Battletech - Also known as Trannytech

[Tenko Star]

Interestingly (and unsurprisingly), clanners have worse vehicle crews, so IS enjoys a slight edge over clans in that regard... speaking of which, are tanks worth it in the tabletop game?

Vees are situational at best, especially if you're not playing with the Tac Ops rules that give them specific advantages. If you're playing on a map with a lot of open area, or even better, large areas of water, heavily armed hovercraft like the Saladin can be useful as rapid reaction forces given their speed (and in the case of the Saladin, their BFG) because to hovers the sea is like a motorway. In heavily built-up or otherwise constricted terrain that restricts long-range fire, tanks like the Demolisher are useful given their heavy armour and weapons, and the classic SRM carrier ambush is a doable fallback. Armoured personnel carriers are useful especially if you're fielding battle armour units. Otherwise 'Mechs rule the battlefield - it's better to take a fewer number of units unless you're trying to "swamp" the opposition like the Scorpion Nest scenario in the Technical Readout, and that leads to long games and frowns from the opponent.

Vehicles also suffer from not only their fragility (any destructive hit to one facing kills the vee) but from mobility issues as well. Hovers are useless in constricted terrain and wheeled vehicles like the Hetzer had better say on the roads or suffer from mobility issues. But if you wish to field tanks as a part of a combined arms force (like the Com Guard, for example, or a more budget-conscious mercenary unit) there are perfectly viable tanks you can use. Introtech has the Lyran duo of Patton/Rommel, the Capellans sell Po tanks to everyone, plus Manticores are well-rounded and ubiquitous and Schreks are Awesomes on treads; I already mentioned the situational utility of the Saladin and the Demolisher. Once Lostech kicks in, you have things like the Regulator, a hovercraft with a Gauss rifle to buddy up with the short-range Saladins or work as a pair/lance of high speed headchoppers.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

I had to check, and TSM was available in the original TRO3050, but it states in the back that only one 'Mech has been fitted with the proper myomer (not the vulnerable-to-magic-gas version that the Capellans had) but since my record sheets are cunningly hiding I have no way to check which one it was. However, my guess this lone 'Mech would be the Yen-Lo-Wang, which was explicitly given TSM in the Clan invasion trilogy with the Gauss rifle and the full Clovis Holstein infodump.

I can't get my copy of SSW to open to double check, but Sarna does seem to indicate that it was indeed Yen-Lo-Wang that had the first working TSM, although Tech Manual states the Cappies had perfected it in 3050 as well. I keep thinking the Berserker was the first proper TSM mech, but a quick run through of Sarna makes me doubt that. I know later variants did, but I don't know if any of the original TRO3055 mechs ran TSM either.

 

[Urbanmech]

Yeah, I wanted to highlight that even before taking the difference in pilot skill into account, merely by going by the mechs, 5 clan mechs are in the ballpark of 8 IS mechs.

If you get a Timber Wolf Prime with the standard 3/4 Clan pilot, it comes to 3,777 BV. For this, you can get two AWS-8Q Awesomes with 4/5 pilots for 3,210 BV. Upgrading one of the pilots to 3/4 would bring it to 3,820 BV, and give you some benefit for when the Timber Wolf starts to force targetting penalties on you (they're much faster, so they will have a great deal of control of the battle even outnumbered.) Plus any Clan player who begrudged you a 50-point disadvantage in BV would be a massive twat.

Exhibit A to how fast FASA was fixing their massive Clan fuckup. Clans came out in 1990, the first iteration of the BV system came out in 1994......

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

Triple strength myomer (TSM) wasn't lostech. It grew out of the 'super-myomer' that the Federated Suns palmed off on the Capellans during the Fourth Succession War. That myomer was unusually strong, but if it was exposed to a specific gaseous compound, it caught on fire, which is kind of bad.

Speed is one of the things that really gives the Clans an edge. To use past examples, a seventy-five ton Mad Cat can move 5/8, whereas most IS designs in that weight category don't usually go faster than 4/6. Those movement modifiers can stack up, and there's nothing in zellbringen that says you have to stand in the open.

IMO, the big drawback for the Clans were the massive damage and range boosts their weapons enjoyed over IS counterparts. Clan ER PPCs deal fifteen damage versus a typical IS's ten (not getting into snub-nose or heavy PPCs here). Clan large pulse lasers are also massive offenders, dealing 10 damage but having a max 20 hex range, while the IS LPL has a rather anemic range of 10 and damage of 9. Clan LRMs have no minimum range, while IS LRMs have a six hex minimum range (which isn't untenable, but unless you have excellent gunnery skills the penalties will fuck you hard).

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Exhibit A to how fast FASA was fixing their massive Clan fuckup. Clans came out in 1990, the first iteration of the BV system came out in 1994......

Was there no balancing system implemented at all?

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

Triple strength myomer (TSM) wasn't lostech. It grew out of the 'super-myomer' that the Federated Suns palmed off on the Capellans during the Fourth Succession War. That myomer was unusually strong, but if it was exposed to a specific gaseous compound, it caught on fire, which is kind of bad.

I love the lore on that one. Hanse Davion was a Magnificent Bastard and the amount of fuckery he threw the Cappie's way is amusing. Pity his son turned out to be a manlet only good for plowing the daughters of successor lords.

Was there no balancing system implemented at all?

3025 didn't really need a balance system. The Clans broke everything, as a "fair" fight between the sphere and clans was something like Company (12 Mechs) vs. Star (5 Mechs) at first.

 

[Jebu Nagazi]

Somehow i find this video very relevant to this thread ^^ !

TRANSformers

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[Urbanmech]

Was there no balancing system implemented at all?

There was none except for house rules. The Clan Wolf book in 1991 sort of brought about Zellbrigen but it wasn't clear and usually was broken so often it was pointless. So usually ended up being house rules that eventually lead to the BV system.

IMO, the big drawback for the Clans were the massive damage and range boosts their weapons enjoyed over IS counterparts. Clan ER PPCs deal fifteen damage versus a typical IS's ten (not getting into snub-nose or heavy PPCs here). Clan large pulse lasers are also massive offenders, dealing 10 damage but having a max 20 hex range, while the IS LPL has a rather anemic range of 10 and damage of 9. Clan LRMs have no minimum range, while IS LRMs have a six hex minimum range (which isn't untenable, but unless you have excellent gunnery skills the penalties will fuck you hard).

Lets not forget with the Targetting Comps and better pilots the Clans totally eliminated the IS Light Mechs until ECM became a thing. Also the fact that Clan Mechs had more weaponry than their IS equivelants... I mean how many IS Assault Mechs in 3050 could match a Madcat?

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

There was none except for house rules. The Clan Wolf book in 1991 sort of brought about Zellbrigen but it wasn't clear and usually was broken so often it was pointless. So usually ended up being house rules that eventually lead to the BV system.


Lets not forget with the Targetting Comps and better pilots the Clans totally eliminated the IS Light Mechs until ECM became a thing. Also the fact that Clan Mechs had more weaponry than their IS equivelants... I mean how many IS Assault Mechs in 3050 could match a Madcat?

TCs were bad, but long range pulse is just horrendous. You're not wrong about the weight differences though. Hell, Clan XL engines were less of an issue because a Clan mech could survive losing the side torsos those criticals were in. Meanwhile, an IS mech with XL was dead if it lost a side torso.

I honestly wonder if Clan units were never originally designed to be 'played' and were supposed to be GM-run units to challenge elite players.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

I honestly wonder if Clan units were never originally designed to be 'played' and were supposed to be GM-run units to challenge elite players.

Sounds kinda like it, but even if that was the case, it would always end up in the hands of at least some players. It's like in DnD, if you stat it, the players will kill it.

 

[Urbanmech]

TCs were bad, but long range pulse is just horrendous. You're not wrong about the weight differences though. Hell, Clan XL engines were less of an issue because a Clan mech could survive losing the side torsos those criticals were in. Meanwhile, an IS mech with XL was dead if it lost a side torso.

I honestly wonder if Clan units were never originally designed to be 'played' and were supposed to be GM-run units to challenge elite players.

I mean the fact that a Madcat (75T) can outgun an Atlas (100T) should have been a big red flag on how unbalanced the Clans were, but FASA pushed forward anyways.

 

[White Devil]

I wonder if it would be feasible to set up a Kiwi Megamek campaign. Enough of us seem to be TT autists so it should probably be viable.

 

[Urbanmech]

So for those that had issues with The Argo just slide to the 1 hour mark....maybe a few mins before for another episode of Steiner Scout Lance.

https://youtu.be/zmBOcV5303w

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Played the Raven-Flashpoint in HBS BT yesterday, story- and mission-wise it's one of the more interesting Flashpoints I had this far, but damn did they drop the ball in the last mission.
Spoilers for the last mission:
You get a prototype Raven, a Trebuchet, a Javelin and a Griffin and you're up against a bunch of Trebuchets, Locusts, Strikers and LRM Carriers, also there's 4 light LRM Turrets and a base you need to destroy. The big idea is to use the Raven's ECM mechanics to roflstomp the opposition and you get a little tutorial to explain how ECM works, but at some point, HBS completely altered how ECM works, so the tutorial is pretty much useless and ECM is barely worth anything, it seems. The way how they reworked ECM means that the worst possible mission profile for ECM is the one that you need to play to win the mission... Still do-able but sort of annoying...
In theory, the ECM might be nice in this game (at least from a gameplay mechanic POV, it might be fun to use), but the game gives me absolutely no incentive to pick anything other than Assault mechs.

So yeah, my regular Lance is one Atlas II with too many weapons to count, a Highlander 732 with a Gauss rifle and 2 ER PPCs, an Awesome 8T for indirect fire support and a Maurauder with a Gauss Rifle and a Large Laser to decapitate any motherfucker that scratches my paintjobs. Which one of these beasts would I drop in favor of a gimmicky 35 tonner and what would I have to gain by doing so? Any advantage the ECM gives me pales in comparison to the ability to slap someone's shit from half across the map 4 big guys.

Also, whenever I get a random event (also applies to Flashpoint decisions) where I need to choose between several options, I never feel like I can confidently pick one, it always feels like the game goes out of its way to misinterpret your choice in the worst way possible... and that is if the game doesn't decide to fuck me over for some RNG bullshit. So you rarely feel like picking the best or most fitting option, but rather the one that has less potential for bullshit outcomes. Still it finds ways to fuck you over.
There's one such event where you get hailed by another merc group who inform you that one of your mercs is untrustworthy and should be fired. My options: 1) Ignore the message 2) dismiss the Merc and 3) Talk to the merc. So I figured I might talk to the guy to find out what the fuck is going on, turns out this option means you confront the merc and he gets pissy and receives a permanent negative attribute (these pilot traits are bullshit, too. They influence the gameplay but you have absolutely no idea how). It's a pet peeve of mine in videogames to be given unclear options that end up being completely different than what you wanted.

It's nice to have random events, I really liked them at the beginning, but the more often you end up with an unexpected bullshit outcome, the more likely I am to just roll my eyes now when a new one pops up.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

Played the Raven-Flashpoint in HBS BT yesterday, story- and mission-wise it's one of the more interesting Flashpoints I had this far, but damn did they drop the ball in the last mission.
Spoilers for the last mission:
You get a prototype Raven, a Trebuchet, a Javelin and a Griffin and you're up against a bunch of Trebuchets, Locusts, Strikers and LRM Carriers, also there's 4 light LRM Turrets and a base you need to destroy. The big idea is to use the Raven's ECM mechanics to roflstomp the opposition and you get a little tutorial to explain how ECM works, but at some point, HBS completely altered how ECM works, so the tutorial is pretty much useless and ECM is barely worth anything, it seems. The way how they reworked ECM means that the worst possible mission profile for ECM is the one that you need to play to win the mission... Still do-able but sort of annoying...
In theory, the ECM might be nice in this game (at least from a gameplay mechanic POV, it might be fun to use), but the game gives me absolutely no incentive to pick anything other than Assault mechs.

So yeah, my regular Lance is one Atlas II with too many weapons to count, a Highlander 732 with a Gauss rifle and 2 ER PPCs, an Awesome 8T for indirect fire support and a Maurauder with a Gauss Rifle and a Large Laser to decapitate any motherfucker that scratches my paintjobs. Which one of these beasts would I drop in favor of a gimmicky 35 tonner and what would I have to gain by doing so? Any advantage the ECM gives me pales in comparison to the ability to slap someone's shit from half across the map 4 big guys.

Also, whenever I get a random event (also applies to Flashpoint decisions) where I need to choose between several options, I never feel like I can confidently pick one, it always feels like the game goes out of its way to misinterpret your choice in the worst way possible... and that is if the game doesn't decide to fuck me over for some RNG bullshit. So you rarely feel like picking the best or most fitting option, but rather the one that has less potential for bullshit outcomes. Still it finds ways to fuck you over.
There's one such event where you get hailed by another merc group who inform you that one of your mercs is untrustworthy and should be fired. My options: 1) Ignore the message 2) dismiss the Merc and 3) Talk to the merc. So I figured I might talk to the guy to find out what the fuck is going on, turns out this option means you confront the merc and he gets pissy and receives a permanent negative attribute (these pilot traits are bullshit, too. They influence the gameplay but you have absolutely no idea how). It's a pet peeve of mine in videogames to be given unclear options that end up being completely different than what you wanted.

It's nice to have random events, I really liked them at the beginning, but the more often you end up with an unexpected bullshit outcome, the more likely I am to just roll my eyes now when a new one pops up.

If they'd kept the medium range bracket and not made the to-hit penalties for movement decrease by being shot at, lighter mechs would be more viable. Honestly, they should have made assault mechs super rare. The industrial powers of the Sphere, the FWL and the Lyrans, each produced just over a regiment worth of assault mechs a year and most went to replace losses.

Also your 8T hurts my soul.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

If they'd kept the medium range bracket and not made the to-hit penalties for movement decrease by being shot at, lighter mechs would be more viable. Honestly, they should have made assault mechs super rare. The industrial powers of the Sphere, the FWL and the Lyrans, each produced just over a regiment worth of assault mechs a year and most went to replace losses.

Also your 8T hurts my soul.

I'm sorry, I know the 8T is an afront to god and everything that is good and just, but to make up for it I have a classic 8Q and whenever I go to a polar biome, that thing is allowed to let loose to its heart's content.
Maybe I just have to retool a Stalker into an Assault fire support mech, so I can retire the 8T for good.

Assault mechs are way too abundant, I agree, it would be nice if there was a gameplay mechanic that made it more or less unfeasible to have more than 2 or 3 active ones.
The game has to discourage full Assault Lances somehow or at least make it less of a hassle to reactivate mechs after storing them. I've played for such a long time, I own almost any mech and currently have the option of going full Steiner Scout Squad, fielding 4 Atlas mechs at once... I would love to store some of those in favor of lighter ones, but if I'm not mistaken, I have to manually re-equip every mech I pull from storage and some of those are modified so heavily, I just don't feel like it. So I get a shitload of assault mechs for regular play, even though I'd love to hold on to some fun medium or heavy ones like the Hunchback or Thunderbolt.

In the Raven Flashpoint, I actually had trouble fielding a lance, cause I mainly run Assault mechs. You're not allowed to use a mech with more than 55tons and the lance should be around 260 tons, tops...
Ultimately, the only active Mechs that fit that profile, that I could muster, ended up: A Shadowhawk 2H, the stock Blackjack from the start of the game and... 2 Urbies. Ultra AC-2 and Snub PPC on an Urbanmech R-60 is pretty hilarious.

Also, a bit of a nitpick, but it's kind of odd how no contract-giver cares about copious amounts of destruction in urban environments. I had a mission where my fighting leveled an entire block and no one cares. Would be a nice game mechanic, if the game kept notes of destruction and civilian casualties... Maybe some people would go "acceptable losses", some might see it even as a bonus (damn Capellans) and some others might find them absolutely unacceptable. Would spice things up in urban combat for sure.

 

[White Devil]

I'm sorry, I know the 8T is an afront to god and everything that is good and just, but to make up for it I have a classic 8Q and whenever I go to a polar biome, that thing is allowed to let loose to its heart's content.
Maybe I just have to retool a Stalker into an Assault fire support mech, so I can retire the 8T for good.

Assault mechs are way too abundant, I agree, it would be nice if there was a gameplay mechanic that made it more or less unfeasible to have more than 2 or 3 active ones.
The game has to discourage full Assault Lances somehow or at least make it less of a hassle to reactivate mechs after storing them. I've played for such a long time, I own almost any mech and currently have the option of going full Steiner Scout Squad, fielding 4 Atlas mechs at once... I would love to store some of those in favor of lighter ones, but if I'm not mistaken, I have to manually re-equip every mech I pull from storage and some of those are modified so heavily, I just don't feel like it. So I get a shitload of assault mechs for regular play, even though I'd love to hold on to some fun medium or heavy ones like the Hunchback or Thunderbolt.

In the Raven Flashpoint, I actually had trouble fielding a lance, cause I mainly run Assault mechs. You're not allowed to use a mech with more than 55tons and the lance should be around 260 tons, tops...
Ultimately, the only active Mechs that fit that profile, that I could muster, ended up: A Shadowhawk 2H, the stock Blackjack from the start of the game and... 2 Urbies. Ultra AC-2 and Snub PPC on an Urbanmech R-60 is pretty hilarious.

Also, a bit of a nitpick, but it's kind of odd how no contract-giver cares about copious amounts of destruction in urban environments. I had a mission where my fighting leveled an entire block and no one cares. Would be a nice game mechanic, if the game kept notes of destruction and civilian casualties... Maybe some people would go "acceptable losses", some might see it even as a bonus (damn Capellans) and some others might find them absolutely unacceptable. Would spice things up in urban combat for sure.

While I get your point, I don't think freedom should be sacrificed to forced mechanics due to bad game design.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

While I get your point, I don't think freedom should be sacrificed to forced mechanics due to bad game design.

Well, it goes without saying that a game design that makes various lance compositions viable would be best... Stomping around with two Urbies was a lot of fun and I'd love to have missions with like one or two skulls to train my lesser experienced pilots in more humble mechs...

 

[White Devil]

Well, it goes without saying that a game design that makes various lance compositions viable would be best... Stomping around with two Urbies was a lot of fun and I'd love to have missions with like one or two skulls to train my lesser experienced pilots in more humble mechs...

There's no perfect way to do it but honestly the way Troontechs "difficulty" and "balance" is set up, you HAVE to take an assault lance. Both of those things would have to be completely redone in order to have actual lance diversity.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Yeah. I'm not sure what they did wrong (I mean, the game is fun for the most part), but I don't think it's the fact you face several lances worth of enemies alone. You fight many opponents and they are too heavy, so you are forced to pick the heaviest hitters you can find and then put them in a forest or dust devil to gain that bulwark bonus while the other guy stands in the open.
I think the main problem is that essentially every weight class (other than lights, maybe) plays exactly like this: dig in and slug it out. No matter if it's the 50 ton Hunchback or the 100 ton King Crab, they play pretty much alike, try to get into a good position, dig in and then take potshots at the enemy, so there is no advantage of picking a lighter mech...
If, for instance, scouts retained their evasion charges and were the only mechs capable of spotting for indirect fire, they'd have a very strong advantage over heavier mechs.
You might build a lance of quick mechs that are meant to do hit-and-run attacks, you might see some success, but nothing even remotely as effective as just putting together 4 assaults and lobbing PPC bolts at your enemy from a safe spot in a forest.

Unfortunately, I don't remember how MechCommander handled lategame difficulty, I guess enemy-spam was important in that regard, too, but I think it was a lot more clever with its mission designs... and it would certainly help if maps were larger.

Eh. A bit of a sidenote, but isn't it weird? The campaign makes such a fuss about destroying the generators for turrets, yet that game mechanic is nowhere to be seen in regular missions?
With a larger map, you could have a generator house with some defenses set up and the player can either attempt to strike there (which has some risk and might take time he needs for the mission) or go for the base and mess around with the turrets... It's just weird that they introduce that aspect to the game and then never use it outside of a few missions in the campaign. It's also a let-down that you rarely get to play a mission with turret on your side...