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A Mechwarrior: Destiny Review
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<blockquote data-quote="Abstruse" data-source="post: 8773049" data-attributes="member: 6669048"><p>This is actually explained in the backstory of BattleTech. During First and Second Succession Wars, the Inner Sphere quite literally bombed themselves back to the Bronze Age (not an exaggeration, outside of major urban colonies, a lot of places went that far back in terms of technology).</p><p></p><p>The standard combat during those wars were WarShips wielding nuclear weapons fired from orbit to obliterate industrial production centers and other crucial infrastructure of their opponents. And of course their opponents did the same to them. The only defense against a WarShip was another WarShip so pretty soon they were shooting one another out of space until eventually, there were no WarShips left and there was no way to build anymore of them because all the manufacturing plants were also destroyed.</p><p></p><p>Everybody involved basically stopped and said "Hey, wait, if we keep doing this, we won't even have access to faster than light travel anymore and what's the point of ruling the galaxy when you can't go anywhere?" so agreed mutually to stop orbital nuclear bombardments, no longer attack JumpShips (the non-combat civilian FTL ships, though the in-system military DropShips were still fair targets), and do their best to preserve what little advanced technology they had left.</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile Comstar's running around making sure nobody else rediscovers any lost technology because they managed to proclaim neutrality and escaped with little damage to their technology bases. Since they didn't (technically) have a standing military, they used their control of the interstellar communications network to create an intelligence agency that ensured they could prevent anyone else from advancing and maintain the balance of "Just Slightly Hotter than a Cold War" level of diplomacy between factions.</p><p></p><p>Now all this is handwavy backstory to explain why the fates of entire planets can be played out between a handful of units on a battlefield covering two poster maps, but it <em>is </em>an essential part of the setting that explains how they can have giant 100 ton robots running around the place but no advanced missile targeting systems capable of turning street corners after being fired from 10 km away or anything else we have in the modern day.</p><p></p><p>The BattleTech and MechWarrior games are meant to create a world of feudal politics and small-scale skirmishes but with giant laser robots instead of armored knights. And the original creators were well aware of hot unrealistic that concept is thinking about even then-modern technology let alone the more recent advancements with smart missiles and drones. So they specifically created a future-history for the world that justifies the sort of gameplay they were going for in a way that makes a bit of logical sense. It's an anachronistic sci-fi world by intention and one of the reasons I love the setting is they did put in the work to create plausible excuses. Why are ranges so short? Because they wanted the battles on a scale where different weapon choices made significant difference to the tactics of the battle in terms of maneuvering and position, so they wrote a world where all advanced targeting computers are extinct and pilots have to essentially eyeball every shot.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Abstruse, post: 8773049, member: 6669048"] This is actually explained in the backstory of BattleTech. During First and Second Succession Wars, the Inner Sphere quite literally bombed themselves back to the Bronze Age (not an exaggeration, outside of major urban colonies, a lot of places went that far back in terms of technology). The standard combat during those wars were WarShips wielding nuclear weapons fired from orbit to obliterate industrial production centers and other crucial infrastructure of their opponents. And of course their opponents did the same to them. The only defense against a WarShip was another WarShip so pretty soon they were shooting one another out of space until eventually, there were no WarShips left and there was no way to build anymore of them because all the manufacturing plants were also destroyed. Everybody involved basically stopped and said "Hey, wait, if we keep doing this, we won't even have access to faster than light travel anymore and what's the point of ruling the galaxy when you can't go anywhere?" so agreed mutually to stop orbital nuclear bombardments, no longer attack JumpShips (the non-combat civilian FTL ships, though the in-system military DropShips were still fair targets), and do their best to preserve what little advanced technology they had left. Meanwhile Comstar's running around making sure nobody else rediscovers any lost technology because they managed to proclaim neutrality and escaped with little damage to their technology bases. Since they didn't (technically) have a standing military, they used their control of the interstellar communications network to create an intelligence agency that ensured they could prevent anyone else from advancing and maintain the balance of "Just Slightly Hotter than a Cold War" level of diplomacy between factions. Now all this is handwavy backstory to explain why the fates of entire planets can be played out between a handful of units on a battlefield covering two poster maps, but it [I]is [/I]an essential part of the setting that explains how they can have giant 100 ton robots running around the place but no advanced missile targeting systems capable of turning street corners after being fired from 10 km away or anything else we have in the modern day. The BattleTech and MechWarrior games are meant to create a world of feudal politics and small-scale skirmishes but with giant laser robots instead of armored knights. And the original creators were well aware of hot unrealistic that concept is thinking about even then-modern technology let alone the more recent advancements with smart missiles and drones. So they specifically created a future-history for the world that justifies the sort of gameplay they were going for in a way that makes a bit of logical sense. It's an anachronistic sci-fi world by intention and one of the reasons I love the setting is they did put in the work to create plausible excuses. Why are ranges so short? Because they wanted the battles on a scale where different weapon choices made significant difference to the tactics of the battle in terms of maneuvering and position, so they wrote a world where all advanced targeting computers are extinct and pilots have to essentially eyeball every shot. [/QUOTE]
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