3606

I’m squarely in the target audience for this. I internalized all their (shallow and incoherent) setting and backstory as an uncritical teen and loved it to death. And even I eye-rolled a bit at the plot of some of the campaign missions and flashpoints. But overall it was well done and it definitely scratched my giant-stompy-robot-shooting-big-guns itch. Ive played through five full campaigns and a few career modes as well. I’m sad that there won’t be an immediate sequel or any more DLCs but I do understand that I’m a hardcore fan and there probably aren’t enough of us to justify further development.

3607

There are some bugs - but this game is amazing and you should absolutely play it. The feeling of just duking it out with these huge robots can’t be beat… and the ‘catch em’ all aspect of the game is a good time as well.

I would not remotely describe the game as a ‘mess’. It is much closer to masterpiece.

3608

I will support comments made by Tortilla and dionisus1122. As a high school kid who liked history, D&D, and PC games, I really fell in love with the Battletech lore. I’ve remembered more stuff from FASA sourcebooks about the great houses and mercenary units than just about anything else. My aging 45-year-old brain can’t remember stuff I did at work last week, but I can tell you that you wouldn’t want to hire Wilson’s Hussars to help your lance in a pitched battle and that the leader of the Capellan March in 3025 is a bad egg.

I’m so happy they were able to get this game published as it does so much of what I hoped for as a high school kids reading over sourcebooks and technical readouts. There are a lot of things I would want to add to it, but I’m more than happy with what I’ve got. These days it’s not often that I finish PC games, but I’ve finished the campaign and career modes, and I’m currently going through a career in the Advanced 3025 mod. I also just got a friend to buy the games since they’re on sale and he likes giant robot stuff.

Now who do I have to kill for someone to make a Battletech grand strategy game?

3609

A proper 3025 BT 4x game would be SO weird. You don’t research anything. You don’t build jumpships, you just hope to capture them without damaging them beyond repair. You don’t build infrastructure or capabilities up, you just accept that they degrade over time. But you do get to paint a hell of a lot of map!

3610

You’re right that it would be a very different sort of 4X game than we are used to. I think it could be done, but it would take some real design chops and a willingness to do something very different from what most gamers would expect. More along the lines of the Fading Suns stuff.

3611

Loading times are pretty awful, but they’re just as bad in Pillars of Eternity (another Unity engine title).

3612

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

3613

Since I’ve had some issues with my current TBS obsession, AoW Planetfall this weekend, let me ask about my other potential interest: trying some more Battletech with one of the mods that are out now.

The two that look interesting are BTAdvanced 3062 and BTExtended 3025 - Commanders Edition. Does anyone have experience with either of these or other major mods, and what sort of feedback/impressions do you have?

The two I mentioned seem to be being worked on currently and look potentially enjoyable. What do you folks think?

3614

As was mentioned up-thread, I feel that BT post-3055 quickly went off the rails, so I haven’t touched 3062.

Extended 3025 is great though. I’ve thought about going back to do a vanilla playthrough a few times, but Extended stands on its own so well and adds so much that I’ll probably just forego vanilla again and play this instead.

3615

I was having trouble getting 3025 to run properly , so I just started a playthrough of 3062. It plays – at least through the mid-game – very differently, with ECM and speed being much more critical – but I’m enjoying it overall. Also: So. Many. Mechs.

3616

I have been playing this with Extended 3025, and it is really great so far. Playing on simulation difficulty, and it has been a real uphill battle to get better gear fielded. I only have Flashpoints as far as DLC. Just had one show up on the map rated three skulls, which is a big lol because Darius informed me that I don’t even have the gear to take on a 1.5 yet. Playing career, zero interest in campaign.

3617

I should dive back in with some mods…

3618

I should also dive back in now that I have more RAM and better video card. I played through the campaign previously and just started a regular career playthrough before other distractions intervened.

3619

It is quite addicting! I am really worried that my lance is soon going to be stuck between a rock and a hard place as we have not found any salvage (or parts for purchase) that will let us field larger mechs, but the easier missions seem to be dwindling.

3620

Time to take the leap and start taking on more difficult missions! There’s definitely a bit of a “hail mary” feeling when you’re taking on something that’s higher rated than your mechs are, but that challenge is often worthwhile (both in terms of the salvage/financial rewards and in terms of how good it feels on the gameplay). There’s nothing like the first time your 30-40 ton mechs take down a 60+ ton behemoth!

3621

Have you or anyone else here tried the Full Mission Control and Bigger Drop patches for Extended? Apparently you can field more than one lance.

Finally got a little financial wiggle room so we can about 6 months of funding in the bank. Having a heck of a time finding parts in shops, so a number of my mechs right now are packing small lasers in place of mediums that have been lost. Had to abort one mission which was to kill a convoy, but other than that we’ve had pretty good luck on our first few missions.

3622

I have not. I saw it mentioned in the description of Extended and had a look at the page linked but it seemed pretty complicated and I tabled the idea.

3623

Yeah, that details on that Full Mission Control did sound a bit complicated.

I made some progress this weekend with my career, and after forking out about a million credits between the 2 to get the final salvage pieces I was able to field a GRF-1N and a PXH-1. We managed to salvage the parts for the Shadow Hawk as well, and now are running those 3 plus my trusty old Firestarter. I also have a Mongoose and a Panther in the bay. Currently working along the Lyran Commonweath - Draconis Combine border area.

3624

I guess for other more plugged in people this was obvious, but I just figured out the “Bull Shark” 'mech added at the end of this game’s DLC life cycle was clearly named after Russ Bullock, president of Piranha Games (the creators of Mechwarrior 5).

3625

Whoa, I never caught that angle. I just assumed it was an animal name in line with how other Clan mechs are named, since it’s obviously an (early) Clan design.