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 Elbows wrote:
I'll travel and try some other missions, but I'm only running 50-60 ton mechs at the moment, and while most of the "tough" missions have been the usual 10-12 vehicles/mechs which are maybe 20-50% armour, etc...I've just started running into full health 8+ mechs, and even being clever I can't beat most of those. I'll be facing a lance of mechs thinking "this is going to suck" and then another full lance will show up, etc.

Maybe I've had a really bad draw with mech scraps that I'm unaware of and I'm supposed to be fielding larger/stronger mechs than I'm currently running, but I do hope this doesn't kill my campaign dead.

It sounds harsh - I am now looking at 3 to 4 skulls and even then its no more than 8 enemies -some not on full health.

That sounds like Convoy missions - yeah I don't tend to do those - I stick to battle and destroy bases etc.

Where are you up to in the campaign as for quite a long time I had a single heavy - a jaeger and the rest were 55 tons or less - did very well with Jaeger (AC 2 sniper), Vindicator (tank), Shadowhawk (scout) and a n other - often a Blackjack or another Shaodwhawk - at this stage I tended to fight from a distance, now I will dictate but quite happy up close. I was always aware that a single SRm carrier could devastate any of my Mechs.

What are your pilots like - I have two from the start and they are now very, very good. Abilities are really important. Training mod in the Argo is very handy.

Travelling is a great idea - avoid convoys go for battles and destruction and make the battle work for you. That's how got my Grasshopper finally and then a Thunderbolt and a Dragon and never looked back.

@ HBMC None of the pic links work for me.

I did beatifully in the ammo mission - right up until the final stages of cleanup where my leader died to a CT critical and his partner died to a desperate DFA. Gonna hafta reload it, but damn I was close to 100% success there.

There are so many times where I can only look at myself in shame and ask why?..why did I crest that ridge?

Yep - we all know better but you do it I lost a pilot in that mission too as I poked out a crippled mech to finish one off - didn't need to but thought it was worth it - one LRM salve later and he was toast.

 Mr Morden wrote:

I did beatifully in the ammo mission - right up until the final stages of cleanup where my leader died to a CT critical and his partner died to a desperate DFA. Gonna hafta reload it, but damn I was close to 100% success there.

There are so many times where I can only look at myself in shame and ask why?..why did I crest that ridge?

Yep - we all know better but you do it I lost a pilot in that mission too as I poked out a crippled mech to finish one off - didn't need to but thought it was worth it - one LRM salve later and he was toast.

I did it with all ammo carriers destroyed and only 2 dumps blown up. After failing about 5 times with medium mechs I came back to it after grinding some heavy mechs, sensor lock and LRM boats enabled me to take out transports from cover. Meanwhile just coring every enemy mech I saw, using precision shots to insta gib light mechs to murder their spotting. Suprisingly easy to core light mechs with 6 med lasers or an AC/20. With 4 heavy mech I just rolled on through the rest without needing to grind for the other missions.

Still, the allied AI is BS with its suicide tactics and skulls mean zero. I had a mission crash on me so I was forced to reload my pre drop save, no biggie. So the reload turned 6 heavy mechs and 2 assault mechs into 4 vehicles, 3 heavy mechs and 1 assault. The same skull difficulty! Like WTF, the first time was a challenge, the second time was a complete faceroll for my team of 2 heavies and 2 assaults.

Had an interesting mission. The Leopard dropped by lance on a cliff face. My Black Knight could move two spots, my Thunderbolt and Dragon couldnt move at all, and only my Firestarter could freely move due to jump jets.

Maybe I should take on a four skull opponent with just a Firestarter?

Challenge refused, reloaded instead. I get a free retcon methinks.

Yeah that's happened to me too. Maybe the game is trying to be passive agressive about the value of jump jets.

Not had that yet.

Just tried the defend the Dropships campaign mission

err wow that was easy - it sounded challenging at the start but completed with minor damage to one Mech. Didnt even bring my Highlander

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Behold my (current) machines of death!!!


My personal ride:

Spoiler:

My LRM/general support:

Spoiler:

Arclight's ride:

Spoiler:

My big puncher/support trooper:

Spoiler:

My lighter LRM support:

Spoiler:

Rounder's monster machine:

Spoiler:

Glitch's current ride (better than the Vindicator - don't have a K2 or a Grasshopper yet):

Spoiler:

Dekker's annihilation machine:

Spoiler:

(Hope the pics worked)

The pics don't work because the forum you are using for a host requires an active account to view the images. Try imgur or photobucket

Photobucket also no longer works, don't bother.

Post them here, they are gaming images. Crop them for size so Yakface doesnt get upset.

I'm at the 2 heavies, x mediums, 1 Panther, stage right now. Everytime I see Lrms with +'s I buy them and I have a med kitted with 2 LRM20++, a med with 2 LRM15++, and Orion with 2 LRM20++. I try and take 2 of those in each lance and one of them raining on a mech normaly takes it to full unsteadyness, with just a kiss from a second mech needed to knock it down. Being able to do it twice a round is fairly potent. Guard and cover don't reduce stability damage, and enough LRMs will tend to hit a mech to cancel its evasion due to unsteady.

Sorry guys. I thought the pics would work.

I'll try again.

My personal ride:


My LRM/general support:


Arclight's ride:


My big puncher/support trooper:


My lighter LRM support:


Rounder's monster machine:


Glitch's current ride (better than the Vindicator - don't have a K2 or a Grasshopper yet):


Dekker's annihilation machine:


Maybe that worked...

Hunchbacks are pretty good, although I liked mine as a laser boat instead since MLs are REALLY good damage for the tonnage and heat, and the PPC is... underwhelming unless dedicated to it (like an atlas with triple PPC and every slot filled with heatsinks)

Maybe I'm missing something, but the ACs just don't seem good, at all. The sheer tonnage investment for one of them is rather steep. I feel that LRMs do the long range + stab damage shtick much better for less investment and greater flexibility. At closer ranges, med lasers and SRMs are more effective for less tonnage. I really want to like them, but I feel gimped running them. In fact, most of the long range direct fire weapons feel like that; PPC is so heavy and generates a gak load of heat, while the large laser is slightly less so, but loses stab damage and the funky sensor effect.

I am, however, thoroughly enjoying my light show grasshopper. Max JJs, 2LLs (in spite of my feelings towards them, the range is nice on occasion for turrets or SRM carriers), 4ML, and 6SL. I can't fire all of them at the same time, but the flexibility is great and damage is amazing, especially at sub 90m when the small lasers kick in.

Finally upgraded to an all heavy lance; Commander is in an SRM/ML Orion, Glitch rides in an ML/SRM Thunderbolt, Decker in his lightshow Grasshopper, and Behemoth in a long range Cataphract. Missing the LRM boat I used to run, but its nice to mix things up on occasion. Anxiously awaiting some catapults for LRMs though.

Oh, and the Argo is a huge upgrade over the Leopard. I don't know why I waited so long.

Everything outside of LRMs, SRMs, Gauss Rifle, and MLs are generally subpar. It doesn't mean you can't make it work, but the tonnage/heat gen generally aren't good. Support weapons overall are ok (MG is the worst, SL the best), but there are mods out there that have already been focused on the balance (mostly being closer to the table top)

 Wolfblade wrote:
Hunchbacks are pretty good, although I liked mine as a laser boat instead since MLs are REALLY good damage for the tonnage and heat, and the PPC is... underwhelming unless dedicated to it (like an atlas with triple PPC and every slot filled with heatsinks)

The HBK-4P, commonly called a Swayback (hence why I renamed it) is one of my fav Succession War-era 'Mechs. It's such an interesting take on the regular AC/20 Hunchback.

Plus for someone who doesn't like putting all their eggs into one basket, it gives you lots of shots to make, rather than one all-or-nothing heavy shot.

PPCs are underwhelming most of the time, but if you've got a sniper with the right skills, then they can be. As the main armament on a Hunchback? No, not ideal, but better than the Vindicator for getting stuck in. Really my Mob 002 'Mech is Glitch's ride until I can get something better for her (a Grasshopper or a CPLT-K2 Catapult).

Glitch in my campaign is magic with the Vindicators PPC. I actually upgraded it to a PPC++ for her.

Right now her ride has a PPC+. Haven't found one above that.

I haven't found much + stuff actually. Most of my things are stock. Dekker's Kintaro has the lion's share of what I've found.

Also not sure how I feel about PPCs. I've got a build with 2X PPCs and they don't really seem to deliver the damage you would think, and of course that's a lot of eggs in a basket that might just miss.

Medium Lasers, LRMS, and SRMS really are my go-to weapons, with small lasers for my punchers.

 Ouze wrote:
Medium Lasers, LRMS, and SRMS really are my go-to weapons, with small lasers for my punchers.

Welcome to BattleTech. HA!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Right now her ride has a PPC+. Haven't found one above that.

I haven't found much + stuff actually. Most of my things are stock. Dekker's Kintaro has the lion's share of what I've found.

I have a ++ PPC with +10 damage on my Battlemaster which is nice - Behmoth's ride and she has Gunnery 8
Quite a few other + guns with either Accuracy or +5 Dam

I run not far off stock for most Mechs but up their armour to max or near max.

I hadn't noticed you could name Mechs so that's a must do!

I tend to put ammo in the legs but that might a MWO thing....

Hah, I also put the ammo in the legs, and for the same reason.

 Ouze wrote:
Hah, I also put the ammo in the legs, and for the same reason.

I think it does work as unless they target seem to get less damage in that area.

Almost pulled of the Ammo desctruction mission with all ammo crates intact and both trucks stopped only to lose a near-pristine mech to a double DFA. I love this game, but it can bring me so close to rage quitting at times.

Plus the range on the triple AC5 turret is insane. If it wasn't so far back I'd blow it up first.

On the subject of Autocannons, I enjoy using mine. The trick is to have at least three of them on a single target for the stability damage. I've become a big fan of the AC10 for this reason.

This thread convinced me to pick the game up, and I'm glad I did. The love for the setting just shines through constantly with so much attention to detail, and I like that it actually feels tactical--the one time I didn't bring anyone with Sensor Lock, I regretted it pretty quickly. I like that lights and mediums actually feel viable in their own right, rather than speedbumps--I want to see how much I can get done with an all-light wolfpack that just ignores front armour.

Just finished the prison mission, which was probably far easier than it had any right to be. But ammo-critting the Jager as soon as it turned the corner didn't hurt. Then I tried a two-star and got slapped around pretty badly. Any vehicle with "Carrier" in the name is now the primary target.


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 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Yes, and then they were removed, because Harmony Gold is suing everyone. Again. Mother fethers are even trying to claim that the Atlas was ripped off Robotech designs this time around.

Their case against HBS was dismissed with prejudice the week before last, but as the Marauder/Warhammer models are derived from PGI's MWO models, they still cannot be used as the case between HG and PGI is ongoing. As is the case against In Media Res/Catalyst Games, the makers of BTech proper.

Okay, why do Harmony Gold even exist? Have they done anything for the last twenty-odd years other than try to stop other people having fun?


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 Ouze wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

Infected by the SJW

No idea what this means - if its about the fact that women have major roles in the story etc - well - have you read any BattleTech lore in the last thirty years!

Presumably it's because you can pick your pronoun, which is an o-o-outraaaage!

It might also be because the universe of the year 3025 is actually varied--one of the support staff is a Muslim, and the background of one of the hiring hall pilots mentioned in passing that she'd had gender reassignment. Apparently merely acknowledging that people from those demographics exist in the future is a bad thing? Gotta love how it's the ones who complain about people being easily offended who get their hackles up over such minor things.

 Elemental wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ouze wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

Infected by the SJW

No idea what this means - if its about the fact that women have major roles in the story etc - well - have you read any BattleTech lore in the last thirty years!

Presumably it's because you can pick your pronoun, which is an o-o-outraaaage!

It might also be because the universe of the year 3025 is actually varied--one of the support staff is a Muslim, and the background of one of the hiring hall pilots mentioned in passing that she'd had gender reassignment. Apparently merely acknowledging that people from those demographics exist in the future is a bad thing? Gotta love how it's the ones who complain about people being easily offended who get their hackles up over such minor things.

If the find that offensive they should avoid the 1980s material as well. There are whole muslim worlds.

of course, the Cappellean confederation used to be the best testament you could find that americans really didn't understand what chinese culture was. All those chinese katanas.

Well I ran into the swinginess issue that some people have talked about in the thread. Hit 3/3.5 missions got got a line of heavies. First mission was a normalish medium lance that was followed up by a lance of three Thunderbolts and an Orion. I only had to deal with them a lance at a time so I came out of it alright and wishing I had negotiated for more salvage slots.

Next mission I think the game just did a giant, "Frak you!" and dumped two identical lances on me of 3 Thunderbolts and 1 Orion again, this time though the obligatory reinforcements showed up at the same time. I nuked one Thunderbolt real quick and then just withdrew, there is no way to deal with over twice your tonnage at the same time.

And then the mission after that was a lance of heavy vehicles and a medium/heavy lance of mechs that came at me together but vehicles just are not equivalent to mechs in the slightest, no matter how nasty they may be with two AC/20's or 3 PPC's.

Things went back to "normal" whatever that is after those three missions. Very weird. I am enjoying the game a lot but they need to work on the balance as far as the mission difficulty actually reflecting what you have to defeat. I don't mind the missions that are next to impossible due to placement like some of the convoy missions can be, the enemy had better placement that my lance did, life happens but you don't hide an extra lance of heavy mechs easily and don't feel that should be a "normal" thing that happens.

Finished the main story and am just steamrolling stuff with an all-Assault Lance (got 2 backup Assaults too). Really wish there was a reason to use anything smaller for variety.

 Ouze wrote:


I agree with Elbows that the difficulty curve is not very polished at all. I have 4 skull missions that are utter cakewalks and 2 skull missions that are super difficult. I'd really like to see that addressed in a patch; some of these missions really need to be adjusted - some up, some down.

The skull ratiings are intel estimates, sometimes they are inaccurate. This frankly is how it should be.
The game already encourages partial success and withdrawal and has hard coded them in. Many similar games require you to replay a mission if you fail this one you just play on. Have a difficult mission run for evac or withdraw.

Remember the Battletech mercenaries mantra: There is no profit in death.

If you have to run, run. Frankly I would like the game coded so OpFor try to save their mechs in bad situations.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Ouze wrote:


I agree with Elbows that the difficulty curve is not very polished at all. I have 4 skull missions that are utter cakewalks and 2 skull missions that are super difficult. I'd really like to see that addressed in a patch; some of these missions really need to be adjusted - some up, some down.

The skull ratiings are intel estimates, sometimes they are inaccurate. This frankly is how it should be.

If accurate, I don't think I'd have a problem with that if the game made that more clear - that the skull estimates are based on best-guess intel. As you say, it would even add flavor. However like many things I've learned I don't believe the game supplies this information very well and without that information you have to assume it's bad game design.

 Ouze wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

 Ouze wrote:


I agree with Elbows that the difficulty curve is not very polished at all. I have 4 skull missions that are utter cakewalks and 2 skull missions that are super difficult. I'd really like to see that addressed in a patch; some of these missions really need to be adjusted - some up, some down.

The skull ratiings are intel estimates, sometimes they are inaccurate. This frankly is how it should be.

If accurate, I don't think I'd have a problem with that if the game made that more clear - that the skull estimates are based on best-guess intel. As you say, it would even add flavor. However like many things I've learned I don't believe the game supplies this information very well and without that information you have to assume it's bad game design.

The first mission after the opening tutorial mentions something about (the mission where you have to defend a base while killing some vehicles). It passes by really quick and it doesn't make much mention of it though.

Sorry my review is so long, I tried to be brief but there’s a lot of stuff in this game to talk about. Overall I’m loving the game, but there’s a lot of pluses and minuses in the game.

Pros
It feels like Battletech, there’s a lot of love for the setting. There’s even some stuff that’s captured in this game that no media ever really evoked before, like travel between worlds, I love watching the dropship travel to the jump point, jump, and then leave dock. Probably the only thing that in Battletech that came close to capturing that feel before now was the Explorer Corps handbook.
It’s set in the periphery!
The game has been tweaked in lots of positive ways. Alternating activations with each unit firing after moving is more dynamic and satisfying than the original game’s movement/shooting phases. Upping the AC2 and AC5 damage was necessary, though I’m not sure the recoil penalty is necessary or that interesting. Giving different bonuses to different weapon types makes the weapon types feel different, and opened up lots of new strategies. Making knockdown a stacking mechanic rather tan a dice roll is a big improvement, and while it took me a while to get used to it changing knockdown from a temporary mobility loss to a state where you’re really vulnerable to targeted damage works really well.
Even with all those changes it still captures the essential thing that is Battletech. This is no small thing, I’ve played the tabletop game for a couple of decades, I’ve played hundreds of variant rules written by others or by my gaming group, and it’s amazing how small changes can make a game lose the Battletech feel. This game changes a lot, but it still has the Battletech feel.
More than just feeling like Battletech, this modded version of the game is solid in its own right, and often produces tactical choices with no clear, optimum choice. You have to weigh a number of factors, some of which matter a lot more in one circumstance than in another. A few times I’ve tried a certain approach, got hammered, and then when I reloaded the mission and approached with a different strategy the outcome was much better. This is not common, even among the better tactical games.
I’m not that far in to the game, I’ve done a few main missions, but I really like how tight money is so far. Not so tight I can’t expand, but tight enough that I can’t buy most things I want. Most games like this break somewhere around the mid-point, when you end up with more money than there are things to buy. But here I’m constantly looking at my bank balance and deciding if I can spare the cash to get that LRM20++.
I like the hardpoints system. I think they first used that in Mech Assault, the forgettable Xbox game. They’ve executed really well here, most mechs have enough different options that they’re not straightjacketed, but not so many options that every 50 ton mech can be modded in to the same design. Mech design is a good challenge as a result.

Cons
Missions have limited model counts but no tonnage limit is boring and breaks lore. I just take my heaviest mechs in each mission, maybe sometimes opting in one lighter mech with a big jump ability if I have to shoot up a convoy. Shifting to tonnage limit would encourage a much greater range of mech builds to play each mission.
It’s slow. I don’t mean technically, I understand some people have had some problems but the game runs fine on my PC, which is interesting because my PC is really old. And I don’t mean the time it takes to grind down enemy mechs, that’s just what Battletech is. I mean the gaps that pop up constantly, a bad guy moves, he fires and does his damage, then there’s a second delay before the computer gives a damage report, then another second delay before the pilot gives a colour comment about the state of her mech, then a delay before it comes back to my turn. Add in the load time between missions and it feels like the whole game could be maybe a third quicker.
There’s lots of tweaks that don’t work so nicely. They’ve flattened spread RNG to determine hits, its percentile now rather than 2d6, this means things that are +1 to hit in battletech mattered in a way they don’t in this game where they’re shifted to +5. The result is outside of a couple of big mods like high evasion mods and minimum range, its best not to worry. So at first I thought it was really interesting that weapons in the arms got +1, I’ve since learned it’s a pretty meaningless detail.
Making evasion degrade with more attacks doesn’t quite work. For one it tips the game balance too strongly towards targeting each mech one at a time.
Dropping all the non-weapon crits is boring. Hip actuators and engine hits are interesting elements, trying to get the most out of a damaged mech is a good game skill. It didn’t need to be streamlined out of this game.
The UI is a little weird. It should be a lot more obvious whether my guns will be inside minimum range from a possible move point. You can do it by clicking to move to a point then watching the hit % appear when you set your facing and put it over the enemy mech, but that’s unwieldy and not immediately obvious.
They’ve done an okay job of explaining the rules, but they could do a lot more. I still don’t get how you shift from movement in to combat, and this ruins stuff like planning sensor pings to use indirect LRMs. Sometimes I do it, it starts combat, then the enemy mech just moves and I lose the ping. Annoying. Also having a bunch of +1 and -2 mods all combine to produce a hit percentage is weird, each + or – shifts the % by 5, so just call it that.
The mech design screen is buggy. Things don’t drag and drop properly. They get stuck not falling in to place. Sometimes they get stuck and can’t be unstuck and I have to restart the mech design.
The main mission is about a noble family being unfairly usurped by the evil side of the family, leaving you to come in and defeat him. It’s the same story as so many Battletech games, and while this has so far been better executed than most, but there’s so many stories in Battletech that haven’t been told.
They let me do one black market operation outside of the mech review board, and then just dropped that. Let me do higher paying, legally hazy missions for more pay and more risk, it’s a cool setting option.

Mixed
In Battletech there’s always been a problem in Merc campaigns with salvage, because even basic mechs are 5 million c-bills, while everything else like wages, drop ship travel and the rest is thousands, or maybe tens of thousands of c-bills. As a result the only thing that ever mattered was salvage and not losing mechs. This game solves this in a weird way, the massive price differences are there, but they stopped the ‘only salvage matters’ issue by making your sale price on salvaged mechs insanely low. It works, I can’t ignore mission payments and live on selling salvage, but it’s still pretty silly it only works because I can only sell stuff for 10% of its actual value. It works, but it is silly.
The idea behind the withdraw button is great, and it’s an idea we’ve always tried to build in to our tabletop mech campaigns, having to judge the point where you realise the mission isn’t worth the cost. But it’s really hard to adapt to the idea in a computer game, where I’ve spent decades with the assumption that I can kill everything and never run away. I love the idea of the withdraw button, but I’ve never pressed it even when I probably should have, instead I just loaded over. Scummy by me.
The mission variety is limited. The game even admits this early on, and ultimately it’s Battletech, so straight fights, attacking stuff that’s running away, defending bases and attacking bases then running away is pretty much what there is. But there’s some good work adding details and twists to some missions, especially given a lot of them are procedurally done.
Physical attacks as a separate option has gains and losses. In the tabletop after movement and shooting any mech that was next to an enemy could choose one of a range of physical attacks. There was some tactical options (punching for head hits, kicking for lots of damage to a single leg) and it worked okay. In this game making physical attacks a separate attack option has strengths, the attack is more immediate and it becomes part of heat management. But its also a little weird, in Battletech mechs with good melee were given short range, brawling weapons like AC/10 and med lasers, but here you don’t get to fire those weapons, so instead I’ve found melee is for mechs with high heat or minimum range weapons. It’s not better or worse, just different.

 LordofHats wrote:
The Marauder and Warhammer are derived from "Robotech" designs. The Locust and Thunderbolt meanwhile come from Crusher Joe and Fangs of the Sun respectively. They were never very contentious and even if they were once upon a time when's the last time anyone actually watched either of those Anime's? The problem is basically that Harmony Gold lives and dies off lawsuits over the Robotech IP.

The original Marauder and Warhammer designs are in that legal mess, but Battletech has since produced 'reseen' designs that are sufficiently different from the original design that they avoid the legal issues. Both the Warhammer and Marauder have reseen designs. The new warhammer design is hideous, though.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Am i the only one that enjoys the cut scenes and animations.

It's one of my favourite parts of the game.