KickStarter BATTLETECH - turn-based mech combat from Harebrained Schemes

[MadMaxHellfire]

He's a little older, and had his eye surgically reconstructed, but still a badass.

I see your Kurt "The Hurt" Russell, and raise you a Ted "Boomer" Kaczynski.

this is my one and only teddy boomer u_u

 

[Agesilaus]

a grasshopper jumping on the back of a hunchback. what did you expect?

He wasn't behind me when he jumped at me.

 

[Urthor]

Am I exploiting by always using multi target for all of my moves, putting two shitty garbage weapons on my mechs and putting my two shittiest weapons on 2nd and 3rd target to take off 1 evasion pips? Because if that works as intended it sure as hell sounds like cheating

 

[KoolNoodles]

So far I'm getting serious "Mechcommander but TB" vibes, right down to some of the models for vehicles/buildings etc.(obviously vehicles should look the same). with updated graphics(that I wish were a little bit better) and strategic game play.

That's not a bad thing, it has been fun so far to do basic missions and collect salvage. But maybe that is what people should expect....

 

[Bohr]

Am I exploiting by always using multi target for all of my moves, putting two shitty garbage weapons on my mechs and putting my two shittiest weapons on 2nd and 3rd target to take off 1 evasion pips? Because if that works as intended it sure as hell sounds like cheating

Seen devs recommend that as a strategy on streams in and posts, the choice between using sensor lock to remove 2 on one target or multi-target to potentially remove 3 on different targets. Working as intended for now, I'd say, guess we'll see how mp pans out and whether they end up limiting the effectiveness of multi-target in some way (it also works with the "single weapon only" breaching shot, if using a single weapon on each target).

 

[KoolNoodles]

I do really appreciate the keyword wiki entries during dialogue. I only played every game(PC/Board/Card) and read a half dozen poorly written books, so I don't necessarily know who Stefan Amaris is. Thanks, game.

 

[Cael]

2. I'm not familiar with the tabletop rules so I'm probably wrong here, but aimed shots - called shots? - can only be done on knocked down mechs?

There is ability that uses morale that allows called shots on standing targets.

In TT rules, you can call shots on something if you have a targeting computer and it imposes a -3 penalty on the shot.

 

[Cael]

from the forums,

That's why the gorgeous intro I watch every time I boot the game is a gorgeous love letter to BattleTech lore nerds that you can't fully appreciate without knowing BattleTech.

I remember reading around here that the intro has some inconsistencies, something regarding an Atlas?

The Atlas in the opening is 200 years too early. The cinematic had them being built from the time of the crowning of the first Cameron when it was built from design specs laid down by Kerensky.

The entire cinematic is an ode to a time 300 years BEFORE the present (i.e., 3025). That ship crashing at the end? Likely from one of the massive fleet battles that occurred during the Kerensky's fight against the Usurper.

That said, the music is the one thing that is good about the game that I have seen so far. It is rightly praised.

 

[Cael]

He's a little older, and had his eye surgically reconstructed, but still a badass.

What's with the girly curly locks, dude?

 

[Cael]

a grasshopper jumping on the back of a hunchback. what did you expect?

A Grasshopper does (weight/10 x 3; rounded up) damage to its target on a successful DFA and requires a Piloting roll. Both pilots then do a Piloting roll to see if they fall over.

There is no way a Grasshopper could core a Hunchback even if all damage went to the CT. A Hunchback has 16 points of internal structure and more than 5 points of armour even in the back.

Oh, you mean HBS FUCKED UP the armour and structure and damage ratings? Well, blow me down. Colour me unsurprised.

 

[fantadomat]

More sim game retardation: By default, if your mechs are destroyed, they can be repaired and limbs replaced even if they are cored out. You can change this to allow your mechs to be destroyed at whatever probability you define, but if they are destroyed they are completely gone without a trace. Even though if you core out an enemy mech, you at least get one mech part as salvage.

Should't be possible to recreate your mech if you have the dosh?

 

[Cael]

More sim game retardation: By default, if your mechs are destroyed, they can be repaired and limbs replaced even if they are cored out. You can change this to allow your mechs to be destroyed at whatever probability you define, but if they are destroyed they are completely gone without a trace. Even though if you core out an enemy mech, you at least get one mech part as salvage.

Should't be possible to recreate your mech if you have the dosh?

You can simply buy another from the manufacturer, assuming they have stock and are willing to sell to you (some of them are government owned).

 

[Kalarion]

I've gotten the Argo and started taking bigger contracts.

Tldr; still enjoying it, stuff that was merely irritating at first is now aneurysm-inducing.

GOOD
- combat is holding up nicely. I've actually crowed out loud a couple times, generally with a lucky headshot or when I unload an alpha that blasts apart both torsos. The initiative system is fun and easy to manipulate. Lights are just not a good investment until you have super high Piloting... higher Pilot skill increases the max number of Evasion pips you can have, which makes super-fast high pilot 'mechs awesome for certain jobs (spotting, hit and run back-strikes etc). Others have touched on this briefly.
- I'm having a blast with the mech bay. Customizing my mechs is so satisfying! I already have my endgame lance in mind, I'm working on making approximations of it with what I've got. This has the pleasant side effect of making me greatly anticipate salvaging new mechs. It was enormously satisfying to headshot the Quickdraw during the Argo mission; I ended up getting both the Centurion and the Quickdraw. Huzzah!

BAD
- the AI is not very smart. I don't have too much of an issue with this in most cases... I just take it as a given that AI is sketchy in TBS games. On one memorable occasion I was forced to rush to the aid of M'Lady Arano

, who charged with her lone fucking Kintaro into an enemy lance that included a Jaegermech and Trebuchet. Did I mention I was still a turn and a half of sprinting/jumping away when she did it? And of course her survival became a primary mission objective. That was upsetting.

UGLY
- the UI has become the single most frustrating gameplay element for me. It is absolutely, jaw-droppingly terrible. Why can't I buy stacks of items (ammo for instance)? Why does the upfront stat display feature mostly useless information, across the board? News flash HBS: I don't give a shit about some retarded bar graphs to display power level or whatever the hell. I want the numbers. The numbers are what tell me how I want to set everything up! When I look at a given weapon, I want to see: weight, critical slot space, HEAT, DAMAGE, RANGE. Who the fuck cares who the manufacturer is?! When I look at 'mechs in the bay or when setting up a drop, I want to see a loadout list of every weapon, how much ammo it has available at full load, and its location. I don't want to have to pore over the internal structure to figure out what should be made immediately available to me! To HBS's (partial) credit most of the information I desire is technically available... it's just hidden behind popups that take 5 seconds of mouseover to load, and takes some searching within the relevant window to find. There is soooooooo much more to complain about on this front. UI alone could probably take up a good half dozen bullet points.
- the story is still shit. In fairness I think that is partially because I'm just older. It's possible that if I played this game when I was... say... 16 or so, I would have been fine with or enjoyed it. But now, every time someone drops some retarded one-liner or one of the main NPCs makes some speech that is supposed to be a stirring call to righteous action all that goes through my head is "oh shut the fuck up you retards". I feel zero investment in this game's cause or its characters. They're teenage fantasy cardboard cutout caricatures of the virtuousness and/or nobility they're attempting to represent.
- the script is actually getting worse. Did Kevin write this stuff? Because I'm seeing a lot of those one-word "sentences" (for example: "We will accomplish this. Together!") that pop up so frequently in his tweets and interactions with people (I admit this may be more of a personal irritation, it drives me bonkers). The italics and caps-locks keep rolling in at a steady pace as well. Ugh.
- system utilization. Fuck you HBS, seriously. 5+ minutes each to load two of the story missions. 3+ minutes to shut the game down. To shut the game down! Damage and reports of effects not syncing correctly in fights due to choppy performance. The list goes on. Absolutely unforgivable imo. That dev admitting a couple posts earlier that people with multiple cores and lower speeds per core were going to get shit on was just icing on the shit sandwich. If I hadn't gotten my copy through backing the Kickstarter I would be seriously considering demanding a refund and wait until the game is in a playable state. I cannot emphasize enough how pathetically this game performs, it is a disgrace to HBS.

I can see where I am going to be craving more/bigger scope-wise moving forward. I'm trying very hard to give impressions of what is in front of me (the game as it's actually being played) for now, I'll try to touch more on what I'd like to see in future installments once I'm significantly closer to winning the campaign.

 

[KoolNoodles]

He's a little older, and had his eye surgically reconstructed, but still a badass.

What's with the girly curly locks, dude?

How dare you?

 

[Cael]

- the script is actually getting worse. Did Kevin write this stuff? Because I'm seeing a lot of those one-word "sentences" (for example: "We will accomplish this. Together!") that pop up so frequently in his tweets and interactions with people (I admit this may be more of a personal irritation, it drives me bonkers). The italics and caps-locks keep rolling in at a steady pace as well. Ugh.

Kevin is a caricature. A real life, living, breathing caricature. The sad part is, he is a caricature of the very thing he wants people to respect: gender equality.

He THINKS he is showing his feminine, girly side by taking up all of the mannerisms of the stereotypical little girl. Using words like "icky", the simpering, the one-word sentences that you spoke about (which, not surprisingly, happens quite often in made-for-2-year-olds cartoons like My Little Pony and Dora the Explorer), the misandrist outbursts, the childish hate-filled drawings (kid, I gave up drawing nasty things about people I hate by the time I was 7). But what he is actually doing is merely cementing the notion that he is an immature manchild brat who was given a bullhorn and a platform to spew his childishness, and his joining of the gender issues bandwagon is not based on what he is but what he THINKS would get him popularity.

It is pretty sickening to see him AND HIS ILK carry on and be given so much time on the media, when real homosexuals who face real discriminations and other problems are quietly trying to live their life and find acceptance for the last 30-50 years. Acceptance that, I might add, was NEVER automatically extended to people of a different background (be it ethnic, cultural, national, religious or sexual orientation) as the sjws demand but are generally EARNED on an individual basis. By doing what he does, he is driving the wedge between the different genders. He and his kind are the ones widening and prolonging the discrimination. Like all sjw causes, the problem is made far worse by the sjws.

Give Kevin's history and his twits, people buying this HBS XCom clone should have KNOWN the level of childishness that would be inherent in the script and dialog. That is EXACTLY how he behaves and how he writes. I shudder to think what he is like in real life when he actually has to talk to real people. While I won't punch him in the mouth for going all Rainbow Brite on me, I would probably have more than a few withering retorts that would send him crying to his safe space at how much of a meanie I am.



EDIT:

... aneurysm-inducing.

Dude, stop playing the game. For the sake of your health.

 

[Cael]

He's a little older, and had his eye surgically reconstructed, but still a badass.

What's with the girly curly locks, dude?

How dare you?

Dude, Plissen has manly locks. The one in the HBS game? Looks more like:

 

[Wizzy]

Was anyone actually surprised about HBS throwing the pronoun stuff in? They were doing that shit since Hong Kong.

As an aside, I don't think most people have a problem with trannies, but the way progressives go about them with their self-righteous preaching. Compared to the notable mentions about class issues and poverty (which I think identity politics is deliberately trying to get people not to be focused on), the pronoun stuff is little more than lip service, you pick your whatever and it's never mentioned again.

For the game itself it's fine for me so far. Like others I supported them because I want my damn Battletech fix. I had performance issues as well but I turned on VSync which is off by default, the gameplay has been mostly smooth since then.


Stefan Amaris was basically the "Hitler" of the Battletech universe. He ruled a shithole country, the Rimworld Republic, in the periphery west of the Inner Sphere. One day he realized the prince of the Star League was lonely and had no friends, so he was easy to manipulate. He befriended him and got him to grant him many favors like having the guard increasingly staffed by Amaris's own men. When the time was right Amaris killed the prince and proclaimed himself emperor. Kerensky, the leader of the Star League Defense Force, fought a brutal war with Amaris's forces that lasted years until Amaris was killed and his Rimworld Republic was destroyed.

After the great houses started bickering over who gets to rule the star league, the disgusted Kerensky took most of his fleet and fled north of the Inner Sphere into deep space, which later became the Clans. If you need to know battletech lore, that's the only real important one as it left the universe in its current state.

 

[J_C]

Oh boy, reading these last couple of pages after just spending 40 euro

And damn, down to 62% rating on Steam. Brutal.

I think it'll be a solid game, especially with a few tweaks.

But uhhh.. *ahem* I think you mean UP to 62%.

It's already at 71% and Mostly Positive. They just needed a little time until the crybaby retards who don't even know what kind of game is this clear out.

 

[Bohr]

 

[boobio]

There is literally nothing "SJW" after the first 2-3 missions, apart from the famous "THEY" that triggers all the incels.
I guess the women are not porn stars and this is an issue now?
They are not ugly for sure though, what a load of bullshit

*Oh the one claiming its "sjw" is the famous bulgarian edgelord. Whatever

Well I found a small nugget of sjw but it is probably just an anomaly.

https://www.youtube.com/c/DiversityComics

 

[Bohr]

They ended up changing that after people questioned the link

 

[Cael]

It's already at 71% and Mostly Positive. They just needed a little time until the crybaby retards who don't even know what kind of game is this clear out.

Sounds suspiciously like the greenies wanting the old folks to die off so that the young generation can get on with taking care of the world that the old folks wrecked.

Sjws have form.

 

[lightbane]

What fiasco? That one only exists in the head of few "special cases".

No special cases are people that see SJW plots everywhere and make bold shitty claims they cannot prove.

Uuh, have you been ignoring the dozens of points provided so far? The pronoun selector? The stuff like the "trans-muslim woman with over 900+ degrees" screenshnot at the steam webpage?
For the 'real' issues, so far people here and there have been saying this is a beta released when it shouldn't have, with frequent crashes (which can fuck up your save due "lol ironman mode"), poor optimization, poorly explained or outright barely-functional mechanics, a mediocre interface that doesn't always tell you what you should know, useless mech categories (aka most light mechs, for reasons), forced DRM when the fans were told otherwise, etc.

The point is that this buggy game should have been released three months later, not right now and patch it over time.

Was taking a lot of screenshots for lp, but turned out the codex already has one.

Go ahead! That lp was abandoned and yours would be welcome, if only to understand how the interface works, which seems a bit of a mess to me.


As for PP, the few gameplay videos look cool so far, but I'm still waiting for more data about the Geoscape and research topics. How will the latter work? Hire and shoehorn as many dudes in labcoats in a lab as you can, or do you have to win them in special missions?

 

[ArchAngel]

What fiasco? That one only exists in the head of few "special cases".

No special cases are people that see SJW plots everywhere and make bold shitty claims they cannot prove.

Uuh, have you been ignoring the dozens of points provided so far? The pronoun selector? The stuff like the "trans-muslim woman with over 900+ degrees" screenshnot at the steam webpage?
For the 'real' issues, so far people here and there have been saying this is a beta released when it shouldn't have, with frequent crashes (which can fuck up your save due "lol ironman mode"), poor optimization, poorly explained or outright barely-functional mechanics, a mediocre interface that doesn't always tell you what you should know, useless mech categories (aka most light mechs, for reasons), forced DRM when the fans were told otherwise, etc.

The point is that this buggy game should have been released three months later, not right now and patch it over time.

It is still not a fiasco. Not even close based on steam sales.
And no, people like you try to push anti SJW agenda as main reason it is bad. Except for the pronoun selector there is nothing SJW in the game that I have seen.
Does that "muslim" woman talk about her religion in a agenda pushing way or do people just start bashing because of her clothes and skin color? If later that makes those people retards.
Also what trans are you talking about? Seeing SJW plots that don't exist again? Missed your talk with your shrink today?

As for degree part, so you are saying it is impossible to have a really smart person in the game? It is against lore of battletech to have really smart people? I don't understand your point, I guess I am not as "smart" as you LOL.

As for technical issues, all games have those on release and they will cost HBS some sales. It does not excuse this anti SJW craze going around.

 

[lightbane]

And no, people like you try to push anti SJW agenda as main reason it is bad. Except for the pronoun selector there is nothing SJW in the game that I have seen.

Does that "muslim" woman talk about her religion in a agenda pushing way or do people just start bashing because of her clothes and skin color? If later that makes those people retards.

So, do you think this is just a totally normal character that DOES NOT exist just to make an unsubtle point then?

Spoiler

As for degree part, so you are saying it is impossible to have a really smart person in the game? It is against lore of battletech to have really smart people? I don't understand your point, I guess I am not as "smart" as you LOL.

Dude, I never said that. Also, you conveniently ignored that I never said the SJW thing were the main problems of the game, the technical fuck-ups, the devs' moves to censor any criticism instead of addressing them and mediocre gameplay are. On that we agree.

As for technical issues, all games have those on release and they will cost HBS some sales.

No, they shouldn't. Long before releasing games in an unfinished state was made a thing, the least devs ensured to do was to avoid game-killing bugs like crashes that can fuck up saves. Also, check this topic for some info about the game's problems that have nothing to do about SJW or anything, such as the lack of a manual to explain everything in detail. Or the enforced DRM thing for playing in multiplayer:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ombat-from-harebrained-schemes.99331/page-120