A reminder of why infantry are not to be underestimated...

Infantry have always been one of my favorite things in battletech.

 

Being infantry I hear you. It's fun being the underdog and abusing the arrogance of vehicles.

By the way, BattleTech doesn't have dazzlers and radiation antipersonnel systems for mechs? Or does it?

What I mean is, a dazzler will blind all infantry in an area unless they don't use analogue optics but digital sights. Even when they use digital sights the dazzlers will fry out the sensors and there will be a constant need to replace sensors and have many layers of redundancy.

As for more lethal radiation weapons, their main problem is simply that they require such high level (dose) of radiation before the effects become immediate, such as loss of consciousness. If I remember correctly the difference with immediate within a minute effects and "dead within a few days" was something like orders of magnitude.

On the other hand microwave weapons etc. work both as dazzlers and also they will heat everything up and are excellent as antipersonnel area weapons.

 

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Anti-Personnel_Pod

 

No radiation version? Radiation weapons, essentially dazzlers can be made have far superior range and are not one-off weapons. Effectively a fast moving mech could simply move around firing microwave arcs by 'area saturation' eg. make sure a certain amount of wattage is swept over sq. meter of territory. Given the mobility of a mech the area it can cover with such weapons is very vast.

Also, it not only engages infantry but it also devastates sensors on all kinds of vehicles and stationary equipment.

I get that it is probably not included for said reason. Both sides start off by blasting each other's sensors with them and then relocating, then peeking with less sensitive sensors and trying to catch the enemy's sensors without having own sensors fried off. That would be very annoying to play I think.

 

Like PPC or Large Laser?

The main difference with these lasers is mainly the wavelength used. The funny thing is that something like a large scale directional microwave emitter has essentially the same parts as microwave open but in larger scale. Not really hard or expensive to maintain but wreak absolute havoc on unshielded sensors and biological targets.

While microwaves are certainly not the only wavelength that can be used and not the most useful and mechs boast all sorts of far more advanced weaponry than that, it is possible that early on such devices and dazzlers have been banned and counted to same category as NBC weapons as both weapons of mass destruction and a form of inhumane warfare. After all, a mere glance from a ship scale weapon over a major city could instantly render hundreds of thousands of people blind and with severe burn wounds. Indiscriminately. I suppose that would be the most logical reason for their exclusion.

 

Ooooor it would be super op against those who want to play infantry? It's a game, not a future real war sim.

 

It has more to do with the fact that all in all most worlds in the Battletech universe have little more technology then their 20th Century counterpart on earth. Between 4 centuries (actually it's closer to 8) of constant warfare amongst the major powers, and literally the liberal use of Nuclear/Chemical/Orbital weapons against worlds ranging from agricultural centers to industrial powerhouses, there was little left in 3025, indeed most "production" mechs in 3015 (the beginning of the upswing in technological growth from the dark age it reached) were being made out of salvaged parts ripped from destroyed factories or salvaged from caches. By 3025 one of the major powers in the universe had grown confident enough in it's re-development of heavy industry to actually authorize production of completely new designs and this was only after an extremely limited (but incredibly effective) blitzkrieg style war against it's neighbors (see 4th Succession war). Post 3025 the Federated Commonwealth/Free Worlds league started ramping up both production and development whilst House Kurita found it's technological windfall from other sources (read: Comstar). Only the Capallens fell behind technologically during this period between 3028 and 3039, which would cost them dearly leading up to Clan Invasion.

As for microwave weaponry there was forays into the field in the battletech universe, but generally they focused on getting the largest amount of firepower on the most mobile platform that could easily be maintained and transported across the galaxy. Microwaves generally were relegated to communications and amenities research rather then too weapons, since generally speaking most combat in the Battletech universe is between armored formations in the open.

 

Ah, right.

An important thing about technology and economy is the precision by which manufacturing can occur. Right now we are currently somewhere along 14 nanometer width in precision for things like processors.

Now, not all factories on Earth can do that and the road to that point was long and arduous.

Imaging that those factories that are capable of that and two past generations of factories were bombed to bits, even if we had the scientists alive we'd only be able to build something like 40-50 nm and it would take years or even decade before we would be able to reproduce the current precision by iterating through tools that are increasingly precise that are needed to build new tools of increasing precision.

Now, if we went through a nuclear war we might end up back to an era where hammers are considered precision tools.

And yea, microwaves might never make good weapons etc.

Yup. Top speeds in space games and ships having a "range" for how far they can travel.
At least range can be explained with FTL drive fuel requirements etc.

Top speed I get when you're dogfighting in WW2 fighters in space that make Star Wars-style atmospheric & aerodynamic turns and curves. At that point the top speed is kind of given since the propeller of your space fighter will lose efficiency as the speed increases to a point where it can no longer generate acceleration. And always remember to lead when firing your six space .303's!

What we're talking about here is whether something is a game or simulation. Essentially it's a scale that could be measured from 0 to 1.0, Dance Dance Revolution being very close to 0 and a flight sim that asks you to register your account and after paying for the game you take a series of demanding tests and finally receive a notice that you're not fit to be a pilot candidate for the Air Forces being above 0.5.

No game can ever be a good simulation and no simulation can ever be a good game. At the same time the most realistic simulation games hardly ever reach 0.5 or come even close with their realism. Even the most realistic games make a million compromises because they have to. Because they're still simulations that belong to the family of video games.

As far as realism goes, I'm personally inclined to always pick the more realistic option if there's a choice to be made.. to a point. And I actually like trying to think how to make interesting games out of realistic settings. For instance a space combat game, does it need to be WW2 dogfight? Why? How about a game where you actually play mind games with your enemy, try to saturate their potential future positions with your fire, make your own course changes behind a planet to hide the engine plumes etc.. I keep thinking things like these, not about how to make another WW2 dogfight but about how to make a game that slightly swings towards the sim direction and introduces us to something new.


In any case, infantry are cool and so is Battletech. And sometimes it's easier to just say "and these things were abandoned" or even leave it unannounced. If a piece of tech isn't being used, it doesn't necessarily mean a universe is bad or badly designed. It is possible to assume that for various unannounced reasons within the universe a said tech is no longer used.

 

I actually won every typing contest at school before I started studying programming. I even beat the guys who were into programming at school.

But Magnus has a fair point too. My day is filled with interrupts, waiting for things to finish during which I type text. Sometimes the thing's long finished and I'm still writing something, usually if it's one of my hobby horse subjects. With them both happen - I both type twice as fast as usual because it's a hobby horse subject and I also don't cut the rants short just because I should resume.

 

Sheep just use the excuse "it's compiling" for game time. Though i suppose nothing would ever get done then.

 

Since I'm the CEO I can just say "It's Game Time." and it will be so. If I say "It is day" it is day. If I say "It's night" it is night. Since I'm also a major shareholder there's no oversight either. I am the overwatch and oversight.

 

quis custodiet ipsos custodes?