|
Comstar posted:I saw the box art and it got me into Battletech just from this one picture. I had no idea about the game, but this made it IT MUST BE MINE. Okay but why does it have a big ole CRT on it's left shoulder?
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 00:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 29, 2024 12:37 |
|
|
CainFortea posted:Okay but why does it have a big ole CRT on it's left shoulder? Because the 1980s.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 00:35
|
|
|
CainFortea posted:Okay but why does it have a big ole CRT on it's left shoulder? It's a searchlight. Riflemen have them as well, for night combat. Presumably, no one else can actually see anything at night.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 07:46
|
|
|
Everyone who knew how to make night vision goggles got exploded to death in MegaSpaceWars 1-5.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 17:31
|
|
|
Comstar posted:It's a searchlight. Riflemen have them as well, for night combat. Presumably, no one else can actually see anything at night. Why does it look like its broadcasting the news?
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 17:52
|
|
|
Things that are lost technology (or lostech) in Battletech: - Rifling - Ablative armor - Shotguns - Night vision - Rockets but only if they're unguided, somehow - Spaceships - The idea of an internet not owned by Comcast - Blowout panels - Drones - Fire extinguishers - Reverse engineering literally anything - Everything that isn't involved in strapping a laser gun and a guided missile to a pair of legs
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 18:01
|
|
|
Wait. Autocannons aren't rifled?
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 18:05
|
|
|
CainFortea posted:Wait. Autocannons aren't rifled? I didn't think they were Though I guess there are machine guns I forgot about so I guess that one managed to survive the hellwar
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 18:21
|
|
|
They're both. Probably. Ultra AC's are specifically noted as being rifled. Which PROBABLY implies that standard variants are smoothbore. And depending on if you're playing past 3025 most of the stuff in that list isn't lostech (and even in 3025 and before). And in fact, in the most recent release of the PnP game all that stuff is explicitly very, very much in there 
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 18:50
|
|
|
Big Beef City posted:They're both. I'm glad someone figured out how to remove the targeting from a missile finally 
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 18:55
|
|
|
Warhammer 40k does go some way to explain why the Imperium's tech is so all over the place; they're like five apocalypses in and all their best and most sophisticated stuff turned out to be the most easy to break. So they have a tiny handful of plans for super-efficient designs and barely understand how most advanced stuff works, and also think technological progress and automation is literally of the devil. Battletech probably had something similar, where they have the schematics and factories to make guided missiles but no idea what bits do the guiding that they could strip out.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 19:13
|
|
|
Ghost Leviathan posted:Battletech probably had something similar, where they have the schematics and factories to make guided missiles but no idea what bits do the guiding that they could strip out. The game's explanation for why everything takes place at civil war level ranges is "the ecm, targeting and radar jamming are all insanely good even though no one knows how to turn it off or uninstall it so the long range missiles literally can't hit anything after like half a mile". The explanation for the autocannons is "robot piloting is tough ok get off their backs"
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 19:41
|
|
|
Oh. Boy. Do they ever. Wow do they ever. Yes go to SOME. LENGTH.* to describe what happened, there RE: what happened to the technology and why. Very. Specifically. To briefly recap, imagine the Empire of Man except without the trappings of 40k magics and what not, just..normal humans. And instead of Horus, it's a crazy dude who decides to get a little too friendly to the young emperor and then assasinate him. After a very, very long protracted war to stop the whole thing, the victorious (and ever so magnanimous and all around great guy) general watches as everyone else just bitches about how actually they should be in charge. So he takes the entire military and says "Lol go gently caress yourselves" and peaces out into deep space forever not forever. That loss of tech and the resultant,centuries long power vacuum that followed is where the whole "Why did you nuke my entire industrial complex of core planets and ability to click rocks together" comes from and determines who has what and why when the game "opens". Its..a very important facet of game lore. * Yes those are two videos totaling 4 loving hours talking about the Amaris coup. And they're awesome. All of that guy's videos are loving awesome. How are you in a Mecha thread and not watching Tex Talks Battletech? Go do that, even if it's not those videos.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 19:45
|
|
|
Big Beef City posted:Oh. Boy. Lmao I'm scanning this, amazing Battletech is so dumb I love it
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 19:48
|
|
|
Ghost Leviathan posted:
The various hellwars blew apart most of the factories and laboratories (nukes and orbital bombardments were used pretty freely until everyone realized at about the same time that continuing to use them would just keep making things worse) and then Comstar (Space AT&T with guns) co-opted or killed anyone who figured out how to fix or improve anything. Really, pretty much all of the Inner Sphere's woes post-fall of the Star League can be traced back to Comstar. I'm not sure which weapons Starblade's referring to when he says unguided rockets were lostech since SRMs are basically exactly that and have been in the setting since forever.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 19:55
|
|
|
Big Beef City posted:* Yes those are two videos totaling 4 loving hours talking about the Amaris coup. And they're awesome. All of that guy's videos are loving awesome. How are you in a Mecha thread and not watching Tex Talks Battletech? Go do that, even if it's not those videos. There's no way I'm listening to some nerd talk about a game for four hours unless that person made the game.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 19:56
|
|
|
cool
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 20:01
|
|
|
Big Beef City posted:They're both. Huh. The Sarna.net battletech wiki says this about the Ultra Autocannon "The rounds were further enhanced with the use of a new aluminum/foamed titanium alloy which made them lighter and hence achieved superior muzzle velocities over standard ammunition. The result was a weapon that resembled a normal autocannon - with a shorter, smooth-bore barrel - but had a superior effective range compared to standard AC/5s or LRMs and could operate at either normal or double the rate of fire." So that info has the ultra AC as smoothbore for some reason. It references the Technical Readout: 2750 on page 26 and page 7 so maybe there's more info in the primary source? I don't have it though so I can't look.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 20:30
|
|
|
Yeah, I actually had to look for what I said too and found a different posting NOT on Sarna that claimed what I said initially. If I'd have given it a guess off the top of my head just from game mechanics and the different ammo types and crap like that I'd have said "absolutely AC's are rifled" possibly EXCEPT Ultra ACx's since those seem to be shotguns...essentially. Sorta. Depending. Frankly I think it depends on the manufacturer and how it looks on the mech and the dice/mechanics just get 'rounded out' so they play the same. As far as I'm concerned this explanation has worked as well as any for me. "They're slug throwing guns similar to tank canons that fire various projectiles and come in different sizes. Sometimes they shoot faster and sometimes they act like shotguns so just imagine what YOUR robot is doing, it's doing that right now, ok?"
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 20:46
|
|
|
LBXs are the shotguns. Ultra ACs fire twice. RACs are miniguns and a recent invention, because spinning barrels are LosTech.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 21:03
|
|
|
The lostech idea is a fine conceit for all the other stuff but I draw the line at rifling, that poo poo's pre-industrial. If neither the barrel nor the round are rifled, the mech techs are havin' a laugh back at base while you're stomping around firing the world's largest blunderbuss.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 21:09
|
|
|
At least one world is described as having gone back to 1600s Amish livin' from all the tech that was lost and manufacturing exploded I wonder if that world has wooden mechs. I hope so.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 21:12
|
|
|
McSpanky posted:The lostech idea is a fine conceit for all the other stuff but I draw the line at rifling, that poo poo's pre-industrial. If neither the barrel nor the round are rifled, the mech techs are havin' a laugh back at base while you're stomping around firing the world's largest blunderbuss. Battletech is substantially more committed to "technology as mysticism" than 40k, it just isn't near as loud about it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 21:26
|
|
|
Tulip posted:Battletech is substantially more committed to "technology as mysticism" than 40k, it just isn't near as loud about it. If you get near ComStar it shows pretty clearly.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 21:27
|
|
|
Keep in mind the design is working backwards from "what would play well/be cool on a tabletop map with miniatures?"
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 22:06
|
|
|
Midjack posted:If you get near ComStar it shows pretty clearly.  Who these guys? Where do you get "technology as magic" from these guys having a totally normally one here? Once again for those who aren't into Battletech. There ISN'T magic in BattleTech. Alright? None. Not 'oh he's joking because he doesn't like Comstar' or 'maybe there was and they wrote these guys out'. Nope. Nooo magic. So... then look at those guys again. lol. Fuckin Comstar. BattleTech is so great. Big Beef City fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Jul 13, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 22:26
|
|
|
Big Beef City posted:
My first exposure to Battletech was playing through The Crescent Hawk’s Inception on the C64 as a middle schooler, and in that game ComStar were just the friendly bankers. I was so annoyed at the end when you finally get the PhoenixHawk LAM because I had been looking forward to flying around and raining death on fools with this awesome war machine every NPC had been hyping up, and the at the end of the game “well, we’re off to space now and it’s the end of the game!” What a rip.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2020 23:27
|
|
|
The main currency in Battletech is phone minutes. This has little to do with mecha really. I'm just physically compelled to mention it when Comstar comes up.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2020 03:21
|
|
|
paragon1 posted:The main currency in Battletech is phone minutes. This has little to do with mecha really. I'm just physically compelled to mention it when Comstar comes up. Someone in the Battletech thread in games did some mathing and one space phone minute is worth between ten and twenty five usd. I bought a quarter of a mech for 650000 minutes and now I can't call anyone RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Jul 14, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2020 05:35
|
|
|
Big Beef City posted:
Oh that’s the Catholic Church telecom company. I’m not even joking. Later on the “can you hear me now” guy breaks off and forms a splinter group and fucks up everything, forever. Great stuff.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2020 06:01
|
|
|
paragon1 posted:The main currency in Battletech is phone minutes. This has little to do with mecha really. I'm just physically compelled to mention it when Comstar comes up. Iirc this has actually been a real thing in some African and Middle Eastern regions. When communication infrastructure is the only universal and reliable standard...
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2020 07:09
|
|
|
DrBouvenstein posted:gently caress you're VF-1S, give me a VAF-6 Alpha fighter, WITH VFB-9 Beta fighter booster.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN_7YowXYow&t=69s
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2020 10:08
|
|
|
Big Beef City posted:Oh. Boy. These would probably be better if he talked a normal speed, its brutal how slow he talks.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2020 01:18
|
|
|
twistedmentat posted:These would probably be better if he talked a normal speed, its brutal how slow he talks. Agreed. However, at least he speaks clearly in a non-nerd voice and it's done in an extremely well produced and researched way that draws from TONS of sources and with a decent dose of humor at appropriate times. I've seen far worse. For more "Mecha" specific, he does ones specifically on some mechs themselves, such as: The Blackjack: GM's OKAYEST PRODUCT (yes that GM is in the game and he says why, and the history...if you're into that). I dunno. I'll stop pimping it. I like decently produced dryly humorous docs on this stuff and can't explain why. Big Beef City fucked around with this message at 14:27 on Jul 17, 2020 |
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2020 14:18
|
|
|
Another thing about battletech is how light the mechs are. The heaviest mechs are 100 tons. Heavy mechs the second largest group of mechs are 60-75 tons. For reference an abrams tank is around 70 tons and isn't 20-30 feet tall. Endo steel is an alloy of steel, aluminum, and titanium so it doesn't even have the excuse of magic space elements. I love battletech but the scale is really weird and off.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2020 13:48
|
|
|
Stanley Tucheetos posted:Another thing about battletech is how light the mechs are. The heaviest mechs are 100 tons. Heavy mechs the second largest group of mechs are 60-75 tons. For reference an abrams tank is around 70 tons and isn't 20-30 feet tall. Endo steel is an alloy of steel, aluminum, and titanium so it doesn't even have the excuse of magic space elements. I love battletech but the scale is really weird and off. I thought it was a bit odd when I was stomping on tanks that weighed more than my mech, I just assumed they were made of gundamium or whatever the gently caress. I guess 100 tons feels like an implausibly massive amount if you don't compare it to actual heavy things.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2020 22:49
|
|
|
An olympic swimming pool has like, 2,500 tons of water in it, so that's kind of how I'm thinking about it. My theory at this point is that they started with a game where Abrams and T72s shot each other, then thought about how pedantic grog gamers are and went "gently caress that" and then back created a mecha world to rationalize the simplified ruleset.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2020 23:18
|
|
|
Maybe they have hollow bones, like birds.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2020 00:43
|
|
|
Bug Squash posted:I thought it was a bit odd when I was stomping on tanks that weighed more than my mech, I just assumed they were made of gundamium or whatever the gently caress. I guess 100 tons feels like an implausibly massive amount if you don't compare it to actual heavy things. The actual excuse iirc is "Mechs aren't actually better than tanks, just different, and meant to be used in mixed units, but everyone pops a boner for them in-universe too" It doesn't really help that they're building sized though.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2020 00:46
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 29, 2024 12:37 |
|
|
Stanley Tucheetos posted:Another thing about battletech is how light the mechs are. The heaviest mechs are 100 tons. Heavy mechs the second largest group of mechs are 60-75 tons. For reference an abrams tank is around 70 tons and isn't 20-30 feet tall. Endo steel is an alloy of steel, aluminum, and titanium so it doesn't even have the excuse of magic space elements. I love battletech but the scale is really weird and off. I mean, an Abrams tank is 32 feet long. So...if it DID stand up
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2020 02:50
|
|