KickStarter BattleTech Pre-Release Thread

[thesheeep]

That's how a beta/alpha phase should be done.
With a few/fewer but dedicated people that get instructions.

Not just by throwing something incomplete on to early access and then rant about how people give negative ratings because of bugs.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=153347.315

HBS had another Q&A session yesterday. No YouTube video yet, you can watch a replay on Twitch here.

Spoiler: Short summary (click to show/hide)
Story-related Questions

• One of the fans on the forums asked if the game (the story) is closer to Game of Thrones in Space, a Less Spicy Dune, Machiavelli with Mechs or Something else all together. HBS said it is a bit of all of those. They took inspiration of all those things. GoT had strong characters and that is something that they want to convey as well.
• They didn't collaborate with other BT authors when writing the story, although Jordan Weisman (one of the founders of the BattleTech universe) is the studio head.
• As to how they came up with the idea, Mike McCain said that there is a certain quote about authors. Some authors are like architects and plan out everything to a T. They say they will do this and then go do that exactly. Others are like gardeners. They plant the seeds, hope they planted the right ones and nurture those to see what becomes. BattleTech's story creation is somewhere in between. The story is partly created to fit certain gameplay goals. They want the players to have a gameplay experience, and the story can't conflict that. So, they created a framework and then filled it out. They wanted a revolution story and make the players either join that revolution or not. Seemed like a good "merc fit".
• BattleTech isn't about black and white. Individuals might in their own mind think that certain factions / others are black or white, but in the end, the universe itself does not care. The individuals do. HBS feels that having strong characters gives perspective and may change the view you, as a player, have on the conflict in the Aurigan Reaches.
• There are huge differences between constructing a deep rpg like Shadowrun and a tactical game like BattleTech. Last thing you want when in a mission is to work your way through a dialogue branch. It arrests your flow. An RPG is about branching, a tactical game is not so much.
• In Shadowrun, they took a more literary approach to the dialogue and relied more on GM text.
• As to the story linearity, you can look a bit to GTA. You can explore at will in that game and choose when to undertake which mission. Each mission itself however doesn't have a lot of branching or rpg-interaction. BattleTech will be similar to that approach.
• Playing the game and the effects your playstyle has on the ending of the game boils down to whether or not you want to see the Aurigan Restoration (the Revolution that the "good guys" undertake, as it were) to its ending or not. You can choose to leave the rebellion "hanging".
• You don't have to play the story missions. Once the game opens up (you have access to the Argo), you can choose how much missions for the Restoration you undertake. If you don't do missions, the Restoration will fail. So, failing the storyline, does not mean you fail your career in the game. The game won't end.
• You cannot side with the Directorate itself (mainly because of budget / time limitations with developping the game), but you can watch the rebellion fall apart (by not doing missions for the Aurigan Restoration).
• Story missions will have scripted elements and randomized elements. Just how much of each is still subject to change!
• If you fail a story mission, you will be able to re-do it. HBS does want to avoid "snowballing", meaning that you lose a mission, lose Mechs, redo the mission, lose again and ultimately are left with nothing. That said, if you fail a storyline mission, you might want to go do something else to recover and recuperate. You'll never be stuck with just having the choice of doing that difficult story mission.
• You start out with a ragtag crew. Later on, you'll be able to take on missions for different clients, which affects your reputation with those clients. The Restoration will then contact you and let you undertake missions. It is a bit of back and forth.
• The Aurigan Restoration considers you as a "special ops" unit. You are not with the rank and file and are called upon to do special missions. They will use you to do sketchy missions, so they can disavow that certain things happend. Your actions will help the regular army advance and gain ground.
• Between missions, you will be able (optionally) to interact with your crew. Think dialogues with your crew in Shadowrun, just not as deep, more light-branching background. You'll also be able to learn their opinion on the world and the events around them. They want to flesh out a bit the "upstairs, downstairs" difference in viewpoints. What the aristocracy and the noble houses think, is in contrast to what the Regular Joe and Jane might think.
• Crew progression is linked to upgrading the Argo. The DropShip you get in the beginning is all banged up and you'll need to repair/upgrade it piece by piece (repairing a MechBay to full operation for instance).
• No romances in the game.
• When creating your Mercenary Commander, you'll be presented with a three-stage character creator. Remember, you will be creating a character that becomes a mercenary, so the choices you can make for your background will take that in account. You will be presented with 6 choices and some sub-choices to that effect.
• Character background will have an impact in at least one story mission, where your background will have effects on what people / you say or do in that mission. Work in progress.
• When calling in artillery and the like, you will get nice "audio barks".
• In MechCommander, each MechWarrior had about 30 lines of spoken audio. In BattleTech, that will be about 150 per MechWarrior. HBS admitted that was expensive.
• One lesson learned from writing story for the Shadowrun games is that creating interesting backstories for each of your crew, dropping them in a relatively simple conflict and letting the interactions drive the drama provides an interesting view on the world around the characters.
• They way to sell the story to newcomers to the BattleTech universe, is by way of the characters. If you're able to strip the sci-fi elements from the story and still have it interesting to the player, that is a good story. If you then work in canon elements and make it fit the universe, you'll draw in the fans of the setting too.
• Re-reading the fiction and sourcebooks leading up to the creation of the story has been a lot of fun.

General questions

• The MechWarriors you hire and use will not interact with the story themselves. The crew of the Argo and you as a commander will.
• Be prepared to lose MechWarriors. In this part of the setting (and the current year), the metal is more important than the meat. It is unlikely that a MechWarrior survives till the end of the story, but the Mechs might.
• Infantry is a fine candidate for post-launch success and updates.
• Nothing is being done to actively prevent modding, but you won't get a toolkit as well. Unity is also no the most flexible engine. But HBS won't stop you from messing with the raw files.
• Salvage will be a strong negotiation point in the contracts that you take in the game.
• Weapons and "interesting" parts can salvaged as is. Other parts (like engines, actuators, ...) are sold automatically and you receive cash. You also collect scrap. [Note: I do not know whether this means scrap as a general resource or not]
• Engines on Mechs cannot be swapped.
• The parts you salvage also depends on how efficient you were at blowing up a `Mech. If you blow almost everything to smithereens before taking the `Mech down, you probably won't get much back.
• Expect salvage to be a major source of upgrades. There will be stores, but (certainly in the early part of the game) they will have an incomplete and mis-matched inventory.
• They are discussing the possibility that enemies might pro-actively surrender to the player in single-player. There won't be a "parlay" option and if the enemy want to surrender, you will certainly not get a dialogue wheel or somesuch.
• There will be contracts offered by parties other than the five Houses (being House Davion, Steiner, Kurita, Liao and Marik).
• The movement of Mechs in the game will match the movement speeds of tabletop. That said, they applied a bell-curve as to eliminate the edges. An UrbanMech will not be so damnably slow, a locust will not be blazingly fast.
• You will probably not be able to send lances out on simultaneous missions. There is a spec for something called "secondary missions" where you send out someone to do them, but that will be revisited post-launch (if the game is successful).
• HBS will not be at Pax East. They rather work on the game.
• There are 5 terrain biomes in production. Mountainous, Arid Desert, Glacial Lowlands, Terrestrial Lowlands, Frozen, Martian, Lunar and Tundra. Each biome has their own terrain features. Forrests will be pretty much in all biomes. There is for instance a Crystal Field in the Desert, in which lasers will be less powerful, but kinetic and missiles will work just fine. Each biome will have a set of valid weather and lighting and fog etc ... It will change depending on the battle and other factors.
• Contracts will in general last for one mission. What will be in the game, is mission chains. You do contract 01 and complete it, contract 02 will be available, and so forth. They wanted to do this so that you can take a break and go do another mission for instance. Also, it will allow for re-supply. Missions in this game tend to take longer to complete than the team had originally anticipated (which they find a good thing) and they don't want to shut a player out of the simulation part of the game for 4 hours in a row (which would have been the case if contracts took multiple missions to complete).
• There is a system for camo-schemes and paintjobs. Each chassis has 6 different paint schemes (for instance stripes, double stripes, across the chest, ...). You can choose 4 colors to make up your Mech and use those to make a global paint scheme for your Mech or you can make each Mech individual.
• You can also put a heraldry icon on your Mech on several locations (you have a nice cat picture? You can put it on the chest!).
• Heraldry can be made in the emblem editor.
• You can continue to play the game after the story has finished / failed.
• BattleTech and the announced MechWarrior 5 Mercenaries will not be linked, story-wise or gameplay-wise. They take place in different timeperiods of the universe as well. The only link between HBS and Piranha Games (creators of MechWarrior Online and MechWarrior 5) is that the latter have supplied Mechs (and a few tanks) to the former.
• You will face a lance of 4 Mechs quite often.
• The game will be available on Windows, Mac and Linux. You can purchase the game on Steam, GoG and Humble. That's about it, because they do not have the license to do anything else.
• You will not be able to put an axe on an Atlas assault Mech (sadly enough).
• BattleTech has a hardpoint system for the Mechs, similar to MechWarrior Online, but not the same. Hardpoints on Mechs will not change, the weapons you put in can be changed (within what that hardpoint allows). More details will be revealed later.
• You can make PPC boats (`Mechs bearing nothing but Particle Projection Cannons), but only if the hardpoints on the `Mech allow it.
• You will start with a lance, one of those being a Blackjack. That Blackjack has been modified in order to fulfill a certain request. [Note: No more info was given]
• The starting lance will NOT have Assault Mechs.
• A Mech will not be able to take up scrap or trees and use it to bludgeon other mechs. Not possible in the scope of the game. If they had 10 million extra...
• The money raised with the kickstarter is not a lot, compared to other game budgets. It allowed for the team to be paid, food to be bought and chairs to be placed. Focus = quality, they can't do many things well. So, buy the game, make your friends buy the game, make their friends buy the game. [Note: The comment about chairs indicated that there is more to the story, but they didn't want to go deeper into it. The trio was also a bit less cheery afterwards.]
• You will only have Leopard Dropships available. They will be your shuttles from the Argo to the surface.
• Multiplayer combat will be 1 player vs 1 player.
• Mechs painted red will not go faster.
• There will be difficulty options, but they are still kinking out the details.
• A movie replay of your battles will not be in the game. Once again, limited budget.
• No dropping Mechs from orbit.
• No "Stackpoling" Mechs. [Note: Stackpoling refers to shutting down the safety regulators on your Mech's fusion engine, creating a fusion explosion. BattleTech author Michael A. Stackpole used that in his novels, but realistically, you cannot easily turn a fusion reactor in a fusion bomb]
• A mission will last about 30 to 40 minutes.
• Combining the Shadowrun Engine with the BattleTech engine in order to make the ultimate MechWarrior campaign ... A bit like mixing Nitric Acid and Sulfuric Acid, while adding a bit of Glycerin. It creates explosive results. So, yeah, no, not gonna happen.
• UrbanMechs will be in the game. Hell yes.
• Ammo explosions happen. First shot disables the mechanism feed, the second sets it off.
• Light Mechs get higher initiative, are harder to hit because they are smaller (the enemy gets to-hit penalties, even if the light Mech stands still!) and can move further in general, creating more bonuses.
• A light Mech in melee might not sound like a good idea, but do not forget that Melee also includes fire your small weaponry. A Firestarter light Mech can charge in melee and unleash a lot of flamers and small lasers on you, creating pain. But if a locust does this and charges an Awesome, the returnpunch can hurt the Locust a lot.
• Tonnage is not the only indicator of a Mechs prowess in melee. A chassis might have certain bonuses to melee.
• There is a save-in-mission option.
• Ironman mode? Yes.

 

[thesheeep]

Yeah, Unity really doesn't go well with modding. Then again, almost no "big" engine does.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Something to attach to those red roses

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

Come oooon, post more gameplay instead od those SJW hipsters spewing bullshit for an hour.

 

[Infinitron]

Come oooon, post more gameplay instead od those SJW hipsters spewing bullshit for an hour.

Only a month left until the beta, then there'll be plenty of gameplay.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

http://community.battletechgame.com/forums/threads/5928/comments/111902

HBS_HighCommand
This month's Q&A is open season - any question on any topic and all taken LIVE via chat.

 

[Infinitron]

That looks like the same orchestra that did the PoE soundtrack.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Nothing is being done to actively prevent modding, but you won't get a toolkit as well. Unity is also no the most flexible engine. But HBS won't stop you from messing with the raw files.

sounds a lot like "feel free to walk through that mine field, nobody's actively trying to prevent you to".

 

[Infinitron]

Derp: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/webeharebrained/battletech/posts/1824640

Backer Beta Delayed

Greetings MechWarriors! Klimecky back again with important news about our Backer Beta. A series of unfortunate events prevents us from hitting our target release date and, as promised in our last update, we’re letting you know as far in advance as we can. This change may come as a surprise, given it’s only a few weeks after announcing the target release date but sometimes game development throws us curve balls at just the wrong moment. As a wise man once said, “Shit happens.”

Developers are constantly weighing risks vs rewards during a project, often with incomplete information. In this case we made two big decisions in the leadup to Beta and both turned out to have a bigger impact on the project than we planned for. Here’s what happened:

• Our development infrastructure desperately needed an upgrade but the fixes caused lots of short-term headaches. HBS has a history of “toughing it out” and working with sub-optimal back-end tools because we want as much development time as possible to be spent on game features and fun. Eventually however, a system becomes too painful to use and we bite the bullet and pay the development price. In this case, we had two vital systems that required improvement for the Backer Beta, so we decided to “tear off the bandage”, hire a professional IT contractor, and get all the work done at once so our engineers could stay focused on the game.
  
  Unfortunately, the infrastructure upgrade process caused several issues including delays in getting new versions of the game built. This consumed time from our Lead Engineer, our Test Lead, and myself. Without the ability to test our work in new “builds” of the game, progress slowed. It has taken the better part of 3 weeks to get back on track, but we finally feel like we've cleared the hurdle.

• An upgrade to the latest version of Unity brought the game editor to its knees. Unity is the game engine we build BATTLETECH on top of and when the company updates its software, game developers need to take a hard look before deciding to take the plunge and install it. In this case, we determined that the update was required for beta because it contained performance optimizations that would greatly improve the gameplay experience for nearly all our participants and for some, make the game playable at all on their machines.
  
  Now, we know from experience that whenever you update major software in the middle of development things WILL break, so we diligently planned time for integration and bug fixing. Unfortunately, while the upgrade succeeded in improving the game’s performance, the changes in Unity broke a lot more of our systems than anticipated - with these consequences proving more time-consuming to troubleshoot and address than any other Unity upgrade we’ve done in the past (including on previous projects). We were relieved to learn that at 2:30am this morning, our engineering and technical art team removed the final productivity sink and were able to start our Monday with a solid infrastructure and performant game editor.

As you can imagine, it’s been a frustrating few weeks in the studio. The entire project slowed dramatically just as we were attempting to hit the gas for the final weeks until Beta launch. The team continued to push as hard as they could, refusing to give up on our March 15th target date, but the slowdowns and instability were punishing. The leadership group decided to step back and take a good, hard look at the situation. We decided it was best to stop the crunch and focus on finishing the infrastructure and editor work before reviewing our quality level and reassessing the target date for the Backer Beta.

Now that our technical issues are behind us, the team is focused on quality and on delivering an experience that shows the world why HBS loves BattleTech and why everyone else should, too. As soon as we have a new target date that we can confidently announce, we’ll send out another update. We are dedicated to delivering a great Backer Beta, even if that means taking a little longer with it.

Regarding the final release date for BATTLETECH: As noted during our livestreamed dev Q&As and on our forums, once we unlocked all of our Kickstarter stretch goals, our estimated release date of May was no longer valid. Way back then we said things like "Summer 2017.” Now that we're further along, we're targeting a Late Summer / Fall release of the game - but we won't be announcing a more exact release date until we're much closer in!

Again, we deeply appreciate your support for the project.

-- Chris Klimecky, Sr. Producer

 

[thesheeep]

Well, that's just software development.
Shit happens.

I find it cute when some people think you can plan such a project perfectly

 

[SausageInYourFace]

guise we accidentally the gaem

 

[veevoir]

Well, at least they are communicating about it, unlike other studios we know..

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

http://community.battletechgame.com/forums/threads/5928?page=13

And here's the transcription. Took longer than expected, my apologies.

• People present: Mitch Gitelman, Mike McCain, Tyler Carpenter
• Beta (AJ Bolden) works on the Mercenary simulation aspect of the game. His Death from above Character Beta will not be in the backer beta. If his character will be in the full game, maybe. To be determined (TBD).
• Beta will have both PVE and PVP. So, skirmish against AI and other players.
• Upgrading Unity (the game engine) has resulted in software rendering has gotten some optimization. The game runs faster.
• Despite the fast few weeks begin difficult because of the development problems (regarding the upgrades), the team handled the situation pretty well according to Mitch and Mike. The level of f-words didn't spike, but remained constant. F-words are a part of development process at HBS. But really, *** happens and the development tried to work longer hours in order to muddle through.
• You'll be able to save your game mid-mission.
• You won't be able to save your game when in multiplayer.
• Romello Jones (character from Death From Above) may or may not be in the full game. TBD.
• If ammo takes a critical hit, the following will happen. The first will disable the ammo feed (meaning you can't draw ammo from that location anymore). The second blows up the ammo that is stored in that location.
• Critical hits function pretty much like in the tabletop game. Critical hits can destroy internal structure, sever arms or legs, etc...
• In the campaign game, Farah Murad is your ships engineer. She is the one responsible for upgrading your Argo DropShip. Yang Virtanen is your Head MechTech and oversees your Mekbays. With regards to upgrading and repairing Mechs, over the course of the campaign,
• you'll have a growing number of MechTechs that will take on the different repair and refit tasks that came through your workqueue.
• Melee does not damage your own Mech, except in the case of the Death From Above attack (INFO: Death From Above is an attack made by a Mech equipped with jumpjets. The Mech launches itself through the air and tries to land on the enemy Mech. Also called a "Highlander Burial" in the BattleTech universe.)
• There isn't a list of Mechs that will be in the beta. The number will be around 20 and the UrbanMech will surely be in the beta.
• HBS is also considering the idea that if a critical hit damages an already destroyed location, it will result in additional damage.
• Infantry will not be in the release version of the game.
• Your commander, the character you create at the start of the campaign, will be a Mechwarrior with a Mech. You are of a Noble background and you will have different selections that tell just how you came to be a Mercenary. There are no character classes and customization will allow you to make your commander look like you (hopefully).
• Artillery and airstrikes on a cooldown. You are able to take a support vehicle on a mission. If you take an artillery vehicle, you will have off-screen artillery support that launches a big shell and provides a big impact on one location.
• If you took an Aerospace fighter, you can do airstrikes, resulting in a strafing run and bombs falling across a path. There are also vehicles that provide passive abilities, like taking a field hospital would mean that your MechWarriors are more likely to survive.
• MechTechs will be hireable like MechWarriors.
• The Mechs in BattleTech are the same models as found in MechWarrior online. HBS had to do a lot more animation work because the Mechs can move in different ways not available in MechWarrior Online (fall down, get up, punch, kick). The texturing of the Mech is also being handed differently by HBS.
• Mission dialogue should be for the most part be voiced during story missions. A mission will have for instance "interrupts" where for instance an important update is presented by pausing the game and having some characters talk. There will also be conversations when switching turns, having a character say "you know, I grew up on this planet, etc ...". That is all voiced. During non-story missions (the randomly generated ones), there might be some voiced parts.
• There will be about 50 Mech Variants (NOTE: Mike said that the full Mech roster including variants was 50, to which Mitch added something, but it wasn't entirely clear to me.). Those variants are straight from tabletop. You can customize Mechs and switch out weapons, but you'll be bound to the weapon hardpoints. Variants allow you to have Mechs with different hardpoints.
• The Legendary Mechwarriors that were unlocked are accessible in the campaign game, but if they will be in the skirmish mode, remains te be determined.
• The weapon effects and the like are made by HBS themselves. The ones that MechWarrior online uses are designed for use when inside a Mech Cockpit. Creating audio for the BattleTech game is different.
• The Singleplayer campaign is linear. It is comparable to Grand Theft Auto or Shadow of Mordor. You have a broad map where missions pop up, both story missions and random missions. That means you can interact with the story when you want to, but the story missions will stay the same and more will unlock as you progress.
• The Devs at HBS will having matches between themselves live on Twitch.
• The support vehicles (artillery, aerospace, ...) will be upgradeable or have better versions be bought by the player, allowing you to improve their performance.
• The campaign system is being developed with flexible tags. For instance, it is possible that if a planet is "conquered" for the Aurigan Restoration, it could be that merchants on that planet provide cheaper merchandise.
• There probably won't be a "drop limit" or something that limits how heavy your lance for a mission will be. In the campaign game, your limit will more have to do with resources available to you. You can run a lance with 4 Atlases, but you will need to find / buy 4 of them AND be able to keep them running. You are a mercenary and money is a big thing. In multiplayer, C-Bills (NOTE: The currency in BattleTech) will the balancer as your Mechs, their variants and the quality of Mechwarriors combined will result in a certain C-Bill value.
• You will not able to have Vehicles as a part of your Unit Roster, but they may be provided to you as support by a client.
• There is a small weapons hardpoint, reserved for smaller weapons like machineguns, flamers and small lasers.
• Multiplayer will be run through a server.
• You repair Mechs at the Argo, though you will have to unlock more Mekbays and more Mech repair capability by upgrading the Dropship and thus, spending money and resources.
• HBS is currently iterating the campaign game and they are looking into how to differentiate MechTechs from one another. It might be that more experienced Techs repair faster or that their skills affect the ability to customize a Mech. Very heavily work in progress.
• You can fail the game by having no more functioning Mechs and running out of money.
• Beta will probably be a few gigabytes big.
• The final release date will be subject to market conditions and thus, BattleTech will not release close to another big blockbuster. HBS has done that once in the past and it had a painful impact.
• It is possible that player receives faulty intel. Mission briefing might state that you will face a medium lance and in-mission, you discover it is a heavy lance.
• In the game, you cannot displace a Mech, space-wise. This was cut some time ago. This means you won't be able to charge a Mech, because a charge would imply you knock the Mech backwards.
• The process for choosing which Mechs will be in the game started by first checking which Mechs were available in the Inner Sphere in 3025. Then, they compared that list to the Mechs that Piranha had created. After that, a few Mechs were filtered out due to capabilities, loadout, ... Also how long it would to get it in the game was a factor, as well as how popular a certain Mech is.
• The game will be released on Steam, Good Old Games and Humble store.
• There will not be QuadMechs.
• You can restart a mission if it goes badly for you, unless you are playing in ironman mode.
• There is no reaction fire in the game. As such, moving and jumping a Mech won't result in a reactive shot from the enemy.
• There is something like "chained contracts". Completing a contract will lead to another. But you will come back to base and be able to resupply before embarking on another contract.
• The beta might have a few more Mechs because of the delayed release, but not much more. The problems with the Unity upgrade and such meant that there was far less to do decent Quality Assurance (testing) for the Beta available. So, the delay means that they can do those tests HBS wanted to do. Adding more features while you are testing others is a no-no. You need to test everything before you can release it. Progress is being made on new stuff, but that won't be in the beta.
• Tools for running your own multiplayer league or ladders will probably be something for post-launch.
• Both professional voice actors and team members of HBS will provide voices for pilots.
• No new release date for the Backer Beta until HBS is really sure they will make it.
• Campaign difficulty will not depend greatly on what Mech you salvage when. It will not be like Mechcommander where in Mission 3, salvaging a Timber Wolf (Mad Cat) could make future missions easier. Campaign difficulty will be more controlled.
• There isn't going to be a specific Mechanic like a notice saying: "do this and you can catch the enemy pilots before they mount their Mechs". What is in the game, is that you have secondary objectives and fulfilling those will result in a certain bonus. Secondary objectives are not mission-critical.
• In the campaign game, you can have ultimately 18 Mechs ready at any given time for combat. More Mechs means you have to mothball the extras and put them in storage. It takes to time to put a Mech in storage or take it out of mothballs. There is no limit on how many Mechs you can have in storage.
• You will not able to have a multiplayer match, where one players controls one side and have multiple players control one Mech each on the other side. Focus is quality.
• There have been audio bits recorded from the Death From Above serie (Tyler laughing at players, Lord Commander yelling at players) and who knows, those might make it into the game at one point or another.
• You will have a stockpile of Mech Parts that are not weapons in your DropShip.
• The craziest thing that has happend in BT development is the past few weeks with technical problems that HBS struggled with. The most awesome thing to see was when the first real prototype was up and Mechs were ingame. It was still basic and ugly as sin, but the studio was filled with a lot of great energy, resulting in a lot of great debates about Mechanics and somesuch. Also, MechCon and GenCon were damn awesome.
• Actually stealing Mechs (in-mission) might be in, depending on how believable it is. Taking control of a facility that stores Mechs and receiving one of them as part of mission contract is more believable than outright stealing one.
• There is an event system. As time progress, things can happen. You can get popups like "Mechwarriors have been brawling, what you want to do?". You decide what to do and that has impact on the simulation part of the game. Having a Tech die on you because of something happend in an event for instance is possible.
• You can create emblems for your unit. You start with a primary symbol/mark, with a framing element and several colors that are added. Mechs themselves will receive the primary symbol on them, while the entire emblem will be visible on the Argo when watching the company heraldry.
• There is not going to be a grand strategic AI. Deciding what missions you do and your success at them might produced in the chained contracts mission (winning or losing contract A might result in different opfors for contract B ), but nothing more beyond that.
• Having an overarching enemy AI on the campaign map is out of scope for this game.
• There are no called shots in the game. So, no aiming at a specific location on a Mech.
• Critical hits work like in BattleTech. Once you strip the armor of a certain location on a Mech, hitting that location might result in a critical hit and depending on what is in that location, might result in certain results. The ammo location results have been discussed earlier already.
• Having your Mechs painted a certain way (jungle camouflage in a jungle mission) will not provide bonuses.
• Different biomes have different terrain features. Environmental hazards are limited. Rough terrain means it is harder to move through it, while also increasing the chance that your Mech will fall down. Lava is in the game and standing in it is a Very Bad Idea.
• You might see DFA characters in the game, but actually having DFA lore cross-over into the campaign game is not going to happen.
• Missions will have difficulty ratings. Firstly, it depends on the type of mission. The ratings also change depending on how well you are equipped at the time you want to undertake the mission. Thirdly, there will be a global difficulty modifier added to it, but HBS is discussing on how to implement that exactly.
• Will you be able to acquire LosTech (INFO: Star League era technology superior to the stuff around in 3025)? Yes. How? You'll see.
• Paintschemes have been developed by HBS themselves. How it works, is that you select a paintscheme, then choose where you put your emblem. You want it on the shoulder, you want it huge on the chest, ... Then you customize the colors for the different layers for the paintscheme (primary layer, secondary and tertiary).
• The terrain representation has improved since the pre-alpha video. It is easier to differentiate trees and other terrain features. When planning your move, the UI will show whether or not your movement path will put you in a forest. If a hill is blocking your shot to another Mech, the ui "laser" will show you. There is no such thing as "heavy" or "light" woods, level 1 hill or level 3 hill. Either you can see through the forest (forest reduces LOS and provides cover) or not and either the hill is too high or it isn't.
• Buildings can be blown up (bigger buildings require more damage).
• Mechs standing on a building will fall down and receive damage if the building is destroyed.
• HBS can't confirm or deny that you will be taking missions from ComStar.
• When deploying on a mission, you will be able to choose where your Mechs will deploy exactly.
• HBS hopes that there will be urban center maps in the game. There are already maps with smaller settlements.
• There are different "variants" of weapons in the game. One AC20 for instance fires several shells while another AC20 (from a different manufacturer) fires one large shell.
• There are no inferno SRM's or LBX class autocannons in the game. Alternate ammo isn't in. If they were to be in the game (if time permits, maybe), they would be in the game as a specific variant of a weapon instead of ammo.
• HBS wants to show more gameplay video, but they are working hard on the game itself. So, please be patient, something will come.
• Radar in the game will detect Mechs at a constant range. Actually seeing them depends on the tactics skill and the gear (Mech) the pilot is working with. They tried out different sensor models during prototyping, but the current system with radar blips and line of sight works the best. And it works well, Tyler had a Locust equipped with LRM's that managed to empty its ammo racks because of the increased vision.
• There will not be a live-action intro or cut-scenes.
• Ironman mode means that the game saves after every action you take. If you reload the game, you'll come back to that last action. If you die, you are dead.
• The Shrek PPC carrier is in the game.
• The Raven is in the game and it will have an ECM module. How it will work exactly is still to be determined.
• The further an enemy unit moves during its turn, the harder it will be to hit it. Your own movement will only affect your own aiming at that enemy in a minor way. A Locust that moves very far in its turn will be hard to hit.
• There will be small news snippets that you can read during the campaign. Or at least that is planned. Think of the Shadow Lance stuff in the Shadowrun games.
• Water will affect heat-dissipation.
• There will not be specific tools released that will help in recording footage. Probably you'll be able to use the debug menu that the team uses to record some cool shots and footage.
• The team will probably release a list of weapons that you can put on your Mechs.
• There will not be API features.
• There will not be Twitch interaction features. You can stream on your own though. HBS will try to keep the corners of the UI free so that you put a picture-in-picture window in there. Try, the UI needs to display quite a lot of info.
• No minimum specifications yet. There hasn't been a full test cycle since the development update.
• There will not be repair facilities in-mission. It's something HBS has talked about a lot and they feel that if your mission needs such facilities during a mission, then your mission is too long. They rather cut up the mission in two then.
• The game is not multi-threaded. Unity does not like multi-threading.
• There will not be invasions like in the Dark Souls games.
• An Atlas can not thrown an UrbanMech in order for it to deploy faster.
• The MechLab will not be available at the beginning of the Backer Beta.
• There will updates to the game after its release. Just how much and how big those will be depends on success.
• There will be buildings large enough for Mechs to walk around in, but you won't be able to do that. You can destroy it and then walk through the rubble. Because this is BattleTech.
• There will not be Clans in the game. The game is set in 3025. The Helm Memory Core hasn't been publicly released yet, meaning advanced tech is still out of the question. The Clan invasion happens in 3050, 25 years later.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Infinitron]

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko Thanks for keeping this thread alive.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/webeharebrained/battletech/posts/1838879

Fresh Screenshots & Novella #2 Delivered!

Hey y'all, Mitch here!

On behalf of the whole team, thank you for the overwhelming show of support and positive energy we received after our last update. We deeply appreciate it. When you’re flying full-throttle down the Death Star trench with turbo-lasers blazing past your cockpit and the exhaust port coming up fast, it’s nice to know that “The Backers are with you.”

No update on our Backer Beta timing yet - we’re stepping back to make sure our plan is solid, our team is working at a healthy pace, and we have the right level of internal testing before releasing it into the wilds of Backerdom. As many of you have speculated, it’s unlikely we’ll announce a new date until we’re very confident we will hit it.

In the interim, we thought we'd show some new screenshots of the game in action to help tide everyone over. These are unedited shots - though we did turn off the interface and use a debug camera in-game to get the pretty we wanted. You can click on the images to get a hi-res version for each. Hope you enjoy!





























2nd Novella, APPARENT CATASTROPHE, Now Available for MechWarrior Level Backers
We’re happy to announce that the second in a series of four linked digital novellas by Mike Stackpole is now available for Backers at the $50 MechWarrior level and above! Again, if you’re a current Backer and you want to upgrade to the MechWarrior tier to get your copy, email us.

You’ll find a file including the pdf, mobi, and epub versions to download when you hit “Get My Digital Rewards” in your BackerKit account. It takes a little time for the files to populate to everyone's account so please check back in a couple hours if you don't see the files right away.




That’s it for now. Remember that there’s a great community waiting for you on the BATTLETECH forums and the dev team often stops by to say hi and answer questions.

Take care!

Mitch

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

I hadn't noticed grids from earlier screenshots or gameplay videos.
i wonder what is it for?

 

[Cudgel]

http://community.battletechgame.com/forums/threads/5928?page=13

And here's the transcription. Took longer than expected, my apologies.

My notes as a general Battle Droids fan, and big time MWO player ( It is my most played game by far getting close to 900 hours....).

It would be neat if the Mechtechs could be better at say working with PPC's or ballistics (not sure if this would be redundant with the way they are approaching weapons) or can tweak your engines to run cooler.

Bah to AC 20's that fire more then one shell.

Also bah; no Dragon bowling, that was the best/worst/funniest in the MWO beta, IK would have been neat although I understand not including it.
at LRM Locusts, I think I threw up a little, it emptied its racks because there is no damn room in a Locust for ammo or at least there shouldn't be for anything more then machine guns.

Can the Atlas carry the Urbanmech around like a companion cube if the devs are going to be jerks and not give us the fastball special.

I wonder how many mechs there will be if there is only 50 expected (including variants), then the thirteen or so that I have noticed means we have at most probably 25 mechs unless some have only one variant.'' Nevermind found the list.

Thanks for the transcript !

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Hadn't really heard about this guy before, "lighting/tech artist on Battletech, formerly Bioware/DragonAge"

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Kuattro]

Are they actually going to implement saw-cocked mechs?

?