/btg/ BattleTech General

I wonder what the tech team thinks of some 'Mech driver who insists on having his giant robot painted like that after every battle. Bastard comes back with half his armour shot off, paint scorched where it's not, and still he has the brass to ask for his custom candy paintjob.

It's a Solaris mech. You better have a crazy awesome paint scheme if you want to play with the big boys in the post-Notan era. It's like nascar meets wrestling.

>It's a Solaris mech.

Is it? With those bright colours, I was thinking that looks like Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's personal ride.

youtube.com/watch?v=BRWK5I49jOs

Yeah, that's what I thought. Those spikes are a nice addition too.

Those eyes, she's got eyes like a doll's eyes...

Mechs have always been brightly colored with nutty paint jobs. Solaris is the extreme but the yaks drive their machines with the giant tattoo paint jobs and the Battlecorps Legion is all kinds of fucked snowflakes.

Hell, even old Rhonda Snord drove a hot pink Highlander with speakers strapped all over it and went into battle blasting Elvis music.

>hot pink Highlander

Don't forget the pinkest.

Bugger, wrong pic. That was not pink enough.

>Implying the Steiner's aren't Americans with a thin German veneer

Random question for someone just getting into the fluff...

It mentions that the Taurians have good tanks, so much so that other powers purchase them - does anyone know what tanks are considered "iconically" Taurian? I can't find reference to what they make.

I know the Light SRM carrier is taurian, which I find is a bit more useful than the standard in a dustup thanks to it's turret.

No, Olly. You got that wrong. The Taurians are the biggest producers in the Periphery and they are noted for selling their stuff to other Periphery powers. In the old days, anybody will buy anything. How do you think Quikscell got to be a giant company? It sure wasn't with quality. The Taurians make Hunters and Vedettes in grogtech.

>Pinard Protectorates Limited literally undercutting Quikscell Vedettes in 3025
Takes lowering the bar to a whole new meaning. I wonder if it's like those old Popular Mechanics scams where they just send you the blueprints.

I don't know if this will help completely, but check this page...
sarna.net/wiki/Taurian_Concordat
The second and fourth industries listed have info on mech and vehicle production at least for them. Bulldogs and Hunters are part, but I think there are more.

"Because of their cheaper production and maintenance costs, the armor corp saw upgrades long before TDF Battlemechs. In fact, a few Concordat produced vehicles are in high demand by Inner Sphere mercenaries and some house units." - FM Periphery, page 52

This lass wants to head up your infantry divisions. Do you let her?

That's the mid 3050's.

no they are out of reg

This isn't the OF, we're not constrained to grogtech era here.

If you're asking what a state is for a new guy then the obvious two choices are current time and the beginning, not some random spot in the middle.

Israeli chicks are so hot.

Some are, although that pic, that chick has a nic body but is kinda stupid IRL.

Coulda fooled me

>Hell, even old Rhonda Snord drove a hot pink Highlander with speakers strapped all over it and went into battle blasting Elvis music.
I think she mainly blasted heavy metal from the Highlander. She blasted Elvis when she was in her Shadow Hawk.

Rhonda Snord? That dumb slut who was fought to a standstill by Lyran militia? Haha who cares what she does.

I know, right?

Aren't women the worst possible humans? Why can't we just keep them around for breeding and have them in cages or kitchens the rest of the time? They don't really count as people anyway. Look how useless they are in Battletech.

Only if she has the necessary qualifications. Or unless my liege commands me to promote her.

Neo Feudalism sucks.

Dude don't be misogynistic.

Taking it way too far. Clean the sand out of your vagina and drive on, MechWarrior.

I assume he's giving a sarcastic response to the comment about Rhonda Snord.

That was my take on it too, but autists and kneejerk progressives have more in common than they like to admit.

...

Just a reminder who the ilClan will really be.

They're coming.

On a more serious note, was the point of the WoR decreasing things down to four clans so that there can be a new four clan invasion corridor coming up soon?

Ironic considering the Combine are a state of weebs

Clan invasion 2: electric surat boogaloo?

I can see it being part of the set up for ilClan. Star Adder has united the clans (more or less forcefully) and they've managed to expand the clan homeworlds territory quite a fair bit in order to manage a considerably more threatening invasion force this time, and the only way the Inner Sphere, weakened from the dark ages and the constant attrition of war has to basically initiate a Trial of Possession for Terra in order to stop the Star Adders grand crusade from just steamrolling through the Sphere.

Because of the isolation of the clan homeworlds they've doubled down on clan culture, so they hold personal honor and ritualistic combat in a much higher regard than usual. But we should also get a glimpse that the Star Adders aren't really fooled by this bullshit, they're trying to play the long con and position themselves to take over the administration/ rulership of the new Inner Sphere through other means while also keeping up the facade of "clan homeworlds are too stubborn in their honor ruled ways to think practically or cleverly."

I'd like it to go down like that. Shake up the whole shebang by making the majority of the Inner Sphere this "new star league" while fringes of the Great Houses become the new periphery the new clan tech Star League Defense Force can brutally oppress like olden times, while the old Periphery gets pushed even further into new territory where they can grow as factions even further.

Maybe. At the least the Vipers were pushing that line. So yes, that means they were basically saying the Clans must remove Inner Sphere taint in order to return to the Inner Sphere, but they won't get tainted this time because reasons. Of course the Vipers also somehow got blindsided by the others turning on them since they were in the IS too, so Andrews apparently didn't think really the whole thing through.

Hey, WarShip user and/or NEA, I've got a WarShip question. If you could magically resolve the engine issues, how would the existence of the Enterprise Super Carrier (XTRO: Boondoggles) change the WarShip game? Fighters are pretty OP, right? I assume that it'd make the Enterprise the best thing around. Would it manage to stand up to a Lev?

>they won't get tainted this time

"We need to Clan harder!" Unfortunately, they might be right about the Clans not getting tainted, given what the Idiot Falcons' death ride etc. have done to Clanner-Spheroid relations. This time every swinging dick or tit in the IS would be up in arms against a new Clan invasion from beyond, and there are no Uncle Chandies to corrupt Clan culture with toasters and Purple Tailfeathers discs anymore. Sidenote: Uncle Chandy a best.

Hopefully Word of Blake returns with cyborg warriors to save us from the Clans!

With the existence of Leviathans, doesn't it make sense for the inner sphere to renew its interest in Monitors? Seems to me like that is pretty much the ultimate way to tell the ghost bears (or other clans) to go fuck themselves, is to utterly crush their super speshul warships.

Ironic that people always like to bring this fact up without realizing that all national identities are socially constructed. The Dracs are just as much "pretending to be Japanese" as the modern Japanese are, or modern Americans pretend to be Americans.

Oh shit, that's true. Since CGL hasn't publicly divorced itself from Heavy Metal Aero, we know that Monitors are still officially supported. We should see more of them in canon!

I hope this is satire and you're not really that stupid and/or disingenuous.

you're falling for old /pol/ b8

I know you're shitposting aggressively but seriously, stop this shit. Monitors aren't happening, XTRO: Boondoggles makes that abundantly clear. Go read the entry if you still think there's any chance of them showing up again.

If it is a four clan repeat, where do you think it would be most interesting for each of the four clans to attack? If you were Star Adder, how would you plan out an invasion to do better? would you try to focus on taking out the other clans, or go in from other angles?

I'm the guy replying to the guy but c'mon man, don't spoil our "fuck heavy metal" fun.

What do you mean? That's exactly how states work. You come up with some bullshit foundational mythology to convince people that they actually have something in common in order to justify forcing them into a social contract that allows the ruling class to exercise power over them.

>not Clan Snord

Whilst 972 fighters sounds great, the Enterprise has usability issues beyond just the engine fluff. It can only deploy 44 per turn to the Lev II's 60* ish per turn. That means the Lev can dump her fighters much faster- from a standing start, the Lev can deploy more fighters more quickly.

There's also the problem of the Enterprise's relatively thin armour. The Lev II has anywhere from over four to close to six times as much armour per arc. The Enterprise's weapons array is much lighter than that of the Lev II.

Best-case scenario for the Enterprise is that it gets 22 uninterrupted turns to launch its fighters before the Lev II gets to do anything. Otherwise it runs a good chance of being overwhelmed by a fighter swarm or simply killed by the Lev's guns, particularly since it only has an SI of 150.

The only way the Enterprise can win here is by dint of its fighters. It needs to blot out the stars with them to have any chance. Otherwise, the Lev is gonna romp it in.

*Because the Lev II's sheet hasn't been updated to match the current construction rules it has a different launch rate by the sheets, but really.

Assuming Jellico waves a magic wand around and grants your ridiculous power fantasy, sure.

How likely do you think it is he will hand out a way to kill his favourite toy?

What does the Enterprise do outside of a 1v1 with a Lev? Does it change the landscape of WarShip combat in other scenarios? It's got a million ASFs, that's gotta mean something.

How genre savvy are the Adders? If they only used IC information, then the swiftest path to Terra is through the remains of the Suns. If they actually know what universe they’re in, then they’ll drive into the Combine. A smart Khan would order his astechs not to load any ammunition, nor fuel any machines until they’re past Dieron to conserve war material that the Kokuryu-kai makes superfluous.

Has there ever been a situation in Battletech where a noble has to pretend to be someone else to escape enemy territory, while enlisting the help of scrappy peasants, while being escorted by a stern and gruff warrior?

>Enterprise vs Lev II

I second basically everything said, with one prominent exception.

The Enterprise-class is somewhat faster, tactically speaking, than the LevII, though it has a pathetic fuel load (at LEAST 3 of its carried DropShip should be nothing but flying fuel tanks). Which means proper tactics for it are as follows:

>detect LevII
>start pooping out ASFs as fast as possible.
>Run away screaming while launching as many off-bore missiles as possible to help establish air superiority (there's no point in shooting them at the Lev).
>Hope your ASFs are sufficient to kill the LevII before you're out of gas.

>Does it change the landscape of WarShip combat

Only insofar as WarShips as we think of them shouldn't even exist at all given the existing ruleset. By rights, WarShips should be as large as possible at all times, with maximal armor and high SI values, with absolutely minimal weapons except for a flak battery and AMS, and with every possible bit of tonnage devoted to ASF bays, and maybe a couple of aft-mounted capital weapons for orbital bombardment. Anything short of that is deliberately not taking advantage of what the ruleset offers.

That's what the rules reward. I think it's fucking stupid, but that's the design paradigm most rewarded by the ruleset. The Big E is simply another step toward that endpoint; it would be a far better WarShip if it did nothing but pulled off every single capital weapon (but for maybe the AR-10s) and packed in more ASFs.

Yay. How fucking exciting.

ASF are ASF, user.

54 of of them (a Regiment) can and will fuck up a Heavy or Battle Cruiser by themselves.

The only thing the Enterprise really does is reduce how many carrier DropShips you need to bring with you to break the game using Squadron rules.

Hohiro pretended to be just some guy with Shin looking out for him on Teniente, it worked for a while. Melissa Steiner as the Red Corsair might also qualify.

Well that turned depressing. I wish CGL gave literally any shits about the blackwater navy stuff, it looks like it has the potential to be interesting but is just terrible thanks to their lack of care.

That's not just CGL. That's been a problem going all the way back to the beginning. FASA only produced blackwater stuff because fans were screaming for it after the references to genuine Warships in the old JumpShips & DropShips book and the existence of Aerospace fighter rules with only support for using them in support of Battlemechs.

is up-armoring the hellbringer a common refit

Not at all. The Clans don't really refit their non-pod gear at all, so having an up-armored Hellbringer would be highly indicative of a player who doesn't care about the lore and cares only about minmaxing mech designs.

Post Thunderbolt conversions.

gotcha i assume they would simply forego the design for something else

I think Adders would go the same route as Clan Wolf did in 3050s, Combine route is for more of screaming retards of the Clans facing screaming retards of IS. And this is saying as person who likes Combine. It's really shame they can't be anything other than "muh honour" Samurais. and if someone changes that Black Dragon Society pops up and undos that.

Only way you're doing that is with Modular Armor, which is inefficient and slows you down.

That's usually what happens; they take one of their venerable Omnis and make a new version that shores up the faults of the older one and is better overall. But the reality is the new version is usually just festooned with toys that don't actually improve performance and has some other glaring flaw instead.

Specifically, it'd look like this. The modular armor drops the speed to 4/6 until it all gets blown off, but it gives 10pts extra armor to each location. Going from 128 to 198 armor is pretty big. The rest of the design is just trying to mirror the base version, if I was trying to make a survivability focused version it'd be just boating energy weapons and probably use some lower BV options like pulse lasers. Two LPLs, 3 MPLs, and a Micro with an extra DHS can alpha all day and costs 400 less BV.

Pictures are important.

Other options for using one are to focus on extreme range, where you try to take minimal return fire and dish out as much as you can. Or to admit you're in a suicide mech and slap on a supercharger and far too many heavy lasers for your suicide ride.

Boondoggles makes it clear that converting a warship to a monitor is leaves a big fucking hole that weakens the whole ship. A design meant to be a monitor from the start lacks that weakness. Besides, concepts get revisited all the time in universe. Just look at the revival of the blazer cannon, or how the supercharger wasn't accepted as mainstream for centuries. The existence of levs is exactly the impulse needed to revisit the monitor

You missed the bit where transporting them between systems resulted in damage to the transporting ship, and that you need a Newgrange or similar yardship to transport them between systems. Otherwise they can only defend the one system.

What's needed more than monitors is for someone to take a sledgehammer to everything above ASFs and rework them from the ground up with the construction rules in mind. Oh, and also remake said construction rules make more sense and be less stale.

So just build them in the system they are supposed to guard. Monitors will, and never should be, common. What they should be is a giant "FUCK YOU" to warships who jump in system of major worlds. You can't tell me that worlds like Dieron, Conventry, and Terra are capable of shitting out mechs by the thousands, but are incapable of making even a single monitor in system.

>What's needed...is for someone to take a sledgehammer to everything above ASFs and rework them from the ground up with the construction rules in mind.

Ha.

-The Catalyst Observer

*monitors never will, and never should be
Apparently I've been drinking more than I thought.

>You can't tell me that worlds like Dieron, Conventry, and Terra are capable of shitting out mechs by the thousands, but are incapable of making even a single monitor in system.

Yes we can, because monitors are *physically possible* in-universe. Without a K-F drive to hold them together, they fall apart. That's what the K-F drive being described as "the keel" MEANS.

You might as well say, "you can't tell me that the US, the mightest naval power in the world with some of the best large-scale industry the human race has ever seen, is incapable of successfuly launching a naval vessel which is missing the bottom third of its hull."

I mean, yes. You CAN technically launch one; it just sinks immediately. The same principle applies to monitors. They simply aren't viable combatants within the confines of the game universe. It doesn't matter if they can be constructed if they fall apart pretty much immediately; without a K-F Drive, that's what happens, always.

see, you are missing the part about being a dedicated monitor. As to your example, it would be like trying to convert a boat to a catamaran by cutting a third of the keel away, having it sink, and declaring catamarans to be impossible. CONVERTING a warship to a monitor is going to give you something fragile and worthless, but if you design it from SCRATCH to be a monitor (rather than leaving a giant gaping hole in its ass), then it should be fine. If that doesn't work, why not make mechs out of the titanium-germanium alloy that jump drives are made of, because apparently it is the strongest material for its weight in existence? Or armor the hull of warships with it?

One, you probably meant "physically impossible".

Two, Boondoggles makes it clear they are technically possible. Here's the appropriate quote:
>Without the frame around the KF drive acting as a keel to support the ship, the stresses it underwent during construction alone were enough to cause structural damage. The plans were re-drawn and construction began again, though the new structure ate away more of the mass than originally expected

Yes, without a K-F drive the ship has structural issues, but it was solved eventually, though it ate a lot of mass. Note that I am firmly in the "monitors aren't happening in BT" camp, just making a clarification.

Saw that movie. It plodded alone and was too long in my opinion, but past that worth a watch. I preferred the Seven Samurai better.

The Combine has always been samurai. Teddy added some yakuza to the mix, but samurai, being useless, and always losing has never changed. Smarter writers might have realized that having a villain factions schtick be a warrior society that venerates martial prowess... in a setting that you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting one. The Snakes aren’t even good enough to be knock-off Cobra, as they don’t have personalities as good as Destro, Serpentor, Zartan, or Dr. Mindbender.

Thunderbolt missile conversions? If they still allowed the original one shot / one ton T-bolt missiles I used to have some nasty mechs back in the day.

>What's needed more than monitors is for someone to take a sledgehammer to everything above ASFs and rework them from the ground up with the construction rules in mind. Oh, and also remake said construction rules make more sense and be less stale.

YES

Actually, no, smash ASF too while we're at it.

That's odd. It's like you're saying that the only thing that can possibly serve as a keel of a warship is a KF drive, which doesn't make sense.

>It's like you're saying that the only thing that can possibly serve as a keel of a warship is a KF drive, which doesn't make sense.

It doesn't have to make sense. It's word of god. With no KF drive, monitors have to devote so much mass to structural reinforcement that they become unviable.

Monitors aren't a thing. They aren't a thing because there's no KF drive. Period.

This guy is 100% correct. Whether you agree with the logic or not is irrelevant. Word of FASA/FanPro/CGL is that K-F drives are integral to the construction and design of WarShips.

>Whilst 972 fighters sounds great, the Enterprise has usability issues beyond just the engine fluff. It can only deploy 44 per turn to the Lev II's 60* ish per turn.
I hate that this is true, but I do want pic related to happen just once, even if I know I'd basically be taken out behind the shop and beaten with rubber hoses until I stopped screaming. The names are shit but I was lazy, and ran out of Bill and Ted references.

So the Silver Hawk Irregulars just dropped on a Steiner world didn't realize just how much shit we were in till we saw the enemy force. We had an initial scouting fight with our lance of 1x FireJavelin, 1x Locust, 1xCicada and 1xPHawk. We were up against 3x Phawk and 1 Wasp. We ended up winning the scouting engagement mostly due to the OPFOR commander getting overconfidant and letting us take advantageous positions to fight in and putting one of his PHawks where ours could get on a hill above it, and so we kicked its head off. We lost nothing, and killed only the PHawk, but our limping Cicada is sitting out the big battle along with their nearly dead wasp.

So we thought we were doing pretty well, and then this is what was set up across the field from us. If you can't tell(cuz the camera on my kindle is trash), that's:
3xPhawks
1xHatchetman
1xCenturion
1xOstsol
1xThunderbolt
2xZeus
1xDevastator
2xArchers
1xLongbow
1xGriffin.

We're facing it with:
1x Whammy 7M
1x Stalker
1x Awesome (recently fixed to be an 8Q, used to be an 8V)
1x Marauder
1x Orion (now with an LB10-X instead of the normal AC10)
1x Crab
1x Hunchback
1x Vindicator
4x Wolverine 6M
1x Phawk
1x Locust
1x Javelin

How fucked are we?

I think it was NEA who had a tactics chart that allowed you to get an advantage in a 12 vs 12 fight. I don't know if that would help though.

I'd be worried about the Orion, Marauder, and Awesome my dude.

Other than that, if you keep your distance and prioritize the Wolverines and heavies, you'll have a good chance.

If you can focus down the gausswall first, you're actually at a decent advantage here

No no, that's our force on the bottom. God I wish we had that devastator, archers and longbow.

Someone give me an idea for a mech to make. Im bored.