/btg/ Battletech General!

>Better yet, one that doesn't use warcrimes perpetrated for "oopsy daisy, we thought you were someone else, silly us!"

What are you referencing?

the authors aren't smart enough to write plausible differences

Hell, they aren't smart enough to write plausible anything. Just picking at random from a TRO entry:

>Bolling moved his Bulwarks to the narrowest part of the pass and dug in. The CWEF thrust, a combined-arms battalion, arrived three hours later and immediately attacked the Andurien line, only to lose two ’Mechs and four vehicles to the Bulwarks’ frepower. Twice more the CWEF tried assaulting the defensive line, only to be beaten back with more losses. The CWEF called in artillery strikes, but the Bulwarks were protected by their emplacements, and suffered little damage. Frustrated, the CWEF commander ordered an all-out attack. At Bolling’s command, the Bulwarks targeted the three heaviest CWEF ’Mechs and destroyed them in a single volley. Now badly mauled, and with reports of Andurien reinforcements on their way, the CWEF battalion retreated. The battle helped the Third Andurien Guards hold Deschenes and limit the Oriente gains

The entire plotline of the taurian concordat after 3062, for one thing
Also the ghost bears in the jihad

Not him, but 3050-60 is by far my favorite era of battletech

And the Raven Alliance don't forget them

What's not plausible here?

>hurr durr let's literally throw ourselves at the defenders

So they adopted the Smoke Jaguar methodology of war?

Very common in real war. I served in the USMC and can attest to it.

I dunno what you think was happening as a potato peeler, but I guarantee the USMC puts a lot more prep into things than that.

CWEF?

Not an argument.

>The supposed rusemaster clan of cunning plotters

Ignore that cuck.

To quote NEA, "The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction must be plausible."

No one's going to care if you're a combat veteran here if your experiences run contrary to what they think is realistic. No one in modern military history has ever been that stubborn that they'd stage frontal attacks. Ever.

Oh yeah, them to

To be fair, the USMC is not known for it's tactical acumen.

I just think he could have picked a better example to demonstrate bad TRO writing.

So how abundant are the Ost series of mechs in the Inner Sphere?

And how are their Project Pheonix upgrades?

I like the Ostroc.

Covenant Worlds Expeditionary Force

he said he picked it at random

Fair enough.

I wish there were more variants of it too.

Osts are uncommon but well remembered. In the succession wars era they're about Catapult-tier.

The Phoenix upgrades are decent both in looks and performance but most of the Phoenix Osts went to the Blakists.

Phoenix Ostscout is a purely C*/Blake design
Phoenix Ostroc is Capellan but spread around by the Blakists
Phoenix Ostsol is Blakist, Refits are Davion

What about the Ostwar?

>So how abundant are the Ost series of mechs in the Inner Sphere?
They're widespread but not especially common, a bit like the Grasshopper, with minor concentrations in some liao and IIRC kurita units.
The ostscout is the rarest, and the ostroc slightly more common than the ostsol
The phoenix upgrades are generally pretty decent, and some of the jihad and post-jihad models are nice

A dead relic of the Age of War only used for spare parts until they built retrotech versions at vehicle plants in the Jihad. Then the Regulans started making the regular version again but that line got killed by the Violator and Neanderthal because Regulans can't have nice things.

Never used the Jihad Ostwar. How did it hold up?

As well as you would imagine a primitive machine from the 2400's would fare in the 3070's.

I dunno, I can imagine quite a bit.

>liao and IIRC kurita units

Do they pride it or something?

Also, is the Black Knight common?

>Also, is the Black Knight common?

Basically extinct outside Comstar until Robinson starts making them again in the early 3060's. So the Davions, RotS and the Dracs are the only ones in the DA with them in decent numbers.

>Do they pride it or something?
I think it's more just how star league leftovers shook out
>Also, is the Black Knight common?
No. It's very rare. It's got excellent survivability, so the number doesn't decline much, but there just aren't many

It was being made in the FWL in the 3050s/3060s too.

How do you get to use alternative ammo on everything in mega mek?

Some units will just not offer and others offer only some kinds. I really miss my mine throwing catapult.

Check the year under Allowed Units and Equipment tab. And for thunder LRMs specifically, you might need to make sure that TacOps Minefields are enabled in the Advanced Rules tab.

Ok thanks much, it was odd some had no options for ammo, others would only give me some options.

I get depressed when I can't have my infernos.

No it wasn't. Connaught's lines remain fucked until the Republic era.

No, it was being built again.

No it wasn't. It was just parts. Actually read the entry in HB:HM instead of looking at the products at the top.

No, it's listed as a built product. The entry never says it's just parts. Try reading it. You probably think the Grasshopper isn't being built in the FedSuns either.

The Objectives series lists it as being built too. Sorry man.

The entry says that first line they have building anything in centuries is the new Ostsol line in 3058 and that they are excited to get a second full production line going in 3060 with a new Ostsol variant. Which gets shoved back to 3067 later but hey.

>building anything in centuries
Doesn't even say that. If you disagree take it up with the writers and factcheckers.

Somebody should. TRO Project Phoenix says they don't even produce the Ostsol as a complete mech until 3065.

Just said they have a new Ostsol line. Makes sense they'd have their flagship line back up if they're rebuilding their mech factories.

>badly damaged in the First Succession War and
only managed to survive as a repair facility in the centuries that followed

I'm on it.

When I saw the Hawk Moth was equipped with an LGR I assumed it was a purple bird helicopter.

Why do the FedCom halves have the market cornered with VTOLs?

What's a relatively lowtech BA that's good against even the newer BA?

Im unfamiliar with a lot of Capellan fluff, so I have a question relevant to my campaign I'm running.

Would a Warrior House hire mercenaries to fill gaps in their forces during heavy fighting, or are they too prideful(or are only some of them, etc). Or would mercenaries be hired through, say, the planetary governor of a world being fought over.

If the time matters, middle of the Andurien Secession.

The Warrior Houses wouldn't hire mercenaries, no.

They wouldn't hire mercs, no

No, they would not hire mercs,

Inner Sphere Standard

No,mercs they would not hire.

They wouldn't hire the mercs, the CCAF would and they'd work alongside them.

>why does the FedCom get all the good stuff

Oh gee I wonder.

Achileus, Longinus, IS Standard.

Isn't FedCom having many unique things due to them being two states combining resources where the others are simply one or part of one in the case of the Capellans?

The FedCom gets the good stuff because the Federated Suns is the designated protagonist faction, and for a few decades the Lyrans were taken along for the ride too.

Thanks!

Clans were such a fucking mistake.
How the hell were they ever considered balanced or even a good idea?

>balanced
Zellbrigen, man.

>A good idea
Without the Clans, it would have just been the FedCom curbstomping everyone.

Battletech is essentially a (future) historical wargame.

History is neither balanced nor fair.

>Zellbrigen
Name a single IS mech that can even remotely compare to its clan counterpart.

Name a single aerofighter that can compare to its warship counterpart.

See, it makes no sense. It's almost as if you are expected to take multiples. You know, maybe we should come up with some sort of number that roughly associates with the combat capability of a unit. That was units of different size and capability can be balanced against each other. We could call it... capability counters.

or aptitude integers.

oh man im so close, just give me a minute, i'll have it

Thats why you have two or three.

Did you even read the fluff about the invasion?

The Clans are all about single combat, and they'll win every single time in single combat. But they're shit at working together in larger operations thanks to that, so that's where the IS beats them.

Their practice of bidding was also the main reason why the ComGuards won Tukayyid, and was abused to gain victories several other times by the IS.

>Zellbrigen being in any way a balancer.

You've never actually played, heh.

This x100.

If the Clans didn't do single combat and ditched zellbrigen entirely from the onset, even missing some of the IS force multipliers like artillery and mines, they still would've curbstomped the 'Sphere all the way to Terra.

Sorry, I was thinking more in terms of fluff, otherwise see

You DO know that BV didn't exist until well after the Clans were added to the game, right?

Not him but Battle Value 1 postdates the Clan Invasion by like seven years. Even if you go all the way back to Combat Value then it's still a full four years after the invasion.

Just a point to consider. Clans had no kind of balance in the game for longer than the time between the 3rd Succession War and the Clan Invasion in realtime. Doesn't matter nowadays but it was a massive issue back then.

This is very true and has very little to do with the current status quo.

says they were a 'mistake' and questions if they were "ever considered balanced or even a good idea"

Ever, in his question, is right now. He's either A) being willfully ignorant of mechanics, B) pining away for his TRO3025 days HARD, or C) just wants to be a shit

both A and B actually contain C

You know, now I kinda want to do some 3025 pining. What do you guys miss about that era?

I miss the introductions of the Successor Lords being all "The Duke of Destruction, the Baron of Backwater...and First Lord of the Star League."

I miss the get rich quick Dispossessed boys hoping to strike it lucky with a Lostech cache. You know, we don't even hear about Dispossessed anymore.

I miss the rumors about stuff like RoboKerensky and the lost SLDF.

Shit, you know what we need? ISP4. When's that happening?

>What do you guys miss about that era?

Nothing

FedSuns had the VTOLs before the FedCom

It's a Davion thing

What does 8pts of damage?

Large Lasers

I was pretty sure they did 10.

An AC/8 probably.

IS large lasers do 8. Clan version does 10.

Large Lasers and Light Gauss Rifles

Until the Hellstar, the Clans could be out-cheesed by the 3058 Gausswall designs. Stealth Armour is also a thing.

And you do know that the scenario stuff from back in the day says Clan players are meant to either bid among themselves to pick the weakest force that can take on the IS, or that the IS player is meant to have a larger, heavier force that fights on a maximum of two maps so the Clan range advantage is negated, right?

And that anyone who went Clan purely for powergaming would otherwise have either placed FedCom for the best selection of canon designs or would have been churning out things like the Marauder II for base technology customs?

But no. Stay buttmad because one time in '94 a Clan player managed to get a Koshi behind your Atlas and blow out its A/C-20 ammo.

>But no. Stay buttmad because one time in '94 a Clan player managed to get a Koshi behind your Atlas and blow out its A/C-20 ammo.

To be fair, a game that allows a unit 1/4th the mass of another unit to be able to destroy that heavier unit is a game that is clearly plagued by terrible design. I don't ever have to worry about Stuarts fucking up my King Tigers in Flame of War, for example.

...

So, I'm looking for player(s) for my AToW campaign. It's a mix of streamlined RPG stuff (because fuck me AToW is literally more tables than a furniture warehouse), and TT play. We have an open slot for a mechwarrior and an ASF pilot or two. We play Sundays, from 5PM CST to whenever (usually around 11 CST). Any interest?

What's everyone's favorite rifleman variant?

Swap the AC/5s for AC/2s, one ton of ammo for both guns. Remove the Medium Lasers. Use the tonnage for armor or SHS, at your discretion. I prefer SHS myself.