Heavygear and Battletech--Comparisons?
sp...@vms.cis.pitt.edu
I've been away from the whole mecha scene for a while, but I've played
lots of Battletech in the past, and read lots of Battletech fiction. I just
bought Heavygear yesterday, and before I get into reading it, I was just curious
about what folks thought of HG vs. BT. I've heard HG is faster, but what else
sets it apart? The tech in HG seems less powerful, the battle machines smaller
and more mobile (but no jump jets, eh?).
Any opinions are welcome.
Scott
Michael Kelly
<Buckles up flame proof flak jacket, puts on helmet and hunkers down in
his foxhole to wait out the flamewar>
Not again, *please*!
Mike Kelly.
In usenet... no-one can hear you scream.
jim jun pai
sp...@vms.cis.pitt.edu wrote:
: and more mobile (but no jump jets, eh?).
: Scott
I have not had this game for too long myself, and I have had problems
finding people to play it with me, but as far as I can tell, I like it a lot
better than Btech if I want to have a lot of fun with tactics and things that
move fast. Btech is better if you are in a bad mood and just want to blow
things up. BTW, HG does have jump jets. They are just _VERY, VERY_ expensive.
I have a jump-jet capable version of the cheetah that I should get critiqued
sometime...
J.J.P.
Oscar Simmons
I've heard HG is faster, but what else sets it apart? The tech in HG
no jump jets, eh?).
> Any opinions are welcome.
Scott,
You opened the proverbial can of worms. I bought BT some nine years
ago, while in high school. I couldn't stand it and gave it to a friend.
I won't list the reasons (to prevent backlash), instead I'll go to the
positive, Heavy Gear.
It's fast, it's easy, it's deadly (like real combat) and characters
can interact (ie fight) with the Gears without just getting stepped on.
It's a mecha game good for Role-Playing, which I've been waiting for for
years. Not to mention the lay outs are great, the illustrations are
fantastic (I'm an anime fan), and the staff of DP9 are the best, most
accessible people in the business. For example, I'm running HG at an
Austin, TX convention this weekend. I dropped them an email two weeks
ago and last week I got a packet filled with flyers, demo games, and
prizes to hand out.
Want more? It's got a vehicle creation system with no artificial
space/weight limitations, which all HG reviewers have rated as top
notch. RAFM provides support with well made, detailed, good looking
minatures.
Tactical highpoints. Pilots' skills affect how well weapons hit,
which in turn affects the damage done to the target. Weapon ranges and
vehicle speeds more accurately reflect real world values. Projectiles
pierce armor rather than shaving it off.
That's all for now. Scott, feel free to ask any questions you like.
Lleyrew
> I've been away from the whole mecha scene for a while, but I've
played
>lots of Battletech in the past, and read lots of Battletech fiction. I
just
>bought Heavygear yesterday, and before I get into reading it, I was just
but
>what else sets it apart? The tech in HG seems less powerful, the battle
>machines smaller and more mobile (but no jump jets, eh?).
>
> Any opinions are welcome.
>
>Scott
Well, as a faithful player of both games, I can say that the differences,
while few if you only consider the tactical game, give each game a
respective twist that the other lacks. For example, Battletech provides
individual location armor that is worn away every time it gets hit. In
Heavy Gear, it is perfectly normal for a shot to 'bounce off' and do no
damage. As a result of this, a Mech can conceivably be destroyed by
machine-gun fire (taking 2 points of damage each time) while a Gear could
just laugh it off (damage multiplier x3. It'd take a big MoS to hurt).
Also, Heavy Gear features sensors, something that makes the old Battletech
tactic of hiding in the center of a heavy woods cluster much more
difficult. But, Heavy gear as minimal damage locations. One thing I
noticed was that there was no way in HG to blow a limb off. Sure, you can
kill the crew, but you cant take off the Gear's head (always a moment of
sheer joy in Battletech).
Heavy Gear, for the most part though, is the more realistic of the two.
The Gears run on gasoline, which doesnt give them the limitless deployment
range that the fusion-powered Battlemechs have, and actually gives
vehicles and infantry a purpose.
But the thing that sold me on Heavy Gear had nothing to do with the actual
tactical rules. Every single Battletech game I had ever played basically
came down to "You have 300 tons, I have 250. Let's fight". Sure, we had
objectives, but in the end it was the last man standing who won. Heavy
Gear also allows for integration with the RPG section of the book, so when
you lose that Hunter, its a problem, because that was your characters
Gear. How's he going to get back to base now?
Also (if you buy the Tech Manual), salvage is something to be fought for
in its own right. How often in Battletech games have we seen the Mech's
all come back bright and shiny? With no mention of parts, let alone a tech
to use them!
All in all, I prefer Heavy Gear as a 'game', but to be honest, I've never
run an HG Gear battle on a hex map. If I ever do pull out my maps, its to
play Battletech.
-Lleyrew
Hugh H Browne Jr.
In article <52tp1f$o...@usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu> sp...@vms.cis.pitt.edu writes:
>From: sp...@vms.cis.pitt.edu
>Subject: Heavygear and Battletech--Comparisons?
>Date: 2 Oct 96 09:00:04 EDT
> I've been away from the whole mecha scene for a while, but I've played
>lots of Battletech in the past, and read lots of Battletech fiction. I just
>bought Heavygear yesterday, and before I get into reading it, I was just curious
>about what folks thought of HG vs. BT. I've heard HG is faster, but what else
>sets it apart? The tech in HG seems less powerful, the battle machines smaller
>and more mobile (but no jump jets, eh?).
> Any opinions are welcome.
>Scott
Hey Scott.
Welcome to the wounderful world of Heavy Gear. Yes it's much faster than
BTech, and yes the weapons are much more powrful than BTech, in someways HG is
what BTech is in the novels, you know one shot to the CT and boom your Mechs
blows up, well in HG that can and dose happen all the time.
As for the weapons, no they are much more powerful than BTech. Take for
example the Heavy Rocket Pack 48, one of my favorite weaposn, every time you
fire it, you fire one missile, not 48, and that one missile has x25 damage.
That measn that if you attack someone in a Gear with that missle and it hits
and your MOS margin of Success is say 4 that missile dose 100 points of damage
to your gear, your gone, history dead, and the great part about it is that
your opponet dosen't get to fire back, winning inative is very important in
this game. Also they do have jump jets, its a perk you get buy when building
or refitting a gear, look in the perks and flaws section of the book, I think
once you have played a couple of times, you really like HG.
Aidan Tylier
sp...@vms.cis.pitt.edu wrote in article
<52tp1f$o...@usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu>...
> I've been away from the whole mecha scene for a while, but I've played
> lots of Battletech in the past, and read lots of Battletech fiction. I
just
> bought Heavygear yesterday, and before I get into reading it, I was just
curious
> about what folks thought of HG vs. BT. I've heard HG is faster, but what
else
> sets it apart? The tech in HG seems less powerful, the battle machines
smaller
> and more mobile (but no jump jets, eh?).
>
> Any opinions are welcome.
>
> Scott
>
Well as for me, If been playing battletech for 6 years. I love(d) it. I
thought it was the best game ever. Untill last week that is. I brought
heavygear, read the manual, (6hours). Played a few rule familarization
games. It quite simply. It is a WHOLE LOT BETTER.
a) More realastic.
b) more action packed.
c) better roleplaying intergration rules.
d) quicker
e) better storyline
f) Gear look better than mechs.
g) construction system is realistic.
Heh, And I only have the rulebook.(Going shopping tommorow)
Aidan Out.
BTW: Vistit my Webpage, Got some heavygear assistants.(programs)
www.webcom.com/aidan/
Bill McHale
sp...@vms.cis.pitt.edu wrote:
: I've been away from the whole mecha scene for a while, but I've played
: bought Heavygear yesterday, and before I get into reading it, I was just curious
: about what folks thought of HG vs. BT. I've heard HG is faster, but what else
: sets it apart? The tech in HG seems less powerful, the battle machines smaller
: and more mobile (but no jump jets, eh?).
Well I am glad to see that this thread has not (yet?) desolved into a
pointless argument about which game is better.
So far I will say that I prefer Heavy Gear for most of the reasons that
the other posters have listed. And while it is true that there is nothing
in the game like the gauss rifle shot in the head which can provide such
great joy in BT, getting a really good mos on a shot with a light
autocannon and piercing the other guy's armor and destroying him on a
critical shot is almost as good.
The one thing that HG is not as good at is protracted one on one fights.
In Battletech two heavies or assults can go for five or six turns before
one of them is forced to die or withdraw, in HG it is much easier for one
good shot to end the match quickly.
Oh, as to Jump jets HG has them, and they are really nasty. No death from
above attacks (yet) but on the other hand if you have the tac-air book it
allows you to use a jump jet equipped vehicle to do pop up attacks like an
attack chopper, very cool.
--
Bill
***************************************************************************
The above are probably only my opinions.
"A definite maybe is better than a tentative definite anyday"
Bill McHale -Assistant Systems Administrator
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Home page - http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~wmchal1
***************************************************************************
E. Calame
sp...@vms.cis.pitt.edu wrote in article
<52tp1f$o...@usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu>...
> I've been away from the whole mecha scene for a while, but I've played
> lots of Battletech in the past, and read lots of Battletech fiction. I
just
> bought Heavygear yesterday, and before I get into reading it, I was just
curious
> about what folks thought of HG vs. BT. I've heard HG is faster, but what
else
> sets it apart? The tech in HG seems less powerful, the battle machines
smaller
> and more mobile (but no jump jets, eh?).
I don't know about the less powerful tech part. Buuuuttttttt....
HG is a more freeform gaming experience. Instead of firing a weapon you
have several ways to fire a weapon and assuming you have all the rules you
also have lots of options to modify the output of that weapon.(You can
customize yer guns!)
The Gears are smaller, but larger tanks and srtiders exist, and(someday!)
Landships. Really I would tend to think that Heavy gear currently gives you
more wepons, options and such. I would love to be able to tell you that if
you like HG you will love Heavy Gear but sadly it can easily go either way.
I have heard people say that HG seems more "automatic" than Btech, that you
have to work harder to really get into it. That is not the case with me,
but nevertheless it is the impression that some get.
Heavy Gear will have jump jets someday. They just haven't come out with
rules for them yet.
Em
Jonathan R Bezeau
sp...@vms.cis.pitt.edu wrote:
: I've been away from the whole mecha scene for a while, but I've played
: bought Heavygear yesterday, and before I get into reading it, I was just curious
: about what folks thought of HG vs. BT. I've heard HG is faster, but what else
: sets it apart? The tech in HG seems less powerful, the battle machines smaller
: and more mobile (but no jump jets, eh?).
: Any opinions are welcome.
: Scott
I like Heavy Gear a lot more. Fan support on the internet, in the form of
the Mailing List, is far better than ANYTHING I"ve seen for BT.
The national identities for both poles and to a large exent the Badlands
seem totally fleshed out by several list members and reveal a LOT of RP
potential, which the overcharacterized Houses in Battletech just don't
seem capable of. Even the most rabid Capellan around is just a suicidally
fanatic warrior, while the "in character" stuff on the HGML has gotten
downright deep (watch for Mike O'Shea...)
Admittedly I would be missing the direct exposure to this if I wasn't on
the net (imagine not being on the internet everyone... COULD YOU
SURVIVE?), but the Character Compendium seems to have brought a lot of
the 'national character' stuff to the stone-age players too.
Not that I have a copy yet.
--
Jonboy: the Signature -- collect all 35!
Everyone experiences flying sensations in their dreams. I experience tripping
and falling over... kind of an anticlimax. That's why I never sleep.
Gundam's Camille: whose newtype power turns all accents into swedish. Wow.
Prabal Nandy
>Heavy Gear, it is perfectly normal for a shot to 'bounce off' and do no
>damage. As a result of this, a Mech can conceivably be destroyed by
>machine-gun fire (taking 2 points of damage each time) while a Gear could
>just laugh it off (damage multiplier x3. It'd take a big MoS to hurt).
Nice System, eh?
>Also, Heavy Gear features sensors, something that makes the old Battletech
>tactic of hiding in the center of a heavy woods cluster much more
>difficult. But, Heavy gear as minimal damage locations. One thing I
Also adds alot of flair to each design. Lots of Vietnamesque wandering
through boards doing "Active Sensor Sweeps" and looking for the enemy...
>noticed was that there was no way in HG to blow a limb off. Sure, you can
>kill the crew, but you cant take off the Gear's head (always a moment of
>sheer joy in Battletech).
Well... you can... Kinda.
For example, Arms are an AUX system, so hits on the AUX table can take 'em
off! Sensor hits are pretty much tearing up the head, eh? (There's nothing else
there, really.) Motive hits on a gear are basically tearing up the legs, no?
>Heavy Gear, for the most part though, is the more realistic of the two.
That's a fact!
>The Gears run on gasoline, which doesnt give them the limitless deployment
>range that the fusion-powered Battlemechs have, and actually gives
>vehicles and infantry a purpose.
And makes refuelling and resupply a real consideration!
>objectives, but in the end it was the last man standing who won. Heavy
>Gear also allows for integration with the RPG section of the book, so when
>you lose that Hunter, its a problem, because that was your characters
>Gear. How's he going to get back to base now?
Excellent!
This, if nothing else, is one of the greatest selling points of the HG
game... The pilot actually also has alot more influence on the usefulness of
the gear, beyond just "Gunnery and Piloting", which makes integration with
RPG even more exciting...
>Also (if you buy the Tech Manual), salvage is something to be fought for
>in its own right. How often in Battletech games have we seen the Mech's
>all come back bright and shiny? With no mention of parts, let alone a tech
>to use them!
And all sorts of HG rules for trying to refit/modify/scratchbuild your own
gear! And perks and flaws like crazy! There are MILLIONS of possible variations
on each design, fun fun fun!
>All in all, I prefer Heavy Gear as a 'game', but to be honest, I've never
>run an HG Gear battle on a hex map. If I ever do pull out my maps, its to
It's a bloody, short and violent affair, all told. The worst part of HG
as compared to Btech is the battles are fast, scary, and stressful. Your first
mistake is often your last!
-Probe
--
\~~~~~\__ ~~\___/~~ __/~~~~~/ /pr...@sunset.bph.jhu.edu\ Lord of the Flies
~<==\__\_<O\:/O>_/__/==>~ /http://sunset.bph.jhu.edu \ 1st MPC Division
<_/ //=\ ^ /=\\ \_> \na...@vms.ccit.arizona.edu/ Colony World Myops
\| (|) |/ \ na...@ccit.arizona.edu / Velox-Durus-Infestus
Hugh H Browne Jr.
In article <01bbb185$db357120$6e6c93cf@x> "E. Calame" <e.ca...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>From: "E. Calame" <e.ca...@worldnet.att.net>
>Subject: Re: Heavygear and Battletech--Comparisons?
>Date: 3 Oct 1996 23:50:53 GMT
>sp...@vms.cis.pitt.edu wrote in article
><52tp1f$o...@usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu>...
>> I've been away from the whole mecha scene for a while, but I've played
>> lots of Battletech in the past, and read lots of Battletech fiction. I
>just
>> bought Heavygear yesterday, and before I get into reading it, I was just
>curious
>> about what folks thought of HG vs. BT. I've heard HG is faster, but what
>else
>> sets it apart? The tech in HG seems less powerful, the battle machines
>smaller
>> and more mobile (but no jump jets, eh?).
>I don't know about the less powerful tech part. Buuuuttttttt....
>HG is a more freeform gaming experience. Instead of firing a weapon you
>have several ways to fire a weapon and assuming you have all the rules you
>also have lots of options to modify the output of that weapon.(You can
>customize yer guns!)
>The Gears are smaller, but larger tanks and srtiders exist, and(someday!)
>Landships. Really I would tend to think that Heavy gear currently gives you
>more wepons, options and such. I would love to be able to tell you that if
>you like HG you will love Heavy Gear but sadly it can easily go either way.
>I have heard people say that HG seems more "automatic" than Btech, that you
>have to work harder to really get into it. That is not the case with me,
>but nevertheless it is the impression that some get.
>Heavy Gear will have jump jets someday. They just haven't come out with
>rules for them yet.
>Em
>> Any opinions are welcome.
>>
>> Scott
>>
>>
>>
Actually EM they have. Jump Jets are in the basic rule book, and the tactical
air support manule has rules for pop up attacks for Gears with jump jets, its
really nasty, I refitted an Assault Grizzily with jump jets, used the pop up
rules and.... well lets just say my worthy opponet meet an untimely death.
Just thought you like to know :)
Oscar Simmons
> Any opinions are welcome.
>
> Scott
So, Heavy Gear, it seems, has it all. Where are the voices esposing BT?
I know, they're stuck in a four hour, two on two, medium mech battle.
(Something I saw last night at AT Con). I knew the games took a while
but I didn't realize it was that long. I sat down with two of the
players afterward teaching them the Heavy Gear rules during a Hunter v.
Jager fight. The whole fight, including instruction of all but the
optional rules, took about an hour. Fast, easy and realistic. Oh, and
the HG minitures we used looked a whole lot better than the BT ones from
the earlier game.
Oscar Simmons
GoN...@mail.utexas.edu
Jonathan R Bezeau
Lleyrew (lle...@aol.com) wrote:
: Well, as a faithful player of both games, I can say that the differences,
: while few if you only consider the tactical game, give each game a
: respective twist that the other lacks. For example, Battletech provides
: individual location armor that is worn away every time it gets hit. In
: Heavy Gear, it is perfectly normal for a shot to 'bounce off' and do no
: damage. As a result of this, a Mech can conceivably be destroyed by
: machine-gun fire (taking 2 points of damage each time) while a Gear could
: just laugh it off (damage multiplier x3. It'd take a big MoS to hurt).
However, if you've got a 13mm pistol, it doesn't take a heck of a lot to
do in a Cheetah (or at least lightly crit it!)
Only a MoS of 4. Of course, with +2 MV and all the speed, you're not
getting much of a MoS.
: Also, Heavy Gear features sensors, something that makes the old Battletech
: tactic of hiding in the center of a heavy woods cluster much more
: difficult. But, Heavy gear as minimal damage locations. One thing I
: noticed was that there was no way in HG to blow a limb off. Sure, you can
: kill the crew, but you cant take off the Gear's head (always a moment of
: sheer joy in Battletech).
Well, you have to elaborate on the hits... why was your handheld rifle
destroyed? Because that bazooka shot severed your right elbow.
Why did the pilot die? That mortar came down right on the gear's head and
the shaped charge blew a cone of copper plasma into the crew-compartment.
Why are the sensors gone? Because the head got knocked off and the pilot
was lucky enough to duck.
: But the thing that sold me on Heavy Gear had nothing to do with the actual
: tactical rules. Every single Battletech game I had ever played basically
: came down to "You have 300 tons, I have 250. Let's fight". Sure, we had
: objectives, but in the end it was the last man standing who won. Heavy
: Gear also allows for integration with the RPG section of the book, so when
: you lose that Hunter, its a problem, because that was your characters
: Gear. How's he going to get back to base now?
Don't ignore Mechwarrior 2, though this is still less of a factor in the
BT RPG.
: Also (if you buy the Tech Manual), salvage is something to be fought for
: in its own right. How often in Battletech games have we seen the Mech's
: all come back bright and shiny? With no mention of parts, let alone a tech
: to use them!
--
Prabal Nandy
In article <32552E...@mail.utexas.edu>,
>So, Heavy Gear, it seems, has it all. Where are the voices esposing BT?
GRIN!
They're all playing Heavy Gear!
>I know, they're stuck in a four hour, two on two, medium mech battle.
>(Something I saw last night at AT Con). I knew the games took a while
>but I didn't realize it was that long. I sat down with two of the
>players afterward teaching them the Heavy Gear rules during a Hunter v.
>Jager fight. The whole fight, including instruction of all but the
>optional rules, took about an hour. Fast, easy and realistic. Oh, and
GRIN!
That's definately one of the biggest selling points of HG... man, the game
is FAST and violent! None of this checking big ol' charts and deducting
multiple armor points.
Simply put: In Btech it tells you that you blew off a bunch of armor and did
a crit hit on a leg... first you roll to see if you hit, then you roll for
damage location, then you roll for a crit, etc etc...
While in Heavy Gear, you simply roll for a hit, if it's over your base armor
WHAM! You take a hit. Roll motive system hit and subtract some MPs! That's IT!
You can decide on your own and use your own imagination and 'fill in the
details'...
The fact of the matter is, Heavy Gear tells you what you _need_ to know from
a tactical game, but lets you fill in the details. Game play is therefore alot
faster. Battletech gives you a bunch of details, but then _you_ have to figure
out the effects. Makes it slower...
>the HG minitures we used looked a whole lot better than the BT ones from
>the earlier game.
Hooowywah! That's an understatement! HG minuatures are cool works of art.
Hell, I know armor/tank modellers who buy HG minis even though they don't even
know about the game, just because they look so cool! Each HG mini has like
30 parts too, and tons of options! (As compared to the 'block of lead' BTech
minis.)
Aidan Tylier
greetings.
So much for the (Jump into your bunker), Not so much as a peep from our die
hard BT fans out there.
Guess they finaly came to there senses? Or just a bit slow finding the
thread?
--
Aidan Out
Visit (http://www.webcom.com/aidan/)
email (ai...@zip.com.au)
Who is general failure?! And why is he always reading my disks??
Alexander J. Rhodes
Aidan Tylier wrote:
> So much for the (Jump into your bunker), Not so much as a peep from our die
> hard BT fans out there.
>
> Guess they finaly came to there senses? Or just a bit slow finding the
> thread?
More like we're all still licking our wounds (scrapes) from a holy war wages
mere weeks before that comparison post came up. For myself, I prefer HG - it
hits all of my good buttons. I like the more 'gritty' feel to it - combined
arms, more accessible tactics, look, feel, etc. For example, I happen to
like the fact that tanks, helicopters, and planes all fit into their niches
and that the mecha aren't the be all and end all of the game. Heck, even
infantry can have a fighting chance - in my opinion a much better chance in
HG than BT. The system is also robust enough that one could play the game
without using mecha at all. The construction system is very flexible and
allows you to create a lot of vehicles. In fact, multitudes of WWII armor
have been written up using the system. Modern era vehicles as well. What
does this mean? You can play some mircoarmor battles using the HG system and
get good results. *AND* you can play mecha. That's just too cool!
BT has a lot going for it: loads and loads of fiction, and very engrossing
universe and storyline (although that's deteriorating IMO), and a fun as hell
game. The players really get to bash it out. You get to make lots and lots
of weapons rolls and shoot lots of guns. I played this game for many years
and enjoyed it quite a bit.
HG has a lot going for it was well: a very cohesive planets, a storyline
that promises to be very good, fast combat - even with 20-30 units a side,
extremely flexible construction system, flexible weapons rules (weapon
costumization, variety of firing choices, etc.), one shot-one kill
capability, combined arms, tactical challenges, and more. Can you tell which
game I play now?
--
|_
Oo\ Alex rho...@bms.com http://pluto.njcc.com/~arhodes/
"I see the light at the end of the tunnel now/Someone please tell me it's
not a train" - Cracker
Bill McHale
Aidan Tylier (ai...@zip.com.au) wrote:
: greetings.
: So much for the (Jump into your bunker), Not so much as a peep from our die
: hard BT fans out there.
: Guess they finaly came to there senses? Or just a bit slow finding the
: thread?
Are you trying to start a flame war?
Lleyrew
From: "Alexander J. Rhodes" <rho...@bms.com>
> I played this game for many years and enjoyed it quite a bit.
(Yes, I chopped out the rest)
Anyhow, And i could be wrong here, but didn't HG come out in 1995?
-Lleyrew
Capella Ueber Alles
Aidan Tylier (ai...@zip.com.au) murdered some electrons to write:
# So much for the (Jump into your bunker), Not so much as a peep from our die
# hard BT fans out there.
Peep, peep. Don't make me come down there.
# Guess they finaly came to there senses? Or just a bit slow finding the
# thread?
Thanks Aidan--you've guaranteed that I'll never EVER play Heavy Gear. Not
even *I* get that arrogant when talking about BTech.
--Camille.
--
I said it. You read it. I'm not taking it back.--Drew Lanz.
All unsolicited commercial e-mail coming to this account is subject to a
service charge of $250 per piece of mail.
To subscribe to the Ministry of BattleTech mailing list, send e-mail to
majo...@polarnet.com with the words 'subscribe tmobml' in the body.
William H. Moore III
I was curius if anyone has gotten the drift yet, as to what DP9 has as
the tactics used in the "old days" as compared to the current built up
in the badlands, and if it's changed any.
I haven't read enough to get a feel for the tactics yet.
Any comments welcome
Yako
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Don't forget to shoot, if you do, then make sure you already have a
will written up. - The poet GREL Isaac Plotz
Ken
On 5 Oct 1996, Capella Ueber Alles wrote:
> Aidan Tylier (ai...@zip.com.au) murdered some electrons to write:
>
> # So much for the (Jump into your bunker), Not so much as a peep from our die
> # hard BT fans out there.
>
> Peep, peep. Don't make me come down there.
>
> # Guess they finaly came to there senses? Or just a bit slow finding the
> # thread?
>
> Thanks Aidan--you've guaranteed that I'll never EVER play Heavy Gear. Not
> even *I* get that arrogant when talking about BTech.
>
Yeah, yeah, but are you going to help us split the group?
Ken'
Michael P O'Shea
OK, I'll chip in on this thread. Will work strenuously to limit myself
to things that haven't been mentioned.
(no particular order)
1. Jonboy said a lot of good stuff about Heavy Gear RPGing, but one
thing I'd like to emphasize is that the Terranovans (inhabitants of the
independent ex-colony world on which all the action in HG so far, and
for the next real life year or two, takes place) are *much* more like
recognizable, modern Westerners (and East Asians, to an extent) than the
inhabitants of the BTech universe.
Nothing quasi-feudal about Heavy Gear, really; the seven great leagues
on Terra Nova are either modern republics, corporate states, or
authoritarian governments. (OK, one Terranovan league, the despised
backwater Eastern Sun Emirates, is semi-feudal.) I find that this makes
roleplaying the Heavy Gear factions richer than Battletech roleplaying;
you can actually put yourself into the shoes of these
people with empathy and ease.
So, no "Rrr! We are Capella! Liao above all! Yes, all 500 billion of
us!" or "Rrr! We are Clan [Adjective] [Animal]! We are the
skilled/backstabbing/conservative/logy/mean Clan! Yes, all of us!
Really!" Being a Norlight or a Southern Republican (two popular HG
factions) is significantly more nuanced.
Oh, and there's no Comstar in HG, or anything remotely similar.
2. Indeed, there's no 'technological decay' motif in play in Heavy Gear.
When advanced tech is necessary or useful, it's available. The fact
that simple, rugged equipment is more the norm in HG than hi-tech stuff
is because Terra Nova is a sparsely populated planet, largely desert,
and so equipment sees a lot of abuse. E.g., they *have* lasers and
particle cannons and railguns, but they're nowhere near as common as
mortars, missiles, rockets and autocannons; the latter are cheaper, more
rugged, and just as effective.
3. One huge difference between the two games is that the scale of events
in Heavy Gear is *much* smaller than Btech. There are about 10 colony
planets besides Terra Nova and Earth. But most of them have been out of
contact with Terra Nova for over three centuries. At only 250 million
inhabitants, TN is the most populous colony world. Compare with BTech,
where you have star-spanning empires with *hundreds of billions* of
people on hundreds of different worlds. Personally, I find Heavy Gear's
scale infinitely preferable; Btech has never been able to give enough
detail on any of its hundreds of different worlds to make them seem real
to me. I say this even though FASA made truly heroic efforts in the House
Sourcebooks (which you can't get anymore, BTW) to bring them to life.
It's *not* a problem with their writers; the scale was all wrong to
begin with.
[I won't even get going here, although I've been known to in the past,
about the problems with the strategic scale of warfare in Battletech --
problems which can be summed up in the question, How can the presence or
absence of 108 little tank-sized BattleMechs matter one whit to your
chances of taking over a planet of *4 billion people*? In Heavy Gear, an
international alliance of 75 million people can field a few hundred
regiments of infy and armor when they're mobilized for war.]
Heavy Gear gives detail on individual cities on Terra Nova comparable to
what Battletech does on entire planets; if anything, more. The result is
that you don't need to read all that far into the main Heavy Gear RPG
sourcebook, _Life On Terra Nova_, before you begin to get this wonderful,
uncanny feeling that the place you're reading about *exists*. That's
one reason we (the HG fans) are as rabid as we are. There's nothin'
quite like it.
4. The differences in combat systems between the two games have been
pretty well covered by previous posters. I'll just say that, like
weapons firing, electronic warfare in HG is much richer and more closely
integrated into game play than BTech. There's active, passive, and
straight visual sensor scans, all kinds of neat tricks you can play with
designating targets or spotting for indirect fire, etc., etc. Losing
your squad's EW Gear on a hot battlefield *sucks*.
One thing you can't do with HG as well as BTech is
have a good one-on-one duel. The game's just too violent. Mind you,
DP9 has introduced a sort of Solaris-like scale (Skirmish scale) for HG
in the recently released Duelist's Handbook. It slows down movement and
target acquisition a little, but doesn't change the damage allocation
procedure, which is the heart and soul of HG's deadliness. I've not
gamed with the Skirmish rules yet, so more I can't say.
However, once you've got three or four units on a side, tactics
definitely come back to prominence with a vengeance. Simply learning
how to manage your gunfire (hmm, burst fire for extra damage? saturation
fire for accuracy? or walking fire to smack up more than one enemy at a
time?) is one of the first lessons you learn when you start playing HG
Tactical.
5. Last thing to mention is that Heavy Gears do not rule all over the
Terranovan battlefield the way BattleMechs rule over the Inner Sphere.
Heavy Gears are much smaller -- about 15 feet / 4.6 meters on average.
Tanks and (some) ground-attack aircraft are much better armed and armored
than most Gears, and you have to deal with that. (Or pilot a tank
yourself. :)
BUT -- *nobody* can just laugh off an enemy Gear. A properly equipped
and used Gear has a chance to take out any vehicle on Terra Nova. There
are Gear-carried bazookas and recoilless rifles that can mess up any
tank's day. There are multibarrel Gatlings and laser rifles for picking
off choppers and VTOLs. Hell, you can take out a chopper with a
standard Gear-mounted light rocket pod if you're lucky. You've just
gotta work for your kills, Gear Boy.
Hmm, I reckon that's all I've got to say.
Best,
M. O'Shea
Terrance Peter La Casse, Jr.
"Aidan Tylier" <ai...@zip.com.au> wrote:
>So much for the (Jump into your bunker), Not so much as a peep from our die
>hard BT fans out there.
>Guess they finaly came to there senses? Or just a bit slow finding the
>thread?
<sniff, sniff.> I smell troll.
Peter La Casse
Terrance Peter La Casse, Jr.
Capella Ueber Alles <cap...@primenet.com> wrote:
>Aidan Tylier (ai...@zip.com.au) murdered some electrons to write:
># So much for the (Jump into your bunker), Not so much as a peep from our die
># hard BT fans out there.
>Peep, peep. Don't make me come down there.
># Guess they finaly came to there senses? Or just a bit slow finding the
># thread?
>Thanks Aidan--you've guaranteed that I'll never EVER play Heavy Gear. Not
>even *I* get that arrogant when talking about BTech.
Don't take it personally, Camille - I mean, what if the first
Battletecher you'd ever talked to was a Flemr type?
Peter La Casse
Look, no sig!
noah
He was talking about BT not HG. That sentence confused me at first to.
Aidan Tylier
Capella Ueber Alles <cap...@primenet.com> wrote in article
<5367bq$9...@nnrp1.news.primenet.com>...
> Aidan Tylier (ai...@zip.com.au) murdered some electrons to write:
>
> # So much for the (Jump into your bunker), Not so much as a peep from our
die
> # hard BT fans out there.
>
> Peep, peep. Don't make me come down there.
>
> # Guess they finaly came to there senses? Or just a bit slow finding the
> # thread?
>
> Thanks Aidan--you've guaranteed that I'll never EVER play Heavy Gear.
Not
> even *I* get that arrogant when talking about BTech.
>
Just stating the facts. Live with them, or try to change them.
Simply put, I'd like to hear some BT arguments. There does'nt seem to be
any out there. At all.
So Capella, You have any aguments?
Capella Ueber Alles
Ken (ez05...@peseta.ucdavis.edu) murdered some electrons to write:
# Yeah, yeah, but are you going to help us split the group?
One month. I'm counting.
Archbishop Munchkin
>Just stating the facts. Live with them, or try to change them.
>Simply put, I'd like to hear some BT arguments. There does'nt see
>m to be
>any out there. At all.
>
>So Capella, You have any aguments?
Well I have one for now (even though I am half asleep).
BTech is more friendly (stop laughing) tactics and survival-wise
to new players, even if it gives them conniptions figuring it out.
In HG, as has been said. You screw up, you die! Not everyone,
especially newbies to tactical gaming, learn tactical thinking
this way. In BTech, you can give a newbie an Atlas or something
so that they don't get killed in the first sortie (unless someone
gets that aforementioned headshot with 12+ damage point weapons).
This gives the player time to become a bit more accustomed to the
nuances of the tactics, and an understanding of why they work, as
opposed to, "it just works like that". Heavy Gear isn't idiot-
proofed for newbie tactical faux-pas.
(Am I letting my vocabulary run away with me again? BACK! BACK!)
You stick a newbie in a gear, he charges a big f--king tank.
Tank goes *BOOM* and the newbie dies! Real meaningful learning.
But did the newbie learn any of the options that might have been
available? Sorry!
Stick a newbie in a Wraith. He charges a LT-MOB-25 Mobile Long Tom.
LT-MOB-25 goes *BOOM* and the newbie gets f--ked up real bad! He
turns, and runs, to start a more strategic attack. Like have his
buddy in the Battlemaster distract the tank so he can come up from
behind and DFA it! (I'll NEVER forget my first attempt at DFA!
(Unless I develop Alzheimers!) Notice I say ATTEMPT!) Or better
yet, put the LPL to good use!
He'll learn the value of the tactics "in combat". Not watching
the others play after he's been fragged.
Actually, HG is what MW2 the RPG SHOULD have been more like. Not
a crummy Shadowrun clone.
*******************************CoM*******************************
SCol.Chas Wolf/Archbishop of Munchkin/GAKI/The Exsanguinator/Evil
Incarnate/Destruction Personified/The Killphile/CEO of Lightwolf
Mech Foundry/Lord of the Attention Deficit Dis-Order/MoB Enforcer
E-Mail: cha...@ally.ios.com
CoM Homepage (Graphical): http://ally.ios.com/~chas49
CoM Homepage (Text Only): http://ally.ios.com/~chas49/text
I want to die like grandfather did. Peacefully, in my sleep.
Not screaming, like the other passengers in his car..........
*******************************CoM*******************************
Terrance Peter La Casse, Jr.
"Aidan Tylier" <ai...@zip.com.au> spewed:
>Capella Ueber Alles <cap...@primenet.com> wrote:
>> Thanks Aidan--you've guaranteed that I'll never EVER play Heavy Gear.
>> Not even *I* get that arrogant when talking about BTech.
>Just stating the facts. Live with them, or try to change them.
>Simply put, I'd like to hear some BT arguments. There does'nt seem to be
>any out there. At all.
Give me a break! Do you really *want* to start a flamewar? I
actually like this newsgroup because there are so few "my computer is
better than your computer"-type nitwits around, and now you show up.
Is it so difficult for you to accept that not everyone shares the same
preferences as you in terms of mecha gaming? There is absolutely NO
objective way of saying Game X is better or worse than Game Y, because
personal preference is by definition subjective. For instance, if
some anonymous person were to consider the presence of the Capellan
Confederation in any given game system to be the #1 condition that
defined it as "good" or "bad," then that person would have to prefer
Battletech, because to my knowledge no other game system contains the
Capellan Confederation. The same goes for every detail about every
game in existence. So get off your high horse and stop trying to
cause trouble.
Peter La Casse
Joshua Holmstrom (Asmodean)
Aidan Tylier (ai...@zip.com.au) wrote:
: Capella Ueber Alles <cap...@primenet.com> wrote in article
: <5367bq$9...@nnrp1.news.primenet.com>...
: > Aidan Tylier (ai...@zip.com.au) murdered some electrons to write:
Murdered? More like executed.
: >
: > Thanks Aidan--you've guaranteed that I'll never EVER play Heavy Gear.
: Not
: > even *I* get that arrogant when talking about BTech.
: >
I wouldn't discount the game based on one person Camille. MOST of the HG
players are a fairly nice people. Every game has a few obnoxious people
supporting it. This guy seems to be one of 'em.
: Just stating the facts. Live with them, or try to change them.
: Simply put, I'd like to hear some BT arguments. There does'nt seem to be
: any out there. At all.
Just stating the facts, eh? You, my friend, wern't stating facts. You were
trolling. I may be a Gearhead but I think that trolling like that was a bit
out of order.
-Josh
--
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
| Joshua Holmstrom |You finite. Zathras finite. |
| Mechanical Engineering Junior |This... is wrong tool. |
| California Polytechnic, SLO | |
| jhol...@violin.aix.calpoly.edu | -Zathras |
| asmo...@infinex.com | Babylon 5 |
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=http://www.calpoly.edu/jholmstr=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Joshua Holmstrom (Asmodean)
Archbishop Munchkin (cha...@ally.ios.com) wrote:
: BTech is more friendly (stop laughing) tactics and survival-wise
: to new players, even if it gives them conniptions figuring it out.
This is true. BT is very much a slugfest style game. HG has very realistic
game engine(which makes combat quick and very, very violent).
: In HG, as has been said. You screw up, you die! Not everyone,
: especially newbies to tactical gaming, learn tactical thinking
: this way. In BTech, you can give a newbie an Atlas or something
: so that they don't get killed in the first sortie (unless someone
: gets that aforementioned headshot with 12+ damage point weapons).
Each game has its' advantages. I personally greatly perfer HG over BT, but
if I'm in the mood to just pound something into scrap metal for a while and
not think tactics I play BT. If I want to play a game of cat and mouse or
some other bit of high thinking combat, I play HG. I will conceed that HG
is not for everyone. Neither is BT. My personal feeling on the entire
BT-HG debate has been "To each their own." If you don't like HG, thats fine
you don't like it. But I do. Same thing for BT.
: This gives the player time to become a bit more accustomed to the
: nuances of the tactics, and an understanding of why they work, as
: opposed to, "it just works like that". Heavy Gear isn't idiot-
: proofed for newbie tactical faux-pas.
True. However, with a bit of patience one can learn tactics with HG just as
well as with BT. My first game of HG, I learned REAL quick that BT style
tactics don't always work with HG. Not likeing to lose is usually considered
good incentive to learn.
: (Am I letting my vocabulary run away with me again? BACK! BACK!)
I HATE it when that happens! Vocabulary is EVIL! :)
: You stick a newbie in a gear, he charges a big f--king tank.
: Tank goes *BOOM* and the newbie dies! Real meaningful learning.
: But did the newbie learn any of the options that might have been
: available? Sorry!
Maybe not, but he did just learn something that is a REAL BadIdea(tm).
Course, it should be noted that a newbie shouldn't have been going up
againstg a tank in the first place...
: Stick a newbie in a Wraith. He charges a LT-MOB-25 Mobile Long Tom.
: LT-MOB-25 goes *BOOM* and the newbie gets f--ked up real bad! He
: turns, and runs, to start a more strategic attack. Like have his
: buddy in the Battlemaster distract the tank so he can come up from
: behind and DFA it! (I'll NEVER forget my first attempt at DFA!
: (Unless I develop Alzheimers!) Notice I say ATTEMPT!) Or better
: yet, put the LPL to good use!
While it can be good for learning, this is one of the reasons I don't like
BT as much as HG. In HG you screw up, you pay in full. BT is much more
forgiving.
Css Executive
>True. However, with a bit of patience one can learn tactics with HG just as
>well as with BT. My first game of HG, I learned REAL quick that BT style
>tactics don't always work with HG. Not likeing to lose is usually considered
>good incentive to learn.
>
So how does keeping a high movement rate, using terrain to your advantages,
going for rear shots, and having the right gear for the right oppenent not
always work in HG? Those are the tactics of Btech (and any other war game).
My view on BT and HG is following:
1) HG is too fast in small combat.
2) BT is too slow in large combat.
For #1, it's disapointing that you can run, duck, hide for 10 min only to have
your gear blown out from under you in one shot.
For #2, btech games at cons usually run in the 9+ hour ranger for a large 15+
players on a single board.
Corey
WinterMute
In article <538hkp$i...@news0-alterdial.uu.net>,
cha...@ally.ios.com (Archbishop Munchkin) wrote:
>You stick a newbie in a gear, he charges a big f--king tank.
>Tank goes *BOOM* and the newbie dies! Real meaningful learning.
>But did the newbie learn any of the options that might have been
>available? Sorry!
>
>Stick a newbie in a Wraith. He charges a LT-MOB-25 Mobile Long Tom.
>LT-MOB-25 goes *BOOM* and the newbie gets f--ked up real bad! He
>turns, and runs, to start a more strategic attack. Like have his
>buddy in the Battlemaster distract the tank so he can come up from
>behind and DFA it! (I'll NEVER forget my first attempt at DFA!
>(Unless I develop Alzheimers!) Notice I say ATTEMPT!) Or better
>yet, put the LPL to good use!
Y'know, this is just about the funniest thing I've read in quite a
while. I have the idea of some poor stupid rookie Jager jock charging an
Aller, LAC chattering away and bouncing off, and the Aller's commander is
having a really bad day and just lets the Jager have it with the THOR.
"BOOM! and the newbie dies!!!!"
Michael Kelly
In article <01bbb31f$c20842e0$6561...@aidan.zip.com.au>,
"Aidan Tylier" <ai...@zip.com.au> wrote:
>Capella Ueber Alles <cap...@primenet.com> wrote in article
><5367bq$9...@nnrp1.news.primenet.com>...
>> Aidan Tylier (ai...@zip.com.au) murdered some electrons to write:
>>
>>
>> Peep, peep. Don't make me come down there.
>>
>> # Guess they finaly came to there senses? Or just a bit slow finding the
>> # thread?
>>
>> Not even *I* get that arrogant when talking about BTech.
>>
>
>Simply put, I'd like to hear some BT arguments. There does'nt seem to be
>any out there. At all.
>
Seeing as how you're asking Capella and spoiling for a flamewar, I'll answer,
being a loyal Capellan soldier.
How's about this for an argument: BattleTech is more fun.
Sure, it's purely my opinion, but that doesn't mean it's not valid. You can
prattle on about realism etc, but I played both and I like btech better, it's
more fun, however I like HG too.
Mike Kelly.
There's a old Irish term for this kind of poster: Gobshite.
Aidan Tylier
Ok, ok.
Let me clear things up.
I was NOT trying to start a flame war. I am infact starting a campian with
some people who live localy. I asked them which game. qoute "Not sure. Tell
us some info on btech and HG then will decide" ,, "Ok I'll there's this
post doing comparasons on the mecha newsgoup. I'll download some, " ect
ect.
So I logged on and found only HG stuff. I did'nt want to start anything,
And I am deeply sorry for upsetting you all. Please forgive me. I was just
trying to get BOTH sides of the story for them.
YS Aidan Tylier
Darrin Lee Bright
In article <01bbb43a$1fec3fe0$ba61...@aidan.zip.com.au>,
Aidan Tylier <ai...@zip.com.au> wrote:
>Ok, ok.
>Let me clear things up.
>I was NOT trying to start a flame war. I am infact starting a campian with
>some people who live localy. I asked them which game. qoute "Not sure. Tell
>us some info on btech and HG then will decide" ,, "Ok I'll there's this
>post doing comparasons on the mecha newsgoup. I'll download some, " ect
>ect.
The whole "war" (if you could call it one) is not much of a war... and
it does keep popping up now and again, so its not just you trying to
start something... In general, the BTech and HG players are fairly
tolerant of one another, and in general, even the fanatics still play
BOTH games. Both games have advantages. BTech has some disadvantages
(quite a few, actually), and HG seems to have only a few (initiative
being a problem for some people, and one-on-one combat is too quick).
But anyway, to sum up the entire HG vs BTECH argument:
HG Attacks: "BTech sucks! Its totally unrealistic and the ranges suck!"
BTECH Responds: "Well...so what! They're mechs! We get to beat
each other up! Uh...its just a game, its not
supposed to be realistic!"
HG says: "Well, HG does everything BTech does, does it quicker, AND
the weapons are realistic and the ranges are believable!"
BTECH player simmers a bit, calms down later, and gets on with his
life. HG player trades in hundreds of bucks worth of BTech books
for a few HG books (all he needs, really) and gets on with his life.
As you can see, there isn't much of an argument. BTech can't
realistically challenge a HG player attacking the BTech rule system, and
the only decent argument a BTech player can bring against HG all boil
down to personal preferences and opinions.
--
"Uh...yeah, I uh... suck blood all the time..." - The Tick
--
* * * Darrin Bright - Duck Ezra - Muse of Tedium * * *
= = ============================================ = =
Jonathan R Bezeau
Prabal Nandy (na...@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu) wrote:
: In article <32552E...@mail.utexas.edu>,
: >the HG minitures we used looked a whole lot better than the BT ones from
: >the earlier game.
: Hooowywah! That's an understatement! HG minuatures are cool works of art.
: Hell, I know armor/tank modellers who buy HG minis even though they don't even
: know about the game, just because they look so cool! Each HG mini has like
: 30 parts too, and tons of options! (As compared to the 'block of lead' BTech
: minis.)
I'm having a f$^# of a time scraping or filing all the flare off of a
couple Jagers in the southern boxed set. But once they're done, they'll
look sweet... I like how they give all the extra weapons and parts in
case you feel inventive.
(points to the LAC-toting model with a fragcannon strapped on under the
engine)
All in all, nice stuff, though sometimes you don't get all the parts you
need. I prefer one-piece minis for actual gaming though, because they're
more abuse resistant.
Jonathan R Bezeau
Michael P O'Shea (mpo...@pitt.edu) wrote:
: OK, I'll chip in on this thread. Will work strenuously to limit myself
: (no particular order)
: 1. Jonboy said a lot of good stuff about Heavy Gear RPGing, but one
: thing I'd like to emphasize is that the Terranovans (inhabitants of the
: independent ex-colony world on which all the action in HG so far, and
: for the next real life year or two, takes place) are *much* more like
: recognizable, modern Westerners (and East Asians, to an extent) than the
: inhabitants of the BTech universe.
: Nothing quasi-feudal about Heavy Gear, really; the seven great leagues
: on Terra Nova are either modern republics, corporate states, or
: authoritarian governments. (OK, one Terranovan league, the despised
: backwater Eastern Sun Emirates, is semi-feudal.)
Heyy! Don't knock the Emirates. Character assassination there is like
shooting fish in a barrel. Phil Bo^H^H^H^H^H^H^HEmir Shirow's rebellion
in Basal makes a great campaign. And they _do_ describe how such an
ass-backward system got instated in the first place. All I can't figure
out is why all the slaves aren't making a break for it... and even then
there are obvious reasons like:
1. ESE border guards gunning you down.
2. HA Border guards leaving you to the loving mercies of the ESE border
guards
3. thousands of kilometers of badlands.
4. You'll become a slave in the MD instead of the ESE
5. Republican border guards turning you to the loving mercies of the ESE
border guards...
I find that this makes
: roleplaying the Heavy Gear factions richer than Battletech roleplaying;
: you can actually put yourself into the shoes of these
: people with empathy and ease.
And the Character Compendium illuminated so many of the Big Movers too,
as well as typical peons in the same position as the characters. Jaques
Molay rules. Gavin Hypolite has balls the size of churchbels to play the
dangerous game he does. And Thor Hutchinson can lie all he wants, he's
just a greedy bastard who's out warmongering and who is going to try and
assassinate First Follower Capek...
*ptth* I got a cheapshot on your pope!
: So, no "Rrr! We are Capella! Liao above all! Yes, all 500 billion of
: us!" or "Rrr! We are Clan [Adjective] [Animal]! We are the
: skilled/backstabbing/conservative/logy/mean Clan! Yes, all of us!
: Really!" Being a Norlight or a Southern Republican (two popular HG
: factions) is significantly more nuanced.
: Oh, and there's no Comstar in HG, or anything remotely similar.
What about the Humanists, guided by their Illuminatus, and only
leaving the country if it involves Ashanti or spying?
: 2. Indeed, there's no 'technological decay' motif in play in Heavy Gear.
There's none in 3058 BattleTech either, which is why I've lost all
feeling for the game. But there aren't any superhero god characters in
HG, which is an actual advantage over BT. BT's decaying technology (while
not that plausible) was SERIOUSLY cool.
: 3. One huge difference between the two games is that the scale of events
: in Heavy Gear is *much* smaller than Btech. There are about 10 colony
: planets besides Terra Nova and Earth. But most of them have been out of
: contact with Terra Nova for over three centuries. At only 250 million
: inhabitants, TN is the most populous colony world. Compare with BTech,
: where you have star-spanning empires with *hundreds of billions* of
: people on hundreds of different worlds. Personally, I find Heavy Gear's
: scale infinitely preferable; Btech has never been able to give enough
: detail on any of its hundreds of different worlds to make them seem real
: to me. I say this even though FASA made truly heroic efforts in the House
: Sourcebooks (which you can't get anymore, BTW) to bring them to life.
: It's *not* a problem with their writers; the scale was all wrong to
: begin with.
Buck Rogers is another GREAT space game (by TSR yet), so if you can put
up with using a clone of D&D rules for futuristic combat, you're in for
what I hear to be very good, detailed sourcebooks on the planets of the
solar system. Jovian Chronicles should also prove to be a well-detailed
game world once DP9 re-releases it with (drool) Shilouette rules.
: Heavy Gear gives detail on individual cities on Terra Nova comparable to
: what Battletech does on entire planets; if anything, more. The result is
: that you don't need to read all that far into the main Heavy Gear RPG
: sourcebook, _Life On Terra Nova_, before you begin to get this wonderful,
: uncanny feeling that the place you're reading about *exists*. That's
: one reason we (the HG fans) are as rabid as we are. There's nothin'
: quite like it.
And if you're witnessing the nationbashing threads on the HG mailing
list, you'll probably get even more rabid. Look out (and save the last
bullet for yourself! "Call of Heavy Gear", an RPG with a decreasing Santiy
stat and cults of Barbe worshippers...)
: 4. The differences in combat systems between the two games have been
: pretty well covered by previous posters. I'll just say that, like
: weapons firing, electronic warfare in HG is much richer and more closely
: integrated into game play than BTech. There's active, passive, and
: straight visual sensor scans, all kinds of neat tricks you can play with
: designating targets or spotting for indirect fire, etc., etc. Losing
: your squad's EW Gear on a hot battlefield *sucks*.
Or your commander's comm, especially with the new (much needed
improvements to the) initiative system.
: One thing you can't do with HG as well as BTech is
: have a good one-on-one duel. The game's just too violent. Mind you,
: DP9 has introduced a sort of Solaris-like scale (Skirmish scale) for HG
: in the recently released Duelist's Handbook. It slows down movement and
: target acquisition a little, but doesn't change the damage allocation
: procedure, which is the heart and soul of HG's deadliness. I've not
: gamed with the Skirmish rules yet, so more I can't say.
If you do Phased Movement like John Prins system (which I use rabidly,
BTW), you can get games going a little longer because you DON'T get
backshot as often.
: However, once you've got three or four units on a side, tactics
: definitely come back to prominence with a vengeance. Simply learning
: how to manage your gunfire (hmm, burst fire for extra damage? saturation
: fire for accuracy? or walking fire to smack up more than one enemy at a
: time?) is one of the first lessons you learn when you start playing HG
: Tactical.
The second lesson is KEEP A REAR GUARD, no matter how small your unit.
getting hit from behind SUCKS, so make sure a BM's moving slowly behind
your men, providing covering fire (and taking out any fool enough to hit
a teammate from behind)
: 5. Last thing to mention is that Heavy Gears do not rule all over the
: Terranovan battlefield the way BattleMechs rule over the Inner Sphere.
: Heavy Gears are much smaller -- about 15 feet / 4.6 meters on average.
: Tanks and (some) ground-attack aircraft are much better armed and armored
: than most Gears, and you have to deal with that. (Or pilot a tank
: yourself. :)
I find that this is a big point. No longer are your opponents generally
equally tough, but they can be MUCH tougher (imagine your squad of PCs
having to fight, say, a dropship with their mechs) so you can get the
"D&D take out the big monster" gaes going where everyone collaborates on
wiping out a single strider or MBT. Instills the fear of Mamoud in some
PCs, instills rigor mortis in the rest.
: BUT -- *nobody* can just laugh off an enemy Gear. A properly equipped
: and used Gear has a chance to take out any vehicle on Terra Nova. There
: are Gear-carried bazookas and recoilless rifles that can mess up any
: tank's day. There are multibarrel Gatlings and laser rifles for picking
: off choppers and VTOLs. Hell, you can take out a chopper with a
: standard Gear-mounted light rocket pod if you're lucky. You've just
: gotta work for your kills, Gear Boy.
Like those three Scorpion attack choppers Klink sank. The damn things had
me rolling for them and a Legion Noire BM as their target. They stood no
chance :)
: Hmm, I reckon that's all I've got to say.
: Best,
:
: M. O'Shea
--
Michael P O'Shea
Debauched Southie Apologist wrote:
> I find that this makes
> : roleplaying the Heavy Gear factions richer than Battletech roleplaying;
> : you can actually put yourself into the shoes of these
> : people with empathy and ease.
>
> And the Character Compendium illuminated so many of the Big Movers too,
> as well as typical peons in the same position as the characters. Jaques
> Molay rules. Gavin Hypolite has balls the size of churchbels to play the
> dangerous game he does. And Thor Hutchinson can lie all he wants, he's
> just a greedy bastard who's out warmongering and who is going to try and
> assassinate First Follower Capek...
Yeah, yeah, Sous-Soldat Scale-Slougher (isn't that the name of one of
those Southie scout Gears with defective sensors?), you're just jealous
because Thor is The Man, i.e., will get things done big time; *and* he's
a man of principle (compare with establishment Southie leaders); *and*
he'll be the one to make sure that La Dame de Fer teaches you all a good
lesson in Tough Love when the proverbial springer guano meets the VTOL
turbine. [gasp]
Don't get me wrong, Capac is a good man too, a man of principle, but
with little feeling for power realities...
>
> *ptth* I got a cheapshot on your pope!
That's 'unofficial spritual counselor/Southern insomnia producer' to
you. I won't respond with an analogous cheapshot at the South's
spiritual leader -- Etienne Durocher.
[heh]
> : Oh, and there's no Comstar in HG, or anything remotely similar.
>
> What about the Humanists, guided by their Illuminatus, and only
> leaving the country if it involves Ashanti or spying?
>
Man, Humanists rock, don't they? If I ever come up and RPG with you
guys in Ontario, color me a Humanist MILICIAman guest character in no
time.
> : 2. Indeed, there's no 'technological decay' motif in play in Heavy Gear.
>
> There's none in 3058 BattleTech either, which is why I've lost all
> feeling for the game. But there aren't any superhero god characters in
> HG, which is an actual advantage over BT. BT's decaying technology (while
> not that plausible) was SERIOUSLY cool.
>
OK, simple difference of opinion here. That's fair enough. I guess I
can see why others liked the lostech motif -- it does add color -- but I
never thought it fit particularly well with *mecha*, since mecha are,
well, mecha. I wasn't too sad to see it go.
I was saddest to see the world-shaking changes wrought by the Fourth
Succession War period (which was *good* plot, BTW) gradually eroded to
shit by the FASA writers, as if nothing had ever happened. La de da,
more books to sell.
> : Heavy Gear gives detail on individual cities on Terra Nova comparable to
> : what Battletech does on entire planets; if anything, more. The result is
> : that you don't need to read all that far into the main Heavy Gear RPG
> : sourcebook, _Life On Terra Nova_, before you begin to get this wonderful,
> : uncanny feeling that the place you're reading about *exists*. That's
> : one reason we (the HG fans) are as rabid as we are. There's nothin'
> : quite like it.
>
> And if you're witnessing the nationbashing threads on the HG mailing
> list, you'll probably get even more rabid. Look out (and save the last
> bullet for yourself! "Call of Heavy Gear", an RPG with a decreasing Santiy
> stat and cults of Barbe worshippers...)
Heh heh heh. What he said. But it's all in good, clean, creative fun.
No, seriously folks.
Really. Rabid HG fans like Heathen^H^H^H^HJonboy and I never *ever*
hardly only occasionally *at all* do so-called 'excessive' things like
calling up 1-800-COLLECT to order orbital artillery strikes on each
other ... really. (AT&T said it was possible, but it cost *way* too
much damn money to to it internationally.)
>
> : One thing you can't do with HG as well as BTech is
> : have a good one-on-one duel. The game's just too violent. Mind you,
> : DP9 has introduced a sort of Solaris-like scale (Skirmish scale) for HG
> : in the recently released Duelist's Handbook. It slows down movement and
> : target acquisition a little, but doesn't change the damage allocation
> : procedure, which is the heart and soul of HG's deadliness. I've not
> : gamed with the Skirmish rules yet, so more I can't say.
>
> If you do Phased Movement like John Prins system (which I use rabidly,
> BTW), you can get games going a little longer because you DON'T get
> backshot as often.
>
I should really go back and re-read his posts of his initiative system.
Everyone raves about it, but I haven't used it yet.
> : However, once you've got three or four units on a side, tactics
> : definitely come back to prominence with a vengeance. Simply learning
> : how to manage your gunfire (hmm, burst fire for extra damage? saturation
> : fire for accuracy? or walking fire to smack up more than one enemy at a
> : time?) is one of the first lessons you learn when you start playing HG
> : Tactical.
>
> The second lesson is KEEP A REAR GUARD, no matter how small your unit.
> getting hit from behind SUCKS, so make sure a BM's moving slowly behind
> your men, providing covering fire (and taking out any fool enough to hit
> a teammate from behind)
Yes about commo losses; (again, 'what he said'). And BTW, all you
Northies out there, this applies to you too. It's not just the SRA
stormtroopers with their BMs who can get fragged in a snap by a good
backshot. -2 defensive modifier sucks no matter what you're piloting.
> : BUT -- *nobody* can just laugh off an enemy Gear. A properly equipped
> : and used Gear has a chance to take out any vehicle on Terra Nova. There
> : are Gear-carried bazookas and recoilless rifles that can mess up any
> : tank's day. There are multibarrel Gatlings and laser rifles for picking
> : off choppers and VTOLs. Hell, you can take out a chopper with a
> : standard Gear-mounted light rocket pod if you're lucky. You've just
> : gotta work for your kills, Gear Boy.
>
> Like those three Scorpion attack choppers Klink sank. The damn things had
> me rolling for them and a Legion Noire BM as their target. They stood no
> chance :)
>
Yeah, that was quite a tale (originally posted on the HG Mailing List:
Where The Rabid Are (tm)!).
I've not done anything quite that spectacular, unless
it was a *really* bloody (mostly on their side) skirmish between one of
our Strike Gear squadrons and a whole group of Visigoth MBTs -- yeesh.
Only lost one Gear, and then I also had my bazooka blown to flinders on
round 3, but what can you do? Had already wiped out one of the behemoths
anyway, and smoked the main gun on the other. God I love MBZKs. :)
> : Hmm, I reckon that's all I've got to say.
>
> : Best,
> :
> : M. O'Shea
>
> --
> Jonboy: the Signature -- collect all 35!
>
> Everyone experiences flying sensations in their dreams. I experience tripping
> and falling over... kind of an anticlimax. That's why I never sleep.
> Gundam's Camille: whose newtype power turns all accents into swedish. Wow.
"Ca - MII - You!"
All right, I've stopped for good now.
M. O'Shea
Jonathan R Bezeau
Capella Ueber Alles (cap...@primenet.com) wrote:
: Aidan Tylier (ai...@zip.com.au) murdered some electrons to write:
: # So much for the (Jump into your bunker), Not so much as a peep from our die
: # hard BT fans out there.
: Peep, peep. Don't make me come down there.
: # Guess they finaly came to there senses? Or just a bit slow finding the
: # thread?
: Thanks Aidan--you've guaranteed that I'll never EVER play Heavy Gear. Not
: even *I* get that arrogant when talking about BTech.
Does anyone remember that guy (THOMAS E REED) who refused to play Vampire
because he didn't like the other people that played it?
Do we remember how all present flamed his ass into the stone age? (well,
he was an ignorant dumbass too, but that was only 85% of the reason...
Doh. I think I just screwed my point)
Anyhow, I'll leave everyone up to their own conclusions on that.
I don't think this is too much of a flame, because hey... BT players
DIDN'T respond. They've either got HG killfield in their accounts or in
their brains, it seems.
Jonathan R Bezeau
Archbishop Munchkin (cha...@ally.ios.com) wrote:
: Well I have one for now (even though I am half asleep).
: BTech is more friendly (stop laughing) tactics and survival-wise
: to new players, even if it gives them conniptions figuring it out.
He might have a point. I think I'll RIP MY OWN HEAD OFF :)
Yeah, HG gives out the beatings like no tomorrow, but there is a cure...
Make the newbies Player Characters. They'll live through any kind of
shitstorm, or at least live a little longer than Joe Grunt. Of course, it
doesn't REALLY help, but if it makes an overkill into a Heavy Crit (not
the killer people once thought it was) you're okay.
: He'll learn the value of the tactics "in combat". Not watching
: the others play after he's been fragged.
: Actually, HG is what MW2 the RPG SHOULD have been more like. Not
: a crummy Shadowrun clone.
Hmm...
Jonboy
Jonathan R Bezeau
William H. Moore III (moo...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
: I was curius if anyone has gotten the drift yet, as to what DP9 has as
: the tactics used in the "old days" as compared to the current built up
: in the badlands, and if it's changed any.
: I haven't read enough to get a feel for the tactics yet.
: Any comments welcome
: Yako
Well, in the old days, it was all-out war. Mobs of Hunters and Jagers
bashing it out to control large pieces of turf. They could do that.
Now the 'new' situation is that the politicians are more involved and
everyone has to be careful to avoid all-out war.
Stealth is important, as is speed. A few good machines are better than a
bunch of average ones because they don't get outnumbered badly enough for
it to really matter... but once Real War is back, expect the Jager type
models to be beck in force rather than the elite-type BMs and Jaguars.
The MILICIA isn't primarily composed of Jagers and handing BMs out ONLY
to veterans due to lack of funds. That's what Gear Regiments at war look
like.
: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
: Don't forget to shoot, if you do, then make sure you already have a
: will written up. - The poet GREL Isaac Plotz
--
Fist of the Norlight
I wrote:
> Really. Rabid HG fans like Heathen^H^H^H^HJonboy and I never *ever*
> hardly only occasionally *at all* do so-called 'excessive' things like
> calling up 1-800-COLLECT to order orbital artillery strikes on each
> other ... really. (AT&T said it was possible, but it cost *way* too
> much damn money to to it internationally.)
When, of course, it wouldn't cost you *anything* if you'd tried to
order that orbital arty strike on Guelph via 1-800-COLLECT, that being
the point of collect calls, after all.
[sigh] Had meant to type 1-800-CALL-ATT. [*bonks own head for
klutzing own joke*]
Though it'd definitely be cool if you could get some poor sucker to
accept the toll charges for the orbital strike you just ordered on
him, eh? "Please wait for the other party to come on... "
[heavens part in righteous judgment] KRA-WRRROOOOOMMMMMM
M. O'Shea
Capella Ueber Alles
Aidan Tylier (ai...@zip.com.au) murdered some electrons to write:
# Ok, ok.
Oh, whaddaya want now?!
# Let me clear things up.
Okay, you can try.
# I was NOT trying to start a flame war. I am infact starting a campian with
Yeahright. And I'm Miss Manners.
# some people who live localy. I asked them which game. qoute "Not sure. Tell
# us some info on btech and HG then will decide" ,, "Ok I'll there's this
# post doing comparasons on the mecha newsgoup. I'll download some, " ect
# ect.
Uh.....huh. Why do I detect the unmistakeable odour of bullsh*t? Oh
well, it doesn't matter.
# So I logged on and found only HG stuff. I did'nt want to start anything,
You didn't want to start anything, but you post saying "Well, looks like
BTech sucks because nobody posted about it in the comparisons thread." (I
am summarising, not directly quoting) And not only that, but you posted
your little "HG wins!" schtik in a manner most arrogant and
patronising--as I said, not even *I* get that arrogant about BTech!
# And I am deeply sorry for upsetting you all. Please forgive me. I was just
# trying to get BOTH sides of the story for them.
Yeahright. Go away or I shall come to your house and put a dozen angry
male Funnelweb spiders in your underwear drawer. Or better yet, lose some
of the 'tude puh-leeze.
--Camille.
Phil Benton
Well... I have a whole load of B-tech books, and Chas even saw my stack of
HG books.
So... if you want the best of both worlds, and don't like picking sides for
the sake of picking sides, have both.
I picked up the HG books while I had the time and cash to do it. I read
them when I have the time to read them, and I have yet to play. It looks
like a hell of a game, but I'll wait until I get enough response, time, and
people to play it in the Gear version of BattleChat. When I open it, that
is. =)
--
Phillip Benton
Alshain MechWorks
spe...@tsrcom.com
Jonathan R Bezeau
WinterMute (wint...@teleport.com) wrote:
: In article <538hkp$i...@news0-alterdial.uu.net>,
: cha...@ally.ios.com (Archbishop Munchkin) wrote:
: Y'know, this is just about the funniest thing I've read in quite a
: while. I have the idea of some poor stupid rookie Jager jock charging an
: Aller, LAC chattering away and bouncing off, and the Aller's commander is
: having a really bad day and just lets the Jager have it with the THOR.
: "BOOM! and the newbie dies!!!!"
it would be funnier if said newbie was in a Ferret, or a Weasel.
Especially the Weasel once the battlefield guide comes out and we get
orbital strike rules! Woo-hoo! I'm betting ACC -ve with x50 damage and
some kind of ROF like an autocannon... that would nicely simulate a horde
of guided uranium crowbars.
--
Jonboy: the Signature -- collect all 35!
Boy, I know you can read my mind...
Meow Meow Meow Meow... Meow Meow Meow Meow... Meow Meow Meow Meow Meow!
What's that burning smell?
Paul Brown
Darrin Lee Bright (dbr...@cymbal.aix.calpoly.edu) wrote:
: But anyway, to sum up the entire HG vs BTECH argument:
: HG Attacks: "BTech sucks! Its totally unrealistic and the ranges suck!"
: BTECH Responds: "Well...so what! They're mechs! We get to beat
: each other up! Uh...its just a game, its not
: supposed to be realistic!"
: HG says: "Well, HG does everything BTech does, does it quicker, AND
: the weapons are realistic and the ranges are believable!"
: BTECH player simmers a bit, calms down later, and gets on with his
: life. HG player trades in hundreds of bucks worth of BTech books
: for a few HG books (all he needs, really) and gets on with his life.
: As you can see, there isn't much of an argument. BTech can't
: realistically challenge a HG player attacking the BTech rule system, and
: the only decent argument a BTech player can bring against HG all boil
: down to personal preferences and opinions.
I dont see the point of what all this bickering is about. Some
people like HG, some people like BT, big deal.
I havent played HG myself, but these dumb arguements are not
changing my mind about BT. From what I've heard, HG sounds like too quick
of a game to me anyways. Damn, it takes me enough ink and paper just to
print out the stupid btech sheets. And if he play heavy gear I'll end up
printing it out just to have it killed in a few shots.... no thanx. It
happens enough in battletech without having it happen even more in some
other game like HG.
Besides, how many people can say they bought thier game to 'have
good old wholesome realistic future warfare!'... not many. I'd guess
other people's would be similar to mine... 'bought it to have some fun
kicking other peoples ass (and getting my ass kicked a few times as well).'
Sure, some people wanna have a realistic RPG experiance. But I'm
not one of those people, so I dont care....
Prabal Nandy
In article <01bbb281$3d6e8880$5e61...@aidan.zip.com.au>,
>So much for the (Jump into your bunker), Not so much as a peep from our die
>hard BT fans out there.
>Guess they finaly came to there senses? Or just a bit slow finding the
Hey, be kind here...
I think the thing is this thread has been pretty well discussed and solved
about a month ago. There isn't a whole lot to say... Alot of the most Die
Hard Btech players made the switch to HG a long time ago... basically, if
you've been in it for the militaristic realism, you've already gone over to
HG... if you're in it for a particular house/source material (I.e., you really
like the Btech universe), or more commonly: You've put in alot of bux into
FASA products, then you stay in Btech!
--
\~~~~~\__ ~~\___/~~ __/~~~~~/ /pr...@sunset.bph.jhu.edu\ Lord of the Flies
~<==\__\_<O\:/O>_/__/==>~ /http://sunset.bph.jhu.edu \ 1st MPC Division
<_/ //=\ ^ /=\\ \_> \na...@vms.ccit.arizona.edu/ Colony World Myops
\| (|) |/ \ na...@ccit.arizona.edu / Velox-Durus-Infestus
Prabal Nandy
In article <536pej$12...@news.doit.wisc.edu>,
>>Thanks Aidan--you've guaranteed that I'll never EVER play Heavy Gear. Not
>>even *I* get that arrogant when talking about BTech.
GRIN!
>Don't take it personally, Camille - I mean, what if the first
>Battletecher you'd ever talked to was a Flemr type?
Man... I can't hardly REMEMBER That guy... I just remember I didn't like
him much...
Anyway, this thread is quite pointless and I've said "Just about all I'm
gonna say about that" Back to some serious mecha action!
(BTW, has anyone here tried any of those funky non-btech mecha/power armor
video games in MWII style out there?)
Prabal Nandy
In article <537stn$a...@nnrp1.news.primenet.com>,
Capella Ueber Alles <cap...@primenet.com> wrote:
I like the new name, Camille!
># Yeah, yeah, but are you going to help us split the group?
>One month. I'm counting.
Ah, come on... let's not start that business again. It's not going to be
worth the trouble!
And sheesh, that means _I'm_ going to have to monitor that group, rather
than leaving it in Camille's capable fists like RGM!
Come on, you Metalheads! We've got alot more in common than we have in
differences. And we both have our sets of jerky posts too. Don't let it spoil
the fun! (yeah, that coming from one of the biggest spoilers out there!)
Prabal Nandy
In article <538hkp$i...@news0-alterdial.uu.net>,
>Well I have one for now (even though I am half asleep).
Best time, Mammal boy!
>BTech is more friendly (stop laughing) tactics and survival-wise
>to new players, even if it gives them conniptions figuring it out.
GRIN!
>In HG, as has been said. You screw up, you die! Not everyone,
>especially newbies to tactical gaming, learn tactical thinking
He's got a point here, actually a pretty good point:
Is is very hard to make mistakes and stay alive in HG. Just like in RL, you
make one bad move, pop out in the open "Dahh.. Whassup?" and WHAMMO you're
fragged! It can be discouraging. Hell, MY first HG game was DAMNED
discouraging... We were playing at night, in the middle of a tempest sandstorm,
visibility was down to 50 meters, and the enemy had ECM! AAAAUGH! We were out
there completely blind except for my two "Bounty Hunter" Mechs that were
equipped with lights. It was a real mess.
>this way. In BTech, you can give a newbie an Atlas or something
>so that they don't get killed in the first sortie (unless someone
Right..
Of course, the Heavy Gear Demo-Pak DOES let you start learning tactics by
giving you the two weakest mechs to duke it out with. The Hunter and Jager
given in the pack carry 20mm automatic cannons that don't usually do one-shot
kills unless your opponent did something REALLY foolish.
Heavier mechs are of course, another story.
>opposed to, "it just works like that". Heavy Gear isn't idiot-
>proofed for newbie tactical faux-pas.
I have to agree here again. HG is best enjoyed after you've 'grown into' the
mecha genre a bit. I know some people have STARTED with HG as their first
mecha game... anyone like that here? How is it?
Of course, quite a lot of our players are dissaffected old Btech veterans!
Not surprising, eh?
>(Am I letting my vocabulary run away with me again? BACK! BACK!)
Nah!
>You stick a newbie in a gear, he charges a big f--king tank.
>Tank goes *BOOM* and the newbie dies! Real meaningful learning.
Well yeah... if that learning is: "Don't Charge a freaking TANK! You
DUNDERHEAD!!!"
>But did the newbie learn any of the options that might have been
>available? Sorry!
Heh heh heh: "Next time, Run like hell!"
>Stick a newbie in a Wraith. He charges a LT-MOB-25 Mobile Long Tom.
>LT-MOB-25 goes *BOOM* and the newbie gets f--ked up real bad! He
>turns, and runs, to start a more strategic attack. Like have his
Of course... in HG we tend to solve this by assigning newbies to high
performance mecha like "Cheetahs" that have the maneuverability and dodging
power to evade these kinds of attacks... at least long enough to get scared
and start thinking!
Either that or strap a reactive armor vest onto the Newbie's mech to give
him some breathing room!
>He'll learn the value of the tactics "in combat". Not watching
>the others play after he's been fragged.
To HG's credit: With HG the newbie can start and play out 3-4 complete
games in the time it takes to play ONE Btech game!
>Actually, HG is what MW2 the RPG SHOULD have been more like. Not
>a crummy Shadowrun clone.
Can't disagree with you there, Buddy! Mech-on!
WinterMute
Where's the new initaive rules? Duelist's Handbook?
Aidan Tylier
Ok, I was wrong to post that. I did'nt know there were so many sensitive
people out there. Can't you take a joke? ,,, Before you say it. I said I
was sorry, What else do you want me to do? Anyway, Where did you get the
idea that I think , Or was trying to say, BT is crap????. I own the just
about eveybook! You don't spend thousands of $$$$ on something you think is
crap.
Once agian for everyone. I AM SORRY!
About threats, Never threaten anybody, The mere fact that you posted that
article. Could, (And I said Could!! not Would!!) be used a court of law,
Ect ect, blah blah. You've herd it all before, I know.
Most other people would'nt even of bothered to apologize, So give me a
break. It was only ONE(1) post. 1 line!. If if you won't forgive, Then I
don't even know why I bother.
--
Aidan Out
Visit (http://www.zip.com.au/~aidan/)
Jean Carrieres
In article <5367bq$9...@nnrp1.news.primenet.com>, Capella Ueber Alles
<cap...@primenet.com> wrote:
>Aidan Tylier (ai...@zip.com.au) murdered some electrons to write:
>
># So much for the (Jump into your bunker), Not so much as a peep from our die
># hard BT fans out there.
>
>Peep, peep. Don't make me come down there.
>
># Guess they finaly came to there senses? Or just a bit slow finding the
># thread?
>
>Thanks Aidan--you've guaranteed that I'll never EVER play Heavy Gear. Not
>even *I* get that arrogant when talking about BTech.
I don't believe I'm reading this.
--
Jean Carrieres
Dream Pod 9
DP9 Web Site: http://www.dp9.com
Capella Ueber Alles
Jonathan R Bezeau (jbe...@uoguelph.ca) murdered some electrons to write:
# Does anyone remember that guy (THOMAS E REED) who refused to play Vampire
# because he didn't like the other people that played it?
Oh, you mean the bloke who stated publicly that he hoped I'd get raped,
and then lied about apologising to me for it? Yeah, I remember him--may
he rot in the foulest of hells.
# Do we remember how all present flamed his ass into the stone age? (well,
# he was an ignorant dumbass too, but that was only 85% of the reason...
# Doh. I think I just screwed my point)
No, you didn't--though I am not an ignorant dumbass. I frankly had no real
desire to play to begin with--because I'm not into the anime drek as much
as some people, and everything I've seen of HG is anime out the wazoo--and
this bloke kinda dampened whatever desire may have been there in the first
place.
# I don't think this is too much of a flame, because hey... BT players
# DIDN'T respond. They've either got HG killfield in their accounts or in
# their brains, it seems.
Keeps the prats like that Aidan fellow away.
But I said I would keep count of the posts here, so I can't exactly
killfile it anymore. :/
--Camille. All whines that BT is anime are being auto-sent to /dev/null.
Capella Ueber Alles
Aidan Tylier (ai...@zip.com.au) murdered some electrons to write:
# Ok, I was wrong to post that. I did'nt know there were so many sensitive
# people out there. Can't you take a joke? ,,, Before you say it. I said I
Oh joke you. :P
# was sorry, What else do you want me to do? Anyway, Where did you get the
# idea that I think , Or was trying to say, BT is crap????. I own the just
# about eveybook! You don't spend thousands of $$$$ on something you think is
# crap.
# Once agian for everyone. I AM SORRY!
# About threats, Never threaten anybody, The mere fact that you posted that
# article. Could, (And I said Could!! not Would!!) be used a court of law,
# Ect ect, blah blah. You've herd it all before, I know.
Yadda yadda yadda. Any judge would look at the fact that I don't even
have a PASSPORT, much less the cash to fly all the way down to Australia
to collect said spiders and put them in your underwear drawer, and laugh
his (or her) ass off. Sheesh.
# Most other people would'nt even of bothered to apologize, So give me a
# break. It was only ONE(1) post. 1 line!. If if you won't forgive, Then I
# don't even know why I bother.
*roll eyes* Just hush for a while, will you, and let this thread die. :P
--Camille.
Michael Kelly
In article <53bg6v$q...@cymbal.aix.calpoly.edu>,
dbr...@cymbal.aix.calpoly.edu (Darrin Lee Bright) wrote:
>In article <01bbb43a$1fec3fe0$ba61...@aidan.zip.com.au>,
>Aidan Tylier <ai...@zip.com.au> wrote:
>>Ok, ok.
<Keeeerrrrrr-slappity!>
And don't do it again! ;)
>The whole "war" (if you could call it one) is not much of a war... and
>it does keep popping up now and again, so its not just you trying to
>start something... In general, the BTech and HG players are fairly
>tolerant of one another, and in general, even the fanatics still play
>BOTH games. Both games have advantages.
Hear hear! Harumph! First bit o' sense I've seen in one of these threads yet.
> BTech has some disadvantages
>(quite a few, actually), and HG seems to have only a few (initiative
>being a problem for some people, and one-on-one combat is too quick).
Ummm... I can only think of one problem with Btech (and two possible problems
depending on what you're loooking for in a game).
Infantry: Infantry sucks, die too easily (IMO).
Counter: New improved rules in Advanced rulebook.
Possible-RPG-problem: Mechs are too tough! Ordinary people don't have a chance
against them.
Counter: Four heavy SRM hits to the head can ruin anyones day. Besides, mechs
are supposed to be "land battleships", battleships wouldn't be all that useful
if your average guy-off-the-street were able to take 'em out with a pistol and
a mean look.
Possible-Reality-problem: There's no real way to swiftly kill mechs, no one
shot one kill like in HG.
Counter: Head hits anyone? It depends on where you get hit from and what kind
of mech you hit. (ie lights get shattered from gauss rounds and Clan ER-PPCs
etc.
>But anyway, to sum up the entire HG vs BTECH argument:
>
> HG Attacks: "BTech sucks! Its totally unrealistic and the ranges suck!"
Ranges: Btech ranges are too short.
Counter: So? The ranges and mechs may not be realistic but they are that way
to create a particular feel to the game; they force players to maneuver and
duel rather than simply stand two klicks off and nail each other. If nothing
else it allows close-combat to play a much larger part.
> BTECH Responds: "Well...so what! They're mechs! We get to beat
> each other up! Uh...its just a game, its not
> supposed to be realistic!"
Precisely, I wouldn't even bother trying to argue this point. Which is more
realistic has no relevance on which is a better game. Otherwise we'd all quit
this mecha nonsense and play Advanced Squad Leader.
> HG says: "Well, HG does everything BTech does, does it quicker, AND
> the weapons are realistic and the ranges are believable!"
HG doesn't do everything BT does (yet) and who cares if the weapons or their
ranges are realistic? I don't, they're, fun thats all that matters.
> BTECH player simmers a bit, calms down later, and gets on with his
> life. HG player trades in hundreds of bucks worth of BTech books
> for a few HG books (all he needs, really) and gets on with his life.
As for this: "all you need to play HG is one book" thing that a lot of
Gearheads seem to think is so important, all you need to play BT is the
compendium. (Granted that doesn't contain the roleplaying rules, but they're
not vital, and if they work with Btech you could probably guess 'em anyway).
>As you can see, there isn't much of an argument. BTech can't
>realistically challenge a HG player attacking the BTech rule system, and
>the only decent argument a BTech player can bring against HG all boil
>down to personal preferences and opinions.
Personal preferences and opinions are all that *matters* in games! If realism
is so important to you then by all means play HG and feel disgusted about BT.
It isn't to me, I realise BT isn't realistic, but it is fun.
Okay, lets look at the problems I can remember with HG:
Initiative: I once lost half my force by losing initiative on the first turn.
Yay verily it sucked. Possible. Realistic, given that it was an ambush
scenario. But still sucky.
Solution: the guys at DP9 proposed something didn't they? Too bad it was on
the Mailing list... so many RPers and wargamers still don't have access to
Usenet.
Gears die too easily: Anyone who ever got fired upon by more than two enemies
in the same turn knows this. Not bad in a pitched battle, but annoying when
your character gets toasted for the third time in two RPG sessions.
Counter: Ummm... Give your players meaner Gears than your opponents or make
those opponents stupid or green. This in itself poses a problem: it destroys
the points made by the realism brigade.
MOS MOShmesh: Some people are worried about what will happen with the MOS
system when Landships come out, just how vulnerable will they be?
For example, suppose a gear has a snipered x14 weapon (+1 to to-hit roll) he's
in a good gear (+1 fire control) and is damn good himself (Attr +2). He's
firing at a Landship with -5 maneuverability, lets assume they both only roll
one dice and get the same result, 5 with no other modifiers for movement etc
(I'm being nice to the landship here folks). The gear pilot gets 5+1+1+2=9 the
landship get 5-5=0 for a MOS of 9. 9*14=126=badly hurt landship (especially
when the rest of the squad hasn't shot yet). An extreme damage, but for
Roleplaying characters to keep losing characters in combat is annoying too.
Perhaps HG takes the "a better shot does more damage" thing a bit *too* far?
Counter: Put a maximum limit on the MOS or compartmentalise the Landships so a
single hit from a snub cannon cannot take out an entire ship.
HG is more realistic and great fun as a RPG, but I prefer BTech for mech on
mech combat it's sheer jumpy-jumpy, blasty-blasty, kicky-kicky mecha fun. Of
course this is strictly IMHO.
Mike Kelly.
Aidan Tylier
> For example, suppose a gear has a snipered x14 weapon (+1 to to-hit roll)
he's
> in a good gear (+1 fire control) and is damn good himself (Attr +2). He's
> firing at a Landship with -5 maneuverability, lets assume they both only
roll
> one dice and get the same result, 5 with no other modifiers for movement
etc
> (I'm being nice to the landship here folks). The gear pilot gets
5+1+1+2=9 the
> landship get 5-5=0 for a MOS of 9. 9*14=126=badly hurt landship
(especially
> when the rest of the squad hasn't shot yet). An extreme damage, but for
> Roleplaying characters to keep losing characters in combat is annoying
too.
> Perhaps HG takes the "a better shot does more damage" thing a bit *too*
far?
> Counter: Put a maximum limit on the MOS or compartmentalise the Landships
so a
> single hit from a snub cannon cannot take out an entire ship.
Don't bite my head off!!
But landships have armour of 150+ Thay little sniper did'nt do anything. So
that was a Shing, (Bounces off).
Let say the gear rolls 2 6's. gives him 7+1+1+2=11
landship rolls 2 1's Fumbles 0-5=-5
Difference of 16 time 14 = 224. Which means Light Damage! jeez, I only just
realized that. So that exellent hit, Only just did anything. Imagine the
type of gun you would need to overkill that thing, Either that, of 41 six's
:).
THIS IS NOT AN ARGUMENT/COMPARISON/WHAT EVER. I was just correcting a
mistake.
--
Aidan Out
Visit (http://www.webcom.com/aidan/)
Aidan Tylier
Ok, I was wrong to post that. I did'nt know there were so many sensitive
Once agian for everyone. I AM SORRY!
About threats, Never threaten anybody, The mere fact that you posted that
article. Could, (And I said Could!! not Would!!) be used a court of law,
Ect ect, blah blah. You've herd it all before, I know.
Most other people would'nt even of bothered to apologize, So give me a
break. It was only ONE(1) post. 1 line!. If if you won't forgive, Then I
don't even know why I bother.
--
Aidan Out
Visit (http://www.zip.com.au/~aidan/)
Capella Ueber Alles
[deletia]
Give it a rest--it's over, it's done with, give it up already please.
Sheesh.
--Camille. BTW, I'm not anywhere near Australia, so if you can't see I
was kidding about the spiders thing, joke you if you can't take a fsck.
nasri andreas hajj
"Aidan Tylier" <ai...@zip.com.au> writes:
>> For example, suppose a gear has a snipered x14 weapon (+1 to to-hit roll)
>he's
>> in a good gear (+1 fire control) and is damn good himself (Attr +2). He's
>> firing at a Landship with -5 maneuverability, lets assume they both only
>roll
>> one dice and get the same result, 5 with no other modifiers for movement
>etc
>> (I'm being nice to the landship here folks). The gear pilot gets
>5+1+1+2=9 the
>> landship get 5-5=0 for a MOS of 9. 9*14=126=badly hurt landship
>(especially
>> when the rest of the squad hasn't shot yet). An extreme damage, but for
>> Roleplaying characters to keep losing characters in combat is annoying
>too.
>> Perhaps HG takes the "a better shot does more damage" thing a bit *too*
>far?
>> Counter: Put a maximum limit on the MOS or compartmentalise the Landships
>so a
>> single hit from a snub cannon cannot take out an entire ship.
>Don't bite my head off!!
>But landships have armour of 150+ Thay little sniper did'nt do anything. So
>that was a Shing, (Bounces off).
>Let say the gear rolls 2 6's. gives him 7+1+1+2=11
>landship rolls 2 1's Fumbles 0-5=-5
>Difference of 16 time 14 = 224. Which means Light Damage! jeez, I only just
>realized that. So that exellent hit, Only just did anything. Imagine the
>type of gun you would need to overkill that thing, Either that, of 41 six's
>:).
Having a Sniper system won't help...all that'd do is counteract some of
the range penalties (since you only get a +1 at long and extreme range).
Also, the defense roll's minimum is 0.
So, assuming that the Gears is firing at a lone, light patrol landship
or something similar (a mere 150 armour or so), unhasseled by the escorting
aircraft, gears, tanks, etc, and manages to walk up point blank and fire
away with a Snub Cannon.
On two dice, the player rolls two 6s. So, he gets a 7 + 2 attribute +1 point
blank, -1 Accuracy, +1 fire control. Total of 10.
The Landship rolls some dice but ends up with a 0. The Landship takes 280
damage (possibly only 140 due to reactive armour, which would ping off),
and loses one of many Backup Systems or Reinforcement Perks. The Landship
fires off a salvo from it's tertiary anti-Gear weaponry and destroys the
offender.
Sure, the Gear managed to actually hurt it, but that was with a evil nasty
weapon at point blank range with a very good roll, a situation so perfect
it only happens in examples like these.
[stuff deleted]
- Nasri.
Jonathan R Bezeau
Paul Brown (ac...@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca) wrote:
: I dont see the point of what all this bickering is about. Some
: people like HG, some people like BT, big deal.
: I havent played HG myself, but these dumb arguements are not
: changing my mind about BT. From what I've heard, HG sounds like too quick
: of a game to me anyways. Damn, it takes me enough ink and paper just to
: print out the stupid btech sheets. And if he play heavy gear I'll end up
: printing it out just to have it killed in a few shots.... no thanx. It
: happens enough in battletech without having it happen even more in some
: other game like HG.
Player character type people have a far higher survival rate in HG than
you may think. Plus one on each roll (from higher stats) totally saves them.
And there's not quite as much to write down if you know the vehicles
you're using. Just one record sheet handles life for all gears of that
type, and you just chalk up damage on a few pieces of notepaper.
But I'm just nitpicking. In HG is generally IS a waste to use a whole
sheet of paper on a gear...
jon selbo
: Darrin Lee Bright (dbr...@cymbal.aix.calpoly.edu) spewed forth:
: : But anyway, to sum up the entire HG vs BTECH argument:
: : HG Attacks: "BTech sucks! Its totally unrealistic and the ranges suck!"
: : BTECH Responds: "Well...so what! They're mechs! We get to beat
: : each other up! Uh...its just a game, its not
: : supposed to be realistic!"
: : HG says: "Well, HG does everything BTech does, does it quicker, AND
: : the weapons are realistic and the ranges are believable!"
: : BTECH player simmers a bit, calms down later, and gets on with his
: : life. HG player trades in hundreds of bucks worth of BTech books
: : for a few HG books (all he needs, really) and gets on with his life.
: : As you can see, there isn't much of an argument. BTech can't
: : realistically challenge a HG player attacking the BTech rule system, and
: : the only decent argument a BTech player can bring against HG all boil
: : down to personal preferences and opinions.
Umm isn't that the whole reason that we play games for???? (personal
preference) Gee lets reduce the other person's augument to nothing
more than "your" opinion while "my" opinion is all fact.
Very childish.
The FACTS are: play what you like, buy what you like, but don't go
around telling me I'm so freakin inferior because I prefere a different
game than yours!
Bunsin
Sick of all the self absorbed dweebs who can't put up with another
persons personal choices.
Michael P O'Shea
[DLB's summary of the typical HG-vs.-Battletech realism argument snipped
for space reasons]
>
> : : As you can see, there isn't much of an argument. BTech can't
> : : realistically challenge a HG player attacking the BTech rule system, and
> : : the only decent argument a BTech player can bring against HG all boil
> : : down to personal preferences and opinions.
>
> Umm isn't that the whole reason that we play games for???? (personal
> preference) Gee lets reduce the other person's augument to nothing
> more than "your" opinion while "my" opinion is all fact.
First sentence: Yes, if under 'personal preference' you also include
personally taking something to be inherently excellent and worthy of
respect. Otherwise, *No*, I buy and pay attention to games (like books,
albums, etc.) due to *both* personal preferences and other, more
objective reasons.
Second sentence: Sorry, you're making an point that seems righteous and
wise at a superficial level but is quite full o' beans in truth. Darrin
was *contrasting* drawing distinctions between the two games in terms of
weapon ranges, weapon effects, combat dynamics, etc.; with distinctions
in terms of the aesthetic 'mood' of the games, the personalities and
factions of the two universes, etc.
What Darrin said about the way the realism part of the hypothetical
argument must go is *not* his opinion, it *is* fact. For there are, in
fact, stated ranges for weapons in the HG books, and ranges for weapons
in the various BTech materials. All of these are clearly printed in
English, using units of distance with which we are all familiar.
Similarly, the BTech damage system is spelled out quite unequivocally in
that game's books, just as HG's is spelled out in its own.
And then there are actual military weapons, which exist, and have
determinate (though partially variable) ranges and effects. And these
traits are codified in lists, books, and other sources. So if, in fact,
you compare the unambiguous statements about weapon performances in HG
to existing weapons, and the ones in BTech to existing weapons, you will
note [1] that the HG materials clearly reflect the general
characteristics of RL stats, and [2] that the BTech ones do not at all;
indeed, often seem to bear no particular relation to the way analogous
constructs behave in the real world.
Now, my friend, where is the opinion here? It's a question of fact.
The comparisons involve statements about fictional items (game weapons),
but those statements are perfectly unambiguous and perfectly ready for
comparison with RL stats.
Where is the opinion?
You may be confused by the fact that it *is* (to some degree) open to
opinion whether or not it's *important* that the HG weapons track
reality well and the BTech ones not even vaguely, but that is not the
point here, and so your objection was mistaken, and your accusation of
"childishness" an example of wishful thinking. Darrin's point is not
whether or not anyone should *care* about the outcome of a
who's-more-realistic-dude? argument between the two game
systems; like him, I'm prepared to accept that that may be unimportant.
The point is about the necessary *outcome* of such an argument,
assuming both parties are honest and non-evasive, and that outcome
is *not* in doubt, because it's a question of fact, and we happen to
have the relevant facts.
Sorry to be so pedantic; I thought it might serve a purpose.
> The FACTS are: play what you like, buy what you like, but don't go
> around telling me I'm so freakin inferior because I prefere a different
> game than yours!
>
> Bunsin
> Sick of all the self absorbed dweebs who can't put up with another
> persons personal choices.
As a second point, I may be in a minority here, but I find it very
disturbing when people are so flippant about saying "look, it's just a
question of personal preference, so how dare you make a statement of the
form 'A is objectively superior to B'." This, to my mind, is a vulgar
attitude.
Look, there *are* objective qualities of value, and differences in
quality, among games, art works, essays, tools -- anything man-made
which is intended to serve a purpose. When I say that HG is an
excellent game, I'm doing something different from saying that I
personally find it enjoyable.
Now, it is certainly true that full-blown agreement about aesthetic and
evaluative issues is hard to come by. But it's not impossible, and we
have a certain amount of responsibility to try and reach it, I think, by
comparing the merits of different artifacts. Such as these two game
systems. Look, it's not as though we're asking "is a nice cool glass of
orange juice on a summer day objectively better than picking up the spare
on a 8-10 split?" We're comparing two North American, faction-based,
vaguely anime-inspired sf mecha tac/rpg environments. There are too
many common functions which such things must serve, and too many common
elements about the intended audience, for value judgements between them
*not* to have a wide open (and partially fact-based) field of play in
which to occur.
Of course we have to be courteous and fallibilistic; have to acknowledge
that something we think of tomorrow may totally change our
value-judgements about X or Y, but that does not mean that it's
illegitimate to make "A is better than B because..." statements, or to
hold them as potentially objective.
...
[god, i've been in philosophy graduate school too bloody long]
Sorry, I don't want to trigger a new round of weapons-realism posting
with this (admittedly somewhat acerbic) post. I actually think that
most of the things that can interestingly be said about the two games'
relations to each other have been covered. We can all go on enjoying
our gaming. I just wanted to oppose what I took to be both a
misunderstanding of Darrin's post and a bit of knee-jerk relativism,
something all too common in this day and age.
And, I suppose, to try to urge all you BTechers (and I was one once, for
a *long* time) that there's this truly excellent game out there (Heavy
Gear) that I'm confident you'd enjoy picking up on as well.
Right. Thanks for your attention.
Best,
M. O'Shea
[exits, stage left]
Jonathan R Bezeau
Fist of the Norlight (mpo...@pitt.edu) wrote:
: I wrote:
: > Really. Rabid HG fans like Heathen^H^H^H^HJonboy and I never *ever*
: > hardly only occasionally *at all* do so-called 'excessive' things like
: > calling up 1-800-COLLECT to order orbital artillery strikes on each
: > other ... really. (AT&T said it was possible, but it cost *way* too
: > much damn money to to it internationally.)
: When, of course, it wouldn't cost you *anything* if you'd tried to
: order that orbital arty strike on Guelph via 1-800-COLLECT, that being
: the point of collect calls, after all.
When you blew away my MILICIA peons with that one I was so mad I wanted
to RIP MY OWN HEAD OFF, but I restrained. I have a proust-like ability to
avoid Massive Death From Above.
Besides you haven't got anyone here with the "Designate heathen" skill.
The shot was unguided and therefore missed me by at least two hexes. (so
that's why the university here is a smaoking wreck)... that's cause we
don't take kindly to conspiracy here.
: Though it'd definitely be cool if you could get some poor sucker to
: accept the toll charges for the orbital strike you just ordered on
: him, eh? "Please wait for the other party to come on... "
: [heavens part in righteous judgment] KRA-WRRROOOOOMMMMMM
See? There's where the northies get the advantage... they have an
EXPLANATION for their orbital strikes against unintentional targets. Us
southies just have to chalk it up to poor aim or itchy trigger fingers.
"But sir! The rocket won't be over the target zone for thirty minutes..."
"I DON'T CARE SOLDAT! I will see Destruction NOW! Fire at that village!"
"Oui, Commandant!"
: M. O'Shea
Michael T. Richter
>> Thanks Aidan--you've guaranteed that I'll never EVER play Heavy Gear.
Not
>> even *I* get that arrogant when talking about BTech.
> I don't believe I'm reading this.
Which part don't you believe, Jean? The part I personally can't believe is
Ms. Klein claiming a limit to her arrogance...
--
Michael T. Richter
m...@igs.net
http://www.igs.net/~mtr/
Prabal Nandy
In article <325705...@pitt.edu>,
>1. Jonboy said a lot of good stuff about Heavy Gear RPGing, but one
>thing I'd like to emphasize is that the Terranovans (inhabitants of the
>independent ex-colony world on which all the action in HG so far, and
>for the next real life year or two, takes place) are *much* more like
>recognizable, modern Westerners (and East Asians, to an extent) than the
>inhabitants of the BTech universe.
True... though DP9 has gone through some significant effort to make them
quite different on many levels than the current day people. It's alot harder
in some respects to draw lines between some of the DP9 cultures as opposed to
BTech, where the Kurita -> Japanese, Clan -> Mongols, Liao -> Chinese, Davion
-> Good old Americans, are very clearly defined.
But this is due seemly to DP9's curiousity with various _utopic_ visions.
At least, in my opinion, all of the "City State" body politics in Heavy
Gear embody some aspect of cultures from Earth that believed themselves to be
utopias! (Neat, Huh?). In many ways, reading through some of the source
material on these strange yet eerily familiar cultures and societies is like
reviewing a paper on social evolution, etc...
Add to that the spectre of the great ice age and the grand old utopian cities
spawned during that era, as well as massive race-mixing that occured at that
point, and you have a decidedly reconstructionist culture here. It's pretty
neat, honestly... almost seductive enough to make you want to play lots of
RPG campaigns with political, rather than Military aims!
>Nothing quasi-feudal about Heavy Gear, really; the seven great leagues
>on Terra Nova are either modern republics, corporate states, or
>authoritarian governments. (OK, one Terranovan league, the despised
>backwater Eastern Sun Emirates, is semi-feudal.) I find that this makes
That's definately true here...
No lords and ladies sending yer men out to fight and die for sport or
anything...
Honestly, I think Btech did it to 1. Model the system off of the house
system of "Dune" which is an interesting model, and 2. Tag each house with
a readily identifiable name and face...
Terranova's politics and political bodies are alot slippier and complex...
Just following the trail of all the missing politicians and revolutionaries
from the sourcebooks could fill years of gaming time!
>roleplaying the Heavy Gear factions richer than Battletech roleplaying;
>you can actually put yourself into the shoes of these
>people with empathy and ease.
Wel, the downside of this is that military action isn't always justified,
and talking about genociding a planet or slagging a city with yer mechs just
doesn't cut it anymore. In HG, violence is a means to an end... a way to
delay the enevitable truth of the situation and stave off death for another
day! You can't just blow up a bunch of guys, hop you and your fellow Mercs
into your dropship and fly away to another planet. You've got to deal with
the messes you make! (Well, assuming you're RPGing and not TAC-bashing!)
>So, no "Rrr! We are Capella! Liao above all! Yes, all 500 billion of
>us!" or "Rrr! We are Clan [Adjective] [Animal]! We are the
>skilled/backstabbing/conservative/logy/mean Clan! Yes, all of us!
GRIN!
>Really!" Being a Norlight or a Southern Republican (two popular HG
>factions) is significantly more nuanced.
Of course... you could always be a big desert Mantis...
> Oh, and there's no Comstar in HG, or anything remotely similar.
Well... Port Arthur with its wierd ring of Hermes comsats....?
>2. Indeed, there's no 'technological decay' motif in play in Heavy Gear.
> When advanced tech is necessary or useful, it's available. The fact
>that simple, rugged equipment is more the norm in HG than hi-tech stuff
Well, I like the way DP9 said flat out in the Tech Manual that hey, 4000
years in the future technology is going to be MAGIC. War will likely be
completely undecipherable to modern day men... so we're going to base
everything on modern technology and make that at least realistic, take it
or leave it!
>and so equipment sees a lot of abuse. E.g., they *have* lasers and
>particle cannons and railguns, but they're nowhere near as common as
>mortars, missiles, rockets and autocannons; the latter are cheaper, more
>rugged, and just as effective.
Quite true... quite true!
Don't believe him? DP9 actually provides maintenance and repair statistics
for their weapons, so you know just what the price of abusing your equipment
(or loading up your Ubermech with Hitek crap) is!
>3. One huge difference between the two games is that the scale of events
>in Heavy Gear is *much* smaller than Btech. There are about 10 colony
Cozy, eh?
>people on hundreds of different worlds. Personally, I find Heavy Gear's
>scale infinitely preferable; Btech has never been able to give enough
>detail on any of its hundreds of different worlds to make them seem real
Of course, in Btech's defense it does allow you to make up your own custom
planet and fit it into the system (Like Colony World Myops!) It's a bit harder
to 'customize' the game if you intend to play on Terra Nova, but hey, it's
your game!
>to me. I say this even though FASA made truly heroic efforts in the House
>Sourcebooks (which you can't get anymore, BTW) to bring them to life.
>It's *not* a problem with their writers; the scale was all wrong to
Have to agree... WAY too many planets! Check out my Inner Sphere map on my
Myops page to see!
>problems which can be summed up in the question, How can the presence or
>absence of 108 little tank-sized BattleMechs matter one whit to your
>chances of taking over a planet of *4 billion people*? In Heavy Gear, an
>international alliance of 75 million people can field a few hundred
>regiments of infy and armor when they're mobilized for war.]
Well, it was always one of those Btech questions that you "Grin and wave
away"... yah, it doesn't make much difference, but the explanation is (as near
as I've seen it) that people in Btech (like in Medival times) don't really
CARE who rules who... Your knights (Mechs) are there to usurp power from the
local king (Lord, or whatever)... Very fuedal... and I Liked it!
But around the clan-time, everything went completely haywire, and really
stopped making sense!
>Heavy Gear gives detail on individual cities on Terra Nova comparable to
>what Battletech does on entire planets; if anything, more. The result is
MORE!
ALOT MORE! Have you seen some of DP9's city maps, virtual essays on political
systems, judicial systems, famous/infamous places and criminal kingpins? Wierd
local cultures and all sorts of customs? It's amazing the amount of detail...
hell, the cultures and cities of TN are way wierder and neater than current
day Earth! (I guess it's a reflection of the introversion of city-states, it
almost reminds me of the old Roman/Greek times.)
>that you don't need to read all that far into the main Heavy Gear RPG
>sourcebook, _Life On Terra Nova_, before you begin to get this wonderful,
>uncanny feeling that the place you're reading about *exists*. That's
>one reason we (the HG fans) are as rabid as we are. There's nothin'
>quite like it.
I have a funny feeling that DP9 has a sociologist on their payroll! Jean,
is it true?
It's very unique, yet unquestionably different from just about anything
else I've seen in SF societies. Though I don't necessarily agree with
everything in there, or all the wierdnesses that appear, it is certainly a
remarkable effort! WAY beyond the call of duty for a gosh-darned GAME!
(Translation: DP9ers are OBSESSIVE)
>4. The differences in combat systems between the two games have been
>pretty well covered by previous posters. I'll just say that, like
>weapons firing, electronic warfare in HG is much richer and more closely
>integrated into game play than BTech. There's active, passive, and
Definately true... and yeah, we've laid this one to rest...
>designating targets or spotting for indirect fire, etc., etc. Losing
>your squad's EW Gear on a hot battlefield *sucks*.
Been there... done that... have the hole on my "Bounty Hunter" to prove it.
> One thing you can't do with HG as well as BTech is
>have a good one-on-one duel. The game's just too violent. Mind you,
>DP9 has introduced a sort of Solaris-like scale (Skirmish scale) for HG
>in the recently released Duelist's Handbook. It slows down movement and
>target acquisition a little, but doesn't change the damage allocation
>procedure, which is the heart and soul of HG's deadliness. I've not
>gamed with the Skirmish rules yet, so more I can't say.
Apparently it's made so you can do all sorts of mecha dueling and hand to
hand fighting with a DIZZYING array of bladed and powered hand-weaponry! Even
whips and grinders, etc... neat, eh?
>5. Last thing to mention is that Heavy Gears do not rule all over the
>Terranovan battlefield the way BattleMechs rule over the Inner Sphere.
>Heavy Gears are much smaller -- about 15 feet / 4.6 meters on average.
>Tanks and (some) ground-attack aircraft are much better armed and armored
Definately... and it's been said before. HG is a mecha game that's not
necessarily a _mecha_ game. You have to really gear (grin) a battle to terrain
that makes gears useful before you can hope to survive in 'em!
>BUT -- *nobody* can just laugh off an enemy Gear. A properly equipped
>and used Gear has a chance to take out any vehicle on Terra Nova. There
Yepper... the things have power in their simpicity and versitility! Maybe
you can't take down that tank face-to-face... but you can sit back and try
to survive long enough to rain down enough shells on him to incapacitate
him!
>standard Gear-mounted light rocket pod if you're lucky. You've just
>gotta work for your kills, Gear Boy.
That's right... the going just got alot tougher: Heavy Gear! GRIN!
Prabal Nandy
In article <53b7ut$2...@ccshst05.uoguelph.ca>,
>I'm having a f$^# of a time scraping or filing all the flare off of a
>couple Jagers in the southern boxed set. But once they're done, they'll
Get a good strong carpenter's blade or mini-saw... exacto blades sometimes
just don't 'cut it' GRIN!
>look sweet... I like how they give all the extra weapons and parts in
>case you feel inventive.
Yah!
You can make a nice clean "Factory Model" mecha, or a grizzled, grenade
and gun-laden, over armored "Green Beret" mecha as well! I LOVE 'em! It's so
cool that (if you can afford 'em) you can get five of the same mecha and
customize 'em all with parts out of the box and make 'em all visibly different
and unique...
>(points to the LAC-toting model with a fragcannon strapped on under the
>engine)
GRIN!
I'd keep the FGC out, myself.. Nice touch!
>All in all, nice stuff, though sometimes you don't get all the parts you
Better give RAFM a call, they ought to replace the parts you need well
enough. Too used to doing one piece Btech minis I guess! GRIN!
>need. I prefer one-piece minis for actual gaming though, because they're
>more abuse resistant.
I think DP9 mentioned doing some smaller 1/200 scale style Gear-Minis for
gaming awhile back... they've been pretty clear that their current minis are
more for display/art/modelling purposes than actually gaming... they just
look too cool! And they're big too!
-Probe
Prabal Nandy
In article <53bcdh$2...@ccshst05.uoguelph.ca>,
>Does anyone remember that guy (THOMAS E REED) who refused to play Vampire
>because he didn't like the other people that played it?
(That's actually a good reason in many respects... but he turned it around
and attacked the _Game_system_ itself, which wasn't a well-thought-out thing
to do. That damnned thread went on for MONTHS!)
>Doh. I think I just screwed my point)
Hmmm...
>Anyhow, I'll leave everyone up to their own conclusions on that.
Hmmm--.. mmmm?
(Only Camille will probably be able to figure out who my favorite Dune
character is now, eh?)
>I don't think this is too much of a flame, because hey... BT players
>DIDN'T respond. They've either got HG killfield in their accounts or in
Come on, Jon... don't be mean. Let's be civil here, there's no need to
get haughty or rude. The Games are different, they have their own camps... we
had the introductory "Dog meets Dog" flamewar and I proclaim those days to
be officially over... After all, flaming Btech doesn't particularly increase
the fun-value of HG, or vice versa!
Now, if you want to try to 'cross-translate' mecha between the two system
and see how that goes, be my guest! GRIN!
Prabal Nandy
In article <jcarrieres-08...@news.interax.net>,
Jean Carrieres <jcarr...@dp9.com> wrote:
>>Thanks Aidan--you've guaranteed that I'll never EVER play Heavy Gear. Not
>>even *I* get that arrogant when talking about BTech.
>I don't believe I'm reading this.
GRIN!
Now Jean, don't be mean!
"He's the Carrie-Jean, of our me-cha!"
"Carrie-Jean, knows that H-G is the one!"
"But Joe Gear is not his son!"
(Melo Violin creshendo, thin gear with silver glove breakdancing in the
background)
Prabal Nandy
In article <53d945$7...@nnrp1.news.primenet.com>,># Does anyone remember that guy (THOMAS E REED) who refused to play Vampire
>and then lied about apologising to me for it? Yeah, I remember him--may
>he rot in the foulest of hells.
GRIN.
I never did get around to sending him a packet of "Probe's instant flesh
eating worms" did I? Hmm.. then again, he did dissappear. Still got some
packs left...
At any rate... sure glad he's outta here, though in truth I think he was
just a poor misguided soul, trying to do good in his own socially inept
way. Kinda... ahh, the nutcases that I've seen!
>No, you didn't--though I am not an ignorant dumbass. I frankly had no real
>desire to play to begin with--because I'm not into the anime drek as much
>as some people, and everything I've seen of HG is anime out the wazoo--and
Hmmm?
Honestly, the art-style is a mixture of anime and modern western graphic
novel art... but the game is _certainly_ much more of a gritty modern day
armored (and unarmored!) warfare system... there really aren't ANY animeisms
in there at all!
I think the Myth about HG's anime-ness dissappears once you've played a
game or two... it's drowned out by the mechanics and realism of the gaming
engine, more or less. Of course, if you purposefully overhype your character's
stats for that reason, and make him a customized hypermegamecha from hell,
then yeah, you'll run into those problems..
>this bloke kinda dampened whatever desire may have been there in the first
>place.
Hmm...
Well, give it some time and then consider giving it a try. I guarantee you'll
like it (Well, as long as you use your own initiative system, I can't decipher
the original official one, though a new one is in the works.)
>Keeps the prats like that Aidan fellow away.
Ah... he means well.. he just lacks social graces. Don't worry, I'll keep
my boys in line here...
>But I said I would keep count of the posts here, so I can't exactly
>killfile it anymore. :/
GRIN!
Hey, mon... you did ask for it after all!
>--Camille. All whines that BT is anime are being auto-sent to /dev/null.
I don't think I've EVER heard Btech called an "Anime-Game" in my life! Have
you?
Capella Ueber Alles
Prabal Nandy (na...@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu) murdered some electrons to write:
# >--Camille. All whines that BT is anime are being auto-sent to /dev/null.
#
# I don't think I've EVER heard Btech called an "Anime-Game" in my life! Have
# you?
Yes, I have. :( Of course, the people who prattle on about this are
usually the same ones who insist that Harmony Gold was telling the truth
and FASA really did _steal_ the artwork for the Original 14[1] rather than
licence it. *shrug*
--Camille.
[1] The original 14 Mechs--Warhammer, Marauder, Archer, Battlemaster, etc.
Capella Ueber Alles
Michael T. Richter (m...@igs.net) murdered some electrons to write:
# Which part don't you believe, Jean? The part I personally can't believe is
# Ms. Klein claiming a limit to her arrogance...
Hey, it's true! Well okay, *now* it's true. Last year it wasn't.
Kinda....sorta.
Seriously--my attitude towards 'botgames is that what you like is what you
like, even though it's something that I may not want to play (e.g.
Robotech, Mekton, Gundam).
*shrug* Oh well. Believe what you want, I don't care.
--Camille.
Jonathan R Bezeau
Norlight Dreamer With Head Firmly Planted in Clouds (mpo...@pitt.edu) wrote:
: Debauched Southie Apologist wrote:
: >
: > Universal Love Through Medium Bazookas (mpo...@pitt.edu) wrote:
: > And the Character Compendium illuminated so many of the Big Movers too,
: > as well as typical peons in the same position as the characters. Jaques
: > Molay rules. Gavin Hypolite has balls the size of churchbels to play the
: > dangerous game he does. And Thor Hutchinson can lie all he wants, he's
: > just a greedy bastard who's out warmongering and who is going to try and
: > assassinate First Follower Capek...
: Yeah, yeah, Sous-Soldat Scale-Slougher (isn't that the name of one of
: those Southie scout Gears with defective sensors?), you're just jealous
: because Thor is The Man, i.e., will get things done big time; *and* he's
: a man of principle (compare with establishment Southie leaders); *and*
: he'll be the one to make sure that La Dame de Fer teaches you all a good
: lesson in Tough Love when the proverbial springer guano meets the VTOL
: turbine. [gasp]
Ptth. He's in it for the control, and lying through his teeth. Southern
leaders are generally men of principle. Rabid nationalism is the driving
factor behind many of the south's politics. Molay's not in the right
place, but Lazarus is. Hypolite is. I think deRouen does it as much for
the SR as for his own megalomania. In fact, with all his power (Molay
aside for the moment), he *is* the SR. What benefits him personally (or
his ego at least) benefits the nation.
: Don't get me wrong, Capac is a good man too, a man of principle, but
: with little feeling for power realities...
Capac oozes power. He has charisma and leadership SOLELY through faith
and Mamoud's blessing... In fact, a lot of Massadan Revisionists do.
There's a true religion, not this facist Sorrento crap. Capac doesn't
give orders because his followers WANT to help and just help.
No "prophet's shield" for this guy. When you have to set up a SECRET
SOCIETY to watch your SECRET SOCIETY you know your religion isn't
carrying its load any more.
: > *ptth* I got a cheapshot on your pope!
: That's 'unofficial spritual counselor/Southern insomnia producer' to
: you. I won't respond with an analogous cheapshot at the South's
: spiritual leader -- Etienne Durocher.
: [heh]
Oh... the art is in the art for you. How about your paragon of northern
virtue Justice Stark? Can we say 'skimming off the top'? Or Thor 'quest
for power and mind-police'? It looks like he's been taking lessons from
the Humanists. At least the Humanists are TOLD that they're being watched...
: > What about the Humanists, guided by their Illuminatus, and only
: > leaving the country if it involves Ashanti or spying?
: Man, Humanists rock, don't they? If I ever come up and RPG with you
: guys in Ontario, color me a Humanist MILICIAman guest character in no
: time.
Do it! Protectors are the best! Loyal, strong willed and physical...
they're so cool. Wait until the HAPF gets Prime Knights!
: OK, simple difference of opinion here. That's fair enough. I guess I
: can see why others liked the lostech motif -- it does add color -- but I
: never thought it fit particularly well with *mecha*, since mecha are,
: well, mecha. I wasn't too sad to see it go.
I liked the grim atmosphere it produced. There were leaps of faith to be
made (imagine a spiritual hurdle-race) but it WORKED so well. Then it all
died when the Big Shots decided "Let's make a totally new game world"...
: I was saddest to see the world-shaking changes wrought by the Fourth
: Succession War period (which was *good* plot, BTW) gradually eroded to
: shit by the FASA writers, as if nothing had ever happened. La de da,
: more books to sell.
Mmm-hmm. Maybe the clans will go away and the IS will bomb the shit out
of all it's advanced stuff again. I only hope.
: > And if you're witnessing the nationbashing threads on the HG mailing
: > list, you'll probably get even more rabid. Look out (and save the last
: > bullet for yourself! "Call of Heavy Gear", an RPG with a decreasing Santiy
: > stat and cults of Barbe worshippers...)
: Heh heh heh. What he said. But it's all in good, clean, creative fun.
: No, seriously folks.
: Really. Rabid HG fans like Heathen^H^H^H^HJonboy and I never *ever*
: hardly only occasionally *at all* do so-called 'excessive' things like
: calling up 1-800-COLLECT to order orbital artillery strikes on each
: other ... really. (AT&T said it was possible, but it cost *way* too
: much damn money to to it internationally.)
I love it when they accept the charges from a "Thor Hutchinson... yeah...
that's it..." (*BOOM* while I'm laughing until I RMOHO)
: > If you do Phased Movement like John Prins system (which I use rabidly,
: > BTW), you can get games going a little longer because you DON'T get
: > backshot as often.
: I should really go back and re-read his posts of his initiative system.
: Everyone raves about it, but I haven't used it yet.
Do it. You'll cry with joy.
: > The second lesson is KEEP A REAR GUARD, no matter how small your unit.
: > getting hit from behind SUCKS, so make sure a BM's moving slowly behind
: > your men, providing covering fire (and taking out any fool enough to hit
: > a teammate from behind)
: Yes about commo losses; (again, 'what he said'). And BTW, all you
: Northies out there, this applies to you too. It's not just the SRA
: stormtroopers with their BMs who can get fragged in a snap by a good
: backshot. -2 defensive modifier sucks no matter what you're piloting.
Truth of god, but at least you're eating it with full armor, which
matters a great deal. Until I swap my Razor Fang's satlink with better
rear defence...)
: > Like those three Scorpion attack choppers Klink sank. The damn things had
: > me rolling for them and a Legion Noire BM as their target. They stood no
: > chance :)
: Yeah, that was quite a tale (originally posted on the HG Mailing List:
: Where The Rabid Are (tm)!).
: I've not done anything quite that spectacular, unless
: it was a *really* bloody (mostly on their side) skirmish between one of
: our Strike Gear squadrons and a whole group of Visigoth MBTs -- yeesh.
: Only lost one Gear, and then I also had my bazooka blown to flinders on
: round 3, but what can you do? Had already wiped out one of the behemoths
: anyway, and smoked the main gun on the other. God I love MBZKs. :)
Aah, sweet. Until reactive armor becomes more common. Wait until the war,
boy...
: "Ca - MII - You!"
: All right, I've stopped for good now.
No you haven't.
Jonathan R Bezeau
WinterMute (wint...@teleport.com) wrote:
: Where's the new initaive rules? Duelist's Handbook?
Coming. Soon. To a sourcebook near you.
Jonathan R Bezeau
Michael Kelly (Michae...@isocor.ie) wrote:
: In article <53bg6v$q...@cymbal.aix.calpoly.edu>,
: dbr...@cymbal.aix.calpoly.edu (Darrin Lee Bright) wrote:
: Precisely, I wouldn't even bother trying to argue this point. Which is more
: realistic has no relevance on which is a better game. Otherwise we'd all quit
: this mecha nonsense and play Advanced Squad Leader.
There are degrees of realism, like the difference between, say, a
FTL-capable society who can't make anything better than napoleonic
cannons to arm their jillion-dollar war machines, and a FTL-capable
society that has weapons qunatifiably better than modern ones.
: > HG says: "Well, HG does everything BTech does, does it quicker, AND
: > the weapons are realistic and the ranges are believable!"
: HG doesn't do everything BT does (yet) and who cares if the weapons or their
: ranges are realistic? I don't, they're, fun thats all that matters.
Methinks the only thing we're missing is the large-scale stuff like space
comabt and landships...
: As for this: "all you need to play HG is one book" thing that a lot of
: Gearheads seem to think is so important, all you need to play BT is the
: compendium. (Granted that doesn't contain the roleplaying rules, but they're
: not vital, and if they work with Btech you could probably guess 'em anyway).
I don't think you only need one book. If you're the slightest bit
interested in the game world, you NEED life on Terranova, and now
probably the Chraracter Compendium.
: Okay, lets look at the problems I can remember with HG:
: Initiative: I once lost half my force by losing initiative on the first turn.
: Yay verily it sucked. Possible. Realistic, given that it was an ambush
: scenario. But still sucky.
: Solution: the guys at DP9 proposed something didn't they? Too bad it was on
: the Mailing list... so many RPers and wargamers still don't have access to
: Usenet.
They're publishing it in the next SB or the one after that.
: Gears die too easily: Anyone who ever got fired upon by more than two enemies
: in the same turn knows this. Not bad in a pitched battle, but annoying when
: your character gets toasted for the third time in two RPG sessions.
: Counter: Ummm... Give your players meaner Gears than your opponents or make
: those opponents stupid or green. This in itself poses a problem: it destroys
: the points made by the realism brigade.
You could, of course, selectively fudge rolls and not use the BEST
tactics available on the player characters. And if the PCs are smart,
they won't get into a fight they can't win.
I still lose about one PC per fight though (allow the player to survive
an overkill 1/3 of the time.
: MOS MOShmesh: Some people are worried about what will happen with the MOS
: system when Landships come out, just how vulnerable will they be?
: For example, suppose a gear has a snipered x14 weapon (+1 to to-hit roll) he's
: in a good gear (+1 fire control) and is damn good himself (Attr +2). He's
: firing at a Landship with -5 maneuverability, lets assume they both only roll
: one dice and get the same result, 5 with no other modifiers for movement etc
: (I'm being nice to the landship here folks). The gear pilot gets 5+1+1+2=9 the
: landship get 5-5=0 for a MOS of 9. 9*14=126=badly hurt landship (especially
: when the rest of the squad hasn't shot yet).
126 damage = no armor panatration. Landships are rated at 150 plus. You
can get light damage with some work (or an SDG and a roll of 5 or better
:), but don't expect heavy damage without divine intervention or
satellite based weapons.
An extreme damage, but for
: Roleplaying characters to keep losing characters in combat is annoying too.
I've found that pilots with above average stats (2+1 piloting, 2+2
gunnery) are generally good enough. Plus, pad out their combat force with
a few select yeomen or ensigns to take the Big Hits.
Jonathan R Bezeau
Capella Ueber Alles (cap...@primenet.com) wrote:
: Jonathan R Bezeau (jbe...@uoguelph.ca) murdered some electrons to write:
: # Do we remember how all present flamed his ass into the stone age? (well,
: # he was an ignorant dumbass too, but that was only 85% of the reason...
: # Doh. I think I just screwed my point)
: No, you didn't--though I am not an ignorant dumbass. I frankly had no real
: desire to play to begin with--because I'm not into the anime drek as much
: as some people, and everything I've seen of HG is anime out the wazoo--and
: this bloke kinda dampened whatever desire may have been there in the first
: place.
Note (and I hope you got this) I did not mean to call you an ignorant
dumbass... I meant to state that Tom's dumbassity was ANOTHER reason we
flamed him into pre-sentience.
Beyond the anime there's a LOT to heavy gear (contained in a LOT of
books... unfortunately I can't name any that you don't HAVE to buy, like
I do with most RPGs) and Terranova. If you can borrow someone else's
sourcebooks do it. It's worth it.
: But I said I would keep count of the posts here, so I can't exactly
: killfile it anymore. :/
Responsibilities, responsibilities.
On the upseide, if we DO split, we can just make RGHG a mirror of the ML.
Rick Pikul
In article <01bbb519$ee22f9a0$4961...@aidan.zip.com.au>,
"Aidan Tylier" <ai...@zip.com.au> wrote:
>> For example, suppose a gear has a snipered x14 weapon (+1 to to-hit roll)
>> he's in a good gear (+1 fire control) and is damn good himself (Attr +2).
>> He's firing at a Landship with -5 maneuverability, lets assume they both
>> only roll one dice and get the same result, 5 with no other modifiers for
>> movement etc (I'm being nice to the landship here folks). The gear pilot
>> gets 5+1+1+2=9 the landship get 5-5=0 for a MOS of 9. 9*14=126=badly hurt
>>landship
>
>that was a Shing, (Bounces off).
>Let say the gear rolls 2 6's. gives him 7+1+1+2=11
>landship rolls 2 1's Fumbles 0-5=-5
>Difference of 16 time 14 = 224. Which means Light Damage! jeez, I only just
>realized that. So that exellent hit, Only just did anything. Imagine the
>type of gun you would need to overkill that thing, Either that, of 41 six's
>:).
Not quite, the min modified dodge roll is 0. Thus your example should
be 11 attack 0 defence MOS=11, resulting in damage of 154. This is _barely_
light damage, and if the weapon is heat-based: no damage (don't you think that
landships would have HEAT-resistant armour?)
>
>THIS IS NOT AN ARGUMENT/COMPARISON/WHAT EVER. I was just correcting a
>mistake.
Phoenix, FALH
Capella Ueber Alles
Jonathan R Bezeau (jbe...@uoguelph.ca) murdered some electrons to write:
# Note (and I hope you got this) I did not mean to call you an ignorant
# dumbass... I meant to state that Tom's dumbassity was ANOTHER reason we
# flamed him into pre-sentience.
Actually, I was making the point that I, unlike Mr. Reed (who I feel
should be locked in a room with Owenbugger and left to rot), an mot an
ignorant dumbass. But no worries.
# Beyond the anime there's a LOT to heavy gear (contained in a LOT of
# books... unfortunately I can't name any that you don't HAVE to buy, like
# I do with most RPGs) and Terranova. If you can borrow someone else's
# sourcebooks do it. It's worth it.
Gimme about 50K years, and then we'll see.
# : But I said I would keep count of the posts here, so I can't exactly
# : killfile it anymore. :/
# Responsibilities, responsibilities.
# On the upseide, if we DO split, we can just make RGHG a mirror of the ML.
Actually I'd think it would be rec.games.mecha.heavy-gear. But at this
particular moment in time I'm still not completely convinced that there's
enough traffic in the NG to warrant a split.
Capella Ueber Alles
E. Calame (e.ca...@worldnet.att.net) murdered some electrons to write:
# Yes you do! :)
No I don't! Not anymore anyway. Remember how bad I USED to be?
Rottweiler
> >No, you didn't--though I am not an ignorant dumbass. I frankly had no real
> >desire to play to begin with--because I'm not into the anime drek as much
> >as some people, and everything I've seen of HG is anime out the wazoo--and
>
> Honestly, the art-style is a mixture of anime and modern western graphic
> novel art... but the game is _certainly_ much more of a gritty modern day
> armored (and unarmored!) warfare system... there really aren't ANY animeisms
> in there at all!
And there lies HG's biggest problem, it takes place around 6132 AD but
the Technology is anologous to what we can expect in the mid 21st
Century!
I really can't believe DP9 put HG in the 7th Millenium (sp?) while
having such advanced technology as gasoline-powered Mecha!
They might as well have the Military Machines in HG using the kind of
Technology Jules Verne made up!!
Also, I should mention that their explanation of "Humans have found that
advanced technology is very unreliable, and so they prefer to use a
combination of old and new tech." is total bullsh*t of the highest
order!
If DP9 had existed in 2000 BC, they would have made a game about Warfare
in 2000 AD, which by their excuse for logic, would only be slightly
diffrent from Warfare in 2000 BC!!
> I think the Myth about HG's anime-ness dissappears once you've played a
> game or two... it's drowned out by the mechanics and realism of the gaming
> engine, more or less. Of course, if you purposefully overhype your character's
> stats for that reason, and make him a customized hypermegamecha from hell,
> then yeah, you'll run into those problems..
Just wondering Prabal, do you think realism = similarity to late 20th
Century Warfare?
If you do, I guess you think that the Middles Ages were VERY
unrealistic!!!
> >this bloke kinda dampened whatever desire may have been there in the first
> >place.
>
> Hmm...
> Well, give it some time and then consider giving it a try. I guarantee you'll
> like it (Well, as long as you use your own initiative system, I can't decipher
> the original official one, though a new one is in the works.)
If you want to believe that any difrence between late 20th Century
Combat and early 62nd Century Combat will be negligable, then you might
enjoy Heavy Gear, but if you believe the progress of Technology will
continue even slightly after 2050, then you'll probably *HATE* HG like I
do!
..[snip]..
> >But I said I would keep count of the posts here, so I can't exactly
> >killfile it anymore. :/
>
> GRIN!
> Hey, mon... you did ask for it after all!
>
> >--Camille. All whines that BT is anime are being auto-sent to /dev/null.
>
> I don't think I've EVER heard Btech called an "Anime-Game" in my life! Have
> you?
Nope.
> --
> \~~~~~\__ ~~\___/~~ __/~~~~~/
> ~<==\__\_<O\:/O>_/__/==>~
> <_/ //=\ ^ /=\\ \_>
> \| (|) |/
Your Aardvark is one of the cutest ASCII Animals I've ever seen :)
Rottweiler
Michael Kelly
In article <53gc7e$3...@ccshst05.cs.uoguelph.ca>,
jbe...@uoguelph.ca (Jonathan R Bezeau) wrote:
>Michael Kelly (Michae...@isocor.ie) wrote:
>: In article <53bg6v$q...@cymbal.aix.calpoly.edu>,>: Precisely, I wouldn't even bother trying to argue this point. Which is more
>: quit this mecha nonsense and play Advanced Squad Leader.
>
>FTL-capable society who can't make anything better than napoleonic
>cannons to arm their jillion-dollar war machines, and a FTL-capable
>society that has weapons qunatifiably better than modern ones.
Yes, but whether a game is realistic or not has little bearing on how
enjoyable or playable it is. I admit, BT is unrealistic, I've always said it
but it's fun. I mean someone could very well claim chess was better than HG, I
doubt anyone would offer up the argument "yeah but chess isn't realistic. Why
can't I give my pawns bows. How come my knight can't kill that guy right next
to him?"
Realism is all well and good but the idea that if a game is more realistic
then it's better makes me want to RMOHO. It's so infuriating. It comes down
simply to opinions again it's either; "I like my games to be realistic,
therefore for me HG is better than BT" or "I'm not pushed about realism, I
like the sparring, duelling feel to BT over HG".
>: > HG says: "Well, HG does everything BTech does, does it quicker, AND
>: > the weapons are realistic and the ranges are believable!"
>
>: HG doesn't do everything BT does (yet) and who cares if the weapons or
>: their ranges are realistic? I don't, they're, fun thats all that matters.
>
>Methinks the only thing we're missing is the large-scale stuff like space
>comabt and landships...
Yeah, that's about it, I just hope that DP9 will bring out a mass, tactical
game, with the same attention to detail that they lavished on the Silhouette
system, ie with supply lines, real Zones of Control and so on.
>: As for this: "all you need to play HG is one book" thing that a lot of
>: Gearheads seem to think is so important, all you need to play BT is the
>: compendium. (Granted that doesn't contain the roleplaying rules, but
>: they're not vital, and if they work with Btech you could probably guess 'em
>: anyway).
>
>I don't think you only need one book. If you're the slightest bit
>interested in the game world, you NEED life on Terranova, and now
>probably the Chraracter Compendium.
Yeah, life on Terra Nova was cool. Is the Character Compendium that good? It
sounded a bit lame (IMO) when it was being discussed on the ML.
>: Okay, lets look at the problems I can remember with HG:
>
>: Initiative: I once lost half my force by losing initiative on the first
>: turn. Yay verily it sucked. Possible. Realistic, given that it was an
>: ambush scenario. But still sucky.
>: Solution: the guys at DP9 proposed something didn't they? Too bad it was on
>: the Mailing list... so many RPers and wargamers still don't have access to
>: Usenet.
>
>They're publishing it in the next SB or the one after that.
Cool, hopefully FASA will fix a lot of the holes in BT with their next
Rulebook, we live in hope.
>: Gears die too easily: Anyone who ever got fired upon by more than two
>: enemies in the same turn knows this. Not bad in a pitched battle, but
>: annoying when your character gets toasted for the third time in two RPG
>: sessions.
>: Counter: Ummm... Give your players meaner Gears than your opponents or make
>: those opponents stupid or green. This in itself poses a problem: it
>: destroys the points made by the realism brigade.
>
>You could, of course, selectively fudge rolls and not use the BEST
>tactics available on the player characters. And if the PCs are smart,
>they won't get into a fight they can't win.
Hmmm... fudging is evil incarnate ;), besides most players I know have been
trained by the unforgiving CP2020 system into always having several backup
plans so tactics aren't a problem as such.
>I still lose about one PC per fight though (allow the player to survive
>an overkill 1/3 of the time.
Yeah, especially if the poor bastard had a bad day.
>: MOS MOShmesh: Some people are worried about what will happen with the MOS
>: system when Landships come out, just how vulnerable will they be?
<landship stuff deleted, my mistake>
>126 damage = no armor panatration. Landships are rated at 150 plus. You
>can get light damage with some work (or an SDG and a roll of 5 or better
>:), but don't expect heavy damage without divine intervention or
>satellite based weapons.
Uh huh, but someone told me that they heard of a guy who once took out a
hunter with a assault rifle, the hunter was standing still and the guy had
amazing luck.
(BTW This is almost definately an urban legend, I think it's almost completely
impossible, isn't it? The guy might have been able to do it with a sniper
rifle or anti gear missile, but not with a bloody assault rifle. Or could he?)
> An extreme damage, but for
>: Roleplaying characters to keep losing characters in combat is annoying too.
>I've found that pilots with above average stats (2+1 piloting, 2+2
>gunnery) are generally good enough. Plus, pad out their combat force with
>a few select yeomen or ensigns to take the Big Hits.
Quoi? Yeoman? Feche le vache? Oh right... you're talking landship crews right?
I had an image of Kirk beaming down in a Jager. ;) Hmmm... interesting idea.
I don't know, I was thinking more along the lines of a criminal, CP-ish type
of campaign, I'm not sure if the guys would be cops or crims. It'd be easier
explain things and introduce new NPC's and what not if they were cops, not to
mention that it'd be easier control the stockpiling of arms that normally
occurs in these type of games.
-
Mike Kelly.
Alexander J. Rhodes
Jonathan R Bezeau wrote:
> I'm having a f$^# of a time scraping or filing all the flare off of a
> couple Jagers in the southern boxed set. But once they're done, they'll
> case you feel inventive.
>
> engine)
Drool, drool. I've been trying to get my hands on a couple of the Hunter
and Jager boxed sets for a month now..... I gotta keep trying and hoping!
> All in all, nice stuff, though sometimes you don't get all the parts you
> need. I prefer one-piece minis for actual gaming though, because they're
> more abuse resistant.
I've been using this great epoxy to put the major parts of my gears together
(I still use super glue for the small bits). It's put out by the same folks
to do Zap-A-Gap. It's a two-part liquid formula - the two bottles are easy
to use and there's no fuss or bother. I hate trying to knead putty epoxy to
gether - too messy. This stuff is great. You squeeze out equal parts of
each - as much as you need, and mix it and apply it with a toothpick.
5-minute bonding time and quite strong. Pretty abuse resisteant and far as I
can tell.
--
|_
Oo\ Alex rho...@bms.com http://pluto.njcc.com/~arhodes/
"I see the light at the end of the tunnel now/Someone please tell me it's
not a train" - Cracker
Michael T. Richter
Capella Ueber Alles <cap...@primenet.com> wrote in article
<53fogp$5...@nnrp1.news.primenet.com>...
> Michael T. Richter (m...@igs.net) murdered some electrons to write:
># Which part don't you believe, Jean? The part I personally can't believe
is
># Ms. Klein claiming a limit to her arrogance...
> Hey, it's true! Well okay, *now* it's true. Last year it wasn't.
> Kinda....sorta.
Oops. Forgot a smiley in there... Sorry!
Aidan Tylier
Alexander J. Rhodes <rho...@bms.com> wrote in article
<325CE7...@bms.com>...
PLUG PLUG . hehe. <Smiles Broadly>
--
Aidan Out
Visit (http://www.zip.com.au/~aidan/)
email (ai...@zip.com.au)
Who is general failure?! And why is he always reading my disks??
Alexander J. Rhodes
Prabal Nandy wrote:
> True... though DP9 has gone through some significant effort to make them
> quite different on many levels than the current day people. It's alot harder
> in some respects to draw lines between some of the DP9 cultures as opposed to
> BTech, where the Kurita -> Japanese, Clan -> Mongols, Liao -> Chinese, Davion
> -> Good old Americans, are very clearly defined.
Think that's the biggest contributer to the sense of immersion we get from HG.
Since it's hard to pin down specific cultures, the world seems a lot bigger -
complete. I love that. There are parallels to be drawn, but they're definitely
not as clear cut as in BT.
> It's pretty
> neat, honestly... almost seductive enough to make you want to play lots of
> RPG campaigns with political, rather than Military aims!
Oh gawd, yes! Even further, I can see many campaign idea that use very little
mecha action: private detective yarns, police stuff, farmers, etc. Sure, mecha
can get into each of these, but the focus is elsewhere. That is so cool that the
world is detailed enough that you can go to out of the ordinary character ideas
and they still work great. The possibilites are vast...
> Terranova's politics and political bodies are alot slippier and complex...
> Just following the trail of all the missing politicians and revolutionaries
> from the sourcebooks could fill years of gaming time!
Heck - that's easy! Just comb the Badlands. I bet there's a city hidden in
there were all those missing people are now living. Heh, heh.
> >Heavy Gear gives detail on individual cities on Terra Nova comparable to
> >what Battletech does on entire planets; if anything, more. The result is
>
> MORE!
> ALOT MORE! Have you seen some of DP9's city maps, virtual essays on political
> systems, judicial systems, famous/infamous places and criminal kingpins? Wierd
> local cultures and all sorts of customs? It's amazing the amount of detail...
> hell, the cultures and cities of TN are way wierder and neater than current
> day Earth! (I guess it's a reflection of the introversion of city-states, it
> almost reminds me of the old Roman/Greek times.)
I think the guy who does the Cravans webpage said it best when he said that DP9
has this great ability to do sweeping overview as well as excessive detail. In
the TN sourcebook, eash city gets a small section that's pretty much an glossing
of detail, but then there's details in there like beer production, including the
label's name and advertising stuff. So you get a good general idea of how the
town works, but you also get these minutia that stick in your head and give depth
to the place. I love the fact that the DP9 crew has given so much thought to
pronunciation on TN! Gawd, the proper way to say Kathe! :)
> >that you don't need to read all that far into the main Heavy Gear RPG
> >sourcebook, _Life On Terra Nova_, before you begin to get this wonderful,
> >uncanny feeling that the place you're reading about *exists*. That's
> >one reason we (the HG fans) are as rabid as we are. There's nothin'
> >quite like it.
>
> I have a funny feeling that DP9 has a sociologist on their payroll! Jean,
> is it true?
> It's very unique, yet unquestionably different from just about anything
> else I've seen in SF societies. Though I don't necessarily agree with
> everything in there, or all the wierdnesses that appear, it is certainly a
> remarkable effort! WAY beyond the call of duty for a gosh-darned GAME!
> (Translation: DP9ers are OBSESSIVE)
Obsessive, but good. ;) It's the kind of detail I'd lavish on a game if I
wrote it. The details would be off the wall and out of nowhere, but they'd be
there. I'd love to see more about Joe Gear - the movie itself, some reviews,
interviews with the stars. Real fluff, but neat stuff. I should keep these
ideas to myself and do some writing....
Michael Kelly
In article <53ig21$e...@nnrp1.news.primenet.com>,
Capella Ueber Alles <cap...@primenet.com> wrote:
>E. Calame (e.ca...@worldnet.att.net) murdered some electrons to write:
>
># Yes you do! :)
>
>No I don't! Not anymore anyway. Remember how bad I USED to be?
What? You mean you've changed? ;p
Mike Kelly.
For the Fatherland!
Paul Silverstein
I've never even heard of Heavy Gear. Who is it made by?
Darrin Lee Bright
In article <325CC3...@nwpower.com>,
Rottweiler <craz...@nwpower.com> wrote:
>And there lies HG's biggest problem, it takes place around 6132 AD but
>the Technology is anologous to what we can expect in the mid 21st
>Century!
>I really can't believe DP9 put HG in the 7th Millenium (sp?) while
>having such advanced technology as gasoline-powered Mecha!
>They might as well have the Military Machines in HG using the kind of
>Technology Jules Verne made up!!
Nononononono... you're not looking at this with the right perspective.
On Earth, the year is 6132. Earth has resources and technologies that
are thousands of years old.
Terra Nova, however, has only been settled for several hundred years,
the last few hundred they have been totally cut off from Earth. This is
what people don't understand about Terra Nova... its a goddamned colony,
not an extremely advanced technological world 5000 years in the future.
All that history of technological advances would be non-existent on
Terra Nova. Why? Because they simply DON'T have it. You think its
easy to bring an entire PLANET up to the technological level of Earth in
a few hundred years?
Terra Novans use the older, more reliable technologies such as Internal
Combustion Engines and projectile weapons because they do not yet have
the capability to make anything more advanced. ICE engines and
projectile weapons are easy to make, require some relatively common and
simple raw materials, and are EXTREMELY cheap.
>Also, I should mention that their explanation of "Humans have found that
>advanced technology is very unreliable, and so they prefer to use a
>combination of old and new tech." is total bullsh*t of the highest
>order!
If you don't have the capabilities and resources to repair the advanced
tech, then you're gonna start looking at the old tech alternatives.
Lets put it this way... you have are sitting in the middle of
Bangladesh with a Pentium. The Pentium won't work. The nearest
telephone is 100 miles away. How are you going to fix your Pentium?
Lets say there's a microscopic crack on one of the circuit boards. The
nearest device for checking microscopic circuitry could be a 1000 miles
away. Now put yourself on Terra Nova. That device could be 1000 light
years away.
You cannot build a nanotech industry overnight, people. You've got to
start at the beginning and work yourself up. Terra Nova has built its
industrial base up from scratch and is now somewhere just ahead of 20th
century technology.
>If you want to believe that any difrence between late 20th Century
>Combat and early 62nd Century Combat will be negligable, then you might
>enjoy Heavy Gear, but if you believe the progress of Technology will
>continue even slightly after 2050, then you'll probably *HATE* HG like I
>do!
Can I ask what YOU think 62nd Century combat will be like? What,
exactly, do you want in the 62nd Century? Instant-kill beam weapons,
anti-matter rays, blazing swords and homing lasers?
--
Darrin Bright, English Major * "Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels
Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo * with bricks of Religion." -- William Blake
Email: dbr...@oboe.aix.calpoly.edu Homepage: http://www.calpoly.edu/~dbright/
-= Laws of Anime: http://www.calpoly.edu/~dbright/animelaw.html =-
Terrance Peter La Casse, Jr.
Rottweiler, as well as some others, wrote:
>> >as some people, and everything I've seen of HG is anime out the wazoo--and
>> Honestly, the art-style is a mixture of anime and modern western graphic
>> novel art... but the game is _certainly_ much more of a gritty modern day
>> armored (and unarmored!) warfare system... there really aren't ANY animeisms
>> in there at all!
>And there lies HG's biggest problem, it takes place around 6132 AD but
>the Technology is anologous to what we can expect in the mid 21st
>Century!
>I really can't believe DP9 put HG in the 7th Millenium (sp?) while
>having such advanced technology as gasoline-powered Mecha!
>They might as well have the Military Machines in HG using the kind of
>Technology Jules Verne made up!!
This is for reference. See two comments down . . .
>Also, I should mention that their explanation of "Humans have found that
>advanced technology is very unreliable, and so they prefer to use a
>combination of old and new tech." is total bullsh*t of the highest
>order!
Why? Theoretically, after a level of technology has been reached that
enables humans to use huge, totally self-sufficient spacecraft (ie
Star Trek, Star Wars, etc.), this idea could be wrong - that is to
say, it would be wrong only if the issue of ease of repair of
technology were nullified (by the availability of these large
self-sufficient spacecraft as repair and support platforms). In the
HG case, it was not - people found themselves in a harsh environment,
without a large number of large and well-supplied repair shops. As a
comparison, look at these "survivalist" camps out in the mountains or
wherever, where a bunch of people who think the world is about to end
hole up with canned food, weapons, etc. If the world did end, where
would they get bullets for their guns, or disks for their computers?
Many probably don't even use computers for this same reason. In the
same manner, many of the people in the HG world prefer to use older
but more reliable technology.
Notice that this is Terra Nova where they use "older" technology. On
Earth, I'm sure that the technology level of the weaponry is more
advanced, some of which we saw in the War of the Alliance (GRELs,
anti-matter bombs, etc). Also, I'm sure that they use more advanced
death-ray-type things in space combat also, due to the extreme low
velocity of standard unguided projectile weapons.
>If DP9 had existed in 2000 BC, they would have made a game about Warfare
>in 2000 AD, which by their excuse for logic, would only be slightly
>diffrent from Warfare in 2000 BC!!
With the right plot devices (as DP9 has introduced in the case of HG)
one could describe 2000 BC-style warfare today. One possible plot
device could be a world-decimating plague that stopped the industrial
revolution in its tracks. Another could be intervention by aliens who
use their superior technology to deprive humanity of its advanced
technology.
Besides, I think that just as the people in 2000 BC could not have
imagined what warfare today is like, we are unable to imagine what
warfare in two thousand years will be like. Thus, if realism is the
degree to which the game approaches actual reality, there can be no
realistic military games set more than, say, a century into the
future.
We also must consider the idea that our assumption that technology
must increase quickly simply because it has in our century is false,
and that this century's rapid technological progress is a statistical
blip in the history of the human race.
>> I think the Myth about HG's anime-ness dissappears once you've played a
>> game or two... it's drowned out by the mechanics and realism of the gaming
>> engine, more or less. Of course, if you purposefully overhype your character's
>> stats for that reason, and make him a customized hypermegamecha from hell,
>> then yeah, you'll run into those problems..
>Just wondering Prabal, do you think realism = similarity to late 20th
>Century Warfare?
>If you do, I guess you think that the Middles Ages were VERY
>unrealistic!!!
I would have to say realism in our mecha discussions means adherence
to real-world physics, in which case HG is one of the more realistic
mecha games.
>If you want to believe that any difrence between late 20th Century
>Combat and early 62nd Century Combat will be negligable, then you might
>enjoy Heavy Gear, but if you believe the progress of Technology will
>continue even slightly after 2050, then you'll probably *HATE* HG like I
>do!
Did you hate Battletech back when it was in the "decline of
technology" phase? If so, then you are being hypocritical.
So, to summarize, it appears as if you dislike HG because of its
"unrealism" to what you expect warfare in the 7th millenium to be
like. However, I say that DP9 presents a very well-written
*possibility* of what warfare could be like then that is in no way a
stretch of the imagination, and that this, when coupled with an
excellent game engine, makes for a very enjoyable game.
Peter La Casse
Jonathan R Bezeau
Prabal Nandy (na...@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu) wrote:
: In article <325705...@pitt.edu>,
: But this is due seemly to DP9's curiousity with various _utopic_ visions.
: At least, in my opinion, all of the "City State" body politics in Heavy
: Gear embody some aspect of cultures from Earth that believed themselves to be
: utopias! (Neat, Huh?). In many ways, reading through some of the source
: material on these strange yet eerily familiar cultures and societies is like
: reviewing a paper on social evolution, etc...
I remember the argument we got into over pronouncing Kathe Adjanni's
first name. We're an anal bunch, I guess.
: Add to that the spectre of the great ice age and the grand old utopian cities
: spawned during that era, as well as massive race-mixing that occured at that
: point, and you have a decidedly reconstructionist culture here. It's pretty
: neat, honestly... almost seductive enough to make you want to play lots of
: RPG campaigns with political, rather than Military aims!
Well, that's easy enough for southies... get a high position in the
MILICIA and start pushing your own adjendas :)
Of course, as a GM you have to subtly twist their goals to match the
campaign's or base the campaign on their goals.
: Terranova's politics and political bodies are alot slippier and complex...
: Just following the trail of all the missing politicians and revolutionaries
: from the sourcebooks could fill years of gaming time!
But we know EXACTLY where they went... THE BADLANDS! (hello? I'm the
Badlands... I'm a Big Haystack, and this politician is a needle. Good luck.)
: Wel, the downside of this is that military action isn't always justified,
: and talking about genociding a planet or slagging a city with yer mechs just
: doesn't cut it anymore. In HG, violence is a means to an end... a way to
: delay the enevitable truth of the situation and stave off death for another
: day! You can't just blow up a bunch of guys, hop you and your fellow Mercs
: into your dropship and fly away to another planet. You've got to deal with
: the messes you make! (Well, assuming you're RPGing and not TAC-bashing!)
In the badlands, nobody can hear you scream. Unless you're in a Ferret or
Iguana or Cheetah...
: >So, no "Rrr! We are Capella! Liao above all! Yes, all 500 billion of
: >us!" or "Rrr! We are Clan [Adjective] [Animal]! We are the
: >skilled/backstabbing/conservative/logy/mean Clan! Yes, all of us!
: GRIN!
Well, you can't honestly expect them to detail EVERY ONE of the worlds
and factions enough to make it a viable Device of Plot. There were a few
feuding elements within each house. They just weren't as developed,
except through the novels. When the books stopped being optional reading
for those interested in the game (since 'good' never described them) I
gave up. Also when the IS got better tech than the clans, by the
double-handful.
: Of course... you could always be a big desert Mantis...
Or a Big Desert Mantis hunter. (Those guys don't even live as long as the
AD police)
: Well... Port Arthur with its wierd ring of Hermes comsats....?
Naah. Not so stupidly backwards.
: Quite true... quite true!
: Don't believe him? DP9 actually provides maintenance and repair statistics
: for their weapons, so you know just what the price of abusing your equipment
: (or loading up your Ubermech with Hitek crap) is!
Yeah! Load my Ubermech with lots of VHACs and missiles!
: Of course, in Btech's defense it does allow you to make up your own custom
: planet and fit it into the system (Like Colony World Myops!) It's a bit harder
: to 'customize' the game if you intend to play on Terra Nova, but hey, it's
: your game!
There are lots of unwritten badlands cities! Pick one! Unfortunately it
won't be involved in the Plot...
: I have a funny feeling that DP9 has a sociologist on their payroll! Jean,
: is it true?
: It's very unique, yet unquestionably different from just about anything
: else I've seen in SF societies. Though I don't necessarily agree with
: everything in there, or all the wierdnesses that appear, it is certainly a
: remarkable effort! WAY beyond the call of duty for a gosh-darned GAME!
: (Translation: DP9ers are OBSESSIVE)
Making the _fans_ that they call obsessive what? Just so I cna add it to
my resume.
: Apparently it's made so you can do all sorts of mecha dueling and hand to
: hand fighting with a DIZZYING array of bladed and powered hand-weaponry! Even
: whips and grinders, etc... neat, eh?
Ferret + Mauler Fist = -Grizzly.
--
Jonboy: the Signature -- collect all 35!
Does your .sig need to be fuller, longer, more luxutious? Is is bare in places?
Come to the .sig club for geeks! I have exactly the .sigs that will make women
want to sleep with you! I'm not only the president, I'm a clinet too.
Jonathan R Bezeau
Prabal Nandy (na...@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu) wrote:
: In article <53b7ut$2...@ccshst05.uoguelph.ca>,
: >All in all, nice stuff, though sometimes you don't get all the parts you
: Better give RAFM a call, they ought to replace the parts you need well
: enough. Too used to doing one piece Btech minis I guess! GRIN!
Remember the Elsie heavy gear that was shipped in pieces, sometimes not
all the correct ones either? I want RAFM to make a mini of it. It would
translate well.
: >need. I prefer one-piece minis for actual gaming though, because they're
: >more abuse resistant.
: I think DP9 mentioned doing some smaller 1/200 scale style Gear-Minis for
: gaming awhile back... they've been pretty clear that their current minis are
: more for display/art/modelling purposes than actually gaming... they just
: look too cool! And they're big too!
Yeah. Once micro-armor comes out, I'm all over it.
jon selbo
Michael P O'Shea (mpo...@pitt.edu) wrote:
: jon selbo wrote:
: >
: > : Darrin Lee Bright (dbr...@cymbal.aix.calpoly.edu) spewed forth:
: [DLB's summary of the typical HG-vs.-Battletech realism argument snipped
: for space reasons]
: >
: > : : As you can see, there isn't much of an argument. BTech can't
: > : : realistically challenge a HG player attacking the BTech rule system, and
: > : : the only decent argument a BTech player can bring against HG all boil
: > : : down to personal preferences and opinions.
: >
: > Umm isn't that the whole reason that we play games for???? (personal
: > preference) Gee lets reduce the other person's augument to nothing
: > more than "your" opinion while "my" opinion is all fact.
<snip>
: Second sentence: Sorry, you're making an point that seems righteous and
: wise at a superficial level but is quite full o' beans in truth. Darrin
: was *contrasting* drawing distinctions between the two games in terms of
: weapon ranges, weapon effects, combat dynamics, etc.; with distinctions
: in terms of the aesthetic 'mood' of the games, the personalities and
: factions of the two universes, etc.
Actually no look again at what he wrote....... know let's see what is
the beans of truth here:
(assuming you have gone back to look at the full origional paragraph)
1: Darrin was not contrasting the differences in a philosophical," here
are the differences between the two gamming systems", instead he chose
to attack B-tech and B-tech players for differences that he percieves
to be the most important factors in playing mecha.
: What Darrin said about the way the realism part of the hypothetical
: argument must go is *not* his opinion, it *is* fact. For there are, in
: fact, stated ranges for weapons in the HG books, and ranges for weapons
: in the various BTech materials. All of these are clearly printed in
: English, using units of distance with which we are all familiar.
: Similarly, the BTech damage system is spelled out quite unequivocally in
: that game's books, just as HG's is spelled out in its own.
: And then there are actual military weapons, which exist, and have
: determinate (though partially variable) ranges and effects. And these
: traits are codified in lists, books, and other sources. So if, in fact,
: you compare the unambiguous statements about weapon performances in HG
: to existing weapons, and the ones in BTech to existing weapons, you will
: note [1] that the HG materials clearly reflect the general
: characteristics of RL stats, and [2] that the BTech ones do not at all;
: indeed, often seem to bear no particular relation to the way analogous
: constructs behave in the real world.
And where did I ever question or say at any point that the ranges in
Battle Tech are based on reality or real life weapon systems???
No I thought so. My responce was to the attitude and flagerance of
the statement contained in one paragraph. It was not based in any way
on the arguments of which systems have a more "real life" character.
But it was nice of you to change the topic like that.
(politics could be in your future :)
(ps don't patranize me over this crap: refere to the tone of snide
remarks in preceeding P. Suffice to say I have had a lot of experience
with real life systems and I have had enough schooling to understand the
probable physical characteristics of most of the "imaginary" weapon
systems employed in both games.)
: Now, my friend, where is the opinion here? It's a question of fact.
: The comparisons involve statements about fictional items (game weapons),
: but those statements are perfectly unambiguous and perfectly ready for
: comparison with RL stats.
Friend?? maby if I met you and got to know you but at this rate don't
push it.
Again take some blood preasure meds and reread my responce to your
fist paragraph .
: Where is the opinion?
In the stats none. But that wasn't the point was it!
: You may be confused by the fact that it *is* (to some degree) open to
: opinion whether or not it's *important* that the HG weapons track
: reality well and the BTech ones not even vaguely, but that is not the
: point here, and so your objection was mistaken, and your accusation of
: "childishness" an example of wishful thinking. Darrin's point is not
: whether or not anyone should *care* about the outcome of a
: who's-more-realistic-dude? argument between the two game
: systems; like him, I'm prepared to accept that that may be unimportant.
: The point is about the necessary *outcome* of such an argument,
: assuming both parties are honest and non-evasive, and that outcome
: is *not* in doubt, because it's a question of fact, and we happen to
: have the relevant facts.
No I am not confused at all, but your responce indicates that you are.
Try actually figuring out what what I was responding to before having
a "knee jerk" reaction to a post.
The paragraph in question is not based in fact, but on a percieved tone
of my game's better than your game attitude. The facts are HG is a
more realistic gamming enviroment, but wich one is better is purelly a
personal opinion based on pleasure (or if a masacist pain) in game
play.
: Sorry to be so pedantic; I thought it might serve a purpose.
yes, but only to humilliate yourself
(although you have a wonderfull abillity to write)
: > The FACTS are: play what you like, buy what you like, but don't go
: > around telling me I'm so freakin inferior because I prefere a different
: > game than yours!
: >
: > Bunsin
: > Sick of all the self absorbed dweebs who can't put up with another
: > persons personal choices.
: As a second point, I may be in a minority here, but I find it very
: disturbing when people are so flippant about saying "look, it's just a
: question of personal preference, so how dare you make a statement of the
: form 'A is objectively superior to B'." This, to my mind, is a vulgar
: attitude.
True in many cases but sorry game play is not one of those.
Unless a particular definable subject (such as this car has a superior
braking abillity than that car there) is implied,
"superior" is a subjective term based on personal opinions and feelling
twards a particular issue."
Here's one for you. MW2 has a superior graphics engine to MW1 but
which one is supperior........ personal preference
The English lang allows us to compair the qualities of two particular
objects and with the same words compair the two objects in an intrisic
way.
<snip>
: Of course we have to be courteous and fallibilistic; have to acknowledge
: that something we think of tomorrow may totally change our
: value-judgements about X or Y, but that does not mean that it's
: illegitimate to make "A is better than B because..." statements, or to
: hold them as potentially objective.
True someday I may actually take the time to play HG, but I would
rather get my PhD before the year 2000
: ...
: [god, i've been in philosophy graduate school too bloody long]
I must concure :)
<snip>
: Right. Thanks for your attention.
: Best,
: M. O'Shea
: [exits, stage left]
Bunsin
Michael T. Richter
> I think the guy who does the Cravans webpage said it best when
That's "Caravan" as in "Caravan of Dreams." :-)
> he said that DP9 has this great ability to do sweeping overview
> as well as excessive detail. In the TN sourcebook, eash city
> gets a small section that's pretty much an glossing of detail,
> but then there's details in there like beer production, including
> the label's name and advertising stuff. So you get a good general
This is probably the most impressive work I've seen in a role-playing
setting. Harn is more detailed, but at a cost of BILLIONS of pounds of
manuals and encyclopedia entries. (That's exaggeration, son!) And Harn is
pretty tight as well -- not much room for GM improv to get the same level
of detail.
I think the DP9 boys have it about perfectly balanced.
> stick in your head and give depth to the place. I love the fact
> that the DP9 crew has given so much thought to pronunciation on TN!
> Gawd, the proper way to say Kathe! :)
Where is this identified? I must have missed this.
Michael T. Richter
> Actually I'd think it would be rec.games.mecha.heavy-gear. But at this
> particular moment in time I'm still not completely convinced that there's
> enough traffic in the NG to warrant a split.
Um...
And you have what authority to decide which newsgroups get made again? I
was under the impression that this was sort of done through things like
Calls for Discussion and Calls for Votes and these sorts of venerable
institutions. I wasn't aware there was a "then check with Ms. Klein"
clause to the formation of a newsgroup...
Capella Ueber Alles
Michael Kelly (Michae...@isocor.ie) murdered some electrons to write:
# What? You mean you've changed? ;p
Yes. I used to be much worse. Much MUCH worse.
Capella Ueber Alles
Michael T. Richter (m...@igs.net) murdered some electrons to write:
Seriously, I must be a magnet for the jerks and the humour-impaired. :/
# Um...
You have something to say?
# And you have what authority to decide which newsgroups get made again? I
Did I say was one of the Usenet Cabal? Please, tell me where I said this.
# was under the impression that this was sort of done through things like
# Calls for Discussion and Calls for Votes and these sorts of venerable
# institutions. I wasn't aware there was a "then check with Ms. Klein"
# clause to the formation of a newsgroup...
Hello, Clue Check! Do you bother reading more than maybe 5 messages
before posting anything? Just curious. I said, O ye of limited cranial
capacity, that I would be counting the posts in the NG for a month. IF
the count reached a most significant level--and we are talking on the
order of about 300 posts per day--once all the BS posts (the MMF scams and
the like) were excluded, I said, I would more than gladly write up a
proposal for a split group.
Here, have a clue. Take two, they're small.
E. Calame
Capella Ueber Alles <cap...@primenet.com> wrote in article
<5367bq$9...@nnrp1.news.primenet.com>...
> Aidan Tylier (ai...@zip.com.au) murdered some electrons to write:
>
> # So much for the (Jump into your bunker), Not so much as a peep from our
die
> # hard BT fans out there.
>
> Peep, peep. Don't make me come down there.
>
> # Guess they finaly came to there senses? Or just a bit slow finding the
> # thread?
>
> Thanks Aidan--you've guaranteed that I'll never EVER play Heavy Gear.
Not
> even *I* get that arrogant when talking about BTech.
>
> --Camille.
Yes you do! :)
Em
(Well, you do!)
Jonathan R Bezeau
Rottweiler (craz...@nwpower.com) wrote:
: I really can't believe DP9 put HG in the 7th Millenium (sp?) while
: having such advanced technology as gasoline-powered Mecha!
: They might as well have the Military Machines in HG using the kind of
: Technology Jules Verne made up!!
: Also, I should mention that their explanation of "Humans have found that
: advanced technology is very unreliable, and so they prefer to use a
: combination of old and new tech." is total bullsh*t of the highest
: order!
: If DP9 had existed in 2000 BC, they would have made a game about Warfare
: in 2000 AD, which by their excuse for logic, would only be slightly
: diffrent from Warfare in 2000 BC!!
Mmm-hmm. And shall we compare this to all the problems Star Trek has made
for itself, where people are always asking "how does this work" or "what
does this look like" and going into conniptions when they're told
something completely nonsensical because it's all based on principles
that don't exist yet?
Have you ever taken a laptop on a mountain-climbing expedition? We broke
one portable radio, six and a half walkmans, five cameras, four
flashlights, a celphone, and our portable stove on a recent climb. Just
from dirt getting into them, or short falls, or water, or cold, or heat.
Terranova has all of the above in abundance. Oh... I forgot that my
digital watch broke, destroying a theory of mine about digital watches.
If anything is reliable under the corcumstances you find on terranova, it
WILL be used.
There are also problems of scale in damage too. You're fighting to take
over a city-state... do you use landcruisers cabaple of delivering
nuclear rounds and flying at 100kph to root out the pesants defending it? No.
Sure they're new and powerful, but you won't take over anything more than
a patch of radioactive glass. However, a 20mm cannon works FINE for
blowing through both of a brick building and taking out all the infantry
inside in the process. Without destroying 100 city blocks or requiring
any expensive parts.
Since you *must* be a Mekton player (as BT doesn't haev any more
technology advancements than Heavy Gear... never mind game stats), do you
use projectile cannons? Missiles? What are they when you write them up?
SDM-255 Super Defender:
Armor: 5mm of Unobtanium 112 (MgH Gamma)
Engine: Trapped Black Hole Gravity Drive
Primary Weapon: Z-Beam with High Energy Focus
Other: Punches, ion cutter (x2), X-Beam Field
I'm sure we all know exactly what I'm talking about, can give a
description of how it works and maybe what it looks like for RP
interests, and can describe all the appropriate visual effects... not.
I don't know what the hell this is! What the heck's a "Z-Beam?"
... well, it looks like a laser... it must be a laser!
Note that everyone calls it a laser from then on. That's what they see it as.
We think in terms of familiar technology. Things we've seen before and
all that. Why NOT use that to your advantage when creating a world that
HAS to be visualized by a large number of people to be successful as fiction?
: Just wondering Prabal, do you think realism = similarity to late 20th
: Century Warfare?
: If you do, I guess you think that the Middles Ages were VERY
: unrealistic!!!
Realistic (n): conforming to reality as we know it, including the
principles of physics and the known tendencies of poeple. In a
rolelpaying context, it would suggest familiar scenarios or settings.
Medieval roleplaying is realistic because we can visualize how swords
work, armor works, and we can make sense of how society acted. OTOH, a
bunch of one-legged mechs firing "Z-Beams" wildly at eachother, driven by
harnessed Black Hole particles and only turning right based on a social
taboo is unrealistic.
: If you want to believe that any difrence between late 20th Century
: Combat and early 62nd Century Combat will be negligable, then you might
: enjoy Heavy Gear, but if you believe the progress of Technology will
: continue even slightly after 2050, then you'll probably *HATE* HG like I
: do!
So... tell us about YOUR favorite RPG. What kinds of weapons do THEY use?
Lemme guess:
Autocannons
Missiles
Lasers
"Particle cannons"
Railguns
They protect vehicles with armor.
Stuff runs on fusion (available but expensive in HG)
They have FTL travel (available in HG for sure)
Hmm. It looks like technology DOES stagnate after 20xx, or imagination
does...
--
Jonboy: the Signature -- collect all 35!
Does your .sig need to be fuller, longer, more luxurious? Is is bare in places?
Come to the .sig club for geeks! I have exactly the .sigs that will make women
want to sleep with you! I'm not only the president, I'm a client too.