the other Comstar.
And even then, the biggest damned thing about the Jihad was that it wasn't something that was planned, at least not actively. The "secret" troops were meant to be sent against the Clan homeworlds after the Word was voted in as a full Star League member at the 67 Whitting conference. Most of the largest battleships in their fleet were actually meant for other purposes. And then the Lyrans, FS, and Capellans withdrew, and all of it was turned against the inner sphere in a vain attempt to force the houses to re-form the Star League.
a) Both of these plans are terrible.
b) Why did all these people withdraw from the Star League?
a) I don't think logic is an issue here.
b) Yvonne and Peter withdrew because they would rather use the resources otherwise sent to the Star League to rebuild. And Sun Tzu is a dick.
Let me rephrase that as "She wasn't quite crazy enough to plunge the inner sphere into another war on the scale of the first two succession wars just to make a point."
If she had had nukes, she would have used them to try and assassinate the leaders of each House. And by assassinate I mean nuke New Avalon, etc all.
I don't think breaking the ares conventions in order to usher in a new Star League was in the cards, insane or no.
Also, I am willing to accept Word of Blake taking down th HPG grid or whatever. But how does this cripple the Suns, Commonwealth, and Combine exactly? Each of them has their back-up black box networks that are designed to prevent an Interdiction from slowing them down too much.
My understanding is that none of the Successor states are crippled by the HPG network crash, just vastly, vastly inconvenienced.
The Black Boxes weren't exactly mass-produced or universally distributed; used only for high priority military communications. So a lot of your basic commerce and such aren't going through, disrupting your politics and economies.
And did the Combine have Black Boxes at all? It's something Victor would have turned over, but I thought that was just a FedCom thing.
The Combine captured and reverse-engineered some during... I think it was the '39 war? They used one to send a message to Hanse informing him of the Clan's plan to attack Luthien.
Anyway, the idea seems to be that WoB takes down the HPGs and then plays the local factions off against each other, or whatever. But with the black boxes, the Suns for example would still be able to keep places like the Draconis and Capellan Marches in line.
The WOB didn't take down the HPG. They basically did a sphere-wide DDOS attack using propoganda.
As for the Black Boxes, I'm fairly sure they were used during the blackout, but for whatever reason, Tharkad was utterly cut off from the rest of the Inner Sphere, leaving Peter isolated from his realm. Couple this with Skye, the region that nearly seceeded during the FCCW, deciding to pick a fight with the Free Worlds League.
In the Federated Suns, though, it was less of a case of not being able to communicate, it was more of a case of Duke Hasek seeing Yvonne as worthless as the rest of us do. The Draconis March was brought to heel quickly enough, if I recall, but Hasek's war on the Confederation didn't stop until someone decided to assassinate him around 3070.
What I'm getting at is, if Iran, North Korea, etc. -- North Korea being a total shithole -- could develop nuclear weapons in the 20th century, why would it be hard for the Word of Blake in 3060 or whenever?
Because it wasn't exactly easy for North Korea and Iran. You need lost of specialized equipment, lots of engineering know-how that is unique and not really based on any pre-existing technology, lots of testing, etc.
It doesn't matter if you know how to build fusion reactors or space ships or whatever, because those aren't anything like a nuclear weapon. Even having the theoretical information on how to do it won't help that much. It will still take decades and lots of resources expended to develop any kind of production capacity for functioning warheads.
So is the Word of Blake in a worse position than North Korea and Iran? As far as doing it from scratch goes, the US made its first bombs in the span of about 6 years, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that delivery systems aren't a problem in the BattleTech timeline.
What would be a reasonable timeline in BattleTech for the nukes thing? "Decades" seems extremely long, enough time to start a new Cold War and talk about nonproliferation treaties again.
Ok, as soon as I can pick up an axe that weighs the same as your total armor, we can give it a shot!
I'm pretty sure the axe would trash you though.
What about an axe that weighs as much as my gun, against an armored target?
That's not how it is in battletech though, the axe weighs as much as most mechs have armor, which is what makes it effective.
I don't agree. An axe is 7% of a 'Mech's mass, the maximum armor is 20-25% with most probably pegging in at 15-20%. On a 100-tonner, the axe weighs 7 tons, which is less than (for AC/20s, Gauss cannons) or equal to (most other heavy weapons) the mass of the main gun on said 'Mech.
Battletech as a setting operates under the assumption that innovation is something that no longer happens.
[strike]Ever[/strike].
Well, unless the storyline specifically calls for it and even then they don't do a very good job. For one faction to suddenly reverse their collective lobotomy and ramp up production of new and scary things is completely out of character, and so people throw tomatoes at the idea.
Well, okay. That's thematically sound in a game where 'Mech designs and for all I know individual 'Mechs have stuck around for hundreds of years. I thought the way the setting changed after the Gray Death memory core, and then the Clans, was horrifically hamfisted, myself. But regarding nukes, all the real-world comparisons coming out against the idea have just seemed completely bizarre to me.
the US made its first bombs in the span of about 6 years
And AFAIK the Manhattan project was a huge investment, and even then they only had two. It took at least several more years to reach the "nuke the entire world three times over" level we have now.
It was a huge investment for the US, one nation on one planet, in the 1940s, the first time it was ever done, and this was at the same time that we were investing a large amount of resources into everything else in World War II. It took longer for us to send a man to the moon, much later. Are people saying that in 3060 the World of Blake couldn't muster the resources of 1940s USA or 2009 North Korea/Iran? What is everyone doing with all these planets? Raising sheep?
The way I originally read about the setting, it never occurred to me that there was anything more to it than one faction deciding "To hell with the Ares Conventions", and then immediately violating the hell out of them. I don't know how long it took the Word of Blake to actually carry this out, but I think about a year or so would sound completely believable to me if you were going to let them do it at all. But decades? As in more than one? Seriously?
the US made its first bombs in the span of about 6 years
And AFAIK the Manhattan project was a huge investment, and even then they only had two. It took at least several more years to reach the "nuke the entire world three times over" level we have now.
It was a huge investment for the US, one nation on one planet, in the 1940s, the first time it was ever done, and this was at the same time that we were investing a large amount of resources into everything else in World War II. It took longer for us to send a man to the moon, much later. Are people saying that in 3060 the World of Blake couldn't muster the resources of 1940s USA or 2009 North Korea/Iran? What is everyone doing with all these planets? Raising sheep?
The way I originally read about the setting, it never occurred to me that there was anything more to it than one faction deciding "To hell with the Ares Conventions", and then immediately violating the hell out of them. I don't know how long it took the Word of Blake to actually carry this out, but I think about a year or so would sound completely believable to me if you were going to let them do it at all. But decades? As in more than one? Seriously?
But it also has to be done secretly. And you need to make hundreds, if not thousands. So I don't think it would be that straight-forward.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
That's not how it is in battletech though, the axe weighs as much as most mechs have armor, which is what makes it effective.
I don't agree. An axe is 7% of a 'Mech's mass, the maximum armor is 20-25% with most probably pegging in at 15-20%. On a 100-tonner, the axe weighs 7 tons, which is less than (for AC/20s, Gauss cannons) or equal to (most other heavy weapons) the mass of the main gun on said 'Mech.
The battlemaster with max armor, at 85 tons, has I think 14 tons of armor. And the hatchet weighs 6 tons. That is almost half, located in one weapon rather than spread across the entire body. That is also an assault mech, which is not what you commonly run into.
Also its a game, and people dont actually use giant robots with axes. Sooo...yeah who cares if it doesn't make "perfect" sense? It doesn't make it less fun imo.
Personally I prefer designs like the Centurion that can just fire all their weapons all the time without serious heat issues to ones like the Awesome that can't. Just seems wasteful to me to have weapons you can't fire.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
the US made its first bombs in the span of about 6 years
And AFAIK the Manhattan project was a huge investment, and even then they only had two. It took at least several more years to reach the "nuke the entire world three times over" level we have now.
It was a huge investment for the US, one nation on one planet, in the 1940s, the first time it was ever done, and this was at the same time that we were investing a large amount of resources into everything else in World War II. It took longer for us to send a man to the moon, much later. Are people saying that in 3060 the World of Blake couldn't muster the resources of 1940s USA or 2009 North Korea/Iran? What is everyone doing with all these planets? Raising sheep?
The way I originally read about the setting, it never occurred to me that there was anything more to it than one faction deciding "To hell with the Ares Conventions", and then immediately violating the hell out of them. I don't know how long it took the Word of Blake to actually carry this out, but I think about a year or so would sound completely believable to me if you were going to let them do it at all. But decades? As in more than one? Seriously?
But it also has to be done secretly. And you need to make hundreds, if not thousands. So I don't think it would be that straight-forward.
As I've said, I don't think secrecy would be a problem in BattleTech. They have spaceships, there are plenty of empty, uninhabited/uninhabitable star systems, and traveling to planets from the respective jump point takes days or months. A secret development planetary installation, moonbase or space station to redevelop a mid-20th century nuclear weapon doesn't seem implausible to me (assuming it was LosTech to begin with). The Internet says the US built ~70,000 nuclear weapons from 1941-1991, and again, that was just one nation, not necessarily trying to churn out as many as possible.
Out of curiosity, what stopped the Jihad? Did the WoB just run out of nukes?
Orogogus on
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Der Waffle MousBlame this on the misfortune of your birth.New Yark, New Yark.Registered Userregular
edited July 2009
The Awesome's fine.
You fire all three PPC's the first turn, then you fire all three the second turn, then you fire only two on the third turn to cool off, repeat.
I am utterly astounded at the level of obsessive nerdery on display in this thread. It's amazing even for these boards. Don't get me wrong, I love it. I haven't read battletech in years, but the setting has always been one of my favorites. It provides such a rich playground for the imagination.
But this is what happens when we have no actual game to talk about. Having just a teaser trailer and vague interviews is killing me.
That's not how it is in battletech though, the axe weighs as much as most mechs have armor, which is what makes it effective.
Let's not forget that armor is not a magical substance that absorbs damage and turns it into fairies; armor is a shell designed to absorb, disperse, or deflect specific types of kinetic energy. It comes in many, many different forms all of which are good at deflecting specific forms of attack, but there is no perfect, generic armor.
Most 'mechs are likely armored do the following, each to various degrees in each specific location:
Deflect/disperse laser beams & their heat
Deflect or stop ballistic shells from piercing
Disperse the energy of small-yield explosive warheads
It's very unlikely that most of them are designed to be repeatedly slammed into large heavy things (or the reverse). Hell it's easy enough to damage your own 'mech by slamming it into large heavy things with failed piloting checks. Why the hell wouldn't an appropriate-size/mass melee weapon work? If an Atlas tearing 'mechs apart with its bare hands is believable, why should a melee weapon designed to damage battlemechs not be?
the US made its first bombs in the span of about 6 years
And AFAIK the Manhattan project was a huge investment, and even then they only had two. It took at least several more years to reach the "nuke the entire world three times over" level we have now.
It was a huge investment for the US, one nation on one planet, in the 1940s, the first time it was ever done, and this was at the same time that we were investing a large amount of resources into everything else in World War II. It took longer for us to send a man to the moon, much later. Are people saying that in 3060 the World of Blake couldn't muster the resources of 1940s USA or 2009 North Korea/Iran? What is everyone doing with all these planets? Raising sheep?
The way I originally read about the setting, it never occurred to me that there was anything more to it than one faction deciding "To hell with the Ares Conventions", and then immediately violating the hell out of them. I don't know how long it took the Word of Blake to actually carry this out, but I think about a year or so would sound completely believable to me if you were going to let them do it at all. But decades? As in more than one? Seriously?
But it also has to be done secretly. And you need to make hundreds, if not thousands. So I don't think it would be that straight-forward.
As I've said, I don't think secrecy would be a problem in BattleTech. They have spaceships, there are plenty of empty, uninhabited/uninhabitable star systems, and traveling to planets from the respective jump point takes days or months. A secret development planetary installation, moonbase or space station to redevelop a mid-20th century nuclear weapon doesn't seem implausible to me (assuming it was LosTech to begin with). The Internet says the US built ~70,000 nuclear weapons from 1941-1991, and again, that was just one nation, not necessarily trying to churn out as many as possible.
Out of curiosity, what stopped the Jihad? Did the WoB just run out of nukes?
Someone eventually beat them. Catalyst isn't up to that point yet, and I don't know the Dark Age stuff well enough to tell you how it's supposed to end. (I think it's all over in 3081)
Keep in mind, vis a vis the nuke discussion, that all the Great Houses and ComStar had a stockpile of nuclear weapons as a deterrent to someone violating the Ares Conventions- the Wobblies probably had a bunch lying around.
Hell, even the Clans have their own reserve, just in case.
I seriously doubt that it'll be addressed, but what about 'Mechs finally accounting for differences in weight?
I mean, logically, two 65-ton Catapults could actually weight 65 and 60 tons respectively. But they both have the same engine. So the Catapult that is 5 tones lighter should move faster--unless it is merely carrying 5 tones less equipment and filled with 5 tons of ballast to compensate?
What about ballistic and missile Mechs that deplete heavy ammunition? Or Mechs that have heavy arms blown off?
This was never rendered in any of the games....was it considered in the tabletop game or the novels?
Synthesis on
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited July 2009
For the tabletop, mechs are simply given a top speed in accordance with how many hexes they can move. The different engine types exist largely to justify why you can have a 40-ton mech (Cicada) which moves 8 spaces and a 35-ton mech (Urbanmech) which moves 3.
Realistically, yeah, an ammo-intensive mech which burns off a large portion of its ammo would have more power available for speed. I don't know if any of the PC games handled this, but it would be pretty cool if they tossed it in for the new Mechwarrior game. It wouldn't make a whole lot of difference in speed, though, because even mechs which use a lot of projectile weapons usually only carry a few tons of ammo. An Archer carries something like 4 tons of ammo and it's a 70-ton mech; even if lost all of its ammo, the weight difference is only something like 5-6%. Now, if it lost the ammo and both arms, then you might start seeing some significant speed changes. Otherwise, mechs just don't change weight that much (short of stuff getting blown off) so speed changes wouldn't be a big deal.
This is going into the realm of flight simulators--since using your ordinance is, in terms of physics, no different than jettisoning it, aircraft pilots can expect to use less fuel on return trips. Well, that, and the lighter weight of the aircraft due to fuel consumption.
Granted, 'Mechs use internal reactors that consume fuel over a very long period of time (comparable to a nuclear reactor, if not the same thing), so fuel consumption might be very minute, more in line with a nuclear warship or icebreaker than a fighter craft.
Synthesis on
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KlykaDO you have anySPARE BATTERIES?Registered Userregular
edited July 2009
In MW4, you could raise top speed of your mech by using free weight to increase the engine "size" or whatever,
Basically,if I took a mech without any weapons,I could pump everything into speed and it would be way faster than a mech with weapons.
The relationship between mass and speed is going to be a lot less direct for a mech than a plane or a car. The power of the engine has more to do with how fast the legs can move rather than moving the weight of the whole mech. Sure, if you are running with a full pack and then drop it, you will be able to run faster. But not by such a huge amount that attempting to model that in game is going be worthwhile.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
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acidlacedpenguinInstitutionalizedSafe in jail.Registered Userregular
I wanna use my Steel Battalion controller on this.
One of the bigger things that's making me want to switch to windows 7 (from vista 64) is that I will be able to get drivers that work for my SB controllers.
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
Oh man. I am so ready for a new MechWarrior game. Gonna get my Clan PPC loadout all equipped and my Summoner with the single large missile stack. I want to go play some MW4 mercenaries now.
The relationship between mass and speed is going to be a lot less direct for a mech than a plane or a car. The power of the engine has more to do with how fast the legs can move rather than moving the weight of the whole mech. Sure, if you are running with a full pack and then drop it, you will be able to run faster. But not by such a huge amount that attempting to model that in game is going be worthwhile.
Except an Atlas mounting no weapons moves the exact same speed as an Atlas mounting its standard weapons package, so long as the engine size is the same.
And we're talking a difference in weight comparable to an entire Mech, or even more. Hence, the notion that they fill them up with ballast. At that point, it should make a serious difference.
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acidlacedpenguinInstitutionalizedSafe in jail.Registered Userregular
The relationship between mass and speed is going to be a lot less direct for a mech than a plane or a car. The power of the engine has more to do with how fast the legs can move rather than moving the weight of the whole mech. Sure, if you are running with a full pack and then drop it, you will be able to run faster. But not by such a huge amount that attempting to model that in game is going be worthwhile.
Except an Atlas mounting no weapons moves the exact same speed as an Atlas mounting its standard weapons package, so long as the engine size is the same.
And we're talking a difference in weight comparable to an entire Mech, or even more. Hence, the notion that they fill them up with ballast. At that point, it should make a serious difference.
I can imagine that if the powerplant is also powering high energy systems there should be less power for use on the throttle. . .
I'm no battletech expert or anything, just using what I know about physics.
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I like having them handheld, because it lets you drop it if need be, either to pick up one of the rare guns, a club of somesort, or something else valuable worth picking up.
I dislike having no hands on a mech.
So is the Word of Blake in a worse position than North Korea and Iran? As far as doing it from scratch goes, the US made its first bombs in the span of about 6 years, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that delivery systems aren't a problem in the BattleTech timeline.
What would be a reasonable timeline in BattleTech for the nukes thing? "Decades" seems extremely long, enough time to start a new Cold War and talk about nonproliferation treaties again.
What about an axe that weighs as much as my gun, against an armored target?
This. If the Jihad was 50, or even 100 years after the FedCom civil war, it might be believable. But not even a year passes between the end of that and the Blakists attacking Tharkad and New Avalon, apparently.
Seriously, you don't become the leader of one of the great Houses by being an idiot who gets beaten by some two-bit bad guys.
I mean, how could they possibly expose him without also exposing that they are the ones who did it and having the entire FWL try to kill them?
a) Both of these plans are terrible.
b) Why did all these people withdraw from the Star League?
If she had had nukes, she would have used them to try and assassinate the leaders of each House. And by assassinate I mean nuke New Avalon, etc all.
I don't know, do we?
And AFAIK the Manhattan project was a huge investment, and even then they only had two. It took at least several more years to reach the "nuke the entire world three times over" level we have now.
That's not how it is in battletech though, the axe weighs as much as most mechs have armor, which is what makes it effective.
Battletech as a setting operates under the assumption that innovation is something that no longer happens.
[strike]Ever.[/strike]
Well, unless the storyline specifically calls for it and even then they don't do a very good job. For one faction to suddenly reverse their collective lobotomy and ramp up production of new and scary things is completely out of character, and so people throw tomatoes at the idea.
One of the very first things that was done by the blakists after the initial chaos, and effectively isolating the Lyran, Capellan and Davion leadership was to play the different sub-factions against eachother.
In the Lyran Alliance, Skye was agitated into action by a false-flag attack by FWLM Warships. In the Fedsuns, troops in the Draconis March went into action after hearing of POWs being taken into DC space, Duke Hasek too the opportunity to beat the shit out of the Capellans (just 'cuz). Clan Snow Raven went on a rampage after their home fleet was nuked by a freighter flying the Kurita crest. The Taruians take advantage of the situation and start invading the Federated Suns, and the Marian Hegemony decides to pick a fight with the Circinus Confederation.
So wait... the real Thomas Marik is even more of a Blakist than the fake Thomas Marik? Who was put into place by Com Star?
WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF SENSE DOES THAT MAKE
Because clearly, no one has learned not to fall for these kinds of things even though they have been done dozens of times before.
For me it depends on the role. Many mechs are basically walking gun platforms, and having no hands doesn't hurt their design.
When i think about giant mechs with hands, for some reason stuff like Gundam and laser swords always comes to mind. Though I will say that Votoms strikes a good balance.
The Ishtar mech, from the series Gasaraki also stands out to me as another good design with an arm-mounted melee weapon in addition to handheld weapons.
My understanding is that none of the Successor states are crippled by the HPG network crash, just vastly, vastly inconvenienced.
The Black Boxes weren't exactly mass-produced or universally distributed; used only for high priority military communications. So a lot of your basic commerce and such aren't going through, disrupting your politics and economies.
And did the Combine have Black Boxes at all? It's something Victor would have turned over, but I thought that was just a FedCom thing.
Understandable. I just prefer the hands, due to the fact mechs are supposed to be versatile, that is their whole point of existance.
If I just wanted a weapons platform, I'd use a tank.
The Combine captured and reverse-engineered some during... I think it was the '39 war? They used one to send a message to Hanse informing him of the Clan's plan to attack Luthien.
Anyway, the idea seems to be that WoB takes down the HPGs and then plays the local factions off against each other, or whatever. But with the black boxes, the Suns for example would still be able to keep places like the Draconis and Capellan Marches in line.
b) Yvonne and Peter withdrew because they would rather use the resources otherwise sent to the Star League to rebuild. And Sun Tzu is a dick.
I don't think breaking the ares conventions in order to usher in a new Star League was in the cards, insane or no.
Now, the Blakists. Who knows?
The WOB didn't take down the HPG. They basically did a sphere-wide DDOS attack using propoganda.
As for the Black Boxes, I'm fairly sure they were used during the blackout, but for whatever reason, Tharkad was utterly cut off from the rest of the Inner Sphere, leaving Peter isolated from his realm. Couple this with Skye, the region that nearly seceeded during the FCCW, deciding to pick a fight with the Free Worlds League.
In the Federated Suns, though, it was less of a case of not being able to communicate, it was more of a case of Duke Hasek seeing Yvonne as worthless as the rest of us do. The Draconis March was brought to heel quickly enough, if I recall, but Hasek's war on the Confederation didn't stop until someone decided to assassinate him around 3070.
That's not how it is in battletech though, the axe weighs as much as most mechs have armor, which is what makes it effective.
I don't agree. An axe is 7% of a 'Mech's mass, the maximum armor is 20-25% with most probably pegging in at 15-20%. On a 100-tonner, the axe weighs 7 tons, which is less than (for AC/20s, Gauss cannons) or equal to (most other heavy weapons) the mass of the main gun on said 'Mech.
Well, okay. That's thematically sound in a game where 'Mech designs and for all I know individual 'Mechs have stuck around for hundreds of years. I thought the way the setting changed after the Gray Death memory core, and then the Clans, was horrifically hamfisted, myself. But regarding nukes, all the real-world comparisons coming out against the idea have just seemed completely bizarre to me.
It was a huge investment for the US, one nation on one planet, in the 1940s, the first time it was ever done, and this was at the same time that we were investing a large amount of resources into everything else in World War II. It took longer for us to send a man to the moon, much later. Are people saying that in 3060 the World of Blake couldn't muster the resources of 1940s USA or 2009 North Korea/Iran? What is everyone doing with all these planets? Raising sheep?
The way I originally read about the setting, it never occurred to me that there was anything more to it than one faction deciding "To hell with the Ares Conventions", and then immediately violating the hell out of them. I don't know how long it took the Word of Blake to actually carry this out, but I think about a year or so would sound completely believable to me if you were going to let them do it at all. But decades? As in more than one? Seriously?
This seems out of character.
Also, since when are they even sending resources to the Star League? Other than troops for the SLDF.
But it also has to be done secretly. And you need to make hundreds, if not thousands. So I don't think it would be that straight-forward.
The battlemaster with max armor, at 85 tons, has I think 14 tons of armor. And the hatchet weighs 6 tons. That is almost half, located in one weapon rather than spread across the entire body. That is also an assault mech, which is not what you commonly run into.
I'll check my numbers when I get home.
Edit: to get back to the game, here's a nice little list of 3025-era units and when they came into service.
2475 -- Flea -- 20
2479 -- Stinger -- 20
2490 -- Thorn -- 20
2499 -- Locust -- 20
2742 -- Mercury -- 20
2990 -- Hornet -- 20
2486 -- Commando -- 25
2660 -- Mongoose -- 25
2585 -- Falcon -- 30
2630 -- Hussar -- 30
2632 -- Hermes -- 30
2650 -- Spider -- 30
2675 -- Urbanmech -- 30
2688 -- Stinger L.A.M. -- 30
2690 -- Wasp L.A.M. -- 30
2751 -- Javenlin -- 30
2787 -- Valkyrie -- 30
2550 -- Firestarter -- 35
2739 -- Panther -- 35
2784 -- Jenner -- 35
2950 -- Ostscout -- 35
Mediums:
2507 -- Clint -- 40
2610 -- Whitworth -- 40
2650 -- Assassin -- 40
2651 -- Sentinal -- 40
2785 -- Vulcan -- 40
2798 -- Hermes II -- 40
2840 -- Cicada -- 40
2660 -- Wyvern -- 45
2784 -- Blackjack -- 45
2784 -- Phoenix Hawk -- 45
2826 -- Vindicator -- 45
2524 -- Chameleon -- 50
2572 -- Hunchback -- 50
2719 -- Crab -- 50
2765 -- Starslayer -- 50
2777 -- Enforcer -- 50
2780 -- Trebuchet -- 50
2801 -- Centurion -- 50
2832 -- Phoenix Hawk L.A.M. -- 50
2492 -- Griffin -- 55
2520 -- Dervish -- 55
2550 -- Shadow Hawk -- 55
2587 -- Kintaro -- 55
2784 -- Scorpion -- 55
2784 -- Wolverine -- 55
Heavies:
2500 -- Ostroc -- 60
2505 -- Rifleman -- 60
2581 -- Lancelot -- 60
2602 -- Champion -- 60
2694 -- Ostsol -- 60
2754 -- Dragon -- 60
2779 -- QuickDraw -- 60
3010 -- Merlin -- 60
2491 -- ThunderBolt -- 65
2561 -- Catapult -- 65
2735 -- Bombardier -- 65
2784 -- Crusader -- 65
2890 -- JagerMech -- 65
3007* -- Exterminator -- 65 (*reintroduced. Blueprints were from SL era)
2474 -- Archer -- 70
2499 -- Guillotine -- 70
2515 -- Warhammer -- 70
2786 -- Grasshopper -- 70
2570 -- Orion -- 75
2578 -- Black Knight -- 75
2624 -- Marauder -- 75
2701 -- Flashman -- 75
Assaults:
2510 -- Victor -- 80
2572 -- Thug -- 80
2610 -- Longbow 0W -- 80
2665 -- Awesome -- 80
2665 -- Charger -- 80
2784 -- Goliath -- 80
2787 -- Zeus -- 80
2867 -- Striker -- 80
2594 -- Stalker -- 85
2745 -- Crockett -- 85
2830 -- Battlemaster -- 85
2592 -- Highlander -- 90
2710 -- Cyclops -- 90
2476 -- Banshee -- 95
2443 -- Mackie -- 100
2741 -- King Crab -- 100
2751 -- Atlas -- 100
3009 -- Annihilator -- 100
3009 -- IMP -- 100
3012 -- Marauder II -- 100
As I've said, I don't think secrecy would be a problem in BattleTech. They have spaceships, there are plenty of empty, uninhabited/uninhabitable star systems, and traveling to planets from the respective jump point takes days or months. A secret development planetary installation, moonbase or space station to redevelop a mid-20th century nuclear weapon doesn't seem implausible to me (assuming it was LosTech to begin with). The Internet says the US built ~70,000 nuclear weapons from 1941-1991, and again, that was just one nation, not necessarily trying to churn out as many as possible.
Out of curiosity, what stopped the Jihad? Did the WoB just run out of nukes?
You fire all three PPC's the first turn, then you fire all three the second turn, then you fire only two on the third turn to cool off, repeat.
You are right. I totally forgot that thing had 28 heat sinks.
But this is what happens when we have no actual game to talk about. Having just a teaser trailer and vague interviews is killing me.
Most 'mechs are likely armored do the following, each to various degrees in each specific location:
- Deflect/disperse laser beams & their heat
- Deflect or stop ballistic shells from piercing
- Disperse the energy of small-yield explosive warheads
It's very unlikely that most of them are designed to be repeatedly slammed into large heavy things (or the reverse). Hell it's easy enough to damage your own 'mech by slamming it into large heavy things with failed piloting checks. Why the hell wouldn't an appropriate-size/mass melee weapon work? If an Atlas tearing 'mechs apart with its bare hands is believable, why should a melee weapon designed to damage battlemechs not be?PSN: theIceBurner, IceBurnerEU, IceBurner-JP | X-Link Kai: TheIceBurner
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Someone eventually beat them. Catalyst isn't up to that point yet, and I don't know the Dark Age stuff well enough to tell you how it's supposed to end. (I think it's all over in 3081)
Keep in mind, vis a vis the nuke discussion, that all the Great Houses and ComStar had a stockpile of nuclear weapons as a deterrent to someone violating the Ares Conventions- the Wobblies probably had a bunch lying around.
Hell, even the Clans have their own reserve, just in case.
Never.
I mean, logically, two 65-ton Catapults could actually weight 65 and 60 tons respectively. But they both have the same engine. So the Catapult that is 5 tones lighter should move faster--unless it is merely carrying 5 tones less equipment and filled with 5 tons of ballast to compensate?
What about ballistic and missile Mechs that deplete heavy ammunition? Or Mechs that have heavy arms blown off?
This was never rendered in any of the games....was it considered in the tabletop game or the novels?
Realistically, yeah, an ammo-intensive mech which burns off a large portion of its ammo would have more power available for speed. I don't know if any of the PC games handled this, but it would be pretty cool if they tossed it in for the new Mechwarrior game. It wouldn't make a whole lot of difference in speed, though, because even mechs which use a lot of projectile weapons usually only carry a few tons of ammo. An Archer carries something like 4 tons of ammo and it's a 70-ton mech; even if lost all of its ammo, the weight difference is only something like 5-6%. Now, if it lost the ammo and both arms, then you might start seeing some significant speed changes. Otherwise, mechs just don't change weight that much (short of stuff getting blown off) so speed changes wouldn't be a big deal.
Granted, 'Mechs use internal reactors that consume fuel over a very long period of time (comparable to a nuclear reactor, if not the same thing), so fuel consumption might be very minute, more in line with a nuclear warship or icebreaker than a fighter craft.
Basically,if I took a mech without any weapons,I could pump everything into speed and it would be way faster than a mech with weapons.
One of the bigger things that's making me want to switch to windows 7 (from vista 64) is that I will be able to get drivers that work for my SB controllers.
Probably within the next couple of weeks. I am thinking that MekTek is finishing up their MP4 expansion mod so they can include it with MW4.
Except an Atlas mounting no weapons moves the exact same speed as an Atlas mounting its standard weapons package, so long as the engine size is the same.
And we're talking a difference in weight comparable to an entire Mech, or even more. Hence, the notion that they fill them up with ballast. At that point, it should make a serious difference.
I can imagine that if the powerplant is also powering high energy systems there should be less power for use on the throttle. . .