Carmen's 'Mech Refits & Sheep Station

[carmenara]

Artwork by Graymouser, HBS Battletech Community

Hi!

I'm someone who picked up Battletech because I loved the upcoming HBS computer game of the same name. Funny how that works right? I used to play MechWarrior 3, 4, and both MechCommander games but never thought there was something much bigger and more epic behind it.

Thanks to the HBS community I'm trying out roleplaying and writing my own short stories, none of which are notable yet besides adding flavor to BattleTech (computer game) scenarios I've written for the forums there.

Since the game was highly moddable (even without Developer tools) I decided to try my hand at modifying the 'Mechs to have more useful loadouts. It's mentioned somewhere in a post here on this boards that the stock loadouts are about 50% optimal. Things like replacing the JM6-S's AC2s with LRM5s actually make quite a big difference. So here's some fanart for my wacky fictional 'Mech variants and I hope you find a giggle in them somewhere.

Sun Zhang Aggressor Lance


Kali Yama "Mata Kali" Orion Retrofit


Defiance Industries MechJäger

(Click to view full-size images)

Ps. Oh I was also doing up a re-design of the Classic Leopard DropShip because I like the space shuttle style lifting body design. Not sure what to make of it but I wanted to draft the internal structure as well so we can use the spaces inside for roleplaying purposes.

Original Thread @ HBS Battletech

[worktroll]

Hi! Welcome to the forums.

Does the HBS game give you much option in terms of representing changed weapons? Or are you manually altering weapons tubes in the image?

I do like the Orion designs, albeit not keen on the HBS art for one of my favourite 'Mechs. ;)

W.

[carmenara]

There will certainly be a MechLab in the final version of the game releasing end of the year but all the hardpoints are already pre-scripted in the mech files.

So by looking at the manifest and hardpoint files you can see where they're going to allow placement of which weapons and what externally-visible loadouts will appear. At the time of doing up this set of Orions I didn't see the left lower torso PPC hardpoint so shoved everything in the arms. If you shoehorn ridiculous loadouts in there then the visual effects don't appear at all. I use the MWO MechLab to make the builds legal before sharing the files.

There's quite a sizable modding community in the current beta, since HBS deliberately didn't hide any of the game files.

[Simon Landmine]

I wonder how those builders correlate to the tabletop BT design rules?

(Disclaimer - I've played neither MWO nor the new HBS BT ... so I'm basically clueless but curious.)

[glitterboy2098]

things like tonnage and criticals match up but things like damage and heat operate by MWO "real time" rules. the main difference is MWO uses a hardpoint system to prevent people from just boating massive numbers of lighter weapons.. so for example, a -C1 catapult has 2 missile hardpoints (one per arm), and 4energy hardpoints (one per side torso, two centerline). you can fit any energy weapons into the energy hardpoints and any missile weapons into the hardpoints, but you can't mount more weapons than you have hardpoints or in any other locations.

honestly it works better than i had originally expected. it lets them make each model different by varying the number of hardpoints (adding extras in some cases that go unused on the stock version of the variant.. for example the catapult -A1 comes with 2 LRM20's stock.. but has three missile hardpoints per arm, so you can replace them with any mix of 6 missile weapons you can fit.) and forces careful design choices.

i would assume that HBS's BT game is using a variation on that approach. perhaps with a damage and heat mechanics closer to tabletop, given the turnbase nature of their game.

[Simon Landmine]

things like tonnage and criticals match up

That's positive! So at least the designs _should_ work on the tabletop. And I see what you mean about the hardpoint approach - that sounds pretty interesting, and would work to keep the basic style of each mech consistent, in terms of armament - missile boats would stay missile-y, even if they go short rather than long.

Thanks for the summary!

[glitterboy2098]

you can build them yes, but that does not mean that they will work the same. i don't know about HBS's game, but in MWO they changed heat, damage, and range mechanics a little to facilitate balance (or to placate players) so a design that works well in MWO will be odd in BT.

for example, most MWO custom designs are massively oversinked. because heat is vented in an over time rate, the more heatsinks you have the faster your heat goes down. also, because they made DHS vent only about 50% more heat instead of double (to help keep laser boats from dominating)
also, light AC's like AC2's and 5's actually end up with better damage over time than a heavy AC.. their lower cycling time between shots means that a person with good aim can often inflict more damage over the span of a given time than the lower ROF heavy AC's.
PPC's and lasers kinda fall into similar issues.. because lasers fire over a length of time their heat interacts with heatsinks a bit differently, and of course since range is handled by a damage fall off system even weaker lasers like the Small and mediums can be used to tag people at extreme ranges (they just do minimal damage), so large lasers are not as popular except where hardpoint limits limit laser options. PPC's use splash damage (small amont of damage ot one spot, then damage to surrounding area) so their lethality is measured differently, etc.

they also altered the ammunition numbers, weapons get more shots per ton, and they added half ton ammo for everything, not just machineguns.

[Simon Landmine]

Ah. Fair enough! (Also, interesting.)