53 replies to this topic

[Nightbird]

Athom83, on 21 March 2018 - 03:13 AM, said:

That's a picture of a Black Knight though... and its how they should have made it.

Nightbird, on 20 March 2018 - 08:15 PM, said:

Design: Start with how the BK should have looked, and change laser arm to centurion ballistic arm

[Sjorpha]

Personally I think both PGI chassis so far has been very inspired and well made, especially from a graphical standpoint (RGH is beautiful IMO) but also pretty interesting in terms of theme and loadouts.

Sure it's nice if they consider filling gaps in the lineup as well, but I'm also pretty happy with them using the in house mechs as a creative outlet and space for Alex and the rest of their mech design staff to pursue their own interests and ideas and having some creative freedom for once. That can be really good for workplace morale and ultimately good for the game.

I'd be quite happy seeing them complete the "refitted industrial mech" theme for the other weight classes with the same kind of looks as the Roughneck for example. I'd be down for playing an industrial FP dropdeck.

Edited by Sjorpha, 21 March 2018 - 05:41 AM.

[Adridos]

Samial, on 20 March 2018 - 10:12 PM, said:

I'd rather they focused on Canon mechs and stop making stuff that doesn't exist.. oh and fix the existing in game mechs thanks.

They've already added a number of apocryphal designs, though.
In reverse order: Sun Spider (MWO), Hellspawn (MW4), Thanatos (MW4), Osiris (MW4), Nova Cat (MC), Uziel (MW4), Cougar (MC), Mad Cat II (MW4), Roughneck (MWO), Bushwacker (Cartoon), Marauder IIC (MW1), and finally Jenner IIC (MW1).

What's the difference between officially endorsed MWO originating mechs as opposed to officially endorsed MW4/MechCommander/MW1/BTCartoon mechs? Catalyst has already "borrowed" MWO Stalker and Victor designs to produce completely new canonical mechs in Stalker II and Lu Wei Bing, respectively.

[Zergling]

Adridos, on 21 March 2018 - 06:27 AM, said:

They've already added a number of apocryphal designs, though.
In reverse order: Sun Spider (MWO), Hellspawn (MW4), Thanatos (MW4), Osiris (MW4), Nova Cat (MC), Uziel (MW4), Cougar (MC), Mad Cat II (MW4), Roughneck (MWO), Bushwacker (Cartoon), Marauder IIC (MW1), and finally Jenner IIC (MW1).

Mechwarrior 1 didn't have the Clans or any sort of Clan tech.

On the other hand, Mechwarrior 2 was released in 1995, 3 years after the Marauder IIC and Jenner IIC were first detailed in Technical Readout: 3055.

Edited by Zergling, 21 March 2018 - 06:38 AM.

[Adridos]

Zergling, on 21 March 2018 - 06:34 AM, said:

Mechwarrior 1 didn't have the Clans or any sort of Clan tech.

Didn't stop FASA, now did it?

MW1 Jenner:


MW1 Marauder


That's 1992, IIRC.

[Zergling]

Adridos, on 21 March 2018 - 06:52 AM, said:

Didn't stop FASA, now did it?

MW1 Jenner:


MW1 Marauder


That's 1992, IIRC.

Mechwarrior 1 was 1989, it was set around 3025-3030 and it didn't have Clan mechs.

IIRC, the mechs available in the game were the Locust, Jenner, Phoenix Hawk, Shadowhawk, Rifleman, Warhammer, Marauder and Battlemaster.


The SNES version from 1992 didn't have the Jenner IIC or Marauder IIC either, instead it had a bunch of non-canon designs; the names of the Nexus, Raijin and Grand Crusader were later re-used for actual canon designs that had little similarity to those below:
http://cfw.sarna.net...=20120318091712
http://cfw.sarna.net...=20120318091851

Edited by Zergling, 21 March 2018 - 08:00 AM.

[Adridos]

Zergling, on 21 March 2018 - 07:02 AM, said:

Mechwarrior 1 was 1989, it was set around 3025-3030 and it didn't have Clan mechs.

IIRC, the mechs available in the game were the Locust, Jenner, Phoenix Hawk, Shadowhawk, Rifleman, Warhammer, Marauder and Battlemaster.

There's several ports of MW1, not just the horrible MSDOS one.

You've got 2 down, 2 games to go.

Edited by Adridos, 21 March 2018 - 07:25 AM.

[Zergling]

Adridos, on 21 March 2018 - 07:14 AM, said:

There's several ports of MW1, not just the horrible MSDOS one.

Well all my searching of it hasn't come up with anything about it.

Note that the original IIC mechs were not covered as part of the Harmony Gold lawsuits and agreements, but went 'Unseen' anyway because their art had been created for TRO3055 by Victor Musical Industries specifically for Battletech, and FASA made a decision against using art from 'out of house' sources to prevent the possibility of any future legal issues.

See how FASA also killed/made Unseen the VMI artwork for the Jenner IIC (which had no counterpart to mechs covered by the lawsuits) along the Nexus, Raijin and Grand Crusader (which debuted in the Comstar sourcebook from 1992, before later appearing in TRO3058 in 1995).

So to the best of my knowledge, Victor Musical Industries created the original artwork for the Jenner IIC and Marauder IIC, which first appeared in TRO3055.

Edited by Zergling, 21 March 2018 - 07:53 AM.

[Seranov]

Adridos, on 21 March 2018 - 06:27 AM, said:

They've already added a number of apocryphal designs, though.
In reverse order: Sun Spider (MWO), Hellspawn (MW4), Thanatos (MW4), Osiris (MW4), Nova Cat (MC), Uziel (MW4), Cougar (MC), Mad Cat II (MW4), Roughneck (MWO), Bushwacker (Cartoon), Marauder IIC (MW1), and finally Jenner IIC (MW1).

What's the difference between officially endorsed MWO originating mechs as opposed to officially endorsed MW4/MechCommander/MW1/BTCartoon mechs? Catalyst has already "borrowed" MWO Stalker and Victor designs to produce completely new canonical mechs in Stalker II and Lu Wei Bing, respectively.

Wow the Lu Wei Bing looks boss. Too bad they would never put it in MWO because of the LB20X in the arm and the original Dragon-style right arm.

[Adridos]

Seranov, on 21 March 2018 - 07:39 AM, said:

Wow the Lu Wei Bing looks boss. Too bad they would never put it in MWO because of the LB20X in the arm and the original Dragon-style right arm.

It's literally a copy of the MW:O Victor, only without the need to conform to the Victor chassis.

[Seranov]

I mean, yes, but the low-slung right arm on MWO's Victor is uninspired (and knuckle-dragging to boot!) compared to that cool looking "we don't need an arm here, just put the gun on a swivel and we're set" LB20X hardpoint.

[Zergling]

Adridos, on 21 March 2018 - 07:41 AM, said:

Huh, interesting.

Reading up on it in Sarna.net:

Quote

In the early 1990's, Victor Music Industries released Japanese ports of the original 1989 MechWarrior game for the Sharp X68000 computer, the NEC PC-9801 computer and the Super Famicom. Since these games were primarily using licensed designs from Japanese anime, they opted to commission new redesigns of all the venerable designs as they did not possess the licenses for the anime they'd come from (there have been several Macross games released for PC-9801 at the time of Mechwarrior's release, which could lead to potential confusion of the customers).

FASA would later make use of the art VMI created in America, with the BattleMech art for the X68000 port becoming the Clan IIC 'Mechs introduced in Technical Readout: 3055, the unused concept art from the game's production getting redrawn and introduced as the non-IIC Clan mechs in Technical Readout: 3055 and the new art developed for the Super Famicon game becoming the new 'Mechs introduced in the ComStar sourcebook. Despite being legitimately acquired, in the wake of the Unseen lawsuits FASA chose to treat all designs developed "out-of-house" as Unseen to try and avoid any future disputes. Ultimately all the affected 'Mechs would receive new Reseen art in Technical Readout: 3055 Upgrade.

So VMI created new artwork 'inspired' by the Macross/Crusher Joe/etc mechs due being unable to use them in Japan for their Japanese Mechwarrior 1 ports, and FASA later re-used that art (and obviously commissioned further artwork from VMI) for the IIC designs in TRO3055 and Comstar designs in the Comstar sourcebook.

So the artwork wasn't FASA, but the designs themselves were original FASA creations.

I'm leaning against calling them 'apocryphal' designs as such, otherwise all the other original Unseen designs would be considered the same.
I mean, those used non-FASA created artwork, but the designs in Battletech were FASA creations.

Edited by Zergling, 21 March 2018 - 08:01 AM.

[Adridos]

Zergling, on 21 March 2018 - 07:53 AM, said:

and FASA later re-used that art (and obviously commissioned further artwork from VMI)...
So the artwork wasn't FASA, but the designs themselves were original FASA creations.

FASA didn't commission anything. The art in the TRO is scanned from the box art of the Japanese ports.
And yeah, FASA making up stats for artwork not made by them is how all of those designs I'd mentioned originally came to be.

Zergling, on 21 March 2018 - 07:53 AM, said:

I'm leaning against calling them 'apocryphal' designs as such, otherwise all the other original Unseen designs would be considered the same.
I mean, those used non-FASA created artwork, but the designs in Battletech were FASA creations.

Under those conditions, MWO designs are also not apocryphal, either. CGL actively makes use of them and all.
Effectively, as long as CGL makes up their own stats/builds for Roughneck and Sun Spider, you will be fine with them.

Edited by Adridos, 21 March 2018 - 08:13 AM.

[Zergling]

Adridos, on 21 March 2018 - 08:05 AM, said:

Effectively, as long as CGL makes up their own stats/builds for Roughneck and Sun Spider, you will be fine with them.

CGL don't actually need to do so; the Roughneck and Sun Spider stock loadouts are TT legal. If CGL wanted to add them to a TT publication, they'd likely just copy those stock loadouts, so they'd definitely be PGI creations.


But anyway, I'd put the line between a design being 'created by TT'/'not created by TT' or 'not-apocryphal'/'apocryphal' as being on the design itself.

Original Unseen with borrowed artwork from Macross/etc: FASA created the actual TT designs.
VMI designs: FASA created the TT designs, VMI only did the artwork, so I'd say they are actual TT creations like the original Unseen; they all just had artwork from a non-TT owner source.
MW4 and MechCommander mechs: designs weren't exactly TT legal, but when added to TT they very closely matched their stock loadouts in those games, so I'd say the design itself was originally created by TT Battletech.

Edited by Zergling, 21 March 2018 - 08:42 AM.

[Zergling]

Hopeless Loser, on 21 March 2018 - 08:42 AM, said:

Franchise to live, there always have to be fresh new content once for a while.

On the good news side of things, TT Battletech is finally getting new releases after being effectively dead for the last 5 or so years.

[The Lighthouse]

@Zergling : Sorry for the deletion. That was written in wrong account.

Now, I checked Sarna.net and noticed "Apocryphal" tags were gone from Roughneck and Sun Spider pages.

In order to a franchise to live, there always have to be fresh new content once for a while.

It is not that really healthy to focus on "original" mechs only, especially some of the original mechs were... well, not so original. We really need another Clan 95ton mech. We don't have many on this particular category.

I mean, Uziel was not even suppose to exist, for example.

Edited by The Lighthouse, 21 March 2018 - 08:47 AM.

[MechaBattler]

I would like them to add the pirate designed mechs.

[Brain Cancer]

El Bandito, on 21 March 2018 - 02:52 AM, said:

Like I said, PGI is being inconsistent. Highlander-IIC is still capped with 325.

Then again, so is the Supernova.

[Gas Guzzler]

El Bandito, on 21 March 2018 - 02:45 AM, said:

PGI is highly inconsistent in regards to battlemech engines. MC-II for example came with default 360 engine with no boost, and Piranha came with 180 with no boost. Since Grizzly is also a Clan battlemech...

MC-II can take a 400...

Piranha got no boost, sometimes they do odd things, like the Fafnir only gettig to go up to 325. Those are the exceptions not the rule.

HGN is capped at 325 because it comes with a 270, just like the Mauler, and the Supernova

Brain Cancer, on 21 March 2018 - 10:59 AM, said:

Then again, so is the Supernova.

And the Mauler, and any other 90 tonner that comes with a 270 stock.

[Brain Cancer]

Adridos, on 21 March 2018 - 06:27 AM, said:

They've already added a number of apocryphal designs, though.
In reverse order: Sun Spider (MWO), Hellspawn (MW4), Thanatos (MW4), Osiris (MW4), Nova Cat (MC), Uziel (MW4), Cougar (MC), Mad Cat II (MW4), Roughneck (MWO), Bushwacker (Cartoon), Marauder IIC (MW1), and finally Jenner IIC (MW1).

What's the difference between officially endorsed MWO originating mechs as opposed to officially endorsed MW4/MechCommander/MW1/BTCartoon mechs? Catalyst has already "borrowed" MWO Stalker and Victor designs to produce completely new canonical mechs in Stalker II and Lu Wei Bing, respectively.

Um, no. Hellspawn is canon, TRO 3067. And the Thanatos. And the Osiris. Nova Cat is TRO 3060. Uziel is again TRO 3067. Cougar is TRO 3060. Mad Cat II is TRO 3067. Bushwhacker is TRO 3058. Marauder IIC is TRO 3055, as is the Jenner IIC. These are decade+ old designs in tabletop at this point, long before PGI made so much as a beta for MWO.

The only two cut-from-whole-cloth PGI designs were the Roughneck and now the Sun Spider. As Catalyst has stated that the Hero info for PGI's designs is canon, therefore these two are also canonized designs sourced from PGI's work.

The Stalker II and Lu Wei Bing get their MWO chops from having the same artist, and in part due to Battletech's line developer wanting to unify the visuals and style of artwork, lest we get more horrors like the Yeoman.

Edited by Brain Cancer, 21 March 2018 - 11:11 AM.