239 replies to this topic

[Mr G]

Joseph Mallan, on 15 February 2014 - 10:41 AM, said:

I don't disagree, I want my Clanner enemy to make me say, "OMFG What the Hel was that!" If I want a close to even fight, I will go against Drac units. I am not here for fair and balanced. I came here looking for an up hill fight vs a foe I have gamed against and for for over 20 years. I know what The Clans are supposed to be, and I am here as a Lyran because of it!

then what you want to do is create a player run league after clan mechs and private lobbies are out. Create your own rule set for matches and try and gather a following to play in that style of game. don't forget to bring only stock mechs when you drop as IS vs the Clanners.

Now the vast majority of us want an overall fair and balanced game. Where one particular tech tree, weapon group or type of mech isnt vastly superior to the others so that there can be multiple effective play styles.

[Craig Steele]

stjobe, on 15 February 2014 - 08:11 AM, said:

So let me get this straight, because the logic of it eludes me:

1. You're a group of friends who enjoy playing MWO.
2. You're all affiliated with House Marik.
3. Some of you pre-order Clan 'mechs.
4. Now unless you can all play together in a mixed unit (IS and Clan 'mechs) under the Marik banner, you'll not play at all?

That's... stupid, not to put too fine a point on it.


Lest we forget, "that was just our position at the time".

Well thats how some people are portraying it.....

I'm not in the boat personally, but I can see their point. Whether I agree with it or not is irrelevant.

Some people are expressing a view that an inability of mixed mech drops is a big thing.

[GalaxyBluestar]

Davers, on 15 February 2014 - 09:17 AM, said:

I respect your opinions and love/knowledge of lore. But if you think someone who saved up 29 million cbills to buy a Dire Wolf and needs to unlock the efficiencies on it will not use it, I think you are mistaken.

The Clans need to be balanced vs the IS. If the Law wants to run tier 1 tech against them for the sake of immersion, then fine. But all the lostech is already here. There ain't no ComStar guards showing up with secret weapons. If they can't balance it, they might as well advance the timeline to when it is better balanced.

so i backed the 3050 timeline with years of clan invasion timeline adverts only then through incompetance to find pgi changed the product they've been selling? false advertising no thanks. i'd just leave at that point.

TehSBGX, on 15 February 2014 - 06:03 AM, said:

Honestly, I think it was a mistake on PGI's end not allowing mix tech. It would just be easier for everyone if it was 12 v 12 and IS units can have clan weapons if they chose to. Plus PGI has issues balancing things as is, so clan weapons will either be outright better or outright worse then IS weapons.

For the Love of Odin PGI, take the path of least resistance, 12 v 12 with mix tech.

LOL arms race man, all your clan tech on IS chassis belong to lordz ggclose. that's what would happen and everything else is automatically redundant. everyone would be soo cookie cutter it'd make the ppcs sniper and raven ecm streak murder bird meta look like a playground. not allowing mix tech means they can establish a definent interaction between two sides, balancing becomes a whole lot easier.

3rdworld, on 15 February 2014 - 07:11 AM, said:

Your example is flawed. In this case it wouldn't be that your friends couldn't play because they didn't have skates. It would be that your friends couldn't play because they did not pre-order a certain brand of skate.

counterflawed, we're talking about skate type A for rink type A so why should rink A be messed up with B type skates? why would the game be any better or different to the mediocrity we have now with a-b's all moshing in any group? so many FPS did extremely well defining what is A and what is B and keeping them as opposing sides, no mixing.

i can't wear my terrorist beards with my US seals squad wah! said nobody ever.

Edited by GalaxyBluestar, 15 February 2014 - 04:43 PM.

[wanderer]

Craig Steele, on 14 February 2014 - 08:12 PM, said:

Thats the theory yes, but not reflected as a common occurence in the majority of battles in the canon.

Take the theory to a logical deduction.

*bidding process taken to illogical levels*

The commander of a force makes the bidding process happen, not his subordinates. So if a Star Colonel has a Cluster, Stars from a Trinary/Supernova will be bid away as part of the process, or even entire Binaries/Novas or a full Trinary or more in rare cases. This actually means a "Trinary" drops short in many cases as part of the normal bidding system, because if there's a bid process for what part of a force gets to hit an objective, it's almost inevitably below the full TO&E...

Although it HAS happened that a Clan has bid -one- pilot to take a world.

And it worked. That'd be Phelan Kell. He ended up taking Gunzburg without a shot fired, single-handedly.

[wanderer]

TehSBGX, on 15 February 2014 - 07:25 AM, said:

I was trying to explain why we should have Mix Tech. 12 v 12 with mix tech would be far easier to balance than 10 v 12 no mix tech since clan weapons are meant to have trade off so they aren't strictly better.

And you know, WWII games where the German faction could use Mustang fightercraft would be easier to balance than Stukas vs. Mustangs. Because then there wouldn't actually be different factions, just team A and team B!

Factional warfare doesn't exist when you give everyone the same toys. If the IS gets to run with Clantech, they're just another Clan (or the Clans are just another House), all of which will simply use the best tools for the job as you'll have taken the simple road to hell as far as MWO goes.

Behold, the mighty Clan Wolf, with their legions of....Jenners, because they're better than Kit Foxes! Such faction. Much flavor. Wow.

Lo, I saw the Federated Commonwealth take the field with their legion of Summoners, because Clan Ultra-20's are best dakka and Davvies only use the biggest dakka! Compensating for something, as we say in the Confederation.

If you're giving everyone the same toys, then we'll all be the same and using the best toys in the toybox.

Everyone will be exactly the same.

[Corvus Antaka]

I'd prefer 12v12 with clans taking a tonnage penalty of 10-25 or 33% even to balance things out. tonnage penalty could be tuned after trying 12v12 with equal tonnages and better clantech and seeing how balance comes out.

I do like the idea of 12v10 with equal tonnages / of balanced tonnages if needed as an option though.2 stars vs 3 lances just seems fun lore wise.

[Craig Steele]

wanderer, on 15 February 2014 - 07:37 PM, said:

The commander of a force makes the bidding process happen, not his subordinates. So if a Star Colonel has a Cluster, Stars from a Trinary/Supernova will be bid away as part of the process, or even entire Binaries/Novas or a full Trinary or more in rare cases. This actually means a "Trinary" drops short in many cases as part of the normal bidding system, because if there's a bid process for what part of a force gets to hit an objective, it's almost inevitably below the full TO&E...

Although it HAS happened that a Clan has bid -one- pilot to take a world.

And it worked. That'd be Phelan Kell. He ended up taking Gunzburg without a shot fired, single-handedly.

Yup, I did use illogical extremes to demonstrate the point. That its not the ego of the most junior inexperienced pilot that determines what force tackles an objective.

Canon simply does not reflect the scenario where Binaries where the predominant tactical deployment. It just doesn't. A Star commander simply didn't pipe up and say "hey, with another Star I'll do it" and Star captains didn't say "You know what, I'm pretty good how about I drop a Star"

We can argue the theory and the bidding process is quite engaging, but if anyone wants to represent that Binaries vs companies was canon they're just plain incorrect. Which btw is the only point of my original post.

There was a chain of command, and Trinaries / Stars were the tactical deployment. Bidding below cut downs were only engaged when someone thought they knew more than someone else, not when they wanted to demonstrate how good they are. Rasalhague and the virus, Phelan at Gunzburg are clasic examples of this.

But the vast majority of engagements were executed as ordered by the senior officer according to his plan.

wanderer, on 15 February 2014 - 07:48 PM, said:

And you know, WWII games where the German faction could use Mustang fightercraft would be easier to balance than Stukas vs. Mustangs. Because then there wouldn't actually be different factions, just team A and team B!

Factional warfare doesn't exist when you give everyone the same toys. If the IS gets to run with Clantech, they're just another Clan (or the Clans are just another House), all of which will simply use the best tools for the job as you'll have taken the simple road to hell as far as MWO goes.

Behold, the mighty Clan Wolf, with their legions of....Jenners, because they're better than Kit Foxes! Such faction. Much flavor. Wow.

Lo, I saw the Federated Commonwealth take the field with their legion of Summoners, because Clan Ultra-20's are best dakka and Davvies only use the biggest dakka! Compensating for something, as we say in the Confederation.

If you're giving everyone the same toys, then we'll all be the same and using the best toys in the toybox.

Everyone will be exactly the same.

I am on the same page as you here Wanderer, but I think we are both going to be disappointed. PGI have clearly stated any pilot can have Clan mechs, regardless of faction.

Edited by Craig Steele, 15 February 2014 - 09:24 PM.

[GalaxyBluestar]

Craig Steele, on 15 February 2014 - 09:23 PM, said:

I am on the same page as you here Wanderer, but I think we are both going to be disappointed. PGI have clearly stated any pilot can have Clan mechs, regardless of faction.

well the interesting part is the word of the devs are very fragile ones no matter how clearly they say it.

GalaxyBluestar, on 12 February 2014 - 11:13 PM, said:

should i believe this...

https://twitter.com/...659678791192576

or this

https://twitter.com/...855070472515584

3pv... need we contemplate more?

[MustrumRidcully]

stjobe, on 15 February 2014 - 01:39 AM, said:

I wonder if those people would ***** and moan about not being able to e.g. play ice hockey with their friends without buying skates, pads, and a stick?

And then complain that they have to pick a side, and then that they can't score in either net.

I mean come on.

And on the "faction will not determine 'mech availability", I'm pretty sure that just means that you as a player can purchase any 'mech - not that you can drop with it in any match you like.

But I already got skates, pads and a stick. They are just from another brand than my friends have. But the guy owning the ice hockey field doesn't let people that use that brand play on the side of the people with different brands.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 16 February 2014 - 01:37 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Mr G, on 15 February 2014 - 02:26 PM, said:

then what you want to do is create a player run league after clan mechs and private lobbies are out. Create your own rule set for matches and try and gather a following to play in that style of game. don't forget to bring only stock mechs when you drop as IS vs the Clanners.

Now the vast majority of us want an overall fair and balanced game. Where one particular tech tree, weapon group or type of mech isnt vastly superior to the others so that there can be multiple effective play styles.

No I want the game I was told I was getting before I became a Founder. I was told I would get to play as a House Faction or Merc in the 3050 Clan Invasion. It would be PvP and played on a 1day real time equals one day game time. That is the game I signed up for.

There was no word that Clans would be Nerfed, That their Omnis would not be equipped with fully cusomizable weapon pods. To me, it is all the rest that needs to have custom lobbies. The game I invested in was a universe spanning PvP War Game. The rest of the community seem to want Solaris 7, I want the Clan Invasion!

[Joseph Mallan]

Varent, on 15 February 2014 - 12:20 PM, said:

so can I. But also keep in mind the bracket itself is not aimed at you. The micro-transaction bracket is essentially aimed at the teenager-early 20's crowd. The ones that will bug there parents for a few bucks to throw down towards a game.

This is mostly because they are simply MUCH more numerous. While I for example am of an older generation and will throw down hundreds of dollar im simply outnumbered by the amount of young gamers who will throw down 80 bucks tops. But that money adds up alot quicker in sheer numbers alone.

While they may cater to as many groups as they can. As a business its more important for them to cater to the groups that bring them the most money overall.

My own personal opinion is that I feel the game should be balanced as a shooter but should offer a decent mechwarrior feel. Wich I believe it will do to a degree with CW. Its to soon to tell though on that matter since YES, its still in beta... basically.

So we are on different paragraphs of the same page I think. We don't agree, on the how, but we are looking at the same problems. I'm good with that.

[Khobai]

Quote

the micro-transaction bracket is essentially aimed at the teenager-early 20's crowd.

Actually its aimed at everyone. Its a known fact that once you get someone to spend money once theyre more likely to spend money in the future. And microtransaction increases the chance of someone spending money the first time considerably.

[wanderer]

Craig Steele, on 15 February 2014 - 09:23 PM, said:

There was a chain of command, and Trinaries / Stars were the tactical deployment. Bidding below cut downs were only engaged when someone thought they knew more than someone else, not when they wanted to demonstrate how good they are. Rasalhague and the virus, Phelan at Gunzburg are clasic examples of this.

But the vast majority of engagements were executed as ordered by the senior officer according to his plan.

...which was determined via a bidding process. Yes, Trinary formations were what you sent out on the Dropships- after all, you -could- send up to your opening bid, though at loss of face. The general results of a bidding process nibbled away Stars from that Trinary- sometimes it's support elements of aerospace or powered armor, sometimes up to striking an entire 'Mech Star from a Trinary, meaning that more often than not, a Trinary did NOT drop at full strength, and quite frequently at less.

That was the whole purpose of the cutdown- the Clan estimation of the strength of the defending force, giving rival commanders the opportunity to take that objective with minimal force- that is, their initial force would have to have fat to trim, or the entire bidding process would be un-needed. While a Trinary was the "full force"...

If the standard force was a Trinary and the whole Trinary usually dropped vs a single IS 12-man company, it would indicate that the Clan force felt itself -inferior- to the defenders, a status that any Clanner would find intolerable and shameful.

Therefore, the odds that you'd dump 15 Clan 'Mechs on a numerically and technologically inferior IS company of 12 would be laughable ones. Especially, one might say for hardcore types like the Falcons, who considered Inner Sphere units degenerates to begin with and would hardly offer them a fight that treated them like equals.

Consider that at Luthien, Clan Nova Cat and Smoke Jaguar had the audacity to consider 'Mech odds of approximately 5:1 (18 Clusters vs. 36 regiments) to be a fair fight- and in losing, left even the most elite and well equipped opposing forces halved, while many were obliterated or reduced to one-third their active combat strength or lower....and that was facing five times their number. 10v12 would be considered barely making an effort at bidding by comparision, and against weaker forces, there's examples where Clan forces would bid a single Star/Nova vs. a lower-tech IS company by comparison, roughly 3:1 to 2:1 odds!

[Varent]

Khobai, on 16 February 2014 - 09:02 AM, said:

Actually its aimed at everyone. Its a known fact that once you get someone to spend money once theyre more likely to spend money in the future. And microtransaction increases the chance of someone spending money the first time considerably.

You nailed it. They are looking for the first few easy dollars. Wich is what micro transactions are good at. Hence they are aiming at the crowd wich will do that instead of the long term loyalists.

Joseph Mallan, on 16 February 2014 - 09:00 AM, said:

So we are on different paragraphs of the same page I think. We don't agree, on the how, but we are looking at the same problems. I'm good with that.

With the exception of the fact I do believe its offering a decent MechWarrior feel. WIth the exception of the prevalence of jump snipers. Which I do feel can be properly alleviated by changing the way JJ work.

[TehSBGX]

Varent, on 15 February 2014 - 11:26 AM, said:

clanners are very honorable. they also are very respectful among there own group and respectful among warriors they deem as good quality. If someone can beat them they are deserving of respect.

If you beat a gamer they will rage at you, call you a n00b and rant etc. Gamers do not have honor IM afraid. its simply a fact, not a judgement.

This is an online competitive shooter Joseph. Balance is important, not an uphill battle.

Some do, When Some one beats me because They're better than me I own up to it. Some Times I even Tell them they're good.

Although I'm in a Similar boat with Joe when It comes to Faction Pride. I will always use an IS Mech, and I will proudly Defend the Federated Suns with my Life.

[Craig Steele]

wanderer, on 16 February 2014 - 05:03 PM, said:

...which was determined via a bidding process. Yes, Trinary formations were what you sent out on the Dropships- after all, you -could- send up to your opening bid, though at loss of face. The general results of a bidding process nibbled away Stars from that Trinary- sometimes it's support elements of aerospace or powered armor, sometimes up to striking an entire 'Mech Star from a Trinary, meaning that more often than not, a Trinary did NOT drop at full strength, and quite frequently at less.

That was the whole purpose of the cutdown- the Clan estimation of the strength of the defending force, giving rival commanders the opportunity to take that objective with minimal force- that is, their initial force would have to have fat to trim, or the entire bidding process would be un-needed. While a Trinary was the "full force"...

If the standard force was a Trinary and the whole Trinary usually dropped vs a single IS 12-man company, it would indicate that the Clan force felt itself -inferior- to the defenders, a status that any Clanner would find intolerable and shameful.

Therefore, the odds that you'd dump 15 Clan 'Mechs on a numerically and technologically inferior IS company of 12 would be laughable ones. Especially, one might say for hardcore types like the Falcons, who considered Inner Sphere units degenerates to begin with and would hardly offer them a fight that treated them like equals.

Consider that at Luthien, Clan Nova Cat and Smoke Jaguar had the audacity to consider 'Mech odds of approximately 5:1 (18 Clusters vs. 36 regiments) to be a fair fight- and in losing, left even the most elite and well equipped opposing forces halved, while many were obliterated or reduced to one-third their active combat strength or lower....and that was facing five times their number. 10v12 would be considered barely making an effort at bidding by comparision, and against weaker forces, there's examples where Clan forces would bid a single Star/Nova vs. a lower-tech IS company by comparison, roughly 3:1 to 2:1 odds!

Canon doesn't support the scenario you are putting forward that in small scale actions, Binaries were the predominant tactical deployment.

Here's how canon lays it out for most engagements

Galaxy commander says to his 3 Star Colonels, the Galaxy is ordered to to take these 2 planets and have sufficient strength to conduct follow up attacks. Here is the intelligence reports from Comstar. These are the cutdowns I consider acceptable and bidding will be at .....

Star Colonel A reviews the data, develops a plan of attack and wins the bid with 2 trinaries from his cluster (in this example).

Star Colonel A call together his Star Captains and says, here's that plan, Trinary B will take objective C where the enemy has a battalion, Trinary D will split into Stars to take on these enemy companies here , here, and here to seize these objectives.

Clusters enters planet and issues batchall, opposition as expected, 2 battalions, OK. Proceed.

Trinaries / Stars deploy as ordered

The Trinary took the objective regardless of the oppostion, the Stars took their objectives. They followed orders. These were military operations that were objective based.

If the oppostion was less, they didn't stop to do bidding, they just crushed it and moved on. They fulfilled the Clans honour first, not theirs. If opposition was more, they called for help. Said "hey Colonel, things are tougher than you thought, we need help" And the Star Colonel would decide to break his bid or not, send another force from his cluster or redirect bid assets as he saw fit.

In theory a Star Captain might have said "You know what, I can take objective C with 2 stars" but to do so was to buck the chain of command and probably face a trial from his Star Colonel who already considered the Trinary was required (vis a vis, his lowest bid). So that Star Captain is basically making a vote of no confidence in his CO, pretty serious honour issue which was not done lightly.

Bidding was a serious cultural activity with some prestige attached to it, it was ceremoinal in many cases. Bidding was highly regarded as a skill in Clan culture. It was not something done in the cockpit on the way to an objective on the strength of a field intel report.

In theory it is possible for binaries to face companies, but in canon it isn't reflected as the predominant type of engagement.

Clans didn't feel bad about ending up with more strength on the battlefield, some of the lore's major inter clan battles reflect winning against superior numbers. They made judgements at the start, allocated forces and those forces followed orders. If they happened to have more they went in, if they didn't, they still went in.

Thats what canon reflects in the majority of cases.

[Cimarb]

TehSBGX, on 16 February 2014 - 05:21 PM, said:

Although I'm in a Similar boat with Joe when It comes to Faction Pride. I will always use an IS Mech, and I will proudly Defend the Federated Suns with my Life.

Faction pride is great, but if you are choosing to use inferior equipment and your team loses, those "lives" are on your head. Do you only use mechs that are created in Davion facilities? It's unlikely. It's like saying you will only drive an "American" car - there is not a single one that is 100% US-made.

[wanderer]

Craig Steele, on 16 February 2014 - 05:47 PM, said:

Bidding was a serious cultural activity with some prestige attached to it, it was ceremoinal in many cases. Bidding was highly regarded as a skill in Clan culture. It was not something done in the cockpit on the way to an objective on the strength of a field intel report.

In theory it is possible for binaries to face companies, but in canon it isn't reflected as the predominant type of engagement.

Clans didn't feel bad about ending up with more strength on the battlefield, some of the lore's major inter clan battles reflect winning against superior numbers. They made judgements at the start, allocated forces and those forces followed orders. If they happened to have more they went in, if they didn't, they still went in.

Thats what canon reflects in the majority of cases.

Perhaps we're not reading the same game here.

Batchalls, if you bid too much, your opponent would underbid you, fight, win, and leave you looking like an overcautious coward.

Win with less than the "cutout"? Great honor was yours. Have to call in reinforcements equal to the previous bid to your winning one? No loss of face. Call in your initial bid's worth to save yourself from a defeat? Embarassing for having bid poorly. Having someone who let you bid that high and conceded? A pathetic contest for glory that was over before it began, lazy and wasteful when Clan equipment could have been used elsewhere for more success.

Again, you tell me. What Clanner would gauge 15 Clan 'Mechs against 12 IS 'Mechs inferior to even a Clan solhama unit to even be -close- to a "cutout" level? For that matter, what do you think 15 Clan 'Mechs with TT-equivalent tech would do to an MWO company, considering they'd be 3 up and every 'Mech superior to their opponents? ROFLstomp. 12v12 for some PGI-forsaken reason? Again, a severe advantage to the Clan unit.

Again, how do you -think- a Trinary got sent out in the first place? Bidding. Competition. The first bid would generally be one's full force, and this would be trimmed down with bid and counterbid between the forces present until the one with the lowest bid proceeded.

Blood Legacy said:

"Good." Tapping out a series of keys, Natasha put her bid up on the screen. Phelan was relieved to see no icon representing the Dire Wolf because that meant the ship's awesome firepower would not be used to raze the planet. Only one five-pointed blue star with white trim appeared to represent Natasha's aerospace element. Likewise, Natasha allowed herself only one four-pointed green daggerstar with silver trim to represent Elementals. She even sliced out three of her nine MechWarrior stars.

Phelan glanced down at the small box worn on his jumpsuit belt. Its little LED remained dark, as did the unit on Ranna's belt. He knew that meant Natasha had bid away the Stars of which they were members. Even if Natasha won the bidding, neither Phelan nor Ranna would see combat. He turned to complain to the Black Widow, but saw that the LED on her notification device was not lit.

...

Marcos chuckled aloud, having anticipated her bid. His counter instantly flashed onto the screen. That bid deleted one of the Elemental Stars, leaving Marcos with four 'Mech Stars, one Star of fighters, and one Star of Elementals. When Natasha raised her hands in surrender, Marcos shot a triumphant fist into the air.

That's the first example in full of a bid, from Blood Legacy. In this case, the winner bid down from a full Cluster to two Binaries worth of troops- and note that Natasha cut a Star from three different Trinaries on the initial go, leaving each with...you guessed it, a Binary's worth of troops. The opposing forces were, groundwise slightly less than 4 -companies- of 3025-era 'Mechs, plus aerospace support. So, roughly 40ish IS 'Mechs vs. 20 Clan ones on the ground, plus Elementals. Slightly better than 2:1 odds- let's call it, oh...1.8 or so.

So there you go. Clear, perfect example of Clan bidding, Trinaries being bid down to Binaries, Clanners disdaining numberical superiorty as being a problem vs. superior Clan warriors.

So you tell me why the heck it isn't common when the very first example of a bid in print does exactly that, on both sides.

If anything, it was more like a Binary facing off against the equivalent of five lances, but hey, those were 3025-tech designs. Give em 3050-era tech and it'd have probably been 10 for every 16 IS troops on the planet, as the cutout would have been higher. Elite IS warriors in 3050 tech machines? Why....10v12 sounds like about as close as they'd cut it!

[Craig Steele]

wanderer, on 16 February 2014 - 10:54 PM, said:

Perhaps we're not reading the same game here.

Batchalls, if you bid too much, your opponent would underbid you, fight, win, and leave you looking like an overcautious coward.

Win with less than the "cutout"? Great honor was yours. Have to call in reinforcements equal to the previous bid to your winning one? No loss of face. Call in your initial bid's worth to save yourself from a defeat? Embarassing for having bid poorly. Having someone who let you bid that high and conceded? A pathetic contest for glory that was over before it began, lazy and wasteful when Clan equipment could have been used elsewhere for more success.

Again, you tell me. What Clanner would gauge 15 Clan 'Mechs against 12 IS 'Mechs inferior to even a Clan solhama unit to even be -close- to a "cutout" level? For that matter, what do you think 15 Clan 'Mechs with TT-equivalent tech would do to an MWO company, considering they'd be 3 up and every 'Mech superior to their opponents? ROFLstomp. 12v12 for some PGI-forsaken reason? Again, a severe advantage to the Clan unit.

Again, how do you -think- a Trinary got sent out in the first place? Bidding. Competition. The first bid would generally be one's full force, and this would be trimmed down with bid and counterbid between the forces present until the one with the lowest bid proceeded.



That's the first example in full of a bid, from Blood Legacy. In this case, the winner bid down from a full Cluster to two Binaries worth of troops- and note that Natasha cut a Star from three different Trinaries on the initial go, leaving each with...you guessed it, a Binary's worth of troops. The opposing forces were, groundwise slightly less than 4 -companies- of 3025-era 'Mechs, plus aerospace support. So, roughly 40ish IS 'Mechs vs. 20 Clan ones on the ground, plus Elementals. Slightly better than 2:1 odds- let's call it, oh...1.8 or so.

So there you go. Clear, perfect example of Clan bidding, Trinaries being bid down to Binaries, Clanners disdaining numberical superiorty as being a problem vs. superior Clan warriors.

So you tell me why the heck it isn't common when the very first example of a bid in print does exactly that, on both sides.

If anything, it was more like a Binary facing off against the equivalent of five lances, but hey, those were 3025-tech designs. Give em 3050-era tech and it'd have probably been 10 for every 16 IS troops on the planet, as the cutout would have been higher. Elite IS warriors in 3050 tech machines? Why....10v12 sounds like about as close as they'd cut it!

I think you're reading from that example what you want to to suit your point of view. Bidding away 3 stars is bidding away a trinary, not a star from each of three trinaries.

For space I won't pull apart every point but just one example to show you what I mean.

The winning bid in your example was 4 mech stars, an elemental star and an aerospace star. You interpret that as 2 binaries. It's far more likely it was the Star Colonels Command Star (you don't -think- he was going down?) and a trinary. Why, because why would any CO split up a tactical formation for the sake of giving someone else his chance of glory in battle? It just doesn't make sense with any understanding of the Clans culture and desire to prove themselves in battle. Tell me which planet it was and I'll check the actual deployments for you.

There are page after page of battle descriptions in the Invading Clans, Wolf and Jade Falcon source book and as I flick through them I don't see any references to binaries in the deployments. Ie, the force sent down to the ground by the Star Colonel.

But you would argue that once deployed, the trinary marches to the target and detects the opposition is a IS company and so in the cockpit, the junior command takes it upon himself to usurp his CO's bid / command and self regulates his force to ensure its competitive.

Never mind that field intel is notoriously error prone, never mind he is a soldier with an order to obey, never mind that the time they take to do so is time they grant the enemy to reinforce, redeploy, escape or whatever.

Military units have TO&E's for a reason. because those tactial formations are the foundation of their battle plans. They live in them, train in them, fight in them. If the Khan / Star Colonel thought a binary was right for the job, he would have bid it.

Edited by Craig Steele, 17 February 2014 - 12:57 AM.

[Craig Steele]

Actually I'll list them all from the source book.

Marcos Raddick commanded the 37th Striker Cluster

1st Wave, March 3050 Alleghe
Supernova Assualt (3 Nova Stars)

4th wave July 3050 Unzmarkt - edited, no aerospace?
Command Star Command Trinary
Command Star Striker Trinary
Alpha and Bravo Nova's of the Assault Trinary

The opposition was an armoured division scattered across the planet right? No battle mechs defending? The write up indicates two major battle sites so unless we accept that an armoured regiment could hold up the Wolves initial thrust it's safe to assume the defenders split their forces necessitating two tactical deplyments from the wolves (ie, two drops)

5th wave Nov 3051 Memmingen - this was the one?
Trinary Command
Assault Nova Star
Alpha Fighter Star

So what do we see here. That the Star Colonel bid forces from his TO&E in whole, in Unzmarkt he took 2 of 3 stars from the assault Nova (thats as close to binary as it gets). He did NOT bid 2 Binaries. He bid formations to from the TO&E for the objectives.

On Memmingen he bid the full Command Trinary plus a Nova, again full TO&E units with roundouts for the bid in TO&E formations.

If you think the source generalises I refer to the stated deployment for Gunzburg

Star Commander Phelan (Charlie Striker Star, 13th Wolf Guards, Alpha Galaxy)

The deployments are very detailed and I think they can be relied up as the basis of forces engaging in the field and they just don't support the scenario that binaries were the predominant tactical formation the Clans used. To argue that the junior officers initiated bidding enroute to the target on the basis of field intelligence is to just not understand the religion around the Clans bidding process.

Were binaries deployed, I am confident they were. I can go through all the books and find some I am sure. It makes sense that it occurred where a Star Colonel felt the objective warranted it.

If a Colonel won a bid on what he considers the minimum force required, it would be a very brave Captain to challenge his CO's judgement. After all, if the CO was so conservative to have built some 'fat' in, he would not have won the bid.

Edited by Craig Steele, 17 February 2014 - 12:45 AM.