|
At least one of those DEST squadrons has been shown to have LRMs. If you stand within machine-gun distance, you're going to take a shot before they get shredded.
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2011 11:50
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 8, 2024 09:47 |
|
|
I just want to see space ninjas vaporized with a wall of Ma Deuce's Special Homemade Loving, .50 Calibre.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2011 12:04
|
|
|
Infantry missiles tend to be very, very ammunition limited. It's quite plausible that that was that squad's only LRM shot.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2011 15:03
|
|
|
GruntyThrst posted:I just want to see space ninjas vaporized with a wall of Ma Deuce's Special Homemade Loving, .50 Calibre. If the movie Warrior's Way taught me anything it is that Ninjas greatest weakness is machine guns. That and renegade ninjas.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2011 15:33
|
|
|
UberJew posted:You'd need some sort of intergalactic traffic control to file flight plans with that organizes trips to avoid excessive interference with causality. There are no causality issues if you go with the multiple universes approach. If you change causality, you'll get shunted to a branch universe and will be unable to return to your own. ITT: Panther. Kill it now before it gets a head shot and someone melts. Show the ninjas some love. Some .50 caliber love.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2011 15:38
|
|
|
Felime posted:Infantry missiles tend to be very, very ammunition limited. It's quite plausible that that was that squad's only LRM shot. Usually infantry weapons are considered to have 'enough' ammo unless it's something special like Power Armor. Or you're using MW/CBT RPG rules.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2011 18:12
|
|
|
If anything this scenario shows how powerful the clan mechs can be. Clan Sea Goon has really torn it up.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2011 20:55
|
|
|
Trast posted:If anything this scenario shows how powerful the clan mechs can be. Clan Sea Goon has really torn it up. It should also be noted that - despite the 'chaotic' and 'unruly' implications of the fluff text - this current batch of players under Mary Annette seems to be exceptionally well-coordinated in terms of targetting and movement. I'm pretty sure that even the first ComStar mission with the elementals could've resulted in some kind of limited success with a team like this. One of those 'hopeless' wishes of mine is PoptartsNinja making a mental note of such players/teams, and using them again for certain, really important battles (for example if we are ever to have anything resembling Tukayyid), or whenever the fluff implies that a player side is fielding elite forces. It increases credibility, story-wise!
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2011 22:24
|
|
|
Gimmick Account posted:It should also be noted that - despite the 'chaotic' and 'unruly' implications of the fluff text - this current batch of players under Mary Annette seems to be exceptionally well-coordinated in terms of targetting and movement. I'm pretty sure that even the first ComStar mission with the elementals could've resulted in some kind of limited success with a team like this. That's all well and good, but with the current team in play there's been some thirty six players who've either played or chosen not to play versus sixty five who haven't had a turn yet. So maybe once we've gone through the whole list we can consider bringing back old favorites, but that won't be for quite some time, I expect.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2011 22:35
|
|
|
Jeez, until you said that, I didn't realize how far down the list I was. Looks like I'm stuck fighting in the Word Of Blake Jihad.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2011 22:38
|
|
|
jng2058 posted:That's all well and good, but with the current team in play there's been some thirty six players who've either played or chosen not to play versus sixty five who haven't had a turn yet. So maybe once we've gone through the whole list we can consider bringing back old favorites, but that won't be for quite some time, I expect. I know that it's not entirely fair towards the players still on the waiting list. But with goon pilot quality having been a mixed bag so far, sometimes the overall story would benefit from the so-called 'elite' troops actually behaving like they're expected to, stats aside. Another question for PoptartsNinja that I've been wondering about lately: In the unlikely case that a previously-used player character returns for a second mission, how would you handle that? Is the old player offered first dibs on them? It's probably mostly a thing for the Solaris tournaments (which seem less and less likely to ever become an actual mission with every successive vote), but could be applied to the rest of the scenarios just as well.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2011 22:47
|
|
|
Gimmick Account posted:I know that it's not Fixed that for ya. Chronojam posted:Jeez, until you said that, I didn't realize how far down the list I was. Looks like I'm stuck fighting in the Word Of Blake Jihad. I'm right there with ya, m'man. (Two spots down, in fact.) Personally, I'm thinking we'll be stomping around doing Republic of the Sphere stuff by the time our turns come up, which, considering how much PTN hates the clicky stuff (and rightfully so) doesn't bode well for our chances. That said, if the thread does manage to chew through players long enough to get to out spots in the list, it will be the most epic Battletech thread ever, if it isn't already. So here's to your health you Cardassian bastard, may you keep rewriting the timeline for years to come! 
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2011 22:57
|
|
|
jng2058 posted:Fixed that for ya. They're not the only ones enjoying this thread, though. In fact, looking at the thread views, there's almost certainly a silent majority of non-participants in the audience.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2011 23:05
|
|
|
Gimmick Account posted:In fact, looking at the thread views, there's almost certainly a silent majority of non-participants in the audience. Tell me about it. I was dumbfounded when I noticed that in less than 100,000 views, we will have beaten the Sandcastle thread.
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2011 23:10
|
|
|
Gimmick Account posted:They're not the only ones enjoying this thread, though. In fact, looking at the thread views, there's almost certainly a silent majority of non-participants in the audience. The problem with silent majorities is the silent part. The fact that there are a lot of readers who aren't on the player list doesn't prove that they are all in favor of screwing with the player list just because you are. I'll tell ya what, you get enough of the silent people to back your play and I'll reconsider my opposition to your proposal. But until then, I'm pretty sure I know of at least sixty five readers who would object to the plan. EDIT: Also, the idea that any random bunch of goons can't fight in a coordinated fashion seems to be disproved by THIS random bunch of goons. Who's to say that the next batch won't learn from GoonStar's success and fight just as well together? Seeing Star Commander Inari and her Freeborn bunch of malcontents again would be fun, but there's a LOT of action going on all over the Inner Sphere, and I think we'd prefer to see more than just the perspective of a single star of rear area garrison troops, no matter how successful they've been. jng2058 fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Sep 7, 2011 |
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2011 23:21
|
|
|
You can't really suggest that someone cannot not represent a silent party and then claim to do just that in the same breath. :/ Anyway, I'm not suggesting that the list be invalidated completely, just ignored in the few spots where the storytelling would really benefit from it. We will, at most, have one or two Tukayyids - Decisive battles are special and don't happen all that often, as their name implies. EDIT: Wait, I never said random goons could not be effective teams, my problem is that it's such a lottery. In this case we have a team that we know works; That's worth a lot when planning a scenario with supposed elite troops in it. Gniwu fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Sep 7, 2011 |
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2011 23:38
|
|
|
Gimmick Account posted:You can't really suggest that someone cannot not represent a silent party and then claim to do just that in the same breath. :/ I did no such thing. I said that, as the one who brought up the "silent majority of non-participants," it's incumbent on you to prove that they want what you want. I'm speaking for the not silent at all group of active participants who have expressed a desire to play, and have gotten on the waiting list to do that very thing. As of this moment, the opinions the sixty-five people who are on the waiting list have expressed is that they'd like to play the game. I know that's why I'm on the list. I don't think that it's an unreasonable assumption to make that they'd like to play the game, and that they'd like to play as soon as possible. Especially the people on the bottom of the list who may never get a chance to play at all. What you're asking of them is to sacrifice what little chance they have to participate in order to let people who already have take a second turn, and that doesn't stike me as at all fair to them. Furthermore, if we're talking about Tukayyid scale events, which of our old characters would even be there? The current team is a bunch of freeborn garrison troops from a clan that isn't even invading the Sphere! You'd have to go pretty far out of your way to get them into the game again, and by doing so you'd leave any number of other interesting characters on the sideline!
|
|
#
?
Sep 7, 2011 23:47
|
|
|
jng2058 posted:Furthermore, if we're talking about Tukayyid scale events, which of our old characters would even be there? The current team is a bunch of freeborn garrison troops from a clan that isn't even invading the Sphere! You'd have to go pretty far out of your way to get them into the game again, and by doing so you'd leave any number of other interesting characters on the sideline! That character comeback thing was a seperate question for PoptartsNinja. I certainly wasn't thinking about Clan Sea Fox's second-line garrison (rather: Solaris champions, the Caballeros if they're chosen again, etc.) when I asked it and it's not really connected to my main suggestion. I'm more interested in specific player/team comebacks, playing as whoever is available for the scenario. Sorry if that didn't come across properly.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2011 00:00
|
|
|
Speaking as another person on the waiting list I would definitely rather that I get to play sooner rather than delay my turn just so that we can bring people who've already had a turn back for missions that are judged by some standard to be important or require effective players. I'm sure that most of the others on the waiting list would express a similar sentiment, especially the people who are really far down the list who may not even get a turn at all depending on how long the thread goes for.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2011 00:17
|
|
|
PoptartsNinja posted:Tell me about it. I was dumbfounded when I noticed that in less than 100,000 views, we will have beaten the Sandcastle thread. Giant loving Robots: More entertaining than LP development and advice.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2011 00:17
|
|
|
Every mission is important; whether elite troops are involved or not. The only thing this group is doing differently is: asking me line of sight questions via PMs, and posting plans for themselves in the thread (and then actually following those plans). Battletech is a bit like a game of chess. Albiet, a game of chess where the rook takes extra damage if you get behind it and even pawns can get lucky when a bishop tries to kick them over.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2011 00:21
|
|
|
Just so you know, I don't want to be skipped if at all possible, as a silent majority member on the waiting list anyway. EDIT: Ugh, 42 people in front of me 
SageSepth fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Sep 8, 2011 |
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2011 00:23
|
|
|
Speaking as a dude that isn't on the waiting list and is indeed just reading along with baited breath (PTN, I love what you've done with the timeline so far, btw), this completely fabricated idea of bringing back "exceptional groups" before going through the entire waitlist is p. fuckin' dumb. It's far more fun to see newbies play the game for the first time (especially in a really important fight) rather than go "oh yeah those guys again sweet whatever."
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2011 00:30
|
|
|
Yeah, I suspect we'd have 'near perfect' co-ordination if people posted their orders in the thread as they submitted them.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2011 00:40
|
|
|
Yeah, that's the one thing I hope future groups learn from this one - it's really okay to ask questions and post your thoughts and moves in the thread to coordinate! I've been following this for a while and I truly don't understand why people didn't bother to do that before.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2011 00:53
|
|
|
As a member of the (mostly) silent majority I think that skipping people on the list for known good pilots is a silly idea. Half the fun is watching GoonLance/Star bumblefuck around and trip over each other. The only thing this current group is really doing better than others seems to be communicating in the thread, which isn't exactly a high barrier to entry. Previously I had assumed that people weren't being specific in here because they didn't want to ruin the ~mystery and suspense~ of the latest turn update, but that's a pretty silly reason. The title of the thread is 'Lets All Play Battletech' so not letting everyone in on your plans seems silly. Well, maybe secret awesome plans like jumpjetting an explosive refinery or something, but those are special cases. If PTN ever manages to overcome his recording issues maybe we can have callbacks to previous players, but that's an outside the thread thing anyway and might cause all sorts of logistical headaches.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2011 01:00
|
|
|
Podima posted:Yeah, that's the one thing I hope future groups learn from this one - it's really okay to ask questions and post your thoughts and moves in the thread to coordinate! I've been following this for a while and I truly don't understand why people didn't bother to do that before. If one thing this thread has proven is that simply just having a plan no matter what it is, and following it usually turns out for the better than not. Communicating via the thread seems like the most dependable way to do it cause most people are not on at the same time/given the same advice.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2011 01:11
|
|
|
Pretty much. Even if the plan might not be as sound as it could be, it's when half the participants decides the plan is too risky and leave the other half out to dry that causes problems. This isn't paranoia, I'm not going to punish you for being creative. Or being uncreative, for that matter. Edit: Edited because I was being unintentionally insulting. PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Sep 8, 2011 |
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2011 01:19
|
|
|
I am not on the list but I think monkeying with it would be a bad idea.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2011 02:28
|
|
|
I still think an MVP Free For All would be indecently amusing. Especially if Mechwarrior Samantha Viper got to party hard in whatever abomination of a Steel Viper Assault Meleemech comes down the pike. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2011 02:40
|
|
|
PoptartsNinja posted:The only thing this group is doing differently is: asking me line of sight questions via PMs, and posting plans for themselves in the thread (and then actually following those plans). Podima posted:Yeah, that's the one thing I hope future groups learn from this one - it's really okay to ask questions and post your thoughts and moves in the thread to coordinate! I've been following this for a while and I truly don't understand why people didn't bother to do that before. NmareBfly posted:The only thing this current group is really doing better than others seems to be communicating in the thread, which isn't exactly a high barrier to entry. That's really all there is to it. I'm playing as fluffy as possible, and I believe this is Dolash's first game ever (in itself a strong argument against messing with the pilot list, since Dolash is on course for MVP).
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2011 02:57
|
|
|
Yeah, coordination is 9/10 of the fight. PTN has been really good about setting up balanced fights. Sometimes goons have a severe BV disadvantage, made up for by mission goals (see: hold out for x turns while the world burns), and sometimes BV advantages, as here. But overall success is about coordination. And if anyone is worried about experience, picking up megamek and playing a few games against the bot is pretty simple. It's a good way to learn the rules. You might pick up a few bad habits (don't stand by board edges, be aware that people can push you off cliffs) but for ranges/to-hit modifiers/gun specs, it's great.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2011 03:19
|
|
|
As a member of the lurkers I'll state my opinion. Messing with the pilot list to 'boost' the competence for 'elite' missions is flawed for one major reason. The idea hinges on the thought that the thread has missions they want to see succeed more than fail, but the thread is not unanimous. Whether or not a mission won the majority vote does not dictate that a majority wishes it to succeed. On every mission played there has been some portion of the thread that has rooted for failure. Some of those people even voted for the mission. You can't make it fair to both the people who want it to succeed and those who want it to fail by messing with the list; nor is it fair to the pilots themselves. Any attempt to do so would just ladle heaps more effort on our poor overtaxed host. Leave the list well enough alone.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2011 03:34
|
|
|
The failures have been just as awesome as the victories, so far.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2011 03:36
|
|
|
Mukaikubo posted:I still think an MVP Free For All would be indecently amusing. Especially if Mechwarrior Samantha Viper got to party hard in whatever abomination of a Steel Viper Assault Meleemech comes down the pike. Lieutenant Kearney Barnes will take joy in your suffering by rolling high on the cluster tables all day long 
KnoxZone fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Sep 8, 2011 |
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2011 03:43
|
|
|
TBH I have no opinion either way about the player situation, but in favour of pleasing as many people as possible the list as it stands is the way to go.Arglebargle III posted:I know, I know, this isn't the place for real physics, but any FTL travel should also be time travel. If you move faster than light in a spatial direction your timeward momentum has to be negative. I guess if you move timeward faster than light then I guess your spatial momentum has to be negative? That's a mindfuck. Negative momentum isn't really a meaningful concept even in terms of time though. Having a negative timeword momentum is not the same as having a positive anti-timewards momentum.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2011 03:59
|
|
|
The epic failures are the most fun to watch. e. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2011 04:00
|
|
|
And it's not like PTN is playing an especially ruthless, cutthroat game. The sort of surprises he's pulled aren't really anything amazingly effective compared to what a skilled battletech player playing it as a game to win would do, just through carefully setting up better numbers and taking advantage of errors an inexperienced player makes. And it's better this way. More people can play, and enjoy themselves, and a fluffy non-powergamey game makes for a better narrative. It wouldn't be quite so engrossing if the thread read something like "Starcommander Stardust Sparklemeister carefully weighed her options, finally deciding to walk 3 hexes, placing herself at 7 hexes to her target to avoid minimum range for her LRMs but still in close range."(disregard that clan LRMs have no minimum range) Not having a veteran, perfectly coordinated team lets PTN play a lot looser with optimal play while still having a fair fight. It's no fun if the players just steamroll him until the kid gloves come off. When the GM takes off the kid gloves, bad things happen.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2011 04:17
|
|
|
Felime posted:When the GM takes off the kid gloves, bad things happen. Like a Trinary of Warhawk-Cs, or a surprise ambush of a large force of Elementals (15 in such a situation dominated, imagine a Binary's worth...). Don't even get started on nasty tactics that can be utilized. There are probably much more frightening things a GM can think of as well.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2011 04:31
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 8, 2024 09:47 |
|
|
landcollector posted:Like a Trinary of Warhawk-Cs, or a surprise ambush of a large force of Elementals (15 in such a situation dominated, imagine a Binary's worth...). Don't even get started on nasty tactics that can be utilized. There are probably much more frightening things a GM can think of as well. Indeed. PTN could be playing a lot nastier if he felt like it. Honestly, I find it quite refreshing to see a bunch of people who would have never considered playing Battletech to jump up for the chance to pilot in a mission and experience the game for the first time. I reminds me of the awe and wonder I felt when I first picked up the game years ago.
|
|
#
?
Sep 8, 2011 04:42
|
|