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PoptartsNinja posted:Edit: That has been your BattleTech tabletop vs. video games of the day In short, Anti-Infantry 'Mechs are basically walking war crimes.
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Mar 3, 2018 00:49
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Galaga Galaxian posted:Just in case someone didn't realize how screwed we are in our current position, we can't even run and complain to the MRB about out contractor screwing us over. This is pretty much the exact reason why the Mercs started providing their own review board post-Tukayyid, since by that point, the cat was out of the bag that Comstar wasn't on the up and up after they revealed the fact that they had a secret army nessled away.
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Mar 4, 2018 00:23
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Cythereal posted:Still not seeing anything more dickish than any other employers are likely to pull. To be fair, very few people get Happy Endings in Battletech. It's a very gritty setting.
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Mar 8, 2018 20:59
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Lord Koth posted:You have no idea. While they were a fairly successful mercenary outfit, their CO also had an obsessive hatred of Wolf's Dragoons. Combine that with heavy losses during the Battle of Coventry, and they eventually did something incredibly stupid that got most of them killed and led to the remnants being hunted down with extreme prejudice. Unsurprisingly, the Blakists were also involved.
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Mar 8, 2018 21:02
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PoptartsNinja posted:It should be noted that the MW:Dark Age tried really, really hard to do away with all of the "pet" mercenary regiments (due to RL issues involving the Eridani Light Horse and a Brony that I'm sure someone else will elaborate on). The editorial "Death to Mercenaries" decree was far more successful than Takashi Kurita's, but I don't feel it was ultimately beneficial to the setting because it drastically limited the sorts of campaigns you could run in the post-Jihad era. Yeah, the Dark Age era really was not kind to the Battletech setting as a whole, chiefly because editorial mandate hosed a lot of things over. Very few Mercenary units, trying to cram the idea of Battlemechs being super rare again down the fanbase's throats, trying to prop up the Republic (initially at least) as the scrappy underdog good guys that everyone should be cheering for, and a lot of the established factions either get bend over and buttfucked (looking at you, Lyrans and Davions) or leapt headfirst off the deep end (Jade Falcon, who has gone MAXIMUM crazy). Also, the writers couldn't keep setting details straight, which lead to the current Kerensky to having five different interpretations and fighting both for, and against every side at some point because ???.
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Mar 8, 2018 21:32
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I have to wonder though, does Battletech HBS allow for the altering of armor and speed, as well as weapons?
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Mar 12, 2018 13:43
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winterwerefox posted:finally got MekHq to work, got into a one on one scenario fight with my griffin vs a hunchback g. Hunchback fires its AC/20, crits, blows off my right arm and ppc. next round, blows off my left arm. gently caress you, gently caress your cannon, gently caress this. Griffin jumps for a death from above, knocks down the hunchback, knocks out the pilot, and proceeds to kick the poo poo out of the downed hunchback for the win. 11/10 would snipe again That's what happens when you get within Murder Range of an AC/20.
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Mar 18, 2018 21:28
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I believe we saw just what happens to an LRM Boat that gets swarmed by Lights in the very first mission. Bug 'Mechs are no joke in this game, if you give them a chance to get close to your artillery mech, they can mess you the gently caress up in a hurry.
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Mar 18, 2018 23:28
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SirFozzie posted:It's kinda hard to fight a mech battle when your mech's skeleton is on fire. Technically their muscles were on fire, but I'll let it pass because the idea of a bunch of flaming, skeletalized Battlemechs running around and screaming in the background while Kai walks up the Dropship ramp smoking a cigar is just too drat amusing to me.
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Mar 21, 2018 10:07
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Zell is also optional in later eras, as many Clanners see Inner Sphere warriors as being dishonorable, and many more are of the opinion that If You Cheat, They Can Cheat Too. For all their talk of honor, they're only honorable when they can afford to be. There are plenty of cases of Clan warriors doing questionably dishonorable things because the glory for winning outweighs the cost of using questionable tactics. Might makes Right after all, and history in the Clans is made by the winners.
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Mar 21, 2018 21:21
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Jimmy4400nav posted:I mean, considering their founder was a military general whose brilliant solution to the collapse of the Star League was to take as many people and shiny objects as they could carry on a multi-year journey into uncharted space with no know places to stop and resupply or settle down in safety, they seem pretty par for the course. And he was the non-brain damaged one. His /son/ was the one that made the entire hosed up caste system to begin with, with all its deranged rules and screwed up hierarchy, but the Clans consider him to basically be a saint, so good luck trying to convince /them/ of that.
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Mar 28, 2018 20:04
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Tindahbawx posted:The clans have jumpships, is there some reason why they couldn't just make a jump to a system which might be non-habitable but resource rich, send their dropships off to collect it then jump it home once they're all full up? You gotta remember, the Clans care little for aspects of their society that doesn't involve The Glory of Combat. All of the reasons suggested here have likely been brought to the Clans attention by the lower castes, but if there's one thing many of the Clans are good at, it's ignoring the words of those they consider lesser. There's also the fact that any given Clan needs to protect the outposts they set up, automated or not, or else some other Clan is just gonna come along and claim it for themselves. Plus they need a force on site to keep any lower caste scum in line. The Clans are descendants of the SLDF, and if there's one thing we've learned about the Star League, is that they were big time control freaks. Can't let those pesky lesser states/powers/casts expand beyond your ability to police after all.
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Mar 29, 2018 00:47
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Jimmy4400nav posted:So playing some more MekHQ and hot drat PPC's are scary. I have a pair of Panther mechs whose officers habe proficient gunnery skills and their PPCs working in tandem have slagged so many mechs above threir weight class (to say nothing of exploding smaller mechs into oblivion). There's a reason why PPCs are considered the premiere energy weapons of the setting.
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Mar 30, 2018 20:41
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While theoretically Large Lasers have the edge over PPCs just by raw stats, things change quite a bit when you pause and consider the actual 'Mechs in the game. There are a surprising number of designs in the game that could eat 1/2/3 LL hits in a single location and not even breach, but eating the same number of PPCs hits will result in punching a hole through their armor and forcing a crit check. So yes, mathmatically, LLs are better, but in actual practice, that extra 2 damage done by the PPCs can swing the game in your favor by putting down 'Mechs faster through faster armor breaches, and thereby getting to the point where every hit has a chance to knock out a critical system quicker.
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Mar 31, 2018 08:35
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As a bit of a thought experiment I'd like to share, I decided to compare the PPC vs the Large Laser in practical terms rather than just in mathematical ones. For this, I am going to be taking the role of a Kurita player, and I am faced with a choice concerning my basic trooper 'Mechs of the Kuritan faction, the Panther. I could swap out their PPCs for Large Lasers and extra heat sinks, which is the more mathematically correct choice, but before I do, I decide to take a moment to compare how the LL fares vs the PPC against Light and Medium 'Mechs I'd face from one of the kuritan's chief opponents, the Davions, in a 3025 setting. Common 'Mechs I might face from the Davion faction includes the Valkyrie, the Centurion, the Enforcer, and the Dervish, and just for the heck of it, I throw in the Locust, the Phoenix Hawk, and the Shadow Hawk, since those things are /everywhere/. First off, the Valkyrie, the Davion's go to choice for Light 'Mechs: 6 tons of armor gives the Valkyrie some decent protection, however I compare the armor levels on each part of the 'Mech against the damage for the LL and PPC. I find that both can penetrate the Valk's armor in two shots, save for the arms, which the PPC can do in just one. You'd think this would make it even, right? Nope, because then I compare how much damage each part can soak up before being blown off entirely, and I find that both the side torsos and the legs can soak 2 LL hits and keep functioning, while the PPC would sheer both of those off with a double tap. PPC: 1, LL: 0 Next up, the Centurion. Again I compare armor levels, and find that the Cent is well armored enough to eat two LL hits in every location save for the side torsos. Granted, the arms and legs would be stripped of armor, but they wouldn't be touched otherwise. The PPC on the other can can not only strips, but penetrate the armor of a Centurion and deal internal damage on every location, meaning I'd get some crit chances. More importantly, 3 PPC shots to any location save the CT will blow that section off, where as the LL would require 4 everywhere except the arms. PPC: 2, LL: 0 'Mech #3, the Enforcer. The Enforcer has more armor than the Cent, and frontloads that armor to boot, so it is much more hardy in a face to face slugfest. LLs can only penetrate the arms in 2 shots, PPCs can penetrate the arms and torso in 2, and strip the legs of armor entirely in 2. Sadly, because of how frontloaded the Enforcer is, there's no difference between the # of shots needed to destroy a location, save for the side torsos, which can just baaaaarely be knocked out in 3 PPCs vs 4 LLs. PPC: 3, LL: 0 Dervish, Davion's designated support fire Medium 'Mech. Kind of thinly armored, and there's basically no difference in # of shots to penetrate, both can punch through just fine, so again it comes down to # shots to destroy. PPC can destroy arms in 2, legs and side torsos in 3. LL can't. PPC: 4, LL: 0 Now for the Locust, all locations can be shot clean off in 2 shots from either weapon, but the PPC can penetrate legs and side torsos where as the LL just strips the armor off. To note though: The Davions also have a version of the Locust armed with LRMs, but this version is so heeeeelaaaaariously underarmored that it's basically a joke. I'm gonna give this a half point, just for how squishy the Locust is in general. PPC: 4.5, LL: 0.5 How for the P. Hawk. Armor on the arms and legs are thin enough for both weapons to penetrate in 2 shots, but the side torso needs 3 shots for the LL and 2 for the PPC. Again, the PPC is able to dismember in fewer shots than the LL. Further more, the PPC is a garrenteed headcap due to the lovely armor on the P. Hawk's face, where as the LL penetrates, but does not decapitate. PPC: 5.5, LL: 0.5 Finally, the Shithawk. Once again we find that the S. Hawk has just enough armor on all its parts to soak up two LL hits without damaging the internal structure, while only being able to do the same for the PPC in its CT. the PPC can also rip off the S. Hawk's arms and legs in 3 shots where as the LL needs 4. Final tally, PPC: 6.5, LL: 0.5. Despite being mathematically superior to a PPC, the Large Laser ends up losing out in the end in my theoretical Kuritan vs Davion scenario, since the PPC is both better able to penetrate the armor on common Davion designs, and better able to dismember. Amazing what a little 2 damage difference is capable of.
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Mar 31, 2018 10:21
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I find that the higher the weight class you face in combat, the more important it is to have a weapon that can punch through a lot of armor in a single strike. A 'Mech mounting a lot of Medium Lasers would look drat scary to a Light or Medium 'Mech, but to an Atlas, he'd just eat all that damage, grin, and then casually blow you in half with an AC/20. It's why you tend to see PPCs, AC/10s, and AC/20s become the primary weapons of heavier 'Mechs over the statistically better Large and Medium Lasers, because sheer penetration is much more valuable the more armor your target has than efficiency. Unless you can start punching some holes in an Assault's hide and taking out underlying components to reduce his capabilities, efficient damage output won't mean much in the long run... especially if he has the ability to punch holes in your hide in return. Then it becomes a race to see if you can widdle him down with a Disco Rave Party before he blows entire chunks out of your 'Mech.
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Mar 31, 2018 21:11
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| # ¿ May 18, 2024 12:11 |
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Specifically a Comstar deep exploration jumpship stumbled upon the Clan Homeworlds and was captured by Clan Smoke Jaguar, who from them learned not only that the Inner Sphere was on the road to recover, but that the Davions and Setiners had joined forces to form the Federated Commonwealth, which could potentially have conquered the entire Inner Sphere and declared themselves the Star League Reborn. The idea of someone other than the Clans reforming their beloved Star league was so toxic to Clan belief that they pretty much all voted to invade, save for Clan Wolf. Because of course the Designated Protagonist Clan would.
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Apr 16, 2018 20:18
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