Battletech

So I got more of a chance to play this game today, and I'm having a lot of fun. I've got 2 parts of a Panther (one gotten as salvage and another bought from a store) and one part of a Jenner. I've been hovering pretty comfortably around a 2-month buffer, but I might get to the story mission soon..

Panthers are basically underweight Mediums, with the absolute best armor for a 35-tonner and a default weapons setup that amounts to PAIN (PPC and SRM launcher).

I find the Jenner better early game for a light mech. Upgrade the SRM to SRM 6, and the 4 M Lasers make the Jenner really good at taking out mediums with called shot. heck, the salvage the argo mission, the Jenner carried the whole team with hit and run attacks.

That said, the 4 mech limit means light mechs are pretty much unusable late game, so meh.

The Panther's loadout imho doesn't synergize too well. the PPC wants to be used at long range, but the SRM wants to be in close.

I'd recommend against buying light and medium mech parts. You'll come across so many though the game, it's really a waste of cash. I might say spending to complete a Laser Hunchback early is worth it, coz it's a medium who can out firepower heavies.

edited 10th May '18 5:40:37 PM by Ghilz

I spent almost all my money on an AC/20+++ early on and nearly killed my company over it.

But I managed to salvage a Jaegermech that can use it and it was so worth it.

Oh yeah, ++ and +++ Weapons are worth buying (Though you'll cry if you ever lose the limb you put it in)

As are special mods like arm mods or cockpit mods.

edited 10th May '18 6:47:13 PM by Ghilz

Alright, so we found out Kamea's alive, got paid A MILLION C-BILLS, and now I have a completed Panther and a Centurion as well. The Centurion will definitely be living up to its Brawler and Assault name; missiles, lasers, autocannons, the works.

I'm finding myself using the Locust and Spider on missions where the enemy is only vehicles, just so I can run up to them and stomp them faster.

Also, started the first story mission, to find out the client is not Kamea. Boy do I have egg on my face. Guess I read into the tropes too deeply there.

Later the game is not above mixing vehicles with heavy or assault mechs, so be careful

Does the contract preview info get more detailed later? Right now all I'm getting is a short little flavor blurb from Oliveira, the mission type, and terrain type.

Nope

Story missions are more detailed. You may also luck out with some more specific random missions who tend to be a bit more detailed. But TBH, there's a finite amount of maps, so if you play enough you'll be familair with what is what :-P

My first exposure to the Battletech universe was when I played Mechwarrior 3. I played the crap out of that game. Even got a joystick just for that. I remember how excited I was when I recovered a Shadowcat. I loved that thing. It was so fast and agile and it was well-armed for a mech that size. I also got Mech Commander 2, which has a map creator function. You can alter the terrain of your custom map, so what I did was grab a bunch of terrain and lift it thousands of units in the air and built on top of it to create a base set on the top of a mountain. You'd jump jet from one peak to the other and shoot up everything. It was great.

My first exposure was the Mech Assault games on the original Xbox.

My first exposure to Battletech was the cheesy as anything Somerset Strikers cartoon. Was thinking about picking up the old-school Mech Commander games.

Where are these pirates getting all their King Crabs from? I just finished building my SECOND one from salvage.

edited 11th May '18 8:58:08 PM by AceOfScarabs

IT’S FIDDLER CRAB SEASON!!!

@Ghilz: yeah, the limited maps thing remind me so much of XCOMEU...wish there's procgen maps like XCOM 2, really.

Also, is Jenner with 4ML and SRM6 good idea? That seems to leave the thing with very little armor unless you start removing jump jets. When I used Jenner I just use 4ML and remove the SRM myself...

edited 12th May '18 5:28:57 AM by onyhow

One of the things I have loved with most Battletech and Battletech based games was war machine customization. Just being able to adjust your units layout and balance it as best you can with an eye to the future of the next best load out or mech option.

My first introduction into Battletech and Battletech based games was the 1993 Mech Warrior game on Super Nintendo and it's isometric 3rd person game the following year.

It has no armor, for use, but if you got a pilot with high piloting and tactic, I use it for sensor locks, and the occasional "slip in, cripple someone, slip out" maneuver, so it rarely gets shot at. Early in the game, that's a lot of firepower.

My first time ever seeing anything related to the Battletech franchise was the tabletop miniatures in middle school, since we had a miniatures/tabletop gaming club. They looked cool, but that's about all I knew about it at the time.

My first actual experience with the games was this really old one that I can't even remember the name of. It just sticks out in my memory because co-op mode was this ridiculous thing where one player controlled the legs and the other played controlled the upper body and weapons.

I also remember playing either MechWarrior 1 or 2. I was too young to really get any of it, I just remember how fun it was boosting around in a Locust and shooting things.

Back to Battletech. I just realized that the game seems to have finally clicked for me these past few missions. Been doing really well, haven't lost any body parts recently, and I think I've finally gotten the hang of utilizing light mechs. I have Dekker with almost max piloting jumping in and out with a Firestarter kitted with as many MG as I can mount. My next experiment is to spec Medusa for Piloting and Guts, and then make a super-melee mech. The only heavy I've got right now that fits the bill is the Dragon. Kinda wish I could find another heavy mech with more support mounts. My commander is rocking an Orion that I upgraded with two SRM4++ and an LRM15+ with added stability damage. Anything that doesn't get cored in one shot is getting knocked down to be taken out at leisure.

edited 14th May '18 11:34:57 AM by danime91

Molten Metal's advice of defensive angling with a 'shield arm' is really handy for protecting LA or RA weapons.

Looking into it, Metal Gear Rex weighing in at 550 tons actually seems like it's more reasonable than any Battlemech weight. Like, if you want it to be believable, the weight of any given Battlemech should be a factor of 10 heavier, especially if you include things like a fusion core. Then I thought, there's FTL in the Battletech universe, is it possible that they have something akin to a mass effect field that would reduce a mech's effective weight to 1/10th what it should be?

Really overthinking this.

Tons in BT is not the same as in RL, and is not treated as such. There is no mass effect/gravitic manipulation/mass displacement-in fact, the only Artificial Gravity in the setting is created by rotating sections on spacecraft.

edited 14th May '18 6:41:12 PM by ViperMagnum357

I mean, I'd accept that future tons are different from modern day tons, but the Bulldog weighs 60 tons, which is about how much a modern day tank weights, but is more than mechs that are ten times its size.

Mechs have foamed metal chassis that are lower density, dood. Also tanks tend to have more thickly shielded reactors and that shielding is heavy. That's why they don't Stackpole like mechs something do.

The problem with BT tons being larger than IRL tons is that then weapons are unreasonably heavy - autocannons are actually a pretty reasonable weight for a weapon (including mount and autoloader) of their approximate caliber.

Also, is there any good reason vehicles couldn't benefit from weight-saving technologies like endo steel? And several kinds of vehicles pack their own fusion or fission reactor, such as the Schrek PPC carrier.

Also, strictly speaking, fusion engines pose no explosion risk and actually simply shut down when breached, as they become unable to sustain the reaction.

Basically, 'Mechs are unreasonably light and an unreasonable proportion of their weight is armament, while remarkably little by comparison is devoted to protection. Like, I'm pretty sure a modern main battle tank devotes more weight to armor than the Atlas does.

edited 14th May '18 6:36:29 PM by Balmung

Kinda a mixed bag-Vehicles need larger crews and have a lot more interior space required as a result. They can use ferro-fibrous armor, but generally do not have the space for Light, XL, or XXL fusion engines. Different problem with endosteel-vehicles use rigid structures interlocked together, which has problems when you halve the weight but dramatically increase the volume, even before the preexisting concerns with space being a premium. By comparison, Mech skeletons are basically free-floating structures held together with myomer, so the extra space has no structural concerns beyond making space for armor/weapons/core components like the engine and cockpit.