Battletech by Harebrained Schemes (Shadowrun Returns)

Big mechs may sometimes have more problems with weapon limits than with tonnage. So if you want to wedge in an extra laser or two and you only have 2 laser slots available but there’s tonnage to spare, you might as well take the heavy lasers even if they’re not numerically efficient.

I get that, but do you think there are many scenarios where you’d be willing to take both the double tonnage AND the double heat? Big mechs also have the same base heat dissipation of the small mechs, so they very often need a ton of heat sinks. Heat sinks take up tonnage and space. Yes, the space on those heat sinks can be in a different location than the space constrained location of the weapon, but double tonnage and double heat for 20% damage just seems way over the top.

I feel like the Heavy Laser and PPC produce more heat in this game then they do in table top. I feel like it should have been 24 and 30 heat instead of 30 and 40.

Yeah that was more important at the beginning when I didn’t know what I was doing.

Afterwards it was all about stripping crap and fitting in as many SRMs and medium lasers I could.

I think the biggest issue with the long range weapons is that it is a lot easier to close distance in this game, than in the tabletop, IIRC. Range just doesn’t feel as big as of an advantage as in the TT. The heat issue, if range advantage were adjusted, might well be worth it. That said, my memory has been shown to be pretty bad.

Long rang for all 4 mechs is next to impossible, but having one or two dedicated range platform mechs can work. The AI usually doesn’t go hunting for mechs out of sight, so your spotter keeps those range mechs safe with minimum armor.

Just as an FYI, the files for the weapons (.JSOD’s) can be modified with Wordpad. So if one feels a certain number just isn’t right, go to town :)

I guess I’ll need to get a King Crab before I quit this game. And an Atlas. Darn it.

A few story missions left.

Although I’m not a freak for “balance”, this game has boiled down to a few superior builds and pilot choices (Med Lazer and AC 20 up close, LRM far, everything else, feh, plus Bulwark and Breaching Shot or the Tactics Primary are just superior). In addition, lighter mechs become less and less helpful as the game progresses, eventually become totally obselete I’d like some more variety in viable/competitive mech builds, pilot builds, and lance builds.

Stepsongrapes has identified a key issue: long range weapons (except LRMs) are underwhelming. In addition to closing range, another aspect of this game is you don’t detect enemies all that far out, which means you may already be at medium or close to medium range once the shooting starts.

I have a few ideas that would address the weapon balance, mech class planned obsolescence and pilot “dump stat” issues:

1)Give lighter mechs longer spotting and scanning range. An example would be: mechs 50 tons and under get +50 meter spotting range and +100 meter scanning range (base range). Mechs 30 tons and under get 100m/200m boosts. So, having 30 ton Mech in your lance lets you start the battle 200 yards further out if you are scanning aggressively and that’s going to make long range weapons, especially repeat fire long range weapons like energy weapons, much more useful. It will also make lighter mechs more useful.

2)Increase the max range of some of the long range weapons to better allow them to benefit from #1 above. I’m thinking something like: PPC +200m range, AC2 +150m, LL +100m, AC10 +50m. The AC 5 is fine as is IMO, maybe it could use a tiny boost like +20m.

3)Increase the Evasion bonus for pilots with Evasion abilities. For the Evasion secondary, instead of raising your evasion cap by 1 pip, it should make each pip worth -15% to enemy shots instead of the -10% that is currently is. This would make Evasion a better tree even if you weren’t zooming around at max speed all the time. In addition, add a change to the Evasion primary: in addition to allowing movement after shooting (not very helpful in most situations), have the Evasion primary increase your evasion pip boost to -20% to enemy shots. That would mean a master of the Evasion tree would be an illusive sucker, which is as it should be.

These are just idle ideas, and the numbers could change based on play testing, but I think these ideas are ways to add variety and more interesting player choices to the game.

Question about the final missions: It says I need to be able to field multiple lances. Do I need more than the 6 mechwarriors I have on my roster?

You need seven mechwarriors/mecs. I think in theory if you don’t get hurt at all you could reuse 4 but my 4 guys all got hurt. The mecs didn’t get damaged much, I got to reuse them.

Okay thanks. I have a +3 injury mod so I should be okay.

I think this is one of the biggest culprits, particular when coupled with the pseudo-real time movement that happens when you don’t have contacts. It’s hard to capitalize on long-range firepower when you’re in a knife fight all the time.

It’s possible that I need to adjust my play style and run a single scouting mech up front, while everyone else stays parked at or near the LZ. Once the scout pings, it can run back to safety so that I can set up for more of a chess battle once I know the direction the enemy is coming from. The way I do it now is that everyone moves up in a pack.

I suspect that a lot of the decisions about things like weapon ranges, heat, range of engagement, spotting, loadouts, etc. are at least in part a function of the inability of the AI (or any AI probably) to handle everything a bunch of humans playing the table top version could handle. At least, the effort needed to make the AI play within all of those rules would be prohibitive, so they wisely tailored the battlefield experience to be within spitting distance of the AI’s abilities.

And that’s the voice of wisdom.

And, in the process, HBS managed to create a passable streamlining of BT’s chrome-filled rules. I’d actually like to see a decent paring-down of the TT ruleset (Alpha Strike doesn’t count) now.

edit: I do miss “fall down… and roll” effects, though.

I think a huge one would be having some maps where you are forced into long range engagements (at least to start). In basically every map there’s enough little hills and things between me and the enemy forces that it is basically preordained that it will be a close range fight and I could hide twinked out LRM boats with no armor if I was into that build.

A pedantic point: Large Lasers are not Heavy Lasers. Heavy Lasers are a thing in later tech tiers. Best not to mix them up. ):

Intelligence is knowing Large lasers have superior range, Wisdom is knowing to never use them?

I am feeling an urge to misbehave.