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Z the IVth posted:I wonder how much of the distorted view of development comes from thinking everything is like WW2 where you can crank out random vehicles and prototypes on an annual basis without realising that the typical WW2 tank is less technically demanding than a modern car and assuming sci-fi development works the same way. i think its actually because the writers didnt think very hard about it and werent making a super serious attempt at making a high fidelity, realistic galaxy. the lore is bad because its intent is to facilitate me making "pew pew, ksshhhhhk" noises with my stompy robots. even just scratching the surface a little bit here reveals the very thin layer of chrome
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Oct 5, 2023 13:33
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Sidesaddle Cavalry posted:] Easy there. I'm just saying that obsessive continuity focus on the level of Star Trek or Marvel fans shouldn't get in the way of telling new stories. We should be able to accept some nitpicking inconsistencies (because, as someone pointed out, these are in-universe products talking about events up to 500-600 years past, where getting details wrong would be accepted). I'm not saying their revision isn't appreciated, just that it shouldn't be the primary focus of the company.
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Oct 5, 2023 13:45
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Carbolic posted:
Yep. TRO:3025 was my introduction to the game. It's still my favorite of all my BT books.
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Oct 5, 2023 14:59
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Carbolic posted:Are you really arguing that there is no difference between “TRO:3025’s ‘Mech production numbers are a problem for the in-universe logic so we’ll quietly change/ignore them to make the universe consistent” and “TRO:3025 explicitly says the second Rifleman model had lasers for its main weaponry, and indicates that PPC-armed Riflemans didn’t become a thing until Hanse Davion, but we’ll throw in a historical RFL-2N with PPCs anyway”? I'm arguing that the book that's wrong about a lot of things should be treated like it's wrong about a lot of things. Because it's wrong about a lot of things. It's also almost 40 years old, and I can respect what it did for early BattleTech without wanting it to still matter. There's a reason it's not still in print. It was replaced for every practical purpose by TRO 3039 almost 15 years ago and the only thing it's still good for is nostalgia.
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Oct 5, 2023 15:26
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Amechwarrior posted:Exact numbers aside, my 1994 copy of TRO:3025 doesn't actually say anything about ranking the most produced bug light. Just that they're all very common survivors and were made in large numbers. Wonder where those specific claims about most and second most produced designs originated. Maybe the updated 3025 or possibly the SL era TRO? The Rec Guide entry says that the Locust is "perhaps" the most common Mech so they are still willing to wade into that water occasionally. Defiance Industries fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Oct 5, 2023 |
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Oct 5, 2023 16:20
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Posters treating TRO:3025 like it was the US Constitution itt
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Oct 5, 2023 16:45
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Crazy Joe Wilson posted:BattleTech has fallen into the same trap as Pokemon where they just can't help but keep creating new designs that do the same thing as old designs. Clan Wolf in the IlClan era developed ten new designs amidst a migration of only a couple % of their entire population, while fighting multiple wars. Clan Jade Falcon has gutted their scientist caste repeatedly yet created 10+ new designs in the same window of time. Clearly the Clan scientists were forced to train up MechGPT which just constantly outputs MASC + supercharger + partial wing + improved jump jets BV monsters.
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Oct 5, 2023 16:51
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Crazy Joe Wilson posted:BattleTech has fallen into the same trap as Pokemon where they just can't help but keep creating new designs that do the same thing as old designs. Clan Wolf in the IlClan era developed ten new designs amidst a migration of only a couple % of their entire population, while fighting multiple wars. Clan Jade Falcon has gutted their scientist caste repeatedly yet created 10+ new designs in the same window of time. I hope they stick with the model of "here's a writeup about new variants of existing machines, and maybe a couple new ones here and there" that they used for the Rec Guides. When a new version of a design does mostly the same thing as an old one, that's totally okay. And I like hearing about how the fortunes of different designs have waxed and waned as time went on, like how someone said "why are we doing all this weird poo poo with a Devastator, it's supposed to be fuckin simple."
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Oct 5, 2023 17:40
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Kinda like the trend of trying to make modern variants that'll roughly match the loadout profile of what's in the old artwork.
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Oct 5, 2023 18:24
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Is the armor that lets mechs move faster when they run hot actually worth using? Im toying with the idea of fielding a team with it just to see what happens this weekend. It's real fun being in a spot where both of us are still just trying random things to see what sticks
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Oct 5, 2023 18:46
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It's not armor, it's the muscles in your internal structure. It can be very good but it is also easily thwarted, especially if you are playing in the 3060s or later when Plasma weapons are a possibility. You get +1 walk MP and double physical damage but you have to stay EXACTLY at 9 heat.
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Oct 5, 2023 18:50
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In raw "this mech's capabilities" terms there's never a reason not to use it, it's all upside but is tricky to get deliberate use out of. In terms of efficiency or effectiveness, it costs a lot and is easily disrupted, but at some breakpoints it's priceless, including: 30 tons for 12 damage kicks (or hatchets) to go headhunting 50 tons for 20 point kicks to force double PSRs at +1 if you hit 55 and 60 tons for headcapping punches 75+ tons with a hatchet to fairly reliably go through any side torso armor in one swing At other tonnages it's good if you're building around it but there's not anything really special besides doing damage.
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Oct 5, 2023 19:34
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Sidesaddle Cavalry posted:Posters treating TRO:3025 like it was the US Constitution itt say what you will it's been centuries since the star league has quartered troops in taurian homes
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Oct 5, 2023 22:37
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Sidesaddle Cavalry posted:Posters treating TRO:3025 like it was the US Constitution itt Strobe posted:At other tonnages it's good if you're building around it but there's not anything really special besides doing damage.
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Oct 5, 2023 23:16
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The Kontio is... it has some issues if you're playing with BV. Claws plus TSM on a 40 tonner does give you headcapping punches, but at +1 to hit you really need to put in some pilot upgrades to be able to do anything effectively and the combination of TSM and Stealth and good speed means it's already painfully expensive for its size. In that sense it is very in line with other late-Dark Age Wolf mechs though, that's for sure.
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Oct 5, 2023 23:45
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One of the newbies at home took two of them in a game a while back and whiffed all four punches on his first time getting them up close. I don't think anyone has ever been so sad.
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Oct 6, 2023 00:17
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Sidesaddle Cavalry posted:Posters treating TRO:3025 like it was the US Constitution itt Trash that should be burned and something to be respected and interpreted despite its flaws depending on which side you're on. Accurate.
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Oct 6, 2023 00:17
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Len posted:Is the armor that lets mechs move faster when they run hot actually worth using? Im toying with the idea of fielding a team with it just to see what happens this weekend. TSM powered punchy Mechs are probably my all time favorites to play with. As noted they can be disrupted easily if your enemy brings heat weapons, but the things you can do with it are just so insane, I love it. The berserker C3 is one of the ones I love building around, it's such a dangerous brick but also gives you C3.
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Oct 6, 2023 00:29
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Arquinsiel posted:I mean... why not? That thing's overdue a bit of an edit by now too. ilmucche posted:Trash that should be burned and something to be respected and interpreted despite its flaws depending on which side you're on. Accurate. Looks like we're a crowd in agreement. I'll also add that TRO:3025 was created in an environment where pulp sci-fi writers were mostly disheveled amateur hacks yet to be handed any pretense of legitimacy, and the tabletop gaming hobby was a haven for racists and fascists. Anyways, CGL is absolutely correct for cherry-picking certain facts to bring forward, and filtering out other statements that don't work for the game line, because it's InMediaRes Productions's property and it's their founders' universe to portray as a vision, and it's their gaming crowd to attract and cultivate. They are the central authority for BattleTech now, and it's their word that supersedes previously written material (even CGL's own previous material), for good.
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Oct 6, 2023 00:48
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My fiction writing still lacks any pretense of legitimacy, thank you.
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Oct 6, 2023 00:55
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I wish that Battletech writing would embrace a bit more of an uncertain perspective on "historical" events; I think it would only benefit from a widespread understanding that everything is distorted by too much time and distance, and any given fact or event is probably recorded in five different ways in four different places.
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Oct 6, 2023 00:57
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LaSquida posted:I wish that Battletech writing would embrace a bit more of an uncertain perspective on "historical" events; I think it would only benefit from a widespread understanding that everything is distorted by too much time and distance, and any given fact or event is probably recorded in five different ways in four different places. Sometimes they do. They used it in the FCCW sourcebook to explain away all the errors that arose from a complete lack of editing in the novels at the time. Also, the reveal that Jerome Blake was a bad dude.
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Oct 6, 2023 00:59
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They did it in the War of 3039 book too, with Focht explaining to Victor that it was basically one Comstar nerd's Ph.D. thesis and maybe don't get too mad about how it portrays his dad.
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Oct 6, 2023 01:01
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LaSquida posted:I wish that Battletech writing would embrace a bit more of an uncertain perspective on "historical" events; I think it would only benefit from a widespread understanding that everything is distorted by too much time and distance, and any given fact or event is probably recorded in five different ways in four different places. The Jihad sourcebooks leaned extra hard on this, throwing a pall of disbelief on many of the most heinous events to occur in the in the era
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Oct 6, 2023 01:11
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LaSquida posted:I wish that Battletech writing would embrace a bit more of an uncertain perspective on "historical" events; I think it would only benefit from a widespread understanding that everything is distorted by too much time and distance, and any given fact or event is probably recorded in five different ways in four different places. hot take maybe but I've started to feel like the major events should always be kept at the sourcebook level, like not having "spine" novels. I really like Shrapnel and the stories in it for filling in the smaller details but I dunno, I think keeping the largest movements of the Succession Wars, Clan Invasion, etc. limited to sourcebooks leaves a lot more "room" in a concept of canon for the whole conflict. Maybe this comes from growing up with Stackpole having most of the spine novels and how that drove everything into the FC view and Victor and pals. Didn't help that they weren't very good, or that the big jump off point with the current ilClan era was a book that is complete dogshit.
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Oct 6, 2023 01:22
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It's really the perfect hand wave. They lucked out early on by writing things in-universe. Now they can just say "propaganda or bad information" anytime they mess up or want to clear up an older publication's "facts."
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Oct 6, 2023 01:23
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I thought the ghost stories side of things (Black Marauder, etc) were a perfect way to play with that.
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Oct 6, 2023 01:37
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Amechwarrior posted:It's really the perfect hand wave. They lucked out early on by writing things in-universe. Now they can just say "propaganda or bad information" anytime they mess up or want to clear up an older publication's "facts." The cartoon is the perfect example of bringing something into the universe, and for it to be so goddamned dumb it could only be a propaganda piece.
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Oct 6, 2023 02:34
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Very deep, somber, and realistic depiction of Nicolai Malthus though
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Oct 6, 2023 03:21
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A man so angry even Clan proto-VDNI couldn't kill him. I still choose to believe he was already so high strung that rather than having enough time to build up and kill him, the implants just burned out his aggression centers and effectively stack-overflowed Nicolai to calmness.
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Oct 6, 2023 03:29
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Sidesaddle Cavalry posted:Very deep, somber, and realistic depiction of Nicolai Malthus though I forgot which book it was, but it said “Malthus as depicted in the holo-vid would’ve been immediately recognizable as himself to anyone who had had the displeasure of working with him” and it was worth a good laugh. He also got thrown in jail for trying to sue Adam Steiner (when he was Archon, no less!), the suit got thrown out, he issued a batchall to the judge, and the judge was not in the mood to entertain an arrogant idiot.
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Oct 6, 2023 10:36
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I went hunting for him a earlier today and discovered this nuggetNicolai Malthus, The Somerset Strikers, episode broadcast 8/12/3052 posted:Only one man would dare use Somerset jamming techniques on me. ADAM STEINER! I now want SpaceBatchalls: The Movie to exist
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Oct 6, 2023 13:20
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finished the axeman   inner sphere heavy lance box complete 
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Oct 6, 2023 13:38
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Those look really fantastic. I loooove the nightstar.
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Oct 6, 2023 15:37
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Just awesome!! I love the tiny striping and numbering, and by hand!
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Oct 6, 2023 17:22
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Icon Of Sin posted:I forgot which book it was, but it said “Malthus as depicted in the holo-vid would’ve been immediately recognizable as himself to anyone who had had the displeasure of working with him” and it was worth a good laugh. He also got thrown in jail for trying to sue Adam Steiner (when he was Archon, no less!), the suit got thrown out, he issued a batchall to the judge, and the judge was not in the mood to entertain an arrogant idiot. I have a long list of things I'll do if I ever get my hands on the levers of power but one of them is greenlighting a story about Nikolai Malthus going to prison and realizing it's basically just normal Clan life so he fits right in.
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Oct 6, 2023 18:30
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I'm still a bit sad they didn't hit the stretch goal for the Summerset Strikers box. Even if it didn't have an AWS-9Qdc in it. I'm sorely tempted to paint up a 1st Steiner Strikers company; but between a trinary each of Tau Galaxy Smoke Jaguars, Peregrine Galaxy Jade Falcons, Alpha Galaxy Steel Vipers, a company of red-and-gold 1st Sword of Light, a planned company of the Legions of Vega, a planned trinary of Wolf in Exile Alpha Galaxy, and my current project a binary of I should probably either find a Kurita detatchment that uses atypical colors or just paint a company of 2nd Donegal Guards instead. PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Oct 6, 2023 |
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Oct 6, 2023 18:37
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The Sommerset Strikers box was an add-on available in the pledge manager. Missing the goal just meant everyone didn't get one added for free. Similar to the Blood Asp.
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Oct 6, 2023 18:52
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PoptartsNinja posted:just paint a company of 2nd Donegal Guards instead. Doooo itttt
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Oct 6, 2023 18:58
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Defiance Industries posted:I have a long list of things I'll do if I ever get my hands on the levers of power but one of them is greenlighting a story about Nikolai Malthus going to prison and realizing it's basically just normal Clan life so he fits right in. Someone arrest this man.
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Oct 6, 2023 19:35
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