Continuing the Pure Tech theme, I would like to talk about my “perfect” league for playing puretech. Indulge me if you will.
Currently, there are three major leagues out there for our beloved game. MWL, NBT and MCL. I am not sure if ISW is still operational, if so, ISW would make a forth league. I do not know that much about ISW so I wont make comments either way. My understanding is that ISW requires either NetMech IV mod or NBT-HC mod, but again, I am not sure. You can check for yourself by going to their website and poking around. www.iswars.com is the last address I had for them.
MWL is mostly a 3PV mixed tech ladder league. They have ladders for nearly every type play you can think of and if they don’t have it, if you get enough teams to sign up for it, they will create it. For awhile, they even had some FFP puretech ladders. I know at one time they had a planetary league too.
I am an admin for MCL. www.mechcombat.org. This league is also a ladder league but it caters to FFP play only. They have Mixed Tech Ladders and Pure Tech Ladders and are in the process of creating a Mission Play Ladder.
NBT is a planetary league. www.netbattletech.com. This league is probably the most in depth league if you are looking for planetary play. NBT is FFP, pure tech style play, however they use their own mod, NBT Hardcore.
I spent some time in each of these leagues and I am still a member of MCL. Before NBT went to the Hardcore mod, I was a member / co-leader of a team in that league. I have enjoyed each of the leagues that I have been a part of, and each offers some fantastic play for its members. All three are still active and have teams that are looking for players and are even accepting new teams if you have enough pilots to form a roster. If you are looking for competitive play in an organized league, I suggest that you look at each one and find one that fits your style. Join up and be a member, it’s a lot of fun. MCL and MWL both have Solaris type leagues so individual players can play and fight without actually committing to a team.
If I were going to create my idea of a “perfect” league, what would I do? Well, to start with I would take the NBT Planetary Model and change it somewhat. What? Why? The NBT system, throughout my playing time offers the best play as far as really getting in to what your team is about. My understanding is that ISW is/was this way too, and possibly even more in depth for the individual pilot, so maybe I would borrow some for each type of play.
NBT, as I have mentioned is a planetary system with Clans, Inner Sphere Major Houses, IS Minor Houses, IS Periphery Houses, Mercenary Units and even Pirates. All the major units from the BT Universe are or can be represented. They each have a little slice of the universal pie and each one is trying to get more of that pie. The Clans are trying to get to Terra as well as their own battles for supremacy and ranking within the Clan Worlds.
So how does this all fit in with puretech theme? As I said, I would start with the NBT model and take it a bit further. You see, when I played in NBT, you were either a Clan unit or and IS Unit. When you first signed on and started up your new unit, or took over and existing unit, you were given certain assets based on the type of unit you were. If you were an IS unit (this includes ALL units, Houses, Periphery, Mercs or Pirates, except Clan units) the majority of your assets were IS technology including your factories, jump and drop ships and battle mechs. I do not know for certain, but I am assuming it was the same in the Clan Side of things (I was never a part of a Clan Unit). You were given SOME assets that were opposite tech, but that was only a small percentage of your assets.
How would I further that? I would take it back to the BT Books and TROs. If House Marik built certain types of battle mechs, then that is ALL they would have to start with. Another way of putting is like this, if Steiner specialized in building the Thanatos and the Uziel, for example, then that is what they would start off having in their assets as well as having their factories being able to build. If House Davion built the Victor and the Wolfhound, then they would start with those mechs and the ability to build them.
As teams built their forces, and as the factories started to produce mechs and income, then the Houses could take their ‘goods’ to market and sale them to other Houses (either via auction (my personal fav) or public orders). After a House bought a certain number of another Houses goods, say the Steiners bought a 100 WolfHounds, then Steiner could buy the rights to build that model but still have to pay a percentage to the original House as royalties. Of course, if a unit captured or stole a certain number of a chassis, then they could reverse engineer it enough to produce their own. These captured tech could be manufactured and eventually sold, but ONLY on the Black Market. Some chassis would be shared by multiple (or possibly ALL Inner Sphere units). That is to say that ALL IS factories COULD produce an Argus (as an example) with no royalties to be paid to anyone.
IS Houses may also agree to share technologies and designs. This would mean that Steiner and Davion could become partners on battle mechs that were exclusive to them, like in the examples above, the Uziel and the Victor. Sharing would mean that both Houses give up exclusive rights on a design to another House in exchange for exclusive rights of another design. Each would then be the owners of that mech design and would be free to produce and sell the mech as they so desired. The royalties from these mechs would then be shared by both Houses going forward. This pattern could be repeated until all IS units are partners and then the unit becomes open technology among the Inner Sphere (like the Argus in the above examples).
Similar situations could be set up for the Clans. One Clan could have exclusive rights (as deemed by historical info from TROs or as set up by the Clan General Council) to build certain chassis such as the Mad Cat being built by Jade Falcon and the Kodiak being built by Ghost Bears. Now the Clans are so interested in monies or C-Bills like the IS folks are, so you would need to work out something on technology sharing amongst the Clans (even if they are warring among themselves). I suggest an allotment factor for each Clan.
Huh? How would that work? Simple. The General Council is made up of a Kahn from each Clan, major or minor. Among this group of Kahns, they elect a Leader of the GC and three member agreement board. Individual Kahns would submit their requirement ‘bids’ to the Allotment Board. The agreement board looks over the requirements for each Clan for each month and decides what new assets are delivered to what Clan. This would then be submitted to the Leader of the GC for approval. The Leader either agrees or makes adjustments and then each Clan gets what ever was submitted as their allotment for the month.
Also, if a Clan wins a ‘bid’ to attack an IS House, their allotment may be adjusted in increase their supplies as needed depending on their submitted bid, or as the GC sees fit to sustain, increase or decrease the flow of equipment. If a Clan is attacked by an IS house, they may also need more mechs than their allotment or even more than there ‘monthly bid’.
Why would you want to do this? In the beginning of a cycle (or whatever you want to call it), battles would be limited to only the mechs you have access to. How you trade and the agreements you make determine how technology spreads across the Inner Sphere and among the Clans. A team may spend months fighting a rival ‘house’ and never see an Atlas. Then one day they launch a assault on a neighboring planet in hopes of taking that planet for themselves and boom, there is an Atlas, or a few of them or many of them. Imagine capturing a planet from a rival only to discover some chassis being built there that you have not had access to, or only been able to buy through Black Market (extreme) pricing? Now imagine trying to work the logistics of deploying this new piece of technology to all your forces without losing it back, or having it stolen by pirates. Or, if you decided you weren’t happy with this new found toy, imagine the profits of selling through the Black Market o hiring Mercs to trade them off for something else or using ‘privateers’ to dispose of them for you on the Black Market if you don’t want to ‘dirty’ your hands.
Battle Mechs that were built by Houses or Clans that are not ‘filled’ while forming the league, could be bid on by other units. If Clan Ghost Bear did not have team filling that slot at the time of the league start up, or cycle, then any mechs built exclusively by Ghost Bear could be bid on by all the other ‘active’ Clans. Same for the IS. This would still allow for possibly all the chassis currently in the game to be used while the original ‘makers’ are not being used.
NBT has a very good system that allows for jump ship movements and record keeping as to what is in storage, on drop ships and jumps ships and what is on garrison as well as the size and type of factories on each planet. It also allows you to add factories if you have the C-Bills and it calculates income and maintenance fees. There is an overall universal map that can be drilled into down to individual planets. In the K-Cluster, planets may be sub-divided into territories owned by different Clans. It really is an impressive system and one that is fun to operate. Players can simply be pilots and fight using a multitude of chassis in a variety of different battle types, or they can have more assignments such as planetary garrisons or jump ship movements or financial operations or diplomatic relations officers or whatever.
More or less that is what my ‘ideal’ pure tech league would be like, chassis exclusive to certain Houses or Clans, Planetary Universe for warring and lots of diplomacy for agreements. This would make the pure tech aspect even more crucial.
How? As I stated in my previous post, the Clans had (have) an advantage in the 700 to 950 meter range and with lower tonnage weapons. The biggest thing in all the books and stories between the Clans and the IS was that the Clans would ‘bid’ on an attack. That is, the leader, or Kahn, would state tonnage or numbers of mechs or even which specific mechs they would use to capture a certain objective. A rival Clan would try to ‘bid’ lower by using less tonnage or smaller numbers and so on until one side passed and agreed to allow the other the right to be the aggressor for the battle that they were bidding for. This meant that the Clans would have smaller numbers of equipment available to them than there is counter parts, but the weapons technology was superior often weighing less (allowing for more firepower to be packed on) or having better range or both.
It wasn’t until the MekTek additions that things like the mini-gauss or Hyper Auto Cannons actually reduced that Clan advantage by taking away the range. Prior to MekTek MekPaks, the IS only had the Light Gauss Rifle and missiles (yes there were other weapons like the Long Tom and Arrow Missile System, but over all the Clans had an advantage). The IS had to rely more on tactics, stealth and shear numbers to overcome the Clan superiorities. In a video game, you cant very well ask one team to use only 5 or 6 chassis while the other gets to use 6 to 8 because overall it just doesn’t work out. Eventually the numbers game will catch up to the team using the lower numbers of chassis, especially in a planetary environment where it’s a one kill and you are out of the battle type of fight (meaning that there is no respawn, you either live or die in the battle).
In this suggestion of mine, you could recreate the Clan Invasion as well as the struggles between major houses. The Clans would still have their advantage of lighter / longer ranged weapons and the IS would slowly begin to realize that they need each other to survive the Clans (or at least they need some of their other IS chassis). Temporary alliances could be made, secret deals could be made, sales and trades could happen and Clans could fight each other as well as mount that drive on Terra…
Well that is my ‘perfect’ pure tech setting. The fun of facing mechs you don’t have access to or at least not yet. Realizing the strengths and weaknesses of the mechs you do have and the fun of going after what you want.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Oh Vettie.. You have just grazed a huge subject...
ReplyDeleteI'll try to start on the issues, 1 by 1.
Classic Battletech allows for weapon iterchangeability. Certain IS units (like the Draconis Combine Genoyosha RCTs) would have a large cache of clan weapons to use in their mechs as they see fit. As for the IS weapons, clans would never use them, and in that respect a Gladiator with red Gauss slugs do not make any sense. As per the CBT scavenging rules, it is not difficult to mount mixtech weaponry on a mech though. And regardless the weapon, clan weps are ALLWAYS better than the IS counterparts, regardless the weapon. In that respect, PR1 is closer to CBT than MP3, which in some respects nullified these advandages. Earlier IS weps are hugely disadvantaged to clan weapons, but after the invasion things started to even out, although some of the older IS weps (ACs, normal Lasers and not the ER versions, normal PPCs and not ER ones) would be still used because of their reduced heat output. For instance, a PPC would have 10 points heat, 10 points damage and a 750m range. An IS ERPPC would have 15 points heat, 10 points damage and a 900m range. Some mechwarriors would prefer to have an Awesome for instance with 4 PPCs rather than an Awesome with 3 ERPPCs. The early IS weps are:
All ACs (not hyper, LBx or Ultra)
All LRMs
All SRMs
All Lasers.
Just them.
IS Wars actually captures that feel better. The league (uses the Netmech IV mod) uses 4 timelines to reflect the difference in technology. So a 3025 Atlas is hugely different to a 3079 Atlas. the pre-clan 3025 AS7-D Atlas carries 4 med lasers, 1 LRM20 and 1 AC20. The 3045 AS7-K Draconis Combine Atlas carries 1 LRM20, 2 ERLLAS (note that these are IS versions, same range as the clan version, heavier by 1 ton and with reduced damage) and 1 Gauss Rifle, with AMS to support. It will still use single heat sinks though, to reflect the early character of the IS attempt to counter the clans. Actually, IS Wars is more of a MMORG rather than a league, in that the combat is constant, regardless of human present. Anyway, I leave it to you to decide, but for me it is the best MW experience at present.
In my view, MW4, Mercs, Mercs Mp3 and the rest are way off the CBT cannon to consider Puretech as an option. If it was a real Puretech afffair and the wep stats were proper, you would never want to play puretech. With anything but a 5/3 numerical superiority, you would be hard pressed to do anything but submit to the clan superior range and damage. In Battletech, the clans really lost the drive to Terra because of their adherence to their honour combat rules rather than their combat prowess. Even at their last, Clan pilots and equipment would be better from that of even the most Elite IS units.
Bottom line is, don't bother. If the game paid any attention to CBT I would say yes, play Puretech. The way it is, it just is not worth it. IS Wars is a different affair and it is closer to MW2 with regards to CBT, so it may be possible there, but it is still tricky to get the TRO (Technical Readout) variants right.
Food for the Mind !!!
I would think that if the Clans are as proud as they are made out to be, they would only use Clan weaponry.
ReplyDeleteI suppose the same could be said for IS. As for pirates, as I said before, nay weapon on any mech, just so long as it works!
-D
(CT) SAVIOUR - Thanx for stopping by and reading my BLOG. I certainly appreciate your post. You too D-Day~! w00t!
ReplyDeleteBack to Saviour - As I stated, I never played the board game, altho I am sure I would have loved it. ASL (Advanced Squad Leader) is very rich in detail down to the actions of a single man in WWII simulations, so again I am sure I would have loved the table top version of CBT.
I am somewhat confused on your post. Are you a Pure Tech fan or a Mix Tech Fan?
You say "As for the IS weapons, clans would never use them," which leads me to believe you are in favour of Pure Tech but then you say "In my view, MW4, Mercs, Mercs Mp3 and the rest are way off the CBT cannon to consider Puretech as an option. If it was a real Puretech afffair and the wep stats were proper, you would never want to play puretech." which leads me to believe you would be a Mix Tech fan. So which is it?
You also say "With anything but a 5/3 numerical superiority, you would be hard pressed to do anything but submit to the clan superior range and damage" which leads me to think that the IS must have 10 mechs to fight 6 Clan versions, aye? You see that is the fun part of using the IS, to be able to beat the Clan using the smae number of forces.
I know we do not simulate the Clan ways and tactics in our battles using MW4 Mercs (any mod) and I realize their ways were much different that what you see on todays servers.
The Clans would most often try to use the lowest amount of tonnage avail to them to complete the task or bid at hand and they would almost always single up on a target. By that I mean, Joe would fight Bill and no one would help Joe or double up (or triple up) on Bill, it would almost be Solaris style of fighting, 1 on 1 until either Joe was disgraced or Bill was destroyed.
I realize that, but, you would think that even the MP3 mod and video game balance brought to us by MekTek, that even tho the Clan weapons are for the most part still superior, you would think in a pure tech fight with both sides being equal in numbers that the Clan "Tech" side would win, but that doesnt pan out. It gets down to tactics and obviously skill set of us the players.
The Clan of course were manufactured as the highest skill set of fighting pilots, and all thru their lives, everything was geared toward their time in combat. That doesnt mean the IS was not just as skilled.
In todays video versions, you get the skill sets that people have, be it in the opens or in a league setting. Some folks are better than others (most are better than me) and some folks specialize in certain things, like range fire, or jump shots or brawling.
I do not disagree that ISWars is set up to be possibly the best simulation, but I also understand, and I could be wrong, that you can only use stock variants? Have the fun of MW4 Mercs is the ability to create your own variant for whatever task you need done. And I think the original designers way back in MW2 days realized that PLAYERS would want to do this, make their own fighting machines of these big monsters within the limits of what the chassis could hold.
Anyway, thank you again for posting and I invite you to post more and in the future as I add to my BLOG.
w00t! Vettie out...
I am not particularly fond of mixtech, I do prefer puretech, but I just can't see why I should play puretech in this game. I'll try to elaborate.
ReplyDeleteIn Wolcott, 1st major IS victory over the Clans, Draconis Combine used traps, feints, mixed arm tactics, sacrificed mercenary commands and infantry units and understated their strength to get the Jaguars. In Coventry, the Falcons refused to stand back and snipe and tried to turn into the IS mechs to brawl with ERLLAS and PPCs, an error obviously against AS7-D Atlases and ON-1K Orions. Also, the clans do not engage in physical combat unless attacked, but their mechs tend to be armless (ie no physical operating human-like arm) and they tend to get mauled really easily in such conditions (a favourite Legion of Vega tactic would be for one mech to hold tight on a clanner while a second mech would punch the cockpit, he he, scum of the earth). Please also note that in every CBT tabletop scenario, the clan pilots are always a notch above IS warriors, even against elite units like DCMS Sword of Light or Davion RCT regiments. These things simply do not exist in any form of online play today. Notable exception is Megamech, but this is another kind of ballgame. Hence I believe that the whole puretech-mixtech issue is pointless. As for the wep interchangeability, CBT makes it easy to fit weps of any kind to anything, provided ur tekkies succeed their roll and it is not particularly difficult. For instance, the 1st Sword of Light Regiment of the DCMS has enough clan weps to outfit a full battalion (out of four) with them. Furthermore, there are enough Clan mechs to outfit 6 companies, that is 1 and a half battalions, hence roughly 30% of the regiment outfited with clan mechs, with spare weps, ammo and mechs for long ops. These figures are straight out of the Field manuals, and I may be wrong in exact numbers but it gives u an outline. Sure, the Capellans being far from the clan invasion corridor cannot have such high concentrations of clan equipment, but Fedcom and especially the DCMS (even more after the destruction of the Jags) have a lot, and that's stated in a multitude of sources. As for the clans, they may not put IS weps on their mechs, but have no reservation using bondsmen piloting IS mechs in serious numbers(remember mechcommander and MW3 - they both are in harmony with CBT canon). The easiest way to verify these is to set up a simple tabletop game (or even a MW match in Venge which is closer to CBT stats) with 4 mechs on each side. If you stick to honour levels and IS concentrates fire, you may get somewhere and a draw or IS victory may be possible. If the clans fight freely, anything other than a 4-0 is a failure, in my book anyway, although I must admit I haven't played tabletop for a good 7 yrs. Like I said, these things are not simulated in MW4 in any form so it is pointless to debate on mixtech. Unless you persuade ppl not to concentrate fire, fight understrength and not snipe when in clan equipment and Mektek implements aerotechs and realistic artillery. Because these things were not available (and will not be) in any form of MW4, Microsoft, Mektek and NBT-HC have given IS weps some form of advantage over Clan weps to compensate for their inferior performance so they are not completely useless. Advantages such as the smaller reload time of ACs, faster lock times of LRMs etc. Mind you the clans have more advanced Artemis fire control, but you see that it is not modelled, cause it would instantly nullify the IS version. Clan ECM is also better, clan LAMS and the list is going... Clan equipment is and should be more advanced than IS equipment. Bottom line is that in this environment I see no reason why I should stick to puretech. As for ISwars, IS weps are lousy and a lot closer to CBT, hence the clan advantage is very obvious and at least the numerical superiority issue is adressed since these battles follow production values for factions, and the IS are always richer than the clans. You do have to fight in stocks, which makes things more interesting imho since no mech is useless. However, the mod development has been discontinued and this whole MMORG affair is a lot more time-consuming (that is my personal view anyway) from other leagues.
Anyway, good to be here.
Ah, before I forget...
ReplyDeleteIt also must be noted that in CBT mechs are A LOT less resilient than in MW4. An Atlas has a CT armour value of 42 (front) with about half that in internals. After these 42 points are gone, evey hit it takes regardless of damage value may hit the engine and after three hits in that (or something similar) then its ka-boom. In Mercs PR1 an Atlas has 78 points CT and in MP3 120! These values are double and more than that. But wep stats have remained pretty much the same, so a PPC still does 10 points damage, an AC20 20 etc. Of course, ammo values have gone 4fold to compensate. Bottom line is that now the clan advantage is even less. Plus weapon reload times are seriously screwed. A CBT round is 6 secs. That should be the reload time for all weps, or adjust reload time and damage so that that an AC2 for instance causes 2 points in 6 secs even tyhough reload time is 1 sec. In CBT the cERPPC and cERLLas are kings of the battlefield because of all that. A stock Masakari Prime can actually kill an Atlas in 1 shot at 900m and it is not even 100 tons. I hope you get my point. I do like your idea about the league you are proposing, but it is just unrealistic under these circumstances (ie game engines available). Hence, lets have at least some fun, 3rd PP or 1st, mixtech or puretech.
It is interesting that you mention the resiliency factor. I like that you mention "and after three hits in that (or something similar) then its ka-boom."
ReplyDeleteEven tho the armour values have sky rocketed in MP3 version (and earlier) from that of the CBT values, a mech 'generally' only takes three good shots to the CT before it goes (to use your term, and I like it) "ka-boom."
Sure there are exceptions, but for the most part its a 3 to 4 shot deal.
I agree with you when you say lets have some fun.
I read GPs comment on Pure Tech part 1 and I appreciate the comments. From the sound of it GP and I are very similar in our way of playing. I have played in a Mixed Tech 3pv league and I too play 1pv and pure tech (almost always).
I remember when I 1st bought Vengeance and i thought how cool it was. After I loaded up the game and read through the booklet I couldnt wait to get in there and shoot at something.
When testing out the keys, I tried the different looks and "in the cockpit" just seemed to fit and work better for me. When it came to loading weapons, well that did take a bit for me because I knew nothing of CBT. My only exposure had been thru MW2. MW2 seemed to me to be ALL Clan, but I could be wrong, its been a REAL LONG time ago. Anyway I figured out that there were Clan things and IS things and I just tried to keep it that way, cause I figured it was that way for a reason.
Also, GP, if you are reading the comments, I will see if I can make up a decent argument for Mission Play vs Team Battle vs Team Destruction...
Thanx for Posting guys and I hope some others will read and post as well.
I am almost afraid to get into the 3PV vs FFP arguement, but I might.
w00t!
To clarify on my previous entry:
ReplyDeleteIt is not 3 engine hits that u need to kill a mech in CBT. When armour's gone, for every internal point destroyed you roll to see what sort of equipment got fried. If my memory serves me, an Atlas with standard engine and gyro will have 3 slots alocated to gyro and 6 to engine. For every point of damage the engine takes there is a table that states the degree of damage the mech sustained. On of them is the kaboom thingy, lol. Anyway, in the case of the Warhawk, an alpha strike would indeed kill the Atlas, for it would cause 4x15 = 60 damage, thus reducing armour and internals to nothing. Anyways, enough with the technicalities, starting to feel like an anorack now.. lol
Splendid! When do we start?
ReplyDeleteHI VETTIE,i wont talk too much, but i have seen a good few reference's to isw. let me say this. if u are a bt or mech fan, and u havent played isw,online with netmech 4. then u have been losing out big time. netmech 4 is an unfinished mod sure, u could say inferior.but its far superior to mp3 and nbt.its the mod that brings you closest to that mw2 feel, at least for me.isw for me is like coop with friends. but for certain maps u do need a few people, at least 4 to 5 some even more[against a.i.]
ReplyDeleteand its all puretech, and stock to boot,and i love it. makes the game harder.in pvp it sadly makes the game a little predictable. but from what i understand custom mechs are in the pipline, for pvp. if and when isw ever comes online again
just my ideas on netmech and isw.
hope u guys have good weekend.
sudden
D'oh. My post that starts "I would think that if the Clans are as proud as they are made out to be..." was for the previous blog - my bad (I just re-read it, that's why this is late in the month with the apology).
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I am not a very knowledgeable about the B-Tech series, but I think I know human nature. From what (CT) Saviour said, the battle equipment is manufactured in the 31st century. And the IS and the Clans are still human (humans with attitude).
What I’m getting at is this: The weapons would be improved by both sides, and at any one time, with the intellect of each side being even, I would think that the side would have the better weapons at the start. However, the other side would soon be coping and/or improving on the stolen design(s), as well as the original inventor of the weapon improving on it as well. This would also go for the mechs themselves. It’s human nature to adapt to one environment however one can – especially during a war.
I think that we see this improvement as different patches and Mech Packs are released.
Therefore, I suppose the question of mix-tech vs. pure-tech really depends on when – in time – you have to make this decision.
There’s another thing; the fact that during the 50 or so years that the Clans and the IS were apart, I would think that each would have a different system of measurement that would not be readily interchangeable (Kind of like the Mars Lander debacle – the mix up of metric vs. imperial units resulted in the Lander crashing on Mars!).
Besides, I would think that the Clans, being as proud as they are made out to be, would never mount /or modify an IS weapon on/or for a Clan mech – why that would be sacrilege!
However, Mechwarrior is a game, and I’m sure the game designers would keep the weapon range, mass, and inflicted damage limited, as well as have weapon technology interchangeability to keep the game even. Me, I prefer to keep the tech pure.
And don’t get me started on the muddled game physics…
-D