35 replies to this topic

[Strum Wealh]

As for the orbital bombardment issue:

1.) Article II of the Ares Conventions specifically forbids "use of orbital assets to bombard stationary targets (as defined in Appendix B, Section 4) on a planetary surface with the single exception of a valid military objective whose destruction the attacker deems necessary to ensure the survival of his own troops".
(However, it should be noted that the Ares Conventions were actually rescinded by the original Star League in 2579, but that "despite no longer part of a binding treaty, the Ares Convention continue to be seen as the guide for civilized warfare".)

2.) With the Succession Wars came the loss of all known WarShips (except those mothballed and hidden by ComStar and those taken by Kerensky's Exodus Fleet) and (outside of ComStar) the knowledge of how to produce "transit drives" (the conventional drive systems that would allow a JumpShip or WarShip to move away from a jump point and actually travel and maneuver at any meaningful/useful velocities in real-space).
That the ability to produce more-resilient, military-grade hyperdrives (the "Compact K-F Drive") was also lost didn't help; with only the more-fragile and bulky "civilian-grade" K-F Drives available, even trying to, say, retrofit the thrusters from a DropShip to create a "makeshift Warship" would have only resulted in a large, fragile, and slow target.
That being said, some JumpShips (such as the Invader-class and the Tramp-class) do mount just enough armor and light weaponry to protect themselves against asteroids and comets, and to deter piracy.

[Scabrous]

Because Btech started as a game about space knights in giant suits of armour beating one another up. Everything spirals from there. Modern day weaponry is bad compared to btech weaponry Because (also a Fiat to stop a tidal wave of "could an M1A2 Abrams beat an Atlas" and like **** from people who try to take btech tech and fiction straight). Tanks are inferior to Mechs Because. This **** goes on and on.

Another great part is how in the fluff battles seem to run for days, weeks, or more but given what turn length is in TT your average ammo based mech runs out of ammo in minutes, and mechs can die in single rounds of shooting.

You might as well just get into it not be serious and Giant Robot Fighting your way to victory.

[Tavington]

I enjoy Wh40k, how serious can I be? But still thanks for all your opnions.

[Scabrous]

Tavington, on 17 July 2012 - 05:18 AM, said:

I enjoy Wh40k, how serious can I be? But still thanks for all your opnions.

Like, battletech fiction needs to be taken thousands of times less seriously than WH40K. 40k suffers from a serious case of grimdark, some pretty serious big numbers problems but there's a degree of cohesiveness to it. Btech's even more obviously derivative (see: the Unseen) drawn from a wild number of sources, poorly balanced, with an dis-unified canon (40k also suffers from this, but that whole big numbers problem helps hide a lot of it) and even worse tries to unify itself kind of sort of in actual technology.
The problem is in 40k you can accept the warp is a thing Because and the technology is actually straight up magic either literally or figuratively depending on the race but in btech you have issues like stackpoling (how is it a fusion engine explodes again?) and other minor technological quirks (whole mb of data revolutionizing technology sphere wide overnight when the helm datacore is discovered) that really does a nasty job of drawing you out of the fiction.

its like the earlier problem I alluded to, the tank one. There's a tenuous connection to reality that exists in Btech and it makes a tiny effort to ground its technology in more than handwaving.

This is a lot of words, but the problem is Btech is trying to be sci-fi, where 40k is essentially fantasy. The problem is Btech is Bad sci-fi.

[Oy of MidWorld]

As stated above, Battletech is not sci-fi, it's some kind of space fantasy (like star wars), which just happens to look sci-fi, since it is dirty and gritty and has no aliens. It's not trying to be sci-fi.

It's a tabletop game from the eighties. Sci-fi elements from that era generally don't translate well into modern day. Just look at the monocrome tube screens in alien. Where have all the flatscreens in truecolor gone? BT is supposed to be fun, and (like star wars) has a dense and rich lore.

So there's no problem. Someone who doesn't like it, doesn't have to play it.

[Tavington]

Scabrous, on 17 July 2012 - 05:33 AM, said:

The problem is Btech is Bad sci-fi.

Hehe, ok, I had this thought too, but didnt dare to write it done. I liked your Post and draw my hat to you, brave Sir!

Even if it is bad Sci Fi, I like it.

[Scabrous]

Nah man, I'm not saying I don't like it, I'm saying its fiction/technology/canon background/ingame timeline are jarring, confusing, irrational, cobbled together and generally suffer as you said from a bad case of the 80's. I agree the lore is dense, but its not exactly rich, unless you mean rich as in fertilizer.

Its a great sandbox, a good (if poorly balanced game) and individual pieces of it can be amazing, but that doesn't mean its above critique.

I completely agree its fantasy, by no means is it hard scifi, but its in this awkward gap where it can't completely give up the real world and wholeheartedly leap into Works Because I Say So bullshit like Star Wars or the aforementioned Warhammer 40000 do. That's what I'm trying to get at with my whole bad sci fi comment.

Edited by Scabrous, 17 July 2012 - 05:54 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

Scabrous, on 17 July 2012 - 05:33 AM, said:

This is a lot of words, but the problem is Btech is trying to be sci-fi, where 40k is essentially fantasy. The problem is Btech is Bad sci-fi.

You are right. When i told my girlfriend that i want a real Sic-Fi book because i don't have any she pointed at my library of 40k, BattleTech and JohnRingo... well for the most people Sic-Fi means space travel and other "magical" technology but when you want to dig beyond the surface you realzied that there is few substance. However 40k by Fantasy Flight Games give the whole universe a a better density of information.

[grimzod]

Tavington, on 17 July 2012 - 01:27 AM, said:

Hi Folks and BT Veterans,

I recently started reading BT Novels. Since BT takes place in a Universe with Spaceships and Fusion Reactors, is there an explanation somewhere, why the weapon ranges are so short?

Long Range Missiles with a range of max. a few thousand meters? AC, Railguns, Lasers with 1k max?
Aircrafts using direct fire autocannons and lasers?

Where are the "Im over the horizon and fire my XX km heat seaking missile"?
Where is the 1000 year old tank with a range of 4 or 5 km? The artillery with ranges of 40km+ ?
Why are there so few orbital bombardments?

I know, for the TT or PC Games, it is necessary to limit weapon ranges, but in novels, for the sake of immersion, there should be such things as real long range Missiles.

Or is there a reason for this, somewhere in the BT Universe, which explains the lack of long range weaponry?

I would love to hear your opions! (Since Im pretty sure, Im not the first one who mentions this, there should be a certain amount of arguments already. If there is a story/forum thread somewhere out there where this topic is discussed, a Link would be very nice.)

Thanks guys!

The ranges are plain wrong. They always have been and its always been a nitpick. I just play the game as it is written.

[Theodor Kling]

Karl Streiger, on 17 July 2012 - 06:12 AM, said:

You are right. When i told my girlfriend that i want a real Sic-Fi book because i don't have any she pointed at my library of 40k, BattleTech and JohnRingo... well for the most people Sic-Fi means space travel and other "magical" technology but when you want to dig beyond the surface you realzied that there is few substance. However 40k by Fantasy Flight Games give the whole universe a a better density of information.

Hehe.. good thing I got Dick and Asimov parked right under Battletech

[Mrllamaface]

I always assumed that since the gyro is linked directly to the pilots sence of ballance that mechs were for lack of a better word very dodgy.

[Mic Mahon]

Another way to look at the limited range could be the limits of the mech using the weapon. Bad targeting has been mentioned as well as the rules of war, but what if the mechs just dont have the power to use the weapon to what should be its full potential. This is seen when missle tanks pack just as much of a punch if not more so then a mech with what should be the same weapon. By focusing the power into a single weapon it becomes a serious threat even if its not a mech but a tank.

[GreyGriffin]

I actually read somewhere that during the early days of the Terran Hegemony that ECM and ECCM got so insanely tangled that weapons developers began focusing on relatively poorly guided weapons that relied on unjammable targeting, hence the current incarnation of Inner Sphere SRMS/LRMS. Observe the interaction with Artemis IV and Guardian ECM - the ECM simply negates the targeting bonus. If the technology is that easy to counter (and military technology is very difficult to keep secret in the BTU), it might be better to focus on making bigger, tougher machines that can get in close and brawl than on sophisticated guidance systems that'll be obsolete in a decade.

[Kraven Kor]

Tavington, on 17 July 2012 - 05:52 AM, said:

Hehe, ok, I had this thought too, but didnt dare to write it done. I liked your Post and draw my hat to you, brave Sir!

Even if it is bad Sci Fi, I like it.

Pretty much.

Every now and then, I wish someone would do a reboot of Battletech, and do it as gritty, "hard" sci-fi, but it is a pipe dream.

[DauntlessK]

I was pretty sure that in the beginning of the rulebook there was a paragraph that basically said "We know the ranges are ridiculously incorrect but for playability, it must be sacrificed. Otherwise tactics would be null as most weapons would allow you to pound eachother to dust miles away without barely having to move and that would take away from the stategic value of the game"

Obviously paraphrased as I can't seem to find the section. But that is basically it. As for 40k, as someone said before, the universe is so large that it is very difficult to say one thing is or is not canon. Because it IS very plausible for an advanced society to exist on one planet wherever. Some things I read in 40k though (i am a VERY avid 40k reader) still seem to break canon more obviously and overall it just depends on the writer. I particularly love the naval aspect of 40k, and it irks me that some books describe at great length each time a vessel warps how much preperation is underwent and how much the ship is locked down through transit, like the rogue trader series.. Then in some novels they REALLY don't even make it sound like going through the warp is at all dangerous or even uncomfortable (like ravenor series) That is just one example.

[Pht]

Tavington, on 17 July 2012 - 01:27 AM, said:

Hi Folks and BT Veterans,

I recently started reading BT Novels. Since BT takes place in a Universe with Spaceships and Fusion Reactors, is there an explanation somewhere, why the weapon ranges are so short?

Long Range Missiles with a range of max. a few thousand meters? AC, Railguns, Lasers with 1k max?
Aircrafts using direct fire autocannons and lasers?

Where are the "Im over the horizon and fire my XX km heat seaking missile"?
Where is the 1000 year old tank with a range of 4 or 5 km? The artillery with ranges of 40km+ ?
Why are there so few orbital bombardments?

I know, for the TT or PC Games, it is necessary to limit weapon ranges, but in novels, for the sake of immersion, there should be such things as real long range Missiles.

Or is there a reason for this, somewhere in the BT Universe, which explains the lack of long range weaponry?

Originally the ranges were short and they did it that way on purpose, in order to fit the limitation of gaming table sizes.

However, now, the ranges are no longer short, with the advanced rules, you can literally shoot out to the horizon with direct fire weapons ... normally about 35 miles away.

BT ranges aren't short anymore.