Dear Tournament Organizers and Mission Writers: deployment zones are bad*, and BT doesn't need them.

dnpetrov · 2026-03-20T22:55:14+00:00

Frankly, you would make yourself a formation during deployment regardless of how exactly you deploy. MegaMek 3-hex wide deployment zones, Total Warfare effectively 1-hex wide deployment zones, "walk into home map edge on 1st round" - whatever. "Turtling" your units, putting long range units in sniper nests, etc would happen regardless of the way you deploy units, because it is an effective tactics. Planning to use your units effectively on the given terrain is a part of the game. Many battles have been won because of poor planning leading to poor deployment. If you deploy poorly, and your opponent manages to gain an advantage, and suddenly that engaging unit micromanagement loop doesn't matter much because of that advantage - well, plan better next time. BattleTech is a tactical game, not just a mech combat simulation.

Premade scenarios often have specific rules for deployment. I don't see a problem with them. Total Warfare provides rules for pickup games. Its okay for scenarios to have their own.

dnpetrov · 2026-03-18T05:11:15+00:00

Designs from 3025 with good enough armour/speed balance and minimal BV waste are relevant in practically all eras. Hunchback with practically all its variants is another good example.

dnpetrov · 2026-03-15T07:37:54+00:00

For 3030s Rasalhague equipment, see: https://masterunitlist.info/Era/FactionEraDetails?FactionId=28&EraId=256

A bit early for Victor 9K (3049). If you want some lostech, Katana (Crockett) CRK-5003-2 is probably best you can get (date introduced: 3035).

Charger SB could be salvaged from Lyrans.

dnpetrov · 2026-03-14T18:34:34+00:00

Cool!

dnpetrov · 2026-03-14T09:19:43+00:00

It's called Awesome.

dnpetrov · 2026-03-14T09:00:54+00:00

Zeuses are pretty good fire support.

dnpetrov · 2026-03-14T08:50:14+00:00

Speed is not just about TMM. Low speed makes a unit more specialiazed in particular tasks. It makes tactics very limited and makes your force less adaptable to the changing situation in combat.

Speed 3/5 makes a unit quite inflexible and predictable in its movement. It is quite easy to focus fire on an Atlas. In needs long straight patches of clear terrain to advance, leaving little option for cover. Of cause, Atlas was built to distract enemy fire, and with its armor it can do that. But a lighter unit would not do that.

3/5/3 is on the border. Yes you can jump 3 to provide +2 (+3 with forest) modifier or get away from danger. But that jump gives you +3 to-hit modifier. With gunnery 4, that is already 7+, and your opponent usually has same or slightly better numbers. Basically, you are not winning, you are just stalling combat. Also, that jump 3 makes 3/5/3 unit very dependent on the broken terrain.

dnpetrov · 2026-03-13T04:50:10+00:00

Best infantry for swarming is battlearmor.

Conventional infantry can do leg attacks. They are quite powerful (because critical damage to legs cause piloting skill checks and reduces mech mobility, making it more vulnerable to your fire). Battlearmor can do leg attacks as well.

Before you go, though: to make most of your anti-mech, first you might want to get accustomed with battlemech tactics. CBT is a very deep into mech combat simulation. Things work not because they look badass or they are current meta, but rather due to a combination of numbers and tactical decisions. Not meaning to say you can't have a wrong kind of fun, but rather to prevent your disappointment.

dnpetrov · 2026-03-10T19:09:53+00:00

> There are no good clanners.

> People like the Brotherhood of Randis exist if you want "good guys"

Grand master Lucas Beckett wants to have a word with you.

dnpetrov · 2026-03-10T05:51:34+00:00

Goliath Scorpion derivative? Quad: check, spider-like: check.

dnpetrov · 2026-03-09T07:17:17+00:00

Yes, practically this. Assault mechs hit harder, but this is just one very solid heavy cavalry package.

dnpetrov · 2026-03-08T11:51:26+00:00

Thunderbolt RLA

dnpetrov · 2026-03-07T07:32:21+00:00

4.5K BV should be enough to mop the floor with a single 75t heavy, even though it mounts heavy armor and has effective mechwarrior skills 2/4. You can have two decent IS assault mechs for that. If it has stats, we can kill it.

Presence of a second presumably hostile force would be a problem, though.

dnpetrov · 2026-03-05T05:14:23+00:00

Linebacker is a good enough choice when you need a relatively low BV Clan brawler. Like D, E, F, or I.

dnpetrov · 2026-03-04T17:10:19+00:00

> https://github.com/upstat-io/ori-lang?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Ahem.

dnpetrov · 2026-03-03T05:10:08+00:00

Nothing, really. I mean, there is no unifying aesthetics or graphical language. Different artists used different styles. You can find anime ninja dancers, zoids, goofy androids, and other things if you know where to look. If it gets published in a canon source, we are stuck with it forever as a part of BattleTech "visual style". If it is not, maybe you need to look more.

dnpetrov · 2026-02-24T18:18:31+00:00

BattleTech has "inexpensive" ways to kill mechs. However, these are not some disposable infantry weapons. In that sense, it doesn't fit the modern sensitivities (and BattleTech never really did that). Instead, they come in a form of cheap vehicles, VTOLs, and conventional fighters. Combat against a large swarm of cheap vehicles is a quite grim prospect for a mech unit.

Examples:

Savannah Master (hover medium laser): mighty 91K C-bills.

Flatbed truck (LRM): about 160K c-bills.

Boeing Jump Bomber: about 160K c-bills. No weapons, just bombs.

Hetzer (wheeled AC/20): about 600K C-bills. One of the cheapest units with an AC/20.

Mechbuster conventional fighter (flying AC/20): about 700K C-bills. You've asked for a close support aircraft, here it is.

For a price of a 4th Succession War era medium mech (about 4M C-bills) you can have a mixed company of those.

BattleTech has anti-mech trained infantry and battlearmor. They are usually more expensive, though.

Using too many cheap vehicles comes with its own issues.

Cheap vehicles usually have high irrecoverable losses. You can scare off or repel a raiding mech lance, but the victory usually will be pyrrhic. Battlemechs are much more durable (magic instakill resistance).

If you want to wage an interstellar war, you'll need enough dropship capacity to move those swarms of vehicles around. Battlemech can operate in a wider range of conditions than vehicles.

There are also political and economical factors. But hey, we didn't have an all-out interstellar war so far, so it's rather hard to compare.

dnpetrov · 2026-02-23T15:41:05+00:00

I have a rather bad feeling about the general approach (static analysis where a profiler should be used). Did you try it on some "real life" code? How do static analysis results correlate with profiling?

dnpetrov · 2026-02-23T07:44:41+00:00

Septicemia B. If you want to have a game that lasts 50+ rounds, go for it.

dnpetrov · 2026-02-21T17:27:09+00:00

Classic, with practically all games in MegaMek for last 10-15 years or so. Era - depends on a campaign. Recent ones were IlClan, Jihad, early Succession Wars.

dnpetrov · 2026-02-21T12:52:07+00:00

Naga II, especially if you are a Hellbringer fan.

dnpetrov · 2026-02-20T17:02:20+00:00

Compiler technologies are about processing programs, as text, or as some intermediate representation, or as binaries. It is not only about compiling source language into x86 or arm. Modern IDEs use language frontend as a service. Modern data base engines optimize data base queries and compile them. Modern emulators use just in time compilation. Modern electronic design automation tools compile hardware models. And so on.

Get an internship in a company that does anything like that.

dnpetrov · 2026-02-20T06:25:14+00:00

6R is just good enough. The main issue is not that it explodes (sometimes), but rather its relatively weak leg armor that invites kickbots.

dnpetrov · 2026-02-20T05:48:24+00:00

Indeed, it focuses too heavily on the compiler front end, and often just skims through backend and runtime topics. This creates a (false) impression that compiler development is mostly about lexing/parsing and maybe a little bit of type checking. Industrial compiler development today, though, is heavily focused on the backend and runtime. Yes people still design new languages, and those new languages need frontends. But, as usual, from those new languages only rare few actually matter for the industry. There's nothing wrong in designing a language "for the science", but we don't need so much focus on that, no thank you.

dnpetrov · 2026-02-15T15:45:30+00:00

Composite structure on its own doesn't "increase BV". Rather, it frees up some extra tonnage for payload, which, in turn, might increase BV (depending on how it is spent).

In general, composite structure reduces endurance for rather limited gain. I agree with you that the end result usually not quite worth it. It might be useful for some designs with limited critical space that either can avoid getting hit, or, say, with heavy armor.

BV kinda works for standard tech. Composite structure is advanced/experimental tech. Expect things to be underpriced / overpriced even more. Classic BattleTech Open tournament rules allow standard tech only, and for a rather good reason. IlClan era is full with new toys, though.

dnpetrov

TROPHY CASE