/btg/ BattleTech General

Anything you'd expect in an arena match.
Mechs without lasers, but loaded up with ballistic armor for example.
Massive damage if you hit, if not you don't have anything to fight with except trying to kick the other guy in the shin.

Every time I use a Spider, they seem to have a 50/50 chance of either dying horribly or being worthy of having the Japanese Spider-Man theme play as it climbs towards the MVP award.

Example of the latter: in a double blind game, I manage to sneak the Spider (admittedly with a good pilot) behind the enemy's gun line, open up at 3 hexes in the back of an Archer that had earlier killed my Locust with its first salvo. Archer explodes sharpish.

Example of the former: I'm moving a Spider towards the enemy's long range firing line. Enemy Panther takes a potshot at near-max range ("because nothing else was around to shoot") and headcaps the Spider.

derp. meant ammo not armor

Anything with an Ultra A/C-20 or the Heavy Laser machines. RL machines might work too.

The problem with phoneposting, can't modify the image easily to get past the duplicate image.

We're currently testing reopening submissions via the competition, so not right now.

Also, tech not used on protos that can be legally mounted:
Angel ECM
Improved Heavy Medium Laser
Ultra ACs
Protomech AC 4 & 8
LBX-5
AMS
NARC
(non-quad) Protomech Melee System
MG array
Torpedoes
UMUs
ER, Heavy, and Vehicle Flamers
Watchdog CEWS
Vehicular Grenade Launcher
ER Pulse Laser
Streak LRMs
Recon Camera
Remote Sensor Disperser
Re Lasers
TSEMP
RISC Repeating TSEMP
RISC Viral Jammers

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Some sort of custom king crab with double ultra-20s and a pile of RLs

anything with Rocket Launchers. one shot one chance.

Hey guys I'm back. After reading the comments last thread about putting BA gear on PMs I realized something. This sorta clicked in my head when I realized the implications of it. Here is something that could curb the ridiculous from the link like a Minotaur with 5 MLs. What we need is a new mechanic: Power Draw.

Hear me out. Yes FEs produce ludicrous amounts of power, but how long are rounds typically in "real time"? How would such a mechanic work and would it help balance to game or ruin it further. I think it could help if kept simple as it would help curb laser vomit and/ energy supremacy and give ballistics/missiles more use.

What do you think?

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>custom king crab
YES
youtube.com/watch?v=OwQcv7TyX04

Gonna second on the Blitzkrieg. In my experience it either fails at doing anything and jams it's gun, or it annihilates a couple mechs before every gun on the field fires on it.

You can plug a bug into the power grid of the average small city and actually power the place if you can keep the engine cool. Power draw is reflected by heat in the game. It's why there's no limit on how many lasers and stuff you can stick in a mech. It's all just size and weight limits.

And if you don't know a regular round is 10 seconds, you haven't been playing the game very long at all.

>Also where doesone design a protomech since MegaMek doesn't have the wherewithal to do it.
Let's see if this link posts:
cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/238471201633206272/425685873305321472/Protomech_Designer_v0.9.jar

For anyone trying to make protos for the design contest, here's the thing I've been using. It has a number of bugs and errors, like the inability to remove weapons after placing them and most weapons requiring the wrong number of heat sinks. It works at the basic level, though.

Because what battlemechs need are another stat to keep track of.

I think heat already does that

I personally feel it does not.

I was actually considering RLs, something like an axman or another fast heavy with one arm filled with MGs and the other arm filled with rockets. Rocket punch someone and then tear them up with your buzzsaw fist

Thanks dudes, I'll definitely look into the blitzkrieg, won't lie wasn't very familiar with it but it sounds almost exactly like what I want

It's what it's intended to do. That DHS made it really easy to break it for energy weapons doesn't change that. There's already a mechanic for this.

RTFM

so fix heat

How could we? Should heat scale with engine size? Greater chance to shutdown when the engine is damaged?

get rid of engine dhs

That... sounds like a good place to start. Given the size and weight of DHS it would make sense. Allowing DHS in engines would mean only really large engines(400-500) would be able to run effectively. This is based on the 'mechs that canonically use those engines.

>400-500
So only the maximum limit of normal engines to the maximum limit of super-bulky and unusable heavy TacOps experimental engines?

Shit I meant 300-500.

No I mean the 10 free hs that come with an engine. When you switch to dhs the engine hs become dhs so you get 10 free heat dissapation.

10 more heat disspation 20 total free I mean

Look you fools, just add a couple of extra heat to energy weapons. Congratulations, you fixed it.

This.
Really, 5 heat MLs and 5-8 heat GRs fixes honestly like 85% of issues with DHS

But what about environmental effects, movement, jumpjets, and most importantly Single Heatsinks? Should we just get rid of shs? Why not just get rid of dhs and not change any weapons?

Yeah, basically just adjust the base ML to be 4-5 heat, the ER to be 6 heat, give cPulse the X-pulse range brackets, and give full size GRs some actual heat. There go most issues with energyspam.

Because this change doesn't require redoing hundreds of designs and fixes the only actual problem with the system as-is?

Is the Grand Titan better than the Atlas?

Somebody just posted this on Veeky Forums. Anybody know if this is true? I don't play MWO.

Attached: mwo_offline_for_60_to_90_days.png (1008x648, 151K)

Just checked, doesn't say anything about the license. Someone on Veeky Forums is havin' a giggle.

Further research indicates that it is a patch day, so the servers are getting patched right now. Ignore Veeky Forums shitposters. Also, there is something subtly wrong about the text of the bottom bit. Don't trust Veeky Forums.

I figured it might be that.

Yeah trusting Veeky Forums is usually dangerous for stuff like this.

I prefer 4 heat for the ML and 6 for the ERML to keep the ER=1.5x heat formula going, and I agree with you completely

The Atlas variants at the time were actually pretty shit thanks to loldracs and rear-facing SSRMS so them being beaten in a 1v1 is plausible.

Grand Titan's not amazing, but is better.

I would say they're about equal. IMO both have a similar missile complement, so it really comes down to the main guns. Atlases usually mount Gauss, or another big AC, while Grand Titans use an all energy complement.

So if you prefer energy go GT, else Atlas.

I think 7 heat is about right for the GR, really emphasize how it's a trade-off VS the AC/20

What's the difference between an infantry bay and an infantry compartment?

An infantry Bay is bunks, a compartment is seats

IIRC Infantry bays hold half as many guys as compartments too

IIRC it's 7 tons for a bay and 3 tons for a compartment holding 28 infantry, so a bit more than twice the tonnage, since I don't think you can actually get infantry bays in any side but the standard 7/28

>So if you prefer energy go GT
Interesting...

Are Grand Titans still being manufactured in the Dark Age?
I kinda want to make a Spirit Cat SURGE variant.

I thought you could do them by the ton now

Probably so, my aerotech knowledge is hopelessly outdated

Given how Clan LPLs have twice the IS range if you did a 1 for 1 swap you'd turn the GT into a crazy killer.

Well, if we're talking DA refits, then yeah, you could make both into crazy killers depending on what you change.

Megameklab can build primitive mechs for you.

For the Spirit Cats I'm not too certain but are they building Clantech weapons in the nuFWL now? Or do the Cats depend on buying weapons from Clan Space Jew?

Why would the Spirit Cats build a Marik mech? Why wouldn't they build a full clantech mech?

>Or do the Cats depend on buying weapons from Clan Space Jew?
The fluff seems to indicate this. They didn't evacuate much infrastructure and the bit of planet they got was wrecked.

Which version? I probably need to update, then

He suggested a Clantech refit of a Marik mech. Probably just for flavor.

>For the Spirit Cats I'm not too certain but are they building Clantech weapons in the nuFWL now?

They're two galaxies of shot up troops and three galaxies of Republic refugees squatting on half a world.

Think of them like mercs and not a clan. Don't treat them as any kind of entity with infrastructure. They were some garrison troops out of the RotS who went on a vision quest. That's it. They're nothing compared to even the WiE who didn't just haul off five galaxies of troops but took off with the entire warden half of the clan in the OZ.

Ah, in that case is right, Spirit Cats have the ruined part of the planet and pretty much rely on Sea Fox for everything.

Galaxies or clusters? Five galaxies seems like a lot.

Most current version definitely does, but you have to select experimental tech level, IIRC. It also does LAMs now, as well.

On the topic of WiE, I'm surprised the Warden "half" ended up being less than 3 galaxies.

Neat, have they fixed the crit allocation bugs with XL engines yet?

Were the Nova Cats in the Republic organized along Clan lines or in RAF regiments/battalions?

Yeah, I screwed that up. Six clusters. Two of line (the original Spirit Cat Galaxy from Prefecture III) and three of refugees and one Sea Fox.

Clan organization. Same as the Wolves and Bears in RotS space.

What sourcebook covers Clanners in the Republic?

>RAF regiments/battalions

You don't want that. RAF had only 10, count them, 10 regiments of regular troops on Gray Monday. And with their organization, it's like 3.75 regiments of actual mechs. You WANT those clanners counted separate.

It's why any new Republic machine in the dead years of 3110 to 3135 is bullshit. Stone hated mechwarriors and he crushed down on them even harder than Swords to Plowshares after the Capellan Crusades ended. The Lament is a fine machine and all, but they sure as shit weren't cranking them out in 3126 like the TRO says. RAF was full of downgrades and other nonsense as well as shared designs from the RAF allies and open market purchases. They really didn't make dick in terms of new designs on their own until Fortress.

Why did Stone hate mechwarriors?

Era digest Dark Age kinda talks about it because that's where two of the main splinter factions come from, but the details are in the Early DA novels and the original Dossiers.

The end of the Jihad stuff where the original seed forces are gifted to the republic might have it though. Try Field Manual 3085 and see if they're in there.

Because unlike gun control activists, he knows to blame the people at the controls, not the tools themselves.

It's a sad, sad day when Stone is smarter than someone.

Ummm...

Want to guess how many mech crimes occur on planets without mechs? Thought so.

Because he's a faggot. When your first two decrees as super dictator for life (Remember the Exarch is the only guy with absolute power in the Republic. There's no checks with nobles because the nobles have no power and everyone else is appointed by him and serves at his pleasure) are to forcefully ship people to other worlds including dying worlds and to melt down all private owned mechs, then you set the stage for your reign. Oh, and don't forget the Capellan-tier citizenship system.

Man, the RotS is just the goddamn worst state.

When you describe it like that it sounds like the 3025 CapCon without a MadCap player to whitewash it.

Even the Capellans didn't want their military to be as shitty as it was. Stone did it on purpose.

To be fair there's literally nothing wrong with a system of earning citizenship.

Service guarantees citizenship.

If you could replace a canon unit that irritates you with something you think is better, what would it be?

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Not that user, but ask any 'Mechless planet that gets a visit from the likes of Hopper Morrison, Maria Morgraine, the Lady Death, Redjack Ryan, Hendrik Grimm, that DCMS deserter on Antallos who paints his 'Mechs Sword of Light red...

I dunno, limiting ranks because of lack of trust or discipline, diverting mechs to a private army (warrior houses) for the same reason, muh reserve brigades and "elastic defense," etc, etc.

The CCAF was lucky to make it through the Succession Wars at all.

I bet that guy's last name is Kerensky.

Just let them take what they want, it isn't worth a human life.

In the RotS, service does not guarantee citizenship. It just gets you brownie points on paying it down. Just like getting shipped to an iceball thrown out of orbit gets you a 50% off coupon. Only thing that's a full free ticket is handing over a mech.

Yeah, even Starship Troopers made it easier.

The Caps still had five times the troops Stone did in Mad Max's day.

>oi bruv, you dare refuse me batchall?

The pirates take the humans too.

>tfw no slave harem of blonde Swedenese Hogs and Germanic Lyrans like boss Grimm

I mean, frequently what they take is supplies that the back asswards IS planets need to feed/water their people because FASA really did not think the logistics of all this out.

And what's to stop some complete scrote of a pirate from torching the Thomas Barnardo Home for Orphans with his Firestarter just because he's feeling grumpy that day? A Warhammer's PPCs, that's what.

>FASA really did not think the logistics of all this out.

They sorta did. That's why there's so many dead worlds in the IS. The Terran Alliance had something like six hundred worlds colonized within seventy five lightyears of Earth. Now there's what? Less than fifty in that area? I think it'd be more obvious if Comstar Cartographic showed all the worlds rather than just the ones deemed important.

Pirates who pirate to feed their people and keep their worlds alive are playing a losing game. It's why all the really successful long term pirates are guys that fled the Inner Sphere with a shitload of equipment and set up shop on stable worlds, not actual natives. See Tortuga, Santander, Ryan, so on. Nobody has got the resources for shit out on the edge of the Deep so they have to come from somewhere else.

I think so, but not 100% sure. You can check their changelog.

They do mean to be much bigger than they are. Integrating local planetary populations into their military directly, Clan Trial of Position style, keeping Juilietta Marik in the leadership cadre as a political consultant- that kind of thing.

Because armed individuals might be an impediment to his ethnic cleansing schemes and other batshittery

wut

I'm talking about for combat vees

I thought you were talking about bays.
Yeah, compartments have been by the ton from the very beginning

Dark Ages were the worst fucking thing about BT. If you like the Dark Ages then you are the cancer killing BT.