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Can any one point me in the direction of a UK store thats offering it...?

Cheers, Mick.

Pre Clan by far.

3025 timeline are what we play and all we have played for a while now and the clan was tried when it came out and disliked by everyone in my area thank god.

I perfer playing 3025 Era or Clan vs Clan personally.

I'm slightly annoyed with AToW that Steel Vipers aren't listed as an invading clan :(

Does A Time of War have a specific year for its (fluff) setting? After all at first the Vipers were a reserve invading clan and later on they were kicked out of their invasion corridor/gracefully excepted the Falcon's offer of Hegira. So they could be deemed 'not yet invading' or 'no longer invading'.

AToW is set during the Jihad unfortunately. However, I don't accept anything past 3057 as happening

The problem with AToW (And MW 3) is that it is stuck in certain time frames and requires a work-around for other eras.

Time era is not really import, I just prefer playing Inner Sphere against Inner Sphere. The whole clan seemed at stretch, really could never get into it.

I like 3025, but my friends like all the bells and whistles of Clan scum. I must admit running a 3025 Warhammer in a 3067 match was a hoot, simply because we had become so used to XL engines (ie: lose a single torso = dead mech) that the survivability of a pure center-torso engine was hilarious.

3025 was more fun. More tactical then just alpha striking mechs to slag.

Some of those much maligned 3025 mechs are better than the newer stuff. However that is by my play style. Others have trouble with the old stuff and can't use a non-upgraded unit.

The most amusing thing to me is we've been post 3050 for twenty two real life years and people still bitch about the clans like they entered the game last year.

I'll play any time period, they're all fun.

Oh, and the comment about 3025 mechs not being optimized or munch machines. Have you opened a TRO lately?

I find that I vastly prefer playing 3025, at most 3050.

Clan tech feels too much like a crutch to me. "No need to volley my fire, I've got DHS! Range brakets? What's that? And I'm faster than anything my size has a right to be to boot!" Jeez.

If one goes back and looks at some of the 'suboptimal' mechs from 3025 and bunches their weapons into short-range and long-range bundles, a lot of them start looking a lot better. Just... don't try and alpha-strike all the time, it's really not necessary to win.

Yeah it is kind of the Space Wolves of battletech in that way, but I guess the difference is that if you play clan era, so does everybody else. Within the game system itself though, all that clan tech is definitely a dumbing down of the problem solving and tradeoff decisions needed to play well with the old stuff. It takes a lot more thought to use earlier tech as the game is slower moving, more reliant on movement and usage of terrain instead of just a heap of armor and pulse lasers with double sinks. Clan fights always struck me as a game of a bunch of really fast, overarmored, overarmed glass cannons hoping to be the one that goes first.

What is an overarmoured glass cannon?

Orlanth wrote:What is an overarmoured glass cannon?

I think it is referring to the fact no matter how much armor you put on it, Clan tech can obliterate it pretty easily. So everything is sort of fragile when Clan tech is involved.

Vulcan wrote:I find that I vastly prefer playing 3025, at most 3050.

Clan tech feels too much like a crutch to me. "No need to volley my fire, I've got DHS! Range brakets? What's that? And I'm faster than anything my size has a right to be to boot!" Jeez.

Yeah, except for the fact that most clan mechs carry far more firepower than they can utilize without stir-frying the pilot.

Timberwolf Prime, 2 x ERLL, 2 x ERML, 1 x MPL, 2 x LRM-20, 2 - MGs, 16 DHS. So that's 52 heat on an running alpha strike vs 32 cooling. Yeah, that's a mech that doesn't care about it's brackets. Nova Cat prime? Squeeze those triggers all day baby. Hellbringer? Nova? Direwolf? Anything mounting a heavy laser? Alpha boats every one of them.

Yeah, there are some alpha baby clan mechs just like there are alpha baby IS mechs. It's not the rule though, and if you do set up your mech to just alpha strike all day long you are certainly going to be underpowered compared to most well put together designs, same as any other time period of the game.

Speed? Yeah, clan mechs are a bit quicker but so? Most of your clan assaults are on par with their inner sphere counterparts for speed. Most of your heavies are at best one tick above their much lower tech IS counterparts. It's not until the mediums that you really see mechs consistently going much faster than their IS counter parts. Even then that's only when comparing 3050 clan mechs to 3025 IS ones which are totally different tech levels.

yeenoghu wrote:Yeah it is kind of the Space Wolves of battletech in that way, but I guess the difference is that if you play clan era, so does everybody else. Within the game system itself though, all that clan tech is definitely a dumbing down of the problem solving and tradeoff decisions needed to play well with the old stuff. It takes a lot more thought to use earlier tech as the game is slower moving, more reliant on movement and usage of terrain instead of just a heap of armor and pulse lasers with double sinks. Clan fights always struck me as a game of a bunch of really fast, overarmored, overarmed glass cannons hoping to be the one that goes first.

Dumbing down? Again, seriously? 3050+ play still incorporates all the intricacies of 3025 play but then dumps on things like MASC, ECM, ammo selection, aiming for certain heat levels, and dozens of other techniques and considerations that 3025 doesn't even come close to approximating.

The main difference between 3025 and 3050 is that 3050+ is far more lethal than 3025. You screw up in 3025 and you'll take some damage but you're unlikely to be put down from one bad round. In 3050 if you screw up you get eaten alive. What was just armor damage and maybe a piloting check in 3025 is watching an entire torso section evaporate and take two engine crits with it in 3050+. Mechs in 3050 are far more lethal than 3025 mechs. Where as most mechs have gotten big boosts in lethality they haven't seen commensurate improvements in their defensive abilities. It's resulted in a game where firepower is the dominant force rather than armor.

If, by 'screw up' you mean 'exchage one round of fire,' then yeah, that's what I mean.

One round of fire from pretty much any clan mech on an equivalent mech leaves it a wreck. Add targeting computers and it's pretty much autokill.

So... you are looking at a game where you dance around for a bit then annhilate each other in a single volley, two at most.

3025 games could cat-and-mouse for hours before one side definitively got the upper hand. In the same time, you could hold an entire clan bloodname challenge and be done. Fine if you want short, violent games that end very quickly and usually result in the luckiest roller winning. But 3025 games required real tactics and resource management to win.

Vulcan wrote:
3025 games could cat-and-mouse for hours before one side definitively got the upper hand. In the same time, you could hold an entire clan bloodname challenge and be done. Fine if you want short, violent games that end very quickly and usually result in the luckiest roller winning. But 3025 games required real tactics and resource management to win.

That actually depends on the relative skills of the opposing players. My friend and I are fairly well matched skill wise. We seem to trade wins overall. Our games tend to be lance on lance and go for several hours. My luck sucks and his tends to be good. I've lost more mechs to headcaps than he has, but I sandpaper him to death, and tend to strip legs often.

Vulcan wrote:If, by 'screw up' you mean 'exchage one round of fire,' then yeah, that's what I mean.

One round of fire from pretty much any clan mech on an equivalent mech leaves it a wreck. Add targeting computers and it's pretty much autokill.

So, have you ever actually played the game? One round of fire from a clan mech won't annihilate another mech unless the target is either already beat to hell or half the firing mech's size. Baring a lucky decapitation it still takes two to three rounds of fire at a minimum to kill an equal sized mech even in a clan machine. With the changes to how targeting computers interact with things like pulse lasers you don't see the selective carving up of targets you used to unless your target is immobilized.

So... you are looking at a game where you dance around for a bit then annhilate each other in a single volley, two at most.

I don't know what game you're playing but it's not battletech.

3025 games could cat-and-mouse for hours before one side definitively got the upper hand. In the same time, you could hold an entire clan bloodname challenge and be done. Fine if you want short, violent games that end very quickly and usually result in the luckiest roller winning. But 3025 games required real tactics and resource management to win.

Oh for the love of... get off your high horse. Even if 3050+ was as magically lethal as you radically exaggerate it being it still requires tactics and skill to put your machines in position to obtain these mythical one shot kills you seem to think occur. 3025 isn't an example of more skill and finesse, it's a result of armor holding a serious edge over firepower necessitating dozens of shots to generate enough hits to start doing real damage to the target. Yes, the games drag on longer, but denigrating 3050 as skill-less because you don't have to dedicate an afternoon to a 1 on 1 duel is just asinine.

I have played Battletech since before it was named 'Battletech.' I have played everything up to 3060. And once the Clans (or at least their toys) get involved, the time to play a game drops by half, easy.

Vulcan wrote:I have played Battletech since before it was named 'Battletech.' I have played everything up to 3060. And once the Clans (or at least their toys) get involved, the time to play a game drops by half, easy.

Did you think that it could be your experience making gameplay faster? My experience is that the games tend to last the same length of time.

megatrons2nd wrote:

Vulcan wrote:I have played Battletech since before it was named 'Battletech.' I have played everything up to 3060. And once the Clans (or at least their toys) get involved, the time to play a game drops by half, easy.

Did you think that it could be your experience making gameplay faster? My experience is that the games tend to last the same length of time.

I can tell you higher tech = shorter games. Especially Clan stuff. The amount of massive damage weapons and headcappers usually cuts game length by at least 25%, if not more.

Vulcan wrote:I have played Battletech since before it was named 'Battletech.' I have played everything up to 3060. And once the Clans (or at least their toys) get involved, the time to play a game drops by half, easy.

Wasn't that the point? Introducing new tech to speed up the game w/o having to touch the basic mechanics?

robertsjf wrote:

Vulcan wrote:I have played Battletech since before it was named 'Battletech.' I have played everything up to 3060. And once the Clans (or at least their toys) get involved, the time to play a game drops by half, easy.

Wasn't that the point? Introducing new tech to speed up the game w/o having to touch the basic mechanics?

I think you'll find the introduction of the clans was to try and increase sales and make a good jumping on point for new players...

Clan technology is longer ranged, causes more damage, creates less heat and their mech jocks are better than 3025 so it must therefore make games a lot quicker.

Going off topic slightly, I just finished a really interesting graphic novel called MORAV, I highley recommend it if you are into big robot warmachines

Mick

I figured the Clans were mainly to move the plot forward in lieu of having yet another succession war.

Balance wrote:I figured the Clans were mainly to move the plot forward in lieu of having yet another succession war.

DING! We have a winner.

Like all games, Battletech was a little stagnant after a decade or so, so they add more to make it new again. Same reason any game adds something to itself.

Generally, my group reserves Clan Tech for games where we have a definite short time limit. 3025 games are for afternoons with plenty of time to kill.

And we perfer the longer game, yes.

Mick A wrote:Clan technology is longer ranged, causes more damage, creates less heat and their mech jocks are better than 3025 so it must therefore make games a lot quicker.

Actually, Clan Tech tends to create more heat. Now the heat per damage ratio may be better than IS stuff usually.

However, complaining about Clan Tech being better than IS tech is like complaining that a single Terminator is better than a single Gretchin. Yes, it is better, but there are other balancing factors that can be in play.

skyth wrote:

Mick A wrote:Clan technology is longer ranged, causes more damage, creates less heat and their mech jocks are better than 3025 so it must therefore make games a lot quicker.

Actually, Clan Tech tends to create more heat. Now the heat per damage ratio may be better than IS stuff usually.

However, complaining about Clan Tech being better than IS tech is like complaining that a single Terminator is better than a single Gretchin. Yes, it is better, but there are other balancing factors that can be in play.

I wasn't complaining Clan stuff was better, I was pointing out why it would make a game quicker. The extra heat caused by Clan weapons as taken care of by better heat sinks hence less heat.

Mick

A clan game is made faster by the strange restrictions of critical slots piling up to get all that armor and speed and guns and heat sinks, you end up getting an awful lot more crits becoming a critical factor. It's much easier to get a lucky engine hit on a XL engine, and all the armor you can pile on a frame is still finite for the size of the frame.

Double sinks offsets heat of firing more/better weapons.

Firing more/better weapons offsets lighter, thus more, armor coverage.

Better range, gunnery skills, and stuff like pulse or target computers offsets better speed.

So in the meta, all of these clan improvements have something to offset them, none of which speeds up the game. You hit more often, but you have more armor to knock off, you move faster, but he fires more accurately, etc.

The big factor in the game meta between IS and clan is the finite unchanging truths of a mech chassis and the 2d6 table for location and crits. The head will only EVER have 9 points of armor and 3 points of structure. No mech can carry more than 304 points of armor, no matter how light the armor is, and internal structure cannot be strengthened, only made lighter, it can still get shot off - faster when more weapons are involved. Lighter armor means more armor, lighter HS means more HS, lighter structure means more space for weapons. It all points to more weapons - as they are the only thing that needs piling on after a while (it's pretty easy to max out ferro fibrous armor, and double sinks make heat problems far less crucial, XL engines make speed take very little weight) what's left? MORE GUNS! (yee haw!). More weapons fired just points to more lucky crits or headshots.

The CT can always get a lucky crit, (until they release the new 'clan hit location table' - because by all rights, clan mechs shouldn't be vulnerable to head shots or CT crits like the inferior IS designs) . When everyone has endosteel, ferro fibrous, double sinks, XL engines - crit locations become the new big thing. Add the rule that you cannot hit an empty location, you reroll it, and some things that were meant to be a penalty for taking up so many crit slots in exchange for lighter weight (ferro fibrous and endo steel) actually become an advantage because its less chance of hitting a system that can actually effect the mech's performance. Big ol' "whoops" on the designers part IMO.

What is left? the Engine, the head, and the CT crit - which is the same for both IS and clan. But the more weapons you fire, the more likely those hits will come up, and the more XL engines, the more crippling shots will occur. CASE is the only 'newtech' that actually slows it down.

And yes Tyyr, I have read a TRO 3025 (just last night!). Something about a 20 ton mech carrying a ton of machinegun ammo instead of a half a ton, or maybe all those mechs who keep their ammo supplies in their CT, or absurd weapons configurations like the archer's only close range weapons being in its arms which should be punching in an ideal world, or the trebuchet's arm-mounted LRM15, or the Jagermech's um, everything -

The stuff that takes up extra crits (Endo/FF) is only a disadvantage. There is no advantage to it, as anything that hits those locations are re-rolled as well.

And some things can get more than 304 armor...There are now better armors that soak more damage (Hardened, Ferro-Lammenar, etc)