49 replies to this topic

[AdamantVallation]

So reading through some other topics earlier, it occurred to me, there are a lot of assumptions and probable misconceptions about the level of technology in the BTU. Think about it, technology really isn't all that super advanced. The main tech break through was FTL drive, okay, they got us on that one. Next is portable practical fusion power plants, again they got us on that one, though we already have prototype fusion devices, but currently they typically use more power to sustain fusion than they create. Myomer bundles[color="#000000"], [/color]again something we don't have, but I don't see it as too far off. virtually all the other technology needed to make a mech exsists today, just not in forms or efficient enough examples to make it possible, let alone practical.

LRMs/SRMs: Missile tech, been using it for over half a century.
Machineguns, autocannons: We have/use lots of machine guns, auto cannons are just automatic howitzers.
Lasers: Lasers, most us have at least 1 in our computers, probably a multi wavelength one at that, the average american household probably has around a dozen lasers in it.
PPCs: Okay particle beams are a bit off yet, but the concepts already exist, and I'm sure are being prototyped.
Gauss Rifles: There are a few Discovery Channel shows all about these, we have them right now, they just aren't practical yet.
Armor/Endosteel: This is just refined metallurgy.

Heck even spacetravel, in the BTU, okay so they can build really big ships, but to travel from Zenith to orbit, they still just make 1G burns for half the trip, then flip around and burn the other way for the last half, this takes care of that pesky weightlessness in space. This brings up another point, no artificial gravity.

There are lots of other examples I could make but I think you get the point. Now some of the later material gets further and further into the SciFi realm, but honestly if you think about it, the tech of the BTU isn't massively advanced compared to our own, just mostly highly refined versions of things we can already do.

[Lt muffins]

Most of this is true as most of Battletech's technology was formed around highly plausible theories.

Edit: more info

The concept of the PPC has been around for about 70ish years now as it was first introduced by Nikolia Tesla in his concept "teleforce" but this has not been able to be put in any form of practical application.

Fusion engines I have not seen any recent articles on so if you have a link to one i would be most grateful.

myomer is very similar to modern Electroactive Polymers.

Edited by Lt muffins, 08 June 2012 - 09:43 PM.

[Mistwolf]

Well keep in mind, it was created in 1984 so technology was:
-A computer with 1KB of hard drive space was considered all you'd ever need
-Cellular phones looked like military sized walkie talkies.
-8 bit graphics were cutting edge (NES wasn't out yet)
-All screens were CRTs,
-VHS technology allowed people to finally be able to record shows and watch movies AT HOME (omg!)
-Some people were lucky enough to have an answering machine for their phone so they would not miss calls.
-Record labels were preaching the potential doom of the industry, as people were recording songs off the radio with new cassets tapes. (ya they've been singing the same song since the 80s )
-The microwave oven was only starting to find it's way into homes.
-Most cars were manual transmission
-Fax machines were the new thing for businesses (HPGs were the BTU interplanetary equivalent)

Compared to today's tech, ya we are getting closer, but at the time it was really sci-fi.

[Rahn]

I can't get to my books at the moment but I recall that the tech level in 3025 was equivalent to our own. Bumping the time line up a few years did little for the overall tech level.

[Fortune]

One thing you forgot. They have FTL travel. And that is the most important thing that seperates us and the BT universe. And that one litle thing may take us some hundreds of years to develop.

[Lt muffins]

Fortune, on 08 June 2012 - 09:45 PM, said:

One thing you forgot. They have FTL travel. And that is the most important thing that seperates us and the BT universe. And that one litle thing may take us some hundreds of years to develop.

You would be surprised what some companies can accomplish if you told them that there was a planet made of platinum that could only be reached with FTL travel. If for some reason that become the case I would expect to see a Jump ship commissioned within the decade.

[Derek Icelord]

Nitpick: Jumpships aren't traditional Faster Than Light (FTL) vessels. They travel by folding space in a "jump" and appear at the exit jump point mere seconds later, rather than racing from point A to point B at FTL speeds. Traveling to a destination that is multiple jumps distant takes so long because of the recharge time for the ship's jump drive. This can be partially circumvented (at a large monetary cost) by using a Command Circuit.

Edited by Derek Icelord, 08 June 2012 - 10:00 PM.

[BenEEeees VAT GROWN BACON]

Lt muffins, on 08 June 2012 - 09:49 PM, said:

You would be surprised what some companies can accomplish if you told them that there was a planet made of platinum that could only be reached with FTL travel. If for some reason that become the case I would expect to see a Jump ship commissioned within the decade.

I really doubt it. The physics just isn't behind FTL or "jump" travel.

Corporations while financially and politically powerful cannot bend the laws of nature. Currently they're having a difficult enough time as it is extracting resources on Earth (BP deep-water extractions for example).

Besides, "jumping" to find a planet-sized source of platinum would be against their interest as prices would fall next to nothing overnight.

[Lycan]

Derek Icelord, on 08 June 2012 - 09:56 PM, said:

Nitpick: Jumpships aren't traditional Faster Than Light (FTL) vessels. They travel by folding space in a "jump" and appear at the exit jump point mere seconds later, rather than racing from point A to point B at FTL speeds. Traveling to a destination that is multiple jumps distant takes so long because of the recharge time for the ship's jump drive. This can be partially circumvented (at a large monetary cost) by using a Command Circuit.

It's not "traditional" FTL, ala Warp Drive or Hyperspace but it's still consider FTL because when you fold space to get to point B, you're getting there way ahead of the light that you left behind at point A.

If that's basically what you meant, then I apologize for misunderstanding.

Edited by Lycan, 08 June 2012 - 10:11 PM.

[Lt muffins]

BenEEeees VAT GROWN BACON, on 08 June 2012 - 10:07 PM, said:

I really doubt it. The physics just isn't behind FTL or "jump" travel.

Corporations while financially and politically powerful cannot bend the laws of nature. Currently they're having a difficult enough time as it is extracting resources on Earth (BP deep-water extractions for example).

Besides, "jumping" to find a planet-sized source of platinum would be against their interest as prices would fall next to nothing overnight.

well I see your point, the planet of platinum was more of an example.

But always have an open mind, just because some one hasn't found a way yet doesn't mean that it is impossible.

[BenEEeees VAT GROWN BACON]

Lt muffins, on 08 June 2012 - 10:15 PM, said:

well I see your point, the planet of platinum was more of an example.

But always have an open mind, just because some one hasn't found a way yet doesn't mean that it is impossible.

Meh, if your mind is too open you might start ignoring the evidence for want of fantasy.

[Draxern]

Either way its a game not real life. I think might be less fun if was based on real life concept maybe a little close to home.

[Alfred VonGunn]

Rahn, on 08 June 2012 - 09:45 PM, said:

I can't get to my books at the moment but I recall that the tech level in 3025 was equivalent to our own. Bumping the time line up a few years did little for the overall tech level.

Remember the Star League had higher tech but several hundred years of Civil War and the Secession Wars knocked a lot of the tech out.

[martius]

Hyper Engineering like floating cities or kilometer long space habitats. Terraforming Mars, Venus and a bunch of other planets. Terabyte sized thumbdrives. Being able to regenerate lost organs and limbs, perfect prosthetics and body augmentations (and I am not talking just about Canopian Mermaids here).

Even in the old Mad Max era books there were a few feats our engineers can only dream of- like for example the Star League Facility on Helm.

[Nightborn]

http://www.youtube.c...d&v=IdPpWy_O09k

Not quite a mech, but proof of concept at the very least.

edit : is more reminiscent of Aliens loading mechs, but also a step in the right direction.

Edited by Nightborn, 09 June 2012 - 01:41 AM.

[Shootanoob]

wow, pretty thing that suit - its more like elemental than Mech, but its damned close. Now they just have to put the computers and powersource into that thing.

[Tyra]

Lycan, on 08 June 2012 - 10:11 PM, said:

It's not "traditional" FTL, ala Warp Drive or Hyperspace but it's still consider FTL because when you fold space to get to point B, you're getting there way ahead of the light that you left behind at point A. If that's basically what you meant, then I apologize for misunderstanding.

It's basically making a wormhole, for all intents and purposes.

And that would be about the only way with todays understanding of physics to go FTL.

Anyway, one thing to keep in mind. In 3025, most of the known galaxy had just come out of several centuries of massive scale warfare. A lot of tech and information would have been lost.

People of the BTU are damn lucky they're not in the stone age.

With that in mind, they can certainly update the look and of a lot of things (view screens, scanners, etc) without losing the overall feel of the mechs and the universe.

[GHQCommander]

You are correct, much of the technology truly exists and in 1000 years it will all be small enough to be added to tanks or whatever machines are in use. Actually by 2500 the battlefield will be like nothing we can imagine right now.

I have been discussing technology on multiple threads and there is tech that would come around the same time as things like particle projection. By 2500 all of these will exist in the real world so I got very curious on who made the decision to avoid including certain tech and why. It's pretty much like someone either dumbed the game down OR the franchise is failing to adapt, become realistic and is stuck in the past. Canon is one thing, but being stuck in the past is not.

We are not on a tabletop where shields could not be simulated as well visually, we are in a game and to think that this franchise has come this far without adapting is very very strange to me. Everything adapts and becomes more realistic.

Shields (even if very basic, it would not be hard by 2100 never mind after 3000)
Nano Tech (even just for minor repairs i.eclean up oil, repair cables and wires)
Teleportation (if even just ammo but I think by 3000 in real life humans will be teleported)

These 3 technologies are just some. These ones alone will lead to some very deadly weapons of mass destruction by 2200 in real life.

Soldiers will get cells teleported from their bodies.

MechWarriors would be teleported from their own cockpit and appear as a puddle. Not saying the game should have any of these but I do think the lack of vision and the number of fans who scream about canon may be causing this game to avoid looking at some potentially great technologies that fill in blanks in canon.

[GHQCommander]

Tyra, on 09 June 2012 - 02:11 AM, said:

It's basically making a wormhole, for all intents and purposes.

And that would be about the only way with todays understanding of physics to go FTL.

Anyway, one thing to keep in mind. In 3025, most of the known galaxy had just come out of several centuries of massive scale warfare. A lot of tech and information would have been lost.

People of the BTU are damn lucky they're not in the stone age.

With that in mind, they can certainly update the look and of a lot of things (view screens, scanners, etc) without losing the overall feel of the mechs and the universe.

How I read this is canon fills in blanks and the story of not having a lot of technology by saying it was lost in a war. Which is fair enough, I agree the game works great as it is.

However there will be holes in canon that MMO's pick at and MMO balance issues often require innovation and new items or abilities that didn't really exist before. Nothing wrong with it either, I strongly feel MMO's must advanced the franchise canon and is part of an old franchises evolution to ensure the next couple of generations accept it.

Those of you screaming about canon all the time, nearly flaming at me in other threads. Have you considered how the Mech world will be accepted in 20-30 years if it does not adapt and be realistic. Kids will be far more intelligent than we were, real technology will suggest things are missing in this MMO if its still on the rader. 10 year olds won't want to play in machines that don't have technologies humans are close to having for real.

In 20 years time kids will be asking where the shields are on mechs and why they can't teleport long distance on the battlefield etc. Will the reply still be, sorry that tech was lost in the war?

[THELONGSHANKS]

BenEEeees VAT GROWN BACON, on 08 June 2012 - 10:21 PM, said:

Meh, if your mind is too open you might start ignoring the evidence for want of fantasy.

Tim Minchin: If You Open Your Mind Too Much Your Brain Will Fall Out