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I blame pulse boats for the general hatred of custom mechs in most gaming circles. Well, pulse boats and how bad many canon mechs actually are.

The whining when you handed a pulse boater his ass was always epic though.

Tyyr wrote:I blame pulse boats for the general hatred of custom mechs in most gaming circles. Well, pulse boats and how bad many canon mechs actually are.

The whining when you handed a pulse boater his ass was always epic though.

Very true on both accounts.

I often found the TC/Pulse crowd tended to be the players who came to Battletech from other games, looking for the "best" units. In the end Battletech only has a few TRULY bad units, almost everything is usable in some way which I think makes it a far better game than 40K or Fantasy.

Tyyr wrote:I blame pulse boats for the general hatred of custom mechs in most gaming circles. Well, pulse boats and how bad many canon mechs actually are.

I actually don't mind "bad" cannon mechs, but it only took 1 day of playing with the maximum tech rules & custom builds for our group to decide it was no fun and go back to to playing stock mechs from 2750 to 3055.

IMO, the game is really best in the 3025 to 3050 zone.

I LIKE the quirky sub-optimal mechs. They're the ones that really fit with the background story of a declining humanity, forced to use automated factories that they largely do not understand, in order to get their warmachines.

Custom made mechs are often boring.

Mattlov wrote:Very true on both accounts.

I often found the TC/Pulse crowd tended to be the players who came to Battletech from other games, looking for the "best" units. In the end Battletech only has a few TRULY bad units, almost everything is usable in some way which I think makes it a far better game than 40K or Fantasy.

I agree, probably why I have a more than a battalion of IS mechs and a cluster of clan ones on my shelves but only a single Sororitas army.

The thing is that a pulse/TC boat with perfect heat dissipation doesn't represent the best unit, not by a long shot. It's an immature and inexperienced idea of what's best. Someone who knows the game knows that you ride the heat curve, not avoid it. Set your mech up to bracket fire and set your heat up to handle that. Know when to push the heat scale up to the top and when to cool off. It's less a perfect science (pulse lasers + TC + JJ + perfect dissipation = win) and more an art. Which is why pulse boaters are usually so easy to table. The ones that are hard are the ones who know how to handle the heat curve and still run pulse lasers + TCs. But then that's why they removed their ability to target individual sections.

BAWTRM wrote:I LIKE the quirky sub-optimal mechs. They're the ones that really fit with the background story of a declining humanity, forced to use automated factories that they largely do not understand, in order to get their warmachines.

Except this isn't WH40K. In Battletech nearly every faction is designing and building their own mechs by 3050 and even tiny little periphery nations are getting into it by 3070. Mech's aren't magical archeotech, they're everyday common weapons of war.

Yes, I like plenty of the regular mechs and can appreciate them for their quirks. I can separate the idea of things that are issues because of the design and game rules and not necessarily in universe problems from things that don't make sense in universe. The thing is that half the designs are absolute garbage. Decisions like 8 whole rounds for your main gun, going with almost purely energy weapons but not mounting any additional heatsinks (half the WoB militia designs), anything with a class 5 auto-cannon. At some point these stop being quirks and start being absolutely idiotic design decisions. A good example is the Shadowhawk, how on earth did that thing get into production and how did it stay in production when you've got mechs like the Griffon, Wolverine, and Centurion around?

The people who designs these mechs are designing weapons of war that will cost tens of millions of C-Bills and be responsible for the defense of their nation and yet the look like someone spent five minutes in megamek designing them. I'm not saying every mech should be perfectly tweaked and optimized but they should look like someone put some serious thought into the design and the "quirks" should be understandable trade offs and not look like oversights on the part of the drunken monkeys that slapped it together.

Tyyr wrote:

Except this isn't WH40K. In Battletech nearly every faction is designing and building their own mechs by 3050 and even tiny little periphery nations are getting into it by 3070. Mech's aren't magical archeotech, they're everyday common weapons of war.

...A good example is the Shadowhawk, how on earth did that thing get into production and how did it stay in production when you've got mechs like the Griffon, Wolverine, and Centurion around?

The people who designs these mechs are designing weapons of war that will cost tens of millions of C-Bills and be responsible for the defense of their nation and yet the look like someone spent five minutes in megamek designing them. I'm not saying every mech should be perfectly tweaked and optimized but they should look like someone put some serious thought into the design and the "quirks" should be understandable trade offs and not look like oversights on the part of the drunken monkeys that slapped it together.

If you look at the fluff you'll see that what I described is pretty much the situation from the 2nd Succesion War on up. The discovery of the Helm memory core finally ended this state of affairs but actual new mech designs and production lines only started to really come online around 3050.

So if you look at the 3025 situation, you've got a load of factories that can only turn out a certain type of mech (or if lucky more) because they're automated and no longer fully understood. So you can pour raw materials in a factory and get say, 40 Shadow Hawks a year, or simply get none from said factory. That's 40 less mechs less on your front lines each year, there simply is no alternative.
It's also why certain mechs were heavily connected to certain Successor States, because they were the only ones still making them! Any of the same type in another state was salvaged from the enemy in the past or maybe traded/stolen.
Commando's were made on Coventry. Zeus, Atlas and the Banshee on Hesperus. Awesomes in the FWL. Panthers and Dragons in the DC etc. etc.

With the resurgence of technology this is no longer the case and we get to the situation you were describing. I guess we were really referring to different time periods.

I only ever played 3025 era mechs from the basic box, but out of the origional 14 I think the Thunderbolt was a beast. Wolverine not too shabby either... but this was back before ER and PULSE and FERRO and so on, and there were only 14 mechs...

locust,wasp,stinger,phoenix hawk, shadowhawk, wolverine, griffin, rifleman, crusader, thunderbolt, warhammer, archer, marauder, battlemaster...

that was IT... so just curious out of that list, which of those mechs would you rate at the top?

Ryoken.

I defy anyone to find a better 'Mech in the game than the Ryoken. And don't give me the "Only true 'Mechs are IS 3025 'Mechs" bs because it ain't 3025 any more, no matter how much you old grognards want it to be. The universe has moved on.

But it never moved on from 3050, where the greatest 'Mech in history showed up - the Ryoken. That thing can still kick it on the fields of the 3080's.


Other great 'Mechs include the original Grasshopper, Mad Cat A, Orion, Imp, Jinggau, Nightstar, Centurion, Enforcer, the mighty Hunchback and the UrbanMech. The UrbanMech isn't a good 'Mech, but it is an awesome 'Mech.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Ryoken.

I defy anyone to find a better 'Mech in the game than the Ryoken. And don't give me the "Only true 'Mechs are IS 3025 'Mechs" bs because it ain't 3025 any more, no matter how much you old grognards want it to be. The universe has moved on.

But it never moved on from 3050, where the greatest 'Mech in history showed up - the Ryoken. That thing can still kick it on the fields of the 3080's.

Eh, it has too much of a rear armor bias. I find it loses side torso far easier than a max armored 55 tonner should, and most of the configurations are only average at best. I have persoanlyy never believed that the Ryoken is the greatest 'Mech, because in order to be great, you need to be able to fight above your weight class, and the Ryoken can't, not with a great chance of success.

Nonsense. Prime and C are wonderful creations.

This 'Mech can punch above its weight easily.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Nonsense. Prime and C are wonderful creations.

This 'Mech can punch above its weight easily.

Prime is massively oversinked. Pile of wasted tonnage on heat sinks it doesn't need. The "C" escapes me at the moment. LB-10X and Large Pulse laser? Sure, it can beat up a good Battle Armor squad, but it does even less damage than the Prime.

It might be able to punch a bit over it's weight, but it can't take it. As a fast flanker, it doesn't hit hard enough. It does average damage for a Clan design, which means it really isn't that threatening. If they had made configurations with ER PPCs it would probably change my opinion, but to me it is just sub-optimal in it's configurations. Combine that with wonky torso armor placement, and it is really only average. Just because it moves 6/9 doesn't make it amazing, because again the bad configurations never gave it jump capability to exploit that speed.

Love quite a few mechs, Thor, timberwolf, centurion, awesome, as well as the lil light mechs like panthers, commandos and such... I love abou 99% of the mechs in the game, the newer WOB ones just make me feel their not battletech.

The problem we had for the longest time was geting the other players to play the little stuff.
It was not until I brought out the 115 [That was the units total weight] and started to win games with them.
This was 3025 tech and I was using a lot of Infernos

When we played it was 3025 still, because after all the clan tech and ancient Star League stuff started appearing, we found that the game wasn't as fun any more. The more complicated FASA made things, the less we played. SO we just went back to 3025 Tech Readout for mechs... of these, a few I have a fondness for: Thunderbolt, Centurion, Dragon, AWESOME, Marauder, Archer, and Valkyrie all come to mind as solid mechs for 3025... others I wouldn't touch with a stick: Vulcan (massively under-armed), Urbanmech (just a bad idea), Jagermech and Rifleman, (underarmored) Dervish (keeps its SRM ammo in its ARMS!?), Cicada (just a big Locust) to name a few.

I really don't think any of those mechs from that technical readout were 'optimum' except maybe the Awesome. All of them had something flukey about them, something useless (machineguns on the Stinger?) but that's why it was cool. They are all flawed.

Guitardian wrote:When we played it was 3025 still, because after all the clan tech and ancient Star League stuff started appearing, we found that the game wasn't as fun any more. The more complicated FASA made things, the less we played. SO we just went back to 3025 Tech Readout for mechs... of these, a few I have a fondness for: Thunderbolt, Centurion, Dragon, AWESOME, Marauder, Archer, and Valkyrie all come to mind as solid mechs for 3025... others I wouldn't touch with a stick: Vulcan (massively under-armed), Urbanmech (just a bad idea), Jagermech and Rifleman, (underarmored) Dervish (keeps its SRM ammo in its ARMS!?), Cicada (just a big Locust) to name a few.

I really don't think any of those mechs from that technical readout were 'optimum' except maybe the Awesome. All of them had something flukey about them, something useless (machineguns on the Stinger?) but that's why it was cool. They are all flawed.

The Vulcan, Urby [Or as we call it R2 with a 10 guage], Mick-Jager and the Rifleman are some of my favorites.
The RFL-3N has the ability to raly dish it out. As I put it earler I put the Medium Lasers out the rear. I run her hot [7-14 points] and are constantly moving. When I get to hot I just use the Autocannons. When my Front Armor is gone I turn around and let the Tinfoil absorm a Volly and feed them the Medium Lasers. Most of our games only last 10 turns so I never stop firing the Autocannons. Realy the only other mod I do it Replace the Medium Lasers for a Pair of Small Lasers and add a Tone of AC/5 Ammo.
As one player puts it I dance with my Rifleman.

That is very awesome way of playing a rifleman. I just noticed that every time I used one I would get hot, and it would have a leg shot off easily.

I think Cicadas might have been intentioned just for ramming into things at high speeds. I think in many cases heat is a huge issue with that era mechs because of the lack of double sinks, like the mech designers back at FASA deliberately made them kind of 'problematic'... anything from stupid weapons placement, poor armor allocation in one area or another, too few sinks for their weapons, etc.

They built them "Realisticaly"
Remember: You are using a weapon built by the lowest bidder

Tyyr wrote:The people who designs these mechs are designing weapons of war that will cost tens of millions of C-Bills and be responsible for the defense of their nation and yet the look like someone spent five minutes in megamek designing them. I'm not saying every mech should be perfectly tweaked and optimized but they should look like someone put some serious thought into the design and the "quirks" should be understandable trade offs and not look like oversights on the part of the drunken monkeys that slapped it together.

I will remind you of the design process for the FB-111, that started with a contract for a U.S. Navy fighter, and ended with an aircraft TOTALLY unsuited for the Navy's needs...

My favorite mechs are also my favorite lance.
Centurion, Enforcer, Crusader, Catapult

Guitardian wrote:That is very awesome way of playing a rifleman. I just noticed that every time I used one I would get hot, and it would have a leg shot off easily.

I think Cicadas might have been intentioned just for ramming into things at high speeds. I think in many cases heat is a huge issue with that era mechs because of the lack of double sinks, like the mech designers back at FASA deliberately made them kind of 'problematic'... anything from stupid weapons placement, poor armor allocation in one area or another, too few sinks for their weapons, etc.

When the 3025 designs were made there WERE no double heat sinks to put on them. It was technological decline. They didn't want to maximize every design because they wanted variety and a reason to use them all.

Guitardian wrote: All of them had something flukey about them, something useless (machineguns on the Stinger?) ...

I've dumped players in a massive cityscape with tons of cheap infantry squads hidden all around. Machineguns became really hot items!

Note: The players couldn't simply level the city. They were mercs in a campaing (also no good to be known as indiscriminate murderers) whose contract stipulated keeping the city as whole as possible (declining money otherwise) and the planetary militia would also turn against them.

Another Favorite of mine is the Blackjack

One nasty mod I came up with is take a Jenner and Replace the SRM-4 with a LRM-5 and run them in 3s with Grand Dragon.

I like the blackjack variant that replaces those ridiculous AC2s with LLs and heat sinks. That guy is tough.

I loved the good ol' standby of the Vindicator. I also liked the Panther. And the Awesome. Pretty much anything with PPCs, I dunno why.

Vulcan wrote:I will remind you of the design process for the FB-111, that started with a contract for a U.S. Navy fighter, and ended with an aircraft TOTALLY unsuited for the Navy's needs...

And if the final result had a top speed of 200 mph, could carry only a single 500 lb. bomb, and had an operational range of 80 miles it would have been a screw up on the order of ohhh, the entire Jagermech series. The FB-111 wasn't great, but it's not Sentinel bad.

With the resurgence of technology this is no longer the case and we get to the situation you were describing. I guess we were really referring to different time periods.

Given that you're describing a 3025 tech level which hasn't been the default of the setting for about 20 years, yeah we're talking about different things. I'm talking CBT circa 2010, not circa 1988.

The Stormcrow is a heck of a mech. Against inner sphere opponents it's hell on wheels but against clan opponents it suffers the same problem as any 6/9 55 tonner, it's on the wrong side of the engine mass curve and gives up too much for its speed. It has a place for sure, I own two of them and use them a lot, but against a mech like a Timberwolf or lord help it a Nova Cat it gets curb stomped, hard.

Tyyr wrote:
Given that you're describing a 3025 tech level which hasn't been the default of the setting for about 20 years, yeah we're talking about different things. I'm talking CBT circa 2010, not circa 1988.

You seem to forget that Battletech system is one where only the basic rules have changed over the years, but all previous (lower tech) mechs are still as valid as they ever were. Battletech describes a fictional timeline and players are free to play in any of the 'settings'. Your referring to the year that certain mechs types were created IRL and assuming that the mechs from later on in the timeline are somehow 'more valid' than the older ones is like saying Flame of War players cannot play any of the early war theatres because newer ones have been released describing late war theatres.

Most of my personal games tend to go from 3020 to 3055. That's because I own most of the rules from this period, most of my minis are from this period and people in my gaming group just like the quirkiness of the older mech designs. But we do go for the cutting edge battles from 3055+ occasionally. They offer a nice change because you really need to adapt the way you play. It's just that we prefer the way you need to play in the older settings more.

Amen to that too. The game was more fun the less complicated the technology got. Yeah... 1988 tech is about when I started playing this game. 1998 is probably right around when I finaly got sick of all the changes over a decade.

And btw, the Vindicator (as mentioned above) was a good mech now that I remember it. Those things were TOUGH for their size. The only problem was that we played very 'fluff' story-oriented games, so it would have to be a lance of Liao mechs (or maybe mercenaries) if it had a Vindicator. At that time, Liao was reputed to lack the facilities to manufacture any mech over 60 tons or thereabouts, so if you got a Vindicator, you weren't getting a Battlemaster or Marauder to go with it. Same scenario with the Panther, Zeus, Valkyrie, Enforcer, Dragon, Hermes II, Jenner, Commando... all the origional very house specific designs). Didn't use them much since we were playing a 'mercenary' campaign. Unless you were lucky enough to shoot one up and not destroy it you didn't get house mechs. Our 'DM' made that a rule of how he ran our little Battletech universe, that way when you do actually get an efficient mech design, it's like finding the magic sword or something. Other than that, you're stuck in your inherited Jagermech or Charger or whatever and making the best of it.

Amen to that too. The game was more fun the less complicated the technology got. Yeah... 1988 tech is about when I started playing this game. 1998 is probably right around when I finaly got sick of all the changes over a decade.

And btw, the Vindicator (as mentioned above) was a good mech now that I remember it. Those things were TOUGH for their size. The only problem was that we played very 'fluff' story-oriented games, so it would have to be a lance of Liao mechs (or maybe mercenaries) if it had a Vindicator. At that time, Liao was reputed to lack the facilities to manufacture any mech over 60 tons or thereabouts, so if you got a Vindicator, you weren't getting a Battlemaster or Marauder to go with it. Same scenario with the Panther, Zeus, Valkyrie, Enforcer, Dragon, Hermes II, Jenner, Commando... all the origional very house specific designs). Didn't use them much since we were playing a 'mercenary' campaign. Unless you were lucky enough to shoot one up and not destroy it you didn't get house mechs. Our 'DM' made that a rule of how he ran our little Battletech universe, that way when you do actually get an efficient mech design, it's like finding the magic sword or something. Other than that, you're stuck in your inherited Jagermech or Charger or whatever and making the best of it.

Ah, the Charger

I was running a MechWarrior Campaign once with a light change of background.
I had some Alien races and the ClanTech belonged to Com-Star, the PC’s had access to Elementals.
I had all of them out on a training mission with just a Tech’s Pack-Rat, other than that the only other piece of Wargear was the one PC’s Elemental Point [Flamers], when the planet was assaulted.
They eventually they found an enemy camp with 2 Mechs [Charger and a Firestarter] and a Aircraft. They waited until dark and attacked. As the PC’s and the Pack-Rat Attacked the ground crew and pilots the Elemental went for the Mech and the Aircraft. When he got to the aircraft he reached into the cockpit and grabbed the pilot by the head and tried to throw him out. Well the straps held, but the pilot did not. Then he bounded over the Charger and this time grabbed the Pilot by the chest this time, once more the Straps held but not the pilot [The Tech was not happy and made the elemental hose out both Cockpits]. Well what they captured was a Charger, a Firestarter and a PHX LAM. This pleased everyone, but the young nobles who got stuck with the Charger, he immediately started to complain about the 5 Small Lasers.
As they slowly went back to their lines they got in to a few more fights including a Hunchback, that had its right leg taken out completely by the Elementals Flamers, but during this time the Young Nobel kept whining about the 3 Small Lasers and the group would just look at him and say “It’s a Charger, Think about it!”.
Well as the game progressed the Elemental Point kept being taken down to the last man but the PC and this was purely by luck. We started calling them the Timmy Squad, [We are going to need another Squad of Timmy’s].
Eventually after 4-5 games the Young Nobel found himself 7 hexes from a Whitworth [I think], and charged it successfully! The expression of understanding was totally worth the whining.

yeah 80 tons moving 8 hexes will knock out the hoover damn. Every time I tried to 'charge' with my charger I MISSED. Dice gods hate stupid mechs... but if I had ever got that ONE good hit I would have ended up loving that mech. I had a Banshee once too (origional, unmodified, complete crap) which I was going to sell off for a modified BLACKJACK for chrissake, because it was a better mech (hmm.. 95 tons for 45 tons? Banshee must really really suck, huh?) but then I got in a fist fight with it after most of its weapons got shot up... and when your fists are doing the talking, you suddenly remember how cool it is to weigh 95 tons. I had considered sellling it off and was making the deal with the other player in our league who had the Blackjack, but I never ended up trading it after that game. WHAM! WHAM! do the only thing you're good at and go punch stuff!