KickStarter BATTLETECH - turn-based mech combat from Harebrained Schemes

[oldmanpaco]

Every time you assholes bump this thread up I remember I backed this shitshow on KS.

 

[Roguey]

It is an old problem that already existed in party based RPGs.
In Darklands, you could play after all your initial characters had retired, but being the remote commander of a party of 4 made even less sense.

That's not a problem. You're playing all of them, there is no central character.

 

[Black]

Every time you assholes bump this thread up I remember I backed this shitshow on KS.

Wear your badge of shame.

 

[Nutria]

In Darklands, you could play after all your initial characters had retired, but being the remote commander of a party of 4 made even less sense.

It's easier for me to accept in that setting because you're dealing with these grand cosmic events like the apocalypse, and God is pulling a lot of the strings, so it makes sense that there would be some force behind your party who isn't one of them.

I 100% agree with everything else you said. In Battle Brothers everyone else is always dying but somehow you're never personally in danger. In nu XCOM you have people saying stuff out loud directed at you all the time which I find awkward when I'm the guy back home sitting in the base. JA2 did a great job of integrating the player into the game, right from the beginning with the personality test.

 

[Baptismbyfire]

Is this game worth picking up during Steam sale for the mods alone?

 

[razvedchiki]

for around 10 euros yes, there is roguetech mod that adds more lances and playable vehicles but its career only.
battletech extended 3025 allows both campaign and carrer and is somewhat mor balanced (from what people say).

 

[Harthwain]

Actually, the commander problem is an issue for both battle brothers, XCOM and Battletech, because he is not really a character. He is the only character without stats and without gameplay.
XCOM 2 tried to make him special, but that fell flat.

I never had a problem with the "remote commander" concept. But then again, I really liked how Blizzard and Westwood handled the player's involvement in their RTS games.

 

[Galdred]

Actually, the commander problem is an issue for both battle brothers, XCOM and Battletech, because he is not really a character. He is the only character without stats and without gameplay.
XCOM 2 tried to make him special, but that fell flat.

I never had a problem with the "remote commander" concept. But then again, I really liked how Blizzard and Westwood handled the player's involvement in their RTS games.

I don't think it is a "problem" in itself, but it doesn't work too well with the idea of taking personal decisions for any of the character IMO, especially when these invole other characters you control.
Ishar also had a very thin character "friendship" system that made some characters vote for or against kicking someone from the team.
So, if you wanted to kick Thargan, Aramir would vote against it, and if you decided to assassinate him, Aramir would avenge him and kill the character you ordered to do so. So you had to order Aramir to do the assassination himself to avoid negative repercussion.
Of course, it was a simplistic system that should better not have been in the game, but it also illustrates that it can difficult to have both "character acting on their own", and player playing the characters silmultaneously.

The thing is, the reason I still remember the characters from Ishar was because of their stats and cool looks. Having 20 STR and Con (when the max was 18) on the Chaos warriors (hey Games Workshop) made them more unique than playing doll with them to me, as was having to babysit the old hag with 1 ST 1 CON that needed to be babysitted (and given tons of extra ration to make up for it).

I think X(-)COM handled it much better than Battletech by not having any character centric event at all. What made characters personality was the things they achieved (ie performing a heroic action to turn the table, or getting killed at the most inconvenient time), and not arbitrary decisions taken "out of the main gameplay loop".
I remember Sniper2 (yes, great naming, I know...) not because I let him hit on the nurse during an event, but because he was the only one to make it back alive after completing the terror mission.

King Arthur(or Crusader Kings in a way) used the event system quite differently: it was more as another way to "build" your character one way or another than to give him/her personality.

It is an old problem that already existed in party based RPGs.
In Darklands, you could play after all your initial characters had retired, but being the remote commander of a party of 4 made even less sense.

That's not a problem. You're playing all of them, there is no central character.

On that I agree: controlling all characters is better that controlling the only "non-character".

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Is this game worth picking up during Steam sale for the mods alone?

only if you're heavy into reading books: every map takes several minutes to load.

 

[Cael]

Is this game worth picking up during Steam sale for the mods alone?

only if you're heavy into reading books: every map takes several minutes to load.

Minutes?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

minutes.
on a ssd, of course.

 

[Dickie]

minutes.
on a ssd, of course.

I timed a bunch of map load times while I was playing, since there's not much else to do, and it was between 16 and 18 seconds on my computer from 2014. I don't know what determines the load times, but I never had any that were 2-3 minutes. I've seen people online saying it's based on how many saves you have, but I have no idea why that would do anything. Supposedly, deleting all the autosaves speeds things up considerably.

The thing that drives me nuts about it is the slight delay when I click buttons on the ship menus. It's so minor at first, but it really gets on my nerves after a while.

 

[Cael]

minutes.
on a ssd, of course.

I timed a bunch of map load times while I was playing, since there's not much else to do, and it was between 16 and 18 seconds on my computer from 2014. I don't know what determines the load times, but I never had any that were 2-3 minutes. I've seen people online saying it's based on how many saves you have, but I have no idea why that would do anything. Supposedly, deleting all the autosaves speeds things up considerably.

The thing that drives me nuts about it is the slight delay when I click buttons on the ship menus. It's so minor at first, but it really gets on my nerves after a while.

Unity puts everything on memory, I think, so the bigger the game (i.e., save files), the slower it gets. Whatever the reason, Unity is full of memory leaks and shit like that. It is just a bad platform for bad programmers.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

minutes.
on a ssd, of course.

I timed a bunch of map load times while I was playing, since there's not much else to do, and it was between 16 and 18 seconds on my computer from 2014. I don't know what determines the load times, but I never had any that were 2-3 minutes. I've seen people online saying it's based on how many saves you have, but I have no idea why that would do anything. Supposedly, deleting all the autosaves speeds things up considerably.

The thing that drives me nuts about it is the slight delay when I click buttons on the ship menus. It's so minor at first, but it really gets on my nerves after a while.

you probably missed only a bit of the message, just the most important one.

Is this game worth picking up during Steam sale for the mods alone?

 

[Nutria]

For me the loading times got to be exactly the worst possible, something like 2-3 minutes. It's long enough that you can't just sit through it, but it's too short to do anything else. I think I actually tried having a book in my lap but reading one paragraph at a time doesn't work.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i read half dune while playing roguetech :V

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Crispy why so much butthurt? here, have a late christmas present.

 

[King Crispy]

I'm not butthurt. I simply disagree with your ridiculous statement about the loading times in Battletech.

If it's taking 'several minutes' to load a game on your PC with a solid state drive, then either something's seriously wrong with that drive or you're running a Celeron at 1GHz.

 

[Average Manatee]

It's not several minutes on the current update. Maybe 30s to a minute with the longer times being for the story missions with more shit to load in. No idea how it was before, I've heard horror stories. It's still awful and the engine continues to be awful even after the game is loaded, with long pauses during gameplay as something loads in on the fly when you try to fire your weapons or w.e.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

and still, you all keep missing the most important part.

Is this game worth picking up during Steam sale for the mods alone?

i read half dune while playing roguetech :V

basic comprehension. it feels like explaining quantum mechanics to homer simpson.

 

[King Crispy]

If you sign up for Game Pass you can get the game for exactly one dollar. Then, if you don't like it, or if you're running a computer that sucks, you can refund that one dollar.

It feels like explaining quantum mechanics to a dumb Italian.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

alright, jokes aside, for real, i mean it: crispy, either you go back and read again the last two pages, because you're getting every single thing wrong, or get out of the discussion. honestly, sincerely, please. get the fuck out. you can't drop in a discussion, assume you understood something by reading a word here and there completely out of context and then spit assorted judgements who make you look like an ass. even worse, not knowing which assertions belong to whom.
i know this is the codex and no one gives a fuck about anything, but if you're staff, please act accordingly. you're an old man after all, either you're too old for trolling or just in time for dementia.

 

[Agesilaus]

download a clan mod and settle this in a circle of equals.

I recommend Battletech Advanced 3062.

 

[King Crispy]

What is there to go back and read? This thread is 92 pages long now. All I commented on (and rated you on) was/were your statement(s) about the load times. My conclusion is that your SSD is failing or you're otherwise running a very slow computer. You don't have to believe the people who tell you that their saves from Battletech load within 20-30 seconds, but then again we don't have to believe that your computer is anything more than a piece of shit.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

proof you have issues: i said "read the last two pages", you complain about the whole 92. and that's only one.
please refrain from answering further, since i can't put you in ignore.