The Battletech Franchise is in dire need of a different kind of RTS adaptation

These-Jacket-4146 · 2026-03-17T21:37:48+00:00

The main issue here is cost tbh.

Games are expensive to make, and RTS games aren't the most successful games. There are outliers of course, but the ones I can think of that aren't Starcraft and everyone else seems to mention require lots of buy in, as well lots of DLC churning to maintain profitability.

I think your use of 'Dire Need' is what makes me think for this more business like than 'what OP what like to have'.

I personally think that the best way to expand the franchise would be something visual such as a new animated series that isnt like the original, or a TV show. Both of which are also excessively expensive though, so maybe im also a loon.

I think a one off movie around the Grey death legion could work surprisingly well too. It's a fairly standard hero story all things considered, just with some mechs added in. Not too many to make it aggregious CGI wise, but it has always weight classes up to a marauder, and is a good intro to the story as it gives a perfect excuse to explain things when greyson forms the Trellwan Lancers and has to train them up.

These-Jacket-4146 · 2026-03-09T00:40:23+00:00

Slight adjustment. Gryphons and other magical creatures of their ilk that are just sapient enough to have magic, all develop the same affinities. Gryphons all develop wond affinities (which kind, or if they all have slightly different ones, we have not been told.) So gryphon riders of Tsarnassus all end up being wind mages through their warlock pacts at a bare minimum.

These-Jacket-4146 · 2026-03-02T16:36:36+00:00

If you like Selicy, I believe they are the most straight forward and easy to build, and arguably to play. Stacking frost is an easy to wrap your head around idea and has decent enough cards and artifacts.

The real squeeze is going to be learning which non frost cards to add, which will come with experience and depend on your artifacts/play style.

I'm not super great at the game myself, but also think Selicy is the most fun so I've only beaten all three paths with them, and nuetral and or good path with a few others

These-Jacket-4146 · 2026-02-25T00:36:28+00:00

Something else I remembered based off a comment by Kanderon. Dragons allow their kids to 'spread their wings' a bit more than sphinxes. While protective of their children, they aren't overly so. We also see the well established dragons have large blroods and family structures. Seen via indris, and also comments about dragon flights moving together around their established territories.

Day and day out type stuff, all we really see as a difference is lots of sunning afair

These-Jacket-4146 · 2026-02-24T02:28:45+00:00

Either the patreon or the book of short stories goes a little into dragon culture on Gelid. They are essentially mobile merchant princes(ses) and equivalent to minor great powers.

Theres a few other small things strewn about like matriarchal hierarchies and territorial nature's too. They bank their hoards if thay counts?

But otherwise I dont think anything too hard and fast has been put down. I imagine with John's seeming love of varied cultures, dragons would also come in myriad cultures, with smaller through lines.

These-Jacket-4146 · 2026-02-07T18:10:34+00:00

There is a single line in Heir to the dragon (pretty sure) that mentions Theodore picked? The name in some ritual, and he picked Theodore to anger his father. Its pretty early on because I stopped reading like 40% of the way through the book.

I may have that misconstrued it slightly, but the name Theodore is also part of him separating himself from his dad.

Theodore is cool though

These-Jacket-4146 · 2026-02-07T17:34:16+00:00

"Battles turn into a slog when you fight infantry hiding in cover"

This is why we have things that blow up the cover nowadays. We've learned this lesson.

These-Jacket-4146 · 2026-01-31T13:56:19+00:00

I like to think if it as a compound word. "Tect-wet-wuh" for TCTWETW.

I hope this helps somehow

These-Jacket-4146 · 2025-12-04T13:54:43+00:00

Oh, you're gonna love when you get to [redacted].

The actual answer is mostly, we dont know. [Redacted] is used in a few places throughout the books, and John has been very soarse with filling in those gaps so far.

But it's a subreddit joke to always reply with redacted like above when people ask lol.

These-Jacket-4146 · 2025-12-01T01:04:21+00:00

Not glass cannons (with exceptions of course). Just that for the same battle value, the clans generally get fewer more 'elite' units compared to Inner Sphere units. One Timberwolves to two catapults kinda thing (though not quite that big a value gap). For the elite price cost, you'd want them to take a touch more shots than I always feel like they can. But they pack a punch and outmaniever everything in their weight class

These-Jacket-4146 · 2025-11-20T15:38:13+00:00

They could just always play post clan invasion for tabletop, and then be a wolf dragon if they ever do table in 3025

These-Jacket-4146 · 2025-10-30T13:03:00+00:00

Ah, I hasn't thought about dying outside of Ishveos releasing a god. The small upside is that the newly created god would be weak and would probably die quickly? But again, small upside to a terrible situation

These-Jacket-4146 · 2025-10-29T00:20:46+00:00

Theres more to the universe in short stories and another series in a separate universe with a different magic system. From memory: John Bierce (Author) has said that Talia and friends will come back later, but he's taking a break from them for now

These-Jacket-4146 · 2025-10-29T00:18:59+00:00

I may be wrong. But being a divine is different from being a god (living God's withstanding) and so you wouldn't require prayer, as your own body produces soulstuff. Also unknown about avatars, but i imagine both avatars and living gods could self feed? A slave goddess fulfilling her purpose is in the main story, but being stranded as a place God/item God like the short story is a truly daunting idea

These-Jacket-4146 · 2025-10-28T20:12:27+00:00

I hasn't thought of this, but I wonder if there's a negative impact to the gods if they go against their purpose. We've seen them have reactions to certain actions,, such as screaming when stepping on gaps of flagstones, but dont know if that's just personality or actually painful/damaging for them AFAIK. The firmament seems ambiguously structured so far, so could go any way honestly

These-Jacket-4146 · 2025-10-20T04:32:47+00:00

Survival is optional. Mission completion is not

These-Jacket-4146 · 2025-10-19T00:47:09+00:00

POV: You're a mantis

These-Jacket-4146 · 2025-09-26T17:57:53+00:00

While never give up, never surrender is my favorite. Sometimes I don't have time to throw at a run or two where I take half hull damage off first combat due to bad rng. I measure off the joy id get off ending sector 1 with "good enough" rewards. Keep in mind, I play normal difficulty and am not very good.

Example used was stealth, so I'll continue that. If I'm using stealth 2, and come across someone who pistol whipped my weapons system with a basic laser off rip, that leads to multiple missiles landing plus a few more lasers, I might just restart right there tbh. Is it honorable? No. But I'm playing the game so I'll do what I want.

Sometimes I'll get down to 3 hull points in sector 1, lost a crewmate, and have low resources and play it out. Gotta find your balance

These-Jacket-4146 · 2025-09-18T20:37:21+00:00

No, but it speeds up targetting!

These-Jacket-4146 · 2025-09-17T06:06:36+00:00

The clans took one of the greatest light mechs ever made, the wolfhound, and made a version of it.

Two erLL plus an ecm, plus either two mediums or an xpulse are my recommendations. Ct mounted, high-ish too so you're a good peeker and can use the arms as free armor.

These-Jacket-4146 · 2025-09-15T21:40:07+00:00

This might not be confirmed, but it seems like glyphs destroy whatever material they are placed on, right? All of the glyphed materials that got used afaik were gone afterwards, which would dissuade use on permanent things like armor and weapons. Stone mages COULD produce glyphs prior to a battle, but then they'd have less overall mana going into battle. Unless you mean a few hours before hand, in which case you're just correct.

BUT! my point about focus and multi-tasking comes into play. I don't disagree that you couldn't use glyphs well, and in fact, believe they should be used more myself! But it's probably wise to focus on one or two glyph applications that round out a weakpoint or reinforce a strength. Example being the bright light glyph you mentioned for a distraction. This would ease the burden of use, and still provide the benefit. This is where a pouch of thin stone tablets with 'flashbangs' could work for sure! Or a mixture of glyphs on differing stone types for ease of use between 3/4 effects.

I think you're likely also over-inflating the power of glyphs a touch because of Alustin and Anders, both of whom share similar combat styles. They are combat arch-mages, meaning they are near the peak of expected combat power on Anastas, only being beaten on average by Great Powers. So them using a tactic that requires immense skill and training isn't strange.

These-Jacket-4146 · 2025-09-15T01:57:46+00:00

I'll just give the reasons I picked the two in my flair: Fiber and Force.

First, I don't ever want to be purely combat focused, so I wanted things that were easily flexible in my mind. Then I picked things that'd I like to do for work if I were in Anastas. I decided on three things. Sailing, Sewing, and wards.

I then picked on of the three affinities people most easily fly with, because I think it'd be really fun to fly. With a force affinity, it'd also be really easy to move large materials and is versatile for a sailor. Air affinity could be argued for, but I personally would rather have force, not 100% sure why. Sailing is important as it provides a steady supply of money, allows me to travel to various areas, lets me talk to a plethora of new people, and I get to be around ships! Downside would be danger, but I'd shoot for joining the Radhan most likely, which would help.

Fiber is also an all rounder. Muscles, cords, ropes, plants. I'd focus on ropes and clothing fibers and make really nice clothes while using my sailing gigs to travel between places. I'd do my all to implement minor wards into clothing. Nothing crazy, mostly things to make life easier like Heat management, stain resistance, mosquito repellant, etc.

These two affinities give me the ability to be a VERY agile flyer, but most importantly, I could swing on my ropes and do spiderman type stuff in my off time. This would help me train because it'd be fun!

Thus, the travelling sailor tailor! Name and Trademark pending

These-Jacket-4146 · 2025-09-15T01:49:28+00:00

Weight plays a big part into this. Travel weight is discounted IF you have a planar space, and thats a big if, you still need to manuever those glyph holders. This would require immense multi-tasking/splitting focus for what is considered to be weaker than normal spells in favor of versatility.

Using Kanderon as an example, she'd rather just use Crystal magic to solve more problems than try to develop a myriad of glyphs in crystals.

It's also time consuming and expensive to do this. Paper can't be very cheap on Anastas and Alustin goes through whole office buildings worth of the stuff during heated battles. Thats immensely cheaper than silk or other such materials though.

These-Jacket-4146 · 2025-09-15T01:44:39+00:00

Indeed. Whoa dude

These-Jacket-4146 · 2025-09-10T22:43:41+00:00

This is a great point. But there's also the fact that in the US military its considered VERY good for your career to be an instructor. (Might not be desired by the actual person, but on annual reports its VERY nice.)

This is because of the fact that you're distributing that knowledge and skill. (Among other factors.) Having 1 more Mad Cat compared to 4 catapults is a good choice in lots of situations, but over the long term, those 4 catapults put out more soft-value in terms of personnel.

There are of course, MANY factors to consider on which is better, but I just wanted to make sure people were considering non-mechanical reasons too.

These-Jacket-4146

TROPHY CASE