|
Eschatos posted:Went and gave it another shot. 600k reward for going up against a full assault lance and medium second lance, with bonus infantry. Pulled off two assault kills and then the attrition became unmanageable. Seems clearly like a bug where it should be one assault. It could be genuinely fun to have a game where you occasionally have to make calls like "holy poo poo, this isn't worth it, time to cut my losses" or "that mission reward really doesn't line up with the threat assessment, what's going on here? There would need to be some internal logic to it, based on factors that you can learn to at least estimate. But the game's design would really have to account for that from the bottom up. I guess I'm describing XCOM, maybe?
|
#
?
May 10, 2024 12:08
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 18:20 |
|
|
Salvage amounts and c-bills offer some clues I've found. Don't play with a lot of mods though
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2024 12:47
|
|
|
Griddle of Love posted:It could be genuinely fun to have a game where you occasionally have to make calls like "holy poo poo, this isn't worth it, time to cut my losses" or "that mission reward really doesn't line up with the threat assessment, what's going on here? There would need to be some internal logic to it, based on factors that you can learn to at least estimate. But the game's design would really have to account for that from the bottom up. Not much of that on the tactical maps though.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2024 12:47
|
|
|
Eschatos posted:Went and gave it another shot. 600k reward for going up against a full assault lance and medium second lance, with bonus infantry. Pulled off two assault kills and then the attrition became unmanageable. Seems clearly like a bug where it should be one assault. BTA uses, I think, a sub-mod or setting in MC to introduce variability in OPFOR lances. If you're on a hot streak with zero losses/wounds the difficulty is increased even more, and vice versa if you're in a loss spiral.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2024 14:24
|
|
|
Griddle of Love posted:It could be genuinely fun to have a game where you occasionally have to make calls like "holy poo poo, this isn't worth it, time to cut my losses" or "that mission reward really doesn't line up with the threat assessment, what's going on here? There would need to be some internal logic to it, based on factors that you can learn to at least estimate. But the game's design would really have to account for that from the bottom up. This game did that. Particularly back at release when people didn't know it backwards and forwards. Intentionally so. Xcoms don't do that, because a critical component of a game design that throws near-impossible scenarios at you is how tolerable you make failure. Xcom 1 doesn't really tolerate failure. Seeing several missions in a row that you can't win is the failure spiral. Xcom 2 is slightly more flexible, and it had some things like the timed missions where you could have some partial-success stuff. The problem is that most people don't like that, in the strategy genre. One of frequent things in negative reviews of the game on Steam was "difficulty spikes" or other descriptions of the random difficulty. Xcom 2 at launch got a ton of negativity for the timed missions too. I think, unless you contextualize the game as a roguelike or something, people just expect strategy game missions to always be winnable. Which is weird, because if there's anything a military simulation should have it's the occasional scenario where complete victory is flat-out impossible. Everyone expects to be Kirk. Also Clantech makes it much harder to fight against superior forces with the goal of accomplishing one sub-objective and then bugging out.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2024 15:03
|
|
|
Klyith posted:This game did that. Particularly back at release when people didn't know it backwards and forwards. Intentionally so. I think a side/related problem in the strategy & tactics genre that reinforces the "all scenarios are winnable" belief is that a large amount of strategy games, especially the ones on the lighter end of the spectrum, are actually just puzzle games. Its my one big issue with the Jagged Alliance 3 devs, they stated that showing a percentile chance to hit turned the game into a puzzle game instead of strategy/tactics game. Which, to me is the opposite; when shooting, I know that the round is going to go out in a straight line with a rough cone (unless I'm doing bench supported) of where that line goes (the act of breathing will adjust your aim point, which is where the cone comes from). I know I have a 95% chance to hit what I'm shooting at, since myself and the target are stationary and the only chance to miss is firing at the wrong point in my breath. But yeah, the biggest problem for strategy games is the puzzle factor.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2024 15:38
|
|
|
Griddle of Love posted:It could be genuinely fun to have a game where you occasionally have to make calls like "holy poo poo, this isn't worth it, time to cut my losses" or "that mission reward really doesn't line up with the threat assessment, what's going on here? There would need to be some internal logic to it, based on factors that you can learn to at least estimate. But the game's design would really have to account for that from the bottom up. Well, you can do that, and get most of the reward if you've completed the primary objective. The problem is that while the objective is meant to be "kill one assault", it's "kill four assaults", so my attempt to rush a few and then retreat wouldn't work. Reinforcements were obvious from the mission description, but not one target becoming four. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things though now I'm on the verge of bankruptcy with no other missions at this planet.  CoffeeQaddaffi posted:BTA uses, I think, a sub-mod or setting in MC to introduce variability in OPFOR lances. If you're on a hot streak with zero losses/wounds the difficulty is increased even more, and vice versa if you're in a loss spiral. Yeah looking the mechanics over, seems like I'm being incentivized to buy a cheap pilot from time to time and intentionally get them killed. Still, I don't think it explains this mission, its effect is just passive stat boosts. edit: checked and it has me at -difficulty right now anyway. Eschatos fucked around with this message at 16:08 on May 10, 2024 |
|
#
?
May 10, 2024 16:01
|
|
|
Bta also has that nice feature where you can let your commander hang out on the Argo drinking tea while giving your entire deployed lance bonus accuracy. Helps with the difficulty spikes too
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2024 16:26
|
|
|
Eschatos posted:Well, you can do that, and get most of the reward if you've completed the primary objective. The problem is that while the objective is meant to be "kill one assault", it's "kill four assaults", so my attempt to rush a few and then retreat wouldn't work. Reinforcements were obvious from the mission description, but not one target becoming four. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things though now I'm on the verge of bankruptcy with no other missions at this planet. Yep, Trap Sprung (and other missions that are about you fighting a particularly mean Mech like Bounty Hunting or your average Assassination) in BTA can be ridiculous like that, and, it is by design in BTA unfortunately. I suppose it's meant to emphasize the whole "you might actually want to retreat here" aspect being talked about right now or to have a bit of risk/reward since if you can pull it off you can come out of those missions with really good hauls of salvage. One can argue it's technically still balanced since thanks to the time period a lot of Mechs are rolling around with XL engines so flanking even a big assault and taking out one piece of the torso can knock them out quickly, but if you're not expecting it, it can be really not fun. Another reason why I tweaked the Mission Control settings to allow allied lances to show up sometimes to make the gamble a little more fair. Also SAD i think is more for those masochistic hardest hardcore runs for people who like that sort of thing, not really for your average playthrough, Warad fucked around with this message at 17:07 on May 10, 2024 |
|
#
?
May 10, 2024 17:03
|
|
|
Eschatos posted:Well, you can do that, and get most of the reward if you've completed the primary objective. The problem is that while the objective is meant to be "kill one assault", it's "kill four assaults", so my attempt to rush a few and then retreat wouldn't work. Reinforcements were obvious from the mission description, but not one target becoming four. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things though now I'm on the verge of bankruptcy with no other missions at this planet. I think BTA messed up this mission. They've edited the mission to change the target lance, lines 465-483, and I think there's no valid lance. So instead of getting a single assault opponent you get a full lance at +2 difficulty. If you delete that SimpleBattle_TrapSprung.json file and restart the mission from the contract selection screen it should work, in that you'll have a mission with one target opponent. Probably won't have the proper theming because you'll fall back to generic lances, so maybe you get an IS mech instead of clanners, but whatever.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2024 17:05
|
|
|
Klyith posted:
Long war does give quite a bit of room for losses and forced retreats before you hit a failure spiral tipping point, but it is just a mod at the end of the day.
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2024 00:27
|
|
|
The most hosed up missions I hit are misdrops; where one Mech or BA out of your crew drops on the enemy side, and you're simultaneously trying to keep the solo unit alive while rushing your people across the map to save him. A lot of times it ends up with ejections just to save the Mech, but sometimes you get really tense run'n'gun missions and those have become my favorite.
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2024 16:53
|
|
|
GD_American posted:The most hosed up missions I hit are misdrops; where one Mech or BA out of your crew drops on the enemy side, and you're simultaneously trying to keep the solo unit alive while rushing your people across the map to save him. Those are fun except when the lone mech gets alpha struck from behind by better initiative enemies and cored before it gets a turn.
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2024 17:25
|
|
|
Eschatos posted:Those are fun except when the lone mech gets alpha struck from behind by better initiative enemies and cored before it gets a turn. Or when the lone mech is dropped on a hex that it can't move from without using careful maneuvering on its first turn, thus getting it nuked because it has no evasion. I haven't had these happen many times, is there any correlation between the unit that gets misdropped and their position in the drop order?
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2024 17:53
|
|
|
I don't remember ever having a misdrop. That a vanilla thing the mods remove? I've only ever played pure vanilla at release, never with any of the dlc
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2024 17:56
|
|
|
It is absolutely in BTA. Even more annoying is when you and the enemy spawn your full forces in the exact same location. At least everyone gets 8 evasion before they move but some nasty surprises are certainly possible.
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2024 18:02
|
|
|
Eschatos posted:It is absolutely in BTA. Even more annoying is when you and the enemy spawn your full forces in the exact same location. At least everyone gets 8 evasion before they move but some nasty surprises are certainly possible. Wonder if it's a newer version feature. I've definitely had the two lances in the same place thing happen a few times, but never had sumire show her true colors so directly as to jettison one mech alone
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2024 18:05
|
|
|
Not sure what part of BTA adds mis-drops. It's not part of Mission Control or Bigger Drops. Do you actually get a dialogue box that tells you "oh no a mech dropped off target!" or something? Because if not, I'd actually think it could be a bug not a designed feature. The drop system wasn't made for more than 4 units and all the mods adding in extras sometimes have problems. That's why MC added the hotdrop protection evasion. afflictionwisp posted:Or when the lone mech is dropped on a hex that it can't move from without using careful maneuvering on its first turn, thus getting it nuked because it has no evasion. a mech that has no jumpjets is hardly a mech at all
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2024 18:57
|
|
|
Klyith posted:Not sure what part of BTA adds mis-drops. It's not part of Mission Control or Bigger Drops. Do you actually get a dialogue box that tells you "oh no a mech dropped off target!" or something? No, just an oh poo poo when you wonder why you can see all the enemy units in detail clear across the map and oh poo poo, where's Fred? I'm sure it's a bug but one that adds unintentional depth. I do occasionally love the clusterfuck free-for-all of several lances all blended together at the jump of the mission.
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2024 19:33
|
|
|
afflictionwisp posted:Or when the lone mech is dropped on a hex that it can't move from without using careful maneuvering on its first turn, thus getting it nuked because it has no evasion. Hah, this afternoon had a particularly absurd example: 
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2024 08:31
|
|
|
Eschatos posted:Hah, this afternoon had a particularly absurd example: It has jump jets, what are you whining about?  Worse drop was in a city environment, where one of my mechs got instantly gibbed by another incoming drop pod. I think that has been coded out, at least.
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2024 12:14
|
|
|
SirPhoebos posted:It has jump jets, what are you whining about? Nope. Still happens to me on certain missions.
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2024 12:45
|
|
|
GD_American posted:The most hosed up missions I hit are misdrops; where one Mech or BA out of your crew drops on the enemy side, and you're simultaneously trying to keep the solo unit alive while rushing your people across the map to save him. I just had that happen, but the lone mech was my Ettin. 288-point hatchet chops? Don't mind if I do...
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2024 13:44
|
|
|
Eschatos posted:Hah, this afternoon had a particularly absurd example: Mission Control normally has "Hotdrop Protection" that gives mechs a stack of evasion pips if they drop in range of opponents. IIRC that was added specifically because they could never fully debug the spawns. For some reason BTA turns that off in MissionControl/settings.modpack.json (Also I'm betting that telefrag-drops in city maps are because Mission Control can't add new drop-pod spawn points in city maps like they do elsewhere, due to the drop pod animation. So with an excessive number of units you actually run out of spawn locations. Some of the high-difficulty 3-way battles are already putting a crap-ton of units on the map in vanilla.)
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2024 17:27
|
|
|
Klyith posted:Mission Control normally has "Hotdrop Protection" that gives mechs a stack of evasion pips if they drop in range of opponents. IIRC that was added specifically because they could never fully debug the spawns. BTA already has every mech start with eight evasion until they take a turn. Anyway yeah that run was fine because assassins are fast but often if it happens with a slower mech I just reload the mission.
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2024 17:48
|
|
|
Klyith posted:(Also I'm betting that telefrag-drops in city maps are because Mission Control can't add new drop-pod spawn points in city maps like they do elsewhere, due to the drop pod animation. So with an excessive number of units you actually run out of spawn locations. Some of the high-difficulty 3-way battles are already putting a crap-ton of units on the map in vanilla.) Nah in RT you can just drop manually in city maps as well, even with 3 6-man lances. As in, you can specify where every individual pilot will drop on the first turn and it works okay.
|
|
#
?
May 13, 2024 02:11
|
|
|
 
|
|
#
?
May 13, 2024 03:19
|
|
|
W I D E M O U N T S
|
|
#
?
May 13, 2024 03:37
|
|
|
Needs more decoy cockpits.
|
|
#
?
May 13, 2024 11:59
|
|
|
Needs more nipple lasers.
|
|
#
?
May 13, 2024 13:17
|
|
|
pacific rim dot gif
|
|
#
?
May 13, 2024 14:35
|
|
|
This play through is pretty much a quest to get all of the franken'mechs and game world hero mechs. Haven't gotten the Crabtruder yet, but I'm trying.
|
|
#
?
May 13, 2024 15:22
|
|
|
RIP Syndrome posted:Needs more decoy cockpits. It's not a decoy, though. Although sadly there's no actual mechanic for sticking two pilots in it. As far as the mechanics of the mech itself go, it looks incredibly powerful as a force multiplier.
|
|
#
?
May 13, 2024 20:42
|
|
|
Mile'ionaha posted:It's not a decoy, though. Although sadly there's no actual mechanic for sticking two pilots in it. As far as the mechanics of the mech itself go, it looks incredibly powerful as a force multiplier. If someone does take the time to mod that in, I hope they pop in the Ogre lines from Warcraft II: "I don't want to!" "All right." "Now I'm hungry." "This way." "No, that way!" (burp) "He did it!" "No, he did it!" (fart) (Both laugh)
|
|
#
?
May 13, 2024 23:29
|
|
|
Mile'ionaha posted:It's not a decoy, though. Although sadly there's no actual mechanic for sticking two pilots in it. As far as the mechanics of the mech itself go, it looks incredibly powerful as a force multiplier. I mean I can easily see that becoming the preferred nomenclature among the pilots who have to taxi the desk guy around keeping them safe.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2024 12:25
|
|
|
Mile'ionaha posted:It's not a decoy, though. Although sadly there's no actual mechanic for sticking two pilots in it. As far as the mechanics of the mech itself go, it looks incredibly powerful as a force multiplier. It is. I swapped one of the HPPCs for a pair of Clan LRM 15s so I can drop Inferno-FASCAM on the enemy while I close.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2024 19:38
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 18:20 |
|
|
Q_res posted:GDC Demo trailer for MW5: Clans just dropped. I don’t even want to play as the clans. The best part of MW2 mercs was being a stroppy underdog Merc unit caught up in the poo poo and blowing the incest babies in half and hot gluing their PPC’s to my awesome and taking the fight to them.
|
|
#
?
May 14, 2024 20:11
|
|