Battletech Megathread: Giant robots are awesome

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Battletech Megathread: Giant robots are awesome

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Kosmonaut posted:

Really I think most of the Clan 'mechs are pointless just because of Omnimechs. If you're a decent designer you only ever need like five or six different chassis.

The Grizzly was cool :eng99:

# ? Jul 25, 2010 00:55

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# ? May 5, 2024 20:48

MohawkSatan: Dec 20, 2008; by Cyrano4747

The reason for Clan mechs is this: They look pretty badass, and are a lot nicer for a fast, long-range fighting style. Using terrain to your advantage, and they get downright vicious.

# ? Jul 25, 2010 05:25

LeschNyhan: Sep 2, 2006

Der Waffle Mous posted:

Nuh uh. Hellbringer.

Haha that's true, I totally forgot about that one it sucks so hard. Mostly I hate the summoner because it's touted as this awesome beast but really it's pretty terrible and has no serious battlefield endurance due to a really weak ammo loadout and no true secondary weapons.

Why the hell would you give something an LBX with only a single ton of ammo?

edit: also the grizzly is awesome and I wish it was the omni 70 ton entry.

# ? Jul 25, 2010 07:11

Der Waffle Mous: Nov 27, 2009; In the grim future, there is only commerce.

Summoner's one of the ones where the alternate variants make it great.

Like the Summoner C, which keeps the same general profile as the Prime but carries a UAC/20, an ER large and medium, and a streak SRM 6 launcher.

# ? Jul 25, 2010 07:36

Signal: Dec 10, 2005

Would Battletech be an okay game to play with only minimal Giant Robot Action? I'd kinda like to do a game with mostly Infantry and Armor, with BattleMech and Aviation support. Is that feasible?

# ? Jul 25, 2010 08:18

Der Waffle Mous: Nov 27, 2009; In the grim future, there is only commerce.

Some people play pretty much exclusively with armor and infantry.

Keep in mind, though, the rules more or less reflect the idea that Mechs are kings of the battlefield.

And Aerospace is pretty much its own separate game that can be played alongside a standard battletech game (they're both in the Total Warfare book, mind). There are a few ways of abstracting the aerospace rules so it concentrates more on just representing the strafing run portion, though.

# ? Jul 25, 2010 08:32

Signal: Dec 10, 2005

I'm cool with Mechs being awesome and badass, I just think they're cooler when they're scarcer.

# ? Jul 25, 2010 09:14

Gr3y: Jul 29, 2003

Signal posted:

I'm cool with Mechs being awesome and badass, I just think they're cooler when they're scarcer.

Admittedly I haven't been into Battletech for like... 15 years, but I thought that Mechs represented a pretty small fraction of most forces military power. Like for each mech squad an army had they would have dozens of units of conventional armor, infantry, and air support.

It's just the focus for the novels and games are the mechs because, hey, giant robots!

# ? Jul 25, 2010 09:30

Signal: Dec 10, 2005

yeah, that's always the impression I got. It's part of why I don't like seeing nothing but lances of heavy mechs doing battle, when the conventional forces could add so much to the conflict.

# ? Jul 25, 2010 09:31

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

The impression I always had went something like this:

Star League Era: 80-90% of the defense force were Mechs.

Succession wars: as the ability to build and repair Mechs declines you see the number of Mechs decrease and the number of conventional forces increase.

Clan Invasion: the clan pretty much operates the same way the SLDF did, 80-90% Mechs with conventional forces as support. except for the Hell's Horses...they craaaaazy.

Post Tukkayyid: the IS is regaining their grasp of Mech technology from captured Clan Tech, and building more advanced Mechs, as well as putting in infrastructure to build more mechs in general. they are shooting for the 80-90% ideal, but not quite there yet.

# ? Jul 25, 2010 10:03

Xotl: May 28, 2001; Be seeing you.

There's always been a lot of infantry and armour, but it's just generally been pushed to the background, because the game is about mechs. If you look at the old 4th Succession War Military Atlases you've got dozens and dozens of regiments of infantry and armour involved. Granted, a lot of that is because it was Davion doing the invading, and they've always been big on combined arms, but still, no one really treated this as something especially unusual in the fluff.

# ? Jul 25, 2010 16:12

PeterWeller: Apr 21, 2003; I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

The big question is: if you like infantry and tanks so much, why didn't you start playing Renegade Legion, Fasa's infantry and tanks game?

# ? Jul 25, 2010 16:28

FirstCongoWar: Aug 21, 2002; It feels so 80's or early 90's to be political.

Error 404 posted:

The impression I always had went something like this:

Star League Era: 80-90% of the defense force were Mechs.

Succession wars: as the ability to build and repair Mechs declines you see the number of Mechs decrease and the number of conventional forces increase.

Clan Invasion: the clan pretty much operates the same way the SLDF did, 80-90% Mechs with conventional forces as support. except for the Hell's Horses...they craaaaazy.

Post Tukkayyid: the IS is regaining their grasp of Mech technology from captured Clan Tech, and building more advanced Mechs, as well as putting in infrastructure to build more mechs in general. they are shooting for the 80-90% ideal, but not quite there yet.

Taking the setting "realistically", your ratios are probably way, way off. Taking the setting in the only way that matters (i.e. how people play and write about it), yeah, probably.

Like everyone says, the reason people think of mechs with battletech is that they're the entire point of the setting and nobody really cares about the millions upon millions of soldiers that would theoretically be running around given the the amount of territory and population each successor state has.

It doesn't help that different bits of fluff are semi-contradictory; you go from mechs being prevalent enough for stuff like Solaris 7 to exist to people having to arm agriculture/industry mechs to fight wars.

# ? Jul 25, 2010 16:32

LeschNyhan: Sep 2, 2006

Der Waffle Mous posted:

Summoner's one of the ones where the alternate variants make it great.

Like the Summoner C, which keeps the same general profile as the Prime but carries a UAC/20, an ER large and medium, and a streak SRM 6 launcher.

That's true, and the D with the targeting computer is a bit of a beast itself. But they only ever write about the Prime and it is dumb.

# ? Jul 25, 2010 18:24

PeterWeller: Apr 21, 2003; I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

I will always love the Summoner because it was Aidan's mech in those cheesy books I read when I was ten.

# ? Jul 25, 2010 18:43

Signal: Dec 10, 2005

PeterWeller posted:

The big question is: if you like infantry and tanks so much, why didn't you start playing Renegade Legion, Fasa's infantry and tanks game?

I've never heard of it. Tell me more.

# ? Jul 25, 2010 18:44

Der Waffle Mous: Nov 27, 2009; In the grim future, there is only commerce.

PeterWeller posted:

I will always love the Summoner because it was Aidan's mech in those cheesy books I read when I was ten.

And then he got a Timberwolf, which broke the second it got into a fight.

And then proceeded to kill about ten mechs with a small laser.

Even back then I thought that was goofy.

# ? Jul 25, 2010 19:17

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

Der Waffle Mous posted:

And then he got a Timberwolf, which broke the second it got into a fight.

And then proceeded to kill about ten mechs with a small laser.

TIMBERWOLF SUPREMACY!

# ? Jul 25, 2010 19:20

PeterWeller: Apr 21, 2003; I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

Signal posted:

I've never heard of it. Tell me more.

Renegade Legion was Fasa's other future war game. It took place thousands and thousands of years in the future, where battles were fought with various types of infantry and hover tanks. Like Battletech, it also featured a space fighter expansion, and there was a large ship battles expansion called Leviathan. It was never nearly as popular as Shadowrun or Battletech (or even Earthdawn, really), so after FASA folded, no one picked it up.

# ? Jul 25, 2010 20:00

Yoshimo: Oct 5, 2003; Fleet of foot, and all that!

FirstCongoWar posted:

to people having to arm agriculture/industry mechs to fight wars.

In the game we're playing, a local militia's turned up to help with an AgriMech (basically a 'mech with a combine harvester and baler for arms) and also an Icecutter 'mech (a stupid looking thing on tracks with 4 Lasers and two claw-arms)

# ? Jul 25, 2010 20:09

FirstCongoWar: Aug 21, 2002; It feels so 80's or early 90's to be political.

Yoshimo posted:

In the game we're playing, a local militia's turned up to help with an AgriMech (basically a 'mech with a combine harvester and baler for arms) and also an Icecutter 'mech (a stupid looking thing on tracks with 4 Lasers and two claw-arms)

People poo poo all over Dark Ages but I love AgroMechs.

# ? Jul 25, 2010 20:32

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Kosmonaut posted:

I don't know what you have against the Naga except maybe resentment at getting ARROW'D one too many times

(unless you're playing with vehicles in which case yeah gently caress that waste of points)

It's an omnimech with pod space enough for two small lasers and nothing else. What's *not* to have against it?

Summoner? Try the M. MMmmmmmm Falconey goodness.

# ? Jul 26, 2010 01:34

Der Waffle Mous: Nov 27, 2009; In the grim future, there is only commerce.

PeterWeller posted:

Renegade Legion was Fasa's other future war game. It took place thousands and thousands of years in the future, where battles were fought with various types of infantry and hover tanks. Like Battletech, it also featured a space fighter expansion, and there was a large ship battles expansion called Leviathan. It was never nearly as popular as Shadowrun or Battletech (or even Earthdawn, really), so after FASA folded, no one picked it up.

Wait, isn't Catalyst still publishing Leviathan? I could've sworn I've seen an announcement or two for it.

# ? Jul 26, 2010 18:42

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

Different game. This one is about WWI era battleships except FLYING.

# ? Jul 26, 2010 22:07

Hypnobeard: Sep 15, 2004; Obey the Beard

PeterWeller posted:

Renegade Legion was Fasa's other future war game. It took place thousands and thousands of years in the future, where battles were fought with various types of infantry and hover tanks. Like Battletech, it also featured a space fighter expansion, and there was a large ship battles expansion called Leviathan. It was never nearly as popular as Shadowrun or Battletech (or even Earthdawn, really), so after FASA folded, no one picked it up.

There was also Prefect, which was higher scale than Leviathan--basically, the game was the invasion of a system (with the one "important" world in it), that could be used to generate scenarios for all three subsystems (Centurion/Interceptor/Leviathan). In addition, FASA put out Legionnaire, a traditional RPG set in the RL universe.

The damage system was interesting. You had armor and screens. Screens basically only protected against energy weapons, and were essentially a modifier to the to-hit roll. (The also gave infantry a reason for being, as infantry could paint a target and more or less negate the screens.) Armor was represented as a block of 10-box rows, so 70 armor = 7 rows of 10 boxes. It maxed out at 10 rows. When you hit, you rolled the column you hit and put a special template on that column, moving it down to the first unmarked armor box.

Each weapon had a different hit template: lasers were just a straight column x deep, HE rounds were wide but shallow, hammerhead rounds dropped down like 3-4 rows and then T'd out, etc. The interior systems of the vehicle were also represented with boxes, though the layout was pretty similar for most vehicles (at least in Centurion, never played the others so I don't remember if they were more individual or not). You could orphan armor; if it wasn't connected directly to a piece of armor that was connected to the main body of the vehice, it dropped off and was marked out.

It was a pretty neat mechanic and actually played much faster than you'd think it would, given all the template work. It gave a nice feel to the various weapons and put some interesting choices in weapon strike order.

# ? Jul 27, 2010 18:18

PeterWeller: Apr 21, 2003; I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

Tolan posted:

There was also Prefect, which was higher scale than Leviathan--basically, the game was the invasion of a system (with the one "important" world in it), that could be used to generate scenarios for all three subsystems (Centurion/Interceptor/Leviathan). In addition, FASA put out Legionnaire, a traditional RPG set in the RL universe.

The damage system was interesting. You had armor and screens. Screens basically only protected against energy weapons, and were essentially a modifier to the to-hit roll. (The also gave infantry a reason for being, as infantry could paint a target and more or less negate the screens.) Armor was represented as a block of 10-box rows, so 70 armor = 7 rows of 10 boxes. It maxed out at 10 rows. When you hit, you rolled the column you hit and put a special template on that column, moving it down to the first unmarked armor box.

Each weapon had a different hit template: lasers were just a straight column x deep, HE rounds were wide but shallow, hammerhead rounds dropped down like 3-4 rows and then T'd out, etc. The interior systems of the vehicle were also represented with boxes, though the layout was pretty similar for most vehicles (at least in Centurion, never played the others so I don't remember if they were more individual or not). You could orphan armor; if it wasn't connected directly to a piece of armor that was connected to the main body of the vehice, it dropped off and was marked out.

It was a pretty neat mechanic and actually played much faster than you'd think it would, given all the template work. It gave a nice feel to the various weapons and put some interesting choices in weapon strike order.

That sounds pretty cool. I never actually got to play the games; I just flipped through the books when I was ten.

# ? Jul 27, 2010 18:21

Hypnobeard: Sep 15, 2004; Obey the Beard

Yeah, it was pretty cool. I think they took a lot of the lessons they learned from Battletech on what not to do and tried to fix them with the RL stuff. Everything is compatible and reasonably integrated from game to game, so you really can play a huge all-in-one campaign of it. Battletech suffered from incompatibilities between the various systems (did it even have a "ships in space" game?); I'm thinking particularly of the RPG->board game mess, though I think Aerotech didn't play particularly well with the ground game. Could be wrong on that, though.

# ? Jul 27, 2010 18:24

Liesmith: Jan 29, 2006; by Y Kant Ozma Post

Der Waffle Mous posted:

And then he got a Timberwolf, which broke the second it got into a fight.

And then proceeded to kill about ten mechs with a small laser.

Even back then I thought that was goofy.

small lasers were the best weapons in Mechwarrior 2

# ? Jul 27, 2010 19:16

Der Waffle Mous: Nov 27, 2009; In the grim future, there is only commerce.

Tolan posted:

Yeah, it was pretty cool. I think they took a lot of the lessons they learned from Battletech on what not to do and tried to fix them with the RL stuff. Everything is compatible and reasonably integrated from game to game, so you really can play a huge all-in-one campaign of it. Battletech suffered from incompatibilities between the various systems (did it even have a "ships in space" game?); I'm thinking particularly of the RPG->board game mess, though I think Aerotech didn't play particularly well with the ground game. Could be wrong on that, though.

They have this tiered thing going on now.

Total Warfare has the Battletech rules, plus the basic Aerotech rules and how they interact.

Strategic Operations has Battleforce and the version of Aerotech that deals with warships and fighter squadrons.

# ? Jul 27, 2010 19:43

FirstCongoWar: Aug 21, 2002; It feels so 80's or early 90's to be political.

While I love the fact that you can go A Time of War (RPG) > Total Warfare (Mechs) > Tactical Operations (Everything else on the ground) > Strategic Operations (Airplanes, mass combat) > Interstellar Operations (Full space campaigns) whenever that comes out, I have to wonder if anyone's crazy enough to run a game with that level of detail.

It's a pretty sweet idea in the abstract, though.

# ? Jul 27, 2010 20:01

PeterWeller: Apr 21, 2003; I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

FirstCongoWar posted:

While I love the fact that you can go A Time of War (RPG) > Total Warfare (Mechs) > Tactical Operations (Everything else on the ground) > Strategic Operations (Airplanes, mass combat) > Interstellar Operations (Full space campaigns) whenever that comes out, I have to wonder if anyone's crazy enough to run a game with that level of detail.

It's a pretty sweet idea in the abstract, though.

The guys I used to play Battletech with would fight entire regimental actions over the course of successive weekends. They'll eat that poo poo up.

# ? Jul 27, 2010 20:33

Kosmonaut: Mar 9, 2009

I was in a Battletech campaign once where we played as faction leaders and used the Total Warfare rules to fight over planets. It went pretty fuckin' slowly and we gave up after about five years in game.

# ? Jul 27, 2010 21:09

Tempest_56: Mar 14, 2009

FirstCongoWar posted:

It's a pretty sweet idea in the abstract, though.

I think it's about bloody time they did this. While Catalyst has their problems with accounting, they've finally started doing some things that should have been handled back in the FASA days. Like proper integration of the different game aspects and rules/tips for running games in alternate time periods. Granted, some of it still is clunky and awkward (I still hate A Time of War's RPG system), but after 25 years they're at least working on it. Right now I'm looking forward to a revised Mercs rulebook to bring it up to date with the War Chest system.

# ? Jul 27, 2010 23:03

Der Waffle Mous: Nov 27, 2009; In the grim future, there is only commerce.

I wouldn't mind seeing that either.

They made a pretty good thing with the Warchest system, even though it seems to change between books.

# ? Jul 28, 2010 20:54

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

FirstCongoWar posted:

While I love the fact that you can go A Time of War (RPG) > Total Warfare (Mechs) > Tactical Operations (Everything else on the ground) > Strategic Operations (Airplanes, mass combat) > Interstellar Operations (Full space campaigns) whenever that comes out, I have to wonder if anyone's crazy enough to run a game with that level of detail.

It's a pretty sweet idea in the abstract, though.

Man, if you have a copy of Succession Wars that poo poo would be great. Pity it'd stop at 3039 on the map though.

# ? Jul 29, 2010 00:13

FirstCongoWar: Aug 21, 2002; It feels so 80's or early 90's to be political.

I'd probably do the clan invasion since that (specifically the Stackpole trilogy) was my introduction to the universe and thus my forever battletech love.

# ? Jul 29, 2010 08:40

Der Waffle Mous: Nov 27, 2009; In the grim future, there is only commerce.

TRO 3085 just came out on PDF.

The Reseens got new art.

LAMs, contrary to what I was expecting, look awesome.

# ? Jul 30, 2010 06:34

chutche2: Jul 3, 2010; CUPOLA MY BALLS

God, I've always wanted to get in on some real battletech. But sadly all I've ever done is megamek. I play on the Legends server at the moment.

# ? Jul 30, 2010 09:24

Arquinsiel: Jun 1, 2006; "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first."

God Bless Margaret Thatcher
God Bless England
RIP My Iron Lady

The new Locust looks like a Catapult K2 shrank in the wash.

I'm not sure about the new LAMs. They look very Michael Bay.

# ? Jul 30, 2010 13:30

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# ? May 5, 2024 20:48

Crooow!: Dec 7, 2005; Abortions for some, tiny American flags for others!

Arquinsiel posted:

The new Locust looks like a Catapult K2 shrank in the wash.

I'm not sure about the new LAMs. They look very Michael Bay.

I noticed that the new Atlas looks like a football player that is performing a touchdown dance. I heard that the LAM start-up rules are in the 3085 record sheets and that the full rules will be in Interstellar Operations.

Crooow! fucked around with this message at 14:29 on Jul 30, 2010

# ? Jul 30, 2010 14:24

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