Mechwarrior 5

[KDR_11k]

Interestingly, in BT, vehicles are way, way, more cost-efficient than 'mechs (mostly due to the huge cost of fusion engines). In fact, unless 'mechs have near-zero maintenance cost (doubtful), I don't see why any serious BT military would maintain 'mechs, except maybe as a compact commando force.

Deployment in the game is limited by weight and mechs have absurdly low weights compared to vehicles.

[Caydr]

Anyone know why Madcat is so iconic? I mean, any mechwarrior product you buy has at least one of them on the box, more likely about 50. I was actually shocked there wasn't one in the trailer, but it might make sense because this game is taking place before all the others... maybe madcats are a later design?

Just a random thought.

I was hoping for a battle field like game that was set in the battletech universe, where all types of units played an important role including infantry, but most BT mods die fast...

I thought 2142 was supposed to be like this? I was actually going to give it a try, until I read some of the hilarious ways EA thinks you should be limited if you get the digital version on their service.

[Pxtl]

Because the Madcat was one of the best-looking Battlemechs. The first-gen mechs looked good, but most of them were stuck in an IP nightmare. By the 2nd gen there were too many mechs to count, so there wasn't really one to steal the limelight.

Then the Clans happened and a very short list of Omnimechs were seen at first - you usually saw the Mad Cat, the Summoner, the Daishi, and the Vulture - and the occasional Hunchback just to scare the hell out of people. Of them, the Mad Cat and the Vulture look the best - the Summoner, Nova, and Hunchback are fugly... and that's not even getting into the even-fuglier medium and light omnimechs like the Stormcrow, the Nova, the Uller, the Dasher, and the Dragonfly. So we saw a lot of the Mad Cat, and it was the only one that we saw that looked _good_.

Heavy mechs have always been popular since they're a good balance of speed and firepower - assault mechs are too slow to offer much strategic options, and heavy mechs tend to pwn anything lighter. The Mad Cat was in the popular sweet-spot. The Vulture looked good too, but it also looked very similar to the Mad Cat and kind of ended up being mentally the Mad Cat's little sidekick.

So for a while, the Mad Cat was the most visible mech. And it looks damned cool, with the tie-fighter/WW2-Bomber cockpit window, nicely detailed bird-hip-legs, and the mech-stereotypical laser-arms and missile-shoulders.

[yuritch]

Anyone know why Madcat is so iconic? I mean, any mechwarrior product you buy has at least one of them on the box, more likely about 50. I was actually shocked there wasn't one in the trailer, but it might make sense because this game is taking place before all the others... maybe madcats are a later design?

AFAIK MW5 is set in 3015, that's a few dozen years before clan invasion. And MadCat is an iconic Clan design, so it wasn't known in the IS before that (not sure it was available even for Clans this early).

That also means lots of weapons from earlier MW titles shouldn't be available. All kinds of Gauss, LBX, ER lasers (maybe pulse lasers too) and some missile types are lostech in 3015 and so are not available in IS.

[Pxtl]

I think 3015 was the setting of the original battletech game - that is to say, only the basics will be present. No prefixes on the weapons - 3 laser-types and PPCs, 4 Autocannon sizes, machineguns, flamers, LRMs, SRMs, and that's it. No Gauss, no double-heatsinks, no ferro-fibrous armor, XL engines, Ultra or LBX, or ER, Pulse, or C3 Command, or artillery, or C3 slave/master, etc.

This is also why they made it a point to re-license the old Battletech mechs that were in legal limbo (the ones they licensed from Robotech).

[Caydr]

Just because it starts in that year doesn't mean it stays in that year... It could do a Fallout 3 and there be a "15 years later..." half way through or something.

I know virtually nothing of the MW mythos, but the beginning of the clan invasion sounds like a good thing to have in a game.

[Pxtl]

Well, you have to remember that the Battletech content was published in chronological order. So the first stuff was "here's all the various houses and nations of the Inner Sphere, and their war with each other". Then it was "here's technological advances and how that war's going". Then it was "oh, shit. Remember that Kerensky guy who left with the last of the StarLeague? Yeah, he's back and he brought an army of super-soldier Spartans to conquer the inner sphere. Meet the Clans."

[Argh]

Anyone know why Madcat is so iconic?

It's actually pretty simple. If you owned the original tabletop game, you know that the first Battlemechs were mainly lifted from anime sources (Robotech and Fang of the Sun Dougram amongst others).

The Mad Cat is the first of the Clan designs that was a real hit with fans, visually, and since all of the later FASA / WizKids development of the IP has been about the ongoing saga of the Clan invasion and the post-invasion re-arrangement of the Inner Sphere... it makes an excellent image to keep hammering people with.

[bobthedinosaur]

It has to do with the TRO for 3050, or when the clans invaded and were 1st introduced. Also Mechwarrior 2 gained a lot of attention to the series and it's main icon was the timberwolf/ madcat.

edit:
mw2 mercs was one of the 1st 3d card supported games that I remember. was history at the time, and impressive to add crappy textures to geometry, rather than solid shading.

[RogerN]

Interestingly, in BT, vehicles are way, way, more cost-efficient than 'mechs (mostly due to the huge cost of fusion engines). In fact, unless 'mechs have near-zero maintenance cost (doubtful), I don't see why any serious BT military would maintain 'mechs, except maybe as a compact commando force.

Vehicles are more cost-effective and they could also hold more weaponry than a mech with similar tonnage. Vehicles have some big drawbacks, however:

1) Maneuverability. Vehicles in BT have trouble navigating forests, cliffs, rubble, etc... Mechs, on the other hand, can walk over all kinds of terrain. And they can jump.

2) IIRC correctly, vehicles are easy to destroy with critical hits. Any hit which damages the internal structure of the vehicle has a chance to completely destroy it. With mechs, only a critical hit to the head or center torso has the potential to destroy the mech completely. Also, any hit from an SRM-2 Inferno missile has a chance to disable a vehicle (crew dies from heat).

3) Vehicles have no arms, so their firing arcs are somewhat more restricted. In other words, it's easier to shoot them in the rear without risking return fire. Some vehicles can mount weapons on turrets, so this is not always the case. But there is an additional cost associated with mounting weapons on a turret, and turrets can get stuck.

4) Vehicles cannot perform most physical attacks. Mechs can punch, kick, charge, swing clubs, etc... Physical attacks can be a huge advantage, especially for large mechs. A kick from a 100 ton mech does the same amount of damage as an AC/20 (biggest weapon in the game), and it doesn't use ammo or generate heat. Punches also do good damage, and have an increased chance of hitting the head.

[Caydr]

Don't know if this translates to the board game or not, but vehicles are also begging to get stomped.

[Evil4Zerggin]

IIRC you can do pretty well with a hovercraft that kneecaps 'Mechs by ramming them. I don't have the rules with me ATM so don't quote me on this though.

I also remember looking for transportation costs (by e.g. dropship) but I couldn't find a good reference.

[Pxtl]

If I remember correctly, the cost-savings for a combustion-powered vehicle vs. a mech were so obscene that it really was worth fielding tanks unless you were going to be fighting in rough terrain.

But yeah, once you figure the weight-capacity limits of dropships, mechs make sense - mechs are far more versatile than vehicles.

Actually, the most sorely underrated and terrifyingly powerful units were infantry. This is why so many of the FASA mechs had machineguns, despite their poor combat-effect - because if they didn't, and an infantry squad got into range, they'd get raped. Infantry were fragile and slow, but they crammed a terrific amount of firepower in a stealthy, cheap unit.

[bobthedinosaur]

wow! all this talk about mech warrior and board game makes me think some one should make a mod...

any ways on an unrelated tangent direct at smoth, the gundam expert. how do vehicles compare to gundams in the gundam universe?

The one thing I don't get in all mech and vehicle fictional universes is how an expensive and complex walking machine has more defense than a tank. i mean a tank is a box with a rotating gun, add some wheel or tracks, cant get more simple than that.

[Pxtl]

Tanks had to armour 4 sides, mechs only had to armour 2 (front/back). However, tanks blew up all at once, not piece by piece like mechs did. So a tank-designer had to split his armour between the 4 directions, and an enemy can pick one side and keep pounding it till he digs through. Meanwhile, a mech has to split armor between a bunch of locations, but which location you hit on a mech is random. So as long as you cover your back on a mech, the damage will be evenly distributed across the whole body.

So the mech is playing a little more statistics, and has more risk of something getting blown off, but the tank has to armor more directions.

Also, mechs didn't have exposed treads that could be damaged. And the cockpit was safely away from the mayhem by being located in the (hard to hit) head.

Unrealistic, yes, but they made a gameplay incentive to use mechs. I found vehicles were excellent for long-ranged fire-support mechs were better up-close.

The one realistic thing was the fact that mechs were intrinsically so much more expensive than tanks, so it made sense that when you made a mech you put the best of everything into it, while when you made a tank you did it on the cheap.

[RogerN]

In the Battletech universe mechs are sortof like the knights of the Medieval Ages. Just as war horses and armor were prohibitively expensive, only wealthy nobles in the Battletech universe can afford to own mechs. Vehicles and infantry are like your peasants with pitchforks (well... they were a little better armed than that). Mechs are status symbols as much as combat machines.

Between technology loss and dwindling supplies of spare parts, a conflict must become very serious before valuable mechs are committed to the field. Many of them are irreplaceable, further driving up their market value.

[smoth]

the way this game should have looked.

[Regret]

the way this game should have looked.

I like the brownish one more, it's more realistic etc.

[RogerN]

Alas, Mechwarrior 5 is already in trouble from some lame trademark dispute. Why can't all these giant robot companies get along?

I have no idea what trademark they're talking about. I don't remember seeing any mechs in the trailer that were not old-school Battletech designs (Warhammer, Atlas, maybe a Jenner).

[Pxtl]

Alas, Mechwarrior 5 is already in trouble from some lame trademark dispute. Why can't all these giant robot companies get along?

I have no idea what trademark they're talking about. I don't remember seeing any mechs in the trailer that were not old-school Battletech designs (Warhammer, Atlas, maybe a Jenner).

This was expected. Warhammer was a Robotech mech. Apparently, the story was really complicated: FASA licensed the Japanese mech designs, and the company that made Robotech licensed everything too... and then sued FASA and won. Or something like that.

It's very complicated, but roughly: FASA thought they had permission to use those mechs, so the first-line of Battletech mechs were all Robotech ones, and haven't been seen since.

Now, for the new MW5 stuff, it was understood that this matter had _finally_ been cleared up, and they were going to be able to go ahead with the original Robotech-based mechs.

Apparently Harmony Gold disagrees.