Kay Wolf, on 08 April 2012 - 07:18 AM, said:
No, the IS tests are not to be equally difficult, that would just be sheer ignorance. The Clans actually have these tests written into their history, their lore, the IS doesn't, period. Whether you agree with that or not is, in my book, immaterial.
Told ya we didnt agree.
Hate to burst your bubble, but the IS sure does. All IS pilots, but a few FedSun training battalions, graduate from one of the major mech colleges. Shin was also an exception, but he learned to pilot a mech at the factory building them. Every pilot does have to recertify for his mech once a year. At the colleges, there are several trials and tests that you have to take, before graduating. Pick up a novel, its all in there.All I'm saying is, if its good for one, it should be good for all. You want clanners to have to test out and follow the cannon, fine, but then IS should have to as well. Of course this means that IS pilots will be driving for the most part STOCK VARIENTS as most individual pilots neither had the tech support, or the cash, needed to refit their mechs as they saw fit. Most IS mechs, if not owned by the House they are in service to, were actually family herlooms. Jenna Clay (think thats her last name), the double for Melissa Steiner during the Silver Eagle incident, piloted a mech that was handed down to her from her GRANDMOTHER. Kai's Centurion was the same mech piloted by his father on Solaris, and was given to him as a graduation present, and then refit (at huge costs no less) when he turned down the Wolf Dragoons Dire. During this time frame, very few NEW mechs were being built in the IS. Most of them were mechs that were left over from the Star League era, and few of them were in anything resembling 'new' condition. Then, if you fought for a house unit, you fought in whatever you were assigned too. If you wanna stick that close to cannon, then IS pilots will still be running around in second hand used lights and meds while clanners can Test into brand new Heavies and Assaults on day one. Yeah, didnt think you wanted to stick that close to cannon.
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Okay, but what if the devs already have it planned to program that in? They've already expressed that Zellbringen will be put into the game, so why not trials and training. The only reason you didn't have it in a game, before, was the programming and technological capabilities of that time did not allow for it, so you HAD to do it for yourself. Now, they do, and so we should.
Zellbringen is a long way from Trials of Position or Refusals. Zellbringen is an attitude, kinda like Bushido. Its a moral code that not even all Clanners agree on. Thus why you see the different Clans. They all believe in the Kerensky vision, just dont all agree on how to get there.
Then there is the fact that Zellbringen only losely applies towards the IS, as clanners see it, and is really only used with IS personel due to habit, rather than any socially binding law. Clanners are not forced by law to offer Batchalls to IS units. They do it as a courtesy and a matter of habit, not because they have to. Lore wise, remember, IS personel, civilian or military, are seen as trash by Clanners. The IS threw away its Star League heratige, as clanners see it, and thus are only slightly more evolved than beasts.
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Now, getting back to IS and Clan training; there is a distinct disparity between the two and, for better or worse, the Clans have the kind of program you want to see implemented for Inner Sphere folks, as well, while in the lore the Inner Sphere folks have a "do your best" training model. That's how it is, why change it? The pro's and con's of each model could be exhaustively, and never conclusively, argued, but to say that all boats, despite the lakes they float on, should float as if on the same lake, is not right.
Wrong, Wrong, and more wrong. Not everyone in the IS can, or does, pilot a mech. According to the lore, you have to be sponsored into one of the major mech academies for 6-8 years. While there are a few exceptions, this is the general rule. Just graduating doesnt get you into your unit of choice though. Kai transfered out of the unit he graded into, so that the girl he was dating at the time could have the slot instead, as her family all served in that unit, and her grades were only good enough to get her the top alternate slot. Kai also went on to post the highest scores of any person, IS or Clan, in a Clan style testing, only proves that clan warriors arent 'better', only more experienced as they typically have about 10 more years of training. My point being, IS has testing just as hard as the Clans do for their mechwarriors. The only difference is that Clan warriors start their training at 5 or 6, where IS pilots typically dont start till their late teens.
So, given that the lore states that the only real difference is when they start their training, how do you justify harder 'trials' for prospective clan players than for IS players? Phelan Kell, not even academy trained if I remember, trained by the IS, was able to do his Clan test with just over 6 months of clan style training. That was after months of chemical interigation. Clan mechwarriors are not 'super men', and have not been overly genetically modified, such as the Elemental or Aerospace pilots. They just have more years behind the cockpit of a mech than an IS pilot of the same age.
Then again, if Clan Mechwarriors are suppost to be 'super men', as it appears you believe, then you would have no objection to an artificial mechanism in the game to reflect this, would ya? A mechanism that an IS pilot couldnt duplicate, because Clanners have a harder trial?
Edit:Answered a question I missed first time around.
Edited by Blkcat, 08 April 2012 - 08:38 AM.
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Alternatively Ill just buy the toys I like with the money ive made from stomping random people. 
