AdamantVallation, on 08 June 2012 - 09:23 PM, said:
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.
That's because Battletech is a Science Fiction game in the classical sense, as opposed to a Space Opera (aka Science Fantasy) game. About the only concession the designers made was FTL travel (and FTL communication), and that is pretty common in all but the hardest science fiction.
Another thing to keep in mind is that in the Battletech Universe, the Successor States, while they didn't quite blow themselves back to the stone age, did a pretty good job of razing many worlds back to World War I levels of technology. Sure, the nobility and military have fancy high tech toys, but for the commoners, sometimes you're lucky of have a tractor to plow your fields, rather than a horse.
And let's not forget that Comstar has been running around in the background sabotaging
any attempt to improve scientific understanding and technological progress.
There's plenty of reasons why the Battletech Universe seems pretty low tech, beyond the FTL, fusion engines, and giant death robots. That's why many of us like it.
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