57 replies to this topic

[Lynx7725]

Yeonne Greene, on 01 September 2014 - 11:16 AM, said:

The whole thing is just goofy; they couldn't even come up with a good reason why BattleMechs are a thing when tanks can mount the same weapons for less cost and complexity.

They did.

Logistics.

Don't ask me to explain FASAnomics though.

[Bishop Steiner]

Yeonne Greene, on 01 September 2014 - 11:16 AM, said:

I'm not really saying the 'Mechs in the game should move faster with less weight or missing limbs, just that the mechanics of BattleTech are, at every turn, so terribly inaccurate, unrealistic, and generally mangled t

and that is thepoint

[CN9 ACE PILOT]

Yeonne Greene, on 01 September 2014 - 11:16 AM, said:

I'm not really saying the 'Mechs in the game should move faster with less weight or missing limbs, just that the mechanics of BattleTech are, at every turn, so terribly inaccurate, unrealistic, and generally mangled that the lore is hard to take seriously at all. The whole thing is just goofy; they couldn't even come up with a good reason why BattleMechs are a thing when tanks can mount the same weapons for less cost and complexity.

While it's explained, it's not really an explanation that clears up anything.

Battlemech design came from "LostTech" in the lore itself, and it's one of the many parts why only a handful of mechs ever went beyond 100tons.

Humanoid design is better for "all terrain" then something on treads or wheels, as they can also perform in zero atmosphere environment and underwater, albeit for limited amount of time.

It's not as much a walking tank with legs, as it is a walking fusion reactor with guns.

[FDJustin]

Yeonne Greene, on 01 September 2014 - 11:16 AM, said:

The whole thing is just goofy; they couldn't even come up with a good reason why BattleMechs are a thing when tanks can mount the same weapons for less cost and complexity.

I don't know what their excuse is. But in reality, humanoid machines could employ humanoid movement. That gives you better vertical terrain mobility (You can climb), the option to crouch, go prone, crawl.

I don't think we'd ever want to make them that big, but if we could get them to perform well, a humanoid vehicle that's about 3 / 4 to 1 story tall could be very useful.

[CN9 ACE PILOT]

:/ The current limitations of PGI's faulty game engine, is not Battletech's fault.

[Y E O N N E]

FDJustin, on 01 September 2014 - 11:30 AM, said:

I don't know what their excuse is. But in reality, humanoid machines could employ humanoid movement. That gives you better vertical terrain mobility (You can climb), the option to crouch, go prone, crawl.

I don't think we'd ever want to make them that big, but if we could get them to perform well, a humanoid vehicle that's about 3 / 4 to 1 story tall could be very useful.

I'm quoting you but this is also for the other replies to me:

Advantages of humanoid motion are niche. A tank is better as fast armor, a submarine is better as a swimmer, a space-craft is better in space, and an aircraft is usually better if you need to reach a remote location. The 'Mechs in BattleTech are far, far too large to really take advantage of human style movement in any meaningful way.They are slow, top heavy, often don't have hands, and make easy targets. That 'Mechs still need infantry support means they actually are tanks on legs in function if not intent, rather than super-heavy infantry.

Let's look at a competitor to BattleTech, Heavy Gear. The Gears in Heavy Gear only stand about 12 to 18 feet tall and are far more compact. Because they are smaller and actually formed like people, they have greater agility and greater dexterity. They are not stronger than tanks; a tank will absolutely wreck a Gear in a 1-on-1 confrontation. Rather, the Gears are special forces that use their human motion combined with their greater strength to stealthily reconnoiter enemy disposition and deploy heavy payloads. The Gears, unlike BattleMechs, actually move like people. They are more like giant suits of armor than vehicles. I can see this being useful, because it combines the versatility of infantry with the payload of a light fighting vehicle.

I really like the way they have that lore and universe set up because it's a hell of a lot more believable than the way BattleTech is explained. In BattleTech, the 'Mechs don't do any of that. The Lights might be comparable, but the rest really are tanks on legs. Tanks on legs that can't even aim or relay target information as well as World War II armor divisions.

BattleTech just strikes me as somebody's fan project of smashing together big robots from many different franchises and then having to invent a story to go behind it after it became successful. It took on a life of its own, and now we have what we have today.

[stjobe]

Yeonne Greene, on 01 September 2014 - 01:18 PM, said:

A tank is better as fast armor, a submarine is better as a swimmer, a space-craft is better in space, and an aircraft is usually better if you need to reach a remote location.

Sure, but a tank is a lousy swimmer, a submarine is rubbish as fast armour, and an aircraft in space or a space-craft in air are both sub-par.

A 'Mech can do it all; it'll never be as good at aerial or space combat as an aerospace fighter, it'll never travel as fast or fight as good underwater as a sub - but it CAN fight underwater, in space, in the air, and on land. And it CAN fight and kill tanks, subs, aerospace fighters, hovercraft, infantry, airplanes, dropships, you name it.

As for the rest of your comment; Heavy Gear is nice enough, but it isn't BattleTech. In BattleTech, there's only one King of the Battlefield, and that is the BattleMech.

Neither game universe has more than a passing nod to realism, that's not what they're for. They're for that "wouldn't it be cool if..." feeling. And having your fighting machine be 60 feet tall is - in my opinion at least - way cooler than having it be 20 feet.

[Y E O N N E]

But a 'Mech is also a lousy swimmer, can't fly (LAMs were a flop), lacks endurance and maneuverability in space, and is not a very good tank. Many can't climb because they have gun-barrels for hands (or have no arms at all). They also can't prone for the same reason. And what's the point of going prone if it is still bigger than a tank while in this prone position?

It's a jack of all trades, lousy at all of them, and, above all, costs several fortunes to build and maintain. The only reason the BattleMechs are king, as far as I have been able to discern from Sarna, is because FASA said they are and not because they actually have any real redeeming qualities.

The difference between Heavy Gear and BattleTech is that the former actually recognizes the limits of its ideas and reigns them in accordingly rather than forging ahead anyway and trying to shoe-horn in some half-arsed techno-babble. That creates a world that's easier to accept as real. The less I go "wat" when exploring that world, the better crafted it is.

BattleTech? Pew pew, stompy stomp, blow stuff up. Good fun, but hardly engaging the mind. I like fun and brains in my games and their stories.

[stjobe]

Yeonne Greene, on 01 September 2014 - 01:55 PM, said:

BattleTech? Pew pew, stompy stomp, blow stuff up. Good fun, but hardly engaging the mind. I like fun and brains in my games and their stories.

I think you're selling a 30-year old franchise a bit short there, or possibly overselling Heavy Gear a bit. Neither are really "engaging the mind" more or less than the other; both are as I said, only passingly acquainted with reality.

Apart from that though, you simply have to accept the conceit that in the BattleTech Universe, Star League technology (computing, materials, robotics, etc) made 'Mechs not only possible but also superior in many ways to specialized units. A tank can't move in as varied terrain as a 'Mech, an aerospace fighter can never sit on a hill and claim it against any comers. 'Mechs are diverse, and they are masters of their trade.

Infantry, tanks, aerospace fighters (as well as regular jets and helicopters), surface ships and submarines are all present in the BattleTech universe, and they do their jobs well. But with one 'mech you can do the job of several of these units: You can take and defend ground like a tank, you can defend the airspace against atmospheric fighters, you can fight and defend against at least littoral threats.

There's a reason that in lore, many new mercenary companies start out on garrison duty; they often have light 'Mechs that are more than a match for regular tanks, infantry, and the odd hovercraft or helicopter, and they have sensors that are better than anything short of a dropship.

That's just the way the universe works; 'Mechs are built with tech that is partly lostech, and that superior tech makes the 'Mechs themselves superior. If you don't accept that conceit, of course the universe is going to look silly to you.

Edited by stjobe, 01 September 2014 - 02:20 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

You are using flawed logic here, trying to explain one thing that doesn't make sense with something else that also doesn't make sense. What is it about the Star League/Lostech that makes a 'Mech better and why can't it be used in other places that make more sense? Much of the technology used to make a 'Mech in BT should be usable in making a tank or other instrument of war. Same armor types, same power source, same weapons. Those implements can and should be faster, smaller, pack nearly the same punch, and have better protection.

A 'Mech should lose to tanks, fighters, etc. in their specialized roles. It doesn't. There's no explanation why other than "because Rule of Cool." Most 'Mechs are lighter than tanks. Those that aren't and have superior firepower...are slower than tanks. All 'Mechs have an easier-to-hit profile and most 'Mechs can't navigate rough terrain very well. These machines are portrayed, in every class, as being nigh unstoppable by anything save another 'Mech or overwhelming numbers. This simply does not make sense, at all, when some of those 'Mechs are lighter than a fifth-generation fighter. All it should take is one or two missiles of contemporary tech to take the suckers out.

It's that lack of explanation for why it all works that makes Heavy Gear more attractive lore-wise. Heavy Gear has much better technical details than BattleTech, and those technical details are a lot more grounded. There are no actuators which inexplicably can't run faster, fusion engines that forget how you actually get electricity from the process, contrived gunnery penalties, or ridiculous scenarios where a dedicated machine loses in a slug-match to something inherently inferior under those conditions. Instead you have servos that scale to mass, real combustion engines generating power, ballistics that behave like ballistics should, and Gear pilots getting crafty to take down machines that can and should easily turn their implements into Swiss cheese. Even if there is some handwavium going on, there is much less of it than in BattleTech. It's better planned and much more coherent.

Long story short, BattleMechs should only be effective when you have more of them in a given role than the enemy has dedicated role fighters. This is not the case, and there is no real in-world explanation for why outside of "because technology."

[Scratx]

Mechs are better than tanks (once they get double heat sinks and better tech) because the fluff says so (and later on rules support it).

Seriously, now, game is heavy on the rule of cool and you wonder why things aren't realistic?

[Y E O N N E]

But that's all the fluff says: 'Mechs are better than tanks. The end.

Most games are heavy on rule of cool and can do better than that. Pardon me for thinking something so old and revered as BattleTech might actually be refined enough to have some substance.

[FDJustin]

So I said earlier that I think mechs should be 3 / 4 to 1 story. For some reason I was thinking stories were closer to 20 feet, not about 10 feet. Actually meant 1 3/4, to 2 stories... Although you could have one that's ten feet tall, and you could have it be a mech rather than power armour. It'd have a pretty cramped cockpit.

Heavy Gear has the advantage (and disadvantage) or being born in an era where people want more realism and less coolness factor. So it got to be built that way from the ground up. You can't just up and change the value of mechs in battletech long after it's been established, so the rule of cool is going to have to stay.

I think the focus on realism is a mostly western quirk. Other nations, Japan especially, seem more than happy to follow the rule of cool above all else.

[Y E O N N E]

I wouldn't call it a want for realism (which didn't kick off in earnest until the '00s) as much as I would say a want for better in-game justification for things. I don't want them to change the 'Mechs to be niche weapons, but rather I would prefer they go back and seriously examine why a 'Mech is king of the Battlefield and then provide us with justification that doesn't create all sorts of lore holes. I can handle BattleTech as just being about cool-factor, but when I see people in here getting serious about the technical aspects I just face-palm because that part of the lore is a joke.

It also so happens that those technical aspects are getting in the way of making game balance easy when the game is trying to emulate rulebook values and systems. That's a tangible problem and we are all suffering for it.

Finally, many of the most popular and revered Japanese fictional works have very, very strong internal coherence. Of the stuff I am familiar with: Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Ghost in the Shell, Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, Blue Gender, Last Exile, Knights of Sidonia, BLAME!, Golden Sun, and Lost Odyssey all have detailed internal workings with few oversights (Macross is probably the weakest link in there). Everything works, everything makes sense within context, and suspension of disbelief is easier. That kind of attention to detail is one of the reasons Japanese storytelling became so popular. They craft these wonderful worlds and populate them with people, places, things, and events that work together to create something with a life of its own that needs no external explanation.

[Reitrix]

101011, on 01 September 2014 - 10:37 AM, said:

Oh, I believe they could do it. They just want to prevent things like the 128 kph Atlas or the 106 kph Dire Wolf, as hilarious as those would be.

Scout: Look out, its an Atlas rush!
Team: What have they got?
Scout ... 2 Medium Lasers and a Machine Gun. Between them.

[101011]

Reitrix, on 01 September 2014 - 05:12 PM, said:

Scout: Look out, its an Atlas rush!
Team: What have they got?
Scout ... 2 Medium Lasers and a Machine Gun. Between them.

Imagine looking out your Stormcrow's window and seeing an Atlas pass you...

[Cybercrime]

Bishop Steiner, on 01 September 2014 - 09:58 AM, said:

But people who lose arms don't run faster.

But Catapult mech without rocketboxes or Cicada without arms should run faster.

And if you has 12 tonnes of ammo and it depleted you should run faster.

[BrockSamsonFW]

Roland, on 01 September 2014 - 10:21 AM, said:

Only mechs carrying giant knives should run faster.

Only if they are also naked...

[n r g]

ODONATA, on 01 September 2014 - 09:50 AM, said:

Without arms/torso or when ammo depleted mech should run faster because of weight losing.
With this feature gameplay becomes more realistic.

considering that haven't put in toggle passive/active radar, a crouch button, mechs falling down ..........

..I wouldn't hold your breath.

[Adiuvo]

I want my small laser/mg/srm2 Atlas to zoom zoom!