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Taerkar posted:They did, but they are of course LosTech. A few planets still have some remnants of SDS in place, but they're few and far between. *sitting around with gigantic walking tanks to have punch battles with* Whoa man putting like a bunch of big lrms in space is way too complicated
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Oct 28, 2019 16:01
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I mean it's obvious that comstar has fitted shock collars on the heads of the great houses to prevent them from using their resources wisely on things like "prepared layered defenses" or "tactics".
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Oct 28, 2019 16:05
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Lawman 0 posted:*sitting around with gigantic walking tanks to have punch battles with* How do I fix my ancestral pair of legs with a machine gun on it Guys please, stop laughing my militia is dying, no one can stop the other pair of legs with a rocket launcher on it
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Oct 28, 2019 16:09
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Lawman 0 posted:I mean it's obvious that comstar has fitted shock collars on the heads of the great houses to prevent them from using their resources wisely on things like "prepared layered defenses" or "tactics". Comstar is basically in-universe GM fiat and I hate that.
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Oct 28, 2019 16:10
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What do you mean just put another machine gun on it? How the gently caress do you do that?
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Oct 28, 2019 16:11
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Radio Free Kobold posted:Comstar is basically in-universe GM fiat and I hate that. ComStar is basically First Foundation, yeah? Only without any ability to really plan for the future, because they don't have magical prognostication powers.
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Oct 28, 2019 16:15
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RBA Starblade posted:How do I fix my ancestral pair of legs with a machine gun on it *extremely inbred 31st century noble voice* Defense in depth isn't real I insist as I crashland my lovely union dropship right into the wall of an enemy base.
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Oct 28, 2019 16:25
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Nothing in Battletech can survive any scrutiny at all beyond "giant robots smashing each other rules." Basically almost everything in the game is out-ranged by typical Civil War artillery pieces. e: The Clan ER PPC quivers in fear before the reach of the... uhh.... 3 inch ordinance rifle?
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Oct 28, 2019 16:32
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sean10mm posted:Nothing in Battletech can survive any scrutiny at all beyond "giant robots smashing each other rules." Haha what
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Oct 28, 2019 16:33
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Lawman 0 posted:Haha what The effective range of Civil War artillery was like 1,900 meters for the better guns.
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Oct 28, 2019 16:34
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Norton the First posted:ComStar is basically First Foundation, yeah? Only without any ability to really plan for the future, because they don't have magical prognostication powers. First Foundation actively continued basic research and developing technologies after the fall of civilization. When you're the only place that can make lasers in the Space Mad Max future, you end up pretty important. While they benefited from psychohistory, that was more Second Foundation's thing. ComStar just hid all their Star League toys while the rest of the Inner Sphere blew each back to the stone age. They could do that because they monopolized HPG technology, and would place an embargo on anyone that attacked them. They also actively worked to prevent the Great Houses from rediscovering or reinventing technology. When the options for interstellar communication were 1) send email ComStar can read, or 2) Pony Express in Space, it's a little hard to run a significant R&D effort without the phone company learning about it.
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Oct 28, 2019 16:41
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sean10mm posted:Actually I think it's fine that lights aren't survivable if they decide to get in firefights with heavies. Real life is like that, but we haven't replaced everything with M1 tanks. The problem is that there's no zoomed out metagame before you get dumped in a Solaris arena-scale battlefield with 3 enemy lances that appear out of thin air. If there were a role for fast mobile units to do scouting, recon, harassment, and feinting maneuvers, then light mechs could be really useful. Even if it were really abstracted, I'd enjoy some kind of scouting minigame before dropping the main lance. Something so simple as a RNG roll to see if your scout units get beaten up, in exchange for intel like: "enemies will get reinforced by a heavy lance from the west" would be an improvement.
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Oct 28, 2019 16:43
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TasogareNoKagi posted:First Foundation actively continued basic research and developing technologies after the fall of civilization. Everything I read about comstar suggests you could make a very topical game or movie about it and it would probably win some awards if you played around with it enough.
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Oct 28, 2019 16:45
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So what's the Battletech equivalent on the Tachanka-Technical line? Something like an SRM carrier on a trunk chassis so.. Katyusha?
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Oct 28, 2019 17:12
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OddObserver posted:So what's the Battletech equivalent on the Tachanka-Technical line? Something like an SRM carrier on a trunk chassis so.. Katyusha? An actual technical. Like, AC/2 or Medium Laser or Rocket Launcher, on a truck. A few years ago on /tg/ someone did the math and ran a few battles and it turns out 100 tons of lovely technical will reliably beat 100 tons of Atlas in a fight. A Flatbed Truck can carry six tons of cargo. So, what, two SRM-4s and a ton of ammo? It's even got a variant right there with four RL/15s. Get five of those and that's 300 rockets. Radio Free Kobold fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Oct 28, 2019 |
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Oct 28, 2019 17:20
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One thing I would like from BT2 would be none of this bullshit getting shot in the back by turn 1 spawn reinforcements before you even see the targets. At least make it so they don't just appear and get to take their turns at once like that, meeting 8-12 mechs at once is a bit of a clusterfuck, especially when they start behind you from where you came from. "Faulty information" feels like a lovely design decision.
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Oct 28, 2019 17:25
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Radio Free Kobold posted:An actual technical. Like, AC/2 or Medium Laser or Rocket Launcher, on a truck. A few years ago on /tg/ someone did the math and ran a few battles and it turns out 100 tons of lovely technical will reliably beat 100 tons of Atlas in a fight. Haha link
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Oct 28, 2019 17:36
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I don't have a link for you, but I can probably bullshit this out. Assume Bulldog/Pitbull 2-ton trucks (w/ just over 1 ton cargo capacity each). No armor, 1x medium laser in the back forming a "turret". Let's assume a Locust (1x Md.Las, 2x MG, 20 tons), assume one hit will kill a truck, and ignore accuracy (or, rather, assume that both the truckswarm and the locust are equally evasive and equally accurate). So we have 10x Trucks (each w/ 1x Md.Las) vs 1x Locust, which can kill three trucks a round. Round one, the locust shoots first, kills three trucks, and gets shot with 7 medium lasers. Round two, the locust shoots first, kills three more trucks, and gets shot with 4 medium lasers. That's already 11 medium lasers hits on a Locust. I'm not sure it will survive that. The apex of this strategy is something like a Hetzer or a Saladin; the cheapest possible AC/20 carrier, a box of griefing on wheels. Just going by c-bill costs from Sarna, you can get ten Saladins for the price of one Atlas and I guarantee you those Saladins are going to come out on top. Radio Free Kobold fucked around with this message at 17:54 on Oct 28, 2019 |
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Oct 28, 2019 17:51
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Radio Free Kobold posted:I don't have a link for you, but I can probably bullshit this out. Assume Bulldog/Pitbull 2-ton trucks (w/ just over 1 ton cargo capacity each). No armor, 1x medium laser in the back forming a "turret". Let's assume a Locust (1x Md.Las, 2x MG, 20 tons), assume one hit will kill a truck, and ignore accuracy (or, rather, assume that both the truckswarm and the locust are equally evasive and equally accurate). So we have 10x Trucks (each w/ 1x Md.Las) vs 1x Locust, which can kill three trucks a round. 3rd millennium challenge is real and strong
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Oct 28, 2019 18:27
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Lawman 0 posted:3rd millennium challenge is real and strong the Davion equivalent of Paul Van Riper was assassinated by ComStar 10 years before retirement
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Oct 28, 2019 18:31
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Pattonesque posted:the Davion equivalent of Paul Van Riper was assassinated by ComStar 10 years before retirement hosed up but 100% true. Headcanon is now that comstar kills innovative commanders who don't go merc because the mechwarrior and ransom industry is too big to fail. 
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Oct 28, 2019 18:32
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sean10mm posted:HBS simply made no effort to implement them. This isn't true, they've made attempts to balance the game so lights and mediums are viable through flashpoint tonnage limits and target acquisition missions. The issue is that the efforts they've made aren't satisfying players that want to run lights. Riffing a bunch of mission modes off the top of your head is one thing, but actually coding them is another thing entirely.
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Oct 28, 2019 18:38
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Koorisch posted:One thing I would like from BT2 would be none of this bullshit getting shot in the back by turn 1 spawn reinforcements before you even see the targets. They have to implement infantry in BT2 because elementals are such an iconic part of the Clan invasion. So hopefully it's less bullshit flanking by magic spawning mechs, and more ambushes by infantry hidden in woods and buildings. It'd be nice to have some risk associated with parking your bulwark units in forest tiles, and also have more of a role for MGs, flamers, and pulse lasers.
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Oct 28, 2019 18:40
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I'm probably in the minority but I'd rather they just ran a storyline using the general setting and assets of battletech but not be so tied down in the official canon and lore. It'd be cool to introduce things in different points than they "actually" happened or upturn the events as we know them. I think it's really hard to run an interactive game in this universe when all outcomes and events are already decided. Just have a alternate univers or Battletech "What if".
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Oct 28, 2019 18:52
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Bubbacub posted:They have to implement infantry in BT2 because elementals are such an iconic part of the Clan invasion. So hopefully it's less bullshit flanking by magic spawning mechs, and more ambushes by infantry hidden in woods and buildings. It'd be nice to have some risk associated with parking your bulwark units in forest tiles, and also have more of a role for MGs, flamers, and pulse lasers. I would absolutely love to tool around with like a company of drugged up periphery lunatics with rocket launchers to grief a bunch of Steiner heavy Lance's who can't be bothered to look down once in a while. 
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Oct 28, 2019 18:54
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Lockback posted:I'm probably in the minority but I'd rather they just ran a storyline using the general setting and assets of battletech but not be so tied down in the official canon and lore. It'd be cool to introduce things in different points than they "actually" happened or upturn the events as we know them. I think it's really hard to run an interactive game in this universe when all outcomes and events are already decided. Just have a alternate univers or Battletech "What if". This all the way. Give me a campaign where my tactical genius shifts enough key battles that Hanse Davion ends up on the Iron Throne, or whatever it's called. Unlike shadowrunners, MechWarriors are a really big deal in-universe, and mercenary companies have changed the outcomes of wars in the past. e: Off-topic, but is there a MW5 thread somewhere? It's nearly out, and I want to read more about why I shouldn't get my hopes up. Norton the First fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Oct 28, 2019 |
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Oct 28, 2019 19:03
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Norton the First posted:e: Off-topic, but is there a MW5 thread somewhere? It's nearly out, and I want to read more about why I shouldn't get my hopes up. That there's no thread or information out there is reason enough not to get your hopes up. I'm in the same boat, and I can't find anything that answers my questions.
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Oct 28, 2019 19:31
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The MWO thread pulls double duty and it sometimes gets a little bit of play in here. The utter lack of hype or interest is more a damnation of the developers than the game, but for the love of God don't pre-order it.
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Oct 28, 2019 19:37
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Lazyhound posted:lol I will fight you because a requirement to do procgen really hamstrings a game if it isn't either really simple or benefiting from a decade of Firaxis money and brainpower. Battletech suffers from this. The missions that work are the ones that are reductable to 'kill the enemy lance'. The mission types that are not reductable to this are all terrible and don't work. The contract system doesn't even talk to the mission generator so there's (as of current version) no way for the procgen system to possibly make anything remotely interesting from the map. All of the blood, sweat and tears put into trying to get that to work could have just gone on producing, well, Flashpoints from the start. e: obviously if you can make the procgen system play with flashpoint templates to create an endless set of mini-campaigns then I'm all for that.
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Oct 28, 2019 19:37
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I'm sure if you ask in the MWO thread someone will lore dump what a loving trainwreck PGI is. And fall short.
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Oct 28, 2019 19:38
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Norton the First posted:ComStar is basically First Foundation, yeah? Only without any ability to really plan for the future, because they don't have magical prognostication powers. Neither did the First Foundation. The Seldon Vault was being manipulated to always be correct, to provide the First Foundation with mystique.
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Oct 28, 2019 19:38
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Jedit posted:Neither did the First Foundation. The Seldon Vault was being manipulated to always be correct, to provide the First Foundation with mystique. When was that established? I haven't read the books since high school, but I remember the Mule being basically the first thing that Seldon didn't adequately foresee.
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Oct 28, 2019 19:41
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Jedit posted:
You're right that there's no reason it can't be done, but there's a reason you don't see it: players overwhelmingly reloaded saves to stay on the winning track. WC1 had 13 systems, each with 3-4 missions, and a winning track player saw 5. It was one of their first lessons Origin learned -- even WC2 cut back on the branching drastically and the rest followed suit. now obviously there's plenty of ways to do reactivity to player performance in games and on the macro level BT already does what you ask (do poorly and lose mechs, don't have those mechs next mission) but I get you're asking for more concrete changes to the world around you, not just your company's lineup. how about alpha protocol 2: mech edition instead? 
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Oct 28, 2019 19:47
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Norton the First posted:When was that established? I haven't read the books since high school, but I remember the Mule being basically the first thing that Seldon didn't adequately foresee. That's because everything up to that point was predictable - just not a thousand years in advance. The Mule couldn't be predicted because he was an anomaly, and during his ten years of rule he derailed the Plan to the point where logically it couldn't naturally return to what the Vault would say. So when the Vault continues to accurately describe the galactic situation, it's obvious that it's being changed.
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Oct 28, 2019 19:48
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Jedit posted:That's because everything up to that point was predictable - just not a thousand years in advance. The Mule couldn't be predicted because he was an anomaly, and during his ten years of rule he derailed the Plan to the point where logically it couldn't naturally return to what the Vault would say. So when the Vault continues to accurately describe the galactic situation, it's obvious that it's being changed. It looks like the Mule didn't come along until 300 years into the Foundation's existence, which is a pretty danged good track record for psychohistory, even if the powers that be decided to cheat from that point on.
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Oct 28, 2019 20:00
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Norton the First posted:This all the way. Give me a campaign where my tactical genius shifts enough key battles that Hanse Davion ends up on the Iron Throne, or whatever it's called. Unlike shadowrunners, MechWarriors are a really big deal in-universe, and mercenary companies have changed the outcomes of wars in the past. PGI is an astoundingly incompetent developer. I hope they sell the Mechwarrior rights to a company who knows what they hell they're doing.
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Oct 28, 2019 20:06
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Psion posted:You're right that there's no reason it can't be done, but there's a reason you don't see it: players overwhelmingly reloaded saves to stay on the winning track. WC1 had 13 systems, each with 3-4 missions, and a winning track player saw 5. It was one of their first lessons Origin learned -- even WC2 cut back on the branching drastically and the rest followed suit. Colony wars and vengeance both had fucktons of mission branching and even at the most perfect there was 3 missions focus, 2-3 focuses per system 6-7 systems from beginning to full end. If you hosed up badly enough you lost completely and we executed as a traitor 3-4 missions in. The canon result in 1 that lead to vengeamce was the 2nd best outcome. Edit: in colony wars 1 if you were playing poorly enough there was even a traitor faction that rose up and a couple systems you wouldnt see otherwise Stravag fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Oct 28, 2019 |
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Oct 28, 2019 20:08
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Norton the First posted:It looks like the Mule didn't come along until 300 years into the Foundation's existence, which is a pretty danged good track record for psychohistory, even if the powers that be decided to cheat from that point on. That's the point, though - they were probably always cheating. "They" in this case being the Second Foundation rather than the First. In all cases the psychological profiling they did held to advance the project, but never further than the next Seldon Crisis.
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Oct 28, 2019 20:14
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And Tyler Too! posted:PGI is an astoundingly incompetent developer. I hope they sell the Mechwarrior rights to a company who knows what they hell they're doing. 
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Oct 28, 2019 20:18
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Jedit posted:That's the point, though - they were probably always cheating. "They" in this case being the Second Foundation rather than the First. In all cases the psychological profiling they did held to advance the project, but never further than the next Seldon Crisis. We're way out in the weeds, but is this something that Asimov goes into after the original trilogy? I thought the Second Foundation was in the galactic capital and the First was out in the rear end-end of nowhere, and that as the Empire collapsed the First Foundation was as much in the dark about what was going on in the galactic center as anyone else. It doesn't seem sensible that the Second Foundation could be manipulating things way out in the periphery in the ComStar-like era where even nuclear reactors were only maintained by a "priesthood."
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Oct 28, 2019 20:24
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