Thread 64006282

Suppose you had Battletech levels of technology. This means you have:
>Powerful artificial muscles that are also ultra-lightweight, allowing you to build vehicles the size of buildings that are lighter than tanks
>Powerful stealth technology that can make your vehicles invisible to the naked eye and immune to all forms of other detection
>Powerful ECM and ECCM that's so strong it literally melts nearby infantry with the radiation it offputs and makes you immune to all forms of tracking weaponry
>Powerful gauss, plasma, and laser weaponry that can blast massive holes through vehicles at immense ranges instantly
>Powerful sentient AI that can take control of vehicles
>Faster than light technology
>Powerful layered armor that chips away a small piece at a time making them able to tank repeated shots
>Powerful neural-mind connections that allow anyone to connect with their technology regardless of its form and control it as a one-man crew
>Power-armor and jetpacks along with powerful incendiary anti-armor weapons that melt vehicles down to goo

How would you design a military doctrine around using it? Would you have giant robot men punching each other, or could you design something more efficient?

I’d make those giant faceless robot babes from that Russian fallout knockoff and have sex with them until I died.

>>64006282 (OP)
Power Armor. LOTS. OF. IT.

>>64006282 (OP)
ENTER

>>64006282 (OP)
Can you build any of that from scratch though? Or is it like the BT setting where all the factories and R&D centers ate nukes, and Bell Labs took over AT&T and runs black ops to kill any scientists or leaders that show signs they might make technological progress back to being able to understand and make that stuff from scratch again?

>>64006282 (OP)
Id build this.

Marauder MAD-2M
3092 IS Heavy

Original: https://battletech.doknet.hu/mechfactory_frame.php?call=displaymech&id=10000004

Source: My Own Custom /
Type/Model: Marauder MAD-2M
Tech: Inner Sphere / 3092
Config: Biped BattleMech
Rules: Level 4, Experimental design

Mass: 75 tons
Chassis: Ceres Marauder Lite Standard
Power Plant: 300 Fusion
Walking Speed: 43.2 km/h
Running Speed: 64.8 km/h
Armor Type: Ceres Heavy Stealth Ferro-Fibrous Ferro-Fibrous
Armament:
1 ER Medium Laser
1 ER PPC
1 Guardian ECM Suite
1 ER Medium Laser
1 ER PPC
1 Large Pulse Laser
Manufacturer: Taurus Territorial Industries
Location: Taurus
Communications System: System: Ceres Metals Model 666
Targeting and Tracking System: Ceres Bullseye


---------------------------------------------------------
Type/Model: Marauder MAD-2M
Mass: 75 tons

Equipment: Crits Mass
Int. Struct.: 114 pts Standard 0 7.50
Engine: 300 Fusion 6 19.00
Walking MP: 4
Running MP: 6
Jumping MP: 0
Heat Sinks: 16 Double [32] 12 6.00
(Heat Sink Loc.: 1 LA,1 LT,1 RA,1 RT)
Gyro: 4 3.00
Cockpit, Life Supt., Sensors: 5 3.00
L: Sh+UA+LA R: Sh+UA+LA 6 0.00
Armor Factor: 179 Ferro-Fibrous 14 10.00
(Armor Crit Loc: 1 CT,2 LA,1 LL,4 LT,2 RA,1 RL,3 RT)

Internal Armor
Structure Value
Head: 3 9
Center Torso: 23 28
Center Torso (Rear): 12
L/R Side Torso: 16 19/19
L/R Side Torso (Rear): 4/4
L/R Arm: 12 18/18
L/R Leg: 16 24/24

>>64006282 (OP)
I'd solve clean energy first with fusion engine technology.

>>64006282 (OP)

For the Honor of the Regiment.

>>64006364
>Ultralightweight materials
>Super-powerful weapons and armor
>Sentient AI
>Jump-jets allowing flight
....shit Battletech totally could've gone the way of Bolo.

>>64006370
My favorite headcanon is that Battlemechs were a desperate attempt to psyop the Great Houses into that boondoggle instead of being like the Taurians who focused on their Navy and beat the brakes off the SLDF for 20 years.

>>64006383
IIRC the equivalent of literal Space Amish were able to fight the Clans to a standstill because they were smart enough to focus on Aerospace Fighters instead of mechs.

>>64006383
Are the Davions in the room with you now?

>>64006383
Battletech is ultimately a medieval fantasy with future warrior nobility basically acting like heavy cavalry in their walking robots, where being able to pilot a battlemech gives you more legitimacy to rule a fief than using microsoft excel (this is based)

>>64006370
There are things only marginally smaller than Bolos in the setting, they just don't get much attention.

>>64006402
>when the Davions lose 3/4ths of their navy in a single battle
Not anymore.

>>64006370
Battletech is literally the same technology base as Macross but used in hideously inefficient ways to the point that they are centuries behind in capabilities.

>>64006423
This is the most accurate description of Battletech I've ever heard

>>64006370

Mechcommander 2 had you destroy Steiner(?) factories creating prototype 100-ton assault tanks at the behest of your employer, so i bet that the big mech lobby literally stomps out any attempt for tonks to rise to prominence. For the setting, it actually might be better this way because Bolos go way beyond anything the Ares Conventions allow.

>>64006407
>heavy cavalry
>spawns in setting with TOW-E's and FGM-148's
>throws in M1A3 Abrams for giggles
Might as well call my forces Tic-TAC's.

>>64006349
you can never go wrong with a Vlar300!

>>64006423
>>64006426
>>64006452
>>64006383
Yes, that's literally the point of the setting.

The secret faction psyopping and making everyone fight in retarded ways is CommStar (aka space AT&T). If you try to do anything not-retarded then they black bag you. If they think you might just be pretending to be retarded then they black bag you. If, despite being a real retard, you luck your way into too much success, they black bag you.

CommStar saw what the great houses did with effective military technology when they were allowed to have it once before, so they decided to enforce a retarded meta on everyone so that all the nobles couldn't do any more real damage. And that's the bulk of the BT setting, up to the Clan Invasions.
>>64006370
They don't have sentient AI. They barely have functioning digital computers at the level of a calculator, and even those weigh several tonnes.

>>64006560
Weren't battlemechs invented before comstar became a thing (but after everyone started LARPing as monarchies)

>>64006560
>They don't have sentient AI.
They do, it just has the same problem as Warhammer 40k, where going through FTL makes it go crazy like its been infected by a demon and try to kill everyone around it.

>>64006452
>i bet that the big mech lobby literally stomps out any attempt for tonks to rise to prominence
The main thing keeping tanks from taking off as The Thing for armored combat is that life support is fuarking expensive and tanks have more intense manpower needs, which means more staff requiring being bussed around between planets. They also tend to be easier to mobility kill due to how the rules work.

>>64006595
Yes. Battlemechs have been the premier battlefield weapon in Battletech for like 500 years, and are extensively used by ComStar themselves. The only things in the setting that obsolete them are Warships and WMDs.

>>64006627
>and tanks have more intense manpower needs
This wouldn't be true if anybody in the setting invested into making *good* tanks but any time anybody gets good technology they only ever seem to apply it to mechs. Fusion tech, stealth tech, AI, neurohelmets, etc.

And of course the game mechanics favor mechs too but for reasons that make absolute no sense in reality.

>>64006595
Yes. Even the test was so rigged that the pilots of the drone tanks were terrified to the point they pissed themselves (despite being miles away) and were issued obsolete weapons.
>first battle
Was the equivalent of sending infantry against 3 mounted and prepared M2 machine guns. If the Mackie was a 20 ton mech and did the same thing that would be understandable, but the Mackie was a 100 ton mech with maximum armor (nearly 300pts) of magic protection in a universe where guided weapons or fire control systems is virtually magic.
>Mackie vs real life tank platoon
>Mackie closes within 1500M of any tank built since the 80's
>takes 4 120-125mm APFSDS to the center torso
>lose a ML or take Gyro damage
>fall on its face
>or
>fires a burst of 120-150mm APCBC or a stream of ions that equals a LAW72 RHA penetration
>hit nothing
>repeat
>lose x50 more expensive platform for no gain
Battletech outright bends reality to make Mechs king.

>>64006613
No they don't. AI is lostech and without significant surviving examples. What the fuck are you talking about?
>>64006595
Yes, and ComStar (I was spelling it wrong before I had to go to Sarna to double check AI) makes sure it stays that way.

>>64006282 (OP)
what the fuck
who is making actually good art of the battletech tanks is this ai shit

>>64006633
You don't really need neurohelmets for tanks. It just links the pilot to the balancing system.
>Fusion tech
... Fusion tonks are Star League stuff. They got cannibalized for their engines during the Succession Wars but they're all over the place in the current timeline. Those haven't been rare in a really long time.
>stealth tech
Took two years in-universe to be applied to vees after its invention.
>AI
AI pilots canonically suck horribly. The Cappies tried it but their network went rogue and was only questionably usable to start. WoB uses drone mechs as chaff and terror weapons. Obviously this is mostly a setting conceit but it's a tabletop game about dudes in stompy mechs.

>>64006671
Battletech vehicles have the same armor as mechs do.

>>64006703
It's the official art used by the battletech wiki, but it's colored in using AI.

>>64006704
>You don't really need neurohelmets for tanks.
Need? No. But considering how often people use the whole "mechs only need a crew of one" as a reason for mechs being better, at this point you might as well give tanks neurohelmets too.

>>64006710
I don't have any neural pathways for treads or a turret. Do you? How do you imagine that working?

>>64006704
>Obviously this is mostly a setting conceit but it's a tabletop game about dudes in stompy mechs.
I don't think it is, really. Their computer technology absolutely sucks and ComStar kills anyone who tries to advance computer science at all, while ComStar itself regresses into believing its own larp about being a mystical religion.

>>64006726
I don't have any neural pathways for ailerons or thrust-vectored engines either but they manage to make neurohelmets work for aerospace fighters.

>>64006735
>it checks out
Damn, that's a giant settinghole. First piece of BT lore I've come across that I can't make any sense of even in universe and which really undermines the setting. Retcon it asap. Would double as a reason why air power doesn't invalidate mechs.

>>64006744
Yeah hilariously the setting makes ASF's very powerful...to the extent it makes no sense why they aren't the dominant force in the setting.

Hell, the whole 'ASF's nosedive into the ground' thing literally comes from the fact that the factions in the setting use them as fucking dive bombers instead of shooting BVR munitions with them.

>>64006560
>They don't have sentient AI.
CASPARs and Voidseekers are essentially on the level of a particularily bright dog. That is also an idiot savant at space combat and can enter into a hivemind with others of its kind when within radio distance.

>>64006761
They're the pre-Succession Wars that was lost, hence the los part of lostech. It's not that there was never any AI, it's that it's lost in the setting.

>>64006750
>to the extent it makes no sense why they aren't the dominant force in the setting.
Being even more complex and expensive than Mechs and unable to actually take and hold ground. Also ASFs can be surprisingly fragile when they try to attack ground targets, given that basically any vee or Mech can do AA to some extent.

>>64006770
And it's back again. Cappies tried fuckign aroudn with it, and Blakists made it work.

>>64006775
>lso ASFs can be surprisingly fragile when they try to attack ground targets
Because they nosedive into the ground after getting scratched because they're used as fucking dive bombers for some reason.

In space where they don't nosedive into the ground they're every bit as tough as a mech.

>>64006778
>Blakists
1. Blakists existed for a full 20 years as a faction, they weren't even a flash in the pan. 2. ComStar didn't lose technology per se, they just made sure no one had it and enforced relatively low tech on everyone. 3. No one plays the whole 20 years that this encompasses anyway (or actually any period after it either), people only care about the IS setting pre-Clan Invasion and the Clan Invasion setting - that IS the Battletech setting for all intents and purposes.

tlfdr you are intensely kvetching - AI is lostech and without relevant surviving examples in the setting

>>64006704
>armor
Yeah but they don't have the redundancy of mechs and get motive crits if looked at wrong. A mech can have half of it blown away but CV's die if any damage destroys a component. In addition CV's suffer from terrain while mechs can magically move through similar obstacles.

>>64006810
This is another area where for some reason the bad game mechanics are treated as actual lore-reasons for mechs being better.

>>64006750
>ASF PSR
Always made me giggle thinking about it.
>real pilots
>holy fuck my aircraft just lost a wing and a engine from a telephone pole sized missile better fly back to base!
>battletech pilots
>HOLY FUCK I JUST GOT GRAZED BY THE WEAKEST WEAPON IN SETTING BETTER LAWN DART MY ASF INTO THE FUCKING GROUND!!!!
Real Earth fighters would be a absolute nightmare to BT ASF, a AMRAM might as well be a 50+ hex nervous breakdown for any inner sphere pilots.

>>64006814
Yeah. Which makes far more sense than simply putting the crew in armored cockpits or granting CV's a -2 on all gunnery rolls. A Great House building Mech's isn't a House building a functional educational system or WarShips.

>>64006705
oooh okay
moebius colors are funky i wanna learn how to do them myself one day

You forgot how the inverse square law is reversed in battletech so larger/heavier = less efficient for some reason.

>>64006832

Isn't one of the setting rules for BT is that everything remotely military includes insane future ECM that renders combat into either direct visual-distance fire or grid-hex blind fire artillery duels?

>>64006978
The ECM is so powerful that it literally melts people next to it from the radiation it outputs...

Which means you can pretty much instantly tell where a mech is at any time since it's outputting Chernobyl levels of radiation at all times.

>>64006744
Aerospace benefits because the pilots sense of balance matters a lot in three dimensional space, and that's what a neurohelmet is designed to interface with. A tank doesn't benefit from an enhanced sense of balance, because, you know, it moves two dimensionally and doesn't have legs.

>>64006978
Battletech ECM is so potent that fully firing it up inside a city is a war crime because you just gave a shitload of civilians turbo cancer. It's the in universe reason all the ranges are listed as being so short. The meta reason is that the creators wanted the game to feel more like knights dueling than a sniper fight.

>>64007018
Which feels silly to me because don't we literally have missiles designed to track radiation sources?

>>64006282 (OP)
Alacorn my beloved…

The only reasons mechs are relevant in the battletech universe are because of

>High combat-to-mass value for transport efficiency between planets
>Infrastructure in-universe is shit
>Massive range of planetary conditions to account for, invariably rugged
>Technological stagnation, the universe is so fucked that old technology is still best

When just constrained to Earth, conventional tracked vehicles and Aerospace fighters would dominate

>>64006560
>so they decided to enforce a retarded meta on everyone so that all the nobles couldn't do any more real damage
This is not correct
Comstar actively want the great houses to obliterate the universe so Comstar can be the sole remaining power to guide humanity up from the ashes

>>64006704
> WoB uses drone mechs as chaff and terror weapons
The Celerity is fucking hilarious. But I’d probably commit brevities bodily harm to anyone who brought one to a game.

>>64006282 (OP)
>cruise missile can take out biggest mech
Can a cruise missile hit a target on a planet with no satellites, can it hit a mech moving at 60 kilometers and not miss?
I feel like cruise missiles only work on earth that we have scanned every inch but not hypothetical backwater planets

>>64006671
>takes 4 120-125mm APFSDS to the center torso
>lose a ML or take Gyro damage
>fires a burst of 120-150mm APCBC or a stream of ions that equals a LAW72 RHA penetration
If we assume a Mackie would exist to face of against IRL vehicles the Mackie would also require BT tech to exist.
Under those circumstances the Mackie couldn't have any circumstance because BT uses space magic.
Iirc the line devs said something like the M1 would use a light rifle equivalent. A gun that does 3 damage, which also loses 3 damage when hitting targets like Battlemechs.

>>64006282 (OP)
every soldier gets an elemental wife

>>64007349
>battletech armor vs modern 120mm
I think its safe to assume armor of the future can have atom layer thick materials printing which would automatically defeat most kinetic penetrators since armor can be printed to absorb force much like kevlar is made today and kinetic weapons are still used in battletech they are just 500 years old by that point
Like a modern day musket

>>64006383
The whole point of a mech is that despite being complicated, expensive and awkward to use, you only need a pilot instead of a crew and can efficiently carry a battalions worth of firepower and armor. So dropping off 4 destroyers with feet from orbit makes sense when you can only send so much to your enemy via FTL travel.

>>64007349
120mm cannon, you say?

>>64006282 (OP)
Thousands of drones swarms.
/thread

It's astonishing how despicable drone niggers manage to be.

>>64006726
Even the most pedestrian sci-fi implementations can just hijack the pathways of the limbs. You don't need to use your limbs/fingers while jacked in so you can just use those pathways instead. In fact that's how modern implementations do it right now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsCul1sp4hQ

More methodical sci-fi just acknowledge the brain is plastic, and you can simply control anything you like as if they were a part of your body. There is nothing inherent in the brain that says that you have two arms, two legs, a neck etc. You have to learn/train/grow that. In the future we may well have people casually strapping on extra mechanical limbs whenever they please.

In any case your objection is rather stupid, you might as well say that a mech pilot doesn't have the neural pathways for firing his integrated weapons, or anything else that isn't directly related to moving the human body in a one-to-one mapping.

>>64006282 (OP)
>>64006705
>>64006710
stop posting ai slop

>>64007920
Didn't all the monkeys die prematurely?

>>64007219
Early gen tomahawks literally navigated by the stars. I dont see why something like LRASM wouldnt be able to work in concept, but its a fictional universe so it wont because reasons.

Even in Battletech ships dropping nukes from the edge of a system's gravity onto an enemy fleet or planet is cheaper and more effective, they just have to ban this practice under threat of everyone else lobbing a bunch of cheap nukes at the offender.

>>64007219
Who are you quoting? The only person talking about cruise missiles is you.

>Can a cruise missile hit a target on a planet with no satellites
Yes. We use GPS because it's the most convenient option, not because it's the only one.

> can it hit a mech moving at 60 kilometers/hour and not miss
Yes. It's so trivial I'm astounded you even think to ask this question. This and the previous question leads me to believe you're so ignorant you should just shut up, you sound incredibly stupid.

>>64006704
Patton (and Rommel!) says hi.
TRO3058 has a bunch of high-tech tanks, including the dreaded Alacorn and its patented track tension measuring system. The whole "tanks are cheap, ICE-powered fodder" thing mostly exists from the Succession Wars and lower-tier units. Some tanks are absurdly expensive for what you get.

>>64006735
That's an excellent point, but not entirely applicable. ASFs prefer to *avoid* terrain, and are not generally going to fall down or get stuck in it (if you do, there generally won't be much left of you). Thus, the electronics and inner-ear connection that allow a MechWarrior to "walk" across terrain while focusing all of their active attention on what would normally be the TC's and Gunner's roles doesn't really apply to ASFs. Per the novels, sensor information and vectors (yours and theirs) are displayed to the pilot using a combination of neurohelmet and HUDs/screens. Control inputs are HOTAS (or maybe HOSAS), again with no direct neural interface necessary.

>>64006750
>>64006791
This is a tricky subject. Yes, on paper, minmaxed ASFs blow mechs away. It feels like every MekHQ campaign I run, I inevitably wind up with a couple Stukas running my favorite home-built variant (12xMPL, DHS, 40+ tons of the best armor available). They can be terribly nasty, especially in slightly poor conditions where the enemy basically has to roll 12s to hit. On the other hand... that's what PSRs are for. I've had one of those same Stukas lose 5 altitude and crash-land from a single hit (thankfully, the 40+ tons of armor saved it and I was able to somehow make the PSRs to VTOL back into the air and run bravely away).

Where naval combat truly rules BT, however, is in blockading worlds and cutting off resupply. There are reasons why the THN/SLN had more battleships than the rest of mankind had warships, and why most THN/SLN warships were essentially armed transports (even the McKenna). That's the part that often gets ignored.

>>64008460
>That's the part that often gets ignored.
Reminder that it was a happy accident.
They made some rules and found that they had way too much tonnage left, so they declared it storage space.

>>64006806
>without relevant surviving examples in the setting
What is Necromo Nightmare
What is Ghosts of Obeedah

>>64006978
That's an excuse for the incredibly short ranges, which are necessary in order to make the game playable on a dining room table and allow for melee attacks as a meaningful part of combat. It was added as a halfhearted justification later on, and is contradicted at times by the novels and always by real-world physics.

Short weapons ranges, 10m walking tanks being just as hard to hit as 2m treaded ones, and "future '80s" technology are part of the setting. Then repeat to yourself, "It's just a game, I should really just relax". The amazing part is just how well some of the *other* parts work together, despite not having originally been designed with that intent in the first place. For example, as others have pointed out, 'mechs actually make fairly good sense *in BT*, thanks to the largely-undeveloped and unpopulated nature of most worlds and how the math worked out on crew sizes and the tonnages required for hauling people across the galaxy. And, yes, the second generation of game devs deliberately tried to justify or no-prize the setting where they could, although there are still some quirks like the compact K-F drive/LFB/DS collar interactions (which are admittedly much-improved over the AeroTech 2 days where a Potemkin cost literally 3 times as much as a McKenna or Texas). Plus, part of what makes BT so interesting as a game is the mountain of optional rules. Want to play a simple game on the dining room table before supper? Sure! Want to play AccountanTech with ALL the rules turned on? Knock yourself out, but unless you're a masochist, you should probably be using the fan-made MegaMek suite for that.

Don't forget, though, that it's still a game, and as much as we try to justify it in our heads, it doesn't always follow real-life physics or technological progress. The most "accurate" part of BT, sadly, is probably its grand sweep of history--which, of course, is for the most part blatantly stolen from actual historical events.

>>64008932
>it's still a game, and as much as we try to justify it in our heads, it doesn't always follow real-life physics
Yes. Exactly.
This is like when people bitch about things in D&D being "unrealistic". Yeah, no shit it's unrealistic, that's why it contains elves and dragons and magic. If BT were "realistic" and truly followed real-world physics there would be no mechs.

>>64008089
>cruise missile cruise missile
Im tired of hearing cruise missile fags conveniently say everything and everyone of the future can be solved with a fucking cruise missile
1. They are not always that accurate
2. They can be shot down especially in BT
3. We have cruise missiles today but we still also send conscript meatwaves with donkeys TODAY so obviously cruise missiles didnt change much except all targets are more expendable

>>64006282 (OP)
>Faster than light technology
Everything else you listed is absolutely useless compared to this.

I'll just break causality and attack my enemies before they even became my enemies.

>>64006321
Elementals are very effective yes

>>64007219
So you mount a LRM seeker on a cruise missile...

>>64008519
Many such cases.

>>64009106
Just don't send them up against a spotter backed by artillery in open terrain...

>>64006383
>instead of being like the Taurians who focused on their Navy and beat the brakes off the SLDF for 20 years.
contrary to what Tex might have made you think, thats not how that war went. It was always supposed to take 20 years because the SLDF strategy was to cut off sections and the one time the taurians actually bloodied the nose of the SLDF armada by destroyed 33 ships, it cost the Turians their entire navy. They did assassinate an SLDF general at one point but it came at the cost of the SLDF then taking off the kid gloves and absolutely fucking the shit out of them.

*sips*

For me, it's the Thunderbolt.
>Bristling with weapons; effective at any range and capable of effectively engaging multiple targets at once
>More armor than some assault 'mechs
>Impressive speed for its weight and armor
>Trivially easy to repair, refit and customize; parts are available from one end of the galaxy to the other
>Comfy cockpit
>Defeated its prospective replacement in single combat
>In production for ~550 years and has remained a battlefield staple the entire time

>>64009142
Also those ships were old ass stock the SLDF sold off the the Davions as a joke.

>>64009263
The Turian will brag about spending 100 ships in order to take out 33 outdated pieces of garbage, in a war he lost horribly that he pretends he won. This will tell you a lot about the Turian

>>64008995
I get it, I really do. You actually thought the answers to your dumb questions was "no". And now you're upset that about it.

>>64009119
That exists.
It’s called a Thunderbolt launcher and it’s kind of doodoo

>>64009289
*calibrations failed*

>>64007771
None of that is exclusive to a mech, a tank should be able to utilize the same technologies but be more efficient due to superior form factor and locomotion. That they can't is writer handwaving so they can have awesome stompy robots.

>>64009383
No, Thunderbolts are REALLY big LRMs. A Cruise Missile in BT weighs as much as a medium mech and is largely ineffective against anything other than a stationary target. But they kinda have to be that way, or they'd move the meta in directions that nobody really wants.

>>64006282 (OP)
Go as small as possible with as powerful plasma as possible and mass produce in the style of consumer appliances. My doctrine is terrorism.

>>64007936
Reading comprehension isn't your forte, is it?

>>64008932
Much like comic books, fans of anything tabletop related will completely disregard any explanation that has a real world basis and instead generate an in-universe explanation regardless of whether or not it makes sense. So when BT devs say that ranges are abstractions to allow for for you to play the game on a card table rather than a tennis court that is in fact wrong and bad because the real answer is that a missile can only travel 700 meters because of *long and convolute reason that doesn't make sense in light of reasons given for how other things work and also at least two other writers have different reasons why it happens.*

>>64008550
The titles of low quality metal albums? It's either that or novels of no relevance to our conversation.

>>64006282 (OP)
I would send my giant robot men to punch Israel.

>>64009899
I understand, and I'm not entirely against that; figuring out how to no-prize the original developers' setting loopholes can be fun--as long as you don't take it TOO seriously. As I said, it's quite amazing, given the sheer amount of content (rulebooks, splatbooks, TRO fluff text, multiple attempts at a RPG, over a hundred novels and counting, and more), that MOST of the stuff more or less makes sense once you accept a handful of axioms/first-principles like the magic armor or the short weapons ranges or the absurdly-efficient heat-expansion drives (or the FTL, for that matter).

>>64006282 (OP)
Im going to call you a faggot because even though Im a battletech fan I just think the lack of realism is faggy

>>64009460
In the Macross universe, Mechs win out over tanks because they eventually advance to the point they can deploy directly from orbit without any external logistics due to being the "ground" mode of variable fighters.
In Battletech, ComStar sabotaged most of the tech required to make variable fighters practical and as a result they ended up being little more than a silly curiosity that was worse than both a dedicated mech and a dedicated fighter while costing as much as both to produce.

>>64009142
>20 years was the plan all along!
Yeah the "2 Year Special Reunification Operation" didn't work out for them.

>>64009289
>turian
Wrong universe.

>>64011297
>In Battletech, ComStar sabotaged most of the tech required to make variable fighters practical
Nah man, the production lines kept on chugging out variable fighters until some author literally, specifically had his pet faction go on an autistic deep strike operation to destroy them all.

>>64006282 (OP)
Battletech is a pretty....inconsistent setting desu. It's not really supposed to make sense.

>>64006282 (OP)
>Faster than light technology

Relativistic projectiles are pretty much unbeatable and effectively end all wars as we know them

>>64006318
Morally correct.

How would they fare against 40k

>>64006560
>They don't have sentient AI. They barely have functioning digital computers at the level of a calculator, and even those weigh several tonnes.
Wasn't it based off Traveller?
I assume that's just because that's what computers were like in 1979 or whatever when it forked from the setting it was made from.

>>64006282 (OP)
Ok, I kill mechsissies every day. Mechsissies get killed all the time. By me.

>>64015172
>>64006282 (OP)
Mechsissies wearing their cages and pretty pink dresses btfo

While for some reason tanks in the setting are very underpowered, ASF’s are very much not. So I would use ASF’s, blow up the enemy’s mechs, and then move battlearmor infantry into the important areas with VTOLS

>>64015955
>5 types of anti air craft and orbital defense cannons/missiles blow you out of the sky
Atleast with ‘echs you get your monies worth in survivable damage

>>64006282 (OP)
Gundam approach it is

>>64015966
You do realize the ASF’s in the setting are just as durable as mechs right? There are 100 ton ASF’s with tons of armor bristling with weaponry

>>64006318
It's the Steiner way.

>>64016018
Only some of the newer (post-Clam) designs are munchkin'd out with armor. But the real ASF killer, as we've been discussing upthread, is the PSRs in atmo. The best way to use ASF against mechs is to shoot down their DropShips in space. The second-best is probably A4s.

>>64017109
IIRC PSR lawndarting are a pure game mechanic and don’t actually happen in the lore.

>>64017123
In the lore, CAS is usually an Act of Plot, without much reference to the Laws of Physics (real OR in-game). Sadly, the same is true for most naval combat within the novels.

>>64015172
>>64015179
>posts mod that buffs Elemental movement and damage because the gameplay is lore inaccurate

>>64006750
ASF's can't do the mech's most important job. grab anything the joes with crowbars couldn't get out with crowbars when looting back to the dropship

>>64019198
Yeah, that Elemental was WAYYY overpowered, now if something like Halo's vehicle mantle existed Elementals become just as horrifying in game as in lore.

>>64019293
Functionally it's a first person shooter and redesigns combat around it. Instead of ambushes, swarm tactics, and acting as support for mechs it condenses a point of Elementals down to a single unit with the side effect of effectively making it a light mech with a tiny hitbox.

For a franchise called "Battletech," the warfare is remarkably small scale and low intensity, with the sole exception of Succession War 1 + 2. We're talking less than 0.1% of the population being in the military across the entire Inner Sphere, the Amaris Coup (waged across dozens of planets) having fewer participants in total than WW1, and regiment-sized deployments being considered legitimate planetary invasions. There weren't even 1 million clanners involved in the entire Clan Invasion. If you live anywhere outside of your planets capital city, you will probably never see warfare in your life (just the boot of your government if you're a capellacuck). More like Peacetech.

>>64019438
>anon is dismayed to learn that war isn't 24/7 nonstop fighting covering literally every square inch of territory involved

>>64006282 (OP)
Nuke everyone with my faster than light nukes and demand that everyone submit to my will or I will fucking nuke them. Nobody can do shit because the nukes just jump around faster than light in deep space and there are thousands of them jumping around all the time and I rape nuke everything and everyone is my slave.

>>64006282 (OP)
>Battletech levels of technology
The elephant in the room is the insane efficiency of the fusion powered thrusters of their dropships. The technology in the Battletech universe is under utilized.

>>64019587
Oh yeah, the efficiency of Btech fusion rockets are a solid order of magnitude more than they should be, at bare minimum. The mass ratios compared to the delta-v suggest practically antimatter rocket levels of efficiency.

>>64019438
Guess how many active battles the average Medieval peasant saw (outside of Germans during TYW)? That's more or less what BT is going for, and has been pretty much since Thunder Rift.

>>64019587
And I believe somebody in /btg/ calculated mass/volume ratios on ships several years ago and determined that many were less dense than air at 1bar.

>>64019673
If I remember right, lore for the BTech reactors says they unintentionally get boost from energy from hyperspace, said phenomenon also lead to the theories that lead to hyperspace FTL tech.

>>64006282 (OP)
I know nothing of the BT universe but how would the artifical muscles help vehicles like tanks and IFVs and helicopters/planes?

Also, can it be scaled down to be used in prosthetics?

>>64022133
For a fighter jet, about 5% of the weight is hydraulics, so replacing them with artificial muscles would probably save around half a ton.

>>64022161
So they are good enough to not have hydraulics? That's interesting to know. I always assume, especially when it comes to mechs, that you need both if that's how your setting works. I suppose if you are dealing with super heavy shit like construction you might still need hydraulics but that does solve a lot of problems.

In anycase, I'm curious if it's possible I can have my heavily augmented horses. I could see the possibility of giving old horses new life with artifical organs and muscles.

>>64006282 (OP)
My BattleTech universe headcanon has literally been swimming in my head for the last 7 years or so just waiting for this exact thread to be made holy shit.

I thought it was weird at first too that they would resort to such an inefficient way to fight when they can just blow each other off the map much more easily, but then I realized, it's so obvious: Them being so efficient at potentially wiping each other out on a continental level is a deterrent in itself, and whoever does it first would also be wiped off the map in response, it simply isn't worth it. For any situation.

Mech designs and the elite pilots inside them become points of national pride for their respective houses, both between leaders and even for their citizenry, and it still allows them to flex their advanced technology by designing the most efficient and effective weapon possible on the fundamentally very inefficient and ineffective platform that is mechs. The ability to settle disputes this way, with only cities being leveled instead of entire continents, it allows wars and conflicts to be waged and settled in an almost "gloves on" fashion where the stakes still matter and the world doesn't end, and in spite of all they can do already, there is still motivation to raise the bar, to advance even further in technology and find and train even better pilots. It's a perfect middle ground between settling all disagreements with sports ball teams, and all-out war. Call it a sort of kayfabe that nobody involved wants to break, because the result would simply be apocalyptic.

>>64022229
Oh right I didn't answer the question. In short, no, I think mechs are absolutely perfect vessels of war in-universe

>>64022229
Canonically, the reason why the clans have their whole honor system is because Kerensky accidentally put Colonel Kurtz in charge of the Smoke Jaguars and his answer to everything was "nuke the site from orbit", so then he started enforcing a system where all internal conflicts had to be resolved by individual mech duels, specifically to stop the Smoke Jaguars from nuking the site from orbit.

>>64022267
Ah I didnt know all the lore I just played a couple of games and came to that conclusion. The amount of damage 100 ton machines that are limited only to what single men piloting them can manage is unimaginably lower than that level of technology squeezed for the most death possible. I would not be surprised if we see real life go in a similar direction when the alternative becomes unleashing literal billions of autonomous ai controlled drones to completely genocide large countries within 30 minutes. Superpowers WILL find a way to fight each other, war is too fundamental to humanity to abandon just because we've grown too advanced to do it without a total extinction event. And proxy wars are about as satisfying as cumming inside with a condom on so those won't sate our leaders forever.

>>64022133
>Also, can it be scaled down to be used in prosthetics?
Prosthetics vary in quality depending on location and social class. Everything from "ugly metal claw for a hand" to GitS style cyborg assassins and pilots being hardwired into machines to wear them like a huge body. But since the central conceit of BT is pilots driving robots like tanks/fighter jets any tech that would be superior has to have some kind of artificial li.iting factor like "it drives you nuts" or "it is haram" or whatever.

>>64022959
For example, they created a truly futuristic sci-fi faction, then had to do my boys dirty to return the setting to its status quo.

>>64022229
>>64022267
>>64022309
This is explicitly what many of the various treaties and traditions are aimed at. The age of the war(ship) resulted in worlds straight up dying as everyone just nuked the shit out each other. Couple this with the star league civil war and the succession wars as they bombed everyone back into the stone age everyone agreed to take a step back and try to limit the damage people caused. They succeeded mostly by encouraging the great houses to leave their armies alone and use mercs who are smaller and much easier to control to do the majority of the work now

>>64022229
>Mech designs and the elite pilots inside them become points of national pride.....Call it a sort of kayfabe that nobody involved wants to break, because the result would simply be apocalyptic.

Are you writing about BT or Mobile Fighter G Gundam?

>>64022987
I have never liked settings where humanity is linked to how much of your physical body is composed of meat. Lost an arm in an accident and got it replaced with cybernetics because you couldn't afford a clone replacement? You are now less human. It even fails as an OOU balancing measure, because the kind of player that will replace his character's arms with full auto rail guns, isn't going to care that it makes his character psychotic and violent, that just gives him more opportunities to use them.

>>64021554
>TYW
What does that mean?

>>64025913
thirty years war

>>64019587
The game developers go out of their way to explicitly say "this is a giant robot fighting game, stop thinking so hard about it." They know it's bullshit, but it's a pulp sci-fi setting from the 80s. They aren't trying to be more than that.

>>64019438
Unlike other games that encourage factional play (like picking British or Italians in a ww2 game), battletech focuses hard on you using whatever made-up mercenary band that you please. They tend to scatter the warfare around in constant, low intensity conflicts so that your guys have a probable cause to be anywhere on the map at any given time. There's plenty of factional units too, so the forever wars also allow them to be most places without getting totally destroyed.

>>64006383
>beat the brakes off the SLDF for 20 years
Some initial success followed by a long and desperate campaign of bloody last stands and irreplaceable losses is not what I'd call "beating the brakes off."

>>64025633
>I have never liked settings where humanity is linked to how much of your physical body is composed of meat.
Neither do I, but to be fair to BT the Word of Blake is fucking nuts with or without cybernetics. The wobbies specifically reserve their most badass cyberwarrior shit for guys who have already become gravely injured performing suicidally aggressive missions without a guarantee that they'll be selected to recieve them.

>>64027056
>The game developers go out of their way to explicitly say "this is a giant robot fighting game, stop thinking so hard about it."
Do you think I would understand how bullshit dropship engine physics are without knowing that?

>>64027152
Man, idk anymore. I still remember an entire /btg/ thread nearly derailed by one autist screaming about how unrealistic physics in the game amounted to the developers dishonestly lying to you. There's a lot of people on the internet, most of them are stupid.

>>64009242
I recall reading a forum post (forget where) where a Thunderbolt made a last stand to cover a retreat and mauled a star of five hellbringers before going down.
*sigh* Now I want to paint my pile of shame again.

>>64022267
Incidentally, this kept the Clans from backsliding technologically like the majority of humanity during the Succession Wars.

>>64027257
I hate equations that are just untypeable character soup. Fuck greek letters and subscripts and superscripts.

>>64030027
>my pile of shame
Sadly, can relate.

>>64006282 (OP)
i find that a combined arms strategy works for me. i use helicopters to deliver elementals and work as a quick reaction force, tanks mostly for ambushes and direct fire support, and mostly light and medium mechs as cavalry.

>>64006347
my group usually plays after 3060 so anyone playing inner sphere has access to some gear that would even the odds against any clan players. hence why my merc company has some clan guns and elementals.

>>64006671
FUN FACT: the tanks were merkavas. lol.

>>64006735
no, but clan trueborn do have those neural pathways. IS operators can train for it, but trueborn are born for it.

>>64030872
A future version with an AC5 but yes

>>64007219
arrow IV has a range of like 5 maps. if you spend the points on offboard artillery you can effectively call in cruise missiles. but it only does like 20 damage in the hex it hits and 10 in each surrounding hex. it's a heavy hit but you're usually limited by ammo. it usually has very expensive points cost.

>>64006282 (OP)
Death from above