/btg/ BattleTech General

The Drac just started off as one Japanese space nation taking over a lot of non-Japanese space nations and then forcing all the non-Japanese there to become weebs.

The reasoning can be applied to Space Chinese (Cappies). Because they are using a substantial slavery called Servitor.

I also mentioned that. It made about as much sense to describe people in the 31st century by modern Terran nationalities as it would be for us to call ourselves descendants of the francs or picts.

...but the reality is that most people see BT factions as "Space Modern-nationality". I'm hoping it's just primers for the kickstarter and that they properly fluff out characters as coming from planets rather than obsolete nationalities, but that's probably going to alienate the laymen and not much else.

Just like how the FWL's lack of popularity could be attributed to not being space-something, like the dracs are space-samurai, caps being space-redscare/china, and Lyrans being space germans. Being an amalgamation of prussian, indian, greek, and even some tex-mex, the FWL has never felt like a faction that could be abbreviated into an LGS elevator pitch. That's probably a similar reason to why they avoided any in-setting backgrounds.

'course, I'd be just as happy with hereditary background not being necessary to justify making POCs in space, but maybe I'm in the minority where asking "Where are you reaaaaaly from" isn't necessary for me to ask just because someone's brown.

Something must be wrong with my brain because I love the FWL's diversity of worlds and provinces. The only thing cooler than that is when they all work together, like when the Regulan Hussars used to be fanatically loyal to the Mariks or when the Humphreys dukes and dames proudly carried the title "Defender of the Free Worlds". The only thing cooler than a naturally diverse space faction is them cooperating and being unstoppable for it. Nothing against any of the other factions but why have a company of just Space Germans, Space Chinese or Space French when I can have a company whose commander is from a world settled by Romanians, Tibetans and Jews and speaks Farsi as his first language, whose senior NCO prays to Allah and comes from a province where Italian and Mandrin are spoken in the same conversation routinely, and whose common mechwarriors are a mix of Tex-Mex, Czechs, Greeks, Roma, Hindu, Urdu, Arabs, and more?

It's just awesome. And I say that as a /pol/ regular national socialist who wants a Europe for Europeans.

He was just saying its different.

Honestly, this is why the FWL is basically the only successor state that' interesting in any way. The heavily skewed cultural influences in other nations tend to make them boring. There's a reason Xin Sheng sucks so much.

The FWL is the best faction because it gives you options.

Shimmy just posted this, not sure if it's been shown here yet.

It hasn't been shown anywhere AFAIK.
And it looks sexy as fuck.

Shimmy nailed another out of the park

I can't put words in his mouth, but educated guess, it must be part of the artwork that was supposed to go into the combat manuals and/or Succession Wars TRO, before Harmony Gold got trigger happy with lawsuits again.

It is nice. Shame that it's got a snowballs' chance in hell of going to print.

Worst case scenario, it will take a few more years until HGs licence expires (and hopefully doesn't get renewed) and we get them on print.
Fuck those Disharmonic Turd cunts though

He said he was cleared to share it, so it clearly isn't under total lockdown. Hopefully, we get it in a book one day (hahanope but a man can dream)

>Wait, how can someone be a weeb if they're already ethnically Japanese?

Most of them aren't ethnically Japanese, plus the whole thing is them pretending that they aren't the descendants of a global superstate who're behaving like they're reenacting a mashup of Tora Tora Tora and the Shogun-movie.

Was just stopping by to make sure the Rifleman was shared, you guys are on point :)
Archer will be landing in a few days too.

I didn't expect it, but when asking for a list of NDA cleared classics, Ray ok'd the embattled non-published mechs. I guess they understand it's a waiting game now so might as well give the fans something. They paid a lot for this stuff after all.

The only pieces I can't post yet are the Catapult, Commando, and Awesome redesigns, all going into the new box set. Of course the Catapult prototype mini is out.

>Pic for those curious (inker?) seeing the transition from 3D render (legs) to final lines.

>Commando
There's a Commando redesign? Holy shit sign me the fuck up, I love that retarded little missile spamming shitmech. Hype engaged.

Woah, woah, woah!
COMMANDO REDESIGN?!
.
DO WANT!
(I do wish the rest of the Unseens had gotten redesigns too, Crusader, Stinger, Scorpion, Goliath and the Ostmechs)

so how does aerospace and conventional fighters integrate with regular battletech?

Poorly. Basically, you can use them to do flyovers of regular mech combat areas and do precision strikes with bombs or strafing runs with mounted weaponry. The mechs have a chance to shoot back, if they want to, but the numbers are often terrible on both sides, so it doesn't usually work out too well. However, bombing runs are pretty effective on something that is stationary, so they're great for trashing gausswalls, static emplacements, or objectives (since objectives usually don't move).

Indeed, and I think/hope I did a pretty good job of it.

>Stinger
Fuck it, have at ye before the planned DA post.

Spicy. I've always been iffy on the Stinger's head, but I do enjoy this one's boxy look. Well crafted, sir.

did you ever end up doing the larger Osts and the Longbow as part of this series?

Longbow and Crusader were planned, Crud sketched but never completed. I think the Osts were 2nd line goals along with stuff like quads.

All canned of course, for a more focused "what do we absolutely need" mindset. CGL has played with this stuff for 3 years now and needs to get stuff out the door, not produce stuff they might use later, on something, eventually, after lawsuits, money pending, and on and on lol.

Are you able to say what commissioning you to give a mech this redesign treatment would cost? Since I think there's anons here who would probably pay for that kind of treatment to certain mechs (the quads, Longbow, Crusader, Osts, etc).

that seems like it would bind his hands when doing official work in the future

Agreed, In this case I like how it makes the stinger look like an economy mech. Like it's made of flat plates to save money and get them out faster.

Looking good!

Makes me consider just how bullshit HGs claims are at this point. These are very distinct from their Robotech counterparts. But lawsuit bs is expensive and time consuming, *sigh*

So beautiful *sniff*

...Aaand that goes straight to my MekHq Fluff file, thanks user. Allready have most of the others Shimmy pictures there aswell.

Also this one aswell thanks Shimmy.

>Catapult, Commando, and Awesome redesigns

You're doin' gods work shimmy

>But lawsuit bs is expensive and time consuming, *sigh*

It's petty sand nigger shit. That's all that it is. Homonigger Gayhouse know they've lost their grip. They can no longer blackmail other people for profits. They're trying to be petty fucking dune baboon subhuman shitskins and cause as much monetary loss as possible.

God these are gorgeous; dare I ask to be permitted to BEG to see the Crusader sketch? Even if it's not a final.

Dude, thank you so much for showing these. Idly, was the MAD II in the redesign pile? I noticed there's changes in the MWO version between the MAD and MAD II, were there any similar changes made/intended for your versions?

MWO doesn't have the Marauder II (MWO has the IIC, which is a different mech).

I just woke up, I stand corrected! Thanks user.

So Shimmy, is there any chance that your Archer's in a pose that I can photoshop arms around like this?

>finally got Handbook: House Kurita
>super excited to see what's inside
>remember all the goofy things in the original house books, but hey they corrected things that were nonsensical (often in very passive-aggressive ways, sure) in the Liao Handbook
>get a few pages in
>"Geez this all sounds familiar"
>compare to original Kurita house book
>it's fucking copy-pasted

How?

Why?

All these years and they couldn't be arsed to update the writing like they did for House Liao. Did MadCap help write HB:HL and there simply wasn't a Kurita MadCap to help with HB:HK?

>Did MadCap help write HB:HL and there simply wasn't a Kurita MadCap to help with HB:HK?
Essentially, yes

Ben Rome claimed to be the Drac version of MadCap.

We saw how that one turned out.

>Ben Rome claimed to be the Drac version of MadCap.

>Harmony Gold's story began in the 1976, when Frank Agrama began selling broadcast rights from Paramount Pictures to his friend, former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Mediaset media company. In the late 1970s, Agrama, while in a trade fair in Cannes, France, met Hong Kong entrepreneurs Paddy Chan Mei-yiu and Katherine Hsu May-chun. The three agreed to form a collaboration to trade movie rights internationally. Chan set up Hong Kong-based company Harmony Gold Limited in 1979, while Agrama set up Agrama Film Enterprises on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.[4] In 1983, Agrama set up Harmony Gold USA. He later also became the Los Angeles commercial representative of another of Chan's companies, Wiltshire Trading.[5]

I cannot get over how dodgy HG is as a company. Just like at every level, at every stage they're a textbook case of corporate malfeasance.

I'm kind of surprised that the Federated Commonwealth didn't support the St. Ives Compact in the war against the Capellan Confederation.

They would have, but Coleman was a shifty little cunt and kept the FedCom out of it by fiat alone.

Yeah, they're basically just a rights scam in company form.

The Bear fugger? How could he see himself as a MadDrac?

The Capellan March alone should have been able to buttfuck the CCAF. But as says...
Coleman even had the Capellan Dragoons killed off in the FCCW because he thought a non-Confederation unit shouldn't have "Capellan" in its name.
Then there's Sovereign Justice...

Has Coleman ever written anything that wasn't complete garbage?

...

Illusions of Victory was a decent novel. Other than that, no.

What do fa/tg/uys reckon are the best BT novels? I always feel quite bad because I love the games, asnd the setting, but the actual novels are normally quite poor I think.

I forgot the Centrellas weren't KANGZ until like the 31st century.

Nah, they were diversified after the SLDF conquered them.

The GDL books were all universally solid bar The Dying Time, along with Thurston's Jade Falcon books. Stackpole's best novels are not his mainline trilogies, but stuff like Natural Selection and Malicious Intent. Charrette also has majority of the better BT books remaining. I'm apparently in the minority that finds Victor Milan's work pretty crap. Also, everyone should read Star Lord, Ideal War and By Blood Betrayed at least once. The latter simply because it's one of the few Periphery novels.

so, looking at infantry construction rules, there's basically no reason ever to not have a generic autorifle as your primary weapon, it seems the best price to damage ratio weapon

The *best* ones would be the Twilight of the Clans novels that deal with Task Force Serpent (The Hunters, Sword & Fire, and Shadows of War) and Wolves on the Border.

There were posts on the OF where he said they were his favourite, or one of his favourite, factions.

His non-Capellan novels weren't that bad.

Whatever contract or legal agreement he has with CGL must be fucking amazing too.

Seconding the Thomas S Gressman novels from Twilight of the Clans.

>Whatever contract or legal agreement he has with CGL must be fucking amazing too.
He owns the goddamn company.

The Gressman ones were really good with giving a more military bearing to the characters. The bridge of the Invisible Truth felt like a real place, you got a sense for higher level command characters like the ELH's leadership and company-and-lance level folks.

Very good reads.

You are one talented bro. Love your work, all day; every day.

Meaning he probably wrote the stuff that got him out of having to re-pay what he embezz... uhh... "imporperly co-mingled and accidentally spent without realising those were company funds."

In honor of shimmy's new art, post Rifleman and Stinger variants

Here you go.

Here's another Rifleman.
Probably would be better with a 300XL, but it was meant to be a cheap mercenary field refit

Fuck

Maybe if price is your sole concern. There are many weapons with greater range and several with more range and more damage. That's not even including support weapons. Most of those will cost more excepting maybe the baseline laser rifles.

Have one more, I was testing SG Thunderbolt rounds with some ghettotech upgrades to Introtech designs.

so how do transports work?

>SG thunderbolts
[Physical Fear]

Halved ammo means you literally get 1 shot per ton for the -20. It's all part of a plan. I've got more missiles, but I'm waiting for Xotl to reappear before I post them.

Any idea how good the harebrain btech game is gong to be? 4 mech limit seems too low

>Tall, squat, and using four treads,

I was gonna draw all six of the Demolisher crew as cute lolis but a couple days not being able to draw meant my arm was cramping up way too early. Also what the fuck is the sphere thing on the front of it is supposed to be anyway?

What program do you use and is there any way for me to acquire the 3D models?

Also all this new stuff is for a new box set if I understand it correctly?

SAM ammunition for LRMs and thunderbolts needs to be a thing

Get those hussies some decent clothes to put on! Mechwarriors can do what they like but lewdness is VERBOTEN in the Armored Corps.

General CampaignAnon, would you care to comment on the lack of modesty that some of the SLDF mechwarriors exhibit?

When did the Concordat canonically begin to build the Commando? TRO 3050 simply says that they "continue to build" it.
Did the Canopians or Taurians ever build the Phoenix Hawk?

>all six of the Demolisher crew as cute lolis
PLEASE

These threads are moving pretty fast.

Not really. /btg/ is pretty quiet usually. This is fairly normal pace honestly.

Any AU than is worh salvaging?

During the Jihad both factions manage to capture some lines the WoB build. It was the -4W IIRC. In fact the Canopians use theirs to use it as a base for one of their 3145 mechs.

Anybody else name their mechs? I feel that such a powerful machine deserves a name beyond its mere make and model. Especially customs or handmedowns with a long history.
I have a custom nightsky named Eliza, personally.

Well if they're out of uniform, then they're breaking regs. At least during inspection. Otherwise, I don't care. They're the ones who are gonna get burned in their cockpits.

Individual pilots in my campaigns do for the sake of the story and so on, but generally none of my own units have them.

What are some factions and organizations in BattleTech that are straight up cults or extremely shadowy?

I'm talking ones ranging from the Thuggees to anything borderline Lovecraftian that may exist.

Plus aren't there rumored to be creatures living in hyperspace or something that attack jumpships?

I mean... ComStar/Word of Blake are basically cults and shady as fuck. ComStar personally decided to secretly ruin technological progress in the IS for like a century or something. That's shady shit right there.

What happened to comstar in the jihad and in dark age?

Sorry, I meant aside from ComStar and Word of Blake. Not because they aren't cults, but they're (pardon the expression) pretty mainstream. Very well known. And we know their motivations pretty well. I'm asking even shadier than them.

During the Jihad, the ComGuard ran itself ragged fighting the Word. For their trouble, they were forced at gunpoint to disband in the closing days of the Jihad/early days of the DA. ComStar now just runs the HPG system (until they all got fried) and doesn't do anything else. With the HPGs destroyed now, ComStar doesn't really serve much of a purpose, though we don't know a lot about what they're up to now since we have so little info on the late DA.

I was going to wonder if the FWL having a Space America section in it would make them more popular... but then I remembered the trinity worlds exist and have had zero impact in that regard.

If Comstar and the HPG are pointless, then does the C-Bill even still work anymore? Or do people still use it out of habit.

Good question. This is something that it would be nice to know, but since we have so little information about 3150, we really just don't know.

according to era report 3145 the cbill collapsed with the blackout

Well, that's horrifying. Considering it was basically The major independent bill.

Whelp I guess we're on Operation: Someone Else Invents Money Again.

When your currency is based on the back of transmitting messages over the HPG, the HPG system going down tends to destroy it.