nivenbee-battletech

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tiny scorpion symbol

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On one hand, "Wars of the Republic Era" wrapped up Sun-Tzu's arc in some of the best writing the guy's ever had, and bringing him back would cheapen his death and legacy along with raising a lot of questions (he had some unspecified but terminal illness, he'd be like 130 years old, he hid his being alive all this time) that the writing team probably can't give good answers to.

On the other hand, THEY NEVER FOUND THE BODY! YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS: NO BODY, NO KILL! THAT'S RIGHT BABY WE'RE USING COMIC BOOK RULES NOW!

The worst possible way CGL could handle the upcoming Liao Civil War arc:

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It's all about redundancy. If you shoot a leg off a biped, then it's probably down until someone can tow it off the field. Maybe an pro pilot can get it standing, but then it's still hopping around slower than an Annihilator. If you shoot a leg off a quad then? It's a little slower, handles a little worse, but it can keep going.

OOC answer: same reason as LAMs, because the media BT was licensing from had them.

why are quads. thats it. just why. why they like that.

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Probably gonna lose some people over this (provided there's enough overlap for the comparison to be understood) but here goes. Possibly controversial take incoming:

Tex is to the BT community as Max0r is to the Ace Combat community.

Gets nuanced things (and sometimes basic facts) about the setting wrong ✅

Has biases that leak into the work ✅

Endlessly overquoted and has the relevance of their arguments blown out of proportion by large parts of the fanbase ✅

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Respectfully OP: you picked maybe the worst mech possible for this meme.

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Its really funny that every time I've used a Black Knight on the table it's done what Black Knights are supposed to do and soak up 10 billion damage regardless of if they live or die and all like 3 times I've packed an Orion it's died to a headshot almost immediately. It's like the laws of chance are telling me which 75 ton Heavy Brawler has the mandate of heaven

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If a buyer was really bothered by the lack of arm lasers they could drop a ton of ammo to put a small laser in each arm. It's not like most marauders have the heat sinking capacity to actually fire their arm lasers anyway, so the pilots shouldn't notice the difference in firepower.

To spite Marauder fans I have turned an Urbanmech into a mini-Marauder. Snub nose ppcs in each arm and an omnidirectional Light Autocannon in the head. They are a third the price and half the speed. Have fun.

I would ask what you have against Marauder fans, and advise you stay away from Owen ( @msn-04iinightingale ), but that aside...

No arm lasers?

It has 70% of the firepower of a Marauder. This makes the bird sad.

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Y'know it occurs me that it sure is A Choice™ by Mr. Herbert Beas to have the Liaos be the faction most into the (explicitly seen as negative by most in setting) genetic splicing shit.

Liao already has a lot of negative bias from their portrayals in canon. This just... Well.

If it was just soldiers doing the splicing, like these Death Commandos:

Then yeah, sure, whatever, Liao has the same "desperate to win at all costs" characterization in Gothic as canon.

But.

Turning Maximillian Liao into a snake person (and one designed to be pretty ugly at that) is uh...

As I said, that's certainly A Choice™.

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My inner munchkin says that if you're mounting comms equipment you might as well go for 7 tons, since that's the amount that gives you a +2 init instead of a +1 (assuming you're playing with the optional rules that make comms equipment do anything). Maybe dropping the small lasers would make room? Alternatively, a command console cockpit might make sense.

In any case, it's a neat idea. AFAIK the only mech that actually mounts a mobile HPG is the Septicemia Z, which existed for all of ten minutes in Clan space. Using one to flashbang an entire battlefield sounds incredibly fun, so it's a shame there are so few options for doing that.

For the communication-concerned general with a ComStar budget, on offer is the Heimdal 22X :)

Interesting. Certainly the most expensive 'Mech I have ever seen.

Personally, I will stick with the Neutton Star CEWS+Studebaker T-19+Tacticon B-2000 combo in the Old Bird's Nest. Takes less space, does even more than just communication. The HPG is an interesting touch, but overly bulky for mounting on a 'Mech. As is the six tons of comm equipment.

This is why we have mobile HQs.

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Okay, after consulting the techmanual I think I know what's happening here. It's not a MMLab moment, just an edge case that the rules were never meant to cover. This is the table that you use to generate an ASF's engine:

I'm assuming that the HumbleBee is an ASF, not a conventional fighter, so let's plug the HumbleBee's tonnage and safe thrust into that first formula to get its engine rating:

Ah. That would do it.

This thing has an engine rating of 0. The engine table starts at 10. There is no engine price because there is no engine (Note that the summary doesn't give a weight for the engine either). This of course is an illegal design under the techmanual rules (did the program give you the "illegal design" quirk or was that applied manually?), but that's probably beside the point.

Still no idea why the laser is invisible though.

Well. Folks we did it! We beat the Savannah Master for cost! It just took Patented engine technology. Top secret, you know the deal. For just 517,881 C-Bills you too can own a HumbleBee. A flying Medium Laser with 1 ton of armor and 1 ton of fuel, that moves...at a speed :D

Yeah so real-talk, this thing is all KINDS of fucked up. Something about being just 5 tons, makes the engine calculation have a stroke and just...Not.

MegaMekLab moment I guess?

Also the laser in the nose is Invisible

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snack hunter

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Obsessed with the Screamer LAM and similar XTRO units. “Once upon a time some idiots did something very dumb and made something very inadvisable, which accomplished nothing and then shortly afterwards exploded unremarkably.” What a waste of an anecdote. Kickin’ Rad design though, holy shit.

​I will forever wish LAMs were useful, I just want one missile-boat design worth taking so I can itano-circus across the board while screaming THRUST VECTORING OWNS THE SKY! THIS BABY TURNS ON A DIME, MACROSS ZERO STYLE!

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Alaric really didn't wait for the bodies to get cold before instituting full balls to the wall caste system on Terra.

I made a joke a couple of months ago about Ward needing to mobilize a task force to take a shit in his own bathroom and that might actually come true lol.

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THE FENG SHUI OF THIS WEBSITE IS FUCKED

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Grendel of the Alyina Mercantile League, Mercantile Militia

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I had to check, and it's actually completely doable with the tech base available at the 2R's introduction date if you either downgrade the PPCs from extended to standard (which is a reasonable decision, given that a basic PPC and basic AC5 share range bands) or just let the pilot cook themselves with the ERPPCs. You even have a little tonnage to spare!

Behold, the Marauder MAD-2B "Double Barrel". Some say diminishing returns, some say making a point.