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LeschNyhan posted:That's for targeting and not for damage, so we don't need to panic -- and the pilots are still trash 5-6 gunners so at best they are mitigating their run penalty with that. The iATMs do 3*missile inside 3, so that's why I've marked them as such. Inside 9. 2*missile inside 15 isn't much better for the assaults. If you're within 5 hexes of Cephalus Prime #1 don't expect to be alive next turn. Of course, we don't know for sure which one that even is. dis astranagant fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Feb 23, 2018 |
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Feb 23, 2018 03:30
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I do wonder what changed with Kerensky in the PTN-verse. Was he a different person? Or is this a rebuke from PTN about the overly simple and idealistic view of people in the BattleTech Universe, and the lionization of Kerensky in every BattleTech fiction? We may never know... ... well, y'know, unless we asked him, and he decided to tell us. But aside from all of that we may never know. But in the main Universe, I am ultimately sympathetic to Kerensky's decision to exile himself and what elements of the SLDF would follow him. He'd just fought a terrible battle across the Inner Sphere, in the name of the Star League. He's seen the atrocities and the aftermath of atrocities across what was the Hegemony, and the Throne Room massacre. This was a man hoping for a return to sanity after years of war. The House Lords weren't willing to let any one of them be ascendant over the other, stripped Kerensky of his titles so that he couldn't become a threat, and then dissolved the Star League. Kerensky was still willing to let things go, until the House recruiters started trying to tempt SLDF units to join House armies. And so he tried to remove the SLDF from the equation. It didn't stop wars both in the Inner Sphere and in the Pentagon worlds. But I'd argue that it was the only decision he thought he could make.
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Feb 23, 2018 03:46
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LeschNyhan posted:That's for targeting and not for damage, so we don't need to panic -- and the pilots are still trash 5-6 gunners so at best they are mitigating their run penalty with that. The iATMs do 3*missile inside 3, so that's why I've marked them as such. If you go in there, be sure it's worth it, but otherwise we just have to keep our group tight. I'm hoping the Coyotes can focus down the two middle Septicemias real hard this turn while we re-position.
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Feb 23, 2018 04:21
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Given that the Houses were the ones paying for the SLDF forces, it's somewhat hypocritical that he act like it's appalling that the Houses try and recruit the SLDF forces after the Star League ceased to exist. I mean what else was their real option? If they turned down what was essentially merc work, that basically leaves banditry. "gently caress it, we're leaving!" is all well and good, but it doesn't really solve the problem and he knew it wouldn't. If he were truly worried about the welfare of the Inner Sphere, he could have thrown in with one of the Houses and that would have had a better chance of keeping stability in the Sphere by making a clear victor. But instead he just packed his poo poo and ran.
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Feb 23, 2018 04:26
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LeschNyhan posted:-- I'm not sure how on-map Arrow IVs work, but if they can use the rear location tables we want that launcher dead asap. If it's coming from on the map, then it uses normal arcs for determining directions- Whether or not the homing missile hits just depends on if TAG lands or not. Infernos (Spawns 3 hex diameter fires, I know they've shown up somewhere ITT before) and FASCAM (Scatters mines, check Sludge Factory for how they work: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3383329&pagenumber=1293#post441897957 )don't rely on TAG though. Gwaihir fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Feb 23, 2018 |
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Feb 23, 2018 06:02
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I'd argue that this might have made things worse. The SLDF was paid for partly by the Houses, but I believe its core was the Hegemony forces. At any rate, that's irrelevant, because the SLDF integrated units from across the Inner Sphere. So if Kerensky had thrown in with one of the Houses, the SLDF would have fractured, and all of the units would have sided with their own Houses. And we'd have the Succession Wars anyway, but with the 100+ SLDF divisions that were still active by the end of the war. There weren't any good options, is what I'm trying to say. Like I said, I'm sympathetic to Kerensky's final decision. I'm not very politically sophisticated myself, so I can see how he'd reach the conclusions that he did, especially after the fatigue he'd been feeling after, what was it, a decade of war?
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Feb 23, 2018 06:07
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On the one hand, he took a bad situation and made it worse in the long run. But that long-term mistake inadvertently saved the Inner Sphere from falling to Comstar's even longer-term machinations (the beginning of the end of Comstar's secret plans for domination was the Clan Invasion) so it's a bit of a wash.
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Feb 23, 2018 06:11
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The best possible outcome would have been that the invasion of Terra went even worse and the planet and the First Circuit planets that form ComStar's power base were left unsalvageable. Then there's no ComStar to start the Second and Third Succession Wars or Clans to come back. You just have one big war and things stop before they get too loving bonkers since ComStar isn't egging anyone on.
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Feb 23, 2018 06:18
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LeschNyhan posted:That's for targeting and not for damage, so we don't need to panic -- and the pilots are still trash 5-6 gunners so at best they are mitigating their run penalty with that. The iATMs do 3*missile inside 3, so that's why I've marked them as such. If you go in there, be sure it's worth it, but otherwise we just have to keep our group tight. I'm hoping the Coyotes can focus down the two middle Septicemias real hard this turn while we re-position. I'm happy enough to fight a rearguard action from my hill, if it'll help. I can't move very far anyway, and with all my armor I can probably hold out at least three or four turns
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Feb 23, 2018 08:49
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Lesch, me, and Parry and his entourage will head North with half of the Lights. Everyone one else clear out the guys down South, and then either fall back to the dropship, or follow us if the fight lasts that long. I don't like splitting our forces, but: a) They did it first; b) It'll take chktshadeclaw too long to leave the canyon. Best if Manny sticks with him to provide support. c) You guys can mulch those interfering so-and-so's without too much trouble. And then we can get back to killing these Coyotes (sorry Parry!) Gents, smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast. painedforever fucked around with this message at 09:38 on Feb 23, 2018 |
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Feb 23, 2018 09:35
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LeschNyhan posted:That's for targeting and not for damage, so we don't need to panic -- and the pilots are still trash 5-6 gunners so at best they are mitigating their run penalty with that. The iATMs do 3*missile inside 3, so that's why I've marked them as such. If you go in there, be sure it's worth it, but otherwise we just have to keep our group tight. I'm hoping the Coyotes can focus down the two middle Septicemias real hard this turn while we re-position. Not quite true. HE iATMs have 3/6/9 range brackets, so so long as you're within 9 hexes and another spotter mech of the CEWS network is within 3, you're at threat of being hit with 3 damage streak missiles on fairly dangerous target numbers.
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Feb 23, 2018 10:08
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AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:
I am going to walk my Dragoon II backwards to 1322 so I can kick and shoot everything at the slow Cephalus in 1421 and deny LoS to the hostiles near hex 2327. It will unfortunately not be in the rear arc, but if chktshadeclaw also unloads on it we may be able to take it down. One consideration I had was Defiance Industries' Nyx in 1223 running up on the hill to 1521/1522 to kick the Cephalus in 1421 in the head. Next turn we could see where the Cephaluses that are currently in 0727 and 1827 go, pick one, and murder it. chktshadeclaw can deny LoS to the Scoiety mechs near hex 2327 for these two turns. My Dragoon II is in pretty bad shape compared to chktshadeclaw's Black Watch, so I my initial thought is that he could start trundling towards the heavy forest in 1426 so he could just park there to shoot at the Society mechs in the south - in that heavy forest their base to hit will be 5 + 3 + their movement + range and he has a ton of armor. I would then try to shoot at those mechs from a bit farther out hoping to use distance as some help since my armor is so banged up. Also the Nyx and Gurkha down in the south could move to flank those heavies down here.
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Feb 23, 2018 14:23
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PoptartsNinja posted:Successfully call down the Legion for Mission 2 Please do this guys it would be amazing.
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Feb 23, 2018 22:43
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I remember seeing players "aim high" or "aim low" in the past, I think - is that actually a thing, or am I mis-remembering? If it is A Thing, how does that work?
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Feb 23, 2018 22:52
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Just figured out how I can keep the Turkina from shooting me. My odds of surviving just drastically went up! I could move to 1521 to help keep the Cephalus off your back, but it's pretty close to both our Elemental points, whereas the other one at 0727 has just Sair's Gurkha creeping up on it. If I move to 0826 we can box him out of moving into our backfield further, but we'd need the Elementals to be able to bang up the remaining Cephalus for us.
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Feb 23, 2018 23:02
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Aiming high/low/left/right is a thing, but it tacks on an additional +3 needed to hit. So if you're shooting something immobile or an assault mech with no move mod, a good bet to take. Otherwise, not so much. +3 to hit is a really large deal. Aiming high gives you a 1/6 chance to hit the head, while aiming low is 2/3 chance to hit legs. Left/Right just act like you're shooting from the left or right arc.
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Feb 23, 2018 23:03
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Gwaihir posted:Aiming high/low/left/right is a thing, but it tacks on an additional +3 needed to hit. So if you're shooting something immobile or an assault mech with no move mod, a good bet to take. Otherwise, not so much. +3 to hit is a really large deal. Defiance Industries posted:I could move to 1521 to help keep the Cephalus off your back, but it's pretty close to both our Elemental points, whereas the other one at 0727 has just Sair's Gurkha creeping up on it. If I move to 0826 we can box him out of moving into our backfield further, but we'd need the Elementals to be able to bang up the remaining Cephalus for us.
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Feb 23, 2018 23:22
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I'm just wondering which one we want to take down first, as I don't think a single light has the firepower to drop one. We'll need to gang up on it, so we should try to put our heads together and figure out a priority.
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Feb 23, 2018 23:39
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Defiance Industries posted:I'm just wondering which one we want to take down first, as I don't think a single light has the firepower to drop one. We'll need to gang up on it, so we should try to put our heads together and figure out a priority.
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Feb 24, 2018 00:01
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Ardlen posted:You also have the option to backstab the Septicemia Z to help achieve the secondary objective of calling down the Legion. Yeah, I think we've got a plan for the north lights. I was just thinking about the south situation.
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Feb 24, 2018 00:39
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AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:Ah, interesting, thank you. I may considering it because my pulses will hit on 4s and two hits from any of my four guns to one leg mission kill the fucker and it reduces my chances of hitting any of the ablative armor, but thats still requiring lots of luck so I think I will hold off and just fire normally. The aim high/low/left/right stuff is generally more useful for extremely good pilots, like the other TacOps options. They're generally (deliberately?) balanced so that the options are rarely if ever useful for non-elite pilots, presumably to make it clearer as to why they're optional rules.
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Feb 24, 2018 00:53
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AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:Ah, interesting, thank you. I may considering it because my pulses will hit on 4s and two hits from any of my four guns to one leg mission kill the fucker and it reduces my chances of hitting any of the ablative armor, but thats still requiring lots of luck so I think I will hold off and just fire normally. Luckily, you do 15 damage on a kick, and if you connect with the Cephalus in 1421 from 1322 it's guaranteed to be a right leg hit (which will blow it off). If you want to get slightly greedy you could shoot both pulses at the Cephalus in 1827 on 7s/a Plasma on 9s and rely on your kick on a 5 to finish the job for the mech you're adjacent to.
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Feb 24, 2018 01:10
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So, for all The Society's best gear, are they just like, falling over and tripping over their own feet tier bad once they have to start taking 'oh no 20 damage' ding checks? I recall them being fairly easy, but piloting 6 seems like a comedy skit waiting to unfold.
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Feb 24, 2018 03:31
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Oh wait I forgot about the null sig and chameleon system. Better dedicate more Firepower to the cephalus, your to hit numbers are going to be worse than I last posted.
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Feb 24, 2018 04:35
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Gwaihir posted:Luckily, you do 15 damage on a kick, and if you connect with the Cephalus in 1421 from 1322 it's guaranteed to be a right leg hit (which will blow it off). This would, however, answer Defiance's question... Defiance Industries posted:I'm just wondering which one we want to take down first, as I don't think a single light has the firepower to drop one. We'll need to gang up on it, so we should try to put our heads together and figure out a priority. chktshadeclaw could stay stationary and start unloading his missiles at the Artillery platform in 2324 as neither the Septicemia Prime not the Septicemia F (Arrow IV boat) have an AMS. Edit: and the shots would be at medium range (13 hexes) with no move mod... AAAAA! Real Muenster fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Feb 24, 2018 |
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Feb 24, 2018 04:39
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After forgetting about this thread for most of a decade, and a couple of months of reading from the beginning, I've finally caught up. God drat this has been some impressive work, Poptarts. I'm still undecided about which match was my favorite. Counting Coup was a tense nail-biter won by the skin of GoonStar's teeth, Ikuta Glacier was hilarious slapstick comedy, and Sludge Factory was sheer, unadulterated carnage. No offense, but I'm hoping the NRWR loses this campaign. Aside from the assassination of Amaris VI, which doesn't seem to have changed a thing, the NRWR just plain doesn't seem to lose. I don't think we've ever seen them suffer a major reversal, and the combination of Word of Blake gear, Clan Wolverine crap, jumpship superweapons, and all the other bullshit we saw in the Demon Hawks campaign makes them way, way too special and bullshit in my opinion.
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Feb 24, 2018 04:41
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The NRWR also lost the bulk of their line forces on Andurien, because aside from the Hawks themselves most of the forces there got loving murdered in a gigantic war of attrition. The NRWR won on that FWL planet because they set up an ambush, and you only lose an ambush if you're grossly incompetent one way or another. The rest of it is basically that they've been redlining all their research, industry, manpower pool, etc to try and get through this conflict. It's a gamble on a knife's edge. It's not so much that they never lose as much as it is their plans include that they're going to take a certain amount of losing as a cost of doing business, so they're always hoping to lose but within parameters. We haven't actually been back to the NRWR since the Andurien campaign, to even see what was going on beyond Uncle Stevie dying. Plus PTN already let us know whichever option didn't win this vote was going to have a bad time in the background, so by going on this campaign, we've already set them up for hard times on Andurien. No news is not necessarily good news in the world of PTN Battletech.
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Feb 24, 2018 04:48
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Perhaps, but narrative weaknesses and problems don't mean a thing if the people with them still don't lose. I wouldn't have chewed through two thousand pages and change of this thread if I wasn't enjoying it, but the NRWR rubs me the wrong way.
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Feb 24, 2018 04:55
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Sometimes when there's no news that means there's no news stations broadcasting the news. Because there's no news reporters getting the scoops. Because there's no scoops to be gotten. Because there's no planet for there to be scoops on. Boy things kind of escalate quickly in the world of Battletech News.
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Feb 24, 2018 04:58
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But Bethany Cochran is there. We know there's at least one proper reporter on planet!
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Feb 24, 2018 05:02
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Cythereal posted:No offense, but I'm hoping the NRWR loses this campaign. Sorry to disappoint.
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Feb 24, 2018 05:33
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This campaign is really turning out aces with the Society showing up to muddle things up - otherwise you'd be well on your way to a win despite the difficulty of such a lopsided BV (even considering having ACE against the mechs as long as your pilot is active). Will Andurien and the Viper Alliance get a chance at all? They really deserve it imho, doesn't seem right for them to be doomed because they weren't chosen. Otoh I'm sure PTN can make a loss read well and not final and that things will ultimately be decided by players on the battlefield and in votes after the timeskip, even if Andurien and the Vipers don't make it. RA Rx fucked around with this message at 06:11 on Feb 24, 2018 |
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Feb 24, 2018 05:51
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The AI controlled gundams weren't too special and bullshit for you?
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Feb 24, 2018 06:46
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RA Rx posted:Will Andurien and the Viper Alliance get a chance at all? They really deserve it imho, doesn't seem right for them to be doomed because they weren't chosen. Worst case scenario the Vipers will get cut off from the Homeworlds and have to go full circle as WiE with Caesar Steiner playing the part of Phelan Kell (and my master plan six years in the making will be complete). Can't see them getting entirely wiped out when they have an alliance with Steiner, Marik and nominally ComStar to fall back on.
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Feb 24, 2018 07:21
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AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:Heh, last time I got greedy and gambled on a kick connecting it failed pretty miserably, but this time I would not cause myself to overheat OR be in position to get blasted too badly. That is, unless, I get tagged and nuked by ATMs... That's not a bad idea, actually. IIRC that's long range for my PPC, but since I'm still at 0 heat, there isn't too much of a reason not to open with everything, if I have a snowball's chance of hitting with it. way I see it, the more damage I can do, the better, especially to a relatively juicy target like that.
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Feb 24, 2018 08:00
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Cythereal posted:Perhaps, but narrative weaknesses and problems don't mean a thing if the people with them still don't lose. My take is the NRWR is analogous to the Word of Blake + Factions with rumored connections to the Wobbies. And yes the WoB are infamous for being special snowflakes in their own way. To begin with, the NRWR does possess the WoB's advanced technology. The Interstellar Player supplements established the existence of an in-setting rumor that the descendants of Clan Wolverine were sheltered by the Word of Blake. This is almost certainly propaganda started by Devlin Stone to trick Clanners into going ham on the Wobbies for him. The NRWR are basically Wobbies + Rumors, therefore, they actually do harbor the descendants of the Wolverines. The Republic of the Sphere is often linked to the Word of Blake in the fandom as one of the more popular theories as to their meteoric rise and, well, they are also widely disliked as special snowflakes. That they also use tech seized from the remnants of Com Guard doesn't help. The NRWR does possess some of the RotS's advanced technology too, and like the NRWR the RotS actually does harbor descendants of an annihilated Clan as special forces. Though in their case, it was Clan Smoke Jaguar. So yes, your distaste is understandable. They combine elements of a number of unpopular and "special" factions. My guess is that the difference for the thread readers is, well, genuine charisma in the form of a (late) Bond villain-esque figure and being the player-sympathetic POV during a rather popular mini-campaign. Whether they keep succeeding their way into true BT-Suedom or not is, well, up to the players isn't it? But for better or worse, it would be quite  if they did.(But man, the Capcon have their own pet enclave of the Society, and that's a big whoa.)
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Feb 24, 2018 15:39
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Xarbala posted:So yes, your distaste is understandable. They combine elements of a number of unpopular and "special" factions. My guess is that the difference for the thread readers is, well, genuine charisma in the form of a (late) Bond villain-esque figure and being the player-sympathetic POV during a rather popular mini-campaign. Whether they keep succeeding their way into true BT-Suedom or not is, well, up to the players isn't it? But for better or worse, it would be quite :battletech: if they did. Eh, the three factions I'm a fan of (the Clans, the Lyrans, and the Free World League) all do pretty much nothing but lose, in canon and the Poptarts-verse, so I suppose I'm just a bit salty.
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Feb 24, 2018 15:41
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We've had a few stunning clan victories over the years (Luthein the first being probably the most notable), and some good FWL stuff with Rolling Thunder and the campaign to save Carlos's Crusaders, but yea we're sorta at the whims of the voting to actually see who does well and all that because it's still us playing the game in the end and not just Poptarts writes a series of BattleTech alt-history. (Not that I wouldn't also want to read that second bit, too...)
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Feb 24, 2018 18:02
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Cythereal posted:Eh, the three factions I'm a fan of (the Clans, the Lyrans, and the Free World League) all do pretty much nothing but lose, in canon and the Poptarts-verse, so I suppose I'm just a bit salty. The thread goes where people vote. I have presented options to help the Clans win. I have presented options to help the Clans lose. Invariably, neither will get picked. The same thing has happened to the NRWR. They can neither win enough to become the heel nor lose enough to earn their comeuppance if they don't get voted for, and nobody wants to vote for them if the Demon Hawks aren't involved (and nobody wants to vote for the Demon Hawks to lose)  The thread has essentially voted for the Clans to become a remarked yet otherwise relatively unimportant presence in the Inner Sphere, so that's what they're becoming. It's why I'm making sure every faction but ComStar now have some direct access to the Clans. The Federated Suns has the Hell's Horses, the Draconis Combine has the Horses and the front lines for Crusade II Electric Bugaloo, the Capellans have their captured scientists, the League has the Sea Foxes and Snow Ravens, Skye has the Vipers, and the Lyran Commonwealth never really won any of the votes that would've lead to reunification with Skye so they're kinda-sorta in the position the old Rim World Republic was. We go where the votes take us but, more importantly, the votes the losing options get tell me if the thread is interested in seeing a faction again. Equally important, if you want to see a faction lose, that means you need to vote for the faction that's fighting them. I try to make every scenario as challenging as I realistically can without making people want to burn my house down, but the players still find ways to win most of them. I've given the FWL plenty of opportunity to win. Edit: It's why I say: support the option you'd like to see. I can't promise it'll be back if it doesn't win, but if it looks like there's a large group who want to see the League or want to see the Commonwealth I'll do everything in my power make it happen. Double Edit: I think the only time we see the FWL is when the choice is between them, the Lyrans, or playing as Clanners.
PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Feb 24, 2018 |
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Feb 24, 2018 19:10
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The problem I've had with your theater votes is that you usually put in too many cool missions to vote for.  Somewhat more seriously, I think votes will be more spread out than they have been after the time skip, as we'll know what everybody is up to and who they're fighting and it'll be a great refresher as to why we should care about the factions we haven't seen in awhile. It won't necessarily be cool known element vs unknown element that could be anything (even a boat!).
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Feb 25, 2018 00:49
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