/btg/ Battletech General!

Okay then. I'll use what I made as a primary and leave the option for the ERMLs in case of issues. Gotcha.

>btg booru guy, I've pretty much hit my limit on tagging things, and I've done uh, 20 pages. Disturbingly, 91 of the designs are mine, so it's time to stop.

Awesome! I appreciate all the help I can get! Thank you!

"don't forget to edit deployment turns for chases" bump.

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Am I the only one that pretty much ignores the atb mission types? Its gets pretty boring playing cannon fodder rush when all I want to do is superslam other mechs.

In case y'all missed it last thread, here's the link to contribute pilots for the /btg/ merc unit
>goo. (not spam) gl/ (not spam) forms/ (not spam) DFxOqhxLSwBiZtDn1

I just added it to the bottom pastebin from the OP.

Oh, didn't see that, great.
Are you going to add all the submissions so far?

Different user, and not using the previous fluff that was already put together.

Oh shit, I mean the second to the last pastebin, meaning the link. Sorry.

bump

We have Marauders that are heavy and assault. What would light and medium Marauders look like/caryy?

To be fair in the newest version they tweaked the Chase missions, as in not all enemies and friendlies arrive on the board at the same time.

So it is even possible to run away with most of your stuff, if they are fast enough before AI get's it's heavy hitters on the board.

You might be able to do a trio of snub ppcs on a 50 ton frame with enough DHS,

>We have Marauders that are heavy and assault. What would light and medium Marauders look like/caryy?
Depending on how you want to call the "Marauder" loadout, we already have both. I tend to think of a MAD-clone in terms of a walker/pod with symmetrical arm-mounted energy clusters and then a dorsal missile or cannon mount.
The OG "Medium MAD" is the old dual LL/PPC Blackjacks - the 3050s model in particular reminds me a lot of the Marik MADs in how it plays.
After that, the Osprey comes to mind, although it's got a big ballistic and smaller energy weapons.
The Makak Infernus and Luminos, and (especially) the Preta Luminos, are also very close.

If I were designing a "MAD-Light" in the modern era, I'd go for something in the 6/9 range with SXPLs and LPPCs or (if I'm feeling like a dick) quad cMPLs and a LAC-2 or a PMAC with a couple tons of ammo for Precision-dicking and flinging AP into vees.

>If I were designing a "MAD-Light" in the modern era, I'd go for something in the 6/9 range with SXPLs and LPPCs or (if I'm feeling like a dick) quad cMPLs and a LAC-2 or a PMAC with a couple tons of ammo for Precision-dicking and flinging AP into vees.

That's pretty good actually. That fits a Minirauder pretty well

Is there a blanket setting anywhere in megamek that prevents the AI from deploying in ridiculous positions that they have no hope in coming down from? Sometimes I slip up on checking the terrain on the map edge the AI is deploying on and I get an enemy AC/20 assault stuck atop a column that is 6+ higher than any adjacent hex.

Here you go boyos.

Don't forget we've also got Marauders that are Battle Armor, too.
Unfortunately, no. Every now and again, the bot will deploy somewhere completely stupid, whether it be a hovercraft completely surrounded by trees, a courtyard surrounded by buildings, or a cliff too high to get down from (or pit too deep to get out of).

Myself, if I'm playing plain-old megamek I prefer using the canon mapsheets randomly distributed. It makes for far less of that sort of situation than the randomly generated maps have. They're also far less punitive to ground-bound units.

oh shit

Well fuck.

The Shimseen Valkyrie and Wasp just got pulled from the release schedule for an "indeterminate length of time". No-one on the OFs is willing to say anything about why (which means SOME kind of fuckup that would make one of the inner circle look bad and/or contractual shit is responsible). The other shit is still live, but..?

it's adorable

Seems CGL is in deeper shit than we thought

Not good.

Well, fuck Brent Evans then for fucking up the game line. Good job.

Has anyone seen shimmy around recently? Something might be fucky

I'd wager he posts predominantly as user now because he's actual CGL staff, and he's a bit more outspoken and blunt than Xotl so he has to be more wary about his presence here.

I haven't and have been worried about him for quite some time. I don't know him personally and don't know how to get in touch with him other than through his deviant art.

What release schedule? Since when has CGL ever given us the slightest indication when anything is coming out?

don't stop now. you were really catching up to me. I'm gonna feel like a total nerd if I'm the biggest tagger.

I once had the AI deploy a banshee on a level 2 light building, which it promptly fell through and TAC'd an ammo bin.

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IWMs release schedule.

The last posts on his DA account were from late April, so you guys might be right in that something is up with him.

He got a real job, so he can't shitpost as much.

It's probably nothing, just some issues with the sculpts and since they don't know when it'll be fixed, they said "indefinite delay". We'll probably see IWM fix their shit eventually and we'll get the minis accordingly. IWM is a bit better than CGL about shit like this, so it should all work out.

I'm around, just mostly lurk.

As Campaign noted I got myself a freight job to pay the bills so I can eventually do more of my own art instead of being trapped in commissions.
Online presence everywhere has been largely replaced with sleeping.

Can't really say what's going on with the newseen. In fact I don't really know myself lol.

What are the issues with the sculpts? I have a Wasp and it seems to be fine. Besides, when else has IWM pulled an in-production and on-shelf mini for quality issues?

One Valk leg is in 1/285th scale and one leg is in 1/156th, the rear torso is upside-down, and the head is actually from a Banshee. It slipped through IWM's QC process due to an unforeseen error and will be corrected with all possible haste. Expected re-release will be August of 2026.

Franken-Valk! Stat meeeeeee!

I have some gashapon macross figures, so I'd be tempted to try to make this if it didn't mean destroying original unseen to do it.

We know the Shadowhawk is still ok, but because the two minis in question are the Valk and Wasp, I initially assumed it was the harmony gold zombie horse that won't stay down no matter how many times we beat it.

They say it's not, but I'unnuh.

Oh jesus.
The biggest thread I've had to deal with is a B-rated Davion force, and that tore me a new asshole.

Chase missions:
Attacker or defender, you had too many 'mechs. Time to thin the herd.

*biggest threat

What's B-rated?

Assuming he hasn't flipped the quality levels, B-rated in this case is talking about unit quality, where F rated means shit tier militia mechs, and A rated is "I'm part of the Crucis March Militia and I'm piloting a Blood Asp." In this case, he was fighting guys with pretty good gear.

Exactly

Up until that point, I'd been duking it out a fair bit with the former FWL (I decided to start a campaign last year with the Canopians, since I would usually never play them, with the Dark Age RATs, because I'd usually never find an IRL match at that tech level). The FWL had some scary 'mechs, but nothing that was what-the-fuck levels of game breaking.

Going merc in the CC, Fighting House Davion, as well as fighting a freak appearance of the WoB, was a beast of a different nature. Repairs and drop rates were getting so harsh that I was dropping without arms on some 'mechs.

Still, I see that wall of CJF and... yeah, I don't care how bad people say the bot is, that's terrifying. Close megamek and load an old save levels of terrifying.

When you play HQ, can you start with a really pathetic force like a couple of Pixies and two bugs and will the game adjust the difficulty level for you? I like playing campaigns where you start out small.

Not really. The game BV balances, but even with BV balance your damage output is low.

Crap. So I'm going to have to use MegaMek in a regular fashion to operate a campaign that way, or do it the old fashioned way and break out the minis and standees. Thanks.

That's the least fun campaign of all, personally. Oh boy, I have shit mechs and no money!

I can kind of see it your way, but I usually balance things out. There is a little bit of drama where you end up with two Stingers duking it out with each other, with each ML blast a possible deciding factor on who wins. I do like other battle types, but I guess I'm just weird.

Has anyone got any stories where an entire campaign hinged on a very small battle? Like most of everybody on both sides were in bays for repair, and it was one on one or something?

I did have a minor one years ago.

Had a design competition on the Solaris7 boards back in 2007, SLDF versus Taurians in the Reunification war. Real basic story to explain the creation of all these homebrews. Anyway, star of the show is this Interductory tech light, 35 tons that carries a single PPC and is fairly mobile. The initial fight is swarms of enemies against this new light and a handful of other units- the SLDF set up a firebase that the Taurians wanted, and they sent a loaded Union (maybe, can't remember) after it.

Anyway, SLDF is doing great, ran by the DMs sons and myself with the youngest running the light. He's doing what good lights are for- aggravating the shit out of the enemy- and what few hits he is taking aren't slowing it down. DM decides "Eh fuck it, let's up the ante." and reveals the dropship to us and a final lance led by a Warhammer. At this point, we had the light 'mech with (I think) a Whitworth, Crab, and Orion. All of them had taken the blunt of the damage, and only the Crab lacked internal hits. We cleaned up the second lance and prepared for the final fight.

The Orion and Whitworth finally fell at the same time- Orion due to damage, and the Whitworth because we were using Pre-Total Warfare (don't ask me WHY) rule on infernoes that slammed my heat sinks to the point all the pilot could do was eject. DMs down to a slightly damaged Warhammer and maybe a Javelin. The Crab held out, and the light got hit with a lucky Warhammer shot that snapped off a leg at a hip and gave him some of the first "true" critical damage he had seen (armor your mechs hips FYI). Kid's livid at that. DM states that the SLDF had sent reinforcements but expects them to arrive after the Taurians have raided the Firebase, and there is no telling what that dropper still has.

Cont.

So the kid uses his free, PPC-less arm to aim and fire where he landed and is still scoring hits. The Crab holds on for one more round, but a single medium laser and a gyro/engine hit mean the writings on the wall. Next turn rolls around and the kid fires again, and for placement rolls a 2. Naturally, he burns edge.

The Javelin watches as his commander, his Warhammer almost untouched, suddenly goes up in a mushroom cloud of machine gun rounds. DM kills the crab and pulls the Javelin back, stating that the mechwarrior inside doesn't want to deal with a light mech that killed 4 times it's weight in metal. Kid tries to flank using it's jump jets to move, but forgets that he incurred a gyro hit along the way. His light 'mech dies after botching a roll to land at a +8, with a single 4-point cluster snapping the CT like a wishbone.

The pilot lived, in part due to DM dad. But hell, any proud warrior of the SLDF that kills Warhammers like that should.

I got two of hand, neither are as interesting as the previous user's story.

This one happened last year. Had a rookie pilot who got a Banshee-S introtech through political connections. He did well. Because there was some weirdness with needs for various off-lance sized teams to deal with mission goals and threats, he got randomly assigned to other units. Several times he was by himself.
During one mission somebody had to stay behind and guard a base that was there solely for the purpose of repairing and maintaining tanks. Two entire companies of tanks had been mauled and were salvageable, but out of action. This guy was by himself. If they could get those tanks operational in a few days, that would change the course of the conflict. Well the enemy managed to only sneak by through the front lines, a pair of Commandos.
Our guy thought this would be easy, and started dealing unpleasantness in their direction, when one of them got a through armor crit on one of the Banshee's ammo bays. I forget which one. The mech was gone. it was just trash afterward. The Commandos savaged the base. That pretty much decided the conflict, because of one damn SRM crit from a Commando.

The second one was kind of similar. Two companies of forces had slammed into each other and withdrew before they would end up with losses. The only intact machines on both sides was a Capellan Shad, and a Feddie Rifleman.
The Shad pilot figured he could make it to the Fed repair bays and start messing things up. He got to the base, and started hell when the two mechs went at it. Neither pilot was very good, and the dice just hated everybody that day, leading to a long fight. The Shad relied on jumping a lot, and the Rifleman relied on better barrages of firepower.
I personally thought the Rifleman was going down because the Shad pilot kept jumping behind it. The Rifleman has less armor and the weapons on it's left arm were destroyed quickly.
The Rifleman pilot was really worried the Shad would succeed in getting a kick on the corresponding leg, because there wasn't must left there, so with the only thing he could do when the Shad jumped too close to his left side was to hope for a punch using that left arm. He got it, breaking the armor and hitting the life support and cockpit.
Feds were happy, and thought they had a decided advantage as this gave them time to repair their machines, but the dice rolls in later battles made their fight really expensive. They won, but pretty much everything they had left was barely functional.

I feel you, user. I do. But if you're going to take on the Megamek RNG in a battle that'll be decided entirely by luck, MM's going to win every goddammed time.

>fighting a base defense mission last night, where my unit CO takes a gauss rifle to the head
>reroll with edge (2 left)
>rerolls a CT TAC
>reroll with edge (1 left)
>rerolls in torso TAC that hits ammo, sympathetically blows a second ammo bin, CO snake-eyes the autoeject, takes 2 more damage (after the 4 from the ammo) and dies

Fuck the MM RNG, is my main bullet point, here.

There are so many false gods, but the dice gods are truly sick and twisted monsters, worse than Cthulhu.

>HurpDurp must make a piloting check, running on pavement
>Needs 3, rolls 2: Fails
>HurpDurp has fallen, is now prone

Had a Shad skid across concrete right into a two hex pool in a city. I was blessed nothing flooded, and slowly, very slowly got out of there. Most of the battle was done by the time my Shad got into the thick of things and I barely did any contributions.

>I barely did any contributions.
Sounds like a Shad all right.

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Don't lie to the children like that, Shad. Go back to your ghetto with the other shit mechs like the Targe and the Yeoman.

Eh, post 3049 they start to get useful. The -8L is hot as piss but hits hard, the -3K is mean as fuck, and even the -5M is pretty good.

..By 3050 standards, anyway. Not so great in the Civil War but by then you have other stuff to play with.

Gotta disagree with you there, CA.

I got my start using shit-tier tanks in Neveron, and my first tabletop'ish experience with CHI

Starting out with shit mechs limits the opposition you can face, granted, but really makes you appreciate how far you've come. Anyone can kick shit in with an Archer, but when your team starts out as two stingers, a cicada, and an urbanmech, you'll see stuff that people normally never field like conventional infantry, vedettes, and even BBEGs in Panthers.

I had an RPG group that looked like it could start out pretty fun (But disbanded due to inevitable IRL bullshittery) where all the players had one each of the bug mechs during the start of the ronin wars. (Pic related)

You can't pull it off in in AtB though. AtB goes apeshit and says (You have four lights? OK cool, I'm just going to roll up triple that amount, and then add another double that amount after eight turns as reinforcements)

In anything but old 3rd succession wars games where every second mech is a bug mech, yeah, they're pretty crap, though I give them some credit once the upgrades start showing up.

In my experience, it limits my player's options because they start ripping out weapons and turning mechs into warcrimes simulators that would make an Ork blush. And there's only so many times you can say "and the angry mob turned into a screaming, panicking mob as the Urbanmech turned its flechette loaded AC/10 on to the crowd," before it gets old. This may be because I kept nudging them into police duty and they went full Dredd.

I don't know, man. He seems pretty insistent.

>This may be because I kept nudging them into police duty and they went full Dredd.

That may be the issue. I had players fighting against the forces who stayed loyal to the old leadership rather than accept the regime change.

Other options include deep strike raids, guerrilla warfare, and recon work.

As far as police work goes, even the DCMS were reserved enough to limit their police work to squirting Outworlds' children with flushed coolant. I think your players were more interested in hurrying up and killing shit

>I think your players were more interested in hurrying up and killing shit
More like they know how it ends, and want to skip all the heartache. I had them roll up 5 characters, because a small scale merc outfit should suffer high churn.

How long does it take to make a clan pilot?

>I had them roll up 5 characters

Stay alert! Trust no one! Keep your laser handy!

From birth till they're a warrior? 17-18 years. From fertilization? I can't remember whether they've given hard numbers, but a "generation" is approximately 5 years, though that could just be a new class. I couldn't imagine it taking longer than 18 months.

You joke, but we play Paranoia pretty often. I like playing Paranoia straight more, if you can believe it. Eclipse Phase has nothing on Paranoia for pathos.

So they can only do a generation every five years? Wow. Low population levels.
If they do it the old fashioned way, do the rules of zellbrigen apply there?

They can do as many generations as they want, but they try to keep it sparse between 5 years in order to not stretch their training capacity over the limit.

There's also the number of facilities capable of growing these new trueborn to consider, and just how many iron wombs they've got on hand.

>They can do as many generations as they want, but they try to keep it sparse between 5 years in order to not stretch their training capacity over the limit.

Now this is why the dislike towards older pilots pisses me off. They have a teacher shortage, and they do this.

>There's also the number of facilities capable of growing these new trueborn to consider, and just how many iron wombs they've got on hand.

Iron womb. Isn't that the name of that one chick from Channel Awesome? I had to. I regret nothing!

>Now this is why the dislike towards older pilots pisses me off. They have a teacher shortage, and they do this.

But they do regularly rotate warriors from the fronts to act as instructors and training evaluators for the new cadets. Though the common ideal is to gain as much fame and honour throughout your warrior career as possible, it's not uncommon for older warriors to "retire" (jokes on you, clan warriors dont have retirement!) and become the administrators for second line facilities or training complexes.

Even though it causes a lot of internal conflict with each respective warrior if they fail to achieve a death in battle (either unlucky in deployments or simply too efficient for their own good) they eventually find solace in still having a place within the clan where they are respected (see the jade falcon trilogy character Joanna for a very good example of such a warriors career) or feared yet still can serve with honor and distinction.

It's only at the ages where piloting a battlemech or any other vehicle becomes impossible when those trueborn who are still too stubborn to let go of their warrior ways and serve in administrative roles are put into the front line infantry regiments to serve as cannon fodder and find one last chance for an honorable death.

Most cases where a warrior is getting up there in terms of age (physical and mental condition starting to lapse, chances of career advancement slim or nonexistent) and end up pulling off a suicide charge are simply cases of personal pride brought on by the ideals instilled into them from their youth. I'd actually wager cases where younger trueborn warriors egg an older warrior on to the point where they essentially commit suicide by enemy are an exception rather than the norm. You have to remember, competition for higher ranks and bloodnames, and thus the possibility of adding to the clans genetic legacy is fiercer than anything bar the Great Houses lust for the throne of Terra.

Anyone else getting a "connection timeout" from the official boards? I can't go on today.

Okay this makes things clearer for a newb like me. This is why I love /btg/ and stay away from the OF.

Trying to get my best friend into BT. Let her this person make a mech. She made one with a mace that is a redesign of the Snake. She got to see it perform in Megamek for the first time. She won, but was disappointed that she couldn't conk the enemy she faced on the head once. She kept missing. Good times.

Anyone trying to bring people to this game lately with positive results?

I'm rebuilding from the ashes of a group that hung around my hometown years ago. I'm the only old member interested but all my DnD and 40K friends are eating it up.

We got into weekly games pretty quickly and the headaches with IWM have been minimal.

Does anybody have any house rules for pilot skills advancement? I'm open to ideas.

I wish I had a store that played the game let alone friends.

Help me /btg/, you're my only hope.

Just how comprehensive is the Master Unit List? I started thinking about this after reading that Comstar reverse engineered the Battle Cobra during the Jihad and it ended up being produced at Arc Royal but the MUL doesn't list any IS powers ever using it. I understand that the MUL doesn't have as much information about factions post-FedCom civil war but as someone who likes to build forces themed around certain factions or commands this is starting to bug me. Wat do?

MUL is official but quite often incorrect (Just like the OF and most of the staff! Zing!). However, with the case of the Battle Cobra, I thought they pretty much all went to C*.

masterunitlist.info/Unit/Details/263/battle-cobra-btl-c-2o
Look a bit harder? MUL has faults, for sure - things get missed or forgotten, and their faction availability listings make no distinction between 'common' and 'virtually nonexistent' - but they didn't forget the Battle Cobra-C-2O.

Keep in mind the version produced for ComStar was built entirely with an Inner Sphere tech base. Maybe your search was only for the Clan tech base version?

Ah, I didn't realize they had different designations. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, user.

You can find record sheets in RS3058 Unabridged - Star League and Clans, and Sarna includes it in it's Battle Cobra article. It's... okay.

Or maybe prepare to be disappointed.