950 replies to this topic

[SakuranoSenshi]

Skylarr, on 10 August 2012 - 10:55 PM, said:

What is your point? The designers have always suggested that the BT Universe had solved what ever problem there was to make it happen.

LOL

You can't solve the impossible. That's the point. Your understanding is lacking and I mean that in the nicest possible way.

[Brenden]

SakuranoSenshi, on 10 August 2012 - 10:53 PM, said:

Hate to break it to you but here in reality, you'll find that branding is mostly psychology and not technical differences, too.

What's the different, though, between Sunglow and Martell? The targeting computer, how accurate it is, it's shape or the beam color?
It makes as much sense as having nothing but Machine guns in an Atlas.

[SakuranoSenshi]

It makes perfect sense. What's the difference between various car brands? Answer, the badge and the price tag, occasionally the market it sells in. Who cares what the actual in-universe difference is when it doesn't in any way affect the performance?

[Brenden]

SakuranoSenshi, on 10 August 2012 - 11:02 PM, said:

It makes perfect sense. What's the difference between various car brands? Answer, the badge and the price tag, occasionally the market it sells in. Who cares what the actual in-universe difference is when it doesn't in any way affect the performance?

... I care... ._.

[SakuranoSenshi]

It makes nice fluff for the roleplaying game but aside from that, the differences are basically meaningless. They probably exist but we're talking about a system that operates on d6s for randomizing. Anything that doesn't make a 17% or so difference doesn't even get tracked in the stats. ;-)

[Theodor Kling]

Skylarr, on 10 August 2012 - 09:46 PM, said:

the BT universe is based on Technology 1000 years in the future. People are trying to prove it cannot happen because of today science.

As already pointedout: science and technology are two different things. And some of the science won´t fundamentaly change till 3049 Sure from our current knowledge of science Jump Drives are impsssible, but maybe we wll find something aobut time and space that makes them possible in the future. But when it comes to ground combat, the science involved is mostly Newtons Mechanics, and pilot reaction times. Things that won´t change. Scientific progress keeps finding amazing things we never dreamed about, but only in areas of extrme energies, or exteme size ( big or small) or extreme velocity. Most of which does not apply to mechs ( maybe the energies when visible beam lasers hit theri special armour.

And: It´s not 1000 years in the futuer.. its 1000 years in the 80s future. Which alone makes for some intneresting poblems. Mostly about computer systems. Idisticntly remembe a novel, playing in a Jade falcon settign where a warrior hadto do adminsitrative stuff on a PC and navigated through the foldres by keyboard only.

Brenden, on 10 August 2012 - 11:00 PM, said:

What's the different, though, between Sunglow and Martell? The targeting computer, how accurate it is, it's shape or the beam color?
It makes as much sense as having nothing but Machine guns in an Atlas.

As I suggested already a few pages aago: Htey will have slight differences, but puting all those into ruleswould make the sourcebooks real big.
Probably there are already slight differences between one manufactures weapons.

Compare it to nowadays real world weapons: An AK 47,a and an AK 74 look nearly the same, shoot the same ammo.. but are not the same weapon. Same gores for different AR 15 based rifles. Sure they differ a bit hee and a bit here.. but if you had to put it into game rules like BT where assualt rifles make only a fraction of the whole arsenal you just give them ONE rule for assault rifles.
It´s easy to see that they did that on ACs. Looking at mech drwaings for mthe tech readouts, you can see, that some have long barels, some have short, some have bigger calibre then others, and it is established, that they also have different burst sizes and rate of fire.
This will result in quite different weapon behavior. A Maraouders AC5 looks like it its made for sniping, where a Centurions AC10 looks more like a short range, large calibre weapon.

[SakuranoSenshi]

Ak-74 doesn't shoot the same ammunition at all as an AK-47, by the way. One is 7.62 Russian, the other 5.45 Russian. (5.45 x 39 and 7.62 x 39).

[Skylarr]

Melcyna, on 10 August 2012 - 10:21 PM, said:

if it takes 6 days to reach the planet from the jump point, and they take 4 extra days to go around it then that's 4 days of which the reinforcement can arrive late and STILL be in time to intercept them from outside the system, because they logically don't have to go around the mines.

So my forces arrive at the Jump Point on day zero. You detect me right away, this planet has a good tech crew onduty. Then you send a call out for help. The next planet to yours receives call for assistnce. It starts to recall personnel. Starts to load up equipment and supplies.
Lets say they have a well geared machine and launch in 2 days. Lets say they have a 5 day trip to their Jump Point. When they jump in system I am 4 days away from landing and they are 6 days away. I will be landing my forces 2 days before they land on planet. I have 2 days to slam my forces into yours.

I will bring enough forces to counter your forces you already have on planet and enough to counter what you bring to re-inforce with. Most of the time battles go on for weeks before re-inforcements arrive. Since you have moved some of your front line forces to handle you digruntle civilians I may not have that hard of a time taking the planet.

Capital missile come out in 3056, Sub-capital weapons are developed by WoB in 3072.

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The one i am more confused is the SECOND part...

it suggests that as far back as 1st SLDF era they were already doing exactly that... ie: arming merchant ships (heck, even calling it Q ships too just like the WW original), what i don't understand is why they ceased doing that afterwards... when they still produce the same civilian ships that were converted to Q ships, perhaps even more confusing is that some of these shipyards also produced the capital ship weapon that would be needed to arm them including the one in FedSun that was supposed to be intact and functional throughout the period even during the tech regression.

All military dropships have weapons already on them. They are used to keep the aerospace at bay. The Aerospaces jon is not to destroy the incoming Dropships, but, to disable them or damage them enough that they cannot land.

The Dropship is considered LostTech and is never targetted while it is on the ground. And a Dropship will not target Mechs on the ground. Then it launches the enemy woud try to disable it so it coud be captured.

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What i am curious though is that they actually could position a massive station with range sufficient to cover the jump point area (only one of them of course, i don't think it's logical to assume they can target the jump point on the opposite pole of the system), and they managed to cover it with direct fire weapon at that.

Small rockets to keep it in its orbit stationary.

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The mine idea essentially would be an extremely down scaled version of such defensive mean except that instead of shooting them with direct fire weapon (and thus reusable of course) the mines would head directly to the target and detonate on it (single use), except with the cost of just a single mine, instead of a full sized battle station.

Then of course we can argue on what became lostech and how much of them are lostech to the point that not even the mine will be feasible.

They way you just mentioned them would be LostTech.

[Melcyna]

SakuranoSenshi, on 10 August 2012 - 11:28 PM, said:

Ak-74 doesn't shoot the same ammunition at all as an AK-47, by the way. One is 7.62 Russian, the other 5.45 Russian. (5.45 x 39 and 7.62 x 39).

Which technically are vastly different in the realm of assault rifle performance...

Warsaw 7.62 that AK-47 used is massive compared to the 5.45

comparatively they are analogues to NATO 7.65 7.62 vs NATO 5.56 [whopse, didn't see that, thx for noticing it]

one is a large massive round commonly used in battle rifles, the other a smaller but high velocity round...
one lighter than the other, trading potency at longer range for more bullets carried.

Skylarr, on 10 August 2012 - 11:40 PM, said:

So my forces arrive at the Jump Point on day zero. You detect me right away, this planet has a good tech crew onduty. Then you send a call out for help. The next planet to yours receives call for assistnce. It starts to recall personnel. Starts to load up equipment and supplies.
Lets say they have a well geared machine and launch in 2 days. Lets say they have a 5 day trip to their Jump Point. When they jump in system I am 4 days away from landing and they are 6 days away. I will be landing my forces 2 days before they land on planet. I have 2 days to slam my forces into yours.

I will bring enough forces to counter your forces you already have on planet and enough to counter what you bring to re-inforce with. Most of the time battles go on for weeks before re-inforcements arrive. Since you have moved some of your front line forces to handle you digruntle civilians I may not have that hard of a time taking the planet.

Note: while i am sure the idea that disgruntled civilians would threaten to rebel would be interesting to use as a novel material, realistically that's about as likely as needing to shift a military platoon because a company went out of business and had laid off it's employee.

Government acquisition incidentally, is done almost every time during the war, and outside the war... it's probably as old as the idea of government itself in the history.

As for the idea of the invasion itself, consider a few things as well:
first one i can think of is that since the defender would have the extra time to defend themselves, the expectation is that they should be able to dug in better than if they had less time to prepare.

second is that if we had mines, why not put some in the orbit which... well you know, can't be bypassed if they actually wanna land.

third of course is that this assumes we have no vessel to intercept them either

Now let's pretend all the above are bypassed, you emerge in system, the defender notes your fleet size and signal for help while they prepare for the incoming assault (let's pretend they have no ships, there's no orbital mine, no orbital defense, nothing... there's just dropships and mech THAT's IT).

Let's say it takes 2 days to mobilize an army to assist and ship off, from the start though the defender already knows roughly how many are inbound to the planet, so if anything they should realize already if they actually need to mobilize more troops to repel them or otherwise retake the planet in worst case scenario.

Skylarr, on 10 August 2012 - 11:40 PM, said:

Capital missile come out in 3056, Sub-capital weapons are developed by WoB in 3072.


All military dropships have weapons already on them. They are used to keep the aerospace at bay. The Aerospaces jon is not to destroy the incoming Dropships, but, to disable them or damage them enough that they cannot land.

The Dropship is considered LostTech and is never targetted while it is on the ground. And a Dropship will not target Mechs on the ground. Then it launches the enemy woud try to disable it so it coud be captured.

I'd like to point out that if this was the case during each Succession war then they have a funny way of targeting since Dropships losing weapons and taking fire was described several times (including some that were destroyed), mechwarrior mercenaries player probably can remember one as well when they quite clearly don't consider the Dropship off limit as target, and the dropship certainly don't seems to hold back either in shooting the other mechs... so i am confused where they are doing this 'we will not shoot the dropship, so don't shoot us' apply.

Are you sure you are not mixing up Jumpship and Dropship here? Jumpship i can sort of picture it, but Dropship from the portrayal i can remember as far back does not seems to enjoy such immunity, nor do they seems to be hesitant and firing their guns right back at the Mechs near their landing zone.

But putting that aside... what about the second part???

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Q-Ship - Military conversion of a civilian vessel, typically cargo ships. First introduced by the Star League Defense Forces prior to the Star League Civil War.

Cargo ships... turned into military vessel... hell they even gave it the same name as the historical Q ships, done since SLDF era and with shipyards that can produce these vessels not only intact but capable of manufacturing the weapons that would be useful to arm them...

Don't tell me they consider armed cargo ships Lostech too...

Edited by Melcyna, 11 August 2012 - 12:29 AM.

[SakuranoSenshi]

Umm, yes, I know. That's why I said "Doesn't ... at all". Oh, it's 7.62 NATO, by the way. Not 7.65.

P.S. They're Battle Rifles, 'Assault Rifles' is a kind of civvy term and tends to get conflated with the ever popular (meaningless) 'Assault weapon' (which are almost not anything of the kind) AKA 'Scary looking gun'.

Edited by SakuranoSenshi, 10 August 2012 - 11:56 PM.

[Skylarr]

An item made by different manufacturs should have slight differences in them. To keep the TT game simple BT have themm all doing the same thing. Imagine how long a TT turn would take if you had all of these verables. In a game amongst friends we can trust each other, But at a tournament you spend allot of time double checking the other guys numbers.

[SakuranoSenshi]

Stealth edits, eh? ;-)

[Theodor Kling]

SakuranoSenshi, on 10 August 2012 - 11:28 PM, said:

Ak-74 doesn't shoot the same ammunition at all as an AK-47, by the way. One is 7.62 Russian, the other 5.45 Russian. (5.45 x 39 and 7.62 x 39).

Ah damm.. I knew my statement was to broad to be real. Thanks for pointing it out. The argument remains valid though. Although the 7.62R is much heavier then the 5.45R resulting in different flight and damage characteristics, compared to let´s say AA guns they are just "rifles" and their differences become mostly meaningless.

Skylarr, on 10 August 2012 - 11:40 PM, said:

The Dropship is considered LostTech and is never targetted while it is on the ground. And a Dropship will not target Mechs on the ground. Then it launches the enemy woud try to disable it so it coud be captured.

Jump ships are usually not attacked, but dropships are fair game. The reason they are rarely engadged on the ground is just their firepower and armour which is massive comapred to mechs and tanks. Just like you don´t send unarmored infantry agaisnt mechs in most situations, you avoid sending mechs against dropships.
EDIT: Execpt you got a lot of them at hand and rely on taking it out fast.

Edited by Theodor Kling, 11 August 2012 - 02:00 AM.

[Melcyna]

SakuranoSenshi, on 10 August 2012 - 11:54 PM, said:

Umm, yes, I know. That's why I said "Doesn't ... at all". Oh, it's 7.62 NATO, by the way. Not 7.65.

P.S. They're Battle Rifles, 'Assault Rifles' is a kind of civvy term and tends to get conflated with the ever popular (meaningless) 'Assault weapon' (which are almost not anything of the kind) AKA 'Scary looking gun'.

Hmm odd, as i understand it... battle rifles refer to the automatic rifles chambered primarily for the larger 7.62 NATO rounds which were NATO standard until the 5.56 NATO became the new standard thanks to the US insistence where the 5.56 chambered automatic rifles are the ones usually called assault rifles.

So that put all the old automatic rifles, G3, FN-FAL, M-14 etc as battle rifles, whereas the M-16, G41 and the rest of the 5.56 rifles as assault rifles.

or at least that was how i understand it.

[SakuranoSenshi]

Melcyna - truth is, the two terms don't separate that easily and only really exist side-by-side in American English. British Army considers the L85A1/L85A2 (SA-80) to be a Battle Rifle, for example but it's chambered for 5.56 NATO and always has been. The British Army also considered the old L1A1 SLR (Self-Loading Rifle, a FN-FAL clone essentially) to be a Battle Rifle and that was, of course, chambered in 7.62 NATO.

The meaning, by definition, is any military rifle whose purpose is frontline battle service, by which definition the M16 series as well as the older M14 series (which are larger calibre) would both be battle rifles. In truth, it's probably just a matter of preferred usage and an attempt to avoid popularized media / civilian terms which are often applied in a negative sense.

[Melcyna]

Interesting...

I guess it makes sense given the difference in performance results and the war experience (where the M-14 wasn't particularly suitable especially in the confines of vietnam), while the L1A1 remained viable weapon all the way to Falkland conflict.

But then again, how much should we bet that Britain style was probably also influenced in part at least by their annoyance on the US decision, first in pressing for the adoption of 7.62mm despite Britain recognizing the need for lighter and smaller caliber more suited for automatic firing, and then by their sudden decision to adopt 5.56mm after war experience and test essentially vindicated Britain's original stance.

[Nebfer]

Melcyna, on 09 August 2012 - 11:06 PM, said:

THAT unfortunately trips itself up...

at 600MJ, with 125kg gauss rifle slug (8 slugs per ton of ammo, discounting the weight of the ammo container)... the slug basically flies at Mach 6.5,

at 300MJ, with 125kg gauss rifle slug it flies at Mach 4.5

THIS mind you is about the same speed as a tank shell.... if we are to take that figure, all of a sudden that very fast gauss rifle slug turns out to be not that fast at all compared to our standard gun, granted with a significantly more mass of course...


The first part? that correlates with the part above to an extent, that the gauss rifle slug isn't ACTUALLY that fast, though it then begs the question why are they describing them as an extremely high velocity when it's about as fast as our standard gun, and that also makes it even harder to comprehend why they lose so much energy so quickly in atmosphere when they are of a significant mass.

It would help your argument, if you checked your math...
Hypersonic is Mach 5, or roughly 1,710 meters per second, the Ke of a 125kg slug at these speeds is 183 megajoules, 300 megajoules requires a velocity of 2,191m/s (Mach 6.4), though Heavy Gauss rifles are also hypersonic... (keeping the same damage ratio the velocity would be 2km/s), Mach 1 being roughly 342m/s.

And generally anything above 1.8km/s is faster than current tank weapons, in fact the Current M829A3 round used by the Abrams has a velocity of 1,555m/s (Ke of it's 7kg projectile is 8.47 megajoules, note it has a 3kg sabot making the round as fired 10kg but only 7kg impacts with the target, the complete round is about 25kg).

Also the Ke of these rounds are in the range of 16 inch and larger battleship guns (momentum is about 1/3rd however), which is impressive... Which would seem to point to the they have some impressive recoil counters (which is probable why the weapons are so heavy)

Though theirs also fluff that mentions that Gauss rifles are twice as fast as conventional weapons, and that conventional weapons have better velocity's than current weapons... Never mind the crazy velocity's required for space (well at lest it's not AT1 scaling where each hex was 6,500km in size vs the current AT2 & TW size hexes of just 18km...).

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But this is exactly why using numbers around is highly dangerous though in sci fi, when they start throwing numbers around like X can do Y MJ of energy and other data like it's weight etc... then anyone with basic physics can start plugging the number and scratching their head when the numbers come up with ridiculous implications.



It's easier to just NOT SAY the specific like that... and let the audience fill in the blank themselves, then you can deny anything you want or come up with a vague description that can be amended at later period.

In General Catalyst and their predecessors dose/did not give out hard numbers to use very often...

And much of the fault is due to the novel writers, who use the terms hypersonic, and what naught.... But the source book writers are a bit more picky on what they use, so as to not to put down as much hard numbers if they can help it.
----------------------------------------------------
As for your MG remarks, keep in mind B-tech MGs are not what we would call MGs, theirs quite a number that are mentioned to be 20mm in caliber, with some mentions of 30mm based ones as well (their are some that are mentioned to be 12.7mm of course).
AC-2s have calibers in the 20 to 50mm range.

FYI
AC-5s Generally range from 40 to 80mm, but their are 120mm ones (as well as 105 & 110mm)
AC-10s range from 75 to 100mm (as far as I can find, though their is one that mentions 150mm, but the same weapon in the same book on another unit mentions it's a 75mm)
AC-20s range from 100 to 203mm (though most seem to be 100 to 120mm, but their are notable exceptions, 150, 185, 203, ect)

Thumper artillery is in the range of 150mm guns
Sniper Artillery is in the range of 170mm guns
Long Tom Artillery is in the range of 240mm guns

While I have not found any stated calibers for tube artillery, the weight of the shells as well as the guns match reasonably well with real life weapons of the stated size...

Edited by Nebfer, 11 August 2012 - 07:37 PM.

[Tigerhawk71]

I came to this thread to chortle heartily at ridiculous battletech facts in a FICTIONAL UNIVERSE and instead i get "people" arguing about real world physics and AK 47's.

What.

[Theodor Kling]

AC calibres are only estimates, because as you said, exeptions exist due to different rounds per burst.

[Melcyna]

Nebfer, on 11 August 2012 - 07:34 PM, said:

It would help your argument, if you checked your math...
Hypersonic is Mach 5, or roughly 1,710 meters per second, the Ke of a 125kg slug at these speeds is 183 megajoules, 300 megajoules requires a velocity of 2,191m/s (Mach 6.4), though Heavy Gauss rifles are also hypersonic... (keeping the same damage ratio the velocity would be 2km/s), Mach 1 being roughly 342m/s.

And generally anything above 1.8km/s is faster than current tank weapons, in fact the Current M829A3 round used by the Abrams has a velocity of 1,555m/s (Ke of it's 7kg projectile is 8.47 megajoules, note it has a 3kg sabot making the round as fired 10kg but only 7kg impacts with the target, the complete round is about 25kg).

Also the Ke of these rounds are in the range of 16 inch and larger battleship guns (momentum is about 1/3rd however), which is impressive... Which would seem to point to the they have some impressive recoil counters (which is probable why the weapons are so heavy)

Though theirs also fluff that mentions that Gauss rifles are twice as fast as conventional weapons, and that conventional weapons have better velocity's than current weapons... Never mind the crazy velocity's required for space (well at lest it's not AT1 scaling where each hex was 6,500km in size vs the current AT2 & TW size hexes of just 18km...).


In General Catalyst and their predecessors dose/did not give out hard numbers to use very often...

And much of the fault is due to the novel writers, who use the terms hypersonic, and what naught.... But the source book writers are a bit more picky on what they use, so as to not to put down as much hard numbers if they can help it.
----------------------------------------------------
As for your MG remarks, keep in mind B-tech MGs are not what we would call MGs, theirs quite a number that are mentioned to be 20mm in caliber, with some mentions of 30mm based ones as well (their are some that are mentioned to be 12.7mm of course).
AC-2s have calibers in the 20 to 50mm range.

FYI
AC-5s Generally range from 40 to 80mm, but their are 120mm ones (as well as 105 & 110mm)
AC-10s range from 75 to 100mm (as far as I can find, though their is one that mentions 150mm, but the same weapon in the same book on another unit mentions it's a 75mm)
AC-20s range from 100 to 203mm (though most seem to be 100 to 120mm, but their are notable exceptions, 150, 185, 203, ect)

Thumper artillery is in the range of 150mm guns
Sniper Artillery is in the range of 170mm guns
Long Tom Artillery is in the range of 240mm guns

While I have not found any stated calibers for tube artillery, the weight of the shells as well as the guns match reasonably well with real life weapons of the stated size...

You are correct, i stand corrected with the KE figure, i missed the 0.5 modifier (that was embarrassing mistake right there) so the speed figure for the 600MJ i did actually applied for the 300MJ.

With regard to the speed though, that's still not that fast... at 2,191m/s or Mach 6.4 assuming of course that the 300MJ figure holds.

Current US ammunition for example is slightly slower since they have their own line of thought on how to best achieve the penetration (and they are less picky about using DU penetrator of course).

The german and most EU nations on the other hand that utilize tungsten heavily had to increase the muzzle velocity further to improve penetration performance, Rheinmetall D43A1 for example (which is pretty old shell back from 90s) is reaching speed of 1740m/s, and that was just using the shorter L/44 barrel... with L/55 barrel and further optimization on the propellant reaching Mach 6 is probably achievable for the next gen shell... though from there it's probably going to be extremely difficult to proceed any further without enlarging the bore.

And if we want to think of the AC and Gauss rifles weight as coming from their recoil counter though, then we kinda hit a snag when we compare them to the ground vehicles... since logically the lower profile vehicles with their lower center of gravity would have superior recoil management performance.

So they either need less heavier recoil dampener or their gun performance would've been superior...

in particular the popular notion seems to be that the larger AC have shorter effective range because of the burst 'recoil' (evidently all that weight wasn't enough to fit dampener sufficient for it), but if such is the case then when mounted on the heavy tanks the AC should have superior performance.

And naturally we also come into a real snag there in the recoil department when considering the fact that a 50ton battlemech firing an AC-20 have IDENTICAL gun performance as an Atlas weighing double of it firing the same gun, with the same weight and space... which of course would make no sense if you think about it from physical point of view (but it does naturally makes sense in gameplay point of view which is the main concern for the dev).

Incidentally while the weight of some of the artillery shells they use are a bit closer to the mark for an artillery shells... their RANGE is unfortunately just like the other weapons quite short though less chronic than the other weapons.

A long tom for example have a range of what 20 maps? so over 13km, while a rapid fire old self propelled gun like Paladin reaches near 20km with their old shells and crossing 30km with newer rounds, newer SPGs go 30km with standard shell and goes up to 60km with latest extended range shells.