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Dude, if you want to play Davion Heavy Guard just go Steiner. Their 3025 Assaults are like 1000 times better. Anyway, holy poo poo one day and I miss all this. Still time for signups or did I miss that boat?
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Jan 22, 2011 20:34
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You know, I really should do columns on mechs. I mean drat, my user name is Defiance Industries.
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Jan 23, 2011 21:54
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WarLocke posted:That was MechWarrior: Dark Ages, which is related to BattleTech in that it takes place in the same universe, but about 80 years after all the fluff. They basically rebooted everything, and rules-wise it's almost entirely a new game. Well, Dark Ages will still happen in the actual BT timeline, it's just that Catalyst, who currently hold the license, haven't expressed any interest in writing much source material about a time we've already seen and will probably skip over it for the most part.
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Jan 23, 2011 22:43
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Zaodai posted:Is that the one loaded up with like 4 Arrow IV launchers? That... might be unpleasant. No Arrow IVs in level 1 tech. The stuff available to us is: LRMs SRMs Standard autocannons Standard lasers PPCs Machine guns Flamers
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Jan 24, 2011 02:46
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Arglebargle III posted:2. Why is anyone using mechs anyway? Did they forget guided missile technology too? Why not just put a HEAT warhead through the cockpit, using any one of a zillion delivery systems available today? It's not WWII anymore. (Of course in wargaming it is WWII forever. Just check out the tactics of any popular wargaming franchise. It's WWII.) Yes, guided missile technology has been forgotten outside of primitively-guided LRMs and SRMs, at this point. Second, modern weapons like HEAT rockets are next to useless against 31st century armor. 21st-24th century weapons are in their own category called "primitive weapons," and most of them do nothing or next to nothing. The 120mm gun on a modern MBT for instance does 0-1 points of damage against armor. IOW, it takes ten shots from a tank's main gun to put down a Clan infantryman wearing Elemental armor, and upwards of 300 to take out an Atlas. BT armor is magic.
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Jan 24, 2011 06:06
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Dux Supremus posted:Why would you pressurize anywhere but the cockpit on a land vehicle? In fact, why even that much? It'd make joints a bitch. Silly Inner Sphere... High gravity reduces your movement speed. Low gravity increases it, but with the caveat that running faster than your machine is designed to run can gently caress it up. It's not a problem if you've got, say, a 5/8 machine that now moves 6/9. OTOH, in an environment where your 3/5 Banshee-S runs att that 6/9 clip, you are likely to blow out a knee or snap a leg off. There's rules for basically any kind of environmental combat. Vacuum, low-g, high-g, hot worlds, cold worlds, night fighting, cave fighting, vacuum cave fighting in low-g... Anyway, one thing that's worth noting about Mechs being sealed up is that it renders them immune to chemical and biological weapon deployment as long as they stay buttoned up. This isn't such a thing now, but the SLDF practiced total warfare where they used that poo poo as a force modifier, and the Houses in the first two Succession Wars followed their lead.
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Jan 24, 2011 10:07
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Weapons underwater either don't function at all (ACs, Gauss, missiles) or work at like 1/4 normal ranges (lasers). Hence why there are LRTs and SRTs. Torpedo, rather than missile. They need specific launchers so I always forget they exist.
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Jan 24, 2011 11:53
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Agent Interrobang posted:Oh jesus Hussars. Especially the H300-D variant. They really did not make the 'SLDF tech cannot be produced anymore' transition well, did they? I love 'em, but god they're fragile things. They did get one pretty sizeable edge with the end of Star League tech, and that was the disappearance of Thunder LRMs. Those things are my go-to for stopping mechs like that.
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Jan 24, 2011 23:10
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Mukaikubo posted:Apropos of absolutely nothing, I reread my favorite Battletech novel today; the final novel of the Warrior trilogy, the first thing Stackpole wrote. Not very good, but god drat it is fun. Eh, it really fails at conveying the universe compared to it's contemporaries. Read wolves on the border or the GDL novels instead. The Warrior trilogy is fun if you are a Davion fan because it's three books of sloppy blowjob for your faction. Boring as gently caress if you like anyone else. It's like if I wrote a trilogy called "Caesar Steiner fights and screws his way across the Inner Sphere and never loses."
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Jan 25, 2011 04:52
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it is difficult to absorb. I am such a fanboy.
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Mukaikubo posted:Have. Have read pretty much all of them. Still like Stackpole's books more than everything else, aside from a few quibbles about fights. You are a Davvie or Wolf then, I take it?
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Jan 25, 2011 05:25
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Kenlon posted:Mercs get paid and go home. In the first FM:Mercs, there is a really great picture of some scary assassin guy holding a woman at gunpoint while two mercs walk away laughing, holding a bag visibly bulging with cash.
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Jan 25, 2011 10:43
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WarLocke posted:Everyone hates the Capellans because their leaders are literally the worst in the Sphere. Even worse than Takashi Kurita or Katherine Steiner. Nah, everyone hates the Cappies because Sun-Tzu doesn't even pretend to give fucks about anyone else. As a result he has no friends among anyone who's not a Capellan. Also? Takashi Kurita fell victim to the Curse of the 4th Succession War, where before he was a capable and dangerous enemy that could go toe-to-toe with Hanse Davion and see through his plans, and then right before the 4th War he had a stroke and suddenly he ignored taking territory from the FS entirely in favor of just trying to fight Wolf's Dragoons. In his favor, afterward he was smart enough to realize his stroke had compromised his judgement and only his son Theodore was man enough to tell him off, so he promoted the guy. That's why 3039 wasn't a total unmitigated disaster. If you want an example of awful Kurita leaders, you should look at Takashi's father Minoru, or the Star League-era Coordinator Leonard Kurita, who sort of accidentally created the Clans.
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Jan 26, 2011 00:32
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Dolash posted:So I looked it up after you guys mentioned it earlier and it looks like the clicky bases game isn't very popular with people who like Battletech? That's kind of too bad, I really enjoyed it as a kid and I liked the idea of fighting for a Republic with Paladins more than a bunch of squabbling nobles, even if the Paladins are autocratic. The Republic had ethnically-based forced relocations. gently caress em.
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Jan 26, 2011 01:53
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Arglebargle III posted:I believe the ultimate death of a fictional universe is to become small. When everything is accounted for, when there's nothing around the next corner, that's when a fiction dies. That's why Warhammer 40K is such an excellent setting, not because of the grimdark or the awful writers and stories, but simply because it succeeds in being BIG. Say what you want about Warmhammer 40K, there's no way to run out of stories in a setting that takes size, distance, and diversity so seriously. Conversely, this is not a problem the Republic helps for two reasons. One, they have a magic shield that closes out part of the Sphere for everyone else And more importantly, two, one of the novels did a 100-year flash forward so now we know in the end the Republic wins.
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Jan 26, 2011 09:49
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elitebuster posted:Well, in The Sword and the Dagger, the Hanse clone was planning on making an announcement when his rear end was found out, and it pertained to relations between the Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth, namely his planned nullification of all standing treaties between the two. I'm guessing by PTN's discription of Hanse's actions the clone is still in power in this timeline. Frederick Steiner is still around, and despite what Vic's PR staff might claim, it was Focht who ran the show. A Focht/Caesar teamup? The Clans have no chance.
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Jan 27, 2011 01:21
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Agent Interrobang posted:Really, think about the leadership elements the Clans are walking into here. Caesar Steiner, Frederick Steiner/Anastasius Focht, Maximillian Liao, Theodore Kurita, Hanse Davion, Janos Marik and the REAL Thomas Marik, Morgan Kell. This is like an old-school Inner Sphere dream-team. Who commands the 1st Regulan right now? Those guys take no poo poo. E: new page. My character's ride in 3085, the Furillo-built Defiance. No, not the stock one. 
Defiance Industries fucked around with this message at 02:27 on Jan 27, 2011 |
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Jan 27, 2011 02:16
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I think I would kill approximately infinity of those with my Banshee-S
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Jan 27, 2011 02:22
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It's intrinsic, Crit-free and weightless. Not a big fan of Clan design... Find it kinda boring, even as I am designing one for a fan XTRO (Clan Homoerotic Panther, SNARL) And what I dig about the Defiance is the slapdash nature of the original design. Pretty muc put together from whatever was built on and around Furillo that they had on hand.
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Jan 27, 2011 02:49
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Arglebargle III posted:So one element of the fluff I'm genuinely curious about : how did the Inner Sphere go from a hand-me-down technology base where mechs were rare and valuable circa 3010 to a renaissance of technological development and vastly expanded manufacturing capacity circa 3060? Right after the end of the 3rd War, the Grey Death Legion discovered an intact Star League memory core and disseminated it all over the Sphere to stick it to ComStar. By 3039, Star League tech was being fielded in small numbers by the elite of the AFFC and DCMS. By the end of the Clan Invasion in 3052, the Great Houses had combined rediscovered SL data with reverse-engineered Clan technology and what information had been preserved by groups like Defiance Industries of Hesperus II and Archernar Manufacturing on New Avalon to really kick things into overdrive. The Houses had been trying for some time, but each major discovery was usually stomped out by ComStar's intel group, ROM. When the GDL gave copies of their core to everyone, though, ComStar couldn't control it anymore.
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Jan 27, 2011 03:31
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I also forgot to mention that when Focht took over ComStar in 3052, the House units on the Clan borders gained assistance from the Com Guards and their technical staff. C* aid is why the Houses could build WarShips at all, too.
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Jan 27, 2011 03:36
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TildeATH posted:Wait, what? There's a political figure in the BT universe that is not also occasionally getting into their personal mech and blasting things, just like Patton used to do with his favorite Sherman "Buster". There's actually a lot but they are, as a rule, bad people.
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Jan 27, 2011 04:00
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elitebuster posted:No, there was...........um......Omi Kurita? The exception is made for female characters who a main character puts his dick in.
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Jan 27, 2011 04:24
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Arquinsiel posted:There's a tradeoff between range and damage at work, but at what range can a UAC5 do 15 damage to a target, and what damage can a UAC20 do at range 13? Damage is the same at any range, you roll on the missile hit table no matter what.
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Jan 27, 2011 05:26
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Gothsheep posted:Right about then, them Steiner boys knew they were in a whole heap a'trouble... I can see Caesar's sons, Reinhardt and Karl, jumping a Savannah Master over a military blockade. The Dukes of Lyra, we call them.
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Jan 27, 2011 06:09
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Well, she IS their cousin. It would be accurate. Who, then, is Boss Hogg?
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Jan 27, 2011 06:23
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I was thinking Precentor Tharkad, Huthren Vandel. Mostly because of the "Hogg."
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Jan 27, 2011 06:28
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The best thing about the newest RPG (A Time of War) is that it finally sticks with BT and uses only D6. Makes converting back and forth easy.
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Jan 27, 2011 06:49
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Arglebargle III posted:... the bridge to the last dropship was plum blown away by the artillery barrage. Karl and Reinhardt knew they were gonna have to jump the General Kerensky across the river... them boys better hope them after-market jump jets been hooked up right... Or start flapping their arms.
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Jan 27, 2011 06:53
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Most pilots won't die when their machine gets take out unless it's by artillery fire. Usually autoeject is on. What will happen is that they join the Dispossessed, who are almost always destitute, because there is almost never a spare ride for non-House troops, and even then it's not super common. Occasionally one gets made from salvage and there's generally a billion people in line. If the unit keeps you around at all, you're lucky and it's because you have tech skills or can drive a tank or something. Usually, though, you just become dirt poor.
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Jan 27, 2011 08:19
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[You know what? I'm tired of this tactical analysis. I'm running an infomercial on you bitches.] "Oh, hi! I didn't see you there. Hey, while you're here, you might want to stick around for today's iteration of..." BATTLEMECHS SURE ARE AWESOME, brought to you by Defiance Industries. Defiance Industries: The Biggest. The Baddest. Today's episode: GRF-1* Griffin  Now, I couldn't help but notice you were admiring that Griffin the Kell Hounds are running around in. Sure is a nice machine, isn't it? That's the craftsmanship you only get from Defiance Industries of Hesperus II. Did you know that the Archons of House Steiner are such fans of the design, they have two of them IN their throne room? You'd never see some second-rate slapdash pile of junk built by a Marik firm in ANYONE'S throne room, that's for sure. The Griffin dates back to 2492, before the Star League was established. Because the technology was so new, the original primitive Griffins were Assault designs, before new, lighter-weight equipment allowed them to be scaled down in pre-production to Heavy and finally the modern Medium-weight Griffins we've seen on the battlefield for about 500 years. As a fire-support design, the standard GRF-1N Griffin is armed with a Fusigon PPC, shearing off nearly two-thirds of a ton of armor with each hit at ranges of up to 540 meters. To exploit the holes made by this formidable weapon is a LRM-10 launcher (TharHes Reacher-10 if you're lucky enough to be driving a Lyran machine, likely the inferior Delta Dart otherwise), with ammunition for two minutes of continual fire. Added to this is it's maneuverability, with a top land speed of 86.4 km/h and the ability to jump 150 meters on its top-of-the-line Rawlings 55 jump jets, allowing it to keep pace with many lighter designs and stay at range from heavier designs, though its nine and a half tons of armor is certainly sufficient to hold up to punishment in a pinch. We at Defiance Industries are proud at how the design has endured over five centuries, but we never quit working for you, the MechWarrior. Our team of researchers and test pilots poured over battlefield reports on Griffins, looking for ways to improve the design. Despite its solid performance, we analyzed it and concluded that it had an exploitable weakness at short range. Keeping this in mind, we designed the GRF-1S, the perfect surprise for anyone who thinks your fire lance should be easy pickings. We downscaled the LRM launcher to a five-missile rack, and replaced the PPC with a Defiance Industries B3L Large Laser and a pair of B3M Mediums, allowing you to bring maximum firepower to bear even at point blank range. In addition, four additional heat sinks were added, allowing you to put additional shots downfield with nary a care of overheating. Remember, when you buy a Griffin from Defiance Industries, you're buying a Griffin you know you can trust, because unlike those other firms, we can actually figure out how they work and change the parts inside. Unfortunately, I think that's all the time we have for today. We've gotta get back to work here; we may know a lot about Griffins, but we still don't know how to make a -1N OR a -1S build itself!  Defiance Industries: So Hard, People Are Scared of Us.
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Jan 27, 2011 10:54
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ShadowDragon8685 posted:I haven't had a good chuckle through all my webcomics today, but that made me chuckle. I was thinking next time, something on the Jenner or Panther. Gonna see a lot of those. "Panther: not using one disgraces your whole family, relegating them to the Unproductives and forcing your wife to prostitute herself to support your children." Also re: weight, Primitive level components weigh a shitton more than level 1 stuff. But yeah, spin. Keep in mind that in 3025 DefHes was a super advanced company because not only did they use fiber optics in some of their systems, they were able to design new variants of mechs they built, like the Banshee. Most facilities, they just kept the automated plant running as best they could. Defiance Industries fucked around with this message at 13:30 on Jan 27, 2011 |
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Jan 27, 2011 13:18
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paragon1 posted:Hey, do you think the enemy commander will commit seppuku if you kill all his troops? I almost guarantee it.
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Jan 27, 2011 13:30
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The Casualty posted:Ok the picture is funny but what's the context behind it? My knowledge of Battletech is casual at best. An orbital drop is where mechs are strapped with one-use jump boosters and deploy straight in to a combat zone by walking out of the mech hangar on the DropShip while it is still in orbit.
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Jan 27, 2011 23:13
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PoptartsNinja posted:The clans can deploy 'Mechs from orbit without ever landing a dropship via armored drop-pods. Everyone else has to either jump out of a dropship while it's in the atmosphere, or land the dropship (if their 'Mechs lack jump jets). Well, depends on who you ask. They've gone back and forth on this a couple of times. In one edition it wasn't even though of, then it was the norm, then they changed their minds again because they realized how impractical it was. Then it became standard doctrine during the FCCW and they talked about it like it was a new thing. As is usual with old school fluff, it is very confusing due to the whole 1st edition/2nd edition shift. Hell, back when it was called BattleDroids, there were no factories, just automated plants that stitched together new mechs from salvage that had storehouses attached to them.
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Jan 27, 2011 23:53
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Sair posted:It's a decent enough game in its own right, but its not Battletech so everyone hates it. Though watching Wizkids react to the hilariously broken strategies was pretty entertaining too. Yeah, it really showed a strong lack of playtesting and too much eagerness to stick to the MageKnight mechanics IMO. I mean, if I move my tank two turns in a row it takes damage? Like, real damage?
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Jan 28, 2011 00:40
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Gothsheep posted:I can field this. Guh? Steiner and Davion hadn't fought since the First Succession War.
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Jan 28, 2011 01:28
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Gothsheep posted:I thought they fought off and on right up until the third succession war, when they joined up to form the Federated Commonwealth? The 1SW started off as a free for all in the old Terran Hegemony, where everyone fought everyone. By the early-mid Second War, borders had solidified and combat settled in to mostly along borders with your two neighbors. There's a few exceptions, but the fact the Steiner and Davion hadn't thrown down for a couple hundred years was a big reason Hanse Davion accepted Katrina Steiner's proposal for alliance.
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Jan 28, 2011 02:39
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Also, it was the Lyran Commonwealth who provided Davion with the ability to manufacture BattleMechs in the first place, so there's that too.
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Jan 28, 2011 03:05
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Agent Interrobang posted:Courtesy of your namesake I believe, wasn't it? I know they're kind of the backbone of the Lyran mech-production facilities, particularly Hesperus II. Well, the LIC stole them from Hesperus II, but Defiance Industries itself wasnt founded until the Reunification War. I personally would pick a target that isn't inside a hollowed out mountain, so that makes sense. And yeah, Nightskies are nice, but I dig the new TSM Banshee with the hatchet.
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Jan 28, 2011 03:25
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My favorite subpar machine? The Firestarter OmniMech, Config G. Two Flamers, three MLs and an LB-5X. Somehow it always comes through for me in a jam.
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Jan 28, 2011 04:43
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