Battletech

WTF, 4.5 skull pirate base mission...only face 4 medium mech + 4 turrets (admittedly the turret are heavily armed)??? At least give me heavy/assault mechs that I can loot for mech parts!

^ So basically a cop-out for mechs in order to make mech superior? Because, really, if space is a big consideration why couldn't they just enlarge the tank size, or design it with mech principle to take advantage of those techs?

edited 14th May '18 7:56:32 PM by onyhow

No explosion risk you say? I question this. One time I loaded a Supernova with 12 ER PPCs and ran right up to another mech, then used an Alpha Strike. There was nothing left of either one of us.

Speaking of reactor cores, I remember reading a manual or something once that said Inner Sphere mechs had toilets in the cockpit and that they flushed the waste directly into the reactor core, thus, the only limit to how much a mechwarrior can poop is the amount of toilet paper their mech can carry. Apparently Clan mechs do not come equipped with toilets.

Absolutely a cop out-in the first run of the board game, people loaded up boards full of infantry and light vehicles because they were the most point efficient and effective units-Battlemechs and heavy vehicles were too slow and vulnerable, with aerospace being pretty bad overall. They 'fixed' this by making mechs way tougher and increasing the importance of their speed and mobility, while whacking infantry with the nerf bat.

As for designs-the various quadrupedal mechs are the result of that line of thinking, though only a couple like the Great Turtle are actually worth it. There was still an in-universe hard cap of about 100 tons before serious structural issues cropped up until around the Word of Blake stuff; Tanks can carry either more armor or more weapons than a mech of equal size, but almost never both and usually had inferior speed and maneuverability. Short answer, they have made a whole list of reasons why Battle Mechs are still the mainstay.

edited 14th May '18 10:26:51 PM by ViperMagnum357

According to actual canon, fusion reactors do not and cannot, self-destruct mechanisms excluded, go up in a nuclear fireball. In fact, they're mostly vacuum and violently implode when compromised, which may create a hot air explosion as the air rushing in is superheated and expands rapidly. There is, however, an optional (and strictly non-canon) tabletop rule that has 'Mechs actually go up in nuclear fireballs when their reactors are breached.

You'd think more legs would equal more weight cap. After all, 4 legs would spread out the load more than 2. Another concession to have bipedal warmachines dominate. Though a 4-legger would seem like the ideal platform for a heavy gauss counterpart to the Hollander. With the extra legs, it could probably better absorb the recoil instead of getting knocked on its back and blowing itself up like the Hollander II can.

edited 14th May '18 11:07:39 PM by Balmung

Then why did Mech Assault have their mechs go up in massive explosions?

Because it's popularized by Michael Stackpole, also people always assume nuclear= boom?

Rule of Cool, because explosions are fun. And Mech simulator games took the 'implosion' and ran with it, resulting in most of them creating an implosion that damaged all nearby units when there was a reactor breach; with an effect and appearance indistinguishable from a small scale explosion. It got Lost in Translation somewhere, and eventually we get bipedal warmachines that can explode and wipe out an entire battlefield when they go critical. *Shrugs*

edited 15th May '18 8:03:21 AM by ViperMagnum357

Breaching a fusion reactor would cause an explosion for the same reason that breaching a boiler does — the contents are hot and at high pressure, so a hole in the pressure vessel causes the contents to escape at high speeds. What it wouldn't do is cause a nuclear explosion, which are basically impossible to cause accidentally.

How much boom we're talking about for a fusion reactor breach depends a lot on the specifics of the hardware, and my math isn't up to calculating it anyway. But we're talking "might or might not turn the 'mech in question into an unsalvagable hulk", not "might or might not vaporize everything in a 100 foot radius".

edited 15th May '18 7:59:21 AM by NativeJovian

You have to remember that Battletech doesn't care about logic or science.

It's a setting much like 40K, that runs on rule of cool. Main difference is that it's in strict denial of how insane it is.

If reactor cores "never" explode, then what happens when your heat gets too high and instead of flushing coolant or shutting down you keep firing more weapons?

edited 15th May '18 10:53:29 AM by WillKeaton

You melt a hole in your engine, which immediately flash fries your electronics and pilot while melting the myomer. That immediately blows apart the mech almost literally at the seams, and if you built up enough heat, the armor sloughs off like melted butter while your ammunition cooks off; then your weapons and components become a grab bag of melted slag, ash and shrapnel as temperature differentials turn them into explosive fragments.

edited 15th May '18 10:54:03 AM by ViperMagnum357

I keep having awful luck finding new mechs to salvage or buy.

I think I spent all my luck getting that Jaegermech.

I still don't have a Jaegermech. I do have an Orion, a Dragon, and a Quickdraw though.

I sold my Dragon like a dumbass and now I want it back because it's the most mobile heavier mech in the game.

I need a good spotter for my LRM boat but using a light mech when you're limited to four units is just a terrible idea.

I loaded my Dragon with arm mods and a gyro. Stick a piloting/guts specialized mechwarrior on it and I can just run up to other mechs and punch them in the face.

All right, got myself a 2nd Highlander, a Stalker, and a Zeus...is it just me or Zeus suffers the Quickdraw problem, namely it's just seem plain worse than a mech at lower class?

I think that's a common problem with 'Mechs that happen to be the lightest in their class. I know that in MW 4, I had that problem with the Chimera and Argus.

Yeah, light Heavies are are basically worse Mediums, especially in the HBS game. This is basically the same across all weight classes.

Damn, shame. Although to give it credit, at least it only need Heavy JJ instead of Assault JJ, Quickdraw need Heavy JJ, can't use Small JJ. Still will probably retire it asap tho. 2 Highlanders and a Stalker should be enough for now until I can find that final Atlas part...

Really though, what's the point of those lighter heavies/assaults lore-wise or in tabletop?

edited 16th May '18 2:34:48 AM by onyhow

Armor/space. A different design only 5 tons heavier might be able to carry as much as 3 extra tons of armor, or have much more space for heat sinks with bulky weapons, while keeping a comparable loadout; and then taking a hit to speed and paying a premium for weight dependent components like jump jets and close combat weapons. If you look at the common tweener designs, the typical loadouts generally follow that design-a 40/60/80 ton mech with the armament of a 30-35/50-55/70-75 tonner with more armor and/or heat sinks, while taking a hefty speed hit.

edited 16th May '18 7:40:37 AM by ViperMagnum357

Watching people peek and pop-art in MWO videos makes me wish those stunts were feats in this game :V

Molten Metal's advice was amazing tho.

This last Assassination mission had me headchop 2 Highlanders (Type-P), but there was other priority loot so I let Marina Liao take home 5/3 a Highlander while I completed the one I had in storage and got enough parts to complete my second Stalker.

Current Stalker is basically a Catapault C1 on steroids, with paired LRM-20++ launchers and 4 Medium Lasers, with 6 tons of ammo (18 volleys), heatsinks, and a full set of jumpjets. Going full ham on the LRM spamming isn't needed because I'm using the missiles to topple mechs with stability damage more than sandblast armor.

So can you put more armor onto your mechs beyond their base amount?

There's an absolute maximum but a lot of mechs do have extra armor space beyond what their "stock" loadout is.

But that tonnage will have to come from somewhere, you'll likely have to drop some weapons.

Maximum possible armor on a mech is twice their Structure.

...huh, managed to beat the 3 generator mission with all Assault Mech team.