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The Merry Marauder posted:Really, the problem is that to get that armament with full heat dissipation and excellent armor coverage with Level 1 tech, you need more mech. And thus the (3025) Marauder II. If you have full dissipation in any mech, of any tech level, you have an inefficient design. Proper designs make use range bands and careful management to maximize their potential. (See the Stalker for the best example of why a 'mech that pushes the scale is superior.) The fetish in 3050-3058 for icebox 'mechs was a mistake, and there's a reason why many of the variants found in the Upgrades TROs ride the heat scale much more heavily. See 3067 for a pile of examples of excellent newtech mechs.
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Feb 10, 2011 00:38
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'The Merry Marauder" posted:If you have a Mech with a schizophrenic assortment of weapons which is well-suited to engagement at any range, it was probably designed by an indecisive twat or contains a Gauss Rifle. I strongly prefer designs with a defined role, as, I would venture to say, do you, based on your previous comments about hammer/anvil/cav Mechs. Strong battlefield role doesn't mean single engagement ranges, though. Take the venerable Thunderbolt. The LRM-15 starts hitting the enemy at long ranges, supplemented by the Large Laser, then dropping the Large to bring the battery of mediums to bear at 6's, then moving to Large, mediums and the SRM at point blank, dropping out weapons individually to manage heat. The T-bolt is an amazing anvil precisely because of it's all range threat - you can't afford to ignore or bypass it without paying for your temerity. The Merry Marauder posted:See the Stalker for an example of a very silly looking Mech. I take your point, I just don't agree with you. At range, the Stalker can pelt you with two LRM 10s and two Large Lasers, gaining only 5ish heat per turn. This is respectable. Up close, it packs a quad-pack of MLAS and 2 SRM 6s, which again, is very heat-friendly, but not a whole lot of short-range punch for a 85 ton Mech. I suppose you could 'ride the curve' and take a big ol' heat bump to fire a LLAS up close. The Stalker is a superior jack-of-all-trades/master-of-none, but that doesn't make it any sort of ideal. You're failing to classify the [/i]Stalker[/i]'s range bands correctly. Long range (10+ hexes): 2x LL, 2x LRM10. Net +4 heat, drop out an LRM if you're conserving ammo or need to move and not eat -1MP. Medium range (magic 6's to 9): 2x LRM10, 2x SRM6, 2xML. Net +1 heat, movement doesn't force you to -MP. Drop out one or both missle pairs for LLs, or conserve SRM ammo in the 7-9 range by swapping them out for more MLs (and a net heat decrease.) Short range (1-5): 2x SRM6, 4x ML, 0 heat OR +2x LL, 2x SRM6, +4 heat, OR LL, 2x SRM6, 2xML, +2 heat, depending on what sort of target you're hitting. And, if you're in water or really need to put someone down now, your larger weapons loadout gives you the ability to drop more firepower than would otherwise be possible. The Stalker is the best all-round pure assault in 3025 because of this flexibility. Though the Awesome, with it's 3/3/2 rotation, comes close. Arguably, the Banshee-S can contest that title, but it's Steiner only, and doesn't count. (4/6 superheavies like the Battlemaster and Zeus aren't true assaults, being designed to work with and lead heavy 'mechs.) quote:There are similar waves in 3060 and 3067, which are not quite as easy to define succinctly. Production of 'excellent newtech Mechs' after 3067 is largely due to the piles and piles of newly introduced weapons and equipment becoming available, making it much easier to maximize a design for a given role. It has less to do with new equipment than with a return to old style design, with 'mechs being designed around range banding and heat management rather than being alpha babies. The realization that 4/6 XL machines are a liability in most cases is also a big deal. (XL is perfectly suited for the new breed of heavy cav machines, though, such as my beloved Lao Hu.)
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Feb 10, 2011 02:00
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Arquinsiel posted:^^^^ I'm assuming this is directed at me. The Battlemaster is an excellent 'mech. But I stand by my statement that it's not a true 'assault' machine. It's optimized for leading heavies. A true assault 'mech is designed for one purpose: Blowing through anything and everything in front of it in order to take a heavily defended point. (Or to defend such strongpoints). This requires a design that is optimized to deal with other heavy units, whether armor or BattleMechs. See my previous analysis of the Stalker for a good example - exceptional firepower at all ranges. Or the Awesome with it's ability to lay down a continuous barrage of PPC fire. (Banshee-S and Atlas also qualify.) The only thing a Battlemaster can bring to bear at ranges beyond 9 is a single PPC. Now, this is backed up by an excellent close-in battery - 4MLs, an SRM6 and machine guns to clear out infantry - but the point still stands. Battlemasters should be used more like heavy 'mechs. It's a commander's machine - able to keep up with the main flow of battle while dishing out solid, non ammo dependent damage. (Note the deep magazine for the SRM6 - 30 rounds gives you a hell of a long time before you run dry.) Only thing the design could really use is a half-ton less MG ammo.
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Feb 10, 2011 04:14
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Defiance Industries posted:Don't know that I'd say the Atlas-7D has good long ranged firepower. All it has is that LRM-20. Up close the AC/20 ML and SRM combo is deadly, but it's not much at range. True - but the Atlas is a giant pile of armor, and exists to soak up damage as the rest of the assault company closes. At 3/5, it can only be a pure assault machine.
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Feb 10, 2011 05:03
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The Merry Marauder posted:I love the Thunderbolt all to pieces, but I prefer the ELH variant that adds jump jets instead of the anti-infantry suite. That leaves the 3 MLAS to swap in for the LRMs up close, which is a practical and uncluttered arrangement, unlike the Stalker profile. I'd rather have increased mobility than a tertiary range band. The Eridani T-bolt is a solid machine, but the LRM10 doesn't group nearly as nicely as the LRM15 on the cluster table. Plus, you give up your ability to deal with infantry - and under the Total Warfare ruleset, that's a serious liability for an all-rounder like the Thunderbolt. The Merry Marauder posted:That is an excellent analysis of the Stalker's capabilities, but you are giving something up for that enormous (some would say excessive) flexibility. For one thing, being 3/5 means your ponderous advance to short/medium is going to be impeded by slopes, trees, or Blake-forbid, trees on slopes. Why not leave the close-in brawling to the heavy-leaders like Battlemasters who have the extra mobility to close and let the Stalker kick rear end inexorably from range befitting its sloth with something like 2xPPC+8HS in lieu of the LLAS and short range suite? If your enemy stays out, you hit them with LRM barrages while moving in on whatever they are trying to protect. If they come in at you to get their weapons to bear, you are ready to greet them with laser death. Given that the proper role of true assaults is to take objectives rather than try to destroy the enemy's forces directly, the Stalker fits the bill nicely. If you're picking your targets correctly, the enemy will still have to try to stop you regardless, letting your slower machines still come to grips with them. (The concept of a pin applies in more than just chess.) The Merry Marauder posted:Excellent point about the XL engines, though I think that can still be linked to Clan envy. A large part of it actually had to do with the oversinked nature of the designs - large XL engines were used to hide more DHS off the crit chart. Try taking something like the AWS-9M and making it 3/5 with a standard engine. (Of course, this is due to overuse of newtech weapons, too).
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Feb 10, 2011 05:31
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Arquinsiel posted:My personal favoured variant has ERPPC, 4 ERML, SRM6, 2MG, 2MedPulse(r). The rear lasers being pulses ends up being hillariously successful against light-medium backstabbers, negating the secondary target/rear arc penalties pretty well while the arms do some punchin' up front. I've been sticking to L1 tech in my discussions - no need to confuse the newbies with the full range of available weapons. And Inner Sphere medium pulses are terrible anti-backstab weapons - the pulse bonus is negated by the fact that the enemy is likely to engage you at three hexes or more. Assuming you're playing in an era where they are available, ERMLs are much better choices. PajamaSutra posted:Having played some fairly large games (36 vs. 36), it's been my experience that both forces have usually bludgeoned themselves out of existence long before the two minute mark passes. We spent a summer in high school doing a full on 4th Succession War planetary invasion game, and what I found was that after the first few fights, we all got a lot better at knowing when to break off and preserve forces. As the massively outnumbered Capellan defenders, if I'd stayed and fought to the end in every fight I would have lost quite quickly. As long as you retain sufficient force to severely punish an enemy for coming after you, disengaging is generally possible. (Having conventional forces available to sacrifice while your 'mechs pull back, or having sufficient aerospace assets to pound them if they attempt to pursue can be very helpful.) More than anything else, it depends on the players - fighting a successful campaign game is very different from one off scenarios, and takes some adapting to.
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Feb 10, 2011 18:25
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Arquinsiel posted:I find them to work well for the large mechs. Generally people I get backstabed by try to get right in behind me so they can kick the full body table if I go down, the medium-pulses tend to make them suffer for the effort at least a bit. Going in close on a backstab is never worth it - the target numbers will almost always be better a little further out, plus you expose yourself to less risk. The best flankers in L2 tech are things like the Wraith - IS Large Pulses are excellent for fast movers, if utterly useless for every other machine.
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Feb 10, 2011 18:55
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The Merry Marauder posted:The Sagittaire begs to differ - and has just blown off your left torso. IS LPLs suck, but until they decided you couldn't aimed-shot pulse lasers, they had a role beyond things like the Wraith (which is annoying yet great). The Sagittaire is pretty terrible. It it pretty easy to render into a decent mech, though - replace both LPLs with PPCs. Same weight, same heat, better damage, and actual range. The stock Sagi is a death trap anywhere but in a city. (Where, admittedly, it's one of the most terrifying machines around.)
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Feb 10, 2011 19:11
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Defiance Industries posted:Eh, most new IS equipment is better but only in a specific situation, like the HGR or stealth armor. I'm okay with stuff like that. I do think the new Plasma Rifle is way too good, though. The HGR is a colossal pile. Too much buck, not enough bang. Stealth Armor, RACs, various newtype ammos, the Light/Snub/Heavy PPCs - all excellent toys. Once you hit around 3067, the game comes to a solid balance again, like the old 3025 days but with more options. EDIT: The ultra ACs would be excellent, well balanced weapons if they didn't use the cluster weapon chart but instead gave you two to-hit rolls.
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Feb 15, 2011 01:41
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KaoliniteMilkshake posted:So, on that note, give me a Wasp, especially a WSP-1W. 6 Small Lasers, that's more firepower than a Charger! A decent pilot can abuse that 6 jump range to move to the ideal attacking locale each turn, and hopefully land a number of small, abrasive hits on the opponent. With luck, a few good kicks or the odd lucky punch could knock an enemy out of the fight. This variant also has a fair amount of armor, considering its weight, giving it a chance to stand against infantry fire, or even a medium laser. And, at 1.6 million C bills, you can afford to field one of these babies. Or two. Maybe even more! The 1W is even scarier than it looks - it's' a perfect platform for the Dragoons to sneak some Clan tech in on in earlier points on the timeline. Replace the small lasers with ER smalls, mount double heat sinks, hell, maybe replace the armor with Ferro-Fibrous and you have a tiny buzzsaw of death. Make sure you don't take too many impossible shots and no one will ever realize that you're cheating like a motherfucker.
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Feb 16, 2011 19:19
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MJ12 posted:I don't play 3025 much anymore (sadly) and as it stands the only reason to use a 20-tonner right now is to stuff it full of Null-Sig and Chameleon, give it a XXL engine, and use it as an unarmed ground recon platform. C3. BAP and other electronics gear. Stealth Armor. All useful in creating viable 20 tonners. But they aren't really combat machines anymore, true. (But were they ever, really?) lilljonas posted:I'm just dabbling in Battletech now and then, but am I the only one who thinks that the technology sounds less and less interesting the later it is implemented? There's a time period where that is true - 3050-3065 or so. By 3067 and onward, there's enough new toys out there that things have really settled back into a rough equivalence with the state of play in 3025 - just faster, better armored, and with nastier guns. Later tech level play really works better in Megamek than pure tabletop, because you need a hell of a lot more room (and not having to deal with all the interaction between various e-war gear manually is handy too.) Kenlon fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Feb 16, 2011 |
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Feb 16, 2011 20:19
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The Zhukov is one of the best tanks of it's era. The Po's better, though.
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Feb 17, 2011 00:13
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PoptartsNinja posted:So, to start a new discussion: How would you personally rate the 5 successor states (Draconis Combine, Federated Suns, Lyran Commonwealth, Capellan Confederation, Free Worlds League) in order of power, and why (3025-3028 era)? 1. Draconis Combine: There's a reason that Hanse wanted to team up with the Lyrans- the DCMS, in this era, is the most effective military around. Solid 'mech production, combined with an excellent Aerospace arm and effective use of mercenaries makes for a hell of a hard target. (The 'Death to Mercs' order crippled the Snakes in many ways, especially the fact that they could no longer use small merc units to secure their rear areas.) 2. Federated Suns: Though usually badly split by the eternal struggle for control between the March Lords and the First Prince, the AFFS is not far behind the Dracs in capability. The fact that the Sandovals are pretty much in line with Hanse's stated goals (the destruction of the Combine) and that Michael Hasek-Davion has been neutered by the co-opting of his son has permitted Hanse Davion to have a degree of freedom in military planning that is rare in FedSuns history. The conversion away from pure 'Mech regiments and towards Regimental Combat Teams is an innovation that also greatly improves the ability to project force and then hold the ground they take. 3. Lyran Commonwealth: The Thundering Herd is crippled by the abundance of so-called 'political generals', but the staggering economy that the Steiners have so carefully tended gives them an ability to absorb punishment that is unmatched. The Dracs can run rings around them, and Marik can match them face to face, but the Lyrans are hard to put down permanently. The hidden strength of the Steiners is the vicious specops capabilities of Loki - though they are usually kept muzzled by overly-soft House leaders. 4. Free Worlds League: "I against my brother, my brother and I against my cousin, my cousin and I against the outsider" does not make for effective force projection. Nonetheless, the FWLM, when all pointed in the same direction, are probably on par with the AFFS - they've used combined arms tactics to a greater degree than most Houses for centuries. It takes a serious external threat to really pull them together, though. 5. Capellan Confederation: Extremely limited 'mech production, mostly confined to Tikonov, combined with structural changes to the CCAF to avoid internal rebellion (the lack of any rank above colonel, for example) have left the Confederation the militarily weakest of the Great Houses. The CCAF is a largely defensive institution, spread out in battalion strength across the densely packed systems of House Liao. The only thing that has really kept the Confederation in the running is the fact that they have a robust economy, and the Maskirova is the best intelligence service in the Sphere - when they are not crippled by Liao infighting.
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Feb 26, 2011 00:49
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PoptartsNinja posted:Totals . . . I like your timeline. Go go CCAF! I do kinda have to take exception with your characterization of Capellan conventional forces as low morale, though - our militia is terrible, but line units aren't used for human wave attacks. . . Kenlon fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Feb 27, 2011 |
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Feb 27, 2011 02:03
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Mukaikubo posted:I figure this would be a fine place to canvass for interest: Would I be able to get five (maybe ten including backups) goons to play http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3966/the-succession-wars if I ran a game in this forum? It is pretty similar to Axis and Allies in some ways, only it is the Succession Wars. I should add that the rulebook is scanned and posted on that same site, since the publisher has been out of business since the first bush presidency. I would commit murder for a chance to play Succession Wars with other people. My mother threw out my copy back when I was in high school (more years ago than I care to think about) and I've never been able to find another copy, I call dibs on the Confederation.
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Mar 6, 2011 05:35
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WolfhoundFC posted:Post-clan Inner Sphere Sudden Technical Renaissance handwavium stuff. It's pretty amazing, in the span of 10 years from the clans making landfall in the IS, all of a sudden these IS military machines, hampered by centuries of basically not even knowing how to build jump cores or the batteries to go with them (IIRC) are suddenly cranking out million-ton warships with all manner of absurd huge-calibre weaponry, the likes of which haven't been manufactured in all of what they thought to be human-inhabited space since...what, the mid 2700s? But hey, they needed to have something more interesting than Leopard dropships to play Battlespace with, right? You have to remember that the only thing holding down the technical resurgence of the Inner Sphere was Comstar. Having the people who control ALL communications out to keep the Successor States crippled meant they pretty much stayed that way for a long drat time. Once they were out of the info-denial biz, people started putting the pieces back together right quick-like.
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Mar 7, 2011 06:42
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WarLocke posted:Edit: Also IMO the Clans' mech inventory should really only be the 13 omnis in TRO 3050 (maaaaaybe a handful of other omnis that are clan-specific or whatever) because there is literally no reason for them the be making old-style battlemechs when they have omni technology. With 13 or 16 or 18 chassis that can all be modularly set up you don't need anything else, that's plenty of options to cover any battlefield need. My explanation has always been that Omnimechs really aren't truly "omni". Sure, it's theoretically possible to outfit them any way you want, but with the amount of tech time and effort needed to balance and configure the machine, it's not worth it. Instead, they use the prepackaged Prime/A/B/C/D configs to extend the flexibility of their 'mechs, with the real benefit of Omni technology being the ease of replacement and repair.
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Mar 7, 2011 18:41
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Artificer posted:It's already looking like a pretty god drat bittersweet ending if the Dama Muerta bites it, after all the Caballeros have done to save her and the remaining hostages. This is kind of depressing. Here's hoping the loyal servants of our glorious Confederation can still pull this off!
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Mar 18, 2011 03:17
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A with a side order of contingency plans: Get Romano pregnant ASAP, so that if she ends up being uncontrollable, he can arrange an 'accident' and reign as Regent until his child is of age. Given that Justin owns the Maskirova, that shouldn't be too hard to arrange.
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Mar 22, 2011 17:45
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KaoliniteMilkshake posted:However, that is more personal than political drama, and B is likely enough to result in more intrigue, somehow. Personal drama is what drives the backstory in Battletech anyway - Justin taking over the Confederation for the sole purpose of revenge on Hanse Davion is right in line with that. Also Justin Xiang is loving awesome. 
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Mar 22, 2011 18:01
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KnoxZone posted:Zeus ZEU-6S I must disagree with your assessment of the Zeus - you want to live at the 5-7 hex range, hammering the enemy with the AC and LRMs as you close, ducking inside to bring the Large Laser to bear when your heat and target numbers look good. Surprised that it's not a 6T, though. And a Banshee-S takes an Awesome in a straight fight just about every time. The Banshee has to resupply, though, whereas the Awesome can 3/3/2 from now to judgement day.
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Mar 24, 2011 05:52
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The Merry Marauder posted:I don't understand this. Why flirt with minimums for the LRMs, and why close the range with bad armor? Simple - you're at a greater disadvantage at range than you are up close. The Zeus doesn't have the ammo to take bad shots and hope to plink away at the enemy - you need to get inside where you can bring as much pain to bear as quickly as possible. Hopefully, the Clanners will gently caress up and let you get in physical combat range, but even without that, you're better off up close. And the only reason to go in to 5 hexes is because that's the short range limit for the Large Laser - otherwise, you'd want 6-7.
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Mar 24, 2011 22:34
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Trast posted:The Clans sound like a bunch of sperglords with giant robots. Pretty much - they're a 'warrior' society designed by a madman, with the intent of crippling their ability to actually make war in any sustainable sense. The Clans were doomed from the start - once the Inner Sphere really gets it's poo poo together, sheer numbers (and a working understanding of logistics) makes the end result inevitable.
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Mar 24, 2011 22:49
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Trast posted:Seriously. Nevermind that warfare without logistics is insane their whole society sounds like a trip through bat country. Yep. Like I said, a society devised by a madman.
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Mar 25, 2011 00:53
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