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Just looked and jesus, I kickstarted this game in November 2015 and it's a year behind estimated delivery date (May 2017). I hope the delay translated into improved gameplay!
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Apr 20, 2018 20:54
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Turns out multiplayer is hard, especially when you don't have a big publisher or lots of previous experience with it.
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Apr 20, 2018 21:00
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I do believe several of us are in the same boat. I'm taking the 25th off myself.
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Apr 20, 2018 21:25
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Leperflesh posted:Just looked and jesus, I kickstarted this game in November 2015 and it's a year behind estimated delivery date (May 2017). I hope the delay translated into improved gameplay! The Beta was pretty fun. Multiplayer caused a lot of the delays. The game itself looks very pretty. I suspect it will be a bit easy for us but the json files to modify to increase the difficulty are known and plans are already being made.
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Apr 20, 2018 21:27
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PoptartsNinja posted:
Post a build teaser for one of those post timeskip Clan Assaults >.>
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Apr 20, 2018 21:40
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I'm not taking any time off for the game but I'm looking forward to it for sure. I had to back on a high enough level for the beta access and special paint schemes and stuff. I'm just interested in playing single player and killing AI so I've ignored all the multiplayer talk.
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Apr 20, 2018 22:11
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Gwaihir posted:Post a build teaser for one of those post timeskip Clan Assaults >.> LOL, sure. Hellhawk Dubbed the "Famine Hawk" by its pilots for its often brutal heat curve, the Hellhawk is the second heaviest 'Mech in currently service in the Clan ilKhanate. Second in size only to Clan Jade Falcon's Shrike, the Hellhawk is a modern update of the aging Warhawk design. Topping out at 64 KPH, the Hellhawk is one of the slowest 'Mechs in Clan service. It's also one of the most heavily armed, having devoted over half its weight--a full 44 tons--to weapons and equipment. Six of those tons are hard locked: split between a trio of Heat Sinks locked into its 340XL Engine and an oddity among the Clans: an Inner Sphere designed Command Console for its cockpit. With their breeding program in shambles and every warrior--high ranking warriors especially--now a precious commodity, the Hellhawk was designed primarily as a command vehicle and to allow aging Clan warriors to offer their wisdom and insight to younger, more capable pilots. Derisively called "Crichell's Crutch" by younger warriors, none can doubt the Hellhawk's effectiveness as a command vehicle, only the wisdom of allowing aged warriors to reign in the killer instincts of their progeny. The Hellhawk Prime is a close-range brawler, and comes standard with four Clan Heavy PPCs. Twenty seven Heat Sinks and Heat Radiating Armor allow it to fire two PPCs without major concern, but firing all four nearly maxes out the machine's heat capacity when it's standing still, and can drive a running Hellhawk straight into automatic shutdown. The A configuration is an attempt to alleviate the Prime's heat issues, replacing the PPCs with two cooler-running Heavy Lasers and an Autocannon/10. An ATM-6 with three tons of ammunition rounds out the A's armament, lending the machine a little more versatility. Not nearly as hot as the Prime variant, the A configuration can still quickly run up its heat, even with Heat Radiating Armor. The B configuration mounts a Gauss Rifle in each arm, backing them with the A-configuration's ATM-6 as well as a Heavy Medium Laser for a little extra close-range deterrence. The B configuration is the only Hellhawk that runs cool enough to carry Laser Reflective armor--making it a nasty surprise for other Hellhawks. The C configuration carries a Heavy PPC and a Heavy Large Laser in each arm, reducing the Hellhawk's over all heat load at the cost of some range and damage. The D configuration sports an ATM-12 in the right torso and six tons of ammunition to keep it firing throughout the course of the battle. Once the missiles are exhausted--or when the Hellhawk's warrior has decided the long-range standoff has ended, the D-configuration can close to short range and engage foes the Heavy Large and Heavy Medium Laser it carries in each arm. A TAG provides a little extra combat utility, and the Warhawk D also carries a Light Active Probe to help defend it from hidden mines and infantry.
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Apr 20, 2018 22:20
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Wow, the Clans actually have to use their aging warrior population instead of just shipping them off to serve in suicide Solomna units? Who'd have thunk it?
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Apr 20, 2018 23:01
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Good lord  "Hey guys, what if Hellstar, but with SHS?"
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Apr 20, 2018 23:27
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I like how this mission is basically just a bunch of mechs running around kicking things, with the occasional headcap.
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Apr 20, 2018 23:31
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PoptartsNinja posted:LOL, sure. I like this a very lot. I imagine the table-top use criteria for that many big guns is two-fold: 1) It's incredibly difficult to be reduced below maximum sustained effective firepower, even when mangled beyond easy recognition 2) The initiative bonus from the command console means it's comparatively easy to line up that decisive stroke where four Clan Heavy PPCs is going to wreck a motherfucker's day hard enough that it doesn't matter whether you're shutdown next turn or not.
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Apr 20, 2018 23:53
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It reminds me a lot of the very first time we did a full 8 player 6-PPC stalker drop in MWO. Shooting twice would shut you down, but holy lmao it was really something else seeing the reactions in chat.
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Apr 21, 2018 00:27
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Zaodai posted:Steam codes for backers come out Monday. Monday on a US time zone, I'm assuming. I wonder if I'll be able to download and play it then. Argh, I'll probably have to wait until Friday, because there's no way I'll have time during the week.
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Apr 21, 2018 00:31
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Keys are now out for backers.
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Apr 21, 2018 01:21
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GOG keys don't go live until Tuesday at noon, unfortunately. No preloading for me. 
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Apr 21, 2018 01:29
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This Tuesday is actually one of the few Tuesdays I don't get off so I'm not going to be able to play it all day. Otherwise you'd all get to enjoy me dissecting every aspect of the game.
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Apr 21, 2018 04:40
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So we're back to single heat sinks after the timeskip?
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Apr 21, 2018 07:08
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Scintilla posted:So we're back to single heat sinks after the timeskip? Fluff is that there was a big jump in armor tech in the interim and all weapons are bigger and hotter to combat that. Mechs are technically mounting "compact double heatsinks" that only take one space each but everything's so hot that all heat shown is halved to fit on the usual heat scale.
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Apr 21, 2018 08:05
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dis astranagant posted:Fluff is that there was a big jump in armor tech in the interim and all weapons are bigger and hotter to combat that. Mechs are technically mounting "compact double heatsinks" that only take one space each but everything's so hot that all heat shown is halved to fit on the usual heat scale. Pretty much. C-C Armor came out and everyone went 'Dude, that's so OP!' and then someone invented compact DHS, so everyone went 'Awesome!' and started cranking up the output on all their weapons. Autocannon rounds with greater amounts and stronger sorts of propellants so they could fire denser shells, missiles with larger payloads (and subsequently stronger engines to get said payloads to their target), Lasers and PPCs that are amped up to ridiculous levels. Also, if you'll notice... the big loser of this arms race was one of the traditional OP weapons of the setting, the Gauss Rifle. Light Gauss actually got a bit of a boost, since I assume they have more wiggle room to work with when it comes to bigger slugs, but the Clan Gauss now only deals 12 instead of 15, and the Heavy Gauss deals 15 instead of the redonkulous 25 it used to. Guess there's only so much you can do to crank up a Gauss Rifle before it starts burning itself out or the friction of the shell passing through the air is enough to melt your barrel upon firing.
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Apr 21, 2018 10:19
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Rorahusky posted:Pretty much. C-C Armor came out and everyone went 'Dude, that's so OP!' and then someone invented compact DHS, so everyone went 'Awesome!' and started cranking up the output on all their weapons. Autocannon rounds with greater amounts and stronger sorts of propellants so they could fire denser shells, missiles with larger payloads (and subsequently stronger engines to get said payloads to their target), Lasers and PPCs that are amped up to ridiculous levels. The HGR in the pdf is just a regular gauss rifle with worse ammo per ton and renamed to differentiate it from the Clan version. Clan gear is no longer better at everything so they get a small downside for their lighter gun. Gonna be interesting to see where the balance falls between the unmatched range and heat efficiency of the light gauss and the flexibility of the ac/10 now that nearly every mech resists some form of damage. dis astranagant fucked around with this message at 11:21 on Apr 21, 2018 |
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Apr 21, 2018 11:17
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Rorahusky posted:Pretty much. C-C Armor came out and everyone went 'Dude, that's so OP!' and then someone invented compact DHS, so everyone went 'Awesome!' and started cranking up the output on all their weapons. Autocannon rounds with greater amounts and stronger sorts of propellants so they could fire denser shells, missiles with larger payloads (and subsequently stronger engines to get said payloads to their target), Lasers and PPCs that are amped up to ridiculous levels. I'd imagine recoil would also be a problem for Gauss weapons. Autocannons you could reasonably "scale up" in ways that primarily effect heat generation since they're largely payload-based (like through caseless ammo), but Gauss Rifles rely solely on their kinetic energy. The only way to make them more destructive is to make the projectile heavier and/or faster, and eventually you'll reach a point where the weapon will just tear itself right out of the 'mech when fired.
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Apr 21, 2018 12:57
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On the old damage scale that 15 damage Heavy Gauss is a 30 damage hit. "Worse ammo/ton" was the name of the game, to make autocannons coming with a free ton of ammo a little more valuable. I want people running out of ammo at inopportune times, or saving that last shot for the perfect moment. It makes things feel a little more desperate.
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Apr 21, 2018 13:07
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Will there be "old" mechs still running around with worse weapons and armor?
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Apr 21, 2018 13:15
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Affi posted:Will there be "old" mechs still running around with worse weapons and armor? It'd be cool if the first mission after the timeskip pitted the new mechs against their older cousins. It would show off their power in a 'dawn of a new age' kind of way.
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Apr 21, 2018 14:03
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Affi posted:Will there be "old" mechs still running around with worse weapons and armor? Yes, the NewTech 'Mechs are still rare. Every nation is deploying them with a different strategy. I talk about the DC strategy in the Joshetai fluff piece.
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Apr 21, 2018 14:46
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Assuming C-C armor uses the same rules as standard armor/structure, is the Hellhawk one of the designs that still uses clan E-S structure to make everything fit?
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Apr 21, 2018 15:07
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Bloody Pom posted:Assuming C-C armor uses the same rules as standard armor/structure, is the Hellhawk one of the designs that still uses clan E-S structure to make everything fit? XL Gyros are a thing. The Clans make heavy use of them because they're trying for quality over quantity and the extra expense of the XL Gyro is still less concerning than the extra fragility of Endo Steel (they do have a couple of Endo Steel users). The Inner Sphere uses XL Gyros less frequently because they're trying to replace larger numbers of troops. It's why there're so many more IS medium-weight designs. Edit: The fragility's balanced out because gyros are getting an extra hit thanks to tougher construction materials. 1st hit is a +2 piloting check penalty 2nd hit limits a 'Mech to walking MP 3rd hit renders the gyro inoperable [4th hit destroys it] I'm tempted to do the same with the engine. If I do it'll be something like: 1st hit is +3 heat/turn 2nd hit is +6 heat/turn 3rd hit disables energy weapons, pilot has to make a piloting test: if they succeed they operate normally, if they fail they eat a fourth engine hit. This piloting test would probably be at a fixed penalty rather than modified by gyro/actuator damage (getting bopped with a mace would be a penalty though). 4th hit knocks the engine offline [5th hit destroys it] PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Apr 21, 2018 |
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Apr 21, 2018 15:20
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So basically mechs are going to be a lot tougher, run a lot hotter and burn through their ammunition much more quickly. I imagine we'll see fewer mechs being completely destroyed and more forced/tactical withdrawals. At the very least it's going to be much harder to mission-kill something. How about vehicles? Are you going to do something to make it harder to kill their drive systems?
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Apr 21, 2018 17:13
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I'm not ready to look at vehicles at this time.
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Apr 21, 2018 17:31
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Are these "gyros" actually using a physical gyroscope? Because if you halve the weight of the spinning component, you have to double the speed to compensate. When you do anything that puts a spinning mass at many thousands of RPMs even slightly off balance, or damage its bearings, etc. it has a nasty tendency to self-destruct in a spectacular manner. So one fun option for gyro damage would be to have a chance of catastrophic failure with the possibility of internal damage/additional crits/etc.
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Apr 21, 2018 19:04
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Leperflesh posted:Are these "gyros" actually using a physical gyroscope? Because if you halve the weight of the spinning component, you have to double the speed to compensate. The XL in XL Gyros technically stands for Xtra Light, but they're also Xtra Large and take up a bigger chunk of a mech's innards (which is the other way to compensate for reduced gyro weight).
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Apr 21, 2018 19:12
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Leperflesh posted:Are these "gyros" actually using a physical gyroscope? Because if you halve the weight of the spinning component, you have to double the speed to compensate. The XL Gyro takes up more space, so I'm assuming the spinny bits are the same weight but they've made them larger to create more empty air space. Assuming it's not like, an array of accelerometers or something.
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Apr 21, 2018 19:12
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Yeah I wasn't actually sure how diameter affects the gyroscopic function and I'm not easily finding a reference that isn't way over my head. I have always supposed the gyros in a mech are there to keep it upright while it only has one foot on the ground, since it's plainly evident from looking at them that they do not move their center of gravity to be over the foot during a stride. This means the gyros aren't just there as navigation instruments, they actually have to keep dozens of tons upright repeatedly. But that's not necessarily the case, there's things you can do with moving ballasts in the center of the mech, spinning up motors, etc. - look at how a Segway works, for example.
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Apr 21, 2018 19:18
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Leperflesh posted:Yeah I wasn't actually sure how diameter affects the gyroscopic function and I'm not easily finding a reference that isn't way over my head. I have always supposed the gyros in a mech are there to keep it upright while it only has one foot on the ground, since it's plainly evident from looking at them that they do not move their center of gravity to be over the foot during a stride. This means the gyros aren't just there as navigation instruments, they actually have to keep dozens of tons upright repeatedly. Moment of angular momentum is proportional to diameter. Also a larger one will likely have more mass too. 
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Apr 21, 2018 23:01
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XL Gyros are full of helium, got it.  
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Apr 21, 2018 23:10
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Nah, they're lumps of Cavorite. That's why they're so expensive.
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Apr 21, 2018 23:51
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Finally worked my way through this thread. Hoping for more lets reads. Does the close quarters series get even better after the first book or does it kinda plateau? And is ghost war ever going to be finished or is that too stressful for you to get through PTN?
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Apr 22, 2018 02:11
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Stravag posted:Finally worked my way through this thread. Hoping for more lets reads. Does the close quarters series get even better after the first book or does it kinda plateau? And is ghost war ever going to be finished or is that too stressful for you to get through PTN? Close Quarters has hit-or-miss points but it's solid, Hearts of Chaos has peaks and valleys (two of those are real low points), and Black Dragon is loving awesome. I probably should finish Ghost War at some point, it's just a matter of finding the time. And trying to muster up enough apathy. And downloading it to my PC (because the tablet I kept it on decided it didn't want to connect to the internet anymore and died).
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Apr 22, 2018 02:57
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Not gonna lie I bought the thing and it was my first BT novel. Its fun watching you tear it apart. The best part of it for me was like the 6 pages of tech readouts with notes handwritten in the margins from Janella to mason to try and keep his stupid rear end alive in the field. There were some nice illustrations of elementals, i think the legionnaire, and some other vehicles. I tore them out and stapled them together, no idea where they went tho.
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Apr 22, 2018 03:09
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I'm not sure if Ghost War is Stackpole's worst novel, but it's in the conversation.
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Apr 22, 2018 04:46
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