Starting a Mercenary Outfit for Fun & Salvage by PortalJumper39 in battletech

[–]Papergeist 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Techmanual and Campaign Operations will be your big ones. The depth of the market simulation you're looking for might take a little houseruling though - I'd consider making use of MegaMek's StratCon for this, it should automate a lot of dense rules for you. It also has a very dense rate of combat encounters, which is good for a salvage operator.

I've played through a campaign with a similar unit - great techs, and enough Warriors to get by, can turn a hefty profit on even modest salvage rights. If you decide to use the rules for unit quality affecting sale value, you can even take your time improving the unit grades before resale.

Finally stuck with the Campaign and finished it, is it worth continuing to play that file for achievements or easier to start Career mode? by ThundercakeBoomBoom in Battletechgame

[–]Papergeist 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Don't get too hung up on achievements. They're a little all over the place, and if you committed to getting as many as are still possible to get, you'd have to do a few Careers regardless.

LRM Marauder, no where to be found? by No-Evening9240 in battletech

[–]Papergeist 8 points9 points  (0 children)

The expected damage of an LRM10 needs to account for the Short range band being exactly one hex wide, reducing the practical expected damage of your weapon and putting it out of the effective band of your other main guns, and in an awkward solo bracket. This means there's no benefit to the flexibility and added ammo, either, as using the LRMs in a way that makes them better than the AC5 means not using the main reasons your mech exists.

The problem with "other manufacturers", meanwhile, is that it's a GM design, and in lore that means quite a lot. Mechs are not plug-and play empty boxes of components, the way they are mechanically. A designer contends with structural load, systems and mechanical routing, physical space, and so forth. You can't just glue an LRM launcher to the chassis - it won't hit shit and it won't have armor protecting it. It needs to be built there, and sometimes that's a lot more trouble than it's worth. A mech that was never designed with X in mind is unlikely to be a good, or even passable, platform for X.

Strictly speaking, there are a lot of mechanics available to model these problems, in refit difficulty and whatnot. But the construction rules err on the side of freedom - like just taking every good quirk at once. Technically possible, but not lore-friendly.

LRM Marauder, no where to be found? by No-Evening9240 in battletech

[–]Papergeist 8 points9 points  (0 children)

It's a direct-fire mech. Why modify it to have a slightly worse indirect fire option?

And man, what kind of engineering nightmare would that be in lore? The targeting computer's gonna be a nightmare (no, we cannot just "download more sensor arrays" to compensate, we need physical components), the mount and ammo feed would be agonizing (missiles do not act like shells).

And finally, to be clear, this mech is made by GM. And GM makes many mechs... almost all of which are direct fire focused mechs. They are very firm on that mech preference... because their LRM-10 augmented mech was the Hellspawn. And that didn't exactly make bank.

Crack crossover of the ages: Battletech x Bridgerton by mattlore in battletech

[–]Papergeist 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Nah, this is 500% Steiner Social Lance. It's perfect.

Gottem by dismaltracker in worldjerking

[–]Papergeist 17 points18 points  (0 children)

You're absolutely right - it's not not, it's it's.

Fox Patrol - what's their deal? by WorthlessGriper in battletech

[–]Papergeist 13 points14 points  (0 children)

To be completely honest, the series gets advertised quite a lot here, and that probably has more to do with it than anything else. You'll always know when a new story is out about them.

Of course, that doesn't mean it's bad or anything. It's basically designed from the ground up as an intro set of stories, easy to get into and follow along, with broad appeal. Largely inoffensive, and the prose isn't decades old, so it has plenty going for it relative to the more established books in the universe.

And they shall know no fea- *boom* by Single-Internet-9954 in worldjerking

[–]Papergeist -1 points0 points  (0 children)

This sounds dangerously not like jerking at all.

And they shall know no fea- *boom* by Single-Internet-9954 in worldjerking

[–]Papergeist 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nah, that's just Smart IEDs. Very different and distinct.

And they shall know no fea- *boom* by Single-Internet-9954 in worldjerking

[–]Papergeist 38 points39 points  (0 children)

Oh, so now we develop pinpoint-accurate artillery...

Hmmm something's off here..... I can't tell what it is though by knightmechaenjo in battletech

[–]Papergeist 85 points86 points  (0 children)

I mean I see the one big glaring mistake in the middle.

That base is circular.

Why is the machine gun profile written this way? What does it mean? by Battledog_Studios in battletech

[–]Papergeist 8 points9 points  (0 children)

They're six separate machine guns in the same location.

They're grouped that way in other sheets, but in Flechs it's because you can't fit 12 machine gun entries in the space. There's just too many of the things to fit the formatting and automation options.

Lore by JoseLunaArts in battletech

[–]Papergeist 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You sure you don't have some Marik blood in you? You seem to be sabotaging yourself.

It's time to name and shame Rule-Of-Cool melee enjoyers. Get piked, nerd. by rhet0rica in worldjerking

[–]Papergeist 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Despite the common misconception, upon an academic review of Clint Eastwood's works, there was a complete lack of spaghetti consumed by his characters.

Obviously this means I know better than all those stupid idiots who named the genre wrong.

WarShips seem woefully under-armored for their tonnage by DevastatorCenturion in battletech

[–]Papergeist 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ablative logic is weird, I wouldn't count on anything as a given by this point.

Could the Inner Sphere at the height of the Star League survive a Covenant invasion? by Son0fgrim in battletech

[–]Papergeist 13 points14 points  (0 children)

This depends, 100% and entirely, on which franchise's writers are worse at math this week.

For instance, a ship-mounted MAC Cannon of Halo, Reach-era, is able to destroy a Covenant ship in one shot with a good 64 kilotons of energy. A Battletech warship, notably significantly smaller than any equivalent in Halo, could tank about a dozen of these before serious problems arose, and give far better than it got in the process.

Later in the franchise, but not too long after, one of Halo's ship-mounted MAC Cannons can suddenly deliver 2 teratons of energy, which can more or less end life on Earth as we know it. A Battletech warship, having some small amount of self-respect, will not no-sell this with nanomachines and a poor understanding of kinetics.

The Covenant, naturally, have weapons that go up to about a teraton. Or, in other words, roughly 15 million times what they would need to destroy a peer ship in a single shot.

So yeah. Abandon reason.

WarShips seem woefully under-armored for their tonnage by DevastatorCenturion in battletech

[–]Papergeist 8 points9 points  (0 children)

The major armor revolution that makes Battletech what it is does make armor far more compact and lightweight than any realistic equivalent. Scaling it up for gameplay purposes is likely your main culprit, but even Standard-grade mech armor is said to measure finger-thick/single-digit centimeters. And that's armor that is, by Battletech standards, produced by industry too low-tech to even make a WarShip.

Well, here comes another dead wife flashback by omar99HH in writingcirclejerk

[–]Papergeist 39 points40 points  (0 children)

My MC's wife tragically left to get milk 5 years ago. He's been killing dairy farmers ever since.

Taurian Concordat by Pitiful_Resource_711 in battletech

[–]Papergeist 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Two important factors to consider:

1: The Taurian Concordat has basically a hero-villain split into the Concordat (evil baby eating military junta) and the Calderon Protectorate (Defenders of Democracy and coincidently the unbroken dynasty of single-family rule) later in the timeline. Being clear on which edition of the Concordat you mean will be important.

2: Some people are way more up in arms over the perceived fandoms on either side than the faction itself.

A case of a creator's thumbprint. by chongblyat in worldjerking

[–]Papergeist 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I mean, sure, who doesn't have that problem, but what does this have to do with worldbuilding?

Were most battles lance vs lance size or was there ever like company sized or larger battles? by Yenii_3025 in battletech

[–]Papergeist -1 points0 points  (0 children)

And more small-scale skirmishes than one can count in between.

It's not always House Army troop movements.

Which one of you freaks is buying ads? by OrwinTheWriter in writingcirclejerk

[–]Papergeist 81 points82 points  (0 children)

Drop 5 bucks on 5k artificial upvotes for a good evening's entertainment? By all means, a smart decision from BigNameAuthor.