/btg/ Battletech General!

>fuck the purple burd

To answer your question in detail, the first new mech platforms produced by the successor states are as follows:

Gladiator - Dracs
Battleaxe - Davions
Ymir - Lyrans
Firebee - Capellans
Icarus I - Mariks

Praise Blake and pass the thermonuclear warheads.

Hey anons, so this is kinda odd a question to ask, but what Mechs come to your mind when someone says "average" or "mediocre?" Not necessarily "bad" rides, but ones that just... fall flat, either in your experiences as a player, or as mentioned in the fiction?

Praise Blake and pass the thermonuclear warheads
Praise Blake and pass the thermonuclear warheads
Praise Blake and pass the thermonuclear warheads
And we'll all stay free

Praise Blake and swing into position
Can't afford to be a politician
Praise Blake, we're all between perdition
And the deep black sea

Yes the mechwarrior said it
Ya gotta give him credit
For a sonofagun of a gunner was he

Shouting Praise Blake, we're on a mighty mission
All aboard, we ain't a-goin' fishin'
Praise Blake and thermonuclear warheads
And we'll all stay free

Praise Blake and pass the thermonuclear warheads
Praise Blake and pass the thermonuclear warheads
Praise Blake and pass the thermonuclear warheads
And we'll all stay free

Shadow Hawk 2H
Original Phoenix Hawk
Crusader (torso bomb special)
Quickdraw
Ostsol / Ostroc

Phoenix Hawk
Orion
Wolverine

>what Mechs come to your mind when someone says "average" or "mediocre?"

Dragon. Seems like it should do more given its size.

The Quickdraw is like the definitive "meh" mech. It's just so...average. Same with the Whitworth, IMO. They're both very blah.

Agreed that the Dragon is lacklustre. Pitiful weapons, and an engine that is oversized. Would be better with more weapons and less armour. Why bother with anything less than an AC/10 ?

Thanks, what about the periphery states?

>Seems like it should do more given its size.
Well, that's what happens when you mount an AC/5. The 3025 Grand Dragon is actually really nice

Toro - Taurian Concordat
Merlin - Outworlds Alliance
Phoenix (IIRC) - Rim Worlds Republic
I think it's actually the goddamn Anubis - Magistracy Of Canopus

The Taurians made the Toro
The RWR made the Phoenix
The Canopians made... nothing? I think they just rebuilt other people's mechs until like the FedCom Civil War era or something.
The Outworlds made the Merlin.

Rate my OC /btg/

faggot/10

truly the oc we deserve

10/10 would XIN SHENG with.

Quick! You get your choice of a single 3025-era mech to be a lone, freelance mercenary in 3025. No Star League Majyyyks allowed.

Hatchetman, with both MLs in the left arm. Done.

Thunderbolt. A nice beefy trooper, fits in with everyone and everything.

Griffin-1N. Loads of easily-available parts, extremely reliable (so famous for it they were still building 1N's on special order in the 3060's). Enough firepower and enough mobility for most low level gigs.

But most of all, flexibility. As a single freelance merc, you'll likely be working in a lot of larger formations. And there isn't a commander in the Inner Sphere that can't use a Griffin in a lance somewhere that works well.

fug that, Terran Hegemony forever!

Anubis is a Triple Alliance mech. I think the Ebony or something is the Canopian's first.

BLR-1G BattleMaster. Acceptable speed, decent firepower, good armor. All it's missing is jump jets.

It's a tough choice between Black Knight and Warhammer, but I think I'd have to go with the Black Knight just because it doesn't need ammo.

MAD-3M. I have a death wish, and it comes with large lasers.

Awesome-8Q. I like not having a significant chance of loosing my mech to an ammo explosion

>Worried about ammo
>When the actual repair parts are going to be impossible to find

Heh

The PPC Grashopper. Or the Marauder II if I can swing it. Jumping, tough, energy-only.

If you mean the Black Knight, it was retconned to have had at least two factories pumping it out. One in the FWL because reasons and one in the Federated Suns because duh.

>If you mean the Black Knight, it was retconned to have had at least two factories pumping it out. One in the FWL because reasons and one in the Federated Suns because duh.

No. The original factory got fucked in the 1st Succession War and then TRO:3039 retconned it back to hobbled production for another 11 years before being destroyed utterly at the end of the 1st Succession War. Nobody has built them for over two hundred years by 3025.

The Robinson factory isn't built until almost the Fedcom Civil War.

Also it's funny you mention a Grasshopper variant from decades after the question, not to mention the chassis also having a major parts problem as well as the Marauder II that wasn't sold to anyone bu the goons until the 3030's.

Not bad, NS.

Orion ON1-K hands down. It has nearly everything I want in a mech.

If I could personalize it, however, that would be even better.
DHS, 3 JJ's, 4 ML's, No SRM's 12.5t of armor. I'd pilot nothing else.

I mean, if we can have modified mechs I'd take the MAD-3M with a LL instead of the AC/5 and jump jets instead. But then we get into all kinds of custom funkiness.

>DHS in 3025

Two Holy Shrouds weren't enough.

Probably a Marauder-D

The GHR-5N's intro date needs to be back-dated from what MUL says because it's now meant to have been around for some time prior to the War of 3039. It shows up on the RATs for both the Suns and the Dracs.

The Marauder II was available to others in that time frame as well, notably Miller's Marauders.

Fair enough, I thought Connaught and Robinson were always producing.

Wolverine 6M or Thunderbolt 5SE. Both are nicely mobile with mostly energy weapons, thick armor, and spare parts everywhere. Only mods I'd do would be to strip the missiles for less explosive weaponry.

If I can cheat on maintenance somehow, a Grasshopper instead.

3025-ERA mech. Which means it would be a third or fourth succession war mech. And since serialized production DHS were ready in 3041, it beats the next coming era, the clan invasion, by a decade. However, this is all a moot point as I am a mercenary with a 3025-era mech IN 3025. So I hope to fuck I don't die from heat stroke so I can get me my DHS.

It's already been backdated. The original date was 3056 as it was the variant created when they built the new Grasshopper factory. All the info from the TRO:3039/Historical 3039/Sword and Dragon period should be treated as highly suspect in any case. Especially Sword and Dragon as it came from the Never Were Unseen era and retconned stuff like the composition of the Fox's Teeth.

BJ-1.
Yeah, for real. I will gladly bug-hunt all along the Periphery border. Ammo is cheap, and plentiful, and replacement parts are pretty easy to get.

>Quick! You get your choice of a single 3025-era mech to be a lone, freelance mercenary in 3025.
Grasshopper, hands down. Survivable, hard-hitting, suits my combat style. It can also keep rolling with pretty heavy damage, so if I need to get more parts I can still be pulling a paycheck since I'll be some use to the unit. Once I can scrape the cash together, throw some VGLs and a flamer on her and get rid of the LRM, so I can deal with infantry.
If I can't have it (rarity, whatnot), I'd go with what my commanders usually roll in, a TDR-5SE or even a -5S.

Third choice would be a Pixie or Chameleon. Good mix of capabilities and speed, and I do have a decent RL mix of small-unit tactics training and reflexes, plus the memory and repair skill, to get away with running a scout lance.

As far as other good choices go, the Griffin isn't too bad (just buggered in close combat), and the 3025 Cronos is excellent if you can manage to get on the waiting list (at that point the line was still getting started, so they were only doing 2-3 per month out of their garages, almost all as conversions).

Or ever. That's a fucking zombie that gets handed down from one person to the next for hundreds of years, with the last owner getting rinsed out of the cockpit with a hose after one too many COCKPIT HIT, FUCKKING HOT or FELL OVER moments.

Yeah, the 'jack isn't a bad choice. Especially since you can find cheap Flak ammo and play Captain Lawn-Dart if the unit can't afford a Rifleman. Parts aren't too hard to find either.

Thunderbolt 5SE

It's got a lot of upgrade potential too. I'm actually having a lot of fun messing with it at the moment. Hell, the 3050 upgrade would be amazing if it didn't use the SSRM2s and just kept the Medium Lasers.

>budget RFL
Yessiree Bob. It's actually probably meaner than the RFL all told too, given the brawling potential it has, coupled with the heavier armor and JJs.

are you guys ready?

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O-oh, Oh sweet Jesus.

Okay, this just got a LOT better.

I need help user. I've been playing with pic related's set up for Atleast Itsnot's trinary, and I'm debating reforming the star so that the command star is all assaults, but I'm not sure if I should, since each of them has at least some mobility to catch up to fleeing units.

...

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I mean, they're already already murdering shit by the gross lot, why change things up?
also, how much money have these fuckers accumulated? I can only imagine it's billions

Straight from MHQ:

Net Worth................ 12,449,923,396

Assets............... 12,449,923,396
Cash.............. 7,548,875,326
Mechs............. 2,622,910,091
BattleArmor....... 23,913,928
Small Craft....... 143,351,345
Large Craft....... 2,110,872,706
Spare Parts....... 183,606,312

>Large Craft....... 2,110,872,706
do they own a WarShip or something?

You know what, it's fitting that these guys have enough cash on hand that they could just call up the FWL and be like "so, we'd like to buy a Zec. is cash OK?"

That's not enough for a proper warship. MHQ just lumps the 3 Overlords, Mule and the Star Lord into a single category. If you've got the right techs, Quality F bonuses aren't far away.

>MHQ just lumps the 3 Overlords, Mule and the Star Lord into a single category
>a standard regimental transport set-up costs TWO BILLION FUCKING C-BILLS
What in the fuxk?

That's why even proper Successor State units only have jumpship transport for about 1/3 of their forces and why people commandeer civilian jumpships for invasions.

big fucking surprise, pricing for literally everything in battletech except POSSIBLY 3025 mechs and vehicles is a total nonfunctional clusterfuck

There's a reason why /btg/ says any mercenary unit with its own Jumpship is mary sue. I went with the Star Lord because there just isn't a Jumpship that has 4 collars and isn't extinct like the Liberty. Everything's gear for multiples of 3, rather than 4. But yes, spacecraft are stupendously overpriced. I'm saving up for a Texas, and I'm *still* 300 million short.

I personally consider the BJ a superior choice over the Rifleman (the BJ-3 is quite fun, if a bit hot), shame there's no non-Omni version with larger ACs

This. The biggest issue is that as new tech "ages" the Cbill cost remains a constant. It's fucking hilarious how that works. According to FASAnomics, a DVD player that cost $500 in 1996 or so but costs $25 now would instead still cost $500 in 2316.

DropShips got a 7x price increase for literally no reason at one point, and JumpShips also got extra expensive, also for no apparent reason, so keep that in mind

>pricing for literally everything in battletech except POSSIBLY 3025 mechs and vehicles is a total nonfunctional clusterfuck
spacecraft pricing worked in 3025, at least well enough, and infantry pricing also was mostly fine. It was really the introduction of the XL engine where things went off the rails in this department, accelerated into a clusterfuck under fanpro and completely shit the bed later on when CGL decided to completely crash even the tenuously working bits of mercenomics with no survivors in their current round of rules

There is a BJ with twin LAC/5s and twin ER Medium Lasers with a TComp that the Davions get. the BJ-4.

Oh, it's way worse now. You know what the Blackout and Hospice Comstar did to the Cbill? It's worth 4% in 3145 of what it was in 3130. That's less than twenty-five cents in today's money. The legendary stability is dead, and we have basically nothing to replace it with.

The Stone is in the toilet since 3135. The other Housebills aren't much better. The Kroner used to be strong before the Lyrans double clanfucked themselves. The Eagle is too new to be stable. Nobody outside Capellan space uses the Cha Ching. The Dracs are really the only people with a good currency but I don't expect that to last.

>inb4 the new standard is the Kerensky
Fucking Clan Space Jew

I just use GM mode to set up a negative money asset to basically cut the cost of all dropships and jumpships in half to adequately represent a more reasonable asset.

Yes user, come to the Kerensky side. We have TONS of great deals. Drawfags, I need a picture of a Diamond Shark rubbing its fins together.

But I make 64 million C-bills a month on this contract. Why should I not pay full price?

Hanse H. Davion, my body is so ready for this.

I personally just run any attempts at buying them during a game under the old DS&JS rules, and since I'm not using pay by percentage, I don't care how AtB tracks their cost

>that guy last thread saying X Wing is a bad game
>Same guy implying AeroTech is better than X Wing

How does it feel to be so wrong?

I mean, X-Wing is fun and all, but it's a very different scope of game.

It's like I'm back in 2003

I dunno. I've never played X-Wing so I have no dog in that fight.

I do like AT though.

A while ago I said I was going to work up something that could beat a Leviathan II. Here it is.

There are a couple of caveats, however. It doesn't carry as many ASFs internally unless you want to load ASF into Small Craft bays. Which you can do, but with the new ECM rules having Small Craft supporting your ASF squadrons is a big boost. OTOH, there are 18 DS collars so you can bring another 6 Vengeances with it and make up the difference with over a hundred to spare.

The SI is lower but the arcs that will generally be hit have been up-armoured to account for the difference. The exception is Aft, which had to be trimmed to protect the Nose and Sides.

The weapon bays are biased to ballistics at the front with High-Speed Engagements in mind. If you can get the NGRs and NACs to connect you stand a decent chance of cracking through a Lev's armour and killing it through SI. Thanks to how insane 1,000 armour per facing is that's also the most likely way you'll kill one even using something that's as flagrantly bullshit as this.

It is *possible* to make a more bullshit ship, but the range to do so is pretty narrow. There's always the standby of going all-out on DSes (so you can have more Vengeances....) but in terms of capital weaponry there's not a lot more you could do. 70 KT disappears real fast and the benefits are arguable if you actually intend the ship to see use. 70 KT will see you through a year's cruise for the ship itself but you
ll need outside help for the fighters. But after allocating 6 collars to Vengeances and 6 to Interdicotrs you still have another 6, which can all go to Mammoths or half to Mammoths and the remainder to troop transports or the like.

TL; DR: This ship is designed to be obnoxious from the ground up and is the biggest thing you can build. Even so it's only *marginally* better than the Leviathan II in a straight fight.

...

You're a lot more than 300 million short, CA. The K-F gear on a Texas is almost 12.5 billion after the cost changes from StratOps.

Those changes were needed, BTW. The fluff talks about WSes being ridiculously expensive and their loss representing incredible amounts of cash.

But the old prices for them were way under that. I think a McKenna would set you back ~10 3050-era asault 'Mech regiments. Which is a fair outlay, but is one of the most expensive ships going and one far beyond the ability of the Houses to construct at any point.

Neg, sibkin.

This is the correct response to light 'Mechs.

youtu.be/P2RO6lo84Hc?t=2m8s
Blake's Light best answer

"Blake''s holy light: Don't just say yes, say Erinyes."

Straight out of MHQ, user. I'm not going for the Clan version, I'm going for the classic space dildo.

>melee confirmed for Hairbrained BattleTech game
What a time to be alive.

Now if they give us glorious pushes and charges, it will be best day.

Supposedly they wont - they worried that too many choices would cause problems. They were already striving to make shooting as lightweight a system as possible and didn't want melee to have the same complexity. They were also worried that with so many options there would always be sub-optimal choices that experienced wouldn't use and that inexperienced players would use and regret.

What did your Star Commander there do to end up in an Inner Sphere mech?

He didn't move fast enough to get back to the Mad Cat I was repairing. So now it's a Clan techified Falconer. I don't have any IS tech units beyond my chief Admin's laser Swayback.

Yeah, that ain't right. Here's spreadsheet output for the actual costs. Final amount is 13,636,212,000 C-Bills.

I don't know what MHQ is doing with its cost formulae but it definitely isn't in-line with the StratOps values.

That's a shame. Being able to displace things comes in extremely handy sometimes.

Probably running off of "No one gives a fuck about Aero costs anyway, so why worry?" It's not like it's a serious game where I'm worried about matching canon anyway.

I'm leery of the melee being context sensitive only. There are times I'd prefer to kick someone rather than punch them.