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Looks nice.
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A turn based strategy game by the creators of the original ruleset, even. Which is making me so excited that I don't have an analogue for it.
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Note that GOG keys won't activate the game until Tuesday, April 24th at 9am PDT.
Right during my last class of the day :)
I will hop right in once I get home (download time permitting)
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I'm realy tempted, I like the sory, I like the Mechs... but I don't know if I like the turn based gaming...hm.
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I'll be playing it the second I get back home. Having a new, pretty much unequivocally good BattleTech game is such a new experience for me....
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Didn't realize this was so close to release already. (3 hours away from the time I'm making this post)
Buying this sort of blind, really hoping it will be good (cause last time I spend money on a battletech game, it was mechwarrior online founder's pack, and boy, did I end up regretting that)
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Reviews have been universally "good to great" with the singular exception of one RPS review where the reviewer was bored by how long 'Mechs animated during their activations. I do not have a high opinion of that reviewer's writing.
Sitting here eagerly awaiting 11 am local so I can finally redeem this backer key and dive in.
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It looks good so far. I'm terrible at it, but it looks good.
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Played it for 4 hours yesterday, just past the mission where you "liberate" the Argo. I had a bunch of close calls and awesome RNGesus events (Like most of my lance failing to make a dent in a Hunchback that suddenly rolled up only for Behemoth in a Shadowhawk to casually stroll up to the damn thing and punch its head clean off), I got Dekker killed in the first post-tutorial mission (sorry about that, mate), and at least one instance of the AI just kinda giving up on life (In the mission with the HBK, there was a Vindicator that I was kinda worrying about on account of its PPC, specifically me making sure to not damage that thing because I wants it, precious, which just sort of .... stood around for a few turns doing nothing)
Really good game.
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I'll make my own mercenary company, with blackjacks and hookers.
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Well, Blackjacks at least aren't a problem.
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My damn Blackjack got knocked out in the first mission. And Yang is taking his sweet time getting it fixed. That first mission is pretty brutal compared to the trash contracts that follow after that.
"Fight an enemy lance"
4 vehicles
ayyy, glad I negotiated those salvage rights.
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That first mission is pretty brutal compared to the trash contracts that follow after that.
Considering two of my mechs got "It's just a flesh wound"'ed in that mission I think that's an apporiate difficulty curve :)
(Dekker and Glitch are out, because Dekker can't even kill friggin tank on his own)
Gonna make some time tonight to see how much freedom I gained by becoming captain with my bucket of bolts...
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The way you can have your 'free' movement interupted by enemy contact is weird. Like, if you rush all your mech's movement before the move animation is completed, you can avoid having some mech stranded way in the back when the initiative starts. But imo this feels wrong in a turn based game.
Edit: not sure if stuff works that way actually, but it sure feels like it at times.
Multitargeting is bestestest skill
Nailing a target dead center with a ppc and watching it go down is fantastic
I love how useful jumpjets are in this game
I am impressed at my mechwarriors ability to consistently miss a building three times the size of a mech
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The way you can have your 'free' movement interupted by enemy contact is weird. Like, if you rush all your mech's movement before the move animation is completed, you can avoid having some mech stranded way in the back when the initiative starts. But imo this feels wrong in a turn based game.
X-Com 2 has the same issue if you set a specific flag in the options.
It seems to be a problem related to the sequence of events, i.e. that not all actions of one mech have to be resolved (e.g. completed a move) before another mechs can be given orders. My best guess would be that it is an unintentional side-effect speeding up non-combat sequences while maintaining a turn-based structure at all times.
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That first mission is rough, but awesome. The game is ****ing great, I love it. A lot of the negative reviews on steam complain that it's too slow-paced, which is like complaining that Quake is too quick. There's a few of them as well, which imho is entirely undeserved.
Love that they've got vehicles and turrets ingame too, one-shotting the wee tanks is seriously satisfying and really drives home that mechs are king of the battlefield. Melee can be such a high-risk high-reward deal, but it's a nice option to have, particularly when you've got a mech that's gotten dismembered and weaponless.
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That first mission is rough, but awesome. The game is ****ing great, I love it. A lot of the negative reviews on steam complain that it's too slow-paced, which is like complaining that Quake is too quick. There's a few of them as well, which imho is entirely undeserved.
Having seen some of the streaming footage, I can see why someone who enjoys a game of Firaxis' XCOM or Into The Breach could have a problem with this - XCOM 2 famously spawned a "stop wasting my time" mod for that same reason.
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Yes, but a lot of the reviews complain about the little cinematic animation cuts you sometimes get when you order a unit to move or attack. It took me one look into the settings to find the option to turn it off.
I can see why some people want to get things moving along, but the fact that they didn't even bother to check in the settings tells me all I need to know.
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So...
Is this the Battletech game we both need and deserve?
(https://media1.tenor.com/images/ba4f5d8ab28cd3469f9aeb021c0aab96/tenor.gif?itemid=10658826)
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I don't know what we deserve, but this game is good ****.
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Is this the Battletech game we both need and deserve?
No, because we neither need nor deserve it :D
A lot of the negative reviews on steam complain that it's too slow-paced, which is like complaining that Quake is too quick.
Some people just don't like elegance ... but than again, I am just saying that because the "slow pacing" allows me multitask in documentary viewing
EDIT: ps. "My ancestors came from the planet Potato. It took some time for me to accept that, but hey, here we are." :lol:
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The saving system cerainly sucks... was on an aftermission/salvage report... and the game crashed... great, whole mission again -.-
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Been hearing a lot of good things about it. I can understand the complaint about the animations being too slow though, although it isn't a big enough of an issue to really warrant a negative review. There's a reason why games like Civ have "fast animation" settings. Still a small thing overall.
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Played it for another 6 hours.
This game easily triggers all the "just one more turn" buttons my brain has.
What I like most about it is how it avoids the frustrations inherent in XCOM by defusing the importance of a single RNG roll; Mechs, even light ones, are durable enough to tank a bit of fire, and so there is not as much risk of losing one because you misjudged movement options and get flanked.
Simultaneously, this allows you to pivot strategies if you need to; There was one story mission where my "tank" force (A Centurion and a Shadow Hawk) ran into an ambush (I'm starting to think that "suddenly, a Hunchback" is a strategy on the part of the AI), but because of that durability, I was able to pull back and focus fire the HBK (and kite the rest of the OpFor) long enough for my strike forces (the starter Blackjack and Glitch's Vindicator) to achieve the objective.
Also, while I'm on the subject of the Blackjack: I am kinda happy that this Mech is more useful now than it ever was in the tabletop. A lot of it has to do with HBS choosing to make the AC/2 matter; in the tabletop, situations where an AC/2 (no matter the variant) is useful are really rare. Here, with the AC/2 dealing damage on par with medium lasers for a lot less heat and at much greater ranges, it is a weapon to take serious.
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Played it for another 6 hours.
This game easily triggers all the "just one more turn" buttons my brain has.
Same
Also, while I'm on the subject of the Blackjack: I am kinda happy that this Mech is more useful now than it ever was in the tabletop. A lot of it has to do with HBS choosing to make the AC/2 matter; in the tabletop, situations where an AC/2 (no matter the variant) is useful are really rare. Here, with the AC/2 dealing damage on par with medium lasers for a lot less heat and at much greater ranges, it is a weapon to take serious.
And unlike the laser, it also deals stability damage. The AC/2 has quite a lot going for it.
The Blackjack's melee attack makes no ****ing sense though. It's literally smashing its cockpit into the enemy mech. Seems like a good idea.
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Played it for another 6 hours.
This game easily triggers all the "just one more turn" buttons my brain has.
Same
Also, while I'm on the subject of the Blackjack: I am kinda happy that this Mech is more useful now than it ever was in the tabletop. A lot of it has to do with HBS choosing to make the AC/2 matter; in the tabletop, situations where an AC/2 (no matter the variant) is useful are really rare. Here, with the AC/2 dealing damage on par with medium lasers for a lot less heat and at much greater ranges, it is a weapon to take serious.
And unlike the laser, it also deals stability damage. The AC/2 has quite a lot going for it.
The Blackjack's melee attack makes no ****ing sense though. It's literally smashing its cockpit into the enemy mech. Seems like a good idea.
You should see what it does when it misses a melee attack. It goes for the cockpit smooch and the enemy mech sorta just shuffles away like an awkward anime girl. Then they swivel their tops around pretending it never happened.
AC/2 is fine, but I really like the AC/5 it can one shot tanks and has really good range. My Blackjack got its arm blown off in a story mission so I took the opportunity to fit it with an AC/5 and a large laser, which to me felt like a satisfying piece of unintentional emergent storytelling.
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Ho boy, I just actually ragequit out of a mission, after my team failed to kill a wolverine after 8 turns of shooting at it's totally exposed rear. I'm not exaggerating either, it was 8 turns of multiple mechs shooting at it with a 80-90% hit rate. They either missed, or managed to spread out their damage perfectly.
Meanwhile the enemy had absolutely zero issues scoring heatshots, blowing off arms left and right, coring my light mech. Not to mention that it was a 8v4. (is this game ever going to allow dropping multiple lances? I'm starting to pile up mechs in fairly large numbers but only being allowed to ever drop off 4 feels a bit restrictive.) I have completely ironmanned the game so far, but this was just an infuriating display of rng not wanting me to succeed.
You should see what it does when it misses a melee attack. It goes for the cockpit smooch and the enemy mech sorta just shuffles away like an awkward anime girl. Then they swivel their tops around pretending it never happened.
Blackjack-senpai just tried to kiss me... D-d-doushio.
AC/2 is fine, but I really like the AC/5 it can one shot tanks and has really good range. My Blackjack got its arm blown off in a story mission so I took the opportunity to fit it with an AC/5 and a large laser, which to me felt like a satisfying piece of unintentional emergent storytelling.
Midseason upgrade
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I ragequitted the 3 years later mission :D
My blackjack damaged the Commando, the Commando pulled of a death from above, the light mech damaged the Blackjack and I forget to check the heat issue.
I returned fire, lost a weapon arm and the Blackjack decided to fall... But I learned from that :D
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I named my merc group Tekkadan after the shooting star of a mercenary organization from Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans.
I named my pilot Dando Cracklin after my Elite Dangerous character. Have I mentioned he is a King? His callsign is King.
Just doing side missions to see if i can keep my merc group afloat, but i'm headed for the main mission real soon.
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Managed to headshot the
Quickdraw
with a PPC at the end of the Argo mission. This is good.
I'm really having a hard time finding a use for the starting Spider. Yeah, it's super maneuverable, but 2 medium lasers just isn't enough firepower to take advantage of that mobility. I need to find me a Jenner or a Firestarter.
Also, given how good Autocannons are in this game, I really want to get a Jagermech.
This game owns.
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Managed to headshot the Quickdraw
with a PPC at the end of the Argo mission. This is good.
I'm really having a hard time finding a use for the starting Spider. Yeah, it's super maneuverable, but 2 medium lasers just isn't enough firepower to take advantage of that mobility. I need to find me a Jenner or a Firestarter.
Also, given how good Autocannons are in this game, I really want to get a Jagermech.
This game owns.
Flamers, machineguns and small lasers are in a seperate slot from beam weapons. Throw in two extra flamers in the spider's ct and have it run around being a nuisance (but mostly, just... get rid of the spoder, panthers are a better light weight choice).
I salvaged a Jagermech after the prison liberation mission, it's about what you'd expect from it, a frail sniper that's always a few tons short of the loadout you'd actually want it to have. I havent seen any Jager's aside from that one mission so far yet, so be sure to RNG that headshot for the 3 part salvage :V
I named my merc group Tekkadan over the shooting star of a mercenary organization from Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans.
Good name imo.
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Yes, but a lot of the reviews complain about the little cinematic animation cuts you sometimes get when you order a unit to move or attack. It took me one look into the settings to find the option to turn it off.
I can see why some people want to get things moving along, but the fact that they didn't even bother to check in the settings tells me all I need to know.
Weirdly, turning those off doesn't actually speed up anything, so I kept them on just for now. Those weird camera angles are pretty.
Playing it a bit now: I love most of it thus far, but the game really isn't running as smoothly as I would like, and it doesn't seem down to graphics settings - the UI just has these odd skips and the like.
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Large lasers seem really bad
Weirdly, turning those off doesn't actually speed up anything, so I kept them on just for now. Those weird camera angles are pretty.
Playing it a bit now: I love most of it thus far, but the game really isn't running as smoothly as I would like, and it doesn't seem down to graphics settings - the UI just has these odd skips and the like.
The UI often doesnt seem to register clicks, makes the game feel more sluggish than it should
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I just got the rust-bucket command ship replaced, but right after that I lost two of pilots:
Dekker had the decency to die after he was resonsiple for the death of Behemoth and my command-Vindicator being core'd during the prison raid (also lost the PPC on that mission, damn that Jager). Never managed to hit anything anyway.
Meanwhile om the gain new mechs front its going great, I will have to spring for an upgrade to the mechnbay soon, and it is nice to finally be able to scrap the Locust, I am now facing a massive shortage of weapons (esspecially Lasers)... so I am in for a massive hike in expenses now. (I might have had the wrong priorities when it comes to salvange)
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I havent actually managed to get pilots killed dead yet. Some came close with getting their cockpit nearly destroyed, but so far I've only had pilots incapacitated.
I'm getting the impression that Dekker isn't surviving in a lot of games :p
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It's because he's in the tiny tin can by default.
He got roughed up a lot, but now I'm getting better with using light mechs so he spends less time in the medbay.
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I'm just after the prison break and I haven't lost a mech yet. TBH I think the vehicles and turrets earlier in the mission did more damage than the mechs did. Large Lasers are scary.
Replacing the Spider with a Quickdraw helped me immensely.
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Well That Jeager can fit 2 AC10 with decent armor layout... and I put some of those ++ AC10s on it that do extra stability damage.
Definitely fun! Combined with some LRM and SRMs from the other mechs the enemies keep falling over their feet. :-)
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So far I've managed to get Medusa killed and lost a Vindicator doing it.
Current lance is: Centurion, Shadow Hawk, Shadow Hawk, Jenner. The Centurion is rocking PPC++ and LRM-20+++; one of the Shadow Hawks is stock; the other swapped the jump jets out for a bigger SRM and some extra armor; the Jenner dropped the JJs and two MLs for an SRM-6 and a ****load more armor.
Working pretty well.
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Mine looks like
Centurion: almost maxed armor, AC/20+ (3t ammo), 2x ML, 1x JJ
Shadow Hawk: stock except LRM removed, SRM-2 replaced with SRM-6
Vindicator: mostly stock, PPC, Large Laser, -1 JJ
I was really torn between dropping a JJ or dropping 40 points of armor to get the .5t I needed to get the large laser in there. Still not sure i made the right call.
Quickdraw: 4x Medium Lasers, LRM-10, SRM removed, almost maxed armor
The Quickdraw suffers a lot from not having a fist. I'll probably replace it with something else fairly soon. Good at soaking up hits though
I also have a Jenner on standby if I need a light mech. Still stock. Might take off the SRM in favor of more armor.
Need to kill another Jagermech so I can get one working. I'll probably replace the Quickdraw or the Vindicator with it.
I'm surprised by how good stock loadouts usually are.
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I got Dekker killed in the first post-tutorial mission (sorry about that, mate),
I forgive you bud, it's fun in the afterlife. I don't have to do everything my wife says....and there's blackjack and hookers.
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So was it a mistake on my end to run the Blackjack with AFAIK 1 large laser and 3 medium laser?
Gave it enough heatsinks to cope and now I'm doubting.
Stuck on the Argo mission 'cause I try to take down the turret generator, but everytime something goes wrong.
Last attempt those tanks all landed shots on the Blackjacks head-.-
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So was it a mistake on my end to run the Blackjack with AFAIK 1 large laser and 3 medium laser?
Gave it enough heatsinks to cope and now I'm doubting.
Stuck on the Argo mission 'cause I try to take down the turret generator, but everytime something goes wrong.
Last attempt those tanks all landed shots on the Blackjacks head-.-
That's the conclusion I am arriving at in my playthrough. The BJ doesn't have the heat sink capacity to be running the large laser a lot (whereas the stock loadout can do two or three consecutive alpha strikes before having to switch off the lasers), and as it turns out, rolling the dice more often is better than trying to make single, big damage attacks (let's call this the "SRM Carrier theorem")
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I personally stuck it out with the 4 M Lasers + 2 AC/2 on the Blackjack, handed it off to Glitch as she was the better Sniper...
Also anyone else encounter the glitch that makes pilots stuck permanently with the "Low Spirits"-modifier?
In my case it is rather bad as it happened to Medusa who is my "have the Shadow Hawk punch something"-guy
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That's the conclusion I am arriving at in my playthrough. The BJ doesn't have the heat sink capacity to be running the large laser a lot (whereas the stock loadout can do two or three consecutive alpha strikes before having to switch off the lasers), and as it turns out, rolling the dice more often is better than trying to make single, big damage attacks (let's call this the "SRM Carrier theorem")
You say that, but I absolutely love my Centurion's AC/20's ability to rip off light/medium mech sections in one shot. I've had far better results from the AC/20 than from 4 medium lasers (which technically do the same damage). Not to say there's no place for more spread out damage, but I don't think saying one is better than the other is true at all.
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Aesaar arch makeangel
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I just got a Thunderbolt by kicking it over repeatedly (well, there might have been a lucky indirect LRM-hit earlier in the battle so I only had to knock it down three times); I should rename my company into "The Schoolyard Bullies"...
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Using the name Tekkadan has prepared me to lose a few MechWarriors along the way.
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I just got a Thunderbolt by kicking it over repeatedly (well, there might have been a lucky indirect LRM-hit earlier in the battle so I only had to knock it down three times); I should rename my company into "The Schoolyard Bullies"...
It looks especially brutal when you've got multiple mechs surrounding the knocked down mech, and everyone is just literally kicking it while it's down.
Somebody call the teacher to break this bullying up!
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Just had my first mechwarrior death, rip Odin.
The Evac condition in this game is actually so super retarded that I wonder why they even bothered putting it in. I haven't had a single mission that didnt ended in just eliminating all of the enemy forces. The mission I was playing just now, that I lost Odin in, was an evac escort mission. Started off with fighting through a lance of 4. Then walking to the escort evac point and getting attacked by a lance of 4 more.
I took some damage from the first battle, and since I had negotiated mostly money and not salvage rights, I wasnt really interested in fighting the second lance. So I held position for the apc's to gather and evac out. Expecting my mechs to be able to evac along with them.
Nooope.
The mech evac point was literally behind the enemy lance. Literally ****ing useless.
So I was forced to fight and destroy the enemy lance, who proceeded to singlemindedly focus all of their fire on the damaged centurion.
And to add insult to injury, there was a cockpit mod in the salvage list that gives +2 injury resistance.
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I just had my first company failure - Rip "The Saints".
Turns out that sinking all the money into the argo to upgrade it wasn't such a good idea after all :P
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I just had my first company failure - Rip "The Saints".
Turns out that sinking all the money into the argo to upgrade it wasn't such a good idea after all :P
Nice budget management.
Ik had niks anders verwacht van een groenlinks stemmer (https://fi.somethingawful.com/images/smilies/emot-v.gif)
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Ik had niks anders verwacht van een groenlinks stemmer (https://fi.somethingawful.com/images/smilies/emot-v.gif)
Heh, If I were such a hardcore greenleft voter, surely I'd sink any chance of getting into a position of power by doggedly pursuing a single issue?
... Oh wait...
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Oh man, I got into a fight with a legacy lance contained an Awesome, Highlander, Catapult and a Grasshopper
But with only 2 salvage picks, I couldn't get all three parts of the highlander. :(
(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/910167825031159589/D9FCCD2B6FD3572AB4DA30831FB2CD00836281E2/)
Dekker being a pyromancer
Heh, If I were such a hardcore greenleft voter, surely I'd sink any chance of getting into a position of power by doggedly pursuing a single issue?
... Oh wait...
:p
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Got to the same part of the campaign and past it. Turns out my problem was less in the budget management and more that I just needed to focus more on keeping my 'mechs out of the repairbay...
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How do I know if my Mechs are in range of turrets?
I know mine are in range if a red line is drawn, but is there an indicator if my mechs can be fired upon?
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I also just had my first mechwarrior death. RIP Dekker, lost to a Demolisher.
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Got a Grasshopper, it's incredible. It's basically Firestarter's very big brother. Turned it into a Flamehopper. Shuts down any mech with 6 flamers, and shoots anything else with 7 medium lasers, with enough heatsinks to do that for three turns. And if it runs too hot? Well, just punch something, the flamers will be doing their work regardless.
How do I know if my Mechs are in range of turrets?
I know mine are in range if a red line is drawn, but is there an indicator if my mechs can be fired upon?
Not that I know of, turrets can often be firing from outside your vision range, if something is spotting for them. The laser turrets are generally not so bad, but the LRM/AC/PPC turrets can be a real pain in the ass.
I also just had my first mechwarrior death. RIP Dekker, lost to a Demolisher.
Demolishers are no laughing matter.
I also ran into a two PPC Shrek's today, 80ton tanks with triple PPC's, **** aint funny.
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Does Dekker have a big bullseye painted on his cockpit or what? :p
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Does Dekker have a big bullseye painted on his cockpit or what? :p
It must be all the years of posting on HLP that is catching up to him.
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I am currently stuck at the Liberation of Smithon ... The drop location is really disadvantagous and leaving my scouting mech (a Jenner) onboard the Argo for more guns (and punching), doesn't do much to mitigate the numerical advantage of Directorate Mechs...
Any tips? (Except of course saying goodbye to my payday and let the secondary goals slide)
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Which mission was that again?
Man, these destroy pirate supply convoy missions are starting to get a bit absurd. These convoys are consisting of multiple demolishers, lrm carriers and ppc carriers. Plus lances of mechs escorting and reinforcing. The amount of damage your start taking from these missions is not compensated by the money you receive. I mean, a single LRM carrier volley can do up to 5 full stability bars worth of damage. My **** keeps getting knocked down.
Not to mention this armless grasshopper somehow did a melee attack on my Orion, that blew the head clean off. Someone explain to me how.
Thankfully it was a mech with my main character so no mechwarriors were killed. It just means he's again spending months inside the medbay... Fun.
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The Liberation of Smithon is
you are tasked of raiding a munitions depot. There are 8 high explosive caches on the map (6 or 3 must survive as a secondary); begining turn 3 convoys leave along a road to the north-west.
You start in south-east.
Opposition consist of 2 LRM turrets in mid SE, 2 AC turrets in the NW, 1 laser/srm combi turret in the S, as well as two lances of Mechs (1 Draco(?), 1 Griffin, 1 Cicada, 1 Jenner, 1 Panther, 1 Firestarter, 1 Locust, 1 Spider)
Atm, I have a Thunderbold, a Centurion, a Shadow Hawk, a Blackjack, a Vindicator, and 2 Jenners at the ready
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Holy **** yes, that mission is a complete pain in the ass. I managed to get all the objectives but at the end I had only one mech in fighting shape, the rest were crippled in various forms.
And I had an Orion, Dragon, Jager and a Centurion for that mission, which is a few ton more than what you have available.
I send all my mechs to the left, and had one medium dedicated to the interception of the mobile hq's that spawn and leave. There will be only two of them, but they can take a pretty hefty beating. There's also a sniper turret to the far left, which I never managed to spot but it kept shooting my ****.
Imo chasing the convoy is probably not worth it, its only a 10-15% is increase in pay, but it makes everything significantly harder.
It's all a matter of getting the best value out of the two ammo crate explosions, that you're allowed to do before it'll cost you. If you can get 3 mechs caught in one, it'll eliminate the lesser armored ones outright and blow a significant amount of armor from the dragon and griffin, though it won't do any internal damage to them if they have full armor. The firestarter is going to be a massive pain if it gets close, might want to melee it once it gets in range, since the light mechs in this mission are all suprisingly good at absorbing damage.
Definitely leave the jenners at home, this is no place for lights.
Probably not terribly useful advice I know.
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Further notes, now that I am farther in:
-The Kintaro is an absolute beast. It runs hot as hell, but has enough damage output to punch far above its weight class; plus, since all its punch is in its SRMs, it deals a bunch of very useful stability damage
-This game really loooooves long missions. I've had some run for an hour.
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And I had an Orion, Dragon, Jager and a Centurion for that mission, which is a few ton more than what you have available.
Tonnage is not my problem ... yes, I am 2/3 on several heavier mechs but so far I actually felt that controlling the engagement with regards to cover and room to maneuver that I could hold my own elsewhere - this map has neither of those
On regards of the secondaries:
I actually found that using the Shadow Hawk to meele the Ammo Carriers works well - like all vehicles a meele hit from the Shadow Hawk goes right rought their armour and than the double damage modifier does the numbers; for a medium the Shadow Hawk as very good mobility and 2 turns sprinting interrupted by a turn of meele'ing the Spider that patrols between the Drop Zone and the Ammo Carriers' first waypoint are enought to have in range to deal with those.
Downside is that it leaves it exposed to both AC and LRM turrets, meaning even with a good pilot you are going to see real Stability damage as soon as your Evasive-charges are up.
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Oh boy ... stuff gets really wild later on. :nod:
Enemy Recon Lance Commander (something along those lines, didn't write down the exact words): "Stand down and ....... oh crap, are they piloting Star Leage era Mechs?!? Command, we need Reinforcements oh crap we need reinforcements!" ........ /Pulse Laser and Gauss Rifle fire ensues, didn't think they had that in the game, which made that mission/story twist all that much more satisfying! Dayumm!
Good Stuff Harebrained schemes, good stuff! I'm hands down more impressed than I ever was with a Battletech game and I'm not saying that because I didn't like any of the earlier games :)
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Holy **** yes, that mission is a complete pain in the ass. I managed to get all the objectives but at the end I had only one mech in fighting shape, the rest were crippled in various forms.
And I had an Orion, Dragon, Jager and a Centurion for that mission, which is a few ton more than what you have available.
I send all my mechs to the left, and had one medium dedicated to the interception of the mobile hq's that spawn and leave. There will be only two of them, but they can take a pretty hefty beating. There's also a sniper turret to the far left, which I never managed to spot but it kept shooting my ****.
Imo chasing the convoy is probably not worth it, its only a 10-15% is increase in pay, but it makes everything significantly harder.
It's all a matter of getting the best value out of the two ammo crate explosions, that you're allowed to do before it'll cost you. If you can get 3 mechs caught in one, it'll eliminate the lesser armored ones outright and blow a significant amount of armor from the dragon and griffin, though it won't do any internal damage to them if they have full armor. The firestarter is going to be a massive pain if it gets close, might want to melee it once it gets in range, since the light mechs in this mission are all suprisingly good at absorbing damage.
Definitely leave the jenners at home, this is no place for lights.
Probably not terribly useful advice I know.
Yeah that mission was tricky. I was running Orion, Jager, Catapult and Blackknight (lucked out on that one pretty early on, is an absolute beast if you run it as a combined energy/melee/DFA platform) at that point so firepower was not an issue. I admit, it felt a little like overkill, as either Blackknight or Orion can handily tank the damage from the whole map for several rounds if set up well in cover.
What I wasn't prepared for however is how fast those mobile HQs are. Really need to take them down as asap or they run for the hills and are never seen again.
What made me really sweat was actually one of the random missions with the usual heavy lance of mechs to take down .... there was another full lance of mixed heavies (so i thought) coming from the right, which I expected, no problem, one of the mechs was hanging back and i still had only the sensor blip 3 rounds into the engagement, but was too busy to worry about that .... and well ...
...... what I did't expect was "SURPRISE King Crab" with dual AC20s suddenly coming around the hill rattatatatatatata owtch! :eek2: :eek: :lol:
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Oh boy ... stuff gets really wild later on. :nod:
Enemy Recon Lance Commander (something along those lines, didn't write down the exact words): "Stand down and ....... oh crap, are they piloting Star Leage era Mechs?!? Command, we need Reinforcements oh crap we need reinforcements!" ........ /Pulse Laser and Gauss Rifle fire ensues, didn't think they had that in the game, which made that mission/story twist all that much more satisfying! Dayumm!
Good Stuff Harebrained schemes, good stuff! I'm hands down more impressed than I ever was with a Battletech game and I'm not saying that because I didn't like any of the earlier games :)
Ah yiss, I got to that part too today. Good stuff indeed.
And the highlander that is gifted after is a treat too. Double heatsinks and a gauss rifle? yes sir, please.
...... what I did't expect was "SURPRISE King Crab" with dual AC20s suddenly coming around the hill rattatatatatatata owtch! :eek2: :eek: :lol:
The only King crab ive seen so far has been a partial salvage in a store somewhere. I'd love to have one
And I had an Orion, Dragon, Jager and a Centurion for that mission, which is a few ton more than what you have available.
Tonnage is not my problem ... yes, I am 2/3 on several heavier mechs but so far I actually felt that controlling the engagement with regards to cover and room to maneuver that I could hold my own elsewhere - this map has neither of those
On regards of the secondaries:
I actually found that using the Shadow Hawk to meele the Ammo Carriers works well - like all vehicles a meele hit from the Shadow Hawk goes right rought their armour and than the double damage modifier does the numbers; for a medium the Shadow Hawk as very good mobility and 2 turns sprinting interrupted by a turn of meele'ing the Spider that patrols between the Drop Zone and the Ammo Carriers' first waypoint are enought to have in range to deal with those.
Downside is that it leaves it exposed to both AC and LRM turrets, meaning even with a good pilot you are going to see real Stability damage as soon as your Evasive-charges are up.
I had not really considered stomping the convoy in melee. One one hand yes, that kills em dead quick, but on the other hand, it leaves the stomper really deep in ****creek.
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Oh boy ... stuff gets really wild later on. :nod:
Enemy Recon Lance Commander (something along those lines, didn't write down the exact words): "Stand down and ....... oh crap, are they piloting Star Leage era Mechs?!? Command, we need Reinforcements oh crap we need reinforcements!" ........ /Pulse Laser and Gauss Rifle fire ensues, didn't think they had that in the game, which made that mission/story twist all that much more satisfying! Dayumm!
Good Stuff Harebrained schemes, good stuff! I'm hands down more impressed than I ever was with a Battletech game and I'm not saying that because I didn't like any of the earlier games :)
Ah yiss, I got to that part too today. Good stuff indeed.
My favourite bit about that mission was Elias Toufexis as the Taurian CO. The power trip of running a heavy lance of SLDF mechs was fine too I guess.
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Finally liberated Smithon after getting a good night's rest...
- Spend my first crate to take out the LRM turrets
- Got lucky and the Panther and the Cicada stood near a HE crate, took them out with one shot;
- It cost me my Centurion though, including a pilot death for Glitch
- The Griffin performed a Drop Attack on my Thunderbolt to little result, but I was able to exploit that, knocking it down and shooting off its legs
- Between my Shadow Hawk and my Blackjack I had enough Stability damage to kick-over the remaining lights and the Dragon
- But the Dragon's pilot died to a stray shot
So Glitch is dead, my Centurion is out of action (being refitted with almost everything)...
... on the flip side, I got salvage to finish work on a Dragon, a Panther and a Firestarter
Hurray?
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My Glitch is still alive and kicking, but RNG just decided that it was time for Behemoth to go. First round of combat, PPC to the cockpit, then a random medium laser a round after sealed the deal. Good times.
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I'm not as far into the story as you are but I think I get the hang on it. LRMs with AC5s work just fine, but boy, my blackjack is a joy. 1 large laser and three mediums, enough heatsinks and armor...
Dunno which mission it was, but I think it was a priate assasination... the enemy target absorbed shots like a damage sponge.
Granted, I tried to disable it, but still...
Need to sort out my priorities: Do I want cbills or salvage rights?
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That depends entirely on what you need at the moment that you make the contract. If you're building out your forces, go for salvage; if you need to pay the bills, go for the c-notes. Personally, I usually go for more loot unless I'm getting below 2 or 3 times the monthly bill.
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It also kind of depends on the contract, and it can be tricky to guess what you'll be facing.
Sometimes you get these contracts that has you face a lance full of mechs that you'd like to add to your collection. At which point you wish you had negotiated more salvage rights. Selling redundant mechs is a pretty good source of income too for that matter, so getting some salvage is good either way. Then again there are some contracts that just pay significantly more than others, and if that contract also happens to include secondary objectives, then negotiating that extra pay might be very lucrative.
In hindsight, I feel just negotiating pure money for the very first bunch of missions would have been best, since you'll be facing ****ty light mechs and vehicles for most of those, not all that much worth salvaging there. But once you start facing mediums more regularly, skewing towards salvage starts paying off.
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Need to sort out my priorities: Do I want cbills or salvage rights?
I work in the same vein as The_E, however vs. Pirate Contracts usually have Mechs with less armor so you might want to increase your Salvage Rights just to get more pieces while vs. Directorate Contracts mean stiff opposition and therefor repair bills
Thanks to a defense mission, Tugboat can now go PEW-PEW with her laser-Hunchback and Shark finally got a Trebuchet for LRM support; means I can pass the Dragon down to Medusa for punching things harder (also the Dragon has Flamers now that it is no longer a support plattform)
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Finally liberated Smithon after getting a good night's rest...
- Spend my first crate to take out the LRM turrets
- Got lucky and the Panther and the Cicada stood near a HE crate, took them out with one shot;
- It cost me my Centurion though, including a pilot death for Glitch
- The Griffin performed a Drop Attack on my Thunderbolt to little result, but I was able to exploit that, knocking it down and shooting off its legs
- Between my Shadow Hawk and my Blackjack I had enough Stability damage to kick-over the remaining lights and the Dragon
- But the Dragon's pilot died to a stray shot
So Glitch is dead, my Centurion is out of action (being refitted with almost everything)...
... on the flip side, I got salvage to finish work on a Dragon, a Panther and a Firestarter
Hurray?
Congrats, that mission is such a pain.
It's the first one I've savescummed on, not because I lost any mechs, but because those ****ing carriers are gone quick and I get completion seizures. Really wish the briefing had given just a little hint like oh by the way a light mech couldn't hurt or something with jump jets. The briefing for this one is frustratingly ambiguous imho.
I started with a Cataphract, Hunchback, Shadowhawk brawler and Treb. Treb can one shot the turrets easily enough and cripple most of the lights. Next time I think I'll just remove the Treb for a spotter Jenner or Panther and LRM Shadowhawk.
My Dekker is still alive and is one of my best pilots. Put him in a Jenner with high Pilot and he can get 5 evasive charges from sprinting or better yet jump-jets and an attack to boot.
Worst mission so far I lost 3 mechs, 2 dead pilots and 1 dismissed because to hell with waiting 3+ months for them to recover. Why are these guys signing up with my outfit, it's a constant bloodletting. :P
That feel when you negotiate for full money and have all 3 orion parts in potential salvage. D':
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Well, Shark just took an AC/20 to the face ... but then I got the final salvage on a Jagermech, a Kintaro, and gun-variant of the Hunchback (yeah, there is some wierd rule of 3 in play with my company). So, I know how it is for the company to bleed as much as it gains.
Other than that I am in good spot ATM; running a PPC Thunderbolt from Tactics/Gunnery avatar, I've Medusa (Guts/Piloting) running that SRM/Laser Dragon with full armor, Tugboat (Gunnery/Piloting) is running laser-Hunchback, and now its Timeslice with Piloting/Gunnery running Trebuchet with dual LRM 15s.
And at long last I am building that first simulator pod.
EDIT: Just finished the missions of Artru, walked away with the 3/3 salvage for the Battlemaster
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Got myself a pair of Orions within 2 missions of each other. Despite this, the munitions dump mission was still hella hard. The one after that, not so much.
Current lance is
Orion w/ AC/20, LRM-15, 2 ML
Orion w/ 2 AC/5, LRM-10, 2 ML, 3 JJ
Thunderbolt w/ PPC, LRM-15, 4 JJ
Dragon w/ AC/10, SRM-4, 2 SL
LRMs and big autocannons go so well together once you bump tactics up to mostly eliminate minimum range on the lurms.
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Got myself a pair of Orions within 2 missions of each other. Despite this, the munitions dump mission was still hella hard. The one after that, not so much.
I had the opposite experience: I didn't find the munitions dump mission to be all that difficult - I didn't try to keep at least 6 ammo crates alive though, I can imagine it becomes much, much harder if you do that. However, the mission afterwards to me was rather hard, becuase I was simply outclassed on that one.
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re: the mission after the the Liberation of Smithon
I actually had less trouble with that mission than with the one before it too, still lost several times and in the end all my pilots were out for 30-90 days and all of my mechs needed major refitting (including the fact that I had run out of ACs to replace the ones that were destroyed)
So, I don't know if it is a bug but Victoria's lance in that mission doesn't engage if you successfully contain the fighting in the part of the map south west (initial camera perspective) from the DropShip. She only engages once you detect her (or she detects you in return).
So you can use several turns to dump heat and reposition yourself in an area of the map where her twin PPCs are less of an issue.
Containing the fight there is rather easy as both groups of turrets are on Generators that are quickly destroyed if you have a dedicated LRM-Mech (e.g. Trebuchet); the Generator controlling the missile turrets is actually simple to destroy with a sniper Mech, if you just do 3+1 split and send the Mech straight north-north-east from the initial drop zone. The other generator is further away and you are easily bottlenecked on the small path leading to the enemy lance, but if you send Meele-Mech in first you should be able to disrupt the enemy lance (1-2 of the ramshacke modifier) enough to push one Mech into detection range of the Generator.
On the note of ACs, I am now in the Gauss Cannon-era and the ACs get considerable less usefull as the mechs get heavier IMO (only Bolt's gun-Hunchback is still packing one AC/20, but that's replacement mech/pilot combo); When toppeling a Mech is no longer a major issue, due to fact even Prone Heavies and Assaults aren't made from paper and wishes, ACs kinda faded out of my rotation.
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I got stupidly lucky with victoria's catapult. A called shot to her center torso resulted in machine gun ammo exploding and she went down in basically one turn. Unfortunately haven't seen any other K2 catapult versions after that mission. Though at this point I wouldn't really consider putting a catapult in my lance anyway, since most of my options are much heavier now.
Disappointed this game restricts you to just a single lance though. Still havent bothered upgrading to the third mechbays, I mean whats the point? Storing a bunch of extra mechs I wont be able to use anyway? All it does is increase monthly costs.
Starting to stack up on those comm's systems. +6 morale gain per turn. Is nice considering the highlander can one shot lesser mechs with a called shot.
The difficulty rating on a contract seems more of a verrry broad guideline than an actual rule. I just had my first full 5 difficulty contract and it was actually a piss easy contract of poorly maintained medium-heavy mechs
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The difficulty rating on a contract seems more of a verrry broad guideline than an actual rule. I just had my first full 5 difficulty contract and it was actually a piss easy contract of poorly maintained medium-heavy mechs
Yeah, reading the text to gauge a rule on the opposition seems to work better:
- Pirates means Mech with low armor that go down easily* and pilots with up-to a single skill
- Directorate means at least one lance on par with your own, before you get Artru, with at least one pilot skill but no specialist still; a second lance will have at least 1 shoody mech
I've not engage any major power Mechs outside story missions yet, so no read on them
* I just came of a retrieval mission in which my Highlander's LRM 20 blew up a pirate Thunderbolt with indirekt fire, because without torso armor I was able to blow-out both torso pieces with ammunition inside killing the pilot in conjuction with a lucky cockpit hit which was also part of that salvo
Disappointed this game restricts you to just a single lance though. Still havent bothered upgrading to the third mechbays, I mean whats the point? Storing a bunch of extra mechs I wont be able to use anyway? All it does is increase monthly costs.
Granted the monthly cost argument is true, but as soon as you upgrade the Argo's engines travel time becomes much less a concern/shield and being able to swap out Mechs and esspecially Pilots on the fly becomes more an issue ...
... at least to my company, going so far that I had acknowledge that I hadn't been raising a replacement for my sniper/commander avatar and my mid range/split-fire skirmisher; at the same time I had two replacements each for my long range/shoot-move support and short range/meele support pilot, because they tended to land in the Medbay more often.
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(https://i.imgur.com/m0q8MPO.png)
This is just wrong.
(https://i.imgur.com/8b3elh9.png)
This, on the other hand, is perfectly alright.
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I got stupidly lucky with victoria's catapult. A called shot to her center torso resulted in machine gun ammo exploding and she went down in basically one turn. Unfortunately haven't seen any other K2 catapult versions after that mission. Though at this point I wouldn't really consider putting a catapult in my lance anyway, since most of my options are much heavier now.
Disappointed this game restricts you to just a single lance though. Still havent bothered upgrading to the third mechbays, I mean whats the point? Storing a bunch of extra mechs I wont be able to use anyway? All it does is increase monthly costs.
Skip forward to Battletech 2 where we get to command an entire Star of mechs! :P
In seriousness, I do find being restricted to a single lance of just mechs to be both a curse and a blessing. On one hand, not being able to, say, field vehicles or command some of those larger battles that Battletech is capable of is a miss. On the other hand, the game's missions already last a decent time, and you can always design your missions around the notion of there always being just 4 mechs. I can imagine if going from a command of 4 to 14 is a bigger step then most are able to handle.
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On one hand, I love the idea of giving us a whole company, or one lance of mechs, then a support lance of vehicles, maybe aerospace assets and artillery. Company-level **** would be dope. On the other hand, turns in this game can already take quite a long time if your enemy has lots of assets.
That would be pretty cool in a Clan Invasion setting though. I want to get ****ed up by a Xerxes, damn it.
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One of the developers did a AMA on reddit yesterday. It was mentioned that you will not be able to command more then one lance at a time. Here is the AMA (https://www.reddit.com/r/Battletechgame/comments/8g2e8j/im_tyler_carpenter_one_of_the_hbs_devs_on/?st=jgo555h5&sh=1157a111) and here is the summary (https://www.reddit.com/r/Battletechgame/comments/8g7dxm/hbs_developer_update_ama_summarized/?st=jgo5908z&sh=70995627)
Picked up the game over the weekend and having a blast with it. Not very far into the story yet, just learning the mechanics and what not. Yesterday I got my first Heavy Mech, a Thunderbolt. Knocked it down and blew its head off with a called shot. Lucky for me I maxed out the salvage rights and got all 3 parts.
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I like how Gog considers the "Who's Next?" achievement (For hiring 25 mercenaries) to be legendary, at 0.1%
it means I am having atrocious attrition rates on a level that others don't 0_o
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On one hand, I love the idea of giving us a whole company, or one lance of mechs, then a support lance of vehicles, maybe aerospace assets and artillery.
Forgive my superficial knowledge of Battletech as a franchise but IMO that quickly stop being Battletech...
I am aware that industrial scale warfare still is a thing in the Battletech-universe, but to my estimation part of the essential components of Battletech's identity is that Mechwarfare is simply put early european Middle Ages warfare blown up to absurd proportions (and ammended through the inclusion of other cultural reference points for feudal warfare):
Mechwarriors and their Battle Mechs basicially serving as the stand-in for a martial Elite of Lords and Knights (hence also the whole SciFi-Feudalism), whose equipment and martial lifestyle are enabled by their removal for normal economic activity, while Infantry, Mechanized Armor, Airforces and DropShip crews are levies, critically important to the actual war effort but inconsequential in the heroic narrative of the war itself.
Plus, on a gameplay-side, I think it would also rob the individual battles some of their attraction as the "feats" of your pilots (e.g. "that one headshot") or their distinct idenity as result of their gameplay traits (e.g. the meele pilot) might get lost if their are repeated too often in close temporal proximity (consistency being the enemy of remarkability, and all that)...
... but then again, I have always been a fan of smaller scale strategy games (e.g. which is why I never warmed up to Dawn of War 3 the way I did to Dawn of War 2, despite all the cool spectacle and the Eldar in that game being one of the best realisations of their army in a video game to date)
I like how Gog considers the "Who's Next?" achievement (For hiring 25 mercenaries) to be legendary, at 0.1%
It's one of those shame-achievements, considering the fully upgraded Argo only has 24 berths for pilots, OR it might be a collector's achievment considering there is a number of special "Ronin"-pilots and unique pilots based on KS-backers
Just defender Panzyr against a Taurian invasion, and I am calling bullsh*t on that mission... Seriously did no playtester catch that the proximity warning message for the enemy APCs only triggers when one of those is already on a move that will end in the zone you are tasked to NOT let them in?
(Granted I handycapped myself, even in the sucessfull run, by sending off my Tugboat-Hunchback-P, one of the two Mechs in my Lance with Split Fire, to chase the secondary objective.... which I failed because I'd have needed at least jumpjets if not a fast Mech in general to get there in time)
Just how difficult is it get a Salvage for Catapult C1? :mad:
Considering just how many Orions, Quickdraws, Jagermechs and Grasshopers the enemies in the random contracts seem to be able to hurl that my Lance, why can't they send one Catapult C1 at me? - I am already doing 2-3 contracts each month now, so lack of opportunity is not the issue here...
(Lack of Salvage isn't either, considering worked the past 6 contracts almost exclusively for Salvage)
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It's just RNG, I've had a few C1 Catapults worth of salvage already. Whereas some other mechs seem a lot more rare for me.
Also I just did that Panzyr mission just now too. The secondary defend barracks secondary is objectively impossible unless you know about it in advance and prepare for it. And even then, it seems a bit iffy. The commandos will be upon it in 4 turns, the way there is blocked by a light and a medium and its a long road up to begin with.
I just shrugged and accepted it as impossible. Not gonna save scum for bad design.
I mean, what was the point of bringing the turrets online for that matter? By the time the last APC lands, everything is pretty much destroyed anyway.
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One of the developers did a AMA on reddit yesterday. It was mentioned that you will not be able to command more then one lance at a time. Here is the AMA (https://www.reddit.com/r/Battletechgame/comments/8g2e8j/im_tyler_carpenter_one_of_the_hbs_devs_on/?st=jgo555h5&sh=1157a111) and here is the summary (https://www.reddit.com/r/Battletechgame/comments/8g7dxm/hbs_developer_update_ama_summarized/?st=jgo5908z&sh=70995627)
Picked up the game over the weekend and having a blast with it. Not very far into the story yet, just learning the mechanics and what not. Yesterday I got my first Heavy Mech, a Thunderbolt. Knocked it down and blew its head off with a called shot. Lucky for me I maxed out the salvage rights and got all 3 parts.
But the most important thing brought up in there is: Is starcitizen a scam or not.
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Also I just did that Panzyr mission just now too. The secondary defend barracks secondary is objectively impossible unless you know about it in advance and prepare for it. And even then, it seems a bit iffy. The commandos will be upon it in 4 turns, the way there is blocked by a light and a medium and its a long road up to begin with.
I just shrugged and accepted it as impossible. Not gonna save scum for bad design.
I mean, what was the point of bringing the turrets online for that matter? By the time the last APC lands, everything is pretty much destroyed anyway.
You can do it with a medium mech with jump jets, my Hunchback (with a pilot who has the 1st Sprint Bonus from Piloting Skill Tree) arrived a turn too late because I couldn't jump the wall
And you might have a few tons on me again, because when the turrets came online in my playthrough I was still outgunned by enemy mechs and vehicles.
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Most of the enemies in that mission are medium and lights, several of my heavy/assaults can one shot kill them with a called shot. Which in turn gives enough morale for another called shot. So that mission was kind of a breeze on my end (ignoring the barracks objective that is). Just popping mechs as they made their appearance.
I'm starting to notice the repetition in the contracts and the maps at this point. So I'm mostly trying to rush through the priority missions now.
(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/910168207874708744/002EE6BFF83A98BC8C0DB7E22648AE6514440F5A/)
This poor commando is going to get an atlas fist rammed so far up its arse...
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It's just RNG, I've had a few C1 Catapults worth of salvage already. Whereas some other mechs seem a lot more rare for me.
Also I just did that Panzyr mission just now too. The secondary defend barracks secondary is objectively impossible unless you know about it in advance and prepare for it. And even then, it seems a bit iffy. The commandos will be upon it in 4 turns, the way there is blocked by a light and a medium and its a long road up to begin with.
I just shrugged and accepted it as impossible. Not gonna save scum for bad design.
I mean, what was the point of bringing the turrets online for that matter? By the time the last APC lands, everything is pretty much destroyed anyway.
I actually got there in time with my scout and was able to use death from above on the apc one round before it came in.
A fast jump capable mech can do it. :nod:
Also, in that mission, I found blocking the entries to the base with a mech was incredibly useful. Otherwise you can loose in round 2 lol.
P.S. Having finished it ... I am sooooooo waiting for this now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=54&v=6hBpw6plYfc :nod:
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P.S. Having finished it ... I am sooooooo waiting for this now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=54&v=6hBpw6plYfc :nod:
That sure looks great for a game set to release in 2008!
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P.S. Having finished it ... I am sooooooo waiting for this now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=54&v=6hBpw6plYfc :nod:
That sure looks great for a game set to release in 2008!
I have approximately zero confidence in PGI's ability to release a good game regardless of year. You may notice, in that video, how there's exactly zero AI behavior of any positive note. I suspect they're still terrible at it.
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P.S. Having finished it ... I am sooooooo waiting for this now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=54&v=6hBpw6plYfc :nod:
That sure looks great for a game set to release in 2008!
I have approximately zero confidence in PGI's ability to release a good game regardless of year. You may notice, in that video, how there's exactly zero AI behavior of any positive note. I suspect they're still terrible at it.
Same.
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Finished the main campaign. Final Lance loadout was 3 Highlanders and a Stalker (2 HGN-733P, 1 HGN-732b, and the Stalker turned into something closely resembling a Longbow, with the LRMs upgraded to LRM20++ and the large lasers stripped out for more LRM ammo and heat sinks). It feels soooo good to see a Mech pop up and basically be able to decide when and where that thing is going to faceplant....
Now I'm kinda torn between restarting the campaign, or playing on to hunt for more King Crab parts (I only saw one of them so far). It's also going to be interesting to see how viable my unit is in the absence of the regular cash infusions provided by the story missions.
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I personally plan on keeping playing after the campaign ends. The devs announced a roadmap for the next patch (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/battletech-whats-next.1094890/) and some settings seemed interesting - In particular, the option to skip the bloody tutorial :P - I kinda consider that vital to restarting a campaign now.
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Played my first convoy mission... gosh are they all like this? You need to get to a position to meet with your flock, the message pops up that the APCs will stay with you for protection, so I thought I could make steady progress.
But nope, the APCs rushed for their evac, I struggled to keep up and then I got greedy, trying to murder enemy reinforcements despite the option to retreat to my evac point.
Outcome? Three pilots wounded, add to that Medusa wounded from the previous mission so I have to run a 400k cbills mission with rooks and AFAIK bulwark.
Also, why are the screens not saved in steam?
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Escort missions are the worst in this game, especially later on when your Mechs can't really keep up with Vehicles at all.
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Time to savescum...
I think I can do better if I don't use called shots to the head and keep my distance...
Also, my current lance(?):
[attachment stolen by Russian hackers]
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Finished the main campaign. Final Lance loadout was 3 Highlanders and a Stalker (2 HGN-733P, 1 HGN-732b, and the Stalker turned into something closely resembling a Longbow, with the LRMs upgraded to LRM20++ and the large lasers stripped out for more LRM ammo and heat sinks). It feels soooo good to see a Mech pop up and basically be able to decide when and where that thing is going to faceplant....
Now I'm kinda torn between restarting the campaign, or playing on to hunt for more King Crab parts (I only saw one of them so far). It's also going to be interesting to see how viable my unit is in the absence of the regular cash infusions provided by the story missions.
Also finished it today. My final lance was a Banshee, two Highlanders and a Battlemaster. The Banshee had maximum armor and was just nearly indestructible. Fun times.
I never saw a Stalker in my whole campaign, until the contract I took after finishing the last story mission. It came along with a king crabbo, but as I was midway into that contract, my pc did a bsod.
Damnit.
(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/910168207879141988/5CF9CB705F9BA04DE7E165F21C4C410B5E82E946/)
Glitch was MVP.
My maincharacter spend most of his time in medbay, taking all the hits for the team. Maybe thats why I took relatively few casualities.
The last two missions were laughable easy. In the second to last mission, the AI spends so much time, carefully spreading out the damage on the base turrets, that they never inflicted any kind of damage on my mechs. The two lances that drop managed to kill a whole two turrets...
Then the lance vs lance battle is nothing you haven't already done a hundred times before that... so uh, cakewalk. I had the crabbo surrounded and legged, but I didn't get a single bit of salvage from it. I feel robbed.
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Spoon: No ****ing way did we both pick the same callsign and skills for our mains.
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Spoon: No ****ing way did we both pick the same callsign and skills for our mains.
I dont know, maybe? I don't think I actually posted a screenshot with my dude's ugly mug in this thread yet.
(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/910168207879341899/7B40C9E0F75F7EE3BDF074CA2A048F3C6B1A4439/)
(For comparison, Glitch has 58 deployments, 13 injuries, 75 mech kills and 46 other kills. Samurai spend far too much time napping in medbay.)
I picked a Draconis Combine background so I figured I'd go full nippon banzai with the guy.
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I'm wrong. Guess the game has Apex in the list of generated mechwarrior callsigns. I got the colored markers mixed up.
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I'm wrong. Guess the game has Apex in the list of generated mechwarrior callsigns. I got the colored markers mixed up.
It's one of those ronin unique characters.
You can have two Apex's in your company then :p
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How viable are double PPCs? :D
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Finished the main campaign. Final Lance loadout was 3 Highlanders and a Stalker (2 HGN-733P, 1 HGN-732b, and the Stalker turned into something closely resembling a Longbow, with the LRMs upgraded to LRM20++ and the large lasers stripped out for more LRM ammo and heat sinks). It feels soooo good to see a Mech pop up and basically be able to decide when and where that thing is going to faceplant....
Now I'm kinda torn between restarting the campaign, or playing on to hunt for more King Crab parts (I only saw one of them so far). It's also going to be interesting to see how viable my unit is in the absence of the regular cash infusions provided by the story missions.
Also finished it today. My final lance was a Banshee, two Highlanders and a Battlemaster. The Banshee had maximum armor and was just nearly indestructible. Fun times.
I never saw a Stalker in my whole campaign, until the contract I took after finishing the last story mission. It came along with a king crabbo, but as I was midway into that contract, my pc did a bsod.
Damnit.
Glitch was MVP.
My maincharacter spend most of his time in medbay, taking all the hits for the team. Maybe thats why I took relatively few casualities.
The last two missions were laughable easy. In the second to last mission, the AI spends so much time, carefully spreading out the damage on the base turrets, that they never inflicted any kind of damage on my mechs. The two lances that drop managed to kill a whole two turrets...
Then the lance vs lance battle is nothing you haven't already done a hundred times before that... so uh, cakewalk. I had the crabbo surrounded and legged, but I didn't get a single bit of salvage from it. I feel robbed.
Final Lance: Atlas, Highlander, King Crab, Stalker.
The Stalker with a full LRM Loadout is indeed incredibly fun. I crammed 4x LRM15 in there, all with extra stability damage. Basically "2 Catapults in one Mech" ;-)
I'd rate the Highlander with Jumpjets even higher though. Solid firepower ....... and if it's needed, or if desperate, there s that 200+ damage DFA attack.
Mech with the most kills in my lance was definitely the King Crab however .... Dual AC20 with +20 extra damage each and a LRM15.
Basically one shot kills up to heavy mechs with center torso called shot, wich gives you the morale back instantly due to the mech kill .... i.e. BAM dead, next target please ..... (If not instakilled, center torso is still banged up a lot and between the 2xAC20 and the LRMs there s enough stability damage to finish up with a knock down and followup called shot on pretty much anything but the most heavily armored assaults.)
P.S. For disabling mechs for salvage I found the most reliable way not to be headshots, but to position to the sides of the mech (to avoid center torso hits) and blast away with as much stability damage as you can bring. Make them fall down repeatedly (+1 wound) and eventually blow the side torsos off (+1 wound) reliably takes out the pilot eventually (usually 4 wounds total), while leaving the mech salvagable.
How viable are double PPCs? :D
Dual PPCs can work... but I would heavily recommend ones with +15 or better +30 stability damage. Then they're ok. I ran a triple PPC Awesome for a long time and it did just fine. In general you are usually better off pairing a single PPC with with an autocannon or LRMs imho though - I had quite a lot of fun with a PPC + AC20 Cataphract for a while for example (long range potshots with some extra stability damage + short range killing power) - or better, going straight for AC + LRM/SRM if heat is becoming an issue.
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I tried dual ppc on a grasshopper once, found it a bit underwhelming.
That kingcrab sounds amazing. Wish I could get me one. But yeah, highlanders with jumpjets are amazing.
P.S. For disabling mechs for salvage I found the most reliable way not to be headshots, but to position to the sides of the mech (to avoid center torso hits) and blast away with as much stability damage as you can bring. Make them fall down repeatedly (+1 wound) and eventually blow the side torsos off (+1 wound) reliably takes out the pilot eventually (usually 4 wounds total), while leaving the mech salvagable.
Knocking out a leg is also a guaranteed knock down, and leaves the mech with 1 less stability for future knock downs.
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AC/10 or AC/20 + LRM is a very good combo. LRMs combo with everything pretty well. LRMs are very good in this game.
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King crab get, with some spare doubleheat sinks from the Atlas.
That contract was kind of funny, cause it was on a cold tundra planet but the enemy lance managed to repeatedly overheat both of its stalkers and the kingcrab. Sure made it easy to knock the crab out without doing much damage to it.
AC/10 or AC/20 + LRM is a very good combo. LRMs combo with everything pretty well. LRMs are very good in this game.
I find almost all weapons range from good to decent. The only exceptions being large lasers, which are kind of awful. And ppc's I feel are also kind of mediocre. Both weapons generate absurd amounts of heat and are heavy to boot. ER LL are super bad, super heaty and the extra range is almost never useful. LRM's are better for a long range option in every way.
For example, replace the one large laser on the stock kingcrab loadout with 4 medium lasers, and you've got one extra spare tonnage to play with. You've now increased your damage output significantly and can fit an extra heatsink or add more armor.
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PPCs, and by extension dual PPCs, are more a menace against lights and mediums - when you have tactician hanging back and stripping those evade charges with sensor lock... by the endgame everything is just so armored....
Also, my campaign broke - timeline is no longer advancing, so I am stuck without being able to go to the next contract...
... which might be good as well considering I trashed my story-Highlander (gauss is gone, so are all double heat sinks) and none of the mechs I got are filling the void currently
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Post campaign update:
-Salvage, in particular Mech salvage, is going to be your primary source of income.
-The King Crab, when upgraded with +Stability and +Damage or +Accuracy ACs, is a holy terror
-Tactics 9 is insane
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... which might be good as well considering I trashed my story-Highlander (gauss is gone, so are all double heat sinks) and none of the mechs I got are filling the void currently
The HGN is one of the few mechs that degrades pretty well. In place of the Gauss, you can fit an AC/10 (which is almost as good) and more armor.
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Anyone got any franken-builds they'd like to share?
I wanted to make the Spider actually useful by putting a ppc on it. Had to scrape off all the armour from the arms and back.
To absolutely no surprise it is ****ing awful - overheats like a ***** and without jump jets it can't get to where I need it. I'd say it's possibly worse than stock, but it does occasionally get a nice shot in.
PPC Jenner oth is actually really fun. Same armour as stock and keeps the jumpjets too. LRM Jenner is not too bad either.
EDIT - tried a glass cannon Jenner in skirmish with almost no armour, 1 ppc and 1 lrm 10. It dies instantly but dear god it's fun.
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My favorite at the moment (partially because the C1 is a myth) is the K2 without machine guns and more heatsinks/armor, or how I played it when I was playing MWO. It can fire PPCs for a hilariously long time now even in the desert and is pretty damn good at taking legs out.
That said heavy mechs are still a rarity where I am in the campaign.
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My favorite at the moment (partially because the C1 is a myth) is the K2 without machine guns and more heatsinks/armor, or how I played it when I was playing MWO. It can fire PPCs for a hilariously long time now even in the desert and is pretty damn good at taking legs out.
That said heavy mechs are still a rarity where I am in the campaign.
Yeah at that point in the campaign, where you face a lot of mediums/lights dual PPCs really work great. I even still liked the triple PPC awesome, which was the first assault mech I got.
It really is awesome against mediums and even most heavies. Triple PPC with +30 stability was a neat combo with the LRM Boat Catapult. Especially since that awesome can actually TANK and do it frigging well at that stage of the game.
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[/lurk]
I might have racked up 140 hours in two weeks. What is sleep?
Deep into the post-campaign, I'm developing a new love of the Grasshopper. I've got one loaded to the gills with medium and small lasers, jump jets, and heat sinks. With that loadout and Dekker at the stick, I send it bounding around behind the enemy to slag rear armor. Single-volley assassinations of heavy and assault mechs are a thing™. With the Ace Pilot ability, if the first volley doesn't get you, the second one will, before it leaps to safety.
In a base capture mission, I had my three assault mechs advancing on the base, with Dekker wandering about on the left flank in a Grasshopper, looking for some backs to stab. Unbeknownst to me, this was a mission with no mechs on the map, and a dropship reinforcement trigger set at a fixed distance from the objective. When the assault mechs triggered the reinforcements, the lance dropped directly on top of Dekker. Dekker got three kills--all of them mechs. My assault mechs were really just there to mop up the base turrets.
I suspect humans are better about dealing with flankers than the AI. Still, it's fun.
Escort missions are the worst in this game, especially later on when your Mechs can't really keep up with Vehicles at all.
I learned pretty early on to try to identify the convoy extraction point, before spawning the convoy. (There's often a landing pad or a place where the snow is inexplicably melted away or some other visible indicator.) If you can get your slower mechs posted up around the extraction point, before having your fastest mech (or LRM boat) spawns the APCs, then keeping up becomes a non-issue. It would be nice if the APCs would stay behind your lance, though, as the in-game dialogue implies they will, so that it wouldn't be necessary to find a wacky metagame solution.
It also seems like the hostile force will use lighter mechs than it will use on other mission types with the same difficulty rating, so you may be able to get away with using lighter, faster mechs for escort missions than the rating might suggest.
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On salvage - I'm not 100% sure this is an absolute rule, but generally speaking taking out both legs on a mech yields only 2 salvage parts. Incapacitating the pilot seems to usually yield 3 possible salvage, even if the mech gets stripped of both torsos and a leg. I've had this happen on a few missions now and gotten some nice mechs out of it. Helped my restarted campaign at any rate.
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If the CT is destroyed, you get one part
If both legs are destroyed, you get two parts
If the 'Mech is knocked out before either of those thresholds is reached, you get three parts
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That seems to be the way of it. Shooting from the sides and getting a knockdown seems to do the trick nicely without having to bother with called shots. Some pilots take more injuries than 3 to down, I've not completed campaign yet so don't know how beefy they can get.
Has anyone encountered 10 or more mechs on a mission yet? I did an assassination mission that had an "ambushers" force, local government and a single escort alongside the target itself. 7 lights, 2 mediums and 1 K2 Cat. This is before the Weldry mission too.
https://i.imgur.com/191GXQj.jpg
Catapult has one of the coolest camo patterns imho:-
https://i.imgur.com/2b7BRZH.jpg
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Im on a mission to destroy 8 assault mechs.
I definitely reloaded and negotiated for max salvage once i realized what the oppositon looked like.
There's going to be some injuries, some internal damage, and some lost components, but it should be worth it.
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Im on a mission to destroy 8 assault mechs.
I definitely reloaded and negotiated for max salvage once i realized what the oppositon looked like.
There's going to be some injuries, some internal damage, and some lost components, but it should be worth it.
You sure the opposition always stays the same? I think I had one case, where I reloaded and the enemy mech setup changed...
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It did change. No Atlas for me, but i salvaged another King Crab, along with a Battlemaster and a Banshee, so I decided that would be sufficient.
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Has anyone encountered 10 or more mechs on a mission yet?
Some escort missions will have up to three enemy lances. One lance guarding the rendezvous point; one lance that spawns to ambush you when you spawn the convoy, and a third lance that spawns when the first convoy vehicle arrives at the extraction point. Even at five-star difficulty, these three lances tend to be underweight (mediums and heavies, no assaults) and stripped to one-quarter armor.
I've heard of some five-star assassination missions throwing three fully-armored assault lances at the player, but I've yet to encounter that personally.
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I really lucked out. On my next mission they sent a low-armor Atlas, and i headshotted it. Needless to say, it is now my Atlas.
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I've heard of some five-star assassination missions throwing three fully-armored assault lances at the player, but I've yet to encounter that personally.
Yes that is a thing ...
Also, multiple spotters who use sensors to get target lock on your mechs and let all those assaults use their LRM before you even see them. 3 Lances worth of LRMs from behind a ridge.
Owww.
Then the first few mechs who come into view are 2 Victors and a King Crab right behind them, who all let loose with AC20s on already LRM pummeled Armor. Mega Owwww.
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**** like that is why I want multiple lances to deploy. With maybe a tonnage limit on how much you can deploy (like mechcommander had). So you can actually set up a long range indirect fire lance and add a scout for them, without feeling like "Well, that could have been another assault mech".
The single lance limitation feels so... well, limiting.
Also tonks.
I want a vehicle support lance to deploy.
Anyway, I know it won't happen because the devs said it wouldn't. But I can dream, right?
I haven't touched the game after completing the main story, since there isnt any real goals or content left to strife for. DLC soon?
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I feel that if I was deploying 8 or 12 mechs/vehicles, I'd be a lot more willing to take a light/medium scout mech along. As it is, the reduction in armor/firepower I suffer by using a light/medium instead of a heavy/assault is in no way worth it. A dedicated spotter isn't worth 25% of my firepower.
I know they won't for this game. Maybe not even the next one, but I hope they change their minds and let us deploy more than a lance when the the Clan Invasion sequel happens. I don't see how 4 IS mechs could contend with 5 Clan ones.
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I have beaten the main campaign.
The only reason I don't want to bring extra mechs, or tanks, is that turns would take EVEN LONGER.
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That first mission is rough, but awesome. The game is ****ing great, I love it. A lot of the negative reviews on steam complain that it's too slow-paced, which is like complaining that Quake is too quick. There's a few of them as well, which imho is entirely undeserved.
First mission took me more than an hour dude, I think that's a little long for the average gamer.
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1) It's a turn-based strategy game. Slower, longer games are a property of the genre, just like speed and split-second decision-making were a property of 90's FPS's. Maybe TBS games will speed up in the future, just like FPS's slowed down in the '00's, but for now, complaining about a TBS game being slow is like complaining about a motorcycle being a ****ty car for lacking two wheels. You knew what you were getting into.
2) You can save and reload mid-mission. Launching a mission doesn't commit you to an uninterrupted hour of gameplay.
3) "Average gamer" isn't a useful concept anymore. The medium is so fragmented and its audience so diverse that no game is going to appeal to everyone, and every game (except some of the zero-effort trash in the bowels of Steam) is going to find at least a niche audience. That's not to say that there's no bad games, but when your chief complaint about a game is a well-established property of its genre, then maybe--instead of the game being bad--you're just not the audience for that game.
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1) It's a turn-based strategy game. Slower, longer games are a property of the genre, just like speed and split-second decision-making were a property of 90's FPS's. Maybe TBS games will speed up in the future, just like FPS's slowed down in the '00's, but for now, complaining about a TBS game being slow is like complaining about a motorcycle being a ****ty car for lacking two wheels. You knew what you were getting into.
I've played a lot of TBS games that don't spend as much time on, say, making every single action be slow and ponderous though. Or games that lingered their camera over your pawns for a few seconds to give them a chance to speak a line. Battletech isn't just slow-paced (which is fine!), it's wasting time in places where it should not.
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You could make missions a lot faster if you could just hit, say, spacebar and skip animations.
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You could make missions a lot faster if you could just hit, say, spacebar and skip animations.
Yeah that would save like 30 seconds per turn, which starts adding up fast over the missions.
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The dudes got bought by Paradox. (Harebrained Schemes)
As someone on reddit said, Jordan Weisman sure knows when to cash out haha
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You could make missions a lot faster if you could just hit, say, spacebar and skip animations.
According to my Kickstarter Update E-Mails, that is coming.
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The 1.1 patch is glorious.
There's the faster combat, which I just have on by default now. There's the new difficulty options, there's lots of quality of life changes, the game is much smoother... It's good. If you have been holding off on a new campaign, now's a good chance to jump in again.
Personally running with a custom difficulty setting where friendly mechs who have their CT destroyed are no longer repairable and where salvaged mechs don't come with a load-out at the start. Which is exactly how I wanted it to begin with :D
There's also an ironman mode, but I hardly found myself reloading saves either way (unless a dropship crunched my lance or if I got wiped during a priority mission), so the restrictions that one offers seem much too punishing for little gain. In particular, in ironman, if you fail a priority mission you fail the entire campaign, which seems very harsh.
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Mission difficulty seems to have been rejiggered a bit too. In my new (third) campaign, I've already salvaged a heavy mech, and I'm not even at Weldry yet.
Incidentally, fitting a Thunderbolt for combat is a two-month process onboard the Leopard. *sad trombone*
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With the progress-blocking bug cleared, I was finally able to beat the campaign....
... and stayed true to my tactics by kicking the final boss mech to bits.
Overall, I am quite pleased with my return on investment as Kickstarter backer. :yes:
ps. I took me until the penultimate mission to assamble that Catapult-salvage ;)
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Knockdown
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I am starting the campaign over, now that I know what I am doing more and they patched Large Lasers to generate about half as much heat.
Yeah I am way better than last time I played the campaign. We're all staying alive, we're not caring about story missions right away, and I already refit the blackjack to lose a M Laser and an AC2 to gain a L Laser
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Hatchet! (https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/08/21/battletech-flashpoint-expansion/)
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Playing through the campaign again, I found a cheeky exploit. It centers around the mech destruction option in the custom difficulty settings, but beyond that, spoilers ahoy.
The Castle Nautilus mission is split into two halves. We're interested in the second half, where you guide Lady Arano and her lance of SLDF mechs to safety. Turns out, maybe you want to get everyone but Lady Arano killed.
With the mech destruction option turned on, a mech under your command will be irreparably destroyed, if it has its center torso blown out during a mission. Any weapons or equipment on that mech aren't destroyed on the way to the CT kill are returned to you as salvage, without counting against the contracted salvage reward for the contract.
In the escape from Castle Nautilus, let's just say--as a purely hypothetical example--that you forget Reynard doesn't have bulwark, and so you leave him and his Griffin 4N stood on top of a rock to get picked apart by three assault mechs. At the end of the mission, you'll find yourself with that Griffin's ERPPC and four double heatsinks as bonus salvage! :eek: :D
Maybe you also get the Black Knight killed, since the devs hacked four DHS into each of its legs. Maybe you want to get the Highlander killed, so that when the campaign's scripting magics it back to life in the Argo's mech bay, you get two Gauss rifles instead of one.
The only person who has to survive the escape from Castle Nautilus is Lady Arano and her Atlas. Just sayin'.
I'm probably not the first to discover this, but I'm still pretty chuffed for having found it independently.
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(https://i.imgur.com/491DHaZ.png)
Mechs done been got.
Now, I'm ready for the expansion.
[edit] Protip(s), if you're hunting the complete roster achievement: Mechs that are added to your mech bay by way of the campaign scripting do not count toward the achievement. I don't know if your starting mechs count toward the achievement or not, but I suspect they do not. Purchased mechs do count toward the achievement, and in fact, the Urbanmech is only available by way of purchase (check stores on planets with the battlefield tag). Happy hunting. [/edit]
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Anyone got their hands on the DLC yet?
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Anyone got their hands on the DLC yet?
You ask that as if I wasn't going to get it on release day. I've been winding my way through career mode, have attempted two flashpoints, and successfully finished one. The flashpoints inject some variety into the post-/non-campaign gameplay, when one-off contracts would otherwise get stale with nothing to break them up. The overhauled reputation system makes contract selection a little more involved, since consistently taking contracts against one faction will cut you off from having them as a potential client later. I'm still getting a feel for the new skill tree.
It's more BattleTech, which is exactly what I wanted.
Also: Yo ho! Yo ho! A pirate's life for me. I'm on such good terms with the pirates that they gave me access to the black market free of charge. All I had to do was murder countless thousands of Capellans. :headz:
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The career mode is definitely what this game needed for me. The campaign is good for a first time playtrough, but the Career mode really has that "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps" feel. It's great, and you don't even need to get the DLC to play it! On the other end, you can continue your campaign save and play the endgame flashpoint missions, which I haven't tried.
Done my first flashpoint mission, which was unintentionally hilarious: They make a big deal about how great the Hatchetman's melee ability is, but the first combat casualty of the day was that 'mech's hatchet, turning the poor 'mech into a regular man (It still has an AC/10, but okay). It made an already very tough mission even tougher: That hatchetman replaced a heavily damaged Vindicator, and was supposed to be the saving grace for me not being able to repair my mechs between missions... Missions which I completed by the skin of my teeth, to boot.
I highly recommend y'all give it a go. If you do try the career mode, remember that getting salvage rights on assassination missions is a really good way to get yourself some mechs beyond your current weight class (which will be important, as you'll start with lights!)