/btg/ - BattleTech General

Butte Hold?

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First for Lyrans get better mechs than you

1st for we need a better piloting game than MWO.

>>44753187


Fourth for lyrans are bird and wolf prey

>>44753187
>>44753210
Both are true. Frankly Lyrans need better mechs.

>>44753635
>Lyrans need better mechs.
Nah, they need better Droppers.
If they actually had some good carriers to let them bring -sturms in any large amount, they would be able to threaten to knock some Clan WarShips out of space, and bring some actual meat when they have to go on the offensive.

>>44753940
I think he's saying that they get better mechs them because they need them to avoid being torn six new assholes at once, not that they actively need better mechs.

But yes.

7th for [your faction] is objectively trash

>>44753940
>>44754313
First anon here, I agree with both.

>>44754349
You jerk, [my faction] is worlds above the rest but [author] hates us and prefers [other faction] so [unfortunate event in my faction's history] occurred. Plus we got saddled with [mediocre faction mech].

>>44754400

Someone post the purple bird strong comic

>>44754400
But anon, [your faction] only got where it did before [unfortunate event] because of [other author] and only [widely reviled official forum personality] would disagree. You aren't [widely reviled official forum personality], are you, anon?

>>44753117
>Got a poll for you guys, though: http://strawpoll.me/6528373
Ask me again when Harebrained BattleTech is out.

>>44755056
Dang it anon. I am [widely reviled official forum personality] but I'd brazenly hoped no-one would ever figure it out.

BattleTech was better before [widely regarded as mostly retconned supplement] became the subject of discussion.

>>44755056
>>44755117
[citations of outdated sourcebooks intensifies]

>>44755214
[widely regarded as mostly retconned supplement] is the most canon word on the subject because it is closer to the word of the creator and [author]'s retcons were clearly a hatchet job against [faction that was subject of the supplement].

>>44755117
>>44755214
But anon, clearly [thing you like about [faction] ] is impossible because of [FASAnomics argument] and you need yo accept that you're playing the game wrong

>>44755361
No Anon, you're playing it wrong because[Detailed refutation of [FASAnomics argument] using material out of [widely regarded as mostly retconned supplement]]. As a corollary, [other faction] wins in all cases because of [tech that's briefly mentioned in erstwhile refutation].

Keep this up. I want to see if all future BattleTech Generals can be replaced via flowchart.

>>44755451
But anon, according to [headcanon interpretation] of [ambiguous sentences in [other highly retconned book] there's no way that what you say could be correct

>>44755635
rate my design for [faction]

>>44755817
Hyper-entropic/10, use [weapon] instead.

>>44755738
Aha! You forgot to add a second close bracket in your post, rendering it completely irrelevant! [faction] thus wins by default!

>>44755635
This is all getting too meta, so NEA I'm going to ask you if you'd like to design a warship. Namely a missile frigate for the League navy, 3060s. I don't think they have any missile spamming ships then, at least.

>>44755817
[Faction] shouldn't be able to produce [item]. 0/10, [widely reviled official forum personality

>>44755948

>I don't think they have any missile spamming ships then, at least.

>No missile spamming ships

Leaving aside how missiles are pretty much the second-worst capital weapon type, they redesigned the Zechetinu-Class Corvette to swap NLs out for Capital Missiles.

Also, having another WarShip class for the FWL would be a real stretch. They've already got more classes (Zech, Eagle, Agamemnon, Impavido, Thera) than anyone else and that's straining their industry as it was.

>>44755948
>Dude you stuffed this up, proper form for today's thread would be

This is all getting too meta, so [Renowned /btg/ namefag] I'm going to ask you if you'd like to [do esoteric thing you're known to have an affinity for]. Namely [specific details pertaining to my request]. I don't think they have any [unit that fills my perceived hole in the range].

>>44755635
I want to condense all these posts in to a fillable PDF form, so that when people come around looking for a faction argument, we can just give them the form to fill out

>>44756376

Faction argument Mad-Lib? Yeah I'd repost that.

>>44755948
A few recovered SL Quixotes could fill that role without needing to bloat the FWLN any further

>>44756286
>straining it
Not really. Until the robes hit the fan they were growing richer and richer. They already had another warship class in the works before the Jihad.

>>44756303
This meta stuff isn't that funny though.

>>44756846
They could, you're right. I just thought a design challenge would be fun since /btg/ usually seems at it's best when discussing space navies and variant/design challenges.

>>44756445
[First Star League] was so under-powered until [the Jihad], it was only right that [The Niops Association] take a few hits after [prolonged period of superiority]!

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>>44757333
Good one.

>>44757002
>This meta stuff isn't that funny though.
[Faction Mascot] Noises Intensify!

>>44757002

>Not really.

Yes really. They were producing things as fast as they could and the Thera air wings were less new units and more re-assigned fleet wings.

>They already had another warship class in the works before the Jihad.

The Dracs had two in the works. It didn't pan out for them and neither would the Venturer-Class for the FWL. Everyone's WarShip production was at capacity already even before the OOC decision to de-emphasise capital ships.

Regardless, you can AU it if you want to get around the production issues, but missile-heavy WarShips are terrible any way. Nukes are a lot more threatening in the fiction than they are on the tabletop, and missiles deliver such pitiful damage without being nukes that you may as well be using Naval Lasers instead. Ironic, considering the Zech refit for the League.

The FWLN vessels are generally pretty good. Where they screw up is with the armour which is lighter than the bad armour most canon ships have and using NGRs a lot.

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Whats that? Mechwarrior in the open?
Not anymore.
Brutal as hell.

>>44753187
It's unsettling how small the Zeus looks in this picture.

>>44758246
>Yes really
Not really when the fluff shows their growth was continuing and expanding. Nothing else really needs to be said when the facts are laid out, but you're free to have your interpretation.

>>44758363
It's a recon Zeus.

>>44758422
Steiner so STRONK

>>44758437
Strongest House there is. Those Wolves are in for a surprise when it's revealed the massive loss of territory was really a trap for a massive pincer move.

>>44758364

>Not really when the fluff shows their growth was continuing and expanding.

Which is why they had vessels planned past 3067, right? And are written as having had issues meeting the launch deadlines as it was? Not to mention the "terrorist attacks" (ie, Light of Mankind special ops) that so many yards were getting hit by regardless of faction?

Initially yes, what you're saying is right. The factions were shitting out WarShips at an incredible rate with little to no issues fluff-wise doing so. From about 3062 onwards, however, everyone hits a brick wall because the authors realised giving everyone large navies was going to cause plot issues and anyone who still had a design on the drawing boards rather than already in the game had those fucked over.

That's just how it is.

>>44758549
>Which is why they had vessels planned past 3067, right
Exactly, thank you for agreeing. They were building more and more ships.

>>44758324

Squish

>>44758622

They had no vessels planned past that mark. They had ships that were still under construction at their dockyards but they weren't planning to lay down any more Thera, Eagle, Agamemnon, Impavido, Zech, or Venturer-Class ships after that.

Same as the Dracs and Suns weren't building anything, the Lyrans were only finishing of the Fylgia, and the Capellans were only fixing the Feng Huang that was damaged by LoM and refitting some into Carriers.

>>44758246
>>44758364
>>44758549
>>44758622
Guys, we're only supposed to be making the blanks this thread, you're supposed to fill them in at home.

>>44758690
>They had no vessels planned past that mark.
Have you only read up to a certain point in the fluff? I don't want to spoil anything but you're wrong.
Regardless, since you're invoking OOC decisions I think you know this.

>>44758363
Well the Zeus is a lighter mech.

>>44758777

>Have you only read up to a certain point in the fluff?

What, like FM: U that has them still building some more Theras and Eagles (which I mentioned) but not making any more after those hulls were finished or the JHS stuff about the Venturer prototype being destroyed while still under construction (which I already mentioned?)

Gee, shit. I dunno.

>Regardless, since you're invoking OOC decisions I think you know this.

The OOC decision has a very clear impact. Anything that was statted already got finished. Nothing after that was produced. Any designs that had been mentioned (Venturer, Yamato, Kaga, Durendal) were all destroyed, never made, or retrofitted and no longer combat vessels any way.

You can talk about how they *could* have gone on to build this that or the other, but canonically WarShip construction and deployment was retconned from being mainly a factor of time to requiring the output of entire worlds and shitloads of money that nobody really wanted to do any more. So they finished whatever they had in the works and then stopped.

I'm not going to say you have to like it, but I'd appreciate it if you stopped with the "hurr you're an idiot, a liar, or both" crap already.

>>44758915
>the Venturer hull, laid after 3067, being destroyed in the Jihad
Thanks for agreeing with me again?
Like I said, you're welcome to your interpretation. If you're going to jump to being offended then just please stop talking to me. I'm not interested in a poisonous argument over what is a non-argument for two glaringly obvious reasons.

>>44759044
Sorry, to add it's actually at least >three< reasons.

>>44753940
>triple digit numbers of Eisensturms
The mere thought makes me erect

Also who was it talking about plasma rifles being best in aero? Because the Eisensturm D looks like the Lyrans were cribbing off their notes.

Are there any SFE dualgauss designs out there?

>>44759044

The Venturer was mentioned as being planned and worked on prior to FM: U.

FM: U is the cutting point between the previous presentation of everyone building WarShips all over the place and having new classes planned (TR: 3057 up until Victor's speech in Endgame or wherever it was) and the retconned version of the universe where they cost a shit ton, nobody really wants to build them, and even if the Jihad hadn't happened the best-case scenario was that any vessels under construction would be finished then nothing new would be made after that.

>jump to being offended

You were the one who started with the snide accusations, and you're still the one posting incorrect information to try and shore up your increasingly weak arguments.

TL;DR-

If you want to go full AU to make it so that WarShips are easy to build again, more power to you. Unless you accompany that AU with a full rules rewrite, missile-heavy vessels suck and if for some reason you really want the FWL to have a ship like that recovering a Quixote as >>44756846 suggested would be the most reasonable way of going about it.

>>44759294
Stealth Pillager is all you ever need.

>>44759294

Pillager-4Z and -5Z. To add insult to injury, they also have Stealth armour. The -5Z has a SFE, dual Gausses, and TSM.

>>44759253

>Also who was it talking about plasma rifles being best in aero?

They've got a good mass to damage ratio for attacking DropShips, JumpShips, WarShips and space stations but the external heat cap means other ASFs just drop a big energy weapon if they weren't over-sinked any way. Granted the Control rolls in space for being overheated are more of a problem than ground units face, but the best use of Plasma weapons isn't so much against other ASFs as it is the bigger fish.

>>44759387
>>44759456
The stealth pillager should be illegal

>>44759479

The BV on it seems low considering how much of a pain in the ass it is to kill the fuckers too.

There's a SFE/Dual Gauss Fafnir variant as well. I rate it higher than the normal HGR Fafnir or the iHGR Fafnir.

>>44759368
>The Venturer was mentioned as being planned and worked on prior to FM: U.
Could you cite that?

>You were the one who started with the snide accusations
Pointing out you can have your interpretation isn't a snide accusation. Grow thicker skin.

>TL;DR
Pretty much. Seeing as you can find anything to back up your opinion, while all the League fluff only points to their strength and wealth growing and growing, even into the beginning of the Jihad fluff, I'm sorry but your impassioned viewpoint falls short of being persuasive.

Instead of getting angry, just remember that 1) by its very nature creating a fan ship creates its universe to be AU and renders this entire debate null to begin with, 2) FM:U says 11 more warships are scheduled to enter service by 3075, and that document alone, hardly an exhaustive report on the League navy, does not preclude the possibility of even more construction as it deals with the here and now. Not exactly stretched. And 3) you're trying to argue economics in a universe where the writers specifically remain ambiguous. So it doesn't work.

Cheers. Now I hope we can put this behind us.

>>44759537
>2,868 BV
>low
Are you used to clantech or something? The Pillager -4Z has the third highest BV of all tournament legal IS assaults, beaten only by the Pillager -5Z and the Peacekeeper -1B. It is absolutely not worth that much for a 3/5 design that loses in firepower to most good heavies once they enter short range.

>>44759479
Given the BV cost for its damage output? Not really.

>>44759294
IS tech, there's the Annihilator ANH-1G, Cyclops CP-11-B, Fafnir FNR-5B, Galahad GLH-2D, Pillager PLG-4Z, and the Pillager PLG-5Z.

Clantech, you've got the Annihilator C 2, Behemoth (Stone Rhino), and Galahad (Glass Spider).

>>44759732

>Pretty much. Seeing as you can find anything to back up your opinion

Other than the times Herb and the other authors said they specifically wanted to de-emphasise the naval aspect of the game to keep the focus on 'Mechs, and then went and did de-emphasise the naval side of the game to keep the focus on 'Mechs? Like here http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=14034.5;imode? Or here http://www.battlecorps.com/BC2/news.html?article=195?

>Economics

From one of Victor's memoirs in Endgame: "When the Robert Davion was lost over Kathil, the entire AFFS felt the blow. WarShips are an appreciable part of the military budget. What no one counted on was the kind of losses we'd see with more than one WarShip fighting the same battle. The GNP of entire worlds was thrown away into the vacuum of space. It was a mistake. And we paid for it."

Everything from around that time onwards according to the authors: WarShips are hella expensive in ways the rules and printed costs don't represent, which is a major part of why the factions were winding down their production even before the Jihad.

>11 ships

Of which some are named as under construction and do get completed. Which I said. Anything that wasn't named as being in construction and didn't have a sheet already, including the Venturer, Durendal, Kaga, and Yamato may as well have vanished into the ether after that for all the impact they had on the naval combat scene.

>in b4 but you didn't address points X, Y, and Z therefore I'm right

If convincing yourself that I'm a liar and that canon's wrong helps you sleep better at night, knock yourself out. I'm done with this shit, since you clearly give zero fucks about engaging in good faith or admitting that printed material conflicts with your headcanon.

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>>44760333
>get btfo by the source you cited yourself
>"I-I'm done with this shit, you have no good faith!"
Au revoir!
tl;dr the rest of your rant
I anticipated you'd flake out, but thanks for killing some time.

>>44760333
Just don't bother, the guy's a troll. Especially considering this >>44760475

Come on, let's talk about how to make a good anti-ASF escort warship instead.

>>44760333
>>44760560
embarrassingly obvious samefag

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>>44760560
I hope you're samefagging since the fact the sources cited back up my argument make calling >me< the troll very dubious.

>>44759915

The problem with the Stealth Pillager is that it wants to fight at long range and you'll be taking a +7 in range modifiers alone if you respond in kind. If you try to close you've got a few turns of Gauss fire where hitting it back is going to require a lot of luck, and once you're in close you're up against a max or near-max armour 100-tonner that can have its Stealth armour on thanks to the dual Gausses that produce negligible heat and at risk of being engaged in physical combat by something that might also have TSM.

It's a singularly unpleasant enemy, and IME it can tie up around double its own BV in units trying to kill it before it goes down. You can either concentrate on it that way to kill it and hope your units aren't getting gangbanged in return by the Pillager's buddies, or you can try and take its friends down first and hope you don't get headcapped or cored by the Gausses.

In a pure 1 v 1 BV-balanced battle it comes down to how fast its enemy is. If it's something like a Stormcrow B or Lao Hu with a more skilled pilot you can probably get in fast enough and hit it hard enough to kill it but against another slow, fat long-ranged assault you're playing its game.

For reference, a Dire Wolf A is about the same BV but has the somewhat vulnerable XL engine to worry about and at long range even its LPLs are hitting on 9s before terrain and movement while the Pillager's Gausses are hitting on 8s, assuming both are 4/5 pilots. If the Pillager doesn't headcap the Dire Wolf at range the DW can probably outlast it and spam it to death with the LPLs, but it'll probably be a long and un-fun game for both sides.

I am sitting here making infantry platoons for my ATB merc unit. I want mauser 960's or 1200's but I just can't justify it. Using Marx XX laser rifles instead. Also requesting interesting or effective inf platoon ideas btg may have.

>>44760666
How are you getting +7? Stealth armor is +2 at long range, 4+2=6.

>>44760560
>announce you're leaving
>pretend to be a new anon five minutes later so you can get a retort in
This shit is priceless.

>>44760726
What era? What's the unit's style and tactics?
They could be in contract to WoB and probably get the appropriate Mauser variant.

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>>44760616

>s-samefag!

Literally what.

>>44760629

>The authors are saying what you said they did! Haha, BTFO by your own sources, I'm totally right even though you've conclusively shown otherwise!

Wow. I know I said I wasn't going to go on with it, but this is just epic-level retardation right here.

>>44760560

>anti-ASF escort warship instead.

A WarShip is really too big and important an asset to lock into such a niche role. I doubt even the SLN would have gone for that.

A PWS with some SCL-1s and L SCCs would be more in scale. They still hit hard enough to Threshold most canon designs short of the heavier TR 3067+ flying bricks and the range will help a bit too since you can shoot them before they can shoot you.

Capital missiles are somewhat worth consideration here because they also don't have a to-hit penalty and you might be able to nuke them, but AMS is getting more common even on ASFs so relying on them against squadrons might not work in the long term.

Of course, Secret Option C is the correct answer. And Secret Option C is: don't worry about weapons, just carry your own ASFs.

>>44760817

I thought it was an additional +3 at long range, because that's what my local Capfag opponent told me it was.

Been playing it that way ever since Stealth Armour came out. I'm gonna kick his ass the next time I see him.

>>44760933
Only took you 13 minutes.

>the authors said something unrelated to the argument
>"Haha, I win!"
Epic-level retardation indeed. Are you upset that no one followed you over to where you moved the goalposts?

>>44760829
3090's Mercenary unit with lyran roots. It is a combined arms company. The infantry's role is to insert by Vtol and make desirable terrain unfriendly. The mausers hit like a truck, but I feel they might be too expensive for mercs.

>>44760933
Meanwhile in reality, this: >>44759732 still vindicates this: >>44758364 and knocks out this: >>44756286

Really that's the end of it.

>>44761042
Eh. By the 3090s there'd have probably made it onto the market in decent numbers from captured WoB gear; they probably made hundreds of thousands of those for their milita units, and most of those would have ended up on the surplus market after the war

>>44760980
Stealth adds an additional +0/+1/+2 to the usual range mods at short/medium/long range. Some BA stealth systems use different scaling, like the Improved Stealth armor that gives +1/+2/+3. But all mech stealth systems are +0/+1/+2.

>>44761042

With Mausers it's not so much the cost as the availability. They're really uncommon outside of ComStar/WoB.

If you really want some firepower with a Laser-based platform the Federated-Barret M61-A hits hard and has an underslung grenade launcher for extra shenanigans. Has a Base Range of 2 like the Mauser as well.

I'm not fully up on my Tech Manual errata but the last time I looked the Mauser and Federated-Barret were about on par.

There's always the Blazer Carbine for Lasers or the Thunderstroke II and F-B M61B Ballistic rifle too. TK seems common enough even for mercs.

>>44761229
With regards to all those small arms names, what book details specific small arms? Like what the standard Capellan infantry rifle may be?

>>44760933
>Of course, Secret Option C is the correct answer. And Secret Option C is: don't worry about weapons, just carry your own ASFs.

Yeah but then you get the same issue as real life where everything because about fighters (or in battletech, ASF) which I'd like to avoid. Me and a friend have been thinking of making up some home-made ships to use in matches together so we're not stuck with the "tinfoil for armor" canon designs. So because of this we also can do a gentleman's agreement of "don't spam an unreasonable about of ASF and I won't either".

I was thinking of something around the 600kt weight band with a few NACs for pinging enemy warships, and then a larger number of NLs/SCLs for bracket/AAA fire. Is that at all feasible?

>>44760980
Nope, +1 at medium +2 at long. Sorry to hear that guy mislead you, that sucks man.

>>44761229
Yeah I have a jump platoon kitted out with tk's and heavy grenade launchers that looks like fun. I saw the m61a and I agree it is definitely available and kickass. I guess my hang up on that is would a merc unit pay 7k cbills a rifle for their PBI?

>>44761331
Wrong thread?

>>44761356
No, a troll that spams it across /tg/. Just report and hide.

>>44761416
Oh. I was going to say that BattleTech is very inclusive. My group has two girl players. One's a Fedrat and the other is a Drac.

>>44757002
What was the warship class they were working on prior to the Jihad?

>>44761279

I think the novels had most of them, maybe the item entries in the RPG books?

The state militaries mostly use generic weapons. The only exceptions that immediately come to mind is Lyrans with the Zeus Heavy Rifle (which is OK in the RPG but not very good once converted to BT stats) and the Dracs who are said to have mostly equipped their Laser infantry with Blazers.

The House Books do give some additional platoon types but those vary between HB: HD's FUCK YOU HAHA M61 SERIES BEST WEAPON EVER gear and HB: HM's niche if not useless anti-aircraft and amphibious weapons.

Which is a long way of saying, I don't really know what the standard Capellan infantry rifle is, no. Probably something with a Chinese name and the same stat line as the generic auto-rifle or laser rifle though.

>>44761338

>I guess my hang up on that is would a merc unit pay 7k cbills a rifle for their PBI?

They do if they wanna win. Later products might have changed this, but my version of TM is costing the laser M41 at 2.15K, the Mauser 960 at 8K, and the Mauser 1200 at 10K so I dunno about the 7K figure either.

>>44761316

>I was thinking of something around the 600kt weight band with a few NACs for pinging enemy warships, and then a larger number of NLs/SCLs for bracket/AAA fire. Is that at all feasible?

I guess it's feasible, it's just not going to be particularly effective. One problem is that WarShips have to move before DropShips and ASFs regardless of who won the initiative, so the ASFs will always have that advantage. Armament-wise it sounds a bit like a less fucked Essex, but that still means it'll be better off against Destroyer and Corvette enemies than ASFs.

Really I'd say to have a look at something like the Interdictor (http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Interdictor) for ideas on a larger craft built to handle ASFs. It's not perfect, buy you can reasonably expect them to solo a squadron or two of ASFs and win, for less money and infrastructure.

>>44758549
>the authors realised giving everyone large navies was going to cause plot issues

But it wouldn't though

>>44761835
Shhhh.

>>44761774

The Venturer-Class Light Cruiser.

It got blown up at dock.

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>>44761833
>and the Dracs who are said to have mostly equipped their Laser infantry with Blazers.

>>44761833
>FUCK YOU HAHA M61 SERIES BEST WEAPON EVER
Just like the M16 series, right?

>>44760980
>because that's what my local Capfag opponent told me it was

And you didn't check? You dumb fuck, you deserve it.

Whenever an opponent says something like that, ask to see it in print. Saves so much time and aggravation.

>>44761835

It would, it really would.

The problem with large navies is that it makes the ground game, which BT is really all about, require even more hand-waving to be relevant in the face of air and space power. The amount of hand-waving you have to do to explain why the SLDF was bothering to fight on the ground when they could have been rendering planets utterly uninhabitable with the SLN is already significant.

Then you run into the issue of border defences. Anywhere that has a WarShip is basically off-limits unless you have more WarShips that are better.

The FWLN and FWLM at the end of the FedCom Civil War put them a long way out in front of any of the other IS factions. Their ground forces were the largest, but their navy by itself could have taken on either the ComStar fleet or everyone else's navies combined and won. This effectively means that you either have to knock their WarShip count down or have the FWL break up (or, hey, it's the Jihad so both) to explain why the FWL isn't the dominant hegemonic power going forward. Nobody can make an invasion stick against their space forces, and if they want to invade someone else than any planet up to and including Tharkad is theirs any time they want it. They can just escalate things too far for anyone else to compete.

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>>44761941
Pic related.

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>>44762027
>mfw people actually believe this

>>44762027
>proliferate warships
>problem solved

>>44762128

But if WarShips are proliferating and are the decisive factor, why fight on the ground?

>>44762117

I thought you would have been happy that someone was pointing out how the FWL was positioned and what would logically have followed if we didn't get the Jihad, Stone Stronk, and XIN SHENG FOREVER.

>>44761833
I got the figure from ATOW. Going to field m61's and make forest hexes less than friendly. You seem really knowledgeable about infantry, would you also know what sourcebook explains construction of inf with field guns and arty?

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>>44762090
>dat Federated Long Rifle

>>44762128
That's not a terrible idwa , aside from upsetting the "[faction] shouldn't have warships" crew, but you'd probably do better to make ground-based defenses much more common, cheaper and effective; warships are FAR less setting-changing when even the Rim Collection has enough of a STO defense grid to make a cruiser think twice. Just make them effectively unable to target anything under 75kt or so, so that THEY don't become the thing preventing ground warfare

>>44762201
Warships can't hold territory. Same reason we still fight on the ground today or they did in the age of the Star League.

Also this: >>44762301

>>44761833
Darn. Alright then, I'll give the Interdictor a look. Though, don't dropships also move after ASF?

>>44762201
>I thought you would have been happy that someone was pointing out how the FWL was positioned and what would logically have followed if we didn't get the Jihad, Stone Stronk, and XIN SHENG FOREVER.

Yes, the FWL had the wisest grand strategy as things stood at the time and should have reaped the benefits, ceterus paribus. I should have greentexted, this is the part I was shaking my head at:

>The problem with large navies is that it makes the ground game, which BT is really all about, require even more hand-waving to be relevant in the face of air and space power. The amount of hand-waving you have to do to explain why the SLDF was bothering to fight on the ground when they could have been rendering planets utterly uninhabitable with the SLN is already significant.
>Then you run into the issue of border defences. Anywhere that has a WarShip is basically off-limits unless you have more WarShips that are better.

>>44762339
So you going to actually provide and argument for your point of view or just shake your head and greentext and just assume everyone knows what you know and that your point of view is absolute and unapproachable?

Not even that guy, though I'm sure the thread won't believe that.

>>44762027
>The amount of hand-waving you have to do to explain why the SLDF was bothering to fight on the ground when they could have been rendering planets utterly uninhabitable with the SLN is already significant.
What is the reunification war, Alex?

>>44762251

ATOW's more recent so its costs do win. How much are the Mausers, out of interest?

Infantry platoon construction is handled in Tech Manual. I try not to break the system too much, it was kludged together to try and reconcile existing platoon types with converted role-playing game weapons and that makes it highly vulnerable to things like "and now this platoon has FedCom-era armour which isn't encumbering but provides a damage divisor of 2, and they're armed with ballistic M61 Federated Barrets because lol ~1 damage per trooper and they have captured ER Heavy Support Lasers from the Clans so my Platoon does like 30 damage out to 21 hexes and can soak down 56 points of damage, your move faggots!

Rules for Field Guns are in TacOps, though to be honest I never use them. My group has always just used vehicles for artillery support, so even when scenarios gave you X number of Y artillery pieces off-board we treated it as having an appropriate number of Chaparral/Long Tom III carrier/etc vees sitting off-board.

>>44762376
We've had this discussion a billion times. That's probably why he's shaking his head.

>>44761833
Aren't Lyrans a bit needler-crazy?
They did invent the firedrake.

>>44762401

>What is the reunification war, Alex?

That's what I mean, though. Dick-waving aside, why bother fighting to capture planets that you logically don't need (population will be a pain in the ass, there's enough metal in the Terran asteroid belt alone to run your war machine on for centuries, etc) rather than just moving WarShips in system and threatening total genocide unless they comply utterly with your demands? Why try to occupy the planet with ground forces rather than just having a WarShip sit overhead with enough nukes or big rocks to render the planet essentially or totally uninhabitable if they misbehave? Especially for the SLN, which literally had enough ships to do that to every Periphery world with Squadrons left over to do other stuff.

I actually like WarShips. It's just that the focus of BT is 'Mechs, and the more WarShips you have the harder it is to explain why the focus is on them and not on WarShips. You very rapidly hit a point where the explanation becomes "It is, it just is, OK?" rather than having a logical argument.

Then again the same thing happens with pretty much every facet of the game, I guess.

>>44762320

They do. However, it's a lot cheaper and easier to build new Pocket WarShips like that than it is to build a new WarShip, so if something goes wrong and the ASFs win it's easier to soak the loss.

>>44762581

No more so than anyone else really. Until then Needlers were good for Marines since they could expect their enemies to have light or no armour and they wouldn't hole a ship if something went wrong, but outside that Needlers were pretty niche for everyone since the same things that make them good for space make them bad anywhere else, especially anything with real armour.

They did use the Firedrake a lot, but to be honest it's hard to blame them. 35 kg for a weapon that has that range, that damage, and those anti-infantry properties, why wouldn't you start sticking them on everything?

>>44762405
960's are 8k and 1200's are 10k. Anon get out of my head. Its not too wrong to have jump infantry putting out 20 pts out to 9 hexes with a divisor of 2.

I have seen a heavy support laser platoon do bad things to mechs though. This guy had managed to have it live through enough fights to be a 2 gunner and he would vtol in that bad boy behind a hill. One turn later that thing is on top of it hosing down a 15 hex circle. Made me wish I played with arty so I could decommission it.

As an aside. Has anyone here played on the various mekwars servers?

>>44762738
>That's what I mean, though. Dick-waving aside, why bother fighting to capture planets that you logically don't need (population will be a pain in the ass, there's enough metal in the Terran asteroid belt alone to run your war machine on for centuries, etc) rather than just moving WarShips in system and threatening total genocide unless they comply utterly with your demands? Why try to occupy the planet with ground forces rather than just having a WarShip sit overhead with enough nukes or big rocks to render the planet essentially or totally uninhabitable if they misbehave?
frankly, this issue already exists with DropShips and just in the base setting.

it's basically one of the underlying assumptions of 99.9% of sci-fi that people aren't gonna use ''rocks fall, everybody dies'' and battletech is no different

>>44762885
This, familia.

>>44762738
Plus at least with the Star League I think there was a measure of arrogance regarding the conflict. The point of it was to rule the people on those planets, and how can they know they're wrong if they're dead?

>>44762991

>how can they know they're wrong if they're dead?

That would be the dick-waving part, yes.

>>44762885

Yeah. What I'm trying to get at is that the more WarShips you have the harder it is to hand-wave away, especially after stuff like Turtle Bay or the (Second) SLDF blowing the Jaguars away on Huntress as their last resort because they had space superiority.

>>44763086
You can't hand-wave the dick-waving, anon. Then you'd be hand-dick-waving.

What brigade that's dead in 3145 would you bring back if you had the choice?

I'd choose the Stewart Dragoons. Always liked them. Then again, it would require the League to actually take back some of the Stewart worlds from the Wolves.

>>44761833
From what I can find the Dracs import their Blazers from the Mariks. At least they carry vibrokatanas for back-up.

>>44762738
>>44762885
>>44763086
I've said it before and I'll say it again; the only way that large numbers of naval assets work is if significant planetary anti-space weapons also exist

>Ninety minutes later, the last vessel to furl its sail, the Buford, reported ready to jump.

>Major Miklos Karabin stood in the center of the holotank.
>"Mister Ritt," he called to the on-duty jump engineer. "Take us out of here."
>"Aye, sir. Jump drives on line. Initiating sequence."

>The first of two warning tones sounded hollowly through the Invisible Truth. Moments later, a more urgent klaxon signaled that the ship was about to make the translation into hyperspace.

>"Sir, I've got a ta . . . csaoun . . ." The sensor operator's voice, clear at first, slurred and dopplered down to nothing, as the Kearny-Fuchida drive buried deep within the huge WarShip's armored hull ripped a hole in the fabric of the universe and flung the Invisible Truth through it into the void of hyperspace. As the Truth reappeared at the nadir of the fleet's next waypoint, the shouted words seemed to run backward at high speed. ". . . shflarf . .. oming JumpShip."

>"Say again." Karabin shivered as his body threw off the stomach-churning after-effects of the hyperspace jump.

>"Sir, I thought I saw the EMP/tachyon flare of an incoming JumpShip as we made the jump," the technician said. "If that's what it was, there's a good chance whoever it was will know we were there."
>"Play it back."
>As Karabin looked over her shoulder, the sensor operator cued up the last few seconds of the WarShip's sensor log. Most sensor displays did not show a graphic representation of the area they covered. Usually, the readouts consisted of "waterfall displays," showing bright spots in places where a contact had occurred. Not as familiar with the system as Petty Officer Margaret Culp, the OOD recognized the wide white band as the electromagnetic pulse generated by a JumpShip. The trace flared to life for a few seconds before the screen, overloaded by the Truth's own electromagnetic emissions, whited out. When it cleared again, the battle cruiser had already phased in at their present location.

>>44763714
>"Any chance that it was a reflection of our jump flare?" Karabin's brow was creased with the effort to make sense of the fleeting contact.
>"Possible, but I don't think so, sir." Culp replayed the short digital recording. "We've been trading log records with other ships for the past couple of months, including the sensor traces of our own vessels. I've seen the Truth's EM signature from about every angle there is, and that ain't it."

>The OOD knew better than to question Culp on sensor readings. The tech was said to be one of the best.

>Karabin straightened, placed his hands on his sacroiliac, and arched his back, relishing the click of vertebrae falling into place. Sometimes, it seemed like he spent too much time on his feet.
>"All right. I'll log it in. I don't think we've got anything to worry about. We were gone before he jumped in. Even if it was a Clanner, he's not going to be able to track us. No one can track ships through hyperspace, not even the Clans."

>Returning to the watch-stander's bridge position, Karabin collapsed gratefully into the heavily padded, yet uncomfortable seat. For several minutes, he pecked away at the keyboard in the station's command console. The log entry was short and to the point. "Just before jump, an anomalous EMP was detected. Sensor scans were inconclusive." He signed the notation with a flourish, using a light-pen, and consigned the report to the battle cruiser's memory core.

>Sliding away from the console, Karabin wandered around the control deck for a few minutes, looking over the shoulders of the various technicians before getting back to his position in the center of the bridge holotank. After ten minutes of watching the miniature starships floating in the air above the deck he forgot about the incident.

So was it ever revealed what it was? Was Word of Blake somehow tracking them?

>>44763746

It was implied to be WoB shadowing them, potentially to extract "Lucas Penrose" after he killed Morgan Hasek-Davion.

But that whole plotline was dropped and has been ignored ever since Prince of Havoc.

It could have just been someone else jumping in as they were jumping out. But the WoB is probably more likely.

>>44763714
>>44763746
This is really spooky to read.

>>44764030
Any idea what the original plot with that was supposed to be? Why would Blakists want Morgan dead?

>>44764384
Why would the blakists do half the things they did?

>>44764384

No idea. They had Victor swear he'd find out who did it and punish them, then later that same book he gives zero fucks, the plotline's forgotten, and everything is about setting up the FedCom Civil War.

They might have been planting the seed for the original version of the Jihad they had planned, or just derped and left a plot line that was abandoned at some stage in the writing process in the novel.

As to why the WoB would want Morgan dead, they supposedly wanted to wipe out the Clans. If Operation Serpent fell apart on the way to Huntress- which could very well have happened- it would have failed. That could potentially have given them the opportunity to come to the table with their secret forces, especially if the next proper go at the Clans doesn't happen for another 15+ years, which is about what you'd be looking at for rebuilding and political animosities to die down after Serpent failed. Particularly when you consider that Bulldog was expected to take at least another year to complete- the Jags and other Clans could have mounted a counter-attack in the interim since more of the Clan would have survived. Probably not enough to have prevented their Absorbtion, but still.

Or they just wanted to kill Morgan because he was loyal to Victor and carried a lot of respect. With him around the FedCom Civil War would have been over a lot faster, with the AFFS rallying around him and punting Katherine in short order rather than dithering for five years.

Finally he was the best military leader after Anastasius and Victor, might as well kill him before getting your Jihad on.

>>44764548

So that the Capellans can be the strongest IS faction in the Dark Age. XIN SHENG XIN SHENG!

But seriously, yes. A lot of what WoB did was pants on head retarded even if you take them at their word as to what they were trying to achieve. A lot less left hand not knowing what the right is doing and a lot more the left foot and right hand working together to stage a coup against the head, which is trying to bite the left knee to death.

>>44762738
>That's what I mean, though. Dick-waving aside, why bother fighting to capture planets that you logically don't need (population will be a pain in the ass, there's enough metal in the Terran asteroid belt alone to run your war machine on for centuries, etc) rather than just moving WarShips in system and threatening total genocide unless they comply utterly with your demands? Why try to occupy the planet with ground forces rather than just having a WarShip sit overhead with enough nukes or big rocks to render the planet essentially or totally uninhabitable if they misbehave? Especially for the SLN, which literally had enough ships to do that to every Periphery world with Squadrons left over to do other stuff.


You are a drooling idiot, and here is why:

Your entire argument is predicated on the Star League having all this ships.

>>44764548
because the whole jihad plotline was a heroic try by CGL at backfilling things for the retarded nonsense that wizkids had shat out for DA, and since wizkid's shit didn't make sense, the WoB's plans necessarily ended up not making sense, either

>>44764680

>You are a drooling idiot, and here is why:

>Your entire argument is predicated on the Star League having all this ships.

You may want to go and have a look at the numbers of ships the SLN had.

They had 180 McKennas, over 200 Volgas, 70 Aegises and 400 Sovetskii Soyuzes. 850 ships in just 4 classes. This isn't touching on their Vincents, Lolas, Congresses, Black Lions, Texases and so on.

Like holy shit, did you even bother to read the books and see how lolfuckhueg the Star League Navy was compared to everyone else?

There might be a drooling idiot here, but it ain't me.

>>44764744
My question was more rhetorical than anything else.

>>44764837
I know, I just hate wizkids and wanted to rant a bit

>>44764782
And just for further "Fucking Star League, man." In 2765, the House Navies are as follows: the Capellan Confederation: 37 WarShips, mostly cruisers.
Draconis Combine: 42 Warships, mostly lighter weight ships.
Federateds Suns: 51 Warships, as the *second strongest power in the IS at the time.*
Free Worlds League: 47 WarShips, with solid naval doctrine built around Battleships.
Lyran Commonwealth: 62 ships, with 27 of those being Mako Corvettes.

The Periphery States:
Magistracy of Canopus: 22 ships, 20 of which are Pintos.
Outworlds Alliance: 20 Pintos
Rim Worlds Republic: 243, most of those coming from the SLDF mothballs because muh Richard. Note, the SLDF *knew* this.
Taurians: 31 WarShips. Most of them Pintos.

So the entirety of the other major powers in the IS at the time had a sum total of... 555 ships. SLDF Stronk.

>>44755101
I'm just getting back into the game... so 3 years? Four?

Which clan is less likely to do anything important in the near future, the Ravens or the Coyotes?

>>44765291
ravens, probably
nothing happens in that part of space and they don't seem aggressive

>>44764613
>>They might have been planting the seed for the original version of the Jihad they had planned...

*record scratch*

Hold up. Original version? I've not heard of this before.

>>44764782
Holy shit. They would fucking SHRUG if they ran into all the Leviathans in a fleet engagement. That is fucking absurd.

>>44764782
>>44765031
1)The Star League only exists for part of the timeline, and one that's not where most games take place. So it's irrelevant for most games.

2) Even if the SLDF has overwhelming superiority in the Warship sphere, it doesn't stop mech warfare, just as ships and planes in real life don't stop tanks and infantry from fighting.

3) If the goal is to make the warship side of things more sensible for 4th SW or later, why not assume everyone has more ships? We're talking retcons anyways, so I don't see any issue with the FWL having a dozen Thera task forces, while the Lyrans have half a dozen Mjolnir battle groups and a bunch of cruiser squadrons, and the Feddies have detroyer and pocket warship pickets and a battlefleet, and so forth. Everyone has more ships, but it still doesn't even begin to invalidate ground combat

4) If you do seriously think that even if every planet has a couple of warships it totally invalidates mech combat, I must conclude you're both a dullard and lacking in imagination.

>>44765031
>Rim Worlds Republic: 243

RWR OP, nerf nao

>>44765031
>Free Worlds League: 47 WarShips, with solid naval doctrine built around Battleships.

[HAPPY PURPLE BURD NOISES]

>>44766171
>60 of them are bonaventures, and another 50 are vigilants
frankly, they'd probably have been better off with more cap missile DS

>>44764782
Apparently I'm the only one who doesn't give a single fuck about all the SL's OP bullshit, and hates their existence as a faction. There's nothing interesting about "MUH BIG DICK PLAYA" - they should have been the size of two, maybe even three of the Great Houses, but have to influence things via diplomacy and small military actions to keep the balance. Basically, Concert of Europe style rather than "HURR WE STRONK"

>>44765486

They haven't really detailed it much, only touched on it briefly in a BattleChat or two.

Thefast version is that it would have been shorter and less destructive, Victor would have lead the Coalition forces (and he's also shorter and less destructive than Stone, huehuehuehue), but the Ghost Bears would have featured more heavily.

>>44765291

Hard to say with either. The Dracs are about to implode and the Ravens are opportunists, so they might snip off some territory. The Coyotes are off in the Homeworlds which nobody's heard from in a while, so they might be quietly pottering around out there or they might be about to go balls deep into the Clan OZs tomorrow in a glorious shitstorm of Clan Invasion 2: Electric Boogaloo.

>>44765802

It is absurd, hence my comment about the only reason the Star League had to ever fight on the ground being dick-waving. I wasn't joking when I said that, not even a little bit. It also illustrates the issues that start cropping up when you WarShips in really large numbers.

>>44765802

The Star League era is a time when the Leviathan II and III would actually fit, especially since the Star League would be the only faction capable of building them. The situation's already so ridiculously asymmetrical that giving them 200 of the fucking things isn't going to change much.

>>44766194
failure to recognize humor is a sign of autism, anon

>>44766208
>Clan Invasion 2: Electric Boogaloo

I... want it(?)

Anything to fuck Rasalhague, even a little bit.

>>44766208
to be fair, during the last big war pre-amaris (reunification), the SLDF navy wasn't NEARLY as overwhelming as in 2750; hell, the taurians gave them a pretty good run for their money in space, at least before they got midway'd

>>44766234
What's wrong with Rasalhague?

>>44766152

>Even if the SLDF has overwhelming superiority in the Warship sphere, it doesn't stop mech warfare, just as ships and planes in real life don't stop tanks and infantry from fighting.

You clearly don't have the first clue about how destructive WarShips can be, especially in large numbers.

The Star League could have literally parked a McKenna or Texas accompanied by two Sov Soys and a Volga or Lola III over every single Taurian planet in 2750, and that's assuming every planet in the Pleiades and Badlands Cluster was inhabited. Do you know what impact that would have had on their total fleet and ability to intimidate every other faction at once? Fucking nothing. Do you know what the Taurians could have done about it? Also fucking nothing.

So how are you going to get your 'Mechs off-planet then? They're effectively interdicted at that point. Nothing in or out unless the SLN says so. And any time they chose to they can glass those planets.

So please. Go on. Tell me how ground-based combat makes any sense and has any relevance in that environment without resorting to "because reasons."

>If you do seriously think that...

It doesn't totally invalidate it. It does, however, escalate things to asking why one force hasn't been annihilated from orbit as soon as they so much as stepped outside their hidden base, if they're so lucky as to have a hidden base, and it does nothing to address why the 'Mechs are deciding the outcome of combat when someone can just HPG for a WarShip to come in and stomp the other side.

I *like* the space game. I play it every few weeks. It just doesn't really work with the majority of themes in BT and its focus on ground combat. It just means they don't fit together well and as soon as you posit WarShips existing beyond a few dozen total the setting runs into issues it was never really designed to handle.

>>44766208
>the Ravens are opportunists, so they might snip off some territory

They already have, iirc.

>>44766416
The US, Soviets, and a few other countries could destroy a huge portion of the populated world any time they like, but don't, despite fighting a whole bunch of wars.

But hey, keep stroking your tiny pecker to the SLDF's budget.

>>44766474

They don't do that because there's nowhere else to go.

Now imagine that the Star League is the US and that the next most powerful nation is the Monaco.

Now imagine that the US is one planet and Monaco is another one. A planet that the US gives zero fucks about and can glass at any time with minimal effort and even less in the way of consequences.

Are you getting it yet, or are you going to come up with another totally irrelevant analogy? The reason that we have small wars all over the place now despite the nuclear arsenals of developed countries is that either the developed countries don't give a shit about those wars, those wars are proxy wars between developed nations, or the developed nations are benefitting from those small wars.

And also because MAD is a thing, and even if you "win" once a war has escalated to flinging nukes dying would probably have been preferable to trying to survive in whatever made it through.

>>44766474
You're missing his point, which is that you can completely immobilize your opponent's ground forces if you have space superiority. Not partially, COMPLETELY. They leave the planet? They die in space. They leave a place where orbital bombardment would cause civilian casualties? They die in the wilderness. They would have to FORCE the side with space superiority to come down to the planet, and they'd have to do that at a time when team warship hasn't had the time to bring in a ground force that outnumbers them 50 to 1 (which is, frankly, not a playable TT game). They could utterly immobilize an entire state's military and then just sit back until they surrender. This isn't like the US/USSR/China who still have some limits on force projection. This is like having the US fleet parked between Australia and Somalia, and the two have declared war on each other. Nobody is going to be able to do ANYTHING to the other without the navy's sayso.

>>44766524
>>44766538
Why are you two responding to bait?

>>44766463
Correct. They even took a little from the Feds.

>>44766362
They're writer's pets. Not nearly as bad as XIN SHENG!!! but still noticeable.

>>44766463

I think they took some Davion planets after the Caleb mess.

But if the Dracs have the seemingly inevitable civil war between Yori Kurita and Kanrei Toranaga and the Bears decide it's been too long since they last mauled someone they're going to be able to carve out a fair few worlds in the chaos if they so desire.

Depends on whether they think they can get away with it though.

>>44766554
>Depends on whether they think they can get away with it though.

FM 3145 is telling me that they're military straight up isn't structured to occupy planets, and that they're having to threaten some of them with bombardment just to keep the peace.

>>44766612

I more meant if they thought they can deal with reprisals from the Dracs after they sort their own shit out or not.

Planetary insurrections in BT are Schroedinger-level shit. You never know if you're going to get one and you never know if it's going to work or not because that's entirely arbitrary and depends purely on the plotline the authors want to run.

You can't even predict the outcome based on previous events, shitty revolutions have succeeded and long-running, successful ones sometimes roll over and ask to be dominated by the faction they were fighting five seconds ago.

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would you?

>>44766775
looks kinda like a shad I came up with once.
yeah, sure I would

>>44766775

I don't know. For that era and rule level you could argue a Clan ER Large Laser in place of the LPP+Cap. If you are really considering using it for anti-infantry purposes I would also suggest giving it an Active Probe at the expense of some armour and either the Flamer or an ER ML.

Also and this is purely personal I don't like flamers. I live somewhere that bushfires are a not insignificant threat and even though it's a game I can't let go of the FUCK FIRE NO instinct. Particularly since the SPL is almost as good against infantry for damage and also has a -2 to-hit modifier with the same ranges.

>>44766554
They took both Dracs and Davion planets

>>44766823
>Bushfire

Where in Straya are ya cunt?

>>44766999

Weren't the Drac ones basically given to them in exchange for fucking over the Suns? That was the impression I got, but I could be wrong.

>>44767003

Queensland master race.

>>44767010
It looks that way right now, but as the author said, we can't know how much the Dracs really consented to that. It may be that they just don't have enough forces to seize the planets back at the moment.

Dang, I never realized how invested I am in seeing whether the Ravens can get their shit together. It feels like a genuine, interesting challenge.

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>>44766823
>I don't know. For that era and rule level you could argue a Clan ER Large Laser in place of the LPP+Cap.
Yeah but I like how the capacitor makes you play not only the turn you're on but the next one, and the one after that. Also, that's a hike of like 200 BV. Plus, this way you have to work for your PSRs.
>Flamer
I like the versatility of being able to start fires. Once you start mixing jumpers and fire, you can't really scratch the itch hard enough. I mean, that was almost an ER flamer just so it could start fires from farther away.

Have a pseudo-thug bracket-fire thing that has been knocking around in my head for a while. I might have actually posted something like it here before, but I can't remember.

>>44767010
iirc they did get a few planets, but then took some more. Check FM 3145 or something, I don't have them available atm

>>44767045
>Dang, I never realized how invested I am in seeing whether the Ravens can get their shit together

magpie pls go and stay go

>>44767601

>[Desire for more shiny objects intensifies]

>>44762027
>The amount of hand-waving you have to do to explain why the SLDF was bothering to fight on the ground when they could have been rendering planets utterly uninhabitable with the SLN is already significant.

This post smells like it belongs to a bridge.

>>44768509

In 2750 the SLN has easily more than 1000 WarShips, mostly Cruisers or heavier.

As indicated in >>44766416 they could park entire squadrons over every planet in at least one Periphery nation and still have enough ships left over to completely fuck up the navies of every other faction combined, per >>44765031.

FASA might not have fully thought things through when they wrote those numbers. Whether they did think it through or not, the size of the SLN means they could simply have wiped out other factions entirely without ever bothering to set foot on their worlds.

The *only* reason the Star League fought on the ground is that the game is about 'Mechs, not about the logical consequences of someone having that many ships.

TL; DR: If anyone is trolling or being ignorant here, it's you.

You think by 3145 people are finding treasure troves of Blakist equipment and founding mercenary companies?

>>44769149

The WoB wasn't really into caching stuff. Anything they put away they probably had to crack open again to prosecute the Jihad.

But whatever works for your game, yada yada.

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>>44753117
Does /btg/ write stupid shit on their mech when they paint them?

>>44769680

Mackie with "Getssum!" On the dick gun

>>44769149
That, plus House material squirreled away during the Disarmament.

>>44762738
>there's enough metal in the Terran asteroid belt alone to run your war machine on for centuries
> just moving WarShips in system and threatening total genocide unless they comply utterly with your demands
Conquest seemed a more economical source of resources, and genocide is not an economical way to acquire new industrial and diplomatic output.

>You very rapidly hit a point where the explanation becomes "It is, it just is, OK?" rather than having a logical argument.
Most players define "logical" as "things I have directly encountered in my own life experience," which is a sort of wholly inadequate way to rate things.

>>44763662
Corollary: the only way significant surface-to-orbit weapons will develop is if orbital genocide is a thing that warships actually start doing.

>>44765291
There's a fair chance that the Clan Homeworlds will have been mysteriously asteroided to death the next time we see them.

>keish is not pie, captcha

>>44769818

>>keish

Quiche.

>>44769818

>Conquest seemed a more economical source of resources, and genocide is not an economical way to acquire new industrial and diplomatic output.

>Corollary: the only way significant surface-to-orbit weapons will develop is if orbital genocide is a thing that warships actually start doing.

Admiral McKenna took over Terra by showing he had the means and the will to orbitally bombard anyone who didn't do what he said.

IC the Ares Conventions and similar treaties that get ignored the moment shit gets real exist to try and prevent that, but again anyone with the power to ignore them does so whenever it suits them and whoever they're fighting probably can't do shit about it even after the fact.

OOC the reason those treaties and conventions exist is so that 'Mechs, not WarShips, are the military asset that matters the most.

>>44769970
McKenna aimed at specific political figures in bunkers, though, not at military forces dug into facilities he wanted to take intact. Nor was he bombarding the populace at large (which always seems to rile the populace up more).

>>44769913
Whoops. I knew that looked wrong.

>>44769818
>Corollary: the only way significant surface-to-orbit weapons will develop is if orbital genocide is a thing that warships actually start doing.
Not necessarily. All that would be needed is somebody realizing "hey, wait a second, these WarShips could bombard our ass from orbit and we couldn't do dick about it" before work on such systems starts.

>>44769680
I was considering doing a Lothian mech with "ROMANES EUNT DOMUS"

>>44770718

But then people would either go "fuck this shit, have a swarm of asteroids accelerated to an appreciable fraction of C" or "fuck this shit, there's enough room and resources in our home system to last us forever, let's go back there."

Neither of which is really BT. The game barely holds together as it is, you don't want people thinking too hard about the logical end points of space combat at all.

>>44769970
>OOC the reason those treaties and conventions exist is so that 'Mechs, not WarShips, are the military asset that matters the most.
Honestly, I could *almost* see that as an actual in-universereason too, even if not one that's actually publicly stated. Back in the days of "Mechwarriors are, if not actual nobility, practical nobility by simple virtue of mech ownership," making sure that the BattleMech is this revered and valued thing allows them to maintain their power. The Ares Conventions are what actually sustain BT's neo-space-feudalism by artificially extending the useful life of an obsolete but symbolic weapon that's tied to the fundamental social structure.

>>44772228
>But then people would either go "fuck this shit, have a swarm of asteroids accelerated to an appreciable fraction of C" or "fuck this shit, there's enough room and resources in our home system to last us forever, let's go back there."
Again, that problem already exists.

Fact is, if you don't play with worthless assholes who spend all their time rules lawyering settings until they don't make any sense and hang out on spacebattles.net all damn day, battletech works fine, with or without warships et all.
If you DO have those people and are playing anything sci-if you've already lost, so why bother planning for them?

>>44772879
>Fact is, if you don't play with worthless assholes who spend all their time rules lawyering settings until they don't make any sense and hang out on spacebattles.net all damn day, battletech works fine, with or without warships et all.
>If you DO have those people and are playing anything sci-if you've already lost, so why bother planning for them?
FUCKING EXACTLY
I've GM'd traveller for YEARS, and I've made it standing policy that the second somebody mentions any phrase even remotely along the lines of ''kinetic bombardment'', 'fractional-c'' ''von neumann machine'' or other shit like that, they're out and it's improved things immensely

everybody who attempts to 'science' sci-fi settings should be shot

>>44773017
>to 'science' sci-fi settings should be shot

Just give it up already and admit that what you're playing is 'Science Fantasy', it sounds like you'll be happier that way.

With properly Hard Sci-Fi you should be able to apply all known science to anything that isn't the central postulate and get viable results.

>>44773169
Battletech has FTL. That alone pushes it into Science Fantasy.

>>44770718
The weapons would only be developed in proportion to the extent that the developers expect to need them. So if people are like "no, the Dracs would NEVER exterminate a whole planet" then they're not going to bother making weapons they don't expect to use.

>>44772228
>you don't want people thinking too hard about the logical end points of space combat at all.
I find "mass extinction" hard to credit as a "logical end point," but yeah, I take your meaning.

>>44773520
Science fiction is allowed to have fictional science, like FTL, provided that the fictional science operates by universal principles instead of by whims of the plot.

I talked it over with a friend and it's all obvious to me now. The Spirit Cats are gonna be the ilClan after challenging Devlin Stone to a coin flip for Terra and winning it by calling edge

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>>44773520
Thanks for reminding us.

>tfw we're all going to die on this rock
>tfw all mankind's accomplishments are destined to end up under layers of mud
>tfw we can see our fate as others will see it. There will be little legacy. No great expressions of what we once were. Our technology, our achievements if ever they are seen again will spawn none of the awe that filled our conquests.

>>44774034
too edgy for me

>>44774034
>think of the glory if we succeed

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>>44774034
>>44774297
>throwing your Clan's dignity away with a coin toss
Thank god they got wiped out. At least the Spirit Cats have gone back to their roots of being Cats instead of pussies.

>>44774034
I would, in all seriousness, be 100% fine with this.

>yfw Terra now part of FWL

>>44774090

Impermanence is a beautiful thing m8. Part of the beauty of snow and flowers is their fragility

>>44773169
>With properly Hard Sci-Fi you should be able to apply all known science to anything that isn't the central postulate and get viable results.
Than what the fuck are you doing playing battletech you triple nigger

I'm itching to read about robo-action.

What are some good Battletech novels?

>>44774604
The ones about operation bulldog are pretty good

>>44774522
What'chu talkin'bout, willis?

I never claimed this was hard sci-fi and was advising the other anon not to also.

We all know B-Tech runs on rule-of-cool with a locus around Giant Stompy Robots.

>>44774604
Wolves on the Border

>>44773169
>With properly Hard Sci-Fi you should be able to apply all known science to anything that isn't the central postulate and get viable results.

Amusingly, Warhammer 40K actually handles this well.

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>>44774297

>tfw no Battletech movie
>tfw no Basil Poledouris to orchestrate
>tfw no 1980's James Cameron to direct
>tfw no sexy warmongering Clan gal as one of the characters
>tfw the Battlemechs won't be a mixture of CGi and physical models

Why ain't I a producer. I'd be havin' superior fucking tastes in scifi films to produce.

Is there any way to make SSW larger? It's too damn tiny on my screen, and the widescreen setting doesn't increase the text size at all.

>>44775227

>no long term anime series OVA about Lyrans versus the FWL and the struggle between ambition, democracy and autocracy.
>documents the personal rivalry between a reluctant FWL admiral and an ambitious Lyran aristocrat who is trying to change the system

>>44775227
>no slice of life manga about a tsundre smoke jaguar taken as a bondswoman by a wrasslehog trying to adapt to spheroid culture

>>44776432
>>44776725
Pleb alert, pleb alert!
>>>/a/ is that way

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>>44776432
fund it

>>44776988
>LoGH
>pleb

ya dun goofed, nigga

>>44775227
>tfw no strong pornography featuring loving, consentual sex between an outworlder fighter pilot and his four wives

I'm considering using AToW for a space horror game. If I started off in the base BT universe (no particular era) what would you add to make it 2spooky?

>>44777292
Misjumped ship, you explore it.

spoopy blakists doing spoopy things

>>44777292

An area with shit tons of warship wrecks, almost all of it is useless beyond scrap. Combined with ghost stories about a Star League task force that disappeared around the time of the Amaris coup.

>>44777292
Set in on a Jumpship. Reveal that HAL9000 is in the computers.

>>44777292
Might want to check out Eclipse Phase for some good horror hooks.

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>>44777292
>misjump
>problem with sail
>detect a jumpship orbiting a planet in-system for some reason
>move in to retrieve sail
>SOS coming from the surface
>decide to investigate it while engineers work to switch out sails
>land on planet
>find derelict vessel of unknown origin
Go from there

>>44766548
>They're writer's pets. Not nearly as bad as XIN SHENG!!! but still noticeable.

Dude, what? I'm hoping you actually meant the Ghost Bears, because Rasalhague got screwed over so badly as to no longer exist. They're possibly the polar opposite of writer's pets.

>>44778654
There's literally nothing wrong with the Ghost Bears as a faction.

>>44769818
>Corollary: the only way significant surface-to-orbit weapons will develop is if orbital genocide is a thing that warships actually start doing.

"I'll take the First Succession War for $100, Alex!"
If they used unrestricted NBC warfare, what are the odds they didn't glass worlds by orbital bombardment, right up until they ran out of warships to do it with?

>>44778869
Or, you know, the reunification war

>>44778869
The fact that better ground-to-orbit weapons don't exist is more illogical than warship power, if anything.

>>44777648
Can't find the link, but I remember reading about a fully automated exploration jumpship that disappeared after launch. Have the players find that ship, and the reason why it disappeared.

>>44769680
One of my players has a Copper Security Mech that he painted in Pirate colors and painted "Fuck the Police" on it.

>>44777292

Necromo Nightmare.

Or just crib from The Exapnse, do it fast enough and your group might not realise.

>>44778812

>Move a bit slower during the Invasion
>Turns out OK because this lets them completely pacify their new worlds, and their new civilians love them once they get to know them
>Beat the shit out of the Wolves and Hell's Horses during the late 3050s, kicking the Horses out completely and taking 1/3 to 1/2 of the original Wolf OZ
>This turns out better than expected because instead of blaming the Bears who they've had a grudge with going back over a century, the Horses blame the Wolves who they've never had a beef with and ally with the Bears to wreck the Wolves next time
>They also capture so many Rasalhague worlds that what's left of the FRR starts working towards reunification with the Bears
>Smash the fuck out of the Dracs and Cats during the FCCW era
>Smash the fuck out of the Robes during the Jihad
>Smash the fuck out of the Dracs and Cats again during the Republic era
>Send a Galaxy of troublemakers to a border world in the DA hoping they'll finally go rogue and give them a reason to wipe them out, except that Galaxy decides to stop being disloyal. And the world they've captured loves them for it since being conquered by the Bears is literally that awesome, and they have no intent of trying to hold it for themselves since they're just that altruistic

I could go on all day without mentioning how bullshit their Leviathans are. Anything that doesn't initially seem to work in the Bears' favour is later revealed to have been so good for them it borders on divine providence and nothing actually bad happens to them unless everyone else is getting owned even harder. The Bears are extremely boring. The only thing they have over the CapCon is that the Bears' major successes happened in sourcebooks rather than novels so they were a lot easier to miss at the time. Otherwise, they've been more successful than the Capellans, arguably for longer.

>>44779380
I want to see a ghots burr-crapcon war

>>44779448
... b-but you already know how it will end.

>G-Bear and Carpcon trade a few rounds, develop mutual respect and ally to dominate the sphere. G-Bears become IrCran for Gririous Xin SHeng!

>>44779448

If neither side managed to win the accumulated fiat would be dense enough to forma a singularity powerful enough to destroy the setting.

That's actually the best outcome, you don't want Bear and Cap power mixed together. The rest of the setting may as well not exist any more at that point for all the effect it'll have on things.

>>44778654 here
Okay, I wasn't so much calling for another round of "fuck the Bears" with that post, as trying to point out that calling Rasalhague writer's pets was a very silly thing to do.

>>44779380
>all that makes sense
>it's "bullshit" because they act in character
Literally the only real complaint that is viable against them is the trial of possession against the Nova Cats that got its outcome changed.

You can complain about them winning, but its for real reasons instead of Capellan fiat a la Guerrero/St Ives/Jihad/etc.

>>44779711

The "real reasons" for the Bears are the same as for the Capellans. They never lose because they have a writer who's highly placed and very biased in their favour.

"We never make mistakes, and if we do seem to have made a mistake it turns out to be the most genius move ever" is bullshit. That's not "character," that's the fingerprints left behind by author(s) who are more invested in their faction succeeding than anything else.

>>44779909
>it's all the author's fault, the facts don't matter!
that's nice, dear.

>>44780001

The Wolves were once written as being clever and having foresight, which allowed them to win. Not only does everyone *still* bitch and moan about "Wolf fiat" when the Wolves were beaten red-haired stepchildren for over 100 years, the Wolves _were getting beaten like red-haired stepchildren for over 100 years.

Bears? Apparently cleverer than the Wolves, with better foresight, haven't lost for nearly 100 years, and they have the best of the Clan militaries with a navy strong enough to take everyone else on with a decent chance of winning. Yet this is magically *not* a sign of authorial favouritism, and you aren't allowed to say it is, because...?

At least man up and admit it's Xin Sheng-level shit.

>>44779909
Except the writer always cited has almost never written for them and has rarely had any influence on their storyline. Wars of Reaving, that's the exception.
It ain't all what you think behind the curtain.

>>44780169
>and you aren't allowed
You're allowed to bitch and moan all you want, since that seems popular here.

Doesn't mean the bitching is grounded in good reasons.

What war should they have lost? It's like bitching that the Free Worlds League was someone's favorite since they didn't lose a war between 3030 and 3067. You tell me what fight the Bears SHOULD have picked that they couldn't have won.

Pre-Jihad Ghost Bears (Jun 3067): 58 Clusters (effective strength: 45.2 Clusters)
Post-Jihad Ghost Bears (Aug 3079): 43 Clusters (effective strength: 21.5 Clusters)
Post-Jihad Kungsarme (Aug 3079): 11 Clusters (effective strength: 7 Clusters) plus "several battalions" of militia with Spheroid vehicles, aerospace fighters and infantry

Ghost Bear losses during the Jihad amounted to just over 52% of their pre-Jihad Touman. The Dominion fleet also lost 2 Leviathan IIs and a Volga, leaving them with 1 Leviathan II, 1 Night Lord and 2 Carracks.


The addition of 7 Kungsarme Clusters bring the Bears' strength up to 63% of their pre-Jihad numbers, though these cannot be considered to be the same quality as the Clan units they are replacing.


>b-b-b-b-but [my faction] suffered greater losses!!!!

Yeah? Why not cry about it some more? Ghost Bears still took a hefty beating. It's not a competition to be the queen of the pity party.

>>44753187
Steiner's Recon Lance?

>>44780403
Steiner medium battle armour.

>>44780226

And again the question you want to avoid is: _Why_ are the Bears always so powerful? Other Clans, even smart ones with lots of infrastructure, wax and wane. They even (gasp) _lose_ wars every so often, or at least get ground down so badly that their victory is phyrric.

Then there's how everything lines up for the Bears when they do fight, like the Wolves going full retard and not knowing so much as the basics while the Bears steamroll them, or the Dracs also being reamed by the Suns and unable to hold both off simultaneously. And the Horses, after being brutally humiliated by an enemy they've hated since the Golden Century, deciding to ally with the same enemy and attack another Clan that was opposed to the Bears. Or Omega Galaxy deciding they love the Bears after all and the population of Vega falling in love with them, working together to run off the Dracs. Or their "losses" like the Rasalhague trial being mitigated by the authors undoing some of the results and changing it so the Cats lost the majority of their fleet, or their "loss" to the Wolves gaining them the key to the remnant of the FRR demanding to be subjugated. Which in itself is questionable since every other instance I can find except for Judith Faber specifies that you have to win the Trial to keep any Bondsmen you wanted. In that case she insisted to be taken with the Jags so she could ROM their shit up, but there's nothing to suggest Ragnar would have wanted to go with the Bears to start with.

>>44780184

They've said before that a lot of people contribute to fleshing out storylines even if they don't write directly for the faction. Ben Rome has been around the upper echelons for a fair while now so pointing out he's probably had an influence is, I think, hardly unfair. Of course, now he's effectively the BT Line Dev, and for completely unrelated reasons the Bears got an even more super WarShip to go with their other super WarShip.

>>44780563
>And again the question you want to avoid is
No one is avoiding it, it's just not a good question. It's loaded and childish. If the Bears shouldn't be powerful, who should they lose to?

>Other Clans, even smart ones with lots of infrastructure, wax and wane.
Other Clans in literally completely different situations with different cultures.


>They even (gasp) _lose_ wars every so often, or at least get ground down so badly that their victory is phyrric.
>(gasp)
Meanwhile the Bears lost 52% of their strength and most of their fleet. That's pretty darn near a phyrric victory.

tl;dr the rest since it's the same, tired old bitching Medron-tier bitching about factions

Just tell me who the Wolves should lose to and we can discuss the logistics of if and how that would work. If you can't, well then you're able to answer your own crying.

>>44780730
Haha, my bad on that last line. Tell me who the Ghost Bears should lose to. I mean they should lose to someone, right?
I think I was going to write something about the Wolves and had it on my mind.

>>44780730
>No one is avoiding the question that I will now refuse to answer.

>>44780825
>lost half their touman
>too powerful
I'm sorry if you have brain problems and need everything presented to you in the form of answers to childish questions, anon.

Truly I'm only trying to answer the bear necessities.

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>>44780825
>disregards everything but his loaded question
Ah, trolling 101.

>>44780730

>Just tell me who the Wolves should lose to

We literally watched them getting reamed in turn by the Falcons, Bears, Horses and Lyrans for the 3057-migration period then grind themselves down to nothing establishing the Wolf Empire.

If the FWL gets its shit together they can 100%take the Wolves, as could the Lyrans if not for the Falcons. The Capellans would wreck them without slowing down on their other fronts. The Republic is an unknown because we haven't seen their hand yet.

They just haven't BTFO the Wolves because they're all dealing with other issues. The Wolves in this situation are both lucky and in territory they haven't been since 3049- things *seem* to be going well but we've also seen that turn to shit on them.

>If the Bears shouldn't be powerful, who should they lose to?

Maybe we're talking past each other. My issue with the Bears is that their characterisation always boils down to everything they do turning out to be right. Not developing new tech turns out to be the right idea because they then jump on the Improved version later, but in the meantime nobody else uses the advantages of new tech to get one over them, because... because. There's no good explanation, it's just that they never do.

Similarly, the Bears are supposed to respond slowly to new developments politically and strategically, except that they very rarely do move slowly at that level and when they do not only was it the correct response but nobody is able to press the advantage and get them on the back foot, because again... because. They don't. They never do.

This makes the Bears _boring_. No matter what happens to them, they're strong enough to tank any temporary loss and then smash any opposition flat. They just sit there, waiting for the next sourcebook that details how dumb their enemies were and how badly the Bears punished them for it.

They just sit there, waiting until it's time to rack up another win. There's no drama. There's no tension.

>>44780915

>>lost half their touman
>>too powerful

>I'ma ignore how they were still strong enough for ground-based military and their navy to be able to BTFO at least two of their five neighbouring powers any time they wanted, because MUH LOSS PERCENTAGES and MUH 2 LEVIATHAN IIs

OK then.

>>44780563
>effectively the BT Line Dev
He is not. Ask him.

>>44781073
Maybe they're boring. I don't really care about that because I don't play them. And I'm guessing you conceded the other points as not really solid since you didn't respond to them.

But really, at the end of the day when you're complaining about the Bears being too powerful, tell me who to and when they should have lost?

I mean I'm not saying they shouldn't lose. But tell me who to? You can't complain they're too strong if there's no one around them strong enough to knock them down who isn't already distracted.

Because if they're not losing wars, they're growing stronger. So it adds up for them to be strong. You may as well complain that no one has killed the whore faction off to the last tranny.

>>44781142
>they're more powerful than [my faction], please heed my tears!
Ok then.

>>44781142
You're complaining he's focusing on just numbers to justify their losses while at the same time you're using just numbers to justify that they're going to win.

Just because they have those numbers post Jihad doesn't mean the Bears will automatically win, anon.

>>44781182

>You can't complain they're too strong if there's no one around them strong enough to knock them down who isn't already distracted.

This is the core of your argument.

My counter point is that nobody around them ever gets strong unless they're going to attack someone else, often weakening themselves or that other faction enough for the Bears to take some territory.

And then nobody can do shit about it because they're too weak relative to the Bears, so they just win the next time too.

Every other faction suffers some kind of crisis. Civil unrest, military coup, incompetent leadership, invasion that turns out to be a disaster... but not the Bears. Never the Bears.

If the Bears commit to battle, you know what's going to happen. Not just then, but for the next 10 years as well because they're completely insulated from unintended consequences or just plain bad luck.

>And I'm guessing you conceded the other points as not really solid since you didn't respond to them.

>Blatantly weasels out of actually responding to any argument because he knows he's got nothing other than NO U
>Bitches and moans when people give up trying to pin him down and subject him to the obvious since that's clearly not going to work

Bravo.

>Ok then.

It's not [my faction], it's that they're the Capellans of the top of the map.

The CapCon is probably the only faction that could 1 v 1 the Bears, and if they ever tried the rest of the setting would be kind enough to stand back and watch, not taking advantage of it, because for some reason that's just what happens with those factions.

>>44779673
Presumably they meant the Rasalhague Dominion

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>>44781403
>the Piranha principle works
>"WAAAAAH!"
I'm sorry the Bears vex you so. They've never lost anything except half their touman and most of their navy. Damn the writers for not genociding them utterly!

>weasels out
That's you, m8. Good job not responding to points and then crying about them.

>bitches and moans
Says the guy bitching and moaning about a faction non-stop.

If the Bears make you this mad, just ignore them. They're boring, right?

>le capellan meme
Ok, so you're just shitposting at this point? The Bears were written with a sizable touman and strengths to begin with, things the Capellans didn't have. Let me know, little crybaby, when they pull off Guerro/Xin Sheng/St Ive war, etc.

>>44781551

>the Piranha principle works

The Piranha Principle applies to everyone but the Bears.

>The Bears were written with a sizable touman and strengths to begin with, things the Capellans didn't have.

The Caps did have both. Quelle surprise.

>when they pull off Guerro

1st Dominion War

>Xin Sheng

Free Rasalhague Republic demanding to be force-fed Big Bear Cock.

>St Ive war,

2nd Dominion War

>etc.

Vega, Leviathan II, Leviathan III...

>>44781691
>The Piranha Principle applies to everyone but the Bears.
In practice, you're wrong.

>The Caps did have both. Quelle surprise.
What, 13 regiments and 2 mech factories? XIN SHENG XIN SHENG XIN SHENG!

>1st Dominion War
So the Combine had a 2-1 advantage in battlemech regiments to clusters, AND a tech advantage? Wowzers.

>Free Rasalhague Republic demanding to be force-fed Big Bear Cock.
Yeah there certainly wasn't a resistance that lasted for decades.

>2nd Dominion War
Not being a fan of the Bears, I'll admit this one I'm hazy on. Did they rapetrain to Luthien and fug the Coordinator's daughter?

>Vega, Leviathan II, Leviathan III...
One planet and two warships? My, this is quite... not important? Or a big deal really, at all.

Really though, in all seriousness, I'm not a Bear fan and you're plainly a Bear hater, so this is a waste of our time. I agree the Bears are boring, you implicitly agree there isn't a war in the timeline so far they should have lost, so let's just agree to disagree on the faction as a whole and move on.

>>44781837
>two warships?
Two warships that are each capable of defeating approximately 2/3 of ALL OTHER NAVAL ASSETS IN THE SETTING.
I would rate that as a fairly big deal

>>44781837

>In practice, you're wrong.

Go on, then. Show me where it's worked against the Bears.

It's worked in their favour, sure.

>What, 13 regiments and 2 mech factories? XIN SHENG XIN SHENG XIN SHENG!

What, ~20 Clusters and 2 'Mech factories? BEAR NOISES BEAR NOISES!

>So the Combine had a 2-1 advantage in battlemech regiments to clusters, AND a tech advantage? Wowzers.

Against an opponent who couldn't fight back because reasons, and who loses in the end. Just like Guerro.

>Yeah there certainly wasn't a resistance that lasted for decades.

A resistance that manages the frightening and subversive act of spray-painting OPEN YOU MIND on buildings. Wow.

I can only assume you mean the Freeminders, since they managed to accomplish more than Tyr or whatever the FRR loyalists did. And the Freeminders are basically Rigsy in space.

>Did they rapetrain to Luthien and fug the Coordinator's daughter?

They completely BTFO the Dracs and Nova Cats. It wasn't even a contest. At least St. Ives managed a decent showing on its own and managed to stall the CCAF for a while before having the resolution settled politically, the Bears systematically wrecked the Cats and DCMS and only stopped because the Republic asked nicely.

>One planet and two warships?

One planet that re-affirmed the loyalties of the only units the Bears had that didn't fully buy into everything Ghost Bear and made them fully buy into everything Ghost Bear, and two WarShips that would let them fuck up every other WarShip in the setting even if everyone else allied and massed their fleets to try and take out the Leviathan II and III.

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>>44782176
>It's worked in their favour, sure.
Thank you.

>What, ~20 Clusters and 2 'Mech factories? BEAR NOISES BEAR NOISES!
Is that what the DCMS lost to? Lol pathetic.

>Against an opponent who couldn't fight back because reasons, and who loses in the end. Just like Guerro.
Not really at all, seeing as the DCMS routed regiments to that front to fight and the AFFC didn't bother. You've read the sourcebooks, right? At this point you really have me wondering.

>A resistance that manages the frightening and subversive act of spray-painting OPEN YOU MIND on buildings. Wow.
Ok.. so you don't read the sourcebooks then? Because they had bombings, shoot outs, had the Bears specially develop an anti-insurgency battle armour, and then there was a full-blown uprising.
But hey, what do I know? I only read the fluff.

>They completely BTFO the Dracs and Nova Cats. It wasn't even a contest. At least St. Ives managed a decent showing on its own and managed to stall the CCAF for a while before having the resolution settled politically, the Bears systematically wrecked the Cats and DCMS and only stopped because the Republic asked nicely.
Well the Nova Cats are weak shit, so their failure makes sense. This was the Republic-disarmed DCMS, right? It's in that era, after all. So what about that doesn't add up? Not quite St. Ives when the Dragon doesn't have an ally like the FedCom to join in (but doesn't).

>One planet that re-affirmed the loyalties of the only units the Bears had that didn't fully buy into everything Ghost Bear and made them fully buy into everything Ghost Bear, and two WarShips that would let them fuck up every other WarShip in the setting even if everyone else allied and massed their fleets to try and take out the Leviathan II and III.
So? It's one planet. What's the big deal? The warships you can grumble about, but there's no reason to unless your real argument there is that no one should have warships like that, in which case it isn't there Bear faction's fault.

So here's a thing that just happened:

http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=33062.msg1170118#new

Page 244, Re-Engineered Laser, Game Rules:

Replace the first two sentences with "Even though they are technically pulse lasers, re-engineered lasers only apply a –1 to-hit modifier to weapon attacks, as their pulses are too brief and close together to gain the full targeting modifier of such weapons."

>>44782468
I don't use RE-lasers. What does this mean?

>>44782468
HOLY SHIT Alex Knight BTFO.
And it was glorious.

>>44782382

>Thank you.

So you acknowledge it only ever works in their favour? Thank you.

>Is that what the DCMS lost to? Lol pathetic.

2 'Mech factories is all they had after leaving the Homeworlds, I was more going for their size after the Jihad, but ~20 Clusters sounds about right for the 1st Dominion War where they were spanking the shit out of a faction that could have dropped ~50 regiments on them.

>You've read the sourcebooks, right?

The sourcebooks place nearly 40 regiments in the area that could have responded but didn't because... uh...

The same issue you run into with Guerro where there are dozens of regiments in the area that do nothing or give up and go home, because... uh...

>Ok.. so you don't read the sourcebooks then? Because they had bombings, shoot outs, had the Bears specially develop an anti-insurgency battle armour, and then there was a full-blown uprising.

All of which is completely quelled by the DA, where the worst they have to worry about is Freeminder graffiti.

Even though Rasalhague was fucking Space Afghanistan for everyone else, they just loooove the Bears. What was that about not reading the fluff again?

>So what about that doesn't add up?

The Dracs doing what amounts to just sitting there and taking it instead of trying to fight back properly?

>So? It's one planet.

One planet that fixed the only loyalty issue the Bears had. And one more planet that's addicted to gargling on the BBC.

>in which case it isn't there Bear faction's fault.

I might buy into that if it was just them having one Leviathan II. I won't buy into it when Ben Rome and Luke Roberts go "you know, having one Leviathan II is nice, but what would really be good is having two. Except, get this, instead of it just being another Leviathan II, we should make a WarShip that's even better."

>>44782468
Hold on, that doesn't mean what you think it does. Give me a minute.

>>44782507
RE lasers get to not be complete shit anymore.
Still not good, mind you, but worth the BV they cost at least.

>>44782468

It means that the writers lurk here (though we already know this) since it was immediately suggested as a way to make RE-Ls not completely suck even in their own niche.

>>44782573

No, he's going to be even more fedora-tipping and euphoric now. Because they were UNDENIABLY THE BEST WEAPON EVER before this change, and now they've become EVEN MORE POWERFUL MUHAHAHAHA!

The biggest issue with the Bears, overshadowing everything else, is the fact that their Leviathans exist in the first place. They should have never been created. The fact that they just sort of sit back and >build< isn't a terrible one. It's not more unrealistic or immersion-breaking than somebody sitting in Australia during a game of Risk and building for 30 turns. The Bears location, and the fact that their neighbors all have people they hate MORE than the Bears (and so attack those people, rather than deplete the Bears' strength) all make sense from a political and military perspective. But giving the Bears the fucking Levs on TOP of their (understandably) fuck-off huge military is absolute bullshit.

NO faction in the game should EVER have anything even resembling Leviathans. I give zero fucks if it's technically possible to build 2.5megaton ships by the letter of the rules. Nothing heavier than a McKenna should have ever been built, and by the time the Jihad rolls around, the biggest thing in the Inner Sphere should have been a Nightlord. With Levs in play, the Bears are essentially an invincible fiat-faction that fails to wipe out its neighbors only because it doesn't feel like it. Without them, they're still a strong faction (I can get deal with the "we get along with Rasslehog" thing, which strains credibility), but they could at least theoretically be ganged up upon, or extend themselves in too many directions and take losses.

As long as the Levs exist, the Bears can conquer anything they want and glass anything they don't (or just don't want to spend the time dealing with). That is TERRIBLE for a wargame setting. It's awful writing, and everyone involved in it, from TPTB to the Nova Cat players who couldn't kill the Levs in the first place, should feel like colossal failures for it.

>>44782646
>>44782619
>>44782507
They reduced the heat too.

>>44782468
-1 to hit and -1 heat on all of them. Wow, they're looking like they might only be bad now, instead of utterly worthless!

Time to shove them on all the /btg/RO fedsuns mechs.

>>44782674
>to the Nova Cat players who couldn't kill the Levs in the first place

Nigger I will fucking cut you

>>44782604
>So you acknowledge
No, you did. Remember? Here: >>44782176

>~20 Clusters sounds about right for the 1st Dominion War
Try about 50. Anon, you're disappointing me that you hate a faction but don't know things about it.

>The sourcebooks place nearly 40 regiments in the area that could have responded but didn't because... uh...
In Operation Guerrero? Yeah I know. With the Dominion War they list a good number of Drac regiments wiped out.

>All of which is completely quelled by the DA, where the worst they have to worry about is Freeminder graffiti.
Yes, and? It happened, so your would-be point fails.

>What was that about not reading the fluff again?
You've been wrong successively and make me wonder how much you really know about the faction you hate is what.

>The Dracs doing what amounts to just sitting there and taking it instead of trying to fight back properly?
With... what? Their dicks? They were disarmed, man.

>One planet that fixed the only loyalty issue the Bears had. And one more planet that's addicted to gargling on the BBC.
Your obsession with BBC aside, what's big deal? It's a book arc. What does it affect?

>I might buy into that if it was just them having one Leviathan II
Isn't one too many?

I mean with the Leviathan thing I can see your viewpoint since I think warships should be more common, but with the writers focusing on ground combat and decreeing that warships won't be big again the whole thing is kind of moot.

>>44782694
>>44782705
Proving that someone listened when I pointed out that Small RE-Ls were the hottest Small Laser in the game by 2 points, if nothing else.

>>44782724

I'm pretty sure if you tried to knife him, the writers would retcon that away to a mild paper cut, given their past Ghost Bear v Nova Cat treatments.

>>44782468

Daaaaaaym. And the -1 heat on top of it. Note that the BV is unchanged for them.

>>44782674

>to the Nova Cat players who couldn't kill the Levs in the first place

The Nova Cat players curb-stomped the Bears and won that trial when it was played out. They should have been given a Leviathan II themselves.

That didn't fit with the results the writers had already planned for (regardless of whether the organiser was trying to rig it, which I don't really buy) so that was all thrown out and the Bears instead fucked up the Nova Cat navy and won the Trial.

>>44782694
>>44782705

They need to adjust the BV on them as well, since they were priced for their original stats.

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>>44782724
Hey man, don't blame him for the Nova Cats being too incompetent to win.

>>44782804
>>44782799
They can't change the BV because published mechs feature them or some shit, iunno

>>44782799
Oh, thats not right. BV is determined by damage, range, and weapon mod. They must have overlooked that.

>>44782804
>They need to adjust the BV on them as well, since they were priced for their original stats.

I doubt that'll happen, largely due to the volume of errata it'll cause. I suppose we can look at it this way: if they already cost too much BV for their stats, and their stats were made better, then by definition their BV has become closer to correct than it previously was, right?

>Bears = OP

Not disagreeing, but wouldn't the most equitable solution simply be to remove every faction which has benefited from authorial favoritism, and every faction which has caused more than a minimum of forum drama, from the game?

>>44782799
NEA do you have your posts about how you'd fix/change warship combat in BT?

>>44782849
Nah, they errata BV fairly regularly, it just gets posted to MUL.

>>44782903
So remove all the factions?

>>44782940
FWL will be fine.

>>44782468
Since ReLasers are now fixed to usability, it's time for a design challenge!

Design a Fedsuns mech that uses Re-Engineered Lasers effectively, focused for fighting on the drac front.

>>44782903
>I suppose we can look at it this way: if they already cost too much BV for their stats, and their stats were made better, then by definition their BV has become closer to correct than it previously was, right?
Not necessarily, since they could have been 10 BV overcosted and now be 100 BV undercosted. Obviously that's not the specific case here, but it's just to show that mathematically it can, in fact, be farther from correct than it was previously.

>>44782951
FWL is the worst though.

>author favoritism towards Oriente
>author bias against Regulus
>bipolar Andurien fans
>Mariks think they run the place
>Tamarind and Rim Commonality fans never stop whining about how they should have been building Hatchetmen in 3025

just nuke it all, pls

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>>44782955
Check it.

>>44782786

>Try about 50.

Are you being deliberately dense? This isn't about the full size of the militaries involved, it's about what the Bears sent. ~20 Clusters sounds about right for that.

The Dracs had around 70 Regiments at the time, of which ~30 are in the region involved. They can bring in around another 20 without really stretching their defences, but they don't. In part to justify how hard the Bears are fucking them, in part because the writers never pay attention the that sort of thing.

>Yes, and? It happened, so your would-be point fails.

The FRR movement resisted everyone else for what, 200 years? But then the Bears show up, completely change their way of life, and the FRR knuckles under within 30 years of being invaded?

>With... what? Their dicks? They were disarmed, man.

The Ghost Bears were supposed to have been too. The idea of the Stone reforms was to make it so that every major faction was about as strong as each other so nobody could really go and start shit.

But the Bears just mop the floor with the opposition again and again, the Piranha Principle that Stone's reforms were expanding on to enforce the Pax Republica doesn't apply to the Bears, and they win with ease.

>>44782786

>Your obsession with BBC

Big Bear Cock. I dunno, we have no Bear equivalent for Xin Sheng but the books basically have the Bears' rape vicitims being either powerless before their mighty wangs of fiat or becoming totally addicted to it.

>I mean with the Leviathan thing I can see your viewpoint since I think warships should be more common, but with the writers focusing on ground combat and decreeing that warships won't be big again the whole thing is kind of moot.

OTOH, ignoring the problem doesn't mean it's not a problem.

File: NEAeroTech Changes.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>44782907
This is it, I think.

>>44782940
It'd be fair, right? It's the only way that the bitching will ever stop.

>I'm being sarcastic, of course. Since that evidently must be pointed out

>>44782951
Missed the PURPLE BURD shitstorm a few months back? Counts as "forum drama"

>>44782852
Well, actually giving them a pulse to-hit bonus (even if just a -1) removes the ability to target locations with a TarComp.

But yeah, for the damage and range, RELasers were a little over-costed. If they are slightly under-costed now, it's not enough to make any difference.

>>44783033
>Are you being deliberately dense?
Calm down there, cowboy. I'm realizing now that you rejoice in not reading the fluff, but if you did you'd see that 12 of 13 Bear galaxies fought in the war against the Combine and Cats. 12/13. Put that in your pipe.

>The Dracs had around 70 Regiments at the time, of which ~30 are in the region involved. They can bring in around another 20 without really stretching their defences, but they don't.
Yes they do. The novels and FCCW book mention a massive deployment of troops to the front, and heavy casualties.

>In part to justify how hard the Bears are fucking them, in part because the writers never pay attention the that sort of thing.
lol ok

>The FRR movement resisted everyone else for what, 200 years? But then the Bears show up, completely change their way of life, and the FRR knuckles under within 30 years of being invaded?
Different strokes for different folks, and the fluff details the differences in occupations. Or do you believe that Rasalhagians are genetically encoded to resist to the death against everyone?

>The Ghost Bears were supposed to have been too.
I don't recall that. Even so, it's Clan trueborns with superior skills against Spheroids. Predictable outcome if you aren't a Jaguar.

> the Piranha Principle that Stone's reforms were expanding on to enforce the Pax Republica doesn't apply to the Bears
Pre-Stone it definitely does. Why not Stone-era?

>Big Bear Cock.
eww

>OTOH, ignoring the problem doesn't mean it's not a problem.
Let me pen a strongly worded letter to CGL tonight then. You've changed my outlook on the Leviathan Scourge.

>>44783050
Oh fuck off, there was some gentle FWL teasing, no doubt half of which was posted by people who don't even like the FWL. Nobody was going on about how the FWL should conquer everything or had been dicked over, it's like "Butte Hold" being posted. Is their Butte Hold fiat just because people post a meme here? And the FWL definitely doesn't have author fiat EVEN IF fans DID like it, which they don't particularly if we look at the profits that CGL makes from FWL product.

tl;dr suck a dick

>>44783218
>Or do you believe that Rasalhagians are genetically encoded to resist to the death against everyone?

After 200+ years of occupation, it's somewhat plausible.

>>44783050
>Missed the PURPLE BURD shitstorm a few months back?
To be fair to our resident purple birds, wasn't it that they were being trolled hard? Most of all they post besides that episode is [faction animal noises] and some inconsistent but very FWL-like interfactional squabbling about which province is best and which one sucks dicks.

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>>44782849
>>44782925

Yeah, they're already going to have to errata the BV on sheets because the heat change will have an effect on Offensive Battle Value calculations already. They don't have an excuse to not re-cost the base BV of the item when literally everything that has them now has an incorrect sheet.

>>44782955

I actually don't hate them any more. If they'd been released with these stat's I'd have been OK with them. They're still kind of niche, but they don't actively punish you for having them any more.

It should also shut up a lot of the Feddie whining about how shitty their faction TR was. It was already better than some (hello, Dracs) and now a lot of their designs have been improved by the effects of the change.

>R-E Ls because you said so
>PHX chassis with Clan tech because it's the Suns, what did you expect
>Angel ECM in case any of the damn dirty Dracs have (Boosted) C3

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>>44783240
>posted by people who don't even like the FWL

Those would be people whose opinions are inherently correct, then. Face it, the only reason your precious FWL even exists is because of author fiat. Otherwise it would have been conquered by real factions years ago.

STEINER STRONK

>>44783265
Like how Britain and France should still be enemies? This is like the Andurien debate all over again. Andurien spent centuries invading and being invaded by the Capellan Confederation, but now their relations are warming up. Is this implausible to you?

>>44783297
>t. upcoming newest member of the Free Worlds League

>>44783309
>Andurien spent centuries invading and being invaded by the Capellan Confederation, but now their relations are warming up. Is this implausible to you?

Yes.

>>44783329
Oh man the butthurt would be amazing.

>>44783335
How? Are Anduriens genetically encoded to be enemies of Capellans forever?

OFFICIAL TOP FIVE JABRONI FACTION LIST:
1:FREE RASALHAGUE REPUBLIC
2:TAURIAN CONCORDAT
3:ST.IVES COMPACT
4:FREE WORLDS LEAGUE
5:CLAN SMOKE JAGUAR

>>44783276
>Yeah, they're already going to have to errata the BV on sheets because the heat change will have an effect on Offensive Battle Value calculations already

Oh, good point. I totally missed that when I saw the heat change. Yeah, then they may as well re-cost the RE-lasers themselves while they're at it (unless the changes bring them close enough to being in line with their current weapon BV score it's pointless, of course).

>>44783272
Of course they were were being trolled. Like I said, any faction that's involved in faction drama should be retconned away. It's the only true path to peace within the fanbase. Just like "the only path to having people stop complaining about authorial fiat is to not have any authors."

The fact that these solutions kill the game make them no less true.

>>44783360
>How? Are Anduriens genetically encoded to be enemies of Capellans forever?

Yes.

>>44783382

RE-L BVs appeared to be based on the same formula other weapons use. I don't disagree that they cost more than they were worth, but it seems likely they'll be given new, increased BVs to reflect the change.

Should be:
old BV new BV
RE-SL 12 14
RE-ML 56 65
RE-LL 139 161

The TarComp issue is noteworthy though, not that every shot is going to be an aimed shot, but not having the option anymore is significant.

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>>44783368
mfw those are all my favorite factions

>>44783389
Come on, are you just being silly or do you really think it's too implausible for the Anduriens to want closer relations with House Liao, or to even join the Confederation? The Andurien invasion was a century ago. That's ancient history.

>>44783382

>Oh, good point.

It's a CGL specialty.

"Let's make some seemingly minor tweaks to how rules work. Wait, why are you looking at me like that? What do you mean we're going to have re-do, by hand since we have no software to handle this, dozens and dozens of record sheets?"

>The fact that these solutions kill the game make them no less true.

My preferred solution is to give all the factions a chance to be awesome. Obviously not everyone can win at once, but there wouldn't be long periods of utter dominance by certain factions, but the biggest thing I'd do is at least make people not act like god damn retards and forget to bring in a third of their military to repulse an invasion or promote enemy spies to the top of their own intel and military arms.

You can still lose while looking awesome and fighting hard and I should know, I play Tekken a lot. Sometimes you're the bug, sometimes you're the windshield.

>>44783368
I'd say blood spirits are better for slot 5 imo. the jags at least had a few successes

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>>44783329
>LC collapses
>breakaway states join FWL
>Marik-Steiner Captain-General

>>44783483

Once a faction invades you, that's it. You're blood enemies for ever. That's the way the Battletech universe works, and it's bad writing on par with Twilight to suddenly make an exception for the Anduriens.

>>44783536
>the jags at least had a few successes
At what, dying? Even their Inner Sphere mech-equipped Solahma clusters on Huntress were only able inflict 25-50% losses on elite IS regiments. That's weak sauce for Clanners.

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>>44783580
>Once a faction invades you, that's it. You're blood enemies for ever.

>>44783583
Didn't they have Snakes, Raijins, Grand Titans and all these other Mechs that seems unusual to have?

>>44783426
>RE-SL 12 14
>RE-ML 56 65
>RE-LL 139 161

BV adjustment on the large bring sit back down to being not worth it imo

LL is worth 123, LPL is 119.

>>44783576
I'm not sure what this expression is supposed to be.

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>>44783050
Thanks for the PDF. Have a warship.