8 replies to this topic

[Wildstreak]

The announcement has been done about the content for Harebrained Schemes' third Battletech DLC and it is impressive so far. In addition to bringing over more Mech types that MWO had probably using their models, they also announced:

1 - In addition to 7 Mech types, they state a new 95 ton Assault Mech the Bull Shark is coming. Never heard of it, searching showed a Strato Minis design that is said to have been originally Bishop Steiner's idea though what is in the video looks different.

2 - Someone on reddit said the Warhammer and Marauder were coming not in the DLC but a regular patch so you do not need the DLC to get them.

3 - DLC announcement mentioned some new weapons including Coil Beam, Mortar, possible new ACs and targeting lasers. Video in first link shows a screen with mention of Ultra ACs, LBX, Snub PPC, Inferno missles, TAG and NARC.

This is in a game with no Clans.

Edited by Wildstreak, 19 October 2019 - 10:19 AM.

[Nesutizale]

IIRC some of the new weapons where developed right before the invasion but not destributed on a big scale. So for a merc to aquire them would be strange....except you have a weapons testing contract or you have stolen them from the factory.

[Koniving]

Wildstreak, on 19 October 2019 - 10:18 AM, said:

3 - DLC announcement mentioned some new weapons including Coil Beam, Mortar, possible new ACs and targeting lasers. Video in first link shows a screen with mention of Ultra ACs, LBX, Snub PPC, Inferno missles, TAG and NARC.

This is in a game with no Clans.

Short of whatever the flippity-flying-flook the Coil Beam weapon is and the Mech Mortars... all of that tech actually re-emerges gradually between 3028 and 3049.

Mech Mortars are already around, but were unpopular among the actual factions and more commonly used in the periphery-states in which missiles were harder to come by. (Some of these also used Mech Rifles rather than Autocannons, such as the Arbiter 35 ton mech which is made to look like an 80 ton mech with its 190mm Heavy Rifle [8 tons, 540 meter standard expected long range accuracy, 6 damage to armor or 9 damage to structure per use). Trouble is Rifles shoot so slowly compared to autocannons (a projectile every 2 to 8 seconds on the Rifle compared to as 1/second up to a hundred in several seconds for the "standard" AC).. that Rifles just aren't popular. Mortars are similar as they only fired 1 to 8 projectiles in a ten second period (depending on the loading mechanism with MM/1 being the lightest but slowest and MM/8 being the fastest but heaviest) and 2 damage per shell (so 16 damage max compared to an LRM-20's 20).

Only real reason Mech Mortars become popular again after the Clan Invasion is because it turns out Clan (and IS) AMS can't recognize mortar shells as incoming missiles/rockets since they're slower moving and don't burn a combustible fuel.

Although unusuable, a Mech Mortar was featured in Mechwarrior 1 for the PC, 1989. It is mounted in place of the PPC for a Scorpion 1N and is a brief story piece. Specifically, it is described as a double barrel mortar (Mech Mortar 2). The Scorpion also had a machine gun installed on the left-front torso. HBS Battletech's implementation will be the first time the mech mortar has been featured in an official BT/MW PC game since MW1.

Ultra/5 becomes rapidly spread in Kurita territory pretty early in the 3030s as they very rapidly begin upgrading their Dragons with them.

LB-10X rushes into production 3035, but technically was already in the game just extremely rare.

Inferno missiles are mentioned in Lethal Heritage before the first encounter with Clan mechs. The tech is developed in the 20th century and never becomes lost tech. However it deals 0 damage to mechs, instead producing "heat damage." As such, short of anti-infantry combat or as fire support it wasn't popular on the field for mainstay forces, however it was common for mercenaries. It's basically a flamer in a comparatively more expensive missile form.

NARC returns in 3035
TAG however doesn't return until 3044.

Edited by Koniving, 19 October 2019 - 11:09 PM.

[Koniving]

Nesutizale, on 19 October 2019 - 03:08 PM, said:

IIRC some of the new weapons where developed right before the invasion but not destributed on a big scale. So for a merc to aquire them would be strange....except you have a weapons testing contract or you have stolen them from the factory.

Depends on who made them.
Apparently, Wolfhound was specifically developed by the Lyrans for use by mercenaries with the mercenary version using an existing Cyclops Large Laser from the Drillson tank (Battletech - Battlepack: Fourth Succession War)
and the Lyran's own version developed a new Setanta Large Laser.

(The difference is significant...but not really. Cyclops Eye is half traditional laser, half particle projector. Against reflective armor it is unaffected unlike every other laser. However it also doesn't gain any advantage against other armor types. It also has a physical kinetic element due to the particle stream (though this means it also has a travel time for full effectiveness). The only other significant bit of information is unlike most large lasers which can go beyond 450 meters depending on atmospheric conditions with reduced effectiveness, the Cyclops Eye cannot. As such when Phelen Kell fired his in an attempt to save his friend's life from the Clans at 500+ meters in desperation...it was completely ineffective. Of fun note, when they fired their first shots they were 850 meters out [and this was kept in the audiobook version which is based on the re-release], Clan ER Large Laser range is rated for 750 meters, so I doubt this is a typo given that Clan Extreme range is around 990 meters for their ER LL.)

Also fun to note: "Grinner" was armed with a Cyclops Eye Laser before the Clantech refit in the care of Clan Wolf, and after the endo-steel upgrade (which is known to make mechs physically bigger/bulkier and implied to be larger than he remembered) it is "6 times" Phelen Kell's height. That puts it around 9.5 meters (as opposed to 13+ in MWO) for the now larger than normal Wolfhound..

Side track and showing off some of the info I've been collecting for my MW5 mod aside...
Both Davion and Steiner forces were producing stuff and having mercenaries test it so as to hide the fact that they were making significant advancements due to holding a huge stake of the Helm Memory Core, or so we're told by Stackpole's Blood of Kerensky trilogy, given that Comstar somehow magically doesn't know exactly how much the Davions had developed, and the personal relationships Hanse and Victor Davion seem to have with Wolf's Dragoons. Given that Davion literally gave that mercenary group a planet from which to serve as a hub for all mercenaries and centralize a network for them, I'm not surprised that mercs have tech that isn't 'out there'.

However, I'm sure that our mercenary unit won't have that tech given to them. We'll have to salvage it.
We're not Wolf's Dragoons (which apparently had Omni-tech vehicles rolling around before 3010 and were secretly building Clan mechs on the planet given to them by the Davions, which is why Victor Davion's suddenly sporting a Dire Wolf).

Personally, I dunno how I feel about the coil gun but if it's the effect I saw, I'll use that for the Cyclops Eye Laser.
I was gonna link the screenshot I saw of some wild looking new weapon effect... but it's gone?
I'm...disappointed.

Edited by Koniving, 20 October 2019 - 01:21 PM.

[MeiSooHaityu]

I have a feeling that these weapons might be more late game, and tied to the mini-campaign. I'm getting a derelict ship sort of vibe in the vein of the Tripitz Afair, but maybe a Clan derelict? That would make me guess that maybe we find ourselves at the top of the map, and that raises even more questions.

[Nesutizale]

@Koniving
Interesting to know. Its been a long time since I read the books so I don't even remember those little things.

@MeiSooHaityu
It could also be that you just get a contract from one of the big houses to test new weapons for them.

[Koniving]

Nesutizale, on 21 October 2019 - 12:47 AM, said:

@Koniving
Interesting to know. Its been a long time since I read the books so I don't even remember those little things.

Came up while digging for info on BT weapons for my MW5 mod.
Also Wolfhounds come in two appearances. One similar to MWO's appearance (TRO 3039)
And one with an actual Wolfhead cockpit (Battlepack four's book.)





Of the two, I prefer the Battlepack 4 version.

[Nesutizale]

Top one looks indeed better. The seconds head looks like a bug to me

[Koniving]

Completely agree. Unfortunately most Wolfmech art -- despite the description of the mech -- features that weird almost bug-like head. Even MWO's Wolfhound has it.

Battlepack four also featured the Firestarter, which while I won't go out of my way to pull those pictures tonight, the cool thing is the laser emitter is unusually wide. Though its artwork and poses are different in the other TROs, that is one trait that remains the same throughout. In fact I rather like it.

Unlike the unseen artwork which also frequently uses Magna brand lasers...
I enjoy artwork like the firestarter which uses Magna MK II medium lasers that goes out of its way to add a little detail like wide-barrel rectangular-tipped laser emitters.

But here's why that's so interesting.. The Magna Metals produced hand-held laser rifle...
https://www.sarna.ne...gna_Laser_Rifle
[color=#000000]The [/color]Magna Laser Rifle[color=#000000] is a laser rifle commonly used by the [/color]Draconis Combine[color=#000000]. It fires a laser beam of much greater width than usual, sacrificing range and armor penetration for the ability to damage a larger area of the target. Efficiency is maintained by additional capacitors and a larger charging chamber, matching the same performance of other laser rifles.[/color]^[1]

The bold, italic, underlined part is the interesting part. I've made it a trait of Magna lasers in general, and Firestarter's wide medium laser emitters (which are Magna lasers) give me a base to design the 3D model of the laser housing. (They sport 4 flamers and 2 ML, and there's only two wide-rectangular barrels).

Its also noted that it has additional capacitors and a larger charging chamber; if this also translates to their mech-scale lasers then it doesn't lose actual output or have a longer delay or anything of the sort. Though hitting the target with the full width of the beam might be necessary to achieve any superior effect . Given that most mechs sporting Magna lasers also lack any other means of fighting infantry or in the case of Firestarter is a mech meant to fight infantry, wider-beams can help deal with smaller or otherwise harder to hit targets.

Actually the array of infantry laser brands gives quite a bit of interesting insight, for example Intek's lasers have the longest range. When you compare the standard laser rifle and the intek laser and use that ratio for large laser and difference an "Intek" Large Laser would have... you've got the range of an ER Large Laser. Intek's laser rifle gives us that their rifle held the record for laser rifles until the Sunbeam came out (an ER Laser Rifle).. As such, Intek Large Lasers have a significant range advantage; this is mitigated by the fact that Intek lasers according to the Intek Laser Rifle requires more individual shots to achieve the same damage as other rifles. So while an Intek Large Laser might compete at range with an ER Large Laser, you'd have to land about twice as many shots to get that kind of damage.

Just a sampling of the lore-based goodness I've got in store for MW5..


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Btw, has anyone else that's created or downloaded mods for HBS BT... had issues with a DLC screwing up the mod? I've been waiting for the last announced DLC to come out before bothering to fix my mod since the first DLC broke it. If the mod you had or made hasn't been broken, do you know if it replaced the base weapons or if it cast them aside and instead created new weapons?