The JumpShips actually take roughly 15 seconds for a jump, regardless of the distance... up to 30 light years, as that is the maximum distance, barring a few super rare items. Recharge times are usually 7 days, but ranges 5-14 days depending on the star you are in orbit of. Also, the Steiner Scout Lance XD In truth, that was largely based on one situation where they realized the enemy had hacked their comms... and then decided to send 4 Atlas mechs through a canyon, claiming on comms that only a Scout Lance was covering that approach. Well, the trap worked. :)
Also, Battletech Jumpships fold space, they don't move physically except rarely, but their normal jump is up to 30 light years, with a recharge time of about 5-7 days. Some expensive model carry a backup battery that can let them make two jumps back to back but it is rare, and effectively doubles the price of the ship. The closest equivalent I can think of is the SDF-1 in the original Robotech also folded space to move light-years in but a near instantaneous action. The recharge times though are agonizingly slow.
@@dreammirrorbrony1240 You can always supercharge your batteries by loading directly from the engine. About 30 percent of the time it works everytime. There are also some huge space stations that collect energy and transfer it to Jump-ships. and then, there is nothing tat stops your dropship from docking to another already loaded jumpship in the system. Except maybe a lack of funds and or ready jumpships. But hey, if they are present they can be highjacked. Most engines are just huge sized particle accelerator cannons anyway...
If you connect two Tesla Power Walls in parallel, you can recharge in six-eight hours. assuming of course you paid for the high-capacity DC charging/discharging option.
the jump on average does take roughly 15 seconds realtime, however there have been cases where jumpships with underpowered or overloaded KF drives have taken 350 years in transit IIRC, this is not including misjumps
@@dreammirrorbrony1240 some rare, Terran hegemony and sldf ships had lithium fusion drives that can hold enough charge for two jumps, I believe the technology is rediscovered by house marik in the 3050s, and that's my geuss because that house had the most intact aerospace industry and can still build the monolith class, which can hold up to 9 dropships.
So I was listening but not really watching... I heard "Would you like to be richer than a god but dumber than a brick" and I just knew that it was about Steiner. I look and see the blue fist, but best is the 'prepare to be scouted.' tag on top. Wonderful.
My favorite Draconis Combine story is after the Clans, the scientists were told 'I like theor armor. Make some.' So they did, and the Director said it was garbage, and almost executed the head of research because of it, but he managed to convince them to let them try again. The Director said yes, but tge researcher would be the test pilot. This guy was like 60-70. But they did it, and so the researchers climbed into the suit he made and was submitted to hellfire from mech scale weaponry. The suit was *heavily* damaged, but the researcher survived (barely), saluted the Director, and then passed out. His reward for this was a massive promotion and basically becoming the Directors personal researcher to work on whatever crap he said he wanted built.
I have been playing Battletech since '87 and you broken down everything to its simple common denominator. I loved it!! It also helps new players to understand the Battletech universe. Love to see more episodes i.e. Houses, Mercenary groups and the Clans. Keep up the good work!
I'm still at the start but if he's only talking about up to 3029, FRR didn't exist and was still technically part of Kurita space. He may go past that part though.
I was happy Harebrained’s 2018 Battletech basically used the faster than light FX from the Battlestar Galactica reboot. It was a very cool visual and also very unique in a field of warp drives and hyperspace blur. Also Battletech is hilarious in that nuclear rain on population centers was totally normal for a while. But attacking a jumpship? THAT is a crime against humanity.
Yeah, reminds me of the dictatorial lordsteads in Sunbro star systems. Massive farmworlds under thumbrule. Equal bad. Rather be a lousy social general for Stoner than be in vomit inducing Fedsun territory😂
So, IMO, the explanation for why nobody notices comstar's actions is because the EXCEEDINGLY REASONABLE answer is that it's just the other successor states. Because every single time someone tries to make peace, it will hurt at least one other player just by virtue of one of their enemies having some more bodies to throw in that direction. Assassinations are just part of the game. We only see the patterns because we have an outsider's perspective, with information that frankly, NOBODY could possibly have.
Oh sweet another really fantastic Battletech playlist. This is some truly amazing work, thank you for building the RUclips Battletech presence in such a tremendous way.
jumpship and warship clarification. the first successful jump occurs 2108. the recharge time was approx 2 weeks. by 2225, most jumpships deploy a sail to recharge. this reduces the recharge time to 6-8 days. with the addition of the lithium-fusion battery, a jumpship could make a new jump every 3-4 days. the real time consumption is transit between jumpship and planet, which is typically 7-10 days each way. as far as the SLDF space fleet is concerned. prior to the Amaris coup, the SLDF had nearly 3000 warships. by the end of the war, Kerenski exodus included 402 warships and 1349 transport jumpships. the SLDF fleet that remains in the innersphere primarily joins Comstar, approx 80 warships and 300 jumpships. Comstar kept this fleet hidden from the houses until the clan invasion.
Comstar is a little more than you let on. Effectively, before being renamed as Comstar, they were the last vestige of the Star League, which were joined by several SLDF regiments who did not follow the exodus. As to what thier actual mission was, that's debatable as Jerome Blake had other plans.
The word of Blake thing only began because one of the successive high precentor wanted to keep the houses from getting ideas about earth created their techno religion, and then several generations believed it so hard that they forgot that it was meant to shield them from the houses, not dominate them.
@@eddapultstab2078 Turning ComStar into a religion was Blake's idea, on his deathbed. Where it went off-kilter was his friend and successor Konrad Toyama deciding that the Successor States hadn't learned their lesson and then manipulating things to start the 2nd Succession War so they would fucking learn it. And then Toyamas successor, Karpov, is where the upper strata of ComStar went full lunatic and decided that working behind the scenes to try and crash human civilization, and then rebuilding it in their image, was the way to go.
@@magni5648 It was Blake's idea, according to Toyama. No eyewitnesses to it to corraborate. No evidence. Blake won't be able to comment on it too. Very sus.
Jumpships max out at about 30 light years per jump. While essentially instantaneous, the farther the jump, the longer the time between point A and point B. This is how Clan Wolf was able to breach the Wall and invade Terra. They jumped in from about a light year out, and the Wall couldn’t be activated in time as the jump signature was too short. Also why the original Terran Alliance was only 30 LY radius. The distance that the military could respond in a timely fashion.
That reminds me that I’ve noticed some of the newer fiction glosses over the time dropships need to go from a jump point to a planet. Like, yes, the jump is effectively instantaneous. The time to get planet-side? I hope you brought a deck of cards and a book or two.
Great first episode i immediatly love it What i love about battletechs ftl is the backstory of it invented by kearny and fushida they were both laughed out of everywhere for their proposed theorem and died poor and reviled by the science community years later it is discovered their work is actually the literal holy grail real working ftl and they died never knowing their part in launching humanity to the farthest frontier
As someone who kinda knows the lore (read a lot of books in my teens, and am reading more now) but isn't super familiar, a lot of the phrases used in this video describing certain factions are absolutely hilarious and completely true.
I'll give you an: A+ for enthusiasm; A for creativity; B for general knowledge of Battletech Lore; and a C- for Accuracy of BattleTech Lore. That said, I'm enjoying your channel, even if, on occasion, I wince or want to reach for the keyboard, 'course, I figure plenty of other's are doing it faster then me. Calling the 3025 era the 'Golden Age', heh. Yeah, sure. Maybe the Golden Age of playing the game as it was originally presented to us older sorts, but, as far as the lore (armchair or professional sorts included), every one - well, I'm sure most Capellen's and some Clanner's probably don't know - the only true Golden Age was during height of the Star League, if one ignores the Periphery's viewpoint on that period of history. Foolish ingrates, those Periphery sorts, if they'd only drank the Star League brand koolaid... Well, as you say, that is a story for another video. Heh.
Funfacts: The Lyran Commonwealth actually developed and produced one of the best light mechs in the Inner Sphere with the Wolfhound. - The Free Worlds Leage basically becomes the industrial powerhouse of the Inner Sphere after the Clan invasion. - The Capellan Confederation turns into the technologically most advanced Great House by far. - Davion turns into a fucking joke. - House Kurita fucking bitchslaps the Federated Commonwealth in the war of 2049.
One thing to note about the FedSuns. They have great industry, economy and science behind their State as a whole, but it's not quite as evenly distributed as, say, the Lyrans or FWL. It's not unusual to arrive in a system on a FTL starship, shuttle to a planet on a dropship, land in a spaceport, and then hitch a ride to your destination from there on a carriage pulled by an animal. Some planets (or population centers) are every bit as high-tech as you would expect a thousand years in the future, while other planets (or rural areas) are much less advanced - 18th to 20th century in some respects even. While this would not be unheard of in other Successor States and especially the Periphery nations, it's a bit more common than one would think in a state so advanced otherwise.
A couple quick notes on the House militaries. Steiner is THE house for mercenaries. While all houses hire Mercs, Steiner's pro business attitude means Mercs are viewed as just another vendor providing a service. Steiner is the most even handed in its treatment, also paying the best in general. Also, while it's senior officers are the laughing stocks of the Inner Sphere, there enlisted and NCO are considered among the best. Also, a good part of the Commonwealth's strength comes from ownership of Hesperus II, which has the single largest Mech production facility in existence. In the 3025 setting, Hesperus II makes more mechs per year than the entire Capellan Confederation. Free Worlds League - Their military is a paradox. Trying to get a large scale offensive going is a waste of time, because of the autonomy of their regional militaries. On defense however, they are one of the best. Because they don't tend to launch a lot of attacks, their defending forces tend to be better maintained, especially with their industrial might behind them. The FWL has the largest intact shipyards in 3025. The FWL is also the only manufacturer of the Awesome. Their biggest weakness is they have never been the hero faction. Capellan Confederation- You oversold the CCAF a bit. In 3025 they are not the OP mega boys they become in Dark Ages. Their elite units, especially the Warrior Houses and the Death Commandos are the equal to any other Houses elite unit, but their line units and garrisons tend to be poorly trained and poorly equipped. Also, centralized command is so bad, that the Chancellor abolished the rank of General. Colonels report directly to the Chancellor (or the Command Council). Federated Suns - One of if not the reason for FedSun military success is their military organization: the RCT or Regimental Combat Team. Basically, instead of operating their mechs in ad hoc arrangements with armor and infantry, the FedSuns permanently tie their mech regiments to combined arms formations. An RCT is 1 Mech regiment, 3 regiments of armor, 5 regiments of infantry, 1 regiment of aerospace and a battalion of artillery. This RCT might be split up to cover multiple assignments, but for invasions, usually the whole RCT is committed. This means when the FedSuns do roll, they roll heavy. Also, the Fed Suns have a serios tech fetish and are the leading force behind technical advancement, centered on the New Avalon Institute of Science. They have also been the longest Hero faction.
Steiner is the house for mercs, yes, but Marik is up there too, because you can be sure there will *never* be a shortage of job opportunities in the FWL.
You are right about the jump ships being so cool! You are wrong about the momentum matching quantum thing. The momentum change is a one time change included in the jump for a change in inertial reference frame. It's based on a theory similar to a early version of string theory, and it is too also very realistic. The hand wave applies to the specific method of causing the field interaction, to the point where it's just assumed it's possible via electromagnatism with enough power. Itself an assumption we've not been able to disprove, but Battletech's months of suns worth of power is a nice way to assume a lot of things. Oh and myomer... but there are synthetic muscles they just don't match strength to weight
I'm not a fan of the Capellans, but you gotta admit, when they get it right, they get it right. The Vindicator? Solid general purpose trooper. The Cataphract? An effective heavy battlemech cobbled together from different parts that shouldn't have worked together. And then there's the Raven, the single most revolutionary battlemech created since the fall of Star League. The Hatchetman? It's basically a fat Whitworth that traded missiles for a big stick. The Raven is an electronics warfare platform created at a time when such things were barely considered possible by the majority of mankind. That's not even getting into their technological advances in the post-Clan Invasion era, one of the most significant of which was _given_ to them by the FedSuns in a near-unusable state that they then corrected.
Well, a few things; First, that is not how Jumpships work. They leave the standard 3 dimensions of space, travel through a higher dimension then drop back into the standard 3 dimensions. Basically, imagine you are a spot on a piece of paper, in a stack of paper. You want to go to another location on that paper. Rather than draw a line across that sheet, you instead punch a hole in the sheet above you. Then you travel across that sheet, punch another whole in it and drop back down onto your original sheet. You then went from one spot on that sheet to another without traveling between them. Put another way, your locked in a room in an office building, rather than going through the door, you squeeze through the ventilation shaft to the floor above, then walk through that floor to another location and craw through another duct to a different room on the original floor you were on. Thus you traveled between 2 rooms on that floor without traveling between them. That’s how a Jump system works. Second, the Succession wars have lasted 300 years not 500 (at the start time of 3025). Third, The Steiner Scout Lance is a joke. No, that is not how LCAF units normally perform recon. They have Scout Mechs, Scout Vehicles and Scout Units like everyone else. In-fact the Commando is a Steiner produced mech, with other Houses having surplus of captured units. Steiner developed the Wolfhound (with the aid of Team Banzai). They also produce most of the standard Scout mechs, such as the Locust, Stinger, Wasp and Firestarter. As for the supposed “incompetence” of their military officers, that is also false, Yes they do have a system of allowing nobles who do not receive their families hereditary title to take the title of “General” and yes that has caused some issues with incompetent fake “Generals” ending up in command of front line units they shouldn’t have, but overall the LCAF has some of the most competent officers in the Inner Sphere. The Nagelring is arguably the best military academy in human occupied space. It’s graduates are some of the best officers anywhere. Most noble “Generals” are given command of local militia units on their home world or one a planet well away from the borders while major units such as the Lyran Regulars or Guards are normally commanded by graduates of the Nagelring. Fourth; The reason the Houses aren’t building Warships is not because their too expensive. In-fact they restarted production of warships during the Clan Wars. These Great Houses (even the tinny Confederation) encompass the economies of literally hundreds of worlds, hundreds of billions of taxpaying citizens. Certainly they can afford them. They don’t have any orbiting as museums. If they had then they would have long ago refurbished them and placed them back in service. The Warship requires a special compact KF drive that is much more expensive and more complicated to produce than the civilian Jumpship system, which was produced in separate facilities. During the first 2 Succession Wars, these facilities were the primary target of enemy attacks, including raids sent for the purpose of destroying the enemies ability to produce warships. As a result most of these facilities, including ALL of the facilities capable of producing the more advanced Warship drive were destroyed or damaged beyond repair. The Grey Death computer core allowed some of these to be repaired and brought back on line during the Clan Wars. Aside from this, the only warships remaining in existence since the disappearance of LCS Invincible in 2853 were those hidden by Comstar and those operated by the Clans. If the Great Houses had been able to produce them they most certainly would have, and did. Cost was not a factor.
Your FTL examples are throwing me off. What you described is a classical hyperdrive in your first example and a portal network in your second. What I understood from common knowledge is that the jump is instantaneous with no travel time or needed thrust from the engines. If I am wrong, could you please point me to a source to read. From what I understand a Stiener Scout Lance is actually an in universe incident. Apparently Stiener was battling against the Cappellens and the Cappellens had cracked the Steiner comms and were picking units off as they maneuvered. The leader of the Stiener forces decided to turn this to their advantage by assembling a "scout" lance that the Cappellens got ready to ambush only for the 4 light mechs they expected to be 4 Atlas. If true, it appears that the lesson of the story has been lost in the details both in and out of universe. Thank you for your time.
The Star League Defense Force was the greatest military ever created by humanity. They suffered devastating losses at the end of the Amaris Civil War in 2779 the remaining SLDF forces left known space in 2784 and returned in 3050 as the Clans. House Davion is my favorite faction. The Battletech book that had one alien species was called The Far Country it was set in the 2500’s I believe and a lot of people hated it. Aliens and Battletech don’t mix.
Of course, you can jump to and from other places, albeit at much higher risk of something going wrong. If suitable points even exist in a system the coordinates involved are hard to "solve for" mathematically and the ones that have been solved aren't widely shared. They're called "pirate points" for a reason.
It's not about "stability", it's that if you jump into an area affected by gravity - even rather weak levels of it - *BAD THINGS* happen. You can theoretically jump anywhere, as long as it's far enough away from things that have a gravity well. That's how "pirate" jump points within a system work: They're places where different gravity wells cancel out each other. The zenith/nadir jump points are mostly a thing due to standing convention. Basically, everyone uses them because it's convenient for travel times and traffic organisation/control standards.
I think each house actually does build a few jumpships every year. You do need to replace things after a time cause no ship can last 500 years of use. The Warships though, at Starleauge level. Yeah they dont bother with them cause they just figure they are way to expensive and everyone follows the rules of not messing with jump ships so why make warships you dont need that cost to much.
I late to the party but I have to add something about the Capellans: but the same reason North Korea and China lack the ability for power projection is the same reason the Capellans are constantly getting kicked around: their main cash crop is bodies and their primary export is political fuckery. They can’t completely pull together and look to their own borders because treating their lower citizenry like cattle creates a huge amount of ambivalence towards their own government. So they spend a good portion of their own military power keeping revolts suppressed and are largely forced to resort to much more cost effective political treachery to keep the other Houses off balance. That same political treachery is what prompted the Federated Commonwealth to invade as a “wedding present” because they found out House Liao had basically created a Liao-loyal body double of Hanse Davion and were going to try and swap them. The Capellans aren’t liked by anyone because they don’t even like themselves. No one trusts them because they cant even trust themselves.
"He died, he had no heirs" I mean yeah, he got shot point blank by his best friend who then ordered his soldiers to murder his entire family and entomb their bodies in the royal palace lol.
Funny enough, the map IS actually 3d when done showing each world and jump path. Looks kinda cool actually, though it is still a disc about 90-100 lightyears thick for the most part. Remember that while space is 3d, the distribution of planets tend to be less so.
ComStar is not a joke of a faction. ComStar was more or less the liveblood of the inner sphere. HPGs, The C-bill, the MSRB, more or less the banking system. That was all ran by comstar.
It's crazy how I like all these major factions but for different reasons, the suns might be my favourite because I love knights and nobles, Steiner have that cyberpunk 2077 militech feel, which is great, Draconis is just space Japan, and I love Japanese history, the free worlds seem like they'd be fun to worldbuild a faction of, and the capellan are just evil but in a fun to watch kind of way.
True, barring a very few ships with cutting edge Star League era tech that involves battery systems capable of holding enough charge for a second jump. Those were mostly mounted on proper warships and not even all of them, but they gave you an enormous strategic advantage. Aside from covering distance faster, you could jump in, find yourself in a bad situation, and jump right back out again if you had to. Of course, fully recharging from two jumps takes twice as long, so eventually you have to pay the piper.
You see, I don't hate Davion because they're smug I hate Davion because they're smug and insanely hypocritical At least their checks usually don't bounce...
Additional tidbit about the jump travel. It is so sensitive to gravitational disturbances that the only (stable) jump points are well away from the elliptic of the solar system. Generally most transports civilian and military use standard jump zones above and below the system's sun. adding additional time to interstellar travel as the dropships then need to transit to their destinations. I have not seen anything to suggest your 'velcro' theory that jumpships do not retain their kinetic energy. And most systems within the limited jump radius are unlikely to have a high relative energy. if there is a significant relative motion then part of the time they spend recharging might be correcting this.
1:01:52 your committing Sudoku? Not committing Seppuku? Also Anti-'Mech Jump Infantry are a thing. Every house uses them and normally have the Dispossessed in their ranks. If you can sit in the seat of a mech.... its yours... I will hose to get the former owner our latter.
33:41 you just described America. Free worlds league is just Space USA. Its the US ramped up to 11 as seen by any neighboring state. Americans hate each other, and would be over 50 separate countries if the federal government had not managed to gain control. We only join together when outsiders threaten one of us. Democracy does not work great at large scales as far as I can tell. Its great for small populations… like a city state or British colony. So this would absolutely be a prediction on where we were headed when the game was created.
The Free Worlds League is more like the Balkan or perhaps a bit more charitable Spain. The original Terran Hegemony was the US or perhaps the culture of the US. There is a note in one of the Jihad source books that the reason why you don't find much of the Us cuture in the Sucessor States is that most of the US settlements were in the core of the IS which was the Terran Hegemony and of course they suffered the worst of the Sucession Wars when several of their worlds were turned uninhabitable and dropped of the maps. Like New Dallas for example.
Would be interesting, we've never really had a wide-scale strategy game. At least with HBS BattleTech + MercTech you can roll out your mech squad, mobile command center and airborne gauss rifle fire support. You know what would be sort of perfect? A Crusader Kings III mod.
@@colbyboucher6391 ... Paradox IS the one who picked up HBS, but the licensing for the games (just the games, never mind the whole property!) is a *f--king mess*. I've heard there's a board game in development at Catalyst, but how close it is to being done is another story.
You could always just campaign on tabletop. With a bit of modification and reskinning to the Axis and Allies system to handle logistics, strategic phase, and economy, you could probably make a solid go of it...
12:46 Actually BT FTL or Jump Drive is a lot like the Dune "Travel without moving" concept. A Jumpship while "jumping" is not moving at all as it simply "flashes" out of existance here and then flashes INTO existanmce over there... 15:23 TO quote Tex of the Blackpants legion channel "COMSTAR" is little more than a jumped upp telecommunication company... Basically a telephone company with its own military... LOL Indeed the Capellan Confederation's sole purpose for existing in BT verse seems to be pummeled by.... Someone...Anyone..Everyone...
The JumpShips actually take roughly 15 seconds for a jump, regardless of the distance... up to 30 light years, as that is the maximum distance, barring a few super rare items. Recharge times are usually 7 days, but ranges 5-14 days depending on the star you are in orbit of.
Also, the Steiner Scout Lance XD
In truth, that was largely based on one situation where they realized the enemy had hacked their comms... and then decided to send 4 Atlas mechs through a canyon, claiming on comms that only a Scout Lance was covering that approach. Well, the trap worked. :)
Also, Battletech Jumpships fold space, they don't move physically except rarely, but their normal jump is up to 30 light years, with a recharge time of about 5-7 days. Some expensive model carry a backup battery that can let them make two jumps back to back but it is rare, and effectively doubles the price of the ship. The closest equivalent I can think of is the SDF-1 in the original Robotech also folded space to move light-years in but a near instantaneous action. The recharge times though are agonizingly slow.
@@dreammirrorbrony1240 You can always supercharge your batteries by loading directly from the engine. About 30 percent of the time it works everytime. There are also some huge space stations that collect energy and transfer it to Jump-ships. and then, there is nothing tat stops your dropship from docking to another already loaded jumpship in the system. Except maybe a lack of funds and or ready jumpships. But hey, if they are present they can be highjacked. Most engines are just huge sized particle accelerator cannons anyway...
If you connect two Tesla Power Walls in parallel, you can recharge in six-eight hours. assuming of course you paid for the high-capacity DC charging/discharging option.
the jump on average does take roughly 15 seconds realtime, however there have been cases where jumpships with underpowered or overloaded KF drives have taken 350 years in transit IIRC, this is not including misjumps
@@dreammirrorbrony1240 some rare, Terran hegemony and sldf ships had lithium fusion drives that can hold enough charge for two jumps, I believe the technology is rediscovered by house marik in the 3050s, and that's my geuss because that house had the most intact aerospace industry and can still build the monolith class, which can hold up to 9 dropships.
So I was listening but not really watching... I heard "Would you like to be richer than a god but dumber than a brick" and I just knew that it was about Steiner. I look and see the blue fist, but best is the 'prepare to be scouted.' tag on top. Wonderful.
Fredrick striener in black ops?...
@@soccerandtrack10 house Steiner makes Fredrick Steiner from blops look like a Boy Scout in amateur hour.
My favorite Draconis Combine story is after the Clans, the scientists were told 'I like theor armor. Make some.'
So they did, and the Director said it was garbage, and almost executed the head of research because of it, but he managed to convince them to let them try again. The Director said yes, but tge researcher would be the test pilot.
This guy was like 60-70.
But they did it, and so the researchers climbed into the suit he made and was submitted to hellfire from mech scale weaponry. The suit was *heavily* damaged, but the researcher survived (barely), saluted the Director, and then passed out.
His reward for this was a massive promotion and basically becoming the Directors personal researcher to work on whatever crap he said he wanted built.
I have been playing Battletech since '87 and you broken down everything to its simple common denominator. I loved it!! It also helps new players to understand the Battletech universe. Love to see more episodes i.e. Houses, Mercenary groups and the Clans. Keep up the good work!
Good to know, because I'm just getting into the franchise, and it's nice to hear that this is mostly accurate.
Now there is no chapter for Free Rasalhague Republic but I will forgive you for this. The space Vikings may not so be careful.
I'm still at the start but if he's only talking about up to 3029, FRR didn't exist and was still technically part of Kurita space. He may go past that part though.
@@TheGlamourNaziI thought FRR contained systems from both Kurita & Steiner side to create the buffer state. Is that incorrect?
The Plausible Deniability Comguard Customer Service Commando team will be seeing you shortly.
The only thing Davions and Taurians can agree on is that Capellans need an ass-whooping.
So true, so true.
House Marik: The only threat to a Marik, is a Marik. Glory to Marik.
I was happy Harebrained’s 2018 Battletech basically used the faster than light FX from the Battlestar Galactica reboot. It was a very cool visual and also very unique in a field of warp drives and hyperspace blur.
Also Battletech is hilarious in that nuclear rain on population centers was totally normal for a while. But attacking a jumpship? THAT is a crime against humanity.
You can make more people, you can build more houses. You know what's a lot harder to rebuild? A Kearny-Fuchida drive.
It’s not hordes of Capellan light mechs, it’s hordes of Capellan orphanages.
Yeah, reminds me of the dictatorial lordsteads in Sunbro star systems. Massive farmworlds under thumbrule. Equal bad. Rather be a lousy social general for Stoner than be in vomit inducing Fedsun territory😂
So, IMO, the explanation for why nobody notices comstar's actions is because the EXCEEDINGLY REASONABLE answer is that it's just the other successor states. Because every single time someone tries to make peace, it will hurt at least one other player just by virtue of one of their enemies having some more bodies to throw in that direction. Assassinations are just part of the game. We only see the patterns because we have an outsider's perspective, with information that frankly, NOBODY could possibly have.
Oh sweet another really fantastic Battletech playlist. This is some truly amazing work, thank you for building the RUclips Battletech presence in such a tremendous way.
jumpship and warship clarification.
the first successful jump occurs 2108. the recharge time was approx 2 weeks.
by 2225, most jumpships deploy a sail to recharge. this reduces the recharge time to 6-8 days. with the addition of the lithium-fusion battery, a jumpship could make a new jump every 3-4 days. the real time consumption is transit between jumpship and planet, which is typically 7-10 days each way.
as far as the SLDF space fleet is concerned. prior to the Amaris coup, the SLDF had nearly 3000 warships. by the end of the war, Kerenski exodus included 402 warships and 1349 transport jumpships. the SLDF fleet that remains in the innersphere primarily joins Comstar, approx 80 warships and 300 jumpships. Comstar kept this fleet hidden from the houses until the clan invasion.
Comstar is a little more than you let on. Effectively, before being renamed as Comstar, they were the last vestige of the Star League, which were joined by several SLDF regiments who did not follow the exodus.
As to what thier actual mission was, that's debatable as Jerome Blake had other plans.
And later people had plans different than those, and so on, and so on, and oh no it's a schism... with 'Mechs, and weapons of mass destruction...
Space AT&T...Pay your HPG bills, F**ko!
The word of Blake thing only began because one of the successive high precentor wanted to keep the houses from getting ideas about earth created their techno religion, and then several generations believed it so hard that they forgot that it was meant to shield them from the houses, not dominate them.
@@eddapultstab2078 Turning ComStar into a religion was Blake's idea, on his deathbed. Where it went off-kilter was his friend and successor Konrad Toyama deciding that the Successor States hadn't learned their lesson and then manipulating things to start the 2nd Succession War so they would fucking learn it. And then Toyamas successor, Karpov, is where the upper strata of ComStar went full lunatic and decided that working behind the scenes to try and crash human civilization, and then rebuilding it in their image, was the way to go.
@@magni5648 It was Blake's idea, according to Toyama. No eyewitnesses to it to corraborate. No evidence. Blake won't be able to comment on it too. Very sus.
Jumpships max out at about 30 light years per jump. While essentially instantaneous, the farther the jump, the longer the time between point A and point B. This is how Clan Wolf was able to breach the Wall and invade Terra. They jumped in from about a light year out, and the Wall couldn’t be activated in time as the jump signature was too short. Also why the original Terran Alliance was only 30 LY radius. The distance that the military could respond in a timely fashion.
That reminds me that I’ve noticed some of the newer fiction glosses over the time dropships need to go from a jump point to a planet. Like, yes, the jump is effectively instantaneous. The time to get planet-side? I hope you brought a deck of cards and a book or two.
If Steve likes the idea of being an infantry grunt and going toe to toe with battlemechs in the square circle tell him about the Grey Death Legion
Great first episode i immediatly love it
What i love about battletechs ftl is the backstory of it invented by kearny and fushida they were both laughed out of everywhere for their proposed theorem and died poor and reviled by the science community years later it is discovered their work is actually the literal holy grail real working ftl and they died never knowing their part in launching humanity to the farthest frontier
As someone who kinda knows the lore (read a lot of books in my teens, and am reading more now) but isn't super familiar, a lot of the phrases used in this video describing certain factions are absolutely hilarious and completely true.
I'll give you an: A+ for enthusiasm; A for creativity; B for general knowledge of Battletech Lore; and a C- for Accuracy of BattleTech Lore. That said, I'm enjoying your channel, even if, on occasion, I wince or want to reach for the keyboard, 'course, I figure plenty of other's are doing it faster then me. Calling the 3025 era the 'Golden Age', heh. Yeah, sure. Maybe the Golden Age of playing the game as it was originally presented to us older sorts, but, as far as the lore (armchair or professional sorts included), every one - well, I'm sure most Capellen's and some Clanner's probably don't know - the only true Golden Age was during height of the Star League, if one ignores the Periphery's viewpoint on that period of history. Foolish ingrates, those Periphery sorts, if they'd only drank the Star League brand koolaid... Well, as you say, that is a story for another video. Heh.
god i can smell the sweat on your letters. i hope that you do take care of yourself
@@lunarziggurat672lmao, what vicious comment for no reason, I hope you find something fun to do today that isn’t insulting others
Ahem. Space Texas (Taurian Concordat) says get off my lawn! With nukes.
@@JB-pu8ik Gotta love the Taurian's, I hope they get their act together in the new era.
@@yourseatatthetable the fluff got a little too silly for me with the Jihad era.
Loved everything up through operation bulldog.
Funfacts: The Lyran Commonwealth actually developed and produced one of the best light mechs in the Inner Sphere with the Wolfhound. - The Free Worlds Leage basically becomes the industrial powerhouse of the Inner Sphere after the Clan invasion. - The Capellan Confederation turns into the technologically most advanced Great House by far. - Davion turns into a fucking joke. - House Kurita fucking bitchslaps the Federated Commonwealth in the war of 2049.
"Bitchslaps" is a bit optimistic for "barely manages a stalemate against all odds".
@@magni5648 If you had been really smart you would have called me out on misdating the whole war by a decade. 🤫
@@SpielkindFR I'm not petty enough to go after an obvious typo unless provoked first. 😜
@@magni5648 I'm still gonna maintain that Kurita gave the fed coms a nice hearty "oh no you don't" with the back of their hand.
@@SpielkindFRand a millennia
as a long time Battletech nerd, I love this
Same I got into Battletech around 1998 and the depth of lore for the setting is my favorite aspect.
The Capellan Confederation also makes for a great wedding gift.
Yeah but you damn well better include a gift receipt so it can be returned later
@@jeffsmith5436
🤔🤯💥
SOMETHING tells me this is a "you break it you bought it" type situations ....
☝️🤪👈
One thing to note about the FedSuns. They have great industry, economy and science behind their State as a whole, but it's not quite as evenly distributed as, say, the Lyrans or FWL. It's not unusual to arrive in a system on a FTL starship, shuttle to a planet on a dropship, land in a spaceport, and then hitch a ride to your destination from there on a carriage pulled by an animal. Some planets (or population centers) are every bit as high-tech as you would expect a thousand years in the future, while other planets (or rural areas) are much less advanced - 18th to 20th century in some respects even. While this would not be unheard of in other Successor States and especially the Periphery nations, it's a bit more common than one would think in a state so advanced otherwise.
Sounds like the Imperium of Man.
Thanks for this Canadian and I hope you'll continue making them.
Cheers buddy and have a good one!
A couple quick notes on the House militaries. Steiner is THE house for mercenaries. While all houses hire Mercs, Steiner's pro business attitude means Mercs are viewed as just another vendor providing a service. Steiner is the most even handed in its treatment, also paying the best in general. Also, while it's senior officers are the laughing stocks of the Inner Sphere, there enlisted and NCO are considered among the best. Also, a good part of the Commonwealth's strength comes from ownership of Hesperus II, which has the single largest Mech production facility in existence. In the 3025 setting, Hesperus II makes more mechs per year than the entire Capellan Confederation.
Free Worlds League - Their military is a paradox. Trying to get a large scale offensive going is a waste of time, because of the autonomy of their regional militaries. On defense however, they are one of the best. Because they don't tend to launch a lot of attacks, their defending forces tend to be better maintained, especially with their industrial might behind them. The FWL has the largest intact shipyards in 3025. The FWL is also the only manufacturer of the Awesome. Their biggest weakness is they have never been the hero faction.
Capellan Confederation- You oversold the CCAF a bit. In 3025 they are not the OP mega boys they become in Dark Ages. Their elite units, especially the Warrior Houses and the Death Commandos are the equal to any other Houses elite unit, but their line units and garrisons tend to be poorly trained and poorly equipped. Also, centralized command is so bad, that the Chancellor abolished the rank of General. Colonels report directly to the Chancellor (or the Command Council).
Federated Suns - One of if not the reason for FedSun military success is their military organization: the RCT or Regimental Combat Team. Basically, instead of operating their mechs in ad hoc arrangements with armor and infantry, the FedSuns permanently tie their mech regiments to combined arms formations. An RCT is 1 Mech regiment, 3 regiments of armor, 5 regiments of infantry, 1 regiment of aerospace and a battalion of artillery. This RCT might be split up to cover multiple assignments, but for invasions, usually the whole RCT is committed. This means when the FedSuns do roll, they roll heavy. Also, the Fed Suns have a serios tech fetish and are the leading force behind technical advancement, centered on the New Avalon Institute of Science. They have also been the longest Hero faction.
Steiner is the house for mercs, yes, but Marik is up there too, because you can be sure there will *never* be a shortage of job opportunities in the FWL.
hearing podcasts while i game or just procrastinate is lovely
Yeah, I'm usually painting minis myself. Good motivation.
Very good, I came in with just about no Knowledge about Battle Tech, and now I feel I have a good foundation for future exploration. Thanks!
Thanks for this deep dive lore video!
Aliens smell bad; throw rocks at them. Except Number Six, she can come over to the house any time,
You are right about the jump ships being so cool! You are wrong about the momentum matching quantum thing. The momentum change is a one time change included in the jump for a change in inertial reference frame. It's based on a theory similar to a early version of string theory, and it is too also very realistic. The hand wave applies to the specific method of causing the field interaction, to the point where it's just assumed it's possible via electromagnatism with enough power. Itself an assumption we've not been able to disprove, but Battletech's months of suns worth of power is a nice way to assume a lot of things. Oh and myomer... but there are synthetic muscles they just don't match strength to weight
I'm not a fan of the Capellans, but you gotta admit, when they get it right, they get it right. The Vindicator? Solid general purpose trooper. The Cataphract? An effective heavy battlemech cobbled together from different parts that shouldn't have worked together. And then there's the Raven, the single most revolutionary battlemech created since the fall of Star League. The Hatchetman? It's basically a fat Whitworth that traded missiles for a big stick. The Raven is an electronics warfare platform created at a time when such things were barely considered possible by the majority of mankind.
That's not even getting into their technological advances in the post-Clan Invasion era, one of the most significant of which was _given_ to them by the FedSuns in a near-unusable state that they then corrected.
My understanding of Battletech comes entirely from playing the TCG back in the day. Surprisingly, I actually knew a lot of this stuff.
Well, a few things;
First, that is not how Jumpships work. They leave the standard 3 dimensions of space, travel through a higher dimension then drop back into the standard 3 dimensions. Basically, imagine you are a spot on a piece of paper, in a stack of paper. You want to go to another location on that paper. Rather than draw a line across that sheet, you instead punch a hole in the sheet above you. Then you travel across that sheet, punch another whole in it and drop back down onto your original sheet. You then went from one spot on that sheet to another without traveling between them. Put another way, your locked in a room in an office building, rather than going through the door, you squeeze through the ventilation shaft to the floor above, then walk through that floor to another location and craw through another duct to a different room on the original floor you were on. Thus you traveled between 2 rooms on that floor without traveling between them. That’s how a Jump system works.
Second, the Succession wars have lasted 300 years not 500 (at the start time of 3025).
Third, The Steiner Scout Lance is a joke. No, that is not how LCAF units normally perform recon. They have Scout Mechs, Scout Vehicles and Scout Units like everyone else. In-fact the Commando is a Steiner produced mech, with other Houses having surplus of captured units. Steiner developed the Wolfhound (with the aid of Team Banzai). They also produce most of the standard Scout mechs, such as the Locust, Stinger, Wasp and Firestarter. As for the supposed “incompetence” of their military officers, that is also false, Yes they do have a system of allowing nobles who do not receive their families hereditary title to take the title of “General” and yes that has caused some issues with incompetent fake “Generals” ending up in command of front line units they shouldn’t have, but overall the LCAF has some of the most competent officers in the Inner Sphere. The Nagelring is arguably the best military academy in human occupied space. It’s graduates are some of the best officers anywhere. Most noble “Generals” are given command of local militia units on their home world or one a planet well away from the borders while major units such as the Lyran Regulars or Guards are normally commanded by graduates of the Nagelring.
Fourth; The reason the Houses aren’t building Warships is not because their too expensive. In-fact they restarted production of warships during the Clan Wars. These Great Houses (even the tinny Confederation) encompass the economies of literally hundreds of worlds, hundreds of billions of taxpaying citizens. Certainly they can afford them. They don’t have any orbiting as museums. If they had then they would have long ago refurbished them and placed them back in service. The Warship requires a special compact KF drive that is much more expensive and more complicated to produce than the civilian Jumpship system, which was produced in separate facilities. During the first 2 Succession Wars, these facilities were the primary target of enemy attacks, including raids sent for the purpose of destroying the enemies ability to produce warships. As a result most of these facilities, including ALL of the facilities capable of producing the more advanced Warship drive were destroyed or damaged beyond repair. The Grey Death computer core allowed some of these to be repaired and brought back on line during the Clan Wars. Aside from this, the only warships remaining in existence since the disappearance of LCS Invincible in 2853 were those hidden by Comstar and those operated by the Clans. If the Great Houses had been able to produce them they most certainly would have, and did. Cost was not a factor.
Your FTL examples are throwing me off. What you described is a classical hyperdrive in your first example and a portal network in your second.
What I understood from common knowledge is that the jump is instantaneous with no travel time or needed thrust from the engines.
If I am wrong, could you please point me to a source to read.
From what I understand a Stiener Scout Lance is actually an in universe incident. Apparently Stiener was battling against the Cappellens and the Cappellens had cracked the Steiner comms and were picking units off as they maneuvered. The leader of the Stiener forces decided to turn this to their advantage by assembling a "scout" lance that the Cappellens got ready to ambush only for the 4 light mechs they expected to be 4 Atlas. If true, it appears that the lesson of the story has been lost in the details both in and out of universe.
Thank you for your time.
Interested in your take on the periphery states that survived everything the Innersphere throws at them.
The Star League Defense Force was the greatest military ever created by humanity. They suffered devastating losses at the end of the Amaris Civil War in 2779 the remaining SLDF forces left known space in 2784 and returned in 3050 as the Clans. House Davion is my favorite faction. The Battletech book that had one alien species was called The Far Country it was set in the 2500’s I believe and a lot of people hated it. Aliens and Battletech don’t mix.
The ships very much do basically teleport yeah. Between the top and bottom of a systems Star, the most stable places in the system
your speaking of the Zenith & Nideir points of a solar system basically the North & South poles of a star
@@brothersgt.grauwolff6716 Yeah, thats it.
Of course, you can jump to and from other places, albeit at much higher risk of something going wrong. If suitable points even exist in a system the coordinates involved are hard to "solve for" mathematically and the ones that have been solved aren't widely shared. They're called "pirate points" for a reason.
It's not about "stability", it's that if you jump into an area affected by gravity - even rather weak levels of it - *BAD THINGS* happen. You can theoretically jump anywhere, as long as it's far enough away from things that have a gravity well. That's how "pirate" jump points within a system work: They're places where different gravity wells cancel out each other. The zenith/nadir jump points are mostly a thing due to standing convention. Basically, everyone uses them because it's convenient for travel times and traffic organisation/control standards.
"The Free World League is an absolute mess."
Yes. That is why I'm here
I think each house actually does build a few jumpships every year. You do need to replace things after a time cause no ship can last 500 years of use. The Warships though, at Starleauge level. Yeah they dont bother with them cause they just figure they are way to expensive and everyone follows the rules of not messing with jump ships so why make warships you dont need that cost to much.
Super fun video!
Somebody : "Capellan's"
Science Insanity : "Deploy all the BattleMechs!" "throw the damn SUN at them!"
I once found a meme picture, it kinda resembled one of those de-motivational posters, but it said, "Comstar: AT&T with Guns. Pay your bills."
Great overview of Battletech.
I late to the party but I have to add something about the Capellans: but the same reason North Korea and China lack the ability for power projection is the same reason the Capellans are constantly getting kicked around: their main cash crop is bodies and their primary export is political fuckery. They can’t completely pull together and look to their own borders because treating their lower citizenry like cattle creates a huge amount of ambivalence towards their own government. So they spend a good portion of their own military power keeping revolts suppressed and are largely forced to resort to much more cost effective political treachery to keep the other Houses off balance.
That same political treachery is what prompted the Federated Commonwealth to invade as a “wedding present” because they found out House Liao had basically created a Liao-loyal body double of Hanse Davion and were going to try and swap them.
The Capellans aren’t liked by anyone because they don’t even like themselves. No one trusts them because they cant even trust themselves.
Yeah, apparently the strategy of “let’s fuck with several neighbors at once and see what happens” doesn’t usually end well
First Succession War summed up: "Who can deplete their nuclear stockpiles first?"
Free Worlders where you at!? Down with the Steiner's!
Eh, I'm more of an anti-Capellan sort of purple eagle, but you do you.
PURPLE BIRD STRONG
"He died, he had no heirs" I mean yeah, he got shot point blank by his best friend who then ordered his soldiers to murder his entire family and entomb their bodies in the royal palace lol.
Quality explanation, thanks!
49:50 Mariks: That's my secret. I'm always in a Civil War
"hello, I am steve"
"hello, I AM GROOT".
has a similar ring ya?
Most accurate title ever 😂
Nothing like a 2D map explaining 3D space.
Funny enough, the map IS actually 3d when done showing each world and jump path. Looks kinda cool actually, though it is still a disc about 90-100 lightyears thick for the most part. Remember that while space is 3d, the distribution of planets tend to be less so.
ComStar is not a joke of a faction. ComStar was more or less the liveblood of the inner sphere. HPGs, The C-bill, the MSRB, more or less the banking system.
That was all ran by comstar.
I love playing a Steiner nepo baby gifted a mercenary company and slowly realizing how much danger I am in.
Comstar did not exist until 2800 when kerensky left and the succession wars. Before that it was known as the hpg first circuit.
7:01 yes,this is the happy adventure universe with toys is the 1 im thinking of...
It's crazy how I like all these major factions but for different reasons, the suns might be my favourite because I love knights and nobles, Steiner have that cyberpunk 2077 militech feel, which is great, Draconis is just space Japan, and I love Japanese history, the free worlds seem like they'd be fun to worldbuild a faction of, and the capellan are just evil but in a fun to watch kind of way.
4:35 it sounds like the universe i think of but only made a little.
This is no Black Pants Legion, but it is pretty good.
Lyrian commonwealth military is literally pay to win lol
you should do the periphery nations as well. it'll make people like me who side with the periphery VERY happy. 😁😁😁
New to the series, given what u told us about Comstar isnt it likely they were doing stuff to destabilize the Star League
As Tex says, always shit on capellans
very cool
A jumpship can only jump 30 lightyears at a time. They then have to recharge their batteries.
True, barring a very few ships with cutting edge Star League era tech that involves battery systems capable of holding enough charge for a second jump. Those were mostly mounted on proper warships and not even all of them, but they gave you an enormous strategic advantage. Aside from covering distance faster, you could jump in, find yourself in a bad situation, and jump right back out again if you had to.
Of course, fully recharging from two jumps takes twice as long, so eventually you have to pay the piper.
1:12 "steeeeeeeve!!!
Gummy bears...".
So jumping is a bit like Dune with folding space.
Cool😊
I love Steve.
Can you go over the periphery as well?
Ah, battletech, Game of Thrones in space with no magic, and few dragons. Probably the most fun game IP I've come across.
Funny how comstar turns into the word of Blake and starts nuking everyone when they don't get their way/their prophecy doesn't become true
Capellan confederation- wild card every good group has a wild calrd
Based and Steinerpilled
1:41 its only 1000 years in the future?...
"To start a story 1 must become the fool.".
Okay, probably really stupid question. How do I get on your discord? Or do I have to be a patron subsciber?
Give me a rifle and a LAW, and I'll put that Atlas in the forever box.
You see, I don't hate Davion because they're smug
I hate Davion because they're smug and insanely hypocritical
At least their checks usually don't bounce...
49:31 does this planet happen to share a name with the isonzo river?
Additional tidbit about the jump travel. It is so sensitive to gravitational disturbances that the only (stable) jump points are well away from the elliptic of the solar system. Generally most transports civilian and military use standard jump zones above and below the system's sun. adding additional time to interstellar travel as the dropships then need to transit to their destinations.
I have not seen anything to suggest your 'velcro' theory that jumpships do not retain their kinetic energy. And most systems within the limited jump radius are unlikely to have a high relative energy. if there is a significant relative motion then part of the time they spend recharging might be correcting this.
This video has low resolution explainations based on a lot of memes which kinda skims over a lot of the more interesting details.
So jumpships FTL in BT function exactly like FTL in BSG, but it’s “very unique “?
Do you have this as a podcast? I'd like to listen on the road
"I think I stepped in some Steiner"
Hate to ask, what's the song? I know that I know it, but I cant think of it.
A little sad that you completely omitted the most kickass General in Battletech History. Aleksandr Kerensky..
1:01:52 your committing Sudoku? Not committing Seppuku? Also Anti-'Mech Jump Infantry are a thing. Every house uses them and normally have the Dispossessed in their ranks. If you can sit in the seat of a mech.... its yours... I will hose to get the former owner our latter.
I came here to say something similar ...
Did he just say "commit SODOKU" ?? ...that weird number-puzzle game??
The DC has the kintaro and the hunchback. What do you mean they dont do mediums? I guess when you do it right the first two times... lol great channel
I’m new currently playing throw MW5 only battle tech game I’ve played and I ended up siding with house Devion
you should have noticed that meric are the space US earlier
cappellan confederation really felt more like a cross between north korea and maoist china
Steve. Have you considered joining the death corps of Krieg?
33:41 you just described America.
Free worlds league is just Space USA. Its the US ramped up to 11 as seen by any neighboring state.
Americans hate each other, and would be over 50 separate countries if the federal government had not managed to gain control.
We only join together when outsiders threaten one of us.
Democracy does not work great at large scales as far as I can tell. Its great for small populations… like a city state or British colony. So this would absolutely be a prediction on where we were headed when the game was created.
The Free Worlds League is more like the Balkan or perhaps a bit more charitable Spain. The original Terran Hegemony was the US or perhaps the culture of the US. There is a note in one of the Jihad source books that the reason why you don't find much of the Us cuture in the Sucessor States is that most of the US settlements were in the core of the IS which was the Terran Hegemony and of course they suffered the worst of the Sucession Wars when several of their worlds were turned uninhabitable and dropped of the maps. Like New Dallas for example.
The FWL continues to exist because they actually have competent commanders. Up until a protagonist shows up then they become braindead.
Comstar reminds me of what America OnLine (AOL) would have become if it succeeded.
Minus the millions of free AOL branded coasters they sent out in n the 90s😂
1:05:19 Steve:nah id win
I don't know, death fighting a battlemech might be preferable to life in the Draconis Combine...
Steiner Scout Lance memes converted me from Davion. Or do I still like Taurians?
What about Rasuaslhuge
If this was a game like Total War or HoI4 it would be my favourite game ever!
Would be interesting, we've never really had a wide-scale strategy game. At least with HBS BattleTech + MercTech you can roll out your mech squad, mobile command center and airborne gauss rifle fire support.
You know what would be sort of perfect? A Crusader Kings III mod.
@@colbyboucher6391 ... Paradox IS the one who picked up HBS, but the licensing for the games (just the games, never mind the whole property!) is a *f--king mess*.
I've heard there's a board game in development at Catalyst, but how close it is to being done is another story.
@@kereminde From what people saw it's kind of a smaller-scale BattleForce to go with the redone version in the new Strategic Operations.
You could always just campaign on tabletop. With a bit of modification and reskinning to the Axis and Allies system to handle logistics, strategic phase, and economy, you could probably make a solid go of it...
@@andrewamann2821 Or you could just use the Inner Sphere at War rules that are pretty much designed for this
12:46 Actually BT FTL or Jump Drive is a lot like the Dune "Travel without moving" concept. A Jumpship while "jumping" is not moving at all as it simply "flashes" out of existance here and then flashes INTO existanmce over there...
15:23 TO quote Tex of the Blackpants legion channel "COMSTAR" is little more than a jumped upp telecommunication company... Basically a telephone company with its own military... LOL
Indeed the Capellan Confederation's sole purpose for existing in BT verse seems to be pummeled by.... Someone...Anyone..Everyone...
Space AT&T