1805

Dekker says something along the lines of “they’re really banging around my insides” or something like that and I chuckle every time.

1806

Huh thats RNG I guess :( Maybe increase just head armour?

1807

Glitch totally reminds me of Imoen.

1808

So, how about a use for those light mechs from mid-game on?

Being locked into one lance pretty much eliminates lighter mechs from any kind of use once the heavies hit the scene. So they rot on the dropship, or you sell them for coffee money.

I’m surprised that HBS didn’t steal the obvious solution from XCOM 2: Ring missions (basically “meta off-map” missions for those of you who didn’t play XCOM 2).

Imagine like assigning two light mechs (required) along with their pilots when a contract is launched – potential benefits marking all enemies from turn one on the mission (for example). There would be risks, too… like having those lights mashed up, or forcing a rescue mission etc.

I think the dev kind of touched on this on the recent AMA, but it’s honestly the only way I can see making the small boys useful when HBS is absolutely insistent on one player lance.

1809

Limiting you to 200 tons would work too, but would require a total rebalance of every single mission, so not happening.

1810

This is why i think multi will be a lot of fun once everyone has burned out on playing the campaign. There are weight classes and even the heaviest class is still only 250 tons, so two Atlas and one Trebuchet. Plenty of room for lights to make their presence felt, and i’m kind of excited for when that moment comes when everybody is ready to play some multi because there’s enough variety in a 200 or 250 ton, 4 mech builds to keep everyone amused for ages.

1811

Doesn’t matter, any hit to the head injures a pilot. Just really unlucky most of the time.

Funny thing is I mounted a cockpit upgrade for one of my mechs and that mission it got destroyed and the pilot died. Normally they’ve been living for me. I think the module is cursed now. :D

1812

Five days to bankruptcy. Luckily I have another mission on the same planet that will cover the difference, unless I get too much damage.

Also from r/battletechgame:

Annoyed I missed the AMA but looks like you guys covered a lot of the important questions. Here’s a summary of the exciting stuff that’s coming.

Game has been a big success. This means they are meeting soon for a ‘roadmap’ meeting to plan future content.

New content will take the form of DLC and FreeLC.

New content will include things like different encounter types (think battle, capture base, escort etc), some of these will be designed to increase the use of light and medium mechs late-game.

Other additions may include ‘broader systemic gameplay, recurring enemies with grudges, contracts that aren’t what they seem, and “unexpected events” in battles’

Looking to add to the post-game. Possibly harder missions, a map ‘Domination’ mode, enemy mechs with modded weapons and custom loadouts.

A Long War-esque (an X-com mod) options menu to change variables in the game (i,e ironman mode) to control difficulty is being considered. Other variables mentioned include ‘CT destruction permanently destroys a mech, you need 5 pieces of salvage to reconstruct a mech, rather than 3, parts that get blown off a mech may lose slots or max armor capacity, etc.’

More random ship events which make use of mechwarrior tags, more Argo content and other additions to out-of-combat gameplay to come.

Technical performance issues are the top of their list of priorities and being worked on right now. FPS increase, ultrawidescreen compatibility issues etc. Press release coming soon.

They are working on cleaning up speed of animations and general dead time to speed up the game.

Linux support coming within a few months

Reinforcements appearing at the start of missions confirmed not a bug, but it’s unexpected due to poor communication. Likely changes to the difficulty rating of missions though to make them more accurate.

Weapons are being rebalanced. In particular lostech weapons will get a boost.

Lostech weapons will be made available outside of the story campaign.

Urbanmechs are being made more common

Juggernaut skill (guts tree) is being looked at/redesigned

New mechs, including possible clan DLC may be coming but he is under NDA. ‘We have plans’ is all he could say. If there is a clan DLC the Stone Rhino will be included. Most of the new content needs to be discussed first at the roadmap meeting.

Ability to sort mechs in the mechbay is being considered

No Land Air Mechs coming

High/low spirits bug- they are looking for the cause so they can fix it.

AOE weapons may or may not come. Friendly fire unlikely to be implemented as it wasn’t fun in testing.

No plans to have players control more than one lance at a time. Additional lances may have ‘off screen’ effects.

There will be no friction with the modding community- they are free to do what they want. No plans for official modding support but individual engineers may be approached for help.

Paradox are in charge of localizing the game in other languages

Developer team of about 35 people spread across a few rooms. Only one animator (great job Hollie!)

1813

I recently got a Firestarter and have taken it along on a couple of missions in a lunar environment with great success.

In the first one I used it initially for sensor locks at range from hidden positions, and then when the time was right I reserved the Firestarter’s move until the end and jumped in on a group of two medium mechs that were barely damaged but already running a little hot . I gave one the full flamer treatment, and then at the start of the next turn the other felt the heat. It effectively neutralized them both, shutting down one and critically heating the other to the point where it couldn’t return fire. Over the next few turns as I picked them apart I think they got off one SRM volley but otherwise couldn’t answer my fire due to the heat. The one 35 ton mech figuratively, and at times literally, shut down 105 tons of enemy firepower.

In the second I had to keep his head down since the first wave of enemy was in the form of heavy vehicles, but was able to use him toward the end to jump in and disable the last mech so I could take my time killing it off to try and get maximum salvage.

1814

That one bums the hell out. Ugh. Everything else is pretty exciting.

1815

I don’t understand people who mod the game. Or, yeah I do, but if you mod it don’t come to a forum telling anyone about how awesome you’re doing in the game. I don’t really care about it if you’re modding TF out of it. (Not directed at you wisefool, your comment just made me think of it.)

1816

Lucked out. Mission was just 4 vehicles. I live to fight another day.

1817

Yeah, it would be cool to directly control more 'Mechs, though really, at the pace the game goes now, I don’t know if I’d have the patience, especially as the number of enemies would probably double as well.

I’d be satisfied if they implement some sort of off-screen thing, where say you put together a second lance and send it to tie down reinforcements or something, and success means your main strike force that you control doesn’t face as many bad guys, or something like that.

1818

So, how about a use for those light mechs from mid-game on?

So in the AMA people discussed having some missions have tonnage limits, so light mechs remain useful in the later game. The dev replied, ‘It’s been discussed, but I’m against it, since it’s such an artificial restriction.’

I found that really weird. Why do missiles only travel half a mile in the game when they have spaceships zipping around to different solar systems? Why build human shaped mechs in the first place? Why can we only ever use 4 mechs on a mission? It’s all artificial. And tonnage limits fit right into the scifi space based game IMO, there are so many thematically-fitting reasons for why a mission might have a tonnage limit.

1819

I wouldn’t mind a mission in two or more parts. Each segment you control one lance of four. So the mission has say, two parts. You need to drop two individual lances and fight each one separately. It allows you to use all of your mechs and pilots when you have them.

1820

One thing I’d like to see are bigger maps where you don’t start constrained in a corner. I think it would make light mechs more useful if their speed advantage wasn’t so often neutralized by a map edge.

1821

Don’t get too used to feeling relieved when the sensors just pick up vehicles. I’m sure you’ve seen the SRM carrier mentioned. Today I ran into the thing that carries three PPCs. Thankfully due to hilly terrain I was able to run up and stomp it like a bug before it could get a shot off.

1822

manticores, demolishers, and even the bulldog packs a punch. Had a mission to kill a convoy of someone that wasn’t paying their loan for the equipment. Come up to a valley, and they are the other side dug in with nice interlocking fields of fire, while a supporting lance is coming down the valley into my flank. That was a bad day, they even splattered Glitch all over the cockpit of my Jagermech with a nice headshot.

1823

Yep, and the LRM carrier doesn’t exactly tickle, either

1824

Oh yeah, I’ve seen the SRM carrier, but a three PPC carrier is news to me. How do they power that and handle heat? Giant heat sink like the fin on a dimetrodon?