/btg/ Battletech General

>1st Draft Fluff excerpt:

This ship class started life as a proposed Word of Blake DropShip class intended for special-operations use. Capable of carrying several types of Level II units, rather than the more homogenous Overlord or Union `Mech carriers, this unnamed vessel also different from normal DropShip design parameters by including enough cargo space for the Blakist units to operate independently of a formal supply chain for several weeks. While the vessel never made it into production, the full gamut of computer modeling had already been done...
...
Unusually for a military DropShip, the Teucer devotes space to several passenger cabins. Intended in the original plans for military specialists, these are often used by mercenary commands as bunks for support personnel (often medial and administrative staff), or as recreation rooms for bored unit members. This space allotment is quite popular with mercenary commands, and was developed further with O'Neil's Ajax-class DropShip.

>I'M HOLDING IN MY HANDS AN IMI DEVELOPED LASER PISTOL, NAMED AFTER SPACE ISRAEL'S SPACE WAR, SPACE WAR 3.

Project 7
Company-sized PC DropShip
AJAX

Pretty much everything I said about the Teucer's "niche" applies to the Ajax as well, just one step up. This is intended as an outright replacement for the Union for RPG merc players, for much the same reasons as the Tuecer. The design choices should therefore be relatively self-explanatory; standardized weapon turrets, plenty of cargo space, SPL batteries as requested, and so forth. There's only three things I feel require further commentary:
First, the Light Gauss Rifles. In Aerotech, LGRs are actually pretty decent weapons. There's almost nothing in the Inner Sphere arsenal which can reach Extreme Range, and of those, LGRs are the hardest-hitting choice, and they come with enough ammo/ton that you can actually afford to shoot them. Being able to sling 32 standard damage out to Extreme Range is outright better than the Union, which has fairly aenemic firepower. Again, if you're doing the "land the DropShip" mission against enemy ASF, this is intended to at least give you a *chance*.
Second, the Screen Launchers. I don't understand why these don't get used more often. Ammo isn't very expensive, they aren't faction-specific, they're DropShip-mountable, and they're one of the very, VERY few ways to effectively raise your TN to be hit in AeroTech. While the optimum mounting would be a unit forward and a unit aft (since enemy ASFs are going to get on your tail and stay there), I personally decided that a screen launcher being aft-mounted wasn't cool: the drive plume would disrupt the tiny particles in the screen, right? So this is a useful, but not optimum loadout.

>cont

Daily reminder that nobody plays Battletech because it's a bad game

>cont

Finally, what is probably the most "odd" thing - the passenger quarters. First, yes, I did the math, assuming maximum vehicle masses, and it can carry all those people, plus two additional squads. We get all those stories about merc units having to live on their Dropship for extended times...wouldn't they want to make that time as comfy as possible? This is entirely an RP thing, but I felt that blowing 2000 tons on "Role-playing" was worth it for a unit designed to be used in both a tabletop and a role-playing game.

>1st Draft Fluff Excerpt

...aerospace fighters is also carried; most mercenary units will operate far less than a squadron at a time. A full 2,400 tons of cargo space allows the operating unit to carry more spare parts and support gear than any other 'Mech-carrying DropShip design; having to leave salvage behind because there is insufficient room onboard is intended to be a relic of the past with the Ajax. Understanding that many mercenary commands practically live aboard their DropShips, [REDACTED] took the unprecedented step of including single-occupancy cabins for every MechWarrior, Vehicle crewman, pilot, Tech, and infantryman. The cabins are quite spacious, and can be reconfigured with relative ease to house up to two more people (notably a dependent and a child) in cramped conditions. A further fourteen cabins provide living quarters for the unit's doctors and administration staff. The bay space normally used for squeezing in personnel is instead given over to multi-use rooms that can be converted into additional mess halls, rec rooms, and so forth at the unit's discretion.
This comfortable occupancy does come at a price. The space taken up by cabins cuts into ingress and egress access for the unit bays; each bay has a relatively small number of external doors, so loading and unloading times are increased. Likewise, the number of life boats and escape pods aboard the ship are heavily limited.

>fin

Every time I see those cut and paste jobs I think about how nice 2300AD's small arms looked.

>everything in that post

And how. Exactly as you say, when I was looking into making a small campaign for mercs I ended up with the same conclusions - most units will need to use a Union and a Mule (or just a Union only carrying two lances at most.) I gave my unit a Fortress, which is fine for one scenario but not a realistic option for most units, considering the cost and rarity of the Fortress-class.

What we REALLY need is a retcon unit; a popular midsized Civilian dropship that happened to be excellent for conversion to a combined-arms small unit carrier. Because 3025 needs this as well.

>tfw no space!FAL

A while back when I was running a campaign I went through and rebuilt all the transport DSes to weight 25-50% more than their TR entries, changing little else to preserve their performance but enabling them to actually support the units they carry.

DSes and WSes are very much victims of the "stats first, construction rules later, do not contradict the stats when designing them with construction rules" approach FASA took.

I know I've harped on it before but the upgraded Leopard from the original printing of TR 3057 has a grand total of 5 tons of cargo, on a raiding design.

For the crew and combat personnel on a Leopard you go through 1.65 tons of consumables per day, so on the fourth day of travel everyone dies.

Which is still better than the Obsolete version where everyone dies after 24 hours of operation thanks to it having NO cargo at all.

At least 3057R improves it to 34 tons on the Obsolete and 72 on the Upgrade.

You forgot two things that got ruled by Cray a few years back. One is that mechbays can use unused tonnage for storage. So a bay with a bug in it can hold an additional 80 tons of parts and supplies. The other is that dropships can be overloaded up to twice their mass in space, but you have to recalculate thrust based on the new mass and can't do any fancy maneuvers or combat without wrecking the structural integrity. You also can't land.

And for a collared DS, you can overload it up to the max capacity of the JS collar, as long as what you're shoving in the ship fits volumetrically. This makes things like the water tanker ships in jumpfleets actually useful.

>One is that mechbays can use unused tonnage for storage.

This is common fanon but is contradicted by the actual rules which specify one 'Mech, with no additional cargo capacity for the bay. It is not and never has been a canon thing.

Likewise I have never heard of the other thing being an actual rule but have seen it proposed a number of times on the OF.

I am not necessarily opposed to either of those as solutions to the problem of logistical support on canon ships but they are not supported by the rules and simply redesigning ships to be slightly heavier with the additional mass going to cargo deals with the issue a hell of a lot more elegantly than any other solution regardless.

It's a little better when you recall that the Leopard (according to the fluff on Sarna) was originally a Star League design meant to deliver an "Air lance" (i.e. a lance of 'mechs plus two aerospace fighters) into combat, and that's reflected in its design. A lot of the Star League era dropships are reminiscent of that - they really are *dropships* in the "surface to orbit" sense, rather than the "interplanetary capable vessel" implied by a ship capable of motoring in from the nadir/zenith drop point and back again. A lot of these designs originated in an era when they were expedited to be riding a WarShip in-system and their cargo allowances reflected that.

The Leopard adapts well enough for the Succession Wars/3025 era if you yank the two ASFs to gain 300 tons of cargo space, which is plenty for consumables, reloads, spares and loot. But even in 3025, when most parties are (arguably) hoarding aerospace fighters as precious military resources and refraining from attacking DropShips that much - well, only JumpShips are truly precious and universally spared attack. Aerospace fighters are more scarce, sure, and DropShips are hard to make anymore but they're still building more DropShips than they are JumpShips and they're just not as valuable, so the chances of garrison fighters taking a swipe are rather better. Plus the paucity of operable fighters means that a mere two might actually serve to get your dropship onto the planet and back off again, since defenses will probably be equally scant. So tl;dr it can feel pretty goddamn hard to give up those two ASFs, even in 3025 when you can get away with it fairly easily.

Can 72 tons of cargo get the full crew complement to a planet and back again, assuming a 9 day trip?

>This is common fanon but is contradicted by the actual rules which specify one 'Mech, with no additional cargo capacity for the bay. It is not and never has been a canon thing.

It's not a bad idea, but in my humble opinion a distinction needs to be made between the support equipment required for mechs, and the tonnage available as pure "floor space;" i.e. volume reserved for a 'mech (assumed to be a max of 100 tons.) Using this as spare cargo storage is problematic because mechs are tall, with a small footprint - you can easily stack that volume full of cargo containers, sure, but you can't damn well stack them 50tons worth of cargo containers high and then make a Centurion kneel atop the pile, or something. Or go the other way and make the Centurion balance it all on its head like an Indian washerwoman or some shit.

Vehicles are a different matter (StratOps specifically notes that cargo bays convert to vehicle bays much easier than mechbays, since tanks et al can just drive off, but 'mechs are too tall and thus must be strapped down to big cargo pallets for stowage in a cargo bay.) They take up more space width-wise and aren't very tall, so converting vehicle bays to cargo should be a lot more permissive. Same for fighter bays. In fact the rules are probably too permissive vis a vis the storage you can get from fighter bays; it should be clarified how much mass/volume is occupied by the fighter's launch/recovery cradle and support/servicing equipment, and how many boxes you can stack there without actually removing the fighter support equipment.

Just stack the cargo around the mech.

>Can 72 tons of cargo get the full crew complement to a planet and back again, assuming a 9 day trip?

Easily, yes.

A lot of these things aren't as big a deal if you deal with the setting in abstract.

Once you start looking at it in detail it completely falls apart though.

One of the Leopard's primary roles is as a raider, and 34-72 tons isn't really enough to carry off the hauls of a raid. Certainly not enough to really support a Lance each of 'Mechs and ASFs for even a short campaign.

More broadly there are worlds that take 40-odd days to get to from the proximity limit of the star. Theoretically you can Jump to a pirate point and let the DSes off closer but fluff-wise planetary shipping is supposed to be handled from the Zenith/Nadir points rather than transient ones. That 40-day system is even fluffed as having stations spaced out so ships can resupply on the way in.

To be strictly fair the rules for consumables do substantially post-date the publication of stat blocks for DSes. But it's at that point they should have all been redesigned to accommodate the new rule set rather than leaving it up to players to bring in the fanon'ed "'Mech bays actually have 100-'Mech tonnage cargo space each" rules to deal with the issue.

'Mech bays also include a system for getting them into launch tubes for combat drops in a matter of moments.

I sort of expect stacking crates around the 'Mech will have an impact on that.

My personal rule for anyone who wants to use the "100-'Mech tonnage cargo" thing is that it's fine BUT the whole bay is then treated as cargo. Which means no combat drops, and the 'Mechs have to be unloaded as cargo rather than just walking out as fast as they normally can once a DS is where it needs to be.

"Our own crews like to load up as many ’Mechs in the bay as possible and hot drop the ones inside the cubicles to establish a safe landing zone. Once there, the rest of our machines unload via the heavy-duty ramps that come out from each ’Mech bay and then load back up, arms fi lled with swag. These, of course, are options the House militaries generally don’t rely on. Instead, they use the extra bay space for bare-bones quarters the MechWarriors and their “pit crews” can use during transit. Now, if we had time for luxury like that, we’d be mercs, not pirates. Remember that distinction."

Straight out of Tech Manual. The rules are the "proper" way, not the only way.

"Each component cubicle in these bays includes maintenance and/or launch facilities for a
single ’Mech (or aerospace craft, as appropriate), as well as basic facilities
and bunking for said unit’s crew and technical support personnel."

>at that point they should have all been redesigned to accommodate the new rule set

Sorry, not by FASA, FanPro, or CGL policy. No unit statline retcons, except for actual errata which fix honest errors. All TROs, even the ones from 30 years ago, must remain valid, or else the neckbeards actually will kill the line devs, instead of just showing up at Herb's house with a gun.

This whole clusterfuck is exactly why I always start my mercenery units with a mule. I just don't take contracts with assault drops, which is a good idea no matter what you operate, because it's a really easy way to get literally everyone killed and doesn't even pay much more.

>Starting a merc unit with their own transport
Well look at mr fancypants who doesn't have to wait two months for a free transport and be gouged by backwater shipping prices.

I'm sorry, which one are the actual rules and which is fluff?

I know what the fluff says. I also know that the rules do not allow for it and never have. They could errata it tomorrow but what Cray wrote in that fluff and what he says in his own posts outside of the "Ask the Authors" sub-forum have zero bearing on the way things actually work.

You *can* fix the problem that way if you want to, but re-designing the ships to make them heavier and add cargo stays within the rules as written without changing anything else aside from their total mass and the cargo allocation. Maybe you add a few more crew due to the mass change. With DSes, things like SI, armour, and weapons loadouts aren't impacted by such changes so the combat stats stay the same and all you do is get a change to how they work for campaign play.

I can see that being important for 'Mechs, Vees, and so on but the number of people who play combat scenarios with DSes is both really small and wouldn't even be seeing changes from an increased mass on transport vessels since none of the combat stats would change.

This is something that can be put down to FASA/FanPro/CGL not giving a shit about the space side of the game and not wanting to have to do the redesign by hand rather than a strict policy.

I mean, it IS the easiest transport (well, tied with the buccaneer) to lay hands on for a merc unit

Honestly I don't see why you're so gung ho on changing the ships instead of the rules, especially when the rules change all the time for various things anyway. Remember when infernos could only be fired from SRM2's and they were almost instant death to conventionals, or C3 needed line of sight then didn't then did again, or old artillery scatter vs new, or how AMS works?

I'm kind of sad this thread turned into an aerospace lore bitchfest, and not about Drac chicks doing Drac things sexily.

Take NEA's advice and do both. Everything related to aerospace needs to be changed. Throw out the entire package and start over again.

I'm sure all five people who play with aero will be mad they have to get new stuff, but they can deal with it.

Fucking Dracs, thinking they matter or anyone cares about them. You disgust me.

I'm just saying bro, if I had 160 million cbills to throw around, I wouldn't be a broke ass merc.

They used to be cheaper, y'know.
Like 20 million for a beat-to-shit one, which is like the price of a lance

Onii-chan! I want to ride on your Grand Dragon! I hard it gets really, really hot!

>One of the Leopard's primary roles is as a raider, and 34-72 tons isn't really enough to carry off the hauls of a raid. Certainly not enough to really support a Lance each of 'Mechs and ASFs for even a short campaign.

The Leopard was never designed to be a raider, though. It was designed as an SLDF transport/insertion ship. Ergo it was never supposed to, or designed to haul away loot or support its units for a campaign. With a WarShip and its cavernous cargo bays in orbit (or just a larger invasion fleet with its own transport/cargo dropships) to rely on, there would be no need for that.

And that's all fine and good and such, but we're still up against the problem that we need to use *something* for all our lance-sized merc units in the later Succession-Wars era, and we've only got this SLDF transport to work with. And for the reason I discussed above, you can get the cargo space you need fairly easily by yanking the aerospace fighter complement and using those bays for cargo - and in the 3025 era that's actually not suicidal - but even then it begs some tough questions as to where you could actually go when you only have the organic firepower of a Leopard available to contest any planetary aerospace defense. On the plus side, any contract suited for a single lance unit to tackle is going to be targeting worlds that can barely afford tractors, much less aerospace fighters, and larger battles they'd be one of many hires, possibly sent into to undertake riskier special missions than a great House wants to risk its regular troops on. So support from the employer is available.

I don't think the fluff falls *apart* per se, but it does make you sit down and think carefully about the situations and scenarios that are reconcilable with the universe as written.

>i hard it gets really, really hot!
I think you mean "heard". Nice try, boners.

>"Each component cubicle in these bays includes maintenance and/or launch facilities for a
>single ’Mech (or aerospace craft, as appropriate), as well as basic facilities
>and bunking for said unit’s crew and technical support personnel."

Oh, nice. So when you pay for a 'Mech bay, you also pay for the crew/support/life support requirements as well. Nice way to streamline it.

>Honestly I don't see why you're so gung ho on changing the ships instead of the rules

Because making them an appropriate fit for their roles can require more tonnage than you can get by instituting the 100-'Mech tonnage rule.

Take the Leopard. Let's say you load two decent attack birds (60 tons each for 120 tons total) and your 'Mechs average 55 tons (220 tons total). This gets you 260 extra tons of cargo.

Or you can pump up the total mass by 500 tons (and in the process fix a number of other errors in the design like the armour that's been assigned, heat sink mass, fuel mass and pumps, all of which would actually conspite to drop the Leopard's cargo below the listed 34 tons) and get 261 additional tons of cargo.

And it keeps that same cargo mass regardless of whether it's hauling a light-weight raiding party or 4 100-ton 'Mechs and 2 100-ton ASFs, which vastly increases its flexibility.

All for the low, low cost of the only thing in its stat block actually being changed is the mass going from 1,900 tons (on a design that's already been increased from 1,720 any way) to 2,400 tons.

>Steiner-Davion-Marik

Hawtest casus belli for more Inner Sphere war

I should make more of these. I keep saying I will, getting like 2-3 new ones done, then get distracted by life again.

If I do make a few more, what factions would people like to see? We need new Drac and Cappie ones since they are the oldest. But what else? I shall hunt for pin-ups for you, /btg/.

SLDF and Amaris.

>All for the low, low cost of the only thing in its stat block actually being changed is the mass going from 1,900 tons (on a design that's already been increased from 1,720 any way) to 2,400 tons.

See, this is a good point. The line devs have never tiptoed around the fact that BattleTech is a game first and foremost, and so rules will have to orient around game balance first, and fluff justifications will sometimes have to fall where they may. I've always considered that a challenge rather than a problem, however; it's fun to think out ways to reconcile the fluff with the rules in an elegant a fashion as possible.

Be that as it may, however - you're changing one stat line to say 2,400 tons instead of 1,900, whuppity fucking doo. And considering the comparative masses of DropShips and WarShips - and the vast increase in flexibility, duration, range, etc. you gain from a measly 500 tons tacked on - it's not very hard at all to say that they designed the Leopard 500 tons heavier to begin with. We can manage to make rules and fluff fit together well enough here if we have to, but if someone decided to bite the bullet and just retcon that shit it wouldn't be a very big change, or one that's hard to swallow, I think.

I'll see what I can find, CA. I also wanna do a Wobbie one if I can. Sexy cyborg bitches.

>The Leopard was never designed to be a raider, though.

Its earliest real-time fluff makes a big deal about how it's used for that duty. It certainly seems to be the OOC intention, especially when you take into account the way the old fluff for it doesn't have to even contemplate the issues of cargo mass or supplies for the crew.

>So when you pay for a 'Mech bay, you also pay for the crew/support/life support requirements as well.

Sort of. Bay personnel use a lot more consumables (1 ton per 5 personnel per day) than do personnel assigned proper quarters (1 ton per 20 crew per day).

You do get a place to sleep and an integral repair facility for that tonnage though.

I would be OK with 'Mech bays including their usual MFB with two Second-Class quarters (one for the MechWarrior, one for the tech) and the additional 16 tons that aren't accounted for beyond maximum 'Mech weight being the hot drop systems and orbital drop cocoons.

>Sort of. Bay personnel use a lot more consumables (1 ton per 5 personnel per day) than do personnel assigned proper quarters (1 ton per 20 crew per day).

Oooh, so you're not paying for the life support. But it gives you the option of just stuffing them in there in cots if you won't (or can't) provide sufficient crew quarters. Makes sense.

>I would be OK with 'Mech bays including their usual MFB with two Second-Class quarters (one for the MechWarrior, one for the tech) and the additional 16 tons that aren't accounted for beyond maximum 'Mech weight being the hot drop systems and orbital drop cocoons.

Yeah, wouldn't hurt.

COMSTAR

10-4.

Make it a sexy, sexy woman sitting in front of a phone switchboard. Yeaaaaaa

Then it's just Hong Kong Phooey, and there's already r34 of that.

>But it gives you the option of just stuffing them in there in cots if you won't (or can't) provide sufficient crew quarters.

Yup. Stuff like the obsolete Leopard would need another 60 tons just to cram the bay personnel into shitty Steerage-class quarters, and its cargo is listed (incorrectly, it should be lower) at 34 tons. Can't be done.

This is something they actually grandfathered in to all bays to deal with the problem. The same thing happens with Vehicle personnel, your Heavy bays include enough room for the whole vehicle crew which can be like six or more each along with a tech for each vehicle for free.

When I design DSes I make a point of putting in at least Second-Class quarters for Bay personnel. On Clan ships I sometimes stuff the techs into Steerage bays depending on who I've made the ship for because some of the Clans are very much in the mind of "fuck civilians, but warriors ride in luxury."

Over time the mass pays for itself.

Use model Isshiki Miyabi for Fed Suns, just to piss of the Dracs.

Isn't that Shi?

Oh, do we want 3DPD I don't really believe this 3D is best pin-ups too?

Yep.

Kek. If I can find a sexy comms officer you best believe that's what you're getting.

I'm just saying use Isshiki for inspiration. She's just zaftig enough to be irritating to the kiddy lunch grade girls that usually populate the Combine. I'm sure any Davion would approve.

Ah, I see. I'll see if I can get some slightly thicker girls too. I haven't done the FedSuns yet, so I'll see what I can do. I do want these to widely appeal so don't expect THICC or any of that bullshit, and the girls will at least look like they belong to that faction as a stereotype as such. So that means the Cappies are gonna get a new girl, since they aren't ChineseScotIndians anymore, at least in their outward image. I should also find a new MoC girl since apparently the Centrellas are swarthy-skinned?

In any case I appreciate the effort. Thanks.

>Over time the mass pays for itself.

Bingo. That's the big thing; you can sling a cot anywhere (and real-life warships did, in fact,) but the life-support equipment mass pays for itself quite quickly in terms of consumables consumption.

Which means the Leopard's current configuration works even better considering its initial design (with crew using the WarShip's facilities and transferring over shortly before approaching the planet,) and imposes even greater difficulties for all the roles the ship needs to fill across the vast majority of the fluff.

And you wouldn't need a *lot* of spare tonnage to conclusively handle the issues, either.

A way back, there was either one guy or a few who were taking comic-book girls and pinupifying them for the various Battletech factions.

I haven't been drawn to western comics (Superheros do nothing for me, and there's not a lot out there beyond that), so beyond the really layman stuff, I wouldn't know who the characters were.

BUTTE HOLD

BONE-NORMAN

KOOKEN'S PLEASURE PIT

HOT SPRINGS

A PLACE

NOWHERE

ANYWHERE

WESTEROS

(yes, these are all actual planet names, though I'm not sure about the last one, but I think I did encounter a Westeros in MWO's faction play mode)

>More broadly there are worlds that take 40-odd days to get to from the proximity limit of the star.

Such as? I think 9 or 10 is the highest I've noticed.

>no Bad News
>no The Rock
>no Thurrock
>no Rockwellawan
>no Zorn's Keep
>no Last Chance
>no Land's End
>no Butzfleth

>All this /k/-grade gun knowledge.
>MFW I've never held or fired a working firearm, or seen one fired in person.

I guess suspension of disbelief is a lot easier when you don't know shit about it.

Alula Australis (p. 68, HB: FWL) is a 28-day transit.

Sirius (p. 71, HB: FWL) is actually 47 not 40.

Extremely long transit times are a thing. Most planets take about a week but I'd be surprised if we had data on more than one planet in 50.

I giggled that there was a planet called Eromanga, but later found out that was an actual small town in Australia.

I'm pretty sure ero manga is actually banned in Australia, too.

I don't play the ttg and don't plan to, but i've played the vidya and really dig the lore. what's a good source to learn about battletech lore for someone who can't handle the information overload of sarna.net?

Every single Republic planet as of 3130 is listed so that alone racks up the numbers pretty decently, even though there is a little overlap from older sources for the famous ones like Tikonov, Skye, Stewart and Dieron.

Plus touring the stars and such. It's not as bad as 1/50, but it's still maybe 1/8.

Yup.

Basically, the bigger and heavier the star, the further out you have to be before the gravity is low enough that it won't screw up your hyperspace calculations. Blue giants and binary star systems, for example.

On the flip side, smaller stars' (like red dwarves) jump points tend to be much closer.

>I guess suspension of disbelief is a lot easier when you don't know shit about it.

That's very true.

If you're curious, in the Federated Long Rifle's case, there's a roughly six and a half inch long "bolt carrier group" that moves back and forth as the gun fires inside of AR-15/M-16/M4 Rifles. In the real-world rifles, they move backwards into a tube inside the stock. but the Federated Long Rifle, the stock doesn't line up with the barrel, there's that little divot there.

I'm going to guess, at this point, that the Bolt Carrier Group in a FLR, is made of germanium, and is actually a miniature jump core, vanishing from the rifle before reappearing a moment later when fired.

IIRC the IS is near enough to 1,000 inhabited worlds to use that as a round number.

And that's just for things like transit time or the planetary index ratings. For actual useful data it's a lot less still.

Oh, here, watch this.

youtube.com/watch?v=WSqYvWib1og

BLAKIST PINUP

War criminal of my heart.

The "Universe" pdf from the official site, also packed in the intro box...
d15yciz5bluc83.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/BattleTechUniverseGuide.pdf?x64300

Also, last I checked, selling the rights to a book company during the Fasa days means they can't make new print novels. ePub novels still around. Best to start with the small-unit type stuff focused on a small area. Direct to Warrior trilogy when you don't know the characters would pummel you with new characters you're unfamiliar with.

I feel like the Grey Death Legion books are a good way to cut your teeth. Decision at Thunder Rift is a good start. Don't get spooked by the planetary system technobabble, because that's not a common trend in the books. It was just one of the earliest novels, so they didn't know how much they had to flesh out the planet for us to care.

bg.battletech.com/test/epubs/fiction-e-pub/decision-at-thunder-rift/

>Hell's Horses

Muh Trothkin.

Why not throw out some other clans that need to feel the love - Goliath Scorpion and Coyote are my choices but any of the too cool to live Crusader clans are good too.

Do you have a place with a full collection to see these?

thx buddy

Done any for CNC or Cloud Cobra yet?

>Seriously, I forget, steroids, do they shrink things?

Depends on how you use them and what kinds of steroids.
Follow doctors' advice and no trouble.

Battlebump

I love the fact that you do these. My sole request is to make them wallpaper sized. Even without messing with aspect ratios, there's a lot of pixelation to get them onto a 1920x1080 screen.

Otherwise, I wouldn't presume to tell you what factions to make. All of the ones you've done have been fantastic.

Sure thing. It's not the BEST way to contribute, but at least if people like it it's worth it.

Yep, incoming eventually.

I don't no. Maybe once there's more I'll do an imgur or something.

Not yet; I'm interested in doing CCC for sure. I'll add them to the list.

>wallpaper size
I really should try. It was suggested before too, when I did the CSN, CHH, and LC ones. I'll see about making the next one a prototype widescreen format and if people like it I'll keep with that. I'm not very good at shooping but I'll see what I can do. And thanks man, glad it's appreciated.

List so far:

>Soon
WoB
SLDF
RWR

>After that
ComStar
CNC
CCC
CGS
DC remake
CC remake

I'll try to wallpaper-ize the other ones if I can. I may have to make new ones.

The TC really needs a new pinup, but no hurry

If I could request a Jade Burd one at some point, I'd love to see what you could pull off. I was thinking that finding a hot chick with few clothes and a katana would be easy...but on second thought, finding one that isn't going to be art for L5R and is wearing green might be harder than I thought. Alternatively, I somehow got Ellen Page's Kitty Pryde suggested to me as headcanon artwork for Diana Pryde, and that's basically been stuck in my head every time I read the novels ever since. Grabbing Kitty Pryde pin-up art and doing some color swaps may work well.

I'd also like to second the wallpaper request. Your stuff is excellent, and I think that quality would also be apparent in a larger format. Even if that widescreen thing doesn't work out, though, if you changed your default square size to 1080x1080 (instead of 800x800), people could put border rectangles alongside the edges on their own, and make the square centered in whatever screen size they have.

Finally, I don't necessarily think the MoC needs new one for a while. They already have a couple (pic related, and the red-haired chick in the bikini one), and it's not necessarily fair to the other factions not to do theirs first. The CC and DC ones I agree with, because they're older and using dodgier art, but in general the MoC ones are fine. I don't think the Centrella thing matters; not all the women in the MoC are black, the Centrellas just happen to be so. As long as you look at the pinup and say, "yeah, I think that woman could be from that faction", IMO you're doing fine. That said, if you want to do the MoC one over, then do it over. It's your project, and I'd rather have you motivated than not.

Yeah, it does. I might toss the "cowgirl" thing if I can find a better image to work with. Never really was happy with it.

I'll add Jade Burds to the mix. I'll also see about the 1080x1080 suggestion; whichever one seems to work better. I've made wallpapers before, I'm just rusty. So we'll see what happens.

>art
Art is hard to find. Most art is of a fantasy nature, and while that's great for the FRR and the Jarnfolk, it's not the best for most of the other factions. I do like sifting through art sites to find good stuff though; that's part of the fun. I'll put off on the MoC one for now, then.

Do we have any info on the holdings/touman of the Blood Spirits as of '67 (basically RIGHT before the WoR?)

Also, what absolute dregs do you reckon would be left in the SLDF caches by that point? Aside from Bug Eyes and shitty old drop/jump ships in obscure naval caches, they seem like they'd been pretty throughly picked over by then

I dunno about the SLDF caches, but there would still be TONS of RWR caches since they had hidden factories on uncharted worlds and hid depots everywhere. I'm kinda surprised nobody has used that idea more often. Well, besides the issue that a Merc outfit finding a RWR cache would only use it if desperate given the negative connotations attached to all those designs.

>Also, what absolute dregs do you reckon would be left in the SLDF caches by that point?
I'm assuming you're talking in the clan homeworlds based on the first half of your post. If you're talking inner sphere then the answer is "inexhaustible, as always"
P
What's left would probably be the worse introtech bits like riflemen (clans wouldn't value a dedicated AA machine very much), crusaders (for obvious exploding reasons), bugs, strikers (if they brought any). Old stinger, wasp and pixie LAMs, but stripped for the parts that fit regular mechs, old SLDF tanks, probably. Conventional aircraft, if kerensky brought any, though they'd probably be nonfunctional without a lot of work. Artillery, most likely in the same shape. Almost certainly conventional infantry gear by the regiment worth, too. Maybe some of those PA(L) suits, if you're lucky.
There's also that old cappie WarShip that's still floating in space because nobody's thought it worth fixing.
So very little worth anything to a clan mind unless they were extremely desperate

It'd be interesting if a lot of old SLDF machines ended up in Dark Caste hands.

>Do we have any info on the holdings/touman of the Blood Spirits as of '67 (basically RIGHT before the WoR?)

Field Manual: Updates.

>Also, what absolute dregs do you reckon would be left in the SLDF caches by that point?

Depends on the Clan. The Wolves' are empty, the Falcons should probably be, and so should the Bears.

Given the nature of the Spirits however the only things left in their "caches" should be machines from Clusters that were disbanded for not being able to adhere to the structure Kerensky mandated. Their actual caches should have been emptied long ago.

We must not forget her.

So this is what worst girl looks like

Yeah I gotta say she's pretty trashy. We need some new chicks for the houses, badly.

Fomalhault is actually 43 days. So your transit time from your jump point could be longer than your jump transit. Jesus.

Are there Nova Cat or Smoke Jaguar ones?

What's the old Cappie one? Is there a gallery of these?

Not a pin-up per se, but there's this for the Jags.

>Art is hard to find.

Is it? There was a guy who used to do fictional nose art for planes (or in this case, one of our favourite destroids!) based on famous anime characters. His place was called The Hangar. I imagine that stuff is still around, but maybe the style wouldn't quite be to your liking?