H.B.M.C. wrote:
The ER Streak Pulse LB-X NAVAL Gauss Rifle 40.

 aphyon wrote:
Are you talking about quick strike



I understand why it exists, but it totally kill the immersion. I want pilot tests, ammo explosions, critical hit rolls etc... that part of the fun of the game.
headcapping happens.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Some of us don't like it because we prefer our BTech to be super-crunchy and also quite binary (mapsheets remove the ambiguities of movement, range and LOS).

Anyway, as we wait endlessly for our oodles of plastic 'Mechs to show up (March is so far away! ) I've jumped back into HBS's BattleTech PC game.

There are a lot more 'Mechs in it these days (52 in total, with 15 added since launch), and it makes combat far more varied. Took on 10 'Mechs at once without a single duplicate among them, which was quite rare.

Still fighting too many Locusts and Spiders though.

I've jumped back into HBS's BattleTech PC game.

 infinite_array wrote:
Unfortunately a lot (if not most of) the Battletech stuff on Audible are abridged versions.

Right now the only fully unabridged Battletech novels on Audible are Embers of War by Jason Schmetzer, which is about mercenaries in 3067, and Forever Faithful by Blaine Lee Pardoe, which covers what happens to the Smoke Jaguars after they're defeated in 3060.

Hey Backers,

Video update is about nothing to report! As what is written down below speaks for itself! Enjoy the update guys and Ill see you next week!

-Talon

In our ongoing efforts to keep all our awesome backers informed, here is the latest update on what we are hearing out of China.

The limiting item(s) for Wave 1 remain the Clan Invasion box set and all of the ForcePacks. You know, all those items with plastic figures that China promised would NOT have delivery issues like the last time when we did a major box set (11 months late on A Game of Armored Combat “new plastics” revision).

Why did we go back to this company? Because their plastics are really good! Until we decide if we want to go full HIPS (High Impact Polystyrene) then Liya will remain a go-to manufacturer for us.

But, they are freaking late. Terribly late. Beyond Covid-issues late.

Yes, it’s upsetting.

No, there isn’t a lot we can do but stay on their case about it, and make sure in their rush to catch up they don’t allow any new errors to creep into our designs. On that subject they’ve been really good. We have a dedicated rep who’s job it is to give us the ongoing bad news but to also take our concerns back to the factory and make certain in the end we get what we want. Even if it isn’t when we wanted it.

After blowing the June 20th deadline, China did a serious self-assessment and came back with a new date. Well, to be fair, first they said “It’s going to be July.” That was as close to a deadline as they’d commit. July. We spent a few conversations after that demanding a real deadline. That took a few weeks to get, but we got one. Ready for this?

July 31st.

Yep. As late in July as they could manage without totally breaking their most recent change of timing. Even better, though, they would only commit to the “original order” from 2019, and not the expanded order we asked for…mmm…sometime around March? Because of the success of the late pledge campaign that kept running in the background while we worked on getting the product out, we’ve added nearly 4000 new backers, and so—get this—we have to print 82,000 Salvage Boxes! Which is great for BattleTech. Which sucks for trying to get China to deliver everything we need on a decent timeline.

However, our rep went to bat for us and got the factory on board to get the expanded order to us within two weeks of the initial delivery. So at the moment, our delivery schedule looks like this:

80% of what we need on July 31st.
20% of what we need on August 15th.

That isn’t too bad, considering how the world shut down. After all, it takes two weeks longer in shipping time to get all the product we need to our EU Hub. So what we are hoping is that on July 31st, we can begin staggered shipping to our five logistics Hubs around the world in order to have the product arrive more-or-less at the same time and prep and begin fulfilling to you, our backers, about the same time.

After talking with Quartermaster Logistics, the fulfillment company that is helping us keep all this on track and will be responsible for the final delivery to you, we are looking at the following revised schedule:

August 1st: start shipping to the logistics Hubs
August 16th: final shipment to the logistics Hubs.
September 1-15th: all product arriving in all logistics Hubs.
September 15th-30th: all product collated and beginning to ship to backers.
September 21st - October 31st: Backers receiving Wave 1 worldwide!

As Hubs will be operating on their own schedules to make this happen, there is about a 2-week window where some Hubs may get an early start, and that leads to a 5-week window thanks to actual shipping and delivery times where product will be arriving to our Wave 1 backers worldwide.

Hopefully all that made sense.

So what does that mean for Wave 2? We are working to answer that question. While this has been going on, our team has not been idle. There are fifteen ForcePacks in Wave Two. Six of them are already with the manufacturer and initial prototype printing is already under way there, in preparation for the creation of the master molds. And we’ve another large batch of STL files heading to them shortly; there is actually only two designs left of the entire nearly 100 that have not had an initial sketch approved. While all of that is encouraging for moving into the start of Wave 2 production shortly after Wave 1 is done, we have not been given any new/revised schedule that we can bank on for sharing specifics at this time.

When we know more, you will know more.

Thank you for your patience and your amazing support.

-The Catalyst Team