Battletech lore: Warships

[@maclarenschell8855]

Tyvm for the breakdown! Battletech lore, especially outside the mechs, is criminally undercovered imo

[@ranekeisenkralle8265]

You forgot to mention that ComStar did posess a number of warships which they had hidden away from anyone outside ComStar. One of these vessels being the later flagship of Operation Serpent.

[@jamesricker3997]

They did not have warships initially but they did have an intact shipyard plus access to several incomplete and crippled warships.

[@ranekeisenkralle8265]

@@jamesricker3997 not quite accurate. The flagship of Operation Bulldog was one of two capital warships ComStar had found. Over time they then had to cannibalize one of the two vessels in order to maintain the other. And from what i remember they also had a number of smaller warships sowed away.

[@roguerifter9724]

And they also produced their own new warship design, the Dante class Frigate, in the mid thirtieth century. I've always preferred small and midsized warships to the big types and have a massive soft spot for Frigates in general so the Dante is one of my favorite Battletech warship designs with the Riga-I class being my favorite Star League warship design. The earlier Quixote class relies too much on missiles and autocannons for anti-ship combat for my taste due to the issues that arise if supply lines are cut or a battle lasts long enough for the ammo to run out it energy weapons are limited to a handful of Naval lasers. And while the later Congress class includes some on board anti-fighter weapons which both the Quixote and the Riga-I lack all of its anti-warship weapons are autocannons or missiles leaving it defenseless against another warship if it's ammo supplies are exhausted.

[@Hippy576]

Thanks for the vid. I know WarShips aren't the most popular aspect of the BattleTech universe but they're a very important aspect that deserves more attention to flesh out the world. Amazing and thorough job as always

[@jpotter2086]

Battlespace, anyone? :D

[@Hippy576]

@@jpotter2086 Going back to the early days! Kudos

[@tartarianbarbarian1256]

Mechwarrior is just DUNE without the drugs.

[@tannerrennat7786]

Why can't anyone with a simple last name like Smith ever invent FTL drives.

[@weldonwin]

For some reason, the main drives of starships being built by Roll Royce, makes me unreasonably happy as an Englishman

[@TheMiteyPirate]

That fun fact made me smile as well. Thanks for watching!

[@altmandma]

Did I spy Homeworld 2 ships in that first snip? Love your videos keep up the great work!

[@lexington476]

Here's a question, during the Succession Wars which was the last new warship to be launched by the successor States. I'm kind of thinking that not all of the Successor State Space Navies were launched before the fall of the Star League.

[@Hengebobs]

No, but prior to the fall of the league they were stringently limited on size, power and weapons so pre-fall ships were small and not really "capable" as main line warships. More like customs cutters than cruisers.

[@arthompson2]

@@Hengebobs The Successor houses had smaller navies but had every type of warship. The Congress Class served in the Federated Suns Navy during the Star League era

[@cjfdolgfer8649]

Thx for this one. Keep Going.

[@keeganpenney169]

So can I think of the starships arsenals similar to those of mechs? And mechs are really land based power platforms able to mount some starship weapons? Cool

[@toddkes5890]

If you mean 6:20, then what should have been clarified was that each of the 48 weapons was a 3000-ton "Heavy Naval PPC", not the basic 7-ton PPC. The key problem with Warships is that their FTL core masses almost half of the ship, and even on the largest ships the FTL core's weird cost is about ninety percent of the ship's final cost. To give an idea what I mean by the FTL core having a weird cost, a vessel massing 200 kilotons has a core twice the mass of a vessel massing 100 kilotons but the FTL core is ~10% more expensive. A vessel massing 1 million tons will have an FTL core 10* the mass of the 100 kiloton ship, but the FTL core is only twice as expensive. The McKenna battleship mentioned will cost ~31 billion as listed. If you remove all of its weaponry, armor, internal fighters and leave just the hull and FTL core, then it will cost ~28 billion.

[@jamesricker3997]

Star league warships were under armored and lacked point defense systems. To the benefit of Stephan Amaris .

[@DuneRunnerEnterprises]

Thanks a lot !!!!!

[@I_am_Diogenes]

Seems to me that if they were worried about planetary bombardment a better option would have been planetary defense satellites instead of warships .... but that is just me .

[@Kissamiess]

Draconis Combine did develop the BattleSat and FC the Capitol-class station.

[@toddkes5890]

Offensively, satellites/space stations cannot travel to another star system and bombard the enemy's planets. Defensively, there is too much volume for a station to cover and not enough of a cost difference to make defensive stations worthwhile. The best use of a defensive station is as a giant fighter base. On average a Warship can be destroyed by a fighter force that is one percent the Warship's mass. So on average a 2 million ton warship can be destroyed by 20,000 tons of aerospace fighters (200 x 100-ton fighters, 400 x 50-ton fighters, etc).

[@I_am_Diogenes]

@@toddkes5890 When the point/purpose is protecting your planet from bombardment , WHY WOULD YOU SEND IT SOMEWHERE ELSE ? Thats what the fleet is for . Also , why are you assuming only one defense satellite ? I was thinking more along the lines of the smaller ones similar to the ones used at Chin'Taka (star trek) or Earth (babylon 5).

[@toddkes5890]

@@I_am_Diogenes Because if you can strike the enemy first, you win. By leaving it (or them) in one location, you only protect one location. By building Warships, you can threaten and defend multiple locations. Assume two sides, one of which has Warships, and the other side has Warships + Defense structures (multiple space stations and satellites). The side with just Warships can counter the other side's Warships, and can concentrate vs the enemy's defense systems. The defense systems cannot move, so when one system is attacked the defense systems in another system are unable to aid. The side with Warships can pick off the defenses in one system at a time, while the opponent's Warships are being countered. The range issue means you cannot have a single platform defending a planet, raising the price overall. With the short ranges of Battletech space weapons, you'd need over 20 space stations with capital weapons to protect a planet, and that is just taking the circumference of Earth and dividing by double the radius of the longest range capital weapon. Now if BT combat space stations can get cheap enough compared to a Warship, that might help. You'd still need a tug to move the space stations and satellites around, though any defending Dropships and ASF will help cover holes. But at that point, why not just use Dropships and ASF for defenses instead of space stations and satellites?

[@Ironhold_Watch]

Freebirth

[@stiltskino4009]

Wish the ships were in the games m9re than just dropships ......also death to the Innersphere Scum!!!

[@hamishmarshall7782]

Should have paid your Comstar bill.

[@jamesricker3997]

Shut up you inbred descendant of a madman. By the way how did executing your entire scientist caste work for you?

[@Ironhold_Watch]

@@hamishmarshall7782 quiet freebirth