KickStarter BATTLETECH - turn-based mech combat from Harebrained Schemes

[zapotec]

What's the best mechwarrior game? The 2nd one? Do i need a joystick or some weird apparatus?

 

[Nutria]

There was one a little after MW2 where you're mercenary. I'm no Battletech nerd but I'd say there's some memorable parts of it, like when you're fighting on the surface of a comet.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

most realistic/battletech is "mechwarrior 2 - mercenaries". much more arcadey but pretty vast is "mechwarrior 4 - mercenaries" with mekpak which is the first victim ever of cancel culture.

 

[Average Manatee]

MW2 or MW3

The MW2 games are great and mercs has a continuous strategic campaign where you manage finances and salvage and other stuff. Also some of the cooler environments to fight in as opposed to just vaguely earth-like planets. Problem is that all of them have a few annoying issues, particularly in poor hit detection which AFAIK there is no fix for.

MW3 is very polished and is sort of quasi-merc with a linear campaign but you do still get to manage salvage. There is a bit of a low variety of mechs available since you're just in one confined campaign (still a lot just not the HUGE numbers of some other games). One problem with MW3 is that it was in that early windows gap time between DOS and modern directx so it has its own issues trying to get it running without weird physics glitches though there are patches for this nowadays. Game was hell to get running back in the day, even on systems built a few years after release you'd have to fuck around for hours to get it working right.

Don't need any kind of joystick and the games are 100% playable without it but they do kind of add to the feel.

 

[Nutria]

that early windows gap time between DOS and modern directx

One of the greatest tragedys of the last century. MechCommander 2 was from that time and was really good but probably has the same issues running it today.

 

[lightbane]

MW5 is also possibly worth a look, now that the DLC is out, but I have no idea if it's good yet.

most realistic/battletech is "mechwarrior 2 - mercenaries". much more arcadey but pretty vast is "mechwarrior 4 - mercenaries" with mekpak which is the first victim ever of cancel culture.

Can you elaborate? I don't remember the details, I thought this one was dropped by Microsoft so that it wouldn't compete against MW5 later on.

 

[razvedchiki]

mission control/bigger drops allows up to 8 of your own mechs and up to 16 opfor.

 

[Average Manatee]

Can you elaborate? I don't remember the details, I thought this one was dropped by Microsoft so that it wouldn't compete against MW5 later on.

I think you mean MW3 was rushed/almost aborted since Microsoft was making MW4. MW3 development was apparently a complete clusterfuck of multiple devs that somehow still turned out into a really good game.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

MW5 is also possibly worth a look

no. surely not without the now broken biggest mods.

Can you elaborate?

i can't elaborate because no one could ever. all that's left is gossip. point is, we can't talk about mekpak.

 

[lightbane]

i can't elaborate because no one could ever. all that's left is gossip. point is, we can't talk about mekpak.

It's weird indeed. I snooped around and apparently they restarted the thing in 2020, but I checked their homepage and there's nothing here.

 

[Cael]

Take out two side torsos while flanking and aiming for the legs (or just walking in and punching them from the sides for the knockdown) is the best way to salvage stuff before you get to Tactics 9.

Actually, does destroying the non-central torso parts do anything if the target has no weapons there? Unless you get the pilot to be KO'ed from the impacts, your'e better trying to destroy the head, the central torso, or the legs, as otherwise I believe the enemy unit will simply keep fighting non-stop. There are mods to simulate wound penalties and morale, but nothing in the vanilla, as usual.

The fact that people don't understand that facing works in the game is probably the reason why they think it gives a reasonable challenge of any kind.

The interface and graphics don't help either.

When you first start, the enemy are all recruits. That means they have 3 hit points. What you need to do then is to knock them down once and blow up both torsos and they are out for the count. You get a full 3 part salvage at the end of the mission. There are several ways to accomplish this:
1. Melee them from either side. You can usually knock them down if you time it right, so if you killed a torso with your melee attack, that is two wounds straight away. When they are down, do Called Shots to the remaining torso from that side.

2. Use stability damage to knock them down. This is harder as early enemies tend to be poorly armoured. Ironically, the higher their armour, the better chance for you to salvage things. Once they are down, shoot the torsos off.

3. Shoot the torsos off from the side and then Precise Shot the more damaged leg. You'd want to go with noon-spread weapons for this.

Note that all damage transfers, so if you are going to hit a side torso with only 10 structure left with a med laser, make sure the CT has at least 16 structure/armour left or it will blow. If it has less, use something else (LRM5 is good if you only need to remove 1-4 structure).

I killed Grim Sybil (who is a Defender with 4hp) by basically surrounding her 'mech with mine and beating her into the ground with melee attacks. It takes 3 melee attacks to knock down her Quickdraw, and my Blackjack was waiting for her to hit the ground before unloading two LB2-X into her head. Then, it was time to remove her torsos and her was dead. At the end of that mission, I got both the Shadowhawk and the Quickdraw (lucky randoms picked up the other two pieces of the Hawk).

Do NOT do this with that Victoria bitch. She is scripted to ignore Called Shots to the head (i.e., they never connect). Just nail both her legs instead.

 

[Cael]

The fact that people don't understand that facing works in the game is probably the reason why they think it gives a reasonable challenge of any kind.

Facing literally doesn't work. It only goes by cardinal directions. I can have my mech positioned so that it's barely able to shoot sideways at an enemy and then when they shoot me they hit the (damaged) opposite side/arm that is 95% covered. I went over all these problems in my initial post on the game.

This game accomplishes an incredible feat of becoming dumber and less strategic as the game goes on. The first few missions are the best because you can actually flank and shit and use something other than just standing and firing till things die. Running around and jump jetting behind things with a Panther to snipe from behind with an LRM and PPC was cool. Skip ahead 10 missions and you'll just get chewed up instantly, because for some dumbfuck reason being shot at makes it easier for other things to hit you and you'll have 8+ AIs shooting per round. Loadout becomes progressively less interesting as you play, because where there's lots of options when you have 3 weapon slots and 12 tons available, when you have 3 weapon slots and 30 tons available you just fucking pick the biggest weapons because no one is loading small, short-ranged laser pointers to shine on enemy assault mechs surrounded by 6 other enemy mechs.

Who the fuck decided on this targetting system? i.e. not having a targetting system at all unless you spend magic?. All I've played is Mechwarrior where angling your body is fairly useful to hide your weakened side. Here? Only cardinal directions matter and its a pure dice roll unaffected by the mech structure or relative position other than cardinal direction. This makes orientation fairly useless as you always need to be positioned at least a little bit forward-facing because you need to fucking shoot things, yet the damaged arm that should be 95% hidden behind the entire rest of the mech's body has the exact same chance to be hit as the opposing arm that is directly in front of the line of fire. I don't know tabletop rules but I'm going to guess this is some dumb shit they took from there because no one could think that the current system makes sense for a game. Due to how you have 8 separate targets to hit from the front it becomes highly random whether you get enough repeated rolls to hit the same thing and actually disable the enemy, and its also random whether you took out an arm that has literally nothing or the central torso that kills the mech. I also don't recall having 3 separate armor levels for the torso in mechwarrior, it's really fucking obnoxious. The targetting spell itself is a joke, it only adds like a few % to target a specific part which makes it useless and irrelevant that fixes none of the problems with the dice system... until you level tactics and suddenly you have a 35% chance for every weapon to hit the head, utterly breaking the game. What is even the point of shooting at any other point than the head then? Also why does DFA not hit the head? Isn't that the whole point of the maneouver?

You compared it with Mechwarrior. Seriously? I was supposed to take that rant seriously?

You always have a chance to hit the other side on tabletop. It is moved around, but the facing tables support hitting the other torso. You might not like it, but the rules are there.

Oh, by the way, in tabletop, DFA does damage to punch locations. Look up what that means.

 

[Cael]

dear Cael , our resident battletech autist, what's battletech's fastest, best equipped flamer mech? (using roguetech, ymmv)
the firestarter is 45t, not sure i can squeeze enough speed out of it, i've been using a wolfhound with 4 flamers (pretty usatisfying except against vehicles) but its boni, to lasers, are wasted. if i go lighter i might not be able to fit enough sinks, if i go heavier i defeat the purpose of having a fast mech. which famous mech/variant am i missing?

For one thing, the Firestarter is 35t. As for the other, I don't make 'mechs for condescending dickhead moronic noobs like you.

If you had asked me nicely, I would have pulled out my flamer 'mech for you to look at. I do have one, ironically enough, as heater 'mechs are a favourite of mine in tabletop.

 

[lightbane]

If you defeat an enemy unit by blowing up both legs, does it count as fully destroyed so that you cannot recover the other body-parts, or "only" the legs so the remaining pieces count for salvage?

 

[Cael]

If you defeat an enemy unit by blowing up both legs, does it count as fully destroyed so that you cannot recover the other body-parts, or "only" the legs so the remaining pieces count for salvage?

Legs are two pieces, I believe. Complete destruction or CT coring is 1 piece.

 

[Average Manatee]

You compared it with Mechwarrior. Seriously? I was supposed to take that rant seriously?

You always have a chance to hit the other side on tabletop. It is moved around, but the facing tables support hitting the other torso. You might not like it, but the rules are there.

Oh, by the way, in tabletop, DFA does damage to punch locations. Look up what that means.

If the tabletop rules are retarded then the tabletop rules should be changed. Simple as that. PC games can calculate things that would be inappropriate to waste time on with two guys around a coffee table. The chance to hit an arm on the far side of a mech that is 95% obscured by the mech visually should not be the same as the chance to hit the army that I can see just fine. It's pretty ridiculous that a PC FPS game from 1989 can support deeper simulations with more tactics than a PC tactics game from 2018.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

dear Cael , our resident battletech autist, what's battletech's fastest, best equipped flamer mech? (using roguetech, ymmv)
the firestarter is 45t, not sure i can squeeze enough speed out of it, i've been using a wolfhound with 4 flamers (pretty usatisfying except against vehicles) but its boni, to lasers, are wasted. if i go lighter i might not be able to fit enough sinks, if i go heavier i defeat the purpose of having a fast mech. which famous mech/variant am i missing?

For one thing, the Firestarter is 35t. As for the other, I don't make 'mechs for condescending dickhead moronic noobs like you.

If you had asked me nicely, I would have pulled out my flamer 'mech for you to look at. I do have one, ironically enough, as heater 'mechs are a favourite of mine in tabletop.

but i *did* ask nicely, dear cael. what's more honourable than being called an autist about a subject one's just going to ask something on? it's on par with being called a hacker after having curbstomped the opposing team. i'm surprised you don't know.

besides, which one did i confused it with? firefly? then the firestarter would have been a more suitable choice, considered its boni are all for flamers. now i only need to find a whole one. wishful thinking.

 

[lightbane]

Legs are two pieces, I believe. Complete destruction or CT coring is 1 piece.

No no, I meant the rest of the body, not the legs themselves. As in, enemy mech "x" is downed by having blow legs destroyed and the right arm. That means I would receive the left arm, the head and the torso as salvage, right?

It's pretty ridiculous that a PC FPS game from 1989 can support deeper simulations with more tactics than a PC tactics game from 2018.

In one hand, it is due the incompetence of the devs which made a mess with Unity. On the other, BTech's rules are from a 80's wargame that has been stuck in limbo for a while, so I dunno if someone ever made an attempt to make the rules less clunky. Ie: In the tabletop game you can kick an enemy mech as a melee action that can be done as long as you have both legs, but failing to hit risks you falling to the ground. Whether's that's because the enemy mech trips you, or your pilot is clumsy, I'm not sure which one was.

 

[Cael]

Legs are two pieces, I believe. Complete destruction or CT coring is 1 piece.

No no, I meant the rest of the body, not the legs themselves. As in, enemy mech "x" is downed by having blow legs destroyed and the right arm. That means I would receive the left arm, the head and the torso as salvage, right?

It's pretty ridiculous that a PC FPS game from 1989 can support deeper simulations with more tactics than a PC tactics game from 2018.

In one hand, it is due the incompetence of the devs which made a mess with Unity. On the other, BTech's rules are from a 80's wargame that has been stuck in limbo for a while, so I dunno if someone ever made an attempt to make the rules less clunky. Ie: In the tabletop game you can kick an enemy mech as a melee action that can be done as long as you have both legs, but failing to hit risks you falling to the ground. Whether's that's because the enemy mech trips you, or your pilot is clumsy, I'm not sure which one was.

If you blow the legs off, you get 2 pieces on the salvage list. if you kill the pilot, it is 3. If you core it, you get 1.

The HBS game doesn't care about what parts, just how many salvaged items. Get 3 of the same kind, you get a full 'mech.

 

[Cael]

You compared it with Mechwarrior. Seriously? I was supposed to take that rant seriously?

You always have a chance to hit the other side on tabletop. It is moved around, but the facing tables support hitting the other torso. You might not like it, but the rules are there.

Oh, by the way, in tabletop, DFA does damage to punch locations. Look up what that means.

If the tabletop rules are retarded then the tabletop rules should be changed. Simple as that. PC games can calculate things that would be inappropriate to waste time on with two guys around a coffee table. The chance to hit an arm on the far side of a mech that is 95% obscured by the mech visually should not be the same as the chance to hit the army that I can see just fine. It's pretty ridiculous that a PC FPS game from 1989 can support deeper simulations with more tactics than a PC tactics game from 2018.

95% chance of not hitting still means there is a 5% chance you will. As I said, the facing tables are changed to reflect this. It is you who are being ridiculous in this case.

 

[Cael]

dear Cael , our resident battletech autist, what's battletech's fastest, best equipped flamer mech? (using roguetech, ymmv)
the firestarter is 45t, not sure i can squeeze enough speed out of it, i've been using a wolfhound with 4 flamers (pretty usatisfying except against vehicles) but its boni, to lasers, are wasted. if i go lighter i might not be able to fit enough sinks, if i go heavier i defeat the purpose of having a fast mech. which famous mech/variant am i missing?

For one thing, the Firestarter is 35t. As for the other, I don't make 'mechs for condescending dickhead moronic noobs like you.

If you had asked me nicely, I would have pulled out my flamer 'mech for you to look at. I do have one, ironically enough, as heater 'mechs are a favourite of mine in tabletop.

but i *did* ask nicely, dear cael. what's more honourable than being called an autist about a subject one's just going to ask something on? it's on par with being called a hacker after having curbstomped the opposing team. i'm surprised you don't know.

besides, which one did i confused it with? firefly? then the firestarter would have been a more suitable choice, considered its boni are all for flamers. now i only need to find a whole one. wishful thinking.

Whatever, cunt. You were being a smarmy ass and not even bothering to hide it. As the saying goes, "No soup for you." Fuck off.

 

[Average Manatee]

95% chance of not hitting still means there is a 5% chance you will. As I said, the facing tables are changed to reflect this. It is you who are being ridiculous in this case.

No, it's literally the same hit chance as if you were looking dead center on.

 

[Cael]

95% chance of not hitting still means there is a 5% chance you will. As I said, the facing tables are changed to reflect this. It is you who are being ridiculous in this case.

No, it's literally the same hit chance as if you were looking dead center on.

The tabletop literally has a different hit location table for different facings relative to the target. You are wrong. Just admit it.

 

[Average Manatee]

95% chance of not hitting still means there is a 5% chance you will. As I said, the facing tables are changed to reflect this. It is you who are being ridiculous in this case.

No, it's literally the same hit chance as if you were looking dead center on.

The tabletop literally has a different hit location table for different facings relative to the target. You are wrong. Just admit it.

I don't give a flying fuck about the tabletop. In game the only directions that matter are cardinal.

 

[Cael]

95% chance of not hitting still means there is a 5% chance you will. As I said, the facing tables are changed to reflect this. It is you who are being ridiculous in this case.

No, it's literally the same hit chance as if you were looking dead center on.

The tabletop literally has a different hit location table for different facings relative to the target. You are wrong. Just admit it.

I don't give a flying fuck about the tabletop. In game the only directions that matter are cardinal.

If you don't give a flying fuck about the tabletop, then why call for it to be changed?

In the HBS game, try it with a Jaegermech and put a side to an enemy and see what happens. I suspect you left it too late and the other arm had very little structure left and a LRM sneaked past and took it off. That happens. Or the enemy was above you.

The HBS game actually does the facing thing decently, and you do get increased chances of hitting one side than the other depending on facing. As I said, I use it all the time to get complete salvage pre-Called Shots mayhem. I still use it after when I either run out of Morale or the 'mech is not worth a Precise Shot (e.g., Locusts). You can see the SRM barrage blowing off the arm, then the torso before blowing up the CT. Sometimes the leg gets blown off also. The other arm, leg and torso is typically untouched.