182 replies to this topic

[Draelren]

Dark Age. Dear god...

[ColonelProctor]

Dark Age here also. And more specifically about it, how in the devil did Alaric get born?! Also with Devlin Stone... so one man shows up, wins a world and is suddenly a hero the likes of Victor, Hohiro, Kai, or Anastasius. I wouldn't trust Stone with my car keys much less the army that frees the Sphere from the Jihad.

[Halftrack]

For me the B'tech universe stopped shortly after the Clan invasion was halted.

The improvement of Clan tech over IS tech understandable if you look at Germany and England during WWII versus the US. Germany continued to make technological advancements, but they were unable to continually mass produce them. England had to scrabble and eventually had to rely on an outside source to keep them going. At the same time the US was essentially undamaged by war and was able to develope technology and mass produce it. So the concept that a society untouched by total war would become a super power while other societies that in a constant war would slow down. Now in game setting that totally unbalances things and takes away from the fun.

My biggest gripe has always been elementals. Those damn things can literally rip a mech apart, again taking the fun out of the game. Yet if were so powerful why even still use battlemechs all together. If a mech requires so much resources to produce and maintain, yet for the same amount of resources you can produce X amount of elementals which are easier to transport and take up less space, why continue to do so? I know the clans had the whole honor thing going, but there was never a frustrated commander or an eager Elemental commander decided to do a Zerg rush and overwelhem the enemy?

It has been posted about the life span not being long enough. Well they are saying that because of the current lifestyles the newest generation will have a short life span than the previous two.

[Stargoat]

Dmitri Ravenoff, on 26 May 2012 - 07:21 PM, said:

A .22 cal rifle has a longer range than an AK-47. Bigger bullets slow down faster.
The AC-2 is shooting pebbles at long range. The AC-20 is lobbing beer keg sized shells a very short distance with devastating effect.

'Bigger bullets' do not 'slow down' faster. Necessarily. There are basically two forces on a projectile after it leaves the muzzle; gravity and drag.

Firstly, let's look at the special case where the projectile is in motion within a vacuum. The only force will be gravity; near the Earth's surface, this results in an acceleration of 9.81 metres per second. The acceleration due to gravity of any bodies in a vacuum in the same gravity field is equal, which means that a 2 gram .22 bullet would have the same acceleration (9.81 m/s) as the 8 gram bullet of the 7.62*39 cartridge (as used by the AK 47). What does this mean? In a vacuum, with equal muzzle velocities, and fired at identical angles, both the .22 and 7.62 bullets will follow the /exact same/, parabolic path. At no point does either bullet's /horizontal/ motion slow, as the only force is gravity.

Things get a little bit more complex when you take into consideration drag, as affects projectiles in realistic situations within an atmosphere. Drag, in a similar way to friction, acts proportionally to the speed, and opposite to the direction of motion of the projectile. This means that the faster an object is going, the more drag it will experience. However, the shape of the projectile has a great effect on the drag - something the shape of a ball will experience more drag than something bullet shaped. To make things simple, let's assume that all of the bullets have identical 'shapes'.

Okay, so if the the two projectiles are travelling through the same atmosphere, with the same gravitational force acting upon them, and with identical shapes, wouldn't that mean that they travel the same distance? No. Drag is a force upon the object, and its relationship regarding its ability to change the motion of said object, is through Newton's Second Law, F = MA, or Force = Mass * Acceleration, which we can re-arrange to be A = F/M. So... just after the projectile leaves the barrel, the velocity is equal, the shape is the same, so the force will be the same. But the mass is different. An object of greater mass will experience less slowdown due to drag than one of lesser mass.

What does this mean? Given projectiles of equal muzzle velocities, and equal firing angles, and equal shape, within an atmosphere, the heavier bullet will travel further.

Now in practise, you may see a heavier projectile travel a shorter distance (say, a cannon vs a .22 rifle), because the cannon simply cannot accelerate the projectile to the same muzzle velocity.

Edited by stargoat, 28 May 2012 - 10:11 PM.

[Arctic Fox]

Evinthal, on 28 May 2012 - 08:03 PM, said:

From what I have gathered Null set was required both the attacker and the target to posses an HPG am I wrong in this? To clarify the hpg cannon was a point at anything weapon. The target did not have to have an hpg.

Also being as it is in a printed book that is part of the considered canon it is canon...

No, in Null Set a full-sized HPG could be used as a direct fire weapon against anything, and anything hit would be immediately fried. Since then I believe the rules have only allowed for a Ground Mobile HPG to be used as a weapon against another HPG.

And yes, it is considered canon, but the book which mentions it also explicitely says that "there are rumours" that it exists and that it's "probably entirely unfeasible", and there's no information about the whole thing beyond speculation about these rumours. So if you find it so silly it's entirely reasonable to assume that it is and that it doesn't exist until another source actually confirms these rumours.

Evinthal, on 28 May 2012 - 08:32 PM, said:

See this is the point I have been trying to make. People are so butt hurt over the Dark Ages when it came about all beacuse of the Jihad and they over look that all of this has been done before though on a smaller scale.

The Jihad happens and the Blakists get things done, ******* off a lot of people, then Delvin Stone the white knight comes along and bands everyone together to fight them off (oh hey look clan invasion all over again) and forms the Republic of the Sphere, which is just basically another star league. Wait...wasn't that the reason the Blakists started the entire Jihad?

So in a round and about way the Blakists actually won, at least for a little bit.

Exactly. Thomas Marik pretty much says (right before the Regulans turn him into radioactive paste) that the formation of the Republic of the Sphere brought about the unification the Blakists were fighting for.

[Evinthal]

Arctic Fox, on 29 May 2012 - 03:39 AM, said:

No, in Null Set a full-sized HPG could be used as a direct fire weapon against anything, and anything hit would be immediately fried. Since then I believe the rules have only allowed for a Ground Mobile HPG to be used as a weapon against another HPG.

And yes, it is considered canon, but the book which mentions it also explicitely says that "there are rumours" that it exists and that it's "probably entirely unfeasible", and there's no information about the whole thing beyond speculation about these rumours. So if you find it so silly it's entirely reasonable to assume that it is and that it doesn't exist until another source actually confirms these rumours.

Ah, okay, I was trying to find out more about this, and didn't see mention of it being able to be used on non-hpg carrying units. I Just kept finding more and more hpg to hpg stuff.

As to the rumors, the cannon actually does have statistics for it according to an official CBT board moderator, but it hadn't been printed yet, and it is in limbo as to if it will be. I guess all the rabble rabble made them think twice about actually putting it out officially.

Arctic Fox, on 29 May 2012 - 03:39 AM, said:

Exactly. Thomas Marik pretty much says (right before the Regulans turn him into radioactive paste) that the formation of the Republic of the Sphere brought about the unification the Blakists were fighting for.

I guess my biggest thing is people see something new and hate on it, when it is just history repeating itself, but because it is a new era or has a different look to it they miss this.

The Jihad is another Clan invasion (just on a much bigger scale, and no proxy battle this time), the Inner Sphere unites into the Republic of the Sphere, forming what is basically the third Star League. Delvin Stone pulls and Aleksandr and vanishes from the Republic and the HPGs go down launching what amounts to another Succession War between the powers of the Inner Sphere.

Hell the Knights, and Paladins of the Republic are just the Com Guard.

None of this is new, and to people complaining about it are like the 3025 grognards complaining about the Clan invasion.

And as Stackpole said in his blog, something drastic HAD to be done to turn the universe upside down or it stagnates, and doesn't grow. If it doesn't grow and bring in new people it withers and dies.

Edited by Evinthal, 29 May 2012 - 08:41 AM.

[CaveMan]

It sucks because they did the same thing all over again, only moreso, not because it was different. If they had actually taken the universe in a new direction instead of retreading old ground (poorly) it would be better received.

[Munchausen]

The thing that bugs me throughout all of the lore is the ridiculous soap-opera-ness of all the "surprise" plot points. The "secret identity" of Anastasius Focht, the Thomas AND Joshua Marik body doubles, Clan Wolverine/The Minnesota Tribe, just to name a few. I don't mind a semi-feudal society being heavily influenced by the personal machinations of powerful individuals (*cough* Katrina), but that doesn't mean we have to keep bringing characters back after they're comfortably dead.

[Chuggernaut]

Halftrack, on 28 May 2012 - 09:37 PM, said:

My biggest gripe has always been elementals. Those damn things can literally rip a mech apart, again taking the fun out of the game. Yet if were so powerful why even still use battlemechs all together. If a mech requires so much resources to produce and maintain, yet for the same amount of resources you can produce X amount of elementals which are easier to transport and take up less space, why continue to do so? I know the clans had the whole honor thing going, but there was never a frustrated commander or an eager Elemental commander decided to do a Zerg rush and overwelhem the enemy?

Elementals are dangerous in an enclosed space, yeah. But they're not much of a threat in an open field; the mechs that they can take down alone are far too fast in that scenario to ever be in small laser range, and the ones that are slow enough to catch will tear them to shreds with their guns. You'll get screwed if they ambush you, but that's also kind of your fault for getting ambushed.

Plus, they die real easy to Infernos.

[CaveMan]

Chuggernaut, on 29 May 2012 - 11:16 AM, said:

Plus, they die real easy to Infernos.

Oh, yeah. There is nothing more satisfying than Toad Flambé.

[InADaze]

Urishima, on 26 May 2012 - 08:12 AM, said:

Protomechs.
Just... no!

HERE HERE! Gosh I hate those things.

[GargoyleKDR]

Dark Age, and the weaponized Industrial Mechs it brought with it.

[Chunkymonkey]

GargoyleKDR, on 29 May 2012 - 11:41 AM, said:

Dark Age, and the weaponized Industrial Mechs it brought with it.

A agro mech fighting with a autocannon 2 and 3 reloads is NOT as cool as a regiment of pure assualt mechs, i mean, whats up with all the infantry fights?

[Pht]

The novel "a far country" and any of the filth written by ilsa j. bick (bt is NOT a psyco-sexual-true-crime deviancy genre!).

That's about all I can think of atm.

[Chuggernaut]

BT has had a ton of messed up stuff from the get-go, they just left that out of the novels. The old House books had incestuous heads of state and roving torture wagons and planetary genocide. Candace Liao got a complete and total rewrite so she could be Justin Allard's easily-seduced arm candy whereas previously she was sending assassins after Jaime Wolf for not getting weird with her. The MoC in 3025 had no laws as to sexual consent.

It's always been a messed-up crapsack universe full of people with crazy on the brain.

Edited by Chuggernaut, 29 May 2012 - 04:11 PM.

[Pht]

Chuggernaut, on 29 May 2012 - 04:08 PM, said:

BT has had a ton of messed up stuff from the get-go, they just left that out of the novels. The old House books had incestuous heads of state and roving torture wagons and planetary genocide. Candace Liao got a complete and total rewrite so she could be Justin Allard's easily-seduced arm candy whereas previously she was sending assassins after Jaime Wolf for not getting weird with her. The MoC in 3025 had no laws as to sexual consent.

It's always been a messed-up crapsack universe full of people with crazy on the brain.

Which in no way justifies smacking people in the face with all the gory details that serve to do nothing more than desensitize people to horrible things.

I'm just wishing that certain authors had the sense to not pump that bilge into explicit form in ink; it's not like we don't know there are sickos out there.

[Chuggernaut]

I think that leaving out the gory details is what desensitized people. Makes it all seem clean, manageable.

[Lightdragon]

comstars ability to hide warships from prying eyes for all 4 succession wars and the clan invasion then suddenly pulling a few out of their butts for taskforce serpent and their jump fleet

[Chuggernaut]

Lightdragon, on 29 May 2012 - 05:22 PM, said:

comstars ability to hide warships from prying eyes for all 4 succession wars and the clan invasion then suddenly pulling a few out of their butts for taskforce serpent and their jump fleet

How would that be hard for them? They controlled all the maps. All they would need to do is move their fleet somewhere and erase it off the map, saying it was wiped out along with hundreds of other worlds in the Succession Wars.

Edited by Chuggernaut, 29 May 2012 - 05:29 PM.

[Stern ES]

Vtack, on 28 May 2012 - 09:01 PM, said:

Really? All this time and no one mentions the weird mystical force users of the battletech universe. Morgan Kell and Yorinaga Kurita are both depicted as having some type of odd mystical connection to their rides. This never shows up again in the battletech lore, even when these characters move on past Mallory's World and are depicted as fighting in other battles (sans mystical connection to their mechs), and it is never really mentioned in BT lore again other than brief sort of "yeah that happened" type quotes. What everyone attributes to be a better pilots in Kai Allard never has any freaky "using the force" moments in his mechs. It was just odd and confusing and I thought it was going to pull the series in a strange shadowrunish type direction.

It was an odd misstep in a such a sort of gritty sci-fi universe. I mean if you read those books which were very early on in the BT life cycle you really had this feeling that there was more to this whole piloting a mech thing. One could also make the argument that this odd mystical aspect did show up again in the Jade Phoenix trilogy but that is sort of stretching it.

I agree, it was bizarre. I guess I gave it a bit of a pass as it was resolved in the trilogy (roughly) and wasn't mentioned again IIRC except at Luthien. At least nothing really came of it in the long run. Then it really would have been odd.