BattleTech - What would you invent?!

The Whispering Monk

Well-known member
Osaul
So..you're a renowned scientist in your field. You left with Kerensky's Exodus and, believe it or not, made it to a Garden world that wasn't trying to kill everyone every other hour.

With that in mind, what sort of tech do you and your brethren develop since you're not committed to developing warfighting capability (though that's cool too.)?

I'm looking for ideas and specifics here. Better Jump Engines (Like Comstar/WoB develops), cooler weapons and armor, better sensors and communications equipment. Maybe you just develop Velcro that doesn't make noise when you use it.

I'm looking for all sorts of things so feel free to go nuts, just base what you develop from the stand point of the Star League's tech developed in exile.

[edit: 20210625] I plan on updating this original post to keep track of all the ideas and recommendations so return here for a full blown list and the contributor!

Agricultural Efficiency (ie. improved crop yields) @Bear Ribs
Faster-Than-Light Communication (improved HPG network/software) @Bear Ribs
Faster-Than-Light Transportation (better Jump range and transportation of inorganic material outside the Jumpship) @Bear Ribs & others
Metallurgical improvements: better materials for internal structure/armor [added this one myself]
Miniaturization of motive tech: engines, jump drives, L-F Batteries @Bear Ribs @Knowledgeispower
Terraforming Technology @Bear Ribs


EDIT: I do believe I put this in the wrong spot. Thread Overlords, feel free to move or just tell me where to repost this.
 
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Bear Ribs

Well-known member
The two biggest bottlenecks in BT seem to be FTL communications and FTL drives. I'm not entirely sure communications aren't purely market manipulation by ComStar, they're able to do live video conferencing so it seems unreasonable to me that it's actually that hard to send text messages.

That said HPGs appear to be purely analog, which may explain it. A major plot point in one story, I recall, was doing handwriting analysis on an ordinary message sent by the Coordinator, indicating that the actual handwriting is what they send, not just the letters in something like ASCII format that would obviously use a fraction of the data.

Consequently inventing the QR code to send large amounts of data in a small amount of visual image would dramatically improve communications and make it cheap for people to send text-message equivalents, without needing to send their actual handwriting thus increasing effective available bandwidth on an HPG.

There's a myriad of Jump-extending options in BT, all of which invariably get destroyed by the end of the adventure. The Manassas Pre-Jump Booster that gave it a 40LY jump, The Lucretia's Super-Jump drive with a 120LY Range that they jumped into a star rather than let Blakist get it (Why didn't they jump 120LY away from the Blakists instead, anyway?) etc. These would all be great if the writers didn't always blow them up shortly after they were invented, any of them would revolutionize travel if you could get them to stay.

As an aside, the Ryan Cartel method allows 16 JumpShips to transport an object about a kilometer cubed with them outside their hulls. It shatters to powder when you do it so it's no good for, say, electronics but they used it to transport comets and move ice around, wrapping it in netting so it wouldn't fall apart in its powdered state. This would appear to be ideal for moving ore-bearing asteroids to refineries, not only would be turned into powder not be a problem the ore being pre-powdered would appear to dramatically decrease the workload involved in refining it. Research why this isn't already being done, and if needed, improve on it to use even more JumpShips and transport even bigger volumes of space.

The second bottlenecks seem to be food and people. BT worlds tend to have amazingly sparse populations and an inordinate number of planets seem to be mostly agricultural worlds, suggesting that for some reason BT humanity has relatively poor farming and have difficulty reproducing. Fixing either would improve life for the universe immensely.

It's possible the low populations and need to have most worlds endlessly growing crops is because most planets are so horrible that you have to till the fields endlessly just to get enough to eat, and populations grow slowly because, again, horrible planets that make it hard. In that case better Terraforming is going to be the answer.
 

S'task

Renegade Philosopher
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
That said HPGs appear to be purely analog, which may explain it. A major plot point in one story, I recall, was doing handwriting analysis on an ordinary message sent by the Coordinator, indicating that the actual handwriting is what they send, not just the letters in something like ASCII format that would obviously use a fraction of the data.
You're confusing the two different FTL communication techs. HPGs are digital communications that are said to use "data streams" and can be encrypted. The plot point you're remembering was from the Blood of Kerensky Trilogy and had to do with the Black Boxes (AKA "Fax Machines") which were an alternative FTL communication tech used mainly by the Federated Commonwealth. The Black Boxes are analog, but also completely unknown to the Exodus Fleet as the technology was developed in a lost Star League research lab well away from the Exodus Road and didn't find it's way back to the Inner Sphere until the 3000s due to a bunch of young Lyran nobles goofing off in the Periphery, stumbling over it, and bringing it back... that said, said Lyran noble group involved Katrina Steiner and Morgan and Patrick Kell... hence how the tech got into the hands of the elites of the Lyran Commonwealth and later the Federated commonwealth.

The two biggest bottlenecks in BT seem to be FTL communications and FTL drives. I'm not entirely sure communications aren't purely market manipulation by ComStar, they're able to do live video conferencing so it seems unreasonable to me that it's actually that hard to send text messages.
ComStar are a bunch of assholes, but it's not just them manipulating things. In the novels to create the "live" (technically it had a few seconds of delay due to how it all works) communication relay between New Avalon and Tharkad took dedicating multiple HPGs to doing JUST THAT for the time of the transmission. HPGs use the same technology as Jump Drives to punch a hole through spacetime to it's target destination, which means to create such a "command circuit" of HPGs they need exacting information on the (constantly changing) location of each HPG in the relay. The reason HPGs send data in mass packets (that are then decrypted and sent out from the HPG station) is because by doing that they don't need to maintain a constant hole punched through the universe (remember, punching holes through the universe takes a lot of power) and can basically just send a burst of information to the next HPG in the line more in the general vicinity rather than having to have exact coordinates.
 

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
HPGs aren't capable of 'true' two way communication, but they can simulate it to a degree by duplexing with *two pairs* of HPGs. This is how they do "live" videoconferencing transmissions; it's operating duplexed HPGs in dedicated mode where they are transmitting and receiving *exclusively* to the matching HPG for the duration of the session.

To generate this kind of duplexed link across longer distances, you need to put two *entire chains* of HPGs in dedicated mode like that, which literally cuts all other communications across multiple systems.
 

Simonbob

Well-known member
So..you're a renowned scientist in your field. You left with Kerensky's Exodus and, believe it or not, made it to a Garden world that wasn't trying to kill everyone every other hour.

With that in mind, what sort of tech do you and your brethren develop since you're not committed to developing warfighting capability (though that's cool too.)?

Morals.

Even if I have to install them cyberneticaly.
 

S'task

Renegade Philosopher
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
HPGs aren't capable of 'true' two way communication, but they can simulate it to a degree by duplexing with *two pairs* of HPGs. This is how they do "live" videoconferencing transmissions; it's operating duplexed HPGs in dedicated mode where they are transmitting and receiving *exclusively* to the matching HPG for the duration of the session.

To generate this kind of duplexed link across longer distances, you need to put two *entire chains* of HPGs in dedicated mode like that, which literally cuts all other communications across multiple systems.
Oh right, I forgot it was duplexing on top of all the rest of the stuff... yeah, real time coms not being a thing across the Inner Sphere really has nothing to do with ComStar withholding stuff, it really is energy and infastructure intensive to the point of making it impractical.
 

Knowledgeispower

Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
figure out how to make Compact Jump Drives take up less percentage of the ships mass ideally while keeping the jump range the same or higher, oh and figure out how to make compact jump drives and Luthium Fusion Batteries far cheaper and easier to make and in the case of LFBs how to add more than one per ship. The previous goals also apply to the sublight engines of compact jump drive equipped ships. And above all else figure out how to give warships a decent percentage of their mass in armor without having to add extremes increases in structural integrity mass.

In summary I want warships that have something 5 to 10% of their mass devoted to armor and only like 35% devoted to the engines both jump and sublight, structural integrity, and LFBs leaving between 55 and 60 percent for cargo and weapons. Oh and ship that can relatively rapidly shift around as needed due to having like 4 or so LFBs and able to jump at least 45 light years per jump
 
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Simonbob

Well-known member
If I'm going to be a little more serious, I'd look at improving Jumptech in general.

There's been missjumps that went more than 60 lightyears, and many related things. Better Jumptech makes than standard.
 

GROGNARD

Well-known member
improved Medical sciences.
especially since the Clanners go into genetic manipulation.
Mass elimination of cancer and other gene-centric illnesses.
 

Aaron Fox

Well-known member
Spaceship construction and FTL (be drive or communication) would be the top two. The next two would be fusion engine and medical tech improvement. The former making it easier to build equipment and the latter because Iron Wombs would make it far easier to create large families which we're going to need on our virgin planet.
If I'm going to be a little more serious, I'd look at improving Jumptech in general.

There's been missjumps that went more than 60 lightyears, and many related things. Better Jumptech makes than standard.
Please note that the said 'stasis jump' misjump was due to a badly fixed FTL regulator of all things. The 'super jump' drive literally fried itself in doing so.
 

Simonbob

Well-known member
Please note that the said 'stasis jump' misjump was due to a badly fixed FTL regulator of all things. The 'super jump' drive literally fried itself in doing so.
If it can be done, you can work out how and why.

Then, you can work out what the limits are, and how much better you can get from there.


More distance? More gravity tolerence? Less power issues? The sky is, quite literally, the limit.
 

Aaron Fox

Well-known member
If it can be done, you can work out how and why.

Then, you can work out what the limits are, and how much better you can get from there.


More distance? More gravity tolerence? Less power issues? The sky is, quite literally, the limit.
Thing is, KF Physics tends to have people who can quote the literature verbatim or are considered a bit mad...
 

S'task

Renegade Philosopher
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
If it can be done, you can work out how and why.

Then, you can work out what the limits are, and how much better you can get from there.


More distance? More gravity tolerence? Less power issues? The sky is, quite literally, the limit.
Not exactly.

Building K-F drives is not cheap and takes some rare materials. As such, the experimentation you're proposing isn't cheap, and would require a lot of time to build up the infrastructure to support. That's one of the major reasons the tech plateaued even in the Star League era, they couldn't see any immediate improvements they could make without risking quite expensive ships and crews. Plus if something does go wrong, there's a good chance you just lose the ship and crew and don't actually get useful data from the experiment.

So it is a very high risk, though high reward avenue of pursuit.

------------

As to my answer to the original question: my main objective would actually be to get improved, lighter fusion power plants online. XL Engines are already a thing, but they can be improved and refined. Making them cheaper and less bulky would have considerable applications in everything from military to civilian technology, and result in higher quality of life overall. Another major area of pursuit would be in laser optics and cooling. Both these techs have both useful military applications, but also considerable usefulness outside of military technology. Much more effective lasers can be used in everything from industrial application to weapons systems, and improved cooling systems again also have much wider range application than military hardware.

These techs have a lot more immediate application to the welfare of my people than better FTL or FTL comms, while also providing some military improvements that can be applied at all scales if I end up needing them.
 

Aaron Fox

Well-known member
So, they're high ranking Cappies? That makes sense.
The thing is, KF Drives are basically us sidestepping a wall as 2D entities by going 3D and back again on the other side. Trying to figure that mess out is going to cause people to be a bit crazy.
Not exactly.

Building K-F drives is not cheap and takes some rare materials. As such, the experimentation you're proposing isn't cheap, and would require a lot of time to build up the infrastructure to support. That's one of the major reasons the tech plateaued even in the Star League era, they couldn't see any immediate improvements they could make without risking quite expensive ships and crews. Plus if something does go wrong, there's a good chance you just lose the ship and crew and don't actually get useful data from the experiment.

So it is a very high risk, though high reward avenue of pursuit.
The thing is, the Star League was already doing that with their enhanced KF Drive research, so they would know it would be possible. Even a 10 lightyear increase in range would cut travel times by a significant margin. HPGs are similar in that regard but in terms of communications.
 

Spartan303

In Captain America we Trust!
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Osaul
figure out how to make Compact Jump Drives take up less percentage of the ships mass ideally while keeping the jump range the same or higher, oh and figure out how to make compact jump drives and Luthium Fusion Batteries far cheaper and easier to make and in the case of LFBs how to add more than one per ship. The previous goals also apply to the sublight engines of compact jump drive equipped ships. And above all else figure out how to give warships a decent percentage of their mass in armor without having to add extremes increases in structural integrity mass.

In summary I want warships that have something 5 to 10% of their mass devoted to armor and only like 35% devoted to the engines both jump and sublight, structural integrity, and LFBs leaving between 55 and 60 percent for cargo and weapons. Oh and ship that can relatively rapidly shift around as needed due to having like 4 or so LFBs and able to jump at least 45 light years per jump


What about NBSG style jump drives?
 

Spartan303

In Captain America we Trust!
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
Osaul
he thing is, the Star League was already doing that with their enhanced KF Drive research, so they would know it would be possible. Even a 10 lightyear increase in range would cut travel times by a significant margin. HPGs are similar in that regard but in terms of communications.



Wasn't there a ship that was developed that could double the range of Jumps or jump 100LY?
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
Spaceship construction and FTL (be drive or communication) would be the top two. The next two would be fusion engine and medical tech improvement. The former making it easier to build equipment and the latter because Iron Wombs would make it far easier to create large families which we're going to need on our virgin planet.

Please note that the said 'stasis jump' misjump was due to a badly fixed FTL regulator of all things. The 'super jump' drive literally fried itself in doing so.
Indeed, but the Manassas was able to jump 40LY at a time until that failure, and apparently did so many times. There was also the super jump drive on the Lucretia that didn't fry itself. It seems clear that the drives can exist, they just always happen to be unavailable or become lostech via author fiat.

Wasn't there a ship that was developed that could double the range of Jumps or jump 100LY?
The Lucretia could jump 120LY at a time. The IU super jump drive weighs 2% more than a standard core (There is no compact version yet) and costs 10x more than a standard core.
 

The Whispering Monk

Well-known member
Osaul
That would do even if limited to the traditional exit points of KF drives. Even with BSG or Battletech grade computer tech a ship could be anywhere in the Inner Sphere inside of what a week

Really? I thought the NBSG drives were almost as limited in range as BTech jump drives.

I guess the lack of significant recharge time is what you're implying makes the big difference.
 

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