Battletech Welcome to the Jungle

Reader mode
R

Rodon

Member
Speaker4thesilent said:
The engine sort of makes sense, because it would be awful hard to do the transforming without borking an XL engine. The rest? :FASA:
Click to expand...
Well, that maybe explained away as no one has spent the time trying to get those weight savings into LAMs, since it would mess up the balance of thing and you would have to spend a lot of time trying to account for the changes in balance when the LAM transformed.

Speaking for myself, I don't expect LAMs any time soon. As you said, it costs way too much for a poorer product. They have a lot of other items that give a far better and faster return on investment. That won't last forever, but I'd expect sometime around the Clan invasion is when they'll start investing in LAMs again.
 
L

Lancelot

Well-known member
Speaker4thesilent said:
Decided to poke around with LAM construction for the lulz and to try to give you an idea of why LAMs are awful, @Omnimercurial

A theoretical Phoenix LAM, 50 tons, is:
  1. Slower than a Phoenix at 5/8/5 instead of 6/9/6. Even in the air it can only do 5/8 rather than the 7/11 the engine rating would suggest.
  2. It carries one less ML and one less point of armor than the Phoenix. It also only carries 10 freezers and it can thus only handle a standard PPC instead of an ER model. This is because...
  3. It isn’t eligible for any weight-saving technology besides freezers. No Endo. No FF. No XL engine or gyro. Because reasons.
The engine sort of makes sense, because it would be awful hard to do the transforming without borking an XL engine. The rest? :FASA:

Additionally, LAMs are expensive. After the BruceQuest XL price fix, a Phoenix costs 6.25 million C-bills. A theoretical Phoenix LAM costs 5.13 million C-bills for a vastly inferior product. In short, LAMs are either slow, under armed, under armored, or under sunk. Pick any two. (And if you don’t pick slow, you get the other three by default.)
Click to expand...

The one problem with this is that the reason for this under performance isn't that LAM are inherently inferior. The LAM was undeveloped technology by the time the fall happened they'd only started on a second generation version with only two companies giving any real focus to LAMs. The LAM we see in the books are the Mackies of LAMs. Add to that FASA are a bunch of fuck ups that made nonsense rules that only cripple LAMs more. So the rules need to be reworked nearly from scratch, and the tech has to be advanced by at least a few more generations before we see useful LAMs
 
T

The Unicorn

Well-known member
Lancelot said:
The one problem with this is that the reason for this under performance isn't that LAM are inherently inferior. The LAM was undeveloped technology by the time the fall happened they'd only started on a second generation version with only two companies giving any real focus to LAMs. The LAM we see in the books are the Mackies of LAMs. Add to that FASA are a bunch of fuck ups that made nonsense rules that only cripple LAMs more. So the rules need to be reworked nearly from scratch, and the tech has to be advanced by at least a few more generations before we see useful LAMs
Click to expand...
Granting this for the sake of argument, a LAM would still intrinsically be an inferior mech and inferior ASF since in either form they have a significant amount of mass dedicated to stuff they can't use then.
IMO the logical niche for LAMs is hit and run attacks, because having a company of even inferior mechs able to suddenly appear anywhere they want is a thread you need to deal with, and if you have your ASF try and maintain a protective umbrella far enough out from your forces it's impractical for LAMs to land and rush in to attack your rear areas, you're going to need a LOT of ASF which aren't doing something more useful.
 
L

Lancelot

Well-known member
The Unicorn said:
Granting this for the sake of argument, a LAM would still intrinsically be an inferior mech and inferior ASF since in either form they have a significant amount of mass dedicated to stuff they can't use then.
IMO the logical niche for LAMs is hit and run attacks, because having a company of even inferior mechs able to suddenly appear anywhere they want is a thread you need to deal with, and if you have your ASF try and maintain a protective umbrella far enough out from your forces it's impractical for LAMs to land and rush in to attack your rear areas, you're going to need a LOT of ASF which aren't doing something more useful.
Click to expand...

Only inferior if you try to use it as a mech or a ASF. it's a LAM and you use that to your advantage. Give it long range weapons and a proper LAM with a fast transformation could take anything with shorter range weapons apart. Even in Macross or Robotech 'LAM' aren't meant for a stand up fight, and if your using them as that your doing it wrong. The first rule change would be stop trying to put more armor on them and instead make them as fast and agile as they should be.
 
T

The Unicorn

Well-known member
Lancelot said:
Only inferior if you try to use it as a mech or a ASF.
Click to expand...
aka only if you try and fight other Mechs or ASFs.
Transforming from one shape to the other doesn't magically make you immune to weapons fire, so transforming in battle is either stupid or a desperation move to try and escape. If you are fighting a mech and transform to an ASF the mech can still blow you to pieces before you can get out of range. If you are fighting an ASF and transform to a mech the ASF can still blast you to pieces before you can get under cover.
 
L

Lancelot

Well-known member
The Unicorn said:
aka only if you try and fight other Mechs or ASFs.
Transforming from one shape to the other doesn't magically make you immune to weapons fire, so transforming in battle is either stupid or a desperation move to try and escape. If you are fighting a mech and transform to an ASF the mech can still blow you to pieces before you can get out of range. If you are fighting an ASF and transform to a mech the ASF can still blast you to pieces before you can get under cover.
Click to expand...

If a LAM takes more then a second to change form it's useless. Also this is why I said the rules need to change. It should be a low armor high agility platform with rules to support that. As I said a LAM should be able to take anything with shorter range weapons apart. As the rules are now the LAM is crippled and mostly useless.
 
Kilvanya

Kilvanya

Well-known member
Lancelot said:
If a LAM takes more then a second to change form it's useless. Also this is why I said the rules need to change. It should be a low armor high agility platform with rules to support that. As I said a LAM should be able to take anything with shorter range weapons apart. As the rules are now the LAM is crippled and mostly useless.
Click to expand...
As was intended by FASA ('Facts Are Stupid Alright?')
 
T

The Unicorn

Well-known member
Lancelot said:
If a LAM takes more then a second to change form it's useless. Also this is why I said the rules need to change. It should be a low armor high agility platform with rules to support that. As I said a LAM should be able to take anything with shorter range weapons apart. As the rules are now the LAM is crippled and mostly useless.
Click to expand...
My point is even if it can transform INSTANTLY it can't fight a peer enemy on equal footing, and transforming in the middle of a fight is giving the enemy a free shot where the LAM can't retaliate and is exposed to enemy fire.

Doomsought said:
Lams should only use their mech mode when landing and hiding in a ditch/forest. Airmech mode is where the LAM shows most of its best traits.
Click to expand...
Airmechs, unlike LAMs I can see as being very effective combatants, they just have no reason to waste mass on being able to transform.
 
O

Omnimercurial

Active member
Speaker4thesilent said:
Very minor edit made to the chapter. Hopefully it conveys Julia’s thoughts better. In all the political bitching on SB they did have one point: Julia went along with what Weber said too easily.
Click to expand...

Just finished page 22....

I'm curious on this upcoming attack on Catachan....

Did Weber manage to claim any good Salvage from his first Campaign with his Steiner Liason/potential Waifu?

Was there any particular Mechs he grabbed?

How about ASF or Vehicles like Tanks etc?

More importantly.... If so, were his Astech's have been able to repair any of them in time for said attack to be used in the defence?

Or did Weber sign away claims to any Salvage in exchange for Kroner or other things?

Yellowhammer said:
A pair of bowflexes. :p

Actually he would have the mechs of his unit, and some other stuff, but AFAIK it's just one Overlord, and you have a fairly hard limit on what you can bring on board.
Click to expand...

I'm wondering about that.... Maybe Weber might get some more Dropships from this upcoming Raid on Catachan?

(Although to you guys this is old stuff way in the past tense lol)

I liked your Sidestory with Julia on the Dropship considering ways to address possible future issues on Catachan.... Though I found the HPG from a Dropship a bit baffling.... Maybe I misunderstood, but it did have me rather confused as to how she managed a realtime call like that while enroute to Catachan.
 
Bear Ribs

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
Doomsought said:
Lams should only use their mech mode when landing and hiding in a ditch/forest. Airmech mode is where the LAM shows most of its best traits.
Click to expand...
This. A theoretical Phoenix LAM may only be an 8/5/8 but that turns into 15/23 in Gerwalk Airmech mode so you wind up able to outrun a Locust by a pretty fair margin while having several times its firepower. A LAM in airmech mode can outrun anything it can't outfight with ease.
 
Speaker4thesilent

Speaker4thesilent

Crazed Deplorable
Omnimercurial said:
Just finished page 22....

I'm curious on this upcoming attack on Catachan....

Did Weber manage to claim any good Salvage from his first Campaign with his Steiner Liason/potential Waifu?

Was there any particular Mechs he grabbed?

How about ASF or Vehicles like Tanks etc?

More importantly.... If so, were his Astech's have been able to repair any of them in time for said attack to be used in the defence?

Or did Weber sign away claims to any Salvage in exchange for Kroner or other things?



I'm wondering about that.... Maybe Weber might get some more Dropships from this upcoming Raid on Catachan?

(Although to you guys this is old stuff way in the past tense lol)

I liked your Sidestory with Julia on the Dropship considering ways to address possible future issues on Catachan.... Though I found the HPG from a Dropship a bit baffling.... Maybe I misunderstood, but it did have me rather confused as to how she managed a realtime call like that while enroute to Catachan.
Click to expand...
Keep reading, lol.
 
L

Lancelot

Well-known member
The Unicorn said:
My point is even if it can transform INSTANTLY it can't fight a peer enemy on equal footing, and transforming in the middle of a fight is giving the enemy a free shot where the LAM can't retaliate and is exposed to enemy fire.
Click to expand...

I assume just like no one is stupid enough to stand on open ground in weapon range while waiting for weapons to cycle, no one is stupid enough to change forms on open ground in weapon range. Not that someone good enough couldn't time transformations between weapon cycles.
 
Blasterbot

Blasterbot

Well-known member
LAMs should mostly be very high end expensive scouts I think. to that end if they find themselves in combat they should flee. they can find a niche against things like arty where suddenly having a lance of light mechs operating at introtech levels appearing can do solid damage. I'm sure there are some other cases like you can put 2 Lams in a leopard's aero space slots and go on the field with some extra mechs. prolly still rather have high end or even middling level aero space fighters though. if some of the weight savings tech could trickle in with endo or ferro or they were not so damn expensive they might be more than a meme pick.

how does stealth armor interact with Lams? Lams with stealth and DHS might have a bit of viability. still more expensive than an atlas though.
 
Last edited:
T

The Unicorn

Well-known member
Lancelot said:
I assume just like no one is stupid enough to stand on open ground in weapon range while waiting for weapons to cycle, no one is stupid enough to change forms on open ground in weapon range. Not that someone good enough couldn't time transformations between weapon cycles.
Click to expand...
YOu seemed to be advocating them doing that, hence my point about how stupid that is.
If we're agreed that's stupid then your stuck with a vehicle that can be either a mech or an ASF but is always going to be an inferior one with a poorly trained pilot, both of which cost more than a regular pilot.

Blasterbot said:
LAMs should mostly be very high end expensive scouts I think.
Click to expand...
The problem is they'd also be inferior, or at best not worth the expense, scouts under most circumstances.
 
Blasterbot

Blasterbot

Well-known member
The Unicorn said:
YOu seemed to be advocating them doing that, hence my point about how stupid that is.
If we're agreed that's stupid then your stuck with a vehicle that can be either a mech or an ASF but is always going to be an inferior one with a poorly trained pilot, both of which cost more than a regular pilot.

The problem is they'd also be inferior, or at best not worth the expense, scouts under most circumstances.
Click to expand...
not really disagreeing on the expense part. you can get an atlas for the cost of a Pheonix Hawk LAM. was operating from I got a LAM what do I do with it. they make better scouts than an aerospace fighter doing a fly by and have more bite, staying power, and speed than a bug mech (not by much). would need to put thought into how a custom LAM could perform and how to build it. and even with that I would acknowledge that you are prolly better off getting just about any introtech medium mech and a separate aerospace fighter.
 
Last edited:
Reader mode
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 3 (members: 0, guests: 3)
Top