DSS
08/28/23 08:22 AM
176.25.162.219
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This is a simple question, what designs do you think are the wrong way to use lost tech?
This thought came up as looking at some of my cheaper designs Vs new 3050 designs. Then i looked at the dragon and the grand dragon, WTF?
I`m sorry, but this makes no sense to me. If you wanted to build the grand dragon (lets call it the light dragon), which is just a fast version of the same mech, why??? If you lowered it`s mass to 50 tonnes, you could use a XL version of the same engine, that and the 3.5 tonne saved on the endo internal structure would give you a extra 1.5 tonne, which you could add a extra HS and 0.5 tonnes to the amour to make up for the weaker chassis. As for the cost, 9.6mil CB Vs 13.3. The cost of such a massive engine make no sense. You could say that they had a problem in manufacturing the endo chassis, but it would have made more sense to put your investment into building more endo chassis than into the factory to making a mech that costs over 2.5 time the original version. Just using the bigger engine cost nearly 2m CB extra (360XL Vs 300XL), and no matter how you count it, that is extra man hours/materials/time/resources used, for poorer results.
A better use for the original 60 tonne chassis would have been to use the 300XL engine, and replace the AC5 with a gauss rifle. You could have had extra mass for armour, and not even needed DS HS. Plus you could have then built the light dragon and the improved dragon using common parts. like the engine and giro/cockpit.
This pair makes more sense than the grand dragon, a design i just have to say WHY? (or WTF? lol)
Edited by DSS (08/28/23 08:24 AM)
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ghostrider
08/28/23 11:46 AM
45.51.181.83
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Almost all canon mechs have design flaws. And the fluff that comes with some of them really shows they did not really deal with what they were going for with the mech, or maybe unit, as more then a few things don't make sense.
And costs don't really matter, unless the discussion of clantech being produced by the IS comes up. As the game doesn't really bother with costs for the houses, only mercs run properly do. The developers also use the cost to explain why there isn't fleets of warships in the game. The real reason for a lack of warship fleets is if nothing can land, then the mech combat can't happen.
If you look at the first mechs in the tro's and even the boxed set, some of them don't make sense. The wasp having the srm launcher in the leg is a good one. Others, like adding double sinks to a mech that doesn't run hot at all, comes to mind. The Stealth using just 3 small lasers, which also brings up the original Charger. The rear lasers for the Archer is odd, as that mech is not supposed to be close enough to start having issues with the LRM minimum ranges.
With the lostech coming out, the SL mechs were never really revived. The lore says most of the 3025 mechs were downgrades, but from what? Did the Wasp have a streak 2 pack in the legs?
Did a majority of the units have XL engines? Endosteel? Ferrous FIber? Maybe some electronics?
Also, the canon mechs run along the same lines as player customs. Depending on the players views, do you run an ac 20 on a unit, or put on a 10? Do you make it move that extra speed, for defense, or put jets on it? Maybe forgo both and add on more weapons and armor? I thought mgs on some units were completely stupid. They were supposedly designed in a time where infantry accompanied the heavy/assault mechs, removing the need for it, though the downgrade could be used to cover for this.
But yes. Some of the design concepts are backwards and even hurtful to the unit.
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Karagin
08/28/23 05:30 PM
38.48.37.18
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The majority of the 3050 and 3055 mechs. They are thrown together mechs. Not a lot of thought went into the refits or rebuilds.
Now, when players abuse the construction rules to win at all costs, that is the misuse of the game's technology. If someone is only playing just to win, then that ruins the fun of the game..
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Cray
08/28/23 07:19 PM
71.47.208.18
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Quote:
The majority of the 3050 and 3055 mechs. They are thrown together mechs. Not a lot of thought went into the refits or rebuilds.
Nicely put.
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.
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DSS
08/31/23 04:49 AM
176.25.162.219
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I will say that I am not a number cruncher, and have not sat down and made a spread sheet of what the different tonnes used for different mass mechs Vs speed Vs internal structure etc. I just out of habit try to keep to the same gyro used, as the gyro cost 100k CB per tonne, so a minor increase in engine rating can increase your cost quickly. This does mean i tend to use the 200 and 300 engine most, in either standard or XL versions (the XL version cost 5x the base cost of a non XL, and are more vulnerable).
Those people who discount costs are both right and wrong. I say this because the clans don`t use cost, and the IS has such a large base population per house the tax costs per person are minor (except capellian confederation lol). But the CB value as a figure to represent the time and effort that each mech uses in it construction does matter. If it didn`t, why did clan wolf not invade with every star formed of just madcats? The mech had been in production for 105 years at the time of the invasion. If you built 2 a year (that is only 150 tonnes of mech per year) and assume 50% attrition due to trials etc, that would still give you 20 stars of just madcats. Cannot remember where, but one of the publications gave a rundown of every wolf star at the start of the invasion, and the madcat was far less common than that. If you are totally ignoring the cost or resources needed, why would you not just build probably the best design of clan mech there is (i know it is not invincible, but it is one of the best all round clan designs, second only in my book to some of the 2c designs).
These ideas on how poor some of the 3050 designs are came from some paper designs i was going through of the shadow hawk, and realising the 2k version is just a smaller version of the ppc armed dragon. Then comparing a 50 tonne 6/9/6 version of the sh-2k to the grand dragon. Then using the same XL engine on a dragon (anybody want a dragon with a gauss rifle in its arm instead of a AC5?).
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DSS
08/31/23 05:12 AM
176.25.162.219
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The majority of the 3050 and 3055 mechs. They are thrown together mechs. Not a lot of thought went into the refits or rebuilds.
I would say a error in the 3050 IS designs was they needed to be split into 3 groups.
Refits of old designs (no changes to the chassis/engine, but allowed HS/Weapon/armour).
Redesigns of existing builds (anything goes).
New designs (not much different from redesigns to be honest).
More thought was given to the clan designs, in that almost all are a trade off of firepower Vs heat, and approach the idea of designs based on the concept of single person trail by combat very well .after all, who cares in single person trail by combat if you overheat and shut down after a volley that destroys your opponent, On a battlefield, your shutdown mech just allows the team mate of the destroyed mech free shots at you.
IS mechs, survival of the fittest in war
Clan mechs, best at combat, crap at war.
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ghostrider
08/31/23 11:32 AM
45.51.181.83
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Not much for trying to do the spread sheets. They don't show how a unit actually performs in the field, just gives stats on what is could do. As stated before, the group I played with, tended to do a campaign where you used the same mechs for everything. If you have a company of 12 Archers, for example, that is what you had to choose from for each mission you negotiated. This shows the worth of a unit.
Having 2 combat units that always seem to die in missions, verses a more expensive single unit that returns a majority of the time, means the more expensive unit is better the the 2. As always, there is some other issues involved, but as the campaign suggest if you can't afford the unit, then you don't get to buy it. And only with a mercenary unit, is costs really an issue. House units just have luck on whether the part is available or not.
A lot of the SL upgrades seemed to be haphazard in their designs, with a few being horrible. If you follow the lore of the game, some of this is understandable. If say house Kurita did not produce the ultra 5, then their units would not be designed to use them. As the tech became more available, then the later builds might have them.
The new designs of that time frame were even more of an issue. The Fireball mech was nothing more then a speedy under gunned urbanmech.
The Madcat/Timberwolf is a nice design, and shows off the use of omni pods well. Configuring them to each mission allows for different roles. Now depending on the role, an Highlander IIC is hard to beat in sheer firepower. But the slower speed does have it's drawbacks. Also, being so ammo dependent causes issues when in a campaign, where you have to account for bringing in more ammo, shows this.
One aspect of the clans warfare seems to be missing in the analysis. The clans did not do the pile on one unit, or even fire on a unit engaged with someone else, unless the one on one tradition was already broken or ordered to do so by the commanding officer. Their bidding process was to keep waste down, but limiting the number of units involved in a fight. If you can't win with say a star, then you probably won't win if a full cluster is used (depending on enemy numbers, of course). This is part of why they used more ammo dependent weapons when doing their fights. They would reload after the days fight was done, and normally, you didn't have to worry about sneak attacks when doing so. The fight with the IS showed the weakness of the ammo dependency, and forced more thought into using energy weapons, and having to deal with a higher heat curve. This does not mean it was always that way, but most warriors did not want to bring shame for breaking it.
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Retry
09/02/23 12:37 AM
68.103.62.228
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Quote:
IS mechs, survival of the fittest in war
Clan mechs, best at combat, crap at war.
I would not describe this as a fair assessment. While there's plenty of Clan designs and omni-variants that are not very well optimized for long campaigns, there's no shortage of ill-conceived Inner Sphere battlemech designs (see: Charger, Riflemen, Cicada). Clan doctrine was certainly ill-suited for warfare, but that is not something that is fixed with a 'Mech design.
The Clan's military technology advantage has very real advantages over the 3050s Inner Sphere. If the IS and Clans had their battlemech hardware swapped during the Clan invasion (or even in the Clans had just stayed technologically stagnant with IS 3025-level technology), the Dracs and FedCom would have easily kicked around the Clan invaders- at least on the ground, in space it would be more tricky since the IS powers had apparently managed to destroy all their warships and most of their production facilities to build more.
Edited by Retry (09/02/23 12:38 AM)
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ghostrider
09/03/23 12:00 PM
45.51.181.83
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If the clans had kept 3025 tech, which to be honest, they never really had to do, as they were SL tech based, the warship issues wouldn't have been as desperate.
Part of taking on a warship, was dealing with clan fighters. Not anywhere as numerous as the IS, they were still far superior in weapons then the IS counterparts.
This is not saying taking out a warship would have been easy. Not in the least. In an even number match, clan fighters would have been superior because of the range, like they were on land. The clan skills also play a part here.
But it was rare the clans has even numbers against the IS.
The long war was where the clans had issues, as they were set up for more of a duel concept. That is fact. That did not mean the mechs weren't built for the longer war. It was some of the weapons loadouts that were set for a short, fast combat. As stated, the Warhawk was pretty well energy based. A few others were as well, but right now the units escape my memory.
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Karagin
09/03/23 05:09 PM
38.48.37.18
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The Clans were raiders. Like steppe nomads, aka Mongols. They come in, strike, take what they want, then go back to where they came from. Till the next time, they showed up. That is how they fought each other.
Yes, they had their wars, but they were small-scale, short time frame, under a year, less than six months max. Over time, that makes them not focus on long-term policies of long-term full-scale war. That is not the misuse of their tech but their society's inability to change.
Misuse of tech for the Clans would be the asinine Protomechs and the LD and other PTB attempts to get right of the ultra-light mechs that rules allowed to be built.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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