Karagin
06/12/02 01:07 AM
63.173.170.28
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OkaY what I am posting below is not about BT techincally, but the issue brought up in the article does play a big role in the game's background...
Using the article as the bases how could the events in it be placed on the Inner Sphere...
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http://www.spacedaily.com/news/earth-02m.html
It seems that there will always be plenty of conflicts for the world in general to sort out. What would be needed for the conclusion of a conflict over forced migration and dwindling resources, and what are the likeliest places to be hit?
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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novakitty
06/12/02 01:47 AM
209.242.100.230
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Entertaining. A few errors, but that is what fear-mongers are good at.
The tranlation of the concept of resource drain to Battletech would indicate that planets closest to earth (and the Kerensky Cluster) will have less resource potential than those furthur out. This loss of potential should only be significant on mining worlds, or others than export more mass than they import, but eventually have some effect on most worlds.
This was seen when the Jaguars were running out of raw materials, and attempted to make a more efficient combat unit, but ended up with protomechs. I suspect that most forces are more rational in their use of resources than the Jaguars, so it might not be as much of a problem elsewhere, but should hove some influence.
Tourist worlds could potentially suffer from this also. Millions of tourists taking back a few kilos of souveneirs will cause some interesting changes to local mass if not countered by importing an equivalent mass. If left untreated in harsh situations, the planet's orbit and spin could be affected.
One last point, asteroid feilds would provide a good source for metals and I have not considered if that would cause any change to the general model.
Now I sit back and await the nit-pickers.
meow
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Gangrene
06/12/02 11:30 PM
168.150.101.101
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I don't think dwindling resources would be a big problem in Battletech. Space is no longer a barrier to expansion, so there is always something beyond the current limits. Plus with such technology they should theoretically be able to access resources previously unaccessible to the human race. For example, minerals and metals in asteroids or gas from gas giants.
The only thing that might become scarce is terran-like living space, but that's if the population grew dramatically to fill existing space. Btech fiction seems to indicate that most planets are sparcely populated at best, though.
Gangrene
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Karagin
06/12/02 11:51 PM
63.173.170.17
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The how do you explain the problems faced by the Jags and their dwinlding reasoure base?
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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NathanKell
06/12/02 11:59 PM
24.44.238.62
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"The same excuse we use every night, Pinky..."
Plot device.
Or, heck, they're Jaguars:
Jag 1: "Waah, we're running out of resources."
Jag 2: "There's a whole asteroid belt in each of our systems, ripe for the picking!"
{pause}
Jags 1 and 2: "Waah, we're running out of resources."
-NathanKell, BT Space Wars
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
Thomas Jefferson |
novakitty
06/13/02 12:54 AM
209.242.100.230
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An asteroid field is not a limitless source of materials. Have you considered that the asteroid fields would be the first target for any society with the technology to harvest them?
Asteroids provide a high mineral content, with less digging and minimal energy lost due to gravity. Any group that can make an aerospace fighter and a battlemech should know how to get mining equipment on an asteroid. They were probably the first source to dry up.
meow
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Karagin
11/24/05 03:29 PM
24.243.178.223
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Yet that is arguement used to defend WoB and their ablity to build and build and build and build and clone and clone...
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Auren_Shiro
11/24/05 08:55 PM
209.6.16.246
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Do remember that Wobbies are spawned from their fanaticism, they just think "We need more Wobbies!" and boom, more wobbies. It explains the occasionaly 150 man charge in Mechassault against a Timber Wolf. Same thing goes for mechs. A bit of background information, Wolf's Dragoons hunt down Wobbies in Mechassault 1 and 2, and actually work with our neighborhood DCMS contingent. In anycase, In those two games, your mech kill count is in the regimental to RCT range. That's not including vehicles.
/rant
If you think about it, those asteroid belts are not so easily exploited, as the rocks are most likely moving, thus you cannot have a truly permanent base in a belt, as *Borrowing from Homeworld*, A large vessel is needed to be in the neighborhood for resource collection. And even then, I don't think anyone is willing to spend weeks at a time in space. It doesn't do too well for the person. And other then mech factories, and vehicle factories, I don't think heavy industrial equipment is easy to come by.
Need...more...Nevcrack...
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NileIngrams
11/24/05 11:07 PM
58.164.144.226
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Well, when we consider the Succession Wars, there have been countless examples of Solar Systems not providing enough of the basics for life - namely food, clean water and oxygen. There have been many worlds abandoned outright because of breakdowns in the Water Purification Plants required to maintain the local population. Also, worlds that produce ample food have become strategic prizes for War Lords to target. Sometimes the grain and other foodstuffs from one world support many smaller outposts in less habitable worlds in nearby star systems.
Other resources aren't that hard to come by, as long as you have enough people and machines to extract, refine and manufacture it, but maintaining the planetary populations are much more difficult! I guess if there were some dire change in a planet's geological conditions, that could easily trigger a shortage in the basics.... enough to cause real problems.
NileIngrams NI! - The Killer of Threads!
In the time before the return of the heirs of Kerensky,
when the Successor Lords had tired of bathing worlds in Nuclear Madness,
there was an age of High Adventure!
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Cray
12/01/05 05:00 PM
147.160.136.10
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Quote:
If you think about it, those asteroid belts are not so easily exploited, as the rocks are most likely moving, thus you cannot have a truly permanent base in a belt,
By that logic, you couldn't mine a planet since planets move, too. 
The motion of asteroids is trivial for BT fusion engines to conquer. It's not even a big problem for near-future mining operations, you just need to be patient. Space is the ultimate in low cost shipping environments (once you're off a planet). It's easier to move ten million tons of ore across a solar system than it is to move 10,000 tons of ore across the Great Lakes.
Quote:
large vessel is needed to be in the neighborhood for resource collection. And even then, I don't think anyone is willing to spend weeks at a time in space. It doesn't do too well for the person. And other then mech factories, and vehicle factories, I don't think heavy industrial equipment is easy to come by.
...I disagree completely...
I think you're underestimating the resources found in even small asteroids. A small nickel-iron asteroid (just 5 miles across) has enough iron in it to meet the entire iron needs of Earth for about 3-5 millennia (at the current consumption rate of 400 million tons/year).
So, if you plan on playing out the asteroid's resources in a short period ("weeks," as you said) you're going to need resource extraction equipment that just dwarfs every single mining operation on Earth - extracting 1 TRILLION tons of iron from its ore in just a few weeks would require a truly epic mining platform.
Alternately, if you don't plan on competing with every iron mine on Earth, you could be on that little asteroid for millennia. In that case, your mining facility will doubtlessly include habitats with features that makes weeks (or years) in space much more healthy - like gravdecks and some radiation shielding (there'll be plenty of slag to pile into a nice, thick shield).
With BT fusion engines, any asteroid in the Main Belt is no more than 5 days at 1G from Earth. It would be easy to imagine miners working, say, 60-day shifts: 30 days on the asteroid, 10 days in transit (both ways), and 20 days off. Or some variation thereof. BT's fusion engines and gravdecks mean the miners never have to worry about micro-gravity health loss.
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An asteroid field is not a limitless source of materials. Have you considered that the asteroid fields would be the first target for any society with the technology to harvest them?
Well, it's true an asteroid field isn't a limitless source of materials, but Sol's asteroid belt should be able to supply every single metal and ceramic need for the entire Inner Sphere from 2000AD to 3067AD, and it should be a long way from being played out.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/asteroid-mining1.htm
Quote:
One NASA report estimates that the mineral wealth of the asteroids in the asteroid belt might exceed $100 billion for each of the six billion people on Earth. John S. Lewis, author of the space mining book Mining the Sky, has said that an asteroid with a diameter of one kilometer would have a mass of about two billion tons. There are perhaps one million asteroids of this size in the solar system. One of these asteroids, according to Lewis, would contain 30 million tons of nickel, 1.5 million tons of metal cobalt and 7,500 tons of platinum.
30 trillion tons of nickel, 1.5 trillion tons of cobalt, 7.5 billion tons of platinum...and about 150 trillion tons of iron, based on nickel-iron ratios in asteroids. That's enough to give every man, woman, and child in the Inner Sphere 30 tons of steel, 6 tons of nickel, 300kg of cobalt, and 1.5kg of platinum, and that's not tapping the larger asteroids of the Solar asteroid belt.
Asteroids are such a wonderful source of resources. They're so easy to access compared to planetary mines, in both terms of transportation and reaching the resources within the asteroids. It's so effortless to shove around a few million tons of ore from a micro-gravity asteroid to a zero-gravity industrial facility, even if they're many AU apart. And mining efforts don't have to worry about tunnel collapses or the like - on small asteroids, you can just rip your way through the overburden to reach any point on the asteroid's interior, and for less effort than it takes to strip mine on Earth (less gravity = less energy lifting and moving debris).
The only shame about them is that they're on the wrong side of deep planetary gravity wells, but that's not a problem for BT fusion engines.
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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Karagin
12/01/05 05:02 PM
24.243.178.223
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Let me guess this is the logic that TPTB are using to justify the WoB growth supurt...
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Cray
12/01/05 05:13 PM
147.160.136.10
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Quote:
Let me guess this is the logic that TPTB are using to justify the WoB growth supurt...
Nope. Asteroid mining seems pretty overlooked in BT (hence all the problems in the Inner Sphere where resources running short - that wouldn't fly if asteroids were mined). IMO, the Inner Sphere got spoiled by finding thousands of habitable planets and never had to look to asteroids for mining after 2100AD.
It's also unnecessary for WoB (or any House). WoB's military growth spurt is small, industrially speaking. The entire WoB mech force needs less than 1 million tons of materials (unless it's an order of magnitude larger than I suspect...but even then, it wouldn't need much in the way of raw materials.) However played out Terran and Martian mines are in the 3060s, there's still more than enough to meet the trivial needs of the WoB militia. Hell, WoB can probably get the tonnage of materials it needs from landfills.
Also note that WoB is buying off the open Inner Sphere market, meaning many of the WoB mechs aren't built with Terran resources.
Of course, the WoB military growth seems to be higher than most Spheroid powers except the Comguards, but that's a separate issue of military industrial capacity. I'm just saying raw materials won't be a stumbling block for WoB even if it built everything exclusively on Terra.
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.
Edited by Cray (12/01/05 05:15 PM)
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Karagin
12/01/05 05:14 PM
24.243.178.223
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Right! What I am I thinking! Terra is the Golden Goose! :rolleye:
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Cray
12/01/05 05:16 PM
147.160.136.10
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Quote:
Right! What I am I thinking! Terra is the Golden Goose! :rolleye:
For all the resources that WoB needs to build even an AFFC-sized military, it could be stuck on a small, metal-poor planet. Terra is overkill for WoB.
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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Karagin
12/01/05 05:16 PM
24.243.178.223
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If you say so...
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Cray
12/01/05 05:26 PM
147.160.136.10
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Quote:
If you say so...
Sure. You can do the math as easily as I can. Watch:
First, pick some over-sized, insane quantity of mechs for WoB: say, 100 mech regiments, 50 WoB divisions.
Next, pick a tonnage for the mechs. Let's say 100 tons each.
Total tonnage of materials required: 100x108x100 = 1,080,000 tons.
Next step, determine if that's a lot of raw materials. It's surfin' time:
1) After some surfing, you should find that 2005AD global, annual consumption of iron is about 400-450 million tons
2) Annual global consumption of oil is about 2-3 billion tons
3) The US produced 50 million tons of plastics in 1993
4) Annual global aluminum production is about 25 million tons
Clearly, these are all quantities of materials that dwarf the needs of building even a worst-case WoB mech militia (which is built over 15 years, 1 year).
In reality, WoB's militia is probably smaller and has an average tonnage below 100, so the required tonnage of materials is less than a piddly 1 million tons, and thus dwarfed by the output of a resource-starved future Terra. (Though Terra manages to stay pretty wealthy - its 6 billion people have a sweet lifestyle.)
Now, I know there's a question of mech factory capacity on Terra and the Inner Sphere to build WoB (at worst case) 7 regiments a year, but I don't see a limitation in raw materials.
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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Karagin
12/01/05 05:30 PM
24.243.178.223
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Cray defend the WoB storyline all you want. I don't buy any of it and so that is that. As I said to you the other day, spin it how you want to defend it, the bottom line is the writters aren't doing that great of a job of selling the storyline and it shows.
Until ALL of the issues raised by the fans about the flaws and such with the whole rise from splinter group to Uberpower are answered in a manner that both fits the game and follows the same rules as players have to follow, then a lot of us aren't going to take the storyline seriously or even support it.
You are trying to defend this with current data, and the game is set in what year?
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Auren_Shiro
12/01/05 05:35 PM
65.96.9.70
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Perhaps then, its not a matter of materials, as Cray just proved to my benefit. That would mean, since the Clans don't have much in the way of an 'economy' with cash and such, if they even got their hands on one belt, we could see a lot more clammers on the way.
Perhaps then, the real resource of BT is Factories. After all, what the hell are you going to do with all of the materials? Build the Great Wall of WoB? With Mechs fusing huge things together?
Need...more...Nevcrack...
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Cray
12/01/05 07:24 PM
68.200.110.190
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Quote:
Perhaps then, its not a matter of materials, as Cray just proved to my benefit. That would mean, since the Clans don't have much in the way of an 'economy' with cash and such, if they even got their hands on one belt, we could see a lot more clammers on the way.
Er...not necessarily. Lack of cash doesn't mean lack of an economy. You still have a limited amount of labor and resources in the Clan system, even if they don't track it with the distilled labor-resource marker known as "money." And the Clans idle a hideous amount of potential production with their "no unnecessary production" theories. It just stifles any entrepreneurial efforts to expand their economy, which explains why the Clans sulked on their resource-poor homeworlds rather than expanding into the millions of uninhabited star systems around them.
Quote:
Perhaps then, the real resource of BT is Factories. After all, what the hell are you going to do with all of the materials? Build the Great Wall of WoB? With Mechs fusing huge things together?
Pretty much. There are only so many factories that build battlemechs, and they sit upon a huge pyramid of rare, supporting industries. Analogously (sp), the US was churning out about 100 million tons of steel c1940, but only 10,000 tons was armor-grade steel fit for battleships. It was a real bottleneck on warship production.
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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Cray
12/01/05 07:31 PM
68.200.110.190
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Quote:
Cray defend the WoB storyline all you want. I don't buy any of it and so that is that.
Karagin, you've raised some valid problems with the WoB Jihad. These are good ones:
Terran battlemech factory capacity? That's a valid objection.
The surprise of the Jihad? That's a valid objection.
The stupidity of Steiner and FS leadership at the 4th Whitting Conference? That's a valid objection.
The amount of embezzlement managed by WoB in the FWL? That's a valid objection.
There are quite a few others, and I'm sure you can find them.
But suggesting that a future society (with vastly more advanced materials, industrial, and mining technologies than our own) will have trouble producing a tiny fraction of 20th Century raw material output is not a valid objection. I gave the numbers for modern resource production so you could see what a future industrial base could dwarf into insignificance.
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.
Edited by Cray (12/01/05 07:43 PM)
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Auren_Shiro
12/01/05 08:41 PM
65.96.9.70
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1) I'm not sure about Terran Battlemech Factories, but I could see how the WoB got their machines from the FWL's industrial might.
2) The Wobbies wouldn'tve told anyone, after all, they're wobbies!
3) As I don't know about this conference, I can't say anything about it, although Katherine must die!
4) See point 1
I have to agree with the industrial out-put, but if you look at it by Neveron terms, a 150 CF factory can only spit out some 4 mil production of equipment per nevyear, so I'm not so sure about that.
Need...more...Nevcrack...
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Cray
12/01/05 10:09 PM
68.200.110.190
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Quote:
1) I'm not sure about Terran Battlemech Factories, but I could see how the WoB got their machines from the FWL's industrial might.
You can get WoB's reported battlefield successes by calculating their growth based on the example set by the Comguards, 3052-3067. With FWL funding, Terra, and the chunk of Comstar that they started with, WoB could have every bit of Comstar's funding, despite Karagin's negative spin that they're a "little splinter group." They might've been small in 3052, but the flood of trained Comstar personnel meant they were nothing of the sort by 3060.
Quote:
2) The Wobbies wouldn'tve told anyone, after all, they're wobbies!
In fact, Dawn of the Jihad makes clear that the Inner Sphere intelligence community was fairly aware of WoB's "secret" military strength. What it wasn't ready for was WoB's surprise reaction to the failure of the 4th Whitting Conference. WoB's ROM wasn't the ROM of Comstar in the Third Succession War.
Quote:
3) As I don't know about this conference, I can't say anything about it, although Katherine must die!
Katherine was already shacked up with Vlad Ward by the 4th Conference. It was her post-Civil War replacements that screwed up things by voting against the Star League. I mean, it was REALLY dumb for the Lyran Alliance and Federated Suns to bail on the Star League. Maybe the Capellans had a reason, but there was no good cause for the LA and FS to leave the Star League.
When the Star League collapsed, WoB started its WMD tantrum.
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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Karagin
12/01/05 11:42 PM
24.243.178.223
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Once again:
Manpower: are they cloning the troops
Money: EVERYTHING cost money in BT, yet some how the WoB get's around this every time.
Constuction time: It doesn't matter what the future gives you, it will still take time to make the mechs and vehicles and warships and fighters etc...they don't happen over night and that is what is we as the fans are expected to belive.
Supply: again the money issue comes up, food, fuel, medicine, ammo, spare parts, transport cost, training etc...all of that needs to be taken care and yet once again the WoB can do all of this and do in it secret, yet still have a military that can take on the IS and Clans long enough to shake the whole IS foundation.
And it is a valid objection to point out that just because the WoB holds ONE plantary system, that was beat to snought by the SLDF and it's fight with Amaris and never really recovered. Yet we are told that since they hold this single world that they can raise an army, train it, supply it, equip it, and move it around all because of their hold on Terra.
Meanwhile the rest of IS and Clan space can't seem to match that and they have 3 times the number of worlds and systems under their control.
I am sorry but NONE that has been explained or even remotely covered in any fashion that gives a reasonable and ,for the Battletech universe and setting, logical explanation for it.
Having the 5th Succession War come about isn't a bad thing, doing it as they have done so far makes it all look unthought out, rushed and poorly written and details not handled to give it a smooth flow into the past historical events.
Your numbers really don't tell us anything since NOT everything needed by the WoB will be on Terra, unless you are going to tell us that they have all the comments and items needed to make fusion engines as well as all the comments to make endo and ferro as well as the factories to make all of the weapons the WoB needs to outfit the mechs and vehicles and fighters and warships and dropships as well as the fuel for the later group. The list of areas that make hash out the whole background to the Jihad have been listed. And all that ever get's said is you spinning it around and around so it looks pretty yet never once do the points get answered.
So please stop spin doctoring the Jihad, let it sink and flownder like it should.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Karagin
12/01/05 11:46 PM
24.243.178.223
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Quote:
WoB could have every bit of Comstar's funding, despite Karagin's negative spin that they're a "little splinter group." They might've been small in 3052, but the flood of trained Comstar personnel meant they were nothing of the sort by 3060.
So you want us to believe that in a mere 8 years they go from the splinter group that were to a major power house all because they can skim money from the FWL and get an untapped manpower source and take Terra...right, okay...I think we have all seen this before it's called Star Wars and the whole Clone troopers plot line...
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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NileIngrams
12/02/05 12:18 AM
203.51.202.115
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I think I know what you are trying to say here Karagin... you aren't disputing the fact that the WoB
could put together the material and supplies required to take Earth and prosecute the Jihad - what he is
trying to question is the "MAN POWER" required to fill the Mechs, Aerospace Fighters, Dropships and Warships... not to
mention the factories needed to make everything possible. They would have to have set up some pretty nasty re-education
camps to mould the minds of the fanatics they need to carry out their bidding. I bet "Ideal War" avoided what was really
happening on Gibson - the mass re-education camps taking in hordes of people from all over the IS to convert them to Evil
WoBblyness. Thomas Marik had to have turned a blind-eye to his master's machinations on Gibson.
NileIngrams NI! - The Killer of Threads!
In the time before the return of the heirs of Kerensky,
when the Successor Lords had tired of bathing worlds in Nuclear Madness,
there was an age of High Adventure!
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Karagin
12/02/05 12:39 AM
24.243.178.223
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More or less. I have been harping on the whole manpower issue for a long time now and it's one of the areas that I point out that get's skated by everytime someone runs up to defend the whole Jihad.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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NileIngrams
12/02/05 12:43 AM
203.51.202.115
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I just thought of an interesting thing that I remember mentioned from the Blood of Kerensky Trilogy.
Comstar handled most of the captured Inner Sphere mechwarriors and other staff(those that weren't bonded) taken by the Clans - most were thrown into ComStar "WoBbly" re-education camps... what happened to those warriors bent by ComStar? Most of them would have been so badly damaged by their time in the camps that it would not have taken much effort for the WoB to recruit them into their expanded ranks. Sick.
Man, recruitment for the Jihad was happening well before the Schism!
NileIngrams NI! - The Killer of Threads!
In the time before the return of the heirs of Kerensky,
when the Successor Lords had tired of bathing worlds in Nuclear Madness,
there was an age of High Adventure!
Edited by NileIngrams (12/02/05 12:52 AM)
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Karagin
12/02/05 12:56 AM
24.243.178.223
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Could have been, but still...the housing, feeding etc..for the warriors as well as the group that supports them isn't something you can easily hide for a long time...yet some how WoB manges to do it.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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NileIngrams
12/02/05 03:53 AM
203.51.202.115
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the WoB still has many agents in Comstar.... they could have just "altered" a few supply requests from the other houses....
it's great when you can read and alter other people's mail!
NileIngrams NI! - The Killer of Threads!
In the time before the return of the heirs of Kerensky,
when the Successor Lords had tired of bathing worlds in Nuclear Madness,
there was an age of High Adventure!
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Karagin
12/02/05 07:30 AM
24.243.178.223
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True, but sooner or later the group that is getting messed with will find away to stop the stealing, so while a short term source it's not the finial or overall answer.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Auren_Shiro
12/02/05 07:49 AM
24.34.100.170
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Okay, we've got the resources issue settled, we can somewhat confirm that the WoB had access to some pretty bad-ass industry through FWL and who knows what survived on Terra... although from the kill count of Mechassault and Mechassault 2, which has you hunting Wobbies, they should be short a lot of people and a lot of mechs, installations, everything.
On that note, I don't remember what world MA1 was on, but you did run around a pretty heavily industried map with installations big enough for mech factories.
Of course, I razed'em.
So... Wobbies cloned themselves through fanatacism, and breaking people so that you can corrupt them... I can't really buy that.
Need...more...Nevcrack...
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Karagin
12/02/05 08:25 AM
24.243.178.223
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Uhmmm sorry but NOTHING has been answered about their industry. Cray can put all the figures he wants up, but the BT setting doesn't support a small group expanding like the WoB did, if that was the case then why didn't the Dragoons become a major power house? Similar setup, one world, lots of tech etc...yet the Dragoons didn't, so why should the WoB get this break so to speak in less time then it took anyone else to become a major power or even a minor one.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Cray
12/02/05 09:16 AM
147.160.136.10
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Quote:
More or less. I have been harping on the whole manpower issue for a long time now and it's one of the areas that I point out that get's skated by everytime someone runs up to defend the whole Jihad.
Manpower is another valid area of concern.
However, I don't think I "skate" around the manpower issue. I always point out the same thing: WoB has plenty of manpower. Hiring a few thousand soldiers to fill out the WoB militia is not difficult, nor is training more when WoB picked up a core of professional ComGuard personnel.
As yet another point on why manpower is a non-issue, WoB has access to a minimum of 40x the US's WW2-era manpower and only needs about 1% of the personnel that the US put in uniform between 1940 and 1945.
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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Cray
12/02/05 09:44 AM
147.160.136.10
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Quote:
although from the kill count of Mechassault and Mechassault 2, which has you hunting Wobbies, they should be short a lot of people and a lot of mechs, installations, everything.
The computer games are not canon. Their events have nothing to do with BT until they are written into an official novel or sourcebook.
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So... Wobbies cloned themselves through fanatacism, and breaking people so that you can corrupt them... I can't really buy that.
And you shouldn't buy it. It's not true.
Not all WoBblies are ranting fanatics. Many Comstar people who joined WoB were not toaster-worshipping fanatics at all - they were just disgusted with changes in Comstar but not ready to give up on Comstar, so they went to the alternative Comstar, the Word of Blake. That's where quite a few of the original WoB militia troops came from: ComGuards who were pissed about having to work for a "foreign ruler," Victor Steiner-Davion. The way the ComGuards got embroiled in the FedCom Civil War pissed off more Comstar personnel. They were supposedly neutral, but they were fighting on one side of a civil war? So, join WoB. Then, when WoB needed to expand its militia, it had a core of trained personnel (about 10 or 20 mech regiments worth of expatriate ComGuard mechwarriors, IIRC) that could be used to train new recruits.
And getting new recruits is easy for WoB. Old, religious Comstar had spent centuries indoctrinating hundreds of billions of people across the Inner Sphere. The advanced worlds of the Inner Sphere might scoff at Old Comstar's mystical nonsense, but Comstar personnel were often the only educators on backwater Inner Sphere worlds, like the Davion Skid Row planets. So, for about 2 centuries, Comstar taught and educated these people reading, writing, math, and toaster worship. When WoB picked up the mystic/religious mantle that Comstar had cast off, it had a vast pool of people sympathetic to its beliefs. (No, they weren't all ranting religious nuts, but they were sympathetic. That's good enough for recruiting efforts.) Once WoB had the new militia recruits, it had plenty of professional soldiers (ex-ComGuard) to train these recruits. Out of an Inner Sphere population of 5 trillion, WoB only needed thousands of personnel sympathetic to its cause and qualified for militia recruitment. That's not a tall order.
And WoB's militia expansion - which likely stopped at well under 100 mech regiments - is not exceptional. The US went from 175,000 Army personnel in 1940 to 1,400,000 in 1941, an 8-fold expansion in 1 year. WoB's militia expansion is probably under 8x and took 15 years. WoB's militia expansion is likely comparable to, or less impressive than, ComGuard recovery between 3052 and 3067.
There are also other WoB personnel that shouldn't be overlooked. Hundreds of millions of Comstar employees in the FWL (all the mundane workers in the Comstar corporate empire: mail carriers, telecommunications workers, etc.) just went into the office one day and found out that they were now employed by WoB, not Comstar. What's a telephone operator care about the politics of his board of directors? He cares about his pension and paycheck.
The ranting religious nuts are a relatively small fraction of WoB. Unfortunately, that small fraction is in several key places, especially the leadership. This results in the split behavior seen in the Dawn of the Jihad: first, WoB was steadily expanding its "Word of Blake Protectorate" in the Chaos March with the avowed intent of doing good deeds for the area. That's an activity that takes a lot of militia manpower, and requires the manpower to be fairly supportive of the avowed plan. (Obviously, if WoB said, "We're going to conquer the Chaos March and build an empire of toaster worship!" it'd have morale problems with its troops.) On the other hand, the nuclear strikes and orbital bombardment raids that occurred after the failure of the New Star League are something that can be accomplished by a small group of nutters.
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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Karagin
12/02/05 02:54 PM
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Right again I forgot they have Terra...that is answer to everything...got it.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Cray
12/02/05 03:15 PM
147.160.136.10
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Quote:
Right again I forgot they have Terra...that is answer to everything...got it.
Oh, Terra doesn't answer everything. WoB obviously went abroad to buy a lot of its mechs. But it's a perfect fit for its militia manpower needs. (Though WoB has a lot of other choices. Old Comstar influenced a lot of worlds.)
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.
Edited by Cray (12/02/05 03:23 PM)
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Karagin
12/02/05 08:08 PM
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Now you change your tune, which is it then, if they don't hold Terra then they can't pull of their attacks, but if they do it gives them all that they need.
One way or the other Cray, you can't have it both ways.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Cray
12/02/05 08:58 PM
68.200.110.190
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Quote:
Now you change your tune, which is it then, if they don't hold Terra then they can't pull of their attacks, but if they do it gives them all that they need.
One way or the other Cray, you can't have it both ways.
1) Heh. Just a point of logic. Re-read your first statement. The two options you gave are not mutually exclusive.  If a planet is so important to a military operation that the operation couldn't be launched without the planet, then the planet could (in fact) be the source of everything that the military operation needs, yes?
2) But I think you've misread something in my prior arguments. What you stated doesn't line up with what I'm trying to say. Terra is certainly a damned useful resource for WoB. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that without Terra, the Jihad wouldn't be feasible. But it's not the only resource for WoB. You've got TR:Phoenix, TR:3067, DotJ, and FM:Comstar, right? So you should know that WoB has been buying mechs off the open market, getting funds from the FWL, and has access to supporters across the Inner Sphere.
If I've given the impression that I was saying Terra MUST BE the be-all, end-all source for all things WoB, I apologize. I didn't mean to. It's definitely useful, probably critical, but WoB certainly has other resources to supplement it.
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.
Edited by Cray (12/02/05 09:13 PM)
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Karagin
12/03/05 12:58 AM
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Now you are changing your past statements both here and on Heavy Metal. One second you are telling us that Terra is their golden egg, and now you are saying it's just a small factor in their chicken farm. That is a major reversal for you, why are you now after how many years of telling me that their having Terra is the key to all they can do, do now change your postion?
The MONEY from the FWL isn't going to be enough to do everything that is claimed the WoB is doing yet that seems to be missed. But I guess following the cost issue of mechs isn't something the WoB has to do. Same with all the other logistical cost issues that go with funding and taking care of an army, even an uber army.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Cray
12/03/05 02:05 AM
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Quote:
Now you are changing your past statements both here and on Heavy Metal. One second you are telling us that Terra is their golden egg, and now you are saying it's just a small factor in their chicken farm.
How you get the impression that I mean, "Terra's a small factor" when I just said, "Terra is certainly a damned useful resource for WoB. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that without Terra, the Jihad wouldn't be feasible," eludes me.
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The MONEY from the FWL isn't going to be enough to do everything that is claimed the WoB is doing yet that seems to be missed.
What a selective memory you have. I'm always willing to talk costs and economics. We've done this before. Maybe you'll remember my post from April 13th, 2005:
"For example, say WoB bought 50 regiments of battlemechs a year between 3059 and 3067, an 8-year period. Say the battlemechs are 25 million CB each - WoB is building Daishis. This constitutes pretty much a worst case scenario for seeing how badly WoB finances will be strained. Total cost: a mind-boggling 108 billion C-bills. Wowie zowie.
Now, let's say WoB invokes some of its dark magic, resurrects the IRS, and says, "Squeeze taxes from these six billion wealthy Terrans. Let them pay for our conquest of the universe." The IRS says, "Yes, mahster," in a creepy toady voice and goes to work.
For each of those years, the IRS punishes each and every Terran with a brutal and crushing "WoB militia tax" of 22.5 C-bills, the equivalent of $67.50 (USD 1999). Noting the Lyrans are pulling in about 10,000 Kroner a head in 3067, we can safely guess the average Terran is pulling in about 10,000 CB. Even if it's half that, 22.5CB is not going to break the bank for the average Terran."
Later in the thread that spawned the preceding quotes, you wanted to know the price of supporting efforts, like dropships, food, and REMF salaries and such. Not a problem: based on examples of real life militaries, procurement typically fills about 20% of the military budget, so the entire military budget is about 5x that spent on procurement.
With WoB embezzling about 15% of the federal budget of the FWL (pop 700 billion, per capita annual income about 8000 CB, federal taxes about 20% of GDP), there's NEVER going to be a shortage of cash for WoB.
In fact, if you pay attention to population numbers and tax bases, you'd realize what the writers do: BT militaries are far too small for the scope of the universe. Despite lengthy debates involving those numbers, the writers try to keep them out of finished books. They all know that BT militaries are inexcusably SMALL for the taxbases.
But if you don't like my numbers, put a price tag on WoB's military, Karagin. This an opportunity for you to put a nail in the Jihad's coffin and there's plenty of hard numbers to settle this moment - the FWL's population, Terra's population, per capita incomes, tax rates, mech costs, military unit costs - all covered in published BT books. I want to see your hard number for the cost of 50 or even 100 mech regiments and all the WoB warships. Include every REMF and military base that you like. Name the price of the militia. The ball's in your court - show me the numbers that you think are so unachievable for WoB.
And, hopefully, we can settle this rather than having you weasel out (again) with "It's not a matter of doing the math or not..."
Yes, it is a matter of doing the math, and all the needed numbers are available. So let's settle this. Name WoB's militia's price, Karagin.
Edited by Cray (12/03/05 02:37 AM)
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Karagin
12/03/05 12:27 PM
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Cray you never talk about anything you talk down to those who don't buy the Jihad and it's storyline.
I am not weasling out of anything Cray and again you are turning things into something they are not. Why is it that when pressed about the issue and unrealistic aspects of the Jihad do those that support it turn it into a personal issue or try to personnelly insult the folks who are trying to show that it just doesn't work?
You state time and again that they have to have Terra to do all they do, yet now you change your stance and then try to turn this into a personal war or issue between you and me, sorry Cray it's not.
If you want to disucss this without the personel attacks or comments then we can if not then please step out of the topic and let's end this on friendly note.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Cray
12/03/05 01:15 PM
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I apologize for talking down to you in the last post, Karagin, but I was irritated when you claimed I forgot the monetary issue of WoB when you know I'm always happy to spew numbers. I'll avoid the ad hominem arguments if you do.
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I am not weasling out of anything Cray
Cool. So, what are the cost numbers you say make WoB's rise unrealistic?
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You state time and again that they have to have Terra to do all they do , yet now you change your stance
Karagin, I'm not changing my stance. It looks like you've just missed half my argument until now. My ENTIRE point about Terra is that it can deliver most or all of what WoB needs but since (as you well know) WoB has additional resources (like the FWL), WoB should have absolutely no problem meeting its manpower, monetary, or industrial needs. That's the whole argument I'm trying to get across. You're welcome to quote and review any of my posts that you think say otherwise.
Now, I'd also be happy to show you how the WoB militia is also very cheap compared to WoB's monetary resources, but to do that, I'd need to see your cost estimates on WoB.
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.
Edited by Cray (12/03/05 01:16 PM)
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Auren_Shiro
12/03/05 07:03 PM
65.96.9.70
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Meh. For the numbers, I can see how they can have it... but that won't change the fact that the Jihad story-line sucks, and if Mechassault 2 is part of the Jihad. I hate it oh so more.
Need...more...Nevcrack...
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Karagin
12/03/05 07:10 PM
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Yes Cray you are. You state again right here that Terra gives them everything they need, yet before you say it doesn't. Please make up your mind.
My cost of the WoB is based of the cost of any mech or vehicle, the ammo needed to field, the cost of the techs to keep it running, the cost of the food to feed them and the pilots and crews...add to this the cost of the ships and fighters and their crews and techs etc...all adds up to a lot more money then the WoB would have, yet they seem to have everything because you keep trying to claim they hold Terra.
So which is it Cray? Either they have money without the need of Terra or they don't have all the money and Terra has been written in as their golden goose no matter that the facts of cost of all related issues fails to support this.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Karagin
12/03/05 07:11 PM
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Yes Mechassault is a part of the Jihad related storyline.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Cray
12/03/05 07:24 PM
68.200.110.190
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Quote:
Meh. For the numbers, I can see how they can have it... but that won't change the fact that the Jihad story-line sucks, and if Mechassault 2 is part of the Jihad. I hate it oh so more.
I can't disagree with that. YMMV with any plot line.
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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Cray
12/03/05 07:29 PM
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Quote:
Yes Mechassault is a part of the Jihad related storyline.
A non-canon part. The video games are never canon until they get into a published SB.
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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Auren_Shiro
12/03/05 07:41 PM
65.96.9.70
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Well... I suppose, Natasha Kerensky should be dead, but hey! She's in the Dragoons and doing just fine, in 3060 at least, and I know she's a dead pilot by I guess(?) 3059 or so.
And lemme tell you. There's no better broken shit then WoB having an 8 legged running spider that's roughly 15 times bigger then an Atlas.
Or the thing that's like 30 times the size of a regular mech... which I've yet to figure out how this guy would take it to some other world to kick some ass with it, it's as big as a Union Dropship... and doesn't fly.
That's why I hate the Jihad and Word of Blake.
Need...more...Nevcrack...
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Cray
12/03/05 08:02 PM
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Quote:
My cost of the WoB is based of the cost of any mech or vehicle, the ammo needed to field, the cost of the techs to keep it running, the cost of the food to feed them and the pilots and crews...add to this the cost of the ships and fighters and their crews and techs etc...all adds up to a lot more money then the WoB would have
That statement is unsupported without some numbers. What's the insurmountable bill to build the WoB militia?
We both have the costs of mechs and vehicles, ammo, and rules for running BT military units. You ought to be able to post a nice, hard number with plenty of supporting information that can be reviewed by any reader.
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Yes Cray you are. You state again right here that Terra gives them everything they need, yet before you say it doesn't. Please make up your mind.
I think you misread the what I stated earlier, but your mind looks pretty made up about this. If anyone else wants to see which of us is correct about my statements about Terra, they have this whole thread to make up their own mind.
Edited by Cray (12/03/05 08:05 PM)
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Karagin
12/03/05 08:56 PM
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The cost is there for all to see, if you want me to post the price of a battlemech then here is one
Red Shift :2,942,400 C-Bills
So they buy a battalions worth of these and all the others that they will need and yet you claim that they can afford to keep this mech and all the others up and running, the techs feed, the pilots in good health, the infantry supported and supplied and still have money to fund a warship program as well as all the other little plans and plots...
I haven't misread anything, you state that they need Terra, have been doing so for several years now, then right here is this thread you say while it's improtant it's not needed since they have the FWL money. So again Cray which is it? If they don't need Terra then why did they waste time and effort and money and material taking it from ComStar to start with?
And you are correct, I have made up my mind on this issue, until a resonable and believable explanation is given that covers all the areas I have mention, which seem to be some of the same areas that have come up when other folks have pointed out the faults and flaws of the Jihad, then I have to give things a new look. But so far NOTHING has been done to address these and while your efforts are nice, they don't give us anything set in the BT universe, because you are taking reality and trying to feed it into BT.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Cray
12/03/05 09:31 PM
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Quote:
The cost is there for all to see, if you want me to post the price of a battlemech then here is one
No, that's not what I wanted. I was interested in the total price of the WoB militia. Are we talking 1 billion CB? 1 trillion? Please, this is the hard number you can use to make your point.
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I haven't misread anything, you state that they need Terra, have been doing so for several years now, then right here is this thread you say while it's improtant it's not needed since they have the FWL money.
No, Karagin, that's not what I said. I never said "Terra isn't needed." If I did, quote the line where I did.
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.
Edited by Cray (12/03/05 09:35 PM)
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Karagin
12/04/05 12:57 AM
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We are done Cray. You say you want to talk about this, yet when I post the info you want starting with the basic area that is the issue you aren't happy, then you have to keep at the personel level of things. You have stated that Terra wasn't the most important thing to the WoB here in this thread, as for pointing it out, it's easy enough to find, just read your thread from the last two to three days.
So thanks for your input but we are done with the thread now.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Cray
12/04/05 01:27 AM
68.200.110.190
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Quote:
We are done Cray. You say you want to talk about this, yet when I post the info you want starting with the basic area
No, Karagin, you didn't post the information I wanted. I wanted your estimate for the WoB militia's total price. Certainly the price of one mech is a start, but it doesn't show that WoB is too expensive - remember how earlier in the thread I started with the price of one mech and showed that WoB's expansion was affordable?
So, what do you think the total price of the WoB militia is? 10 billion? 10 trillion CB?
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You have stated that Terra wasn't the most important thing to the WoB here in this thread, as for pointing it out, it's easy enough to find, just read your thread from the last two to three days.
That's the problem. When I read my posts, I don't see what you do. I'll list everything I posted on Terra in this thread and, please, point out where I contradicted myself on the value of Terra.
My very first comment on Terran resources in this thread (Dec 1, 4:13pm) outright stated that WoB had several sources of wealth, so I established in the beginning of this thread that Terra was not alone. However, I never said Terra was anything other than important to WoB. In fact, the underlined portion shows that I thought Terra could meet the resource needs of WoB - a critical role to fill.
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However played out Terran and Martian mines are in the 3060s, there's still more than enough to meet the trivial needs of the WoB militia. Hell, WoB can probably get the tonnage of materials it needs from landfills.
Also note that WoB is buying off the open Inner Sphere market, meaning many of the WoB mechs aren't built with Terran resources.
Then I said:
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For all the resources that WoB needs to build even an AFFC-sized military, it could be stuck on a small, metal-poor planet. Terra is overkill for WoB.
Which still doesn't say "Terra isn't the most important thing for WoB." Next, I said:
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In reality, WoB's militia is probably smaller and has an average tonnage below 100, so the required tonnage of materials is less than a piddly 1 million tons, and thus dwarfed by the output of a resource-starved future Terra. (Though Terra manages to stay pretty wealthy - its 6 billion people have a sweet lifestyle.)
Again, still nothing to support your claim. This next quote alludes to the fact that at "a minimum" WoB has Terra for manpower needs, but nothing about denying Terra's importance.
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As yet another point on why manpower is a non-issue, WoB has access to a minimum of 40x the US's WW2-era manpower and only needs about 1% of the personnel that the US put in uniform between 1940 and 1945.
This next quote set you off, I think, but it still doesn't claim that Terra is anything but very important to WoB (note the underlined portion):
Quote:
Oh, Terra doesn't answer everything. WoB obviously went abroad to buy a lot of its mechs. But it's a perfect fit for its militia manpower needs. (Though WoB has a lot of other choices. Old Comstar influenced a lot of worlds.)
And here I was trying to explain my position on Terra to you but, again, there's nothing in here that says Terra is unimportant to WoB:
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Terra is certainly a damned useful resource for WoB. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that without Terra, the Jihad wouldn't be feasible. But it's not the only resource for WoB. You've got TR:Phoenix, TR:3067, DotJ, and FM:Comstar, right? So you should know that WoB has been buying mechs off the open market, getting funds from the FWL, and has access to supporters across the Inner Sphere.
If I've given the impression that I was saying Terra MUST BE the be-all, end-all source for all things WoB, I apologize. I didn't mean to. It's definitely useful, probably critical, but WoB certainly has other resources to supplement it.
In the next post, I just sort of repeated my previous post. Again, there's nothing in here that says Terra's a small factor.
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How you get the impression that I mean, "Terra's a small factor" when I just said, "Terra is certainly a damned useful resource for WoB. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that without Terra, the Jihad wouldn't be feasible," eludes me.
Then I tried to explain myself in a different fashion. Once again, nothing in this quote says that Terra is a small factor:
Quote:
My ENTIRE point about Terra is that it can deliver most or all of what WoB needs but since (as you well know) WoB has additional resources (like the FWL), WoB should have absolutely no problem meeting its manpower, monetary, or industrial needs. That's the whole argument I'm trying to get across. You're welcome to quote and review any of my posts that you think say otherwise.
So, which of those quotes says that Terra is a small factor? Did I miss any of my quotes about Terra?
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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Cray
12/04/05 01:30 AM
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Quote:
And lemme tell you. There's no better broken shit then WoB having an 8 legged running spider that's roughly 15 times bigger then an Atlas.
Um...WoB doesn't have that. That's the sort of thing that makes the video games so utterly non-canon.
Quote:
Or the thing that's like 30 times the size of a regular mech... which I've yet to figure out how this guy would take it to some other world to kick some ass with it, it's as big as a Union Dropship... and doesn't fly.
You're correct, that doesn't fly. WoB doesn't have anything like that. The computer game writers who came up with that shit were smoking crack. The "real" WoB in Battletech has nothing like that.
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That's why I hate the Jihad and Word of Blake.
Good news: WoB and the Jihad have nothing like those abominations in Battletech. They might in the video game, but the video game is, at best, only vaguely related to the published plot line.
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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Auren_Shiro
12/04/05 02:07 AM
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If it was that big, I'd like to know how 4 machine-guns (Still the most broken weapon in all of BT) could kill it.
In anycase, They were fun in the arcadey shooter sense, but nothing more.
Still, I hate nuclear tantrums.
Need...more...Nevcrack...
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Karagin
12/04/05 02:22 AM
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As I said Cray we are done with this. Move on to something else.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Cray
12/04/05 09:52 AM
68.200.110.190
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Quote:
If it was that big, I'd like to know how 4 machine-guns (Still the most broken weapon in all of BT) could kill it.
Those giants are not in Battletech, just the computer game.
Incidentally, how are MGs broken in the boardgame? They're very ineffective weapons with only a range of 3 and 2 points of damage. You're usually much better off getting a medium laser for the tonnage of 1 MG and its ammo (unless you wanted a dedicated infantry killing weapon).
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Still, I hate nuclear tantrums.
That's understandable. Worse, unlike giant spider mechs, the nuclear tantrums are in the canon Jihad.
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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Cray
12/04/05 09:53 AM
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As I said Cray we are done with this. Move on to something else.
We're done but you want the last word?
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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Auren_Shiro
12/04/05 01:34 PM
65.96.9.70
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Best Heat-Damage-Tonnage-Ammo Ratio, EVER for the Mguns...
As for diwnlding resources in BT. I laugh at your stupidity of saying that the IS will run out of resources. Remember, the maps you get show only inhabitated systems, not the uninhabited systems.
Need...more...Nevcrack...
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Cray
12/04/05 02:38 PM
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Quote:
Best Heat-Damage-Tonnage-Ammo Ratio, EVER for the Mguns...
You're not talking about the boardgame, are you? MGs might have a decent balance of weight, heat, etc., but their range of 3 hexes makes them utterly useless in open combat.
For example, I just ran a boardgame battle two weekends ago with 10 MGs in play (4 PHX-1 Phoenix Hawks, 1 STG-3R Stinger) and the MGs only delivered 8 points of damage throughout the battle. All the damage was done with lasers and LRMs (on the merc side) and lasers and PPCs (on the pirate side). But go figure: most of the combat occurred at 3-8 hexes range (a good L1 brawl) where MGs either can't reach or have hideous target numbers. It's a pretty sad weapon that has +4 range modifier at 3 hexes...
In fact, the MGs were so useless in battle that the merc player spent some of his salvage awards to rip out all of the MGs from his 'Hawks and replaced them with 2 heat sinks per mech (converting to the PHX-1D variant).
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As for diwnlding resources in BT. I laugh at your stupidity of saying that the IS will run out of resources. Remember, the maps you get show only inhabitated systems, not the uninhabited systems.
Who are you addressing? I never said the IS will run out of resources. In fact, I've pointed that asteroid mining in Sol alone would meet all of the IS's resource needs (my post on Dec 1st), let alone all the millions of the other systems in the Inner Sphere.
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.
Edited by Cray (12/04/05 02:41 PM)
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