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HBS's Battletech game releases April 24th 2018!. Less than a month to go. What is Battletech? It began life as a tabletop game in the 80s, eventually migrating to PC and gave birth to the Mechwarrior series of games. It's about giant, stompy robots piloted by nobles and mercenaries in a sort of quasi "Mad Max in space" future. Mechwarrior has culminated in Mechwarrior Online, a Free-To-Play Arena Shooter. PGI, the makers of MWO have provided their 3D models for their Mechs to be used in this game. For those of you with a low opinion of PGI, the good news is that this is the only input they've had in the making of HBS' Battletech. This game in particular, is a turn-based squad tactical game with a Mercenary Company management element set in the 3025 era of Battletech. Which means NO CLANS. In the campaign you don't just have to fight battles with your Mechs, you have to purchase, repair and salvage Mechs as you go. You control a single lance of Mechs, a lance is 4 Mechs. You can hire artillery and air support, or vehicle (tanks) support. You have a massive, mobile base called the Argo that allows you to store up to 12 active Mechs and effectively unlimited storage of inactive Mechs. But it costs time and money to re-activate a Mech. The purpose it serves is so that you don't have to throw away a salvaged Mech because you already have your 12. The sole failure state for the single-player campaign, per the developers, is bankruptcy. You can lose battles all you want, so long as you don't run out of money. Of course, losing will facilitate the loss of that money eventually. Also, it is important to note, this game is not and was never intended to be a direct port of the tabletop Battletech rules. They've departed from them in many ways, details of which I'll go into later in this post. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1365402907 This is a basic tactics guide for the game. Written by a man named Eck. Eck works for Harebrained Schemes, the developers of this game, he's notable for being undefeated in the office against other players. He's really, really drat good. So good there's an acheivement for playing him or someone who has played him. Read this, it'll help. If you're still asking yourself, "Okay, but what is Battletech? Never heard of it.", I would suggest SkyShadowing's Cliff Notes post further down this page. Even shorter version is, it's 3025 and humanity has reverted to Space Feudalism. There are 5 major Houses (arranged like a wheel, for the most part, if they border each other they hate each other), a number of smaller powers, pirates, mercenaries and ComStar. ComStar is basically Space AT&T, but with an agenda. Those of you familiar with Battletech/Mechwarrior are probably going to ask yourselves "Is there a Mechlab, can I customize my Mechs?". Well, good news, you can and we already know some details about it thanks to the Official forums at http://www.battletechgame.com The Devs have stated that the Mechlab will be similar to, but not a copy of that from Mechwarrior Online. In HBS:BT there will be 4 types of hardpoints: Energy - This includes the Medium Laser, Large Laser and PPC. Missile - SRMs and LRMs Ballistic - This covers all varieties of Autocannon. The AC/2, AC/5, AC/10 and AC/20 Support - This one is new, for those familiar with the franchise. Here you find your Small Lasers, Flamers and Machine Guns. In order to give the various weapon types their own interesting flavor, HBS has added various modifiers to them. Autocannons were not only buffed vs Tabletop (Instead of an AC-2/5/10/20 setup, in TT terms it translates to a 5/9/12/20 but with armor, structure and damage all multiplied by 5) they now have a Recoil factor. If you fire the same AC two rounds in a row, on the 2nd round it incurs a -10% penalty to hit. That penalty disappears if you hold fire with that weapon for 1 round. Lasers have an inherent +5% bonus to hit. Flamers both do damage and add heat to the target. However, in Beta, each Flamer could only be fired 3 times per match. MGs have a crazy high Crit boost, makes them pretty effective against armor-stripped sections and cockpits. PPCs actually incur a To-Hit penalty to the target, so when you hit something with a PPC you actually make its weapons have a 5% lower chance to hit home. This doesn't stack, however, so hitting with all 3 PPCs from an Awesome doesn't incur triple the penalty. All weapons receive a +5% to hit when mounted in the arms. Support weapons are also notable because, in this game you must choose to either fire your weapons or engage in a Melee attack (that's right, your robots can Punch, Kick and "DFA"). Support weapons are the exception to that rule, when you engage in a Melee attack your support weapons will fire to add extra damage to your attack. That's right, punching and kicking in giant robots. aniviron posted:Don't worry, I've got you covered: What is a DFA you might ask? It stands for 'Death From Above' and describes a risky and insane manuever where your Mech jumps through the air and attempts to land on an enemy unit. And it's in this game! If you're familiar with MWO, there's going to be a lot missing in this Mechlab that might take some getting used to. There is no Ferro-Fibrous armor or Endosteel structure (weight saving upgrades, for those unfamiliar), there are also no Double Heatsinks, Gauss Rifles or Streak SRMs. Engines are also locked, so the base speed of a Mech cannot be changed (significantly, at least) and you can't make a Mech slower in order to mount more/bigger weapons on it. You can however, fit jumpjets to any Mech so long as you free up the required tonnage by removing weapons, armor or heatsinks. There aren't just mechs though. There are vehicles, including tanks, that you'll also fight on the battlefield. Don't make the mistake of thinking these aren't dangerous either. https://giant.gfycat.com/LimpingWanAmericanbittern.webm Just recently System Requirements were added to the Steam page for this game, they are as follows: System Requirements posted:WINDOWS MINIMUM: So there's the technical jargon you need to know about this game. For HBS:BT they've departed from the tabletop turn structure (everyone moves in order of initiative, then everyone shoots) and gone with something quite different. I'll quote myself from the old thread here. Q_res posted:Each turn is divided into 5 Phases, counting down from 5 to 1. Lights activate in Phase 4, Mediums in 3, Heavies in 2 and Assaults in 1. You can 'Reserve' your Mechs to a later phase, except the Assaults because there is no later phase. But you must move any Mechs you wish to in a given Phase before you Reserve, because once you hit that button it reserves all Mechs that haven't taken an action in the current phase. There's a pilot skill that allows your Mechwarrior to activate 1 phase earlier (hence Phase 5, for Lights with that skill). You can see this in action by watching these gameplay videos of the Beta Multiplayer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt6FatHHnzI HBS Beta Multiplayer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-lMNAJ8ZdA 1v1 Skirmish PDXCON 2017 That's right, this game does include multiplayer. It's a simple 1v1 Skirmish mode, up to 4 Mechs per player. As multiplayer was the last stretch goal of the Kickstarter campaign, it's fairly barebones. However, this means that there are no unlocks. All Mechs and all weapons are available to you from the start, so at least there's zero barrier of entry. You won't get your rear end kicked just because someone has been playing it for 4 months and has unlocked all the cool poo poo you can't use. Your Mech pilots have basic stats Piloting, Gunnery, Guts, and Tactics. Pilot and Gunnery are right out of tabletop, but here things are flipped and higher numbers are better. Warning for tabletop veterans: Skills do not work like they do in Tabletop. They’re a 1-10 scale with higher numbers being better. Each skill has abilities it provides, you get to choose 1 skill as a 'Specialization' and 1 as an 'Expertise'. So you get the low-level ability from 1 skill (your Specialization) and 2 abilities from another (your Expertise). Here's what we're looking at based on what we know so far. Specialization = 5 point ability in that skillset Expertise = 5 & 8 point abilities in that skillset Piloting: 5 - Evasive Movement - Your Mech generates an extra Evasive charge/pip up to the maximum of 6. 8 - Ace Pilot - Your Mech can move after shooting if it hasn't yet moved this turn. Tactics: 5 - Sensor Lock - Select a target within sensor range and reveal it until end of the current round, and remove 2 Evasive charges/pips 8 - Master Tactician - Mechs piloted by this Mechwarrior receive +1 Initiative (move 1 phase earlier) and remove 1 bar of Stability damage when reserving. Guts: 5 - Bulwark - Gain Guarded when stationary. 50% damage reduction to ranged attacks from the front and sides. 8 - Juggernaut - When you melee attack a target it receives -1 Initiative (moves one phase later). Gunnery: 5 - Multi-Targeting - Fire weapons at up to 3 targets within this Mechs current firing arc. 8 - Breaching Shot - Attacks with a single weapon ignore Cover and Guarded on the target. Bonus: Those Gunnery skills stack, so you can get Breaching Shot on Multiple targets if you bring something like an Awesome, Trebuchet or Catapult. Also good for Mechs with both short and long range weaponry. And since this brought up the topic of Evasive charges/pips, I should probably explain those. As you move you build up Evasion, this is displayed in the form of sideways pointing chevrons by the name of your Mech. Each chevron is worth a +2 to your To-Hit calculations. Which roughly translates to a 10% reduction in your chances to actually score a hit. You can build a maximum of 6 pips, Sensor Lock removes 2 of them. Melee ignores the first 4 Evasive chevrons (DFA ignores the first 3) and Evasive Move lets you build 1 extra (up to 6). Now, back to the campaign. This game takes place in a region known as the Aurigan Reach, out in the Rimward Periphery. This means you're effectively off, away from most of the big players of the Inner Sphere (the collective term for the various human powers throughout the known galaxy). This setting was chosen so that HBS could play around a little and not step on established Battletech canon. They have said, however, that the major powers (Lyran Commonwealth, Federated Suns, Draconis Combine, Free Worlds League and Capellan Confederation) would all have a part to play in the storyline. The basic outline of the story is that this lady and her family were in charge of a nation known as the Aurigan Coalition. Her father's right hand man, Santiago Espinosa, worked for him for decades before pulling off a coup. Usurping the throne and renaming it the Aurigan Directorate. Now she's working to fight and get back what was taken from her. And you're basically her go-to guy for getting the tough work done. However, once the story is completed you can continue to play through procedurally generated missions, continuing to build up your Mercenary Company. In fact, you can drop in and out of the story as you please to take unrelated missions. Unfortunately, the storyline isn't a branching, reactive one. You can't choose to work for the Directorate. If you've read through all that, you're probably at least a little bit interested in this game. But if you're still not sure, here are some videos for you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HereJw4XP4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJiPxCS1yvs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxqmd_tE2WI Pre-orders are up at Steam, GOG.com, the Paradox store and other websites. Invite link for the new Discord https://discord.gg/2HPsdKSyyD Now with 100% less Nazi loving admins. Q_res fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Oct 7, 2021 |
# ? May 24, 2017 07:49 |
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# ? Apr 24, 2024 11:52 |
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Since this question gets asked frequently.anakha posted:Which system tags should I be looking for to get the heavy metal guns and upgrades? The full roster of Mechs (38 base chassis and 12 variants for a total of 50 distinct Mech options. By the last count given to ), below is a list of the Mech chassis confirmed by the Devs so far. Variants that were present in Beta are listed in parentheses. quote:LIGHT Here's a very, very exhaustive spreadsheet of all the Mechs available. Including Speed, Melee damage, hardpoint layouts and thanks to our very own Gwaihir prices for Skirmish mode. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cxms21xRmnb1WhbNDSowoKwl7zeDQMbVoPWQMH-pI3Q/edit#gid=0 There's a thread for the tournament now, and prizes! There's also a wiki that provides information and tips on modding the game. http://btmodding.warriorsblood.com/index.php?title=Main_Page Moderator and thread title ruiner sebmojo posted a handy little tweak for the game. sebmojo posted:Remove pause tweak Q_res fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Dec 31, 2019 |
# ? May 24, 2017 07:50 |
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Thanks for the cool new OP. Maybe add in a link to that TRO a pubbie made. I would add a little caveat that not all the mechs in it are in the game though. https://wlu.box.com/s/cl1sj07p0eccuozxg6ow4svr1kg6dhvx
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# ? May 24, 2017 07:58 |
New OP is cool and good, much like this game is looking to be. I'm working my way through the second novella right now -- so far pretty average and enjoyable in an airport-fiction sense. Besides them only mentioning the words "Aurigan Reach" literally once so far though, I'm sorta not sure how this actually ties into the storyline of the game.
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# ? May 24, 2017 08:21 |
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Digging the new OP.
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# ? May 24, 2017 08:24 |
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Nice, I have been following this on and off for a while, no idea the Beta was so close. Did they explain how are they going to avoid the "all heavies, all the time" problem? Tonnage limits? Gotta go fast missions? Credit crunch?
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# ? May 24, 2017 09:16 |
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Fat Samurai posted:Nice, I have been following this on and off for a while, no idea the Beta was so close. For single player it looks like a cost benefit thing. Keeping a heavy running will be more expensive than a light or medium. Lights and Mediums go before mediums in the initiative order, so you could get really badly outmaneuvered if you don't have actions earlier in the tern. You can bank the actions of earlier mechs to later turns so they could stall you out as well and force you to move out of position before they move their bigger mechs. For multiplayer it looks like limits on how much you can spend to build your force will prevent all atlas lances and the like.
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# ? May 24, 2017 09:30 |
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Fat Samurai posted:Nice, I have been following this on and off for a while, no idea the Beta was so close. Credit crunch. Also, better balancing - for example, ability to play support by using "sensor lock" to spot for the rest of your lance (AKA - Raven and Catapult). Unrelated - does the new turn system reminds anyone of Heroes of might and magic, or it is just me?
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# ? May 24, 2017 09:36 |
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No gifs showing off melee, 0/10 OP, rated 1 star When I'm not phone posting I can provide, assuming no-one beats me to it
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# ? May 24, 2017 09:44 |
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New thread is a great idea, I'm gonna bring over my Cliffnotes History for the 1st Page. BATTLETECH HISTORY A Cliff Notes by Sky Shadowing
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# ? May 24, 2017 11:29 |
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Aurigan coalition? Endless mode confirmed!
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# ? May 24, 2017 14:16 |
OP good excited to shoot a stompy robert
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# ? May 24, 2017 15:31 |
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quote:3025: Third Succession War ends. Hanse Davion of the FS and Katrina Steiner of the LC make a deal to ally and marry Katrina's daughter Melissa to a man 27 years older than her (feudalism, everyone). (Federated Commonwealth) It's been ages since I played it, this is relevant to Mechwarrior 4, right? I liked Mechcommander too so I'd be pretty interested in this! I'm going to have a lance of lovely urbanmechs. Also I had a battletech mech book when I was a kid and had no clue what it was or that it was a game, and didn't figure it out until after finding it again a few years ago and realizing that some of the same mechs in Mechcommander and Mechwarrior were in it and putting two and two together.
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# ? May 24, 2017 15:41 |
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RBA Starblade posted:It's been ages since I played it, this is relevant to Mechwarrior 4, right? I liked Mechcommander too so I'd be pretty interested in this! I'm going to have a lance of lovely urbanmechs. Not directly. Hanse and Melissa's daughter, Katherine Steiner-Davion later changes her name to Katrina Steiner to evoke the people's feel-good nostalgia for her grandmother when she's stealing the FedCom from her brother Victor, He Who Goons Hate. That ties into the Mercs expansion for MW4, where the player has to choose sides in the civil war between Victor and Katrina.
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# ? May 24, 2017 15:47 |
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Beta is definitely a good time for a new thread. I'm excited to see how the game actually plays.
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# ? May 24, 2017 15:50 |
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I haven't got much interest in Battletech (But I hear the lore's pretty fun), but I'm still likely gonna get this just because of Harebrained's good track record.
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# ? May 24, 2017 16:02 |
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ChickenWing posted:OP good same
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# ? May 24, 2017 16:34 |
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Going to sell the super dropship with docking collars so I can afford to run an Assault mech in a mission. Can't wait.
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# ? May 24, 2017 16:57 |
Yo OP, maybe should also link to PTN's Battletech LP thread because it's a goddamn masterpiece of the setting.
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# ? May 24, 2017 17:14 |
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No Madcat. 0/10 This looks awesome, on a serious note.
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# ? May 24, 2017 17:25 |
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May I suggest a link to the Discord server in the OP? If the Discord Server admin is alright with that, I guess?
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# ? May 24, 2017 17:33 |
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The 1st needs to get here faster! drat you time! I just want to run a lance full of Battlemasters, I don't know how I'll afford it, but I will find a way!
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# ? May 24, 2017 18:46 |
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Paingod556 posted:No gifs showing off melee, 0/10 OP, rated 1 star Don't worry, I've got you covered:
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# ? May 24, 2017 19:37 |
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OP updated, added a link to buy into the Beta and to PTN's LP of Battletech tabletop. Also added the melee gifs and filled out the 2nd post with some Beta-specific information. edit: Also added a little bit that we know of Pilot Skills. Q_res fucked around with this message at 22:05 on May 24, 2017 |
# ? May 24, 2017 20:46 |
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Waffle House posted:No Madcat. 0/10 The madcat is a poor man's marauder anyway.
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# ? May 24, 2017 22:09 |
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And I base this solely on aesthetics.
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# ? May 24, 2017 22:10 |
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ditty bout my clitty posted:And I base this solely on aesthetics. Confirmed
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# ? May 25, 2017 00:12 |
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kingcom posted:Confirmed 3002. A DCMS Marauder driving back the honorless AFFS Valkyrie scum. Colorised.
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# ? May 25, 2017 00:36 |
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I have always hated how the Marauder looks and I'm glad that particular version of it no longer exists as far as BattleTech is concerned.
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# ? May 25, 2017 00:39 |
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Strobe posted:I have always hated how the Marauder looks and I'm glad that particular version of it no longer exists as far as BattleTech is concerned. You disgust me Strobe, good in the x-wing thread, bad in the battletech thread
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# ? May 25, 2017 00:43 |
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I really like the new Marauder, though I think I am in the minority as there is a lot of nostalgia playing into that. The first Gray Death Legion book is pretty meh, but the intro with Carson watching his dad defend the spaceport in his Marauder was a really cool scene.
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# ? May 25, 2017 00:45 |
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kingcom posted:You disgust me Strobe, good in the x-wing thread, bad in the battletech thread The new version of the Marauder is actually good, but nothing will ever eclipse the new Warhammer and Battlemaster, which are magnificent killing machines.
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# ? May 25, 2017 00:51 |
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I prefer the old Marauder to the new one. New one looks like the Queen Alien from Aliens's head with loving egs attached to it.
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# ? May 25, 2017 00:52 |
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Just so we're all on the same page, I mean this one, which is cool and good, and not this hideous beast.
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# ? May 25, 2017 00:54 |
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Strobe posted:Just so we're all on the same page, I mean this one, which is cool and good, and not this hideous beast. I was specifically talking about the Zentradi officer pod myself. It's just an iconic design for both franchises to me at this point.
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# ? May 25, 2017 00:58 |
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Strobe posted:Just so we're all on the same page, I mean this one, which is cool and good, and not this hideous beast. Isn't the second one the Marauder IIC or something? Idk. I thought you were talking about the original Marauder like in the gif. That and the new marauder in your first link are both good and cool.
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# ? May 25, 2017 00:59 |
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I am legit excited for this, looking forward to next weekend. I want to try all the old mwo goon favorites and see how they fair. Have we heard if they are bending the rules regarding the Raven? The basic version is pretty trash from what I hear and it really needs the proper ECM package to be a good robit.
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# ? May 25, 2017 01:06 |
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The second link is the Project Phoenix (3060s) Marauder. I also dislike the Marauder in the gif.
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# ? May 25, 2017 01:07 |
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Phrosphor posted:I am legit excited for this, looking forward to next weekend. We're getting the 1X. So it'll have the 7.5 ton E.W.E (ghetto ECM/BAP)
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# ? May 25, 2017 01:12 |
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# ? Apr 24, 2024 11:52 |
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Will never not be cool.
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# ? May 25, 2017 01:14 |