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Tiny Chalupa posted:So my current dropage is a Marauder, Atlas, King Crab and a Annihilator In vanilla, the MAD is an endgame mech. You don't replace it.
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Jul 5, 2021 17:57
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Tiny Chalupa posted:So my current dropage is a Marauder, Atlas, King Crab and a Annihilator If your Atlas is the Atlas II, try getting the components for this: anakha posted:Any excuse to keep reposting this, LOL
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Jul 5, 2021 18:11
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Yeah, I kept a series of Marauders around so that I never had to drop without one. My favorite vanilla no holds barred lance was a Star League Marauder with ERMLs, an LRM75 Bull Shark, an Annihilator with a Gauss rifle and 3 AC10++, and an Atlas II with a UAC20, snub PPC, two Inferno launchers, misc lasers, and melee mods. I experimented with using a narc++ on it, because the idea of the 75 LRMs hitting with +75% damage seemed hilarious, but in practice it was always too much too late.
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Jul 5, 2021 18:14
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I've got a weird question relating to vanilla-economy. I've been trying to just buy a Jagermech, after the game stopped throwing them at me just before I finally could assemble one. Looking up some stuff revealed the chance of getting Jagermech-parts is supposed to be higher in systems with Liao or Federated Suns activity, so I abandoned the story at Smithon for a while and went westward, as I saw multiple systems with Liao-faction in them. No luck so far. Also, the farther west I go the deader and more abandoned the planets get. It's spooking me out a bit. Am I just in the wrong part of the map for Jagermechs? I've almost assembled a lance of all my favorites: Marauder, Warhammer, Archer and Jagermech. The Jagermech is the last one missing. I've been extremely unlucky so far in getting the parts through salvage, and a single piece for sale somewhere would finally end this self-inflected odyssey...
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Jul 5, 2021 19:41
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I don’t care how much overkill it is, shooting an urbie with an AC20 will never be not hilarious to me 
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Jul 5, 2021 19:43
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Libluini posted:I've got a weird question relating to vanilla-economy. Your best bet is to just do a lot of 3-4 skull drops. In vanilla those things are everywhere.
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Jul 5, 2021 19:45
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Icon Of Sin posted:I don’t care how much overkill it is, shooting an urbie with an AC20 will never be not hilarious to me If you have BEX, you can shoot this at an Urbie: 
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Jul 5, 2021 19:47
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Organ Fiend posted:Your best bet is to just do a lot of 3-4 skull drops. In vanilla those things are everywhere. I wish, I'm at day 827 and still no new Jagermechs. The RNG must hate me. My last 3,5 skull drop saw me facing off against a Panther leading an army of Jenners, Javelins and Locusts. All armed with LRMs. My heavy mechs had to wait ages each turn while every enemy light pelted my line with tiny, irritating missile swarms. Eventually I got so paranoid, I ordered my mechs to beat the 3-4 survivors to scrap metal with bare metal fists, as I was expecting some sort of trap. In the end, a third lance landed. Another Jenner, a Centurion and an Orion. I loving hate Orions and felt like the game was now actively loving with me. (Nothing against Orions, they're fine mechs. I just don't like them personally.) Libluini fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Jul 5, 2021 |
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Jul 5, 2021 20:38
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Zorak of Michigan posted:I experimented with using a narc++ on it, because the idea of the 75 LRMs hitting with +75% damage seemed hilarious, but in practice it was always too much too late.
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Jul 5, 2021 21:29
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That's a lot of acronyms. I just rescued the big old ship for kamea and now I have like a million c-bills. Exciting! Locusts are death for pilots right? I think that's what was said in the LP. Is it worth trying to level up my spare pilot or hiring new people or is it better to focus on the 4 starting ones?
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Jul 5, 2021 21:33
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ilmucche posted:That's a lot of acronyms. I just rescued the big old ship for kamea and now I have like a million c-bills. Exciting! Any light mech that is not a Firestarter or Javelin is a deathtrap that should be converted to cbills immediately. Start hunting for medium mechs. It's a good idea to have a couple of backup pilots that you rotate in periodically in case your A-team gets injured/killed. Time is money and instead of waiting for Dekker to come out of his comical full-body cast you can simply hire an extra pilot to stomp around in a mech and engage in another mission.
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Jul 5, 2021 21:47
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Organ Fiend posted:STOCK COMBAT ROLE:  I’m playing a BEX career right now, and you’ve given me a goal.
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Jul 5, 2021 21:56
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Having to use a light mech or two is just more fun than deploying 4 bricks with a mass of guns.
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Jul 5, 2021 23:57
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Alchenar posted:Yeah, this is linked to the other problem that Heavy Metal has in that power creep reached the point where you can just spec a mech that can reliably CT anything else in a single called shot, at which point the tactical game just collapses on itself completely. Be interesting to see how Battletech 2 (or whatever HBS's unannounced project is) changes things up. I am confused at the somewhat missed opportunity for them to find a way to "tax" Heavy and Assault Mechs more heavily in the campaign both in terms of long-term cost and short-term cost considerations. As far as I can tell, there is literally no reason to ever drop anything other than your best-equipped lance of mechs at the highest possible tonnage. By dropping the best lance possible, you guarantee success on the mission and maximize the chances of secondary payouts and you minimize repair costs since the bigger the mech, the more armour it has meaning no internal damage, and armour repairs are always instantaneous after a mission and free. For a game that bills itself as a Merc commander "sim", I would have expected more juggling of costs involved in terms of risk vs reward. Things like the flat monthly maintenance fees increasing at an exponential as weight goes up or an escalating cost for dropping more and more tons on a mission would really make the sim more engaging and encourage players to fill out their roster with more mechs. Or maybe have armour repair cost money as well as time so you can't just spam the same Assault lance on all the missions on a planet without incurring an opportunity cost penalty like you currently can without having backup mechs. Additionally, high difficulty missions can be far and few in between meaning that bringing an Assault lance would be an absolute overkill and not worth the contract payouts. As a compromise, high difficulty missions should also pay a lot more than missions that you could complete with mediums or heavies as that carrot on a stick to have an Assault lance around for when the BIG PAYDAY missions come around. Ideally, the game should make the player ask questions like - Do I really want to fill my mech bay up with the highest tonnage mechs possible and eat insane monthly costs. - Can I drop my lance of heavy/mediums to do this 3 skull mission to save money - If I keep 2 Assault lances around, will I be able to find enough high-paying jobs to not go broke and have to sell them off to keep the company afloat. The fact that the 3 resources in mechwarrior RPG skill increases, better mechs with +++ weapons, and insane resolve generation in the late game so you can literally spam called shot abilities every turn into enemy CTs or Heads also feeds into this powercreep issues. And I don't even have Heavy Metal on my campaign playthrough.
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Jul 6, 2021 00:01
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Zorak of Michigan posted:I experimented with using a narc++ on it, because the idea of the 75 LRMs hitting with +75% damage seemed hilarious, but in practice it was always too much too late. For a long time, I ran 3 assaults and one heavy in a scout/support role. That was a Crusader L until I finally got the parts for a Mad Cat S. You can stack TAG and NARC of different levels on the same Mech, so I'd run all those with a pilot that could multi-target. Few things more fun than seeing CERPPCs repeatedly hammering some poor Clanner gently caress for 108 a pop, or disintegrating a Mech under waves of LRMs doing 10 damage apiece.
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Jul 6, 2021 00:05
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what you're looking for is adding mods into the game. more specifically https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/97 the main issue is that one of the most popular mods people use is to remove tonnage limits from missions: https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/418 essentially most people don't want that level of micro-management in their game there are a lot of opinions on what could make the game better but not really an overall consensus. it is a great thing the mod community is so strong for this game
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Jul 6, 2021 00:23
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MikeC posted:I am confused at the somewhat missed opportunity for them to find a way to "tax" Heavy and Assault Mechs more heavily in the campaign both in terms of long-term cost and short-term cost considerations. As far as I can tell, there is literally no reason to ever drop anything other than your best-equipped lance of mechs at the highest possible tonnage. By dropping the best lance possible, you guarantee success on the mission and maximize the chances of secondary payouts and you minimize repair costs since the bigger the mech, the more armour it has meaning no internal damage, and armour repairs are always instantaneous after a mission and free. Those cost concepts were bandied about in the kickstarter phase but I suspect they were dropped for the obvious reason, which is that trying to drive player behaviour through costs is loving awful design. Costs are not fun. Having the game punch you in the face unless you play the way the developers intended is not fun. What is fun is gameplay that rewards you for playing in varied ways. The soldier bonds system in XCOM2 is a brilliant example of this. Fatigue is the minor cost the devs impose on you to try to stop 'A-Team' syndrome. That's more than balanced out by the way that randomised soldier compatibility gives you reasons to change up your squad composition and play different around them. e: also as others posted above, nothing changes the fundamental 'issue' with the game engine that tonnage and armour just straight up beats evasion every time. I put issue in inverted commas because I don't think it's a crippling problem for the game, it's just the kind of thing that limits replayability once you've solved the combat model. e2: I think Battletech 1 is essentially fine as-is and there aren't really any minor tweaks that will make it better. My vision of Battletech 2 would involve killing the sacred cow that is the Mechlab and bringing everything back to standardised mech variants, using chassis quirks to make those variants really different to each other, and emphasising pilots and pilot abilities as the battlefield-defining element of the game. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Jul 6, 2021 |
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Jul 6, 2021 00:28
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Libluini posted:I wish, I'm at day 827 and still no new Jagermechs. The RNG must hate me. You are using Vanilla right? Or are you using BEX or some other faction table mod?
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Jul 6, 2021 00:52
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ilmucche posted:That's a lot of acronyms. I just rescued the big old ship for kamea and now I have like a million c-bills. Exciting! Locusts are bad, yes. And you'll want some extra pilots. Injuries take a long time to heal, so having some extra pilots on hand to cover is important.
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Jul 6, 2021 00:59
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MikeC posted:I am confused at the somewhat missed opportunity for them to find a way to "tax" Heavy and Assault Mechs more heavily in the campaign both in terms of long-term cost and short-term cost considerations. As far as I can tell, there is literally no reason to ever drop anything other than your best-equipped lance of mechs at the highest possible tonnage. By dropping the best lance possible, you guarantee success on the mission and maximize the chances of secondary payouts and you minimize repair costs since the bigger the mech, the more armour it has meaning no internal damage, and armour repairs are always instantaneous after a mission and free. because not being able to use your most cool big robots sucks and is not at all fun. If you really want to have that dangled in front of you though, mods are there.
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Jul 6, 2021 01:01
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The problem with light mechs/etc is that battletech's contruction rules make it so that there is no advantage to taking lighter mechs. For any given speed, there is one mech that, at that speed, has the most available tonnage (because the engine weight curve is polynomial, and not linear, its a different weight for each speed), and there is no other reason to take a lighter mech if you have the option. E.g. the 55 ton mech is the optimal weight for the a movement of 5 (using standard engines). 50 ton and less mechs with the same speed are strictly inferior to the 55 tonners because because they have less available tonnage and no other mitigating benefits. The HBK and CN9 have more available tonnage than the 5 speed 55 tonners because they are 4 speed. So between the 55 and 50 tonners, there's balance. However, the HBK and CN9 are strictly inferior to the 75 tonners (the sweet spot for 4 speed). Even if you change the shape of the engine weight curve to reduce the change in free tonnage as you go up and down in weight, you still have the problem that there will be one tonnage where free tonnage is maximized for that speed, making all other tonnages strictly inferior. The solution is to include unique characteristics/benefits for heavier and lighter mechs (heavier and not just lighter if the engine curve remains polynomial, to give benefits to over-engined mechs). The thing is, these benefits can not be convertable into tonnage. E.g. an increased heat draining perk is convertable into heat sink tonnage, so all you've done is change the optimal tonnage formula. HBS has already added some factors like this (e.g. melee damage for overengined mechs and +hit defense bonuses for smaller mechs), but they don't go far enough, IMO. Maybe, you could introduce something like "modification points". Make all of the special equipment (TTS, arm/leg mods, comms systems, perk equipment like vectored thrust kits and optimized capacitors, etc.) cost modification points, and 0 tonnage. Give every mech, regardless of tonnage an equal quantity of modification points, but make the cost of equipment scale based on tonnage. Mods that you want to be benefits for undertonned mechs decrease in cost as base tonnage goes down, and mods that you want to be benefits for over-engined mechs decrease in cost as base tonnage goes up. For example, you could make vectored thrust kits a lighter is better mod. So the 5 speed mechs under 55 tons could mount vectored thrust kits at a lower cost than 55 tonners. Another example, make melee mods cost less as tonnage increases. So the 4 speed Banshee, which is way over-engined can mount more melee mods than the optimal 75 tonners. You can add more perk-style/no tonnage equipment too. The main thing is the benefits can not be convertible into tonnage or replicated by equipment that costs tonnage.
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Jul 6, 2021 01:33
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That's a right good game design post.
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Jul 6, 2021 01:49
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Alchenar posted:My vision of Battletech 2 would involve killing the sacred cow that is the Mechlab and bringing everything back to standardised mech variants You just lost a sale.
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Jul 6, 2021 01:50
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Battletech 2 should instead go further in the opposite direction and fully integrate MechEngineer.Organ Fiend posted:Modification points I believe RT actually does something along those lines. Mechs can have a small allotment of tonnage earmarked as 'specialist slots' to represent handheld or externally mounted equipment, which functions as the mod's version of the quirk system.
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Jul 6, 2021 02:00
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Make it so every dropship only has 4 normal sized bays but at some point when you're rich and powerful enough can be modified to have 3+2 dinky ones in the same overall physical space. They'd still be deathtraps but you get an extra one to play with.
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Jul 6, 2021 02:08
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Mechs like the Locust and Urbanmech actually canonically are small enough to fit two to a bay that only fits one Atlas.
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Jul 6, 2021 02:12
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Making the pilots the core of variety in gameplay with completely standardized Mechs is pretty much the opposite of the reason most people enjoy Battletech. I would say one way to disincentivize radical min-max optimized builds is to heavily increase penalties in reliability/performance (in whatever way you could) the further you get from the standard build or variant. Nation-states went through a shitload of man-hours and testing to get the Locust 1M (for example) to where it was reliable. But if you decide "I'd rather have an SRM/6 and a bigger engine", you're a merc unit, not a mega-corp or nation state. You don't have the resources to keep it from being a buggy, jury-rigged monster. GD_American fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Jul 6, 2021 |
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Jul 6, 2021 02:26
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I feel like the hardpoint system alleviates the modification issue already. Ultimately you're replacing like for like, just in different quantities. I do find it kinda funny how the Jenner has a gaping hole in its armor when you pull out the missile launcher though. Yang, couldn't you have at least inserted a blank panel? 
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Jul 6, 2021 03:00
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sassassin posted:You just lost a sale. I respect this position, but I really like the idea of requiring the player to use stock configurations for inner sphere mechs, and making customization costly and difficult. I think it could go a long way towards pushing some of that balance that is needed, and could emphasize the roles different mechs are ideally supposed to play. It would also be nice to institute longer missions with a more fragile supply chain, with actual repercussions if you run out of ammo. While one of the posters above mentioned mech balance (and had some great ideas) I think it would be nice to create a more robust mission system with actual objectives (rather than do or don't blow something up) which could further emphasize the importance of scout mechs.
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Jul 6, 2021 03:01
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lonelylikezoidberg posted:I respect this position, but I really like the idea of requiring the player to use stock configurations for inner sphere mechs, and making customization costly and difficult. I think it could go a long way towards pushing some of that balance that is needed, and could emphasize the roles different mechs are ideally supposed to play. None of the stock mechs were remotely designed with anything like that in mind. They're ancient relics that haven't been touched for actual decades and forcing someone to deal with that makes for a profoundly less fun game. Maybe if the units were built from the ground up with something like that in mind, but they aren't. All it would mean is you end up only using the very few stock units that are very good in the era, and trashing everything else. Expanded missions are certainly good though.
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Jul 6, 2021 04:02
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No mechlab just means congrats you made gundam with different skins
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Jul 6, 2021 04:05
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I mean, let's face it a no restraints Mech Lab means a modded jump-capable Cicada with 40 MGs
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Jul 6, 2021 04:34
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GD_American posted:I mean, let's face it a no restraints Mech Lab means a modded jump-capable Cicada with 40 MGs I see no issues here.  Seriously though, IMO vanilla did a half-decent job of limiting Mechlab via hardpoint restrictions and not allowing engine to be upgraded. I would have taken it a step further by limiting ammo to upper body sections.
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Jul 6, 2021 04:46
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anakha posted:I see no issues here. Mechs with ammo in the leg slots exist in canon already though. Hell some even have weapons in the legs, the Wasp's thigh-mounted SRM2 is one that comes to mind.
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Jul 6, 2021 04:47
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The Mechlab itself is fine just the form it takes needs to thread the needle between letting the player do something that feels cool, powerful, and unique, and still having mechs keep their flavor.
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Jul 6, 2021 04:49
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GD_American posted:I mean, let's face it a no restraints Mech Lab means a modded jump-capable Cicada with 40 MGs This is suppossed to be a condemnation but it really isnt
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Jul 6, 2021 04:51
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Bloody Pom posted:Mechs with ammo in the leg slots exist in canon already though. Hell some even have weapons in the legs, the Wasp's thigh-mounted SRM2 is one that comes to mind. Point taken. Maybe I'd have defined body sections that can accept ammo based on base configuration.
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Jul 6, 2021 05:04
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I would legit have made a Shadow Hawk with 1 LL and as many ML’s + sinks that I could have fit with a god drat 1/2 move engine supplanted by all the jump jets to get a 12 point jumper… back in 1986. BT’s rules have ALWAYS been broken af with mech building. No, I don’t know how to fix that. Maybe make ammo weigh 50% more and take up an extra crit in the legs?
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Jul 6, 2021 05:13
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There's been many iterations of the Mechlab over the years, and I think I'd rank them as.. Mechwarrior 5 < Pure TT/MW2/MW3< Stock HBS Battletech < Mechwarrior 4. I'd add a couple extra widgets to the MW4 mechlab, like actual space for internal structure, armor, and special equipment vs MW4's simple checkboxes, but it's overall my favorite concept by a lot for still letting me customize units extensively while still maintaining the essential character of units- The stock hunchback or Hollander has a giant space for ballistics in the right torso, which can be used for either the single large AC20 or Gauss rifle, or swapped for a big pile of smaller ballistic guns. I think using the bones of the TT style Mech Engineer lab in BTA along with MW4's payload space instead of hardpoints would be the ideal mix. (BTA and the other mods that use Mech Engineer semi effectively do this already, via just giving units like the Hunchback 4G multiple ballistic hardpoints in the big gun torso, but it's not quite the same and isn't as universally applied.) Gwaihir fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Jul 6, 2021 |
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Jul 6, 2021 05:15
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armchairyoda posted:I would legit have made a Shadow Hawk with 1 LL and as many ML’s + sinks that I could have fit with a god drat 1/2 move engine supplanted by all the jump jets to get a 12 point jumper… back in 1986. Can't have more jump jets than your walk speed, or sprint speed if you're using improved JJs!  I'd say check out the Battletech (tabletop) Let's Play thread if you want an example of how things could be fixed, the current thread makes use of a major rebalance of weapons, armor and heat that gets rid of a lot of the bullshit, like the hyper-efficient 1-ton medium lasers and worthless AC/2s.
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Jul 6, 2021 05:23
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