182 replies to this topic

[DireWolf307]

Definitely anything to do with the Dark Age. It just doesn't "feel" like Battletech to me. Granted, it brought a lot of people in to the game that never would have heard of it otherwise, but they could have modernized BT without raping canon and doing a lot of nonsensical things to do it.

[Chou Senwan]

I always figured ComStar trained its pilots with mech simulators, like MechWarrior Online. Video games for the win.

And I loved LAMs.

I stopped reading before the new Star League was created, so apparently I missed most of the jank.

[Paladin1]

Acehilator, on 26 May 2012 - 06:49 AM, said:

The WoB Jihad makes even less sense then Comstar defeating the Clans imho. Building whole armies, fleets and weapons of mass destruction and nobody noticing, not a single member deserting or having a change of heart and telling somebody about it? Not a single Intelligence Agency in the IS able to even have a clue about what they are doing and everybody just underestimating them for 10+ years? Yeah right, lol.

Considering that the Hidden Five weren't even on the star maps, I'd say hiding the build up was a lot easier than what you'd think. Getting into and out of those systems was a major bottleneck for two reasons. One, no one outside of a select group inside of Comstar even knew they existed and secondly, those inside the group were operating under a travel bottleneck as only approved transports whose crews were of a known quality were sent into those systems.

Also, the intelligence agencies of the Houses did know something was going on, they just didn't know what it was, who was behind it or what was coming. Even SAFE knew that someone was skimming funds from the Marik treasury but they couldn't find out where it was going and their allies in the WoB couldn't either. Granted, when it was those allies who were skimming the money in the first place it makes a difference, but SAFE had no idea that ROM was running interference on their own operations.

Finally, to say that the WoB built a fleet isn't exactly true. They salvaged a lot of derelict ships and while some were in House territory, the majority were either close to Terra or were at the Ruins of Gabriel.

I have enough reasons to not like the WoB and Jihad, but their build up isn't one of them. That's actually fairly tame, truth be told.

[Chou Senwan]

200+ years, and no one says, "Hey, let's build some science academies"? I mean, NAIS is the only one, right? On Earth we have how many today? And in all the Inner Sphere, there's just one noteworthy institute trying to understand physics?

I dunno. Maybe the authors of the novels just didn't paint the universe as dark and gritty enough. "Mankind wars itself back to the Industrial Revolution" could explain some stuff, but I can't imagine a planet of billions of people not having scientists who can advance technology.

Oh, and also, the game came out before the internet and SIRI. Mechs should all be drones. But that's a change that would make the game less fun.

[Tempest Titan]

Guys, what are you talking about, the lore totally stops after the WoB attacks the Dragoon's and bombs a few places while disrupting the HPG's...

Obviously they'll get crushed after a few months....

And anyone who says anything else is a liar.

[Tempest Titan]

Chou Senwan, on 26 May 2012 - 07:47 AM, said:

Oh, and also, the game came out before the internet and SIRI. Mechs should all be drones. But that's a change that would make the game less fun.

Using drones against people with tech from the 1950's doesn't say anything about how useful they actually are against an enemy with a high enough tech level to attempt to disrupt the signal...

And at least flying drones get damaged when they fall (even if not enough so Iran gettign one isn't a bg deal), any mech that lost the signal would just be sitting there for the taking...

[PANZERBUNNY]

Comstar and WoB's control the only means of interstellar communication with a clandestine support structure of veritable ninja's to enforce silence on issues if they so wanted....

....and you're wondering HOW they kept it silent for so long?

I'm sure it's not too crazy to assume there were some truthers out in the BTech universe who thought that ComStar must have a secret weapons stash or army to support their business endeavours. It's feasible to assume SOME info go out, but since it was on a small scale and not very reliable, fairly ignored.

In regards to training....I"m sure ComStar has access to some pretty kick *** simulator programs. Programs that may as well be the real thing.

That's my rationale.

[anonymous218]

Anything Dark Ages/Jihad related. The whole direction of the material had me scratching my head (and not buying anymore).

[Mal]

Dark Age/Jihad.. those just don't seem to 'fit' the BattleTech universe, and seemed like nothing more than a way to move from "Real" BattleTech.. to the click game format.

[Starne]

ComStar and the Word of Blake. As was said above, ComStar builds maintains an extremely well-equipped army in total secrecy over the course of generations, and noone ever discovers even a hint of it? Where were all those Mechs coming from? All the supplies? All the personel? To top it off, this largely untested and unproven secret army, that has up until this point been used as pirate-hunters and thugs is able to fully mobilise and fight crack warriors(An enemy the ComGuard have exactly zero experiece against, though I guess there are some similarities between fighting pirate rabble and Clan forces. Haw.) from 7 Clans and win or at least extract a draw? Are you serious?

Then the Word of Blake does the whole thing again. You'd think that after the "Dramatic Revelation" of the ComGuard, that forces all over the Inner Sphere(And beyond! you'd think the Clanners wouldn't want ComStar pulling another Deus Ex Machina out of a hat) would be keeping both ComStar and the Word of Blake under very close surveilance. Nope. All of this happens completely under the radar. The Word of Blake manages to build up a massive military, stockpile WMDs, develop all-new Mech designs, and somehow pull armies of Cyborgs out of a hat.

Don't even get me started on LAMs and Protomechs, Ugh. I'll just say this; Weren't Protomechs supposed to be developed to save time and resources? If so, why are they "dressed up" in silly ways? How much material and effort are wasted putting those faces, horns, tails, tusks and whatever on them?

[William Petersen]

The Battle of Tukayyid and everything after it.

[Phoenixfire]

What they did to the Dark Age jade Falcons.

They also never fully flushed out what happened with Archer Chritifiori and the end of the Civil War. Was he there to see Katherine defeated or was he late? And what happened to him after that?

[Enaris]

PANZERBUNNY, on 26 May 2012 - 07:56 AM, said:

Comstar and WoB's control the only means of interstellar communication with a clandestine support structure of veritable ninja's to enforce silence on issues if they so wanted....

....and you're wondering HOW they kept it silent for so long?

I'm sure it's not too crazy to assume there were some truthers out in the BTech universe who thought that ComStar must have a secret weapons stash or army to support their business endeavours. It's feasible to assume SOME info go out, but since it was on a small scale and not very reliable, fairly ignored.

In regards to training....I"m sure ComStar has access to some pretty kick *** simulator programs. Programs that may as well be the real thing.

That's my rationale.

"Only" method of communication aside from simply hauling the information around on Jumpships. Slower to be sure, but reliable enough if it comes right down to it.

Yeah, I recognize that Comstar can be extremely well trained, but you can only train so much. The whole "seeing the elephant" thing. Nothing like seeing your buddies mech get blown apart, and knowing that you won't be able to step into the bar that night with said buddy and make fun of his latest training gaffe.

I'm even willing to give Focht full credit as a military genius (all hail Duke Frederick!), but again, he was using a force that had a lot of green to it.

[grim jim]

Number of things about it get me (Clans, Great Houses ruling for centuries, everything after 3057), but my overall biggest gripe is tech. Both battlefield tech and story tech.

Back when me and my buds started playing in the early '90's in junior high school, it was all great; giant robots pounding the crap out of each other, and the system was simple to boot (and it wasn't seen as D&D, which was naturally of the devil). But as I've gotten older and little more wise in the ways of blowing crap up and experiencing other tabletop war games it just gets under my skin.

Ablative Armor, ACs (bigger guns have less range with shorter barrels yet do more damage???), lasers have the same chance to miss as an AC or missile (FTL pretty much makes them point-n-click), swarms of dumb missiles vs, big guided killers, fusion reactors, Hyperpulse Generators, extreme back-slide of tech... ugh.

I understand a lot of the lore related to battlefield technology may just be due to the simplicity of the tabletop system/rules, but it's bugged me so much as of late I've actually been writing up a "mod" for tabletop to primarily convert it into a non-ablative armor system and change how weaponry is handled.

[infinite xaer0]

darkage sucks.. as ppl have mentioned. I still remember all the rage on MW/BT forums when that cop out jihad story came out explaining how CBT ended and DA began..

[CaveMan]

Comstar makes sense in that the Inner Sphere is an allegory for medieval europe, and Comstar represents the roman catholic church of that period: secretive, plotting and a military power in its own right.

What bothers me is how fast the Inner Sphere caught up to the Clans technologically. Somehow the Clans basically stagnated for 200 years and didn't invent anything new past the 2830s or so. Yet the Inner Sphere, which was bombed back to 1980s level technology by 3000 and Battlemechs were thought of as the next thing to freaking magic, is able to pretty much catch up to the Clans by 3070. Helm memory core or not, there's just no way the IS could have made a thousand year jump in that little time.

[Urishima]

Protomechs.
Just... no!

[CaveMan]

Starne, on 26 May 2012 - 07:59 AM, said:

ComStar and the Word of Blake. As was said above, ComStar builds maintains an extremely well-equipped army in total secrecy over the course of generations, and noone ever discovers even a hint of it? Where were all those Mechs coming from? All the supplies? All the personel? To top it off, this largely untested and unproven secret army, that has up until this point been used as pirate-hunters and thugs is able to fully mobilise and fight crack warriors(An enemy the ComGuard have exactly zero experiece against, though I guess there are some similarities between fighting pirate rabble and Clan forces. Haw.) from 7 Clans and win or at least extract a draw? Are you serious?

In all fairness, Comstar is supposed to have taken absolutely hideous losses on Tukayyid. Around 40% fatalities and even more injured, despite outnumbering the Clans considerably. And this even with the Com Guards relentlessly pounding the Clans with artillery, sabotaging their supply lines, and the Clans refusing to fight as a united front and failing to use anything but the most simplistic tactics (aside from the Wolves, who are author favorites and therefore exempt from the rules), AND Comstar choosing to fight in places where the Clans' range advantage was largely negated.

The unbelievable part isn't that the Com Guards were able to best the Clans at Tukayyid. The unbelievable part is that they existed as a military force afterward.

[Egomane]

Oh, where to start? I guess, I'll work my way backwards.

Dark Age - Just because Wizards had to recreate battletech with their clicktech everything established had to go and be replaced by something new.

Jihad - No one knew what the WoB were up to? Where were all those incredibly good intelligence networks that they had not a single clue?

Comguards - Big enough to hold of the Clans. More then 50 regiments worth of troops. Pulled out of thin air and highly skilled because they had garrison duty somewhere. Sure!

Clans - When they were introduced, they had weapons that were lighter, smaller, had more range and did more damage. To top it of, their pilots are better then the average IS pilot. To include a stronger enemy into a game system is not a bad thing. But to introduce one that is stronger in every way thinkable is plain overkill for the system. Remember that back in the days we had tonnage and the combat value system to balance the system. Both unreliable at best to begin with, became useless when you had to compare clan and IS.

Federated Commonwealth - Note: That is not my usual rant against the davions. To combine the biggest economical power with the biggest military of the inner sphere and there is so little gain? The FC did not gain much fame by using its ressources so ineffective. Marik, was no power to be reconed with and had way to much infighting to mount a reasonable offensive against the Commonwealth. Not to mention that Thomas Mariks son was within the Suns part of the FC. They could have held at bay with little effort. Liao was undermined with spies in some of the highest positions possible. No thread if that card would have been played right. So the FC could have concentrated itself on the Kuritans and overrun it. Instead they began battles on all fronts at once. Had they picked one, the strongest, opponent apart first, the other two would have been no longer a thread.

[Chou Senwan]

Well, in 200 years the clans went from lasers that pump out X kilojoules to ones that pump out 1.2X kilojoules. Very impressive. Oh, and their engines are, like, 10% more compact.

Hi, I'm Henry Ford. I love how you've taken my model T and, in less than 100 years, tripled the maximum speed, improved fuel efficiency from 8 miles per gallon per ton to 40 miles per gallon per ton, made the vehicle safer and sturdier, and now programmed it to drive itself.

Or, better yet, I'm Wilbur and Orville Wright. It's sure nice to see how we've gone from cruising a couple hundred feet at slightly faster than a sprinter's pace to FLYING TO THE DAMNED MOON.

Maybe the Clanners were just idiots. I mean, how do you create a functional technological society -- from extracting ore and rare earth elements, refining it, building factories to manufacture mechs, programming the computers to run those factories, and so on -- when your culture's primary skill set is "putting bullets in people who need bullets put in 'em"?

Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.

Egomane, on 26 May 2012 - 08:17 AM, said:

Oh, where to start? I guess, I'll work my way backwards.

Dark Age - Just because Wizards had to recreate battletech with their clicktech everything established had to go and be replaced by something new.

WizKids, not Wizards of the Coast. Different company. WotC is currently busy fumbling the launch of _their_ beta test for a new game. Here's hoping D&D 5e turns out great, though.