23 replies to this topic

[SafeScanner]

Has the Infantry ever been explored on the universe?

wonder if there would be enough material to make a boot on the ground mechwarrior style with a side showing of some mechs

[Blood Rose]

Yes.
All IS and Periphery nations field convention infantry, Clans field them in 2nd line and garrison units. Infantry come in a variety of flavours ranging from footsloggers, to bikers, to mobile units on integrated transports.
Infantry come in many loadout flavours, the most common are Rifle platoons, Laser Rifle platoons, SRM platoons (yes, every man has an SRM tube), LRM platoons, MG platoons, and Flamer platoons. Outside of that, well, you name it. Mortar units, engineer units, mixed units, etc. Lore and crunch wise infantry are weak but incredibly dangerous if used correctly. Infantry in built up areas are nightmares, and if a lance comes in without the weapons to handle infantry they are in for a bad time. Some infantry are trained to launch suicide attacks on Mechs, using grapples and rapid autoascenders to get close to vulnerable joints in the legs and jam explosives into them, or to even swarm onto the mech itself and start planting demolition charges and bombs onto it.
And then you have Battle Armour. Battle Armour are even scarier, as a recent opponent of mine discovered.

[LordNothing]

mwll had battle armor. they were fun. i liked going for headshots with a manpack ppc. got an atlas once. the scary thing is you could take a tag laser, and ride along on enemy mechs while spotting it for missiles. and in mwll missiles will chase the beam without a lock. of course you had to jump off before you blew up because battle armor was vulnerable to splash.

Edited by LordNothing, 29 June 2023 - 12:30 PM.

[SafeScanner]

sounds fun nothing quite so spicy like jumping on top of some battlemech

[Meep Meep]

Blakes cyborg warriors were considered enough of a threat to battlemechs to run specialized fits to take them out efficiently.



Infantry wasn't complete fodder in the age of mech warfare.

[VeeOt Dragon]

don't forget one of the most frightening infantry weapons that can cause just about any Mech pilot to **** their shorts, The INFERNO missile launcher. (if you ever read the "Gray Death Legion" books the Gray Death make excellent use of them even capturing a few mechs with just threatening the pilots with them.)

makes me wonder if they will add Mech scale inferno SRMs to MWO if they ever add new weapons?

Edited by VeeOt Dragon, 30 June 2023 - 01:20 AM.

[w0qj]

Well, the Timber Wolf (Specifically TBR-Prime ?) has machine gun hardpoint(s) which are for anti-infantry purposes...

But these hardpoints have been for ballistic hardpoint purposes only...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Personally, I would have developed a 4th hardpoint type on MWO mechs, to limit excessive number of MG on mechs:
~machinegun or machinegun_array type of hardpoint. This is in addition to our familiar ballistic/energy/missile hardpoints of course.

This above solution would have solved the original issue of Piranha MG hardpoint inflation, if MWO decides to tackle this issue.
(Too late now though... since then we have the machine gun boats: MLX-G, VPR-F, KFX-any, Crusader Crael, and now the Fafnir Juggernaut !)

[Marcel Leander]

If you were into the tabletop, conventional infantry units are covered on page 144 of the Classic Battletech TechManual.
Here's an excerpt.

Quote

Cheap and easy to raise and maintain on any given world in the Classic BattleTech universe, conventional infantry may number among the most underestimated of battlefield units in Total Warfare standard rules play. But without their support, few invasions can be won. Properly placed, conventional infantry can surprise enemy units with a burst of firepower, or hold objectives BattleMechs and Combat Vehicles cannot, or scout an area with minimal chance of detection, or even clear buildings of enemy presence without having to level an entire block.

Edited by Marcel Leander, 30 June 2023 - 01:42 AM.

[Duke Falcon]

Infantry could be a real pain in da @s$ if deployed and used well. While weak on their own a few squad could take down everything what is ground-bond! Mechs, tanks, whatever!
So yes, infantry in BT is not as poor.
An FPS based around them would be cool: Start as a conventional rookie and slowly reach battle armoured mech-hunter level!
BattleTech is have lots of potentials but somehow everything almost exclusively centered around the Mechs (like WH40k games always center around Spess Mehrens, usually Ultra Smurfz)...

[w0qj]

Like I've already said before, MWO could have various combat pets (elementals, VTOL craft, helicopters, etc.)

Update: E&OE credits to Duke Falcon:
BattleTech has ProtoMechs which are mini-mechs about twice the size of elementals! Combat pets please!!
And if MWO deviates from lore even more, perhaps mini-mechs can be used as combat pets!

Swap in different pilots for unique abilities.

Heck, different cockpit items for even more unique quirks.

The imagination is the limit here

Edited by w0qj, 01 July 2023 - 06:15 AM.

[PocketYoda]

Meep Meep, on 29 June 2023 - 02:16 PM, said:

Blakes cyborg warriors were considered enough of a threat to battlemechs to run specialized fits to take them out efficiently.



Infantry wasn't complete fodder in the age of mech warfare.

Especially in Cities and urban areas.

VeeOt Dragon, on 30 June 2023 - 01:19 AM, said:

don't forget one of the most frightening infantry weapons that can cause just about any Mech pilot to **** their shorts, The INFERNO missile launcher. (if you ever read the "Gray Death Legion" books the Gray Death make excellent use of them even capturing a few mechs with just threatening the pilots with them.)

makes me wonder if they will add Mech scale inferno SRMs to MWO if they ever add new weapons?

It was a locust.. And the mechwarrior changed sides haha.

Edited by PocketYoda, 30 June 2023 - 08:48 PM.

[Duke Falcon]

w0qj, on 30 June 2023 - 12:22 PM, said:

Like I've already said before, MWO could have various combat pets (elementals, VTOL craft, helicopters, etc.)
And if MWO deviates from lore even more, perhaps mini-mechs can be used as combat pets!

Swap in different pilots for unique abilities.

Heck, different cockpit items for even more unique quirks.

The imagination is the limit here

They exists: PROTOMECHS
About twice the size of an Elemental, piloted by an aerospace dropout. Usually carry only one weapon but since works together as an unit of five they pretty damn a match for any given mech. And many of their weapons already included in MWO, see micro lasers and micro-pulses for example.

And to turn around the table there are also mechs heavier than 100 tons! Tripod designs with more than one pilot. And there are drones, drone aerospace fighters, drone pocket warships, damn everything is in BT just go n pick! Even mechs are numerous: primitive mechs, battlemechs, omnimechs, extra-light mechs (under 20t), protomechs, industrial- agro- n whatever-mechs...

I always wanted a BT game include underwater engagements. Submarines versus mechs, armoured infantry, yepp, imagination is the limit here, as w0qj noted.

[VeeOt Dragon]

i wouldn't mind combat pets an such as long as they aren't MC or real cash only (i detest any kind of pay-to-win mechanic). treat them like the other consumables. have them take up a consumable slot as well.

[BLACKR0SE]

I think this game is better than Hawken without resembling it, but I really liked the cockpit entry sequence in MW5, I wish it was in this game too.


https://youtu.be/__65gSmraoc?t=206

Edited by BLACKR0SE, 03 July 2023 - 03:08 PM.

[VeeOt Dragon]

well this game is much older than Hawken so its more that game trying to do what MWO does. keep in mind that MWO is pushing a close to a decade now i think.

[Marcel Leander]

Oooo... I don't think combat pets would be a good idea. You'd be essentially talking about AI driven bot players, even if they're smaller than mechs driven by human players. You'd end up with situations where a player's performance would be artificially improved or reduced by the skill of an AI. In some cases teams could even lose a game due to losing to the abilities of a computer rather than other human players.

[PocketYoda]

Clan combat pets would be Elementals.. terrifying..

[Storky]

Violently shooting people will increase age limit with low reward

[SafeScanner]

Storky, on 02 July 2023 - 08:44 PM, said:

Violently shooting people will increase age limit with low reward

well it is a mature setting to start with

[CherokeeRose187]

Storky, on 02 July 2023 - 08:44 PM, said:

Violently shooting people will increase age limit with low reward

That ship sailed when a certain group executed a hostile takeover via threats of well funded and endless ruinous litigation, side benefit is that we don't have to worry about lack of revenue killing the game as long as the devs stick to the NDA.

Edited by CherokeeRose187, 03 July 2023 - 09:58 AM.