- Joined
- Jun 25, 2020
How long until they start going, "Clan X has always had queer subtext."?
Battletech - Also known as Trannytech
- Thread starter Frosted Snowflakes
- Start date
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2020
Even in the Magistracy, once you step away from Canopus IV itself and the other tourist-centric worlds, you can bet your ass people get a lot less tolerant simply because there's a lot less to go around when you're living on Royal Foxx or Techne's Revenge and you don't get DropShips landing with immigrants and imported supplies every other day like Canopus does.
As I said a few months ago, BattleTech is the ultimate in progressive warfare: I don't care how you look, who you fuck, and what you call yourself, if you can strap yourself into a cockpit and ruin the other guy's shit to a satisfactory degree, you're in.
It's damn near impossible to find a modding community that isn't overrun with troons these days. The gendercult preys on the awkward and the autistic, and you need a severe level of autism just to get your foot in the door when it comes to modding games.
I haven't see anything with "queer" bullshit, but I remember a long while back some 1/16th Indian speds trying to gatekeep Clan Coyote because of muh white man appropriating native traditions or some bullshit like that. It was before social media took off, so their little campaign never really went anywhere.
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2015
So with MWOs team moving on and same with MW5 team, what's up with MWO pushing new stuff rumors of tech boost to FCCW era and new patches new map etc?
Also report from my weekly TT night, the Drac Pixie still sucks who makes a scout with no JJs?
Also report from my weekly TT night, the Drac Pixie still sucks who makes a scout with no JJs?
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2020
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2016
They wouldn't just go for some clan, it would need to be one that's iconic and in the spotlight. So Wolf or Jade Falcon (most likely the latter).
Elisabeth Hazen was trans, you heard it here first.
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2020
I would say that most Periphery states (perhaps save the Marian hegemony) could be considered as "woke": open migration, accepting of all ways of life. Though there is a caveat: you have to pull your weight or you get laughed at and fleeced. The Magistracy might be the most degenerate but even their porn industry is regulated (and they keep their hardcore stuff inside the Magistracy). There are a few other places like Herotitus or Luna's New Vegas and Coperniocus cities where degeneracy reigns supreme though. Of course we also have nations like the Combine where men are often viewed as superior to women but women hold as often high positions as men (the Combine had more female rulers then the Fed Suns for example)
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2020
There is nothing woke about Periphery states accepting refugees the way they do.
For one, they universally demand service, if not full fealty, to the state. Any immigrants or refugees are expected to pull their weight. They're not there for political point-scoring, they're there to do work.
For two, large-scale civilian movement is rare in the Inner Sphere. Space travel is expensive, and most civilians in the Inner Sphere will never leave their planet. There's also no such thing as throngs of migrants crossing the Rio Grande: even the largest DropShips rated for transporting humans can't pack in more than a thousand passengers for a long trip. Between food and sanitary requirements, there's a very definite limit to how many people you can move. You'll notice that infantry capacity isn't listed on most military DropShips either, with even dedicated troop transport craft carrying fewer than 400 soldiers in total. Even with full-sized WarShips at their disposal, the Exodus Fleet (almost 6 million people) still transported fewer than 1000 people per craft available to it, including crew.
So, anyone with the resources to not only leave their planet, but also reach the Periphery, is likely someone with useful skills and education, or at the very least a lot of motivation. While there would definitely be the occasional DropShip packed to the gills with dirt-poor refugees plucked straight from the maws of famine, most of the time the people requesting asylum in Canopus IV would be political refugees. And the Centrellas are a pragmatic family: the aren't accepting people out of the goodness of their soft female hearts, they're casting a wide net so they can nab themselves the occasional luminary and/or technological/political/military secret for their own gain, and any additional manpower they can slot into their industries, trained or untrained is just a bonus. And despite priding themselves in having an open and free society, the Magistracy is not averse to siccing the MIM on particularly dangerous/loud migrants either.
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2015
We're not allowed nice things
We got a few DLCs at least. Guess we never are getting our MWO/MW5 crud
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2019
Damn shame. I was hoping the Kestrel DLC would be a prototype for an expanded campaign, but alas...We're not allowed nice things
We got a few DLCs at least. Guess we never are getting our MWO/MW5 crud
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2016
I'm currently playing through the flashpoint campaigns one by one and they are generally fun enough to play, but the writers seriously don't understand how politics work, how being a mercenary works and so on.
All flashpoints have a decision that changes its course. In the best case scenario, it's strategic decisions like how you split up your forces, but there are so many decisions where they portray something the writers consider a choice based on morals, where you can decide to break your contract and side with the OpFor.
Their understanding is that you're a mercenary, so you can just do whatever cause breaking contracts is what mercs do, right?
Too bad there's this little thing called Mercenary Review Board and unless you want to end up working for really shitty contractors that might just kil you after your job is done to avoid paying you, you better honor your contracts, whether you like it or not.
So many flashpoints have a "well, we'll pay you double!" moment or a "you are working for the bad guys, we are the good guys, please help us!" moment and all I can say is "Sucks to be you, I'm contractually bound to put my boot up your ass."
It is kinda nice to have that choice, but it's mishandled terribly.
One of the missions features a Solaris gladiator and I sorta cringed when he first hailed me in the short interludes between missions:
But then I read that in voice of the Ultimate Warrior and it suddenly became totally awesome. Not gonna lie, I really enjoyed this flashpoint and I loved this guy as an adversary.
The flashpoint campaign though... holy shit. I was already really weary cause it is about following a mysterious ship called Dobrev that carries LosTech and seems to be jump-capable...
I was wondering if I misread the dialogues, since it is very well possible that this ship is just a dropship, that uses regular jumpships to travel, then I thought maybe the Dobrev itself is a JumpShip.
There is a mission where the ship is landed at a spaceport, so I was relieved that it seems to be a mere DropShip, but then the dialogue continues to explain that you need to finish your mission quickly, or else it might climb to orbit and... jump away. You read that right. The Dobrev is a ship capable of landing on a planet's surface and it carries a K-F drive.
So yeah, you're apparently following a very small WarShip, so I genuinely wonder if ComStar will nuke it into bits by the end of the campaign. I really hope so, cause as of now, it's ridiculous that this ship is allowed to tour around the Periphery. Every nation within 200LJ would be on a wild goose chase to hunt this ship down, while ComStar nukes every port and station that the ship had contact with.
All flashpoints have a decision that changes its course. In the best case scenario, it's strategic decisions like how you split up your forces, but there are so many decisions where they portray something the writers consider a choice based on morals, where you can decide to break your contract and side with the OpFor.
Their understanding is that you're a mercenary, so you can just do whatever cause breaking contracts is what mercs do, right?
Too bad there's this little thing called Mercenary Review Board and unless you want to end up working for really shitty contractors that might just kil you after your job is done to avoid paying you, you better honor your contracts, whether you like it or not.
So many flashpoints have a "well, we'll pay you double!" moment or a "you are working for the bad guys, we are the good guys, please help us!" moment and all I can say is "Sucks to be you, I'm contractually bound to put my boot up your ass."
It is kinda nice to have that choice, but it's mishandled terribly.
One of the missions features a Solaris gladiator and I sorta cringed when he first hailed me in the short interludes between missions:
But then I read that in voice of the Ultimate Warrior and it suddenly became totally awesome. Not gonna lie, I really enjoyed this flashpoint and I loved this guy as an adversary.
The flashpoint campaign though... holy shit. I was already really weary cause it is about following a mysterious ship called Dobrev that carries LosTech and seems to be jump-capable...
I was wondering if I misread the dialogues, since it is very well possible that this ship is just a dropship, that uses regular jumpships to travel, then I thought maybe the Dobrev itself is a JumpShip.
There is a mission where the ship is landed at a spaceport, so I was relieved that it seems to be a mere DropShip, but then the dialogue continues to explain that you need to finish your mission quickly, or else it might climb to orbit and... jump away. You read that right. The Dobrev is a ship capable of landing on a planet's surface and it carries a K-F drive.
So yeah, you're apparently following a very small WarShip, so I genuinely wonder if ComStar will nuke it into bits by the end of the campaign. I really hope so, cause as of now, it's ridiculous that this ship is allowed to tour around the Periphery. Every nation within 200LJ would be on a wild goose chase to hunt this ship down, while ComStar nukes every port and station that the ship had contact with.
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2020
"Player agency" be damned. A Mercenary unit that breaks their contract is soon finding itself without clients, or turning pirate.
If you've got a contract, all you can do is try to work around your orders. If my orders are simply to kick your ass I can still pick how hard to do it and which boot to use for it. But if the contract or the current set of orders specifically states "as hard as you can" and "size 13 steel-toed" you're shit out of luck unless my orders are so egregious I feel I can argue a legal breach of contract with the MRB.
Remember, class: mercenaries are by and large not good people. Want to retain your honor as a merc? Get someone who's damn good at reading and writing contracts and be very picky with what jobs you accept.
If you've got a contract, all you can do is try to work around your orders. If my orders are simply to kick your ass I can still pick how hard to do it and which boot to use for it. But if the contract or the current set of orders specifically states "as hard as you can" and "size 13 steel-toed" you're shit out of luck unless my orders are so egregious I feel I can argue a legal breach of contract with the MRB.
Remember, class: mercenaries are by and large not good people. Want to retain your honor as a merc? Get someone who's damn good at reading and writing contracts and be very picky with what jobs you accept.
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- Joined
- Mar 23, 2016
Yeah, it's kind of weird that I'd be bitching about player agency, since that's usually something I value a lot, but it's kinda naive how it is put into the Flashpoints.
To make a specific example:
There is a Flashpoint where the OpFor is the Lyran Commonwealth and in your first mission, you receive support from another mercenary unit, that has close ties to the local government.
The Flashpoint decision features an offer from the Lyran Commonwealth to take up a contract to eradicate the mercenary unit (or something to that effect) and the dialogue makes it seem like it would be totally valid to take that contract and that it is un-mercenary-like to refuse it, since it offers a really decent pay. But here's the issue: The mercenary unit might not be directly under control of the local government, but when I have a contract with the local government to fight against Steiner forces, I can't just accept a contract from said Steiner forces that directly weakens my original contract-givers.
It is really weird, since the game actually starts out with you being forced to take a shady deal without MRB oversight and how bad of an idea that is. So clearly, the makers of this game know that the MRB is serious business, they run a tight ship and pissing them off and ruining your rating is a really terrible idea.
And speaking of that, it's another example of wasted opportunities to not have a mechanic where your Merc-unit gets rated on how well they honor their contracts and some other parameters. It could be a nice game mechanic. The way it is now, you merely have a combat rating that increases the difficulty of the mission and nothing else.
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- Joined
- Jun 4, 2018
I still think the best Flashpoint campaign is the one with the guy who can't change his holo-avatar ( so he always appears as a parrot in communications) and he contracts you to salvage several tons of Star League era office supplies.
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2016
- Joined
- May 27, 2020
They... really didn't, though. That was the Falcons that went full Dresden on the place, and the number of people that know Alaric invited them is limited to his inner circle and Stone's cold, dead corpse. According to the book, the civil attitude seems to be along the lines of "at least it isn't the Falcons", which is bolstered by Alaric not forcing the Clan Way onto the general population. It seems that his general plan is to resurrect the Star League as a military junta government, and let's face it, the Inner Sphere isn't exactly short on those.
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2019
Falcons aside, didn't the Wolves do a fair bit of damage themselves? I'd need to go back and double-check to be certain, but IIRC Alaric went "lol nope" when Stone tried to pull a Tukayyid Gambit on the Wolves and lure them into set-piece proxy battles, and decided to just crush them wherever they were, even cities?
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2020
In fairness, that's nothing new. Fighting near an objective is the ideal, even if you're not a Clanner, but there are urban combat rules for a reason. Terra might have escaped the Succession Wars unscathed, but ever since the Blakists took over in 3058 it has seen a good amount of destruction. Even Terrans would recognize that war is war, what matters is how Alaric rebuilds what was destroyed.
That he didn't go Full Falcon (remember: Malvina Hazen's cruelty was legendary) also helps make him look good even after leveling a city or twenty. At least he was going for military targets, not just wanton destruction.
- Joined
- May 27, 2020
Yes, but both sides were being very wary about civilian casualties, with the Republic evacuating cities before making a stand in them. A lot of the fighting was either out in the wilderness or centered around the Redoubts, WoB-era fortresses built into the cities, and the Wolves don't pack a whole lot of general artillery. It was a pretty clean campaign, all told.
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2018
Hazen's behavior was right over the edge even for hardcore Clanners. There's a reason Hell's Horses disassociated themselves from the Jade Falcons.
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2020
When even other Clanners think you're over the top, you know you've got something special going on.
On the bright side, at least the Falcons got taken down the five or six pegs they needed. If only it hadn't been Clan Plot Armor doing it to them.