37 replies to this topic

[Mattiator]

I had so much fun tearing up Solaris VII in MekPak 3.1 with RL-toting 'Mechs. In that game, an RL-10 took up two slots, and weight a whole 1.5 tons, about as much as a small pulse laser, and shot faster than almost any other rocketry system. It ran out of ammo ludicrously fast, even if you increased the capacity from 20 to 40, but I always loved them as a complimentary weapon on my Hollander II to compliment my Med Lasers, along with that shiny Clan Gauss I salvaged. It never was the difference between victory and defeat, but man did it scare the hell out of friends in multiplayer. "What the HECK is that?" "Rocket Launcher, my boy."

While I wouldn't say that they NEED to be in the game at launch, if there's canonical evidence to support them within the timeline I say gimme my dumb-fire pew-pew missiles!

[VYCanis]

Dlardrageth, on 12 December 2011 - 12:08 AM, said:

I'd also like Stealth Armor option and Null-Signature System as customizeable upgrade for every Mech at game start right away. Then you can have your rocket launcher because it likely won't matter at all any more. You'd be most likely dead before even knowing what shot you. And how about Arrow IV system with nuclear warheads? Just because canon says... yadda-yadda. If PGI starts deviating with one weapon system, everybody has some "special consideration" that needs to be adressed suddenly.

Thus, I think, this is, most respectfully, a terribad idea. kthxbb

no one is talking about advanced equipment or equipment that doesn't exist. We are talking about low tech stuff that seems to have absurd introduction dates.

Best comparison i can think of would be if a modern military suddenly unveiled a perfectly normal spear as a new weapon, spent a bunch of R&D in developing it, and acted like it was totally new and hasn't been something that's been around since prehistory.

as for MRMs, yeah they are better in the long run. But if you are reduced to using RLs, you don't have the luxury of the long run. You are probably in the periphery fighting off handfuls of raiders using a grab bag of junkyard mechs where you need maximum firepower right now to give the enemy a bloody nose and send them to their maker or at least chase them off planet. Its not a weapon made for long drawn out campaigns. MRMs lean in that direction, of cramming as much missile spam into the least possible space. But RLs are a more extreme take on that concept and can turn any mech into an on the spot missile boat. For at least a few seconds anyway.

Edited by VYCanis, 12 December 2011 - 06:42 AM.

[Alizabeth Aijou]

Its a pity that I don't really know how megamek works, otherwise I'd try out the following:
1 Marauder with 6 MRM-10s and a LL vs. 1 Marauder using 46 RL-10s, an ML and a LL.
Both MAD-3R-based with 12 DHS. MRM-boat has CASE and C³Slave, RL-boat does not.
No armour/engine changes and no active C³ Networks (pointless in 1v1 anyway).
For the record, the RL-boat has a total of 46 shots available, the MRM-boat has 96 shots.

[Dihm]

I'm just trying to wrap my head around what a Marauder with 46 RL-10s would look like, and I oddly enough enjoy the imagery.

[feor]

I think the trick is not so much that these low tech weapons hadn't been discovered yet. I think it's just that there was no real impetus to develop them.

To a certain extent, RL on mechs would be comparable to outfitting an F-15 with a V1 rocket. Will it work? Sure, it'll blow something to kingdom come. But why would you when you can mass produce modern air-to-ground missiles? LRMs are dirt simple to make in the Inner Sphere (or even the Periphery) and only a sever resource shortage in the Marian Hegemony prompted them to deploy Rocket Launchers.

Likewise, there wasn't any real need for light or heavy Machine Guns until the Inner Sphere got a hold of battlearmour tech. The primary use of a Machine Gun has always been anti-infantry work. The clans didn't really need specialized equipment for dealing with Elementals because they could confidently say that the majority of the time a mech would face 5 elementals. However the Inner Sphere doesn't adhere to those rules, suddenly a mech may find itself swarmed by a platoon of power armoured infantry. Hence the development of the LMG (cause it's harder to keep battle armour in range of a MG) HMG (for breaching BA armour) and B-Pod. (first developed by Clan Wolf-in-Exile)

[Barantor]

I'm fine with lower tech added, but try not to compare it with MW4 otherwise we would end up with MWO the same way as that game with Assaults ruling the roost. Since they have said that all weight classes are available early on it stands to reason that the armor boosted stats of MW4 are a thing of the past.

I like the thought of RLs as a cheap weapon system, so long as we allow canon to dictate their availability and such. Periphery states and pirates would be more likely to use them rather than the big houses though.

[Halfinax]

Gotta to admit I want rocket launchers if for nothing other than being able to field a ARC-6W. They aren't effective for long, but at very least they are intimidating when fresh, and devastating for a couple of ambushes.

[Tierloc]

I would like to see inferno rocket launchers.

[VYCanis]

Tierloc, on 12 December 2011 - 09:58 AM, said:

I would like to see inferno rocket launchers.

behold the fire god

Edited by VYCanis, 12 December 2011 - 10:05 AM.

[Brakkyn]

We're talking about a fictional, alternate universe, not looking at what we have now and wondering why BattleTech doesn't have it for another 500 years.

Stick to the canon.

[Torment2]

Where is the incentive to break canon though? I see 0 reason to do so. Will it improve gameplay?

I'm not arguing against the want for customization but when you start down the slope of allowing the most extreme designs like the RL one, is it in the best interest of the game or the people who have followed this IP for decades? I think not. A pilot would never decide to go out in a mushroom cloud blaze of glory unless he had no other reason to. He'd likely be shot by his own side tbh.

You should be able to modify your mech, however in the IS it took a prohibitive amount of C-Bills and time to do it. That's why it wasn't widely used.

Edited by _Torment_, 12 December 2011 - 10:30 AM.

[TheRulesLawyer]

Its kind of like asking why don't we issue black powder weapons in today's military. We can still make them. They're even commercially available. They're just not a reasonable choice.

Some things like RL I don't see so much as when they were invented, but when they were deployed.

[Dlardrageth]

TheRulesLawyer, on 12 December 2011 - 11:23 AM, said:

Its kind of like asking why don't we issue black powder weapons in today's military. We can still make them. They're even commercially available. They're just not a reasonable choice.

Some things like RL I don't see so much as when they were invented, but when they were deployed.

Would have a certain "coolness factor" maybe though. Imagine modern military brandishing a 18th-century blunderbuss. the ones that looked ridiculously like a bastardly child of a pistol and a trumpet.Yeah, cool, right? So let's outfit, say, the MP units with that...

Main argument remains, if an exception is made for rocket launchers, for what else? And soon the game throwing the canon overboard completely is yet another random Mecha game only, congrats...

Edited by Dlardrageth, 15 December 2011 - 03:27 PM.

[VYCanis]

In the case of RLs though, they actually are viable weapons despite being super simple.

They may not be the most attractive option most of the time, but i find it incredibly hard to believe that for such a low tech system, in a setting that has had to deal with lots of tech backslide and resource scarcity, that they wouldn't be a regularly available option throughout most of the timeline, instead of a more recent introduction.

Sure plenty of stuff could have justifiably been lost due to tech backslide only to be rediscovered or have been invented later, But there is a few bits of equipment in BT that the only reason they weren't originally introduced from the beginning was because the designers didn't think of it at the time or there were no rules at the time supporting it. This is a reboot after all, there is no reason not to fudge things from having the benefit of hindsight.

[Mchawkeye]

_Torment_, on 12 December 2011 - 10:29 AM, said:

Will it improve gameplay?

See, now that there is the question. RLs would give lighter mechs some potential punch, and might open up customisation options for the smaller mechs to actually have some hitting power.

So will it improve gameplay? Possibly. Right now, without have a game to play, it's hard to tell.

But I do think it's worth tweaking canon for the sake of the game. Like so much of this experience, I think the canon is a great starting point, but not a pair of virtual handcuffs. And I really don't think making minor concessions to gameplay from canon would turn it into 'just another mecha game'.

[Alizabeth Aijou]

Quote

See, now that there is the question. RLs would give lighter mechs some potential punch, and might open up customisation options for the smaller mechs to actually have some hitting power.

Yeah...
Not really.
I'd rather mount a Small Laser than an RL-10.
At least the Small Laser can be fired more than once.

[Mchawkeye]

Alizabeth Aijou, on 16 December 2011 - 05:49 AM, said:

Yeah...
Not really.
I'd rather mount a Small Laser than an RL-10.
At least the Small Laser can be fired more than once.

Yeah....
Really.
The small laser would have to be fired numerous times to do the same potential damage as an RL 10. and the RL10 has a longer range,
but then the SL doesn;t have Ammo issues, sure.
It's a matter of choice. But if the lights are going to hitting/fading as they probably should, the instant punch of the RL could be seen to be preferable.

[Mechteric]

completely unnecessary weapon from the sounds of it, I'd rather load on a medium laser instead of wasting space on that. It sounds like the kind of weapon you'd load if you were a suicidal maniac.

Edited by CapperDeluxe, 16 December 2011 - 07:47 AM.