144 replies to this topic

[visionGT4]

If AMS can detect, track and engage SRM's/LRM's that same system can defeat 'cruise missiles'


What makes no sense in the BT world is that achieving orbital superiority/supremacy doesn't seem to be a thing.

Edited by visionGT4, 15 December 2017 - 07:23 PM.

[Anjian]

visionGT4, on 15 December 2017 - 07:14 PM, said:

If AMS can detect, track and engage SRM's/LRM's that same system can defeat 'cruise missiles'


What makes no sense in the BT world is that achieving orbital superiority/supremacy doesn't seem to be a thing.

The design of the AMS in the game is a straight off copy of the Phalanx CIWS used by the US Navy on its ships. PGI just miniturizes it.

Edited by Anjian, 15 December 2017 - 08:37 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

What makes no sense in the BT world is that achieving orbital superiority/supremacy doesn't seem to be a thing.

its definitely a thing thats why half the missions revolve around taking out orbital guns

but I mean, play siege, and you can see the size of an orbital gun. when planets have dozens of those, ships tend to not want to go into orbit lol.

especially when jumpships are nearly irreplaceable.

Edited by Khobai, 15 December 2017 - 09:00 PM.

[Bombast]

Khobai, on 15 December 2017 - 08:58 PM, said:

its definitely a thing thats why half the missions revolve around taking out orbital guns

but I mean, play siege, and you can see the size of an orbital gun. when planets have dozens of those, ships tend to not want to go into orbit lol.

especially when jumpships are nearly irreplaceable.

'Orbital guns' are fairly uncommon in Battletech. Even the most important factories in the Inner Sphere, Jump Drive manufacturing plants, aren't defended by by such weapons.

[Khobai]

Quote

'Orbital guns' are fairly uncommon in Battletech. Even the most important factories in the Inner Sphere, Jump Drive manufacturing plants, aren't defended by by such weapons.

they dont seem uncommon to me. theyre on practically every single planet in the mechwarrior and mechcommander games

theres also portable orbital guns that can be moved from planet to planet.

I think the orbital defenses are definitely there. and thats why orbital superiority isnt a big thing. no one wants to lose their irreplaceable warships/jumpships trying to bombard a planet from orbit. so they hotdrop in mechs to take out the guns first. mechs are a lot more expendable and replaceable than ships are... not a whole lot of functional shipyards exist in the innersphere.

by the time youve taken out all the guns and obtained orbital superiority you already control the planet with mechs.

Edited by Khobai, 15 December 2017 - 09:15 PM.

[Bombast]

Khobai, on 15 December 2017 - 09:09 PM, said:

they dont seem uncommon to me. theyre on practically every single planet in the mechwarrior and mechcommander games

The video games aren't canon. What is canon are the books, where they have to do things like weaponize microwave transmitters to take down drop ships.

The only common ground based orbital defense platforms I can think of in battletech are from the Star league era, where Cameron had gaggles of the things set up, and maybe the Word of Blake.

[Khobai]

Quote

The video games aren't canon

the games are better than the books which are just plain stupid with sentient bird people and stackpoling

so im gonna stick with the games and ignore everything else.

in the games, theres tons of orbital defenses, and mechs have to drop in to blow them up

Edited by Khobai, 15 December 2017 - 09:23 PM.

[Bombast]

Khobai, on 15 December 2017 - 09:21 PM, said:

the games are better than the books which are just plain stupid with sentient bird people and stackpoling

so im gonna stick with the games and ignore everything else.

That's your prerogative.

Unrelated, it took me three tries to type that instead of pirogi. I don't know why.

[Requiemking]

ROSS-128, on 15 December 2017 - 08:49 AM, said:

A big thing to keep in mind is that, although they're not very visible in Mechwarrior games, in Battletech proper conventional forces very much exist and are used. The reason you can take over a planet with "a hundred battlemechs", is that those mechs are backed up by millions of infantry and conventional vehicles.

It's just that the the conventional forces' stories almost never get told, because they're not the focus of the setting.

The bigger headscratcher is actually how battlemechs manage to be so light for their size. Though that's technically a problem more specific to the Mechwarrior side of things, where the mechs are bigger relative to everything else than they are in BT canon.

For example, if you're running around in a mech and see a Demolisher that's just barely taller than your ankles? That Demolisher weighs 80 tons. And it's not like the Demolisher is heavy for its size, a real life Abrams is a bit smaller and weighs 60 tons (unless it's an A2, which squeezes 72 tons into roughly the same footprint due to having heavier armor/more stuff crammed into it).

So, if we assume that mechs and armored vehicles are made of similar construction materials (and why wouldn't they be?), a 60 ton mech should have a profile similar to an Abrams turned on its nose rather than a multi-story building. An Abrams is about 8m long, 2.4m tall, and 3.7m wide. This makes a 60 ton mech approximately 8m tall, maybe pushing around 10-12m if you tuck in its waistline and account for the legs being thinner than the torso.

That's close-ish to the canon heights for a mech in the high medium to low heavy range. A little on the short side (or the canon heights are a little on the tall side), but not enough to be *too* far out there. But the important thing is looking at what this means in relative terms: a tank turned on its nose should *at least* cover 2/3 of the mech, and with canon heights you should only need to stack about 4-5 tanks sitting on their treads to reach the height of the mech.

So Mechwarrior mechs are obviously way bigger than they are in canon, and made of wood or something.

In truth, mechs in Battletech are actually only about 2 stories tall. It's just MWO where our mecha are towering kaijuu, and thats just the 35 tonners.

[razenWing]

SargeantShepard, on 15 December 2017 - 09:52 AM, said:

OP, you realize you are basically calling for a massive retcon of a universe with literally decades worth of additions to the lore, a universe with a small but very dedicated fanbase, just because you personally dont like one aspect of the lore.

Did you really think BT fans were going to go "OMG you are right!!! Screw all the existing lore and technology and original creator's vision! This guy knows what's up. "

Not to mention your tone in your posts is very condescending to everyone who disagrees.

If you feel this strongly about it, write a "what if?" Fanfic about this setting, or, enen better, write your own setting. But Battletech is NOT going to change just because you want it to.

LOL, you make it sound like I have the power to change anything. I'm just throwing out ideas, like most of my 1200 posts. With reboot and retcon being a rage in Hollywood, I was sitting in the john one day and figured, "Ok, wouldn't it be cool... if this all takes place on just the planet Earth"

But hey man, you take my thread as however you want. You be you man.

CMDR Sunset Shimmer, on 15 December 2017 - 02:31 PM, said:

You have influence from anime with fast action robots with instant kill speed and ninja moves, but at the same time, you have the idea of mech pilots being more like gritty and grunge tank drivers.


Clearly you've never watched Gundam 08th MS team...

Thanks for making my point. While I didn't watch any of the newer series, where did those old timey Gundam take place? Earth, orbital colony, and moon. That's like literally it. It's not across 50 galaxies or gajibillion planets.

Besides, the 08 team and the Pocket's War is by far my favorite for their depiction of stories from a much more personal level. (which, is exactly what I am thinking of in making the setting smaller, to create more tension because from the closeness of the proximity, and to be more relatable. From Cod:MW to MW2, I thought one of the best change to move away from fictional counties to real world countries, and it absolutely made the game more cinematic)

On a side note. Realistically, if 100 robots were going to take over a planet, they better be like Gundam Wing style particle canon to take out a whole starship level firepower.

Not I can launch 80 saturated blind missiles and overheat.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

razenWing, on 16 December 2017 - 06:41 AM, said:

Thanks for making my point. While I didn't watch any of the newer series, where did those old timey Gundam take place? Earth, orbital colony, and moon. That's like literally it. It's not across 50 galaxies or gajibillion planets.

Besides, the 08 team and the Pocket's War is by far my favorite for their depiction of stories from a much more personal level. (which, is exactly what I am thinking of in making the setting smaller, to create more tension because from the closeness of the proximity, and to be more relatable. From Cod:MW to MW2, I thought one of the best change to move away from fictional counties to real world countries, and it absolutely made the game more cinematic)

On a side note. Realistically, if 100 robots were going to take over a planet, they better be like Gundam Wing style particle canon to take out a whole starship level firepower.

Not I can launch 80 saturated blind missiles and overheat.

I'd argue you're twisting my words.

My point was, small groups, can take huge worlds, because that was the agreedupon form of war... Know why no game's gone into Word of Blake terrority yet? Because WoB TOSS OUT THE CONVENTIONS OF BATTLETECH WAR!

They drop nukes, use chem weapons, orbital bombardments... THEY DO NOT CARE... it's a Jihad, and they don't care how they win, only that they win.

It was decided, after the last big nuke war, to ban that kind of destruction, instead, wars would be fought with giant war machines.

It works, because THAT IS THE LOGIC WITHIN THE UNIVERSE... nevermind your feelings on it, never mind real world logic, that **** doesn't matter, because the fact is, this is how Battletech was written... DEAL WITH IT.

I'm tired of fuckboi's like you trying to **** up this universe's lore.

[Wolfways]

CMDR Sunset Shimmer, on 16 December 2017 - 12:26 PM, said:

I'm tired of fuckboi's like you trying to **** up this universe's lore.

Pgi (and players) are doing a fine job of that already.

Edited by Wolfways, 16 December 2017 - 01:02 PM.

[Ted Wayz]

They should just change the names already. This is a mech game, not a battletech game.

[razenWing]

CMDR Sunset Shimmer, on 16 December 2017 - 12:26 PM, said:

I'd argue you're twisting my words.

My point was, small groups, can take huge worlds, because that was the agreedupon form of war... Know why no game's gone into Word of Blake terrority yet? Because WoB TOSS OUT THE CONVENTIONS OF BATTLETECH WAR!

They drop nukes, use chem weapons, orbital bombardments... THEY DO NOT CARE... it's a Jihad, and they don't care how they win, only that they win.

It was decided, after the last big nuke war, to ban that kind of destruction, instead, wars would be fought with giant war machines.

It works, because THAT IS THE LOGIC WITHIN THE UNIVERSE... nevermind your feelings on it, never mind real world logic, that **** doesn't matter, because the fact is, this is how Battletech was written... DEAL WITH IT.

I'm tired of fuckboi's like you trying to **** up this universe's lore.

Again, I am so flattered that you think I'm somehow f-ing up the battletech lore. Yup, cause, I'm somehow involved in the creating process. Like who cares, it's something fun that I thought of when I'm sitting in the toilet one day. Why you fanbois get so defensive anyways? If you don't like it, you know you are not obligated to respond right?

-------------

I don't know if I'm late to the topic, but regarding cruise missiles... I actually think that's something that can be explained away by real world application.

For starter, I think there ARE cruise missiles in Mechwarriors. In 3, in the mission when you have to blow up the gate and have to fight 2 Annihilators, I believe you are supposed to TAG the door for Keith Andrew to fire his missiles from like 20 KM away. Of course, I always just blow up the gate manually, but I do believe that 20KM missile is part of the game.

Second, if you believe that future defense system is so good at taking down missiles, that it makes more sense for Battlemechs to use saturated dumb missile systems like in the game than expensive long range missiles.

Even in the future, physics is a thing, so you rather pack 200 missiles of limited range but pretty much all gun powder warheads, or 5 missiles filled with fuel but with same or less explosives pack inside?

Since another thing to think about, is that if Mechs are used not just for mech v mech combat, but a weapon platform, then AoE missiles make more sense to blanket an area to do damages to infantries, vehicles, and other targets.

(Where as a 200 KM cruise missile is expensive, can only hit 1 target, and possibly taken down easily as it's being fired as 1 missiles... and in the game, how many can you take down with your 1 AMS? Pretty much imagine someone firing 2000 missiles of LRM 1. Nothing will reach you)

Also, the laser that we have right now to take down drones is pathetically bad. Maybe there's a real physics issue that prevent future laser from going 20 KM. So in terms of video game stats, those weapons never bothered me much.

So to me, all of that "limitations" can be looked beyond 80s nostalgia factor (and honestly, whats so good about 80s with their stereotype? You guys are making the existing lore like the greatest thing ever. We talking about Chinese people somehow are barbarians, Japanese people are yakuza, and it takes a white guy to save the universe. Give me a break), but the distance thing... yea... that's my only beef,

But hey, if you can live with it, good for you. I'm spitballing ideas. I made 1200 posts already to know that my spitballing ideas are not out to change minds of fanatic fanbois. So again, you fanbois can interpret my thread anyways you want. Live long and be happy.

[Kaeb Odellas]

James Argent, on 15 December 2017 - 05:43 PM, said:

The decline of civilizations due to extended warfare is a well documented thing. Now do it for three hundred years...you're going to lose some things and fight like Hell to keep a hold on others.

But in any case, this is a dumb argument. We all know about cruise missiles NOW. In pre-internet 1984 when BattleDroids was created, they did exist, but most of the people who knew anything significant about them were under NDAs or military orders to not talk a lot about them. People who followed the military closely and subscribed to Jane's knew, but we can't expect every game creator at that time to have been up on the topic, so the Inner Sphere was created as 'In a World Where' either cruise missiles never existed or had fallen out of favor for one reason or another...perhaps because in this world it turned out that advances in the defense of extremely long range missiles were easier to maintain and improve upon than the cruise missiles themselves. After all, we only have fire and forget missiles at a maximum range of 400-ish meters...longer than that and it takes active measures to maintain the target lock.

Edit: Or the Occam's Razor answer: If cruise missiles were better than BattleMechs, there would be no Battletech.

We have fire and forget missiles with effective ranges measured in miles. The FGM-114 Javelin has over twice the range of any Battletech missile, is self-guided, and is man-portable to boot.

Long range missiles weren't some closely-guarded military secret that nobody knew about until the internet. The general public was pretty well aware of the capabilities of long-range missiles back then, with the specter of nuclear annihilation by ICBM hanging over the world for the entirety of the cold war. You can't pin their absence the ignorance of BattleTech's creators. 7

You're absolutely right that BattleMechs wouldn't exist if cruise missiles were a thing. That's why the BattleTech writers created a universe in which they don't exist but that doesn't make that universe logically consistent. The idea that the denizens of the BattleTech universe would fight like hell to preserve their ridiculously complex and highly impractical giant fighting robots over the relatively simple technology of "launch big-*** missile from point A to point B and kill everything at point B" is just plain silly, especially when they have the technology to launch massive, complicated vessels into space and land them on the surface with high precision.

[Requiemking]

Kaeb Odellas, on 16 December 2017 - 05:00 PM, said:

We have fire and forget missiles with effective ranges measured in miles. The FGM-114 Javelin has over twice the range of any Battletech missile, is self-guided, and is man-portable to boot.

Long range missiles weren't some closely-guarded military secret that nobody knew about until the internet. The general public was pretty well aware of the capabilities of long-range missiles back then, with the specter of nuclear annihilation by ICBM hanging over the world for the entirety of the cold war. You can't pin their absence the ignorance of BattleTech's creators. 7

You're absolutely right that BattleMechs wouldn't exist if cruise missiles were a thing. That's why the BattleTech writers created a universe in which they don't exist but that doesn't make that universe logically consistent. The idea that the denizens of the BattleTech universe would fight like hell to preserve their ridiculously complex and highly impractical giant fighting robots over the relatively simple technology of "launch big-*** missile from point A to point B and kill everything at point B" is just plain silly, especially when they have the technology to launch massive, complicated vessels into space and land them on the surface with high precision.

But they do. What do you think ARROW IV is? A big-*** missile launched from point A to point B with the intent of blowing everything up at point B. The only reason they don't is because the Aries Convention expressly forbids the use of nuclear weapons(aka, the ones that blow everything up at point B ), so ARROW IVs aren't allowed to use their most powerful weapons.

Edited by Requiemking, 16 December 2017 - 08:23 PM.

[Bombast]

Anyone else amused this thread has devolved into the same old tired 'But Battletech isn't real enough!' discussion that always seems to crop up when someone tries to change what BT is?

[Kaeb Odellas]

Requiemking, on 16 December 2017 - 08:23 PM, said:

But they do. What do you think ARROW IV is? A big-*** missile launched from point A to point B with the intent of blowing everything up at point B. The only reason they don't is because the Aries Convention expressly forbids the use of nuclear weapons(aka, the ones that blow everything up at point B ), so ARROW IVs aren't allowed to use their most powerful weapons.

Arrow IVs are not even remotely on the same level as even conventional modern day cruise missiles. Arrow IVs weigh 200 kg apiece, do 20 points of damage to a hex and 10 to adjacent hexes and have a range of 4.6 km (30m per hex, 17 hexes per map, 9 map range for Clan version). In contrast, a Tomahawk weighs over a ton and can travel over 1000 km.

Bombast, on 16 December 2017 - 08:35 PM, said:

Anyone else amused this thread has devolved into the same old tired 'But Battletech isn't real enough!' discussion that always seems to crop up when someone tries to change what BT is?

I'm not having a "BattleTech isn't real enough" conversation. I'm having a "BattleTech is no more realistic than anime robots" discussion, which is ultimately just as pointless.

Edited by Kaeb Odellas, 16 December 2017 - 08:59 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Arrow IVs are not even remotely on the same level as even conventional modern day cruise missiles. Arrow IVs weigh 200 kg apiece, do 20 points of damage to a hex and 10 to adjacent hexes and have a range of 4.6 km (30m per hex, 17 hexes per map, 9 map range for Clan version). In contrast, a Tomahawk weighs over a ton and can travel over 1000 km.

yes but a modern day cruise missile also couldnt even lock on to a mech and would just bounce off its armor anyway. so comparing them is silly.

ARROWIV can lockon to mechs, penetrate mech armor, and its miniaturized to 1/5th the weight.

id much rather have ARROWIV than 1000 year old tomahawk. but an ARROWIV isnt even really the battletech equivalent of a cruise missile anyway.

battletech has its own version of cruise missiles, like the cruise missile 120. and yes it does 120 damage. it weighs 60 tons too.

Edited by Khobai, 16 December 2017 - 09:24 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Khobai, on 16 December 2017 - 09:14 PM, said:

yes but a modern day cruise missile also couldnt even lock on to a mech and would just bounce off its armor anyway. so comparing them is silly.

According to what?

You have ECM suites in BT, you can put it on the missile to cut through jamming. An AC/20 fires up to two 8 inch shells in one go, and a cruise missile has that kind of punch.