Lets All Play Battletech and rewrite Inner Sphere history

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Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

I'm skipping a chunk of the thread because it's late her and I wanna get some sleep before work, but I didn't notice anyone posting this in the thread before page 10 or so. It's the "starter" rules for Battletech, and for the time period we're looking at will cover pretty much everything until you get your rear end to Sarna and look up the specific thing you're wondering about when it gets invented in 20 years. Appologies if I missed someone else posting it.

Oh, and it's direct from Catalyst, so it's legit.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2011 02:39

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# ¿ Apr 23, 2024 21:13

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Longinus00 posted:

Vehicles aren't in there but the gist of vehicles is that lots of their hit location roll results can do some form of critical damage to them. It's an artificial limitation put in to make sure the focus is on mech combat.

I skipped the page with the opfor in it, sorry. It's still got pretty much everything most people will need to run a mech though.

PoptartsNinja posted:

Yeah, as fun as this derailment has been, I'm afraid I need to ask you to find an appropriate place for it; since the Great Houses in Battletech don't have enough nuclear weapons left to glass a single planet, much less the 800+ worlds that make up the Inner Sphere.

That's 'coz the Wobbies used all the ones that Katherine Steiner-Davion didn't.....

Of course this was all 3060 onwards.

Dux Supremus posted:

e: Are there low-grav penalties too?

There are rules for everything. The most complex thing we ever calculated the target number for in my group was using a mech to spot for artillery AND orbital bombardment while standing waist-deep in a pool of lava on the deck of an aircraft carrier in heavy storm seas during a sandstorm and a rain of frogs.

Also, guys, stop worrying about the J. Edgar. It's not a Saladin, you don't have to treat it like one.

Arquinsiel fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Jan 24, 2011

# ¿ Jan 24, 2011 16:34

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

^^^^
He will be able to, it'll just be highly inaccurate. The LRMs will be at -1 per hex under 7, the AC is a smaller min IIRC.

Alchenar posted:

Did he hit?

No, it was well over 13 required to hit. I think it worked out as a 17 or so on 2d6 with a 0 gunnery pilot.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2011 20:03

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

PoptartsNinja posted:

I'd prefer not to put the actual numbers in, on the off chance it'll piss off Catalyst Games. The Jenner had basically no chance to hit (3:36 (still worth taking the shots)), the Vulcan had a slightly better chance but rolled pretty terrible (it happens).

It really won't. They encourage spreading the basic rules around as much as possible, and there used to be a subforum for Megamek games on the official forums before they shat themselves.

Axe-man posted:

I am feeling that same way as i try to move myself, just one or two more movement points and it would be perfect for both cover and a shot.

This man now understands Battletech.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2011 00:38

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Even with the ER large the Hussar wouldn't be worth much. There's no damage boost from the regular large, just range and heat.

I really do have to wonder what difference the Hussar would have made even as a spotter, since it's movement mod would have totally thrown off the multi-turn trip of the shells.

Dropships are deceptively easy to take out. Take a look at the rules posted above and consider that they are immobile targets.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2011 02:27

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

^^^^
This is pretty good. A fighting withdrawal conducted by jumping from cover to cover where possible will give you a good chance of damaging the enemy lights or disengaging without *too* much damage.

In a long-range pissing match the Dragon and Griffin are relatively well matched. The Griffin is slightly better at dishing it out, and the Dragon is slightly better at taking it. I'd go with the above and consider fleeing or ganging up on it if and only if you manage to down everything else with no damage.

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.

Hanse Davion suiting up in a Battlemaster to beat off a "Death Commando" attack on his capital in person is so much it is difficult to absorb. I am such a fanboy.

e: seriously the dude tore off a marauder's arm and beat the poo poo out of a half dozen mechs with it how can you not follow that kind of prince to hell

I recently found an unseen Battlemaster in the blister pack on ebay. You bet your rear end it's going to be Hanse once I get a marauder arm to put in the hand.

Also, what makes that even more badass is that some 40+ year old dude did it all in his pyjamas.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2011 14:04

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Mukaikubo posted:

If they can take out the lights, even if they lose a 'mech in the process, that Dragon is doomed. Get in close to it- it doesn't have jump jets and we do- and it is just utterly screwed. But the lights have to die first so they don't get to interfere, and I'd rather withdraw with all mechs on both sides intact than lose 2 to kill 4- this isn't a pivotal, important battle, guys. At least not yet. Discretion is the better part of valor when you're part of a mercenary company.

The thing is, the Griffin and the Dragon are exactly the same speed, so getting one into the action while keeping the other out will be difficult unless the lights over-extend significantly, and that won't happen without a fighting withdrawal over rough terrain. Personally I see no reason to even try engage further than a passing skirmish now, mission is accomplished and they've not lost anything more than a ton of armour and some missile ammo. Keep on pulling back, with some covering fire from the long-range stuff until they give up.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2011 16:47

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Agent Interrobang posted:

Yeah, pretty much this. I like Battletech because no matter WHO you're rooting for, absolutely nobody is a 'good guy.' I don't like Hanse Davion because he's THE NICEST GUY NO REALLY HE JUST CONQUERS NATIONS WITH RANDOM BLITZKRIEGS AS A HOBBY, I like him because he's an entertainingly duplicitous and conniving bastard. Same reason I like Marthe Pryde.

To be fair, he *did* have some slight justification for it.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2011 22:47

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Agent Interrobang posted:

Did he? I was pretty sure it was just the typical Davion motivation. "What, has it really been ten years since we stomped a mudhole into the Liaos? Let's do it again for old times sake."

Max kind of surgically reconstructed someone to look like Hanse, wiped the dude's memory and managed to replace Hanse with him at a critical point in the Davion-Steiner negotiations, very nearly costing the FedCom it's existance, killing Hanse and his friend Ardan Sortek and incidentally ruling the Federated Suns via a puppet.

It's all in The Sword and the Dagger, the second Battletech novel published.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2011 23:16

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Agent Interrobang posted:

Huh, that's all news to me. Freaky. How have I not heard of such amazing ludicrousness before? I thought I was well-read on this poo poo.

There's also sentient aliens in that book and aerospace fighters carry drop-tanks so you can fly them aaaaaaaaaaaaaaall the way to the jump point.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2011 23:20

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Longinus00 posted:

I'd consider them drawing the short straw ever since they first formed. What benefit did becoming the first lord actually have for the Capellans?

The St. Ives Compact?

# ¿ Jan 25, 2011 23:38

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Later on poo poo hits the fan. Liao invades, the Jade Falcons re-organise into space-mongols and generally the Republic all goes to poo poo.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2011 02:17

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

^^^^
Which can be HILLARIOUS.

One game I played in a mech slipped on concrete running down a hill, skidded a stupid number of hexes and fell about eight levels landing on another mech. It was amazing.

Best part was my mech survived it, and his got a mashed cockpit.

Cthulhu Dreams posted:

Yeah, I considered that plan - I like it because of the 10+ to hit roll they will need, but I think my heat situation will be pretty bad, plus I think I will need a very difficult roll to hit - 4 + 3 jumping + 2 medium range + 2 from the Jenners movement for a total to hit of 11. Only a 1/12 chance of hitting with a weapon, so only a 35% chance of landing a hit.

If I walk up behind the spider, I have 4 + 1 for walking +2 for their movement for hitting on sevens, which means I will likely land 2-3 hits, and maybe get lucky.

Does that make sense? Are those numbers right? Can I do significant damage to the spider with one salvo like that?

Your maths is wrong:

quote:

12: 1/36 = 0.028
11: 3/36 = 0.083
10: 6/36 = 0.167
9: 10/36 = 0.278
8: 15/36 = 0.417
7: 21/36 = 0.583
6: 26/36 = 0.722
5: 30/36 = 0.833
4: 33/36 = 0.917
3: 35/36 = 0.972
2: 36/36 = 1.000

As you can see, the middle of the table is HUGELY affected by + or -1, while the extreme ends aren't really all that bothered. The difference between a 2 and a 4 is really not at all significant, while the difference between 7 and 8 is several times larger. 11's are unlikely to hit, but worth taking sometimes.

Arquinsiel fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Jan 26, 2011

# ¿ Jan 26, 2011 16:41

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

The thing that *really* gets me about megamek is the tendancy to corner the last Masakari Prime when it's one turn of solid pounding away from death, and have it decide to target all three of your remaining mechs with one PPC each and then headshot all of them...... seriously? Every time? Ooookay.... I guess you wouldn't lie, Mr AI.

Mukaikubo posted:

There. Hopefully that will head off the argument at the pass- you're both right depending on semantics.

I'm good, as long as we can all agree that needing an 11 to hit is piss poor odds.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2011 00:42

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Mukaikubo posted:

E3: Seriously, I can tolerate Mary Sue characters. Hanse Davion is awesome. Even Phelan Kell-Ward-Wolf is at least an interesting window on Clan society. But they have to be fun to read. Kai Allard-Liao? Just mope already.

I kind of enjoyed the reaction to him that the [REDACTED] gave when he busted them out of jail.

Also Erick Mahler turning up in a warzone AGAIN was pretty awesome.

Mukaikubo posted:

2 AC/2s and 1 medium laser. A scant 4.5 tons of armor. Decent mobility, but no jump jets. Did I mention only a single ton of autocannon armor for the autocannons?

To be fair, that one ton will last for 22.5 rounds of shooting.......

VVVV that's actually slightly worrying really. I've been *highly* tempted to get my hands on a Kraken for my Jade Falcons. 10 UAC2 is fukken MURDER even without support.

Arquinsiel fucked around with this message at 02:05 on Jan 27, 2011

# ¿ Jan 27, 2011 01:59

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

elitebuster posted:

That...seems a bit much, unless you were planning on Rambo-ing an entire cluster of Omnimechs without resupply. Also, I hope to god that thing has CASE, because I could see a mech with that much ammo turning into a pinata with an M-80 inside.

It's a 100 ton mech with the armour to match. A UAC10 goes through 8 rounds a turn, meaning that it's only going to last five turns of full-auto before being dry.

Axe-man posted:

Yeah, i love the mass fire AC clan mechs, the IS really don't have anything to compare, too heavy really for a workable varient in my opinion.

Ever heard of the RAC5?

Agent Interrobang posted:

And yes, CASE is all but standard on Clanner mechs.

It's actually standard on their ammunition bins.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2011 02:57

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Preechr posted:

In addition, once Myndo Waterly became Primus, she dumped a shitload of LosTech onto the Draconis Combine, because she was the former Precenter Deiron and had a huge hate on the Federated Suns.

I lol'd so hard when she basically told the First Circuit that they were gonna spank the Clans and then get back to dealing with Comstar's nemesis.... Hanse Davion.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2011 03:40

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Xmas Future posted:

Definitely, but sometimes it's hard to pass up 40 potential damage to a single spot.

Speaking of dakka, HAGs own, gently caress the haters.

UAC don't work that way.

Mukaikubo posted:

MW4 Mercs had bigger RACs. Let me tell you, a RAC-20 is just good clean family fun. It's also the "I Win" button in Solaris where short engagement distances and short fights are the rule. Seriously. Try it.

You know what's even more lethal? Heavy lasers. I just blasted through the entire Assault-to-Grand-Championship circuit by using a Hauptmann with two Heavy Large, two Heavy Medium and a Clan Gauss Rifle.

I didn't even have full armour.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2011 04:19

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Xmas Future posted:

You roll twice to determine hit locations for each shot if you fire on ultra mode. You have a much better chance of hitting the same spot twice than hitting it with all 6 shots of a RAC

You roll first on the 2 column of the cluster table to determine how many of your shots hit. The UAC is about as accurate as a RAC firing two shots. The RAC is substantially more damaging on average and has much better range.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2011 04:33

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Axe-man posted:

UAC have longer range than RACs

AC/5 = max range 18
UAC/5 = max range 20
RAC/5 = max range 15

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?

Magni posted:

And that's why the Partisan version with 5 AC/2s is actually useable, if only in a niche role. That being that it can really gently caress up VTOLs and flyers. Eh, and I guess shredding infantry platoons from halfway across the map. So, it actually does exactly what a mobile AA vehicle is supposed to. Blessed be flak and flechette ammo.

Have you looked at the modern variants?

2 LB10X, 2 AC2, C3 Slave;
2 RAC5 and 2 LB2X;
2 LB10X and 2 UAC2;
Or my favourite...:
4 RAC, Targeting Computer and C3 Slave.... *drool*

Gothsheep posted:

I still like the Bane. 10 Ultra AC/2s. It may not actually hurt that much, but MAN will it annoy someone!

10 UAC2 is still a potential 40 damage. That's a PSR if only half the slugs hit.

I've actually used a pair of Harvester Ants in a Pentagon Worlds scenario. It had the "military" upgrades of SRM2 and two machine guns. Because of the scenario rolling randomly for ammo they had only about two rounds per gun. Ironically the combine harvester does more damage in Melee than any of the weapons mounted.....

This was sung repeatedly, as the valiant Harvester Ants with NO FUKKEN AMMO chased off a full light Star of Clan whatever.

Well gently caress.... beaten. Except it actually happened so SCREW YOU GUYS :colbert:

# ¿ Jan 27, 2011 05:02

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

How did that hit do four crits? Doesn't a 11 do three crits, and a 12 blow the section off?

Axe-man posted:

It's all a trade off the RAC is all new tech through, mech4:merc is where most of my experience with RACs come from and they do AC damage terribly there :-/

I find the RAC2 and 5 are beauties for taking down helicopters at long range in that.

elitebuster posted:

This is going to be the reason the Kell Hounds get a reputation in this timeline isn't it.

Motion seconded.

Longinus00 posted:

There's a reason why you might choose to go with lots of smaller weapons over a few bigger ones. While the expected value for damage between 10 AC2s and 1 AC20 are exactly the same (ignoring range effects) the variance in damage is much lower with the AC2s. This is mostly balanced out by the weights and heat production of the weapons which favor the bigger guns but there are a few exceptions to this (machine guns, clan ER small lasers, etc).

*edit*

4 lrm 5s vs 1 lrm20 follows the same type of reasoning.

Also true. The sandpaper effect is not to be sniffed at either.

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...

This is becoming a thing of beauty.

Defiance Industries posted:

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.

*cough*

ShadowDragon8685 posted:

I don't think the Griffin was ever an Assault as we know it, I think it was more a case that weight it always has been was once considered an Assault because that was the heaviest they could build, then they could build heavier and the Griffin was reclassified as a Heavy and finally they walked the Atlas off the assembly line and the Griffin was thenceforth a Medium.

Yup, except the first ever mech was a 100 ton Mackie.... the fluff makes no sense.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2011 16:07

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Tempest_56 posted:

Well, the Mackie may have been an assault by weight but it certainly wasn't much to fight in. Here, let's timeline mech development!

2439 - The MSK-6S Mackie is developed by the Terran Hegemony and is the first mech ever created.
2455 - Agents of the Lyran Commonwealth steal the Mackie's plans, causing the technology to spread.
2459 - Prototype of the Battleaxe is fielded, which eventually will evolve into the Warhammer.
2460 - Development of the Helepolis.
2466 - The Commando is designed.
2471 - First appearance of the Wasp, the first mech to ever use jump jets.
2474 - Production begins of the Archer.
2475 - Appearance of the Hammerhands, successor to the Battleaxe and predecessor of the Warhammer.
2479 - The Stinger is developed.
2481 - Genesis of the Toro.
2490 - Appearance of the Gladiator.
2491 - The Thunderbolt begins production.
2492 - Finally, the Griffin shows up.

Keep in mind that most of those mechs didn't exist when the original Griffin fluff was written - only the Commando, Wasp, Stinger, Archer and Thunderbolt did.

Well the Griffin predates the Commando by a year or two, since it was in the original Battledroids and 2nd edition box sets (when "Autocannon" meant AC5 and nothing else!). It is a bit silly.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2011 18:30

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Mukaikubo posted:

GURPS is dreamy, sorry. I have to get that post in before we return to BT, since I am an acolyte for Steve Jackson.

He's a rather unpleasant fellow in person.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2011 19:53

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Magni posted:

Yes, lovely pilots can literally kill themselves trying to stand up.

I've seen it deliberately done in meatgrinder games to deny an opponant the kill.....

# ¿ Jan 27, 2011 22:10

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Tempest_56 posted:

I've seen it done in campaign games to deny salvage by trying to smash yourself into an ammo explosion. Either way, it's really poor sportsmanship.

In the context of a grinder tournament where the aim is to get more kills than everyone else it's strategically viable for two reasons.
1: denys the enemy a kill.
2: gets you back in the fight with a new mech faster.

The context of the game, being competitive, means that if you've got a good group they'll all be understanding and just find it funny. If not... it'll go nasty.

In a campaign it's a straight-up dick move and should be punishable by forks in the eyes.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2011 22:21

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

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).

The Inner Sphere does not do orbital drops, period.

"Combat Drops" are extremely rare, and basically never done in the Inner Sphere right now because A) nobody's going to shoot up a dropship and B) jumping out of a dropship is a great way to lose an entire company of 'Mechs if someone fucks it up.

Not entirely true. Dropships are still fair game under the Ares convention, and that's what Aerospace fighters are mostly used for. If it was just ground-striking power needed then conventional aircraft would do fine.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2011 23:19

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

PoptartsNinja posted:

Nobody's going to shoot up a dropship... without excessive support, since Dropships shoot back and typically have a massive armament.

You know what's really, really, *really* funny?

Dropships are piss easy targets.

Immobile for a -4 to hit, so you sit at long range and run in a circle around it, meaning you're at gunnery + movement to hit as you pound away with PPCs etc, while it's shooting back at a -5 *minimum* modifyer. I was hugely supprised when I realised how easy it is to take them down. Artillery makes it a joke.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2011 23:30

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Zaodai posted:

Once the dropship is on the ground, sure. But at that point, it's unloading mechs/tanks/etc, and it makes it a somewhat less valuable target given that you're not taking out a ton of mechs with it instantly like you would on the way down.

True, but they're still viable targets. Also fun is the use of Aerospace with TAG and remembering that a homing Arrow IV takes up a bomb slot.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2011 23:44

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Zaodai posted:

Oh, I know. It was just that we were discussing destroying dropships as one of the motivations behind someone doing a hot drop, rather than "you can't blow up dropships, they're unkillable!".

Well there's also the capacity to drop lances in different locations and then land in a centralised one to deploy the ship guards for a raid. Hot-dropping is awesome.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2011 03:17

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Notgothic posted:

Yeah, I just got mine out of the basement last night (Dragon's Fury/Spirit Cats 4 lyfe), now there's a Cygnus and a Zeus fighing on my bookshelf. I have to be honest, their mold for the Spider was better than any version that came before.

The spider was a beaut alright. But: http://fi.somethingawful.com/is/img338/1203/highlanderregulars.jpg cleary shows that while the Koshi didn't really change *too* much and the Wasp is just the Reseen Wasp, the Centurion... did not fare well (I also have no idea why the Wasp is so drat huge).

# ¿ Jan 28, 2011 03:28

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

WarLocke posted:

You want to talk hilarious? I once played a game where a Griffin hit a BattleMaster in the head from extreme range after jumping with its PPC, scored a critical, destroyed the cockpit, we rolled to see how it fell and it ended up pitching backwards off of the level 2 cliff it was on and landed on top of the Locust in that hex, crushing that cockpit (and most of the rest of the mech).

The only way that could have been more ridiculous was if we had known about the Stackpole rule and were using it.

I once played a game where an AI-controlled Phoenix Hawk jumped onto a building, damaged the building *slightly* and pew-pewed at me at long range.

The next turn my Locust skidded on concrete, slid several hexes and smashed into the building under the Phoenix Hawk. The damage already done meant the Locust's "charge" damage totalled the building, it collapsed, the Phoenix Hawk and Locust take falling debris damage, the Phoenix Hawk taking 5 to the head. This being the second head hit it had taken, the pilot passes out. The Locust is displaced back out of the building hex.

The next turn my locust stands up, kicks the Phoenix Hawk, hits the head and takes it right off. He then does a victory lap flapping his little chicken wing arms.

Agent Interrobang posted:

Yeah, up until Katherine "Registered Crazy Bitch" Steiner-Davion took over, the Lyrans never really did anything bad or had any particularly awful leaders. Their nation is financially well-off, they take care of their own, they almost never engage in offensive wars, and they're pretty darned open-minded about other cultures. It's honestly a little weird to see how spotless their record is.

Loki.

ShadowDragon8685 posted:

My head hurts. Can someone please explain why, the hell, they would do that?

She's Phelan Ward's cousin. It's kinky angry sex, the kind Clanners love best.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2011 14:00

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Mukaikubo posted:

MegaMek is the best when you're fighting in a city. The poor AI has no idea buildings can collapse, from everything I've seen. It'll cheerfully jump right up onto the roof and crash to the ground in a heap, without being provoked. Especially if the roof would give them LoS to an enemy! It is all very logical until the mech explodes.

The AI is not good. Not at all.....
The megamek AI is, however, responsible for the grand tradition of "Warhammer Tipping" practiced by Commandos all over the Inner Sphere, and for that we are eternally grateful.

Mukaikubo posted:

...wait, we're not playing this LP with the Stackpole Rule on, are we? We've made that clear, right?

I hope we are.....

# ¿ Jan 28, 2011 14:17

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Dolash posted:

In the first hundred pages, the first-person, meant-to-be-sympathetic space lumberjack protagonist punches out a college girl's jaw for asking for donations to save the space muskrats (which are described as horrible to make the Space Greenpeace sound dumb). Then later Greenpeace commandos (complete with armed APC) try to blow up his lumberjack mech and he kills fifty of them. Later still the lumberjack company fires him, he's kidnapped and hired by the leader of the space Greenpeace,

This part sounds awesome.

Dolash posted:

and gives the girl with the broken jaw a big speech about how she shouldn't be mad at him for the commando's deaths, she should be mad at herself for letting herself get hurt so she couldn't lead them.

This part not so much.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2011 15:58

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Tempest_56 posted:

The moron went as far as to not learn from the past and repeated Operation: Doppelganger on Joshua Marik and was surprised when it didn't work and he managed to lose (in a matter of weeks) nearly all the territory gained in the 4th Succession War!

That was Hanse. Victor just put it into place. And it wasn't really Joshua Marik anyway, it was Joshua Halas.

Anyway, Thomas Marik is a oval office twice as cunty as Katherine Steiner-Davion ever was.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2011 16:46

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Dolash posted:

I just figured out what else I remember of Battletech - that cartoon show from childhood! Looked up an episode online and got incredibly nostalgic, that stuff was great as a kid. Valuable lessons about Learning and Being A Team and Putting Aside Differences (Especially Racial Differences). Their ship was called the Katana.

And "Smashing poo poo With Giant Robots", "Violence Solves Everything", "Infantry Aren't Real People" and "My Robot Has An Escalator In It's rear end".......

# ¿ Jan 28, 2011 19:00

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Dolash posted:

Apparently according to the Battletech wiki he went on to rule an entire country? The Lyrans? Not bad for a saturday morning cartoon character.

The Saturday morning cartoon has been canonised in the main story as a propaganda piece made to rally support for the heroic AFFC defending YOUR PLANET from the evil Clans. It's kind of cleverly done actually.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2011 19:38

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Dolash posted:

Then Devlin Stone basically did that and founded the Republic, which is awesome (I'm a sucker for any government that just identifies itself as 'The Republic', not especially representing any one national-ethnic identity).

There's a lot of fan-speculation that the whole Jihad was just a ploy to get the successor states to hand over territory to the Wobbie's puppet ruler.

Mukaikubo posted:

Yeah- from the impressions that I've got, the Terra system if it were an independent political entity would be behind only the Successor States/MAJOR Clans as powers; and whether or not it'd be behind every one of the successor states is up for debate.

You mean like, say... Comstar?

Mukaikubo posted:

Also, Joanna rules.

She killed Natasha :argh:

Tempest_56 posted:

From the information I've read and heard, it boils down to that Smith & Tinker wanted to use the Unseen (several of them), and Harmony Gold pitched a fit and a half despite not actually using those designs in any way in like 15+ years. So off to lawsuit land it went.

From what I can gather the *actual* issue with the trailer is that S&T used the Unseen Warhammer in the 2-second glimpse of a damage diagram in the HUD, instead of the re-Reseen version stomping around in the main video.

Yeah.

Tanith posted:

Why does the Warhammer need a huge fuckoff searchlight?

It makes sense if you realise that there are advanced "quirk" rules for mechs, and the searchlight provides bonuses to spotting poo poo in night-fighting missions.

Also: anime :iiam:

Tempest_56 posted:

There was a lot of concern that WotC was going to turn D&D into something like M:tG - gronard fears, but still fears.

What you mean they didn't?

WarLocke posted:

1/36 chance of hitting it no matter how fast it's moving.

Battletech doesn't work that way.

Arglebargle III posted:

This could be a good thing. For example, I don't remember any of the Mechwarrior games making your guns less accurate while bouncing along at 80 kph. Adding in an accuracy mechanic could make the BattleTech armor layouts a lot more reasonable for a Mechwarrior game.

Mechwarrior 3 did it to a limited extent. It didn't really make it much more difficult to leg a mech with four CERLarge lasers but hey....

# ¿ Jan 31, 2011 01:49

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Tempest_56 posted:

To be fair to them, that was a fear in 1997 when the buy-out happened. This is 14 years later that they finally are, and well after WotC was bought out themselves.

gently caress fair, we're gamers.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2011 02:17

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Der Waffle Mous posted:

Mechwarrior 2 did, too.

I re-installed the first Mercenaries a while back and was actually kinda surprised at how much the targeting reticle bounced around the faster you moved.

I haven't managed to get it running on XP or later, so I haven't played this era of MW game since about 2003. How does one do such a thing?

# ¿ Jan 31, 2011 05:00

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# ¿ Apr 23, 2024 21:13

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Zaodai posted:

They all attended the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy.

Also, regarding the Black Knight thing, didn't it get retconned that the "real" story was that Ian did precisely what you said, and that anything known to the contrary was a Steiner propaganda campaign?

Game events etc are non-canon unless specifically mentioned in a sourcebook.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2011 05:15

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Lets All Play Battletech and rewrite Inner Sphere history

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