Real-Time Tactics MechCommander Gold Darkest Hour

[Werdna's Revenge]

Mechcommander 2 > Mechcomander 1 therefore wake me up when that gets the cool overhaul.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/mechcommander-omnitech

Well fuck me, have a brofist good sir.

 

[Cael]

Unfortunately not. Turn-based is hard enough to come by as it is. Isometric or 3D is basically out of the question. It was one of the reasons why I was so excited about the HBS game back in November. It would be the first one ever and supposedly in a setting that I love (CBT, not that Dark Age bullshit).

You seem knowlegeable of mechs game, do you recommend any older turn based titles with mech theme? Doesnt have to be battle tech universe.

Someone was posting one in the HBS game thread. I have never played it myself. That is just about the only one I know. There is MegaMek, but that isn't a game with a campaign or a story or the like, from what I understand. I haven't played it either as it has always been a sort of an automated TT calculator as far as I knew. I could be wrong there.

The Crescent Hawk's Inception is turn-based, but has a simplistic plot and not much replayability, unfortunately. Once you get the hang of it, you will breeze through things and combat starts becoming boring. It is pretty faithful to the BTech franchise, though.

The Crescent Hawk's Revenge is practically turn-based. You can turn the speed down to 1 and that is practically pausing the game. And then speed it up again to see things happen. It is BTech, follows the lore and the TT very closely if not completely faithfully (weapon recycle is the biggest difference here), top down and surprisingly difficult due to a variety of mission objectives. Top down perspective and limited graphics, but good for its time.

For a bit of strategy with RT combat, there is Cyber Empires (known in some areas as Steel Empires). It is a lot like Risk in its map. You choose what to build and each sector has a limited amount of space that you can build things on as well as a pre-dominant environment. Quite entertaining, and even though the map is static (I don't recall if the space in a sector changes), it has surprising replayability. Top down, RT mecha combat, where you control one 'mech (of up to 10 on your side)

Like I said, there isn't many turn-based 'mech games. There are quite a number of RT top down action type 'mech where you control an upgradable 'mech and blow up swarms of enemies, though. Strategy/tactics, not really.

 

[Cael]

Cael I'm curious why you said MegaMek "isn't even a game" (I'm paraphrasing here). From what I've read, it sounds like everything you want in a BT-based game.

From what I can see, it is more like an automated dice rolling thing for BTech. There is no campaigns or story. You set up the scenario and then move things around. That makes it not a game, but a game making tool.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

Every weapon is more or less true to its tabletop counterparts.

That's not really true. They have the same general theme, but the stats can get pretty different. The most obvious example is that ER medium lasers weigh less than standard ones. I can understand their logic (they wanted Clan weapons to weigh less than IS ones, they wanted Clan ER lasers to be an analogue to IS standard lasers, therefore the ER medium laser should weigh less), but that still makes no sense, unless they somehow invented heat sinks with negative weight. There's also the way the best sensors/ECM/Probes can only be equipped on the Raven/Kit Fox/Cougar, too. Making them Raven exclusive for IS mechs makes sense somewhat, since it was the first EW mech for a long time, but there's no reason why Clan mechs should have any restrictions, other than as a way to make light mechs more useful.
The expansion is a different story in that it doesn't give a shit about CBT stats/canon. According to MCG X Pulse lasers were apparently a Star League era weapon, and they have better range than Clan pulse lasers. They basically just made up their own weapon and then used an existing name for it. MCG also introduces the railgun, which is apparently some sort of Star League era heavy gauss rifle. I don't recall hearing about those anywhere else.
Mechcommander was fun, but it was willing to take a lot of liberties. I mean, it doesn't even have heat. How can you have a Battletech game without heat?

 

[Cael]

Every weapon is more or less true to its tabletop counterparts.

That's not really true. They have the same general theme, but the stats can get pretty different. The most obvious example is that ER medium lasers weigh less than standard ones. I can understand their logic (they wanted Clan weapons to weigh less than IS ones, they wanted Clan ER lasers to be an analogue to IS standard lasers, therefore the ER medium laser should weigh less), but that still makes no sense, unless they somehow invented heat sinks with negative weight. There's also the way the best sensors/ECM/Probes can only be equipped on the Raven/Kit Fox/Cougar, too. Making them Raven exclusive for IS mechs makes sense somewhat, since it was the first EW mech for a long time, but there's no reason why Clan mechs should have any restrictions, other than as a way to make light mechs more useful.
The expansion is a different story in that it doesn't give a shit about CBT stats/canon. According to MCG X Pulse lasers were apparently a Star League era weapon, and they have better range than Clan pulse lasers. They basically just made up their own weapon and then used an existing name for it. MCG also introduces the railgun, which is apparently some sort of Star League era heavy gauss rifle. I don't recall hearing about those anywhere else.
Mechcommander was fun, but it was willing to take a lot of liberties. I mean, it doesn't even have heat. How can you have a Battletech game without heat?

I never noticed the laser one consciously. I knew the stats, but it never bothered me because I have a policy of never bringing a knife to a gunfight, so never used most of the short range weapons. When a so-called BTech game makes SRM the most powerful weapon in the game, you know you have a shit game on your hands.

As for your comment about heat sinks with negative weights, again you show your lack of knowledge of the game. A IS medium laser weighs 1 ton and produces 3 heat. Total 2.5 tons (1 ton weapon, 1.5 heat sinks). Clan ER medium is 5 heat, so 3.5 tons is correct. The IS laser is far overweight in MechCommander. It seems that someone dropped the ball and used single heat sinks to calculate the IS medium laser. Either that or they want the SRM to have SOME use in the game.

Again, your comment about pulse lasers is hilariously ignorant. IS pulse lasers are extremely short ranged. In fact, the IS large pulse laser is about the same range as a IS medium laser. In order to balance things out, they had to extend the range of the IS Pulse Laser AND lower the range of the Clan Pulse Laser (which on TT is almost on par with LRM in terms of range). Otherwise, both IS large and medium pulse lasers would be in the same range bracket. Enter the X-Pulse Laser, which is, as its name indicates, an extended range pulse laser. How else are you going to put that in the game when you only have 3 range brackets and the base weapon is already in bracket 2? That is a problem with expansions. You need to make the expansion stuff bigger and better so people will buy the expansions. It is called power creep and it happens. Although, to be fair, most of the extra stuff in the MechCommander expansion isn't really an upgrade, with the sole exception of the Turkina, but even then, I prefer the Masakari-A for the speed.

A railgun isn't a gauss rifle. It is a totally different kettle of fish altogether. The only similarity is that they both use magnets to accelerate a projectile. A gauss rifle is a misnomer anyway. There is nothing "rifle" about it. It is best called a ring cannon. Fallout actually got it more factually correct than BTech although they, too, call it a gauss rifle. That said, there are a lot of lost things in the Star League era that we are still discovering in canon publications. The Titan 'mech mentioned in the Titan II entry in the 3075 TRO, for example. "Undiscovered Star League technology" in BTech is the equivalent of the FEV in Fallout. Things like Castle Brians, SDS, Caspar class AI WarShips. All sorts of things has come from the "Star League era", and they are generally characterised by being extremely rare, last of its kind or takes serious resources to reactivate and use. None of that +10 PPC and +2 SRM nonsense you see in the game you are trying to defend with might and main. BTech isn't DnD.

How can we have a BTech game without heat? Easily! Which part of "heat sinks are included in the weight to make it heat neutral" did you not understand? I'd say ALL of it, by the sounds of your vomit.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

In order to balance things out, they had to extend the range of the IS Pulse Laser AND lower the range of the Clan Pulse Laser (which on TT is almost on par with LRM in terms of range). Otherwise, both IS large and medium pulse lasers would be in the same range bracket. Enter the X-Pulse Laser, which is, as its name indicates, an extended range pulse laser. How else are you going to put that in the game when you only have 3 range brackets and the base weapon is already in bracket 2?

Wait, so you agree that that they changed the weapon stats around for the sake of balance, instead of being faithful to the CBT stats? Well, I'll go with that I guess. I get the feeling you'll never willingly admit I'm right about anything, so that's good enough.
(Also I'm fairly certain you'd outraged if the new Battletech game had half heatsinks like you suggested the ER medium laser did, or just made up completely new weapons like the railgun. Funny how Mechcommander can get away with it but this game can't.)

 

[Cael]

Wait, so you agree that that they changed the weapon stats around for the sake of balance, instead of being faithful to the CBT stats? Well, I'll go with that I guess. I get the feeling you'll never willingly admit I'm right about anything, so that's good enough.
(Also I'm fairly certain you'd outraged if the new Battletech game had half heatsinks like you suggested the ER medium laser did, or just made up completely new weapons like the railgun. Funny how Mechcommander can get away with it but this game can't.)

I never claimed they were 100% faithful to CBT stats. I said they were more or less true. In fact, in the parts you conveniently cut out, I said I wasn't sure of ALL the weapons, only the couple that I remembered noting. Hence why I used "IIRC".

And no, I did not suggest the ER medium laser had half the heatsinks. In fact, the complete OPPOSITE. I said it had the CORRECT number of heat sinks.

I see that reading comprehension is not your strong point, but I expect that from HBS shills. Go back to your tranny game, fool, and leave BTech games to people with more than half a working brain cell.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

And no, I did not suggest the ER medium laser had half the heatsinks. In fact, the complete OPPOSITE. I said it had the CORRECT number of heat sinks.

You said it should weigh 3.5 tons. That's 1 ton for the laser, 2.5 tons for heat sinks. Heat sinks weigh 1 ton each, so that's 2.5 heat sinks. Half a heat sink, dude.
I never shilled for HBS BT, I just said you should stop trying so hard to find things to complain about in it. Even now, you're using a Mechcommander thread as a vehicle to talk about how much you hate it. Chill out.

 

[Cael]

And no, I did not suggest the ER medium laser had half the heatsinks. In fact, the complete OPPOSITE. I said it had the CORRECT number of heat sinks.

You said it should weigh 3.5 tons. That's 1 ton for the laser, 2.5 tons for heat sinks. Heat sinks weigh 1 ton each, so that's 2.5 heat sinks. Half a heat sink, dude.
I never shilled for HBS BT, I just said you should stop trying so hard to find things to complain about in it. Even now, you're using a Mechcommander thread as a vehicle to talk about how much you hate it. Chill out.

*facepalm* Nowhere did I say that they correspond to ACTUAL heat sinks. All I said was that they factored in enough heat sinking to make it heat neutral, which neatly removed heat from the game.

Right, you never shilled for HBS, which is why you stalked me to different threads trying to get a gotcha moment in defence of that shitty game. You're hilarious in your deceit.

You know, you would have been better off talking about the weight allowance of the individual 'mechs, which are all way out of whack to the TT 'mechs, but of course, you didn't know that because you don't actually know the game. You just took a quick look at the Wikipedia and tried for your gotcha moment. A sick and sad little shill.

 

[Cael]

Mechcommander 2 > Mechcomander 1 therefore wake me up when that gets the cool overhaul.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/mechcommander-omnitech

This one seems a bit weird. I just tried the MW2 campaign and holy heck, they went crazy with the stuff. Just about every vehicle was upgraded with LRMs and added armour, and the AI for the friendly Catapult in the first mission was bugged out. It went to the airfield and just stayed there, ignoring the last objective. You in a light 'mech (a Commando in the original game) had to take it out yourself, and given the upgraded vehicles and sheer number of them (6 vs 1), that wasn't happening without a good deal of luck...

 

[MCGRizZen]

1. In MCG-DH i did a complete Story overhaul. With Update v3.3 the logical Errors of briefings are history. In Addition the briefings headlines are 100% matching operation & mission numbers.

2. The truth about heatsinks is, that they had not the time to introduce this system into MechCommander. In the source files are many entries related to heatsinks... so somehow they are part of the game but totally ignored by it.
That maybe the reason why they left the standards and tried to balance it by changing weapons stats like loadouts ... - but in fact they started to Implement this Feature into core files.

 

[Chippy]

I just wish there was a mod to allow you to transfer your pilot skills from the original campaign to the expansion.

 

[MCGRizZen]

That is the reason for creating my MC mod. With latest version 4.0 many of the issues above with user created missions got solved.

The version i have created can be further developed to make the fusion of original & expansion happen.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Personally I would say there's a pretty damn clear reason to restrict the ECM and BAP to Raven etc, which is to add another reason besides tonnage limit to vary lance composition. Getting to pick your fights is a huge advantage. Because of how damn handy the Raven is in almost every mission after you get it, you'll want to keep it along. It works out quite wonderfully I'd say.

2. The truth about heatsinks is, that they had not the time to introduce this system into MechCommander. In the source files are many entries related to heatsinks... so somehow they are part of the game but totally ignored by it.

Two everpresent answers to why it's nowhere to be seen in the final product are very likely: Time and money.


Though for a real time multi-squad tactical game, heat as a mechanic would be unwieldy and wouldn't really add much to the experience. So I figure it could have been a decision purely in regards to game design.

PS: Nice to see someone fiddle around with the old thing. In terms of graphics alone it's probably the most well-aged of the old games. Quality sprites.

 

[MCGRizZen]

... Nice to see someone fiddle around with the old thing. In terms of graphics alone it's probably the most well-aged of the old games. Quality sprites.

Yeah - and the recent release of Version 4.0 isn´t the end. I´m working on a new XXL-campaign with more than ~150 missions. In addition im working on implementing hundreds of new solo mission skirmish scenarios for quickplay, about 30 new multiplayer maps (& some prototype npc coop maps), bugsolving for general game content, overhauling the FST library structure, implementing a clean naming procedure for ALL existing missions and creating a complete source - so that anyone can mod the game - are just some of the things i am planning to do with MechCommander in the next years.
Would you like to know more? Visit NGNG and have a look into the Version 5.0 - development thread.

 

[Circuit the Short]

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Keeping busy.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

I love this game. The campaign is so much fun. The original retail version came with a cool manual and even a booster pack of Battletech cards. I recently got a pristine copy off ebay.

 

[Siveon]

I've watched some YT videos of this mechcommander gold darkest hour, and its real time sadly, so clickfest garbage. Anyone knows turn based mech games with isometric view or 3D graphics?

Front Mission series.

 

[GreyViper]

I did play it and the first MadCat at 1 map took me by surprise. With a bit of kiting, the light mechs managed to down it and I had ad Madcat at start of 2nd map. Also having extra campaign would be nice.

 

[Black]

MechComms are much better than NuBattletech.

 

[Cael]

MechComms are much better than NuBattletech.

Mission 1:3 in Mechcommander 1 is hilariously nasty to the uninformed, unprepared player. Just as you think that you are getting away, with only a couple of Saracens left in your way (and your 'mechs likely already battered to hell from a pretty darned long mission, especially if you got greedy for that resource warehouse...), the game pulls a Madcat-A in your face from out of its ass move. With a couple of Saracens in support and the player probably yellowing and browning his pants at the same time at the sight of the Madcat, the stage is set for a mission scrub via TPK.

And then they throw 1:5 at you...

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Tbh tho, by that point you should guess that it's your best interest to repeat that mission until you salvage the Mad Cat. You'll also learn that your artillery strikes provide a great tool. Get the timing and targeting right (and a little bit of luck on top) and you can salvage the Mad Cat before you even move your lance an inch.

MechComms are much better than NuBattletech.

All down to the fundamental mistake of not having a linear, hand-crafted campaign instead of some procedural bollocks.

 

[Cael]

Tbh tho, by that point you should guess that it's your best interest to repeat that mission until you salvage the Mad Cat. You'll also learn that your artillery strikes provide a great tool. Get the timing and targeting right (and a little bit of luck on top) and you can salvage the Mad Cat before you even move your lance an inch.

MechComms are much better than NuBattletech.

All down to the fundamental mistake of not having a linear, hand-crafted campaign instead of some procedural bollocks.

Also the fact that they fucked up the entire combat part of the game with knockdown and called shots. Don't forget that shit.

As for the Mad Cat A, if you want to metagame, there is really no need to use arty on it. You just need to configure your 'mechs correctly. The Mad Cat A has a glaring weakness. Arty is best used to minimise damage to your 'mechs until you hit the Mad Cat. For example, a single large strike right at the beginning of that mission would take two Commandos out without you having to fire a single shot. A second strike would take out another two Commandos later in the mission.

 

[Chippy]

So not to sound like a prick, but what is this exactly? A modded version of the game with added weapons, mechs and such?. Can I find a readme somewhere with a list of changes?.