38 replies to this topic

[MechWarrior319348]

Just a quick question I need answered. I couldn't find it on the internet so I thought I would ask here. Are we talking WWII B-17 daytime-raid life expectancy? I thought I would find plenty of info on the internet but I can't. I know pilots can eject, but i mean.... how many even get a chance right? In the books and lore pilots have long interesting stories but, are they exceptions? Can anyone put this in perspective for me?

I'm only asking because I was listening to "A New Dawn", covers of the original MW2 soundtracks and I realized just how eerie Mechwarrior really is. Lots of death.

Edited by Dillion Harper, 11 January 2019 - 09:10 PM.

[Knuckles OTool]

One that just deployed into a hotzone or in a time of heavy conflict is probably pretty short. One that performs guard duty or serves during relatively peaceful years is quite a bit longer. Much like any soldier in history I'd guess.

[MechWarrior319348]

Makes sense. Guess being inside a bipedal heavy metal war machine really isn't that much of a perk.

[Bombast]

Depends on the era. During most of the 'playable' time frames (3rd Succession Wars onward), mechwarriors can generally be expected to live for a long, long time. Mech combat is fairly rare and involves relatively few combatants compared to today, mechs kills are more common than mechwarrior kills, and generally speaking, mechwarriors aren't out to kill each other. Outside oif major conflicts, its not entirely unheard of for one side of a conflict to give up as soon as the other gets operational control, since the war machines themselves are more valuable than the planets they defend in the long run.

Even in the dirty fighting Inner Sphere, mechwarriors are generally not bloodthirsty or aiming to kill each other.

Now, go forward to the FedCom Civil War/Jihad, or back to the nuclear hell that was the Amaris Civil War/First Succession War, and things change a bit.

EDIT: It also kind of helps that there are very few truly crap mechwarriors. It's not like infantry, where you have a whole gamut of skill levels and proficiency - By the time you get into a battlemech, you don't suck.

Edited by Bombast, 11 January 2019 - 10:12 PM.

[YueFei]

Bombast, on 11 January 2019 - 10:11 PM, said:

EDIT: It also kind of helps that there are very few truly crap mechwarriors. It's not like infantry, where you have a whole gamut of skill levels and proficiency - By the time you get into a battlemech, you don't suck.

This made me laugh, but I'd guess the "not sucking" part has less to do with low fatality rates and more to do with the nature of mech combat, which as you said will most often result in a scrapped mech before it results in a dead pilot.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

In the miniature game savior the dice coincidence the pilots ... regulate which make it impossible for a pilot to target certain huge components like the cockpit, even with a stationary 'Mech and the firearm distributed over the whole mech by a 10m tall Object standing in 30m ,
In the Romans it is the Fantasy Authors like Stackpole thats 10 seconds of fighting inflates to unrealistic 10 pages.

in reality each good Aerospace fighter Pilot bomb away a mech in Seconds and each good Pilot thats Enemy Cockpit by a shutdown Mech in 100m

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 12 January 2019 - 12:49 AM.

[Jackal Noble]

3 minutes and 50 seconds, give or take.

[Bombast]

Old MW4 Ranger, on 12 January 2019 - 12:46 AM, said:

In the Romans it is the Fantasy Authors like Stackpole thats 10 seconds of fighting inflates to unrealistic 10 pages.

Stackpole used to actually play out his battle scenes on board, so his fights are, in theory, closer to 'actual' than anyone elses in Battletech lore..Supposedly this is why one of the heroes, Victor Steiner-Davion, actually got Gauss Walled to the cockpit and had to have an author's saving throw used on him.

Edited by Bombast, 12 January 2019 - 05:13 AM.

[Bud Crue]

How long does a mechwarrior live?

Well if they are trying to get a drop in FP at 9:30 central time, last night, they may well live forever.

:/

[Palfatreos]

Bud Crue, on 12 January 2019 - 05:41 AM, said:

How long does a mechwarrior live?

Well if they are trying to get a drop in FP at 9:30 central time, last night, they may well live forever.

:/

Why you don't like peace you dam blood hungry warlord barbarian cannibal. stop eating our children dam IS scums

[Bud Crue]

Palfatreos, on 12 January 2019 - 06:55 AM, said:

dam blood hungry warlord barbarian cannibal

That game sounds awesome. Is there an early supporter pack? If so, count me in.

[Valdarion Silarius]

I guess it would depend what role that mechwarrior was fulfilling, if he/she was IS/Clan and what era of battletech you are talking about. I know for a fact if you were apart of the clans and if you were either old, have a disability but can still pilot, or a free birth you were expected to be thrown into a second line battlemech which the pilot can ironically live longer than their true born mechwarriors depending on what mech they are piloting.

Mechs like the Firemoth and Hunchback IIC were designed to be hard hitting suicide machines. In cases like the Hunchback IIC, it was a mech designed for clan mechwarriors to redeem their honor and die in glorious combat as a final contribution and service to their clan. Either that or your superiors threw you in it because they hated your guts and you did something to piss them off, lol.

It's part of the reason why I would want to be behind the pilot controls of a Rifleman IIC (if I lived in the world of battletech and was apart of a clan) than any other mech really. Mainly due to the fact that I would most likely be posted to defend a military installation, be on guard duty or just patrol/escort valuable assets. True borns can laugh at me all they want and call me a freebirth, but when their body parts are plastered all over the walls of their mech we'll see who will have the last laugh .

[Koniving]

Dillion Harper, on 11 January 2019 - 09:02 PM, said:

Just a quick question I need answered. I couldn't find it on the internet so I thought I would ask here. Are we talking WWII B-17 daytime-raid life expectancy? I thought I would find plenty of info on the internet but I can't. I know pilots can eject, but i mean.... how many even get a chance right? In the books and lore pilots have long interesting stories but, are they exceptions? Can anyone put this in perspective for me?

I'm only asking because I was listening to "A New Dawn", covers of the original MW2 soundtracks and I realized just how eerie Mechwarrior really is. Lots of death.

Want a good answer?
Check out this out.
Someone asked how lore accurate MWO to how overpowered some mechs were. The Piranha stuck out in the question with the example of taking out 100 ton mechs. So I pit it up against the new Corsair hero mech, "RAVAGER".

Although 104 trials were done, the first is the one that's most detailed.

The answer, crippled in 10 seconds, knocked out with an ammo explosion from his own heat, then 40 seconds later able to wake up, power up the mech and try to get up... only for it to shut down again, crippled now by the heat of its ST loss and his attempts to make the mech stand and walk (not even reaching 56 kph) before it falls over again.
His opponent refused to attack him again since the initial exchange and instead just watched.
The pilot dies in medical care somewhere between the same day and the next day, having arrived in medical care in a coma.
The extent of the pilot's injuries are described in visceral detail.

This pilot only got to fight for 10 seconds, and during that 10 seconds crashed and burned. The Piranha literally on fire (which is part of the heat source in addition to the ST loss).

--------

That is, of course, a low point. Its a light rushing a 95 tonner head on. That particular pilot after 4 runs got swapped with someone older, wiser and more patient, whom out of 50 runs had a near 50% win rate against a superior opponent. Putting the other pilot back in and rerunning scenarios but manually setting up placements to be advantageous... the original pilot, Danica (not sure if male or female), was only able to win 1 out of 50 matches, and this is when the Corsair chose to pick the Piranha up by the cockpit. The pilot, Danica, died anyway but at least Danica crippled the Corsair in doing so.

Edited by Koniving, 12 January 2019 - 10:55 AM.

[Novakaine]

One could say if these things became "King of the battlefield" it was for a reason.
Pure economics.
If these machine were not incredibly durable no nation states would field very many of them.
The sheer logistics of a mere regiment of the beast would wreck most economies.
Even for the clans with their advance tech would be hard pressed to support them.
They did not bring battlemech factories with them when they returned.
And their supply train stretched across many light years.

[Koniving]

Novakaine, on 12 January 2019 - 10:54 AM, said:

One could say if these things became "King of the battlefield" it was for a reason.
Pure economics.
If these machine were not incredibly durable no nation states would field very many of them.
The sheer logistics of a mere regiment of the beast would wreck most economies.
Even for the clans with their advance tech would be hard pressed to support them.
They did not bring battlemech factories with them when they returned.
And their supply train stretched across many light years.

I know they had some serious durability, but...

This is the cost of the Corsair Hero mech if it came out of a factory in 3063. (Cbill value is for 3063, though the closest comparison in cbill to USD is 3062).
Cost: 19,917,008 C-bills (to put it into perspective 1 Cbill in 3062 = $7.20 USD in 2016: In US dollars this mech costs $143,402,457.60)

Economics... not the reason they were kings.
Now in comparison, a Light mech and a medium mech.... Far more affordable.
Economics, loss of information and personnel, etc., are why mechs downgraded so heavily over time.
But come new (or revitalized) information and a new enemy, and up goes the spending.

But these were not economically sound and only viable due to the collective wealth of a few thousand planets.
This is why garrisons usually only had about 1 or 2 dozen on the entire planet.
Why mercenaries had jobs.
Etc.

They were kings for a very different reason.
A reason that has never been depicted in any Mechwarrior game, in any Mech Assault, in any Mech Commander, or any Battletech-themed digital game.
....They.
Can.
Dodge.

They can manuever, dodge, bob and weave. They automatically try to avoid incoming weapons. Rifles are obsolete in part due to inferior penetration (but for 8 tons you can have 6 damage instead of 5, so why choose the AC/5 for 5? Ranges, etc. are the same! So why? Simple: A Heavy Rifle fires one big shot and at long ranges, a mech can easily just side step it, lean out of the way, etc. ACs fire large volumes of shots so that something always hits.)

Consider missiles, notice missiles of medium and longer ranges use high volumes of rather dumb missiles? High volumes are hard to dodge, a 'Mech can matrix one or two projectiles, but 5, 10, 40? This is why even standing still, an average of 2 missiles out of every 5 LRMs will completely miss in tabletop. This is the TechManual talking, saying they can avoid colliding into street lights and step over cars while in a full sprint and will try to avoid any incoming fire so long as the pilot does not intend to take it [you'd intend to take it if trying to protect something else].

Among misconceptions about vehicles in the TechManual, it outright says that they are false for the most part. Weapons are the same. Different vehicles can master different terrain, though a mech can master more than most vehicles due to hands, such as climbing walls. They can crouch under things, climb over things, they can make small jumps even without jumpjets (nothing meaningful, like 1 or 2 meters up. Supposedly its the manual jump that helps get mechs quickly off the ground when jumpjetting, performed when the pilot slams both of his feet down on the pedals, with the jets steered by moving the foot pedals like two independent 3-dimensional joysticks (push down for more thrust, let up for less, tilt them for flight direction and steering.)

On vehicle misconceptions.


On economics and durability.

Mechs are rare, and destroyed as quickly as new ones come off the factories.
However, they do not come off the factories quickly. There are actually not all that many factories and they take around 6 to 8 months to manufacture 4 Jagermechs back to back (in 3015... they get produced quite a bit faster after 3049 as a number of new factories are being built by then). (Its noteworthy that the smaller the mech is, the faster it can be produced, as such light mechs weren't only the cheapest mechs, they were produced a lot quicker).
As such, yes they are pretty durable in terms of how they can be salvaged and fixed, or even hodgepodged together as frankenmechs (such as the Wolfman), which is a Rifleman and Wolverine combination. The old Battletech books also include a number of others, such as a Rifleman and Warhammer combination with two different paintjobs, this is because they hadn't repainted it yet before it was sent into battle. But aside from their endurance and ability to be repaired even after some serious devastation, its unlikely that the reason for them to be king of the field was how economically sound they were.

If you were to go that route...
Then the Behemoth tank would be king.

100 tons, more armor than a 100 ton mech can possibly have, 4 LRM-5s on the front (able to target up to 4 enemies independently) and twin LB-10X on the turret. Using one, after losing a track and being rendered immobile I took out 1 Atlas and crippled or destroyed 6 or 7 out of 8 Enforcers. The Commando shown died on the first exchange.


UK models are tournament builds (which are really overpowered I might add compared to stock builds).
The LRC Atlas had 4 LB-10X. It stood for "Lordred Custom."

[GeminiWolf]

Bombast, on 11 January 2019 - 10:11 PM, said:

Depends on the era. During most of the 'playable' time frames (3rd Succession Wars onward), mechwarriors can generally be expected to live for a long, long time. Mech combat is fairly rare and involves relatively few combatants compared to today, mechs kills are more common than mechwarrior kills, and generally speaking, mechwarriors aren't out to kill each other. Outside oif major conflicts, its not entirely unheard of for one side of a conflict to give up as soon as the other gets operational control, since the war machines themselves are more valuable than the planets they defend in the long run.

Even in the dirty fighting Inner Sphere, mechwarriors are generally not bloodthirsty or aiming to kill each other.

Now, go forward to the FedCom Civil War/Jihad, or back to the nuclear hell that was the Amaris Civil War/First Succession War, and things change a bit.

EDIT: It also kind of helps that there are very few truly crap mechwarriors. It's not like infantry, where you have a whole gamut of skill levels and proficiency - By the time you get into a battlemech, you don't suck.

Also in the BT universe there are Space Craft, Infantry, Tanks, many other aspects of the Military.

[Novakaine]

I agree with everything you say.
I'm just say economics plays a part in it all.

[Funk1777]

Jackal Noble, on 12 January 2019 - 12:56 AM, said:

3 minutes and 50 seconds, give or take.

Bout tree fiddy

[Asym]

What can be seen can be hit. What can be hit can be killed.... As you read above, as in the real world, it's not a long life for most when everything shot, is accurate and deadly...........as it should be in this game but, sadly isn't....

Some have been saying "it's just a game for years" and I wonder, what would happen if the game "got real" and went back to being something more that this dumbed down version of "Rock-and-Sock'em-Robots"? Would anyone stay?

This thread should be kept for the information above....

[razenWing]

I think everyone put up pretty good point.

1: There aren't enough mechs to be thrown around to have short life spans.
2: Once engagement DO happen, then it's up to anyone's guess whether you will survive.
3: Mechs are build as contrary to popular beliefs, as more defensive tools. They are self sustaining and can take a crap load of punishment. As such, pilots will probably have better survival rate than... infantry. This is no different than modern day. (also, mechs can eject if severely damage)

I once start a thread discussing how real mech universe would look like. Assuming everything said in the lore is true, about how mechs are ultra rare and more for show. Then combat involving mechs are probably a super rare sight. I don't know how much 19 million space dollars are actually worth, but I imagine it's not a sum to throw around lightly. You probably don't even deploy mechs until the battle is 90% done, and you just need a sweeper. No point risking the big stuff.

(also according to lore, aren't most pilots royalties? I have a hard time believing that those are easily expendables...)