KickStarter BattleTech Pre-Release Thread

[Infinitron]

 

[Kem0sabe]

In all honesty I think those were written by an intern or something, who didn't bother checking the usual sources (devs would often post about how long they spent on Sarna)
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/DropShip
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/JumpShip

Obviously Jordan is free to do whatever he wants with his universe, but somehow I don't think these introductory conversation snippets in the early game are intended to change the usual "dropships are incapable of FTL travel and so need to slowly make their way out to jumpships" and "jumpships usually jump max 30 LY" conventions, which would change so much, from the established history of the setting to the balance of power (no Comstar info monopoly or interdictions I guess) to the gameplay.

I guess it could be fun attacking planets with FTL dropships though

the biggest issue isnt even the lore, its the info dump style of writing, which is fucking terrible.

 

[Grotesque]

Obviously Jordan is free to do whatever he wants with his universe

he's not free to do whatever he wants.

because doing it, it's like shitting in the mouths of all franchise supporters.

 

[Cael]

Is that a tweet? Forum post? Your filehost didn't load for me.

Sorry, no idea what's going on with some usually reliable hosts the last couple of days. And they're still working for some.

anyway, rehosted

Spoiler

How can FTL take weeks to get to a Jump point? The Jump point is above or below the Sun. It takes light 8min 15sec to get from the Sun to Earth. Where are their planets located in the solar system? The Oort Cloud?

HBS once again showing complete and total ignorance of basic principles and talking out of their ass.

 

[Cael]

Obviously Jordan is free to do whatever he wants with his universe

he's not free to do whatever he wants.

because doing it, it's like shitting in the mouths of all franchise supporters.

For those people who are interested in the original BTech descriptions:

1. JumpShips are basically massive engines. At a very basic level, they consist of the Jump drive, some low powered manoeuvring thrusters, the solar sail, the bridge and living quartes for the crew and that's it. They are too big to land on planets and are barely mobile even in space.
2. Jump points are places in the system where the gravitational influence by the various bodies are more or less balanced out. That usually mean just above and below the Sun. That is where most JumpShips will end up when they jump into a system, and then they have to use other means to travel to the destination planet.
3. Sometimes, because of the planetary movements, you can get areas within the system where the gravity is balanced for a short period of time. People with extremely accurate charts can predict these temporary areas and Jump into them, but they are risky as hell. However, the advantage is that if you pick the right area, you may Jump into a position to get to the destination planet far faster due to the shorter distance to the planet. These are what is called pirate Jump points (or pirate points).
4. To move material to planets, they need planetary landers. No space elevators in BTech. That is where DropShips come in. They move goods, passengers and military materiel to and from Jump points. They are basically armoured (sometimes armed) fusion powered rockets with cargo holds. As they are basically rockets, they work in Newtonian space, not Relativistic space (i.e., NOT faster-than-light). Depending on the distance of the planet from its sun, the usual description is 5 to 7 days to make the trip from the Jump point to the planet surface.

This is fairly accurate to real life physics. A 7 day trip from the Sun to Earth would mean the DropShip is moving at an average of 89000kph, which is not that bad for something that is constantly accelerating for a couple of days (current record for rockets is 58,536kph set by New Horizons in 2006, but this is just the launch velocity; it would be much higher if continued to accelerate after launch).

In short, HBS is trying to inject Star Trek into BTech in order to sexy it up for millennial soy boys. The existing franchise fans can go kill themselves, as Kevin so lovingly told us multiple times already.

 

[Fredward]

People, seriously. They're hardly sitting there, steeple fingered, wondering how they can best rustle the jimmies of their oldest fans. They're adapting an old system to 2018 and encountering issues and complications people on a gaming forum simply know nothing about. Fictional worlds don't owe you consistency and adaptation isn't a personal slight. The majority of the ye olde fans on the Paradox forum seems to get this, fortunately.

 

[Cael]

People, seriously. They're hardly sitting there, steeple fingered, wondering how they can best rustle the jimmies of their oldest fans. They're adapting an old system to 2018 and encountering issues and complications people on a gaming forum simply know nothing about. Fictional worlds don't owe you consistency and adaptation isn't a personal slight. The majority of the ye olde fans on the Paradox forum seems to get this, fortunately.

Grow the fuck up, you retard. How can travelling FASTER THAN LIGHT TAKE SEVERAL THOUSAND TIMES LONGER TO REACH A DESTINATION THAN LIGHT ITSELF? That is not "adapting an old system". That is just pure fucking arrogant STUPIDITY. HBS is staffed by people who FAILED KINDERGARDEN.

 

[Bohr]

People, seriously. They're hardly sitting there, steeple fingered, wondering how they can best rustle the jimmies of their oldest fans. They're adapting an old system to 2018 and encountering issues and complications people on a gaming forum simply know nothing about. Fictional worlds don't owe you consistency and adaptation isn't a personal slight. The majority of the ye olde fans on the Paradox forum seems to get this, fortunately.

Stuff like adjusting the initiative system or buffing autocannons are them adapting the system, which most fans have accepted, the above descriptions (if true) would throw a lot of the setting out of the window for no gameplay benefits, which is why I think it's just a mistake by someone who didn't know what they're doing. And yes, it's been questioned on the PDX forums, just look at the thread of questions for this Thursday's Q&A.

Given the cutscenes of the dropships taking days to get the planets I don't think they've actually introduced FTL dropships (light takes about an hour to travel the supposed 10 AU to the jump point in the Sol system, for example). But the most important question I hope they answer is actually about the salvage system, where finding 3 pieces of chassis salvage means they are instantly assembled into a new mech, at no cost, with a 'free' full stock loadout without requiring one to have the weapons to fit on it. There is some talk that this isn't working as intended but as it's one of the reasons the streamers are breeezing through the game it would be good to know if this is a bug - or an 'adaptation generating complications'.

 

[Cael]

Stuff like adjusting the initiative system or buffing autocannons are them adapting the system, which most fans have accepted, the above descriptions (if true) would throw a lot of the setting out of the window for no gameplay benefits, which is why I think it's just a mistake by someone who didn't know what they're doing. And yes, it's been questioned on the PDX forums, just look at the thread of questions for this Thursday's Q&A.

Given the cutscenes of the dropships taking days to get the planets I don't think they've actually introduced FTL dropships (light takes about an hour to travel the supposed 10 AU to the jump point in the Sol system, for example). But the most important question I hope they answer is actually about the salvage system, where finding 3 pieces of chassis salvage means they are instantly assembled into a new mech, at no cost, with a 'free' full stock loadout without requiring one to have the weapons to fit on it. There is some talk that this isn't working as intended but as it's one of the reasons the streamers are breeezing through the game it would be good to know if this is a bug - or an 'adaptation generating complications'.

It can't be 10 AU for the simple reason JumpShips use solar energy to power their jump drives. That is what the jump sail is for. At 10 AU, there is no meaningful amount of solar energy to collect. Once again, HBS shows their complete ignorance on the subject, and worse, they are revelling in that ignorance.

NOTE: None of the stuff I have posted about BTech technology is new. 5 minutes browsing Sarna.net would have given them all the information they needed. The fuckers never bothered to do that. Their claim to have spent hours browsing Sarna.net? It was either a complete LIE or they were wanking to pictures of 'mechs (or maybe Natasha).

 

[Grotesque]

where finding 3 pieces of chassis salvage means they are instantly assembled into a new mech, at no cos

the pieces has to be from any mech model of a particular class or from a particular model?

and if I have 3 legs from a particular model, I can assemble a whole mech from those?

 

[Fredward]

Stuff like adjusting the initiative system or buffing autocannons are them adapting the system, which most fans have accepted, the above descriptions (if true) would throw a lot of the setting out of the window for no gameplay benefits, which is why I think it's just a mistake by someone who didn't know what they're doing. And yes, it's been questioned on the PDX forums, just look at the thread of questions for this Thursday's Q&A.

Given the cutscenes of the dropships taking days to get the planets I don't think they've actually introduced FTL dropships (light takes about an hour to travel the supposed 10 AU to the jump point in the Sol system, for example). But the most important question I hope they answer is actually about the salvage system, where finding 3 pieces of chassis salvage means they are instantly assembled into a new mech, at no cost, with a 'free' full stock loadout without requiring one to have the weapons to fit on it. There is some talk that this isn't working as intended but as it's one of the reasons the streamers are breeezing through the game it would be good to know if this is a bug - or an 'adaptation generating complications'.

Yeah, if that isn't a misunderstanding or someone running with half the story then it does seem silly. I've also talked about ways to make salvaging mechs more difficult on the Paradox forums.

I had more this in mind while I was writing my post:

If the streamers are hitting left and right on light 'mechs, HBS has frakked up the whole game. Take it out back, Jim, and spread the ashes. End of story.

 

[Cael]

I had more this in mind while I was writing my post:

If the streamers are hitting left and right on light 'mechs, HBS has frakked up the whole game. Take it out back, Jim, and spread the ashes. End of story.

Are you retarded? The old system allowed light 'mechs to survive and contribute on the battlefield. The new system make them obsolete. Glorified gunnery targets. How is that a good adaptation?

 

[Grotesque]

At 10 AU, there is no meaningful amount of solar energy to collect.

So at what distance it must be from a star like the sun to collect the needed energy? Because the closer to the sun it gets, the closer it will be to the gravitational well of the solar system.
For the jump ship not to be affected by gravity too much, it would need to be in the Kuiper belt at 50 AU from the sun.
I don't get why above or below the sun in respect to the orbital plane.

 

[Bohr]

where finding 3 pieces of chassis salvage means they are instantly assembled into a new mech, at no cos

the pieces has to be from any mech model of a particular class or from a particular model?

and if I have 3 legs from a particular model, I can assemble a whole mech from those?

You need pieces from a specific variant, there are no different "head" or "leg" pieces, but you get differing levels of salvage depending on whether the mech was cored (1pc) legged (2pc) or headshotted (3pc). Thing is though, although headshotting the mech may be low probability, you can also get three pieces by killing the pilot. Wounds accumulate from knockdowns, side torso destruction, sometimes from ammo explosions, small chance from LRMs etc. And this overrides everything so I've seen a streamer kill a pilot on a mech that had been really shot up, missing a leg, arm and side torso - then got three salvage. Also not sure if this is intended.

I still think something is broken with building mechs from chassis parts, as you currently get this bizarre outcome where buying three parts (=instant pristine mech) is so much cheaper than buying the mech - see COM-1B here:

Spoiler

But I also saw devs "respectfully disagreeing" with those who said the way the 3-piece salvage system was currently working was bugged, so hope they clarify things in tomorrow's Q&A

 

[Cael]

At 10 AU, there is no meaningful amount of solar energy to collect.

So at what distance it must be from a star like the sun to collect the needed energy? Because the closer to the sun it gets, the closer it will be to the gravitational well of the solar system.
For the jump ship not to be affected by gravity too much, it would need to be in the Kuiper belt at 50 AU from the sun.
I don't get why above or below the sun in respect to the orbital plane.

Much closer than 1 AU, according to what has been written. The DropShips always had to travel to the planet from the Sun. That means probably in the region of Mercury orbit or even nearer. There has not been exact descriptions of jumps, not even in the Twilight of the Clans series where they were jumping for a year to get to Huntress.

I don't think the gravitational well is the problem. Note that this part of the whole jump thing has always been sort of glossed over. All that was said was that the gravitation effects is balanced out. Note that there are multiple times in the books where ships jump INTO the system via prate points. Therefore, the 50 AU thing does not apply.

 

[Infinitron]

Oh hey:



Wasn't there already a story trailer?

 

[Bohr]

They had this one with some of the same scenes

Spoiler

But I guess they wanted to splice in some more McCain and Jordan

 

[Bohr]

 

[Galdred]

At 10 AU, there is no meaningful amount of solar energy to collect.

So at what distance it must be from a star like the sun to collect the needed energy? Because the closer to the sun it gets, the closer it will be to the gravitational well of the solar system.
For the jump ship not to be affected by gravity too much, it would need to be in the Kuiper belt at 50 AU from the sun.
I don't get why above or below the sun in respect to the orbital plane.

It is true that both gravity and radiations are in 1/R_squared, but the gravitational pull only locks you into a given orbit (unless your velocity is zero or close to it, then it makes you go into a collision course with the sun). It doesn't "cost" you any energy to remain at a given orbit.
Of course, the main difference is the orbits you can select.
Note that the dropships don't need to escape the gravitational field of the sun, given that they are only used for intra system transportation. So they can just move from one orbit to another with the energy provided by the sails, but remaining at a given orbit is more or less free (except for life support and this sort of things).
On the other hand, the sail gives you more energy the closer you are from the sun. At 10 AU, the sail would get 100 times less energy than at 1 AU.

 

[Cael]

At 10 AU, there is no meaningful amount of solar energy to collect.

So at what distance it must be from a star like the sun to collect the needed energy? Because the closer to the sun it gets, the closer it will be to the gravitational well of the solar system.
For the jump ship not to be affected by gravity too much, it would need to be in the Kuiper belt at 50 AU from the sun.
I don't get why above or below the sun in respect to the orbital plane.

It is true that both gravity and radiations are in 1/R_squared, but the gravitational pull only locks you into a given orbit (unless your velocity is zero or close to it, then it makes you go into a collision course with the sun). It doesn't "cost" you any energy to remain at a given orbit.
Of course, the main difference is the orbits you can select.
Note that the dropships don't need to escape the gravitational field of the sun, given that they are only used for intra system transportation. So they can just move from one orbit to another with the energy provided by the sails, but remaining at a given orbit is more or less free (except for life support and this sort of things).
On the other hand, the sail gives you more energy the closer you are from the sun. At 10 AU, the sail would get 100 times less energy than at 1 AU.

Only JumpShips have sails. DropShips don't as they are too small.

 

[Grotesque]

also a sail is for movement, not for energy acumulation.
It should be named solar panel. but meh...

 

[Cael]

also a sail is for movement, not for energy acumulation.
It should be named solar panel. but meh...

It is called a sail because it is actually a fabric and is deployed in a parabola. Jump umbrella just sounds too stupid, I guess :D

 

[Black]

How to curb your hype in one tweet.

 

[Cael]

How to curb your hype in one tweet.

Pa- pa- pacific... rim...??? Da f-

 

[Jimmious]

Out of curiosity how would you as an (autistic) Battletech fan describe the setting to someone that has no idea about it (which obviously is the target audience of these trailers since the fans know about the game since it was crowdfunded)?