/btg/ BattleTech General

Also if you are down to customize, the -2K can easily lose a SHS or two to bring back the arm ML(s)

Go with a thunderhawk then

>You mean Dallas Core, which is 3074.
You know what, I do. Teach me to post while tired (and a little drunk). Thx for the correction.

This is a good modification. The -2K is a very solid chassis.

That moment when you realize the Merlin is just a 65 ton vindicator.

I'm partial to these two variants, though the RL variant ends up with lots of dirty looks and grumbling.

And like the noble Vindi, the Merlin is basically a fine mech.

Well, mostly because CGL hasn't given us shitty canon grogtech rockets to finally shake out the TH/PP/3060's rocket problems. That way you have the 3060 Periphery stuff based on one shot MRM tech and then the older crappier stuff that needs to be bad enough the Periphery boys in 3020 were still trying their damndest to use SRM's or LRM's instead.

>They didn't even make a variant until 3053
>It was just fine tuning the heat load with the same old tech

God bless those greedy Lyran bastards.

>the Merlin
>Lyran
Son, please try again. The Merlin is an OA mech, for whatever reason.

Agreed. I am particularly found of the 1SIC, myself.

uh, I'm in 3040 right now and the refit is giving me the option of 2Hb. Feels sorta cheaty but once I'm done with my current contract I'm gonna try to acquire the refit kit.

Read up on who built, owns and runs Mountain Wolf. Just because it's made in the OA, doesn't mean they have squat to do with it other than opening their wallets to buy some.

Eh, I learned it as an OA mech and it'll remain one in my heart forever.

I mean that stuff was in the OG periphery material.

Besides
>Believing a periphery nation whose planets are literally starving to death at the time can build a brand new design on their own

>Believing a periphery nation whose planets are literally starving to death at the time can build a brand new design on their own
Hey, it would completely fit early BT logic to say that an interstellar nation like the OA would randomly prioritize making mechs for national defense over feeding planets. That sounds like something that BT would do.

Early BT logic is that the Periphery needs their hand held for everything after the Reunification War. And it stays that way, gosh, just right about through. Except instead of getting Successor State help, it switches later on to Blakists and Clanners. Except the MoC, who is sucking on the teat of Capella. Taurians are a semi-exception to this in that they're not afraid to pay extortionate prices to hire outside help to make new state industry, but keep it under their own control.

Paradox Interactive is making a Batlletech TBS game to release April this year.

Where can I find out on what exactly the SLDF Royal forces used? The wiki says they used pretty much the same mechs as regular SLDF and the readout for 3075 lists a few units, but is there anything else like the variants used?

Field Manual SLDF has the units fielded as of 2750 for both Royal and Regular army units on its RATs. Look there to start, add "b" variants to taste.

That's because Refits page gives you the all variants avaible at that timeframe you are in and 2Hb is a extinct SL variant. What version are you playing as my Refit page actually has a small avaibility screen to show when the variant is avaible lorewise?

Here is the screen in my version I am currently playing.

Fun fact about that. HBS talked about how in the future they plan on making engine heatsinks single no matter what, including clan, and allow double heatsinks to be mixed in through normal building.

They can change whatever they want to balance their own game, but I wonder how TT would play if you made all engine heatsinks single.

>I wonder how TT would play if you made all engine heatsinks single.

Like freezers in the 4th SW.

They're probably just sticking to the lore that external sinks are heat pump rads and engine sinks are specialized heat turbines designed for each engine specifically. If you find a box of lostech external double sinks, you're not magically gonna be able to replace the engine turbine on your Pitban.

>Hey, it would completely fit early BT logic to say that an interstellar nation like the OA would randomly prioritize making mechs for national defense over feeding planets.
If it weren't for the equally long-established facts that the OA is mostly made up of Omniss (back-to-the-earth neo-Luddites) who hate the fact that the Alliance even HAS a military, AND that the OA has always prioritised its aerospace defences over its 'Mechs (because it's better to kill 'em in space or bomb them with ASFs than stand toe-to-toe with them). IIRC, the fluff says the Merlin was being built for export, to bring the Outworlds much-needed foreign cash, but it really does sound like the Lyrans were given some kind of incentive to invest in the Alliance and portray the new product as an OA design.

That's because some people in the company seem to have this groglike hate towards the DHS.

>but I wonder how TT would play if you made all engine heatsinks single.

What it would do in TT it would pretty much screw over most of the Light and Medium mechs as those are usually dependant on engine heatsinks. For example the Phoenix Hawk, it would not be able to take any of the advanced weapons as single shot from an ER Large Laser is enough to overheat it. We even have canon variants to showcase why only SHS in engines is a bad idea in a form of Panther-10K. It has ER PPC as a weapon and it can barely fire it every two turns and even then it's overheating quite badly, restricting movement and that is bad news for Light mech.

You mean 60 tons?

I agree, but damn if they didn't make it look ugly as hell. I think it deserved better than what it got.

If you're customizing just straight swapping a 2H's AC/5 for a PPC, adding a sink and an additional ML or upgrading to an SRM 4 is good too.

you can always go the 'oh look its another medium laser boat' mech conversion to unfuck the 2H.

that's usually a standard unfuckery pathway for mixed mechs that can't use their mixed hardpoints well.

Hey, or i could actually remember to include the fucking pic.

It's always fascinating to see the myriad color schemes people come up with for SSW

oh, i just got bored bodgying up a 'convert to lasers only' unfucked version of the shad.

it's supposed to be such a great iconic mech... and yet, it just ISN'T. anything it can sort of do, a little bit, pretty much anything else will do better.

especially after anons' fully explained WHY the wolverine outclasses it so HILARIOUSLY.

wut? I'm talking about how you have core components dark blue, empty space black, weapons red, etc.

yea. i got bored making that mech as an example of the standard 'convert it toe a laserboat' process to make bad mechs, much less bad. so i went into settings and played around for a bit.

oh I see

i eventually want to play around with shit like partial wings and shit, to see just how mobile i can make a shad. like, give it a shitload of JJ's strip all the guns and max out the medium laserings, max armour, and give it, i dunno, 5 base movement? how much jump does a partial wing on both side torsos give a 55t shad if the shad has, like 6 JJ's?

2 extra MP. You can't add half a partial wing lol

so you could have an 8 jump shadowhawk? lel.

>legs? what are they even for?

Here, enjoy people throwing things at you

55t, 5/8/8[10], XLFE, ES, Cmp Gyro; 11.5T/99% Armor; 10 DHS; 2 SNPPC, 1 ERML, PartWing,

does the tabletop BT have rules for 'hard to hit' due to movement?

like in the upcoming BT 3025, a running mech gains 'evasive' making it harder to hit, size also changes the chances to hit, so an 'evasive' light mech is even harder to hit. then if you have a character with the special skill, they can get evasive even if they just walk.

so do the fast movers get those kinds of 'speed tanking' style bonuses on the tabletop?

because that looks like a hilarious kite mech for dexfaggoting behind battle lines and pumping hot blasts into vulnerable rear ends.

Of course, to hit modifiers is one of the core concepts of the board game.

good. now i want to make lightning bruisers, have nothing larger than a 55t, and just 'goddamn bats' everyone to death with rediculous to hit penalties.

The board game has no penalty for light mechs, but yes, the faster you move the harder you are to hit.

>wolverine with partial wing, JJ and maybe a melee weapon as well as it's close in brwling weapons for punishing sweet sweet rear ct

Lights are still easy to deal with, even if it takes time and annoys. They are lightly armed and can't hit anything themselves. If they will do the same shit with lights soloing assaults in this game as in MWO then it will greatly disagree.

Wolverine is slow as fuck.

MWO is actual people 1v1 though so you have to balance it so that lights are viable

MWO has very differently sized mechs, so obviously aiming at a tiny mech is harder. Some assaults are also a bit sluggish in responding to fast nearby targets, or have trouble aiming their torso weapons down at a target next to their feet. It also has no melee so you can't just stomp on them.

BT having size of target having some factor in hitting it is a step in the right direction.

Yeah no melee is the big killer, a Commando is basically BA in MWO. It can stand on your toes and melt your knees. If you could just punt the little fucker the game would be a lot more fun.

> tfw imagined Commando trying to fuck Atlas's leg like a horny little dog while the Atlas is trying to shoosh the little fucker away.

I mean that's pretty much what happens right now

I still remember fondly when I and another player in Commandoes ran circles around a Clanner Timber Wolf in Faction Warfare match , poking holes into his back and leg armor until we took him out.

He was probably like "hue hue muh honor ahh spheroids"

It's been a while, but back when I was playing light mechs in general and commandoes in particular were OP as fuck. Nearly unhittable between their micro hitboxes and PGI's shitty netcode.

Once and for all, is Mechwarrior Online pay to win?

Yes

Sort of. I've seen people try and justify it's payment model by comparing it to flight sims like DCS, but the problem is MWO has been introducing increasingly powerful mechs which for a long time are not obtainable through normal gameplay means. Regardless, being P2W is pretty low on the list for problems MWO faces.

PGI has still not fixed shit like game performance steadily reducing during a match as more and more trees get knocked down. Even the anti-aliasing has been broken for years.

No, because no one wins if they play MWO.

this, MWO sucks because of buttramming faggots who take their shitty light mech, and ram into you, and because mellee doesn't exist you can't do shit about it. COMPOUNDING the issue, is that if you try to turn, and your giant hitbox that is much bigger than your actual mechs parts, collides with the light mechs hitbox, that is also way too big for it, BAMF you get teleported back to the facing you were at before so the boxes can't overlap.

this lets the light mech be effectively an unkillable kneehighfence shooting yu in the butthole.

so that the hordes of turret fags who can't actually PLAY the game, doing shit like moving AND shooting at the same time, can instead just play a tower defence game like they do with their turret mechs, except at 0m

Not even a little bit.

There are serious balance issues, but most of the best mechs are for cbills, and the two heroes which are mc only and also strong aren't any better just slightly different. It doesn't matter because you earn enough mc to buy them anyway just by playing events.

The only thing you get for paying is to play with the toys earlier than people who don't, or having more mechs in general. People who buy mechs tend to get screwed. More often than not new mechs are shit and by the time they find out it's too late.

yep. you nailed it. and the fucking commando humps the atlas's butt to death.

that's how you ARE supposed to play lights in MWO. you run around the enemy mech in circles spe

speedtanking the enemy fire whittling them down.

the exploit buttrammers are just cheating faggots and they KNOW they're cheating, the "playstyle" only works because they know how to exploit the crappy collision coding and shitboxes

yes and no. some clams omnis come with realy good CT's which is the only omnipod you can't swap.

only a FEW IS hero mechs are actually better than the 'champion' versions.

and the 'best' version of any mech is always a 'champion' version with the same bonus as a hero mech, but it's on an otherwise standard chassis, built out as the 'best' version and meta-whorest build of that mech.

for instance the thud (c) is just the normal version, already built out with an XL (it has to be updated yet with an LFE) JJ's and 3xLPL in the side T.

Most people who complain about lights just need to learn this one special trick.

This ugly son of a bitch is fucking super hot lights left and right, and basically you're fucking stupid.

How? Just watch this free video.

hang on a second, i'll just go make some screenshots to explain

uhm, for instance, the HERO warhammer, the black widow, named for you know who, does all dakka really well. currently it has a totally brutal schtick of running 4 AC5's. which pumps out 30 dmg every .66 seconds. it can be utterly heinous, due to filling the enemy players screen with fire.

but the 'best' warhammer is actually the 6D built out with 3 LLAS and 6ERML's the first is the hero, but the second is a bog standard mech you don't have to pay any real money for.

>shitty netcode

Even if you can nail the box where you think the enemy mech is, it isn't there. This was really bad back in the day, I don't know if they fixed it at all, but PGI came out and said "yeah shit's fucked" which is a rare occurrence.

It's funny you say that, but yes most players can't aim for shit and blame the game or anything but themselves.

this is the current BEst dragon for example, the 5n. upon which you put three uac 5's and spam dakka all day erry day. playing like a modern cavalry tank, manouivre warfareing and flanking at speed, using your left arm and torso armour and structure as a better-than-assault class Glacis to take any fire you cannot dodge. always protecting your fapp'n arm. it takes 0 real money

try using MRM's. the 'dissapearing black hole of horribad hitreg' srm bug has returned with a vengeance for MRMs.

>hit enemy ct rear with mrm 80 at point blank
>armour doesn't even go yellow

pic unrelated. fappn' arm dragon

conversely the best wolfhound is grinner, who although cheap for a real money mech, still costs real money. and the only reason he's best wlf, is because he has ECM. AKA the Cloak of Skill. potatoes are SO bad, simply having an ecm will make 9/10 potatoes not be able to see you jumping up and down right in front of them, they are THAT bad.

and now with 3067? tech, ecm mechs get Stealth armour, which means the potatoes won't even see you as a OMG MUST LURM DORITO on their screen neither

grinner a cute giant light mech doggo.

>he got resized to be x2 the size of other lights.
Is of BALANCE!

the current best clam Mad IIC for example, is the most basic model, for the sheer mas laser shenanigans it pulls.

>MRM 80

hahahwhatthefuck

Mrms are actually easy mode. One of the best ways to break a thousand damage in most matches.

if you're lucky. many players get the bug 3/4 times so that most of their missiles just disappear.

yes, it's a thing. to compensate for black holes swallowing 1/2 their missiles, many IS players will simply boat mrm's instead en masse

How necessary is it for a BattleTech book to have hazard stripes in it?

i mean, the MWO game has been so assfisted by retarded balance choices and 'muh shooter' gameification, divorcing it from BT so hard, that THIS is the best MAD IIC

That poor Javelin didn't stand a chance.
This does look pretty fun, I guess I should try it.

It's a trap, don't do it user.

even with 27 DHS your alpha strike pokings pump your heat to over 80%, so you gotta poke out, get a good burn in, and retreat all before the return fire hits, then hide until you cool off enough to repeat it.

if you're a battletech fan, you will HATE IT. with a fiery burning butthurt passion, realising they raped your franchise so hard they raped you too.

just look at this meta whoring rapetrain mech, it's silly, and totally broken, but the clamtard players will scream black and blue that it isn't.

>if
If you're not a battletech fan, then what the hell are you doing here?

in MWO clams get x2 the firepower on average of the IS, but because they play exactly like the IS and don't zellbringen or anything, they just make a gunline and focus mechs down, Pig, in its infinite retardation, decided that instead of balancing that firepower / range adavantages out, they'd simply make IS mechs x2 as tanky. with extra armour and structure bloats.

only this is totally ineffective, because that x2 tougher IS mech, is STILL gonna get focused down by 6+ clams all doing x2 the dmg anyway, so the IS 'advantages' are totally worthless.

>unless you can get into a group of players, and all take brawl, and you're lucky enough for the map to be one of the very few remaining maps in the game that do not actively punish brawls so you can actually hide and survive to get into close range to rape the fucking clams with brawl

>because the 'muh we the eliterest' clamtards can't actually play the game 9/10. they can only sit there as a turret.

>so as soon as any halfway competent IS team closes on them, they start dying like faggots

>whereupon brawl will get a nerf next patch from the butthurt clam babbies who cannot into mechwarrior and hate ebil IS daring to ever brawl

>despite many clam mechs being stupidly good for brawling and damn nigh unkillable in brawl.

NOPE, it HAS to be all gunline all the time. 1500m+ we can't get SCRATCHES on our paint jobs!

i'm here subsisting until BT 3025 comes out in april, man.

What should I read as a guy who basically knew nothing about Battletech before lurking here, to enjoy the BT 3025 game which I already preordered since I got hooked to the lore, some basics I read on Sarna.net

i torrented the original novels. they're great fun.

How can the planets be starving? Nigga just grow food.

The early Americans had that issue too. The king basically handed them a lot of human refuse and told them to make a productive gulag over there, so when it turned out that human refuse doesn't know how to farm, the better sort had them roasted and served and dined on their corpses while they waited for the next supply ship.

>claims not to be a battletech fan
>claims to know what a battletech fan will or will not hate

>plays mwo even now
>advises against it

The arrogance and hypocrisy is through the roof.

>Crack addict: "Don't do Crack user, it's BAd for you and no worth it."
>user: "fuck you, you arrogant hypocrite! i'll do so much crack i'll HEAR the fucking universe and no one's gonna stop me!!!!

ok, fine. be that way.