/btg/ BattleTech General

What would be cool is if they took drones and that Necromo Nightmare AI to the next level and created an AI faction.

>For sake of specificity, we'll say they are of enough artificial intelligence to aim and shoot their guns and make limited decisions but are dumb enough to usually require a real human nearby to order them around
The old Kell Hounds book had something similar already, minus the humanoid part.

No way in hell. The whole crux of Battletech is that life is cheap. Tech isn't. And also there's not a single autonomous drone like that. Everything requires massive mainframes even for dumb servants or sexbots.

Imagine that you have to run your interstellar nation on old IBM 3274's because all your modern chips are going for aerospace combat targeting computers and you start to get the technical limits of what you can do.

There's basically two things that fuck the feel of Battletech.
1. Easy mass produced super advanced tech (Even Jihad era capital worlds like Tharkad and New Avalon were still using ancient fission reactors for city power and ICE cars in the streets)
2. Modern military operator wank

Nah, we just need a new Missionforce: Cyberstorm is all.

>not wanting 6 rails, an underslung confetti launcher and a side rail mounted ice cream machine
What are you, a Clanner?

>Implying Clanners wouldn't have 9 rails and a double scoop launcher

I feel like there should be vehicle/aerospace drones, but no mech drones.

I figure the underslung would be a full sundae maker.

Discuss

Worst Inner Sphere pizza... EVER!
Except that part nn the lower right. However that lower center seems moldy. Someone should get rid of that.

Invest in a legend, also gut the Capellan Confederation, as we all know that Andurien shall rise again. And because I hate Xin Sheng.

Explain.

It's nonsense. And not just because nothing is labeled.

It's not Battletech, but if you would post that picture of Deunan and Briareos you have there labeled "209556", I'd appreciate it.

About to be in my first battletech RPG ever, rolled a crusader 3k in the random charts. Did I do good? Era is 3025ish

OP, you forgot the last link: pastebin.com/uFwvhVhE

Whoever does OP next thread, make sure you include this so it doesn't get lost.

which group had the flag with the ok hand sign on it

Wilson's Hussars.

Yeah, actually. It and the jumpy Cappy version are the best Introtech Cruds. It's still an ammo dump waiting to cook off but at least it can fire more weapons at once and doesn't have machine gun ammo.

I was aware that some people would be into it and some people would think it would completely ruin the vibe of the setting, and the "feel" of Battletech (beyond big stompy bots) is so hard to nail down that I can't say either camp would be wrong.

To me it seems like between Myomer, light power armor and the obvious automation that has to be going on behind the scenes in order for Battlemechs to function the technology is already easily there even at 3025 level, but that doesn't mean it *should* exist, just that it could if you wanted it to and didn't think it ruined the setting.

>Modern military operator wank
Keep in mind that despite my flavor images to get my point across I was imagining things a little less Aaron Beck tacticool and a little more 1980s, I just couldn't find any art that captured that. But I was definitely thinking no weapon rails and more plastic than carbon fiber, looking something like an armored Johnny Five.

It has a different vibe for different people but to me, mechs aside, it should be about *1970's-80's* military operator wank. You know, green H&K plastic, high-tech 32-bit computers, hot Debbie Harry looking ladies in high-waisted jeans and manly men wearing hot pants because they're fighting in the desert but nobody thinks it's gay.

I think the big problem for Battletech is that it can't get an aesthetic everyone can agree on, because the only common denominator is that everyone's here for the mechs. Some people keep the old art because Battletech is supposed to look 80's to them, and some people think that's dumb and want to modernize the look. To each their own.

Eeeeeeh, it's mostly a stock Crusader. You trade firepower for heat sinks but the armor is as mediocre as ever and you're still driving a Crud. 2 LRM 10s, 2 SRM 6s, and 2 Meds isn't amazing. You didn't do terribly but you didn't do amazingly either. It's also the most unsexy mech in existence, so there's that.

I'm as big a Concordatfag as the next not-completely-crazy guy, but the only way that map would happen for the TC is if the Reunification War either didn't happen or wasn't a complete defeat.

An AU where the Concordat remains a viable "other" successor state would be neat.

2x SRM6s and 2x MLs in Introtech is an amazing amount of firepower, what are you smoking? Especially when you can spam it every round without worry. And 20 LRMs is plenty of fire support while you close. Sure it's still a Crud, but he won the Introtech Crud lottery, basically.

Sure, he won the Crud lottery, but not the mech lottery. Also, it has a solid brawling loadout, but not the armor or speed to really make great use of it. Sure, it's basically fine in 3025 but that's about it: it's basically fine. It is neither a great brawler nor a great fire support mech. It actually reminds me of a Shad in some ways: great at nothing and ok at several things. For a merc unit in 3025, it's useful as a generalist unit but that's all I'm prepared to say about it.

Carrying over from last thread. user has expertly laid out why Kat S-D didn’t ice Morgan H-D and how WoB had the resources and know how to do the job. The question I still have is what would motivate the Wobblies to assassinate the CO of Serpent? They aren’t furry-huggers. I suppose Old Morg could have been more war-crimey but that seems a poor reason when an impromptu change in command could put that practically-a-hippy Masters in the catbird seat. Did they borrow a page from the Kokuryukai and plan to weaken their rival ComStar by killing off valuable resources they could definitely use like troops and warships? WoB has opportunity in spades but what’s the motivation?

As to robots in BT
BT’s story focus has always been on the men inside the metal giants, not the technology. Having killbots commit the required atrocities reduces the man’s inhumanity to man aspect. Infantry already barely have a seat at the table, so the game effects shouldn’t be too much.

I like it, but can we get a legend?

>can we get a legend?

As ordered, sir!

>For a merc unit in 3025, it's useful as a generalist
Basically the only thing TO say about it, and that's more than enough. Introtech is quite different with regards to every other era in terms of what's worth being happy about in terms of unit assignment.

Here's what the guy who originally posted it said:
>Clans, going clockwise.
Bright red is Clan Blood Spirit
Blue-green is Clan Cloud Cobra
Bright light blue is Clan Ice Hellion
Light green is Clan Steel Viper
Orange is Clan Hell's Horses
Dark brown is Clan Wolf
Light blue is Rasalhague Dominion
Brown is Clan Coyote
Green-brown is Clan Goliath Scorpion
Dark blue is Clan Star Adder
Dark red is Clan Fire Mandrill
Dark green is Clan Snow Raven
Blue diamond worlds are major Diamond Shark enclaves. My idea was that instead of having a traditional invasion corridor, the Diamond Sharks rented out troops and ships to weaker Clans in exchange for enclaves and lucrative trading rights.

Pink is an Azami state and Purple-blue is a Sirian state. They're both essentially Blakist client states.

Red star worlds are Outback worlds in revolt against the FedSuns' pro-Blake puppet government.

Everything else is pretty self-explanatory I think.

It's a terrible map because he didn't fucking add a goddamn legend, and used a color map as the base.

To get those Haseks to quit meddling in the Chaos March.

Also on the tech, you fail to grasp that mechs are supposed to be the pinnacle of tech. Game effects are major, especially in the old eras where infantry meant dispossessed or nobody militia. Only the truly desperate would face a mountain of walking metal.

Well, there's also the space ninjas of many different flavors but those are commandos more than regular infantry.

Got a Question /btg/

The whole of human space includes inner sphere, periphery, and deep periphery. Why could a nation space, player made, not be set up in the deep periphery that incorporates alot of the canon elements mixed with real life science to hide their existence from the great houses of the inner sphere, build up forces over 750 years of even basic, behind the tech curve battletech mechs, and wail the shit out of the inner sphere and the clans?

>>Sarna.net says humanity rushed off of earth and closer in systems for the outer reaches of space across the 22 and 2300s. Extrapolation allows for a year to get somewhere around 1000 lightyears from earth.

>>Dark Nebula was used to hide secret SLDF base. Dark Nebula's, Magnetic/Radioactive Oort Clouds and the like could be used to hide huge swaths of space, especially if they are reinforced with manmade machines.

>>Untouched by the civil unrest, pirates and the like due to their bolstered defenses, they would go unmolested. They would know where home was so they could punch it in to their nav computers when they needed to.

Even if they built only 1 mech of each class every year, properly preserved, they would be able to field a force that would rival many great houses. Add to this conventional arms and armor, along with a program similar in identity to wolf's dragoons taking of war orphans and training them, and you have a power to be reckoned with the likes of which even the larger clans would be hard pressed to defeat.

>>In b4 what about expense?
With a fairly suitable government and economic model, money would be no issue.
>>in b4 what about technological progress?
It wouldn't be hard to take salvaged mechs from the battlefield and reverse engineer them
>>in b4 what about mary sue
The entire setting of battletech is Mary Sue, whether you have a favorite faction, mech, or pilot. This is just a point of thought i've had as i've designed one of these deep periphery nations, and am looking for holes in it.

>The one section of the Fedsuns that worships space wizards as actual space wizards revolting against the space wizard government

And that's only the third most retarded thing in there.

There's no reason why you couldn't have the Clans 2.0, just plenty of reasons why you shouldn't.

You're asking a very old and obvious question, which is "would a faction kick ass if it didn't have the arbitrary constraints applied to everyone else", the answer is obviously yes, but it's still retarded

Because mechs are 2400's gear and the great colonizations were in the two prior centuries.

People out in Tau Bumfuck Prime are still probably rolling in tanks no matter how advanced their lasers are. Shit, in 2300's gear, they don't even have proper jumpships. They're using Aquilla tier whales and small craft. It would be like being invaded by dudes with supersonic biplanes and smart missiles with hilarious cartoon cannon fuses.

>Dark brown is Clan Wolf
>Brown is Clan Coyote
>Green-brown is Clan Goliath Scorpion

So, two big power clans have, or have been reduced to tiny rump states, while the tiny clan of drugged out museum docents is eating both the Ghost Bear and Star Adder lunches?

What about the part where there's no cockfalcons, like at all.

Further... No Jade Falcons at all?

>Dark green is Clan Snow Raven
>Dark red is Clan Fire Mandrill
>Bright red is Clan Blood Spirit

what is with all these tiny incompetent clans making it big?

Funny enough, this is not for the purpose of doing clans 2.0. The people are actually quite peaceful.

The second portion is that there are constraints, though they are built in the fact of actual logistics. Though they have the force, they can't move it all that easily. Even given 700 years of relative peace, the number of resources to build dropships and jumpships, store them, and maintain them would be far more astronomical than anything else.

Their thought is more 'leave us alone', and the few encounters with outsiders have led to the outsiders being turned citizen or imprisoned indefinitely in a gilded cage. Of course, space pirates are summarily executed if they kill anyone before they can be apprehended.

>What about the part where there's no cockfalcons, like at all.
It's the only good thing about the joke captions some troll put on themap

Well to be fair the Ravens did make it big. They got the whole OA.

This is supposing that there is not intel/mercenary units that make their way out of the space for whatever reason, that being wanderlust or simple information gathering.

They are isolationistic, not stupid.

Then that sounds perfectly fine, but... why would you want that? A peaceful xenophobic society far away from everyone else ends up not impacting anything at all.

>It would be like being invaded by dudes with supersonic biplanes and smart missiles with hilarious cartoon cannon fuses.

Is that supposed to be a bad thing? That sounds awesome.

An invading advanced society with *different* technology instead of *better* technology would be so much better than what the Clans represent.

There aren't. People don't "explore" that aren't named the Explorer Corp or the Taurian Colonials. They may go to known coordinates that are off the official maps lostech prospecting (which is also the actual first purpose of the Explorer Corp) but people don't randomly roam space. Even the traders that operate in the Deep don't fuck about. They know where they're going.

The main sticking point is most worlds in the Deep will be pretty shit, like most IS worlds pre-terraforming. It's why actual periphery realm worlds are so spread out. And they won't have terraforming tech. Habitable worlds also get much rarer as you go coreward. It's why Kerensky's Exodus Road was basically a suicide mission and the cluster is a garbage heap.

The second main sticking point is that you are sure not going to both hide and get all the advantages of being in contact. Doesn't happen.

Niops is what you can expect with full isolation.
Hansa is what you can expect with traders.

>Is that supposed to be a bad thing? That sounds awesome.
>An invading advanced society with *different* technology instead of *better* technology would be so much better than what the Clans represent.

It's a logical extension of what the other guy laid out. But it's not what he stated he wants, which is basically grogtech clanners.

Yeah, but now I'm imagining an invading force that instead of just being "My Medium Laser has more range and does more damage than your Medium Laser because fuck you" has a whole different tech base with weird shit like Binary Pulse Lasers and AC/15s and PPC machine guns and that kind of thing.

rotary medium laser
electrolasers
Sonic weapons (antiinfantry weapon)
Mech scaled gyrojet weapons, or chemrails
"pilebunkers"

what if a Tyranid splinter fleet invaded the Inner Sphere on the eve of the Jihad?

40k operates at an incomparable scale to Battletech. Battletech just doesn't have the numbers to win against anything in 40K. The only discussion you'll ever get out of comparing the universes is "could 1 Unit Y beat 1 Unit X"

I really like the idea of a chemrail gun, maybe make that the "AC/15" equivalent with hella range compared to autocannons but with the tradeoff of being vulerable both to ammo crits and to hits to the weapon like a Gauss Rifle. Electrolasers could be to PPCs what pulse lasers are to lasers.

And hey, maybe they could have my robots.

Their warships punch people like in Outlaw Star.

Thank you for introducing me to Niops and Hansa.

I would rebut that not everyone stays to what they know (most notably explorers of historic note), but that would start an argument i'm not ready to pick.

Suffice it to say that people will do what people will do, and that's what I am going off of.

While I didn't state it overtly, their technologies are different, given to their isolation and different resources. Not different Clanners, or Different Alien, just different. This is simply based on the fact that they did not participate in SLDF and the Inner Sphere in the ways that others have.

They have however salvaged tech and stolen key research when they needed to so that they could maintain a defense of some form. They just had to put their spin on it.

Ultimately, it is merely a nation state that I am putting together, have been putting together for 15 years.

It would technically be a mix of what has been referred to as LosTech, GrogTech, and NuTech all mixed together. Their purpose is simply to live and pretty much be left alone. And to have a place for my ultra mary sue character to be from.

>Their purpose is simply to live and pretty much be left alone

Yeah, okay, but what author fetish and/or racial stereotype are they built around?

Robots is one of the things they actually have and use. Though, they are not sentient in any means. They are more meant for rudimentary tasks.

There was the earlier topic of terraforming put forth that i forgot to address. Biodomes.

>have been putting together for 15 years.

How on Blake's Blessed Terra could you have been doing this for fifteen years and not have read the minor periphery nations, tech timelines, or other stuff? That's like basic research 101.

Like, hell. It's a good use of your time to be reading about places like Antallos, Iron Land, the Jarnfolk or the Mica Majority before setting up your own sandbox.

Believe it or not, none. Ironically, they just started as a thought experiment when I was high. "Battletech is too Grimdark. What Causes that? How can I get rid of that?"

The rest is what it is.

Example: During the third succession war leading up to the clan invasion, their heir apparent masqueraded as a mercenary in the inner sphere of a not so financially successful unit because he was running away from a marriage to a noblewoman that he didn't want.

>Biodomes.

And how you gonna build and maintain those? The ones in the IS are all either falling apart or one kamikaze away from millions of people dead. Like when the Dracs came home to Arkab in the 3130's. City scale filters for air, water and sewage are not something a few nerds with 2300's junk are going to have laying around. It's literally what the water raids in the 3rd War were about.

i actually forced myself to not read about other periphery nations and the like based on the white room premise

I feel if I had read enough, then their story would seem too similar, or they would infect my own thought processes. So rather than read specifics, I read general articles to see if a question I asked myself could be answered without being too specific.

Most of my building/knowledge comes from the core rulebooks of the late 90s and sarna.net/solaris 7 and the paperback books from classic battletech.

>Believe it or not, none.

So you're saying it's up for grabs? I vote wing eyeliner and fake tits.

>Robots is one of the things they actually have and use. Though, they are not sentient in any means. They are more meant for rudimentary tasks.

So, infantry-bots, yay or nay?

What's your feelings towards Electrolasers and ChemRail/15s?

you are thinking too big. There were no city scale anythings for a very very long time.

Furthermore, the biodomes of the inner sphere are falling apart due to warzone collateral attrition and reliance on a lost technological base. Not one that was wholy manufactured from available resources and didn't have to face the same volatile na ture of the inner sphere.

>Believe it or not, none
In that case you should add one
I vote for jandholding

They wouldn't allow home defense to be put into the hands of self controlled robots. Piloted robots ala Surrogate would be acceptable. However, they would, at most be a division.

They are more tasked for extremely hazardous conditions i.e. asteroid mining, space walks to fix the few space stations, etc.

As for electrolasers and chemrails? Yes.

Electrolasers would probably be more like a combo of a PPC and a TSEMP cannon. Lots of heat, lots of damage, and they fuck up electronics something awful. I image the sonics would do something like 2d6 damage to infantry, but be almost useless against combat vehicles.

what is jandholding?

In canon terms? Because pirates and other factions would want everything valuable you were dumb enough to send out without an RCT standing guard and that would be it.

In player terms? Because everybody and their DOG does it. Hell, there's a familiar formula for players; play first time with canon units, create 'unbeatable' unit, create merc company with 'unbeatable' units provided by a company the player/GM owns, and eventually give it up to play canon games again.

>There were no city scale anythings for a very very long time.
Then there's no giant economy, mining or manufacturing for a very very long time.

>reliance on a lost technological base
Yes. A tech base that is far higher than schlubs in the 2300's with no Alliance tech support are capable of. Terraforming and superstructures are basically Star League magic.

I have a question to ask, and it might be a bit personal.

It seems like you have something against the potential for a people within the setting of battletech to progress along a different path. One of the main reasons to leave a situation is to not be a part of whatever it becomes, and possibly do even better.

It's the reason there have always been explorers, earthbound or beyond.

Flatly put, you are contributing very little to this dialog outside of general negativity.

That is, unless you can tell me why no people should find a way outside of the trap of being married to earth so closely that they let it influence their every move, and can simply not conduct general espionage if they need to grab something groundbreaking.

Well, now this is getting too far away from my vision, I'll have to make my own Successor State.

Typo names it. Welcome to the Republic of Jandhold, we have electrolasers, hot makeup fetish babes, and killer robots.

I was thinking in terms of it being an electrical-based weapon, hence PPC, but also an instantaneous beam and thus easier to aim, hence pulse laser-esque.

Plainly put, if Earth can do it, then someone that is an offshoot of Earth can do it. Especially if they are not facing constant war, but have access to the same resources after a fashion.

Plainly put, i would posit that with a database of all military knowledge of the Year 2300, with a varied enough population, and enough sheer determination, they may have made breakthroughs and advancements in science before the Terran Hegemony, The Inner Sphere, or the SLDF. They just wouldn't have been on the scale.

TLDR? If you aren't going to contribute anything of note to this discussion, please excuse yourself from it.

Flatly put, you sound like one of those kids that wants a pat on the back for thinking they're creative instead of investing the time in being educated on a subject. Like the other guy said. "We've heard it all before, and we are jaded to the core."

But mostly, it's because you sound like a kid in a playground pretend superhero fight.
>NUH UH, you didn't get me! I'm invulnerable to weaknesses!

Either go read and think it through, or go with it and quit looking for approval. But don't expect a reacharound. You're just not doing anything special.

>People don't "explore" that aren't named the Explorer Corp or the Taurian Colonials
>forgetting about based IE
Shame on you, user, shame.

>jandholding
I want to jandhold, no matter what that may end up being. It just sounds awesome. Don't know what a jand is but I want to hold the shit out of one.

Dude, calling someone out for being "negative" when they're pointing out canon issues with your proposed idea is kinda dickish too. Accept that there are issues with your plan and ignore them, like all good AU builders do. Full steam ahead, regardless of the canon, since it's ultimately your game and you can do what you want. The more you get bogged down in these arguments the more you're going to be angry and bitter.

You forgot the final one: the GM starts allowing realistic fights and sometimes sending you into battles you can't win and you go full checking for change under the couch Wilson's Hussars/Ryan's Rebels. That's the stuff that really makes you play dirty and think on your feet.

We've got a 40-ton Totem 'Mech shaped like a giant sheep it squats behind ridges and snipes you like a Stridsvagn tank, and a straight up Norse themed Valkyrie variant with a Battlemech Lance in the left arm.

>not having an SLDF equipment dump that both sides tear each other apart for be mostly empty due to being siphoned for the First Succession War by a local officer who never reported its location
Oh the wailing and gnashing of teeth when two battalions of House troops plus the player mercenary company realized they were getting a mangled pair of Archers and 10 tons worth of ammunition.

>a mangled pair of Archers and 10 tons worth of ammunition.
Hey, those Archers could be modded into some cool FrankenMechs, that'd be cool.

Probably not worth the lance you lost getting it but there it is.

There wasn't enough left for one full Archer. It was one with an LA, a CT, and a head, and the legs and RT of the other in reparable condition. And the 10 tons of ammo was a few shots of AC ammo in 5 caliber, LRM and SRM ammo, but no full tons of each caliber.

...ok, that's a little harder to build something with. I was thinking Archers with like a limb or two missing, so you had the majority of each Archer. That'd be workable. Instead, having most of 1 Archer is kinda not doable. Your GM is kind of a dick on that one, man. Like, he inflicts serious damage on your units in exchange for fucking nothing at all. Dick move there, GM.

I am the GM. It's the Third Succession War, where SLDF depots are made up and the victories don't matter.

It's called the "Ovis" and it has 1 Electrolaser and 2 LRM-5.

Shimmering Sword, take it from here please.

Then you sir are a dick. To be expected in these here parts but still. I guess the era sorta explains it but that's still a very unsatisfying situation for PCs. Hope the game isn't entirely like that or players might (justly) walk.

This reminds me of the time I sent a PC company after some pirates that were pillaging an SLDF cache in a swamp, and they had to fight through a nice SLDF armor company to get it (including a two Alacorns holding the rear guard). Then, after all that only to find the reason the pirates had nothing but fancy tanks and shitty mechs from elsewhere was the lower level was flooded and the entire SLDF battalion down there had been soaking in brackish water for the better part of a couple hundred years. I swore I saw a tear when the King Crab down there was unsalvageable.

They still got two gauss rifles off the Alacorns and captured a Magi and a Chevalier, so it's not like they did terribly for the 3010's.

The players took the least amount of losses, mainly by successfully negotiating that their primary objective (invading the world) was completed, and that attacking an SLDF depot that just suddenly got revealed had to be a trick. It wasn't, in a way, but the local AFFS liaison promised them 40% salvage rights from the DCMS unit on planet to help the AFFS attack. So they lost 5 mechs and 2 pilots in the fighting and salvaged 8 chassis plus got a defector.

She looks like someone tried to apply her makeup with a box of Good 'n' Plenties and some licorice.

>hot makeup fetish babes
>killer robots
Where do I sign up?

>Hey we have build a Merc unit threads occasionally. Tell us about the Cincy merc unit. Even if it is Mary Sue.

Repostan request

I know, isn't it great?

Beats the same Taylor Swift that that one guy posts every /btg/.

Our symbol is the ram and our colors are pink & electric blue. Looks way better than FWL purple.

I'm all for a little color as long as it doesn't end up with SJW chicks with the danger hair, or it makes a woman look like a guy I knew called it, "A bad art project."
IDK, I guess I like a more traditionally hot chick.

Hey, /btg/, is there a really good timeline of technologies in BattleTech somewhere? I have been inspired by talk of an alternate-technology AU and want to explore the concept further and a timeline of the introduction of technologies would prove invaluable to determine the faction's starting point and where/how it diverges. Problem is, my BT-fu is not strong and I don't know where to find that kind of timeline, if it exists at all. Can you help an autist in need?

One of the great things about a traditional hot chick is that she can also overdo her makeup. Everybody wins.

But hey, are you at least sexually excited by the idea of transmitting high-voltage electric shocks through a laser plasma channel to fry your enemies? How about using an electromagnetic coilgun arrangement to accelerate bullets fired from a traditional chemical firearm to greater velocities? Because if those do anything for you then we're still in business.