[Akalabeth Angel]

    I read one person mention he'd like to do a Battletech MOD, has anyone seriously considered this out of curiosity? I thought about it for a few minutes, but the problem in my mind would be the missions. And basically that any campaign would likely be pretty damn boring. Most Aerotech missions are "escort dropship to the planet".

   The battletech universe really focuses on ground combat, not spacecombat. And while there are cool warships, etcetera . . . the frequency of their meeting is fairly small and further most aerospace combat likely occurs around a jump point or near a planet. There's not really anything like contesting a system or what have you. The only era which seems like it might be interesting is the Star League era and the campaign by Kerensky against Amaris.

   The one benefit to such a mod is that there'd be a fairly large fanbase for potential players . . . but beyond that, meh.
   Just wondering what other people's thoughts were. This is not something I'm seriously entertaining, so everyone can save their "help other MODs first before starting new ones" schpeal.

[Wanderer]

Well.. there is the 'reborn Star League beating the s**t out of a Clan' event.

Reason why there aren't really any space combat in the space apart from the jump points or L-points and in the orbit over the planet is simply that the game (AFAIK) used roughly realistic space travel system. And due that it is almost impossible to engage the approaching ships except for single split-second firing pass.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Well.. there is the 'reborn Star League beating the s**t out of a Clan' event.

Reason why there aren't really any space combat in the space apart from the jump points or L-points and in the orbit over the planet is simply that the game (AFAIK) used roughly realistic space travel system. And due that it is almost impossible to engage the approaching ships except for single split-second firing pass.

   Yeah, for a game about giant Robots with minimal weapons ranges, Battletech tries to be pretty realistic.
   But even operation serpent, against the Smoke Jaguars, could be summed up in about 5 missions total. Let's see I think they fought pirates, then they fought Ghost Bear, then Smoke Jags 2-3 times and that's it. A person could extend it more of course . .. but these sorts of battles are pretty darn rare.

[nvsblmnc]

There have been mentions of space battles, though.  There are several references to WarShips and their weaponry, and in MW4 we heard about a skirmish between two DropShips.

In terms of IS ships, the Talon DropShip in particular looks to have been designed as a blockade runner to punch through system defenses as it's weapons are all fore- or aft-facing, unlike the Hrothgar or Overlords, which have near 360 firing arcs.

I think there's an opporunity here, but the universe would have to be twisted to allow for any really impressive battles.

[MT]

I've read a few BT novels myself and a few contain accounts on space engagements. The engagements are small since the Succession Wars saw much devastation on the industries that the building of warp capable ships became nearly impossible that such ships were practically off-limits for engaging. However, by the time of the Fedcom Civil War, Warship production started picking up and space engagements involving things bigger than dropships start to happen.

The ships mount (naval grade) lasers, gauss rifles/ railguns, LRMs and maybe PPCs. The dropships (Overlord, Talon, Hrothgar) are mounted ON these Warships are also heavily armed. Those weapons are not as powerful as beam cannons and they will probably provide a more FS1 type of combat. Since shields do not exist in BT, the game will be very FS1-ish.

The Clan war aside, there are many possible scenarios.
1) Pre-Star League Era (little info)
2) uprising by Amaris,
3) Succession Wars (1-3),
4) 4th Succession War,
5) Clan incursion,
6) Fedcom Civil War,
7) WoB Jihad.

The most promising ones are probably 2, 3 and 6 in terms of space combat, simply due to the availability of Warship type combatants. Otherwise it is limited to fighters and egg-shaped ships.

[Wanderer]

The most promising ones are probably 2, 3 and 6 in terms of space combat, simply due to the availability of Warship type combatants. Otherwise it is limited to fighters and egg-shaped ships.

Not really... IIRC (been ages since i read those books) but there were masses of 'aerodyne' dropships too (ie. basically normal shaped). And several classes (both spherical and aerydyne) of 'assault dropships' which were like miniature warships - smaller and without jump drive - and later on used to escort the real WarShips. Not to mention fighter carrier dropships etc. Basically there was a taboo was to attack the unarmed JumpShip which had almost irreplaceable jump drives in them. DropShips and fighters of all types were free game.

So from what i understood and remember...
1) No idea
2) (loads of) WarShips and fighters (essentially no assault DropShips)
3) 1st war.. WarShips, DropShips, fighters - High tech. In the rest the amount of WarShips steadily decreased to nil before 3rd and same was with high tech.
4) Pretty much the same as 3rd succession war - perhaps minimum amounts of new high tech..
5) For inner sphere... same as 4th war but with loads of high tech weapons.. no WarShips until the very end. Clans.. Ultra tech with pretty much all kinds of ships - though there was in the beginning sorta 'fair game' rule not to use WarShips as long as inner sphere didnt use/have them.
6) Everything with high tech.
7) No idea

And also if i'm not entirely wrong the naval grade weapons were strictly limited to true warships. All the rest (dropships, jumpships) fought with 'standard' issue weapons - same as the fighters that is.

[Akalabeth Angel]

7) No idea

And also if i'm not entirely wrong the naval grade weapons were strictly limited to true warships. All the rest (dropships, jumpships) fought with 'standard' issue weapons - same as the fighters that is.

       That's true except for the missiles . . . in the so-called Jihad era, some dropships have been outfitted with warship class missiles with nukes to basically take out a warship in dastardly sneak attacks (Q-ship type of thing).

       And yes, there are all sorts of dropships, aerodyne and spheroid. Though  my concern would be that most battles would not be more than a few missions per system. I mean, a person could stretch it out a little . .. . but for your average mission, planetary assault or raid or what not it's going to be pretty much the same every time. The challenging thing would be for the campaign designer to make it interesting imo.

[NGTM-1R]

From a fighter pilot's point of view, things can last a lot longer than you seem to think. On Tukkayid there was nearly continous air combat from Day Two until the end. Similarly in a lot of cases during the FedCom Civil War air and aerospace superiority was fiercely contested from beginning to end. During the Clan Invasion, those units that had aerospace fighters available operated them nearly nonstop, because for all the efforts the Clans put into their genetically engineered fighter pilots, the Inner Sphere's superior training programs and usually (much) greater combat experience gives them a hard edge that Clan pilots struggle to match even with their advanced fighters. It was common practice during the Clan Invasion for defending Inner Sphere forces to put guns on anything that could fly for ground-attack purposes, since usually an Inner Sphere force with a decent aerospace fighter component could gain local air superiority over a battlefield.

DropShips and WarShips rarely enter combat, and when they do, they have a clear mission to complete. This is entirely natural, as they are large, valuable, and difficult to replace. But for a fighter pilot, particularly an Inner Sphere one, while facing a hostile WarShip or DropShip may be rare, they see as much as action as any MechWarrior.

[Akalabeth Angel]

     Oh I'm sure Aerospace fighters see a lot of combat, but I think ground attack missions will be a little difficult to pull off. I get the impression from various posts that you can't for instance simulate a mech walking (model articulation). .. . so unless the pilot's attacking a bunch of station mech/turrets and tank/turrets. And/or random buildings here and there. But I think not having the mechs move would be a big limitation. A better game from FASA to simulate might be Starlord's idea, Renegade Legion where the main ground combatants would be anti-grav tanks. Much easier to simulate I think.

    Aerotech would certainly be cool, but without the mechs it's not really aerotech I think .
    With the mechs . . . and atmospheric combat, the mission potential is a lot greater.

[Getter Robo G]

If you can simulate a mech punching, why can't you simulate it walking???
(search is your friend, unless it's still bonked?). Shadow0000 did it with my namesake Getter Robo.

I just think it's a huge amount of work for all those animations and what not. unless every unit could use the same set but I think not. Every unit would need to be articulated etc...

My idea is less attractive but more feasible. I was going to have all the units hover barely over teh ground and not walk just glide. Problem was 2-3 mods WERE working on gravity and ground stuff (158th, twisted infinity, etc) and you all know how that's going...

Regardless, I was going to make the upper part of the mech a turret and the lower part a base. The torso twist would be the Z axis left right turning and the arms would be the Y axis up/down so at lest they would appear to track targets. The key would be to bind the movement only to the ground plane so they don't go floating off in random directions like fighters. Again a feature that was being worked on with no word or release of such features...

See you on the ground pilots! (yeah my drop ship is an ISD got a problem with that?)

[Sarafan]

If a BT mod were to be made, one thing I'd like to know is would it be possible to mount all those weapons fighters have?

[Wanderer]

If a BT mod were to be made, one thing I'd like to know is would it be possible to mount all those weapons fighters have?

Err?

[Shade]

I don't see the problem. You've got at least two primary banks and three secondary banks to work with. So something like a large laser/medium laser + SRM/LRM combo would fit just fine, and you'd even have a secondary bank to spare. Plus any turrets.

[Akalabeth Angel]

I just think it's a huge amount of work for all those animations and what not. unless every unit could use the same set but I think not. Every unit would need to be articulated etc...

    Depending on what exactly is entailed, a walk cycle for a mech isn't exactly that difficult. Normally anyway, I don't know if a person has to move them in an unusual way. (ie what software if any is used to animate??)

 
    As for the fighters, well . . . most fighters circa 3025 only has like 2-4 different types of weaponry. Try to use the biggest two weapons say . . . so most have like LLs, and MLs. Then the rear MLs would be a turret or some such. LRMs and SRMs become missile launchers of some variety. ACs become some sort of ammo dependent weapon. (dunno how you do that).

    With newer clan fighters etcetear, I think they go crazy with the number of weapons but a person just has to simplify it a little. If it's not exact whatever.

[Shade]

ACs become some sort of ammo dependent weapon. (dunno how you do that).

Ballistic primaries. Been possible for years. Check the BtRL demo if you want to see them in action.

[NGTM-1R]

I don't see the problem. You've got at least two primary banks and three secondary banks to work with. So something like a large laser/medium laser + SRM/LRM combo would fit just fine, and you'd even have a secondary bank to spare. Plus any turrets.

He's got a point, unfortunately. It's common for an ASF to mount more than two kinds of what FS would consider primaries.

[Wanderer]

First of all three primaries is not a problem... Or haven't you tried Wing Commander Saga...

Also... Its common for light and medium fighters to have just very few weapons. Heavies are a different story but even there you will find fighter variants that have 'suitable loadout'. Also i couldn't even find an example where there would have been four different kinds of 'primaries' mounted to a ship apart from fan made stuff...

[Shade]

Not to mention that often one set is pointed backwards, meaning you can hand those off to a turret instead of taking up a primary slot.

[WMCoolmon]

You do have control over subsystem rotation via scripting. If attached subsystems rotate with their parent subsystem, you could make a walking anim.

As far as Aerotech goes - I imported a couple of fighters awhile back; I don't know what happened to them. You can't simulate criticals, but you could treat banks of weapons as a group of criticals. So you could swap out four medium lasers for four AC-5s, for instance.

For Freespace 2, you wouldn't even want more than four weapons. It hasn't got the ability to group things like Mechwarrior 2. Three banks of weapons to deal with is plenty.

No one's mentioned the Clan Wars after Aleksandr Kerensky died; that's another possible point for naval combat. You could take the role of one of Nicholas Kerensky's loyal followers and work your way up as he establishes the Clans. Or you could take part in the decimation of the Unnamed Clan. Or just participate in several Trials of Possession. It would take away from the alien feel of the Clans, but it would add some texture to the campaign, quiaff?

[General Battuta]

Mechwarrior 2 was probably the best of the series, and it was from a Clan POV.