/btg/ BattleTech General

Not only is the Quickdraw terrible, but it's stupid looking. The only good looking Quickdraw is the ridiculous TSM handheld torso cockpit head mounted PPC madness one.

Rasalhague hate has come into fashion because of their relative prominence in the property of late. Early 90’s Wrasselhog were literally who, but PGI and CGL have FRR banners standing alongside the Successor States, Crusader Clans and Comstar. St Ives, Skye, and Tikonov don’t get half as much love while being bigger and more interesting. I don’t mind Filtvelt, Andurien, or other minor/sub-faction fans but they aren’t being paraded about like they’re one of big 5.

All it needs is tinsel and lights.

Please tell me that the prop came from a parts kit.

Gentlemen, how do we fix the Quickdraw?

In introtech...

Move all the ML's into the arms. Otherwise, it pretty much already fits what it's supposed to be.

You don't. A 60-ton fast heavy is simply not a viable concept using Introtech. It flat-out requires a XL engine, and realistically requires DHS, since firepower tonnage is at a premium on such a design and THAT necessitates a laser-based armament, which in turn requires DHS.

Or you just drive it hot and/or underarmed. Just look at the Dragon and Grand Dragon. Hell, the Quickdraw and the Dragon are made at the same factory with the same engine and everything.

Almost forgot the OG hot and fast heavies, the Ostsol and the Ostroc use the same engine too.

so do we still not have the non-beta battlemech manual?

Get on his level.

This one is cutting down your Christmas tree for you... IN HELL!

It's been released, hasn't it?

It's in stores, so yeah, it's available.

Yeah this version looks good. The Quickdraw would be fine if it were a Medium. Pic related as case in point.

See

i meant as far as pdf's go but okay

Should be in the OP folders. We've had it since like the week it came out. We're full up to date on everything.

I mean, I bought the final PDF, so I assume it's released.

so the open beta pdf is the final pdf?

All lasers into the arms?... or out of the arms and give it both hands/battlefists. A 6 point punch can defeat rear torso armor calculated to stop a solo med laser and the Quickdraw has jets to get there. I’m all for arm mounted weaponry, just not on fast, jet equipped mechs that shouldn’t need them to do anything but split fire between targets.

It's got special flippy arms so in the arms. You shouldn't be getting into a fistfight with that glass ankle giant in the first place. And you should be kicking if you do.

Okay, if you must keep it as a 60t 'Mech, then move the LRM10 to the RA, and put the arm MLs in the LT. Boom. Flexible field of fire, can SRM holes it (literally) punches in things, and assuming you turn one ML forward, has pretty good firepower to back up the fists in a brawl.

I'm pretty sure most 60 ton mechs would be better off as mediums, espeically ones equipped with Jump Jets due to the JJ weight jump from .5 tons to 1 ton at 60 tons as opposed to 55 and down.

No. The final should be in there too. E-CAT35010_BattleMech_Manual.pdf

i looked through all three folders and i'm not seeing that

In Introtech? Possibly. The Quickdraw could actually do a lot with the 5 tons it wastes though, so I don't think 5/8 60t chassis are a complete waste. Imagine if it also had a LL instead of the jump Suddenly it's a decent cav trooper.

It’s a Quickdraw, so you’re a Snake and/or your ancestors/quartermaster hates you. You’re going into close-combat, because no one is going to wait for you to establish long range firepower dominance with a LRM-10. You can’t really complain about your ride being a 40-tonner who likes too many sweet dumplings when your lancemates are driving Whitworths, Panthers, and Javelins into close action just so they have a chance to win versus better machines. The Quickdraw is so bad that they had to use advanced tech to make designs more sub-optimal. Embrace the suck. If you can wring half its jet-bloated BV out of it then you’ve done well and that is only going to happen in close.

Ironically you can turn it into a fat Whitworth by stripping out the rear firing MLs, LRM, and SRM and adding quad LRM5s and a bunch of bins for specialty ammo. I also like adding a Flamer to it so it can screen for itself and burn shit in deep raids, after filling its arms with loot.

>Ironically you can turn it into a fat Whitworth

Does this really work? It sounds like polishing a turd. I guess if you're already stuck with the 3025 Quickdraw's chassis and engine, though, you don't really get much choice.

More like you sit back with the rest of the Dragons and laugh at those poor fucking Panthers et. al.

Punching is something anyone barely does anyway. The penalty is just not worth it unless you got battlefists and even then the concentrated damage to a leg is almost always better.

5/8/5 is plenty fast in Introtech for a skirmisher, and quad LRM5s is going to give you smoke and mines too, if you use those rules. dual LRM10s is also possible, but you have to strip some MLs and no Flamer.

I dunno I think the zero risk of falling makes punches nice if you're using 4/5s. I've lost way too many 'Mechs to bad piloting rolls in brawls. Kicks for me are if you've already whittled the legs down some, or if you're using a swarm of Lights against a Heavy or Assault.

I gamble harder than you do. Making the other guy make his roll after I stomp on his toes when everyone has 4/5's is the easy choice every day of the week. 12 damage to a single location is nothing to sneeze at either.

Forgot to mention I also play with weight modifier rules so the bigger the machine, the easier it is to stay up when the mech fu starts.

I'm just leery because I have bad luck with dice and have to hedge my bets more often than not. Also one of the reasons why my love for long-range combat is a silly contradiction. I don't hit shit, cap'n.

Did we ever stat the right-most Urbie? I know Flying Urbie and Tripod Urbie have stats but I don't think I've seen T-Rex Hands Urbie.

I can't recall seeing it either. Twin Salvage Arms maybe?

Well a crazy first outing for my new merc outfit.

A guardian shot down, ostroc armless, a hatchetman that was too good at shooting and a troop of immobile hoovers. The enemy on the otherhand lost over a company of vees and a pair of mechs.

Quite an opening for a campaign.

It’s not that punching is good in general, it’s very much inferior to kicking, it’s that punching has a few edge cases where it stands out such as when a single punch will go internal on a torso and you get two punches. A 60t Quickdraw hits for 6 on a punch and has jump jets. If you are fighting a

it's literally right there in the battletech store
>store.catalystgamelabs.com/collections/battletech/products/battletech-battlemech-manual

or you can get the hardcopy
>store.catalystgamelabs.com/collections/battletech/products/battletech-battlemech-manual-book

or you can get both
>store.catalystgamelabs.com/collections/battletech/products/battletech-battlemech-manual-book-pdf-combo

What hovers were you floating? 8+ cruising combat hovers have made me re-evaluate vees after hating them for my first decade playing the game.

So will GM deliver and make a fusion engine in two years?

You haven't lived until you've mastered the hover powerslide.

What about cock push-ups?

Only good for impressing Jade Falcons.

that s not what i asked.

You asked for a PDF of the non-beta Battlemech Manual.

dere it is.

I like the idea of faction diversity in size and number but yeah, its weird the Rasslehogs getting turned retroactively important.

Man I missed when Veeky Forums did all that custom Periphery realm creation. Its a shame that's dead. Its fun hashing that kind of stuff out.

Who /tikonov/ here?

Fuck House Liao, Free Tikonov Republic forever.

Reminder that the Haseks didn't get any of that juicy coreworlder Sarna March. Hanse gave it to the Sandovals instead. And that the Tiks liked the guys so much, they demanded one be put in charge after Stone kicked the Caps out.

Hanse didn't give any of it to the Sandovals. The Haseks absorbed what was left of the Sarna March after Guerrero too. What did the Sandovals get?

The issue is nobody sticks with it. Spess Poland and the VFR are still there, waiting user. I for one would sign the fuck back up for Spess Poland; I had fun designing units for it and the military organization we had basically being reverse Augmented Lances was awesome. I'm just too much of a curmudgeon to head it up myself at the moment. The other issue is that we end up with one of two issues: 1) design by committee causes it to just peter out, usually without a tight concept or b) whoever is "head" of the project injects too many of their own ideas so there's no point to the committee.

Here, have some TikoTits.

More Tiko pics?

So out of the Capellan Confederation, Tikonov is space Russia... but what are the other parts like? What's St. Ives's supposed to be? And the other commonalities?

I really liked the VFR myself, if only because we at least got some decent fluff out of it.

I guess the main blocker there is - lets say we're people in /btg/ who want to work on these projects - where do we go to talk about them? I know there's a few battletech discords, but I don't think much will get finalized in just the threads - because you get the issues we talk about.

Sarna March was Sandoval territory. Look at the 3052 map. Draconis March gets all those gains. Haseks don't move in until after Guerrerro. Hell, in 3025, Sandovals owned Caph, snugged right up against Terra.

so what was the deal with the vehicle annex? is that just a bunch of things that are ubiquitous and always exist in some way shape or form?

Sarna March was Lyran State territory. What are you talking about?

Here you go, since the other guy is just jerking you around.

mediafire.com/file/ekc61b6gkufm1n6/E-CAT35010_BattleMech_Manual.pdf

Where is Spess Poland waiting? I can see the VFR on the 1d4chan but can't find Spess Poland.

thank you

>Sarna March was Sandoval territory.

And here's the rump part of the Sarna March joining the Capellan March as a PDZ.

There's the IRC but they won't suffer the AU to live. I don't trust the Discords because most Discord fangroups are scary to be around. I guess a Google Group or something could work.

The VFR was alright, but I think we ended up with too many disparate cultures huddled together, and the power structure is such that it kind of didn't make sense to me that one of the big three didn't just dominate everything else.

I don't think anyone kept records but there's always the archives. And I think maybe NEA had a doc for it? I'm not sure.

What era do you guys typically play? What about which faction?

What do you think about Dark Age or even the possibility of an era beyond that?

Oh, there's another option; each AU project with multiple people working on it could nab a Zetaboard or something. They're free and forums are fine for discussing things, especially if you get a shoutbox for it.

Introtech mostly but I will play any era. Always IS though. I play Cappies till Xin Sheng, then I don't have a faction I care about till the Calderon Protectorate forms. So I usually just roll with OpFor forces and pirates, and play whatever. I have a Cappie and Drac force currently; Augmented Company of CC, Company of Dracs.

Introtech for funsies sometimes, Clan Invasion/FedCom Civil War most of the time though. Gives a lot of tech options and freedom to do various things with a wide variety of mechs. Good times.

That's a weird way of saying "fuck you xotl"

Who says the big three don't dominate everything else in the VFR?

As I took it, being a Federal Republic, it was similar to Yugoslavia - and in Yugoslavia, Serbia certainly bullied everyone else.

Then again this is all something that should be discussed.

As I recall the VFR conversations died because of the population levels turning into an insurmountable obstacle. I think its best if those were ignored for the moment.

I'd be most interested in the VFR to try and make up an RAT for the Stradioti - the idea of a periphery nation based mostly around its mercenary group was a fun idea.

Mostly grogtech as it's the most balanced in terms of the original game design. Plus the fights are tighter since my buddies have done it so much we know the machines and their range bands without even thinking about it. But that's still only like half the time. The other half is anything from Early Succession Wars through Dark Age. I don't like playing Star League much on account of all the samemech. Age of War primitive fights can be fun on occasion though.

Newer fights are mostly governed by a basic scenario. "Year is X. I'll play Y faction. You pick a faction." That pushes us to try out new toys even if something is more effective and cheaper for the BV. Like I might take a Hellspawn in the FCCW despite preferring a plain old Dervish or whatnot.

I've been playing for like fifteen years at this point and I still haven't run even close to every machine.

Yeah the Stradioti is the best part of the VFR. I tossed in several ideas and designed some units for it and I might come up with some stuff for the Stradioti eventually but otherwise I'm a creative wasteland at the moment.

Don't recall him ever saying anything about it. I got my copy from here in the thread back when. Last electronic thing I bought was 2nd Succession War.

Well okay, do we want to pursue one of these options?

Well, since he works ant CGL and is around here a lot, and we literally have pirated copies of every book the company he works for released, AND he personally worked on the Manual and is responsible for most of it... it kind of is a bit of a middle finger. I mean I'm sure he got paid and everything but hanging out here has to be trying for the poor guy sometimes. But I guess it's worth it since he gets honest feedback and unfiltered ideas, and that can be worth its weight in blatant piracy.

Go for it sport. I think a Zetaboard is the best option personally, with a link to the 1d4chan page somewhere prominent. That way you can have different subforums/threads for different aspects of the faction to keep things organized and everything in easily referenced text format so cross-checking with the 1d4 page becomes easy.

I honestly don't give a fuck because I buy everything in paper anyway. And CGL went completely stupid on their micro stuff ever since like TRO 3145 where it was over a hundred bucks for all the little pieces. They gotta learn that shit isn't acceptable. Files are fair game. Patronage is reserved for real physical products.

So I was messing around in MW4:Mercs and for the first time fiddled with the Solitaire. Holy molly. Is it as scary on tabletop as it is in MW4? I'm slowly starting to think I need a Diamond Shark lance.

I have a suspcious, unresearched, feeling that most of us bought the BTM in paper anyway. I sure did, as did my friends who play. It's a good book and worth the sticker price. Not wanting to pay for it twice is no sin in my book.

Just looking at it, probably not. Heavy lasers on tabletop are so heat intensive that it's frankly silly and the Solitaire doesn't have anywhere near enough heat sinks to keep itself cool. It's probably ok but I doubt it's the beast you are implying MW4 makes it out as.

Yeah it's on my list too. Bit broke at the moment.

>blatant piracy

Pic related!

Used well it's a riot. It's also needless to say a walking heater. If the dice are on your side it's not a bad way to use some BV.

I've had great luck just blowing Vees to fuck all with it.

It's scary in the amount of damage for such a little thing, but lights are basically scenario mechs by that era and even stuff like the Pack Hunter in it's own niche do the job better.

so why are lights garbage?

post introtech fast isn't safe enough.

They're not. They have their roles in 3025. It's just that weapon damage and targeting tech gets too good for their speed to balance out in later eras.

IIRC he said he understood it'd get pirated here, but asked people to consider buying it if they found it useful and supported the product.

Could be speaking out my arse though.

>paid
Xotl got paid? Hell, anyone got paid working for CGL? News to me.

Lights are love' Lights are life. Also they should always be used as spotters/scouts and skirmishers at long range. I don't know why there aren't more fast Light LRM "boats" especially in later eras.