Cool! I’d been waiting for this patch before continuing the campaign, now I know what to do when I get tired of my annual attempt at PoE.
Wow, reading the notes it seems they really addressed every single complaint I have ever heard of the original game. Gameplay too slow, not enough options, lasers being underpowered, slow mechlab speed in the late game, stability damage too OP, called shot issues, contract difficulty ratings too unreliable, no ultrawide monitor support, and no ironman mode.
All apparently addressed in the first patch of the game!
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/418098901892202498/458449597531160576/Battletech_weapons.xlsx
An updated excel sheet for you all to use. It has a sheet for base game and a sheet updated with the beta stats.
I guess I’m your typical cranky gamer that hates nerfs because I’m not sure what joy I was missing by blowing the shit out of a center torso with a couple racks of SRMs. Oh well.
It’s a modest nerf, but LLs got a solid buff, and PPCs got a small buff - that creates more viable build options which is good IMO
I wonder about the PPCs. I really like the PPC++
Damage per ton, the LL is now between the AC/2 and AC/10 in cost. Still not as good as the AC 5, a fan favorite of mine.
I think this will make the Rifleman a better mech, if it ever appears.
Both the MLs and SRMs needed a serious nerf. You shouldn’t be able to take out assault mechs in a single alpha strike in Battletech, but that’s what was going on in the late game. My end game mechs were just SRM and ML boats, other than the one gauss rifle and my LRM boat. Simply buffing the other weapons wouldn’t solve that problem.
By my math the LL+++ is now Superior to the AC5++ in straight damage / ton, though the AC5 is still Superior due to range/heat.
If there was more incentive to use light and medium mechs, the LL would have a significant advantage due to the “free” 30 heat/turn that comes with each mech. You could mount a couple of LLs without needing a single extra heatsink.
I don’t think so. Without double heat sinks, the AC/5 ++ deals about 5.1 damage per ton, while the LL +++ deals about 4.5 damage per ton.
Keep in mind, the AC 5 only needs 2.6 tons of heat sinks, and only 1 ton of ammo to make it to 15 shots, while the Large Laser, though 3 tons lighter, needs 6 tons of heatsinks, although does not need ammo.
The AC 5 also has longer range and deals stability damage. On the other hand, you do have more accuracy with the large laser, with should not be discounted.
That all being said, the lack of stability damage is a real kick, and I love my AC 5 +++ even if it will deal less damage.
Anyway, the above spreadsheet doesn’t have the ++ or +++ numbers, but it’s easy enough to update.
Ahhh, you were factoring the necessary heatsinks to drop to zero heat side effect into your dmg/ton ratings? I was looking at just the weapon weights.
With the changes to stability damage, it sounds like knockdowns are going to be reserved for loadouts/strategies that are built to do it and it won’t be a common occurrence like the current patch. So I’m not sure the stability damage of an AC/5 is going to be significant, but I’ll need to wait to see how it plays out. I’m just theorizing right now.
I agree that the LL is definitely going to be a more attractive weapon now in the medium mech phase of a campaign game. On my last playthrough I basically just had 4 medium mechs loaded up with medium lasers and SRMs committing short range murder. Now I may actually have some LLs or PPCs in the mix since the lighter mechs have more opportunity to be heat efficient.
Holy patchnotes batman! I’m gonna get my mech on!
Initial impressions of new patch: excellent. The speed up improvements are what I was asking for, the new difficulty settings are nice, and the balance changes are, if not perfect, very solid steps towards more variety of viable mech layouts.
I’m enjoying the PPC and LL changes. It’s nice to play with new builds. I still wish that the travel cutscenes were skippable. Also the switch from buy to sell in the store still takes way too long.
I have an Atlas armed with two LL and an AC 10. It seems like a nice mix.
This seems like the kind of game it would be easy to mod new campaigns for along the lines of Shadowrun, but with less complexity. You just need a cut-scene creator and a scenario editor. Of course I know very well both these things are non-trivial, but on the other hand they certainly have them in-house already.
That’s going to be the fun part of the meta changes here, it will create some utility for mech chassis that currently are suboptimal. As much as I loved the Atlas in the tabletop days it’s been strictly inferior to the King Crab in this game due to lack of hardpoints for the kind of SRM/ML spam that was previously the optimum strategy. Sure it had the tonnage to mount a lot of big weapons but then it couldn’t handle the heat. Might be some fun possibilities for some better Atlas builds now.
I really need to opt into the beta branch so I can start playing around with this.
That’s… terrifyingly cheap. 7M? That’s like at-cost or below. Like under 350,000 in units sold.
Is Jordan Weisman just… bad at business? Is this why he sold out 20 years ago? It’s like they ask him, hey, here’s some free hotdogs and a large drink for your company, and he responds with “throw in a sunday and you got a deal.” Battletech comes “back” and the first thing he does is jump ship. Weird.
It’s almost like just like players get bored of BTech and move on, Mr. Weisman gets bored of running a company and moves on.
Tried an Awesome with 2 PPC++ and 2 LL++. Very meh. Lots of armor even after a bunch of heatsinks and 2 JJ. But, meh.
Hmm, well while it may not be some crazy multiple of revenue like a lot of mobile aquisitions, I think its a pretty fair deal, as that purchase price rises linked to revenue for five years. So in effect they get a payout now and more if their % of earnings exceeds that minimum purchase price. Which aint bad.
“Paradox pays a fixed purchase price of US$7,500,000 at the time of acquisition plus an additional purchase price corresponding to 25% of the acquired business’ earnings before publishing costs over the next 5 years to the extent such earnings exceed the fixed purchase price.”
full disclosure: since my first post I have entered into a business relationship with one of the parties. I wont go into details but I also want to be open and dont want folks to think I was sock puppeting here. I have zero knowledge of the background or whats in this deal beyond the press release.