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Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."
Oh man, VERY eager to be a Mechwarrior, even if my BEING GONE FOR A SINGLE HOUR resulted in me being down tenth on the list and sitting on the bench for the first few battles.

Of course, considering the attrition rate I suspect we'll get, that might not be a bad thing. :lol:

Let's see. My priorities, in order:

A. I want our unit to not be boring.
B. I want our unit to not suck massive rear end.
C. I want to be able to shoot assholes.
D. I want to be able to, eventually, fight lots of Clanners.

Put it all together and the choice is clear. Kell Hounds and let's kick Kuritan rear end, kick Liao rear end, and then go into Kuritan space and kick Clanner rear end. Those are, like, the three most fun factions to shoot up.


Edit: Also, PTN, I am volunteering in advance to pull recon duties because that will be fun as hell and I love light/light medium mechs. Maybe a nice Assassin... :D

Mukaikubo fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Jan 21, 2011

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Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

WarLocke posted:

:neckbeard::hf::neckbeard: Kell buddies!

Although it's more like "Kick Kurita rear end, have a snack, get jumped by filthy Liaos, yawn while pounding their faces in, take a nap, fight some Clanners" :rock:

:hehe::respek::black101:

Kell Hounds would really be the pro choice. Not only "all that stuff I listed", but on top of that we'd be mercenaries albeit on long term contract to the Davions. Meaning we will have a lot more freedom with in game decisions than an outright House unit. Think about it, guys! If politics gets really wild we can always hire out a company to hotspots for 'live fire training' and maybe completely screw up entire sectors of space! So join us. Vote Kell Hounds. Because it'll be FUN.

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."
Yeah, not gonna lie, the GDL would be my second choice. If the current tide of Kell Hounds voting stops (please don't Kell Hounds are going to rule) I would probably tactically vote for them at need.

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

PoptartsNinja posted:

Shooting is not what you bring a charger to do. Chargers are your team's linebackers.

... that makes me want to come up with a 'football' scenario.

There's already a giant arena in the Steiner Colosseum on Solaris. Let's go for it. Biggest bowl game EVER!

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."
Really, because chicks- even clan chicks- dig sexy mechs.

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."
All the people voting for the Northwind Highlanders: How many Scottish jokes can you put up with before you attempt to strangle yourself with your mouse cord, hmm? I invite you to reconsider and vote for the Kell Hounds. :glomp:

(before anyone calls me on it, yes, I know)

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

WarLocke posted:

What the poo poo



125 ton mech built so the clickytech guys could wave their cocks around and say SEE WE HAVE A BIGGERER AND BETTERER MECH, FORGET THAT OLD poo poo WE ARE THE NEW THING.

...it's not even a very good mech...

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

PoptartsNinja posted:

The Clans pretty much did. They call it the Huitzilopochtli. Or, as it's more commonly known, the Aztec Assault Vehicle (because nobody has any clue how to pronouce it).

So, moral of the story, do not take vehicles lightly. They look like a joke right up until they ruin your poo poo.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Mars_%28Combat_Vehicle%29 As far as Giant loving Tanks go, I'm partial to this monster. Gauss Rifle, multiple LRM-15s and SSRM-6s, an ER large laser, fucktons of armor... :swoon:

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

Cythereal posted:

All I really know about BattleTech comes from the old MechWarriors 2: Mercenaries game, but in light of that background, I have to ask: would it ever be possible to actually grab a Kodiak as the IS? If we have to duplicate its acquisition mission from that game and screw over the Combine while joyriding in the newly acquired death machine, I'd call it a bonus.

I imagine, not to put words in PTN's mouth, but especially if we pick a merc company all manner of missions are going to eventually be possible, if extremely ill-advised. :whatup:

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

Agent Interrobang posted:

Well fine then, I'm naming all my mechs after My Little Ponies. The Clans shall come to fear the wrath of Pinkie Pie! :black101:

This is still less goofy and stupid than some ACTUAL mech names.

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

WarLocke posted:

I'm having trouble thinking of any examples, unless you're talking about 3060+ stuff which I pretty much erased from memory they must have been so bad.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Temax_Cat_Ninjabolt

NINJABOLT

:downsrim:

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

Cythereal posted:

I was kinda joking. I only have vague memories of MW2:M for the most part, (such as raging at Dashers for running around at warp speed) and haven't got a clue what all will be available or how anything performs in the early game - and very few clues about the late game.

Adds fun!

Look at it this way: those of us who know the fluff, thanks to PTN's alterations, are charging into the complete unknown blindly. You're doing the same thing, only with some mechanics too! We are all brothers in ignorance. :glomp:

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

Axe-man posted:

Ironically, look what the clicky models look like now days :rolleyes:
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Mad_Cat_III



OH MY GOD THOSE BASTARDS PUT A GIMP MASK ON A TIMBER WOLF :aaaaa:

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

Tarquinn posted:

Customization is for pussies anyway. :cool:

Quoting this for correct thoughts. Customization makes things too easy. Just look at how simple all the computer games are. :smugdog: Using standard loadouts is what the real mechwarriors should always, always do.

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."
Let's be clear, guys, and approach this reasonably rationally.

Needs: Decent speed (80+ km/h running) to keep up with scouts
Long range armament
Good armor protection

Wants: Jump jets
Badassery

Those three "needs" pretty thoroughly eliminate most contenders. Of those remaining, as stated earlier, I think the Griffin GRF-1N is the best idea. It has long range weaponry, good movement, good armor, and doesn't look TOO stupid. The Dervish and the Trebuchet also work with those criteria but are significantly less armored which is a BAD thing if we're putting a lance commander inside.

I say go Griffin.

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

WarLocke posted:

Half of the fun of this thread is going to be second-guessing what people are choosing to do, and for that you don't need to have a whole lot of rules knowledge, most of it is common sense (have a lot of missiles? Stay back. In a light speedy mech? Don't stand still and trade shots. etc)

Yeah- and also this is all going to simmer down once the initial rush is gone. I mean, it'll be fast pace, but not "a post a minute, every minute". :v:

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

WarLocke posted:

ffff changing my vote back to Griffin (last time I swear)

Incidentally, with MegaMek's huge database of everything, picking mechs like that is bog easy. I just pretty much did medium IS mechs, advanced search, walking speed of at least 5, at least one LRM 10 or LRM 15, manufacture date before 3025, and whoosh! Out popped a list of candidates. :v:

edit:

quote:

You guys really shouldn't discount the Shadow Hawk or Wolverine as they are Griffins without the heat issues.

Yeah, they're good, but they're kind of limited on long range firepower and I really want a lance commander's mech to be able to stay out of a fray and snipe. If not for that, both of those would be a great idea. :shobon: Ain't no thing, just making my own tempermental choices.

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

PoptartsNinja posted:

Move your whole walking distance without paying extra for turning, then land facing any direction you want, all for the cost of some slight heat build up? Yes, Jump jets are good.

To be fair, it also royally dicks your ability to actually hit anything a bit more than it dicks anyone else's ability to hit you... but yeah, they're really handy.

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

Longinus00 posted:

The modifiers equals out at 5-6 jumped spaces and are favorable for the jumper at distances greater than that.

...huh, I could have sworn breakeven was at 7 hexes and not 5, making it almost never, but on further review you are correct. Neat!

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

Axe-man posted:

They will scream in terror once they see what you are talking about, they can be right bastards!

of course

the experienced players will poo poo their pants more!!!

heh


*begins shuddering uncontrollably with bad memories* bad touch, BAD TOUCH MAN D:

e: Seriously that is some 'Nam level flashback poo poo for me on a tabletop game, that ruined my poo poo so many times :stare:

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

Agent Interrobang posted:

The Star League had been born.



We serve the Star League, and someday will resurrect it and unite humanity under the Cameron Star once more. :hist101:




...(:corsair:)

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."
(Knox beat me while I was typing all this up, I just figured it'd be nice to give especially the new people a one post reference and also provide some tactical guidance- if there is demand I will do this for all mechs that players get to drive. Is there?)


Capsule Tactical Briefs, presented for your convenience:

(note: minimum range isn't usually an absolute minimum, but inside that it gets progressively more difficult to hit)


GRF-1N Griffin

Movement: 86 km/h running speed, 150 m jumping distance (5/8/5)
Armor: 9.5 tons
Heat sinks: 12
Weapons:
1x PPC: Damage 10. Minimum range, 3 hexes; max range, 18 hexes. Heat 10.
1x LRM-10: Damage 1-10. Minimum range, 6 hexes; max range, 21 hexes. Heat 4.

Overview: Heavily armored sniper. Do not close with enemy mechs, you don't have anything that can work well in a close range brawl. Stay away, but stay in sight and keep hitting enemies from distance. You can't fire everything every turn; pick and choose your shots, don't let yourself overheat.


BJ-1DB Blackjack

Movement: 65 km/h running speed, 120 m jumping distance (4/6/4)
Armor: 7.5 tons
Heat sinks: 17
Weapons:
2x Large Laser: Damage 8 (each). Max range, 15 hexes. Heat 8 (each).
2x Medium Laser: Damage 5 (each). Max range, 9 hexes. Heat 3 (each).

Overview: Slow. Moderately armored, with weapons optimized to really shred things at close range but still able to hit at middling-long range so it won't be worthless against a fast, fleeing mech. Heat is again going to be a problem; firing all your weapons and running flat out will generate 24 heat, and you can dissipate 17. Give some of your weapons a rest every other round or so, or if you can't get a good shot.


VL-5T Vulcan

Movement: 97 km/h running speed, 180m jumping distance (6/9/6)
Armor: 7 tons
Heat sinks: 12
Weapons:
4x Medium Laser: Damage 5 (each). Max range, 9 hexes. Heat 3 (each).
1x Flamer: Damage 2 (and will also raise target's heat). Max range, 3 hexes. Heat 3.
1x Machine Gun: Damage 2. Max range, 3 hexes. Heat 0.

Overview: Fast, mobile, and built for one purpose: Close with the enemy and hit them with everything you have. Excellent city fighter. Heat is, again, a problem; lay off the weapons if you get too warm.


JR7-D Jenner

Movement: 118 km/h running speed, 150m jumping distance (7/11/5)
Armor: 4 tons
Heat sinks: 10
Weapons:
4x Medium Laser: Damage 5(each). Max range, 9 hexes. Heat 3 (each).
1x SRM-4: Damage 2-8. Max range, 9 hexes. Heat 3.

Overview: Extremely fast, and extremely poorly armored. Speed is your life. If anything gets a clear salvo in you're probably crippled- so don't let anyone get a bead on you. Your weapons are optimized for close in fighting, but heat is going to be a massive concern; hit and run tactics would be an excellent idea.


Overall: You have two small, speedy mechs whose job will be to get in close and unleash everything they have from close by. The Griffin should be hanging back and picking its targets, acting as fire support; the Blackjack is the hinge, it can close or stay back to protect the Griffin if an ambush is feared. Whatever it chooses, it's slow enough that it'll probably not be able to change its mind often.


E: I have the Blackjack with 2 medium lasers instead of 4...

Mukaikubo fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Jan 22, 2011

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."
Medium lasers are fine things: the white bread of battletech. Deal reasonable damage, don't have absurd heat, the only knock is the short range- and if you're fast, that ain' no thing at all. 's all good. If all else fails we can blind the Kuritan mechs with green light.

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

Longinus00 posted:

The funny thing about the vulcan is that it's supposed to be an anti infantry mech. The blackjack variant picked also ditches the nigh useless default AC2s for lasers.


You should mention in your summary that the mech loadout is very energy/laser heavy which, coupled with the large jump distances (useful for keeping squishy units alive), manes that heat management will be a real challenge for all units.

Yeah, I mentioned it for each mech individually instead. The Griffin is the most 'balanced' mech heatwise, amusingly enough.

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

WarLocke posted:

It should be noted that generating a point or two of heat per turn isn't catastrophic or anything; I don't have a heat scale handy but IIRC the really bad things don't start happening until after 8 or 12 points. Building up 1 or 2 points a turn is sustainable if you can manage to take an easy turn every once in a while (often happens because you don't have a shot for some reason) and even going all-out and racking up a lot of points in one turn works if you can either disengage right after or otherwise limit fire to slowly bleed off heat over a couple of turns.

Ah, the joys of the heat scale. :allears:

Well, in a scout-hunting/scouting situation, the 'real bad' stuff could be considered to come as early as at 5 heat, beacuse that's where you start to slow down. But yeah, there's almost no reason not to take an extra medium laser shot if you've got a decent chance to hit and it'll bring you up to 2 or 3 heat.

Also rooting for an ammo explosion would be in extremely bad taste so of course COME ON BOOM BOOM

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

WarLocke posted:

Does the Vulcan carry a full ton of MG ammo? If so I strongly, strongly recommend you eject it in the first turn. Vulcans aren't exactly walking artillery pieces but that one single MG isn't likely to appreciably up your effectiveness. One the contrary, you'd have to fire it every turn for 200 turns (TWO HUNDRED TURNS) to go through a ton of ammo. And since you're relatively lightly armored and a critical to ammo does the entire potential damage amount of that ammo to the mech (no CASE yet, remember) you're looking at potentially 400 points of damage going off INSIDE your mech.

Not to mention that enough heat buildup has the chance to cook off ammo without a shot being fired, and you're carrying around a drat flamer...

It does, 1 ton in the left torso. I'm not really a fan of basically tossing ammo first round; I usually wait until that location's had its armor abraded. There's not much in what we'll probably be fighting that can punch through the armor in one shot, and without that it'd take a fanTAStically unlucky roll to cause an ammo explosion.

Besides, PTN may just be Clever Dick and throw a battalion of infantry in for grins. :v:

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

Pladdicus posted:

Wow, can't I just carry like .1 tons of ammo? What's the minimum amount you can dump? I assume it has to be dropped in stacks/clips.

As Axe-Man said, you have to dump all the ammo in a slot if you dump any. All or nothing. If you had two tons of machine gun ammo for some godforsaken reason, you could dump one slot worth's (1 ton). But you don't. :v:

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

WarLocke posted:

I'm going to laugh if they get put up against a Dragon or Grand Dragon and then immediately post suggesting Pladdicus does a charge followed by turning his flamer on his own MG and hoping the blast takes out the other mech. :v:

Ah yes, the Happyelf mech. (Why Happyelf? Try out the 'happyelf' emote and you'll see.) Does BT even have rules for ammo explosions damaging nearby things? If it does, I can't recall because it comes up so rarely.

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

WarLocke posted:

6 SRMs is 12 damage, a MG is 2... :confused:

Infantry damage follows different rules.

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."
edited out as per Warlocke's realization that we are probably violating the rules

Mukaikubo fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Jan 22, 2011

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."
edited out as per Warlocke's realization that we are probably violating the rules

Mukaikubo fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Jan 22, 2011

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."
Yeah I just nuked all my posts- might be a bit excessive, but better safe than sorry since the line is kind of fuzzy~

edit: Actually, should I delete my tactical summary? It'd feel like a drat shame but I mean, it has specific heat/damage/range numbers, and I'm not sure if that's OK to post under our rules. :|

Mukaikubo fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Jan 22, 2011

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

ActionZero posted:

Well great Poptarts, after lurking in your Star Trek Online thread got me to try out the game, this thread has managed to make me actually get off my rear end and get an account here.

So yeah, I want to be a pilot/commander (I have PMs). Unless having no real familiarity with Battletech beyond "Hell yeah I love giant robots" would be a big problem in which case I'll just watch.

Do you like explosions and/or lasers as well as giant robots? If so, welcome!

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

Longinus00 posted:

I noticed that the lance was on the heavy/slow side for a recon lance but I figured it was an effort to reduce difficulty for the first mission. As an aside, while it's true the griffin can kick and punch fine, other mechs can do the same thing *and* take pot shots at it.

I figure it's more a counter-recon lance; we're going to be punching out Kurita's eyes on this first mission. Preferably via ambush in hilly terrain, so we can pound them before the speedier light mechs get away.


quote:

It's not just a rebalance, it's also an effort to make things slightly more realistic. While a HEAT round from the 120mm of an Abrams would do massive damage to any other vehicle, it would be very unusual for one shot to wipe out a squad of infantry.

This. And if you have a flechette round for that same tank- or, say, an LB-X autocannon- it's going to do a lot more damage to that same infantry. As it does in BT, now.

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

W.T. Fits posted:

I keep seeing people who're familiar with the system going on and on about how one lucky shot to your ammo will utterly destroy you.

Without getting into rules specifics, just how "lucky" would one have to be to even make that shot to begin with? Are we talking "the dice hate you" lucky or "the enemy can target and hit a specific spot like that with no trouble" lucky?

Closer to the first, until your armor's gone. Then it's "you are literally significantly risking death with every shot".

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

Blinkman987 posted:

This thread is sweet. I'm going to read along and maybe jump in the next one. I played Battletech a lot, but never played strategically. This was our break game from M:TG.

Does anybody have a link to these "new rules" that are referenced in the thread, as well as a strategic primer to make entry into the game less intense?

Most of the rule changes were around the edges, if I recall properly; things like making infantry/vehicles not as useless, clearing up some contradictions, things like that. If you played Battletech back in the day I am pretty sure you are not going to be lost. The basics have not changed.

edit: Honestly, one of the best ways to hop right in, especially if you played in the past and know the basics, is to play around with Megamek: http://megamek.sourceforge.net/ It is free, and screwing around by shooting the incompetent AI in a few quick battles will get you right up to speed and also give you some memory for the tactics.

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

Axe-man posted:

Well I just Gave mechwarrior Living Legends a try and it looks absolutely amazing, what I imagined a mech game to be since mech 4. However, i notice there are like 4 servers and really didn't feel like learning the controls on the fly, so i played an empty server since there was only 1 almost full one it wasn't a problem.

If anyone else has this it would be fun to do once we actually have a few battles under our belts :c00l:

If I had a computer built after 2003 I would join you :v: I have trouble making MW4 work properly on occasion. Still, I guess it helps me not be tempted to buy and spend hours on newer games.

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."
:D Hooray!

The Jenner's got a punch and is fast, but has paper thin armor. Spider's not got much bite to it but is /really/ fast. Unknown Light is a bit worrying, but the Grand Dragon is going to be the real killer; it's fast for a heavy and has a vicious long range punch to it. Interesting choice for a scout lance leader, it's like our Griffin but on 'roids- plan your tactics accordingly. Hopefully one of you can land a lucky early shot on one or both hovercraft so you can focus on the mechs and fulfill your secondary objectives. Good hunting, Mechwarriors.

e: a 3/6 pilot driving a Griffin? Audacious- enjoy your sniping because god help you if you start taking damage.

Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

KnoxZone posted:

A Grand Dragon. That will be fun.

3 mediums and a light against 3 lights and a heavy with minor tanks support. The key's going to be teamwork. And luck. But mostly teamwork. Fascinating to see if Our Boys decide to go for the weakest first or strongest first.

Terrainwise, the big central hill around 1011 is the key feature of the map, as is pretty clear. The forests and secondary hill in the southwest give the Kuritan forces a good defensive position, if they want to hang back and they probably won't. Not a lot of defensive terrain for Our Boys to advance through on their way to target, either, aside from that scraggly forested hill to the east.

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Mukaikubo
Mar 14, 2006

"You treat her like a lady... and she'll always bring you home."

Pladdicus posted:

Movement: 6/9/6

I assume that means 6 at slow movement, 9 at flank (which gives penalties to hit) and 6 jump?

Also, my heat sinks means I can shoot my four lasers without generating any heat? How much heat is generated by walking?

Any movement gives a penalty to firing, it's just a question of how much. Just walking only builds up a single heat. And yeah, you have the movement right.

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