/btg/ - BattleTech General

So what is it, for someone who hasn't heard anything about the ilClan?

sarna.net/wiki/IlClan

I too would like a rundown on the "mess" part of it, though.

Hmm... that article immediately summons to mind a giant furball (lol) of all the different yiffie importantsia "authors" and "developers" at eachother's throats trying to keep the others from being awarded with the Space Mongol Giant Robot HitlerBowl.

Check the megamek section of the OF

I love this IP.

Just been reading Second Succession War. Loremaster Roshak pops up at the start of the book again, reporting to the ilKhan that the book was recovered by a 'Gunslinger Eli Sender' among 'other information made available by the Exarch.'

It's also implied that they know what the truth is behind the Minnesota Tribe

So, what's the actual canon in Battletech right now? Interested in getting in the lore but I see lots of clans have been destroyed like the Smoke Jaguars since the last time I read it.
What are good books to read? Specially dealing with mercenaries units (hopefully not mary sues ones).

IF you're looking for something with clans and mercenaries, the dark age novel Wolf Hunters is not bad. It underps the clanners-turned-mercs faction and has some good combat scenes.

The early stackpole books aren't bad but suffer from stackpole's MC syndrome.

>stackpole's MC syndrome.
I'm not aware of this meme,and google only spews medical stuff, but probably it's related with a very samy kind of mc with related traits no? If the rest is good I can handwave that.
Also I stoped getting in Battletech when the clans were still kind of new at around the Battle of Tukayyid and I see lots of crazy stuff happened, so I'm wanting something solid to get my feet again, dunno if the Dark Age it's considered solid for the old BT fans or what, what the hell was the deal with the Blake Jihad or if the second Star League even matter because for what I'm reading it's in a spiral of decadency already.

I think he's referring to Stackpole's way of handling his main characters. Some bullet points:

>the good guys are more white-hat than Gandalf the White, always right, can do no wrong, etc.
>corollary: the bad guys are stupid, moustache twirling villains who can't get a plan off the ground if they attached it to a crane

Other things to expect when reading Stackpole: giant, GIANT dumps of exposition delivered in unbroken lectures; cringy love scenes; man-made lightning and green darts; and of course, fusion reactors exploding.

Stackpole is a good writer who knows that he's writing simple hero stories. Simple hero stories have clear cute villains and heroes.

This gets a lot of peoples; panties twisted because they only play serious mature games for serious mature gamers such as themselves, playing with Kinder egg toys on painted cardboard.

Sounds horrible. Those poor mechs exploding.

Especially horrible because fusion reactors can't explode. Something's bending the laws of the universe when a 'Mech stackpoles.

Battletech isn't a setting created by NASA scientists, you know.

Just about every sentence in any of the books goes in dry and bloody on even high school understanding of the world.

Heat is a pretty nice example of stuff being bonkers when you pay any sort of attention to it.
Nobody cares, because making sense was never the goal at all. It makes for a more fun game than one without the heat. Likewise, the books with explosions make for a more fun read than those without them. Because they're giant explosions and they are cool.

So when will we get the inevitable hover Quadvee? and how horrifying will it be?

Will it have a partial wing? I need that to have a partial wing on my desk by morning, k thx.

Because LAMs aren't good enough, the mech.

Probably a long shot, but I remember around fifteen years ago there was a b-tech archive that was like a technical readout for everything, but it had additional little background stories for mechs and vehicles and so forth, and more notable, had nice cartoony line art pictures of most of the stuff. It had white text on black background iirc.

It was around at the same time as chaosmarch, but it wasn't chaosmarch.

Ring any bells for anyone? I'd love to find those old cartoony linearts, I particularly remember the Vindicator being qt.

ghost war was pretty cool

>Battletech isn't a setting created by NASA scientists, you know.

Not being created as scientifically accurate sci-fi is just one more reason why Battletech is terrible.

>Stackpole is a good writer who knows that he's writing simple hero stories.

I doubt there's a good reason for that other than they're the easiest/fastest to write, though.

>clear cute villains and heroes
swoon~

Quick! Post your favorite 'Mech archetype (trooper/missile boat/scout/brawler/etc) and why. Bonus points: Make an improved version that stays true to the original and is meant for your favorite era of play.

For me, it's troopers.

You basically posted what I would have done.

I like troopers since they're unglamorous, usually cheap, and they don't do anything particularly well, but you can plug them in just about anywhere.

I especially like slow mediums because the only reason why'd you do something like it is because it's cheap to make.

Alternatively for the sake of the discussion, I'd pick the -2H Shadow Hawk and drop the unnecessary heat sinks for full jump jets and an additional ton of armor.

I actually don't have one. I like doing all sorts of stuff, from imperfect designs to troopers to min/maxing nightmares. It's literally just whatever comes to mind.

Example, I just wanted to make a Warhammer that actually acts like the old Macross Tomahawk art with the torso missiles because one pic showed up in an old FASA product. I loved the result.

Between him and bronies, there's good reason why I won't touch the ELH with a ten foot pole.

Also CHH

Brawlers. They're meant to close the distance quick and deliver hurt, or to wade in and deliver the hurt and stay there.

I could always post the customized Orion that the leader of my merc unit pilots as an example of how it works.

Is the masterunitlist think more of a reference site for making fluffy units or is more of a hard rule type thing

I am discovering that all these random minis I have painted in the same colors don't actually fit into the same list.

Kinda both? It's canon, and it's as broad as possible, so if you don't see a unit there for your time and faction, then it's definitely not available as a general rule. At the same time, BT isn't really nazi-ish about force selection, and especially doesn't take into account salvage, so it's always possible to throw in a one-off or two, as long as the chronology fits. But if a quarter of your unit is off, well, I'd rethink at that point.

It's a fluff thing, and mediocre at that.
Literally the only hard rule is era-based, and even that's pretty vague

I have a mostly Capellan force, but I have a Black Knight which doesn't appear in any of the lists for cappies despite the TRO saying "During the Succession Wars many Black Knights fell into the hands of the Great Houses"

Alternatively if I got full merc in 3025-3050 era
they don't get the Vindicator or Cataphract.

Aside from that everything fits

Black Knights did, but then they were mostly destroyed. Remember that the Succession Wars go on for some 250 years. But the most survived in Marik space, so a Capellan force with a salvaged one works. Mercs with Capellan machines is similar: the Cappies aren't selling, but plenty of mercs fight them, and so again salvage can explain that away (especially the Vindicator). Overall I'd say you're fine.

Thanks user

I thought it made sense back in the day when I bought these guys, since the cappies raided the last factory that made them I figured they'd get at least a couple mechs.

>I like troopers since they're unglamorous, usually cheap, and they don't do anything particularly well, but you can plug them in just about anywhere.
Got it in one. Also the 2H mod sounds good; the Shad not having 5 Jump is pretty bad with how the new rules work, and how TMMs work. It's a middling design but it's never not useful. Perfect definition of a trooper.

RLs would have been an interesting idea too, I think.

Toss it up man.

For Mercs, the Cataphract is the only thing that sticks out really. They were kinda rare till the 3040s.

Lore wise: More Clan wankerism. I am tired of those furry bastards.
Reality wise: Its a fuckball, with an almost done book, wich the authors never finished because they werent payed, beign redone to do another fucking time jump instead of trying to develope the timeline.

It's supposed to be canon and does take into account salvage, or at least known or probable salvage- it's why the CapCon has the Devastator listed, frex.

I'm not a huge fan of it since it fucks over the usual factions and autists will abuse the living fuck out of it, but that's what TPTB want it to be.

To follow up your example, the thing that really fucks it is no commonality rating. Like the Caps have the Devastator in their list because Barton took a single one as salvage in 3044. That's it. One machine gets you on the list.

Pretty scary when you think about it. That's not counting the genuine fuckups either.

mgonetwork.com/~btarchive/ "Longwalker's BattleTech Technical Archive". The Wayback Machine can't find anything after 2001.

If they wanted it to reflect how common things are it would fuck shit up even worse than it already does.

I've had people REEEEE to the high heavens about fielding an ENF-5D among my Dracs because it was totally and utterly impossible any could have been captured or upgraded from 3025 tech ever, while he spammed Pillagers because the Feddies got a few small production runs one time.

It's already bad enough when you play non-FedCom powers prior to Xin Sheng for Caps or the Jihad for Dracs and FWL, giving retards extra ammunition to bitch about your force not being a fluff-compliant 40% Grand Dragon, 35% Panther is not going to help.

Fuck CGL

The only thing the MUL is honestly good for is finding out modern production or refits that they were too lazy to properly put in a sourcebook somewhere. A particularly good example is Star League royals put back into production after the Dallas Core in 3074. Like Oriente with the Royal Stinger, though I remember that was listed somewhere. Or Taurians with the Royal Marauder and Royal Warhammer. Canopians with the Royal Shad. I think it was Canopians, might have been Anduriens.

I hope you're capping, because you just *know* the mods are gonna vanish this shit and then probably ban Ben Rome.

What am I missing? Why'd GB leave?

Does GB post here?

Not that I know of, but he may start.

Given the number of people from/in this community that have either gotten into CGL, or are working with them at the moment, I feel as though we have far more throw weight than they would like to admit, and anyone who likes BattleTech and hates censorship or circlejerks is going to end up here, or at least find us.

bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=58534.120

There's also Colt Ward being a retard and ColBosh crying for not being a writer anymore

Lack of payment was always suspected and his blog basically said Randall sat around all day jacking off instead of paying attention to BT. Seems he got sick and tired of both.

I will say that his ideas for advancing the plot were frankly pants on head retarded and can definitely live without Jihad 2.0: Jihad Harder While Worshiping Ben's Donut Steel Self-Insert Character though.

>There's also Colt Ward being a retard and ColBosh crying for not being a writer anymore

Both normal, never seen Colt not being a cunt and Bosch has some serious Stockholm Syndrome shit going on.

Oh, good. It's public finally.

>user was permabanned by JadeHellbringer for 'pissing him off'
>now this
AHAHAHAHHA pottery. Maybe that was Benny himself.

Jesus, that Jadecockfalcon faggot even has a deviant-art signature banner.

So a couple threads ago, I posted an idea for a MegaMek campaign I wanted to try. Basically combining the noble and pirate alternate AtB rules. Were you would play as a noble fighting on their home planet trying to grab more territory, and raiding other planets when you can for resources.

Is there a time when this would work? A place? Do people have ideas for other mechanics? I am new to battle tech, and have only played a AtB merc campaign in 3044 for a bit. I am getting a bit tired of the lack of long term goals. Slowly expanding a planetary land holding and developing the defensive units in each region while also building a unit of raiders to go pillage other planets sounds really interesting.

It could work anywhere near the borders between states or on the periphery at any period.

It would also do well in the time between the Fedcom breakup and FCCW when the Chaos March was a thing.

>Is there a time when this would work? A place?

It could work in any time setting. As for places, this is what a lot of independent Periphery worlds did, what happened in the Chaos March, and probably wouldn't be out of place in the Malagrotta whatsitsname of the Jihad where theyliterally hired bandits and gave them letters of marque and reprisal.

It'll be squelched. And we'll be the only ones who keep the story alive; it'll just be another bannable offense on the OF. If they expected any sort of professionalism out of Mr. Rome, they should have treated him with some to begin with. Two-way street and all that.

>Ben's Donut Steel Self-Insert Character

pls elaborate

Any good sources to look up fluff for these eras?
I read the fluff in the main book some, and have picked up some more for lurking in these threads.

How should raiders work? People have before mentioned such worlds often just use their merchant fleets, repainted as pirates. The noble variant in AtB does not give any mechanics for a merchant fleet. It seems like jump and drop ships are ludicrously expensive for just raiding in...

I see JHB hasn't grown up any in the five years I've been off the OF. Still a little prick, but with an admin tag, which tells me there's literally no one else left in *that* barrel.

Initiation to War in the Mechwarrior novels was my only real insight into the Chaos March as far as what you wanna do. Should be somewhere in the mediafire.

>It seems like jump and drop ships are ludicrously expensive for just raiding in...
Remember that early on in the setting they cost literally 1/4-1/20th of the current price, plus that's always been a known FASAnomics issue that everyone just ignores

>Reality wise: Its a fuckball, with an almost done book, wich the authors never finished because they werent payed, beign redone to do another fucking time jump instead of trying to develope the timeline.

Wait, this shit again? How many times something like this have to happen before they learn... wait, never mind. Answered my own question.

The WoB were going to come back worshiping Benjamin Emory (ie, Benjamin Rome)'s triple-core processor as a holy artifact.

He's having to rein in former colleagues who are engaged in public shouting matches about internal problems like petulant children, AFTER a Mod told them to cool it. A little exasperation is to be expected.

[Citation needed]

I'm not sure if you're this retarded or just pretending, but how about you use Google ince I already said where it was?

Skimmed thread, missed reference to blog. No need to be an asshole about it

Anybody know of some quality objective-based scenarios? I'm trying find something that won't devolve into "just kill the other side" or "make it to the opposite end".

CA made these, I think. They're still kill targets, but with variety.

My favorite scenario book. Crack the defenses and storm the castle.

>No need to be an asshole about it

to be fair, in his defense, you posted [Citation needed] like a tool

How does one balance Animal Control. I was under the impression you should use BV to match forces, but there are none listed for the megafauna. Does that mean it should just be 1:1 models?

For Total Chaos units have a point value separate from BV, though in this case, yeah it's a 1:1 unit balance.

This in the OP somewhere? Don't see a scenario pack section.

NEA threw a really nice one up a couple threads ago. Fourth succession war battle about forcing a river crossing, Lyrans vs Dracs.

Anyone have it?

...

What warships are good on the smaller end?

What pocket warships are good?

>What am I missing? Why'd GB leave?
Routine non-payment and getting jacked over as assistant LD by a disinterested but control-hungry company owner. Hit up his blog for more.

>Does GB post here?
Ben Rome? He's been here a couple times but never admitted it was him on-site - only elsewhere. He.. has a dim opinion of us.

>If they expected any sort of professionalism out of Mr. Rome, they should have treated him with some to begin with.
Dude's been professional as Hell for years. Not paying a man and telling him to lie for you is a HELL of a way to break that though.

>Anybody know of some quality objective-based scenarios? I'm trying find something that won't devolve into "just kill the other side" or "make it to the opposite end".
Not sure how "quality" it is, but I wrote this a few years ago as a demo scenario. It's rather a lot of fun, and rarely turns into a slugging match.Although the tank player usually figures out he needs to play ram-and-rape about the middle of Turn 3.

>Dude's been professional as Hell for years. Not paying a man and telling him to lie for you is a HELL of a way to break that though.
I meant in terms of the screencapped forum convo. I realize he was better than they deserved in terms of other stuff, even if he's no prince overall.
>He.. has a dim opinion of us.
That's amusing. He probably hates the piracy for the most part. I don't see him as the 'hugboxy' type.

>ColBosh
Bwahahaha, what a grade A retard.

>What warships are good on the smaller end?
>What pocket warships are good?

I hate to be That Guy I lie, I don't really but good for what?

Generally speaking, the first lot of PWSes that were just standard DS hulls retrofitted with capital missile launchers are pretty shit and rely on nukes plus the tendency for canon designs to have fuck all for AMS defence to get anywhere.

Intermediate designs like the Interdictor, Taihou and so on start to push the the envelope for what is possible and in large enough groups can pose a threat to proper WarShips. Mostly they're good for blowing up transport and assault DropShips.

Late PWSes like the Castrum can legitimately threaten light WarShips and not just because they sling Peacemakers. One-on-one proper WarShips will fuck them up so you still need swarms, but the swarms are noticeably smaller than the first and second-gen ships.

Light WarShips usually aren't much chop because the K-F drive and other mandatory stuff weighs so much. They tend to be faster than heavier designs and are mostly dropper poppers or good for harrying damaged WarShips. None can really stand up to a mid-range WarShip in a fight.

Oh, he was plenty hugboxy before this and was incredibly brittle about having his work criticised. And I don't mean "criticised" in terms of "hurr it's shit durr" but pointing out logical inconsistencies or how everything but Wars of Reaving is copy-paste of old stuff with a minor editing pass.

He might be where you say now but for the longest time he was one of the in-crowd with all that entails.

>and of course, fusion reactors exploding.

Who doesn't love a mech melting down on 11+ after two engine crits in one firing phase?

The only thing better is when you Robot Jox it; trash your 'mechs so hard the pilots crawl out and start beating each other with bits of scrap metal.

>If you don't think that's the tightest shit.jpeg

You haven't read what Stackpole thinks fusion reactors do, have you? If he had his way, you'd never have anything to salvage because engine damage always completely destroys a mech when he's writing.

I love the 'Mechs overheating part, but Stackpole's nuke-like reactor explosions are somewhat out there, considering a fusion reactor would just shart out the plasma and shut down on a breach. It doesn't help that one of his most iconic scenes is caused by a fusion reactor going off like a nuke.

I mean, I love 'Mechs exploding. Seeing how many rounds a Crusader can go before it turns into a mushroom cloud is fantastic. But Stackpole, there are 'Mechs and vees with loads of explosive ammo to make big fucking fireballs, you don't need stackpoling!

Has it ever been mentioned when Hopper Morrison found his Star League 'Mechs and went rogue from Circinus? I thought FM:P had it, but no joy.

>The only thing better is when you Robot Jox it

New weapons check: the wrist saw has been replaced by a fusion arc torch.

>Check.

Green lasers installed in the shoulder turrets. Fire with the pickle on the right palm.

>Check. Can I go out now, Dad?

Go!

youtube.com/watch?v=vUxDmKFCD2o

>but good for what?
It's more that I'm trying to wrap my head around how aerotech works. It seems cool, if wonky.

Contextually, I'd say early 50s

Im a big fan of Lola III's

So I'm kind of new to the lore and I'm moving my way through it all and I have a quick question.

Is there any reason the jade falcons seem to be immune to or dodge any kind of comeuppance whatsoever for their actions? Like every other faction seems to get kicked in the knees from time to time and the ones who are dicks to everyone constantly seem to usually meet a pretty awful fate, same with clans that try too many political maneuvers. Meanwhile I'm reading falcon lore and I keep seeing iterations of "the jade falcons were top level dicks at this point and everything turned out great for them" and no real big setbacks for them while all of their rivals just kind of keep getting weaker.
I get that I'm probably missing a bunch I'm mostly just reading through synopses on sarna. I also get that the answer is likely "because they're popular" but I'm curious if there's more of an in universe one (also it seems with maybe the exception of ghost bear even popular factions get kneecapped from time to time)

Also now I feel like a tool becuase just after posting this I immediately read that they nearly wiped themselves out against the wolves at one point but bounced back. So i guess I found my own example of them getting pushed back.

They're doomed to play second fiddle to the Wolves for eternity and got styled on by them pretty hard in the refusal war.

IMO, the falcons are your clanner's clanner. Honorable to a fault, ruthless and skilled enough to stay top dog in the might-makes-right society of the clans. (prior to DA, where they keep the threat aspect but full retard socially)