1564

Not sure if anyone else is wondering, but this game runs great on my MacBook Pro (2017). I’ve played a fair amount of Xcom on this machine, and Battle Tech runs quite a bit better. Just thought I’d mention in case anyone wants to play this on the go. And Steam cloud sync with my PC!

1565

I’m using a reasonably comparable machine (2016 MacBook Pro with dedicated AMD graphics) and I’d call it tolerable rather than great. IMO stutters too much on high settings and runs best with everything on low. But then it looks really bad. Hope it gets a little more optimization in future.

Diego

1566

How much RAM? I have 16 GB so maybe that’s the difference… ? Also I’m fairly early in the game so maybe it gets more demanding later. I was just happy to be able to play it on the go.

1567

Epic.

This game is everything I hoped it would be. I would have changed some things like the graphics and load times. The performance will get improved in patches and maybe someone will come out with a graphics mod. But when you are in a pitched battle this game is ace.

I was feeling a bit spunky with my mostly medium lance (Trebuchet, Shadow Hawk, Dragon and a Thunderbolt) so I decided on a whim to take on a 4.5 skull mission for a cool million C-Bills. I am a merc so no price is too high!

It was an escort mission with the standard setup. Arrive at a base, escort the trucks to the dropship and get then exit Stage Left. When I get close to the base 4 enemy Griffins decide to join the party. That is the equivalent of my group and we stage a pretty fierce epic battle which included 2 DFAs (one from each side). I forgot how much armor Griffins have and it takes me forever to kill them. At the end my Dragon is on one leg and pretty well shattered. My Trebuchet is about out of ammo too.

Worse yet the vehicles decide to leave. So I use my SH to escort the vehicles while the other 3 mop up. En route the convoy is attacked by 5 tanks. So I hurry the T-Bolt to the action while my Treb proceeds to fight the last two remaining damaged Griffins with my one legged Dragon in tow. We barely manage to fight off the 5 tanks and at this point I was feeling good about completing the mission. Then just before the convoy gets to the drop zone a lance of 4 heavies (Orion, Black Knight, Thunderbolt and another blasted Griffin) shows up. My only mech in position was the SH so I proceed to jump around and pepper the heck out of the Orion. My T-Bolt hurries up and between the two of them we bring down the Orion but the SH is about done in.

Two of the four convoys make it to their dropship but now I need to make it to my escape zone. With a one legged Dragon I am not going to make it. So I eject the Dragon, use the SH for bait and tear arse out of there with the last 3 mechs on my tail. The Trebuchet and Thunderbolt both barely make it but that qualifies as success. The whole battle took well over an hour and a half and was a touch and go affair for the longest time. Truly one of the more epic gaming experiences I have had in quite some time.

The repairs ate into my 1m C-Bill payment but I did come out of it with the carcass of the Orion so now I have my own 75 ton heavy!

1568

The battles do make for some great stories. Thanks for telling that one and congrats on living to tell the tale.

My last one was less glorious, I killed the heavy and all but two of the supporting mechs and then bailed because I was about to lose two of mine, that counted as a failed mission since I didn’t kill every single one of them apparently. But we did live to fight another day, only the job as a partial failure paid out only 100k and cost me 200k in repairs plus nearly a month of sitting around waiting for them to get repaired.

I’m betting what we lose on an individual mission we can make up in volume. ;)

I need a heavy…

1569

Thanks this worked great and the game is marvelously more zippy now in load times etc.

1570

I am thinking rather than more mechs allowed than a single lance each mission, I would at the very least like to have some support tanks just like the AI has.

1571

I just picked up the game. Has some promise.

But for pity’s sake, who came up with an inter-mission UI that requires load times to display. What a terrible design. Especially considering the UI is basically a simple choice tree. But other engines can display 3D renders almost instantaneously when they’re this simple. Is Unity really so horribly slow? Why would anyone use it in that case?

Gameplay question 1: Why do enemy mechs always seem to get 4 >>>> after moving and firing when mine generally get only 1 or 2?

Question 2: On the other hand my mechs get 3 or 4 >>>> after jumping. Is there some reason not to jump that is not obvious?

Question 3: Why do some heavily damaged mechs seem so hard to destroy? I thought damage against destroyed parts would be passed through to the core, but it seems to be 95% lost on many attacks.

1572

They’re light mechs probably. They move a lot faster and get more chevrons from it.

HEAT. If you can jump around in some water though, it’s a fairly viable tactic.

I know the feeling, I had a Vindicator that stood up to 2 assault mechs with no arms and no CT armor forever. It’s just a matter of the dice rolls for where things hit a lot of the time. Precision Strikes help a lot when you really need that thing to die in my experience.

1573

yup, all these stories really have me looking forward to parking the jets, hang up the rift and get me my mech on for a spell.

1574

Awesome! And I hear the Orion is pretty great, too.

1575

Man this thing with reinforcements popping up right away in the side missions is painful. Just got my teeth kicked in by 2 lances of composed of mostly mediums (there was a firestarter mixed in with them). Did not feel like a 2 skull mission.

1576

I am struck with analysis paralysis and can’t decide on a second skill for my character. He has Multitarget and I can’t decide what to pair it with.

1577

Heh, I had a mission to ambush a convoy. Seemed an easy enough job. Get there and they are being escorted by a light lance with a Shadow Hawk, so going good so far. Smash up a Jenner and 2 locusts pretty quickly, plus a tank and mobile hq. My Shadow Hawk goes around the bend to engage the last 2 vehicles in the convoy, and it is 2 srm carriers. She eats both salvos, has all her armor pretty much stripped away and loses an arm. Luckily I managed to pull her out of their vision before they could finish her off. My Jagermech was able to trash their Shadow Hawk, and then my Vindicator got flanking shots into the srm carriers with his ppc. Lucked out and didn’t lose anything, other than the c-bills to refit and repair that poor Shadow Hawk. That was a good reminder to bring along someone to sensor lock in the future.

1578

It’s also a good reminder to have at least two pilots with sensor lock as well, so that when one goes into recovery you don’t lose the ability. This is currently where I’m at, so I might be doing some recruiting.

1579

Sorry to comment on the early game when everyone seems to be far advanced, but I wanted to say how much I dislike it when you’ve just beaten a group of enemy mechs and the game doesn’t allow you any salvage because story. What is up with that? After the first mercenary mission in the game when I go to the mechlab I have no salvaged mechs that I just defeated. Just annoys me that I’ve got to wait until the story allows me to have it. /rant

1580

I did not like it either that the first mission does not let you get anything. I do wish that the game had an easier setting that would allow you to earn just a little bit more currency so you are not dependent on every single mission of closing down your merc company.

1581

As a newbie that hasn’t used sensor lock a lot yet, why is it a must? For indirect fire or for removing evasion? Is evasion more important than I am giving it credit?

1582

Well in my first encounter with SRM and a PPC Carrier, both died before letting a single salvo loose because they were stuck in trees, behind a hill, and sensor lock let me indirect fire them to death.

1583

Yeah, the indirect fire aspect is terrific, as is identifying a target beyond visual range. The evasion removal is to me more a fallback if your pilot can’t take a shot.