KickStarter BATTLETECH - turn-based mech combat from Harebrained Schemes

[Agesilaus]

New Patch just dropped.

https://steamcommunity.com/games/637090/announcements/detail/1693798980350047366

Spoiler

New Features & Content

MechWarrior customization. Players can now customize the appearance, callsign, name, pronoun, and voice of all non-Ronin MechWarriors in their mercenary company. The starting MechWarriors (Behemoth, Dekker, Glitch, and Medusa) are now considered Ronin.

Granular difficulty settings. Added a wide variety of Granular Difficulty Settings that can be adjusted at any time from the Settings menu.

• Lethality - when enabled, MechWarriors that are disabled in combat will always be killed.
  
• 'Mech Destruction - when enabled, 'Mechs disabled from Center Torso destruction are permanently lost. This setting is intended for veterans and those seeking a significant challenge.
  
• No Rare Salvage - when enabled, + and ++ items are no longer generated as salvage results (but remain purchasable in stores).
  
• MechWarrior Progression - adjust the amount of experience that MechWarriors gain after each mission.
  
• Advanced MechWarriors - increase or decrease the frequency of more powerful MechWarriors appearing in Hiring Halls in later parts of the game.
  
• Enemy Force Strength - increase or decrease the baseline strength of the enemy forces you'll face in procedural contracts.
  
• Contract Payment - increase or decrease the amount of C-Bills paid by procedural contracts across the game.
  
• Salvage - increase or decrease the amount of salvage you may obtain from negotiation on procedural contracts.

New custom campaign mode. The following added Difficulty Settings can only be adjusted when starting a new campaign (Select "Custom Campaign" when starting a New Game from the Main Menu.)

• Ironman Mode. Your campaign is limited to a single save game slot that automatically updates as you progress. Run out of funds or fail a Priority Mission and it's game over!
  
• Unequipped 'Mechs - enable this to make 'Mechs completed out of 'Mech parts start empty instead of with a stock loadout.
  
• Parts for 'Mech Assembly - increase the number of 'Mech parts that must be salvaged to assemble a new 'Mech. This setting is intended for veterans and those seeking a significant challenge.

Accelerate the current action with SPACEBAR. Players can now press SPACEBAR to greatly accelerate the current action. Game speed will return to normal after the action completes.

Speed-Up mode to accelerate all combat actions. Added an option in the Gameplay Settings menu that significantly speeds up combat. Note that this setting is ignored during Multiplayer, and while story dialogue is playing during campaign missions.

General combat speed optimizations. To decrease turn times even when not using new speed-up options. In addition, the settings for combat result pauses and camera transition times have been exposed in CombatGameConstants.json for easier modding.

Cancel combat actions and selections with right-click. Right-clicking in combat (without holding the button down) now acts like the ESC key, backing out of the current action or selection.

MechLab quality-of-life improvements. Including the below additions. See UI section for further UI improvements.

• A shortcut button is now available to bring up the Store directly from the MechLab, allowing players to buy weapons, equipment, and ammo without leaving the MechLab. (Must still be in-orbit to purchase items.)
  
• The running total C-Bill cost of a work order is now displayed while the player is working in the MechLab.
  
• Added tooltips for all 'Mech Rating bars in the Mech Bay and MechLab that show and explain more of the specific numbers behind that rating.
  
• Improved warning communication and tooltips in MechLab.
  
• Added Scrap button to the Mech Bay Storage screen, to allow scrapping complete 'Mech chassis directly from Storage.
  
• Gear components now display their stat benefit directly on their component UI (instead of only in their tooltip.)

Current inventory count in Store and Salvage. Item tooltips in the Store and Salvage screens now display how many of that item the player currently has in inventory.

Several new events and improvements to event generation. Including fixing a bug that could cause valid events to appear invalid and not be considered during event generation.

Ultrawide monitor support. BATTLETECH now supports displays with 21:9, 64:27 and 43:18 aspect ratios. Known Issue: a few cosmetic-only bugs still exist in this experience, but given the high-demand for ultrawide support we felt that these minor issues did not need to hold up its release.

[WINDOWS] The BATTLETECH Launcher has exited Beta. This launcher can be used to configure the following options before launching the game: Borderless Windowed Mode, Exclusive Fullscreen Mode, Video Rendering API. We recommend using these options for troubleshooting if you are experiencing hardware or software compatibility issues. The launcher also includes a new automatic crash reporting tab. To use this launcher, run BattleTechLauncher.exe from your game installation folder.


Performance & Compatibility

• Improvements to the game start flow. (Splash screens can now be skipped.)
  
• The previous "High" visual quality setting has been renamed to "Ultra". The new "High" quality setting disables screen space reflections and clamps volumetric rendering at higher resolutions.
  
• Significantly improved performance and stability of front-end list interfaces.
  
• [STEAM] Significantly improved the speed at which save games are refreshed.
  
• Improved stability when alt-tabbing and otherwise losing focus of the title.
  
• Improved protection against spam-clicking.
  
• Combat UI rendering optimizations. These should reduce instances of small hitches during combat.
  
• Optimizations to building destruction system and related fire and smoke VFX sequences.
  
• Audio performance optimizations.
  
• Terrain rendering and tree rendering optimizations.
  
• VFX and water rendering optimizations.

Balance

• Many existing contracts had their difficulty rating adjusted to more accurately reflect the actual difficulty of the contract and provide a more consistent player experience.
  
• The difficulty range of contracts in a given system has been expanded to two skulls rather than one skull. Easier and harder contracts will now be available in every system.
  
• Moving and re-balancing the reinforcement units in some procedural missions.
  
• The Called Shot bonus for multiple-hit weapons (SRMs, MGs) now diminishes by half with each successive shot.
  
• Medium 'Mech stability increased to 130 (was 100). Stability recovery increased to 1.2 (was 1.0).
  
• Heavy 'Mech stability increased to 160 (was 100). Stability recovery increased to 1.4 (was 1.0).
  
• Assault 'Mech stability increased to 200 (was 100). Stability recovery increased to 1.6 (was 1.0).
  
• Difficulty modifier for attacks against Light 'Mechs increased to 3 (was 2).
  
• PPC heat generation reduced to 35 (was 40).
  
• ER Large Laser heat generation reduced to 25 (was 40).
  
• Large Laser heat generation reduced to 18 (was 30).
  
• Pulse Medium Laser heat generation reduced to 16 (was 25).
  
• Medium Laser heat generation increased to 12 (was 10).
  
• Small Laser heat generation increased to 6 (was 5).
  
• AC/2 heat generation reduced to 4 (was 5).
  
• AC/5 heat generation reduced to 8 (was 10).
  
• AC/10 heat generation reduced to 12 (was 15).
  
• AC/20 heat generation reduced to 24 (was 25).
  
• LRM-10 heat generation reduced to 10 (was 12).
  
• LRM-15 heat generation reduced to 14 (was 15).
  
• SRM-2 heat generation reduced to 4 (was 6).
  
• SRM-6 heat generation reduced to 12 (was 14).
  
• Flamer starting ammo reduced to 4 (was 6).

UI

• The 'Mech status display on the After Action Report no longer displays structure damage above armor, which was confusing to a number of players (particularly when heat damage was incurred underneath armor.) Warning icons now appear if structure damage was incurred, but intact armor now takes precedence on the 'Mech status display.
  
• Added a selection state during keybinding to indicate which action is currently listening for a keypress to bind to the action.
  
• Improved communication in the Engineering room when an Argo Upgrade is in-progress.
  
• Standardized custom 'Mech name field to 16 characters.
  
• Disallowing bad characters (e.g. tabs, newlines) in input fields.
  
• New loading screen game tips, and revisions to some existing loading screen game tips.
  
• Floatie text for Breaching Shot now appears over the target instead of the attacker.
  
• Improved visibility for Sensor Locked floatie text.
  
• Color selectors on the heraldry customization screen now wrap.
  
• Added a Tooltip explaining the behavior of the "Travel to System" button.
  
• Added a confirmation prompt when using the "restore defaults" button in an options menu.
  
• Improvements to Store loading times.

AI

• AI improvements to Liberation: Panzyr to address AI threat assessments.
  
• AI improvements to Defense: Smithon to the AI's ability to advance towards priority targets. Also encounter re-balancing to accommodate the improved behavior.
  
• Fixed an AI issue where enemy units could sometimes sprint even while unsteady.
  
• Fixed AI behavior in Defend Base missions to focus slightly less on destroying targeted buildings and to be more responsive to the player damaging them.
  
• Improved AI multi-targeting logic, and fixed a bug where AI units could sometimes unfairly use multitarget.
  
• Improved AI patrol-path behavior.
  
• AI now prioritizes the selection of Unsteady units.
  
• AI performance optimizations.
  
• AI units are now more cautious about using jumpjets when overheated.
  
• Fixed AI units incorrectly bracing when they can no longer sprint (e.g. when a leg is removed).

Multiplayer & Accounts

• Fixed an issue where attempting to log in to Paradox Account without an active internet connection resulted in an infinite loading screen.
  
• Fixed an issue in Multiplayer that could cause turns to extend past the turn-timer limit when players used single-move or jump actions during non-interleaved movement.
  
• Improved content filtering for lobby names and chat.
  
• Various improvements to Multiplayer Lobby UI behavior.
  
• Player can now use the Eject button in Skirmish Multiplayer and Skirmish vs. AI.
  
• Significantly improved performance of server browser when many games are shown.

Bugfixes

• Dozens of procedural mission fixes & tweaks, including fixing instances of misplaced spawners causing units to become stuck.
  
• Fixing cases of procedural missions that would either auto-complete early, or not at all.
  
• Fixing the behavior of some escort / convoy lances in procedural missions. (Cases of units failing to reach their destinations, convoy guards not activating when expected, friendly escort units getting stuck, etc.)
  
• Fixed issues with loading process where specific Contracts could fail to load.
  
• Fixing various VO and dialogue issues in procedural missions (specifically Assassinate & Battle contracts.)
  
• General map polishing and collision clean-up on many maps.
  
• Fixed an issue where certain instances of Destroy or Defend Base contracts could auto-fail.
  
• Fixed a UI bug where objectives appeared in the incorrect order of priority on some missions (secondaries above primaries).
  
• Fixed an issue where in some few cases, reinforcements would not spawn as expected.
  
• Fixed an issue where an enemy Enforcer would spawn stuck in the Escape mission on Artru.
  
• Fixed an issue where players were unable to back out of the Liberation: Itrom lance configuration screen.
  
• Various cosmetic map geometry fixes across the game (floating assets, clipping assets, etc.)
  
• Various fixes and improvements to the building destruction system (more natural collapse behavior, better debris coverage, improved physics behavior.)
  
• Various combat VFX fixes & improvements.
  
• Various 'Mech animation fixes & improvements.
  
• Various cosmetic dialogue edits to clarify story points and fix continuity errors.
  
• Various typo fixes across the game.
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause a softlock after ejecting a MechWarrior with the Ace Pilot ability.
  
• Various fixes to the animation flow for the eject action.
  
• Fixed a bug where Rear Torso armor on 'Mechs in combat could remain even after the associated Torso section had been destroyed.
  
• Fixing the tooltip for the "Done" action for MechWarriors with the Ace Pilot ability.
  
• Fixed a cosmetic issue where MechWarrior portraits could become greyed out after using the Vigilance morale ability in certain conditions, despite not having acted yet.
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause a newly-completed 'Mech to disappear after loading a save game created at the same time as the 'Mech construction completed.
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause Kamea or Alexander to be incorrectly present on the Argo after backing out of Lance Configuration for certain Priority Missions.
  
• Fixed an input exploit that could allow players to hire MechWarriors that they didn't meet the MRB Rating requirements for.
  
• Fixed an issue where players could cancel a Travel Contract without incurring the advertised Reputation penalty with the client faction.
  
• Fixed an input exploit that could allow players to create overweight 'Mechs.
  
• Fixed an issue that could occasionally cause Travel Contracts to change difficulty upon arrival in the destination system.
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause certain 'Mech repair tasks queued from the MechLab to fail to appear in the Timeline.
  
• Fixed a bug where the 'Mech performance rating bars in the Mech Bay could be displayed incorrectly for 'Mechs with destroyed components on them.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Max Injuries value displayed for MechWarriors in the hiring hall was not taking into account bonuses from their Guts skill.
  
• Fixed a cosmetic issue where item quantity values in the Store UI were not being refreshed after selling items.
  
• Fixed an issue where the tooltip for Priority Missions was failing to display on the Contracts screen.
  
• Fixing cinematics audio to respect the "Play Audio When Alt-Tabbed" setting.
  
• Fixed some positional audio issues and incorrect audio assignments on destructible buildings.
  
• Fixed an issue where certain cosmetic (non-gameplay) decorative objects would no longer be present on maps after loading a combat save game.
  
• Fixed a bug where the UI indicating dangerous locations in combat (e.g. artillery regions) would fail to deactivate after the dangerous conditions were over.
  
• Fixed an issue where the "Zoom to New Contact" setting wasn't being respected during first contact with enemies.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Sensor Lock effect would no longer be present on a sensor locked unit after loading a combat save.
  
• Fixed an issue where 'Mechs that lost a leg due to ammo explosion did not experience Knockdown as expected.
  
• Fixed a cosmetic issue where the Restart and Stand Up buttons could overlap with the Eject action confirmation button in the combat UI.
  
• Fixed a cosmetic issue where small weapon attacks could impact empty air above a target after a melee knockdown had occurred.
  
• Fixing Stalker arm missile pod visibility.
  
• Improved Radiation Field fog VFX.
  
• Jump Jet VFX now scale based on 'Mech weight class.
  
• The King Crab has opened its claws.
  
• Fixed a cosmetic issue that could sometime cause weather effects to temporarily disappear in the Windy Day mood.
  
• Fixed some cosmetic issues with hair rendering in MacOS.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Skirmish MechBay incorrectly displaying the weight range of Assault Mechs as 85-100 tons. (Now displays as 80-100 tons.)
  
• Various fixes to tooltips, including an issue that could cause tooltips to become cut-off at the bottom.
  
• Fixed an issue where MechWarriors would sometimes play their injury VO even if game effect (e.g. a cockpit mod) had prevented the injury from occurring.
  
• Fixed an issue where achievements regarding lance composition could be unlocked by using lances of less than 4 'Mechs.
  
• Fixed an issue where the background UI was interactable during login or account creation.
  
• Fixed an issue where the selection field in dropdowns would display multiple selections.
  
• Fixed an issue where the selected lobby may become unavailable when server browser refreshes.

Known Issues

• There is currently a small chance of the starter MechWarriors (Glitch, Behemoth, Dekker, Medusa) incorrectly appearing as hireable Ronin MechWarriors in hiring halls later in the game.
  
• Skirmish lances created prior to updating to 1.1.0 may contain 'Mechs with old weapon & stability values.
  
• We have had occasional reports of save game lists failing to initialize from Steam. Restarting the game should generally resolve this issue.
  
• Some tooltips may appear visually truncated at the bottom.
  
• A few cosmetic-only UI bugs exist when playing on an ultrawide monitor, but given the high-demand for ultrawide support we felt that these minor issues did not need to hold up its release.

Everyone who voted my post "old" is a bad person.

Apparently the next update should feature an option to skip the tutorial.

 

[Cael]

"Balance"

Ahahahaha! Heat sinking is increased by a factor of 3.

ER Large Laser heat was increased by a factor of 3.333.
PPC by 4.
Medium Laser by 3.333.
Small Laser by 4.
Large Laser by 3.75.
Medium Pulse Laser by 6.25

No wonder energy weapons are such a bad deal in the game.

Plus AC2 damage was doubled compared to other weapons.

No one really playtested this game, did they? They just played it according to their preconceived notions and never bothered with anything else. On par with their Mary Sue tendencies. Even the weapon stats do not conform to the real game. What do they really have that actually says it is even loosely inspired by BTech and not Macross (which, given the way they made it so that the Macross Missile Massacre is the most optimal way to build a mecha, seems to be a closer match than BTech)?

 

[Werdna's Revenge]

Making energy weapon boats plausible is nice. Although I doubt I'll get to see any more AI mechs blow up from overheating in desert maps anymore. The major flaw of the game is still present, and I think will be an issue until a sequel/expansion. The 4 mech limit kills you in the game. You get funneled into assault mech lances just to have the armour and weapons to get through the higher level missions. I remember this issue being really apparent on the story mission with the ammo dump. You're running mediums and a heavy or two and you have to take on a companies worth of vehicles, light mechs and crappy mediums, while chasing a convey. You basically have to give up 1/4 of your firepower to chase the convoy and watch as one of your other 3 mechs gets alphastriked like mad by a swarm of crappy dudes. the ammo explosion option they present is also hard to pull off because you're fighting lighter mechs which get out of range pronto. The mission would be fun if you could be restricted by tonnage or something and throw down your own swarm of light mechs to open up the battlefield and spread the fighting around. This is just one example, but the mech limit hampers a lot of the missions.

 

[Bohr]

Important updates from Mitch:
1) Jordan is not really like Steve Jobs
2) Moving mechs around in mechbay is still coming, but more complicated than expected

 

[Bohr]

And the Harmony Gold suit vs PGI (resolved against HBS a while back but was still ongoing against PGI who made the models in this game) seems to have been concluded, now armchair forum lawyers trying to work out what this means in terms of Marauders et al eventually being patched into this game

Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(i-ii), Plaintiff Harmony Gold U.S.A., Inc.
(“Harmony Gold”) and Defendant Piranha Games Inc. (“Piranha”) hereby stipulate to dismissal of
the above-captioned action with prejudice (for the avoidance of doubt, this includes dismissal of
all claims against defaulted defendant Inmediares Productions, LLC). The parties further stipulate
that all costs, expenses, and attorneys’ fees will be borne by the party which incurred them.

 

[PorkBarrellGuy]

And the Harmony Gold suit vs PGI (resolved against HBS a while back but was still ongoing against PGI who made the models in this game) seems to have been concluded, now armchair forum lawyers trying to work out what this means in terms of Marauders et al eventually being patched into this game

Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(i-ii), Plaintiff Harmony Gold U.S.A., Inc.
(“Harmony Gold”) and Defendant Piranha Games Inc. (“Piranha”) hereby stipulate to dismissal of
the above-captioned action with prejudice (for the avoidance of doubt, this includes dismissal of
all claims against defaulted defendant Inmediares Productions, LLC). The parties further stipulate
that all costs, expenses, and attorneys’ fees will be borne by the party which incurred them.

Good. As much as I despise PGI, I loathe copyright trolls like HG more.

 

[Cael]

Good. As much as I despise PGI, I loathe copyright trolls like HG more.

What did PGI do that inspired the loathing? Serious question because I haven't heard much about them.

I do agree that HG can do suck a dick.

 

[PorkBarrellGuy]

Good. As much as I despise PGI, I loathe copyright trolls like HG more.

What did PGI do that inspired the loathing? Serious question because I haven't heard much about them.

I do agree that HG can do suck a dick.

MWO
Paulconomy
GRAB DEAL
balancing around mech sales
"you're on an island"
WoL (not really their fault, but fuck WoL)
endless treadmill grinding followed by rebalance followed by more endless treadmill grinding to stay competitive in new meta
no stock mode but LOOKIT THESE NEW SHINY MECHS GRAB DEAL NOW
removed knockdowns over massive dev butthurt (this was partly WoL's fault though for being such fucktards that they just HAD to see what would happen when they pushed too fucking far)
probably some more things I'm forgetting to bitch about

EDIT: oh right, heat scale aka GHOST HEAT, a retarded solution to a problem they invented themselves by not following TT heat rules

like, I kind of get that certain accommodations need to be made for a MechWarrior game where you can do shit like pinpoint alpha into any given body part and so on, but they managed to always find the most buttfuck-retarded non-solutions to their problems in a fashion that could only be described as fucking uncanny

 

[Cael]

MWO
Paulconomy
GRAB DEAL
balancing around mech sales
"you're on an island"
WoL (not really their fault, but fuck WoL)
endless treadmill grinding followed by rebalance followed by more endless treadmill grinding to stay competitive in new meta
no stock mode but LOOKIT THESE NEW SHINY MECHS GRAB DEAL NOW
removed knockdowns over massive dev butthurt (this was partly WoL's fault though for being such fucktards that they just HAD to see what would happen when they pushed too fucking far)
probably some more things I'm forgetting to bitch about

EDIT: oh right, heat scale aka GHOST HEAT, a retarded solution to a problem they invented themselves by not following TT heat rules

like, I kind of get that certain accommodations need to be made for a MechWarrior game where you can do shit like pinpoint alpha into any given body part and so on, but they managed to always find the most buttfuck-retarded non-solutions to their problems in a fashion that could only be described as fucking uncanny

Oh right. The +100% HP to all 'mechs retards because they don't understand how the system works and wanted to make light 'mechs "useful".

It is basically a given with game developers, a sign they have never played the game, that they ALWAYS makes things worse with their rules tinkering. That is the problem with shitheads who "knows" they know better. I have met a lot of them in my gaming career. DnD and BTech seems to be the biggest victims of their tinkering. The stories I can tell about those know-it-all shitheads...

 

[Bohr]

TT veterans getting into the spirit of the HBS game
Cael



https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...verting-pc-game-to-tabletop-campaign.1106411/

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Making energy weapon boats plausible is nice. Although I doubt I'll get to see any more AI mechs blow up from overheating in desert maps anymore. The major flaw of the game is still present, and I think will be an issue until a sequel/expansion. The 4 mech limit kills you in the game. You get funneled into assault mech lances just to have the armour and weapons to get through the higher level missions. I remember this issue being really apparent on the story mission with the ammo dump. You're running mediums and a heavy or two and you have to take on a companies worth of vehicles, light mechs and crappy mediums, while chasing a convey. You basically have to give up 1/4 of your firepower to chase the convoy and watch as one of your other 3 mechs gets alphastriked like mad by a swarm of crappy dudes. the ammo explosion option they present is also hard to pull off because you're fighting lighter mechs which get out of range pronto. The mission would be fun if you could be restricted by tonnage or something and throw down your own swarm of light mechs to open up the battlefield and spread the fighting around. This is just one example, but the mech limit hampers a lot of the missions.

The ~70+ Tons Only Problem is kind of endemic to the franchise vidya at this point, I honestly don't see any real solution to it in sight. The patch changes to stability and stability recovery will definately only reinforce that by the end of the game your lance can only consist of Atlases, King Crabs, Stalkers, or the quest reward Highlander, all piloted by Tactician 2/Guts 1 specced MechWarriors. Also means that triple LRM20 Stalkers are irreplaceable because enemies will also end up just laughing off majority of stability damage.

In that particular mission, from what I recall the actual thing about the ammo stockpiles and blowing them up is really just that the AI will never ever under any circumstance end its movement inside the red zones.

A better example of how the game screws you over with the 4 mech limit IMO is the mission where you have the sub-objective to defend a hospital, and you have no choice but already have a 'mech moving that way and ultimately just tank whatever firepower a Griffin and Commando IIRC will throw your way because the AI vehicle coming to shoot up the hospital will get there in two turns and instantly destroy it, so your only option is to just alpha strike it the moment it enters visual range. At least in the ammo dump mission your lance can split in two (1 solo and 2 mech team, since obviously the LRM boat is hanging back on the hilltop) and fairly effectively link back up after you destroy the convoys, assuming it's the same quest we're talking about.

 

[Norfleet]

Games with headcount limits will always favor maximum weight because that's how you optimize the amount of firepower and armor within the binding constraint of a headcount. Games in which the AI has unlimited expendable resources and the player doesn't will always favor the most survivable, which tend to be the heaviest, because the player cannot afford losses while the AI suffers no consequences from being TPK'ed over and over: If the AI loses a unit, or even all his units, he simply respawns with all of his chosen forces intact at the next fight. If you lose a unit, it's gone forever. The result of all these factors combined is that the players will always be pushed towards the heaviest units because the player has both a limited headcount as his binding constraint in deploying more power to the field, and a need to avoid any losses because you automatically lose a battle of attrition against the AI.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

While the comparison doesn't fully work since one is an RNG-driven TB game and the other is an action-driven simulator, this is why it's pivotally important that in last-gen Armored Cores having heavier armor and weaponry might actually make you LESS survivable and damaging in combat because the trade-off in mobility renders you unable to use that firepower as effectively or avoid taking hits as well.

 

[Norfleet]

like, I kind of get that certain accommodations need to be made for a MechWarrior game where you can do shit like pinpoint alpha into any given body part and so on, but they managed to always find the most buttfuck-retarded non-solutions to their problems in a fashion that could only be described as fucking uncanny

I think this is probably because the tabletop rules actually do a remarkably BAD job representing any kind of combat. For instance, my last experience with Tabletop indicates that when players fire multiple weapons at an enemy, the shots tend to just impact completely balls-random parts of the enemy. This, of course, is not the kind of shot pattern you'd see with ANY kind of actual manual gunnery. Even if you assume all players are terrible, shots fired tend to all impact the same areas because humans, and their associated control interfaces, can only effectively aim at one thing. Thus, a human will aim every weapon with his controller at a single reticle/mouse/whatever, and every single shot will impact around that aimpoint. It takes SPECIAL EFFORT to be able to hit more than one thing at a time, as for most humans, this is simply impossible. Additionally, the tabletop rules assume that humans, even highly trained ones, have absolutely terrible shooting skills, and the to-hit odds reflect this assumed complete inability to aim. When the game is tranferred to vidya, it turns out this is not the case.

Perhaps the designers of tabletop should be looking at the statistics from vidya to update the rules to reflect actual values. Converting from vidya to tabletop works a lot better than the reverse, because you can work with actual statistics taken from players at all echelons of play from vidya, whereas converting from tabletop to vidya quickly reveals that actual humans are better than the best assumptions in tabletop.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

so you picture a battletech fight as "i run as fast as i can, then completely stop, then aim and then shoot". intreadasting.
those are not shots fired at the exact same time, they're shot during the whole turn, maybe while running, turning, navigating through buildings, trees and enemies.
crappy pilots skills? have you ever tried shooting at something moving 100 kmh while you move 100 kmh yourself, both in random directions which keep changing?
mwo engine is not bad at representing many of these issues, it only needs light mechs to move faster. FASTER. or at least a little bit faster but on much more irregular terrains.

 

[Norfleet]

While the comparison doesn't fully work since one is an RNG-driven TB game and the other is an action-driven simulator, this is why it's pivotally important that in last-gen Armored Cores having heavier armor and weaponry might actually make you LESS survivable and damaging in combat because the trade-off in mobility renders you unable to use that firepower as effectively or avoid taking hits as well.

Nah, the exact nature of the game isn't important. TB vs. RT, RNG tabletop vs. action playerskill, what matters is the effects and their relative weights. In the action-driven simulator, your headcount limit is "1", but your capacity to absorb losses is precisely ZERO. There are no units whatsoever that you can afford to sacrifice. Whereas the loss of a Rookie in something like X-Com is an annoyance, this is ultimately an expendable unit compared to, say, losing your DOOM Marine, because the DOOM Marine is not an expendable unit and if you lose your DOOM Marine, you lose the game instantly. The result of a game where your unit expendability is ZERO is that Survivability is King. If the ability to dodge provides you greater survivability than the ability to facetank, then this becomes the dominant concern, and units that dodge better dominate those who can't. You're still going to maximize the firepower you get out of the chassis that offers you maximum survivability, though. If a Battleship is too clunky, players will drive Battlecruisers, not Destroyers.

so you picture a battletech fight as "i run as fast as i can, then completely stop, then aim and then shoot". intreadasting.
those are not shots fired at the exact same time, they're shot during the whole turn, maybe while running, turning, navigating through buildings, trees and enemies.

No, I picture the battletech fight as "I aim the gun reticle at my enemy and I pull the trigger. My guns, being activated by that one trigger pull, are released at that moment and that aimpoint". I'm not going to fire my cannons and hit the left leg, the right arm, and the upper torso all separately. I'm either going to miss everything or nearly everything is going to hit that one target zone.

 

[Werdna's Revenge]

Making energy weapon boats plausible is nice. Although I doubt I'll get to see any more AI mechs blow up from overheating in desert maps anymore. The major flaw of the game is still present, and I think will be an issue until a sequel/expansion. The 4 mech limit kills you in the game. You get funneled into assault mech lances just to have the armour and weapons to get through the higher level missions. I remember this issue being really apparent on the story mission with the ammo dump. You're running mediums and a heavy or two and you have to take on a companies worth of vehicles, light mechs and crappy mediums, while chasing a convey. You basically have to give up 1/4 of your firepower to chase the convoy and watch as one of your other 3 mechs gets alphastriked like mad by a swarm of crappy dudes. the ammo explosion option they present is also hard to pull off because you're fighting lighter mechs which get out of range pronto. The mission would be fun if you could be restricted by tonnage or something and throw down your own swarm of light mechs to open up the battlefield and spread the fighting around. This is just one example, but the mech limit hampers a lot of the missions.

The ~70+ Tons Only Problem is kind of endemic to the franchise vidya at this point, I honestly don't see any real solution to it in sight. The patch changes to stability and stability recovery will definately only reinforce that by the end of the game your lance can only consist of Atlases, King Crabs, Stalkers, or the quest reward Highlander, all piloted by Tactician 2/Guts 1 specced MechWarriors. Also means that triple LRM20 Stalkers are irreplaceable because enemies will also end up just laughing off majority of stability damage.

In that particular mission, from what I recall the actual thing about the ammo stockpiles and blowing them up is really just that the AI will never ever under any circumstance end its movement inside the red zones.

A better example of how the game screws you over with the 4 mech limit IMO is the mission where you have the sub-objective to defend a hospital, and you have no choice but already have a 'mech moving that way and ultimately just tank whatever firepower a Griffin and Commando IIRC will throw your way because the AI vehicle coming to shoot up the hospital will get there in two turns and instantly destroy it, so your only option is to just alpha strike it the moment it enters visual range. At least in the ammo dump mission your lance can split in two (1 solo and 2 mech team, since obviously the LRM boat is hanging back on the hilltop) and fairly effectively link back up after you destroy the convoys, assuming it's the same quest we're talking about.

Yeah, both of those missions are the types where the headcount limit really bugs me.

Oh well, let's hope they have a good follow up like they did with Shadowrun.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Yes I would say the basics are in place, refining them will be needed. As I said back when I completed the game, it really should be more like Shadowrun and be a story-driven linear game with a set-in-stone fleshed out party instead of putting in the effort to make a randomized merc simulator. Ultimately I was up to my ears sick of the combat because it didn't really feel like it had a purpose.

If they were to do something extensive, I would suggest classing MechWarriors around specific weight categories and then working to balance each weight class accordingly so you don't just go heavier and heavier.

like, I kind of get that certain accommodations need to be made for a MechWarrior game where you can do shit like pinpoint alpha into any given body part and so on, but they managed to always find the most buttfuck-retarded non-solutions to their problems in a fashion that could only be described as fucking uncanny

I think this is probably because the tabletop rules actually do a remarkably BAD job representing any kind of combat. For instance, my last experience with Tabletop indicates that when players fire multiple weapons at an enemy, the shots tend to just impact completely balls-random parts of the enemy. This, of course, is not the kind of shot pattern you'd see with ANY kind of actual manual gunnery. Even if you assume all players are terrible, shots fired tend to all impact the same areas because humans, and their associated control interfaces, can only effectively aim at one thing. Thus, a human will aim every weapon with his controller at a single reticle/mouse/whatever, and every single shot will impact around that aimpoint. It takes SPECIAL EFFORT to be able to hit more than one thing at a time, as for most humans, this is simply impossible. Additionally, the tabletop rules assume that humans, even highly trained ones, have absolutely terrible shooting skills, and the to-hit odds reflect this assumed complete inability to aim. When the game is tranferred to vidya, it turns out this is not the case.

Perhaps the designers of tabletop should be looking at the statistics from vidya to update the rules to reflect actual values. Converting from vidya to tabletop works a lot better than the reverse, because you can work with actual statistics taken from players at all echelons of play from vidya, whereas converting from tabletop to vidya quickly reveals that actual humans are better than the best assumptions in tabletop.

By far the most hilarious thing regarding the source material rules and their adaptation in the namesake vidya (seriously this bugs me more and more because now you can be speaking of FIVE different things when you say BattleTech) is that there is absolutely zero value in the existence of BattleMechs (much less as the dominant warmachine, which as far as the rules are concerned is a completely baseless and arbitrary status afforded to them). They have no genuine advantage over other forms of ground vehicles, much less over airpower. Within the rules of the vidya for example, the existence of any ground-based systems besides the missile carriers is a joke.

 

[Quigs]

Games with headcount limits will always favor maximum weight because that's how you optimize the amount of firepower and armor within the binding constraint of a headcount.

It's why it's strange they hadn't learned from MechCommander. (20 years ago this month.) Each mission had caps on weight overall, and limited the total number of mechs you can take. So a mission with an 80 ton limit presented you with actual choices. I went back and played it last year. It might be nostalgia, and certainly my love of mechs help, but that game holds up. Try it.

 

[Norfleet]

By far the most hilarious thing regarding the source material rules and their adaptation in the namesake vidya (seriously this bugs me more and more because now you can be speaking of FIVE different things when you say BattleTech) is that there is absolutely zero value in the existence of BattleMechs (much less as the dominant warmachine, which as far as the rules are concerned is a completely baseless and arbitrary status afforded to them). They have no genuine advantage over other forms of ground vehicles, much less over airpower. Within the rules of the vidya for example, the existence of any ground-based systems besides the missile carriers is a joke.

The Battletech setting is fundamentally flawed in its composition, yes. Honestly, they should probably just make a game which is "Battletech: Solaris", and never bother to mention anything about using these things for warfare again. As long as you're playing an arena sport, the rules of what is logically sensible for warfare don't matter and it's perfectly okay to blast the shit out of each other with Stompy Robots, even when these things make NO sense for actual warfare.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

By far the most hilarious thing regarding the source material rules and their adaptation in the namesake vidya (seriously this bugs me more and more because now you can be speaking of FIVE different things when you say BattleTech) is that there is absolutely zero value in the existence of BattleMechs (much less as the dominant warmachine, which as far as the rules are concerned is a completely baseless and arbitrary status afforded to them). They have no genuine advantage over other forms of ground vehicles, much less over airpower. Within the rules of the vidya for example, the existence of any ground-based systems besides the missile carriers is a joke.

The Battletech setting is fundamentally flawed in its composition, yes. Honestly, they should probably just make a game which is "Battletech: Solaris", and never bother to mention anything about using these things for warfare again. As long as you're playing an arena sport, the rules of what is logically sensible for warfare don't matter and it's perfectly okay to blast the shit out of each other with Stompy Robots, even when these things make NO sense for actual warfare.

The only way you could make them make sense in what is effectively interstellar warfare would be for all military-purpose BattleMechs to be transorbital LAMs.

Which would be sort of amusing considering out of the original boxed set BattleMechs, three/four were VF-1 Valkyrie.

EDIT:

Games with headcount limits will always favor maximum weight because that's how you optimize the amount of firepower and armor within the binding constraint of a headcount.

It's why it's strange they hadn't learned from MechCommander. (20 years ago this month.) Each mission had caps on weight overall, and limited the total number of mechs you can take. So a mission with an 80 ton limit presented you with actual choices. I went back and played it last year. It might be nostalgia, and certainly my love of mechs help, but that game holds up. Try it.

It's not just nostalgia, MechCommander is a fun tactical game, definately a showcase of why a crafted linear campaign beats splitting effort to have a campaign and a random merc job system.

Though the weights were not all that balanced in it either, considering you would rather take two 40 tonners over a 25/25/30 combo due to the primary benefit of numbers being the ability to have a single enemy get hit from two sides. Or alternative, many of the missions with extremely limited tonnage IIRC had you fighting tiny scrubs so you would be better off just bringing a single Mad Cat and blasting apart everything coming at you by looking at it menacingly.

However! MechCommander did have a little something for you to always bring along despite otherwise adhering to Bigger = Better very rigidly (the blur being largely in 75 tonners vs assaults due to the notably drop in speed making encircling more cumbersome), which was that you always wanted a Raven along since it could mount BAP and ECM Suite, which drastically improved your ability to do terrible things to the AI.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

so you picture a battletech fight as "i run as fast as i can, then completely stop, then aim and then shoot". intreadasting.
those are not shots fired at the exact same time, they're shot during the whole turn, maybe while running, turning, navigating through buildings, trees and enemies.

No, I picture the battletech fight as "I aim the gun reticle at my enemy and I pull the trigger. My guns, being activated by that one trigger pull, are released at that moment and that aimpoint". I'm not going to fire my cannons and hit the left leg, the right arm, and the upper torso all separately. I'm either going to miss everything or nearly everything is going to hit that one target zone.

where's the "autism" button when you need it?

 

[Norfleet]

The thing is, though, this is exactly how the live-action version of such games plays out, which is why things like MWO end up as such a trainwreck. The tabletop rules expected more of a random smoothing, and not the kind of clustered, spiky results that would realistically be produced by basically any manageable control scheme.

 

[Quigs]

[ They have no genuine advantage over other forms of ground vehicles, much less over airpower. ... these things make NO sense for actual warfare.

There's intentional and vague in-universe information on it. Something about armor sloping, engine power, and weapon capabilities being better on a mech. They demonstrated by blowing up a tank. Everyone clapped, mechs all around.

It's goofy, but it's fun.

ComStar also served as semi-official rules police. Don't bomb cities/mechs from orbit or your entire nation will fall apart when we turn your communications off.

In Universe, it all makes sense (kinda).

 

[Werdna's Revenge]

Trying to make sense of Battletech fluff and the FASAnomics propping everything up requires an insane application of autism. Basically don't bother trying to make sense of it, just accept that mech combat is cool.