Battletech - Also known as Trannytech

Wasteland Ranger said:
Also, you'd think if it can handle what must be an ungodly amount of recoil and vibration from an AC/20 going full retard the mounts would only need a bit more reinforcement and adjustment to handle the single big shock of a Gauss Rifle firing. It's a slightly different animal, perhaps, and the slightly increased weight of the GR alone might make it harder to keep it flying out of the mech but... /shrug
Click to expand...
That's because autocannons are with rare exception, burst-fire weapons. AC/20's are also almost certainly lower velocity shells reliant on mass instead of velocity to do their damage, so instead of one big slam out the back you've got multiple, smaller ones. Gauss Rifles also fire fucking massive 300mm projectiles made of solid nickel-iron, so I don't think your average autocannon comes anywhere close to the sheer mass of shot that gets shoved down range, even when you factor in bursts being fired.
 
  • Informative
  • Like
  • Agree
Reactions: Allakazam223, RomanesEuntDomus and Corn Flakes
Snekposter said:
That's because autocannons are with rare exception, burst-fire weapons. AC/20's are also almost certainly lower velocity shells reliant on mass instead of velocity to do their damage, so instead of one big slam out the back you've got multiple, smaller ones. Gauss Rifles also fire fucking massive 300mm projectiles made of solid nickel-iron, so I don't think your average autocannon comes anywhere close to the sheer mass of shot that gets shoved down range, even when you factor in bursts being fired.
Click to expand...
ACs are also generally firing shells with explosive filler. Think less "tank round" and more "naval shell". Armor in BattleTech being what it is (that is: ablative), means that armor piercing characteristics are a secondary concern unless you're talking about specialist arounds. All you care about is putting energy on target, whether that's a point impact or an explosion. So even an AC/20 that fired a single shot per round (10 seconds) would be generating far less recoil than a Gauss Rifle because it's leisurely lobbing a 200 kilo shell packed with explosive goodness at the target.

Fun fact: recoil is already factored in the rules for autocannons! The stated reason why ACs go down in range as their size goes up is that... recoil makes them more difficult to aim so their effective range goes down. Which is how Snekposter here is correct in saying they're burst weapons. The Gauss Rifle, on the other hand, is a single-shot weapon, so recoil doesn't matter so long as your mounting hardware can take it and it's not threatening to tip the 'Mech over.
 
Corn Flakes said:
ACs are also generally firing shells with explosive filler. Think less "tank round" and more "naval shell".
Click to expand...
So about that bolt-action Thumper for an Atlas... you know there's short-barreled direct-fire variants of those pieces, right? Instead of the Thumper Artillery Piece, use a Thumper Cannon. Or a Sniper Cannon. Can even finally make the Long Tom a 'Mech rifle if you don't mind making it a break-open model.
 
Snekposter said:
So about that bolt-action Thumper for an Atlas... you know there's short-barreled direct-fire variants of those pieces, right? Instead of the Thumper Artillery Piece, use a Thumper Cannon. Or a Sniper Cannon. Can even finally make the Long Tom a 'Mech rifle if you don't mind making it a break-open model.
Click to expand...
Those artillery cannons are very weak, though. The Thumper Cannon is 10 tons for 5 splash damage on a single hex with less range than a LRM. That is pitiful. Sure, you could use it to annoy light 'Mechs relying on evasion more than armor by targeting the hex they're on, but if we're going stupid with it when we better go stupid with it and use a proper 15/5 gun.
 
Fair enough. I really didn't pay attention to the actual range brackets. Not a good time of day for trying to read stat blocks here.
 
  • Feels
Reactions: Corn Flakes
So... thoughts on C3 networks? The BV is kinda high, but given how much it improves hit probability, it seems rather nasty to deal with.
 
RomanesEuntDomus said:
So... thoughts on C3 networks? The BV is kinda high, but given how much it improves hit probability, it seems rather nasty to deal with.
Click to expand...
I can only speak from personal experience, but I adored them, especially against Clanners. I believe the Hussar was maligned in this thread, but I used a pair of them to always get in the back arc of my opponents, while the Thugs and Bombardiers would rain hell from a cozy distance.
 
Titan Lithos said:
I can only speak from personal experience, but I adored them, especially against Clanners. I believe the Hussar was maligned in this thread, but I used a pair of them to always get in the back arc of my opponents, while the Thugs and Bombardiers would rain hell from a cozy distance.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I was toying around with a DCMS C3 lance composition and ended up with a Naginata and a Ninja-To as heavy hitters with a Strider A and an Owens as spotters. The two lighter mechs can dash across the map, fire NARC beacons at everyone and mark them with their TAGS while the C3 slaves allow the heavy guys shower everyone with copious amounts of abuse at low to-hit rolls.

Unless the enemy gets up close to the Naginata and Ninja-To quickly to nullify the advantage of their C3 shenanigans, it'll be really painful for him.

Then again: This whole advantage becomes moot once the enemy smartly places a unit with ECM somewhere.
 
C3 can be very powerful if built corretly. My only problem with it while playing BattleTech is that it can slow the game down even more. More numbers to calculate, all that.

In Alpha Strike, though? It's a much faster game so it's perfectly fine. Being able to rush up a light 'Mech right up a flank and just pump those long range shots with more agreeable to-hit numbers is always wonderful.
 
My early love, my deep friend, my skeptical nemesis. Battletech is a system that I cut my teeth on when I was to dumb to know any better. Big robots that shoot stuff and things blow up. Anyone play? There is an open source game that follows the classic rule set called megamek. Develop and play regularly. Any battletech players out there?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Allakazam223
Deepthoughts said:
My early love, my deep friend, my skeptical nemesis. Battletech is a system that I cut my teeth on when I was to dumb to know any better. Big robots that shoot stuff and things blow up. Anyone play? There is an open source game that follows the classic rule set called megamek. Develop and play regularly. Any battletech players out there?
Click to expand...
...You're in a thread full of them.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Allakazam223
Deepthoughts said:
Yeah that sounds about right.
Click to expand...
There's a fucking thread on the first page, for fuck's sake. I seriously thought this was you bumping that because I can't believe you'd be retarded enough to ignore that to start this.
 
Deepthoughts said:
For fuck sakes, am I not allowed to drink a couple of pints and fuck around on the internet? Yeah I fucked up, and no i dont regret it.
Click to expand...
It's the internet. We can't distinguish between drunkenness and genuine stupidity.

Anyway, go post in the right thread.

ETA: looks like the mods did it already. Thanks, guys!
 
Last edited:
For all the true Battletech sluts what is best tabletop, mechwarrior online, or battletech turn based?

When you come to the conclusion that tabletop is king post your HQ lance.

Also, as long as you can stoamic still pictures floating around on a hex board megamek if anyone wants to play classic Battletech.
 
Deepthoughts said:
For all the true Battletech sluts what is best tabletop, mechwarrior online, or battletech turn based?

When you come to the conclusion that tabletop is king post your HQ lance.
Click to expand...
Tabletop, though I don't look down on people who enjoy MWO or BT.

I generally like medium to heavy machines, simply because I get irritated with the slow speed of assaults. The last tabletop game I was in, I played a Kuritan expatriate who drove a slightly-modified WVR-8K. Stripped out the ER medium laser and a heat sink in favor of another medium pulse laser.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Allakazam223
For about a year I played MWO and I really enjoyed it. Then a major patch came out and fucked everything up. This was maybe 5 years ago. As a FPS Battletech sim MWO its not bad. The more recent BT turn based game I cant stand, at least when it first came out. Can't choose how you really deploy and it was always a 2v1 or more match with LRM turrets and AI mechs that constantly had the ability to call shot. AI cheating is something I don't like.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: White Devil
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back