And R.G.M is still here. Woop woop.
And R.G.M is still here. Woop woop.
And R.G.M is still here. Woop woop.
On Wednesday, November 2, 2016 at 11:16:04 AM UTC-4, Peter Hamilton
wrote:
And R.G.M is still here. Woop woop.
For extra irony, some of the folks who were here "back in the day" still monitor any updates or activity in the group.
I'm not sure what that says about me, but obviously true. Because here I
am.
And R.G.M is still here. Woop woop.
And R.G.M is still here. Woop woop.
On Wednesday, November 2, 2016 at 10:16:04 AM UTC-5, Peter Hamilton wrote:
And R.G.M is still here. Woop woop.For values of "still here" where no activity in months qualifies.
But at least it is not full of SPAM
On Wednesday, November 2, 2016 at 11:16:04 AM UTC-4, Peter Hamilton wrote:
And R.G.M is still here. Woop woop.
I am Camille's complete lack of surprise.
On Wednesday, November 2, 2016 at 11:16:04 AM UTC-4, Peter Hamilton wrote: >>And R.G.M is still here. Woop woop.
I am Camille's complete lack of surprise.
And R.G.M is still here. Woop woop.
Some of the games it was inspired by are currently experiencing a Renaissance of their own. It's an interesting time to be alive for both gamers of all kinds and those with a specific interest in giant robots.
That means us.
Yeah. It has been a little wild to see both the rebirth of games like >Battletech,
Quoting Devillin <devillin@hotmail.com>:
Yeah. It has been a little wild to see both the rebirth of games like >>Battletech,What, again? I haven't really been keeping track; last I looked I thought >Wizkids had kind of dug it out of the Dark Ages nonsense and put out >essentially the same old Battletech, but I've got that (I did pick up
their master rulebook, admittedly) and besides, I'm more and more fed up
with initiative-and-alternate-moves since it so often comes down to an >initiative-rolling contest.
On 2017-09-23, David Damerell wrote:
their master rulebook, admittedly) and besides, I'm more and more fed up >>with initiative-and-alternate-moves since it so often comes down to an >>initiative-rolling contest.As far as I can see, Catalyst (the current licencees for the
boardgame) are trying to get away from Same Old Battletech and more
towards what I think is now called Alpha Strike - which had its
origins in the Battleforce system.
I'm more and more fed up
with initiative-and-alternate-moves since it so often comes down to an initiative-rolling contest.
On Friday, September 22, 2017 at 5:02:18 PM UTC-5, David Damerell wrote:
I'm more and more fed upThen go to impulse play, steal the move sequence from Car Wars or
with initiative-and-alternate-moves since it so often comes down to an >>initiative-rolling contest.
Starfleet Battles.
That sounds encouraging (roll-and-move isn't so bad with large unit counts >permitted by a streamlined combat system), but I also read the conga line >problem is worse than ever. If only someone else had another variant set
of Battletech rules. :-)
Quoting Jonathan Schattke <wizwom@gmail.com>:
Then go to impulse play, steal the move sequence from Car Wars or
Starfleet Battles.
If there's firing opportunities every impulse (or more than once a turn) >cover becomes much less useful because you can't move from one woods
patch to another without inviting fire when out in the open (which may
be realistic, but it still doesn't work gameplay-wise and realism is
an absurd goal in a mecha game anyway) and the question of how to
calculate a Mech's speed arises, which wants a subsection of its own:
On 2017-09-24, David Damerell wrote:
Quoting Jonathan Schattke <wizwom@gmail.com>:The first problem I see here is that both SFB and Car Wars are _very
Then go to impulse play, steal the move sequence from Car Wars or >>>Starfleet Battles.
slow_, something that Battletech doesn't need more of.
Really to match the anime a mech shouldn't have ablative armour; it
should have a status that's "fine", "temporarily stunned", or "out of
the fight", with a small chance of specific systems being knocked out
so that the heroic pilot has to do something clever.
...recent discovery of 18xx games to scratch the complexity itch, etc...
damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk (David Damerell) writes:
...recent discovery of 18xx games to scratch the complexity itch, etc...Battletech -> 18xx is a thing? Awesome! I'm not alone!
I think I'd say in SFB's defence that it's not that slow given that a
viable number of units to control is "one", as a result of the impulse >movement system and scope for deviousness with that single unit. I don't >really think one can play Battletech with less than a lance a side without >initiative completely dominating, and that's a comparable amount of work
to an SFB single-ship duel [1] with a much bigger chance of being >lord-of-the-diced by headshots or something.
I mean, I do think SFB is too complex (and irritatingly Federation
Commander is too simple), but I think the main reason I don't play SFB
much is more to do with Steve Cole's intransigence (choking development of >automated play aids in a game that cries out for same, etc), the amount of >other stuff on my shelves, recent discovery of 18xx games to scratch the >complexity itch, etc...
If anything, depending on your mecha anime, getting damaged should
increase effectiveness; but the gameplay implications are alarming. That >said, I never really thought of Battletech's lumbering monoliths as anime >mecha, even though when I started (like you) the Unseen were all there was
to see.
Hm. "3025", where one invests in the five Successor States (presumably as >rival puppetmaster factions of ComStar) and then does err something to
affect who comes out on top? I think this may need work.
On 2017-09-28, David Damerell wrote:
Hm. "3025", where one invests in the five Successor States (presumably as >>rival puppetmaster factions of ComStar) and then does err something to >>affect who comes out on top? I think this may need work.That would be pretty much a reskin of _Princes of the Renaissance_,
no? https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/8045/princes-renaissance
Quoting Roger Bell_West <roger+rgm201709@nospam.firedrake.org>:
I haven't played FedCom.FedCom is... trying to keep it short because this isn't even a mecha game,
I'd like to play more _Close Action_, but basically that demands PBEM and
a lot of bodies, because it bring about period tactics by having "one
ship, one player" (not a lot of work per ship) and a fog of confusion from >highly limited signalling.
I suppose a reasonable place to start from a game point of view wouldHa, this I like. (Although of course the universe can never quite decide
be that the stuff in the anime is the stories they tell in the bar,
but the game is mostly about the normal grunts.
if 'Mechs are incredibly precious relics of a time goneby and hence >'Mechwarriors a tiny elite, or not - taking 3025 as a baseline, it seems >clear no DropShip should ever dispense anything but a cloud of tanks and >infantry, with 'Mechs being held in reserve by the defenders for the most >dire of straits...)
My favourite BattleTech universe oddity, incidentally, is that jumpships
have such high specific impulse, based on the amount of dV they get per kg
of reaction mass, that the exhaust velocity must necessarily be >99.99something% of the speed of light. They put guns on them because... ?
I haven't played FedCom.
also Shipwreck and Victory at Sea (the latter derived from a Babylon 5 >starship combat game), where multiple systems get lumped together and
it feels horribly low resolution, but you can play a large battle in a >reasonable time and get a plausible-seeming result. So I grit my teeth
and accept the low detail.
I suppose a reasonable place to start from a game point of view would
be that the stuff in the anime is the stories they tell in the bar,
but the game is mostly about the normal grunts.
On 2017-09-29, David Damerell wrote:
Quoting Roger Bell_West <roger+rgm201709@nospam.firedrake.org>:
I haven't played FedCom.FedCom is... trying to keep it short because this isn't even a mecha game, >Thanks.
In mecha game terms, I don't think there's a lot of room for hidden >information, though. You might have units concealed in buildings,
maybe, in certain scenarios.
Indeed. I _liked_ the idea that tech progress was going backwards,
plausible or not; 'Mechs being rare is a symptom of that.
ITYM dropships again? Jumpships are the ones that have solar sails
because their fusion plants can't supply the rich chunky power needed
to charge a jump core... and the sails produce a peak of 40 watts.
Quoting Roger Bell_West <roger+rgm201709@nospam.firedrake.org>:
In mecha game terms, I don't think there's a lot of room for hidden >>information, though. You might have units concealed in buildings,Just off the top of my head, what if selection of BattleTech movement mode >was secret-and-simultaneous at the start of the turn?
maybe, in certain scenarios.
Indeed. I _liked_ the idea that tech progress was going backwards, >>plausible or not; 'Mechs being rare is a symptom of that.I don't think it helps that they over-egged the pudding so much. They're
not just rare, they're super-rare and incredibly precious... and yet, they >can't even be maintained properly, in spite of the vast efforts that would >presumably be made to maintain something so rare and precious. (Sure, we >might have lost so much tech we can't even maintain them with such
efforts, but this militates even further against ever using the things...)
And why do mercenaries own them? They're colossal white elephants and >furthermore instead of being shot at for money one could sell up and have
a huge pile of money and not be shot at. Let alone pirates - we're going
to use the most valuable objects in the universe to steal valuables. I
can suggest an optimisation to that procedure!
Assuming these "tons" are American short tons (up until now they
cancelled), which I suppose is probably true in an American publication
of this vintage, and if I haven't made some silly error driving "units",
the energy output is about 5.5 * 10^16 W, which isn't much by E.E. Smith >standards but is about a tenth of the total solar input to the Earth so
would probably seriously annoy anything it hit.
On 2017-09-30, David Damerell wrote:
Quoting Roger Bell_West <roger+rgm201709@nospam.firedrake.org>:Well, that's a point on the continuum between BT one-at-a-time, and
In mecha game terms, I don't think there's a lot of room for hidden >>>information, though.Just off the top of my head, what if selection of BattleTech movement mode >>was secret-and-simultaneous at the start of the turn?
written orders executed simultaneously. Is it a better point?
What can a 'Mech do that makes it better than a tank?
In rough terrain, even the height might not be such a terrible
disadvantage: the enemy can see you, but you can see them
Reminds me of a boardgame I played recently (Dead Men Tell No Tales):
you're pirates going into an undead-infested, burning ship to get
loot, in spite of the fact that you already have a decanter of
infinite rum.
But this approach actually makes Solaris VII look _more_ plausible:
Formula 1 cars are also ridiculously expensive.
Also, let's approximate the Merchant as a 5:1 cylinder that's (DS&JS)
320m long, so 64m diameter. That's about 70e3 m^2 surface area.
Assuming 99.9% efficiency on the power output, it's still blackbody
radiating at 10e3 K.
The way to fix all of this, I suspect, is to drop this whole "crossing
solar systems" thing. Nobody seems to have even a theoretical drive
that produces both high acceleration and high specific impulse.
Quoting Roger Bell_West <roger+rgm201709@nospam.firedrake.org>:
On 2017-09-30, David Damerell wrote:I dunno - I'm just saying, I think there is some room because one can
Just off the top of my head, what if selection of BattleTech movement mode >>>was secret-and-simultaneous at the start of the turn?Well, that's a point on the continuum between BT one-at-a-time, and
written orders executed simultaneously. Is it a better point?
imagine such mechanics. That said, I think it's a superficially plausible >rule, and does introduce the important element of something I have
committed in prior planning which you don't yet know.
What can a 'Mech do that makes it better than a tank?I think it's a mistake to think about this in too much detail, because one >rapidly reaches the conclusion that the 'Mech's tall profile, unstable gun >platform, many exposed joints, and horrendous area-to-volume ratio mean
the answer is "get holes in it".
I mean, I like the 3025 dying-technology setting; I just think FASA
grossly overdid it, in a way that requires overly vigorous suspension of >disbelief.
Assuming 99.9% efficiency on the power output, it's still blackbody >>radiating at 10e3 K.I must remember to do this calculation - you've done it before in some
other context and it always produces an amusing result.
The way to fix all of this, I suspect, is to drop this whole "crossing >>solar systems" thing. Nobody seems to have even a theoretical driveAside from Project Orion? Nothing like as good as the BattleTech drive,
that produces both high acceleration and high specific impulse.
but it ticks both those boxes.
In the BattleTech universe, given we already have a magic FTL drive, I
don't see why it can't produce a bit more magic and give us reactionless >acceleration in-system...
So you're committed to walk/run/jump. This cuts down the opportunities
to react to an enemy unit's placement, and probably means fewer
physical attacks. (I've always found physical attacks essentially
silly, so that's good.)
I mean, I like the 3025 dying-technology setting; I just think FASAFair enough. I'm trying to come up with ways of making a giant stompy
grossly overdid it, in a way that requires overly vigorous suspension of >>disbelief.
robot game that doesn't blow all my plausibility fuses at once.
In the BattleTech universe, given we already have a magic FTL drive, I >>don't see why it can't produce a bit more magic and give us reactionless >>acceleration in-system...Reactionless drive means cheap planet-killers if anyone can steal a >spaceship.
Quoting Roger Bell_West <roger+rgm201709@nospam.firedrake.org>:
So you're committed to walk/run/jump. This cuts down the opportunitiesSilly but effective, a heavy putting the boot in can seriously ruin your
to react to an enemy unit's placement, and probably means fewer
physical attacks. (I've always found physical attacks essentially
silly, so that's good.)
day. I guess it comes down to not quite knowing if the game's a mecha
anime (and of course has physical attacks) or an essentially serious >setting...
I think what I'm getting at (perhaps reiterating needlessly) is - the >existence and military effectiveness of giant robots in a mecha game gets,I mean, I like the 3025 dying-technology setting; I just think FASA >>>grossly overdid it, in a way that requires overly vigorous suspension of >>>disbelief.Fair enough. I'm trying to come up with ways of making a giant stompy
robot game that doesn't blow all my plausibility fuses at once.
to me, a free pass. I don't fret over making their effectiveness make
sense both because I can't and because I just accept it as a necessary
fudge.
It's everything else that needs looking at for suspension of disbelief
being stretched, and the "everything's dying but there still seem to be
lots of 'Mechs right now" aspect of 3025 is very prominent.
Reactionless drive means cheap planet-killers if anyone can steal a >>spaceship.Hm, yes. It wants to turn into one of those convenient videogame drives
that goes faster the further you are from any massive body.
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