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

[CurtisLemay]

Huh. To quote the article...

Things got a lot better with the introduction of the Clans, with its egalitarian society that cared little for race or gender, only whether you were born in a test tube with combat-capable genes. And the problematic similarities between the freebirth/trueborn argument and racist ideology steeped in geneticism get addressed in books like Freebirth and characters like Phelan Kell and Alaric Ward (although Alaric has his own problems, that's a topic for another editorial).

Well... I guess it's kinda mask-off to see them talking about how great Clan Society is and how woke and egalitarian it is.

Jesus, the Clans are egalitarian? Since when? The Clans are just eugenist at it's worst. At best, they're the sociopolitical creations of a brain-damaged lunatic who may have murdered his own brother. Where egalitarian enters into this, I have no clue. The very nature of the clans is why I wrote a certain tale, but I digress. This moral retcon that Battletech was always woke? That is a laugh. Battletech was always...Battletech. Pidgeon holing it into some modern moral-political morass is doomed to fail.

Worse, the swipe at "Get Woke, Go Broke" just hasn't really kicked in for CGL. I suspect as they do more egregious stuff, they'll manage to shoot themselves in the foot with a proverbial Gauss Rifle.

From a game whose background is often shrugged at for it's "FASAnomics" and "FASAphysics", any attempt to make it "woke" will be a worse idea than a Charger.

 

[PsihoKekec]

Clans are egalitarian if you are part of the 1% of population that is the product of their eugenic program, the rest of population does not signify.

 

[PsihoKekec]

And on a lighter note here is a BT CYOA:

 

[Typhonis]

Originally....Btech was egalitarian. You chose a mech you liked to pilot. Wrote down you piloting and gunnery then had at it. No names, no nothing just someone who piloted a mech. No space nations, no space AT+T. Just you in your robot pounding other robots.

I wish it could go back to that.

 

[Bear Ribs]

And on a lighter note here is a BT CYOA:

Nice, I was just about to throw that in our CYOA thread and post a build for it, you should put it there with the other BT CYOAs we have collected.

 

[PsihoKekec]

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Nice, I was just about to throw that in our CYOA thread and post a build for it, you should put it there with the other BT CYOAs we have collected.

We have a CYOA thread? Link?

 

[Bear Ribs]

We have a CYOA thread? Link?

Quest - General CYOA Thread

A index so Things can be more organized.

www.the-sietch.com

 

[PsihoKekec]

 

[Bear Ribs]

https://www.deviantart.com/kingsofwinter/art/GUND-Tech-3025-952651016

A fusion of Btech and Gundam, but I really like this map, it's close to what I've wanted for a long time, a more balanced mix of Superpowers with large numbers of tiny buffer states in between helping to justify both massive multi-regiment battles and small lance-on-lance conflicts having meaning in the same setting.

In 2587, more than a century after the debut of the first BattleMechs, the nature of warfare and destiny of the Inner Sphere would once again be shifted by the introduction of a new weapon onto the blood soaked battlefields of the Star League's conquest of the Periphery. Doctor Trenov Minovsky was an Earth based Russian Scientist who had spent most of his career trying to prove the existence of a phenomenon created when combining Nuclear Fusion with Helium-3 in the late 2570s, Doctor Minovsky's theories had finally proved to be correct with the discovery of the aptly named Minovsky Particle. While its potential both as a more effective source of energy and for the development of more powerful laser based technology were well known, the Doctor found a difficult time trying to find a prominent corporation within the then Terran Hegemony who would take the risk on his first generation of Minovsky Reactors. Enter Anaheim Electronics, a small Lunar based robotics company initially founded off the manufacturing of advanced cybernetics for medical purposes. A small but fairly successful company at the time, Anaheim had long sought to break into the BattleMech industry though failed to create a fusion reactor that could efficiently power its more advanced robotic frame, that was until they entered into a partnership with Doctor Minovsky. With the Reunification War grinding to a stalemate along the Periphery, the demand for new and innovative weapons systems was high amongst the leadership of the Star League Defense Force. With Anaheim and Minovsky demonstrating their prototype in front of First Lord Ian Cameron himself, the performance of the so-called "GUND-Mech" had far exceeded all expectations of both its creators and the SLDF leadership present. The GUND-Mech was far more maneuverable, overheating was almost nonexistent, was supplemented by the assistance of an on board AI to make piloting easier, and its Minovsky based weapon systems proved 3 times more powerful than the strongest Pulse Lasers. Furthermore it was discovered during testing that the Minovsky Reactor emitted a discharge of dense particle fields which disrupted radar, communications, and most importantly targeting systems. When the first GUND-Mechs were deployed onto the front against the Taurian Concordat, their effect proved devastating to the enemy forces both on the ground and in space. Unlike a conventional BattleMech, GUND-Mechs also proved just as if not more effective in Space than Aerospace Fighters, leading to several decisive victories for the SLDF in space where squadrons of GUND-Mech decimated the Taurian fleet. By 2591, the Star League had finally overwhelmed the Concordat as well as the Magistracy of Canopus, and Outworlds Alliance, claiming total victory in the so-called Reunification War, with the GUND-Mech playing no small part in turning the tide of the stalemate. The conflict and its aftermath would see Anaheim Electronics rise from a small robotics company on the Moon of Terra to the most powerful Corporation in the Inner Sphere, one who would ultimately outlast the Star League before using its power and influence to create a new order in its aftermath…

 

[PsihoKekec]

I reckon that with the gunds, there were fewer big gun warship designs and more emphasis on the carriers and carrier escorts.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Possibly. At least in theory, carriers aren't a big deal for BT WarShips because you can put them on DropShips instead, whereas a DropShip can never mount the big guns a WarShip can so it makes more sense to throw a couple of collars on for some Vengeances than to waste your WarShip tonnage on them.

However, canon WarShip designs tend to be so unoptimal and nonsensical, not helped by the fact that the rules have changed a few times since many were written up without the ships changing to fit those new rules, that one gets the impression the entire Inner Sphere hired Harley Quinn as their chief WarShip designer or something.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Possibly. At least in theory, carriers aren't a big deal for BT WarShips because you can put them on DropShips instead, whereas a DropShip can never mount the big guns a WarShip can so it makes more sense to throw a couple of collars on for some Vengeances than to waste your WarShip tonnage on them.

However, canon WarShip designs tend to be so unoptimal and nonsensical, not helped by the fact that the rules have changed a few times since many were written up without the ships changing to fit those new rules, that one gets the impression the entire Inner Sphere hired Harley Quinn as their chief WarShip designer or something.

Save the Levethian II and III classes of course. Those thing are super scary. Albeit still could be more optimized as usual if not nearly as much

 

[Husky_Khan]

https://www.deviantart.com/kingsofwinter/art/GUND-Tech-3025-952651016

A fusion of Btech and Gundam, but I really like this map, it's close to what I've wanted for a long time, a more balanced mix of Superpowers with large numbers of tiny buffer states in between helping to justify both massive multi-regiment battles and small lance-on-lance conflicts having meaning in the same setting.

In 2587, more than a century after the debut of the first BattleMechs, the nature of warfare and destiny of the Inner Sphere would once again be shifted by the introduction of a new weapon onto the blood soaked battlefields of the Star League's conquest of the Periphery. Doctor Trenov Minovsky was an Earth based Russian Scientist who had spent most of his career trying to prove the existence of a phenomenon created when combining Nuclear Fusion with Helium-3 in the late 2570s, Doctor Minovsky's theories had finally proved to be correct with the discovery of the aptly named Minovsky Particle. While its potential both as a more effective source of energy and for the development of more powerful laser based technology were well known, the Doctor found a difficult time trying to find a prominent corporation within the then Terran Hegemony who would take the risk on his first generation of Minovsky Reactors. Enter Anaheim Electronics, a small Lunar based robotics company initially founded off the manufacturing of advanced cybernetics for medical purposes. A small but fairly successful company at the time, Anaheim had long sought to break into the BattleMech industry though failed to create a fusion reactor that could efficiently power its more advanced robotic frame, that was until they entered into a partnership with Doctor Minovsky. With the Reunification War grinding to a stalemate along the Periphery, the demand for new and innovative weapons systems was high amongst the leadership of the Star League Defense Force. With Anaheim and Minovsky demonstrating their prototype in front of First Lord Ian Cameron himself, the performance of the so-called "GUND-Mech" had far exceeded all expectations of both its creators and the SLDF leadership present. The GUND-Mech was far more maneuverable, overheating was almost nonexistent, was supplemented by the assistance of an on board AI to make piloting easier, and its Minovsky based weapon systems proved 3 times more powerful than the strongest Pulse Lasers. Furthermore it was discovered during testing that the Minovsky Reactor emitted a discharge of dense particle fields which disrupted radar, communications, and most importantly targeting systems. When the first GUND-Mechs were deployed onto the front against the Taurian Concordat, their effect proved devastating to the enemy forces both on the ground and in space. Unlike a conventional BattleMech, GUND-Mechs also proved just as if not more effective in Space than Aerospace Fighters, leading to several decisive victories for the SLDF in space where squadrons of GUND-Mech decimated the Taurian fleet. By 2591, the Star League had finally overwhelmed the Concordat as well as the Magistracy of Canopus, and Outworlds Alliance, claiming total victory in the so-called Reunification War, with the GUND-Mech playing no small part in turning the tide of the stalemate. The conflict and its aftermath would see Anaheim Electronics rise from a small robotics company on the Moon of Terra to the most powerful Corporation in the Inner Sphere, one who would ultimately outlast the Star League before using its power and influence to create a new order in its aftermath…

Hopefully it includes a boosted industrial base. The idea that there were about what? 5000 Battlemechs across the Inner Sphere seemed tragically small, especially when a planet like Earth had like 100,000 main battle tanks rolling about or sitting in warehouses somewhere.

It's a really neat worldbuilding crossover idea though. I love the map and the background lore nuggets the creator dropped.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Hopefully it includes a boosted industrial base. The idea that there were about what? 5000 Battlemechs across the Inner Sphere seemed tragically small, especially when a planet like Earth had like 100,000 main battle tanks rolling about or sitting in warehouses somewhere.

It's a really neat worldbuilding crossover idea though. I love the map and the background lore nuggets the creator dropped.

Probably a order of magibtude higher than 5k since the regiments of house Davion and their big merc units alone are over 10,000 mechs overall in 3025.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Yeah, I was under the impression it was about 50K as well.

The Canopians have ten regiments so somewhere in the general area of 1500 BattleMechs for them.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Plus there's a lot of planetary milita and merc units that range from a lance to battalion of mechs. Hell some planetary militas probably are closer to a regiment. Not to mention many family mechs and the numerous independent battalion, company, and lance sized mech units of the great houses. It might be closer to 100k overall

 

[Bear Ribs]

Plus there's a lot of planetary milita and merc units that range from a lance to battalion of mechs. Hell some planetary militas probably are closer to a regiment. Not to mention many family mechs and the numerous independent battalion, company, and lance sized mech units of the great houses. It might be closer to 100k overall

Eh, maybe a few, but nation numbers in BT normally include how many mercenary and militia units are available. The Canopian one isn't just the ones owned by the MAF, it includes all the merc companies that operate out of the Magistracy.

 

[Blasterbot]

Plus there's a lot of planetary milita and merc units that range from a lance to battalion of mechs. Hell some planetary militas probably are closer to a regiment. Not to mention many family mechs and the numerous independent battalion, company, and lance sized mech units of the great houses. It might be closer to 100k overall

3028-3057 Random Assignment & Rarity Tables 10.64.pdf

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

you can get an idea of the break down of what sorts of mechs they got. for 3028 we got

40.6 for the cappellans (imma round it to 41)
66 for the draconis
78 for the davions
56 for the free worlds
52 for the lyrans

293 regiments directly under the great houses. 108-180 mechs per regiment 31644-52740 probably favoring the middle of about 40k.
considering that isn't factoring in family mechs, mercs, pirates, comstar, or the periphery I could see 100k or so being fairly reasonable as a guesstimate. no clue if PDF or militia get factored there either. and you also got tanks, ASF, and infantry operating in tandem with them further filling out the numbers if the mechs seem a bit thin to you still.

on a side note it also gives rough percentages of what sort of mechs you can see (light to assault) and then a further percentage of what mech it is within the weight class.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

3028-3057 Random Assignment & Rarity Tables 10.64.pdf

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

you can get an idea of the break down of what sorts of mechs they got. for 3028 we got

40.6 for the cappellans (imma round it to 41)
66 for the draconis
78 for the davions
56 for the free worlds
52 for the lyrans

293 regiments directly under the great houses. 108-180 mechs per regiment 31644-52740 probably favoring the middle of about 40k.
considering that isn't factoring in family mechs, mercs, pirates, comstar, or the periphery I could see 100k or so being fairly reasonable as a guesstimate. no clue if PDF or militia get factored there either. and you also got tanks, ASF, and infantry operating in tandem with them further filling out the numbers if the mechs seem a bit thin to you still.

on a side note it also gives rough percentages of what sort of mechs you can see (light to assault) and then a further percentage of what mech it is within the weight class.

One of my favorite documents as is. I use it decently frequently