75 replies to this topic

[LordDeathStrike]

think of the possibilities that could be harrnessed with fusion power.

instead of bulky heavy armor, we could engineer mechs with 2 power plants, 1 for moving and weapons, a 2nd for charged force field armor. charged force field armor is quite simple, you take highly conductive armor plateing, it only needs to be a few molecules thick, and does not need to be very tough, gold foil would work very well. this skin as it were, is then charged with the massive power output of a fusion reactor across the various band spectrum of em fields.

the effect would be armor that can completely repel laser particle slug and missiles attacks that have less incoming energy then the armor is outputting. you would effectively need to over come the armors shield field to breach it!

honestly with fusion powered shields, i dont see normal mech mounted weaponry breaching them, it would take orbital bombardment with things like large asteroids going very fast slamming into the mech to do it!

but then that would be kind of unbalanced, just give me one of these mechs so i can punish anyone caught cheating in game

[ASC]

Rather then low tech, its just more realistic; and pretty much the only mech concept i've seen which comes close to being reasonable.

your 'charged armour' has all sorts of holes in its logic, power requirements would be astronomically huge, the medium being used as armour probarbly couldn't take the charge, even then it would wear quickly wouldn't last the full battle. To top it off there is no real concept on how a charge could deter a focused laser in the first place, at the very least we'd be looking at energy requirements hundreds if not thousands of times larger then the attacking laser

Its a nice idea I guess, but battletech is my prefered tech concept.

[Hayden]

It wouldn't be Battletech then

[ilkhan]

Battletech tries to stay a close to real world physics as possible.

The superheating and melting of armour from lasers is the most realistic way laser weaponry can work (as far as we know), your standard projectile autocanons and missiles you see in real world military, even rail gun/gauss rifle equivalents have been shown to be theoretically possible (and there are even some working prototypes). The only weapon which is a fair way off is the PPC (although theory has no problem with it working outside of an atmosphere.

Generating this kind of field would be difficult enough but it would only work on lasers of a specific frequency (if you are using destructive superposition to cancel them out) and I can't even begin to think about how it would stop projectile weapons without digging out a physics textbook or two.

[pursang]

Ew. There's a reason why I like and play MechWarrior and not some pandering and unrealistic Japanese mecha game like Armored Core.

[CoffiNail]

I am sorry... but NO FREAKING WAY! (removed)! This is not Star Wars, or some crazy Sci-Fi. This is BattleTech Take your shields and go back to Star Trek. Real Warriors do not need shields.

Go harass the DEVs of Hawken or something, PGI are staying true to MechWarrior. I am trying to be nice here, but either you have NO CONCEPT of BattleTech, or you are trying to troll.

Edited by Mason Grimm, 13 April 2012 - 05:32 AM.
Coffi!!! Don't make me curb stomp you!!!!

[Helmer]

CoffiNail, on 13 April 2012 - 04:17 AM, said:

I am sorry... but NO FREAKING WAY! G T F O! This is not Star Wars, or some crazy Sci-Fi. This is BattleTech Take your shields and go back to Star Trek. Real Warriors do not need shields.

Go harass the DEVs of Hawken or something, PGI are staying true to MechWarrior. I am trying to be nice here, but either you have NO CONCEPT of BattleTech, or you are trying to troll.

I'm guessing you don't want to hear about my idea for 'mechs with LaserSwords........





Cheers.

[pesco]

Wow, that made little sense! Please take a physics class.

Repelling light with an electric field? Sorry dude, those photons carry no charge.
Repelling high-velocity high-mass projectiles with an electrical field? Please do the math.
Repelling anything less than high-v *large asteroids* with an electrical field? Hahahaha...

Oh no wait, you weren't talking about electrical fields but electromagnetic *waves* "across the various band spectrum".
But turning the mech into a giant radio jammer would stop flying rocks exactly... how?
At least none of your teammates would be able to hear you scream, though.

Thanks for the laffs. :)

[BerryChunks]

pesco, on 13 April 2012 - 08:33 AM, said:

Wow, that made little sense! Please take a physics class.

Repelling light with an electric field? Sorry dude, those photons carry no charge.
Repelling high-velocity high-mass projectiles with an electrical field? Please do the math.
Repelling anything less than high-v *large asteroids* with an electrical field? Hahahaha...

Oh no wait, you weren't talking about electrical fields but electromagnetic *waves* "across the various band spectrum".
But turning the mech into a giant radio jammer would stop flying rocks exactly... how?
At least none of your teammates would be able to hear you scream, though.

Thanks for the laffs.

but if they carry no charge, how do plants and solar panels generate energy from them? Creating energy from nothing is WITCHCRAFT!

Edited by BerryChunks, 13 April 2012 - 09:00 AM.

[Neovenator]

I think one of the main draws to the game is that is lower tech than a lot of the other mecha series out there. There are no regenerating shields or health, so once your mech is out of armor, bye bye. It brings more of a sense of urgency to the game, you cannot just hide out behind a building or hill and wait for your health to regenerate.

I do think there should be things like mobile field bases and repair bays (if the map supports them, i.e. at a base) to repair and reload but these would have to be fully destructible and capturable by any units on the map.

So, IMO, the inclusion of tech like shields isn't so much of an issue due to realism but more because it would fundamentally change the way the game is played to such a degree that it would no longer be Mechwarrior/Battletech.

[pesco]

BerryChunks, on 13 April 2012 - 08:59 AM, said:

but if they carry no charge, how do plants and solar panels generate energy from them? Creating energy from nothing is WITCHCRAFT!

Yeah, witches run plants and solar panels. I think there's a national department for it. Didn't you know? X)

[Zakatak]

"Lance leader, I've lost power to shields! Enemy proton-tachyon-ion-graviton-muon-electron-neutron cannon is charging up!"
"Sigma 2, reroute power from the cup holder to your gravitic plates to reflect the damage! I'll stall the enemy with my telepathy."
"This is Sig 2, my computers are sparking and bursting with rocks for some reason, I'm going down!"
"Sig 2 this is Sig 3, reverse the polarity!"

Nah. Battletech is fine as it is.

Edited by Zakatak, 17 April 2012 - 02:54 PM.

[CeeKay Boques]

Sure all that sounds great, till you realize the cost of shipping or manufacturing those parts 6 jump points from where you need it,,,

there you are on some Dirtball in the perphiery, waiting for Tech support to help you with your super complex machine, meanwhile Bob's Gunz And Ammo Merc Corp are tearing the planet up with low-Tech stuff that runs on bannana peels and fires scrap metal from a cannon.

[TeaL3af]

ASC, on 13 April 2012 - 02:37 AM, said:

Rather then low tech, its just more realistic; and pretty much the only mech concept i've seen which comes close to being reasonable.

In terms of physics I think it's mostly realistic. In terms of human behaviour it's highly unrealistic.

I'm also not quite sure the heavier Mechs would be cost-effective in real life. Wouldn't it be better to spend your money on masses of smaller vehicles, especially if you assume that all the weapons can fire realistic distances instead of <1000m. The Assault mechs should just be giant sitting ducks waiting to be hit by artillery and air strikes.

I don't really care too much though, coolness trumps realism for me.

[Kenyon Burguess]

this is the very reason i dont play star-trek or star wars. they are fine for what they are, but BT is dirty, bloody, and ungainly in its death dealing and i love it for that.

[originalvapor]

d@*n halo one little game introduces a shield mechanic that recharges and then everyone wants one. what happened to the feel of havinf 1 hp left and adrenaline rushing as you fight furiously to the exit, I miss doom. But BT with shields no no and no. Laser sword thing was in a brit tech book years ago never caught one really (thank god) however Axemen to the front melee combat would be boss in my lowely opinion.

[Souske Sagara]

BerryChunks, on 13 April 2012 - 08:59 AM, said:

but if they carry no charge, how do plants and solar panels generate energy from them? Creating energy from nothing is WITCHCRAFT!

Plants work in the same way as magnets and this person's crazy gold foil asteroid blocking armor. Also, how much would generating a massive broad spectrum em field to protect your mech dick with your reactor's magnetic shielding?

[plodder]

I like the physical restraints in the mechwarrior games. More realistic, while still needing skill from a pilot. I understand what
LordDeathStrike

is wanting. He wants what we all want=MORE. We all want more, more control, more power, more weapons, more protection, and some of even want more beer. But, we also all know that sometimes, less is more. I think Battletech typifies this. Gives wiggle room for human interaction, success and failure. And lets try and play nice, we can destroy each other later.

[Samuel Maxwell]

If BattleTech was any higher-tech, 'Mechs wouldn't exist.

[Spiralcrisis]

pesco, on 13 April 2012 - 09:21 AM, said:

Yeah, witches run plants and solar panels. I think there's a national department for it. Didn't you know? X)

Those are example of converting energy from one form to another , ie solar energy to electricity.