Author Topic: MechWarrior Online  (Read 269258 times)

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Offline Spoon

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Die clanner, take that timber wolf and dire wolf of yours and stick it where not even the word of blake can reach it  :p

But yeah, clanner weapons are just better than IS tech. But aside from less weight and more damage/range, its the same weapon.
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Offline Scotty

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Later in the timeline, ATMs, Plasma Cannons, Micro lasers of all kinds, and AP Gauss Rifles are all Clan exclusive.

Although to make up for that, Inner Sphere gets MMLs, Plasma Rifles, several different kinds of pulse lasers (only one of which could possibly be considered better than Clan, and then only at the shortest range), and Magshot Guass (which isn't as good as APGRs).

 
So none of this?

Yeah, the MechWarrior series has no speed lines, no anime bull****-o physics, better writing (even at the franchise's worst), and less hammy acting (except at the franchise's worst).  :P

On the subject of balance, things do go a little off the rails, when Clan tech gets thrown into the mix.  In addition to the weapons and equipment being superior, by way of weighing less and consuming fewer criticals, the Clan equivilant of an Inner Sphere lance is a star, which contains five mechs, as opposed to four.  You know, because the Clans weren't already pointing enough extra guns at you.  Derp.

The only reason the Clans were stopped and eventually driven from the Inner Sphere was the IS military's willingness to use unconventional tactics and weaponry (I remember Inferno SRM ambushes being mentioned specifically) that were abhorrent to the Clans rigid sense of honor.  We'll see how that plays out, when the Clans are introduced to MWO, as I'm sure that Clan players are not likely to hold to anywhere near as strict a code of honor as the Clan warriors of BattleTech's fiction.

 

Offline Scotty

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Stars don't fight Lances.  Stars fight Companies (12 'Mechs).

The only reason the Clans were stopped was because ComStar (the faction that held Terra, which was the only reason the Clans were invading at all) challenged them to a proxy battle for Terra at a place called Tukayyid, and then landed twelve entire Armies of troops (144 Regiments of 108 to 120 'Mechs each.  That's right.  At the very least over 15,000 'Mechs) of troops on planet and prepared for the worst that 25 Galaxies (135 units of either 'Mechs or points of Elemental Battlearmor each.  Between three and five thousand units of 'Mechs and Elementals) of Clan troops could throw at them.  ComStar won (barely), and the result was a 15 year truce.

EDIT: ComStar lost over 40% of their starting force.  The Clans lost roughly half.

 

Offline pecenipicek

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Stars don't fight Lances.  Stars fight Companies (12 'Mechs).

The only reason the Clans were stopped was because ComStar (the faction that held Terra, which was the only reason the Clans were invading at all) challenged them to a proxy battle for Terra at a place called Tukayyid, and then landed twelve entire Armies of troops (144 Regiments of 108 to 120 'Mechs each.  That's right.  At the very least over 15,000 'Mechs) of troops on planet and prepared for the worst that 25 Galaxies (135 units of either 'Mechs or points of Elemental Battlearmor each.  Between three and five thousand units of 'Mechs and Elementals) of Clan troops could throw at them.  ComStar won (barely), and the result was a 15 year truce.

EDIT: ComStar lost over 40% of their starting force.  The Clans lost roughly half.
in short, clan tech is ****ing scary.
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Offline Scotty

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Oh, that 40% was fatalities.  Wounded and shot down were probably more toward 60-70%.

It was hands down the single largest engagement in the Inner Sphere since Kerensky's March to Terra in 2777.

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Oh, that 40% was fatalities.  Wounded and shot down were probably more toward 60-70%.

I actually attempted to compile a list on this from the ComStar sourcebooks and the Clan sourcebooks. The Clans lost more than half of what they committed (indeed, 50% losses would be optimistic for many units), ComStar's total casualties were weighted heavily towards non-'Mech units; the infantry force in particular took it on the chin protecting the 'Mechs and armor from Clan Elementals, while the armor was used as a stop line so the 'Mechs could engage the Clans on favorable terms.

This also doesn't account for the other big loss, where Clan Smoke Jaguar and Clan Nova Cat went all in against Luthien and got wiped by a force much closer to their size.
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Offline Scotty

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For some of the forces, like Clan Diamond Shark, which was relatively unblooded against the Inner sphere, 90% losses would be conservative.  Clan Wolf, which actually succeeded and captured the objectives assigned to it, lost a relatively trivial 30%-ish of their forces.  Most Clan losses ranged between 50 and 70%.  Ghost Bear and Jade Falcon losses would be on the lower end, while Smoke Jaguar losses on the higher end.

 

Offline Spoon

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no anime bull****-o physics
Ignoring everything else you said, please don't delude yourself into thinking that mechwarrior is realistic in any kind of way. There is no practical and realistic way battle mechs could work the way they do in real life as they do in battletech, not without stretching physics to some extend.
Tanks and planes would make short work of them impractical lumbering hulks.

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Offline Polpolion

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no anime bull****-o physics
Ignoring everything else you said, please don't delude yourself into thinking that mechwarrior is realistic in any kind of way. There is no practical and realistic way battle mechs could work the way they do in real life as they do in battletech, not without stretching physics to some extend.
Tanks and planes would make short work of them impractical lumbering hulks.

judging by what I saw of the clip posted I'd easily wager that battletech is far more realistic than gundam, which I'm sure is what BlueFlames was going after. In fact I think really the only really huge pieces of magic in Battletech are Myomer muscles (the things that make mechs practical) and FTL travel and communications. The later is honestly one of the most forgivable physics violations known in SciFi. The former is really present among all mech-related universes. tbh, it's far more reasonably shown in battletech than in any other mech-related universe I've seen. If you really want to get in a huff about something do it about the weapon ranges. Admitedly, there's really no way to get around this other than saying it's for board-game playing purposes. :p

Those arguments aside, the fact that in battletech mechs aren't giant metal ninjas dancing around slicing each other to pieces with 20 foot long swords is part of what makes battletech unique. They're actually giant robots and not just big metal people. But what it boils down to in the end is what you prefer. I haven't watched any gundam past that clip and I have no desire to at any time in the future.

 

Offline Spoon

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I'm just saying, you sound mighty stupid to me if you are belittling one giant robot universe's physics as unrealistic and using that as an argument to somehow prove that the other giant robot universe is somehow more realistic.
Be it a 18 meter tall gundam with a weight of 60 tons or a 12 meter high battlemech with a weight of 100 ton. Either way they are going to be a collosal nightmare to move around. Both would sink deeply into the ground with each step, all those moving joints are a weakpoint disaster and all you are doing by being so tall is make yourself into a huge target. Both universes need to disregard or stretch the laws of physics and invent some magic technology to make it all work.

Quote from: Polpolion
Those arguments aside, the fact that in battletech mechs aren't giant metal ninjas dancing around slicing each other to pieces with 20 foot long swords is part of what makes battletech unique.
But.... Battletech mechs aren't unique. They are typical western type walking tanks. There are a bunch of other universes (be it books, movies or games) out there that have mechs in similar functions and functionalities. Just like there are a whole slew of 'giant metal ninja' japanese/asian style mechs out there. (But there are also a bunch of anime that make their mechs feel like they have more of a weight and mass to them. Such as Gundam 08th ms team and the Break Blade movies. Both of which I can highly recommend.)
In closing: Both are unrealistic as balls and would not practically work in real life. It's merely a difference in style. You are absolutely free to have a preference or dislike for one or the other style, but saying that one is 'more realistic' than the other is dumb either way.
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[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
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[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

 

Offline Polpolion

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I'm just saying, you sound mighty stupid to me if you are belittling one giant robot universe's physics as unrealistic and using that as an argument to somehow prove that the other giant robot universe is somehow more realistic.
Be it a 18 meter tall gundam with a weight of 60 tons or a 12 meter high battlemech with a weight of 100 ton. Either way they are going to be a collosal nightmare to move around. Both would sink deeply into the ground with each step, all those moving joints are a weakpoint disaster and all you are doing by being so tall is make yourself into a huge target. Both universes need to disregard or stretch the laws of physics and invent some magic technology to make it all work.

Hardly. Neither BlueFlames nor I ever said battletech was realistic. I made a comment on their relative levels of realism, but that's just about it. And honestly it's perfectly reasonable to belittle one giant robot universe on that basis. People have opinions and preferences, believe-ability is a perfectly valid criterion for forming those opinions and it in no way makes you stupid.

Quote
But.... Battletech mechs aren't unique. They are typical western type walking tanks. There are a bunch of other universes (be it books, movies or games) out there that have mechs in similar functions and functionalities. Just like there are a whole slew of 'giant metal ninja' japanese/asian style mechs out there. (But there are also a bunch of anime that make their mechs feel like they have more of a weight and mass to them. Such as Gundam 08th ms team and the Break Blade movies. Both of which I can highly recommend.)

Can you tell me about these other universes? The only one I can think of is Starsiege and it really doesn't come anywhere close to Battletech in terms of techno-babble quantity and quality.

 

Offline Scotty

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However, the rest of BattleTech, walking tanks aside, is significantly more plausible.  Indeed, the most "unrealistic" part of BattleTech is that 'Mechs are the kings of the battlefield because of myomer "muscles" that are strong enough for fast, reliable movement (leaving aside the "official" ranges, which are flat out stated in the first few pages of my rulebook here to be artificially truncated for gameplay).

They're no more a nightmare to move around than a tank, and probably actually significantly less so because there's only one "crewmember" needed to move it.

Hell, they probably wouldn't even sink into the ground like that at all.  Modern tanks would have roughly comparable surface contact areas when considering that every point of the track on the bottom of the tank will be in contact with the ground at any given point on flat terrain, and tanks like the Abrams mass as much or more than the majority of different kinds of 'Mech designs, let alone the most common types.  Some 'Mechs even weigh as little as a third as much as the Abrams.  Hell, 'Mechs like the Catapult are honestly less likely to sink into the ground than their tanky counterparts simply because the feet of the 'Mech spread the weight over a larger area.  Smaller 'Mechs like Stingers, Wasps, and Locusts weigh five tons less than your average Bradley IFV, which gets around on roughly ~4.5 square meters of ground contact (conservative estimate).  Having a pair of feet that occupy ~2.5 square meters each isn't hard, and the Bradley has absolutely zero problems traversing rough or difficult terrain.

Admittedly I can't really protest the joints are weakpoints part, because that's true, but the tactical and strategic mobility of being able to step over a low wall or literally jump over a river, or navigate rough terrain without slowing down is not an advantage to be thrown away.

BattleTech 'Mechs may not be as practical as the Real World (tm), but they're a hell of a lot less ass-pull than indestructo-Gundam.

 

Offline Commander Zane

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Can you tell me about these other universes? The only one I can think of is Starsiege and it really doesn't come anywhere close to Battletech in terms of techno-babble quantity and quality.
There's Metaltech and CyberStorm which I think are pretty close, though as far as I can remember there isn't any HERC with design features like that of say, the Commando or Centurion.
Could be wrong. Been at least ten years since I played any of those titles.

Plus their Lore only goes as far as their PC titles, so it's not surprising that there isn't much to know about them in detail.

 

Offline Liberator

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I was using the clip only as an example of a mech-sized vibroblade that Patrick failed to use because Setsuna's unit was 100 years more advanced thanks to it's Space/Time Topological Defect power source.
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Offline FireSpawn

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Let's just face it, no matter what design, no matter what universe it hails from and no matter how much butthurt it makes physics feel, we'd all love to have a mech.
And talking of mechs, am I the only person that thinks Metal Gear: Rex looks like it would be at home in the battletech universe?
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Offline Spoon

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Hardly. Neither BlueFlames nor I ever said battletech was realistic. I made a comment on their relative levels of realism, but that's just about it. And honestly it's perfectly reasonable to belittle one giant robot universe on that basis. People have opinions and preferences, believe-ability is a perfectly valid criterion for forming those opinions and it in no way makes you stupid.
All giant mech universes work on the of rule of cool and have their reality/physics/whatever twisted to accomendate the concept of a mech being a valid warmachine.
Blueflame quite literally named a list of things that according to him, make the battletech universe 'better' than the gundam universe. He literally named 'anime bull****-o physics' as a point. Supposedly because Battletech does not have 'bull****-o physics' and is therefore 'more realistic'. You can speak for yourself here, but you don't seem to be speaking for Blueflame.
Anyway, I suggest you actually educate yourself a bit more on the subject of Gundam before continueing this discussion. Cause as you admitted yourself, you don't actually know what you are talking about and have merely dismissed the universe before hand. (http://youtu.be/-qLrnn2tEmY Look, a clip from 08th ms team. Doesn't look like dancing samurai's to me but like lumbering metal giant warmachines.)

Can you tell me about these other universes? The only one I can think of is Starsiege and it really doesn't come anywhere close to Battletech in terms of techno-babble quantity and quality.
To name a few western things that feature lumbering mechs as warmachines (games, movies, whatever):
Earth/starsiege (As you already mentioned)
Star wars (AT-AT's, AT-ST's)
Avatar (AMPS)
Supreme commander&Total Annihilation
Bolo (though those are more like giant tanks than mechs but eh)
Metal Fatigue
Warhammer 40k
Steel battalion
Starcraft
Command and Conquer Tiberian sun
Shattered Steel
Universe at War
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Offline Commander Zane

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Deformable terrain FTW. :D

 

Offline Scotty

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I happen to love 08th MS Team, you know.  I'm not a fan of BattleTech and BattleTech only.  Hell, I even admitted outright that BattleTech isn't practical to Real Life (tm).

That does not, however, make anything Gundam any less patently ridiculous on a level significantly above BattleTech.

 

Offline Spoon

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However, the rest of BattleTech, walking tanks aside, is significantly more plausible.  Indeed, the most "unrealistic" part of BattleTech is that 'Mechs are the kings of the battlefield because of myomer "muscles" that are strong enough for fast, reliable movement (leaving aside the "official" ranges, which are flat out stated in the first few pages of my rulebook here to be artificially truncated for gameplay).
Do elaborate, how is the rest of Battletech more plausible exactly?

They're no more a nightmare to move around than a tank, and probably actually significantly less so because there's only one "crewmember" needed to move it.
Aside from leaving a massive trail of destruction wherever an heavy/assault mech goes, sure. Aside from needing several truck loads of additional parts to get all the moving joints and bits working, sure.

Hell, they probably wouldn't even sink into the ground like that at all.  Modern tanks would have roughly comparable surface contact areas when considering that every point of the track on the bottom of the tank will be in contact with the ground at any given point on flat terrain, and tanks like the Abrams mass as much or more than the majority of different kinds of 'Mech designs, let alone the most common types.  Some 'Mechs even weigh as little as a third as much as the Abrams.  Hell, 'Mechs like the Catapult are honestly less likely to sink into the ground than their tanky counterparts simply because the feet of the 'Mech spread the weight over a larger area.  Smaller 'Mechs like Stingers, Wasps, and Locusts weigh five tons less than your average Bradley IFV, which gets around on roughly ~4.5 square meters of ground contact (conservative estimate).  Having a pair of feet that occupy ~2.5 square meters each isn't hard, and the Bradley has absolutely zero problems traversing rough or difficult terrain.
Oooh boy. How wrong you are.
The light mechs, sure. But a Catapult and an Abrams are pretty much the same tonnage. Now. Think for a moment what happens when the Catapult takes a step forward...
Aye, pretty much the whole weight of the mech will be resting on the leg taking a step forward. Now try and imagine what the average grass field would look like after a Catapult strides through it. It's nowhere the same surface area.
Think of a snowboard or a pair of skis on a mountain of snow. When you walk over that snow, you sink all the way in it. When you glide over it with your board, its smooth sailing.

Admittedly I can't really protest the joints are weakpoints part, because that's true, but the tactical and strategic mobility of being able to step over a low wall or literally jump over a river, or navigate rough terrain without slowing down is not an advantage to be thrown away.
Which is pretty much negated by the fact that a mech wouldn't realistically be able to traverse a semi steep hill without falling over backwards. Or it would need to have legs with far more advanced and delicate joints than would be practical for a warmachine (one solid mine would blow such a fine piece of machinery right off).

BattleTech 'Mechs may not be as practical as the Real World (tm), but they're a hell of a lot less ass-pull than indestructo-Gundam.

Both need magitech to work. They are both equally ass pull.

I happen to love 08th MS Team, you know.  I'm not a fan of BattleTech and BattleTech only.  Hell, I even admitted outright that BattleTech isn't practical to Real Life (tm).
That's cool, but that post was aimed at Polpolion.

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[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them