/btg/ - BattleTech General

Okay a serious answer to your question, first off I would not play around and put a Grasshopper in there. After that I would gt some diversity and put in the second slot a Grasshopper. Now you need something with a little more punch to your lance so I would add a Grasshopper.

Hope that helped!

>Grasshopper for pres. 2024

Less so the FWL, but have a Word variant. And I have several Clan variants, but they're not as interesting as a mixtech bizarro.

Based on just that, without BV or terrain, there's just not enough to say. If the pilots are dead even, then maybe. Though the second group has 1k BV on the first. There are enough heavies in the Avatar demi company to offset the thinner armor there, but there's too many explosives in it for me to feel comfortable. It all depends.

Not the right Mixtech one, but it works well enough. Here's more my insanity.

Anyone have a good pdf copy of Field Manual ComStar?

Maybe a searchable one?

My pdf has like corrupted pages.

Long-time halfgrog here, I've been mostly stuck in the eras up to and including the Jihad.

How do I get into the Dark Age? What sourcebooks should I check out?

I'm particularly interested in the Republic of the Sphere. Are they meant to be protagonists like the Suns or antagonists like the Combine? Not sure because they appear to be a lot of the main focus from what I can tell but they disarm people, perform ethnic cleansing and are based on Terra.

Everything that's 3145 for books (TROs, FM, Era Report)

Republic is supposed to be the heroes, allied with FS.

What do you think standard issue rations in each faction are like?

>Dracs
>rations
They eat people

>Fedsuns
>rations
The money saved on them was used as a downpayment towards a clan ERmlas.

>do I have to use particular rules for the 3 lances to choose?
Nope. If you're playing against another player's company, you both agree to some point limit and choose units from your force up to that limit. If you're playing one of the usual abstract campaigns, the opposing force will be balanced against whatever units you deploy on the mission.

If you ever get into the lore, you might hone your choices for flavor, but that's purely optional.

>I want to deploy something with a Stalker, but I don't want to make another fire support lance
Close assault lance: Hunchback or Victor, Ostsol or Ostroc, and maybe something lighter like a Jenner or Blackjack or Phoenix Hawk or something to round it out.

>Implying Drac rations aren't made from endangered Luthien Giant Crabs

I got one, but it's not searchable. The pages are pics. Would that do for now?

Sure. Can you double check that some pages (like the page on the WoB's 4th Militia division) are fine?

I didn't have too much time to check (I'm at work,) but I think this is my good copy of it.
mediafire.com/file/ja3z2n1goe12623/Field_Manual_Comstar.PDF
If it is corrupt let me know, sorry, let me know. It's all I've got.

One issue with this whole IS vs Clan scenario is that there are a bunch more clans sitting back home.

WoB had the right idea, really - wipe those out, or at least badly hurt them, with every nasty thing you can get your hands on, before doing anything else. Amusingly, the Clans do it to each other despite the WoB getting diverted.

#MAGA - Make Atreus Great Again!

How you been dude? Figured you'd been eaten by train hobos or something.

>they disarm people, perform ethnic cleansing and are based on Terra.
>Republic is supposed to be the heroes, allied with FS.

Hilldawg Randall on suicide watch?

>Hilldawg Randall on suicide watch?

Hopefully. Having the entire administrative and regular writing staff of CGL killed would be the best possible result for the franchise. I've thought about doing it myself, but going to gencon is expensive.

What about this: Stalker, Grasshopper, Phoenix Hawk, Hunchback?

What vehicles would you suggest for the third lance? Demolisher seems a nice choice, especially when the twin Gauss becomes available

The phoenix hawk seems slightly out of place with the other three. Maybe a Vindicator or possibly a thud or Merlin, since they all have similar movement profiles to the rest of the lance.
As vehicles go, the demolisher is always a good choice, as are the schreck and Brutus. Partisans are also surprisingly great, especially in later eras

So this was supposed to be a MoC mech, but Donald's victory means we're legally obligated to give it to someone else. It's in the fine print of his 100 day plan.

Any takers?

Stone will build a wall and make the Clanners pay for it

I mean, fuck it, give it to the taurians or filvelt or both. They certainly need the help

Rim Collection. Kek wills it.

The Capellan Confederation, of course! Where else would the MoC send it?

Give it to another periphery state, in an ironic reversal of how things with the MoC usually go

Calderon Protectorate. Barring that, Niops.

Either half of the taurians work. If not them, filvelt

Brotherhood of Randis

Any of these.

Seems slightly too high-tech for them, I dunno

Anyone else having problems with MML's print record sheet problem? All the Mechs I print are coming up blank. Tanks and BA print fine, but mechs are kaput.

TC. Maybe make it a joint project with the froncs or filvelt or something

a present

Nice 5S refit

Big 70 ton Brawler
Zombie
Medium Laser Spam
Jump for QQB maneuverability
What is not to like?

Drac Soldier One: "I have is dolphin, I'll trade you for some shark fin"
Drac Soldier Two: "Sorry, all I have is whale"

Pretty good. The hunchback has always kinda wanted JJs

I like the JJs, but as a newbie I need to ask, why didn't you use Endo Steel and max out a little more?

If the implication is that it's a stock mech, suboptimal is standard.

Whale is a Davion staple
>Imthinkingarbys

There are some rules for upgrade kits that say that some things are harder to change than others. Upgrading the chassis to endo steel is one of the harder changes, it requires a factory to do it. Other changes are easier and can be done in the mech bay of any dropship or even in the field.

Endo-Steel is a more difficult and time consuming refit than swapping to Ferro Fibrous armor.

>Any takers?

Needs to go to a Successor state. That looks way too high tech for any Periphery power to justify having, ever.

Pic related.

>looks
It could be JJs, MLx4, AC/10, LL for all you know. So... silly comments, then? You do realize the /btg/TRO is set in like Dark Ages+ right? At least, for the most part?

Also, point on the art: you might want Plog to stick an actual waist on that thing. As it is it looks like it can't twist.

>CASE
>factory refit
Wait what?

Niops! Niops! NIOPS!!!

What is this?

Technically, all the 3050-era field refits that stuck CASE or XL engines on Mechs hanging off a field gantry are retconned away. All those Mechs were "returned to the factory" so they could be modified.

Meanwhile, where sanity ensues, GMs let players add CASE or change the engine type in the field if the player is willing to take long enough, because even if CGL doesn't give a fuck about what was written before, some other people might.

>ignoring the entire table is also recommended; the whole thing was done purely as a way to combat munchkinism in customization and they never even considered what it meant to the existing lore.

A meme faction nobody plays, writes, or cares about.

It's like the FWL, but with less effect on the storyline.

Not really worth the crit space for measly 9 points of armor. Its also a very big issue to refit a mechs structure, from a lore perspective, requiring a refitting factory to do so.

My idea behind this mech was a simple retooling of the HBK-4G factory lines to pump out a cheaper, more reliable and easier to maintain alternative to the 5S variant.

I tried transforming into whatever the hell that great pic posted earlier. I failed.

Oh fuck off guy. Do you have so little else to do that you just hang around here to post that every single time someone makes a post suggesting that the periphery might build something

Hey, has anyone noticed that Record Sheets: 3067 Unabridged isn't available in any of the mediafire links in the OP?

Does anyone have it to add? My game this weekend needs a Lobo 2, and it's not in my copy of SSW.

If they'd just stop trying to build things and sink back into the irrelevance they so richly deserve, I wouldn't have to.

>"Why can't we have nice things?"
>"Because user is That Guy."

Looks like a Partial Wing, so I dunno. Obvious candidates are the Falcons and the RotS given their love of those and experimental tech respectively.

>the whole thing was done purely as a way to combat munchkinism in customization
Which is hilariously ironic, because the old munchkin standby of taping a bunch of MLs to shit is still only a class C refit

you are a very dedicated troll

"Well, that's only an issue for people who play IntroTech and that not really the direction we're looking in the game line."

Yeah, yeah, I know. That whole table is one giant clusterfuck, and I honestly wish it didn't exist.

>Record Sheets: 3067 Unabridged

Of course it's in the OP collections, it's even an actual PDF product.

Wait, shit. No, it's not. It's not in my own PDF collection either. How the hell did that happen?

Telling the truth isn't trolling. Look what sucks most about American life:
>SJWs
>feminists
>racist rednecks
>religious fundamentalists

What do we see in the Periphery?
>SJWs (MOC)
>feminists (MOC)
>racist rednecks (TC)
>religious fundamentalists (OA)

Fuck the Periphery. Fuck it all. It brings to the game everything bad about real life, and we don't need that shit in our game.

>The MOC fills two categories, which is why they're the worst of the worst

Dammit, you interacted with him. Now look what happened. Stop interacting with him and he'll eventually grow bored and go away.

Let's get back to grasshoppers.
Everybody post your grasshopper variants, any era, any faction

...

youtube.com/watch?v=P9_VINMmsus

>URGH CRAB BATTLE

Crab variant tree. Prepare to eat crab dinner.

So far we have:

>Atlas/AtlasII/Atlas III/Akuma
>Orion/Orion IIC/Perseus/Pandarus

Am working on:
>Woodsman (holy shit carpletunnel)
>Hunchback
>Stalker

May do:
>Hetzer
>Awesome
>urbanmech

Missed the orion. Can you post it again?

The Marauder would be neat.
It inspired mechs like the Nightstar, Marauder II, and... Dragon Fire or something like that?

Also Marauder IIC, Maelstrom, and Timber Wolf. Plus through the Timber Wolf the Rakshasa, Mad Cat II, and Savage Wolf.

>Timber Wolf
Nah, the Timby isn't a Mad Cat descendant.

Huntsman includes the Timber Wolf line. Which is probably what's giving treeanon wrist cramps.

... what?

If you mean Marauder, it definitely is, hence the name and the arm pod weapons of the Prime.

[pedant] Woodsman. The Huntsman is the Nobori-Nin. [/pedant]

That's a fair correction. Sometimes the names run together.

Would y'all reckon that there'd be any Cauldron-Born still around by the Dark Age?
I rather like the design and think a slightly modified version would be nice for the leader of my mercenary company

Looks like it's based on that society medium.

MUL doesn't have availability past the early republic for it, but it is still in service with several Clan and even the Combine at that point, and it also shows up on 3145 RATs for the Ravens and Foxes, the latter making sale a possibility.

I don't see why a few wouldn't be around, but it's rare enough that you should come up with at least a bit of backstory for how exactly it ended up where it is

It's still around according to the MUL. Limited to the Dracs, Foxes, Horses, Cats, and Raven Alliance though. Should be easy enough to fluff buying one off the Foxes if it really comes down to it any way.

Kinda wish there was a Cauldron-Born II.

>If you mean Marauder, it definitely is, hence the name and the arm pod weapons of the Prime.
You mean the A, the Prime has ERLLs.

Linking Mad Cats and Marauders is tricky I think, because while it has enough resemblance to confuse ID computers and people generally make the connection in fluff, and OOC the similarity is intentional, Timbys are a bit more Cat than Mad, and I'm not sure if any fluff has stated any actual direct link in terms of design or development to either mech.

>You mean the A, the Prime has ERLLs.

Clan ER LLs are a close analogue for IS standard PPCs. The Dire Wolf is often described as having the firepower and heat troubles of a Marauder in each arm, among other similar comparisons.

The Woodsman it's based on feels very similar to the Marauder as well given its tonnage and loadout in the Prime. Looks a bit different, admittedly.

It's not a hill I'm particularly interested in dying on but I do think the lineage is pretty clear, between the name and the way the Prime was set up.

Well, I was thinking that it originated as combine bulldog salvage, so that probably works
I do, in true battletech fashion, based on an ancestor in a more interesting era, so that's covered
Alright, thanks folks, I really just needed the not extinct, so as to calm the highly autismal folks that I rate a high probability of encountering

>It's not a hill I'm particularly interested in dying on but I do think the lineage is pretty clear, between the name and the way the Prime was set up.

Yeah, I'm not saying NO YOU'RE WRONG or anything but like I said I find it tricky, because the lineage is clear, but so much of that clarity is OOC, and I feel fluff never quite goes as far to confirm it as I would like. And it's partly a matter of how specific people regard this kind of thing, like some folks would probably put the Thug on a Whammy family tree, some wouldn't.

Though now I recall the Rakshasa is actually built on a modified Marauder chassis, so regardless of how one regards the ambiguity or lack thereof of a direct link the Marauder and Mad Cat, they still end up linked anyway.

I wouldn't say it would combat munchkinism. Besides, most of the munchkinism you have to deal with is in pickup games where players are bringing custom builds to the table.

If they're going to munchkin, they sure as fuck aren't using the customization checks from Strat-Ops, if they even acknowledge it's existence.

CASE I need to really need to be creative with, but I could imagine it would need to do stuff like reconfigure how the myomers are arranged inside of the mech, fortify the interior in a way that makes sure the blast goes out the blast panels before popping the ammo bins like corn... I agree that I think it's a bit overkill to make CASE such a high customization level, but I'm just playing devils' advocate.

The fusion engine, however... For something that big, heavy, and expensive... also because it's integral to the cooling system and one of the less healthy bits of the mech to be around, I can see justification in why it would need a factory refit to swap it out.

>CASE I need to really need to be creative with, but I could imagine it would need to do stuff like reconfigure how the myomers are arranged inside of the mech, fortify the interior in a way that makes sure the blast goes out the blast panels before popping the ammo bins like corn... I agree that I think it's a bit overkill to make CASE such a high customization level, but I'm just playing devils' advocate.
The thing is, canonically, CASE is quite literally taping Ferro-Fiberous plates to 5/6 sides of an ammo bin and installing a couple blowout pannels in a mech's back. It should be as difficult to install as adding or removing ammo bins, no more, no less

Honestly, the main problem I have with StratOps' location definitions is that factory is so specific, requiring it be a place that builds the unit type. Get rid of that requirement and it becomes nice and vague like the rest, and could represent a high end facility found on any decently industrialized world, not unlike the maintenance pads or whatever that were required for some of the heftier jobs like structure and engines back in Merc Handbook 3055.

The real mess is that they probably should have had totally separate definitions for customs and refit kits; like how maintenance grade thing about piecing together best fits and bypasses, which makes no sense for a refit kit that comes with all the parts in the first place, Quikscell notwithstanding.

I'd make it so a refit kit drop the grade by one, so even a factory level mod becomes maintenance level if it was a kit.

And my Quikscell grade post didn't come with pic included.

That's part of it, but you *also* need to do structural reinforcements to ensure that the five blocked-off sides are strongly enough reinforced to not blow themselves through the chassis and add extra shrapnel to the problem. I can see that being a fairly substantial modification even if I agree the factory-level rule is a crock of shit.

Factory only needs to be Solaris Reaches custom garage level, not full on LAW complex. So it's not so bad that way. It's basically a standard mech bay plus an attached heavy machine shop.

Aero has always been fucked, both because the birds are as rare or rarer than mechs depending on the year and because there's basically no garage level shops for them compared to tanks and mechs.

Ok there's the merc company so far:
>1st Lance
Marauder
Warhammer
Archer
Griffin or Pixie

>2nd Lance
Stalker
Hunchback
Merlin or Thunderbolt
Grasshopper

>3rd Lance
Demolisher
Brutus
Partisan
a second Partisan or some kind of VTOL

Is this force decent enough and lore friendly?

The StratOps pic user posted above you is newer and makes it clear an actual factory is needed.

It does say that the factory just needs to manufacture the unit *type* though so you could, eg, use a factory that only manufactures hover APCs to refit a Behemoth tank with a SFE and Clan weapons.

Those are factories. The one with three bays is literally VEST