Pure Tech

Start a war? A debate? Maybe so.

We all know the radical differences between 3^rd Person View and 1^st Person view. We all know that there are many people on both sides of that razor edged fence. I prefer 1^st Person view and that is my choice. I don’t care if you prefer 3^rd person view because that is your choice. As long as you play the game, that is what matters.

The debate, the war, the topic for this rendition of Vettie’s Views isn’t about what view you use. No, instead I hope to spark some interest in one of the other oldest debates about this game, pure tech vs mixed tech.

Yes, my view will be slanted to the pure tech side because that is my preferred way of playing. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, its my blog, so I can put whatever I want in it. I do hope that this issue will spark some comments on both sides of this fence.

OK. Wow, where to start with this topic? Oh yeah, for those of you that may have stumbled upon my blog by accident, of for those of you that are new to MechWarrior, let me explain the differences and then I will state my case for pure tech. Pure tech simply means using Clan Technology Weaponry on Clan Technology Chassis and Inner Sphere Technology Weapons on Inner Sphere Chassis. Pretty simple. Mixed Tech is even more simple. Mixed tech means you can use any weapon on any chassis. Any questions? Ok maybe if you are new to the game you don’t know what is what. Simple enough. When you go into the mech lab and select a chassis or create a variant the chassis is there spinning around inside the lab. There is a brief description that tells you some key info like whether the chassis is Clan or Inner Sphere. On the left side is a list of weaponry. If it is Clan Technology, it will have a little “C” in the upper left hand corner of the weapon Icon. If it has and “X”, it can be used by either Clan or Inner Sphere and if it has nothing in the corner, it is an Inner Sphere weapon. If I figure out how, I will try to post pics of the different weapons and a chassis of each technology.

Well, I hope that my explanation was simple enough and I hope that I didn’t confuse anyone. Now on to my favourite, Pure Tech. Let me state this, I have never played the table top version of “Battletech” but I have a pretty good idea of how it works. I am a gamer and I play several table top games. My favourite is ASL or Advanced Squad Leader. Let me also state that I have read a few of the BT novels but not very many, so my dedication and love for this game actually stems from the game itself. I started playing way back in the MW2 days and I even played some online version back then. Vengeance and Mercs really got me interested and I have played for years.

My pure tech roots are not seated in the board game or the novel, its actually seated in the game itself. Vengeance and Mercs are very similar and I consider Mercs to simply be an improved add on to Vengeance even tho they are separate games. Way back in Vengeance (and in Mercs too) when you created a stock mech or a variant of a mech, it came pre-loaded with weapons based on the technology class of the chassis used. That is, if I created a Thor, it came with Clan Tech ER Medium Lasers, Clan LRM missiles and Clan Ultra Auto Cannons. If I created an Uziel (Carl’s favourite, “the ‘work horse’ of the Inner Sphere” if you remember the guy that ran the mech lab for Ian) it came with IS PPCs and IS Machine Guns and IS SRM missiles. This carried over into Mercs. I am not talking about the campaign game where salvage in Mercs nets you ‘the empty chassis and the weapons that would normally be installed on a stock mech’, I am simply talking about going directly to the mech lab and creating a mech (variant) for you to (possibly) use on line.

These ‘pre-existing’ stock models or variants have their roots from either the novels or the board game, I believe. I think they are called “TROs”. This is basically a listing of the mech, its variants (if any), the standard armament, the type of armour, the type of engine, the speed range and any electronics installed. Obviously, these “TROs” are more complex than what we get in the video game version, so our armour has been changed to three types, our engines are listed as speed upgrades or downgrades and the various electronics have been compressed into ECM, BAP, LAMs, Jump Jets and IFF and all the weaponry installed is same technology as the chassis.

If you ever read any of the books, then you know that early on the Clan Tech Mechs had a distinct advantage over the Inner Sphere mechs. The Clan Weapons had long ranges and the mechs had dual heat sinks to contain heat better. I also am under the belief that ‘early on’ the Clan Mechs were generally faster. This fact is brought about in the game we play. Inner Sphere Large Lasers are heavier (in tonnage) and have a shorter range than the Clan counter part. The same goes for all weapons that are shared by both technologies, like the PPCs, the standard Gauss Rifles, the Medium Lasers, the Pulse Lasers, the Ultra Auto Cannons and LBX Auto Cannons. All the Clan versions either weigh less (in tonnage) or have a longer effective range or both. For game balance, Microsoft and Mektek made the Clan versions of certain weapons run a bit hotter so it forces the player to either not shoot as much or use more heat sinks.

When I first started playing Mercs on line, I would play in a server called NBT-Thor (I think). Its now called NBT-Sunder, but it was a mission play requiring people to play FFP Pure Tech. I had no idea what all those acronyms were, but they played the same style that I played. I liked it. Before too long, I had joined a team in the NBT League. Here was a whole league that played 1^st Person View and Pure Tech Chassis loads. Wow!

It did not take long to learn the ranges of the weapons and when you were in range or out of range depending on the enemy you saw or picked up on radar. This became part of the strategy of how to play the game. You knew your limitations and you exploited your advantages. Clan Tech was nasty at 700 to 900 meter range while IS tech was great inside 600 meters or outside 900. Being an Inner Sphere Pirate team, MOST of our technology was IS but we did manage to have some Clan Tech.

Here’s the thing. If you saw a Gladiator or Mad Cat MKII, you new not to get within the 800 meter mark (or the 900 meter mark for the Glad) or you would get ripped to shreads UNLESS you could avoid being shot and close to the 600 meter mark where your (IS) weapons were as good as theirs. It just doesn’t seem right to see a jumping Glad Bag firing ‘red’ Gauss slugs at 1000 meters. Something is wrong with that picture. I hate to see a MKII firing what looks like regular Gauss slugs, but registering a hit at 1000 to 1100 meters.

You see, playing pure tech gives each chassis its own bit of character. There are many chassis in each weight class that can carry the same weapons load outs. The difference is the chassis itself. Each one has its own strengths and weaknesses. Some mechs can not carry some weapons or some combo of weapons because of slot size or weight (of the weapons) without altering some other part of mech (like losing jump jets or speed or armour).

Let me put it another way. Mixed tech allows you to build some uber configs that you could not do in pure tech. I will show you an example using my favourite mech, the Victor. Using a mixed tech config, I can load two Clan Gauss Rifles and three ER Large Lasers with ECM, LAMs and Jump Jets with no adjustments to speed or armour. In a pure tech setting, I can load two standard Gauss Rifles and only one Large Laser and I would have one ton left over to add to the armour or as a heat sink. Now you may not think the twin gauss, triple ER Large Victor is uber, but for a Victor it IS. What it shows is that by allowing any tech on a chassis, you can build some pretty mean configs that you would not see in a pure tech environment or in a TRO or in any of the books.

Another way of looking at it is like this. If you went to buy a new Ford, when you opened the hood you would expect to see a Ford motor, not a GM motor. You would think that not only is there some performance differences between IS and Clan weapons, but you would think that there may actually be some technical differences, like size variations (English vs metric) or connection issues or wiring issues or who knows what. What was the chance that during WWII that if any Allied Unit captured a gun or tank that they could take that and put it own ‘technology’ without some sort of retrofit to make it work? I mean come on, you capture a German Tiger and ‘our’ ammo fits and works flawlessly when the ammo it had runs out? What about modern weapons? Can the U.S. Army take parts of an AK47 and use them on an M16 without modifying something first?

Yes, I do think that scientists and engineers would be able to come up with ‘retrofit kits’ to allow you to use a Clan weapon on an IS Mech, but I also think that such a kit would have to have some tonnage to it that would need to be calculated in addition to the weight of the weapon. I would also think that the reliability of ‘wrong tech’ weaponry would be decreased somewhat, you know, more prone to malfunction.

I just find it very hard to believe that Clan engineers and Inner Sphere engineers came up with the exact same idea at roughly the same time. No, I think more like the Clan came up with these things and the IS captured or recovered (more likely) one of these gigantic monsters and reverse engineered it as closely as they could. Then again, I guess these mechs were already around before Kerensky and his followers headed off to form the Clans, so the basic design may have already been there and the Clans ‘improved’ upon existing technology.

Now a quick bit about mixed tech. Yes I play mixed tech some times. I don’t care for it, but the first few times through the solo campaign I did use mixed tech based on whatever I salvaged. By the way, its much more of a challenge to play the campaign using only pure tech configs.

As I mentioned above, mixed tech allows you to build some killer configs. What it really comes down to using mixed tech is ‘what is your mission objective?’ IF you playing to get the most kills, then mixed tech is great, just pick a tough chassis and load it up with whatever weapon you need to kill a lot of other mechs.

I see that as a down fall. Seems to me, and again, I don’t play mixed tech very often, but it seems to me that mixed tech would put a lot of weapons and especially mechs on the shelf. I mentioned above how there are multiple mechs in every weight class that can carry the same weapons load. For mixed tech, in my opinion, it would seem that you would almost ALWAYS use the toughest chassis mech that would allow the load out needed.

I could be wrong. I would love to hear from the mix tech readers (if any) about your thoughts on this.

Well that’s all for now folks.