I am confused with the Blackjack redesign. I liked PGI's model for that one as well as their Jenner over this one. The Panther and Wolfhound look pretty much the same as PGI's.
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
It looks like they skinny'd up the BJ's belly and bulked out the shoulders a bit compared to the MWO model. Honestly I like it, but I'd like it more if they toned down those shoulders.
The Blackjack looks good but to me it looks like it wants to just be a 6ML laser boat.
e: The Panther looks good if very similar to the PGI model. I never paid much mind to the Wolfhound so I don't have any notes, but I don't really love the Jenner. I can't put my finger on why, it just feels off. Like it looks too much like the IIC version, I think.
It looks like they skinny'd up the BJ's belly and bulked out the shoulders a bit compared to the MWO model. Honestly I like it, but I'd like it more if they toned down those shoulders.
AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
edited May 2020
Oh yeah, the new Blackjack for sure never missed arm day.
Edit- oh I see what’s bugging me with the Jenner now. The new design takes inspiration from the old design and had a very rounded “head”. The MWO and BATTLETECH version are all angular.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
Yeah the Jenner reminds me of the original design and PGI's Jenner IIc version. I got so used to the PGI version and actually sort of like it.
The more I look at the Blackjack the less annoyed by it I get. I did like the thin cockpit look from PGI, but from this angle this version might not be that bad looking at it head on.
So that steelwarriors site has a free sample file. Turns out, since theyre all made to be printed without supports, you can just stack em to make different buildings! This may or may not work. Imma try it out. Its my best bet because i spent all day trying different modeling software and i have NO idea what im doing. This method is way faster.
stacked on left, free file on right
+9
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
Couldn't you just print the stock model, then stack them in real life?
Couldn't you just print the stock model, then stack them in real life?
...
Look at Mr. Logical over here. But the other files in the set have a lot of rooftop stuff on em and it would be a pain to just stack them physically and not have them knocked over by a slight table bump. But now you've got me thinking how I can fix the rooftops to make them stackable on the table. Also it looks better when they're all nice and merged like this. No entry doors on the 9th floor for example.
Oh, and a big shout out to the built in Win10 3D model software. I didn't even know it existed until I spent all day trying to figure out blender, meshmixer and tinkercad. It let's you do dead simple things like splitting a model and merging them, which is all I really wanted but couldn't figure out in the others. (Tinkercad was decent but it jacked up the stls on import).
AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
The vehicles I print come in two parts (typically), the chassis and the turret. I’ve found it’s easier just to slap the two together in a slicer before printing. Otherwise if the print is even a little off I’d have a helluva time gluing the turrets on.
On a related note, I realized that I could conceivably make some FrakenMechs for a Periphery pirate OpFor rather easily. Interesting.
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
@HydroSqueegee
I'm willing to admit that the "physically stack them" plan does not look at nice as intended. It's probably something that could be fixed by reworking the 3D model's lowest layers, but I'll acquiesce that that's too much work for what you're going for. Especially with how the "stack them in CAD" plan worked so well.
@HydroSqueegee
I'm willing to admit that the "physically stack them" plan does not look at nice as intended. It's probably something that could be fixed by reworking the 3D model's lowest layers, but I'll acquiesce that that's too much work for what you're going for. Especially with how the "stack them in CAD" plan worked so well.
What I'm saying is, Nice Buildings!
They even stretch well horizontally to boot! I must admit I was giggling like a madman when I was messing around with that last building and turned it into a 200mm by 200mm monstrosity.
+3
IanatorGaze upon my works, ye mightyand facepalm.Registered Userregular
I've said it before and I'll say it again, I really want something like Hero Forge but for mecha.
Twitch | Blizzard: Ianator#1479 | 3DS: Ianator - 1779 2336 5317 | FFXIV: Iana Ateliere (NA Sarg) Backlog Challenge List
Has anybody tried messing with a 'mech model's file to customize it? Wondering how hard that is. It'd be neat to do some customs
Good question. After I'm done with demo and eat some pizza I'll find out. I tried messing with a Cyclops in blender and it did not go well. I'll see if it works with my building technique. Oooooo.... I bet tinkercad would work real well to.
Has anybody tried messing with a 'mech model's file to customize it? Wondering how hard that is. It'd be neat to do some customs
Good question. After I'm done with demo and eat some pizza I'll find out. I tried messing with a Cyclops in blender and it did not go well. I'll see if it works with my building technique. Oooooo.... I bet tinkercad would work real well to.
I've messed around with a model in TinkerCAD, but ended up using my printer's software since it was easier. All I did was cut off some antennas and other simple stuff.
Doesn't need to be anything too fancy. Could be something as simple as like taking a Griffin or Centi and flipping in left/right (so the gun is on the left). Or giving a Hunchie a different gun/muzzle?
this beastly boy will take 1/3 of a spool to print... im not sure if im ready for that kind of commitment.
+11
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
Huh. Just noticed something odd.
The map in Shattered Fortress doesn't really list any of the planets of the Aurigan Reach, despite the PC game being released months ahead of Shattered Fortress.
Does anyone have the House Arano book? I'm curious if it details any history past the end of the reformation of the Coalition by Kamea.
0
AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
The map in Shattered Fortress doesn't really list any of the planets of the Aurigan Reach, despite the PC game being released months ahead of Shattered Fortress.
Does anyone have the House Arano book? I'm curious if it details any history past the end of the reformation of the Coalition by Kamea.
It basically says that all the problems that lead to the coup in the first place are still unanswered. Except that now their trade, industry, and agriculture have also been shattered by
the war, making famine and chaos an inevitability. On top of that Canopus has withdrawn its aid and financial support since they had achieved their objective. Canopian Intelligence is uncertain if the Aurigan Coalition will survive as the Aurigan systems all teeter on the verge of collapse.
It does not paint a pretty picture.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
0
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
Well, that sucks. I mean, not unexpected, but still sucks.
Well, that sucks. I mean, not unexpected, but still sucks.
BattleTech: we resolved the plot! What do?
BattleTech: skip a bit and start over
I still say MW:DA should've had a bigger time skip (big enough everyone from the Fed-Com Civil War era would be dead of natural causes anyways), never addressed the in-between stuff, and just gotten rid of the IS/Clan tech split.
Well, that sucks. I mean, not unexpected, but still sucks.
BattleTech: we resolved the plot! What do?
BattleTech: skip a bit and start over
I still say MW:DA should've had a bigger time skip (big enough everyone from Fed-Com Civil War era would be dead of natural causes anyways), never addressed the in-between stuff, and just gotten rid of the IS/Clan tech split.
It's possible, and I mean I wish I could italicize this harder possible, that I could see a "Battletech 2" in a post-ilClan Inner Sphere that jumps forward saaaaay 200 years, and then does exactly that with the inevitable collapse of our Benevolent Clan Sovereigns. Or even start over, millennia later in a new region of space after the ilClan finally ushered humanity Out Of The Sphere To Places Unknown, Where It All Unfortunately Falls Apart Again.
I think there's just so much historical momentum, though, that I'd be pants-blown-off-shocked if that ever happened. I get that there's always the argument of "Well, just because we have cruise missiles doesn't mean we lost the ability to make pointed sticks", and the relatively grounded science fiction of the Battletech universe, but bleh.
0
H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
edited May 2020
Edit: eh, on further thought this was a rambling nonsense post. Don't mind me.
The big things I liked about MW:DA's scenario where the storyline about the failing Republic (not so much the intrigue at the highest levels, but what it looked like out among the prefectures), & the extreme diversification of the Clans. Jade Falcons going full Mongol Horde, Bears and Ravens settling down and become responsible nation-states, Wolves being baddies without just lifting from Falcons or Jaguars' playbooks, Sea Foxes fully embracing the merchant-mercenary shtick. I'm not so much a fan of the Combine/Cats stuff, Capellans just felt like Succession Wars 2.0, Lyrans ate shit but I guess someone had to for the Falcons and Wolves to move around. The splintered but largely okay former-FWL felt like it had a lot more potential than was explored (but ain't that always the case with Marik space?) before they started reuniting it, and the Fed Suns finally getting a villain turn could be neat. But the Dark Age just felt a lot more dynamic and interesting overall, then Battletech had for a while.
Battletech didn't start us off with the First Succession War. It started us off with the end of the 3rd, and only very slowly filled in what exactly happened with the Star League. Most of the time they were moving things forward, until Wizkids needed them to stop because MW:DA wasn't far enough away from the Jihad and they didn't want to deal with trying to keep two separate companies' product lines on the same page in terms of canon. Everyone lost out because of that.
AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
edited May 2020
If I was to reboot Battletech I’d probably change the map of the Inner Sphere. I’d cut down the size of the Great Houses by a fair bit (by how much would vary from successor state to successor state).
In the empty space I’d add numerous minor Inner Sphere nations. I’d also fill out the Periphery with more nations too.
The idea for the Inner Sphere would be make it a bit more like early 20th Century Europe. Where you have a handful of very powerful nations and interspersed between them are a bunch of minor nations.
The Great Houses would still be the biggest swinging dicks on the block. Except now they may also need to worry about alliances of smaller nations or maybe they’d use them for proxy wars that could spill over in to greater conflict. The minor nations might even have a web of alliances and defense pacts that could result in a WWI situation.
At any rate; more nations, more political intrigue, more tragic coincidences.
Edit- I know they took a lot of inspiration for the settings from post-Charlemagne and post Roman Empire, but I think taking more inspiration from early 20th Century would work even better. The clash of Old Ways combined with “modern” technology. The rise of various ideologies vs monarchists. The Byzantine web of marriages and alliances. Arms races.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
They’re all very good, not a fan of the Spider, but that’s more a “I don’t like the mech” than “I don’t like the design”
0
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
edited May 2020
OMG, those bigguns got some buuuulk, holy shit. The shoulders on the Thug and Dragon are straight CHONK. Woof. Also, I'm kinda-sorta in love with the rounded armor look of that Spider. So sexy!
@Axen have you looked at the map in Shattered Fortress? It's maybe not all the way to what you want, but it's WILD compared to the boring old 3025 Inner Sphere map. In addition to fracturing of several of the big states and addition of newer ones, the map also details the different theaters or regions inside those states. I can super easily see some Crusader Kings/Stellaris/4X game shenanigans happening on that map.
Nips on
0
H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
Ooh, I really like that new Cyclops! The rest are all pretty straight-forward, Dragon's nice, still don't like the Thug, and the Spider's a little better than past versions, but... nothing will ever compare to 4th edition's Spider, which was straight up 'Ultimate Spider-Man as a battlemech' 15 years before Miles Morales even existed:
Ooh, I really like that new Cyclops! The rest are all pretty straight-forward, Dragon's nice, still don't like the Thug, and the Spider's a little better than past versions, but... nothing will ever compare to 4th edition's Spider, which was straight up Ultimate Spider-Man as a battlemech 15 years before Miles Morales existed:
I honestly never paid attention to why the Spider existed till now. Looked it up and I'm guessing it was designed to be a robot Spider-Man especially since there was a derivative called Venom? The MWO design always made me think of that with the chest armor design.
Edit: I got a Spider as my second light mech in MWO because of its jump jets. After playing it for a while I really hated it since it could only carry a really limited amount of weapons and I could do much better in a Locust.
OMG, those bigguns got some buuuulk, holy shit. The shoulders on the Thug and Dragon are straight CHONK. Woof. Also, I'm kinda-sorta in love with the rounded armor look of that Spider. So sexy!
@Axen have you looked at the map in Shattered Fortress? It's maybe not all the way to what you want, but it's WILD compared to the boring old 3025 Inner Sphere map. In addition to fracturing of several of the big states and addition of newer ones, the map also details the different theaters or regions inside those states. I can super easily see some Crusader Kings/Stellaris/4X game shenanigans happening on that map.
Yeah the MW:DA map is one of few things I like. Certainly more inline with what I’d do.
Maybe I will world build about what I would do. Probably be fun.
edit- I wouldn't radically change everything, I'd keep the broad strokes just add more detail or nuance to stuff.
Possible examples.
Capellan Confederation. I'd say that during the Star League Era they were ruled by a House Lord and a Dynastic line just like the other Great Houses. However I'd take a page from Russian history and say that sometime either during or shortly after the first Succession War there was a People's Revolt that executed the House Lord and their family. Afterward they'd set up a Trotsky-esque Communist Gov't very keen on spreading Permanent Revolution throughout the Inner Sphere. There could be a handful of minor nations between them and the FedSuns and these nations are often used as proxy battlegrounds that occasionally spills in to full on Capellan-FedSuns war.
Or the Free Worlds League. Say the League pulled a Germany and was just a collection of minor Inner Sphere nations with mutual defense pacts until just a few short years before 3025 when they unified under one banner and instantly became one of the most dominant powers in the Inner Sphere.
While I would take a fair amount of inspiration from early 20th Century I wouldn't exclusively pull from there. You've the entirety of everything to pull from and I'd pull from everything. For instance, one of the minor Inner Sphere nations could be ruled by a fabulously wealthy Mega-Corp that provides a wide range of goods and services to the Inner Sphere. The trade they provide and the money they have would mean they could punch well above their weight.
Basically I'd want a lot of different avenues for friction. Either between Successor States, minor nations, periphery nations or all of the above. I'd like there to be internal challenges either in the form of rival noble families who think maybe the nation would be better under their rule or new ideological movements (Jacobins, Anarchists, Socialists, Fascists, what-have-you-ists). The Davions might be all righteous and noble and goody-two-shoes, but the cost of all that liberty loving is that maybe there are more than a few ideologically driven militias causing problems in their realm compared to others.
I wouldn't change anything about ComStar.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
I came here expecting to see lots of talk about the newest mech designs to be released and nothing. No talk about the Cyclops, Thug, Dragon, and Spider? Guess because there is nothing really shocking with the designs? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/450703636/battletech-clan-invasion/posts/2841389
I can at least ping DaMoonRulz so he can talk about his Dragon.
Yeah not sure how I feel about the Awesome-style "claw" hand, but we'll see how it looks in the render. Otherwise II'll take it
Posts
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/450703636/battletech-clan-invasion/posts/2809107?ref=ksr_email_backer_project_update_registered_users
I am confused with the Blackjack redesign. I liked PGI's model for that one as well as their Jenner over this one. The Panther and Wolfhound look pretty much the same as PGI's.
Steam: betsuni7
e: The Panther looks good if very similar to the PGI model. I never paid much mind to the Wolfhound so I don't have any notes, but I don't really love the Jenner. I can't put my finger on why, it just feels off. Like it looks too much like the IIC version, I think.
Ah maybe that's why the head looks wrong to me.
Steam: betsuni7
Edit- oh I see what’s bugging me with the Jenner now. The new design takes inspiration from the old design and had a very rounded “head”. The MWO and BATTLETECH version are all angular.
The more I look at the Blackjack the less annoyed by it I get. I did like the thin cockpit look from PGI, but from this angle this version might not be that bad looking at it head on.
Steam: betsuni7
stacked on left, free file on right
...
Look at Mr. Logical over here. But the other files in the set have a lot of rooftop stuff on em and it would be a pain to just stack them physically and not have them knocked over by a slight table bump. But now you've got me thinking how I can fix the rooftops to make them stackable on the table. Also it looks better when they're all nice and merged like this. No entry doors on the 9th floor for example.
Oh, and a big shout out to the built in Win10 3D model software. I didn't even know it existed until I spent all day trying to figure out blender, meshmixer and tinkercad. It let's you do dead simple things like splitting a model and merging them, which is all I really wanted but couldn't figure out in the others. (Tinkercad was decent but it jacked up the stls on import).
@Nips this just looks silly
and next in the pipeline
On a related note, I realized that I could conceivably make some FrakenMechs for a Periphery pirate OpFor rather easily. Interesting.
Yep, by Urbanmech.
Steam: betsuni7
I'm willing to admit that the "physically stack them" plan does not look at nice as intended. It's probably something that could be fixed by reworking the 3D model's lowest layers, but I'll acquiesce that that's too much work for what you're going for. Especially with how the "stack them in CAD" plan worked so well.
What I'm saying is, Nice Buildings!
They even stretch well horizontally to boot! I must admit I was giggling like a madman when I was messing around with that last building and turned it into a 200mm by 200mm monstrosity.
Twitch | Blizzard: Ianator#1479 | 3DS: Ianator - 1779 2336 5317 | FFXIV: Iana Ateliere (NA Sarg)
Backlog Challenge List
Good question. After I'm done with demo and eat some pizza I'll find out. I tried messing with a Cyclops in blender and it did not go well. I'll see if it works with my building technique. Oooooo.... I bet tinkercad would work real well to.
I've messed around with a model in TinkerCAD, but ended up using my printer's software since it was easier. All I did was cut off some antennas and other simple stuff.
Steam: betsuni7
The guns on the top of the torso-nose make me think of how the P-38 mounted its guns.
The map in Shattered Fortress doesn't really list any of the planets of the Aurigan Reach, despite the PC game being released months ahead of Shattered Fortress.
Does anyone have the House Arano book? I'm curious if it details any history past the end of the reformation of the Coalition by Kamea.
It basically says that all the problems that lead to the coup in the first place are still unanswered. Except that now their trade, industry, and agriculture have also been shattered by
the war, making famine and chaos an inevitability. On top of that Canopus has withdrawn its aid and financial support since they had achieved their objective. Canopian Intelligence is uncertain if the Aurigan Coalition will survive as the Aurigan systems all teeter on the verge of collapse.
It does not paint a pretty picture.
BattleTech: we resolved the plot! What do?
BattleTech: skip a bit and start over
I still say MW:DA should've had a bigger time skip (big enough everyone from the Fed-Com Civil War era would be dead of natural causes anyways), never addressed the in-between stuff, and just gotten rid of the IS/Clan tech split.
It's possible, and I mean I wish I could italicize this harder possible, that I could see a "Battletech 2" in a post-ilClan Inner Sphere that jumps forward saaaaay 200 years, and then does exactly that with the inevitable collapse of our Benevolent Clan Sovereigns. Or even start over, millennia later in a new region of space after the ilClan finally ushered humanity Out Of The Sphere To Places Unknown, Where It All Unfortunately Falls Apart Again.
I think there's just so much historical momentum, though, that I'd be pants-blown-off-shocked if that ever happened. I get that there's always the argument of "Well, just because we have cruise missiles doesn't mean we lost the ability to make pointed sticks", and the relatively grounded science fiction of the Battletech universe, but bleh.
Battletech didn't start us off with the First Succession War. It started us off with the end of the 3rd, and only very slowly filled in what exactly happened with the Star League. Most of the time they were moving things forward, until Wizkids needed them to stop because MW:DA wasn't far enough away from the Jihad and they didn't want to deal with trying to keep two separate companies' product lines on the same page in terms of canon. Everyone lost out because of that.
In the empty space I’d add numerous minor Inner Sphere nations. I’d also fill out the Periphery with more nations too.
The idea for the Inner Sphere would be make it a bit more like early 20th Century Europe. Where you have a handful of very powerful nations and interspersed between them are a bunch of minor nations.
The Great Houses would still be the biggest swinging dicks on the block. Except now they may also need to worry about alliances of smaller nations or maybe they’d use them for proxy wars that could spill over in to greater conflict. The minor nations might even have a web of alliances and defense pacts that could result in a WWI situation.
At any rate; more nations, more political intrigue, more tragic coincidences.
Edit- I know they took a lot of inspiration for the settings from post-Charlemagne and post Roman Empire, but I think taking more inspiration from early 20th Century would work even better. The clash of Old Ways combined with “modern” technology. The rise of various ideologies vs monarchists. The Byzantine web of marriages and alliances. Arms races.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/450703636/battletech-clan-invasion/posts/2841389
I can at least ping @DaMoonRulz so he can talk about his Dragon.
Steam: betsuni7
@Axen have you looked at the map in Shattered Fortress? It's maybe not all the way to what you want, but it's WILD compared to the boring old 3025 Inner Sphere map. In addition to fracturing of several of the big states and addition of newer ones, the map also details the different theaters or regions inside those states. I can super easily see some Crusader Kings/Stellaris/4X game shenanigans happening on that map.
Ooh, I really like that new Cyclops! The rest are all pretty straight-forward, Dragon's nice, still don't like the Thug, and the Spider's a little better than past versions, but... nothing will ever compare to 4th edition's Spider, which was straight up 'Ultimate Spider-Man as a battlemech' 15 years before Miles Morales even existed:
I honestly never paid attention to why the Spider existed till now. Looked it up and I'm guessing it was designed to be a robot Spider-Man especially since there was a derivative called Venom? The MWO design always made me think of that with the chest armor design.
Edit: I got a Spider as my second light mech in MWO because of its jump jets. After playing it for a while I really hated it since it could only carry a really limited amount of weapons and I could do much better in a Locust.
Steam: betsuni7
Yeah the MW:DA map is one of few things I like. Certainly more inline with what I’d do.
Maybe I will world build about what I would do. Probably be fun.
edit- I wouldn't radically change everything, I'd keep the broad strokes just add more detail or nuance to stuff.
Possible examples.
Capellan Confederation. I'd say that during the Star League Era they were ruled by a House Lord and a Dynastic line just like the other Great Houses. However I'd take a page from Russian history and say that sometime either during or shortly after the first Succession War there was a People's Revolt that executed the House Lord and their family. Afterward they'd set up a Trotsky-esque Communist Gov't very keen on spreading Permanent Revolution throughout the Inner Sphere. There could be a handful of minor nations between them and the FedSuns and these nations are often used as proxy battlegrounds that occasionally spills in to full on Capellan-FedSuns war.
Or the Free Worlds League. Say the League pulled a Germany and was just a collection of minor Inner Sphere nations with mutual defense pacts until just a few short years before 3025 when they unified under one banner and instantly became one of the most dominant powers in the Inner Sphere.
While I would take a fair amount of inspiration from early 20th Century I wouldn't exclusively pull from there. You've the entirety of everything to pull from and I'd pull from everything. For instance, one of the minor Inner Sphere nations could be ruled by a fabulously wealthy Mega-Corp that provides a wide range of goods and services to the Inner Sphere. The trade they provide and the money they have would mean they could punch well above their weight.
Basically I'd want a lot of different avenues for friction. Either between Successor States, minor nations, periphery nations or all of the above. I'd like there to be internal challenges either in the form of rival noble families who think maybe the nation would be better under their rule or new ideological movements (Jacobins, Anarchists, Socialists, Fascists, what-have-you-ists). The Davions might be all righteous and noble and goody-two-shoes, but the cost of all that liberty loving is that maybe there are more than a few ideologically driven militias causing problems in their realm compared to others.
I wouldn't change anything about ComStar.
Starts in about 19 minutes
Yeah not sure how I feel about the Awesome-style "claw" hand, but we'll see how it looks in the render. Otherwise II'll take it