GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

So I'm working on a BattleTech setting to run a campaign in, but I'm really unsure how to work out the mechanics of the heatsinks heat build up for the mechs. Anyone familiar with BattleTech got any ideas?

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Heat shunting is the limiting factor on the performance of BattleTech mechs, just as "energy" is for Star Trek. A mech can be overtaxed, but it degrades the performance and potentially cooks the pilot.

If you give the machine an HT score based on its heat-shunting ability (relative to its payload) and have it degrade its performance or shut down when it fails a roll, you're halfway there.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Direct and literal translations of BT mechnics to Gurps are problematic because Battletech is set up on a reverse basis from Gurps in some specific aspects.

In Batletech use of weapons is limited by heat but required energy is ignored. Any fusion reactor will provide enough energy to directly power the energy weapons in any combination. One or more PPCs are no harder to power than a small laser.

Gurps cares about the energy but powering the energy weapons from power cells makes a lot more sense than trying to run them directly from the fusion plant. On the other hand Gurps asumes that your Mech is designed efficiently and radiates away waste heat as needed.

I've given up trying top model waste heat problems. About all you could do is transplant BT game mechanics wholesale. After you do that you should probably ignore Gurps' concerns about energy supplies to keep the same feel.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

One option is to use a Action Point system, where you get a certain number of AP per turn (based on your heat sinks) that you can spend on actions. If you overspend you build up heat (borrow from future turns). You could establish thresholds of overspending that hamper you and cook your pilot.

Mechs as characters could have nuisance on advantages (builds X heat) and an advantage (dissipates X heat/turn). Of course, you'd have to work out the costs and restrictions since GURPS wouldn't restrict your "slots" for sticking in weapons and equipment.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Well, the mechs HT score will be used for other things to though. Adding additional heatsinks to a mech will mean it can fire longer and cool down faster but shouldn't on its own bump up the mechs HT. Gonna have to track heat buildup, gonna hve to figure out how fast it drains off, and how much heat any given weapon produces when fired. IIRC in lore the shut down of a mech can be overided, but doing so is dangerous as the heat can cook the pilot and eventually the reactor could go critical if a pilot manages to push a mech far enough. I also belive some mechs are designed to function better when running hot.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

That's from the novels and involves the "Triple Strength Myomer" that Hanse Davion snookered the Liaos with beofre the 3039 war.

Rules for this were eventualy brought into the game books but only one of the special heroes had a special mech fitted with TSM.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Well here is a simple idea to simulate the concept.
Heat Exchanger: Regeneration (Fast, ER only) [50].
Energy Reserve (Heat Sinks) [3/level].

Assuming 1 minute combat rounds for vehicle combat, go with Regeneration (Very Fast) [100] if you want second by second combat.

That gives you a powers build, use Metatronic Generators to convert that to a $$ figure if desired or just make something up.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

yes, run it as fast regenerating ER. Be sure to have the sprinting/jumpjets/lasers all come from ER (and only from ER) to keep the same relationship between movement, energy weapons and ballistic/missile weapons.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Yep, and with Costs FP once the ER is empty points comr from HT so you have your redlining option already part of the setup.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

There are going toi be some problems such as ammuntion using weapons still ahving heat costs too.

The big issue I see is balancing things so that "Mechs that were notorious overheaters in the original material do the same (and to the same extent) in your conversion.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Using the fatigue rules was exactly what I thought when I saw the OP's question. It's how I'd do it.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Well perfect conversions are usually exercises in frustration. But for covering that, especially thigs that generated more heat you can add more Costs FP.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Why are we trying to build vehicles as characters, here?

I'd go for a relatively direct port, probably. Mechs are vehicles, and they have an additional meter for heat accumulation. You can have them gain and lose heat exactly the same ways as in the source material, and translate over the consequences of high heat. (Reduced Handling, rolls against modified HT to not explode, etc.)

It doesn't seem hard to do that in a generally faithful way.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

I'm almost sure I remember some of the mechs on the tabletop having some beneficial heat effects, though I also know think I remember that being dark age stuff and I don't need to worry about anything that far down the timeline.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Going with 60 second or 1 second turns is another thing I'm trying to decide on. I mean, it won't be to unusual for infantry and elementals (Clan power armored genetically modified super infantry) to be running around the battlefield, and also going purely by the lore established by the novels mech a surprisingly (Impossibly) nimble and agile for their size and pilots consistently maneuver and react to things split second.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Mech hand-to-hand combat is a significant setting element. First-person real-time mech piloting games are one of the more prominent elements of the franchise. Mech combat seems no less well suited to second-by-second resolution than personal combat.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Ya, I think that's what I'm gonna go with.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

So I'm thinking a thermal point system where all heat building weapons have a TP score and that's how many TP they generate when firing, heat transferring weapons also build TP when used against any mech they hit. How fast a mech bleeds TP will depend on amount of heat sinks in the mech. When Mechs reach a designated TP threshold they make an HT roll every time they gain more heat, with failure causing overheating effects. At twice the threshold the HT roll is at -2, overheating effects more severe, and the computer starts blasting warnings. At three times rolls are at -4, effects extremely severe, and automatic shutdown has to be manually overridden. At four times the threshold the rolls at -6, any additional heat build up requires more rolls, the overheating effect are crippling, and any critical failure will cause the reactor to begin meltdown and the emergency containment protocols to go off leaving the mech none functional until repair, on an 18 the reactor will just blow up.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

One thing this thread has made clear is that Vehicles 3e (4e?) should include thermal management. It isn't just Battletech, every modern vehicle has and needs a cooling system - easiest way to take out a car is put a bullet through the radiator, and modern spacecraft have massive heat issues.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Short answer:
Use BattleTech for the basic mechanics. Swap the signs of the penalties and just use GURPS characters. It works. Been doing it that way for years.

Beyond that, take a look at MechWarrior: Destiny for some inspiration.
Divide heat sinks by, say 5.
Divide weapon heat by, say 3.
Take every 4th entry on the Heat table.

It'll make heat more manageable, and more interesting for a game.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

This would amount to "Design a cooling system that's big enough to meet your needs and install it." and that's what the rules assume is being done and abstracts the whole process.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Personally, I think some sort of heat management mechanic (and associated design options) would be a welcome addition, but it could add to GURPS' (unearned) negative reputation as an overly-complex system, so I'm generally fine with it being largely abstracted. Spaceships does have a nod to it in the "Main Radiators" option, but that's pretty simple - if you have any systems that call for a Main Radiator, you have to have the Main Radiators open and functional while those systems are in use, and if you close them (or they are damaged/destroyed), you get a set amount of time (regardless of how many such systems you have) before those systems shut down, with the option to extend this by using up coolant stored in fuel tanks.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Not sure if this has been posted or not. I used this article in Roleplayer to run my GURPS Battletech game years ago.

http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/Rolepla...onversion.html

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Aside from spaceships, very few vehicles have a thermal system that isn't simply part of the powerplant, and it's not managed in any way that's separate from managing the engine itself. They certainly do not have a 'pool' into which heat from weapons that has to be managed.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

And, again with the exception of spaceships, real world vehicles with heat problems beyond what they can cover with air cooling generally use expendable coolant, which means you don't get the Battletech "performance declines as heat builds up", you just have "You're fine until you run out of coolant, at which point your engine melts".

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Or you have automatic weapons that are fine until they overheat and then you have to stop using them until they cool (or you've changed the barrel). However, they don't affect the rest of the vehicle, and if they're set up for sustained fire with water-cooling, they usually have good enough cooling that heat simply isn't an issue.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Well, large vehicles tend to be waterborne. That has two advantages, in reducing power demands because of low friction, and in providing a practically unlimited supply of liquid coolant. The coolant is corrosive, but that "just" means you need heat exchangers.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Or you can have the SR-71 and the Concorde that used their fuel as a coolant to keep their skin temperatues down before they burned it as fuel. You ahve to land or refuel before you run out of coolant.

Then there's chemical rockets. They use first use their "fuel" as coolant for their engines and then use it as an energy source and finally use it as reaction mass.

It's nuclear and antimatter thermal rocket engnes that use fuel as coolant and reaction mass only that can melt when they run out.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Like a battlemech, you can continue to use a machine gun or cannon (or for that matter insufficiently cooled internal combustion engine) while it is overheated. It's just damaging and potentially ineffective.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

There's a very narrow band between "Cool enough it's fine" and "It's broken and probably blew up", not at all like BT's heat track. Also, only that one weapon (or engine) has the issue, again quite unlike BT.

As far as I can tell, BT's mech are some crazy piece of steampunk technology where someone, for some reason, ran the steam lines through the crew compartment and if you run the thing at 100% too long it literally cooks the crew.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Is BT's heat track long before stuff starts getting bad? Most computer renditions have made it that way, but my impression from more tabletop-adjacent sources was that the original rules started hurting you almost immediately.

High Tech's 'sustained fire' rules make the band where heat is a problem but permanent damage is only a relatively unlikely possibility twice as long as the band where heat is not yet a problem, and the band where the weapon is damaged but can continue to be used lasts indefinitely past that until the weapon is forced out of action by a rare 'mechanical or electrical problem' malfunction result.

As for localization of heat, it doesn't make much sense that missile launcher and autocannon heat buildup is even there, but for the most part you can attribute heating to the fusion reactor which obviously is plenty hot enough that its waste heat if not properly dissipated could damage surrounding not-a-fusion-reactor parts of the vehicle.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

The PC Games do a bad job of reflecting the "realities" of BattleTech heat.

As few as 5 points of heat (on a 30-point scale) has you suffering -1 MP, which changes your walk/run dynamic (doesn't affect jumping). At 8 points, you start suffering to-hit penalties.

It can get rough. And it can happen fast.

14 is the first shutdown check (a 4+ on 2d6), but 19 is where it starts getting dangerous (your first ammo explosion check, again 4+ on 2d6). Which is why the smart kids avoid ballistic weapons like the plague.

If I'm loaded with energy weapons, I can overheat all I want and only have to worry about shutdown, not being visible from orbit in a visible-light spectrum.

But, unless your life support system is damaged, your cockpit may get uncomfortable but you won't fry. If it is damaged, your mileage may vary, but it'll likely be pretty short.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

I love BattleTech. It's my favorite sci-fi world.

It’s important to remember that BattleTech was, originally, a sort of post-apocalypse sci-fi game. Where the world before was amazing and awesome, and now, you’re living in the rotting carcass of the Star League. In the post 3rd Succession War era (3025-3027 for those playing at home), the majority of humanity is supposed to be teetering on the verge of technological collapse. Most worlds don’t have access to fresh water. Sure, sector and nation capitals are fine, but, beyond that, in GURPS terms, they’re lucky if they’re TL5. TL6 is the standard across the more developed Inner Sphere worlds with access to some (up to TL12) high tech.

The 4th Succession War and the reveal of the Helm Memory Core put the game in an interesting place. Unfortunately, for us players, that information came out six months before the introduction of the Clans. The Clans (and everything since then) were, in my opinion, chasing power creep in the worse possible way.

But, originally, the ‘Mechs were supposed to be, for the most part, cobbled together and more bailin’ wire than actual actuator, so the hinky heat rules made sense. Keep in mind that vehicles don’t generate heat. Ballistic weapons generate zero heat on tanks/vehicles (not counting Aerospace Fighters, but that’s a whole other can of worms), and vehicles must have enough heat sinks to soak all of the heat from their energy weapons (if they have them).

Heat is a resource in BattleTech. It’s a way of pushing your unit beyond what it should be doing, but, there’s a cost associated with it. Do you want to be safe or do you want to have the ability to go out in a blaze of glory? Heat is really hard to emulate in other games, which is why, if I’m playing GURPS BattleTech, I just use GURPS for the character rules, and convert BattleTech from 2d6 roll high to 3d6 roll low. It works just fine.

And remember: it’s always ComStar.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Managing heat build-up is both an art and a science and I take accounts of pilots running their 'Mechs all out until they shut down or blow up to be entertaining fiction.

Some 'Mechs, usually light ones with light weapons only _can_ be run all out without heat issues. I don't think you can overheat a Locust before battle damage shoots off most of its' heat sinks and it'll be odd damage that only affects the heat sinks without killing the small and lightly armored Locust.

With big and heavily armed 'Mechs you just do a little dance. Suppose you'ver got a 75 ton Marauder with 2 PPCs (particle beams) a sort of odd large caliber "Autocannon" (fluff text makes it 120mm) and 2 Medium Lasers.

Range considerations make it inefficient to try and fire absolutely all weapons at the same time so mostly you do both PPCs (10 heat each) and the Autocannon (1 heat) on your first Turn of firing and then 1 PPC and the cannon and back to the 2 and 1 mix on alternating turns. You or your enemy probably run out of armor before very long.

Gambling everything by firing all your weapons every turn is impatience and bad decision-making usually.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Huh, I'm not to familiar with the lore until around the fourth succession war and I never got the sense any world was so poor off as to be TL 5, hell, I never got the sense anyone was living at less the TL 7 at that point.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

If you read the original BattleTech and BattleDroids they talk about it a bit, but MechWarrior 1st Edition goes into more detail. The characters--MechWarriors--are the exception to the world. They're supposed to be special. Many locations across the Inner Sphere (back in the '80's) was low-tech with a handful of commonly-found ultra-tech items. BattleTech doesn't really fit into GURPS's TLs. It spans a lot of them.

The release of the Helm memory core and the 20-Year Update they started retconning history. By the time the Clan invasion hit (and MechWarrior 2nd Edition--the best MechWarrior) they'd stepped it back because a lot of people didn't get the point and they wanted to chase power creep.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

AFAIK mechwarriors are always an exception, even in the later days - mech units involve a ridiculously small number of combatants for their footprint. But the earlier content had more focus on most mechs being ancient and often hereditary personal possessions. Which has the problem of raising major questions about how you can continue having any of them if you keep destroying them in wars...

It's a bit hard to see why the limited working dropship and jumpship population would even bother to visit a world regressed to TL5-6, though.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

From House Steiner (FASA 1987):

We of ComStar are well-acquainted with the remarkable contrasts common to daily life in the Successor States. The average man or woman is by now used to incongruities such as using a cordless phone while riding a lumbering beast to the office or using food grown in a garden to pay for an appendectomy performed with a laser scalpel. Usually, it is only the more educated citizens who, having read of the glories of the Star League era, can see the irony of hunting their dinner with a bow and arrow and then watching their spouse cook it in a microwave.


Life in the Successor States isn't so bad. If you can cope with having to plow a rocky field because your agrobot lacks a cable six centimeters long, then you're perfectly suited to life in them there hills. If you enjoy the irony of zooming across the universe in a JumpShip, only to be forced to ride a jackass six klicks through a downpour, then man, you've got it made in these Successor States.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

The fiction (and game rules) establish that mechs are highly salvageable and repairable, with just enough of a trickle of new production to hand wave away any difficulties. When that isn’t enough, someone (ComStar) will find (leak) an old (off the assembly lines on Earth) cache left over from the 28th Century (shipped yesterday) or whatever.

The educational system collapsed with the end of the Star League and never recovered. Thus, in the older fiction we see dropships travelling to land on planets in other star systems on *water raids* since they’ve apparently never heard about comets.

Love Battletech, love the 3025 vibe, but a lot of it doesn’t make a lot of sense when you poke at it.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

It's hard to have a 'Mech battle over a comet, when you could have it over a water collection/purification plant. BattleTech is the realization of the Fallout trope: War never changes.

Seconded.

I had to pull up my copy of MechWarrior Destiny because I remember that they simplified 'Mech Combat (too much), but it had some really great ideas for moving it to other games.

Divide heat and heatsinks by 5 (round to nearest).
Weapon heat generates "tokens."
After heat dissipation, remaining tokens cause problems.
1 token = -1 to movement.
2 tokens = -1 to hit.
3 tokens = Shutdown (avoid 8+).
4 tokens = Ammo Asplode (avoid 8+).
5 tokens = Shutdown (automatic).

I'd do the change where your movement penalty is equal to your number of tokens, your to-hit penalty is equal to your number of tokens minus one, and go from there.

While I think MechWarrior Destiny went a bit too-far in their rules-light exploration, there's some really good ideas for porting BattleTech to other games.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

The idea that a vehicle would be designed such that the ammo can explode from heating long before the pilot is roasted seems very strange. That the ammo would be allowed to get hot enough to cook off before the vehicle automatically shuts down is also odd.

The game was fun, but it never made too much sense.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Mech cockpits have comprehensive life support. You can operate them in space or underwater. So they definitely have more climate control than the ammo bins.

Though the it does seem like by the time things are hot enough to spontaneously ignite ammunition you'd be having other forms of structural or mechanical breakdown happen.
Considering how appealing an idea it isn't for your combat machine to turn itself off in the middle of active combat, I'm more puzzled that they automatically shutdown at all rather than letting you keep pushing until you vaporize the reactor if you choose.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Well, by the time the ammo tries to cook-off the first time the 'Mech has tried to shut down twice. It's just that meat-'Mech inside it refuses to let it.

And, to be fair, I've never seen anyone let their 'Mech get that hot by choice.

SRM-2 Infernos man.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

That's what's very strange. Your ammo blowing up (given that blow-out panels seem to be lacking, at least on the old designs) is going to be about as bad as your climate control failing and the pilot cooking, so if you can cool the cockpit, you should also be cooling the magazines. Yes, the pilot should have better aircon than the ammo, but only because the ammo won't go up until it's at a couple of hundred degrees, whilst the pilot cooks well before that.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Only if you're assuming that making the mech survive extreme overheating is a design priority.

If you instead suppose that running a mech that hot is a warranty-voiding, out-of-specification abuse of the equipment that it turns out you can sometimes get away with, not engineering the ammo bins to resist it makes a bit more sense....

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

But in that case, why would the cockpit be designed to handle that sort of heat?

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Incidental benefit of being built as a universal hostile environment capsule.

Plus in typical mech design the cockpit is further out in the head while the ammo is somewhere in the torso, though for some designs it's not clear how that's a real distinction.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

In at least one of the novels I remember someone pushing until they did just straight up blow the reactor.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

I don't know if that was "entertaining" fiction but it''s definitely more like author-created dramatics than any actual game play I've ever see.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Well, the early fiction also very much emphasised the small scale of conflicts. The early scenario books all featured individual *companies* (12 mechs), who might be tasked to 'take' an entire world on their own. And half of them would be horribly borked messes that didn't match up to the paper specs because they had been repaired too many times. While the actual experience of the tabletop wouldn't likely match up (given the tendency for players to play to destruction), the fiction also made clear units would often bug out when they had taken too much damage (some of the newer scenario packs have the objective to reduce the opponent to a "crippled" status in an *attempt* to reflect this).

As far as I can tell, it pretty much went out the window with the 4th Succession war though, where they have regiment upon regiment being thrown into the meat grinder... also about the same time a lot of the 'named character' units were often expanded to make them still seem relevant in the new context (Colonel Fleabody's Walker Company not really seeming like a big deal when whole divisions of armour are at play...).

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

And then you have the clan wars, where the inner sphere's theory of victory was "You know, our mechs are more replaceable than yours, so into the meatgrinder we go".

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Even with that strategy, it took author fiat for the Clans to hold - or gain, really - as much territory in the Inner Sphere as they did.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Well, I like the idea so I'm probably gonna incorporate at least a reactor that has a bit of damage to the shielding being able to explode.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

That I think of it was probably in one of the novels where the lead deliberately took the safeties off his reactor and ejected in the head of his Hatchetman leaving a bunch of Clan "Mechs to get plasma-fried.

If you want your BT game to be iike that novel that's your choice.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Nah, I clearly remember dude dying, though he may have completely disabled the safeties first, so perhaps I'll incorporate that.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Nope. He didn't die.

It was the original BattleTech Marty-Stu: Kai Allard-Liao who did it, at the Battle of Twycross (3050).

Sarna-Net Links there.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Wasn't it generally only in the core worlds where life is still sort of like back in the Star League era, but in the outer worlds/boonies, you're dealing with lifestyles more like TL5-6?

Like I remember reading, for example the Federated Suns having a bunch of "Golden Worlds" where education hadn't fallen from the Star League era, but stuff like sending out traveling schools/academies to attempt to teach the outer reaches of their territory due to those outer worlds not having much funding anymore (probably to sort of more push on them being sort of the setting's Space America with both the good and bad).

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

While there's a bunch of stupid there, the explosion of the mech doesn't seem to have done anything but detonate previously placed explosives -- which they would have remote detonated except the person with the detonator control had been killed and they didn't have backups (because SF believes in single point of failure for critical systems; see Star, Death).

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Basically, yes. The majority of the Inner Sphere was super-low tech. The core worlds were around TL 7~8 with a little 9. Only Earth, and ComStar enclaves, were at high tech.

I can't find the discussion where one of the Precentors joked about how poor NAIS (New Avalon Institute of Science) was equipped compared to Earth Elementary schools.

You are not wrong. On just about any point there.

Considering that the HCT-3F Hatchetman's head thrusters only last for 30 seconds . . . that doesn't seem like enough thrust to get away from the blast. Considering that there were two (three) people in the cockpit, only one was secure, and all survived.

(Dr. Lear was pregnant at that time, for those playing at home.)

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

30 seconds under thrust will actually get you quite a distance. Assuming a leisurely 2G's felt acceleration, so 1G actual acceleration straight up (assuming they're on a world with 1G gravity), 30 seconds will get them over 4,000m (14,000+ feet) up, and ignoring air resistance they'll coast that much further up before starting to come down. They'll also be just about reaching mach 1, so I expect the actual speed of the cockpit will be rather slower.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Yeah, though if it takes 30 seconds to blow up no-one is gonna be surprised.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Are you not counting factories from the Star League era that were still in operation? There were multiple worlds that still trickled out 'Mechs and fusion engines and you can't build those at TL9.

Laser pistols and rifles were also decently common and Gurps makes those TL10. Of course slugthrowers were more common but a TL for building "needlers" is also higher than 8. There were mltiple sources for 'Mech weapons too.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

There were fewer 'Mech Factories than there are inhabited worlds. And most of those worlds were still TL 5~6, only the Star League Factories were ultratech. They could run the equipment, but they couldn't fix them or build new ones.

Not really. But even still, they were Star League left-overs, only the core worlds could make new ones.

Again, this was a post-apocalyptic setting. And the Star League made stuff to last. None of this planned obsolescence in their military gear. Sure, you may have a militia equipped with Star League-era laser rifles, but they sure didn't make them, or even know how to maintain them other than blowing the dust out. If one broke, it was gone.

BattleTech was a strange bird.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

I just noticed that my (barley legible) 1st printing MechWarrior 1st Edition book actually says "20st Century," and all my other copies say "21st Century."

Hmm, I wonder if that was supposed to be 21st Century all along.

That is not the only discrepancy I've seen between printings though.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

I'm pretty sure that most worlds, at least in the IS, have access to 80's technology, so TL7. I'd say make that beyond that BT has named TL's of Age of War, Star League, and Clan.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

80s technology is early TL8 in 4e. 70s technology would be late TL7 but 1940s would be early TL7. I never got the feeling that any of the worlds in BT were WWII or Korean War period-like.

A quick Google has tanks with autoloadign main guns (which is sort of like a BT "autocannon") starting with the T-64 but with that model being not fully reliable. I doubt any BT world that can produce simple autocannon-armed tanks is producing anything less capable than a fully developed T-72.

So I'd go with TL8 (which is where real world tech stood when BT was first published).

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

I always thought that BT at that age was something like a mix of TL's.

For some things it is TL8 and for some it is TL7 or less.

Sensors are very low tech, as well as computers, but weapons are super tech. Even the planets with functional SL factories and academies.

Battletech is like steampunk and other retro-futuristic settings, it's just 1980's retro-futurism instead of 1880's (in the case of steam punk).

Most worlds during the time may be TL8 in weapons, TL9 in armor (I think the "advanced" ablative armor in Battletech is kind of TL9, but personal armor is mostly TL8 or less) and TL6 in sensors and TL7 in targeting systems and comms.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Battletech was first released in 1984. At that point there's no 'retro' in it being a future of the 80s. Which also contextualizes the 'low' computer technology.

Also, they're certainly not TL6 in sensors. TL6 sensors would be completely useless for detecting battlemechs in terrain. My High Tech is a little mixed on whether RADAR is TL6 or TL7 but even early TL7 radars couldn't handle picking up ground vehicles. Night-vision and thermographic systems are also TL7. TL6 barely has 'sensors' to speak of besides SONAR.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

HT pegs radar as TL7, but the effect was observed in the early 1900s, so a very primitive version could've been made at TL6 - huge, search only, and only good for detecting large aircraft well above the ground and large metal ships in open water.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

The main issue you're all forgetting is that BattleMechs are ultratech. The rest of the world isn't. Most of the population doesn't live at high-tech, they lived at relatively mundane tech. After seeing Firefly I felt that was a good way of showing the Inner Sphere. Some really high ultratech but the vast majority of stuff was low-tech easily-sustainable.

Early 20th century would be TL5~6. I would call WWII-era "mid-20th century."

You're welcome to play however you want, but as other quotes have pointed out, BattleTech wasn't a high-tech setting until they started retconning it for the Clans/post-clan invasion.

If you lived on an agro world, you probably were TL5, if not TL4 with TL11+ Agromechs working along side you.

From Lostech:
As everything seems to reference the twentieth century, I'm thinking that the First Printing should have been 20th, and all others were misprinted up in error.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Nope, TL6 starts at 1880. "Early 20th Century" is solidly TL6 and wWII marks the beginning of TL7 at 1940.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Most mechs don't have thermal sight, I remember many scenarios with heavy penalties for fighting at night and needing spotlights and searchlights, like it was 1950's at least.

Also, while it was conceived in 1980, so you may say it was not retrofuturism at the time it is now, because the technology developed differently but the setting got stuck in the 80's tech. just like Jules Verne stories were simple scy fi at the time but now steampunk is retrofuturism.

most things in battletech, at least at around 3025-3028, are WWII to Cold War era technology, with sprinkled supertech, like PPC's and lasers...even the missiles are unguided rockets.

I would suggest a range of TL's from 5 to 9 for consumer goods and up to 10 for the very advanced stuff, or maybe a divergent TL to represent the goofiness of the setting that gives it it's charm.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Except this is the same setting. Ongoing Battletech material isn't a new setting aping 80s futurism, it's a continuation of a story that started being written almost 40 years ago.
Uh, the missiles that can perform targeted indirect fire against moving targets? Those missiles?

Non-guided LRMs and SRMs are actually an official variant ammo type developed around the end of the clan invasion...

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Yep, LRM Indirect Fire requires a spotter, not a guidance system. It's a ballistic-trajectory attack. It requires as much of a guidance system as a Long Tom shell does.

BattleTech missiles don't get any semblance of guidance until the 20-Year Update with LK (Listen-Kill) technology. And then in TRO 2750 we get our first taste of guided missiles with Streak SRM-2s and the Artemis IV Fire-Control System. The Streak guaranteed a hit, or it doesn't use ammo, and the Artemis just increased the number of missiles that hit on a successful hit. It doesn't increase the likelihood of a hit, just improves the number of missiles that hit when it hits.

BattleTech has been chasing power-creep for so long now, retconning has become the order of the day.

DFRs were the answer to the question "why aren't our missiles guided" that came out with the influx of new players from the Clan invasion. Just like Tandem-Charge warheads were the answer to the question "if this is armor piercing, why does it only do armor damage?" It was a short-sighted answer to a question that was better answered with "it was a mechanical conceit that we made when developing the game."

LRMs and SRMs were fired in salvos to make up for the fact that they were unguided.

But, FASA never was good at understanding what they had. I'll quote a couple of lines:
Which was a FASA not understanding what they had made. This was "retconned" in the next TRO they put out.
Because 12 Clan ER Medium Lasers--and the Heat Sinks to use them--will melt over five tons of armor with a salvo.

BattleTech, more than most games, can be pointed at to prove whatever you want. Having been in production since 1984, and having gone through three companies, a lot has changed and continues to do so.

Heck, they even try to tell us that the Bandersnatch (Image) is using a chassis with a similar profile and style as the Marauder (Image).

Which, maybe, without my glasses at a range of 20+ yards would look similar (a greyish blob?). But, not with any level of detail.

Play BattleTech. Play it how you want. Enjoy it. Make it your own. All of this is semantic. None of it matters. Just play. Play and enjoy. GURPS BattleTech is two great tastes that go great together.

But remember: It's always Comstar.
This message brought to you by Lord Nemesis.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Which it very much does if it's intended to land a first-shot direct hit, or any direct hit on a moving target. Indirect fire with dumb rounds and a forward observer expects to have to make corrections and usually to only score near hits unless you're reducing a fortified building.

Also, LRMs and SRMs need to be hit in salvos to inflict effective damage on armored targets. You don't fire 5-20 LRMs and hit with one or two and call it good because that barely scratches the paint. (They're also not especially inaccurate in any source I've seen but I don't know about the original.)

The overall point that the BattleTech corpus isn't very self-consistent (or logical - they have canonical transforming 'land-air mechs' in there) so you need to take what you want from it is probably the key, though.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

Nah, I was not talking about the battle of Twycross. Thinking on it, I think it happened on Solaris VII at the start of the fedcom civil war

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

I mean, the start year I'm thinking of is probably like, 3048 or 9. I suppose by that point in the timeline the retcons had hit because, I mean, even the 4th succession war novels I've read nothing ever struck me as horribly low tech, for sure nothing all the way down to TL 5.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

I couldn't tell you about the publication timeline but it looks like the dissemination of Helm Memory Core and the start of the 4th Succession War were contemporary.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

I think that's about right. Idk, maybe the novels (the ones I've read anyway) just never really touch on anything other then more developed worlds. I believe around that time the fedsuns black box communicators came into play though, so that shows a pretty advanced grasp of technology to be able to come up with those.

edit
correction, the Lyrans developed them and gave then to the feds.

further edit:
Actually Katrina found one and brought it back with her, but then by 3020 they where already able to reproduce them, and the memory core wasn't found until 3028 right as the 4th war was kicking off.

Re: GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup
 

IIRC the Clans are more advanced than the Star League was, or Comstar, right?