Battletech

it is absolutely slow. You can tune down the incidence of the cinematic camera which hastens things to a degree in the options but that only does so much .

Yes

edited 25th Apr '18 4:40:46 AM by Ghilz

Yeah that was the gist of RPS' review. And that the UI is apparently terrible.

I'm still going to try it, as some of that Ground Control tactical thinking appeals. I remember playing Mechwarrior 2 and having a slug fest against a Jade Falcon mech, huge thing. I had to whittle the bloody thing down. So kinda makes sense it takes time.

But agree that watching each individual weapon cycle through is dull.

The weapons tend to all fire at once generally (when not in cinematic camera). But like, Mechs move slowly, and any mech heavier than a light mech who remotely plays defensively can take forever to kill.

The UI is Terribad, no argument about it

I will say the game does give out more explanations... after the third mission. But there's still some poorly explained, like how damage is resolved. There's still a bar on the UI that each mech has that I have no clue what it means.

edited 25th Apr '18 6:20:15 AM by Ghilz

Gameplay isn't fast because any mech with good armor can take a LOT of killing unless you get lucky with Golden BB Crits that pop ammo bins and headshot mooks.

edit: Here we goooooooooo (campaign starts) :DDD

edited 25th Apr '18 7:21:48 AM by AceOfScarabs

Haven't gotten a chance to get into the game proper, but I will say that the soundtrack is fantastic.

No demo? I hate when companies do that.

So I guess I’ll wait until it’s patched some, then xD

It runs, but with some framerate hits due to fairly CPU or GPU demanding calculations, even with my Haswell machine with a GTX 800 series card and a blisteringly fast SSD. And I even set the graphics to minimum settings.

Paradox, optimize your games, please~~

In any case the gameplay is great and the voice acting is excellent.

Well Paradox didn't develop it. Harebrained Schemes did.

That said, haven't had much framerate drops on my 780 GTX. Glitches and issues with the UI, that yes.

Oh, and one crash on first boot.

edited 25th Apr '18 9:06:52 AM by Ghilz

I haven't come across any of the issues you guys are talking about yet, and I spent roughly ten hours on it yesterday!

I also actually really like the UI, as it gives a lot more information than I expected, though the game could have been much better at telling the player what everything means.

I definitely am liking the slower pace, it makes my plans (somehow) feel more awesome when they all come together. Having heaps of tactical options is very cool, and I can spend hours in the Mech bay much like in the Mechwarrior games of my youth.

The UI does give information aplenty. It just doesn't give it in a manner that's instinctive, or convenient.

I'm highly amused that the game has 4 achievements named after quotes from the Monty Python and the Holy Grail Black Knight scene, and yes, they all follows how the scene plays out in order:

Tis But a Scratch - Remove one arm

It's just a flesh wound - Remove both arms

I'm invincible! - Remove 2 arms, 1 leg

We'll call it a draw - Remove every limbs

The Arbitrary Headcount Limit is kinda annoying me. Oh hey, get a larger dropship, with triple the number of bays and triple the number of mechwarriors. But you can only ever deploy 4 so having 18 Mechs is kinda pointless...

So, is it fun? or should I get Northgard instead? (Yeah completely different, but wondering if this is a sale wait, as I'm not as invested in micro managing loadouts and min maxing too intensely)

I like the look of it, the vibe and all, but not sure I'm in for the long haul. Steam library is getting a bit bloated now...

And that seems.... frustrating. What purpose does the upgrade serve then?

edited 30th Apr '18 6:33:57 AM by JerekLaz

Exactly what I said. I allows you to have up to 18 mechs ready for Deployment (You can have far more in storage). But you can only ever select 4 of them to actually go out. (Note that no other faction in the game is under this limitation, only you are).

No clue what Northgard is.

Battletech is a fun game, though lacking polish and kinda glitchy by moments.

edited 30th Apr '18 6:38:32 AM by Ghilz

I would imagine it’s an XCOM like scenario, so you can have more lances if one gets mauled.

It's the idea. But XCOM let you increase your deployment sizes. You already have room for spare mechs and mechwarriors to begin with. so getting the ability to pay to unlock way more but never get to send out more mechs gets annoying.

That's without going into that you're most likely deploying you own character on those missions, and if he dies, you lose the game anyway.

edited 30th Apr '18 7:08:44 AM by Ghilz

Nah, your own character can't die, they just get on like 120 days in medbay

Do you get bigger bays due to story mission or via shopping?

Also, I kinda regret scrapping my Commando-1D after I got a Panther because for some reason I can't put that Commando into storage...my guess that's because it suffered some internal damage, but I remember putting a mech in storage that suffered some internal damage into storage before just fine (not sure which, though I think it's a Locust)...I dunno, maybe I should've put that Panther in storage instead and repair that Commando up instead? I wonder if I should reload before that mission or not though, or just continue...

Definitely need some more heavier mech tho...the empty Centurion I got need like a month and a half to fit everything in (decide to ditch the AC and stuff it with 2 ML and 3 SRM6 instead plus jumpjets to get close for missile spam), and that keeps getting delayed because needing to put some other mechs in for repair...

Another thing I could note is that playing the same mission again can give a really different enemies...one mission I have to occupy a building spawn 3 tanks total as enemies (1 Manticore, a PPC carrier, and another tank)...I reload, do it again (I try to get a lot of salvage, turns out the enemy doesn't give enough salvage to fulfill my quota, so I reload to reduce salvage for some rep instead), and now it has a Manticore AND a Black Knight heavy mech!

edited 1st May '18 12:22:44 AM by onyhow

Centurions and Wolverines have amazing amount of armor for being mediums. They're actually tougher than Quickdraws and Dragons.

Well Quickdraw focus on being fast than for protection...so yeah.

Also with all the melee in the game I kinda want to play with Charger 2Kr...too bad that thing is Jihad-era.

You get A new drop ship as part of story missions, and the new bays are available as an upgrade after that.

I got lucky as fuck, third story mission, my Jenner manages to headshot the Jaegermech, and thus I managed to salvage a complete one in a single mission. This thing kicks so much ass.

edited 1st May '18 6:21:39 AM by Ghilz

Got my mitts on a Thunderbolt and glory be, it kicks serious can. 1 PPC, three Medium Lasers, a missile slot, and 1 flamethrower. I swapped the LRM pack for a SRM-4 pod and used the freed tonnage for more armor and heatsinks. No jumps, that's okay, I'm using it as a heavy platform rather than a jumper.

Ugh, I wanna get paid so I can play this XD

The Argo isn't a Drop Ship, just FYI. But I'm not a huge fan of the single-Lance limit myself. That being said, the game's probably too easy with more than one Lance.