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Grognan posted:If it is something terrifying and it gets headshot and salvaged immediately wtf is going to happen then? We get Comstar'd. Again.
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Mar 3, 2018 18:47
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painedforever posted:That will make the Lyrans happy, certainly. Davion. There's a reason House Kurita had a tendency to walk all over the Davions when their most common heavy 'Mech was the Dragon. House Kurita: "We built a thing!" Dragon - Debuted in 2754. 60 tons. House Steiner: "Man, that Dragon thing of yours is a pain. We're going to make a better one!" Zeus - Debuted in 2787, originally with a PPC but later downgraded to an AC/5 due to issues getting the PPC to work. 80 tons, basically a Dragon with a better armament. House Kurita: "... gently caress you." House Kurita designs a Dragon variant with a PPC that works. PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Mar 3, 2018 |
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Mar 3, 2018 18:56
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PoptartsNinja posted:Sadly, quads didn't make the cut for HBS BattleTech. Well, those three I mentioned are the only quads in the Inner Sphere in 3025, and the Xanthos is believed completely extinct by this time, so it's understandable.
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Mar 3, 2018 19:04
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If that's a heavy mech we're up against we should try and capture it intact. Leg it and try for a pilot kill, maybe?
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Mar 3, 2018 19:08
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jesus this contract is like a toddler ramming two merc outfits into each other like diecast cars.
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Mar 3, 2018 19:09
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It could be worse. One of the contracts a lance-sized unit can expect to get in this era is "riot control" duty Wherein you get paid to turn up at a government's behalf on very short notice because a local government has hosed up bigtime and have to shoot rioters / union protesters / etc. until the populace decides that maybe not revolting is better than watching a Firestarter turn all of their neighbors into 30 meter swaths of "holy poo poo they lit the concrete on fire!" PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Mar 3, 2018 |
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Mar 3, 2018 19:19
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So knowing almost nothing about battletech I was inspired to try MecHQ. I am building my lance on Gallatea and have been for the last 2 hours. Currently I am trying to stock up in spares for my mechs (I think I need to do this?) And discovering that the only things my guys know how to buy are flamers, MGs, and a bizarre assortment of medieval and pre historic weaponry. Oh and fire extinguishers. Do I have to manually buy fire extinguishers for my unit? Or are these for hitting people with?
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Mar 3, 2018 19:21
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This thread literally sold a copy of this game to me. I've been a peripheral Battletech guy for a while (I played MWO briefly, some friends of mine are really big 'mechheads, and I'm a mecha fan in general), but the sheer degree of sandboxy story-telling and fluid rules have really gotten me excited about a Battletech property for the first time in, uh, ever. With that in mind, I'm super curious. What *is* the Word of Blake? Can somebody elucidate, and maybe explain why these Mechanicus-as-hell guys are a problem? I know what ComStar is, but I'm kinda fuzzy on how they operate, also. Is this kind of thing common behavior (like, would they actually DO this kind of thing) or is this justifying the random generator from this peripheral tool?
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Mar 3, 2018 19:27
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Word of Blake are ComStar Evangelicals. When they didn't get their way / when things stopped conforming to Blake's "Prophecies" (educated guesses), they decided to make things conform to Blake's prophecies. With nukes, genetically engineered plagues, and armies of murderous cyborgs they were originally secretly assembling to exterminate a Clan (almost certainly the Jade Falcons). Edit: I can't spell today. PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Mar 3, 2018 |
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Mar 3, 2018 19:30
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WampaPartyEX posted:Word of Blake, who this AdMech/Comstar, but evil jihadis with actual robots who do warcrimes.
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Mar 3, 2018 20:36
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Personally, I'm starting to worry these aren't pirates or even another merc outfit like folks have been speculating. This many 'Mechs would be unusual for a mercenary outfit - by no means unheard of, certainly - but our proximity to New Avalon makes me uneasy. If this was some kind of war game of ComStar's, I think they'd have been satisfied by now. No, what worries me is the possibility that these are FedCom regulars. We've been seeing a lot of Davion tech, and a lot of Steiner tech. Some Marik and Liao designs, sure, but I can't be the only one who's noticed the conspicuous absence of any Kurita designs, not even Nasir's beloved Jenner. We're deep in the heart of the old Suns, hired by an exceptionally enigmatic contractor and fighting a huge number of well-equipped, well-organized BattleMechs. This kind of private little war so close to New Avalon, and with the success we've been having despite being horrendously outnumbered... well, that wouldn't reflect so well on the Fox if these were Davion-Steiner house troops getting their rear end kicked up between their ears by some nobody mercenaries. Almighty spirits, what the hell have we walked into here? -Figment
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Mar 3, 2018 21:03
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PoptartsNinja posted:It could be worse.
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Mar 3, 2018 21:12
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Jagers are very solid in mwo, are they rubbish on table top?
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Mar 3, 2018 21:15
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PoptartsNinja posted:Word of Blake are ComStar Evangelicals. When they didn't get their way / when things stopped conforming to Blake's "Prophecies" (educated guesses), they decided to make things conform to Blake's prophecies. With nukes, genetically engineered plagues, and armies of murderous cyborgs they were originally secretly assembling to exterminate a Clan (almost certainly the Jade Falcons). So how does ComStar normally work? Just a giant glorified phone company that happens to have a secret lunatic cult inside it? EDIT: To be clear, I've read Sarna a couple times, I'm just trying to wrap my head around where "Ma Bell in space" intersects with "giant lunatic cult" and also how Ma Bell normally does day-to-day business in the Sphere.
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Mar 3, 2018 21:17
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sebmojo posted:Jagers are very solid in mwo, are they rubbish on table top? AC 2s and 5s are not very good/efficient in TT
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Mar 3, 2018 21:19
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MWO lets you turn otherwise mediocre mechs into good mechs purely because you can adjust their loadouts at will. Also, death to wizards. Never trust a wizard! Oh lord we're indebted to a group of goddamn wizards.
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Mar 3, 2018 21:25
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At least we didn't make a deal with a dragon. (Funnily enough despite being a Shadowrun saying this is very true of Kurita too... Never make a deal with a dragon.)
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Mar 3, 2018 21:28
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sebmojo posted:Jagers are very solid in mwo, are they rubbish on table top? The stock JagerMech comes with 6 tons of armor, which is about 45% of what a 65 ton 'Mech can carry and a good 35% less than would be safe, all so that it can carry four extremely heavy low-damage autocannons. Even in an AA role its armor is so thin a good fighter will almost certainly cripple it. It's not so much a glass cannon as it is completely terrible. Noted Inner Sphere punching bag the Blackjack (45 tons) carries 2.5 tons more armor than the JagerMech does and does the AA role just as well for a little more than half the price. WampaPartyEX posted:So how does ComStar normally work? Just a giant glorified phone company that happens to have a secret lunatic cult inside it? Not so much Ma Bell as Space UPS. You walk into a ComStar branch office (little planets may only have one on the entire planet, bigger ones have one in every major city). If your planet's lucky enough to be on the first circuit (whose HPGs are operated at least once a day) your mail goes out pretty quick. If the destination's also on the first circuit they get it about 24-36 hours later depending on how long it takes ComStar to open it up and read it once it gets to Terra. Needless to say, ComStar manipulates the Inner Sphere's economy hardcore and is fond of artificially inflating or deflating prices by making demand look higher or lower than it really is. If you or your recipient is off the first circuit, you'd better hope you're in the second tier, then you'll get your mail in about a month. If you're not on the second tier, or if you're unlucky enough to live on a planet that doesn't have a surviving HPG, you can expect to receive mail from your parents on Butte Hold in 4-6 months, and your messages may have traveled by JumpShip Pony Express part of the way. Artificer posted:Oh lord we're indebted to a group of goddamn wizards. ComStar is wizards, yes.  They also decided that none of the buildings in Washington DC were quite fancy enough.  That "Never Forget!" was probably painted close to a decade prior to 9/11/2001. PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Mar 3, 2018 |
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Mar 3, 2018 21:57
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Oh holy poo poo that image is actually of Comstar?
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Mar 3, 2018 22:33
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Artificer posted:Oh holy poo poo that image is actually of Comstar? Yes, it is official artwork from their first published sourcebook.
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Mar 3, 2018 22:41
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Radio Free Kobold posted:HELLO FELLOW MECHS, IT IS YOUR GOOD FRIEND ATLAS You're one urbie short of an Annihilator and probably stumbled upon what happened at a Wolf's Dragoons initial design conference for their new Assault 'Mech.
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Mar 3, 2018 22:46
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Cythereal posted:Personally, I'm starting to worry these aren't pirates or even another merc outfit like folks have been speculating. This many 'Mechs would be unusual for a mercenary outfit - by no means unheard of, certainly - but our proximity to New Avalon makes me uneasy. If this was some kind of war game of ComStar's, I think they'd have been satisfied by now. Han listens quetly "That is disturbingly possible. Is there anything on his planet worth 2 companies of mechs on. Instead of FedCom regulars, are these some private lords troops and we are the ones trying to stage an overthrow? Are we the pirate rebels?"
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Mar 3, 2018 22:50
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I was wrong, Field Manual ComStar (for which the Never Forget rock was painted) was published in 1999. So only two years before 9/11! 
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Mar 3, 2018 22:52
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WampaPartyEX posted:So how does ComStar normally work? Just a giant glorified phone company that happens to have a secret lunatic cult inside it? In addition to what Poptarts Ninja said, its important to note too that the C-Bill (the currency that is the de-facto standard across the galaxy even with each House having its own space buck) basically ties to the certain amount of use of the HPG One millisecond of transmission time, just enough for two pages of bare text or a small image, is equal to one C-Bill,). Comstar also has a nice side business running the Mercenary Review Board, Mercenaries in turn not liking the randomly fluctuating values of House Bills, prefer to be paid in C-Bills (of which Comstar takes a cut when they refer a group of mercenaries for work). As for the whole Ma Bell mixed with super cult in space, that's an interesting story in its self. Conrad Toyama is the dude you're looking for as to how that whole ball of wax happened. A former friend of Jerome Blake (COMSTAR's founder), he had a massive case of hero worship for the dude due to Blake's giant set of brass balls he displayed in creating the organization (including bluffing all the Houses into accepting Comstar, seizing control of the Sol system, convincing Kerensky to give him 17 crack regiments of troops and yoinking every piece of advance technology and military gear from the former Terran Hegemony). Blake had toyed with the idea of incorporating religious-style structure into COMSTAR to give it longevity and to prevent the Houses from gaining their own HPG technology and knowhow, but Toyama wanted to go one further and make it a full blown pseudo-religion so they could control technology and shape the future of humanity from behind the scenes while the houses blew themselves up (playing the whole tech-priest angle from the Foundation series). Whiel Blake believed that it was critical to preserve technology so that Comstar could one day help rebuild humanity, Toyama took a hardline that the Houses needed to basically be destroyed to allow a new order to take over and rebuild humanity from that protected cache. Toyama's successor Raymond Karpov really solidified the whole cult thing though. Toyama wanted pseudo-mysticism to help give an aura of mystery to Comstar and give them influence. Karpov went full religion on it, replacing jumpsuits with robes, instructions with chats and manuals with illuminated manuscript. He also was waaaay more extreme in the whole "have the Houses be destroyed" thing than Toyama, who'd helped facilitate several wars by selectively sharing and withholding information. Karpov greatly expanded Comstar's intelligence branch ROM and started having them assassinate scientists not under Comstar's thumb and fermenting disasters in the Houses. He eventually got forced out, but the mysticism and religious batshittery introduced by him and Toyama had by then had generations to take hold so stuck around. Jimmy4400nav fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Mar 3, 2018 |
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Mar 3, 2018 22:58
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Jimmy4400nav posted:Comstar also has a nice side business running the Mercenary Review Board, Mercenaries in turn not liking the randomly fluctuating values of House Bills, prefer to be paid in C-Bills (of which Comstar takes a cut when they refer a group of mercenaries for work). Just in case someone didn't realize how screwed we are in our current position, we can't even run and complain to the MRB about out contractor screwing us over. 
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Mar 3, 2018 23:08
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Man, that's all kinds of awesome. I love this pseudo-wizard Admech UPS thing making phone cards into the gold standard for money. Is there any way we can deal with Comstar's poo poo? Maybe sign on as part of a House and become Goon Knights or something, or rally these guys fighting them?
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Mar 3, 2018 23:22
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Yeah, I'm beginning to think it would have been more profitable to take the contract with 40% salvage for a planetary assault ...
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Mar 3, 2018 23:24
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Triangle Shirt Factotum posted:Yeah, I'm beginning to think it would have been more profitable to take the contract with 40% salvage for a planetary assault ... We'd be dead. There's a reason that contract was offering premium salvage rights
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Mar 3, 2018 23:25
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WampaPartyEX posted:Is there any way we can deal with Comstar's poo poo? Maybe sign on as part of a House and become Goon Knights or something, or rally these guys fighting them? None of the Great Houses would dare (openly*) go against Comstar, because if they did, Comstar can simply turn off their phone service and suddenly their massive interplanetary empire is stuck relying on jump ship pony express for nearly all communications, leaving them massively vulnerable to their neighboring Houses ripping into them before they can respond properly. You'd pretty much have to get all five Major Houses to go after Comstar in unison, and that ain't happening. * And little do they know going against Comstar behind closed doors rarely works well because those "Unbreakable" HPG Communication Ciphers/Encryption all the houses use? Comstar can break them easy (and are sometimes the ones who provided them).
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Mar 3, 2018 23:28
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Rygar201 posted:We'd be dead. There's a reason that contract was offering premium salvage rights
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Mar 3, 2018 23:39
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Scalding Coffee posted:I feel the same right now, after all the Lance's we destroyed so far and only for 10%. How many Mechs would normally fight in such a campaign? Well, as I understand it, in a normal MekHQ/Against the Bot campaign, this anti-piracy contract would probably be mostly against vehicles and the occasional common/mediocre light mech. Its just Phros is having to adapt it to the HBS Battletech Skirmish Beta and thus our opposition is mechs only and only up to four at a time.
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Mar 3, 2018 23:45
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WampaPartyEX posted:This thread literally sold a copy of this game to me. I've been a peripheral Battletech guy for a while (I played MWO briefly, some friends of mine are really big 'mechheads, and I'm a mecha fan in general), but the sheer degree of sandboxy story-telling and fluid rules have really gotten me excited about a Battletech property for the first time in, uh, ever.  But mostly because I'd like something new besides Long War for that XCOM itch. Giant Robots punching it out sounds fabulous. Rygar201 posted:We'd be dead. There's a reason that contract was offering premium salvage rights PotAto, Potato it looks like, given the MekHQ rolls.
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Mar 4, 2018 00:18
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Galaga Galaxian posted:Just in case someone didn't realize how screwed we are in our current position, we can't even run and complain to the MRB about out contractor screwing us over. This is pretty much the exact reason why the Mercs started providing their own review board post-Tukayyid, since by that point, the cat was out of the bag that Comstar wasn't on the up and up after they revealed the fact that they had a secret army nessled away.
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Mar 4, 2018 00:23
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Did the Star League Defense Force have targeting computers or is that Clan Tech?
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Mar 4, 2018 00:26
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So after spending all afternoon and evening on MekHQ I've finally got it working on attempt 2 and have fought a battle in MegaMech. I rolled a ridiculously heavy set of mechs for some down on their luck mercs and the only contract I could get that would make me money rather than loose it was a full on planetary assault against the combine, so I took it. I then sat around at the destination for 6 weeks before getting challenged to a duel by some Combine officer. I sent my captain out in his heirloom Striker and found I was facing an Awesome, which proceeded to utterly wreck my valiant Striker as he was forced to charge over totally open ground at the honarbu samurai who was corner camping like a motherfucker. He arrived just in time to have his CT split wide open and get crited in the engine, falling flat on his face at his almost untouched opponents feet, but then when the Awesome moved forwards to stomp on him he not only tanked the stomp like a boss, he got back on his feet, limped round behind the Awesome and blew its left leg off from behind, then immediately stomped the right leg into scrap too, then overheated and shut down. So if even I can manage to fail around and have fun in MekHQ I strongly recommended others try it, it's great and really appeals to my inner grog. Although I still haven't found out what the fire extinguishers are for. One question though, my contract has a 50/50 salvage split, but obviously there is only the awesome to salvage, valued at 3m. If I claim it does that mean I have to pay 1.5m? Alternately if I leave it does that mean I get a 1.5m bonus?
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Mar 4, 2018 00:29
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Rygar201 posted:Did the Star League Defense Force have targeting computers or is that Clan Tech? Clan tech AFAIK, the inner sphere were able to copy it, butr like many things never perfetly.
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Mar 4, 2018 00:51
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Pharnakes posted:One question though, my contract has a 50/50 salvage split, but obviously there is only the awesome to salvage, valued at 3m. If I claim it does that mean I have to pay 1.5m? Alternately if I leave it does that mean I get a 1.5m bonus? You won't be able to salvage it at all within the system, because you can only "select" up to 50% of the loot. However, you can go into GM mode and add yourself an Awesome, then deduct the cost of repairs/splitting the salvage. As for the weird purchasing, what year did you set the game to start in?
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Mar 4, 2018 02:48
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Actually, I think you can claim it. I've claimed over the percentage before. But if you exceed your contract % at end of contract you get hit with a Contract Breach. Which is bad.
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Mar 4, 2018 03:25
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Huh, I guess you can. It just grays things out when you do it in a way that made me think you couldn't. Anyway, reading up on it salvage is on a campaign basis, not on a per-battle basis so getting that single big mech should be possible.
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Mar 4, 2018 04:45
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PoptartsNinja posted:
Just what mechs am I looking at here... starting from the furthest back. Mad Cat Supernova(?) Gargoyle(?) ???(???)
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Mar 4, 2018 12:50
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