/btg/ BattleTech General

>Implying there aren't plenty of other bullshit OP moments in any other gundam show

Who cares. It looks great, has a pretty decent story and is highly enjoyable.

In space? Totally. They will probably also dominate in close combat, as they got way better gear there.

In terms of "how many guns are in this chassin" they only aproximated regular BT machines during the ZZ-era though, and there it was pretty much only fluff.

Everything else depends on how you interpret and translate game mechanics and the show's fluff. If BT armour works like it does on the tabletop, the it's insanely good and the mechs will tank battleship salvos, but if Gundam capital-class weapons are the equivalent of BT capital-class weapons, then the standard mech energy gun is a naval PPC and armour doesn't mean shit.

Well, there is 00 Gundam, with the aliens.

Watching Amuro literally slap Char's shit with the Nu Gundam is amazing

>Since we're on the topic, do you guys have any stuff planned out to watch in 2018?

Well, it's off-topic actually, but this:

youtube.com/watch?v=ww06yGPM7Kc

>that feel when you've been tearing through introtech mechs and suddenly you come across some experimental clantech monster.

I meant as far as giant robots go. Darlifra, Geass, Macross, Eureka, the inevitable MSG show,...

It's pretty obvious Clans were included to be the Gundams of Battletech.

>Reposting for new sculpt goodness.

That was Cloudsschatze. Jagd Mirage was the green monster that mounted the Twin Towers.

Those are super nice, the locust looks a little too big though.

It looks about 4 meters tall as per BTech scale.
Doesn't give you much room to work with without going extremely retarded (imagine a biped going at the speeds that thing reaches when it's as tall as a man on stilts).

So, a Catapult, a Wolverine, a Thud, a comando, Griffin, Blyatmaster, Shad, Awesome and a Locust(?)? Great models, what will be the cost for each one separated?

thought you were about to make a bar joke

I'm kinda of new so getting the mechs right ain't that easy for me desu. Also what scale are they? 12mm? 6mm?

That's true and I didn't mean I could do better, to be fair I'm partial to unseen, but this batch looks great. I kinda like the pod on stilts the locust had. But its a touch too tall and thick for my tastes (that matter none)

you coop in mw5

not them just sounded like you were about to make a "So a man walks into a bar" joke maybe its an americanism

It was scaled up a little for structural concerns, instead of being forced to give it fat legs.
The commando and maybe some of the mediums were tweaked to smooth out the transition too, but not much.

I guess the "all mechs are within a narrow height range" fags can rejoice :D

The Jagd Mirages basically are their old space/ground attack-fighters with legs and arms. The fact's driven home by the way Green Left takes off and flies to Both under its own engines and power in the series.

Excluding involvement of warships, how many 2765 era Star League armies would it have taken to invade and conquer the the Inner Sphere in 3049?

~30 divisions

I think I want to get into Battletech. I'll probably go for mercenaries of some sort. What kind of stuff should I look at getting to make a Lance?

Depends on which era you want yo start with

I should also elaborate; I discriminate against people-like mechs. I'm not completely against them, but chicken-legs a best. If it has hands it probably triggers me.

Even though I wanted to hate it, the Wolfhound earned my respect when I played MW4:Mercs, though.

Which era(s) is most popular?

Grog tech be far.

It depends on the Gundam Series in question.

OYW Gundam designs are comparable to Battletech designs. Using a MAHQ as a reference:

mahq.net/mecha/gundam/msgundam/ms-06f.htm

A Zaku II is 50% larger, but weighs about as much as a Battletech heavy mech. It's armor is "Super Hard Steel", which means much worse in terms of performance than Battletech armor. It's power plant is much weaker than a Battletech fusion reactor; there's a post by Cray on the official forums that calculates 300 fusion engine to produce 3/4ths Earth's global power production. It can do a 180 turn in 1.7 seconds, and has a top speed of 160 km/h. But it's bigger, and that effects it's top speed by virtue of having a longer grait. So ignoring weapons for a moment, we can down scale it by about a third and get it in Battletech Scale:

Zaku II-F, battletech scale:

Weight: 50 tons(max)
Height: 11.66 meters tall
Top Speed: 106.6 km/h, Turn speed: 180 degrees in 1.7 seconds(turning should be unaffected by height)

This works out to just slightly better 6/9 50 ton medium mech, with twice the turn rate(1.7 per 180 degrees verus 3.3 per 180 for a 6/9).

Weapons wise, it's hard to make direct comparisons, but Zakus use hardened steel as armor so it can't be that outrageously different. If anything, it should probably be worse performing.

MP-50D/120mm machine gun, drum-fed, 100 rounds per drum -> AC/5 (The Zaku II's MG fires 3-6 round bursts, which works out to around 20 rounds per drum, making it a close match to an AC/5)
SB25K/280mmA-P Zaku bazooka, 4 round magazine -> a hand held Thunderbolt/15(4 rounds per ton)
heat hawk Type5 > Hatchet(or a Vibro-Sword in Hatchet form)
2 x triple missile pod > a SRM-6 spread across 2 legs.

There's nothing that is game breaking compared to a Battlemech. Give the Zaku II a quirk that lets it turn 2 hex faces per movement point and the easy to pilot quirk to reflect it's greater mobility, and it's basically a 6/9 Wolverine with hatchet.

They did a poll on the OF about this a while back, during the Herb era. Even considering it was self-selected by forum membership, it should be a good guideline.

Retcons now have the IS roughly on par with non-Royal units for tech deployment by then so you're looking at something around a 3:1 advantage. And while some Royals are a big step up, not all are which means even factoring those in the numbers won't take a huge dip.

The IS, mercs, and ComStar total up to around 450 regiments at that time. 3 times that is 1350 regiments. If Sarna is to be trusted on Army sizes then you would need ~13.5 Armies to get the job done.

This doesn't factor in any tech shock or ability gap. Could be less, could be more, that's just a rough approximation based on numbers alone.

I still have to say shooting the other mecha down was quite unexpected move, usually these fghts go like the one in but not this time.

The OF skews heavily Suns, Cappie, and grog. Suns has grown less popular over time as many Suns fans ragequit through the Jihad and Republic era but the grogs are extremely strong there, far more so than any group I've run into IRL.

IRL most people only use grogtech to teach the basics of the game and play Clan or higher eras.

A solid all-era mercenary lance would be something like
>Awesome
>Thunderbolt (either from when the new set comes out, or one of the somewhat crappy metal ones currently out)
>Grasshopper
>Trebuchet

Careful ot you attract that Mechless Mercs sperg for your answer, especially if Grasshopper is involved.

For a non-humanoid only force, go with a Capellan aligned merc group. This gives you access to:

Marauders
Catapults
Ravens
Fleas

...regardless of era(or at least the most commonly played eras). It's a solid base of mechs to build off of.

Reading Gencon anons post about CGL not being opposed to retconing the GDL's death, what would /BTG/ do to pass the torch from the Old legionnaires to a new cast.

In my opinion they should have gotten rolled into being a house unit. Baron Glengaries personal regiment and his levy to the Archon. Then you just find a less jarring way to retire or kill the old guard and time skip to Alexanders son. Because that kid was annoying as fuck. Then you can continue fighting Skye seperatists.

Not him but yeah, the Grasshopper is way overdone. It's supposed to have been so rare most 'Mech warbooks couldn't even identify them.

That being said I really wouldn't class its 3050 upgrade as "solid." It gets one of the shittiest upgrade packages in that era.

I'd put an Orion in there instead, maybe a Black Knight or Flashman if you want a flashbulb rather than another generalist or ammo-bearing design.

Stalker, Thunderbolt, Wolverine/Grffin/Cronus, Spider. All very common and they give you a good mix of firepower and speed.

I mostly picked the grasshopper because it was in the old introbox alongside the Awesome, same reason as I didn't throw an archer in there even if it makes sense

Having the Brewer family re-start it makes more sense. AFAIK the Carlyle line ended when Alexander died on harkad during the WoB orbital strike any way.

Have them start out as a factory advertisement force and then stage up from there.

How big of a jump is the original Gundam in comparison to the Zaku then? Or its mass produced model the GM?

If you do no change anything that is currently written than that would absolutely be right. Honestly I had hoped for years after The Dying Time that they would go that way. Brewster isn't to much of a military man, but he seems to have done well in business.

If I remember correctly, Gundam is just a high performance Mobile Suit or used to test new tech out.

GM and Zakus are the mass produced grunt suits. Gundams are typically given to aces or important people.

What 'bout mobile suits not really needing to worry about heat buildup like battlemechs

The... "Herb" era?

Rad. You are a gentleman and a scholar.

sick as, m8. So, what does it mean when a mech is "Unseen" in the lore? Isn't that what they call the original designs they couldn't get the copyright for? Also how do Fleas fare on tabletop? Also also, is it unreasonable then for Mercs to just.. buy mechs from who ever and not really pay lip service to anyone?

I really dig the Stalker, but that's because I've always liked the look of the Timber Wolf and Catapult, since I was a kid and first learned about this stuff. They look more like tanks with legs to me, or weapons platforms on legs, which in my mind always seemed more practical than a not-Gundam. My only complaint about the Stalker is when they don't have chicken legs and it looks like they're strutting around, telling people by the way they move they're a woman's man.

I have another question
All this information will go to use, but if I wanted to make a merc lance that's kinda' rag-tag, are there any mechs that were for industrial or agricultural use that were re-fitted for combat that you could reasonable use for that? Like they're just a bunch of dudes that said "Fuck it, let's go be mercenaries.", bought some guns and lasers, mounted them onto the machines they already had and knew how to use and set off.

>So, what does it mean when a mech is "Unseen" in the lore? Isn't that what they call the original designs they couldn't get the copyright for?

That's exactly what that means. We know the designs exist, because there are record sheets for them and they are mentioned in the lore, but officially, we can't show you what they look like.

So in the lore it doesn't really mean anything at all? It's just a disclaimer? Alright. Thanks, yo'.

>are there any mechs that were for industrial or agricultural use that were re-fitted for combat that you could reasonable use for that?
The Jihad and Dark Age eras have a bunch of IndustrialMechs modified for combat like the Crosscut (sarna.net/wiki/Crosscut) but they are really, incredibly shit for combat purposes and employers would likely go for shit-tier units with barely functional bugs over a modified IM unit unless literally no other option existed.

I guess my dreams of Mech-Minutemen are dashed.

Who cares its got a fookin CHAINSAW!

skin your ass raw

I don't see why that would preclude having minutemen with mechs. Many worlds have planetary militia who train as mechwarriors.

Well the bullshit armour and beam weapons with the same power of a battleship gun is a pretty big difference between a zaku and the gundam.

They don't have 'Mechs to give them though, so while they're trained they might not ever actually use one.

If user wants to do the upgunned to combat levels schtick for his mercs I suggest using the Support Vehicle rules and using BAR 10/Armoured Chassis designs since those can plausibly be reached by any decently industrialised world.

The Zaku's main armament is an AC2. Aside from them running multi-Mech operated Energy weapons, BT can load up with way more firepower per ton than Gundam can, before hitting the Bullshit Horizon with shit like Unicorn where it completely outclasses anything NOT from Gundam. A PPC will outperform a Beam Rifle, and the Gauss Cannon is effectively a Beam Magnum or a Rod from God.

When Herb Beas was line developer of BT. He ran several polls designed to help him to chart the future progress of BT.

what diameter would an ac/2 be?

They varried somewhat, but when I did the math with a buddy of mine, they matched up to old lore comments with the Zaku's main firearm, the autorifle thingy they usually use. Given that ACs can be anywhere from fully automatic cannons to single-fire Battle Cannons, they still fit the profile fairly easily.

i thought zaku guns were like 120mm while ac2s were like 20mm-40mm

What about beam rifles getting rated as more powerful with a faster rate of fire through the timeline?

When I looked for the info, I found comments that for the most part all the ACs were of various bore size. It seemed that the cannons diameter itself wasn't what ties into its damage profile, except for the Gauss Rifle.

Beam Magnus fart all over all but BT's capital class big toys, and even there I'd honestly weigh in favor of Gundam. Atleast from our calculations.

huh il take your word for it

That user here. The, uh... Alright how exactly would you recommend going about that?

What about a bunch of rebels with yellow rattlesnakes painted on their mechs

This is where I got my info from. We looked at the AC2, and saw that they could be anywhere from 30mm to 203mm and still be identical in damage profile, then looked at the armor of the Zaku. We figured, with identical range profiles and estimated weight similarities, a RAC2 could even be gives as the Zaku standard, which would make them feasible at the same punching weight for speed and armor as a direct combat Light mech.

i assumed that article was speaking about auto cannons in general as ac2s (25mm) - ac20s (203mm)

I feel like they would get stepped on.

Get the Tech Manual and TR: Vehicle Annex from the links in the OP, then decide which ones you want to turn into combat vehicles.

They will still be absolutely shit and get bodied by Vedettes but the gap between proper combat vehicles and combat-modded ones is a lot lower than IndustrialMechs and BattleMechs.

I missed the last thread, so user asking about pricing , BattleTech's introboxes have been pretty much the highest value for money in terms of what actually comes in the box aside from the 4E standees. Admittedly the older boxes being a company or so weren't super great, but the 2 company introbox is basically the equivalent of two army boxes for for most other games. Everyone who wasn't a grog buying 5 of the fucking things then screaming how no one could actually buy the boxes (duh) recognized something would have to give. Personally, I'll trade numbers for sculpt quality, even if there isn't a goddamn Shimrauder.

Nah, that's the AC2 page, specifically. It goes into detail that the rate of fire is more telling of an ACs damage output as well as its ammunition.

TREADNT

the same intro is on the ac20 page

The jump from the Zaku II to the RX-76 is pretty big, but not as huge as it's made out to be sometimes. It's about 25% lighter, and mobility wise, it's about 25% faster in top speed, and 50% more agile/better at turning after the magnetic coating up grade.

If the RX-76 is down scaled to battletech scale like I did the Zaku II, it'd be a 40 ton 8/12 design, with the same 2 hex faces of turning per MP quirk as the Zaku II.

The real upgrades to the RX-76 are three things: The "Learning Computer" built into it, the advanced "Luna Titanium" Armor it uses, and it's beam rifle and beam saber. The Armor is resistant(but not totally immune) to damage but less so to beam weapons, and something that get's lost is that the beam rifle is "ammo" based(it can only fire several times before needing to recharge).

These are more hard to quantify, but it'd roughly translate to

Learning Computer -> Targeting computer
Luna Titianum armor -> Ferro-Lamellor armor or Ballistic-Resistant Armor
Beam Rifle -> Clan ERPPC or Heavy Laser with recharge requirements

So to put it directly in battletech terms, the RX-76 is a clan tech mech with XL engine, DHS, Endo Steel, Ferro-Lamellor, a Clan ERPPC with multiple PPC caps(but unable to fire if none are charged), and rounded out with Heavy Machine Guns for Vulcans and a Medium/Heavy Shield.

The Zaku meanwhile, is a intro-tech design.

The GM is similar, but much weaker than the RX-76. 40 Tons, 7/11 movement, advanced IS tech design with a Large Laser instead of the Gundams's ER PPC. Think IS level 2 compared to Advance Clan Tech.

Lastly, since I see people quoting "Capital Scale Beam Weapons" remember Gundam ships are Battletech Dropship scale, not Warship Scale.(White Base is only 68,000 tons, making it a large dropship)

I feel like that image could be a design challenge.

...

How so?
Wait
ARE WE PUTTING A LIBERTARIAN MECH LANCE TOGETHER?

I would prefer Ancap, but if that rocks your boat go for it.

someone mentioned that the intro box will recieve regular supplements. If these are mechs (such as the nu-seens which are not in this box), did they specify at all if the supplements would be boxed sets (such as the lance packs)?

Recreational Nuke Urbie
Recreational Nuke Urbie
Recreational Nuke Urbie
Recreational Nuke Urbie

Victor St. James
Scarecrow
Pompier GM-FL
Black Knight "Red Reaper"

AnCap are on the same spectrum.

Amazing

RX-78.

mini mini dump 1/6

2/7 actually

3/7

4/7

5/7

6/7

7/7

>Lyrans get a competent, talented unit that leads a battle group across the Inner Sphere to defeat Victor Steiner-Davion numerous times
>gets killed off 5 minutes into the Jihad

why do the writers hate House Steiner?