/btg/ Battletech General!

I don't know, I haven't played in a bit. I really like my mekwars campaign, but I've lost entire afternoons to repairs and refits, so I don't use it much unless I'm really craving a BT game.

I think you go to the inventory menu and towards the bottom, there's a list of stuff being shipped. Either right clicking on those, or right clicking on said items when you filter for "In transit", should allow you to abort or cancel them being shipped. IDK if you get C-bills back, though.

So, finally got the cast off my hand and can paint again, so with the perpetual LILAC SPARROW boner here, I figured it may be worth dropping by and post what I wrapped up today.

-Thera
-Congress
-Aegis
-x2 Eagle
-x3 Zechitinu

19 Squadrons of ASFs. Note that this is less than half of what the Thera carries. By itself. But *godDAMN* does painting and basing microfighters get old quick.

ASFs are painted "generically" so they can be used across factions.

>HBS BattleTech game is...OK. The spotting/LOS/"you can't see a target that is in your LOS, in front of you, and is actually *hitting* you with AC/20 fire" issue frankly skews the gameplay experience so hard that no really constructive commentary is possible until it's goddamn fixed.

>Chalchiuhtotolin
Chal-chee-oo-*hork*toe-toe-lean, loosely.

Nahuatl pronunciation is honestly really easy compared to most of the North American aboriginal languages.

Jesus, man. I just use counters at that scale for fighter groups. Painting micro-scale droppers is bad enough.
..And damn do those Zecs look good. Might wind up getting a couple one of these days, even if the game is almost literally unplayable.

>>Chalchiuhtotolin
>Chal-chee-oo-*hork*toe-toe-lean

Gesundheit

> I just use counters at that scale

I'd genuinely prefer to use counters for DropShips before I used them for ASFs. Micro DropShips - especially spheroids - start looking all the same, REALLY quickly. Plus, once WarShips get involved, the ASFs last longer.

I'm finding that Mass Repair/salvage is my friend. I leave my veteran techs out of most non-critical mass repairs, so that I have them when the regulars screw up (as they always do). traveling to a raiding contract now though, so that may change when I'm working in the field.

fair enough. When I do games at fleet scale I usually put a class label on the base for anything smaller than a cruiser. Even in Battlefleet Gothic it can get hard to keep track and that only has a handful of low-end ships per fleet. With my BT stuff I only have a half-dozen ships and nothing but Leos on the dropper side, so they're just display models FAIAP.

>Gesundheit
You try explaining a gutteral fricative to most English speakers any better...

Hasn't LL been restarted recently?

Is that yellow Leopard supposed to be Thunderbird 4?

It's the short bus, dude.

>community.battletechgame.com/forums/threads/8024

>All those people crying out to get TT values back.
>They finally find a way to set it back to them.
>Results are horrendous in comparison to the real game.

I don't have a picture smug enough to portray just how BTFO'd the annoying, old and (most likeley) senile grognards got.

I tested out the Sensor Lock ability they gave to some Light mechs and holy shit is that thing OP as fuck, not only can you indirect fire with but it actually removes cover buffs, I could understand it doing former but with latter it comes off almost must have ability in your lance.

There's a vid of someone doing exactly that. An LRM/LL Awesome, two C1 Catapults with Multitarget, and a Commando with Sensor Lock ate up an Atlas, Orion, Panther and Commando with only the sensorlocking bastard taking any meaningful damage.

Atlas pilot died like a bitch to Pilot Injuries.

Yes. Currently, many of the special abilities are OP as fuck.

The Tactics ability, the jump jet ability, and the one-weapon skill aren't that big a deal, bulwark seems mostly fair since it only kicks in if you're stationary, but Sensor Lock and Evasion are both holyfuck OP at this time.

Punching helpless Urbies are fun!

Wrong on both accounts broham. Dark Age had toys, nice partial diecast too. And catalyst still puts out real paper books of short stories and stuff when they can be arsed. They just can't reprint or make money off the older novels.

So it really is lack of them wanting to more than not being allowed to. Sure would be nice if the videogame got some toys though.

If you're talking about living legends, it IS back. It got a big ass community patch that brought a few people back a couple months ago. During peak hours there is usually enough people to fill a server.

That game deserves so much more than what it got.

Are there any Veeky Forums related BTech animations?
Things like youtube.com/watch?v=Ex29l7Sj62Y.

Or animations in general, for that matter? Aside form SirDubDub's works, of course.
youtube.com/watch?v=WzMeWxZvmwA

Do these count?
Why Battletech Sucks (Urbanmech)
youtube.com/watch?v=0pyCsu0QRO0

Cool (Urbie)
youtube.com/watch?v=JXFnVDYZQ8U

>Is that yellow Leopard supposed to be Thunderbird 4?
Nope.
Sort of - it's a reference to this, but it's also the official color scheme for one of the Davion schools (IIRC the Robinson Academy), which is damned funny.

>>HBS BattleTech game is...OK. The spotting/LOS/"you can't see a target that is in your LOS, in front of you, and is actually *hitting* you with AC/20 fire" issue frankly skews the gameplay experience so hard that no really constructive commentary is possible until it's goddamn fixed.
This is easily fixed with a change to the CombatGameConstants.json file. Change vision range to 600 and sensor range to 700, and that problem basically goes away. Also the game is infinitely better in all ways with this change. You'll need Notepad++ to edit the file though.

Yeah, I'm aware. The problem is that the ability to fix it isn't helpful *during the Beta* because we should be sending feedback on the actual product in front of us, not the product which we've modded.

If it doesn't get fixed, you'd better believe I'll be modifying the shit out of the sight/sensor distances.

>I appreciate the attempt to help.

Yeah, I already mentioned it on their forums, and modified it myself just to make it more enjoyable to play. Same reason I activated a few extra mechs.

How does this look?

IDK. Did the Black Knight not have a lot of armor to begin with?

MWO/10

I didn't change the armor, only "modernized" heatsinks and structure + gave it pulses.

?

That's the standard armor load for the BL-7 variant. BL-6 has a bit more but not that much more

3 Large Pulse Lasers and 5 mediums is pretty much a cookie cutter build for Black Knight in MWO.

Didn't know that. Is MWO worth getting into? I played it when it was in beta in 2012 or something, and don't remember anything about it.

Also, can always swap large pulse for ERPPC.

Well if you can find people to play with it's nice enough game. There was big hubup earlier spring when they changed the skill tree, but i dso still enjoy playing it.

>hubup
Do you mean hubbub? I think that you do.

Is there somewhere that I can find the weights for the new DA technologies? I can't seem to find it in either IO or the FM3145

bampu

Daikyu best Kyu.

Is that a Kurita mech and did they have access to RACs in 3055?

It is and I didn't change the release date to the 3060s.

Okay that answers my curiosity. I'd field it.

If LL really is as good as the fanboys say, why do only a handful of players play it?
There's nothing stopping anyone from accessing it, and anyone who's properly into playing mechwarrior games knows about it.

The honest truth is it really isn't that great. It's exactly the same game as Crysis multiplayer, just with mechs instead of tanks. It's nothing new, it's extremely aged in all aspects from gameplay to visuals to sound.

New MWO players have to get over the newbie hump initially, but eventually buy their own gear and get matched (mostly) with fellow noobs.
Meanwhile in MWLL you're doomed to getting absolutely farmed by veterans every match because of the economy system, just as it was in Crysis. Winners win harder, noobs are forced to stick with crappy mechs every game.

Between thas balance issue and the previously mentioned showing age, MWO wins out IMO. Though at this point both are getting pretty old and I don't play as much of either.
Looking forward to Battletech and MW5 for some fresh experiences.

Anyone have the easiest way to know what the combine has in terms of tech around 3055 and that fedsun civil war?

They're beating themselves over the head with the MRM stupid stick. Also C3 and ERPPC's.

Plus a shitload of Clantech salvage after Bulldog.

I'm IRL friends with one of the MWLL devs and I still don't like the game. Everything feels fucking floaty, driving a Hephaestus is nice and comfy until it flips for x reason and can't get back up.

I agree that the shitty-ass engine does it no favors (not to mention the art direction)

I think I remember something about them being stupid not having a lot of DHSs on mech for a while? I think the Hatamoto-chi was one of them. When does the DHS become wide spread for them?

>When does the DHS become wide spread for them

Late 50's.

Also, the Hatamoto-chi is single sinks because it's an old War of 3039 design from before the bullshit tech retcons. Kuritas got hit hardest by those retarded things because their most important tech recovery and deployment dragged into the mid and late 50's past the retcon cutoff while everyone else got bumped back a decade or more in their recovery cycle.

Yeah, the Combine jammed most of the DHS into their aerospace fighters.

This helps campaign-wise. Thanks.
Were DHSs that hard to make that they prioritized their fighters?

>Were DHSs that hard to make that they prioritized their fighters?
Supply issues, and the fact that the DCMS fighter corps was equal to or better their clan counterparts.

Yeah, about the only places the IS compared favorably were in aerospace assets. At the speed ASFs maneuver, the range advantages of their weapons don't count as much.

Mwll doesn't retain players for two reasons, no mechlab and no persistence. All most mw players want to do is boat as many of their favorite weapon as possible and to be able to do so at the beginning of every match. You can't really do either in mwll so hence it's small playerbase.

Interesting. Did they have a lot of fighter-carriers like that Leopard CV?
In the aerotech game, isn't one hex like 1000 km or something?

>isn't one hex like 1000 km or something?

~18km, currently, for space hexes.

If you're using the low-altitude map, each air hex corresponds to 1 ground mapsheet (so roughly 500m).

I need custom hardened armor heavies and assaults, give me all you got

Man I must be old or my memory is faulty. I would wear the first edition of aerotech had it be 1000 km per hex.

Tactics ability is actually pretty good; the ability to act a turn earlier is okay, but the ability to reset your stability when you reserve your action is the hit of the whole fruit.

I tend to put Bulwark on the Jagers/Awesome. Something that's planning on sitting at the back and not moving anyway.

So my old campaign group died because the perma GM decided he was sick of GMing. The new group (same people, reorganized) has us departing from the old mode of being mercs and we ended up deciding on Mariks, we're members of the Silver Hawks Irregulars. It is 3050, and given the hate-boner our new GM has for the Clans, I know that they won't be showing up.

Theoretically, our unit is a full Battalion, but in actuality, we're rocking a reinforced company consisting of the following:

Battalion Command Lance consisting of:
Crab-20 (our command mech)
Hunchback-4G
Vindicator-1R

Fire Lance:
Stalker-3F
Awesome-8V
Orion-1K
Marauder-3R

Wolverine Lance
4x Wolverine-6M

Recon Lance:
Phoenix Hawk-1
Locust-1V
Locust-3V
Cicada-2A

We haven't had any battles yet, and getting an entire lance of Marik Wolverines was the result of some hilarious rolls on the mech availability charts, and I think we came out of it pretty okay. Nothing truly amazing, we'd all have preferred if that was an Awesome-8Q, but we have a well rounded and hard hitting force with no truly garbage mechs.

without clans who are you going to fight to make it a worthwhile campaign? pirates? if you could make davion border raids into a full game then god bless...

pirates, circinians, canopians, marians, secret neo-RWR, chaos march shitstates, lots of stuff

Silver Hawks means killing Circinians and reclaiming RIGHTFUL BOLAN CLAY.

as the local aerospace expert, how would you design an Assault DropShip (not PWS, like an Achilles) that doesn't suck like the canon models do?

I tried to convince the group that we should be Anduriens, but nobody wanted to go for it.

Fed-Com, Liao and other Mariks of course!

Valid points you guys bring up. I think I fell in love with LL because of the way it presented mass battles as opposed to skirmishes. Although only playing MWO during the beta has no doubt soured me to the experience.

With that said, has MWO gotten better? I hear a lot of complaints about PGI in particular, but given that I don't have a whole lot of time in the week to play the vidya, would I be able to enjoy this game? Or would I be stuck in the "you can always pay to git gud :^)" bracket?

...

MWO doesn't have pay2Win, it's just pay2AvoidGrind.

Granted, but can this game be enjoyable if I don't have enough time to grind? Are lightmechs balanced?

I'm not trying to pick apart any arguments or to start any. More than anything, I want to know if I can run around in an owens and still have fun.

[Spoiler]maybe I should just fucking play the game, but hell if I'm going to invest an afternoon downloading it only to find it's "heavy and assault mech powerhour"- the game[/spoiler]

First I;ll caveat this with the fact that I stopped playing like a year ago, but a new player gets a giant income boost, enough to buy and decently kit out a single mech after about 20 games. After that you're down to normal cash grind.

A light mech can be competitive, but don't expect to just speed tank out in the open, you basically have to play ambush tactics and hit and run. It is certainly a lot harder for the same rewards as a heavier mech that just hits harder and is tougher.

I'm used to guerilla light tactics from LL, so that's fine.

Solid, I'll give it a go, thanks for the info.

Not him but the plain insane range advantage of capital and subcap weapons once they're introduced on dropships basically throws classic assault dropships out the window in terms of viable shipkillers.

So you might need to specify era.

one of the best players I know runs around raping bigger mechs in a locust. I've not been able to reproduce his successes though.

as a heavy and assault fan, MWO is frustrating

What mechs are currently in the game, hidden or not?

well first off they'd need way more armor to stand up to fighters
second, you'd have to allow them to mount capital weapons beyond missiles (this is ignoring subcaps because I'm assuming you're talking about pre-jihad since you say no PWS)
a few NLs or a spinal NPPC is going to allow squadrons of assault ships to threaten light WarShips and absolutely murder other droppers, which is about the best you can hope for with ships that small

You don't. The things that make Dropships not suck are also what make them PWSs.

>Did they have a lot of fighter-carriers like that Leopard CV?
The Leopard isn't all that great - it's only six fighters per collar, which is decent but nowhere near as good as the Kurita's Vengeances (nor, indeed, the Okinowas they developed during the Invasion and started deploying ~3055). Good enough to escort a small raiding force, but once you're doing a serious invasion you need a little more than the LCV and the pair of fighter bays on whatever other dropper you're using. The Okinowa was specifically cooked up to cover the gap between "eh, it's eight fighters and a company of 'Mechs" and "OH SHIT THERE'S FORTY OF THEM". Clan Carriers have a one-Star (ten-fighter) complement, which outguns the LCV pretty damned hard, and the bigger carrier droppers are even meaner; fortunately, the Clanners only used dedicated fighter carriers and dedicated 'Mech/Vee droppers in the Invasion (plus the odd WarShip's fighter complement). Fortunately, the Clans didn't deploy most of their bigger carriers often - they only had 4 Miraborgs in the Sphere by '57, and the Titans usually stayed with heavier fleet assets instead of getting tasked with invasion CAP.

See also the 3050 Panther, single heat sinks, ERPPC.

I haven't played in years but I've been randomly reading the wiki while at work. What the hell happened between 3100 and and 3150. There's a ton of content mentioned that covers 3050-3100 and everyone stabbing each other in the back or getting raped by Blakist cyborgs but 3100-3150 seems pretty thin still.

LPL Locust or one of the other ones?

I think the record I saw here was 1080 or something but I just caused a nice 460 ammo crit.

It's the Dark Ages. Battletech was being done by Wizkids at the time and they wanted to advance the timeline to sell their new models. Everyone hated it because clickytech != battletech, and they pretty much gave up on it. When Catalyst got the rights, they were kind of stuck in the same time period, but without anything good to do with the lore, so now we're just stuck in the Dark Ages.

Hey gents, besides the bug mechs, what are the most common mechs in the inner sphere? I am trying to figure out what the most common fusion engine size is.

Some of the issues with living legends have improved. There's a modifier in place now so that a lighter asset shooting a heavier one generates more cbills than shooting something of equal or lesser tonnage, thus making it easier for new player or late game joiners to catch up.

There are also more restrictions on transferring cbills so it's much more difficult for someone to get enough money for a madcat right out of the gate and stomp the enemy team while they're still in lights.

It's gonna be the 280, 275 and 300 that are most common after the 120 and 140

Archers, Banshees and Stalkers.

There's thirty something novels that cover that entire period plus a bunch of scenario packs.

There are 500 Chargers that nobody wants.

Other than that, SHawks, PHawks, Hunchbacks and Griffins prolly.

Chargers you say?
I'll take them!

>3050 Panther, single heat sinks, ERPPC

Oh yeah those are kinda goofy, just got two of them as salvage. I kinda like having the ERPPC and SRM4 with Artemis, but the heat on that thing makes it hard to justify that PPC, probably will will fit DHS as soon as I can. Probably upgrade the armor at the same time as you can drop 2 heatsinks off.

Venom is another rather oddball one aswell, 4 Medium pulses and only 12 Single Heatsinks and crap for armor due to the pulse lasers.

I'd charge her. Sauce on this hottie?
...
If it's not a trap.

Thats because nobody has introduced them to the glory that is 1A5 or 1A9 Charger, 1A5 is my personal favourite due to being mean motherfucker up close and personal.

>Yeah, the Combine jammed most of the DHS into their aerospace fighters.

...all the fighters we don't have names or stats of, apparently.

>but the heat on that thing makes it hard to justify that PPC, probably will will fit DHS as soon as I can
You could also go the quicker 10KA route and swap back to standard PPCs. They cut costs on the No-dachi by using the piles of surplus ERPPCs because of how many pilots did this.

Canopus.gif

Locusts are little bastards in MWO. I piloted them when I played (1V, 3S, and 3V). The 1V is busted with a LL or LPL in the CT, and it will be a rape train when Civil War launches and we get Snubbies. 50% cooldown in a 1V. Just let that stew for a moment.

If I go back though, I'll be swapping my 3L for a second 1V so I can do quad HMGs in one and a snubbie in the other.