His_Most_Royal_Highass_Donkey
09/20/17 07:17 PM
70.122.153.159
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I know after the stunt that I pulled I said that I would not post for a year but I just could not believe what I was reading.
I was looking through my Aerotech2 record sheet book (book 10973) and was looking at the war ships.
The biggest of a wimp of a fighter in the book has a LRM5 in each wing so at long range it can do 3 points small scale points of damage. It has 19 small scale or 2 large scale points of armor on its nose.(Clan Bashkir B a 20 ton fighter)
The Vincent Mk 42 corvette has 16 small scale or 2 large scale points of armor on its nose.
One lone 20 ton fighter has the chance to destroy a 420,000 ton warship. This is a weight ratio of 21,000 to one. The fighter should not have any chance what so ever to destroy a ship 21,000 times its size even if it rammed the ship and at that exact moment it sent its reactor to detonate. It just should not be able to destroy such a massive ship alone.
This is not the only warship in the book that has basically no armor what so ever to speak of. I counted 18 warships in the book that had 9 or less large scale armor points. That means that a single hit from one Medium NPPC can either entirely destroy the ship or at the least remove all armor in one location.
To take out most warships all you need is one dropship armed with very large numbers of Kraken capital missiles and a massive amount of armor and fire the missiles at extreme range. A lot of the missiles might either miss or be destroyed before they hit their target but for most warships it wont take to many missiles to hit for them to destroy most warships.
A single hit from ONE NAC/40 would destroy every warship in the book except for four of the warships. Of the four that could take that hit only one could take two hits from that same weapon with out being destroyed. .
My small little 100,000 ton ship http://www.sarna.net/forums/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/175283/an/0/page/0#175283 can take on a large number of other warships and win with out the use of her two dropships or her fighter cover. With her two dropships and her 68 heavy fighters she can take on basically any warship in the book except the biggest 2,400,000 ton battleship and win. I would expect that I might lose all of the fighters and the two drop ships but my warship would come out of the battle in one piece going up against the bigger and better armed warships.
I was working on something that I was planing on posting when my self imposed ban was over for that little stunt that I pulled. So when the next year starts expect something from me.
Why argue if the glass is half full or half empty, when you know someone is going to knock it over and spill it anyways.
I was a Major *pain* before
But I got a promotion.
I am now a General *pain*
Yay for promotions!!!
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Karagin
09/21/17 06:32 AM
72.176.187.91
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Yes the canon ships are more or less built to be less then stellar across the board, just about any fan made ship will take out 80% of the canon ships with ease, since none of the canon vessels are built with min/max in mind and most are built around their fluff or were built to carry forward what we all saw back in the TRO2750.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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ATN082268
09/21/17 05:13 PM
69.128.58.222
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I think one unbalancing part of the system occurs when you have very different (but equal BV) naval force makeup for each side, for example, one side having all fighters and the other side having all warships.
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Karagin
09/21/17 06:01 PM
72.176.187.91
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That would be realistic in that one side can only afford or support just fighters and the other put all it's money/effort into warships. It kind of analogs the S. American nations and their rush to buy cast off US and European warships in the late 1880/90s and early 1900s cause who ever had the bigger ships clearly had more power, then it was jet fighters in the post WW2/Korea time frame.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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ghostrider
09/23/17 12:58 AM
66.74.61.223
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Considering the resources that goes into warships, I would think fighters would be more used then not.
The fluff of some warships suggest only comstar could build the engines when the IS started making them. Which would mean most of the IS would have been screwed when WOB took over terra.
Not sure if they changed that after the 3057.
But this does show the holes in going from weapons that can not get thru armor of other units it size, to the fast general damage making them to easy to destroy something that should barely feel most weapons. Warship armor should be thick enough so most fighters could do nothing but scratch the paint, but then that would mean they would have had to rethink it all. The star league would have been alot tougher to beat then it was in the fluff history.
I was going to rant a little off the subject, but yes. Warships seem to be that fragile. A single hit from naval weapons seem to be enough to kill a dropship in the original incarnation of them. And a single fighter could not take them out that quickly, yet lo and behold, now that fighter can do what drop ships couldn't?
This shows there is a point where simplicity destroys logic too much.
But it is still something we play with, so sadly, I guess they will continue to do so for a long time.
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Reiter
09/23/17 10:13 AM
45.48.53.140
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Quote:
Warships seem to be that fragile. A single hit from naval weapons seem to be enough to kill a dropship in the original incarnation of them.
Comparison of real world vs fiction is not the best choice to make a point, but from a realistic point of view sea going warships are not invulnerable if you think of them as space ships but I will do it anyway.
Yes, completely different topic but the point is this....Iowas had 16 inches of armor on their sides during WWII in the thought they would be invulnerable to taking a beating before they had to retreat (aka take a pounding, nothing is impervious and immortal), a modern era RPG to counter tanks can go through 25 inches of steel. Launching RPG at an Iowa would be stupid as it is only punching tiny fist sized holes in the belt, but that would just flood the compartment it is located for the hit (aka taking out a portion of the ship interior, which could be blocked off to prevent flooding).
Summary of what I am saying is, the way I am thinking it isn't a total kill as so much as a mobility or mission kill. The ship might still be active, but it couldn't fight back and the way BT universe puts those Armor/Structure dots is basically bleeding the opponent, think Tekken or Street Fighter hitpoint bars. Everyone just thinks "lulz tiny rockets massive ship real world" and that damage doesn't compare since the BT universe scales so weird but rules are changed so often, 50 pound bomb on an aircraft carrier could do some real damage if it hit the deck and set off fuel/ammunition internally. Again, real world thoughts just don't work and retcon rules just make things confusing, I just force myself to consider every dot ticked off as a percentage of vechicle/mech as being less combat effective. In battletech you just have to hand wave it as magic and belive.
As for the OP post, everyone could disregard what I said above easily. I wouldn't worry about a 20 ton fighter if using that comparison as most people will probably just load out a ton of LRM on a heavier aerofighter to knock out the vincent in a couple of salvos. Bigger problem is that most people just munchkin Hitpoints/Armor and Damage/Heatsink control with ToHit/Dice-roll in their favor anyway when creating any thing, I do it but usually build in a weakness.
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Karagin
09/23/17 11:08 AM
72.176.187.91
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Well given that the game is suppose to be a continuation of human events moving forward then it would and should have the parallels to past events.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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ghostrider
09/24/17 01:01 AM
66.74.61.223
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The 20 ton fighter example does show some holes in the system.
Using your Iowa example, how likely is it to sink the ship with say a 22 caliber shot?
The armor for warships are supposed to be made to resist the navel versions of the weapons available to fighters and dropships. Maybe it is implied that it should be better, thicker, and more redundant on plating, making it that much harder for the pop gun weapons to really penetrate it.
Otherwise, why wouldn't it be possible for a single mg or lrm to penetrate the armor of other body parts besides the torsos on a mech? I mean full armored, not after damage was done. Or the things like hardened armor protect better then ferrous, then normal armor does? Space has a lot more hazards in it then a simple breeze on a planet. Even a hurricane does not throw rocks as quickly as asteroids in space go. And the armor on those ships, including dropships, have to deal with the micro ones more regularly then your mech runs into a good sized rock.
And this is a hazard, even with the ones that do show up on radar. Check out the issues of detection for those coming towards earth sometime.
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Reiter
09/25/17 04:54 PM
45.48.53.140
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Quote:
The 20 ton fighter example does show some holes in the system.
Using your Iowa example, how likely is it to sink the ship with say a 22 caliber shot?
The armor for warships are supposed to be made to resist the navel versions of the weapons available to fighters and dropships. Maybe it is implied that it should be better, thicker, and more redundant on plating, making it that much harder for the pop gun weapons to really penetrate it.
Two things I said in my post.
Hand wave it as magic and believe.
Use a heavier fighter with more LRM.
Summary...don't think hard and ignore it.
Regardless, the rules make it so and that is why the discussion starts, with people complaining that suddenly warships are weak, their weapons are strong, and the armor should be able to resist it but an LRM-5 does a good portion of damage for no apparent reason.
Vincent Mk 46 has 76 tons of ferro carbide armor covering a hull 402 meters long according to lore, Iowa is 270 meters. Gets you thinking, even if the armor is thicker on an Iowa near the center belt line and tapers really thin towards the bow or stern....the Vincent has less armor that makes a soda can seem indestructible, just use a heavier Omni fighter like 40 or 60 tons with more LRM racks to destroy the Vincent since there is probably a rule that doesn't say the other player is going to limit himself vs your Vincent. I just hand wave it, bypass the discussion, stick with lore more in a historical sense, and don't care....its going to be destroyed with a munchkin fit design anyway you look at it. Other player will just be cruising around with a 2.5 million ton ship, max internal structure, lamellor ferro-carbide armor with max armor cause it weighs so little in comparison to the ship, and a ton of fire power with fire control computers (at least in my dated heavy metal aero) consuming extra cargo weight since no ship "realistically" needs 200k + tons left over which could be used for weapons to put a hundred NPPC (out of 800K weight left over) on it and a metric butt load of anti-fighter weapons.
Summary of the above wall of text: almost no real rules to limit building and the rules for applying things just don't make sense. That is just how I look at it, a different point of view...and probably rambling off topic.
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ghostrider
09/27/17 01:18 AM
66.74.61.223
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No. That sounds alot like one of the discussions we had before about people will do what they want. No worries about how much it costs to build the customized units, much less have the facilities on hand to use on such endeavors.
Now the game did use real life equivelants for ac's. And with the diamond thread inside the normal armor, it is able to resist those weapons more effectively.
Now. Have you ever run an aerotech game without using the quick results? I mean counting all the points off the real armor numbers?
Having a meer 80 points on the nose armor is really horrible. But without the lucky crits, it should take more then 2 volleys of an lrm 5 to get thru. 4 Lrm 20s should do it easily. And that does suggest the warships are a bit weak. A flight of 4 thunderbirds or stukas would do that easily. Naval weapons make it die even quicker.
I could see where running single naval weapon dropships would be easier for defense then using warships or even stations.
Heading into another system is where there is the problems.
The armor value of warships doesn't really fit for the importance of what they represent. With weapons doing 100 points with a nac 10, It really doesn't make sense to waste all those resources in warships, except the fact you need them to really invade other systems.
A titan fighter carrier from 2750 has double the nose armor then the vincent. If the fighters launch out of range of the side nac's the vincent has, well the vincent would lose quickly. Even with multi large lasers, is still would have to deal with the fighters with just them.
That doesn't really make sense if you think about it.
So did they decide to slap normal mech armor on the warships?
Or do they use something else that is just as bad or worse?"
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Retry
09/27/17 10:26 AM
64.189.132.158
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Quote:
The 20 ton fighter example does show some holes in the system.
Using your Iowa example, how likely is it to sink the ship with say a 22 caliber shot?
Given that the largest naval cannons mounted on a warship ever was an 18.1 calibre (460mm), I'd say "pretty likely".
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CarcerKango
09/27/17 03:28 PM
73.4.87.73
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I think what he meant was .22 caliber. Big difference.
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Retry
09/27/17 06:04 PM
64.189.132.158
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Oh I know 
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ghostrider
09/27/17 09:32 PM
66.74.61.223
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With this being the case, the question comes to mind of why don't they have the nose and rear full of the weapons, and forgo the broadsides?
Yeah, I kind of know presenting the side of the ship gives you more areas you can hit, hopefully allowing the ship to remain alive, instead of concentrating on one location.
I agree with the title of the thread as I think about it. To spend that much money, time and resources on something that could die quickly just shows how screwed up the money concept is in the game. I would think sending in a ship with the longest ranged weapons with enough speed to keep out of range of the others ships, would be the ship to have. Not the super armored, and short ranged monster, pretty much like ground forces seem to be.
Which might explain why the bugeye had to be changed. You could basically take out defense with a few of them. Ecm to keep them hidden after you enter the pirate point of a system. Then mass fire into one section of the enemy ships, then run.
Not something the developers would really want. Only the fighter capacity of some of the 2.5 million ton monsters seem to be well spent.
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Akalabeth
10/04/17 10:36 PM
75.155.167.106
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Battletech designers never learned the basic design principle of building a ship that is well armored enough to withstand hits from its own main weaponry.
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ghostrider
10/05/17 02:39 AM
66.74.61.223
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I guess the real life warship did show they had better armor then say a halftrack or tank. So they made guns that could actually penetrate the armor.
Much like the old muskets and cannons. Armor came out, and they made newer weapons to deal with it, so they came out with new armor.
The idea came to mind that the damage for the 'smaller' weapons, such as the non naval weapons, might be reduced when dealing with warship armor. Basically the 10 to 1 concept. 10 points of non naval damage is equal to 1 point of naval armor damage.
Originally, I thought that is what happened, since I didn't get battlespace when the warships came out.
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Akalabeth
10/07/17 12:35 AM
75.155.167.106
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Quote:
Quote:
The 20 ton fighter example does show some holes in the system.
Using your Iowa example, how likely is it to sink the ship with say a 22 caliber shot?
Given that the largest naval cannons mounted on a warship ever was an 18.1 calibre (460mm), I'd say "pretty likely".
In naval parlance, I'm pretty sure that calibre is the bore diametre, which is then measured in inches or mm, but 18.1 calibres would refer to the length of the barrel.
Quote:
The idea came to mind that the damage for the 'smaller' weapons, such as the non naval weapons, might be reduced when dealing with warship armor. Basically the 10 to 1 concept. 10 points of non naval damage is equal to 1 point of naval armor damage.
Originally, I thought that is what happened, since I didn't get battlespace when the warships came out.
Battletech armor acts in no way similar to real life armor. In real life, armor either stops the attack or it doesn't, it's an all or nothing affair. Whereas in Battletech, the armor always stops the shot but is then reduced in turn.
Similarly, most games fail to simulate reality by assigning hitpoints to a unit whereas a ship or tank would not die because of lack of hitpoints but because components or crew of the unit have been damaged. A ship doesn't sink because you shoot it a bunch, it sinks because it loses buoyancy from taking on water.
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ghostrider
10/07/17 02:55 AM
66.74.61.223
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I want to say TOG had some things that dealt with the being killed from crew deaths or things like complete engine shut down. They also dealt with different patterns of damage, which really screwed up some armored units.
A laser would do a straight into the unit damage, where a heap round did a diamond pattern.
This was important, as if you hit the spot with the heap round that a laser just burned into it, the shot would not hit the outside armor, but do inside until it met with something that wasn't gone. You would lose chunks of armor as the support beneath it was destroyed.
And the grav tanks used, would slam into the ground at the speed it was going at if the engine was hit.
As with Battletech, but a little more advanced, you could destroy the tanks with shots that went internal. Unlike battletech, you could salvage some of it from other damage besides crew killed.
But as you said. Most don't deal with it.
The repair of some units drives me nuts as losing a section on a vehicle, should not mean it is completely destroyed. Welding the frame and such with tanks of the same design, but 'destroyed' from damage to different locations should be possible. Losing the right side, should allow a vehicle that lost the front side, to use the section that wasn't destroyed from one unit to another.
But we are talking warships not being the end all for space combat, as they should be.
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csadn
10/11/17 12:32 AM
50.53.22.4
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One point which seems to have been overlooked: For some reason, WarShips have been designed with enough "cargo capacity" to carry the DropShips to and from the jump point -- which in many ways completely misses the point of having DropShips in the first place. For ex.: The _Aegis_ Heavy Cruiser (750K tons) has a cargo capacity of just under 65K tons, or roughly the weight of four _Excalibur_ assault DropShips (number of _Aegis_ docking HPs: 4). To maximize the armor allowed on the _Aegis_ would barely make a dent in the cargo capacity figure, while nearly doubling the armor on it; just imagine what one could do if that near-65K tons was put to firepower and the heat sinks to use it....
(Confession: In my files, I have "WarShip" versions of the JumpShips originally introduced to the game back-when; most of those will flat-out murder "official" WarShips three times their sizes. This is due to the "design ethos" of my ships being "upon arrival at the jump point, the first action of the WarShip is to 'pickle off' the DropShips so they can maneuver and fire independently".)
CF
Oregon: The "Outworlds Alliance" of the United States of America
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Akalabeth
10/11/17 10:19 PM
75.155.167.106
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The cargo capacity I'm sure just amounts to the designer saying "well, I'm done. Let's make the rest cargo".
Armor on Battletech ships is comically small compared to real-world analogues
The Black Lion for example has 927 tons (according to 2750), and weighs 802,000 tons which makes the armor percentage 0.1% of the ship's total mass.
Whereas a real-world battleship, like say the Royal Soveriegn class Battleship from WW1, the displacement was 25,750 tons and of that armor was 8,250 tons or 32%. In other words 320 times the amount of armour the Black Lion has, ratio-wise.
Even looking at Battletech itself, an Atlas is 100 tons, armour is 19.5 tons if memory serves. 19.5% of weigh. A Locust is 20 tons, armour is 3-4 tons or 15-20% of weight.
Not 0.1%
They are basically completely unarmoured by any modern standard. Even the lightest-armoured ships of the world probably have a higher percentage of armour than these vessels.
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csadn
10/12/17 03:44 AM
50.53.22.4
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Mention of "real-world" ships brings up another issue: How much surface area does the thing being armored have, and how much of that surface is actually armored?
For ex.: Big-gun battleships weren't uniformly armored -- some parts of the hull carried thicker armor than others (and some bits were essentially unarmored. (For a more-detailed, but still simple, explanation, I recommend GDW's _Ironclads and Ether Flyers_ from the _Space:1889_ game; it deals with Belts, and Bulkheads, and all that stuff.)
CF
Oregon: The "Outworlds Alliance" of the United States of America
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ghostrider
10/12/17 12:10 PM
66.74.61.223
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Cargo capacity deals with all cargo carried.
That includes naval weapons, armor, extra fuel, parts for the ship, troops, food and water (even those are under their own heading), and non essentials, like cigarettes, alcohol, even clothing.
It is my understanding, that the ship does not regularly run to dock facilities for repairs, unless majorly screwed up. So armor is fixed in the fields, and in a battle zone, are not likely to have dropships making regular runs to it.
Now as for how much of the ship is armored?
As you are talking a space ship that you can hit from any direction rather easily, I am going to suggest any part the is on the outside of the ship. Weapon ports, communication dishes, even armored covers for the windows.
Now I do think that some areas will not be as heavily armored as others, such as the turret base that has a weapons turret placed on top of it, but I would think it has some armor. I would assume that is where the thru armor, or even surface control crits come from. Finding the angle that put the shot under a turret into the shaft area for the turret. Just an example..
Now that is not to say the ship isn't armored like a sub. Though I don't think it has to worry about the air release areas to submerge.
Some areas will be better armored, as they are the bullseye of other ships. A carrier style ship's fighter hangers would be one such area. Put a shot in before the fighters get airborne and make life easier on yourself sort of idea.
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Wrangler
10/13/17 11:06 PM
24.34.162.106
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I think one of the problems is that CGL staff never had a strong method of balancing the large aerospace vehicles in general.
In principle, were less likely see any more warships in the future because franchise staff feels that stompy Mechs is all the game should be centered on. I'm sure they'd like to bring other aspects of the game such as Warships into the frey, but the balance thing is issue. I honestly don't think Warship fleets are distraction. (sorry ranted there.)
The old Renegade Legions game is center of origin of the current rules we use for Aerospace (not talking the advance ones.). Frankly I wish the squadron rules were better fixed since fighters squadron will still cream older Warship designs.
When it hits the fan, make sure your locked, loaded, and ready to go!
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Akalabeth
10/15/17 05:26 PM
75.155.167.106
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Quote:
The old Renegade Legions game is center of origin of the current rules we use for Aerospace (not talking the advance ones.). Frankly I wish the squadron rules were better fixed since fighters squadron will still cream older Warship designs.
I dunno why the Aerospace rules are based on Renegade Legion as opposed, I dunno, say Battletech? The RL rules were actually all designed to be compatible with eachother, they all draw from the same template-damage idea and for the most part have that template damage interior (except for Interceptor which has some circuit board thing). But as for Aerotech, I don't know why they changed from being compatible with the game to having different weapon ranges and damage methods and so on.
Aerotech on the ground isn't much more fun either. It boils down to flying around, devastating units, until you fail a PSR and then crash and explode. Far too random to be enjoyable in my opinion.
Quote:
Cargo capacity deals with all cargo carried.
That includes naval weapons, armor, extra fuel, parts for the ship, troops, food and water (even those are under their own heading), and non essentials, like cigarettes, alcohol, even clothing.
It is my understanding, that the ship does not regularly run to dock facilities for repairs, unless majorly screwed up. So armor is fixed in the fields, and in a battle zone, are not likely to have dropships making regular runs to it.
Cigarettes and alcohol wouldn't need 60 thousand tons of it. Especially when the crew is only a couple hundred people. 60,000 tons is cigarettes for an entire city. It also doesn't make sense to carry a bunch of repair materials when simply having more armor in the first place would entirely avoid the need for most of those repairs. Parts for breakdowns and maintenance? Maybe a spare jump sail. Sure. But thousands of tons of armour?
Also that's what you have tenders for, supply ships to supply your fleet. Warships aren't freighters. Freighters are freighters.Because all that unnecessary weight you're carrying? That turns into engine weight. The bigger your ship, the bigger engines you need and the more money it costs. It makes much more sense to just cut out unnecessary cargo and install smaller, cheaper engines that do the same work without the freighter's worth of cargo.
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Retry
10/15/17 10:13 PM
64.189.132.158
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Aerospace and Naval assets in general does really seem among the weakest link of Battletech. Part of the problem is the design system does not allow for any significant trade-offs.
Take ATN's recent-ish SHBB design Strife: 2,500 Kiloton chassis. He armored it up to about the maximum level of protection at a cost of 4 kilotons. Battlemechs and tanks by contrast often can armor up to the maximum protection to 1/3rd or 1/4th of its maximum weight, which means there can be valid instances where one may want to reduce protection to gain more jump jets, a more powerful or perhaps more compact engine, weapons, heat sinks, or accessories.
4 kilotons of armor is not even one fifth of one percent of 2,500 kilotons. If for whatever reason this is the absolute maximum engineers can possibly place on this platform (which is nothing short of pathetic) then there is absolutely no reasonable trade-off for a single ton of them. What good will halving that armor to .08% instead of .16% of total weight just to get your weapon mass from 10% to 10.08%? Engine from 50 to 50.08%?
The Cap-scale weapons are also entirely too heavy and lets the smaller stuff hit way harder for the punch, but this can probably be resolved by having those smaller weapons deal 0 damage to capital-scale armor. Presumably the sheer volume that a battleship can carry would allow it to carry armor that's strong and tough enough to insignificantly ablate when tested against anything smaller than a Heavy Gauss Rifle, unlike the armor plating found on ye olde Scorpion tank.
Given these realities, brushing off the lack of armor on every single capital ship design in the game is insanely lenient. It's hard to think of any way a self-aware human being with a pulse could, in-universe, determine the tin-foil armor designs of these warships as the result of massive incompetence at best, if not treason.
A huge rebalance of the rules for Aerospace and capital ships that allow for actual decisions to be made and niches to be fulfilled would help that section of the game, and may even open up the path for Blue Navy asset designs that aren't completely lame.
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ghostrider
10/16/17 12:13 AM
66.74.61.223
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So not having armor replacement plates is good if you have more armor to start with?
The examples of cigarettes and such was to show there is a lot of things you don't really think of that is put on ships. A six month tour of outer space would be even more in need of decadent materials then a six month tour on a sub. It isn't like you can get supplies sent to you in a few hours or days. It may well be weeks and months.
Medicine, including anti sick pills would be needed as well as alot of other things.
And as discussed in other threads, the Innersphere would not possible have enough freighters to stick with a battleship, especially in hostile territory. They would be the first targeted for any actions, as it could very well cripple the enemies abilities to do much.
And most will have repair parts for any units that are stationed on it. Even if it does not engage in combat, things like fighters would. And as much as players would say otherwise, the in game issues would deny all the drop ships and freighters from sticking with it through a tour of duty. They is just not enough of them to go around. Or so the game suggests.
Otherwise, some of the odd planets would never run out of supplies.
To emphasize on this, how many dropships are around a standard world? All of them would target the enemy, which you might bring in say a dozen?
The world would have more then 3 times that if they had the 'freighters' you think they do. And that would be all worlds, not just the important ones.
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Akalabeth
10/16/17 02:16 AM
75.155.167.106
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Quote:
So not having armor replacement plates is good if you have more armor to start with?
Yes. Having armor on the outside of your ship, protecting my life if I'm on the ship, is better than having it sit in boxes in the cargo bay doing absolutely nothing.
Quote:
The examples of cigarettes and such was to show there is a lot of things you don't really think of that is put on ships. A six month tour of outer space would be even more in need of decadent materials then a six month tour on a sub. It isn't like you can get supplies sent to you in a few hours or days. It may well be weeks and months.
Medicine, including anti sick pills would be needed as well as alot of other things.
The Cameron Battlecruiser has 287 crew and 177,640 tons of cargo. According to NASA, today's Astronaut meal weighs 0.83 kg so if those crew had 3 meals a day they'd consume 715 kg per day, which means the ship has enough cargo to feed its crew for 680 years. If you think that's an appropriate amount of supplies for a crew of that size then that's great dude.
It also has enough cargo to replace its entire armament nearly twice over (97K tons of guns, not including heat sinks and ammo). So would you rather have 177K tons of cargo space? Or double the firepower? What is going to be more useful in the field of battle?
The cargo space is astronomically absurd.
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ghostrider
10/16/17 12:32 PM
66.74.61.223
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It might be figuring the ship has all the armor on it that it can have, then having replacement plates in storage. Not having 2 tons on the outside when it can carry 100 tons, and have the cargo bay full of them.
When anything talking about warships and even dropships or jumpships is done, there is always seems to be normal food that has been prepped in the game and novels. Only real time I have seen the RTE meals mentioned is after a crash. So the 16 ounce porter house with potatoes, gravy, and such is something that is not missing from the menu. Might be restricted to admirals and such, but there isn't much to suggest they don't eat normally.
And if the house leaders were smart, they would use the ships to move military cargoes to other systems. I am not suggesting more firepower and the ability to use it isn't a better way to go, but there is a limit on space for the crews, equipment and other things needed. Also, trying to staff those gun emplacements with trained crews would be an issue as well. The game seems to have computers assist gunnery, not actually figure out the shot entirely. It always seems the person pulling the trigger has more to do with making the shot hit then anything else.
Not sure, but I believe the stores on things like air craft carriers have large bulky items for sale. It could very well be the cargo space is for area in the ship, not just weight itself.
Another thought came up as well. How many ships would not have three maybe even 4 fuel pumps stored on the ship? Same thing with replacement equipment, such as a large amount of say welders or something to life the heavy items with?
Even just parts for the stuff like the pumps, so you can hopefully fix the pump you replaced with another, as you never know when it will be needed.
And brand new does not always means works right.
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Akalabeth
10/16/17 06:11 PM
75.155.167.106
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Quote:
It might be figuring the ship has all the armor on it that it can have, then having replacement plates in storage.
Wrong. The Cameron has about half its max armor, and enough cargo to replace it all hundreds of times.
Quote:
When anything talking about warships and even dropships or jumpships is done, there is always seems to be normal food that has been prepped in the game and novels.
Give me an example. What novel, what page?
Quote:
And if the house leaders were smart, they would use the ships to move military cargoes to other systems.
No if the house leaders were smart they would build cheaper, more efficient warships so they could afford more of them.
And if the Battletech designers were smart they would have looked at real-world warships as a basis for design. Or failing that, at least playtested the ships to see that the armor was woefully inadequate
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TigerShark
10/18/17 01:29 PM
12.130.166.32
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Cargo space is almost always a waste when presented in BT. It's seldom serving its intended purpose and is more of a placeholder when the designer has either run out of ideas or wants to curtail the strength of the unit. Look at a lot of the Vehicle designs: "Cargo" = "wasted tonnage."
Case-in-point: The Prowler Explorer Vehicles with its 4.5 tons of "cargo space." Its description has it as traversing hostile environments, yet it's not the Sealed version which came much later, so it can't even do that job. If it's "not intended for combat," why devote 12 tons to weaponry and only 4.5 tons to hauling? Only the later versions, which convert the cargo space to an infantry bay, make any sense.
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