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Kilazar posted:*edit 2* Oh my god battletech hits way different when you have an established career and are not scraping by for rent and food. I'm struggling really hard not to just dump buckets of money at this cause I can and I want it all. Once my income restabilized last year I got into BT and back into Epic40k, which I haven't touched since being like a teenager. I really do have to watch how much I spend because it is way too easy to buy stuff now.
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Jun 22, 2021 03:51
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Kilazar posted:I played from 89 to 2007 myself. Dumped my entire collection on a friend cause I never thought I'd play again when I moved to OK and there wasn't a community. I had no intent in getting back into CBT. But I was at my LGS playing some Flesh and Blood, and on my way out I like to always make a purchase of some kind. I didn't really neeeed anything this week for FaB, so I perused the game section and came across the beginners box. Where in OK? There's a pretty sizeable community in OKC. Less certain about Tulsa.
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Jun 22, 2021 04:28
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I randomly stumbled onto BT last September and now I have about 40 minis painted in the other room. Life comes at you fast.
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Jun 22, 2021 06:37
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Virtual Russian posted:Once my income restabilized last year I got into BT and back into Epic40k, which I haven't touched since being like a teenager. I really do have to watch how much I spend because it is way too easy to buy stuff now. Right! I'm like.... add to cart... add to cart... add to cart... $1k later.. Hmm is that overkill? NAH! 99 - 2014 me would have a conniption at casually buying everything available for a product line. 99 being when I first entered the workforce. Pre 99 me played with the cardboard cutouts. Strobe posted:Where in OK? There's a pretty sizeable community in OKC. Less certain about Tulsa. OKC northside. Edmond Unplugged is my hangout when I have the time to play anything. These days I mostly just drop in to jaw with Mike and buy my magic investment product. When I moved here there wasn't much going on BT wise, that was back in end of 07. I saw a BT group setup a couple weeks ago and that is what I think put the bug in my brain. Then when I needed to buy something last week (cause I refuse to use table time at the lgs without buying something), I decided to pick up the beginner box for my son... and here I am. Kilazar fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Jun 22, 2021 |
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Jun 22, 2021 15:31
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https://www.mediafire.com/folder/43dlrep1a9blx/Canopians_Lightbox I finally finished a company of Magistracy Highlanders and got them into my lightbox.
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Jun 26, 2021 02:04
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The battletech mercenary edition is on sale for like 30 euros on gog. Worth it as an entry point into the game? I don't think I'll ever play tabletop
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Jun 27, 2021 09:46
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ilmucche posted:The battletech mercenary edition is on sale for like 30 euros on gog. Worth it as an entry point into the game? I don't think I'll ever play tabletop And once you're done with the campaign, you can start doing career mode runs, which gives you three years to make the most badass mercenary company you can. Edit: Considering the season pass for the DLC at full price costs as much as some AAA games, 30 euros/$30 for the whole shebang isn't a bad deal at all. TL;DR: Game good. Also canon! (Kind of.) girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 10:31 on Jun 27, 2021 |
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Jun 27, 2021 10:09
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I wasn't personally a fan of it because it felt like a lot of missions boiled down to taking on waves of towers and vehicles before fighting an enemy lance. I also was not a fan of the repair or salvage systems. Everything felt like a huge grind.
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Jun 27, 2021 10:27
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Atlas Hugged posted:I wasn't personally a fan of it because it felt like a lot of missions boiled down to taking on waves of towers and vehicles before fighting an enemy lance. Atlas Hugged posted:I also was not a fan of the repair or salvage systems. Everything felt like a huge grind. girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 10:42 on Jun 27, 2021 |
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Jun 27, 2021 10:37
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Well I bought it to give it a go. I look forward to watching my lance repeatedly die because I can't handle the crunch or make a good mech
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Jun 27, 2021 11:02
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ilmucche posted:Well I bought it to give it a go. I look forward to watching my lance repeatedly die because I can't handle the crunch or make a good mech - Default builds tend to have a smattering of weapons at a variety of ranges. The tweaked mechanics of the HBS game make this strategy dumb and bad. Keep the weapons that have overlapping optimal ranges, strip out the others for more armor, jump jets, heat sinks, more weapons at the overlapping optimal range, etc. - Always max out front L/R torso armor, keep front center torso, and limb armor at least at 75%, back armor at ~50%. - Ammo in the legs. Always. Aim for having enough for ~10-12 volleys. - Have at least three to four jump jets on everything. They're a great way to get in or out of a tough spot, get a bunch of evasion pips while still being able to shoot, jump from cover to cover, get behind enemy mechs to shoot them in the rear end, etc. etc. Once you get better, they're not as necessary, but as a new player, they're a great get-out-of-oh-poo poo-free card. - Aim for Heat Efficiency at about halfway. Higher, and you're wasting potential lethality. Lower, and you're risking overheating, especially in hot environments. - The best weights for mechs are the ones just below the threshold to the next weight class: 35, 55, and 75. - Medium Lasers are loving amazing, PPCs are awful. TL;DR: Up-armor everything. Focus on weapons that work well together. Ammo in the legs. Jump jets good, medium lasers good. Edit: Stick to 1-2 day tweaks at first, and save the big several-day/week-long overhauls for when you're about to travel between planets. Edit 2: Also, the HBS game has its own thread. girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 11:23 on Jun 27, 2021 |
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Jun 27, 2021 11:13
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girl dick energy posted:Now that's just unfair. There's actually a decent variety of mission types. Escort missions (ugh), assassinations, base defense, base destruction... Yeah, "kill everything that moves" is always one win condition, but it's rarely the only one. (And those missions are pretty clearly marked.) More often than not, it's just as viable to get in, do the thing, then GTFO to the extraction point. If you say so.  I was commenting more on how the missions played than on what the specific task you had to complete was. Seemed at least for the first half dozen missions or so I played before I got incredibly bored was that you would land, move your mechs forward until you encountered the first towers, engaged them or disabled their power plants, stomped on some vehicles, fought a mech or two, and repeated until you hit a fresh lance at the end.
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Jun 27, 2021 12:20
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girl dick energy posted:Until you learn enough to get into minutia, have some slightly oversimplified rules of thumb: Thanks for the tips! I'll try this when it eventually finishes downloading...
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Jun 27, 2021 13:15
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And if you have a 'Mech with ammo in the center torso, your very first custom job should be moving that ammo somewhere else.
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Jun 27, 2021 13:25
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PoptartsNinja posted:And if you have a 'Mech with ammo in the center torso, your very first custom job should be moving that ammo somewhere else. In tabletop, i don't mind ammo in the CT because it's likely to be the last thing to go, and through-armor crits to the two free slots are rare enough not to worry about. But in the PC game you're also trying to keep your pilots alive, so yeah, keep the ammo as far away from the CT as possible.
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Jun 27, 2021 13:36
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WhiteHowler posted:In tabletop, i don't mind ammo in the CT because it's likely to be the last thing to go, and through-armor crits to the two free slots are rare enough not to worry about. But if the ammo exploding is going to kill you regardless of where you put it, might as well put it somewhere with a padded crit list. (That being said, I still have a visceral reaction to seeing CT ammo. My smart brain just knows it’s not as big of a deal as my dumb brain makes it out to be.)
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Jun 28, 2021 03:03
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WhiteHowler posted:In tabletop, i don't mind ammo in the CT because it's likely to be the last thing to go, and through-armor crits to the two free slots are rare enough not to worry about. It completely totals your Mech that way though. You can fix a mech up from almost anything else except for ammo explosions that gut the center torso and artillery or higher yield weapons. Defiance Industries fucked around with this message at 03:20 on Jun 28, 2021 |
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Jun 28, 2021 03:17
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If the final blow against the CT is an ammo explosion or area of effect weapon, it's stated that the whole mech goes up in the explosion; all parts are lost and the pilot is killed unless they auto-ejected, which is only possible in the event of an ammo explosion. Any other type of damage coring out the CT renders the mech unrepairable, but the pilot will survive (unless they were in a torso-mounted cockpit, of course) and anything that wasn't destroyed will be salvageable. As far as a single battle goes, none of this matters though, since survival of the pilots or equipment don't matter. Sources: Total Warfare "Destroying a Unit" in the Combat chapter - if the CT is destroyed by an ammo explosion, the pilot is killed even if CASE is mounted there (as in a Clan unit or that one canon Crusader variant that was made by someone who maybe wasn't thinking very hard.) Destruction of the CT by an area of effect attack also outright kills the pilot. Any other form of CT destruction does not necessarily kill the pilot. Tactical Operations "Ejecting and Abandoning Units" in the "General Rules" chapter - BattleMechs have auto-eject systems that unless disabled by the pilot, will engage in the event of an ammo explosion. There is no provision for area of effect damage. The skin-of-the-teeth ejection rules allows pilots to auto-eject in the event of the destruction of the structure of their "cockpit location" which can include the CT if the mech has a torso-mounted cockpit... but torso-mounted cockpits have no ejection system, so that can't save you in any case. Strategic Operations "Destroyed vs. Truly Destroyed" in the Maintenance, Salvage, Repair & Customization chapter - A 'mech is unrecoverable if the final point of structure in the CT is destroyed, but anything else that survives can be salvaged for use in the repair of other units. However, if the damage was caused by an ammo explosion or area of effect attack, there is nothing left to salvage. (There is an exception listed that ground and aerospace units mounting CASE leave salvageable components in the event of destruction by an ammo explosion. This is ambiguous, since 'mechs count as ground units, so it's possible that ammo explosions with CT case kill the pilot but leaves salvage. I think this may be an oversight and it is meant to refer to non-mech units only but who knows.) BattleMaster fucked around with this message at 04:28 on Jun 28, 2021 |
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Jun 28, 2021 03:57
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Defiance Industries posted:It completely totals your Mech that way though. You can fix a mech up from almost anything else except for ammo explosions that gut the center torso and artillery or higher yield weapons. Well, that's assuming we're not doing a persistent campaign. If it's a one-and-done mech mash, if the CT gets cored by an ammo explosion, the mech was likely about to be useless for that battle anyway.
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Jun 28, 2021 04:13
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WhiteHowler posted:Well, that's assuming we're not doing a persistent campaign. If it's a one-and-done mech mash, if the CT gets cored by an ammo explosion, the mech was likely about to be useless for that battle anyway. Yes there's a lot of problems that arise from the game having fights to the death in an absolute vacuum as the default. That is one of them.
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Jun 28, 2021 04:23
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Forced withdrawal can help to simulate a desire to keep units intact, even if there is no campaign or other reason to do so. If a unit meets the criteria for counting as crippled, it must begin retreating toward its side's home edge. It can defend itself as it does but its ability to fight to the death is diminished. And if it can't move, the pilot or crew just outright bail from it. edit: Though I recommend every new BattleTech player at least have one dumb game that ends with two one-legged, armless, weaponless mechs struggling to finish each other. Hell give the pilots attacks and let them eject and keep fighting Robot Jox style - MegaMek has an unofficial optional rule that gives pilots sidearms so they are equivalent to a one-man rifle squad. BattleMaster fucked around with this message at 04:35 on Jun 28, 2021 |
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Jun 28, 2021 04:30
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Defiance Industries posted:Yes there's a lot of problems that arise from the game having fights to the death in an absolute vacuum as the default. That is one of them. This is only a problem if you think a campaign should be the default though, which is equally silly. "Different design decisions optimize for different environments" isn't a hot take and both ways to play are equally valid.
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Jun 28, 2021 05:04
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And the forced withdrawal optional rule exists even for skirmish games, doesn't it?
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Jun 28, 2021 05:18
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Strobe posted:This is only a problem if you think a campaign should be the default though, which is equally silly. "Different design decisions optimize for different environments" isn't a hot take and both ways to play are equally valid. One of the game's taglines is "Life is cheap, mechs aren't." Not "life is cheap, mechs are equally so unless you're playing a campaign." Struggling to get the themes of the setting across in their game design is a pretty old problem for FASA/FanPro/WizKids/CGL.
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Jun 28, 2021 05:38
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Defiance Industries posted:One of the game's taglines is "Life is cheap, mechs aren't." Not "life is cheap, mechs are equally so unless you're playing a campaign." Struggling to get the themes of the setting across in their game design is a pretty old problem for FASA/FanPro/WizKids/CGL. Unless your take here is literally "you shouldn't be playing pick-up games" which I'd have to take deeper issue with, this seems like an opinion I disagree with but don't see the need to convince you otherwise.
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Jun 28, 2021 05:49
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Defiance Industries posted:Yes there's a lot of problems that arise from the game having fights to the death in an absolute vacuum as the default. That is one of them. The PC game is terrible about this. I need to keep MY mechs intact and my pilots alive, but the AI sure doesn't act like it cares about any of that. Sure, jump into the middle of my assault lance and overheat just to get a slightly better shot with that large laser.
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Jun 28, 2021 13:40
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So I picked up Megamek recently to get a better handle on BattleTech as a tabletop game, doing the dumb thing of starting out in 2460~ish in a bid to capture as many different mechs, and just play with some pretty garbage pieces regardless, but the game tends to slow down after one or two fights, and needs to be closed/re-opened or else it locks up, hard. Any way to get around that?
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Jun 28, 2021 13:55
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Defiance Industries posted:One of the game's taglines is "Life is cheap, mechs aren't." Not "life is cheap, mechs are equally so unless you're playing a campaign." That tagline is a total lie, though. The machines are replaceable (even if only at great difficulty), the Mechwarrior isn't.
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Jun 28, 2021 14:21
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In the early setting, in many ways a BattleMech was supposed to resemble a WWI-era dreadnought battleship. Expensive, rare, king of the battlefield, can absorb and deal a lot of punishment, and losing one is a big deal so you'd generally retreat rather than press your luck. Of course that's not how people have really ever played the game.
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Jun 28, 2021 15:31
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Is it supposed to be like a dozen tanks, bunch of infantry and 1 or 2 mechs on each side?
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Jun 28, 2021 15:42
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The early setting (and Dark Age era) would probably be best represented by Moba gameplay. You do some skirmishes, trade some armor, blow up some tanks and infantry and then withdraw to repair and rearm while the Locust tools about in the jungle keeping an eye out for enemy commandos and occasionally blundering into a Stinger or Wasp, trading a few shots, and running away the moment something heavier notices.
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Jun 28, 2021 15:48
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PoptartsNinja posted:The early setting (and Dark Age era) would probably be best represented by Moba gameplay. How much? 
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Jun 28, 2021 16:03
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PoptartsNinja posted:The early setting (and Dark Age era) would probably be best represented by Moba gameplay.
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Jun 28, 2021 16:18
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PoptartsNinja posted:That tagline is a total lie, though. The machines are replaceable (even if only at great difficulty), the Mechwarrior isn't. Yeah, they probably should have done a better job working it into the game if they were going to put it on the back of the box. Back in the day, though, you had every Dispossessed in the infantry or astechs along with the pilot's next of kin waiting for the head to get blown off so they could take the pilot's place. PoptartsNinja posted:The early setting (and Dark Age era) would probably be best represented by Moba gameplay. You could make a pretty good analog with the Total War games, too. Large lines of cheap forces screening your big powerful units, who can wade into them and massacre them. Defiance Industries fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Jun 28, 2021 |
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Jun 28, 2021 18:54
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The fact that it's a total lie is the real reason I still love the setting. For all its claims to a dark and nihilistic universe, it's the human lives that actually do matter.
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Jun 28, 2021 18:56
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PoptartsNinja posted:The fact that it's a total lie is the real reason I still love the setting. But only if you are in the small group of special people who pilot giant robots, otherwise you are expected to die in numbers sufficient enough to choke rivers.
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Jun 28, 2021 18:58
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That setting, with the Mad Max trappings and everything that came with it, existed for maybe two years in the mid-80s and was thoroughly defunct and fully retconned before the 90s. I get the appeal of it but I'll never get pretending it's any more representative of BattleTech than the 3025 Lifers that refuse to play anything else.
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Jun 28, 2021 19:00
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Defiance Industries posted:But only if you are in the small group of special people who pilot giant robots, otherwise you are expected to die in numbers sufficient enough to choke rivers. It's a wargame about giant robots, DI. They're going to be made to take center stage. Even in play, even for non 'Mech units, the most important trait is pilot/commander/soldier/etc. skill. That's true across standard play, tabletop, Alpha Strike, and even most of the RPGs. Pilot skill is the only thing I think of that's an actual BV multiplier. PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Jun 28, 2021 |
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Jun 28, 2021 19:12
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PoptartsNinja posted:It's a wargame about giant robots, DI. They're going to be made to take center stage. That is the one universe theme they manage to consistently convey through game mechanics. quote:Even in play, even for non 'Mech units, the most important trait is pilot/commander/soldier/etc. skill. That's true across standard play, tabletop, Alpha Strike, and even most of the RPGs. Pilot skill is the only thing I think of that's an actual BV multiplier. C3 networks also add a BV coefficient. But yes, pilot skills are a coefficient because their value increases the better the mech they are in but have no static ability to damage enemies. The same way that a C3 network increases your battlefield efficiency as a function of the other gear you have equipped rather than actually having the ability to kill on their own.
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Jun 28, 2021 19:25
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Even if you just consider them wargear, without them the 'Mech's effective BV is 0 so they're still the most important element. I'm not even getting into the fiction, which I know you despise. Without the personalities, nothing happens, whether they're plucky mercenaries or the PCs in an RPG session or an idiot space prince riding his giant metal horse into glorious space battle with a bunch of crazy manufactured orphans who didn't get hugged enough as children. Chandrasekhar Kurita, Melissa Steiner, and Daoshen Liao aren't Mechwarriors and still made a huge impact on the setting. There're absolutely things I'd change about the universe but all fiction is still about people interacting with people. The giant robots are just (fun) set dressing. As an aside, I've sent you a PM.
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Jun 28, 2021 19:34
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