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SynthOrange posted:What the hell am I looking at here. It's your typical Clan mechwarrior. Dangerous, genetically-engineered with a superior intellect. You're angry because it's not a pony, right?
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Jun 6, 2011 04:24
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TildeATH posted:It's a good thing PTN finally threw in some Elementals, because Clan mechs aren't so scary once you see the pilots.  I am not amused.
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Jun 6, 2011 04:26
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Mr. Despair posted:Most people had irc and pm's too, still didn't make things 100% smooth! Well, the problem with IRC is that you all have to be on at the same time. It doesn't 'save' messages from before (like qq does actually) and post them up when you join. Steam groups would allow messages to be posted and Scriblink saves the map and what people draw on it. As for PMs, completely randomly, I feel like more people have Steam rather than PM access on this forum. Regardless, I suppose... I'm personally of the feeling that it's fun if you set up a tactic and then see how it plays out. It's not like there won't be an element of chance what with the rolling. To me, randomness from people running all over the place - well, it has its moments but sometimes, it just seems silly. Anyway, but what's done is done! It'll be interesting to see if the group can manage to pull it out before the Elementals finish murdering them.
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Jun 6, 2011 04:29
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TildeATH posted:It's your typical Clan mechwarrior. Dangerous, genetically-engineered with a superior intellect. Can't be a clanner, the status readout shows it is piloting a Thanatos (that is apparently carrying a custom weapons loadout).
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Jun 6, 2011 04:30
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You know, there are days where I think maybe the Word of Blake had the right idea, they just didn't go far enough.
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Jun 6, 2011 04:32
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TildeATH posted:It's a good thing PTN finally threw in some Elementals, because Clan mechs aren't so scary once you see the pilots. Ahahahaha WHY DID YOU THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA. Alright, guys, get your orders in so we can move as far from this as possible. SUFFER NOT THE CLANNER MARINE TO LIVE
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Jun 6, 2011 04:34
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My orders are in. All that's left is dieing. 
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Jun 6, 2011 04:38
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take a lesson from this, WORK AS A TEAM, come on learn from others mistakes.
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Jun 6, 2011 04:47
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poo poo this is getting nasty fast. Re: coordination, why don't the players just post here? Their orders aren't final until they get sent to PTN via PM or e-mail anyway?
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Jun 6, 2011 04:50
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So um, new topic. Just to stop the discussion about kobolds and ponies. Let me tell you about supermen and the world of Battletech. The first part is the most relevant right now, the second part is an overall history. Clan Phenotypes-the Elemental The dangerousness of Elementals isn't just their awesome armor (and it is awesome). An Elemental is also a genetically engineered supersoldier the size of a shaved gorilla, capable of wrestling grizzly bears and winning some of the time. The average Elemental can run as fast and for as long as a pro triathlete, lift weights like an Olympic champion, and take punishment like a superheavyweight bare knuckle boxing champion. This is the average Elemental, not the outlier. Every single Elemental is this nasty. Even without their armor, you can shoot an Elemental a half-dozen times or more and they'll just get pissed off, rip off your head, and then maybe if they're so kind, die of blood loss along the way after they've thrown your head into a recycling bin (waste not want not after all). More importantly, this increased size and toughness means Elemental armor has lower safety tolerances than IS armor does/will. It's one of the many seemingly minor advantages of Clan gear that end up adding up together to give them their sheer qualitative advantage. The IS has no real counter for it either, not until much later, in the Jihad. Let's talk about that for a bit. Non-PTN Canon: Supersoldiers in Battletech The first known "supersoldiers" in Battletech are the Clans and their genetically engineered warrior castes. The Elementals, in specific were developed somewhere around 2800-2900 by Clan Hell's Horses and spread to every other Clan relatively quickly. But even Clan battlemech pilots are genetically engineered, for superior physical fitness, reaction speeds, and perception. The IS has no practical way of making use of Clan genetic engineering to grow their own soldiers, and they were looking for every combat edge they could get around the 3050s-3060s. Enter old Star League technology. In the Star League, there were techniques used to impregnate human muscle fiber with myomers to restore mobility to crippled individuals. With the rediscovery of myomer implantation, someone in the Capellan Confederation got the brilliant idea: Battlemech myomers can often carry more than ten times their weight with no problems, what if we impregnated a healthy special forces commando with these things? The result was Elective Myomer Upgrade surgery. This technology rapidly spread throughout every covert group after the Capellans started using it, so it wasn't just a Liao exclusive. Take a fit elite soldier and give him these myomer grafts, and he becomes about as tough, strong, and fast as an Elemental at the cost of several horrific side effects. The surgery is expensive, and damage to the myomer requires additional surgery to fix, which costs nearly as much. The grafts also throw your biology all out of whack which causes continuous migraines as well as the everpresent threat of allergic rejection, both of which are typically fixed by drugs. Finally, they don't provide as much fine control as normal human muscle, giving recipients difficulty making facial expressions. But for someone who wanted performance at any cost, this was all you had for physical enhancement until the late 3060s. In the late 3060s and early 3070s, the Capellans and the Word of Blake both finished developing upgraded versions of the elective myomer upgrade. The first one was personal TSM which provided double the strength-weight ratio of your standard myomer implants and increased speed. The second one was dermal myomer upgrade, which grafted thick layers of mostly inert mech myomer under the skin. These two improved myomer upgrades can be combined for absolutely horrific effect. Even in IS battle armor, a soldier stacking TSM and dermal armor can match an Elemental. The Elemental loses pretty much every time outside of battle armor. But what about Clan piloting advantages? How does the IS try to overcome those? Well, back when FASA was around, there was an adventure book called Unbound that was set around 3053-3055 for the Mechwarrior role playing game. The campaign was based on your party finding and recovering a scientist who had stolen some cancelled research from NAIS and used it to compete on Solaris to fund his own independent studies. Despite being a scientist rather than a mechwarrior, he was routinely kicking the rear end of more experienced pilots. How did he do it? He had an experimental neural interface which made it much easier for him to control a Battlemech, reverse engineered from Clan Enhanced Imaging technology. The problem was, it caused creeping insanity without constant use of suppressant drugs to keep the pilot sane and active. This technology was recovered at the end, and didn't show up for a good decade or so of real life time, until... enter 3072. Enter the Jihad. The Word of Blake was rampaging around and there were rumors of a new force called the "Manei Domini", the "Master's Hands" who were allied to the Word of Blake. A few glimpses of their stats were given in the early days. Every one of them was Elite to a T, 2/3 pilots. In Jihad Hotspots 3072, it was revealed that all their pilots used DNI technology, like the professor in Unbound. Combined with intense training, this gave them an edge above and beyond even Clan warriors in a one-on-one fight. This DNI tech could be used with vehicles, battle armor, ASFs, and of course, battlemechs. Combined with other cybernetic upgrades, the Domini were quite capable of fighting the Clans on even tonnage footings and could pull out wins more often than not. But of course, these benefits come with cost. A DNI has a ten year lifespan. If you use it for longer than that, you go insane, catatonic, and then die. You need to take drugs all the time due to its issues, and it is also expensive as hell. The IS have, in their efforts to match Clan qualitative advantages, created a whole series of Faustian deals with the devil-in the form of these elective enhancements-a sufficiently fanatical soldier can take to become more than even a Clan Warrior, but any soldier who does so becomes a brief nova of light which burns brightly but burns out fast. It's strange that the Clans, whose motto is basically "live fast, die young, leave your genetics in the next sibkos to be trained" do not use these technologies (save EI), despite patently having the technologies to do so. MJ12 fucked around with this message at 05:15 on Jun 6, 2011 |
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Jun 6, 2011 04:51
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guy just call out a target and get close to it, i mean it isn't like your hiding it from PTN or anything
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Jun 6, 2011 04:52
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LeschNyhan posted:poo poo this is getting nasty fast. Re: coordination, why don't the players just post here? Their orders aren't final until they get sent to PTN via PM or e-mail anyway? I've been wondering this myself. After all, PTN is playing it fluffy, so it's not like he's gonna use the players' plans against them.
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Jun 6, 2011 05:15
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I'm gettin outta here.
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Jun 6, 2011 05:23
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SynthOrange posted:I'm gettin outta here. Okay THAT's hilarious. Run lil Crab, run! You can still make it!
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Jun 6, 2011 05:25
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SynthOrange posted:I'm gettin outta here. I hear Zoidberg running away when I watch this.
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Jun 6, 2011 05:47
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SynthOrange posted:I'm gettin outta here. SynthOrange for round mvp. Also that captures next turns plan perfectly.
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Jun 6, 2011 06:08
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So, next turn's plan is to run around like headless chick- Oh. Sorry, Clint mech.  In all seriousness though, this part of the scenario can probably be considered a loss at this point, barring a sudden change in the dice rolls.
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Jun 6, 2011 06:15
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SynthOrange posted:I'm gettin outta here. That's pretty special.
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Jun 6, 2011 06:15
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PoptartsNinja posted:A swarming attack does damage based on the weapons the elementals are carrying (in this case, a small laser (3 damage)) multiplied by the number of active troopers (five elementals), so the Elementals did 15 damage to the Clint's head; but ?1 can only do 3 damage if it launches a swarm attack. So, what kind of weapons loadout can Elementals have besides the small laser/SRM 2 combo these ones are equipped with?
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Jun 6, 2011 06:42
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DTurtle posted:So, what kind of weapons loadout can Elementals have besides the small laser/SRM 2 combo these ones are equipped with? The small laser can be swapped for either a flamer or a machine gun. That's really it. You don't see more... interesting weapon loads until you look at later developed battle armors.
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Jun 6, 2011 06:45
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DTurtle posted:Ah, the dangers of using two data points to form a pattern. Thanks for the explanation. Keep in mind that "small laser" is basically identical to an IS medium laser. Usually the best choice for BA, though the others have their uses. MG elementals are like a boss fight in the RPG and the foamed is ridiculous for anti-infantry duty in forests or cities.
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Jun 6, 2011 06:49
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Defiance Industries posted:Keep in mind that "small laser" is basically identical to an IS medium laser. Usually the best choice for BA, though the others have their uses. MG elementals are like a boss fight in the RPG and the foamed is ridiculous for anti-infantry duty in forests or cities. That's incorrect, Elementals use IS Small lasers. The Gnome, which we hopefully will never loving see, uses an ER Small Laser and an Advanced SRM-2 (basically a SRM-2 with 4/8/12 range and +2 or so to the cluster roll).
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Jun 6, 2011 07:04
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Defiance Industries posted:Keep in mind that "small laser" is basically identical to an IS medium laser. Usually the best choice for BA, though the others have their uses. MG elementals are like a boss fight in the RPG and the foamed is ridiculous for anti-infantry duty in forests or cities. Actually, Clan Elementals use standard small lasers, not ER smalls. They're just like IS small lasers. e:f,b
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Jun 6, 2011 07:06
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Once the Elementals appeared I decided to read about them. Like some others, my only understanding of them came from Mechwarrior 2 where they were nothing more than small spots to explode. I now find myself to be a dedicated Elemental player on MMLL and am surprised to find that while they can get a Man-pack PPC in that (which can really ruin a person's day), such a weapon isn't actually used by them in BT.
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Jun 6, 2011 07:29
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MJ12 posted:That's incorrect, Elementals use IS Small lasers. The Gnome, which we hopefully will never loving see, uses an ER Small Laser and an Advanced SRM-2 (basically a SRM-2 with 4/8/12 range and +2 or so to the cluster roll). Spot on. Should probably have checked Sarna but... meh. And if we're introducing new armors, the Fenrir is pretty mean. Two medium lasers for everyone!
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Jun 6, 2011 07:53
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 "Those Elemental guys are goddamn jerks"
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Jun 6, 2011 09:10
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Pimpmust posted:"Those Elemental guys are goddamn jerks" I don't know what the f**k I just watched, but it made me laugh.
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Jun 6, 2011 09:20
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ShadowDragon8685 posted:I don't know what the f**k I just watched, but it made me laugh. Venture Bros. tends to have that effect on people.
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Jun 6, 2011 09:28
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MJ12 posted:Finally, they don't provide as much fine control as normal human muscle, giving recipients difficulty making facial expressions.
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Jun 6, 2011 10:08
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Teledahn posted:Are these commandos going to wrestle their opponents with their eyebrows or something? Boosted jaw muscles? Don't know why they would operate on the face. It's an "all-or-nothing" procedure.
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Jun 6, 2011 10:57
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Defiance Industries posted:It's an "all-or-nothing" procedure. That doesn't make a bit of sense, but then again, Battletech.
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Jun 6, 2011 11:55
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Notgothic posted:That doesn't make a bit of sense, but then again, Battletech. The idea that surgeons shouldn't implant dangerous muscle augmentations in someone's face is Lostech.
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Jun 6, 2011 12:13
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Maybe the surgery requires neural grafts that interfere with reception from facial muscles? If they need extra clusters to help control the new 'muscle' matter, I can imagine them having to cut away some of the 'less important' nerves to free up receptor space.
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Jun 6, 2011 13:21
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Notgothic posted:That doesn't make a bit of sense, but then again, Battletech. Take super-strengthened muscles attached to normal muscles. As soon as the super-strong muscles are used to exert extreme effort, they would simply rip the normal muscles (and skeleton) apart. They do strengthen the skeleton, right? Otherwise: Battletech 
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Jun 6, 2011 13:30
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I apologize for the delay. Would've submitted my orders last night, but I've been feeling like poo poo the last few days. Why do I only ever get sick on my days off? At any rate, orders are in now.
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Jun 6, 2011 17:43
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We need a mission on a long flat plain against the vicious little bastards now. Hopefully while we are fielding a ton of LRM20s and Gauss Rifles.
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Jun 6, 2011 18:05
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DTurtle posted:Why doesn't it make sense? yes, the skeleton is strengthened/replaced with internal structure like a battlemech, these MD troopers the word of blake come up with are able to RIP OFF BATTLEMECH ARMOR barehanded once it gets good. and they can run at speeds capable of chasing down an assault, and lose the infantry in open ground damage multiplier, and are twice as hard to kill. and then there is the stealth tech, dear lord the stealth tech. Also what wasn't mentioned is that Clan Enhanced imaging causes a pilot hit each time internal structure gets winged, WoB has an upgrade that negates that. Hey PTN are we gonna get to mess around with artillery at any point?
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Jun 6, 2011 18:30
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AtomikKrab posted:Hey PTN are we gonna get to mess around with artillery at any point? Well, it was an option in the 2nd Donegal Guard scenario. We took the spotter plane instead though, right?
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Jun 6, 2011 20:06
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Teledahn posted:Are these commandos going to wrestle their opponents with their eyebrows or something? Boosted jaw muscles? Don't know why they would operate on the face. The reason is the myomer is also much tougher than regular stuff. You implant it in the recipient's face (not jaw, just face) so if they get shot in the face they might live to wear a T-shirt saying "I got shot in the face and all I got for it was a lousy T-shirt."
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Jun 6, 2011 20:45
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MJ12 posted:they don't provide as much fine control as normal human muscle, giving recipients difficulty making facial expressions Okay this is just hilarious.  Okay, I'm going to be performing your surgery today, Lieutenant Slamchest. What area would you like to focus on, upper body, core, leg strength? My face. I want metal muscles in my face. I want to chew bullets. Ooookay, we've never done a face before, most people come in looking for enhancement to major skeletal muscle groups... No! I want metal face muscles. Do it! ... kay.
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Jun 6, 2011 20:54
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