If it were somehow face down, you'd total up the armour + internals in all locations to see if it could destroy a section outright. The only ways for a mech to "Blow into tiny little pieces" is for either an ammunition hit without case, an engine hit that causes the reactor to stackpole or a direct hit to a gauss rifle capacitor again without case.
Its a meta-term Omeganian. Anytime a 'Mech takes a hit to the reactor that seemingly vaporizes the 'Mech (and likely a good chunk of the surroundings, sometimes also including other 'Mechs too close to it) is generally referred to by the fans as a 'Stackpoling'. Named for the author who first started doing it. In-canon, the devs has stated it's because of ambient air entering the super-heated reactor causing a short lived 'flare/airburst' plus coolant hitting the reactor and causing a cascading explosion. But not the actual reactor itself. Although it should be said that they did NOT do said retcon until it was rather rammed down their throats by not only everyday fans with access to physics textbooks/Discovery Channel/Internet, but fans who have actual college degrees in high-energy physics.
Doesn't the snippet with this 'magical wonderweapon that obviates its need to do anything more than shoot guns' have the characters specifically noting that it is weak when not used as part of a combined arms doctrine? In fact, half of the conversation is about the many, many major limitations of the system. So why exactly are you seeming to harp about EARTHWANK in regards to a finicky system with a huge number of drawbacks which only works properly as part of a combat doctrine which thread contributors have already agreed upon?
You are making assumptions based upon how current day armor works. Were talking about a type of armor that when introduced (hundreds of years into the future) was regarded as revolutionary. In other words they found a way around those problems. My advice to you is to take the setting as it is, anything else just ruins the story. Especially considering that BT naval weaponry simply laughs at your objections.
It could be argued to do massive armour damage instead, but in a rather unusual fashion. Since B-Tech spaced armour solves the kinetic damage issue, but prefers small hits repeatedly to punch through, presumably it's done as panels? Have the shock from the impact knock panels off ALL over the mech. So it does, say... 10 damage to the location hit, and knocks 3 armour off of 3 other hit locations from the impact. Roll for these normally if using game rules to work out outcomes of battles? That makes it essentially a variant cluster hits weapon, a decent heavy hitter, not the effect C-Earth wanted but still useful, and often a tank and light mech crippler...
I'm talking about how non-magical matter works. if you can't accept that you are just crazy because its quite literally impossible... And if the canon values say otherwise, then its just a fuckup with the writers who didn't bother to double check their own math before they started to shit out numbers. My own view of BT armor is very thin layers of incredibly hard, and incredibly rigid material. It's stiff enough that it has an incredible speed of sound, and its also very strong for its weight. It's designed as wafer thin layers so as to allow comparatively large surface areas of armor to absorb the impact of projectiles, but at the same time the wafering leaves it vulnerable to being chipped away by small impacts one little layer at a time. however, like everything else it has a failure point. Past a certain realistic point, the armor behaves just like all other matter in the entire universe and is penetrated easily. BT armor is like a chunk of mica. Coincidentally, mica has a very high impact reisitance too IRL, and is used in applications that require impact resistance in high heat enviroments like blast furnaces, beam welding, and other situations. It also will 'sacrifice' parts of itself in impacts too. .
Still working on it - now to write a couple essays! Hotel Hyatt, Helmdown Helm, Free Worlds League Her guards had swept the room again before she entered into her personal meeting room. Trey was a couple steps behind her, arms full of paperwork, and a sour look on his face. With a relieved gasp, he dumped the pile onto the table, steadying it with one hand to prevent then from spilling all over the table. Mirelle took a seat an swiveled to face the window. “What did you find?” Trey took a moment to compose himself. “The Factory has paid all their taxes in full and on time. No attempts to create tax dodges, though if I may hazard a guess, it is most likely because they simply haven't had time to entrench themselves and gain favourable status.” Mirelle nodded in agreement, and gestured for him to continnue. “They also have to overt security forces. It looks to our people that they are more concerned with intelligence and sabotage than pirates or corporate raids.” “They would be fools not to, and JD are not fools.” Mirelle commented as she pondered her next move. There were possibilities still running through her head, but she needed to know just how far this mysterious company would go to defend themselves. They had a maddening way of just smiling and accepting what came their way, nothing seemed to get under their skin at all. “Who do we have in Steward?” “In terms of BattleMech forces? We have...” Starport, Helmdown Soe took a deep breath of local air, thankful that it didn't have anything rank in it. He still remembered from his youth being tricked into breathing deep on a volcanic world, and to this day, he can still smell sulphur. Behind him, his pirates were doing legit cargo business, checking storage, and preparing to on load whatever they picked up. That they weren't doing it while under fire from the local defence forces did wonders for their morale and relaxation. Gregor was still on the DropShip, refusing to leave until he felt secure. The captain had ordered the Chief Mechanic for his DropShip to not force him from there, but to also make sure he didn't do anything stupid. They weren't here to cause trouble. Down the way, he saw a BattleMech with the local garrison wander around in an irregular patrol pattern. Squinting, he didn't recognize the boxy shape, and figured he could solve two problems with one request. Walking back into the bay, he hailed the bridge, getting his XO on the line. He explained about the 'Mech he didn't recognize, and ordered Gregor to find out what it was, what capacities it had, and then to do the same for the rest of the local garrison lance. Soe had no goals with this request beyond keeping Gregor's mind occupied on something that wasn't trying to usurp his position, but also worded his request to make it seem like he was considering proper action against the locals. A couple hours later, Captain Carlson was resting in a lounge at the Port while his crew went looking for tenders and other things. He had handed down the list of things he wouldn't bail his crew out of, and let them do their own thing. He was only barely surprised when his Mechanic came up to his table, and Soe offered him a drink. Jackson had been with Soe since the beginning, and the two trusted each other implicitly. “Pleasure or Business?” “Business, Captain.” “Oh? Do tell.” “There's this local bunch, some man named John Deere who owns the AgroMech factory out in the hills. You've seen their stuff, the green vehicles with yellow trim? Well, he's got himself some weird gig going on where his guys will train people in basic vehicle maintenance and the like.” “Yes. So?” “Well, I did some digging and it seems like as part of this deal, they'll give any dropship whose crew takes their training course a free small industrial metalworking set, no more than two hundred tons in weight for support of their products. Seems they like the idea of any ole DropShip being able to act as a mobile repair point for all their gear, and from talking to some other people, it's a good side gig.” He slid some papers across the table to Soe, who looked them over. “Two week course. You can even call shore leave. And we can use the equipment once its in our bay to do some repairs on our ship, fix that shower in your cubby, sir.” The promise of hot water was almost too much, but what sealed the deal was the capacity to give his crew shore leave, leaving Gregor to stew. And it would let him figure out who was more likely to support the XO than the Captain. “I'll give the orders. And if Mr. Deere shorts you, tell me and we'll make them see the error of their ways.
At a glance, all I see that's a problem is what appears to be a missing word. The red is what I think is missing from that sentence.
“They also have NO overt security forces." "Behind him, his pirates were doing legit cargo business, checking storage, and preparing to load whatever they picked up." The on is not needed. About the mech, a GM?
I find your objections as relevant as the objections from a layman in the 16th century objecting about the lack of aether in a story concerning the 20th century. Its canon, get over it. And if BT armor has a 'reliable' failure point for projectile velocity then the required velocity so high that you can't even reach it with a railgun.
From where, the GM just came on the market a few months ago, the market penetration is very shallow. A GM would raise more questions and the mission left C-Earth before it really even started development.
Fix'd in the source file. Fix'd in the source file. And for the mysterious 'Mech*, it's actually one that I've always wanted to write for, and no, it's not the GM. It is still 3025, and I don't think it's made it to the production-test model yet, let alone made it all the way to Helm. FLE-15 to be more precise.
Thats nice. totally incorrect, but quaint. Apparently your view is that innovation on material science is infinite and that in the future we will overcome mere physical impossibilities and make materials that operate solely on magic to produce their effects. or are you going to say something stupid like BT armor uses quantum mechanics to distribute impact energy across itself :wtf: because thats what it would take to do that. Having a giant energy teleporting sheet of material that merely masquarades as a piece of armor, literally teleporting kinetic energy across itself. yeah... no. I refuse to believe they are capable of that sort of shit, because at that point you might as well use your teleporting effect to teleport the damage from your mech to a giant 50kton block of armor on the other side of the planet. you can't beat physics without getting into scififantasy which certain members here seem to have embraced to the point they dissolve into frothing fits when someone tells them 'no effing way'. The rules also allow for ships crews to be unaffected by nuke blasts gamma rays. The armor that withstands the contact nuke apparently protects the ships interior entirely. this magic <1mm thick armor seems to be a perfect gamma ray absorber/reflector too. Apparently they have no need for real engine shielding, just use this stuff. If you think about it the crew should be pretty much all dead or dying within a turn or two from a decent sized proximity nuke detonation. But the rules don't reflect that! They allow the ship to absorb the damage and keep going, so apparently BT armor is a perfect gamma ray blocker. The writers just didn't consider it. But if we accept the canon figures thats what happens. So DON'T, and find out why. seriously, stop religiously protecting the rules as 'reality' and try to find rational explanations for them. Things like 'well, the writers said the armor was this mass, but in reality the armor mass was actually the ships wipple shield. the actualy armor mass was the ships SI mass, so X warship had an actual armor mass of 300,000 tons, not 250 tons.' Problem solved. Logic, not slathering obedience to holy BT scripture... You can't make a good story when one side has to obey it and the other gets to use console cheats. Those console cheats can be used in a shitload of other applications if left as canon. You have to give and take from the rules if you want to get anywhere. The BT rules are full of absolutes that make no sense, so you have to change the rules so that they can reflect different situations. The board game is extremely limited, and trying to translate those values to a RL setting is just going to produce absolute bullshit results. You need to understand that it is just a boardgame and the rules can't explain everthing. If they did the rulebooks would be textbooks and textbooks and wouldn't be fun to play at all.
JonBerry, at this time the Flea is an exclusive Wolf Dragoons mech, unless the Flea in the spaceport is a relic.
In my notes, the Flea is indeed a relic that got pulled out of the mothballs after the FWL got some parts for it when the Dragoons were working for them. The Flea in question has survived more by being in the backwater worlds, dealing with infantry for the most part, those that can't really damage it, and never in the front lines of serious combat. If this is too much in your guys' opinions, I'll switch it out to something the FWL is more likely to field in 3025. Hrm, research indicates that common light Mechs in the FWL at this time include the FS9-H Firestarter, JVN-10F/N Javelin, LCT-1V Locust, PNT-9R Panther, SDR-5V Spider, STG-3R Stinger, UM-R60 UrbanMech, and the WSP-1A Wasp.
To make it easy, have the initial description of it mention that it has a TON of replacement armor plates scattered all across the hull. A 'veteran of the wars' so to speak and obviously a relic.
Oh, notes on the local garrison lance for Helm have it at an Orion (OR1-K), the Flea (FLE-15), an UrbanMech (UM-R60) [which shares the same ammo stockpile as the AC/10 on the Orion), and a Stinger (STG-3G). Anything wrong with that before I go putting it into pen later?
I find it funny that JTibbs is all 'PHYSICS PHYSICS PHYSICS HARD SCIENCE HARD SCIENCE' and manages to miss the point he's already mentioned. Battletech is space opera it is not hard science fiction. I was very tempted to make a parody thread wherein a hypothetical Tom Clancy/Star Wars crossover was discussed in which a hypothetical imaginary poster like JTibbs would be bitching about hyperdrive, deflector shields, turbolasers, the force, lightsabers, the Death Star, Star Destroyers, AT-ATs... and you know. Everything. In the world. But remember, JTibbs is the shitposter who said that he would prefer to get rid of Mech dominance in favor of tanks because it's so unrealistic for mechs to be better than tanks... in a game about giant robot combat. He latches onto any 'hard science' excuse to weaken Battletech or the non-Earth force. This, despite the fact that he's not some sort of physicist or engineer, and has no actual knowledge of science. BBM, just keep replying to JTibbs with this: Maybe he'll get it eventually that science fiction doesn't have to follow reality 100%, nor does it have to (and it often does not) follow everything it has to its logical conclusion. Star Wars, Star Trek, and Babylon 5 are all science fiction despite having never looked at the implications of their technology with more than a cursory glance. Ever. Why is Battletech being put on some pedestal of super-hardness-required?
The Annihilator's rear armor is 9/10/9, which means an Arrow IV can penetrate any of its rear torso locations, and both side torsos have 2 tons of AC/10 ammo. There's a pretty solid chance of turning the mech into scrap metal from a rear AIV hit.
