Johan Schmidt
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2020
There was a reason why first reports had a lot of the periphery and inner sphere going 'Oh fuck, did we find aliens!'. Clanner gear is just that much better made than anybody elses stuff.
Battletech - Also known as Trannytech
- Thread starter Frosted Snowflakes
- Start date
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2019
Clans and their incredible shrinking component shit (LRM20s that weigh fuckall and take up less space, ERLL that can fit in the fucking HD, 2 crit DHS, XLs that aren't a mission kill on ST loss, ERPPCs that do more damage, weigh less and take one less crit) are something I would personally piss in Weisman's coffeepot for.
Johan Schmidt
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2020
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2019
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2018
Yeah, they should have never ever EVER given Clan weapons +damage on top of every other tech buff they got.
Endo/FF, XL engines, built in CASE (one more crit and half ton of mass), many of the heavier weapons being substantially lighter/smaller than IS counterparts. All bad enough.
But then you get to range and damage output and it gets stupid.
Clan ER medium laser weighs one ton, takes one crit slot, and deals seven damage, with a range of 5/10/15, generating 5 heat.
The IS ER medium laser weighs the same, same crit space, deals five damage, with a range of 4/8/12, generating same heat.
This means the Clan ER medium is damned near on par with the IS large laser. For one less point of damage, you generate three less heat, hit at the same range, only take up one crit as opposed to two and it weighs 20 percent of what a large laser does.
Pulse lasers are even worse. IS pulse lasers are, in my opinion, generally balanced as they give a VERY modest damage boost (+1) and a solid to-hit bonus (-2) for losing about 33% of their range.
But the Clan medium pulse laser has 4/8/12 range, one crit, 2 tons, and deals 7 damage for four heat. Meanwhile, the IS medium pulse laser is practically a close-quarters weapon, with a 2/4/6 range, dealing 6 damage for four heat, same crit/weight.
It's REALLY noticeable with the large pulse laser. The poor IS LPL plods along, generating 10 heat for 9 damage, with a 3/7/10 range -- barely better than a stock medium laser, while weighing 7 tons and taking 2 crit slots.
The Clan LPL, by comparison, is broken as fuck. 10 damage, 10 heat, six tons, 2 crits... and an ungodly 6/14/20 range. Don't forget the -2 to hit bonus from pulse, which nudges the dice substantially in your favor when shooting at medium/long ranges or at fast targets.
Endo/FF, XL engines, built in CASE (one more crit and half ton of mass), many of the heavier weapons being substantially lighter/smaller than IS counterparts. All bad enough.
But then you get to range and damage output and it gets stupid.
Clan ER medium laser weighs one ton, takes one crit slot, and deals seven damage, with a range of 5/10/15, generating 5 heat.
The IS ER medium laser weighs the same, same crit space, deals five damage, with a range of 4/8/12, generating same heat.
This means the Clan ER medium is damned near on par with the IS large laser. For one less point of damage, you generate three less heat, hit at the same range, only take up one crit as opposed to two and it weighs 20 percent of what a large laser does.
Pulse lasers are even worse. IS pulse lasers are, in my opinion, generally balanced as they give a VERY modest damage boost (+1) and a solid to-hit bonus (-2) for losing about 33% of their range.
But the Clan medium pulse laser has 4/8/12 range, one crit, 2 tons, and deals 7 damage for four heat. Meanwhile, the IS medium pulse laser is practically a close-quarters weapon, with a 2/4/6 range, dealing 6 damage for four heat, same crit/weight.
It's REALLY noticeable with the large pulse laser. The poor IS LPL plods along, generating 10 heat for 9 damage, with a 3/7/10 range -- barely better than a stock medium laser, while weighing 7 tons and taking 2 crit slots.
The Clan LPL, by comparison, is broken as fuck. 10 damage, 10 heat, six tons, 2 crits... and an ungodly 6/14/20 range. Don't forget the -2 to hit bonus from pulse, which nudges the dice substantially in your favor when shooting at medium/long ranges or at fast targets.
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2019
why_fielding_the_Warhawk-C_will_get_you_slapped.jpg
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2020
I feel like I'm reliving the discussions of my youth over why the Clans never should have happened.
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2020
I like the Clans as opponents, but it's like monsters in D&D: the players aren't supposed to be able to play as them, because the rules are completely different.
What rankles me about them isn't even the overpowered gear. That shit can be balanced out by cost and Battle Value (a Daishi Prime is already almost 50% more expensive than an Atlas BV-wise, we could bump it up to 60%), and by having the canon variants be unoptimized. For example, Clanners value short, brutal battles above everything else, right? Make it so they carry very little ammo. Make them run hot under the excuse of "Clan MechWarriors think relying on brute heatsink power is cowardly and much prefer to manage their heat themselves", or something like that. Stuff the fixed Endo-Steel and Ferro Fibrous slots in the side torsos so the main weapons always have to go into the more weakly armored arms. There are a lot of balance dials that could be turned to tune them.
No, the structural problem, the one that can't just be fixed with number tweaks, is they they all came in with OmniMechs. Every OmniMech is essentially a homebrew on legs, and we all know how easy it is to break the game with homebrew designs, even using only IS gear. If instead of "put everything you want, everywhere!" Omnis were normal 'Mechs with 4-5 canon, carefully-designed variants that could then be swapped as a package within a few hours, they'd be far easier to balance. You'd still get the flexibility of having a single 'Mech carry out multiple tasks if you're playing a campaign, but you wouldn't have shit like Timber Wolves with quad LPLs ruining things for everybody.
What rankles me about them isn't even the overpowered gear. That shit can be balanced out by cost and Battle Value (a Daishi Prime is already almost 50% more expensive than an Atlas BV-wise, we could bump it up to 60%), and by having the canon variants be unoptimized. For example, Clanners value short, brutal battles above everything else, right? Make it so they carry very little ammo. Make them run hot under the excuse of "Clan MechWarriors think relying on brute heatsink power is cowardly and much prefer to manage their heat themselves", or something like that. Stuff the fixed Endo-Steel and Ferro Fibrous slots in the side torsos so the main weapons always have to go into the more weakly armored arms. There are a lot of balance dials that could be turned to tune them.
No, the structural problem, the one that can't just be fixed with number tweaks, is they they all came in with OmniMechs. Every OmniMech is essentially a homebrew on legs, and we all know how easy it is to break the game with homebrew designs, even using only IS gear. If instead of "put everything you want, everywhere!" Omnis were normal 'Mechs with 4-5 canon, carefully-designed variants that could then be swapped as a package within a few hours, they'd be far easier to balance. You'd still get the flexibility of having a single 'Mech carry out multiple tasks if you're playing a campaign, but you wouldn't have shit like Timber Wolves with quad LPLs ruining things for everybody.
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2019
Think a Summoner with banked LPLs (and a TC) would be even worse really. POPTARTS.
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2020
I think we all have our memetic bullshit builds we can talk about. Regardless, this just confirms the point: Omnis, particularly Clan Omnis, break what little semblanc of balance the game has. Certain 'Mechs (and variants within a "model") are supposed to be better than others at certain roles (and some are just flat-out better due to being better optimized). Omnis throw that design constraint out of the window.
After all, why would you get an Archer with those silly rear-mounted Medium Lasers, when you can get an Omni like an Avatar, load it with LRM-20s, and just flip the lasers forward, or drop them altogether for more ammo? And you would still be able to fully reconfigure it to whatever boating build you feel like using the next day! Who needs fluff-relevant backup weapons when you can just have more of your most efficient weapons?
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2015
Clan LPL's are basically PPC's with bonuses to hit. They don't benefit from Targeting Computers for allowing surgical component removal, but they can still benefit from one. They're insanely good for what they do, though IS LPL's aren't the worst to slap into a '39 or 3050 design if you're looking for a fun mech. The MAD-5M for example. It'll body a Thor that decides that being a clanner means it can ignore things like 'threat ranges' and 'maybe you shouldn't jump in close to someone with that many pulse lasers.' Is the 5M a good machine? Eh, it's really a 50/50 in my book but holy mother of god does it hit like a truck in any close range fight. That LB-X AC/10 gives it a bit of fun times up close or a longer range punch if wanted. And it can jump. Excellent urban combat mech, since it can jump and fire without a lot of penalties.
I still laugh about that somewhat new guy who jumped his Thor into thwacking range thinking "Hey, it's only IS LPL's, what's the worst that could happen!"
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2020
I think it's funny that according to the BT lore no Is power (not even Comstar) ever managed to build Clan-spec weapons before the Jihad with the sole exception of the Word of Blake. I get it that some would argue "cost" but it is still unbelievable. Especially when you have Clan "Sell-to-everyone" is selling you Clan-spec Garrison mechs (Ha Otoko, Mad Cat MK2). I would wager that some smart guy says "Hey look what we got now analyze!" The only thing that the IS ever managed to make a 1:1 copy of are the A-Pods (and from the Capellan Confederation no les). Oh and don't get me started on the AMS system the Clans use. Double Ammo for the same mass?
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2020
That's actually one of the most reasonable things about Clan tech, though. The Clans had 220 years to develop technology without their labs and factories being nuked by four Succession Wars. It wasn't just the final products that they improved, they also have massively more advanced manufacturing methods and procedures. Sure, if you get Clan salvage you can learn how it works, but you don't necessarily know how to make your own version. Clan Happy Merchant sells a lot of products to the Inner Sphere, yes. But I don't think they sell production secrets or factories.
For a real-life example, if you went back in time to 2006 (when the Intel Core 2 processor family had just been released) and showed Intel a current-generation i7, they would be completely lost as to how to make one themselves. Back then they were still making 60nm chips. Bringing them a 14nm chip released 15 years later without also bringing in the manufacturing specs and methods would do nothing to help them develop the know-how they need to produce i7s.
Either way, contact with the Clans did spur on a lot of development in the Inner Sphere. A few things turned out to be even better than what the Clans could come up with, because the Clans aren't that good at innovation. After the Golden Century, they didn't get a whole lot done in terms of tech. For example, the Clan Hyper-Asssault Gauss Rifle fires gauss buckshot instead of slugs because they were trying to make something better than an Inner Sphere Heavy Gauss Rifle but failed and had to settle for a compromise solution. Their Rotary Autocannons are lighter than IS RACs, but they also had to compromise and make it bulkier than the IS counterpart. Even their absurdly powerful Heavy Lasers are a kludgy solution that messes with the firing 'Mechs sensors.
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2020
True the Clans were free from the tech loss though they nearly did it to themselves too (Pentagon Civil War) And the IS has a way bigger base to make strides in development. I mean the Combine build their first Omnimech 7 years after they caught their first intact Clan Omnimechs. Oh and the IS also build their own lightweight normal autocannons. (Class 2 and 5). Light as Clan versions and no range penalty at short range but with a loss at long range. And what is also interesting: the IS build SL tech years before the Clans kicked of their invasion. ER lasers, Active probes, ECM, Artemis systems made their return betwen the 3039 war and the Clan invasion. The Clans just gave them more insights in how to surpass SL tech (for example Ultra and LB-X 20 guns are weapons that were invented by the Clans not the SL). Heck the first massed upgrades were rolled out during the counterattack by the FedCom. Best example: when the Grey Death Legion fought on Pandora they already had the first prototype battlesuits delivered to them. Funny thing too: the Sourcebook Operation Klondike states that without the Jihad the IS would have reached Clan level weapon tech by 3080.
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2020
Pretty much. To paraphrase Tex, "if you invade and you don't win, all you do is sharpen the spears of the guys you invaded."
That it took the Clans one and a half century of uninterrupted technological development to get to a point the Inner Sphere almost reached in 30 years is a testament to how bad the Clans are at innovation. By the end of the Dark Age era, 3150 or so, "Clan" technology isn't really exclusive to Clans anymore, since it's also produced in the Inner Sphere instead of having to travel all the way from the Kerensky Cluster. There are a good number of Mixed tech 'Mechs now, along with a bunch of ostensibly "Clan" machines built specifically for Inner Sphere markets (hi, Sea Foxes!). And even before the Jihad the Mad Cat Mk II had been sold to the Inner Sphere, that's just how things were going to go.
Once it became widespread across the Inner Sphere, Clan gear is treated more like a "premium" version of any given equipment, something you get for an edge if you have a lot of money to spend. The Inner Sphere doesn't have to develop weapons comparable to the Clans' anymore, they already have Clan weapons they can buy.
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2020
I doubt that in the current timeline the IS powers simply buy Clan tech weapons. In the BG forums they argue that most IS powers have factories that produce Clan tech weapons. Look at the Combine: Shigunga produces clan tech missile launchers and I think House Davion also produces Clan ER lasers. The Clans still have some tech that is not build in the IS but the tech parity is nearly there. The only adantage for the Clans now is the training and gene level (Clan trueborn warriors are always stronger then their IS counterparts, the FedCom civil War book states that a regular Clan warrior is the equivalent of an IS veteran warrior at least when it comes to Mechwarriors)
Last edited:
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2016
BT should have changed the rules so anyone can use whatever equippement they want and mix IS and Clan spec weapons and just differentiate that with cost and BV.
Would make perfect sense: IS slowly caught up with the Clans, but using pure Clan spec is expensive as fuck, so they only do it for some of the equippement. Meanwhile, the Clans become more happy to use IS-spec weapons, cause they can easily obtain/manifacture them in the IS area, without a necessity to import them from Strana Metchty.
It's kind of what usually stalls a lot of fantasy-settings, when it comes to any kind of firearm.
"But what if a player starts working on creating a modern rifle/machinegun?" is an argument I have heard a lot of times and it always fascinates me. Firearms existed for a thousand years now, they were around in the middle ages, but they fucking sucked and to make them not suck, you'd need tools and materials that took centuries to come up with. Ironically, you need as of that moment unknown tools and materials to even make the materials used for the tools to work on the materials you need for the tools that will enable you to work on a modern gun.
So yeah, you might be able to pry open a Clan ER PPC and look at everything, but then there's some Tubeborn Spacemagic Material shaped by tools that you can't replicate... so it would take a lot of time to copy that tech, even when you have the blueprints.
As a matter of fact, Japan usually makes weapon systems domestically. They buy a few units to test them, buy the rights to license them and then improve upon them where they deem necessary. In that way, they bought the rights to build a special ground-to-air-missile and managed to squeeze significantly more performance out of the targeting system, cause the company making the optic sensor was using the same method they perfected when working on VHS recorders (of all things).
The US Army was unable to replicate that manifacturing method, just cause they lacked the polishing method.
Would make perfect sense: IS slowly caught up with the Clans, but using pure Clan spec is expensive as fuck, so they only do it for some of the equippement. Meanwhile, the Clans become more happy to use IS-spec weapons, cause they can easily obtain/manifacture them in the IS area, without a necessity to import them from Strana Metchty.
Or imagine someone grabs an M16 and hands it over to a guy in the 1850s. The guy would look at it and perfectly understand how it works mechanically, but he'd never be able to copy it, since he lacks the components, means of production or powder to make it work.
It's kind of what usually stalls a lot of fantasy-settings, when it comes to any kind of firearm.
"But what if a player starts working on creating a modern rifle/machinegun?" is an argument I have heard a lot of times and it always fascinates me. Firearms existed for a thousand years now, they were around in the middle ages, but they fucking sucked and to make them not suck, you'd need tools and materials that took centuries to come up with. Ironically, you need as of that moment unknown tools and materials to even make the materials used for the tools to work on the materials you need for the tools that will enable you to work on a modern gun.
So yeah, you might be able to pry open a Clan ER PPC and look at everything, but then there's some Tubeborn Spacemagic Material shaped by tools that you can't replicate... so it would take a lot of time to copy that tech, even when you have the blueprints.
As a matter of fact, Japan usually makes weapon systems domestically. They buy a few units to test them, buy the rights to license them and then improve upon them where they deem necessary. In that way, they bought the rights to build a special ground-to-air-missile and managed to squeeze significantly more performance out of the targeting system, cause the company making the optic sensor was using the same method they perfected when working on VHS recorders (of all things).
The US Army was unable to replicate that manifacturing method, just cause they lacked the polishing method.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2018
One of the more interesting theories I saw (in a fanfic, to be honest) was that producing Clan-grade equipment required certain rare earth elements that were hard to mine and refine. Luckily the Pentagon Worlds had larger caches of these as opposed to the IS. I admit I like that idea that it's not JUST a question of 'don't know how to do it'.
As far as Clan trueborns being inherently superior... heh. Elementals vs bog standard infantry, sure, and their Mechwarriors are a cut above. But the Aerospace genotype was not nearly as effective against their IS counterparts, and a number of aerospace-type Clanners wound up being routed into the Protomech programs.
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2019
Tex and the Highlanders coming soon....
annnd just in case you don't know who Tex is, here is his special about the Battle of Tukayyid....
https://youtu.be/QffouI6OA00
annnd just in case you don't know who Tex is, here is his special about the Battle of Tukayyid....
https://youtu.be/QffouI6OA00
Attachments
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2019
Marauder fans represent.