OBT Forum

Because Battletech is the game of giant stompy robots, not the game of space battlecruisers raining down fire on those robots from orbit.

In fairness, warships tend to attrite very fast in battle and they're hideously expensive so there was no real likelihood of any great number being build during the general disarmament after the Jihad.

>Snort<

You and a lot of others.  AS is the red-haired stepchild of battletech, efforts to make it playable resulted in the original Aerotech, Aerotech 2, BattleSpace, and now the core rulebooks Strategic Operations / Interstellar Ops.  No guarantee they'll get it right this time, either.

My own theorizing is that WarShips, or at least WarShip combat, will get a new lease of life under Alpha Strike.  That sort of system would allow for Star League era large fleet actions being run in an afternoon.

Except that TPTB seem to be retconning large warship fleets out of existence completely. See the current 2765 Field Report series which not only goes against old canon material but recent fluff like Strategic Operations. Face it the decision has been made to expunge Warships from BattleTech almost completely. Sure there will be rare examples that are the exception to this new rule which is disappointing to me. I think warships enrich the BattleTech setting and will not subtract from Mech combat which is still the last word in ground combat. Sure Ortillery could destroy ground targets but it can't capture and hold such places.

Except that TPTB seem to be retconning large warship fleets out of existence completely.

While I can't speak to the specific 2765 examples of possible retcons, the idea that the CGL writing staff is somehow on a deliberate campaign to retcon WarShips from existence seems a little...far-fetched? Ridiculous? Theory of the conspiracy variety?

Let's take a look at the claim overall. Prior to the FanPro take over in 2001 (2002? I never can remember exactly), how many products featured any notable amount of page space devoted to WarShips, whether it be TRO entries or simply descriptions of fleet actions? Glancing over the publication list, I come up with the following:

• The Star League
• Let's be generous and say all five of the original House books
• TRO 2750
• BattleSpace
• Invading Clans
• TRO 3057
• Living Legends
• Explorer Corps
• Twilight of the Clans
• Field Manual: DC, FWL, WC, ComStar, CC, FS, and LA (I didn't add FM: Mercenaries, because WarShips there are effectively two units)

Now, if we refine that list a bit to make it a bit more accurate than "They talked about WarShips once here." Let's toss out the rulebooks, and books that are largely repeating other information without really adding anything. (For example, the DC Housebook talking about an SLDF fleet action already covered in The Star League book). I don't recall a massive amount of non-derivative text devoted to WarShips in the original Housebooks, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. So we'll toss those five and BattleSpace aside. I'd personally toss Explorer Corps and Living Legends aside (as I haven't read the Corps book in forever and don't have anything resoundingly naval affiliated in my memory of it, and the second largely deals with one single WarShip and an even worse adventure). But let's keep them in play. So I'm counting 15, and that requires adding in all of the Field Manuals released up to that point. 15 books over 14 years, from '88 to '02. Not a bad average at all, with effectively one a year, though really that is skewed a great deal more towards the later years with the Field Manuals and evolution of the Twilight of the Clans story line. So, we'll settle with 15 books.

Now let's look from FanPro through the current CGL era (granted, a great deal of the same names and faces involved, particularly at the top, but this is the break point I suggested).

• TRO 3067
• FedCom Civil War
• Field Manual: Updates
• Field Manuals: Mercenaries (Revised) - not counted for the same reason FM: Mercs was
• Field Manual: Periphery - not counted, because I honestly can't recall any WarShips fleet action mentioned here
• Handbook: House Steiner, Kurita, Davion, Liao, and Major Periphery States - I'll leave this up to your decision. Could be tossed for the same reasons the Housebooks were, but I seem to recall more historical naval details in the opening sections than in the Housebooks.
• TRO 3057 Revised - Not counted as it really doesn't pass the non-derivative test
• Aerotech 2 - Rulebook, not counted
• Dawn of the Jihad
• Jihad Hot Spots 3070
• Jihad Hot Spots 3072
• Starterbook: Wolf and Blake
• TRO 3075
• Jihad Secrets: Blake Documents
• Jihad Hot Spots 3076
• TRO 3085
• Historical: Operation Klondike
• Jihad Hot Spots: Terra
• Historical: Reunification War
• Wars of Reaving
• Jihad: Final Reckoning
• Field Manual: 3085
• Historical: Liberation of Terra Volume 1 and 2
• Era Report: 2750
• Field Manual: SLDF
• Era Report: 3145
• TRO: 3145 - not counted, as I can't recall any WarShips beyond the pocket variety
• Historical: Wars of the Republic Era - not counted, as I don't own it currently, and have no idea if any naval fleet actions are discussed

So, final count for 2002 to 2014, a 12 year period is...22, 27 if you toss in the Handbooks. Here's hoping my math is right, as I've currently been awake for 41 hours. To me, what is more notable is not simply the higher amount, but the scope of the material. You have more detail and focus on fleet actions and significant battles in the JHS books and Wars of Reaving than you find in almost anything FASA published save for probably The Star League book. That's before you even get into the details of the Liberation of Terra and Reunification War tomes. Or FM: SLDF.

Now, there's an entirely separate question as to whether a given person likes (or agrees) with the material given in these later sources. That's a personal decision to make. It is not, however, hard data. It is interpretation and analysis of your own viewpoints, and absolutely valuable. But it doesn't change, or have any real relevance, to the data that "TPTB" have given more resources, time, and page count to WarShips than at just about any other point in publication history. Heck, they've even done it across multiple different eras, something that would have been unheard of under the FASA banner. You bought the current storylines or you didn't buy the product. That was it. Don't care for the Jihad? Here have some Reunification War tastiness. Whether or not a given fan likes a given story arc or book series, TPTB have given out WarShip love. A whole lot of WarShip love.

But see, that's the kicker, right there. And it is something that often gets forgotten in these sorts of discussions. When you have a lot of naval love, that generally means a lot of naval conflict. Devoting pages to WarShips doing nothing but boring patrols isn't going to sell books. If you want WarShips featured front and center, they'll be featured. The consequence of that is they'll also die. And that means attrition, destruction, and orbital wrath on a scale that is hard to recover from. Frankly, it requires a bit of a breathing room afterwards, both for the fanbase, as well as the inside the setting itself. The fleet sizes, disposition, and fluff focus on said fleets changed drastically after the Reunification War, obviously. (At least inside the setting.) The next big usage is during the Star League Civil War, with another subsequent massive space for breath. Cue Twilight of the Clans and the FedCom Civil War, and again, there's that breath afterwards. Unfortunately, that breath is really, really short inside the setting, because of the Jihad. And if you weren't finding fleet action in the Jihad, you weren't looking. IT IS EVERYWHERE. Ortillery is freaking terrifying in its regularity here. We're not even talking rocket-powered rocks or NBC weapons here. Just plain old regular ortillery. Sure, it's not the army sizes of the Liberation, but the focus and tone leaves no doubt that fleets are massive equalizers and game-changers.

TPTB don't hate WarShips. They've put them front and center more than any other point I can find in BT's entire publication run. Subsequently (and logically, I might add), WarShips are going to take a back seat. They'll find themselves mostly replaced by Pocket WarShip fleets in the current story line. And yes, this corresponds with a period of time when getting consistent and reliable record sheets, battle values, and easy electronic construction of WarShips is at an all time low for CGL. There's not denying that. I can understand fans not being happy with the decision for the large majority of WarShip reconstruction and expansion to be turned off. But on the flip side, I can absolutely understand from CGL's perspective why they would do so. The effort that the last 8 years (since Total Warfare's introduction in 2006) has required on the front of getting WarShip stats created, balanced against the recent paradigm changes (Pocket Warships, sub-cap weapons, naval C3, and seriously beefed up fighters and assault craft, anyone?), and into the hands of the fans...yeah, I'd have bashed my head against a wall and run screaming into the asylum. At the exact same time that this mess is going on, they decided to expand the material's focus on Warships in TWO SEPARATE eras. How exactly is that "expunging WarShips from Battletech"? Is there a lull, exactly like there has been after every other major event with massive naval focus? You bet. The setting wouldn't be consistent otherwise. Will it stay this way, forever and ever to the end of time? I wouldn't hold your breath on that. WarShips will return, I'd put money on that. Tomorrow? No, but why should they? They've just been a massive focus since Dawn of the Jihad's release in 2005. There's already been hints and rumors at CGL working on something to resolve the unit construction software mess. That's one major stumbling block out of the way. Blacknova mentioned the new focus on Alpha Strike. That's another big stumbling block (overly cumbersome time commitments) out of the way.

If you're not finding more WarShip love than before...I'm not sure what game line you are following. My reaction to WarShips has always pretty much been..."meh", and their spotlight time over the last 9 years has even managed to get me to have a soft spot for them. I'm seriously confused by your statements here, Takiro.

Good discussion gang. First off I don't think TPTB hate warships per say so I wouldn't add emotion into it. Catalyst if I may has a concept of warships which is smaller then previously established canon material. They have their reasons which revolve around two things - the primacy of the BattleMech and to a lesser extent the broken construction rules of warships. Another favorite is the new smaller DropWarShips (Pocket Warships) which I think are neat ideas but not the original intent of old canon works. I often hear that "warship" was a fairly loose term back then and could have applied to dropships as well as combat jumpships. There is credence in some of this but a few things clearly stick out....

1. Where is the Beef? We have a clear look at Terran Hegemony/ Star League warship designs (TRO 2750 & 3057) over the ages and they clearly evolve with multiple designs for different classes. So what happened to House warship construction? Yep they got a late start and clearly some Houses would have less warships because of poor industry, lack of money, and they can't match Terran tech. Up till the Star League that is when all three obstacles go out the window and are replaced by Arms Control Limits of which we now have three. Initial formation of the League creates the "newest" barrier, then the Edict of 2650 and final the Amendments of 2752 which allowed the Houses to double military sizes. I can't see any of these so badly hampering warship production at this time. Matter of fact it is a great time for the House to destroy or mothball their old stuff and build new. In any case from the mid to late 2300s (2360 to 2380) up to the published 2765 Field Reports you have the potential building time of 400 years for House Warships! Now for Shattered Dawn I've broken that down into 5 or 6 Generations of Ship Development but that is neither here nor there. Sure you can say these designs sucked (some of them surely did), maybe even the Hegemony was screwing with House shipbuilders the way ComStar did later on, but I don't find it believable that 1st Generation Terran warships sold to the Houses presumably around the time of Aggressive Peacemaking (mid 2500s?) were better than 200 years of House product and then during the Star League what happened?

2. Numbers Game. The Star League Navy had thousand of warships (SLSB, TRO2750, Battlespace) during these years to keep the peace, why?? Why build all those warships? We hear in a few different sources that the League wants to keep double the strength of each House. This is mentioned frequently when the High Council repeals or amends the Edict of 2650 after the death of Simon Cameron circa 2752. The new Field Reports done 13 years later when the House Fleets have presumably doubled has them deploying 50 or so vessels each. Whats the big deal? The SLDF has built thousands of warships just look at the build numbers and obtained others from the Houses (Davion Destroyers, Samarkand Carriers, etc). The SLDF could have gotten away with a 500 warship fleet, why do they have 5 times that number built? Yeah the League is a big place to patrol but have you seen the Houses? Space is a big place to monitor and the House Lords do it with 50 ships??

3. The Day After Tommorrow. Okay we aren't in the 1st Succession War yet so the Houses could build up from their meager 50 warship fleets stated in 2765 but can they? The Amaris Coup would gut the Star League economy leaving states searching desperately for money. The Draconis Combine and the Capellan Confederation would be the best off but all the Houses would notice the fiscal pinch. And what about the law? Sure everything gets thrown into chaos with the Coup in 2767 but don't you also have to pay lip service to the Star League until 2784? Kerensky leaves the Inner Sphere with a 400 warship fleet and right up until then you really can't spit in the face of his possible backlash especially since you have such a small fleet. Plus thanks to the League economy industry was located along the borders so your gonna see your neighbors building a fleet. Can you say arms race? Aren't they going to screw with you too at this time sabotaging said illegal production with good reason. One of the first targets in the Succession War are the vulnerable shipyards by 2787 you have all kinds of examples of their destruction so forget about production after then.

So to me retconning "the big fleets" from the Great Houses during the Star League era can clearly be seen in the new 2765 Field Report series. Looking at previous canon text House fleets should be 10 times as big as they are presented in the Field Report series with 400 warship fleets being the norm and many more House designs in service.

It's not unusual for FASA's TROs to span multiple eras. (They might even do it more often than Catalyst's.) And I think TR:2750 (relative to total fiction published at the time) or the BattleSpace/TR:3057 combo (in absolute terms) take the "most love to Warships" prize. The Strategic Ops revamp is a strong 3rd, however, and Catalyst has a comfortable habit of sprinkling Warship stuff across many of their books.

Not quite. If you're talking shear number of different ships presented in a single book then TRO 3057 takes the cake, but it was under CGL that the TRO was expanded to include a whole section of "lost ships," not FASA. So again, CGL takes the cookie for giving the most WarShip love. In addition, CGL has created and printed more WarShip designs during its tenure than FASA ever did.

Chapter 1, THE END.

False dilemma. You can have the exact same page-fillingly intense conflicts with either large or small fleets, and neither large nor small fleets require you to devote significant wordcount to boring stuff. How fast fleets recover depend on what fraction of the fleet was involved, frequency of retreat and recovery, and the strength of industry relative to fleet size--all of which can be scaled to match the desired size or intensity of conflict. Orbital fire might be harder to mediate, but I don't know if its effects are too different from regular artillery, and its availability depends on WarShips being assigned to ground support in the first place.

Then you've devolved the storyline to a Third Succession War-style setting. As the total-war setting of the Jihad showed, when a massive conflict combines constant fighting for a long period of time and attacks against a faction's industrial base WarShips inevitably die spectacularly. You can say it was the company's aim to destroy the WarShip fleets of the Inner Sphere and Clans, but lets face it, a decade fighting the WoB is going to take a serious toll. In fact, I'm not surprised more ships weren't destroyed...

That said, orbital fire is incredibly overpowering—it's nothing like standard artillery—and ground forces have little in the way to counter its effect outside of the use of nuclear weapons launched from ASF. Assuming ASF are present. Either way you have a dead WarShip or a dead ’Mech regiment. 

Figure out a solution that without breaking the current setting and I'll give you a big interwebs cookie. Seriously, being able to counter a WarShip without removing it's reason to exist is a difficult question to answer. 

Catalyst if I may has a concept of warships which is smaller then previously established canon material. Another favorite is the new smaller DropWarShips (Pocket Warships) which I think are neat ideas but not the original intent of old canon works. I often hear that "warship" was a fairly loose term back then and could have applied to dropships as well as combat jumpships. There is credence in some of this but a few things clearly stick out....

Since I'm under no compulsion to tow the flag here, I can say that is just about the DUMBEST thing I've read in awhile, and I've read some dumb stuff recently.

The "original" 3025 setting revolved solely around DropShips. The new PWs bring the setting full circle to the original 3025 era while still accounting for the advancing timeline and new weapons/technology. As far as "canon" is concerned WarShips were a few sentences on the back of a game box until TRO 2750 showed a few from a time frame FASA had no intention of ever developing.

BattleSpace was AeroTech's replacement only because the Clans returned to the Inner Sphere. Again, nothing close to the "original intent of old canon."

The SLDF could have gotten away with a 500 warship fleet, why do they have 5 times that number built? Yeah the League is a big place to patrol but have you seen the Houses? Space is a big place to monitor and the House Lords do it with 50 ships??

Because that's literally the job of the SLDF. The House Navies didn't have to "monitor" their space anymore, the SLDF did that for them and they were still pressed for ships. Why else did the League place bases and recruiting stations all over the Inner Sphere? I guess the SLDF just wanted to plant the flag...but not do any real work.

So to me retconning "the big fleets" from the Great Houses during the Star League era can clearly be seen in the new 2765 Field Report series. Looking at previous canon text House fleets should be 10 times as big as they are presented in the Field Report series with 400 warship fleets being the norm and many more House designs in service.

I guess your crystal ball covers the years from 2765 to 2785. Can you please tell me tonight's winning Powerball Numbers? Seriously, I'd love to buy CGL so I can turn the game into a space-faring version of Leviathans.

On a more constructive note, the House Lords have to pay lip service to the League until the Coup, but after that all bets are pretty much off. To what degree will depend on the individual House Lord, but during the Civil War they will each continue to expand their forces to various degrees, eventually going full tilt towards the war's inevitable end.

Since there's the possibility of seeing products covering the early Succession Wars you'll have to wait and see, but suggesting CGL is purposefully retconning WarShips while simultaneously giving the community new designs, the Star League era, the Reunification War and fleets numbers for 2765—decades before the First Succession War—is funny to say the least. But as you've rightly pointed out, feel free to do what you want with the Shattered Dawn. That is the great benefit to a personal AU, as the Alpha & Omega you can "DO IT RIGHT" without being beholden to things like an overall fan-base, sales statistics, game focus, product support, etc. You know, the stuff that pays the bills and keeps the game going.

There's also the issue of setting.

Assuming for a second you believe (because some players really believe it's about other things...) that BattleTech is about big stompy robots, then they're Kings of the battlefield and all other units take "supporting" role to the main character. 

WarShips are hideously overpowered compared to BattleMechs, which have neither the stamina nor the ability to counter their presence. When WarShips show up, ’Mech regiments die. So how do we fix that? Build more WarShips? Then ’Mechs aren't king anymore. The game becomes about building WarShips. Kill off all the WarShips? Then WarShips are irrelevant and everyone cries foul! "How dare you killz da WarShips!"

Remember the premise: BattleMechs are center to the plot, story and universe. Should we introduce new tech, new rules or both? Should we come up with some sort of plot device that keeps the number of WarShips small? The player community loves that. ::snicker::

Figuring out a way to keep WarShips relevant without removing BattleMechs as king is tough without seriously altering the setting. Could we build the armies of the Inner Sphere back to their SL-era levels so we can have lots of WarShips? Sure, but that doesn't remove the disparity, all it does is give WarShips more ’Mech regiments to kill.