StevieLasVegas
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2019
Battletech - Also known as Trannytech
- Thread starter Frosted Snowflakes
- Start date
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2020
No idea what happened there. Found a working link and updated the post, though. I'd upload it here but I'd like to spare Null another 100mb of non-drama related bullshit.
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2020
True. In most novels after the Clan invasion we have the new shiny Mechs. The only time I can remeber one of the TRO mechs was the battle between Vandergriff and Searcy where Vandergriff piloted an upgraded Banshee.
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2016
And Vendergriff piloting an ancient Banshee design was part of his minority complex.
gods I love that novel
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2020
More likely because his stable wasn't able to afford higher class Mechs (unlike Searcy who first piloted a Dragon fire and then a Pillager). In his first battle he used a Striker Mech which is just as ancient. Heck when he fought against Kai and Galen he piloted a Goliath which isn't the best Mech for a stand up arena fight
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2016
I'm pretty certain that there's a part in the novel where Vandergriff reminiscents about how he resembles his mech, a beat-up old relic that people look down upon.
Of course him working for a low-tier stable was also part of the issue.
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2019
reminds of a discussion I saw on /tg/ recently where a paintfag got absolutely asspained that BT players just get their models table ready because they want to play with it, not going full tryhard to win painting contests and instagram likes.
plus it's not like it's as bad as it was "back then", prime + speedpaint (like gw contrast paint, but that shit's way overpriced) and you're already mostly done. then grab a pen for some basic paneling and it beats any silver/grey mini on the table.
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2022
Its also more fun to make your own models. Piranha's designs are overdesigned, soulless, eyecancer made in some randomizer modeling software addon.
It never ceases to be amusing when poking the beehive that is MWO's official site forums. Also don't need to pay insane amounts of money for basic color customization IRL. You criticize their game at all even for the slightest most benign reason, and it makes the resetera/neogaf thread look weak with the amount of socks and forum staff that show up and just immediately spam the warning button and thread with throwaway comments, then permaban within 30 seconds.
StevieLasVegas
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2019
I don't mind some of the redesigns that have popped up from Piranha's time holding the license. Hell, I like their version of the King Crab better than the original design. That being said, I fucking hate their Marauder design. If it was for the Marauder II, I don't think I'd mind the overtly big ass end that I know is for counterweight measures, but it looks too big for a heavy mech.
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2020
I hate most of the MWO redesigns, especially the Atlas. They turned my baby into a lumbering fat nigger.
The Centurion, Shadow Hawk, and Victor are alright though. They all started to look samey fairly soon.
The Centurion, Shadow Hawk, and Victor are alright though. They all started to look samey fairly soon.
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2019
Yeah I've downloaded it on my computer and been meaning to go through it because honestly it seems interesting.
500 pages though is alot and I'm still burning through the other splatbooks that are out there.
Speaking of Your guys. Any of you rabid monkeys created your own faction?
StevieLasVegas
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2019
If I want to use the merc group I made in RogueTech, I though up of Clarence "Madman" Muldoon's "Madders". All medium mechs, but to save their hides, the Trebuchet and the Hunchback 4J pepper the field with Thunder LRMs while the Blackjack and Phoenix Hawk that I somehow made into a PHX-1b Special without even trying to do so gun the enemy down while they traverse the minefield. To make things better, there's also a Yellow Jacket peppering the soon to be leg-less mech with a rail gun when RogueTech wasn't being a piece of shit and jamming the fucking gun. Damn thing was spending more time in the backfield waiting for the fucking thing to be operational again than it was shooting
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2020
There is something to be said for brevity being the soul of wit there. I have a feeling that book would do well being split into three 150-something page files, each focusing on its own thing, or simply having the text pared down somewhat. Each mech sheet there is at least twice as much text as what you'd see on a TRO, with a tiny font too. They managed to have too much fluff, and I say this as a guy who loves fluff.
I've got a couple merc groups going around, but I've had the most fun with my older unit: a roaming merc-pirate crew that usually sticks to the near-Periphery, but every 10 years or so goes on a Grand Tour of the Inner Sphere. They don't have any specific gimmicks, but it's fun to write the characters (the XO keeps being fitted with new cybernetics after getting shot up, for example) and it's a very convenient way to have a force potentially anywhere in the Inner Sphere at any given time.
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2019
My dudes are pretty much just a bunch of Mech Preservationist who where founded by a Lyrian Nobile just as the 1st SW kicked off. Majority of there contracts are just Salvage contracts which is double edge sword. Lets them work for dirt cheap for planets that cant afford em and butts head with most Houses when it comes to salvaging rights to those rare mechs they come across.
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2020
I used to do campaigns in MegaMek/MekHQ with friends but never made my own unit from the ground up. I always preferred to play House units over mercenaries, though.
Sumaire_STi
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2022
I appreciate the compliments, and I do sincerely hope you're enjoying it.
I do apologize if the lore is *too* dense in the TRO articles, though admittedly quite a bit of it is inflated because of descriptions of almost every variant so that people can recreate them if for whatever reason they don't have access to the original record sheet files. Overkill, perhaps, but I felt it was also an opportunity to at least give a slight nod to the reason *why* many of the variants exist, rather than just having a list of variants with no rhyme or reason to speak of. In addition, the reason why the (admittedly rather in-depth) character profiles were attached to the TRO articles was so that it wouldn't feel so odd that I didn't pay for portraits of them all... The art was already pretty pricy for this project. ^.^;;
I would like to address your comments regarding "there are no real lemons among the designs featured" and "...but it does have some moments where you end up wondering why won't this company ever do anything wrong."
I'll freely admit, a lot of the machines are solid, however right off the top of my head, I can think of a number of problems that they faced:
- The Liberator MkVI Laser Pistol is called the MkVI because versions 1-5 basically didn't bloody work.
- The Oxen Heavy Hauler's original Internal Combustion Engine was a pain in the ass to service--which was compounded by reliability issues.
- The first-generation Firehunter Firefighting Vehicle was effectively *deafening* when in operation.
- The Albatross Light Attack VTOL was nearly cancelled because the planned engine for it turned out to be flawed/trash, and the production was delayed for *years* before a replacement could be found.
- A lot of the combat vehicles are niche, because of their typical inclusion of Environmental Sealing, reducing their overall combat effectiveness.
- The Fusillade Flak Tank and Sledgehammer Artillery Vehicle are both sluggish to accelerate--and the latter is dirt slow to begin with.
- The Guardsman Light BattleMech has cooling system problems, but cut-price components are expected of a 'Mech designed to be cheap.
- The Tyrant Medium BattleMech was effective on debut, but its original production run was hampered by the technological decay of the Succession Wars less than two decades after it had been introduced, resulting in the company scrambling to make *something* to continue to meet the requirements of the contract, which led to the -D2 variant, which was comparatively a turd. It would be two full centuries before the design was resurrected as a result.
- The Hammerhai Heavy BattleMech's original production run was successful--for a time. However, over time, it was discovered that the design of the chassis was flawed, and suffered from irreparable stress fractures that eventually would lead to a complete chassis collapse when jumping. This was solved in the later versions, but it meant that the 'Mech was basically forgotten to time, while all its high quality components were gutted for use in the Catapult.
- The Oryx Heavy BattleMech wasn't even a Dreadnought original design. They just took a solid machine built in the Taurian Concordat, licensed it, and built their own versions of it.
- The Lancer Heavy BattleMech would have been a piss-poor 'Mech for the arenas of Solaris VII if it had debuted in its original form, but because it was instead repurposed for actual battlefield use before it ever set foot in the arena, the design was able to evolve, and a far more effective duelist was later introduced for arena use. It would've been a HORRIBLE embarrassment had it debuted in its original form--especially given how much had been invested into advertising the bloody thing.
- The Emancipator Assault BattleMech was a reasonable 'Mech on debut, but it stagnated because of a lack of upgrades for a long time.
- The Sumaire Assault BattleMech has a bad reputation for pilot injury on ejection, its prototype was VASTLY overpriced for its capabilities (something that the Reckoning Assault BattleMech also suffered from), and it has poor initial acceleration issues.
- The Mattock II Assault BattleMech (which was originally introduced in the BC-series variants for the BattleCorps) initially had a poorly sealed cockpit, though admittedly that was fixed relatively quickly.
- The original version of the Dreadnought Armored Pilot Survival Kit's M-HANS (Myomer Head And Neck Support) system was actually problematic, causing problems for pilots because it would disorient them and cause pulled muscles in their necks.
Now, if you're ONLY looking at the bleeding-edge, newest "Dreadnought Spec" equipment, a considerable amount of which is based on already existing machinery like the ones I've mentioned above, yeah. You're right. It's going to be high-quality stuff. But please, please don't mistake "learning lessons from the past" for "never making mistakes", because Dreadnought Interstellar Industries learned plenty of lessons the hard way. There are reasons why I decided to separate the 'Mechs into two different sets of TRO articles, and this was part of it.
...Wow, that got more verbose than I'd intended when I started this. Sorry about that. But I do hope you see my point--and I also do sincerely hope you continue to enjoy Operation Lancaster!
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- Joined
- Apr 25, 2020
@Sumaire_STi There's a bug with the quote system so I can't quote your entire post:
Don't take me wrong, if these were the only criticisms I could come up with upon a quick skim, that's a solid project. But I do believe that huge effin' PDF would have done better as two or three separate books, perhaps split by era. As-is, it's got eye-watering levels of content, to the point it can be a little hard to follow. There's a very good reason TROs usually have one page for fluff, and one page for stats and the illustration: in an actual book the whole thing would be a single spread and you can see all the information at once. When you're consulting a book looking for a quick bit of reference (which is what those unit spreads are supposed to be), good readability is king.
Compare and contrast:
From TRO 3150, a pretty dense one as far as TROs are concerned. Notice that it's a 2-page spread and that there are a lot of decorative elements that help guide the eye.
From Operation Lancaster.
Operation Lancaster was made for digital consumption, which is fair enough. It doesn't have the same restrictions a print, but I feel it suffers somewhat for it instead of benefitting from it. Particularly with the teenytinyittybitty font you've got going on there. Every other mech gets two pages of fluff, every page is dense to the point of being difficult to read, and all those variants feel like I'm reading a wiki entry as opposed to a book page. The Notable pilots section also usually turns out too long so if you ever decide to revise the book, I'd chop the bios in the mech sheets down to just a paragraph or two, and expand the Miscellaneous Personnel Profiles section from an afterthought into a proper section with the full text for the pilot bios.
So, yeah as much as I personally love the lore, there is such a thing as too much of it at once. Which is a good problem to have, but a problem nonetheless.
All that said, congratulations on getting such an enormous, high-quality project out of the door! You had content for two or three books, it must have been very expensive both in dollars and in man-hours.
Just be careful. There are some people trying to worm themselves into the BattleTech fanbase that would call you out and cancel you simply for having a kiwifarms account, much less posting here.
Don't take me wrong, if these were the only criticisms I could come up with upon a quick skim, that's a solid project. But I do believe that huge effin' PDF would have done better as two or three separate books, perhaps split by era. As-is, it's got eye-watering levels of content, to the point it can be a little hard to follow. There's a very good reason TROs usually have one page for fluff, and one page for stats and the illustration: in an actual book the whole thing would be a single spread and you can see all the information at once. When you're consulting a book looking for a quick bit of reference (which is what those unit spreads are supposed to be), good readability is king.
Compare and contrast:
From TRO 3150, a pretty dense one as far as TROs are concerned. Notice that it's a 2-page spread and that there are a lot of decorative elements that help guide the eye.
From Operation Lancaster.
Operation Lancaster was made for digital consumption, which is fair enough. It doesn't have the same restrictions a print, but I feel it suffers somewhat for it instead of benefitting from it. Particularly with the teenytinyittybitty font you've got going on there. Every other mech gets two pages of fluff, every page is dense to the point of being difficult to read, and all those variants feel like I'm reading a wiki entry as opposed to a book page. The Notable pilots section also usually turns out too long so if you ever decide to revise the book, I'd chop the bios in the mech sheets down to just a paragraph or two, and expand the Miscellaneous Personnel Profiles section from an afterthought into a proper section with the full text for the pilot bios.
So, yeah as much as I personally love the lore, there is such a thing as too much of it at once. Which is a good problem to have, but a problem nonetheless.
All that said, congratulations on getting such an enormous, high-quality project out of the door! You had content for two or three books, it must have been very expensive both in dollars and in man-hours.
Just be careful. There are some people trying to worm themselves into the BattleTech fanbase that would call you out and cancel you simply for having a kiwifarms account, much less posting here.
Sumaire_STi
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2022
Fair enough. I just wanted a one-and-done, but I can certainly understand the issues you're raising. Again, as has been pointed out, though, it's made for digital consumption, but I follow.
I literally only joined just to try to try to discuss the issues you raised. I know nothing of this forum, but if you're suggesting that there's an issue with me being on here, I guess I'll go ahead and just deactivate my account (assuming I can do so). I appreciate the warning, even though I know not of the context. Have a great day!
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2020
The farms are known for being a hive of scum and villainy, mostly because we don't get anywhere near the same level of censorship and janitorial interference as the rest of the internet. There are all kinds of people here, from neonazis to centrists to unironic radical communists, so the verbiage gets kinda heated. Being called a nigger here is just another Thursday. It's just the price of unrestricted shitposting.
On the other hand, here you can discuss almost everything, and make fun of basically everyone. Don't make an ass out of yourself and don't take yourself too seriously, and no one is going to bother you. More general discussion threads like this one also tend to be a bit more civil.
Anyway, it was brief but it was fun. Thank you for showing up and giving us your 2c, and hopefully the feedback will be useful for future editions or future projects.
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2019
Regardless welcome to the farms, Battletech discussion seems to be the most civil here.
More Civil then 4chan honestly and I mostly post there for Battletech...Mostly.