Battletech - Also known as Trannytech

Capsaicin Addict said:
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.
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Right now im playing a single player megamek campaign starting in 3025, so my HQ lance contains 5 mechs of a blackjack with 2 large lasers 2 medium, 2 Guillotine variants with either a large laser or PPC and a huge bank of medium lasers, a Phionix that is 5/8/5, and an Archer with LRM out the ass. All at least 4/6/4. Kicking ass and taking names.
 
Deepthoughts said:
Right now im playing a single player megamek campaign starting in 3025, so my HQ lance contains 5 mechs of a blackjack with 2 large lasers 2 medium, 2 Guillotine variants with either a large laser or PPC and a huge bank of medium lasers, a Phionix that is 5/8/5, and an Archer with LRM out the ass. All at least 4/6/4. Kicking ass and taking names.
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...Phoenix Hawk? Are you using customs? Phoenix Hawks are 6/9 or 6/9/6 depending on variant I think. I don't remember any canon BJ variants that used LLs, there's a variant or two with PPCs I think.
 
I will say those are all pretty ubiquitous chassis (I think they'd show up in most Great House unit comps because of that), are you doing just one-offs or a merc campaign or a House campaign or what
 
Wasteland Ranger said:
I will say those are all pretty ubiquitous chassis (I think they'd show up in most Great House unit comps because of that), are you doing just one-offs or a merc campaign or a House campaign or what
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Its to keep the repair easy as possible. Its been my experience 3025 is hard to do quality, custom builds. The mechs on sale do a good job. 3025 just doesnt have a lot of work room for custom, quality builds. For the most part they just seem to work.
 
Deepthoughts said:
For all the true Battletech sluts what is best tabletop, mechwarrior online, or battletech turn based?
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I know I sing its praises a lot, but Alpha Strike for me.

Why?

Because with an opponent who knows what they're doing, I can start and finish a 8v8 (or 8v5 if one of us is playing Clan) game in a single lunch break.
 
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Corn Flakes said:
I know I sing its praises a lot, but Alpha Strike for me.

Why?

Because with an opponent who knows what they're doing, I can start and finish a 8v8 (or 8v5 if one of us is playing Clan) game in a single lunch break.
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Can’t Argue over how fast alpha strike games can be. Classic BattleTech is not known for speed unless you’re doing a one on one
 
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MWLL is an often overlooked gem of a game, too. Unfortunately somewhat low on players, but the game is a lot of fun and it's the only game I know that does battle armor, vehicles, mechs and even planes.
Managed to knock out an assault mech as a battle armor with a lucky PPC hit to the cockpit once. So satisfying.
 
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RomanesEuntDomus said:
MWLL is an often overlooked gem of a game, too. Unfortunately somewhat low on players, but the game is a lot of fun and it's the only game I know that does battle armor, vehicles, mechs and even planes.
Managed to knock out an assault mech as a battle armor with a lucky PPC hit to the cockpit once. So satisfying.
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I want to like MWLL but it's pretty dead and it's hard to get newbies in because most everyone still playing is at least pretty fucking good and they're not gonna pull punches. I love a lot of the latest additions to the mech/tank stables, the MWLL Marauder pretty much fixes my one gripe with the MWO Marauder (the distinctive dorsal gun).
 
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The problem with MWLL is that it's made on an engine that in no way was ever conceptualized on what they forced it to do. That's why it was never as popular as it could have been. Once MWO was out (and PGI tried to lawfare them into the dirt) that was the death knell for MWLL.
 
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MWLL also lacks the weight that I like to see in BattleMechs. Everything feels like it's floating there, nothing has inertia, and the maps are so open sometimes you lose sense of the scale of the 'Mech and feel you're just playing a soldier with an extremely flexible waist. MWO has that issue to a smaller degree, but at least their animations carry the feeling of mass a little better.
 
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Yeah, the game has it's issues but I do have to cut it some slack, since it's free and all. I can forgive the wonky aspects of the engine easily with that in mind...

But as for the dead playerbase, yeah, that sucks. The few people still around are people who will toast your buns within seconds while you're still trying to figure out how to switch to chain fire.

Edit: I played MWLL when it was relatively new and ditched it shortly before the C&D thing hitting them (scumbag move, that one was), the ragdoll physics on the mechs was even stranger back then compared to now... You'd literally launch mechs 10m into the air upon defeating them, it was weird as fuck... but when you hop out of the mech and buzz around in the battle armor, that sense of scale is suddenly back. Zipping around on a jetpack, trying to duke it out with some mech is really amazing. Being able to leap from skyscraper to skyscraper too.
The mechs should move a bit more slowly and give you that feel of a massive machine shaking the ground with every step, and it would be perfect.
 
White Devil said:
The problem with MWLL is that it's made on an engine that in no way was ever conceptualized on what they forced it to do. That's why it was never as popular as it could have been. Once MWO was out (and PGI tried to lawfare them into the dirt) that was the death knell for MWLL.
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MWO's not much better re: engine issues (especially if you believe PGI's lines about crap like FFA being impossible because muh 2 team limitation in CryEngine, because I'm not sure I believe that shit for a second). That said yeah it'd be nice if someone came along and UE'd a proper MWO/NetMech/etc. successor into existence. Still cracks me up that even with UE at their disposal PGI cranked out something that could only be described as "minimally viable" if you were being CHARITABLE with MW5M.
 
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I have nothing good to say about PGI or MWO. I'd kill for a modern remake of MPBT 3025 (the game PGI tried to rip off with their Faction game mode) though. Closest we've come to that was Chromehounds.
 
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White Devil said:
I have nothing good to say about PGI or MWO. I'd kill for a modern remake of MPBT 3025 (the game PGI tried to rip off with their Faction game mode) though. Closet we've come to that was Chromehounds.
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God the mistakes made with the implementation of Faction Play are so numerous and so egregious you'd SWEAR they were deliberately sabotaging themselves. FP was supposed to be the main attraction, QP was supposed to be relegated to a kind of live-fire training mode and one-off pick-up games.

1. Queue-dodging being done by some major units in FP was really bad.
2. For a mode centered around long-term goals of conquest it did a BAD job of making you feel like there was any real impact for taking a planet/holding a planet, and this only got worse as time went on.
3. Long Tom alone soured a lot of people because while it's a cool idea its implementation led to obscene steamrolls and pugfarming. Some folks found clever workarounds due how its targeting worked, but that just accelerated its demise.
4. There was no fucking decent tutorial for the mode just like the tutorials for the rest of the game are spartan and fail miserably at preparing players for even T3-level play in other queues.

Then there was the shitshow of S7 mode which diverted resources into a dead-end of gameplay, a mode that is actually even less populated than all the other modes because it gets so stale so fast. MUH ESPORTS THOUGH.
 
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They tried so hard to make mwo esports from the beginning despite most of their targeted playerbase at the time not wanting it. I remember everyone on IRC speaking against it to Paul Inoyue directly... So what do they do? Try to make it esports right off the bat and fail miserably.
 
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White Devil said:
They tried so hard to make mwo esports from the beginning despite most of their targeted playerbase at the time not wanting it. I remember everyone on IRC speaking against it to Paul Inoyue directly... So what do they do? Try to make it esports right off the bat and fail miserably.
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First rule of Paul Inouye: If it's not his idea it's shit. If it's his idea, it's great and don't you dare suggest otherwise.
Second rule of Paul Inouye: Please be patient he has the dumb. This is a guy who fucking ran a Catapult-K2 with 4 Medium Pulses and 2 Machine Guns completely fucking unironically. He does not even understand HIS OWN GAME.
Third rule of Paul Inouye: What he says he'll do and what he will do are almost never the same thing. Talk about the state of playbalance and queue composition? Sure, in December January February March SOON because he's SOOOO busy with MW5M DLC oh that we're delaying it because uhhh CP2077
 
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I really enjoyed MWLL, but its not as much fun anymore

On the plus side, you knnow almost everyone by this time and its a pretty damn fine group of people who truely love the game. Fair play is more important then winning and swapping teams to keep balance is very common. Like I said a great group of peeps who just like to play the game.

On the other hand, everyone's been playing for like 10 years so matches can very very brutal and not always in a good way.

What MWLL needs is a streamer to join up and bring new blood to the game, hardly anyone even in the BTech community knows about MWLL, hell I only learned about it because a buddy was playing,

I would love to see a MWLL renascence but I think the game will continue to slowly die as less and less peeps are online every weekend.
 
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MWLL was great for it's time despite it's well known issues. Unfortunately there's just really no other game to play besides mwo/mw5 unless you can convince people to play MW4 or Netmech with you.
 
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