/btg/ BattleTech General

It's best to just remove Akuma altogether, and insert a Devastator in its stead.

I mean, why bother with inferior garbage when everyone can just bring FedCom or Clan supers instead?

Canon, but shit.

I mean, you can paint a pile of dogshit gold but it still isn't going to make it not dogshit.

If you can hit between the +3 (usually more) penalties for MRMs and range, sure. And while Apollo does make it easier to hit, it then fucks up your damage. Might as well just mount Light PPCs once those are added or an LL/ML battery before.

You could unfuck it with CASE, C3, and an S-SRM battery. Or by removing 1 SHS and swapping the MRM-30 for another LB-10X.

I prefer going 200% REMOVE CLAN with it though. My DONUT STEEL OC was a rich nuffie Samurai who swanned through the PLO, expected to get the family Warhammer with a posting to the Deiron Regulars, and instead got shipped off to the Pesht Regulars in a captured Davion Shadow Hawk as a message from daddy to shape the fuck up just in time to get pwned by the Clans. Eventually rose to command a battalion in the Second SoL and was one of the last loyalists fighting in the Jihad.

MRMs are shit with or without Apollo.

I'm sure you've just discovered the weapon system and your dreams are alive with the idea of hitting for 40 points of damage. Which admittedly would be pretty awesome.

If it fucking happened. At all. Ever.

Most of the time you'll miss. Apollo can help with that, some. But even when you do hit it is extremely rare to get the full spread, and will almost never happen with Apollo.

Pic related is legit one of the smartest uses of MRMs and even it basically requires you to be the bodyguard for a C3 company commander. Or you can just use sensible and fun weapons to contribute a shit ton more to the unit instead.

>An MRM 40 hits
Lol no.

>The fabled Cerberus, with its 11 tons of armour (that's right, the 3025 Crusader has better protection...)

Doesn't the Crud use standard and the Cerb FF... ?

Yes but the Crud has 12 tons of it, and IS FF is lousy. The Crud actually doesn't have better protection, but not by much, AV 192 to the Cerb's 197. Doesn't change the fact that the Cerberus is horribly thin skinned for a 95 ton mech, even if not classic Cyclops bad. Or he might have been thinking of a Thunderbolt, since it does out armor the Cerberus and many 3025 assaults.

I think Clan FF levels of protection should have been that of IS FF with Clans only getting the benefit of less crits, LFF would give the protection of current IS FF, and HFF would give commercial armor levels of protection.

What shits me is how easy all that is to fix.

That is weird. With armour like that I'd have thought the Cerberus would be a FWL mech.

Dracs export it to the Purple Burds.

The Burds actually have a faction-exclusive (initially, later shared with Cappies and Robes) version that drops one GR for an ER PPC, extra armour, and another two MPLs.

A lot of Drac 'Mechs have pretty poor armour though.

Is there a place where i can find random (or not) people to play megamek with? I have been searching for random battletech discords but the ones i found are dead.

That's a factory refit that requires endo-steel.

Simpler Fix would be:

1) Remove AMS
2) Remove MG's
3) Remove Heat Sinks
4) Add 5 tons of armor

I think that's a class D refit, so it would still work as a field kit.

There is never any reason to use Ferro Fibrous over Endo-Steel if Endo-Steel is available.

I've never gotten more than half a ton out of light ferro either.

Why?

Because Endo Steel always delivers more tonnage. Aside from refits, if your designing a new mech from the ground up or retooling a factory, you should always use endo steel if you have the crits for it, and should never take ferro over endo because ferro delivers less tonnage.

Technically Clan Ferro can break even at certain weights (mostly lights and low end mediums) even when maxed out, but of course the "technically" is because you can just use both easily with Clantech.

I find light ferro to be more of a filler. Situations where I've already got everything I really want, and I've got some free crits but not enough for regular FF, so fuck it, may as well throw on LFF and maybe stick and extra ML or whatever extra points of armor I can on.

Also one thing to remember about FF is vehicles, since endo doesn't exist for them. HFF in particular becomes way more usable.

New to mech creation here, could you go through what steps you did?

>remove AMS
Is it not worth a darn tabletop? In the video games it was GOAT.

What's better, light ferro or heavy ferro? I've never used either.

Using Endo. None of the IS's so-called "advanced" armors are worth a damn except for Stealth and Hardened. Endo steel is always better, period, every time.

It's pretty iffy. Nice if thunderbolt missiles are involved, but against most stuff they just take a bit of the edge off a hit and a single AMS can only engage one missile attack per turn, and can't even destroy an entire flight outside of TacOps rules. Old school rules they could take a big bite out and even destroy whole flights, but potentially could also burn through an entire ton of ammo in a single intercept.

I'd say light only because it's way more usable, even if the extra protection isn't much. While heavy ferro just slightly edges out Clan ferro in protection and I think at a few weights can even be slightly better than endo, 21 crits is a lot of fucking space. It's pretty much restricted to lights and mediums that aren't carrying many guns and don't have many external DHS. Heavies and assaults are pretty much always going to be carrying too big/too many guns to ever really use it.

Though on tanks HFF is great, especially the heavies and assaults because they usually have way more item slots than they'll ever use anyway.

>Stealth
I wish my impoverished state that purged intellectuals could come up with something like that.

what is the Capellan secret?

Line Developer fiat?

Could always poke the IRC for a game. I'm generally down for a game if I'm about.

So far as I know, the best reasons to use FF over ES is if you're using campaign rules for refitting, because changing armors is trivial, while ES requires access to a factory.

Dunno, but it was exactly the same way in reality.
Stealth is a concept invented by Russians and simply made public, being the cornerstone of all US stealth planes. Like, the book that publicized it was literally translated into English by the US Air Force engineers. Scientists are simply not the guys who run around breaking regimes, unlike your usual Law majors with prospects of securing a seat somewhere comfortable.

The Russians might have thought of it, but they didn't implement it.
Even their submarines (the stealthiest military thing ever made) relied on going fast enough that their loudness didn't matter.

>russian subs
>stealthiest military things ever made
[laughing Seawolfs]

Learn to read.
I said that submarines are the stealthiest thing ever made, but even with that advantage, the Russian ones literally couldn't be quiet, so they relied purely on speed.

>what is the Capellan secret?

That they halfass reingeered a Star League stealth system but fucked it up and couldn't get it all the way. It took the Blakists to do that. And then the robes made it better. Blake Eliason!

An MRM with apollo isn't any less likely to hit than anything else at the same range. A -2 on the cluster table is a very minor tradeoff for 20-30 points of sandblasting.

So, after some user bitched about the Vulpes last thread and wanted to kick it out of the Davion inventory - and jokes were made that the Sea Foxes would gladly take it - I made an attempt to clannify the design. Let me know what you think.

>BattleMech, Sea Fox totem
>Chassis: ES
>Armor: FF, 201 points (assume Mad Dog distribution)
>Heat Sinks: DHS 18(36)
>Movement 5/8/5 + MASC
201 points of armor
>4 cERML split between the arms
>cERPPC in the RT
>Extras: TC (2 tons/2 crits for 10 tons of weapons,) MASC, ECM

Opps, forgot: Clan XL engine, no XXL abomination.

But the sea foxes are the ones most trying to push the XXL engine.

Just make it clantech base and you save two tons from the ECM/CASE/MASC conversion you can put towards additional heatsinks or whatever

I think it's not unfeasible for the Foxes to use a cheaper, less explodey engine for their own designs and sell the expensive XXL to other factions. Save on the homefront, profit on all others.

Not unfeasible but also not necessarily the case, the foxes happily use questionable things like the Ha Otoko and MadCat IV.

Also I feel your design loses the flavor of the original mech (i think it resembles a similar sea fox produced mech, the cave lion), that being a skirmisher that has flaws in a slugging match but is amazing if you can juggle it's heat load, gimmicks, and range bands

Eh, dropping a DHS or two for a PPC-Cap would be in the cards, I guess. Or returning to the XXL to free the weight.

Give praise to Blake!

What's a BT fluff change you'd make that you think would make more sense?

Me, I'd have given the Leviathans to the Diamond Sharks and Snow Ravens only.

I would have kept the Leviathans as transports like they were originally built for to move all the Ghost Bears to the IS, and then sold them off to the Sharks in the Early Republic Era and have that be what the space jews built the major OvKhanates around.

Then again, the Blakists engaging all three Lev II's and killing two of them in combat then hurting the third were some of the best fleet moments of the Jihad.

The Robes should have captured one.

That would have been cool.

Fuck yeah, like they salvaged the one at Dieron before they had to flee to Terra and have it be part of the missing fleet like that one Thera they still had at the end of the war.

The FWL becomes a more active player, rather than just the guys what fill the location between one of the protagonist factions and one of the designated mustache twirlers.

They honestly are. It's just nobody really does shit between Duncan's Revolt and the start of the Jihad. They're active in all the rest of their history.

I like this a lot.

Just pulled the Machine Guns and ammo since the rear-firing MGs are a waste of time, removed the two DHS because it barely overheats on a full running alpha, swapped the Ferro-Fibrous armour for Endo Steel, and sank all the saved tonnage into armour so it doesn't die like a bitch every five seconds.

Not really, no. I'd say Guardian ECM is a better investment as a protective device and that has the benefit of doing other things for the same investment of crits and tonnage. No explosive or limited ammo either.

Ballistic-Reinforced is worth it too. Arguably Reflec on very fast units because those should be kiting and are most vulnerable to energy weapons any way.

>An MRM with apollo isn't any less likely to hit than anything else at the same range.

3-hex short range, 8-hex medium, 15-hex long. You're still going to be chewing on unpleasant to-hit modifiers. If MRMs were 5/10/15 like they should always have been it might not be so bad, but they're not, so they are.

Thunderhawk is Lyran exclusive, Nightstar is Feddie, Cerberus unfucked and to the FWL, Devastator is Drac, and Pillager stays Cappie. Et viola, two of the five factions are no longer fucked by Gausswall tactics.

I'd rather the II and III just never even existed. The transport model's not an issue though.

Most of the other stuff I have problems with stem from the War of 3039, so I'd remove the experimental tech from that fight, make it so the Dracs actually fight back worth a damn, and give them substantial enough amounts of SLDF machines that the FedCom would actually be surprised rather than barely be able to tell it wasn't a completely normal regiment if they even realised there was a difference at all. At least that doesn't screw the Clan Invasion as badly due to tech retcons.

>Stealth is a concept invented by Russians and simply made public
Uh.. read Skunk Works. Lockheed's chief engineers go over, extensively, the data they got from the Dornier flying Wing and the SR-71 project, and how it affected the original Stealth Ship and F-117 designs.

My impression was that the guy researched and established the entire field of science required for it.
Engineering is another thing entirely when someone already did the backbreaking math and you're simply applying it.

>implying new radar wavelengths and material didn't have their own mathematics done.
>Implying engineering is just 'applying' concepts.

Stay salty Soviet.

A fix was requested for this so I'm reposting it. Nothing to see here; carry on.

...

Any of you guys have a favorite Mercenary outfit?

Aw hell, it's a toss up. Wolf's Dragoons, Gray Death Legion, Kell Hounds, Cranston Snord's Irregulars, Blazing Aces and Crescent Hawks. I love 'em all.

Never Give Up. Never Surrender.

2nd place goes to the MAC before they went full state unit.

You have great taste user.
I got into Btech from Crescent Hawks Inception so I'll always love them. Had a box set with that revenge and MW1. I can't tell you how many times I tried saving Gideon :( I would love for the lore to be expanded as his dying words were to rebuild.

Also, pic related.

...

>I can't tell you how many times I tried saving Gideon
I know the Blazing Aces don't end well, but what did you do to try to save him?
D. Sajak is brunette Lori Kalmar is Corinne Bohrer as hottie of the day. Must ALWAYS hire.

You have 2 options of hot dropping and trying to battle the clanners who surrounded his lone mech.
It's like a full star of meds vs just him and your a bit a way there's no way to do it.

Ones with Clantech that almost never lose.

So Kell Hounds and Wolf's Dragoons.

Why play anything else?

The other option you land and find the pile of mech after the battle.

I have .5 ton left in a mech I'm working on. Armor is pretty much maxed out.

Should I just throw a small laser on the thing? Maybe rear-facing?

RL-10 or reduce armour and add an ML.

tell us a little more about the mech user.

Sounds interesting. Never used RLs before.

It's just a variant of an existing assault (Cerberus) based on what I saw other anons working on earlier.

Ah ok, an RL10 would be a good fit and as you just said something you haven't worked with.

>At least that doesn't screw the Clan Invasion as badly due to tech retcons.
Is it really so bad? Even with the tech retcons, the fact that the Clans attacked from the direction of the periphery makes it far less likely that they'd be facing units, at least initially, that had upgraded machines, right? Even with the retcons, it's not like even the best line units were fully upgraded by 3050, or am I remembering wrong?

Laurel's Legion

Jesus, this is like a who's who of bullshit munchkin units. Any merc unit which lasts longer than 10 years is a Sue, full stop.

>people surviving past the age of 10 are Mary Sues
This is you, right now. Shame on you, user. What would your mother say at this kind of willful retardation?

You're mssing a few key things. Like all the actual line units, including full top level Regimental Combat Teams getting fucked. I mean premier stuff like the 10th Lyran. And how it was the one year stop in 3051 when all the top Clanners went back to the Homeworlds to elect a new ilKhan that gave the IS enough time to upgrade enough stuff to make a difference. And how none of the people at the top military ranks were familiar with most of that equipment.

Clanners were in the Periphery in late-49. They were literally at Radstadt in 3050, halfway to Terra. That's how deep and fast they rolled over everyone.

Those are really entirely different things.

You should taking him to task for his weak Suemerc complaints. Claiming any unit that last more than a year and actually has battlemechs is a Sue is the norm here nowadays.

You mean any merchant group that can afford berth on a jumpship is a sue group.

What scares me, half the posts are serious, half are shit posting.
I get it's a bit a push back because so many people make merc corps where backwaters farm boy finds a madcat in 3025 and happens to be a 1/1 driver also since he's 19 he personally calls Hanse Davion to buy him beer.
But starting companies should have at least a few bugs or it's just.. not BT with out any mechs.

Camacho's Caballeros, Kristen's Krushers, Romanov's Crusaders, Hansen's Roughriders (fuck the Fedrat retcon), Langendorf Lancers, Smithson's Chinese Bandits, and Burr's Black Cobras.

Too many to count, really
But 90% of non-storyline ones amount to
>rebalance design availability and RATs

>Claiming any unit that... and actually has battlemechs is a Sue

This is 100% true though. Nobody would risk death in a Mech unit wen they could just sell the damn Mech and be set literally for life and (if you've got a Medium or better) the life of your kids.

Humans don't behave in that irrational of a manner. Ever.

Have you heard of Neal Ellis?
The dude has a gun ship and goes around killing people because, he gets to fly a gun ship and kill people.
He's in his 70s and hunting ISIS for free.

>Have you heard of Neal Ellis?

I don't read made up stories.

There's a bunch of economic ways to explain that, if it's more than one person it's pooled money and only one of them knows how to or is the best mech warrior, another is credit. Mercing is big money so you might get a loan to go pirate hunting, you can't sell what you don't own.

He's very real ::
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neall_Ellis
youtube.com/watch?v=0bC0zPngc4c

Because some random guy can afford to buy a multimillion dollar gunship that someone else somehow sold him, can afford to keep it in repair and supplied, and nobody ever checks his certificates to be allowed to buy all that shit. Pull the other one. Fake news.

He often can't, and he's a merc...plus seriously fighting in war torn 3rd world nations one's where it's easier to buy an RPG than bottle of water?
I don't know why you are getting so offended by something that is just flat out true, dude does what he wants and is good at.
Are you seriously this mad I pointed out a very rare case that disagreed?
There's a shit ton of proof this is real and he's been doing it since before either of us were born and still at it. I think he'd be debunked if that was the case.

What's your favorite Com Guard or Word of Blake Militia division?

Fuck that. Why would I sell a machine for a few million Cbills when instead I could kill stuff for a real house, get a fat landhold on some rock that produces enough for my extended family to be landed gentry, and have a real mechwarrior lineage?

>ywn have an estate with two hundred of your closest cousins, who are your maids, bodyguards, techs, security force and replacement pilots
>all supported by the free stuff your lord gave your great granddad back in 2880 for his service in the piece of shit Shadowhawk your great great grandad stole from his SLDF unit when he deserted the TH in the First Succession War
>don't have to pay maintenance or repair on your machine
>the forty thousand Cbills you get every year as a pilot are just a stipend to live comfortably as an officer
>send most of it home anyway because of all the mechwarrior perks and Brotherhood freebies
>your greatest goal as a mechwarrior is to kill a decent enemy mech and secure it as salvage to restore and guarantee your title in the case that you lose old Sharpshooter in battle

God damn I miss Mechwarrior Knights.

Yes. Rear facing RL10 to tell any cheeky little bugs to fuck off.

p10 bump, and fuck you, maybe should care about the game

>Is it really so bad?

Yes.

From one standpoint, you've got units that were involved in the War of 3039 or pilots who were trained on the details at military academies going ZOMG at the new tech rolling into their units or being used by the Clans. Even Hanse Davion, retconned to being the guy who ordered experimental tech be used, is completely baffled by LosTech in the BoK trilogy.

Then there's the Schrodinger's Retcon about that advanced tech, where they had to have everyone decide at the end of the War of 3039 that all the experimental gear had to be retired and not fielded again for another ten years to account for it not being used in the novels.

Then they said fuck it and have retconned in fully developed tech being widely available as field refit kits and in use at times before the War of 3039 (and certainly the Clan Invasion) which fucks the 3039 stuff up even harder.

The Clan Invasion barely makes sense when the IS was supposed to be fielding 100% intro tech at the start. It makes none when apparently everyone is rolling in field upgrades before then, and also fucks with the Field Manual upgrade rates and need for FWL imports.

"If only you'd died at the age of 10 like I wanted, I wouldn't be dealing with your bullshit now!"

I care about the game. Hell I play it every chance I get. I prefer playing in meatspace to MegaMek though, truth be told.