/btg/ - BattleTech General

but they are

They should be on now. I know Periphery wasn't but I thought it got added a couple weeks ago.

PBW is well established, but what about waifus for other factions?

So we've got two national shows down.
What about the Combine and the Commonwealth? What would their iconic childrens' show/propaganda piece be?

>harem anime with Thomas as protag
YES

How about a harem series with all the state waifus?
The protagonist is victor, of course

...

>Victor joins up with the RotS
POTTERY

>missing the joke this hard

I finally got a chance to read Operation Klondike. I'm enjoying the little references so far.

>Babylon VI
>known as Sinclair
>Star Captain Brucalter Sheridan
Very good.

>tfw Sinclair had to go after season 1
>tfw no Ivanova in season 5

Let's be honest, B5 G'kar and Londo were the best parts of B5

Thank you

tfw it turned out that the guy playing Sinclair had to stop because he was having paranoid delusions, and wouldn't let production of the show be stopped just for his sake whilst he got treatment, but none of that was confirmed until after he died in 2012.

God damn that show had some of the worst luck going when it comes to production.

Why don'te we have more Force Creation Challenges? I was reading the ASC force creation rules and I was interested in creating my own.

anyone have interesting ideas? I would like to see any modern forces (Jihad or Dark Age, company size) but anything is fine

>performing a grand slam with a... fuck i dont remember. light mech with unbalanced jumpjets (has unbalanced quirk)
>Jumped up and punched a heli, managed to kill it with the punch too. cue space jam music.
Sounds like a Javelin.

My very first game, they gave me a Catapult. Told me to hang back and play cavalry. Fifteen turns later, my bins are empty, my side torsos are shot out, and I'm venting plasma. I turn to the ref and go "man, I can jump with this thing, and kick with it.. can I jump-kick someone?"
Landed the DFA, blew my own leg and the Whammy's head off, and I've never looked back. Still have that Catapult, too - they gave it to me after the game for pulling out the win.

>What about the Combine and the Commonwealth? What would their iconic childrens' show/propaganda piece be?

Well for the Combine it would be a show about Mechs personified as girls.

I'd tell you about the Capellan show, but you wouldn'tve seen it.

Curious, but when Omni-Mechs are superior, why do the Clans keep fielding the Star League era designs like the Atlas and Crab outside of respect for SLDF designs?

Are they easier to produce or something?

>Are they easier to produce or something?
Bingo.
And they only really use them in second-line units

I've never really seen omni mechs as that superior to well designed normal mechs, but otherwise yes. Even clans sometimes have to work with at least the vague idea that they can't afford everything being omnimechs, and the upgraded old designs work well enough.

>Are they easier to produce or something?
Yup. Cheaper, too - by a very considerable margin. They generally reserve the Omnis for frontliners, and it's considered the mark of a brokeass or unlucky clan to even have non-omnis there until later in the Invasion. They weren't using many Star League designs at that point, but they'd cached huge numbers during the Golden Century and started dragging them out and upgrading them once shit got desperate in the Jihad and Reavings.

You'd be most likely to see a Star League design being used by a grunt MechWarrior in the reserve/garrison clusters of most clans, or a decent one in small, poor Clans like the Spirits. IICs and new-manufacture second-liners go to good reservists and bottom-rung frontliners. It's actually pretty noteworthy to see a Bloodnamed warrior or a frontline officer in anything >but< an Omni, even in the poor Clans. That's a matter of prestige, and they trial viciously for them (unless the IIC is directly connected with a founder, like the Wolfs and the Orion IIC.)

>Tomoboshi
Excellent taste.

But Dragon is best girl.

Fuck, I just got an idea.
Waifu design challenge: take your top five favorite mechs and make girl-ified versions of them

In wake of the recent Raven treachery on the Sun's border, would it be a major blow to the Raven Alliance if the Federated Suns ceased trading with that nation?

Probably. IIRC, without the suns, the ravens would be down to Kurita and the taurians for trading partners, and neither would be even close to being able to make up for the loss of the Suns

Our russian friends gave me some info that they'll hopefully have new 'mechs coming this summer.

Highlander IIC is one of them.
Personally I'm hoping that the Griffin, Wolverine, Warhammer and Warhawk are part of those new releases.

Depends. Hisgtorically, a faction's economic state only matters if the authors want it to for other reasons.

The Dracs' economy was shit-tier which prevented them from rolling out good high-techstuff like DHS.

The Lyrans had an awesome economy but didn't recover for shit after the FCCW.

Meanwhile the Suns had a shit-tier economy which suffered major damage but managed to deploy the highest-tech and best military of any faction, along with pulling over a dozen 3067-tech regiments out of its ass after the FCCW.

So if they want to cramp the Ravens' style, it'll matter. If they don't, it won't.

I've said it before, but a mecha anime about a heroic battalion or regiment fighting the clans. Even the personalities could be picked out from Central Casting:

>a young unit leader from Sun Zhang (and a supporter of Teddy K's reforms) who's torn between doing his duty and caring for his unit whilst fighting the Clans (rides a Hatamoto-Chi)
>the hot-blooded one who always wants to get stuck in, goes for duels and as a result gets shot up regularly until he learns the value of Teamwork and possibly C3 (Wolverine-K)
>the big Rasalhagian guy, who everyone thinks is a brute but is really a big softie, also a great chef (Awesome)
>the onna-bugeisha who wants to prove that Women Can Fight Too, but since this is the DCMS she's stuck as the Communications Officer despite being from a good Samurai clan. (Cyclops)

If memory serves, the Dracs did have the tech to produce DHS, but they chose to put them in their ASFs, not in, say, the Panther. I fucking bet it's the Black Dragons behind this too. "SHS not DHS, baka."

>If memory serves, the Dracs did have the tech to produce DHS, but they chose to put them in their ASFs, not in, say, the Panther.

The fluff says that since the Dracs had a limited ability to manufacture and deploy DHS due to their shit economy they chose to focus on upgrading their ASFs with them rather than their 'Mechs.

Drac ASFs with DHS are conspicuously absent during the Clan Invasion era, they're rarer than 'Mechs with DHS and there are also fewer ASFs by the numbers than there are 'Mechs.

So mostly it was just a "haha fuck you" thing.

>but they chose to put them in their ASFs, not in, say, the Panther
Hey, they at least stuck them on the Grand Dragons. But clearly the Mauler and Charger 3Ks needed them more than the other core mech of the DCMS.

Waiting on the Vindi and the Cyclops myself. Crossing my fingers. Once they get them, they'll get a fat order from me.

Cyclops' mwo version is coming in august, so you'll probably be waiting until next year for it.

There's also no telling until the cucknadian jews temper tantrum them down.

>So mostly it was just a "haha fuck you" thing.

Good. Dracs are intended as an NPC faction anyway; their reliance on SHS make them perfect for using as OPFOR that can give the real PCs trouble but not reliably defeat them. That's good game design - it's on you people if you keep insisting on using their gear for your actual PCs.

>the cucknadian jews temper tantrum them down.
Well fuck you too buddy, no need to bring non-fictional nations into this.

That's fine. They live in a place where a C&D won't do anything, so unless between then and now someone starts offering legal MWO sculpts in mini form, they're not going anywhere and I can be patient.

Don't you have taurians to deliver paragraph shittantrums about while pretending to be more than one person and purple birds to do the same to?

No, but I have ilClan writing to do, so I guess I can go do that. It's not like I'll get paid for it this decade anyway.

You carry on like this and try to start shit, but insist everyone else is an autist.

Holy fuck.

>insist everyone else is an autist.

Everyone else is.

How will Julian Davion save the Federation?

I'm thinkin' Arby's

Might be more convenient than a Triple-F.

And then again, a Triple-F only caused a few mercenaries to let off steam. Sometimes you get the difficult customers.

Serious answer: Caps have already been BTFO and the Dracs are about to implode. He just has to wait and take advantage.

Probably fix the problems with the AFFS thay years of neglect caused.

The situation is still largely reversible given what he has to work with and what he is facing.

>Caps have already been BTFO

By who?

By Julian. He blunted their attack and forced them to go after RotS worlds instead. This is clearly spelled out rather than vaguely hinted at in the TR 3150 fluff.

That is news to me then as the only thing I've heard is that the capellans are no longer in control of New Sytris.

Not that they've been evicted from Sun's space or the Capellan March proper.

What (other) planets have been re-taken by the Suns apart from New Syrtis wasn't said, but Julian's counter was successful enough that they've abandoned their assault on the Suns in favour of lower-hanging fruit.

Jokes on you buddy.

> I'm wizard and thus can't be cucked.

> DE L'EGLISE Based captcha gives Canuckeheads Canuck locations.

There are some slavic named planets in Steiner occupation zone :) damn krauts

So has this limit on Lyran nobles' private units ever been clarified elsewhere? IIRC neither the HB:HS or the Field Manual mentions where the cut-off point is for 'Mechs deemed no-no for nobs.

If it's 60 tons like that bit on the Tigers suggests, could a really rich noble have, say, a battalion of Locusts and Wasps and Griffins, as long as they don't cross that all-important line?

How important is Detroit production-wise for the caps in 3150?
Say the MoC launches it's Sudden Yet Inevitable Betrayal and grabs detroit back, how badly would that hose the caps?

Not very at all.

They have a ton of other sites that could pick up the slack. Some hiccups in the short term at most, and that's assuming ETERNAL XIN SHENG doesn't magically fix it any way.

Given they have Victoria and (for the time being) Tikonov and the Free Worlds providing arms, Detroit probably wouldn't register as a dent in the Capellan war-industry.

Not to mention they've had decades to stockpile war-material.

Not very. IF they were also able to take out Grand Base and maybe Menke (unlikely, unless they talked the calderons into letting them borrow the Quixote and went full jihad, which is not impossible but extremely unlikely), then you could get some fairly severe localized disruptions in the periphery border zone

>Tikonov
Didn't the RoTS pull apart the mech factories on tikonov as per national tradition?

...

>Didn't the RoTS pull apart the mech factories on tikonov as per national tradition?

Not well enough or not at all according to the Field Manual:

> Sarna and Tikonov Commonalities

>Early attempts to bolster the Republic’s defenses by reactivating BattleMech production lines on Nanking and Tikonov have backfired, as the Capellans have overrun both worlds and their output is now supplying the CCAF. Kallon-made Riflemans and Wolverines are now pouring into the Liao Guards and Cháng-Chéng, and the Tikonov Guards have made procurement of large numbers of Koscheis and Thunderbolts a point of pride. Long-time local manufacturers such as Hollis Incorporated and Tao ’MechWorks have recently ramped up production, but it appears that our past close scrutiny has kept output low until now. Increasing numbers of the older stealth Crusader indicate it may be back in production alongside the CRD-8L on Styk. House Liao has been lukewarm about adopting ’Mechs captured at New Hessen. Capellan forces have adopted a number of Rooks into frontline service, but captured Blades, have allegedly been shipped off-world to training units.

And in the Capellan 3145 Read Out:

> The Capellan Confederation Armed Forces have proven themselves more adept, more devious and more powerful than any pre-Blackout analysts suspected. Much of this success has come from carefully-hidden production facilities that never quite shut down, but the Liaos have also succored from the factories and stockpiles they’ve captured on Republic and Federated Suns worlds. The largesse of Victoria, New Syrtis, Tikonov and other worlds now feeds the Capellan war machine.

So apparently Tikonov is still cranking out Mechs.

It's weird reading of the "Capellan war machine" and the CCAF has being a serious force.

So different from 90% of its history. Sun-Tzu really did save them.

>Sun-Tzu really did save them.

That's an interesting way to spell Loren Coleman.

Well I mean writers do determine everything for all the factions so there's no point blaming one person.

Reading about food crimes made me need to go out and get Wendys

>Riflemans
Riflemen

It's a definite refresher from most of what I've read about them as a faction.

In the past one of the CCAF's major problems against it's neighbors is that it's always been severely outnumbered.

Now it's the Capellans that are doing the outnumbering in some cases.

Sun-tzu is Coleman's author avatar, so they're essentially the same thing.

As a FedSuns player it does make for an interesting era. Gone are the days of mass RCTs, competent government and an infallible MIIO.

>competent government

Which will be in order once Julian crosses the border to relieve Erik of the regency.

Still, I'm surprised the Federated Suns of all factions would allow the military to stagnate.

The fact that the Dragon came close to taking their capitol once before (and invaded a time before that over a succession issue) should have left them with an impetus never to be caught as off guard as they are now.

>Gone are the days of mass RCTs, competent government and an infallible MIIO.
Sort of. They didn't leave the setting, they just moved next door

>Which will be in order once Julian crosses the border to relieve Erik of the regency.
We'll have to see. I'm hoping but not assuming anything. After the last couple decades it's hard to assume the best.

>Still, I'm surprised the Federated Suns of all factions would allow the military to stagnate.
Damn Steiner-Davions. Thankfully we'll be finally rid of those swine. First Victor the absent, then Katherine the whore and finally Yvonne the incompetent.
Citizens for Davion Purity stronk.

>Victor the absent

His absence is largely excusable given he was leading the Inner Sphere in a campaign of paying the Clans back in kind for their invasion and ending said invasion.

> Yvonne the incompetent

To be fair, she probably wasn't groomed for the throne and had little idea of how to manage it properly.

I recall reading that it was intended for Victor to rule over the throne of of the Federated Commonwealth and not his siblings.

And Harrison Davion wasn't that bad from what I've read of him. He had enough sense to know that leaving the Davion throne to Julian was wiser than leaving it to Caleb, who seized it and silenced Harrison before anyone was the wiser.

Speaking of rules, I'd like to see what happens when Daoshen bites it, what with the personality cult and delusions of godhood and such.
Say it's 3151, and an angry pro-RoTS guy takes a shot at daoshen and actually manages to kill him. What happens?

My name is Jerome Blake, and I have to say, fuck the periphery.

Well, I believe the throne of the Confederation passes to either Danai Liao-Centrella, Daoshen's sister or (possibly) Sun Tzu given I heard he's supposedly being preserved.

Excuses are like assholes. Victor presided over Guerrero and left a feeble government in the hands of his retard youngest sister. He didn't even try to exercise his authority and retake it, instead letting the problem get worse. And obviously Yvonne wasn't groomed for the role, look at her record.

We're better off without their incompetent Steiner genes muddling things up.

Has anyone ever run into fucked-up armor circles on record sheet PDFs like pic related? They seem to be rendering as text.

Is that just the way the unabridged record sheets are? I haven't played in a while, but I thought I remembered more nicely-aligned armor circles.

Why would Jerome say that? ComStar did some of its biggest recruiting from the Periphery.
It's really more something a coward like Kerensky would say.

I believe that's just how the record sheets are.

Alright, thanks. I guess I'm just thinking of the newer printed books, which have them in neat rows.

I meant more like since there's the whole 'immortal god-king cult' thing going on, which a good chunk of cappies (especially in the military IIRC) actually believe, what happens when the "immortal" fellow dies?

He doesn't die, he ascends to a higher plane of existence to better lead the Capellan people.

Xin Sheng!

>To be fair, she probably wasn't groomed for the throne and had little idea of how to manage it properly.

Rules for Effective Interstellar Leaders #3: Remember to prepare your backups for the job.

Curious, but how did Stephan Von Strang know the Jade Falcons were descendants of the Star League when they hit Strang's world?

Also, is there a picture of Von Strang out there?

What is the Marian-Canopian conflict about exactly?

Marians want the shekels, Canopians don't want to fug Roman cosplayers.

More or less a lucky guess, caused by generations of STAR LEAGUE BAD and MUH PERIPHERY traditions.

Military force that isn't IS with a bunch of warships rolls up wanting to take over, and he's sitting in the general direction that Kerensky left in, he figures it must be the descendants of the Exodus and it's Reunification War 2.0.

High tech, similar names, came from the same direction. May even have had SLN-looking WarShips with the same names used by the SLN.

Marians were wise to the fact that raiding the FWL or LC too much would piss them off and that they had the forces to spare to destroy them entirely. The Canopians, not so much.

Like having them do law and political science at the Sphere's best university and surrounding them with the best and most loyal cadre of advisors possible?

Yvonne just gets fucked over because the writing requires Katherine to take the throne of the Suns and for the Suns to not be the pre-eminent power of the Dark Age, merely one competing for that title against the RotS and Capellans.