Battletech by Harebrained Schemes (Shadowrun Returns)

GOG keys can be redeemed now, but there’s still the caption on the game listing itself… :(

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Got a code for a shadow Hawk skin from backerkit page that’s now visible, but no idea what to do with it.

Does this get entered to activate in the game itself once it launches at a guess?

I think so. You’ll need a Paradox account.

I still have a few minutes left, but this is a pretty nice little video with some tips on combat.

Yep, just created one, thanks.

Lots of good game mechanic points made, but I’ll forget them, I certainly hope there’s a manual PDF that’s fairly detailed, or am I going to be stuck with a wiki (god I hope not)?

Thanks for that. I’m sure I’ll forget most of it by tomorrow, but as a Battletech novice, it was very informative.

So GOG is telling me I have 12 hours to wait until I can download. I won’t even be able to kick off the download before I go to work tomorrow. Damn.

Yeah, I think 1 PM Eastern the usual line of demarcation for Steam.

Eurogamer like, RPS find a bit wearing.

I do hate long animations in turn-based games after I’ve seen them all a hundred times. Hopefully there’s a patch or mod by the time I start to get tired of them.

Another review.

The AI is clever, human-like in spots, and utterly merciless.

the moment all your 70-90% hit chances miss a target and an enemy gets a lucky shot from miles away those XCOM memories will flood back.

Battletech is XCOM with Mechs, combined with Firefly and Game of Thrones. Excuse me while I mop the drool from my keyboard.

Here’s another good guide for novices, including tips on how to conduct the campaign.

As to missing 90% CTH shots, I, for one, am looking forward to the “OMG The dice are loaded” threads that will inevitably appear.

Improbably good or bad rolls at clutch moments are classic BattleTech.

Seems like they captured the nuances of Battletech perhaps too well for modern players.

Battletech has never been a particularly well-balanced game, and past around 3050 the fictional world doesn’t make sense either. In a lot of ways FASA was half-RPG, half-hex game, a one-shot short story setup and then Go!, and that’s sort of the problem with Battletech.

Because in many ways the most interesting things about Battletech are when you’re forced to play sub-optimally. And being the leader of a mercenary company is one the more enjoyable setups for doing that, doing this with role-playing constraints.

At the same time, Battletech encourages players to twink their 'mechs with obviously broken loadouts because the basic rulesets of Battletech aren’t particularly balanced. And a fully twinked lance will plaster a “role-playing” lance almost every time. So the game discourages role-playing at the same time it tells you that it doesn’t actually work well unless you’re role playing.

There’s also big problems with 'mech differentiation. There’s a reason the US doesn’t have thirty version of Main Battle Tanks; once you get a big one with a big gun, you’re kind of good to go. In Battletech there’s not a lot of reason to choose a 40 ton mech when you could have a 75 or 100 ton 'mech - so you have to tack on more sub-optimal gameplay thematic stuff to make this happen. There’s also not a lot of combat usefulness for light mechs; the game isn’t really set up all that well to have lots of use for spotting or scouting, although there is a bit of that, but generally you’re better off with 19 tons of armor and three PPCs than a light mech that gets a one turn in advance scouting advantage. At least in the PC game they added this initiative system to try to give smaller 'mechs some reason to exist.

Even the slow animation kind of reflections the drawn out hit-card based battles in real time.

Anyway, just sort of interesting that everyone is picking up on many of the very flaws that kind of killed off Battletech originally.

Keep in mind, according to the fluff, mercancies aren’t the only ones playing suboptimally. The Major factions are limited to what can be built or salvaged. And although there are dozens of different mechs, keep in mind there are 6 major factions, and dozen of minor ones. Not all mech are used by all houses. Kurita likes the Dragon and uses it a lot, while other houses have their own preference, and Comcast gets everything they like.

The role of the light mech is scouting and targeting. It’s speed keeps it alive, while you missile boats shot from far away. Also, speed gives you the edge since you can attack more easily from the rear.

There is a great video of 4 locust taking on a single Awesome and winning. Not sure if I could pull it off in the boardgame, but nice to see it on the PC.

I lol’ed.

Oops…
I am keeping it, but it should be Comstar.

In some ways, a computer version like this has more chance of mitigating the structural problems with the BT universe and rules systems than a board game. A digital game can enforce some of the things that usually had to be negotiated among players with house rules, and in a solo campaign at least can certainly structure encounters so that sub-optimal situations are more the norm, and are winnable.

Then again, most RPG P&P systems are fundamentally flawed in similar ways. BattleTech/MechWarrior just suffers more acutely because of the somewhat awkward and imprecise melding of a miniatures tactical battle game with a RPG environment.

If you want to play battletech in a remotely balanced setting, you need to generally limit yourself to stock mech configurations (As soon as you move to custom builds, things get dumb), and probably avoid using any of the level 3 tech. The clan stuff was never balanced.

You can potentially try to use modified battlevalue to balance things, but they never really got that balanced either.