1665

I’m sure that’s true since the game has no reinforcement option for players and getting bigger mechs is like leveling up. But for equal weight fights Mediums do better than you’d think - i’d rather have 250 tons of Mediums than 100 ton Atlas, a Thunderbolt. and a couple of Jenners.

The whole campaign feels very similar to a Shadowrun campaign.

1666

Oh yeah, I would love a tonnage limit instead of a slot limit.

1667

Tonnage limit is great, but I would prefer a cost limit. Some mechs of the same tonnage are just better.

Hell, I think I could make a 55 ton mech that could beat most standard 60 or 65 ton standard mechs, even given the limitations of this game.

1668

Man, do I adore this game. It has some rough patches, for sure, but I mostly attribute that to being a smallish studio taking on an ambitious game… but hot damn they got a lot right.

Things I want and hope to see in the future

  • Ability to command up to a company of mechs (12). Yes, mission would take hours and hours with how things are currently setup - but perhaps they can do something with a command layer, or AI controlled lances. It would open up the rest of the universe

  • Provide more universe sandbox. Someone above said they should scrap it in favor of a strict campaign. I couldn’t disagree more. This universe cries out for a sandbox setting to ply your trade. They’ve got a good foundation here, grow it

  • Pilots need more customization. The skill paths are ok, but feel they could build this out a lot more

  • Better graphics. The graphics now are serviceable, but it would be so much more satisfying to see more impact as shots are exchanged.

  • Overall balancing needs some tweaks

More more more, with some polish.

One interesting thing I noticed was that the enemy mech compositions aren’t static. One mission last night was supposed to be 1.5 skulls. My Blackjack was down for repairs, so I rolled a Centurion, Shadow Hawk, Vindicator, and a Spider.

Launched the scenario, and was promptly hit by the following: Spider, Locust x2, Shadow Hawk, Griffin, Quickdraw and a Vindicator. I save scummed it and reloaded the scenario, and the second time through was hit by this: Spider, Locust, Striker Tank x2, Shadow Hawk, Kintaro, Quickdraw, Firestarter.

The second group was much easier than the first group.

1669

Yeah, tonnage doesn’t really capture a mech’s value well, which is why the BattleValue system was developed. However that system itself also isn’t ideal.

1670

You definately could. That’s what was great about Battletech, that things weren’t optimized, ostensibly because of ‘real-world’ manufacturer design constraints. Point totals reflected their worth, tonnage did not, other than defining how much weight of armor and weapons you could carry, and your speed.

1671

I just finished a convoy intercept and had a heck of a time with it because four mechs were trying to slow me down from stopping the four vehicles (one of those mechs was a heavy which I still have none of) and those four vehicles besides trying to speed off the map and make me fail the mission for that were also all launching missiles at me every turn so in effect it was 8 on 4 only I couldn’t for the longest time even get LOS on the vehicles because the terrain was insanely mountainous and I had four enemy mechs between me and them.

So, the point of my mentioning this is, one of my mechs took a sever pounding dealing with the heavy adn got taken out of action for 2 months for repairs (the pilot a month and a half) and I had an arm blown off another mech from the same slug fest that took it out for a month.

The net outcome from this 350k payout was I ended up like 600k down because of repair costs and the fact I had to idle for over a month to get my mechs back online (i immediately started work on bringing one out of storage but it takes an insane amount of time to bring it online, and then you have to spend an additional crazy amount of time loading weapons back on it).

Net: I’m totally right there with you, time is the biggest enemy sometimes because you’re just burning money getting back to mission readiness.

1672

Multiplayer is a Cbill limit as well as a limit of 1 lance.

1673

For those who think the mission’s all get harder when you advance the story, that is not entirely true. The story unlocks new areas on the star map that have higher skull missions in them. You can still just pick a star in the difficulty you are comfortable with and travel there and you will find missions that are “skull appropriate.” Just because the story takes you to new unfriendly skies, doesn’t mean you can’t head back to Detroit for some easy pickins.

1674

I see some people upthread talking about how good some of the default pilots are (Dekker, Glitch). Why is this? Since you spend exp on different skill paths, aren’t all the pilots effectively the same depending on how you specialize them? Maybe I’m just salty because my Glitch is long dead. I prefer Behemoth anyway.

Like Juan, I’ve reached a point in the campaign where it seems that fielding light mechs is no longer viable, as much as I love jumping a Jenner into the weak spot of an enemy mech and unloading. I fear the same could eventually be true for mediums as well. Firing first is nice, but it doesn’t seem to matter when you’re outgunned, outnumbered, and lack the armor to last more than two enemy firing rounds. Also, the second tactics ability increases your initiative by one, which is great for heavies.

1675

My problem isn’t so much with the heal time, which you can reduce with improvements to the ship, but the frequency of injuries in the first place. These 'Mechs must have been built with really cheap cockpits.

1676

Yeah, I can’t speak to that Wombat. :-)

1677

i mostly love glitch for her barks really.

1678

It’s true to the tabletop, at least, where a hit to the head armor means pilot damage.

1679

How do you like it now, @justaguy2? HUH?

1680

This should be no surprise to anyone at QT3.

1681

Just got a bad start position. No no, I’m not complaining it’s unfair.

I start on a clifftop with no walkway down. Since only 2 mecs have jump jets I’m kinda stuck up here. Oh well, reload!

edit: Wait. I get it. The mission is called LURE.

1682

@cicobuff @geewhiz

Thanks both! I think I will potter around for a while longer, I dont think I can handle much more than 1 skull missions currently.

1683

She is pretty great. She gives me a Jagged Alliance vibe for some reason.

1684

I honestly didn’t realize that there were that many folks that interested in battletech.