68 replies to this topic

[Accused]

Argo allows for a pretty good in-universe excuse for respawns just like in a CW drop deck. Could use this as the basis for potential gameplay modes. Pick 4 mechs and have them drop from an Argo.

Also needed an excuse to post pictures.









{note}: think the gifs are working now...

Edited by Accused, 08 March 2016 - 06:20 PM.

[Mcgral18]

The Argo itself cannot land; it drops the ships via Leopard (just like MWO).

The Argo can cannot load the Leopards though either.

Edited by Mcgral18, 08 March 2016 - 06:59 PM.

[Durant Carlyle]

Hopefully never. There should never ever be respawns in Quick Play.

Faction Play needs to remain unique, and the drop deck is a major part of that.

The only reason they have the Argo in BattleTech is that the players will be controlling multiple 'Mechs at a time and need a base of operations to do that.

[LordNothing]

i love the spacecraft design in lore. its got such a hard scifi feel to it. i like my scifi hard.

[Dr Mlem]

Durant Carlyle, on 08 March 2016 - 01:35 PM, said:

Hopefully never.

[SpiralFace]

Mcgral18, on 08 March 2016 - 01:33 PM, said:

The Argo itself cannot land; it drops the ships via Leopard (just like MWO).

The Argo can load the Leopards though.

Yeah, I'm curious as to how this thing attaches to Jump ships though.

In BT fiction, Dropships are designed explicitly for inter-system transportation, so those leopards alone should be enough to transport themselves throughout an individual system and all the way up to the systems Zenith and Nader points. But the ship seems too small to fit a KF drive to make hyperspace jumps to become an inter galactic vessel.

Its interesting to think of it as an intra-system wide drop ship delivery system, but it seems like a redundant need when the Dropships themselves can do that. But if this thing is too massive to dock with a jump ship, it almost seems like a waist of a space craft. Since Dropships alone can act as inter-system travel, while there is still a need for Jumpships for Intergalactic travel.

[Mcgral18]

SpiralFace, on 08 March 2016 - 01:58 PM, said:

Yeah, I'm curious as to how this thing attaches to Jump ships though.

In BT fiction, Dropships are designed explicitly for inter-system transportation, so those leopards alone should be enough to transport themselves throughout an individual system and all the way up to the systems Zenith and Nader points. But the ship seems too small to fit a KF drive to make hyperspace jumps to become an inter galactic vessel.

Its interesting to think of it as an intra-system wide drop ship delivery system, but it seems like a redundant need when the Dropships themselves can do that. But if this thing is too massive to dock with a jump ship, it almost seems like a waist of a space craft. Since Dropships alone can act as inter-system travel, while there is still a need for Jumpships for Intergalactic travel.

The Argo is the jump ship. It has 57000 tons of cargo capacity, to the 1900 mass of the Leopard...but apparently they attach via elevator/docking port (to transfer mechs and supplies), and does not load/encompass the Dropship itself.


Maybe.

Quote

Ground vehicles and ‘Mechs were not expected to deploy directly from the Argo, so it lacks external bay doors; deploying a ground unit meant transferring the unit along the spinal elevators to a waiting Leopard (or comparable) DropShip, from which the unit would deploy.

It has fighters inside it, though.

[0bsidion]

The Argo doesn't really make much sense for MWO. They weren't exactly mass-produced, there are only 2 of them in the BT universe, and one got scrapped pretty early on.

Plus as other posters have mentioned, it isn't meant for atmospheric flight/maneuvers. So unless PGI goes hog wild and implements Aerotech, we'd never see an Argo even if it was in the game somehow.

Edited by 0bsidion, 08 March 2016 - 02:28 PM.

[SpiralFace]

Mcgral18, on 08 March 2016 - 02:05 PM, said:

The Argo is the jump ship.

It is not.

Feel free to re-read the update fiction for it. It explicitly says that it is a "drop ship" as it is ferried into a system via jump ship just like every other base.

I guess its redundant nature is why they supposedly only built two of them. As its supposed to essentially be an "inter-system field base" that can be shuttled to a system via jump ship, but then acts as a C&C center for a prolonged campaign.

[0bsidion]

SpiralFace, on 08 March 2016 - 02:25 PM, said:

It is not.

Feel free to re-read the update fiction for it. It explicitly says that it is a "drop ship" as it is ferried into a system via jump ship just like every other base.

I guess its redundant nature is why they supposedly only built two of them. As its supposed to essentially be an "inter-system field base" that can be shuttled to a system via jump ship, but then acts as a C&C center for a prolonged campaign.

It seems weird they even called it a drop ship, as it isn't intended to actually 'drop' anything. From the fluff it's basically a mobile space station.

[SpiralFace]

Pretty much. After re-reading the fiction it makes a bit more sense as this facility kind of "pre-dates" modern dropship C&C setups like the Overlord (which already does everything this thing does and then some.)

The thing is a relic of the early expansion into the inner sphere before the star-league even existed. So its redundancy over just a regular dropship can be sort of explained away that way. (Although yes it is weird that a dropship can't really "drop" into a system, but then again, neither can the canon Behemoth class dropship. )

[Metus regem]

pfft


I want one of these:



http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Avalon


She can deploy 6 drop ships and has enough fire power to wipe out entire mech regiments in the blink of an eye.

[CDLord HHGD]

YEAH! OMG! I got this update too. I DL's all the pics but the Argo looks more like a Jumpship than a Dropship (ie it carries a Leopard). Still cool though. I was debating posting it, glad you did.

[pbiggz]

Jump ships can't get into orbit around planets. They have to stay near zenith or nadir jump points above or below the star's orbit plane. Looks like the argo dropship is an in lore retcon to make respawn dropships potentially viable, considering the trip between an argo dropship and the battlefield is much shorter than the trip between the zenith/nadir jump point and battlefield.

A jumpship has a set of argos mounted to it, and the argos carry enough leopards to drop 48 mechs. Makes sense to me!

[Impyrium]

Wow, that is a gorgeous model. PGI, plz get their modelers to make you things.

[SpiralFace]

pbiggz, on 08 March 2016 - 02:50 PM, said:

Jump ships can't get into orbit around planets. They have to stay near zenith or nadir jump points above or below the star's orbit plane. Looks like the argo dropship is an in lore retcon to make respawn dropships potentially viable, considering the trip between an argo dropship and the battlefield is much shorter than the trip between the zenith/nadir jump point and battlefield.

A jumpship has a set of argos mounted to it, and the argos carry enough leopards to drop 48 mechs. Makes sense to me!

Technically speaking, Drop ships can always reinforce from on-planet. Its not like this is some kind of justification of anything, in fact they go out of the way to state that only two of these things where ever made, and they didn't have a military purpose, they where civilian vessels for deep space exploration and colonization.

For the most part, Battletech drop ships in of themselves make these things redundant. Their C&C purpose is nothing that an Overload dropship can't already accomplish. or just have the lepords sit in orbit. (its not like they need to be docked to anything anyways.) They can already make it to a system's Zenith and Nader points on their own power.

[Khobai]

Quote

Hopefully never. There should never ever be respawns in Quick Play.

All gamemodes except skirmish should have respawns.

Because without respawns, every gamemode just becomes skirmish anyway...

[CDLord HHGD]

pbiggz, on 08 March 2016 - 02:50 PM, said:

Jump ships can't get into orbit around planets. They have to stay near zenith or nadir jump points above or below the star's orbit plane. Looks like the argo dropship is an in lore retcon to make respawn dropships potentially viable, considering the trip between an argo dropship and the battlefield is much shorter than the trip between the zenith/nadir jump point and battlefield.

A jumpship has a set of argos mounted to it, and the argos carry enough leopards to drop 48 mechs. Makes sense to me!

Could be a Warship... but yeah, 3025, only a Drop Ship or Jump Ship. Technically there's nothing stopping a Jumpship from going in-system, but like you said, that's what Dropships are for. Since the Argo doesn't look like it can enter an atmosphere it's disqualified from being a "Dropship" with the only other exception being the (damn, can't find it, I thought there was one dropship not able to land per lore).

Maybe as you said, retcon and insert an "intermediary" dropship class that takes dropships to a planet for deployment that itself houses the support for the smaller dropships/Leopards. I would think though that the Union dropship would obsolete the Argo as being an all-in-one and obviously the Argo cannot carry a Union like it apparently does the Leopard. This would mean that the Leopard is incapable of interstellar travel (from Jumpship to planet).

NEED MOAR DATA!

Edited by cdlord, 08 March 2016 - 03:42 PM.

[Novakaine]

No cheesy respawns.

[Durant Carlyle]

Khobai, on 08 March 2016 - 03:33 PM, said:

Because without respawns, every gamemode just becomes skirmish anyway...

Not if you're doing it right.