Battletech - Also known as Trannytech

[Solid Snek]

You mean Skandia is too rimward. St John, out on the Periphery edge, is coreward.

Thanks for the reply; and yeah yeah, you're right, I misspoke. I meant "towards Terra", not "towards the coreward section of the galaxy"; is there a term for that? Terraward, maybe? basically I want to be closer to the Periphery., because that way the Yakuza's "home territory" will be on the forefront of the early Clan invasion, and because my impression is that territories closer to the Periphery have fewer official sources and thus, more room for player canon.

As for the Capellan group: yeah, maybe I wasn't clear (wrote it all quick), but I never intended them to be an OFFICIAL Capellan unit - as in, active duty CCAF expeditionary forces or anything. I'm thinking mercs, mostly or entirely Capellan nationals, who were secretly acting on behalf of the Maskirovka (we'd only find out about that years later, maybe as part of a larger campaign). That way, I could

• justify the anti-Capellan Xenophobe trait
• make it less likely my company and character would swear revenge against the Combine (I want them politically neutral in the Raslhague-Lyran-Combine arena)
• give the Yakuza an excuse to adventure Rimward at some point
• give my secret-Yakuza merc company a nice foil in the form of a secret-KGB/Triad merc company. Being Good Guys, we deal in simple pleasures like coom and guns; being Bad Guys, they deal in darker things, like Lostech, assassinations, and Comstar plots.

If there are no "official" units that would fit the bill, I'm happy to roll up a different one. Maybe a Highlanders unit, since I like Highlanders units, and iirc the Capellans are fond of using Highland-themed forces, right?


Anyways, had a NEW QUESTION for people:

Is it possible to mount a Long Tom on a Battlemech? I want to say it wasn't, at least when I was playing 90s Tech, due to the Critical Hit slot rules or something dumb like that. But is there a way to do this now?

And, if so, what is the lightest/fastest/jumpiest Mech that could mount a Long Tom?

 

[Balr0g]

Well there is the Helepolis but that Mech mounts a Sniper Artillery piece. And other pure Artillery Mechs (for example Naga, O-Bakemono) mount Arrow IV Missile batteries. Not sure if you even can mount the Long Tom on a Mech.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Is it possible to mount a Long Tom on a Battlemech? I want to say it wasn't, at least when I was playing 90s Tech, due to the Critical Hit slot rules or something dumb like that. But is there a way to do this now?

And, if so, what is the lightest/fastest/jumpiest Mech that could mount a Long Tom?

Yes, it's possible to mount a Long Tom on a BattleMech. Just like with the Heavy Gauss Rifle, you can split crits between adjacent locations when it comes to these huge modules. As for the lightest/fastest/jumpiest 'mech that could mount a Long Tom, you can always futz around one of the many options for MechLabs out there. Here's my 5-minute meme:

Spoiler: This is an illegal design.

Actually, you can't. Even with a full Torso and associated Arm and a Standard Engine, you can only fit 22 critical slots. The largest tube artillery you can actually fit is the Sniper, which takes up 20 crit slots in exchange for a 20/10 area damage shell.

Long story short, get an Arrow IV launcher. It's better than the Sniper in every way that matters.

 

[Solid Snek]

Yeah, I've thrown Arrow IVs into things. Pity about the Long Tom, tho.

Another question: I know there's such a thing as Industrial Mechs, and apparently the Dark Ages stuff features them more prominently.

But what about Leisure Mechs? Is that a thing?

I was flipping through some books on the Trove, and I noticed there were rules for slapping Crew Quarters and Luxury Stateroom onto vehicles, and I thought "ooo, that'd be fun to have on a Battlemech!" But then I read further and they specifically disallowed things like that on Mechs.

Why disallow it, though? Why not have a Mech with some actual living accommodations? Or geared towards design goals other than just industry and shooting? I'm thinking things like

• a fast quad mech with a giant, domed gallery on top, designed to take wealthy tourists on luxury sightseeing trips around exotic planetary locales.
• a rugged light or medium mech with one or two APC bays in lieu of heavy weaponry, which can function either as a spartan personnel transport for the civilian sector, or even as a heavy armored fighting vehicle capable of transporting and supporting infantry platoons.
• an ultra-mobile light LAM, with state-of-the-art Holovid recording equipment, designed for racing, stunt piloting, and Extreme Mech Sports
• a "gypsy camper" mech, poorly maintained but garishly decorated, and sporting a built-in housing unit that can serve as mobile shelter for families of vagabond Mech gypsies.
• a 150+ ton superheavy designed to look like something absurd (a baroque dragon or a lavish Terran chateau, for example), with grossly suboptimal combat performance - but that's OK, because it wasn't designed to be a combat unit, it was designed as a luxury Mech for billionaire Steiner nobles who wanted to say they owned the largest and heaviest production Mech in existence.
• "funny Mechs" that look vaguely like production Battlemechs, but are entirely optimized for drag racing and urban Mech shows, being no weapons, no armor, all engine. Maybe some are fitted with flamers for pyrotechnics displays, and special hydraulic boosters that cause the feather-weight, ultrathin "armor plates" on the chassis to bounce up and down, exposing the Mech's LED-ringed custom engine parts and releasing streams of colored coolant gas as loudspeakers hidden in the dummy missile racks blast Canopian EDM music.

I get that these kinds of things would be absurd in 3025, but post-Helm Core, it sounds like the galaxy's industrial capacity ramped up so much, that surely some people would have decided to make Mechs for living or playing with, rather than just for fighting and working in?

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

XTRO: Phantoms has the Vengeance Grand Titan, which is thought to be a delivery vehicle for Thumper-launched nukes (due to the absurd amount of security built into the ammunition storage).

XTRO: Pirates has a Victor which mounts a Long Tom Cannon (a somewhat scaled down Long Tom artillery launcher).

 

[Corn Flakes]

Another question: I know there's such a thing as Industrial Mechs, and apparently the Dark Ages stuff features them more prominently.

But what about Leisure Mechs? Is that a thing?

I was flipping through some books on the Trove, and I noticed there were rules for slapping Crew Quarters and Luxury Stateroom onto vehicles, and I thought "ooo, that'd be fun to have on a Battlemech!" But then I read further and they specifically disallowed things like that on Mechs.

Why disallow it, though? Why not have a Mech with some actual living accommodations? Or geared towards design goals other than just industry and shooting? I'm thinking things like

• a fast quad mech with a giant, domed gallery on top, designed to take wealthy tourists on luxury sightseeing trips around exotic planetary locales.
• a rugged light or medium mech with one or two APC bays in lieu of heavy weaponry, which can function either as a spartan personnel transport for the civilian sector, or even as a heavy armored fighting vehicle capable of transporting and supporting infantry platoons.
• an ultra-mobile light LAM, with state-of-the-art Holovid recording equipment, designed for racing, stunt piloting, and Extreme Mech Sports
• a "gypsy camper" mech, poorly maintained but garishly decorated, and sporting a built-in housing unit that can serve as mobile shelter for families of vagabond Mech gypsies.
• a 150+ ton superheavy designed to look like something absurd (a baroque dragon or a lavish Terran chateau, for example), with grossly suboptimal combat performance - but that's OK, because it wasn't designed to be a combat unit, it was designed as a luxury Mech for billionaire Steiner nobles who wanted to say they owned the largest and heaviest production Mech in existence.
• "funny Mechs" that look vaguely like production Battlemechs, but are entirely optimized for drag racing and urban Mech shows, being no weapons, no armor, all engine. Maybe some are fitted with flamers for pyrotechnics displays, and special hydraulic boosters that cause the feather-weight, ultrathin "armor plates" on the chassis to bounce up and down, exposing the Mech's LED-ringed custom engine parts and releasing streams of colored coolant gas as loudspeakers hidden in the dummy missile racks blast Canopian EDM music.

I get that these kinds of things would be absurd in 3025, but post-Helm Core, it sounds like the galaxy's industrial capacity ramped up so much, that surely some people would have decided to make Mechs for living or playing with, rather than just for fighting and working in?

Simply put, the factories that can build 'Mech parts are already busy with very lucrative contracts for the Great Houses, and 'Mechs are just not good platforms for most of the things you linked there. Maintence is far more intensive on 'Mechs than on conventional vehicles, spare parts are more expensive, and they require much more specialized manpower to operate. Besides, even a Light 20-ton 'Mech can still do an ungodly amount of damage to civilian infrastructure if the guy operating it snaps or loses control of the 'Mech. Piloting a Mech is also considerably more difficult than driving a normal tracked or wheeled vehicle, so it would demand better-trained pilots. That LAM idea in particular would be absurd. Any pilot who could operate one of those would get conscripted emphatically invited into about a dozen different Great House and/or Merc units.

Those ideas might have worked if the Inner Sphere wasn't constantly in a state of war. If the Star League hadn't fallen apart and the Inner Sphere had seen 250 years of peaceful development instead of four Succession Wars (and then a Clan Invasion, then a Civil War, then a Jihad...), then maybe you would would have seen 'Mechs being used like that. As it is, they're universally used for combat because that's where the money is.

 

[Solid Snek]

That LAM idea in particular would be absurd. Any pilot who could operate one of those would get conscripted emphatically invited into about a dozen different Great House and/or Merc units.

Sure, but what about in his free time? Mechwarriors are always dealing with Hurry Up and Wait; even in an age of total war, you're either sitting around in barracks, or waiting for a jumpship, or in the case of House nobility, having tea with your great-aunt during the day and dicking around with holovid models during the evening. Naturally, I wouldn't expect Stunt LAMs to be an everywhere thing; no, they'd be rare toys for the crazy few, like IRL wingsuits, personal rocket packs, or one of these things:

To put it another way, if a pilot is enough of a hotshot to handle a stunt LAM, then he's enough of a hotshot to want a stunt LAM. And even if he couldn't afford one on his own, then I could easily see some Corporation or even House Military dishing out c-bills to turn their pilot into a recruitment tool. Real-world militaries have plenty of people who work in public relations (band geeks, film producers, and of course stunt pilots), plus Battletech already has canon celebrisoldiers (First Sommerset Strikers), so why not some ultraflash LAM jockey with his own holovid series?


As for the rest, again, Industrial Mechs exist. You've got canonical Mechs like the Heavy Lifter, which does nothing except carry cargo on its back; why not upscale the engine, and instead of a cargo dock, stick a swanky nightclub and penthouse on the top?

 

[Corn Flakes]

Sure, but what about in his free time? Mechwarriors are always dealing with Hurry Up and Wait; even in an age of total war, you're either sitting around in barracks, or waiting for a jumpship, or in the case of House nobility, having tea with your great-aunt during the day and dicking around with holovid models during the evening. Naturally, I wouldn't expect Stunt LAMs to be an everywhere thing; no, they'd be rare toys for the crazy few, like IRL wingsuits, personal rocket packs, or one of these things:

To put it another way, if a pilot is enough of a hotshot to handle a stunt LAM, then he's enough of a hotshot to want a stunt LAM. And even if he couldn't afford one on his own, then I could easily see some Corporation or even House Military dishing out c-bills to turn their pilot into a recruitment tool. Real-world militaries have plenty of people who work in public relations (band geeks, film producers, and of course stunt pilots), plus Battletech already has canon celebrisoldiers (First Sommerset Strikers), so why not some ultraflash LAM jockey with his own holovid series?


As for the rest, again, Industrial Mechs exist. You've got canonical Mechs like the Heavy Lifter, which does nothing except carry cargo on its back; why not upscale the engine, and instead of a cargo dock, stick a swanky nightclub and penthouse on the top?

Okay, if you're talking about an one-off thing the mega-wealthy came up wtih, sure. But it's not going to be a widespread thing. You might have some sort of leisure planet with that sort of stuff but I don't know of any that was actually written into the setting. It would definitely not spread outside that one system and without backing of a large corporation or a House it's not going to become a House or Sphere-wide event because interstellar travel isn't exactly a casual thing in BattleTech.

And even then, non-combat 'Mechs are not actually the best at anything except going over rough terrain. Sure, you can have a stunt LAM, but it's still going to be worse than a stunt Aerospace Fighter in the air and a Locust on the ground. Anything that needs to go over rough terrain can usually be done by a tracked vehicle. A mobile nightclub might as well be done on the back of a stripped-down Maxim II (it hovers so it's cooler). The quad ideas could work but again: you need custom-made designs or very heavy modification of existing designs. You could have that sort of stuff, but they'd universally be one-offs that just don't get written into the setting due to space.

Now, fair play: I'm pretty sure I saw something about an expedition or safari on the back of a quad 'mech in some book somewhere. But again, very one-off thing.

 

[Snekposter]

Are you doing your part, citizens?

@Gezkill https://www.nexusmods.com/mechwarrior5mercenaries/mods/269 Slightly less brain-dead lancemates.

 

[Gezkill]

View attachment 2292163
Are you doing your part, citizens?

@Gezkill https://www.nexusmods.com/mechwarrior5mercenaries/mods/269 Slightly less brain-dead lancemates.

Im actually playing on Xbox since I have no hardcore access to a PC.


Also yes to the first part.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

The Uni IndustrialMech could probably be refitted into an RV.

 

[Corn Flakes]

The Uni IndustrialMech could probably be refitted into an RV.

If we're going for RVs, I'd go with a VTOL. Strip down a Karnov and you'd be able to not only pack supplies for months, but you could also land anywhere without having to worry about the intervening terrain. Let the boomers set up their RVs down by the lake, you can park all the way up the mountain overlooking the damn valley. You barely even need to remove the armor. The thing has almost none to begin with.

 

[Solid Snek]

Okay, if you're talking about an one-off thing the mega-wealthy came up wtih, sure. But it's not going to be a widespread thing. You might have some sort of leisure planet with that sort of stuff but I don't know of any that was actually written into the setting. It would definitely not spread outside that one system and without backing of a large corporation or a House it's not going to become a House or Sphere-wide event because interstellar travel isn't exactly a casual thing in BattleTech.

And even then, non-combat 'Mechs are not actually the best at anything except going over rough terrain. Sure, you can have a stunt LAM, but it's still going to be worse than a stunt Aerospace Fighter in the air and a Locust on the ground. Anything that needs to go over rough terrain can usually be done by a tracked vehicle. A mobile nightclub might as well be done on the back of a stripped-down Maxim II (it hovers so it's cooler). The quad ideas could work but again: you need custom-made designs or very heavy modification of existing designs. You could have that sort of stuff, but they'd universally be one-offs that just don't get written into the setting due to space.

Now, fair play: I'm pretty sure I saw something about an expedition or safari on the back of a quad 'mech in some book somewhere. But again, very one-off thing.

I'd say leisure Mech designs would be more than a one-off thing, but they would certainly be rare, yes! Except for maybe an APC/IFV Mech, and civilian variants of old/mothballed Mechs that've been tricked out as personal "garage projects" by Tech-minded 'warriors, there might not be a huge demand for leisure Mech designs - but there would be some demand, of that I'm certain.

And sure, there are ways to fill many of those functions more cheaply using conventional vehicles, like having a nightclub hovertank instead of a nightclub quad, but the same can be said about ANY role Mech's play. Battletech is not exactly a "practical" setting; it's a setting where galactic armies have for centuries decided that giant stompy Mechs are preferable to cheap, reliable tanks in almost every role. If the galaxy's moneyed class are willing to build Mechs instead of tanks for the life-and-death rigours of combat, then I think they'd be willing to build Mechs instead of tanks for hauling nightclubs around.

(besides, imagine if it was you: "Hey Cornflakes, would you like to come take a ride in a Mech?" OH YES PLEASE "By the way, this Mech has a built-in swimming pool and Holovid lounge where former Solaris girls serve you the finest Skye whiskey" cooome ooonnnn, nobody would pass THAT up, right? It'd be like Space Disney. Practical or no, you'd make a killing with resort Mechs.)



Another thing I was thinking: hunting Mechs. As in, Mechs designed, or modified, primarily for hunting alien species, ranging from small game to predatory megafauna.

These Mechs would have limited weaponry; one large bore weapons system (PPC), a couple point-defense weapons (flamer, SPL), and possibly a melee weapon for tackling megafauna up close. Engines would be enlarged, armor would be stripped to a minimum, and a "crew quarter" would be added so that a pilot and/or several passengers could live in the field for several weeks or months if need be (this crew quarter could include an observation deck from which operators can fire conventional weapons, like sniper rifles and hunting lasers). Maybe there'd even be a refrigerated storage box where alien animal parts could be stashed?

Mechwarriors are basically medieval knights, and the one thing knights enjoyed more than jousting (Solaris) and maidens (Canopus, Elementals) was hunting. So I'm sure sport hunting is something that nobles would do, especially on planets with lots of nasty fauna. And from what I understand, there's a number of planets with really nasty aliens living on them, including a few that are so bad they've wiped out entire colonies before. So on some planets it wouldn't just be sport, it'd be practical culling.

Perhaps there's a planet full of big, dumb Kaiju, stompy beasts who are the size of Battlemechs? This world is remote and far from the warfront, so bored nobles living in the area like to come and try their luck fighting vicious Kaiju. Many hunters blow their targets away from a distance, but a number of madlads feel this isn't sporting enough; instead, they like to close with the Kaiju for bare-knuckle brawling matches, or else use bizarre, custom-built, "low tech" weapons systems - like a Mech Spear designed for stabbing at a distance, or a Mech Bow, with myomer bowstrings, that can launch ferro-steel arrows tipped with a single SRM.

Or, maybe Dumfries IX, an agroworld of largely Scottish ancestry known for producing the sector's most robust herds of spacesheep, has become overrun by genetically-engineered Kangaroo Griffoxes? These vile predators swarm in packs and completely overwhelm the planet's conventional forces, swooping in and destroying entire garrisons with a combination of vicious kicks and spammed MLP pornography. Rather than lose precious farming colonies, the local rulers have decided to call in Hunting Mechs to deal with the marsupial menace.

 

[Corn Flakes]

I'd say leisure Mech designs would be more than a one-off thing, but they would certainly be rare, yes! Except for maybe an APC/IFV Mech, and civilian variants of old/mothballed Mechs that've been tricked out as personal "garage projects" by Tech-minded 'warriors, there might not be a huge demand for leisure Mech designs - but there would be some demand, of that I'm certain.

And sure, there are ways to fill many of those functions more cheaply using conventional vehicles, like having a nightclub hovertank instead of a nightclub quad, but the same can be said about ANY role Mech's play. Battletech is not exactly a "practical" setting; it's a setting where galactic armies have for centuries decided that giant stompy Mechs are preferable to cheap, reliable tanks in almost every role. If the galaxy's moneyed class are willing to build Mechs instead of tanks for the life-and-death rigours of combat, then I think they'd be willing to build Mechs instead of tanks for hauling nightclubs around.

(besides, imagine if it was you: "Hey Cornflakes, would you like to come take a ride in a Mech?" OH YES PLEASE "By the way, this Mech has a built-in swimming pool and Holovid lounge where former Solaris girls serve you the finest Skye whiskey" cooome ooonnnn, nobody would pass THAT up, right? It'd be like Space Disney. Practical or no, you'd make a killing with resort Mechs.)



Another thing I was thinking: hunting Mechs. As in, Mechs designed, or modified, primarily for hunting alien species, ranging from small game to predatory megafauna.

These Mechs would have limited weaponry; one large bore weapons system (PPC), a couple point-defense weapons (flamer, SPL), and possibly a melee weapon for tackling megafauna up close. Engines would be enlarged, armor would be stripped to a minimum, and a "crew quarter" would be added so that a pilot and/or several passengers could live in the field for several weeks or months if need be (this crew quarter could include an observation deck from which operators can fire conventional weapons, like sniper rifles and hunting lasers). Maybe there'd even be a refrigerated storage box where alien animal parts could be stashed?

Mechwarriors are basically medieval knights, and the one thing knights enjoyed more than jousting (Solaris) and maidens (Canopus, Elementals) was hunting. So I'm sure sport hunting is something that nobles would do, especially on planets with lots of nasty fauna. And from what I understand, there's a number of planets with really nasty aliens living on them, including a few that are so bad they've wiped out entire colonies before. So on some planets it wouldn't just be sport, it'd be practical culling.

Perhaps there's a planet full of big, dumb Kaiju, stompy beasts who are the size of Battlemechs? This world is remote and far from the warfront, so bored nobles living in the area like to come and try their luck fighting vicious Kaiju. Many hunters blow their targets away from a distance, but a number of madlads feel this isn't sporting enough; instead, they like to close with the Kaiju for bare-knuckle brawling matches, or else use bizarre, custom-built, "low tech" weapons systems - like a Mech Spear designed for stabbing at a distance, or a Mech Bow, with myomer bowstrings, that can launch ferro-steel arrows tipped with a single SRM.

Or, maybe Dumfries IX, an agroworld of largely Scottish ancestry known for producing the sector's most robust herds of spacesheep, has become overrun by genetically-engineered Kangaroo Griffoxes? These vile predators swarm in packs and completely overwhelm the planet's conventional forces, swooping in and destroying entire garrisons with a combination of vicious kicks and spammed MLP pornography. Rather than lose precious farming colonies, the local rulers have decided to call in Hunting Mechs to deal with the marsupial menace.

You're at the same time severely overestimating 'Mechs' sizes and underestimating their power.

Size: Even the largest quad 'Mech with the flattest back will only have a "deck" area of something like 400 sq. ft. That's a tiny studio apartment on legs. And anything inside is going to be jostling harder than a sailboat through a storm with every step (make sure the supermodels have their seatbelts on and the jacuzzi is drained). On a platform that has a habit of causing property damage and falling through the floor if you don't know where you're stepping. You really got to think these things out.

Power: BattleTech isn't a realistic setting, but it tries to be internally consistent. That I know of, there are no creatures described in the setting that are large enough to be dangerous to a BattleMech. If there are, they aren't common, and would be more a danger in the sense that they could knock a smaller 'Mech over if it caught the 'Mech by surprise. But sure, there's already a 'mech designed for hunting big toothy nasties, that's the CattleMaster's hunter variant. Two Small Lasers and three Machine Guns.

But IndustrialMechs are rare. If you really want to style on some dinosaurs, get yourself one of these puppies:

That's right, a bog-standard, can't-swing-a-dead-cat-around-without-hitting-one-of-these Locust. Rugged, reliable, venerable. That Medium Laser can vaporize/break apart a third of a ton of hardened military armor with a single shot. That's twice the weight of your average KiwiFarms user, vaporized, with every shot. It's got comparable stopping power to a modern 120mm main battle tank cannon. Even a t-rex would get its head punched clean through by what's effectively a back-up weapon for BattleMechs. And on top of that, the Locust can hop along at 130km/h so whatever the fuck it's hunting wouldn't even be able to escape. It would be flat-out unsporting.

Really, for what you want to do, may I suggest checking out Gundam instead?

 

[Balr0g]

Welll for a "party Mech" you might think of the Daedalus

I mean you could convert the storage area into something else. But a real Mech? that would be hard.

Heh and there is world where you can hunt big game: Hunter'S Paradise. Though those guys who travel there hunt the old fashioned way not with Mechs. Though there are stories that even Mechs do not always offer protection against Alien life.

 

[Snekposter]

Welll for a "party Mech" you might think of the Daedalus

View attachment 2294350

I mean you could convert the storage area into something else. But a real Mech? that would be hard.

Heh and there is world where you can hunt big game: Hunter'S Paradise. Though those guys who travel there hunt the old fashioned way not with Mechs. Though there are stories that even Mechs do not always offer protection against Alien life.

Bruh, there's only one true party 'Mech: the Partyback.

 

[TFT-A9]

Bruh, there's only one true party 'Mech: the Partyback.

Partyback was actually really fun pre-Clan Invasion patch

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

Heh and there is world where you can hunt big game: Hunter'S Paradise. Though those guys who travel there hunt the old fashioned way not with Mechs. Though there are stories that even Mechs do not always offer protection against Alien life.

Some use modded ForestryMechs, though it appears there was one case of a 'tour guide' who was murdering hunters who came to the planet.

 

[TFT-A9]

I will say that I could do the Partyback -1 SPLAS but actually a little better with the BJ-1X and was having some ludicrous games with that. I eventually rejiggered the HBK-4P a couple times to be extra silly and at one point was running it with all three kinds of pulse lasers (with a paint scheme not unlike B33F's) as a dumb gimmick - after the Civil War update a lot of the Hunchies were basically meme mechs anyway.

 

[Snekposter]

So, a couple thoughts of my own. I finally got motivated to look up just what a "mandrill" was, and oh boy. Describing Clan Fire Mandrill as a bunch of angry chimps isn't exactly off the mark. I mean, yeah, they've got an angry monkey as their logo, but fuck 'em, Wikipedia is a much better source for how they act than Sarna is.

Secondly, you know what really pisses me off about the Wolf Empire shit? Nobody is supposed to win the Grand Prize in BattleTech. Terra is supposed to be perpetually off-limits to everyone who strives for it, since the entire point of the setting is that the Great Houses would rather see the Inner Sphere get burned to ashes than see someone other than themselves lay claim to it. Its also spits on the lessons of Tukayyid, that the Clans cannot maintain the grinding attritional warfare the Inner Sphere forces on everyone through its size and accepted rules of war. The Clans that wised up and realized they weren't going to be able to get there (Raven, Bear, Sea Fox, Nova Cat), not without an utterly pyrrhic victory that would see them crushed by everyone else are SoL, with the Crusaders of the Wolves, Falcons, and even the fucking Jaguars coming out on top. It completely trashes the premises well established by prior lore, and accomplishes what exactly?