meeper
3346
Keep in mind that jump distance is dependent upon the number of jets installed. For mobility reasons, you may only equip your mech with 1 or 2 of them instead of up to the max (as specified by the max walking speed defined by the engine size of the particular mech in question).
I don’t think it’s changed; I thought jumping always provided an evasion benefit scaled on distance traveled.
Maybe it used to give 3 evasion pips as a baseline then? I’m pretty sure I remember getting 3 pips no matter how far I jumped around release. But! might be misremembering.
I picked this game up at launch and played for several hours, having a blast, but then other games started grabbing at my attention (which happens from time to time…) and I shelved into my Backlog catagory intending to get back into it. Well, with the expansion dropping I thought I’d maybe see what we have for other DLC during the Steam sale, and I was shocked to see the game at pretty low/mixed reviews. It looks like the negative reviews started just in the last few weeks, however.
What happened? What is everyone complaining about? Should I skip the DLC? I see there are two now (Flashpoint, Urban Warfare, and an upcoming one that hasn’t been announced yet). Should I keep it on the backburner for now?
Lantz
3349
As someone who loved the game (it has its flaws but it does Battletech for me amazingly), looking at the recent negative reviews it looks mostly like a lot of people with literal hundreds of hours complaining about the DLC not being bigger.
I wouldn’t let them turn you off. I loved it at full price.
I kind of figured it was something like that, it usually is when you go from mostly positive reviews to a bunch of complaining right after new DLC drops. Thanks for the advice!
Sharpe
3351
The DLC are in fact under-whelming for the cost, but the base game is so good, I recommend the base game. If you can pick up the DLC on sale, it’s worth it. I’ve bought the DLC at full price, as I am OK with supporting the company, but honestly, they are relatively small DLC for their price point.
I have to agree, especially as the flashpoint missions won’t occur in the campaign until it’s done (they’ll be mixed in from the start in career mode, however). Don’t get me wrong, the DLCs add some really cool stuff, but they’re overpriced (especially when you can use mods to add mechs or expand the map). I’d only get the DLC when it’s on sale.
I agree the DLC is hardly visible - the Urban maps do look pretty, and there is a reasonable attention to detail that makes them enjoyable, but most of the time I can hardly tell I have the expansion at all. Still wish i had pitched in the 2k or whatever to get a MechWarrior named “Enidigm” in there! I got the season pass day one. But Paradox games’ DLC in general tend to appeal to niche and are always bad content/cost ratios, sadly.
I kind of burned out on BT at release and only recently came back to it. BattleTech is a lot like a 4X game in that getting started is 90% more fun than finishing. If you pace yourself and don’t over-grind on the game I think you can have a lot of fun once you buy into the core gameplay loop.
The most basic game restriction - having a max of 4 mechs yourself with no reinforcements or switching mechs out - inevitably mean that whatever BattleTech could have been, the arc of the game is fundamentally a Pokémon like experience where you have to “grab them all” where having four 100 ton Mechs is the goal. That arc before you start reaching that point is where all the fun lies.
I’d like to see, if the four mech limit is for performance and sanity (just like tabletop, running 12 on 12 battles could wear your dice out, in many ways much worse than even Games Workshop tabletop, since every weapon has to be rolled, and every location has to be rolled, ect) i would like to see the ability to switch Mechs out with a “reinforcement” drop; you go to point C or whatever, and the game picks up the mechs you have there and leaves behind an equal number of reinforcement mechs. That would add a ton of scope to the battles.
Or, to summarize:
BTW, i found a PDF version of the original 3025 technical readout if anyone wants it. I assume it is kosher to offer b/c i assume they’re out of print; if this is not so, offer is withdrawn!
vyshka
3355
I think they sell it as a pdf through drivethrurpg
You can also go to the wiki for it and click on the various mechs & what not. I know it’s not quite the same feel, but the basic content is still there.
Oh I didn’t know about drivethroughrpg
They have apparently some fluff made for the game:
I might have to get that. The original ancillary stuff of BT wasn’t the best, so i suspect the new fluff to probably be of much higher quality.
Btw… i think i mentioned this before… anyone play the old BT game? Anyone remember the old sourcebooks?
There was one sourcebook that blew my kid mind because way in the back where they compiled these odd vignettes about random characters was one about some random weirdo who had “visions” of Kerensky’s fleet orbiting a star. Then the next sourcebook released was 3050 and the Clans. But I can’t remember now which book that was in. Not a huge deal, but I wanted to glance at whichever sourcebook that was again.
Also, looking at that site, i guess Catalyst Game Labs, the most recent owners of the BattleTech license, are now owned by Topps, the baseball card company?
vyshka
3358
There is a decent android app called mech factory which has a lot of info, and if useful for people that play tabletop.
I don’t remember if I had sourcebooks. I had all of the box sets in the 80s.
When I started playing this game last year it drove me to pick up the rulebooks from Catalyst. I still haven’t dove into them though. I figure between those and the megamek programs I can have some fun.
robc04
3359
I got a couple missions under my belt and made it to the ship in the campaign. I found the bay to repair one of my mechs that was pretty damaged.
After 2 missions it seems pretty good. The missions are pretty meaty and they seem to like to add more objectives as I go.
That’s a very cool idea, and really seems like something that might be implementable in a particularly ambitious mod. The 4 mech limit is definitely the greatest restriction here, I do wish something could be done to open things up a bit.
I played a fair bit of BattleTech tabletop back in the 90’s and early 00’s. To this day I have a sort of psychological weakness for big schematics with lots of tiny checkboxes on them (I played a lot of Starfleet Battles too - same deal). Anyway, I recall devouring all the lore with abandon, but I don’t recall the particular bit you’re asking about. Have you looked at sarna.net for it? They’ve got basically everything ever on this universe and a lot of it’s clearly sourced.
I played back in the day. I actually had the manual for creating mechs/vehicles and the like. As a 12 year old, I spent more time designing my own OP mechs, rather than playing it. I usually played a few games with my older brothers, and found myself flatten, because they were just that much better than me (being 5 years older then me had it’s advantages).
That being said, I really wanted to try out some of those cool rules (even if it meant the dice would be insane). I wanted to try out LAM mechs, or infantry with special tactics ambushing mechs. Or elementals being carried by hovercraft to attack the rear of a mech.
The old battletech manual had pictures of fully painted battlefields, with mechs, infantry and tanks, on a fully realized maps, with hills, buildings and lakes. I used to play on a hexagonal map, because that was all I had at the time and I used to have to explain how the rifleman figure would actually be a catapult, because I didn’t have a catapult, and I needed to use my marauder as a marauder. But with the, you have the maps, and the mechs, and you don’t have to worry about rolling hundreds of shits, or double checking all the rules. You can just play. Just not with all the things you wanted to.
By the way, Battletech was still more straightforward than the other tabletop game by FASA - Renegade Legion, with it’s weird shield mechanic, and movement point system.
Is there some sort of “Perfect Intel” mod that makes the mission Skulls actually match the mission difficulty?
I went into a 1.5 skull mission today with Vindicator/Jenner/Panther/Firestarter and ran into… Spider/Jenner/Shadow Hawk/Hunchback/Griffin/Griffin/Griffin/Crab.
I’m just a bit tired of this now.
Huh, that used to happen often, but I haven’t seen it in quite awhile (not since I restarted, in fact) - frankly I thought they’d fixed it.
Sharpe
3364
Darius is a lying liar, and a pyromaniac to boot (have you heard his statements when you destroy buildings?).
Actually I felt the skull-intel was better in recent patches.
One thing to keep in mind is that the game will rate heavier mechs as a lower skull threat if they are not as well maintained (ie lower armor - you will often fight pirates with only 25% or 50% of the typical armor). That changes the mission balance: you will face much heavier firepower than you might be expecting but with relatively easy-to-kill opponents. This means heavy alpha-strike firepower tends to be more valuable on those missions than either mobility or armor - kill the lightly armored heavy hitters fast and you can take down much heavier lances. The upside to this is the salvage can be truly excellent.
I killed two of the mechs from the main target lance, ignored the reinforcement lance and then bailed on the contract.
I’m in an odd place for this. I would actually like the fact that intel wasn’t perfect and you could end up in the shit, but only if it hadn’t happened all the time in the early days of the game.
Now instead of my reaction being “Uh oh… now what do we do!?” it’s just straight “Great, this crap again.”
