CLASSIC BATTLETECH CATALYST game labs

If you could do over the cartoon apart from make all of canon.

1: would you set it in the same time frame. if not when?

2: would you use different characters or keep Adam and the strikers?

3: what new mechs would you add?

1. 4th succession war.

2. Warrior trilogy perhaps...

3. Id be happy with any actual mech designs. From what I remember of the show the mechs were uncanon and painted in crazy paint schemes.

The battletech show was like GI joe with mechs, the cartoon animation just didnt cut it, only pure CGI or an actual movie could do justice to battletech, probably CGI since pc games these days look as good as CGI shows from 5 or 6 years back, im sure the quality they could produce with CGI would be great

The original story could work. So long as it was written by people who did enough research. Like trying to overheat mechs just by running, and crotch liftswouldneed to go. EI could be toned back, and not used as a way of switching over to 'computer game' mode. though the tats as a way of diferentiating betwen Inner Sphere and Clan at a glance was not a bad idea.

One thing I wouldn't change is who the cartoon is designed for.

Regardless of whatever we as a fanbase think about the Battletech cartoon (either the cartoon depicting the Somerset Strikers or this hypothetical one), it wasn't and shouldn't be designed exclusively for hardcore Battletech fans.

This hypothetical cartoon should be designed to make the Battletech universe comprehensible to those who aren't very familiar with it.

Think about the main complaints about the Somerset Strikers cartoon. The butt 'Mech elevator. The computer game interface. But when we get right down to it, is it really that important that those specific things don't exist in the BattleTech universe if the cartoon manages to attract new fans?

Put another way, imagine I hold an introductory game of CBT with the following modification: all weapons do twice their listed damage. Let's say that I manage to attract 20 new players to CBT. Was my introductory game bad because I handwaved the damage? Probably not, because it managed to attract more players to CBT.

Am I the only one that thinks that a 100% accurate cartoon adaptation of the CBT universe is a bad idea? It was one of the main reasons why Star Trek has tanked lately: it remains inaccessible to new fans due to the insistence of the hardcore fanbase that it should NEVER violate the established canon.

Current time frame is perfect for a kids show, because it's got the "Good versus bad" that they can understand. Jihad would work in a good VS bad scenario, if it weren't for the absolute mercilessness they exhibit. I don't think that stuff like Poison gas, political subterfuge, and atomic weapons would fly all too well. Then again, it might. It's full well possible.
Adam and his strikers I found to be quite the charismatic bunch. However, Ciro Ramirez should die. I don't think that CJF is known for taking freeborn bondsman, "heirloom medal" or otherwise. If it's the Jihad, though, it wouldn't cut it to have withered old members of the strikers about. A nod to the old characters would be great, though.

Not that I would add new ones necessarily, but I would like to see more faction-specific ones. Centurions and Wolfhounds are certainly not the mainstay of the Draconis Combine, so why would the black dragons be using so many?

If we were reverting back to the cartoon:
Steiners:
Commando (Because the wolfhounds weren't that high on the hero chart)
Hunchback (Honestly, a Hatchetman is more appropriate, but it's a bit of a show-stealer. This is a good second-bet)
Zeus (Skip heavies, because historically, most of the lyran pre-clan ones were Unseens. This is close enough)
3S Banshee (It's one of the best assault 'mechs, but I think the Atlas should be reserved for a "Special Ride" design)
Awesome (It's a new fan favorite, these days. Despite being a mostly Marik design, they seem to have gotten around.)
Daboku appears rarely, as well.

Davies:
Javelin - (No more davie light available)
Centurion ("The unofficial mech of House Davion's Battlemech Forces". Though it would have fierce competition with the Enforcer, it has better looks)
Jagermech (Background only. No heavy is as trademark dav as the Jager. Too bad it looks like the Urbanmech's big brother)
Cataphract (Better suited for a "Hero" type heavy)
Victor (Got to have at least one)

Kurita
Jenner and Panther (The mainstays of the DCMS, without a doubt)
Hunchback (Pretty common in the DC)
Dragon (Another staple)
Daboku
Hatamoto-Chi (Limited to one high-ranking official)

At least one must appear throughout the show
Atlas (Any army, but one "Leader" character. Possibly turns out to be a psychopath)

Jade Falcons Front-line
Kit Fox
Summoner (But make it look right, this time, not that mutated malthus thing)
Timberwolf (For the sake of feeding the fans)
War Hawk
Dire Wolf (Again, fan-food) Limit to one character)

Unfortunately, most second-line designs for CJF have recently become unseen types.

Wolves
Fenris
Black Hawk
Timberwolf
Man'o'war
(These guys only show up once or so. Don't need to focus too hard on them)

If you watch closely there is also a Thug, a Champion and what I think is a Crab in the series ;-)

Yeah.
Illustrated only, and they were part of the star-league combat simulator, as well as the intro video, I think.

There is also a chaparral missile tank in the intro.

Well, the thing about heat is that it's something you wouldn't really talk about unless it's something you can do to someone else. Sure, in a book, some of the narrative of the battle scenes is spent on temperature. But except for making people sweat in the cockpit, how exactly are you going to portray heat in a meaningful way?

You can look at what they did with heat in one of two ways. One way is that the mechanic they used is clearly not how heat works in CBT. The other way is that they portrayed heat as being a significant factor in 'Mech combat, which is how heat works in CBT. It may have been against the letter of CBT canon, but it was in keeping with the spirit of CBT. And nobody could walk away from the cartoon without knowing that in CBT 'Mechs, heat matters.

Now the cartoon was my introduction to CBT, so I distinctly remember reading through the rules wondering how you weaponize heat and target someone's heat sinks and all of the other nonsense stuff they did in the show. And yes, it was odd to find out that you couldn't. But I accepted that and moved on.


CG is many things; cheap isn't one of them. Considering how bad the hand-drawn 'Mechs looked (and moved. Oh god, how they moved...), I much preferred the EI-based battles. At least the 'Mechs moved something like walking tanks, rather than people.

Ah, but CG is cheap,not to produce initially, but to reuse. once you get the basic model produced, and it basic movement, it's save and repeat. As for the heat issue, for me at least, all it would take would be something of "their runnig, and shooting constantly and not overheating!?!?" as opposed to "if we can just keep them running, they should shut down from heat" Just a little more depth, a couple more words in the dialogue, and some more scenes showing the effect of mechs slowing or even shutting down because of the heat would have, IMHO been what was needed.  They where so close, and yet just missed it when it came to that.

If we could get Kevin Conroy voicing any main character I'd throw extra money into that catapult!

Except that you also need new backgrounds for every setting (which involves not just modeling, but lighting and shader building as well), new animation over the terrain (you can't just reuse the same running animation like they do in videogames), new aiming animations (since targets will be in different places) and so forth. It is far from trivial.


Showing 'Mechs shutting down for reasons not immediately explained (especially if they're not due to something that the opposing side did) is a bad idea. People are going to wonder why that 'Mech stopped moving. Unless you have someone comment on the fact that they overheated their 'Mech (which, let's face it, sounds fairly stupid to someone who doesn't know CBT. You developed a weapon platform that can stop moving due to its own heat? Couldn't they put air conditioners in it?), it's going to make no sense to the audience.

Running out of ammo is something people understand. Overheating 'Mechs is not. 'Mechs overheating themselves without any kind of external action is an even bigger stretch.

Look at all of the pre-rendered CG animation that's been done involving 'Mech battles in the various videogames and so forth. At no time does any of them suffer heat effects. It's not something people unfamiliar with the universe will understand without having it explained to them on the spot. And if you're doing an episodic show, and heat effects are going to be major dramatic plot points, you're going to have to keep re-explaining it when it comes up.

Remember: the cartoon could have ditched heat entirely as being something too cumbersome to dramatize. They instead incorporated it in an entirely different way. They made the effort to compromise on it when it'd probably have been easier to just drop it entirely.


I don't doubt that. However, the idea that they replaced good writing with CG is absurd.

just reading up on the comments made a few days ago about sticking to much to cannon, and i really must say i don't think you do need to worry about 'accessibility' these days. I've recently starting watching some of the good old-school anime shows (Stand Alone Complex and Cowboy Bebop) and neither of those started with any real backstory, they just threw you in to the story and filled in the details later. If you're really serious about making a CBT show that's good enough for fans and good enough for non-fans, you have to keep all the complexities or it'll just got lost among all the other mecha fight cartoons.

Start with the Kell Hounds, out on the Periphery so you don't have to deal with the political intricacies of the Inner Sphere, then if things takes off you can bring in the Clans in season 2 and makes it a BSG-style sociopolitical morality tale.

you don't even need a Star Wars type intro... just keep all the initial action localized to the main characters until the viewers can get themselves involved. the characters can drop a few major plot points in simply through conversation, and you just flesh out the universe slowly from there. all you really is the somewhat hokie rotating planet graphic when you switch locations. just scroll the name of the planet, the date, and the nation it's in... keep the plot as relative clear, so people don't get lost and bored, and they'll pick up enough pieces to understand it.

bottom line is you gotta make sure you have a good story all laid out well in advance so you don't wind up like the second season of Lost.