950 replies to this topic

[Just wanna play]

Krzysztof z Bagien, on 19 April 2013 - 03:14 PM, said:

Ahh! My bad! I feel ashamed. Guess I have to watch everything once again

Edit: But! That show was called "Everybody loves Hypnotoad", so I guess it's ok I didn't get it!

no it isn't, still have to watch ever episode over again

[Krzysztof z Bagien]

I've just watched that episode, so I guess I'll be good for now

This thread is now officially called Everybody Loves The Hypnotoad Thread!
All glory to the Hypnotoad!

[Just wanna play]

All Glory to the Hypnotoad!

[Melcyna]

British tanks used manganese steel

they've been using it since...

well actually i can't remember since when exactly but centurions and conquerors already used manganese steel track shoes, and i can't recall them using a different construction material

to be honest, i cannot recall a case where they used aluminium alloy in the track construction... this with any magnesium content level since aluminium alloy are not that suited for what the track faces regularly. (they most certainly will never use magnesium alloy as only suicidal tank design uses magnesium as the base metal in the alloy)

edit: wait, i remember now, British first tank to use manganese steel track was Valentine tanks...

so yeah they've been using manganese steel in track construction since WW2, the designs have changed and all but they are still using manganese steel albeit in improved production and construction ever since because there is nothing else that is well suited for the job and can be manufactured at reasonable cost.

Edited by Melcyna, 19 April 2013 - 07:33 PM.

[Just wanna play]

(you forgot to say All Glory to the Hypnotoad!)

[Melcyna]

Doesn't work on me since there's already someone with far more powerful compelling order dictating me anyway.

[Just wanna play]

Melcyna, on 23 April 2013 - 09:57 PM, said:

Doesn't work on me since there's already someone with far more powerful compelling order dictating me anyway.

(in other words, he isn't affected for the same reason fry isn't)

[Richard Strong]

PaintedWolf, on 30 July 2012 - 02:09 PM, said:

-A mech can survive 15-20 missiles, but 1 AC-20 shot will cripple it.

A big powerful missile like we have today would be easily shot down my AMS, so 20 tiny missiles are more effective.

ragnarawk, on 31 July 2012 - 12:17 AM, said:

1000m is "long" range for missles

Again, tiny missiles that rely on telemetry from a mech because having their own telemetry would be prohibitively expensive.

Quietly Crazy, on 31 July 2012 - 12:36 AM, said:

-Though weaponized spacecraft exist, most combat still takes place on the ground in battlemechs instead of the enourmous ships bristling with guns.

-Orbital bombardments rarely occur, instead being replaced by battlemechs blowing the hell out of everything

Orbital bombardment isn't economical because it would take some really beefy missiles to not burn up in an atmosphere, and dumbfire artillery would explode in the atmosphere/ be extremely inaccurate.

Nukes from space are also easy to detect and shoot down.

I don't really believe Battletech is realistic in any way but that is how I justify it in my head when I forget to bring a smartphone/book to the porcelain throne.

I also use that time to daydream about what I would do with a MadCat. 2 erppc 6ssrm6s LolMadCat I think. How the hell are they going to balance ssrm6? The Vulture/Maddog has a stock variant with 6srms6 in addition to lasers.....

[Just wanna play]

Richard Strong, on 24 April 2013 - 06:07 PM, said:

Orbital bombardment isn't economical because it would take some really beefy missiles to not burn up in an atmosphere, and dumbfire artillery would explode in the atmosphere/ be extremely inaccurate.

Nukes from space are also easy to detect and shoot down.

Well they do have icbm (inter-continental-ballistic-missiles) those fly up into the atmosphere, open up and release their (sometimes nuclear) warheads, and then let them fall onto a target, and those have been around since i believe the cold war

[johnny Bohan Smith]

I learned alot just by reading this thread. Amazing facts! Would love to share one once i get back. By the way, Im Johnny ! Nice meeting you all.

Johnny Bohan Smith
https://twitter.com/johntbohan

Edited by johnny Bohan Smith, 24 April 2013 - 09:03 PM.

[Melcyna]

Richard Strong, on 24 April 2013 - 06:07 PM, said:

A big powerful missile like we have today would be easily shot down my AMS, so 20 tiny missiles are more effective.

Again, tiny missiles that rely on telemetry from a mech because having their own telemetry would be prohibitively expensive.

Correction, the size of the missile is just one factor, the second factor just as important if not more so in how likely a missile can penetrate anti missile defense layer is how fast the missiles are

At supersonic speed, BT AMS are worthless against missiles due to their incredibly TINY effective range...
in modern terms, BT AMS have the effective range of almost zero as anything in supersonic speed essentially will slam the target in a fraction of a second from the time BT AMS engages it, to give an idea... of how short the time it has to engage it... a modern ASM with supersonic speed can reach Mach 3, assuming MWO uses correct range measurements... the missile is just a tad slower than AC10 shells in the game... good luck intercepting that with BT ASM

This incidentally is why modern anti missile system are heavily layered and start engaging hostile missiles from as far away as possible (hundreds of km in ASM case)

And that's before explosively formed penetrator warheads are involved, if BT ASM have such incredibly short range then any missile essentially can guarantee hit by simply detonating the EFP warhead outside the ASM range, the ASM can't stop the supersonic projectile formed from the warhead.

And what happens when the next gen hypersonic missiles are involved? well we haven't got those in mainstream usage yet so we can only guess, but theoretically? not going to be pretty.

Richard Strong, on 24 April 2013 - 06:07 PM, said:

Orbital bombardment isn't economical because it would take some really beefy missiles to not burn up in an atmosphere, and dumbfire artillery would explode in the atmosphere/ be extremely inaccurate.
Nukes from space are also easy to detect and shoot down.

Unfortunately incorrect to all of the above,

note: the beefy missiles we have ie: ICBM are large not because it has to survive reentry to atmosphere, it's because it has to go UP THERE near low orbit in the first place which takes substantial energy.

the reentry part is in fact MUCH easier and the warhead much smaller... this is why MIRV ICBM missiles are so dangerous... once they reach up there in orbit and split into the many individual tiny warheads... it's VERY difficult to intercept all of them since each warheads are quite small and unlike what you stated, it's IMPOSSIBLE to tell which one is nuclear warhead and which is decoy.

There is no such thing as a magical 'nuclear detector' that can sense nuclear warheads from any long distance unless if it's simply irradiating large amount of odd radiations everywhere, hint: they don't, quite obvious why they don't when you see the detonation mechanism of nuclear warheads (be it fission or fusion).

Artillery? if they got artillery dropped from orbit, they don't NEED explosive content at all, in fact the only thing the artillery shell dropped from orbit need is mass... be it from sheer size, or preferably from high density as that allows more streamlined profile.

Incidentally, we can guide them too... guided artillery shells been around since vietnam war era, and just like how MIRV warheads are guided, nothing stops them from guiding any solid material dropped from orbit.

[Just wanna play]

i already talked about icbms...

[Melcyna]

you did, but i just wanna point out directly as to why exactly his point was off

he seems to be under the impression that ICBM had to be huge in order to survive reentry when it's in fact the opposite, the actual warhead that reenter atmosphere is TINY by comparison to the ICBM itself.

note of course that not all ICBM are MIRV types... early ICBM from the 50s era were originally single warhead types, the MIRV types were developed later on as a method to confuse and overwhelm the defensive system of it's target, out of 3-6 MIRV of a single ICBM (varies depending on models, some carries even more), there may well be only 1 actual nuclear warhead, and the rest decoys, and during deployment the 3-6 separate MIRV and chaff would be ejected and head for reentry and the target will have absolutely no idea which one is real, which is decoy.

to get an idea of how small MIRV can be, each of the MIRV of a Minuteman III missile is about as large as a human...



that's how small they are... and each of those MIRV above will make individual reentry separately to each of their programmed target.

For orbital bombardment, basically the bulk of the ICBM is NOT NEEDED at all, and you only need the warhead ie: like each of the ones above to be dropped to the surface since that's the whole point of the rest of the ICBM missile, TO BRING THE MISSILE WARHEAD TO ORBIT, if you started in orbit from the beginning then you don't need them and can just drop the 'tiny' warhead directly.

Edited by Melcyna, 25 April 2013 - 08:18 AM.

[Naglinator]

So obviously the points of no warship battles are mute as there are no warships(for the Houses) prior to the Clan invasion, and even when there where most factions were timid to use it. In WW1 the great battleships rarely fought as losing them would've been awful The one thing though, which still bothers me, is that much of the explanation of Battletech tech sucking is Lostech..... Yet Comstar mechs which are star league era and Clan mechs which are post star league era still have all the same computer{super heavy and slow) and targeting{less then 1 <km) and all other flaws as the supposed primitive great house mechs of the 3020's.

[Viper69]

I wonder. In the novels did they call an AC20 an AC20 or was it a heavy Auto canon? The same with the other weapons with the damage dealt in their name (not LRMs because that denotes the number of missiles).

[Melcyna]

I vaguely remember them calling it directly as AC20 etc, but only in the mechbay usually... in direct battle they generally just mentioned that 'character X autocannon punched the poor fella core' etc since X is usually one of the main characters that you get information on about their mechs so you already know that when it says it's his autocannon that it's AC10 or 20 or whatever it is, and they don't bother reiterating this every time during the battle sequence unless when he has multiple different weapons of the same types which is rare.

but that may not hold for all writers so correct me if i am wrong.

Naglinator, on 25 April 2013 - 08:25 AM, said:

So obviously the points of no warship battles are mute as there are no warships(for the Houses) prior to the Clan invasion, and even when there where most factions were timid to use it. In WW1 the great battleships rarely fought as losing them would've been awful The one thing though, which still bothers me, is that much of the explanation of Battletech tech sucking is Lostech..... Yet Comstar mechs which are star league era and Clan mechs which are post star league era still have all the same computer{super heavy and slow) and targeting{less then 1 <km) and all other flaws as the supposed primitive great house mechs of the 3020's.

I am guessing you missed the debate above or perhaps it was TLDR

i'll give the short version,
no warships battle is not a moot point because there are no warships, it's in fact one of the primary point of the debate before

essentially since there is no proper warships around, then ANYTHING with sufficient armament for space combat is for all intent and purpose a warship, for example dropships with heavier weapon complement and fighters instead of mechs

the only thing that can stop them in an actual space faring battle would be... yep a proper warships
but since there isn't one, the outcome is obvious, the others either do the same or they will simply run out of ships in space to use since other dropships can't realistically fight them and hope to win in space battle.


Someone else also mentioned that orbital bombardment and space battle would make a boring story rather than mechs duking it out

that's not quite accurate

Spoiler

sci fi writers of all ages been doing exactly the opposite of that for decades ie: an interesting story set in a world where space battles and orbital bombardment is well utilized.

The CORRECT problem with orbital bombardment and space battles is that the FOCUS of the story then switch instead to an actual interstellar warfare in space rather than battlemechs duking it out like vikings on the ground.

ie: instead of being devoted to mech combat, we instead get space combat and with things decided in space (mechs essentially becomes moot point, which they basically are logically but you get the point) and since BT is a GAME intended for players to duke it out with battlemechs (and buy more BT materials), this is obviously problematic. Note of course that when they released the actual space battle game they backpedaled as much as it's still viable while keeping their primary franchise assets ie: battlemechs intact... naturally of course to make sure ppl buy as many of the space game materials as well.

and the second probable reason if i hazard a guess

Spoiler

is that actual proper sci fi stories about interstellar warfare with space battles tend to be more difficult to digest or takes more time and thus less interesting to the younger audience who tend to have short attention span and generally short out their brain function the moment description of a battle involving more than a handful of combatants fighting beyond eyesight range are involved.

it's convenient as such when you aim to appeal to such demographic, to have very simple battle that they can easily visualize and comprehend.

Edited by Melcyna, 25 April 2013 - 09:18 AM.

[Just wanna play]

Speaking of warships, imo, It would be interesting if there was a separate game, just like this, that focused on building Warships with what every chassis, weapons, equipment, etc, you want, instead of smaller mechs, esp considering how awesome it would if the ships where so big, you could cover "yourselves" with ac/200 turrets, some large laserz (about 2000) here and there, and have other massive weapons, just to duke it out with each others mega titan sized ships, or maybe they could add some Super sized mechs for their own unique matchs, imagine a mech with a foot the size of caustic valley, shooting Stupid big guns and laserz, and owning a sub woofer
cheese builds on those things/ for those things would be awesome, ridiculous, and LOUD

pretty much mechwarrior but, maybe in the air/space, and with A LOT more firepower and/or armor/ hit points, etc...
a man can dream right?

if this game became real, they could also have planets acting as fortresses..... EPIC

[Melcyna]

That's what Aerotech is with Battlespace ruleset.

ie: it's FASA's attempt to tap into the market of the big space battleship tabletop match that proved quite popular... though unfortunately for them Aerotech is rather primitive compared to say StarFleet Battles.

the game never had as much followers as it's primary franchise ie: Battletech etc, so to the best of my knowledge they never made an attempt to make a computer game based on it unlike StarFleet Battles which spawned successive series of StarFleet Command games which later on were used as the base material for the space combat of StarTrek Online.

Overall, it was simply not up to scratch to compete against other established starship battle games out there and it was not helped by the fact that FASA shutdown before they could fully fleshed it and plug the holes on it though it was picked up by a new license owner iirc.

Heck, the 40K Battlefleet Gothic most likely had more players and materials than Aerotech did.

Note, if it's computer game based on starship duels and fight in 1st person view... we technically had quite a few of those, just none of them are Battletech based to the best of my knowledge, for reasons above

Some of the most well known in this niche circle includes, Independence War (Full Newtonian flight mechanics), and StarTrek had it's excellent Bridge Commander which proved so popular with modders the game ended up living longer in mod communities than it's studio maker did, and technically X series is somewhat within that realm but X series are sadly... not very good at the actual combat. And if we are really desperate, maybe Battlecruiser series... though i really wouldn't do that.

Edited by Melcyna, 25 April 2013 - 11:26 PM.

[Randis]

The Battletech settting does include periods of intense warship on warship action, but much of that occured during the Age of War, the Reunification War with the Periphery, and then the Liberation of Terra from Amaris the Usurper by Aleksandr Kerensky and the SLDF. Warships did duke it out with other warships, and they also used tactical nuclear weapons, but the ground campaign still remained important. You need ground forces to take and hold ground; factories, mines, power stations etc. You can obliterate stuff from orbit, but this is why many of the SLDF Castles Brian were buried underground.
Even in the real world, the modern infantry trooper still has a role that has not been eradicated by ICBMs or air power.

The reasons for the central role of Battlemechs are largely social, in my opinion..
During the Succession Wars the Ares Conventions were adhered to because it preserved what little technology and infrastructure remained; wars were not total (in the modern sense) but proxy battles often held away from civilian areas. A lance of Battlemechs could decide the fate of an entire world. Arguably the way of the Clans was all about minimising collateral damage and preserving civilian life and infrastrucutre, while also minimising military losses... until Malvina Hazen started practicing the Mongol doctrine...
We also need to consider that a return to feudal systems of noble families had been reestablished before the destruction of the Terran Hegemony. Noble families would maintain their status by limiting access to elite technologies.

The Smoke Jaguars used warship weapons on the city of Edo on the planet Turtle Bay, which was considered a breach of "civilised" war by the Inner Sphere. That was the first such instance in centuries until the Word of Blake used orbital bombardment, nuclear weapons, and chemical and biological weapons during their Jihad.

One of the most compelling aspects of the Battletech setting is how it tries to explore the issue of how conflict should be handled by societies, and what steps they may make to limit or curtail destruction through various codes of honour.

[B E E L Z E B U B]

all of the weight classes are ridiculous.
an assault mech thats bigger than a 6 story building cannot possibly weight only 100 tons.
100 tons is what a medium-light mech would be if it were in the real world.
just so you know, a real life abrahms tank weighs in at about 80 tons. (despite it being said lower - because of war treatys).
so if a normal tank which is lower than 1 story of a building is 80tons... an assault should weight at least 900 tons.