Battletech General: Throne Room Edition

Steiner most stronk thread pic. My night is made. Now to get drunk play mega mek alone and hate life.

glock should be the MOST boring but handy trooper ever, like an enforcer or vindi with half the flavor.

There's the Enfield at least.
Mostly, I think it's that modern guns are either just boring model numbers or the inventor's last name, as in your examples, and those make for pretty boring mech names

It should also carry a bunch of un-CASE'd MG ammo

Clan Invasion era map. It just wasn't updated real time.

what's up /k/?

I never thought about that one, probably because I'm an idiot and I own an SMLE

>the inventor's last name[...] make for pretty boring mech names
I'll cut you, nigga

Aren't those Summoners flanking the throne?

Griffins.

...
...
...
Griffins. Those Are Griffins.

Bait for the bait god. Ignore it.

dear GOD, the print lines on that thing. Invest in some filler primer or wet-sand that bitch or SOMETHING.

nice blog

Nnngh that mini, I just ordered my MWO inspired Atlas from that Russian website.

Why do the Regulans insist on antagonizing the Oriente?

Why did Bohemia insist on pissing on Austria for most of the 14 and 1500s?

...

>Cycloptic asshole

>This no Zaku my boy, no Zaku!

youtube.com/watch?v=NyGleM-B1zI

Outside of a command ride are there any decent cyclops for just basic old assaults?

Important preface: Kirc Cameron-Jones is, in best BT tradition, a leader with serious mental issues including severe paranoia and rampant backstabbing.

So after the whole C*/WoB breakup, the WoB needed a place to regroup, and since Gibson was a tolerant place and Thomas Marik was friendly to them they went there. Gibson was a former Regulan world that had decided to leave the Principality, and the Regulans decided to foster the New Gibson Freedom League as a proxy force in an attempt to get Gibson back, and smuggled everything up to and including nuclear weapons to the rebels.

In 3068, WoB reveals Thomas Marik is an impostor. Despite other people supporting him anyways, Kirc Cameron-Jones decides this is the perfect time to lose his shit and declares himself Captain-General. Thomas Marik is eventually forced out and goes to live quietly with his father-in-law on Oriente in 3069-3070. Kirc is super butthurt about Thomas still being alive, so he decides to send a Regulan force to Oriente in an attempt to nuke it to death in 3071. Fortunately, Regulans are shit at anything that does not involve short-term genocidal rage, and Oriente has naval forces, so they get wiped out.

Meanwhile, the FWL formally cedes Gibson to the Word of Blake (also in 3071).

In 3072 the Blakists decide that Kirc really needs to calm his shit, so they land on Regulus to sort him out. His girlfriend of the day reveals that she is actually a Blakist agent, and that she has been manipulating him in response to his actions against the Word. Kirc does not take the breakup well, and begins a massive purge of Regulan society, eventually killing over a million people, most of whom are innocent, for perceived Blakist sympathies. He also arrests his own son, because he was getting popular.

(1/2)

In 3073, Kirc decides that he needs to show the Sphere he's not in fact an impotent cuck, and sends a force to Gibson. They get their clocks cleaned by the Blakists, losing yet another ground force and fleet. Kirc is now insanely (literally) paranoid and begins planning another round of purges, when the Regulan military overthrows him and puts his son Titus in charge.

Blakist and Regulan forces would have several more clashes over the next five years, including several attacks on other FWL planets - most notably Irian - until in 3075 Titus gets married. As a wedding present the WoB arranges a ceasefire, and also give Titus a warning to be isolationist. This ceasefire is almost immediately broken by the Regulans when they attempt to kill the Blakist delegation, and get their shit slapped hard. Titus then for some reason decides to start attacking the Marik Commonwealth.

In 3078 Titus still needs to stoke his interstellar penis, so he sends yet another task force to Gibson. They skip the formalities and nuke Gibson to death, this being literally the only thing they can succeed at. Amusingly, most of the Blakist forces were elsewhere, and they don't achieve much. The main guy they were after, the Master, escapes. They then nuke every world they can find that he visited, eventually genociding five planets, three of which the Master only jumped through.

This is the last straw for the League, which breaks apart into various states, which all start fighting over who can become Captain General. Throughout all this, the Regulans have a tremendous hateboner for the rest of the FWL for their perceived Blakist connections, despite the Blakists playing pretty much every side and attacking all the people the Regulans are mad at for working with the Blakists.

No, the entirety of the events in the FWL and particularly whatever the fuck Regulus does makes zero sense whatsoever.

On the one hand I love the Jihad, but on the other hand it's really, really shit.

Well I think I can gather why the Free Worlds League didn't reform itself behind them.

>the Regulans have a tremendous hateboner for the rest of the FWL for their perceived Blakist connections
And the existing one for the rest of the league slowly picking their sub-state apart since the FWL was founded.

But MARIK STRONK, right?

The 11-Z is decent. Max armor, gauss rifle in place of the AC, ERMlas, DHS. Not amazing, but it's a 4/6 SFE at 90 tons.

>No, the entirety of the events in the FWL and particularly whatever the fuck Regulus does makes zero sense whatsoever.
Dark Age Retroactive Nuclear Moron Syndrome. It was a common affliction during the jihad

Laugh all you want peasant,

Witness the perfectly harmonious free worlds league parliment in all its unified glory

much purple
many freedom
wow
also, this is funny being it's one of the more free thinking factions and this looks JUST like my lodge building.

Now to be fair, it seems the rulers in Battletech have always been plagued by questionable decision making.

What does /btg/ think would have happened if Battletech's setting and fluff had been written by good writers instead of game designers and the novel writers? Like, not individual "what ifs" for how certain events would have gone down, but how would it have effected the franchise as a whole? Do you think it might have brought more people in? Less? Would the fandom have less hardcore faction fans? More? The same?

That's just such a stupidity subjective question that it can't be answered in any reasonable way

I forgot to add that despite such rectal ravaging, they immediately took former Blakist troops in to form their military in the aftermath of the FWL breaking up.

>Selaj family totally fails at being CG
>continually attempt to undercut the Mariks for 600+ years
>launch an assassination campaign against the Mariks (scourge of death)
>Regulans treat their worlds like shit
>Worlds leave (Camlann vs FWL & H.G. Regulus etc)
>REGULUS DINDU NUFFIN NEED MO MONEY FOR THEM GENOCIDE FLEETS

Fuck off, poo-in-space-loo

I don't see how this is at all possible. Good writing in gaming simply doesn't exist.

Name a tabletop gaming franchise that's lasted for 15+ years with a significant majority (75%+) of "good" writing in all of its game documentation, fiction/novels, and sourcebooks. I can't. I'm willing to bet that nobody else can either. If you want good writing out of a tabletop franchise, stop playing tabletop games. It will never happen.

Pretty much every plot arc can be saved by trimming excess retardation, adding more foreshadowing/explanation, and extending the time it happens over.

Traveller?

Delta Green

System is decent. Imperium fluff is absolute dog shit. The strength of Traveller is that it's a skeleton of a rules system and your GM can make up their own fluff that's optimized for their individual players.

Lol @ lovecraftian anything = "good writing". Pull the other one.

here

Is that still even being published? The last RPG supplement I have for Delta Green is from 2010; "Targets of Opportunity". In any case, their entire product line is like 8 books, a few magazine articles, and something like a half-dozen online scenarios From 1997-2010. That hardly compares to Battletech, AND doesn't meet the 15 year requirement (half of Battletech's lifespan).

I'm not as familiar with Traveller as I'd like to be, but I didn't think people played that system for the fluff. Everybody I've talked to basically agrees with insofar as the system is amazing but the fluff is pretty lackluster and GMs usually ignore it to build their own worlds.

>System is decent. Imperium fluff is absolute dog shit.
Indeed, but traveller content is mostly rulebooks and rules supplements and decent adventures by volume, with straight fluff stuff being fairly rare, so I figured it'd be close to if not over the specified 75%

They're launching a reboot/continuation/update now-ish - not sure of details since I haven't been following it closely. Delta GReen was first published in 1997, so it's only a year short.

They also have novels iirc.

lol at some random internet faggot knowing what good writing is or isn't

I can see where you're coming from, but given that the discussion is pretty explicitly about metaplot and fluff writing in Battletech, I don't think the comparison is appropriate. It's a lot of good writing, but not the kind of "good writing" that we'd need for Battletech, if that makes sense. The fluff and ficitonal history behind the game is a huge part of the reason people like the franchise. If, to get "good writing", we'd have to get rid of the metaplot and fluff of the game, I don't think Battletech would have been as successful or survived as it has/did. Certainly the core wargame mechanics aren't so strong that they can prop up a franchise on their own in a manner Traveller's can.

You're right, of course. In it's other games, GDW was pretty good with metaplots, but none of them lasted long enough to count for this discussion; Twilight: 2000 and Traveller: 2300 come to mind

At this scale it looks like zimmereit, or whatever that kraut shit is called.

>Name a tabletop gaming franchise that's lasted for 15+ years with a significant majority (75%+) of "good" writing in all of its game documentation, fiction/novels, and sourcebooks

You're talking about something like a 40K-scale franchise. That's the *only* tabletop WARGAMING franchise with legs and a breadth of products anywhere close to BattleTech's.

If we expand into tabletop RPG franchises, we get a few more options. To compare to BattleTech and to match up with your time requirement, we'd need to have a core game, fluff sourcebooks, rulebooks, and a novel line. That limits us to D&D, 40K, WHFB, Legend of the Five Rings, Shadowrun, Star Trek, Star Wars, Traveller, and Delta Green ( there's a novel line too, but your point about not a lot of stuff is sound; it's easy to have good writing when you only release 1 book/year, tops). So, of those...

D&D, 40K, Star Trek, Star Wars
>Yeah, no.

Shadowrun
>Closer, but IMO it falls apart during the late FASA era when the fiction and metaplot get...weird.

L5R
>They failed at 'good writing' the day they put their metaplot in the hands of the card game players. Which, IIRC, was Day 1.

Traveller
>I generally agree with . It has to have both well-written fluff AND rules. Traveller nails the 2nd. Not the 1st.

Delta Green
>I don't know enough to say. That said, I don't feel they're a good comparison because of how little product they release, compared so, say 1990-era FASA.

WHFB
>The RPG and novel lines for WHFB range from "average" to "pretty good"; especially the RPG sourcebooks. I'd say that Green Ronin qualifies as "good writers", though the stuff from Black Library isn't.

Your larger point stands. Good writing in an RPG franchise is VANISHINGLY rare, and it gets rarer the more product you release. Given that, I don't think that there was ever even a possibility of BT getting generally acclaimed "good writing."

Which introtech mechs remain most viable into later eras? Say specifically the Jihad and Dark Age

You can't go wrong with bugs. Hell, the introtech Wasp is so good they never even bothered with a royal version.

Does the Grand Dragon look significantly different from the Dragon, or are they outwardly similar?

Awesome, Archer, Banshee 3S...
Uh, the Griffin is still okay.

>I want to die to pulse lasers

>I want to die to pulse lasers

>Dies to removal
>Must be bad

You are literally wagering your mech on your opponent not bringing a widely-used and common weapons system.

>That said, I don't feel they're a good comparison because of how little product they release, compared so, say 1990-era FASA.

Personally I feel like this is a core reason why Delta Green stuff is pretty good. They have the time to do each thing well. If anything it seems the BattleTech release rate hurt more than it helped - in terms of average quality, at least.

Urbie

Without upgrading to a post-helm version?
Grasshopper/Guillotine, Wolfhound, energy boats in general.

Wolverine-M

Archer-2R/2S (with appropriate specialty munitions)

Mongoose

OG Marauder II is still a pain in the ass to kill.

The Into-Tech version only differsin the PPC arm.

The upgraded version turns one ML to the rear because hurr Dracs durr.

Anyone think we should rewrite the 1d4chan article on battletech to reflect the existence of Catalyst and maybe have less complaining about Pokemon?

In addition to what's already been mentioned, the Mackie 7 and 8 series are great, cheap gunbrick units.
Also, the Griffin-S and Thud-SS are both excellent, as are the Lineholder, Merlin, Shad-K and Vindicator

Awesome, Guillotine/Grasshopper, the 3S Banshee, Marauder II...basically, heavy and assault zombies tend to remain viable.

The light stuff does not, because they are neither fast enough nor tough enough to survive against accuracy-enhancing technology and/or against units which are both faster AND harder-hitting than they are. 3025 Light Mechs essentially topped out at being able to deal 8 points of damage in one hit (large laser) or a few 5-point hits; anything that hit harder was very slow. And even if it had both medium AND large lasers (Wolfhound...), heat still limited the amount of firepower it could project; survive a round of fire and you could usually run away. A location that had 8-10 points of armor, therefore, was generally adequate to protect against a round or two of fire from an equivalent unit. But then you end up seeing light Mechs that are just as fast as you (6/0/x or better) and can throw 25-30 points of damage around, every round, without slowing down, and even hit your for 10-15 point bricks. 3025 Light mechs are just totally outclassed by 3055 in every POSSIBLE way. Speed, armor, firepower; every one is deficient.

It is worth nothing, though, that one Mech has EXACTLY the same amount of utility for a force whether you're in 3025 or 3145. That singular example of Mech design is the Shadow Hawk -2H.

>"effectively zero" is the same in both eras.

Hey now, at least the -2H isn't the -2D!

The problem with that is the fact that the BT universe is just MUCH bigger than that of Delta Green, which is highly constrained both geographically and time-wise.

Let's assuming BattleTech was going to start over from scratch, but still want to construct the SCALE of the universe they've already created. Assume there are four "eras" for the game (SLDF, Succession Wars, Clan Invasion, Civil War) that we know up front we're going to do, with the possibility of more later-on. At a *minimum*, I'd want to see the following in EACH era:

>1 fluff/rules sourcebook per Great House, 1 sourcebook per 4 minor factions (ish, more than 4 factions in a book means you're not doing a proper job, generally speaking); so about 8-10 faction sourcebooks. Assume 8 for now.
>2 TROs, 1 Mech-entric, 1 "everything else"
>2 scenario packs
>1 era-appropriate campaign book
>1 era-appropriate RPG companion book
>6-10 novels (or a short-story collection in place of a novel)

In addition, we need (these aren't era-specific and so only need published once):
>Core TT wargame rulebook
>Core RPG rulebook
>ONE and only one "advanced rules" TT Wargame rulebook
>Core space combat rulebook (optional)

This is roughly what it would take to develop the game world as deep as the one we have. At the Delta Green Publishing rates, doing all of the above for just ONE era would take about 12-14 years. There's still 3 eras to go. So it would take what? About 50-60 years to get the BT universe *not even back to where it is NOW* if we went at those rates.

"Write less stuff" only goes so far, and doesn't work with all game genres. DG doesn't *need* as much stuff written for it as BT does. Just because BT needs that much *stuff*, the writing quality WILL suffer no matter what anyone does.

(Don't take this as a defense of CGL/FASA. They could vet writers a LOT better than they do. But I don't think it's actually possible to get a product like BT published *and* have "good writing".)

So funny thing? I like the -2D more. Load infernos and use Hidden Unit rules to ambush vehicles,and it actually functions adequately. Not *well*, certainly. But loading more close-range weapons at least gives the stupid thing a LITTLE focus. It's incredible shittyness can be made to work *for* you, if you can massage the scenario to your liking.

The -2H is just equally terrible at EVERYTHING it tries, at every range. The only thing it's good for is closing to make melee attacks...and the fact that it's got 3 jump (while flavorful as fuck) means it's objectively bad at that, too, since a 4/6 Mech can easily clear the Shad's jump radius. It's just useless ALL the time, whereas the -2D is only useless 98% of the time.

This will forever piss me off, because I love the look of the Mech. What was the first maxim of TRO 3025? "The pleasurable aesthetics of a Mech are inversely proportional to its battlefield effectiveness."

On the subject of the Shadow Hawk's failings, I've been thinking for a while now that it should have been a generic medium trooper from the start. Dropping it to 4/6 frees up enough tonnage to upgrade the LRM to a 10, the SRM to a 4, add a 4th jump jet and a ton of armor.
Still not a powerhouse 'mech, but a more effective generalist, kind of a mini-Thud.

Agreed. Now I loved the idea of how shad's played.

I thought maybe MWO would save them.. no worse than TT.

1)partly it's just a matter of taking more time on any given thing may make the thing better.

2) BattleTech had resources beyond anything Delta Green ever had.

3) BattleTech is probably harder to write for than Delta Green - although getting good DG stuff is probably harder than getting good BT stuff.

Overall, I agree that the scale of BT works against it in a lot of ways. Especially when compared to 40K, where fact-checking and all that is chucked out the window and you can pretty much do whatever you want.

Once the Mariks upgrade them, though.. Sweet Lord, I love me the Shad upgrade. The base one is one of those "it always contributes but never shines" designs.

It's the only good Marik upgrade

Eh, that -5M has ammo problems. That LRM-20 is under supplied, and the SSRM2 becomes superfluous in the CI. Plus UAC/5 a shit.

I actually disagree about the shad. I've found that it does well in two roles; the first is as a 'Battle Buddy' for another mech; it can give assistance in a lot of roles, where it wouldn't be very good on it's own. For example, paired with something like a griffin or vindicator, it can give supplimentry plinking fire with it's AC and LRMs, or with say a Hunchback or other CQC design, it uses SRMs and the ML and fists for a bit of critseeking to go with the can opener.
The other role is specialty munitions carrier; fit a shad with Thunder LRMs and Infernos and your AC ammo of choice (I like AP in this role, personally, though Flak is also a nice choice if the enemy likes VTOLs) and have it muck up the field for area control and take pot shots. It's pretty good at this, and being a shad, people tend to ignore it while it's doing it's work, only to find themselves surrounded by fire and mines

I can understand where you're coming from on that. I disagree, insofar as I loved the "55-ton trio" fluff and they should all be 5/8/x units.

For me, it all comes back to how badly FASA screwed up the autocannon masses. The Shad shouldn't have had SRMs in the first place; if it managed to have some flavor of AC/5 (torso), Large Laser (arm), LRM-5/10 (torso), I would be totally and completely fine with it. But autocannons are just pretty close to twice as heavy as they ought to be, had FASA actually run math.

Here, just for sake of comparison, imagine if the AC/5 was 4 tons instead of 8 tons. No other changes - still 4 crits, 20 shots/ton, etc. How much better does THIS Shadow Hawk look for a 3025 battlefield?

Aside from, y'know, like it actually BELONGS there.

For those of us not following along at home, what changes did you make?

NICE. PIC.

And the Shad -7M is by far the best Shad, IMO. One of the extremely few good uses of an LGR (a Vanquisher in a C3i net still being the best non-aerospace use).

>Crab

>Dinner time

>First, always select Dungeness that are feisty and active. They should come out of the tank fighting. Never buy crabs that come out of the tank with no fight in them. Sniff them. They should smell clean, like the ocean. If you detect any ammonia odor, do not buy. Cook the crabs the day you buy them, preferably within a few hours of purchase. They will not last long outside of the saltwater tank, so this is not something you can keep in your refrigerator overnight. When you get home, put the crabs in your refrigerator. This will get them sleepy and sluggish and makes them easier for you to handle them.

>Calculate your cooking time as 7 minutes per pound. If you're cooking more than one crab, calculate by average crab weight, not total crab weight. It is always better to under cook, because you can then cook a little more, but you cannot undo an overcooked, rubbery crab. Fill your steamer with water up to the rack and bring to a boil. Add your crabs, close the lid, and wait. They will turn bright orange. Once they are cooked, stop the cooking process by putting them in a waiting ice bath. Once chilled, you can easily handle them. The meat inside should be opaque and white, not translucent.

Did you send any designs in to /btg/RO?

Changed the mass of the AC/5 to 4 tons, swaps the ML in the RA for a Large Laser, and drops the SRM-2 to upgrade the LRM to a 10. Might have added armor, but I can't remember the -2H's armor loadout.

>To clean them, follow these steps:

>1. Flip the crab over and remove the "apron" and the mouthpieces from the bottom of the apron.
>2. Remove the legs and place in a bowl.
>3. Stick your finger in the hole where the mouthpieces were and lift the crab body away from the shell (carapace.) Toss the carapace. However, if you're making crab stock, save the carapace and clean out the entrails.
>4. The greenish/yellow stuff is the liver. You can eat it if you want. The purple stuff is not edible, toss it. The grayish, pointy-shaped things on either side of the crab body are the gills. Remove them. Remove the two J-shaped parts at the opposite end of the crab's mouth.
>5. Rinse off the body to remove any foam or entrails. Add it to the bowl with the legs.

>Now you're ready to crack away and eat them with butter

I can assure you /btg/ won't publish that.

>And the Shad -7M is by far the best Shad
The -3K is pretty friggin mean, too

You can assure me of what, they won't publish the TRO?

Unless you're a CGL hitman, fuck off.

Speed stayed the same. Armor stayed the same. Lost 1 heat sink (16 heat on 11 dissipation). Weapons load becomes x1 AC/5 (4-ton), x1 LRM-10, x1 Large Laser. 1 ton of ammo per weapon.

Bascially, while the Griffin stays a "sniper" and the Wolverine -6R stays a "close-combat" Mech (mainly due to an SRM-6 and 5 Jump), the Shad becomes a medium-range support unit that can actually support for more than 5 damage/round.

It's still not optimal at all (really wants another ton of armor, and actually can develop heat issues now), but it still feels like a Shad and does the job that the -2H is *supposed* to do...only well.

I believe they're making an assurance that we don't have to worry about seeing designs based on theoretical autocannon weights, not making a dis.

You know what shad variants we need? A LBX-10 model, and a introtech AC to LL swap

Well, they won't publish it because it's an illegal design, for one. Again, it relies on the "what if" premise. WHAT IF they hadn't been dumb and had instead given an AC/5 a reasonable weight/crit of 4/4? What kind of Shad would that create?

Yes, I did. One Mech (maybe two - can't remember), 4-5 ASFs, 2-3 DropShips, 2-3 WarShips.

I'm rather hoping it crosses the $5k mark so the majority of my stuff actually has a chance of being in there.

Didn't you post a series of lighter AC mechs?

How would you handle RACs, LBX10, LACs, UACs, etc?

>crosses the $5k mark

wait what

I dunno, in 3025 I favour replacing the A/C-5 with a PPC and then either an ML with two extra JJs or an extra DHS and 2 JJs.

LL adds more possibilities I guess, but the PPC's got the advantage of damage and range with the SHD being able to sink the heat quite well even without adding more.

I didn't. I postulated about lighter AC weights, but it was somebody else who went through TRO 3025 and extrapolated on what that would mean for EVERY unit that mounted an AC/X. It was pretty cool, but I don't have the screenshots of it.

>How would you handle RACs, LBX10, LACs, UACs, etc?

I'm unsure, and haven't really thought about it. In general, I don't feel that *most* of these need much - if any - adjustment. Most of them don't feel especially overweight for what they can do in TW play. In general, most advanced AC types could probably lose 1-2 tons from their overall mass and still be just fine (LBs and perhaps RAC/5s being an exception - their versatility is SO good already that subtracting mass would almost certainly be a mistake). It's too late in the evening for me to go through and do a full analysis, though - this is just idle speculation.

>It's too late in the evening for me to go through and do a full analysis, though

DO IT FAGGOT

There's no aerospace units in the BTG/tro until they've raised enough money to cover the art for all of the Mech units, which will cost 5 grand in total ($500 each for 100 Mechs). Any money they raise after that goes to pay for art for aerospace and I think vehicle units. It's up on the blog, they're very up-front about it.

They aren't grubbing money. I've commissioned from Plog before, and that's about the right rate for mech art.