KickStarter BATTLETECH - turn-based mech combat from Harebrained Schemes

[Average Manatee]

This is so retarded.

When you combine Called Shot Mastery with a Marauder's Lance Command Module, you get a 'mech that will head shot anyone (except those scripted to be immune to headshots) at a 35% rate. So, you build up a lance of 3 snipers with either a Gauss Rifle and 4 med lasers or a AC10+ with 4 med lasers, and kill 2-3 'mechs a turn for as long as you have the resolve to do it. Something along the lines of 80-90% of all my 'mech kills are head shots once I got that lance going. The last guy is my generic tear 'em apart/stability damage Archer-S (the one with 4 missile racks, all filled with SRM6). He is the back up for when I run out of resolve and have to head shot them the old fashioned way (i.e., knock them down and called shot to the head).

Game balance? What game balance?

Yep, game basically becomes fallout except without the cool gruesome death animations.

 

[Cael]

This is so retarded.

When you combine Called Shot Mastery with a Marauder's Lance Command Module, you get a 'mech that will head shot anyone (except those scripted to be immune to headshots) at a 35% rate. So, you build up a lance of 3 snipers with either a Gauss Rifle and 4 med lasers or a AC10+ with 4 med lasers, and kill 2-3 'mechs a turn for as long as you have the resolve to do it. Something along the lines of 80-90% of all my 'mech kills are head shots once I got that lance going. The last guy is my generic tear 'em apart/stability damage Archer-S (the one with 4 missile racks, all filled with SRM6). He is the back up for when I run out of resolve and have to head shot them the old fashioned way (i.e., knock them down and called shot to the head).

Game balance? What game balance?

You found a winning strategy. Congratulations. Finding superpowered, game-breaking, optimized builds is one of the reasons why I play tactical games. Learning and eventually mastering the game's systems, imagining an exploit, training a pilot and building a mech to test that exploit--that all took some effort on your part, and now you have been rewarded for your efforts. And now you're angry about it?

It is not a reward when you can just roflstompown everything because of a flaw in the mechanics that anyone with half a brain cell saw coming before the game was even released. It is retarded fuckwittery on an epic scale by the game's developer. To add insult to injury, you could have gotten all that before you even got to Smitton, which is the 3rd or so campaign mission. All by jumping from star to star towards Smitton and doing the contracts there.

The game is ridiculously retarded, which is exactly what was said when the whole idea of Called Shots first came out.

 

[Cael]

This is so retarded.

When you combine Called Shot Mastery with a Marauder's Lance Command Module, you get a 'mech that will head shot anyone (except those scripted to be immune to headshots) at a 35% rate. So, you build up a lance of 3 snipers with either a Gauss Rifle and 4 med lasers or a AC10+ with 4 med lasers, and kill 2-3 'mechs a turn for as long as you have the resolve to do it. Something along the lines of 80-90% of all my 'mech kills are head shots once I got that lance going. The last guy is my generic tear 'em apart/stability damage Archer-S (the one with 4 missile racks, all filled with SRM6). He is the back up for when I run out of resolve and have to head shot them the old fashioned way (i.e., knock them down and called shot to the head).

Game balance? What game balance?

Yep, game basically becomes fallout except without the cool gruesome death animations.

I have to admit, the Gauss slug hitting animation is pretty cool. A big splash that goes through the enemy.

 

[rashiakas]

Playing BTA right now and recommend it over RT.

 

[lightbane]

Finally decided to give this a try, after the many patches, DLCs and so on are out. Surely the experience improved, right? Nope.

The intro is well done, presentation is okay, but apparently being able to skip the intro instantly is only achieved through editing or mods, because mashing ESC isn't fast enough. Music is well-done, but sounds are "meh". The woke infection is obvious when you start seeing very diverse people from minute zero, including a Nepalese mechwarrior that is so much of an "old mentor" cliché, that I expected him to talk about retirement (spoiler: he dies). At least it's not as grating as the mudslime girl engineer with tatoos, for extra girl-power factor. Character creation makes you choose from a bunch of flavor choices and some that actually change your stats. Your starting skills are shit, and yet you're shown to be competent, even though initial recruits are much better than you by default. Then comes the infamous pronoun thing. Not only it's pointless since people refer as "you" or even kid (which doesn't make sense since your character is a young male minimum), your character is not even shown around! The default gender for you is female, and the available choices are all invariably hideous. Most annoyingly, you still cannot have bright blonde hair for some reason, although pink and blue dangerhair styles are kosher, but of course. Kamehameha is a character that reeks of self-insert, or a cheap Danerys copy (which is more or less the same).

After the tutorial which is confusing when it shouldn't since the interface is shit at explaining things, I got to the part you're made the leader of a merc band that is severely indebted for plot reasons, even though your 'warriors are more competent than your own guy for sure. The Mech Lab screen is a confusing mess as well, I vaguely recall MW4's own being much better.
You can customize your mechs slightly, but it doesn't seem to do much compared to previous games in the franchise, which showed changes in color and such much better.
Combat is also SLOW, because the game stutters constantly, and enemy mechs react slowly, as mentioned in the review, especially once you knock down one, moment in which it takes him a second to remember it has to fall down. Mechs are also hilariously unsteady here. The lack of a combat log is annoying, because the messages detailing damage done scroll too fast to see what happened. Then there's the fact melee animations are awkward: You would thing a mech would hesitate to do a headpush as an attack, considering that's where the cockpit is. Then, the most glaring flaw of them all, is the fact that exploding enemy units DO NOT CAUSE DAMAGE!
Perhaps this is a bug, but I bet this was done to make melee less risky, as I remember that stepping on vehicles damaged your legs, which doesn't happen here. Punching an enemy mech to death also is not a risk for your attacking unit.
Lastly but not least, once the game starts proper, you notice the interface screen for listing stuff is shit, and not very well detailed to boot.

I'm considering giving Front Mission 2 a try and waiting for BTech to get another patch or something, as it was not as fun as it could be and took longer than expected. Waster potential for sure.

 

[Cael]

Finally decided to give this a try, after the many patches, DLCs and so on are out. Surely the experience improved, right? Nope.

The intro is well done, presentation is okay, but apparently being able to skip the intro instantly is only achieved through editing or mods, because mashing ESC isn't fast enough. Music is well-done, but sounds are "meh". The woke infection is obvious when you start seeing very diverse people from minute zero, including a mudslime mechwarrior that is so much of an "old mentor" cliché, that I expected him to talk about retirement (spoiler: he dies). At least it's not as grating as the mudslime girl engineer with tatoos, for extra girl-power factor. Character creation makes you choose from a bunch of flavor choices and some that actually change your stats. Your starting skills are shit, and yet you're shown to be competent, even though initial recruits are much better than you by default. Then comes the infamous pronoun thing. Not only it's pointless since people refer as "you" or even kid (which doesn't make sense since your character is a young male minimum), your character is not even shown around! The default gender for you is female, and the available choices are all invariably hideous. Most annoyingly, you still cannot have bright blonde hair for some reason, although pink and blue dangerhair styles are kosher, but of course. Kamehameha is a character that reeks of self-insert, or a cheap Danerys copy (which is more or less the same).

After the tutorial which is confusing when it shouldn't since the interface is shit at explaining things, I got to the part you're made the leader of a merc band that is severely indebted for plot reasons, even though your 'warriors are more competent than your own guy for sure. The Mech Lab screen is a confusing mess as well, I vaguely recall MW4's own being much better.
You can customize your mechs slightly, but it doesn't seem to do much compared to previous games in the franchise, which showed changes in color and such much better.
Combat is also SLOW, because the game stutters constantly, and enemy mechs react slowly, as mentioned in the review, especially once you knock down one, moment in which it takes him a second to remember it has to fall down. Mechs are also hilariously unsteady here. The lack of a combat log is annoying, because the messages detailing damage done scroll too fast to see what happened. Then there's the fact melee animations are awkward: You would thing a mech would hesitate to do a headpush as an attack, considering that's where the cockpit is. Then, the most glaring flaw of them all, is the fact that exploding enemy units DO NOT CAUSE DAMAGE!
Perhaps this is a bug, but I bet this was done to make melee less risky, as I remember that stepping on vehicles damaged your legs, which doesn't happen here. Punching an enemy mech to death also is not a risk for your attacking unit.
Lastly but not least, once the game starts proper, you notice the interface screen for listing stuff is shit, and not very well detailed to boot.

I'm considering giving Front Mission 2 a try and waiting for BTech to get another patch or something, as it was not as fun as it could be and took longer than expected. Waster potential for sure.

Raju isn't a mudslime. He is Gurkha (i.e., from Nepal). The kukri gave it away.

The starting lineup is not that far better than you after the first forced fight as you start with more XP than them, IIRC. However, what grates is that the fucking shithead tranny based on the real life cunt, who told a veteran he wished he hit an IED, has the best stats, the most hit points and specialises in not dying. The fudgepackers at HBS knew that cunt would be the first to be deliberately killed off by any player with a modicum of decency, and so made it near impossible for it to do so, especially when facing the enemy light 'mechs at the beginning. However, it is possible if you modify the Locust to have 0 head armour, max armour elsewhere and send it in to face any 'mech with SRM or LRM packs. Fuck you, Kevin!

Melee not doing damage to the attacking 'mech (other than DFA and charges) is a Classic BTech thing. Has been right from the start. Not HBS's fault. Exploding 'mechs also don't do damage to others around them.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Raju isn't a mudslime. He is Gurkha (i.e., from Nepal). The kukri gave it away.

He's way taller than most Gurkha though.

 

[Cael]

Raju isn't a mudslime. He is Gurkha (i.e., from Nepal). The kukri gave it away.

He's way taller than most Gurkha though.

Well, he is in a 'mech... :D

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Raju isn't a mudslime. He is Gurkha (i.e., from Nepal). The kukri gave it away.

He's way taller than most Gurkha though.

Well, he is in a 'mech... :D

That, though I was referring to his concept art. But okay, New Guinea man, you win this round.

 

[lightbane]

However, what grates is that the fucking shithead tranny based on the real life cunt, who told a veteran he wished he hit an IED, has the best stats, the most hit points and specialises in not dying.

Oh, that thing too! Honestly I forgot with the so many wrong things in the game.

However, it is possible if you modify the Locust to have 0 head armour, max armour elsewhere and send it in to face any 'mech with SRM or LRM packs. Fuck you, Kevin!

Why not just fire her instead of wasting a good mech?

Melee not doing damage to the attacking 'mech (other than DFA and charges) is a Classic BTech thing. Has been right from the start. Not HBS's fault. Exploding 'mechs also don't do damage to others around them.

I was certain that wasn't the case in the Mechwarrior games, as well as Mechcommander IIRC, and it makes perfect sense: A giant robot going kaboom! is something to take into consideration if you're too close.

 

[Cael]

However, what grates is that the fucking shithead tranny based on the real life cunt, who told a veteran he wished he hit an IED, has the best stats, the most hit points and specialises in not dying.

Oh, that thing too! Honestly I forgot with the so many wrong things in the game.

However, it is possible if you modify the Locust to have 0 head armour, max armour elsewhere and send it in to face any 'mech with SRM or LRM packs. Fuck you, Kevin!

Why not just fire her instead of wasting a good mech?

Melee not doing damage to the attacking 'mech (other than DFA and charges) is a Classic BTech thing. Has been right from the start. Not HBS's fault. Exploding 'mechs also don't do damage to others around them.

I was certain that wasn't the case in the Mechwarrior games, as well as Mechcommander IIRC, and it makes perfect sense: A giant robot going kaboom! is something to take into consideration if you're too close.

Firing it is not as satisfying as seeing its face on my Hall of Memories. You get the 'mech back anyway (minus repairs) at the end of the fight and it doesn't even factor into your salvage picks.

Mechwarrior depends on the game. Most of them do varying forms of damage to you, but MW4 either doesn't or is so low, I didn't notice it. MW2, however, all 'mechs are made from explodium and being caught next to one going boom can severely damage or outright kill you.

Mechcommander's only physical attack is DFA, and that always did damage to you. It does damage to you in this game as well.

Melee in BTech is already so neutered by the original rules that making it hurt means that it will never be used. From a sort of balancing point of view, it is fine as is.

 

[lightbane]

Well, that's a good thing to know.
Are there any hints for a starting new player, since the game is shit at explaining itself? I found there's no manual... Except for the backers, which got one for the beta and that's it, because coherency is a lost technology.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

MW4 either doesn't or is so low

bad memory here pal, mechs exploding in mw4 hurt quite some, and added a lot of heat too. on the most populated city maps sometimes you could start some fun chain reactions.

 

[Cael]

Well, that's a good thing to know.
Are there any hints for a starting new player, since the game is shit at explaining itself? I found there's no manual... Except for the backers, which got one for the beta and that's it, because coherency is a lost technology.

Bear in mind I only started playing it about a week ago and I have all the DLCs:

1. The two best abilities are Called Shot Mastery (Tactics 8 or 9, I can't recall exactly) and Master Tactician (the second Tactics special ability). Therefore, you WANT the Tactics tree.

2. The other good abilities are Bulwark (20% extra damage reduction in cover or when braced) and Sure Foot (50% stability damage reduction when you just walk). Of the two I prefer Bulwark because DR is better in my opinion. You can have 5-6 Evasion and there will always be enough enemies from 1 skull missions and beyond to run right through them and hit your guy. Staying on your feet doesn't help if your guy is stripped of his armour and killed. Plus Bulwark affects all damage, including stability. You just need to keep finding cover.

3. Certain 'mechs have special equipment that give very good bonuses. Phoenix Hawk, for example, has a kit that gives +10% jump range and +10% extra damage if you jumped that round. Warhammers have +20% damage with energy weapons. Archers get +75% stability damage with SRM and LRMs cluster better. And so on. The best one is the Marauder. Its special equipment gives a lance-wide -10% damage reduction (that stacks with cover and Bulwark) and gives itself a large bonus to Called Shots. As I said above, a Marauder with Called Shot Mastery is a virtual "I win" button in the game. A close second is the Cyclops (the Z version, I think; only one of them has the module) which gives a lance-wide +1 to initiative, which stacks with Master Tactician. Your heavies move like Lights and your assaults like mediums. Both these things makes the Tactics tree OP as hell.

4. I know people like to beat up on the Pirate faction. DON'T. The Black Market is dependent on your standing with the Pirates. Piss them off, and not only will it cost you a bomb to gain entry (2.5mill), all the prices in it will be modified by your standing. You don't want to get to the point where it will cost you 10x the normal price to buy stuff from the Black Market. Because you get really good stuff there. I got a Gauss Rifle++ (-2 tons, -1 slot), a Royal Highlander, a Royal Griffin and a Royal PHawk from there. There was also a Royal Marauder, but it was way out of my price range as by that time, they were charging me 10x price. Do yourself a favour and don't run into the same trap I did. Play nice with the Pirates.

 

[lightbane]

Thanks for the info! Is the OG campaign compatible with mods though? I was thinking about using the 3025 mod at some point, as well as QoL ones if only to speed up the game.

 

[Cael]

Thanks for the info! Is the OG campaign compatible with mods though? I was thinking about using the 3025 mod at some point, as well as QoL ones if only to speed up the game.

No idea. I am only play the original at this point in time. I will explore mods once I get sick of killing assault 'mechs with Gauss slugs to the face.

 

[lightbane]

Ended up uninstalling. It's just too slow and chaotic. The lack of combat log is a big fail, seeing the damage numbers and such scroll too fast to watch, or cannot be seen due being white and easily confused with the background in specific biomes (kek), the damage indicators are not as easily visible as those from the previous BTech games and so on.

The micro-stutters also keep happening even with a good PC.

For some reason, I'm not sure if it's due tabletop rules or what, but vertical positioning doesn't seem to matter much other than LoS. I know the units are giant robots, but even then those in higher positions should have an Aiming bonus to hit those in lower terrain, which doesn't seem to be the case. Melee is clunky since you cannot position yourself behind the enemy easily, but rather where the game wants you to be. The DFA animation is also lame, since it doesn't seem to show any actual bonking with the legs, but rather hitting with the entire body. I also don't know if it's possible to make called shots with melee attacks, but it should be possible IMO if you can do that with regular shooting already.
Regarding gear available at the start, it seems regular PPCs have been nerfed and are not worth it considering the small scenarios of the game. Missiles, especially SRMs, as mentioned are excellent at killing mechs by doing tons of damage.

Are Large Lasers better than just shoving more Medium Lasers in a mech? Especially early game.

I think I'll put this aside for now, perhaps give it another try later this summer, once I have more available time, as this one doesn't work well for short bursts due the slowness of the whole thing.

 

[razvedchiki]

campaign can be played with extended, BTA and roguetech has it as a flashpoint during career. worth playing it if you decide to continue into a career because you get a sldf highlander/atlas II.
there are mods that allow you to manually position for melee attacks and what type of kick you want to do.

 

[Cael]

Ended up uninstalling. It's just too slow and chaotic. The lack of combat log is a big fail, seeing the damage numbers and such scroll too fast to watch, or cannot be seen due being white and easily confused with the background in specific biomes (kek), the damage indicators are not as easily visible as those from the previous BTech games and so on.

The micro-stutters also keep happening even with a good PC.

For some reason, I'm not sure if it's due tabletop rules or what, but vertical positioning doesn't seem to matter much other than LoS. I know the units are giant robots, but even then those in higher positions should have an Aiming bonus to hit those in lower terrain, which doesn't seem to be the case. Melee is clunky since you cannot position yourself behind the enemy easily, but rather where the game wants you to be. The DFA animation is also lame, since it doesn't seem to show any actual bonking with the legs, but rather hitting with the entire body. I also don't know if it's possible to make called shots with melee attacks, but it should be possible IMO if you can do that with regular shooting already.
Regarding gear available at the start, it seems regular PPCs have been nerfed and are not worth it considering the small scenarios of the game. Missiles, especially SRMs, as mentioned are excellent at killing mechs by doing tons of damage.

Are Large Lasers better than just shoving more Medium Lasers in a mech? Especially early game.

I think I'll put this aside for now, perhaps give it another try later this summer, once I have more available time, as this one doesn't work well for short bursts due the slowness of the whole thing.

Vertical didn't really matter in tabletop. The problem with tabletop is that 1 level of elevation is about half a 'mech (about 6m). Most tabletop maps didn't really cater for hundreds of levels, so the difference in range didn't really factor into it. However, you can hide behind elevation to make it harder for the enemy to hit you (i.e., stand in a spot 1 elevation lower than the hex directly in front of you). But that is about it. As you said, it mainly governed LOS, and that can be huge in a massive map that you made yourself (which can have hundreds of elevation levels in it).

Melee attacks in this game is a crap shoot. If you just got melee'd and you want to melee back, you can't run behind him as you can in tabletop. However, you can stack a whole bunch of stab damage mods in your arms and knock people over with a melee attack. It just opens you up to everyone else as you are not likely to have a lot of evasion when you do that.

I wish we can make called shots with melee attacks. There are times when I just want to leg the bastard, not punch it in the CT.

Large Lasers does 40 damage for 18 heat. Mediums do 25 damage for 12 heat. LLs are worth it if you have the tonnage, which early 'mechs won't have. Too many MLs will overtax your heat sinks, and since the fuckwits at HBS increased heat production for all energy weapons, that makes energy weapons a bit of a no go zone. Note that they beefed up the LL when players started complaining. It used to have a much higher heat. You do want a few energy weapons lying around for those precision shots that will surgically remove a torso or leg without coring the 'mech, though. But you definitely want to go heavy on the missiles (LRMs in particular; LRM5 are also useful to surgically remove torsos and legs) for the knockdown and the increased chance of doing some damage to Spiders and Locusts.

As an example, for my starting lineup:
Blackjack: 4 ML, 2 LB2-X, 1 ton LB ammo, 4 jump jets, max armour (to nearest ton)
Shadow Hawk: 1 ML, 1 LRM15, 1 LRM 5, 2 ton LRM ammo, 5 jump jets, max armour
Vindicator: 3 ML, 1 LRM15, 2 ton LRM ammo, 4 jump jets, max armour
Spider: Can't change as no tonnage, no slots, no anything.

I tend to use the LB2-X for called shots to the head. It seems to have an increased chance of hitting the head, or so it feels.

 

[lightbane]

What about heatsinks? Does your line-up include them? I suppose your favorite trick is to alternate between weapon groups to avoid heating issues.

 

[Cael]

What about heatsinks? Does your line-up include them? I suppose your favorite trick is to alternate between weapon groups to avoid heating issues.

I use them when I have spare weight. For mid-weight machines like those, I don't think so. I can't recall exactly as it has been a while.

My Marauders definitely has heat sinks. Especially the D version with 2 PPCs.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i don't remember vanilla, but most of your complains are fixed in roguetech.

 

[Cael]

"Mods will fix it."
- lazy, incompetent, fucktard game developers

 

[lightbane]

i don't remember vanilla, but most of your complains are fixed in roguetech.

Although it seems to go on the opposite direction and be too complex IMO, due modders. Plus you cannot use previous versions if you don't have them installed because *modders*
I wonder if any of them are trannies, real or pretending, and thus how long until someone chimps out and deletes everything.

"Mods will fix it."
- lazy, incompetent, fucktard game developers

Blame Pete Hines for establishing that trend.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

yeah, roguetech is severely overbloated. my company is rated 4/5 and yet i own throngs of weapons without ammo and viceversa. unfortunately i'm a chubby chaser with mods.