Uh oh. D503, if you're correct, he can go fanatic on us any second now! Better call in a pre-emptive Arrow IV strike!

*begins calling in Arrow IV coordinates*

Now we just need someone with TAG gear to guide them in...

Nah, definately a Blakist.

SHHH! The pog-warriors will hear you, and we'll never hear the end of it!

I'll address both issues in this post separately. First, Inner Sphere use of Clan-Tech. The Inner Sphere has now had 84 years (3050-3134) to study Clan-Tech. I think by now, they'll have gotten a grasp on how it works, to the point of being able to maintain, rebuild, make ammo, and even recreate such technology. That would include figuring out how to adapt Elemental Battle Armor to fit normal-sized human beings. 84 years is a very long time, after all.

As for Clans using IS tech - that's actually rather simple. I can sum up the entire reason why the Jade Falcons would use panthers and spiders in one word: Logistics. Supply lines are measured in Light Years, with travel times that can last weeks or even months, especially when the Jade Falcons do not have a direct supply line back to Jade Falcon space (they had to go through the Lyran Commonwealth, after all). Clan philosophy tends towards a disdain towards waste. And it would be quite wasteful to leave a MechWarrior without a 'Mech for a few months rather than use a piece of salvaged Inner Sphere equipment, simply because it is an Inner Sphere 'Mech. After all, it's better to fight in an inferior 'Mech than without a 'Mech at all.

Remember, once equipment is damaged, if they don't have spares on hand (and they'll almost certainly burn through their spares in short order the way they've been going), they have to first send word back down the supply line as to what they need, and then wait for that equipment to get back to them. With the HPG down, that message back is going to take the same amount of time travelling back as the equipment coming forward is going to take to come forward. Of course, this also assumes that they've got an infinite supply of spares back at the other end of the supply line ready and waiting to go, rather than needing to actually manufacture anything.

Logistics is one of the unglamourous parts of war that most stories leave out, and yet any military officer will tell you is the key to winning.

So let me get this straight: in the MW: AoD universe, no new mechs of any model are currently under production?

@Sennin,

While SC and SW may not be true Clans, they are(mostly) descendants of one of their Clan's Galaxies. And I find it hard to believe that when those Galaxies would move to set up their enclaves(in the Republic), they would simply just start building anew and NOT transplant mechworks(yes, factories can be transported, look at the U.S.S.R. and its "reparations" from Germany after WWII, entire factories moved to the U.S.S.R.)and such to the enclaves. How are they going to equip new sibkos with mechs? Just because of an era of peace does not mean they are going to stop training entire generations of warriors, and since most Clansmen disdain using anything not Clan, the Clan enclaves would have to supply at least most of their pilots with Clan tech, meaning the SC and SW(who have come from enclaves)should have alot of Clan tech.

Now people do not get me wrong, I can understand I.S. factions having Clan tech, in a minority compared to the rest of their equipment. I am just saying the Clan factions should get the Clan tech too(and usually first). It is kind of ridiculous to have R.O.T.S. having Elementals running around while the SW have none, or Highlanders getting a Jupiter before ANY of the Clan factions.

No, that's not it at all. It's just that 'Mechs aren't being built on every planet, and even on the planets that are producing 'Mechs, they aren't producing every single variety of 'Mech.

House Davion, Steiner and Kurita all have access to factories capable of producing Clan equipment. In the late 3060's those 3 houses were fully capable of producing on a limited scale Clan tech. The NAIS had been capable for several years of custom building individual weapons that are exact duplicates of Clan weaponry. They also cost a small fortune to produce one of. Its not a lack of capability its really the expense of making it. House Steiner has the advantage of having several Clan factories in thier borders owned by Wolves in Exile. The Draconis Combine has the advantage of several captured Smoke Jaguar factories and the Technical knowledge of the Nova Cats. Also Diamond Sharks now known as Sea Foxes began selling arms to the Inner Sphere as well as the clans.
It also comes down to the cost of maintaining such a large Army of troops made exclusively with Clan Technology. They lack the numbers of trained techs and support personnel to do the job.


On the subject of Mech production, its a little more Complicated as House Davion recovered fairly quickly from its Civil War in terms of materials. (They have a factory that churns out 130 Valkyries a year for example) They still lost a lot of battle seasoned troops and Aerospace assets. House Steiner is in far worse shape as some of the heaviest fighting resulted in serious damage to several of thier Battlemech Factories. Also they have a very limited number of factories that produce light and medium designs. House Liao would be pretty much dead meat if the ROTS gained that many worlds from them. They would lose a significant number of factories and they already suffered from serious losses from previous wars. (They had 8 factories left at the end of the 4th Sucession war)

I seriously doubt that any of the Major Houses stopped producing weapons at the end of the Jihad simply because Devlin Stone said okay its time for us to all put down our guns. (House Davion and Steiner had been exporting battle mechs to the ROTS.) House Liao can't afford to give up thier lost territory so its not hard to hear of them building up troops and Assets to continue thier quest to regain worlds they desperately need. I actually think it was more like House Steiner Davion and Kurita simply had other problems to deal with then the Jihad and then the taking of thier devestated worlds by the ROTS.

it made you recognize now did it not? I THINK SO!!!

Current player or not I like the universe and if some day this company has an epiphany and remembers what made them great, I may decide to help them again. Until then I will continue to try and bring light to this dark path of lies and deception that has been turned onto. Those who choose not to see the light may say what they like, but I to will say as I like. I do not attack anyone as individuals, as you did, but I will continue to offer reason.

Take it or not, that is your choice, but here it will continue to be written!

So, clan factories, both in clan space and in the IS, no longer produce clan mechs in quantities?

Any factory has a finite amount of production capacity. It can only turn out so many 'Mechs in a given amount of time. That alone will limit how many clan mechs come out. Now consider that during peacetime, fewer 'Mechs are needed, so fewer are produced. (Notice that the current size of the US Military is a small fraction of what it was during World War II, for example). War has only started back up in a big way in the last year of fiction-time in the BT/MW universe. Thus, the factories are only now gearing up from peacetime production to wartime production. On top of that, supply line issues are still a factor, so the best possible clan 'mech may simply not be immediately available to a unit (it may well have just come off the factory line at Styk, but that doesn't really help the MechWarrior on Skye that needs a 'Mech _right now_).

I'd also point out that we don't really know how many of the new 'mech designs use clan-tech. Obviously the Jade Falcon stylized designs do, but does the Shiro? if they ever make CBT TROs, I guess we'll know.

Of course, I expect to be disappointed how they deal with that - I've always felt that the way the CBT universe decided that centuries of warfare meant that technology was lost rather than advanced was a bit, well, messed up - at least, not without them having gotten blasted back to the stone age, or something ; so long as they retained the ability to run and build starships and battlemechs, they should have been able to continue advancing technology rather than losing it...

Yes, definitely a Blakist.

@Freeptop

I have to disagree. Even today, historians do not agree on how the Pyramids were built, ditto druidic circles, the colossus of Rhodes, ect... The techniques and technologies to accomplish these tasks where lost when those civilizations fell (much like the BT universe Star League), and humanity would have been hard pressed to replicate those feats even 84 years later.

@Freeptop,
The thing was, ComStar didn't want anyone to get 'sensitive' knowledge again, so ROM ops assasinated many scientists, etc. and prevented knowledge from being passed down. Also, during the Succession Wars (notably the 1st), WMDs were used extensively on mech factories, jumpship yards, etc. and even the ability to build the KF drives were lost. So that double whammy would very much explain why technology was lost. Also, in terms of logistics and finance, most would be used to support current units instead of R&D for new stuff, since maintaining mechs and KF drives were difficult enough.

@BlackHornedDea, and everyone else,
No offense to you personally, sir. Everyone else = ignore him and it won't matter what he says. His right to express himself does not override our right to ignore him, unless his handphone rings in the movie theater....

Many are, some arn't. For example, prior to the FedCom Civil War the 4th Davion Guards RCT possessed at least 19 Clan mechs which it used to organize a Clan style Trinary (it is a reinforced mech company with 5 mech lances). The 5th Davion Guards during the same time period had a full lance of Clan assault and heavy mechs- the special regimental rules in the back of the Federated Suns Field Manual allows the 5th to field Clan mechs on an 1/8 ratio. There are other units in that book that have a number of Clan omni mechs. There arn't a huge number of them, perhaps a couple of hundred at the most. However when you consider the attrition and Stone draw downs that could add up to a lot of them as a % of the total Davion mech force. The Republic would be in far better shape, omni mech wise, due to the large number of Clan mechwarriors who joined Stone with their mechs.