2016-12-06 - /btg/ Battletech General!

BattleTech, duh. Heavy Gear is fine and all, but its got nothing on BT.

Do you like your robots medium or large?

So I've been looking into the novels and I'm starting to think that if they ever made a BattleTech movie series it would be the Camacho's Caballeros books that would adapt the best.

Think about it:
>female lead
>mixed culture but predominately Latino merc regiment
>set in Space Japan
>some politics but main focus is Everyman type characters
>smaller scale conflicts

I think it would be a hit. Who would play Cassie Suthorn and Uncle Chandy?

The sarath is a quad omni

Heavy Gear is really just Armored Troopers VOTOMs but westernized

Yeah, the only quad omni in the entire game

That actually does sound pretty cool

I know nothing about Heavy Gear. Is the armor paper thing like is demonstrated in Votoms?

Then what is the Balius?

>no trooper medium omnis

the centurion Omni weeps.

it has an XL. I was talking about a SFE trooper

It would definitely resound with changing demographics.

MLP bait.

Strider.

It's shit though.

Whirrrrrrrrrr Clack

Yes

Maybe that girl from the remake of True Grit?

>Strider.
>It's shit though.
I wouldn't call it a trooper, but yeah, it's shit

Something I try so hard to forget I actually did

Why is it shit? SHS?

>Why is it shit? SHS?
that's about the size of it. also stuffing the endo crits into the side torsos, making them annoying to use.
plus, it's probably the one time where an omni without an XL SHOULD have an XL, so the engine weight is a bit of a problem

If she's the lead they get my CBills

MASSIVE QUESTION worthy of a little caps lock.
Is the FASAnomics so screwed that a Succession Wars-style, Civilization-style can't be made?
I ask this because of one thing: XL engines. Would it be more cost effective in later eras in a strategy game where you manage an economy and purchase / build mechs to buy about 2 mechs with a regular engine and heavy armor against one overly expensive XL engine mech? I have been pondering this for a while and figured it would be impossible to have a command & control economy where you make factories, design your own mechs or use classics, then garrison your world or attack others at your discretion.
I initially thought the idea of being in charge of a lone world with an economy you manage, purchase or get assigned units, and work your way up until you launch attacks against neighboring house worlds, or just deal with attacks from others and pirates would have been great, but the economy is kind of screwed.
It's kind of the BV issue where if someone buys a massive load of Savannah Masters and loads up against a similar BV mech it would just be not fun or balanced properly.
Does this question make sense to anyone? I really wondered if it would ever be possible to make a computer version with internet capability of the Succession Wars game set.

Battletech's biggest problem with creating a Civilization styled game is that prices are kept static pretty much forever. You'd think in the early to mid 3060s that XLFEs would drop to about half of their initial price, but nope. Or that XXL engines in the DA wouldn't make mechs an eye watering 100 million C-bills.

>Is the FASAnomics so screwed that a Succession Wars-style, Civilization-style can't be made?
it depends entirely on what level of abstraction you are using
>I ask this because of one thing: XL engines. Would it be more cost effective in later eras in a strategy game where you manage an economy and purchase / build mechs to buy about 2 mechs with a regular engine and heavy armor against one overly expensive XL engine mech?
the answer is yes, obviously, if you use C-bills as a measure of what can and can't be built. A SFE 100 ton assault mech with two gauss rifles and nasty secondaries is gonna cost less than most XL mediums, it's just the nature of the beast.
at a more abstract level, it doesn't matter, because at that level individual designs don't matter

using C-bills as a measure of what can be build it idiotic, is the thing.
if you used a much more abstract "production points" or whatever, you can tweak those costs to produce the results you want while totally circumventing FASAnomics

Thanks. I also ask because the concept, if it was viable would lead to lots of min/maxing munchin play.
I figured a bit that the C-Bill thing was a stumbling block, but I just wanted some better opinions.

yeah, something based more on production capacity would also have the nice side effect of reducing the prospect of vehicle spam, too.
it's also going to be important not to tie whatever production system you use not to straight counts of 'factories' or 'production lines', because Inner Sphere In Flames made that mistake and it was a total dumpster fire

Did they ever give a reason for Janos' forehead tatt?

It looks baller

I feel caught between the Draconis Combine and Capellan Confederation.

The Combine feels like the main foil to the "good guy" factions, while the Confederation feels attractive as an underdog faction.

For fans of either here, why did you pick the one you did?

>For fans of either here, why did you pick the one you did?

I didn't pick either, because I'm not a race apologist. If you're white, then you should be going for an ethnically appropriate faction like the Lyrans or Davions. Just like if you're male, then you shouldn't play MOC.

>My god, the SJWs around here are getting out of control.

depends on the era mang.
in 3025-58 or so, the CapCon is pure underdog, and the dracs were theoretically the actually dangerous ones.

thing is, after 60, the CapCon starts to rev up into protagonist gear with XIN SHENX XIN SHENG magic until they're probably the dominant IS power by the Dark Age, and the Dracs get relentlessly fucked up starting after maybe 60 or so, and going into maximum gear somewhere around 67, and only slightly letting up in the DA.
I kinda like the dracs better overall, but I'm just saying you should be ready to get shit on as the timeline advances

Go C*/WoB and fuck everyone over. Want to play a period before C* showed off the ComGuard? Pull false flag ops and get the houses punching each other. Also don't forget to make them pay their phone bill.

I like the CapCon because I like the Raven, really. And they're great underdogs, and you have no idea how satisfying Dark Age feels as a result.
Cappies get some really nice mechs in the 3060s as well.

If trying to make an OmniMech in MegaMekLab, is there any way to make a piece of equipment a 'base' part of the Mech included all Omni configs?

I know in SSW you install it into the base chassis before you lock it. I don't use MML so I can't tell you but it might be similar.

You make a "Base" configuration like it's the Heavy Metal Pro days. So for the Avatar, you'd make an empty configuration save those CT mounted Medium Lasers.

I was a CapCon fan for a long time, and Xin Sheng drove me away. I don't subscribe to any faction now. But if you plan on playing 3rd Succession War till about 3060 they are pretty good for being the underdog. I liked the uphill battles, so I chose them. But like I said, I abandoned them when they got all that Chinese Nationalist Magic bullshit. Your results may vary.

Alright. I'm considering the earlier challenge in the thread, making a trooper medium, an Omni-Griffin or something, and just what to approach(like who or why the Mech is getting produced).

Personally I still make designs in SSW because MML is clunky at the best of times. I only port to MML to take advantage of the correct BV calculations and new equipment.

Have they finished IO yet, or is it still in open beta?

Went hardcover in July

There a PDF up? I just see the beta in the MF, want to see if it's worth investing in a hard copy.

Full version should be up on MF. J Blake archives, under Rules. Should have IO beta and final.

Cool, didn't want to pull down the 378 without making sure they were in there first.

>trooper medium Omni
Sounds fun, but why hardwired equipment? Flavor reasons? Planning to just make the core weapons fixed then leaving like ~6 tons of pod space to customize electronics and the backup weapons?

Actually, I was just concerned about keeping criticals consistent across models. I was considering some hardwired equipment, but about the only thing was a quirk that the CASE II for the Mech was only in the left torso.

If it had DHS you could duplicate the weapons loadouts of a lot of the 3025-era mediums, plus or minus Jump Jets.

But it has SHS, so you can't.

The thing that makes me shake my head the most at the Drac Omnis is the fact that there are more Mediums (Strider, Firestarter, Blackjack) than any other class. And this from the faction that dislikes Mediums and focuses on Heavies and Lights.

Lyran.

Money isn't a problem, but you're surrounded by idiots.

Is there any disadvantage at all to loading up on Swarm-i ammo? Does it work indirectly?

Not being Tournament Legal is the biggie, plus the fact that they're expensive for campaign play. And yes, they can be fired indirectly. As a Mercenary you're incredibly unlikely to get a hold of them.

I dunno, the novels had the Eridani Light Horse equipped with them.

The FWL seems to have been stingy with S-G ammo but iSwarm apparently got out.

So you're comparing one of the biggest and most well respected mercenary groups to some C- rated bunch of shmucks? Anyway, I'm not saying you couldn't get a hold of them, but most factions have a hard enough time keeping in standard munitions for all their troops, let alone specialized stuff like Swarm-i.

Short version:
Do you like shitloads of AC/20s and EWAR? Combined arms and weirdo kitbashed merc forces? Think Assaults are for pussies? Go CapCon

How about PPCs with single heat sinks and ALL MECH ALL THE TIME? (Okay, so the Azami don't count). Are you a weeaboo? Maybe Dracs are your thing.

I kind of grew up with the Dracs being main bad guys from the Crescent Hawk's Inception. The caps seem to mentally unstable to me and I don't like playing the underlings of nut cases.
Plus Jenners, Grand Dragons and Panthers.

>dat nostalgia
Will we ever get more Crescent Hawk's games?

Only 2 games ever released, 1st got RPG element + table top battle element, while 2nd one is more toward tactical table top battle.

Marik duder here. I started as more of a Clan Wolf kinda guy, but I grew to love the conflicted aspects of the FWL. Plus they're great for RPG campaigns, as they're kind of ignored compared to other factions for shenanigans afoot (WoB aside).

I played the hell out of the first one as a kid. I knew enough about early BT that roaming around fighting what ended up being multiple battalions of bugs in small units wasn't possibly canon. (I literally hit over 300 mechs with my Chameleon, upgraded Commando and upgraded Stinger.) Don't ask me the level of OCD I suffer to have known that. Life is suffering.
Will we ever get anything from the destroyed Blazing Aces?

So, I tried to make a 3080s trooper Omni medium, complete with six configs. I have no clue if any of these are serviceable, or if this would just be an over-expensive hangar queen.

Never get my hands on Jenner (usually appeared in Arena when you decided to hijack it by blasting the audience to oblivion) or Urbie.

Kristin Kreuk could do Cassie, she has the ethnic background down. I also nominate Rebecca Romijn for Kali (tall blonde), Margot Robbie for that Mechwarrior lady with the teddy bear and Rifleman, Tsuyoshi Ihara (of the awesome 13 Assassins and the decidedly shitty Nina) as Buntaro Mayne, someone square-jawed and buzz-cut from any recent action film as Cowboy, and since it's about the 'lleros, we can't forget Michelle Rodriguez who could be that Raven pilot.

And since this is about plotting in Space Japan, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is bound to appear as someone evil, possibly a Black Dragon.

Prime is Ballistic Thud/10. Seems fine. Config A is a Thug meant for streetfighting, apparently. Not really very "trooper", honestly. B being a better Griffin is fine. I was going to say it might rather have an ERPPC in place of the twin LPPCs but actually, I think the fact that it's heat neutral is nice. Again, not very trooper-y, but I guess Omnis by definition can't really fit into a "role" very well, since they can pretty much do whatever. C feels like a fat Enforcer and that's alright too. D... eh. I feel like the AMS is a waste here, and you would be better served ditching it and the LPPCs for an ERPPC. And I think, unlike with the B, that'd be an actual improvement. Could swap the leftover half ton for a Remote Sensor Dispenser, given its EW loadout. E is just strange. I don't know what you're trying to have it do. Scout hunting? It should have Precision ammo then. but 10 shots per gun is really anemic. You might want to replace the LAC/5s and ammo with more pulse weaponry instead at that rate. Or something that punches holes for the Streaks at least.

Also, I think it'd feel more like a trooper if it had JJs by default, but that might just be me.

Gauss Rifle on C config needs to be in the left arm, so that the CASE can channel the blast out if it gets detonated.

>Also, I think it'd feel more like a trooper if it had JJs by default, but that might just be me.

You're not wrong. All medium troopers should be air mobile.

>And since this is about plotting in Space Japan, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is bound to appear as someone evil, possibly a Black Dragon.

I forget if it's early enough for it or not but he would be good for Takashi.

Also Sanada Hiroyuki as Theodore.

Captcha: Tongue Dawn

OK. Bring me Michelle Trachtenberg, let's do this.

Digging the Pocket Thug A config.

I am confused. If there is only 25 tons of pod space available, how can 26 tons of equipment fit on A config?
6 x 2 (Snubs) = 12 + 9 (2 xStreak SRM6s) = 21 + 2 tons ammo = 23 + 3 DHS = 26.

Why is there a Templar III but no Templar II? Or is the Pendragon effectively the second version of the Templar?

There's a lot of Drac tech and mechs from they era that look like they'd fit in better originating from other factions, like maybe the FWL coming through with its Outreach war material agreements.

It looks like several of the configurations do 26 tons when the profile says only 25.

Ugly as fuck.

I agree. 2/10 would not allow to pilot my Banshee-S topless.

The Omnis themselves would make a fuck of a lot more sense coming from the FedCom too.

I mean, the Dracs can't build DHS properly at that stage but can reproduce Omni tech in the space of six months or so? Give me a frigging break.

And I say that as a Drac fan too.

Yeah I'd have said FedCom but since everything was coming from them then I thought making them Outreach Agreement gear from the FWL would balance things. Plus at least the Mariks would use DHS.

It's just retarded fluff. Either they should have been fine with making DHS or they shouldn't have been building Omnis.

The problem with assigning Omni tech to the FWL is that they had neither a rep for technological prowess and no Clan Omnis. The FedCom (particularly the Suns) has both. And is capable of replicating Clan tech by the mid-50s, albeit in small batches... which is still a million times better than what anyone else could do.

But hey. FASA's gonna FASA, what can you do?

fedSuns can't into number 2

FWL then had been given Clan omnis and tech to work on, and according to the retcons with tech they weren't really any worse off than the Dracs for a starting point. Plus the Outreach agreement had both the Dracs and FedCom giving them things to build war material.

The same reason there is no Leisure Suit Larry 4, because reasons.

Replicating it myself in SSW, it bumps up to 26 tons free when you lock the chassis, and will go back to 25 if you unlock it.

Seems to be some bug the fixed CASE II is causing, when I yank that it stays fine, even if using fixed standard CASE.

Once upon a time, there was a collectable game called Mechwarrior Dark Age. This game made the Templar III before the Templar I was even in a proper Tech Readout. It just had a blurb in Field Manual Federated Suns at that point.

They also did this with the Vulture III, Enforcer III and probably something else I'm forgetting.

/btg/ can you please help me remember the title of a game that I used to play in mid 2000's that was heavily inspired on Battletech?

>>freeware distribution (probably pre-release), I had the install file on an hard-disk that failed
>>the premise was that you were condemned into playing in a gladatorial league
>>the game was 2d, with an hexagon-map, each hexagon its own height and land type (swap, plains, forest, rock, etc.)
>>mechs have different sizes, you start with a one-on-one with the lightest of them, then the game progress in team combat, where you manage a team of long range, mid-range and melee against another team of similar worth
>>you pay to recruit other pilots, buy the mechs, repair the damage, upgrade components, create your own designs, etc.
>>pilots start without skills and gain levels, when the mech is destroyed you must take care of extracting the pilot before he or she dies
>>weapons include cannons, machine-guns, lasers, rockets, lasers that bypass the mach and damage only the pilot, an array of melee options, etc.
>>as I remember it, it really didn't show any title at startup, it was downloaded from something like cnet or the likes when internet was younger

The Enforcer III is more obvious at least, since only two Enforcer models exist prior to it, the ENF-4R and ENF-5D. So the 5D is the II, though the fact that it was never referred as still makes the 6M's III label odd.

And the other thing you're forgetting is probably the Jagermech III, though this instance the weirdness is the JM7 series aren't called the Jagermech II given they're 70 tons, since weight changes are usually one instance a II gets slapped on something.

The JM7 are the Jagermech II. I forget where it's mentioned but it is canon that the heavier chassis is the II. DA didn't have the Jagermech at all.

I was probably thinking Madcat III but the II for that was released about the same time.

Unfortunately Takashi's dead by the time of the first Caballeros novel, but Cary-Hiroyki would make a great Takashi though. However, you'd need someone to explain the beef between the Black Dragons and Teddy K's reformers for the great unwashed, and he'd make a fantastic Black Dragon. Or Subhash Indrahar, perhaps.

However, I'd further nominate Benicio del Toro as Col Camacho and Bernardo Saracino as Gavilan.

Yes, but that it isn't actually called the Jagermech II is the weird part given the weight change. And the Jagermech III still has the JM6 model number which also seems bizarre.

Kind of a pet peeve for me, like how the Atlas II and III are both AS7s, but the AS8-D is just an Atlas. But then BT doesn't have much consistency in regards to model designation anyways, even the thing with the letter noting the great house that made a particular variant isn't 100%.

...

Oh pls no, the Caballero books were the fucking worst next to the alien book. Fuck off

>kind of like the Atlas II, Titan and Rampage
>They're only Starleague era, anywhen else is never ever tier
>There's the atlas -RS, but no one tried to update that variant with newer tech

You know, it's difficult to find the "just right" assault, when there's better options as heavies
Thank Blake for the evergreen Highlander at least

I'd like to see Ken Watanabe in it.

I'd like advice on designing omnimechs, please. I'm working on a pair set for 3067 and going into the Jihad.

When's the right time to use things like
>endo-steel
>ferro-fibrous armor
>light fusion engines
etc?

Should stuff like ECM be essentially standard going into that era? Is it a good idea to minimize any "fixed" equipment like jumpjets or C3?