/btg/ Battletech General!

The one thing I love about the RPG is that you can do /exactly that/. You don't all have to play jock MechWarriors kicking ass across the galaxy. If you want to play a game of traders in the BT-verse, that's totally kosher and there's dozens of ways to spin that in.

>I need to stop salvaging dammit.

No, you just need to hire more pilots.

Wouldn't that pretty much be an off-brand Marauder with a rocket launcher in place of the recoilless?

>Two Daishis and just a massive amount of expensive monsters.
What campaign have you been fighting to have come away with such a nice haul? You have Daishis IN RESERVE! Wow.
What are you currently fielding that you ignored Daishis and some of those heavy hitters? I need to know this.

Daishis are too slow, but too fun to get rid of.

>I have to kill fast but Daishis too slow

Sweet Omi Kurita, and I thought I was well off this time around.

Look in the "M"s and you'll see why...

An entire trinary of Mad Cats...
Almost an entire trinary of Ryokens...
Dat list
I'm not counting all that, but it looks like you have somewhere around two full battalions of piloted mechs on duty. Are you using a NASA super computer to play Megamek with all that firepower? What's the maximum number of participants you have done on a mission?
What campaign are you running?
>I am a little astounded.

>more Timber Wolf mechs than Clan Wolf had in Operation Revival
top kek

What's with all the macross in this thread, I thought you guys hated weeb shit

Some of the original unseen mechs came from Macross, Fang of the Sun Dougram and Crusher Joe. It's just a silly thing. Some of us love the old unseen no matter where they came from. My first experience with the art actually came from the 2nd Edition box set before I even knew what a Macross, Dougram or Crusher Joe was. I didn't even know what anime was.

I consider the Blackjack superior to the Rifleman
Also, is possible to make a Rifleman variant capable of emulating it's destroid equivalent (with torso missiles)?

There actually are 15 Ryokens, just one of my pilots was in a Centurion AH at the time I got it, so free upgrade! Also I have a full 108 pilots on active duty, with another 15 on reserve in case of KIA or serious injury, plus 14 ASF, and 10 stars of Elemental bondsmen.

>Are you using a NASA super computer to play Megamek with all that firepower? What's the maximum number of participants you have done on a mission?
Nah, just not throwing down every unit possible. As for the most I've used, 35 mechs on my side, plus 45 on the bot's. It took about 6 hours for the game to finish, even with individual initiative, because the bot just had so many units to use.

>What campaign are you running?
The "Holy shit, 60% salvage in 3050 with elite pilots against Green Clanners in A rated gear" campaign. My first 6 missions netted me a star of Omnimechs.

Considering since 3050, my unit has destroyed 15 galaxies worth of Clan forces, we're in some bizarre alternate timeline where the Falcons, seeing that these mercenaries JUST WON'T DIE, throw their entire IS touman at them, and lose all five galaxies in 3051.

I don't mean this in a sarcastic or trolling way, but does it seem to anyone else like the Capellan Confederation has become the "main" faction of the story for BT now? Even looking at all their new toys in TRO 3145 it just seems like they are what the Federated Suns was in 3025.

A far, far cry from the beaten and demoralized force they were in 3025.

Do you guys think the trend of Liao ascending will quit any time soon?

Why shouldn't a nation be completely different after 120 years?

I didn't like them as a nation in the 3025-3063 era, but I did like their mechs for some reason. Catapults just have a special place in my heart, I guess.

>Also, is possible to make a Rifleman variant capable of emulating it's destroid equivalent (with torso missiles)?

Sure, if you increase the tonnage and/or use Clan tech.

I prefer to keep it bad, mad, and still interesting because of that though. YMMV.

>Why shouldn't a nation be completely different after 120 years?
In BattleTech change often seems a hard thing to come by. The Suns, Combine and Commonwealth are culturally, politically and militarily rather stoic. Only the FWL changed as much as the Confederation, and it had to die first.

>Do you guys think the trend of Liao ascending will quit any time soon?

From a story and fan perspective it would be nice if things moved on to the FWL and Dracs for a while and for something to resolve what's going on with the Lyrans, preferably with them making some ground against the Falcons when Malvina bites the dust and all her stupid bullshit comes back to haunt the Falcons.

However, one of the company owners and primary writers is a mega-fan of the Capellans and Capellan fans are the second-largest group of fans overall. Given that it's hard to see them facing any major reversals or being shuffled out of the limelight.

just can't hate Ravens and Catapults

>I thought you guys hated weeb shit

Some of us go back further than that, user. BattleDroids/Battletech owes its origins to anime.

>I didn't like them as a nation in the 3025-3063 era, but I did like their mechs for some reason. Catapults just have a special place in my heart, I guess.
I like their mechs, but what really got me into the faction is an admittedly weird bit of coincidence.

The CapCon is the only faction in all of BT I've ever found a character with either my last name or my mother's maiden name. I didn't even consider either surname to be particularly uncommon, but of the myriad surnames we've seen characters possess those of my own family never showed up.

So I decided to go Liao.

I looked everywhere and only found the Archer (Spartan) and the Warhammer (Tomahawk) had torso missiles. The Rifleman (Defender) was mainly a direct fire gunner. Might you be thinking of one of the others?
Also a few months ago I made Macross versions of three of those four mechs and another of the Macross II version of the Longbow (Phalanx.) I needed Clan tech to fit all the torso SRMs and made it look animation perfect.

Alright guys.
Year is 3039.

Your mercenary group has just successfully defending a yet un-named battlemech factory world from being conquered the enemy faction. No damage has come to the manufacturing lines but the cost has been extreme on your mechs and materials. Most of your pilots have survived but are now dispossessed.

Out of gratitude the company's board has agreed to issue your pilots new mechs as they come off the line. There are stipulations, however, you must:
A) Agree to use the company's designs exclusively for the next 20 years

B) Have the company logo integrated into your unit's insignia

C) Be assigned a PR team that accompanies you on your future missions. They will record your combat actions for sales purposes. You MUST keep them from harm and get them home even at the cost of your own personnel.

What planet did you fight on?
What company did you protect?
What designs are you using to refill your rosters?

>where the Falcons, seeing that these mercenaries JUST WON'T DIE, throw their entire IS touman at them

I bet these two are the Khan and the saKhan of the Falcons in this AU.

I would say Cosara, because I love Krebs in all forms, but then I'd also get stuck promoting Targes. Do we get to make recommendations due to field testing?

>Do we get to make recommendations due to field testing?
Yes but there is no guarantee that they will be listened to. On the other hand, you merc's field modifications and refits may make it into movies, commercials, and in various industry and hobby publications.

Gonna be hard to go past Defiance Hesperus there.

Archer, Atlas, Banshee, Enforcer*, Flashman, Goliath*, Griffin, Hatchetman, Sentinel*, Valkyrie* and Zeus. Not sure when they get the asterisked ones but the rest are a pretty solid core to work with.

If you really want to be a smart-ass about it, some Norse-Storm factory so you can go HUE HUE HUE and gausswall your way to victory.

Prescient knowledge would also favour Luthien due LAW but it's hard to imagine a scenario where Luthien would be under serious threat or relying on mercs for defence.

First things first:

>NOT Quickscell

With that out of the way, I'm gonna say the planet is Wallis, the company is Ronin Inc, and see pic related to see what I'm gonna be using.

Also, let's see how many cases of "Defiance" you get.

how come fucking Defiance wasn't nuked from Hesperus yet? its literally the biggest Steiner factory and it survived a kajillion invasions.

at some point someone really must think: "fuck this shit nuke it"

>its literally the biggest Steiner factory

There's your reason. Everyone who comes calling wants to make it their biggest factory. Nuking the Myoo Mountains into the Myoo Crater would be counterproductive to that goal.

>how come fucking Defiance wasn't nuked from Hesperus yet? its literally the biggest Steiner factory and it survived a kajillion invasions.

Maybe they defend it ever the moreso because of that. Nukes can be nasty!

>We didn't attack a Lyran factory! We just used our nukes on the caverns below the factory! We totally obeyed the Ares convention!

That's reasonable, I found myself oddly attracted to the FWL simply because they named a planet after me.

Why I gave away my fanpro/wizkids box and rebought the older version 2nd hand.

Is battletech a war board game or a tabletop war game? How would you define the difference?

Yes.

It qualifies as a historical hex and chit, a miniatures game, and a reskinned naval simulation.

So it's both a board game and a miniature war game?

I would call it essentially a future-historical wargame, and also a board game that can but doesn't have to be played with miniatures.
It kind of lives in a weird category nearly on it's own, very little else quite like it

Wouldn't hero clix or heroscape be in a similar catagory though because of their uses of game mats and a tile based movement system?

When you intro duce it to people do you introduce it has a war board game or a miniature war game?

What do you guys think of the Ostroc?

K-Kendall?

Ost/10. The Ostsol edges it out because there's no ammo. If the Ostroc was a sniper to the Ostsol's brawler, it'd feel more distinct.

I don't know what I'm reading here...

What's your favorite dead regiment?

I like the Kathil Uhlans.

I can't figure out what the one with the pompadour is supposed to be. Help me out.

Also, post comics if you got 'em.

It's a Hermes II.

Nah, they only share the hex grid with battletech, which a shitton of games do. Only thing battletech has in common with heroclix is that there was once a miserable and evil battletech spinoff using that system.
A wargame 100%. Unless you're using the very rarely used gridless mini rules, miniatures are literally only in the game as tokens, comparable to the cardboard chits used in many other wargames

>Also, is possible to make a Rifleman variant capable of emulating it's destroid equivalent (with torso missiles)?
Given that the other designs with torsos like that have RLs in canon, yeah. Strip the MLs in the torso and give it a pair of RL-15s in the slots. The Defender just uses those for ammo storage though.

Well, my mother's maiden name is a pseudonym, father's is one of the most common in the world, and the great-grandparents are "Butson", "Cundy", and "Gorman". So...

>What do you guys think of the Ostroc?
It's okay. Gets better in the Civil War and Jihad. Prefer the Ostsol and Ostwar though.

>miniatures are literally only in the game as tokens, comparable to the cardboard chits used in many other wargames
Couldn't that be said about most other miniature wargames like warhammer or infinity?

>A wargame 100%. Unless you're using the very rarely used gridless mini rules,
Why would gridless mini rules for battle tech make it no longer a wargame? Did you mean to call it a boardgame?

>Gorman
How many drops is this for you, user?

Yes. This guy keeps using the words together so I got slightly twisted
Well, battletech doesn't have WYSIWYG rules like warhammer and probably infinity(I don't know because I don't play it) have, and under the regular rules they don't matter for LoS, either

Can someone explain to me how infantry transport works? I'm trying to work out what sort of space and how much of it I need to move different types of BA around.

What particular aspect of it has you confused?

Also, is this for infantry bays in DropShips or infantry compartments in vehicles?

>How many drops is this for you, user?
all four sets of great-Grandparents on Dad's side immigrated from Ireland, great-Grandpa Gorman was a Senator and judge in North Dakota. Family moved out West in the Dust bowl, most of us settled in Oregon and some went to Washington.

>Couldn't that be said about most other miniature wargames like warhammer or infinity?
In Infinity specifically the silhouette system they use means that yeah, technically they're counters. But the Warhams and most other minis wargames use the model itself for LoS.

Under normal rules, each BA takes a ton of transport capacity in a vee. Advanced rules make it so that you actually need the appropriate number of tons based on the BA itself, which makes hauling 'Zooches less fun and Nighthawks much more useful. Or you can just get an Omni, at which point things get weird.

Because unlike other moeshit otakus made today, Macross was actually very good. Who doesn't love a space Top Gun with transforming mechs.

And it has kickass soundtracks.

Just say thirty-eight... simulated.

Kell Hounds

>but then I'd also get stuck promoting Targes.

Dude, *3039*. You'd have over a century before having that problem.

purple burd muthafucka

Derp, right. I always was an asshole about that.

Night Stalkers

vehicles. The range of weights is just confusing me - there are vees with 1 ton, three tons, 4 tons, 6 tons, eight tons, and so on. Which ones can I put my BA in? Can i take a unit with 3 BA to put in a 3-ton vehicle compartment? etc.

here, missed So there's no limit on dudes, just weight? So I can have one assault BA or four light BA in the same space?

In the stock rules, you can have 4 BA of any type in a single 4-ton infantry compartment. In advanced rules, you can only have however many BA will fit per tonnage -- so in that same scenario, 4 Mediums (1T each) would fit there, or 2 Assaults (2T each), or even 10 of the Exoskeleton/PAL type.

Intro date was 3081, so yeah. Technically 42 years, but I may have also missed the 20 year part of the sponsorship deal.

Are light mechs completely useless? It seems like vehicles could do all their roles cheaper and better. Kind of like how modern armies don't use light tanks anymore.

Light mechs are still tougher and have advantages like jump jets, moving through woods, etc. Basically, the motive types that can go fast have heavy limitations that Light mechs get around.

Does it really make sense to send a light mech to scout out an area?

Wouldn't a satellite, an aerospace fighter, a vtol, or simply a squad of commandos, always be a better choice?

Hyper Entropic Warfare pls go. Stay go, and have your entire planet turned into a shitty Xin Sheng ripoff.

what?

>Wouldn't a satellite, an aerospace fighter

Well, different planets have different atmospheric conditions so possibly there is cloud cover which could prevent that, but spysats should be the first choice in intelligence gathering.

>a vtol, or simply a squad of commandos, always be a better choice?

Definitely. VTOLs if you just need to see an area right now, Stealth BA or just regular special forces if you have time and need more intel than that.

>Wouldn't a satellite
Maybe, but they're EXTREMELY vulnerable to ASFs and not great for observing large areas, so they wouldn't be very useful except in certain specialist applications
>an aerospace fighter,
Rare, expensive and easy to kill with even a modicum of AA assets
>a vtol
Actually used for recon a lot, but still extremely vulnerable
>or simply a squad of commandos
Used sometimes, but very vulnerable to mech or vehicles, and also pretty slow-moving

Light mechs seem too expensive to risk on something like that.

Light mech regiments seem ungodly stupid as a concept. Look how the Daviob Light Guard got beat to shit and reduced to like a company tops at the battle of New Syrtis.

Hyper Entropic Warfare was the creation of a complete madman who thought he had the most optimal way to ever do in-universe battletech warfare.

iirc (And I could be wrong, it's been a long time) it involved a LOT of 'Wins hearts and minds' and Pulse Lasers, hot dropping into cities.

Because cityfighting is GREAT for civilians liking you.

Light mechs are more used in a kind of recon-in-force/harassment role.

If you have those assets available, sure. There's a shitload of times you don't though.

Satellites - dependent on control of the planet, and even then they can be destroyed by ASFs.
ASFs - Gotta have 'em to use em, and many elements don't. Even if you do, recon requires established air superiority.
VTOLs - A very good option, and can be reasonably common, but they're incredibly fragile.
Commandos - Not all units have infantry support, and also remember that infantry are slow. A fast pace for long-distance ops for highly-trained professional infantry with full fighting loads is about 6.5kph, unless they're mechanized.

A light mech (we'll use a bug, the Stinger, as an example) can move 90kph through most terrain, and can jump over whatever it can't walk through. It can also take a few hits from light weaponry (or like 2 hits tops in a lucky spot from heavier weapons), and doesn't generally risk getting wrecked from taking those light weapon shots. It's reliable, it's rather cheap, it's fucking everywhere, and it gets the job done.

Considering how cheap cubesats are to make now, and the advancements in camera technology, I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't millions of them watching every square inch by the end of the century.

Light mechs tend to have much better electronic gear than most other units that you're suggesting.

Plus SRMs I think

Do the Davions manufacture the Awesome during the 3rd Succession War? I feel like I heard they do.

Banks of streak SRMs on slow assaults, in particular

I don't belive so, the awesome is just very common everywhere because shittons were built in the SL era and they very rarely get destroyed

Ah yes, the perfect tactic. Who ever could think of the deadly counterstrategy of 'Walking backwards with large lasers'

The problem with all of those is that a 'mech is noticeable. Even the lightest ones are pretty damn big and noticeable on a variety of sensors -- seismic, thermal, overhead, and it leaves wide, noticeable tracks. BattleMech treads tear up big patches of land. They leave lingering thermal signatures.

Satellites work well, assuming you have air control, otherwise you're just repeatedly hacking and taking control of enemy sats, or guarding any sats you place.

VTOLs can be noticed, but they're good (like a light vee) for inserting infantry or BA for longer term operations. Infantry can be inserted close and maintain stealth for a very long period of time, and have an operation time dependent upon their consumables.

ASFs would only be good if you use a light, disposable craft like a Boomerang and run it in high altitude hexes. Or if you can take a commercial/civilian craft and modify it to incorporate spy gear and fly it over known hostile areas.

Not the brightest fellow, the creator

Heh, so you think, friendo

*hyper entropicly jumps behind you*

Nothing personal...

*unleashes multiple banks of streak SRMs into your rear*

Too easy *smirks*

>they very rarely get destroyed
You know, I think the ONLY time I've ever actually seen an awesome completely destroyed was one of the idiotic and pointless LRM variants that had it's ammo pop. Every single other one I've seen go down was from a gyro or head or lost legs, or in one case to XL engine torso loss, all of which is completely recoverable damage

>Use this Redeem Code for 7 days Premium time!
>MechWarriorOnline_Gift_2016

yeah go fuck yourself, if i wanted to play a game that was kinda-sorta like BT but not really, I'd make sure it was at least fun