Battletech - Urban Warcrimes: So quoth the RVN-3L, Arrow IV.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Battletech - Urban Warcrimes: So quoth the RVN-3L, Arrow IV.

«‹›8 »

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Thanks for the cool new OP. Maybe add in a link to that TRO a pubbie made. I would add a little caveat that not all the mechs in it are in the game though.

https://wlu.box.com/s/cl1sj07p0eccuozxg6ow4svr1kg6dhvx

# ¿ May 24, 2017 07:58

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 23:20

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Fat Samurai posted:

Nice, I have been following this on and off for a while, no idea the Beta was so close.

Did they explain how are they going to avoid the "all heavies, all the time" problem? Tonnage limits? Gotta go fast missions? Credit crunch?

For single player it looks like a cost benefit thing. Keeping a heavy running will be more expensive than a light or medium. Lights and Mediums go before mediums in the initiative order, so you could get really badly outmaneuvered if you don't have actions earlier in the tern. You can bank the actions of earlier mechs to later turns so they could stall you out as well and force you to move out of position before they move their bigger mechs.

For multiplayer it looks like limits on how much you can spend to build your force will prevent all atlas lances and the like.

# ¿ May 24, 2017 09:30

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

I really like the new Marauder, though I think I am in the minority as there is a lot of nostalgia playing into that.

The first Gray Death Legion book is pretty meh, but the intro with Carson watching his dad defend the spaceport in his Marauder was a really cool scene.

# ¿ May 25, 2017 00:45

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

I am legit excited for this, looking forward to next weekend.

I want to try all the old mwo goon favorites and see how they fair. Have we heard if they are bending the rules regarding the Raven? The basic version is pretty trash from what I hear and it really needs the proper ECM package to be a good robit.

# ¿ May 25, 2017 01:06

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

At any point in the battletech fluff did they ever explain what happened when Kell dueled with Yorinaga? Did he somehow have a null system installed in his Archer? How did Yorinaga repeatedly miss at point blank range while Kell was standing still? The whole thing never made sense to me.

# ¿ May 25, 2017 03:32

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

I am disappointed but not angry. I am glad that they are willing to accept that things are not ready rather than just push things out. The skirmish AI actually looked pretty decent in the game that they showed at PDXcon.

# ¿ May 26, 2017 00:52

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Paingod556 posted:

This. HBS has the original FASA heads including the guy who made MechCommander, and have delivered the solid as gently caress Shadowrun games

's pedigree is the lacklustre Nakatomi Plaza shooter and the multiplayer component of DNF, which apparently was somehow the least inspired and most boring part of that game

Battletech is gonna be alright

They even have some of the original MechCommander voice actors working in the studio!

# ¿ May 30, 2017 02:25

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Cyrano4747 posted:

I went on a road trip and read that fan made TRO. There are some legitimately funny bits in it, like the computer for the Phoenix Hawk being made by Apple, a company that couldn't figure out how to spend all its profits so it bought a planet.

That planet is real in the lore and not made up by the fan, it is also brilliant. I also like that General Motors invented the fusion engine and that catapulted them to galactic fame.

Some of the stuff in the TRO is really good, I liked that the cockpit in one of the mechs is so small that the technicians were trialing a command couch that the pilot lay prone on instead of sitting upright to try and fit them in.

# ¿ May 30, 2017 03:05

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Don't forget that robit armour makes conventional weapons completely useless against them. A shell from a conventional modern day mbt would do negligible damage to a Mech'.

# ¿ May 31, 2017 00:26

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Skippy McPants posted:

This is what I'm saying. The other skills are useful, but Evasive Move just seems goofy OP on a big mech. Yeah, someone with Sensor Lock can counter it, but that uses up their whole shooting turn.

Evasive is countered by sensor lock, precision strike and I believe a melee attack will remove the condition. Something like a Panther is your prime Precision Shot vehicle because you are only going to be firing that PPC anyway and it will ignore all the defensive buffs, not just Evasive.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 00:05

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Psion posted:

And this is 2/2 on the AI blowing off my Panther's PPC arm very early. I have to position that thing better.

Positioning Panthers and Centurions so that shots hit their non gun arms is probably going to be a big thing as we all get better at the game, you make a really good point.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 00:31

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Gwaihir posted:

The graphics do update depending on the weapon mounted, too:

How did you do this?

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 03:18

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Ham Sandwiches posted:

I unironically hope the game is extensible enough to support a 'tabletop mode mod' or whatever for those who like that sort of thing!

I have a feeling it will be hard to mod out the initiative systems and the skill systems, interested to see what's possible on release. Hopefully with weapon variants in the game there will be ways to jury rig stuff like variable recycle times. Fingers crossed.

I think something to bare in mind is someone has already tried to do a faithful tabletop rules battletech game and it was received really badly. It took a very long time to play even a small skirmish and it just wasn't fun. Mechwarrior: Tactics had a Lot of other problems but at it's core the tabletop rules just weren't enjoyable on a pc.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 03:24

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Zaodai posted:

One of the things I mentioned in Discord was that the after-battle report said I played for over 25 minutes in a match, and if you had asked me how long that match took without me looking at the timer I'd have said like 7. It still takes a decent amount of time, but the fact that it doesn't FEEL like it takes absurd amounts of time is a great change. All the people who want to play tabletop batteltech 100% faithful to the rules should probably just play megamek. This was never pitched as a faithful tabletop conversion, they were very up front that they're going to do what is right to make a fun game, and in the after mission survey for the match I played tonight, it asked me two different questions if I thought the game was "really" battletech, and whether the changes bothered me.

My answer was that it captured the feel of the game and I felt the changes made were improvements.

So gently caress the turbospergs.

Now on my own turbo sperg topic: Still don't like what the PPCs look like, think they should be fatter.

Which Discord are you guys using?

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 03:37

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

isildur posted:

the thing is, we have turbospergs on staff. we have people who care *deeply* about BT and its lore and its rules. and we've reached where we're at now after trying a lot of different stuff to try to capture the feel of BT while still making a fun computer game. We've had close adherence to the rules, and we've had wild variant rules with silly poo poo going on, and everything in between. And what we're using as our metric is *playing* the things we try, and then i fill an entire whiteboard with feedback and action items, and we try new things and play those.

our resident BT nerd, Eck, who loves the official rules with a burning passion that's honestly a little creepy, is on board. Once he was on board, and agreed that the game was fun, and won the first office tournament handily, I decided we'd met our obligation to fulfill nerd expectations. It's not exactly like TT but it's different in specific, carefully designed ways that addressed specific, carefully identified problems.

So it's not so much that we don't care about turbonerds, but that we are, ourselves, turbonerds. And we know the path we took from there to where we are now.

I 100% support your teams goal that fun should trump precedent, it is fantastic and a real breath of fresh air.

Zaodai posted:

Dis 'un, linked earlier in the thread.

Cheers

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 03:59

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

JacksLibido posted:

-I am a bit disappointed in the utility of lights though. I tried running 1xlocust 3x trebuchet against the default 20mil loadout and it didn't do nearly as well as I thought it would. The locust got great line of sight right away, but was fragged almost instantly. It'd be great if there was an option to keep a spotter stealthed or otherwise untargettable while you rained down hate. It'd incentivise using scout mechs to spot the enemies scouts.

The Raven is supposed to be carrying rudimentary ECM and Electronic Warfare systems. It is possible that when this gets added in it might be able to do this kind of job.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 07:13

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Drone posted:

Only got about 15 minutes to play the game so far because of sleep/work, but man it's pretty great. I'm really looking forward to getting back home so I can do more stomping.

I feel like the load times are pretty excessive though, but maybe that was just because it was my first time running it. The general feel of the game is fantastic though, and I'm looking forward to queueing up the Mechwarrior 2/3 soundtracks to play while I shoot robots.

Edit: is there any sort of implementation of tabletop-style rules for lights regarding how far you move factoring into some kind of defensive bonus? I just instinctively make my lights go as far and as fast as I can because my brain equates that with enemies having a to-hit penalty on them.

If you sprint then the mech gains the Evasive condition which gives every attack against it a flat 50% chance to miss, any mech can gain Evasive by sprinting though, not just lights.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 07:38

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

# ¿ Jun 6, 2017 00:07

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

The laserboat Atlas is playable in the beta right now. It has virtually NO ARMOUR and is setup with ppcs.

The Wolverine, Cataphract, Firestarter and Enforcer are all playable as well and have their unique models. The Enforcer seems fine and a good robot, the Wolverine has a damaged look to it and isn't rigged for it's SRM launcher (still fires just no animation).

The Cataphract and Firestarters work great except their weapons all glow as though they are overheated, which is appropriate because the Firestarter can force an instant shutdown on any mech with one attack. Multiple attacks make them so hot that they take structure damage everytime they turn back on.

With an Angel of Death pilot the Firestarter can DFA for 45x2dmg every turn on top of using it's flamers and mg's, jump for a huge distance and basically take an enemy mech out of the equation for that turn. I kept an Orion shutdown for 4 turns in a row when I tried it out. Because of it's loud out, the FS can fire all of it's weapons with any CC attack.

Phrosphor fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Jun 6, 2017

# ¿ Jun 6, 2017 01:36

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Q_res posted:

Way to steal my thunder rear end in a top hat...

I really like the look of the Enforcer, it can fire it's LL and AC10 every turn pretty reliably as well.

I forgot that that Blackjack works as well, so you beat me there!

# ¿ Jun 6, 2017 01:39

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

In terms of how the it performs in the Beta?

The Kintaro is probably the best mech, as for worst? The Awesome probably doesn't bring enough to the table for it's cost with the way PPC's are setup at the moment.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2017 01:56

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Sadly the clans are waaaaay to popular for anyone who wants to make money to ever even remotely consider wiping them from the timeline.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2017 02:22

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Amechwarrior posted:

I just ran two test matches so I could write down the results in the end of game survey. The Awesome is trash right now, and it shouldn't be.

Big Lock

Enemy:
Atlas - Evasive Move Pilot
Awesome - Gun/Tactics Pilot (water everywhere, don't need guts)
Jenner - Tactics Pilot
Locust - Master Tac. Pilot

My Teams:
2x Awesomes - Gun/Tactics Pilots
Catapult - Master Tac. Pilot
Commando - Sensor Lock Pilot

2x Victor 9B - Precise Shot Pilots
Trebuchet - Master Tac. Pilot
Commando - Sensor Lock Pilot

Tactics was the same for both matches so it would favor the PPCs range advantage. Run to the left, lights forward, but behind rocks and put the AWS/VTR in open water but at far range. Get sensor contacts, lock and fire from beyond enemy visual range, fall back and repeat.

Results:

Awesome Lance:
Loss - Commando
Damages: Both Awesomes exposed fronts and one missing a torso

The base plan was solid and worked as planned, but the Awesomes couldn't kill the lights before they got close enough to provide indirect fire against my Commando. This also forced my Awesomes to move back to stay out of minimum range. The extra rounds spent cleaning up the lights and re-positioning my Sensor Lock and LRM support let the Atlas and Awesome move forward. The Atlas used LRM20s on whoever the lights could spot. I couldn't open up the Awesome quickly either and had to flank it. The Atlas was the same problem, it just took a lot of time to kill.

Victor Lance:
Loss - NONE
Damages - Commando and one Victor both took light internal damage, no loss of limbs

The base plan worked flawlessly. The sensor lock provided easy AC/20 shots that wrecked each of the lights in a turn. Then came the Awesome who took some rounds to kill, but its PPCs did little damage. The Atlas didn't even need to be flanked, I just rushed it with the Victors, DFA'd it once and hammered away with the AC/20s. Trebuchet and Commando provided supporting fire until it lost its right torso and eventually died after being declawed. I kept slightly backing up/jumping so it couldn't reach melee once the AC/20 was gone. The Commando took one good LRM20 to the front at the end, got a little over zealous trying for a killing blow while it was knocked down.

Even with a map and plan that favored long range PPCs, the Victor team using a lighter fire support mech and the Victors lower armor, the decreased lethality of the PPC led to the loss of the Commando and a much higher repair bill for the Awesome Lance. I did this as I wanted to compare the "worst" assault to compare PPCs to. If I had taken the LRM Awesomes (done swap tests like this with them already, LRM AWS is better) I would have been knocking over and killing pilots left and right.

Victor is growing on me as a Great Robot, though I am still favoring the Orion over an assault so I can take more awesome Mediums. Mediums are amazing in this game.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2017 02:28

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Amechwarrior posted:

The Victor definitely has its place in BT, its place isn't "everywhere" like the Orion or Atlas but it makes a great "Stomper" to throw in against 15mil light games. Shows up, knocks you down and jumps away. The Awesome has a place for sure, but long range direct fire in general is weakened in BT vs TT due to the fog of war restrictions and the very hilly/mesa-ish maps we have make the lackluster damage of the PPC not a smart choice.

Maybe we will see things change once we can fight each other, as both teams will be more cautious and hang back before the brawl starts. However, I see LRMs beating just about everything else in that situation.

Yeah LRM's are nuts right now - not for damage but for that crazy stability damage.

I think most of my assault kills are still from pilot deaths due to missile cockpit hits and multiple knockdowns.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2017 03:22

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Raged posted:

Atlas with evasive is just comical. It's insane how much damage that walking mountain can dodge.

Jump on it and won't be dodging nuffin'!

# ¿ Jun 6, 2017 05:48

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

I wouldn't be opposed to stability and movement penalties in water myself.

Also some of the maps need to be reworked slightly, the Arctic Valley map has areas on the rocky ridge that count as being in water despite being a good 100ft above it.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2017 05:07

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Goon AllStars Mod?

Phrosphor fucked around with this message at 12:43 on Jun 7, 2017

# ¿ Jun 7, 2017 11:28

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

WebDO posted:

Go the X3 route and make enemies have a chance to outright surrender their mech in exchange for escaping.

Then have them launch in whatever the combat suits are and let you kill the pilot anyways

I think most pilots would choose death over becoming one of the Dispossessed.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2017 00:35

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Omar_Comin posted:

Most Clan pilots would, but IS not so much. You could always hire on with a merc unit that had more mechs than pilots, or head to Solaris and get in a stable until you earned your way back into a ride.

Not in this Era, there are loads of qualified pilots but not enough mechs for all of them. A merc unit with more mechs than pilots? Not in 3025.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2017 00:50

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Innerguard posted:

Can someone with the goon pilots/manifest files put 'em on a dropbox or something please?

I have only made four so far, I am still trying to track down WoL era avatars to use.

In order to install them you need to edit a .csv in the data directory, I need to see if there is a way to automate that or anyone wanting to install the pack will need to enter 30 odd new rows.

Phrosphor fucked around with this message at 05:30 on Jun 8, 2017

# ¿ Jun 8, 2017 05:19

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

HBS OFFICIAL FORUMS POSTER posted:

Well, looking at the whole package, indeed the new xcom is dumbed down and lacking many nuances from the older more complex games...

However, in this case, xcom fans will only have to wait for xenonauts 2, terra invicta and phoenix point, for all of them will try to compete at bringing back the lost nuances of the original xcom.

Can't hope the same with battletech franchise though, as I can't see other game dev willing to create their own battletech like universe, much less creating a competing game.

Grogsssssssss

# ¿ Jun 9, 2017 07:01

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Pattonesque posted:

If they have the -3M Griffin I'm really looking forward to recreating the MWO murdermachine build of 4 SRM4 (or 4 SRM6) and jump jets. I think it could be brutal in this game

You can check it out in a video shortly!

# ¿ Jun 12, 2017 10:07

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Amechwarrior posted:

So we had an idea in the goon BT discord:

Take a Hunchback 4P - The one with lasers.
Replace all mediums with smalls and max armor with remaining 4 tons.
Use mech to punch and then unleash 9 SML every round as you are heat neutral.

PUNCHBACK

I wasn't paying attention in discord when you guys were talking about this, but I independently went and made this mech earlier and called it a punchback when I did.

Very bizarre.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2017 10:56

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

SUPER PUNCHBACK!

http://i.imgur.com/qzzQI6k.mp4

And a bonus Locust

http://i.imgur.com/jCld6HI.mp4

Phrosphor fucked around with this message at 15:05 on Jun 12, 2017

# ¿ Jun 12, 2017 15:02

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

DiHK posted:

The guy interviewing them was... a bit much. Really chewing the scenery.

It kind of felt like 'You have 5 minutes to get through this segment, you need to cover these points, you need to keep these guys moving or they will miss their slot. GO!'

# ¿ Jun 13, 2017 05:09

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Skippy McPants posted:

That's just what Day[9] is like. Guy is comically high energy.

Wait that was Day9??? Am I thinking of the wrong video? I must be, I thought he was a lot um.. bigger.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2017 05:33

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Innerguard posted:

Great. What about the Argo - was that the actual dropship as well? I'm sure it was mentioned but I can't find the info for the life of me.

Cough Cough There is an entry in the files for the dropship, which as mentioned already is a leopard, and an Upgraded Dropship which is the Argo. Cough

# ¿ Jun 14, 2017 02:38

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Worth pointing out that the Argo makes a lot of Grogs angry for some reason.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2017 03:14

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Cyrano4747 posted:

I've been re-reading the old BT novels (they're cheap on Amazon as e-books and make good enough airplane/beach fodder) and lol getting pissed at anything in the fiction surrounding this universe. It's wall to wall special snowflake units who get super awesome lostech and beat up all their enemies while never getting hurt except when they can have a bad rear end noble death while still winning in the end.

There is a post on the official forums right now calling for the removal of the special pilot abilities in this game because only 'Lore Characters' should get special abilities.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2017 03:21

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 23:20

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

quote:

The problem with them is how severely they mitigate damage, in some cases negating it entirely. When you think about it, it's almost like they all have the 'Mech Ghosting ability of Morgan Kell. In TT (*groan* I know), pilots have no skills even remotely close to this.

https://community.battletechgame.com/forums/threads/8358

# ¿ Jun 14, 2017 03:29

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Battletech - Urban Warcrimes: So quoth the RVN-3L, Arrow IV.

«‹›8 »