1625

+5% to-hit, I believe. (Your starting Blackjack is a good test case—it has some arm-mounted medium lasers and some torso-mounted medium lasers.)

1626

There’s lots of possibilities with minor factions. I think playing as a major faction would be … less interesting. At least, you’d have to set it up a certain way. The problem as noted above is the 4 mech limit. It would be hard to play as an “official” member of a military yet only have access to like 4 mechs, so you’d have to create a pretty contrived situation for that this makes sense.

The last cool thing in BT post 4th Succession War, post Clans was the “Chaos March”, the north half of the Capellan Confederation which fell apart because of reasons.

ComStar might be an interesting campaign, sort of playing like a Mass Effect style “investigation” of “rumors” of “aliens” in the Deep Periphery… sort of a preliminary, before the Clans invasion thing where you bump into them at the end. It was also be a cool way to introduce people to the Clans who wouldn’t know what to expect.

Playing as a lance in Wolf’s Dragoons might also be interesting.

You could do the Solaris thing but imo that might be less interesting than it sounds.

1627

This helps balance the weapons and gives you a reason to use different models. If every model can wield every weapon they all suddenly become just a blank slate.

It’s nice that they balanced autocannons (finally); it’s why the Shadow Hawk is finally a decent mech now. They were so heavy and had all the drawbacks of PPCs yet half the damage AND you had to carry ammo.

FYI in TT (in the past, i haven’t looked any new materials) AC/5s hit for 5 damage, AC/10s for 10, and AC/20s for 20 (nice and easy). Medium Lasers hit for 5, Large Lasers for 8, and PPCs for 10. Considering that an AC/5 weighed as much as a PPC it was hard to justify their opportunity cost.

Lasers have the same scaling in HBS game but x5: ML hit for 25, LL hit for 40, PPCs hit for 50. But they upgunned the lower end ACs a huge amount, adding stability damage and increasing their outright damage. So now AC/5s hit for 45 (in between LL and PPC); AC/10s hit for 60 (in between a PPC and a Gauss Rifle in TT) and the AC/20 for 100 (so the same x5 scale as other weapons).

It’s also why Shadow Hawk punching is silly. It hits for 85 damage (!). That’s more than a Gauss round, and all to one place. It punches as hard as an Orion. (I think the fluff has something about it having the most sophisticated hands and they adjusted the game to fit this). It’s like getting hit with a poor-man’s AC/20 and it almost always does more damage than a full salvo of all its other weapons.

1628

First mission, first shot, my commander gets tagged in the face. 20 days in medbay. That’s Battletech!

1629

Just FYI but i’ve recruited two Kickstarter Mechwarriors (they have that little purple flag next to their name) and the two i’ve grabbed seem to have unique vocal responses. Even more jealous now!

1630

Cool mod.

1631

The one thing that does bother me is I’m not too sure about the heatsinks when I’m in the mechbay. In the table top version, every mech comes with 10 heatsinks, and each extra heatsink depletes a single extra point of heat. The mechbay doesn’t show the initial 10 heatsinks (which I assume is actually 30 heatsinks, since each heat sink can cool 3 heat). It bugs me.

1632

Demolishers have two AC/20s

1633

I’m starting to think the Kickstarter stretch goal of the open, semi/random campaign was a mistake. The story missions are much better designed than 99% of the grindy stuff you need to do to earn cash. I think UI would have preferred a freshed out story-based campaign (with economy and having to care of your mechs, but with a branching set of hand crafted missions).

The story missions are really fun.

1634

This might be worth getting, as it sure seems like pilots get injured far more often than I would expect. It’s not uncommon for the first or second medium laser shot from a light 'Mech to injure a MechWarrior right off the bad. And every knockdown does, too.

1635

You guys have probably tried this, but I usually rush the SRM Carriers if at all possible. I delay to the same phase they are on, then sprint towards them after they move with a couple of mechs. Since they always go on phase 1 and your mechs are probably on phase 2/3, you will be able to stomp on them before they move again. Plus you get a huge pile of Evasion if you sprint to them, so most of the rockets miss you…

1636

Still loving it.

In the campaign you can not seem to escape the Periphery which is a bit of a drag. Where is the best planet in that area to acquire new mechs? I have 6m C-Bills and nothing to spend it on.

1637

they get a 1 accuracy modifier, so it’s 5% better chance to hit (arms)

1638

We used to listen to the Mechwarrior 2 soundtrack off the game disc. You skipped track 1 on the disc (which was deafening static) and then it played the rest of the music as audio tracks. Good shit.

1639

That was perhaps the first time I ever listened to game music in a CD player. (Err, maybe the last as well.)

For me it was Mercenaries.

1640

I still listen to it all the time. Here’s the whole thing:

1641

Well this is fun! Question though, I am ignoring the main story quests, am I missing out on any free mechs or advantages here? If not I am content to potter around ignoring the main quest.

1642

i bet you can take main storyline missions at your leisure. havent read anywhere yet that they go away if you dont do em.

in other news: I love love love glitch. she is awesome!

1643

You may want to finish the first main line quest because you do get a big payout and some stuff. Though on the other hand it seems that doing the first few main quests does make all the contracts harder (more skulls). At least it seems that way to me.

1644

The completion of the storylines opens up greater tonnage missions. Greater tonnage = bigger mechs as opposition = bigger salvage and let you acquire higher techs.

Have fun.