Best products from r/OutreachHPG

None of the Battletech novels are Asimov-esque, but a number are surprisingly well-written, with interesting characters, and even more so, a truly interesting, engaging, and believable universe. Even twenty years after I first read them, I still find them genuinely 'good reads', especially if you're a fan of pseudo-medieval politicking and warfare; only a very few Battletech books are what anyone would call eye-roll worthy.

I'd recommend the Blood of Kerensky trilogy for Clan-IS perspective, as it's a mix of both from the pivotal time when the Clan invasion first happened. There are other good series set from a Clan perspective, but really, starting 'where it all began' is likely the best bet.

If you're looking for more IS-based literature down the road, be sure to read the Warrior trilogy; very well-written, and some great cloak-and-dagger stuff. Reading Field and Tech manuals can also be fun for universe-based context; something like this would be a fun read - there's one for every major House faction and one for most Clans as well.

Mostly because of the baggage that came along with it.

When FASA went under, everyone though "endgame" would pretty much be "it" on the universe. They left some plot threads hanging, but for the most part, ended the Victor Steiner Davion / IS circle jerk that had been going on for years during the clan wars and everyone was fairly satisfied (with the exception that the last few books that tied out the series where MAJORLY rushed to try to make it out to market before FASA went under.)

Then Weisman started Wiz Kids and brought the BT license to them and everyone got excited. Collectable BT miniatures pre-painted, under a new system. Even though Mage Knight at the time wasn't everyone's bag, they where looking forward to the stuff that went along with BT (New fiction, new miniatures, ect.)

What they got was this.

Not to mention the following:

• GIANT time jump of about 60-70 years after the main series with new characters no one knew or cared about
  
• A new "magic nation" in the form of the Republic that just sprung out of no where.
  
• NONE of the classic BT factions in sight at launch. All factions released seemed like lazy "offshoots" of the true factions.
  
• "Battlemechs" where all of a sudden "rare" again despite by the end of BT, they had FULL means to manufacture them.
  
• Because of the above, early DA fiction had factions duking it out with modified "construction mechs" more then battlemechs. (In the initial DA set, most true battlemechs where only available as unique "ultra rare" drops.)
  *Those classic battlemechs that where there, looked like this.
  
• A IS wide "jihad" put on by the WoB, when before they have always been described as simply a splinter faction. (Not to mention that people imediately thought this was pandering to the jihadist fear of the post 9/11 world at the time.) So them pulling it off just came off as eye rollingly bad to most BT enthusiast.
  
• 80% of the litterally THOUSANDS of HPG systems magically just stopped working. Plunging people into a ture "dark age" because communication had pretty much blacked out the entire IS.
  
  To people that had eagerly been anticipating a revival of the brand that they loved, this wasn't just an abomination, it looked like a late term abortion of everything they loved and cared about and made the series fairly "grounded" in reality (relitive to the universes own shinnanagins.)
  
  Most people treated "End game" and the end of the civil war as the "true" end to Battletech, and was just content to leave it as that and walked away. (I'm willing to bet thats how some of those here right now feel.)
  
  But, after this launched, FanPro and the original guys behind battletech proper continued to develop the game under "Classic Battletech.) and even pioneered a sight that provided "canon" short story's from the "Classic" universe that people where more familiar with. (And they still do this.) So while Wiz Kids wanted a fresh start, FanPro and Catalyst after them actually did flesh out the WoB jihad into something that not only made scense in the universe, but was actually a MASSIVE accumulation of the "side stories" and various other interesting "background plots" finally comming to head and plunging the entire IS into an "old guard / new guard" civil war where mis information orchestrated by the WoB lead to various internal factions tearing themselves apart, and not some massive external struggle with some magic WoB army bigger then the combined might of everyone in the IS like previously believed.
  
  Even the Dark Age stuff eventually got good and ranks to me amoung some of the BEST battletech fiction out there.
  
  Make no mistake, most EARLY dark age books are terrible. Ghost war was actually interesting as it was pretty much a giant "exhibition" book to bring classic lore heads up to speed on what was happening, (and as the only BT book written in 1st person.) But everything after that was just god awful (industrial mechs from a clan wolf splinter faction attempting to take over Terra and declare themselves IlKhan...urrrggg.)
  
  But then, Liao comes into the picture and EVERYTHING gets better.
  
  Seriously, if you haven't read "By temptations and by war," correct that mistake and give the Dark age another try. Its a seriously good battletech book, and the first of the Dark age books that actually gets legitimately "good" for fans of the original series.
  
  From there, the DA run is actually fairly solid, and can get MUCH darker then the "traditional" battletech books ever did. Dealing with things like psychosis, religion, and the battlefield rape of a core protagonist. (Not even kidding on that last one and I DO mean it literally.) Some of the books rank among my favorite battletech books in general.
  
  Seriously, even if you have never given a DA book a try but liked the original series, you MUST read these books:
  
  Target of Oppertunity
  
  Surrender your Dreams
  
  Those two books don't need any DA backstory to enjoy them, and they are both easily two of the best Battletech novels regardless of timeline that any fan can enjoy. (Especially the classic fans.)
  
  So Dark Age isn't reviled so much because its stupid (Once it finds its grounding, its actually quite good.) Its mostly reviled because of all the excess baggage that came with that time period when it was first rolled out by WizKids.

This. http://www.amazon.com/Redragon-Perdition-Precision-Programmable-Cartridge-profiles/dp/B00GU8W5AE/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1408802042&sr=1-1&keywords=red+dragon+perdition

It's not a major mouse brand, which might instantly turn off a lot of people. However, it's highly programmable, has all of the bells and whistles of an $80 mouse, feels incredibly durable and is not made from flimsy stuff, and the software is utterly amazingly easy to key bind anything you'd like to any button on the mouse, including customizing the DPI. [The DPI buttons can even be re-assigned, with no restrictions.] It's very simple and lightweight, too; it's very good at what it does without any bloat.

The light color change sounds like a gimmick but since you can assign a different color and glow pattern to each profile (which takes about 2 seconds to swap), it helps you easily ID what is loaded onto the mouse.

The drivers are flawless and the button layout is very good; after day 2 with the mouse, I never hit the side buttons on accident thanks to their design.

Long story short, I've had high end expensive mice for many, many years and this is easily the best mouse I've owned in a while. Very sturdy, reliable, and considerably more customizable than the more well known multi-button mice. With 5 customizable DPI levels, it's perfect for MechWarrior, as well.

And all this for the price of a cheap "new computer" freebie-quality mouse. I really recommend this thing. If you're willing to consider a smaller hardware manufacturer, you'll way more than get your money's worth.. doubly so since you get all this for under forty bucks.

ED: The side buttons work very well for MW:O, from strikes to UAVs to coolant, it's nice to have it all on the same location.

ED2: Because of the above I've taken to not customizing games I play all the time, but customizing the mouse to the game. That was doubly nice in Star Citizen since it lacks key binds right now.

It's always nice to feel a genuine connection with another fan of something, even when it's in the middle of a salt mine commiserating about the terrible conditions. I also got my start in Battletech through MWO, and I've been a fan of 40K since playing Dawn of War with my brother. They're franchises I love dearly, I've whittled away so many hours looking up lore and discussing them online... but their video game offerings leave so much to be desired.

On the bright side, while video games continue to absolutely suck industry-wide, the Board- and Tabletop-game industry has been experiencing a massive renaissance.

Lately I've been falling hard for 40K's smaller Kill Team rules, allowing me to play pitched battles with a wide variety of teams and units. If you were ever into 40K previously, you probably already have the stuff needed to try out Kill Team. Alternatively, if price has been a factor keeping you out of the hobby, you might want to check out this smaller, faster game. For many factions, you'll need only the one box to start with. You don't even have to invest a lot of time or effort into painting anymore, if you look into Games Workshop's line of "Contrast" paints. If your Tyranids should be tan and purple, you spray-prime them white and apply these tan and purple inks to them and voila! The ink does 90% of the work! You might not win any painting contests with them, but I can absolutely attest that they work quickly with little to no experience, and look a hell of a lot better than bare plastic. They also just released a game called Warcry that basically does the same thing as Kill Team, but for Age of Sigmar Warhammer.

As for Battletech, it looks like the tabletop is making a strong comeback as well: Here's a link to the currently-running Kickstarter. There are already a Beginner Box and a Full Set available to purchase and play using new MWO-style plastic sculpts, cardboard standees, and updated rules. It pretty much takes MWO from our computers and puts it back on the table. If you wanted to get into the game right now, you can pick up the quick-start rules (free) or the full manual, and then Record Sheets for the mechs. All you'd need is some tokens to represent the mechs, and a hex-grid map to play on. Unlike 40K, you don't really need the miniatures in the same way, since Battletech is closer to a board game rules-wise. The more I've looked into it, the more I realize that the old books spread rules across volumes and volumes of books that you can still use; the new stuff just seems to be re-written so that everything's in one place and it's easier to tell which rules are "core" and which are optional. Full disclosure, I'm already a backer of the Kickstarter. I'm clearly not getting my MechWarrior fix here, might as well put my Mech Money into something tangible, like the spiffy Clan and IS minis coming out of this Kickstarter. Hell, the KS even lets you pick up the stuff from the previous two boxes, so I can get all the Battletech in one place and mix-and-match my favorite mechs from my time playing MWO.

Anyways, I hope some of the above has been helpful or interesting. If nothing else, the takeaway is "you're not alone". We can take solace in that, at least. For my part, I'm just shifting my focus to the greener pastures out there and hoping that one day someone makes a game worth playing. In the longer term, I'm actually studying Game Design myself, in the hopes of making the video games I want to see done right. If in the next few years you see legally-distinct indie remakes of X-Wing/TIE Fighter, MechWarrior, Armored Core and/or an actually-good 40K shooter... I'm not saying it's me, but it might be me.

I wholeheartedly recommend the Sharkoon Fireglider optical mouse.. for the same pricepoint as that mouse.

https://www.amazon.com/Sharkoon-Glider-Optical-Gaming-000SKFGO/dp/B00GD3VA66

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826794010

It has two side buttons that I have set for in-game VOIP and TS3 push-to-talk, a trigger button on the right side of the left mouse button that I have set to maximum-zoom-toggle.. and internal memory with a built-in macro program. The button behind the mouse wheel changes colors as it swaps pages of mouse layouts, each with an independant DPI setting and their own button layout / macros. (I don't use the macros in MWO, but it's nice to have the trigger button be max-zoom-toggle in my MWO page and a rapidfire-left-click for when I'm browsing the net and playing other games.)

I've had this mouse for almost two years and I've had zero issues with it. The braided cord is about five feet long and the mouse has a removable and adjustable weight system inside of it. (I removed my weights because I use a black steel mousepad from ACT Labs that I got for ~$8. I love my always-flat mousepad, but it does require frequent cleaning with a paper towel and water/alcohol. If one spec of sediment gets under the mouse, you feel it like sand in your underwear.. and oil from the side of your hand will gunk up the mouse feet and cause the mouse to move slower and with more effort, but when it's clean, it's smooth, accurate and perfectly flat.)

I will chime in with another vote for the Sennheiser PC series - their bigger models (3xx series) are full over ear, and are amazing. Very durable - I've had one last me 5-7 years and still working fine, the pads just wore out. I've had two now because I left one at my parents' house when I was moving out and I bought another one to replace it.

They are a bit more expensive, but think of them as a long-term investment. They have some of the best microphones that I have used for PC headsets, the sound is clear, amazing, and allows you to pin-point people walking around you in FPS, the quality is unbeatable and the cord is nice and long.

See link here: Sennheiser PC350

I have a Logitech T16000M. Honestly, training on it probably made me a better pilot when I switched back to a mouse. Your torso twist will be amazing but accuracy will suffer greatly. It was fun while I did it but once I switched to my current set up i enjoyed the game much more.

For optimum MWO goodness I recommend a good gaming mouse with 10 buttons and a Razer Tartarus.

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00EHBKUTE?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00

Sometimes when I'm feeling frisky, I will undock the throttle of my thrustmaster hotas and use it for movement. It's wired to the joy, but there's maybe 18 inches of wire there and I can manage to wedge the throttle by my keyboard. The throttle bit has four thumb buttons, two index buttons, and a rudder rocker; just barely enough if you're willing to take your hand off for heat/night vision. I liked the price, and it's really a nice change to have direct throttle control (especially with lights, it feels entirely different), but my middle and pinky finger do get tired manipulating the rocker for turning. Turning with the rocker is analog, which is cool; worked basically out of the box, plug and play. Haven't tried the joy for aiming very much, I would recommend mouse aim if you can.

Instead of a ModMic I use a V-MODA BoomPro ($29 mic with 3.5mm passthrough jack that plugs into headphones) attached to Philips SHP9500 headphones ($89; sound good and are very comfortable). Previously I used a Monoprice 108323 clone ($28; sound ok, but were tight on my head), which is a cheaper alternative. There's also official V-MODA headphones, but they are super expensive.

Unfortunately, some headphones that have a 3.5mm jack, such as Sennheiser, have a locking mechanism that prevent the BoomPro from connecting. There are guides on how to mod them to make it work, but I wasn't brave enough to try.

The advantage of this setup is that the mic is decoupled from the headphones, so if either one breaks it can be replaced. Also the mic can be disconnected to listen to music on a trip. With a traditional gaming headset if either one breaks you have to replace the whole headset. It also allows you to have high quality headphones if desired. Gaming headsets sound OK, but sometimes compromises are made to bring down price. Maybe only audiophiles care, though.

I recently bought a pair of HyperX Cloud II's to use with my PS4. They are extremely comfortable and have good sound quality. I have yet to give them a go with my PC because I have a separate DAC/AMP and Sennheiser HD600+ModMic setup but they come with a USB soundcard if that's your thing.

Really happy with the purchase. More than I originally thought I would be, honestly.

The HyperX Cloud I can be had for much cheaper than the Cloud II's and offer roughly the same performance without the inclusion of the USB soundcard. They also have two 3.5mm connections rather than one like the Cloud II's. Both also have a detachable mic.

The HyperX Clouds are based on the QPad QH-90 which is a derivative of Takstar Pro80's but with an added mic.

Options, options!

Links:
HyperX Cloud

HyperX Cloud II

These are a very good brand at a VERY good value at less than $30. Lightweight, comfortable, folding headset.
http://www.amazon.com/Plantronics-Audio-478-Stereo-Headset/dp/B005VAORH6

> not all of us can afford a really nice joystick

Good joystick: usually 30-60$ http://www.amazon.com/Extreme-3D-Pro-Joystick-Windows/dp/B00009OY9U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1463167592&sr=8-1&keywords=Logitech+Extreme+3D+Pro+Joystick%2C+Silver%2FBlack

Good gaming mouse: usually 40-80$ http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Proteus-Spectrum-Tunable-910-004615/dp/B019OB663A/ref=sr_1_2?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1463167610&sr=1-2&keywords=logitech+g502


¯\(ツ)/¯

Depends on what your looking for.

Warriors of Kerensky, and Inner Sphere are always my "go to" recommendations for those that are looking to get into the universe at a macro level without going into any of the novels, but both books really take a "macro" view of the entire story. But offering a very fair and wide reaching look as to what is going on.

Blood of Kerensky trilogy is basically a must read as the place to start with the Clans as far as the novels go (as all other books including Legend of the Jade Phoenix trilogy will seem like very strange reads unless you understand the clan mindset going into them.)

But the one thing about Blood of Kerensky trilogy that doesn't really make it a good place to start as far as BT fiction is concerned is that it is also a sequel series to the Warrior Trilogy, Wolves on the Boarder, and Heir to the Dragon. Directly going into both characters and plot points that originally where from those books. So there are a handful of "big reveils" in Warriors of Kerensky that will sort of land with a thud if you haven't read Warrior trilogy, Wolves on the Boarder, and Heir to the Dragon.

I currently use a Yeti Blue Microphone, but since I'm a streamer, that's quite a bit more than most gamers would really need. ;) Prior to that, I was using whatever mic was attached to my current gaming headset. You don't need anything too sophisticated for MWO VOIP, so there's no reason to splurge too much. Even my headset is a bit beyond what most people would need, but I use a Astro A40 with MixAmp Pro which has a headset mic (which worked well, but came across LOUD, and needed some adjustments to get right), but I swapped the mic out when I got the Blue Yeti.

I'm using a HyperX cloud I.

Dunno if the second one is better/worse. Bought mine earlier.

Super comfy, not too expensive, and clear comms. I'm enjoying mine. Comes with tons of extras too. Lots of splitters/cables/case/etc.

I use and recommend this. I just use the part for the left hand with my mouse

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001CXYMFS/ref=psdc_172487_t2_B00CBVHJ00

If you're in the market for a wired mouse, I use a Redragon Perdition. It's got all the bells and whistles one expects of a mouse twice the price.