User talk:84.169.127.148

It's based on the FM:U. According to the FM:U, more than a third of the AFFS units are considered elite and many more of them are ratred veteran. This includes quite a few march militias (like the New Syrtis CMM) and training cadres (like the NAIS cadres). In addition, the AFFS has by far more Clan-Tech equipment than the LAAF (of course) or the DCMS. According to the RATs in the FM:U, the AFFS also fields more new designs than any other military in the IS (except the remaining former Invading Clans, of course). I agree that it's totally nuts, but it's actually the canon BT-universe.

(This is the original editor that changed the page back (DeSaints) but I'm having trouble signing in) Try not to take anything I say with offense but I disagree with how the edit was writen. I don't believe the edit was written for a neutral point of view (not saying it was intentional) and while I can agree that some information is certainly canon it is written from a skewed perspective. Allow me to explain.

Quote: "Generally, the AFFS is notable for being the only military organization in the Inner Sphere, that consists almost exlusively of Elite or Veteran rated troops. In fact, even many of its militia units and trainings cadres are considered Elite or Veteran troops by the AFFS High Command."

Response: As you stated you source is FM:U. Note that this is set in 3067, just when the FedCom Civil War had just ended. Its taking a snap shot of the AFFS just as it exited a several years long war involving most of its units including training units and March Militias. This would be the primary reason behind their high skill levels. However if you look at other sources that give us info on their ratings from time points like 3025, 3062, and 3085 you'll see that the normal level is Green with a few notable Regular rated units when it comes to training and March Militia units. Indeed even the front line forces are composed of Green to Elite troops. Also your your response of "more than a third" of their troops being Elite or Veteran doesn't exactly match the meaning of "almost exclusively" too well. With that in mind while ti would be fair to maybe note in the article that the entirety of the AFFS was much more skilled overall following the Civil War, it gives off misleading information to state that the AFFS " consists almost exclusively of Elite or Veteran rated troops" in the opening piece of the page.

Quote: "The AFFS receives only the best and most expensive equipment available in vast amounts, which the Federated Suns can't neither afford nor produce."

Response: In my opinion this piece of the edit, while having legitimate connotations, just seems to be very generalized. For the first part perhaps it would be better to say that the AFFS receives large quantities of upgraded and new equipment as opposed to "best and most expensive" which is quite debatable and frankly does skews the article from a neutral point of view. As for the AFFS being unable to afford or produce said equipment, I have to say that is simply not true. Several sources show the AFFS producing upgraded technologies and mechs,aerospace fighters, and armor vehicles with said upgraded technologies included in them. And I don't believe we have any products to date telling us that the AFFS cannot afford to buy and use upgraded technologies. As for your response I should mention that it has been mentioned by the line developers (i.e. the guys that make stuff canon for BT) on the Battletech forums that RATS are not considered a canon source of any unit's or army's make up. (For example in FM:FS just because the B tech level RAT table has a CES-3R Caesar at 7 doesn't necessarily mean a B-tech level unit's heavy mech will consist of 16.67% Caesars, its just to give "flavor" to units)

Quote "The AFFS also salvaged by far more Clan-Tech during Operation BIRD DOG than other militaries, which fought the Clans for years. Remarkably, some AFFS regiments are equipped with more Clan-Tech than most Clan-secondline-clusters."

Response Okay, so I agree that the AFFS salvaged a figurative ton (and literally a lot more than that) of Clan Tech, so my only issue with the first part is I think it was Bull Dog with Bird Dog being its tiny guerrilla war precursor. And while I'm not arguing that the AFFS might have more Clan Tech than the LAAF or DCMS during 3067 that may be debatable during later periods. Also the AFFS having more Clan Tech "than most second-line clusters" is extremely debatable. Which clusters? What time period? Those questions change the answer every time. Even during 3067 (year of FM:U) the AFFS may have more Clan Tech that a few second line clusters but I feel saying "most" is way to generous and again skews the neutrality of the page's information.

Sorry for the essay sized response but hopefully you can see my reasoning behind wanting to change back the page's edit. Again, I understand that your is technically canon but it unfairly portrays the AFFS as some uber army and in my view does not stick with the Wiki's intent to keep pages neutral and informative in nature. Perhaps simply making note's within the article explaining the AFFS's tech level and skill during 3067 would be more appropriate. I'm going to reverse it again with all this in mind, you don't have to agree with everything I said but perhaps you can just take into account what I said. Thanks.

— The preceding unsigned comment was posted by DeSaints (talk • contribs) .}}

Quote: As you stated you source is FM:U. Note that this is set in 3067, just when the FedCom Civil War had just ended. Its taking a snap shot of the AFFS just as it exited a several years long war involving most of its units including training units and March Militias. This would be the primary reason behind their high skill levels. However if you look at other sources that give us info on their ratings from time points like 3025, 3062, and 3085 you'll see that the normal level is Green with a few notable Regular rated units when it comes to training and March Militia units. Indeed even the front line forces are composed of Green to Elite troops. Also your your response of "more than a third" of their troops being Elite or Veteran doesn't exactly match the meaning of "almost exclusively" too well. With that in mind while ti would be fair to maybe note in the article that the entirety of the AFFS was much more skilled overall following the Civil War, it gives off misleading information to state that the AFFS " consists almost exclusively of Elite or Veteran rated troops" in the opening piece of the page.

You're correct, I didn't write the from a neutral stance but I didn't exaggerate anything or stated something wrong. In fact I just added the comment that the Federated Suns could never afford to upgrade the AFFS the way they did. However, that's quite true. Almost all Federated Suns 'Mech designs designed during the CW have XL-engines (which are usually the most expensive part of any Mech) and very much use other advanced equipments, like targeting computers. According to the RATs in the FM:U the AFFS has also better access to upgraded tech. In fact, the Davion "C"-rated equipment tables have the same number of upgraded (=the old lvl 2-Tech) new designs than the Steiner "A" tables. This gives the average Davion March Militia better equipment than most line units of other militaries (not just the LAAF). There is no logical way, how the Federated Suns could ever produce and afford the equipment of the AFFS.

In addition, the experience ranking in the FM:U is completely unrealistic. I.e. the AFFS increases their experience ratings roughly three times faster, than the LAAF. Even some March Militias and some trainings cadres have an elite or at least a veteran rating, despite they have been completly destroyed during the CW (the New Syrtis CMM for example). In fact, more than a third of the AFFS is considered elite and nearly an another third is rated veteran according to the FM:U. That's absolutely impossible by any standards. Except, of course, massive amounts of FIAT.

I also stated quote: "Remarkably, some AFFS regiments are equipped with more Clan-Tech than most Clan-secondline-clusters." That's quite true. The New Avalon Cavaliers for example field more Clan-Tech than the average Clan-Secondline-Cluster (also according to the FM: U) despite they never fought the Clans (at least as a cohesive unit). I admit, that might still be possible, but it's still highly unlikely and would cause less Clan-Tech in other line regiments. There's no indication for anything like that for that matter.

However, I agree that the 3025-era AFFS is very well balanced as are virtually all BT-products related to this era. I'll fix that part.

Finally, I don't want to offend you either. However, I still want to point my finger at the very many flaws of the post-3052-era BT-storyline.

I thought I'd add a few comments here, because I'm a little concerned that what you're trying to do doesn't really reflect what the wiki here is for. The wiki is supposed to be an unbiased record of the BattleTech universe, so far as is possible. There's a policy about editing with a Neutral point of view. You said yourself that you didn't write from a neutral stance - but writing with a neutral point of view is what everyone here is expected to do.

The second thing I'm concerned about is that we're supposed to report cited facts here; arguing theories based on facts - even theories that seem completely obvious to you - isn't something that should be done on the wiki. Reporting the level of experience of the AFFS units in their unit entries isn't a problem - the unit listings are a fact. Making a statement in the overall AFFS page that the average level of experience throughout the AFFS after the civil war was veteran is justifiable, if the average level of the experience across all of the units is veteran, and if you cite the field manual as a report - something along the lines of "according to the detail contained within ComStar intelligence reports..." When you say that the average level of experience in the AFFS is completely over the top and due to FIAT, you've gone way too far. You're forming an opinion and then posting it on the wiki as a fact. If there's a conflicting source in canon - another unit listing or document that contradicts the first source - then you can quote both and highlight that they contradict each other. If there are in-canon sources saying "we believe that the ComStar report represents an inaccurate view of the strength and experience of the AFFS" then you can quote it, and that's fine. When you as an individual are looking at the table and saying "that's stupid" and then posting your opinion, it's wrong. That's not what the wiki is for. You're perfectly entitled to write an essay about your beliefs and argue it on the internet, but Sarna isn't a soapbox or a debating society - it's just a record.

If you genuinely feel that the experience level of the AFFS units in FM:U is overly high, then the best way to get your opinion confirmed and make it eligible to go on Sarna is to go to the Ask The Writers or Ask The Developers forums on the CGL website, state that you feel the ratings are too high, explain why, and ask them to clarify if the figures are right. The answer they make is entirely suitable for being recorded here on Sarna; I've done that numerous times - you can see a list of two or three dozen questions recorded in my user profile here on Sarna where I've done this to clarify what I think are errors in the text. However, without those in-canon sources or a ruling from one of those two forums, you aren't stating a canon fact, no matter how strongly you believe it to be true. You're stating your opinion. And opinions don't belong on here.

The third thing that worries me is your attempt to use the RATs and economics to argue fiat within FM:U. For one thing, fiat is a hugely, incredibly loaded word. It's all too commonly used to justify a feeling of being wronged; any time a faction received a benefit in canon that someone feels is underserved, it has a nasty tendency to be declared "fiat", and in declaring it such, the person making the declaration imposes a value judgement on it. Those value judgements don't belong here.

There are fundamental problems with economics in BattleTech - so much so that CGL have indicated they won't even try and fix them, because economics in BattleTech is fundamentally, incredibly, utterly nonsensical and broken beyond belief. There are great, long, rambling threads that crop up regularly on the BT forums that end up being essays on how broken the economics system in BattleTech is. Any argument that tries to use large-scale economics as a justification is flawed from the beginning, because it assumes that economics in BattleTech is in some way sane, logical or in any way comparable to the real world. It isn't. It really, really isn't. I've seen arguments that prove that New Avalon could pay for the entire AFFS itself out of local taxes based on completely rational arguments. That opinion is as entirely valid as an opinion as yours is that the state of the AFFS is unaffordable - but neither has a canon source saying that within the BTech universe, so each of them is completely invalid as part of an article on Sarna until that happens.

As for the RATs, TPTB have stated repeatedly that those are only to give a flavour for units when generating encounters and the like, and don't represent a mathematical probability matrix for working out the unit structure of the AFFS. Even at it's most basic, that idea's flawed; there are only 11 slots in a weight category in a RAT, but there are literally dozens of 'Mechs that are available. Xotl's random unit tables for the 3025 era have upwards of 40 designs at every one of the four categories. Every time someone tries to make an argument about Mech figures in canon based on the RATs, someone like Øystein shuts them down for that very reason. One of our sometime editors, Bad Syntax, frequently spawned great long threads on the forums by trying to argue similar points, and every one ended up with TPTB pointing out his basic premise was wrong. TPTB have stated repeatedly that they are never going to give us hard and fast figures on 'Mech production or numbers in service because it's just too limiting for them. That's why canon sources so rarely give us any solid numbers.

Ultimately, I think your basic premise is wrong. You said "However, I still want to point my finger at the very many flaws of the post-3052-era BT-storyline." That's not what Sarna is here for. Wikipedia is a great place to do that, if you're writing a meta-article on realism within the BattleTech universe. The CGL forums are a great place to do that, for similar reasons. However, Sarna is a record of things BattleTech, and a record of the canon universe - not a judgement on it. Your stated aim is to apply and demonstrate your value judgement to BattleTech, and you're looking to use articles on Sarna to do it. That's at cross-purposes to the purpose Sarna is intended to serve. BrokenMnemonic 10:38, 21 August 2012 (PDT)

Honestly, I didn't read the whole article, but only the first sentence (the most important part, since you only repeated yourself for quite some time). However, the whole canon BT-universe isn't from a neutral point of view, either. The BT-universe always focussed on the FedSuns, most likely because it is the most popular successor state in the primary market of the BT-products, the US of A (which the FedSuns resembles quite closely), but the BT-universe was still quite balanced in the 3025-era. Unfortunately, the BT-universe evolved into a lopsided glorification of the FedSuns after the Clan-Invasion.

Consequently, if it's sarnas policy to illustrate the BT-universe in a neutral way, it's supposed to point at the various inconsistencies (like the ones I mentioned before) and twists AT LEAST. Basically, that's all I did.

In addition, I didn't use the RATs to determine the actual production rates of the different 'Mech-designs. I used them to determine, which Mechs are used more often than others by the various military. That's quite a difference. Basiccally, that's what they're there for.— The preceding unsigned comment was posted by 84.169.111.1 (talk • contribs) on 27 August 2012.

All content on Sarna must be verifiable and should cite a canon source, as per the canon policy. If you don't like the storyline, that's fine, but this wiki contains information about that very subject. In short, the information here is story, not commentary on the story. If you find inaccuracies in the wiki, please correct it using the information available in canon source material. --Scaletail 14:18, 27 August 2012 (PDT)

Thx, Scaletail, since everything I wrote is from canon sources in detail, I'll put it back online.

However, I didn't complain that I don't like the storyline, but I stated, that very much of the storyline is biased in the first place and illegitimite in the second place.— The preceding unsigned comment was posted by 84.157.56.243 (talk • contribs) on 28 August 2012.

It's not so much the canonicity of the information that is in question here (although I have to say there are a few issues with your interpretation); it is the relevance. The canon source you quote does not provide accurate data except for a brief, defined period of (or even point in) time.

As far as I understand this discussion, you want to include this information solely to prove your point about how the AFFS and the FedSuns get a preferential treatment by the authors. That's like insisting the Capellan Confederation article should include a paragraph explaining why it sucks. Sarna BTW's aim is to collate knowledge, not opinions. Frabby 15:00, 28 August 2012 (PDT)