|
By all accounts, the authors in the MWDA line were allowed to do whatever they wanted with little to no overall direction from editorial. Hence a whole era littered with discarded plots and characters that went nowhere.
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2023 07:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 15:19 |
|
|
e: nvm
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2023 10:10
|
|
|
Holybat posted:
That wasn't BLP who did those characters dirty, that would've been the line developers. Beckett Malthus was murked in ER3145 and Noritomo Helmer got sidelined in Shattered Fortress. While it's tempting to blame just how sloppy the end of Dark Age got by HOTW all on one person, the CGL line developers could have at any time pushed for a different direction or pushed back on BLP doing silly stuff like turning CJF Delta Galaxy from Malvina's 2nd most fervent supporters to suddenly her biggest resistance (You know, the galaxy she PERSONALLY led for nearyl 5 years or more).. I get the feeling they just wanted to move on and make the grognards happy, and didn't really look too closely as to how it happened. Sidesaddle Calvary posted:By Temptations and By War is good. And is also by Loren like Sword of Sedition + Fortress Republic. Fortress of Lies is criminally underrated and I'll never understand why. Even if Loren Coleman tried to roll some of it back later in Sword of SeditionAaron Sandoval basically commits to House Davion in FoL, but in SoS, somehow he's still seen as playing both the Republic and House Davion, not having openly declared? It was weird even as a 13-y.o. to read that Defiance Industries posted:By all accounts, the authors in the MWDA line were allowed to do whatever they wanted with little to no overall direction from editorial. Hence a whole era littered with discarded plots and characters that went nowhere. There was definitely some direction provided, I just don't think all the writers and Wizkids were communicating all the time to make sure everything meshed together. It wasn't just novels either that was telling the story in Dark Age. You also had all the online website stories Wizkids was publishing that revealed a ton of story. The level of multimedia output was pretty impressive especially for an early 2000s company. CGL doesn't escape the inconsistency thing either, they just do it to a much smaller degree. For instance, in Damocles Sanction Erik Sandoval has a unique regiment called the SwordSworn doing most of the heavy fighting for him, XO'ed by Adam Sortek. In Dominions Divided, neither the SwordSworn or Sortek are present at all, which is really weird. Crazy Joe Wilson fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Dec 19, 2023 |
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2023 13:51
|
|
|
ilmucche posted:I think I'm about a quarter of the way through way of the clans and it is not a good book. Amy recommendations on what to read instead? I've read the gray death, warrior and Kerensky trilogies so far Double Blind is a good one. SunTzu actually get some character development.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2023 13:52
|
|
|
Thanks for the book recs. I've been pretty sick lately so have been working through my reading material
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2023 19:02
|
|
|
Crazy Joe Wilson posted:That wasn't BLP who did those characters dirty, that would've been the line developers. Beckett Malthus was murked in ER3145 and Noritomo Helmer got sidelined in Shattered Fortress. While it's tempting to blame just how sloppy the end of Dark Age got by HOTW all on one person, the CGL line developers could have at any time pushed for a different direction or pushed back on BLP doing silly stuff like turning CJF Delta Galaxy from Malvina's 2nd most fervent supporters to suddenly her biggest resistance (You know, the galaxy she PERSONALLY led for nearyl 5 years or more).. I get the feeling they just wanted to move on and make the grognards happy, and didn't really look too closely as to how it happened. Nah I'm gonna blame the known shithead on this one. If the giant tantrum he threw is any indication I can only imagine how much of a nightmare he was to work with. Ray (LD) and Aaron (ALD) are both great folks and arguably too nice for their own good.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2023 19:36
|
|
|
PhotoKirk posted:Double Blind is a good one. SunTzu actually get some character development. Yeah, last thread page I was actually alluding to a whole bunch of 3058-onwards books by Loren from Double Blind & Binding Force, to Threads of Ambition and The Killing Fields.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2023 20:10
|
|
|
Holybat posted:It doesn't fall in a full novel category, but I'd actually recommend checking out the Shrapnel short story magazines. I think the quality of the stories have been pretty good for the most part. Plus I like the little in-universe articles they have about different aspects to life in the BT setting. There's also a plus in that stories range across every era too.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2023 20:18
|
|
|
Yeah, it's been a very worthy successor to Battletechnology. Phil has done a wonderful job at the editing helm, and that its release coincided with the general BT revival means that he's had a lot of good material to pick from instead of having to struggle to get material like during the late Battlecorps days.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2023 20:34
|
|
|
Plus, even if you don't like a story, none of them really go on long enough for it to really drag the entire issue down. "Welp, not into this one, I'll flip a dozen pages ahead, onto a new thing."Xotl posted:Yeah, it's been a very worthy successor to Battletechnology. Phil has done a wonderful job at the editing helm, and that its release coincided with the general BT revival means that he's had a lot of good material to pick from instead of having to struggle to get material like during the late Battlecorps days. Phil was a good editor to work with, and I've had a few at my day job. Really helped me target things I could improve in a second draft. Defiance Industries fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Dec 18, 2023 |
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2023 20:34
|
|
|
Plus I got to make a big embarassing fuss out of Lorcan at Gaelcon this year when I got him to sign my copy of issue 12. Can't understate the value of winding up a friend in public.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2023 20:41
|
|
|
Well now I'm hurt you had someone sign that issue and it wasn't me.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2023 21:44
|
|
|
So you printed the issue out on paper for the signing huh Not gonna lie I would have asked the Jinggau writer to do that too
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2023 22:22
|
|
|
Most (all?) Shrapnel volumes can be POD'd. I've got the first eight in print.
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2023 22:43
|
|
|
Ah, so there is a use for fs.battletech.com after all, as a link to Amazon POD distribution for Shrapnel, nice
|
|
#
?
Dec 18, 2023 23:00
|
|
|
What Strobe said. I bought the PoD specifically to do this.Defiance Industries posted:Well now I'm hurt you had someone sign that issue and it wasn't me.  Although if you come to Gaelcon next year I'll bring it back and you too can inscribe an insult on your byline!
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2023 02:01
|
|
|
My byline? Pfft, they put me on the cover so I'm gonna sign the whole drat thing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2023 02:22
|
|
|
You can sign three pages max. I may want to read it again someday.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2023 03:13
|
|
|
I like to do 3000 BV (bought at base value but with skills bumped to 3/4), one mapsheet games with my SO. I like smaller units and I like how fast the games play. He's always on me like, "you can use custom units if you want" so I went and made these guys in my ongoing quest to find new ways to praise Blessed Blake:  Between their worn and implanted armor it takes 3 damage per guy on top of the general resilience that regular infantry have to heavy weapons, they are resistant to flamer/inferno damage, they get -1 to weapon attacks (including with the gauss rifle!), and they can join C3i networks (!) And I'm going to use them in a force like:  He's probably going to use some pulse laser nightmare but I'm going to make him fight for every inch of that mapsheet. By the way, those Tornadoes are the ones with VTOL movement, and I gave them Mauser 1200 LSSs like the gauss field gunners for the extra damage and range over auto-rifles, but they'll probably mostly be swooping in to do leg attacks. edit: Actually, going to swap out the Djinns for a WoB Achilleus squad, so it can set its ECM to ECCM mode and hop into the target's hex to nullify its ECM if someone is being a nuisance to my C3i network. I'm downgrading the Tornadoes to auto-rifles but giving all my BA dermal armor and pain shunts BattleMaster fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Dec 19, 2023 |
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2023 18:45
|
|
|
Ah, an infantry enjoyer. Just so you know, AP weapons are now capped at 0.6 damage per trooper per recent errata. Intentional nerf to the craziest AP weapons that were doing 1.2+
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2023 19:06
|
|
|
Sidesaddle Cavalry posted:Ah, an infantry enjoyer. Yeah! I always liked the aesthetic of dudes fighting alongside BattleMechs and they offer some really nice options that I think people overlook. Field guns and antimech jump infantry are available at every tech level (although field guns are both advanced rules and technically custom units since so few canon ones exist - but they're an actual good use for AC/5s), and at higher tech levels there are BAs for every niche (although I like long-jumping leg attackers or ECM/TAG supporters the most.) And if the various era specific rules are allowed, you can use all the fantastic cybernetic options. quote:Just so you know, AP weapons are now capped at 0.6 damage per trooper per recent errata. Intentional nerf to the craziest AP weapons that were doing 1.2+ Yeah it seems MegaMek has implemented that. I gave my guys the Mauser 1200 LSS because that's what WoB uses (although it being the most damaging weapon was also kinda nice) and I noticed that the whole demi-Level I wasn't quite doing the damage I expected. But it's still not bad and the gauss rifle is the main event anyway. So I figured I should just give auto-rifles to the leg attackers/interdictors anyway to save a bit of BA in order to give them dermal armor (+1 armor) and paint shunts for half fire damage.  MegaMek doesn't seem to implement the +3 BV per BA trooper with dermal armor so there's an uncounted 54 BV there. What's kind of funny is this started when I went down a rabbit hole of figuring out the BV for a much more normal motorized auto-rifle LB 5-X field gun platoon for a much more normal Canopian force:  It turns out that MegaMek and my hand calculations agree that the LB 5-X field gunners (3 LB 5-Xs) only cost 2 more BV than the AC/10 field gunners (2 AC/10s.) I didn't stat out LB 10-X field gunners, I wanted the extra range, ammo, attack rolls, and the slightly greater resilience larger numbers of guns have. The Pixiu especially is pretty impressive and I don't know how I didn't see it before - lots of stealth armor plus a gauss rifle is nice - and the Cicada looks pretty good with those VSP lasers and the supercharger. But especially those mag clamp IS Standards can jump 4 (!) while riding normal units and still doing leg attacks. I'd rather have small lasers over the machine guns since my SO doesn't like infantry like I do but I'll take it. Maybe we can do two games next time we meet because I wanna use both of these forces. BattleMaster fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Dec 19, 2023 |
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2023 19:34
|
|
|
The Pixiu is relatively new - there haven't been that many Stealthed Gauss 5/8 platforms at all, with a Lao Hu and a more recent Huron Warrior being the other two off the top of my head
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2023 20:10
|
|
|
Sidesaddle Cavalry posted:The Pixiu is relatively new - there haven't been that many Stealthed Gauss 5/8 platforms at all, with a Lao Hu and a more recent Huron Warrior being the other two off the top of my head Well, I've had the 3145 Unabridged PDF for 10 years plus a couple months and for some reason I never paid it any mind until now! The stealth 3x light gauss Schrek from the recognition guides made me look up what else had stealth and I honestly don't know how I missed it. It looks really good. Plus it's a really minor thing, but crews can hotload the Thudnerbolt 5 when enemies start to get close and the only downside is the launcher can explode. But at close range, everything about a tank can explode so... I'm going to have the IS Standards ride it and protect it with leg attacks. Was thinking of the Cicada hauling those guys but they would disable both of its VSP lasers while hanging off it and maybe I don't want that. I've done combat infantry unloading before but usually in things that don't lose as much of their firepower before doing so. Plus that was without the movement penalty that mag clamp BA give a non-omni carrier. edit: Or hell maybe I'll just have them deploy alone. That 4 jump MP should be enough to let it keep up with the Pixiu as it finds a sniping spot. edit 2: dammit, for a second I thought oil slick and paint ammo were compatible with vehicle flamers so I could do Loony Tunes poo poo BattleMaster fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Dec 19, 2023 |
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2023 20:17
|
|
|
If you're playing with quirks, the Pixiu also has what is arguably the best quirk it's possible for a tank to have - Power Reverse. It can use flank speed going backwards and never have to expose the rear armor to anything.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2023 20:42
|
|
|
BattleMaster posted:edit 2: dammit, for a second I thought oil slick and paint ammo were compatible with vehicle flamers so I could do Loony Tunes poo poo There are some really good IndustrialMechs out there now in RS: Vehicle Annex IndustrialMechs and Exoskeletons, just saying
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2023 20:46
|
|
|
There's no arguable about it, Power Reverse is amazing. The only real competiton would be Narrow/Low Profile and I'm pretty sure tanks don't get that.
|
|
#
?
Dec 19, 2023 22:06
|
|
|
So the real way to get infantry damage is to use a faction that has access to Cybernetic Myomer Implants, Dermal Armor and Cybernetic Myomer Implants, Triple-Strength. You can do whatever you want too since this game doesn't have set in stone factions, but if you care about the lore, Word of Blake, Capellans (though I think only their WoB servants during the Jihad), and Magistracy of Canopus have them. Word of Blake jump infantry is especially good because they use 5 6-man squads, so you have a full 30-man unit. And having more squads is better, because with these two implants, you can give each squad a total of 4 support weapons (2 base +1 for each implant) AND the implants reduce the crew usage of each weapon by 1. Plus WoB gets Mauser 1200 LSS for their primary guns and their infantry kit is unencumbering and has a divisor of 2. The ket part is that only the primary weapon gets its damage truncated to 0.6 maximum, but the support weapons - which you can use a lot more of - have their full damage which is often quite high. So you can build a jump platoon that has the full 3 jump, an armor divisor of 3, and a total of 20 of your choice of support weapons as long as its base crew requirement is 3 or less to begin with. Grenade Launcher (Heavy), Plasma Rifle (Man Portable), and Support Laser (Heavy) are the winners and are are also available to all three of the factions that get these implants, giving 1.37 damage per trooper (41 total) out to 3 hexes, 1.25 (flamer damage, 38 total) to 6 hexes, and 1.18 (35 total) to 15 hexes. You also get the 1d6 burst against infantry for the Mauser 1200 LSSs having their damage truncated, and you can also add a pain shunt for half fire damage and laser/telescopic sensory implants for -1 to hit, and communications implants for -1 for indirect fire spotting. Plus you can instead use Cybernetic Enhanced Multi-Modal Sensory Implants plus Cybernetic Boosted Communications Implants over the inferior versions for all that plus a 3-hex active probe (which with TacOps rules can reduce the penalty for firing through/into woods/smoke by 1) and the ability to join a C3i network. Of course all of that is both a custom unit and optional era-specific rules. But if the game were to ever add more set factions as an optional way to play tournaments more like some other games with normally-optional rules like warrior augmentations, PSAs, and faction-specific abilities added to the appropriate factions as part of the force building, Word of Blake would probably be the king poo poo infantry faction. You can't get quite the same insanity with battle armor, but you can still use the dermal armor for +1 hit point per trooper and they can use the enhanced multi-modal/boosted comms to get onto a C3i network without having to make custom units, plus they also get the 3-hex probe (if they don't have a probe already.) They can also add VDNI to get -1 gunnery/-1 anti-mech and add 2 hexes to the probe range if they already have a built-in probe. All at the cost of some extra BV cost on units that are already pretty cheap. Praise Blessed Blake! edit: I revised my gauss field gunners to have 4x Support Lasers per squad to give them a little more firepower and range without bumping up the BV too much, and statted out the above-described jump infantry. I need to do the BV calculations by hand because I don't think MegaMek includes everything, but these are pretty solid imo for the cost, even if it ends up being a bit higher.    edit 2: It's me, I'm the market for an updated Jihad-era BattleTroops. BattleTroops was kind of out of date even when I got into the game in the 90s but reading scans of it and ClanTroops makes me wish for an update. ClanTroops especially has some really cool scenarios. BattleMaster fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Dec 20, 2023 |
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2023 21:21
|
|
|
Sir this is a Space Burger King
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2023 22:08
|
|
|
BattleMaster posted:You can't get quite the same insanity with battle armor A single point of Ironhold Fire does up to 60 damage out to 9 hexes, for 562 BV
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2023 22:13
|
|
|
I meant in terms of how much you can improve performance by adding implants. For all the crazy stuff implants can do, conventional infantry are the real winners. (Also the Sqd5 of Ironhold (Fire) is 756 BV (for some reason it looks like Sarna lists the Sqd4 BV) and moves at 1 foot MP so it doesn't really make my cut for normal meeting scenarios where I prefer if units can mechanize or at least jump so they can hop out of VTOLs. But I guess if you're using all sorts of optional rules already, the fastroping rules aren't a bridge too far. Still the slow assault BA isn't my normal go-to) edit: Though while we're on that, 10 good hits from gauss, cERPPCs, heavy PPCs, cLPLAS, etc. will kill the whole Ironhold point. Those same hits will kill 1/3 of the men in the WoB assault jump Level I, and it will still shoot for up to 25 damage. That's what makes conventional infantry so good - normal ones without armor and implants aren't as nuts, but you have to kill them one or two men at a time unless you come equipped for it. BattleMaster fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Dec 20, 2023 |
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2023 22:15
|
|
|
"Coming equipped for it" is less of an obstacle now that there are AP weapons that are actually useful outside of that scenario, though.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2023 23:09
|
|
|
Oh yeah, Plasma Rifles and AP Gauss are really good, Inferno SRMs have always been a solid choice, and even small and micro pulse lasers aren't bad picks. But someone who brings like a Hellstar or Rifleman IIC will be pretty disappointed. Well, they won't be disappointed until you run out of heavier targets. But there's a serious chance that a bunch of motorized rifleman will be too much for them.
|
|
#
?
Dec 20, 2023 23:37
|
|
|
Sidesaddle Cavalry posted:Sir this is a Space Burger King they're called triple f burgers
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2023 00:49
|
|
|
...Because they're so bad I flunked them THREE TIMES.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2023 01:27
|
|
|
The C-bill cost on those custom infantry is a bit  though. You can abuse the heck out of the rules to make BV-efficient monsters but you'll get one platoon for an entire lance of mechs. Probably why no faction really bothers after the Jihad.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2023 03:04
|
|
|
Arquinsiel posted:The C-bill cost on those custom infantry is a bit First of all, it's a small price to pay to discard your frail flesh and become closer to perfection. Second of all, I was understanding it's a "thing" in BattleTech where most factions look down on cybernetics, even function-restoring prosthetics, and only the Word of Blake and Canopians are into that kind of augmentation to begin with. And one of those factions is destroyed. So you won't see a lot of that going on at any price. Plus the Canopians probably pay more for weird sex augs so it's probably chump change for them
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2023 03:43
|
|
|
Canopian doctors make bank installing extra penises, you gotta really pay 'em well to make them care about installing something as boring as combat augs.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2023 04:40
|
|
|
BattleMaster posted:First of all, it's a small price to pay to discard your frail flesh and become closer to perfection. No, that's just the FWL. They're actually considered pretty bigoted by other factions for this.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2023 05:05
|
|
|
C-bills costs are the least sensical part of BattleTech economics by like 3065 let alone after that and that's saying something.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2023 05:07
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 15:19 |
|
|
Strobe posted:C-bills costs are the least sensical part of BattleTech economics by like 3065 let alone after that and that's saying something. Nah I read the short stories that came with the starter box. The big plot is that there are pirates running around with a bunch of gold bars, and people get awestruck by how rich they'd get by getting just a bit of that gold. Gold bars. In a galaxy-spanning, space-faring economy. The asteroid 16 Psyche alone has enough gold in it to equal $700 quintillion dollars in current Earth value. Space mining, dudes, it'd completely shift the value of materials.
|
|
#
?
Dec 21, 2023 08:18
|
|
