Battletech

[Chilloutman]

Yep, AI sure has target fixation. Usually on my poor Blackjack.   Rather liking my Cent as an LRM boat, only have 3 LRM 10s on it, but it does hit pretty hard (or at the very least, looks cool).

 

Heretic, AC20 on Cent or bust, they are best med brawlers, at least put on it 3 SRM6 and med lasers

[Malcador]

I once had a lot of SRM6's but a lot of mech parts being blown off took those from me.  I should really just get an AC/20, I have a tonne of ammo for them for some reason.   Need to get grinding cash.

Edited April 30, 2018 by Malcador

[213374U]

So I got incredibly lucky during a story mission and the pilot of a Jagermech got a severe case of AC/5 to the face. It was a pretty WTF moment, it wasn't even a called shot. Been running it stock but really, the thing is made of wet tissue paper for a direct fire mech. My brawler Shadow Hawk is way, way more durable. I've maxed armor and swapped all weapons for a shredder AC/20 I came across, but now it feels like it lacks teeth, even with a Breaching Shot pilot.

 

Is it bad or am I bad?

 

(my LRM boat is a Kintaro, been having some fun exploiting the HEAD HIT: PILOT INJURED thing with 5x LRM5 spam, and then watching the mech trip and fall from massive stab damage... for another pilot injury. But really, it's idiotic)

[Lexx]

I used the Jagermech for a while as AC sniper, but honestly, I'm also happy about having it replaced with something else. It was good in the beginning, but with later, stronger mechs, you're just fkd.

 

 

Man, I'm 42 hours in now and I love this game. It has a boatload of flaws, but it's still getting me all tied up. Hoping new patches will roll out soon. Also I can see myself buying some DLC for this.

[213374U]

how you guys feel about weapon balance? To me it seems very off. Best weapon is M Laser - 1 ton for 25 damage? Hell yeah! L laser, 40 damage for 5 tons, wtf?

 

Yeah, I'm not feeling it with the large laser either. If you want a heavy energy weapon, PPC is only slightly heavier but deals stability damage AND imparts an aiming penalty. I think the idea is supposed to be that you're paying for the ability to shoot without facing significant return fire, but in practice the enemy will close the gap before you can inflict significant damage (evasive charges) and then **** you up with medium laser spam and melee. Or that's what I do, anyway.

 

In general, the game needs a balance pass. Large LRMs in particular are crazy good, and their min range problem is easily compensated for with tactics training, which you should be taking anyway to reduce indirect fire penalties. Grab yourself some +stab damage models and...

 

 

 

That being said, I'm having a blast, and most likely will buy any DLC they put out.

[ShadySands]

I got some + medium laser that does like 35 damage for 1 ton and 1 slot. I feel like the + stuff is often better than the LosTech stuff. 

 

Can't wait to get some +++ LRMs

[Oner]

So I got incredibly lucky during a story mission and the pilot of a Jagermech got a severe case of AC/5 to the face. It was a pretty WTF moment, it wasn't even a called shot. Been running it stock but really, the thing is made of wet tissue paper for a direct fire mech. My brawler Shadow Hawk is way, way more durable. I've maxed armor and swapped all weapons for a shredder AC/20 I came across, but now it feels like it lacks teeth, even with a Breaching Shot pilot.

 

Is it bad or am I bad?

Yeah it breaks easily and can barely move. It has some things going for it, great accuracy even when shooting outside of vision range and some really disgusting damage if it all hits, but overall, I dunno. If I had a Cat K2 or a Black Knight (are those even in the game?) with 3 PPCs I'd go with that instead.

[ShadySands]

Black Knights are in the game, 2 variants if I'm not mistaken, but I haven't come across one yet.

[majestic]

Finally got to play around a bit. Any tips with the initial mech setup? I increased the armor where possible and dropped some of the more useless weaponry but is there something really good to do with the initial loadout except play a bunch of missions and get better mechs?

[MrBrown]

Regarding loading times, someone on reddit says delete extra saves: https://www.reddit.com/r/Battletechgame/comments/8fw0id/psa_number_of_saved_games_affects_load_times_and/

 

Regarding weapon balance, it is generally **** in the Battletech tabletop game. They're just not balanced, when compared by tonnage. If this game didn't use hard points, it would be sooo easy optimize mech builds. Now it's at least a bit interesting. And they did some rebalancing, mostly buffing up the ACs, and changing the way missile hits are rolled. But mostly it's just copied from the tabletop game.

[ShadySands]

There are several weapon balance mods on the Nexus and www.reddit.com/r/BattleTechMods/

 

The files are are plain text so it's easy to make minor tweaks. Dunno if I'll ever get it the point where everything feels just right

[213374U]

Finally got to play around a bit. Any tips with the initial mech setup? I increased the armor where possible and dropped some of the more useless weaponry but is there something really good to do with the initial loadout except play a bunch of missions and get better mechs?

 

For me the biggest deal at the beginning was putting on way more armor than what you get by default, yeah. That and speccing the Shadow Hawk for punching, with the best small laser you can find and whatever else you can fit without dropping armor (read: SRM6). Seriously, that thing punches harder than many heavies, and with some jump jets it's pretty mobile too.

 

Beyond that, the most important thing is to progress the story until you get a better DropShip. I wasted a lot of time on the Leopard and that really cramped my style with very limited options, also contract-wise (thus limiting available salvage).

 

...I really shouldn't be handing out any advice though. I may or may not have failed the tutorial mission, so take that with a grain of salt...

 

 

 

Regarding loading times, someone on reddit says delete extra saves: https://www.reddit.com/r/Battletechgame/comments/8fw0id/psa_number_of_saved_games_affects_load_times_and/

 

Regarding weapon balance, it is generally **** in the Battletech tabletop game. They're just not balanced, when compared by tonnage. If this game didn't use hard points, it would be sooo easy optimize mech builds. Now it's at least a bit interesting. And they did some rebalancing, mostly buffing up the ACs, and changing the way missile hits are rolled. But mostly it's just copied from the tabletop game.

 

I'm pretty sure the exact same thing happened with Shadowrun. It's either an engine problem, or an issue they never bothered fixing.

 

The TT thing makes sense. I'm hoping they'll be willing to be flexible with the rules and that strict adherence to TT doesn't stop them from addressing problems.

[MrBrown]

Reddit AMA summary: https://www.reddit.com/r/Battletechgame/comments/8g7dxm/hbs_developer_update_ama_summarized/

[MrBrown]

Finally got to play around a bit. Any tips with the initial mech setup? I increased the armor where possible and dropped some of the more useless weaponry but is there something really good to do with the initial loadout except play a bunch of missions and get better mechs?

 

A bit late, but:

 

- More armor. Get 75%+ in most cases.

- For weapons, try to at least go for a similar suite. Variance in weapons is useless early on.

- Useful weapons early on tend to be Medium Lasers, and any kind of missiles. If you must use a ballistic slot, try to go for AC/10 over AC/5, AC/2 never.

- Best mechs early on are Firestarters (for melee), or almost any medium mech (except the Cicada).

 

Helpful doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fnaqQv8nnYpy9gtQm75-D6fmYfNJ5u3OALSIe8ckOuo/

Edited May 1, 2018 by MrBrown

[Majek]

Very nice. Does that doc include everything?

[majestic]

Thanks for the tips guys.

 

Can't beat random luck though. I was uhm, reclaiming a convoy when I managed to randomly PPC a Hunchback in the face and got all the parts as salvage. The original Vindicator lost an arm in the process but that's... not too bad, all things considered.

[Gorgon]

I ended the campaign with 4  kingcrab parts but 2 different marks. The game really didn't want to give me that mech. 

 

It was alright I suppose, a bit short. Pretty bad performance issues in the mechlab and certain missions. 

[ShadySands]

Weird, I thought there was only one King Crab variant. I guess I'll have to go back through the files

Edited May 1, 2018 by ShadySands

[213374U]

Reddit AMA summary: https://www.reddit.com/r/Battletechgame/comments/8g7dxm/hbs_developer_update_ama_summarized/

 

Nice. Good news about the weapon balance being looked into, and it shows they are at least aware about Lostech being somewhat underwhelming. Looking forward to maybe seeing the enemy mounting nonstandard equipment too.

 

"Reinforcements appearing at the start of missions confirmed not a bug, but it's unexpected due to poor communication. Likely changes to the difficulty rating of missions though to make them more accurate."

 

Yeah, so the bug is actually Darius being as useless as tіts on a bull. Not sure I'm buying that either, reinforcements seem to spawn right at the beginning virtually every time. It can't be intended that any mission with "reinforcements" is an ambush scenario.

[Leferd]

I think this may be my new favorite game of the decade.

[Majek]

Weird, I thought there was only one King Crab variant. I guess I'll have to go back through the files

I've got a Debug Widget that you might find useful, at least if you have the Steam version. :D

 

download a file from one of the links  and replace it in \BATTLETECH\BattleTech_Data\Managed folder (backup of course), run the game, load a game in orbit and press minus key ( - ). You can add any mech you want and more. Just don't press the F keys because they're all active not just F6. :D

https://www58.zippyshare.com/v/jqFjWx7r/file.html

https://openload.co/f/Jb4ciTEXZws/Gxp7befVTwCxdfO.rar

https://filescdn.com/df444m1z1cr6

[ShadySands]

I gave myself a King Crab to start in my super cheese playthrough that I dropped after the 3rd story mission. Right now I'm just playing with a few added weapons like inferno SRMs and a few damage and heat tweaks.

[Gorgon]

Refunded after seeing the pronoun choice in the char creation. No cash for SJW.

They got it wrong, the game is actually doing the progressives a disservice. Their premise is that 'gender' now means whatever you want it to and yet you can only chose male or female. It should have said 'sex'. 

[Lexx]

 

"Reinforcements appearing at the start of missions confirmed not a bug, but it's unexpected due to poor communication. Likely changes to the difficulty rating of missions though to make them more accurate."

 

Yeah, so the bug is actually Darius being as useless as tіts on a bull. Not sure I'm buying that either, reinforcements seem to spawn right at the beginning virtually every time. It can't be intended that any mission with "reinforcements" is an ambush scenario.

 

 

Yeah, same here. Literally *every mission* I've played has this. It's why I had been so frustrated in the beginning. It didn't just happened sometimes, it happened always. Maybe random just wasn't with me, but that only underlines how bad it is. Even now in the high-level phase, there's *always* reinforcements. Only very rarely I get just one enemy lance. Heck, this is why I *never* go directly to the target marker anymore, but always either left or right, to then stumble over the "reinforcements", so I can take them out first.

 

If this is intended behavior then it's just very unfun and should be reworked completely.

Edited May 2, 2018 by Lexx

[Oner]

Didn't touch the game for a few days because Alien Isolation captivated me. Now I'm back and the dropship mission got stuck between turns when I ejected my scout.
@Chilloutman: I still get some uses out of his Sensor Lock but I do use it more sparingly than at the start. Usually because he's busy punching things with his Firestarter. Still great for peppering people over hills with LRM 15-20s.