Yes and still as ancient as ever.

CGL's twitter actually tried pushing it over the weekend and immediately blocked any replies on their post.  They're doing this now for pretty much all their postings.  Also telling is the fact there is zero mention of the email issue on the sub-reddit.  I really wish someone would make another that has nothing to do w/ CGL. r/grognard_Battletech or something.

Yeah, the bg.battletech.com forum is still there and ticking over pretty well.

Don't try and discuss any of the hot button topics though.

Unless of course you're doing it from the side with privelige and power:

https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?PHPSESSID=djc014r54bm2r2hu9ivd0ivdv4&topic=84406.0;all

Than your topic will be allowed to go on for a while, no matter how controversial and sensitive it is in reality.

You can still find a bunch of stuff on the megamek subforum:

https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?PHPSESSID=djc014r54bm2r2hu9ivd0ivdv4&board=29.0

It's not completely gone and lost to the weird, but you can see the veins in it now.

ETA:

I didn't see the direct mention on the BG.BT forums, I caught a few threads on dumpshock (the unofficial official shadowrun forum) back when the misuse of company funds happened, and saw mention of how they abused their freelancers and authors. IIRC they were dumb enough to even screw up payments to stackpole.

----------------------------------

SVEN dropped the latest video in his history of the 2nd succession war:



His stuff is not to be missed for anyone interested in the setting.

@Paulie771

https://battletechfuture.com/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/battletechfandom

https://discord.gg/WPESpHEj2K

https://twitter.com/i/communities/1752116268994363816

https://twitter.com/i/communities/1781458505259524535

https://www.reddit.com/r/NormalBattletech/

Razorfist just did a livestream talking with a YT channel about the details and etc of the recent goings on with a good number of details that have not been mentioned yet.



Skip to 56 minutes to get to the BT stuff; or if you want to watch it on YT, hit the link and it'll take you to the right time in the vid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrKJJVg7qU8&t=3360s

I didn't know about the "starleague" discord server wtih the auto-deleting posts full of cgl staff and that there was goading going on.

Razorfist repeats they had a list built beforehand, built a blocklist of everyone that followed any twitter accounts that they didn't like.

ETA: Razorfist is saying that russel zimmerman was encouraging valk (brisneo - paint your minis dude who says he's a chick upthread) in some doxxing...

This kind of shit is why people move to the Outworlds Alliance.

You can always come move out with us in the davion outback.

Life is slower here, but you don't put up with a lot of the nonsense.

https://archive.is/34Vtu

Yeah, but then there's the Federated dropship schools that fly around and you never know if you're going to get a dynamic, great physics teacher from NAIS or if you're going to get some demented cultural weirdo indoctrinator who believes that Kentares IV was justified because Jinjiro felt ethnically oppressed.

Well, yeah, but if you want some fun, bring banjos down to the landing pad when the green star corp ship lands.

It reminds them of that time they sent a group out to try and mess with the local farmers and the group never showed up again.

Them pigs was fat-uns at the county fair that yar!

ROFLMAO! Looks like CGL and their shipping fiasco is about to burn bright again. People are starting to report updated shipping costs that are only a few dollars less than they were originally.  For mine, it dropped from ~$30 to $21 for the basic box and a few packs of dice.  Fuck these guys, man. Luckily, the card I used to pay originally was compromised so the they can't charge me as I haven't updated it to the new card.  Very tempted to just eat the few dollars I did pay so they have to sit on the product.

Absolute farce of a company.

As expected:



https://archive.is/Z1cpA

https://web.archive.org/web/20070515000000*/https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Anastasius_Focht

Earliest copy wayback machine has:
https://web.archive.org/web/20071202034913/https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Anastasius_Focht

Who's the troll "author" ?

https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Bryan_Young

Here's his stuff, if you are inclined to dispose of it or avoid it:

https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Category:Works_by_Bryan_Young

Focht  (frederick steiner) was never trans, never hinted to be trans, never implied to be trans, etc. In the novels focht was being researched by the invading clanners and there is (iirc, I'll have to find the reference than take a picture of the actual page in the book) mention that the clans even went so far as to see if there was a sex change operation in focht's past.

Young is just being a sleazy fanfic writer.  

I wonder who in his immediate family has gone the route of being mutilated and reinforcing that kind of self destructive delusion.

If you have the old print books, hold onto them. With this kind of irrational destructive of people brain rot going on, I can't see them not starting to do major retcons.

ETA: nm.

The immature jerk hoisted himself on his own petard.

Behold, a "author" who thinks this implied that focht was trans:

pic.twitter.com/1vRtJn2km4

Bryan Young  (@swankmotron) May 5, 2024

I guess if you're willing to believe males can be females, not being able to read at a third grade level is just expected.

So, let's do the hard part for the "author" who can't read.





There isn't anyhing implied there. Zilch. And than the very text he cited (where the people who say they investigated to see if a sex change was involved) continued to refer to Focht as a he. Oh, and the references? They are to Focht before AND after his "rebirth."

For some reason or the other BY is willing to make a complete absolute fool of himself in public over this stuff.

It's like he's trying to cover a guilty conscience or something.

-------------------------

Eta:

Well that explains it.

My middle kid, Scout is Trans-non-binary. They work as a dog groomer.

They have a super loving and accepting home (some of the distant family not as much, but that’s a different story.) Before the pandemic, my house always seemed to be the hangout for all their trans friends. \uD83E\uDDF5

Bryan Young  (@swankmotron) April 20, 2022

https://web.archive.org/web/20220420233431/https://twitter.com/swankmotron/status/1516923158728638465

He calls his kida  they.

He was involved with his kid being transed.

He's a complete radical. He will never admit trans is wrong, because to do so, makes him (at the very least) complicit in horrifically mutilating his child's mind and emotions. If he was involved in getting his kid castrated and mutilated...

There isn't anything he won't do to avoid admission that he's a child mutilationist.

Of course he's flailing and grasping at anything he can to try and say "no, no, what I was involved with perpetrating on my own children is completely normal!"

ETA: Or he's just going along with the self destruction of his family and his child if the kid is older and out of the house, which is only a few hairs better.

Clanners are and always have been furries.

Used to be they were just Garth's "did you ever think Bugs bunny was hot when he dressed up like a girl bunny?" and then they got progressively worse.

Any Battletech after 3049 is suspect.

Fred Steiner as Focht is baffling to the infiltrating gamer left because they don't get that a schlubby fat dude could say "what am I doing with my life?" and unfuck it.  He hit the gym and went off to kick ass.  And then he went to lead the religious phone company and beat the brakes off some furry transhumanist cultists.

That they would want to say he's trans is what they do.  Clans aren't weird enough anymore.  Hence the hyperspace Word of Blake interdimensional Event Horizon cyborgs.  Then trans Focht, because everything must conform to "the message".  I should also note that there aren't new dynamic characters that just happen to be group xyz, because real life identity politics demands characteristic xyz be all of their identity.  Battletech is populated by representatives of all current world cultures and some new ones as well because that's a natural outgrowth of human development.

Separate problem is that eventually feudal lords fighting over all of known space is hard science that outgrows itself.  Tech was degraded so you could have small lasers that only go 90 yards.  OG BT where commanders agree to scenarios as part of the Ares Conventions to play war as a game to minimize damage just seems silly when you crank out a dozen new books with industry that comes out of nowhere.  And then there's the problem of crap like Dark Ages and having a future that's already written.

Regarding tech degradation and the claims of 90 yard ranges on small lasers - I don't ever recall at any point that being the in-setting range limit, and I do know that the ranges were intentionally truncated from the very start in order to make the game playable on a regular table with the number of mapsheets people had.

The "range limited to ..." thing died a very very long time ago with extended range and later LOS range rules, plus the effective ranges of the mech scale weapons in outer space.  If you're crazy and have the time you can crunch the rules on LOS combat and planetary size and visibility conditions / elevation and have shots reaching out to 60+ hexes.  IIRC in space combat they have combat effective ranges rated in multiple miles.

Hardcore eugencisits ... yes. Transhuman furries? No. The genetics were always driven to serve the purpose of making a better warrior, not turning people into lola bunny from spacejam. Also, IIRC the gencaste monstrosities are treated as just that, monstrosities. No love for the clan society from me though. They have no value for human life and will waste you like a piece of trash without a second's hesitation.

Not to mention that they are officially socialists.

I'm pretty sure I recall the DA and most of the storyline is pre-planned beforehand and has been for a very long time. People have fits over the dark age but frankly it doesn't bother me.

Outside of the lore wise, I've read that they were trying to get back to where one lance was really the world-shattering power it used to be in the depths of scavenger tech post third succession war. But that was never to be - it went away pretty quickly in the DA novels too.  I just cannot bite down on the whole "but this isn't logical!" bit about the DA and the jihad ... because I've read a fair bit of history. Which is fully of ragingly illogical stuff and fliers out of left field that basically can't be explained.

IMO the best part about BT as a setting is that you can pick the era and tech in the setting that you like along with it's attendant style of gameplay and have a blast.

What I couldn't care less for is when childish "fan"fiction authors insert the politics and social issues of today or in living memory into the setting - and when that happens they always come down on what they think is the right side.  Almost universally with very poorly written and thought out lines of argument and bad prose.  Of course, even with very good writing and prose and arguments, it still sucks, because it's hackneyed preaching. It just means you're shoving leftist stuff in peoples faces like the tv show mash did, instead of shoving leftist stuff in peoples faces like (pick any modern tv show written in the last decade). We don't see conservatives doing this because the leftists ARE the establishment and your butt will get fired or suppressed instantly for even trying it.

It's worse when they do it in a way that doesn't fit the internal logic of the setting.  When they do that, they're making it beyond obvious that the setting means nothign to them, they are not fans of it, they are just using it as a vehicle to push their positions.

---------------------------------------

So.

Stackople threw young under the bus.



Furthermore, stackople, he wasn't cis, because cis is just a trans term of art to try and force upon everyone that gender is a sliding spectrum and all that.  Stackpole, you were alive when it was written, you know good and well you nor any of us were thinking that stuff because it wasn't around for us.

Focht was just a dude.  In the 80s and 90s we just viewed dudes who said they were chicks with pity and what they did with disgust.; either to be ignored, laughed at, or to be helped.
---------------------

Small lasers still only go 3 hexes in my world.  Battletech rules for me hit their apex with the Tactical Handbook and Maximum Tech.

I no longer am willing to commit enough mental energy to try to decipher what gibberish house rule was codified into a new "standard" piece of equipment or rule when those kinds of things used to be footnotes in individual books at most if you were using that scenario or location.

The Raven still has a generic note of "7 tons ECM equipment" to me, dammit.

Also I think the Word of Blake Jihad is dumb, in no small part it requires legions of troops to just materialize out of nowhere.  LCS Invicible is lost, and writers digging through original sourcebooks to dredge up anything they can find to make themselves seem cool is just lazy.  I remember picking up the books and going "oh, they just killed everyone and everything almost everywhere with magical troops that came from nowhere, and with fanaticism that makes Jinjiro's terrified minions seem tame"... and then realizing that if everything I liked about the conflicting factions was annihilated...well, who cares?  Felt like it killed the whole setting for me.

I do the "play when you want to" thing, and have been long before Razorfist suggested it.  I occasionally pick up old FASA books I couldn't find years ago, but beyond that, the community itself is no longer the one I remember back in the long long ago of Battletechnology and such.

And then there's just how the internet ruins everything.

And I say this all as one of the very few who is cool with Far Country's weirdness.

IIRC they had extreme and maybe LOS range in maxtech?  *pulls off shelf to check*
...
Not los. but extreme range, page 23, left column. Starts 1 hex beyond long range, extends out to range euqal to weapons med range times two.


And that's no skin off anyone's nose man. It's a game ... do what's fun for yourself.



I have seen/heard/read from guys who feel that way about the clan invasion. I honestly don't know what piece of equipment changed the game as much as the 2 slot clan DHS. Damage output and maneuver changed massively.

I'm beginning to turn my nose up at some of the fiction inserting the intentionally current day leftist politics into the setting, and I read just enough of some books by illsa j bick to know that she writes filth and effectively hates the setting (She openly said in one of the books in the authors note or some such that she *hates* writing mech combat.)

And of course I am orthodox, which means I hate the stupid sentient birds. The only good thing about that book was the detailed description of the lam mech cockpit.



Heh. Heretic! May the birdmen peck your eyes out for eternity! LOL.

Where I live, and my situation means if I get to play, it's on megamek. The unit selection tools and such mean you can put the game right into the tech level and era of stuff that you want and ignore all the rest.

As for missing the community, that hits me right in the feels. If you like something, pray that it never gets popular.

CGL speedrunning into the septic tank:

Amazed on how strong is the "Jim Jones" vibes in the CGL. "the leader is good the leader is great". That Kool-Aid must be really tasty!#BattleTech #?????? pic.twitter.com/MmFYAH7KxV

— Periphery_Anon (@Periphery_Anon) May 13, 2024

https://twitter.com/Periphery_Anon/status/1789967427767242865
https://web.archive.org/web/20240513103425/https://twitter.com/Periphery_Anon/status/1789967427767242865
https://archive.is/5rXFx
From the above tweet:


https://archive.is/FODgb
"Rem has the inside track to becoming the face/person most often associated to CGL"

Translation:

Person who doesn't know the IP, talks about conservatives the same way white segregationists talk about black people (she explicitly used the "but I have a conservative friend," IIRC in the critical rocket interview), and who was (by the evidence we have) the moving force behind expunging everyone from the cgl twitter account / reddit account (which they wrongfully took over) who dared disagree with anything CGL ... and the demo team purges...

Gets to be the face to the public at large.

PR means nothing to these people.

I enjoy level 1 gameplay (pre-clan and little to no star league era tech).

I also enjoy level 2 gameplay (including clan tech and star league era tech).

Personally, I just pretend that the end of the FedCom civil war was the end of the battletech chronology and that anything afterwards is just fanfic (sorry Victor, your wife is dead and you will never see your child).

I personally feel like the Word of Blake uprising was much akin to what D&D did to their lore when they went from 3.5 to 4 ed.... they carelessly butchered most or all of the beloved characters, the setting and did a pretty big time skip so that they could cleanly make way for follow on 'stuff' (IE:  Mechwarrior Dark Age).  It ended with a similar result for both companies; a lot of bad blood between the brand and long time fans.

I try not to let CGLs bullshit bother me any; they are scavengers preying upon the scrap field that was once a proud Battlemaster and squawking at anyone who gets too close to their ‘treasures’.  Ignore them and enjoy the rich setting, lore and gaming books that were left behind.  No amount of RETCON or psychotic levels of DEI can erase the already published books that are out there (or on my bookshelf).  The only real down side is that we likely will never get good new stories in the setting, and personally I can live comfortably with that.

I wonder if anyone runs a 3025 MM server...