The /btg/ is dead! Long live the /btg/!Lance Leader, do you read? editionLast Thread: >>94410596================================>BattleTech Introductory Info and PDFshttp://bg.battletech.com/?page_id=400>Overview of the major factionshttp://bg.battletech.com/universe/great-houses/http://bg.battletech.com/universe/the-clans/http://bg.battletech.com/universe/other-powers/>Sarna.net - BattleTech Wikihttp://www.sarna.net/wiki/Main_Page>Who uses what 'Mechs?http://masterunitlist.info/>Xotl's Faction Random Access Tables (June 2021 update)https://tinyurl<dot>com/fejwk5f2Unit Design Software Options>SSW Mech Designerhttp://www.solarisskunkwerks.com/>SSW GitHub Updateshttps://github.com/Solaris-Skunk-Werks>MegaMek Labhttp://megamek.info/>Megamek - computer version of BT. Play with AI or other playershttp://megamek.info/>How to do Against the Bot? (updated 2-20-2022)https://www.mediafire.com/file/l5mqjydrgndnndu/Against_the_Bot_v4.pdf/file(Current 3.21 rule set included in mekhq package)http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=56065.0http://pastebin.com/pE2f7TR5https://www.mediafire.com/folder/rkg2sl5ybr24k/Battletech_Portrait_Pack>Rookie guideshttps://tinyurl<dot>com/ydtr589ehttp://pastebin.com/HZvGKuGx>BattleTech IRC#battletech on irc.rizon.net>PDF Foldershttps://www.mediafire.com/folder/sdckg6j645z4j/Battletechhttps://www.mediafire.com/folder/cj0tjpn9b3n1i/Battletechhttps://www.mediafire.com/folder/tw2m414o1j9uj/Battletech_Archivesrebrand ly / BTmagsrebrand ly / BTdroprebr@nd(Dot)ly CranstonSnordDropBoxrebr@nd(Dot)ly CranstonSnordrebr@nd(Dot)ly CranstonLogFiles>2018 to 2020 Battletech PDFs & E-Bookshttps://tinyurl com/2p8p7cew>/btg/’s own image board:http://bgb.booru.org/index.php>More goodies! Updated 2020-05-17http://pastebin.com/uFwvhVhE>Most Wanted PDFs & Epubshttps://pastebin.com/tYpNtHQ9
How long until BT has an AI-controlled faction like The Broken for players to fight?Would be pretty cool.
>>94428734BK is a bad example because the early one doesn't actually look bad.
>>94428765Don't complain about bad examples while posting a phoenix redesign.
>>94428765Obviously arguing about aesthetic taste is an endless spiral but to me the classic black knight art is a good example of the original artist fucking up the proportions and pose a little bit and then deciding they weren't being paid enough to fix it.
>>94428427What mini will you be using for the SH IIC?
>>94428760Never.
>>94428669>The plastics are "fine."Sure but Iits not like I'm trying to put together anything playable, atleast not anytime soon. It's solely for painting so I wont get many in the near future and the visual aspect is what will matter most.With that consideration I have little reason not to go for the metal version of the same sculpt, under the assumption that edges and details are sharper.Obviously where ever only old sculpts are available it's on a case by case basis.Obviously some of the older sculpts are "lacking" in the design like the old orion, all the early reseen versions/project phoenix etc.Just likes some are simply "off" like the old battlemasterBut some are fine, from a design perspective, like the old adder, not much to fuck up there, or the longbow 12c and 7c, newer flashman etc.I'll ultimately will most likely still end up getting some plastic sooner or later because IWM only has old sculpts for some but not like there is much of a choice in that situation.
>>94428760Good news, is that theres already at least one module that deals with a rogue ai controlled force
>>94428837The left is a Shadow Hawk IIC, and I thought the middle one was a Conjurer but I can't match it to any of its variants? Bleh.
>>94428895Griffin IIC has a CT large laser and 4 LRM5s
>>94428895As>>94428925 said, that's a not a wolverine iic but a griffin iic
>>94428925oh, thanks. I think I found my Conjurer? Would you run a Griffin IIC over it? The match is gonna be a fight over a central objective (King of the hill scenario from Macy's instant action 4.1). So I think it's gonna be a brawl.I already feel sick to my stomach over the thought of having to be in public and meeting a new person.
>>94428948*MCA's
How are battlesuits powered? ICE?
>>94428959battletech battle armor runs off batteries. If you want a more grounded setting try Heavy Gear which has ICE engines
>>94428748I hate that aesthetic for MechWarriors.We need to go back.
>>94428760It would have happened with the Society or the Word of Blake if it was going to happen.>>94428854Yeah, and that list included No Nukes until suddenly there were nukes.
>>94428895looks like i'll have to wait for the clan cavalry star to come in stock, i love how that mech looks
>>94428948>Would you run a Griffin IIC over it?They're both fine. Griffin IIC is better are long range, Conjurer is better at medium range,Both are 6/9/6, both mount near max armor...but that's 20% more for the Conjurer because it's significantly heavier. Conjurer is also less ammo-dependent, and CERMLs are decent hole-punchers, especially against lights and mediums.
>>94428854>No star trek>Infinity fuel rocket engines with infinity delta v and infinity Isp>literal FTL travel
>>94429044>Infinity fuel rocket engines with infinity delta v and infinity IspNo. BT engines definitely carry fuel/reaction mass (hydrogen is used as both in what appears to be an open-cycle fusion reaction).The numbers are implausibly high, but they're not infinite.
>>94429038Okay, I'll keep the list as is then since I am expecting a close in fight. Am a tad concerned about not having enough armour for 8.5k BV (5 units max, mechs & BA only); if my opponent brings 5 heavier IS mechs and stays together it might get a bit rough?Thank you.The basic game plan is to blitz the objective with high TMMs, score VPs with all 3 mechs, drop elementals, and then continue forward with the mechs and hope to isolate a his mechs down 1 by 1.The Shadow Hawk IIC being good anti light, the Conjurer being versatile, and the Stormcrow being anti big mech. It seems aggressive and fast, which is definitely my preferred style of play. I'm looking forward to the game.
>>94428327Why are you wasting your money on Mechs you can't even use in tournaments?
>>94429139
What BV limit should I try to match for each era? Yeah I know 'talk with your opponent' but in general>6000? 10000? 12000?
>>94429009>and that list included No NukesHave you read literally any fluff about the Succession Wars? Also, that list comes from the old Line Dev documents passed on from Weisman. It's as old as the old Shrapnel "A taste of the alien without the aliens" from the OG Shrapnel.Herb was great about rolling back the veil a bit. Shame he crashed out.
>>94428976As long as it's not a fusion reactor the size of a bagel I think I'll be okay.
>>94429009Nukes have always been a thing. In the early mad maxy fluff it was more like Dune atomics, where nobody used them but all the important people made sure everyone else knew they still could.
>>94429338But the one and only war in Dune involves someone using a nuke?
>>94428281>>94428297Another update, someone else where pointed out I'd want a 3rd Z variant to make full use of the NOVA keyword. So I dropped the Stinger and the Annihilator for a Viper.
>>94429328The LosTech book for MW3 has a portable fusion reactor that weights 40kg. Remembering that the Tokamak was the predominant fusion reactor design when BT was being developed...
>>94429360
>>94429365Is that even canon?
>>94429349In the era of Dune that the most commonly read story is set in, there's only one nuke used and it's only used to disable a big shield with few to no human casualties. But all the noble families have them even though none of them have used them in ages.
>>94429401RPG stuff is canon, since it's either a rulebook or game fluff.
>>94429427>disable a big shield with few to no human casualties.Ah, the "shield wall" thats a fuckhueg rock formation that protected Arrakeen from the sandstorms. The convention against Atomics was for useage against himans, Paul sidesteps that problem by blowing up the mountains, no human cadualties.
>>94429475Yes. And in the lead up to that one use, all the big nobles in charge of everything had atomics and never used them because everyone else would dogpile them to death for it. Late succession wars is similar. Every great house has nukes, and I'd bet at least some of them believe Comstar does too. But none of them will use them because they'd be dogpiled.
>>94428760Literally never. AI would break the setting incredibly hard.
>>94429349Read more of the books. And no, I'm not talking about post-Frank>>94429365Stone burnerk>>94429365>>94429365.>>94429427
>>94428760Everything about Battletech requires AI to not work in order for the setting to make sense. Why are battlemechs used? Because they're manpower efficient compared to conventional vehicles, and nobody had developed the AI to crew conventional vehicles.Why is the setting so primitive in its forms of government? Because the setting is ruled by humans without the aid of advanced AI who are operating on imperfect information with vast travel distances and very slow and expensive communication.Why are resources so scarce and planets so lightly populated? Because most planets and the vacuum of space is incredibly difficult to colonize and the asteroids are incredibly expensive to mine in spaceships that require human crew.Nothing about the setting works if true AI exists, and if it did exist, it would very quickly dominate the setting.
>>94429658>Why are resources so scarce and planets so lightly populated? Because most planets and the vacuum of space is incredibly difficult to colonize and the asteroids are incredibly expensive to mine in spaceships that require human crew.gonna have to call bullshit on this one. sorry, but you are wronger than two boys fucking on the steps of st peters during mass. the Evul Elon Musk >Reeeeeeeeeee he lieks ORANGE MAN REEEEE HE So Stooooopidis working via space X to bring getting 1 tonne to orbit under a million dollars, because as soon as he hits that, humanity becomes post scarcity. its getting OUT of the gravity well thats the expensive part, once you are OUT, then its fucking GRAVY. we already have the water cracking technology from making nukes to crack water into o2 for breathing and H for reaction mass, so all we need is ships with big tanks and a fusion or fission pile to melt water. JUST getting past the magic million number, means we start mining the closest parts of the belt, which instantly makes us post scarcity. there are so many resources there, energy becomes free, metals, water... pretty much the only thing we have to give a shit about at that point is food. and earth already makes more food than the human population can eat.
>>94429702You have to remember that Battletech is, in many ways, more primitive than the modern real world. They don't have the technology to bring in a 1 tonne asteroid into orbit to mine. They're operating on computer technology from the 70's.
>>94429658https://www.sarna.net/wiki/M-5_%22Caspar%22_Capital_Drone
>>94429717Pretty much the in-setting equivalent of a Modern Warfare sentry gun. Far from any sort of true AI.
>>94429712>>94429702>>94429658I feel like I am having a stroke all you you are so stupid in different ways.
>>94429712this is why battletech could use SOME 'retcons' / progress in using our IRL tech, so long as we still stick to the HARD rules.maybe the reason battletech armour is so fucking awesome is because its fucking carbon fibre titanium composite nanotubes graphite 3d printed monomolecular layer thick so that it IS both SUPER ablative AND energy and kinetic absorbent.BUT belt mining as we are capable right NOW (so long as we break the 'getting OUT of the grav well' problem) jmeans battletech worlds can have billions of people on them and 'partial terraforming' such as the cloud seeding we are currently doing (see Dubai flooding themselves because they made it rain TOO much) would improve things to tolerable levels also.
>>94429702To be fair it is pretty stupid to terraform a whole ass planet and put less than a million people on it.
>>94429751>this is why battletech could use SOME 'retcons' / progress in using our IRL techIRL tech advances would invalidate battletech too, so no. Battletech is perfect right where it is.
>>94429759The terraforming and the people placement happened at different times, often by different organizations under different governments. Or no governments. A lot of "illegal" colonies were discovered ahead of official ones, but behind automated or long complete terraforming efforts.
>>94429759even by simple compounding, you dump a few million humans on a planet... and 300 years later there's a few billion humans on that planet. even WITH war etc.
>>94429776That doesn't explsin why you would terraform more planets than you can actually exploit
>>94429778And there are plenty of place with billions of inhabitants. The places with millions are the product of someone going "surely this peace will last and we can make long term plans with that in mind" and then that not happening.
>>94429792The original plan would have been able to exploit them except then they had a colonial war and an isolationist government took power and ruined it for everyone. Then a bunch of space nations formed and drew lines on the map and then the star league happened and had to factor in politics and grift with all these space nations as it terraformed more.
>>94429726They can make a sentry gun starship but not a sentry gun tank?
>>94429813And even early on, the Terran Alliance and early Hegemony were playing footsies with Earth nations. Look at Inglesmond, it was terraformed and more than fifty years later ready for jolly old Bongland to colonize, but the director of the Hegemony decided to give it to Brazil instead, for propaganda purposes.
>>94429849In order for a tank to function properly you need a crew to be able to tell how to navigate terrain and who to shoot at. Keep in mind that these sentry gun ships required CONSTANT communications with a human in order to not just kill people randomly.
>>94429849They made automated tanks too but in space there are fewer decisions about navigation and target priority and being able to do high G stuff for a long time is a big advantage.
>>94429871Right. Whereas a fucking warship will know all that without a crew. Got it.
>>94429712>They don't have the technology to bring in a 1 tonne asteroid into orbit to mine. They're operating on computer technology from the 70's.That kind of trajectory can literally be calculated by hand.
>>94429792The Star League had a whole "Department of Mega-Engineering". They did that stuff for funsies. The terraformed Venus basically just because they could.
>>94429881Navigation is significantly easier in space.There's a reason why airborne drones preceded autonomous ground vehicles.
>>94429927More importantly, they already do that kind of thing. The Ryan Ice Cartel has been doing transportation wizardry using overlapping K-F fields to move moon sized icebergs through space since some of the earliest books. Raw materials aren't a bottleneck. Nobody's out raiding for asteroid ore. Processing and manufacturing have always been the bottleneck for everything in BT.
>>94429881No rough terrain, less obstacles and shits when you're flying
So pretty much nothing happened in the IS after the War of 3039 till the Clan Invasion?
>>94429960So what are the 3xtra plsnets for then?
>>94429977Political refugees, vanity projects (we're a real country, we have a space colony!), cults. The kind of people Europe sent to the Americas.
>>94429977I dunno man, why would you go to more planets when you have functionally unlimited energy and space travel is less logistically challenging than sea travel?
>>94429360Interesting that a proper nova isn't allowed but experimental tech is.
>>94430071>functionally unlimited energyThat's not in the setting>space travel is less logistically challenging than sea travelThat's not in the setting
>>94429975Sarna has a pretty good timeline for questions like that, just search a year number. There weren't any huge movements involving dozens of worlds but there were a few regimental scale attacks a year
>>94430128Fusion reactors don't need to be refueled for decades and going to space involves two vessels, both with decades of energy and extremely basic reaction mass. The fact that you don't need to pour millions of gallons of refined petroleum product into their tanks to get anywhere makes them easier than sea ships.
>>94430144So why do most vees have ICEs?
>>94430149Because it's cheap at that scale. Even the most primitive dropships and jumpships have fusion and are only held back by squishy human concerns.
>>94430161How could that be the case if fudion is essentially free?
>>94430182Did you miss the part where refinement and manufacturing are the bottlenecks in this setting?
>>94429938Until *somebody* decided to ruin that to make a superlaser like a saturday morning cartoon villan.Hoes Venus doing in inClan anyway?
>>94429751The timeline diverged and most of the tech we have today doesnt exist in BT. So its irrelevant if contemporary tech is better/worse than what esists in the setting
>>94429427Yes, there's "only one" war and it's a war where a nuke is used.>disable a big shieldIsn't it used to deform a mountain? Firing an atomic at a shield would be breaking the pacts or whatever they were called, paul uses it on his own territory. The shield exploding is being blown up by a (different) shield generator exploding from being shot by a laser.>>94429563>read more of the booksThere's only one book titled "Dune", el retardo.
>>94430161>and are only held back by squishy human concerns.JumpShips can accelerate at a breakneck 0.1G (the Scout does a blazing 0.2G).Most DropShips can cruise at 1.5 or 2 G, making it up to 2.5 or 3 for short periods. While that's not comfortable, it's well within the tolerance of healthy adult humans for days on end (probably, we don't actually have real experimental data for that).The very fastest DropShips I can think of is the Noruff which is 8/12 (4G cruise, 6G overthrust), though that's a Clan vessel so everyone aboard will be Pilots. The Avenger and Pentagon are 7/11 (3.5G/5.5G). Those cruising accelerations probably aren't great for extended periods, but even the overthrust values are handleable for minutes at a time by humans who are in-shape, trained, and wearing G-suits.So DropShips are restricted by squishy human concerns only really at the ragged edge of their performance.
>>94430304>Hoes Venus doing in inClan anyway?The Blakists destroyed the last terraforming station in 3059. The planet was completely evacuated in 3061.Since we haven't heard anything since, and the Republic was nowhere near as ambitious as the Star League, I have to assume that it's returned to monke.
>>94430349Eating food is also a squishy human concern.
Does showing up to a BV limited pickup game with three IS mechs and a Clan mech make me a bad person? They're all from the same MUL(House Kurita, Civil War) and painted in the same scheme
>>94430349You are getting confused. It would take seconds for a modern day rocket to use up the entire fuel reserves of a Mule, and that's specially synthesized hyrdocarbons, not hydrogen. The point is that space lift in battletech is absurdly cheaper than it is for us, making harvesting asteroids relatively easy.
>>94430344>Isn't it used to deform a mountain? Firing an atomic at a shield would be breaking the pacts or whatever they were called, paul uses it on his own territory.Correct>There's only one book titled "Dune", el retardo.Fun fact, the contemporary version of "Dune" is actually 3 books (Dune, Muadib, and prophet)
>>94430426>3 IS mechs and clan salvage given to the unit coanderNo, why would it?
>>94430454Commander actually pilots the Sunder. She commands from the rear while supporting with the A variant's long range guns and leaves brawling with stolen clan tech to her subordinate. Mostly I'm just checking whether "yeah there's a clan mech in my IS force" will piss people off.
>>94429712Yes they do, mass drivers weren't invented by the WOB, they were used to move asteroids for mining for hundreds of years>>94429658>Why are resources so scarce and planets so lightly populated? Because most planets and the vacuum of space is incredibly difficult to colonize and the asteroids are incredibly expensive to mine in spaceships that require human crew. Because hundreds of years of warfare has killed off 90% of people. Resources aren't scarce but the infastructure and technology to actually make anything is massively behind
>>94429360>redditposting
Remember, if you only like Battletech if "they would just just change these things that I want", then you don't actually like Battletech.
>>94430526Correct, Battletech isnt for everyone
>>94430466>era appropriate MUL pick>within BV >painted to match the rest of the unitIf anyone has a problem with that, they dont actually want to play Battletech
>>94430549Bigotry detected. Please remain at your location while a catalyst rep arrives for your mandatory dick confiscation and estrogen injections
>94430526>94430549>94430588If you're going to samefag just to dredge up culture war shit only you give a shit about, do it on tumblr where it belongs
HONOR THE DRAGON!!
>>94430445>Fun fact, the contemporary version of "Dune" is actually 3 books (Dune, Muadib, and prophet)As I understand, it's not actually a LotR situation and the demarcation as books is more to signify the timeskips in the collected text.
