Battletech - Also known as Trannytech

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Doing Campaigns you will be doing custom mechs. If you don't you won't have a good time.
In straight Vanilla MW5M some chassis are A-OK to run stock, or with minimal change like the starting Centurion. The AI is so pathetic that you can get away with a lot.
 
In straight Vanilla MW5M some chassis are A-OK to run stock, or with minimal change like the starting Centurion. The AI is so pathetic that you can get away with a lot.
Yeah but I still suggestion even with stock mechs you put as much armor as you can into the front sections, stuff lasts so much longer if you do that.

Also heres a list of my current mods I play in MW5.

Clan Invasion Mod (DLC3 Updated) (Beta) (YAML Compatible)
Mod Options
Lore-based Mech Variants YAML-Edition
Advanced Zoom
TTRulez_AIMod2
No Tonnage Limit
Mech Attribute Viewer
Yet Another Mechlab
Yet Another Weapon Clan
Yet Another Weapon
Better Salvage Shares
Star Map Mouse Over - Mission Logos
MW5 Rebalance Mission Changes
Coyote Mission Pack
 
Yeah but I still suggestion even with stock mechs you put as much armor as you can into the front sections, stuff lasts so much longer if you do that.

Also heres a list of my current mods I play in MW5.

Clan Invasion Mod (DLC3 Updated) (Beta) (YAML Compatible)
Mod Options
Lore-based Mech Variants YAML-Edition
Advanced Zoom
TTRulez_AIMod2
No Tonnage Limit
Mech Attribute Viewer
Yet Another Mechlab
Yet Another Weapon Clan
Yet Another Weapon
Better Salvage Shares
Star Map Mouse Over - Mission Logos
MW5 Rebalance Mission Changes
Coyote Mission Pack
In Vanilla it's not a bad idea to run double digit rear armor whenever you can afford it simply because of how vehicle spawns work. With Better Spawns, you can cut it drastically.
 
Blood Kite needs to be on tracks or some shit.
Plog had what I would call a bad habit of making some mechs look weirdly bulky. The Cataphract back there was never an elegant machine, but his tendencies (and the 'sharp edges' look he gave it) worked for it sort of.

The Hellfire? Not so much. hellfire.png

Seriously what the fuck. David White's rendition of the Lupus is similarly goofy but I'm inclined to think he was told to copy Plog's Hellfire, since the Lupus is the progenitor of the Hellfire.
Lupus.png
 
Plog had what I would call a bad habit of making some mechs look weirdly bulky. The Cataphract back there was never an elegant machine, but his tendencies (and the 'sharp edges' look he gave it) worked for it sort of.

The Hellfire? Not so much.View attachment 3475442

Seriously what the fuck. David White's rendition of the Lupus is similarly goofy but I'm inclined to think he was told to copy Plog's Hellfire, since the Lupus is the progenitor of the Hellfire.
View attachment 3475453
The platform shoes I could do without, but otherwise I don't really mind these because, again, I like non-humanoid 'Mechs.

Having variety in styles is good. Beats everything looking samey like what happened with MWO and MW5. Everything there was redesigned by Alexander "Flyingdebris" Iglesias, and his obsession with beveling sharp corners is in full fucking display. Plog at least takes some chances, although his recent work looks extremely visually crowded, and his humans are just... hopeless. Completely hopeless.

Anyway, let me throw in my entry for ugliest 'Mech, the Whitworth:

1657424387680.png


I would have respected it a little more if the head wasn't so oddly-shaped and jutting out so far. Bury it in the torso like the Thug and it might have been salvageable. As it is, it's one of the most "dude wearing a cardboard box" designs out there and I hate it.
 
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Something I was wondering about, what Piloting and Firing skill do you guys give your pilots? Do you just run with the standard?
 
Something I was wondering about, what Piloting and Firing skill do you guys give your pilots? Do you just run with the standard?
Depends on the game if it's a campaign or not. I've ran a 1/1 before in a few campaigns but pick up games usually standard pilots.
 
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You know, I love BattleTech. The game is really detailed, which bogs down gameplay in endless dice-throwing if shit goes wild, the rules are somewhat unwieldy, but it's a great game nonetheless. But I fucking hate the rulebooks with a passion and I want to kick whoever came up with that system in the balls. JFC, is it ever a pain in the ass to look up something, even when you perfectly know what it is you want to know, cause there's always 2 or 3 books that could potentially contain the info, but then you look through those books and there's fucking nothing, so you look up some other random book and there it is. Maybe.

I wanted to look up how skills change BV (afaik, Piloting and Shooting merely add a percentage to the Mech's cost), couldn't find it in Total Warfare, couldn't find it in BattleMech Manual (also fuck whoever thought it was a good idea to have a book called "Tech Manual" and another one called "Battlemech Manual"). Where is it? Of course, it's not in the books on how to play the game, that tell you how to use those skills, it's not even mentioned in passing and there sure as shit ain't no cross reference to the book where I get that info. The book in question, btw, is the Tech Manual, of course. Cause when I wanna know something regarding the pilot, I look in something that covers the equippement. Fuck you, whoever came up with that sytem.

It's so inconvenient. I am dead fucking serious, with rulebooks not written by monkeys, BT would be at least twice as popular.
 
You know, I love BattleTech. The game is really detailed, which bogs down gameplay in endless dice-throwing if shit goes wild, the rules are somewhat unwieldy, but it's a great game nonetheless. But I fucking hate the rulebooks with a passion and I want to kick whoever came up with that system in the balls. JFC, is it ever a pain in the ass to look up something, even when you perfectly know what it is you want to know, cause there's always 2 or 3 books that could potentially contain the info, but then you look through those books and there's fucking nothing, so you look up some other random book and there it is. Maybe.

I wanted to look up how skills change BV (afaik, Piloting and Shooting merely add a percentage to the Mech's cost), couldn't find it in Total Warfare, couldn't find it in BattleMech Manual (also fuck whoever thought it was a good idea to have a book called "Tech Manual" and another one called "Battlemech Manual"). Where is it? Of course, it's not in the books on how to play the game, that tell you how to use those skills, it's not even mentioned in passing and there sure as shit ain't no cross reference to the book where I get that info. The book in question, btw, is the Tech Manual, of course. Cause when I wanna know something regarding the pilot, I look in something that covers the equippement. Fuck you, whoever came up with that sytem.

It's so inconvenient. I am dead fucking serious, with rulebooks not written by monkeys, BT would be at least twice as popular.
Preaching to the choir here, my man. BattleTech has been around for so long, and it has been expanded in so many ways through the years, that their rules are a fucking mess. There's some text that's been around with only minimal changes since the fucking 80s, with the following paragraph having been tacked on in the 2010s. Editing all that text is also a nightmare, and you can easily find references to rules in specific pages that just aren't there in the current version of the book. And good fucking luck if you're trying to find rules for things like infantry. Took me half an hour to find coherent rules for jump infantry swarm attacks because the book led me to believe they'd be somewhere they weren't.

Honestly, BT's books need to be restructured. Have one book for 'Mechs and their rules, including construction rules, and another book for vehicles, aerospace and infantry, and all their specific rules. Have a book for advanced gear and special rules (make that the new Tactical Operations), and there you go. Keep Strategic and Interstellar Operations as they are.
 
Ive never played the BT game's storyline and just stuck to mods and sandbox mode, something about the plot just made me fall asleep

Everyone in the Argo is fat and i would not have sex with them

Also i wish they just gave you art by default for portraits instead of their potato looking shit

Atleast mods let you change that
 
Yeah it's pretty special when you can rival shit like D&D 3.5's lazier splats for "what the actual fuck". (Complete Divine was fucking insulting.)
 
Preaching to the choir here, my man. BattleTech has been around for so long, and it has been expanded in so many ways through the years, that their rules are a fucking mess. There's some text that's been around with only minimal changes since the fucking 80s, with the following paragraph having been tacked on in the 2010s. Editing all that text is also a nightmare, and you can easily find references to rules in specific pages that just aren't there in the current version of the book. And good fucking luck if you're trying to find rules for things like infantry. Took me half an hour to find coherent rules for jump infantry swarm attacks because the book led me to believe they'd be somewhere they weren't.

Honestly, BT's books need to be restructured. Have one book for 'Mechs and their rules, including construction rules, and another book for vehicles, aerospace and infantry, and all their specific rules. Have a book for advanced gear and special rules (make that the new Tactical Operations), and there you go. Keep Strategic and Interstellar Operations as they are.
That'd be sweet. Strategic and Interstellar Operations are a very specialized subset of rules, so they are neatly packed and packaged. If only all the rules were like this.

The funny thing is, I own a 4th edition from like 20 years ago and that book managed to give you a great rundown of the basic rules, including vehicles, VTOLs and even construction. All in one neat book.
 
I've never had the pleasure of playing Tabletop proper, only ever get to play Megamek against the bot. So luckily for me, I can turn on all the obscure rules (And now even a primitive stratops) and not have to worry about it. I can't say I always understand why something happened to my guys, but I considered it a learning experience the first time one of my locust pilots skidded trying to take a turn on pavement, landed on his face, and ground it right off before sliding into a building and dying like a fool.

Battletech just has some moments like that I can't get anywhere else. Shame MW5 fell short of its potential.
 
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I've never had the pleasure of playing Tabletop proper, only ever get to play Megamek against the bot. So luckily for me, I can turn on all the obscure rules (And now even a primitive stratops) and not have to worry about it. I can't say I always understand why something happened to my guys, but I considered it a learning experience the first time one of my locust pilots skidded trying to take a turn on pavement, landed on his face, and ground it right off before sliding into a building and dying like a fool.

Battletech just has some moments like that I can't get anywhere else. Shame MW5 fell short of its potential.
Honestly, stuff like that might be the best part of BT. Those "things going catastrophically, improbably wrong in extremely rapid fashion" moments. The meme example is the Urbie's Small Laser scoring a TAC and nailing an MG ammo bin, which then turns your pristine Warhammer inside out. Another I remember hearing was an Atlas pilot failing a piloting roll for going up a steep hill, falling down, taking damage to the AC20 ammo bin and kablooey on like... first turn or something.

You'll be salty at first, then you'll realize it's fucking hilarious.
 
Honestly, stuff like that might be the best part of BT. Those "things going catastrophically, improbably wrong in extremely rapid fashion" moments. The meme example is the Urbie's Small Laser scoring a TAC and nailing an MG ammo bin, which then turns your pristine Warhammer inside out. Another I remember hearing was an Atlas pilot failing a piloting roll for going up a steep hill, falling down, taking damage to the AC20 ammo bin and kablooey on like... first turn or something.

You'll be salty at first, then you'll realize it's fucking hilarious.
Feels just as good when your on the opposite side too. Was fighting up near the enemies side of the board, reinforcements came in, two light mechs immediately swarm around my Heavy - one to the right, one to the rear left. Front right guy immediately eats an AC10 round to the face, he's gone, and then in the melee phase, Mekamek tells me "yea you can still punch that other guy behind you" - Well if the rules apparently allow it, I'm game. Took his head clean off, and the only way that contortion woulda worked would be with a blind backhand - The mental image still has me smiling.

I think my favorite loss was a duel that was generated, first round my Awesome takes an extreme range lrm to the face - just one, and the pilot whiffs the save and blacks out right then and then refused to wake up the rest of the fight. Surrendered after two more turns and an engine crit on the helpless metal coffin. The guy I promoted from her unit faired better for the rest of the campaign, at least.
 
Feels just as good when your on the opposite side too. Was fighting up near the enemies side of the board, reinforcements came in, two light mechs immediately swarm around my Heavy - one to the right, one to the rear left. Front right guy immediately eats an AC10 round to the face, he's gone, and then in the melee phase, Mekamek tells me "yea you can still punch that other guy behind you" - Well if the rules apparently allow it, I'm game. Took his head clean off, and the only way that contortion woulda worked would be with a blind backhand - The mental image still has me smiling.

I think my favorite loss was a duel that was generated, first round my Awesome takes an extreme range lrm to the face - just one, and the pilot whiffs the save and blacks out right then and then refused to wake up the rest of the fight. Surrendered after two more turns and an engine crit on the helpless metal coffin. The guy I promoted from her unit faired better for the rest of the campaign, at least.
When it was still viewable as a guest, PoptartsNinja's Battletech AU game had some great moments. One involved a Rifleman from Camacho's Caballeros punting another mech's head clean off. (Higher elevation = you can kick them in the face)
 
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Something I was wondering about, what Piloting and Firing skill do you guys give your pilots? Do you just run with the standard?
Depends on if it's a game or a campaign.

Overall, though, I recommend a minimum of Gun 4/Pilot 5. That's generally speaking enough to make most standard checks. You're always looking to get your to-hit number down to seven, as that's the most common result on 2d6.
 
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