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[BATTLETECH/MechWarrior] Old thread, like the carcass of a cored-out Locust.

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Posts

  • Hahnsoo1Hahnsoo1 Make Ready. We Hunt.Registered User regular
    AspectVoid wrote: »
    So, I am someone who has a love of Battletech from Mechwarrior 2 through 4: Mercenaries and has no real knowledge of the tabletop rules, tactics, strategies, or builds. So, does anyone have a guide or something that can point me on these basics? The word of a poor tutorial for Battletech has me worried of needing massive amounts of trial and error just to get the basics of the above ideas down, and I'd love a jumping off point.
    I feel like this may be a benefit for you, because you aren't going in with tabletop assumptions (a lot of which are very wrong). The nuBattletech is its own thing, with inspiration from the Tabletop version, but unique mechanics on its own.

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  • Hahnsoo1Hahnsoo1 Make Ready. We Hunt.Registered User regular
    Jacobkosh wrote: »
    why do the people running the phone company seem kind of off?

    real lols

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  • 3cl1ps33cl1ps3 I will build a labyrinth to house the cheese Registered User regular
    Jacobkosh wrote: »
    Battletech history/backstory is so twisted and convoluted that to gaze overly long into it carries great risk.

    I feel like 3025 Battletech is really clean and straightforward. It's a great setup for a game. There are these five big countries, they fight a lot and just got done with a big fight so now you, Player Character, get to be a merc doing black ops for all of them. There is a clean setup, clear conflicts, a couple of good mysteries (what was up with that Kerensky guy disappearing with half the army? why do the people running the phone company seem kind of off?) and you're off to the races.

    I feel like it's after the Clans - particularly after the FedCom Civil War - that the setting just really loses the plot and gets lost up its own butt with endless, recursive complexity.

    I think the Clans stuff is okay but when you get into the Word of Blake Jihad is when it goes just full bananapants crazytown and stops trying to make sense.

  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    3clipse wrote: »
    Jacobkosh wrote: »
    Battletech history/backstory is so twisted and convoluted that to gaze overly long into it carries great risk.

    I feel like 3025 Battletech is really clean and straightforward. It's a great setup for a game. There are these five big countries, they fight a lot and just got done with a big fight so now you, Player Character, get to be a merc doing black ops for all of them. There is a clean setup, clear conflicts, a couple of good mysteries (what was up with that Kerensky guy disappearing with half the army? why do the people running the phone company seem kind of off?) and you're off to the races.

    I feel like it's after the Clans - particularly after the FedCom Civil War - that the setting just really loses the plot and gets lost up its own butt with endless, recursive complexity.

    I think the Clans stuff is okay but when you get into the Word of Blake Jihad is when it goes just full bananapants crazytown and stops trying to make sense.

    What? You don't like AT&T vs Cultists?

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  • SiliconStewSiliconStew Registered User regular
    Here's a couple "brief" Battletech history primer videos too:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7u2LL3lESQ

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9h7ghk5nqQ

    Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
  • ButtcleftButtcleft Registered User regular
    Jacobkosh wrote: »
    Battletech history/backstory is so twisted and convoluted that to gaze overly long into it carries great risk.

    I feel like 3025 Battletech is really clean and straightforward. It's a great setup for a game. There are these five big countries, they fight a lot and just got done with a big fight so now you, Player Character, get to be a merc doing black ops for all of them. There is a clean setup, clear conflicts, a couple of good mysteries (what was up with that Kerensky guy disappearing with half the army? why do the people running the phone company seem kind of off?) and you're off to the races.

    I feel like it's after the Clans - particularly after the FedCom Civil War - that the setting just really loses the plot and gets lost up its own butt with endless, recursive complexity.

    Battletech could totally use a clean slate ground up revamp.

  • Trajan45Trajan45 Registered User regular
    haha thanks, I'll look over the stuff posted. I was looking for more of a high level overview of plot. I remember something about sending colonists out to the fringes and then they came back as the clans, but that's about it. Haven't looked at battletech since MechCommander.

    Origin ID\ Steam ID: Warder45
  • SiliconStewSiliconStew Registered User regular
    AspectVoid wrote: »
    So, I am someone who has a love of Battletech from Mechwarrior 2 through 4: Mercenaries and has no real knowledge of the tabletop rules, tactics, strategies, or builds. So, does anyone have a guide or something that can point me on these basics? The word of a poor tutorial for Battletech has me worried of needing massive amounts of trial and error just to get the basics of the above ideas down, and I'd love a jumping off point.

    rules, tactics, builds, and tutorials are all separate and large topics, so what are you looking for?

    On the tutorial side, if you've got a lot of time, search youtube for "battletech cohhcarnage", he's got about 20 hours of play time recorded. And he didn't play battletech before, so he was learning as he went which means he asks a lot of "what does this do" questions that you might have as well. On the other hand, probably not going to pick up particularly advanced tactical ideas from it.

    Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
  • TynnanTynnan seldom correct, never unsure Registered User regular
    I feel like everything up through the end of the FedCom civil war I was able to follow and enjoy. It made sense and there were lots of interesting stories to tell at the various levels of scale.

    If we could just retcon out everything after that point and start over, that'd be nice.

  • Trajan45Trajan45 Registered User regular
    Looking over Sarna.net, it's pretty digestible. Compared to when I went head first for a couple weeks reading all the lore around Warhammer 40K, this is pretty lite haha.

    Origin ID\ Steam ID: Warder45
  • JacobkoshJacobkosh Gamble a stamp. I can show you how to be a real man!Moderator mod
    The thing is that Battletech has that super deep timeline going from the present day to the time of the game but, like, very little of it actually matters.

    This isn't a setting with aliens or sci-fi immortality or whatever so knowing the name of the person who piloted the first JumpShip isn't secretly required, because unlike Star Trek, you aren't gonna like time travel and run into him. The fact that the first mech was called the Mackie and developed in 24whatever is cute but not really important, you're not going to ever find or pilot one. Stefan Amaris is not going to return from the dead as an immortal, conquering lich.

    That stuff is fun to know about but even in a really story-heavy Battletech experience like a roleplaying game, it's probably not going to influence your character very much, any more than knowing who Eleanor of Aquitaine was influences my day-to-day decision-making very much.

    If you want a really balls-deep 3025 Battletech experience you probably need to know about, in order from most important to least

    - the mechs themselves, their strengths & weaknesses, weapons, tactics, etc
    - the Successor States and the Great Houses and the differences between them (which one is space commies, which one is space ninjas, etc)
    - how space travel and FTL work, JumpShips vs DropShips, and other like, infrastructure of the setting things
    - the Star League and the Camerons
    - mercenaries, what they do, and the names and personalities of the major merc outfits
    - Comstar
    - Solaris
    - the Periphery states
    - Kerensky I guess, maybe, if your dude is a nerd

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  • HardtargetHardtarget There Are Four Lights VancouverRegistered User regular
    Jacobkosh wrote: »
    This game is set in the year 3025, the start of the timeline, where Battletech began when it first came out in 1984. If you've ever played any of the MechWarrior games or heard people talking about them, you've probably heard a lot of stuff about "Clans" and other things; almost all of that stuff comes later in the story. This new game is back to basics.
    I TOTALLY didn't realize that, that's crazy.

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  • TynnanTynnan seldom correct, never unsure Registered User regular
    One feature of the setting that I really like is how FTL travel and communications work. Being limited to local "hops" of 30-50 light years imposes an interesting limitation on governance and strategy, and makes local stories matter more than they might have otherwise. Sometimes, a place really is isolated.

  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    Mackie was the name of my best man's bug eyed pug, cracks me up every time I read it in this context.

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  • SyngyneSyngyne Registered User regular
    Trajan45 wrote: »
    haha thanks, I'll look over the stuff posted. I was looking for more of a high level overview of plot. I remember something about sending colonists out to the fringes and then they came back as the clans, but that's about it. Haven't looked at battletech since MechCommander.

    Those were the Star League military forces that followed Kerensky out of the Inner Sphere when he abandoned the Star League.

    5gsowHm.png
  • ElldrenElldren Is a woman dammit ceterum censeoRegistered User regular
    Syngyne wrote: »
    Trajan45 wrote: »
    haha thanks, I'll look over the stuff posted. I was looking for more of a high level overview of plot. I remember something about sending colonists out to the fringes and then they came back as the clans, but that's about it. Haven't looked at battletech since MechCommander.

    Those were the Star League military forces that followed Kerensky out of the Inner Sphere when he abandoned the Star League.

    Yeah like 200 years ago

    I’m sure those guys will never show up again

    fuck gendered marketing
  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    Elldren wrote: »
    Syngyne wrote: »
    Trajan45 wrote: »
    haha thanks, I'll look over the stuff posted. I was looking for more of a high level overview of plot. I remember something about sending colonists out to the fringes and then they came back as the clans, but that's about it. Haven't looked at battletech since MechCommander.

    Those were the Star League military forces that followed Kerensky out of the Inner Sphere when he abandoned the Star League.

    Yeah like 200 years ago

    I’m sure those guys will never show up again

    Definitely won't have completely fucked up their ideology after two centuries of playing telephone.

    wq09t4opzrlc.jpg
  • ElldrenElldren Is a woman dammit ceterum censeoRegistered User regular
    Elldren wrote: »
    Syngyne wrote: »
    Trajan45 wrote: »
    haha thanks, I'll look over the stuff posted. I was looking for more of a high level overview of plot. I remember something about sending colonists out to the fringes and then they came back as the clans, but that's about it. Haven't looked at battletech since MechCommander.

    Those were the Star League military forces that followed Kerensky out of the Inner Sphere when he abandoned the Star League.

    Yeah like 200 years ago

    I’m sure those guys will never show up again

    Definitely won't have completely fucked up their ideology after two centuries of playing telephone.

    Of course not they didn’t even bother to take any phones with them

    fuck gendered marketing
  • JacobkoshJacobkosh Gamble a stamp. I can show you how to be a real man!Moderator mod
    Hardtarget wrote: »
    Jacobkosh wrote: »
    This game is set in the year 3025, the start of the timeline, where Battletech began when it first came out in 1984. If you've ever played any of the MechWarrior games or heard people talking about them, you've probably heard a lot of stuff about "Clans" and other things; almost all of that stuff comes later in the story. This new game is back to basics.
    I TOTALLY didn't realize that, that's crazy.

    This will be the first game set in the original era since, like, Mechwarrior 1 in 1989.

    rRwz9.gif
  • OrogogusOrogogus San DiegoRegistered User regular
    3clipse wrote: »
    Jacobkosh wrote: »
    Battletech history/backstory is so twisted and convoluted that to gaze overly long into it carries great risk.

    I feel like 3025 Battletech is really clean and straightforward. It's a great setup for a game. There are these five big countries, they fight a lot and just got done with a big fight so now you, Player Character, get to be a merc doing black ops for all of them. There is a clean setup, clear conflicts, a couple of good mysteries (what was up with that Kerensky guy disappearing with half the army? why do the people running the phone company seem kind of off?) and you're off to the races.

    I feel like it's after the Clans - particularly after the FedCom Civil War - that the setting just really loses the plot and gets lost up its own butt with endless, recursive complexity.

    I think the Clans stuff is okay but when you get into the Word of Blake Jihad is when it goes just full bananapants crazytown and stops trying to make sense.

    I think the Clans were garbage. Their brand of absurd grates on me a lot more than the Jihad or the 3025 Mad Max in space.

  • TynnanTynnan seldom correct, never unsure Registered User regular
    Nothin' wrong with a little campiness once in a while

  • InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    The clans are fun

  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    If you're talking about something that isn't protomechs it can always get worse.

    wq09t4opzrlc.jpg
  • MortiousMortious The Nightmare Begins Move to New ZealandRegistered User regular
    I like a lot of the clan mech designs (from MWO), even though I think it would have been a better game without their inclusion.

    Move to New Zealand
    It’s not a very important country most of the time
    http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
  • ButtcleftButtcleft Registered User regular
    Jacobkosh wrote: »
    The thing is that Battletech has that super deep timeline going from the present day to the time of the game but, like, very little of it actually matters.

    This isn't a setting with aliens or sci-fi immortality or whatever so knowing the name of the person who piloted the first JumpShip isn't secretly required, because unlike Star Trek, you aren't gonna like time travel and run into him. The fact that the first mech was called the Mackie and developed in 24whatever is cute but not really important, you're not going to ever find or pilot one. Stefan Amaris is not going to return from the dead as an immortal, conquering lich.

    That stuff is fun to know about but even in a really story-heavy Battletech experience like a roleplaying game, it's probably not going to influence your character very much, any more than knowing who Eleanor of Aquitaine was influences my day-to-day decision-making very much.

    If you want a really balls-deep 3025 Battletech experience you probably need to know about, in order from most important to least

    - the mechs themselves, their strengths & weaknesses, weapons, tactics, etc
    - the Successor States and the Great Houses and the differences between them (which one is space commies, which one is space ninjas, etc)
    - how space travel and FTL work, JumpShips vs DropShips, and other like, infrastructure of the setting things
    - the Star League and the Camerons
    - mercenaries, what they do, and the names and personalities of the major merc outfits
    - Comstar
    - Solaris
    - the Periphery states
    - Kerensky I guess, maybe, if your dude is a nerd

    I will agree that a lot of shit needs to be thrown out and a Battletech 2.0 with a more streamline and cogent story and setting be manufactured.

    But we dont need to get rid of the fluff, the fluff is nice. I want to know that the Jagermech was made as a direct result of heat and other difficulties in the Rifleman, i want to know the Mackie rolled off the line 2439, wielding an honestly laughable armament for an assault, i want to know old technologies were inefficient and larger, i want to know the pseudoscience behind the Kearny-Fuchida Drive and attempts to expand its usability like with giant lithium ion battery banks.

    It just need to be fluff, and not be made into a masturbatory focus.

    I DO, however, wish the setting was more dynamic than "And then they bombed themselves to oblivion and technology went into unchanging/unadvancing stasis until the helm memory core and clans" because thats bullshit. People'd be rediscovering shit left and right, people'd be discovering new things in that amount of time.

    nothing fucking irks me more than technological stasis for no reason, and its a fucking plot device thats used in way to god damn many stories.

  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    Fluff is great around mech stuff. Fluff around "AND THEN THE DAVIONS DID THIS" is dumb and boring because its not mech stuff.

    wq09t4opzrlc.jpg
  • see317see317 Registered User regular
    If you're talking about something that isn't protomechs it can always get worse.

    What about QuadVees?
    I don't know if they're worse than protomechs, but they're close to that level.

  • JacobkoshJacobkosh Gamble a stamp. I can show you how to be a real man!Moderator mod
    I wasn't saying to retcon anything away in my post, just that as someone playing HBS Battletech or a Mechwarrior pen and paper RPG or whatever, you only really need those key bullet points: what the Mechs do, who the big players in the setting are, etc., to be able to play the game. As a dude in real life with job and commitments and stuff you don't have to know what happened to the Terran Hegemony or how Kearney-Fuchida drives work or whatever unless you want to.

    ---

    BUT I mean, as it happens, I am definitely up for a Battletech setting retcon. Not even a huge one but there are some tweaks that would be welcome. And you're right, the lack of dynamism is a problem. For some reason everything in Battletech is short-lived EXCEPT the five houses and the Successor States. Like, in over 500 years of war and politics from before the Star League to after Mechwarrior Dark Age, it's just Mariks, Davions, Kuritas, etc forever. The national borders from before the Star League was formed look almost identical to the borders in 3025. In all this time has there never been a revolution against these families? Have two sides never made peace, or anything?

    If I were redoing Battletech for 2018 I would definitely have the history of the Inner Sphere look more like the history of Europe on fast forward, with these different blobs of countries and nation-states appearing, growing and shrinking, then disappearing, suddenly changing color, etc. One second it's the Hanseatic League and the next second it's the Russo-Cyberbear Alliance.

    rRwz9.gif
  • HardtargetHardtarget There Are Four Lights VancouverRegistered User regular
    Jacobkosh wrote: »
    Hardtarget wrote: »
    Jacobkosh wrote: »
    This game is set in the year 3025, the start of the timeline, where Battletech began when it first came out in 1984. If you've ever played any of the MechWarrior games or heard people talking about them, you've probably heard a lot of stuff about "Clans" and other things; almost all of that stuff comes later in the story. This new game is back to basics.
    I TOTALLY didn't realize that, that's crazy.

    This will be the first game set in the original era since, like, Mechwarrior 1 in 1989.

    ya that's insane, I just assumed Clans and shit were in it. Man now i regret not kickstarting it even more, uugh price has like doubled since then *tear*

    steam_sig.png
    kHDRsTc.png
  • TynnanTynnan seldom correct, never unsure Registered User regular
    Buttcleft wrote: »
    Jacobkosh wrote: »
    The thing is that Battletech has that super deep timeline going from the present day to the time of the game but, like, very little of it actually matters.

    This isn't a setting with aliens or sci-fi immortality or whatever so knowing the name of the person who piloted the first JumpShip isn't secretly required, because unlike Star Trek, you aren't gonna like time travel and run into him. The fact that the first mech was called the Mackie and developed in 24whatever is cute but not really important, you're not going to ever find or pilot one. Stefan Amaris is not going to return from the dead as an immortal, conquering lich.

    That stuff is fun to know about but even in a really story-heavy Battletech experience like a roleplaying game, it's probably not going to influence your character very much, any more than knowing who Eleanor of Aquitaine was influences my day-to-day decision-making very much.

    If you want a really balls-deep 3025 Battletech experience you probably need to know about, in order from most important to least

    - the mechs themselves, their strengths & weaknesses, weapons, tactics, etc
    - the Successor States and the Great Houses and the differences between them (which one is space commies, which one is space ninjas, etc)
    - how space travel and FTL work, JumpShips vs DropShips, and other like, infrastructure of the setting things
    - the Star League and the Camerons
    - mercenaries, what they do, and the names and personalities of the major merc outfits
    - Comstar
    - Solaris
    - the Periphery states
    - Kerensky I guess, maybe, if your dude is a nerd

    I will agree that a lot of shit needs to be thrown out and a Battletech 2.0 with a more streamline and cogent story and setting be manufactured.

    But we dont need to get rid of the fluff, the fluff is nice. I want to know that the Jagermech was made as a direct result of heat and other difficulties in the Rifleman, i want to know the Mackie rolled off the line 2439, wielding an honestly laughable armament for an assault, i want to know old technologies were inefficient and larger, i want to know the pseudoscience behind the Kearny-Fuchida Drive and attempts to expand its usability like with giant lithium ion battery banks.

    It just need to be fluff, and not be made into a masturbatory focus.

    I DO, however, wish the setting was more dynamic than "And then they bombed themselves to oblivion and technology went into unchanging/unadvancing stasis until the helm memory core and clans" because thats bullshit. People'd be rediscovering shit left and right, people'd be discovering new things in that amount of time.

    nothing fucking irks me more than technological stasis for no reason, and its a fucking plot device thats used in way to god damn many stories.

    If anything, the succession wars should have bred an even faster rate of technological innovation. Nothing spurs progress like a good old arms race between coequal rivals. See how Europe advanced leaps and bounds ahead of Ming China, even though the latter had a superior existing knowledge and industrial base.

  • AxenAxen My avatar is Excalibur. Yes, the sword.Registered User regular
    Yeah for a good while now I’ve been of the mind that Battletech is in need of a top to bottom restoration.

    Redo the rules. As in all new, not updated or tweaked or added on to, but new.

    And as to the lore and timeline? Fresh start. I mean a lot of the general fluff you can keep, but the rest? Do it again!

    I just figure such a move would not sit well with fans. But I see how stupidly well 8th Edition 40K has done in brining in new and old players and generally greatly improving the community that I really want to see something similar happen with Battletech. Cause I love me some Battletech.

    A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    Buttcleft wrote: »
    Jacobkosh wrote: »
    Battletech history/backstory is so twisted and convoluted that to gaze overly long into it carries great risk.

    I feel like 3025 Battletech is really clean and straightforward. It's a great setup for a game. There are these five big countries, they fight a lot and just got done with a big fight so now you, Player Character, get to be a merc doing black ops for all of them. There is a clean setup, clear conflicts, a couple of good mysteries (what was up with that Kerensky guy disappearing with half the army? why do the people running the phone company seem kind of off?) and you're off to the races.

    I feel like it's after the Clans - particularly after the FedCom Civil War - that the setting just really loses the plot and gets lost up its own butt with endless, recursive complexity.

    Battletech could totally use a clean slate ground up revamp.

    I wouldn't mind a total ground-up do-over of the rules and premise, with a major reboot of the fiction that doesn't outright get rid of all the houses and whatnot.

    I'd probably want a reworking of mechs mass and weapon ranges at the top of the list. Make the mechs heavy enough that it actually makes even a slightly amount of sense that a cheaper, tougher, simpler tank couldn't do the same job better, upgrade how much damage they can take, and turn up weapon ranges to something that makes sense. A 400-ton mech shaking off a series of hits that could individually smash a tank makes them a lot more impressive than mechs that are only better than tanks because everybody agrees not to point out that mechs are dumb compared to tanks.

  • SiliconStewSiliconStew Registered User regular
    see317 wrote: »
    If you're talking about something that isn't protomechs it can always get worse.

    What about QuadVees?
    I don't know if they're worse than protomechs, but they're close to that level.
    No quads. Fuck you.

    Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
  • OrogogusOrogogus San DiegoRegistered User regular
    I think WHFB is the one that really hit a reset button. And my impression is that the new Age of Sigmar stuff is doing well now, but it really pushed some people into snarky bitterness.

  • TynnanTynnan seldom correct, never unsure Registered User regular
    edited April 2018
    Buttcleft wrote: »
    Jacobkosh wrote: »
    Battletech history/backstory is so twisted and convoluted that to gaze overly long into it carries great risk.

    I feel like 3025 Battletech is really clean and straightforward. It's a great setup for a game. There are these five big countries, they fight a lot and just got done with a big fight so now you, Player Character, get to be a merc doing black ops for all of them. There is a clean setup, clear conflicts, a couple of good mysteries (what was up with that Kerensky guy disappearing with half the army? why do the people running the phone company seem kind of off?) and you're off to the races.

    I feel like it's after the Clans - particularly after the FedCom Civil War - that the setting just really loses the plot and gets lost up its own butt with endless, recursive complexity.

    Battletech could totally use a clean slate ground up revamp.

    I wouldn't mind a total ground-up do-over of the rules and premise, with a major reboot of the fiction that doesn't outright get rid of all the houses and whatnot.

    I'd probably want a reworking of mechs mass and weapon ranges at the top of the list. Make the mechs heavy enough that it actually makes even a slightly amount of sense that a cheaper, tougher, simpler tank couldn't do the same job better, upgrade how much damage they can take, and turn up weapon ranges to something that makes sense. A 400-ton mech shaking off a series of hits that could individually smash a tank makes them a lot more impressive than mechs that are only better than tanks because everybody agrees not to point out that mechs are dumb compared to tanks.

    Given that we have 62-ton tanks rolling around right this second, the 20-100 ton range for mech mass does ring a bit hollow. From a game system standpoint, though, having a nice, even 100-ton limit makes sense. The range goes in increments of five tons for a reason, after all.

    Tynnan on
  • JacobkoshJacobkosh Gamble a stamp. I can show you how to be a real man!Moderator mod
    I think Battletech is in kind of a shitty position where it's obviously dwindling away in relevance but also the only way it makes money is to continually cater to a hardcore fanbase that is literally - not figuratively, but literally - dying off (adult fans of the setting when it debuted are now actually old enough to retire and collect Social Security!) and who would flip a fucking nut if they thought all the money and emotional investment they'd made over the years no longer "counted."

    My big hope is that this new game brings in enough new people that the setting can get the tune-up it needs.

    rRwz9.gif
  • SyngyneSyngyne Registered User regular
    Buttcleft wrote: »
    Jacobkosh wrote: »
    Battletech history/backstory is so twisted and convoluted that to gaze overly long into it carries great risk.

    I feel like 3025 Battletech is really clean and straightforward. It's a great setup for a game. There are these five big countries, they fight a lot and just got done with a big fight so now you, Player Character, get to be a merc doing black ops for all of them. There is a clean setup, clear conflicts, a couple of good mysteries (what was up with that Kerensky guy disappearing with half the army? why do the people running the phone company seem kind of off?) and you're off to the races.

    I feel like it's after the Clans - particularly after the FedCom Civil War - that the setting just really loses the plot and gets lost up its own butt with endless, recursive complexity.

    Battletech could totally use a clean slate ground up revamp.

    I wouldn't mind a total ground-up do-over of the rules and premise, with a major reboot of the fiction that doesn't outright get rid of all the houses and whatnot.

    I misread that as "outright get rid of the houses" and was like "it's not BattleTech without House Yellow, House Blue, House Red, House Green, and House Purple"

    5gsowHm.png
  • SproutSprout Registered User regular
    I like the idea of a reboot, but I think that you'd want to at least start with the iconic 5 Successor States as the status quo. They can have gone through whatever permutations you want before the "current" era, but kicking things off with a group of roughly co-equal factions is a good thing. And maybe make them not quite as explicitly mono-cultural as they were, but I think the various people who've had their hands on the setting recently have done a lot to correct things there.

  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    edited April 2018
    Tynnan wrote: »
    Buttcleft wrote: »
    Jacobkosh wrote: »
    Battletech history/backstory is so twisted and convoluted that to gaze overly long into it carries great risk.

    I feel like 3025 Battletech is really clean and straightforward. It's a great setup for a game. There are these five big countries, they fight a lot and just got done with a big fight so now you, Player Character, get to be a merc doing black ops for all of them. There is a clean setup, clear conflicts, a couple of good mysteries (what was up with that Kerensky guy disappearing with half the army? why do the people running the phone company seem kind of off?) and you're off to the races.

    I feel like it's after the Clans - particularly after the FedCom Civil War - that the setting just really loses the plot and gets lost up its own butt with endless, recursive complexity.

    Battletech could totally use a clean slate ground up revamp.

    I wouldn't mind a total ground-up do-over of the rules and premise, with a major reboot of the fiction that doesn't outright get rid of all the houses and whatnot.

    I'd probably want a reworking of mechs mass and weapon ranges at the top of the list. Make the mechs heavy enough that it actually makes even a slightly amount of sense that a cheaper, tougher, simpler tank couldn't do the same job better, upgrade how much damage they can take, and turn up weapon ranges to something that makes sense. A 400-ton mech shaking off a series of hits that could individually smash a tank makes them a lot more impressive than mechs that are only better than tanks because everybody agrees not to point out that mechs are dumb compared to tanks.

    Given that we have 62-ton tanks rolling around right this second, the 20-100 ton range for mech mass does ring a bit hollow. From a game system standpoint, though, having a nice, even 100-ton limit makes sense. The range goes in increments of five tons for a reason, after all.

    Yeah, but it also wouldn't at all be hard to change to something like a range of 100-500 tons with everything done in increments of 50 tons. The math on that works out to the same number of weight slots as we have now, and mechs with 50 tons of difference but in the same weight range could be made a hell of lot different from each other than mechs with only 5 tons of difference.

    And with mechs that massive, it would also make a lot more sense that they end up generational weapons that are hard as shit to really destroy, but also really expensive.

    And it would be a size range where simply building tanks bigger wouldn't really let them match up, because the tanks would end up so huge and slow as to be pointless. Trying to equip it with one big cannon wouldn't necessarily work either, since aiming it would be slow and unwieldy and not necessarily even practical. In comparison, a mech would be incredibly mobile and sport a far more versatile range of weapons. A 100-ton scout mech might be the smallest mech, but it would still be a massive war machine with incredible speed and maneuverability compared to a tank.

    Ninja Snarl P on
  • Hahnsoo1Hahnsoo1 Make Ready. We Hunt.Registered User regular
    Jacobkosh wrote: »
    I wasn't saying to retcon anything away in my post, just that as someone playing HBS Battletech or a Mechwarrior pen and paper RPG or whatever, you only really need those key bullet points: what the Mechs do, who the big players in the setting are, etc., to be able to play the game. As a dude in real life with job and commitments and stuff you don't have to know what happened to the Terran Hegemony or how Kearney-Fuchida drives work or whatever unless you want to.

    ---

    BUT I mean, as it happens, I am definitely up for a Battletech setting retcon. Not even a huge one but there are some tweaks that would be welcome. And you're right, the lack of dynamism is a problem. For some reason everything in Battletech is short-lived EXCEPT the five houses and the Successor States. Like, in over 500 years of war and politics from before the Star League to after Mechwarrior Dark Age, it's just Mariks, Davions, Kuritas, etc forever. The national borders from before the Star League was formed look almost identical to the borders in 3025. In all this time has there never been a revolution against these families? Have two sides never made peace, or anything?

    If I were redoing Battletech for 2018 I would definitely have the history of the Inner Sphere look more like the history of Europe on fast forward, with these different blobs of countries and nation-states appearing, growing and shrinking, then disappearing, suddenly changing color, etc. One second it's the Hanseatic League and the next second it's the Russo-Cyberbear Alliance.
    The one time they had even a slight variation between the houses and had Davion + Steiner 5eva along with those Free Rasalhague guys show up in the 4th Succession War... welp, let's throw that out the fucking window PSYCHE LOL. O btw, hai Clanz!

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