There should be, considering this is the language that can convey the idea of "a face badly in need of a fist" in one word. ;)

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Unable to save the day: File is read-only.

Not that I don't love my big stompy robots, but....yeah.

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"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

But that's just half the word! It misses entirely the other half.

Vorsichtigaufregungaberresigniert?

...!
Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!

It's like come on, guys, how much can the Sun Fang Dougram license possibly cost?

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Long story short: FASA leased a number of Mech images from Japaneses anime companies, including Robotech (Macross), Sun Fang Dougram, and Crusher Joe (I think). Fast forward a few years --- Harmony Gold sues FASA, because they had the licence for the Robotech images (From another company involved in the original Macross production -- a real mess on both sides of the ocean). After the case (Which ended up basically in a draw), FASA decided that all 'Mech and vehicle images had to be done in-house, to prevent this from happening again. They could use the Sun Fang Dougram, and Crusher Joe images, but in the end, they decided it was less hassle to re-imaged them in-house.

Wizkids, Fanpro and now Catalyst Games Lab continue the practice, going so far as to re-image the original Mechs that used the licensed anime images.

Harmony Gold Vs. FASA

As I said, Microsoft has all the Electronic rights to Battletech (Because they brought FASA Interactive, the arm of FASA that was involved with the computer games), Microsoft licensed the rights to HBS and PGI for different computer games, and wanted to avoid the same pitfalls FASA ran into. Microsoft doesn't have the rights to the tabletop images of the Mechs, so PGI redesigned them for MWO, and HBS has entered an agreement with PGI to use their images for HBS's game.

It's a mess folks, one that isn't getting untangled anytime soon....

Craig

I know. I was being sarcastic.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Craig

I like, and don't like, the Battletech series. I like the big stompy robots, and like to read their 'history' and design specs. I also like reading about the tech, separated from the statistics of that tech.

My suspension of disbelief, however, has issues with the Clans and "Mechwarrior" culture that makes a 6~12m tall robot both an optimal scouting unit, and superior to a tracked vehicle in pretty much every way. It also has issues with some of the tech, like the 1-ton ant-infantry machine gun or the sixteen-shots-per-ton ammunition weights for some non-missile weapons.

(It might be telling my favorite scene from one of my favorite Battletech stories has one of the House leaders slapping her head and thinking:
"Why, oh why hadn't anyone considered simply ganging up on a battlemech? Had the whole "Noble Knights of the battlefield" concept made all of humanity stupid? These days she often entertained that as a possibility after listening to senior officers of her harmed forces constantly whine and moan over how 'boorish', 'crud' and 'uncouth' it was to pit six armored fighting vehicles against a single battlemech.")

I went through, let's call it a phase, early in my anime/mecha fandom of snobbily preferring "real" mecha to the superheroic sort... before coming to realize that any humanoid fighting machine of that scale was going to be purest fantasy for several basic reasons; and so, if it's all bullshit, one might as well enjoy the stuff that approaches the concept with unabashed style.

(This was accompanied by my growing amusement at the ongoing contortions that the BT rules-writers had to go through, ending somewhere just short of outright fiat, to keep 'Mechs the dominant force on the battlefield in the presence of large numbers of smaller, vastly cheaper and just plain more sensible conventional units.)

In one of many stories I never actually wrote, I lampshaded the hell out of this, with a Learned Scientist briefing the Joint Chiefs, somehow managing to remain completely deadpan while explaining that, according to everything we know about physics, the machines of the Alien Invaders simply could not be combat effective - yet some hitherto unknown "Coolness Factor" makes them devastating against everything our armed forces can throw at them. The only solution, no matter how absurd it may seem, is to construct a similar fighting machine of our own - in small numbers, perhaps as few as one, both because of the urgent need but also because analysis suggests that all of our side's Coolness will thus be concentrated in that single unit, making it vastly superior to anything the Enemy has.

... and then of course an Ordinary High School Student would end up Falling Into the Cockpit, since this thing was intended to be Troperiffic long before that site even existed. :p

Normally that's the way I go as well. Some of my favorite mecha, and favorite mecha rules systems, goes for the ridiculous. I don't know what it is about my suspension that has the issues with Battletech, I can handle the Tech manual and the mech construction rules just fine, as long as don't try to actively think about big pictures, at which point it goes 'nope'.

It may be the overall blend of trying to get vehicles and large mecha in the same setting and trying to handle it so that a mecha can do it all.

It might be one of the reasons I do like the Heavy Gear system, despite the fact that it does the same. In it at least the vehicles and mecha have niches, the terrain of the planet, a mecha caught by a tank outside its niche is scrap, and the in-setting commanders damn well know this.

Of COURSE. let us not forget that aside from the rule of cool, having an angsty bishi high schooler in the cockpit acts as a coolness multiplier, thus making it even more likely that the machine wil be successfull against the aliens! And bonus multipliers if he's got an angsty idol wannabe for an on again off again GF

The number of rounds per ton are designed for game balance --- the more damage a salvo can do, the fewer shots per ton. Light Gauss Rifles carry 16 rounds/ton, a regular Gauss Rifle carries 8 rounds/ton, and Heavy Gauss Rifle has 4 rounds/ton --- the lowest ammo amount for a BT weapons..

Eh, it isn't that bad. Sure, vehicles are nurfed, in order to keep battlemechs as king of the battlefield, but vehicles have their place. Under the right circumstances, a vehicle can ruin a 'Mechs day easily enough. I've seen it enough times on the playing board to take vehicles seriously. A Swarm of Savannah Master can be a real handful

As for ganging up on a single 'Mech --- the only people who stick with "one on one during battle" as a rule are the Clans, and only as long as the other side honors the one on one. As soon it becomes a free for all, Clanners have no problem ganging on on any enemy. You will on occasion, have one on ones between Inner Sphere units, but that's not a fast and hard rule on the battlefield. In some stories I write, the battle is one on one, in others, it's a free for all with everyone shoot the best target in range.