There was this BattleTech clone on the Amiga, no AI to speak of, hot-seat multiplayer, that we did a lot of in the old days, too. Can’t recall the name, I think it was some form of shareware.
The AI actually wasn’t too bad, considering.
Heavy Gear was fun, but Heavy Gear 2 made me feel like I was in a battle suit, instead of a mech. Being able to crawl, and knee was cool.
Of course, the best thing was having tracks to move around with.
Yeah Gears are far more nimble than Mechs, and the second game especially takes advantage of this.
FWIW just renaming the mods folder seems to have worked splendidly to restore the game to vanilla so I could finish up my old game. Thanks for saving me a reinstall!
Does Cyber Empires count?
It may be older at this point, but I really can’t recommend Front Mission 4 enough. I’ve maintained an early-gen PS3 just so I can occasionally boot it up and play. It’s not BattleTech, but it scratches the itch pretty well.
Yeah FM4 is cool. Silly cut-scenes though…
Yeah, the conversations always felt like they were the result of budget cuts. Still, a great tactics game with big stompy robots.
Just did a massive mission for my new BFFs Liao. A Word of Blake outpost was spewing some sort of electronic virus and we were contracted to drop and flatten the base where the broadcast was originating. As usual, the Leopard dropped us in a bad position, facing away from the enemy but within sensor range, and in rough jungle terrain. Luckily we were very high above them; unluckily, we had to wind our way down a very nasty pathway to get to where we could even jump down to the bad guys.
The enemies consisted of, initially, a lance of defenders and a lance of support, ranging in size from 35t to 90t. The base had very nasty–as in HVAC ACs and tons of missiles–turrets, with very long range.
We killed the two lances, and three of the turrets, and blew up enough of the base to satisfy our employers. On the way to the evac point, of course, yet another heavy lance dropped in right on top of the landing point, and we had to slog our way through that, too.
In the end, out of eight 'Mechs, I lost three (no fatalities among pilots though, and no unrecoverable 'Mechs): a Grasshopper, a Rifleman II, and, um, I think some Lau Hu or something like that. Some Cappelan thing.
Salvage was so good, there were 'Mech parts in bundles of two and three partials. Sweet, and bonuses paid for the ammo and some of the repairs, even though as usual I put the slider all the way to the right for more salvage. Brutal fight, but fun. Took real-time over two hours.
How far into the career is this? I realize that “how far” is rather nebulous but I’m not seeing anything that brutal. Of course I’m also taking 2 star missions with a single lance of mediums so that would trash my group! Maybe it is simply my cautious nature but Extended 3025 CE does seem to have a really slow ramp up to heavier mechs.
I’m playing BTA 3062, and that mission was like at day 500-ish out of 1200? I’m doing four skull missions mostly.
Interesting. I’m also around day 500. Even if I had been challenging myself all along with higher skull missions I don’t think I’d have the firepower to tackle such a mission. With the wild card being that I’m not using the multiple lance version of the Extended mod so I’ll only ever drop one lance.
The multiple lances is the key, if you want to tackle the really hairy stuff. The trade off is it takes longer and IMO gets buggier sometimes. Also, Flashpoints allow only one lance it seems, so you can get complacent, relying on numbers.
That being said, having up to eight 'Mechs (plus four vehicles if you go that route, which I haven’t) allows you to tackle pretty much anything. You are still limited by your stable of mounts and pilots, and by the vagaries of RNGesus (getting an assault 'Mech cored in the first couple of rounds by a lucky Gauss shot is never fun), but those long fights against waves of reinforcements become viable rather than insta-reloads.
I came across a series on Youtube by NoGutsNoGalaxy where they are doing a Battletech 3062 playthough using nothing but vehicles. While this completely misses the point of stompy robot goodness, I admit the chutzpah – I think he’ll have real trouble past the 3.5 skull missions.
To expand on Wombat’s comment, I also think multiple lances are key in Roguetech, in particular, where pilot recovery times are an issue. In those instances, you may want a pair of two-lance squads (or two companies, if you’re doing vehicles) so that you can continue progressing as one squad or the other is recuperating from missions.
Oh yeah, especially until you get your medical facilities up to max the down time on pilots can be a killer. I’ve had many missions where a seemingly insignificant hit will end up injuring the pilot, and some missions where three or more were hurt fairly seriously. With the exception of the first few months (game time) I tend to just go back to an earlier save if a pilot actually dies, but injuries I just live with.