/btg/ BattleTech General

No, you won't, not even then, for it is not physically possible to be as happy a Guillotine-chan, your body can't hold that degree of joy, you'd die. Only the metal and myomer shell of a Mech can contain that kind of boundless euphoria.

For all of ten seconds before the crushing realisation that it means BT is dead rather than merely dying.

2 new games in the franchise, healthy but small following for MM.

Sure seems terminal to me, Jim

The BT game is 100% aimed at grogs. Most normies have no idea it even exists. It is likely to be late and incredibly shittily optimised on top of that. Lore-wise it fucks with the setting. Not super hard but they shat the bed if they actually are expecting it to translate into new boardgame players, because the Aurigen Coalition is a flash-in-the-pan faction we know is relevant only for the duration of the game.

MW5 is not going to have customisation, good luck selling that.

Besides, what I'm talking about is the board game side of things. The game is in palliative care. They over-shot the point where it could be revived by fucking around with ilClan and the playerbase keeps shrinking. If CGL loses the liscence, nobody who has the resources to save the game wants it and nobody who might want it will have the resources.

As fractally incompetent and stupid as CGL might be, they're literally the only thing keeping the game clinging to any semblance of life.

>MW5 is not going to have customisation, good luck selling that.

Mechwarrior can sell to lots of random people. You just need to remove PGI from the equation. The reponse has always been "Oh I wanted a new MW... oh wait, it's done by those retards and looks exactly the same. Fool me twice and all that."

Stupid question from a newbie, but how do you use the bandersnatch effectively? It seems like it is too fragile to fight other heavy mechs, and too slow to catch smaller shit.

Lighter 'Mechs generally have to come into LB-X range to do anything, and the -1 they have to hit makes collecting them easier. It's also great at fucking up vehicles and anything with an ML battery is always good.

Honestly I regard it as an overplayed meme, especially around here lately, but it's not a total loss.

Anyone who's a pre-existing fan of the franchise is going to drop it completely once they know there's no customisation. Customising 'Mechs has always been the big draw of the series to date, even in 4 and MWO.

Remove that element and all you're left with really is the story. And the storylines of the MW games have always been shit.

>Anyone who's a *powergamer* is going to drop it completely once they know there's no customisation. Customising 'Mechs has always been the big draw of the series to date, even in 4 and MWO.

Some of us are capable of playing games without relentless minmaxing.

Stock Shad -2Ds everywhere, Introtech only. Even if it wasn't piggy at the wheel, MW5's lack of customization is baffling.

>mw5 doesnt have customization
Bitch, we've SEEN aesthetic customization. Did you forget SUDDEN DEATH? As for mech construction, it has full mod support. Even if it doesnt have in game mech building, expect a devkit very close to launch.

>Well if you do the work yourself you can create a game with the feature the whole series to date has been based around!
I'm already not doing CGL's job for them for free like they think I should, why would I do it for PGI as well?

>Stock Shad -2Ds everywhere, Introtech only

Fuck off. It's entirely possible to have a range of capabilities in Mechs without every being COMPLETELY terrible.

If the Medium Mech line up is
>griffin -1N, Wolverine -6M, Shad -2H, Dervish -6M, Enforcer -4R, Centurion, Whitworth -1, Clint -2T, Vindicator -1R
Everything will be just fucking fine. You've got every medium Mech role in there except the Pixie's, and that's because nothing in 3025 duplicates it but the Chameleon and nobody cares about that Mech.

OK, so now what about the other three weight classes?

Reminder that MW4 maxed out at 34 'Mechs with the official stuff under a more competent developer with a lot more resources. But I'm sure PGI is going to magically pull all the mad skillz and money they've been saving up to this point and blow their load on getting balance so right that nobody misses customisation at all with a wide variety of options to suit any role and weight class.

You need the Hunchback as well to cover close-range juggernaut unless the Centurion is the A/C-20 variant.

Is right, unless they're going to have somewhere around 40-50 'Mechs they're not going to cover every possible role within each weight class, and if they include that many machines there's still going to be capability gaps. That could be solved by adding 2-3 additional variants per chassis, but at that point implementing customization is a way more elegant solution.

>Stupid question from a newbie, but how do you use the bandersnatch effectively? It seems like it is too fragile to fight other heavy mechs, and too slow to catch smaller shit.
As part of a lance with other, scarier shit in it. The Bandie, like the Dervish or Centurion, works best in a team. It also is most useful when you're using advanced rules.
It can lay three hexes of smoke or mines a turn, buckshot aircraft that are trying to make passes at you or lights flanking your buddies, has an obscene brawling armament, and is one of the best critseekers ever made (right up there with the Piranha, but with five times the range). It's not necessarily the best toy out there but you will very rarely regret adding it to a lance; it will also rarely be the first thing your opponent busts a cap in.

>how to use.
Select ammo carefully. I usually go with a ton of Smoke-5 ammo, and will take 3t cluster, 1t slug if I already have a lot of holepunchers in the lance, or the enemy is using vehicles/VTOLS/Aeros or swarmy lights. If you already have a couple of missile boats or whatever and it's playing bodyguard, go 3:1 slug to cluster.
Move it deliberately. Keep the Bandy in the middle of your lance (not on point) while advancing and move it to intercept any fast enemy formations. It's better to take a chancy long-range shot with the buckshot bonus and a shitload of cheap LRMs to stay out of someone else's optimal ranges, than land one almighty alpha and then get assfucked in return. Those Mediums are for finishing off the shit your lancemates have already wounded, or gutting the guy in the Clint who thinks jumping up your strap is clever. Also, take cover when you can. The Bandie has shitty-ass leg armor, and a Banshee can kick it internal in one shot.

The variant loses flexibility, but gains firepower at all ranges. The Streak-2 is a mistake, and it really should have had MMLs if they wanted to go that route.

It's job is to hang back and give *support* by doing things like molesting vees and laying mines with the LBX-10s in shotgun mode and the triple LRM/5s, occasionally taking shots with it's solid AC ammo to bust up mediums, hassling heavy mechs with moderate long range damage with friends and occasionally bodyguarding it's support mech pals with quad MLs and the LBX-10S
It's MUCH better at generally helping the rest of a Lance with stuff then as a standalone fighter

It's a little better with IS FF, and has the crits to do it. I generally go for 22 armor on the limbs, 24 on the STs and 26 on the CT. That way nothing can get DBed straight to internals for the most part.

Plog's new work! How will you stat this baby? Under vehicle rules or mech rules?

The fuck is that even meant to be? Is it supposed to be a hovercraft, an aircraft, a small craft?

Give it endo and it gets max armor and becomes even more excellent now that it's not fragile any more
It isn't even unfluffy, because every bandersnatch was a custom job until KWW started making them, and even then they had access to endo

Everything is better with endo than ferro and even the fluff reason people use ferro over it is retarded- you go through so much more armour plate than IS that the usage is lower and savings are greater in the long run price-wise too.

BRB, autistically re-designing and re-weighting the Invasion-era Omnis.

I can see ferro over endo in the pre-retcon early clan era and periphery into the 60s just on account of the ease of production, upgraded regular factories VS building new orbital infrastructure and all, and maybe on field refits but after that it really just makes no sense

It's a Heavy Object
youtube.com/watch?v=9oxTnqLtSIQ

Needs mobile structure rules.

Unless you're severely thin skinned ferro is more expensive than endo in the first place. And that's relative to weight class too, even with a light mech you have to be Locust 1M thin skinned for ferro to cost less. The fluff issue is one of availability, not cost. And if you're customizing, ferro is a lot easier to do in house, particularly if the mech you're customizing doesn't have a company manufacturing an endo steel chassis. I'm sure you could get one made somewhere, but that's still extra time and money.

Too small for a mobile structure though, going by the rules.

Endo requires an orbital factory to shape, and Bander BattleMechs were literally garage kitting mechs. Where were they gonna get the facilities to do it? It's a limitation that makes sense, because of course Endo is flat out better.

Description makes it sound like an omnitech hovercraft where one of the configs is a Kanga.

>Endo requires an orbital factory to shape
I though it just needed those for fabricating it. Either way though, yeah, early-mid 3050s Bander probably wouldn't be rolling with the gear to work it well. Plus he based the chassis on the Marauder's in part to benefit from common parts, and no Marauders with an ES chassis existed at the time.

There are a bunch of machines with adapted Marauder chassis that are Endo going into production around the same time though.

What company would give you a free sexbot with every tank order?

A hovercraft with a large laser and four LRM15s or sixty Slals?

Sounds like a canopian sales pitch

The answer is always Quickscell.

Redpill me on the Dracs

See what I did there? Because they're red?

...

Some assembly required, vagina not included. Four limbs guaranteed, but you dig through the box and find four left legs.

>Mace

Pretty sure it was a prod/bat. It's for containing delinquents, not killing people.

...

Piranha added to Tabletop Simulator

>containing delinquents

I'd say one whack from a 'Mech bat would contain them really, really well.

...

I'd want to say that's a Steiner issue, but...

Assuming you actually want to know?

They live in a Schroedinger reality where their military is simultaneously supposed to be the second most dangerous in the Sphere and yet whenever it's seen in action is is relentless shat on by all the others. Reformation efforts by Theodore Kurita failed completely and the Black Dragons were secretly in charge all along. On the few occasions where they start winning it's because their enemies (Jags, Suns) have already beaten themselves and it's someone else (Suns, Wolf's Dragoons) who is really doing all the winning for them.

Their designs are only any good if they are built to be shared with the Federated Suns/Commonwealth. Their House tech (MRMs) suck, very little is designed from the ground up to use C3, and going by the unit breakdown fluff large concentrations of C3 networks and Clan tech are more the fevered imaginings of other factions about what the Dracs could potentially have than anything close to what they actually do have.

Are currently winning in the Dark Age (again, thanks to the Suns retarding its way to the loss, with the Dragoons doing all the heavy lifting, but when you're a Drac you take what successes you can...) but it's clearly a set up for anywhere between one and all three of the following plotlines, perhaps in sequence but possibly all three at once.
-Julian Davion is back to save the Suns, so their advance will be blunted if not broken.
-The Gunji-no-Kanrei and Coordinator have been maneuvering to set up a civil war that will enable the Suns to recover lost ground.
-The Ghost Bears are already pissed off with the Dracs again and now that Stone is back, he will appeal to them to carry the fight to the Combine.

I must be some kind of masochist though because they're still my favourite faction.

Well, getting the whack in is the tricky part. I'm fairly certain they still fucked them up a few times and needed the military to come in and help out.

Could be worse, could be like.me.and be a combine/bear fan.

>expect a devkit very close to launch

You got a source for that?

>Source
>From PGI

Hmmm. Remember the "temporary hotfix" removing collisions from the game?
DX11 support?
Community Warfare at launch?
Reintroduction of inverse kinematics?
...

PGI says a lot of things.

>all those truth bombs
Stop!

But you are right. It would have been nice if the writers hadn't gimped the Jaguars so Bulldog was a cakewalk and if it was the DCMS and not the Dragoons who were whipping on the AFFS.

Why can't BT have competent bad guys? When a bad guy faction gains any competence they seemingly have to be argued into being good (like the mental gymnastics over House Liao).

>Why can't BT have competent bad guys?
Because Stackpole was by far the best writer they've ever had. In relative terms he's a god of genre fiction, but in absolute terms he's not very good.

Im gonna play just for the 4 player co-op. If mods are.a.thing then fuuuck yeah buddy. Pgi doesn't give us clan invasion? Someones gonna whip up a mod!
I was a big fan of mpbt3028 so i wont really give a fuck about not being able to customize.

I liked the Jags. I'd rather have them around as an aggressive but resource starved Clan version of the 3030s CapCon than the Bears. It's a shame their invasion corridors couldn't have been switched around, so Clan Turtle-and-wait-for-the-writers could see what yielding the initiate actually does when you don't have Levs or plot armor.

Your name ritz? Cause your salty.

I remember when levs protected the bears during the second dc/gb war..oh wait that was the ursa and she died. Oh wait what about when the lev protected them in that tro!...wait no most.of those write ups were the bears losing and having factory complexs getting dmged when the snakes spanked them...

By the time that Bulldog went off the IS would have needed like the entirety of the FWLN and DCN to counter the Bears' aerospace arm and almost 200 regiments of 'Mechs, expecting major casualties on the ground and heavy losses in the fleets. Even without counting the Levs the Bear navy was pretty impressive.

Not even meming when I say the only way you could generate enough fiat to take down Da Bears would be to have Hanse Davion return from the grave and bring almost all of the AFFS with him to that fight. Serpent and Bulldog strained credibility for how many units the other states contributed and how well the campaign went.

Clan Turtle-and-Wait wins again.

>when the snakes spanked them.
What alternate reality are you posting from and how are you doing it?

>I was a big fan of mpbt3028 so i wont really give a fuck about not being able to customize.

Right there with you. I bet we'll look back fondly on MW5 as the best of the series because of the lack of customization.

What's salty about that?

Barring the existence of Leviathans, how big was the Bear aerospace arm and warship fleet? Wouldn't they be at a disadvantage for not using the aerospace pilot phenotype?

See, that actually does sound more interesting.

Are you saying im not turtle enough for the turtle club?

Bears have a bigger aero arm than ppl give them credit for. The fact they don't rely on a phentottpe that was proven to not really be any better means they can produce.more pilots, hencing 600 asf just woth levs alone (2 levs not including fropship carriers)
Plus the rasalhagians make aweaome aero jockeys.

>Barring the existence of Leviathans, how big was the Bear aerospace arm and warship fleet?
2 Carrack, 1 Volga, 2 Leviathan I, 1 Cameron, 1 Black Lion, 1 Fredesa, 1 York, 2 Essex, 2 Lola III, 1 Nightlord.

This doesn't sound like much but Bulldog took a huge fleet against, IIRC, fewer Jag ships.

No disadvantage to not using the Phenotype since it turned out to be complete ass and the Bears' decision to use MechWarrior bloodlines for the job was revealed to be much smarter in the end.

Yet one more example of the Bears' unwillingness to adopt new ideas or react to change quickly always turning out in their favour.

Define "interesting," because given the fluff there's no way a Judith Faber could turn a Bear (they'd be turned instead) and it's really, really hard to believe the IS could muster enough force to turf the Bears out. Plus Da Bears have many friends who would have rushed to their aid, not like the Jags.

THey're one of the largest in the clans, with lots of very strong options for AS and PWS by the DA.

>Wouldn't they be at a disadvantage for not using the aerospace pilot phenotype?
>bears being disadvantaged at anything.

>Four limbs guaranteed, but you dig through the box and find four left legs.

It's a Foot Soldier!

The Jag fleet was about 20-24 warships, writers just mostly forgot about this among other things.

The IS wouldn't need a Judith Faber to learn the Bear homeworlds since the Bears are all in their OZ. And since their industry wasn't up yet they'd be at a logistical disadvantage for any losses they took.
Bring in ComStar's warship fleet and the Bears would be done. It wouldn't matter how many clusters they had if the SLDF could isolate worlds and then overwhelm their garrisons a few at a time.

That's probably why they were given the Leviathans in the first place.

That would be a neat campaign.

They're a complete game changer.

It would be like the Pacific Campaign. The Bears have about a dozen warships, so a SLDF fleet made up of ComStar, Davion, Kurita and maybe Marik warships would have to hunt them down. Once naval superiority was achieved, they could invade and reduce garrisons a few worlds at a time without having to worry about reinforcements for the enemy. Like the Japanese garrisons, the Bear clusters would be isolated and unable to move. And even those with transport assets (pretty much only frontline forces) would either be targeted in the first wave or have to run a gauntlet to go anywhere.
Of course, this plan is impossible with the Leviathans. Which is one reason why they're broken.

Dude, ironically in this scenario Lincoln Osis would probably lead the Jaguars to try and relieve the Bears because "muh Crusader cause" lol

They did have a few honour guard units back home and part of the plot was to go to the Homeworlds and beat the Clans there to show them viscerally what the IS was capable of.

>It wouldn't matter how many clusters they had if the SLDF could isolate worlds and then overwhelm their garrisons a few at a time.
This completely changes the premises BT fiction runs on.

Nah, they made sense as transport ships and that's where they really should have been left.

We still might see a situation where the Nova Cats seek to ally with the Star League and so attack the Smoke Jaguars to prevent them from interfering.

Initially the plan didn't involve a task force to the homeworlds. They added that when Trent defected. Task Force Serpent's units were originally an elite reserve to blunt a Clan counterattack.

>This completely changes the premises BT fiction runs on.
So do blob warships. It's no wonder warship fleets were killed off in the Jihad. They make things like what I suggested possible.

That comic is never complete unless the last panel is him at the hospital with his girlfriend just having had her miscarriage.

Ooo we're doing retarded what ifs, my turn! Nova cats aren't threatened and dont have a vision, instead they and the jags come to save the day as the cata and bears got along and the jags just wanna mah crusader. Add to this the raven fleets coming in to btfo of your mary sue go team ranger and we got a stackpole novel!

Too salty :/

That's actually about ten times more interesting than the Bulldog we got. For one I doubt the Ghost Bears would give battle at those odds so it could look like a repeat of the Reunification War like when the Taurian and Canopus fleets resisted being drawn into an all or nothing fight to the death.

>the Ghost Bears not having Leviathans is a retarded what-if
The absolute state of /btg/

I can't find my copy of Exodus Road o cross-check the dates right now but IIRC the Whitting Conference proposed the Jaguars as a target and then ComStar was like "Oh, hey, about that..." just as the planning began.

Blob WarShips aren't that big a deal when you consider how much the naval battles run on the Rule of Cool. You can''t really mimic the way either of the Levs died in canon- the Dieron fleet should have been curbstomped just by the Lev II, much less the rest of the naval assets in the area. Terra is basically what you get when the GM fiats the bad guy rolling all 12s all the time and the protag rolling straight 2s.

The GBs didn't have Levs IIs until 3066. One is probably in dock getting refitted but is nowhere near ready for combat at the time Bulldog went off.

Guys, my Hetzer got up and walked around. Was it something I said?

The Burrs aren't supposed to ever lose, user.

That's some powerful butthurt.

Have you been listening to Vision and the Revengers again?

youtube.com/watch?v=3uw2YVWfipQ

What all was in the Dieron fleet? How did they kill the Lev II? I haven't read that Jihad fluff in forever.

Poll time, what's your three favourite
>clans
>mercenary units
>minor factions

Not enough to kill a Lev II the way it died in the fluff.

Baron, Essex, Lola III, Zec II, 2 Zecs, Agamemnon, Thera, 2 Eagles.

The Conqueror accompanying the Lev II could have solo'd like half that just by herself.

>Clans
OG Wolf, Blood Spirit, Goliath Scorpion.
>Mercs
Black Thorns, Raging Horde, Fighting Intellectuals mostly due to the name.
>Minor factions
Marian Hegemony, Hanseatic League, Jarnfolk.

Vipers
GDL
Do they Manei Domini count? They were only around for like a decade as a major force.

I put a LossTech era merc unit together on MechHq, with the challenge of starting with 1 mech and seeing what happens, ended up with 6 Stalkers by the time I hit company-level. I've come to think Stalkers really aren't close-in alpha Mechs- their single-turn damage output at close range just isn't going to stop a heavy or assault mech, and their ammo storage scheme is suicide. They're more like mobile defensive positions.

>>clans
None. If I have to pick, the Wolverines (sanity) or Goliath Scorpions (madness)

>>mercenary units
Ignoring custom units, probably the Waco Rangers.

>>minor factions
Marians.

>clans
Jade Falcons (caveat: before they went full retard), . Fuck me sideways, I really don't have any other favourites, except maybe Clan Melnorme.
>mercs
Wilson's Hussars, Legion of the Rising Sun, 15th Dracon
>minor factions
MoC (do they count?), Marians, the Lothian League