The /btg/ is dead! Long live the /btg/!Honor the Dragon editionLast Thread: >>94751043================================>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
Are there any rules for abstraction the results of a contested landing? Neither I nor my players have used the Aerospace rules, on the ground or in space, and I'm not sure any of us want to bring the campaign to a halt while we figure it out on a planetary invasion scale. I have the vague impression that there were rules in earlier books where you can basically sum up the firepower available to the dropships and their escorts, compare it to the planetary defenses, and then roll on a few modified tables to get the results. Anyone know what I'm talking about and where I should be looking for the current rules?
Can't wait for WOB to release a bioengineered virus that only kills trueborn clanners.
>>94760235>Denizli (K-class star, 176h recharge time according to the map) in a binary with another main sequence star so you get more juice for the sail>Apolakkia (F-class star, 177h) in a close binary with a neutron star, so you gotta jump away further to not get fried with hard radiation>can't possibly make sensenahalso the interns and the contractors don't care and the people that (barely) pay them care even less
Ok. Folks, we all know battletech ain't perfect to play. But how would you make it better?
>>94760323Assault mechs head armor increased from 9 to 13 so they can survive a single gauss/clan ppc
Is there an uziel in any of the cgl packs?
Anyone know if there are record sheets for the mechs described in the New tech, New upgrades section of TRO: 3150? Some of the descriptions are pretty vague. I'm looking for the Lineholder KW2-LH10; there's stats for it in megamek, which match the BV in the mul, but I wanted to cross-reference it with an actual sheet.
>>94760526They rolled out record sheets: 3150 for it last year. Only 8 years late with multiple projects long since referencing sheets only found in it!
>>94760458we never did get a follow up on this fat fuck's secret daughter, I wonder if she had anything to do with the rebirth
>>94760318Read the fucking rules.
>>94760652Fuck, wrong page ref. For >>94760318
>>94760323Bigger models for infantry.
>>94760673Nobody in all of creation has ever rolled dice to determine jumpship recharge time.
Well shit.Surprisingly picrelated turned out to be a pretty nice story and made me really wish for BT animation/Live action series (but better than glorified commercial we had in 90s). It's kind of sad that dialogues and cutscenes between starmates drops almost incoherent (I mean they do their job of giving each of them a personality and development which overshadows Jayden's character, but still drops rarely)Although some animation was awkward and had uncanny valley effects.
>>94760278My headcanon is that all those twinks with EI implants are from political art condemning the Clans' rampant use of child soldiers and dangerous cybernetics, comparing how it destroys the bodies and souls of innocent youths to the sex trafficking industry.
>>94760846Remids me - is Sydney still around in BT?
HONOR THE DRAGON!!
>>94760846I think the uncanny valley effect might have been intentional. The Clanners are supposed to look weird because they're all genetically engineered and shit. The Spheroids we see seemed a lot more normal looking. Then again, maybe the 3D modeler us just better at Japanese people.
>>94760575Neato, thanks.
>>94760880Othering Clanners in caricatures by depicting them with cybernetics seems like a no-brainer, considering that anti-tranhumanism is pretty deeply baked into BT politics.
>>94760930>intentional balloon mouthNo. Literally just a bad one size fits all rig. You can see how that's exactly how a lot of faces looked in valve games in their making of stuff videos. It's like the 3rd step of a 10 step process to refine facial rigs and models so they don't look like freakish muppets.Clanners look weird but it's weird like seeing black albinos or women with prominent facial hair.
>>94760930>I think the uncanny valley effect might have been intentionalNah Showers, Weaver, Perez, Demi-Precentor done great.Also, it's more with models animations than with facial, especially action sequence, like Trial of Refusal
>>94760846>(I mean they do their job of giving each of them a personality and development which overshadows Jayden's characterLiam should have been the MC, change my mind
>>94761070Nah, Liam was placed in the right spot, to be embodiment of Cobalt's " esprit de corps", it's just Jayden lacks of final brushes of his character's development and some leader's traits. Both Mia and Ezra makes a choice a lives with it, Jayden showed too passive and when choice is made he just copypastes generic phrases, which leads to final Luthien confrontation cinematic being very anticlimatic, it was supposed to look like picrelated, but instead Jayden says generic bullshit (no matter which side you've picked)
>>94761070If they hadn't gone with the multiple endings gimmick, yes. As it is, Jayden having a less defined personality at least makes sense as somebody who could go either way on whether or not to act on his doubts about the Crusader cause.
>>94761070Liam should have been Jayden's boyfriend, maybe then his death would have actually affected Jayden as a person.
>>94761139>. As it is, Jayden having a less defined personality at least makes sense as somebody who could go either wayHere is the thing. You can do it in different ways.Good examples: Nameless One or Courier, or even Shepard (because of Mark Meer's VA and well written lines)Meh examples: Jayden, since they really made him look like a conformist, rather than wise/stoic sceptic
>>94761169Do Clanners like incest? Was Aiden and Mathe having a thing canon or was that a fanfic thing? I forget.
>>94761187Clanners have zero compunctions about incest for trueborn. Or age of consent. Or consent in general. They've completely divorced sex from moral or practical concerns. They don't care who you fuck or under what circumstances.
>>94761187They clearly must, since both the Clans with the most focus are fine with it.
>>94761187does incest even function as a concept in a society that does not biologically reproduce?at most if Westermarck effect is real, crechemates will naturally tend not to fuck each other if creches are carried over into sibkos
>>94761169Too vulgar it's just Jayden was supposed to be the one who challenged Wimmer, not Mia
>>94761187>Do Clanners like incest?No. They pretty much automatically fuck their siblings, some of which are probably genetically closer to them than cousins.
>painting models finally.>Power is going in and out because of the weather, can barely see.:-(
>>94761289Flashlight
>>94761292Can't find it.
>>94761289Go to bed.Have a nap.
>>94761289Headlamp. You should own several.
>>94761301Use your phone for something other than shitposting.
>>94761289Make a fire starting with your least favorite minis.
Painted some 'mechs for my bro so he'd have a full lance alongside the Cyclops I painted for him some months ago. Now he has no excuse not to play BT with me. The perfect plan.
So aside from the southwest trinity worlds where are all the Spanish speaking planets in BT?
>>94761596Literally three seconds of Googling would tell you the answer is FWL, Canopus and the Taurian Concordat.
Whose the Alex Jones of Battletech?
>>94761652https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Voice_of_Blake
I'm painting a FWL Militia lance. Got the purple down, now I need reds and blues. Should the other colors be thin stripes, thick stripes, and if so should they be going vertically or horizontally?
>>94761701They're "highlights", so do whatever. Just remember red on right, blue on left.
>>94761708Does it have to be a specific Blue? All I've got i Crystal Blue and Ultramarine.
>>94761755Nope, just "blue". Most people do highlights by making certain entire panels red or blue, some of the art has panel edges but other art does whole panels. I've seen people put a big racing stripe on either side too.My main advice is to pick a blue that heavily contrasts with your purple. I'm color blind so it might just be me, but a lot of the blues people use blends in and makes it look like it just has red highlights on one side.
>>94761810Hmm. I have quite a dark purple going on. In that case, I'll use my Crystal Blue. It's bordering on a dark Cyan. Thanks mate. I'll post one of em when it's finished.
Explain to me how over 500 years of accumulated retardation, ineptitude, inbreeding, mental illness, atrocities, scheming and generally constantly fucking over their subjects none of the Great Houses got the Romanov treatment.
>>94761845Seen any Von Rohrs in charge recently?
>>94761882That's still just one branch of Kuritans scheming against another, I'm talking about a proper popular chimpout.
>>94761946Can't really have a popular chimpout larger than one planet, and even if everything else is going to shit, a ruling family is going to keep things pleasant on their home planet.
>>94761134 The problem is that Mia's lines, start to end, sound like they recorded her in a fucking phone booth, so by the time in the Warden path they want you to feel as Jayden like you're gonna try to bring her in, I just wanted to bring 8 gauss rifles and delete her cockpit from existence to hear less CSJ bitching.
>>94761845Probably because there are multiple layers of dictators below the ruling family, all of which can be lynched for an immediate improvement of local circumstances.
>>94761596Kuritan's language is Japanese, Spanish and a hint of Arabic*.*but I repeat myself.
>>94761596Spanish is one of the primary languages spoken on worlds of the former Nueva Castile.
>>94760846I got this game on release and it was a buggy mess that kept crashing my computer in the middle of a level. Since then there have been several updates and I've been able to get through that level. After that however, I kind of just stopped playing. It's not really gripping me in the way MW5:Mercs did and I'm not sure why. Convince me to go back to it anon.
>>94761575You poor optimistic fool. People like that will always have an excuse not to play because they don't want to.
>>94762285>People like that will always have an excuse not to play because they don't want to.LET ME DREAM, ANONRealistically though, I know. Thankfully I've got two other friends who have been interested and enjoy Battletech over 40k because of literally every aspect of it is better.
>>94761575>>94762306Why do they look so glossy? It almost looks like you thinned your paints too much and only did one coat.
>>94762324Looks like he hit them with the meme "Citadel Nuln Oil/Agrax wash", it tends to leave a glossy coat.
>>94762324Shining a bright light directly at them for the sake of photography. I will probably apply a matte varnish.>>94762404Army Painter Dark Tone, but yes.
>>94761596Capellan March has Spanish as a secondary language in the RPGs and they add tequila to their PPC cocktails.
>>94762022>mia>jayden>liam>ezra>naomiIt's funny how distinctively "born in early 2000s" these names seem.
>>94762420>Army Painter Dark Tone, but yes.A good choice in paints. If I may suggest, next time either water the wash down a little if your doing an overall wash, and make sure it doesnt pool, or do a pin wash. Your on the right track.You can alsy try doing some rough drybrushing before hand, nothing fancy just dust the paint all over the area, then do a light wash of a darker complimenting colour, then do the details. Its an older pic, but thats what I did for my Donegal Guard here, and do for a lot of my larger "mass painted" formations, it looks good.
>>94762436Could have been worse. Jaighdyn isn't out of the question.
>>94762488And my 1st Genyosha, done in the same style. Both of these used dark Tone as the wash and had it applied over the entire model after rough drybrushing.
>>94762488Yeah, I should actually try to do pin washes or pay more attention, honestly, but I'm mostly just happy with having models that look okay on the tabletop. Drybrushing is my favourite technique so far.
>>94762436>Aidan>Bret>Rena>Tymm>Dav>Endo>Orilna>Quenel>Glynn>GonnClanners have weird names.
>>94762507You can fix a lot of wash problems by just putting on another thin layer of the color under the wash. It's pretty easy to get a result similar to pinwashing by just not repainting the recesses.
>>94762546You mean like, on the wet palette..?
>>94762574No, I mean on the model. If the wash dries and looks bad, just cover most of it with the base color. Gets rid of coffee stains and inconsistent coloring.
Fuck this is annoying having to dig out every TRO to find out how many crewmembers each vehicle has.
>>94762606Every 15 tons gives you another crew member.
>>94762631Really? Wow thanks, that's going to save so much time.
>>94761187>Was Aiden and Mathe having a thing canonYes, there are several paragraphs in the various books in the Way of the Clans Trilogy that detail this.
>>94762574>>94762507Honestly, an overall wash is fine if you want to change the overall colour of the unit (see above, I used it to darken and "grey" the blue and purple respectively). Just thin the wash first, and learn to control it so it does not pool. If you see it pooling, wick it up with a brush and/or redistribute it to an area that needs it more.I would also learn to use complementing wash tones - EG out a Soft or Light tone over the beige portions, and a Green or Military Shade wash over the green portions. You'll learn how to better use them with experience. Learn to glaze too, its a great skill.
>>94762546With CGL plastics you can get a pretty aggressive overbrush and not worry about the recesses much. Basically like a drybrush but you leave more paint on the brush.
>>94761652In 3150 we have Kyle DiNoto whos been pushing out some wacky stuff.
I just don't care for clanners.
>>94762507You're better than me, mine always end up looking like they're made of fricking playdo.
>>94762507>Hey, did you guys want your catapult back?
If every era except one was deleted, everything introduced in the deleted era also being deleted, which era would you keep?
>>94762842
>>94762842Amaris Civil War
>>94762814We're you the one with the Urbie Order Lance the other day?
What would you call this unit, a short battalion? Also rate the force composition, periphery government force late succession wars era.
>>94762957That's a reinforced combined arms battalion with a total of 5 companies, 2 of mechs, 2 of infantry and a support company.
>>94760235>with unlimited resources and meme tier characters this is the best NAIS can doTeam Banzai has to be a snake plant.
>>94763117The problem is that they took this proof of concept testbed ("Can we make newly recovered star league technology in a reliable and scalable way?") and then just kept making it for actual usage. The base model should have been something they churned out like 20 of and then having proven that they can make this stuff and it won't break down for no reason, make an actually good variant. Or something else entirely that's "based on" the Hatchetman, but without sub-lostech-downgrade level performance.
>be Star League >have the inner spheres population, economic output, and scientists who have an IQ over 100>see peaceful independent nation >hey give up your free will and do as we say >Taurians >no >call House Davion to do a raid to cow the bulls>they lose 90% of their navy in a single engagement >Star league big mad>begin 2 week special military operation >TWENTY YEARS LATER>lose 2:1 in most battles despite having numerical and technological superiority >completely disregard all laws of warfare just to break even>get mogged so hard by a 35 ton mech (Toro) that you order all destroyed and every pilot executed >win by pure plot armor Man I'd love nothing more than some misjump to send some post Jihad Taurians back before the Reunification War.>TDF rocking full Clan tier gear >battlearmor completely buttfucking the SLDF
>>94763204man clanners are cooler than you guys
>>94763220Cope
>>94763204seems like bad writing honestly
>>94763184If the Hatchetman was 35 tons then the performance makes absolute sense, but as a 45ton mech this is completely unacceptable. If the hatchet had something like vibroblade technology that allowed a Hatchetman to chop a section off a Assault with each swing that is understandable. If the AC10 was ripped out for a PPC and heatsinks that is understandable. But as is the Hatchetman and virtually all patterns are so bad this has to be deliberate sabotage to even be logical.
>>94763251Youre right, the SL should have stayed lost, not pull out a bullshitium win
>>94763251>bad writing >battletech Anon....I........
>>94763266but it was the taurians doing as well as they did that was pure plot armor
>>94763277cant argue with cow people they are delusional
>>94763277It's one of the only instances in the fiction where conquering a nation with billions of inhabitants is treated remotely realistically. Everyone else spends a month taking places with the population of modern east asia with a force smaller than Henry V had at Crecy.
Hey Xotl, are you around? I've got an extra/clarification request from the Megamek team regarding engine explosions/Stackpoles, and they don't want to go much further on the next build until they have an answer. Evidently there's a rules differential between text in TacOps and in BMM, and they aren't sure whether there's an oversight or an intended rules change.
>>94763258Keep in mind that in universe the AC 10 is a perfectly good weapon. Unlike table top its in no way inferior to a ppc
>>94763314It being inconsistent with all the other instances means it's out of place and not good.
>>94763314>spheroids Actually this is rather believable, most people in this setting probably have every great houses banner in their dresser and when they get conquered the 1% get the firing squad while the 99% simply change flags and who they call boss. It's feudalism perfected.
>>94763424Are you forgetting the scorpion empire and raven alliance working perfectly?
>>94763424The idea that no one cares about who rules them doesn't line up with the huge differences in how the various house governments operate. It is illegal to be Christian in the Combine. The Lyrans have a housing guarantee.
>>94763414In MW the AC10 is a fucking beast, the heat curve and projectile speed of a PPC kills it, but on tabletop this isn't translated properly.
If one recognizes that all of the rules issues and exploits which poisoned the group's last attempt at a campaign are about to repeat themselves, but your group won't listen to you when you try to bring it up and you don't want the discussion to escalate to an argument, what would you do? For the record I won our last campaign so this isn't coming from a place of bitterness where I'm saying "You all did x y and z and that's why I lost so don't do that" some of the things I'm proposing we ban are things I myself exploited and then felt bad about because I didn't realize it would be that bad. It's just our last campaign ended on a sour note and I don't want that to repeat because if we have enough campaigns go bad then eventually the group will stop wanting to do campaigns and I don't want to be stuck with just pickup play.
>Firestarter>Enforcer>VictorCan you guys find me one more mech with football helmet-like head?
>>94762525Most of these are just ausfag names
>>94763673Trebuchet?Dervish?Whitworth?Vindicator?Commando is more of a full face bike helmet
Since cluster weapons and rapid-fire attacks can’t be eligible for aimed shots, if I want to aim a shot with direct fire guns and shoot regularly with my cluster guns, do I have to declare the cluster weapons as firing at a secondary target? Or is it just as simple as being able to mix regular and aimed shots at the same guy without any penalties?
>>94763580>manpower disparity of only 1.76Okay
I come from /an/. Clan Small Crocodile is declaring a Trial of Possession over there.
What would be some introtech mechs both thematic and useful for pirates? Other than the Spider
>>94763848Firestarter and Locust.
>>94763848Anything with two hands and the rugged, easy to maintain, or ubiquitious quirk.
>>94763848Killing people and taking their mechs is a classic activity of everyone with mechs. The only barrier is the rarity of individual chassis. Having two hands is useful for loading and unloading stuff but only so many mechs can use a dropship's door at a time. Having anti infantry weapons is also good but the big targets will have plenty of vehicles stationed at them.
>>94763848Banshee.
>>94763628>don't want the discussion to escalate to an argumentWe can't always get what we want. Prepare to argue.
>>94763628Take the narrative play pill
>>94763994I 2nd this. The Banshee just feels so quintessentially outlaw like. It's a terrible assault mech. Pretty much no one wants it, but it's still an assault mech and that 95 tons will be enough to terrorize anything that isn't from a professional house or merc company.As an aside, the Quickdraw and Thunderbolt feel like they have the big 2nd in command feel for a pirate group to me.
>>94763400>Xotl lurks /btg/Is this real or are you shitposting?
>>94763813What forces do they bid?
>>94763759Aimed shots are on a per-weapon basis, so you make the declarations for eligible weapons, and resolve everything else normally
>>94764101Which version of the Banshee tho? E's are proper shit-boxes, but the S-models fucking slap
>>94764160As always, depends on the era, but I'm inclined to say the E. It's just such a poorly designed mech that of course it'd end up in the hands of pirates. I mean look at it.Max heat it can generate is 14 with a run and it has 16 heat sinks. Should we maybe drop 2 heat sinks for 2 more tons of armor? No! We have to stay running ice cold! Well what if we just drop 1 heat sink and add a medium laser, to give it just a little more firepower? No! That would mean we could generate 17 heat with a run and we'd only sink 15 of that! We'd be burning alive!Those are just 2 examples, but the E is so stupid that it's hard not to laugh at it. Which is precisely why I like to field it. BV wise, it's cheap. For just over 1,400 BV you get something with heavy armor that goes 4/6. It's weapons suck, so you just charge it right into the enemy, full speed, and start swinging. 95 tons of melee will put the hurt on anything. What are they going to do? Focus fire it down? LOL! Okay, good luck with that! By the time it's brought down, every other mech surrounding it will have been able to mow down the enemy. So are you going to just ignore it then? Okay, enjoy your 95 ton fists coming at your face. I'm telling you, the BNC-3E is absolutely devious! Lore wise, it's just you'd expect from a crafty pirate captain.
>>94764160The BNC 3S is widely acknowledged as the 2nd best introtech assault, losing out to the awesome only because of ammunition bombs.
>>94764238All of the 3S's ammo is about as padded as it could possibly be. It's an Awesome that has a huge close range punch. In terms of the ones in pirate hands they should pretty much all be 3Ms because it's a trivial and obvious refit. Maybe 3Q if you want to convey that the pilot is mentally disabled in some way.
>>94764282I just think certain chassis should see their 'basic' versions dissapear once a certain package comes out.Normal BNC should go extinct as they're all converted to BNC 3S.Once someone has such a great idea that the other kinds of that mech are OBVIOUSLY shit by comparison, they should all just copy it.
>>94764222>firing all weapons at 16 hexes out>yes, even the small laser, even though its out of range>all while running through a single burning hexAbsolute heat luxury sinklets cannot comprehend
>>94764222>random single heatsink in the Right Leg
>>94764346Hey man, thats vital crit-padding. Gotta protect those leg actuators
>>94764367But only the right onesl
>>94764238Think the MAD II and the Imp are better than those 3, but yeah easily top 5
>>94764372All this talk about bests has me wanting to see the /btg vote on and create a tier list for mechs by their weight class by era.
>>94764387Make it a "top 3" otherwise its gonna be like.... Hellstar and Awesome
>>94764123Check the acknowledgements in the BMM for a shout out to the General; that's here, that's us. Errata and rules changes suggested on this Tortugan myomer weaving forum are now part of the game; that's Xotl.
>>94764405>their legendary reputation for polite, civil discourseNah it can't be /btg/
>>94764405Never noticed it, thats kinda cool
>>94764437Its a reputation all right, just not a good one
>>94764387Gonna need to also set up some additional conditionals because otherwise its gonna be all clan mechs past a certain point
>>94764437Things may have been different once. I've had enough old fags scream at me they were. Might not just be rose tinted glasses.
>>94763400Do you need me to put you two in contact on discord?
>>94762022>to hear less CSJ bitching.Meh, cannot relate since I like that instead of going full Crusade mode she goes from averaga/normal Warden-like to Steel Vipers-like Warden
>>94764482Her writing is kinda okay, but I'd be playing and it would just be like "Really, that's the take we settled on?"She wasn't even funny like with my co-op group, Yuiichi going "THAT ONE WAS MINE" at the top of his lungs became an in joke. Actually generally Yuiichi's VA was pretty good.
God's mightiest mech in the smallest package(8mm infantryman)
>>94763204>getting hyped over something that happens in backstoryThat's like getting amped up for the Von Rhors. At no point were they, or anything about that era, actually the plot or something. Just some expository blurb saying "oh yeah, and this happened." It honestly baffles me.
>>94764482I like that she gets metaphorically "dumped" 2-3 times. First when Liam dies, next when Ezra with/out Jayden defects. All the important men in her life leave her and I find it fucking hilarious for some reason
>>94764478Nah, I'll send him an email when I get home. I don't really want to type it all up in my email app on my phone. It just would have been easier if he had been on here.
So my group's new Mercenaries campaign starts on the 20th. We're doing a draft, where I bring a force pack, pick one mech, and pass the other three to the right, and end up with four semi random mechs. What force pack should I buy and what mech should I pick to start with? I'll be creating a new merc company based on what mechs I get in the draft, so no worries about lore.
>>94764699nta but anyone who plays high sci fi Star League era is based in my book.Even if they are a filthy cow.
>>94764817Mercenaries Salvage Box
>>94764699At this point that applies to all eras except Ilclan.
>>94764831So the way that works I'd have to bring four, since everyone contributes four mechs to the draft and gets four mechs. Not sure if my shop will have that many.
I recognize the Atlas, Javelin, Centurion and the Commando, but what are other 2 mechs?
>>94764817How serious is it? I mean, are you guys ok with shitmechs in the Security Lance Box and such, for example?
>>94764893It's gonna be more lore driven. Plus, it's 3150, so high tech refits are on the table.
>>94764882The one trying to tackle is a Firestarter. The other one I think is an Enforcer.
>>94764938The other is a Treb
>>94764938No wait, Trebuchet. That new head isn't iconic.
>>94764817I think Direct Fire Lance and Northwind Highlanders Command Lance have good mechs everyone can use without 'unlucky' bad pick. Maybe the new MAC box too
>>94764817I'm gonna go downstairs to where I keep my pile of unopened lance boxes and grab one blindly in the dark.Gray Death Legion Heavy Battle Lance. I'd take the Charger IIC-O, but there is a Katapult. Someone's gonna get stuck with a shad.
>>94764817What era are you playing in for the campaign?
>>94765034Ilclan. We're running the Hot Spots Hinterlands campaign basically out of the box, with the draft being the only change. >>94765008At least by this era there's decent Shads.
>>94765049Next question, do you wanna fuck with your friends or are you all passing wach other something good?
>>94764840???All that Succ War, Clan Invasion, etc. stuff still exists. Hell, they still actively sell it. So, I have no idea how your comment makes any sense at all.
So how long do you guys think the ilClan will last before CGL launches a new era?>and how do you predict it will be?
>>94765066I'm kinda leaning towards doing one of the lighter packs just to keep the average tonnage down, like the Kell Hounds lance maybe. >>94765102I'd be really surprised to see a new era anytime soon. They're just finishing the last of the setup books, I expect we'll coast for a few years before they shake things up with a new book. Unrelated: Just got to watch a patient's pacemaker stop firing and send them into a lethal heart rhythm. That was neat
>>94765102It's really, really important that Ilkhan's Eyes Only be about how all of Alaric's bullshit is finally blowing up in his face. Of secondary importance is the Capellans losing enough people and equipment that they no longer have the most powerful military of the great houses, because that shit if fucking stupid.
>>94765144Category: things that aren't going to happen, Alex!>>94765102Honestly, I think they'll freeze it for a long time and do "historical" backfill. We'll see the First and Second Succession Wars thoroughly filled out before we pass 3250.
>>94765144>Of secondary importance is the Capellans losing enough people and equipment that they no longer have the most powerful military of the great houses, because that shit if fucking stupid.Fighting with the will to die doesn't work so well when you're up against the Clan, who're really really good at killing people. It is known.
>>94765179The biggest difference between ilClan and every other era is that ilClan doesn't have any actual tech differences from its predecessor. I think CGL recognizes that there's no actual need for new tech and they can just actually use Dark Age tech properly instead of it being weird and slapdash
>>94765142>Just got to watch a patient's pacemaker stop firing and send them into a lethal heart rhythm.Must have been a Kickstarter backer who got their product on time from CGL without being gouged on shipping. That would send anyone into a cardiac event.
>>94765142Do the Security Lance box then. They're under tonned in spirit.
>>94760235How would you guys feel if a faction sometime in the future standardized, having only four Mechs, one of each weight class, and deciding to produce them and them alone? Essentially making as many as possible for logistics and efficiency.
>>94765238That would be fairly boring for gameplay and modeling. I wouldn't like that faction.
>>94765142Striker or Urban maybe.
>>94765255I kind of like the idea of using the Urban lance. I've never really used the Enforcer.
>>94765238So that their enemies would have an easier time developing and deploying hard counters to whatever standard 'Mechs they use?
>>94765238..So the SLDF?
>>94765238And only using the 300 XL engine.A 30 ton scout.a 50 ton fast medium.A 75 ton heavy.A 100 ton heavy assault.Bonus: 60 ton fast heavy.
>>94765238a smart faction would recognize they only need 55 ton mechs and make a single 55 tonner omni
>>94765263As I die hard feddie I love the thing. Working around it's deficiencies is fun. And if you're doing Ilclan there are some decent variant options.
>>94765266What is the hard counter to a Timber Wolf? What about a Hellstar or Stormcrow?
>>94765295The 5R might be a bad pick because, since everyone is using mechs that are in plastic, I doubt we'll see much fancy armor. But the 5D could be fun.
>>94765238This makes me wonder. How much standardization do we see in the military? Despite being a pretty big battletech buff I'm not a military nerd so I don't actually know how many varieties of tanks and planes we produce, but I'm pretty sure it's more than just 4 or 5.
>>94765309Technically a different mech but have you considered looking at the Enforcer III?
>>94765319The 6NAIS sure looks interesting. Might try that out.
>>94765238I'd call that faction a bunch of fags, and Id call anyone who plays that faction a bunch of fags, and Id call whoever thought that faction was a good idea a colossal fag.You colossal fag.
>>94765305Generally, when you know the hardware and its profile, you can take something faster (but not too much faster) and cheaper; and if you know the specific components it requires, you can make sure to target the supply and manufacture lines of these specific components.OmniMechs are harder to deal with (which is a big upside of them in-universe), but the Hellstar? It's a PPC boat. Put something in laser reflective armour against it, and set it on fire for good measure.
>>94765305>hellstarQuasimodo.
>>94765371Oh I see, you simply don't know what a hard counter is.
>>94764437Go and check in the archive, look for 2019 and earlier. Civil discourse was a thing back then, this threads culture changed shockingly fast with the repopulisation of BT.Wishing for it to be easy to get games and minis was a monkeys paw.
>>94765462>Civil discourseGay leftist propaganda you mean.
>>94765305A lot of artillery and mines
>>94765311A lot. They really try to only have one version of a thing. That said, you typically need more things than you think. Like yeah, you want a wheeled APC for your motorized infantry. But those guys also need scouts, so you make a scout version. And infantry will need some help on harder targets, so you make an direct fire support one. And you'll need to bring your indirect fires, so you make a mortar carrier version. And the boss needs to have a mobile command center to coordinate this, so you make a command version. And people get shot in war, so you need an ambulance version. And you might run into tanks, so you make a version to carry the AT missiles. And the FISTers, chem dorks, and engineers all have a bunch of specialized equipment they need so you make versions for each of them.That's one vehicle family for one type of unit (in this case, strykers for American Stryker brigades). Most of those are the same vehicle hull, with different doodads bolted on, but it's still.If mechs were real, then an army would, as much as possible, have as few chassis types as possible. And units would have the same chassis internally. Mixed lances would be anathema. I think an "irl-like" mech battalion would have 1 chassis with maybe 4 variants, and 90% of mechs being one of those variants.
>>94765294We can call it the Tempest Raven.that actually sounds cool as fuck.
>>94765484Sounds like running just the 16 original Omnis would be a good decision then.
>>94764817The Urbanmech lance box
>>94765238The mech-owning nobility will overthrow your republican government and your professional army before you lay down the foundation for your first factory.
>>94764817>What force pack should I buy and what mech should I pick to start with?Northwind Highlanders, start with Gunslinger.
>>94764817IWM grab bag. Start with a Warship.
>>94764817Profileration Cycle, Mackie
>>94764306But the 3S has a major flaw in that it no longer goes 4/6 and it therefore is uninspired and boring. I like the dichotomy between the fun 4/6 banshees and the lame 3/5 banshees. Also engine refits are *not* easy.
>>94765730Yeah I think I'd rather pilot a safe, well-gunned mech with decent thermoregulation than a goofy ride-or-die mech that spends half of its tonnage to go 20% faster.
>>94765750Soulless. Go play 40k
>>94765764The early banshees are in universe jokes, and the 3S becomes the new basis for all the the variants that come after.
>>94762824Add camo patterning and darken the shoulderpad, thief. Once Carmine Company's story gets to that point in the timeline, we will see what needs to be done.Pic unrelated.
>>94765263Enforcer is absolutely great in introtech where 4/6/4 is slow but okay for a 50 tonner, and an 8 point and 10 point hit at 15 hexes is more than solid.Unfortunately, even the lostech upgrades are fairly mediocre in 3050+.It's not horrible or anything, just...not great.
>>94763117I legit don't understand why people shit on the base Hatchetman so much. Other than the glaring issue of putting one medium laser in the same arm as the hatchet, it's an perfectly okay 'mech for it's designed mission (ambushing opposing units in a city).
>>94765772In name only, because Steiner manufacturing. Basically all of them go 4/6 or faster. The true banshee spirit lives on!
>>94765802So the actual problem with the hatchetman was that it was originally designed (by FASA guys, not in-universe) during a time that hatchets didn't have any weight. So when that changed, they were forced to adjust some things. For some reason they didn't take out the AC/10, they took out all of the things that would make it an actual killer mech instead of a big urbie, like armor and engines.Like, the hatchetman is okay. But if your goal in life is hacking mechs apart in melee, there are many better options available.
>>94765802Ehh. It does okay as an AA platform, but it can't successfully ambush anything in its own weight class because it gives too much mass over to its AC10. >>94765808This isn't true. The original Hatchetman was still slow and under-armored, it just had three extra heat sinks compared to the hatchet rules version.
>>94765484>And units would have the same chassis internally.Funnily enough, even when going full-on-accountech-mode, engines and gyros of the same rating, no matter their source, can be swapped around, and you can salvage an arm from a 55-ton Wolverine to slap on a Griffin.But admittedly, that must be funny for the quartermaster and 'Mechtechs to work with.>You want me to replace the Lord's Light PPC with what?"They're both PPCs, ain't they?">Wait, this is a Jenner leg"They weigh the same, don't they?">Sir, this head assembly is from a WolfhoundAnd so on.
>>94765808>So when that changedSo what changed with that change?>the hatchetman is okayYeah, exactly, not every melee 'mech needs to be the Nightsky.>>94765812>but it can't successfully ambush anything in its own weight classHidden unit deployment rules and urban terrain.
>>94765823Even if it gets the drop on another medium using those, it'll lose in close ranged combat to other mediums. It just doesn't have the armor.
>>94765814Considering how quick and easy it is to repair structure damage there's clearly a lot of modularity going on under the hood. Also most combat dropships already can't carry enough supplies for more than a few engagements, tracking spare parts by individual mech would make it totally impossible.
>>94765842>tracking spare parts by individual mech would make it totally impossible.Battletech logistics make no sense if you look under the hood, news at 11
>>94765814On the other hand, there's refits like the Stalker 4P that's actually just 10 tons lighter and it was probably just an intern who fucked it up and now it's just part of the canon forever, but it exists.And actual canon frankenmechs like the Cataphract, which is like 50% marauder but also has a ton of phoenix hawk parts and uses a shadowhawk right arm backwards as its left arm. Oh and the PPC in the marauder arm isn't actually the PPC from a marauder arm, it's from a Vindicator because fuck you, that's why.
>>94765853And yet it took years to sort of fail to copy that cataphract in the ceasar.The Cronus is a similar true frankenmech using parts of every 55 tonner to create ... the ultimate wolverine 6M variant. At least it looks cool with it's battleship conning tower ct?
Someone please help me understand the use case for the Mist Lynx/Koshi. I get that they're fast, but they're so fragile. They have big weapons loads, soI guess I should be backstabbing with them, but I have difficulty getting them to survive elong enough to get into position.Plus, I feel like anything they can do a Fire Moth or Viper would do better.
>>94765885I use the long ranged versions kind of like a clan Cicada 3C. Use your speed and range advantage to harass enemies from outside their effective ranges.That and the obvious battle armor transport. It's main hamstring really is the lack of a seventh jump jet.
>>94765814It'd be funny to keep track of what mechs salvaged components you use to repair or customize your mechs came from, just to see what kind of abominations you end up with. Like a "Griffin" that has a Bushwacker's right leg, Shadow Hawk's head and left arm, and Wolverine's right arm and left leg. And the PPC is taken from a Panther and bolted on the side of the arm.
>>94765844>can't wait to eat 25kg worth of food in 1 dayT. Dropship/warship construction rules
>>94765911Imagine the plumbing.
>>94765911No stupid, it's also water and oxygen. Everyone knows the troops on the way to D-Day drank four gallons of water a day, and oxygen is famously heavy when compressed.
Speaking of rare 'mechs and variant bullshit, am I understanding correctly that the Exterminator EXT-4D is the variant that doesn't have the bullshit Stealth capabilities, and Comstar has/had massive stockpiles of them and sent a bunch to the Draconis Combine as well? So while it is a bit of an unicorn to have, it does exist during the Late Succession wars? While the 4C is in the "literally a dozen of these exist" category and the -4A is... I don't even know what to make of it, according to Sarna. There were 25 of them and none survived.So if I wanted to have an Exterminator to be found in a, say, Mercenary Campaign, I should make it a -4D?
>>94765951>Not bringing Dehydrated water on board to save spacebaka at this lack of writing ability.
>>94765951Scrubbers and water purifiers, unless those pieces of lostech weren't included in the memory core
>>94765951This is a setting with fusion power, making a water/air recycling plant would be trivial since you can just throw megawatts at the problem.
>>94765963GDL's two Union Dropships had those in them before Helm, so those at least aren't lostech.
>>94765949I dread to think of the plumbing needed for elementals
>>94764160>>94764306The 3S didnt show up until 3026 and is uniquely Lyran. Youre not going to see it anywhere else aside from FedCom forces because the Lyrans also have all the Banshee factories. The 3E stopped getting made but it sticks around because its such dogshit no one used it, it was always sent to reserve backwater units. Everybody else has refits but the Magistracy did do what you say though, the 3MC swaps the AC5 for an AC10 so you get a budget 3S that still moves 4/6.
>>94764346It adds extra mass to the foot for more kick damage>>94764387Its been done before but we pretty much stuck with intro tech and picked best mech per weight class. It wasnt that surprising either it was the Awesome, Jumping Thud, Marik Wolverine, and the Wolfhound iirc.
>>94766007>Jumping thud best heavy I'm sorry what
>>94763277not really, they had warships
>>94761596Nueva Castile, Taurians and Capellan March (probably former Taurian worlds). There was also some Spanish in the Capellan Confederation but it got Xin Sheng'd. Outside of AToW it doesn't appear in any appreciable way in other factions.>>94761617>CanopusTry something besides Google, you're way off.
>>94765911Yeah, somebody guessed an order of magnitude too much there when designing the rules. Easy enough to house-rule when you're playing your own campaign though.
>>94766007>>94766020For mediums and assaults the best introtech mech is very clear-cut (especially assaults: there's nothing that comes even close to the Awesome), but for lights and heavies it's debatable. Particularly for lights, since the choice between Wolfhound and Jenner comes entirely down to how much you value jump jets (personally, I feel lights live and die based on maneuverability so while Wolfhound would be better in vacuum in most actual combat scenario's Jenner's ability to maintain good TMM even in rough terrain or jump behind enemies to backstab them ends up outweighting Wolfhound having more firepower). For Heavies the choice comes down to the ELH Thud and Grasshopper, with the former being generally considered better by a small margin though the Grasshopper has its own advantages as well (it's one of the best zombie mechs, for one).
>>94766053A bunch of the accountant tech stuff is designed mainly with gameplay in mind. Punishing people for carting around large numbers of infantry and crappy vehicles as cargo took a higher priority over writing something plausible.
>>94766078Jenner wins because unlike the Wolfhound it HONORS THE DRAGON
>>94766084I'd also have to go diving into the rules to see if there are abstractions that make the number make sense, like a minimum value of weight to keep the math from getting fucky, or if food counts water, or how food is assumed to be stored (if it's canned, weight will be higher; if it's all freeze dried, water requirements would be steeper and add weight that way, etc).
>>94766096The word used in Campaign ops is consumables, explicitly including food, water and air and presumably including things like waste treatment chemicals, cleaning supplies and so on.
>>94766078I hate LRM5 on the Grasshopper>one with the hatchet instead of LRM5, on the other hand is...
>>94766140Is that one of those Kuritan refits from their force manual?
How do you cope with shit writing?My cope-headcanon is that after 800 years of space civilization all the industrial planets are irrecoverably poisoned with heavy metals and general industrial waste (and fallout from all the nuking), and the average IQ in the Inner Sphere is about 70 by our standards. 60 for nobility due to all the inbreeding on top of that.
>>94766078The jumping thud isn't even the best thud imo, the hit it takes to damage output for the addition of jjs is too severe. Also 24 rounds for the lrm 10 is excessive.Grasshopper is better in basically every way.Also surprised the guillotine isn't at least part of the discussion
>>94766162I just don't pay attention to bad writing and dismiss it with "thats dumb"It's easier than tying myself into headcanon knots over nonsense. Also, your headcanon is even more shit than the canon because the vast majority of worlds in the IS are all but pristine
>>94766120Campaign ops doesn't give rules for food, i think it says to go look in ATOW if you want to track that.
>>94766151yup. archer refit is good too imo
Why is everything a side grade? Can't these people make anything that's just straight up better?
>>94766187AToW (p. 336) gives us monthly food expenses per person, ranging from 120 (cheap) to 480 (luxury) C-bills. More bits of information about the prices can be found in MW3 (p. 157), which is per serving unless noted otherwise. MW:Companion (p. 114) gives the cost of a military field ration (your typical MRE) at 2 C-bills per serving; just add water.None of these provide a mass value, sadly. I also couldn't find a list of trade goods in the books I own, but then, I didn't have time to comb through all of them. If you have a list which has the value of a ton of food as cargo somewhere, you can divide it by the cheapest available food cost to find out roughly how many "servings" there are in that ton.
>>94766020>>94766078The Thud was the biggest argument and again if I remember correctly people actually ran it against others in MM and it came out on top slightly more often. I personally prefer the SS and think thats the better design. Id put the Wolfhound over the Jenner because its less of a gamble to use. Jenner is an amazing backstabber but its also severely undersinked for its weapons even without factoring in the jump jets.
>>94766165I think people legitimately forget the Guillotine exists since its so much rarer than the other two.
>>94766165The SE loses its support weapons and downsizes the LRM15 to 10 its not that big a hit, the laser battery was always the part that did the heavy lifting for damage.
>>94766279Most 24h ration packs weight around 1-1.5kg, depending on calorie content
>>94766309If you argue the laser battery is what does the heavy lifting you should have gone for the grasshopper no?
>>94766255We've got you surrounded, come out and mount your re-engineered lasers.
>>94766255The BT community is still wrestling with the trauma of the clan invasion where all the clan stuff was just a straight upgrade.
>>94765885>Someone please help me understand the use case for the Mist Lynx/KoshiTo take up space in my hangar, apparently, because trading one small laser for that 7th jump jet just wasn’t in the cards.
>>94766295The Guillotine was still being made as a downgraded version by Irian during the Succession Wars whilst the Grasshopper went out of production for about 200~ years and became so rare that it'd get pushed ahead of other mechs for repairs.
>>94766295As a Comstar player, I never forget the Guillotine.
>>94765986>The elementals keep doing something they call "The Turtle Bay" in the CO's personal toilet.
>>94765885Canonically they're supposed to work in tandem with Direwolves, so I guess the most lore-friendly way would be to give them tag and/or narc and have them run around painting targets for the big boys to drown in missiles and ions.
>>94766162This. And Star League terraforming had tolerances for CO2 such that the air makes you stupid.
>>94766295>>94766385>>94766397No hands, doesn't count. If the Guillotine had hand actuators it would be decent, but without the ability to beat the enemy to death with their own severed limb, it's garbage like most of the rest of the 3025 heavies.
>>94765484That's one thing I like about the original Gundam series. They're always introducing crazy new variants in spinoffs but they're almost always based on the ones introduced in the first show. The did go a little crazy with weird new transforming shit between Zeta and Hathaway's Flash, but it works within the context of the story because the government got really corrupt and went all in on pork barrel military spending.
>>94766445>Punching/clubbing when mechs have pulse legs(How else do you explain the -2 to hit?)
>>94766461What do you mean by "pulse legs"?
>>94766473Legs work the same as pulse lasers.It's not complicated.
>>94765532Even that is way too much. You'd probably want one heavy. One light. And maybe a medium.
>>94766385Easily one of the most unnecessary retcons in that TRO
>>94766452I was always annoyed by the prototypes being better than everything. Prototypes are being ggyntest mules that don't even have the full capability that the production versions have. Like, the M1 and F-16 are massively better than the XM-1 and YF-16, but the RX-78 is just straight up better than the GM.
>>94765966This is a setting where water filtration is super space age technology.
>>94766433>when you're presenting the annual report to the board this morning, but you forgot your oxygen bottle and nasal cannula at homeGuess who's getting taken off the Nashan Diversified account?
>>94766452>>94766625I think the OYW is a little over stuffed with new suits for how short the conflict is. At this point I kind of just want a UC reboot where the initial conflict lasts about as long as WWII did and they can have enough room for all these major events to happen.
Which Draconis March planet hates dracs the most?
>>94766691Nouveau Toulouse
>>94766473That gif is very accurate. Why else do you think missing a (-2) kick causes a psr?Any good mechwarrior has mastered the Cossack shuffle
>>94766295>>94766385Remember that most of /btg/ is composed of grogs who still consider the introduction of the introtech Guillotine a recent retcon and are determined to ignore it.
>>94766740Isn't that functionally extinct?
>>94766773And they are right to do so. All retcons must be refused if you're actually a real fan of the game.
>>94766865100% of the inhabitants would rather die than be conquered by the Dracs!On a more serious note: Nouveau Toulouse IV is one of the planets we know of which was a prosperous world - and got annihilated by WMDs during the fighting, somewhere in the 29th century IIRC. You don't get to sow any more hate than this.
>>94766880Battledroids was retcon trash. The only stuff real fans acknowledge is the first draft handwritten by Jordan Weisman in a spiral notebook in 1981
>>94760323Install a metal detector at every LGS.Summarily execute anyone found to be carrying pewter and/or pewter accessories.Maybe with a shitmech amnesty campaign for a months or two first (like the bongs do with knoives) to not be completely inhumane.
>>94766903>first draft handwritten by Jordan Weisman in a spiral notebook in 1981"Dear Diary, I must think of a new way to scam money out of nerds. They seem to like those "real robot" things from Japan. God, they make me sick. It's the smell. At least I won't feel guilty about anything!"
I'm running a few players as dispossessed mechwarriors hired as mercs to pad out some House commander's force with salvaged or 'unfit' mechs until they can somehow start their own merc company.What sort of shenanigans should I have ready to throw at them? Promises of medium/heavy mechs to pilot, but the mechs are crippled/destroyed and will need to be repaired with salvage (get in the bug mech)?Or is there somewhere where I can look to find contract breach ideas or tables for the employer?This is my first go at a campaign beyond helping with a short lived chaos campaign
>>94766912>install British style Pewter Return box (new classic minis cost lives after all, imagine if someone dropped a solid metal Shad on someone's toe.)>after a week it gets burglarized and now there are a bunch of untraced pewters on the streets.>someone might be carrying an Unregistered unseen lam to their next pickup game>Oh_Blimy.UK.Gif>see someone being shifty at the table, takle them down and wrestle the model from their carry case>just a stinky resin model, had to scrape the paint off with a mold line remover to confirm it>let them off with a warning>40k player pulls me from lecturing the proxy player about how he was endangering other players>40Kiddie explains that some person cornered them in the bathroom and yelled "I claim this butte for clan Jade Falcon" before molesting them>ban them from the store for being racist to clanners.>Protected_and_served.uk.png>take a nice smoke break to reward myself for fine duty>get fired because a WolfNet tournament organizer saw someone with a model with more than 20% unofficial materials and called CGL on us (it was a 3d printed hatchet, but they cut off an arm for battle damage so it was proportionally more than one fith the volume.)>stinking_git.UK.Royal.PNG
>>94766773>recent>2009
>>94766625Weirdly, it seems like only the Federation is like that. Most Zeon ones are either about the same as the production models like the MS-04 and YMS-14, have huge, glaring flaws like the Zudah's poor heat management and the Kampfer's tissue paper armor, or are just aren't as good as the designs they're competing with like the Gyan.It's also interesting to note how Tomino's novelization of the original series fixes the issue. The GM is supposed to be as good as the Gundam in terms of sheer performance, it just has some differences. They made it out of a cheaper kind of titanium, but they also refined the armor's honeycomb structure or something like that to give it better strength/weight ratio, its gun has has the output toned down so it won't use up energy as fast, has been refined into a smaller, pistol style form that's easier to use and still burns through most Zeon armor anyway and its large visor-style visual sensor suite is outright better that the Gundam's humanoid eye-style rangefinder cameras that were just designed to look cool because the project team wanted to impress the top brass holding the purse strings. The only reason the Gundam continues to perform so well after the mass production MS hit the battlefield is Amuro's psychic powers.
>>94767306That was exactly the point he was making though? Seriously reading comprehension in btg has been at an all time low of late
>>94767266One of my ideas for initial campaign hooks is: >Cappie / Drac regiment>absolute shithole living conditions & "career prospects">Basically used disposable assets>Routine hit & run mission on enemy convoy>Players are now in possession of a functional cargo truck full of gold bullion/something else of incredibly high value that is exceedingly hard to pawn off>?????This is directly ripped from Front Mission 4, iirc. But the point is that the players will most likely choose to go rogue by themselves (player agency is good!). If they don't, have command black bag all of them and take embezzle the loot themselves.
>>94767373>>Players are now in possession of a functional cargo truck full of gold bullion/something else of incredibly high value that is exceedingly hard to pawn off>>?????https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXHcnQ29Bbs
>The IS has an insane industrial base>Things are still expensive as fuckHow?
>>94767572The companies are making you pay 500 c-bills for screws
>>94767613That is outrageous!
>>94765998>What are mercenaries>What is salvage>What is a blueprint>What is industrial espionage
>>94766162Nobility in BT doesn't seem to inbreed much as the rights their dynasties hold are only bound to blood in the most perfunctory manner.
>>94768270Anon there's no point. He's internalized too much industrialist propaganda.
>>94767373Player agency is always key. I'm only starting them out as dispossessed to help keep their new player focus on learning the core game, then I'll put them on the stairs to forming and managing their own command.I was thinking a Social General might be fun to use as their 'benefactor', but I may offer multiple contracts that allow the players to choose what House uses them as disposable assets
>>94767339btg has never had good reading comprehension but I guess it's fun pointing it out on occasion
>>94767266The Mercs now must pay off the c-bill value, plus interest, of their "new mechs" to the company store. What, did they think they were getting those mechs for free?
>'who are you?' said the grasshopper>'i'm you but better' said the penetrator
>>94768525Luv that chunky boi.
big missile boat for succ wars/early invasion mercs:stalker or longbow?
>>94768650Stalker isn’t quite a missile boat though, it’s a Juggernaut/Brawler that is set up to bracket fire while it plods into SRM and Medium Laser range. If you just want to sling LRMs get a Catapult or Longbow.
>>94768650Stalker alldayerryday
>>94768488That seems very Capellan.I think I'll use it but have them make a secret Negotiation roll to spot that company store clause as individuals. Especially if they decide to come from different backgrounds/factions
Speaking of reading comprehension, am I retarded or is this scenario from Sword and Dragon just fundamentally broken?>Attacker declares any sides they want as impassable>Defender declares one remainin side as the objective edge>Defender deploys next to objective edge>Defender wins on turn 1 after moving all 'mechs off the objective edgeLike, this isn't even a typo or errata issue, this is just a fundamentally broken scenario. Am I just too much of a powergamer? What the fuck am I supposed to do with scenarios like this? does nobody proofread or playtest this shit? What the actual fuck?
>>94768716Unless otherwise noted, I'd say the standard rules still apply.Which doesn't change the fact that the defender can still cheese (choose something like the Desert Mountain maps from Map Set #3 and pick 'Mechs who can GTFO out of there hiding behind terrain), but not that much.
>>94768821>Unless otherwise notedLike how it says that the defender deploys next to the quarry walls and how the attacker comes in from the objective edge?Damn, the reading comprehension here IS really bad.
>>94768586The Penetrator resculpt is one of the best CGL glow-ups. That and the Sentinel.>>94768650Longbow if you want a dedicated missile boat.
>>94768840There's always some quarry wall that's next to an edge opposite of the objective edge, so there's no contradiction here.No clue what the valid maps for the scenario are, but as the defender, I'd see if I could get Archipelago #1 and #2 (Map Set #7) and see if the attacker allows me to declare one of the water edges as the objective one...
>>94768919Nowhere in there is it said you need to deploy along your home edge. In fact, it specifically says >all units start play off the map, unless a specific scenario states otherwise.And "deploy within 2 hexes of the quarry walls" seems pretty fucking specific to me.>There's always some quarry wall that's next to an edge opposite of the objective edgeNothing is stopping you from choosing two opposite edges as the quarry edges, either.
>>94768955>Nothing is stopping you from choosing two opposite edges as the quarry edges, either.In fact, as an attacker, you should generally pick the two longer opposite edges as quarry walls.This still leaves the corners where those edges meet the edge opposite of the objective one as valid points to place the defenders, even with using the default set-up rules.
>>94766912>Summarily execute anyone found to be carrying pewter and/or pewter accessories.I fucking dare you to try, good luck. You'll need it, and the rest.
>>94764699it's military history in a game for military history fans, it's not surprising that people who play the game enjoy it
>>94769252You got a loicense for that there mate
What happens here?
>>94769765I wouldn't worry about it.
>>94765764HERETIC.
>>94765772AMEN. PREACH BRETHREN.
>>94765797Which is a shame because in-universe , just like the centurion, the shadowhawk, the enforcer is a total beast mode mech.A decently mobile medium, with a HEAVY autocannon AND a heavy laser, for a one-two punch.
Anyone have STLs for hex bases that are accurate to the hex spaces on the official maps? I'm trying to scale the heroacape STLs that are easily found on Google (and have been linked here once or twice), so I can make them about 1.5 to 2 times larger so that I can make 3D map peices with enough room to have a rim of trees on the outside.
>>94765802ARMOUR. A paper mache house has more armourm
>>94765823Wrong. Fucking wrong. If your "melee mech" is not up to Nightsky-or-Better spec, you are DOING IT WRONG.
>>94767613In the grim derpness of BattleTech future, every company is John Deere.>you wouldnt be trying to repair that lord's light ppc with GENERIC washers would you? THAT breaks your Use Contract and voids your Leasing.
Is it true that you only need 330 c-bills worth of spare parts to keep a shadowhawk running per month in peacetime?
Does the Wolverine have the most quirks of a common in production mech? (7)
>>94769901Its pretty decent, plus with the spare parts out there you can easily maintain a Shadow Hawk without freaking out.Honestly I know people shit on the Shadow Hawk for being a sub par Battlemech but if your a fledgling Merc outfit hurting on cash, having a Shadow Hawk doesn't hurt the pocket book that much.
So it's pretty much impossible for you to run a merc company with a Leopard or a Union because the cargo's so small that even if you use all of your cargo only for armor and ammo they gonna last only a few battle?
>>94769877Honestly, with how corporations nickle and dime you nowadays the idea of Battlemechs existing for more than six years is outrageous.Like, a Shadow Hawk from one manufactury would be totally incompatible with one from another, even if they were on the same planet, let alone the different companies from different planets.There'd be specialized adapters to plug your specialized tools into the wall that you'd have to buy to remove specialized parts from your mech, and you'd need a license to do it, and that's only for pre approved pieces of the mech, everything else you'd have to ship it back to the manufacturer, and they'd have an OS system in the mech computer that tracks whether or not you're tampering with it, while also scanning all of your combat data and personal brainwaves from your beuto helmet so they can copyright it and use it to develop computers that are better at sending subliminal marketing ads. And the OS only works for two years and slowly starts to eat itself, forcing you to buy a new mech.Nothing in BT would last a decade.Oh, and since corporations have standing armies in BT, you'd get whacked by death squads if you try to defy them.And the nobility would work to make sure the corporations can do this forever.
>>94769954You can gut out the aerospace bays and expand them into cargo bays if you need to.Thats 200 tons right there.
>>94769954Rip out the two ASF bays and you get another 300t of cargo. Also you can use spare tonnage of other bays. A mech bay can fit a 100 ton mech, put a phoenix hawk in there and you can fit 55t of cargo in there if you don't need to work on the mech in the bay.
>>94769979Except that in BT, the corpos are beholden to the nobility, not the other way around
>>94769979Seeing as it's the nobles the battlemech manufacturers would be fucking over if they intentionally made shitboxes your assertion that they would support said manufacturers in doing so is retarded.
>>94769979The coordinator hereby requests that you go to meet your ancestors immediately.
>>94769979That only worked during the star league, and even then, "worked" is questionable. Ask the Clint.
>>94769954you're supposed to contact out support with your employer when negotiating contractsmerc units that aren't Wolf's Dragoons or the Kell Hounds don't haul around every ton of supplies they'll need ahead of time
>>94769954It's only really a problem with a Leopard. Bigger problems include the only door between your mech bay and your general cargo or ASF bays being a literal human sized door that you can't fit large parts through. If you need to grab that replacement arm from storage, it has to go around the outside of the ship from one cargo door to the other. It's designed for lightning raids and nothing else.
What are the most common/bog-standard aerospace fighters that even a hard luck merc force can possess a couple?
>>94766053>>94765911>>94766084>>94766096>>94766120>>94766187>>94766279>>94766322Food is approximately 200 man days per ton and 800 c-bills.
Do you ever wonder what we would have had if FASA had never gone under and we had never had Dark Age?
>>94770093Basically RoS into ilClan? I dont think much would have changed in the broader strokes of things
>>94770081Sabre hands down.
>>94770003>>94770008>>94770018>Le Heckin' Nobles would stop the CorposSo you don't know how wealth accumulation works or why it makes one basically the same as the other?
>>94770111I don't think we would have had ROS the way we did if not for the fall of FASA.
>>94770117If the basis of your power as a noble is your battlemechs you have an incentive to have good battlemechs. I'm not saying there wouldn't be corruption and all kinds of shady shit, but I don't think the mechwarrior nobility would just sit back and allow silly buggers. I'm not arguing the nobility are good or moral people, I'm arguing that they have a vested self interest in there being good battlemechs because they derive their power and legitimacy from getting into said battlemechs.
>Gray Death Legion was founded with just a Shadow Hawk, Stinger, Locust and Waspwhy is this such a kino lance?
>>94770117Le hecking nobles are the ones who would get screwed the most if mechs were disposable. They're not going to screw themselves.
>>94770117Deliberately degrading your nation's ability to wage war during a total war scenario will get your factories nationalized by a liberal democracy. Hereditary dictatorships like all of the great houses will shoot you, then nationalize your factories.
>>94770152starting to understand why the Republic of the Sphere rose to power
>>94770117Majority of the Inner Sphere houses own there manufacturing core.Example one of the biggest military production Defiance Industries is owned by the Lyran Commonwealth.Its hard to nickle and dime the people who own the majority of the industry.
>>94770130>If the basis of your power as a noble is your battlemechs you have an incentive to have good battlemechs.No, that would be your weapons in general.>>94770142>>94770152>>94770166And while they won't purposely screw themselves over, they are also under no obligation to provide lethal weapons for anyone outside of their circles.So your Nobles end up like Clanners; They get all the best shit, and you take whatever crumbs they graciously let you borrow.You've got to be a Man-at-Arms to even use a shitmech, while your Local Lord gets a GM and the Space King has his Super Gundam.
>>94770141Can't go wrong with the classics
>>94769901Probably even less for a Warhammer or Blunderbolt, those are the AK-47s of mechs (and mechanically have a higher grade of the Rugged quirk than Shaq).Just douse it in cosmoline and you're good to stow it away for 20 years.
>>94770141Man she's cute.I want to her to beg me to do unspeakable things to her.
>>94770218I can't tell if you don't understand this setting and think you are describing the way it actually is or you are talking about the way you want it to be and have insanely bad taste.
>>94770262Thanks, Lori Kalmar had a great career
>>94770218The nobles only get to stay nobles because they are useful to the higher up nobles and eventually the state.If you're hoarding all the good mechs and passing monkey models to your own boss, you're going to be out of a job and out of a title. There's plenty of just as noble families around to take your throne, and most of them are willing to play ball with the big guys upstairs.
>>94770218Almost all of these states are hybrid feudal. If the guy who owns the Marauder plant isn't selling his Marauders to the state military, then the state military is going to come down from space and take control of it directly. Even worse, if he's selling them to enemies of the state instead, they'll come down and bomb him first before grabbing it. Corporate malfeasance has to be subtle. Very, very subtle. The way it works in BT is that they make and sell a handful of mechs off the books and far away from prying eyes. The guys buying an Awesoam™ made from QA reject parts with all the serial numbers ground off from a fifth degree IBU shell company in Fedsuns space aren't going to get the best customer service and won't even be able to find the seller again to ask about warranties. But the state military and high nobles buying Awesomes direct from the factory on Irian III will, and their units will perform exactly as advertised. And when those very well made ones get salvaged or sold on, they'll still be good and the parts will still be available on the same market the primary buyers are using.
>>94769979Look at the m16.It started out so shit. But now there's all sorts of gucci race gun Uber AR 15's that have unrivalled reliability too etc, pushing the 5.56 vartridge to the limits of possibility, but if you tried to make bits off of m16a4? or are they up to m4a5/6 now? And tried to tack it onto an OG m16, it just would not even.Can you imagine trying to put a fucking basic acog onto an original m16? Fuck no, you NEED the flat tops.And mechs would basically work the same.Also, another great example.Take the f18 hornet. It has almost ZERO parts commonality with the growler superhornets. Totally redesigned and reworked, calling the new hornets a hornet is just silly at this point. To say nothing of shit like conformal fuel tank falcons and just HOW retardedly improved new eagles are compared to the launch eagle.ONE modern f15 e/g(?) Strike eagle would shit all over an entire fucking squadron of launch eagles.So yes, keeping ONE griffin running for 500 years of succ war suck fest, and using parts from thousands of plants and manufacturers would just be totally untenable. BattleTech requires you to be accepting of the logistics and industrial base pretty much functioning like cottage industry versions of 40K's STC's. SOMEHOW everyone making griffin actuators is making the EXACT same actuator, to the MICRON, with the exact same materiels sciences.
>>94770380Gunsmiths have combined way way waaaay stupider combinations of parts than M16Ax parts onto M16Ay ones. All it takes is a workshop and know-how. Mechtechs have lots of know-how and lots of workshops. It's important to point out that all mechs stem from the same source. Battlemechs have been invented literally one time ever and every single mech after that can be directly traced back to that one. The other houses never invented mechs, they just stole the design documentation for the Mackie. Their first mechs were all Mackie clones. No one heard about the Mackie and then successfully made their own mech from first principles, it was all direct copying from the same source. Then they were all standardized together under the star league and restandardized under Helm. And now they're being re-restandardized under clantech compatibility.
>>94770376Thought companies like Corean sells Centurions, Treb and shits to all Inner Sphere factions
>>94770380I put an ACOG on my SP1 for a while. You can mix and match parts parts on all models of M4s, M16s, and AR-15s with almost no limitations. Like you can't put FA M4/M16 components into a 90s colt AR because of the sear block, and Colt also made some years with different diameter takedown pins because they hate their customers, and it's not optimal to mix and match rifle/carbine barrels and feeds, but it works. That's actually the biggest selling point of the AR platform, unlimited modularity.
>>94770380The E/F/G hornets were basically clean sheet designs, they're only called 'Hornets' because Congress wouldn't pay for new planes so they passed it off as just another variant of an existing one.
>>94770458They do, even when they aren't supposed to. At one point the Draconis Combine controlled every single Charger in existence since the SLDF sent them all back to the manufacturer for being shit. Under total war conditions with no exports allowed, they still sold them under the table until they got caught. But you can't expect under the table sales to have a lot of manufacturer support when the manufacturer officially doesn't know what you're talking about or how you possibly got that unit.
>>94770304>The nobles only get to stay nobles because they are useful to the higher up nobles and eventually the state.Which is their circle...>>94770376Most likely, the guy who owns the Marauder plant is themselves a Noble, while the State Military... are Nobles.That's how feudalism works, You are in charge because you are the fucking Military.And dynastic wealth is also how Corporations like to work.
>>94770380More than that, IndustrialMech factories are often used to provide replacement actuators for BattleMechs, so they can make parts that were never intended to go together behave.
>>94770489So then what's the issue? If they aren't fucking themselves over and they aren't fucking their customers over, then they're not really fucking anyone over are they? Like we said.
>>94770501>they aren't fucking their customersAnyone who would be a "customer" is inherently being fucked over, see:>>94770471>But you can't expect under the table sales to have a lot of manufacturer support when the manufacturer officially doesn't know what you're talking about or how you possibly got that unit.If BattleMechs really are the armored, horse mounted Knights of old, then war is a matter of throwing expendable peasants at someone until he agrees to give you some shit, probably after you've scratched his GMs paint.
>>94770525Battlemechs aren't the historic knights of old, they're the chivalric ideal of knights of old. (Ignore the guys in Firestarters, they're closer to the historic version.)
>>94769901Literally all maintenance costs are so stupidly low as to disappear into rounding errors. The fiction makes a big deal about maintenance and units being expensive to upkeep, but you can basically upkeep a battalion for the price of a single ton of SRM ammo. NEAs campaign rules up the maintenance costs to middle five figures, and even those are pretty low once you get past the clan invasion era and units start costing 15 million+.
>>94770525Except that nobody with a mech is a peasant. Peasants drive tanks or slog footily.Outside of the state army, the market for mechs is nobles, militias run and operated by nobles, and mercenaries who may be current or future nobles on account of having enough firepower to potentially earn a landhold. Many mechwarriors come from prestigious academies and the ones that are active who aren't already nobles may be directly sponsored by nobles. There's no sector of the market that you'd want to actively screw with except under the table foreign buyers who might be pirates or something. But for mechs being sold on the open market, there's no incentive to make intentionally shitty ones.
>>94770536I think Firestarters are closer to 30 Years War era than anything from the medieval period.
>>94770550>Peasants... slog footily.Yes.>There's no sector of the marketThere is no market!You either are a Noble or directly work for one, and if you aren't either then you are infringing on their monopoly of force.
>>94770598Feudalism outsources the monopoly of force. It's a defining feature of it even. Mercenaries thrive in feudal systems.
>>94770574Battletech pre-3050 in general is closer to the thirty years war than the medieval era>State-run armies are displacing feudal levies, the nobility are slowly losing their hold on power in favor of centralized state armies>absolute horror and devastation gets inflicted on the peasantry on a regular basis>mercenaries are extremely prominent >David Weber's mere presence would ruin it>the ideological differences between sides are all but meaningless
>>94770548Battlemechs spend most of their time standing still in a totally climate controlled environment. You don't need to rotate their tires.
>>94770612>hurr durr, there's no ideological difference between muscular liberalism and fascism with Japanese characteristics.
Fast question, does anyone have a copy of the rules booklet for the Strana Mechty Circle of Equals battlemap? Another Cincy group got the battlemap box, but the booklet wasn't in it, and they wanted to use the map this weekend. I don't buy the neoprene, so I don't have a copy.
>>94770609Then how, in such a mercantile system, is there any quality assurance?
>>94770655Was that the one you needed to buy two copies of to actually use?
>>94770668There isn't. That's a feature, not a bug.
>>94770668Poor quality results in pulled contracts and sometimes replacement. The driving force for almost all mech development is state militaries. The star league may have tolerated expensive shitbox boondoggles (sometimes), but the successor states do not. If you try to pull a fast one on them, they will have your board of directors stabbed for treason and your operations sold to a more loyal (on its face anyway) company in the worst cases. They can nationalize production facilities and hand control to loyalists.
>>94770687No idea. I don't engage with the neoprene side of the product line at all. Paper maps and neoprene don't mix, and I'm not replacing ~250 mapsheets with neoprene versions.Unfortunately, the rules booklet doesn't appear to be in any of the troves, or available as a PDF anywhere. I'm hoping one of you can scan it or take a quick photo.
>>94770687It's not called the "half circle of equals"
>>94770690>There isn't. That's a feature, not a bug.So you agree that Corpo Nobles would only produce barely viable product?>>94770696>They can nationalize production facilities and hand control to loyalists.Why hadn't they done so to being with?!Seems like a HUGE liability to have non-state actors producing warfare quality weapons...
>>94770655>>94770705I don't think it comes with a rules booklet at all?
>>94770717Because they kill the ones who produce barely viable product. Or pull their contracts. If you go "haha, whoopsie cost overrun all these units will be 5 times as expensive as projected and also fall apart and not meet performance goals, whoopsie", they just don't pay you for those mechs. They ask your competitor if they can do it properly and then hand your facility to them. The corps that do that didn't survive the first two succession wars for one reason or another. Several of them were made defunct for national interests. The rest were nuked. Golden parachutes don't work when you can be summarily executed.
>>94770717Because people and corporations who make things get nervous when the state starts randomly taking shit, and they start thinking maybe they'll be better off somewhere in another state, and it's a bad look. Doing stuff like that is how you know the caps and dracs are the bad guys. If the corps play by the rules they get to keep their positions and salaries and pretend to be in charge, with the understanding that there are consequences if they don't.
>>94770723sarna.net/wiki/BattleMat:_Strana_MechtySays it does. Again, I don't know since I don't have it.
>>94770748>Because they kill the ones who produce barely viable product. Or pull their contracts.We should start doing this IRL. The interstate near me has had the same 6 mile stretch under construction since I was in 6th grade. I've been out of college for 4 years, and it's still not done.
pdf and epub version on the drop folder.And as always, Fuck CGL!
>>94770773Weird, but i kind of suspect that's wrong, none of the neoprenes I've bought have rules inserts. >>94770781That would mean using the government for anything other than lining the pockets of rich people and their friends, and that would be communism.
>>94770787Dope, been meaning to get more material to dunk on Ward
>>94770787Appreciate it, files moved to the needed folders.
>>94770781Well, 1 guy tried recently and nobody else decided to continue the trent. Funny how the biggest advocates for extreme types of.... "accountability" are fucking cowards who would never do it themselves.
>>94770765>they start thinking maybe they'll be better off somewhere in another stateThat sounds like TRAITOR thinking, perhaps we should give your factory to the Space King's retarded nephew...>>94770748>>94770781>>94770811>That would mean using the government for anything other than lining the pockets of rich people and their friends, and that would be communism.>>94770841Yes, the Corpo Nobility would very much rather you be a stupid, harmless labor commodity than a risky, fickle self-advocate...
>94770885Fuck off Manic you don't even like Battletech
>>94770773Mine also didn't include a rules insert, but the side of the box says the rules can be found on the download page of the main Battletech website, whereat no such rules are to be found. A discussion on the OF on this subject points out that bridges are covered in BMM and TW, and the Unstable terrain modifier is covered in the Tukayyid map pack rules insert, which *can* be found on the download page.
New thread: >>94771159>>94771159>>94771159
Could I get some suggestions for Feddie mechs to try out in Ilclan? Individual mechs or combinations that you've enjoyed. My play group has decided to give the era a go.
>>94770141Because it's thematic for the succession wars, the most kino era of battletech.
>>94770380You could take just about every single part off an M16A4 and put it into a Vietnam War era M16A1 and it would work just fine.
>>94768708It's more of a Combine and FedSuns thing to use the company store to trap a Merc unit
>>94770574>I think Firestarters are closer to 30 Years War era than anything from the medieval period.100 Year's War was a thing.
