Tannhauser42 wrote: Finally got me a LRM Catapult. Now I just need to find some LRM20s that have a stability bonus to start knocking mechs down like dominos.
I'm loving my disco Grasshopper. Jump behind an enemy, target the rear center torso, and let loose with all those lasers. Nothing has survived that, yet. Sure, it sucks for salvage since I'm taking out the CT, but sometimes you just gotta kill something fast.
I find that in the later game ranged knockdown is of comparatively limited benefit compared to melee, sometimes it works well, but usually it takes most of a turn to set up the unsteady then the opponent braces. Sure that is useful as it reduces firepower but not as good as extra damage or crit bonus. Now in melee a single punch or kick from a heavy will topple an opposing heavy allowing for follow up attacks while it is on the ground. Its a good way to cool down too.
Has anyone used the arm mods to get higher melee damage? I have that on my thunderbolt, but I find melee is more of an opportunist thing and if you charge straight at it you'll get shot up badly to the popint you have to fall back (at which point it's just useless weight).
I've had warnings where it was very clear that a great swathe of ground was a 'no go' area, and ones where it was just three dots and super easy to miss.
Disclaimer: I am red/green colour-blind, and already find the game's use of red lines/icons (especially on Martian biomes, at night) to be difficult for me.
Tannhauser42 wrote: Finally got me a LRM Catapult. Now I just need to find some LRM20s that have a stability bonus to start knocking mechs down like dominos.
I'm loving my disco Grasshopper. Jump behind an enemy, target the rear center torso, and let loose with all those lasers. Nothing has survived that, yet. Sure, it sucks for salvage since I'm taking out the CT, but sometimes you just gotta kill something fast.
I find that in the later game ranged knockdown is of comparatively limited benefit compared to melee, sometimes it works well, but usually it takes most of a turn to set up the unsteady then the opponent braces. Sure that is useful as it reduces firepower but not as good as extra damage or crit bonus. Now in melee a single punch or kick from a heavy will topple an opposing heavy allowing for follow up attacks while it is on the ground. Its a good way to cool down too.
Has anyone used the arm mods to get higher melee damage? I have that on my thunderbolt, but I find melee is more of an opportunist thing and if you charge straight at it you'll get shot up badly to the popint you have to fall back (at which point it's just useless weight).
I tend to use melee against light mechs and vehicles as its pretty devestating to either with heavy or assault mechs and of course does not use heat.
ChargerIIC wrote: I suspect the random forces generator is using tonnage as a factor in a much wider band than it really ought to be. There's a big difference between facing a stock cicada versus a stock hunchback. I love the idea of the unknown, but a little scaleback might make sense.
Agreed. I once had to face off against forces three times my tonnage (separated only in two waves) for a 2.5-difficulty mission.
That mission was hard as nails, and unfairly so, and it made me take a break from the game so I wouldn't get too frustrated.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ouze wrote: Stability damage is definitely where it's at. Since I have 2 mechs with about 30ish lurms apiece, I'm scoring pretty constant and fast knockdowns.
Yeah, I have at least one fire support mech at all times, plus more with autocannons and SRMs to land the final knockdown blow. Knockdown is how I took out the first heavy mech I saw, in fact, since I couldn't do enough damage to kill it... I just knocked its pilot out instead.
Tannhauser42 wrote: Finally got me a LRM Catapult. Now I just need to find some LRM20s that have a stability bonus to start knocking mechs down like dominos.
I'm loving my disco Grasshopper. Jump behind an enemy, target the rear center torso, and let loose with all those lasers. Nothing has survived that, yet. Sure, it sucks for salvage since I'm taking out the CT, but sometimes you just gotta kill something fast.
I find that in the later game ranged knockdown is of comparatively limited benefit compared to melee, sometimes it works well, but usually it takes most of a turn to set up the unsteady then the opponent braces. Sure that is useful as it reduces firepower but not as good as extra damage or crit bonus. Now in melee a single punch or kick from a heavy will topple an opposing heavy allowing for follow up attacks while it is on the ground. Its a good way to cool down too.
Has anyone used the arm mods to get higher melee damage? I have that on my thunderbolt, but I find melee is more of an opportunist thing and if you charge straight at it you'll get shot up badly to the popint you have to fall back (at which point it's just useless weight).
Trouble is unlike most mods like superior gyros it takes up tonnage as well as space. Tonnage is for guns and armour, a kick is a free attack while cooling your mech and for heavy stability damage..
Tannhauser42 wrote: I saw an arm mod in a shop once, saw that it weighed several tons, and decided...nope.
Yeah, exactly my reaction. Tonnage for something that might be cool, sometimes, vs tonnage for ammo or heatsinks or armor which will be good every single fight ever is a tough sell.
It doesn't help that IIRC it was at least 3 or 4 or maybe as much as 6 tons, I forget. If it was 1 ton I would have likely equipped it.
Fixed some hitches when destroying units and buildings during combat.
Memory management improvements around 'Mech destruction.
Fixed an issue that could cause MechWarriors to become permanently stuck in the High Spirits or Low Spirits state.
Fixed an issue where saving the game immediately after salvaging enough parts to complete a new 'Mech could cause that new 'Mech to disappear upon reloading that save game.
Fixed an issue that could cause allied units in Escort missions to fail to move into the extraction zone under certain circumstances.
Fixed an issue where choosing to store a 'Mech with an active work order, then cancelling the warning popup, would cause the screen to become unresponsive.
Fixed a few issues with starting location spawn points on procedural missions.
Fixed hair shader to better support brighter colors in character creation, tweaked some hair and beard textures, and added some brighter color swatches.
Added new portrait presets and customization options.
Fixed an issue that prevented completion of the "Rock 'Em" and "Sock 'Em" achievements.
Fixed an issue that could prevent completion of the "Complete Roster" achievement.
Fixed an issue that trivialized completion of the "Laser Show", "Bullet Farmer", and "Raining Fire" achievements.
[STEAM] Added a warning popup that appears if the Steam API fails to initialize on game start.
Added text to the video settings screen to indicate that some settings will not be applied until the next game load.
Added an option in video settings menu to show unsupported display resolutions (defaults to off).
[macOS] Support for non-standard Steam install directories (directory paths with special characters like "=" in them.)
Fixed artifacting issues present on a subset of "Mercenary MechWarrior" custom Backer Emblem rewards.
Made the Backer Atlas "SBA" prefab available for the Atlas II-HT (in addition to being available for the standard Atlas AS7-D.) Made the Shadow Hawk "Umbra" prefab available for the Shadow Hawk 2H. Made "Valhalla" prefabs available for their respective chassis variants.
[SKIRMISH] Alternate prefab 'Mechs are now considered stock, and display in the Stock 'Mechs list in Skirmish Lance Config.
[SKIRMISH] Copying an alternate prefab 'Mech now correctly preserves the 'Mechs variant appearance.
Fixed some hitches when destroying units and buildings during combat.
Memory management improvements around 'Mech destruction.
Fixed an issue that could cause MechWarriors to become permanently stuck in the High Spirits or Low Spirits state.
Fixed an issue where saving the game immediately after salvaging enough parts to complete a new 'Mech could cause that new 'Mech to disappear upon reloading that save game.
Fixed an issue that could cause allied units in Escort missions to fail to move into the extraction zone under certain circumstances.
Fixed an issue where choosing to store a 'Mech with an active work order, then cancelling the warning popup, would cause the screen to become unresponsive.
Fixed a few issues with starting location spawn points on procedural missions.
Fixed hair shader to better support brighter colors in character creation, tweaked some hair and beard textures, and added some brighter color swatches.
Added new portrait presets and customization options.
Fixed an issue that prevented completion of the "Rock 'Em" and "Sock 'Em" achievements.
Fixed an issue that could prevent completion of the "Complete Roster" achievement.
Fixed an issue that trivialized completion of the "Laser Show", "Bullet Farmer", and "Raining Fire" achievements.
[STEAM] Added a warning popup that appears if the Steam API fails to initialize on game start.
Added text to the video settings screen to indicate that some settings will not be applied until the next game load.
Added an option in video settings menu to show unsupported display resolutions (defaults to off).
[macOS] Support for non-standard Steam install directories (directory paths with special characters like "=" in them.)
Fixed artifacting issues present on a subset of "Mercenary MechWarrior" custom Backer Emblem rewards.
Made the Backer Atlas "SBA" prefab available for the Atlas II-HT (in addition to being available for the standard Atlas AS7-D.) Made the Shadow Hawk "Umbra" prefab available for the Shadow Hawk 2H. Made "Valhalla" prefabs available for their respective chassis variants.
[SKIRMISH] Alternate prefab 'Mechs are now considered stock, and display in the Stock 'Mechs list in Skirmish Lance Config.
[SKIRMISH] Copying an alternate prefab 'Mech now correctly preserves the 'Mechs variant appearance.
Sounds great. Now if only I could figure out how to patch my Humble Bundle version...
Got the game for my birthday a week ago. First time I managed to get on dakka again... It manages to capture the battletech spirit in a lovely, very addictive way .
CommissarKhaine wrote: Got the game for my birthday a week ago. First time I managed to get on dakka again... It manages to capture the battletech spirit in a lovely, very addictive way .
It made me look into buying the tabletop game. Just one problem: the starter box is out of print from what I can tell. Oh well....
CommissarKhaine wrote: Got the game for my birthday a week ago. First time I managed to get on dakka again... It manages to capture the battletech spirit in a lovely, very addictive way .
It made me look into buying the tabletop game. Just one problem: the starter box is out of print from what I can tell. Oh well....
August right? There's a beginner box and a starter box.
And I took on a big, high-paying 4-skull mission yesterday. Brief was that an "extremely heavy" (READ: Assault) 'Mech was stomping around somewhere and the Davions wanted it taken out. I loaded up with my best close-range brawler (Dekker in his Kintaro - I've seen him kill Heavy 'Mechs in one salvo), my extreme missile 'Mech (now with added heat sinks), my support Orion and my only assault (an undergunned/over-armoured Victor).
I was expecting hell, especially after the 3-skull mission I had to redo previously where I had to take on a medium and a heavy lance (including 1 Shrekk and 1 Demolisher).
So what was this key target I had to take out?
A Demolisher.
A single, unsupported Demolisher. Damned thing never got a shot off. Sensor-locked it and LRM'd it to death.
Then the reinforcements (Catapult, missile Jagermech and a Quickdraw) showed up. I didn't even take any significant damage!!!
Ok, that's impressive. I've had the incoming force appear out of nowhere and within sensor range when I've reached the second stage of an escort mission, but never no adversaries at all.
I'm finding it really powerful to shoot legs off mechs. With a veteran pilot, moving to the left or right side of a target, a precision shot targeting the leg will have 70% of hits land on that leg. A mech built around medium lasers or other damage focused loadouts can shoot the legs off most mechs of equal or lesser tonnage with this. From there the other mechs can use called shots to finish the mech off, or you can wait a turn until the mech gets up, then you move to the other side, and use another precision shot to shoot the other leg off
Tannhauser42 wrote: I saw an arm mod in a shop once, saw that it weighed several tons, and decided...nope.
I didn't like it at first because of the tonnage it uses up, but then I thought about my mechs carrying a lot more than 4 tons in heat sinks. So I've bought the arm, with the plan to drop 4 heat sinks from my Grasshopper. The mech will run stupidly hot, but the plan is to alternate between laser bursts, then swapping to physical attacks to cool down.
I have no idea if this will work because I haven't built up the courage to modify my Grasshopper to try it yet
Ouze wrote: Literally nothing attacked us the entire time. It was pretty LOL.
I had something similar with a base defense. There was a couple of vehicles in a vanguard force, which I actually more damage than I should have defeating. So I was a bit worried about the second, stronger wave the game said was coming, especially because I had no indication what direction they were coming from. So I fanned out around my base so I'd get a sensor hit as soon as the enemy came... then just nothing. I stood there counting down ten turns 'defending' my base.
It was kind of funnny, except I'd gone for full salvage so I got paid barely anything
So, I restarted like I said earlier, and decided to just grind a bit to have something a little punchier than the starting Spider before I go recover the Argo. Figured I'd be happier with a Panther or a Jenner. Well, I'm very happy. Did a mission to kill a pirate leader, and he was in a Trebuchet. I managed to knock him out, but I could only pick one salvage. This is where RNGesus blessed me and granted me all the parts. So, I get to rock the Argo mission with some full LRM support. With a bit of luck, I'll take the heavy mech from that mission, too.
H.B.M.C. wrote: August right? There's a beginner box and a starter box.
And I took on a big, high-paying 4-skull mission yesterday. Brief was that an "extremely heavy" (READ: Assault) 'Mech was stomping around somewhere and the Davions wanted it taken out. I loaded up with my best close-range brawler (Dekker in his Kintaro - I've seen him kill Heavy 'Mechs in one salvo), my extreme missile 'Mech (now with added heat sinks), my support Orion and my only assault (an undergunned/over-armoured Victor).
I was expecting hell, especially after the 3-skull mission I had to redo previously where I had to take on a medium and a heavy lance (including 1 Shrekk and 1 Demolisher).
So what was this key target I had to take out?
A Demolisher.
A single, unsupported Demolisher. Damned thing never got a shot off. Sensor-locked it and LRM'd it to death.
Then the reinforcements (Catapult, missile Jagermech and a Quickdraw) showed up. I didn't even take any significant damage!!!
I had a similar run - except the reinforcements were 2 Locusts and a Griffin. I kept waiting for the rest to arrive ! Bit one sided with Battlemaster, Grasshopper, Thunderbolt and jaegermech
H.B.M.C. wrote: August right? There's a beginner box and a starter box.
And I took on a big, high-paying 4-skull mission yesterday. Brief was that an "extremely heavy" (READ: Assault) 'Mech was stomping around somewhere and the Davions wanted it taken out. I loaded up with my best close-range brawler (Dekker in his Kintaro - I've seen him kill Heavy 'Mechs in one salvo), my extreme missile 'Mech (now with added heat sinks), my support Orion and my only assault (an undergunned/over-armoured Victor).
I was expecting hell, especially after the 3-skull mission I had to redo previously where I had to take on a medium and a heavy lance (including 1 Shrekk and 1 Demolisher).
So what was this key target I had to take out?
A Demolisher.
A single, unsupported Demolisher. Damned thing never got a shot off. Sensor-locked it and LRM'd it to death.
Then the reinforcements (Catapult, missile Jagermech and a Quickdraw) showed up. I didn't even take any significant damage!!!
I had a similar run - except the reinforcements were 2 Locusts and a Griffin. I kept waiting for the rest to arrive ! Bit one sided with Battlemaster, Grasshopper, Thunderbolt and jaegermech
I kinda had the opposite issue, same kind of scenario about some scary assault lance and some 4 skulls:
- First mech I see is the Cataphract and he is then accompanied immediately with two Thunderbolts.
- I have an Orion, Thunderbolt, Grasshopper and PPC Catapult.
- The enemy LRM Catapult then shows up shortly after my Orion took a one-shot head hit taking it clean off.
THEN a lance comes from behind through water with a Quickdraw, Dragon, LRM Jagermech and a Wolverine for giggles.
That was nasty.
Was really fun in a masochistic kind of way but wow that was brutal, I died like a dog but I got a couple of them down.
Tannhauser42 wrote: So, I restarted like I said earlier, and decided to just grind a bit to have something a little punchier than the starting Spider before I go recover the Argo. Figured I'd be happier with a Panther or a Jenner. Well, I'm very happy. Did a mission to kill a pirate leader, and he was in a Trebuchet. I managed to knock him out, but I could only pick one salvage. This is where RNGesus blessed me and granted me all the parts. So, I get to rock the Argo mission with some full LRM support. With a bit of luck, I'll take the heavy mech from that mission, too.
I tried desperately to get that heavy mech early on, but I didin't have an LRM boat at the time. Hopefully your Treb works out, that's a great bit of luck early.
Speaking of luck, I skipped straight from my usual 3.5 skulls into a 5 skull after farming some rep with the Capellans. It was a destroy escort mission, so I knew it would be lots of vehicles going in, but I took max salvage anyways hoping for one or two assaults to show up. Long story short, reinforcements spawn on top of my brawlers on some high ground. I'm running all heavies (3x Orions, 1x Jaeger) and the reinforcements were all heavies as well, while the convoy was strictly vehicles and another heavy that I could see on sensors. Kind of disappointing but it would make for a good pay day. Grind through all the opposition on the ridge and take out half the convoy when a Highlander stumbles out into my sensor range behind the convoy!
Now I'm excited. I clean up the remaining vehicles which are way ahead of the highlander, then patiently wait for the highlander to close my brawlers hiding behind a ridge (super overheated, needed to cool off for a turn or two). Finally the highlander gets close up for me to jump in front and smash him with two brawler Orions (1x AC20+++, 2x SRM6+++ on each). I go for the precision headshot hoping to injur and knockdown. First one misses the head with the AC20, but gets some head hits in with the SRMs. Second guy connects flawlessly with the AC20 in the face, and I got to drag home a shiny highlander.
So now I've got a 2x PPC, 3x SRM6 all around assault with max JJ and lots of heat sinks. Can't wait to do Grave Robbers.
So after the deflated balloon of the 4 skull mission, I took the 3.5 skull mission. Rolled in with both Orions, my Kintaro and my support Jagermech.
Came up against a Bulldog, 2 Demolishers and a Thunderbolt. No biggie. Neither Demolisher ever got a shot off, stuck on the other side of a lake. I advanced into the lake as it was badlands and I wanted the extra heat sink buff.
The the reinforcements arrived: A Quickdraw, a K2, another Thunderbolt and the second Black Knight I've seen so far.
And result: My support Jagermech ran out of ammo (!), there was minor damage spread across the Lance, I killed the pilots of both the K2 and the Black Knight (salvaged the Black Knight), and got a +3 Acc Ballistics TTS and a +1 Acc Missile TTS for my troubles.
Tannhauser42 wrote: So, I restarted like I said earlier, and decided to just grind a bit to have something a little punchier than the starting Spider before I go recover the Argo. Figured I'd be happier with a Panther or a Jenner. Well, I'm very happy. Did a mission to kill a pirate leader, and he was in a Trebuchet. I managed to knock him out, but I could only pick one salvage. This is where RNGesus blessed me and granted me all the parts. So, I get to rock the Argo mission with some full LRM support. With a bit of luck, I'll take the heavy mech from that mission, too.
The Jenner is a beast, but only if you ditch that SRM4 and pile on the armour.
Then you've got a super-fast jumpy thing that can actually take some fire and has 4 Med Lasers.
H.B.M.C. wrote: August right? There's a beginner box and a starter box.
And I took on a big, high-paying 4-skull mission yesterday. Brief was that an "extremely heavy" (READ: Assault) 'Mech was stomping around somewhere and the Davions wanted it taken out. I loaded up with my best close-range brawler (Dekker in his Kintaro - I've seen him kill Heavy 'Mechs in one salvo), my extreme missile 'Mech (now with added heat sinks), my support Orion and my only assault (an undergunned/over-armoured Victor).
I was expecting hell, especially after the 3-skull mission I had to redo previously where I had to take on a medium and a heavy lance (including 1 Shrekk and 1 Demolisher).
So what was this key target I had to take out?
A Demolisher.
A single, unsupported Demolisher. Damned thing never got a shot off. Sensor-locked it and LRM'd it to death.
Then the reinforcements (Catapult, missile Jagermech and a Quickdraw) showed up. I didn't even take any significant damage!!!
Ha. I had the exact same thing happened. I negotiated a huge pay decrease to get three primary salvage choices in hopes of getting my first assault - then I get that demolisher, which my dragon one-shots off the terrain. At that point my lance rolled over it's support and then rolled over the reinforcements. I've had far harder 3 skull missions.
The difficulty really changes once you get a couple gunnery 10 pilots. Being able to core a key model in the initial exchange is pretty useful.
I promise I don't get it. How can you have to reload 5 or 6 times to get it right? The game is not that difficult.
Maybe it's because I like wandering around visiting planets while doing side missions (Going all the way the Hellespont was a disappointment no Comstar contracts) so I have better pilots and heavier mechs than you guys when I tackle the main story ones, but so far I haven't reloaded a story mission although I had to flee from a couple contracts that ended up badly.
M.
Edit: After I wrote this my main character got her Orion blown from under her and sent 66 days to the medbay. I'm at 998 days in the campaign and she has been injured 39 times. More than the next 3 characters together.
Got through the ammo dump mission, and yeah, I see why everyone hates this one. The key for me was to head off to the ridge on the right before engaging, which mades it a lot easier to control how many dudes were shooting at me while my Dragon, Jagermech and Centurion sat there with defensive stance and gunlined like champs. Didn't even try for the trucks. It only took five tries, though two of those were reloading after my commander dying to random headshots / DFA's when things seemed under control.
Miguelsan wrote: I promise I don't get it. How can you have to reload 5 or 6 times to get it right? The game is not that difficult.
Maybe it's because I like wandering around visiting planets while doing side missions (Going all the way the Hellespont was a disappointment no Comstar contracts) so I have better pilots and heavier mechs than you guys when I tackle the main story ones, but so far I haven't reloaded a story mission although I had to flee from a couple contracts that ended up badly.
M.
Edit: After I wrote this my main character got her Orion blown from under her and sent 66 days to the medbay. I'm at 998 days in the campaign and she has been injured 39 times. More than the next 3 characters together.
Am now at what appears to be the final mission and I have only reloaded two different story missions once as both times I made mistakes on movement and ended up not destroying the final target by the time limit. However second time
Spoiler:
on the destroy the three generators powering the anti-dropship weapons I lost my Highlanders Gauss rifle which is annoying as only one other mech was badly damaged. Might re-load or just stick with a AC20++ I have spare.....
I have also done quite a few side missions so have very experienced pilots and some good Mechs.
I really enjoy the campaign missions as there is interesting stuff going on in comparison to the side missions which are a bit limited so far in terms of terrain (no built up areas or coastal areas) and size - trying to flank tends to run you straight into reinforcements before you want to. I do also assess if I am going for bonus elements or not early on and stick to it
I have however reloaded after a few side missions turned sour 8 Mechs of similar or larger tonnage vs your 4 can go wrong fast.
I have found a new "favorite thing" in the game:
Got my first "first salvo head-shot-destroyed" result on a heavy mech I wanted.
That was far more satisfying than I thought possible.
Nothing like using a scan-lock and then doing a hail-mary single PPC shot (with the added damage++ and breaching shot).
Silly me negotiating a "3" salvage choice.
It was like I planned it or something (I wish!).
H.B.M.C. wrote: August right? There's a beginner box and a starter box.
And I took on a big, high-paying 4-skull mission yesterday. Brief was that an "extremely heavy" (READ: Assault) 'Mech was stomping around somewhere and the Davions wanted it taken out. I loaded up with my best close-range brawler (Dekker in his Kintaro - I've seen him kill Heavy 'Mechs in one salvo), my extreme missile 'Mech (now with added heat sinks), my support Orion and my only assault (an undergunned/over-armoured Victor).
I was expecting hell, especially after the 3-skull mission I had to redo previously where I had to take on a medium and a heavy lance (including 1 Shrekk and 1 Demolisher).
So what was this key target I had to take out?
A Demolisher.
A single, unsupported Demolisher. Damned thing never got a shot off. Sensor-locked it and LRM'd it to death.
Then the reinforcements (Catapult, missile Jagermech and a Quickdraw) showed up. I didn't even take any significant damage!!!
I had a similar run - except the reinforcements were 2 Locusts and a Griffin. I kept waiting for the rest to arrive ! Bit one sided with Battlemaster, Grasshopper, Thunderbolt and jaegermech
I had that bait and switch. Lone heavy mech, ok, I got my four tankiest mechs (this is early game, pre Weldry) and was porepared to punch a heavy to (the pilots) death, get negligible pay and three salvage choices. The along comes the Demolisher. Easy mission, but it didnt pay the bills. Did salvage some AC20s for later though, so not a complete loss.
GOt the worst kind of vehicle drop. Ambushed some convoy vehicles in a gully only to find out it was demolishers backed by a shrek and a LRM carrier. My precious AC20++ is just gone along with my custom gyro.
On the plus side it's cool to see shreks in game.
Still hunting for my first assault mech. Going to amble into Canopian space to see if the getting is any better. Anyone know if the Capellean space ever becomes non-restricted?
ChargerIIC wrote: GOt the worst kind of vehicle drop. Ambushed some convoy vehicles in a gully only to find out it was demolishers backed by a shrek and a LRM carrier. My precious AC20++ is just gone along with my custom gyro.
On the plus side it's cool to see shreks in game.
Still hunting for my first assault mech. Going to amble into Canopian space to see if the getting is any better. Anyone know if the Capellean space ever becomes non-restricted?
I imagine that when you finish the campaign all areas are derestricted
ChargerIIC wrote: GOt the worst kind of vehicle drop. Ambushed some convoy vehicles in a gully only to find out it was demolishers backed by a shrek and a LRM carrier. My precious AC20++ is just gone along with my custom gyro.
On the plus side it's cool to see shreks in game.
Still hunting for my first assault mech. Going to amble into Canopian space to see if the getting is any better. Anyone know if the Capellean space ever becomes non-restricted?
I imagine that when you finish the campaign all areas are derestricted
The one thing that really bothers me about this game is the transition in to combat. Out of combat I move each of my mechs seperately, but any of those mechs might trigger the start of a combat round, at which point any mech of mine that hasn't move yet just loses its turn. This can mean that mech then has to spend a turn running to catch up to where it should have been when combat started. It isn't game breaking, but it is annoying.
Elemental wrote: Got through the ammo dump mission, and yeah, I see why everyone hates this one. The key for me was to head off to the ridge on the right before engaging, which mades it a lot easier to control how many dudes were shooting at me while my Dragon, Jagermech and Centurion sat there with defensive stance and gunlined like champs. Didn't even try for the trucks. It only took five tries, though two of those were reloading after my commander dying to random headshots / DFA's when things seemed under control.
I'm not a great player by any means, and I've loaded over a few times after missions went really badly, but I did the ammo mission first time without any real hassle.
I took a Grasshopper, modded to drop the LRM and add more heatsinks, a Dragon modded for skirmishing support with AC5, LRM and ML, a Centurion with twin LRM20, and a Wolverine with three SRM6.
Having read it about it here I was already prepped to let the ammo trucks go, and I saw pretty quickly there was no way I was going to catch them with my force. Instead I just used the Centurion to blow up one turret each turn, while the other three mechs turned to nuking a mech or two each turn. A Firestarter lasted a stupidly long time, but given six of the eight mechs were light or on the light end of medium (Cicadas), it wasn't hard to kill them.
What makes me wonder if I just got it easy was the last two enemy mechs, a Thunderbolt and a Wolverine, didn't really do much to support the mosquito swarm of light mechs. They stuck at the back of map firing some LRMs and not doing much damage, which allowed me to rip apart the lights one at a time.
Thing is, I know other players said they took out some enemy units by hitting the ammo bins, but in my game the enemy never went inside the blast area. I think this might be why those last two mechs never contributed - they seemed to have some AI instruction not to enter the blast zones, which stopped the AI pathfinding from letting them find a way forward at all.
Anyhow, just funny because I put that mission off for ages, and did a bunch of random missions that I struggled with, all while dreading that ammo mission. Then I did and got through with only a couple of mechs losing armour on any location at all.
I recently replayed it and it was quite easy. I initially moved a couple mechs in the direction of the ammo trucks (got both of them), limited LoS to my own units and picked them apart one by one, while saving the an ammo crate to soften up the dragon (which I assume is the only real scripted spawn as I've never seen it spawn as anything else), and took an opportune shot on another crate when a couple of mechs wandered too close to a crate.
Basically, I hung out where the game starts you off, finished it with a Black Knight, start Centurion (modded to have a total of 20 LRMs/2MLs), Jaeger mech (turn into an LRM boat w/ 3 extra MLs), and a laser boat hunchback.
Wolfblade wrote: while saving the an ammo crate to soften up the dragon (which I assume is the only real scripted spawn as I've never seen it spawn as anything else)
Wolfblade wrote: while saving the an ammo crate to soften up the dragon (which I assume is the only real scripted spawn as I've never seen it spawn as anything else)
I faced a Thunderbolt as the enemy heavy.
Hm, personally I think that'd make it easier so long as you take out anything that spots you.
Talizvar wrote: I have found a new "favorite thing" in the game:
Got my first "first salvo head-shot-destroyed" result on a heavy mech I wanted.
That was far more satisfying than I thought possible.
Real talk right here. A first-shot cockpit destroyed is an awesome feeling.
Talizvar wrote: I have found a new "favorite thing" in the game:
Got my first "first salvo head-shot-destroyed" result on a heavy mech I wanted.
That was far more satisfying than I thought possible.
Real talk right here. A first-shot cockpit destroyed is an awesome feeling.
Not when it's followed by a kick to the head on one of your mechs. there goes my second pilot. Kingwolf we will miss you.
H.B.M.C. wrote: So after the deflated balloon of the 4 skull mission, I took the 3.5 skull mission. Rolled in with both Orions, my Kintaro and my support Jagermech.
Came up against a Bulldog, 2 Demolishers and a Thunderbolt. No biggie. Neither Demolisher ever got a shot off, stuck on the other side of a lake. I advanced into the lake as it was badlands and I wanted the extra heat sink buff.
The[n] the reinforcements arrived: A Quickdraw, a K2, another Thunderbolt and the second Black Knight I've seen so far.
I am jealous of your Black Knight, sir. Absolutely one of my favorite mechs.
Dekker has died. I put him on my PC's Shadowhawk, which has only ever taken one or two glancing head shots which only resulted in minor injuries. Mission was a 2.5 skull Battle, which put me against 4 mediums and 2 heavies.
I managed to win, but right at the end, after taking a brutal amount of punishment and hiding for half the battle, a stray AC round finished Dekker.
That same battle got me a Kintaro, so I can't be too mad.
I played about 40 hours or so of the campaign, fixed my Cockpit Chatter issue and restarted.
I'm loving this game even more, now.
After having lost all of my original starting mechwarriors first time around, I'm being far more precious about them, to the point of having them punch out when things get shot up.
-Loki- wrote: That same battle got me a Kintaro, so I can't be too mad.
I found the Kintaro to be a really good mech. It's like the Trebuchet, but way better. I think I used it for lurms originally and then changed it to tons of SRMs later but it was good at both.
Chillreaper wrote: After having lost all of my original starting mechwarriors first time around, I'm being far more precious about them, to the point of having them punch out when things get shot up.
It's gotten to the point that I don't want to equip cockpit stuff so I can retain that option. Repairing the head is cheap and I'd prefer that then trying to hide a limping, smoking deep orange mech for the remainder of a tension-filled mission.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
OK, I just got offered the last mission with a warning that
Spoiler:
I can field more than one lance.
Oops, I only really keep about 6 mechs and pilots on hand. In a few turns I've ramped up to 8 pilots and mechs. Without any mission or story spoilers, should I be aiming for more than 2 full lances
-Loki- wrote: That same battle got me a Kintaro, so I can't be too mad.
I found the Kintaro to be a really good mech. It's like the Trebuchet, but way better. I think I used it for lurms originally and then changed it to tons of SRMs later but it was good at both.
Chillreaper wrote: After having lost all of my original starting mechwarriors first time around, I'm being far more precious about them, to the point of having them punch out when things get shot up.
It's gotten to the point that I don't want to equip cockpit stuff so I can retain that option. Repairing the head is cheap and I'd prefer that then trying to hide a limping, smoking deep orange mech for the remainder of a tension-filled mission.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
OK, I just got offered the last mission with a warning that
Spoiler:
I can field more than one lance.
Oops, I only really keep about 6 mechs and pilots on hand. In a few turns I've ramped up to 8 pilots and mechs. Without any mission or story spoilers, should I be aiming for more than 2 full lances
?
Spoiler:
you only need a max of 8 mechs, and that's assuming each mech in the first fight has structure damage (as armor repairs are instant). Any mechs or pilot that doesn't end up needing repair/recovery time can be reused in the 2nd mission.
Only mediums I run now (aside from The Monster) are Kintaro's and Centurions.
Centurions are my 'Training 'Mechs', that I put rookie pilots in as they have a decent spread of weapons and armour, so they can do anything.
Kintaros are my heavy scouts/support 'Mechs, as they're fast enough to run around and blast things with SRM alpha strikes, or act as missile support, or sensor lock things.
Doing better on my new game. I'm not as far yet as I was when I restarted, but I'm much happier with my choice of skills. Everyone gets the +1 initiative skill (absolutely amazing having all my stuff go sooner), and then a mix of bulwark and multishot as the secondary, with an emphasis on bulwark. I find the ability to stand and shoot and get the damage reduction of bulwark no matter where I am is very good for my heavier mechs.
Just got a Grasshopper and Orion last night to fill out my lance. Refitted the Grasshopper into a walking/jumping disco light show (all the lasers!), and I'm toying around with making the Orion into dual PPCs for funsies.
Anyone else have a burning hatred for their employer. Every time I tell her to stay put she leroy jenkins in the middle of a mission or insists on fielding a mech known for its explosiveness. I swear I'm going to call Liao my liege lord. He at least stays on his goddamn throne
ChargerIIC wrote: Anyone else have a burning hatred for their employer. Every time I tell her to stay put she leroy jenkins in the middle of a mission or insists on fielding a mech known for its explosiveness. I swear I'm going to call Liao my liege lord. He at least stays on his goddamn throne
I feel ya. On the bright side, she's always a prime target to the point enemies will forgo killshots on my other mechs, so I'll usually brace/vigilance with kamea and then go to town .
So...there was a thing that just happened. Just had a 3-skull mission to hunt down a lance of "old-timers" from a previous war. Nothing too bad, because they're usually in mechs with less than half the normal armor and normally no reinforcements. Made my way towards the center of the map where they're supposed to be, and then all 4 blips pop up, and the little initiative tracker appears at the top of the screen. One of them is in the last spot on initiative, so I figure they one of them slow tanks. I visually check each blip, and...no tanks. One of the blips is a 100-ton mech.
So, after some very quick death and destruction visited upon the other enemy mechs (a grasshopper unloading everything into the CT will core out even a heavy mech right quick), I then focused on knocking down and causing enough injuries to score myself one very pretty King Crab. Now I'm just trying to figure out the best loadout for it. Any thoughts? I've mounted a pair of AC/20++ onto it that I've had lying around (both are the same with damage and stability damage bonuses)
Ac20s are fun, but I personally am a fan of SRMs. For less weight you get more shots and damage. My crabs run 4 SRM6s 3 MLs and 1 LL max JJs, near max armor (reduced to the nearest full ton) and then max heat sinks. Current damage output of an alpha is over 400 damage and I don't even have max damage SRMs (one +4 three +2)
You cant go wrong with stock configuration. Cheesing out a mediocre mech with optimised weaponry is forgivable., but the King Crab has decent weapons and a clear battlefield role. Stick with what it can do. The only change I recommend is to reduce the LRM rank to buy two more autocannon ammo bins.
Tannhauser42 wrote: I'm toying around with making the Orion into dual PPCs for funsies.
The Oriion is a stock favorite of mine and I "think" I found a great combo (K version I think):
Medium laser in each arm.
RT AC10 (2 AC10 ammo)
LT SRM6 and LRM20 (1SRM ammo, 2 LRM ammo)
Make sure a couple heat sinks in each leg.
Enough heat sinks for about 5 pips of heat efficiency and fill the remaining with armor.
Then any Gyro or cockpit loadouts you prefer.
I think the "V" version you can put the SRM6 and ammo in the left arm instead. I have not liked that version much (wont say no).
The mixed weaponry makes splitting-fire useful: take-out close threats and contribute to bombing other ones your spotter found.
Really needs the split-fire and the bulwark pilot abilities to shine.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I recently had the heck scared out of me on a mission.
Some mediums, a couple heavies, I was beginning to sweat a bit then a freaking Stalker strides out of the woods.
Now it got seriously real.
Medium range is death near those things, slow as heck thank goodness.
Stripped one mech down in one salvo, had to just sprint him out of there.
Blew the heck out of the remaining guys with my favorite Orions.
I kite'ed the thing and got a couple knock-downs and an ammo explosion and managed to drop the big guy without gutting it.
Now I have my ultimate support mech.
Two LRM20s and a PPC seems to be the ideal (and heat being manageable)
He is so slow keeping him back bombing and sniping is the way to go.
Split-fire and bulwark is your friend with this guy.
A Highlander with the +50 range cockpit (with the ++ evasion and split-fire) upgrade jumping ahead is the dream team.
I keep freaking myself out getting short on money then forgetting I got a bunch of weapons and mechs stashed away for sale.
The paid-for travel is handy but getting nailed by the regular bill is painful on too long a trip.
If i get nailed by one more pirate "escort" blackmail scenario I will detonate my ship out of spite (if I could) or weld mechs to the outer hull for point defense. Nevermind the classic poker night or movie night.
The game can really use a bunch more random encounters and much more dialogue with the crewmates,
it would not be hard to do and could add so much more.
The travel to and from drop-ship needs a skip function.
The drop mission screen with the planet "should" have the planet animation run while loading not everything frozen until the mission could begin.
The movie star scenario (just some random mission) was much fun and big payoff, I really like these slightly different search and destroy missions.
I am not sure if they do this but it would be neat to see like maybe some Star-League item get dropped in a hard mission along with some assault mech.
It would make salvage choices very difficult.
Speaking of which, those darn Zeus pilots seem to like to fight to the death: I have been unable to get salvage worth a darn from those guys (plus I get fed-up getting utterly chewed by them).
Trying to "gotta catch them all" is getting to be an expensive habit that I may not be able to afford.
I really wonder about the wounds these pilots have, it feels like dawn of the dead with how often these guys get knocked down.
You can play this song as you try to capture a mech:
Spoiler:
Anyway, the more I dig into this game the more I like it.
Some of the plot-line stuff I just love.
Though, I keep thinking I am going to die when i have "Adam Jensen" threatening me all the time, I never thought I would see a voice actor so type-cast for me, but it works.
The game is REALLY good, with a few small tweaks I think it could easily reach the realm of "amazing".
I will now go back to tweaking my mechs if I can afford it...
I just finished the 2-part mission at a certain planet a treasure map led me to. It wasn't too hard taking down the "surprise" trio of assault mechs. In fact, I did so well I had to choose which one I wanted to keep: an Awesome or a Battlemaster. I kept the Battlemaster, and the game still awarded me two of the Awesome parts. Anyway, questions about the aftermath in spoilers:
Spoiler:
So, I've got the SL-era Highlander with its cool toys. Do I get any more of those cool toys? Or are all of its parts irreplaceable? The pulse lasers I got to play with in that mission were fun, is there a chance to get them elsewhere?
BrookM wrote: I really enjoy it so far though, this'll be one I'll be playing in bursts to keep myself sane.
No! Obsess over it. Think about new 'Mech configs at all waking ours. Spend every minute you can playing it.
I'd rather take my time with it and play the odd mission when I get the time in the evening.
I will say that the second mission made me awfully cautious, as I did my first merc mission now and while I didn't get any damage, I kept expecting a crapton of locks to happen and missiles to core me at any moment.
Tannhauser42 wrote: I just finished the 2-part mission at a certain planet a treasure map led me to. It wasn't too hard taking down the "surprise" trio of assault mechs. In fact, I did so well I had to choose which one I wanted to keep: an Awesome or a Battlemaster. I kept the Battlemaster, and the game still awarded me two of the Awesome parts. Anyway, questions about the aftermath in spoilers:
Spoiler:
So, I've got the SL-era Highlander with its cool toys. Do I get any more of those cool toys? Or are all of its parts irreplaceable? The pulse lasers I got to play with in that mission were fun, is there a chance to get them elsewhere?
Spoiler:
You get the atlas after the final mission, but without mods that's it.
Something I'm finding odd is that people talk about the Grasshopper and I'd love to get hold of one, but I've never seen any of them in any mission. Thunderbolts and Quickdraws for days, no Grasshoppers. By the same token, I've never seen a standard missile-Catapult, and I've only ever seen one each of the Black Knight or missile-Jager. Are they more likely to show up / be available to buy in certain regions?
Elemental wrote: Something I'm finding odd is that people talk about the Grasshopper and I'd love to get hold of one, but I've never seen any of them in any mission. Thunderbolts and Quickdraws for days, no Grasshoppers. By the same token, I've never seen a standard missile-Catapult, and I've only ever seen one each of the Black Knight or missile-Jager. Are they more likely to show up / be available to buy in certain regions?
I've seen people say they could be region-based, but I've seen no confirmation. The story missions mention that Victoria's mech (the PPC Catapult) is not often seen outside the Draconis Combine, but how true that fluff-statement is in terms of gameplay, I don't know. I've only seen the one Grasshopper and Black Knight in my current playthrough (and they're both mine now). I've seen several Jagermechs and Quickdraws, but very few Orions. Oddly, in my previous playthrough (didn't finish, restarted at about the fifth story mission), I didn't see any Jagermechs and hardly any Quickdraws, but tons of Thunderbolts and Orions. This was all still done in the same general area of space, so I think it really is just random.
Best advice I can offer is, as soon as you see a mech you want, focus on getting it. Kill all the other mechs as quickly as possible so you can focus solely on the one you want. Knock it down once, preferably twice (I do it with LRMs), to get the pilot injuries. Then carefully position yourself and use called shots to take out each side torso for two more pilot injuries. That's usually enough to get it, but you can also take out a leg to cause another knockdown for an injury.
Elemental wrote: Something I'm finding odd is that people talk about the Grasshopper and I'd love to get hold of one, but I've never seen any of them in any mission. Thunderbolts and Quickdraws for days, no Grasshoppers. By the same token, I've never seen a standard missile-Catapult, and I've only ever seen one each of the Black Knight or missile-Jager. Are they more likely to show up / be available to buy in certain regions?
I've seen a single Grasshopper, a single Cataphract, 2 Black Knights (salvaged both of 'em) and 2 standard Catapults.
By contrast I've seen numerous Orions, more Thunderbolts and Quickdraws than I can shake a stick at, and so many K2 Catapults that I have one in storage!
Elemental wrote: Something I'm finding odd is that people talk about the Grasshopper and I'd love to get hold of one, but I've never seen any of them in any mission. Thunderbolts and Quickdraws for days, no Grasshoppers. By the same token, I've never seen a standard missile-Catapult, and I've only ever seen one each of the Black Knight or missile-Jager. Are they more likely to show up / be available to buy in certain regions?
I've now beaten the game and have never seen a Stalker or Cataphract in the wild. I've only seen a single Catapult k2, and
I'm now running an Orion with AC20 and a bunch of medium lasers, no extra heat sinks, and the arms mods that give extra melee damage. It took a couple of missions to get working, and it's very limited in its battlefield role, but it's really fun to play with. The basic idea was to run up and alpha strike one target, then switch to melee in the next turn, dropping heat and losing the recoil penalty on the AC20, then next turn I alpha strike again, and keep the cycle going until all is death. The trick I've learned to make it work is when moving before your alpha strike you don't worry so much about this turn's target as you'll be at 90% to hit most of the time, but about making sure you'll be in melee range of next turn's target. This ploy is made even more effective if you have a pilot that lets you move after shooting.
Also, I have the first assault mech you get given, after the treasure hunt mission. I've rigged it to being pure death.
Spoiler:
The Highlander with the Gauss Rifle. I've given it two LRM20 to support the gauss. It's left some pretty solid mechs in absolute ruin. Missions that would have been really hard before I got the Highlander, and maybe even impossible without taking serious damage to most mechs have been pretty straightforward. Honestly I haven't really gotten my head around why this is so lethal. I've seen LRM20s fire in pairs before, and I've seen AC20s fire so I appreciate the damage output of those weapons, but here the combination works for something absurd. I think it might be the Gauss punching through armour then all those missiles scoring crits, but I've geared for that before with AC20 and SRM combinations, this seems more lethal somehow.
Wolfblade wrote: Ac20s are fun, but I personally am a fan of SRMs. For less weight you get more shots and damage. My crabs run 4 SRM6s 3 MLs and 1 LL max JJs, near max armor (reduced to the nearest full ton) and then max heat sinks. Current damage output of an alpha is over 400 damage and I don't even have max damage SRMs (one +4 three +2)
The advantage of AC20s is all the damage gets focused on a single location. You fire three SRM6 racks you'll do about 50% more damage, but it will be spread all over the target. The AC20 lands all 100 damage on a single location. So the AC20 works better against medium mechs where it might punch through with the first shot, maybe even taking a torso or a leg to cripple the target. But if the target is really solid the AC20's advantage is wasted and the SRMs are much better.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Elemental wrote: Something I'm finding odd is that people talk about the Grasshopper and I'd love to get hold of one, but I've never seen any of them in any mission. Thunderbolts and Quickdraws for days, no Grasshoppers. By the same token, I've never seen a standard missile-Catapult, and I've only ever seen one each of the Black Knight or missile-Jager. Are they more likely to show up / be available to buy in certain regions?
The first heavy I saw was a Grasshopper, which I only managed to salvage complete because a lucky head hit combined with knocking it down a bunch of times so the pilot died in what was otherwise I really healthy mech. After that I saw an Orion, a few Dragons and so many Thunderbolts it was crazy. I don't remember when I saw a Quickdraw, but I have one I barely use so I must have faced a couple at some point.
I didn't see a Catapult for ages, until the mission against the Dropship. And I've just faced a couple of Jagermech pairs, one of the standard set and one of the LRM sets. The only Black Knight I've seen was in the treasure hunt mission.
I don't know, it seems kind of random for everyone, except for the millions of Thunderbolts.
The missile Jagermech is a scary thing. I make them priority targets.
I've salvaged two of them, and one of them I use in most battles (it's outfitted with 2 LRM15s and 2 LRM10s, plus the heat sinks to fire them for quite a while).
I think the different mechs are just a RNG issue. I didn't see any missile catapults for the longest time and then the last 3 missions have had at least one in each.
Got a Grasshopper a little while ago, fantastic mech, heats up like a sun but man when it gets behind a mech with its jump jets it will one shot them with all of the small lasers. It killed 3 mechs in three turns in my last mission after it got behind the enemies line and they didn't focus on it.
sebster wrote: The advantage of AC20s is all the damage gets focused on a single location. You fire three SRM6 racks you'll do about 50% more damage, but it will be spread all over the target. The AC20 lands all 100 damage on a single location. So the AC20 works better against medium mechs where it might punch through with the first shot, maybe even taking a torso or a leg to cripple the target. But if the target is really solid the AC20's advantage is wasted and the SRMs are much better
The disadvantage is if you miss, it's a lot of eggs in one basket. I think it would take a spreadsheet to see what is more effective for DPS but I definitely prefer LRMS + lasers. Good DPS, good knockdown, and a miss doesn't punish you so badly in wasted heat and opportunity cost. The only really heavy gun I used was the Gauss cannon because I think the recoil penalty doesn't apply*, it doesn't get that hot comparatively, and the highlander has lots of other weapons anyway.
Every time I made a build around PPCs or AC20s or what have you, I felt like they weren't really delivering what I wanted.
My Grasshopper is my main brawler. I went with medium lasers and max small lasers with a flamer in there for some spice. I would get in as close as possible to give them the business - small lasers are terrific pound for pound. I also think flamers are very effective.
Aaaaand Second Dekker died last night. A Demolisher launched two shells at him in the first round it was able to fire, and one hit his head, turning it into a chunky Dekker Salsa.
sebster wrote: The advantage of AC20s is all the damage gets focused on a single location. You fire three SRM6 racks you'll do about 50% more damage, but it will be spread all over the target. The AC20 lands all 100 damage on a single location. So the AC20 works better against medium mechs where it might punch through with the first shot, maybe even taking a torso or a leg to cripple the target. But if the target is really solid the AC20's advantage is wasted and the SRMs are much better
The disadvantage is if you miss, it's a lot of eggs in one basket. I think it would take a spreadsheet to see what is more effective for DPS but I definitely prefer LRMS + lasers. Good DPS, good knockdown, and a miss doesn't punish you so badly in wasted heat and opportunity cost. The only really heavy gun I used was the Gauss cannon because I think the recoil penalty doesn't apply*, it doesn't get that hot comparatively, and the highlander has lots of other weapons anyway.
Every time I made a build around PPCs or AC20s or what have you, I felt like they weren't really delivering what I wanted.
My Grasshopper is my main brawler. I went with medium lasers and max small lasers with a flamer in there for some spice. I would get in as close as possible to give them the business - small lasers are terrific pound for pound. I also think flamers are very effective.
*emphasis on think, I could be wrong.
Currently my standard Lance:
Kintaro with SRMs ++ and LRM 5 and +1 In/Sensor Lock pilot,
Grasshoper with Med Lasers++, Small Laser++ Mgs and LLaser++, +1 In and Sensor Lock,
one of two Battlemasters, one with PPC++ and med lasers, SRM, high guts for overheat and Gunnery, Bullwark, the other with LLaser ++ and LRM10 plus Med Lasres
and then Orion with AC10+, LRM10++ and Med Lasers.
All Mechs have near max armour and all ammo in the legs! So many enemy Mechs get severe damage with ammo storage in the torsos Tend to go for Accuracy and damage bonuses with guns
May not be optimal but it works for me.
For story missions I swap out one for the special Highlander.
Mech rarity - only seen one Cat K2 in a story mission and only a couple of other Cats so took some time to get one. Seen a couple of Cataphrats, loads and loads of Thunderbolts, Orions and Quickdraws
I find it really annoying that the only orignal member I have left is Glitch - who's perkiness is slowly convincing me that she might be murdering people with knives when I'm not looking.
Can't seem to drop against assaults. No matter what mission I choose I just get more and more waves of heavies. I own two lances of heavies now and just want an assault to back up the highlander.
I've just lost Ariamaki on a certain mission where you get to fight an assault lance, then 4xheavy vehicles (two demolishers one 3xPPC and a LRM carrier) it's the only one mission I've had to play thrice and:
Spoiler:
My highlander lost his gauss
Now she's rolling a AC10++ and thinking about turning into a missile boat because I'm still waiting for the last third of a missile catapult
ChargerIIC wrote: I find it really annoying that the only orignal member I have left is Glitch - who's perkiness is slowly convincing me that she might be murdering people with knives when I'm not looking.
If you read her background, that's worryingly plausible.
I think my favourite standard missions are the "grab the objectives" ones, because they let me be sneaky. Two mediums distract the enemies, the Firestarter & Jenner run around and get the objectives. Finished one today where they got pulled out after two tense turns of digging in and trying to evade against a pile of enemy heavies while the Shadowhawk limped into the zone.
Ouze wrote: The disadvantage is if you miss, it's a lot of eggs in one basket. I think it would take a spreadsheet to see what is more effective for DPS but I definitely prefer LRMS + lasers.
AC20 does 100 damage. LRM20 fires 20 missiles each doing 4 damage, so that's 80 damage, and we can add another couple of medium lasers and two heat sinks to the LRM20 so they both have the same tonnage and roughly the same heat.
AC20 is 100 damage, all in one location, so that's enough to one shot punch through the armour in mechs up to around 60 tons. It's really good when it isn't just punching through armour but also through internals, so against a lot of vehicles and light mechs it is amazing.
But in everything else the LRM20 and med laser combo is better. It's more raw damage, 130 vs 100. There's no recoil penalty, and the lasers get a base accuracy bonus. The LRMs have lots more range, and can indirect fire so they're never out of the game.
This really makes the AC20 a specialist gun with a specialist role, while the LRMs and mediums are more a general purpose solution to most problems.
The only really heavy gun I used was the Gauss cannon because I think the recoil penalty doesn't apply*,
It was the first thing I checked, and yep, it doesn't apply.
Every time I made a build around PPCs or AC20s or what have you, I felt like they weren't really delivering what I wanted.
I find I have to work to get AC20s to work, while LRMs are a more reliable point and click gun. PPCs I've never had a problem with, except it can take a couple of missions to get the heat management right (there should be a lot more feedback in the mech construction on details like heat).
My Grasshopper is my main brawler. I went with medium lasers and max small lasers with a flamer in there for some spice. I would get in as close as possible to give them the business - small lasers are terrific pound for pound. I also think flamers are very effective.
Agreed on all points. I love my Grasshopper, and small lasers and flamers are awesomely effective. I love it when I melee a mech and then its the small lasers that actually score the final CT hits.
Ouze wrote: The disadvantage is if you miss, it's a lot of eggs in one basket. I think it would take a spreadsheet to see what is more effective for DPS but I definitely prefer LRMS + lasers.
AC20 does 100 damage. LRM20 fires 20 missiles each doing 4 damage, so that's 80 damage, and we can add another couple of medium lasers and two heat sinks to the LRM20 so they both have the same tonnage and roughly the same heat.
AC20 is 100 damage, all in one location, so that's enough to one shot punch through the armour in mechs up to around 60 tons. It's really good when it isn't just punching through armour but also through internals, so against a lot of vehicles and light mechs it is amazing.
But in everything else the LRM20 and med laser combo is better. It's more raw damage, 130 vs 100. There's no recoil penalty, and the lasers get a base accuracy bonus. The LRMs have lots more range, and can indirect fire so they're never out of the game.
This really makes the AC20 a specialist gun with a specialist role, while the LRMs and mediums are more a general purpose solution to most problems.
The only really heavy gun I used was the Gauss cannon because I think the recoil penalty doesn't apply*,
It was the first thing I checked, and yep, it doesn't apply.
Every time I made a build around PPCs or AC20s or what have you, I felt like they weren't really delivering what I wanted.
I find I have to work to get AC20s to work, while LRMs are a more reliable point and click gun. PPCs I've never had a problem with, except it can take a couple of missions to get the heat management right (there should be a lot more feedback in the mech construction on details like heat).
My Grasshopper is my main brawler. I went with medium lasers and max small lasers with a flamer in there for some spice. I would get in as close as possible to give them the business - small lasers are terrific pound for pound. I also think flamers are very effective.
Agreed on all points. I love my Grasshopper, and small lasers and flamers are awesomely effective. I love it when I melee a mech and then its the small lasers that actually score the final CT hits.
The problem with the AC20 is it's damage to weight ratio is just terrible, and then gets worse when you factor in ammo. And if you're trying to get a precision hit on something (i.e. one shot the CT), level 9 of tactics grants called shot mastery which normally bumps any called shot up to a~66% chance for legs, 79% on side torsos, and something around 90% for the CT, and with a couple (two) comms systems you can very easily chain precision shots when you want to just kill an entire lance in a couple volleys. Alternatively, you can just maneuver to one side of a mech and fire that way, reducing spread, but not as much as with a called shot obviously.
PPCs are ok, their heat cost in general is a little high, I think closer to 35ish would suit them better. In my experience using more than one on anything below a heavier tonnage medium, or more than two below a heavier tonnage heavy takes up both too much tonnage and heat to be of much use, even with a split fire breaching shot.
My Grasshopper is my main brawler. I went with medium lasers and max small lasers with a flamer in there for some spice. I would get in as close as possible to give them the business - small lasers are terrific pound for pound. I also think flamers are very effective.
IIRC, SRMs are the best in terms of damage/heat, with MLs and LRMs following closely behind, but LRMs are easily the best for stability damage. In terms of damage per ton, the only thing better than an ML is the SL which is limited by it's range. After that It's SRMs (4 > 6 > 2).
Ouze wrote: Every time I made a build around PPCs or AC20s or what have you, I felt like they weren't really delivering what I wanted.
There's a tendency to 'boat' in BTech video games, where loading up on one weapon type at the exclusion of all else becomes the most efficient way to do things. In some respects that's true - I mean, I almost never go to battle without my quad-missile Jagermech - but as a long-time BTech player I try to avoid that even if just for fluff reasons (not that there aren't canonboat'Mechs).
So in respects to not getting the most out of AC/20's and PPCs, I use them to be the opposite of what the 'Mech does. I have a PPC on something that's close range, so it has something to do on the way in. An AC/20 'Mech (not that I've built one yet) would have long ranged weapons to give it something to do on the way in. Yes, a fistful of SRMs is great up close, but I'd like my 'Mech to do something on the way in, so I have a PPC paired with a stack of SRM4's on a CN9-AL.
The game found today that scaring me silly ends up badly for the bad guys. Dropping double Orion, Battlemaster, Highlander on a mission where the heaviest enemy mech is 55 it's kind of abusive.
Bagged my first King Crab. Mission was a standard battle where the enemy lance had 2 King Crabs, a Highlander, and a Stalker. The reinforcements conveniently showed up behind me (behind LOS blocking terrain, thankfully) which was no less than 4x vehicles. Fell back, mopped them up quick, then returned to knockdown city in front of me. I managed to successfully incap both King Crabs (cored the other two), but a 4/18 salvage and poor RNG meant I only walked away with the 4 King Crab parts that I chose.
So now I've a got a dual AC20+++ with SRM6+++ jumping Crab to maul people with. I'm sure it'll really shine on hot planets.
I find I am typically facing (3 skull) an Orion or 2, a few PPC Catapults, Missile Jagermech (yikes! only one never two), Quickdraws (my goodness many of them), Thunderbolts and scads of Shadowhawks, ML Hunchbacks and Dragons.
When the game gets nasty, they field a Cataphract or two, a single Banshee... almost every 4 skull mission... really?, even more Thunderbolts and the VERY occasional Zeus that fights to the bitter end (can I not get even one not CT destroyed??, self destruct device??, will need all knockdown ammo).
I have seen only once a Strider and bagged that guy.
Never laid eyes on a Marauder, Warhammer, Atlas or the fabled King Crab.
I am running with:
Strider-2xLRM20, 1xPPC (grabbed from surprise visit on a 4 skull mission, have not seen one of these since).
Highlander-"Fancy" version original loadout.and +50%Range cockpit equipment (upgraded to the ++/+++ version weapons where possible). (Treasure mission)
Highlander-1xPPC,1xLRM20,1xSRM6, 2xML. (Grabbed from some mission of a movie star in a fancy mech and you have to go through a bunch of bodyguards, hurt a fair bit facing some 2SRM carriers at once).
Awesome: 3xPPC with the 10% weapon heat reduction bit and +2 Hit Defense Gyro, +1 to hit Energy bit. (Grabbed in a 4 skull think it was a plotline mission, I have only seen this one heat reduction piece of hardware, it makes this mech about right).
These guys as a unit are just death, Highlanders to jump around and spot, durable enough to handle the enemy initial activation when spotted with the Strider to rain death on them.
The Awesome lumbers along and destroys targets of opportunity.
6 super long range energy weapons, 4xLRMs, and just enough short range powerful weaponry to finish off whatever made it close (Highlanders are usually my forwards so they use them quite often).
I feel it really "gimps" a pilot to pick the "lock" ability but has been handy for all these missile and PPC guys to take-out turrets at range.
I JUST got a Battlemaster and looking at 1xPPC, 1xAC20, 2-3MLs depending on how well I want to manage heat/armor for missions I think will be a bit more close range.
He is a deadly alleyway mugger.
I have always been a fan of them in the board games, not so much looking at them in the game, heat efficiency is really bad.
I just need to field him and see how it works out, I think he is a missed opportunity if decked out for long range.
I assume a pilot/guts warrier is the way to go: if not closing to short range he is not doing his job, durability is a must for his role. (I think split-fire is not needed, kill it dead since it is close).
Logistics would not be needed much due to the loadout so can focus on the more important stats.
Anyway, yes I actually have been "dreaming" of design, "just one more tweak", mech-bay repair/build upgrades are becoming a priority.
People have questioned if Light 'Mechs are useful.
I'd argue they are, in sufficient numbers. When you can only bring 4 to the battle, no, there's not much point. But when you can bring 6-8 of them, mixed in with 2-4 mediums, then they become useful.
Having to get 1-2 heavies dealing with an entire Lance of lights is annoying. Getting swarmed by 8 units that all move before you is annoying. It's even more annoying when a few of them are Locust M's and they keep bombarding you from out of LOS, or when it's a base defence mission and they ignore you in favour of the buildings.
If the expansion/sequel allows us to field a second lance, then Lights could be useful. Then they could be used as scouts/spotters for all the bigger things.
Lot of talk about company scale modding. I knew from the outset that would come as Harebrained were just flat out wrong to restrict action to four mechs. It's not the correct number, it's not the sweet spot and a modded Leopard can carry six, and the modding can be paced out like with the Argo.
I want to see company scale multiplayer, then in order to fill out you will likely need lights and the full range of mechs will come into play naturally.
Otherwise its just a race to build the best assault lance.
Orlanth wrote: Lot of talk about company scale modding. I knew from the outset that would come as Harebrained were just flat out wrong to restrict action to four mechs. It's not the correct number, it's not the sweet spot and a modded Leopard can carry six, and the modding can be paced out like with the Argo.
I want to see company scale multiplayer, then in order to fill out you will likely need lights and the full range of mechs will come into play naturally.
Otherwise its just a race to build the best assault lance.
I wonder if the modding community would be able to improve on that.
The main hope is that the game developers will realise Battletech players have more patience than most gamerz and can handle eight or more units a turn without getting bored.
Orlanth wrote: Lot of talk about company scale modding. I knew from the outset that would come as Harebrained were just flat out wrong to restrict action to four mechs. It's not the correct number, it's not the sweet spot and a modded Leopard can carry six, and the modding can be paced out like with the Argo.
I want to see company scale multiplayer, then in order to fill out you will likely need lights and the full range of mechs will come into play naturally.
Otherwise its just a race to build the best assault lance.
One of the things I like about MWO is that using Assault mechs properly is hard, and you really need support from lighter mechs to use them well. They're so slow to move and torso turn that canny opponents can hit and run before you can react, or get below your field of fire with a fast light.
I would like to see tonnage be more of a factor. Either have the drop limited by maximum weight, or have a payment bonus for completing a mission with a lighter lance.
IIRC, there's a problem with the engine because the game is designed for players to only control 4 mechs. OR that's what I remember at least when modders were talking about it.
Orlanth wrote: Lot of talk about company scale modding. I knew from the outset that would come as Harebrained were just flat out wrong to restrict action to four mechs. It's not the correct number, it's not the sweet spot and a modded Leopard can carry six, and the modding can be paced out like with the Argo.
I want to see company scale multiplayer, then in order to fill out you will likely need lights and the full range of mechs will come into play naturally.
Otherwise its just a race to build the best assault lance.
One of the things I like about MWO is that using Assault mechs properly is hard, and you really need support from lighter mechs to use them well. They're so slow to move and torso turn that canny opponents can hit and run before you can react, or get below your field of fire with a fast light.
I would like to see tonnage be more of a factor. Either have the drop limited by maximum weight, or have a payment bonus for completing a mission with a lighter lance.
Orlanth wrote: Lot of talk about company scale modding. I knew from the outset that would come as Harebrained were just flat out wrong to restrict action to four mechs. It's not the correct number, it's not the sweet spot and a modded Leopard can carry six, and the modding can be paced out like with the Argo.
I want to see company scale multiplayer, then in order to fill out you will likely need lights and the full range of mechs will come into play naturally.
Otherwise its just a race to build the best assault lance.
One of the things I like about MWO is that using Assault mechs properly is hard, and you really need support from lighter mechs to use them well. They're so slow to move and torso turn that canny opponents can hit and run before you can react, or get below your field of fire with a fast light.
I would like to see tonnage be more of a factor. Either have the drop limited by maximum weight, or have a payment bonus for completing a mission with a lighter lance.
While I don't disagree totally, I think it's worth pointing out that PGI wouldn't know balance if it headshot their dev team with a gauss rifle.
Every time I pick a low-rated mission to ease in new pilots, it always turns into a bloodbath. First time, I lost a pilot to a Demolisher headshot, and the second time I went with a Jager/Enforcer/Shadowhawk/Jenner lance in a capture mission, then an Orion rolls out of the woods with three brawler buddies. But somehow, I finished it without a casualty by getting some lucky focus fire in and kiting them like crazy. Everyone had critical damage and was out of ammo, and the Jenner had 1hp left on one leg.
Elemental wrote: Every time I pick a low-rated mission to ease in new pilots, it always turns into a bloodbath. First time, I lost a pilot to a Demolisher headshot, and the second time I went with a Jager/Enforcer/Shadowhawk/Jenner lance in a capture mission, then an Orion rolls out of the woods with three brawler buddies. But somehow, I finished it without a casualty by getting some lucky focus fire in and kiting them like crazy. Everyone had critical damage and was out of ammo, and the Jenner had 1hp left on one leg.
The same thing happens to me, without fail. Noobs are cursed.
Elemental wrote: Every time I pick a low-rated mission to ease in new pilots, it always turns into a bloodbath. First time, I lost a pilot to a Demolisher headshot, and the second time I went with a Jager/Enforcer/Shadowhawk/Jenner lance in a capture mission, then an Orion rolls out of the woods with three brawler buddies. But somehow, I finished it without a casualty by getting some lucky focus fire in and kiting them like crazy. Everyone had critical damage and was out of ammo, and the Jenner had 1hp left on one leg.
The same thing happens to me, without fail. Noobs are cursed.
tend not to take them out till they have been in the training pods for quite some time!
Sorry, I meant Stalker:
Very happy with this guy... thinking I "need" two of them.
Very few mechs can stay standing after 2xLRM20's and a PPC.
Got to keep them back a bit due to only getting one evasion pip if you are lucky.
I really am getting to hate those triple PPC tanks... man those things hurt.
Not near as nasty as the SRM or LRM carrier stream of missiles but a really close third.
Had a Hunchback with the 6xMLs after me, that guy would just not die.
Remove both arms, a leg, left torso... just could not get that final kill in for wayyyyy too long but I got that strange "I can still fight!" award or whatever that is.
Specifically because HBS was not using any of the Unseen that Harmony Gold state are under their intellectual control. No Archers, Riflemen, Marauders, Phoenix Hawks, etc. If you look at the original filing, you can see that Harmony Gold didn't really have a leg to stand on when it came to HBS.
I mean, really, look at this gak.
In the case of HBS, I think Harmony Gold was trying to get some "go away" money off of them, as in "pay us and we go away without scuttling your game."
Doesn't mean much for the game though, as the case is ongoing against PGI and Catalyst.
Talizvar wrote: Had a Hunchback with the 6xMLs after me, that guy would just not die. Remove both arms, a leg, left torso... just could not get that final kill in for wayyyyy too long but I got that strange "I can still fight!" award or whatever that is.
Swaybacks are wonderful 'Mechs. I've never used a regular Hunchback, always stuck with the 4P and its lasers.
I converted mine into what I call "The Monster", which has Jump Jets, Flamers, and 1 less ML (but all upgraded MLs). It just gets up in their face and murders things.
And I have all the black knight-related trophies now.
Specifically because HBS was not using any of the Unseen that Harmony Gold state are under their intellectual control. No Archers, Riflemen, Marauders, Phoenix Hawks, etc. If you look at the original filing, you can see that Harmony Gold didn't really have a leg to stand on when it came to HBS. I mean, really, look at this gak. In the case of HBS, I think Harmony Gold was trying to get some "go away" money off of them, as in "pay us and we go away without scuttling your game."
They were also idiots because they did not know the actual "unseen" models they were based on:
Phoenix Hawk - VF-1S Super Valkyrie
Spoiler:
Crusader - VF-1A Armored Valkyrie
Spoiler:
Warhammer - MBR-04-Mk.VI Destroid Tomahawk
Spoiler:
Longbow - SDR-04-Mk.XII Destroid Phalanx
Spoiler:
Rifleman - ADR-04-Mk.X Destroid Defender
Spoiler:
Archer - MBR-07-Mk.II Destroid Spartan
Spoiler:
Marauder - Glaug Commander Type
Spoiler:
Anyway, this has been gone into detail before BUT the newer attempts to update these "unseen" to get them back into Battletech design have been good. The Warhammer is so iconic they MUST get that back into the game:
Wolfblade wrote: The problem with the AC20 is it's damage to weight ratio is just terrible, and then gets worse when you factor in ammo. And if you're trying to get a precision hit on something (i.e. one shot the CT), level 9 of tactics grants called shot mastery which normally bumps any called shot up to a~66% chance for legs, 79% on side torsos, and something around 90% for the CT, and with a couple (two) comms systems you can very easily chain precision shots when you want to just kill an entire lance in a couple volleys. Alternatively, you can just maneuver to one side of a mech and fire that way, reducing spread, but not as much as with a called shot obviously.
Yes, which is why I kept talking about fitting a niche. Through much of the game you don't have pilots with high tactics, making called shots less useful for blasting away at a single location. And at no point can you make repeated called shots. During that time you mostly face light and medium mechs, and at least in my experience when heavies show up at first its many are the fairly lightly armoured Dragons.
A brace of med lasers and SRMs will do more damage than an AC20, but the meds and SRMs will spread their damage all over the target. You might not get crits even after a couple of volleys. However an AC20 will punch through the armour of pretty much everything you see for much of the game, and maybe even blow through a location entirely.
This doesn't make the AC20 superior. But it does mean it has a niche that can be very valuable if you know how to use it, which people will miss if they look at nothing but damage to weight efficiency.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
H.B.M.C. wrote: If the expansion/sequel allows us to field a second lance, then Lights could be useful. Then they could be used as scouts/spotters for all the bigger things.
If a sequel or expansion dropped the unit cap in favour of a tonnage limit for a mission, I'd take a mix of all weight classes. Light mechs to scout and harass where possible, mediums and faster heavies to keep contact with the lights and provide mobile hitting power, while the bigger heavies and assault mechs would provide a core of strength and do the hard work.
However, as long as the limit is four mechs with no weight limit, then the optimum pick in almost every mission is going to be the biggest mechs. Unless they get really funky with some special rules for smaller mechs, which is a bad idea.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Orlanth wrote: The main hope is that the game developers will realise Battletech players have more patience than most gamerz and can handle eight or more units a turn without getting bored.
Like almost everything, the answer is variety. If every mission was company level, it would get to be a grind. Similarly, there's a grinding element that sets in now I'm taking a heavy lance in every mission, slowly moving towards an assault lance.
What I'd like to see is missions where I get a 120 or 150 tonnage max, and they tell me ahead of time I need fast mechs to intercept the enemy units. Next mission I take might be a 300 ton limit, but they tell me there's lots of opportunity for recon to call in support LRMs. Mission after that is also 300 tons, but its an assault on very well defended base, so I'm best off taking my toughest, hardest hitting mechs.
Just throw in whatever to make me change up my forces from mission to mission.
Rather than a tonnage limit I would like to see the Leopard configurable.
The four mech bays should be in poor repair rated for 2x 60 tons and 2x 40 tons respectively at the start.
Mech bays in their worst repair state are rated for 40 tons, with +20 tons per repair level. I would refrain from having light medium, heavy etc as there are already sufficient differences. Mech bay upgrades should be expensive.
The final two bays, normally for aerospace can be converted with a starting level of 0 tons, and upgradable as far as 60 tons.
Next I would include costs for drop costs, again based on tonnage to discourage maxing out. I would place the majority of price jumps irregularly So 20-30 costs similar amounts, then a price jump for 35-45, then a third bracket at 50-65, then 70--100.
Note that this also doesn't neatly fit in the light-medium-heavy-assault delimiter, so there is no optimum tonnage bracket for mechs that fits all criteria. Drop costs should not be too prohibitive that assaults are unusuable, but should take the edge off profitability.
Players should be allowed to take what they want for any mission if they have it and have the infrastructure and C-Bills, rather than hard limits the game should make encourage economies depending on payoff and what you choose to field.
Taking four assaults to a minor skirmish should end up costing the player money even if said assaults tank the damage in the mission and don't require repair.
To this end it might be necessary to include armour repair costs, though to keep the expenditure modest so that it might be cost effective to deploy and possibly have to repair a medium rather than deploy an assault mech that doesn't need repair in the same mission.
Wolfblade wrote: The problem with the AC20 is it's damage to weight ratio is just terrible, and then gets worse when you factor in ammo. And if you're trying to get a precision hit on something (i.e. one shot the CT), level 9 of tactics grants called shot mastery which normally bumps any called shot up to a~66% chance for legs, 79% on side torsos, and something around 90% for the CT, and with a couple (two) comms systems you can very easily chain precision shots when you want to just kill an entire lance in a couple volleys. Alternatively, you can just maneuver to one side of a mech and fire that way, reducing spread, but not as much as with a called shot obviously.
Yes, which is why I kept talking about fitting a niche. Through much of the game you don't have pilots with high tactics, making called shots less useful for blasting away at a single location. And at no point can you make repeated called shots. During that time you mostly face light and medium mechs, and at least in my experience when heavies show up at first its many are the fairly lightly armoured Dragons.
A brace of med lasers and SRMs will do more damage than an AC20, but the meds and SRMs will spread their damage all over the target. You might not get crits even after a couple of volleys. However an AC20 will punch through the armour of pretty much everything you see for much of the game, and maybe even blow through a location entirely.
This doesn't make the AC20 superior. But it does mean it has a niche that can be very valuable if you know how to use it, which people will miss if they look at nothing but damage to weight efficiency.
Early on, yes you cannot make repeated called shots, however, the moment you get a couple of comms systems (total of ~+6 morale gained I think is what's required, had them before I had a second heavy mech) I've had no problem doing 4 back to back called shots as long as each results in a kill. As for high tactics, that depends on how you spend your EXP, I focused on rushing towards the +1init skill, which was rather easy to do as long as I didn't purposefully put all my pilots in harms way, I never had to swap more than 2 after a mission. And I never said the AC20 doesn't have a niche, it just fills it badly. At most 120 damage isn't that hard to equal or beat (especially on a called shot). Even with out a called shot simply moving so you can focus on one side will result in most damage getting focused onto a couple locations. My point is the AC20 fills a niche yes, but it fills it VERY poorly and outside of early game where the damage will go through just about anything you see it loses value very quickly.
Orlanth wrote: Players should be allowed to take what they want for any mission if they have it and have the infrastructure and C-Bills, rather than hard limits the game should make encourage economies depending on payoff and what you choose to field.
This idea is interesting, but doesn't really work under the current dynamic where the contracting phase is really just a means of selecting which skirmish battle you want to fight.
But consider if they expanded the notion of the mercenary company contract. Consider instead a contract where you can book as many contracts as you want, as long as you have the mechs and pilots spare. So player might have one lance on a raid, and another lance performing garrison duty somewhere else. Then consider that maybe some contracts like garrison, escort and base defense might not even produce fights, the player would just skip forward to pay day and take his cash. A player will be tempted to deploy more basic, economical mechs on those missions because having star league tech assault mechs standing watch while nothing happens is a horrible waste of resources.
Other contracts would require very different kinds of mechs - a raid might need speed because the enemy reinforcements would be overwhelming even for a lance of assault mechs so instead speed to get out to the drop zone after the mission would be key.
Increasing the variety of missions would introduce a dynamic where the optimum player choice isn't as heavy a set of mechs as possible, but is instead changes from contract to contract based on circumstances.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wolfblade wrote: Early on, yes you cannot make repeated called shots, however, the moment you get a couple of comms systems (total of ~+6 morale gained I think is what's required, had them before I had a second heavy mech) I've had no problem doing 4 back to back called shots as long as each results in a kill. As for high tactics, that depends on how you spend your EXP, I focused on rushing towards the +1init skill, which was rather easy to do as long as I didn't purposefully put all my pilots in harms way, I never had to swap more than 2 after a mission. And I never said the AC20 doesn't have a niche, it just fills it badly. At most 120 damage isn't that hard to equal or beat (especially on a called shot). Even with out a called shot simply moving so you can focus on one side will result in most damage getting focused onto a couple locations. My point is the AC20 fills a niche yes, but it fills it VERY poorly and outside of early game where the damage will go through just about anything you see it loses value very quickly.
I've got three assaults and a heavy in my core lance, and I've still only got one comms system at +2. I dunno if your experience or mine is closer to the norm. It doesn't really matter that much though, as there's lots of other ways to boost morale so that eventually called shots can be taken quite often.
My point though, is that getting to that point takes quite some time, and even by the late stage it isn't as though you're free to make called shots with every mech, every turn. So a single, large gun which means a mech is putting all its damage in a single location has value. Its damage to weight ratio is bad, but 110 damage all put in to a single location can in many circumstances be a lot more useful than 160 damage spread all across a target.
I can't speak for the game you played, but I can speak to the experience of the game I've played. And during the period where light, then medium and finally the lighter heavy mechs were dominant, I got great value out of a Shadowhawk and then an Orion with an AC20. I think possibly I got more value out of this because of my experience with the tabletop game, where it was a more obvious strategy to focus on targets with locations you could punch through with a single AC20 slot. It meant I was more aware of how to make the AC20 work in the computer game.
Does this mean the AC20 is great? Nah, it's a niche gun that you need to learn how to optimise. I think it could do with a small damage upgrade and a big boost in stability damage. But it goes way too far to say its a bad gun, because concentrated damage has a clear place in the game.
Wolfblade wrote: Early on, yes you cannot make repeated called shots, however, the moment you get a couple of comms systems (total of ~+6 morale gained I think is what's required, had them before I had a second heavy mech) I've had no problem doing 4 back to back called shots as long as each results in a kill. As for high tactics, that depends on how you spend your EXP, I focused on rushing towards the +1init skill, which was rather easy to do as long as I didn't purposefully put all my pilots in harms way, I never had to swap more than 2 after a mission. And I never said the AC20 doesn't have a niche, it just fills it badly. At most 120 damage isn't that hard to equal or beat (especially on a called shot). Even with out a called shot simply moving so you can focus on one side will result in most damage getting focused onto a couple locations. My point is the AC20 fills a niche yes, but it fills it VERY poorly and outside of early game where the damage will go through just about anything you see it loses value very quickly.
I've got three assaults and a heavy in my core lance, and I've still only got one comms system at +2. I dunno if your experience or mine is closer to the norm. It doesn't really matter that much though, as there's lots of other ways to boost morale so that eventually called shots can be taken quite often.
My point though, is that getting to that point takes quite some time, and even by the late stage it isn't as though you're free to make called shots with every mech, every turn. So a single, large gun which means a mech is putting all its damage in a single location has value. Its damage to weight ratio is bad, but 110 damage all put in to a single location can in many circumstances be a lot more useful than 160 damage spread all across a target.
I can't speak for the game you played, but I can speak to the experience of the game I've played. And during the period where light, then medium and finally the lighter heavy mechs were dominant, I got great value out of a Shadowhawk and then an Orion with an AC20. I think possibly I got more value out of this because of my experience with the tabletop game, where it was a more obvious strategy to focus on targets with locations you could punch through with a single AC20 slot. It meant I was more aware of how to make the AC20 work in the computer game.
Does this mean the AC20 is great? Nah, it's a niche gun that you need to learn how to optimise. I think it could do with a small damage upgrade and a big boost in stability damage. But it goes way too far to say its a bad gun, because concentrated damage has a clear place in the game.
And again, my experience has been so long as you don't rush into the middle of an enemy lance, you can easily focus damage onto one side, mostly negating the one advantage of the AC20. Past the early/mid game it quickly drops off in value, especially when you can get a chain of 3-4 called shots easily (high starting morale/kill per called shot/knockdowns/blowing parts off). Having run several games (one to a double 4x krab/4x atlas lance, and one to just past the final mission) and I have gotten more use from laser boats in general than any mech with an AC20 and some extra weaponry depending on the weight class. Maybe it's playstyle variations, but focusing down one mech at a time has always in my experience favored the laser/missile boats being able to effectively use called shots or being able to focus damage. Even when that's not possible a couple of mechs firing onto a single mech normally does more than enough damage. And even with the advantage of damage focused onto one area, once you start fighting heavies, you end up needing more hits on the same area to deal enough damage anyway. It really doesn't need too much of a damage boost, but I think you could cut AC weapon's weight by 25-50% and they'd probably be worth using.
As for your comms system situation, I think you're mostly unlucky. Comms don't drop like candy (or heatsinks), but they've never been so rare (for myself or a few of the other people I've talked to) that having a couple by the time they had 3-4 heavies.
Wolfblade wrote: And again, my experience has been so long as you don't rush into the middle of an enemy lance, you can easily focus damage onto one side, mostly negating the one advantage of the AC20.
That's true, though I'd note a single drive by will still spread damage between the leg, torso and arm. That's not going to penetrate armour in any location unless you seriously outweigh the target.
Past the early/mid game it quickly drops off in value, especially when you can get a chain of 3-4 called shots easily (high starting morale/kill per called shot/knockdowns/blowing parts off).
Oh absolutely, once you're passed the mid-game the focus of 110 damage in a single location has little value. This is because you can make a lot more called shots, and because you're facing much heavier targets that can soak 110 damage to a single location. By that stage you're packing so much firepower that when you do engage units that can't soak that damage to a single location you can normally wipe them anyway.
My point is about the game before that stage, up until and including the stage when you're facing mediums or light heavies. At that stage an AC20 is a viable weapon, if you use it right.
It really doesn't need too much of a damage boost, but I think you could cut AC weapon's weight by 25-50% and they'd probably be worth using.
One thing that's basically written in stone in Battletech, throughout all its versions, is the weight of various weapon systems. Different computer games have used different mechanics for hitting and damage, but the weight of every weapon system has always been the same. This has flowed through from a core concept in the tabletop game, that every weapon once fielded never has its stats change. An AC20 has weighed 14 tons in every single version of Battletech since the mid 80s. I don't think they should change that, one of the nice things about the game is how resources written for one game actually work for all the others.
Another option would be to introduce some of the special ammo rules. There was precision ammo, tracer ammo, caseless ammo, and so forth. Their rules would have to be tweaked, but I think it'd be a good way to boost autocannons generally.
As for your comms system situation, I think you're mostly unlucky. Comms don't drop like candy (or heatsinks), but they've never been so rare (for myself or a few of the other people I've talked to) that having a couple by the time they had 3-4 heavies.
I think when you get a really wide range of potential stuff dropping each turn, there's a tendency to produce some interesting clustering effects. That's not a complaint, either, I quite not knowing what I might end up with, and knowing the next game might play out very differently.
Yes, it did, but it also had a cheat code that removed the drop limit.
"So you want to cheat?"
No, because the cheat code removed the hard cap on what you could bring, but didn't actually remove the drop weight. Let me explain.
In MechCommander you were not a Merc group, you were company that was part of a House RCT. As such the game's economy was abstracted to 'Resource Points', a way of looking at logistics and requisition, repair and parts, manpower and so on and just giving it a simplified figure.
If you went into a mission with a lower tonnage than the maximum you would receive bonus RP. The voice at the end would literally say "Commendation for low drop weight".
Here's the thing though, it worked in reverse. You did need a cheat code to remove the cap on drop weights, but bringing more than you were allowed reduced your RP reward for the mission. In fact, it was possible to have missions cost you RP if you brought enough stuff.
I liked this as a concept - you were using more than the resources allocated to you, so you had to give something up to bring more than normal. It also meant you weren't really 'cheating', you were just spending your resources in a different way. Yes, you could also make your 'Mechs invincible and give yourself unlimited airstrikes, but that's different.
Wolfblade wrote: And again, my experience has been so long as you don't rush into the middle of an enemy lance, you can easily focus damage onto one side, mostly negating the one advantage of the AC20.
That's true, though I'd note a single drive by will still spread damage between the leg, torso and arm. That's not going to penetrate armour in any location unless you seriously outweigh the target.
Past the early/mid game it quickly drops off in value, especially when you can get a chain of 3-4 called shots easily (high starting morale/kill per called shot/knockdowns/blowing parts off).
Oh absolutely, once you're passed the mid-game the focus of 110 damage in a single location has little value. This is because you can make a lot more called shots, and because you're facing much heavier targets that can soak 110 damage to a single location. By that stage you're packing so much firepower that when you do engage units that can't soak that damage to a single location you can normally wipe them anyway.
My point is about the game before that stage, up until and including the stage when you're facing mediums or light heavies. At that stage an AC20 is a viable weapon, if you use it right.
It really doesn't need too much of a damage boost, but I think you could cut AC weapon's weight by 25-50% and they'd probably be worth using.
One thing that's basically written in stone in Battletech, throughout all its versions, is the weight of various weapon systems. Different computer games have used different mechanics for hitting and damage, but the weight of every weapon system has always been the same. This has flowed through from a core concept in the tabletop game, that every weapon once fielded never has its stats change. An AC20 has weighed 14 tons in every single version of Battletech since the mid 80s. I don't think they should change that, one of the nice things about the game is how resources written for one game actually work for all the others.
Another option would be to introduce some of the special ammo rules. There was precision ammo, tracer ammo, caseless ammo, and so forth. Their rules would have to be tweaked, but I think it'd be a good way to boost autocannons generally.
As for your comms system situation, I think you're mostly unlucky. Comms don't drop like candy (or heatsinks), but they've never been so rare (for myself or a few of the other people I've talked to) that having a couple by the time they had 3-4 heavies.
I think when you get a really wide range of potential stuff dropping each turn, there's a tendency to produce some interesting clustering effects. That's not a complaint, either, I quite not knowing what I might end up with, and knowing the next game might play out very differently.
I dunno, a mech with a focus on lasers and/or missiles can do plenty of damage even at a worst possible spread, I mean LRMs can do up to 6 damage per rocket and SRMs can do 12. One of my favorite loadouts towards the end game is a stalker with 4 LRM 20s, which even at base damage is still 320 damage to 480, and that's just for a focus on stability damage. Against a mech of equal weight (say, another stalker), that's roughly 105 damage to 160 if you get a perfect (and terrible) 33% split, which won't break the torso or leg if it's max armor (180) but will break the arm (140), but again, that's the absolute worst possible split. However even a small lean towards one of 40/30/30 is enough to break any part that's hit at max armor (192 damage). It's also incredibly rare to find a stock mech running max armor too (and not full armor/no poor maintenance, but actual max capacity for a location).
I think we're also focused on two different sections of the game, you were focused on the early/mid game, and I was focused on the end of the mid/late game where AC20s are more common and can be fit onto mechs easier without sacrificing too much armor/heat.
And that's a good point about the weights in battletech, sadly the alternative is a pretty serious buff towards AC weapons or some noticeable nerfs for missiles and MLs, especially if they want to compete with missiles for stability damage or lasers for pure damage to justify their weight and heat usage (for the AC20 at least).
And I honestly have no idea how rare comms are, I don't have a large enough sample size obviously (3-4 people on a over 2-3 campaigns each is pretty tiny, and I don't think anyone has datamined the drop/spawn chances for comms yet), so it might just be dumb luck of finding them in stores/or as battlefield drops.
Wolfblade wrote: I dunno, a mech with a focus on lasers and/or missiles can do plenty of damage even at a worst possible spread, I mean LRMs can do up to 6 damage per rocket and SRMs can do 12.
SRMS getting a 50% damage boost per missile is one of the things that really tips them over the edge in to being such a dominant weapon. If there were ++ and +++ AC20 that were boosted to 150 damage we'd see the gun very differently
One of my favorite loadouts towards the end game is a stalker with 4 LRM 20s, which even at base damage is still 320 damage to 480, and that's just for a focus on stability damage. Against a mech of equal weight (say, another stalker), that's roughly 105 damage to 160 if you get a perfect (and terrible) 33% split, which won't break the torso or leg if it's max armor (180) but will break the arm (140), but again, that's the absolute worst possible split.
I run a Stalker with 1 LRM less, with more armour and more ammo. I'm not sure about getting the side shots though, a Stalker decked with LRMs isn't really a flanking unit.
I think we're also focused on two different sections of the game, you were focused on the early/mid game, and I was focused on the end of the mid/late game where AC20s are more common and can be fit onto mechs easier without sacrificing too much armor/heat.
I'm not focusing on any part of the game. The question was whether AC20 are any good, and I said during a certain phase of the game if used against the right targets then they can be valuable. It is not that I think that early to mid-phase is more important or worth more focus, I was just saying that was the period where the AC20 had a clear niche.
And that's a good point about the weights in battletech, sadly the alternative is a pretty serious buff towards AC weapons or some noticeable nerfs for missiles and MLs, especially if they want to compete with missiles for stability damage or lasers for pure damage to justify their weight and heat usage (for the AC20 at least).
I don't think the tweak would have to be that big. What they could do is just pull back on the knock down damage done by missiles, not remove it just weaken it a little. Then ramp up the knock down damage on AC weapons, so they become the key way to knock down an opponent.
But this is a problem that plagues Battletech in general - autocannons are mediocre. What's kind of funny is AC2 actually got a huge boost from the table top game, their relative damage was more than doubled, and they still suck.
Orlanth wrote: Players should be allowed to take what they want for any mission if they have it and have the infrastructure and C-Bills, rather than hard limits the game should make encourage economies depending on payoff and what you choose to field.
This idea is interesting, but doesn't really work under the current dynamic where the contracting phase is really just a means of selecting which skirmish battle you want to fight.
But consider if they expanded the notion of the mercenary company contract. Consider instead a contract where you can book as many contracts as you want, as long as you have the mechs and pilots spare. So player might have one lance on a raid, and another lance performing garrison duty somewhere else. Then consider that maybe some contracts like garrison, escort and base defense might not even produce fights, the player would just skip forward to pay day and take his cash. A player will be tempted to deploy more basic, economical mechs on those missions because having star league tech assault mechs standing watch while nothing happens is a horrible waste of resources.
I think we are onto something, you could say have two or more missions simultaneously, you only have one Leopard so can only drop one lance/demi-company at a time, but you can drop a second lance for x days as a garrison or for a patrol circuit. This might or might not form part of a single contract, i.e 'protect our base while leveling theirs'. Garrison/patrol lances call for pick up later, and are normally uneventful to not bog the game down, but you might be interrupted by a message of 'meanwhile on patrol/ meanwhile back at base' which triggers a scenario. This would force you to have different lances for different work, patrol lances would differ from garrison lances and from the principle strike lance.
If you are running a strike lance, a patrol, and a garrison you have a combat company straight off and must use separate pilots. A player may or may not be able to handle all the contract options if they don't have enough mechs and pilots.
Orlanth wrote: Players should be allowed to take what they want for any mission if they have it and have the infrastructure and C-Bills, rather than hard limits the game should make encourage economies depending on payoff and what you choose to field.
This idea is interesting, but doesn't really work under the current dynamic where the contracting phase is really just a means of selecting which skirmish battle you want to fight.
But consider if they expanded the notion of the mercenary company contract. Consider instead a contract where you can book as many contracts as you want, as long as you have the mechs and pilots spare. So player might have one lance on a raid, and another lance performing garrison duty somewhere else. Then consider that maybe some contracts like garrison, escort and base defense might not even produce fights, the player would just skip forward to pay day and take his cash. A player will be tempted to deploy more basic, economical mechs on those missions because having star league tech assault mechs standing watch while nothing happens is a horrible waste of resources.
I think we are onto something, you could say have two or more missions simultaneously, you only have one Leopard so can only drop one lance/demi-company at a time, but you can drop a second lance for x days as a garrison or for a patrol circuit. This might or might not form part of a single contract, i.e 'protect our base while leveling theirs'. Garrison/patrol lances call for pick up later, and are normally uneventful to not bog the game down, but you might be interrupted by a message of 'meanwhile on patrol/ meanwhile back at base' which triggers a scenario. This would force you to have different lances for different work, patrol lances would differ from garrison lances and from the principle strike lance.
If you are running a strike lance, a patrol, and a garrison you have a combat company straight off and must use separate pilots. A player may or may not be able to handle all the contract options if they don't have enough mechs and pilots.
Take a long, hard look at X-COM long war mod, then copy it straight away. Especially how a smaller team with lighter equipment gets infiltration bonus, etc. And with multiple lances engaged in different places pilot and mech management would be much more strategic.
I have a Grasshopper I've started to call "The Death Sentence," as being assigned to it means that the enemy focuses entirely on it to the exclusion of almost anyone else. It's claimed both Fuzzy and Glitch so far.
Valhallan42nd wrote: I have a Grasshopper I've started to call "The Death Sentence," as being assigned to it means that the enemy focuses entirely on it to the exclusion of almost anyone else. It's claimed both Fuzzy and Glitch so far.
I have a similar mech which I call the Sponge. It is a Dragon that is in charge of spotting, and putting its nose into sensor contacts. Decker was its original pilot, and he still has 96 days in the medbay- it's eaten two newbie recruits, one of which caught a Demolisher volley- with her face.
I love this game!
edit- changed Decker's location from mechbay to medbay. He probably is more cybernetics than organs right now, but I'd guess he's sensitive about it.
Every time I take Glitch out she gets injured every single time.
I took her out again, and within seconds she gets hit in the head. Only this time I had ripped out the Rangefinder on her K2 and put in a Cockpit Mod.
I had forgotten about it completely though, so at the end of the mission I was looking to see how long she'd have to sit in the Medbay again and... fine!
I need more of those things. They're so damned rare!!!
Did get a TTS for Energy weapons though. That's nice.
I've never seen or heard of a heat bank or heat exchange.
I've seen a ton of those morale communicator things though, and a bunch of those TTS. I think I used a missile TTS for my lurm catapult but am usually inclined to take more ammo when it has a tonnage.
I tend to to go with injury mitigation or rangefinders over the morale stuff, my guys usually have pretty solid morale anyway.
I did finally see a Stalker in the wild! I wasn't able to 3/3 it so hopefully at some point I see another.
Did get a TTS for Energy weapons though. That's nice.
I've never seen or heard of a heat bank or heat exchange.
I've seen a ton of those morale communicator things though, and a bunch of those TTS. I think I used a missile TTS for my lurm catapult but am usually inclined to take more ammo when it has a tonnage.
I tend to to go with injury mitigation or rangefinders over the morale stuff, my guys usually have pretty solid morale anyway.
I did finally see a Stalker in the wild! I wasn't able to 3/3 it so hopefully at some point I see another.
Just finished Campaign and have a coupel fo Heat Exchangers - still not sure if its worth it. Bought a couple of TTS's but have now sold as have plenty of +++ weapons that require no extra tonnage. Def recomend the Morale and hit mitigation mechs.
Finally seen a Stalker and King Crab inthe wild. Tried a 5 star mission against pirates and encountered a full assault lance but all with only 25% armour! Got a full King Crab from a head shot and only minro armour daamge
Sweet. I lucked out and got a Grasshopper early and he is absolute death. I kitted him with max small lasers, a flamer, and then medium lasers (and I think 1x LRM5 just to chip away at evasion). I usually get him up to mechs as close as possible and them melee and cook them.
Ouze wrote: Sweet. I lucked out and got a Grasshopper early and he is absolute death. I kitted him with max small lasers, a flamer, and then medium lasers (and I think 1x LRM5 just to chip away at evasion). I usually get him up to mechs as close as possible and them melee and cook them.
I keep one around for when I'm feeling silly. All the medium lasers and flamers it could carry. Thing is brutal in melee, although I'd kill for a way to extend the number of shots the flamers have.
H.B.M.C. wrote: There are Heat Banks and Heat Exchanges. They're very rare.
Interesting, just did a quick search, and yeah, you're right. Over 2 playthroughs I've never even seen one, but they'd be lovely on some of the larger laser boats, extra heat capacity (and overheat) or just less heat generated is really good, but they must be insanely rare
I kind of wonder if maybe I've missed them; I realize that I only really read about half the loot list and tend to gloss over the heatsinks. If it was listed there I might have not even seen it.
H.B.M.C. wrote: The problem is they're so rare.
Still haven't seen a Heat Bank or Heat Exchange.
Did get a TTS for Energy weapons though. That's nice.
I JUST got a heat bank!
That is a strange little thing, I threw my only Heat Exchange as well onto my Awesome with the 3 PPCs.
Triple tap death on that one... so worried of him getting a critical on those, at least no ammo explosion to worry about.
Yeah, my "spotter" is so hard to decide on: my one Rangefinder for better spotting distance or the Cockpit mod to save him from all the inevitable LRM headshots.
Defense Gyros I am always on the lookout for those: Defense against ALL hits and no tonnage to add... I can live with that. 3 slots though, easy to lose to those inevitable criticals.
I am rather torn to put all the expensive weaponry into the torsos due to loss with the delicate arms BUT the arms do give a hit bonus.
My sniper guys I try to stay back and keep the hard hitting stuff in the arms and my closer "brawler" types to keep the expensive stuff in the torso.
Putting ammo in the legs seems like heresy BUT is a good tactic if you up the leg armor (Gives a whole new meaning to "death from above"!).
Yep, just before the last mission... feeling far from ready so may do a few more high-end contracts.
I want a Zeus dang-nabbit!
H.B.M.C. wrote: The problem is they're so rare.
Still haven't seen a Heat Bank or Heat Exchange.
Did get a TTS for Energy weapons though. That's nice.
I JUST got a heat bank!
That is a strange little thing, I threw my only Heat Exchange as well onto my Awesome with the 3 PPCs.
Triple tap death on that one... so worried of him getting a critical on those, at least no ammo explosion to worry about.
Yeah, my "spotter" is so hard to decide on: my one Rangefinder for better spotting distance or the Cockpit mod to save him from all the inevitable LRM headshots.
Defense Gyros I am always on the lookout for those: Defense against ALL hits and no tonnage to add... I can live with that. 3 slots though, easy to lose to those inevitable criticals.
I am rather torn to put all the expensive weaponry into the torsos due to loss with the delicate arms BUT the arms do give a hit bonus.
My sniper guys I try to stay back and keep the hard hitting stuff in the arms and my closer "brawler" types to keep the expensive stuff in the torso.
Putting ammo in the legs seems like heresy BUT is a good tactic if you up the leg armor (Gives a whole new meaning to "death from above"!).
Yep, just before the last mission... feeling far from ready so may do a few more high-end contracts.
I want a Zeus dang-nabbit!
If it helps I went into the last mission really carefully with a (spcl) highlander, 2 Battlemasters and a Grasshopper (although with quite a few ++ weapons and Master/ Elite Pilots) - suffered only minor internals to one Mech and finished first time
Yeah, special Highlander I made a bit more of a generalist, I think I may have to kit him out for long range as well the big gun is too valuable to risk.
My "spotter" I will throw everything I can (including pilot) for armor and evasion to protect him (rangefinder or cockpit equipment?? spot better or better protection?).
May have to throttle back on anything with ammo that could explode.
Jump jets and heavy on lasers and armor will be tough to balance.
I found having two forward mechs tended to spread out the aggro a bit, too much on one mech could be a mess.
Powerful PPC guy, huge LRM boat, Heavy duty sniper and an assault class jumping brawler to act as spotter.
This is the combo that seems to work for me right now.
I was toying with transferring my heat equipment into the Battlemaster chassis and making a more deadly mid-range mech.
I am liking how I have him now with the reduced medium lasers / heat sinks and I mounted an AC20 with an evasion pilot: he keeps lumbering forward caving face on anything he faces off with and the other-guys finishing them off (or knocking them down for him to victimize).
I keep both AC20 loads limited to the left arm and the SRM6 one slot of ammo in a leg.
I have found that the LRM boat and the sniper mechs are a "must have".
The jump-jet mech is mandatory for the hard to reach places and for a good evasion.
A linebacker Battlemaster may be the final piece of the puzzle to hit harder and keep those other mechs from closing on my two supports.
<edit> Thinking more on it, I had been unhappy with the Awesome being too slow to get into position. Jump jets and strong heat management staying at range is the way to go. Battlemaster going forward looks like the second guy to get up front and hopefully punching when I feel he is getting too hot. Rangefinder not needed, best cockpit mod I got on this guy I think. My spotter can cower behind him after doing his job.
Literally every mech I drop has jump jets*. If weight is a real problem it might only be a pair, but the one time I dropped without them it bit me super hard.
*I have only seen one mech so far that can't equip them but there could of course be more.
Ouze wrote: Literally every mech I drop has jump jets*. If weight is a real problem it might only be a pair, but the one time I dropped without them it bit me super hard.
*I have only seen one mech so far that can't equip them but there could of course be more.
I had not checked all my Mechs and keep finidng - oh i can add this or that - now i have a Atlas to play with I had some spare tonange so 4mgs for when that killer punch misses.
I am assuming that most Assaults still can;t jump. Will have to check that as well and if my Kintaro can
Literally my least favorite mech. The lack of jets makes it a giant pain in the ass to maneuver, it always takes a ton of damage since it can't get any evasion pips, and I really resented every SP mission where that Atlas was forced into my lineup. My playstyle was severely hampered by waiting for it's fat ass to waddle up to where it needed to be.
Me:
Stalker - full LRMs
Battlemaster - Full MLs, LL and SRM6 with some heat reduction goodies. Fielding a well built up pilot/shooty pilot for him but new to the group.
Highlander - special one, kitted out more for sniping.
Highlander - More for spotting and middle range work with huge evasion.
Supposed to be a seek and destroy a lance, 4 skulls so this should be fun.
Just get into it and told "reinforcements detected", great, immediate 2 lance combat.
First mech I see is an Atlas right in front of me...
Victor was right next to him.
The "afterthought" was the Thunderbolt on the right flank.
My first introduction to the "laser" Banshee on my front left flank closing in.
A close formation lance on my left flank closing fast was 2 Highlanders, a Cataphract and another Victor.
Battlemaster ran a fast stall tactic on the lance to the left (a pretty good chewing).
We focused pretty much everything on the Atlas and knock it down a bunch and kill that AC20.
Managed to perform a retreating fight toward the Thunderbolt.
Got almost all 3 mechs in front of me put down when the Banshee does a last hail mary and did a physical attack on my Stalker and blows it's leg off.
Now it cannot move worth a darn and a fast approaching lance on the left starts to victimize it as the Battlemaster runs away to go deal with the Thunderbolt.
The Stalker falls down 3 times and i finally elect to eject.
Battlemaster finally takes out Thunderbolt and comes running back.
Some shooting and then melee and the Battlemaster claims a Highlander as a victim.
The Victor gets a lucky physical hit and takes the Battlemaster out in one hit also killing my "new" pilot.
The other highlander dies and another quick few shots and my spotter Highlander drops.
It is now just the deadly Victor and my remaining Highlander and I am out of Gauss ammo so only hitting with PPC.
Much jumping back and sniping and we both get chewed up.
The game ended when we had shaved both our torsos off and went through two rounds of melee with me finally winning.
I got the Atlas for salvage and lost the Gauss and a pretty good pilot.
I do not have the heart to re-load that was the single best nail biter I have ever played.
We ran out of everything except the enemy... it was glorious.
Only faced two of them so far, taking 1 piece each time. Now I have the third piece, and a standard Catapult. I think the only heavy I'm missing is a Cataphract.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I finally salvaged a Catapult!
Only faced two of them so far, taking 1 piece each time. Now I have the third piece, and a standard Catapult. I think the only heavy I'm missing is a Cataphract.
Got the Crab?
I have not laid eyes on that one yet.
I find the Stalker is the enhanced version of the same thing: a torpedo with legs and big boxes of missiles for arms.
It is looking like the Catapult may be the better mech since it has really good jump capability.
I am increasingly finding standing off at long range is the way to go.
Many Assault mechs are designed for short or mid-range murder.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I finally salvaged a Catapult!
Only faced two of them so far, taking 1 piece each time. Now I have the third piece, and a standard Catapult. I think the only heavy I'm missing is a Cataphract.
Got the Crab?
I have not laid eyes on that one yet.
I find the Stalker is the enhanced version of the same thing: a torpedo with legs and big boxes of missiles for arms.
It is looking like the Catapult may be the better mech since it has really good jump capability.
I am increasingly finding standing off at long range is the way to go.
Many Assault mechs are designed for short or mid-range murder.
Only seen one Stalker so far - quite a few mechs not seen - and thats not including the Unseen"
Anyone seen anything on when we get some fo the extra stuff like legendary figures etc?
The reddit comments had one of the PDX guys answer some questions/concerns, and it looks like they'll mostly leave HBS alone and throw them some more resources. As a lover of most of PDX's games I'm curious how this works out, and I'm hoping we'll get some excellent DLC/expansions for the game in the not so distant future.
I'd also kill for a CKII/EUIV style game set during the succession wars.
Also, I finally beat the game. I think I spent too much time grinding out two full assault lances, so the final missions were a little easy. I'll probably tool around for a bit and play with my shiny new toys, but I figure I'll end up modding the game until I break it for my second run.
Talizvar wrote: Got the Crab? I have not laid eyes on that one yet. I find the Stalker is the enhanced version of the same thing: a torpedo with legs and big boxes of missiles for arms. It is looking like the Catapult may be the better mech since it has really good jump capability. I am increasingly finding standing off at long range is the way to go. Many Assault mechs are designed for short or mid-range murder.
Oh no, no assault 'Mechs yet other than a Victor, as it's the only one I've seen all play through.
Beyond that nothing heavier than an Orion/Black Knight.
The Catapult's issue is only 1 missile slot per arm.
The reddit comments had one of the PDX guys answer some questions/concerns, and it looks like they'll mostly leave HBS alone and throw them some more resources. As a lover of most of PDX's games I'm curious how this works out, and I'm hoping we'll get some excellent DLC/expansions for the game in the not so distant future.
I'd also kill for a CKII/EUIV style game set during the succession wars.
Also, I finally beat the game. I think I spent too much time grinding out two full assault lances, so the final missions were a little easy. I'll probably tool around for a bit and play with my shiny new toys, but I figure I'll end up modding the game until I break it for my second run.
Big fan of the support Paradox gives their studios for ongoing content. Big hopes for Battletech.
Hmm. Not completely sure if this is good or bad. It could mean extra money so HBS can climb the final barrier between good ideas with mediocre execution and excellent games, but...
I guess I'm not terribly sold on paradox's direction these days. EUIV feels worse and worse to me with its revisions, stellaris is a pile of dog turds and will remain that way regardless of how much polish they dump into the mix, and CK ii desperately needs a new user interface.
They've got so much going on internally, I'm not convinced acquiring HBS will actually help anyone. Just another distraction for PDS and another layer of management hoops for HBS.
Personally I like the direction they are taking Stellaris in. But then I'm more pleased that its not Crusader King 2 in space and is in fact closer to Sins of a Solar Empire.
I can understand some don't like the changes, though personally I don't relaly get the insane hate that hyperlanes gets (esp as late game you've got other means of transport anyway). Plus making you actually have to engage space stations to conquer systems at least makes static defences of use; in the earlier versions static defences were almost useless because you could just fly right around them or even ignore them totally if they weren't in a perfect position near a key planet.
I think Battletech getting more resources and freedom to expand their product is great. We have a greater chance of seeing new mechs, new maps, new missions heck even a new campaign or game mode.
None of that relates to my issues with Stellaris. Its purely a number increment game. You wait for numbers to get bigger, then you expend them to build a space station or increase your fleet, or whatever. Then you wait for more increments. And repeat.
When war comes you commit your forces, hope they will intersect with the enemy forces at some point and your numbers are bigger when they do. Then you wait for numbers to increment some more.
There are shockingly few game play decisions to be made, and most of them converge over time.
Everything eventually becomes owned, and the end game happens at you without much of a mid game occurring at all.
As for BT... I doubt very much that publisher ownership results in more freedom. (Or that it will help with the legal issues faster).
More mechs is larger a matter of advancing the timeline (or seeing the legal mess finally die once 2021 rolls around and HG loses the robotech license, assuming the Japanese companies don't wade in its place).
Maps and even campaigns were in HBS' power even without paradox, though the latter would be more costly.
Meanwhile they're still on the hook for some of the kick starter promises that got put off to post launch.
According to that (which is the article linked through the steam news page for the game) it sounds like he's been fired already. Hopefully this lets the blowback for this land on him rather than on the company - as it would be sad to see the company torn apart online for the misconduct of a single employee who no longer works for them.
That he's thrown his arms up and admitted to it (and states he's been seeking professional help) it sounds like at least a positive resolution (or aim toward at least) on that side of the coin as well.
According to that (which is the article linked through the steam news page for the game) it sounds like he's been fired already. Hopefully this lets the blowback for this land on him rather than on the company - as it would be sad to see the company torn apart online for the misconduct of a single employee who no longer works for them.
That he's thrown his arms up and admitted to it (and states he's been seeking professional help) it sounds like at least a positive resolution (or aim toward at least) on that side of the coin as well.
Sounds like he may have turned himself in as part of counseling he's enrolled in. That's got to be a hell of a work conversation. "So I've been seeing a psychiatrist about my sexual aggressiveness and have decided to make a public announcement..."
I'm not certain whether to applaud his honesty or hate his past transgressions. A good reminder that the people behind my favorite product are just as complicated as I am.
Which most likely means the settlement will be unreleased and HG will still keep the noose around the IP.
Personally, I would take them to the wall and force them to lose everything they claim to own.
Thats not an agreement to settle, Its an agreement to talk about a settlement and postpone any court deadlines until an agreement in reached, if the agreement is not reached then they carry on where they left off.
According to that (which is the article linked through the steam news page for the game) it sounds like he's been fired already. Hopefully this lets the blowback for this land on him rather than on the company - as it would be sad to see the company torn apart online for the misconduct of a single employee who no longer works for them.
That he's thrown his arms up and admitted to it (and states he's been seeking professional help) it sounds like at least a positive resolution (or aim toward at least) on that side of the coin as well.
He is owning it, which is wise, he is saying 'its all true' which is not as he is open to spiteful embellishment. A lot of what he has admitted doing is very minor, some more serious but most misdemeanours at most. 'Inappropriate comments' are very minor, and wont get much compo for the victim, it might be tempting to overegg the claims for a payout.
At least he appears to be a man with a problem who is genuinely contrite about it. Thing is, that alone wont stop him re-offending if he has a 'problem'..
Which most likely means the settlement will be unreleased and HG will still keep the noose around the IP.
Personally, I would take them to the wall and force them to lose everything they claim to own.
This is bad news methinks.
Sarna sticky linked an article from a copyright lawyer that explained that the motion to dismiss with prejudice that fans were delighted about might not be all good news. Here is a link, it's worth the read.
Now that Hairbrained Schemes have agreed to settlement discussions dated yesterday I think the timing is directly related to the decision by Paradox to buy HBS. This could be either one of two things. Either an offer to get rid of Harmony Gold followed by a permanent removal of the 'infringing' reseen, or a formal licence deal to use derivatives. Either is possible. However FASA learned that a derivative license has a timer on it, and thus even with security they removed the unseen. HBS has the same leadership and might follow the same policy. In either case Paradox will not want legal liabilities with their new investment.
Still live in hope to play the Marauder and Warhammer.
TalonZahn wrote: I guess I misread the part that says " they have agreed to a settlement in principle" and need time to make a written document.
They just want to write it out. Only IF they can't agree to the written language, then it would go on as before.
That pretty much means they've reached a settlement to me.
Although I'm not a Lawyer.
That (very) basically means they have agreed to sit down and talk about a settlement, but nothing has been set in stone, if the negotiations break down then the case will carry on from the point it was left at.
Given HG's history its unlikely that this is a good thing for them, in fact I would say its likely another delaying tactic to further waste PGI's time, my personal opinion (as a trained, but not practicing solicitor that is 10 years out of date) is that the case will carry on within a month after the negotiations break down, I cannot see HG agreeing to the licence of the unseen, in the same manner I cannot see PGI caving either as they would likely have to refund everyone who bought those mechs in MWO, a mech swap would not be an acceptable compromise for most.
1420 days
1.3 mils banked
Argo upgrade at a nice point
Still have a excellent pool of pilots
Medium lance of:
ShadowHawk with one PPC and the rest SRM
Griffin with LRG Laser, Med Laser and LRM
Wolverine I'm about to kit out is a Bouncer
Catapult K2 with two PPC and Two Med Lasers
Next line to replace the Med's
Banshee
Thunderbolt
Catapult
I broke out my mechs from the tabletop game...
Edit
I,m enjoying building up and maintaining factions of Liao, Davion and whatever else for additional missions and loot possibilities
Which most likely means the settlement will be unreleased and HG will still keep the noose around the IP.
Personally, I would take them to the wall and force them to lose everything they claim to own.
This is bad news methinks.
Sarna sticky linked an article from a copyright lawyer that explained that the motion to dismiss with prejudice that fans were delighted about might not be all good news. Here is a link, it's worth the read.
Now that Hairbrained Schemes have agreed to settlement discussions dated yesterday I think the timing is directly related to the decision by Paradox to buy HBS. This could be either one of two things. Either an offer to get rid of Harmony Gold followed by a permanent removal of the 'infringing' reseen, or a formal licence deal to use derivatives. Either is possible. However FASA learned that a derivative license has a timer on it, and thus even with security they removed the unseen. HBS has the same leadership and might follow the same policy. In either case Paradox will not want legal liabilities with their new investment.
Still live in hope to play the Marauder and Warhammer.
HBS isn't involved in the settlement. This case is confusing because the rights to battletech are all over the place, and computer game rights are separate from tabletop rights (because of the way FASA split the rights for the Mechwarrior and Mechcommander games and made a new company, which spun off and then other stuff happened). The lawsuit was against Piranha Games and assorted others. Catalyst bowed out early (didn't care enough to contest or even show up), and HG's claims against HBS were dismissed shortly before the game's release (basically because HBS pulled anything that HG can claim from the game, so HG couldn't pursue an actual case against them- the original suit claimed the Locust and Atlas were derivatives of Robotech stuff, which is twaddle). So at this point, the only people involved in the lawsuit are Piranha and HG.
What this means is, unless Piranha is going to go to the trouble of negotiating on behalf of HBS and others, it doesn't necessarily resolve anything. Keep in mind that the voluntary dismissal that article talks about in April made it impossible to re-file the SAME claim at a later date, but... HG's claim against HBS was nonsense- a thug move to make a small studio roll over. However, a separate and new claim about the Marauder, Warhammer and Archer (and Wasp, Stinger and Rifleman) closely resembling the Macross/Robotech mecha they were based on would not be nonsense (because the point of the revamped art is to be different enough, but still recognizable), nor prevented by the dismissal. So up until HG loses the license for good, this sword remains overhead.
But the big thing is HBS isn't in the lawsuit at this point. They came to an agreement almost two months ago. But their official stance is because the mech art and animations are Piranha's remakes for MWO, they're not going to comment on anything until the HG/Piranha suit is settled. Certainly don't expect to see the relevant mechs in Battletech 2018 unless Piranha uncategorically 'wins' AND extends a protective umbrella over HBS as part of the settlement (or trial, if settlement goes splat).
The legally smart thing for HBS to do at this point is a Battletech 2 that covers inter-Clan warfare pre-invasion that focuses on the Omnis and doesn't give two dead rats about anything Unseen (yeah, yeah, I know there are some garrison versions, but they aren't the central fan focus the way the unseen are in the inner sphere). Then once 2021 rolls around and HG's Robotech license expires, they can come back to the inner sphere...
Unless Big West or whomever wants to release Macross in the States for the first time, and raises a fuss about HBS using _their_ designs. But that's borrowing trouble from the future.
The big lesson from Battletech remains: don't license art designs for your game, no matter how crap your own stable of artists are. Make sure your company outright owns everything associated with the IP from day one. Additionally, if something does go wrong, replace it. Don't try to drag it out over 30 years because some of the fans are crying.
Well, I'm cruising at 40 million credits after finishing the campaign...and then my game randomly uninstalls itself from Steam?
I will say that despite my game crashing constantly (easily the most crashes I've ever had from a PC game I've owned), the game was great...and I will enjoy seeing it expand in the future. The campaign was okay, but I think they missed a huge trick in mission design - something I hope is addressed.
These aren't spoilers, but critiques...
1) As you progress through the campaign you no longer need lighter mechs. Essentially you end up being forced into heavies or assaults or being super sneaky (which almost never pays off). I would LOVE to see a mission type of "Deniable operations" with a set weight limit...giving you a reason to go back to 40-50 ton mechs on occasion. Basically do missions where you're trying to be low profile to not draw too strong of a response, so you engage with light or medium mechs, etc. The most fun I had in the game was in the medium mechs for a large chunk.
2) Just give us more types of missions. I enjoyed the staged campaign missions but would like more of those. Give us some silly missions later in the game where we face four or five lances of light mechs (despite us being in heavies or assaults). Mix it up a bit.
3) Now that I'm playing all of the five-skull missions post campaign it's just the same opposition almost every single match which is saddening.
4) Give us multi-lance missions; but hear me out! I don't mean controlling two or three lances...but rather let us set up two or three lances and then play those games in a row, with the outcome of the first game impacting the second. This would give us a reason to use second line pilots and give us a reason to use more mechs than our "best four" as we pretty much do all game. It'd be fun to have a scout mission (limited to lighter mechs) followed by a combat mission, etc. Give us more reason to keep light and medium mechs and give us more reason to have back-up pilots or pilots with alternate skills.
5) Reduce bulwark or give us another option as good as it. Later in the campaign and post-campaign I cannot find a reason to not take Bulwark on my assault mechs as it's just waaaaay too good, far above any other skill or ability.
6) If we'll be stuck to one lance at a time, I'm fine with that - but how about give us a couple different drop ships? Again giving us the flexibility of needing to have more pilots and mechs on standby. There are ways to expand the mercenary company idea without us running dozens of mechs at once. This could tie in to multi-stage missions. One dropship hits the moon with the intelligence station on it...then the basic mission begins the next game, etc. Lots of potential here for deeper gameplay.
7) Being 80+ hours in we need some more random events during the ship's journeys. They're extremely repetitive.
Overall, it's a very very good game and I'm enjoying myself. I just think there is a ton of room for really turning this from very very good...to great. I look forward to the future progress and add-ons.
I do find some of the missions get a little same-y after a while but that is also perhaps an issue with strategy games like xcom and xcom 2. More mission types would help.
As i've previously figured a spam of light mechs would be an utter waste even if the game allowed more than 4 mechs max vs heavier mechs due to how the game plays. We have too few pilot capacity for too long and most small mechs are so garbage even if you outnumbered larger mechs 3 to one there'd be issues. Also the casaulty rate per mech warrior would be horrendous and nobody would get enough experience before being annihilated. You'd have to rely on more low experience dudes for sure and i could only imagine realistically light mech morale would be absolute garbage due to the high mortality rate. Medbay times for all the surviving pilots would also take up too much space preventing a good amount of active mechwarriors.
I like the game so far but i'm finding different things being effective. If i had to say 'sensor lock' isn't really useful when you only have 4 mechs. My preferred strategy is either to use melee or long range missile spam on a target until it becomes unsteady and loses it's evasive. Once it does i either hit it with some stuff to make it unstable and fall on its butt or i just precision strike it. Once it has fallen on its ass that's when 'death from above' hit chances got through the roof.
Right now i'm probably somewhere mid-game (i started later than most of you i'm sure) and i find the jagermech with some lowered armor and 4 ac/5's and 2 ammo is pretty good. LRM boat (some random mech) is also nice esp. with additional stability damage. I also had the 8 medium laser hunchback which i dropped out for a similar laser heavier mech with more melee abilities and jumpjets. Finally i have another large mech with a ac/20 and some other guns and maybe melee options.
I'm fairly shocked how hard the ac/20 hits. Regardless of where it hits it usually can take a good chunk out of a small or medium mech and then the rest of the damage hits torso.
Right now i'm unsure if i should aim headshots with any weapons. The percent to hit is always so low that i'd either only do it with the 8 medium laser mech or possibly the LRM spam mech. Even then i'd only expect to do a few head hits rather than knock a mech's head clean off. I do remember a couple lucky accidental head shots that totally took off the head though. It was an ac/5 one time and a DFA attack against a fallen mech in the other. Man it must've smashed the pilot in the enemy mech like a tin can or a soda can. Poor guy probably saw it coming the whole way too. Seriously the amount of dread that poor guy suffered. No way anybody could live a hit like that.
You'll find sensor-lock is beneficial later when you run into hard-hitting turrets and they're best avoided by locking them and hitting them with LRMs. Some of the later turrets have like four auto-cannon 10's and twin large lasers and PPCs all in one...so they suck ass. Avoiding that is huge.
Yep whilst sensor lock does tend to mean a single mech isn't doing much but sensor locking its very beneficial to let you lock on and deal damage whilst hiding from taking any; esp with rockets.
Waiting impatiently for DLC, finished the game with a mech I tied enough LRMs too that it could fire 70 missiles a turn for 20 turn. Hilariously overpowered when they all do extra stability damage so you knock over two guys each turn. So many ways to improve this game, some more structure would be great, now it just kinda dies when the campaign ends.
Elbows wrote: 7) Being 80+ hours in we need some more random events during the ship's journeys. They're extremely repetitive.
Horse pucky!
I for one love eating Triple H burgers whilst manipulating a poker game at a movie night after we're rescued some poor spacers. And then doing it all over again. Again!
flamingkillamajig wrote: I'm fairly shocked how hard the ac/20 hits. Regardless of where it hits it usually can take a good chunk out of a small or medium mech and then the rest of the damage hits torso.
I call mine the 'Go Away Button'. I press it, and things go away.
Elbows wrote: You'll find sensor-lock is beneficial later when you run into hard-hitting turrets and they're best avoided by locking them and hitting them with LRMs. Some of the later turrets have like four auto-cannon 10's and twin large lasers and PPCs all in one...so they suck ass. Avoiding that is huge.
Agreed - outside of the campaign which often has time issues I hardly ever engage Turrets that can see me
I haven't played much on my own since I beat the game, but a good friend of mine plays as well so we finally decided to try out MP and see who was the better commander. PvP is very different because your 'morale' (its called Fury if you haven't tried it) builds much slower and only lets you precision strike. Pilots are also pre-gens with only two skills, so you'll miss more often, have less injuries, less heat threshold, and generally be less awesome than your single player version. This makes the game definitely longer, as chewing throw a medium mech takes time instead of just hitting precision strike on the CT.
I lost our first clash when I brought a Highlander, LRM Jager, and two lights. The second match we both brought 4 meds (him in 4 SHD, me in 3x SHD + AC20 Hunchback). All of my mechs had JJs, his didn't, so I ended up winning by blowing all his weapons off his last mech and kiting him. Took like 40 rounds, but a win's a win.
Overall I got a lot of mileage out of the game and would overall say it's worth it if you're into tacticals like this (And can handle the age old problem of Percentages seemingly stacked against you). I strongly hope we get more stuff and some overhauls. I got a couple gripes that could be adressed in the future:
1. Progression
The Difficulty Skulls are almost cartoonish in how inaccurate of an actual reading they give. And that's even when you KNOW the whole "Planet's get more difficult with story progression" thing the game doesnt actually tell you about. I've had missions on the same planet 1-2 skulls apart were it almost felt like the challenge was reversed. Early on it felt like the game vastly overestimated what a single Heavy actually contributes on the AI's side (Focus Fire is merciless in some cases), if it doesnt outright just hand you a free heavy Mech and thus throws the difficulty curve out the window.
The fact that the only powerlevel that really matter is raw tonnage, is rather dissapointing. I had a whole lot of Light Mechs and later Mediums on standby that never saw any use, because the game gives you little to no reason to just deploy your heaviest stuff. I think giving Mech's deployment costs, or adjusting rewards depending on deployed tonnage would've worked better. Especially since you could've done away with the large amounts of money taken away each month.
2. Campaign / Story
Probably the least interesting part of the game is the main story. Some parts are cute, like unique responses depending on the background (Especially if you actually know Battletech already), and some of the missions have unique deployments that are quite fun the first time. But the writing is distinctly "Meh", some reveals were unintentionally goofy and I enver really came to care for any of the characters.
The other Campaign Features are fine, Upgrading the Argo gives that little extra feel of success, even tough I feel like this could be expanded to actually contain some choices. Or at least Upgrades that go beyond "More of what you already have".
3. Pilots / Skills
This is probably the biggest bugbear along with equipment. The actual "skills" are really unbalanced. Multshot and the passive right after it outclass basically everything else. With the exception of having one guy with sensor lock in some mission types. I've tried having multiple setups with different skillsets, but a guy with both Gunneryskills just outclasses everybody else in terms of usefulness. Some rebalancing here to make actual build variation a thing would push the game greatly. Especially since it gives you 64 (!!!) Pilotslots by the end, all the while there are maybe 2 or 3 viable pilot variants. And that's not even mentioning that in terms of attributes, everyone can get to 10/10/10/10.
Theres a couple ways to do this. 1-2 extra attributes (Seperating heat management from the Gut's tree, for example) and rebalancing skills to allow actually usseful builds.
4. Equipment
This got boring pretty quickly. There's a point where you just skim the market for rare augments and "Weapon +X" and then move on. Never felt like the game encourages a lot of experimentation. Having weapons with different distributions would be cool. "More damage, more heat, less range, more ammo" or some such variants. This will probably get adressed with DLC or expansions. Would be particularly excited if we got some Clanstuff.
Stuebi wrote: Multshot and the passive right after it outclass basically everything else. With the exception of having one guy with sensor lock in some mission types.
I disagree. Most of my guys have the Master Tactician one. I wouldn't leave home without it.
Stuebi wrote: Multshot and the passive right after it outclass basically everything else. With the exception of having one guy with sensor lock in some mission types.
I disagree. Most of my guys have the Master Tactician one. I wouldn't leave home without it.
Yep, my default skill selection is Master Tactician and Bulwark for two pilots, a third might Multishot instead of Bulwark (depending on who is in the Medbay) but would still have Master Tactician, and my LRM boat will have Multishot and Master Tactician. Having my heavies go at the same time as mediums is just sooo good. And being able to sensor lock with anything and then LRM the crap out of it is good.
I can see why Master Tactician does feel nice. But overall, I'm almost positive I got more mileage out of being able to ignore guarded (Considering how much damage reduction it provides). Especially considering how powerful some of the Snipe-Weapons are.
My standard Layout was Multshot, Breaching Shot and Bulwark. Juggernaut is basically useless in a game where you only ever get 4 dudes and are frequently outnumbered. Ace Pilot, Sensor Lock and Evasive Movement would be the obvious choice for Pilots running Light Mechs, but as I said, the game never encourages you to use those, barring the very early game and one mission type. So I only ever had exactly one Pilot running that.
Personal preference aside, other people I know that play the game only ever have 1, maybe 2 dedicated builds. And it feels like the game wanted you to have a lot more variance than that. So I still hope they add or improve on this system.
I like all the skills, they each have their place and some may look weak but are deceptively useful.
That being said my style of play has three main go to skills, Master Tactician, Multitargetand Bulwark.
Bulwark saves on a lot of inspiration, and I use my inspiration defensively most of the time, in fact I avoid using inspiration so I can save it for saving my mechs. The only exception is if I must take down a target.
Multitarget is amongst other things a better for of sensor lock, I spread about one gun on each secondary target when needed to erode away evasion, also unlike sensor lock it does some damage.
Master Tactician is excellent, I use it to either move first or to stabilise mechs on the cheap. The latter comes with some risk, from time to time I have reserved down Master Tactician mechs to stabilise them when in hindsight I should have just moved them.
Sensor Lock is a tax to get to Master Tactician, it is a waste to use more than one Sensor lock a turn, yet Master Tactician benefits from company. When you add in the evasion reduction from Multi Shot, I dont use Sensor Lock much in its primary form.
However Sensor Lock is also a scout package, in any mech. Multiple Sensor locks allow me to ID all the targets early. I will prefer to use multiple Sensor Locks and know what I am facing while still out of combat range rather than use one and LRM away. Sensor Lock is also my go to throw in ability to use on a hot mechs cooldown turn, if I am not in melee range.
I find I use Sensor Lock a lot, and by default often have it more than the obligatory once. However I will never take Sensor Lock unless I am on the way to Master Tactician.
Breaching Shot is problematic as it doesn't synergise with Multi target, though the two do work together. It is good if you are packing an AC20, and is good for an Awesome as you can alternate three shot sand one shot with the PPCs. While Multi target is my default skill choice if I dont know what to take, I progress very few warriors to Breaching Shot.
I have never used Juggernaut, mainly because I cant afford to buy Guts beyond 4 or 5 unless the warrior is maxed out. If I want to reduce a melee opponent by a step it's easy, kick out its legs. This is the weakest skill, but I have heard of some player making good account of it with medium vs medium mechs as you can knock an opponent back to Initiative 1 and let your heavies carve it up. Too situational in my opinion.
Evasive Movement is nice, but sadly if you pump evasion chevrons you tend to get sensor locked, so I don't buy this often. If i do i also get the follow up.
Ace Pilot has a lot of potential, but doesnt really work as advertised. It can be good in dense terrain, fire then break LOS for one sided action. However that only really works if the target has nothing else to fire at, so its an all or nothing choice. It can also be used by a faster mech to reduce down to move at initiative one, exposing itself for fire only briefly then moving again. A standard trick with light mechs, except the escape move to break LOS also involves shooting.
Trouble is all this adds up to a lot of gimic but very little fire weight. Furthermore it ties agile mechs to finding appropriste blocking terrain which might not aways give good positioning options or range bands. Instead I find Ace Pilot is better off for assaults and heavies. First the evasion works well as you get some evade, normally two chevrons even on an assault, secondly the mechs are slow so they can expose or unexpose themselves at an end of a turn. An assault with Ace Pilot pays forward, yes you can see to hit it all turn, but it fires and conceals itself for next turn, and then re-emerges on the lowest initiative step. when all is said and done it wont totally escape fire like an Ace pilot light, but it doesnt require move than the odd bit of blocking terrain and reduces its exposure by half, which makes it very survivable.
So been messing further with mods. specifically RogueTech and the difficulty changes and mechanic adjustments make the game a lot more fun. Evasion matters (no loss when being shot at, easier to gain, melee is now vital vs those quick lights), a panic system has been added, weapons have been rebalanced (no more LRM stability spam, tons of new weapons), and the entire battletech inner sphere is added. Starting out is also a crazy gamble because it gives you 1 random heavy, 2 random mediums, and 2 random lights (along with new variants, mech mods, and lostech stuff). Skills have been rebalanced a bit too, most tier ones have been swapped with tier twos along with MUCH higher EXP costs (but also higher EXP gains). Salvaged has been rebalanced, as has been getting new mechs (now you need 5 parts, with a max of 4 parts per mech kill if they punch out)
Basically if you're looking for a good challenge, something to do after your first/second/etc playthrough and want to change it up from traditional mods that just add weapons or mech variants it's makes battletech feel like a whole new game.
Jihadin wrote: Hope the next expansion we can run company size. Throw in some armor, Infantry, and some fighters. Combine arms. I be a serious spender then
eh. Company sized, combined arms battletech has unfortunate consequences. Namely that battlemechs aren't a particularly good or efficient choice, especially in 3025. The faster vehicles make much better scouts, the heavier vehicles make much better fire platforms and fighters are ridiculous for various shenanigans. And properly equipped infantry tends to be cheap and disposable ambush predators.
Jihadin wrote: Hope the next expansion we can run company size. Throw in some armor, Infantry, and some fighters. Combine arms. I be a serious spender then
eh. Company sized, combined arms battletech has unfortunate consequences. Namely that battlemechs aren't a particularly good or efficient choice, especially in 3025. The faster vehicles make much better scouts, the heavier vehicles make much better fire platforms and fighters are ridiculous for various shenanigans. And properly equipped infantry tends to be cheap and disposable ambush predators.
Heavy vehicles die quite easily in the game ? Esp if clsoe enough to kick
I am just hoping we get an update soon....otherwise I guess its just mods.
Jihadin wrote: Hope the next expansion we can run company size. Throw in some armor, Infantry, and some fighters. Combine arms. I be a serious spender then
eh. Company sized, combined arms battletech has unfortunate consequences. Namely that battlemechs aren't a particularly good or efficient choice, especially in 3025. The faster vehicles make much better scouts, the heavier vehicles make much better fire platforms and fighters are ridiculous for various shenanigans. And properly equipped infantry tends to be cheap and disposable ambush predators.
Heavy vehicles die quite easily in the game ? Esp if clsoe enough to kick
I am just hoping we get an update soon....otherwise I guess its just mods.
Update 1.1 is in beta. Large lasers become better than functional (18 heat vs 30), PPCs are slightly better (35 heat vs 40, which is still too high) and stability is vastly increased for the heavier weight classes.
A bunch of other weapons also get heat reduction for no apparent reason, and medium and small lasers get a slight heat generation increase (to combat laser spam)
There are also a bunch of optional campaign toggles, to take it out of easy mode (no free weapons from salvaged mech, loss of mechs with CT destruction, more parts required for salvage, etc)
Mission difficulty ratings have also supposedly been adjust to make it reflect the actual opposition somewhat better.
Speed adjustments have been made (can speed through animations, and skip splash screens)
Some basic UI functionality added so you can actually find out basic details and real numbers in the MechBay (how this was overlooked originally I have no idea)
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/beta-battletech-update-1-1-release-notes.1106263/ ---
Heavy vehicles do die easily in this game. Mostly because of the tendency for enemies to spawn with pre-broken armor for a long time, because they drive into your face, and because of the random melee damage multiplier. Actually doing it by the book and without nerfing them severely as opposition, tanks are ridiculously nasty things, and often out armor AND out gun mechs of the same weight class, and don't have to worry about heat.
But if combined arms are in the player's hands, most of those built-in nerfs go away. You can mix the good stuff like LRM carriers and shreks, hang back, get line of sight with fast stuff and just obliterate the enemies, and for a much lower C-bill cost, which becomes a big balance problem at the company level. And that's before you get crazy stuff like Long Toms.
So realistically- what's likely to happen with DLC? Are we more likely to see themed mechpacks, maybe by faction adding different mech availability? Or will they start advancing the timeline, going with a Lostech pack, or a 3039 pack?
With the setup, it seems like adding mechs would be very easy, and lucrative.
Faction availability isn't really a thing in this game, otherwise we wouldn't start off seeing kurita, liao and davion signature mechs on our side for the first three missions (the kintaro, blackjack and vindicator).
Warhammer and marauder will be added back when they feel its safe to do so once the lawsuit details are completely settled (or not, depending on the terms of settlement), they're done, they were just removed from the release version.
They've said they want to so story packs as dlc, or at least story elements.
But first up is Linux version and all the kickstarter promises and stretch goals that didn't make it in, so dlc will frankly be a while.
Is it me or do ac/10's just not really have a good place in weapons. They weigh so much if you can just take ac/20's you would. The range is meh and stability damage is just ok. I'd rather just spam lrm's for stability damage. AC/2's are also kinda meh but more because they don't do a lot of damage or stability and weigh a lot. Also i didn't see many AC hardpoint mechs early in the game. I think the first AC heavy mech i found was the jagermech so that was at least halfway through the game.
Large lasers may be viable now though. PPC's are ok i guess.
I still need to learn more details of the game but the chance to crit weapons are nice once you strip the enemy's armor away. Could potentially be amazing vs long ranged enemy sniper type units with missiles or AC's.
I think this game needs some serious explanations for some of the stats. I suppose some are explained well like stability but it'd be nice to know how much heat each of my pilots on each mech could suffer on each planet type per weapon fired. Just give me an idea so i don't have to pre-guess it all. Crits are also not explained the best or how much more accurate lasers are or how much AC's are effected by recoil for each pilot on each mech given the amount of AC's they each have. I'm just saying having an idea of more parts of the game would be nice. Perhaps that's too in depth and me being too picky.
flamingkillamajig wrote: Is it me or do ac/10's just not really have a good place in weapons. They weigh so much if you can just take ac/20's you would. The range is meh and stability damage is just ok. I'd rather just spam lrm's for stability damage. AC/2's are also kinda meh but more because they don't do a lot of damage or stability and weigh a lot. Also i didn't see many AC hardpoint mechs early in the game. I think the first AC heavy mech i found was the jagermech so that was at least halfway through the game.
Large lasers may be viable now though. PPC's are ok i guess.
I still need to learn more details of the game but the chance to crit weapons are nice once you strip the enemy's armor away. Could potentially be amazing vs long ranged enemy sniper type units with missiles or AC's.
I think this game needs some serious explanations for some of the stats. I suppose some are explained well like stability but it'd be nice to know how much heat each of my pilots on each mech could suffer on each planet type per weapon fired. Just give me an idea so i don't have to pre-guess it all. Crits are also not explained the best or how much more accurate lasers are or how much AC's are effected by recoil for each pilot on each mech given the amount of AC's they each have. I'm just saying having an idea of more parts of the game would be nice. Perhaps that's too in depth and me being too picky.
Not really. HBS didn't take a lot of time to explain a lot of concepts. Just getting a summary of how much heat and damage a mech can generate was completely hidden up until this update (and it's still behind a tooltip, and only visible in the mech bay)- well, if you know enough you can add it up, but it isn't entirely obvious to new players.
As far as AC/10s go, yeah. They're kinda bad, especially with large lasers being usable now. Even before, I'd rather downgrade to an AC/5, and free up four tons (and have more ammo per ton). AC/20s are a bit too all or nothing for my taste, but I can see why more gambling types like them.
But on most mechs with AC/10s you can free up a single ton and replace it with an AC/5 AND large laser.
Unfortunately AC/10s are in a weird place. If damage is increased, they can headcap mechs. If tonnage is changed (for any weapon) lots of stock loadouts are suddenly non-functional. And that would be even worse than some of the heat changes.
My Mechs and pilots are good enough and I have enough money that there is no real incentaive to go on missions - especially since its invariably against twice the numbers and little more than a slug fest so good chance I loose the good stuff.
I personally need more variety in the missions, some story stuff, larger maps where oputflanking does not just make you run straight into the reinforcements
Cityscapes and LOS blocking maps where we can hunt each other down.
Anybody else realizing Heavy Lasers have become the new hotness? Seriously if you spam about 5-6 of them on a mech and have a fully leveled up called shot skill you can pretty much head shot the enemy once on average a turn. Usually 40 or more damage and it's almost enough to destroy the head off a mech and kill the pilot instantly with all mech salvage left intact. Seriously it's pretty ridiculous. SRM6's spam with a 4 damage boost is also good in that way. Each SRM6 under similar situation as the heavy lasers will get at least one head shot a turn per SRM6 and when they're doing 12 damage each they eat away a significant amount of health.
Seriously in a 5 difficulty rating mission where enemy armor was at 25% of normal armor i basically headshot anywhere from 2-3 mechs (and auto-killed them) and i think 1-2 of them were just one mech firing instantly killing an Assault mech with a headshot all by itself in one volley. It was just really absurd stuff. I faced probably at least 9 enemies all assault mechs or high tier vehicles.
My Mechs and pilots are good enough and I have enough money that there is no real incentaive to go on missions - especially since its invariably against twice the numbers and little more than a slug fest so good chance I loose the good stuff.
I personally need more variety in the missions, some story stuff, larger maps where oputflanking does not just make you run straight into the reinforcements
Cityscapes and LOS blocking maps where we can hunt each other down.
Yeah there are certain mission types that I just want to avoid-
Escorts are annoying, even with the ability to speed up moves, as they take more time, and for some reason the final 'parking' animation at the end of the move dials back down to normal speed.
Battles easily get out of control because the reinforcements often show up about half-way through the first lance. If you random LRM heavy opposition in the other lance, you're going to have a bad time.
Base defense turrets can be a bit boring, simply because they're usually spread out in a way that makes them a complete lack of threat. Just kill any active defenders, then sensor lock each turret in turn and pop it.
There does need to be a lot more mission variety, map variety and mech variety before the base game is anywhere near complete. Adding new story packages doesn't sound that great (because they're fairly rubbish at storytelling/characters), but it needs more hand crafted content to intersperse the waves of procedural dross.
I did find turning on destruction when CT cored out, going up to 4 salvage parts to a mech and no free equipment on salvaged mechs makes for a nice jump in the difficulty. 4 parts can also make it slightly more tedious to get new chassis (what with the RNG on opposition), but in my original run through I had sold 40+ mechs before I got bored half-way through, mostly due to lack of challenge..
I broke out all my BattleTech Tech manuals. I'm tooling a Jagermech to fit into my idea of a SNIPER mech
Water is my friend
Woods are my friend
Tundra is my lover
Wonder how they're going to implement anti missile system on mechs
Edit
Have to remember. Caliber/type of weapons gives you an idea on how to deploy your mech.
My Orions have AC10's for long range and only for long range till I get in close to use med lasers. Then I go mecha hand to hand
Escorts are annoying, even with the ability to speed up moves, as they take more time, and for some reason the final 'parking' animation at the end of the move dials back down to normal speed.
Battles easily get out of control because the reinforcements often show up about half-way through the first lance. If you random LRM heavy opposition in the other lance, you're going to have a bad time.
There is a trick to escort missions. Clear out the initial attackers before letting any of your mechs into the RV circle. Once that is done look for the most plausible destination and move two mechs a full turn towards that and keep two near the RV circle the following turn move a mech into the RV circle and activate the units they you are to escort. Most likely you have correctly judged the destination, otherwise your forward pair will need to sprint to adjust, the other pair accompanies the escorted assets, slightly from in front is possible. You do not need light mechs, you can pull all this off with four 4/6 speed mechs of any weight bracket so long as you get one turns head start so ou dont need to waste moves doing sprints.
If you need to give your mechs time to deploy block the road with a mech so the escorted vehicles need to go off road, this will slow then down a turn allowing your forward pair to make a frontal screen without having to sprint and lose firepower to stay ahead, or sprint a wrongly positioned forward pair before they are too far away to help..
Escorted vulnerable vehicles that blindly always keep moving forwards is standard escort mission bullcrud from gaming from long ago. On the whole Battletech has it easy as you can block your own transports if they are going to rush into a dumb position and get shot up.
There does need to be a lot more mission variety, map variety and mech variety before the base game is anywhere near complete. Adding new story packages doesn't sound that great (because they're fairly rubbish at storytelling/characters), but it needs more hand crafted content to intersperse the waves of procedural dross.
Loved the Story as it was (for me) just like a BTnovel - so playing through one was great.
I still think adpating the previously published campaign packs would be awesome as playign through them on line with the pre set characters, maps and Mechs (often flawed) would be really enjoyable - but that may just be me.
I didn't think it was like a BT novel at all, except the unlikable wooden protagonist. I really disliked the clear good vs. Evil story, down to cackling about concentration camps and mass murder while twirling mustaches.
----
@Orlanth- I don't find escort missions difficult, just that they add an extra layer of tedium. I'm not actually sure its possible to activate the escorts before triggering the first wave of enemies, and the second wave usually waits until the vehicles are really close to the exit point.
Its just more turn changeovers (and accompanying delays) and little reward in the way of decent mech chassis to salvage. Assassinations are usually the best ones to farm, though recently I ran into an orion k on a convoy ambush.
Sadly didn't manage to salvage much of it, despite taking out both torsos and a leg, it was still going. I was trying to finish off the other leg, and despite going for medium laser side shots and the last leg at 22 structure and the CT at 80, the torso went first.
Orlanth wrote: If you want salvage use melee, you take out mechs with a combo of leg damage, and pilot KO through repeated knockdown.
I'm well aware.
The RNG simply didn't cooperate on called shots, even when stacking the odds with side shots, and it was a Guts pilot that soaked four injuries. It was also happily guarding excessively, which made stab damage ineffective (especially with the new higher stab thresholds for heavies)
Voss wrote: I didn't think it was like a BT novel at all, except the unlikable wooden protagonist. I really disliked the clear good vs. Evil story, down to cackling about concentration camps and mass murder while twirling mustaches.
That's a good point. That said the baddies make a couple good points.
1st
Spoiler:
Yeah they were only a tin pot dictatorship that was basically a mini-empire among giants. They made a good point that they needed a strong ally to remain independent and not get destroyed in war with the major sides. That said their allies could just see them as disposable. The other issue was what would happen if their 'allies' found out about the terrorist attack they did to them which broke human rights treaties.
2nd
Spoiler:
The whole taking someone captive and torturing them bit was done by both sides. Of course they still make the baddies seem so much worse for it. Dunno if it was a harsher treatment but they made it seem so much worse.
I'll admit the logic for the first is a bit flawed but it isn't the worst bunch of plans a bad guy's had ever esp. for a video game. The whole 'break his jaw' line was so hammy though esp. when she actually did it. Admittedly that guy looked she punched seemed so posh and annoying that a couple punches to his face were to a degree wanted by me. He's not a real person guys so it's ok. I mean come on.
-----
Of all the female characters i'd probably say i like Sumire the most. Maybe it's just her opinion on things. Kamea Arano makes some bad and risky choices that put herself in too much in danger. To be fair it's nice to see her not always be 'too good' to fight but the bit with the 'shiny new mechs' was a bit careless and could have ended her resistance right there. The Middle Eastern lady (or whatever she technically is since she from 'middle east-the planet') seems ok. I guess she's a genius with tech. That story where she married a kooky Bill Nye the science guy IN SPACE!!! was a bit odd.
Well, as to the 2nd, the enemy is worse. They aren't just
Spoiler:
torturing 'someone,' they're explicitly setting up concentration camps, mass-murdering civilians, and keeping people in racks of cages and the whole generic Nazi parallel. And this comes up in the second (real) mission and Kamea talks about avenging it in a planetary (or event regional) broadcast
There isn't a 'both sides' issue, or even the usual BT shades of grey. The opposition is just Evil with a capital E, for reasons. Which is unfortunate, but especially since the original proposition was that you could choose a side, and it was more fitting for the setting, not just 'But Thou Must' White Hat on Black Hat.
So the writing really suffers, and it's really odd given the people in charge of HBS and the focus on 'for reals' battletech. (And the Argo is also a fluff abomination, if you care for that sort of thing)
As to the first point- eh. They *are* a tin pot state. They don't even rate as an empire, or even a lesser state (that would be Canopus and the Taurian). They don't have anything in the way of resources or trade, and frankly don't even exist in 50 years. The exception is the stuff they aren't supposed to have, which honestly is a bit of a lore breaker.
Even a hint that they (and you) start running around with that stuff would mean black ops teams from half a dozen organizations/states drowning the entire region in blood. The fourth succession war would have kicked off early, and they're passing that stuff out like party favors. It would be like King Arthur finding the Grail, the ark of the covenant and Excalibur all in one go, and tossing Excalibur not to Galahad or Lancelot, but to a passing Irish Mercenary Captain who was trying to turn in a bounty on bandits.
Voss wrote: Well, as to the 2nd, the enemy is worse. They aren't just
Spoiler:
torturing 'someone,' they're explicitly setting up concentration camps, mass-murdering civilians, and keeping people in racks of cages and the whole generic Nazi parallel. And this comes up in the second (real) mission and Kamea talks about avenging it in a planetary (or event regional) broadcast
There isn't a 'both sides' issue, or even the usual BT shades of grey. The opposition is just Evil with a capital E, for reasons. Which is unfortunate, but especially since the original proposition was that you could choose a side, and it was more fitting for the setting, not just 'But Thou Must' White Hat on Black Hat.
So the writing really suffers, and it's really odd given the people in charge of HBS and the focus on 'for reals' battletech. (And the Argo is also a fluff abomination, if you care for that sort of thing)
As to the first point- eh. They *are* a tin pot state. They don't even rate as an empire, or even a lesser state (that would be Canopus and the Taurian). They don't have anything in the way of resources or trade, and frankly don't even exist in 50 years. The exception is the stuff they aren't supposed to have, which honestly is a bit of a lore breaker.
Even a hint that they (and you) start running around with that stuff would mean black ops teams from half a dozen organizations/states drowning the entire region in blood. The fourth succession war would have kicked off early, and they're passing that stuff out like party favors. It would be like King Arthur finding the Grail, the ark of the covenant and Excalibur all in one go, and tossing Excalibur not to Galahad or Lancelot, but to a passing Irish Mercenary Captain who was trying to turn in a bounty on bandits.
I totally get that they did that stuff but i meant the actual torturing bits.
As far as battletech lore goes i'll be incredibly honest that i have no clue about battletech other than the mechs and that it's a tabletop game and has had video games. I wouldn't know the lore massacres they may have created.
Btw i wanted to bring it up for a while but i was holding it off partly because it tends to end in thread locks. Did some of the stuff come off as pushing a bit of a Politically Correct narrative? I enjoy the game and all but i can't help but be bothered almost every random person in a random mission is referred to as 'her', the beginning allows 'he', 'she' or 'them' (who wants to be called them?), the main 'good guy' faction that helps lady arano is a 'feminist matriarchal utopia' the writers have nothing bad to say about and a character has a certain religion and wears a headscarf a thousand years from now in a fictional universe and just i dunno it pushes so many things all at once.
I enjoy the game and all but some of that comes off as obnoxious. I mean it's worse when people use it as an excuse to attack fans or as a 'get out of jail free' card for criticism.
Now being entirely fair i don't know battletech as much as i should but most sides seemed to have a form of hypocrisy about them. The Magistracy does as well (sick of patriarchy so makes a matriarchy instead) but they seem to be pushed as super good guys.
I don't want this to cause a lot of back and forth between the forum members but it'd be nice if maybe it's at least kept civil. I'm betting that won't happen though.
----------
Oh Lore abominations? You mean like khorne sorcerors and "100 BANEBLADES!!!"?
flamingkillamajig wrote: I enjoy the game and all but i can't help but be bothered almost every random person in a random mission is referred to as 'her', the beginning allows 'he', 'she' or 'them' (who wants to be called them?), the main 'good guy' faction that helps lady arano is a 'feminist matriarchal utopia' the writers have nothing bad to say about and a character has a certain religion and wears a headscarf a thousand years from now in a fictional universe and just i dunno it pushes so many things all at once.
I did notice that every time you have to rescue/recover/find someone it's a 'she'. Thought that was odd.
flamingkillamajig wrote: I enjoy the game and all but i can't help but be bothered almost every random person in a random mission is referred to as 'her', the beginning allows 'he', 'she' or 'them' (who wants to be called them?), the main 'good guy' faction that helps lady arano is a 'feminist matriarchal utopia' the writers have nothing bad to say about and a character has a certain religion and wears a headscarf a thousand years from now in a fictional universe and just i dunno it pushes so many things all at once.
I did notice that every time you have to rescue/recover/find someone it's a 'she'. Thought that was odd.
I look at the universe in BT similar to 40k: It is so insanely huge you can have pretty much any belief system you want turn-up.
As to the usually a "she" being rescued, a certain engineer had a job to do, you were supposed to keep the heat off her... I felt her mission was rather cool to be honest... too bad she seemed lackluster moving forward, bordering on irritating with the same canned responses.
To be honest, I never really paid attention to the gender of the "pick up the spy" missions and I did not look at them as a "rescue" it is more a armored extraction (too important to just try to sneak away).
Reminded me a bit of the Cyberpunk methods of collecting a researcher that wish to "defect" from a company.
I totally get that they did that stuff but i meant the actual torturing bits.
As far as battletech lore goes i'll be incredibly honest that i have no clue about battletech other than the mechs and that it's a tabletop game and has had video games. I wouldn't know the lore massacres they may have created.
Btw i wanted to bring it up for a while but i was holding it off partly because it tends to end in thread locks. Did some of the stuff come off as pushing a bit of a Politically Correct narrative? I enjoy the game and all but i can't help but be bothered almost every random person in a random mission is referred to as 'her', the beginning allows 'he', 'she' or 'them' (who wants to be called them?), the main 'good guy' faction that helps lady arano is a 'feminist matriarchal utopia' the writers have nothing bad to say about and a character has a certain religion and wears a headscarf a thousand years from now in a fictional universe and just i dunno it pushes so many things all at once.
I enjoy the game and all but some of that comes off as obnoxious. I mean it's worse when people use it as an excuse to attack fans or as a 'get out of jail free' card for criticism.
Now being entirely fair i don't know battletech as much as i should but most sides seemed to have a form of hypocrisy about them. The Magistracy does as well (sick of patriarchy so makes a matriarchy instead) but they seem to be pushed as super good guys.
I don't want this to cause a lot of back and forth between the forum members but it'd be nice if maybe it's at least kept civil. I'm betting that won't happen though.
----------
Oh Lore abominations? You mean like khorne sorcerors and "100 BANEBLADES!!!"?
I didn't find the game per se obnoxious. That the Canopians market themselves as a matriarchal utopia it's already present in the lore. The Taurians have always been the paranoid rednecks of the Periphery, while Canopus got all the class. so nothing really new there. Farah IMO was the way you can write a minority of any kind in a game; she is muslim, she is a genious but she doesn't go ranting that she got to be best in her field because she is a woman and a Muslim.
My point is, that if you forget all the out of game stupid PC stuff that came from some devs, and a part of the audience, the game and it's chars by itself doesn't seem out of place in the IS. If any, I want to complain that in the original Btech lore an Arano Restoration with SL tech would be deader than 3000 year old mummy the moment the Houses got wind of the existence of those tasty SL mechs. House Liao pre Sun Tzu might be a joke but the Death Commandos were feared everywhere for a reason, and Davion surely would find a reason to send the Assault Guards on a Periphery tour, and don't start me with what Comstar would do when reading all those HPG videos talking about Castle Brians and SL tech...
Er, Taurians aren't rednecks. They have the best educational system in the entire inner sphere, bar none, they just don't have the industry or resources to exploit it. And the most democratic government and largely the best standard of living for average citizens.
Canopus is a mixed bag, with problems with corruption, crime and poor education- they're pretty far from a matriarchal utopia. Someone just checked a box back in the 80s and made one of the dozen periphery states a matriarchy.
Trying to reinstall. Sadly my game has been crashing every single time I play since the update. Annoying as feth all.
Hope to fix it. Addressing the topic at hand, I think you simply can't escape "political" messages anywhere in today's world and I agree it's tiresome. I can ignore most of it (because, shocker...it never enriches a story). I didn't find it overwhelming in Btech, it just received a cursory "Oh, we're doing that...okay". moment from me.
It does smack of a college-tuition pamphlet of diversity in the game (awkwardly so). Whatever, the game is still pretty excellent.
- The Basic Races of Humanity (Old Race Ethnicity Standards):~ Caucasoid ~ Mongoloid ~ Negroid ~ Australoid
- New standards: - American Indian or Alaska Native - Asian - Black or African American - Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander - White
The worst part of all this is it is largely based on regions of development due to climate and amount of sun, think how varied this would be in other solar systems.
Religion: Will boil it down to some 20 largest religions.
Spoiler:
Christianity (2.1 billion)
Islam (1.3 billion)
Nonreligious (Secular/Agnostic/Atheist) (1.1 billion)
Hinduism (900 million)
Chinese traditional religion (394 million)
Buddhism 376 million
Primal-indigenous (300 million)
African traditional and Diasporic (100 million)
Sikhism (23 million)
Juche (19 million)
Spiritism (15 million)
Judaism (14 million)
Bahai (7 million)
Jainism (4.2 million)
Shinto (4 million)
Cao Dai (4 million)
Zoroastrianism (2.6 million)
Tenrikyo (2 million)
Neo-Paganism (1 million)
Unitarian-Universalism (800,000)
Politics:
Spoiler:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_ideologies Anarchism
Main article: Anarchism
See also: Anti-authoritarianism
See also: Anti-capitalism
See also: Anti-fascism
See also: Agrarianism
See also: Post-left anarchy
See also: Inclusive Democracy
Classical
Mutualism
Social
Main article: Social anarchism
Anarcho-communism
Anarcho-syndicalism
Collectivist anarchism
Individualist
Main article: Individualist anarchism
Egoist anarchism
Post-Classical
General
Anarcha-feminism
Anarcho-capitalism
Anarcho-naturism
Anarcho-pacifism
Anarcho-primitivism
Black anarchism
Christian anarchism
Existentialist anarchism
Free-market anarchism
Green anarchism
Insurrectionary anarchism
Left-wing market anarchism
National anarchism
Post-anarchism
Postcolonial anarchism
Queer anarchism
Synthesist anarchism
Veganarchism
Other
Anarchism without adjectives
Communalism
Democratic confederalism
Libertarian municipalism
Platformism
Makhnovism
Conservatism
Main article: Conservatism
See also: Tory
See also: Blue Tory
See also: Red Tory
See also: New Right
See also: Neue Rechte
See also: Illiberal democracy
General
Bioconservatism
Black conservatism
Civic conservatism
Compassionate conservatism
Cultural conservatism
Fiscal conservatism
Green conservatism
LGBT conservatism
Liberal conservatism
Libertarian conservatism
National conservatism
Neoconservatism
One-nation conservatism
Paternalistic conservatism
Paleoconservatism
Social conservatism
Theoconservatism
Traditionalist conservatism
Other
Carlism
Centrism
Radical centrism
Communitarianism
Monarchism
Regional variants
European
Conservatism in Germany
Middle Eastern / Indian
Conservatism in Pakistan
Asian / Pacific
Conservatism in Australia
American
Conservatism in Colombia
Conservatism in North America
Conservatism in Canada
Conservatism in the United States
Environmentalism
Main article: Environmentalism
See also: Green politics
See also: Green left
See also: Agrarianism
See also: Social ecology
See also: Deep ecology
General
Bioregionalism
Bright green environmentalism
Free market environmentalism
Green municipalism
Fascism
Main article: Fascism
See also: Reactionary
See also: Irredentism
See also: Anti-liberalism
See also: Anti-communism
See also: Right-wing populism
See also: Proto-fascism
See also: Statism in Shōwa Japan
See also: Völkisch movement
See also: Third Position
See also: Identitarian movement
See also: Dark Enlightenment
See also: Alt-right
General
Austrofascism
British fascism
Christofascism
Clerical fascism
Ecofascism
Islamofascism
Italian fascism
Neo-fascism
Other
Brazilian Integralism
Falangism
Metaxism
Nazism
Neo-Nazism
Strasserism
Hutu Power
Identity Movements
Feminism
Main article: Feminism
See also: Feminist economics
See also: Pro-feminism
Africana womanism
Anarcha-feminism
Atheist feminism
Black feminism
Christian feminism
Cultural feminism
Ecofeminism
Individualist feminism
Islamic feminism
Jewish feminism
Lesbian feminism
Liberal feminism
Marxist feminism
Mormon feminism
Postmodern feminism
Radical feminism
Religious feminism
Separatist feminism
Socialist feminism
Transfeminism
White feminism
Womanism
Men's movement
Main article: Men's movement
See also: Men's rights movement
See also: Fathers' rights movement
See also: Mythopoetic men's movement
See also: Men's liberation movement
Masculism
LGBT social movements
Main article: LGBT social movements
See also: Pink capitalism
Transfeminism
Homonationalism
LGBT conservatism
Queer nationalism
Queer anarchism
Racial movements
See also: Racial segregation
Black
See also: Black pride
See also: African-American leftism
See also: Afrocentrism
Africana womanism
Black anarchism
Black feminism
Black nationalism
Black separatism
Black capitalism
Pan-Africanism
White
See also: White pride
See also: White supremacy
White nationalism
Pan-European nationalism
White Separatism
Other
See also: Idle No More
Liberalism
Main article: Liberalism
See also: Civic nationalism
See also: Liberal democracy
See also: Christian democracy
See also: Social democracy
See also: Progressivism
See also: Liberal internationalism
See also: Anti-communism
See also: Anti-fascism
General
Conservative liberalism
Classical liberalism
Cultural liberalism
Democratic liberalism
Economic liberalism
Green liberalism
Green liberalism
Muscular liberalism
National liberalism
Neoliberalism
Ordoliberalism
Religious liberalism
Secular liberalism
Social liberalism
Technoliberalism
Other
Centrism
Radical centrism
Popolarismo
Distributism
Libertarianism
Main article: Libertarianism
See also: Civil libertarianism
See also: Christian libertarianism
See also: Progressivism
Left
Main article: Left-libertarianism
See also: Left communism
See also: Democratic socialism
See also: Libertarian socialism
See also: Libertarian Marxism
See also: Liberation theology
See also: Participatory economics
See also: Gandhian economics
See also: Anti-Stalinist left
Autonomism
Anarcho-communism
Anarcho-syndicalism
Collectivist anarchism
Council communism
Democratic socialism
De Leonism
Guild socialism
Participism
Right
Main article: Right-libertarianism
Autarchism
Anarcho-capitalism
Corporatism
Fusionism
Paleolibertarianism
Panarchism
Voluntaryism
Agorism
Free market environmentalism
Libertarian paternalism
Libertarian conservatism
Minarchism
Nationalism
Main article: Nationalism
See also: Patriotism
See also: Irredentism
See also: Isolationism
See also: Protectionism
See also: Euroscepticism
General
Eco-nationalism
Expansionist nationalism
Golus nationalism
Homonationalism
Integral nationalism
Left-wing nationalism
Liberal nationalism
Neo-nationalism
Pan-nationalism
Queer nationalism
Religious nationalism
Romantic nationalism
Ultranationalism
Other
National anarchism
National bolshevism
National communism
National syndicalism
Producerism
Religious variants
Christian nationalism
Hindu nationalism
Muslim nationalism
Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism
Zionism
Christian Zionism
Green Zionism
Labor Zionism
Neo-Zionism
Religious Zionism
Revisionist Zionism
Regional variants
African
Nasserism
European
Gaullism
Irish nationalism
Irish republicanism
Scottish nationalism
Spanish nationalism
Welsh nationalism
Middle Eastern / Indian
Baathism
Kemalism
Asian / Pacific
Bengali nationalism
Chinese nationalism
Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism
American
Neo-Confederate
Peronism
Unification movements
Black nationalism
Pan-Africanism
Pan-Arabism
Pan-Asianism
Pan-Celticism
Pan-Iranism
Pan-Islamism
Pan-European nationalism
Pan-nationalism
Pan-Slavism
Pan-Somalism
Pan-Turkism
Scandinavianism
White nationalism
Religious ideologies
Main article: Religion
See also: Theocracy
See also: Christian democracy
See also: Christian right
See also: Christian left
See also: Liberation theology
See also: Hindutva
Buddhism
Buddhist anarchism
Buddhist socialism
Christianity
Caesaropapism
Christian libertarianism
Christian anarchism
Christian communism
Christian feminism
Christian socialism
Christian libertarianism
Christian reconstructionism
Christian Zionism
Christofascism
Clerical fascism
Distributism
Dominionism
Political Catholicism
Popolarismo
Ultramontanism
Hinduism
Hindu nationalism
Islam
Islamic anarchism
Islamic democracy
Islamic socialism
Islamic fundamentalism
Islamism
Islamofascism
Khilafat movement
Panislamism
Judaism
Homaranismo
Jewish anarchism
Jewish feminism
Mormonism
Theodemocracy
Sikhism
Khalistan movement
Socialism
Main article: Socialism
See also: Communism
See also: Marxism
See also: Classical Marxism
See also: Orthodox Marxism
See also: Primitive communism
See also: Agrarianism
See also: Scientific socialism
See also: Revolutionary socialism
See also: Old Left
See also: New Left
See also: Progressivism
See also: Left-wing populism
See also: Anti-capitalism
See also: Anti-fascism
Authoritarian
Main article: Authoritarian socialism
Marxist–Leninist
Main article: Marxism–Leninism
See also: Anti-revisionism
See also: Socialism in One Country
See also: Socialism with Chinese characteristics
Foco
Guevarism
Ho Chi Minh Thought
Hoxhaism
Husakism
Juche
Goulash communism
Khrushchevism
Maoism
Marxism–Leninism–Maoism
Marxism–Leninism–Maoism–Prachanda Path
Neo-Stalinism
Titoism
Stalinism
Xi Jinping Thought
Other
National Bolshevism
National communism
Libertarian
Main article: Left-libertarianism
See also: Left communism
See also: Democratic socialism
See also: Libertarian socialism
See also: Libertarian Marxism
See also: Liberation theology
See also: Participatory economics
See also: Gandhian economics
See also: Anti-Stalinist left
Autonomism
Anarcho-communism
Anarcho-syndicalism
Collectivist anarchism
Council communism
Democratic socialism
De Leonism
Guild socialism
Participism
Other
See also: Structural Marxism
See also: Freudo-Marxism
See also: Austromarxism
See also: Western Marxism
See also: Neo-Marxism
See also: Post-Marxism
See also: Marxist humanism
See also: Johnson–Forest Tendency
See also: Situationist International
See also: Fabian Society
Blanquism
Eco-socialism
Eurocommunism
Ethical socialism
Fourierism
Left-wing nationalism
Liberal socialism
Market socialism
Workerism
World communism
Yellow socialism
Religious variants
Buddhist socialism
Christian socialism
Hutterism
Islamic socialism
Religious socialism
Religious communism
Regional variants
African
African socialism
Sankarism
European
Abertzale left
Middle Eastern / Indian
Arab socialism
Ba'athism
Labor Zionism
Nehruism
Asian / Pacific
Melanesian socialism
American
Bolivarianism
Zapatismo
Magonism
Neozapatismo
One would think with thousands of worlds to choose from, humanity would be as diverse as snowflakes in the Battletech universe, if not more-so.
I guess I am trying to say that leaning on any kind of existing trope other than "X person is too different from me" is a rather large lack of creativity by writers.
I guess I feel like the character types picked for Battletech is to similar in the reasoning why the cast were picked for Original Star Trek for that time.
This is supposed to be akin to "Game of Thrones" in space: we do not care what the heck you look like or your religious beliefs, who do you support politically?
Funny how that is easily the largest list we can create: an ideal to gather around has always given more reasons for differentiating ourselves.
Talizvar wrote: I figure we have on the planet we live on now:
In the 31st century. Terra has more nation states on it than there are recognised multi-system powers. While a lot of the land is under a single world government there are multiple semi-independent principalities. Even Amaris left them to their self governance. Bhutan I think is one.
There are more languages spoken on Terra than the rest of human space combined.
There are more religions on Terra than the rest of human space combined.
There are primitive catalogued but otherwise uncontacted tribes kept in human zoo regions persiting through the Battletech timeline. IIRC a lot of the Amazon is sealed against all travel by law, and cannot be overflown but sub-orbital flight, for the benefit of the remaining primitive tribes. Terra is a unique case on so many levels.
but then so is the Sol sytem. There are semi terraformed and terraformed worlds in the Solar System, Vunus is breathable and the Venusian sun shade is the largest feat of engineering by humans in the canon. The Sol system is inhabited as far out as the trans Pluto orbit, with rumours of secret installations in the Oort cloud. Though most Belters live out no further than the Saturnian system, and most live a lot closer.
In canon there is little to nothing to assume about the simpler organised and comprised systems and nation states from what we can learn for 31st century Sol system.
Voss wrote: Er, Taurians aren't rednecks. They have the best educational system in the entire inner sphere, bar none, they just don't have the industry or resources to exploit it. And the most democratic government and largely the best standard of living for average citizens.
Canopus is a mixed bag, with problems with corruption, crime and poor education- they're pretty far from a matriarchal utopia. Someone just checked a box back in the 80s and made one of the dozen periphery states a matriarchy.
Taurians sound kinda like america or at least with some things. We spend the most on education (not sure of the quality though). We have a lot of resources and military and industry though our work is getting exported. Best standard of living does seem to check a box right there though may be debatable. We are up there though in quality of living. Don't think we're the most democratic but we're more so than a lot of countries.
Honestly the fact Taurians sounded like Space 'Murica to an extent is why i chose them for my origins story. I was looking at Federated Suns but then saw they're a monarchy that used to be a democracy and sorta screwed up some stuff. Why do they fight with Taurians so much? Is it just because they're both powerful nations with a shared border? You'd think there are far more different ideologies they'd hate more. Let's be real here though. Democracy is just popular vote of the people so based on different regions the majority population may have very, very differing views. In that respect a democracy in the middle east may vote very differently to a western democracy. The same goes for any region even in the same country.
Honestly the fact Taurians sounded like Space 'Murica to an extent is why i chose them for my origins story. I was looking at Federated Suns but then saw they're a monarchy that used to be a democracy and sorta screwed up some stuff.
The Taurian Concordat is a constitutional monarchy...think the UK, or Sweden. There's a monarch, but they don't really do much in terms of actually running the domain. Unless they can leverage the threat of war, real or imagined, in order to seize more power.
But honestly, the vibe I get from the Taurians is space Canada + potential dictator.
Orlanth wrote: Canopus is probably a cross between California and Ancient Babylon. There arent too many direct analogies.
Ugh i'm already uninterested in a place like that. I don't know enough about ancient babylon other than the fact it was culturally significant and possibly had a lot of different cultures in it.
I will say the very least this game has done for me is make me interested in the Battletech/Mechwarrior universe. That said even the crappy cartoon from decades ago made me interested.
flamingkillamajig wrote: I enjoy the game and all but i can't help but be bothered almost every random person in a random mission is referred to as 'her', the beginning allows 'he', 'she' or 'them' (who wants to be called them?), the main 'good guy' faction that helps lady arano is a 'feminist matriarchal utopia' the writers have nothing bad to say about and a character has a certain religion and wears a headscarf a thousand years from now in a fictional universe and just i dunno it pushes so many things all at once.
I did notice that every time you have to rescue/recover/find someone it's a 'she'. Thought that was odd.
That might be configmration bias. The industrial researcher and captured liao noble are she's but the double agent and research spy that gets captured are 'hes'.
Strangely, BT does have a larger number of named female researchers than male ones. I suspect this was because most of the main character pilots were male and researchers tended to serve as love interests (I'm looking at you Kai. And you Thomas. Victor is a lush by any stretch, but he counts too)
I did notice that every time you have to rescue/recover/find someone it's a 'she'. Thought that was odd.
Would it have stuck out to you if it had defaulted to "he"?
Not too much but it feels like over-compensating in the other direction. If people only using 'he' are bad then people only using 'she' are bad. It's two extremes.
Also let's be honest a lot of nerd tabletop games are overwhelmingly male. Video games are a bit different. I have noticed the majority of girls (which aren't tom boys) play rpgs or jrpgs, fire emblem (for some strange reason), the sims, a lot of nintendo games (and i mean a LOT) and some play some action games. Strategy has a ridiculously low amount of girls far as i notice. I dunno why it's so low but it is. The main character in strategy games don't even tend to have a gender. I could be an amorphous blob for all we know in the game world. As far as the girls that play FPS murder baths or strategy games they tend to be tom boys. It just makes sense. It's like saying girls that play sports, lift weights and watch violent movies tend to be tom boys.
Anyway my point with this is in games like 40k and maybe to a lesser extent battletech the male to female ratio seems to be pretty wide. Didn't we have a dakka poll with 10 to 11 people that identified as male vs 1 identifying as female (or was this just 40k dakka players)? This was a fairly big poll if i remember too.
I'm not even saying you can't change a game to be more interesting to other groups of people but that might result in alienating the original fan-base esp. hardcore fans. I mean any big fan-base like star wars, lord of the rings, ghostbusters, etc. can be very crazy with their hardcore fans. Of course sports has people painting their chest and causing riots when they win/lose so maybe nerd fandoms aren't that bad.
Also it would've been better if they had maybe a 50/50 swap of gender or just using 'they' sometimes for faceless and nameless random scientist recovery missions.
Supposedly the fans of Battletech loved the makers of the game or at least according to a friend. He noticed the stark contrast and was absolutely baffled when i told him about 40k before Kirby was booted.
Being a tad stereotypical no? You calling them tomboys is basically a vicious circle.
As fot BT, only recently got a big patch and still no glimpses of future content. The mods are ok so far, but I would hope for something that adds replayabillity.
As for the gendering, I did not notice anything out of the ordinary at all. And as far as the Taurians go, I didn't get a space America vibe. More like enlightened dictatorship vaguely based on Western democracy with sprinkles of Roman/Greek elements from antiquity. What makes them feel like the US?
Disciple of Fate wrote: Being a tad stereotypical no? You calling them tomboys is basically a vicious circle.
As fot BT, only recently got a big patch and still no glimpses of future content. The mods are ok so far, but I would hope for something that adds replayabillity.
As for the gendering, I did not notice anything out of the ordinary at all. And as far as the Taurians go, I didn't get a space America vibe. More like enlightened dictatorship vaguely based on Western democracy with sprinkles of Roman/Greek elements from antiquity. What makes them feel like the US?
It's not really that bad to say the girls that act like the majority of boys are boyish in nature. I get that maybe it's a culture thing but would forcing a culture change really be so good for the people used to the old culture? Either way people are going to be left out or behind. Should we really just crap all over the guys that act the way we used to expect guys to act and the same for girls. It bugs me more culture always is about telling us who and what to be regardless. When i was young i was told to act a certain way and now i'm told to act a certain different way. There's so much judgment and expectations. Just be you and i'll be me.
Disciple of Fate wrote: Being a tad stereotypical no? You calling them tomboys is basically a vicious circle.
As fot BT, only recently got a big patch and still no glimpses of future content. The mods are ok so far, but I would hope for something that adds replayabillity.
As for the gendering, I did not notice anything out of the ordinary at all. And as far as the Taurians go, I didn't get a space America vibe. More like enlightened dictatorship vaguely based on Western democracy with sprinkles of Roman/Greek elements from antiquity. What makes them feel like the US?
It's not really that bad to say the girls that act like the majority of boys are boyish in nature. I get that maybe it's a culture thing but would forcing a culture change really be so good for the people used to the old culture? Either way people are going to be left out or behind. Should we really just crap all over the guys that act the way we used to expect guys to act and the same for girls. It bugs me more culture always is about telling us who and what to be regardless. When i was young i was told to act a certain way and now i'm told to act a certain different way. There's so much judgment and expectations. Just be you and i'll be me.
I mean its only boyish in nature because society has stereotyped it as boyish in nature. As people enjoying a hobby similarly stigmatized at times as "childish" or worse, we should try to be more aware of the harmful nature of said stereotyping. But how would this not be good for people of the old culture? Getting new blood into the hobby of strategy videogames by not stereotyping them as tomboys changes exactly zero about the hobby, nobody is going to left out or behind, if anything its more inclusive. More women that go into strategy games means more of a market and likely more games for us "old" folks. Of course, let people be people, but calling the tomboys just for liking strategy games directly contradicts that.
Disciple of Fate wrote: Being a tad stereotypical no? You calling them tomboys is basically a vicious circle.
As fot BT, only recently got a big patch and still no glimpses of future content. The mods are ok so far, but I would hope for something that adds replayabillity.
As for the gendering, I did not notice anything out of the ordinary at all. And as far as the Taurians go, I didn't get a space America vibe. More like enlightened dictatorship vaguely based on Western democracy with sprinkles of Roman/Greek elements from antiquity. What makes them feel like the US?
It's not really that bad to say the girls that act like the majority of boys are boyish in nature. I get that maybe it's a culture thing but would forcing a culture change really be so good for the people used to the old culture? Either way people are going to be left out or behind. Should we really just crap all over the guys that act the way we used to expect guys to act and the same for girls. It bugs me more culture always is about telling us who and what to be regardless. When i was young i was told to act a certain way and now i'm told to act a certain different way. There's so much judgment and expectations. Just be you and i'll be me.
I mean its only boyish in nature because society has stereotyped it as boyish in nature. As people enjoying a hobby similarly stigmatized at times as "childish" or worse, we should try to be more aware of the harmful nature of said stereotyping. But how would this not be good for people of the old culture? Getting new blood into the hobby of strategy videogames by not stereotyping them as tomboys changes exactly zero about the hobby, nobody is going to left out or behind, if anything its more inclusive. More women that go into strategy games means more of a market and likely more games for us "old" folks. Of course, let people be people, but calling the tomboys just for liking strategy games directly contradicts that.
At this point I've helped depopulate a good section of Space Hollywood.
You're a hero.
---------
@Disciple of Fate: I'm not saying girls don't like strategy games in their entirety. I know several women that played the 'endless' series, xcom series, starcraft, Most Definitely Fire emblem (dunno why) and a couple popular games. However guys outnumber them by a lot. I get video games and tabletop games used to be more a nerd thing.
It's considered boyish because the majority of boys do said thing. It's not specifically a bad thing. I like girls that are tom-boys. Why is that considered bad to you?
As i may have said before there is an issue with the old fan base getting a re-vamp. It's needed at times but it's one of those hardcore fans vs casuals issue. If you cater too hard to casuals you alienate the hardcore. If you please only the hardcore fans then you risk elitism and no new players so a constantly decreasing and elitist fan-base.
Stereotypes have truth in them though and honestly most of the guys i know wish they could have a tom-boy/gamer girlfriend. After a point i just realized it's a waste of time or at least for me. Also there are patterns of certain behaviors. Are they an issue of culture or innate behaviors? I dunno. What i do know is forcing a culture change is definitely changing what people do.
I'm not entirely saying girls should act like boys or girls. I'm just saying some girls act more like the majority of boys. It's not even a bad thing that they do. I do get that i'm somewhat being a hypocrite but whatever.
Anyway we're getting insanely off topic. I suppose i could agree to end this debate with you if you're willing in the hopes of keeping the thread open, un-locked and on track.
----------------
I just keep thinking the TV stars are something like 'Dog the Bounty Hunter' or some Red-neck 'swamp hunters' show. That's the feel i got with it.
----------------
Can you guys tell me more about BattleTech? It seems like a worthwhile and fun work of fiction. As i said this game got me interested in the Battletech universe. Honestly i gotta say i think there should've been more than one empire with female leaders but possibly there are. I'm less fond of the whole monarchy thing but it's kinda cool. I do think that's why Taurians are the faction i like most. Taurians aren't as big into monarchy and that's what i like most.
Yeah, I'm just saying that calling girls tomboys for enjoying parts of what is traditionally a boys hobby isn't that great, because all too often tomboy still carries negative connotations. Not to long ago gamers were, and to an extent still are negatively stereotyped. But how is it in any way a culture change though?
As for the gamer girlfriend thing, most women I know my age play videogames. Now that is mostly the more popular titles, but honestly people who like strategy games even in the male subsection are only a fraction of the overall group. Maybe I got lucky in the people I know in that regard. But gaming is growing steadily and more people join in every year, at least allowing the word gamer to shed the idea of "(insert bad word here) nerd who plays WoW all day in the basement."
As for Btech, there are more female leaders, the Lyrans frequently had/have a female leader. Its what happens when you have a monarchy and a 50/50 chance to have a baby of either gender. The female empire in the game is very fringe in the Btech world, you can probably read more on other female leaders on the wiki than on that whole empire.
flamingkillamajig wrote: Can you guys tell me more about BattleTech? It seems like a worthwhile and fun work of fiction. As i said this game got me interested in the Battletech universe. Honestly i gotta say i think there should've been more than one empire with female leaders but possibly there are. I'm less fond of the whole monarchy thing but it's kinda cool. I do think that's why Taurians are the faction i like most. Taurians aren't as big into monarchy and that's what i like most.
It's been around for decades, encompasses multiple computer & tabletop games and as well as novels & a cartoon. Have a look at the BattleTechWiki.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Disciple of Fate wrote: As for Btech, there are more female leaders, the Lyrans frequently had/have a female leader.
Yep - Katrina Steiner was Archon of the Lyran Commonwealth in 3025. Kyalla Centrella was Magestrix of the Magistracy of Canopus at the same time.
As for the gamer girlfriend thing, most women I know my age play videogames. Now that is mostly the more popular titles, but honestly people who like strategy games even in the male subsection are only a fraction of the overall group. Maybe I got lucky in the people I know in that regard. But gaming is growing steadily and more people join in every year, at least allowing the word gamer to shed the idea of "(insert bad word here) nerd who plays WoW all day in the basement."
You must have gotten lucky. I tried joining some gamer or nerd groups and guys tend to out-number them. Even when it's more balanced like 70/30 or so they just like different things. Video games are like tv or books. Maybe europe or you dutch people have it easier but where i am it's different. Perhaps if i was in a big city it'd be different as well but i'm not sure. Gamer, girl gamer or tom-boy only have a negative connotation if that's how you see it man. I like tom-boys more than all other women but they're just too high in demand as girlfriends so i stopped trying. Seriously would you believe the girl i'm trying to work up to dating hasn't even seen Lord of the Rings before i met her? I let her watch the dvds. She watches 'Game of Thrones' though.
I'm just saying what i've seen with GW the numbers are so low i even remember a black male gamer going to the bathroom and seeing a joke sign about guys putting the toilet seat back down with a sister of battle issuing threats about it to which he replied something like, "How many girl gamers even come into the store?" Keep in mind this is GW i'm talking about here and we have ridiculously low numbers of women coming into the GW unless they're moms, wives, girlfriends or some relative of a guy that plays there. There are a few tabletop gaming girls that have come to the store and one i know from ohio that visited but even according to her the store she was at maybe had 3 female players.
---------
I don't specifically want girl leaders in battle tech or a gaming universe but representation here and there even as leaders or main characters every so often isn't bad. It's just when you over-do it then it reeks of virtue signaling. Sigh. I wish for the days of when people had diversity because they felt like that's what they wanted or it was who they were and didn't try doing it for the praise. If you do a good deed only for the praise and attention you're doing it wrong. In fact it's best done when it's as inconspicuous as possible. Make someone feel welcome by joining the crowd rather than thrusting them on a podium in front of the crowd and throwing flowers at the person. That's just gonna make people hate whoever is being treated better. That doesn't make people accept you. You gain it by being like everybody else and going through their struggles too.
--------
As far as stereotypes go i know you said you hate them but aren't the dutch just normally tall compared to other people of the world? I don't fully see stereotypes as bad. I think people realize patterns and it's not exactly always a bad thing so much as a pattern. How you interpret that pattern varies but to deny patterns exist at all would do more harm than good in my eyes.
--------
This is getting off topic and i can't stop myself either so if you wish we can continue this discussion in PM's if you wish.
I don't specifically want girl leaders in battle tech or a gaming universe but representation here and there even as leaders or main characters every so often isn't bad. It's just when you over-do it then it reeks of virtue signaling. Sigh. I wish for the days of when people had diversity because they felt like that's what they wanted or it was who they were and didn't try doing it for the praise. If you do a good deed only for the praise and attention you're doing it wrong. In fact it's best done when it's as inconspicuous as possible. Make someone feel welcome by joining the crowd rather than thrusting them on a podium in front of the crowd and throwing flowers at the person. That's just gonna make people hate whoever is being treated better. That doesn't make people accept you. You gain it by being like everybody else and going through their struggles too.
--------
As far as stereotypes go i know you said you hate them but aren't the dutch just normally tall compared to other people of the world? I don't fully see stereotypes as bad. I think people realize patterns and it's not exactly always a bad thing so much as a pattern. How you interpret that pattern varies but to deny patterns exist at all would do more harm than good in my eyes.
Yeah sorry, I will end the tangent. Although the Dutch 'stereotype' is actually true, its not a stereotype, on average our population is tallest. I really notice it when abroad
I don't think more female characters reeks of virtue signalling any more than having more male characters. Its a made up universe. Wishing back for those days when it wasn't virtue signalling just means going back to when it was tokenism. There are happy middle grounds and Battletech is diverse without feeling like its trying to hard/too little.
Traditionally, it tried too little. With a couple of exceptions (the Black Widow), the female characters were exclusively tokens or love interests, never main characters. And when they were the latter, they fell 'in lurve' at the drop of a hat, even when it was really creepy- like the not-quite 18 Steiner heiress and the 40-something Davion prince.
Voss wrote: Traditionally, it tried too little. With a couple of exceptions (the Black Widow), the female characters were exclusively tokens or love interests, never main characters. And when they were the latter, they fell 'in lurve' at the drop of a hat, even when it was really creepy- like the not-quite 18 Steiner heiress and the 40-something Davion prince.
?? There were many and varied characters - male and female in both the novels and the Campaign packs like Sorenson's Sabres or Cranston Snords Irregulars
Both men and women were just as likely to fall in love (or lust) with other characters - never had an issue with that - it was quite soap opera like but that I have always thought was part of BattleTech and even to a certain extent mirrors Animae in which it has old roots.
Now you can argue that alot of the imagery took full advantage of the fact that female Mechwarriors wear very little due to the heat but this is even mentioned in-universe when Misha interviews Natasha and talks about her "sexy" image and the fact that pictures of her wearing sexy outfits in a battlezone are staged propaganda by her
Melissa falling in love - well we are talking about fuedal arranged marriages and in this case I thought it was handled quite well, look back in history and its more common than you would think for mature powerful men to marry younger women and actually have a good marriage or even fall in love. Katrina is heavily involved in the marrriage set up and even gives her daughter the opportunity to refuse - this follows what happened with quite a few historic arranged marriages between royal familes.
A good example was Maragret of France, she wed Edward I when he was 60, she about 20 in a vary similar marriage of alliance, apparently they had a loving relationship as he had with first wife, when he died 6 years later Margaret never remarried. She was alleged to have stated that "when Edward died, all men died for me".
Had they just treated it as an arranged marriage it would have been less creepy. But the books whittered on about the love at first sight angle, and a lot of odd nonsense that didn't fit a political marriage. And then his representative fell in love with her handmaiden and so on and so forth. People would just wander into a room and instantly get declared 'in love' by the crappy novels.
The characters, quite frankly, weren't that varied. The Liao were the lunatic 'yellow menace,' Kurita was either mustache twirling villains (early on) or horrible weeabo stereotypes.
Voss wrote: Had they just treated it as an arranged marriage it would have been less creepy. But the books whittered on about the love at first sight angle, and a lot of odd nonsense that didn't fit a political marriage. And then his representative fell in love with her handmaiden and so on and so forth. People would just wander into a room and instantly get declared 'in love' by the crappy novels.
The characters, quite frankly, weren't that varied. The Liao were the lunatic 'yellow menace,' Kurita was either mustache twirling villains (early on) or horrible weeabo stereotypes.
I liked the romance - just like I enjoy it in the Cain novels but each to their own I really enjoy them still. Its Soap opera style but then most Action/Fantasysci-fi shows are exactly the same? Love at first sight happens sooo often.
As I said, poltical marriages CAN be happy or even result in the participants falling in love - often they are not - but same can be said for any other marriage/ relationship?
Now I fully agree that Davion became far to often the "Goodies" and the best at everything - NAIS was truely horrible for this but the protogonists of the novels did vary as did the background material in the campaign packs and books.
No idea what a Weeabo is - I'll have to look it up.
Voss wrote: Traditionally, it tried too little. With a couple of exceptions (the Black Widow), the female characters were exclusively tokens or love interests, never main characters. And when they were the latter, they fell 'in lurve' at the drop of a hat, even when it was really creepy- like the not-quite 18 Steiner heiress and the 40-something Davion prince.
To be clear I meant the current video game for the happy middle ground. The lore has some issues as you say, but I tend to fall on the side of that being on third rate writers more than intent for the creepy part.
Voss wrote: Traditionally, it tried too little. With a couple of exceptions (the Black Widow), the female characters were exclusively tokens or love interests, never main characters. And when they were the latter, they fell 'in lurve' at the drop of a hat, even when it was really creepy- like the not-quite 18 Steiner heiress and the 40-something Davion prince.
To be clear I meant the current video game for the happy middle ground. The lore has some issues as you say, but I tend to fall on the side of that being on third rate writers more than intent for the creepy part.
That is admittedly weird but it is a different time that feels more based around monarchies and i guess they did that in the olden days. It is weird in a common day setting though with love at first sight. Honestly the only vibes i get from those relationships are pervy old dude and gold-digging young pretty girl. If it's love supposedly then it's kinda creepy and almost feels manipulative in a relationship with such an age gap. It could go either way. An old guy with a deteriorating mental state and lots of money or a powerful dude with a naive young and pretty girl.
Voss wrote: Traditionally, it tried too little. With a couple of exceptions (the Black Widow), the female characters were exclusively tokens or love interests, never main characters. And when they were the latter, they fell 'in lurve' at the drop of a hat, even when it was really creepy- like the not-quite 18 Steiner heiress and the 40-something Davion prince.
To be clear I meant the current video game for the happy middle ground. The lore has some issues as you say, but I tend to fall on the side of that being on third rate writers more than intent for the creepy part.
That is admittedly weird but it is a different time that feels more based around monarchies and i guess they did that in the olden days. It is weird in a common day setting though with love at first sight. Honestly the only vibes i get from those relationships are pervy old dude and gold-digging young pretty girl. If it's love supposedly then it's kinda creepy and almost feels manipulative in a relationship with such an age gap. It could go either way. An old guy with a deteriorating mental state and lots of money or a powerful dude with a naive young and pretty girl.
Shall we talk about rich old guys and young women in the news? Are they are in "love"? Some will be, some will be happy but not in love and some will not and last a short time. People are complicated. I know couoples with ages gaps bigger than Hanse and Melissa and they have been together for decades, I know plenty who are the same age and fell in love and broke up months later or even shorter.
Arranged marriages are still about -certain cultures still promote them, they was even debate over here abut whether Harry should be "allowed" to marry Negan and the Queen had to give permission.
Automatically Appended Next Post: But not much in it:
Spoiler:
Release 1.1.2 Notes, 7/26/2018
Fixed a race condition that could cause a softlock after flamer attacks made with the Firestarter 'Mech.
Fixed an issue where the Capture the Argo mission on Axylus would fail to progress after loading a save game created right after securing the Argo crash site, but prior to new enemy units appearing.
Fixed an issue where players could use the navigation starmap to accept travel contracts they did not meet the reputation requirements for.
Fixed an issue where the "Ultra" quality setting could revert to "High" after relaunching the title.
Fixed an issue where the "Lock Cursor" game setting did not get applied until the user alt-tabbed or relaunched the title.
Fixed an issue where a 'Mech work order could still be created after some items equipped to the 'Mech were sold while the work order was pending.
Fixed an issue where the "Fresh Off the Lot" achievement could not be completed.
Automatically Appended Next Post: But not much in it:
Spoiler:
Release 1.1.2 Notes, 7/26/2018
Fixed a race condition that could cause a softlock after flamer attacks made with the Firestarter 'Mech.
Fixed an issue where the Capture the Argo mission on Axylus would fail to progress after loading a save game created right after securing the Argo crash site, but prior to new enemy units appearing.
Fixed an issue where players could use the navigation starmap to accept travel contracts they did not meet the reputation requirements for.
Fixed an issue where the "Ultra" quality setting could revert to "High" after relaunching the title.
Fixed an issue where the "Lock Cursor" game setting did not get applied until the user alt-tabbed or relaunched the title.
Fixed an issue where a 'Mech work order could still be created after some items equipped to the 'Mech were sold while the work order was pending.
Fixed an issue where the "Fresh Off the Lot" achievement could not be completed.
I've been off this game for a while because I just got bored going around the lower periphery fighting same-y missions.
Plus I've only ever seen one Assault 'Mech, and have a stable of salvaged 'Mechs so large and dangerous that it would cause the Fox himself to raise an eyebrow of concern.
I sold so many light and medium mechs....Shadowhawk price range is still firm being I haver sold a LOT to fully upgrade the Argoswhateversupersizemedropship
H.B.M.C. wrote: HBS really need to start adding to this game.
Yes. I haven't uninstalled it yet, but I sure haven't played it either, not since about mid-June. I guess there was no real reason for me to think this wasn't a one-and-done but I did hope they would keep adding to the game after release.
H.B.M.C. wrote: HBS really need to start adding to this game.
Yes. I haven't uninstalled it yet, but I sure haven't played it either, not since about mid-June. I guess there was no real reason for me to think this wasn't a one-and-done but I did hope they would keep adding to the game after release.
Perhaps there will be some DLC in a few months.
Agreed - enjoyed the campaign but there's not much after - was hoping we would at least get some of the stuff that the modders are doing....and the stuff that was listed in the KS like the celeb pilots etc
High Stakes Short Stories The first-ever BATTLETECH expansion comes complete with three new ‘Mechs (including the highly anticipated Hatchetman), a challenging new mission type, and a new tropical biome, along with its featured namesake, Flashpoints.
Flashpoints are high-stakes branching short stories, comprised of procedural mercenary missions linked together with new crew conversations, special events, critical choices, and valuable rewards.
To ramp up the intensity, some Flashpoint stories will feature “Consecutive Deployments” in which players won’t be able to repair their ‘Mechs between missions. MAIN FEATURES Flashpoints - Test your command skills in a series of action-packed short stories, completing extended contracts to earn big bonuses.
New Biome - Navigate a lush tropical beach environment, with sunny shores and just a pinch of alien flare, for good measure. Sunscreen optional.
New BattleMechs - Get your ‘Mech on with the armor-chopping power of the Hatchetman, the speed and versatility of the Crab, and the multi-range firepower of the Cyclops.
New Encounter - In “Target Acquisition”, you’ll put your light and medium ‘Mechs to good use by taking control of three territories on the map to prevail!
New BattleMechs - Get your ‘Mech on with the armor-chopping power of the Hatchetman, the speed and versatility of the Crab, and the multi-range firepower of the Cyclops.
Get your ‘Mech on with the armor-chopping power of the Hatchetman
I'm happy. The Hatchetman doesn't exist in MWO so it wasn't a direct model port but rather an actual investment. We know there are about 6 models that will be released once the Harmony Gold drama is over. I'm much more interested in the new narrative mission chains and the amount of investment that shows.
Wonder if we'll get the Axeman to match the Hatchetman. Always love more axes.
New Prologue Skip Option. Added the ability to skip the opening missions and cinematics of the campaign and skip to your first mission as a mercenary commander, helping a group of miners.
Combat Morale replaced with Resolve. Players now gain a consistent amount of Resolve every round of combat, and can use it to activate Precision Strike and Vigilance. The amount of Resolve gained each round is determined by the Morale on board your ship.
New Memorial Wall added in the Argo. Players can now access a list of fallen MechWarriors and view a variety of statistics they logged during their mercenary careers. You can only find the Memorial Wall on the Argo ship in the Barracks.
New Events. A number of new mercenary events have been added to the game.
Improvements to save game management
- Added ability to create custom names for manual saves- Permanent saves are marked with gold triangle icons and tooltips- Added percent progress to save game refresh
- Added the ability for users to disable warning when deleting saves
- Deleting a save game no longer scrolls back to the top of the list each time
Quality-of-Life Improvement
- Added the ability to restart in any combat mission without loading a save game (excludes iron man)
- Added initiative status icon overlays for MechWarrior portraits in combat
- Added more sorting options for inventory items
- Components are now sorted logically in the Store and MechBay
- Added more color swatches for mercenary outfit color schemes
- Added new floating text for Precision Strikes
- Added popup message when ‘Mech with invalid configuration is detected- Added new popup for selling multiple items in the store
- Added ultrawide version of main menu cinematic for 21:9 aspect ratios
- ‘Mech selection weight class filters changed from individual toggles to exclusive subsets, including new "All" button added to show all weight classes.
plus looking at new skills for Mwarriors for patch 1.3
Ouze wrote: Oh boy. I don't think I ever did uninstall this, so might be time to hop back in.
Also excited about the Hatchetman, which is the most absolutely ridiculous mech, but in the best way.
I wonder if it will pack some small weapon slots?
Not that hacking another mech with a few tons of axe is not nasty enough.
Interested to see how the new content and the latest patch mix things up.
Been playing this recently and I've been reminded about just how grimdark the BTech future is.
As for the overall game? It's fun. Salvaging is frustrating, but I think that's most Mechwarrior games in general for me. Combat is a blast but I'm disappointed I can't field more than a lance - company level play would be better but given that OpFor is at max what...8 mechs? It'd require a complete rework.
Excited for the expansion too, the 1.3 patch is suppose to offer a free-roam esque style campaign option where you just run around doing what you want without the story missions appearing - something I'm surprised wasn't included initially.
My Battletech knowledge not what it used to be, I wonder if the Cyclops variants will include the lauded missile-boat version that can run an obscene amount of SRMs. I've found that there isn't really a mech in vanilla Battletech that can do that well, aside from the HGN and Stalker, but even then that's only four launchers.
The Crab I could care less about, despite it being an apparent fan favorite.
The Crab's big issue is that it brings nothing to the table.
Another 5/8 medium is... yawn-worthy at this point. That the chassis should default to energy only hard points is bad, and you can build that weapon loadout in several other medium mechs. (you can strip down a Trebuchet and rebuild it with double LL & ML, for example, with room for the same armor and heat sinks).
Effectively, it can be duplicated with a different chassis but it can't produce much variation itself. And any of the 4/6 50 tonners can produce more firepower with fewer heat issues.
As much as I prefer the earlier eras to the later stuff, way too many 3025 mechs blend together in a portrait of similarity and mediocrity.
Frankenberry wrote: Been playing this recently and I've been reminded about just how grimdark the BTech future is.
As for the overall game? It's fun. Salvaging is frustrating, but I think that's most Mechwarrior games in general for me. Combat is a blast but I'm disappointed I can't field more than a lance - company level play would be better but given that OpFor is at max what...8 mechs? It'd require a complete rework.
Excited for the expansion too, the 1.3 patch is suppose to offer a free-roam esque style campaign option where you just run around doing what you want without the story missions appearing - something I'm surprised wasn't included initially.
I currently can;t get past that the missions just seem to be fight lots more Mechs than you field is the only way to balance it rather than actual elements to make the missions interesting like those in the story:
So time limits, mutiple objectives, large maps, linked scenarios etc.
I currently can;t get past that the missions just seem to be fight lots more Mechs than you field is the only way to balance it rather than actual elements to make the missions interesting like those in the story:
So time limits, mutiple objectives, large maps, linked scenarios etc.
Yea I can totally agree with this after playing it for quite a while now, there is just not enough different content in regards to the missions, I am hoping that the expansion coming up helps deal with this a bit.
I know a lot of folks are switching to Roguetech but from what I've seen, I don't think I will. I like what it brings to the table in terms of customization and various combat enhancements, but the realism factor kinda destroys it for me.
I can appreciate the additions in difficulty but it gets a little too heavy to me.
Frankenberry wrote: I know a lot of folks are switching to Roguetech but from what I've seen, I don't think I will. I like what it brings to the table in terms of customization and various combat enhancements, but the realism factor kinda destroys it for me.
I can appreciate the additions in difficulty but it gets a little too heavy to me.
All of those options can be changed as you please, and most of it is minor edits in text documents.
Frankenberry wrote: I know a lot of folks are switching to Roguetech but from what I've seen, I don't think I will. I like what it brings to the table in terms of customization and various combat enhancements, but the realism factor kinda destroys it for me.
I can appreciate the additions in difficulty but it gets a little too heavy to me.
All of those options can be changed as you please, and most of it is minor edits in text documents.
Wasn't aware it was so easy to edit, that certainly makes it far more in the realm of possible.
Unimpressed by the Flashpoint video. (partly for them not setting it up properly- an end game mission with fresh starter pilots)
Mitch seems convinced light mechs and medium mechs are the same thing.
Plus the timer and the placement requirements make for a super annoying scenario. You obviously need faster mechs, but that second turn to activate the 'beacon' means moving no more than five hexes, leaving lights to be shot to hell.
Given the opposition, if you actually bring lights you'll be shot to hell.
This doesn't look like fun or interesting gameplay. Just more of the same degenerative (go as big as you can manage), but with timers. In this case shove some JJs on a pair of dragons to rush the back control points, and ram two assaults to the closest one.
Mr Morden wrote: Hmm - well at least it was something a bit different and a new map but sooo small.
Yeah Lights would be zero use in that one but they just used the new mechs to demo them I guess
Oh yeah. That was definitely to show off the new chassis (though they cut away from the Hatchetman awfully fast), but it seems odd to cheat in the mechs and not tweak the pilots.
But he mentioned three times or so that the mechs 'feel so light' and the scenario description is very absolute in its suggestion that lights are nigh-mandatory. And this is apparently after his mandate that the mission difficulty be scaled back. Kiva seems to be of the opposite opinion, that the flashpoints should be fiendishly difficult (which seems to mean timers, standing in specific zones, and other artificial limits).
The update with a free campaign mode (free of the mediocre story) appeals to me, but for a first look at the DLC itself, it seems pretty empty of things I'd actually want to spend money on.
I don't have Steam handy to check but is the DLC price something reasonable? Sounds like I'd be paying for three new mechs and a sandbox mode when I can just get Roguetech for free and have more.
Frankenberry wrote: I don't have Steam handy to check but is the DLC price something reasonable? Sounds like I'd be paying for three new mechs and a sandbox mode when I can just get Roguetech for free and have more.
It's not showing a price yet, just "Available: Fall 2018".
Frankenberry wrote: I don't have Steam handy to check but is the DLC price something reasonable? Sounds like I'd be paying for three new mechs and a sandbox mode when I can just get Roguetech for free and have more.
Thats the mod right? Is it good and is it stable?
Having completed the campaign there is not a lot left to do in the basic game (other than repeatedly face 8 Assault Mechs) so might give it a try if it offers a bit more variety.
Frankenberry wrote: I don't have Steam handy to check but is the DLC price something reasonable? Sounds like I'd be paying for three new mechs and a sandbox mode when I can just get Roguetech for free and have more.
Thats the mod right? Is it good and is it stable?
Having completed the campaign there is not a lot left to do in the basic game (other than repeatedly face 8 Assault Mechs) so might give it a try if it offers a bit more variety.
From what I've seen from the one guy I watch that uses it, it's pretty solid. There are issues with new patches nuking saves, but from what he's said there are occasional crashes (but no more than vanilla did). The current version he's running even has some player-created models too, like a Bushwacker.
Got an email announcement for Flashpoint, price is $19.99 US, and it announces the next expansion will be Urban Warfare:
'Combat drops into metropolitan territory, with explosive results. Fight through urban sprawl with new Mechs and mechanics'
With a third expansion to be confirmed in 2019.
This all falls under a $60 Season Pass (but the first DLC is $19.99, so... uh... hmm. Sounds like a bad deal, unless DLC 2 or 3 are at a higher price). Flashpoint sounds pretty unappealing at $20, to be honest.
Edit: Alright, on steam the Season pass is $50, and currently 20% off. So not so bad. I guess the email was trying to convey '$60 value,' but did a poor job.
Voss wrote: Got an email announcement for Flashpoint, price is $19.99 US, and it announces the next expansion will be Urban Warfare:
'Combat drops into metropolitan territory, with explosive results. Fight through urban sprawl with new Mechs and mechanics'
With a third expansion to be confirmed in 2019.
This all falls under a $60 Season Pass (but the first DLC is $19.99, so... uh... hmm. Sounds like a bad deal, unless DLC 2 or 3 are at a higher price). Flashpoint sounds pretty unappealing at $20, to be honest.
Edit: Alright, on steam the Season pass is $50, and currently 20% off. So not so bad. I guess the email was trying to convey '$60 value,' but did a poor job.
If we kickstarted it do we still haev to pay even if they have not done half the things they said they would by now?
You'd have to ask them, but as far as I know, the DLC weren't part of the kickstarter. That was... pointless cameos, Linux and a Solaris campaign, right?
Voss wrote: You'd have to ask them, but as far as I know, the DLC weren't part of the kickstarter. That was... pointless cameos, Linux and a Solaris campaign, right?
Sterling191 wrote: Gonna be interesting to see how they implement the EWAR concept.
Weirdly. From the way they're talking about it. Immunity to indirect fire and maybe some sort of targeting problem.
Also, only two mechs and one (raven) was supposed to be in the base game.
And apparently the fan favorite marauder and warhammer are going to be behind the DLC 3 paywall, and they were part of the kick starter campaign and intended for the base game.
The small number of added mechs in these overpriced DLC packs is pretty disappointing, especially since a most of these had assets in the original backer betas.
Fully destructible terrain is quite a big move for them. There was some in the campaign but not really huge skyscrapers so that's going to be quite a big change in terms of how they impliment it.
I hope there's rubble - it kind of makes me sad that when I think of strategy games that have wreckage and rubble I'm left thinking about Total Annihilation and that was decades ago!
I got a bit tired of waiting for new mechs to arrive, so I installed a mod.
Seems to work perfectly and no more waiting around to see if/when the Warhammer and Marauder turn up.
I did squee a bit when a PH jumped in to my mechs, fired off its lasers and promptly cooked itself, before I shot it to pieces - and to think that I used to believe it was one of the greatest designs ever...
I still only have the vanilla game. The thing i found lacking in it was good AutoCannon weaponry and enough melee options. Has any of this been fixed?
I stopped playing not long after the medium and heavy laser fix so medium laser spam wasn't so stupid on the hunchback. Of course you could just target the one massive weapon hardpoint to screw them over.
Weirdly. From the way they're talking about it. Immunity to indirect fire and maybe some sort of targeting problem.
How exactly is that weird? Makes perfect sense to me if accurate.
It seems that they won the case as MWO very shortly afterwards dropped the Warhammer IIC and the Marauder II, seems to me that they were sitting on both of these until they could be sure they could use them, no whether or not BT18 is part of that I am not sure, they use the MWO assets for the most part so I think that we will be seeing the warhammer and marauder mechs.
Sterling191 wrote: Raven was put on hold since they didnt have the EWAR module sorted for launch.
As to the Wammy/Marauder, those were casualties of litigation.
In neither case did it make sense to consume resources for something they couldnt use at the time.
I'm not sure what you mean. All the mech and vehicle models are just directly from MWO. They'd already signed with PGI to use them [people dug into the backer beta and found them], they just haven't put them into the live game
Yeah, they had to delay the Warhammer and Marauder, but once the lawsuit was settled, they didn't have to put them behind a paywall at expansion 3.
The Raven, Warhammer and Marauder were listed as part of the kickstarter campaign and early access advertising. I understand the delays, but folding intended base content into two $20 upsells is a bit off to me.
Weirdly. From the way they're talking about it. Immunity to indirect fire and maybe some sort of targeting problem.
How exactly is that weird? Makes perfect sense to me if accurate.
I got a weird impression from the initial announcement- that they would effectively make nearby mechs invisible.
However, given the state of Battletech technology (poor), including sensors, and that their weapons are essentially direct-line dumbfire, ECM affecting ACs or lasers doesn't actually make much sense.
Given that several Raven variants don't have the ECM systems, there wasn't much reason to delay that mech either.
flamingkillamajig wrote: I still only have the vanilla game. The thing i found lacking in it was good AutoCannon weaponry and enough melee options. Has any of this been fixed?
.
Uh... the computer game ACs are significantly, hugely better than their tabletop counterparts.
Medium lasers have been a balance problem for 30 years. They were the best 3025 weapon bar none in terms of tonnage and heat to damage. They needed to be revised, as laser spam (specifically medium laser spam), was a consistent problem.
But when the game launched, large lasers and PPCs were actually even worse than they were in tabletop, and only adjusted after a lot of complaining. PPCs still aren't stellar, but standard large lasers are in the best state they've ever been in.
Medium lasers are still a really good choice, just not the absolute no brainier they were in tabletop.
Voss wrote: Medium lasers have been a balance problem for 30 years. They were the best 3025 weapon bar none in terms of tonnage and heat to damage. They needed to be revised, as laser spam (specifically medium laser spam), was a consistent problem.
But when the game launched, large lasers and PPCs were actually even worse than they were in tabletop, and only adjusted after a lot of complaining. PPCs still aren't stellar, but standard large lasers are in the best state they've ever been in.
Medium lasers are still a really good choice, just not the absolute no brainier they were in tabletop.
Fond memories of loading up medium lasers on tanks. Even with the massive penalties of energy weapons on vehicles they were often still the best choice.
Yeah, well. That's the other big secret of Battletech. Battlemechs are actually the worst option of the setting's available weapon platforms, once you open the field to combined arms.
Voss wrote: Yeah, well. That's the other big secret of Battletech. Battlemechs are actually the worst option of the setting's available weapon platforms, once you open the field to combined arms.
Not a secret if you are playing the game and run into a SRM carrier or two and it fires first :(
. I was feeling whimsical.
.
