BattleTech General

What toys did they even have other than LGRs?

They had ER lasers besides the large, LFF, and semi-G LRMs.

The ER lasers were gonna get spread everywhere no matter what. That kind of tech doesn't stay in one place. LFF and Semi-G... honestly just don't have the personality to carry a faction.

Which is why they got their flavor from other sources, like shoving XLs into fast assaults, underarmoring their fast assaults, giving things a fucklot of lasers and LRMs, and putting Artemis on everything.

Have the MOC take over and let the Centrallas run the faction. They were supposed to do that with the Capellans, but doing it with the FWL would be a fine consolation prize, and if the SJWs are running things in the FWL it means that Randall will be asking people to write more about the faction. Everybody wins.

I guess he might be referring to how the FWL and Dracs worked together to develop the GR and PPC variants, but there are more machines in other factions with those weapons and they are used better there than with the originators.

Other than that, IDK. It's not like the LGR and U/AC-10 have exactly proliferated.

FUCK. Muninn, I completely forgot I owed you a TRO writeup. I'll get it to you ASAP once the World Series game is over. And yes, I have some thoughts on the other issue you asked about.

>thatsbait.png

They also had pulse lasers, but those were also going to get spread absolutely everywhere.

Dracs re-discovered the pulse laser, but yes they were going to be widespread regardless.

We're busy with other things at the moment, so no rush.

Pulses were SL tech.

Why does everyone hate Liao so much?
They're the smallest faction with the least amount of hardware and yet people still get to beat up on them and claim to be the good guys.

0/10

No one likes you or your smug fucking face Justin.

Assuming you're not trolling and I'm pretty sure you are the answer is quite simple. Everything that happens from ~3055 onwards with them is blatant authorial fiat. The FWL gives them WarShips, they ignore the presence of AFFC units and conquer worlds that should have been protected, the Periphery signs up to help them re-capture the St. Ives Compact, they inexplicably have one of the most skilled militaries of the period (surpassed only by the FedSuns, IIRC) and in the Dark Age are one of the biggest movers and shakers.

Then on various sides of the argument you've got people who have a chip on their shoulder about the 4th SW and won't be happy until that and more happens to the Suns, people who aren't happy the other national flavours of the CapCon got stripped out in favour of it explicitly being space China, and periphery fans who aren't happy about how their faction(s) suddenly turned into Cappie bitches just because.

I don't think people object to the reversal of their fortunes as such, just the extent of it and the very compressed time frame involved. If it had been a gradual resurgence that would be one thing, but they basically just woke up one day with an extra 20 regiments and started crushing everyone in their path.

To be fair a lot of BT fiction is like that though. The antagonists are always weak idiots who get reamed by the super intelligent, more skilled, and more powerful antagonists.

I still think that they catch a lot of undeserved shit when it comes to pre-3050 lore because of Davion bias, but that's lore I guess

Isn't the PPC supposed to have some sort of EM interference as well as the standard damage?
How would you implement it if so, or is there a rule for it I'm not aware of?

>Give the Purple Bird something to make up for Ideal War, and we're on the right path.
But we already got Star Lord.

Also, the patron author responsible for all that good shit is an actual criminal

That's fucking nicki minaj.

No shit it's nicki minaj

>unf

Not really, 'Mechs are hardened against it.

I think the only time it ever came up in a novel was a bit of static over the radio.

I know it happens in the video games but I assume that's more to give the PPC some kind of point over Gauss Rifles, which you also have to lead with. So it's either lead + more damage or lead + enemy debuff.

catalystgamelabs.tumblr.com/post/152663332826/battlemech-manual-development

Stuff on the upcoming rulebook.

>And I’m incredibly proud of it. It has a clarity of rules and explanations and a depth of options to cover well
>My watch-word on this has been trying to create a book that “95 percent of the players will use 95 percent of the time.”
iveheardthisbefore.jpg
I'll believe it when I see it honestly

I thought Xotl was writing this? How does Randall have time between tweeting, running podcasts and working on Valiant stuff?

Xotl is writing it. But BT is traditionally not a line that talks about its authors, so it's not surprising that he didn't mention me.

That having been said, I did just taking his text from TW as a starting point, and he's personally reviewing every chapter line by line, so he can easily talk about it in his own light.

I mean, the fucking world series is in extra innings in game 7 with the goddamn cubs in it, anything is clearly possible now

I thought there was a period during which the FWL was noted for putting pulse lasers on everything?

>Xotl will from this point forward refer to himself in the third person.

Including a city that had rain today being set on fire because baseball

Xotl is pleased.

Posts more Battletech hotties!

As another Xotl, Xotl is not pleased. Xotl must be in third person plural.

Thoughts on the Tessen/remote c3 in general.
I'm assuming it works like the slave where you just use the range from the remote module?
This seems really useful, particularly if you have time to prep an ambush. Can they be removed by infantry or anything like that?(besides ECM)

Wait what

Thus began the War of the Xotls.

That would be the period known as "ever since they were re-introduced."

It is also notable for being a period where *everyone* was putting pulse lasers on everything.

There are probably two issues here.

One is that in original continuity very little advanced tech was available before 3050 and the Outreach summit. What was around was pretty much limited to Freezers, Listen-Kill missiles, and whatever the NAIS was doing. Then the NAIS with Dragoon assistance opened up all of LosTech at once, hence TR 3050.

There have been a variety of retcons to that over the years culminating in what we have now with the TechManual and similar sources. Which is fine by itself but runs head-first into a number of problems. In original continuity it made sense for the AFFC to have the best of everything since they developed pretty much all of it and had the NAIS. Now though the other factions developed some stuff several years before it was acquired by the Suns yet they're the ones who got it onto production models first and used it best because that's what the pre-retcon TRs said, which doesn't make any sense. Logically the factions who developed a tech should be the ones using it on production models first and should probably be the ones using it best.

I'm OK with the retcons in a general sense because a gradual recovery makes more sense than an overnight one but it really fucks with the setting in a lot of ways so you basically have to ignore it because of the continuity conflicts it causes.

Remote C3 doesn't impress me really. If it could exceed the normal C3 limit then it might have some useful applications but as it stands if you have the kind of time and assets needed to make proper use of it you can do better with minefields, hidden units, and pre-plotted artillery any way.

Chicago is basically a powder keg full of alcohol-fueled fans right now, as we start the 10th inning. We had rain earlier, I expect fires anyways.

I presume this is one of those "riot if they win, riot if they lose" sort of situations?

The pucker factor for this city is currently high enough to rival an African diamond mine. Everyone I know here is out at the bars watching the game. Nothing is getting done tomorrow here because of a collective hangover, win or lose.

Yep.
> celebratory gunfire kills 53 in chicago
Just wait for the morning papers

We are all Xotl.

They put pulse lasers on stuff even after the 3050 "upgrades"

more member subfactions

K. I should make more of these now that I have more free time.

...

...

C U B S
U
B
S

HAHAHAHA

Stay safe, Chicagoians.

Okay, so I've been into BT for like six years now but I was completely unaware of the /btg/. Can someone catch me up on the general reason that everyone(players) hates everyone(factions)?
Are there any factions/anything that everyone agrees are somewhat alright?

Because h8 is the easiest b8

>Are there any factions/anything that everyone agrees are somewhat alright?
Anything but clanner scum

Doesn't everyone hate cappies?

I forgot baseball existed

thanks btg, I guess

Each community has its own faction hate fest, often based on other faction loves in other communities.
100% objective faction hate fest:
Davions: "good guys" in the early game history, won a lot. Beneficiary of magic warehouses full of mechs at key times.
Capellans: Despite getting completely stomped by above, became dominant in similarly fiat-filled writing after the Davion win streak.
Clan Wolf: won a lot, popular, so disliked
Clan Ghost Bear: see above, has taken over that spot (except less popular and more winning).
Word of Blake: hated by grognards for ushering the Dark Age, an unpopular setting with some.

Then there's niche hate: Taurians (tend to have dumb fans, if you follow the official forums), Canopians (if women doing anything makes you scream SJW, you hate them).

Dunno, am I missing anyone?

Faction hate is 100% baiting. Pure and simple. Being that angry about fake space people doing fake space things with giant robots that violate square-cube and would be impractical as hell is pants-on-head retarded. As is fanboyism in general. So don't worry about it. If you like playing by lore and a faction appeals to you, play as it. If someone refuses to play with you because of it, you dodged a bullet; thank your lucky stars they were kind enough to remove themselves from your game experience.

That's fair.
But what about far country?

>ucking world series is in extra innings in game 7 with the goddamn cubs in it

That reminds me. NEA, are you drinking? Because you should have been drinking.

>Dunno, am I missing anyone?
I'd include a point about the fact that the taurians and canopians have fans who will actually defend them here, which makes them more tempting targets for bait-hate.
But otherwise, yeah, you've fairly summed it up

Not NEA, but I've been drinking all game and I'm prwtty fucking loaded right now

>are you drinking?

It's the Cubs in Game 7 of the WS. One of the most tension-filled games of *anything* I've ever watched, and that includes some triple-OT Stanley Cup-clinching games, and winning my Bloodname at GenCon whilst losing initiative 14 turns consecutively, on terrible terrain, with an open cockpit from a 1st-turn headshot, against a guy with a ton of crit-seeking.

What the hell do you think? On a completely unrelated note:

>I'll get it to you ASAP once the World Series game is over.

ASAP may be a little later than I first expected when the game started.

Man, 2016 is officially the maddest year in sports; leicester winning the fucking premiership at 5000:1, cubs winning the series, fuck, what's next, the leafs take the cup?

What faction are the Cusb?

Hartford Whalers in surprise victory.

Speaking of the Cubs winning the world series, have any of you played MegaMek, had a draw and the game tell you that the winner is the Chicago Cubs? I've had BATTLETECH! moments where the last machines on both sides died from critical hits in the same round so nobody was the winner and the Cubs won the game. When that happened I loved it.

What do we know about the guys that make the MegaMek software? Are they from Chicago or something?

I hate to say it, but the taurians are probably the closest; they've got the extremely long losing streak and stubbornly dedicated fanbase, but they'll never have a comeback like this one so it isn't exactly right

You forget the fact that BT is not only a chore to play (I've been interested in BT for a decade, I have never played a single game of it due mostly to complexity).
Has a million source books (Even asking what books you need IN THESE THREADS is often met with multiple, completely different replies).
BT Grogs are terrible people (So you got some models from Warhansa, trying to make a pleb lance or what; literally a reply I've seen in these threads).

On top of all that the minis look like hot dogshit except for the aforementioned. Everything being hexes makes terrain a pain unless you use 2D battlemats, because what asshole makes his terrain hex shaped unless you only play BT?

BT players actively scoff at new players because they haven't read a gorillion books on esoteric fluff.

This is why people don't play BT.

>50079408
No (you)s for you.

OMG why must you cause this agony? Why? Why does Florida have TWO HOCKEY TEAMS FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

Any more of those builds of other stuff? Like these Gundam ones?

I had this happen three times.

He does have a point with the minis, a lot of them are janky as fuck and to a new player finding good quality shit is a chore within itself

>Are there any factions/anything that everyone agrees are somewhat alright?
Not really, no... but that's why there are different factions. Different strokes for different folks, but there's no real "Right" answer.

Lots of spite from back in the Fasa days. TROs aren't too imbalanced now, but Fasa handed the keys of the best toys to only some of the factions. Obvious animosity ensues when your stuff is objectively worse than the other guys' for no reason but author fiat.

Some people choose factions because of the lore, some people because of the equipment and playstyle, some people just choose their favorite colored robots and roll with it.

I love BT but yeah, actually playing is a tremendous pain in the ass. I only consider it viable due to Megamek.

What, seriously? Besides going out to the LGS to play a game and cat-wrangling players, I've never had a problem with it - but that's nothing to do with the game itself.

>50079408
Is this vroom vroom?

Rolling two dice and consulting a chart once in a while is hard, I guess. After a while you pretty much memorize hit locations, and what roll equals what # of crits. Marking pips with a pen is a lot of work too. I can get a lance on lance battle done at a casual pace in a few hours and I play maybe once every two months if I'm lucky. Might start a pickup campaign soon though; crossing my fingers.

To be fair, some people prefer easier-playing games. If you start including smoke, infantry, Aero assets, and all that, it can get pretty hairy. I just use vees, VTOLs, and 'Mechs myself. Easier, and plenty enough options for non-repetitive play.

Well, I generally prefer 8+ mech a side, BA, hidden movement and smoke, and various others rules. Hidden movement and smoke especially are a LOT easier with MM. But even for the simple stuff it takes a long-ass time to resolve compared to most games.

What I'm saying.

I haven't touched any of the Dark Age stuff yet, mind (I don't play it if I don't have a mini for it, and since I've been away from my home country since 2013 and have no clear definition of what or where my future is headed, adding to my pewter minis collection isn't what I should be doing), but playing during the Jihad Period was always a cakewalk. Dark age stuff started expecting people to lug more books, but people seem to be managing it, or just playing earlier eras...

That, and CGL seems to be gearing up to put out more introtech support with the 1st Succession Wars sourcebooks and finally making unseen that look like they fit in 3025.

'Course, I've always recognised there were a lot of introbox-final-destination types out there. Fasa/CGL's constant pushing the story forward and avoiding them meant a pretty big potentially untapped market. Also makes it tougher for new players to get into the fold. They should have been continuing making stuff like First Strike and making products that support LGS play this whole time.

There's your problem. Hidden Movement is a nightmare of a tabletop rule best reserved for at-home play in a campaign, not pickup games at an LGS.

TW 6000 bv and 4 units per side, and it shouldn't be a problem. If you start tacking large unit numbers and extra crunch, of course it's going to get bogged down. It's like complaining you're not able to lose weight on a diet of ice-cream and KFC.

It's not a Battletech-exclusive problem, it's a tacking on too many rules problem. especially the hidden movement rules, if you tried using the same thing in any other minis game it'd bog down too.

Yeah going blind/double blind will be really hard without a moderator, and so MM is vastly superior for that kind of game.

Yeah, I keep it simple myself. If I need more than the Intro box chart and TW, I am doing it wrong. Hell the campaign I am planning to start soon will have homebrew salvage rules and use BV as currency instead of Cbills to keep things on a more even keel regarding new combat units/pilots and repairs/upgrades. It'll be a kinda odd system, but hopefully easy and painless for transitions between missions.

I don't even do campaigns. I do pickup games at the LGS. I've even made pre-made forces calculated at 6000 BV so that I or my players can just grab and go.
Games bog down when you don't know the rules, or when you Hmm and Haah your way through every move, considering the firing lines and the pros and cons of each individual hex. The game itself isn't altogether slow, it's just that the terrain, movement, and positioning matters, so some players really stretch things out.

Run grinders like they do at cons, and players have a whale of a time.

Besides, if I just took an hour to get out to an LGS to play a game, I'm not looking to play for fifteen minutes and then go home.

Refute the points autismo.

>50080339
go home, vroom vroom
You went to an lgs and talked shit about players' minis, and then got butthurt that they refused to play with you afterwards.
You got exactly what you deserve. Have fun calling people dinosaurs.

>Implying any FLGS plays battletech.
>Implying BT players don't talk shit about BT minis themselves.
First, I'm not vroom. But nice attempt at a strawman.

Secondly, even other BT players agree with me. You colossal retard.

Third; Your attitude is why people don't play BT, you just try to deflect any criticism and call people names while other players of the game acknowledge the short comings.

You probably have autism, thinking anyone who doesn't agree with you is an internet bogeyman.

I feel bad for you.

You don't read the books
You don't collect the minis
You don't play the game
You don't like the players

...so what brings you here, then? "Interested" how, when you've prattled off pretty much everything about the game as being "Bad"?
What "names" besides "Vroom Vroom"?

So did literally everyone else. The FWL did not have a greater preponderance of them.

LGRs, on the other hand? Yes, they have a marked propensity towards them.

>Captcha: HOTEL COLON

Not sure if good operation name or terrible place to stay.

Am I seriously the only player out there who gets within 2 hexes of an opponent and make use of the -2 to hit?

Wraiths are great.

Wraiths would be better with five MPLs instead of the LPL/2xMPL. You are gonna do exactly what you're saying anyway so why bother with "long range" weapons? Hell even quad MPLs is better if you don't want to run hot.

I could see that, but as is, it's far from bad.
The option of LPL is still nice, in case you've lost the init roll and have to play keep-away, but still want to hit something.

I'm not so much a fan of the ER Mediums. Unless heat dissipation is at a premium, the extra hex or two just doesn't do it for me.

Are VSPs still being made anywhere? I've come to love using them thanks to a few Dark Age configs I've come across.

IS MPLs basically only have two uses. On something fast and preferably jumpy to be used offensively, or on something slow and used to threaten things that are fast or jumpy to try and keep them back a bit.

I used to think so but the LPL on it is good for killing IS lights. Some of them can be a little faster and the extra range helps a lot. I can see both arguments but the LPL allows it to do more than just bounce around in close, while going to 5 MPL+1 DHS or 4 MPL is going to limit you to just that.

リブギゴ?

I don't know my Gundams, man.
The original was going for a grim reaper sort of look, the art in tro 3055 gave it a wasp-like paintjob.