81 replies to this topic

[FupDup]

KraftySOT, on 20 March 2015 - 01:40 PM, said:

X lasers, X pulse lasers, Heavy, Binary, Blaser, its out of control lol

Micro lasers, theres gotta be more.

CHEMICAL LAZORS!

Also Re-Engineered Lasers. Variable-Speed Pulses. Laser anti-missile system. Improved Heavy Lasers. ER Pulses.


Were X-Lasers even canon? I know there's X-Pulse, but I don't remember regular X beamers.

Edited by FupDup, 20 March 2015 - 01:43 PM.

[KraftySOT]

Yeah no matter when I start a campaign, I dont have custom mechs for years generally. A small modification here or there sure.

If I have c3 theres no reason not to shove that, regardless of the cost, into every VTOL, Aero, and light mech I have.

FupDup, on 20 March 2015 - 01:41 PM, said:

CHEMICAL LAZORS!

Also Re-Engineered Lasers. Variable-Speed Pulses. Laser anti-missile system. Improved Heavy Lasers. ER Pulses.


Were X-Lasers even canon? I know there's X-Pulse, but I don't remember regular X beamers.

I dont think they were even canon.

Though its just as annoying that they have the 'extended range' rule, so you can fire beyond long range, with a higher penalty, which is meaningless for 1/1 pilots loaded with appropiate quirks and skills.

[Kristov Kerensky]

KraftySOT, on 20 March 2015 - 01:45 PM, said:

Yeah no matter when I start a campaign, I dont have custom mechs for years generally. A small modification here or there sure.

If I have c3 theres no reason not to shove that, regardless of the cost, into every VTOL, Aero, and light mech I have.



I dont think they were even canon.

Though its just as annoying that they have the 'extended range' rule, so you can fire beyond long range, with a higher penalty, which is meaningless for 1/1 pilots loaded with appropiate quirks and skills.

Like my David, 30 tonner with 12mgun and a 12 jump, pilot was so awesome that he didn't miss with the negs for a 12 jump behind his targets, which is all the David did, JUMP, mguns, dead Mech, JUMP, mguns, dead Mech, JUMP! Till I jumped in behind a Warhammer..damn flipping arms and PPCs already set to fire inside min...*sigh*

[Harrison Kelly]

KraftySOT, on 20 March 2015 - 01:16 PM, said:

Youre missing a key component here. The BV system. We sort of had a check on the meta, with R&R, but that went out of the window. There has to be a reason not to take the most biggest baddest most awesome gundam ever.

My point about the number of mechs is that without customization, you still have everything you could ever want. If were lacking one of the 'boats' you can add that chassis. You dont need all 2,400 since there are far less combinations of the dynamic of weight speed and firepower, than 2,400. You just need your Bombadier, your Stalker, your Firestarter, your Jager, your Atlas, etc. Theres a plethora of existing chassis that meet the need of every kind of player. You dont need vindicators, or trebuchets that are terrible, and are STILL terrible after customization.

Even people customizing their mechs turn their mechs into pre existing mechs. People turn their Cicadas into Hollanders, people turn their Stalkers into Supernovas, people turn their Banshees into Imps...

Theres plenty of ways to keep everyone and their brother from taking nothing but the best most awesome mechs.

And if your argument is that PGI is providing us good gameplay...youre ********.

Maybe, more lore based actually battletech based battletech games, might not do well. But this isnt doing well either, right now.

So you got hope, which might be a pile of feces, or just a pile of feces.

You might as well hope for MOAR LORE, since "gameplay" is clearly not PGIs strong point...either.

Look, you seem like a nice guy. Salty perhaps, but a passionate fan of the BattleTech universe. I dig that. I've liked the lore for a long time myself, even though I've never played TableTop, just both MechCommanders and all of the MW4 iterations. I just don't think you understand that your perspective just . . . doesn't work for an online PvP game. It never will.

If I was honest with myself, I probably would have preferred a single-player Mechwarrior game like that trailer showed several years ago, and maybe you would have too. But it wasn't marketable, so they went with online F2P. That was the developer's choice.

In this model, selling 'Mechs is probably PGI's main source of income. But they also can't make 2,400 individual models. In TableTop, it's fairly simple to add a new 'Mech and it doesn't even happen that often. They've had what, nearly 40 years to come up with new models? PGI would be doing well to get in all the timeline-specific 'Mechs. They also don't have 40 years to catch up. That's their cash cow, and they probably need to space out new 'Mech releases such that they maintain a fairly steady income stream.

This leads me to my next point. It's in PGI's best interest that all chassis be somewhat viable if they want to keep selling that chassis (and they do). It's in PGI's best interest that the chassis be somewhat balanced, or at least balanced enough to keep the playerbase happy. Now, balancing online PVP is like trying to hit a dartboard with a nerfgun from 50 feet away while riding in a speeding pickup truck on a dirt road while everyone else yells at you, so it's not easy and they're still working on it (and always will be).

The option to add 2,400 Mech chassis is not viable, never has been, never will be. Even having 240 total Mech chassis would be better than any other (official) MechWarrior game thus far, and THAT is definitely shooting for the moon. It takes too many resources.

Unlike in TableTop, where you can balance by numbers (Clan vs IS) and you can balance by economy (Battle Value, Repair and Re-Arm) or you just don't care about balance as long as it makes a good boss fight or campaign story, it is simply the worst possible idea to do so in an online F2P PVP game.

1) You want your F2P players to keep playing. Having them get run over by paying customers in fully kitted-out Omnis (even stock) with the full power of the lore-based Clans is a horrible experience. You can't balance by numbers when everyone is going to want to play the stronger faction and there's no reason to NOT play Clans outside of immersion if you go full-lore.
2) Repair and rearm costs punish new and especially F2P players incredibly heavily. One, they're not scoring as much damage, so their rewards are lower. Two, they're dying more often, so they're costing more.
3) Every single other online 'Mech game that was officially developed (yes, I'm aware of MWLL and the like) has had MechLab customization. (They're also not canon). People LIKE customizing their 'Mechs. The people who don't are . . . the lore-obsessed. The vast majority of people don't care that such-and-such model 'Mech wasn't released in 3052 so we shouldn't have it. The vast majority of people want to jump in a game and shoot stompy robots.
4) Frustrating the vast majority by having their stompy robot not only be inferior to someone else's stompy robot but vastly inferior and condemned to always be inferior is a hell of a way to retain your player base.
5) Shooting stompy robots is . . . fun. Having a wide array of weapons to choose from is . . . fun (if confusing at times). Having a wide array of stompy robots to choose from is also . . . fun (if confusing and very grindy at times). Getting to kit out your stompy robot is also fun. People like getting to make design choices if it's not too confusing and has some flexibility (see, every RPG and most modern FPS ever). There is a large percentage of the populace for whom it's as simple as that, and while that may not be you, their needs need to be catered to also. Especially since . . . they're the majority.

Now, you may know this already. You seem like a smart guy.

But the point that I want to drive home that I don't think you got the first time is that PGI needs to prioritize making good, fun, relatively-balanced gameplay that keeps players interested over the demands of adherence to lore, TableTop, or anything else but the success of MechWarrior online. Right now, we have a pretty decent game in terms of balance. Most weapons are viable and have their use. Most chassis are at least minimally viable, with some outliers. That's not nearly as terrible as you (and a lot of other lore-obsessed folks) would have us believe. It's even better than past MechWarrior games (ERLL and Light Gauss in MW4, anyone? Or laser spam in MW3?).

That's right, this game's 'Mech combat is amazing compared to previous MechWarriors.

In the end, maybe you're a guy who doesn't care about the realistic solution and you won't be happy until MWO is basically a 3-D representation of BattleTech, and you'll make forum posts to that end until the Spiders come home. That's your prerogative. But if you ever want to not be frustrated with this game, the first step comes with accepting that MWO is what it is: a F2P PVP game and the principles of making a good F2P PVP game trump everything else in terms of design priorities. Yes, MWO is set in the BattleTech universe, and yes, the BattleTech universe is awesome (and hopeless at the same time lol), but it is it's own thing, and keeping that going is more important than any lore, any rulebook, or any convention.

I've said my piece. You don't have to like it or agree with it, but that's pretty much the way things are and will be.

TL;DR Making a good game is more important than making a game that follows lore.

Edited by Harrison Kelly, 20 March 2015 - 02:40 PM.

[Senor Cataclysmo]

rolly, on 19 March 2015 - 10:58 AM, said:

Thanks for this post.

What sticks in my mind sideways is it seems having an Omnimech and variable pod layouts seems moot (I just bought my first Omni) All the benefits, ease of load out, repair, refit are lost in this game, in fact I have to spend more credits on pods, less than customizing an IS mech.

Even then, I buy these pods it doesn't seem like it will help me unlock other variants. Because the CT is a different mech. This too is completely anathema to clans way of life and efficiency to produce unique variants with quirks and the purpose behind Omni pods.

Perhaps I am mistaken but I should only need to buy a Loki ONCE, not three times just because the CT is different just to unlock efficiencies when for all intents and purposes I can build an Alternate Config directly from the Omnipods.

Can someone shed some light on this?

I quite agree, I'd love to see a different mastery/XP system for omnimechs. A Mad Dog A isnt a different mech from a Mad Dog B, theyre just different pod loadouts on the same chassis.

[KraftySOT]

My salt can line enough margaritas for an entire division.

Harrison Kelly, on 20 March 2015 - 02:35 PM, said:

TL;DR Making a good game is more important than making a game that follows lore.

I think its the same thing. I think the proof is in the fact that premier stompy robots franchise has never had a really really good PC game. All other franchises, take World War Two ones, have passed us by because theyre more respective of their "lore" and strive to be as much like it as they can.

Id say the same of superhero/comic book movies.

Less lore? Failures.

More lore? Success.

Everyone has been trying to "corerule ignore for gameplay" and its never worked. "When all other options are exhausted, the remaining, however unlikely, must be the truth."

[Lord0fHats]

At the end of the day, the entire logic the lore used to explain (and justify) the attributes of Omni-Mechs was really poorly written. The idea that every other military in the universe was too stupid or inept to figure out how to make a weapon system modular (even in an era of technological backtread) is the same kind of 80's silliness that led to a Star Trek episode solving a crisis of the week 40 minutes into the episode by literally turning the computer off and turning it back on again.

It just never made any sense. Lots of the lore of Battletech never any sense, which is why I can't help but groan everytime someone yells "but that's not the lore!" EDIT: There are few franchises, that so desperately need a complete reboot more than Battletech. If only so that all the lore stupidity, mary sueness, and poor writing can be removed.

Edited by Lord0fHats, 20 March 2015 - 03:58 PM.

[KraftySOT]

To be fair all of the Houses had the capabilities to customize these things to all heck, just not the money, need, or willpower.

Gotta remember mechs are still less than 10% of entire House forces, yet the most expensive.

Thats like "customizing" a B-52. Its battlefield changing when its there, but its standardized, you cant keep changing a B52 by its mission. The modular nature is that they, like a B52, can carry a different load for their weapons.

On something more simple, like a Savannah Master, you have a much easier time of switching out a Medium laser or 3 with an SRM. Like you can switch out a Tow with a .50 on a Humvee.

While alot of it never made any sense, this isnt one of those things. Its actually spot on for what in the 80s, war in 2010, extrapolated into the future, was supposed to be like. Back when "Landwarrior" was a thing, something like a Mech seemed obligatory. "Landwarrior suit take to an extreme" Instead of just being linked in to an entire network, you were also in a warmachine.

Mechs were top of the line when they were coming out in the 2400-2600 hundreds, and in their universe, along with nuclear weapons, put most of known space into the dark ages.

Edited by KraftySOT, 20 March 2015 - 04:07 PM.

[KraftySOT]

Whats unrealistic, is that in 30 years, they went from, on the brink of total collapse, to inventing new technologies and going from a handful of mechs a year on a handful of planets and a dwindling supply of parts, other than in Comstars vaults, to 100s a year, and going from no conscription to militaries of 10s of millions of conscripted (drafted) soldiers.

Even with the stupid Stackpole "Comstar gave us stuff!" plot device...theres no way the Inner Sphere was going anywhere but into oblivion and obscurity, until they (FASA) wanted MOAR MONEY.

Without Comstar setting up literally tens of thousands of universities and offering free admission theres no way in less than a generation the Inner Sphere went form 3025 shin kicking fest, to Light Gauss rifles.

THAT is freaking stupid.

The Inner Sphere should have collapsed just like the Holy Roman Empire did, and be replaced by entirely new cadres of power. The Word of Blake (The Reformation) should own huge swaths of territory.

All those plot devices are ridiculous.

Edited by KraftySOT, 20 March 2015 - 04:11 PM.

[KraftySOT]

When everyone got onto this band wagon back in the late 80s, there was no future for the IS. (there was no future for us either, it was the cold war, all of this ties in, its a part of the atmosphere)

You were playing in a time period right before humanity slipped into the distant memory of the universe. There was no coming back. It was the apocalypse. In space. You were just one of those Dark Age lords or dukes, with your steed and your levies, your expensive armor that could pay for your entire realms food for a year. Duking it out before God and Country slip away forever.

Then Clams happened.

Edited by KraftySOT, 20 March 2015 - 04:18 PM.

[Lord0fHats]

Quote

you cant keep changing a B52 by its mission

Except that you can. You can change its payload freely. And the idea that customizing an omni-mech would ruin it's modularity is really silly. So long as the parts are interchangeable, it won't effect anything.

The writers simply didn't seem to understand what being modular actually means, or how interchangeable parts work. Any weapon system as complex and expensive as a battlemech (ignoring the entire idea of giant warbots is kind of unrealistic we just run with it because it's fething awesome) would be 'locked in' to a specific load out rather than being built as a variable platform like tanks and jets is really silly. One reason why I instantly liked MW more than BT. The mech customization threw that entire line of inanity out the window. It works when you're running with 'rules trump lore' but Battletech has always had the problem that it built really lore stupid to explain it's rules.

Quote

Whats unrealistic, is that in 30 years, they went from, on the brink of total collapse, to inventing new technologies and going from a handful of mechs a year on a handful of planets and a dwindling supply of parts, other than in Comstars vaults, to 100s a year, and going from no conscription to militaries of 10s of millions of conscripted (drafted) soldiers.

Well on that note it's also worth noting that it's pretty unrealistic that the Clans, on such barren resource devoid worlds, could actually become technologically superior to the IS and not suffer an even worse technological back step XD

Like I said. Battletech Lore is full of senseless, unrealistic, and brain dead ideas. We could make an entire thread just talking about that in itself

Edited by Lord0fHats, 20 March 2015 - 04:23 PM.

[KraftySOT]

Well thats the catch, they werent more technologicaly advanced than the Star League, they were just slightly more advanced than the IS. But still well below the technological level of when mechs were a new thing.

They made no progress. The IS made no progress. The clans just kept things from falling apart better.

And I said that about B52s you change the payload. You can change the payload of any IS mech, even in 3025. Thunder LRMs for instance. You could lay minefields with a mech. Very useful when most battles contained regular forces, like infantry and tanks. Being able to send out an LRM5 armed mech with Thunders to lay a mine field infront of an advancing force one mission, then using it support troops with HE armed LRM5s the next mission.

Just like how you can load APHE into a 20mm, or just HE, or HE-I, or Ball, or APCR, etc.

[LordKnightFandragon]

KraftySOT, on 20 March 2015 - 01:45 PM, said:

Yeah no matter when I start a campaign, I dont have custom mechs for years generally. A small modification here or there sure.

If I have c3 theres no reason not to shove that, regardless of the cost, into every VTOL, Aero, and light mech I have.



I dont think they were even canon.

Though its just as annoying that they have the 'extended range' rule, so you can fire beyond long range, with a higher penalty, which is meaningless for 1/1 pilots loaded with appropiate quirks and skills.

Oh god, is THAT where MWO got the double range rule from?

That rule needs to go away.

If this game had 1x ranges, alot of the maps would feel alot bigger....since a guy with a small pulse laser could drill you from 450m with it, and the guy with a CERLL couldnt hit you from Strana mechty, with you in the White house on terra....

I wonder how many balance issues 1x range would solve, and how many it would create.

ISML: 270m?
CERML: 405.....1x range? doesnt seem so bad now....doubled its 540 vs 810.....see, that is where the imbalance really comes in.

ISERLL: 675 x2 1350
CERLL: 740 x2 1480

AC20s short range x2 even makes that gun alot better then it otherwise would be, reduced damage or not. It would also make long range weapons like a AC2 and 5 alot more viable, since without those guns, you literally cant fire back, and a AC2 jager could spend all game keeping you out ranged....and well, it would vastly improve movement, range and tactical adn terrain ability of hte pilot...

CERPPC sitting at 810m while your poor stalker poking over that ridge with his 450m ISLL cant even touch me while im pegging his face with what I Wish was 15 dmg a shot.

Yeah, I think the 1x ranges would do this game a world of good. THose SPL mechs and their like sub 150m ranges....lol..getting sniped off before they even get in range cuz they thought running across open ground to get to that DWF was a good idea.

Lord0fHats, on 20 March 2015 - 04:22 PM, said:

Except that you can. You can change its payload freely. And the idea that customizing an omni-mech would ruin it's modularity is really silly. So long as the parts are interchangeable, it won't effect anything.

The writers simply didn't seem to understand what being modular actually means, or how interchangeable parts work. Any weapon system as complex and expensive as a battlemech (ignoring the entire idea of giant warbots is kind of unrealistic we just run with it because it's fething awesome) would be 'locked in' to a specific load out rather than being built as a variable platform like tanks and jets is really silly. One reason why I instantly liked MW more than BT. The mech customization threw that entire line of inanity out the window. It works when you're running with 'rules trump lore' but Battletech has always had the problem that it built really lore stupid to explain it's rules.



Well on that note it's also worth noting that it's pretty unrealistic that the Clans, on such barren resource devoid worlds, could actually become technologically superior to the IS and not suffer an even worse technological back step XD

Like I said. Battletech Lore is full of senseless, unrealistic, and brain dead ideas. We could make an entire thread just talking about that in itself

I thought Kerensky took a large portion of the SLDF and its stuff.....and whose to say those planets were void of material, having never been touched they probably had a vast array of untapped material. And being so far out in the middle of no where and using their test tube baby method, in 30 years, they could produce a very large army. And the more people they make, the more people they have to come up wtih ideas, and perfect their craft.

Edited by LordKnightFandragon, 20 March 2015 - 04:28 PM.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Damnit Krafty, you keep covering what I was going to say before I can get it together

[KraftySOT]

Changing an entire mechs arm out with an arm that contains entirely different weapons, they could do that during the Star League too.

Just those parts slipped into obscurity in the IS, and since there were SO MANY mech factories,and so many types of mechs (more than ever were in TROs) there was no reason to keep doing it.

Where as the clans, being utilitarian with only a few mech factories, had to have one mech, do many jobs.

Its actually easier to just have two mechs, one for one role, one for the other. Theyre more specialized, and when you have 5,000 mechs to choose from..

Where as the clans have around 120. So each mech has to do more. Its like how Mongols were both horse archers and swords man, a utilitarian society must be many things.

[Lord0fHats]

KraftySOT, on 20 March 2015 - 04:25 PM, said:

Well thats the catch, they werent more technologicaly advanced than the Star League, they were just slightly more advanced than the IS. But still well below the technological level of when mechs were a new thing.

That's what I mean. It doesn't make any sense that the Clans wouldn't end up worse off than the IS in this respect. Compare the collapse of the Roman Empire. Western Europe ended up in a considerable backslide culturally and technologically for a good century, but North Africa actually forgot how to use the wheel for nearly 300 years until the Muslim Conquests brought it back.

Edited by Lord0fHats, 20 March 2015 - 04:37 PM.

[KraftySOT]

I mean simply look at the size of the Sphere as opposed to Metchy. The Clans were working with maybe in total, 100 worlds, theres THOUSANDS in the Sphere.

One side is quality. The other is quantity. It makes for good gaming. Its like the Germans and the Soviets. One side is incredibly well armed, led, and trained, the other is huge.

Why switch a Vindicators AC5 arm for a LL and Heat Sink arm. Just take a Panther with a LL.

Then once everything fell apart, well then you had no spare parts to do this kind of thing, it became a matter of hamfisting something into where it didnt belong.

Like a battlefield mod a Tiger I, with its side skids and up barrelled 88. Not every Tiger had it. Or a Sherman with a 76mm. It could be done, but there was a limited supply.

Gearing is to explain, the more often you build a thing, the easier it become and the faster it takes to make it. Whereas a field mod, isnt geared, it takes longer to make one field mod, than to make an entirely new unit. So you have 80% of the Shermans in ww2 running around with 57mm guns, when they COULD have 76mm guns.

Thats totally realistic. Because it happened at the BEST of times, when nations were using their entire industrial bases for war.

When its the Space Apocalypse?

You do the math.

Lord0fHats, on 20 March 2015 - 04:34 PM, said:

That's what I mean. It doesn't make any sense that the Clans wouldn't end up worse off than the IS in this respect. Compare the collapse of the Roman Empire. Western Europe ended up in a considerable backslide culturally and technologically for a good century, but North Africa actually forgot how to use the wheel for nearly 300 years until the Muslim Conquests brought it back.

Not true at all.

Look at the Red Army vs the White Army in the Russian Revolution.

Who was the White Armies general? Yup. Alexander. Kerensky. He was a real historical figure. Guess what the White Army did differently than the Red Army? Quality, vs Quantity, in an empire that was collapsing. Kerensky took the Czars military and ran to Siberia and the Crimea, while the Red Army fought itself. When they finally came to blows again by 1920, the White Army was well equiped, well trained, and of much better quality than the Red Army, but the Red Army beat them because they had such a huge size advantage and all the industrial base.

All of Btech is based on real history.

Everyone from Mundo Waterly to Anastacious Focht are real people, who actually lived. Or well based on them.

Focht fought against Clauswitz at Liepzig.

Hanse Davion was the architect of the Hansetic League.

Kathrine Steiner was the queen of Saxony of signed over most of the Saxon Catholics to Austria.

Edited by KraftySOT, 20 March 2015 - 04:42 PM.

[Lord0fHats]

KraftySOT, on 20 March 2015 - 04:41 PM, said:

All of Btech is based on real history.

As a historian, i can faithfully tell you no it is not. What it does do is draw constant reference to history, but the references are mostly empty. Little more than names and basic events. Physical resources offer a real constraint on a society, and they really brushed that off with the Clans, saying they were trapped on resource deprived worlds and yet, hosted a more advanced military than the resource rich IS. <- That makes no sense.

Take your reference to the Eastern Front in WWII. It's myth. Tigers, Panzer IV's, and Panthers, throughout the war suffered production problems. Subpar parts and materials in construction became a problem Germany couldn't escape precisely because Germany was resource starved. Russia on the other hand (once it got over Stalin genociding its most talented officers, i.e. Mikhail Tukhachevsky) had one of the best operational organizational structures of the War. Germany stumbled into Blitzkreig by accident. Russia had created a concrete and define combat doctrine that far exceeded it by the late 1920's (Deep Battle). The T-34 was one of the best tanks of the war if not the best. And T-34 production alone exceeded the entirety German wartime armor production. The IS series heavy tanks were so advanced that when the US and UK saw them in 1945 both countries promptly freaked the feth out over them because their own tank programs (especially Britains) were mediocre in comparison. Quality vs Quantity is a misnomer created by armchair generals. They are not opposing ends. You can in fact have both. Russia did at the peak of the Soviet Union's power.

Resources matter. The IS became such a backwater worked in a vacuum on its own. The Clans coming in through quickly created a giant "wtf?" situation, which proceeded immediately to many more wtf?s.

[rolly]

Ahem* Back to my original question: Do I have to purchase all the bloody omni variants even though I can swap out nearly all the omni pods to become those variants? (Because that's what Omnimechs are all about.)

Sounds like an awful underhanded credit sink if I have to buy a whole brand new Omni JUST to unlock the variant when by the very nature omnimechs and Clan culture means they disdain uniqueness and efficiently produce mechs industriously.

[KraftySOT]

Lord0fHats, on 20 March 2015 - 05:10 PM, said:

As a historian, i can faithfully tell you no it is not. What it does do is draw constant reference to history, but the references are mostly empty. Little more than names and basic events. Physical resources offer a real constraint on a society, and they really brushed that off with the Clans, saying they were trapped on resource deprived worlds and yet, hosted a more advanced military than the resource rich IS. <- That makes no sense.

Take your reference to the Eastern Front in WWII. It's myth. Tigers, Panzer IV's, and Panthers, throughout the war suffered production problems. Subpar parts and materials in construction became a problem Germany couldn't escape precisely because Germany was resource starved. Russia on the other hand (once it got over Stalin genociding its most talented officers, i.e. Mikhail Tukhachevsky) had one of the best operational organizational structures of the War. Germany stumbled into Blitzkreig by accident. Russia had created a concrete and define combat doctrine that far exceeded it by the late 1920's (Deep Battle). The T-34 was one of the best tanks of the war if not the best. And T-34 production alone exceeded the entirety German wartime armor production. The IS series heavy tanks were so advanced that when the US and UK saw them in 1945 both countries promptly freaked the feth out over them because their own tank programs (especially Britains) were mediocre in comparison. Quality vs Quantity is a misnomer created by armchair generals. They are not opposing ends. You can in fact have both. Russia did at the peak of the Soviet Union's power.

Resources matter. The IS became such a backwater worked in a vacuum on its own. The Clans coming in through quickly created a giant "wtf?" situation, which proceeded immediately to many more wtf?s.

Yes it is. Its all based on the HRE (Holy Roman Empire). Comstar is the Vatican. Word of Blake is the Reformation. 3rd Succession war is the 100 years war. 2nd Succession war is the 7 years war. Ive gone over this about a thousand times on these forums.

Its an amalgamation ill grant you, but yes, everything is taken from real world history, and extrapolated into a sci fi adventure across the stars. The idea of Houses, their operational structure of Kingdoms and Duchies, Barons and Lords, levies, trade leagues, uninterupted shipping, rules of war that came about because of the 100 years war (Paris Accords, in BTech its the 'Ares convention')

A couple things about your eastern front synopsis, Germany was NOT short of resources other than perhaps crude, its industry was never mobilized to the degree of any other nation involved (even China). It had a burgeoning synthetic industry as did Japan. Its production problems for things like Tigers stemmed directly from the 'variant bloom' which saw such rapid changes in models from month to month some times. Tigers were overly complicated, and heavy tanks werent nearly the 'Thing™' anyone hoped them to be. Chars, Churchills, KV1s, IS2s, Tigers, Pershings, all of these tanks suffered massive mechanical and resource problems.

Russia also had Timenshenko, and everything Tuky ever wrote about Deep Battle and employed it by the last months of Barbarossa.

The plain truth is that the German army was the best led, best trained, most experienced, best equipped army on the planet, the moment they knocked France out of the war (who was technogically superior to them in many ways). The T-34 for instance was only "the best take of the war" because of the sum of its parts and its battlefield proliferation (so many of them).

It was far less complex or a technological marvel as even the Chech built Pz-38(t) or Hetzer TD. It was actually a pile of crap. There were just so many of them, shoved into Armored Corps, while Germany was rocking less than 1700 tanks on the Eastern Front, in divisions.

The Russians at the start of Barbarossa had almost 20,000 AFVs.

Germany had 3,500.

A BT-17 wasnt even a match for a Panzer I.