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i feel like master tactician would be a really good skill to have across the board by the mid-late game, when everyone is more or less in the same weight class. 2 missile boats with master tac and multi-target, 2 brawlers with master tac and bulwark. it's just easier to do knockdowns and focus fire if you're not trading turns with the enemy. you can also do that same rude trick that master tac lights are fond of, where you reserve, let the enemy move, and then do 2 rounds in a row, except here it's 4 assaults instead of a single stupid jenner or something...
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Apr 28, 2018 18:14
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Found a +2 damage LRM 20  That thing shits out 120 damage now instead of 80.
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Apr 28, 2018 18:14
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At the very least, Clan mechs will probably almost all suck at melee, what with them rarely having fists and their general body structures/proportions. The Saddest Robot posted:I believe those are just the predefined lances for the skirmish mode. I'll take another gander at it though. GameSimConstants only has modifiers for different part types, nothing about mech tonnage with regards to refitting.
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Apr 28, 2018 18:22
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cheesetriangles posted:Found a +2 damage LRM 20 Ayupp. +damage on LRMs is insane. 50% increase you say. +stab damage is more hilarious though, especially with split fire, so you can have 2 LRM boats capsize three mechs a turn.
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Apr 28, 2018 18:22
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LRMs and sniping in general feels hilariously powerful. Let me just rain poo poo on you for the next thirty seconds
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Apr 28, 2018 18:23
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 WElpp, sucks that I can only get three of these. guess I'll settle for a griffin and the rng randomly deciding I really needed another spider
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Apr 28, 2018 18:30
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Is there a setting to keep the music playing while alt-tabbed out? I'm playing windowed and browsing the forums during loading and cinematics, and losing the music is a bit jarring.
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Apr 28, 2018 18:38
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Kenshin posted:I would venture to guess that since they've basically started us back at 3025 that they are going to take the chance to make Clan tech less OP when they reintroduce them. That would be the best choice but it'd be a mammoth task depending on which ref books they include in he rework. If they are planning a long term set of releases via DLC or updates then there is just so much material. Just for 3025 they could do a good half dozen campaign modules for various houses and conflicts. Then they could move on to 3028 and so on down the line of ref books. If they're smart they can put off touching the silly stuff from 3050 onwards for quite a long time. Enough time to work out how to do it in a reasonable manner. The Saddest Robot posted:I've heard stories about how some die-hard clan players would just ignore all the rules specifying how the Clan are supposed to pick targets and act and how pissed they would get if they lost too - to the point where the store owner or convention runners had to asked/tell the clan player to leave. That's true but then TT players are/were a pretty spergy bunch of cunts as a whole (and I include myself in that, hopefully down the more human end of the spectrum). I remember one match the clan dudes lost the map picks and the IS team were running them round with the picked target poo poo. So clan team declares that since the opposition is a merc unit they are dishonourable scum, ergo they can just be kerb stomped. That said, I've seen Kurita units try the same BS (I was part of a Liao merc unit and we played dirty) more than once. "Honour" is fine when it's an advantage apparently but they don't like it being used against them. TT Cons were pretty amazing to be honest. 4 days sleeping on the floor between being woken to fight when the guys at the big board moved things into your map. Nipping out for a drink and food between movements. The looks of disgust when you plonk down an unpainted, badly glued together figurine from the hardcore RPs. Fist fights over rules interpretation. Even those generally didn't get anyone sent home. Screaming obscenities and swiping your hand across the board - that definitely does the trick though. Now if HBS would just add co-op mode or large scale integrated scuffles.
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Apr 28, 2018 18:50
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Ciaphas posted:Don't bother, its use was obviated literally the next morning Oh cool. Your effort is appreciated anyway! cheesetriangles posted:Found a +2 damage LRM 20 GG, as they say. pokie fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Apr 28, 2018 |
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Apr 28, 2018 18:58
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I wish there was an iron man mode.Back Hack posted:Honestly the, the default sniper build isn't really bad, just switch out eh SRMs with some kind of LRMs and maybe the MLs with a LL. The regular 5S variant, there 3 TDRs you know! But yeah I'm gonna use Vore's build.
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Apr 28, 2018 19:03
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King Doom posted:I'd love an explanation of the thought process behind escort missions. Fight to an area so the escort can spawn in. Okay, that's a good idea, makes sense. Lets you start the mission when you want to. The next bit where the escort blasts across the map faster than you can possibly keep up unless you have four light mechs only to spawn an enemy lance, in many cases directly in a position to blast at least one of the escorts from existence before you even have a chance to move though? that bit doesn't exactly seem like a good idea. Look for the road or the landing pad. The road is the path the escorts will take, and their destination will usually be 3-4 turns away. If it's a map without roads, there will usually be a landing pad (big circle or rectangular concrete thing) that will be where the DropShip will land. Move your slow heavy units out along that road and then activate the base with a fast mover (or if one of your units got beat to hell in Phase 1, use that). You should be pre-positioned to deal with the reinforcements as the AI will typically attack the closest target unless a priority target is within a few spaces. I wish spawning escort targets moved AFTER the player but I think they move immediately to make sure they'll have evasion pips.
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Apr 28, 2018 19:04
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What's a good build for the firestarter? Is it a useful alternative to the Jenner? I'm basically going lrm boat + 2 brawlers + scout, and the scout is useful but sometimes when I've been on the receiving end of the firestarter they've been nasty.
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Apr 28, 2018 19:16
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Ratzap posted:That would be the best choice but it'd be a mammoth task depending on which ref books they include in he rework. If they are planning a long term set of releases via DLC or updates then there is just so much material. Just for 3025 they could do a good half dozen campaign modules for various houses and conflicts. Then they could move on to 3028 and so on down the line of ref books. If they're smart they can put off touching the silly stuff from 3050 onwards for quite a long time. Enough time to work out how to do it in a reasonable manner. 3039 expansion with the ability to Merc across the entire Inner Sphere. 3050 would likely be sequel material like Shadowrun HK since there's so much extra poo poo added and also they'd have to add stuff like Zellbrigen for fighting against Clans. Battletech 3050 would also let them make a Battle of Tukayyid campaign DLC.
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Apr 28, 2018 19:17
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cheesetriangles posted:Found a +2 damage LRM 20 All varieties of SRM+++ deal +4 damage and +2 stability damage, if it wasn't for missile hardpoints generally being very restricted in number you could do some really dumb poo poo with them. I really want to get a Stalker to try a rediculous pimped out build of 6ML, 4SRM6. Fully upgraded with ML++ and SRM6+++ this is a 500 damage alpha strike  Skippy McPants posted:Holy hell, the Gauss Rifle is broken in this game. On top of its intrinsic advantage of being a high damage, heat neutral weapon, they also gave it massive stability damage. The Highlander can put 5-bars plus unsteady on any mech in a single salvo. Bonkers! I mean it's literally a relic of a previous age of technology and you only get one of them, I'm more annoyed that the ER and pulse weapons are actually worse in most ways than variant versions of regular weapons. RabidWeasel fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Apr 28, 2018 |
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Apr 28, 2018 19:20
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Is there any good planets to look for really heavy/assault mechs or what is best way of getting them what level skulls they more consistently show? (Any kind of mission type to look for/look out for?) Thanks!
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Apr 28, 2018 19:24
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I've gotten a couple of Dragons, and I'm not sure what to do with them. They seem comparable to the Shadow Hawk (which I tend to build punchy/SRM). 5 more tons and space for another short weapon, but down a weight class and that's a liability when I'm mostly still facing mediums. Is that a fair assessment or am I missing some niche?
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Apr 28, 2018 19:24
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So I'm tinkering with my sandbox poo poo and I'm trying to decide what kind of lance to start with. I can't decide between mostly lights, or just something similar to what the game already starts with (though maybe changing thing up for variety sake, like throwing in an enforcer instead of the Vindicator or something). Too bad there is no Pheonix Hawk, that'd be a good starter medium if you wanted to go mostly light.Axetrain posted:I wish there was an iron man mode. As in no manual saves, or something else?
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Apr 28, 2018 19:25
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Effort Post coming up - I think this game wants tonnage limits 1. Consistent Difficulty Simply put, the game isn't at its best when it's easy. Stomping on a hopelessly outmatched opposing force is funny every now and again, but it's not engaging gameplay and missions you can solve by just clicking move + alpha on the nearest opponent get tedious quickly. Right now there's not much that the developers can do to avoid these because there's no restrictions on what the players can bring to a contract relative to the opposing force, while there's also no incentive for the players to bring anything less than their most powerful loadout (and indeed, with the kind of wild swings we see in enemy composition between contracts at the same difficulty rating, I'd go so far as to say that players are strongly incentivized to be cautious). It's safe and optimal to bring a lance of heavies to faceroll a mission that would be a satisfying challenge with mediums, and one thing that's been proven time and again is that players will optimize the fun out of a game if you let them - so try not to let them. This also ties in to the campaign-level mechanics. The strategic layer is designed around the expectation that you will struggle, with mechs and pilots routinely put out of action for months at a time and the threat of bankruptcy always looming overhead, and much of the fun and tension comes from overcoming that adversity. I want the game to put me in positions where my A-Team isn't going to be ready for another two weeks but I need to run the next contract now to pay the bills this month, but if the battles are generally easy then you rarely deal with these kinds of problems and instead the campaign is a vaguely linear progression in tonnage and pilot skill. If you place restrictions on how much force the player is allowed to bring to a mission, it gives you a baseline to tune the opposition such that they're consistently challenging and make sure that each individual mission is an engaging battle where the player faces real risk. 2. Tactical Diversity Another issue with unrestricted drop tonnages is that it pushes players towards homogeneous lance compositions - even if bigger isn't better at everything, brawn still counts for enough that you can brute-force the difference when it comes up. Look at the kind of compositions you see in C-Bill limited multiplayer matches - you can't have everything, so you're forced to prioritize, compromise, and generally make the kind of meaningful decisions that developers want to have their players making. You also tend to see very diverse lances under these conditions - lighter mechs are absolutely good enough to be worth taking when you aren't just giving away tonnage in doing so, and having pieces on the board with pronounced differences that perform very different roles and fully leverage the initiative system makes for a more interesting tactical game than a lance of three waddling gunboats and (maybe) a Grasshopper. In the single-player campaign there's very little reason to take a lance with that kind of diversity instead of just bringing the four heaviest machines you have available, and the experience is diminished by this. A secondary effect of this is that missions tend to get repetitive once your lance has bulked out enough that functionally distinct upgrades are uncommon (even upgrading an Orion to a Thunderbolt doesn't change the role the mech will perform) - the good heavies tend to move slowly and hit hard, and then that's 90% of what your lance needs to do the tactical game loses a dimension. Having different drop limits gives the player a reason to have a more diverse gameplay experience - a 150 ton mission of mediums and lights is going to play differently than a 200 ton mixed composition battle, which will in turn be distinct from a 300 ton slugfest, and mixing it up like this will help a campaign stay fresh. 3. Mech Longevity When players only care about their heaviest half-dozen mechs or so, the campaign game also loses some depth. Kintaros are an excellent medium, for instance, but by the time you see one it's entirely possible that you won't care because it's 15 tons lighter than anything you're fielding. In my own playthrough I wasn't able to assemble a Firestarter until well after I'd have wanted to use it. Upgraded weapons might go unappreciated if the kind of mechs that would really get good use out of them aren't being fielded anymore by the time they show up. Give the players a reason to maintain and deploy chassis all the way up and down the weight range, though, and these things will always have a time to shine, and salvage gets more exciting than just grabbing the heaviest bits in the pile or maybe not caring at all if there's nothing big enough in there. D. Selling It This isn't a reason why you do it, but rather a quick nod at conveying the reasoning to the players. It seems like it'd be fairly easy to provide in-universe justifications for why guys who own their own drop ship can't drop whatever they feel like - have your employers give input. "We're aren't prepared to support a heavy commitment", "We're afraid a disproportionate display of force will provoke a response", "We don't want to escalate this matter unnecessarily", etc. Drop limits aren't exactly a foreign concept to the BT community and if the end result is a better game I would hope people aren't going to give too much grief about it. TL;DR - drop limits will allow the game to consistently present a reasonable challenge, at both the tactical and campaign level, while making the tactical game more interesting by forcing meaningful compromises on the player and keeping chassis of various weights relevant throughout the campaign. Voyager I fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Apr 28, 2018 |
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Apr 28, 2018 19:25
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:What's a good build for the firestarter? Is it a useful alternative to the Jenner? I'm basically going lrm boat + 2 brawlers + scout, and the scout is useful but sometimes when I've been on the receiving end of the firestarter they've been nasty. Firestarter's amazing. I run mine with max armor, two medium lasers, four small lasers, two flamers for heat shenanigans (+20 heat if both hit!), and spend the rest of the tonnage on jump jets, but if you don't want to do any heat shenanigans you could take 6 small lasers and some extra jump jets instead and have a really murderous jumping backstab. If you've got a Jenner for your ranged damage backstabbing light 'Mech, or if you already have a good middle-of-the-road firestarter already, I'd be sorely tempted to strip out the small lasers for more flamers and so you can play maximum heat shenanigans on the hot maps. There is nothing quite as satisfying as locking down a heavy 'Mech for three rounds with heat, and if you time your attacks and force a shutdown you can called shot them with other units while they're standing up. 
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Apr 28, 2018 19:28
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Oops
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Apr 28, 2018 19:28
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Draynar posted:Is there any good planets to look for really heavy/assault mechs or what is best way of getting them what level skulls they more consistently show? (Any kind of mission type to look for/look out for?) There's quite a few missions and mission types which spawn better than usual mechs: Any "assassination" mission will have the target in a heavy mech Some battle missions spawn higher level mechs - the flavour text usually makes this pretty clear, the "old warriors" one is particularly good as they spawn with low armour Generally speaking if you read the actual description of the mission you should get a decent idea of the power level of the mechs involved.
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Apr 28, 2018 19:30
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RabidWeasel posted:Any "assassination" mission will have the target in a heavy mech Or a heavy vehicle  Though the game will still refer to it as a mech
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Apr 28, 2018 19:31
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:What's a good build for the firestarter? Is it a useful alternative to the Jenner? I'm basically going lrm boat + 2 brawlers + scout, and the scout is useful but sometimes when I've been on the receiving end of the firestarter they've been nasty. Six identical support weapons - 6 small lasers or 6 flamers or 6 machine guns. I prefer the flamers, personally. The thing to remember about support weapons is that they can fire in the same turn as a melee attack or DFA. So going with a small laser boat or a MG boat will give you the ability to stack extra damage on top of melee damage, making them a viable add for a heavier brawler 'Mech; flamers, however, can add 10 heat per shot to your target. Six flamers is 60 heat. So if you're careful with your scout and make good use of reserve actions, you can get your Firestarter moving after all the other 'Mechs have moved - and then run him up to dump 60 heat onto your opponent's heat scale. Then in the next turn you can do it *again*, meaning you can force a shutdown on any drat 'Mech on the field (and if your Firestarter pilot has Ace Pilot, you can run or jump him back into safety afterwards). And not only can shutdown 'Mechs not shoot you, any time you shoot them you're making Called Shots. Take those leg shots (or headshots if you have called shot experts) and take the Awesome or the Atlas or the whatever out of the fight before it has a chance to really make a dent in your force. The Firestarter isn't great for every situation - it's a situational 'Mech, not a take-anywhere 'Mech - but in the right mission and with careful planning you can utterly wreck the enemy's day. I love it a lot. In conclusion: stick flamers on your Firestarter. Stick SLs or MGs on your melee brawlers. Support weapons are excellent in this game.
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Apr 28, 2018 19:39
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Ratzap posted:That would be the best choice but it'd be a mammoth task depending on which ref books they include in he rework. If they are planning a long term set of releases via DLC or updates then there is just so much material. Just for 3025 they could do a good half dozen campaign modules for various houses and conflicts. Then they could move on to 3028 and so on down the line of ref books. If they're smart they can put off touching the silly stuff from 3050 onwards for quite a long time. Enough time to work out how to do it in a reasonable manner. I played Warhammer tt and this sounds way radder lol I spent most of my time getting owned by spergs with rulers.
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Apr 28, 2018 19:43
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Voyager I posted:Effort Post Completely agree. Just finished the campaign and the last third or so got really boring. The game has solid foundations, but it gets bad after you outgrow the light/medium mechs. My last hours of gameplay were just me slowly walking forward with 4 assaults and wiping out a billion thunderbolts/orions/banshees. Wrapped up the campaign, turned off the game, I had fun with it but I'm probably not touching it again unless they rework the solo experience.
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Apr 28, 2018 19:51
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I just got a match with just a demolisher and an orion. I headshot the Orion with 3 priority salvage and the RNG gave me two AC20s. I uh, guess it's time to progress the game forward now.
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Apr 28, 2018 19:52
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Galaga Galaxian posted:As in no manual saves, or something else? Yeah basically. The way XCOM does iron man so you only get one autosave slot that's updated almost every turn to prevent save scumming, and decisions are permanent. I mean I could impose these restrictions on myself of course but when Glitch dies my will becomes weak  .
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Apr 28, 2018 19:53
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Sandwich Anarchist posted:How do I go about doing this? Can't really find anything concrete on Google. Open a text file and save the following as <whatever>.reg somewhere you can find it. code:Button you're looking for is labeled 'speed', it just ups the animation speed, no game mechanics effects. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Apr 28, 2018 |
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Apr 28, 2018 19:58
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Eraflure posted:Completely agree. Just finished the campaign and the last third or so got really boring. The game has solid foundations, but it gets bad after you outgrow the light/medium mechs. My last hours of gameplay were just me slowly walking forward with 4 assaults and wiping out a billion thunderbolts/orions/banshees. Wrapped up the campaign, turned off the game, I had fun with it but I'm probably not touching it again unless they rework the solo experience. The issue here seems more that it's easy to break the difficulty curve and even then I have found this game significantly less breakable in that regard than most other similar games I've played (XCOM 2, Battle Brothers). I have yet to fill up on the 90T+ assault mechs which is probably when things start to get really stupid due to the huge increase in capacity for weapons and heatsinks and based on experience so far I'm guessing that the AI isn't going to scale up enough to compensate. It would definitely be nice if the difficulty could continue to scale to the point where it's challenging even for a 400T lance (I want to have an excuse to farm huge amounts of upgraded equipment!) but it's not surprising that they didn't include this. Obviously general improvements to AI or changes to the game economy could significantly impact this also.
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Apr 28, 2018 20:01
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Ciaphas posted:What niche do PPCs have, besides one for comedy shot difficulty debuff I guess? They shoot far and hit hard. They also do stability damage. Good to punch holes in armor at range for LRMs to exploit.
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Apr 28, 2018 20:06
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Also, put three of them on something for hilarity.
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Apr 28, 2018 20:08
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Sumire has a good conversation about birds
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Apr 28, 2018 20:12
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I kind of like battle contracts and their reinforcements just for how hard they are and I think it might be worth not fixing IF they include a way of letting you know where the reinforcements will come from. Enemy spawns are the absolute bane of strategy games, instant ones even more so. But blind and instant is just too too much. Especially with how small the maps can be.
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Apr 28, 2018 20:14
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Voyager I posted:tonnage limits i've been thinking the same thing. there's no reason not to just bring my best four 'mechs and faceroll everything, so that's what i do. i've got two mechbays, that's 12 whole active 'mechs, i've got my old kintaro and jenner around, even the starting shadowhawk is still really good but i've just got no reason to bring them along instead of something bigger and better and less liable to die.
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Apr 28, 2018 20:17
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PoptartsNinja posted:Look for the road or the landing pad. That's what I noticed in my first escort mission. Was a bit surprised when the convoy just raced away from me, but luckily there was a lake south of their route and I already smelt a rat, so I had half my lance use their jump jets to hop across the lake and cut their way. For some reason I absolutely wasn't surprised to see all 100% of the enemy appearing just from the other side of the extraction zone. Thanks to my intuition, I had a Panther and a Vindicator ready to deal with them. Blew up some tanks and a mech real good with PPC-sniping, then the rest of my lance showed up after the action was basically over. Still, if I hadn't jumped across the lake to get in front of my convoy, the opposition would have been able to just stroll into the extraction zone and wreak havoc. I feel for the player who just walks behind his convoy without a care in the world. In the very next mission I fought this kind of battle from the other side and wouldn't you know it, the AI also waddled quite far behind the convoy they were supposed to destroy. The main convoy truck raced even faster away from his protection then my guys before! If it weren't for the loving five Strikers following the main vehicle, that mission would have been super-easy.
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Apr 28, 2018 20:19
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Is dropping everything from my Blackjack except two AC-5s, a spare ammo bin, and them maxing armor a good use of my early-game mech? Do I even want a "sidearm" spare medium laser? e: Keep the Jumpjets?
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Apr 28, 2018 20:20
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Jumpjets let you not care about positioning and also seem amazingly overpowered so yes keep those.
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Apr 28, 2018 20:22
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Ravenfood posted:Is dropping everything from my Blackjack except two AC-5s, a spare ammo bin, and them maxing armor a good use of my early-game mech? Do I even want a "sidearm" spare medium laser? two AC-5s is pretty solid, you'll mulch lights and mediums. don't bother with medium lasers in amounts other than "lots", especially if you're loving up your long range to get them in play. keep the jets if you can, up to you if you want to sacrifice, what, two tons of armor to do so. personally i wouldn't just because repair bills are bad and my blackjack has a nasty habit of getting its arms blown off. Radio Free Kobold fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Apr 28, 2018 |
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Apr 28, 2018 20:25
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Galaga Galaxian posted:So I'm tinkering with my sandbox poo poo and I'm trying to decide what kind of lance to start with. I can't decide between mostly lights, or just something similar to what the game already starts with (though maybe changing thing up for variety sake, like throwing in an enforcer instead of the Vindicator or something). Too bad there is no Pheonix Hawk, that'd be a good starter medium if you wanted to go mostly light. Is this going to include the missions not all insanely ramping in difficulty constantly as the game progresses? I miss the days of brawling it out in light and meds.
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Apr 28, 2018 20:38
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RabidWeasel posted:I mean it's literally a relic of a previous age of technology and you only get one of them, I'm more annoyed that the ER and pulse weapons are actually worse in most ways than variant versions of regular weapons. Oh sure, I just mean that it would be amazing even without the high stability damage. A weapon that does 75 damage for 5 heat is already pretty bananas in a tech era where the heat economy is so tight.
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Apr 28, 2018 20:45
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