/btg/ Battletech General!

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>>50982335
PART TWO!: -

Field Manual Comstar.PDF
http://www.mediafire.com/file/ja3z2n1goe12623/Field_Manual_Comstar.PDF
8604 - The Spider and the Wolf
https://www.mediafire.com/?3d9brfrkj9vnhka
Aerotech 2 - Revised
http://www.mediafire.com/file/ivqhzog2wyoegxo/Battletech_35011_-_Aerotech_2_Revised.pdf

hexpacks 2&3:
Battletech Hexpacks
http://www.mediafire.com/file/3o59kirzzz6znac/BattleTech_Hexpacks.7z
also introbox stuff:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/l22yrlkk9buzuzl/BattleTech_Intro_Box_Set.7z

Historical War of 3039
https://www.scribd.com/doc/23569748/35014-Historical-War-of-3039

Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries is coming, set during the Third Succession War.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz8Y1V8gy1A&feature=youtu.be

Heavy Metal Archive (OLD)
http://www.mediafire.com/file/8so68gbw3yga4cb/2016-12-11_HeavyMetal-Archive-OLD.rar

Fan made TRO 3063:
battletechreader.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-fan-made-technical-readout-3063.html
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/8o30486fony5f/Fan_TRO_3063

... also Butte Hold

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Can't hit me...

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Love this guy's art.

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One of my favourites.

>>50982548
These all look really nice, actually.

>>50982653

Not sure if there will ever be a shimmyseen/MWO Flashman, but if there is I'd hope it looks kind of like that.

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More crotch-rockets!

I want a Light/Medium (max 45 tons) capable of jumping around, running, and showering the enemy with LRMs, while being a common enough design
I already know about the Valkyrie and Sling (too bad it doesn't exist in later ages)

>>50983076
Whitworth? It's not too fast, but it has 8 tons of armor, twin LRM10s and triple MLs. That might do for a starter.

>>50983076
What era? Immediate thoughts go to a Assassin or a Cougar Prime, and they stay available though most ages.

>>50983167
>Assassin
Really undergunned but you have to love the ability to just fly away whenever you get tired of a fight. 7(!?) Jump means it can just sort of float away.

>>50983167
>>50983198
Assassin can be modded to have twin LRM5s to be a bit more lurm-spammy, but yeah, the Whitworth is probably the go-to here, at least in early era play.

>>50983076
>no introtech Sling
I know this pain. It is a bad pain.

>>50983232
>wanting more introtech

I will never now this "pain"

There was a reference to some unit in the Combine that were pretty much otaku. Is there something similar in the CC? Does Space China have like, bootleg toys, movies and such like Earth China? I need to know these things.

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>>50983561
You mean this?

Also, if memory serves, the Capellan industry was pretty much geared for military production with little to no "luxuries" (as in space TVs and stuff like that) made since Romano's rule until Sun-Tzu ascended the throne. Average Johnny Cap was simply said to suck it or talk to the friendly people from the Maskirovka.

>>50983599
That's awful. What is the average CC citizen's options for entertainment like? Could mercs or traders make a living smuggling in the other house versions of Levi jeans and rock 'n' roll cassette tapes like people used to do for the Ruskies back in the day?

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>>50983561
It appears that memory served.

>>50983616
Romano was said to have nearly completely cut off foreign trade with other IS powers (something even paranoid Mad Max didn't do) but I do remember that the Capellan/Canopian border has/had a thriving smuggling market before Sunny's charm offensive and the opening of borders.

Well this...
>>50983619
answers my question here.
>>50983616
Damn Romano. I was about to ask a follow up question (and thanks guys) about what the disposable income of whatever constitutes the middle and upper classes of the CC citizenry were, but I guess- >>50983634 answers it.
Now I want to smuggle in FWL beanie babies or Suns roast beef sandwiches or wicked Lyran german pron and make some money.

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>>50983599
>Dai Maxbuster

So much for this drink.
Why can't modern Battletech be this self-aware?

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>>50983653
>FWL beanie babies
This has military use. It trains kids how to alpha strike.

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>>50983653
Here's the stuff re: MoC/Capella smuggling from Periphery 2E.

>>50983692
Thank you. Time to be Han Solo and sell "spice" to those Capellans.

>>50983692
>>50983707
There was also some trade with the taurians, but not much, and it was mostly raw materials anyways

>>50983691

I want it.

>>50983730
If there was a plushie for a Locust or Penetrator it might be used for... purposes other than what the Chancellor wants. At least publicly.

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>>50983685
Sadly the Dai Maxbuster regiment was destroyed in the Amaris war and didn't make the trip to the Kerensky cluster. One can only imagine Nicky K's fit on seeing the... "traditional" Kisarazu Air Base style nose art on their 'Mechs. Or how this would be explained in the Clan's Remembrance.

>>50983744
They probably would have been one of the Pentagon powers anyway.
"I don't care if you're the General's son, MY WAIFU STAYS ON MY MECH."

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>>50983744
Has anyone done any art of this, actually?

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Is Hello Mad Kitty waifu material?

>>50983850
If you want to see waifu dedication (trust me, you don't), just google Kit Bash pony.
A Steiner OC Donut steel whose porn numbers more commissioned pictures than all of BattletechxR15violation put together.

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>>50983744
>we will never have Clan Kawaii Catgirl
>the only clan to use melee weapons, with gundam looking totem omnimechs, and Kamen Rider elementals
>constantly inventing ridicolous weapons, which turn out useless, or impossible to work properly, like laser swords, "combining" mechs, triplechangers, voice-based controls
>Frequent inter clan trials because those stravags from the other touman think Rei is better than based Asuka
>ASF pilots get appreciated a bit more
>Crusader clan because they wanted to reach Kuritan territory ASAP

>>50983937
>just google Kit Bash pony.
...why did I do this?
For the love of all that is holy? If I was a Drac I might commit seppuku right now.

>>50983937
I am so glad I didn't understand a thing from your post

>>50984103
>the only clan to use melee weapons

I once made a (really shitty) AU where there was a Clan that basically completely threw Zellbrigen out of the window as early as the start of Operation Revival whenever they faced Periphery or IS forces.

They had a melee-using TSM/Supercharger experimental design that they used against the Wobblies during the Jihad. They called it the 'Engelmorder' as a jab/potshot towards Celestial OmniMechs.

>>50983499
Ironic pic

>>50983599
>>50983619
>>50983634
This makes me think of that retarded little story in HB:HL about how the Capellan government gets all its people to buy cheap Capellan entertainment systems by fucking with the FWL company selling entertainment systems in the CapCon. Everything works out, Capellans flock to buy lower quality garbage, the CapCon faces no economic backlash or diplomatic issues, and Xin Sheng wins again.

But I mean this is the universe where the inexperienced Red Lancers beat a Clan force in the Great Refusal, and VSD was tricked into giving up Tikonov to a Warrior House, so I guess it works.

>>50983692
>Canopians literally have slaves
>criticize Capellans for human rights abuses
I love when BT reflects real life

>>50984402

>inexperienced

I think you mean "magical" because none of the shit about them makes sense.

>Literally do nothing for three centuries but fuck around on Sian
>Somehow have Elite skills
>Somehow be so terrifying in reputation and action that even Clanners shit their pants in fear and refuse to go within 30 metres of them
>Somehow have better equipment and special rules than the best-supplied, most experienced, and most hard core units of any other unit in the game, with the slight caveat that the Death Commandos (also a Cappie unit, funnily enough) can theoretically have better geat

>>50984598
Aren't the DEST the bestest most experienced and deadly unit, lore-wise? Honest question?

>>50984598
>I think you mean "magical" because none of the shit about them makes sense.

That is a better way of putting it.

I mean I wanted to like the CapCon, but a lot of their fluff since Sun-Tzu don't make no sense.

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>>50984730
>The DEST's schtick, aside from 90% of them being Black Dragons

>Teddy C3's face after announcing another purge

>>50984678

>Aren't the DEST the bestest most experienced and deadly unit, lore-wise?

Nope.

Early fluff before the level of fuckery ComStar was up to was revealed and placed their special forces (Blake's Wrath/Light of Mankind) as the creme de le creme always had the Death Commandos miles out in front of the DEST.

The DEST's schtick, aside from 90% of them being Black Dragons, is numbers.

They're the most numerous special forces organisation.

I hesitate to say that the Dracs have the most special forces attached to line units on a state-wide basis because we really don't know much about what the RCTs or Marik combined-arms units do in that regard.

DEST units are extremely common as part of the infantry used in Forward ARC commands.

>>50984698

I would say that the Death Commandos have never made much sense either given how good Drac, Lyran, and Feddie special forces have always been shown to be as opposed to the insipid performances of the Commandos which largely consist of getting owned in the 4th SW and then having Loren Jaffray go rogue.

But whatever man, it's the CapCon. I don't even try to make sense of that any more.

>>50984730
So what's the commando teams powerlevel tier?

>>50984743

>mfw I only have a face because the Black Dragons let me keep it, for now
>mfw the Black Dragons blow up the most important manufacturing centre in the Combine and probably the second-largest in the sphere, for reasons that totally make sense you guys

They should have gone with the fluff from the earlier sources where who had blown LAW up was not certain but believed to be the WoB. The Black Dragons doing it still makes no god damn sense.

>>50984759

EXTREMELY HIGH HOLY SHIT GODDAMN

Their special abilities are:

-Pick any 'Mech manufactured in the IS by an IS power (not limited by era, and not limited by tech base, so if the DCs decide they want to upgrade everyone to brand spanking new Devastator-2s in 344 they get it, or they can time travel and field nothing but SLDF Royals, or as one anon described their fuckery abuse the wording to spam Hellstars before those joined the MUL as available to the Cappies)
-Ignore any special abilities enemy forces have that effect opposing forces
-Choose two of: Forcing Initiative, Off-Map Movement, Over Run, and Banking Initiative
-Apply -2 to the initiative of any enemy force if they aren't elite.

The Red Lancers get:
-Cannot be moved adjacent to if the enemy unit is not Elite (Elite skills is not enough, enemy command must be Elite).
-Enemy units that are adjacent to a Red Lancer unit that moves to where they are shit their pants and must fall back if movement points are still available unless they are elite
-Off-map movement, Banking Initiative.

Meanwhile, the Otomo can torso twist between firing their weapons and making physical attacks so they have one hex extra to punch with, the Davion Heavy Guard get Forcing Initiative, Banking Initiative, and Over Run while the Knight of the Inner Sphere can't shoot into enemy rear arcs unless being fired on that turn and gain +2 Initiative with Forced Initiative and Over Run.

The DC and RL are better than everyone, because reasons. The reason is Loren Coleman was allowed to write for them.

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>>50984103
>Literally Clan Hugh Jackman

except for that aerospace bit, that's sorta deviant

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>>50984787
By the way, was there ever a definitive list of who was who in the Black Dragon leadership? I think one of the Jihad era books (the one with the conspiracy theories?) had some sort of list but that was full of caveats to the tune of "might have been" or "we have no evidence". Also, I actually wasn't the least bit surprised when Duke Hassid M.F. Ricol turned out to be a Black Dragon.

But yes, as a long time DC player it does suck that every time something good seems to happen to the Combine, the Kokuryu-kai bugger it up.

>Hey, Teddy K's the new coordinator, he's slowly making things better for the average Johnny Drac and actually making peace with our neighbours so we don't have to samurai all the time!
>"Unacceptable!" Cue coup attempts, invasion of a FedSuns planet, Franklin Sakamoto, the death of Teddy K's wife, the Alshain regiments kicking off a war with the Ghost Bears, the death of Teddy K himself, Ho-K burning out, a Black Dragon as the gunji-no-kanrei...

>>50984992

I think the closest to that was a list of suspected Gems somewhere in the JHS series that was pretty definitive.

I also remember good old Benny boy going full REEE at me on the OF for saying it was obvious that Kiyomori Minamoto was a Black Dragon because they hadn't made it explicit yet and actually believed it was going to be a shocking twist nobody could see coming so were trying to keep it under wraps.

Then doing the exact same thing with Kanrei Toranaga in the Dark Age.

Hey guys? If you want your surprise twists to be a surprise maybe just be a bit coy with that stuff? Like, instead of giving these people evident Black Dragon ties, having them blatantly advance the Black Dragon agenda, and generally go around waving "YOU DUDE I'M A BLACK DRAGON AND YOU CAN BE TOO" signs all the time have it be at least plausibly deniable?

>>50983499
That picture really lost its value after Sam started breaking down crying like a baby about being unable to pay rent and healthcare after AS cancelled his me-so-edgy show.

>>50985061
based

>>50985056
>a list of suspected Gems somewhere in the JHS series

This must be the one I was thinking about. Seems like I'll have to go through the books again.

>>50985100

I thought it was JHS, turns out it's in Blake Documents.

P. 43.

Capsule summary: Hassid Ricol, the head of the Order of Five Pillars*, Tai-sa Li Dok To**, the LAW CEO, a shipping magnate, and Paul Omishita.

*Theodore's staunchest allies the whole time and the intelligence service he relied on over the ISF because the ISF was so thoroughly infilitrated.***

**Warlord of Samarkand, a reformer, friend of Theodore and extremely strong supporter of his, because that's prime Black Dragon material right there. Also somehow a Colonel despite being a Tai-shu everywhere else.***

*** "We r teh bestest at fact-checking and pruf-reeding, honest!

How do I post mechs?

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>>50985629

You're gonna have to be more specific.

>>50985629
you have to really believe in the concept of a bi/quadpedal warmachine

>>50985629

Download Solaris Skunk Works (link in the OP).

Build your giant death robbit.

Go to File->Export 'Mech->To Text.

Open MS Paint.

Put it in a text box and select something with a fixed font size like Courier.

Save file.

Upload to the chan.

And voila.

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>>50985309
>Capsule summary

Sweet Omi Kurita, they really didn't pruf-reed even their own stuff, did they? That Li must be a typo and it's really that commander of the Second Sword of Light (Tai-sa Li Sak To, maybe a relative/child of Tai-shu Li) who was mentioned in Turning Points Luthien.

And the other Gems? A former Sorenson's Sabres member turned ISF, some megacorp bosses, and quite tellingly no mention of the self-appointed Kanrei Minamoto.

And that Blake Docs list was the one I thought of, right up to the "several Gems are still at large".

>>50983619

Fanon propaganda isn't a valid source, Feddie boi.

>>50985747
thanks m8

>>50984420

"Slaves" doesn't mean kept outside 99% of the time, picking cotton in the fields dressed in rags, not fed but the bare minimum to stay alive, and so forth.

MOC slaves almost always enter slavery voluntarily as a way to survive or as a way to pay off debt, and there's a host of legal protections on the way slave-owners can treat them. They're much closer to the house servants of the British aristocracy in the 1700-1800s than to American black slaves of the 1850s.

Slavery entered into voluntarily and where the slave is well-kept and can commonly provide enough benefit to their master to earn their freedom isn't anywhere near the territory of "human rights abuse" that depriving entire planets of any and all non-military production is. Or, you know, disappearing (read: executing) people who aren't sufficiently thought-pure. Even if you make the argument that both nations are committing human rights abuses, the Cappies are committing worse ones by several orders of magnitude, and on a larger scale to boot.

>>50985842

I'm still a little miffed as to why they went with Ricol being a Black Dragon really. His whole thing was always "fuck the rules, the Dragon comes first and shit needs to change to make it stronger."

He even conspired against Takashi and tried to have him killed.

I think they needed a big bad to head up the Black Dragons and he was the biggest name around.

Li Sak To would make more sense since the 2nd Sword turned out to be Black Dragon central. OTOH, the 2nd Sword turning out to be Black Dragon central after enthusiastically embracing Theodore's reforms because Takashi was finally no longer around to challenge them in the loyalty versus pragmatism debate, even after their Bulldog losses, still reeks.

>>50986016
>slavery apologist who thinks only plantation slavery is the real thing
Fuck off, Americunt

>>50982335
>Walking Crotch Edition edition
Well, it IS called a Penetrator... I'm surprised they didn't mount a ERLL in the CT, really.

>>50986167

Plantation slavery and outright sex slavery <are> the only kinds that matter. Neither of those is present in the source material about the MOC. Sex slavery <is> present in the fluff about the CapCon, though. Nice glass house you have there, Cappie.

Having to wake up in the morning and help your owner get dressed and be generally ready for minor tasks that need doing around the house isn't any different than being a housewife with kids, or working a blue-collar job where you can't afford to quit (which is something like 70% of American workers). The only thing that's different is the name of the master and name of the institution itself. Get over yourself.

>>50986305
I believe that is a bangmaid not a wife

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>>50986204
Having another crotchgun 'Mech would infringe on the copyrights of J. B. BattleMechs Inc, proud manufacturers of the Dragon Fire.

>>50986093
>the biggest name around

And a reputation for doing some shady shit going back decades. But even then, I've always thought of him as an independent operator, not some "these reforms are bad!" type of hard arse conservative.

>loyalty versus pragmatism debate, even after their Bulldog losses

Turning Points Luthien said Tai-sa Li turned BD after his unit was denied honour and replacements after the Combine-Ghost Bear War. So he turned to the faction that started the war? And this whilst commanding THE regiment that should feel service to the Combine was more important than recognition and gongs all round.

The various Regulars I could understand, but some of the other BD turncoat units didn't make sense to me. The ichiban upholders of DCMS honour, the 2 SOL? The Proserpina Hussars, famed for their non-political "the Combine first" nature, who turned - because?

>>50986376
>Having another crotchgun 'Mech would infringe on the copyrights of J. B. BattleMechs Inc, proud manufacturers of the Dragon Fire.
I am shocked I can't find any evidence the Dragon Crotch Fire isn't produced in mass quantities in the Fed Suns.

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>>50986167
>>50986305

Something about the REEEing regarding Canopian slavery always bothered me. Why does nobody ever REE about Marian slavery? That's outright Roman-style slavery where the slaves are worked to death, killed, or used for sex, instead of the indentured servitude with legal protections in the Magistracy.

Or the Draconis Combine, for that matter. HB:HK points out that slavery was legal during the following dates:
2270 - legal slavery on New Samarkand
2421 - slavery still legal
2825 - slave camps on Richmond
3011 - slaves being sold and bought
And it's still being done in the 3030's: in the GDL novels the Snakes are rounding up men for the labor camps and women to be sold off world to military brothels.

Oh, and as per A Time of War page 66, a character of any affiliation who meets the STR and BOD requirements can take "Slave" as their Stage 1 Life Module (i.e., early childhood background); thus, slavery - whether called that or not the effect is the same - is apparently alive and well in the modern BT universe in literally every faction.

Shit, even Madcap concedes that slavery is alive and well in a de facto sense within the CapCon. Pic related, top half.

Finally, the MOC specifically has slaves. The canonical answer about them is that they are only people who VOLUNTARILY sell themselves into slavery. See pic, bottom half. If everybody has slaves (ATOW), and the MOC ones are only slaves voluntarily, then that STILL puts the MOC as better in the human rights department than the Marians, DC, and CapCon, and no worse than "equal" to everybody else.

>>50986305
You literally sound like an apologist for the CSA. All you'd have to do is warp a few more realities. Your argument is exactly the kind they use.
Hell, your shitty arguments about their "legal protections" are what the Marians have too.

>>50986486
What is the CSA?

>>50986496

Confederate States of America, I think. Rebel scum that rightly got crushed.

>>50986463
>dat signature and profile pic

>>50986496
Confederate States of America. They and their modern apologists said slavery was a good thing. That since blacks had sold themselves into slavery and it was culturally accepted in Africa, it was ok. Also shit like this dumb cunt
said: >>50986305
>Having to wake up in the morning and help your owner get dressed and be generally ready for minor tasks that need doing around the house isn't any different than being a housewife with kids, or working a blue-collar job where you can't afford to quit (which is something like 70% of American workers).

Hell, during the 1850s they even said the industrial servitude of US workers was worse than chattel slavery.

All slavery apologists can literally fuck themselves, the dumb pieces of shit that they are.

>>50986463
Marians are a fairly tiny blip in the grand scheme of things, they're a much lesser state than even the Magistracy.

The Combine though still does it for battlefield captures. The men are used for labor, the women sent to brothels. I imagine that Theodore ixnay'd a lot of that shit after taking over after Takashi, since he was the hard line traditionalist that would condone that. Which is even worse than what the Marians do, as it's subjugating POWs and civilians caught in the crossfire to servitude.

CapCon doing slavery is pretty much a given. They're a combination of China and the DRPK in terms of the party line. Get outside of the party line and to the re-education camps with you. They've even borrowed a few pages from the Soviet-era manuals.

>>50986542
>Having to wake up in the morning and help your owner get dressed and be generally ready for minor tasks that need doing around the house isn't any different than being a housewife with kids, or working a blue-collar job where you can't afford to quit (which is something like 70% of American workers).

I'm curious, though, how is this statement not largely true? I've got a 4 year old, and watching my wife (stay at home) work around the house, it sure seems true to me. It's not like she can easily leave or let the chores and care of the kid go by the wayside when I'm gone on business. She chose to be a stay-at-home mom, so I'm not seeing a big difference in the way her life works vs the way an indentured servant would work.

Also, you people should have let the Confederates leave and form their own country. You'd have been better off.

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>yfw Canopian law enshrines rape and sexual slavery

what a tolerant and progressive state

>>50986376

I think part of it is that the Dracs are really under-developed in the fiction, which is a problem for the FWL as well.

When you only have a tiny handful of well-known characters and units to hang your plotlines on, and seriously can't be fucked reading your own fluff, the number of characters and units available for use is really, really tiny.

It's like how in history things would be ascribed to the most famous king or noble(s) of the era, even if they were dead or had actually done completely the opposite thing.

Basically for Black Dragons you've got the characters already identified as such and as potentials characters like Li Dok To, Ricol, and Minamoto who've been given a tiny bit of fleshing out and are in important positions. And for readily identifiable units you've got the Swords of Light, Proserpina Hussars, and not much else.

>>50986419

No need to, the Dracs and Lyrans were quite happy to export them in job lots in exchange for a whole lot of nothing in return.

>>50986599
>Also, you people should have let the Confederates leave and form their own country. You'd have been better off.
Leave. Now. Slave-holding rebels deserve annihilation, and their apologists are not welcome here.

>>50986562

Dracs execute PoWs, though.

Either as they try to surrender (SUCKERS!) or at the end of a campaign and before completing annexation or retreating (DOUBLE SUCKERS!).

"Smart" commanders sometimes don't murder people as they surrender so that they can get more units with broken morale to wave the white flag then execute them later in numbers.

Yet people keep surrendering to the Dracs, because what is logic.

>>50986660
Makes sense. Either it's certain death, or nearly-certain death. The latter has a better chance of not dying, albeit remote.

>>50986660
Sometimes it feels like Dracs commit war crimes because they're "riding the tiger" and can't stop now because who are they if they don't?

>>50986463
>as per A Time of War page 66
>If everybody has slaves (ATOW), and the MOC ones are only slaves voluntarily, then that STILL puts the MOC as better in the human rights department than the Marians, DC, and CapCon, and no worse than "equal" to everybody else.

This is largely my argument as well. However, it's not about to convince anyone of something they aren't already convinced about. The last time this subject was raised, it was *insisted* that the CapCon doesn't have slavery: they have non-voluntary servitors which are born into the caste and treated like slaves in every respect...but since they aren't called "slaves" they don't count. Therefore, since the CapCon doesn't have slavery, it is ATOW which much be wrong. Likewise, the DC doesn't have "slaves", they have "Unproductives" and "Comfort Women". Therefore, it is the sources must be wrong.

Facts and sources are simply irrelevant to the discussion.

Mainly, this people get pissy about the, "tranny fetish faction", and the MoC's institutionalized take on slavery at the faction level (instead of the planetary level) is just some additional ammunition to rail on about. Posting sources and facts aren't going to help; people just want to rant.

For extra-fun times, bring Clan bondsmen into the discussion.

>Implying that a country run by a bunch of women wouldn't *totally* keep slaves to do all the heavy lifting and spider-killing or just out of spite if they could get away with it. Amirite?

>>50986681

After the Dracs doing it every time from the 4th SW on and apparently even through Theodore's reign you'd think someone would learn.

>>50986697

I ascribe it more to "lol, evil dracs" in the early stuff and Ben's wild CTRL+C, CTRL+V ride in the modern era.

>>50986463
>Why does nobody ever REE about Marian slavery?
I mean, by the fluff most everyone who remembers they exist hates them (or used to, at least. Dunno if by the dark age they have picked up their very own Kit who made that un-happen)

>>50986625

If you'd let the south go, you wouldn't have so many racist shitheels in your country now. That's what I meant.

>>50986504
>>50986542
Thanks guys.

>>50986608
>(who cannot refuse her, under Canopian law)
So... land of fatties and fuglies fanfiction? That absolutely frightening.

>>50986610
>No need to, the Dracs and Lyrans were quite happy to export them in job lots in exchange for a whole lot of nothing in return.
Roast beef sandwiches?

>>50986463
>Oh, and as per A Time of War page 66, a character of any affiliation who meets the STR and BOD requirements can take "Slave" as their Stage 1 Life Module (i.e., early childhood background); thus, slavery - whether called that or not the effect is the same - is apparently alive and well in the modern BT universe in literally every faction.
It's not like there aren't people being kept as slaves in every first world country under the radar, and it has nothing to do with it being legal or not in any given place

>>50986791
Worst part is we have shiftless namefags fanboying for them: >>50986760

>>50986816
>It's not like there aren't people being kept as slaves in every first world country under the radar

And every country with slaves is outright evil for not stamping it out. I see no reason why every nation in Battletech with slavery isn't evil as well. "Under the rader" is just apologizing for it; claiming that it's totally not the nation's fault. If it happens in your borders, then its your fault, and every citizen shares the guilt and should share in the punishment.

>>50986844

Hang on there, sparky. What faction do you play which doesn't have human rights abuses in its recent history?

>>50986760
>For extra-fun times, bring Clan bondsmen into the discussion.
I feel like that one mostly doesn't get talked about because there are enough things higher than it on the "why the clans are a dumpster fire of cartoonish evil" list that nobody ever really NEEDS to bring it up to prove a point

>>50986900
Clan Ghost Bear and Federated Suns are my mains.

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>>50986844

Normally, I wouldn't bother. But since we just got them back, here's your (You). Enjoy it, anon. That has to last you the whole year, and if you jack off all over it now, it won't be pretty to look at a few months from now.

>You can like a faction and not like everything it does

>>50986953
Hey NEA, aspiring aerospacefag here, got a question for you.
Could you do a rough breakdown of the various BBs aside from the SLDF's super stuff? Like the older TH and great house stuff

>>50986935

So you're OK with killing 300 million people in a war your faction started, you're OK with starving your own people to death to fund that war, and you're OK with owning slaves anyway (oh, no, they're called bondsmen, that's totally different I swear). Piss off.

>>50986608

This is no different than what nobles have done all through history. It doesn't say that men can't refuse to marry any women. It says that men can't refuse to marry a noblewoman. Well, women can't refuse to marry a Drac noble if the Drac noble wants her either, since she'll be killed or made an unproductive if she does. Ditto for Cappies. Shit, Feddie and Elsie nobles can compel marriage if they want too, because they're fucking nobles. They can ruin the object's family forever if they're refused. Welcome to a fucking feudal society.

>>50986953
>You can like a faction and not like everything it does

I think you're going to find that's not true. If you like a faction, you must 100% always agree with everything it has done, does, and will do in the future, lest you be 'no true fanboy'.

>>50986998

It'll take a while to write up. I was going to refer you to the WarShip of the Week articles, but I went to look for them and almost all of them are gone, so I'll have to do this from scratch.

I have to go drop off some blank guns here pretty soon; I'll get back and I'll start on that for you. Can you give me an indicator of the context of the project? Specifically, do you want to know how they work individually (ie, skirmish games), in a fleet action (ie, multiple WarShip squadrons on the table at once), and/or in a nuclear-active environment?

Narrowing it down will help immensely, thanks.

I know I am going to regret this first question, but is there any dark periods in history for the FWL, FS and Lyrans? I mean if all the factions have bad moments, I want to see that clearly before going full 100% fanboy.

Second, is there a list or random assignment table of nothing but crap mechs? I need to know because I kind of want some PCs to start in crap, have some techs "mildly" modify them over the course of a campaign to make them a little less crap, and fight crap and work on getting better rides.

>>50987127
>but is there any dark periods in history for the FWL
Literally when the League was killed off because WizKids. It's current reincarnation isn't too pretty either.

>>50986998

Being the other aero guy in these threads is suffering.

The Monsoon is a medium-range beatstick that looks good against other old vessels because it has so many 70-point bays and so many older ships have 100 or less armour per arc. Fighting those would have been terrifying... if you were dumb enough to close with a 2/3 mover that had no way of forcing you to fight. I think they missed a trick by not making it twin-30 mounts instead of dual-35s. It's handily outclassed by the Atreus, and a lot of lighter ships should be able to kill it just by staying out of NAC/35 range.

The Farragut on the other hand is a legitimate monster. Think of it as a less good McKenna with NGR bays instead of NPPCs and you're basically on track. The twin H-NGR bays aren't the best for bracketing but they do combine 60 damage and Extreme-C range. The NAC/40 bays will keep enemies at Long range to stay out of their reach while the NGR and NPPC bays do their work.

The Farragut kinda goes in the opposite direction to the Monsoon. The Monsoon is so bad you wonder how the Hegemony navy was able to gain a reputation for excellence with that thing but the Farragut is so overwhelmingly good it makes no sense for the SLN to retire it while keeping other bad designs in service.

>>50987127

The FedSuns "dark periods" are the 1st SW in backstory and the 3140-ish era where the Dracs are pushing their shit in.

The FWL mostly gets ignored until it disintegrates, so for them the Jihad through to rebirth in the Dark Age would qualify.

The Lyrans have been in a prolonged state of suck since basically the moment Katherine took power, getting steadily worse over time until the present-day Dark Age plot has them being double teamed by the Cockfalcons and Wolves.

>>50987093
>Can you give me an indicator of the context of the project? Specifically, do you want to know how they work individually (ie, skirmish games), in a fleet action (ie, multiple WarShip squadrons on the table at once), and/or in a nuclear-active environment?
Alternative Universe writing. I'd like to have a better handle on their performance when I'm distributing them. Like, if there's a particular battleship that's as effective as a cruiser, that faction might end up with more battleships and less cruisers.
As for scale, there are still few enough WarShips that most engagements would be lone ships or maybe a handful of corvettes or destroyers in support.
I'm also using your ASF nerfs, and nukes aren't in play.
Of primary interest are the House battleships, the monsoon and farragut

>>50987127
I can't remember a single shitmech RAT, but do you have four players? If you do, I recommend giving them the ABC of ungood 'Mechs (Assassin, Blackjack and Clint) plus a Whitworth. All are fortyish tons which means they don't die from a nasty glance like many bugs and other puny stuff, but most players would want to tinker with them to turn them into something killier, or better 'Mechs overall.

>>50987197

And because it ate my post:

The Atreus has a pretty impressive selection of weapons, but itty bitty magazines. The big guns get just 20 shots each so they need to count, and only the SLN had bracketing. Be careful with those. The armour is very good though, and it has 3/5 speed. No wonder the Hegemony and SLN shat themselves at the sight of it and ordered something better.

The Du Shi Wang (hereafter the Douche) is a mess. Early on it was probably somewhat of a bitch to fight because of the 240 armour on the prow and its forward-biased weapons array. In the land of the Defender the 240 armour with 4 Heavy Naval PPCs is king shit.

As new classes start arriving or being upgraded it looks more and more like a sad joke, it'll struggle to fight a lot of Destroyers and win. A Davion II will clean it up real fast.

>>50987279

The Douche doesn't deserve its tag as a Battleship; conversely, the Tharkad is an excellent ship that does.

I'd barely rate the Douche as better than a Destroyer, and the only thing keeping it out of that territory for me is its speed. To a lesser extent its armour, but if the Fox with its brick-like, Cruiser-weight armour and 3/5 thrust qualifies as a Corvette...

The Monsoon would make a degree of sense to lease out or just sell to the Houses (dunno when your AU is set) because of how outclassed it gets. On the other hand the fluff makes it clear the Hegemony/SLN really had a boner for them.

The biggest threats are the Farragut, Atreus, and Tharkad. The next group after that are things like the old Black Lion and the Davion Block II, but those are real eggshells with sledgehammers, lots of NAC bays and very little armour.

I'm not sure how you intend to balance things. The CapCon navy basically has no chance against the Atreus, and the Dracs are outmached by the Lyrans. The Tharkad and Atreus are pretty well matched, since the Tharkad can beat its way through the Atreus' armour fairly easily. The Cappie, Drac, and Suns ships otherwise are reasonably well-matched.

The Narukami was actually quite a nice surprise. A Davion II will crush it but it can rumble with most other things in that class and chase down some Corvettes.

>>50987197
>>50987403
>>50987598
Thanks guys. Very helpful.
So what I'm thinking, with what you've said in mind is that the CC will technically have more battleships than the other factions, but they just suck, and definitely there's only one Atreus left, which the FWL keeps on the lyran border, to counter the last Tharkad. As for the Farragut, I'm gonna relegate it to "no known active vessels", same as the McKenna (but the ComGuard has one in it's stash)
As for more setting detail, the essential elements are that the first two succession wars didn't wipe out WarShips or even their production entirely (though the only things anyone can produce by 3025 are Corvettes, Destroyer Escorts (like corvettes, but better armed), and the occasional Destroyer or Frigate), and there's still a small quantity of the things extant in every state. Other, more minor elements include not all of the SLDF fleet leaving and plans for SLDF ships being stolen during the scramble for the old TH, so SLDF ship classes are fairly common in every fleet.
Also Assault DropShips with a handful of capital weapons being used to supplement everybody's declining fleets.

>>50986769
If we let the south go, every state would secede or threaten to whenever they didn't get their way. A house divided can not stand.

>>50987953

Considering how few people play the naval side of the game it seems logical for CGL to push the direction of "no more warships, just jumpships and more armed dropships".

>>50987190
>>50987239
Thanks a bunch. I was wondering if the three realms I mentioned also had kind of war crimes times as well.
>>50987317
Love the Whitworth for what it is. The Blackjack is pretty decent as well. So a Clint and Assassin be kind of good promotions from a Stinger / Wasp bug?

>>50988661
WarShips are pretty much only in the reach of major factions. This is due to their expense and slow construction, the resources involved means no state-run facility would be willing to put them in private hands. It's not like the Federated Boeing shipyards had an overrun on Fox-class corvettes and sells them to you for low, low prices.

Even if a private/mercenary outfit managed to get ahold of one, likely a capture, the owning faction would be willing to pay or offer something in trade to get them back. Which would they rather have: a few billion C-bills in the bank, or an asset that will get scuttled in a few years due to maintenance & upkeep being too expensive and difficult due to a lack of qualified personnel, not to mention cost of expendables and ammunition?

>>50989200
Pretty much this. Unless it's an energy heavy design, even supplying the ship will be incredibly expensive, to say nothing of the fact that the average mercenary company doesn't have the clout to keep from continually getting contracts where that nice expensive Warship is going to be the tip of the spear in planetary invasions.

>>50986998

OK, I basically agree with what:
>>50987197
>>50987403
all say. I have a few additional comments.

>Monsoon
The speed of the Monsoon isn't critical when used in its intended role: to assault or defend fixed points in space. It's not intended as a space-superiority vehicle. And it's important to remember what's around it: the Commonwealth-class is the closest competitor (and it post-dates the Monsoon by a decade; basically it was designed to compete with the Monsoon if necessary). Aside from that, yeah, it's obsolete as hell. It's not *bad.* It's just *old.*

>Farragut
Yeah, it's really, really good. Nothing really outclasses it straight-up until the McKenna comes around. Be careful who gets these.

>Atreus
The lack of DropShip collars is a huge negative factor, especially if you're operating in the US Navy style "1 capital ship + escorts" squadron style.

>Du Shi Wang
Isn't a battleship. It's CALLED a battleship to scare the neighbors, but it's not a BB. Again, lack of DropShip collars is a big issue in addition to everything else.

>Tharkad
Possibly the most optimized House ship of its era (McKennas/Black Lions aren't House ships). Pairs off really well against the Atreus in 1-on-1s.

>Defender
Closest thing to a Davion BB. Is...bad. Pairs off with a Dushi reasonably well. Runs away very efficiently.

>No Drac BB

>Stefan Amaris
Not terrible, just not as good as SLDF stuff. Can't bracket for crap, but has actual useful (ish) AAA and a decent throw-weight as long as you're only using half your batteries. The LF battery refit gives it better mobility than almost everything else above, and it can last a long time in a fight against anything short of a McKenna. It's hard to place: I tend get better results with a Tharkad than an SA, but other people I play with prefer this ship. An Atreus is in deep trouble: not enough ammo, thinner skin, less fuel to run away with, and a less durable DropShip ECM screen.

>cont

>>50989409
>cont

Honestly, though, given that you're creating an AU, you'd probably be better off building all customs rather than trying to pair off extant units. If you have to use canon units, drop stuff like the Tharkad, and Farragut, and use the more plentiful "crap" designs like the Dushi, Defender, and so forth. The Atreus and Stefan Amaris are *right* on the line of being too good.

Basically, the stronger designs are too unbalancing in their "goodness"; even giving a faction 4 Defenders to match one Farragut, the faction with the Farragut will be better, since the Defenders can die easily to DDs and so forth.

I know it's a lot more work to build your own ships (3 DD classes, 2 Cruiser classes, 1-2 BB classes, and 1 "misc" ship per faction is ideal), but it's probably going to give you better results in the long run. Canon WarShip designs are just so profoundly borked it's next to impossible to get 5-ish mostly-balanced factions without using the same WarShip classes for all of them.

>>50989293
Yup. I run a reinforced regiment size mercenary unit, and we have a Titan that's been retrofitted with a pair of Kraken-Ts and a pair of AR10s with a variety of missiles. We mostly run that as a deterrent to hostile naval forces, but I know that if we come across a WarShip we're likely fucked. Occasionally use Barracudas as orbital strike weapons, with the odd Killer Whale or Kraken-T for high-damage requirements.

Why? Because that shit is /expensive/. Kraken-Ts are 55k *per missile*. Barracudas, White Sharks, and Killer Whales are cheaper, but still expensive per missile and only available in more limited numbers. It's easier and cheaper to find Arrow IV or Long Tom rounds than capital missiles.

>>50989200
no state-run facility would be willing to put them in private hands.

This should also be true of Jumpships and Dropships.

The removal of which then would also remove mercs and pirates from the setting. Which is a win-win.

>>50989550
Wrong. They have tons of usage, such as trade and cargo movement. DropShips are produced en masse for a variety of reasons, and those are likely to have overruns due to shifting military requirements.

JumpShips not as much, especially the larger ones like the Monolith. But they'll still have hand-me-downs and more that are transferred from military to civilian service. That lack of availability explains why many small merc units don't have access to them and have to charter them.

>>50989670
>But they'll still have hand-me-downs and more that are transferred from military to civilian service.

This would never happen in a universe where Jumpships are as rare as canon states they are. Stop trying to justify Sue merc units with Jumpships. It's an asspull and everyone here knows it.

>>50986769
>implying the north was somehow less racist because they abolished slavery to fuck with the south

>>50989734
>Jumpships are as rare as canon states they are
Actually, according to the most recent canon fluff, there are probably more jumpships in service than there are tanks

>>50989916

This, desu. The entire white race, and white americans, especially, is hopelessly and permanently racist, every man woman and child of you. Everyone else on the planet'd be a lot better off if you'd all killed yourselves instead of creating a country devoted to fucking everyone else up, and dropping atomic shit on us unprovoked just to prove to Russia how scary you were. You're responsible for literally, not figuratively, every major problem on the planet. Nothing you can or will ever do will make up for what you've done.

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>>50990146
And I thought we had enough of this crap with the racist ass munches in the last thread calling people white boy and crybaby.
Robits anyone!?

>>50990099
Probably not so many, but quite a few. JumpShips are not military targets so they don't get scuttled in conflicts, unlike tanks. They're something that's built to last and, as I said before, handed down and inherited. Plus more are being built every year, rather than a finite number that's slowly dwindling.

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>>50990146
we are the only thing keeping the protomechs in check

be grateful

>>50990233
>Probably not so many, but quite a few.
Well, the fluff implies at least 200,000, possibly more like two million. The former is less than the number of tanks (except maybe in the dark age), but the latter is certainly way the hell higher

>>50990233
>>50990099
>>50990465
Hell, even in the 2000 jumpship days the number of jumpships in the posession of all merc units canonically described as owning them STILL amounted to somewhere under half of all JumpShips said to be owned by mercenaries

>>50990465
>Well, the fluff implies at least 200,000, possibly more like two million

Bad fluff is bad, and your bad for citing it as anything even remotely resembling a "valid" source.

>>50990871
It's still more canon than your winging
>inb4 'muh old canon is better than new', medron

>>50990871
bad fluff =/= wrong fluff, unfortunately

>>50990465
It's not going to be an overwhelming majority either way. Unless it's in the much larger part of that spectrum, but that's a bit absurd.

There's about 2000 inhabited planets in the 'sphere. Assume each planet is going to have a militia, with at least a battalion of armor assets (even the poorer Periphery planets can muster these up). Maybe even bump that up to half-regiment size to account for key worlds, like Kathil, Sian, and Hesperus having larger auxiliaries to offset the smaller worlds having a small militia force. So for simplicity's sake, we can call that 50 vehicles for roughly 1.5 battalions, times 2000 for about 100k combat vehicles just serving in militias, auxiliaries, etc. This isn't even including line vehicles in RCTs or other mobile army movements.

Each RCT, for example, contains 3 regiments of combat vees *and* a battalion of artillery. That's about 360 combat vees for each RCT, not including any other combat vees suited for infantry, such as mechanized/motorized transports, independent APCs, etc. So we can probably round that down to 300 just since not all RCTs are going to be at full combat strength. Then multiply that by the number of active RCTs, and we have an additional number to throw for just one major faction. That doesn't include the vehicles added for the DCMS, AFFS, or even other major Periphery state standing armies.

>>50990937
>>50991000

Canon that is in clear disagreement with both the spirit of the game and with the fluff that came before it is absolutely wrong, and it must be disregarded until properly fixed.

Just because something gets published doesn't make it canon or correct.

>>50991094
>Assume each planet is going to have a militia, with at least a battalion of armor assets (even the poorer Periphery planets can muster these up)
I mean, the taurians could afford a minimum of a full two battalions on every single one of their worlds, even the far-flung nowhere colonies, so I would say that for everyone who isn't the dracs (because they think tanks are for pussies) or 3025-60 CapCon, two battalions, maybe slightly more, would be a better average

>>50991415
True. I was going for the very conservative number, to leave doubt or reduce potential accusations of bias. Even tiny locations like Astrokaszy can muster up at least a company of vees, offset by larger planetary militias at heads of state/industrial powerhouses managing over a regiment, makes for about an average of a battalion to a battalion and a half.

If you increase that number to "about a regiment" per planet, that means you're hitting the 200k mark just on planetary militias alone.

Why can't a planet with industry and a population in the billions do like the USSR did in the 1940s and just manufacture like 80,000 Po tanks?

They'd be invincible.

>>50991612

because battletech and fasanomics

>>50991612
Because FASAnomics, sweetie. If you ask these questions, the setting falls completely apart

>>50991655

Well then it's a pretty shit setting then, isn't it?

>>50991347 is right. Some canon shouldn't be allowed just because it's written down in an official product. If the canon prohibits even asking those sorts of questions, then it is the canon which is wrong.

This is why 40K is better game and has more players. You can ask those questions, and the answer is literally never "just because, OK?". The setting is good enough that there's always an answer, even if the answer is "it happens somewhere in the galaxy, it just hasn't been detailed yet."

>>50988742
If you're playing introtech, Assassins are actually decent. They make great bug swatters, thanks to being faster, tougher, and better armed than Wasps and Stingers and having the LRM to keep smacking the Locusts with while being barely slower. They're also good for recon work, being able to run away from almost anything. OTOH, if you try to use them in combat outside bullying light mechs, they tend to die fast.

>>50991743
>Well then it's a pretty shit setting then, isn't it?
Eh. It works alright if you drop a few zeros here and there on every number not related to the various militaries or space travel

>>50986016
Can you actually show a screenshot of this in a pdf or something? I've seen this said but never seen any proof for it.

>>50991940

Which part? If you mean the MOC "slaves" only being indentured servants, the proof is in the image right here: >>50986463

Herb says that MOC slaves are those who sell themselves into slavery. Not people who are born into it like they are in the DC or CC.

>>50991743
>This is why 40K is better game and has more players. You can ask those questions, and the answer is literally never "just because, OK?".

No.
As long as you're at least a little knowledgable about the setting, you can rip Warhammer 40k to pieces and then set those on fire.

>>50992022

>implying the word of a line developer is a valid source

>>50986625
>let's use violence to force people to stop doing things we don't like

You're just as bad as them, if not worse.

>>50990146
You nip assholes deserved the bombs.
Remember Nanking!

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>>50991743
Back to the 40k containment threads with you.

>>50992350

"Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst."

>>50987959
>Hey, you have to live here. If you don't like it, we'll kill you.

Nice house, asshole.

>>50992592
who are you quoting?

>>50992671
Probably himself or some /pol/-tier "thinker".

>>50992671

He's quoting Robert Heinlein. It's from Starship Troopers, from Col. Jean DuBois. It's also probably one of 4 sentences from the book that actually made it into the movie effectively verbatim.

>>50992783
why wouldnt he want to attribute the quote to Heinlen?

>>50992764
>>50992879
>>50992671
...You do realize that 0.5 seconds on a Google search would identify the quote? FFS, you're posting on a website, surely you know how other functions of the Internet work?

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A btg thread not talking about robots is a thread being conducted wrong

Let's talk about your favorite XTRO and XTRO units

>>50993098

Which giant robots make white people the most butthurt?

My hypothesis is that it's crotch monsters like the Dragon Fire, especially if they're painted in Otomo (or similar) colors. They're naturally afraid of a big black cock-gun spitting death all over their lily white faces, and the natural response to something white people are afraid of is anger and hatred.

>>50993015
but that doesnt answer my question

>>50992879
Because you should attribute the quote, correctly, to Col DuBois of the book Starship Troopers. Authors do not always agree with the perspective of the characters they write, so attributing it to Heinlein is incorrect and probably unfair, given that Heinlein is generally skeptical of government action and was a lifelong libertarian by his own admission.

>>50993098
Where's that "XTRO Perseus and Perseus Accessories" pic when I need it?

>>50993098
I've always had a soft spot for that batshit insane fireball, and also for blazers

>>50993098
XTRO: Boondoggles and XTRO: Primitives are my favorites. I love the Primitives series for the fantastic artwork (primitive Xanthos mini when) and I love Boondoggles for the sheer balls it took to make half of what's in there. I'm a sucker for lost causes.

>>50993296
>that batshit insane fireball, and also for blazers
>look it up
>16/24(40)
>designed for street racing
[Eurobeat Intensifies]

>>50993174
You're posting in an old man scifi military boardgame thread. It probably isn't an unfounded assumption the majority here know the quote.

>>50993343
Ostscout IIC best OST.

>>50992879

Most likely because he's at least peripherally aware that Heinlein wrote Starship Troopers as a *parody* of jingoistic, authoritarian (or fascist, the jury's out on that) societies as a way to make them seem completely over-the-top to people raised on American values. You aren't supposed to support what those people are saying, if you do, then you're pretty clearly the sort of person that Heinlein was preaching *against*.

Anybody who uses the quote seriously while knowing the source material is a disingenuous idiot at best and an actual authoritarian at worst. Somebody who uses the quote seriously without understanding that wouldn't have any reason not to cite it, ergot, the poster is clearly either an idiot or an authoritarian.

>50993173

Oh come on. At least *try*.

>>50993098

I have an unhealthy love for the Vengeance-class PWS. It's not even that *good*. But zooming around with a DropShip throwing Itano Circuses of SCM's is just fun.

Also, pretty much all of Boondoggles. I may or may not have thrown a battalion-ish of WoB-flagged Scorpion LAMs at a company of PCs during a Jihad game. The WoB knew about a *second* bunker on Hesperus II that contained the actual production run to go along with the specs/parts found by the Lyrans just before the Jihad. The number of Scorpions which shot themselves down (occasionally landing directly on important mission objectives) IIRC exceeded the number shot down by the PCs.

>>50992592
>we beat you up therefore we are right

The people you're disagreeing with are simply doing the same thing to other people.

>>50993447
>and an actual authoritarian at worst

Bingo. Just look at all the "REBEL SCUM!" losers in California who now support them leaving. They don't have any firm moral stance, they just want to swing their dicks around.

>>50993098

OH, I totally forgot. There was that automated JumpShip from Boondoggles that's been automatedly jumping around for the last 500 years, right? I've got an adventure written up that I'm dying to play sometime that basically has the PCs finally catch up with the thing. BattleTech meets Event Horizon, anyone?

Also, I got to use the Enterprise from Boondoggles in my WarShip writeups for the /btg/TRO. Like, as a huge plot point, not just a reference.

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>>50993529
>BattleTech meets Event Horizon, anyone?

Doctor Weir approves, but only if he's assigned to the PC's dropship for the mission.

On a related note, I wonder if anyone has ever run a Call of Cthulhu / BattleTech crossover...

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>>50993286
here

I really should improve this someday, made it in like a minute 9000+ HOURS IN MS PAINT

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How did Davion get pushed as the main character of the inner sphere, anyways?

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>>50994875
I'm sorry I got distracted, what?

>>50994918
Is that a Panther?

>>50994993
yep

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Shimmy, I saw you try to post that without /btg/ noticing. Not today.

If you could save one clan from the Wars Of Reaving and put them in the inner sphere/periphery, dark age combo'd with a faction of your choice, who would you save and where would you put them?

>>50995250
>Ice Hellions
>filvelt coalition
[Eurobeat Banjo]

>>50995250
>Blood Spirits
>Taurians
Fuck you that's why. TAURIAN CLANTECH GO

>>50995277
Oh shit nigger do want.

>>50995250

Ghost Bear and CapCon.

I'd never have to worry about losing to the Davions again, and my faction would objectively win the game.

>>50995277
>introtech with bits of clantech
do want

>>50995250
Mandrills and FWL
[infighting intensifies]

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>>50995250
>the pairing I wanted already happened
[Aerospace intensifies]

>>50993343
My favorite part about Boondoggles is the Scorpion LAM, because even though the LAM bits don't work it's still better than the stock Scorpion.

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>>50982517
>Love this guy's art.

Me too!

>>50996126
Yeah that's true but the stock Scorpion is actually available. The Scorpion LAM has like 4 canon examples, none of which function anymore. Sweet design, right up there with the Champion LAM.

>>50996167
Most of them are already on the booru and being tagged when people can sort those things out. I don't know what special tag to do them other than possibly "pencil art."

>>50996167
Pretty sure there's a lot of samefagging pushing him

>>50989293

Not just supplying either.

The Houses barely have the infrastructure in place to support their WarShip fleets in any era; in the AoW/SL period they keep most of their fleets in mothballs because they can't maintain them and only drag them out for critical campaigns, and in the 3050+ era naval infrastructure is even more limited. Only the small size of most navies saves them.

The FWL had a decent fleet but in hindsight that was only so the WoB could steal like 2/3rd of it.

Add in the 13 thousand billion plus costs of a Texas even without LF batteries and the fact it's the second-biggest fighting ship the IS ever saw and I can't even imagine a Merc unit being able to afford one even if it somehow came onto the open market. The Houses would be all over that shit and, as with the Tirpitz, probably try to blow it up rather than let anyone else have it.

>>50988661

Unfortunately this is the state of affairs for the Dark Age. Real WarShips are rare as fuck, but Pocket WarShips are more common and getting better.

On the one hand, a setting heavy with WSes- and by this I mean like, height of the SLN numbers where they could pretty much afford to put a McKenna and Soyuz in most if not all of the inhabited systems of a House that got uppity- it requires a hell of a lot more hand-waving to explain why dirt-side, 'Mech-centric combat is the focus of the game rather than WSes and/or ASF wings designed to rip the WarShips to shreds.

But I like playing with WarShips, so I try not to think about it too much.

/btg/, what non-Clan novels should I read?

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>>50996540
>The Houses would be all over that shit and, as with the Tirpitz, probably try to blow it up rather than let anyone else have it.

......yes, the houses did that.

>>50996556
WOLVES ON THE BORDER

>>50992022
>the proof isn't in the fluff itself

Interesting...

>>50993447
>Heinlein wrote Starship Troopers as a *parody*

Someone has seen the movie too often. It was the parody.

>>50996594

>non-Clam
>Dragoons

What you did there. I see it.

>>50996578

ComStar got to the punch first but the odds are very high that the Capellans or Taurians would have blown it up rather than let the other have it.

OOC the Black Lion is a terrifying WarShip because of its massive NAC batteries and relatively thick hide. IC it's not as well-regarded as a Texas because WS fluff rarely matches up to its stats.

If people are willing to go that far to stop someone having a Black Lion, I can't imagine they'd be keen to let someone else get a Texas.

Either way a Merc unit out-bidding a House falls apart on the face of it. I know in CA's MekHQ the Texas is priced at a fraction of its real value and he's already essentially killed the Jade Falcons but even in such a bizarre environment I find mercs owning a Texas a step too far.

YMMV, though. Just stating my opinion, not looking to get into a massive argument about an AU campaign that's already wildly off the rails.

>>50993447
>Heinlein wrote Starship Troopers as a *parody*
The movie was a parody. The director read the first few chapters of the book and threw it away in disgust, since he lived during Nazi-occupied France.

The book was about a militaristic utopia the same way that Star Trek was a socialist utopia: unrealistic and never bringing up the problems associated with such a society.

>>50996742
This. Still a fun read if you don't take it overly serious.

Would you like to know more?

>>50996671
>>50996742
I've noticed after a while that NEA is great for anything aerotech, but rather useless for anything else.

>>50996732
Wolves on the Border is still a really good novel though. I'd also suggest Warrior: En Garde and Heir to the Dragon. Despite being a shitheel, Loren Coleman's Illusions of Victory is also quite good.

>>50996945

C'mon mate, that's like 4 consecutive threads you're shitting on the guy, and he hasn't been in 3 of them. It's a new year, find a new schtick. Try complain that Eaglefags are the hipsters of Battletech and they're ruining the game or that some PTB is shit because they're the patron writer of Niops or something. Just be original already, will you?

>>50996742
>The book was about a militaristic utopia the same way that Star Trek was a socialist utopia

I'm not going to lie: I thought the book was a parody because nobody could be stupid enough to think that a hyper-libertarian paradise run almost entirely by the military could even remotely resemble a utopia. The movie then doubles down on that and takes it from parody into outright satire.

>>50997599
It's my second post in this thread and in weeks. Just calling it as it is.

>>50997655

Nobody believes you. It's always 2-3 post number quotations and then a 1-liner. Go ahead, prove your claim.

>>50997599
>nobody could be stupid enough to think that a hyper-libertarian paradise run almost entirely by the military could even remotely resemble a utopia

To be precise, the problem ain't that everything is run by the military, but that only people who served get to vote. The whole book is essentially: "why we should only allow the average 4-year grunt to get a say in the political process"

The book even states that anybody who has a problem joins up with the military to get a say in the political process, and then don't change anything because they realize the system is perfect.

>>50997849
Burden of proof is on you, little cuck.

>>50997599
>I thought the book was a parody
How?

It lays out a great system of government. Did you even read it?

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>>50998406
>It lays out a great system of government.

Well, it sure beats strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords.

>>50998406

>only people who have been indoctrinated to believe the system is perfect and have a vested interest in it not changing should be allowed to have a say in it

Are you by any chance MadCap?

>>50998541
Not an argument. You really haven't read it, have you?

>indoctrinated
Ironic word choice

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>>50998534
>Valley Forge

What is the appeal of the Cappies as a faction?

I get they used to be The Supreme Underdogs, but that hasn't really been true for like 15 years or more.

>>50998805
Being the supreme overdogs

>>50998683

Yes I have.

It was expressly written as a vehicle for right-wing ideology. That was literally what he said at the time.

>hurr not an argument durr

>>50997599
>The movie then doubles down on that and takes it from parody into outright satire

Shouldn't that be the other way around?

>>50997912
>The book even states that anybody who has a problem joins up with the military to get a say in the political process, and then don't change anything because they realize the system is perfect.

Please cite this, because I don't remember that at all.

>>50998960

>book is written to criticise people who are saying maybe the US needs to tone it down with the militarisation and foreign adventurism
>only veterans are allowed to vote (Heinlein later claims he intended Federal Service to be 90%+ non military, but this is never said at any point and smacks of of him trying to move goalposts)
>only military veterans are allowed to teach history or ethics
>veterans invariably come out 100% in favour of the system

I mean, I don't remember it happening either but that's less because it couldn't happen and more because everyone is taught that the system is perfect by people who get indoctrinated to believe that in their civics classes and military training and who have every incentive to propagate that notion in succeeding generations.

>>50999134
I don't see a page number or chapter or anything.

>>50999134
Well to be fair if you consider the government itself staffed by Civil Service volunteers then it's likely they have a mountain of paper pushers and such. There were also mentions of manning things like research stations and such if I recall, and the fact they'd find something for someone to do despite their handicaps or other deficiencies, but it'd be suitably soul crushing boring to qualify as earning the vote.

I just kinda enjoy the idea the idea of bureaucrats being made sufficiently miserable to compare with a few years of military service if nothing else comes from the implications in the book.

>>50999562

I'm not him.

I'm just saying that Heinlein deliberately wrote a pro-right wing, pro-military book where only hard military men should have a say in civil governance and created a self-reinforcing system around that.

He did this because based on his experiences in the military he thought only (ex) military personnel should have a say in civil governance because it was all the whiny namby-pamby civilians shitting everything up with their demands for needless leftist crap like not being in wars all the time or letting civilians vote at all.

Best-case scenario is that he fetishised military authoritarianism. That he was arguing in favour of facism is easily arguable and very probably his intent.

>>50986816
Yeah, I'm pretty sure they have slaves in the same way they have bandits and pirates with spaceships and giant robot war machines.

The law level is pretty fucking low.

>>50999719
Except if you read Stranger in a Strange Land, he pretty much goes in the exact other direction.

The author could see the advantages, and disadvantages, of several possible systems humans might organize themselves by in the future. Starship Troopers makes no bones about the fact that the Federals are deeply fucked up. Nobody but the narrator ever claims it's a good system.

>>50999778
>>50999719

Rico only embraces the military junta after he is broken in indoctrination. Everything after the first act is him learning to Love Big Brother.

>>50999682

Well, look. I'll say this.

The idea that only people who have completed some form of civil service should be given suffrage is an interesting and even defensible idea.

It's just that in Heinlein's work the only method shown to grant that is military service. And only veterans are allowed to teach civics or history.

This is on top of Heinlein's extremely authoritarian and pro-military stance on pretty much everything but who you should be allowed to fuck.

The book is an interesting sci-fi novel in the original intent of sci-fi being about examining what society might do with high tech or encounters with space aliens and how we define ourselves in relation to them.

But the system as presented in it is total shit and not something anyone should be arguing is reasonable or should be applied IRL.

Hey guys is the only battletech wargame the hex based one?

>>50999778
Heinlein was politically conservative, stopped considering himself a democrat in 1954. But otherwise he was actually fairly liberal for the 50s and 60s, didn't make race or religion a big deal in his novels while writing in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement. And Stranger in a Strange Land was less about politics and more about personal change through philosophy and spirituality, so that lines up with his more liberal ideas.

>>50999892

I'm not sure what you're asking here.

But BT and the associated systems like AeroTech and planet maps use hexes.

>>50993992
Hey, if Shimmy or another artist made a cover, I'd make that book. Don't say you guys wouldn't want it. It would even include Interface Persei

>>50996732
>Either way a Merc unit out-bidding a House falls apart on the face of it. I know in CA's MekHQ the Texas is priced at a fraction of its real value and he's already essentially killed the Jade Falcons but even in such a bizarre environment I find mercs owning a Texas a step too far.
Not just the Falcons, but everyone bar the Jags and Nova Cats. My dream AtB system allows the player to effect real change on the setting, because lemme tell ya, Operation Serpent would just be my guys landing on Strana Mechty HPGing "Come on if you think you're hard enough." Or for a more realistic game, planets and operations changing based on your actions. I will admit the underpriced Warships are bizarre though. I don't think MHQ applies the multipliers properly.

>>50999892
Alpha Strike and the Miniatures rules are hexless.

>>50999892
There is Alpha Strike which uses rulers and stuff. I don't know much more than that. I don't play it.

Also there might be conversion rules to that Battletech from hexes to inches.

>>51000104
>>51000118
The hexless shit is annoying. It's so much nicer to be able to be able to count hexes for range and use the hex system for LoS rather than having to measure things out and ogle from PoV like a retard.
>Hurr durr I can see a finger you're in LoS

Which is why I like how Alpha Strike has a hex conversion system. Good of them to add it.

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Chandy a best. Incidentally, was it clarified who the two persons commentating (Daniela and her boss) were? They certainly didn't like Uncle Chandy or Irian.

>>51001762
Newbie here. What is HTE and who is Uncle Chandy?

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>>51000867
>ogle from PoV like a retard.
>Hurr durr I can see a finger you're in LoS

Thought experiment: what if instead of using what is essentially True Line of Sight (which is blatantly unfair given the various scale creep issues), Alpha Strike used a silhouette system similar to Infinity?

For example, all units have a silhouette width equal to the area of a standard hex base, and (for the sake of argument) 1.5 inches tall for light Mechs, 1.75 inches tall for mediums, 2 inches tall for heavies, and 2.25 inches tall for assaults. Infantry and vee silhouettes are either 0.75 inch or 1 inch tall (would need playtesting). A silhouette is divided into thirds in both height and width, using lines drawn across the marker. You must be able to see at least 1/3rd of the unit to establish a LOS; if the only horizontal line you can see is the lower 1/3rd line, non-leg location hit the cover, and if the only horizontal can see is the upper 1/3rd line, use the normal TW partial cover rules.

This would allow a standard marker to be used in the case of questionable LOS. Using a minimum of 1/3rd of the target and setting the silhouette as the width of the hex base eliminates the issue of Mech hands or gun barrels even being arguable for LOS purposes. Using a standard marker eliminates the entire issue of something like the one Blood Asp sculpt that's twice as tall as an Atlas. Yes, it means that the Mech models are just counters...but they've ALWAYS been just counters, since you've never actually had to have them to play BattleTech in the first place.

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>>51001895
HTE is Hachiman Taro Electronics, a Draconis Combine computer (among other things) manufacturer. Uncle Chandy is the in-universe nickname of Chandrasekhar Kurita, a cousin of Theodore Kurita, the heir to the throne/later Coordinator of the Combine. Uncle Chandy is characterised by two things: he's really, really business-minded - he owns a shitload of companies both in and out of Kurita space - and he's really, really smart.

>>50998916
Heh, ok kid. Come back when you have an argument then, k?

>>50998946
He doesn't know what he's talking about, he never read it lol

>>50999134
They're no more indoctrinated than you. Try reading more than the Wikipedia page on it.

>>50999796
Holy shit you're a moron.

>>50999808
>But the system as presented in it is total shit and not something anyone should be arguing is reasonable or should be applied IRL.
You still haven't made an argument as to why except for name calling. Is it that hard?

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>>51002732
I can't tear my eyes off this.

>>51002583

The total lack of self-awareness in this post is baffling.

Heinlein literally said that he was writing it as a counter-argument to civilians who were criticising the military bent of the government and the government itself.

This is not in question, you can easily find him saying just that.

>but, but, death of the author!

Doesn't mean what you think it means. And even if it did, the book is so blatantly in favour of the idea that only military veterans should have a voice in civil government it wouldn't even matter.

>They're no more indoctrinated than you.

Right. Because limiting the number of people allowed to have a role in shaping young minds to those who have been in the military is gonna have no effect at all on society.

>Try reading more than the Wikipedia page on it.

Ah, the last refuge of the desperate. "But if you'd read it you'd understand! You just think what wikipedia tells you to think!"

>>51002595
>>51002605

There are at least three people telling you that you are wrong here. The only insults that have been thrown are at the system Heinlein is trying to write apologia for... right up until you went for ad hominems.

And the argument as to why it shouldn't be applied is blatantly obvious. The system indoctrinates everyone and works on group-think to work. It's a militaristic, at best authoritatian society if you're willing to give it all the benefit of the doubt in the world and an outright facist one if you go by what's on the page.

Its fetishisation in military sci-fi wonks is fucking retarded. WW2 literally happened because societies like that cannot help but be evil, a lesson that has been forgotten as people who were around to see it died out and get replaced by those who swallow sweet online memes and media where hard military men always make the right choices.

>>51001762

>They certainly didn't like Uncle Chandy or Irian.

That's not gonna narrow the suspect pool down much though :P

>>51002981
why

do

you

respond

like

this

to

them?

clean that shit up, nigga

>>51002014

>Different sizes for weight classes

No. Come on man, we have verbatim text specifying that lights and assaults are 10 metres tall with a few exceptions on shorter and taller that happen by specific 'Mech and not weight class. Standardise it completely or only make exceptions for things like the Thor or whatever.

Art is the lowest form of canon and there are inconsistencies with the chart at the back of TR 3039 any way. MWO shouldn't even enter into it.

>>51002981
You still haven't make a counterargument that shows you read the book and not the wikipedia page.
Prettying up your post by writing nonsense such as "le last refuge" doesn't suddenly give you an argument.

>>51002981
>The total lack of self-awareness in this post is baffling.
If you're prefacing your own, it makes sense.

>>51002997

>hurr you were wrong before
>now you're extra wrong because you didn't write the way i want you to
>also you're a nigga

Yeah, discussing this with you has just been *delightful.*

>>51003041
I'm just pointing out you write like a sperg.

You can assume everyone who calls you out are the same people you were debating your book with.

Simply makes you seem *paranoid*.

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>>51002981
>There are at least three people telling you that you are wrong here. The only insults that have been thrown are at the system Heinlein is trying to write apologia for... right up until you went for ad hominems.

The total lack of self-awareness in this post is baffling.

Or you're pretending you're not lying.

>>51003041
He didn't even say you were wrong before. Stop being an obstinate cunt.

>>51002981
>Right. Because limiting the number of people allowed to have a role in shaping young minds to those who have been in the military is gonna have no effect at all on society.
This isn't even a real argument. You're proving the anon right that you're equally indoctrinated to what you think others are. wtf

TIL what quotes trigger /btg/

Could you take it to >>/lit and leave us in peace

>>51003103
I think it's been carefully staged b8 by the usual shitposter. A book as popular on BT as Starship Troopers (never read it myself) is going to have reactions if shat on. Given how many of our players are former military especially.

Why did it even get brought up?

>>51003122

Someone posted a quote.

Then there was bitching about no quote attribution.

Then someone said it had a great system of government.

Then someone disagreed.

>>51003122

because I shitposted while I was in the cups, lord knows I didn't expect to derail shit like this

>>51003023
>Standardise it completely

That was actually my first thought (2 inch tall for all Mechs, 0.75-in tall for all vees and infantry). However, I figured that if I suggested that, somebody was going to chime in with that image from TRO 3039 showing light Mechs at *half* the size of Assaults and insist that lights and assaults should be different sizes.

I will say that I can come up with a decent rationale for lights/assaults getting different size silhouettes (lights are more able to move/dodge within the bounds of the silhouette area), but I can completely respect the purely simulationist aspect you're pushing, and I'd also be fine with that in use.

Aside from stuff that would be solved in playtesting (you know, if CGL ever did real playtesting), what about the overall larger *concept* of using silhouettes instead of true LOS with minis that aren't all to the same scale? How would it help or hurt AS's LOS issues?

>>51003174
>However, I figured that if I suggested that, somebody was going to chime in with that image from TRO 3039 showing light Mechs at *half* the size of Assaults and insist that lights and assaults should be different sizes.

This is called a no-win scenario. Somebody is sure to bitch if you made them different sizes. Somebody is sure to bitch if you didn't make them different sizes.

The solution is not to post any ideas at all if it's possible for somebody to shitpost about them.

>>51003174

Lights already get a bonus from (usually) being fast, and while 'Mechs shouldn't be capable of the bullshit in that novel where they do backflips off each other it's not like they move the way they do in MW games either, all blocked up and grindingly slow when you get to heavier masses. I know it's crept into the common consciousness as to how they operate but at least in BT fluff proper all 'Mechs are described as pretty fluid.

>How would it help or hurt AS's LOS issues?

Standardisation can only help. As you note strictly going by the minis gets you some garbage results, especially with things that are out of scale. The Blood Asp you mentioned but the Tarantula has always been a personal bugbear of mine since it doesn't even fit into one hex when you're playing BT, never mind using miniatures rules.

LoS is always going to be a thorny issue any way, like playground "Bang bang! You're dead!" "Nuh uh, you missed!" stuff. One player will always think they've come up with a genius plan that hides one of their machines and then be pissy when that's not the case. Hexes help make it more consistent for all involved, my experience with minis games and eyeballing LoS has always been that it makes things contentious.

Especially when there's weird interactions between what you can see and what rules say you can hit. I was watching a 40K game once and it completely broke down when an ImpGuard player lost it over whether the DEldar guy he was playing should shoot the front or side of his tank. I was drafted as a neutral observer and told to use logic rather than game rules to resolve it for them.

Looking down the periscope they were using to view things from a model's eye view I could see like three mm of the front of the tank and all of the side, so I sided with the DEldar player.

The rage was incandescent. I regret nothing.

>>51002757
its beeeeeeuuuuuteeeful

>>51003298

I totally get that. Unfortunately, ignoring LOS entirely and just saying "use hexes" is to effectively ignore the entire minis wargaming genre entirely. Frankly, that's not really an option as long as AS is actually a thing.

Of the various LOS systems I've seen the Infinity-style silhouette system seems to be the "least bad", insofar as if you can see the lines on the silhouette marker, then it's 100% clear and obvious what happens. Sure, you can always get some jackass who just lies about what's visible, but to be honest, that's a player problem and not a rules problem. Certainly, true LOS systems (and periscope systems) fall apart completely once you get even remotely competitive players involved. Modified TLOS systems (something like "have to see the body; arms/guns/antennae don't count") work reasonably well when everything is tightly controlled in the same scale (BT is clearly not), but as soon as you get out of scale items or you start converting pieces, it also falls apart.

I remember "modeling for advantage" when I was playing GW games: like a guy who modeled removable neck sections for a WFB dragon. Since the template was measured from the dragon's mouth, he'd add neck sections so he could flame literally anywhere on the table. Return attacks were drawn to the dragon's base, which was always behind a woods or something and thus unhittable. Hell, even basic things like "making your guy stand dramatically on a rock" hurt you in almost any LOS system since he's easier to see. In 2e Infinity, having your guys on pretty resin bases was bad, because it added height to the model AND small rocks stuck out from the sides. Since your base had to be adjacent to cover, and the scenery wasn't technically part of the "base", your models couldn't ever enter cover.

Silhouettes bypass every one of these problems. They're just boring, and you have to make/buy them. I can't think of another reason not to use them.

>>51003122
There do seem to be a lot of former mil in BT.
Of course the first game I played was on USS Peleliu.

>>51003457

>I totally get that. Unfortunately, ignoring LOS entirely and just saying "use hexes" is to effectively ignore the entire minis wargaming genre entirely.

Nah, I was saying you want something that's as objective as possible, Hexes make that happen pretty well aside from the small niche of "defending player's choice" which can be used to abuse the system; one player allows themselves to be shot at when LoS passes along the dividing line between hexes where one allows LoS and the other does not expecting reciprocation, then the other player says LoS is blocked and they can't be shot :^)

I still think that needs to be changed to both units being visible to each other if one fires on the other.

The more consistent and clearly-written a system is the better.

Silhoettes sound pretty boring but if it's going to stop min-maxing rules lawyers they're probably the way to go.

>>50997912
There are other kinds of service than military anon. The book was was explicit that you didn't have to join the military to become a citizen.

>>51004008
>There are other kinds of service than military

Not that really matter. At least if you've served in the active-duty military, the country can be sure of your loyalty, since you were willing to get killed for your country.

You can't argue that if we only gave the full set of constitutional rights to people who served in military combat arms, this country would be tremendously better off.

>>51004082
we'd get a better VA but I dont know about the other stuff

>>51003264
>The solution is not give a fuck.

Fixed.

>>51004313
Better Department of Housing and Urban Development too.

All inner city projects would just be tents in the parks ..... and Navy SEALS could train there.
It's called efficient use of resources.

>>51004082
>You can't argue that if we only gave the full set of constitutional rights to people who served in military combat arms, this country would be tremendously better off.

Yes I can.

People who haven't served in military combat arms should be summarily executed, not given some bullshit limited set of "rights" that exist only because people with guns defend it for you. If you aren't willing to defend your country, then your country has no use for you.

Today I learned that BTG gets triggered when fictional people voluntarily enter themselves into "slavery" (really indentured servitude) and that it's the worst thing ever and anyone who supports that fictional institution is evil/racist/etc.

Meanwhile, BTG is fine with actual, literal fascism and is fine with murdering real people who are unable or unwilling to serve in the military.

>>50998534
>Exelion
[HARD WORK AND GUTS INTENSIFY]

>>51004789
You wanna know how I know this is bait? because there is only one singular anon who has said anything close to
>murdering real people who are unable or unwilling to serve in the military.

TL;DR: Weak shit

>>51004789
>Meanwhile, BTG is fine with actual, literal fascism and is fine with murdering real people who are unable or unwilling to serve in the military.

If you're not in the military or a vet, you aren't a real person and you aren't entitled to anything, including life. Defend it, or fucking die off and reduce the surplus population, libtard.

>>51001762
They were some corporate guy and his secretary, IIRC. It's mentioned either at the start or the end.

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>>51004082

I'm now imagining a country run entirely by 11 series and 0300 series MOS. Good lord.

>>51004997

Better a country run by real grunts than by POGs, tranny liberals, and Air Force pukes.

>>51005052
>and Air Force pukes.
Now that's just unwarranted.

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>>51005052

Looks like somebody doesn't want CAS. Or airlift. Or nice things.

So, I'm planning on running a BattleTech RPG for a group of my friends using A Time of War. I'm rather familiar with most of the AToW rules and most of combat. The one thing I don't know are how to actually run a mercenary unit.

What books do I need to know how many personnel a unit needs/has, how much they need paid, how much maintenence/overhead/etc is, and other fiddly bookkeeping stuff?

>>51004082
>You can't argue that if we only gave the full set of constitutional rights to people who served in military combat arms, this country would be tremendously better off.

WW1, Anon.

>>51005052
I bet you don't believe women should serve in the military. So women can't serve, and all people who don't serve should be killed.

Great homo society you just established that just set up its own extinction, genius.

>>51005052

>a country run by knuckle-dragging infantry

Yeah. You'll be stopped by the police on the corner and if you don't have a can of dip in your pocket you get arrested.

>>51005952

>implying the military isn't already homo as fuck even with women in it

>>51006059

If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about.

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>>51005952
Grandma-age Natasha Kerensky in her cockpit wearing very little clothing is my waifu.

I swear this just was my captcha.

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>>51006240
mah sibko

>>51006140
This is what high school dropouts actually believe

>>51004997
Schmuckatelli for president!

>>51005808
Grab Field Manual Mercenaries (Revised) from the OP mediafire. It has everything you need

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Battle bump

>>51002757
WHAT UP TUBE BABIES IT'S THE RAPE O'CLOCK SHOW BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE FIRST STEINER SCOUTS

>>51003156
He didn't even post a quote, he posted an opinion.

>>51003174
>>51003457
I think it would be good, because True LOS is fucking cancer in minis games.

>>51009311
What mech is that?

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So my friends and I got the intro set.

What factions are best?

It came with a paper about how to paint, what colors for what faction. What are the best unit paint jobs?

And how do you pick a faction?

>>51011112
Supernova

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>>51011131
>So my friends and I got the intro set.
Congrats!

>What factions are best?
None. They're all alright, with ups and downs. BattleTech doesn't really work like 40k in that you pick a faction and just play that faction. Most of us play basically everyone.

>It came with a paper about how to paint, what colors for what faction. What are the best unit paint jobs?
Lots of schemes are good. A classic one that is excellent is pic related, the Marik Militia scheme. The mech is an Orion.

>And how do you pick a faction?
Again, this isn't like 40k or other wargames, you don't have to do that. If you insist, you need to learn about the various factions and make an informed judgment. You have the five Great Houses, the 8-odd surviving Clans (and the other 12 dead ones if you're a nutter), the various Periphery powers, the dozens of mercenary commands, the Word of Blake, ComStar, the SLDF (both incarnations), House Cameron, House Amaris, and there's probably a few more I'm forgetting. Good luck.

Or you can just play whatever as it comes up. I'd do that.

>>51011112
It's a Nova Cat, that other anon is a faggot.

>>51011216
I can see you're a fan of purple

>>51011297
I actually have a lance in Marik Militia painted and displayed at my FLGS. And I own two more, forming a full Militia company. I personally really like that scheme.

>>51011216
Not the new guy but I can't unsee that Orion having a moustache.

>>51011131
Welcome to Battletech, anon. Hopefully you got that Intro Box at a fair price.

>What factions are best?
None of them. Avoid factionfagging at all costs. Be flexible with what you play to have maximum fun.

>It came with a paper about how to paint, what colors for what faction. What are the best unit paint jobs?
Well, that's a bit subjective. You can usually just get away with painting 'Mechs the base color of their faction (Purple for FWL, green for Capellan Confederation, red for Draconis Combine, blue for Lyran Commonwealth, and yellow for Federated Suns). Or hit Camo Specs to see the myriad of paint schemes available to you. Plain camo with unit insiginas works fine too since most of the bright color schemes are parade colors and operational paint is actually utilitarian.

>And how do you pick a faction?
Try them all, play them all. If you prefer the playstyle/'Mechs of a particular faction, maybe paint a few more 'Mechs that color, or get some more minis for it. But I wouldn't suggest going wholesale into a single faction.

>>51011355
>Not the new guy but I can't unsee that Orion having a moustache.
ITSA ME, MARIO!
We have Pikachu, Hello Kitty and TTGL painted mechs, why not big mustache Mario.

>>51011437
>Mario is Italian
>FWL is Greek-inspired
Close enough, fund it!

>>51011453
What ethnicity is Ron Jeremy? I'm seeing pron star battlemechs!

>>51011216
>>51011355
Sorry, I didn't mean "best faction" in an objective sense but with regards to vehicle selection. The painting and tactics guide lists which mechs go to which house, and it made me wonder what selection more experienced players prefer.

Also for those who picked a certain command or faction why you picked it. We've been reading the guide to factions in it and so far Liao and Marik seem interesting.

>>51011482
I have no idea what ethnicity the Hedgehog is, but he's pretty swarthy so I'd say Mediterranean. Italian, Greek, Lebanese... something like that.

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>>51011482
>What ethnicity is Ron Jeremy? I'm seeing pron star battlemechs!

He's already part of Iron/Shadow Empires.

>>51011499
>new player
>immediately wants to start powergaming like a grog

Pls no

>>51011499
Well, with regards to the Intro Box 'Mechs, oddly enough everything is fairly balanced. The Draconis Combine/Kurita probably have the weakest selection, but it's not really that bad because they get the Panther and Jenner which are really good. Overall though, I'd wager Liao, Steiner, and Davion get the best selection, with the latter two mainly because they can afford to import basically anything, and have a chance at having basically anything through salvage. Liao... I don't know why they gave them such a good 'Mech selection. It's a bit odd. The Vindicator literally shows up in pretty much no other army, for example, and was included. Maybe as the odd salvage but that's really it. But the Vindicator, Catapult, and Cyclops are pretty solidly associated with Liao, so they got quite a bit of love there. The worst 'Mech in the box, the Banshee, is associated with the Steiners, so they get shafted on that, but only for the base model. The 3S is phenomenal. Ultimately, I'd try them all and see what you like.

>>51011499
Faction with best mech selection ever is the Republic of the Sphere, but they're Dark Age only. Before that, you want House Davion, rulers of the Federated Suns. Again though, I seriously cannot stress enough that the experienced players *don't pick factions*. We have favorites, but that's a lore-only thing pretty much. I'm a ComStar/Taurian Concordat faggot but the last game I played in I was Word of Blake and the one before that I was Lyran mercs and before that I was a random no-name merc and before that I was a Kuritan samurai and before that I think was ComStar. Experienced players *play everything*. You should too.

>>51011633
Fucking signed. Can't stress the "don't factionfag" thing enough. GOTTA PLAY 'EM ALL!

>>51011667
Absolutely. Except the Clans. Fuck the Clans. kidding mostly

To the newanon, if you want to powergame, you want to play the Republic of the Sphere. If you want the best BattleTech experience, play everything you can get your hands on. Pick mechs that look like shit and find out *why* they're shit (if they even are, some may surprise you). Just play everything and you'll have the best time.

>>51011558
That's delightful.
I do have a question: I know some of the BT people did reference some anime in BT, but I wondered if the three goddesses from Oh / Ah My Goddess were being referenced by some of the planet names that were close to their names. I thought there was a Belldandy / Verthandi or something along with Skuld and Urd. It's been a while.

>>51011482
Jew

New thread...
>>51012126

>>51011580
Not really about powergaming, but what's fun.

>>51011591
The painting and tactics guide says the Cyclops is Davion.

>>51011633
I'll try them all. We're going to play with mixed mech forces. Lore wise the centralized state focus of the Liaos and the opposite independence minded provincial Mariks look the most interesting.

>>50982335
>/btg/'s own image board: - (Still getting worked on (2016-12-30+), now has 8165 pics!)

FFS. Why even bother uploading god damned pictures if they're 95% thumbnail size anyways?

>>51012459
The site is still being worked on, but I guess you just click on a thumbnail and it opens the main pic where, if you have an account (which are free,) you can edit the tags and post comments and such.
How small is thumbnail size to you? Most of them seemed normal.