950 replies to this topic

[Melcyna]

Quote

Also, targeting computers weigh tons because they are not just computers; the weight includes all the mechanical equipment needed to aim weapons more accurately.

Which doesn't make sense because that's not what targeting computers are for on the last part...

Weapon stabilizer is what do the job for the last part... not the targeting computer, and is generally separate from the computer.

Weapon stabilizer (and i use this term liberally because what constitutes as one is widely varying depending on the weapon) is part of the weapon module itself normally, and even for battletech it wouldn't make sense with various weapon as the targeting computer weight would therefore change all the time for the same targeting computer as the weapon loadout is changed should the stabilizer be considered as part of the targeting computer. (hence why battletech targeting computer makes little sense)

In a logical weapon design, the stabilizer is already part of the weapon module itself since whenever a weapon is used on the field it has a parameter it tries to follow... that includes among others:
A. range
B. recoil force if any
C. dispersion angle

And the weapon module is meant to achieve these parameters IN THEIR DESIGN from the start, which the computer then uses as a baseline to make firing solution.

Logically the targeting computer job is not to make the weapon itself MORE accurate, it's job is to make sure that the weapon fires in the OPTIMAL vector utilizing the inherent accuracy and parameter built on the weapon design to achieve the purpose of the user ie: a long winded way of saying, computing firing solution... which is what targeting computer of the real world have always been doing.

KalebFenoir, on 26 September 2012 - 07:44 AM, said:

Well I know they experimented with Chest-mounted cockpits; The Cyclops had one, and a few other mechs...and if you look at some designs, you can probably argue that they too have chest-pits but people were too lazy to just attribute it to that. LoL I agree 360-in-120 is nonsensical. You wouldn't be able to do the Hunchie's urban combat very well if you were smacking buildings left and right.

No idea why they still make 'heads'.... maybe it's just a hold-over. Easier to slap an effectively premade cockpit ontop of a mech's body and tie it into the systems than to engineer an engine in such a way as to make room for a pilot seat nearby it. Additional engineering or something. Too costly.

Meh. Hardly matters. Means you don't have to grind through a torso to get to the pilot. Works for me. XD I can totally see an Atlas pulling a Shining Finger on some other mech's head, right now though. Makes me smile.

Oh they are fun alright for gameplay, no one questions that and we know of course that's probably the main reason why the head is still there,

however logically from a common sense design stand point of view there's virtually no way to justify it that makes sense...

for example we can't say "Easier to slap an effectively premade cockpit ontop of a mech's body and tie it into the systems than to engineer an engine in such a way as to make room for a pilot seat nearby it" when said pilot's safety is one of the only thing that keeps the mech useful as a combat asset on the field.

If they can't fit the engine with the cockpit in the torso design then the natural course of action is not to bolt the cockpit on top of the torso, the natural course of action is to DESIGN the torso to accommodate both from the start and ensure there's as much mass between the pilot's cockpit location inside the torso and the most probable direction of hostile weapon.

The only problem with that?

The design would start to resemble an actual TANK with legs... and following the same line of sensibility... we'll end up with an actual tank if we continue onwards and we'd invalidate the whole design of battlemech.

Edited by Melcyna, 26 September 2012 - 07:30 PM.

[Ghostchild]

They Taste like chicken!?!

[KalebFenoir]

Melcyna, on 26 September 2012 - 06:45 PM, said:

Which doesn't make sense because that's not what targeting computers are for on the last part...

Weapon stabilizer is what do the job for the last part... not the targeting computer, and is generally separate from the computer.

Weapon stabilizer (and i use this term liberally because what constitutes as one is widely varying depending on the weapon) is part of the weapon module itself normally, and even for battletech it wouldn't make sense with various weapon as the targeting computer weight would therefore change all the time for the same targeting computer as the weapon loadout is changed should the stabilizer be considered as part of the targeting computer. (hence why battletech targeting computer makes little sense)

In a logical weapon design, the stabilizer is already part of the weapon module itself since whenever a weapon is used on the field it has a parameter it tries to follow... that includes among others:
A. range
B. recoil force if any
C. dispersion angle

And the weapon module is meant to achieve these parameters IN THEIR DESIGN from the start, which the computer then uses as a baseline to make firing solution.

Logically the targeting computer job is not to make the weapon itself MORE accurate, it's job is to make sure that the weapon fires in the OPTIMAL vector utilizing the inherent accuracy and parameter built on the weapon design to achieve the purpose of the user ie: a long winded way of saying, computing firing solution... which is what targeting computer of the real world have always been doing.


Oh they are fun alright for gameplay, no one questions that and we know of course that's probably the main reason why the head is still there,

however logically from a common sense design stand point of view there's virtually no way to justify it that makes sense...

for example we can't say "Easier to slap an effectively premade cockpit ontop of a mech's body and tie it into the systems than to engineer an engine in such a way as to make room for a pilot seat nearby it" when said pilot's safety is one of the only thing that keeps the mech useful as a combat asset on the field.

If they can't fit the engine with the cockpit in the torso design then the natural course of action is not to bolt the cockpit on top of the torso, the natural course of action is to DESIGN the torso to accommodate both from the start and ensure there's as much mass between the pilot's cockpit location inside the torso and the most probable direction of hostile weapon.

The only problem with that?

The design would start to resemble an actual TANK with legs... and following the same line of sensibility... we'll end up with an actual tank if we continue onwards and we'd invalidate the whole design of battlemech.

I completely agree with everything you've said so far. LoL.

I can't think of a single way to defend Battletech's technology levels (considering how rampantly different they are in the same era, with K-F drives, Hyperpulse communication devices, and dropships that can move from a SOLAR La Grange point (not a planetary one) to a world within the system in only a few days.... while the mechs are damned near steam-driven and powered by spit and bailing wire.), except to say that in the history of the BT universe, you get the sense that maybe, some point in the past, they really did have all that awesome tech we have today, and more... and that because they were all morons and kept infighting everywhere, and were blatantly bad about protecting their stuff, that it just degraded more and more and more as time went on.

I mean, they went from having terraforming technologies to the point of controlling an entire world's weather, if not orbit, right back down to 'oh, the priests of the information storage system will have to send the message to the next planet, because it is in their holy domain, and not ours'. Comstar was a nice idea to try to save and protect history and tech, but they screwed up royal by HIDING that tech from everyone. To the point that even THEY forgot about it.

I'm not even going to pretend that in our universe Battletech and Battlemechs are remotely feasible as they stand now. Not even gonna try. We'd have to blow ourselves back to 80s level technology and then move 'forward' again to start heading that direction, and certain people would have to NOT discover how to miniaturize tech into smaller and smaller devices, for it to even remotely get close.

Still, I can reset my brain enough to enjoy Battletech in the world it is in, and fill in the blanks in my head. If you find a contradiction in terms of Now versus Then, just think of some way around it to make yourself feel better about it. Seven ton Targetting Computer? Imagine it as a bunch of old 486 computers strapped together, rather than the Samsung GSIII you have now that has half a billion times the power. Missiles that can't lock on for more than a few seconds? Someone lost that one important data chip with 'advanced missile demi-AI design' written on it.

Just have fun.... I know I am. XD

[Raviance]

The Grey death Legion will take Mechs into weapons effective range... while... the pilots are outside of their Mechs... and... they are basically exposed cargo.. on a train!!!

[KalebFenoir]

Raviance, on 27 September 2012 - 12:38 AM, said:

The Grey death Legion will take Mechs into weapons effective range... while... the pilots are outside of their Mechs... and... they are basically exposed cargo.. on a train!!!

Can anyone say 'The Great Train Robbery'? XD Actually I'd love to see a train rolling down the rails, with like four mechs keeping pace with it, trying to get it to pull over so they can loot it, or trying to seperate the engine from the cars by CAREFULLY shooting between them. XD

[Theodor Kling]

Back to the compressed 360° display: the design DOES make sense. For one thing it its mentioned several times, that comrpession is none in the center, and getting stronger to the sides of the display ( I thinkt i read that it realy stars at 45° from the middle, but not sure).
Furthermore it´s not the only cockpit screen , so others could give uncopressed views, leaving the compressed view screen for general oreintation and foe tracking.
And of course there is the window to look out and aim Having some form of window is a godo idea as well. In case your optical sensors are destroyed, or the computer controling them is. Why some of those windows are so godddam huge is another question Look at the Timber Wolf, or the Jägermech for particulary bad examples.

[KalebFenoir]

Theodor Kling, on 27 September 2012 - 09:25 AM, said:

Back to the compressed 360° display: the design DOES make sense. For one thing it its mentioned several times, that comrpession is none in the center, and getting stronger to the sides of the display ( I thinkt i read that it realy stars at 45° from the middle, but not sure).
Furthermore it´s not the only cockpit screen , so others could give uncopressed views, leaving the compressed view screen for general oreintation and foe tracking.
And of course there is the window to look out and aim Having some form of window is a godo idea as well. In case your optical sensors are destroyed, or the computer controling them is. Why some of those windows are so godddam huge is another question Look at the Timber Wolf, or the Jägermech for particulary bad examples.

I never liked the fact that the cockpit 'windows' on the bird mechs were on the nose, and looked so thin. I always wondered how they could NOT get headshot instantly. I finally settled on the idea that, even if you can see the pilot through the windows, the pilot is in fact farther back into the 'head', and what you're seeing is a projection on external views. That or maybe you really can't see the pilot behind the windows like in the cover arts, but instead have blank expanse of 'window', which isn't really a window, but an overlarge camera lens which then transmits its view directly to the pilot's viewscreen.

Because seriously, 20 inches of metal and an inch of glass isn't really going to protect the pilot when the metal is merely a frame to hold the glass.

Eh. I dunno. I like recessed cockpits on mechs. It'd be neat to see a catapult with its cockpit open, the entire front end of the thing hinging open to expose the pilot seat, and then closing like shark jaws, before seeing the viewscreen light up with life on the outside.

[Kurayami]

i always thought that this is not glass but some extremely hard polymer\transparent metal - it is possible to make transparent multilayer aluminum plates nowadays (armored humvee variant have them if i remember correctly) add some angle and vualya - pilot is somehow safe. and of course "rule of cool" )

but than again every time i see TimberWolf i can think only about

[KalebFenoir]

Kurayami, on 27 September 2012 - 10:17 AM, said:

i always thought that this is not glass but some extremely hard polymer\transparent metal - it is possible to make transparent multilayer aluminum plates nowadays (armored humvee variant have them if i remember correctly) add some angle and vualya - pilot is somehow safe. and of course "rule of cool" )

but than again every time i see TimberWolf i can think only about

And that, my friends, is what it looks like when you take a Gauss rifle shell to the head. Literally, to the head. Great pic by the way; I love the old Warhammer right there. XD

[Synaps3]

I think its ridiculous that human controlled weapons are still being used.

I don't see why you don't just launch a thousand computer controlled super agile missiles at a lance and be done with it. They would all impact the exact same spot on the armor until it cracked, and be 1/10 the price with no human lives risked at all.

I'm not even sure humans will still be fighting wars at all in a few hundred years. If we fight, it will be fighting by developing software faster and better than the other guys to keep their AIs from breaking into ours.

[Melcyna]

Synaps3, on 27 September 2012 - 11:06 AM, said:

I think its ridiculous that human controlled weapons are still being used.

I don't see why you don't just launch a thousand computer controlled super agile missiles at a lance and be done with it. They would all impact the exact same spot on the armor until it cracked, and be 1/10 the price with no human lives risked at all.

I'm not even sure humans will still be fighting wars at all in a few hundred years. If we fight, it will be fighting by developing software faster and better than the other guys to keep their AIs from breaking into ours.

Oh we will be fighting wars still alright, it will never go away... and physical war will always be relevant and necessary because in a network or AI war for example, the combatant can use a closed system in which case the only way to break in is to ASSAULT a physical node of the network so like it or not, there's no avoiding the physical work.

Theodor Kling, on 27 September 2012 - 09:25 AM, said:

Back to the compressed 360° display: the design DOES make sense. For one thing it its mentioned several times, that comrpession is none in the center, and getting stronger to the sides of the display ( I thinkt i read that it realy stars at 45° from the middle, but not sure).
Furthermore it´s not the only cockpit screen , so others could give uncopressed views, leaving the compressed view screen for general oreintation and foe tracking.
And of course there is the window to look out and aim Having some form of window is a godo idea as well. In case your optical sensors are destroyed, or the computer controling them is. Why some of those windows are so godddam huge is another question Look at the Timber Wolf, or the Jägermech for particulary bad examples.

Just to be clear "leaving the compressed view screen for general oreintation" doesn't work since for it to function to the pilot for orientation it HAS to correspond to his other reference of orientation, if the compressed view runs on it's own reference the pilot in essence has to transition his reference to and fro each time he tries to parse information from them and the one using normal reference of orientation.

ie: let's say his forward 90 degree view in his cockpit corresponds to normal orientation scale reference (so that's 45 degree port and starboard of the current view direction) and the rest on the sides of it runs on compressed view, if he sees an object at 30 degree port to his current heading, he can change his bearing 30 degree port and he will head to that object directly.

now let's say he sees an object 60 degree to the port of the current heading, if he tries to turn 60 degree port he would not be heading towards the object, because the view only corresponds 1 to 1 on the first 45 degree port, then the next 15 degree runs on the compressed view ratio...

if the pilot did not parse that 15 degree with the compressed view ratio, he gets the wrong bearing... so every time he uses the information for orientation he MUST be aware of where the boundary of real and compressed view are, and he MUST convert the information to and fro to piece together an accurate information of WHERE exactly things are relative to him.

In reality, humans can't do this quickly enough especially when he is burdened further with other high concentration demanding task (which is what combatant face on the field) hence why they don't generally use such system for orientation even though our optics are capable of it for a long time already.

Humans can utilize them for observation purpose (which i am guessing is what you are trying to say) but not for orientation... with 2 separate reference, and this is what compressed view are often used for, especially useful for security purpose where the main need is not orientation.

Edited by Melcyna, 27 September 2012 - 05:49 PM.

[Colonel Sandburn]

Quietly Crazy, on 03 August 2012 - 11:25 PM, said:

-The re-introduction of Melee weapons in 3050. I know the IS is based around infighting....but jeez. You've got guns and lasers! Why bring an axe to the fight? And by god, who spends the time to design a FLAIL for a 'mech?
-The fact that "social generals" even have a chance to exist in Lyran society.
-Thanks to the Ares Conventions, a vast chunk of society doesn't look at war as a bad thing.

Just because a weapon is old-fashioned or "obsolete" doesn't mean it isn't still an effective weapon. If a mech rounds a corner and takes an axe to the face, it probably isn't getting up again. Because the mechwarrior is dead.

Considering how many society's in the real world have given rise to similar social general's...

Throughout history, war has been glorified and idealized. If you think this to be incorrect, take a moment to consider what Battletech is about.

[Theodor Kling]

Melcyna, on 27 September 2012 - 05:18 PM, said:

Oh we will be fighting wars still alright, it will never go away... and physical war will always be relevant and necessary because in a network or AI war for example, the combatant can use a closed system in which case the only way to break in is to ASSAULT a physical node of the network so like it or not, there's no avoiding the physical work.
[...]
In reality, humans can't do this quickly enough especially when he is burdened further with other high concentration demanding task (which is what combatant face on the field) hence why they don't generally use such system for orientation even though our optics are capable of it for a long time already.

Humans can utilize them for observation purpose (which i am guessing is what you are trying to say) but not for orientation... with 2 separate reference, and this is what compressed view are often used for, especially useful for security purpose where the main need is not orientation.

True about the physical work somewhat, but the things that are nice to hit are probably not that secure physicaly. A higly sensitive military resarch base might be on a closed system and pretty secure agaisnt physical attacks. But other tempting, economic, targets probably are not. Running planetary administration or large companies withouth a network is hard. It can be done to an extend.But then you might just as well skip most of the computers anyway and go back to making the paperwork on actual paper. Might work fine for many planets, them having low populations
On the other hand... then you will have to invade the old fashioned style, having no networks to attack with your software

To the display: I didn´t express my self so well. Of course for orientation it is suboptimal ( but still.. with a bit of training you just know what angle on the compressed screen means translated into the real world.), but it is great for situanional awarenes. So you don´t have to turn your head ( which might be hard with a neurohelmet anyway ), a quick glance tells you roughly where everyone is compared to your bearing.
And and with multitasking: Humans are capable of quite some multitasking with some training Real life combat vehicles tend to split the work among multible crew members to easy the burden on each. But since Battlemechs are single pilot designs from the start, one might just as well give the pilot every tool available.
As an example for multitasking: Look at driving a car. Once you think about it it´s a incredibly complex task: You have to control lthe accelerator, brakes, clutch, singla lights, your bearing, gearshift. All the time beeing aware of every other car around you, the traffic laws, traffic lights and sings, the route you want to take... and being aware of other cars ( and pedestrians, bicyclists, animals of all sort) means not only their position , but also their most probable further movement. And into predicting that goes way more then obvious things like signal ligths and the used lane. Observed behaviour over the last few minutes ( or sceonds if it´s a new addition), car model, their drivers age, gender, clothing, hairstyle and so on, the license plate, decorations on the cars, the passengers...they all go in in some way.
And most of the time it works Ever seen a multi lane roundabout ? The traffic flow there is art!

[KalebFenoir]

Synaps3, on 27 September 2012 - 11:06 AM, said:

I think its ridiculous that human controlled weapons are still being used.

I don't see why you don't just launch a thousand computer controlled super agile missiles at a lance and be done with it. They would all impact the exact same spot on the armor until it cracked, and be 1/10 the price with no human lives risked at all.

I'm not even sure humans will still be fighting wars at all in a few hundred years. If we fight, it will be fighting by developing software faster and better than the other guys to keep their AIs from breaking into ours.

Because, simply put, they don't have access to those 'thousand computer controlled super agile missiles'. They're lucky if their missiles are smart enough to avoid the friendly mech NEAR the enemy mech, when the missiles start their death-arc. They lost SO bloody much during the fall of the Star League and the Succession Wars, that they still can't figure out how to make things work right. They try, but because their minds are geared in a certain direction, they miss obvious details in favor of heading a certain direction. If they stopped fighting long enough, they might be able to look around and go 'hey, can we adjust this so it does THIS instead?'

When they knocked the pins out from under the Clans at Tukayyid, it gave them a little bit of time to stop, think, recup, and most importantly DEVELOP NEW TECHNOLOGIES. They finally were able to back-engineer Clan tech into something they could use, and come up with a few new things themselves to enhance themselves. Given a long enough period, both sides might have finally started miniaturizing technology, and given those LRMs and SRMs that dose of AI that we're used to in our missiles right now, because they would have rediscovered it or redeveloped it finally. Then and only then can you have your missiles constantly strike a 4 meter wide target on a 3-4 story moving object that's running across a field at 60 km/h and actively trying to shoot the missiles down.

Of course then the game becomes no fun anymore.

[Zen Hachetaki]

OK folks,

They created these all for a game; the differing "tech" loosely based on what we have today so we can suspend disbelief sufficiently to have fun. Ranges etc are created for balance, same with weights, heat etc. - not because it had to do with any real world logic. I don't think anyone from BT ever claimed to base this on reality... It is a fantasy game and we love it for that reason (i hope). There are enough rules lawyers out there who make it difficult enough to get through a game without actually trying to get into the spirit of things and just go with what we have.

Getting in on this is a non stop spiral that has no possible positive outcome in game terms other than to poke holes and make nit pickers happy. Let's get on with the fun parts about the game we actually have and leave this discussion for another time and place?

As was pointed out - the people of the past would have had no chance of predicting what we would or would not have in our time - who are we to say that we will have a better "envisionment" of the future or it's possibilities? And again - BT is in no way supposed to be a foretelling of what the authors think will happen. It is a way to create an engaging game universe that allows for multitudes of game play. 'Nuff said.

[Judah Enderton]

Don't know if these have been tossed around, but here's a few more:

- A 35 ton mech with a melee weapon can take a 100-tonner's head in a single swipe with roughly 20% chance, but the same mech firing 10 weapons at point blank range only has a 1 in 36 chance of hitting the same part .

- Firing a stack of 20 missiles will usually have some of them miss, but a burst of automatic fire will hit with all shots.

[Melcyna]

Theodor Kling, on 27 September 2012 - 10:15 PM, said:

True about the physical work somewhat, but the things that are nice to hit are probably not that secure physicaly. A higly sensitive military resarch base might be on a closed system and pretty secure agaisnt physical attacks. But other tempting, economic, targets probably are not. Running planetary administration or large companies withouth a network is hard. It can be done to an extend.But then you might just as well skip most of the computers anyway and go back to making the paperwork on actual paper. Might work fine for many planets, them having low populations
On the other hand... then you will have to invade the old fashioned style, having no networks to attack with your software

To the display: I didn´t express my self so well. Of course for orientation it is suboptimal ( but still.. with a bit of training you just know what angle on the compressed screen means translated into the real world.), but it is great for situanional awarenes. So you don´t have to turn your head ( which might be hard with a neurohelmet anyway ), a quick glance tells you roughly where everyone is compared to your bearing.
And and with multitasking: Humans are capable of quite some multitasking with some training Real life combat vehicles tend to split the work among multible crew members to easy the burden on each. But since Battlemechs are single pilot designs from the start, one might just as well give the pilot every tool available.
As an example for multitasking: Look at driving a car. Once you think about it it´s a incredibly complex task: You have to control lthe accelerator, brakes, clutch, singla lights, your bearing, gearshift. All the time beeing aware of every other car around you, the traffic laws, traffic lights and sings, the route you want to take... and being aware of other cars ( and pedestrians, bicyclists, animals of all sort) means not only their position , but also their most probable further movement. And into predicting that goes way more then obvious things like signal ligths and the used lane. Observed behaviour over the last few minutes ( or sceonds if it´s a new addition), car model, their drivers age, gender, clothing, hairstyle and so on, the license plate, decorations on the cars, the passengers...they all go in in some way.
And most of the time it works Ever seen a multi lane roundabout ? The traffic flow there is art!

Unfortunately, that part with multitask is not true...

To elaborate, the act of driving for example for a human is not considered based on multitask capability of say operating steering wheel, clutch, or brake because while the driver do have to know them he does not have to devote his undivided concentration to perform the act, similar to how the act of writing an article for example is not considered a multitask of holding a writing tool and thinking, no... the writer concentration is solely focused on what he wants to write, and the act of writing itself such as holding the pen or what not does not consume his concentration capability.

He does HOWEVER concentrate on ONE SINGULAR TASK, ie: driving the car, or thinking what to write, etc...

When his concentration in that task falter, for a driver you get a likely cause of an accident, and this is essentially what one of the primary cause of car accidents are and hence why use of handphone without hands free set are often forbidden while driving.

So imagine it, a human driving a car in a CONTROLLED environment already takes a good deal of his concentration... now do this in COMBAT and you start seeing the problem.

This is why tanks have dedicated driver, gunner, and commander.

The act of driving in COMBAT takes the ENTIRE concentration of the driver.. the tank driver already handles and consider EVERYTHING mind you that relates to mobility of the tank, this includes: fuel, engine status, speed, the terrain, and everything that can affect the tank's mobility since in war tanks are not traveling just on nice paved road, they often have to travel across unknown and harsh if not punishing terrain.

In essence, the tank driver ALONE is already burdened with far more matter to consider than your average driver and that's before you factor in being under fire.

Similarly the act of gunnery for a tank requires the gunner to aim as well as they possibly could to ensure the least number of shots needed to achieve a hit intended since their life and death depends on it as well. This means he has to factor EVERYTHING that relates to gunnery, be it deflection shooting or any factor that has to be considered in his circumstances.

Hence why there is a dedicated gunner on a tank.

The roles assigned on them is not done arbitrarily mind you, it was assigned such because THAT IS THE EXTENT of human capability... a human quite simply can't do both AT ONCE with any reasonable performance.

How do we know that? BECAUSE WE TRIED IT... back during the WW1 and WW2, when tank was in it's infancy, we tried MANY things, including configurations with single or 2 crew on tankettes, etc...

Suffice to say, the result were... abysmal to say the least.

The configuration that tank crews have nowadays were the RESULT of the previous experience and lesson, they were not simply done to ease their work for the sake of it, the gunner and driver were not separated simply to reduce their work load, they were separated because a dedicated driver and gunner achieves FAR BETTER RESULT than having one doing both at once, each crew on a tank were given as much task as a human can possibly handle, NOT MORE because an overburdened human is far less effective than one that perform at optimal concentration and condition, NOT LESS because in war there's no room for slack, each soldier and crew have to contribute as much as they possibly could.

Edited by Melcyna, 29 September 2012 - 12:38 AM.

[Kaziganthi]

Colonel Sandburn, on 27 September 2012 - 06:50 PM, said:

Just because a weapon is old-fashioned or "obsolete" doesn't mean it isn't still an effective weapon. If a mech rounds a corner and takes an axe to the face, it probably isn't getting up again. Because the mechwarrior is dead.

Considering how many society's in the real world have given rise to similar social general's...

Throughout history, war has been glorified and idealized. If you think this to be incorrect, take a moment to consider what Battletech is about.

Because an axe doesnt give away you postition as much as an energy weapon does.

[Melcyna]

Kaziganthi, on 30 September 2012 - 07:15 PM, said:

Because an axe doesnt give away you postition as much as an energy weapon does.

Unfortunately balanced out by the fact that you have to be pretty much at point blank range to use said axe on the target...

so from a tactical point of view, although your weapon doesn't give away your position as much as energy weapon, you will place yourself in the most difficult location to conceal your position by using a melee weapon... ie: RIGHT NEXT TO THEM.

how exactly one get close enough to them without alerting them in a giant bipedal machine that can be seen from miles away and heard from as far is anyone's guess of course... (concealed? good luck concealing a 12m tall giant).

realistically, it's extremely improbable in any sensible military situation save for one very primitive and untrained.

For human combatant, melee is a possibility still (even if the frequency of their application in modern war is once in a blue moon, like the rare occurrence when the brits stormed trench with bayonet in recent middle east conflict) since humans fight a lot in areas built just right for human sized combatant.. ie: urban scenario that gives ample passage, and close quarter area for them to fight... (and even then charging with a melee weapon takes serious guts in this age where automatic weapon can cut you down in a blink of an eye)

But an urban setting isn't designed for a 12m tall giant usage, so the likelihood of them being concealed and undetected by the combatant in urban setting until they get close enough to apply their melee weapon on the target is practically nil unless if the battlemech run into the area blind of information and devoid of infantry and fire support (which is often the case with battletech since they never make much sense when they fight).

Edited by Melcyna, 01 October 2012 - 12:16 AM.

[Kaziganthi]

Melcyna, on 01 October 2012 - 12:15 AM, said:

Unfortunately balanced out by the fact that you have to be pretty much at point blank range to use said axe on the target...

so from a tactical point of view, although your weapon doesn't give away your position as much as energy weapon, you will place yourself in the most difficult location to conceal your position by using a melee weapon... ie: RIGHT NEXT TO THEM.

how exactly one get close enough to them without alerting them in a giant bipedal machine that can be seen from miles away and heard from as far is anyone's guess of course... (concealed? good luck concealing a 12m tall giant).

realistically, it's extremely improbable in any sensible military situation save for one very primitive and untrained.

For human combatant, melee is a possibility still (even if the frequency of their application in modern war is once in a blue moon, like the rare occurrence when the brits stormed trench with bayonet in recent middle east conflict) since humans fight a lot in areas built just right for human sized combatant.. ie: urban scenario that gives ample passage, and close quarter area for them to fight... (and even then charging with a melee weapon takes serious guts in this age where automatic weapon can cut you down in a blink of an eye)

But an urban setting isn't designed for a 12m tall giant usage, so the likelihood of them being concealed and undetected by the combatant in urban setting until they get close enough to apply their melee weapon on the target is practically nil unless if the battlemech run into the area blind of information and devoid of infantry and fire support (which is often the case with battletech since they never make much sense when they fight).

OK lets assume that we were fighting in a city...

My giant bipedal machine manauvers its way inside a towering skyskraper (yes they are able to do that in TT, but not in MWO) or between 2 buildings and turns the power down. Now they won't get picked up on magnetic sensor as the buildings structure blocks it, they wont get picked up on seismic sensors cause theyre not moving. Heat..no build up so that rules that out which only leaves visual. And we all know that its a bit hard to see inside a building when your mainly focused on looking for mechs walking down the street.


You walk past, he pops out and you now cop an Axemans axe to your rear armour or head.

You also have lots of other places in other terain that mechs can hide in a wait for the kill...caves, woodlands. Also I think your wrong, an urban setting is the best place for a mech who wants to do physical damage to be as its all close combat. The amount of metal in buildings obscures a lot of sensors. As for infantry and fire support, try a few Inferno platoons, SRM carriers or Saladins in the multilevel carparks.

The main reason mechs didn't fight in cities was the Ares Convention - Article V

Edited by Kaziganthi, 01 October 2012 - 01:14 PM.