A General Chat Thread

[Mek_Master]

4 hours ago, Charles Maxwell said:

Oh, wow - thank you, @Orlex Jaegerand @Mek_Master- this is a LOT of awesome information - and the document repository is going to be really helpful as well.

Orlex, I appreciate you taking the time to help come up with maps for the different skills of my characters in BattleTech. I was staring down the barrel of needing to do a lot of mapping and wondering just how long it was going to take me to wrap my head around it all! You rock.

I forgot to mention that I have a mod which also throws quirks at the pilots and their 'Mechs, so I've got those nailed down as well, and I believe that they're from AToW. So I should be able to load in my characters pretty much aligned with everyone else on game day. 

The remaining question I have is - how should we schedule the game? @Mek_Master, it sounds like you have the most experience - would you be willing to host?

@Orlex Jaeger - would you like to get in on this one as one of the NPCs in the Aegis lance or as our backup guy from the Gray Death Legion?

Yes I can host games of Megamek, part of the time. I have control of the router at one of the places that I stay at but not the other. You have to be able to open a port in the router to host games. Next question is which version of Megamek do you wish to use for the Battle? I would recommend using either version 47.2 or the 46.0  Let me know your thoughts. These numbers should also match the version of MekHQ if we are considering using that as well.

[Orlex Jaeger]

I appear to be using MegaMek 0.46.0 currently, though I should have no trouble updating it if everyone else has the newer version.

If timing works out I could play one of the NPCs if you'd like, it'd be fun to see how it works. However I wouldn't want to hold anyone up on account of my schedule, especially since my character won't be a part of it.

And no problem with the skills Charles, I kind of love doing that sort of thing anyways and I had some free time, and a little extra familiarity with both systems too ?

[Charles Maxwell]

17 hours ago, Mek_Master said:

Yes I can host games of Megamek, part of the time. I have control of the router at one of the places that I stay at but not the other. You have to be able to open a port in the router to host games. Next question is which version of Megamek do you wish to use for the Battle? I would recommend using either version 47.2 or the 46.0  Let me know your thoughts. These numbers should also match the version of MekHQ if we are considering using that as well.

Ahh, gotcha. I have full control of the router where I am (I own it) so no issues on my end with also helping to host. I'm also running 0.46.0. As with Orlex, I'm okay with updating if necessary.

@Mek_Master, would you be willing to host the first game, since it sounds like you have the most experience out of all of us? Perhaps we can set up a rotation for the future. I'll volunteer to be the next host.

My availability is generally open every weeknight from 5:30 PM Eastern to about 10:00 PM Eastern. So if you and @Orlex Jaeger want to throw some dates and times at me, I am pretty sure I would have no problem making this happen!

BTW, what do you use for communication during the games?

[Mek_Master]

20 hours ago, Charles Maxwell said:

 

@Mek_Master, would you be willing to host the first game, since it sounds like you have the most experience out of all of us? Perhaps we can set up a rotation for the future. I'll volunteer to be the next host.

My availability is generally open every weeknight from 5:30 PM Eastern to about 10:00 PM Eastern. So if you and @Orlex Jaeger want to throw some dates and times at me, I am pretty sure I would have no problem making this happen!

BTW, what do you use for communication during the games?

Sure I can host the games or the first of the games, but first my questions are:

Does everyone have their mech(s) and pilot(s) ready in megamek?

Do we have a way, based on your rules to determine how many Pilot Special Abilities and edge should each pilot have?

We should use it to add flavor, but just to keep us all on the same/level playing field we should probably have an upper limit. So what is that upper limit?

How many mechs/units will we each be running? Should I be creating and running a lance of PCs and mechs?

Who will be generating the OPFOR (opposing force) for the battle? What is the mission? What type of mapboard will we be fighting on?

Are we using and fighting vehicles? VTOLs?

Lastly, has every one here played table top BT? If multiple players have not yet played BT or megamek, we should start with learning how to play the game before we jump into a large group battle that in itself can be a lot for anyone less familiar to handle.

Basically, I am under the impression that we still have a good deal of questions to answer before we jump into a first mission.

I also think the best way we can ascertain game/battle familiarity, is  to have us do a few test games/battles first so all players gets a feel of how battles will go. Maybe even test:  Operation Codename: Crucible

As for comms during the game, I think the best way for us to talk together would be to use Discord. Does every one here have a discord account? My Discord account is MASTER #2746.

Having some test battles from 5:30 PM Eastern to about 10:00 PM Eastern, should work good for me as well.

 

 

 

Edited February 12, 2020 by Mek_Master

[Charles Maxwell]

9 hours ago, Mek_Master said:

Sure I can host the games or the first of the games, but first my questions are:

Does everyone have their mech(s) and pilot(s) ready in megamek?

Do we have a way, based on your rules to determine how many Pilot Special Abilities and edge should each pilot have?

We should use it to add flavor, but just to keep us all on the same/level playing field we should probably have an upper limit. So what is that upper limit?

How many mechs/units will we each be running? Should I be creating and running a lance of PCs and mechs?

Who will be generating the OPFOR (opposing force) for the battle? What is the mission? What type of mapboard will we be fighting on?

Are we using and fighting vehicles? VTOLs?

Lastly, has every one here played table top BT? If multiple players have not yet played BT or megamek, we should start with learning how to play the game before we jump into a large group battle that in itself can be a lot for anyone less familiar to handle.

Basically, I am under the impression that we still have a good deal of questions to answer before we jump into a first mission.

I also think the best way we can ascertain game/battle familiarity, is  to have us do a few test games/battles first so all players gets a feel of how battles will go. Maybe even test:  Operation Codename: Crucible

As for comms during the game, I think the best way for us to talk together would be to use Discord. Does every one here have a discord account? My Discord account is MASTER #2746.

Having some test battles from 5:30 PM Eastern to about 10:00 PM Eastern, should work good for me as well.

 

 

 

All valid points. I can answer a number of these questions directly, but I think group consensus would be good on a few of the others. 

OpFor: Bot-controlled, Kuritans, specifically, elements of the Third Dieron Regulars. One lance + two extra points, maximum.

There's no specific list for the units that were present on Kimball II during Operation GOTTERDAMMERUNG, but the lances of the Third Dieron Regulars generally consist of mainly lights and mediums, with the heaviest being the 60 ton Rifleman.

So we could either just spitball two lances with a mix of 3/4 and 4/5 bot pilots, or I'm told that the 4th Succession War Atlas, Volume 2 has the Unit Organization for the 3rd Dieron Regulars listed on page 108. I haven't yet checked to see if that book is in the shared folder, but as I understand it, the BattleTech conversion lists on page 98 provide a decent listing of the typical 'Mechs found in the units.

Another option to assign the 'Mechs to the lances would be via the document I've attached here.

Theater of OpFor: Ceres Metals factory. Our job is to re-take it. Victory condition is that the Kuritans are neutralized. The map would ideally be urban and at least one lance of the Kuritans should start in the deployment zone we hope to capture. Since we're introducing your character via a second OpFor chasing him into our own, I suggest random deployment of your character and the two NPCs chasing you.

Overall force composition: BattleMechs only for this one. We smashed up their local armor detachment pretty badly at the quarry, and they wrecked one of our units.

Our forces: I envisioned our unit control to look like this:

Charles Maxwell - 'Mech and player character pilot controlled by me. 

Dutch McKenzie - 'Mech and player character pilot controlled by @Mek_Master.

@Orlex Jaeger - plays 'Mech (Warhammer) and pilot (Hassan Ali Khaled) from the Gray Death Legion who is assisting Aegis Division.

Mara Walsh, Alexander Blackwood, and their 'Mechs will be bot-controlled. Steve Jenkins said he wants to sit this one out, which makes sense, since he's been temporarily dispossessed.

Other questions of a more group-centric nature:

Played tabletop BT before? Me, yes. @Orlex Jaeger? 

Have 'Mechs and pilots saved in MegaMek? For my part, I have all of Aegis Division's BattleMechs saved in MegaMek. I need to add Hasan's Warhammer. I did not know that you could save pilot designs - I thought they were only set at the beginning of a match! I'll have to check into that ability and create pilot dossiers for everyone. @Orlex Jaeger - did you do his already?

How many Pilot Special Abilities and edge should each pilot have? I honestly have no idea. What do you guys think?

Using Discord for comms and running a test scenario - no objections from me - it makes sense to stress-test our setup. Again, though, @Orlex Jaeger? 

[Orlex Jaeger]

11 hours ago, Charles Maxwell said:

Other questions of a more group-centric nature:

Played tabletop BT before? Me, yes. @Orlex Jaeger? 

Have 'Mechs and pilots saved in MegaMek? For my part, I have all of Aegis Division's BattleMechs saved in MegaMek. I need to add Hasan's Warhammer. I did not know that you could save pilot designs - I thought they were only set at the beginning of a match! I'll have to check into that ability and create pilot dossiers for everyone. @Orlex Jaeger - did you do his already?

How many Pilot Special Abilities and edge should each pilot have? I honestly have no idea. What do you guys think?

Using Discord for comms and running a test scenario - no objections from me - it makes sense to stress-test our setup. Again, though, @Orlex Jaeger? 

Played Tabletop BT before?
Yes, somewhat extensively though it has been some time. Played a fair amount of MegaMek relatively recently though.

Have 'Mechs and pilots saved in MegaMek?
Yes, sort of. I have all my own relative 'mechs saved, as well as pilot and 'mech info saved for BeoWulf's Knights. At least I believe so, if you are referring to setting up a list of pilot and 'mechs and then saving them to a "Unit List" within MegaMek, I have done that. If you can actually save "presets" for pilots in some other manner I have not.

How many Pilot Special Abilities/Edge should each pilot have?
I'm not sure off hand. In regards to Edge though, the character creation system in A Time Of War states 9 as the maximum Edge value for a normal human on page 122.
For pilot special abilities there is no hard limit as far as the RPG rules go, you simply have to have/expend the XP to acquire the related skills/abilities. Perhaps, in order to avoid having to go through a full character creation for every character (unless we want to), we could come up with a limit based on general skill level, such as ;

Green - 3 special abilities / Regular - 4 special abilities / Veteran - 5 special abilities / Elite - 6 special abilities

Just arbitrary numbers there but they could work. I'd have to look up at home how many abilities I ended up giving my pilots (they were very heavily biased in their favour previously, such as Orlex being 3/3 on piloting/gunnery). I have no problem re-working them to fit within whatever framework we decide on.

Using Discord and running a Test Scenario?
I don't believe I have Discord (may have in the past but not currently), but I don't imagine it is too difficult to get that setup, provided my mic still works lol.
As for a Test Scenario, I'm all for it just let me know when.

[Mek_Master]

3 hours ago, Orlex Jaeger said:

Played Tabletop BT before?
Yes, somewhat extensively though it has been some time. Played a fair amount of MegaMek relatively recently though.

Have 'Mechs and pilots saved in MegaMek?
Yes, sort of. I have all my own relative 'mechs saved, as well as pilot and 'mech info saved for BeoWulf's Knights. At least I believe so, if you are referring to setting up a list of pilot and 'mechs and then saving them to a "Unit List" within MegaMek, I have done that. If you can actually save "presets" for pilots in some other manner I have not.

How many Pilot Special Abilities/Edge should each pilot have?
I'm not sure off hand. In regards to Edge though, the character creation system in A Time Of War states 9 as the maximum Edge value for a normal human on page 122.
For pilot special abilities there is no hard limit as far as the RPG rules go, you simply have to have/expend the XP to acquire the related skills/abilities. Perhaps, in order to avoid having to go through a full character creation for every character (unless we want to), we could come up with a limit based on general skill level, such as ;

Green - 3 special abilities / Regular - 4 special abilities / Veteran - 5 special abilities / Elite - 6 special abilities

Just arbitrary numbers there but they could work. I'd have to look up at home how many abilities I ended up giving my pilots (they were very heavily biased in their favour previously, such as Orlex being 3/3 on piloting/gunnery). I have no problem re-working them to fit within whatever framework we decide on.

Using Discord and running a Test Scenario?
I don't believe I have Discord (may have in the past but not currently), but I don't imagine it is too difficult to get that setup, provided my mic still works lol.
As for a Test Scenario, I'm all for it just let me know when.

This is good, I think you are all set for Megamek then.

As for:

How many Pilot Special Abilities/Edge should each pilot have?
I'm not sure off hand. In regards to Edge though, the character creation system in A Time Of War states 9 as the maximum Edge value for a normal human on page 122.

Green - 3 special abilities / Regular - 4 special abilities / Veteran - 5 special abilities / Elite - 6 special abilities

9 Edge Max sounds good! and this limit for special abilities is perfect.

I am assuming that Charles would prefer us to limit our main PC's to 3/4 (Veterans), and minor PC's to 4/5 (Regulars), that sounds good.

I think Based on this, we shouldn't need a test scenario. Just a matter of picking the City Mapboard that Charles wishes to use, and having him generate the 4 mechs and vees that are the OPFOR (though I do think we can handle more than this).

Then its just a matter of when we can run this. How soon can everyone be ready?

... oh and I went ahead and tried to edit a cpnx from one of my campaigns to have my one PC character on Kimball II during Nov 13, 3028. I made the MekHQ Campaign FIle with 47.2 and not 46.0 because my current PC history is in my friends 47.2 Campaign File, and I didn't think it safe to go backwards. I just add it here to show how much of a backdrop can be saved in MekHQ.

 

Aegis_Division_30281113.cpnx

 

Edited February 13, 2020 by Mek_Master
add Cpnx File

[Charles Maxwell]

Main PC's being 3/4 (Veterans), and minor PC's to 4/5 (Regulars) makes sense; that feels like it'll balance things out nicely with the special abilities.

For the map, I generated an industrial plant and have attached it here in the ceres-metals.zip file - let me know what you think?

I've also attached a zip file containing Aegis Division's 'Mechs. The Raven will be sitting this one out, and we can sub in a stock WHM-6R Warhammer for Hassan Ali Khaled. Hassan's bio is here: https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Hassan_Ali_Khaled.

For the OpFor, I'm thinking that we could do:

Plant Defenders:

• HBK-4N Hunchback (50 tons)
• PXH-1D Phoenix Hawk (45 tons)
• STN-3L Sentinel (40 tons)
• JR7-D Jenner (35 tons)

Pursuit Units:

• WVR-6R Wolverine (55 tons)
• CRB-20 Crab (50 tons)

I threw some extra weight into the pursuit units, because two little guys chasing an Awesome wouldn't exactly pose a threat to it. If I were being chased by a Sentinel and a Jenner while piloting something that big, I'd just turn around and explode them.

Now, I only have one problem left - I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to build exportable pilot files to get my lance generated and sent over to you. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place, but in MegaMekLab, the only options I see to create a unit are these:

Is there someplace else I should be looking? If someone can point me to the right workflow for creating and then exporting pilots, I can get them uploaded here, and then (I THINK), we'll be good to go, right?

As far as timing of the game, I'd be ready any evening this coming week. Pick a date and time, and I'll get it on my calendar! What's the Discord server address?

ceres-metals.zip aegis-mechs.zip

[Mek_Master]

1 hour ago, Charles Maxwell said:

Main PC's being 3/4 (Veterans), and minor PC's to 4/5 (Regulars) makes sense; that feels like it'll balance things out nicely with the special abilities.

For the map, I generated an industrial plant and have attached it here in the ceres-metals.zip file - let me know what you think?

I've also attached a zip file containing Aegis Division's 'Mechs. The Raven will be sitting this one out, and we can sub in a stock WHM-6R Warhammer for Hassan Ali Khaled. Hassan's bio is here: https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Hassan_Ali_Khaled.

For the OpFor, I'm thinking that we could do:

Plant Defenders:

• HBK-4N Hunchback (50 tons)
• PXH-1D Phoenix Hawk (45 tons)
• STN-3L Sentinel (40 tons)
• JR7-D Jenner (35 tons)

Pursuit Units:

• WVR-6R Wolverine (55 tons)
• CRB-20 Crab (50 tons)

I threw some extra weight into the pursuit units, because two little guys chasing an Awesome wouldn't exactly pose a threat to it. If I were being chased by a Sentinel and a Jenner while piloting something that big, I'd just turn around and explode them.

Now, I only have one problem left - I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to build exportable pilot files to get my lance generated and sent over to you. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place, but in MegaMekLab, the only options I see to create a unit are these:

Is there someplace else I should be looking? If someone can point me to the right workflow for creating and then exporting pilots, I can get them uploaded here, and then (I THINK), we'll be good to go, right?

As far as timing of the game, I'd be ready any evening this coming week. Pick a date and time, and I'll get it on my calendar! What's the Discord server address?

ceres-metals.zip 1.47 MB · 0 downloads aegis-mechs.zip 2.56 kB · 0 downloads

Ahh yes, it can be a little confusing. First you build a mech that you want to use in MMLab as you are doing. Then you have to save it in the /data/Mechfiles directory under the version of Megamek/MekHQ you want to use.

Next you have to open MekHQ and add the mech to the unit. If you make or modify a Campaign file (cpnx) (as I did above), you can then add your mechs and edit the pilots that pilot them in MekHQ. Once you have all the units in MekHQ, (travel to the planet too if you want) you then create the Mission and scenario in MekHQ that you wish to play.  Once you've done that you deploy your force in MekHQ to the Mission and scenario that you made.

It sounds complicated, but it gets easier once you've done it a few times.

As for the mapboard, I opened it and saw a 16 x17 mapboard, which is a 1x1 standard map. Kinda Small, but meh, ok.

Ok I made a new Server, Called the Craven's Server. Here is the link:

https://discord.gg/dQSPNd

Ok,  and I added your mechs into the Campaign file... But also noticed that your tech levels are intermixed.

The KGC and the ON1 are advanced tech, and the Raven shows as experimental tech, maybe its ok, but just fyi.

I have added the 4 mechs to the 47.2 campaign (cpnx) file, below.

Aegis Division_30281113_5mechs.cpnx

Edited February 14, 2020 by Mek_Master

[Charles Maxwell]

On 2/13/2020 at 9:48 PM, Mek_Master said:

Ahh yes, it can be a little confusing. First you build a mech that you want to use in MMLab as you are doing. Then you have to save it in the /data/Mechfiles directory under the version of Megamek/MekHQ you want to use.

Next you have to open MekHQ and add the mech to the unit. If you make or modify a Campaign file (cpnx) (as I did above), you can then add your mechs and edit the pilots that pilot them in MekHQ. Once you have all the units in MekHQ, (travel to the planet too if you want) you then create the Mission and scenario in MekHQ that you wish to play.  Once you've done that you deploy your force in MekHQ to the Mission and scenario that you made.

It sounds complicated, but it gets easier once you've done it a few times.

As for the mapboard, I opened it and saw a 16 x17 mapboard, which is a 1x1 standard map. Kinda Small, but meh, ok.

Ok I made a new Server, Called the Craven's Server. Here is the link:

https://discord.gg/dQSPNd

Ok,  and I added your mechs into the Campaign file... But also noticed that your tech levels are intermixed.

The KGC and the ON1 are advanced tech, and the Raven shows as experimental tech, maybe its ok, but just fyi.

I have added the 4 mechs to the 47.2 campaign (cpnx) file, below.

Aegis Division_30281113_5mechs.cpnx 1.43 MB · 0 downloads

Ahh, OK - gotcha! Thanks for this walk-through. I'll try the steps tomorrow and send you the resulting files. 

I can make a larger factory map - no problem. How big do you want it? 

The tech levels are mixed in the lance because I was trying to parallel the end-game builds that I had in HBS BattleTech - is that (mixing tech) actually a no-no? Will it crash the game? What should I do to fix the issue?