Commentary on Spock v. Thanatos

[Mr. Oragahn]

The front window of her house shimmers and melts. This is not the result of the blast effect (pretty minimal when it's a "hot breath of air") but a result of transmitted heat (pretty steep if it melted the glass, but not much in excess of melting the glass given that Cassie wasn't burnt).

Like would some hot molten shrapnel, sort of napalm, hitting the big window and melting it.

It requires the addition of such shrapnel to exist and reach the window.
On the other hand, I'd have expected the men in the yard, said to be hit directly, to be largely vapourized and not simply put on fire and falling to the ground.

[Jedi Master Spock]

To put it simply, in order for that quote to MAKE sense, what happens is that as I said, glass or any hot material shattered, hit the glass and melted it. I misfudged the statement a bit by saying that it must had been glass that hit the window plane, but nevertheless, it the one that makes more sense.

Only that completely fails to meet the description. The front pane shimmers, and then melts. That's straight down. If it were hit by flying debris, it would have shattered/sprayed inwards.

The medium is pretty clearly superheated gas - perhaps including vaporized dirt/grass from the impact site, but hot gas applying itself fairly evenly to the window.

And that's precisely the sort of thing that I modeled.

No. I arguing that in order for the incident to actually MAKE sense, it wasn't done through thermal radiation like you argued, but rather through conduction of heat .

Did I say a thing about thermal radiation?

Actually, it is very real evidence of high firepower (as is instantly setting the entire front of the Aung house on fire), and the sort of incident we don't see in Warhammer, to my knowledge. The glass melting across the street is more impressive, though; when we factor in that, it's difficult to keep below a hundred gigajoules. If 100% of the energy is distributed radially, and 100% is absorbed by 4mm of 2.5 g/cc plate glass (both questionable underestimates), which gets 1000 J/g (just short of a proper liquification, but enough to soften it a lot), we have 10,000,000 J/m^2 on, if the distance is 10m (about right for the front yard of a house on the other side of an avenue), a 314 square meter sphere, or 30 gigajoules.

That's the first order of approximation. It adjusts upwards a little bit as we take other factors into account, such as energy wasted vaporizing/melting dirt and grass in the Aung's yard, heating of the air, et cetera.

I did make a very simple mistake, which I pointed out later - that's a 10m diameter, rather than 10m radius, sphere. However, nothing about thermal radiation being the culprit. The medium is, as I implied in my debate and earlier in this post, hot gases, possibly including vaporized material from the impact site.

Because how hot the mech is does affect all these things. The contention, repeat, the contention is that 1 heat point= 10 degrees delta change * heat capacity of entire battlemech.

Approximately. Which, since we can guess the average temperature from the heat effects, is not terribly bad.

Except that the evidence doesn't work.
1. Heat capacity vis a vis tonnage. Non-existence. Similarly, the fact that heatscale only jumps 1 heat point per ten degree is proof AGAINST the linking of mech capacity, as different mechs of different tonnage would had been affected differently.

Not at all. For any refrigeration system, we expect a delta-T term in the coefficient of performance. So what matters for measuring the baseline is the outside temperature, strictly.

2. If heat scale is linked to the entire battlemech, then lighter mechs would suffer higher heat from weapons waste heat. I doubt you're arguing this interpretation, but rather, you're simply plugging in the heat a specific tonnage, getting the heat capacity from there and then calculating the value for 10 degree external=10 degree internal change and = 1 heat point.

Which is a point that fails on game mechanical simplicity. All BattleMechs have the same heat scale.

Of course, that would never work since plasma rifles, infernos, and plasma or conventional flamers already affect the heat scale, thus showing that heat capacity is not linked directly to the heat scale. The limitation of mech activity in high temperature or increased activity in low temperature climate only further shows the link between heat scale and its counterpart, heat generation and heat dissipation. Indeed, its already EXPLICTLY stated that heat scale is affected significantly by heat dissipation, in particularly, how forest fires would overwhelm mechs ability to cool itself. The heat scale jump here is not linked to the increased heat from the forest, but rather, to the DECREASED ability for mechs to cool themselves. Its not as simple as you assume it to be.

I'm not assuming it to be all that simple, actually. We have a fairly complex situation on the ground, which is why I'm not claiming high accuracy.

However, it's a reasonably good approximation, to within a half order of magnitude. (BattleMech mass variance is part of the reason for this expressed error. BattleMech masses vary by +/- 0.35 orders of magnitude.)

To put it simply, you're arguing ass backwards. There is simply no evidence to suggest that the heat capacity required to move the heat scale by 1 point is 1 GJ.

Except for the evidence indicating that these BattleMechs change by about ten degrees' average temperature per heat point, and that, accordingly, using either the higher mass figures and lower thermal resistance figures (per "modern materials") gives us something around a gigajoule per heat point.

Which, again, makes sense in light of weapons effects. I can argue it forwards and backwards because all the evidence on both sides of the hatch are perfectly consistent with each other.

That heat capacity is something you artificially put in place.

And which, in general, is a lower end capacity, based as it is on room-temperature capacities for perfectly normal modern materials.

Its common sense to show that external heat would affect the mech, and thus its measurement of temperature at the core. But again, where is the evidence to link 1GJ to 1 heat point?

Presented in detail in prior posts in this thread.

The contention is not Battlemech temperatures rise with external temperature!

That is one of them (and very normal as assumptions go, actually), although not the one I was talking about just at that moment. Read carefully.

[PainRack]

Only that completely fails to meet the description. The front pane shimmers, and then melts. That's straight down. If it were hit by flying debris, it would have shattered/sprayed inwards.

Except the road tarmac wasn't melted, ditto to the men. Or other effects. Or do you ascribe the PPC to the same city destroyer effects from Independence day?

Approximately. Which, since we can guess the average temperature from the heat effects, is not terribly bad.

And once again, the proof that heat-scale uses the capacity of the entire mech?

Not at all. For any refrigeration system, we expect a delta-T term in the coefficient of performance. So what matters for measuring the baseline is the outside temperature, strictly.

Except that weapons with the same firepower would put out the same amounts of waste heat, and since heat capacity is dimminished for lesser mechs, their heat scale would actually JUMP.

Which is a point that fails on game mechanical simplicity. All BattleMechs have the same heat scale.

Which argues against your model. As valid as Zero law of thermodynamics is here,

However, it's a reasonably good approximation, to within a half order of magnitude. (BattleMech mass variance is part of the reason for this expressed error. BattleMech masses vary by +/- 0.35 orders of magnitude.)

The model doesn't work and you claim its a good approximation? That's absurd.

Except for the evidence indicating that these BattleMechs change by about ten degrees' average temperature per heat point, and that, accordingly, using either the higher mass figures and lower thermal resistance figures (per "modern materials") gives us something around a gigajoule per heat point.

Which can be easily explained away by the internal evidence that hotter environments affect the cooling system. It is support for heat scale 1point= 10 degrees we gotten from the computer games, but the capacity is something else altogether.

[Jedi Master Spock]

Except the road tarmac wasn't melted,

1.) You don't actually know that.
2.) At the flux we're talking about, the road gets proportionately little energy even if it's all conducted via hot air. Remember, we're talking kJ/cm^2 order of magnitude - barely enough to melt a thin layer of glass - orthogonal to the explosion. The road might be slightly softened, but it's not going to turn into a pool of flaming tar, especially lying obliquely to the explosion and "shaded" by the curb/lawn.

ditto to the men.

The men were set on fire. Energy to do that, via direct thermal radiation, would be 125+ J/cm^2. That's also about the density we expect for the Aung house to burst into flames.

Or other effects.

And so was the house whose yard the PPC landed on.

What you should be asking is why Cassie's house and living room didn't get set on fire when the glass in its front window was melting. As I pointed out, that she wasn't harmed strongly suggests that barely enough energy hit to melt the glass.

Molten glass is generally hot enough to catch wood on fire. Perhaps her house was made of something not very flammable, but we're left with the question of the melting - not shattering - glass.

And the parameters can be fiddled with, but the first order estimate for the melting glass across the street is 120 GJ. If you drop the incident energy by a factor of 2 (some of the most easily melted glass in any front window anywhere), the distance by a factor of 2 (tiny lawns and a narrow one-lane road), and that Cassie's house's front window got double the energy per unit angle (thanks to reflection and wind) and we're still talking 8 GJ. You don't seem to quite grasp the magnitude of the disparity between melting glass at a distance, and minimally melting a half ton of iron.

And once again, the proof that heat-scale uses the capacity of the entire mech?

Once again, given by effects of that heat level occurring everywhere within the BattleMech, from cockpits to leg muscles to ammunition bins.

Except that weapons with the same firepower would put out the same amounts of waste heat,

But more of it directly into the environment. Which is precisely the hand-wave you're missing.

and since heat capacity is dimminished for lesser mechs, their heat scale would actually JUMP.

Not really. See above and below.

Which argues against your model. As valid as Zero law of thermodynamics is here,

Which argues that the model can't be tuned any more precisely than it already is.

The model doesn't work and you claim its a good approximation?

It works to within the degree of accuracy I ascribe to it. That defines a good approximation.

Which can be easily explained away by the internal evidence that hotter environments affect the cooling system.

By what? Providing a hotter reservoir to dump heat in, which we expect to linearly relate to any refrigeration system from first principles.

It is support for heat scale 1point= 10 degrees we gotten from the computer games, but the capacity is something else altogether.

And the capacity comes straight off the known heat capacities of the sort of substances we expect the 'mechs to be made of. The only way our capacity estimate will be off is if we have some previously unknown material with unusual thermal properties...

... in which case our capacity may be low.

So, to recap. We have 10 degrees per heat point straight out of the game, and PainRack now says that's also present in the computer games.

We have everything from the cockpit to the leg "muscles" to the ammunition bins no matter where they are located being proportionately affected, which dispenses with PainRack's objections about somehow only the engine block being heated.

Without injecting a lot of surplus water into the cockpit, sauna-like lethal temperatures, reached easily without cooling vests or if the cockpit's special cooling systems are inactive, mean on the order of hundred degree heating for - as seen in Star Lord - adding one extra PPC beyond what the system can handle well. Autoignition temperatures, for causing ammunition to explode, require localized pockets heated by over twice what I've claimed, which is not too bad for localized pockets of hot gas.

So, yes, we pretty clearly have average temperature increases on the close order of 10 degrees per heat point, on the entire BattleMech, possibly more, with a heat capacity on the close order of a hundred megajoules, which means around a gigajoule per heat point.

Which would agree nicely with PPCs in the e10 joule order of magnitude. Together, those two sets of data support each other - which means that the whole system is that much the stronger, and the objections to them that much weaker.

[PainRack]

1.) You don't actually know that.

IIRC, Cassie walks out the door and into the area.

And even if so, it can easily be shown its an outlier example.

On the morning of March 22 the foggy air around the station was abruptly filled with a seemingly endless barrage of missiles and PPC fire. The attackers gave no warning and hit with such ferocity that more than 132 civilians in the surrounding buildings also died. No ComStar personnel survived the attack that left the HPG facility a pile of scorched rubble and cinders

Multiple Naval PPCs and missiles, which is easily ten times the firepower of mech weapons.

Once again, given by effects of that heat level occurring everywhere within the BattleMech, from cockpits to leg muscles to ammunition bins.

Just to repeat, the heat scale is a freaking THERMOMETER. It measures temperature in the mech, it does not measure the amount of heat energy IN the mech.

Ditto to figuring out Zeroth law.

But more of it directly into the environment. Which is precisely the hand-wave you're missing.

Except that PPCs and lasers in tanks/vtols do not display this, despite them being relatively closed systems.

Your forum chewed up my much longer post, but this would suffice for the basics.
Suffice to say, your models are inconsistent with the rest of Battletech or uses assumptions without supporting evidence.

[Jedi Master Spock]

IIRC, Cassie walks out the door and into the area.

Not quite:

Cassie uttered a shriek that seemed to tear the lining out of her throat. Dropping her bear, she broke from her mother's arms and ran out the front door. The burning men had fallen to the ground. The whole front of the Aung house was in flames. Next to Cassie the fallen tree was ablaze with popping sounds.

She darts out into her yard. (The tree I quoted the destruction of earlier; it was set ablaze and knocked down by a stray laser burst, and was in the Suthorns' yard.)

And even if so, it can easily be shown its an outlier example.

On the morning of March 22 the foggy air around the station was abruptly filled with a seemingly endless barrage of missiles and PPC fire. The attackers gave no warning and hit with such ferocity that more than 132 civilians in the surrounding buildings also died. No ComStar personnel survived the attack that left the HPG facility a pile of scorched rubble and cinders

Multiple Naval PPCs and missiles, which is easily ten times the firepower of mech weapons.

Not incommensurate. This is a hardened facility, I would presume, being a HPG station. It's hard to measure this, but it could be anywhere from gigajoules to terajoules based on that limited description. This does not contradict Close Quarters because of this ambiguity; in order to show the incident in question to be an outlier, you need to show a bulk of evidence well outside it.

Other descriptions that I have cited don't seem as destructive; I will grant that. However, they still measure into the GJ/damage point range for thermal effects of energy weapons in most cases.

Just to repeat, the heat scale is a freaking THERMOMETER. It measures temperature in the mech, it does not measure the amount of heat energy IN the mech.

And you have a problem. The heat capacity of an object relates temperature and energy. For example, for water, 4.18 joules will raise 1 gram of water from 20 degrees to 21 degrees.

Similarly, we expect the BattleMech to have an overall heat capacity somewhere around 1 J/g*K. Multiply that by ten degrees and a hundred tons and you get straight to a gigajoule. Temperature and nano-scale kinetic energy are intrinsically related.

Except that PPCs and lasers in tanks/vtols do not display this, despite them being relatively closed systems.

Do they?

Suffice to say, your models are inconsistent with the rest of Battletech or uses assumptions without supporting evidence.

They are perfectly consistent with Battletech so far as I know. All assumptions made are perfectly reasonable.

As I've said before, there's a limited degree of accuracy available in this sort of analysis, but within that margin of error, these are quite good models for approximating the descriptions.

[PainRack]

[
Not incommensurate. This is a hardened facility, I would presume, being a HPG station. It's hard to measure this, but it could be anywhere from gigajoules to terajoules based on that limited description. This does not contradict Close Quarters because of this ambiguity; in order to show the incident in question to be an outlier, you need to show a bulk of evidence well outside it.［/quote]
lol. The bombardment of Harlec then, where the spires of Harlech are still intact.

And you have a problem. The heat capacity of an object relates temperature and energy. For example, for water, 4.18 joules will raise 1 gram of water from 20 degrees to 21 degrees.

And the whole point of contention is that there is no explicit link linking the heat scale to the heat capacity of the mech. IOW, the heat scale is using an unknown capacitance to measure the increase in heat points.

Your sole link is via external environment affecting the internal which is not definitive. Especially once you consider the consistency aspects of this problem. Its more likely that the scale is "fixed", rather than a variable aspect of the mech thermal capacity.

[Jedi Master Spock]

lol. The bombardment of Harlec then, where the spires of Harlech are still intact.

By all means, provide details.

And the whole point of contention is that there is no explicit link linking the heat scale to the heat capacity of the mech. IOW, the heat scale is using an unknown capacitance to measure the increase in heat points.

You earlier ceded that heat scale probably measures temperature.

Simple fact is that the heat capacity of a BattleMech must exist, and unless the BattleMech is primarily exotic in construction - in which case our estimates will be low - then it will have a heat capacity somewhere on the general order of what I'm talking about.

Your sole link is via external environment affecting the internal which is not definitive. Especially once you consider the consistency aspects of this problem. Its more likely that the scale is "fixed", rather than a variable aspect of the mech thermal capacity.

This is not the sole link, as I've explained numerous times. We have ties between waste heat and damage, we have ties between cockpit and internal temperature and heat scale, and we have ties between external environment and heat scale.

[PainRack]

On the battlefield northeast of Bagera, the effects were a little more dramatic. The Gauss slug, accelerated to incredible velocities, slammed into the red-brown mud with the force of a hundred conventional artillery shells. Less than a second later the PPC discharge savaged the Jaguars' position, flashing the muddy ground into dirty steam.
Colonel Timothy Price, Marshal Bryan's second in command, watched in horrified fascination as the energy released by the blast shattered the Clan 'Mechs unfortunate enough to be near the naval fire's impact point. Though the fire mission had fallen over one hundred meters to the west of Price's designated target, the effect on the Jaguars was nothing less than appalling. Nine of the lighter enemy 'Mechs just ceased to exist, blown to pieces by the unbe¬lievable energies delivered by the Fire Fang's weapons. Any Elemental unlucky enough to be caught in the primary blast area was vaporized. Most of the surviving Clan forces were so badly dam¬aged as to be useless as fighting machines, or even as spare parts.

Twillight of the Clans IV

Apparently sensing imminent defeat, the Blakist Fleet commander ordered an orbital bombardment in and around Harlech after nearly a week of fighting. Simultaneously, the Blakist sterilized the entire Remus continent using stragetic nuclear weapons.

As I write this, Harlech burns. The majestic spires of Wolf Hall, once strong and proud on the skyline, are blackened and broken. Now they arenothing but a grave marker for the fallen Dragoons. Choked with oil and debris, Lake Kearney is a black pit that devours light and reflects nothing. The Harlech Links(whhere I have spent so many pleasant hours over the years) is a blasted heath gouged with BattleMech footprints.
In the streets, once filled with cosmopolitan bustle, only the dead now linger. The sky is black with smoke from a thousand fires. They rage unchecked, for tto venture out invites attack from the white BattleMechs and packs of battle armor that stalk the streets firing at any movement. The wounded fill the hospitals, but are not safe even there from infantry searching for mercenaries or their families.
During the night(or what the chronometers tell me was night), the fighting came a lot closer to the HPG. I only have a Level II of infantry to defend the transmitter. I hope we can hang on. I hope the remainding Dragoons can defeat those who were once my brothers.
I hope Precentor Martial Steiner-Davion can save us all from these monsters.
I don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep transmitting...

Of course, there's more.

Where else? Ohh. I know. Artillery.

but the first spotting rounds dropped short by more than a hundred meters, landing in the streets adjacent to the spaceport.One 125-millimeter shell crashed through the roof of a warehouse that held drums of high grade petroleum

Maybe the laser rifle that can damage mechs?

Quintus pointed to the hole burned through at the man's ribs. "Had to be a laser rifle. Clean shot."

Dan nodded slowly. "From the angle, the shot must have gotten both lungs and heart. No blood, though. The beam cauterized everything."

Two hot red laser bolts leaped from Craon's pistol after the other fleeing Liao operative. The first missed and exploded a wooden post into a storm of flaming splinters.

Warrior riposte.

The Star Colonel twisted and slid down in the hatch of his tank, half his head burned away.

Truth and Shadows, page 289 wrote:

The 20mm Gatling gun is a time-proven weapon, giving the Scorpion good defensive firepower with plenty of punch. Though some users of the tank have tried 30mm machine guns, the Gatling gun’s high rate of fire makes larger shells unnecessary.

Issues with the autocannon quantification

The Mithras’s turret-mounted Series 2b autocannon allows accurate, sustained fire against targets up to one thousand meters from the vehicle. The system’s advanced autoloader allows the gunner to select a variable rate of fire, and at full speed the 50mm cannon can fire twelve rounds a minute

Superior weight, similar if not superior range, but lesser firepower.

gtg. Will repost energy calcs say..... in 3-4 days time.

You earlier ceded that heat scale probably measures temperature.

Say what? How does the fact that it measures temperature = capacitance for the heat scale= entire mech? All the hints suggest that the heat scale is fixed, thus, it must use a fixed based for its scale.

This is not the sole link, as I've explained numerous times. We have ties between waste heat and damage, we have ties between cockpit and internal temperature and heat scale, and we have ties between external environment and heat scale.

Evidence that the mech gets hot is NOT equals to heat scale of mech= entire heat capacitance.

[Jedi Master Spock]

On the battlefield northeast of Bagera, the effects were a little more dramatic. The Gauss slug, accelerated to incredible velocities, slammed into the red-brown mud with the force of a hundred conventional artillery shells. Less than a second later the PPC discharge savaged the Jaguars' position, flashing the muddy ground into dirty steam.

Conventional 155mm artillery shell (M107):
Kinetic energy @ muzzle: 6 MJ.
Explosive force: 30 MJ.
Total energy, M107: 36 MJ.
Momentum: Around 20,000 kgm/s

Gauss rifle (projected):
Kinetic energy @ muzzle: 720-1000 MJ.
Explosive force: 0 MJ.
Total energy: 720-1000 MJ (~20-25 times the M107)
Momentum: 425,000-500,000 kgm/s (~20 times the M107)

So, in general, we're looking at the regular mech-grade gauss rifle hitting with no more than the force of 20 conventional artillery shells, taking the description as being precise. (Doesn't sound precise to me.)

The M795, which is replacing the M107 we discussed earlier, has about twice the bursting charge, and larger caliber artillery (up to around 200mm) isn't unheard-of, so we have plenty of available "fudge factor" in that.

So if you'd like to take that description literally, and stand by your assertion that naval weapons are ten times as powerful, then you don't have a leg to stand on in claiming a contradiction between this description and my conclusions about gauss rifles. You've got a factor of two - if you pick an old outdated artillery shell - and that's well within the precision of the description. (If you really like, we can try to compute the energy of BT artillery shells and compare it to those; I suspect that might increase the numbers a bit more than I would like, but you could work with it if you like.)

Further, exploding mud into "dirty steam," vaporizing armored troops, and flattening armored vehicles while landing a hundred meters off target:

Colonel Timothy Price, Marshal Bryan's second in command, watched in horrified fascination as the energy released by the blast shattered the Clan 'Mechs unfortunate enough to be near the naval fire's impact point. Though the fire mission had fallen over one hundred meters to the west of Price's designated target, the effect on the Jaguars was nothing less than appalling. Nine of the lighter enemy 'Mechs just ceased to exist, blown to pieces by the unbe¬lievable energies delivered by the Fire Fang's weapons. Any Elemental unlucky enough to be caught in the primary blast area was vaporized. Most of the surviving Clan forces were so badly dam¬aged as to be useless as fighting machines, or even as spare parts.

So we're killing armored vehicles and vaporizing people [who are wearing armor] in an area on the general order of hundreds of meters. Point of comparison: The US MOAB has a blast radius of about 140m and delivers about 50 gigajoules on target, and as a chemical explosive, is a little more efficient than a giant lightning gun (about a factor of 2, we expect) at producing blast waves. We're talking about effects of hundreds of gigajoules, possibly even over a terajoule, for this naval PPC discharge, as the radius of effect is apparently well over a hundred meters and is destroying multiple dispersed armored vehicles and outright vaporizing armored infantry.

Divide by ten (the factor by which you tell me naval weapons exceed mech weapons) and we get tens, possibly over a hundred, gigajoules for the mech-grade PPC. Sound familiar? It should, that's what I've described the Close Quarters incident as. I would say the Close Quarters incident still suggests higher yields, but only marginally, and both clearly fall in the same general range.

This actually injures your claim that the Close Quarters incident is an outlier.

Apparently sensing imminent defeat, the Blakist Fleet commander ordered an orbital bombardment in and around Harlech after nearly a week of fighting. Simultaneously, the Blakist sterilized the entire Remus continent using stragetic nuclear weapons.

Sterilizing an entire continent actually does require quite a supply of nukes, for the record.

As I write this, Harlech burns. The majestic spires of Wolf Hall, once strong and proud on the skyline, are blackened and broken. Now they arenothing but a grave marker for the fallen Dragoons. Choked with oil and debris, Lake Kearney is a black pit that devours light and reflects nothing. The Harlech Links(whhere I have spent so many pleasant hours over the years) is a blasted heath gouged with BattleMech footprints.
In the streets, once filled with cosmopolitan bustle, only the dead now linger. The sky is black with smoke from a thousand fires. They rage unchecked, for tto venture out invites attack from the white BattleMechs and packs of battle armor that stalk the streets firing at any movement. The wounded fill the hospitals, but are not safe even there from infantry searching for mercenaries or their families.
During the night(or what the chronometers tell me was night), the fighting came a lot closer to the HPG. I only have a Level II of infantry to defend the transmitter. I hope we can hang on. I hope the remainding Dragoons can defeat those who were once my brothers.
I hope Precentor Martial Steiner-Davion can save us all from these monsters.
I don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep transmitting...

Sounds awful, but doesn't tell us a thing about weapons yields. We already know what nuclear bombardments do.

Where else? Ohh. I know. Artillery.

but the first spotting rounds dropped short by more than a hundred meters, landing in the streets adjacent to the spaceport.One 125-millimeter shell crashed through the roof of a warehouse that held drums of high grade petroleum

We haven't talked about BT artillery yet.

Doesn't sound particularly strange. The M777 lightweight 155mm howitzer gun is intended to have a CEP of less than 200m. If this is a conventional unguided ballistic "dumb" explosive round fired out of a tube, 100m is not an unusual error.

Quintus pointed to the hole burned through at the man's ribs. "Had to be a laser rifle. Clean shot."

Dan nodded slowly. "From the angle, the shot must have gotten both lungs and heart. No blood, though. The beam cauterized everything."

In general, hundreds of kilojoules to low megajoules. Curiously, I've already described BT laser rifles as having probable effects in this range.

Two hot red laser bolts leaped from Craon's pistol after the other fleeing Liao operative. The first missed and exploded a wooden post into a storm of flaming splinters.

Warrior riposte.

So this is definitely in the megajoule range, actually, for a pistol.

The Star Colonel twisted and slid down in the hatch of his tank, half his head burned away.

Sniper rifle? Again, hundreds of KJ to low MJ to do with a laser.

The 20mm Gatling gun is a time-proven weapon, giving the Scorpion good defensive firepower with plenty of punch. Though some users of the tank have tried 30mm machine guns, the Gatling gun’s high rate of fire makes larger shells unnecessary.

The Mithras’s turret-mounted Series 2b autocannon allows accurate, sustained fire against targets up to one thousand meters from the vehicle. The system’s advanced autoloader allows the gunner to select a variable rate of fire, and at full speed the 50mm cannon can fire twelve rounds a minute

Superior weight, similar if not superior range, but lesser firepower.

So?

Say what? How does the fact that it measures temperature = capacitance for the heat scale= entire mech? All the hints suggest that the heat scale is fixed, thus, it must use a fixed based for its scale.

All the hints suggest that the heat scale measures temperature (as applied to a BattleMech). We can indeed use this to estimate the energy represented by one heat point of the weapons, by figuring on how much waste heat the weapon would have to dump into a sample BattleMech to raise it appropriately on the heat scale.

We can also do this directly with given specific incidents. For example, in Star Lord, we're directly talking about the heating of a 70 ton mech.

It's all related, and it all fits together - with limited precision, but a clear order of magnitude that matches reasonably well with weapons effects.

[PainRack]

So, in general, we're looking at the regular mech-grade gauss rifle hitting with no more than the force of 20 conventional artillery shells, taking the description as being precise. (Doesn't sound precise to me.)

Of course, we COULD also use the conventional artillery shells from Btech..... where a single 155mm artillery shell essentially caved in a house.

So if you'd like to take that description literally, and stand by your assertion that naval weapons are ten times as powerful, then you don't have a leg to stand on in claiming a contradiction between this description and my conclusions about gauss rifles. You've got a factor of two - if you pick an old outdated artillery shell - and that's well within the precision of the description. (If you really like, we can try to compute the energy of BT artillery shells and compare it to those; I suspect that might increase the numbers a bit more than I would like, but you could work with it if you like.)

Except unlike you, we're using what happens TO the terrain itself.And actually, I was thinking about the NAVAL PPC when we used that quote. I'm also ignoring outlier data such as sidestepping a naval laser in the Battle of Tikonov.

So we're killing armored vehicles and vaporizing people [who are wearing armor] in an area on the general order of hundreds of meters.

Errr.... No. The Firefang MISSED the target. Since military forces are actually spread out, they failed to hit the centre of mass for the Jaguar formation, but hit the outlier units instead.
More importantly, we seen the effects of said PPC fire.... It vapourised water over a large area, turning it to steam.

Sterilizing an entire continent actually does require quite a supply of nukes, for the record.

Which has no bearing on the firepower involved. We already seen conventional firepower limits for nukes from Federated Commonwealth Civil War manual. Hundred megaton nukes. The only difference is that changes in game mechanics means that kiloton and megaton nukes no longer insta-kill dropships/jumpships in space from Project Los Alamos, which were gameplay changes introduced in Jihad.

Interestingly, kiloton nukes are STILL insta kill against battlemechs in canon although gameplay has made significant changes.

Sounds awful, but doesn't tell us a thing about weapons yields. We already know what nuclear bombardments do.

Ahem. A coordinated WARSHIP bombardment on the city of Harlech. What do we see? Oh yeah. The spires of the MRBC were STILL INTACT.
Lake Kearny? Its still there, albeit, blocked by debris and other liquid pollutants. The whole point of quoting those two paragraphs were to show the extent of above naval bombardment at Harlech.

Doesn't sound particularly strange. The M777 lightweight 155mm howitzer gun is intended to have a CEP of less than 200m. If this is a conventional unguided ballistic "dumb" explosive round fired out of a tube, 100m is not an unusual error.

We were establishing parameters for the artillery of Battletech. Take note that Long Toms are at best 155mm calibre, and they achieve their effect via the conventional effects of scattering munitions clusters... Yet, their firepower is almost equivalent and superior to Gauss rifles for indirect and direct fire. Over a radius of freaking 15m if we were to use game mechanisc utterly.

In general, hundreds of kilojoules to low megajoules. Curiously, I've already described BT laser rifles as having probable effects in this range.

Said laser rifles are effective against Elemental suits with combined fire from Clantroops.

As for autocannons, note the difference in KE and how it shows non linearity in damage.

All the hints suggest that the heat scale measures temperature (as applied to a BattleMech).

Based on what? The fact that mech weapons consistently delivers a set amount of heat scale waste? That moving 30m and moving 90m delivers a fixed heatpoint of 1? That dunking yourself in water where heat sinks are operational increase the effiency of heatsinks by two and thus its effects on the heat scale is fixed?

Your argument is based SOLELY on environmental temperature affecting battlemechs and thus arguing that this shows that heat-scale= entire battlemech and is variable..... This even though other rules such as fire show that this isn't a simple case of the mech absorbing heat from the environment.

We can also do this directly with given specific incidents. For example, in Star Lord, we're directly talking about the heating of a 70 ton mech.

NO SHIT IDIOT. Understand this, no one is NOT saying that battletech doesn't obey zeroth law and the 1st law of thermodynamics. What we're saying is that there is no evidence that the heatscale and heatpoints numbers you dervive are actually VALID.

[PainRack]

So, in general, we're looking at the regular mech-grade gauss rifle hitting with no more than the force of 20 conventional artillery shells, taking the description as being precise. (Doesn't sound precise to me.)

Of course, we COULD also use the conventional artillery shells from Btech..... where a single 155mm artillery shell essentially caved in a house.

So if you'd like to take that description literally, and stand by your assertion that naval weapons are ten times as powerful, then you don't have a leg to stand on in claiming a contradiction between this description and my conclusions about gauss rifles. You've got a factor of two - if you pick an old outdated artillery shell - and that's well within the precision of the description. (If you really like, we can try to compute the energy of BT artillery shells and compare it to those; I suspect that might increase the numbers a bit more than I would like, but you could work with it if you like.)

Except unlike you, we're using what happens TO the terrain itself.And actually, I was thinking about the NAVAL PPC when we used that quote. I'm also ignoring outlier data such as sidestepping a naval laser in the Battle of Tikonov.

So we're killing armored vehicles and vaporizing people [who are wearing armor] in an area on the general order of hundreds of meters.

Errr.... No. The Firefang MISSED the target. Since military forces are actually spread out, they failed to hit the centre of mass for the Jaguar formation, but hit the outlier units instead.
More importantly, we seen the effects of said PPC fire.... It vapourised water over a large area, turning it to steam.

Sterilizing an entire continent actually does require quite a supply of nukes, for the record.

Which has no bearing on the firepower involved. We already seen conventional firepower limits for nukes from Federated Commonwealth Civil War manual. Hundred megaton nukes. The only difference is that changes in game mechanics means that kiloton and megaton nukes no longer insta-kill dropships/jumpships in space from Project Los Alamos, which were gameplay changes introduced in Jihad.

Interestingly, kiloton nukes are STILL insta kill against battlemechs in canon although gameplay has made significant changes.

Sounds awful, but doesn't tell us a thing about weapons yields. We already know what nuclear bombardments do.

Ahem. A coordinated WARSHIP bombardment on the city of Harlech. What do we see? Oh yeah. The spires of the MRBC were STILL INTACT.
Lake Kearny? Its still there, albeit, blocked by debris and other liquid pollutants. The whole point of quoting those two paragraphs were to show the extent of above naval bombardment at Harlech.

Doesn't sound particularly strange. The M777 lightweight 155mm howitzer gun is intended to have a CEP of less than 200m. If this is a conventional unguided ballistic "dumb" explosive round fired out of a tube, 100m is not an unusual error.

We were establishing parameters for the artillery of Battletech. Take note that Long Toms are at best 155mm calibre, and they achieve their effect via the conventional effects of scattering munitions clusters... Yet, their firepower is almost equivalent and superior to Gauss rifles for indirect and direct fire. Over a radius of freaking 15m if we were to use game mechanisc utterly.

In general, hundreds of kilojoules to low megajoules. Curiously, I've already described BT laser rifles as having probable effects in this range.

Said laser rifles are effective against Elemental suits with combined fire from Clantroops.

As for autocannons, note the difference in KE and how it shows non linearity in damage.

All the hints suggest that the heat scale measures temperature (as applied to a BattleMech).

Based on what? The fact that mech weapons consistently delivers a set amount of heat scale waste? That moving 30m and moving 90m delivers a fixed heatpoint of 1? That dunking yourself in water where heat sinks are operational increase the effiency of heatsinks by two and thus its effects on the heat scale is fixed?

Your argument is based SOLELY on environmental temperature affecting battlemechs and thus arguing that this shows that heat-scale= entire battlemech and is variable..... This even though other rules such as fire show that this isn't a simple case of the mech absorbing heat from the environment.

We can also do this directly with given specific incidents. For example, in Star Lord, we're directly talking about the heating of a 70 ton mech.

NO SHIT IDIOT. Understand this, no one is NOT saying that battletech doesn't obey zeroth law and the 1st law of thermodynamics. What we're saying is that there is no evidence that the heatscale and heatpoints numbers you dervive are actually VALID.

[Jedi Master Spock]

So, in general, we're looking at the regular mech-grade gauss rifle hitting with no more than the force of 20 conventional artillery shells, taking the description as being precise. (Doesn't sound precise to me.)

Of course, we COULD also use the conventional artillery shells from Btech..... where a single 155mm artillery shell essentially caved in a house.

Did I mention the description didn't inspire feelings of precise estimation? Or that using a more powerful artillery shell wouldn't help your case that I'm overestimating gauss rifle power - in fact, precisely the opposite?

Except unlike you, we're using what happens TO the terrain itself.And actually, I was thinking about the NAVAL PPC when we used that quote. I'm also ignoring outlier data such as sidestepping a naval laser in the Battle of Tikonov.

I'd appreciate it if you presented all the data you're aware of before claiming some data are outliers and some data are not.

Errr.... No. The Firefang MISSED the target. Since military forces are actually spread out, they failed to hit the centre of mass for the Jaguar formation, but hit the outlier units instead.
More importantly, we seen the effects of said PPC fire.... It vapourised water over a large area, turning it to steam.

Begging your pardon, but what about this actually contradicts anything I said about the incident in question? This sounds precisely like what I described in my analysis above.

Particularly note the bit about dispersal. Nine separate mechs, plus assorted battle armored units, "ceased to exist" or were vaporized.

Which has no bearing on the firepower involved. We already seen conventional firepower limits for nukes from Federated Commonwealth Civil War manual. Hundred megaton nukes. The only difference is that changes in game mechanics means that kiloton and megaton nukes no longer insta-kill dropships/jumpships in space from Project Los Alamos, which were gameplay changes introduced in Jihad.

Interestingly, kiloton nukes are STILL insta kill against battlemechs in canon although gameplay has made significant changes.

Well, when we're talking about the heaviest of battlemech weapons being at least ~1.5 orders of magnitude less (and more likely 2-2.5), "instakill" effects are hardly a surprise. In fact, they fit perfectly.

Ahem. A coordinated WARSHIP bombardment on the city of Harlech.

Using weapons specifically excluding nuclear devices? We can't really say much about what happened, AFAIK, and it really doesn't help ballpark yield of individual weapons at all. The 100-1000 GJ range cannot be ruled out for NPPC strikes, for example.

What do we see? Oh yeah. The spires of the MRBC were STILL INTACT.

Which, as I said earlier, does almost nothing to refine the yield of warship weapons.

Lake Kearny? Its still there, albeit, blocked by debris and other liquid pollutants. The whole point of quoting those two paragraphs were to show the extent of above naval bombardment at Harlech.

And? That does next to nothing to refine yield estimates.

We were establishing parameters for the artillery of Battletech. Take note that Long Toms are at best 155mm calibre, and they achieve their effect via the conventional effects of scattering munitions clusters... Yet, their firepower is almost equivalent and superior to Gauss rifles for indirect and direct fire. Over a radius of freaking 15m if we were to use game mechanisc utterly.

And? So BattleTech has powerful explosives.

Well, if you told me that an explosive 155mm shell had a lethal radius of 45+ meters, I would strongly suspect it wasn't a perfect match for modern technology.

Said laser rifles are effective against Elemental suits with combined fire from Clantroops.

IIRC, I have already provided quotes talking about how even less powerful weapons can - with lucky/accurate shots - nail battle armor.

The point is that these are lucky shots, or very well targeted shots, and that typically, battle armor resists fire many orders of magnitude stronger. As the quote I provided also mentioned, I believe.

As for autocannons, note the difference in KE and how it shows non linearity in damage.

You have yet to establish a definite difference in KE between autocannon types. The muzzle velocity is unknown, the caliber and rate of fire vary wildly, and much of the damage is - as the gauss rifle firmly demonstrates - due to explosive effects rather than KE.

Based on what? The fact that mech weapons consistently delivers a set amount of heat scale waste? That moving 30m and moving 90m delivers a fixed heatpoint of 1? That dunking yourself in water where heat sinks are operational increase the effiency of heatsinks by two and thus its effects on the heat scale is fixed?

Your argument is based SOLELY on environmental temperature affecting battlemechs

No, it isn't. As I've told you numerous times. You seem to jump around without realizing that all these things I'm talking about are distinct from one another - the environmental effects, the described heating of cockpits, the effects of heat upon mechs, comparisons between inflicted heat and inflected damage for "heat" based weapons, the relative energy and efficiency of weapons, et cetera. My argument, accordingly, does not rest solely on any of those points. It is a synthesis of all of them, and can survive without any one - or two, or even three - of those bases.

NO SHIT IDIOT.

That would fall under the "no flaming" clause of the site rules. Cool it.

Understand this, no one is NOT saying that battletech doesn't obey zeroth law and the 1st law of thermodynamics. What we're saying is that there is no evidence that the heatscale and heatpoints numbers you dervive are actually VALID.

I have presented several independent lines of evidence pointing towards the same conclusions, using perfectly valid techniques.

As I have mentioned several times, precision is sharply limited with most of those techniques, but for the purpose of VS analysis accuracy, the results are quite significant.

[PainRack]

Did I mention the description didn't inspire feelings of precise estimation? Or that using a more powerful artillery shell wouldn't help your case that I'm overestimating gauss rifle power - in fact, precisely the opposite?
.

Did I also mention that the "conventional" artillery shell in this case did absolutely JACK shit to a house, causing just the roof to cave in and the normal sharpnel damage?

And these are the SAME artillery shells that can damage mechs?

I'd appreciate it if you presented all the data you're aware of before claiming some data are outliers and some data are not.

Really? so you consider

A lance of ruby energy fell down from the skies like the glare of some angry god, scorching the earth and leaving a scar along the ground and across a Com Guard jump capable Kanga hovercraft. It split open under the naval-class laserfire, engine erupting in a brilliant fireball that quickly burned off into a dark, oily cloud. Its heavy ammunition stores detonated in sympathetic explosions, shredding armor and hurling large chunks of the vehicle up to a quarter-kilometer distant.

The Sixth Crucis Lancers lost two BattleMechs in quick succession as well as a squad of Infiltrator battle armor, who were burned down to a tortured composite of half-melted armor, crisped flesh, and ash.

Already, the probing lasers searched for their next victim, found it in another NAIS cadet. The laserfire took an arm from his Watchman. It might have cut the MEch down its entire lenght but for the Watchman's speed and the lightning reactions of the cadet, who jerked his machine mostly out of the beam's path.

Storms of Fate.
I think I know what is so Outlier about THAT!.

Begging your pardon, but what about this actually contradicts anything I said about the incident in question? This sounds precisely like what I described in my analysis above.

Except for the 100m large diamter? You're assuming that the blast effects radiated to an extent of hundreds of square meters..... Its not.

Particularly note the bit about dispersal. Nine separate mechs, plus assorted battle armored units, "ceased to exist" or were vaporized.

The Firefang combined naval volley was spread out along an area. What's so atonishing about that?!?!?!

Well, when we're talking about the heaviest of battlemech weapons being at least ~1.5 orders of magnitude less (and more likely 2-2.5), "instakill" effects are hardly a surprise. In fact, they fit perfectly.

You mean apart from the near insta-kill against jumpships?

Using weapons specifically excluding nuclear devices? We can't really say much about what happened, AFAIK, and it really doesn't help ballpark yield of individual weapons at all. The 100-1000 GJ range cannot be ruled out for NPPC strikes, for example.
Which, as I said earlier, does almost nothing to refine the yield of warship weapons.

Right. Ground zero of a sustained warship bombardment....... and the twin towers are still standing? And of course, this equals to no yield could be made? It argues HEAVILY against warship weapons being anything similar to megaton or even kiloton nukes.

Want to bet if I dig through the forum, I can find examples of you saying this shows SW firepower is ass weak when turbolasers/proton torps fail to bring down statues and the like?

And? So BattleTech has powerful explosives.

Ahem. Let's compare it to its effects on reality again? The 120mm and 155mm artillery shells........ don't have any greater effect on ground targets than conventional weapons. Indeed, given gameplay, they're actually WEAKER.

IIRC, I have already provided quotes talking about how even less powerful weapons can - with lucky/accurate shots - nail battle armor.

And of course, what "does" count as lucky shots? In said context, it was merely the trooper pumping in shot after shot until the Elemental armour is damanged enough that the trooper died.

You have yet to establish a definite difference in KE between autocannon types. The muzzle velocity is unknown, the caliber and rate of fire vary wildly, and much of the damage is - as the gauss rifle firmly demonstrates - due to explosive effects rather than KE.

lol.
1. We already know how piss weak explosive effects are in Btech. The explosive contained in the LRM cannot destroy a wooden shack. Indeed, even the AC/2 and MG, 20mm autocannons would find it difficult to do so in one burst.
2. The point was to show the non linearity. The mithras and Zithras quote shows that despite varying weapons ranges, higher ke does not translate directly to higher damage.

No, it isn't. As I've told you numerous times. You seem to jump around without realizing that all these things I'm talking about are distinct from one another - the environmental effects, the described heating of cockpits, the effects of heat upon mechs, comparisons between inflicted heat and inflected damage for "heat" based weapons, the relative energy and efficiency of weapons, et cetera. My argument, accordingly, does not rest solely on any of those points. It is a synthesis of all of them, and can survive without any one - or two, or even three - of those bases.

For christ sake, your failure to recognise that your NUMBERS come solely from the mech must be heated up to a certain value and this is a vague indicator of weapons firepower via waste heat is not my problem.

The Star Lord incident as I have repeatedly stated is off. Even if the life support system was utterly offline, firing twin PPCs would not have caused harm to Duncan and Trent. And even here, the mechanics of conduction and convection would had meant that merely opening the hatch would do precious little to help them. There must be some more complicated reason that the reader isn't aware of.

As I have mentioned several times, precision is sharply limited with most of those techniques, but for the purpose of VS analysis accuracy, the results are quite significant.

With what? Pulling numbers out of your ass? Despite the repeated statements that your cockpit numbers are off, that the stated cockpit temperature is explictly stated to be in the 40s to 50s, that the terrain features you use are literally impossible to draw concrete numbers from due to lack of various factors, the impossibility of using waste heat and environmental heat to derive numbers as they don't tally with the ingame universe and that last but not least, your numbers don't balance against each other when compared across mech weight classes?

[Jedi Master Spock]

Did I also mention that the "conventional" artillery shell in this case did absolutely JACK shit to a house, causing just the roof to cave in and the normal sharpnel damage?

In which case, why claim they could be far stronger? However, I don't trust your summary after you've described so many incidents so poorly. Actual quotes, please.

And these are the SAME artillery shells that can damage mechs?

Quite possibly.

Really? so you consider

A lance of ruby energy fell down from the skies like the glare of some angry god, scorching the earth and leaving a scar along the ground and across a Com Guard jump capable Kanga hovercraft. It split open under the naval-class laserfire, engine erupting in a brilliant fireball that quickly burned off into a dark, oily cloud. Its heavy ammunition stores detonated in sympathetic explosions, shredding armor and hurling large chunks of the vehicle up to a quarter-kilometer distant.

The Sixth Crucis Lancers lost two BattleMechs in quick succession as well as a squad of Infiltrator battle armor, who were burned down to a tortured composite of half-melted armor, crisped flesh, and ash.

Already, the probing lasers searched for their next victim, found it in another NAIS cadet. The laserfire took an arm from his Watchman. It might have cut the MEch down its entire lenght but for the Watchman's speed and the lightning reactions of the cadet, who jerked his machine mostly out of the beam's path.

Not an outlier, nor actually all that far from what I'm talking about. How long is this scar on the ground? How large a naval laser is it? Both unclear. I believe I noted what yield would be required for lethal effects at that radius for unarmored humans; the destructive area effects against heavily armored humans can by no means be discounted.

Storms of Fate.
I think I know what is so Outlier about THAT!.

By all means, what? Try actually running calculations. The most interesting part of that whole description is the Kanga's ammunition explosion raining large chunks over a quarter kilometer radius.

Except for the 100m large diamter? You're assuming that the blast effects radiated to an extent of hundreds of square meters..... Its not.

Particularly note the bit about dispersal. Nine separate mechs, plus assorted battle armored units, "ceased to exist" or were vaporized.

The Firefang combined naval volley was spread out along an area. What's so atonishing about that?!?!?![/quote]
Let's review the quote again, shall we?

On the battlefield northeast of Bagera, the effects were a little more dramatic. The Gauss slug, accelerated to incredible velocities, slammed into the red-brown mud with the force of a hundred conventional artillery shells. Less than a second later the PPC discharge savaged the Jaguars' position, flashing the muddy ground into dirty steam. (1)
Colonel Timothy Price, Marshal Bryan's second in command, watched in horrified fascination as the energy released by the blast (2) shattered the Clan 'Mechs unfortunate enough to be near (3) the naval fire's impact point (4). Though the fire mission had fallen over one hundred meters to the west of Price's designated target, the effect on the Jaguars was nothing less than appalling. Nine of the lighter enemy 'Mechs just ceased to exist, blown to pieces by the unbe¬lievable energies delivered by the Fire Fang's weapons. Any Elemental unlucky enough to be caught in the primary blast area (5) was vaporized. Most of the surviving Clan forces were so badly dam¬aged as to be useless as fighting machines, or even as spare parts.

So, let's review. There is one PPC blast and one gauss rifle strike from the Firefang impacting in this scene (1) - not multiple weapons targeting with accidental precision each of a handful of targets far from the planned impact site.

This PPC discharge has a point of impact (4). That's some discrete point at which the energy impacts. Thus, we are computing blast effects from this singular (1) PPC discharge hitting a singular (4) location, which has area blast effects (2) on the mechs nearby (3) and also on any battle armor trooper nearby (5).

You haven't been actually running the numbers. If you hit, say, a 3 square meter 1 ton target at a ~13m radius omnidirectional blast, it gets hit with 1/1000th the energy of the total blast. If these Elementals in the "primary blast area" are genuinely being vaporized (5), they need a good bit of energy applied to them. Probably in the gigajoule neighborhood, which would mean that to put our NPPC below 100 gigajoules, we need to have a primary blast area in which Elementals are being vaporized being less than 6m in radius.

Understand now the magnitude of your errors?

You mean apart from the near insta-kill against jumpships?

And by "near insta-kill" you mean "not actually insta-kill." And no, that's not so terribly surprising, really.

Right. Ground zero of a sustained warship bombardment....... and the twin towers are still standing?

How about you check out this tool? The innermost ring is where reinforced concrete structures - as modern engineering makes them - will be seriously taken down. In the next ring, they may be still left standing. The yields we are discussing for these weapons are 0.024-0.24 kilotons. And yeah, that's for a ground level detonation and clear lines of sight, something of a simplified model. The actual WTC rammings were de facto weapons with total energies of around 50 GJ each (12 tons of jet fuel) applied directly to each building, and they almost failed to bring down the towers.

So, ya, it's plausible with terajoule weapons. Towers that aren't directly hit can quite possibly stay standing. It's not very plausible with petajoule weapons.

And of course, this equals to no yield could be made? It argues HEAVILY against warship weapons being anything similar to megaton or even kiloton nukes.

Want to bet if I dig through the forum, I can find examples of you saying this shows SW firepower is ass weak when turbolasers/proton torps fail to bring down statues and the like?

Again, you're failing to grasp the orders of magnitude we're talking about. I have made similar arguments...

... against claims of megaton and gigaton weapons, and suggested that such weapons are likely sub-kiloton when they fail to create enormous fireballs and have such small destructive effects on the ground and such small radii of lethal effects vs normal humans.

Ahem. Let's compare it to its effects on reality again? The 120mm and 155mm artillery shells........ don't have any greater effect on ground targets than conventional weapons. Indeed, given gameplay, they're actually WEAKER.

Hang on. In gameplay, using the optional Maximum Tech artillery rules, a high explosive round from a heavy artillery piece, landing in the open, will kill a lot of people up to 75m away, and kill everybody within 45m. It'll kill pretty much everybody hiding in trenches in the woods up to 15m from the point of impact.

All things considered, that sounds like a pretty reasonable match for modern conventional artillery, rather than measurably weaker. And that when we're dealing with a game system that really isn't designed to handle infantry, and a weapon that's not intended to deal with infantry. Using the optional anti-infantry round also presented in Maximum Tech, we're pretty much looking at near-100% lethality to any unarmored humans within 75m of the target.

And of course, what "does" count as lucky shots? In said context, it was merely the trooper pumping in shot after shot until the Elemental armour is damanged enough that the trooper died.

I am again not going to trust your summary of events to be accurate in detail beyond a trooper having managed to eventually kill an Elemental with a rifle. Present a quote of the event, please.

lol.
1. We already know how piss weak explosive effects are in Btech. The explosive contained in the LRM cannot destroy a wooden shack. Indeed, even the AC/2 and MG, 20mm autocannons would find it difficult to do so in one burst.

Via... guess what, game mechanics. Via... guess what, armor piercing munitions and shaped charges. By and large, you're arguing on a scarcity of evidence here.

No, we don't know that explosive effects are weak in BattleTech. As I've previously presented, in fact, the comparison between gauss rifle and autocannon dictates significant explosive effects.

2. The point was to show the non linearity. The mithras and Zithras quote shows that despite varying weapons ranges, higher ke does not translate directly to higher damage.

And the varying weapons ranges translate to a variance in KE? Varying weapons ranges which are much closer together in some game systems than others?

We can't say anything authoritative about the relative composition of the AC/2 salvo vs the MG salvo. Either might have a higher KE.

For christ sake, your failure to recognise that your NUMBERS come solely from the mech must be heated up to a certain value and this is a vague indicator of weapons firepower via waste heat is not my problem.

Yet again, there is no "solely" about this.

The Star Lord incident as I have repeatedly stated is off. Even if the life support system was utterly offline, firing twin PPCs would not have caused harm to Duncan and Trent.

You're claiming a direct contradiction to the canon here. You may want to actually back up this argument in some fashion that doesn't rely on a decrepit machine having an intact cooling system.

And even here, the mechanics of conduction and convection would had meant that merely opening the hatch would do precious little to help them.

Precious little? They opened the cockpit to the outside air. We're not talking about a window, we're talking about basically the entire canopy. That's going to help a lot.

One of them still momentarily passed out.

There must be some more complicated reason that the reader isn't aware of.

If you like, introduce magic heat fairies, but I prefer to use actual figures regarding the heat tolerance of human beings.

With what? Pulling numbers out of your ass? Despite the repeated statements that your cockpit numbers are off, that the stated cockpit temperature is explictly stated to be in the 40s to 50s,

When the cockpit cooling systems are working correctly, under normal operating parameters. Which is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about severe overheating, and the multiple sources - including the Techmanual - that talk about how a mech pilot can be cooked to death if just the cockpit systems aren't working.

that the terrain features you use are literally impossible to draw concrete numbers from due to lack of various factors,

"Various factors" meaning you don't like the conclusion, but don't actually have a solid argument against it.

the impossibility of using waste heat and environmental heat to derive numbers as they don't tally with the ingame universe

I'm using everything from game mechanics to novel fluff here. Quite obviously, both in-game and out-of-game material jives with what I'm saying, because I'm using both quite successfully to come up with the same ballpark conclusion.

and that last but not least, your numbers don't balance against each other when compared across mech weight classes?

... which, as I have mentioned, is a product of the limitations of the resolution of game mechanics, and that I'm only claiming at best plus or minus a half order of magnitude of precision?

My numbers work just fine. They are the singularly most plausible figures for waste heat energy for energy weapons - not precise, but they have a very high confidence level attached to their large margin of error.