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Given what we have currently in the BT universe, what would be the next logical breakthrough for them that would revolutionize the whole universe and send things moving forward at speed?

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Karagin-

Darkness is a friend of mine. Sometimes I have to beat it back, or it would overwhelm me. Shirley Meier

[url]http://karagin12.livejournal.com/[/url]

The Wookiee, he's not wearing any pants!

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How can there be a "logical" advancement? When you look at real world history it becomes clear that the breakthrough advancements were those nobody saw coming, and oftentimes people took a long time to realize the potential of whatever the breakthrough was.

Nobody had planned for cars to replace horse wagons. Nobody had planned for commercial air traffic (though military applications were quickly implemented). Nobody had understood the implications of machine guns and trench warfare prior to WW1. Nobody had planned for nuclear weapons. Telephones. Modern computers. The Internet.

When it comes to game rules, I want them to be completed. I don't want extra rules, extra items or extra units (not to mention new unit types). BattleTech worked fine when there were 12 'Mechs, and I got fed up with new stuff at some point after TRO:3055.

Nobody has been inventing new chess pieces for a couple hundred years, and the game is still good. The notion that the game rules can never be complete because new stuff has to be put on the shelves irks me.

Trenches were used long before WW1 and folks understood them, not on the scale of the WW1 but they understood them and the MG was already begin seen as game changer via the colonial wars in Africa and Asia. Cars...the idea of none animal driven vehicles was around as far back as Rome and the crackpots trying to figure out steam engines and such, took awhile but they figured it out.

Logical tech advancement could be anything, from hey the fallout from some crazy thing they were working on to stop the WoB cyborgs leads to a medical breakthrough or a new computer system that isn't 3 tons in weight to something simple like a better pencil that never needs to be sharpen...the other stuff you talk about folks wanted it but it took time, so while great examples they all have a historical drive to get to them cause folks wanted to fly after watching birds and we model our planes after birds...

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Karagin-

Darkness is a friend of mine. Sometimes I have to beat it back, or it would overwhelm me. Shirley Meier

[url]http://karagin12.livejournal.com/[/url]

The Wookiee, he's not wearing any pants!

[img]http://www.heavymetalpro.com/countries/mil-army.gif[/img]

To me logical tech advancements are smaller jumps from "standard" tech. The below are some points for a post Jihad universe view.

Newer control system tech is one thing that should become common. Anything from DNI to VRPP (old Unbound version perhaps?) to piloting suits replacing the old style neuro helmet. Probably one or two of these becoming the norm.

Better/lighter electronics to the point where things like C3/C3i ECM, and Artemis, and TC being the norm.

Improved versatility in general. Systems along the lines of MMLs/ATMs replacing standard SRMs/LRMs. Maybe having all of the warheads be interchangeable. One launcher with warheads configured for range and chosen abilities. Same goes for ACs. Melding LBX with Ultras and all of the other AC types give a reason not to just carry ERPPCs.

Mech types is another area of improvement. This is everything from LAMs to Super Heavies for different jobs. LAMs replacing light/scout mechs, Super Heavies replacing slower assaults, things like that.

Things like a Clan grade TSM, Null Sig/Stealth Armor, and other "perfected" pieces of tech would also make sense.

I think the big leap forward game changer would be to have targeting meet 21st century standards... which would be akin to removing range penalties entirely given that with mechanized platforms and most direct fire weapons if you can see it, you can hit it... particularly if it masses in tons and is several meters tall. Cover and evasion would become much, much more important and weapons that are traditionally a joke -- like machine guns -- would suddenly be spitting lead onto targets out to 80+ hexes. You would have a maximum range, not a range to hit penalty.

Which would be fun with lasers since by the time you ramp a laser up to the point where it can slag away half a ton of armor -- much less fancy futuristic armor -- you could carve pretty pictures on the moon with it.

I mean that's the canon reason weapon ranges suck -- targeting hardware is a joke even by WWII standards... the gyrostabilization that lets an Abrams spit out 120mm wads from a smoothbore and connect with targets out to BVR ranges is a pipe-dream compared to anything the BT universe has to offer.

Though honestly, it would like the real world battlefield relegate the BattleMech -- much like the MBT --- to a support role given how easy and quickly they'd get killed in a standup fight. Smaller units -- like BA and Protomechs -- would be come significantly more viable and threatening.

This increase in sensor and targeting capacity would of course have the backlash of passive sensing making active sensors the dumbest thing you could use -- kind of like how the radar warning receiver if used properly relegates airborne active radar to the equivalent of running into the jungles of 'nam painted up in glow in the dark paint, waving around a flashlight and yelling "Here I am, SHOOT ME! SHOOT ME!"

Which is why the USN flight parameters for the Fat Cat made it nothing more than one giant target for Viper pilots in blue-flag ops. They dipshit around at medium altitude with their radar on full blast HOPING to pick up something, while the -16's RWR sees them from twice as far away as the -14 could paint them, letting you skirt around the edge with the testes dragging on the bricks, make a best guess, and pop up on their six to light them up without them EVER seeing you on radar.

I suspect this is why the -16N's just sat there gathering dust, as an Aggressor aircraft it would have been too demoralizing -- remember, we're talking about pilots who were terrorized by T-38's and A-4's

... and if Viper could do it, you can bet your sweet bippy Flanker or Fulcrum could in a "all things equal" scenario.

I could see ground combat devolving to that point -- where "silence" of all emissions could slow things to the point of being much akin to submarine warfare. Or maintaining "dark" in 'Nam when in the field. Even the cherry glow of a cigarette could get everyone killed.

Of course, when you're plodding around atop a nuclear furnace venting MASSIVE amounts of heat, with heat being one of the limiting mechanics of warfare, quality targeting would pretty much reduce a 'Mechs lifespan to "bam dead" every turn anyone has line of sight. Though to be fair, that describes real warfare...

Wouldn't make for much of a game, hence the BS nonsensical FANTASY rules.

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[size=80][color=#114488][i]
It seems very queer that we invariably entrust the writing of our regulations for the next war to men totally devoid of anything but theoretical knowledge.[/i][/color][/size]

I think the ranges are more so you can fit a battle on a small kitchen table.

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hmmm hooom

indeed.
the old "realism vs. playability" Thing
nobody wants to Play on a Map the size of a basketball-field.

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typos and spelling-mistakes are property of the finder. english is not my mother-tongue.

I would play...

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Karagin-

Darkness is a friend of mine. Sometimes I have to beat it back, or it would overwhelm me. Shirley Meier

[url]http://karagin12.livejournal.com/[/url]

The Wookiee, he's not wearing any pants!

[img]http://www.heavymetalpro.com/countries/mil-army.gif[/img]

Hence something I wanted to see done to the game...

half inch (or maybe even 1cm) hexes in a magnetic base travel-kit. Miniatures would be to scale with the full size hexes.

Remember, those miniatures we play with are typically six to eight times larger than the hexmap scale. So it's not like the scale isn't already screwed up... so just screw it up some more.

Besides, it would make mini's cheaper. Get someone like Galoob to mass produce micro-machines style. Lance to a box? After all, let's be REALLY honest, those Star Wars and Star Trek collectables games are nothing more than micro machines with a fancy base...

But no, dipshits go and do crazy ass nonsense like licensing deals with Kinex... who the *** thought anyone wanted a Battlemech -- or anything for that matter -- made with Kinex?

I swear when it comes to marketing and tie-ins, these clowns couldn't find their arse with both hands.

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[size=80][color=#114488][i]
It seems very queer that we invariably entrust the writing of our regulations for the next war to men totally devoid of anything but theoretical knowledge.[/i][/color][/size]

I think networked comms/data fusion something like real world Blue Force Tracker should be one of those breakthroughs, or at least used on a wider scale. On a small battle field scale, like a typical game you of course have it unless you are playing double blind rules, but planet wide? And hacking of said networks.

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Admittedly, that would be great for travel.

I've posted about, and advocated, smaller minis for years. For use with BattleForce2 rules, 4-6 minis with pegs on a single base, or separately, more to map scale. Don't think it's 6-8 times. Assuming BTech minis are really 1/285, as advertised, BT maps are about 1/908 scale, so minis are about 3.18 times correct size. Properly sized minis would work 1) for accuracy on map sheets, 2) for use as you suggest on 1/2" or so hexes, 3) for BF2 lances, etc. And, they'd be cheap(er), as you say.

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Rick
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[email]rick@heavymetalpro.com[/email] [img]http://www.heavymetalpro.com/countries/flag-us.gif[/img] [img]http://www.heavymetalpro.com/countries/ ... rolina.gif[/img]

* There are 10 types of people in this world. Those who understand binary and those who don't. *

Which is where I REALLY call bullshit on the scale of one or the other.

Remember, a hex is supposed to be 30 meters across... a BattleMech is supposed to top out at ten meters tall. That's a HELL of a lot more than three times the size. If a 'mech mini of an Atlas was as tall as a hex is across, that would be 3x. We're WELL past that. Like a stock plastech Archer from 3rd edition is over twice as tall as a hex is across. That's 6x right there!

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[size=80][color=#114488][i]
It seems very queer that we invariably entrust the writing of our regulations for the next war to men totally devoid of anything but theoretical knowledge.[/i][/color][/size]

I would like to see official items expanded on like targeting computers (akin to the Battletechnology style listing), new specialized cockpit designs or special cockpit equipment, mine laying equipment for Mechs, Quad-Drones launching from Mechs for surveillance/scouting, advanced jumpship technology (longer jumps or smaller KF drives like maybe 85-90% mass), official rules for Mechs below 20 tons, and on and on!

Hmm. Well, I'd be inclined to argue that the next logical tech advancement isn't necessarily going to revolutionize the whole setting. Like, "Inexpensive water filtration," or "Handheld black boxes that give everyone internet access."

The short term military tech advancements were for the Inner Sphere to catch up with the Clans.

The longer term advancements of BT:3250 were, as I understand it, meant to make 'Mechs kings of the battlefield again by largely nullifying infantry and WarShips. New armor, new super guns, something like that. It'd be 3025 all over again, except it apparently didn't go over well.

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Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

"Woo, that was bracing! They don't like it when you shoot at them. I worked that out myself." --Mal, Firefly

"Going bonkers from EI or DNI is pushing it. I mean how many Crusaders or Super Wobbies are sane to begin with...." --RockJock01

Did I miss something in the game that made infantry a threat to mechs? Is there a double secret rule set out that has given infantry ability to wipe out a single mech or lance or company of mechs? As for warships...those are story points, they are there, they fight other warships just like in every other sci-fi setting, when they start blasting planets it's more of super artillery, and if players are using warships in the game then really things have gotten out of control of the GM. If it's a space battle that is point of the game battle then hey by all means, but when it come down to mechs vs warships?

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Karagin-

Darkness is a friend of mine. Sometimes I have to beat it back, or it would overwhelm me. Shirley Meier

[url]http://karagin12.livejournal.com/[/url]

The Wookiee, he's not wearing any pants!

[img]http://www.heavymetalpro.com/countries/mil-army.gif[/img]

In terms of in-universe advancement, the Clans seem to have made big strides in materials, miniaturization, and other areas, which the Inner Sphere has yet to achieve. The universe-wide spreading of Clan tech, or some similar technical progress, would be a logical point of moving forward.

A BIG point, for which I am working on a story, would be the development of artificial gravity independent of thrust. The concept I have in mind would be limited to ships with a KF drive core, but would still be a huge advancement over grav decks and people having to buckle up whenever the ship wants to maneuver. Giving people the ability to freely move around the ship during combat, such as damage control teams and medical teams, sounds like a simple thing, but it would be a radical change to the present paradigm. Not to mention that it would allow ships to be built more like traditional sci-fi concepts than is presently possible in CBT.

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Be careful what you wish for. I might let you have it.

I recall a quote in one of the books (CityTech?) from Alexander Kerensky himself, which went something like: "Despise infantry if you like. Tread them under your feet. But do not ignore them. Battlefields are littered with the wreckage of Mechs that ignored the power of infantry."
To me, ships are one of the first and most important elements of any space game, and so they should have been in Battletech. But that's what happens when you let a bunch of non-military anime nerds with no sense of either business or reality write a game. The way this game basically stumbled into success despite its origins is amazing in retrospect.

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Be careful what you wish for. I might let you have it.

/Some/ BattleMechs are only 10 meters tall. Total Warfare states 'Mechs are 8 to 14 meters high (page 20). For gameplay purposes, a Level is considered 6 meters high (page 31), and 'Mechs are considered 2 levels high (12 meters). My MechWarrior BattleTech Reference lists a Mad Cat at 12.5 meters, Atlas at 13 meters, Vultures at 10 meters. I know I've seen some quoted quite a bit higher. In general, I think, the minis are close to 1/285 scale, not including the base height, of course, although in general average a bit higher than I think they should be.

Nevertheless that's still over 3 times the scale size, for game play purposes. That's why I'd like some hex-scale minis, to be use with /accurate/ scale BattleTech, or with BattleForce lances and such.

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Rick
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[email]rick@heavymetalpro.com[/email] [img]http://www.heavymetalpro.com/countries/flag-us.gif[/img] [img]http://www.heavymetalpro.com/countries/ ... rolina.gif[/img]

* There are 10 types of people in this world. Those who understand binary and those who don't. *

Yeah, Total Borefare seems to change (too bad it doesn't change what's important) or document a lot of things in a manner I'm not wild about and contradicts earlier books. The height of a 'Mech apparently being amongst them. and like all the shitty "let's spread out 30 pages of rules over four books" modern hardcovers impossible to find a damned thing

But what do I know?!? I consider the 2nd Edition Compendium the pinnacle of BT rulebook design in layout, simplicity, and ease of use. Everything since has been a train wreck.

Like what happened to an elevation being a third of a hex? I thought it was supposed to be an easy 1:2:6 relationship of elevation to 'mech to hex...
well, then let's use that as the litmus since I have one of the mini's handy here. The miniature (citytech box set) is 1.75" tall (not counting the base). A hex is 1.18 inches (30mm) so... 1.483 hexes = 44.4 meters tall.

44.4 / 12.5 = 3.552. Wow, that seems a LOT lower than it should be.

Though it could be I'm used to the older sculpts that were more a matter of "scale, what scale?" -- see how the classic Marauder miniatures tower over the clan heavies and even assaults; or the ridiculously absurdly massive "Marshall" that makes the Atlas look like a featherweight... the 3rd ed box plastech Archers that are dwarfed by p-hawks from the same set?

In any case, minis in hex scale would be awesome, if a bit tiny given that according to the TW scale no BattleMech should be taller than half a hex-length, the Timber Wolf apparently being closer to two-fifths a hex-length in height.

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[size=80][color=#114488][i]
It seems very queer that we invariably entrust the writing of our regulations for the next war to men totally devoid of anything but theoretical knowledge.[/i][/color][/size]

Scale seems to be a bit wacked with MWO mechs and how they are scaling them in that version of the game...

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Karagin-

Darkness is a friend of mine. Sometimes I have to beat it back, or it would overwhelm me. Shirley Meier

[url]http://karagin12.livejournal.com/[/url]

The Wookiee, he's not wearing any pants!

[img]http://www.heavymetalpro.com/countries/mil-army.gif[/img]

logic advances in a unlogical game.
there are two reasons why a logic advance might not find its way into the game.
1. see above
2. the old playability vs. realism Problem.

i think it would be logic to develop cold Fusion.
my idea of how this could work is that 4 cores of Hydrogen would be guided inside channels/a cristal towards a specific Point where they are hit by an exactly measured amount of energy. they fuse instantly. the resulting two cores of Deuterium would then be fused in a similar fashionto create a helium-core. The resulting Energy is than changed into electricity via a photoelectric effect(assuming that it would appear in Photons)
the idea of exactly guiding particles in a cristal is inspired by the functioning of a dilithium-cristal in star-trek.

Now imagine the effects of such an idea: think of a 100 Kw source of DC the size of a Box of cigarettes.
one such box and a 133 HP electric engine near each wheal of a car and you got a 533 HP car that could run untill you have to Change the tires. 0-emission. and without the ICE-engine and power Transmission you got a power to weight Ratio that could be Close to 1HP/kg
in Military imagine an Abrams tank that has no Need to refuel and that can carry an extra ton of ammo.
in BT an Assault-class Mech could suddenly move much faster, and there it stops for BT: it would destroy the Balance of the game. an Atlas that moves 10/15 simply makes no sense.
also i think that no internal structure could withstand such Forces.
distributed production of energy also allows for much weight reduction.
the fluff reason for the energy weapons to produce heat was that the Engine heated up producing that energy. a cold Fusion Generator at the weapon does not do that.
i think it would be makeing sense that a ERLL with integrated energy-source would weigh about one ton, and produce no exess heat. this weapon does not include any means of moving ít around but a 2-ton Trailer with an ERLL would be ideal for ambushes.
IMBA³

the drawbacks of such an idea would be that JJs Need a Fusion reactor because they use its Plasma. JJs would become much heavier with an internal source of Plasma
of Course there is also no HS integrated in the engines.

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typos and spelling-mistakes are property of the finder. english is not my mother-tongue.

The CBT universe already has power storage on a level currently almost unimaginable. Cray has a whole dissertation on just how powerful Battletech weapons must be, and the power it really takes to produce the effects described in the game.

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Be careful what you wish for. I might let you have it.

Figures not matching map scale is as old as tabletop wargaming. I played 1/285 scale microarmor in the 1970's and a tank would be 25 meters long if map scale was used. Larger figures add to playability (and look better if you paint them), if the map was to scale with the minis, the table would need to be 10 meters by 5 meters in order to accommodate weapon ranges in scale to the figures. Playability is why BT weapon ranges are so anemic -a battle can be limited to one map instead of 30 maps.

Logical tech advancement in the BT universe: Why start now?

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[i]And Allah turned back the unbelievers in their rage; they did not obtain any advantage, and Allah sufficed the believers in fighting; and Allah is Strong, Mighty.[/i] from The Koran, 33rd Sura- The Clans