The Catapult - Built to Last Forever - BattleTech Reaction

[@Gustav_Kuriga]

Just a reminder, Clan Sea Fox = Clan Diamond Shark = Clan Sea Fox. Diamond Shark was our edgy Crusader phase that died out by being too stupid and getting its ideological supporters all killed on Tukayyid. At least we got to profit by providing logistics to the Crusading clans at a large mark-up.

[@Tzilandi]

To explain the awards: Clan Wolf are the ”author’s pet” faction, so they’re written to always win, even when it doesn’t make sense. Clan Ghost Bear conquered a planet through a game of football once. Clan Wolverine got exterminated by the other Clans because of Tall Poppy-syndrome. Coyote invented the Omni-Mech. Diamond Shark needs no explanation. Hell’s Horses created the Elemental phenotype of human through genetic engineering. Think Space Marines, but with gender equality. The Eridani Light Horse are a mercenary unit who claim descent from the SLDF. They also participated in the Smoke Jaguar genocide.

[@schaddenkorp6977]

Wasn’t exactly a genocide, the civilian population of Huntress was not targeted for destruction it was just the industrial base and institutions that supported the warrior caste whom for their part mostly chose to fight to the death or in some cases self murder with only a few surrendering.

[@Kleatus]

As a Battletech fan, it's just nice to have more people interested in our little extremely lore dense game setting :)

[@Gustav_Kuriga]

The Urbanmech actually had its production lines destroyed in 2837 and didn't have any production whatsoever until after the Clan Invasion failed and the Jihad began. That would be ~3079 for a restart in production. So over 200 years of no production and it was still one of the most common mechs around.

[@cheeksakimbo6591]

I'm still convinced Comstar was actually making more Urbies and secretly shipping them out so the Great houses wouldn't try finding better mechs

[@ObsidianDragon7030]

Ah yes, the Catapult. A Living Manifestation of 'Putting Warheads on Foreheads.'

[@quartz_gg9090]

This is great! I'm glad to hear you like the adverts, and I'd encourage you to keep watching them as you go through! The Steiner Scout Squad is easily my favorite and only gets better as Tex continues.

[@wash016]

The joke behind the Smoke Jaguar award is that they got pretty much wiped out by the Eridani Light Horse merc company after the clan invasion. Basically, the joke is, "This clan gets an award for successfully ensuring their own destruction do to just how fucking awful they were."

[@refurbishedtechpriest9076]

This is very, VERY true. The book "Exodus Road" highlights this perfectly.

[@schaddenkorp6977]

Eridani

[@wash016]

@schaddenkorp6977 Thank you, I'll fix this in a sec

[@bthsr7113]

Ah, the Catapult. You never forget your first. Back when Mechwarrior Online was being promoted in its early days, there were 4 mechs spotlighted. The Jenner, the Centurion, the Atlas, and the Catapult. And my heart already had been instilled with a love for Missile Spam by GI Joe: Sigma 6 and, to a lesser degree, Transformers Cybertron. In the time since, I have become aware of superior mechs for boating Long Range Missiles, namely the Kraken/Bane variant 3, but again... you never forget your first. The clan Trophies explained: Clan Wolf is the MC clan, whose plot armor has truly gotten out of hand in the latest era, going against their prior strengths, yet still winning even less plausible victories. Clan Ghost Bear: That mech for their trophy is their totem mech, the Kodiak, a Clan Brawler assault of terrifying effectiveness. The football award is because a planet with zero chance of winning a fight decided to exploit the Batchall system by challenging the Ghost Bear invaders to American Football for the ownership of the planet. The defenders assumed the Clans would be unfamiliar, so they could exploit that. Unfortunately for the defenders, that's the favorite sport of the Ghost Bears, and they brought a whole team of Elementals. Clan Wolverine: Don't recognize the mech. Maaaaybe a Conjurer (basically a clan version of the Wolverine mech). TLDR, they were doing too well while being the least clan of the clans in the early years, and were bullied for it. They were no longer in Clan Space by the time of the Golden Century. Clan Wolverine was the inventor of Omnimech technology, so their trophy is the most famous Omnimech, the Timber Wolf. Clan Diamond Shark AKA the once and future Clan Sea Fox: widely known as THE merchant Clan, with vast economic power, and their industrial/logistic power in the Ilclan era sadly being beyond plausibility. That mech is a Diamond Shark original, the Piranha, which is notably armed with 12 machine guns, because Diamond Shark/Sea Fox has a soft specialization in dakka. Clan Hell's Horses: being a clan who never fully lost respect for combined arms, even respecting infantry to a degree, they are the ones who created the genetic template for elementals, who average 2-2.5 meters and are often raised for aggressive teamwork. Clan Smoke Jaguar: This award is a straight mockery, despite presumably featuring their Ebon Jaguar, the finest mech that the Jags could claim as truly their own, and the youngest of the invasion era heavy clan omnimechs. The Eridani Light Horse was a mercenary command instrumental in the counterattack that ultimately drove the clan to Extinction... until they were resurrected to be a subservient clan of the Wolf Empire many decades later. Currently Sarna recognizes 16 production variants, 3 noteworthy custom designs, and 2 apocryphal variants. So covering all is a lot. Obligatory dig at the F"ound"-35"more problems" for being an overdue and overbudget underperformer that has historically been riddled with teething issues, and overlooked details spiraling out into logistics problems. Also for being a bad concept from the get go. An affordable common fixed wing airframe for 3 branches and export? Makes sense. Replacing multiple dedicated fighter and attack planes? Makes a fair bit less sense. Trying to make this airframe a VTOL and have stealth capability? Asinine! The Battlemaster is a decent brawling assault mech. However, forgoing a fire support heavy mech in favor of another brawling assault mech is dumb. Also, more Catapults would have made many house lords and mercenaries very happy... at\t least the ones not on the receiving end while lacking adequate counterbattery measures. "depending on what you outfit your mechs with, you could turn them into that role, regardless of the base mech" ding ding ding. You're getting how this universe rolls. With enough time, talent, tech, available parts, and money, mechs can become RADICALLY different to suit your needs and wants. Omnimechs though, those are simultaneously easy AND hard to refit. With proper parts and technicians, the allocated omnipod space and tonnage can be rapidly reconfigured for different battlefield roles. Outside of that, you can't deviate from factory specs without effectively creating a new mech. Armor config, chassis skeleton, base number of heatsinks, and engine setup are all locked. Along with whatever other equipment the designers didn't want to give users the opportunity to remove to their detriment. The Succession Wars are a LONG topic, with the current most comprehensive BT youtuber for them being Sven Der Plank, who is currently working on Succession War 3 of 4. For reference, his macro scale look from a 1000 feet up on just the First Succession War clocks in at 5 hours, 15 minutes, and 27 seconds. Round 2 clocks in at 4 hours, 50 minut5es, and 1 second. As for the technological backslide, it started just with the Great Houses bombing each other stupid through liberal use of strategic ordinance and massive deployments of forces. Comstar then prevented recovery once they'd found their identity going forward. Not all mechs are built to last, but a decent few were, and those that weren't were heavily reduced, or they disappeared. A lot of the underlying technologies (for basic intro tech) are also pretty well established and fundamentally the same everywhere. Part of this is for simplified gameplay and lore, but myomer is myomer, standard armor is standard armor, standard military grade mech skeletons are standard military grade mech skeletons and fusion engines are fusion engines. Though such technologies were decidedly not available to all. Nations tended to prioritize battletechnology for preservation and maintenance, with mechs typically taking first priority. Tankers would often make do with internal combustion engines, and civilians might not even get that much depending on the planet and region of said planet. There's a really good quote talking about traversing interstellar distances aboard a jumpship at faster than light speeds, only to have to ride a donkey for several kilometers in the rain after transiting down to the planet in a fusion powered single stage to orbit dropship. 13:46 That picture is actually of the Catapult 2... which is honestly an underwhelming successor with questionable design choices. "We have limited resources, use what you have." Another astute read of the setting. A lot of times, refits are driven less by a desired role, instead happening because of a lack of desired parts and ammunition. Might take a while to find something both fits the holes and has adequate use to your tastes, but go for it. The breakdown of Catapult Pilot thinking makes a lot of sense to me, which I don't have much concern over! Kurita is basically interchangeable with Draconis Combine, being their ruling royal house. And yes, they're the Feudal Japan idolizing maniacs who took too many notes from Imperial Japan..... with fun and cool looking toys. The thing about Rocket Launchers is that unlike missile racks, they can't be reloaded from onboard ammo bins. So each bundle of rockets is a one time thing. Arguably useful for headhunting and opening salvos... but I'm not a fan. They also lack guidance systems. Though if you do like the sheer volume of dumb fire and wish it was good for more than one salvo, use MRMs. 19:32 That is old art. Back when all the mechwarrior, especially the women, were depicted as wearing minimal clothing outside of their cooling vest. So lots of mesh, pseudo-swimwear, and skin. The 80's! In fairness to Tex riffing on the Chimney Kittens every chance he gets, they were written to be the meanest of the invading Clans, and even the other clans didn't like them prior to the invasion. Heck, that's why the counterattack into clan space was focused on the Jaguars, and why the other clans did nothing or made popcorn. If you want to see Tex vocally pop off in MWO, "THE KINGDOM OF MADNESS" will serve you well. I get and don't get gun nerds who collect. Partly because I just don't have the budget or any chance of the budget to be a collector AND financially solvent. Books, articles, and youtube videos are adequate. Space Station 13 is a lot. Also, sadly, some of the mods are buzzkills and isolationist elitists. I've heard especially bad things about the Clonial Marine servers, with the marines having to deal with admin bs on top of being balanced so that they almost always lose. The BPL does have a twitch channel. And a youtube vod channel.

[@WolfHreda]

19:34 Tex and the BPL have a video where they just rip on the old art from the 80s and early 90s with George Ledoux, best known in the Battletech fandom as the voice of Duncan Fisher, Solaris VII announcer and former champion. Probably not great reaction material, but a fun watch.

[@ShasOFish]

It’s a real sign of the fandom that there’s multi-hour long videos about the lore, with loving detail and scope ranging from specific events and products to major multi-year campaigns, and videos from the exact same people clearly drinking and having a great time making (loving) fun of the very same franchise for the wildly variable production quality.

[@WolfHreda]

@ShasOFish agreed. It's been wonderful to see this niche franchise that I first loved in middle school get bigger and more popular.

[@diarrheadan3601]

The most survival mechs usually have a very common trait - Standard Parts No coconut fiber armor, bunk bed heatsinks, Army Universal Digital Camo, custom wide engines, and anything else that requires an Associates Degree at minimum to install.

[@EndlessInfinity1]

15:47 after all the good mechs got nuked in the first succession war, the great houses basically picked whatever they had lying around and said "good enough" then sent it to the front lines. This is why you get the urb fighting in open fields and the rifleman, an anti-aircraft sniper, brawling at close range.

[@Prich319]

Or how the Charger, a "heavy scout" and understatement to bad government choices found itself being a 80 ton luchador on the front lines.

[@tenchraven]

The thing about Battletech lore is that it starts in an alternate mid-1980s, and currently is in the 3150s. No one can remember it all. Other than remember that as much of a mess the SLDF's procurement system was, their tech was made to last. Mechs were designed to be danger close to nuclear detonations, and have it be an inconvenience. Not vaporized. Not slightly melted and the pilot is dead in a few days. Inconvenienced, as in knocked over and rebooting while the paintjob burns. (Up the Black Watch!) So a tech with a 4th grade education and a half eaten toolbox... yeah, they keep working. Clans build for dueling, the League built for total, large scale war.

[@dj11o9er]

Tbh I don't really think mechs can actually TANK nukes, considering... well... *Looks at the Black Watch...* Only the hand of a Highlander remained after five got nuked

[@chrisbaldwin8570]

The Catapult was just a design that worked. The large cockpit gave good visibility to the pilot and made training in it a breeze. It didn't have arms, so if it fell it usually needed help to stand back up but so do most tanks. It's armament meant that it could act as mobile artillery or fire support, keeping the skies clear from enemy aerospace assets while bombarding enemy strong points, then moving location to avoid counter battery. If it did get caught, it could brawl a bit thanks to a decent speed and moderate armor for its class. Maintenance was easy since it was essentially a bunch of parts made in mass that were used in multiple mechs and its design meant that if you had say a damaged LRM box you just took off the box and put on another LRM system so the mech could return to service while you repaired the part. Easy access to important systems and a deluge of basic parts meant the Catapult could return quickly to the battlefield even if it was caught, which considering its role and speed it usually wasn't. You really needed some quicker mediums or light mechs to hunt these things down, what with Jump Jets making it capable of using rough terrain to shelter and hide it and it's top speed meaning most heavy and assault mechs simply can't catch it.

[@taylorkeating6884]

This video was peak of the shit talking era of Tex Talks BattleTech. In an interview on Sarna, Tex was asked "Which video didn’t hit as well as you thought it might’ve?" He immediately pointed to this video. He felt some of the comedy bits were a bit much, and he leaned into the memes a bit hard. He also felt the Tukayyid video didn't hit as hard as it could have because it was rushed.

[@EndlessInfinity1]

20:21 One thing to keep in mind with mech design, especially when comparing IS mechs to clan mechs, the clanner mechs are so damn expensive because 90% of the time they use a chassis and armor that's significantly lighter but also bulkier and more expensive. It does mean that they can fit more guns though - especially so because clan versions are frequently smaller and lighter than their IS counterparts. In IS terms for heavy mechs, two lrm 15s and 4 medium lasers is solid for a 65 ton mech.

[@bthsr7113]

Inner Sphere mechs get a lot closer to Clan mech prices once they started using loads of XL engines in their designs.

[@EndlessInfinity1]

17:51 Kurita : Draconis Combine Steiner : Lyran Commonwealth Marik : Free Worlds League Liao : Cappellan Confed. Davion: Federated Suns The Terran Hedgemony was basically House Cameron, but nobody called it "Cameron". Rasalhauge didn't really have a house given that it was remade out of a section of the Draconis Combine and then gobbled up by the clans, and the periphery states are just their names (Magistracy of Canopus, Taurian Concordate, Outworlds Alliance, Rimworld Republic) Right before the clans attack, steiner and davion have a period of intermarriage and merge into the Federated Commonwealth, but that breaks up in the 3060s during the Fedcom civil war (which is the fun era where the IS starts using omni tech and clan gear) Comstar technically has a breakoff faction, the Word of Blake, but that comes after the Fedcom civil war and most lore folk stay away from the Jihad era.

[@schaddenkorp6977]

Minor correction, the Word of Blake came into being around 3055~ and it was in the wake of Anastasius Focht’s reforming of Comstar along more secular lines.

[@michaelkimberling7307]

The first place trophy for the “doesn’t play well with others” trophy went to Nicolas Kerensky 34:36 Portuguese

[@avsbes98]

To this day the Catapult is my favourite mech. It's not the flashiest or the biggest one, but it's simply ol'reliable.

[@avsbes98]

I would actually argue that one of the most important advantages of the Catapult is that it's basically a kind of Proto-Omnimech. You don't need to cut open arms to take out lasers and replace them with ACs or whatever - you simply take off the boxes and put whatever else you want it to use on there.

[@refurbishedtechpriest9076]

Though I grew up on clan-tech (MechWarrior 2 was my go-to game for the better part of a decade in my youth), the catapult is a solid mech and one of my favorites from the Inner Sphere. What's not to love about a good, reliable, long-range fire-support platform?

[@WolfHreda]

Clan Wolverine's "Cool Guys Who Don't Play Well with Others" Award won't make sense to you for a while. But there's a fantastic dramatization of it in Tex's "Exodus to Elementals: A Primer of the Clans." Also, you'll learn a bit more about the Eridani Light Horse in a few places, but especially at the end of the Amaris Civil War. They're one of the coolest mercenary units in the whole setting, with a nice little detail about their ceremonial flagpoles. Needless to say, they were the right choice for running Smoke Jaguar to ground and annihilating them. My god, you have so many good videos ahead of you.

[@vykryl65]

Think BigRed40 has a video on the Wolverine's history

[@Bluehairedgirl89]

Heya! Thank you for the time and effort that you put into reacting to this video. It’s always awesome to see someone enjoying Battletech lore! So a lot of the comments have already explained this but it lets me talk about some of my favorite things so I’ll add my own thoughts which may or may not be right given the lore. Basically the Star League was big on standardizing and as much as possible they designed parts, components, and weapons to be interchangeable. Which makes sense given the size of their whole empire and the successor states mostly got their wargear from the Star League or from Star League contractors so the same applies to most of their machines. So not only are these mechs designed to be last a long time but you are rarely going to find yourself in a situation where you can’t find a specific part to slot into a mech to replace a damaged one. That played a huge part in keeping machines alive for hundreds of years during the succession wars and beyond. The designs that required rare or customer components ended up as hangar queens or museum pieces pretty quick. Also in the game there are special rules you can use called Design Quirks which can be used in more advanced games to add extra elements. One of my favorite mechs the Thunderbolt has two design quirks Rugged, which means that it is incredibly easy to repair even when damaged while handling wear and tear very easily. And Ubiquitous, which means that so many of these machines were produced that you can literally walk into a scrap yard on any planet and probably find spare parts for your machine. So that gives you an idea of how much elements likes logistics and the long service lives of mechs is worked into the DNA of the Battletech game and universe.

[@ReinaSaurus]

battletech has a technology concept similar to warhammer 40k and its standard technology contructs. so-called memory core from the star league era are being safekept by factions to keep the access of data and blueprints to themselves. the manuals of star league era tech are made that way that even uneducated personnel would be able to perform maintenance and simple construction tasks. plus the older mech designs tend to be rugged design concepts built so simple that they can easily be supported with resources and spare parts, a bit like the leman russ battle tank from 40k.

[@screamingcactus1753]

The main difference being that they're still allowed to innovate off of those standard designs. Technology is still capable of progressing, just not consistently or reliably thanks to the scale and volatility of the setting.

[@Yacovo]

During the Succession Wars a lot of tech was lost. Some mechs too. This is why the Charger is still around and more of them are not in a junkyard. A lot of mechs and even their production lines persisted, but they had to have their designs downgraded when the factories for their special parts like Endosteel Skeletons Arrow-IV missile launchers got nuked. Thanks for the video.

[@Balevolt]

Most Succession Wars Mechs are Hundred of years old so you are correct. Omni mechs weren't a thing yet but maintenance on them is easier but modding the non pod space is harder.

[@reecedignan8365]

19:34 ahh say hello to the 80s art of a Mechwarriors uniform. And best part this isn’t just some 80s stuff this is actual canon to what the vast majority of everyday Mechwarrior wear in the Inner Sphere. Your nurohelmet to connect you to your mech/aerospace fighter. Your coolant vest to plug into your mech so that it keeps your body cooled through liquid coolant gel that moves through the internal and external pipes to regulate your body heat… as the inside of a mechs cockpit gets hot… like sauna hot even without doing anything but moving. Start shooting weapons and throwing on your jump jets which produce lots of heat.. you can guess how hot it can get for some mechs. Then your everyday combat shorts for comfort And a pair of usually knee high leather combat boots to protect the footsies. Note. This is the “standard” wear. In reality it’s completely down to the Mechwarrior. Can’t afford a coolant suit? Well some pilots just free ball it in the cockpit. Some wear nice bathing suits underneath their vest if they have one. Some try to wear some more modest stuff but have been doing to actually kill themselves due to heat exhaustion/exposure for to long. However, there is a jump up stage too. The coolant suit is a full body suit that works similar to the vest but as implied covers the full body from neck to toe. The suit was designed for and used by the SLDF with the Royal Regiments all having them by the end of the Star League and the majority of SLDF line units. However, lower down SLDF units on the list alongside militias primarily had to wear the above unless they both their own first before eventually getting issued one someday. As such when the SLDF left, they took the cast majority of these coolant suits with them and the clans would continue to use and make them as standard issue to their front line warriors - second line and solahma warrior units are 50/50 if given them or not. After the Clan Invasion the IS started getting them back from loot and Diamond Shark and such. By the mid of the clan invasion they were very rare items. You’d find the most senior people in factions owning them and maybe their most loyal troops. By the end of the clan invasion again rare but just cost a bit to purchase. You’d find pretty much all the Elite units having a selection of them inside the unit. Likely a 25% ratio. By the FedCom Civil War practically all elite house units had them and they were trickling down into regular units. By the end of FedCom you’d likely find them as a common sight amongst elite troops and a more uncommon to rare sight amongst regulars. As of the Start and mid of the jihad you’d seen it practically going to uncommon for most. But by the end of the Jihad back to a more rare item for many. As of the Dark Age and current era it’s a hit and miss if a pilot has one or not with I’d say maybe a 1/5 ration of pilots having them still with the higher scale being towards more elite and prestigious units having more over the dregs/commons.

[@CrazyTasteyPi]

On the question of other mechanical not having the longevity of the Catapult, there is a handful of, "ancient designs" that also survived alongside the Catapult and are still pressed into service. Most of them survived because their priloduction lines were preserved though. At the same time there are also "ancient mechs" that still survive because they were just that well built, or were as simple, if not simpler in their design then the Catapult (looking at you Urbie, you silly little monster) that they could still be built and maintained without the need for many resources or man power. On the whole, Catapult and mech like it are just an everlasting reminder in the setting for why mechs are the prominent center piece on the battlefield and why they often become game changers when combat grinds to a stand still.

[@WarhawkTalon]

It probably helped the CATs survive that they were intended as fire support mechs. Even when mechs became more scarce over the Sucession Wars and anything that could was pushed into front-line combat, the Catapults would still be assigned positions behind the brawlers and tanks where their indirect fire could contribute. The Rfileman, a support mech that lacked indirect fire capability, was not so lucky as to avoid front-line deployment, but survived on the basis of it's production continuing.

[@Dwarfman01]

He does have a podcast now. The BPL Podcast. The ongoing joke is that it shares the same name as the Berkeley Public Library podcast.

[@Gustav_Kuriga]

The "Gluger" is a photoshopped (I hope) Glock/Luger hybrid. It is not a real gun. It cannot hurt you (maybe).

[@ObsidianDragon7030]

SOMEONE is gonna make it. It is inevitable

[@Jonnyg325]

It doesn't matter if the gun is real, IT HAUNTS MY NIGHTMARES MAKE IT STOP

[@weirdnerd101]

So a core thing to keep in mind about tech or mech's in BattleTech is that everything is ragnarok-proof and will last centuries, any tech that was not ceased to exist centuries ago

[@JetBalrog]

That's... a good point.

[@JetBalrog]

Edit: Had I just hit play I would've seen that you looked something up on it after I hit pause. Welp. Not deleting this comment though. 29:16 Space Station 13 (and now Space Station 14 on Steam- remake in a new engine, easier to get into) is... it's like playing Rimworld where each colonist is an actual person, with usually a focus on roleplaying. It has a framework for loads of custom content and years upon years of community jokes that have become real things and all kinds of fiddly systems to learn. There's different departments like engineering, science, security, logistics, medical, and service- sometimes there's outliers, but it depends on the server. The game plays in rounds (or shifts) where each person picks a role and uh... roleplays as that while trying to either keep the station going while interacting with others or possibly having randomly rolled an antagonist because you left the checkboxes on, whose job is to make the round more interesting. There's a lot more depth here than that, but that's the gist of it. Logistics has people who deliver mail which generates money that the department head can use to buy supplies for everyone else, and also salvagers who go out and bring raw and salvaged materials back- and in Space Station 13 (SS13) they have an entire lava covered rock they harvest for materials and functionally it's like traveling the surface of Mars during a demon invasion in DOOM. That's just one department- and not even everything they do. Engineers work on fixing stuff and powering the station but can also blow up the station by hooking the wrong pipe into the wrong machine and overloading everything because they didn't read the manual first - which the game has. There's a wacky surgery system in place that is a lot more in depth in SS13 than in SS14, like being able to replace body parts with unrealistic items. SS13/SS14 is a massive rabbit hole that is a very big pastime of mine lately, but I am TERRIBLE at any actual combat interactions. I just like making the station work a little bit better and trying to be helpful while roleplaying an on-edge Harpy alien who sings to their self to relax and tries not to snap because of people being incompetent. It's oddly fun.

[@TheStrayHALOMAN]

This is my favorite mech because I play MechWarrior Living Legends for days straight until like 1am on the weekends and the Catapult in that game has 2 ERPPC and 4 LB-2X with IJJ and 10.5t of armor. It hits hard can fly well and it's hitboxes are so narrow that it's CT is extremely easy to shield. People make the mistake of calling the Catapult a Missile boat but it's not great for that... It's a generalist skirmisher with alot of LRMs and 4 medium lasers that can jump far and complements other assets of it's speed quite well. If you want LRM support buy a carrier or a trebuchet they're so much better lighter and cheaper. The Trebuchet is also faster and jumps just as far.

[@tv_tim]

I love the Battletech cartoon, I even had one of the toys in the early 90's. I also love that it's still canon (sort of) in the best way possible. Also, if you want to see Space Station 13 stuff, Tex has a playlist of lots of videos on the BPL channel.

[@TheRedshirt93]

We here in the Battletech community try our best to be as understanding as possible. It makes competitive games unironically more fun that way. Also, as a wargame with seriously deep lore, we understand that it can be very confusing for a newcomer. So don't worry about not getting things right. You may be corrected in the comments, but only because we're trying to be helpful.

[@buddyburroughs6072]

That was Portuguese. Goat i forget i believe he was born in the US but spent quite a bit of time growing up in Brazil.

[@ObsidianDragon7030]

BRAZIL MENTIONED!

[@franksmedley8619]

Hello LW. Yeah, simple Mechs like the Catapult, Urbanmech, Locust, and many others, survived because they were easy to work on, could use readily available parts and supplies, and weapons and weapons systems that were easy, or at least not impossible, to build and utilize. About 70 percent of the old 3025 Mechs could use components salvaged from a similar weight Mech. Meaning that the Stinger and Wasp shared about 85 percent of their components between them. The Urbanmech bypassed this compatibility issue by being entirely built 'on the cheap' out of easily made, or salvaged, parts and components. Even the weapons were 'basic' enough to be mostly available upon almost any planet you'd care to name. Since things like guided missiles, fire and forget, and other systems were 'lost', that meant that LRMs and SRMs were shorter ranged, and could be pumped out by manufacturing at a fairly high speed. The Launchers, however, took longer and more tooling, and thus were less available, but available enough to make them attractive to produce and ship out to customers. Things like LRM-20 and LRM15 racks were somewhat expensive to produce and maintain, but the smaller LRM systems, like the LRM-5 and LRM-10 were much more readily available. The same holds true for the SRM launchers and their missiles. With the SRM-2 being far more available than the SRM-6. Ballistic weapons, especially the smaller ones, were easier to make for most decent planetary manufacturing, whereas the larger AC-20s were far more labor intensive, and resource demanding. Specialty rounds (HESH, HEAT, etc) were basically forgotten until the spreading of the Helm Memory Core returned that knowledge back to the Inner Sphere's manufacturing base. Mech sized Machine-guns though, were always available. If you can make small cannons (20mm, 30mm, etc), you can make Mech MGs. One would think that the venerable .50 Cal MG would be more than sufficient for Mech to Mech combat, but that does not seem to be the case. There have been feuds over caliber sizes for decades now on the subject. My own personal opinion is that Mech MGs run between .75 and 100 caliber (100 caliber being one inch in diameter). I can, however see the argument for .50 Cal MGs with steel penetration cores doing similar damage. Tungsten-Titanium-Steel penetrators would 'do the trick' I would think. In any case, when I started playing Battletech in 1984, and all through the 90s, I tended to replace harder to obtain weapons systems with easier to obtain and cheaper versions. So, if I had to replace an LRM-20 rack, and one was not readily available, I would replace it with five LRM-5 launchers instead. The LRM-20 weighs 10 tons, and the LRM5 only weigh 2 tons. Both use the same LRM ammo bin, which contains 120 missiles. Now yes, you can do the math too. I was replacing a 20 missile single weapon, with five 5 missile racks, which ends up firing 5 more missiles for the same weight. You can see why fellow players thought that was 'cheating', even though the numbers say it is a fair exchange. The only real problem in playing the new set up is that I would have to roll five times to hit vs the single dice roll of the LRM-20 launcher. And, if I replaced both LRM-20 racks of an Archer, it would require 10 such die rolls 'to hit' and 10 'number of missiles' hitting rolls to determine just how many hit the target. And do this EVERY TIME that I fired those launchers. Another 'issue' was burning through ammo in the Mech. An Archer has four tons of ammo, so 480 total missiles. With two LRM-20 launchers, this is 40 missiles per 'turn' of combat, which means the Mech burns through that 480 missiles in 12 game turns. By replacing the LRM-20s with multiple LRM-5s, I fire 50 missiles per game turn, which runs through that 480 missiles in 9.6 game turns (the 7th round only fires 30 missiles. All that is left of the ammo in the Mech). This is what led me down the rabbit hole of building my own Mechs out of other salvaged Mech parts. For instance, a bunch of Atlas parts to build a 100-ton Mech. Mounted with 2 Large Lasers, and 12 LRM-5 launchers. LRM ammo for LRM-5s is 24 shots per ton. This is 24 salvos of 5 missile each, which is a total of 120 total missiles, the same as a single ton of LRM-20 ammo. Six tons of ammo for the LRM-5s work out to be 720 total missiles. 12 LRM-5 launchers fire a total of 60 missiles per game turn of combat, and would 'eat' through that 720 missiles in 12 turns. By the way, the above does not change the Engine size, armor tonnage, speed of the Mech, or anything else about the Atlas, other than the weapons and ammunition installed. They only 'real' difference was in the number of heat sinks, which dropped from 20, down to a total of 16. 12 LRM-5s generate 24 heat, so the heat sinks can easily be overwhelmed and overheat the Mech quickly. But, the 2 Large Lasers generate a total of 16 heat, and thus are 'safe' to fire and accumulate only the heat generated by movement. The above Atlas variant I dubbed the 'Gruesome', and it was met with a LOT of controversy when I fielded it after the first time. I pointed out that LRM-5 launchers were more available and in larger numbers than the larger LRM-20, and that the cost for missiles was not really an issue, compared with the cost savings in using the smaller launchers 'en-mass'. The addition of the Large Lasers was never an issue. Using the Mech, I would quickly run to place the Mech waist deep into any nearby body of water, which would increase the efficiency of cooling the Mech. Enough so that I could fire at least 2 full salvos before only firing half as many to cool back to zero heat. Rinse and repeat. For some reason, my opponents hated such 'missile showers', and demanded a ban on the Gruesome design. I even 'fixed' the overheating by removing both Large Lasers and replacing them with 4 medium lasers, and 6 more heat sinks, which pushed cooling up to the point that the Mech could 'run and gun' without generating any excess heat. Even this did not appease them. Ah well, efficient Mech design be damned when you keep getting your head handed to you by a guy that liked efficiency, I guess. Their complaints boiled down to 'unfair, not fun to play against, and are you sure that's legal?'. As for the Catapult? I did the exact same thing with that Mech as well, exchanging the LRM-15s for multiple LRM-5s. It still worked, still put out massive showers of missiles (two LRM-15s is a total of 14 tons. That translates to SEVEN 2-ton LRM-5 racks). Two times 15 gives 30 missiles per salvo. Seven times 5 gives 35 missiles. Not much of a 'boost', but still more missiles 'downrange' at the target per turn. By keeping to the Catapult missile shower rate, and using only 6 LRM-5 launchers, I gain 2 tons for additional ammo, which the Mech sorely needs. The Catapult comes with only a single ton of ammo, allowing for a total of 8 salvos of missiles. By adding 2 more tons of ammo, that increases up to 24 such salvos of 30 missiles per turn. Thus making the Mech more 'efficient'. And yes, the group 'banned' that design as well. Go figure.

[@ObsidianDragon7030]

29:28 SsethTzeentach has a video about Space Station 13 if you want to watch it. He also Mentions Outright Having played with Discount Dan and other members of the BPL so there's a connection there as well.

[@ObsidianDragon7030]

Also HAIL CARGONIA!

[@Akabans999]

Stuf in Battletech is built to last for centuries with basic maintnace.

[@RaderizDorret]

That Genetically Engineered Snu Snu is a Female Elemental. Elementals are pretty much power-armored super soldiers that specialize in swarming over mechs and literally tearing those mechs apart.

[@ShasOFish]

They’re also really good at football.

[@dagonofthedepths]

Really lore wise the Urbie lasted forever because they made a ton of those things, and nobody wanted to use them. So, you have that situation of having all the good stuff blown to hell and all you have left is the Urbie. I think the Charger ended up in the same boat. Most armies reject it until it's the only game in town so they are pressed into service and refitted to be better than the old design. I don't think any mech has a shelf life though. People find old mechs all the time but I think that's more of a game mechanic.

[@krakixel]

Since you're showing interest into SS13. Look up BOTH Mandalore and Sseth's videos on SS13. You'll then understand how Tex really likes to goof off.

[@jordanrea2311]

25:24 well in lore there is this one time a franken mech fell over after boot up and kind of just flooded the cockpit with engine coolant and kind of just melted the pilot to the cockpit permanently

[@ToonamiUnleashed]

mechassault was 2 games on the original xbox and was a 3rd person mech shooter that was way more arcade like in the way it played. it was pretty fun honestly but that might be nostalgia talking

[@brothersgt.grauwolff6716]

the Catapult really benefits from having a good light spotter like the Raven in the lance

[@bthsr7113]

Ah, the Raven. I hope to one day hear Tex Talk about that little monster. Fantastic scout/spotter (aside from slow speed) to call down storms fire on hostiles.

[@Geeko170]

All Clans has genetically engineered snu snu. Hells Horses just happens to have the most of them. Also they have battle armor that are literally horses.

[@bthsr7113]

Hell's Horses also debuted the genetic tampering to create those elementals.

[@urando3042]

He actually has a Podcast.

[@refurbishedtechpriest9076]

I just want to say, even as someone who came to love the clans first by way of MechWarrior 2, Smoke Jaguar deserves ALL of the hate and roasting they get... They're so bad that even some of their own warriors can't stand the clan. If you know, you know... **Laughs in "Exodus Road".**

[@boxtank5288]

Oh yeah, by the by: The Skimpy clothes on that Mech Jockey halfway through the video? That's sort of standard actually because yeah while a Mech can be kept nice and cool with enough Heatsinks, they don't do MUCH for the pilot, without a Cooling Vest, the cockpit becoming practically an Oven would be a recipe for Heatstroke. And even then the Cooling Vest isn't enough, so yeah, you'll end up wearing basically your skivvies, the Vest and the Neurohelmet (And if you're lucky it ain't the discount Galactus Helmet looking shit but a Modern Helmet but you never know) whilst you rock in combat with something that kind of cooks your Neurons but also gets you feeling REALLY FUCKING GOOD, like cocaine, also a bit frisky post combat.

[@drac116]

Highly reccomend watching Tex' SS13/ss14 episodes. No review will do a better job of understanding that game than actually watching a round be played.

[@TheMongral]

Ah Catapult, the most useful "Boring" mech ever. The sheer modability, and balanced loadout guarantees that even though its most effective at long range (usually), the fact it generally can fit a good number of medium lasers means even if you get in its face it actually has a decent amount of bite to it, and the 10 tons of armor, and decent speed means it isn't a sitting duck. It's a shockingly decent brawler in spite of the initial appearance. You won't be charging headlong into battle on the frontline without an SRM loadout, but if you need to run to the front line to back folks up you'll lose very little efficacy. It ain't fast, but considering so much stuff in the inner sphere is a hodgepodge of whatever, somehow the catapult is one of the most consistent bundles of chaos in the galaxy.

[@Gustav_Kuriga]

Mechassault was an amazing game. It's just not canonical. It was some of the best mech gameplay on the original Xbox.

[@hakonsgaming535]

Are all mechs built like this? Yes and no. Like any complicated machine there's a lot of variation in mech quality, reliability, and ease of maintenance, the Catapult is an excellent example of just about peak reliability as far as mechs go, it doesn't have any really glaring flaws beyond the limitations of its design, however it's far from the only mech like that, I can name half a dozen other mechs with similar longevity off the top of my head and probably a dozen or so more if I actually thought about it.

[@Jonnyg325]

Griffin, from back when medium wasn't a class. Stalker because the thing is a brick. Spider for reasons I can't understand. Quickdraw.

[@plaguegroup7066]

Woooooooo battletech 🔥🔥🔥 One of my top 6 mechs ya

[@Jonnyg325]

Ah Clan Coyote Space Magic™, get high and build impossible shit. They are actually one of the nicer clans, for being weirdos by clan standards. The H&K award is because Heckler and Koch are famous in gun circles for being visionaries making truly spectacular designs. And also being the dumbasses who replace a steel slide with aluminum to make it lighter which ends up fouling the gun because the slide now moves too fast for the bullet to get into the chamber during the cycle.

[@Gellert1984]

Y'know, Tex casually mentions in one vid that his (ex-?)wifes a clanner. Wonder if she was from Hells Horses.

[@cursedhawkins1305]

My opinion, but you should give "Science Insanity" a listen to every now and then, because their videos can be hilarious at times, especially if you say were to watch the Highlander video first and seen the birth of a meme involving the name.

[@TheShardsFamily]

Oh more Tex context nice, these videos are some of the few I rewatch alot on youtube Light horse was a merc group...that became the first unit addrd to the remade SLDF and to face down clan jaguar...by going to the jags home world

[@ramezhachicho1777]

The answer is NO my friend. Not all mechs are built to last. Or even to work .. At least not in the manner intended. The catapult is one of the few machines like the Awesome, The Hunchback and the Warhammer that seems honestly designed to do it'sd job rather than to make money XD

[@gallendugall8913]

The point of recycled content is the KZbin algorithm which doesn't care about content, only engagement... which it generates with the algorithm. So if someone makes a popular video you can rip it off and the algorithm will push people to it because they liked the original so they'll like this. And because KZbin doesn't worry about the consequences of their actions they reward people exploiting them and real content creators in the laziest way possible.

[@ObiwanNekody]

6:35 it's important to remember that what makes a choice 'good' is rarely a simple thing when it is being made at the scale at wich governments make choices.

[@zoewhyumadbro3090]

while the catapult is a very good example of mechs that endured through the succession wars, many other mechs that were simple in their composition and maintenance, or were just overproduced to all hell (shoutout to the locust and banshee) also survived the dark age of tech. in general, if it was from the star league era and had fancy components, like endo steel structure, ferro fibrous armor, or targetting computers, a mech had to be severely refit or couldnt survive thanks to the parts not being easily producable. in addition, any mechs which were standouts before the succession wars, like the king crab, got targeted the most and their factorys were destroyed really quickly. thats why many old mechs still in use, are made up of only simple components

[@tinkerlin8235]

Youre not an AI? SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING AN AI WOULD SAY!

[@TheLegitWeebs]

I just can't win huh xD

[@Balevolt]

"That" is s'mores made in a cast iron skillet

[@smokescreen230]

Just another commenter requesting you watch Sseth's Space Station 13 video.

[@ObiwanNekody]

Thank you for sharing 😊

[@boldluckless1945]

My favorite mech😊

[@aliceosako792]

If you want some fun, do a livestream viewing of the first episode of the _BattleTech_ animated series from the 1990s. While it is in many ways typical Saturday morning cartoon jank from that time, it was a step above most of its contemporaries (Except _Exo-Squad_ , which was a bit better TBH) and at least made an attempt to be true to the lore. Also, FASA (the original creators of the tabletop game) later retconned the series into canon as a propaganda show for children in what was at the time the Federated Commonwealth. The Mech commander the series used as its main character, Adam Steiner, would briefly be the Archon of the Lyran Alliance after the FedCom Civil War before the Jihad hit. Also, after going through Tex's videos, try Sven van der Plank's series, he covers the history of the Inner Sphere from 1990 to 3025 in excruciating detail, including parts normally touched on lightly such as the Age of War (the period of early colonial expansion and the founding of the Great Houses) and the Reunification War (which was basically a team-bonding exercise for the newly formed Star League in which the member Houses all ganged up on the Periphery states for 20 years). If nothing else, you need to see the opening of the first episode his series on the First Succession War, as just the first few minutes of it are staggering. He starts out in the fashion of The Fallen of World War II , with a set of graphics showing the relative casualties of the Age of War, the Reunification War, and the Amaris Civil War. This is followed by a similar graphic for the First Succession War... except that whereas the others all appeared together on a single page, this one was page after page of figures each representing a million dead. To put it another way: both the Reunification War and the Amaris Civil War had death counts around 100 million total. In the First Succession War, there were multiple instances of _billions_ dying on individual worlds.

[@hakonsgaming535]

And another thing, Space Station 13 is a little like amog us, insofar as amog us is a cheap bastardized copy of SS13 with 90% of everything good about it removed.