Talk:Phantom 'Mech

Line Developer ruling (archived for reference)

On 05 October, 2009, 04:38:49 am, BattleTech Line Developer Herbert A. Beas (as user "HABEAS2") posted the following in a thread on the CBT forum (retrieved for reference from the forum archive):
(Begin quote)

---

Quote from: Cray on 05 Oct, 2009, 03:49:29 am
There are no "true" energy shields in BattleTech. BT is generally grounded either in real science or even lower tech than the real world. Star Trekkian stuff like shields are out.
The closest match is the ultra-strong magnetic field of the "Blue Shield" system, which slightly reduces the damage of PPCs (and PPCs only) at the expense of greatly increased maintenance caused by sucking any slightly magnetic item or dust into the magnetic coils.

This would clearly be the point in our program where I remind the people asking such questions that even though a "Yellow Star" (PTB) has answered the question, the fact that he is not me, Ben Rome, or Randall Bills--AND because he did so outside of the official Fan Interaction boards--that he is not necessarily telling you the truth. In fact, it's a well known fact that Cray's a big, fat liar when he wants to be.

...But not here. The video and computer game renditions of BattleTech have all strayed from canon in one manner or another, be it in subtle ways like a totally unrelated combat and construction system, to wildly off-tech ways like coming up with energy shields. In fact, there is no such thing as an energy shield system in BattleTech. Never was. The Blue Shield system is, in essence, a particle field dampener that disperses the charged particles of an incoming PPC, diffusing it before impact to negate some--but never quite all--of its effect. The "shields" in CHI were (to my mind) likely more like a charged fence-line that was well and good as long as you were playing "by the rules" to stay inside, used to control Mech trainees as long as the academy was in control of the machines they were using--like an invisible fence for Mechs. The "shields" in MW2 were patently wrong.

The Steiner Coliseum was a Blue Shield system writ large and backed by walls of mesh-reinforced ferroglass (a clear, anti-ballistic material akin to what's used in BattleMech cockpits). The screens detonated missiles prematurely and could deflect or absorb full-power laser and energy blasts with some resiliency while active. But as we learned at the dawn of the Civil War, this giant bit of Lostech was easily destroyed once the power grid went down.

In fact, the following technologies DO NOT EXIST in BattleTech:

Artificial gravity/Antigravity (other than through acceleration/rotational force)
Warp Drive (KF-style jumping and HPGs are more of a hyperpsace wormhole effect)
Anti-Matter (You want a big boom, you're stuck with nukes)
Singularity/Black Hole power sources (No, No, and ****** no)
Energy Shields (Oh, wait; we mentioned that, didn't we?)
Nanotechnology (If we had nanotech, would BattleMechs still weigh in the tens of tons? I don't think so!)
Time Travel (NO, the Manassass does not count)
Tractor Beams (Unless you wanna call a harpoon a tractor beam...)
Replicators/Holosuites (If I have to explain why to you, do me a favor and kick YOURSELF in the crotch)
Teleporters/energy-matter transporters (Seriously, see above)
Trans-dimensional travel (The BattleTech universe is one timeline, not a Marvel comic multiverse)
Sentient AIs (Skynet is depressed; it had plans for the Atlas)
Lightsabers (There is no "try". There is only "do not")
Star-killing super weapons (Right...)

Other things not in BattleTech:
Magic (some strange shit happens, yes, but most of these can be played off as near-death experiences and hallucinations)
Telepathy/telekinesis/clairvoyance (Face it guys, the Nova Cats just smoke some weird shit, and those Nekakami guys just have fun bags of tricks)
Sentient aliens (Sorry; we remain committed to a strictly man-vs-man universe, at least as far as everyone can tell)

Someone probably will wat to bookmark this....

- Herb

---

(End quote) Frabby 22:10, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

So, where does this leave Far Country? ;) --Peregry 07:25, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Talk page

Kell Hounds sourcebook

Hi everybody, this is my first post and I hope i am doing it right. If not, please let me know. The Phantom mech ability was mentioned in the vintage Kell Hounds Scenario Pack (early 90ties I think) and this Book had Rules about it but no explanation how it works. I do own the Book, but saddly do not know where I stored it. Ps As you might have noticed, English is not my first language. So please let my know if I make some serious mistakes! Mad Hatter 11:19 GST 17 September 2008

Hi, first off, welcome to the BattleTechWiki! Regarding the Kell Hounds sourcebook, I have it (although only the German edition). Its content has already been worked into the article as far as I can tell. You are of course invited and encouraged to be bold and add any improvements to the text that you feel are appropriate. Frabby 16:34, 18 September 2008 (CDT) (Btw I took the liberty to add headers to this talk page to improve readability.)

Category

Guys, I could only find snippets of this across the Internet. Does anyone have the supposed rules supplement this came from? Also, does anyone think a Category for "moves" like Alpha strike, Death from Above, and this one is a good idea? Haruspex 03:40, 13 February 2008 (CST)

Although I also remeber that a "Phantom Mech" ability was mentioned somewhere I could not find it. I have taken the liberty to rewrite the article as the issue should be treated as an enigmatic event rather than an established combat maneuver. Frabby 05:44, 13 February 2008 (CST)

Fair enough. I have no evidence to support it's existence as a skill anyhow except one site, but that was very likely third-person. Maybe FASA didn't want to encourage this kind of thing (supernatural skills). Though MW:DA might bring it back if they haven't already.Haruspex 06:02, 13 February 2008 (CST)

There are no rules for this. It was in the Warrior trilogy novels, but no game supplements. --Scaletail 16:31, 13 February 2008 (CST)

And we already started discussing how to group these together on Talk:alpha strike. --Scaletail 16:32, 13 February 2008 (CST)

Wizkid Clickytech

I'm not an old CBT player, but I am familar with some of the universe because of the wizkids tabletop game Mechwarrior Age of Destruction (Clickytech). I don't know if this exists inside CBT, but in the Clickytech world, the Word of Blake had this powerful "Nullsig" system that would render the mech equipped invisible to all sensors. I have also seen this present in the MechAssualt videogames. Inside Clickytech houses have struggled to find a broken W.o.B. mech so that the can acquire this technology.

http://www.warrenborn.com/Unit.php?ID=AN-G-069 this is a link to an online copy of the Clickytech rules for Nullsig

http://www.warrenborn.com/Unit.php?ID=FI086 this is a link to an online copy of a unit that according to cannon has a half functioning nullsig. — The preceding unsigned comment was posted by 65.1.235.251 (talk • contribs) on August 5, 2008.

The Null Signature System is an experimental technology in CBT, and so is not tournament legal. --Scaletail 18:22, 5 August 2008 (CDT)

IR Spike

I vaguely remember these events from reading the Warrior Trilogy. It is cool background material. I am curious about the IR signature of Patrick Kell's Victor. Though never formally explained, if BattleMech armor has an emissivity 0 < ε < 1, a large temperature spike caused by impact of a pair of PPC blasts should result in a concurrent IR spike; perhaps this may be the foundation of a non-mystical explanation for these events (though even with IR spikes, there are leaps of faith with this explanation). I plan on adding this alternative explanation to the entry.--S.gage 20:03, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I think this maybe a case of retro-con. Current Writers didn't like supernatural or ESP possiblities that Michael Stackpole's early books suggested. Its too bad they didn't combine what Stackpole was doing with that uber ablity that the Kells and Yorinaga Kurita suppose to have. I looking forward to your alternate explaination. Personally i like the having touch of supernatural in BT as long its not out of control. -- Wrangler 20:07, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

In-novel first-person accounts state that a mechwarrior with this ability has his mech show up visually but not on heat or mag sensors. The weapon systems of other mechs are also unable to register a foe and lock on. Additionally, Yorinaga Kurtia only obtained this ability after the initial confrontation with Morgan Kell, spending years in mediation to gain it. If a battlemech is at least partially controlled by a pilot's brainwaves, could a possible theory be that the mech is broadcasting a signal generated by a certain brainwave pattern? This would then tell other battlemechs not to register that machine as a target. Khansemus 05:48, 12 March 2011 (UTC)