Battletech

@Will Keaton: Fans have been complaining about the lack of specs since the early 90's. Batlemechs are around 10 meters tall, with average human height being 1.8 meters in universe. That is basically it-tonnage in universe is not the same as IRL, and FASA has studiously avoided putting many specifics into their technical manuals. Given how many continuity errors there are, and how many levels of canon, that is probably a mercy.

edited 9th May '18 3:29:15 PM by ViperMagnum357

TRO 3039 had a Scale Chart◊ That puts Assault mechs at about 14+ meters and lights at 9-ish.

edited 9th May '18 3:39:32 PM by Ghilz

I love how the Commando, a mech with a cockpit in the head, is appropriately sized for a toddler.

edited 9th May '18 4:20:44 PM by ViperMagnum357

Based on what I remember from MGS and 4, REX stands low and has a tonnage equal to a light Mech (around 19-20ish tons IIRC).

It's pretty damn scary with its weapon mounts though, that Artillery Railgun with possible nuclear payload and an arc range up to Battletech's Horizon-equivalent range band (Inter-continental) is a terror to behold, and its LT missile pod + targeting radome is comparable to a MRM-24. Dual head Machine guns for anti-personnel, and the CT/crotch Microwave Laser cannon make for a mean, mean loadout designed for artillery bombardment.

Making a modernized Assault-class Metal Gear-style battlemech chassis with post-Clans tech would be fun. ER Heavy Gauss Artillery on the RA (complete with nuclear-capable shells and Horizon/Continental-range arcing fire), LRM or MRM -40 or more on the LA with TTS (Missiles), CT-mounted Pulse Large Laser, H-mounted Machine Guns (or a Rapid AC/2 ), and add more weapon mounts (LT and RT Pulse Medium Lasers), double heatsinks, Jump Jets, and armor to get up to 80 or 100 tons.

The three finest things in life are to splat your enemies, drive them from their turf, and hear their lamentations as their rank falls!

Well, Battletech's weapons are deliberately given knife fighting ranges for the sake of it being a bunch of games first, universe second. The writers themselves have pointed out that even the basic small and medium lasers should have ranges measured in kilometers, not a couple hundred meters.

Given Rex's size, I think a better comparison would be a more appropriately sized mech, like an Ares, or possibly even an Omega.

edited 9th May '18 5:15:19 PM by ViperMagnum357

I mean, every tabletop game has weapons with ridiculous ranges, coz the game needs to fit on a table. 40K Space Marine Bolter have a range on par with your average garden hose otherwise :-p

The bit that's most obviously just for balance is how bigger guns have less range. An AC/20 (typically 150 to 203mm) should be able to hit everything within 3 tables easily with a little arcing.

^ That. Given that you can pack a lot more propellant for the ammo size, it makes no sense why range of big guns is so damn short.

^^ It also has a bad side effect of making guns much less useful and melee attacks more viable. Which, IMO, is probably not the best thing.

Also, from the wiki the REX seems to be around...500 tons? Although the canonicity there is a bit suspect,that's way above the weight class of BT mechs. Although...I think it's because BT mech's weight seems...way too low? Given that the 100 ton tank is a lot more compact in size than, say, an Atlas...searching around it seems there's a lot of people thinking the same...FASA writers has no sense of scale. At all.

Oh, also managed to cleave a Quickdraw's head off with a melee attack...shame I have to reload the save tho, so didn't get to keep that result. That mission also had an Atlas...at least managed to cleave its legs off and get 2 parts of that.

edited 10th May '18 12:11:02 AM by onyhow

Give me cute or give me...something?

I think the official explanation is that autocannons fire a burst and bigger autocannons are harder to keep on target, especially at range. On the other hand, even one hit from a six-inch shell should ruin pretty much anything smaller than an Atlas's day.

Also, I seem to recall that the weights are so far off from anything reasonable that an Atlas should float like a cork (it's estimated at about 3/5 the density of water, whereas a modern MBT, which is by most logic, less dense than a BattleMech has about the same density as water)

Battlemechs have low-g foamed endo steel chassis to reduce tonnage.

The three finest things in life are to splat your enemies, drive them from their turf, and hear their lamentations as their rank falls!

^ Well except the big autocanons seems to be depicted as firing one big honking shell semiautomatically...not burst of that.

And, yeah, the mech density is just plain idiotic.

edited 9th May '18 10:18:31 PM by onyhow

Give me cute or give me...something?

Clearly, future tons are heavier than modern tons.

The wiki said they're burst fire, though I'm pretty sure crunch always treats autocannons as semiauto, and I think most actual books also treat them that way.

edited 9th May '18 10:26:21 PM by Balmung

Also, even if it's burst, why can't they just make the ROF tunable? So instead of lower range bullshit the long range shots would just do less damage due to we dumping less bullets there...or make it same damage but with aim penalty from the recoil...or something.

^^^ Which still doesn't make sense because the overall density is still way too low...

edited 10th May '18 12:04:02 AM by onyhow

Give me cute or give me...something?

Honestly, Battletech, much like any setting involving mechas, benefits a lot from the suspension of disbelief. If one begins to ask questions, the entire setting sort of begins to fall apart.

Re: Weight: BT's mech weights are too low, but REX is also way too heavy for its size.

EDIT: Also remember, Tonnage includes armor and weapons and equipment. The actual core of a mech is ridiculously small. Like IIRC the internal structure is 10% of the Mech's tonnage and the cockpit is always 3 ton.

So that Commando? Strip the armor and guns and the engine it weights like 2 tons (and yes, its head is heavier than the rest of it) Light mechs are made of styrofoam and clearly the weapons are paper weights so the wind doesn't make them fly off.

edited 10th May '18 7:21:04 AM by Ghilz

Which means that, if converted to endo steel, the chassis would be only one ton.

How important is it to start progressing on the main story missions? I've just gotten to the point where the game's opened up and I can choose contracts and travel to different systems, and I just got a contract request from a "mysterious client" who I'm 95% certain is Kamea, miraculously alive. I kinda want to ignore it to take more contracts, build up my money, and trick out my mechs a bit more.

So, started this today. Went through the tutorial mission and the first mission, now launching my actual first mission. Unfortunately my character, name Taren Valoris, callsign Archon, got knocked down twice and so I’m too injured to really go on the mission so I’m using my auxiliary pilot, Medusa.

Continue until you get The Argo as your dropship at least (Which is to say, do this mission, and the one after that). Once that's unlocked you can slow down, buy upgrade, focus on improving your team.

edited 10th May '18 12:09:22 PM by Ghilz

Sounds good.

Also, in the early game, should I focus on negotiating for more money, salvage, or rep? I'm kind of leaning toward reputation, since it seems like building it early would help later on, but I don't want to end up running out of money due to the monthly fees.

I haven't found rep all that useful TBH, like, I'm never short on cash, so the small discount feels like nothing. It does sometimes come up in random events, admitedly, so getting to liked it worth it.

As for cash VS Salvage, Early game I'd take cash more often, as it's mostly light mechs you will see alot, so completing them with 1 or 2 picks isn't hard. The mediums you get by story are pretty good to carry you early in the game if you outfit them well. As heavies become more common, I'd switch to salvage to maximize getting those and focus on making just enough money to break even on my monthly payments and afford the upgrades I wanna buy and the occasional shop item. Remember that unused mechs can be sold for some good cash.

That said, some missions are inherently better for one than other. Missions where you fight vehicles according to the descriptions are bad for salvage (So convoy destructions, and any mission that mentions vehicles in the briefing or in Darius' advice). Assassination missions often have heavier mech as the target, and thus are great for salvage. Some missions might mention fighting "older lances in poor maintenance" which can make great salvage as you can meet some rarer mechs.

edited 10th May '18 2:03:54 PM by Ghilz

Interesting, I'll keep that in mind. So with mechs, would a clean headshot, or at least incapacitating the pilot without destroying too many parts, increase the amount or chance of salvaging mech parts?

Not so much stryrofoam as "foamed" metal endoskeleton, produced in 0-G processes.

The Myomer muscles used in lieu of hydraulics and CNT tendons is also very light, lol. Remember that most of an Urbie's 30 tons comes from 6 tons of armor, 1 ton of Jumpjets, 0.5 tons of Small Laser, 1 ton of Heatsinks, and something like 12ish tons of AC/10 and a ton of ammo.

Yup, pilot kill = most salvage, followed by kneecapping, then coring.

edited 10th May '18 2:31:27 PM by AceOfScarabs

The three finest things in life are to splat your enemies, drive them from their turf, and hear their lamentations as their rank falls!

The only component in that entire setup whose weight isn't absurdly low is the weapon - 12 tons is a pretty reasonable weight for a 100-120mm cannon + mount + autoloader.

Six tons of armor is pretty light when distributed across the whole vehicle and is probably less by weight than could be found on most WWII tanks. Ferro fibrous might beat the tar out of modern armor, but that's still some pretty lightweight protection.

Killing the pilot (either by destroying the head section or through repeated injuries) gives three salvage parts (ie, a complete 'mech). Destroying both legs gives two parts. Destroying the center torso gives one part.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Well, the Urbie IS a light mech. Assaults can be 80 to 100 tons and have roughly under a quarter of their mass be armor.

The in-universe conceit to why battlemechs are so much more popular than armored vehicles is because their design is more rugged and less vunerable to mission kills - Vehicles can pack more armor and firepower per ton, but they're also easier to destroy with structural damage than a mech, and they have trouble on any non-road terrain.

Still, never discount a Demolisher or Schrek AFV packing full armor and either twin AC/20 cannons or triple PPC blasters.

edited 10th May '18 5:31:30 PM by AceOfScarabs

The three finest things in life are to splat your enemies, drive them from their turf, and hear their lamentations as their rank falls!