Any BattleTech/MechWarrior fans here?

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LaughingCheese
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Any BattleTech/MechWarrior fans here?

Post by LaughingCheese »

Hey all,

Been a while since I posted. Been busy with school; Cisco is hard, taking it in 8 weeks is brutal! :bangwall:


Anyway, on the moments I do decide to waste on gaming ( :lol: ), I've been playing Mechwarrior: Living Legends.


I got into it cause I remember a friend of mine playing it back in the 90's and I would watch him (he was four years older and I was a bit overwhelmed at the controls back then so I didn't play much :P) and being bummed that there hadn't been a good 'mech game since then.


Anyway, I've been looking into playing the actual board game set but it seems to be sold out online at least or super expensive and I'm not paying over $50 for it.

There's a mall nearby so I'll try there sometime. I know there's Megamek but it would be cool to play the phyiscal game sometime.



Anyone else into BattleTech?

I guess we could play Megamek but it will have to be over the break, don't have time to learn the rules right now.
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Re: Any BattleTech/MechWarrior fans here?

Post by mwhittington »

My first real video game was MechWarrior 2 for Windows 95, using the CH Flightstick Pro. Now I have MechWarrior 4 using a Saitek ambidexterous joystick because I'm left-handed. I haven't played it in a while. I've never played the board games, though.
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Re: Any BattleTech/MechWarrior fans here?

Post by Coalition »

Infodump below!

The current battletech books are all hard back glossy pages, explaining part of their price. If you want the older books, Amazon or EBay probably have them.

The key to remember with Battletech is that it was originally the future of the 1980s, not the future. Keep that in mind when you look at the technology (civilian and military). That should help explain why a targeting computer masses 250 kilos per ton of weapon it is supporting (hand-waved as additional aiming equipment).

For the recent battletech history (2980-3020 or so) it was almost Mad Max level . You'd stage a raid on an enemy planet for water, food, spare parts, etc. Battlemechs were the equivalent of a knight's armor, and had been in the family for generations. Being Dispossessed (losing one's Mech) was worse than dying, as if you died your relative got the Mech.

Terms:
* Inner Sphere: a volume ~1000 ly wide, centered on Terra. Unfortunately due to 2-D mapping, it is really a flat page of map, rather than an actual volume. Figure these are the higher-tech systems, with the Periphery nations mostly outside that diameter.
* Periphery: Star Empires mostly outside the 500 ly radius from Terra, mixed tech where a farmer will shoot a deer with a crossbow, cook it in a microwave, and consider that normal.
* Jumpship: Ships that devote 95% their mass to the FTL system that allows interstellar Empires to exist. Other ships attach onto them for rides to other star systems. Only capable of .1G acceleration, cannot enter atmosphere (more than once, due to lithobraking effects). All nations have an unofficial law that says no shooting Jumpships. Civilian only, due to no room for militarily significant weaponry.
* Dropship: The name for a general class of vessels designed to attach on to the outside of a Jumpship. They travel from the Jump region to the planet, and either deploy their cargo in orbit or on the planet's surface. Military and civilian versions exist.
* Lithobraking: Using the surface of the planet to decelerate a ship from near-Mach speeds to zero velocity within a fraction of a second.
* BattleMech: The ultimate weapon of the future. Standing anywhere from 10-12 meters tall, these one-person vehicles are used to conduct warfare in the future. Bipedal and with arms, or Quad (4 legs) they are capable of mounting a variety of weapons all over their surface, and moving across a variety of terrain with minimal interference.
* Star League: The Glory era, when humanity was unified under a single banner and was completely at peace, with absolutely no hidden wars going on. Lots of advanced tech was developed and deployed, some of which still survives to the 'modern' day.
* Succession Wars: The last leader of the Star League was assassinated, his family was killed too, and after General Kerensky took areof that, he left the Inner Sphere with the remnants of the Star League military. Without anyone to decide who was going to be the head of the star League, the five main Houses decided on majority vote. They all voted for themselves. Since they could not agree with politics, they decided to vote with weapons. Cue ~300 years of wars devoted to smashing each others' industry so their opponent cannot win, and their opponents doing it to them. Nuclear, biological, and chemical weaponry was extensively used during the first two Wars. They accomplished nothing. The third war was a series of raids lasting almost a century,and the results turned the people on the borders between two nations into sheeple.
* Sheeple: When your planet has been fought over for several hundred years, you tend to not care who is in charge. If your favorite side loses, you content yourself knowing that your side will take it back in a few years. This is why a single Lance of Mechs (4 Mechs) is able to conquer a planet of 1-2 Billion people - they just don't care.

The main Factions were (going from clockwise, starting at ~12 o'clock:
* Draconis Combine - think Japan samurai, culture, etc.. The supposed 'Bad Guys'. Large Empire (almost a quarter of the Inner Sphere)
* Federated Suns - Knights, Feudal, etc. The supposed 'good guys'. (another quarter of the Inner Sphere)
* Capellan Confederation - Chinese, with a hint of Scottish. Everything is done for the State. 'More 'bad guys'. (about one twelvth of the IS)
* Free Worlds League - A Unified government of multiple squabbling systems. When united they are dangerous. The problem is uniting them. Lots of small civil conflicts going on. (about one sixth of the IS)
* Lyran Commonwealth - Merchants that think 'bigger is better' when it comes to Mechs. Lower skill per Mech, but higher tonnage. Their assault Mechs can outmaneuver most fortifications. Political generals maneuver to be in charge via backroom negotiations even more than the other empires. Supposed incompetent 'good guys'. (a quarter of the Inner Sphere)
* Comstar - a completely neutral organization that handles nearly all FTL communications across the Inner Sphere (the only FTL they don't handle is when someone passes a message to a Jumpship, it goes to another system, and transmits it that way). They are the neutral overseers of Terra and made sure it was not attacked during the Succession Wars. You can trust them with anything and they will keep your secrets, and definitely not use them for personal gain or passing on to your opponent to keep the balance of power in effect. (only control one planet - Terra; but have personnel on nearly every planet keeping FTL communications open. They are considered a neutral party by everyone because they have no ulterior motives.)


Key tagline: "Life is cheap, Battlemechs are expensive."

(Can anyone spot the sarcasm I inserted in to the above?)
Last edited by Coalition on Mon Nov 21, 2011 9:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Any BattleTech/MechWarrior fans here?

Post by LaughingCheese »

LOL, wow...

Thanks for the great summary!

I've been looking at the Sarna BattleTech Wiki off and on so I already knew a lot of that actually :P

But it was somewhat foggy since I haven't had time to read through the entire articles, so thanks.



I guess a lot of the play material you can download for free, plus there's Megamek.


Also, is it true that you can design your own mechs and play them in tournaments?! :shock: I've read references but again, haven't had time to look it up.


EDIT: Wow, great summary. That should go on the BattleTech wiki for new players! :lol:

Also, don't you mean using the atmosphere?

Using the surface of the planet for breaking brought to mind Star Trek: Generations...... :laughroll:
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Re: Any BattleTech/MechWarrior fans here?

Post by Tyyr »

You mean you can't find a copy of the starter set (the new one) for purchase? That's odd. It's an amazing value actually given what you get in it.

I played Battletech for a long time, at least until the Jihad/Republic of the Sphere storyline killed any and all interest I had in it. The game is great but the background material took a turn for the stupid.
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Re: Any BattleTech/MechWarrior fans here?

Post by Mikey »

Topic seems more of an "other/general" deal than "FC."
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Re: Any BattleTech/MechWarrior fans here?

Post by LaughingCheese »

Tyyr wrote:You mean you can't find a copy of the starter set (the new one) for purchase? That's odd. It's an amazing value actually given what you get in it.
Online at least, I haven't checked any physical stores yet.
I played Battletech for a long time, at least until the Jihad/Republic of the Sphere storyline killed any and all interest I had in it. The game is great but the background material took a turn for the stupid.
Lol what do you mean?
Mikey wrote:Topic seems more of an "other/general" deal than "FC."
Oops, apologies.
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Re: Any BattleTech/MechWarrior fans here?

Post by Mikey »

NP. I needed the practice anyway.
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Re: Any BattleTech/MechWarrior fans here?

Post by Coalition »

LaughingCheese wrote: I guess a lot of the play material you can download for free, plus there's Megamek.

Also, is it true that you can design your own mechs and play them in tournaments?! :shock: I've read references but again, haven't had time to look it up.
You can design your own Mechs, but you need the Techmanual Book to get the most recent stuff. Still, the basic rules for designing a Mech haven't noticeably changed since the beginning (base engines still mass the same for their rating, jump jet mass break ranges, Internal structure points, basic weapon ranges/tonnages).

Pretty much any older main game book will have construction rules. They may not have all the nice toys in them, but they will have the Mech construction rules.
LaughingCheese wrote: Also, don't you mean using the atmosphere?

Using the surface of the planet for breaking brought to mind Star Trek: Generations...... :laughroll:
Nope, there is a reason I phrased it as lithobraking, and only done once. :mrgreen:

Battletech Dropships don't bother with aerobraking. Entering atmosphere at high speeds, similar to the shuttle, will actually damage them. Their engines are powerful enough that they can decelerate to zero relative to the planet, and just enter either vertically (a spheroid Dropship), or like an aircraft (Aerodyne). Dropships that can enter the atmosphere are required to have a speed of 3/5. This means they can accelerate by 3 using regular thrust, or by 5 if using Overthrust (aka afterburners for a fusion drive). Overthrust uses more fuel per thrust point than regular thrust.

Each thrust point for a Dropship is half a G acceleration. So a ship with Thrust/OverThrust of 3/5 is capable of accelerating at 1.5 to 2.5 Gs. This is pretty darn zippy. Here is a list of most fighters, and their thrust to weight ratios. The F-22 with round nozzles zips along at 1.37. The Dropship above has a 1.5 ratio without using afterburners.

3/5 is a minimum for atmosphere capable Dropships, not a maximum. Some Dropships have a 9/14 rating, meaning their engine can pull 4.5 Gs in straight line acceleration, without afterburners. The other fun is that 3/5 rating is used by the Mammoth Dropship. That is a single ship, massing over fifteen times a Saturn 5, capable of higher acceleration, without using afterburners, than a F-22.
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Re: Any BattleTech/MechWarrior fans here?

Post by Tyyr »

Pretty much everything set in the Battletech universe post Twilight of the Clans just sucks. They spent years designing, implementing, and fleshing out the clans. They were major players and had been in the game only two years less than EVERYTHING ELSE making them as integral to the setting as anyone. However the writers got bored with them. Everyone was messing their panties thinking about having the FedCom fall into civil war and then starting the Jihad so they wrote Twilight of the Clans which just neutered the clans. If someone had pitched the storyline for TotC on the official forums a year before they were released they'd have been laughed right out of town for coming up with something as stupid as they did. It really amounted to a great big letter to clan fans, "We're bored with you, get out of the way so we can do something else."

From there they had the FedCom rip itself apart then had a splinter group of ComStar suddenly pull an army and a navy out of its ass and fuck the Inner Sphere up so much that we wound up with the completely asinine Clik-Tek portion of the universe where everyone has lost their fucking minds and the clans are even less relevant.

The nice thing about the design rules for CBT is they haven't changed in over twenty years. Mechs designed back in 1986 are still perfectly legal to use in tournaments.
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Re: Any BattleTech/MechWarrior fans here?

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Got to run an online CBT battle with some friends some months back. Clan mechs (5) v jihad mechs (10). I'm pretty sure that the only hope the jihad mechs had of surviving was just not bothering to show up to the battle. The suffered under ECM turn one, by turn three the clan mechs were just stomping on jihad pilots and cockpits for sport.

On a sad note, I scored only one kill (wonderful critical center mass) and two assists which left me at the bottom of the score board for the clan team.
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Re: Any BattleTech/MechWarrior fans here?

Post by LaughingCheese »

Deepcrush wrote:Got to run an online CBT battle with some friends some months back. Clan mechs (5) v jihad mechs (10). I'm pretty sure that the only hope the jihad mechs had of surviving was just not bothering to show up to the battle. The suffered under ECM turn one, by turn three the clan mechs were just stomping on jihad pilots and cockpits for sport.

On a sad note, I scored only one kill (wonderful critical center mass) and two assists which left me at the bottom of the score board for the clan team.
Are you talking about Megamek? Perhaps I can play you over the break, if its long enough for me to figure out BattleTech rules. :lol:
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Re: Any BattleTech/MechWarrior fans here?

Post by Deepcrush »

CBT-RPG online. Just a bunch of people over Vent.
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Re: Any BattleTech/MechWarrior fans here?

Post by Vic »

A friend sucked me into it in the early 90's, still have a huge mass of books. Haven't actually played in years though, I still occasionally get a Tech Readout or House Book out to read. Even though I succumbed to the "oooh, shiney" syndrome like many others I kind of miss the 3025 days. My dissolusion came with the introduction of the Clans, to this day I remain a die hard Steiner.
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Re: Any BattleTech/MechWarrior fans here?

Post by Deepcrush »

The Clans were a hard point for a number of fans when they first came out. But I think over time they added a lot to the game and to the universe itself. If nothing else, it broke the never ending stalemate.
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