what happened to lines of tech?

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ghostrider
03/05/16 11:27 PM
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•A unique, one-of-a-kind ship, the SLS Manassas was modified to carry an experimental jump drive with a pre-booster system that enabled the ship to jump up to 40 light-years per jump, 10 more than the usual 30 light-year upper limit on jump engines.

This is under the aegis warship entry on the wiki.
I find it highly unlikely ANYONE finding this technology would have allowed it to NOT be continued no matter the cost. This would change warfare dramatically, because now there is no such thing as a 30 light year limit.

I should stop searching the wiki as this is really starting to show some issues with the story time line.
Karagin
03/06/16 05:20 AM
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Remember the Wiki is an open source deal, and it can be edited by anyone.....Hence why most don't consider it a valid source.
Karagin

Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
ghostrider
03/06/16 12:01 PM
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the notation dealing with this information says it comes from Living Legends. I don't have this book to confirm it. Hell I could not say it is even canon written. But I thought bob said to keep non canon things out of the wiki, though I would not say things have not slipped past or was changed before hand.

I want to say there was a reference to this in one of the novels, but I'm not sure. I thought I heard of a 40 year jump being done, but have no clue where I had heard of it before the wiki. It may be all bs.

If it is incorrect, then one of the people dealing with it, should remove it from the wiki.
Drasnighta
03/06/16 12:19 PM
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Living Legends is a MechWarrior Sourcebook/Gamebook/Scenario Book.

The problem with the Manassas was it Mis-Jumped... It was crewed by a bunch of people that Kerensky thought was Questionable in Loyalty, and it Mis-Jumped through Time to the Clan Invasion.

Enter You, as a Merc working for Comstar...


It was Secret, Experimental Tech, and it - didn't work - as far as people were concerned, costing the lives of the entire crew to Oblivion...

It was then stated that, because of that, the Clans - who had access to the database - didn't consider it 'noble' or 'worthy' enough to pursue, as they were happy to have these "Troublemakers" erased from history.
CEO Heretic BattleMechs.
CrayModerator
03/06/16 12:38 PM
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Quote:
ghostrider writes:
I should stop searching the wiki as this is really starting to show some issues with the story time line.



Well, you are pointing out a gap in information, true, but there's three possible explanations for the information gap:
1) There's a problem in the storyline
2) You don't have the books that supply the answers
3) You have the books, but forgot about them

It's usually in situations like this that I start asking questions like, "Does anyone have more information about this topic?" rather than risking making false assumptions about where the problem rests. Absence of proof is not proof of absence, that's a logical fallacy.

Quote:
This is under the aegis warship entry on the wiki.
I find it highly unlikely ANYONE finding this technology would have allowed it to NOT be continued no matter the cost. This would change warfare dramatically, because now there is no such thing as a 30 light year limit.



The SLS Manassas was a balky, experimental ship developed at the end of the Star League Civil War, when the Hegemony was in ruins, the SLDF was a ghost of itself, and Big Al Kerensky decided to leave the Inner Sphere with 75% of the SLDF and all their WarShips. (See: Living Legends.)

That was not the time to continue research into the Manassas drive, and it was known to be vulnerable to malfunction. Kerensky took it with him in his self-imposed exile to the peace and serenity of the Deep Periphery, since he didn't want the Inner Sphere getting the technology. (He used it as a dumping ground for misfits, per Living Legends.)

As you should know about the SLDF Exodus, Kerensky had that opinion about a lot of SLDF technologies: the Inner Sphere didn't need them, it would only make the anticipated Inner Sphere wars bloodier, so they were coming with him.

In this, he was successful. The Inner Sphere did not have the technology after Kerensky left, not even ComStar. The SLDF-in-Exile did, though. See: Living Legends.

Except the SLDF-in-Exile didn't have it. While the Manassas was accompanying the SLDF fleet out of the Inner Sphere, it misjumped while in Kuritan space. Right at the very beginning of the Exile, the Manassas had one of the most epic misjumps in history, getting stuck in hyperspace for 250 years. (See: Living Legends, Strategic Operations.) It popped back into the Clan invasion corridor in the 3050s and became the target of the multi-way race to claim the SLDF WarShip.

Now, why didn't the SLDF-in-Exile continue research into the Manassas? Why didn't the Clans?

Remember how the Clan homeworlds were settled: the SLDF plopped down on shitty worlds and forcibly turned a lot of soldiers into farmers and construction workers. The Davion SLDF personnel hated the Kuritan SLDF personnel, the Capellan SLDF personnel hated the Marik SLDF personnel, the Hegemony Royal units sneered at everyone, and very soon you had the Pentagon Civil War that used nukes, bioweapons, orbital bombardment, and entire divisions of BattleMechs on a population of 4 million exiles.

20 years later, Nicholas Kerensky led the new Clans from Strana Mechty to retake the Pentagon worlds, a process that involved more nukes, orbital bombardment, and BattleMech forces on a population of 2 million impoverished exiles. A few years later, the population minimized at about 1.5 million, c2820. (See: Golden Century, Operation Klondike, assorted Exile-era BattleCorps stories.)

The Invasion-era Clans of the 31st Century are the end result of 230 years of recovery and very high population growth. In the 2800s and 2900s, they were in scant shape to build new WarShips, let alone broadly research ultra-advanced hyperspace physics because their homeworlds held the population of a small Inner Sphere planet divided by ~20 feuding micro-nations.

Thus in the mid 31st Century, suddenly everyone was interested in this weird SLDF ship that popped out of timeless hyperspace. Clans, ComStar, and Houses all rushed to grab it, hence the basis for the MechWarrior adventure Living Legends. Canonically, the adventure ends with the Manassas being destroyed so no one gets the technology.

Then WoB introduced the one-shot, KF drive-destroying superjump with hundreds of light years' range, and no one cared about a balky, super-sized Manassas drive that leaves WarShips with little tonnage for engines, armor, weapons, or structure. Obviously, it wasn't available in a standard form.

The time to continue Manassas research would be in the 3090s-3130s, when the Inner Sphere only had medium-sized border conflicts, but it wasn't building WarShips then.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
ghostrider
03/06/16 02:14 PM
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Given the scientist caste of several clans were working on alternative soldiers to the standard warrior caste, I would find this would be one project they would have taken back up, and continued the research into. It was considered garbage, but then how many advances start off with horrible failures? The entire jump drive was impossible and had problems before the successful jump from one pole to the other in the sol system allowing all of this to be possible.

Now limiting the research to warships is a little condemning. ANY jump ship could be made to use the extended drive if they could get it to function properly, though I will grant you, the idea may not have been around in the innersphere.
The clans perfecting the drive would eliminate the wasteful practice of multiple jumps to systems just beyond the 30 light year range as well as allow them to possibly extend the hpg ranges as well.

I do know the pentagon worlds turned out to do the same thing as the inner sphere succession wars.
I do find it unusual, that the clans would not have shifted the focus of wars from land based, which even with their rules to avoid damaging factories and such, to space wars that could be fought without risking planets unless a ship crashed into it, sounds off.

I think the concept of how to use this drive may be the issue here. Put one on a potemkin and transport an invasion force behind enemy lines and basically trap those forces as you push deeper into their territory, forcing them to abandon their defensive network to stop you from running amok in the lighter defended planets of the interior. Raids were limited to supplies and transport. This would bypass that for a while, and if you sent in more, you could take an entire district of the enemy before they could pull their front line forces out of their cut off position. Then you deny them access to any jump ship, and let them rot on what ever planet they are on.
There is no real reason to limit it to a fighting warship.
ghostrider
03/06/16 02:38 PM
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Another issue that is bugging me deals with why I was looking on the wiki anyways.
Why is there such a big stink about turrets on tanks, but yet nothing was mentioned for those on drop ships and war ships?

Was this purposefully done to try to limit tanks on the battlefield?
Was it overlooked while making the design ideas for the space assets?

Not even a weight increase for weapons to cover the turrets they would be in, on the drop ships. Warships.. it is a stretch, but I can see sneaking in the turret weights into their overall weights. Not a good way to deal with it, but I can see it.
Akalabeth
03/06/16 09:16 PM
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If a turret in game terms is defined as a mechanism to allow a weapon to fire into multiple firing arcs, then what dropship or warship has a turret?
Akirapryde2006
03/06/16 09:40 PM
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I know there was an art work commissioned and authorized for Battlespace by FASA that showed a warship with a small two weapon turret on the front of the warship.

I can't really recall what that art work was now, but I know it sparked a lot of conversations about warships and turrets. Mind you, regardless of this art work, the concept was never embraced by FASA or any other Trademark holders of the game. As much as I want to see warships mounting turrets, its really a moot point until Cray and his colleagues decide to really entertain the thought/concept. For now, its all just pipe dreams and wishful thinking.
ghostrider
03/06/16 11:15 PM
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The description of the black lion and cameron warships has several turrets mentioned in it, though nothing is listed as such in the stats, just the fluff. There may be more, but I didn't continue looking thru entries to find out.
The slayer fighter fluff from the original 3025 tro has a turret mentioned in it.

The game implies some turrets on dropships, especially in the novels, though none are listed there.
The ability to target multiple units in a firing arc tends to support this idea, as rotating the ship to fire straight lines of fire isn't really something you can do easily. Without turrets, you could not really fire a large laser or ppc at one target, then a medium laser at a second target, while the ac fires as an entirely different target. The weapons need to track the targets, and not something you can do with the fixed position weapons if turrets are not used.

I want to say there are other warships with turrets in the description, Akalabeth, but too lazy to look up others besides the first 2 mentioned at this time.
Akalabeth
03/08/16 05:09 PM
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Yeah but it's not a turret in the game. And isn't that the point?

In Battletech, an Awesome can fire its torso PPCs at two different targets. A Piranha could target 15 different targets with lasers and machine guns. And presumably an aerospace fighter could attack different targets with its various different weaponry in Aerotech 2.

A unit doesn't need a turret to attack different units. Because in the game, the turret that a unit pays for with weight has a very specific function. A function which a "turret" listed in the context of fluff doesn't replicate. A warship can be said to have as many turrets as the writer wants, but it doesn't mean those weapons are able to fire into multiple arcs. So if it's unable to do that then how does it have a turret? For the purposes of the game, it doesn't.

What you're asking for is for a unit to burn tonnage on the cosmetic addition of a turret which doesn't benefit it in-game.
ghostrider
03/09/16 01:51 AM
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That is one of the key things we are discussing in another line. Without using turrets, more then a few things, namely drop ship and war ships could not possibly be firing at targets in different arcs as without turrets, they would have to point the weapons at each target.

And since it is implied you need to keep lasers and such trained on a target for them to work, multiple targets in different firing arcs could not maintain those locks without turrets being used.
And firing within the arc is another issue. You are talking moving a weapon from side to side making a 90 degree arc in the fire lanes it has. Without a blister turret, or some other means to move the weapon independent of the thing it is mounted to, there is no real way to target things in that range without moving the entire body of the unit.

And the issue that turrets are ONLY a problem with vehicles and pillboxes makes this an issue. The since it limits those units, but would mean other units would have to devote resources and actually have to deal with limited firing arcs, or extended firing arcs, they were not a problem with things like dropships.

This opens up alot of issues of consistency in the game.
It is asking why vehicles require spending resource on a turret, yet it does not benefit in game play, but penalizes the use of them.
A fixed mount laser needs a spinning mirror to target anything that isn't straight out from the barrel. How do you focus a ppc that is fixed into one position?
The main gun on an a 10 does not fire into the rear. The only way to hit anything that isn't straight in front of it, is to swerve. This is not something a war ship will be able to do easily. If it could, then their movement profile needs more work.
And yes, I know pivoting isn't the same and changing the direction the ship is moving.
But any change in unit facing with the main thrusters working, will change the profile of the ships movement by some.
Akalabeth
03/09/16 04:16 AM
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It's not inconsistent at all, because those weapons aren't turreted. They're restricted to a single arc. A turret in game terms means the weapon can fire into MULTIPLE firing arcs. Weapons on a ship cannot. Therefore they are NOT turreted.

Lots of things in Battletech don't make any sense at all. Why does a mech with hands not pay more tonnage for its base components than a mech with upper actuators and shoulder only? Shouldn't an actuator weigh something?

Why do light mechs, which are smaller, have as many critical spaces as assault mechs?

Why does an infantry rifle do ANY damage to a battlemech when Light, Medium and Heavy Rifles, vehicular-grade weaponry, have a damage reduction?

Why do rear-mounted torso battlemech weapons have a smaller firing arc than front-mounted weapons?

The list goes on and on.

Battletech is not a realistic game.
ghostrider
03/09/16 12:09 PM
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Seems like people forget a simple fact when dealing with firing arcs. Weapons need to move to fire any direction other then straight out. To fire in areas behind a warship to in front of the ship from say the broadsides, as the firing arc does fall under, in the same round, is not possible without those weapons being in some sort of blister or other type of turret.
The definition for turrets might be where people are getting this confused.
A turret does not mean complete around the unit firing arcs, but anything direct fire that goes anywhere but straight out from the vehicle.

The ball socket on the sherman tank is a good example of a blister style turret. You can fire in an arc in the general direction the gun is facing, yet the only way to fire in a different direction, such as a right side mounted one on a north bound tank, would fire on the east flank, means turning the tank to get it to fire in the north or south bound directions. Yet the ball turret allows the mg to sweep the field in that side instead of firing straight out from the tank. Mechs are assumed to turn the torso towards the target to fire chest mounted weapons, but even that is a wider area of fire for them, then it should be.

A simple pivot point is actually a turret, though there isn't motors or hydraulics and such moving it. Just rotating the weapon on it. Otherwise a machine gun nest would only fire in a straight line. For a firing arc from a unit that is 45 degrees from that point on both sides, can not be done without moving the weapon itself to cover that. Without a turret (a pivot point) that moves the weapon, (and that doesn't mean more then the side guns of aircraft or ball turrets on tanks,) there is no way, other then turning the unit, to cover that firing arc.
It seems the term turret is the battleship or main cannon tank style turrets. That is like saying guns only fire rounds larger then a 357. Or a car has to have over 400 hp.
Akalabeth
03/14/16 02:40 PM
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No one is confused. The kind of detail you're looking for is simply beyond the scope of the game.
Paying for tonnage is only relevant when it has some in-game effect. Firing into one firing arc is the default behaviour for all weaponry, there are no "spinal mounts" in Battletech.

Counter to what you believe, tanks aren't penalized, turrets are simply optional benefits with costs. Instead you want to impose a penalty onto spacecraft because you believe their mode of movement makes weapon fire more restricted than other units.
ghostrider
03/14/16 05:57 PM
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A ground based capital weapon would need to be in a turret to fire at anything other then a straight line.
A ship in flight would have to stop using its thrust in order to turn the ship to face something that isn't straight out from the weapon emplacement on the hull, otherwise the ship would start moving on the new course. Not quickly, but enough to destroy it's own course.
A heavy naval ppc on a defense building pays to move the weapon to be aimed at a space borne unit. Yet a space station that isn't under thrust doesn't need one to fire on anything in the firing arc?

I will agree some of this is complex for the game perimeters, but it still makes it look like a specific limitations of some units, and allowing others to not deal with it, because they seem to feel it is not in THIER best interest.
Who wants to limit the weapons on a drop ship or warship because it means putting in turrets to actually use them.
Simplicity was something I could understand when the game started, but that was before the ships larger then even a behemoth started being made. They want balance, yet they don't want balance. If one thing requires a turret to fire into other arcs, then all things should require them.
They want to keep things like endo steel and double heat sinks from tanks, yet it is fine in a warship? Why?
They allow ships to change course without the long, laborious turns they would require. No side steps with it, or without damage, no structural tests to see if the frame holds up?
They can't enter into an atmosphere, yet the gravity well from the planet extends out further then the atmosphere does, and that is just as dangerous to the ship?

Turrets need to have some drawbacks in weight and such. But ANYTHING that uses them should suffer the drawbacks. And that means blister turrets as well.

The idea that a weapon fires into the 90 degree arc assumes the unit itself turns enough to allow the limited movement weapons to reach in to the full range. This would be like turning a battleship on the water to fire off the side weapons at different targets in the ocean. Not something you would be doing with a warship in space.
Akalabeth
03/14/16 07:47 PM
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You're inventing a problem that doesn't need to be solved. There are no fixed-mount weapons in Battletech. Everything fires into a single arc of fire by default. Loss of thrust doesn't restrict arcs of fire.
ghostrider
03/14/16 09:36 PM
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How do you fine aim a weapon without a turret?

In real life you need to turn the unit to fire on a target. Strafes in the world wars were not just straight lines, but moving side to side like a game strafe, but you turned and headed that way, not a slide type of strafe.
But I do understand most not wanting to keep ALL units on the same level.

And here is a thought of no fixed mounted weapons. What are the weapons on a mechs arms?
To my knowledge they are point and shoot. None of non missile weapons more separate from the arm itself.

But this thread was started to ask why some lines of tech were not followed.
The extended jump drive was the start. Ship turrets made it in as well.
Why some items are restricted from the step children of the game, to make sure the main focus is on mechs, yet they game was set up so you couldn't survive with just mechs. I guess presentation or concept might be the issue.

The fact the game is locked in a balance, alot of new ideas would never fit in, as there is no real way you could do it without, (gasp), making something have better range, or make obsolete the older weapons.
I don't understand why normal weapons are even made anymore in the game. Er and pulse should be standard, as well as double heatsinks. Some mechs would never work with double sinks as they don't have the room, or atleast for innersphere sinks.
Akalabeth
03/15/16 02:04 PM
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How does a mech fire its torso weapons at an adjacent target which is 10 levels higher? Abstraction.
How does a quad mech which cannot torso twist aim its torso mounted weapons in the forward arc? Abstraction
How does a mech with upper and shoulder actuators only have the same arm arc and fine aiming as a mech with full actuators? Abstraction
Why do rear mounted torso weapons have a smaller arc of fire than front-mounted torso weapons? Abstraction
How do vehicle front/rear/side weapons aim at targets, particularly when immobile? Abstraction

All weapons in the game are abstracted to have a certain degree of articulation which is independent of the unit's movement or turret. This is true in vehicles, aerospace, mechs and starships. This articulation is free and completely independent of a turret, which in the game is an entirely different concept. Turrets are a special system which confer specific benefits. Benefits which are reserved in normal play for vehicles only.


Normal weapons are still in the game because they're balanced against newer weapons and because Battletech has a philosophy of keeping everything relevant, both weapons and units alike.

As for anything that's disappeared. Don't expect it to make sense. Catalyst and their forerunners have gotten rid of Land Air Mechs on at least 2-3 occasions now because of "Reasons". They were rare and went extinct, or their factory got destroyed down to the last man, or they're an abberation to the clans, or then they needed a very specific and nigh impossible state to support their development, etcetear. They don't like them, so reasons are created for why they don't exist. That's how the game operates. If other lines of tech disappeared, it's probably done for the same reason, or because that tech was a "one-off failure".


Edited by Akalabeth (03/15/16 02:15 PM)
ghostrider
03/15/16 06:40 PM
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I understand the lam units being considered very powerful, and unbalancing if played to full potential. It is very possible for a 30 ton lam take out a lance of assault mechs with relative ease.
This issue kills game balance.

I do thin the mechs with missing actuators suffer the same penalties firing weapons as they do in physical combat, or atleast something other then normal shots. But that isn't a real issue, just a thought.

Some of the other issues should be more specific, like only arm mounted weapons firing at units adjacent but extreme level differences.
I don't know why, but abstraction that is specific for some units and not others bothers me.

As cray pointed out that wob had used the one shot jump devices.
Why didn't the expand on that? Even if the drives are unusable afterwards, they would still have some uses, such as emergency reinforcements or supplies. Even being used as bombs to damage ships at a jump point, and yes the area they cover would be an issue, but frankly, you could seed an invasion point with mines and other debris. Even a simple emp to wipe out electronics in the area would work.
Akalabeth
03/15/16 08:02 PM
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Word of Blake is an aberration of the fiction in my opinion, and all of their toys largely exist outside of the timeline. One example is the Land Air Mechs, a unit which on bt.com was stated to need an advanced support state and a high tech level, yet Word of Blake throws out 3-4 lams no problem. They create cyborgs. Pocket Warships. A line of Omnimechs and battlearmour. Super Jump devices. etcetera and so on. And at the end of the war, almost all of that technology is completely destroyed either by the WoB or their opponents.

I'd not heard of the WoB Super Jump Drive, but it literally breaks the universe. It's not even a specialized jump drive, just a modified drive with a lithium battery. There's nothing to stop anyone from invading any planet they want at an time aside from the threat of a misjump.

Why isn't it expanded upon? Because it's a massive plothole. Why make the plothole bigger?

I kind of checked out the fiction during the Jihad because I didn't enjoy the books they were putting out and frankly learning about some of this stuff after the fact, I'm glad I did.
ghostrider
03/16/16 01:24 AM
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They have come up with mystic and magical things in the past more then a few times.
The stealth skill that came out in the kell hounds adventure pack that was also included in the canon time line and even in the novels.
I would love to know what they were thinking when they came up with this.
Maybe the same person thought up the wob storyline.
Both are very sci fi.

Another thread was dealing with the smokus mirrorus of the wob line. But there is some things in there that should be advanced, as jump drive technology. There should be something to extend or increase the jump range of ships. Not saying across the innersphere in a single jump, but even going to 31 light years. It isn't much, but it would show potential.
The batteries for doing a double jump helped, but there is still a lack of advancements in some techs.

And logic like why fix a plothole by making a larger plothole?
That is what happens to almost all sequels in sci fi stories. The enemy always has a super weapon, that once it is in the hands of the 'good guys' turns out to be crap and can't hold it's own against the next threat.
But I have been trying to get some closure to some of the plotholes that exist, though it seems when it is against the favorite things people like, they hate the idea, but when it is against something they don't like, then it's perfect.
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