OBT Forum

LOL I am about to bring back the dead muhahahaha…. “LIVE! RAISE FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE FORGOTTEN! LIVE THREAD!”

One thing that has always aggravated me when it came to the Canon Universe of Battletech is the complete lack of faith in human ingenuity in terms of bringing back Lost Tech prior to the 3030’s. For as long as I have played this game (since 1990’s) technology has been pretty flat. Even when there are advances, these advances are not real advances compared to what they are replacing. More like different ways to achieve the same result (or slightly better with balance in mind). If this was true for reality, we would still be flying bi-planes and using flint locks while their modern technologies would be balanced to what they are replacing. Nowhere does this bother me than in warship designs and rules.

Take Capital Missiles. The Canon TRO’s clearly state that the technology for these weapons were never lost. Which means that throughout the SW’s these weapons could be built and deployed. Imagine for a moment an industrial world protected by dozens of batteries (not one but hundreds launchers) of Killer Whale Sites. The cost for attacking these worlds without warship support would be simply too high to overcome. Capital Missiles vanished from game play because they didn’t want to deal with the truth that Warships (or even pocket warships) would have to remain as part of a particle universe.

Transit Drive like no other? Seriously! How different in operation does a warship transit drive have to be compared to that mounted on a dropship? If you think about it, a dropship drive (on a spheroid dropship) would have to be massive to lift a large dropship (and its cargo). Let us put a bit of comparison to this conversation. The Saturn V Rocket weights in around 3,270 tons while a Union Class Dropship and all of its cargo weighs around 3,500 tons. The engines of these craft are capable of lifting their craft against gravity and brake orbit. So how much more different could a warship transit drive really be? The idea that Warship transit drives are so special that only the Clans and Comstar can build them while much more powerful drives are used to lift dropships against the gravity of worlds are being built.

No intentional monitors. So let us take a leap of faith that transit drives (and to a smaller degree K-F Drives) are no longer available. It boggles the mind that the SS home worlds and other critical worlds would not be protected by large jumpless sub-warships armed with hundreds of missiles, lasers and other weapons. If you follow the mindset that the original authors laid out, then monitors would be a logical step for the SS.

Many people cite that the loss of the shipyards eliminated warships from the scene of the SW’s. I counter with WWII. The allies bombed Germany and Japan endlessly and this concept seems plausible. However, if you read the stories about the SW’s you find that as resources fell, it would be impossible to continue this level of destruction on every possible world. Which means that some worlds would see decades of no action while other key worlds like Hesperus would see endless attacks. This would mean that the ability to build shipyards in secret would be possible. But then there is the Comstar Factor. A clever plot device to ensure that advance technologies would vanish.

It is a compelling device to overcome. But again, how stupid are the human beings of the Canon Universe. You mean to tell me that they can’t figure it out? Then again, in the hopes of watching the SS blow themselves further back in to the Dark Ages, I don’t think Comstar would have stopped attempts to rebuild shipyards. I do think that they would have ensured that other SS had the same chance to keep the balance of destruction across the Inner Sphere.

In conclusion, not only are warships plausible in 3020’s. Rather in the form of massive monitors that are not jump capable defending key worlds. Or in a smaller pocket version with Capital Missiles jumped in to system via Jumpships. Warships would have to exist in the canon universe at the oversight of the original authors of the universe.

Akira

you are forgetting they key vulnerability of Warships when you think about "How come no new ships were built?"

Warships are expensive as hell, and extremely vulnerable to aerospace fighter carried Nuclear Weapons.  This weakness is something that has been thoroughly explored in every single portion of the setting that the IP has where warships are Prominent, from the Reunification War to the Jihad.  The Assault Dropship fleet is simply a better way of doing things in universe.

and not all ships went away.  The Combine had a captured Robinson and multiple Narukami squirreled away and never reactivated.

But that is not how there are treated if they are that expensive they would be treated like B-2 bombers and only used were they would not be thrown away so they would and could also start making simple upgrades, such as adding aerospace class weapons, and more anti missile weapons, if they have a shipyard and not pushed to destruction as in cannon

My point remains the same though.  forgetting fiction, in rules Warships are a big sexy bad idea, sort of like my prom date.  Matching BV in dropships and aerospace fighters will ALWAYS win, particularly against larger vessels.  the only purpose they REALLY serve is to provide extinction level fire support onto planetary surfaces... and again Nukes can do that for cheaper given jump cores and all.

Then you need to develop screens to protect them.
Bigger ships mean bigger screens.