KickStarter BATTLETECH - turn-based mech combat from Harebrained Schemes

[Jason Liang]

Third day into my second campaign run with maxed out difficulty and no experiencing up mechwarriors, and the fights are starting to get rough. I just finished the second Smython priority mission, still using the starting mechs since I am not even close to finishing a whole chassis yet.

The first couple of attempts were pretty disastrous...

Finally! A successful attempt with acceptable results!

Looks bad but nothing too valuable got blown up.

Guess I like it rough! Still, I gave up on not modifying mechs really fast.

Also, this mission seemed to good to be true~

Could use a few more of these.

4 Mediums vs 3 Heavy, seems fair.

Now on to stomping some tanks. I guess my first new mech will be a 90 ton lostech Assault.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Jason Liang You seem to use a lot of arm mods. Are those the mods that increase punching damage? I really tried to optimize a melee mech, putting 2x arm mod+++ on various mechs, and I could never make it worthwhile. Anything that could dish out serious damage was too slow and couldn't get close fast enough and would take a few turns' worth of damage before being able to dish out damage. Anything that was fast enough to move in and start punching the enemy, preferably in the back armor, didn't do worthwhile damage and couldn't carry enough armor to handle close combat. No matter what I tried, it seemed nothing could top more traditional loadouts. (At my endgame, that would have been a King Crab or two with 2x AC/20s, a Stalker with 4x LRM20s, and an Atlas or two.)

You seem to like using arm mods. Have you found a melee build that works? Is it only viable with the expansions?

 

[Cael]

Jason Liang You seem to use a lot of arm mods. Are those the mods that increase punching damage? I really tried to optimize a melee mech, putting 2x arm mod+++ on various mechs, and I could never make it worthwhile. Anything that could dish out serious damage was too slow and couldn't get close fast enough and would take a few turns' worth of damage before being able to dish out damage. Anything that was fast enough to move in and start punching the enemy, preferably in the back armor, didn't do worthwhile damage and couldn't carry enough armor to handle close combat. No matter what I tried, it seemed nothing could top more traditional loadouts. (At my endgame, that would have been a King Crab or two with 2x AC/20s, a Stalker with 4x LRM20s, and an Atlas or two.)

You seem to like using arm mods. Have you found a melee build that works? Is it only viable with the expansions?

Arm mods higher than the basic ones take up weight as well. You are better off stacking basic mods unless you run out of space in the arms. You get both types: stab and normal damage.

Melee 'mechs are best with those that have a lot of support weapons. My Grasshopper with multiple basic arm mods and 3 weightless MGs (and 3 normal ones) was wrecking face all over town.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Are those the mods that increase punching damage? I really tried to optimize a melee mech, putting 2x arm mod+++ on various mechs, and I could never make it worthwhile. Anything that could dish out serious damage was too slow and couldn't get close fast enough and would take a few turns' worth of damage before being able to dish out damage. Anything that was fast enough to move in and start punching the enemy, preferably in the back armor, didn't do worthwhile damage and couldn't carry enough armor to handle close combat.

Alright hombre challenge accepted.

 

[Firesworn]

unity is third millennium's flash. nothing good will ever come from it.

I'm always reluctant to install any Unity game on my laptop. This is because, from experience, almost every single Unity game I install will hog the laptop's performance. Even reducing FPS amount is almost always pointless.

At first I thought it could be my laptop, because it has a design flaw - the cooling for both the CPU and GPU are too close together, so it tends to kick up the fans earlier than it should. However, every single person I know with powerhouse gaming rigs have complained about Unity games for excessive performance hogging.

Besides, no other game engine seems to demand as much of my laptop as Unity. I don't know if it's a problem with the engine, or if developers don't optimize it or whatever. It's just annoying and frustrating and doesn't really convince me to install anything running on it. I think the only Unity game that ran without a hitch for me was Void Bastards.

 

[razvedchiki]

only battletech from the various unity games i have played runs as bad. wasteland 2 was also made by a nooby dev team but run ok with my then pc, more recently phoenix point runs smoothly.
which means its the man not the tool.

 

[Jason Liang]

Jason Liang You seem to use a lot of arm mods. Are those the mods that increase punching damage? I really tried to optimize a melee mech, putting 2x arm mod+++ on various mechs, and I could never make it worthwhile. Anything that could dish out serious damage was too slow and couldn't get close fast enough and would take a few turns' worth of damage before being able to dish out damage. Anything that was fast enough to move in and start punching the enemy, preferably in the back armor, didn't do worthwhile damage and couldn't carry enough armor to handle close combat. No matter what I tried, it seemed nothing could top more traditional loadouts. (At my endgame, that would have been a King Crab or two with 2x AC/20s, a Stalker with 4x LRM20s, and an Atlas or two.)

You seem to like using arm mods. Have you found a melee build that works? Is it only viable with the expansions?

It's mostly because I'm playing on stingy salvage so I haven't found anything better to outfit my mechs with. I found the arm mod +++ in Weldry's store so I picked it up because it was only 1 ton and was affordable. It's pretty useful on the Shadow Hawk since the Shadow Hawk only had about 3 tons left over after the UAC 20 and ammo, so I went with the Arm Mod and 2 tons of armor. It's working fine since the Shadow Hawk can only shoot the UAC every other turn (due to recoil), so it can sometimes punch things during the down turns, and it already punches for 85 due to the chassis quirk. I'd rather have the arm mod than a M Laser or a heat sink.

Two +damage Arm Mods wont stack. You can stack +damage with +stability damage, but +stability damage never did anything useful when I tried it.

 

[lightbane]

So, dear Codexers, I believe I'll give this game a try soon, now that it's no longer going to be updated. I'll try the main campaign first, but chances are I'll skip soon if I find the story unbearably retarded, which seems to be the case from the Codex review and some screenshots I saw. Either way, what are your recommendations regarding mods and performance fixes, if any?

 

[rashiakas]

depends on how much extra content and increased loading times you want. personally I like roguetech, but I edit the files to remove some of the crap I dont like.

 

[warcrimes666]

Been about a year since i last tried roguetech and it was pretty awesome then. It has all the doodads in it, rotaries, x-pulse and so on. It can have a very high level of difficulty and it's pretty wild but I would play it second or third after you're tired of anything before.

I was reading the thread and reinstalled last week and went with Extended 3025 and I've been playing it alot because it actually feels like the game we expected at the time. I have to say it is almost astonishing how much they've done with that mod package. Has basically everything you'd want in it already and the performance fixes included for me are nearly seamless at this point, turn all the camera junk to never and it plays remarkably well.

You can start in several epochs between 3025 and 3057 depending if you want to experience pre or post clan invasion. The best part for me is that theres an active map and all houses, merc units, and clans draw from the appropriate mechs, their proper variants also available on the proper factory planets on the specific dates. The map changes by date and the merc units move around according to the dates and locations in the literature and draw from their own mech lists on missions. This works with a functional faction system that rewards top house variants and tech.

For instance, I took 3047 start and decided to go all the way with Kurita. Not paying much attention, by clan invasion i was in average mediums and basically unable to take part for awhile. The way it plays is exactly how it should be when that happens as well, absolutely brutal. You can also completely avoid it and never take part or do other stuff and wait for technology to filter out by date and factory location to come back and bring some heat. Eventually and it takes a good while, I max loyalty with Kurita and get access to some really strong mechs on a handful of different factory worlds, Sunder 0, Mauler 1r, Dragon 5k, Warhammer 6r dc and I'm playing some half-star and one-star clan missions and still getting smoked more often than not but it feels good. Im an old bastard and it feels like battletech now.

The only other mods i put on I think are jump distance and movefaster. Just quality of life because the mod flashpoints are pretty good (solaris, tukayyid,etc.) as well as with cool variants coming up all over the galaxy and so on, I always want to get to where the action is. For me, right now, extended 3025 is the way to go off the bat and I'd go so far as to call it actually good at this time.

 

[lightbane]

I checked Roguetech. Looks like what I expected it to be: A bloated mod that pushes the already janky engine to the max. While it is true there's tons of new content, including playable tanks and such, I can foresee this mod can cause major hardware failure, for not to mention it makes the whole thing slower. Hell, the few LPs I checked had battles going slow, I suppose even with the performance fixes already applied.
Is there a goal in RT? Or do you play until you get fed up with the game or a certain time limit is reached?
It would be cool if you could play as a member of a certain faction, then try and conquer the entire Sphere, rather than doing pointless missions endlessly. Is the former a thing in RT?

Lastly, I read comments that the modder behind RT is toxic, as usual, but that may mean he's not PC enough or very autistic, not sure which one. Trannies may or may not be involved as well.
There are according to the wiki some Easter Eggs and hidden units, like fucking Optimus Prime, but their wiki entry is forbidden to avoid spoilers, even though you can see their pic just fine (???).

 

[rashiakas]

You can do the campaign in RT as flashpoints, but you also can try to conquer whatever you want. If you play with the online map, everything you do (and other players) are reflected on the map. When I was playing last time, the clan players started an invasion and slowly pushed into the IS, that was pretty cool.

The modder isn't really toxic, more an asshole that is fed up with stupid requests and bug reports coming from altered files etc.

 

[lightbane]

You can do the campaign in RT as flashpoint

As in, special missions? not interested, unless you can kill that obnoxious princess.

but you also can try to conquer whatever you want

How does that work? From what I saw, you choose from a list of contracts to do missions. Do you do a mission to "conquer" a planet in the name of "x" faction?

If you play with the online map, everything you do (and other players) are reflected on the map. When I was playing last time, the clan players started an invasion and slowly pushed into the IS, that was pretty cool.

Sounds cool, if a bit messy.

The modder isn't really toxic, more an asshole that is fed up with stupid requests and bug reports coming from altered files etc.

Sounds like he's quite reasonable compared with the average modder.
Does Rtech work with fitgirl's "trial edition" ?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

I checked Roguetech. Looks like what I expected it to be: A bloated mod that pushes the already janky engine to the max. While it is true there's tons of new content, including playable tanks and such, I can foresee this mod can cause major hardware failure, for not to mention it makes the whole thing slower. Hell, the few LPs I checked had battles going slow, I suppose even with the performance fixes already applied.
Is there a goal in RT? Or do you play until you get fed up with the game or a certain time limit is reached?
It would be cool if you could play as a member of a certain faction, then try and conquer the entire Sphere, rather than doing pointless missions endlessly. Is the former a thing in RT?

i've had more blue screens during these days with roguetech than in 20 years of windows. roguetech especially dislikes torrenting.

Lastly, I read comments that the modder behind RT is toxic, as usual, but that may mean he's not PC enough or very autistic, not sure which one. Trannies may or may not be involved as well.
There are according to the wiki some Easter Eggs and hidden units, like fucking Optimus Prime, but their wiki entry is forbidden to avoid spoilers, even though you can see their pic just fine (???).

i asked "is there a consistent way to raise generic pirate faction standing?" and i've been not only answered "chase another faction" but "we fully answered your question".
that awkward moment when you're more of an asshole and less useful than your average codex user.

 

[lightbane]

've had more blue screens during these days with roguetech than in 20 years of windows. roguetech especially dislikes torrenting.

sked "is there a consistent way to raise generic pirate faction standing?" and i've been not only answered "chase another faction" but "we fully answered your question".
that awkward moment when you're more of an asshole and less useful than your average codex user.

Figures. I retract my statement about the devs being reasonable. I suppose I'll try the Extended mod first once I wish to try mods.

 

[rashiakas]

if you go extended, just play with that. dont bother with vanilla.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

It would be cool if you could play as a member of a certain faction, then try and conquer the entire Sphere, rather than doing pointless missions endlessly. Is the former a thing in RT?

i missed this.
in roguetech you can't properly join factions but systems ownership is often contested, it usually goes on by itself, battle after battle, but you can momentarily join one of the sides and help it, actually influencing the map yourself.

 

[Jason Liang]

Ok I'm at the point where I feel like BEX deserves a try. But I've been watching some streams on twitch, it doesn't seem like there are much or any AI improvements? Seems a little pointless if the AI is as bad at positioning as it is in vanilla.

 

[razvedchiki]

the ai is the same in all mods/vanilla is the way that it only thinks for that turn only. which means that it will focus fire on one of your mechs even if it means that next turn it will have its back on you.

 

[Jason Liang]

I've noticed that the AI tends to freeze and not fire as soon as it gets outflanked. Feels too easy to exploit.

Also, I feel like it would be perfect if lighter mechs take less components for a complete chassis, and heavier mechs more components. For example, 5 components for a light, 6 for a medium, 7 for a heavy and 8 for an assault feels right. Not only does it make more sense that heavier makes need more material and parts, but also I'd like it to be more difficult to acquire heavy and assault mechs, but I don't want to wait forever to collect the pieces for a light or medium either. I wonder how difficult that would be to mod.e

Also, are any mods planning on integrating pvp into an online campaign? That would be where this game should go.

 

[razvedchiki]

maybe they will overheat if they fire again?
sometimes they dont know what to do when they are in a ball and you sent a light to get through them.

 

[Cael]

maybe they will overheat if they fire again?
sometimes they dont know what to do when they are in a ball and you sent a light to get through them.

No. They can be freshly dropped off the DropShip and they just wander around and brace until you shoot them. Then that unit will start firing on you.

Seen it happen quite a few times now. It seems to happen a lot when they have a different objective other than shoot you (e.g., attacking a base you are defending).

Of course, with the calibre of Kevin on their team, what else can we expect from the incompetent cunts?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

I've noticed that the AI tends to freeze and not fire as soon as it gets outflanked. Feels too easy to exploit.

enemies in roguetech are evil and mean. too often i lost a medium mech to some forgotten unimpressive tiny small light mech who charged it, pushed it to the ground and finished it kicking it in the face.

 

[Cael]

This is so retarded.

When you combine Called Shot Mastery with a Marauder's Lance Command Module, you get a 'mech that will head shot anyone (except those scripted to be immune to headshots) at a 35% rate. So, you build up a lance of 3 snipers with either a Gauss Rifle and 4 med lasers or a AC10+ with 4 med lasers, and kill 2-3 'mechs a turn for as long as you have the resolve to do it. Something along the lines of 80-90% of all my 'mech kills are head shots once I got that lance going. The last guy is my generic tear 'em apart/stability damage Archer-S (the one with 4 missile racks, all filled with SRM6). He is the back up for when I run out of resolve and have to head shot them the old fashioned way (i.e., knock them down and called shot to the head).

Game balance? What game balance?

 

[Nathaniel3W]

This is so retarded.

When you combine Called Shot Mastery with a Marauder's Lance Command Module, you get a 'mech that will head shot anyone (except those scripted to be immune to headshots) at a 35% rate. So, you build up a lance of 3 snipers with either a Gauss Rifle and 4 med lasers or a AC10+ with 4 med lasers, and kill 2-3 'mechs a turn for as long as you have the resolve to do it. Something along the lines of 80-90% of all my 'mech kills are head shots once I got that lance going. The last guy is my generic tear 'em apart/stability damage Archer-S (the one with 4 missile racks, all filled with SRM6). He is the back up for when I run out of resolve and have to head shot them the old fashioned way (i.e., knock them down and called shot to the head).

Game balance? What game balance?

You found a winning strategy. Congratulations. Finding superpowered, game-breaking, optimized builds is one of the reasons why I play tactical games. Learning and eventually mastering the game's systems, imagining an exploit, training a pilot and building a mech to test that exploit--that all took some effort on your part, and now you have been rewarded for your efforts. And now you're angry about it?