BattleTech 3057 - Recruiting players and co-GMs for new run.

[PaladinZenaku]

PaladinZenaku, I believe if you count the leftover crit spaces on the 5S Marauder you've got you'll find just enough free ones to fit ferro-fibrous armour on. That is if we're being that anal about these things. Also, love that character pic... *swoon*

I think that would be great but I suck at battletech when it comes to crit spaces and adding new engine or equipement. The best thing I could do is change up weapons by keeping the tonnage the same. I would like to ask if someone could help me figure out if that is possible? Please, Anyone.

[Thorne]

Since when is a Wolfhound a heavy bruiser? o.O

I try to leave the 'Mech customizing to those who are better at it - I'm more interested in the character interaction. The 'Mechs are just scene-dressing, from my perspective. ^^;

[Anathanasia]

Since when is a Wolfhound a heavy bruiser? o.O

I try to leave the 'Mech customizing to those who are better at it - I'm more interested in the character interaction. The 'Mechs are just scene-dressing, from my perspective. ^^;

Yes, and you stole my character too! Petite redhead from Skye...though last time I did that character she had the old family Atlas, which was a late generation Star League prototype for a new model (read: my own variant). I looked through things more and there's at least 3 mechs suitable for recon, so I might aim for something heavier.

I'm thinking of trying to track down the character I never really got to play for another game here, a Liao ex-pat Warhammer pilot. Might be archived here somewhere, if I can't find the old file on a backup I made somewhere. Mech is negotiable, but I don't want to be the 3rd petite redhead in the group, you know?

That's all, of course, if the game is still recruiting, as I said.

[Thorne]

*snork* I did, eh? Does this mean Ailis has a twin sister she didn't know about? Eeek! Clones! Clan Conspiracy! AAAAAAH!
*giggling fool head off* Sorry. I'm done now.

Seriously though. I think we /are/ still recruiting. Unless Warg comes back and says different. ^^;

[Sel Nar]

Just my two cents (And a reminder that I need to repost my character, plus 7 years of 'grumpy old man' attached), but as far as I'm concerned, we're always looking for more people.

Edit 1: Paladin; I've been re-reading the actual tech manuals (Yeah, I know, grognard here), and am looking at the readout sheet for the 5S; this is a copy of its layout.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

MAD-5S Marauder

Mass: 75 tons
Chassis: GM Marauder
Power Plant: GM 300 XL
Cruising Speed: 43.2 km/h
Maximum Speed: 64.8 km/h
Jump Jets: None
    Jump Capacity: 0 meters
Armor: Valiant Lamellor with CASE
Armament:
    1 Poland Main Model A Gauss Rifle
    2 Defiance 1001 ER PPCs
    2 Defiance P5M Medium Pulse Lasers
Manufacturer(s):
    Bowie Industries (Carlisle / FC)
Communications System: Dalban Micronics
Targeting & Tracking System: Dalban HiRez

Overview:

Type: MAD-5S Marauder
Technology Base: Inner Sphere Level 2 3050
Tonnage: 75


               
Equipment      Mass
Internal Structure:            7.5
Engine:   300 XL         9.5
   Walking MP:   4
   Running MP:   6
   Jumping MP:   0
Heat Sinks:   16 [32]         6.0
Gyro:            3.0
Cockpit:            3.0
Armor Factor:   184          11.5
      Internal   Armor
      Structure   Value
   Head:   3   9
   Center Torso:   23   35
   Center Torso (Rear):      10
   R/L Torso:   16   17
   R/L Torso (Rear):      8
   R/L Arm:   12   22
   R/L Leg:   16   18

BV : 1466 Cost : 15498000
Weapons and Ammo      Location   Critical   Heat   Mass
Gauss Rifle      RT   7   1   15.0
@Gauss Rifle (8)      LT   1   0   1.0
ER PPC      RA   3   15   7.0
Medium Pulse Laser      RA   1   4   2.0
ER PPC      LA   3   15   7.0
Medium Pulse Laser      LA   1   4   2.0
CASE      RT   1   0   0.5

The formatting's munged up, but the basic idea boils down to this; Because you swapped out the medium pulse lasers for classic mediums, you have 2 tons of weight to fill (I would suggest armour; the Marauder is relatively thin-skinned on both side torsos and the legs) and you have enough free space internally (barely) to upgrade to Ferro-Fibrous, which gives you a 12% increase in Armour, which will do wonders for the Marauder's otherwise-documented thin spots.

If you have more questions, I'll do my best to answer them.

[Anathanasia]

*snork* I did, eh? Does this mean Ailis has a twin sister she didn't know about? Eeek! Clones! Clan Conspiracy! AAAAAAH!
*giggling fool head off* Sorry. I'm done now.

Seriously though. I think we /are/ still recruiting. Unless Warg comes back and says different. ^^;

I can only reply with one word:

Twincest.

That is all.

Well, I wouldn't say no. That young woman whose pic you chose is really lovely; now imagine two...

While I muddle on characters, for the GM mainly, check out the old Liao character. I still kinda dig her less than typical entry into the unit, so I'd love to be able to keep it and just change some details. Consider this a draft:

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Name: Xuē Lei Fang (Lee)
Rank: Ban-zhang (Lieutenant), serving as Mechwarrior with Stryker's Strikers
Unit: Stryker's Strikers, home unit: Warrior House Fujita battlemech battalion
Homeworld: Grand Base, Capellan Confederation

Age: 20
Height: 5'3”
Weight: 102lbs

History:
   Lei was born on the planet Styk and orphaned by the fighting there during the Fourth Succession War. She was lucky enough to be among those rescued by a Warrior House Fujita mechwarrior when he stole away with a Mammoth class dropship loaded with freed prisoners and Davion battlemechs.
   Needing to rebuild, House Fujita took in many of the orphans, including Lei, to begin training them in their monastic mechwarrior tradition, based on the tenets of Bushido. So it is that Lei has known very little else in her life, having trained every day in a wide array of the arts of war since she six years old. She was identified as a solid candidate for the Fujita mech battalion early on, and her training focused there ever since, though she is just as diversely skilled as any other member of a Confederation Warrior House.
   Despite her youth, Lei is a highly skilled and talented mechwarrior, more experienced than many her age due to the severe and regimented training she's undergone for almost the whole of her life. This is not to say she's what passes for 'experienced', exactly, only that she's far more capable than most mechwarriors her age.
   In addition to her excellent skills in the cockpit of her Warhammer, one of the mechs stolen in that dropship and recently refitted, Lei has also received thorough infantry training, enough to qualify her for special operations by the militaries of most of the Successor States. She is an expert martial artist and knows full well how to wield the katana she carries, and she is a passable computer hacker and knows her way around a demolitions kit.
   Sometimes, all the training in the galaxy isn't enough keep someone out of trouble, though, as Lei found out on only her third mission as an active duty mechwarrior. Separated from her unit while they engaged in a running night battle with the mercenary unit Stryker's Strikers, she seized the chance to try and ambush one of the Strikers' lances when the opportunity presented itself. Concealing her mech out of sight on a ledge against a cliff face overlooking a ravine, she waited, listening for her pursuers to pass below. She was reasonably certain they wouldn't even notice the ledge in the dark of night, and would assume she was still ahead of them; Lei wouldn't have, only she'd noted it earlier in the day. It would have been easy to cripple them, firing her Warhmmer's considerable arsenal into the rear armour of the Strikers' mechs, but fortunately for them, when Lei's 70 ton mech went to step out from hiding, the ledge gave way under it, dragging Lei and her battlemech down in to the ravine and starting a rockslide that threatened all of them. Staggering back to it's feet, Lei's Warhammer was about to be smashed flat by a huge check of stone when the lead Striker mech, which turned out to be the commander himself in his Highlander, shoved Lei out of the way.
   She still wound up on her Warhammer's ass, pinned and mostly buried by rock and dirt. The Strikers had come out of the rock slide just fine, however, and seeing the four mechs move in to surround her, Lei thought for sure she was finished, one way or another. To her surprise, at the direction of the Highlander, they began to dig her out.
   If it had been a simple matter of capture, Lei would have committed seppuku to cleanse her honour and be done with it, but the Strikers' commander had probably actually saved her life. Owing him a debt of honour, though displeased with the situation, Lei convinced Stryker to let her join him. She's not sure why, but perhaps it's just as simple as he doesn't want to feel responsible for her suicide should he not respect her sense of honour and give her the opportunity to pay back the life-debt the old fashioned way.



WHM-6LC
Chassis: Starcorp 100
Engine: Magna 280 (uses DHS)
Mass: 70 tons
Max Walk Speed: 43.2kph
Max Speed: 62.8kph
Armour: 10.5 tons Ferro-fibrous
Heat Sinks: 16 Double Heat Sinks
Weapons:
--2x Ceres Metals Warrior ER-PPC [Right Arm, Left Arm]
--2x Martell Medium Laser [Right Torso, Left Torso]
--2x Magna Small Laser [Right Torso, Left Torso]
--2x FlameTech K-213 Flamer [Right Torso, Left Torso]
--1x Holly Short Range Missile Pack (6) SRM-6 w/ 1 ton ammunition [Right Torso]
Equipment:
--Artemis IV Fire Control System for SRM-6 [Right Torso]
--CASE [Right Torso]

[Sara Nilsson]

we need more redheads

[Sara Nilsson]

Since when is a Wolfhound a heavy bruiser? o.O

compared to a tarantula it is :)

[Inash]

My bushwhacker isn't really a bruiser either.

[Sara Nilsson]

My bushwhacker isn't really a bruiser either.

again. 4.5 tons of armour :)

[Thorne]

I suppose anything is a bruiser, if you're running around in a Flea or something. I didn't think we had any of those, though.

My bushwhacker isn't really a bruiser either.

... oh really. 'Scuse me, I need the scoop net, my brain wandered into the deep end again. 

[Sara Nilsson]

we have a tarantula though, not much more heavily armoured then the flea :)

[Sel Nar]

As far as any Lyran jokes, 80 tons is 'Recon'. 100 tons is 'medium'.

[Blobbe]

Or, you know, people could use stock 'Mechs. There's no need to obsessively min-max everything and it's a great way to drain the fun out of a game.

[TheGlyphstone]

Or, you know, people could use stock 'Mechs. There's no need to obsessively min-max everything and it's a great way to drain the fun out of a game.

Spoilsport.

OKay, you have a point, but I hardly think using leftover tonnage to upgrade to FF armor is really obsessively minmaxing anything...designing custom Mech hulls from scratch isn't really the same as changing one or two things - mercenaries are pretty individual people.

[Thorne]

Like scrounging up a bunch of double heatsinks, y'mean? *grin*
Which, with the Wolfhound's loadout, seems to me like a Really Good Idea. Yes, I pay attention. Because Ailis is supposed to know that stuff.... >.>

[TheGlyphstone]

The WLF-2 is a canon model with DHS introduced in 3052, so that's not as good an analogy as you might think.

More saying that people shouldn't feel required to glue only to canon variants of canon mechs, but taking a canon mech/variant and tweaking it to give it more personal flavor is fine as long as it's still recognizably the same mech, and it can be justified in a way beyond 'it's better/more effective'.

[PaladinZenaku]

Just my two cents (And a reminder that I need to repost my character, plus 7 years of 'grumpy old man' attached), but as far as I'm concerned, we're always looking for more people.

Edit 1: Paladin; I've been re-reading the actual tech manuals (Yeah, I know, grognard here), and am looking at the readout sheet for the 5S; this is a copy of its layout.

The formatting's munged up, but the basic idea boils down to this; Because you swapped out the medium pulse lasers for classic mediums, you have 2 tons of weight to fill (I would suggest armour; the Marauder is relatively thin-skinned on both side torsos and the legs) and you have enough free space internally (barely) to upgrade to Ferro-Fibrous, which gives you a 12% increase in Armour, which will do wonders for the Marauder's otherwise-documented thin spots.

If you have more questions, I'll do my best to answer them.

If I add FF armor would I have any extra tons left from the 2 tons from downgrading the pulse lasers to regular ones? IF I do I want to add a extra ton of gauss ammo.

Or, you know, people could use stock 'Mechs. There's no need to obsessively min-max everything and it's a great way to drain the fun out of a game.

I am starting to think your right. That maybe what warg was talking about he steps away and you people run off some players.

[Inash]

Custom mechs was always part of the fun of the boardgame though.  Even if it did mean I got my ass kicked.

[Thorne]

Hey, if it's canon, I have something to refer to! Which makes my life easier.

And, hell, if the 'custom' aspect of the thing is the paint job, that works for me - one less thing I have to worry about. I can focus on the role playing. And teasing you guys with the cute little redhead. ;p

[Wargtass]

I'm more interested in the character interaction. The 'Mechs are just scene-dressing, from my perspective. ^^;

This...

Or, you know, people could use stock 'Mechs. There's no need to obsessively min-max everything and it's a great way to drain the fun out of a game.

...and this.

As for Anathanasia, you might have a gem in Lee there, you just need to polish it so that it fits in in this game a little.

As for Paladin, have your Archer. For Christ sake people, did I not just a few weeks ago (and repeatedly over PMs since) that everyone should be able to play what they want this time around? Why should he settle for a Marauder if it is an Archer he wants? Don't let the nerds in you smother the creativity of those around you. Sure we have some restrictions when it comes to tech availability, but is it the end of the world if it doesn't fit with your vision? Because the thing is that this was my vision and now it is our vision.

More Corp-info coming up, specifically NPCs.

[Andi]

Just figured I had to add to the 'everyone plays a bruiser' remark...

Infantry 'Mech-buster rifle.

~Vanya

[Blobbe]

Final (pending approval) draft of the character. Tell us what y'all think.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Pilot

Name: Cass Tenclay
Sex: Female
Homeworld: Caph
Original Faction: Federated Commonwealth

Description: Cass presents a striking figure; tall and slender, her features are crowned with long red hair that, in turn, frames light blue eyes. Adding to the image are the ornate tattoos that run up the length of both arms, depicting a variety of colourful designs intertwined with each other.  She usually dresses casually, with little regard for uniform or the like. Often she will wear a necklace with an elaborate pendant, the latter of which dates back to the Star League era.

Cass at home on Caph

Background: If any world could be best used to sum up the damage wrought by the Succession Wars, it would be Caph. At the height of the Star Leauge it was a part of the Terran Hegemony, a world of wealth, high tech industries and research and unique megafauna. Three centuries of warfare had left it a shell of its former self, with two of its three continents uninhabitable, its population shrunken by nearly eighty percent, its industries and universities reduced to rubble and its unique wildlife extinct. As can be imagined, the population of Caph had long memories and little love for the so-called “great houses”.

Cassiopeia (“Cass” to everyone except her parents) Tenclay  was pretty typical of that belief. While well-off by her world’s standards with ties to an old, well-established family, it was not hard to grow up with an attitude of “what have the successor lords done for us?” As they grew up, they developed a desire to get away from the wasteland that their ancestral homeworld had become, as well as a desire to live their own life. As soon as she reached their majority (and received a chunk of family trust that had been held for them), Cass was off, leaving Caph and not looking back.

After a couple of years of “bumming around” (her words), she would up on Outreach, managing to fall in with a small mercenary company who needed a filler. Having done a round of compulsory training with the planetary milita, Cass showed an aptitude for ‘Mech piloting, one that was enough to earn her a billet and a paycheck. Two years later she chose not to renew her contract, rather setting out on her own with a range of newly marketable skills and a brand new BattleMech to boot.

Personality: Cass is head-strong and rebellious, with a desire to do what she wants and not what is expected of her. She does have enough sense to buck down and follow orders in the field, but at the same time she expects her superiors to have earned their rank rather then have it given to her. She has an inherent distrust of nobility and especially the ruling houses of the Successor States, having seen what their wars and ambitions did to her homeworld.

Despite her desire to get off-world, she does have a degree of attachment to Caph, especially given that she has family there. Recent events, especially the collapse of the planet’s central government into warring city-states concerns her, something that she tries not to let show.

Speciality Skills: Cass has an interest in Star League-era artifacts and history, especially when it comes to the worlds of the former Terran Hegemony. She speaks a smattering of bits of several languages as a result of her time spent travelling.

BattleMech Characteristics

BattleMech: Dragon Fire
Weight Class: Heavy
Callsign: Copperhead
Description: (name’s) ‘Mech is practically brand new, having never seen any real combat. The ‘Mech is currently painted with a green and yellow, snake-like pattern

Loadout:
Zeus Slingshot Gauss Rifle
Mydron Excel LB-X-10 Autocannon
Exostar Large Laser
2 Defiance B4M Medium Pulse Lasers

Modules: CASE, Guardian ECM Suite

Upgrades: XL Engine, Endo Steel Structure.

[Anathanasia]

As for Anathanasia, you might have a gem in Lee there, you just need to polish it so that it fits in in this game a little.

I figured she might need some specific tuning, so please, offer some suggestions?

Having her sworn to protect the unit commander is still the most obvious, but who is that? I'm fine with it being a PC, so perhaps just a senior officer?

On the variants front, for me, so many of the book variants are just nuts. XL engines, for example, have their place (medium mechs!), but they are often just a liability in a bigger mech, being so much more engine to get shot. A mech with an XL engine almost always needs to be fast enough to that being hard to hit makes up for the extra vulnerablity. That's why mediums are so great with XL engines, as it lets them really hit that sweet spot in the holy trinity of firepower, protection and mobility. Heavy mechs always need to be considered carefully, and assault mechs usually move so slow that an XL engine is just a bad idea (I had a Wolverine variant that just devoured assault mechs if they had XL engines).

From a 'lore' perspective, I could never see military budget planners giving the okay to use XL engines on mechs they planned to produce lots of, especially when, as I just said, mechs with XL engines are considerably more fragile (this I gleaned from my experiences with the tabletop). The 3050 Grand Dragon, for instance, if you priced it up, was crazy, well over 10 million C-bills. At least it was fast. If they took out the XL engine, though, it would gain survivability, and they could afford almost 3 of those Grand Dragons in place of one with an XL engine. On the large scale, it's budgets and numbers that win wars!

/nerd rant

So, um, yeah...what sorts of changes would I need to make for Lee? >.>

[PaladinZenaku]

As for Paladin, have your Archer. For Christ sake people, did I not just a few weeks ago (and repeatedly over PMs since) that everyone should be able to play what they want this time around? Why should he settle for a Marauder if it is an Archer he wants? Don't let the nerds in you smother the creativity of those around you. Sure we have some restrictions when it comes to tech availability, but is it the end of the world if it doesn't fit with your vision? Because the thing is that this was my vision and now it is our vision.

Umm Warg I understand what your getting at and would like to put my two cents in.

The real mechs I would love to pilot I cant find info on due to sarna.net doesnt work on my computer (dont know why. They are just helping me to find a better mech by giving ideas. I took the marauder idea and now was looking for upgrades to do. I may know alot about the PC mechwarrior games and have two books of battletech but I NEED some help with customizing. My customizing is counting the tonnage of the weapons I remove and try to add weapons without going over the tonnage i removed. That is how I done the archer. I didnt even know about crit slots until they said something.....I will just stop there and do two things. List the mechs I love and wanted to play but cant due to the year. And ask you to help me. They are making me ask more questions then they are answering. Please use the list to help me find a more suitable replacement if I cant get them!

My fav Mech list

Faninr
Deimos
Cougar/Puma
Glass spider
Talos