50 replies to this topic

[Funk1777]

Anjian, on 21 January 2019 - 12:00 AM, said:

I always wondered how putting ammunition in your feet can somehow feed the gun in the arm.

It's like the internet, you see, it is a series of tubes.

[Vellron2005]

Gaussfather, on 20 January 2019 - 08:44 PM, said:

So I know its "just a game" but I've never understood why a 20 ton Commando has as many "slots" available as a 100 ton Atlas.

I'm old enough to have seen the original paper doll sheets that players used in Battletech to build out their mechs, and for a board game it's a perfectly fine compromise.

But in this game the dev's spend hours and hours fine tuning how everything looks and scale etc but its all based on "alternative" geometry/physics. Why should a mech with 5 times the weight and probably even more times the volume have the same volume/slot limits? I mean the medium laser isn't somehow getting bigger or it would put out more power etc. Same with every other weapon, the power output stays the same even as the volume requirement increases with the size of the mech...

Wouldn't it be cool, and more like reality, if the mechs received more slots available in the torsos and limbs as the tonnage increased? That way you could squeeze in more weapon systems or heat sinks. You would still be restricted by tonnage which makes perfect sense "in reality". It wouldn't break the game, only make it more interesting and the loadout variety increase.

As a computer game there is nothing stopping this improvement of the rules, and in my view, of the game.

Oh, Battletech is full of technical and logical inconsistencies..

For instance:

1) How come a small mech with a small distance traveled in a single step is much much faster moving than a large mech with a gigantic step? Ever seen Jurassic park? Remember how slow the T-rex moves it's legs, but it still covers a large distance, fast enough to keep up with a car?

2) Mechs are very large, tall combat units. Should be easy enough to pick them off from a distance, no matter what kind of armor they have. How they ever rose to become the "top dog" on a modern battlefield is beyond all logic.

3) 7 Ton targeting computers that gives a slight targeting bonus, when the same can be done in a laptop today? Just shows the age of the Battletech setting.

4) Lasers that have "range". Because in the year 3000+, focused light stops being focused after a few hundred meters.

5) "Homing missiles" that can barely home-in on a mech a 1000m away, and only hit it sporadically, as opposed to intelligent missiles that can hit things as big as a cigarette pack, half a continent away, and blow it to hell.

[Karl Streiger]

Vellron2005, on 21 January 2019 - 12:33 AM, said:

Oh, Battletech is full of technical and logical inconsistencies..

For instance:

1) How come a small mech with a small distance traveled in a single step is much much faster moving than a large mech with a gigantic step? Ever seen Jurassic park? Remember how slow the T-rex moves it's legs, but it still covers a large distance, fast enough to keep up with a car?

2) Mechs are very large, tall combat units. Should be easy enough to pick them off from a distance, no matter what kind of armor they have. How they ever rose to become the "top dog" on a modern battlefield is beyond all logic.

3) 7 Ton targeting computers that gives a slight targeting bonus, when the same can be done in a laptop today? Just shows the age of the Battletech setting.

4) Lasers that have "range". Because in the year 3000+, focused light stops being focused after a few hundred meters.

5) "Homing missiles" that can barely home-in on a mech a 1000m away, and only hit it sporadically, as opposed to intelligent missiles that can hit things as big as a cigarette pack, half a continent away, and blow it to hell.

• 1 - animation issue of MWO and MW5 as well if you see the videos
  
• 2 - rule of cool don't waste any second idea - there are only limited theaters were a mech might be the better option as a tank
  
• 3 - only because its called computer doesn't meant its a computer - could also be a system of recoil buffers, additional gyroscope, hydraulics, sensors, quantum forecaste black magic stone
  
• 4 - idiocy of the writers its luck because otherwise battle would be boring.... laser weapons are absolute show stoppers. a laser that deals some damage at 2km will total annihilate stuff at close range, however its nonsense that a laser has unlimited range - neiter true in space nor in atmosphere
  
• 5 - idocy of the writers its luck because otherwise battle would be boring, or nerdcore because you would need to use active counter measures - because similar to air-combat simulations a single hit and your done

so non of your arguments seem valid, just another nonconstructive rant

[Wil McCullough]

Anjian, on 21 January 2019 - 12:00 AM, said:

I always wondered how putting ammunition in your feet can somehow feed the gun in the arm.

Lore enforcer had something mentioning this issue. The ac kept jamming because in order to feed it, the ammo had to go through two components and required the pilot to keep the weapon "frozen" in position until the feed was complete.

They got around the problem by putting the ammo bin on its back to simplify the feeding. ******* geniuses. It just made the mech explode more.

[Anjian]

Vellron2005, on 21 January 2019 - 12:33 AM, said:

Oh, Battletech is full of technical and logical inconsistencies.. For instance: 1) How come a small mech with a small distance traveled in a single step is much much faster moving than a large mech with a gigantic step? Ever seen Jurassic park? Remember how slow the T-rex moves it's legs, but it still covers a large distance, fast enough to keep up with a car? 2) Mechs are very large, tall combat units. Should be easy enough to pick them off from a distance, no matter what kind of armor they have. How they ever rose to become the "top dog" on a modern battlefield is beyond all logic. 3) 7 Ton targeting computers that gives a slight targeting bonus, when the same can be done in a laptop today? Just shows the age of the Battletech setting. 4) Lasers that have "range". Because in the year 3000+, focused light stops being focused after a few hundred meters. 5) "Homing missiles" that can barely home-in on a mech a 1000m away, and only hit it sporadically, as opposed to intelligent missiles that can hit things as big as a cigarette pack, half a continent away, and blow it to hell.

Machines guns that only reach 175 meters away. War Thunder, which is a very "simmy" game, you got machine guns in WW2 fighter aircraft hitting over 500 to 750 meters away.

Why do you need manual aiming and targeting even? Even small pocket size computers, you can be able to auto aim, auto target, with image recognition.

What's with the glass cockpits? If it rains or snow, without decent wipers, you can't see things out.

Will every opponent try to shoot the cockpit instead? Would it be better to house the pilot inside the torso for better protection and use a "head" with electronic sensors? (Gundam gets that right). Putting the cockpit in the torso makes it easier for the pilot to embark or disembark from from his mech, with the mech in genuflecting position (Gundam also gets that right).

At this stage, one can also ask where the unmanned drones, both in air and land? Where are your unmanned robots? What about the ability to use robots remotely?

[Karl Streiger]

Anjian, on 21 January 2019 - 02:00 AM, said:

At this stage, one can also ask where the unmanned drones, both in air and land? Where are your unmanned robots? What about the ability to use robots remotely?

you know that BT combat space is heavy infected with ECM?

and as said only because Stackpole wroten nonsense about range in his crappy novels its not set in stone. combat range is only a question of game-play. Multi Kilometer ranges simple don't make sense because of the rule of cool - want to play with miniatures but have multi-kilometer ranges at scale?
Want to shoot Mecha but again at several dozens kilometers? With "real" weapons a Archer might have a total of 60 missiles - each guided each with range of 30km or more, each missile will deploy EFP warheads over the target. And each explosive formed penetrator will likely break through all but the thickest top armor.

want to play a computer game were you start in your mech do run some hundred meters before getting wasted by another guy - that didn't even have seen you just fired some dozens of his LRM at your position?

[Anjian]

Karl Streiger, on 21 January 2019 - 02:13 AM, said:

you know that BT combat space is heavy infected with ECM?

You probably heard of ECCM.

Quote

and as said only because Stackpole wroten nonsense about range in his crappy novels its not set in stone. combat range is only a question of game-play. Multi Kilometer ranges simple don't make sense because of the rule of cool - want to play with miniatures but have multi-kilometer ranges at scale? Want to shoot Mecha but again at several dozens kilometers? With "real" weapons a Archer might have a total of 60 missiles - each guided each with range of 30km or more, each missile will deploy EFP warheads over the target. And each explosive formed penetrator will likely break through all but the thickest top armor. want to play a computer game were you start in your mech do run some hundred meters before getting wasted by another guy - that didn't even have seen you just fired some dozens of his LRM at your position?

The kind of missiles a mech would hold, are going to be only like MANPADS, and only able to hit an aerial target up to 10 kilometers away. Note I said aerial targets. Tank cannons can hit over 2km distant, but your target is going to be pretty small. In relation to a mech, such a weapon would have to held like an external rifle, not unlike some mechs in the Gundam universe.

A viable excuse for AC and UAC short ranges is because the cannons, in order to fit inside a mech, would have to be short barreled and use smaller amounts of propellant. Because penetration and damage is equal in all ranges, mech ballistics are surely using HEAT. Otherwise, you would need an armor piercing mechanic, with AP successful penetration --- able to cause damage --- in direct relation to the distance of the target, along with a damage curve that is proportional to distance, factored with the thickness, layers, and slope of the armor. Missiles will also be using HEAT.

Because of HEAT weapons, mech armor will have to force HEAT weapons to explode outside of the armor via explosive reaction, or ERA. But ERA gradually expends itself, so this reflects the gradual diminishing of HP of a mech armor. Thus the relationship of HEAT vs. ERA can be simplistically expressed in HP. Mechs have their armor repaired by mounting new tiles of ERA.

Despite the multi-kilometer ranges, LOS prevents realizing full range potential in anywhere but the open field, but realistically, there should be no range difference between a machine gun, a 20mm cannon and a 50mm one up to 1km. Where they should differ is the amount of damage, and if AP is used, the damage curve in relation to distance. If AP is used, then we have something called kinetic damage, which really should be a damage curve drawn over distance. Machine guns can and should be considered kinetic weapons; 20mm and 30mm autocannons that fire solid all metal shots of tungsten, each shaped like a sabot, would be considered kinetic.

Your armor will have to be differentiated as a composition, or a choice of three times --- Anti Kinetic (face hardened); ERA or Explosive Reactive against HEAT; and Ablative, where the armor literally burns into smoke, completely stopping lasers and energy weapons. If this was a game, I won't be offering an all Anti-AP, or All anti-HEAT, or all Anti-Energy. Instead, offer a variety of armors that offer different levels of damage reductions for each. Armor A can have 10% AP, 20% HEAT and 30% Energy, Armor B can have 15% AP, 15% HEAT and 15% Energy, for example. In effect, these are modular armors with differing damage resistances or "quirks".

If mechs with anti-aircraft capability, using missiles and kinetic weapons, they can reach up to 10km away, which is the range common with modern day CIWS like the Phalanx. Such mechs provide a protective bubble over the rest of the mech force --- and their effectiveness becomes the reason why aircraft and helicopters have become rare over the battlefield. If you go back to Macross, the original designs that would become the Warhammer and the Rifleman were in fact, anti-aircraft mechs.

Edited by Anjian, 21 January 2019 - 02:55 AM.

[Khobai]

Anjian, on 21 January 2019 - 02:53 AM, said:

You probably heard of ECCM.

the ECM in battletech is way stronger than the ECCM. thats why the weapon ranges are so short.

its also why mechs have to be deployed in the first place because the widespread ecm coverage makes it impossible to surgical strike targets from orbit.

thats the lore reason anyway.


the armor technology in battletech also vastly surpasses the weapons technology. otherwise most mechs would be destroyed in one hit from an AC/20. battletech is pretty much the exact opposite of real life for everything.

Anjian, on 21 January 2019 - 02:00 AM, said:

At this stage, one can also ask where the unmanned drones, both in air and land? Where are your unmanned robots? What about the ability to use robots remotely?

I imagine all the ecm and jamming would make remote control over long distances impossible. There are drones in battletech but they only work over short ranges.

The whole ECM/jamming thing makes sense to me. What doesnt make sense to me though is how an Atlas only weighs 100 tons. If its made out of the materials they say its made out of it should weigh at least 4 times that conservatively. An abrams tank in real life is the same size or smaller than a light mech and it weighs 60 tons... the weight of mechs in battletech doesnt make any sense.

Edited by Khobai, 21 January 2019 - 03:54 AM.

[HammerMaster]

Anjian, on 21 January 2019 - 12:00 AM, said:

I always wondered how putting ammunition in your feet can somehow feed the gun in the arm.

Linkless feed to any ammo box.
https://www.google.c...iact=mrc&uact=8

[Anjian]

Khobai, on 21 January 2019 - 03:35 AM, said:

the ECM in battletech is way stronger than the ECCM. thats why the weapon ranges are so short.

its also why mechs have to be deployed in the first place because the widespread ecm coverage makes it impossible to surgical strike targets from orbit.

thats the lore reason anyway.


the armor technology in battletech also vastly surpasses the weapons technology. otherwise most mechs would be destroyed in one hit from an AC/20. battletech is pretty much the exact opposite of real life for everything.



I imagine all the ecm and jamming would make remote control over long distances impossible. There are drones in battletech but they only work over short ranges.

The whole ECM/jamming thing makes sense to me. What doesnt make sense to me though is how an Atlas only weighs 100 tons. If its made out of the materials they say its made out of it should weigh at least 4 times that conservatively. An abrams tank in real life is the same size or smaller than a light mech and it weighs 60 tons... the weight of mechs in battletech doesnt make any sense.

No. The whole ECM thing still does not make sense to me, since ECM modules come separately and is meant to "stealth". Furthermore ECM requires that you would need to have arrays. ECM can never be too far advanced of ECCM because both are in lockstep of each other. If you understand how ECM works, you will understand how ECCM would work. And besides have you heard of what is called an ARM? Anti-Radiation Missile. You fire that from an aircraft and what it does is home in on the source of ECM, which is producing a lot of radio waves.

As for the lightness of the Atlas, that's true. Does not make sense it should be 100 tons. Even if we assume that the armor and the skeleon is non metallic, being carbon based.

[HammerMaster]

Anjian, on 21 January 2019 - 05:20 PM, said:

No. The whole ECM thing still does not make sense to me, since ECM modules come separately and is meant to "stealth". Furthermore ECM requires that you would need to have arrays. ECM can never be too far advanced of ECCM because both are in lockstep of each other. If you understand how ECM works, you will understand how ECCM would work. And besides have you heard of what is called an ARM? Anti-Radiation Missile. You fire that from an aircraft and what it does is home in on the source of ECM, which is producing a lot of radio waves.

As for the lightness of the Atlas, that's true. Does not make sense it should be 100 tons. Even if we assume that the armor and the skeleon is non metallic, being carbon based.

So much....What?

[Xiphias]

Gaussfather, on 20 January 2019 - 08:44 PM, said:

So I know its "just a game" but I've never understood why a 20 ton Commando has as many "slots" available as a 100 ton Atlas.

Bit of a nitpick, but the fact that the lightest mechs are engine capped under 250 means that they end up having a "heatsink tax" on their slots due to the loss of the heatsinks that are internal to the engine (arguably this applies to larger engines too if you use the heatsink slots). Running a 170 (max) engine in a Flea requires 4 additional external heatsinks which is 4 slots with SHS and 12 slots with DHS, which is a pretty significant amount of space to lose.

Balance wise, because lights have significantly less tonnage they often end up having to take endo/ferro/XL engines to gain more tonnage for weapons. All of these have a slot cost (14 for endo/ferro, 6 for XL engines).

To illustrate with an extreme example, a Flea running DHS, XL engine, Endo, and Ferro, has only 5 free slots when running the minimum amount of heatsinks. In contrast, an Atlas running a standard and no endo/ferro can have 47 free slots.

While the game obviously isn't realistic, the ability to trade slots for tonnage, effectively gives bigger mechs more slots because they don't need to trade slots for extra free tonnage.

[HammerMaster]

[CanadianCyrus]

There was one case of a remotely piloted Battlemech.
https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Gestalt
The pilot could control the mech with the neural interface helmet while outside the mech.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

Vellron2005, on 21 January 2019 - 12:33 AM, said:

Oh, Battletech is full of technical and logical inconsistencies..

For instance:

1) How come a small mech with a small distance traveled in a single step is much much faster moving than a large mech with a gigantic step? Ever seen Jurassic park? Remember how slow the T-rex moves it's legs, but it still covers a large distance, fast enough to keep up with a car?

2) Mechs are very large, tall combat units. Should be easy enough to pick them off from a distance, no matter what kind of armor they have. How they ever rose to become the "top dog" on a modern battlefield is beyond all logic.

3) 7 Ton targeting computers that gives a slight targeting bonus, when the same can be done in a laptop today? Just shows the age of the Battletech setting.

4) Lasers that have "range". Because in the year 3000+, focused light stops being focused after a few hundred meters.

5) "Homing missiles" that can barely home-in on a mech a 1000m away, and only hit it sporadically, as opposed to intelligent missiles that can hit things as big as a cigarette pack, half a continent away, and blow it to hell.

4: Yes and in Aerotech you fight with same weapons and unguided Missles over astronomical Distances and with highest Speed
..you can not hit a 130km fast Mech in 600m in TT and other side a 400kmh fast Aerospacefighter and ...we have not guide Tech for missles and can navigates over Lightyears and fly Manovers in the Space ???? its like we have not the Tech for Wheels and drives Stagecoaches

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

GeminiWolf, on 20 January 2019 - 08:49 PM, said:

In the original Battletech there were no slots, you could put whatever you wanted on a Mech as long as you had tonnage. Weapon Slots and what not were implemented until the MechWarrior video games.

Actually you missed what he's talking about, because original mech construction rules very much had slots, Critical Slots.

That's all the space indicates, space allocated for critical systems, weapons, heatsinks, ect.

Now I will admit, that a light having the same amount of critical space as a heavy doesn't exactly make sense, but also the tonnage helps mitigate that anyway...

Looking at that space, without looking at tonnage, is as foolish as looking at the tonnage without paying attention to the amount of critical slots you have available.

Both things combine to help balance out the weight classes... and it's why we get some mechs like the Hollander, that are built around a single weapons system that's far bigger than the mech should, really, be able to handle.

[Karl Streiger]

Funzo, on 21 January 2019 - 08:09 PM, said:

There was one case of a remotely piloted Battlemech.
https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Gestalt
The pilot could control the mech with the neural interface helmet while outside the mech.

Not a real remote like the Revenant or Celerity, but the interface cockpit is the stuff we want for MWO - eject your striken mech and fight on as BattleArmor - heck could have become a Gnome style game.... would be fun...

About the stuff with armor and protection and fire power... just as a reference point. The scorpion light tank (ignore the tt game stuff) would be a slightly better protected, slightly faster tank compared to the Abrams or any other of today's MBTs, add a faster firing gun to the mix and you have an idea.
You can compare it with ww2 tanks with today's tanks, any performance of any ww2 tank can be fulfilled by much lighter and faster vehicles without to much costs in protection.

Edited by Karl Streiger, 22 January 2019 - 12:01 PM.

[MechaBattler]

I think the construction rules are actually pretty well thought out. It's just they clearly had to give up on some realistic aspects for the sake of simplicity. And according to Koniving, it's clearly meant to be as inclusive as possible to allow people to use mechs from other franchises. While also being able to recreate existing designs with it. Imagine if PGI had to create the mechlab on their own? It would have been horrible. We'd end up with even more ridiculous armless, all head mounted, crazy monstrosities.

[S 0 L E N Y A]

If you can suspend your belief to buy into the idea of giant walking tanks being the premier form of modern combat then I dont think you should really complain about much else.

In other words, why complain about an odd detail, when that detail is based on an even more absurd premise?

[Angel of Annihilation]

Actually if you want to let the small details bother you, there are a million and one things that are wrong with Battletech/Mechwarrior.

1. An M1 Abrams tank weighs nearly 70 tons. Standing on it end would make it about 8 meters tall and 2 meters wide or about half the bulk of a 70 ton battlemech in game.

2. Weapon ranges are hilariously short. Tanks today can engage and kill targets out to 2000 meters with guns and 3500m with missiles, yet in the BT universe, not much can hit past 1000m.

3. The bigger then gun the shorter the range. In real life a LMG can engage out to around 1000 meters, while a HMG can engage out to 2500 meters. In game, LMGs have like twice the range of HMGs. Same goes for cannons. In real life the bigger cannons have much longer ranges than smaller ones but in Battletech and AC/20, the biggest cannon of all, has the shortest range.

I could go on but you get the point. As much as I love Battletech and Mechwarrior, it is saddled with the most absurdly ridiculous rules of about any game system I have ever played.