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Nasgate posted:With all this focus on heat maintenance. Are there any superheated flak cannons that just absorb all the heat and dissipate it into another form of attack? I'm no scientist, but the concept seems right up the alley of the insane engineers in the setting. The clans have LASER HEAT SINKS that turn heat in to  light shows
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May 3, 2018 21:31
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Did we already talk about this? https://www.pcgamer.com/battletech-is-getting-more-customization-options-and-maybe-an-expansion-or-two/
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May 3, 2018 21:33
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Flavius Belisarius posted:Did we already talk about this? That sounds like a really good patch.
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May 3, 2018 21:36
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Is there a bonus for bringing fewer or lighter mechs on a mission?
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May 3, 2018 21:36
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Nasgate posted:With all this focus on heat maintenance. Are there any superheated flak cannons that just absorb all the heat and dissipate it into another form of attack? I'm no scientist, but the concept seems right up the alley of the insane engineers in the setting. Yeah, that's what Flamers (used to) do. Just straight up vent reactor plasma onto the fucker.
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May 3, 2018 21:36
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Sazabi posted:Is there a bonus for bringing fewer or lighter mechs on a mission? Nope.
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May 3, 2018 21:38
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The best is when you blap something with a called shot and get that morale right back to do it again.nessin posted:Even with the damage spread the fact that you always get damage is significant. 80 damage at 70% chance is 30% chance of zero damage on a gun. 80 damage at 70% chance means you do 56 damage with LRMs. Yeah, big lumps of damage are best with Called Shots, sandpapering with LRM's is better for normal attacks.
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May 3, 2018 21:38
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Sazabi posted:Is there a bonus for bringing fewer or lighter mechs on a mission? Concretely no, but the game is more fun when you aren't just trundling forward with a blob of gunboats.
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May 3, 2018 21:43
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WAR CRIME SYNDICAT posted:That sounds like a really good patch. yeah they seem to be paying attention to the popular mods and file edits that people are posting
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May 3, 2018 21:44
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So I thought I'd make a pilot skills effortpost now that I've gotten some good time in with the game and refreshed my BTech knowledge. TLDR is that Gunnery skills and Bulwark are universally good while everything else has a use except for Juggernaut which is just a bit too situational and doesn't scale into endgame well (due to Assaults acting last). I'll make a second post later with some builds I've had success with. Gunnery: -Multi-Target: Very useful, especially once you start getting a lot of stability weapons. Ideal for LRM boats in particular. Once you have a good LRM setup you can reliably generate multiple knockdowns per round which is amazing. Early on it's best for stripping evasion pips. Combos really well with Breaching Shot and larger weapons (L Lasers, PPCs, LRM 15/20s, Gauss, AC/5/10/20s etc) since it lets you get full value per shot against multiple enemies with Cover/Guard. Don't forget that focus fire is king though, it's always safer to ensure a kill than to try to maximize your damage output. If you really want to avoid waste, use multi-shot weapons like missiles to finish targets that have very low structures remaining while your single-shot weapons begin working on the next target. That gives you the best chance of getting the kill. -Breaching Shot: I found it most useful in the mid-game (where having a single large weapon per mech is more common) but it remains strong in endgame. Really comes into its own once you start consistently bringing larger weapons like PPCs, the bigger ACs, or Gauss. Has nice built in synergy with Multi-Target. One thing to note is that a pilot with Breaching Shot increases the value of larger individual weapons, particularly missiles. If your LRM boat is piloted by a mechwarrior with Breaching Shot, you want to be taking the biggest launcher you can, whereas a Master Tactician pilot is better off with multiple smaller launchers. For instance, I have two Stalker LRM boat loadouts depending on the pilot. One is 4x LRM15s and one is 2x LRM20s and 2x LRM10s. The 15s (because of the ++ and +++ weapons I have) are a slightly better setup overall but I use the mech with 20s whenever I'm using a Breaching Shot pilot because they get a lot more value out of them. Piloting: -Evasive Movement: Counter-intuitively, not super good on early Light mech pilots (since they can cap Evasion easily) but gets progressively more useful as mechs get slower. Not as powerful turn-to-turn as Bulwark but gives you a defensive benefit while allowing you to move and stacks with Vigilance (unlike Bulwark). Really nice on heavier mechs with jumpjets, even Assault mechs can reliably generate 3 pips a turn when using this skill. Also has good synergy with any mech that wants to use melee, since you'll often generate Evasion stacks on the way in. -Ace Pilot: The skill I have played around with the least, although it has its uses. The main advantage it provides is the ability for high initiative mechs to Reserve until the last phase, take their turn, then go again at the start of the next round, fire their weapons, and move back out of LoS. This is a really nice trick but loses a lot of its lustre late-game when the enemy is primarily assault mechs who you can't reliably Reserve past. The only real value I see for it late-game is on a good brawly Medium or Heavy with jumpjets where you can go in with Vigilance one round and then shoot and jump back out the next turn (giving you two very safe rounds of shooting). Even then it's competing with doing the same thing with Bulwark (ie: jumping in with Vigilance, then just shooting and activating Bulwark the second round), although breaking LOS is obviously even better than Bulwark if you can manage it. Guts -Bulwark: Probably the best skill overall. At the very least it is the easiest to get value out of. Simple and strong. Obviously works best with mechs that have decent range, so they can sit still and turret to their heart's content. -Juggernaut: Counterbalancing Bulwark, Juggernaut is probably the weakest skill. It's actually pretty good in the early and mid-game, where it can bump mechs down the initiative ladder and let you finish them off before they can take their action. Unfortunately, it all comes to a screeching halt once you hit Assault mechs, who are completely immune to the skill, due to acting last anyways. Combine that with the fact that melee is a pretty high risk strategy in general and you've got a bit of a dud. The devs are aware however, and have mentioned that changes are under consideration. For now, probably just avoid. Tactics -Sensor Lock: Extremely strong but you really never need more than one. Given how limited LOS is in this game, having the ability to spot for your long-range weapons (especially LRMs) is supremely useful. I always bring one (except on base-defense missions) but you really don't need more than that. I like to pair the skill with Master Tactician (since I want my Sensor Lock guy going first) and Evasive Movement or Bulwark (since they are just generically useful). That's because I run Heavy or Assault mechs though, if you are keeping your scout in a Light or Medium you are probably better off with Evasive Movement and Ace Pilot. One particularly noteworthy use for this is to remove turrets at zero risk to yourself. Always pair your Sensor Lock mech with another mech with long range weaponry! -Master Tactician: A very strong skill, one of the best. The only downside is you have to take Sensor Lock to get it and that becomes redundant pretty quickly. Still, Master Tactician is so good it might sometimes be worth it. This skill does a whole bunch of things. Let's start with it's often overlooked secondary effect: Removes one bar of stability when Reserving. This is actually super good because it lets you Reserve much more safely. Typically, once a fight has engaged, I'm reluctant to Reserve any mech that has taken stability damage when there are multiple enemy mechs that can act before my mech will be able to go again. Being knocked down is bad for the AI but it's catastrophic for the player. Guaranteed medbay time unless you have a Cockpit Mod, the AI will absolutely focus fire you, and you take an accuracy debuff on your next action. Master Tactician lets you Reserve with a lot more confidence (especially if you have Guard and/or Evasion pips up). That's just the secondary effect though, the major effect of gaining an Initiative is a huge deal. Being able to game whether you will go before or after your opponents is extremely strong. Sometimes you want to wait for them to attack so that they hit your mechs that have Guard/Evasion while losing their own. Sometimes you want to go first, so you can alpha an enemy off the board before it can act. Especially once stability and knockdowns become tools you can rely on, making sure you can capitalize on a knockdown is a huge advantage (My LRM boats tend to run Master Tactician for this reason). Alright, I have to run (these always take longer to write than I anticipate). I'll make another big effortpost with builds I've found useful later. Hopefully this is helpful to some folks that were wondering what to take or how to use certain skills. AttackBacon fucked around with this message at 03:45 on May 4, 2018 |
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May 3, 2018 21:45
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Has anyone poked around at the AI yet? I'm wondering whether the game pulls from global or global_def in behaviourVariables
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May 3, 2018 21:53
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Eej posted:The Masakiri has like 4x ER PPCs and an obligatory LRM10 and that's it Christ I loved that game, even if my only strategy was to put as many PPCs on things as I could. Assembling a whole platoon of salvaged clan mechs was the bomb. I can still hear the pre-mission/mechlab music from it in my head. It would be cool if somebody modded it in to Battletech.
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May 3, 2018 22:00
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On the topic of evasion pips being less useful thanks to large numbers of enemies... would Evasion be better if evasion pips were only depleted by an attack that hit instead of just any attack, or would that be way too powerful? It would make SRMs and LRMs pretty useful in wearing down evasion pips. Also, its a small benefit, but Sensor Lock has the advantage of giving you a way to help reduce evasion while also not firing your weapons, if you've got a pilot with it in a mech that runs really hot.
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May 3, 2018 22:03
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Sazabi posted:Is there a bonus for bringing fewer or lighter mechs on a mission? look at this clanner logic
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May 3, 2018 22:05
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Sazabi posted:Is there a bonus for bringing fewer or lighter mechs on a mission? Filthy Clanner spotted. e;fb
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May 3, 2018 22:05
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Wandered over to Taurian space and sodding hell those guys fight differently. Every spider I come across now just uses DFA attacks!
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May 3, 2018 22:07
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Galaga Galaxian posted:On the topic of evasion pips being less useful thanks to large numbers of enemies... would Evasion be better if evasion pips were only depleted by an attack that hit instead of just any attack, or would that be way too powerful? Nah, then you're running into a cascading success sort of scenario, the more you have, the better it is and the less you lose. 6 stacks of evasion means only missiles will threaten you but 2 stacks of evasion is still almost useless.
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May 3, 2018 22:07
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The configuration limitations in this game make me miss Chrome Hounds...now THAT would have been a great TBS.
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May 3, 2018 22:10
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Well, another version I mentioned yesterday in the discord was double the max number of evasion pips and halve both the accuracy penalty per pip and halve how far you have to move to get each pip.
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May 3, 2018 22:10
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Galaga Galaxian posted:Well, another version I mentioned yesterday in the discord was double the max number of evasion pips and halve both the accuracy penalty per pip and halve how far you have to move to get each pip. I like this idea. I was also brainstorming with the idea that evasion would give a chance for partial hits or glances, similar to how cover works. X% chance to miss completely, Y% chance to do Z% chance less damage. Might be a little overly complicated, though.
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May 3, 2018 22:17
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 So, enabling multiple levels of elevation difference bonus maaay break things  Wonder if doubling or tripling the difference required for the bonus would help. I am a ways up there tho:
Arrath fucked around with this message at 22:32 on May 3, 2018 |
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May 3, 2018 22:30
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Galaga Galaxian posted:On the topic of evasion pips being less useful thanks to large numbers of enemies... would Evasion be better if evasion pips were only depleted by an attack that hit instead of just any attack, or would that be way too powerful? A rediculously quick and probably quite good attempt to fix a lot of problems (movement / evasion generally not being great compared to Bulwark, lights being very quickly outclassed, sensor lock being underwhelming) would be to just make chevrons generate at double the rate, give them half the individual effect, and then doubling the effectiveness of sensor lock. - Evasion doesn't become any better at peak values but it survives sustained fire much more effectively - Lights will still be fragile but you won't be able to easily strip all of their chevrons without sensor locking, possibly multiple times, so they can soak more fire You'd probably have to change evasive move somehow though, I'm not sure that being able to get 10 chevrons @ 5% each on a heavy with JJs would be a good thing for balance E: How the gently caress did you post the exact same idea in the time it took me to finish writing this 
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May 3, 2018 22:33
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I think it's super weird how easy it is for heavies and assaults to get 3-5 evasion chevrons just by using jump jets.
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May 3, 2018 22:34
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I think Breaching Shot would be way more interesting/versatile if it applied to all weapons of the same type. If you have a Mech with 1 LLaser, 3 MLaser and a PPC then this should allow you to fire all 3 MLasers with the Breaching passive. That way Mechs with mid-damage weapons would also benefit from this and not only the AC20/Gauss boats.
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May 3, 2018 22:35
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Hammerstein posted:I think Breaching Shot would be way more interesting/versatile if it applied to all weapons of the same type. If you have a Mech with 1 LLaser, 3 MLaser and a PPC then this should allow you to fire all 3 MLasers with the Breaching passive. It would however make an assault 4xLRM15 boat kind of ludicrous though.
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May 3, 2018 22:37
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Are some missions designed to be unbeatable? The quantity and power of reinforcements on some of these two/two and a half star missions make it seem like I'm supposed to withdraw at a certain point and eat the loss. It doesn't seem possible to put out enough damage per turn to make it through the attrition of 9 decently kitted out enemy units grinding out hundreds of SRMs per round.
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May 3, 2018 22:41
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The_Angry_Turtle posted:Are some missions designed to be unbeatable? The quantity and power of reinforcements on some of these two/two and a half star missions make it seem like I'm supposed to withdraw at a certain point and eat the loss. It doesn't seem possible to put out enough damage per turn to make it through the attrition of 9 decently kitted out enemy units grinding out hundreds of SRMs per round. You have to make sure only a small number of those enemies can shoot you at any one time.
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May 3, 2018 22:42
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Kanos posted:I think it's super weird how easy it is for heavies and assaults to get 3-5 evasion chevrons just by using jump jets. It seems to be the only way for them to generate more than 1 evasion pip on a movement action that still allows shooting after. I'm thinking the very max they should be able to accumulate doing so is 3, though. 5 is outrageous!
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May 3, 2018 22:43
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It's possible to tweak the dynamic enemy lances so that they'll spawn with a medium and light even in late game instead of being all heavies and assaults -- but there's still no real reason to not bring all heavies/assaults yourself. Such a change would just make the game easier but that might not be a terrible idea given how much of a slog the higher skull missions seem to be.
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May 3, 2018 22:48
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Yeah but you pay a very heavy heat penalty for jumping and firing in the same turn. A great number of otherwise sustainable heat builds are close to suffering heat damage on a turn in which they jump and fire everything. Has anyone noticed that one of the Dropship layer tunes is reminiscent of the opening part of The Ecstasy of Gold by Ennio Morricone?
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May 3, 2018 22:50
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A.o.D. posted:Yeah but you pay a very heavy heat penalty for jumping and firing in the same turn. A great number of otherwise sustainable heat builds are close to suffering heat damage on a turn in which they jump and fire everything. Seems pretty fair to me.
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May 3, 2018 22:51
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Concerning clanner logic, we ran a Battletech/Battletech RPG campaign once which featured our plucky little merc company being in the way of the clans. After the Clans wiped out the regular lyran forces we were supposed to be supporting, our plucky little merc company stated that they would defend the remainder with quote: "1 Assault mech, 2 heavies, a medium and 3 hilarious dirty tricks. " The Clan commander rambled on how they werent at the least bit scared by that, to which we respoded "yeah, show how much you arent scared by your bid". Well, Dirty trick number one was an extensive minefield, and dirty trick number 2 was a lyran lance of LRM carriers who figured they were better off with the merc company that had a talent for surviving. We didnt actually had a dirty trick number 3 but the clanners didnt know that. Trick number one and 2 were sufficient to deal with the 3 mechs the clans send at us. Then there was a check for fast talking their loremaster into accepting that the LRM carrier lance was just 1 dirty trick rather then 4.
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May 3, 2018 22:56
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Also don't those JJs cost like 2 tons per jet
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May 3, 2018 22:56
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Control Volume posted:I dont recommend the punch dragon for this one. I did this. It was not pretty, the punch Dragon survived with half the body gone.
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May 3, 2018 23:02
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The_Angry_Turtle posted:Are some missions designed to be unbeatable? The quantity and power of reinforcements on some of these two/two and a half star missions make it seem like I'm supposed to withdraw at a certain point and eat the loss. It doesn't seem possible to put out enough damage per turn to make it through the attrition of 9 decently kitted out enemy units grinding out hundreds of SRMs per round. A lot of this is early game difficulty. It goes away quite a bit once you get a little ways into the story. 4v4 contracts are basically freebies at some point.
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May 3, 2018 23:05
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RIP Behemoth. You fought hard, but getting DFA'd then immediately rushed and punched by two more mechs is a lot to handle in one round.
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May 3, 2018 23:05
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I've found leg mods that give - 10 and - 20 DFA self damage. Is there a decent DFA build with these? My first thought is putting both of them on a Firestarter armed with four small lasers or machine guns. I'm having trouble finding the tonnage for six.
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May 3, 2018 23:10
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I love enemy heavies who put LRM ammo in the CT. I love it better when I AC/20 them in the chest and it cascades into their death from full strength when I'm on the wrong end of an 8v4.Ghetto Prince posted:BTW, is there a better catapult spec than just 2 LRM 20's and tons of ammo and heat sinks? No, that's as good as the Catapult gets. I suggest making sure you get some LRM20 + models with extra stability damage to make up for the lack of launchers. Psion fucked around with this message at 23:23 on May 3, 2018 |
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May 3, 2018 23:11
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KPC_Mammon posted:I've found leg mods that give - 10 and - 20 DFA self damage. DFA damage is based on tonnage of the mech, so the bigger the better. 
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May 3, 2018 23:14
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| # ? May 31, 2024 15:27 |
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The greatest kills are MG Ammo Explosion in the CT.
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