KickStarter BATTLETECH - turn-based mech combat from Harebrained Schemes

[Jason Liang]

are murms in the game?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I'd say you want at least one 'mech that packs heavy duty LRMs, in order to provide extreme range indirect fire support. Obviously everything should have jump jets because those are amazingly powerful in this game, longest move+shoot possible in any direction through any terrain, max evasion stacks, and 360 degree turning. Sure they have notable heat gain, but that mobility is pivotal.

(Also a Highlander mounting that much stuff sounds like something that skimps on armor and has no jump jets)

 

[Agesilaus]

(Also a Highlander mounting that much stuff sounds like something that skimps on armor and has no jump jets)

Max armour but no jump jets. I have a pilot with bulwark and let him just stay in position. When I had the gauss instead of the dual ac10s I had jump jets installed and it was good, threw some mlasers on, too, but heat starts to become an issue.

Jump jets are very important, but I keep removing them when heat management becomes annoying. You can't jump around firing multiple ppcs or large lasers. Even the autocannons and missiles add up.

I just found a leg mod that reduces DFA damage, so the grasshopper just became that much better.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

The fact that I can find so many things wrong with them should be an indication of the laziness of the entire studio.

A lot of it is just you trying to find things to complain about though. You complain about pretty much everything they do or say, even when they're right, like how there was no easy communication when the great houses were formed, or Hanse being expansionist (even if you do argue he only invaded people who deserved it, the fact remains he still did it). Half the rest of your complaints are about shit that doesn't matter at all, like complaining that Jordan said the SL lasted several hundred years when it only lasted two hundred.
I don't know. I mean, yeah, you can say it's all just adding the pile of evidence that they don't know what they're doing, but you may as well just stick to the major problems the game has to prove that. It's not like there aren't a lot of them. No need to keep bringing up that someone said metres when he meant feet. You can just point out the insane hardware usage or the way they fucked a bunch of stock mechs with their weapon changes or the way the Raven isn't in the game because they couldn't figure out how to implement ECM even though they had years of dev time. You don't need to focus on trivial shit when you have that.
God, why am I getting into another stupid discussion like this? It happened earlier with the ridiculous 3025 is early/no it isn't argument, and now I'm doing it again. Fuck. You're a bad influence on me.

 

[Cael]

A lot of it is just you trying to find things to complain about though. You complain about pretty much everything they do or say, even when they're right, like how there was no easy communication when the great houses were formed, or Hanse being expansionist (even if you do argue he only invaded people who deserved it, the fact remains he still did it). Half the rest of your complaints are about shit that doesn't matter at all, like complaining that Jordan said the SL lasted several hundred years when it only lasted two hundred.
I don't know. I mean, yeah, you can say it's all just adding the pile of evidence that they don't know what they're doing, but you may as well just stick to the major problems the game has to prove that. It's not like there aren't a lot of them. No need to keep bringing up that someone said metres when he meant feet. You can just point out the insane hardware usage or the way they fucked a bunch of stock mechs with their weapon changes or the way the Raven isn't in the game because they couldn't figure out how to implement ECM even though they had years of dev time. You don't need to focus on trivial shit when you have that.
God, why am I getting into another stupid discussion like this? It happened earlier with the ridiculous 3025 is early/no it isn't argument, and now I'm doing it again. Fuck. You're a bad influence on me.

Again, you insert your own opinions as facts. Since when do punishing someone counts as expansionist? You attack someone to hurt him or get rid of him is not, BY DEFINITION, expansionist. Expansionist is to attack for the main or sole reason to expand your territory, and you do it all the time. Japan and Germany in WW2, for example. They weren't doing it to punish anyone. They just wanted more land. That is expansionist.

All your arguments follow on from there. It is all YOUR OPINION, and doesn't fit facts. The best you can do is ignore facts and just yell "it is not important!"

The Raven was addressed way back before the release, and I actually defended HBS in this case because the Raven wasn't ready yet in 3025, and definitely not in full production. You see, that is the OTHER thing you do: You IGNORE all the times when I DID defend HBS, like when I pointed out that the LRM weights are what they are because of TT rules.

Basically, you are a sjw style shithead who argues because you don't like a person and facts be damned. And that is why you are in this argument and why you will ALWAYS be in an argument like this. Stop blaming others for you being a dickhead. They had nothing to do with it.

 

[Cael]

Max armour but no jump jets. I have a pilot with bulwark and let him just stay in position. When I had the gauss instead of the dual ac10s I had jump jets installed and it was good, threw some mlasers on, too, but heat starts to become an issue.

Jump jets are very important, but I keep removing them when heat management becomes annoying. You can't jump around firing multiple ppcs or large lasers. Even the autocannons and missiles add up.

I just found a leg mod that reduces DFA damage, so the grasshopper just became that much better.

Heat management during the 'mech design phase is a very important skill to learn in BTech. There are several design philosophies around it.

1. Design your 'mech so that if you fire all weapons and jump/run, you don't have much/any heat build-up. This generally means a non-energy weapon based 'mech design with all of its weapons in the same range bracket (an Enforecer is a good example of this design philosophy; both AC10 and Large Laser has the same range bracket, and it can fire both with minimal heat buildup, so it can get into range and just sits there going BANG! every round).

2. Design your 'mech with multiple redundant weapons so that if you lose a weapon, it doesn't matter as much. This means you are not going to be able to fire all weapons at the same time or you will go nova from heat overload. The Clan Blackhawk is the classic example of this. 12 ER medium lasers and nowhere near enough heat sinks to take the heat of all of them going off at the same time. At best, you can fire 7 without the heat scale going ballistic.

3. Design your 'mech around bracket fire. You basically have 2 brackets of fire: long and short. Your weapons and your heat management strategy are designed around these two brackets. You only fire weapons for the designated bracket at any one time and your heat would be minimal if you do so. The prime example is the Stalker. 20 heat sinks, 2 large lasers, 2 LRM10, 4 med laser, 2 SRM6. Long range: 2 LL + 2 LRM10 = 24 heat. Short-range: 4 ML + 2 SRM6 = 20 heat.

4. Put in whatever you like without regard for heat or damage or weapons brackets. Basically design to the rule of looking cool rather than practical considerations. This was the philosophy used for most of the stock BTech 'mechs, especially the earlier ones. You end up with some pretty hilarious crap like the Charger or the Shadow Hawk, and, of course, the classic Atlas.

 

[Cael]

I know stuff like this was bound to happen, but had to chuckle at this one

Spoiler

Dropping from height on to cliff sides. Yeah. Real good strategy there. I wonder what they would do as an encore? Do a combat drop over the Marianas Trench?

 

[Agesilaus]

Just salvaged a banshee!

Just saw its stats.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

How difficult would it be to create a Lore-Friendly Battletech Mod that makes the game more consistent with the established setting, and perhaps also makes some improvements to the economy and mech design? It seems that much of the relevant data is stored in editable files, so it should be possible.

 

[DeepOcean]

The good:

You gonna explode mechs on all kinds of places and that is fun, ice planets, desert planets, moons, I wouldn't say the graphics are top notch but it is very cool to look to your mechs on the surface of a moon and all kinds of planets.
The managing merc game while simplistic, is entertaining enough to keep you going as .
I'm not a Battle tech fan, didn't know the setting but the game did enough to make me interested on it.

The bad:
1 - Boy, they really failed into explaining the mechanics, the major culprit being the Ui, man, the Ui in this game isn't a show stopper but when you take the terrible performance of the game and the fact that you need to do needlessly clicking and going into superfluous menus over and over again, this has a grinding effect on your enjoyment as refitting you mechs, choosing contracts, buying weapons is way more complicated and time wasting than it should be.

Usually I don't care about Uis but there are really important information that is completely obscure and the Ui really overwhelm you with alot of useless noise that just wastes your time. You get used to it when you eventually learn it but it is an annoyance that didn't needed to be.

2 - Moving four mechs feels cumbersome right now, especially because many missions require you to walk alot and there are alot of animations that take too fucking long, after watching the jumpjet animation 100 times, it gets annoying that takes five seconds to move a mech and shoot to fire a weapon every single time, having a heavy mech on a lance will slow down even more.

3 - Jesus, the tutorial missions take forever and while you are at that, you have a very restricted options of mechs, it takes to long to get to the good stuff.

4 - There aren't that many variables affecting the combat, sometimes you have a feeling that what matters is just raw damage, beyond some very basic tactics like luring enemies over a direction for shots on the exposed backs, sensor locks and long range sniping, using the terrain for cover, you will get all you need to know right on the tutorial missions and then it is just using bigger guns to do the same things. This wouldn't be that much of a problem on a RPG but on a tactics game, this make things increasingly repetitive.

5 - The story is cliche as hell, not that Battletech is high literature or anything but I find really sad to see the really awesome intro about much more interesting Battletech stories to just be stuck saving some bland backwards empowered princess ass. The game tries to give you a motivation and by trying to give you a motivation, I mean making the good empower bland kamehameha princess good and the bad guys, BAD guys, THE END. I don't care much about this on a tactics game but it was one of the things that annoyed me.

6 - I would love to say the pronoun thing is harmless and just enjoy the game, trying to pretend the political issue isn't a problem like some are doing but I know how this sort of activism works and the "them" stuff is just the start, sjw activists really despise people with different political views and they will push and push until those sorts of things are on all fucking games, they have zero respect for conservatives, and I would be forced to witness this sort of stuff even more and more radical on the future. The fact that the pronoun removal mode was banned on Nexus is really worrisome.

I don't hate transexuals but when I play a game I want to be lost on a fantasy and not to be used as forced audience into identity politics that is only convenient to a tiny real world minority. Your political issues don't interest me and I completely lose the suspension of disbelief when I see this stuff. Instead of making me more sympathetic, this makes me doubly pissed off because someone is trying to shove their politics on my face and I really can't believe on the fantasy of the setting because I'm constantly reminded of this shithole we live on after every clumsy attempt of minority pandering.

Verdict:
5 Mehs of 10

I would lie if I said blowing up robots on the space isn't fun but there are MUCH better designed tactical games out there, this game made me feel XCOM was actually a hardcore tactics game and my enthusiasm was slowly eroded by a series of issues. Probably it is better to wait for a TON of patches, the directors edition and "the mods will save it", some sort of long war version of this game.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Depends on what you have in mind.

At the very least, it shouldn't be too difficult or time-consuming to correct the fluff relating to names, backgrounds, portraits, and so forth; things that don't affect gameplay but that matter to people familiar with the actual Battletech game and its setting.

It seems that data relating to mechs, weapons, prices, and so forth also exists in easily-editable files, so it would be possible for a more ambitious mod to improve game balance and the financial aspects of a small mercenary group that should be struggling to keep its head above the water, but this would require a considerable amount of testing and re-testing to ensure the changes have the desired effects.

 

[GrainWetski]

Nexus actually banned a mod that removed the pronoun nonsense? Seriously? Why is forcing this crap on people so important to them?

 

[Cael]

Depends on what you have in mind.

At the very least, it shouldn't be too difficult or time-consuming to correct the fluff relating to names, backgrounds, portraits, and so forth; things that don't affect gameplay but that matter to people familiar with the actual Battletech game and its setting.

It seems that data relating to mechs, weapons, prices, and so forth also exists in easily-editable files, so it would be possible for a more ambitious mod to improve game balance and the financial aspects of a small mercenary group that should be struggling to keep its head above the water, but this would require a considerable amount of testing and re-testing to ensure the changes have the desired effects.

Editing weapons values doesn't change a major problem with the game: The basic RULES are bad. When there is no reason to field entire groupings of 'mechs, you have a problem on your hands. When there doesn't seem to be facings in a game that has front and back armour, you have a problem on your hands. When you can get fully built, pristine 'mechs from salvage like manna from heaven, you have a problem on your hands. These things can't be fixed by a casual modder. You'd basically have to decompile the whole game, change entire sections and features wholesale and recompile the thing. And if you are going to do that, you might as well come up with a real BTech game instead of tinkering with this politically correct piece of slop.

And I haven't even gone into the performance issues yet.

 

[Cael]

Just salvaged a banshee!

Just saw its stats.

Stock variant Banshee? Yep. Fun stuff. One of the most notorious 'mechs in the game, on par with the Charger.

 

[Taurist]

The pronouns shit feels kind of like back in 2012ish when games would have "me gusta" faces and and other meme garbage in them.
"My pronouns are They/Them" is weird internet twitter shit. Its not something people actually do in real life, transexual or otherwise.

 

[Cael]

The pronouns shit feels kind of like back in 2012ish when games would have "me gusta" faces and and other meme garbage in them.
"My pronouns are They/Them" is weird internet twitter shit. Its not something people actually do in real life, transexual or otherwise.

Until they somehow find a way to get rid of that Y chromosome, it would be impossible to classify them as female, no matter how many bits they hack off.

 

[Ibbz]

For those who want to speed things up (especially when fighting Vehicles / Turrets) - try these settings changes, removes all the pointless pauses:

– Go to:
Steam folder\steamapps\common\BATTLETECH\BattleTech_Data\StreamingAssets\data\constants

– Change the following lines in “audioconstants.json” so that they look like this:

“AttackPreFireDuration” : 0,
“AttackAfterFireDelay” : 0,
“AttackAfterFireDuration” : 0,
“AttackAfterCompletionDuration” : 0
“audioFadeDuration” : 0,

 

[Hellraiser]

So are there difficulty settings in? How hard is the campaign?

 

[Stavrophore]

So are there difficulty settings in? How hard is the campaign?

Unlike most of the games including XCOM, campaign start easy and becomes harder and harder.

 

[ArchAngel]

So are there difficulty settings in? How hard is the campaign?

Unlike most of the games including XCOM, campaign start easy and becomes harder and harder.

From what I read it becomes harder only because of possible bugs. Seems missions that have reinforcements start with them already on the map and then both those and main units attack you at same time making them missions of 4 vs 8 or more.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

So are there difficulty settings in? How hard is the campaign?

all over the place.
you do a 2/5 without an injury, then do another 2/5 and are completely obliterated by overwhelming odds.

 

[veevoir]

So are there difficulty settings in? How hard is the campaign?

Unlike most of the games including XCOM, campaign start easy and becomes harder and harder.

From what I read it becomes harder only because of possible bugs. Seems missions that have reinforcements start with them already on the map and then both those and main units attack you at same time making them missions of 4 vs 8 or more.

Those are the fun missions. Especially since last time I had one - I got dropped right between assassination target+ defences and reinforces starting point. Contact on first move, fun times have been had.
First time I had to torso twist like mad and for a Jager tha single-handely held off the whole reinforcement lance - eject a pilot after she got 3 head hits (!).


Who would have thought, a bug that brings actual incline.

 

[Bohr]

The storm in a teacup over the lack of blonde hair options seems to be over, solved. HBS may not have had time to comment on the issue or their plans for more customisation options just yet, but for all the Codexers who want to play as 'Thranduil in a mech' a helpful individual proved you can make a blonde character in literally seconds

Spoiler

 

[fantadomat]

The storm in a teacup over the lack of blonde hair options seems to be over, solved. HBS may not have had time to comment on the issue or their plans for more customisation options just yet, but for all the Codexers who want to play as 'Thranduil in a mech' a helpful individual proved you can make a blonde character in literally seconds

Spoiler

This is blond,not that genetic mistake:

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

So are there difficulty settings in? How hard is the campaign?

Unlike most of the games including XCOM, campaign start easy and becomes harder and harder.

From what I read it becomes harder only because of possible bugs. Seems missions that have reinforcements start with them already on the map and then both those and main units attack you at same time making them missions of 4 vs 8 or more.

Those are the fun missions. Especially since last time I had one - I got dropped right between assassination target+ defences and reinforces starting point. Contact on first move, fun times have been had.
First time I had to torso twist like mad and for a Jager tha single-handely held off the whole reinforcement lance - eject a pilot after she got 3 head hits (!).


Who would have thought, a bug that brings actual incline.

Is it a bug though? I mean, it seems to happen with such intent, from my experience every time you have lurker reinforcements about they will move in to join the fight the moment any contact is made. I just find it hard to picture it being completely accidental.

Toughest one of these "oh shit that's pretty close deployment" things was this base defense contract where two lances of pirates deployed within firing range of the base in the second stage of the mission after the turrets were turned on and the vanguard was dealt with. Turned into quite a race since almost the entire enemy force focused solely on alpha striking the buildings, only had two of eight left at the end.

EDIT: But really, overall in regards to the level of difficulty the only real answer is really just "personal preference."