BattleTech - General Discussion

Had my first run in with that reinforcements bug I guess. Funny that I don't believe I've had that before and, of course after seeing it in that dev note list, I get it on first contract of the day lol I figured I had no chance when all eight of them were coming at me at the same time, before I have even engaged the first one but thought I'd give it shot. A good simulation of some proper fisticuffs, push my team to the limit and see what they can do. It certainly was a bloodbath but I'm pleased with how they did under the circumstances.

Day 454 I finally convinced myself to do the next story mission (Panzyr) and I rolled over that one. Didn't lose a single turret and wiped out every unit with 6 rounds to spare. I've also got a handful of new machinery to play with: Completed a Kintaro ("Kirin"), a Wolverine, a Hunchback, a Dragon, and a Thunderbolt ("Conduit"). The Kintaro has done well enough as a front line alternative to the Centurion. I've set mine up with a handful of ++ gear including SRMs and other goodies. It helps push fools over.

@herrheimlich Yea those crazy SRM carriers. I love watching that and it's also terrifying. My goal is a Mech with that.

Waiting for the first patch before I throw down money for this. Really looking forward to it though!

Just finished the game. Probably gonna dick around a little bit more for a day or two making a ridiculous lance and taking them out for ice cream occasionally.

@tennmuerti: Curious questions: How many fully operational Mechs and pilots were you using by the end? And what is your day count at? I'm assuming I am going through the game at a glacial pace but it feels alright to me. And pilot numbers I've wondered because I guess if you have two separate Lances up to spec with pilots, you should be able to run more missions with even less down time, hopefully offsetting all that extra monthly salary cost.

The problem I still see in that is I pretty much only ever get two--maybe three contracts at a single planet ever and the other one or two involve travel. And of those two local contracts, I usually only feel comfortable with the difficulty on one of them. I know it says getting your Reputation up gets you better contracts, but does it get you a higher quantity? I'd be potentially making much more money if I wasn't spending 19 days traveling every one or two missions.

And I've wondered about leveling up lower ranked mercs you hire on. I see you can get the training but that seems like hardly anything. Do you just fly back to a low level area and complete contracts with overpowered equipment? Kinda sounds fun.

Is there any penalty for letting time pass other than your monthly expenses? Will i miss contracts or missions or something?

I feel weird passing lots of time to get a favorite mech repaired or for a pilot to heal.

@seikenfreak:

For the first half of the game I stuck to about 6 pilots and 6 mechs. Which feels basically like the bare minimum you need to keep doing missions one after another while still being able to take some chip damage on both. But straddling that line does mean that on a rare occasion you will get pushed into one too many injuries or one too many repairs needed. At least it was with the way i played it. Others might need a bigger buffer. I only really did it because i was stingy with money and wanted to spend as little as possible while simultaneously paying more upkeep for a morale increase every month until it was near cap. It allowed me to always be upgrading the argo, pay out a bonus and go for more salvage.

Eventually tho you start having more money then you need, so getting a 7th and 8th pilot is just fine. But also cockpits become more frequent so you're generally getting way less injuries. Also I did put off a second mech bay a bit too much (its has a hefty upkeep cost) eventually it was something i felt was important to get if i wanted to keep 1-2 mechs constantly getting refitted plus spares. And with 8 mechs I felt it was more then was ever needed. For my style of play anyway, if someone is having more frequent internal mech damage and need for repairs, more mechs would be a logical thing to maintain.

Yeah you get 2-3 contracts per planet before needing to travel again, it really pays to try doing them all. This might be guesswork but my gut feeling is that the contracts at the top expire sooner, and the new ones come in from the bottom and there fore stay longer, so eventually i started picking the top ones to do first and it seemed like it enabled me to on average do more per planet with less contracts expiring. That's not definitive info by any means tho.

Contracts locked behind reputation do tend to be better i think and salvage terms are usually more generous i think. Again not 100% sure of that, just how it seems. It does gets you a higher quantity of contracts, which is why you can do 2-3 contracts per planet sometimes rather then 1-2.

Lower ranked mercs i leveled up same way I normally do it in Xcom games, stick one or two of them with the elite squad that you know can handle the situation you're heading in in the mechs they're in. So i just took them on missions that were slightly lower ranked at places i was at anyway. Aside from the very start of the game i didn't really feel the need to go back to lower difficulty areas to grind up stuff, normal regions sufficed for that. PS: your merc rating gradually increases the overall difficulty of all systems regardless of their location.

My final day count on the last mission save was 922 days. A good chunk of it was making occasional trips to Brinton and back towards the end, and its a long trip about 40-50 days altogether. It's near where the campaign takes place, but has a higher difficulty rating and better shops, I used it a lot to farm up some assault mechs.

@mikemcn: Contracts do expire eventually after a while. So contracts might disappear while you're waiting for long repair or heals. Basic repairs without part or limb replacement are very quick tho, 1 day is usually not enough for anything to expire unless you're unlucky. Aside from that just the monthly expenses.

Finished what I imagine is the first real "story" mission and managed to get most of my mechs beat the hell up thanks to my own dumb planning and dubious experimentation... which I guess is my way of saying that I think this game seems kinda rad. I wish the animation speed was faster, I wish the game's tutorialization wasn't absolute trash (it basically goes as far as teaching you the basic controls before dumping loads and loads of info boxes without necessarily contextualizing why you'd want to put a bunch of autocannons on your mech versus lasers versus missiles, or how you can salvage more parts from a mech if you take out its legs versus its torso) but as a turn-based MechsCOM, it's definitely scratching that itch.

I can see why they didn't put the more detailed stuff in a tutorial per say, though they kinda explain most of it if you talk to the characters in their respective areas (it says Tutorial next to it), but they don't have much of a tutorial for general combat concepts except move and shoot. I'm not sure how they would even tutorialize a lot of it though. People would just complain the tutorial goes on forever probably. I was able to read through everything in not much time.

@seikenfreak: Ha! I say fight fire with fire! I stripped a Shadowhawk of everything including armor. Shoved a lrm 20, 15 and 5 with 5 bundles of lrm ammo, 2 heat sinks and 2 jump jets. Put in a pilot with invested tactician points and also believe in a higher power hoping that no one will look their way. So far it has worked wonders for me. Worked for me in Mechwarrior and works for me in this game as well! LRM BOATS FOR LIFE!

God the King Crab is such a sexy mech. mmmmm

Just wanna look at it all day long. I know they imported the base models (and the hardpoints being reflected on models system) from MWO and boy did those guys do a good job. Basically took one of the most awkward and hilarious looking mechs in the franchise and turned it into complete badassery. Makes me wish this game had a bit more diverse variety in models and less just blocky variation on a humanoid, still guess it comes with the time period and it's good knowing there's more potential variety down the road.

Are certain Mechs only in specific sections of the map? Under different ruling bodies? I know that is how it is in the lore, just wondering about the game though. Certain Mechs I've seen very rarely or only once, such as the Black Knight. I wanted to build a Jagermech but other than once in that story mission and another one around then, never seen it since.

I do like the idea of different Houses/groups use certain Mechs. I've gotta catch'em all.

@seikenfreak: Doesn't seem that way. It's just very random what you see more frequently, from my own game play and from what I've seen people on streams get first and last. And i feel like i've seen all mechs appear in the base campaign territory at this point.

I've heard people talk about cockpit upgrades and such. Are they gated by a story mission? I ask because I'm yet to find a planet selling anything other than heat sinks and jump jets. Maybe I'm in the wrong area of space haha.

@hayt: I think they might be gated behind contracts of a certain skull level. I definitely don't remember seeing gyros and cockpit mods until I started doing 3 skull and higher missions. Or it could all have been RNG.

This is pretty much correct. All gear has rarity/tier rating values associated with it. So some of it you will only start seeing on harder missions or in shops of planets with higher rating. And as you do missions and story missions your Merc Board rating will increase and raise the overall skull rating of every system as well, thus making the rarer items more common to find or salvage in general.

It is possible to deliberately seek out above average skull rated systems ahead of time and to go there to do mission and buy gear.

The amount and chances of higher rarity gear in shops is also affected by the systems tags, stuff like Rich or Black Market, or Former Star League presence are likely to have better stuff for example, and bigger selections. While Poor planets and such will have very little to sell. You can mouse over these tags to get a general idea.

Which is why at some point I noticed a system like Brinton for example, it has a lot of the good tags, has a higher skull rating then others in around the zone the campaign takes place, and more importantly is relatively close, ie it's not deep in Davion territory for example. It still takes a hefty amount of time for a trip tho, so expect upkeep payments even with an upgraded engine.

I'm playing at a glacial pace and still figuring out how to spec out my pilots. If I take someone down the Gunnery/Tactics paths, does that mean I'll be able to Sensor Lock two different targets once I get the first skill in each tree? I'm assuming not, but that seems AMAZING if I can do it.

ok, thanks!

@asmo917: Nope, you cannot sensor lock multiple targets with one pilot. Two separate skills.

I have now seen nonsense in it's purest form.

I know that with all games that have an element of RNG to them that nonsense happens. I've played both new XCOMs and I've missed my fair share of 90+% shots.

But I have never, NEVER seen anything like a hunchback with both arms blown off run up to my character (who is in a dragon, by the way), and manage to MELEE OFF MY HEAD IN A SINGLE SHOT! No previous damage to the head. I didn't even know that melee COULD hit the head. Now my main character is on the shelf for 120 days.

I...I...I don't know what to say.

That will happen, I think I had a light mech at full health lose both it's legs after attempting a death from above.

It was a real bummer =(

Lol yeaaa.. I miss so many 95% shots, it's silly. I know I've missed 95% melee attacks against downed Mechs too. That should be 100%.

Goes both ways of course. I tried a DFA yesterday against a pretty fresh enemy Mech. I don't usually do DFAs. Seems I got a headshot on this sucker though and his ass was super dead.

The threads been quiet for a little bit. I'm still chugging. Day 750 ish. Just started getting into the heavy heavy and assault mechs.

The tonnage/difficulty rating continues to perplex me. I think it should be a linear scale based on the tonnage of enemies you'll fight against, but it just seems to be.. a scale of survivable to "don't even bother". After I got some new big fancy mechs, putting me at 4.5 tonnage rating I guess? I wanted to give them a test run so I picked a 2.5 rated assassination contract I believe. They throw 9 mechs and 1 vehicle at me kinda simultaneously. Mostly heavy stuff. I lost an arm and side torso on a 85T mech and a number of other injuries and structure damage across my Lance. Super annoying. And the payout wasn't particularly big either (or it didn't seem crazy to me) so that didn't throw any red flags.

So at this point: Skull rating is purely a scale of difficulty and the enemies quantity/weight you fight scale based on gameplay progression perhaps, though I haven't tried bringing a light lance into a 1 skull rated contract since the beginning. It could generate your opponents based on the tonnage you bring for all I know.

• 1 Skull = Easy
• 2 Skull = Medium
• 3 Skull = Hard
• 4 Skull = Very Hard
• 5 Skull = Probably impossible. Maybe this is equivalent to an end game dungeon, intended for a huge tonnage of well coordinated Lances equipped with mostly "+++" gear. That's my best guess. Never tried one but watched a video of a dude with 40 million in the bank, Mechs kitted out the wazoo, and he didn't want to bother with a 5.

Game is still friggin awesome though. I love finding videos of people playing through story mission fights in particular. Different setups people use or hearing their mental play by play of how/why they want to do something. Equally frustrating is when you watch someone carelessly fumble their way through the game (like still not knowing you can right click a mech to see it's damage/weapon info even after being sort deep in) and somehow destroy every fight and mission with ease, nail all the accidental head shots, incapacitate all the pilots etc. Like some kinda drunken monkey gameplay style lol

RIP Glitch. She was one of my highest XP MechWarriors but even that can't save you from being knocked over and having a hunchback do a called shot with 9 medium lasers. Her CT blew up and nothing else. Even having 5 health couldn't save her from that one.

Only pro is her replacement "Spooky" has a cool Russian accent.

The thing is that they do not report the percentage accurately, anything above 50% to hit will show you a worse percentage than what it actually is (will show 95% when it really is something like 98%) and vice versa. But you shoot so many weapons, that by the end game it does not really matter, as enough will hit to take them down.

Also the skull rating is really just about expected tonnage both on what you are expected to face and what you should bring. I was always bringing as much as I could while in the mid game to save on repairs. There is no reason in this game to not bring your biggest mechs on every mission you can, since the only extra operating costs are repairs. That means you are only gimping yourself if you decide to bring lower tonnage than what you can bring out, the only reason not to bring all of your biggest mechs is if you need to fill a certain role that your other chassis would not work for.

Where's the Quick Look?

May not happen at this point. I'm not exactly sure why the game isn't absorbing Vinny, as it seems right up his alley, but I'd hazard a guess it's because of his lack of free time. I assume Austin has been doing his part in telling Vinny to play it. No doubt Abby would say it looks boring and wouldn't be too enthusiastic about recording it. And I'm surprised I haven't heard someone suggest it to Jason either. He likes the Front Mission games and those are much more inline with BattleTech than they are with Gundam IMO. I was only made aware of Front Mission a couple years ago, tried out the PS1 game and absolutely loved it. Feels and looks very similar to this.

Extra info: I've discovered the ease at which you can mod/tweak this game. The files are all pretty accessible and you're free to adjust seemingly anything with Notepad. I don't have any interest in cheating but I've made two adjustments to mine so far: (Later game Mech spoiler stuff) I had a Double Heatsink get crit/destroyed on one of my SLDF Mechs and came to find out it's impossible to find and replace. With a minor tweak I believe I made them purchasable, rare, expensive, and only shows up in certain locations with special characteristics? So if I ever do stumble upon one, I could try and replace it. Assuming I adjusted the files correctly.

The other thing I tried was changing the scale of the Mechs. I guess people more nerdy than I compared the scale of the stuff in the game vs BattleTech information and found that everything is much too big. I was thinking everything looked a little too big myself. There is a line that scales the Mech models on the battlefield (not the vehicles though I guess). By default it's set to 1.25, 0.50 is supposedly accurate but looks a little weird with the melee or movement animations, so I put mine at 0.75 and I'm happy with it. Nothing looks too out of whack, my Mechs can actually hide in the trees, they look more appropriate next to structures and such, and it makes the whole map look bigger.

I wish I knew anything about programming, Unity, or any of this stuff because I'd love to change other things like sound. I wish the MG didn't sound like a little toy pew-pew-pew and instead like an actual heavy machine gun. I would add some kind of Heavy Machine Gun gatling-gun looking armament with the sound of an A10 Warthog, but you'd also have to somehow make the graphics to display it on the mechs as well. I'd love to try and add my own pilots with unique voice overs.

People are doing all sorts of crazy stuff like this already, adding all manner of things to the game but I'm still on my first playthrough so I don't want to break anything or mess with what the developers intended.

As far as I know nothing like this has been added by modders yet, they are only able to do things like edit existing values of parts and some very limited custom mech stuff by doing part swapping and value editing. This game is not mod friendly.

Lots of people sound like they are playing it 'slow', so to speak. I feel the need to point out, that the story missions are not overly hard (though their setup can end up surprising you, so there ends up being a challenge to that), and you can play at your own pace after ending the campaign.

@dgtlty: There's one coming this weekend. Pretty safe to say it'll be a Vinny joint since the game has been talked about only on the Beastcast.

The story missions are not hard if you have a good lance, but then there is always that smithon mission with the ammo crates.

@sgtexo: I get the feeling that most of those sentiments are because people either don't bring enough indirect fire, or they are reluctant to blow up the ammo crates.

@sgtexo: That one's actually not too bad if you a) blow up the crate right in front of you to take out the two turrets and b) resign yourself to killing only one or even none of the ammo trucks. With that done, you're able to hold back in a defensible position. Chasing the ammo trucks is just a good way to get deaded.

I took a break from the game right before the last mission. I wanted to get a second assault mech up and was having trouble finding missions that had them - I completed a 5 skull mission that only had a Stalker, then ran a 4 star expecting nothing and ended up with 3 assaults in reinforcements, including a King Crab that tore me apart. Bailed on the mission and I'll come back to it sooner or later, just need to let time heal that annoyance.

@sgtexo: That mission is bullshit if your under-geared fuck the convoy just ignore it and hope those ammo crates do enough damage to the enemy lances and then just taunt them back to your starting spot. that's how i won but man fuck that mission i almost uninstalled the game because of that bullshit.

Just blow up the crates. 15% bonus C-bills is not worth making that mission harder by saving 6 ammo crates.

Your lance makeup also helps of course. Doing it on my second play through, which I'm treating as an ironman run, and two heavies and an lrm10/15 on every 'mech made it a relatively easy mission.

Alternatively, sprinting your entire lance towards the upper left corner where the trucks are driving towards also helps make combat more manageable by cutting line of sight from the turrets and forcing the enemy to stretch out his line as the spider, locust and firestarter runs well ahead of the enforcer, griffin and dragon. (Remember that the AI usually won't sprint it has you at least on sensors.)

Wonder if they'll get a special guest onto the Battletech quicklook. The game's very much a Vinny, Dave Snyder, Drew, Austin sort of affair. I don't want to sit through 40 minutes of explaining why a heatsink makes things cooler...

Been watching Austin and Rob play this on Youtube. Was on the border on this one, but come the next big patch, I'll for sure pick this up.

Anybody playing this on a steam controller or xpadder etc? Seems to control like xcom which was perfect for controller, any tab lock on options etc? I use steam controller for every game i cant use a pad on as sitting with a mouse is uncomfortable and makes me feel like i am working and not playing lol.

@oursin_360: I have used the Steam Controller. There's a part of Battletech that makes it seem incredibly appropriate. There are a few things it is inconvenient for (untoggling weapons comes to mind), some things can't be ENTER keyed, and you definitely need to bind TAB, but it's good.

I'm taking the story slow or cautiously because, in general, the beginning of the game seemed very hard. That put me into the prepper mindset I guess. I also just enjoy playing the game and collecting Mechs so it doesn't feel like there is a reason to rush.

Having said that, the last few days I've started to focus on the story again. I've got around a 370 ton drop tonnage and a handful of Assault mechs to choose from. There are still a few Assault mechs I want that I hardly ever see so I'm sort of hoping completing more story missions will make Assault mechs spawn more frequently. I'm also sitting on 14 million C-Bills and the Argo fully upgraded minus the last Med and Mech Bays just because they don't seem necessary. Try to keep my monthly rate down at 550k now, and maybe in the end game when I've got more money than I know what to do with, I'll turn those on.

Even with all this gear, the story missions don't feel like a cake walk to me. Panzyr Defense I failed on first try and I had zero chance to clear one of the bonus objectives when I did it again. The one I did last night, Extraction, was quite a bit more than I expected. I came out of it in great shape to my amazement but I'd still say I was on edge the entire time. It feels more like I am better at the game, making better moment to moment threat assessments and positioning, and less that the game is becoming easy. At this point, losing certain equipment adds another layer of fear. At any moment I could potentially have a Mech getting barraged by a ton of missiles and ACs that knock me down and then ten other Mechs and vehicles focus target it. The AI is cruel like that.

And the issue with Smithon is if you want the trucks, which I did lol Still the only mission where I've had to eject a pilot because both torsos had been blown off.

I hope they got Austin for it tbh

And maybe even Rob, so that they can do a cross-over with their mecha-mondays.

I've been playing this a few hours a night. Had a great mission earlier today. I unlocked the final mission but wanted to gear up a full lance of assault-class before I wrap up. Tried a 4.5-skull mission with a scary description. Run into a Banshee pretty quick, and before I can move reinforcements show up on the side.

Reinforcements are an Awesome, 2 Highlanders and another Banshee. I'm rocking a Highlander, Stalker, Quickdraw and Thunderbolt. I didn't like my chances, but decided to play.

My Stalker got hit very hard, very fast. Lost left torso and all armor on central torso. Took a headshot that left the head with 15 armor. Since it was about to die, I decided to try something new: I jumped my quickdraw behind the Awesome and did a back-armor alpha-strike. It worked!

It was still a tough fight after that which largely came down to managing heat better than the AI, but I pulled it off without losing any mechs and only a few weapons on the Stalker. I'll probably finish the story missions this weekend, and I tend not to stick with games like this much further than that. I've had fun with it. I'm not sure I can go back to New-XCOM after this, but hoping Phoenix Point might offer enough innovations like this one to make me happy.

So I haven't been reloading my save if missions go bad so when I got to Smithon I was glad I fucked it up so badly that I go a game over so I didn't have to live with my mistakes. I over extended myself trying to get the ammo truck then pulled back without destroying the LRM turrets so It was just a stability damage party with everyone falling down and getting their arms blown off. I ejected two of my mechwarriors and kept my mech commander fighting on but he got cored ending that shit show. Second time around I just totally ignored the trucks and we had a much better time.

Finished up the story missions last night. Around day 1100 I think. I've got 38 Mech types on hand (not including duplicates.) For most of the game I operated with the original four pilots (all still alive) but eventually picked up two more (two kickstarter pilots, "Flatline" & "Corsair"). I did save scum two or three times I think when super dumb stuff happened, like my commander in an Assault mech being headshotted by an AC20 right when the fight started. My commander has the highest Mech kill count @ 120 and is the only pilot I've had to eject. Steam showing 161 hours played but I've left it running in the background a lot so I'd guess my play time is around 60-100 hours of enjoyment? Well worth the money.

Pictured is the Lance I typically ran towards the end. From left to right: "Scutula" Highlander, "Bulkhead" Banshee, "Karkinos" King Crab, and "Rovinare" Battlemaster.

After finishing the story though, I'm left thinking.. What now? Not feeling a strong motivation. I've got plenty of money. MRB at 698. Sitting on a pile of wicked Mechs. There are a couple I don't have complete. There seems to be a bunch of special gear in the game that I've never seen but I'm not sure what reason there is to get it really. I can do 4-5 skull rating missions okay. I could restart using one of these mod packs but I'm not really interested in making the game any harder than it already was. It'd be nice if there was more to explore or new stuff to see in the end game. Maybe a different or bigger ship or dropship?

Excellent game though. Despite it's minor technical and design flaws, I love it and I think it'll have a nice impact on me going forward. Probably my GotY at this point. I'm happy I was able to be a small part of the Kickstarter and I hope this game helps get the spotlight on the BattleTech universe again and we can get more games in this universe. Apparently there is that new MechWarrior game, currently scheduled for a Winter release so maybe that'll be cool. MechWarrior Online just looks like a FPS arena shooter to me.. I'd like something a little slower and methodical.

I beat the last mission with a lance of King Crabs. It was glorious. Instead of continuing or just waiting for sweet, sweet dlc, I downloaded a bunch of mods like weapon balance (because LL and PPC are kinda bad) or access to LosTech. Then I restarted the campaign again. Having a blast with mods. This game has a lot potential in my opinion. Just need more tweaking and some solid side missions to go with the contracts.

@dodobasse: thanks for the response, i definitely have this game on my future radar.

I currently seem to be at a but if an impasse. At the moment I have a single heavy mech (a dragon) and a bunch of mediums. The problem is that I'm starting to edge into 3 skull missions, which are hitting me with all heavies. My poor mediums just aren't up to the challenge. So right now I'm scouring the map look for heavies to salvage so I can step up to the next level without getting murdered.

@oursin_360: It's very good!

I played around with the steam controller a bit more. Customizing mechs can be a bit cumbersome on the controller (it's already a bit awkward with M+K), because of the unforgiving drag and drop. Also probably want the mousewheel mapped somewhere.

@toastburner_b: You can try focusing on Base Destruction or Base Capture missions. Those in my experience usually only have one lance of enemy mechs, and as long as you engage them away from the turrets around the base, it should be a manageable way to get some heavies. Alternatively, go after 2 skull assassination missions. The target is often times a heavy.

Another thing is doing contracts where OpFor are pirates, causing all enemy mechs to be in poor repair, and come at you with already missing armor.

Finished creating my character!

Had a contract yesterday that I was so close to withdrawing because I'm pretty sure I was fighting: 2x Atlas, 1x Banshee, 1x Battlemaster, 2x Highlander, 1x Awesome, 1x Schrek. So 720 tons of enemy, head on, at the same time. It started going south after I got the first kill, was trying to use rocks for cover but they just kept pelting me with indirect missile fire. I stuck with it though and got them all in the end. That was probably the heaviest set of enemies I've fought yet.