/btg/ Battletech General!

Check the MUL. Jags were biased towards Clan-made tanks though.

Here. I don't really want to type up a full article. I stole this from NEA several years back. It's Army-centric (which makes sense as he's an Army vet) instead of doing things the proper way, but it's well enough put that it's easier to just post the image instead of taking six posts to type it all.

>Choose your allegiance, ultra basic 3025 edition
OG Pirates, punk.

>Choose your allegiance, ultra basic 3025 edition

>Davion - Ultra white hat Mary Sue bullshit, shit taste
>Dracs - NPC racist bullshit, shit taste
>Lyrans - Feminist Nazi Mary Sue bullshit, shit taste
>Mariks - NPC bullshit nobody cares about, shit taste
>Capellans - Chingchong NPC racist loser bullshit, shit taste
>Taurians - Paranoid Cowboy loser bullshit, shit taste
>Canopians - Tumblr the Faction bullshit, shit taste
>Comstar - Doesn't get to actually have soldiers in a wargame hipster bullshit, shit taste
>Bandit Kingdom - less-mainstream-than-thou Mary Sue bullshit, shit taste

>playing with a faction at all - terrible writing bullshit, shit taste

The only right answer is not to play.

How long would it take for homeworld clan designs to make their way to the inner sphere? For example, suppose Star Adder develops a new mech; how long until Diamond Shark merchants start hawking it to the successor states and/or merc units?

Don't think they need to do a reboot on BT. What they could do is jump the story line 100 years or more, and then have everything that is messed up (fact checking) as inaccurate historical documents. Have one massive war to blast everyone back to 3025 tech levels, jump to the future, and start fresh (and hopefully not screw up in fact checking). Not the best scenario, but could work.

wouldn't happen. The Diamond Shark/Sea Fox don't have contact with the homewolds. None of the Inner Sphere Clans do.

The Clans start losing contact with the Homeworlds within a year or two of actually starting to sell Clan tech to the IS.

Basically not going to happen given the time you'd need to trial, get the production data, take that to the IS, etc. You'd be looking at around a year, minimum, for all that stuff to happen and in canon they didn't, they just sold their own stuff.

3025?
Probably FWL.
The first and last time they have any real relevance in the lore, and of the 3025 machines (Through to 3055, honestly), theirs are some of the most fun.
Orions, Trebuchets, Stalkers, Spiders... I don't even hate Hermes IIs... which is good, because I'd probably get stuck with a fuckton of Hermes IIs.

Normally I'm a DC player, but when I was choosing that first army, I was really uncertain whether I wanted to go DC for C3 networks, or FWL for Wraiths, Anvils, and Tempests. The TRO 3058U art of battle armor pushed me towards the drac camp.

>forgetting the Outworlds
Ha

So basically any/most post invasion homeworld designs only saw use with the homeworld clans, and by extension were only used against other homeworld clans? Well that kind of sucks (apparently Diamond Shark got the Crimson Hawk off of Blood Spirit in the 3070's, but I get that's just a one-off exception)

>Choose your allegiance, ultra basic 3025 edition

Ave, true to Caesar! Or Imperator given the era.

Also, the stalking spider II was made by the foxes but the I was from cloud cobra.

forgot pic

If Clan Mongoose had survived into the 31st and 32nd centuries, what do you think their personality and fighting specialty would be?

>3025 tech levels
>could work

Fuck you if you are trolling, double fuck you if you are not. Why the fuck do you want to play Easy Mode Battletech AGAIN? If you want a boring game you can stick with intro box

Personality: "What can we do today to piss the Smoke Jaguars off?"

Specialty: ASFs.

But that's just the Ravens.

Not what I am saying dumb ass. I was responding to a point about whether or not to reboot the line. Kind of implied the start over, as in go intro tech, slowly recover advanced tech, etc. New units, maybe new tech, and better fact checking. Don't like it. Then fuck off Troll.

It's also what Clan Mongoose was written as being before the Jags offed them. Masive assblasted feud on both sides between them and the Jags, and a focus on air assets.

How's the Thunderbolt-5SS in comparison to the regular -5S?
I'm putting together a FWL unit from the lyran border and am wondering which Thud to use

What will you be doing and what else are you rolling with?

>playing megamek
>2 mechwarriors end up in the same hex
>"[Pilot] sits down with his colleagues and cracks open a beer!"
Okay, that's actually pretty funny. Also holy shit the barghest is fucking brutal

It's a general purpose Heavy lance, with a Centurion, two indeterminate Thuds and a Warhammer leading

The SS is my go to because no case and MGs... imho it's better mech vs mech and extra heat sinks are a blessing.
Both are great intro techs though.

Also they are literally within 2 BV of each other.

everybody forgets the outworlds because nobody gives a fuck about them. They may as well not exist as a faction just like their fan.

No, I didn't forget an 's' there.

I would actually go with one of each, the SS pairing up with the Warhammer, and the other with the cent. The weapon arrays match pretty neatly

That was a little uncalled for.

What are the best light/medium mechs for running in wolfpacks against heavier mechs?

Light is Wolfhound, medium is Wolverine-M or Cronus for introtech.

Advanced tech is still Wolfhound, then Wolverine-7K, Wraith, Blitzkrieg, etc.

The Locust-1E is actually really mean, and the ubiquitous fan 3ML locust is even more so

>How's the Thunderbolt-5SS in comparison to the regular -5S?
Severely oversinked at most ranges (basically, not R4-6), and it goes all-in on brawling over the usual mixed-firepower loads on the Thud. It >is< slightly less explosive, which is nice. Honestly, it'd make a lot of sense to fit it with a Blazer or strip four sinks for jets. The -5SE is a better anti-'Mech unit, and my preferred design, but it's rare outside Merc circles.

From a fluff standpoint, the stock -5S fits the FWL better - it frees up the PPC for other things, and lets you use yet more LRM-15s without compromising your anti-infantry ability, but it is a lot less tough if a crit slips in.

This is your daily reminder that the Liao insignia used to have a fucking katana on it. And we expect these guys to fact check?

To be fair and rationalize it to myself, originally the factions ironically weren't flanderized to hell with cultural groups. At least anywhere near as much as they are now. A notable early Liao was of Anglo-Nepalese-etc stock, wore a kilt and carried a katana. Lyrans didn't give almost *everything* a German name. And so forth.

Fact Checking (failing at it). Killing more than all the Succession Wars combined. . .

Do they still have that line where if all sides die on the same turn leaving it a bust that the Chicago Cubs wins?

What?

You might be able to tell me what mechs the Outworlds make.

Merlin.

That it?

Assorted IIC mechs, why?

In what era?
In 3025 it is bugs and merlins and nothing else.
I know at some point they start manufacturing chargers out of nowhere, and IIRC they get the Night Hawk in the early 60s
Once lolclans, they add the Clint IIC (I'd count the other clan machines as raven-built, not outworlda)
I think the bombadier appears at some point too?

Just wondering because I thought on making an Outworlder force and was curious what the closest thing to "their" mechs would be.

Merlins mixed in with various taurian imports and a scattering of Drac mediums and FS mediums and heavies.
And bugs, unfun numbers of bugs

Does anyone have a good scan of the 2e introbox counters? I want them for cheap paper OpFor purposes

The factory producing Merlins was a Mountain Wolf factory.

The Merlin is a 60 ton SW era night hawk.

The factory was a fully-automated one and once lostech came back they already had a complete line for making the Night Hawk.

Learn the fluff, you moron.

>one thing in this is actually correct
>"learn the fluff you moron"

Kek.

>The (Merlin)factory was a fully-automated one and once lostech came back they already had a complete line for making the Night Hawk.
>Learn the fluff, you moron.
topkek

[Visable confusion]

>There is much easier to write consistently and factcheck if you dont have 30 years of stupid shit accumulated

This. While I lament a lot of the poor writing, I don't really blame the guys writing for missing odd individuals here and there.

Working on /btg/RO is kind of a pain, because I try to match to some extent, but I also am fine with saying "Yeah, they actually started working on a factory there forty years ago and it's been producing mechs for five years now"

What's the most geared out mech that's only armed with retrotech?
I'm talking dark age toys XXL engines with base large lagers.

>abloo bloo bloo someone doesn't like my thing
>must be a troll

Go back to tumblr, sensitive susie.

FWIW, what pisses people off is mostly just logical inconsistencies. The three biggies are:

-Random factories starting up or disappearing. People don't mind if things are set up, subject to the below;
-Blatant authorial favouritism, where certain factions get shat on for designs or factories, or suddenly get a whole bunch of shit while everyone else flounders;
-Characters suddenly and inexplicably reversing their capabilities and attitude out of nowhere.

You're not gonna be able to make everyone happy but I figure as a FWL fan you're going to have a better eye for it than others, having been subjected to that shit yourself from canon stuff.

I think there's that one malice?

1 i can't really avoid, not actually being part of the canon team. 2 I'm doing my best to avoid (although holy hell it's hard to make Drac mechs that are both a) new and b) not shit). And 3 I doubt will be an issue since we're generally not dealing with major canon characters, and when we do, it's "And then he told the procurement department to make X over Y"

And that I'm anal retentive enough to find a reference to a factory somewhere, or shoehorn a production line into a factory, since not even canon details those. Which helps. Except for stuff dealing with the Spirit Cats or the Protectorate. Or Factory Ships, which are just magic apparently.

One thing that's always bothered me about factories is this: how does one describe a factory that produces several variants of the same mech? Say a factory produces slightly upgraded -3R Marauders, in LBX-10, LBX-5 and armor, triple PPC and triple-LBX-5 FlakMad variations.
Is that a factory with one line or four?
Does the proportion of X to Y to X model produced matter?

There is literally no consistent way of handling this. Sometimes it's separate lines, sometimes it's separate runs on the same line, and most of the time it simply isn't addressed.

Can someone explain to me how the hell the "booru" works?

Odd question time, I just want to verify something. The owner of the store I play at is John Tiffany. He's also the one that got me into Battletech. He says he's been in the Battletech community since the beginning, he's even been a beta tester. Was wondering if anyone here heard of him. I'm not doubting his claims, I'm just seeing how well known he is in the community.

He makes jewelry right?

I don't think so. Never heard about him making any.

Or was that a play on his last name and Tiffany's Jewelry?

Make an account (it's free and no personal info is required. Just use a throw away info.)
Browse pics. You can tag them to make them easier to sort. (It's a community effort and it's taking time since it's new and there's thousands of them.)
You can see the general types of tags used through the booru forum (see top of the screen)
You can add comments like it's facebook.
You can add your own pics (no pron or NSFW stuff, anything else pretty much goes as long it's not a crappy resolution.)
You can link to them in case you have needs for it (I sometimes post pics through those links)
It's pretty much and online repository of community efforts and collections over the years. It keeps growing and it's meant to be a main database for everything /btg/. I think there's an /m/ version as well somewhere in existence, but this one is specifically Battletech.

Ah hell, there is also permission to post Macross, Dougram and Crusher Joe pics because of their art initially being used for BT during the 80s.
Hope that helps.

I'd say a lot of discrepancies in Battletech come from the tonal shift from space feudal opera to a more military sci-fi over the years.

3025 stuff is more like Dune, or other sword-and-planet pulp space opera. Around the Clan Invasion in the 90s I feel there's a definite shift - things get a bit more Star Wars and eventually ends up more military science fiction in the vein of Heinlein.

It's sort of similar to how 40k started as grim satire but eventually writers started engaging with the universe as a "serious" project.

And they said they can't learn!

Been around since the 80s and I don't recognize the name. If you ask me, someone who says "I was a play tester" is full of shit and just puffing up for ego's sake but could be the dude is righteous.

Well, I believe him because everyone else who plays Battletech at the shop confirms him and I've seen his name dropped at least once on skunkwerks.

bfb.solarisskunkwerks.com/news/usingbattletechforcebalancerbfb

Scroll down to just just above the bolded Jihad Turning Points Tharkad.

He seems to be friends with the Skunkwerks guy/team, he's also friends with some of the people who designed the game from what I heard. He sounds amazing, so I was wondering if it's just the Colorado Battletech scene that heard of him.

Probably.

It's the first time I've been in a game group where a single player gets that much respect from everyone else. Was told to play against him with a full lance and him only bringing the Blackjack. 99.9% sure that's a bad idea.

Is this supposed to be one of those supposed exercises where he schools you or something? Fuck that shit. Make sure you have faster/mobile mechs and you circle of death him. It's just a fucking Blackjack.

>eventually writers started engaging with the universe as a "serious" project.

No, it's still done satirically. The difference is the "If you pretend to be an idiot long enough you'll eventually find yourself surrounded by actual idiots that think they're in good company" principle.
regimental-standard.com/

They simply got a little more professional about it. Just look at Newcron lore. These guys are written as saturday morning cartoon villains.
Tau got their own Zeon parody, 7 samurai, hype engines,...
40k people simply tend to be dumb nowadays, so is modern Veeky Forums, sadly.

Meh. I haven't played with anyone besides other newcomers so far, people as green as I am. My first battle against a vet might actually happen next week.

I was thinking if I do face John's Blackjack, just bring my 'scout' lance. 2 Commandos, 1 Dervish, 1 Vulcan with 2 Scorpion Light Tanks

Destroying Cadia (I play Cadian Guardsmen) is why I left 40k for Battletech.

I never have to worry about the Lyran's losing their homeworld. I say even though I'm still reading stuff from the late Clan Invasion and early Civil War eras.

>I never have to worry about the Lyran's losing their homeworld.
The Wolves literally sacked Tharkad and killed the Archon in the latest material.

Not to mention Tharkad was under Blakist control for over half a decade after that dumbass Peter broke the Second Star League.

I dont even mind my favorite faction losing as long it has buildup and reasons. I've been always a sneaky capellan fan and I felt Hanse shitting on them was completely okay. The steiner-davion alliance was a historical gamewinning move. He lined up everything, built up RCTs,organized Galahads to practice, had spies in place, neutered the hasek boy, max was crazy and Hanse even had personal motives to go with it..The whole thing flowed really well and felt reasonable. Guy deserved his win, leave him alone.

I expected the Capellans to come back with some sneaky spy shit combined with diplomacy and infiltrators. Sort of like the "green man" hybrid warfare of russia, not pure writer fiat. Xin Sheng and he focus on the warrior houses just makes me butthurt if I wanted that shit I'd play dracs.

Your lance for the most part should be able to beat on a Blackjack unless he picks the map/terrain you fight on. Circle of death still holds out with your choices. 4-1 or 6-1 odds isn't in his favor even with an elite pilot.

>I expected the Capellans to come back with some sneaky spy shit combined with diplomacy and infiltrators. Sort of like the "green man" hybrid warfare of russia, not pure writer fiat. Xin Sheng and he focus on the warrior houses just makes me butthurt if I wanted that shit I'd play dracs.
Are you me? Fuck Xin Sheng.

Ah the old RCT vs Clusters question.

RCTs are divisional formations and their direct comparison are Galaxies, not Clusters.

Clusters are combined arms regiment equivalents.

You know what? Give me that. I'll roll it as future campaign development - I've got players starting 4SW shenanigans, make it make sense and I'll update as the AU happens.

Xin Sheng is about as dumb as letting porchbux slide - "little green men" makes a fuckload more sense, especially given the potential cultural influence that Tikonov has on the Confederation. Shifty rusrus + shifty ricerice?

Can also throw in a side of "fuck it's going to be costly to invade them fully even though we have superior arms" a la WW2 America dealing with the Japanese Empire. The Suns'd win, but it'd be a huge issue allowing that amount of opportunity to the Dracs.

Also go to bed.

>Sort of like the "green man" hybrid warfare of russia

The what now?

If you want an AU, have the FS partner up with the FWL instead.

They had a bunch of special forces guys in Ukraine who were uh totally just there on holidays you guys, honest.

Which the Caps were also doing with the sponsorship of Zhanzeng the Duwhatevers.

>chaos march is in.. chaos
>constant low level insurgencies and brush wars going on
>deniable "pirate" assets raiding everything, even capellan on capellan and davion on davion
>shiftiest mercs in the universe posted everywhere
>spies behind literally everything, like its Berlin in the 1950s
>black painted "phantom mechs"showing up here and there, sometimes razing davion barracks, sometimes capellan cities
>sometimes they are insurgents
>sometimes they are false flagging
>sometimes they are insurgents false flagging and attacking their own people to blame the davions
>sometimes they are comstar
>local militia is fedcom in name but worlds are essentially governing themselves
>both the capellans and fedcoms maintain the peace on the surface, no one wants to be cast as an agressor especialls in the face of the clan threat
>capellans are also using their cultural and economic soft power to spread their influence into the captured worlds, state-sponsored smugglers thrive, entire black regiments of mechs are hired
>fedcom influence is gradually waning to the point giving up worlds or consolidating them into pupper states are in the talks

>Word of Blake outgames the Capellans at all those games like they always have
>Digs their fingers even deeper into the Capellan Phoenix and Warship programs with no Xin Sheng
>Running the Cap HPG's as usual
>Corrupting the Warrior Houses from the inside via St Jamais as usual
>Use a Whiteout for a coupe
>Mask suddenly has to decide whether to support the new Robe regime or go underground
>Confederation of Blake declares war on the Goons
>Comstar waffling between whether they should focus on the Blakists or leverage the Robes commitment to wiping out clanners to put together Bulldog 2: Bear Boogaloo
>Secret robe wars and assassinations either way

Now that would be fun.

Xin Sheng was awesome. Sun-Tzu built and planned for it and he deserved the win. Leave him alone.

>Sun-Tzu built and planned for it
Sun Tzu was off chasing space amazon tail in the FWL periphery

>replying to bait

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