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Still  ing at the exaggerated animations on the Warhammer and Marauder. When the Marauder get s knocked down he does a full on ED-209 wobble.
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Nov 26, 2019 06:02
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I'm really struggling with bad, bad luck in this game, and kinda have since release. I pretty much can't get through a mission without my mechs and pilots so beat to hell that I have a choice between save-scumming and not finishing a mission that took literally hours to play through, or going bankrupt because I don't have enough operational mechs/pilots. I'm on my third time picking it up and trying to play it, and despite being a Battletech player since the 80s I am either literally the worst player in history or the RNG just loves to gently caress me. I've tried all sorts of loadouts and strategies and nothing makes any difference. I'm posting out of genuine frustration because I love this game, but I'm so loving bad at it that I make zero progress at all if I save scum. FWIW, I only have the base game - haven't been able to afford to spend money on any expansions - and zero mods. I should probably start modding to make it easier, but that feels like admitting defeat. Anyone have other suggestions? Is there One Weird Trick?
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Nov 26, 2019 06:43
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So, turns out a firestarter with a medium coil laser is basically just a really fast hunchback which also has 6 machine guns for free. Even better since you can reserve to phase 1, sprint behind the enemy lance, then backshot them with it.
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Nov 26, 2019 06:51
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Wifi Toilet posted:Still The Assassin and Marauder both have straight nutshot kicks as one of their melee animations. 10/10 worth it everytime.
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Nov 26, 2019 07:00
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The Catapult's melee attack animation is basically a headbutt... well, missile-pod-butt, really.
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Nov 26, 2019 07:09
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I'm really enjoying the updated store inventory. Multiple times I've seen a black market with three parts of salvage of high end mechs. I just bought an atlas that way for around 4 million which is pretty crazy considering if you max out credits on missions 3 star missions give about a million credits.
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Nov 26, 2019 07:15
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Does the Mysterious Figure from the White Lies flashpoint ever show up again?
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Nov 26, 2019 07:27
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Kesper North posted:I'm really struggling with bad, bad luck in this game, and kinda have since release. I pretty much can't get through a mission without my mechs and pilots so beat to hell that I have a choice between save-scumming and not finishing a mission that took literally hours to play through, or going bankrupt because I don't have enough operational mechs/pilots. I'm on my third time picking it up and trying to play it, and despite being a Battletech player since the 80s I am either literally the worst player in history or the RNG just loves to gently caress me. I've tried all sorts of loadouts and strategies and nothing makes any difference. I'm posting out of genuine frustration because I love this game, but I'm so loving bad at it that I make zero progress at all if I save scum. FWIW, I only have the base game - haven't been able to afford to spend money on any expansions - and zero mods. I should probably start modding to make it easier, but that feels like admitting defeat. Anyone have other suggestions? Is there One Weird Trick? The campaign at release shouldn't have been nearly as difficult as you're describing, especially not for someone coming in with experience in the tabletop (they aren't a 1:1 translation, but many of the same principles apply). There's probably something fundamental that isn't clicking, but without knowing more about how you're getting into trouble it's hard to give specific advice. Missions taking multiple hours to complete is definitely a red flag that something is amiss - you should be expecting to spend maybe 30 minutes on a battle unless it's a very large engagement.
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Nov 26, 2019 07:59
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Kesper North posted:I'm really struggling with bad, bad luck in this game, and kinda have since release. I pretty much can't get through a mission without my mechs and pilots so beat to hell that I have a choice between save-scumming and not finishing a mission that took literally hours to play through, or going bankrupt because I don't have enough operational mechs/pilots. I'm on my third time picking it up and trying to play it, and despite being a Battletech player since the 80s I am either literally the worst player in history or the RNG just loves to gently caress me. I've tried all sorts of loadouts and strategies and nothing makes any difference. I'm posting out of genuine frustration because I love this game, but I'm so loving bad at it that I make zero progress at all if I save scum. FWIW, I only have the base game - haven't been able to afford to spend money on any expansions - and zero mods. I should probably start modding to make it easier, but that feels like admitting defeat. Anyone have other suggestions? Is there One Weird Trick? Probably the biggest issue is that you're apparently putting yourself in situations where you lose unless the rng goes in your favour. That shouldn't be happening if you're playing well - the only "rng screw" that can really happen is your pilots taking unlucky head hits and needing time off to recover afterwards. The "one weird trick" is mostly to focus fire on one enemy (taking them out of the fight quickly), while positioning yourself so that enemies can't get good attacks or at the very least are forced to spread their damage around.
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Nov 26, 2019 08:05
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Kesper North posted:Anyone have other suggestions? Is there One Weird Trick? Bulwark on every pilot (and stay in cover), never not be moving (evasion pips), focus fire to kill faster (the sooner they die the sooner they stop doing damage), side shots are best (fewest hit zones), vehicles take double melee damage (instagib), max out your front armour (then tweak down as needed to squeeze in One More Part).
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Nov 26, 2019 08:18
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Voyager I posted:Missions taking multiple hours to complete is definitely a red flag that something is amiss - you should be expecting to spend maybe 30 minutes on a battle unless it's a very large engagement. I don't know that it's a red flag. I take stupid long to play, I will sit there and take several minutes considering how I'm gonna move my robits. Two hours for a battle is my normal. But a) being slow leads to good results, not needing to reload b) I play all turn based strategy games the same plodding way so battletech is perfectly normal. The computer hasn't yet flipped the table because I take too long.
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Nov 26, 2019 08:41
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Thanks for the responses. I stepped back and kind of rethought how I'm approaching the game in general. Part of the problem is that I"m used to extremely spare hex maps with little in the way of cover or elevation, and in my eagerness to use both I'm getting my mechs way too spread out and probably engaging at way, way too long a range. I'm also doing a lot more baiting and ducking in and out of sensor range and generally playing more intelligently, and it's going much better this time. It's not the game, it's me...Lazyhound posted:Bulwark on every pilot (and stay in cover), never not be moving (evasion pips), focus fire to kill faster (the sooner they die the sooner they stop doing damage), side shots are best (fewest hit zones), vehicles take double melee damage (instagib), max out your front armour (then tweak down as needed to squeeze in One More Part). I did all of this, EXCEPT take side shots. I totally fixed my own armor and then welp, completely forgot about the enemy's facing. I've been pounding these guys in all their tankiest spots. Jabor posted:Probably the biggest issue is that you're apparently putting yourself in situations where you lose unless the rng goes in your favour. That shouldn't be happening if you're playing well - the only "rng screw" that can really happen is your pilots taking unlucky head hits and needing time off to recover afterwards. That fuckstick Grayson needs to stop headhunting my best pilots, too  I actually had that event leave me without enough pilots to begin a story mission and had to roll back to an earlier save. Does asking them not to make a quick decision mean they don't leave? I've gotten that travel event twice now and both times the pilot left despite me picking different responses.Thanks thread! Kesper North fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Nov 26, 2019 |
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Nov 26, 2019 08:57
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Kesper North posted:That fuckstick Grayson needs to stop headhunting my best pilots, too I can't say as I've ever taken any other option aside from advising them not to make a hasty decision, but none of my pilots have ever left because of that event. You will find, however, that in the latter part of the game they leave more regularly on the back end of AC20 rounds or surprise jump kicks from crippled mechs. Try to keep a solid stable of pilots, they're pretty cheap and it's not too bad investing in the training module upgrades. GHOST_BUTT fucked around with this message at 09:15 on Nov 26, 2019 |
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Nov 26, 2019 09:12
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GHOST_BUTT posted:I can't say as I've ever taken any other option aside from advising them not to make a hasty decision, but none of my pilots have ever left because of that event. Actually this leads me to another question! What should I upgrade first, medlab or mech repair? I'm guessing mech repair.
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Nov 26, 2019 09:35
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^^^ Meat is cheap, mechs are valuable. You can easily afford to keep a couple more pilots aboard, and they're all interchangeable past a point.Bogarts posted:I'm really enjoying the updated store inventory. Multiple times I've seen a black market with three parts of salvage of high end mechs. I just bought an atlas that way for around 4 million which is pretty crazy considering if you max out credits on missions 3 star missions give about a million credits. I'm really not enjoying the updated inventory, because it comes with a million mechs and mech parts but no weapons. If anyone's wondering how good pilots can get in the training modules: the XP cost to upgrade a skill is 100x [current skill level]^2. 10k XP will thus get a pilot to two specialist skills. Jedit fucked around with this message at 09:42 on Nov 26, 2019 |
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Nov 26, 2019 09:37
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Kesper North posted:Anyone have other suggestions? Is there One Weird Trick? Post your fits so I can tell you how wrong they are and how to fix them.
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Nov 26, 2019 10:38
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It seems that Star League weapons are now really good. I've fitted a Vulcan with an ER Medium Laser, 2 ER Smalls and 2 Small Pulse and it tears everything apart like a Clan machine would do. Good stuff.
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Nov 26, 2019 11:13
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Conspiratiorist posted:Post your fits so I can tell you how wrong they are and how to fix them. Making a note to myself to do this after work tomorrow. I finished Smithton tonight. Got a sweet quadruple kill, got both vehicles, five crates left, no losses, and it was pretty fast. I'm getting the hang of it now. All my pilot injuries are LRM strikes. They do happen a lot.
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Nov 26, 2019 12:20
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The good thing about bad RNG luck is that when you catch a break it feels like winning the lottery. I GOT A GRIFFIN gently caress YEAH 
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Nov 26, 2019 16:03
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Kesper North posted:I'm also doing a lot more baiting and ducking in and out of sensor range and generally playing more intelligently, and it's going much better this time. I'm gonna say this wouldn't be a bad tactic in a vacuum, but in random missions it has a big downside. A whole lot of missions will put you in 4v8 fights, and some of those times there are 2 lances of enemies on the map at the start. In those cases, as soon as one lance is alerted to your presence the other lance will start coming for you as well. If you're up against the same weight class, you probably don't want to fight both of them at once. So there's a practical reason to just  with mechs built for big alpha. Tagging guys with long range guns is slow and likely to let the second group pincher you.Alternately: scout around the map for the unmarked "reinforcements" lance and engage them first. Since the primary objective group is marked on the map (and that marker does update as the group moves around) you'll never be surprised by another group flanking you from behind. Takes even longer to play a mission though. (Note: many of us ITT have played these missions so many times that we know exactly what to expect, which is a huge advantage.)
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Nov 26, 2019 16:11
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Baiting and ducking works really well in capture base and destroy base missions, since there's no time limit and probably no reinforcements. You can take your time drawing out the garrison, defeating them piecemeal, and then taking care of the base turrets and the buildings. Takes a bit of time but you can bite of a bigger chunk. I had to bail on a battle mission because I took on a 3 star, and took a little too long dealing with the first lance when the second showed up. Faced with 8 fully functional mediums charging down my throat I cut bait and ran before I started losing limbs. I was a little gunshy after I had an ambush convoy mission go south, and while I accomplished it I lost Medusa and two mechs. Had to retreat to a low-difficulty system for a while to repair and recover resources. I have a question about the heat exchangers and heat banks, and how to use them effectively. I put both on an enforcer with a heavy energy loadout, and on the statlines at least it said that heat efficiency was topped out. I think that might be a math problem though, because while I had a really high ceiling to launch an impressively hot alpha strike, I didn't dissipate heat any faster so that massive heat load hung around for a long time. Are those things trap options? There's got to be some setup where they're worthwhile, I just don't know how to effectively use them.
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Nov 26, 2019 17:13
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sean10mm posted:The good thing about bad RNG luck is that when you catch a break it feels like winning the lottery. I just hit the RNG motherfucking gold mine last night. Second mission of the new flaspoint mini-campaign. I get the loot box at the end and the "rare" reward is something dumb like an SRM2 ++. Then, buried at the bottom I see HGN-723B. Oh, cool, having a part of that is nice. Maybe after a few other flashpoints i'll get lucky and put one together. Go to jump on some dumb 1 skull mission to make a few bucks before I leave the system, go to select my mechs, and wait a second why do I have a highlander ready to go? Off to the mech bay and that wasn't a part, that was a full spoiler mech, complete with gauss rifle, DHS, and all the other goodies. A motherfucking spoiler mech tucked down in the rear end end of the "common" items in a flashpoint loot crate. This is early campaign too. My best mech so far is a Griffin with a Snub PPC+.
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Nov 26, 2019 17:13
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Kesper North posted:Thanks for the responses. I stepped back and kind of rethought how I'm approaching the game in general. Part of the problem is that I"m used to extremely spare hex maps with little in the way of cover or elevation, and in my eagerness to use both I'm getting my mechs way too spread out and probably engaging at way, way too long a range. I'm also doing a lot more baiting and ducking in and out of sensor range and generally playing more intelligently, and it's going much better this time. It's not the game, it's me...
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Nov 26, 2019 17:16
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Fat Samurai posted:Once I discovered the joy of jump jets the difficulty went out of the window. Extra dodge pips help, but the AI is completely incapable of catching up and you can usually isolate a single robbit and pound it with most of your lance. You can make almost every engagement a running battle where you keep mostly out of reach, duck behind mountains, etc... People pooh-pooh jump jets for the slow assaults, but I find that even having 3 piddly jump jets on your 100 ton monster helps a surprising amount.
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Nov 26, 2019 17:31
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El Spamo posted:I have a question about the heat exchangers and heat banks, and how to use them effectively. I put both on an enforcer with a heavy energy loadout, and on the statlines at least it said that heat efficiency was topped out. I think that might be a math problem though, because while I had a really high ceiling to launch an impressively hot alpha strike, I didn't dissipate heat any faster so that massive heat load hung around for a long time. Are those things trap options? There's got to be some setup where they're worthwhile, I just don't know how to effectively use them. Ignore the ratio, concentrate on the numbers. Early on you'll often have Mechs that are a net +12 for heat, so they can do four or five consecutive alpha strikes before hitting the red line, but they will be listed as HE 4 because you're generating 166% of your sinking capacity.
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Nov 26, 2019 17:31
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sean10mm posted:People pooh-pooh jump jets for the slow assaults, but I find that even having 3 piddly jump jets on your 100 ton monster helps a surprising amount. Double ac20 srm24 crab is a hilarious thing to behold flying through the air to its prey
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Nov 26, 2019 17:33
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sean10mm posted:People pooh-pooh jump jets for the slow assaults, but I find that even having 3 piddly jump jets on your 100 ton monster helps a surprising amount. You get to diminishing returns with the weight you're investing in it, though. Six tons is a lot to give up, even on a 100 ton monster with plenty of space.
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Nov 26, 2019 17:37
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Not wanting to quote myself, but I just did some math because I'm at work and bored waiting on a coworker to respond to me. Exchangers are worth it if you produce more weapon heat than 10x the equivalent tonnage of heat sinkage. Thus: Exchanger I: Install if you produce 60+ weapon heat. Exchanger II: 90+ weapon heat Exchanger III: 120+ weapon heat That probably limits them to heavies and assaults than can fit enough tonnage of weapons to PRODUCE that amount of heat. I guess if you're borderline it might be useful too because of the lack of environmental impact. That drops those 'worth it' thresholds down quite a bit if you're doing martian/lunar landscape missions. It looks like the heat bank component is just an installable guts 9 skill. Maxed armor and have a spare ton for some reason? Heat bank I guess.
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Nov 26, 2019 17:39
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El Spamo posted:Not wanting to quote myself, but I just did some math because I'm at work and bored waiting on a coworker to respond to me. Here's a post I made with math for a best case scenario for exchangers on the moon in which I concluded that they're crap even if you include the environmental advantage. Exchangers suck, sell them or mod them to be less weight. (1.5 / 2 / 2.5 is rational but makes the III possibly a little too good. Other numbers are difficult because they make the IIIs worse than the I.)
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Nov 26, 2019 18:11
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I completed the singleplayer story yesterday. Does a max skull contract come close to the amount of firepower in that last mission or is it all EZ mode from here?
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Nov 26, 2019 18:16
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Fauxtool posted:I completed the singleplayer story yesterday. Does a max skull contract come close to the amount of firepower in that last mission or is it all EZ mode from here? It can get harder if anything. Depends on the luck of the draw but you cam get multiple assault lances. e: Final mission is 1 King Crab and 3 heavies. You can fight multiple assaults in 5 skulls regularly, unless the RNG gives you heavy tanks instead of mechs. sean10mm fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Nov 26, 2019 |
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Nov 26, 2019 18:32
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Holy gently caress, I just did a flashpoint that was capped at 240 tons total and 75 each and managed to win it with a Cicada, Centurion, Raven, and Griffin. My reward was a fully loaded spoilermech. I haven't even gotten a heavy yet and I've got that monster. Turns out, the Magistracy of Canopus is really good to me!
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Nov 26, 2019 18:50
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Ravenfood posted:Holy gently caress, I just did a flashpoint that was capped at 240 tons total and 75 each and managed to win it with a Cicada, Centurion, Raven, and Griffin. My reward was a fully loaded spoilermech. I haven't even gotten a heavy yet and I've got that monster. Turns out, the Magistracy of Canopus is really good to me! Which FP so I can haul rear end to it
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Nov 26, 2019 19:00
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So let's say I've got this friend who has an affection for merchandise then fell off of a cargo ship. And let's also say that he likes sticking it to the man in order to support his local entrepreneurs who have been egregiously mislabeled as "pirates." Where should I tell my friend to go in order to garner the most support or what should he look for so it's not just a bunch of major factions handing out work and putting down the locals?
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Nov 26, 2019 19:01
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El Spamo posted:Not wanting to quote myself, but I just did some math because I'm at work and bored waiting on a coworker to respond to me. Exchangers are useful when you have enough weaponry to generate more than 60 heat per turn (90 heat with Guts 9). This heat level is the max you can generate in one turn without automatically overheating. Exchangers cause your weapons to generate less heat, so you can cram on more weapons without hitting the overheat threshold. They're key for the sustained (shoot for 3 turns, cool off for one) 575 alpha King Crab.
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Nov 26, 2019 19:24
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I've kinda been enjoying skirmishes more than career missions lately. The game really shines when you're fielding a mixed tonnage lance, flanking feels more relevant when you know you're not going to get bitten in the rear end by enemy reinforcements. It is noticeable how much better it is to drop with 4 good mechs, as opposed to 2 super mechs and 2 turds.
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Nov 26, 2019 19:37
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Klyith posted:Here's a post I made with math for a best case scenario for exchangers on the moon in which I concluded that they're crap even if you include the environmental advantage. Exchangers are bad but they have use cases and I find your experimental method suspect. El Spamo posted:Not wanting to quote myself, but I just did some math because I'm at work and bored waiting on a coworker to respond to me. That's not how they work, either. All Exchangers follow the same math since it's 5% heat reduction per ton, making 60 weapons heat generated their break even point with Standard Heatsinks (60 * 5% = 3 heat negated, same as a heatsink). However, because Exchangers don't actually dissipate, any turn in which you generate less than that from weapons fire, be it taking a cooling round or simply shutting off a weapon to keep on firing without going over the red line, is going to give heatsinks the advantage. Taking that into account, I wouldn't recommend them for designs generating less than 72 heat (60 + a medium laser you might opt to switch off), though realistically you want over 80 heat for the impact to be meaningful, so it's only a good fit for laserboats, the higher end hot mixed loadout assaults, or mechs you plan exclusively for hot biomes. McGavin posted:Exchangers are useful when you have enough weaponry to generate more than 60 heat per turn (90 heat with Guts 9). This heat level is the max you can generate in one turn without automatically overheating. Exchangers cause your weapons to generate less heat, so you can cram on more weapons without hitting the overheat threshold. They're key for the sustained (shoot for 3 turns, cool off for one) 575 alpha King Crab. Exchangers affect gross weapon's heat, not net total heat. They don't care whether you have other elements dissipating (ie heatsinks), nor other elements generating (ie jump jets). Conspiratiorist fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Nov 26, 2019 |
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Nov 26, 2019 19:38
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So narc beacons (lol that acronym) need amo, do infernos?
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Nov 26, 2019 19:45
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Infernos are like flamers and carry a limited number of shots built into the weapon.
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Nov 26, 2019 19:49
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Conspiratiorist posted:All Exchangers follow the same math since it's 5% heat reduction per ton, making 60 weapons heat generated their break even point with Standard Heatsinks (60 * 5% = 3 heat negated, same as a heatsink). The game doesn't track fractional heat (it rounds down to the closest integer value), so the break-even point for each exchanger is slightly different. For the 20% exchanger it's 56 heat. Conspiratiorist posted:Exchangers affect gross weapon's heat, not net total heat. Yeah, that's why I said enough weaponry to generate 60 heat per turn.  Since heat generation occurs before heat dissipation you need to keep it below the overheat threshold if you don't want to overheat. The reduction in weapon heat generation from exchangers is what lets you do the crazy alpha-strikes without overheating.
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Nov 26, 2019 20:16
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