/btg/ Battletech General!

Bullets and such going overhead are certainly loud, but I doubt they're eardrum shattering. Presumably they have earpro. A ML is one shot, you might get a couple of guys, but not a whole squad or platoon. PPC bolts arecing? They are a PPC, not a lightning gun. I know they like to get descriptive about "man-made lightning" but they're a focused particle beam.
AC shells are probably the best of those.

>Did the Nova Cats use protomechs at all?
>Did

Come on man.

MUL lists the Satyr, Satyr 2, Satyr 4, Satyr XP, Centaur, Centaur 2, Chrysaor, Chrysaor 2, Roc, Roc 2, Roc 3, and the Gorgon.

Answering this question gave me a wonderful ideas, thank you user.

LB cluster munitions not being decent at killing infantry is a dayum shame, if you ask me. I think the issue would be figuring out scaling for the different sizes of gun, and how much damage they would do to infantry as a result. An LB 2 shouldn't be as good as a 10 at it, for example.

>Bullets and such going overhead are certainly loud, but I doubt they're eardrum shattering.

A GR slug is 250kg moving at least twice the speed of sound.

Ear protection is a thing. Ear protection that can dampen *that*? Yeah, nah. Not so much.

A ML barely gets above taking out a Squad, and never a Platoon. Again, reasonable enough for a weapon capable of melting almost a third of a ton of magitech-reinforced steel in seconds.

PPCs have always been described as doing their damage through a combination of heat, charged particles, and kinetic force. And then after the bolt strikes home there's electrical arcing bad enough to futz with electronics as hardened as BT's through the grounding built into 'Mechs, so you can imagine the results of that on infantry.

And again, not everyone is going to be permanently injured or dead. Just hurt enough or put into enough shock that they can't fight when they're marked off.

The scaling is inherent in the calibre of the weapon. They should kill 1 dude per point of damage, doubled if in the open. The benefit of cluster rounds is not so much in ganking infantry but doing so at decent ranges and with an inherent targeting bonus.

Or you could just make Cluster rounds equivalent to flechette rounds for the job.

>A GR slug is 250kg moving at least twice the speed of sound.

125kg (8 shots to 1t of ammo) and hypersonic (Mach 5+). But yes, ear defenders won't help much if a gauss rifle goes off in the neighbourhood. Incidentally, the battlefields of the grim darkness of the Space 80s should be incredibly noisy, what with autocannon fire, the cracks of lasers and PPCs (and the ionising radiation of the latter is always swept under the carpet) and gauss rifles going off, plus the giant robots stomping around.

Incidentally, I want to know who started the trend of a gauss shot being shaped like a cannonball (Stackpole?). Even the old art shows a slug in a more aerodynamic carrot shape. Although the incredible half-metre ball of decidedly non-magnetic titanium fired by a GR in one of the novels takes the cake for improbable gauss ammo.

Sorry, it was 5am

>125 kg

Mea culpa, I spent the last four hours being shrieked at by seven three-year-olds at my niece's birthday party and am still a bit frazzeled.

I think Stackpole was as big at describing them as melon-shaped as he was with le man-made lightning. I always just imagined them looking like watermelons and ovoid though.

CGL has essentially crowd-sourced their fact-checking and proof-reading because it's too hard to get right in-house.

And that's before you even get to the quality of the plot, which is dreadful even for Pardoe.

So, I really want to get into Battletech, but every time I try, it seems like figuring out what I would want to play (faction, strategy) it just feels like a clusterfuck trying to get that starting stuff out of the way. I watched people play, so I understand the basics of the system, but how do I actually get started?

>as he was with le man-made lightning

And ruby darts. Don't forget ruby darts. I think Stackpole's favourite term was "melon-sized silvery sphere" for the gauss shot.

I would ignore factions until you've found a playstyle that suits you then select a faction/unit based on that.

>125-kg melon

Is a nickel-iron alloy even dense enough to mass that amount in the size of a melon?

I'm no materials engineer, but it would probably have to be a really big melon.

but if I would have to describe a gauss shot, I'd say tungsten carbide, a 127mm diameter, 70cm long, shaped like a sabot penetrator (long rod) and with drive bands made of some magnetic alloy to act as the "grips" for the gauss coils. You could even make them out of DU (with the magnetic drive bands) and have a smaller shot if you want.

This. Most of the time you can justify using your favorite mechs in any faction. Part of the fun of playing a faction is limiting yourself with their most common mechs, you don't need that now.

Start picking any mechs you want and play some matches with them. If you have a certain strategy in mind we can help you suggesting mechs for you. Play some games with them and take your time to "pick a faction" (protip: players that play exclusively one faction are huge faggots that literally ruin the game)

How woould a post Clan invasion Swordsman be like?
Bonus points for Kuritan and Capellan variants

How come, by the DA, IS suits still can't jump with missiles on their back, but Clan BA can?

Because by then if the IS wants jumpy BA with body mounted missiles, they just build it off a Clan tech base or buy it from the Foxes.

Also because what literally even is the point of SRMs on an IS suit you want to jump? They're so heavy you basically have to choose one or the other if you want them to be able to survive light 'Mech weapons, so you might as well just mount recoiless rifles, magshots, and so on instead.

This reminds me - reflective armor on BA, worth it or no? Only way I can really see it being worth a damn is if it reflects plasma rifle damage.

Why didn't the Clans make a IIC version of every mech they got their hands on, at least an experimental one off version, why did they make IIC versions of the mechs that they did?

I want to see what an Atlas IIC looks like.

>This reminds me - reflective armor on BA, worth it or no?

Worth it. People will usually try to conserve their ammo through a fight but will throw energy weapons around if there's any chance of a hit. Pulse Lasers are also a popular choice to deal with the BA mod and movement.

Reflec on BA isn't vulnerable to AoE weapons or physicals either, so there's none of the downsides you get on larger units.

Because making IIC versions of everything is fucking boring. Take the SL 'Mech. Give it Clan weapons. If it has LRMs, give it twice as many. Fill in any additional tonnage with HS. Yay.

And this is before getting to energy boats like the Crab, Black Knight, Awesome and so on.

The Atlas I reason fell out of use out of respect to Nicholas, it was his ride and anyone wanting to use one might have been seen as trying to claim his legacy. Alexander is revered by the Clans but not to the extent of Nicholas.

For the Atlas, whether non-Royal or the II, this is what I'd do. If it's a normal Atlas you just need to move the weapons around a bit and point the MPLs to the rear. In an ideal world it would have Endo rather than Ferro and an extra 2 DHS as well.

>I want to see what an Atlas IIC looks like.
Just look up Nicky K's Atlas II.

Just getting into Battletech. Have played a few games using the full intro rule set( moving onto TW after the holidays). I want to start making my own mechs up and am not quite sure where to start.

Is there a more in depth rule set than the one in the intro pack?
I feel there are limits I'm missing as the rules in the intro set mean i can fit any weapon on to any mech as long as there are crit spaces available.
I only ask as MWO had hard point limits for weapon types and they seem to be missing in the rule set.

Tech Manual has the full rules for building mechs, but as for Hardpoints, MWO does that to limit boating shenanigans. In the TT, you can put small lasers in every spare critical slot if you have the tonnage and will to do so. There are some weapons that can fit only in torso locations however, like Heavy Gauss Rifles.

So you are saying i can do crazy things like a 100 tonne missile boat or SLs( as you said) for dayz just to annoy my mate. Excellent

I assume the tech manual is in the paste bins so many thanks I'll get looking.

Technically that's how you make a "C" variant. IIC versions are complete rebuilds, a good number with lesser or greater tonnage.

Correct, but most people tend to frown on mixtech creations (that is, mixing the Inner Sphere and Clan tech bases on one chassis), and there's already a number of missile boats that do that. The Kraken (Bane) 3 is the king of missile tubes, until something comes along with more than 8 LRM-15s worth of LRMs that isn't a Turkina Z.

No, the majority of IIC designs have the same mass as their progenitors.

The ones from TR 3058 are the outliers in that regard, not the norm.

In regards to tech bases, i guess one does things better than the other. From some context i think clan stuff has better lasers and such but what does the IS do better? Just so i can make a choice on which tech base to use for all the mechs i make in preparation for next year. If you dont want to answer, it would all be in the tech manual?

Nothing you said corrected me.

Clan tech is superior in terms of quality. Weapons, construction options, armor and electronics are all better than the Inner Sphere counterparts. IS tech has much more variety however, and their equipment is less expensive Battle Value (the primary balancing mechanic of the TT) and C-Bill wise.

I recommend you don't start with Clan tech, because that's the trap most new players fall into when they start getting really deep into the game. It's an easier game, but you're going to be penalized by the balancing system because of how expensive everything is, and then hate that you're getting beaten because you're outnumbered.

>Reflec on BA isn't vulnerable to AoE weapons or physicals either, so there's none of the downsides you get on larger units.

Oh, wow. That's quite nice. I thought it would just make them way too vulnerable to artillery.

So its quality over quantity. Thanks I'll stick to IS and recommend my mate do the same for now.

Even the "complete rebuilds" like the UrbanMech IIC and Highlander IIC don't stray far from the baseline.

Pretty much the farthest from the old version a non-'58 IIC gets is the Orion IIC. It's not like they turn the Highlander into a lightshow or the UrbanMech into a high-speed scout. They just improve on what's already there.

I may have come on a bit strong but honestly I'm tired of the "IICs have different tonnages/completely different roles" meme, which is only true for the first part in TR 3058 and only true for a handful of the '58 crop in the second.

Clan does raw damage and often times range better.

IS stuff is cheaper, tougher in the aggregate because it's cheaper so you get more designs with more total armour, and offers a lot more options. The IS can play raw damage, or indirect fire, or Stealth, or C3, or melee, or a mix of all those.

Broadly speaking, the Clans are specialised and do one thing well. The IS is a lot more flexible and can do a lot more things well.

It's not really a meme, something like 8 of the 20 IIC mechs put into production have different tonnages. That's noticeable. And honestly, the tonnage part wasn't really my initial point.

It just doesn't make them any more vulnerable to artillery is all. Any 20 damage AE attack is still going to obliterate any BA squad without ballistic reinforced.

There no IICs in TRO 3058. Maybe the MIGHTY EXCALIBUR AND SPARTAN duo have confused you.

Yeah but 5 points of splash damage won't wipe out a squad with 10 points of armor

'55-'58 blend together in my mind, especially since the RSes were published together for so long.

Point taken though, derp.

Kodiak.

the MWO Kodiak's model really drives this similarity home.

Coincidentally, while I was looking for Atlas II pics I found the guy who did pic related, and he wondered why there was no IIC for the Atlas.

And here's an Atlas II with a bad habit.

So I asked this in the last thread, but ded before an answer.
I'm looking for 6 ASFs to serve as a fighter screen for an assault DropShip. No particular faction in mind. Prefer something that thrives well in space and has a long loiter time. Recommendations?

Look in the original 3025 Tech Readout and go for the heavies of any of the five factions. Slayer is good. Stuka is pretty sweet as well.

>And that's before you even get to the quality of the plot, which is dreadful even for Pardoe.

Yeah, I'm not sure if I can keep reading this. Three chapters in and I can see where he's going with the plot, but it's just so poorly presented. The amount of typos and such is close to what I'd expect to find in a first draft, not something sent for publication.

the gauss rifle is pretty much explicitly a coilgun, not a railgun, and the optimal shape for a big coilgun projectile is actually a hollow tube, since that puts all of the ferrous mass of the slug as close to the inner walls of the barrel as possible where the magnetic field is at its densest.

So how do you get into battletech?Found a pdf of what I thought was the core rules but it says to look at the intro box first. Can't find a off of those rules and the box is out of print.

Go Stingray or go home.

Now I'm picturing gauss projectiles as being similar to this slug

youtube.com/watch?v=zNwXukKlerA

/k/ has arrived.

I wouldn't find it terribly surprising if /btg/ and /k/ had more of an overlap.

It seems that hobbies like these do also overlap quite a bit with gunnies. I'm one of them.

A hollow tube might be an optimal shape for the shot, but it's not the optimal shape in the ballistics and kinetic effect sense. For that, you want something like a modern APFSDS penetrator - a solid rod with a good L/R ratio.

Behold the result of my hard labour (in festive Chrimbo colours). The green bit is made of the densest, heaviest stuff you can lay your hands on. The red bits (drive bands) are what the gauss coils actually "grip" and pull through the barrel.

And derp, I meant L/D ratio (length to diameter). It's the Christmas beer speaking.

would three separate bands be superior to a whole external sheath?

Three separate bands would mean less mass allowed for the actual penetrator, since the full sheath would weigh more than the bands.

And shit, it's Opposite Day apparently. Three bands, more mass for the part that does the work (the penetrator). Full sheath, less mass for the penetrator.

>So how do you get into battletech? Found a pdf of what I thought was the core rules but it says to look at the intro box first. Can't find a off of those rules and the box is out of print.

Did you look at the mediafire links (specifically, mediafire.com/folder/sdckg6j645z4j/Battletech) in the OP? There's a "Battletech Quick Start Rules" in there that covers most of the basics. Heck, it even goes beyond that, adding in rules for tanks, infantry, and battle armor in its more advanced scenarios. At over 10MB, however, it's too big to link here directly.

So I'm playing AtB and I swear sometimes it writes adventuring hooks or short story plots by itself.

>get hired for a pirate hunt by Comstar
>fight two missions against the regular piratey stuff like Vedettes, bugs and Blackjacks
>last mission is a Star League cache where a pirate is trying to leg it with a Crockett
>I kill it, the next first of month enemy morale immediately drops to rout

So you couldn't pawn it to the Com Guard, could you? That last bastard was probably a deserter and C* wanted someone else to do their dirty work.

well, depending on how fast you can make your coils switch on and off, i guess it lets each coil boost the slug three times on its way past instead of once.

alternative hollow tube launcher idea: add like an inch-thick layer of solid fuel to the inside of the tube and shape the front end into an air intake, shoot ramjets

What is the closest faction to Russia in space in BT?
Or what is the faction with the most Russian ethnic or cultural footprint?

Same with mechs. What mechs scream "Russia" to you?
I've looked at the Sarna site and found the Cossack mech so far.

the clans, in particularly Wolf, via Kerensky, have some russian influence.

the capcon was a mix of russian and chinese before they got flanderized and yellowwashed into space north korea.

>What is the closest faction to Russia in space in BT?
Tikonov. It's mostly ethnic Russians, though once Xin Sheng gets going on the Confederation, anything that isn't dully Chinese gets tossed aside. It's like an entire culture of Fu Manchu movies.

>Same with mechs. What mechs scream "Russia" to you?
Poorly made crap meant for millions of conscripts? Anything made by Quicksell, the Cataphract and the Urbanmech.

xin shengs behind ecm

The Capellan Confederation had a pretty large russian influence, once. Unfortunately, that was one of the many things sacrificed on the alter of XIN SHENG

Use one of the free mech design softwares in the OP. Solaris Skunkwerks is more user friendly, but a bit out of date. MegamekLab is up to date, but less easy to use.

Tikonov, but it's only independent for a few years post-Fourth Succession War before the leader's shenanigans lead to its annexation.

Hey guys, quick question I can't find online - what's the formula for figuring out a mech's speed based on its tonnage and engine size?

Also, company of Catapults and Ravens - good idea or bad idea?

You've it backwards a bit. You determine the engine rating a mech needs by multiplying it's tonnage by the desired walking MP. I'm guessing you're here from MWO?

The bot spent 6 turns after losing its left and right torsos trying to get close and melee me.

Why do the writers have so much trouble getting their transliterations correct?
nominally, they are using the mainland pin yin system, which is a good thing, but some very strange transliterations keep turning up.

with the CC ranks in mind, it's quite depressing.

"Sang" should be "Shang"
"Sao" should be "Shao"
"Shao" should be "Xiao"

and I'm not sure what to make of the non-comms. The usual translation of Sergeant is Zhong Shi or a variation involving Shi (meaning low-ranking officer in this context) while they have these wierd "bing" based ones.
Bing is a basic soldier and I can only guess that Si-Ben-Bing is meant to mean something like Four-Stripe-soldier though I doubt Ben is the best character.

>Why do the writers have so much trouble getting their transliterations correct?
Because no one gives a fuck about the chinese but themselves and chinaboos.

I know Muninn and maybe NEA or one of our other namefags post on /k/

Language drift. It's 1000 years from now after all.

Eh, weapon side effects are modeled pretty mushy in BT in general. Like if the signal warfare would really be that intense, your basic mech would be setting fires just from the radar and jammer radiation they're putting out and all infantry'd have to be shielded just so that they don't start puking their guts out every time a mech walks by.

What's the fastest speed a mech can move at?

I've only ever played the video games and the fastest I've been able to go is 253.1 KPH in a Firefly made of engine and MASC in MW3.

Nah, just want to figure something out on paper.

Though that helps user, and certainly simplifies things. Just think of me as functionally retarded when it comes to maths and manipulating variables in a formula.

432 km/h, on one Locust and one Fireball configuration each. That's with MASC and a supercharger. Both of them are basically ER Small lasers and engines.

Because the romanization of Chinese is a complete shitfest. Unless you already know how to pronounce Chinese, you will almost always pronounce shit wrong using the romanized words.

Source: Chinese friend who loses his shit whenever we tried to read romanized words, like Cao Cao.

why did Khorsakhov's Cossacks hate the CapCon?

Cappies are the space commie bloc faction.

Clans are space Scourge of the Gods, which includes Slavs because they were the Atheist Scourge back in the days when the story was written.

...

I bet on the OF you'd get the "language drift" shtick which only seems to have an effect on non-English languages. Or the "I only do the basic research to advance the story", which resulted in HB:HK having shit like Voice of the Dragon becoming Dragon of the Voice because the writer couldn't grok how Japanese worked. Or how their German seems to be based on Commando Comics German.

>people who pronounce it "Cow Cow"

Commando Comics?

>HB:HK
Singlehandedly made me drop that faction.

I was hoping for a HB:HL cleanup of the original Kurita sourcebook and lore. Instead I got copypasta and mistranslations.

That's how dynasty warrior pronounces it.

When I was young one, Commando Comics were the finest war-related comics you could lay your hands on. Typically the Germans had names in the key of either über-German (like "Hans von Falkensturm") or the mega common like "Heinz Bauer". The former would probably be a "bad" German like an officer of the SS, whilst the latter would be the "normal fellow just fighting for the Wehrmacht" sort. If it was a navy story, their not-Hippers/Tirpitzes would be named in the vein of "Admiral von Wolfsburg".

Typical things in Commando were: the British soldier who had serious self-doubts about his warfighting capabilities, but got over them and fought bravely until the end of the war; the British bully soldier who either got killed or reformed (and fought bravely etc.); the super soldier NCO who gets saddled with the fresh meat, find out that the FNG can fight and then fight bravely together until the end of the war. Germans were either Nazis (who died) or regular Hanses (who tended to survive) and spoke in sentences like "Himmel! Engländer!" or "Aaaaaargh!". The Japanese were always sadistic (like the DCMS mould) and shouted "Aaaaiieee!" when they died.

tl:dr; Commando Comics were awesome.