WARSHIPS | The forgotten titans of BattleTech
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 ก.พ. 2024
- Generic greetings, todays video is half lore and half indignant rant about how unloved the space part of BattleTech actually is. Weather it be Aerotech and the swarms of fighters and bombers trying to blow each other up. Or weather it be the might warships trading death across the stars. I don't think it's a hot take to say that space combat is under appreciated and unloved in BattleTech.
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As one of the few people to actually have a battletech warship fleet, this video brings me joy!
You forgot the jump sails needed to recharge the FTL drives.
@@drmayeda1930
can it really be called FTL if it is a jump drive?
not calling you wrong, just being curious
@@Xingmey jump drives get you to a location faster than light can, so it's technically ftl?
space folding and tearing, not motion by speed. KF drive@@Rexereman
Hello brother. I am finally not alone!
I remember the in-universe explanation for the solar sails was not about having enough extra power to charge them but that the FTL Drive was so sensitive you were required to charge it slowly. Trying to use the main reactor to charge it might give you an electrical burp or hiccup that could damage your FTL Drive. Solar panels were slow enough they guaranteed it was safe to charge.
That is what it says in the first edition Dropships and Jumpship.
I remember once we tried to use aerotech. The air support was great, it caused the enemy Rifleman to roll from his fortified position on top of the hill for 4 turns and fall into the river. And then it exploded.
Yeah they're pretty nice in Roguetech. But not the place to put your experienced pilots... I'll put it that way. Don't use any expensive components...
The combine arm aspects of Battletech is one of my favorite aspects of the setting.
It just make the universe feel more real.
About the only other mech centric setting that came close to trying as hard at combined arms was early Gundam. But Gundam has very much moved on from that while even recent-ish Battletech games keep the fear of vehicles working with mechs alive.
@@bthsr7113 SRM Carrier will make most mech pilot shit brick
@@bogdanv1353 Oh I know. And I think I heard there's a Clan version with hardened armor. Because it wasn't scary enough. Apparently.
@@bogdanv1353 Depends on the experience. If you know them, you know that they will usually die before they run out of ammo. But of course, each salvo can ruin a perfectly fine mech and cause physical injury to the owning player of the SRM carrier while rolling hit locations for each missile. In a city they are a great denial weapon. But if you meet one in an open field, the SRM carrier is almost harmless and it can only hope that other units catch the LRMs for it.
@@bogdanv1353weird way to spell Demolisher
As an official member of the Battletech Aerospace Cabal (and with a WarShip design of mine officially published) thank you for revisiting Battletech's WarShips. I still remember the arguments on the official boards at how the WarShip rules were being shuffled off to Strategic Operations, when they decided to split Tactical Operations into two books. In the end, I think the thing that did them in the most in the post-Clan era, and was key to the writers nearly wiping them back out again in the Jihad, is how WarShips attacking 'Mech transports could upset the setting's focus on the BattleMech.
To which I call the Devs cowards.
Question though, what ship is your’s?
I do understand that argument, because it's true... unless _everyone_ has warships. They were doing just fine until deciding to have the WOB destroy 99% of IS and Clan Warships, that is what really upset the balance. Battletech is hard sci-fi, that's one of the reasons I love it, and true to real life naval assets are absolutely essential for any kind of far reaching campaign. The Pacific War being a great example. When humanity does eventually get out into space, and if we ever do figure out interstellar travel, a black-water navy is going to be the star of any war. No ships means no secure troop transportation, and no war. All you could do then is shake your little fists at the sky and hurl insults towards whatever planet happens to be your enemy. It's only logical that we'd try slapping a bunch of weapons on them at some point, then everyone else would do it to keep up...
That wasnt the main limiting factor though. The biggest factor was the K-F compact drive these warships had. The drive themselves was the primary reason why Warships went extinct because without the technology to compact the K-F drive, you were limited to just your Jumpship moving things.
The Draconis Combine effectively turned Drop ships into warships calling them Pocket Warships that were just transportable frigates into a battle space littered with guns and in some of them fighters. They weren't true warships because the lack of the drive but they helped in any Naval Defense and any Engagement. Every great house afterwards manufactured their own version of the pocket warship.
The other aspect was just...transporting a K-F Drive itself, there were specialized jump ships that would do the job or complicated processes to move a core it was highly expensive. In most navies when a ship was decommissioned its core was moved from the old to the newer warship. Transporting a Titanium-Germanium core took time and there were only several processing facilities in the whole quadrant of the inner sphere that could produce whole drives, while there were multiple facilities that could reconstitute the said materials stored in specialized tanks (as to not interfere with the K-F drive it was being transported on).
Oddly these were the primary targets along with the mobile systems that would repair and refit these ships themselves. Most of the noble houses had several if not more Germanium-rich systems in their possession. As always the issue was holding and then refining the material itself. ComStar in all its fuckery made sure the technology to create, transport, reverse engineer and manufacture new K-F drives was in their possession alone. This is why any SLDS that was found or a missing Great House Ship that was able to be recovered often landed with the 1st Circuits private military swooping in and slagging the ship.
Actually it wasn't the manufacturing of the Compact KF Cores used by warships that were the issue, on a technological level they're easier to make than the Standard Cores used by Jumpships (just more expensive, think steel manufacturing using Luddle Furnaces vs. The Bessemer Process or something)
The real bottleneck was the massive honking Fusion Drives they use to Transit from the Jump Point to the ecliptic plane. And the great houses could've begun building Warships sooner, but no one wanted to start an Arms Race they may wind up losing. The Clans showing up changed that however.
Battlespace is so underrated. It's actually one of my favorite aspects of BT. Hyper-realistic depiction of space combat even back in the 90s when everything was usually just handwaved away by whatever franchise. As an example, one of the novels makes a point of showing that lasers don't shoot visible beams in space. DEW fire would only be detectable from sensors, or when you get hit. Newtonian physics, massive engagement ranges, decompression that actually kills, Battlespace took the plausible route long before Battlestar Galactica made it cool
The engagements depicted in the novels _The Hunters_ and _Betrayal of Ideals_ were excellent. It was like something from The Expanse, except with massive warships with more advanced tech
I really hope we get an update to Battlespace someday. Space warfare is cool again to the masses, and I think it'd be a pretty successful venture if they decided to update the TT, the ship aesthetics, and perhaps developed a computer game or some other media
Did you just call space battles in battlestar galactica plausible? 🤨
I remember a sequence in one of the civil war novels, I forget which, but a jumpship captain has to command a warship during a battle and it's awesome. The Werewolf was the ship, I remember that much.
So, CGL, the company currently selling BattleTech property paraphernalia, has been trying to make a modernized AreoTech ruleset, however, they have apparently been having trouble making a good ruleset.
@@steakthedoggaming5333 Awesome. I don't envy them, part of the magic was the ridiculous complexity. They'll have to slim that down enough to appeal to mainstream audiences, while at the same time keeping some of it to stay true to BT. Hope they can figure it out
Naval. Auto. Cannon.
One thing to keep in mind as far as in-universe history goes, is that the classical age of epic space warfare pre-dates the Star League. As Battletech tells it, everybody quickly finds out how horrific advanced space war is, in multiple ways. Before there were FTL communications, everybody in the inner sphere got up to all sorts of nasty surprise attacks to try and end new wars before they even began. This involved lots and lots of space combat as fleets of ships could jump into systems before the local forces could ever hear that a conflict had begun.
This period of warfare was built around overwhelming lighting strikes which, with FTL travel but not comms, WAS extremely effective - but also incredibly wasteful. Jumpships and Warships were big and powerful but also complicated and super expensive. In time, money, and materials. As war spiraled out of control, everybody quickly became horrified at how much they were suffering in losses.
By the era of the Battlemech and the Star League, the general convention had become to voluntarily restrict combat to certain doctrines, such as Jumpships being extremely off-limits targets except for boarding actions to take control of the ship without significant damage. And even that was considered distasteful and even a bit barbaric - interdict and arrest the enemy Jumpship yes, but don't touch it. So space combat in general became somewhat de-escalated. Except for heavy fighter and defense platform action in planetary orbits to keep dropships at bay.
The last great space battle, canonically, was in the Star League era during the last stages of the Amaris civil war. Star League had fortified the Terran system with possibly the only remaining vast scale space fleet, so numerous it was capable of patrolling much of the system simultaneously. Many of the ships were automated to make this possible, but still counted as Warships. The final push into occupied Sol System by Kerensky's forces was one grotesque space battle with the goal being to obliterate the defending ships even if it meant all the attackers were lost. And it pretty much came to that.
One might imagine that even aside from the consequences of Lostech, this last great battle was an ugly reminder of how wasteful all-out space war was.
Wholesale fleet engagement and Planetary bombardment were common until the Ares 'Suggestions' were implemented. There was a break for awhile, then when the Reunification War started, it was back to business as usual. The Battle for the Sol system was the largest (The SLDF deployed over a 1000 warships) but that was because of the Reagan Defense system guarding the system. Loses were horrendous.
During the First Succession War, the IS still had about a 1000 warships left; the last great battles happened then. In the 'modern' era, the FWL had the biggest fleet, right up to the WOB Jihad. After that, pretty much the Raven Alliance has the most.
The prohibition on attacking Jumpships didn't start until 3/4 of the way thru the 1st Succession War, when due to losses, no body could move troops anymore. And believe it or not, it was Davion and Kurita that started it.
The Clans had some 260 warships survive the exodus and then build another 300 or so more. So they exist but their rarity means they are used as more of an armored jump ship than how they were used originally. The warship ensured an invasion of a system couldn't be displaced or cutoff but most of the fighting was done by the more numerous and not priceless dropships. Lose a dozen dropships and that is a bad day. Lose a warship and that is a (nearly) irreplaceable loss.
Well said. The battle of Tentativa was my favorite because it highlights the kind of issues you'd have in this scenario i.e. FTL travel but no FTL comms. Plus, the TDF was just badass in this time period. In fact, the entire Reunification War is excellent lore
Briefly, the TDF knew the SL and Federated Suns were going to making a big push into their territory. They decided to hit first while a FedSuns fleet was charging their drives in a nearby system and make them look stupid. Although they were hopelessly outclassed, it worked very, very well. They ultimately lost the war, but damn did they make the IS powers pay for every -inch- light year. If you're into this stuff and you haven't read Historical: Reunification War, I'd highly recommend picking it up. Some of the best high-level space combat I've seen in sci-fi
@jakeg3733 Sven van Der plank has a really good series on the Reunification War. He goes pretty in-depth on the Naval battles. And yeah, the TDF put up one hell of a fight; SL planners had it taking 5 years; took them 20.
Don't know if you just decided not to mention it due to time or didn't find out about it, but there are several facts I really love about Battletech ships and I think should get more credit (aside from radiator fins and sails):
- The Solar sails (yes, I start with them) with solar panels are not only used to recharge the KF drive but also used to decelerate the ship when approaching the jump points above the stars poles, saving fuel and reducing heat. Also, the can charge the KF drive with reactors, BUT it damages the drive; called crash-charging or something. And it only cuts the recharge time only to a third or so.
- Being built like ships in the expanse, having most decks aligned in a way to use thrust as the source of gravity (yes, old art depicted them like "scifi ships" but they retconed it)
- Internal Command decks (again, old art shows outside bridges, but they were retconed into being observation decks and manouvering bridges for flying during normal operations)
- Larger warships featuring rotation drums called the grav decks that let the crew live under gravity during the large transit times during which the drives are turned off.
- Once they reach a planet they flip to break their velocity.
Yeah they went with realism back before it was cool, and I love it. We need an update because I think it would succeed this time if the rules were streamlined a bit, without totally eviscerating them (which would take the uniqueness away)
@@jakeg3733(r)amen.
.. I did a gurps space campaign years ago... One faction was at that sort of level....
@@jakeg3733 there is the fact that Alpha Strike cards for Warships exist... so there are likely alpha-strike rules for space combat.
@@TheTrueAdeptAlpha-strikes make no sense in space combat, or any combat in a vacuum. Except as a last resort, or if you have overwhelming advantage. It's just too much waste heat. I guess you could coolant dump and keep firing, but then you're going to run out of coolant
@@jakeg3733 Alpha Strike in this case denotes a ruleset that is vastly simplified for gameplay reasons.
For example, instead of keeping track of how many hexes a weapon has, you only need to keep an eye on where its range bracket lies. Ammo isn't a concern unless you're working with vehicles/mechs without CASE, and there isn't that much math involved (a lot of it is simple addition).
Ok, very vintage viewer here and you just unlocked a memory from when I was in the USAF we played alot of games because the internet didn't exist and I remember playing this. It was a pain and the people that were playing were in the Air Force so we understood velocity and azimuth angles and it was almost like still being on duty so we went back to fighting big robots and Rogue Trader. I congratulate you on even knowing this existed but if you want niche I remember playing a Ral Partha Battlestar Galactica game the used the hex grid and was Cylons versus Vipers in space if you're looking for something really obscure.
Pretty sure that the hex based Battlestar Galactica game was also by Fasa.
Stock#6001 Battlestar Galactica A Game of Starfighter Combat
FASA also did some fun Star Trek tactical games that laid the groundwork for the excellent Star Trek Starfleet Command PC game series.
You are correct sir. The design at approximately 21:50 is the McKenna class Battleship. The original Star League design. Not the Clan refit McKenna.
Talking about space warships-
One game no one seems to remember is Renegade Legion, a FASA game that was supposed to be a Star Wars one, but was turned into something else when they didn't get the license. It was VERY much its own thing, but not fleshed out in many ways. I played it a few times in the 80s and liked it, but it fell by the wayside. I had a bunch of miniatures and all the boxed games until my last move when they vanished out of a box. :(( It had space combat with fighter class ships all the way up to battleships, ground combat with tanks and infantry, a mediocre role playing game and ALL of it could be integrated with other sets, making for combined arms coolness. It even had a ultra high tech chariot racing game.
To put it into perspective, the mechs of Battletech go up to 100 tons mass normally. The tank I commonly used as a Renegade were Deliverer heavy grav tanks which massed 400 tons, could fly or be dropped straight from orbit. The Deliverer had a 200mm railgun as a main weapon that would blow a hole clean through a Zeus and keep right on going! Pity the franchise didn't go any further than a video game.
I still remember a few of my epic space battles with friends where we fought to the bitter end for Glory, for Honor and to give the Terran Overlord Government a serious black eye!
The tagline from the ground game stays wit me even now- 'You are the pinnacle of armored warfare. Your tank is hundreds of tons of modern materials bristling with the greatest firepower ever seen. Your life expectancy is less than ten minutes.'
'nuff said.
The fighter game was Renegade Legion Interceptor. The big naval game was Leviathan. Still have both on a shelf somewhere.
@@BlueLionNotOfPercy Same, I have Leviathan behind me on a shelf along with the Wake of the Kraken supplement.
You should check out FASA's Aetherstream Interceptor. It is a spiritual successor to Renegade Legion.
There were renegade legion books.
Still have my copy.. great niche game...
If Battlemechs are the kings of war, these are the fallen Gods of Old.
And for a brief time, they lived again.
I bought B-Tech when it was first released back in the 80s when it was called Battle Droids (Yup I'm old). Then Fasa changed the game to BattleTech. We played the WHOLE game once. B-Tech has/had a Stategic board game called Succession Wars. It was the whole Inner Sphere on a huge map. You could play the war from the first to the fourth war. I wasn't a great game, but the rules allowed you to combine all of the BattleTech games together. Play a house then go to war. First Play the Succession War then attack a world, then switch to Battlespace and or Aerospace. Then switch to Battle Force (a rare tactical squad base BattleTech board game). Then finally BattleTech/City Tech Battles. We did it once. Lasted 8 months and never did it again. Just stuck to BattleTech. And to this day my friends and I still play the old school BattleTech once a year because it's still an amazing game.
One of the reasons I love Battletech is because there's a legit reason something as odd as mechs became the main war machine: they're basically a gentleman's agreement style of war, since it gave the nobility prestige, and nuking every planet into oblivion with ships nobody could actually afford created more problems then were ever solved.
The only thing that BT is missing from its space battles, in my opinion, is THE HOLY WALL OF FLAK
No CIWS/flak cannons was the weirdest thing about BT's warships for me. How could they survive without just getting bombed to hell?
@@wayrriorWell they didn’t. Once they started shooting at each other in earnest they died in droves.
@@wayrriormutual destruction mostly. He who uses nukes would expect to be attacked with nukes. Of course that went entirely out the window during the Amaris civil war, the first succession, and second succession war.
That's why you load em up with mech scale weapons. Fighter intercept and any of the naval scale missiles are targetable with AMS (also low damage)
BLESSED BE IT'S NAME!
I have run a campaign all the way from jump in to jump out. The tech manual made such a difference. It was so much fun.
sounds interesting, are you in SoCal?
I remember playing BattleSpace back in the day. Honestly the coolest part that I think you didn't mention is actually a rules thing talking about the fact that damage actually scales between the versions of the FASA games. Manpad weapons do 1/10 the damage mech based stuff does and warships do another x10 damage; so a single shot from even the weakest capitol weapons blows through mechs as it's stronger than even AC/20s. It really puts everything into perspective when you realize a small laser can insta-kill a human but the same thing on a warship does it to a mech.
I did in fact have all over those box sets, but no friends who were interested in it so I did solo campaigns covering all aspects of Battletech. Merc company of course.
You should really talk about Renegade Legions... it too had cool warships. also a correction about the sails. Unless they changed the lore, the reason of those sail was not because the fusion reaction were not powerful enough to charge the K-F Drive but because its power was too strong for it. even at the top of the Star league, the K-F Drive were always a piece of a very fragile hardware. Only through the slow input of a solar sail, the K-F Drive could be charge safely. To circumvent the problem, many warships were equipped with batteries that could hold enough charge for a second jump. And if I remember correctly, it was the rediscovering of those batteries system that allowed the Inner Sphere to re-introduce the warships on the battlefield.
I do believe you're right about the batteries. Gotta re-read the Grey Death Legion books, now. Oh, woe is me!
You are correct. The battery's, really more delicate capacitor in use. Had to be trickle/slow charged to avoid damaging them. Oddly the 2nd set of batteries that came about later for double jumps could be charged safely from a station...which was still fusion powered. Go figure.
The LF batteries were a part of it; it was the reintroduction of the compact KF drive that allowed them to do it. Even then, the FEDCOM and Combine had to buy the large in system drives from COMSTAR (they were the only ones who could make them at the time).
And yes, they could charge the drives with the fusion engines; it just had to be at the same rate as a Solar Sail, to prevent damage to the KF Drive. (They could 'hot load' the charging, but drive damage ( or worse) could happen.
I have the Leviathans box set, scenarios and technical briefing (and all the Renegade Legion stuff honestly including Centurion, Interceptor, Leviathan, Prefect boxes, RPG and associated tech briefings) - and the art is wonderful and so different to BattleTech of the Era.
th-cam.com/video/qAktBnD5viI/w-d-xo.html Video on The Leviathans ship book
One thing to mention about jump ships using the sails to charge over their other power systems, “hot loading” the jump drives in via other systems can be done in a few hours but also dramatically increase the chances of a misjump, possibly critically damaging the drives, or just out right loss of a vessel (destruction, jumping into a sun, jumping into open space and burning out the drives, etc.) It is generally considered that only a fool or someone extremely desperate would even risk hot loading.
Edit - hopefully you will do a video covering the logistics of how jump technology works in battletech, including things like jump points, the differences between jumpships and warship, etc.
Worldbuilding my own Sci-Fi Setting at the moment, the nitty-gritty logistical details of how a fleet was designed and works are honestly one of the most interesting parts. So, so much of it would influence every small engagment in space that it's mindboggeling.
BattleTech is all about Stompy Stompy 'Mechs. But you also have Areospace, Dropships, Jumpships, Warships, Mechwarriors, merchants, commerce, governments, deep space exploration and so much more. And if you don't pay you comm bills, Space AT&T will show you the error of your ways(don't ask how I know).
In the HBS game, "ComStar Presence" is enough to make a world a no-go forever more. Space AT&T: if you don't pay, they don't play.
New Warships have been in TROs up to TRO:3150 (and the subsequent TROs are complilations / new art). So not entirely forgotten.
The revised StratOps is 186 pages and involves all the Aerospace (fighters through warships) combat & construction rules.
Dropships and Jumpships is one of my favorite lore books. the Warships introduced in TRO 2750 are much preferred in design to the revised in TRO 3057.
Some of the best Warship fiction in BattleTech involves the constant difficulty in invading Terra (Kerensky, Wob, ComStar, Stone, Clan Wolf). Especially the Kerensky Invasion where Amaris had drone warships out the wazoo and how the naval battle to even get to drop on Terra happened.
As I think Herb said at one point - it is a lot cheaper to take out a warship than it is to build them.
FASA's Renegade Legion Leviathan had some amazing Warship art - if you can find that TRO you'll be thanking yourself because giant fins in spades.
the problem with warships existing is they are so comparatively powerful they make the whole rest of the setting pointless
Warships and jumpships can both charge their jump engines from their fusion engines.
For warships, the solar sail was a back up.
For civilian jumpships, solar sails are the primary charge method of charging the jump engines.
The jump engines are progressively damaged at the molecular scale by being charged too fast. Which is why they usually are charged over the course of 2 weeks to prolong their lifespan. Jumping after only a day of charging by sail or by fusion engine meant a much higher chance of jump failure (death). Only a few hours of charging to capacity was for the truly desperate.
I have been running a 3+ year long battletech AU RPG; I got pretty heavy into the warship space for a few of the battles. I think it's remarkably cool and can be really amazing when put together with an emphasis on giving the players a sense of the sort of scale they're working in.
That said, I ended up making my own abridged ruleset, because wow, the math.
You forgot the boats and submarines (there are a couple). Total combined armed combat across every place people can fight.
AV-IV equiped subs can be fun.
@@gmradio2436 Ever hear of the Wyrm? It's a submergable planet side SDS, mobile base, and yes, it's a Wobbie toy.
@@bthsr7113No, I had not. What can you tell me.
@@gmradio2436 Buckle up, it's a doozy.
6 hexes long by 5 hexes wide by 10 levels tall (180m, 150m, 60m)
4,588 Heat sinks
150 points of armor per hex.
DEEP BREATH
36 LRT20 ART IV
28 SRT6 ART IV
16 ERLL
4 LVSPL
48 MPL
12 ERPPC
8 Arrow IV
8 Gauss Rifle
16 LB2XAC
32 laser AMS
And for the big boys in orbit or the upper atmosphere,
4 Naval Laser 55's
4 Barracudas
2 Killer Whales and for the final touch,
1 Killer Whale-T.
There's a lot of other stuff that isn't weapons, sinks, or armor, and over 800 crew as well. Comes in at a final battle value of 47,010. Frankly, I'd be terrified to see what an all clan tech version by Sea Fox for a new home world could look like.
My Personal Favourite Battleships in Battletech is the Farragut and Potemkin.
The Farragut because Naval Gauss is amazing and who doesn't love flinging half-ton metal slugs at super high velocities? Yes they were 500kg each slug as you only got 2 rounds per ton of ammo, funny enough that's only a slug around 30cm diameter with a 60cm length (1 foot wide and 2 feet long for you Americans out there).
The Potemkin because it's massive array of Naval PPCs and INSANE 25 dropship capacity. A dedicated troop transport and fire support ship. This thing could carry an entire planetary invasion force AND provide orbital bombardment when required.
agree on these choices. The Potempkin is great for operational games! planitary assault in a box
I love all the battletech setting other than the mechs. We played the RPG and really appreciated how much time we spent at 1G accelerating and decelerating to the Jump ship. I loved how many drop ships were vertically oriented to account for this.
In one of the BT novels was reported that before the discovery of the Helm Memory core in 3028,
only 5 new Jumpship every year were built by automatic construction sites.
As a fellow WarShip lover, I salute you. Oddly, BattleSpace is one of the ONLY space combat games to represent the huge problem of waste heat in space warships, making it super-realistic, which Battlemechs aren't. ;)
Great video. Thank you for adding your spin on the state of BattleSpace. The Black Pants legion also did a video regarding the history of Battletech Warships in their unique History Channelish approach.
I remember a full on combined arms game where 4 factions of players in the game store, with 3 jumpships per faction and a whole universe to capture and control.
And the politics... ooooooohhhh the in and out of game politics. Deal were made and broken over the orange chicken that were served next door.
I had one of the jumpships and converted lances to full aerotech wings because the other two faction leaders couldn't understand things like gravatic sling maneuvers and the likes. My warship ended up being the fast response and fast-kill ship for when we needed to punish someone in a hit and run raid.
And yea, nothing is more satisfying than watching an enemy jump out only to come in right behind them, start charging as the drop ships launch and then their wings to go and -waste- the factories with naval cannons, missles, bombs and strafing runs..
By the time they turned around to grab my ship, we were gone, and whatever battle they WERE going to was an instant fail for them being a no show.
They, were, pissed...
Renegade Legion (also from FASA) had another chunky ships table top game called Leviathan.
They parallel a lot more. Both had ship, fighter Planetside games. Both had RPGs. Both had strategic level play. But Battletech had Mechs that looked like Macros, set up and played faster.
9:22 JumpShips are effectively space stations that "jump" they don't move around system like warships
they can operate "in system" but rarely do so save for moving to an in system Yard for service or repair.
at best, their drives can give them .5G of thrust at max burn. though .1G is more common if they do have to move.
compare this to some Warships who if pressed, can throttle up to 4G's of acceleration!
There is a nice storyline "Twilights of the Clans" in the Battletech novelization, where the Inner Sphere basically launches a counter attack on the clan homeworlds (a trial of extinction), against clan Smoke Jaguar. They use a fleet(!) of old SLDF Warships from ComStar "Task Force Serpent" and write some great depictions of actual ship to ship combat in space, inside the Battletech universe. 😎 Can really recommend the books.
Wonderful video, great art and i thank you once again from the bottom of my heart for those in-depth insights into an amazing universe full of lore.
i played aerotech and battlespace , we used both of the game systems for our large battletech campaigns one week would be the space campaign depending on whether or not we were defending or attacking , then do a planetary landing .
there are a few warships that also had Mech bays to store mech and could drop the mechs in orbit using a special cocoons , one ship if i remember could hold mech regiment in such bays .
we never played much with larger warships ,we mostly played with smaller assets cuz of the era we played in for our campaigns , but the combat was fun and you really had to keep track of your velocities or you could endup hitting something or off the game map
Thanks for the video. I remember reading the technical readout books and was so fascinated with warships - I loved the idea of these truly massive, engineering marvels that had become lost to time for so long.
Appreciate your battletech videos!
The main challenge with the plausibility of space-based or true combined-arms combat in BT is that there is a very limited window for it to occur within the established history.
1) a major impetus for 'mech-based combat in the setting is the adoption of the Ares Convention by most of the Inner Sphere powers recognizing that it's generally a bad thing to turn the surfaces of planet after planet into radioactive glass from orbit, and that warfare between the Great Houses needed to be a wee bit more limited, mainly from the perspective of populations that hadn't YET been bombarded from orbit (those that HAD suffered orbital bombardment were either dead or too busy surviving/dying to participate in politics)
2) warships are incredibly complex and expensive to produce, maintain and replace
3) a lot of the available warships abruptly left the IS with Kerensky's Exodus fleet after the Amaris Civil War
4) most of the rest of the available warships along with facilities for building or repair were destroyed early in the Succession Wars
5) any polity that had warships of any description left after the 3rd Succession War that were still functional wasn't going to risk them in combat without a VERY good reason
For these reasons, any space-based battles in the setting would need to be set probably no later than the 2nd Succession War. And if set during the Star League Era, then probably limited to SLDF vs periphery state navies during the Reunification War or SLDF vs Rimworlds Republic/Terran Hegemony craft during the Amaris Civil War.
If they can sell enough games then that would not be the history of Battletech. Someone would have started cranking out more warships in game if it sold better.
@@LionlordEbonfire Not sure exactly the point you are making, but I think the expanded aerospace/naval rules were introduced sometime after the base histories had already been established. Fortunately, CGL doesn't require the use of 'official' models, so we are free to include space naval assets in scenarios (and homemade models) if we want. I was just pointing out that the opportunities to do so within the canon were limited, even though the rules incorporate these units.
@@jtd8719 I am saying that the cannon would be altered to increase support of the space game if it sold more. As it did not sell better, they did not write the lore with that in mind. Lore supports the game not vise versa.
I enjoy all of Science Insanity videos
After watching the rest of your back catalogue, i am suddenly thankful for the absence of steve in this video.
This brought back some nostalgia. We played Battlespace back in they day with endless rule arguments because not only are the rules overly complex they were often poorly worded and there was no internet or FAQ to get a third party explanation. Still loved it although we were never really sure we were playing 100% by the rules. Also I am glad to know I am now vintage.
I do agree with you that the ship designs had a realism that is lacking today. Any warship with a massive fusion drive and energy weapons would need massive radiators and in factor destroying said radiators may be a significant tactic because well you can't armor a radiator that well or at some point it becomes a not-radiator.
Abonnent INCOMMING! ;)
We all know from the lore that technology took a step backwards in the Succession Wars, but I think we often underestimate how severe that step backwards actually was. If you look at the few snippets of lore about full-blown space wars in Battletech, the warfare of even the clans is downright pathetic in comparison^^. And yes you are right I am not old, I am well matured and very vintage^^
That's gold :) Thank you for the reminder of this part of the battletech universe!
Thank you, what a wonderful video. The topic was so cool that i was even willing to overlook that Canadian "aboot" early on in the video.
I had so many happy brain chemicals from watching this as you was using the art I'd commissioned for my various Battletech projects :D
I watched it all and enjoyed it greatly!
Thanks for the episode, the battle tech space battles were really awesome. Operation Serpent - Space battle over Huntress. Also the later Space battles in Clan Space in The Wars of Reaving.
Part of the in universe reason/justification was the cost-benefit of 'throwing suns,' Mechs formations while expensive were not valuable enough to typically warrant the expense; a Warship however was almost always worth a few. This meant that warships needed extensive armor for near misses and heavy screening to prevent direct hits. Add in the compact jump drive, normal engines, reactor, radiators, and very little was left for weapons. The 'natural scale' of a warship based on tech available was too big for anyone to actually build one until the clans miniaturized the tech and had way too many resources to throw at the problem. Even then warships are deployed very carefully with support assets to prevent multiple direct hits. This nicely drags the spotlight back to the big stompy mechs from the cover art.
True. The other big factor was the debasement of the Inner Sphere and their tech base. They managed to wreck all of their warships (with a couple notable exceptions) in around a century. After massive devastation to all the houses, a feudalistic model was adopted alongside chivalrous ROE (don't blow up that water treatment plant because it can't be rebuilt). Under those rules warships are redundant wastes of money and resources. All that mattered was getting your fighting force from the jump point to the target, and armed dropships were good enough for that at a fraction of the cost. So of course, the IS eventually lost the knowledge to even build miniature KF drives, and since no one had them anymore it didn't matter until the Clans showed up, providing the impetus to redevelop that tech ASAP
And even the Clans didn't use tgwm much as they normally got bid away in their batchalls
I remember back in the day there was an aerotech mod for Homeworld. You could play with warships, dropships and some fighters. They didn’t add much before the devs quit but there was just enough to get a taste of real time aerotech combat.
It sounds like it needs a space combat BattleTech computer game, would basicly start with Stellaris and then add a few more levels of complexity on top of it. By changeing a few of combat rules could result in ships needing to recharge/cooldown. It sounds like an intresting mod idea for someone to test.
11:30 - "Or literally melt..." OR EXPLODE LIKE A BOMB WHEN THE AMMUNITION DETONATES. This actually happened in a recent game of BattleTech that I'd joined. An enemy mech fired off so many weapons that its heat levels reached the point where the GM had to roll to see if there was an ammo explosion...and that's what happened.
That pirate went out Epic on the Fury Road.
When I played space combat was very much a thing. In one campaign we even managed to capture a disabled enemy dropship through boarding actions and fighting what crew was left to defend it with the mechwarrior (small arms) combat rules. In a prolonged campaign a dropship was the ultimate prize, since it allowed us to grow the unit and gain additional player characters (we would each play two or three mechwarriors). I do remember facing off against warships a few times but with the original aerotech rules they were basically paper tigers when going up against a well-trained fleet of aerospace fighters the like Stuka and Chippewa as the aerospace fighters were basically guaranteed to get off at least one alpha strike. With the punishing critical rules for spacecraft in general, this could be enough to disable or worse a dropship or a warship, so they were honestly often held back or only used with a large number of fighter escorts. That said, the inherent vulnerability of spacecraft and the inability to salvage much after a space battle meant that there really wasn't a whole lot to gain from a space battle, so often times both sides would simply back off and instead prefer to fight it out on the planet using mechs.
Ive been re-reading the Battletech Ship book lately just for fun. Cool to hear this topic
Thank you for this video from an old timer who misses the good old days. I also like your background music throughout the video.
If you haven't yet, you need to play FTL: Faster Than Light. Battletech players tend to love it, and it has a wonderful soundtrack. The music you hear in these videos is from FTL.
I played AeroTech when it first came out so I never got into warships. But when it came to Aerospace fighters escorting dropships I had a blast.
Hello Sci.
Yeah, I am one of those 'vintage' players. I've played since Battle Droids, which became Battletech due to George Lukas' threatened lawsuit.
So yeah, I did play Aerotech and the later rules for space combat on tabletops. Mostly, we fought such battles to determine if an attacker could bring everything it had to bear upon a planet being invaded. Most of the time, however, an attacker would not be able to do so, and would only have a portion of their overall force available to drop on a planetary target.
Eventually, we subjected such things to die rolls, because actually playing out a system-wide battlefield would take several sessions of play, each taking many hours of game time to resolve. So, the random die rolls were used instead. Although such a system did not really reflect the chaos of battle, the valor and acumen of ship commanders, or just the vulgarities of lucky die rolls, they were used in any case, just to limit the amount of time needed to resolve the issue of how much force an attacker would have left to invade a planet with.
So, sometimes an attacker would be able to get to a planet with everything, another time he would be 'beaten off' and fail to invade. Or, as happened most of the time, the attacker was limited to a portion of their attacking force being available to drop onto a planet.
Modifiers were added to the die rolls to reflect the defender's forces. For instance: A high modifier if the planet was a major core world or industrial center, or the site of a major military base. A lesser modifier for 'lesser' planets and defenses, and finally, a null modifier for no defenses at all. By defenses, I mean such things as orbital defense platforms, fleets of extra-atmosphere fighters and bombers, and warships of any kind.
As my group progressed, it became apparent that true warships were extremely rare, and often not able to be used due to the reasons you highlighted in your video.
This led to us modifying, again, the die rolls for invasion forces, buy adding modifiers for 'conversion' craft. Basically 'Civilian' Jump Ships that had been outfitted with 'strap-on' fighter bays, heavy weaponry, and perhaps a tiny bit of 'armor'.
Until the Clan Invasion, these Conversion Craft were 'warships'. One of the best reasons why the Clans were able to penetrate so deeply into the Inner sphere was their having actual warships available to sweep aside such Conversion Craft and invade with their full numbers.
In 'modern' times, the 'space battle' portion of an invasion is 'hand waved' aside in favor of planetary combat on the surface of a world, or moon.
If I could change anything about Battletech overall, it would be to have a series of die roll tables created and published, to simplify such battles and limit attackers to a portion of their entire starting strength. This would add 'realism' to the setting again, and allow for fleets engaging in combat, maneuvering, and sometimes withdrawing to save their strength for other battles.
But all of this, pre-supposes a more strategic level of play. One where both attacker and defender must deal with pre-positioning forces, maneuvering said forces, and even splitting or combining forces to use in attack or defense. The manufacturing and placement of 'space-based' defenses like orbital platforms, and fleets of dropships converted to defensive use.
Most 'current' gaming focuses on planetary combat, over space-based combat. So such a set of die roll tables, mentioned above, would simplify things enough to make pre-battle rolls important enough to use. If for no other reason than that an attacker might find himself without the forces needed to do more than a simple 'in and out' raid on a world, instead of the planned 'invasion' of it.
I could never get my friends to play Battlespace with me back in the day for some reason, but everyone liked Full Thrust. It was modular enough that we would play invasions in three stages. Full thrust rules for warships, Aerotech for near orbit fights to drop, and then Battletech for the stompy stuff. It wasnt perfect but it let me get some warship action in.
Great vid, on a great day for the whole Battletech universe!
I think you did a great job, though one little mistake. The real reasons the Jumpships and Warships use solar sails are twofold.
First, the jumpcore has to be kept supercold to function. Charging the core too quickly could cause thermal effects that damage the core and cause issues when jumping through hyperspace. The ship's main reactor has more than enough output to charge the core in far shorter times than the jumpsail can, but this causes thermal expansion on the core that can damage it.
Secondly is efficiency, using the main powerplant to charge the jumpdrive can burn huge amounts of the ship's hydrogen fuel. Oversimplified, for every day you shorten your recharge time by you burn the same amount of hydrogen you would have if the ship had been under 1g of acceleration the whole time.
FASA once produced the Renegade Legion universe, containing LEVIATHAN and INTERCEPTOR etc. Well, those space games were not as successful as BATTLETECH was.
Sobody once told me (or I read it somewhere?) that the BATTECH rules for spaceship combat were a derivate of many of the LEVIATHAN rules. Maybe they thought that the interest would be minor?
I loved the Renegade Legion games as much as BT and was really sad when FASA stoped the line.
One of the things about battle space, was it made it clear how insane space battles would be. Eventually it just becomes more cost effective to just fight the battles with way cheaper mechs and call it a day they risk super expensive and costly ships of which you can maybe make 1 to 3 of a year across an entire space nation of 1000s of planets. So the whole Space battles are rare even when the clans show up makes sense. Most areospace fights happen in the upper strat of planets when drop ships are incoming and need cover.
I totally enjoy your Battletech(Battle Droids)/Aero Tech/Battle Space episodes. Especially given that most of my material from that universe is from when it was still own FASA. (I have one reprint novel that has the WizKids branding.) And you are correct about the models, although I do have one of the rare plastic ones (an Unseen Battlemaster).
I love the idea that somewhere out in the deep periphery there are still high-tech civlizations on par with Star League which have never fallen to conflict. If a bare handful of planets had stayed more stable than the Clans, they would be a millenium more advanced than the Inner Sphere.
Which means that out there somewhere - waiting in the dark - could be fleets of Warships searching for military adventurists who wander just a little too far from home.
Battlespace was my first Battletech product (along with Clan Wolf and Clan Jade Falcon sourcebboks). This was my entry point into the game.
"You can be entertaining or you can be educational, but not both"-Some person from TikTok.
Well you ARE BOTH so i subscribed twice 😜
this type of stuff is why i love this setting
Aerospace fighters were really OP against Mechs as the strafing rules were too biased on the fighter side so they got sidelined or it would be pretty much fighter war. If you added warships and orbital bombardment, Mechs (the selling point of BT) were just clowns
This in turn meant the Mechwarriors, Power Armor operators, etc (the RPG element) were also sidelined. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, thus warships went to the sidelines
I know you mentioned the nations not having a navy but you really should take a look at the Outworlds Alliance/Clan Snow Raven/The Raven Alliance... the last naval power in the Inner Sphere, or at least the Periphery. After all, the Outworlds Alliance was big on ASFs, Snow Raven believed in maintaining warships and a navy, and they unified to create a small stellar empire that maintains two space naval academies as well as naval facilities.
I was amused that towards the end of the fedcom civil war they nearly had no warships left and it seemed like the Clans were the only ones left with proper warships left. I remember in one of the novels the Ghost Bears had built one big mofo of a warship.
The Leviathan Class
They had three of them, essentially moved their whole nation to Rasalhague in them
Been playing since 89 and the BT universe is massive and a lot of fun.
Very much worth diving into.
Warships sound like the Battletech version of the nuclear powered aircraft carrier. It takes a lot of resources to field even one and its related support ships let alone multiple battle groups.
Do wish mote series actually take into account the need form radiators. Lets see... Halo, Star Wars, and Mass Effect play lip service in varying degrees. BSG doesnt, but wouldn't be surprised if Battlestars pumps excess heat into their water tanks. Off thr top of my head only other series has proper radiators, and its the prequels to the main Honorverse books.
So radiators, and general realism is flippin awesome.
14:32 and just like modern militaries the lines between corvettes , frigates , destroyers , the various kinds of cruisers , battleships etc are more guidelines more than one Alaska is it a heavy cruiser/BattleCruisers in there .
Video was great, keep it up.
Your discord is so nice. I actually watched this video becauss i got a nice hour long primer into BT lore that has me really interested.
Please do either more StsrGate/Trek, Mass Effect or maybe even Destiny?(i can help for the last one!)
I had both of those supplements back in the '80s. And they aren't 50 years old. Battletech isn't 50 years old yet. Its about 40 years old, first published in 1984.
One of the things I liked about the warships is that they did not mess around with the common sci-fi "WWII fighters in space" where capital ships are subordinate to single seat fighter-bombers. No, Aerospace fighters were just swatted aside by the sheer mass number of standard mech/aerospace fighter sized weapons coating them, and their armor was so thick that aerospace fighter weapons did jack shit to them.
The other thing that I liked about both was that Newtonian physics played a large role in how the combat worked. It wasn't like Star Wars or Star Trek where the ships could just go wherever they wanted. You had to rotate and burn thrusters to change direction and velocity.
I never knew that this was a TTRPG. I only knew it as a video game and a late 80's cartoon or anime. Along the lines of Battle Ship Yamato, pre Gundam.
Yes, that ship you like is a McKenna class battleship.
The thing that killed off the Warship in the setting was the Ameris Civil War. After the catastrophic losses of the war itself, over 400 remaining Warships left with General Kerensky, and remained out in Clab space. The Federated Suns and the Draconis Combine fleets beat one another to death in a chance meeting engagement during the 1st Succession War. The Lyran fleet fought the remainder of the Draconis Combine fleet and the Free Worlds League fleets to mutual exhaustion, while the Capellans lost their fleet to the Free Worlds League and Federated Suns remnants.
The 1st Succession War pretty much annihilated the House navys the way the Ameris Civil War ended the SLDF navy.
Probably some of my favorite starship designs in fiction
The FASA series of Technical Readouts , the 2750 one (before WOTC bought the series) has a section on aerospace fighters and warships.....this video had me dig that book out and look over those sections....
Using Battlespace and just simplifying the heat management somewhat makes for a fantastic space combat game
Wow, I feel flattered to rate "most rotund of lore masters". Not that I spent time converting a naval PPC strike into ground tabletop damage but... there wasn't much going on for me in the mid 90s
speed of charging a jumpdrive isn't why jumpships use jumpsails. Any jumpship can hot-charge its drive off reactors far faster than a jumpsail - fast enough to potentially wreck the K-F drive. The use of the jumpdrive is because fusion reactors use hydrogen fuel and it takes vast quantities to charge a jumpdrive (pre-jumpsail ships usually could only make 10 jumps without refulling). Jumpsails are used because they're cheaper in the long run.
Function over form for warships. Always how it should be.
This is such a weirdly timed video... Today I was thinking about existing tabletop space combat games I've played that died out in my area. Battlefleet Gothic, Star Wars Armada, Firestorm Armada, etc. And how much I missed tabletop space fleet games. I've been getting into Battletech Alpha Strike recently and was thinking about how cool it would be to have a space combat game with similar mechanics. Simultaneous shooting and what have you. It's really awesome that you released this video today. It gives me some context into the possibility of such a game. You rock.
There has to be a middle ground with Tabletop space war games in terms of mechanical depth and actual playability. I bought the SW:Armada starter box hoping to get some friends into it to play with, but none of them really had the patience to learn it as readily as Alpha Strike. Which at the very least was mostly intuitive to learn and understand, doubly so with the hex sheets I was using to teach them.
I actually really did enjoy SW Armada, but it died out very quickly in my area. Though I did come into it late. It was reasonably easy to pick up (I thought) and had some depth to it. But I think you can only do so much with 2 major factions. They did do some Clone Wars Era stuff but it fizzled out really fast after Atomic Mass Games took over. Maybe there's a space between 3D printing and some home design where someone could make a clever Battletech Warship game work as Alpha Strike does for people like me. Those who love the universe and theme, but cant really invest the attention into Classic BT.
Warships disappeared after the Amaris Civil War (2776-2779). That is why they aren't in Battletech. It is assumed but not confirmed that Comstar still has some. Also Catalyst Games are putting out new books for Battletech all the time (3-4 last year), so I don't get your comment that they only put out a few pages. They even have a specific book which includes Aerofighters.
I got that book. It has about 4 different rule systems, and 3 different types of battle mech. It is also poorly documented on Sarna.
Not catching the rules in the optional butchered campaign book makes sense.
There was still over a 1000 warships left in the IS after the Exodus. The last operational ones were destroyed during the 2nd Succession War. With the discovery of the Helm memory core( TRO 2750), the IS could make Warships, but by agreement, they didn't till after the Clans showed.
As for COMSTAR, they didn't just maintain a fleet, they were building new ships into the late 2900's.
Comstar doesn't have warships. Those are telephone repair vessels.
I would love to see more of this in the mainstream. I factor in fleet logistics in my total war campaign. My players love it.
The truly amusing thing about this is that FASA also made Renegade Legion which was awesome.
Yep, Centurion, Interceptor, Leviathan and Prefect were the four games in the set. I was really disappointed when they abandoned them to concentrate on BT.
@@spencesanders7879 prefect? Missed that one, I can guess, sector level game?
@@seannewboy8612 Yes. IIRC each game would interface with the next lower game. At the Prefect level you dispatched fleets or task groups. You used Leviathans (Warships and Fighters by group) to fight to control the system. Interceptor (fighters and gunboats) to control the orbitals and dropships. Centurion to take the battle to the surface. I've played Leviathans/Interceptor/Centurion. Never tried the Prefect part.
@@spencesanders7879 I played the same.
I love your channel Star gate, BSG, Battletech everything is represented and your humor is great. I'm starting to wonder if you know Eve online
As a massive Warship officianado who re-reads the various fluffy bits in StratOps far too often, I can offer some insight into the logistical importance of Warships. Even the smaller sub-500kt designs like the Carrack or Fox is a massive boost to a campaigns chance fo success even if they're outgunned by some of the post-jihad "Pocket Warship" designs
Small correction, ComStar still had warships when the Clan Invasion started.
I still have my copy of this stuff, though if you really want math in a space table-top game, the original B5 miniature game is your game. Though GAWD its minis were beautiful, I swear no other setting beats B5 for beauty in its ships, and for the longest time realism in onscreen combat, the keeping of momentum no matter your facing. Thats the series that started that.
Been playing B T since 1991. Introduced to it by a friend and fellow soldier shortly after arriving at my first duty station in Geissen Germany while in processing the unit and out processing for deployment to Desert Storm. It was the second table top game that I had ever played. D&D was the first. Over the years I have played many variations of many games. B T and its variants have always been a favorite of mine. Too bad there are so few tabletop players within a reasonable distance of me. Most of them don’t play M W or B T. If they do it’s the computer game version. I play those as well. (All things Mechwarrior are fun). I even love using the advanced / experimental rules. They really open up new possibilities. I designed a mech that can run 1.5 times around the map border PER TURN. Any failed piloting checks end SPECTACULARLY. On the flip side: almost impossible to hit. A TAG unit and lance mates with Arrow IVs , L R M 20s, etc. oh, I failed to mention the E C M… MRC-FTD Mercury Delivery. 40 tons of stealthy, speedy, target acquisition and scouting for a lance that doesn’t want to waste ammunition and demands results.
I learned vector addition in junior high in the 90s by playing Aerotech, it's definitely a crunchy game.
12:34 SCI: How many sci-fi ships do you see actually look anything like this?
The Human Reach ships and Spacecraft from Children of A Dead Earth (if you squint…) Also anything from Chris Floss
Our Northern Colorado has played several space battles. Some rules we had to make, because the rules are vague. It was fun
Warships are LOVED by us Snow Raven stans! Caw! Caw! McKenna! Caw!
I followed Battletech from when I was a kid back in the 80's and from what I understand Some of the warships were so devastating they could dominate a planet and were simply over powered in some regards. The games never caught on because the lore simply ended the existence of said warships. Then finding one was something akin to finding the most prized item in the universe.