Codex Review RPG Codex Review: BATTLETECH

[Fenix]

Pillars, Tyranny

Pile of shit of a games.

Wasteland 2

Mediocre in all fields.

Shadowrun

The only barely decent, and only Dragonfall DC, not sure about Hong-Kong.

You named only one game really, and whole real reneisannce went past you.

 

[Infinitron]

I think the alternative to Battletech in Unity is possibly no Battletech at all because doing it in something UE4 is prohibitive on cost grounds.

Is this really true when Vault Dweller is making his game in UE4? You may have an out-of-date perception of Unreal Engine usage costs.

I think there are justifiable reasons for HBS to have chosen to use Unity again (experience, Shadowrun code reuse, etc) but I'm sure the alternative wasn't "no BattleTech at all".

 

[Quillon]

Even if there was a recent crpg reneissance, unity had nothing to do with it.

Pillars, Tyranny, Wasteland 2, Shadowrun, probably lots of others that don't come to mind. Probably fair to say that if Unity (or some alternative) had not existed Obsidian would have shut down sometime in 2012. One of the big reasons developers suddenly started making AA games like CRPGs again five years ago or so is technology like Unity.

It was a choice to use Unity for Obs, if there wasn't Unity they'd have had to use their own engine, woulda been better for it in the long run. After all the investment in creating a 2D cRPG in Unity, they'll most probably ditch it after Deadfire's third DLC. They'll put all that effort in UE4 this time, until they'll ditch that too.

I tried State of Decay 2; either UE4 is shitty or Undead Labs' programmers are, prolly the latter.

 

[FreshCorpse]

I think the alternative to Battletech in Unity is possibly no Battletech at all because doing it in something UE4 is prohibitive on cost grounds.

Is this really true when Vault Dweller is making his game in UE4? You may have an out-of-date perception of Unreal Engine usage costs.

Well, I might be out of date but Battletech development would have started a few years ago so even if it's easier to make a game in a "proper engine" now that doesn't help HBS unless the new stuff in UE4 includes a functioning time machine

Wikipedia seems to think it took 9 11 years to develop Age of Decadence (which I have not played but want to) so I think the developer of that game may not be the greatest example!

 

[Black]

AoD took as many Thursdays as necessary to be complete.

 

[ArchAngel]

I mostly agree and I'll add that MP Skirmish is a major disappointment as well. My cousin is an avid TT player and we used to play a couple of games a year together. He moved to Canada, so we backed this..thing and thought we could get our fix playing this online. Not only are the mechanics inferior to the original game, but running it is such a drag that it would probably be faster to play tabletop. Including the flight over.

That's not Unity's fault though. Unity is great and it doesn't have to run like shit. Poor performance is 100% Harebrained's fault. They load assets dynamically -which is useful if you want to do cosmetic in-app purchase DLC or something I guess? Otherwise a really bad idea-, they have multiple audio sources on each mech -how? why? didn't they learn how to overload audio sources?-, they didn't make custom LOD models -Unity's default distance decimation isn't bad, but in the case of blocky mechs this is such an obvious optimisation win that I don't know how they missed it-, they have bloated savegames with exponentially increasing metadata, they use resource-heavy shaders everywhere to cover up the fact that their terrain assets are weak, and most jarringly: The GUI uses raycasted sprites in 3D world space rather than a 2D overlay. That is fine for simple games and main menus, but complex interfaces like this should not be set up that way. It's so bad that dragging components onto hardpoints slows down the mouse cursor. Some of these decisions make me wonder if they have any decent programmers in-house. I guess you can blame Unity for that: You can develop a game with limited technical know-how. Still, if a carpenter builds you a shed with a leaky roof, are you going to blame the hammer?

You might if the only affordable hardware store in the area sells only hammers that break if you hit things too hard. At least the carpenter will blame it and you can accept it or not

 

[Haba]

It was a choice to use Unity for Obs, if there wasn't Unity they'd have had to use their own engine, woulda been better for it in the long run.

Yeah, just like their previous "own engine". That sure worked out well, didn't it?

 

[Quillon]

It was a choice to use Unity for Obs, if there wasn't Unity they'd have had to use their own engine, woulda been better for it in the long run.

Yeah, just like their previous "own engine". That sure worked out well, didn't it?

DS3? That boring game ran smooth

 

[Vault Dweller]

I think the alternative to Battletech in Unity is possibly no Battletech at all because doing it in something UE4 is prohibitive on cost grounds.

Is this really true when Vault Dweller is making his game in UE4? You may have an out-of-date perception of Unreal Engine usage costs.

As of March 2015 Unreal 4 is free to use. If you ship a game, you pay 5% in royalties.

https://www.pcgamer.com/unreal-engine-4-is-now-free/

This year, Epic is going a step further. The studio has just announced that Unreal Engine 4 is available for free, along with all future updates.

"You can download the engine and use it for everything from game development, education, architecture, and visualization to VR, film and animation," writes Epic's Tim Sweeney. "When you ship a game or application, you pay a 5% royalty on gross revenue after the first $3,000 per product, per quarter. It’s a simple arrangement in which we succeed only when you succeed."

Later in the announcement, Sweeney hints at what prompted the switch. "The state of Unreal is strong, and we’ve realized that as we take away barriers, more people are able to fulfill their creative visions and shape the future of the medium we love. That’s why we’re taking away the last barrier to entry, and going free."

 

[thesheeep]

Even if there was a recent crpg reneissance, unity had nothing to do with it.

Pillars, Tyranny, Wasteland 2, Shadowrun, probably lots of others that don't come to mind. Probably fair to say that if Unity (or some alternative) had not existed Obsidian would have shut down sometime in 2012. One of the big reasons developers suddenly started making AA games like CRPGs again five years ago or so is technology like Unity.

Eh... I don't think we'd be in a much worse situation if it weren't for those easy to use engines.
I mean, look at the current market. An incredible number of games is being made - most of them shit.
The situation has become so bad even the great industry sloth, Valve, is upgrading their storefront and Steam system to somehow deal with the influx.

If it weren't for middleware like Unity & co, there would be far fewer games, yes, but still quite enough - and certainly of better quality.
After all, people have managed without those engines before and they would now - good developers don't need stuff like Unity, even if they can be more productive with it. I would even argue that if Unity had been around from the beginning, we would never have seen great games such as the old Enemy Unknown or Terror From The Deep. Simply because the challenge of developing those games itself drove the developers. With those engines, the challenge isn't gone, but much lower.

But now the situation is what it is and developers (especially the human resource departments, it seems) have a hard time filtering good devs from the ocean of bad ones.
And players maybe get some more good games than they would have gotten otherwise - and a whole lot of crap.

 

[I ASK INANE QUESTIONS]

I mostly agree and I'll add that MP Skirmish is a major disappointment as well. My cousin is an avid TT player and we used to play a couple of games a year together. He moved to Canada, so we backed this..thing and thought we could get our fix playing this online. Not only are the mechanics inferior to the original game, but running it is such a drag that it would probably be faster to play tabletop. Including the flight over.

Why not just use MegaMek instead?

they have multiple audio sources on each mech

Wait what

they didn't make custom LOD models

Wha-

The GUI uses raycasted sprites in 3D world space rather than a 2D overlay.

-WUT

Did you get this info from a centralized source somewhere, or is that just a result of your own observations? Because if there's a list of this shit, I really wanna see it.

 

[FreshCorpse]

Simply because the challenge of developing those games itself drove the developers. With those engines, the challenge isn't gone, but much lower.

Well, I suppose I just don't agree that if game development was harder, games would be better.

I suspect Julian Gollop and his brother would have loved Unity if it was available in 1992 - after all he seems to like it now as his current project is...drumroll...a squad based tactics Unity game. Perhaps in the alternate universe where Gollop had access to Unity 5 in the early nineties the original X-com would not have been of such risible technical quality - and maybe even that notorious difficulty bug would never have happened.

The real problem with this argument is that all of the hard-to-work with engines of two decades have not vanished into the ether. They are are still around. Anyone can sit down and write a game-specific engine in x86 assembly from pixel bliting to AI. Not many people do that (including the people who used to) and I am not aware of any recent good games produced in this way (I'm sure someone will enlighten me...).

I think in the other alternate universe where Unity 5 did not exist the only games worth the massive investment to produce would be AAA games involving arcadey style FPSes with a veneer of miliary simulation. The reason that Obsidian, inXile and HBS are producing CRPGs again is because of a lucky conjunction of enabling innovations: one of which is an cheap and cheerful game engine called "Unity".

 

[FreshCorpse]

As of March 2015 Unreal 4 is free to use. If you ship a game, you pay 5% in royalties.

Well, being "free" (*with royalities) isn't quite the same as being easy to work with. People say engines like Unreal have come on a lot recently. I'm not really in a position to contradict them but I bet if you go back to when Battletech development (or Pillars development, for that matter) I bet Unity was a much cheaper (ie: less labour intensive) option.

 

[MF]

Why not just use MegaMek instead?

We do, MegaMek is great ersatz TT but not very visceral. We thought this game would be more fun. It's not.

Did you get this info from a centralized source somewhere, or is that just a result of your own observations? Because if there's a list of this shit, I really wanna see it.

Just my own observations. Some of it is obvious if you work with Unity, some of it becomes apparent when you look at the files.

 

[Werdna's Revenge]

My take on Unity is that it's an OK & cheap game engine which has gained so much market share it's cheap to get guys who know how to work with it. It certainly helps keeps costs down for the mid range studios. I'm really not sure that it's affected the design of games on it that much though, at least anymore than picking something like UE would.

 

[thesheeep]

Simply because the challenge of developing those games itself drove the developers. With those engines, the challenge isn't gone, but much lower.

Well, I suppose I just don't agree that if game development was harder, games would be better.

And why not?
If something is harder, it requires people to get better to do it. This weeds out the incapable ones, too.
If people who do something are better, they will produce better results.
This is a general truth, applicable to everything involving skill.

The real question is if people who got better doing things the hard way would also have gotten better if things were easy.
To that I can clearly say, from years of experience as a programmer myself and lecturing others: No. Not even remotely.
If the challenge is low, so is the gain in skill.

I suspect Julian Gollop and his brother would have loved Unity if it was available in 1992 - after all he seems to like it now as his current project is...drumroll...a squad based tactics Unity game. Perhaps in the alternate universe where Gollop had access to Unity 5 in the early nineties the original X-com would not have been of such risible technical quality - and maybe even that notorious difficulty bug would never have happened.

The original X-Com risible technical quality?
Are you high? It wasn't bug free, sure, but... wut?

The real problem with this argument is that all of the hard-to-work with engines of two decades have not vanished into the ether. They are are still around. Anyone can sit down and write a game-specific engine in x86 assembly from pixel bliting to AI. Not many people do that (including the people who used to) and I am not aware of any recent good games produced in this way (I'm sure someone will enlighten me...).

Are you seriously telling me that you don't know any games that were developed using in-house engines (or no engine at all) in recent years?

Just off the top of my head:
Tales Maj'Ejal
Battle Brothers
Balrum
Eschalon Books
Divinity: Original Sin
Everything Blizzard makes
Grim Dawn
Vermintide 1 & 2
Total War games
Xenonauts 1
Dominions
Spellforce 3
All those TellTale "games"
Dawn Of War
Pretty much all "own" Paradox games
Age Of Wonders 3
Grimoire
Ok, I'm going to stop now...

You are right, all those hard-to-work with engines (or no engines at all) have not vanished.
And people still develop games that way.
And those people I would also fully trust if they developed new games using Unity, UE, Godot (my personal favorite), etc. - because they learned development the hard way, making them better developers.
But someone who has learned development with nothing except engines like Unity? Would have to be someone with an innate talent to be really good - and that's even more rare than someone who learned by doing things the hard way.

To make things clear, I'm talking mostly about programming here. Art & "pure" game design is another topic.

 

[FreshCorpse]

I suspect Julian Gollop and his brother would have loved Unity if it was available in 1992 - after all he seems to like it now as his current project is...drumroll...a squad based tactics Unity game. Perhaps in the alternate universe where Gollop had access to Unity 5 in the early nineties the original X-com would not have been of such risible technical quality - and maybe even that notorious difficulty bug would never have happened.

The original X-Com risible technical quality?
Are you high? It wasn't bug free, sure, but... wut?

I'm talking about this bug: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Known_Bugs#Difficulty_Bug which shipped in multiple versions of the game.

Just off the top of my head:
Tales Maj'Ejal
Battle Brothers
Balrum
Eschalon Books
Divinity: Original Sin
Everything Blizzard makes
Grim Dawn
Vermintide 1 & 2
Total War games
Xenonauts 1
Dominions
Spellforce 3
All those TellTale "games"
Dawn Of War
Pretty much all "own" Paradox games
Age Of Wonders 3
Grimoire
Ok, I'm going to stop now...

I think we're maybe talking past each other but I definitely agree that many people make games without middleware I just don't think they're "suffering" to the extent that eg Gollop was. Anyway in many cases they want to add middleware or have basically just developed it themselves. Xenonauts 2 will use Unity for example. To some extent if you're using C++ with DirectX or OpenGL you have a huge amount available to you (and done for you) that you could easily remove to add "challenge". I don't think that the added challenge of eg working in assembly as I'm assuming x-com did (your example) is really something that motivates the development of games. Hard to organise a whole team or artists, modellers, testers and the lot around a programmer being challenged. The other problem is that just because making a game is hard doesn't mean that it is going to be any good.

I just don't buy any of your theory, sorry. I think ultimately if you make it easier to do something more people will try it, they'll have more success overall. Just like anything else in society really.

 

[thesheeep]

I just don't buy any of your theory, sorry. I think ultimately if you make it easier to do something more people will try it, they'll have more success overall. Just like anything else in society really.

Of course they will have more success overall, I'm not arguing that.
But none of these successes will be great. I'd rather have no BattleTech, no Pillars Of Eternity, no Wasteland 2 (all okayish games, but nothing special) and instead of those just one truly great game.

Or maybe I'm just mad I had to suffer through 10+ hours of Torment: Numanuma...

You also need to mix in the effects of Unity, etc. on non-programming tasks (which is positive!), while I'm talking about the programming side.
Speaking in game terms, engines like Unity lower the programming skill floor required to create any games, significantly.
The programming skill floor required to make great games, or to at least do good programming on games, is mostly untouched, though.

Every programmer who ever coded in C or C++ or actually studied programming would have done much better than whoever did on their team.
I would bet my younger self's pocket money that if I went there and told those people about memory alignment, cache misses, vertex buffers or memory pools, they would look at me like I'm an alien.
And who can blame them? If creating games is as easy as writing a calculator in VB used to be (ah, good old school IT courses, hehe), they don't need to know any of these.
Yet, any programmer who doesn't know and understand true low-level programming basics will never be able to write truly performant code (because they won't know what makes code performant to begin with) - as proven by every terribly performing Unity game out there.

Or take medicine: Would you trust a doctor that only ever learned to diagnose and treat you by scanning you and reading the machine output to treat you without his machine?
Or would you trust the doctor who can actually tell from how you look (i.e. skin pigments), sound (i.e. listening to lung noises) and smell to treat you without a machine?
Because removing the proper education is what engines like Unity do to game programmers.

 

[I ASK INANE QUESTIONS]

To make things clear, I'm talking mostly about programming here. Art & "pure" game design is another topic.

Art is, as always, in a much, much worse position. You can generally say that an engine works well, that it's great in that regard or other, but, as any art college grad(who just spend the best years of his life being taught by people who couldn't learn) will tell you, >le art is le subjective. And no other creative field allows you to get away with mediocrity as much as gaming industry. Press will tell you that games look better than ever, and maybe they do, but art? Art is dying in the gutter.

 

[thesheeep]

Yeah, I really think the only ones who might actually have improved their situation are game designers - as they can more easily prototype and refine their ideas now. And game producers, of course.
Artists have the same "problem" programmers do: It is so easy to achieve a low level success that they are not forced to grow beyond that. How many game artists of today really understand how the shader pipeline works in the tools they work with every day? I can bet you, not many.

 

[Cael]

Art is dying in the gutter.

With multiple stab wounds and bleeding out its ass from the rape.

 

[Bohr]

Substantial new content and

patch , maybe time for the neutral-positive review?

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-battletech-update-1-1-release-notes.1106263/

Spoiler

Last month we talked about what's next for BATTLETECH, and outlined some key items we were working on for our first larger free Update to the game. Well - we've just pushed that Update 1.1.0 to the public_beta branch on Steam and GOG. This Update is all about giving you more ways to customize your experience, as well as reacting to common pieces of feedback that we've heard from you about the game. It also includes a healthy dose of optimizations and general bugfixes across all areas of BATTLETECH.

We're pleased to report that most of the items we mentioned last month made it into this 1.1.0 release. One thing that didn't is the "Tutorial Skip" feature, but that's still on the roadmap for our next Update. Many more things DID make it in beyond what we mentioned last month, though, like ultrawide monitor support and some additional quality-of-life improvements. The full release notes are below.

We would like to encourage interested players to switch to public_beta right away and start playing BATTLETECH 1.1.0. Instructions for switching to public_beta can be found below. And if you do try this release, we'd really appreciate it if you could also take a few minutes to report back directly in this thread with your impressions, and to let us know if you encounter any issues. This will help us test at a broader scale before pushing this Update to the live branch. Thank you in advance!

-- HBS


How to switch to the public_beta branch (Steam):

1. In the left column games list of your Steam library, right-click BATTLETECH.
2. Select Properties
3. Click on the tab labelled BETAS
4. In the dropdown menu, select public_beta (Note: if you do not see this available, you may need to restart Steam and/or wait a few minutes.)
5. Click the CLOSE button
6. BATTLETECH should start updating automatically
7. When the update has completed, right-click BATTLETECH again, select Properties, and open the LOCAL FILES tab.
8. Click the VERIFY INTEGRITY OF GAME FILES button.
9. When this completes, restart Steam and then launch the game.

How to switch to the public_beta branch (GOG):

1. Within the GOG Galaxy App, Navigate to your library.
2. When you hover over the BattleTech library entry, find the small menu expansion arrow in the bottom right corner of the BattleTech App - select “Settings”
3. Click Beta Channels on the right side of the header and select “On”
4. Click the Channel dropdown and select “public_beta”

IMPORTANT: If you experience any issues after updating, the first step we recommend is to restart your computer, and then verify integrity of game files. Occasionally, the Steam update process can act weird - restarting will ensure that the update has been properly applied.

If you switch to the public_beta branch, please note that when playing Multiplayer Skirmish, you will only be able to play against other players on the public_beta branch. The Lobby browser does not currently denote which players are on the public_beta branch and which are not (but will in future releases.) If you switch to the public_beta branch and then want to create a multiplayer lobby, please add [BETA] to the front of your Lobby name.


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:

• GOG Galaxy: Open the "More" menu next to the Play button and choose Other -> Configure BATTLETECH.
• Steam and all other platforms: 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.

 

[aweigh]

Can you romance the princess?

Would be cool if you could bone royalty and make offspring who inherit abilities and make the game more of a generational storyline instead of a personal one, with added factions and politics.

 

[Cael]

Can you romance the princess?

Would be cool if you could bone royalty and make offspring who inherit abilities and make the game more of a generational storyline instead of a personal one, with added factions and politics.

Average lifespan was increased to something like 108 according to one of the Crescent Hawks games (Inception, I think), and you have Mechwarriors running around until well into their 80s (Jaime Wolf, Whacko Waco, etc.). Generational is going to be a challenge :D

 

[Nutria]

Yeah, if I'm gonna be a mercenary, let me use that pick up chicks like John Hawkwood did.