KickStarter BATTLETECH - turn-based mech combat from Harebrained Schemes

[Thane Solus]

I threw about £30 or so at HBS to kickstart this and haven't even bothered to track down my install key after the lukewarm reviews.
So is it worth the effort yet? Has anyone had their PC blow up from the overheating issue with Unity?
No dumb-ass remarks about standing the PC in water.

Game does not have such problems. The unity problem is long loading screens.

That is not from Unity, its from having worse coders than Egosoft. A predefined shit map, with semi high low polys around 12 max, and a few shit models for trees and bases, and it takes 30 seconds to load, while a whole fucking universe and lots of the logic behind X4, loads in about 20 sec max. (yes its another engine, and its bugged like hell, but just a comparison) . If unity had a problem like in the engine, which it doesnt, it would be dead in 3-6 months at the best.

Its simply the most incompetent coders we seen so far, thats what you get from SJW devs and of course sold a ton, and they will do it again... probably worse.

 

[ricolikesrice]

I threw about £30 or so at HBS to kickstart this and haven't even bothered to track down my install key after the lukewarm reviews.
So is it worth the effort yet? Has anyone had their PC blow up from the overheating issue with Unity?
No dumb-ass remarks about standing the PC in water.

engine problems and SJW-stuff aside battletechs biggest issue is that its a pretty awful game in itself: the tactical combat simply doesnt click, is boring, repeative and dull and the mercenary management part is a total joke.

and i m not writing that just comparing battletech to unreachable gods of the genre like JA2 or original x-com...... battletech is so awful that even nuXCOM or some other lesser turn-based-tactics games appear as genuine masterpiece compared it.

i thought combining the battletech setting with turn-based combat would be a guaranteed winner but they did their very best to make a really crap turn-based game ugly graphics, shitty coding and fat space muslims are just the icing on the turd cake.

 

[Chippy]

You all can#t blame me for having a flicker of hope when I heard that Jordan Weisman was creating a Battletech game from scratch. Better to live in hope and all that.

 

[Bohr]

You all can#t blame me for having a flicker of hope when I heard that Jordan Weisman was creating a Battletech game from scratch

Were you hoping for better than 14th?

 

[Cael]

You all can#t blame me for having a flicker of hope when I heard that Jordan Weisman was creating a Battletech game from scratch. Better to live in hope and all that.

Weisman couldn't even get the lore of his own creation right in an early interview. What hope could there have been after that?

 

[Chippy]

I was hoping the actual creator had a vision and wouldn't be dragged down by the zombie horde he had employed...

 

[Cael]

I was hoping the actual creator had a vision and wouldn't be dragged down by the zombie horde he had employed...

If he did that, he would be at the centre of another gamergate. Once you let the mafia in, you had better agree to their deals because you can't refuse them.

 

[Chippy]

THe only thing left is to start a kickstarter and get that generation of developer to move to Poland.

 

[Cael]

THe only thing left is to start a kickstarter and get that generation of developer to move to Poland.

Let's see how MW5 turns out. I don't have much hope for Piranha but there is still a glimmer.

The 'mechs will still look shit, though. MWO 'mechs generally are.

 

[Chippy]

THe only thing left is to start a kickstarter and get that generation of developer to move to Poland.

Let's see how MW5 turns out. I don't have much hope for Piranha but there is still a glimmer.

The 'mechs will still look shit, though. MWO 'mechs generally are.

I have more hope at this point for MW5 than I do for the Cainarsky game.

 

[FreshCorpse]

This game really needed a manual. The tutorial just does not explain enough. Still not sure I really understand how health/armour works which is annoying as it seems fairly criticial...

 

[FreshCorpse]

Ok, that makes sense. I now only need to figure out how to see the health on a per-body part level during battle and also to work out how to adjust armour in the mech lab, thanks!

 

[Trithne]

Ok, that makes sense. I now only need to figure out how to see the health on a per-body part level during battle and also to work out how to adjust armour in the mech lab, thanks!

Mouse over the relevant body part in the paperdoll, the bars change to just that part's values.

For enemies, right-click on them to make their data block 'sticky', then the same applies.

Adjust armour in the mechbay in the Refit screen, there are +/- buttons next to each section's armour.

 

[Dickie]

How do the skull ratings for missions work? It seems like the same skull level can either be 3 medium mechs or 5 medium mechs, 3 heavy mechs, and 4 turrets. I saw on a Steam thread where someone was speculating that it only counts the tonnage of one lance and doesn't include reinforcements, but a lot of the missions seem to start with reinforcements already on the board as soon as you start. I also get the impression that vehicles aren't counted at all.

 

[Olinser]

How do the skull ratings for missions work? It seems like the same skull level can either be 3 medium mechs or 5 medium mechs, 3 heavy mechs, and 4 turrets. I saw on a Steam thread where someone was speculating that it only counts the tonnage of one lance and doesn't include reinforcements, but a lot of the missions seem to start with reinforcements already on the board as soon as you start. I also get the impression that vehicles aren't counted at all.

There's an RNG element both in composition and in actual difficulty.

Difficulty can go +/- I believe a full skull in either direction,which is probably where the big discrepancy you see is, the RNG of the difficulty kicking in.

Then from that difficulty it randomly generates enemy forces. It seems to generate a 'type' of lance and then RNGs within random chassis based on the skull rating - where it rolls a long range lance, a high armor lance, etc. Vehicles are cheaper than mechs but they are calculated within the difficulty.

 

[Cael]

How do the skull ratings for missions work? It seems like the same skull level can either be 3 medium mechs or 5 medium mechs, 3 heavy mechs, and 4 turrets. I saw on a Steam thread where someone was speculating that it only counts the tonnage of one lance and doesn't include reinforcements, but a lot of the missions seem to start with reinforcements already on the board as soon as you start. I also get the impression that vehicles aren't counted at all.

Starting with reinforcements on the board is a known bug. There are reasons why they are called "reinforcements".

 

[Trithne]

How do the skull ratings for missions work? It seems like the same skull level can either be 3 medium mechs or 5 medium mechs, 3 heavy mechs, and 4 turrets. I saw on a Steam thread where someone was speculating that it only counts the tonnage of one lance and doesn't include reinforcements, but a lot of the missions seem to start with reinforcements already on the board as soon as you start. I also get the impression that vehicles aren't counted at all.

Skull ratings are intentionally misleading, because the game lying to you is a "feature" and representative of "bad intel", rather than "piss poor game design".

 

[FreshCorpse]

Ok, found my feet with this game now. I like it. It's positional xcom. I've turned on all the animation speed-ups in the options though. Looks like they didn't implement this before 1.1. Not sure I would have gotten past the first few missions if I'd had to watch 10 secs of animation on every movement or attack though

 

[FreshCorpse]

How do the skull ratings for missions work? It seems like the same skull level can either be 3 medium mechs or 5 medium mechs, 3 heavy mechs, and 4 turrets. I saw on a Steam thread where someone was speculating that it only counts the tonnage of one lance and doesn't include reinforcements, but a lot of the missions seem to start with reinforcements already on the board as soon as you start. I also get the impression that vehicles aren't counted at all.

Skull ratings are intentionally misleading, because the game lying to you is a "feature" and representative of "bad intel", rather than "piss poor game design".

Experienced some of this myself tonight. "Two skull mission" where the job is to escort a convoy. At first there's a lance of full mediums blocking the convoy from coming out of the base (I have 3 mediums and a light). It's a difficult fight and a hired goon of mine expires. Then the convoy comes out and I have to guard it, fairly pointlessly as there is now no one around. I suppose I could have triggered them coming out while I will still fighting the first lance but that would seem only to make that initial fight harder as presumably the enemy lance would start stomping the vehicles.

Then, after the convoy has gotten to its dropship a second lance of full mediums spawns. I have the choice to either leg it to my own dropship (different location) or fight them. As I am a man down and my remaining giant robots have already taken a beating I try to run past them using cover but they catch me and kill a named character I happen to like. Time to reload an old save...

There have been other times where the encounter setup have gone a bit wrong, for example when just as I have found the target enemy lance, "reinforcements" show up so I end up fight two lances at the same time. The bullet spongey nature of battletech makes being outnumbered like that really difficult and to be honest it feels a bit arbitrary given the player is only ever allowed to field one lance (and I can only keep a lance an a half on my ship at this point).

 

[ArchAngel]

Only a complete overhaul mod like Long War can save this game.
I am hoping that in 1-2 years I can reinstall it and play it again with such a mod.

 

[Bohr]

 

[GrainWetski]

2nd: Total War: Thrones of Brittania

I can only assume they only played 3 games last year.

 

[Ruchy]

Has anyone tried RogueTech as an overhaul yet? https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/79?tab=description
Looks interesting but these things can take a long time to get right.

 

[rashiakas]

I gave it a shot recently and it makes the game a hundred times better. They removed the campaign and expanded the map, now you can play a merc outfit and travel all the way to the clans if you want. Mechlab works different as well, you can equip different engines, armor/internal structure etc. Equipment is now way more important then tonnage.

Another big change is how initiative works. Instead of 4 Phases you get a real initiative system: Piloting and tactic skill, pilots wounds as well as your mechs tonage, heat and other statuses influence when you get your turn.

There is also an online component, every time someone completes a mission, the system map gets updated. If enough missions for a certain faction are completet on a planet, it changes ownership. When I played the clans invaded the IS and the map and offered missions changed acordingly. Also, salvage you dont pick is offered in the planets market for everyone to buy.

Theres a ton of other features/qol improvements, like changes to the Mechwarriors skills or visualisation of the AIM system, best check it out for yourself, the installation is easy if you follow the guide. Also, their discord is super helpful if you run into any problem.

 

[Cael]

When a mod that changes everything is better than the base game...