KickStarter BattleTech Pre-Release Thread

[HumanTotemPole]

I do love me a Warhawk (even if the feet are retarded).

PLEASE GOD LET THE GAME BE GOOD PLEASE

 

[Cyberarmy]

I don't really want to get hyped but than I saw my brothers wallpaper...

 

[Darkzone]

First example are on an animal with highly specialized legs meant to propel them that aren't built for walk, much less carrying much weight. Have you ever seen a grasshopper try to walk? They can manage but it's not what their hind legs are designed for. They're also built primarily to give a grasshopper a quick means of escape, not a the best animal or leg to build a combat vehicle around.

The Grasshopper has this joints this was so that he can have the long legs. If it would be the common joints the grasshopper wouldn't have the space for this long legs because of the ground. That is nearly the only true reason. The legs are storing as much as possible energy and release it, as fast as possible. And therefore this are the strongest legs. This legs are made for jumping but could be also used for running if the grasshopper could control the release of energy, but he cant. This legs work more like a spring that has to be loaded.
This case alone invalidated the statement that the "reverse" joint legs are weaker, because this are the strongest legs on a grasshopper.

Second is a machine built pretty much like any four legged animal, but this isn't Star Wars, the franchise theme is bipedal mecha.

This robot is build with different joints in different positions. His hind legs are like normal animal hind legs, but his forelegs joints are reversed to his hind legs.

Third is an animal with legs built for running, not carrying much weight and a bird at that whose every bit of their body is centered around saving weight to fly (in the ostriches ancestors case, in which the ostrich has re-purposed for speed on land). As said before, good for light or very light mechs, not something the size of the Timber Wolf.

The ostrich is the biggest and most heavy alive bird, and it has good top speeds. Heavy animals like the elephant need for legs for their movement and if you look like a horse is running (the same applies to an elephant) the forward driving legs are the hind legs. The front legs hold the animal more only in its horizontal position (support role).
The power to drive the animal forward comes from it's gluteus muscles and mostly from the Biceps femoris, and this is very different to as, where the gluteus and the quadriceps complex are doing all of the work for the forward movement.
And if you look at the lower angles of animals like dogs and also horses and elephants the hind legs have the kind of reversed joint legs (in opposition to human movement). This is also because the femur is very shorter and etc...
http://www.allhorseyinfo.com/images/Horse_Anatomy_the_Muscles_by_Wiggle_Chicken.jpg


I could explain this all in detail but it is nonsense in such a forum.

I know. It's never sat right with me.
I blame that on inertia and the franchises popularity. The Timber Wolf is THE mech in the franchise in most eyes (most of all the eyes that did the franchise marketing) and God forbid someone would tamper with even if that tempering made sense and would result in a better design.
That does remind me too that plating and shielding isn't used often in Battletech designs and armour thickness is something you have to look to the numbered stats of a mech to see where it's thin or thickest at as oppose to a tank or human armour where it's visibly mostly mounted forward.

Observe more motion of animals, perhaps it will free you from certain thinking. I don't like the Timberwolf as a Mech. Many problems of the mechs come from the fact that the mechs were not designed by engineres.

 

[Darkzone]

I have forgotten to post the modern Marauder picture:

 

[GarfunkeL]

Beastro's analysis is good but sadly wasted on this setting: there is nothing realistic about walking giant robots. As long as the system has inner consistency (and it has enough of it for my taste by making Mechs sink like rocks and jumpjets only working for light Mechs and short periods of time), I'm happy. Any criticism of Mech appearance based on "that's unrealistic" or "in the real world, that ..." is automatically null and void, because in the real world something like a Mech would be a colossal waste of time and money - a gigantic target for every weapon system in range that cannot hide nor can it defend itself sufficiently over other forms. No amount of hand waving or unobtanium can fix this. You have to let go of those kind of gripes to enjoy the setting.

Also, the P-38 Lightning, while an exotic design, was quite workable and jet engine had existed since 1935 if I remember correctly. Not all modern tanks look identical though they are quite similar, I grant you that.

It's also good to have the game take place before the Clan invasion. While the Clans are a welcome addition of common sense on a large scale to the setting, there is something magical about the decadent era of pointless infighting between the Houses that forms the background for the "classic" BattleTech/MechWarrior time period. When advanced technology is viewed in quasi-religious terms, surviving jump ships are extremely valuable relics and most pilots operate a Mech that is older than them by an order of magnitude.

 

[Renegen]

WAT? Do you have info about this we have not heard yet?

It's not like Harebrained Schemes have gone above that. (Dragonfall is the exception and it's mostly due to its length)

 

[Zetor]

Beastro's analysis is good but sadly wasted on this setting: there is nothing realistic about walking giant robots. As long as the system has inner consistency (and it has enough of it for my taste by making Mechs sink like rocks and jumpjets only working for light Mechs and short periods of time), I'm happy. Any criticism of Mech appearance based on "that's unrealistic" or "in the real world, that ..." is automatically null and void, because in the real world something like a Mech would be a colossal waste of time and money - a gigantic target for every weapon system in range that cannot hide nor can it defend itself sufficiently over other forms. No amount of hand waving or unobtanium can fix this. You have to let go of those kind of gripes to enjoy the setting.

Pretty much. Mechs are worse than (an identical tonnage of) tanks/helicopters/planes in every way. I think some really uh... dedicated people on some wargame forum deduced that a typical force made up of Battletech mechs wouldn't stand a chance against a WW2-era army using the same resources. Clumsy, huge target profile, insane waste of resources, too many weak points for no good reason, problems with basic physics when doing simple stuff like scaling a mountain, etc etc.

The only 'mech'-like thing that would be close to viable in the real world is power armor that's impervious to small arms, because it'd change the role of infantry pretty drastically (so something like Clan Elementals could still fuck things up pretty good).

e: of course this doesn't make Battletech or other mech stuff any less awesome as a fantasy/sf setting, as long as you're not one of those people who think mech warfare is going to become reality at one point.

 

[Maelflux]

I never played the battletech games (I think). But I was a huge fan of the Cyberstorm games, which also featured turn-based battle, as well as lots of mech and pilot customizations.

 

[Darkzone]

Pretty much. Mechs are worse than (an identical tonnage of) tanks/helicopters/planes in every way. I think some really uh... dedicated people on some wargame forum deduced that a typical force made up of Battletech mechs wouldn't stand a chance against a WW2-era army using the same resources. Clumsy, huge target profile, insane waste of resources, too many weak points for no good reason, problems with basic physics when doing simple stuff like scaling a mountain, etc etc.
The only 'mech'-like thing that would be close to viable in the real world is power armor that's impervious to small arms, because it'd change the role of infantry pretty drastically (so something like Clan Elementals could still fuck things up pretty good).
e: of course this doesn't make Battletech or other mech stuff any less awesome as a fantasy/sf setting, as long as you're not one of those people who think mech warfare is going to become reality at one point.

The WW2 thing is a bit stupid. I think that one regiment of 3020ies Mechs ( 64 units) could clear the entire german army from the WW2. The AC 20 is a 120mm or larger, and nearly no tank had a 120mm in the WW2 and most of the WW2 tanks were quite slow. Also the overall fighting and damage distance of mechs is greater than of the WW2 armies. The modern armies on the other hand would devastate the mech forces with conventional weapons. Basically this would be an exchange of guided missiles. Mechs could only hold up a bit in cities, but in the open, they wouldn't last long.
This disparity between a modern army and the WW2 is evident in how easy the USA handled the Irak army, despite that fact that the Irak army was an early 1980ies army.

 

[Zetor]

WW2 army doesn't just mean tanks, it includes air support / bombers and artillery. Anyway, I'm not dedicated enough to do the number crunching, so I just have the word of this guy:

a Long Tom would have made a mediocre artillery piece in WW1, that mechs were getting outranged by panzers, and all sorts of hilarity. Weapon ranges in Battletech are generally laughably short, and with their large size and great visibility, the mechs would supposedly find themselves bombed and artilleried into oblivion.

Of course that part of the argument is silly because Battletech ranges are short due to game mechanics / playability reasons. Still, even if we assume that the mechs have "real" attack ranges, they'd still get obliterated against a late 20th century army...

 

[Darkzone]

WW2 army doesn't just mean tanks, it includes air support / bombers and artillery. Anyway, I'm not dedicated enough to do the number crunching, so I just have the word of this guy:
Of course that part of the argument is silly because Battletech ranges are short due to game mechanics / playability reasons. Still, even if we assume that the mechs have "real" attack ranges, they'd still get obliterated against a late 20th century army...

There was something that Mechweapons had a larger distance, but the targeting of the weapons was limited. Laser as an example lose their focus and inflict less damage on a distance, but they could easy make the opposite soldiers blind and this applies also to PPK.
The Long Tom artillery is more like a ship cannon with a armor piercing damage radius of 60 meter. But yes the range of a Long Tom is very short even if give them all the the best it does not go over 18 km - 27 km (range 30 maps). But they are really precise in opposite to WW2 artillery. The WW2 planes (30mm cannon = 1pt - 2pt of damage for a Mech) never had a chance against a mech or even an aerospace fighter that is 3x as fast. The WW2 planes have shot at each other at distances of under 100m - 200m, in battletech terms this is 3-7 Hexes on a normal map. Most of the aerospace fighters shoot at each other at a distance of 3 - 9 maps (0.6km - 8.1km).
The 88mm could be compared with a AC10 but its armor piercing capabilities declined fast. Even the long torm cannon mounted on a mechs shoots with ammo that weights 200kg. Even the simple machine guns on a Mech fire projectiles that weight 10kg. So yes they could manhandle WW2 tank with just their machine guns.
The WW2 army comparison is silly and nonsense, but i agree that a late 20th century army is a different kind of shoes due to the guided missiles, supreme artillery, faster and better armed and armored tanks with larger shooting distances and automated targeting abilities. Also infrared is standard in modern army while in the WW2 the germans have just discovered it. And then the Mechs possess infrared and radar and etc..

 

[Beastro]

Beastro's analysis is good but sadly wasted on this setting: there is nothing realistic about walking giant robots. As long as the system has inner consistency (and it has enough of it for my taste by making Mechs sink like rocks and jumpjets only working for light Mechs and short periods of time), I'm happy. Any criticism of Mech appearance based on "that's unrealistic" or "in the real world, that ..." is automatically null and void, because in the real world something like a Mech would be a colossal waste of time and money - a gigantic target for every weapon system in range that cannot hide nor can it defend itself sufficiently over other forms. No amount of hand waving or unobtanium can fix this. You have to let go of those kind of gripes to enjoy the setting.

Also, the P-38 Lightning, while an exotic design, was quite workable and jet engine had existed since 1935 if I remember correctly. Not all modern tanks look identical though they are quite similar, I grant you that.

I covered that talking about "psuedo-realism" - it's just a different kind of Rule of Cool that pleases that desire for something more grounded and utilitarian feeling, even if it's far from being practical in a real world sense.

P-38 was a conventional heavy fighter of the era with an uncommon, but not rare, design. The only thing that really stood out for it as a pre-war design is that it was single seated while other nations went with multi seated ones that weighed them ate into their performance badly.

What I'm talking about are pusher/pullers and other very odd looking ones that emerged near the end of the war like the Shindin, Do 335, P-82, XF5U, XP-58, and various mix-power propeller/jet hybrids. Oh these only the Saab 21 became an adopted service fighter.

Jet engines took until the end of the war to mature enough to provide better performance than their propeller contemporaries.

 

[GarfunkeL]

The WW2 army comparison is silly and nonsense, but i agree that a late 20th century army is a different kind of shoes due to the guided missiles, supreme artillery, faster and better armed and armored tanks with larger shooting distances and automated targeting abilities. Also infrared is standard in modern army while in the WW2 the germans have just discovered it. And then the Mechs possess infrared and radar and etc..

I think the point is "equal amount of resources", because for the price and amount of materials that a Mech lance/company/regiment would require, you'd get so much more WW2 era weaponry that, even if inferior, they could still put up a fight against Mechs.

 

[Gozma]

I have forgotten to post the modern Marauder picture:

Kinda boring but at least it's not completely embarrassing. Slightly offsetting the skulgun make it new IP somehow?

One thing is I wish they'd modify the "hip" so it's somewhat behind the fuselage like the original instead of directly underneath it like every other mech. It makes it look a lot more animalistic. I saw a newer Locust for "Mechwarrior Online" (which I didn't know existed) that has the same "generic hip" issue, when the original has a unique design where the fuselage is in the same horizontal plane as the (much bigger) hip. "Normal" vertical fuselage over hips configuration is why a lot of mechs look like they would flop over if they tried to move. Maybe they can't do it because of animation stuff.

 

[Darkzone]

I think the point is "equal amount of resources", because for the price and amount of materials that a Mech lance/company/regiment would require, you'd get so much more WW2 era weaponry that, even if inferior, they could still put up a fight against Mechs.

"equal amount of resources" is a problematic term in this case. How much is a Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger II worth? A Locust? Or if we take his 70t can we transfer this directly to 70t Mech? Would we count it in Reichsmark? How many Reichsmark is Comstar credits? Would be the 64 mechs and 12 aerofighters, be as expensive as the whole german army? I think that a Mech Regiment vs Third Reich would be an awesome topic for a B-Movie and hell of a fight, but honestly this is apple and oranges. I mean naturally the WW2 armies would fought bravely against BattleTech regiments, like the Suomi vs CCCP. ( I will name one MechWarrior Simo Häyhä. ) But in the end the higher technology would beat the numbers.

 

[GarfunkeL]

You have to direct those questions at Zetor, I haven't seen this comparison that he mentioned.

 

[Beastro]

I think the point is "equal amount of resources", because for the price and amount of materials that a Mech lance/company/regiment would require, you'd get so much more WW2 era weaponry that, even if inferior, they could still put up a fight against Mechs.

Also brings to mind the actual ratio of tanks to infantry in WWII, especially on the German side.

People like to criticize the M4 for having a puny gun designed for HE rounds, but the chance of running into a German tank, let alone a Tiger, was very small all the while that gun in numbers everywhere backing up the infantry rolling voer other infantry and hardened emplacements.

To model real combat in such a world as Battletech with mechs I'd think of the rarity and decisiveness of titans in WH40K (Fluff wise).

 

[Zetor]

"equal amount of resources" is a problematic term in this case. How much is a Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger II worth? A Locust? Or if we take his 70t can we transfer this directly to 70t Mech? Would we count it in Reichsmark? How many Reichsmark is Comstar credits? Would be the 64 mechs and 12 aerofighters, be as expensive as the whole german army? I think that a Mech Regiment vs Third Reich would be an awesome topic for a B-Movie and hell of a fight, but honestly this is apple and oranges. I mean naturally the WW2 armies would fought bravely against BattleTech regiments, like the Suomi vs CCCP. ( I will name one MechWarrior Simo Häyhä. ) But in the end the higher technology would beat the numbers.

You have to direct those questions at Zetor, I haven't seen this comparison that he mentioned.

Hey, I'm just the messenger... and I did say the source was very, uh, dedicated to this kind of thing. You can take a look yourself by doing a google search for "battletech" "wwii" site:bbs.stardestroyer.net ...
... holy shit, their WW1 vs Battletech thread is HOW many pages?!

 

[Tzaero]

StarDestroyer and SpaceBattles is like that.
Crazy obession over detail.

 

[Black_Willow]

Well, for those WWII - Battltech comparisons: does anybody take into account how fast the mechs are? Let's take, for example, two Panzers IV (mass 50 tones) vs Uziel (mass 50 tones). Even if we take the ridiculous range of Battletech weaponry, Uziel, running faster than 90 km/h would just get close to panzers while circling them without getting shoot - panzer's main gun isn't made for shooting targets that fast. Even if the mech got hit a few times - no prob, Panzer's 7.5 cm KwK 40 is like something between AC5 and AC10, Uziel can take that without a sweat. After closing in to panzers the mech would just one-shoot them both.
The end, mechs win.

 

[Morkar Left]

I have forgotten to post the modern Marauder picture:

What? Definitely not iconic enough. I really prefer the old one.

 

[Darkzone]

The WW2 arguments sole hinge on the Merkava MK.VIII Heavy Tank argument, where it is stated, that the Merkava with his AC-5 (5 points damage) has a penetration of 333mm of steel. The Tiger had with his 8,8cm 43 L/71 a max penetration of 238 mm of steel. Now we know that the 8,8cm (the best anti tank weapon) could do to a mech and if we take the percentage of penetration and transfer it to the dmg points, than the 88mm could do 3-4 dmg points to a mech. That does not even kill an elemental. If we transfer a Mech into the WW2 and our universe, then only bombs, heavy artilery or ship cannons can hurt even a Locust (20t). And if we transfer a WW2 Königstiger tank into the Battletech universe, then a Atlas (100t) can take more than 100 hits from a 8,8cm 43 L/71 (up to over 150), and in worst case just 3 hits to the head. In 1939 the Mech regiment wouldn't even sweat to destroy all of the WW2 armies, and in 1945 they could lose some Mechs.

 

[Overboard]

in 1945 they could lose some Mechs.

Ahem

 

[GarfunkeL]

Hey, I'm just the messenger... and I did say the source was very, uh, dedicated to this kind of thing. You can take a look yourself by doing a google search for "battletech" "wwii" site:bbs.stardestroyer.net ...
... holy shit, their WW1 vs Battletech thread is HOW many pages?!

Ah, Stardestroyer.net!

those guys are fun :D I loved reading the Star Wars vs Star Trek analysis back in the day.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Mech supremacy in Battletech relies on insane weights of ICE engines. An in Battletech an ICE engine for M1 Abrams tank weights 32 tons, while in reality it's 1,5 tons + about 2 tons of fuel.

So, a 70 tank with march speed of 4 would need only an about 4 ton "engine". That would leave 28 more tons for armour.