Battletech BattleTech discussion thread: May the light of Hanse Davion guide us

[prinCZess]

Who needs quality control, when you got MARKETING!!!

"Quikscell: When you need it quick, and we need it to sell*"
*Gun-bunnies not included, reference to 'Hetzer' does not imply vehicle supplied will originally have been a Hetzer, new production not guaranteed, non-salvaged parts not guaranteed, non-stolen product not guaranteed, no warranty or obligation is expressed or implied, promise that customer might receive the vehicle 'quick' is subjective and subject to Quikscell corporate timelines as determined by the board, signatories of Quikscell corporate contracts are liable for all damages, duties, fees, fines, bail bonds, bribers, and beer-money consumed by delivery personnel in course of their duties, signatories agree their firstborn son is to be indentured to the corporation for no less than fifteen Terran years under Marian law, it is standard Quikscell practice not to negotiate or contract with female individuals with personal weights in excess of 70 kg (commonly referred to as our 'no fat chicks or elementals' policy), Neener neener you can't sue us for shit.

I find this Hersey disturbing

The Clans need trash the same as the rest of humanity, dangnabbit!

Though I can't help but feel like more of that Urbanmech je ne sais quoi* would be preserved if one of the MadKat laser 'hands' was kept as an AC/20 or other similar big gun attachment.

*French for 'bullshit'

 

[Blasterbot]

so after watching this I was left in a state of wtf. they handed the biggest idiot ball to the davions they possibly could. they magicked up a ridiculous economy to maintain the DCMS forces. the DCMS fought an offensive war, a civil war that had clanners helping, then went back on the offensive war and took the fucking capital. all because the warlord was some sort of patient guy who was good at strategy. this isn't how logistics work. what the hell. why did catalyst make that decision in the dumbest way possible?

 

[Karmic Acumen]

so after watching this I was left in a state of wtf. they handed the biggest idiot ball to the davions they possibly could. they magicked up a ridiculous economy to maintain the DCMS forces. the DCMS fought an offensive war, a civil war that had clanners helping, then went back on the offensive war and took the fucking capital. all because the warlord was some sort of patient guy who was good at strategy. this isn't how logistics work. what the hell. why did catalyst make that decision in the dumbest way possible?

Because they want to make you stupid.

 

[Culsu]

so after watching this I was left in a state of wtf. they handed the biggest idiot ball to the davions they possibly could. they magicked up a ridiculous economy to maintain the DCMS forces. the DCMS fought an offensive war, a civil war that had clanners helping, then went back on the offensive war and took the fucking capital. all because the warlord was some sort of patient guy who was good at strategy. this isn't how logistics work. what the hell. why did catalyst make that decision in the dumbest way possible?

It's because Catalyst's storywriting and worldbuilding has been on a continous quality slide downwards for quite some time now, from idiots balls like this one up to entry-level fanfiction naming like "Scorpion Empire" (which absorbs a handful of the remaining interesting deep periphery powers) or "Wolf Empire". Like, really, that's the type of naming and writing you'd expect from a 14 y.o.

 

[Blasterbot]

It's because Catalyst's storywriting and worldbuilding has been on a continous quality slide downwards for quite some time now, from idiots balls like this one up to entry-level fanfiction naming like "Scorpion Empire" (which absorbs a handful of the remaining interesting deep periphery powers) or "Wolf Empire". Like, really, that's the type of naming and writing you'd expect from a 14 y.o.

TBF the wolf empire since it is a continuation of clan wolf makes sense. how they arrive there is cringe though. If you want to have the fed suns fall there are so many better ways to go about it. but at least give them a worthy send off. I would have gone with a succession crisis of the top of my head with the dukes of the marches backing their own candidates or pushing for independence. there are other ways too and each nation has vulnerabilities to exploit if you want to have a faction fall and change the map a bit.

 

[Culsu]

While it does make some sense in the confines of the universe, it still sounds... childish, maybe? Same with the Scorpion Empire. Leaving aside the idea of a single clan that hurriedly had to pack up and flee can willy-nilly waltz over some of the larger deep periphery powers even though they've probably 100x the population, they couldn't have come up with a better name?

 

[Bear Ribs]

One issue BT suffers from is that The Powers That Be have always avoided putting down any hard numbers for things like factory outputs or shipping. The devs on the BT forums have stated it's because they don't want to be painted into a corner or contradicted. Instead, it leads to FASAnomics where nothing makes any sense and it's blatantly obvious to the fanbase that the numbers are being pulled out of somebody's backside. It becomes especially apparent in situations like this, if the Devs have decided X faction is going to win, suddenly they have a huge army out of nowhere, immense numbers of JumpShips to transport them, and a robust economy regardless of how much sense that makes or what kind of assets they had last month. Then in another print cycle the devs will worry that faction's getting too powerful and whoever they were curb stomping last episode will suddenly have a huge army and fleet out of nowhere and a robust economy they use to suddenly win back everything they lost, and restore the status quo.

 

[Battlegrinder]

Leaving aside the idea of a single clan that hurriedly had to pack up and flee can willy-nilly waltz over some of the larger deep periphery powers even though they've probably 100x the population, they couldn't have come up with a better name?

Agree with you on the name, but a single clan, even a minor one, overruning a large periphery nation is fairly plausible.

Remember, this the periphery, and the deep periphery at that, which means they're ill equipped even by the standards of the periphery. Some of them haven't recovered from the reunification wars, or never even got that capable in the first place.

Back in the succession wars, the great houses (ok, most of the great houses) retained the ability to manufacture mechs of every tonnage, and even the capellans could still repair wrecked assault mechs even if they couldn't build them. By contrast, it took until 3083 for Canopus, a fairly advanced and capable periphery power, to be able to produce a 75 ton battlemech.

 

[Atarlost]

Agree with you on the name, but a single clan, even a minor one, overruning a large periphery nation is fairly plausible.

Remember, this the periphery, and the deep periphery at that, which means they're ill equipped even by the standards of the periphery. Some of them haven't recovered from the reunification wars, or never even got that capable in the first place.

Back in the succession wars, the great houses (ok, most of the great houses) retained the ability to manufacture mechs of every tonnage, and even the capellans could still repair wrecked assault mechs even if they couldn't build them. By contrast, it took until 3083 for Canopus, a fairly advanced and capable periphery power, to be able to produce a 75 ton battlemech.

The Scorions shouldn't have been a Clan by the time they attacked the Hansa. Their third exodus should have completely eradicated their infrastructure and if they didn't abandon dueling they would have eroded their hardware to nothing. The Scorpions should not have been able to cling to technology above what the Umayyad Caliphate and Nueva Castile maintained. The Hanseatic League was advancing according to Sarna and hit 3055 Inner Sphere equivalent by the time the Escorpio Imperio invaded. It should have been a curbstomp by the Hansa.

Also, it was really stupid at a Doylist level to even let the mess happen because it destroyed three interesting factions to preserve a Clan that hadn't had enough development to stand out from all the other home Clans. The only things actually lost when a Home Clan goes down is their totem mechs and their paintjob. Everything else is shared to a degree.

 

[Battlegrinder]

The Scorions shouldn't have been a Clan by the time they attacked the Hansa. Their third exodus should have completely eradicated their infrastructure and if they didn't abandon dueling they would have eroded their hardware to nothing. The Scorpions should not have been able to cling to technology above what the Umayyad Caliphate and Nueva Castile maintained.

Ok, well there's decades of precedent against the idea that a migrating clan will have it's tech base degrade in the interim, and even more precedent against the idea that hardware can easily be worn away by attrition. This is battletech, a setting where running around in centuries old mechs that have been blown apart, salvaged, and rebuilt a half dozen times is a foundational part of the setting.

The Hanseatic League was advancing according to Sarna and hit 3055 Inner Sphere equivalent by the time the Escorpio Imperio invaded. It should have been a curbstomp by the Hansa.

Remind me again, how did 3055 level tech vs clan tech go back in 3055?

Also, it was really stupid at a Doylist level to even let the mess happen because it destroyed three interesting factions to preserve a Clan that hadn't had enough development to stand out from all the other home Clans. The only things actually lost when a Home Clan goes down is their totem mechs and their paintjob. Everything else is shared to a degree.

This I would also disagree with, for several reasons. First off, as far as I can tell there's not even enough written down about any of the three ex-nations to call them a faction, let alone an interesting one worth preserving. Looking at there wiki pages, they are groups that exist only within source books, without even a token appearance in the novels. They don't even have a MUL entry and the last Hansa mech was painted up and put on camospecs 14 years ago. The first homegrown Castilian mech just reuses art from the primitive Orion, and it was only outlined two years ago, well after they'd been conquered by the Scorpions.

I'm not trying to be mean here. There's the gem of something interesting here, that perhaps could be expanded on to create something interesting....but that was merely potential, there was next to nothing to those three and very little was lost when they were wiped out. If you were a fan of them nonetheless, well as a RoS fan I feel your loss, but sometimes crap like that happens.


Now, as for the scorpions, I will conceed that for normal battletech, there is not much to recommend them pre-conquest, and the new scorpion empire is just a periphery knockoff of the Rasalhague Dominion, but with more imams and fewer vikings. But as an RPG setting, and particularly a premade adventuring part concept, a Goliath Scorpion Seeker and his posse are a great thing to keep around, and if anything only moreso given the empire, and they're worth keeping around as a very cool plot hook for use in the tabletop RPGs. A hook that the components of the empire cannot make for themselves.

 

[Atarlost]

Ok, well there's decades of precedent against the idea that a migrating clan will have it's tech base degrade in the interim, and even more precedent against the idea that hardware can easily be worn away by attrition. This is battletech, a setting where running around in centuries old mechs that have been blown apart, salvaged, and rebuilt a half dozen times is a foundational part of the setting.

The invading clans, which started upgrading Inner Sphere factories before they lost their homeworld enclaves held on to their tech. The Snow Ravens, who pigybacked on the Ghost Bears as payment for helping them with their colony ships held on to their tech. All of the other pre-Scorpion examples just demonstrate that they can hold on to the tech of the people already there, which for all the Clans trialing for sections of other Clans' invasion corridors is already Clantech.

There's no precedent for a refugee fleet like the Scorpions holding on to tech. The entire Deep Periphery other than the place Kerensky lead every Terran Hegemony spaceship or weapon engineer he could gather demonstrates refugees losing tech.

And attrition certainly is part of the setting. That's what Lostech is. There isn't still in 3025 every Marauder GM ever made that didn't leave with Kerensky still with CASE and Ferro-fibrous armor intact. When you have a finite number of mechs and you legally can't refuse people the right to duel to the death in those mechs you don't retain operationally significant numbers of mechs.

 

[Battlegrinder]

The invading clans, which started upgrading Inner Sphere factories before they lost their homeworld enclaves held on to their tech. The Snow Ravens, who pigybacked on the Ghost Bears as payment for helping them with their colony ships held on to their tech. All of the other pre-Scorpion examples just demonstrate that they can hold on to the tech of the people already there, which for all the Clans trialing for sections of other Clans' invasion corridors is already Clantech.

There's no precedent for a refugee fleet like the Scorpions holding on to tech. The entire Deep Periphery other than the place Kerensky lead every Terran Hegemony spaceship or weapon engineer he could gather demonstrates refugees losing tech.

"There's no precedent for a refugee fleet retaining technology, except for all the times that happened, including every single time a clan has moved and when the SLDF did it".....that's not a very convincing argument.

And attrition certainly is part of the setting. That's what Lostech is. There isn't still in 3025 every Marauder GM ever made that didn't leave with Kerensky still with CASE and Ferro-fibrous armor intact.

And that attrition required the Inner Sphere to engage in a centuries long nuclear war + ComStar waging a campaign of active sabotage against any effort to recover, and the second the IS got thier hands on one datacore they recovered within a few years. It's absurd you're saying that's comparable to the Scorpions just packing up thier stuff and moving.

When you have a finite number of mechs and you legally can't refuse people the right to duel to the death in those mechs you don't retain operationally significant numbers of mechs.

Uh, yes you do. Because once the duel is over, you just pick the mechs up and fix them up,unless they're totally atomized, which they usually aren't. No, that won't mean you take zero loses over time, but it will slow the pace considerably.

You're also assuming that under strained circumstances with limited assets, the clan would continue to trial against themselves at a self destructive rate, which I don't find find plausible. And even if that did happen, the Khan can in fact legally deny them the right to use mechs in trials, and mandate that trials be done via physical combat or some other means.

 

[PsihoKekec]

Somebody made a kitbash, because why not

 

[S'task]

preserve a Clan that hadn't had enough development to stand out from all the other home Clans

I fundamentally have to disagree with this. The Goliath Scorpions actually were one of the home clans that had a very strong identity and look to them, plus offered something unique to the setting that no other Clan did in the form of the Seekers. Even a cursory read through Field Manual Warden Clans show major differences between the Scorpions and the other home clans, with a very different perspective on what it meant to be Clan, what it meant to be a Warden, and some very clear distinctions between themselves and even other home warden clans.

The really issue is that they were basically done dirty by the War of Reaving sourcebook. Their fall was covered in an appendix and not fleshed out well at all. Everything since has basically been the line devs trying to, in effect, undo the stupidest decision in the War of Reaving of eliminating the Scorpions as the Scorpions actually had a fairly large fanbase due to their usefulness in the RPGs as well as having some cool mechs and color schemes.

But given the new political "divide" the Home Clans have post War of Reaving, I guess they HAD to eliminate the Clan that fundamentally was outward looking and explorative. As the Scorpions would have constantly been pushing against the new isolationist policy adopted by the other clans to ensure their Seekers could continue to go out.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

They even could have kept the homeworld clan count the same via the Stone Lions heading off to the IS to rejoin with the rest of Hell's Horses instead of making their own clan

 

[Atarlost]

Forgot about the seeker thing. Big question, though: Do they still do that? Because as a consequence of the drain of internal security requirements for their empire and having absorbed several more populous nations with their own cultures they shouldn't be able to spare the trained manpower.

If Catalyst hadn't been complete bloody morons there would have been no wars of reaving. They were forced to do the Jihad by Hasbro to fit the timeline into Clickytech, but they had no need to move the Clans away from their traditional and more small wargame friendly limited scope trials.

 

[Battlegrinder]

Forgot about the seeker thing. Big question, though: Do they still do that? Because as a consequence of the drain of internal security requirements for their empire and having absorbed several more populous nations with their own cultures they shouldn't be able to spare the trained manpower.

Seekers are like 1 lead warrior, maybe some other warriors but maybe not, his chronicler, and a few techs and other support personnel. The Scorpions can certainly spare a handful of guys to run around looking for some SL era junk, it's not like the Empire will collapse if a star of warriors gets the flu and is out of action.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Seekers are like 1 lead warrior, maybe some other warriors but maybe not, his chronicler, and a few techs and other support personnel. The Scorpions can certainly spare a handful of guys to run around looking for some SL era junk, it's not like the Empire will collapse if a star of warriors gets the flu and is out of action.

Wouldn't the JumpShip and DropShip to carry them around on their quest be the bigger issue?

 

[Battlegrinder]

Wouldn't the JumpShip and DropShip to carry them around on their quest be the bigger issue?

Probably not. A few guys in a Leopard or something small hitching a ride on a jumpship is going to mean the clan is down one small dropship and take up one collar on jumpship, I don't think that will really impede the clans operations overall. Even if thry have a dedicated jumpship, I don't know how much that would impact them. Particularly as they nations thry conquered had jumpships of thier own and the clans would have captured them during the war, so giving some jumpships out to the seekers would at worst reduce the number of surplus jumpships the clans have outside the ones in thier own inventory.

 

[S'task]

Forgot about the seeker thing. Big question, though: Do they still do that? Because as a consequence of the drain of internal security requirements for their empire and having absorbed several more populous nations with their own cultures they shouldn't be able to spare the trained manpower.

If Catalyst hadn't been complete bloody morons there would have been no wars of reaving. They were forced to do the Jihad by Hasbro to fit the timeline into Clickytech, but they had no need to move the Clans away from their traditional and more small wargame friendly limited scope trials.

Actually yes. In fact it was a conflict with Seekers that triggered the entire conquest of the Hanastic League to begin with. Basically some Seekers were in Hanastic League space just doing their thing, the Hanastic League took umbrage and attacked them and the Scorpions decided to use that as justification for the conquest.

It was stupid, just like everything else done with the Clan from War of Reaving on.