Battletech - Also known as Trannytech

[Deepthoughts]

Starting to be reminded why I uninstalled this game in the first place.... My mixed medium lance is going against twice it's numbers of pristine mechs and vehicles every mission in early 3000s periphery. Even on one skull missions. It makes gameplay incredibly frustrating when you're always going against twice your manpower in fresh mechs when you have low skill pilots.

And that is the reason I stopped playing. You can't even deploy your mechs, the AI does it for you.

 

[TFT-A9]

I don't even know what the damage is for a nuke cap-missile; not sure I want to know.

you roll 10d6, note the number, then just say "fuck you your WarShip is now space junk"

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

I don't even know what the damage is for a nuke cap-missile; not sure I want to know.

My best guess: "Remove unit from map". And in terms of CBT damage: "Remove map from table."
I once looked up the irl effects of a yield equal to that of a nuclear-tipped Arrow IV missile and even that is pretty excessive.

I'd love to see a simulation of a nuclear explosion on a battleship in space.
If it detonates close to the ship but without direct contact, there would be a bit of blast (but given the lack of atmosphere, the shockwave dissipates almost instantly), the main effect would be radiation and intense heat, but overall, it would be manageable.
Now, what would a surface strike do? Or a nuke that explodes after penetrating a few metres into the hull? The shockwave can propagate through the hull of the spaceship, so I guess if it hits around the middle, it would vaporize a large chunk and turn the rest into fist-sized chunks.

 

[TFT-A9]

I once looked up the irl effects of a yield equal to that of a nuclear-tipped Arrow IV missile and even that is pretty excessive.

"Fuck your full company, the battalions of supporting infantry and vehicles near your company, and that large plateau your company is standing on. Also possibly fuck that Long Tom of yours that isn't even on the map."

 

[Tactical Wizard]

"Fuck your full company, the battalions of supporting infantry and vehicles near your company, and that large plateau your company is standing on. Also possibly fuck that Long Tom of yours that isn't even on the map."

Pretty much this. I did some napkin math using the warhead carried by the Pershing 2 missile as a base, assuming that each nuclear tipped Arrow IV weighs 400 pounds and that with future tech, half of that can be the boomie part. It gives us a yield of 20 kilotons.

This is what that looks like if you set it off in downtown San Francisco.

Nuke map estimates upwards of 65,000 casualties.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Pretty much this. I did some napkin math using the warhead carried by the Pershing 2 missile as a base, assuming that each nuclear tipped Arrow IV weighs 400 pounds and that with future tech, half of that can be the boomie part. It gives us a yield of 20 kilotons.

This is what that looks like if you set it off in downtown San Francisco.
Wyświetl załącznik 1994395
Nuke map estimates upwards of 65,000 casualties.

That is a pretty handy way to visualize it in a basic manner, but I think it would be even better to detonate a 20kiloton warhead in SF for real, just to get a better approximation.

Though, joking aside:. The Davy Crockett, that can be launched via Arrow IV, has half a kiloton's worth of a warhead and it is not air-burst capable.
The White Shark missile can carry a 50kiloton warhead and the largest warhead available is a 3megaton warhead in a modified Barracuda missile - quite aptly named "Asset Management Weapon" and in heavy use during the first and second Succession War.

Compared to real life nukes, the ones in BT seem kinda anemic, the soviet SS-18, for instance, can either carry 10 nukes worth 500-750 kilotons each or one massive warhead with 20megatons. The biggest equivalent the US fielded was the Peacekeeper, which carried 10 warheads with 300kt each...
But, then again, "our" nukes are meant to scatter over a tightly populated planet, whereas nukes in BT mostly have to hit what few densely populated cities a given planet can have. 50kt are more than enough to level a planet's capital city and smaller towns and cities across the surface. And if you really run into a planet as tightly populated as Earth is nowadays, you can always just launch more nukes to saturate the entire planet.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

Yeah, naval damage is basically 'unless you are also a Warship, fuck you'. I think that's kinda why no one's super interested in a BF:G style game for Battletech. It's just more numbers.

And note that @More AWS-8Q Than You hasn't gotten into something else: nuclear-tipped capital missiles. The First Succession War kind of beat that out of the Inner Sphere (along with, y'know, losing 90+ percent of the warships they had), and the Clans are not big on nuking targets normally (Mongol Doctrine is something of an aberration). I don't even know what the damage is for a nuke cap-missile; not sure I want to know.

Last I checked, which was Battlespace era, I don't recall what it currently is since I hadn't looked, a nuke was 100 Capital scale damage and could be mounted on anything down to underwing carried Arrow IV missiles. Point defense bays do get a change to stop them, which is why IS warships are covered in small pulse lasers. It's not a common thing, since even the IS is wary of unleashing the nuclear genie, unless you're WoB or Regulans. During the Jihad, the WoB took one of the stolen Theras against one of the Ghost Bear Leviathan IIs, hit it with a nuke, which the Lev shrugged off and then it absolutely wrecked the WoB fleet. This is what brought the Bears into the Jihad against the WoB and if I recall correctly, the Bears were Not Amused.

If a McKenna is a long range beat stick, the Lev II is brick.

 

[Balr0g]

The thing is though that later in the Jihad the WoB returned the favor to the Bears by nuking one Lev 2 into oblivion with their Dragonbreath station. In essence the Q-ship concept but in ore refinery form. And in Clan space the Vipers actually build a Leviathan Prime class ship. In essence a brick with spikes.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

Last I checked, which was Battlespace era, I don't recall what it currently is since I hadn't looked, a nuke was 100 Capital scale damage and could be mounted on anything down to underwing carried Arrow IV missiles. Point defense bays do get a change to stop them, which is why IS warships are covered in small pulse lasers. It's not a common thing, since even the IS is wary of unleashing the nuclear genie, unless you're WoB or Regulans. During the Jihad, the WoB took one of the stolen Theras against one of the Ghost Bear Leviathan IIs, hit it with a nuke, which the Lev shrugged off and then it absolutely wrecked the WoB fleet. This is what brought the Bears into the Jihad against the WoB and if I recall correctly, the Bears were Not Amused.

If a McKenna is a long range beat stick, the Lev II is brick.

Pretty much. According to Sarna, it was a Blakist destroyer, and it was desperation because the Rasalhague had just bitch slapped the McKenna-class Blake's Sword into inoperability. Probably didn't help there was a Nightlord with the Rasalhague -- while only half its mass, it's nothing to sneeze at.

Hell, you could run a campaign in itself on a Lev II. Damn things are pushing 2km long, with a total crew of 2000+ personnel.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

Pretty much. According to Sarna, it was a Blakist destroyer, and it was desperation because the Rasalhague had just bitch slapped the McKenna-class Blake's Sword into inoperability. Probably didn't help there was a Nightlord with the Rasalhague -- while only half its mass, it's nothing to sneeze at.

Hell, you could run a campaign in itself on a Lev II. Damn things are pushing 2km long, with a total crew of 2000+ personnel.

Maybe I'm remembering a different bitch slapping, I could have sworn the Bears killed one of the Theras, but it's been year since I've read the source text. The Levs were transports originally, if it wasn't filled with Clanners that could be a fun RP campaign. Stuck in a 2km "tall" skyscraper, dealing with society inflitrators or something.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

Maybe I'm remembering a different bitch slapping, I could have sworn the Bears killed one of the Theras, but it's been year since I've read the source text. The Levs were transports originally, if it wasn't filled with Clanners that could be a fun RP campaign. Stuck in a 2km "tall" skyscraper, dealing with society inflitrators or something.

Well, if you set it post-Rasalhague Dominion, it could be filled with a mix of Clanner and Rasalhague personnel. Granted, you're still stuck with the Clan mindset, but Ghost Bear is liberal enough to be less dickish about it.

 

[Corn Flakes]

The Clan civilian castes are also closer to normal people than the pod-born Warriors. Think of them as the equivalent to your favorite people being held under the heel of an oppressive autocratic government. Only with good healthcare and decent food, and only occasionally being fried by stray pulse lasers. They still consume media, they still entertain themselves, they still have social lives. It's just their lives in general are more regimented than ours.

 

[TFT-A9]

The Clan civilian castes are also closer to normal people than the pod-born Warriors. Think of them as the equivalent to your favorite people being held under the heel of an oppressive autocratic government. Only with good healthcare and decent food, and only occasionally being fried by stray pulse lasers. They still consume media, they still entertain themselves, they still have social lives. It's just their lives in general are more regimented than ours.

Professional normies

 

[Corn Flakes]

Professional normies

That's what I call the average Japanese salaryman.

 

[TFT-A9]

That's what I call the average Japanese salaryman.

wonder what normies in Kurita space are like then

 

[White Devil]

Are there any mods for Troontech that make it more lore realistic? So I'm not always fighting two heavy lances of factory new mechs?

 

[Balr0g]

wonder what normies in Kurita space are like then

Depends which part of the Combine. The Combine has the largest Arabic population of the IS (the Azami worlds) and of course pre-War 3039 also a good chunk of Scandinavians.
And the lore states that the Combine people are a very stoic lot.

 

[Snekposter]

The Clan civilian castes are also closer to normal people than the pod-born Warriors. Think of them as the equivalent to your favorite people being held under the heel of an oppressive autocratic government. Only with good healthcare and decent food, and only occasionally being fried by stray pulse lasers. They still consume media, they still entertain themselves, they still have social lives. It's just their lives in general are more regimented than ours.

That depends on the Clan, too. The Crusaders were typically dicks to the non-Warriors in your standard medieval noble fashion, but the Wardens like the Bears, Wolves, and Horses treated them pretty well and let them have a free hand in affairs, the Horses even having an explicit policy of tolerance towards freeborn Warriors. For them, anyone who was good enough to test out as a Warrior was a Warrior, end of story. And yeah, they tended to get stuck piloting combat vehicles, but given that those were assigned to front-line formations since the Horses loved their combined arms, pretty sweet deal.

As to Clan Sea Wolf/Diamond Shark...

They were Le Happy Merchants even before they gave up the pretense and started wandering the Inner Sphere like a bunch of Jews buying and selling and making more money than Ferengi. This of course made other Clans very unhappy, but they had the money and contacts to call in help from their rivals.

Not gonna lie, being the only "Capitalism, ho!" Clan is pretty damn appealing to me, and it unironically paid off for them in terms by having a very large, successful Clan. Oh, and they also founded the Clan Internet (Chatterweb). They are also canonically fond of shitposting, which is an attribute all of us Kiwis can agree is a major plus.

Months prior to Clarke's election, Khan Liam Howell of the Snow Ravens had become incensed at his Clan's recent defeat by the Sea Foxes for control of the oil fields of Priori. Having learned beforehand of the attack via the Chatterweb, the Sea Foxes defeated the Snow Ravens in battle, then proceeded to fill the Chatterweb with insults directed at the Snow Raven Khan and his fighting skills (or lack thereof).

Yeah, Snow Raven got their revenge, but only temporarily thanks to said banter skills. Its a long story.

Finally, later that year, the Diamond Sharks struck a deal with the Jade Falcons, exchanging their assets on Lum for the right to settle Twycross. The Jade Falcons believed they had finally gotten the better of the Diamond Sharks until 3065 when it was revealed that Jonah's Reach, a near-lifeless planet in the Twycross system, was a second source of HarJel. This turn of events caused no small amount of insults and threats between the two Clans on the Chatterweb.

[AUTISTIC FALCON SCREECHING]

 

[StevieLasVegas]

Are there any mods for Troontech that make it more lore realistic? So I'm not always fighting two heavy lances of factory new mechs?

RogueTech, but it slows the game down a lot by the sheer volume of content it has. Biggest advantage is being able to bring vehicles and, with the right upgrades, additional mechs.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

It really says a lot about how resilient Clan Sea Fox/Diamond Shark is that they bounced back from knockout blows over and over. Lose their totem animal? Screw it, we'll pick a new one. Get completely bodied on Tukayyid? Call in one of our best retired guys and give him carte blanche to rebuild the touman.