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As an old school tabletop player I've been loving the game, it took some adjustment to get used to the evasion mechanic which can be annoying at times but once you unlock some of the heavier mechs and LRM20s you can grind through most everything at range and melee is a god send for smashing light mechs. Nothing is more satisfying than coring out the torso on a spider or locust with a single punch.



I do a lot of killing by using the heavy or assault mechs with LRM-15 or LRM 20s to knock down enemies and a close range shadowhawk finishes them with called shots at the start of the round before they can get back up. It's loaded up with SRMs (x2 srm-6 x1 srm-4 x2 med lasers and no jump jets) The Shadowhawk can also stomp most 60T vehicles on one attack so it's super helpful keeping it up close and personal with the enemy line. Just keep it moving and use the vigilance morale skill to give it guarded while shooting and moving so that the combination of evasion and guarded's damage reduction keeps the mech alive.

Ammo Truck Mission:


If you aren't making an immediate kill shot with your first action make use of reserve on units to keep the evasion bonuses as long as possible before moving and generating new evasion. That way you can easily absorb an extra 2-3 hits on your mediums which soaks a huge amount of damage.


When shooting out legs for salvage keep in mind that damage from a destroyed location transfers to the torso when it exceeds what was in the leg so you may want to turn off a few weapons before making the called shot because overkill on the leg will also tend to take out the torso with it and cost you salvage. Missile cause a lot of randomized splash damage so they tend not to work as well for targeting legs, if you are knee capping try to use direct fire weapons Lasers/ACs/PPCs and watch the overall damage total to avoid overkill carrying over to the torso.

One shotting a head with a PPC or the Gauss is amazing, but happens very rarely. However I have downed several mechs with punches to the head and salvaged a few complete mechs as a result. If you can afford to opt for 3 salvage during negotiation those are the missions where you want to take care to use called shots and melee as much as possible to capture heavier prize mechs, the lights and mediums blast away at them with impunity as you won't need them and you'll just tend to sell them once they are rebuilt.

 Orlanth wrote:
No spoilers please. We dont want to know about no **** **** Highlander with **** ****.
Be more careful in future.

Added a spoiler for the overly sensitive, but given that the 2750 tech manual was released in 1989 I don't think it's really revealing anything new or shocking since the mechs, weapons and all of their stats are all lifted directly from the tabletop game. That particular mech and load out has been in every Battletech, Mechwarrior, or Mech Commander video game that they've made over the last 25+ years so it's pretty iconic. Star League is repeatedly mentioned and waxed about from the introduction narration of the game onwards. But you can never be too careful online because you might slip up and reveal there's a shark in jaws. Oh I've done it now and I hope I didn't just ruin that for anyone.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ouze wrote:
Which are the ones that should be in at this time but are caught up in legal problems (again, ffs) - Marauder, Warhammer, and maybe Rifleman?

Raven has Star League tech so if it were to appear it'd be with Star League Lost Tech and not something you'd have in a straight up 3025 setting.


Wasp, Stinger, Crusader, Longbow, Rifleman, Warhammer, Marauder, Ostroc, Ostol were all "unseen" ones that are part of the ongoing HG/Robotech suit and were part of the original classic Battletech line up.


The Locust, Wolverine, Griffon, Shadowhawk, Thunderbolt, Scorpion, Goliath and Battlemaster were also "unseen" at one point but are back in the game after some minor redesigns and Studio Nue's approval as the new designs are far enough removed from the originals.

They were originally from Crusher Joe and Dougram series. They reached an agreement with the Japanese design studio who also did the design for the Macross/Robotech series but unlike the Macross properties the US rights aren't owned by Harmony Gold and contested. The designs were done by Tatsunoko/Studio Nue and they didn't have a dispute with the mechs being used by Battletech at least initially and Studio Nue was even contracted by FASA to do a Japanese version of all the classic designs. Only later when Tatsunoko broke into 3 companies and the Japanese vs international rights were split between companies did it become a problem. US rights to Macross went to Big West and licensed to Harmony Gold and they clamped down on other US holders. FASA had thought they were licensed to use under their agreement with TCI (twentieth century imports) which apparently was either based on an improper sublicense or the original license agreement fell apart during the Tatusnoko break up. Revell also used to produce models licensed from all 3 series under the Robotech Defenders and Robotech Changers line but they also lost their license after the change and HG exerted US control.





Warhammer - Studio Nue Japanese Version






Marauder - Japanese Version

I must be one of the only people who actually enjoy the Japanese versions and their Gundam-esque elements.

They redid all of the original boxed set mechs, pics can be found here: http://www.gearsonline.net/series/battletech/



I had to edit my previous reply as I'd forgotten about the Raven being 3048, it's been a few years so I only remembered it having SL tech and I think an XL engine to make it fast.

Some of the missing mechs had really good options for load outs and weapon placements that aren't matched well with the mechs I've seen in this version which is kind of a let down. It shouldn't be that hard to just do a different looking body design that has the same weapon selection. Come up with something generic like the Bull Rusher that shares the same weapon hard points as a Marauder or Warhammer but looks considerably different.

I'd love to get an Archer with torso mounted LRMs instead of making due with a slightly lighter Jagermech with them in the arms as they are more vulnerable. Not a deal breaker but it feels like it's missing something given their heritage in the game and the fact that I can use those mechs in MWO. (sadly I can't stand MWO's first person format)


Trying like hell to get some Stalker and Atlas salvage but so far only managed one of each. I ran into both an Atlas and Highlander in the same mission and only had 3 salvage choices, 2 of which went to completing the Highlander and haven't seen another Atlas after 6 missions and I think it's been 11 or 12 since I saw the Stalker

We're well past release date and 9 pages into the discussion so anybody looking to be spoiler free discussion is taking a risk by reading anything online. This isn't a movie thread nor was a spoiler request/warning made for the thread. I didn't comment on any aspect of the story line.

The only person acting upset is you so maybe avoid open & public discussion groups since it's a given that you're going to read or overhear random details once everything is in common circulation. People asking questions about the time period, mech availability, tactics and load out options are just as legit as discussions about the games combat mechanics. Sorry to burst your bubble.

My lance just took a brick to the face on a non-story mission. Hostile Insertion 4 difficulty mission on Ryan's fate, goal is to take out an Assault lance but what was actually there two assault lances that both attack at the same time on a hot desert planet so it was fighting while frying like eggs. Almost all of the AI pilots all had advanced piloting so they'd move after firing and had very high evasion ratings or bullwark guarded, I'd spend each round trying to grind on a single mech and knock it down only to have it immediately get back up on the following action and entrench so it was brutally difficult to down any of them. They've wiped out my lance 3 times in a row and the best I've done is get them down to two mechs their stalker remaining pristine every time. Ugh.

My lance is

2 highlanders AC-10+ and x2 LRM-20++ other has gauss rifle, med laser+++ and x2 LRM-20s++
1 Awesome with x2 PPC++ and PPC+ with dual Heat sinks, has to spend most round only firing two PPCs due to the desert heat, where most missions I can alpha 3 turns in a row without overheating.
1 Shadowhawk x2 SRM-6++, SRM-4++ x2 Med Laser, pilot gets extra evade and normally skates around virtually undamaged most missions but having 8 assaults hammering it every turn with concentrated fire kills it fast.


Enemy Lances

x2 Black Knights
x1 Banshee
x1 Grasshopper

x3 Highlanders with PPCs and LRMs
x1 Stalker with what appears to be massive amounts of everything

I get one round vs the first lance, then the second lance joins in the following round all of the mechs aside from the black knights are packing at least a pair of LRM-15 or 20s and in the case of the Stalker I think it has 4 LRM clusters as there's a staggering amount of missiles coming out of it and for 2-3 rounds they are firing from max range spotted for by the first lance so I can't even see them on my map but they are pounding away relentlessly. It's brutal and rated only at a 4, it has me wondering just how bad a 5 rated mission is going to be.

Going to give it another attempt or two before I may have to back out to an earlier save as I'm not sure I have the firepower to beat this one.

About a month old but helps explain some of the situation to the newer people.

Leg heat sinks in water works like the tabletop where you cool extra heat for each sink in the leg. I have an Awesome that can fire all 3 PPCs every turn while in water and not generate any heat build up, without water it's 2-3 turns and it's cooking.

I just completed the campaign so I've been looking at restarting and going with a mix of pilots better suited to their individual roles, where the first time through I just sunk most of my skills into gunnery and sensors which is helpful but not the best mix where a range of abilities would create a much stronger lance synergy. Once you unlock some of the heavier mechs Bulwark becomes very helpful I didn't need it much early on but assault mechs tend not to be on the run as much so their evasion bonuses aren't as high and it costs morale to use vigilance which Bulwark can offset.

The extra evasion bonus from the piloting specialist is useful for almost every mech so that along with multi-target will probably be the default skill that most of my mechwarriors will have on the second run, save for the heavy gunner or a support gunners who I'll use split fire and bulwark on. The higher guts skill for adding init penalty to melee is nice but I think it's a bit unreliable and it'd probably work best with a melee dedicated mech with arm mods but with the 4 mech lance cap I'm not sure I'd want to replace one of my missile boats with a mech intended for melee.

I keep a shadowhawk as my recon mech, movement specialist pilot so it maxes out the evasion and removed the jump jets and it's loaded up with SRMs. Since it moves first it finishes off a surprising number of knocked down mechs. On top of the boosted evasion I tend to use vigilance on it to help it soak up a lot of damage since being in the front tends to attract a lot of fire especially in missions where you are facing two lances at the same time or a stack of defensive turrets.

I rarely used sensor lock once I was past mid campaign, melee takes care of high evasion as do weapons with stability dmg bonuses. I ignore the lighter mechs focusing on knocking down their heavy hitters with massed LRM fire and called shots with direct weapons, once those are taken care of it's mopping up the lights which fall pretty fast to concentrated fire even with evasion. Early on when you only have lights and mediums to work with evasion bonuses are a bit trickier to deal with as weapons also don't have as much punch behind them where heavy mechs only need a single hit to rip something apart on a light mech.


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I think a key part of playing the knock down game is holding units in reserve until the target has moved and locked in their new evasive or guarded bonuses for the turn. (or hitting them with the kill shot before it resets) If you go in the normal turn sequence you spend a bunch of effort to knock it down only to have it stand up immediately after it fell and resets it's bonuses so it's a ton of extra work for little gain. Timing with reserve is important as I try to set it up so that my forward/scout mech draws much of their fire making use of vigilance/guarded or left over evasion from the previous turn. That lets you milk a lot of shots from the enemy without taking too much effect and then you can act as needed.

I have two knock down units with boosted LRM-15s or 20s and a AC10 for a direct fire so they can also make called shots if opportunity comes up early, they benefit a lot from multi target as they can soften up evasion with a single med laser shot while the majority of their fire in on the main target. My 4th mech is the finisher with a larger hit weapon like PPC, Gauss Rifle, AC20 as they all deliver a lot more damage to the CT or areas I need to target to cripple the mech. The finisher mech also has an LRM20 for more punch. That combination usually downs a mech pretty fast and it's pretty consistent where I've have two mechs downed in a turn and usually at least one is killed. If that fails then I usually have first action with the scout which unloads with the SRMs and lasers finishes off the downed mech, it's not a perfect strategy but it works pretty well. One drawback though is that it doesn't generate tons of salvage as you're primarily coring out the center torso and a lot of stuff gets destroyed results from all the missile splash damage.

The Shadowhawk load out I like best is a modified 2D x2 SRM6 in the torso, SRM4 in head and a med laser in each arm. Ammo stored in the legs and extra heat sinks, it usually loses an arm during a mission but not much else so I've been able to keep the all of the SRMs intact with ++ bonuses, the arm lasers I'm constantly losing & replacing so I just leave regular ones in. Not having jump jets can limit some of the mobility but it performs pretty well overall and the extra firepower and heat management has it dishing out a lot of extra damage and it pairs well with the knock down strategy.