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 once read somewhere that someone postulated that SRM carriers don't actually have SRM launchers mounted on them. Instead they have wormhole generators that open a wormhole to an alternate SRM universe. The portal opens and the SRMs just flow through into our universe, seemed like a fairly accurate theory to me...
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.
When I played Mechwarrior Clix (which admittedly is a very loose interpretation of Battletech), my favorite units were most certainly not actual mechs for sure. There was some VTOL flyer that was the most absolutely savage beater and would actually do more damage once it had taken some, and I also loved artillery (like Long Toms). My friends hated the artillery, but it was so useful tactically I never understood why they never used it: since you placed blast markers and the shells took a turn to arrive, the opposing mechs were forced, every single turn, to either stay and fire all weapons (and take arty hits) or move, and do less damage and maybe generate heat and damage.
Mechwarrior Clix was actually a super fun game. At the same time I ordered my 40K starter set, we got the MW Clix starters to pass the time while I got them painted up, and we found that MW Clix was generally more fun to actually play than 40k - fast, easy, fun, with tons of tactical options and a minimum of tedium. I wish it had not gotten discontinued.
Anyway now that Urban Warfare is out, time to start that. I should probably just buy the season pass.
So, from that video we learn that we are getting 8 new 'Mechs:
Flea (a more different but equally useless Locust - would'a preferred a Valkyrie)
Vulcan (why? Wouldn't a Whitworth make more sense?)
Assassin (ok?)
Phoenix Hawk (yay!)
Rifleman ( )
Archer ( x2)
Bullshark (95-tons)
Annihilator (whoa...)
The Bullshark is a new design, and a 95-ton Assault 'Mech equipped with COIL Lasers, which are new, and a frickin' Thumper Artillery cannon!
Also included in the update are tons of lore-breaking weapons, including Snub-Nosed PPCs, the full suites of UAC and LB-X autocannons, and TAGs (for the Thumper, no doubt), plus other new things like the aforementioned COIL guns, and Narcs and Inferno missiles.
Also the Warhammer and Marauder are coming to everyone in a free patch.
Huh. I guess the Paradox buyout had an effect. The early days were filled with 'we have one of the original devs, adhering to the lore and the timeline is one of our #1 priorities.'
But 8 mechs and few weapons? That's yet another really thin skin of content for another wildly overpriced dlc.
Those are really poor choices on the light and 40 ton end, but I'm not surprised. Phoenix Hawk can be functional once you strip it down and rebuild it, though their slot system will keep it a fairly predictable laser boat.
Well, that's a nice line up of mechs, but do we need a completely new one?
I'd be perfectly happy with the mechs, sans the Bullshark and the sudden appearance of all this Lostech/experimental stuff. I can understand the Annihilator if Wolf's Dragoons pop up, but not if every five star mission that you do has you up against them.
If the Great Houses didn't have this stuff, what's it doing in Butthole, Hicksville? I know that the original story pushed the line with the tech but I could just about cope with that.
I've only installed the 1.8 patch (via Steam), not Heavy Metal. All the stores seem to have more stuff available now (in Career mode) - including far too much LosTech.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I now have two Gauss Rifle ++s, but no ammo.
I can say I am a bit of a historian when it comes to Battletech, pretty much played them all since "Crescent Hawk's Inception" (1988!).
I have not got the Heavy Metal expansion yet but I have all the rest.
New mech chassis and new weapons are a very welcome edition, I REALLY hope they manage to round-out all the funky weapons in Battle-tech (Arrow IV system or C3 network?).
The good thing with all the modding going on we could have an Arrow system since we have area effect weapons now.
I always liked the Phoenix-Hawk (Super Veritech??) just the look of it, so I am happy.
Disappointing that the classic "Warhammer" or "Marauder" could not make an appearance, back in the Mechwarrior early days they were the go-to chassis.
I suppose we could "never" be happy but the game sure does scratch the itch for stomping mech combat that I dare-say is more enjoyable than the tabletop "boardgame".
Some reach goals:
1) Start seeing some Clan stuff appearing here or there.
2) Protomechs
3) Infantry
4) A deeper dive into the "fluff" of the universe: Starleague, Comstar, Word of Blake.
Talizvar wrote: Disappointing that the classic "Warhammer" or "Marauder" could not make an appearance, back in the Mechwarrior early days they were the go-to chassis.
I don't think the Unseen situation will ever be resolved. I have run into one of the new Marauders as an opponent and it is recognisable as a Marauder - and damn tough as well!
1) Start seeing some Clan stuff appearing here or there.
2) Protomechs
3) Infantry
4) A deeper dive into the "fluff" of the universe: Starleague, Comstar, Word of Blake.
There isn't going to be a timeline shift in this game. Any Clan, Star League, Jihad or Dark Age entries from HBS will occur in separate standalone games. Ditto for feature advancements. Heavy Metal is the end of the product cycle for this game. We'll likely get a few QoL updates, but anything beyond that is sequel content.
Overread wrote: It shouldn't be half off already - that's the other DLC that's half off on Steam.
If you get the season pass 'bundle,' it comes really close. It adds an additional percentage off, and drops all three down to 45%, about $33 rather than $60.
It may not be as good if you already bought the earlier dlc individually (though, the season pass was discounted at launch, and repeatedly in various sales, so I have no idea why anyone would do that), but if you're buying them right now its a pretty good deal. Or rather changes the dlc as a whole to a reasonable price.
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Decided to take the dive and get it, and go into the campaign, which I never finished (mostly because of the writing). Some interesting mission changes, though I've no idea what dlc they belong to. Some have severe difficultly problems- had an attack and defend at 1.5 difficulty, that didn't tell me I'd be facing 4 waves of lances (with a hidden fifth wave) during the mission. It did tell me I should target the enemy base to end early, but all the enemies spawned at the foot of my base, so that was non-viable. Ended up with a lot of damage that's taking forever to fix (as I'm still in the leopard and a single blown arm is a month).
Came across a Marauder on another 1.5 difficulty mission. Much easier, because it involved an allied lance, who unfortunately CT shot the marauder. But it showing up at all was a nice moment, I'll admit.
Got to say, the new mechs are significantly better than the existing ones. The specialty systems really make a huge difference.
The unseen thing was resolved recently. That's why the Warhammer and Marauder are in the game.
That's why the Warhammer, Marauder and other Unseen designs are coming back looking far more like they originally did than ever before (certainly more than the Project Phoenix stuff).
Ok, kind of a dumb question. With the various Steam sales going on, Urban Combat is $10.
I haven't actually bought any of the DLCs for this. How do the DLCs for this game work exactly? I beat the campaign - does it appear as a new campaign, or does it streamline into the existing one, or do you beat the campaign and then do a DLC? If so, what order, does it matter?
Ouze wrote: Ok, kind of a dumb question. With the various Steam sales going on, Urban Combat is $10.
I haven't actually bought any of the DLCs for this. How do the DLCs for this game work exactly? I beat the campaign - does it appear as a new campaign, or does it streamline into the existing one, or do you beat the campaign and then do a DLC? If so, what order, does it matter?
DLC for Battletech are Addons to the whole core of the game, they add missions, events, Mechs and Biomes for the game wich it's mostly a Sandbox where you start with a merc company and you go from planet to planet doing missions and upgrading your lance.
So far aside the Main Campaign wich is a bonus aside the Sandbox part there is nothing else at least on the Horizon.
Ouze wrote: Ok, kind of a dumb question. With the various Steam sales going on, Urban Combat is $10.
I haven't actually bought any of the DLCs for this. How do the DLCs for this game work exactly? I beat the campaign - does it appear as a new campaign, or does it streamline into the existing one, or do you beat the campaign and then do a DLC? If so, what order, does it matter?
HBMC covered the latter bit well, but I'd point out that buying Urban Combat (or any of them individually) is a bad idea. They're way overpriced for what they bring to the game. When bundled and discounted they aren't bad, but I wouldn't recommend buying them any other way. There is a season pass bundle* on the store page which cuts the earlier ones below half and discounts heavy metal as well.
*steam bundles are weird. They offer discounts then slap another discount on top of the total. They're almost always worth checking, but sometimes you have to know they exist and/or double check the store page for the main game and not the dlc page..
The absolute best deal right now is for people who don't own the game, the $33 "everything released so far" bundle is superb...and a bigger discount than the season pass, oddly.
I was tempted by the sale, but had my "play Battletech for a month" a while ago, so it'll be another while before I dive back in - so I'll wait for the next Steam Sale.
I've seen that before where an "all in" bundle deal ends up better than the season pass during steam sales and the like. It's the way percentage discounts are calculated that can throw up things like that. However its also true that most season passes tend to have a limited ilfespan and after the last DLC is out they can devalue and become a more expensive option than discount sales on the individual options.
The final patch has arrived, and with it a lot of new 'Mech variants and colour-blind support:
LIVE - BATTLETECH 1.9 Update Release Notes
Thank you for playing BATTLETECH! Release 1.9 is now available on Steam, GOG, Humble, and Paradox Plaza. The main areas of improvement are: ‘Mech and vehicle variants, gameplay options, Convoy AI, and mod support.
Gameplay Options
Added a Career Mode Difficulty Setting that allows players to reduce Argo upgrade costs
Added a Settings option that allows players to speed up the real-world time it takes for an in-game day to pass
Added a Settings option to assist those with color blindness allowing them to select alternate LOS lines and indirect fire colors
Mod Support
The mod installation folder is now configurable
The ModLoader is now patchable
Added more Dynamic Enumerations
Added more logging and error reporting
DLC checks have been added to ModDef
The ModLoader is now easier to use
Fixed many other mod support related bugs
Added several mod support quality of life improvements
Convoy AI
Fixed some long-range and short-range pathfinding issues
Escort vehicles can now move through the player’s ‘Mechs and each other
Killing the entire OpFor now auto-completes escort missions
Other
A new ammo tab is now in stores and the ‘Mech Bay
Half-ton machine gun ammo is now available
+/++ variants of machine guns are now available
Fixed an issue that prevented some players from being able to delete their GOG saves=
Known Issues (to be fixed asap)
The debug console, build number widget, and combat debug options cannot be evoked when using their corresponding shortcut combinations
Under certain circumstances the game does not exit cleanly after saving
Looks like they finally, finally created a 'fix' for the Day 1 convoy escort mission bug where one vehicle just stops and doesn't move to the exit zone.
And by fix, I mean they force exit after the OpFor is destroyed and turned off collision between friendly models.
Had that bug in my first playthrough and my again in my heavy metal playthrough a couple months back. Aggravating, and a sloppy workaround to finally put it to bed.
I'm only sad that they are moving on and not making more mechs for the game :( I just hope that they return to the game and make a sequel that can take a step further and include the Clan Mechs. That would double the mech count very quickly
Overread wrote: I'm only sad that they are moving on and not making more mechs for the game :( I just hope that they return to the game and make a sequel that can take a step further and include the Clan Mechs. That would double the mech count very quickly
Clan mechs have been a big speculation thing since the Kickstarter. Personally I don't think it would work very well unless they did it from the Clan side (Or do a game solely based around pre-invasion Clan infighting, or the test run invasions of some very little known Deep Periphery 'kingdoms').
Clan mechs as the player's force works a lot better with their single lance design than the opposite. At least that way, the Clan bidding system gives some logic to the small combat team, and deals better with routinely being outnumbered 2 or 3 to 1.
If, in any game against the Clans, the Clans have a numerical advantage over the Inner Sphere forces, its a laughable slaughter (especially early on) and a background failure. The fact that they were handing out lostech like candy in this game was bad enough, especially in such a backwards area of the periphery, AND pre-Grey Death cache.
As for the Mech count, any advancement in the timeline brings more mechs. Though IMO, the designs get worse and less recognizable as the timeline moves on.
I don't think we'll see anything except for the odd patch for this game anymore. Next time they bring up BTech will be for the sequel, and that'll be a KS as well.
Let's just hope next time around they don't use Unity.
I like what this game has done to canon. It has pointed out quite formly that Battletech is rather thin in places. Yes there is a lot of mech variants and a lot of history and policics, but the social side is underdeveloped. I dont think the Argo was necessary, I would have enjoyed it as much having a fixer upper Union instead, but it highlights things overlooked, the rather gruelling transit system in the setting, the lack of variant technologies outside of era etc.
So I can buy ER Lasers in the shops in 3025. Why not. There has already been a partial retcon, technological extinction refers to when the manufacturing processes are lost, not when the items disappear entirely. Some lostech remains throughout the setting simply by being, found, well maintained or just not destroyed. Lostech in 3025 mean refurbished old weapons, and those produced in labs or hardware workshops. Its still technically extinct as they cannot be mass produced and issued with proper documentation and certification to major house militaries.
I always wanted this. Now I think the game went too far and made lostech too readily available. I would have prefered the items to be limited to a handful and possibly with a large tech and time cost to install, because by the time I completed the campaign my company was outfitted ready for 3049, Grayson Death Carlysle could have stayed home.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
H.B.M.C. wrote: I don't think we'll see anything except for the odd patch for this game anymore. Next time they bring up BTech will be for the sequel, and that'll be a KS as well.
Let's just hope next time around they don't use Unity.
They don't need to, mods will be working on this for years to come. Clan invasion mods, Clan homeland setting, Amaris Coup setting, Dark Age and Jihad settings. Expect them all to come in time.
First thing that needs to happen is a company scale up. I do not think four models is the sweet spot, the game would flow well with two lances and likely three. They could take a leqal out of Crescent Hawks Revenge and allow only limited control over units over the commanders personal lance. So you move four models plus as many other lance formations as you have as groups, with the AI running them according to orders given. Company and reinforced company scale actions would flow fast then.
The games - none of them - do anything to canon. That's been the official stance for a very long time. The games may tell stories from the canon, but they themselves are not canon.
And too many of them appearing in shops is just a weird quirk of the nested command/file structure for how the shops work in the game, something so complicated that the devs just gave up on fixing it for this patch. It's in no way indicative of how often LosTech would appear in the periphery (and especially amongst black market pirates, who apparently so many LosTech Assault 'Mechs that they might as well not be pirates anymore).
Orlanth wrote: They don't need to, mods will be working on this for years to come.
Yeah I don't much care for mods. Too often it's the creators' way of saying "I think this is what's wrong with the game, so I'm going to fix it!" rather than actually adding to the game. The presumptive nature of so many mods, that their way is the best way to play, as they're fixing what is clearly "wrong" with the case game, is a real turn-off.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I don't think we'll see anything except for the odd patch for this game anymore. Next time they bring up BTech will be for the sequel, and that'll be a KS as well.
Let's just hope next time around they don't use Unity.
I've rarely seen a developer go to the time and expense of working on a game engine and not having the sense to squeeze at least 3 games out of it (unless they bomb)
Even if they're a weird mess of revisions, like Shadow Returns, Dragonfall and Hong Kong.
Agreed, game engines are very expensive and a huge time and resource sink for developers, esp smaller developers. Many times its much better for them to improve within one engine than engine jump.
For such a fairly "easy" game to mod, you just hope it grabs the eye of a group like what the "Long War" mod did for X-Com.
It really is fun to see when the creator of a game says that their game is the tutorial for the mod.
Mods are absolutely a way for a person or group to demonstrate how they think the game should be played.
Some by the viewpoint of better fitting in the Battletech universe, some just to make the game more fun.
We all have our own opinions and the only way they are 100% right is for ourselves.
As to the "realism breaking behavior of the black market", I assume there is a shaking down of contacts based on the fine reputation of your mercenary group going on in the background that creates these unique opportunities.
I have dug around a bit in the various text files that configure the way the market works, it is truly impressive how a few small settings based on the item and then planetary config that makes things complicated in a hurry.
All that started it for me was trying to get my mitts on gauss ammo, it sure sucks when you have the gun but lost the ammo.
The Heavy Metal expansion I like mainly for how they add unique perks/stats to a given chassis of mech.
Makes them have a bit more character than some box to stuff as much of your toys into as you can fit.
I have been a fan of Battletech for decades and this game scratches the itch of seeing a variety of mechs stomping around and allows fantastic customization without delving into the skeletal frame or engine styles.
I know this game is a winner when I had a map where both the computer and I had all our mechs dead except for one each, all our weapons were gone and it all boiled down to a slug-fest of hand-to-hand: it was glorious (not a good situation to be in long-term but was riveting all the same).
Talizvar wrote: For such a fairly "easy" game to mod, you just hope it grabs the eye of a group like what the "Long War" mod did for X-Com.
It really is fun to see when the creator of a game says that their game is the tutorial for the mod.
I honestly don't think that's 'fun.' It makes me think the creator is lazy and needs to get back to work, not leave the game full of holes for others to fix.
Though, I'm not sure that makes sense in this instance anyway. The stance of HBS for this game until recently was 'mods are unofficial, we don't support them and if things don't work with mods that's your problem.'
Mods are absolutely a way for a person or group to demonstrate how they think the game should be played.
Some by the viewpoint of better fitting in the Battletech universe, some just to make the game more fun.
We all have our own opinions and the only way they are 100% right is for ourselves.
I think that's HBMC's point. Its certainly mine. If it can only be 100% right for the Mod creator on how the game 'should' be played, its default wrong for everyone else.
Its particularly true with a lot of the BT mods I've seen. They're very vocal about 'righting wrongs,' much more than adding fun options.
Went into the game to see what the new colourblind feature is. Changes the LOS lines to blue. I could actually see them in a Martian biome, so that's a nice change.
Been playing with the Battletech extended mod (with BiggerDrops) and just finished my second career playthorugh, this time as the head of an 8 mech recon company. Watching assault mechs explode when a vulture or firestarter gets behind them is glorious and the dueling missions were massacres as I just jumped behind my opponents and blasted them.
Now...do I run a missile boat company or an autocannon themed one?
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