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Mukaikubo posted:Laughably low speed. Thin armor. No long range punch to speak of, and only a middling short range punch as these things go. Cheap as hell because infantry will probably kill it anyway and why invest a lot in one? So they are basically cannonfodder? I though the Hunchback was also labeled an urbanmech. The Hunchie isn't an Atlas but it can certainly put a hurt on someone.
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May 2, 2011 19:30
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Trast posted:So they are basically cannonfodder? I though the Hunchback was also labeled an urbanmech. The Hunchie isn't an Atlas but it can certainly put a hurt on someone. The Hunchback is an "urban mech" because it's loadout works really well in built up, city-like environments with limited sight lines. That's not the be confused with the UrbanMech, though. Muk was describing the UrbanMech, which is somewhat of a joke design in most players' eyes.
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May 2, 2011 19:36
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Trast posted:So they are basically cannonfodder? I though the Hunchback was also labeled an urbanmech. The Hunchie isn't an Atlas but it can certainly put a hurt on someone. Ah, I think I see the confusion here. The Hunchback is considered a city 'mech, as are most of the short range low speed 'mechs, with the thought that since running on pavement leads to slipping and falling, you can use slower 'mechs there. Also the fact that your line of sight will be limited, a focus on weapons without minimum ranges, like AC10s and 20s, Large Lasers, Medium Lasers, and the like are better than your traditional big guns like LRMs and PPCs. Finally, since you can end up getting surprised easily in a city, they recommend heavy armor including to the rear, and this is where rear mounted weapons are the most useful. What everyone else is referring to is the specific "Urbanmech" design, a thirty ton piece of crap that has the slowest speed in the game (2-3-2) so it can carry an AC10 and a Small laser. Useless away from a city and not all that great inside of one, the Urbanmech is a challenger for Worst 'Mech Ever, alongside an unmodified Charger. jng2058 fucked around with this message at 20:02 on May 2, 2011 |
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May 2, 2011 19:37
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I think some folks mentioned Urbanmechs also had Jumpjets. So in dense urban conditions, where range is less important than LOS, they would be a cheap way to really, really annoy your opponent. About as annoying as a mobile, hopping AC/10 could be, anyway.
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May 2, 2011 19:37
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WarLocke posted:In a universe of Mary Sue mercenary units, the GDL is possibly the Mary Sue-est of them all. And it was the first. My problem with the GDL wasn't that they got in a jam and got out by some crazy plan... it was that they kept doing it. They never said "let's make sure this never happens again," but instead it was "don't worry the CO will save us."
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May 2, 2011 19:43
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Trast posted:So they are basically cannonfodder? I though the Hunchback was also labeled an urbanmech. The Hunchie isn't an Atlas but it can certainly put a hurt on someone. The UrbanMech is the name of a specific Mech. The Hunchback fills a similar niche only, you know, well.
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May 2, 2011 19:45
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Defiance Industries posted:My problem with the GDL wasn't that they got in a jam and got out by some crazy plan... it was that they kept doing it. They never said "let's make sure this never happens again," but instead it was "don't worry the CO will save us." Don't forget they found the Helm datacore and managed to reverse-engineer <Redacted> all by themselves. 
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May 2, 2011 19:52
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Trast posted:So they are basically cannonfodder? I though the Hunchback was also labeled an urbanmech. The Hunchie isn't an Atlas but it can certainly put a hurt on someone. http://www.sarna.net/wiki/UrbanMech is the actual UrbanMech. It is dismally slow, and a heavy autocannon is a very inefficient weapon for a light 'mech. It is also extremely uncool looking, which doesn't help. For comparison's sake, the Clans invaded with the Uller A, which is the same weight, but three times as fast, and mounting a Gauss Rifle with two ER Medium Lasers as backup weapons. Then the Inner Sphere reverse-engineered the concept into the Hollander, which is a light, ballistic-equipped 'mech done right. The UrbanMech is basically a semi-mobile pillbox and only somewhat useful when it's in its most ideal element.
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May 2, 2011 19:57
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an oddly awful oud posted:http://www.sarna.net/wiki/UrbanMech is the actual UrbanMech. It is dismally slow, and a heavy autocannon is a very inefficient weapon for a light 'mech. It is also extremely uncool looking, which doesn't help. Let's put it this way: without the use of its jumpjets, it can't even turn around in place in a single turn without 'running'.
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May 2, 2011 20:08
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The Urbanmech is probably the most discussed mech in this thread. Clearly Poptartsninja has to come up with a scenario where all players pilot Urban mechs. We have to get this out of our system.
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May 2, 2011 20:14
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Defiance Industries posted:My problem with the GDL wasn't that they got in a jam and got out by some crazy plan... it was that they kept doing it. They never said "let's make sure this never happens again," but instead it was "don't worry the CO will save us." It worked for the A-Team, and their gunnery was even more poo poo than the GDL. 
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May 2, 2011 20:19
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T.G. Xarbala posted:I think some folks mentioned Urbanmechs also had Jumpjets. So in dense urban conditions, where range is less important than LOS, they would be a cheap way to really, really annoy your opponent. About as annoying as a mobile, hopping AC/10 could be, anyway. Except with a Jumping MP of 2, you can't actually clear anything that belongs in a city. Really, they'd be great in suburban sprawl with lots of low, small buildings. SubUrbanMechs.
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May 2, 2011 20:26
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The Merry Marauder posted:Except with a Jumping MP of 2, you can't actually clear anything that belongs in a city. Really, they'd be great in suburban sprawl with lots of low, small buildings. Which brings me to another point...the idea that slower is better in city combat. I've always thought that was crap, since your chance to slip isn't decided by how far you move, but by whether you run or walk. That being the case, wouldn't I be better off with a Jenner who can do more damage in a turn, jump farther, and walk a distance that it'd take a UM three turns to cover? In short, the very concept that the Urbanmech is designed to thrive in is actually handled better by other Light Mechs who are, by the by, not helpless outside of cities! Urbanmech. Worst. Mech. Ever. (Unless its the Charger.)
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May 2, 2011 20:34
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Zaodai posted:I had thought about it, but don't really know enough about Battlefleet Gothic to make an educated argument beyond "Well a Tyranid hiveship would show up and eat everything." Basically what you need to know about 40K spaceships is that they are a cross between Age of Sail warships and cathedrals, but around a kilometer long. If a flying battle-cathedral the size of a small urban center sounds formidable in your fictional setting, then they are formidable. If not, then not. Spaceships in 40K don't even really attempt to make sense. Which is to be expected I suppose when you're working with the insanity that is the Imperium of Man. Their relationship to their ships is more like the relationship of medieval people to their cathedrals than anything in the modern day. Capitals ships take decades, sometimes more than a century, to build, and they are considered just as much a monument to the might and glory of the God-Emperor as a weapon of war. People make fun of all the skulls and eagles and poo poo on Imperial hulls, but it makes complete sense once you realize that these really are people from a different time, not moderns transported to the future like in so much scifi, and they have very different sensibilities. There are overall "classes" of ships, but they have a more 18th century understanding of class. The central authorities order so many of a certain "class" of ship, but from that point on the individual yards decide themselves how to meet those requirements. So instead of having very, very stringent requirements and layouts like a modern warship class, the ships are more aptly classified by their general characteristics and capabilities, like the 18th century British Admiralty's system. A Lunar class cruiser, for example, is going to reliably have a lance battery and a cannon battery and a certain speed and shield rating, but beyond that its configuration can vary pretty widely. Since the ships all rely on technologies that have almost been lost, the fluff is fairly adept at escaping description of how they actually work since no single character understands even half of all the systems. They have lasers and plasma guns and mass drivers and even artillery, and they have shields and armor. They go pretty fast, and their guns have extremely long ranges since they're not bound by the movie or television requirement of visual range. They take a while to turn around since they take structural stresses fairly seriously. Their biggest weakness is probably their strategic movement, which is all kinds of messed up but basically is unreliable, even though it's fast as hell compared to anything except Star Wars. To work around back to the "who would win out of fictional ships" question which is kinda silly anyway, Imperial warships would wreck the poo poo out of their BattleTech counterparts. They're bigger than most of the competition, they can fight at extreme range, they have magitechnology shields, but most importantly they carry enormous weight of firepower compared to their competitors. Most other scifi ships draw their inspiration from more modern ships, where sheer ability to throw ordnance is reduced in favor of other qualities. 40K ships are derived from Age of Sail battleships, where the whole ship was one gigantic gun platform. Sorry to write such a huge post, but a lot of what I like about the 40K setting is its treatment of historical inspirations. Their spaceships really are 18th century warships that are also medieval cathedrals. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 20:42 on May 2, 2011 |
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May 2, 2011 20:40
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As a quick question does anyone think that me taking a pot-shot at the heli this turn is worth it, or should I finish off the mall or move elsewhere? (I'm the commando).
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May 2, 2011 20:55
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The thing about the UrbanMech that you need to know to understand it... Is that you shouldn't consider it a 'mech. You need to consider it a semi-mobile short-ranged ambush-gun platform. First off, the only UrbanMech worth fielding is the R60L, which has near-as-makes-no-difference to no armor, but an AC/20. And of course, you're only going to want to deploy it in defensive positions. This leads to the strange phenomena that, in-universe, you want to design your cities (at least the ones where you expect urban combat and aren't willing to let a field battle elsewhere be a proxy for, such as your capitals,) as much as possible to be UrbanMech Playgrounds, with lots of places where a 2/3/2 can access that anything without jump literally cannot shoot into without knocking down a building hex or two first. (Anything with more jump can, of course, use the same hidey-holes. It's fun for the other guy to be walking around slowly, paranoid and expecting UrbanMechs to leap out from god-knows where, only to pop out a Highlander on him.) In the right terrain, custom-designed for it, an UrbanMech R60L can be terrifying. It may be a one-trick pony, but it's got a hell of a trick. That trick is called "Oh, isn't that cute - oh god, where's my Center Torso?!" (You also want to the pilots of the urbanmechs to have the Jumping Jack trait, if at all possible.) That said, they are absolutely a gimmick 'mech. Outside of their gimmick, they die horribly.
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May 2, 2011 21:04
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Terror storm posted:As a quick question does anyone think that me taking a pot-shot at the heli this turn is worth it, or should I finish off the mall or move elsewhere? (I'm the commando). Yes, it's probably a reasonable shot. The Warrior didn't move much, is at low-ish altitude and has a searchlight on to negate the darkness penalty. VTOLs are notoriously fragile and a good SRM roll could feasably one-shot it.
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May 2, 2011 21:05
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Terror storm posted:As a quick question does anyone think that me taking a pot-shot at the heli this turn is worth it, or should I finish off the mall or move elsewhere? (I'm the commando). Yes, for the love of god, yes! That little son of a Steiner is spotlighting you, and can spotlight your whole team. He makes it extremely easy for the other ground-pounders to take you down. Basically, think of it as being like a police chase show, you know - where the criminals are running from the cops, and they're successfully evading them, then the airborne cavalry in the form of a helicoptor with Forward-Looking Infra-Red comes up, spots the criminals, throws a searchlight on them, and then it's impossible to dodge the fuzz. You are the criminals. Only this time, you have ten missiles and a freaking laser gun strapped to your arm to shoot at him. Knock that prick out of the sky. [edit] It occurs to me that that probably is a Tharkad City Police Department (or whatever they call the officers of the peace on Tharkad) helicopter, given that it responded so quickly. PTN?
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May 2, 2011 21:08
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ShadowDragon8685 posted:[edit] It occurs to me that that probably is a Tharkad City Police Department (or whatever they call the officers of the peace on Tharkad) helicopter, given that it responded so quickly. PTN? With Loki in the area? Please, if the helicopter belongs to the police, it's not a cop in the pilot seat.
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May 2, 2011 21:46
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Terror storm posted:As a quick question does anyone think that me taking a pot-shot at the heli this turn is worth it, or should I finish off the mall or move elsewhere? (I'm the commando). Also, don't forget that you get credit for the c-bill value of enemy machines you take out. That Warrior's a good 548k, or six times all the damage you guys have done so far. So yeah, take the Warrior if you can.
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May 2, 2011 21:53
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elitebuster posted:With Loki in the area? Please, if the helicopter belongs to the police, it's not a cop in the pilot seat. Don't be so sure about that. Few intelligence agencies are that paranoid. I mean, don't discount it, either, but it seems that an agency like LOKI, not wanting to make waves, wouldn't, you know, make more waves than they had to. Taking all the duty cops off rotation in a large area and replacing them with intelligence personnel makes a lot of waves. Then again, these lunatics are using tanks and battlemechs as VIP guards at a night-club, so maybe they did just that, anyhow. So, PTN, is this helicopter owned by the TCPD, even if the crew were replaced with LOKI agents?
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May 2, 2011 22:17
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ShadowDragon8685 posted:Don't be so sure about that. Few intelligence agencies are that paranoid. I mean, don't discount it, either, but it seems that an agency like LOKI, not wanting to make waves, wouldn't, you know, make more waves than they had to. Taking all the duty cops off rotation in a large area and replacing them with intelligence personnel makes a lot of waves. Yes, you are right. Few agencies are that paranoid. But this is LOKI, the people who kidnapp orphans and raise them as zealots. Replacing one bored cop on the night shift doesn't seem like a stretch.
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May 2, 2011 22:22
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LOKI doesn't give two shits about making waves if it's in the name of whatever their current goal is. They just want it to be a big enough wave to crush all opposition. They may not have replaced every cop in the general vicinity, but if that's a police chopper showing up, you can bet LOKI picked out the pilot themselves.
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May 2, 2011 22:22
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Police attack helicopter showing up within 20-odd seconds of poo poo going down? Puhleeze.
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May 2, 2011 23:08
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elitebuster posted:Yes, you are right. Few agencies are that paranoid. But this is LOKI, the people who kidnapp orphans and raise them as zealots. Replacing one bored cop on the night shift doesn't seem like a stretch. Whoa, whoa. They don't kidnap the orphans; they're wards of the state already. And they're war orphans, so you really only have to nudge them in the right direction.
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May 2, 2011 23:19
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Volmarias posted:Police attack helicopter showing up within 20-odd seconds of poo poo going down? Puhleeze. That's not so unreasonable. Most PDs that have helicopters keep at least one on standby at all times, with a crew in a break room next to the helipad. The really big cities (Los Angeles, for instance,) might just have one in the air all night long. Given that Tharkad is a huge, planetary capital of a star-faring empire, and the threats they face on a daily basis include everything from petty murderers to terrorists in BattleMechs having infiltrated the city (case in point: us,) it's not unthinkable that they'd keep a Warrior H7 airborne on a 24/7 air-watch.
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May 2, 2011 23:20
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Terror storm posted:As a quick question does anyone think that me taking a pot-shot at the heli this turn is worth it, or should I finish off the mall or move elsewhere? (I'm the commando). I suggest you move to 1022 or 1122 and then turn around 180 degrees. You can shoot at the copter while leaving your left arm free to throw a punch at that building in the physical combat phase.
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May 2, 2011 23:34
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ShadowDragon8685 posted:That's not so unreasonable. Most PDs that have helicopters keep at least one on standby at all times, with a crew in a break room next to the helipad. The really big cities (Los Angeles, for instance,) might just have one in the air all night long. You're making the critical mistake of analyzing the situation as if it were part of some theoretical "real" universe. Battletech analysis needs to take into account that it's all taking part in dimestore pulp action novel filled with promiscuous, villainous robot-piloting babes with an inordinate amount of affection for spiders. The question isn't whether that pilot is LOKI, the question is whether he's a regular LOKI agent or one who's been surgically modified to look like Muammar Kurita.
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May 2, 2011 23:38
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Dump your ammo and blow it up.
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May 2, 2011 23:44
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Mukaikubo posted:Laughably low speed. Thin armor. No long range punch to speak of, and only a middling short range punch as these things go. Cheap as hell because infantry will probably kill it anyway and why invest a lot in one? You forgot easy headshots.
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May 2, 2011 23:56
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Volmarias posted:Police attack helicopter showing up within 20-odd seconds of poo poo going down? Puhleeze. It's a relatively fast helicopter in the Capital city of what is at least partially a police state. Also, the amount of time it took for the helo to arrive doesn't really factor in to what organization sent it, only that it could get there. Since the helicopter is there, it could be from just about any organization that would operate within the confines of Tharkad city.
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May 3, 2011 00:19
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Zaodai posted:Also, you don't really have "merchant" jumpships. Most jumpships are privately owned. In 3025, only about 20-30% are owned by a specific successor state. Affi posted:So how does being a pirate work alongside there not being any Jumpships. Pirates can't "Get the hell out of dodge" if there isn't any way to leave a system. Those that don't own a Jumpship just hire an unscrupulous merchant captain. They do exist, and tend to gravitate towards the periphery. Sure, a down-on-his-luck captain is more likely to have a poorly maintained ship just waiting to fail and/or misjump, but it's worth the risk for most pirates (who tend to live on planets incapable of growing human-edible food or, more often, just terrible hellholes like: Crotch, Here, Anywhere, Nowhere, The Rock, etc. Tarquinn posted:If you think that killing a Wasp with a truck mounted machine gun was bad, wait for that mechanic main character chick that disables mechs unarmed and in a ball dress. Cassie was not a mechanic, she was a commando. She is a commando who knew from experience and down to fractions of a second how long a Battlemech's targeting computer takes to lock-on to a human-sized target. She is a commando specialized in anti-battlemech operations. Infantry in the game can do exactly those same operations; so it's not a stretch that a lone commando who has the element of surprise and/or has intimate knowledge of the terrain would be capable of destroying a single battlemech under the right condition. That Cassie has killed multiple battlemechs by creating those 'right conditions' is not at all surprising. ISF operatives, Death Commandos, Liao "Warrior House" Infantry, Loki, and ROM all have agents specialized at doing exactly the same thing. Hell, Wolf's Dragoons even trained Victor Davion and Pals in slightly watered-down versions of those same tactics. All of Cassie's kills were single, isolated targets and almost all of those were simply 'sneak onboard, kill pilot'. Her only described kill I consider improbable was her first one--'Mechs really wouldn't have any issue with power lines. ... it's the other stuff she does with the dodging of bullets and personally killing a few thousand ISF Ninjas that irks me; not her battlemech killing.
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May 3, 2011 00:42
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an oddly awful oud posted:http://www.sarna.net/wiki/UrbanMech is the actual UrbanMech. It is dismally slow, and a heavy autocannon is a very inefficient weapon for a light 'mech. It is also extremely uncool looking, which doesn't help. In a physics based weapon modelling system the Urbanmech would rock. Bounces and glancing hits all around with that sphere-ish design. But since BT only does hit or no hit, the poor Urbanmech is treated the same as a cube in terms of armor effectiveness. Poor, poor Urbanmech.
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May 3, 2011 00:47
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So do they know how to build jump drives and cheap ground-to-orbit ships, or are they stuck with hundreds of years old ones? What I'm basically asking is: Why are they still in a loving scarcity society?
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May 3, 2011 00:48
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PoptartsNinja posted:Most jumpships are privately owned. In 3025, only about 20-30% are owned by a specific successor state. What I meant was "merchant" ships by today's standards. Privately owned yes, but they're a tremendous investment on the part of the owner, and the crews are still trained to defend them. You don't get some somali pirates rolling up in a raft and making the crew wet themselves. And no, they don't know how to build jump drives, that's why it's such a big deal when a jumpship gets destroyed or captured. (Though ComStar can still build both jump ships and WarShips.)
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May 3, 2011 00:56
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There are six planets in the Inner Sphere capable of building Jumpships (one for each Great House, and Terra, basically). Those planets have automated factories which are capable of maintaining themselves (so long as they have raw materials and the simpler robotics that do the maintenance are themselves maintained). The only known construction and/or repair facilities for Jumpships are: Kathill, Terra, and Luthien. The others are never mentioned beyond vague references. It is possible but unlikely that Defiance Industries can manufacture Jumpships. By 3055, there are approximately 30,000 Jumpships operating in the Inner Sphere. Circa 3025, that number is somewhere between 20,000-25,000. In the earliest publications, there were only 2,000 jumpships in the 3025 era (and only 3,000 by 3055); which is a retarded figure that has been retconned.
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May 3, 2011 01:02
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So why aren't they building loving asteroid mining facilities and then constructing habitats out of the leftovers and all the other sensible things you do once orbital access is cheap?
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May 3, 2011 01:06
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goatface posted:So why aren't they building loving asteroid mining facilities and then constructing habitats out of the leftovers and all the other sensible things you do once orbital access is cheap? ComStar keeping the plebs down with ROM, by assassinating scientists/technicians that get close to breakthroughs at recreating or rediscovering lostech.
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May 3, 2011 01:13
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goatface posted:So why aren't they building loving asteroid mining facilities and then constructing habitats out of the leftovers and all the other sensible things you do once orbital access is cheap? Because Battletech.
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May 3, 2011 01:13
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Edit: Reposted to the next page where it'll be seen.
PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 01:23 on May 3, 2011 |
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May 3, 2011 01:17
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