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Found this artstation collection of in-game and concept art albums. https://www.artstation.com/mikebot/collections/313881
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Nov 24, 2018 22:39
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golden bubble posted:Stuff related to battlemechs would not become lostech in this analogy, because the successor states never stopped using battlemechs and they didn't suffer the total urban collapse seen in Britain. But they did. As pointed out we're looking at the IS suffering Black Plague-level (or worse) death tolls and a significant number of entire planets becoming uninhabitable, depopulated or flat out lost. And I'd dispute that still using something means there can't be lost knowledge of it. I figure drat near all of us work with at least one legacy system that nobody actually understands - frequently because the code/mechanics were put in place four or five techs ago and the documentation ranges from cryptic to non-existent. And I know it's a problem even in military circles, with systems still demanding people to learn ancient arcane things because drat it, the targeting system on that old missile still uses COBOL. And that's without 50% of the population dying and pinpoint nuclear strikes actively destroying all the factories that build the stuff.
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Nov 25, 2018 00:20
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To use the Ford model T analogy from earlier, sure you could figure out how to build new ones now, but what if the US ceases to exist and the only people that have the car left on the planet are japanese who don't speak a word of english and all the documentation is gone both physically and digitally. And the versions of the cars left are beat up pieces of junk that have already been patchjob repaired in different ways with non-standard parts. It's gonna be a real effort for them to get factories up and running to make new ones now, especially if those new ones are supposed to be identical in every detail and mass producable.
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Nov 25, 2018 00:29
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but they could still build a car. LOSTECH in Battletech seems to be like losing the ability to build an automobile in general, not a specific model of it.
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Nov 25, 2018 00:33
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PoptartsNinja posted:BattleTech's technological stagnation is largely planned rather than accidental.  This was superb.
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Nov 25, 2018 00:34
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mods changed my name posted:but they could still build a car. LOSTECH in Battletech seems to be like losing the ability to build an automobile in general, not a specific model of it. It’s more that production processes and materials degraded. Imagine the US gets gutted by a nuclear exchange. Can we make cars still? Probably. Something akin to a model T or even a 1940s Ford truck is probably doable with whatever local tooling is available and basic knowledge of the principles. How about some all-bonded composite supercar or even a 2018 accord with fancy electronics and modern safety features? Probably not. It’s not like mechs disappear, it’s the fancy tech. Instead of an endosteel chassis carrying ferrofiberous armor and a bunch of ERPPCs and a fancy XL engine and DHS you get the crappier, more basic, easier to make versions.
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Nov 25, 2018 00:50
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Yeah, basically you're looking at losing fanciness and getting the most bare-bones versions instead. Modern Abrams main battle tanks have high-tech composite laminate armor with depleted uranium webbing, computer-controlled stabilization systems so you can shoot (accurately) while running at full speed, and thermal optics that let you pick out targets from miles away in any weather, with any crosswind. If you lose all the plants that made them, all the depots that carried spare parts, and all the design plans that told you how to MAKE the armor and non-standard computer chips and stuff? Whelp, guess we're gonna go make some Shermans. Rolled steel and iron sights it is.
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Nov 25, 2018 00:59
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TheCenturion posted:Like, it's not that your Wasp has a 'medium laser.' Your Wasp has a 'CompanyTech Medium Laser model CTML-193x.' Now, the 193x series has Moly1 style power couplers, only accepts a RS-1395 connector for the electronics interconnect, and the Wasp's battlecomputer has drivers for it. Unfortunately, that ML got damaged in that last fight, and we don't have any CTML-193X lasers kicking around. Now, we DO have a Hasperion Medium Laser HML-9923, BUT the casing for it doesn't physically fit, so we need to do a hackjob there. The HM-9923 is expecting a completely different voltage/amperage/hertz/whatever, AND uses a Moly5 style power coupler, so we needed to put in a voltage converter and a kitbashed Moly1-Moly5 coupler. Also, it doesn't use RS-1395, but instead uses a PP-5537 coupler. Unfortunately, your Wasp's battlecomp doesn't HAVE any PP jacks, LET ALONE PP-5537. Now, that's unfortunate, because the HML-9923 does some really neat things with the increased bandwidth, but you're going to miss out on it. Also, the battlecomputer never had drivers for the HML-9923. Now, the thing DOES have drivers for HML-8000 series Medium Lasers, so we can use those, BUT, the 9000 series has a shorter focal length, which means the targeting is always going to be off. We've adjusted with a blanket compensation, but if the opponent is close, aim a bit to the left, and if he's far away, aim a bit to the right. Sorry kid, best we can do until we find a new CTML-190 series.' I will help kick start that game. You play Yang and have to try and fix the Commander's mech's from the current game and make it clear to him how much you need those Argo Power upgrades to do anything and why trying to replace the arm on a SLDF Highlander is NOT going to cut it with a leg from a Thunderbolt. Comstar fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Nov 25, 2018 |
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Nov 25, 2018 01:19
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Comstar posted:I will help kick start that game. You play Yang and have to try and fix the Commander's mech's from the current game and make it clear to him how much you need those Argo Power upgrades to do anything and why trying to replace the arm on a SLDF Highlander is NOT going to cut it with a leg from a Thunderbolt. 
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Nov 25, 2018 01:42
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Comstar posted:I will help kick start that game. You play Yang and have to try and fix the Commander's mech's from the current game and make it clear to him how much you need those Argo Power upgrades to do anything and why trying to replace the arm on a SLDF Highlander is NOT going to cut it with a leg from a Thunderbolt. There's a "Cooking Mama" style time-management-panic game in here somewhere.
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Nov 25, 2018 01:46
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Comstar posted:I will help kick start that game. You play Yang and have to try and fix the Commander's mech's from the current game and make it clear to him how much you need those Argo Power upgrades to do anything and why trying to replace the arm on a SLDF Highlander is NOT going to cut it with a leg from a Thunderbolt. The guys from Zachtronics could make a game along this line.
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Nov 25, 2018 01:58
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mods changed my name posted:but they could still build a car. LOSTECH in Battletech seems to be like losing the ability to build an automobile in general, not a specific model of it. Nah, they still build new 'Mechs, but they're blindly following the operating manuals on heavily automated factories, of the 'insert raw materials here, drive BattleMechs out of the other end there.' I mean, right now, you get problems in industrial shops when the one guy that has a bunch of corporate knowledge in his brain quits or retires. I mean, right now, could you take a team or experts, move to some war-torn country in Africa, and without outside assistance, produce a modern American military? M1A2 Abraham tanks, Bradleys, MRLS, Strykers, HMMVWs, infantry, M16s, M9s, Claymores, Kevlar, DU, the whole nine yards. You don't have two hundred years of infrastructure and continuity of learning to fall back on. You're constantly under attack. You need to build the tools, to build the tools, to extract the resources, to build the tools, to build the tools, to even think about making WW1 era military gear. I mean, in the lore, as soon as they DO find the Grey Death memory core, within a generation, they were suddenly leaping forward decades. And hey, guess what benevolent quasi-mystical Space Telephone Company sent goddamn commandos in to make sure the students permanently failed their classes? The point that ComStar was actively working to maintain the dark age is well taken.
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Nov 25, 2018 02:04
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you know the battlemech argument is great and yall got me there, i was thinking more general poo poo like "ECM" and "coolant" when I typed that
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Nov 25, 2018 02:06
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mods changed my name posted:you know the battlemech argument is great and yall got me there, i was thinking more general poo poo like "ECM" and "coolant" when I typed that Honestly, even worse. ECM is extremely hardware and programming dependent. If you do your job right (and you are going to do your job right on this), your ECM is a completely blackbox system. You can't just open it up and vacuum out the programming and dump it into another ECM box. If you leave that ability in, the enemy can do it to you and learn how to cancel out your ECM. And the difference between "I can't get a lock on the enemy even though I can see them right there" and "I can detect an enemy 1000 meters away through buildings" can be as small as one generation of technology and programming. Aka if your ECM is one stage too old, it's worse than having none at all because it's eating up valuable space and weight. And coolant? Man, on the high end that poo poo is manufactured to very narrow tolerances. You gently caress one thing up, and you're burning coolant in your engine. tl;dr "If you want to make cars, you can. If you want to make RACE cars, good loving luck. And the man with a lovely race car always loses."
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Nov 25, 2018 02:20
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if you can make a drop ship you can make coolant man
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Nov 25, 2018 02:21
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A coolant? Sure. Boil some water a few times until it's fully distilled and you've got some coolant. But, if your mech is built with the assumption that it'll have Polyalkylene glycol running through its pipes and none of your workers could even spell that if it was written on the ashes of the technical manual in front of them? Good luck.
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Nov 25, 2018 02:25
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It's also important to remember that the poo poo that they fall back on is already basically space magic to us. Reusable orbital vehicles, fusion engines, and directed energy weapons are the old hat bullshit that they fall back on. They're going back to what they would describe as the stone age, but holy poo poo it's not from our frame of reference. The analogy of the US getting thrown back to 40s tech by a nuclear exchange is apt. If you grew up with iPhones and Teslas having to ration access to solar calculators and maybe getting a 20hp tractor would seem like getting thrown back to the dark ages, but compared to the no-bullshit middle ages it's still worlds ahead of it.
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Nov 25, 2018 02:29
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Also you might be able to make good enough coolant but you're not going to be able to make the super coolant that Star League had.
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Nov 25, 2018 02:31
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we have the metallurgical skills to make a ship capable of reentry but we can't make 55 gallon drums of coolant. ok. I get losing the ability to not be able to make ER PPCS or whatever but I'll not back down from coolant. anyhow rule of cool is the thing I'm just taking the piss m8s
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Nov 25, 2018 02:31
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We are not even close to having orbital vessels that can go into space, return, then go into space again without any significant work done on them.
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Nov 25, 2018 02:34
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mods changed my name posted:we have the metallurgical skills to make a ship capable of reentry but we can't make 55 gallon drums of coolant. ok. Where are you getting the idea that they can't make coolant anyways?
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Nov 25, 2018 02:35
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IDK from some earlier dumb poo poo that's probably from a video game with coolant flush lol I was going to ask when that even became a thing. mw2 or 3?
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Nov 25, 2018 02:42
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Taerkar posted:We are not even close to having orbital vessels that can go into space, return, then go into space again without any significant work done on them. uh yeah sorry this was in the context of 3025 not actually today
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Nov 25, 2018 02:43
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mods changed my name posted:IDK from some earlier dumb poo poo that's probably from a video game with coolant flush lol I was going to ask when that even became a thing. mw2 or 3? Yeah, that was a video game thing. And frankly that never even made sense. How is dumping your coolant going to help cool you? That's like saying the solution to your car overheating is to drain the radiator.
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Nov 25, 2018 02:43
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i am certain some grog complained about that poo poo in mwo or something and that's what I've been going off of i just like to make the robots fight
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Nov 25, 2018 02:45
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Cyrano4747 posted:Yeah, that was a video game thing. And frankly that never even made sense. How is dumping your coolant going to help cool you? That's like saying the solution to your car overheating is to drain the radiator. Maybe they went for something about open-cycle cooling, but forgot that the whole system has to be built for it? 
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Nov 25, 2018 02:46
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Separate cooling pods are a good in universe example of a doctrinal and equipment shift to help deal with the fact that they only have standard heat sinks now, not microgravity sintered ultra-high capacity double heat sinks like the star league had (because they blew up all the orbital factories.) The know what a double heat sink is, and even probably how to make it, but good luck standing up an orbital fab when there's a war on and some rear end in a top hat can just shoot a missile at it.
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Nov 25, 2018 02:46
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Cyrano4747 posted:Yeah, that was a video game thing. And frankly that never even made sense. How is dumping your coolant going to help cool you? That's like saying the solution to your car overheating is to drain the radiator. The in-tabletop version are coolant pods (you dump extra coolant into your cooling system and flush whatever's in the heat sinks that turn, turning your double heat sinks into triples for 1 turn) and the Radical Heat Sink (which is the same thing except theoretically reusable with a high failure rate, since you're pumping superheated coolant back into it and giving it a chance to cool off). Unless I'm misremembering, anyway.
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Nov 25, 2018 02:51
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dont mech warriors pilot mechs in their underwear and cooling vests because making a full cooling suit is lostech or is that just some bullshit i read on sarna
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Nov 25, 2018 02:57
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Thyrork posted:
I agree, it's always a pleasure to read PTN breaking down The Lore in detail. Pornographic Memory posted:dont mech warriors pilot mechs in their underwear and cooling vests because making a full cooling suit is lostech or is that just some bullshit i read on sarna Good memory Yeah there's a lot of 80's art that's basically mechwarriors ready to roll out while wearing coolant vests, hotpants, a big ol helmet, and a Runa fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Nov 25, 2018 |
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Nov 25, 2018 02:58
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so what is the deal with neuro helmets and like how do they actually pilot them because from the books i vaguely remember it seemed like they walked with their brains, the sticks maybe for arms or whatever and pedals for jets. I know the helmets had to do with balance and poo poo but that seems weird if you're sitting and translating that to a walking mech. idk it just always seemed ambiguous on how "in lore" it actually worked
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Nov 25, 2018 03:06
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PoptartsNinja posted:HBS BattleTech: Dekker's Flashpoint is 5,000 degrees
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Nov 25, 2018 03:25
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mods changed my name posted:so what is the deal with neuro helmets and like how do they actually pilot them because from the books i vaguely remember it seemed like they walked with their brains, the sticks maybe for arms or whatever and pedals for jets. I know the helmets had to do with balance and poo poo but that seems weird if you're sitting and translating that to a walking mech. idk it just always seemed ambiguous on how "in lore" it actually worked I know it isn't canon, but I would be 100% behind Battlemechs being piloted like Pacific Rim Jaegers and I know the Clans would jump at the chance to have it integrated into their mechs.
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Nov 25, 2018 03:42
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Pornographic Memory posted:dont mech warriors pilot mechs in their underwear and cooling vests because making a full cooling suit is lostech or is that just some bullshit i read on sarna I think you can see some of that trialed in this concept art:  I'm glad they went with the much more sensible cooling suits, even if those are supposed to have been special SL era LosTech according to lore. mods changed my name posted:so what is the deal with neuro helmets and like how do they actually pilot them because from the books i vaguely remember it seemed like they walked with their brains, the sticks maybe for arms or whatever and pedals for jets. I know the helmets had to do with balance and poo poo but that seems weird if you're sitting and translating that to a walking mech. idk it just always seemed ambiguous on how "in lore" it actually worked This is one of my favorite images in all of Battletech:  http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Neurohelmet
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Nov 25, 2018 03:51
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And Tyler Too! posted:I know it isn't canon, but I would be 100% behind Battlemechs being piloted like Pacific Rim Jaegers and I know the Clans would jump at the chance to have it integrated into their mechs. that way is the only way neuro helmets make sense to me but they're always sitting down
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Nov 25, 2018 03:54
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Flashpoint in just 3 days. I am SO EXCITE.
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Nov 25, 2018 22:07
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Cobbsprite posted:Flashpoint in just 3 days. I am SO EXCITE. I can't wait to betray my employer for a Small Pulse Laser.
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Nov 25, 2018 22:20
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It's been a while, but IIRC the general thrust of it is that the gyros provide the mechs with a baseline stability so they don't just tip over, but you need the pilot plugged in via the helmet to basically lend their sense of balance and control the gyro so that as the center of gravity shifts the gyro compensates. It's less you piloting it like a jaeger and more wiring in all that balance poo poo you do automatically without thinking about it to keep the mech balanced without you thinking about it while you use the weapons etc. Kind of like how a dude running across a field with a rifle doesn't need to think about staying upright or the mechanics of running - he's focused on the rifle poo poo. Now, all of this changes a bit depending on what you're reading. Way early stuff (the Grey Death novels for example) imply a more jaeger-like situation, while later ones (the stackpole books) make it seem like it controls like a fighter with joysticks and foot pedals etc. What I've got up there is the basic middle ground that makes everything more-or-less make sense. Then you've got clan poo poo down the road where they're literally wiring their nervous systems into the mechs and making people go insane. That's a bit more clearly on the jaeger end of the spectrum.
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Nov 25, 2018 22:30
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I'm gonna be a filthy lostech prostitute. Also I want my King Crab to have 3 Crabs as its honor guard. Snip snip.
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Nov 25, 2018 22:32
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| # ? Jun 5, 2024 13:43 |
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And Tyler Too! posted:I'm gonna be a filthy lostech prostitute. Also I want my King Crab to have 3 Crabs as its honor guard. Snip snip. I have a whole lance of King Crabs and a whole lance of Highlanders. Rollin deep on these robbits.
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Nov 25, 2018 22:43
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