50 replies to this topic

[Koniving]

Steel Raven, on 16 January 2019 - 12:43 AM, said:

Actually discussed this on the BT Forum. I figured the standard Hunchback uses something similar to a exhaust gas system of a recoilless rifle for the AC/20. If the DC engineers just swapped the AC for the Gauss Rifle in '39, the Hunchback's existing recoil system would be all but useless.

The Hollander on the other hand was built around the Gauss Rifle, the length of the canon on the light mech vs it's larger gauss wielding cousins may hint at something like a Hydraulic Recoil system to help the 35 ton mech compensate for the 15 ton gun's kick.

The thing is there's "TWO" Hunchback 4G's. The old one, which...technically can't even equip DHS because the mech is so close to the size of a BT Commando that there's literally no room inside the mech and it mounted a rear drum to store the ammunition...
This being the Original, the one that's been around for centuries.


Short, compact, low center of gravity, carries a 185mm Tomodzuru AC/20 (the largest caliber AC in the entire Inner Sphere until well into the darkages), each shell delivering an unprecedented 5 damage, and a cassette delivering 20 damage in only four shells.

Spoiler

(For comparison, a Heavy Rifle against commercial-grade armor or standard structure delivers 9 damage, and 6 damage to Battlemech armor in a single shell with the only caliber-specified example known to me putting it at 190mm with a shell so long it had to be fed into the cannon by the mech's other hand, almost like a grenade launcher.)

In comparison, the Kali-Yama Industries acquired the rights after 3030 and began making the 5th generational model on a commission from Marik. To capitalize on the market and the rights, they also began making their own variation of the Hunchbacks in order to snuff out the original models and the extremely lucrative "refit kit" market out there for the original model. In doing so, every refit design out there was "factory made" on Kali-yama's unique and larger skeleton, making the Komiyaba Type VII chassis refit kits completely useless on these new "Classic" Hunchback remakes. To add insult to injury, these "Classic" models could also do something that the original couldn't do, which is fit double heatsinks without a "duct-tape patchjob." (It'd be pretty bad if you had to strap a couple of heatsinks the mech's back on the exterior like you did with the original.) Since the "Classic" remake is based on the new skeleton developed for the Hunchback 5M, with the "added benefit" of storing the ammunition internally (albeit less), and their redo after Marik's dissatisfaction added a new, smaller drum on the back so it could have the second ton of ammo and be able to switch between two unique types if so loaded, the fact that the "classic" 4G stores it externally in a drum comparable to the original allows it to do a number of things including fit an XL engine, something never before done on a Hunchback.

As for the weapons, all the weapons are different but of note is the use of the Kali-Yama "Big Snore", I mean Big Bore. A 120mm AC/20 that is of the same caliber as the Marauder's GM Whirlwind/5.

At a firing rate of 3-4 shells per second, and a cassette consumed in 3 shots, each individual shell of the GM Whirlwind/5 produces 1.67 damage. For the Kali-Yama Big Bore, this means it is likely it may take 12 shells to deliver the full 20 damage rated for an AC/20. Taller mech, lower caliber gun. Advantage of it is clear, a miss of a single shell is less critical to success, and unlike the extremely rare Tomodzuru cannon (all non-4G variants of the original Hunchback are made 'cause they couldn't get a new Tomodzuru OR they couldn't get ammo, as very few places in the galaxy make it anymore, meanwhile 120mm is the most common AC caliber in the IS, with everything from AC/5s to AC/20s using it).

They put the Gauss Rifle on this new, taller "Classic" remake of the Hunchback 4G with the Crucis Type V chassis. Its higher center of gravity and the fact that it was the Prototype Gauss Rifle (which is a bit clumsier) both attributed to what happened, supposedly. (There's mention in the conflict that the Gauss Rifles were prototypes... but that doesn't necessarily mean they were "The Prototype" Gauss Rifle of the old Star League.)

"Prototype Gauss Rifle (GR-P): prior to the introduction of the standard Gauss Rifle the Star League Defense Force fielded prototypes of the weapon design during the Reunification War. These prototypes were functionally identical to the standard Gauss Rifle, with two exceptions: the prototypes took up one additional critical slot, and jammed in a fashion identical to that of the Ultra Autocannon on a to-hit roll of 2.][29]"

So there's a number of things that contributed.
Its this "high center of gravity" issue that leads to the Hollander, a 35 ton dedicated 'Mech large enough to carry a real Gauss Rifle AND able to lower its center of gravity to fire, with legs long enough to brace it against the recoil. (Keep in mind real rail guns didn't exist at the time. And there is recoil in real rail guns, but rather than concentrated in one place for a large force, its spread across many smaller locations. Similar to the weight of a 40 ton vehicle on 4 tires is really taxing, but on 8 it is half as bad, and across 12 with tracks, these 'wheels' can be significantly smaller due to the distribution of weight on numerous stress points.)

Note how specially designed the legs are, reinforced to withstand the kick and much longer than necessary, but able to crouch to create a low profile whenever it needs to fire (or hide).
(Edit: Fixed image doubling)

Edited by Koniving, 17 January 2019 - 12:11 PM.

[NimoStar]

The problem with lore-accuracy is that in lore and tabletop, mechs fight aghainst all kinds of things from vehicles to elementals to infantry to aerospace assets.

In MWO you only fight against other mechs (boring... (?))

So the balance is just mech vs mech and not specialists.

___________

BTW, about specific mechs, the mad cat in MWO is slow and lumbering while the one in tabletop had a reputation for being much more agile than comparable weight IS mechs.

Quote

The Hollander on the other hand was built around the Gauss Rifle, the length of the canon on the light mech vs it's larger gauss wielding cousins may hint at something like a Hydraulic Recoil system to help the 35 ton mech compensate for the 15 ton gun's kick.
indeed.... but maybe they use Myomer instead of Hydraulics...

So other Mechs like the Uller A with Gauss, might not need a special recoil system because the Gauss is mounted in the arm, and the joints and myomer as compensators.

gauss weapons are actually recoil-less completely due that the projectile is accelerated with electromagnetic power...

[Steel Raven]

NimoStar, on 16 January 2019 - 05:13 PM, said:

gauss weapons are actually recoil-less completely due that the projectile is accelerated with electromagnetic power...

Ummm,
https://physics.stac...ve-any-kickback

https://forums.space...e-recoil.78203/

[50 50]

Depends who was writing the stories and the drama and tension they were trying to create in the plot lines with the characters that were being focused on.
I'd say.... no relation at all.

[NimoStar]

The first link gives me reason:

Quote

Note that momentum is not recoil. Recoil is the effect that firing has on the wielder, especially their ability to maintain aim. So the force distribution over time would seem to be what is important, and a Gauss rifle would have a lot more control over this than a firearm. Not to mention the ability to reduce it simply by increasing the length of the barrel, which gives almost linear increase in velocity with the same force, while rifles have diminishing returns with barrel length.

Ok, so the recoil is not "zero" but pretty much in actuality there isn't one.

Quote

But, as the projectile is accelerated for longer time than in a gun, the force acting from rifle on its holder will be lower

Who knows how battletech gauss rifles are designed but by definition it uses magnetic acceleration and stuff seems to indicate the recoil would be much lower than in conventional firearms/cannons (such as ACs)

Edited by NimoStar, 16 January 2019 - 09:42 PM.

[Karl Streiger]

Newton's third law, don't care if you use chemical propellant, electromagnetic acceleration or pony-magic to shoot your bullet.
Speed and Mass in the forward direction is similar to the mass and speed in the other direction.

Of course it might not be the classic kick,back recoil but a constant acceleration in the direction of the shooter. As such yes it might be possible to have means to keep the barrel stable as long as the bullet is in the accelerator.

Third Law also means that a magnetic rifle will have less recoil/momentum compared to a AC with same bullet mass and v0. Because you also have the gases of the propellant.

Strictly spoken you even have a recoil when firing a laser - 300 MW and you have one Newton that goes in the other direction (a thrown ball has more momentum)

[Koniving]

NimoStar, on 16 January 2019 - 05:13 PM, said:

gauss weapons are actually recoil-less completely due that the projectile is accelerated with electromagnetic power...

Addressed this in the edited post; rail weapons are not recoil-less in fluff OR in real life. However, the real life examples are both immensely heavy and well placed. The distribution of many magnets to make the weapon work reduces the stress per magnet by having so many. Despite the name, even a recoiless rifle has recoil, it just absorbs it in such a way that it is barely felt.


Note the recoil.

Note the magnets STILL move/bounce/recoil, despite the fact that they have no real place to move, and this is for an extremely minimal amount of force.

(Do note I hadn't continued reading until after I replied.)
Also despite the name, the concept as written in the late 1980s fluff is actually, outright, a rail gun.

Edited by Koniving, 17 January 2019 - 12:23 PM.

[Koniving]

Another fun one. This gives us an idea of how fragile it could be. So smaller groups using a BT Gauss Rifle is likely to have catastrophic failures.

(Side note: An idea for creating "variants" of Gauss Rifles could be to have different types of magnetic weapons, aka coil/gauss/rail designs.)
(Also fun to note: The very first time the Gauss Rifle is introduced, it is described as needing a lot of electrical power... and only is mentioned to fire a projectile at speeds only "twice that of conventional projectiles." So the Gauss Rifle isn't really 'that' impressive in the Star League's golden era in terms of that. But then there's the weight, between 200 and 250 lbs, and depending on the art/version we read about, either its a small cylindrical object with a pointed tip, a shaped projectile, a discarding sabot penetrator, etc...)
Side note: One source that gave a specific size for the hole a Gauss rifle made into a 50 ton mech which ripped in one end and came out the other... The size is for the entrance hole. This gives a "rough" idea of what to estimate the barrel size of the weapon to be.


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

Back to the topic of figuring out things on mechs such as where the ammunition is stored when the machines are too short or too thin for what they supposedly carry.. There are mechs like the Spider, whose miniscule size would make ideas like the Anansi (however you spell it) hero rather...far fetched if not for MWO's chosen sizes. (Even then MWO's player view cockpit is actually in the chest below the head.)

Anyway, we know that aside from PGI's made up (and now because of that, canonical hero), Spiders don't carry ammo... There are some lithe mechs that do.

The Wyvern is one such example.

Alex's art of the mech.

Note the large, completely unnecessary protrusion? What does it house?

Well, what would need to be able to be refilled very quickly for a machine, done easily in the field as well as in the bay? Assume that this protrusion touches both the left and right torso in the back in a sort of "spread as it goes down" Eifel tower sort of deal.

Where at the base of this "tower" it touches the left, center and right torsos. Where it holds tight to the center and is secured by it, and feeds something into the left and right torsos....

What ever could that thing be... when it carries 220 missiles with nowhere else to put them... in a place that would allow for easily detaching and reattaching them... with a CASE setup that will only destroy the ST it feeds into in the event of an ammo explosion...?

Huh.
"I can't figure it out."

Edited by Koniving, 17 January 2019 - 01:06 PM.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

hey ...its Battletech and we firing with low guided Missles in Spacefights and flys Aerospacefighters by lost the Tech for guided Missles ..we not can hit a 130kmh fast light mech in 400m and other side a 400kmh fast Aerospacefighter in 600m .

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 18 January 2019 - 03:21 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

Only when you ask the average BT author.

When you ask me, a single SRM can hit a target several kilometers away and destroy it unless you either countered the guidance or your active kill system swept it from the sky.

A Gauss Slug passing an unarmoured person overhead will not just crush his hearing but the whole guy
A PPC bolt will not kill him, but without treatment there will be no tomorrow for him.

However just reading one of the latest novel "Anvil" I'm not thinking unaimed missiles, or of course a DFA will kill the joints... bada bada bla blup


Nope my blood is boiling and I start to smash stuff while roaring in anger.. those ******* ***** just killed Kelswa... that's the reason to read BT those are fantasy pulp fiction, not science fiction anymore and as such adequate.
And it also shows that I'm clearly have schizophrenia. I can't understand football fans smashing other guys, but at the same when anybody would say "I'm Jadef...." he can't talk further because he has eaten my fist

Edited by Karl Streiger, 18 January 2019 - 07:51 AM.

[Koniving]

They have the reasons.

Hitting a jet was explained pretty easily. The larger the distance away, the more "a little adjustment" carries.


Between this, and the fact that the faster you're going the harder it is to make a tight turn, a stationary weapon system (and by extension, literally anything) can use small adjustments to lead the target. Unlike a wheeled vehicle, tracked vehicle, or a Battlemech, a jet in the air cannot make a super sharp turn without risking the loss of consciousness from extreme G-forces that come with it. Even then, it cannot pull them off in rapid succession, this is why the default tactic to evading a missile is to make a sharp turn and not, say, zigzag.
Tank performing a sudden sharp turn to evade an incoming projectile (in War Thunder).
Rapid swerving that while difficult to pull off in a tank, would be about impossible in a fast aircraft.

In order to evade like this for a jet..
They "SLOW DOWN". Of course another method is to accelerate to outrace the missile, but in reality this doesn't really work as for the most part, you cannot outrace a missile.

I crashed my car once, about 9 months ago, because I was making a right turn into what I thought was a clear road. The exact circumstances don't really matter, but a car more or less "appeared out of nowhere" and was going at 70 miles per hour. Unable to back up due to a car behind me that pulled up (it was eager to make that turn), I hit the gas pedal had and tried to make a right turn.
______
______>1
______
>____
|^|
So going from "^" to ">1" which is going into a 3 lane road, trying to make that sharp turn while going from 0 to 50 in a 2011 Toyota Matrix, meant I had some serious resistance from the steering wheel, and the left-front side of my car slammed into the median (which had concrete-covered drain). My left front axle was completely crushed.

So I know the faster you accelerate, the harder it is to turn. (I also drive fast, much faster than I should, so I know how 'fast' turns do. I currently drive a Hyundai Santa Fe, take that turn too quickly and I'll be doing a barrel roll).

So, "Good dodging" comes with slowing down... and bad dodging comes with picking up speed. The faster one goes, the less one can turn to evade. The less one can evade... the easier someone is to hit regardless of how fast they go. Next time you see an airliner in the sky, note how slow they appear to be going... According to google, the average speed of an airliner is "880–926 km/h." And they take around 2 to 3 seconds to move one thumb-width across the sky.

So hitting one is probably a lot easier than you might think.

That isn't to say its the easiest thing in the world, but consider what they shot down slower planes with.

Ignore the voice, and note that they are not making major corrections, they are spamming fire and sooner or later they'll likely hit a plane. Watching "World War II in color," the counts of planes shot down make it pretty clear that without any computer aid and basic firing calculators (in the few cases they were around), it wasn't all that hard.
The World War II American Mustang fighter went to high speeds of 630 to 710 km/h. And these were, in several battles, shot out of the air by Japanese and German AA guns on numerous occasions throughout the documentary. When an Aerotech fighters begin flying at 400 kph, its already going far too slow and is most likely trying to line up a shot.

Meanwhile hitting someone close to you...
Not quite as easy. Recoil and movement works against you. Unlike MWO, if you shoot while moving, the projectile moves in the direction you fired PLUS the direction you're moving relative to the velocity you had when firing. So each wave that lifts and lowers the ship is also sending the bullets upward and downward, as well as to the sides.

Unlike a jet when it is flying overhead -- in which case it is not attacking you, there's nothing shooting back. And if it is actively attacking you, well it has to "hold onto target" to make that hit.... both cases make it easier to hit than say an enemy 'Mech of 7 to 14 meters tall which is both shooting at you AND trying to evade your bullets at the same time. (The Leopard 2 is 9.97 meters long, which is longer than the Shadowhawk is tall in the picture I shared earlier).

So there's reason 1, the real world scenario as to why it would be easier to try and hit a flying object going really fast, compared to a nearby grounded object rapidly approaching you up close.

-----------

And Battletech's explanation going less into real world examples and more into its own.


Note the "ECM intensive" thing is actually before Battletech introduces ...well, "Guardian ECM" into gameplay. The shorthand is "Gundam Universal Century timeline's 'Minovsky Particles'."

Quote

When these particles are scattered in the air or in open space, they disrupt low-frequency electromagnetic radiation like microwaves and radio waves, and interfere with the operations of electronic circuitry. This phenomenon renders radar detection and long-range wireless communication useless, and requires the installation of bulky and expensive shielding on all electronic equipment, ruling out the use of precision guided weapons. The military use of Minovsky particles thus ushers in a new era of close-range combat.

Literally, Minovsky Particles under the name "ECM".
So that's part 1 of the explanation as written. So there's sensors and part of missiles.

Part 2: Smoke and particles. This affects laser weaponry.
A real world issue with laser weaponry is acknowledged in this 1987 article. Smoke, dirt particles/dust, etc. all will affect lasers. It even goes into "Anti-laser aerosols" aka counter measure sprays. In real life this thing already happened as soon as we made the laser LAWS (laser weapon system), a counter measure was already produced as we actually had it for....centuries. The smoke bomb. The issue is you'd need to know it is coming long before it happens and have time to deploy it. The counter effect varies in effectiveness, but bam.

Part 2 - 2: Mech armor spreads and dissipates heat coming from lasers and PPCs very well...considering.

Part 3: Explosives are cheap, complex guidance systems are not; throw more missiles and less 'smart' junk.
It says that often a super expensive missile is rendered useless by a cheap $2.50 circuit getting fried from some dirt on it, more or less. The missiles uses in the BT universe can be centuries old and still function as new, because they were made simpler. Think of what would happen in a nuclear blast, the EMP that would come with it. All the missiles in the area, all the tech in the area, even if they survive the blast, the electronics are fried. But the missiles in Battletech are not all that sophisticated. Aside from Artemis missiles (which talk with the user's launcher), the missiles are unaffected by ECM because they are self contained, do not communicate with the launcher, and are relatively simple to keep them functional even as they're shot.

You can take older machines and damage them and they'll still work. For example I've seen older TVs work despite being knocked down, beaten around, etc. In comparison, accidentally drop a 'smart' TV about 2 feet and the thing doesn't work. Get an analog signal and you can get the jist of it even when it is faint. Now try that with a digital signal, the moment it's spotty for a second or two and you got nothing. The Tech Manual even gets into this about cockpit design, simple rocker switches versus touch & multi-function displays/controls and why they are rarely, if ever used.

Part 3-2: This one covers itself, "Trying to achieve a lock on a Battlemech at 1 to 2 kilometers is difficult. (Try this in MWO with a Hunchback at 2 kilometers, and that's the biggest target you'd face in Battletech in terms of physical size... now target a Locust.


Part 4: Battlemechs can dodge. This gets into some pretty strong detail which is regurgitated by the TechManual, but Battlemechs can do everything from handstands and cartwheels (under controlled conditions) to automatically trying to evade incoming projectiles. This is the core of the reason "more is more," more missiles at once (large volumes of missiles), more shells down range quicker (Autocannons over CANNONS aka Mech Rifles, with heavier ACs firing more shots faster than lighter ACs of the same caliber, where Rifles had the proper bigger goes farther where the Light Rifle has the shortest range and the Heavy Rifle has the longest range).

What good is a smart missile when the target is just going to...


This is why the Mech Rifle became obsolete, if the enemy mech did succeed in dodging, it'd take too long to reload and fire again. Even if you account for the reduced penetration, there was no reason to ditch the Medium and Heavy Rifle. The HR has better paper stats than the AC/5, the logical conclusion would be the HR is superior... but it isn't... because that one shot can be dodged. But the multiple shots of the typical AC/5 as shared earlier... well Neo couldn't dodge them all.

Evasion is why you can only "Call shots" when the mech is powered down, immobile, or the pilot is unconscious.
"Plenty of room to thrash around", as mentioned here...

refers to being able to dodge, evade, seek cover and block incoming fire. As such an MP of 0 doesn't count as immobile, because it can still dodge...and thus you can't call "aimed shots", as the mech can still try to evade your attack even if it can't successfully travel the full 30 meters under current conditions.

Edited by Koniving, 18 January 2019 - 07:52 PM.

[evilauthor]

Here's a little thing I'd like to add. In the BT novels (at least the early ones, don't know about the newer ones), the description of the mech cockpit includes a "vision strip" that gives the mechwarrior a full 360 degree fish-eyed view around the mech. This vision strip is usually placed above the cockpit glass that mechwarriors see right out of.

That's right, mechwarriors in lore can see everything around their mechs without having to turn their heads. This is a feature that AFAIK has NEVER been implemented in any iteration of the Mechwarrior video game franchise ever. The best you'll get is a radar screen that will show enemy blips in your rear, and MWO doesn't even implement that much without a team mate watching your rear.

Oh, and mechs without lower arm actuators like the Rifleman can flip their arms so that the weapons in them can fire into their rear arcs. ANOTHER feature which has never been implemented in any Mechwarrior game ever.

[Karl Streiger]

evilauthor, on 11 April 2019 - 10:05 PM, said:

Here's a little thing I'd like to add. In the BT novels (at least the early ones, don't know about the newer ones), the description of the mech cockpit includes a "vision strip" that gives the mechwarrior a full 360 degree fish-eyed view around the mech. This vision strip is usually placed above the cockpit glass that mechwarriors see right out of.

That's right, mechwarriors in lore can see everything around their mechs without having to turn their heads. This is a feature that AFAIK has NEVER been implemented in any iteration of the Mechwarrior video game franchise ever. The best you'll get is a radar screen that will show enemy blips in your rear, and MWO doesn't even implement that much without a team mate watching your rear.

Oh, and mechs without lower arm actuators like the Rifleman can flip their arms so that the weapons in them can fire into their rear arcs. ANOTHER feature which has never been implemented in any Mechwarrior game ever.

Wait a second... didn't Mechwarrior 2 had this innovation? I don't find a screen shot but I think I can remember that it was possible to blend a monitor in a monitor at the upper side that showed the rear (kind of rear view mirror) The picture was also clinched, but I have this picture before my eyes seeing an LRM volley missing my mech and exploding behind....

Of course, it was possible to configure the monitors at the lower hud area - to show bottom or rear, and its also ironic that your pilot's helmet was not fixed in all Mechwarrior Games but MWO (you could turn your head and aim the arm at your side and disabling the weapons that are not active) - was very important in MW3 when running Mechs without torso twist.

[evilauthor]

Karl Streiger, on 12 April 2019 - 12:46 AM, said:

Wait a second... didn't Mechwarrior 2 had this innovation?

Nope. Every screenshot I can find shows no such thing. Any 360 viewstrip would be going in the upper portion of the UI somewhere, probably taking up the spot where the compass heading is, or squeezing in between that and the top of the screen.

IIRC, MW2 did give you hot keys so you turn your head to could look left and right, but it was never really practical to fight with that. And it'll give you a fully 3D graphic rendering of your locked on target in the lower left corner.

As I understand it, the problem with putting in a 360 viewstrip - or hell, even just a rear view camera like what you'd find on many cars today - is technical. It'd basically involve rendering the game setting TWICE, and many lower end PCs (and some upper end ones) would choke trying to do that, especially if the game was already pushing its graphics capabilities already. Of course, PCs have improved with time, but no one designs graphics for technology that doesn't exist yet.

[Steel Raven]

MW4 had a rear view cam on the key binding. Sure many didn't find it useful as you couldn't flip your arms but I liked have the option of looking behind me without turning my mech around to find out who's shooting at me.

Could do something similar with free-look feature, have one of the monitors be you rear view cam.

[Koniving]

Are we certain we're not confusing this with another feature...?

The reason I ask, is there's the "old" neurohelms, which many pilots still use well until well into the 3020s+ as simpler but less functional neurohelms begin to emerge. Even then they pretty much continue to be around for another 50 or so years.

Quote

During the Succession Wars neurohelmets greatly degraded in capability as the knowledge of the Star League became lostech. These bulky helmets required physical contact with the MechWarrior's scalp and had to rest on their shoulders, preventing them from turning their head. As a compensation they incorporated a monitor on the inside, taking sensory information from the 'Mech and compressing a 360° view to a 160° display. By the middle of the 31st century though, the Inner Sphere had recovered enough to where their helmets had improved significantly, though nowhere close to those of the Clans which retained the same technology as the Star League.

This is a feature inside the helmet on your visor, not inside your cockpit.
And it is a feature that also phased out with that helmet as it was no longer necessary due to being able to move your head.
This said: Some mechs featured a gundam unicorn-esque / Kuromukuro-esque holographic radar.

Kuromukuro radar

Spoiler

The radar system in Kuromukuro is read by the machine's secondary/command pilot position. This second pilot can also control flight as well as the additional arms of an attached unit.

The system has a 360 degree ring giving the exact orientation of anything detected in relation to where the pilot is situated.

Though this display primarily shows 360 degrees horizontally, it also demonstrates the ability to show threats above and below. It uses large icons for big threats, smaller ones for lesser ones, and if so instructed can also give the positions of non-mechanical threats such as people and animals. That feature is off for most of the series as any real threats are in machines.

It also displays projectiles. An interesting feature since the machine basically has a shield deflecting projectiles and forcing sword-play combat with vibroblades.

That feature is also interesting because in Battletech, as you may have noticed in previous posts of mine here, 'Mechs in BT can detect and evade or deflect projectiles. This is why autocannons are preferred over big cannons, and why missiles are fired in bulk rather than one really good missile.... doesn't matter how good it is, a single missile or projectile is easily evaded/deflected with its damage potential reduced, especially at range.
This is why despite the fact that the Heavy Rifle is ton for ton, damage for damage, range for range, equal yet superior to an AC/5... capable of delivering 9 damage to structure, 6 to armor, at identical ranges for identical heat...the AC/5 is the popular choice and the Rifle is obsolete.

Two such mechs include the Crab with a holographic sensor suite that could show you the positions of things on the opposite side of the world provided adequate communication/telemetry between satelites... and the Tacticon 2000 Battlecomputer on a Cyclops.

Both of these, of course, degraded with time. A functional one, though a miracle to find, would be really awesome to see.

Lets also not forget, the HUD is featured on your helmet. The cockpit has a primary screen with your aiming reticle and a couple of other related features. Everything else is on your monitors with a couple of the most important things on the helm's HUD itself.

This would be the extent of what is actually shown on the primary display (your main window)

Everything else is on your other monitors and/or the HUD inside your helmet.
And to avoid any confusion, that curtain/drape isn't some 360 degree display; that's to keep the sun out when trying to sleep, as your mini-bed and your toilet are behind your seat.

Edited by Koniving, 12 April 2019 - 12:25 PM.

[Koniving]

Another fun to thing to add.

In the 1980s of real life, Battletech's pilots are said to have cooling vests with refrigerated boots and gloves to deal with the extreme delirium-inducing heat inside of a battlemech, as it was more likely that the pilot would die from the heat than the mech to suffer irrevocable harm from it.


In the early 2000s, as early as 2007 for its public mention, DARPA comes up with it in real life.
What's more...
It works.
Against both heat...and cold.

Edited by Koniving, 12 April 2019 - 12:09 PM.

[evilauthor]

Koniving, on 12 April 2019 - 12:08 PM, said:

Another fun to thing to add.

In the 1980s of real life, Battletech's pilots are said to have cooling vests with refrigerated boots and gloves to deal with the extreme delirium-inducing heat inside of a battlemech, as it was more likely that the pilot would die from the heat than the mech to suffer irrevocable harm from it.


In the early 2000s, as early as 2007 for its public mention, DARPA comes up with it in real life.
What's more...
It works.
Against both heat...and cold.

I've been told that full body cooling suits have been used by car racers for years in real life.

And I'm wondering how such a thing can become lostech when the difference between a full body cooling suit and a mere vest is just more complicated plumbing. The biggest design flaw to watch out for would be accidentally crimping the plumbing shut when the mechwarrior sits down in his mech.

[Koniving]

evilauthor, on 12 April 2019 - 03:00 PM, said:

I've been told that full body cooling suits have been used by car racers for years in real life.

And I'm wondering how such a thing can become lostech when the difference between a full body cooling suit and a mere vest is just more complicated plumbing. The biggest design flaw to watch out for would be accidentally crimping the plumbing shut when the mechwarrior sits down in his mech.

Well, there are certainly full body ice circulating suits..
Interestingly, the first patent for a suit came 7 years after it was "invented" for Battletech fluff.
https://patents.goog...t/US5305471A/en
Someone could've made a shitload of cash.

Even so, its basically a vest with ice packs.
Somewhat more modern suits basically take this concept and add a pump.

Darpa's version was probably actually created much earlier than the "release" of its technology for civilian use...as was the case with many of its other things, such as what would eventually become GPS by the 70s finally being released for use across the world, or the internet long before we had windows.

But...
Fact is..
It was in Battletech first.


---------

This said:
It never became lost tech in the BT universe. Its basically mandatory.
3025 pilots often wore nothing BUT the cooling vest and some trousers.



Yes, in armies with better equipped mechs and the like, they wear more. Draconis Combine in particular.

This version of the helm... looks like it could breathe which is important considering how hot it can get, but...


But going back to cooling gear, pilots of the Demolisher...
"In the original model, this system produced an enormous amount of heat, and so the chassis was modified to act as a makeshift heatsink."
"Until the appearance of the Demolisher Mk II, crewmembers had to wear special coolant suits because of the unbearably hot temperatures inside of the tank during a sustained firefight. The Mk II fixed the problem by channeling most of the ejection gases out the barrel."

It was not unusual that despite the suits, tank crews in the original Demolisher perished of heat exhaustion even inside those cooling suits.

As for the lost tech statement being about full body cooling suits... seems they weren't. But a full body suit has a number of issues including tears and rips potentially making it worthless, where the vest-and-boots-and-gloves method has a couple of hoses to each and so long as the hoses are good, so too should be the benefits.

[Jonathan8883]

evilauthor, on 12 April 2019 - 10:48 AM, said:

Nope. Every screenshot I can find shows no such thing. Any 360 viewstrip would be going in the upper portion of the UI somewhere, probably taking up the spot where the compass heading is, or squeezing in between that and the top of the screen.

I can confirm that the left & right HUD modular displays in MW2, GBL, and NetMech had a rear view camera option. I used it frequently, along with the one that switched from the "paper doll" armor status display to a bar chart, so I could actually see how much armor was damaged/remaining.