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If I wanted to catch up on the Wars of Reaving or Era Report: 3145 on PDF, how readable would they be on a Kindle Paperwhite E-reader? I've had problems before with actual Army TM/FMs and their double columned format, which at lot of the older sourcebooks I own on paper follow the formatting of. In addition, I'm wondering if the images and word bubbles would play hell with any PDF>E-reader column converter.
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Mar 27, 2018 09:53
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Xarbala posted:As a player? I mean, I basically just play with megamek and it was this thread that taught me how to use mekhq, and I was out of the loop for a bit so seeing RISC stuff in PTN's thread cued me in that, oh, poo poo new books happened That's a pity - I enjoy when you draw the robits. Sucks that Lowtax has neck issues and IRS pecking at him. I'll throw  his way as I'm supposed to be saving money and don't really have the money to spare, but I like these forums and I'm terrible at self-control and maintaining a grip on my finances (after I've paid bills and savings).
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Mar 27, 2018 12:35
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Xarbala posted:If you never, ever, ever touch a Dark Age novel and only read the sourcebooks that admit Devlin Stone is full of it, and also aren't a Lyran player, the Dark Ages are okay. Or a Free Worlds League player. After years and years of real life getting mostly ignored by the plot and being irrelevant, they finally get some big happening! ...it just so happens that that big thing is them breaking apart and dissolving. RIP. Weissritter posted:Warden clans are not even interested in invading though. Wolves were forced to do so in the initial invasion by the crusaders to humiliate them as I recall. That's the state of things in the 3040s. After the Wars of Reaving, the Homeworld Clans (the 4 that are left, anyway) basically decide "hey all this poo poo was caused by the lower castes getting uppity after seeing how good they would have it if they were in any society except ours. This Inner Sphere taint is dangerous and we need to cut all ties with them, AND the Inner Sphere clans who are now irrevocably tainted, AND the only true way to ensure something like this never happens again is to completely conquer the Inner Sphere." This is at least partially driven by pragmatism; the Homeworlds were never resource rich and they are running out by this point, so the Homeworld Clans have to expand to get more. IIRC they raid the Hanseatic League, a deep periphery state, in the late 3080s to scout for worlds that would be good for colonizing and using as staging bases for Revival 2.0. ~30 worlds that aren't aggressively hostile to human settlement would certainly give them a (comparatively) huge resource base to work with, if the Homeworld Clans conquer them.
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Mar 27, 2018 17:07
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What's the status of my favourite space scandis in current lore? (FRR)
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Mar 27, 2018 17:24
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InAndOutBrennan posted:What's the status of my favourite space scandis in current lore? (FRR) Integrated into the Ghost Bears after said Clan completely conquered their territory. Effectively dead.
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Mar 27, 2018 17:37
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Shoeless posted:Integrated into the Ghost Bears after said Clan completely conquered their territory. Effectively dead. Pfft, should've hooked up with Leman Russ and the other Space Vikings and kicked some rear end.
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Mar 27, 2018 18:49
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Shoeless posted:Integrated into the Ghost Bears after said Clan completely conquered their territory. Effectively dead. And the absurdity is that Rasalgue accepted eagerly this solution, after resisting for centuries against the DC. That was a reeeeeally bad lore decision.
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Mar 27, 2018 19:05
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Shoeless posted:That's the state of things in the 3040s. After the Wars of Reaving, the Homeworld Clans (the 4 that are left, anyway) basically decide "hey all this poo poo was caused by the lower castes getting uppity after seeing how good they would have it if they were in any society except ours. This Inner Sphere taint is dangerous and we need to cut all ties with them, AND the Inner Sphere clans who are now irrevocably tainted, AND the only true way to ensure something like this never happens again is to completely conquer the Inner Sphere." This is at least partially driven by pragmatism; the Homeworlds were never resource rich and they are running out by this point, so the Homeworld Clans have to expand to get more. IIRC they raid the Hanseatic League, a deep periphery state, in the late 3080s to scout for worlds that would be good for colonizing and using as staging bases for Revival 2.0. ~30 worlds that aren't aggressively hostile to human settlement would certainly give them a (comparatively) huge resource base to work with, if the Homeworld Clans conquer them. I wonder if they'll ever do the IlClan or if that's abandoned due to writer turnover and more focus on going back over old stuff. If they do, they're probably going to be all snakes, all the time, with how the Wars of Reaving turned out.
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Mar 27, 2018 19:51
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:I wonder if they'll ever do the IlClan or if that's abandoned due to writer turnover and more focus on going back over old stuff. If they do, they're probably going to be all snakes, all the time, with how the Wars of Reaving turned out. IlClan is specifically the IS clans trying to take Terra as far as I know, so I don't think the Homeworlders have much to do with that. From what I understand, they finally got a new new Line Developer and they're working on stuff again. That being said, my faith in CGL is pretty much nil these days so I'm not holding my breath.
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Mar 27, 2018 19:58
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Shoeless posted:IlClan is specifically the IS clans trying to take Terra as far as I know, so I don't think the Homeworlders have much to do with that. From what I understand, they finally got a new new Line Developer and they're working on stuff again. That being said, my faith in CGL is pretty much nil these days so I'm not holding my breath. Wait, what happened here? Was there another kerfluffle, or did hardy finally move on?
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Mar 27, 2018 20:27
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Guy Fawkes posted:And the absurdity is that Rasalgue accepted eagerly this solution, after resisting for centuries against the DC. Rasalhague always seemed to me like the entire reason they went independent was so that they'd get rolled over by the Clans. At least they get first billing as the Rasalhague Dominion?
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Mar 27, 2018 21:48
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TheParadigm posted:Wait, what happened here? Was there another kerfluffle, or did hardy finally move on? Apparently current lead developer is Brent Evans according to an article I found. And according to the Battletech release schedule page ( https://bg.battletech.com/books/upcoming-releases/ ) in 2018 we can look forward to the first piece of IlClan in Shattered Fortress. So yeah.
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Mar 27, 2018 22:13
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Guy Fawkes posted:And the absurdity is that Rasalgue accepted eagerly this solution, after resisting for centuries against the DC. To be fair, the creation of the FRR was pretty fiat-y in the first place. Just after the 4th Succession War ends, a section of space declares independence. The Combine - who had just lost around 10% of their total territory - just let go of another 10%. Sure, a few units get grumpy but the overall government was fine with it. Okay, yeah, a buffer state to keep the Steiner off. Not the worst plan but not a great one given situations. Then the Lyrans give up basically all of their gains from the 4th Succession and hand them over without even being asked. And they had no need for a buffer state - in fact, it works directly against the new FedCom's interests. (The answer is of course ComStar.)
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Mar 27, 2018 23:14
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Shoeless posted:IlClan is specifically the IS clans trying to take Terra as far as I know, so I don't think the Homeworlders have much to do with that. From what I understand, they finally got a new new Line Developer and they're working on stuff again. That being said, my faith in CGL is pretty much nil these days so I'm not holding my breath. I thought it was the other way around, my bad. I'm interested to see where it goes because I thought they did a decent job of picking up the pieces from Dark Ages.
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Mar 27, 2018 23:14
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:I thought it was the other way around, my bad. I'm interested to see where it goes because I thought they did a decent job of picking up the pieces from Dark Ages. It's more their abyssal PR and handling of things like Leviathans a few years back, and their seeming lack of interest to push on with Battletech, instead focusing their attention elsewhere over the past couple years. Back when we were getting the Dark Age sourcebooks, IlClan was announced, things seemed great, content was being created... and then everything just stopped. Silence from the company, very few new products (I think we got the 1st Succession Wars sourcebook?) and... yeah. They did a decent job un-loving the Jihad from the stuff that FASA and Fanpro left them and they were contractually obligated to do, and with the Dark Age so far, I won't argue that at all. But as a company, I'm very dissatisfied with their practices. Also, porchbux.
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Mar 28, 2018 00:19
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Catalyst has had... problems that have delayed the ilClan sourcebook for years on end now, and Ben Rome revealed he wouldn't complete his part because they stopped paying him. At least Anthony Scroggins/ShimmeringSword is also the new art lead, formalizing his role in pushing out the new unseen models, since his art is around the same quality as Alex Iglesias/flyingdebris.Weissritter posted:Warden clans are not even interested in invading though. Wolves were forced to do so in the initial invasion by the crusaders to humiliate them as I recall. In 3090, the severe depopulation and infrastructure damage that occurred due to the Reavings, and no lack of salvage lying around, would resolve any material shortages.
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Mar 28, 2018 02:40
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Did they run out of asteroid belts to mine or is the technology just not there?
Scalding Coffee fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Mar 28, 2018 |
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Mar 28, 2018 03:11
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DeepThrobble posted:To the best of my knowledge, the lack of resources thing comes from a single line about why the Smoke Jaguars started developing protomechs decades before the invasion, but the Smoke Jaguars were run by meatheads who preferred to take things from other Clans than develop them on their own. They seem like the sort to leave the jungles of Huntress untouched so their totem could roam unfettered and eat their weak, and as a result unwittingly miss out on centuries worth of metal deposits. In 3090, the severe depopulation and infrastructure damage that occurred due to the Reavings, and no lack of salvage lying around, would resolve any material shortages. I remember it being mentioned in Wars of Reaving Supplemental too, about the resources becoming more scarce.
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Mar 28, 2018 03:26
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The Kerensky Cluster being relatively resource poor has always been a thing in the lore - it's one of the initial practical reasons for the whole Trial system, after all. You just kind of have to justify some reason why they can't just go find lots of asteroids to mine. Maybe some aspect of battlemech construction just requires some exotic material that's rare in the Deep Periphery overall for some reason. As for some new impending resource scarcity, maybe it's more just a fair chunk of resources are currently practically inaccessible for reasons? A decent number of worlds were rendered fairly unlivable during the Reaving for various reasons, so it might just be that as opposed to flat-out not being there.
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Mar 28, 2018 06:22
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Warship nuclear holocausts and Society gene-plagues will do that to a planet, yes.
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Mar 28, 2018 06:54
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Also, the largest and most powerful clans have been invading/warring the IS for about 20 years to the point where house units could rely on getting some clan salvage dished out to regulars. All of that material was likely K Cluster's majority of raw material shipped en mass in BattleMech form for the grinder that is the Inner Sphere.
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Mar 28, 2018 07:15
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Also, don't forget the scale. The entirety of the Clan homeworlds is ~40 worlds. The Capellan Conferation, the small guy on the block at the time of the Invasion, had ~200. The Clans collectively owned a space about the size of the Magistracy of Canopus. And while they'd done less infrastructure damage to themselves than the IS had, the rate of destroying big expensive battlemechs was much, much higher. Come the Invasion, it wasn't unusual to see a mech that was 200+ years old. If a Clan mech lasted a pilot's entire life they were either godlike or a complete coward.
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Mar 28, 2018 13:55
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Tempest_56 posted:
Is that really the case though? I thought that the clan bidding structure and abhorrence of waste wouldn't tend to result in many if any totally destroyed Mechs.
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Mar 28, 2018 14:05
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Gwaihir posted:Is that really the case though? I thought that the clan bidding structure and abhorrence of waste wouldn't tend to result in many if any totally destroyed Mechs. It usually doesn't, but accidents happen and the Clans are dicks who will gleefully ignore their own rules when it suits them. The Clans also don't put nearly the same value on every mech as a priceless heirloom like the Succession Wars era Inner Sphere does.
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Mar 28, 2018 14:19
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Scalding Coffee posted:Did they run out of asteroid belts to mine or is the technology just not there? It's way, way easier to get metal that happens to be in an atmosphere then to go out and get it from an asteroid. Besides, they're using those ships to shoot at each other.
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Mar 28, 2018 14:24
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That reminds me of another one of my beefs with Clan society - their bidding system is designed to minimize materiel losses in war, but as written would fulfill exactly the opposite end. The defenders aren't required or expected to bid away their forces, so unless their garrison includes units they actively want to avoid using (such as an officer they want to punish by denying battle) they typically just announce what they have on planet and it falls to the attackers to come up with the minimal force they think can defeat it. The theory is that by reducing the scale of the conflict to only what's considered necessary, the total losses suffered will be reduced, but that's not how it works at all. Battles between evenly-matched forces generally result in the most destruction on both sides, as they are capable of fighting each other to the brink of mutual annihilation. Battles where one side has an overwhelming advantage tend to be the cleanest, as they quickly reduce the weaker party to the point where they are no longer capable of effective resistance while taking minimal losses themselves. This results in one army being destroyed or crippled, rather than two. Hell, in a society that allows surrender or retreat in the face of impossible odds, this can even result in the least-destructive battles at all - the ones that don't happen! If a batchall involved the defenders picking some token force to mount a symbolic defense in ritual combat against a similar selection from the attackers they would fulfill their purpose of reducing wartime destruction, but as-is a correctly executed batchall should result in the entire garrison being destroyed with comparable losses being suffered by the attackers. The only good they seem to do is that once Clanners have agreed to fight they will usually meet each other on neutral-ish ground and see who wins in a pitched battle rather than getting into protracted campaigns over territory that blow cities to hell, which I suppose isn't nothing.
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Mar 28, 2018 14:30
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Lord Koth posted:Maybe some aspect of battlemech construction just requires some exotic material that's rare in the Deep Periphery overall for some reason. Think that one's called hard, honest work. Eg the one thing a clan warrior would never consider doing.
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Mar 28, 2018 14:44
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Gwaihir posted:I thought that the clan bidding structure and abhorrence of waste wouldn't tend to result in many if any totally destroyed Mechs. The Clans are an extremely, hypocritically wasteful culture. They pay lip-service to hating unnecessary waste but their entire culture is based around keeping fights as "close" as possible (so both sides receive the most possible damage) rather than winning quickly and cleanly. This is intentional, it looks good on a surface reading and it illustrates how little critical attention the Clans have actually paid to Nicholas Kerensky's teachings.
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Mar 28, 2018 16:08
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Gwaihir posted:Is that really the case though? I thought that the clan bidding structure and abhorrence of waste wouldn't tend to result in many if any totally destroyed Mechs. Well in addition to what others have pointed out about Clan hypocrisy, there's also the tempo and volume of combat. You've got 17 distinct political entities clustered in about 40 worlds and they resolve drat near literally every dispute by shooting each other. Even just completing your basic training or getting a promotion means live-fire combat with the intent to kill/destroy. This is also aided by the fact that the Clans are neophiles - they're constantly clamoring for the newest and shiniest toys. Those old mechs may be good and reliable, but Clan doctrine has them narrowly above garbage.
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Mar 28, 2018 16:26
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Tempest_56 posted:Also, don't forget the scale. The entirety of the Clan homeworlds is ~40 worlds. The Capellan Conferation, the small guy on the block at the time of the Invasion, had ~200. The Clans collectively owned a space about the size of the Magistracy of Canopus. By 3075, after you account for worlds abandoned due to the Reavings, they're down to 23 planets. PoptartsNinja posted:This is intentional, it looks good on a surface reading and it illustrates how little critical attention the Clans have actually paid to Nicholas Kerensky's teachings. To be fair, Nicky's teachings were all kinds of hosed up to begin with anyway. I think I'm actually okay with them only paying him lip service and just doing their own thing, even if their own thing is incredibly stupid.
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Mar 28, 2018 16:29
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I know very little of BT lore but it seems the clans are basically just irredeemable assholes totally lacking in self awareness, restraint or any other kind of worthwhile value. Calculated to appeal to angsty, nerdy teens then I suppose.
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Mar 28, 2018 16:29
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So basically the entire clan invasion is a bunch of hosers running out of money and having to resort to the cool crime of robbery.
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Mar 28, 2018 16:38
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How Disgusting posted:So basically the entire clan invasion is a bunch of hosers running out of money and having to resort to the cool crime of robbery. Oh no, not even that self-aware. Because remember, they're WARRIORS. They don't need to worry about things like logistics and production. That's what lower castes are for. The entire invasion was playing capture the flag. They decided that which ever one of them got to Terra first would be in charge, and that because of that would rule the entire galaxy. Even the 90% they hadn't conquered yet. The Clans are a really, really stupid society.
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Mar 28, 2018 16:59
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the Clans are ok to me insomuch that they gave us the Timber Wolf Pretty short list of positives but there ya go 
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Mar 28, 2018 17:02
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Aces High posted:the Clans are ok to me insomuch that they gave us the Timber Wolf They also gave us the Stormcrow, Cauldron Born, Linebacker, and Elementals. And I still kinda have a soft spot for the Warhawk despite how over-exposed it is in BattleTech media.
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Mar 28, 2018 17:05
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Remember that even if a bid results in the near destruction of both sides forces that the Warrior Caste represents less than a fraction of a percent of Clan Society, so the overall loss is still minute.
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Mar 28, 2018 19:02
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Tempest_56 posted:The Clans are a really, really stupid society. I mean, considering their founder was a military general whose brilliant solution to the collapse of the Star League was to take as many people and shiny objects as they could carry on a multi-year journey into uncharted space with no know places to stop and resupply or settle down in safety, they seem pretty par for the course. 
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Mar 28, 2018 19:20
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Rygar201 posted:Remember that even if a bid results in the near destruction of both sides forces that the Warrior Caste represents less than a fraction of a percent of Clan Society, so the overall loss is still minute. yes, nothing of value would be lost
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Mar 28, 2018 19:54
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Jimmy4400nav posted:I mean, considering their founder was a military general whose brilliant solution to the collapse of the Star League was to take as many people and shiny objects as they could carry on a multi-year journey into uncharted space with no know places to stop and resupply or settle down in safety, they seem pretty par for the course. Not to say anything about what followed, but what, exactly, do you think Alexsandr Kerensky should have done? He outright rejected overthrowing the High Council, and he spent two years fruitlessly shuttling between members to try and reconcile differences between the various lords, who just ignored ignored him in their march to war. Hell, one key reason to just flat out leave was to prevent the various lords from trying to suborn SLDF units that had been drawn from their Successor State into their militaries for the conflict about to unfold - in fact one of the Houses doing so was the final trigger. Sure, setting out into the great unknown isn't the greatest idea, but if you need to flat-out make all that military power permanently vanish there aren't that many options - and even if you spent the years or decades required to send out explorator missions to find something (time not really available), that'd still leave traces behind.
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Mar 28, 2018 19:56
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Jimmy4400nav posted:I mean, considering their founder was a military general whose brilliant solution to the collapse of the Star League was to take as many people and shiny objects as they could carry on a multi-year journey into uncharted space with no know places to stop and resupply or settle down in safety, they seem pretty par for the course. And he was the non-brain damaged one. His /son/ was the one that made the entire hosed up caste system to begin with, with all its deranged rules and screwed up hierarchy, but the Clans consider him to basically be a saint, so good luck trying to convince /them/ of that.
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Mar 28, 2018 20:04
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