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Cyrano4747 posted:Does it work with the DLC? Looks like the guy hasn't updated it in forever. Yep it works and does a great job of adding atmosphere. There are a couple of bugs like random fires in the sky but that's it
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Feb 16, 2023 21:00
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Cyrano4747 posted:Does it work with the DLC? Looks like the guy hasn't updated it in forever. Yeah it works fine, it's just a graphical mod that only changes a couple of effects that everything uses, even modded weapons. The random fires in the sky thing is just a quirk of how MW5 loads scenes and is pretty easy to avoid by just not immediately launching a new mission, turns out. Wait like a minute between drops and you'll almost never see it.
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Feb 16, 2023 21:56
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Yeah the only real issue with WarFX is that it can have quite a performance hit, especially in the more foresty biomes, since there can be a LOT of persistent fires from all the shooting.
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Feb 16, 2023 22:10
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If what you're asking is "Are you willing to blow up your Deck for marginally chunkier AC/20 sounds" then my answer is "Yes, absolutely"
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Feb 16, 2023 22:16
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The rival mercs that drop can be weird. I've had them drop 2x assaults and 2x heavies when my drop limit was 260t. I've also had them drop a single medium when I'm rolling with a 400t Steiner scout lance
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Feb 16, 2023 22:42
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Though speaking of, another good mod to pretty up the fighting is Prime8's Distinct WeaponFX. Pretties up all the weapon effects and makes the lasers more like they are in HBS Battletech where they're full on scifi lasers instead of the grainy "realistic" beams that stock MW5 does to them. Even works with weapon mods so Clanner weapons and the like have their own unique effects and colors as well where they're supposed to. And like WarFX, it hasn't been updated in ages but still works.
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Feb 16, 2023 22:50
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Rorahusky posted:Indeed, and as of Dominions Divided, that is no longer the case, as Davion managed to take back their territory thanks to a combination of it being an untenable situation (The worlds they took were surrounded on all sides and were basically impossible to defend) and Draconis Backstabbing Fuckery (The Coordinator knew the situation was untenable, so they basically cut off the invasion force from reinforcements and spun a propoganda campaign to make the entire thing seem like the conquering general's idea, so that when things went pear shaped, he would eat the lion's share of the blame instead). Hah, that's fun. I'm sure the Dracs pulled absolutely zero atrocities while they held the homeworld of their ancient, hated rival.
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Feb 16, 2023 23:56
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Cyrano4747 posted:Does it work with the DLC? Looks like the guy hasn't updated it in forever. I don't have any DLC so who knows. Fake Name posted:Yep it works and does a great job of adding atmosphere. There are a couple of bugs like random fires in the sky but that's it Oh is that where that's from? I sometimes see fires in the distance during the loading screen after my ship comes out of warp. I thought it was a nebula or something.
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Feb 17, 2023 01:02
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It works fine, I'm using it right now. I also use Hellfire and Brimstone PPC/Autocannon Effects instead of WeaponFX (the missile one has some minor conflict with YAML) which I find is a bit boomier, but YMMV.
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Feb 17, 2023 03:32
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Ensign Expendable posted:For me the War FX mod was what turned MW5 from World of Tanks with less slurs to a game where it feels like I'm actually operating a massive vehicle that can walk through buildings. Warad posted:Though speaking of, another good mod to pretty up the fighting is Prime8's Distinct WeaponFX. Pretties up all the weapon effects and makes the lasers more like they are in HBS Battletech where they're full on scifi lasers instead of the grainy "realistic" beams that stock MW5 does to them. Even works with weapon mods so Clanner weapons and the like have their own unique effects and colors as well where they're supposed to.
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Feb 17, 2023 06:11
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Yeah War FX makes it look like documentary footage I'm impressed. The fires are pretty funny in a base defend scenario where you're completely surrounded by wrecks. Good luck to the enemy waves who have to charge into that gigantic smoke cloud.
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Feb 17, 2023 14:14
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  End of Turn 1 -> End of Turn 3
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Feb 17, 2023 17:29
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yeah, I got it working and holy hell it makes poo poo actually feel like a warzone. I just got out of a contract where the smoke was so thick by the end that I had to fire up the thermal sights (YMAL add on) to see poo poo.
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Feb 17, 2023 22:13
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Cyrano4747 posted:I just got out of a contract where the smoke was so thick by the end that I had to fire up the thermal sights (YMAL add on) to see poo poo. I end up legitimately doing this all the time now and it's honestly pretty broken. Shame that the smoke doesn't obscure the AI's vision because otherwise I'd just bask in the realism, but I'll be damned if I handicap myself when the damage model is this harsh
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Feb 17, 2023 22:28
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It reduces your vision range quite a lot though, I wouldn't call it broken. You're in a big mech full of sensors after all.
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Feb 17, 2023 22:32
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Yeah I feel like I'm spending half my time in thermal vision, particularly in cities.
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Feb 18, 2023 17:23
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So I decide to fire up the game again after falling off of it some time after launch and I'm immediately overwhelmed by choice. So, uh, can anyone just give me some quick n' dirty builds mechwarriors and mechs, that'll just carry me through the game for some time while I figure out all this junk? Game starts you up then throws a 25k page technical manual at you and goes "have fun!" and while there's an appeal for certain players, to me it just paralyzes me with choice and I just want to turn the game off, uninstall and go play something else. Edit: Also, are there any mods or UI options that give me a better idea of the range between my mechs and the enemy's? Most of my problems early on, on top of there not being an "undo" button to fix fat fingering a mech in a wrong spot or having them face the wrong direction, is that I'm either too close or too far with my loadouts so my accuracy isn't ideal at all. The UI doesn't tell you anything. Jimbot fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Feb 19, 2023 |
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Feb 19, 2023 19:44
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Jimbot posted:So I decide to fire up the game again after falling off of it some time after launch and I'm immediately overwhelmed by choice. So, uh, can anyone just give me some quick n' dirty builds mechwarriors and mechs, that'll just carry me through the game for some time while I figure out all this junk? Game starts you up then throws a 25k page technical manual at you and goes "have fun!" and while there's an appeal for certain players, to me it just paralyzes me with choice and I just want to turn the game off, uninstall and go play something else. The easiest way to condense the choices at first for a new player is this: If you want to use a mech, pull everything off, max armor, remove some armor from the rear until you reach a whole number, then slam a bunch of SRMs and medium lasers in there. It’s more complicated than that but BROADLY speaking SRMs and medium lasers are the most effective and efficient weapons when you start out. Eventually though you have to start evaluating tonnage and heat limits and hardpoints on a mech for yourself because it’s all very “it depends”. As for pilots, even post nerfs the safe bet is usually “Bulwark then either specialize in another tree or go up to Coolant Vent and get Multi-Shot or Sure Footed”. Also raise Tactics high enough for the Called Shot bonus as soon as humanly possible and when it won’t interfere with your ability choices. It’s also possibly just Not Your Kind Of Game but hopefully this gets you over the initial hump that you become comfortable making decisions. If not, hakuna matata. Most folks here prefer to play modded where there’s exponentially more fiddly choices. Captain Oblivious fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Feb 19, 2023 |
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Feb 19, 2023 20:10
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Jimbot posted:So I decide to fire up the game again after falling off of it some time after launch and I'm immediately overwhelmed by choice. So, uh, can anyone just give me some quick n' dirty builds mechwarriors and mechs, that'll just carry me through the game for some time while I figure out all this junk? The most basic "all guns no brains" build is to concentrate on short-range weapons (MLas, SRM, AC20) and Bulwark + Sure Footing + Coolant Vent. Then try to hold the defensive bonus terrain so your mechs have constant 40% DR, and you will handily out-DPS and out-tank them. You won't out-range them, but the AI isn't good enough to do things like spot from defensive cover and pound you from long range. (Plus it gets semi-random squad of mechs so will rarely have an ideal composition for the job.) Jimbot posted:Edit: Also, are there any mods or UI options that give me a better idea of the range between my mechs and the enemy's? Most of my problems early on, on top of there not being an "undo" button to fix fat fingering a mech in a wrong spot or having them face the wrong direction, is that I'm either too close or too far with my loadouts so my accuracy isn't ideal at all. The UI doesn't tell you anything. First thing: on the first click of movement when you get to pick your rotation / facing, you can hover the mouse over various enemies and the weapon panel will show your gun stats for that position. So if you aren't in range at that position with some guns those entries will be dark, and the hit probability will be adjusted to the range and any bonus or penalty. I highly recommend the BTColorLosMod, which will make facings and indirect fire much more visible.
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Feb 19, 2023 20:16
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Yeah my biggest suggestion would be to try to max out armour on most designs, the game often has you very outnumbered and being able to just absorb hits without losing parts is very helpful. More weapons are nice but you can generally find a loadout which will max out your heat generation long before you run out of tonnage for your weapons. Only exception I think is something like an LRM boat which is designed to sit miles away and fire indirectly. Once you start to get fancier guns and heavier mechs you can work to build sniper mechs which are very good generally, keeping them out of range of the enemy and using height advantage to get very good hit chances, will allow them to put out large amounts of firepower very quickly. An LRM focused mech is very good for this particularly because they can fire indirect, so they can stay in defilade and constantly lob damage at any target with impunity, while your other mechs distract and spot for them. LRM mechs are also easy to build onto mediumweight mechs because a lot of them come with missile slots and then you just need to balance your distribution of LRM launchers to ammunition, more is always nice to have but just go with whatever you can fit comfortably onto the mech you have, and once you get heavier mechs with missile slots you can start loading bigger launchers and more ammo onto them to get more shots, they scale very well. Once you have the right chassis you can expand into an AC2 carrier style mech, or ER PPCs/ ER L lasers, and for direct fire sniper mechs you usually want jump jets so you can climb mountains and sit at the top shooting people. As a rule I have found that to be honest, face front brawling style mechs are a bit of a liability, because they usually draw a lot of fire to get into range and to knock out enemy mechs, so in the early game you usually end up using lighter mechs to fight a very mobile battle using evasion to avoid shots, and then when the density of fire gets worse and the mechs get heavier generally they get obsoleted in favour of heavily armoured spotter mechs for massive firepower snipers and LRM carriers. To be honest the normal builds for mechs in the game are just not very good, they usually carry a weird mix of weapons, less armour than they should, and often have issues with heat or conflicting range brackets. You usually want to focus on a specific weapon type, or a specific range bracket, rather than the generalist builds that a lot of the mechs are kitted out for by default. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Feb 19, 2023 |
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Feb 19, 2023 20:18
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Thanks for the tips. I'm slowly but surely wrapping my head around all this stuff. I've been looking up guides and whatnot and it seems like most people gravitate towards vanguards for their pilots. Called Shot Mastery, as previously posted, being the prime reason. I do wish they told you what was in the skill tree. The "minor" nodes don't even tell you anything and it's kind of irritating that I had to look up on a wiki that level 9 of tactics had that called shot thing. But anyway, why would someone choose the vanguard class (that particular build title) over something that has you put more points in gunnery? One last question, do I have to keep buying ammo? Or do I just buy the ammo once and the amount I put on my mech just determines how much ammo it has in reserve for that mission?
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Feb 20, 2023 15:30
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You can max out every tree, you're just limited to the perks in one tree and the first perk in another. Called shot mastery is separate from that, you can always get it. Ammo is a separate item you equip to mechs - you have it forever until it explodes or you sell it, you don't need to keep buying more or anything
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Feb 20, 2023 15:39
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Jimbot posted:I've been looking up guides and whatnot and it seems like most people gravitate towards vanguards for their pilots. Called Shot Mastery, as previously posted, being the prime reason. I do wish they told you what was in the skill tree. The "minor" nodes don't even tell you anything and it's kind of irritating that I had to look up on a wiki that level 9 of tactics had that called shot thing. But anyway, why would someone choose the vanguard class (that particular build title) over something that has you put more points in gunnery? The reason to do Vanguard is not for the called shot bonus, which is powerful, but you can get on any pilot specialization if you keep leveling up a pilot. The reason is for Master Tactician, which is a powerful skill in the late game when you're using all Assault mechs. The initiative bonus gives you initiative control over the AI again, and initiative control is the bedrock of the game's tactics. In the early game Master Tac is nice but not amazing, as you're dealing with a whole variety of initiatives and can generally reserve into favorable conditions. But assaults can't reserve, so if you don't have Master Tac or a Cyclops you have no options. If you're not thinking about initiative & using reserve that would be a good reason that you're having trouble. The AI doesn't reserve, but it's reasonably intelligent about move order outside that. If you shoot a mech when it has an available turn, the AI will probably move it next to regain evasion and defend. The most fundamental tactic to know is to get an enemy mech into a bad position when it can't move (because it's already gone or has lower initiative) and several of your mechs can. Then you can unload 1-2-3 to concentrate damage.
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Feb 20, 2023 16:08
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Ah, so that's what reserve does. I didn't have any idea of what it was supposed to do. I might have accidentally clicked off a tutorial at some point because I don't remember the game teaching you about it. I knew about initiative, because I've played video games before, but the game doesn't explain the math behind it so I have no idea how it was calculated. That's really the crux of my problem with this game: its onboarding is the worst I have ever seen. It feels like it was designed by someone so out of touch with the average person that they only think they need to be told the most basic fundamentals of "here's how to move" and "here's how the camera works" then skims over the rest because of course people will know about heat management and hardpoints and what all these acronyms mean and how initiative is done. Makes me really appreciate how smartly designed XCOM was and how well it communicated information to the player. Are there mods that change spawn locations at all? These attack convoy missions are borderline impossible. You start several turns away from the road and even with light mechs you barely get to the target in time and you barely have enough time to attack it. With mediums you can just melee it to death in one turn but small mechs don't have that alpha strike and the weapons barely do anything to them. The vehicles, on their turns, just zip past you and move so far so fast.
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Feb 20, 2023 16:26
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Do any of the big overhaul mods work without expansions? The DLC for this game is so expensive.
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Feb 20, 2023 16:55
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There are people who love Master Tactician and people who don't. For me, I find that the ability to do two alpha strikes in a row that you get with Coolant Vent is more useful to remove enemies from the field when your 100% optimal mechs are shooting at their AI standard designs. Also, Sensor Lock is kind of a waste of a skill that you have to take to get Master Tactician, while Bulwark is a MUST HAVE. Sure Footing is a much more useful first skill than Sensor Lock. Even Multi-Target is useful for missions where you have to defend something because anything you shoot will shoot you instead of the thing you're defending.
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Feb 20, 2023 17:06
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Sherbert Hoover posted:Do any of the big overhaul mods work without expansions? The DLC for this game is so expensive. Don’t think so. Honestly if you played vanilla and enjoyed it get the expansions. Hit up isthereanydeal and see if you can get the season pass cheap
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Feb 20, 2023 17:09
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Cyrano4747 posted:Don’t think so. I did not know about that site, thank you!
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Feb 20, 2023 17:15
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Jimbot posted:Are there mods that change spawn locations at all? These attack convoy missions are borderline impossible. You start several turns away from the road and even with light mechs you barely get to the target in time and you barely have enough time to attack it. With mediums you can just melee it to death in one turn but small mechs don't have that alpha strike and the weapons barely do anything to them. The vehicles, on their turns, just zip past you and move so far so fast. Roguetech has this, but it's also somewhat more difficult than the default game. Well if you set all the difficulty options on minimum it's going to be comparable to vanilla (there's a limited range you can select from).
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Feb 20, 2023 17:31
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Jimbot posted:Ah, so that's what reserve does. I didn't have any idea of what it was supposed to do. I might have accidentally clicked off a tutorial at some point because I don't remember the game teaching you about it. I knew about initiative, because I've played video games before, but the game doesn't explain the math behind it so I have no idea how it was calculated. That's really the crux of my problem with this game: its onboarding is the worst I have ever seen. It feels like it was designed by someone so out of touch with the average person that they only think they need to be told the most basic fundamentals of "here's how to move" and "here's how the camera works" then skims over the rest because of course people will know about heat management and hardpoints and what all these acronyms mean and how initiative is done. Makes me really appreciate how smartly designed XCOM was and how well it communicated information to the player. You didn't miss anything, the tutorials and campaign don't explicitly teach reserve. It's kinda a failing, but also reserve is not a thing in the original TTG and may have been something that was added late in dev. And yeah the amount of tutorial for stuff like mech building is pretty modest. But you're talking about a 5-10x difference in team size and budget between this game and XCOM. Battletech was a kickstarter. So the onboarding is way more scanty. Really the miracle is that the game is as approachable as it is, because Battletech is a complex grognard game and they were faithful to that. Jimbot posted:Are there mods that change spawn locations at all? These attack convoy missions are borderline impossible. You start several turns away from the road and even with light mechs you barely get to the target in time and you barely have enough time to attack it. With mediums you can just melee it to death in one turn but small mechs don't have that alpha strike and the weapons barely do anything to them. The vehicles, on their turns, just zip past you and move so far so fast. Not really. There are mods that will change spawn locations, but not in controlled ways like you want. They tend to randomize spawns so if anything it'll be worse. The convoy attack missions show you the convoy's exit point, generally if you move to cut them off rather than directly towards where they start you can intercept them. Some of them are kinda a bitch though. One thing to know about this game: it's not XCOM, failing a mission is not the end of the world. There's also a partial success mechanic, if you fail the main mission goal but win a secondary one you get partial credit. (Not on campaign missions though.) The mission difficulty is a little bit randomized, the enemy units are semi-random and sometimes they roll better mechs or force composition than others. So it's kinda expected that if you run into something you can't handle, you bug out. Sherbert Hoover posted:I did not know about that site, thank you! It's very good and all the stores they list are legit, so you don't have to worry about giving money to G2A type assholes.
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Feb 20, 2023 17:32
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Sherbert Hoover posted:Do any of the big overhaul mods work without expansions? The DLC for this game is so expensive. BTA3062 runs fine without the DLC, there's an option in the installion where you have to tick/untick which ones you own
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Feb 20, 2023 17:40
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Fake Name posted:BTA3062 runs fine without the DLC, there's an option in the installion where you have to tick/untick which ones you own For a given definition of "runs fine," it's still BTA.
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Feb 20, 2023 17:57
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Psycho Landlord posted:For a given definition of "runs fine," it's still BTA. there was actually a huge performance update that happened in the last major revision. I've had huge issues with the game crashing which have all gone away now. if you tried it before and had a bad experience I recco trying again at some point I just broke into heavies and with all the toys I have access too it is mad fun. tho my all star mech is still a FS9-S1 with 6xSPL, Stealth Armor, Angel ECM and a pilot with +2 Evasion cap. the perma evasion mechanic means the mech is almost always at 7-8 evasion, dodge tanking Warhammers. also helps that the include bigger drops so you can include more fun stuff I'm really thinking to figure out if dual UAC/5's on a Thunderbolt ever makes sense or if I should just do the standard lasers and some combination of missiles
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Feb 20, 2023 18:43
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I R SMART LIKE ROCK posted:there was actually a huge performance update that happened in the last major revision. I've had huge issues with the game crashing which have all gone away now. if you tried it before and had a bad experience I recco trying again at some point Lmao I played it for the first time about a week ago after said patch because of the performance horror stories. I'm sure it was way worse before but it still chugs even on the recommended hardware, there's just a lot going on under the hood and Battletech is on the engine it's on.
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Feb 20, 2023 19:55
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UAC5s are scary as gently caress in this game with a high tac pilot. Called shot can reliably hammer multiple 45 damage bursts into CT. One of my go-to mechs is a marauder with +10 dmg LLs, MLS, and a UAC5. That thing can called shot CT core heavies reliably and cripple assaults for a finish up tap from something else.
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Feb 20, 2023 19:58
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I still like them both but it's funny how much quicker fights over in BEXCE compared to BTA In no small part due to both sides having like half the units lol
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Feb 20, 2023 20:05
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I don't run any mods like BTA/RT, my vanilla endgame drop tends to be two Annihilators with triple UAC-10++, and two Marauders with triple LBX-2++. I love it.
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Feb 20, 2023 20:13
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RBA Starblade posted:I still like them both but it's funny how much quicker fights over in BEXCE compared to BTA Yeah I ended up going back to BEX mostly because it flows better in general, even if you do eight mech drops. Battlearmor and vehicles are cool but having upwards of 16 distinct units that all take an extra few seconds to actually resolve their turns because of C3 calculations and poo poo was grating a bit. Not to poo poo on BTA, I think it's real cool what those guys did with it, I think I just wasn't in the mood for its pace right now.
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Feb 20, 2023 20:14
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Bentai posted:I don't run any mods like BTA/RT, my vanilla endgame drop tends to be two Annihilators with triple UAC-10++, and two Marauders with triple LBX-2++. I love it. Are you really playing battletech without a full raczilla lance
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Feb 20, 2023 20:20
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Psycho Landlord posted:Yeah I ended up going back to BEX mostly because it flows better in general, even if you do eight mech drops. Battlearmor and vehicles are cool but having upwards of 16 distinct units that all take an extra few seconds to actually resolve their turns because of C3 calculations and poo poo was grating a bit. oh I only ever take mechs. taking BA and vehicles sounds cool but ya having a million units is a waste of time. I'm not even sure I'll go above 6 mechs tbf I played BEX for many years and if you check back I was one of its original boosters here. I now rotate between it and BTA. each year adds a tons of improvements in both BTA is very much a mod that'll let you hang your self tho in terms of options
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Feb 20, 2023 20:24
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