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

Cyrano4747 posted:

Holy poo poo

# ¿ Jun 14, 2017 03:58

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 14, 2024 01:53

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Galaga Galaxian posted:

I'm guessing Skoll means the "official" Battletechgame discord. (Probably not official)

peep the 8k post count on a year and a bit old forum for a game that only just hit a limited beta.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2017 04:56

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Zaodai posted:

My favorite guy from the MWO forums that claimed goons being able to play was wrong because we do things worse than multiple holocausts.

Remember, teamwork is overpowered.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2017 05:18

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

CHICKEN SHOES posted:

I remember that being a thread title at some point, but did some actually suggest that

Before lances were in the game, we were syncdropping by all pressing launch at the same time to end up in the same game. This was apparently unfair.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2017 05:24

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

kingcom posted:

Chicken Shoes posted:
i hate everyone

# ¿ Jun 14, 2017 05:38

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Amechwarrior posted:

I've made suggestions like that in the post-match surveys. I think the problem comes down to time/money/people spent on making sure such animations work across a wide range of mech shapes, differences in attacker/defender hight, forms of physical attacks, hit locations, weapon locations and then to top it all off - player mech customization. This is a team that is porting over assets from another game to save time and money. In a thread on pilot ejecting on the official forums, a dev broke down how such requests end up eating up a ton of resources, even without changing the way the game calculates things. As awesome as such things would be, it takes a ton of work in a game like Battletech.

I think stuff like this is firmly in the 'nice to have' pile of features, and they are still focusing heavily on the 'need to have' pile.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2017 07:41

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Here is last nights Q&A - I haven't watched it yet so I don't have details.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFa27-2pmgk

Phrosphor fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Jun 15, 2017

# ¿ Jun 15, 2017 00:30

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

ChickenWing posted:

I mean, technically it makes you unable to sprint as well, so there's that I guess

Also means you lose and can't get evasion, even with the pilot ability.

# ¿ Jun 16, 2017 15:15

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Zaodai posted:

Interesting. I wouldn't have thought half that single player stuff would have even been started, what with how much time is projected until release. Glad to hear it, but a little surprised.

Can't wait to play it!

I think they have spent a lot of work laying groundwork for the whole simulation part of the game and have just been plugging in all the different components and making sure they work nice before spending overly long on the single player up till now, since it has to sit on top of the simulation and present itself through it. The simulation sounds pretty robust under the hood, even looking at the stuff in the beta they left in for how to generate a random mechwarriors background and basic stats is really detailed.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2017 01:19

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

There are posts appearing on the official forums that the AI is much better in this version.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2017 04:17

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Some nice UI changes. Mechs that are not actively doing anything now have a compressed health bar above their heads. Making for a lot less clutter on screen, mousing over the mech expands this back to what it was before. When taking actions or being targeted it expands as well.

Indirect LRM's that miss the target scatter around the mech instead of falling a couple of miles short. Looks a lot cooler, Big LRM barrages look really crazy even on misses now.

Lots of conflicting reports about AI, I think if they have done anything it might just have been to tweak the weighting of certain actions.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2017 05:32

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Hot from the new brown sea, a pubbies dream:

# ¿ Jul 5, 2017 00:41

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

This thread needs more pretty pictures.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2017 02:03

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Cowcaster posted:

i get the feeling the xp ui is indicative of whoever posted the picture making it 10 years ago and posting it anytime someone started a discussion about getting a fully funded battletech computer game ever since

where has ham sandwiches been anyway

It is a Microsoft Surface OG so I think that does date it for about a decade ago. The original product was a huge table sized touchscreen device. Your table ornaments were all applications you could place on top of it I seem to remember.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2017 00:35

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

sebmojo posted:

still probably... six months? from release, but it's looking very good imo

Want my multiplayer update! It's gonna be crazy good times.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2017 06:41

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

I finally sat down and read through the primary docket item and um. It kind of looks like a clear case of copy-write infringement. Harmony Gold attest that PGI never sought nor gained permission to use the reseen designs. And then HBS have licensed those designs from PGI.

Russ has already admitted to record that they didn't have permission. So... this is kind of a Transverse 2.0 situation.

Edit: If you post about this on the official forum your post will be deleted. So I guess don't do it.

Edit: removed pcitures

The only good news is PGI are hosed.

Phrosphor fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Mar 6, 2018

# ¿ Jul 28, 2017 07:11

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

New Thread Title:

quote:

Piranha admits that certain allegations in the Complaint involve animated giant warrior
robots. Piranha lacks knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief as to the truth of the
remaining allegations of the Complaint and, on that basis, denies them.

Ok going into a bit more detail a few things have happened in the last week.

1: Harmony Gold have amended their lawsuit and are now also suing Catalyst Game Labs for infringing their copy write on their recent publications.

2: Harmony Gold are currently trying to turbofuck CGL because they haven't responded:

quote:

ORDER signed by Clerk William M. McCool granting 39 Motion for Default by Harmony Gold U.S.A., Inc. Default entered against InMediaRes Productions, LLC. (KD) (Entered: 06/28/2017)

3: Both HBS and PGI have responded. They have refuted everything and are claiming that HG doesn't have authority to press this claim, in addition to citing things like fair use and 1st Amendment.

4: PGI have demanded a trial by jury (HBS have not, which is interesting). A date has been set:

quote:

MINUTE ORDER SETTING TRIAL DATE AND RELATED DATES by Judge Thomas S. Zilly; Length of Trial: *5 days*. Jury Trial is set for 9/24/2018 at 9:00 AM in Courtroom 15206 before Judge Thomas S. Zilly.

HBS's response: https://www.unitedstatescourts.org/federal/wawd/242820/38-0.html
PGI's response: https://www.unitedstatescourts.org/federal/wawd/242820/25-0.html

:siren:

Phrosphor fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Jul 31, 2017

# ¿ Jul 31, 2017 01:36

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Oh and the judge in this case was born in 1935 and appointed by Reagan, just in case we needed yet another wildcard in this.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2017 03:18

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

https://www.unitedstatescourts.org/federal/wawd/242820/32-0.html

PGI and HBS released a joint statement to the court. It's a good read. Start on Page 2 at the Statement of the Defence.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2017 03:36

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

A.o.D. posted:

HG's protest is such that basically any game that contained giant bipedal robots infringes on their IP.

Any IMAGE depicting a 'animated warrior robot'

# ¿ Jul 31, 2017 03:47

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Zaodai posted:

That statement of defense amounts to "We tried to work with them, they tried to gently caress us, we told them to poo poo in their hat. It's not our fault their hat is now full of poo poo."

It is surprisingly well worded, after reading it I am of the opinion that they have been expecting this and have been preparing in the background.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2017 04:49

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Oscar Wilde Bunch posted:

I'd like to be there for opening statements the day of the trial, just to see if both lawyers can keep a straight face as they say 'animated giant robot warrior' over and over again.

Sadly they seem to have agreed that 'robot warrior' suffices in the documentation

# ¿ Jul 31, 2017 06:45

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Ice Fist posted:

Counsel for HG is probably stone faced because he's been doing this a while.

"Your honor, in exhibit B of robot warrior... I DON'T KNOW WHY YOU GUYS KEEP SNICKERING BEHIND MY BACK"

'Your honor, my client would like to put forward that DESTROID MUDERMAN 4000, exhibit 7-C, is not visually distinct from the KAI ALLARD LAIO's personally modified CENTURION-A YEN LO WANG, exhibit 9-D'

# ¿ Jul 31, 2017 06:53

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

I wonder if they are going to cancel the live Q&A, it is usually the second Wednesday of the month right?

# ¿ Aug 2, 2017 00:26

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Interested to see what happens if you bring custom mechs to multiplayer games. I am guessing that there won't be a mechlab until much further down the road.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2017 01:47

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

veedubfreak posted:

Nice "i got into multiplayer" brag.

Go shitpost in the mwo thread.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2017 23:43

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

The farther a �Mech moves (by any type of movement), the more EVASIVE
charges it receives, up to a maximum of 6.
○ Each EVASIVE charge makes the �Mech +2 Difficulty to hit with ranged attacks.
○ Each time an EVASIVE �Mech is attacked, it loses one EVASIVE charge.
○ The EVASIVE state is lost when the �Mech has no EVASIVE charges remaining,
or becomes UNSTEADY.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2017 02:10

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

It sounds like a melee attack or DFA will still completely strip the EVASIVE state from a robit because a close combat attack automatically makes it unsteady. So even if you have 6 charges of evasive on your locust you still don't want to get it too close.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2017 03:35

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Crits are a lot scarier now. My Orion had an AC10 Ammo explosions and it wrecked it, same thing happened to my Centurion in my first Multiplayer match.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2017 05:59

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Paingod556 posted:

MW3 did that plus caused a heat spike.

In MWO getting hit by a PPC disables any ECM that you have active.

Looking forward to more games tonight. Loving the new Evasion mechanic.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2017 06:30

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Some super angry grognards still on the forums. One guy is demanding they change the los range right now or else!

# ¿ Aug 19, 2017 09:11

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Paingod556 posted:

Can that be edited in the .ini files or however them goons messed with the Beta a month back?

Yep, this was pointed out to him, in addition to a mod hinting that the LOS range had deliberately been reduced to encourage brawling for gameplay testing. Didn't go down well, a bunch of posts have been deleted by mods at this point.

EDIT: Been playing PVP exclusively. As expected the pubbies are all trying to take as many LRM's as possible and trying to use a single light mech to scout with sensor lock. You can totally overwhelm them by rushing them hard.

Picture below is from round two of us knowing where each other is after the start of the game. I jumped the Quickdraw up there after he had used his Sensor Lock and it Matrix dodged everything he had and the next turn I was in among him and the LRM's weren't any use.

Phrosphor fucked around with this message at 12:33 on Aug 19, 2017

# ¿ Aug 19, 2017 11:52

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Rygar201 posted:

So, who will be up for a Game or two tonight after 9 CST?

I wish I could but the timezones are totally incompatible. I will be around this evening, which is morning for America people if anyone fancies a morning game.

I am still looking for something that can crush my so far undefeated in your face lance.

Quickdraw (the non-LRM version)
Kintaro
Kintaro
Trebuchet

Edit: I made a dumb effort post on the official forums, here it is for posterity as I know most people don't like browsing the brown seav2.

quote:

Hi

I have been playing a Lot of multiplayer. And without bragging I seem to be pretty good.

Most of my matches are won before the game begins, because my opponents are taking lances that don't work well together or are too focused on one thing. I thought posting some tips to help people would be good idea, so that we can all have more exciting and fun games.

If you take anything away from what I am saying, please let it be that Lance composition is really important. Try and have a variety of mechs and roles.

Light Mechs

A single Locust is NOT good enough. Do not just throw a single locust into your lance as a 'scout'. No, not even the LRM one. Don't do it. Forget the Locust even exists.

General Light Mech stuff - The most stacks of Evasion you can have on a mech is 6. Most lights can hit 5-6 evasion with a standard move. If you are putting an Evasion skill pilot on something like a Locust (grr) then you are wasting the pilot skill.

Never stop moving a Light, you need to keep those Evasion stacks built up.

Lights are great in a "Hit and Fade" role. Sprint your light somewhere out of LOS that is near the fight (so it has evasion stacks), next turn reserve it until everything else has gone and step out and shoot, next turn when your light goes before the enemy run it away, repeat.

Remember that Light mechs by default have a +2 penalty to be hit just from their chassis size. Add this to six stacks of Evasion and you get +8 to hit!

Medium Mechs

Medium mechs are the best mechs in this game. (Which is great! Because in 3025 the Medium was the "Workhorse of the inner sphere"). If your lance isn't primarily made up of Mediums you are doing yourself a disservice. Medium mechs have the speed, adaptability and cost to really let you experiment and try different things. I run 3(!) in my standard (undefeated) 25mil cbill lance.

Medium mechs get a +1 penalty to be hit, with 6 stacks of Evasion that is a +7 to all to hit rolls.

The Shadowhawk may be iconic, but it is not good.

Heavy Mechs

Your heavy choice needs to be really carefully thought out. I have seen so many Catapult C1's in this slot. The Cat is a great support mech. But is a support mech really what you want to be spending the majority of your cash on? The other thing to keep in mind is that heavies are slow. If you are taking a heavy and an assault, you are giving up a lot of mobility to your opponent, if you are doing something like 2xHeavy, Assault and a light then your have to recognise your opponent can very easily get your light before your bigger mechs can help it if it gets too far out on it's own.

Assault Mechs

In my opinion Assaults aren't worth the money, they are slow and either get left behind, or you cede the good ground to your opponent while you get the assault in position.

IF you have a pilot with great pilot skill (to avoid knockdowns) and a great position with fantastic sight lines then they can be monsters. But your opponent with faster mechs can just choose not to fight you where you want him to.

If you are taking an assault mech, and not using it in a front line role (Awesome I am looking at you) then why are you spending all of that money on that armour?

Pilot skills

Piloting - A high pilot skill makes it harder for your mech to become unsteady. Are you constantly seeing a mech with evasion become unsteady and lose all of it's stacks? Pick a higher pilot skill!

Guts - Guts gives you a higher threshold on your heat gauge. I take advantage of this. You should too!

Tactics - A high tactics skill increases the chance to hit for indirect attacks. If anything gets your interest in this wall of text it should be that

Gunnery - This is self explanatory, but it IS NOT the be all and end all. Do you need a high gunnery skill to punch a dude in the face?

Bulwark

Bulwark is an amazing mechanic. It makes your mechs last a lot longer. I see a lot of people putting bulwark on Assault mechs. Great! You just made that assault mech so much harder to kill. However, assault mechs are slow, and they already have a ton(lol) of armour. A tool that requires them to stand still doesn't really help a mech that needs to move a lot to get into combat. (I grant you that Bulwark on an assault is crazy good if they get the chance to use it). Usually by the time that Assault mech has made it to a good spot to bulwark up, I have either mopped up a medium or heavy it should have been tanking for, or I can just outmaneuver it.

Bulwark on a medium? Now that is interesting. Did you know that a Kintaro with Bulwark can take more punishment than most heavy mechs? A smaller mech Bulwarking becomes a much harder target. First your opponent has to make a choice, because he knows that the shots against the bulwarked mech are doing less damage. Secondly it essentially doubles your armour while it is active and prevents knockdowns.

Try the pilot who has sprint and bulwark on a tanky medium (Hunchback 4P? Kintaro?) And spend a turn sprinting into a great spot with cover and then just standing still and shooting.

Evasion

I think Evasion is amazing and I really love this iteration of it far more than the old 50% miss chance.

You can only have a max of 6 stacks of evasion

Each stack is +2 difficulty to be hit

Every full attack (so that is not each weapon fired) against a mech with Evasion will remove one stack

Some light and medium mechs can move fast enough to build 5-6 stacks of Evasion without the Evasion pilot skill.

You gain evasion from jumpjetting as well

Sensor Lock

Don't make Sensor Lock your crutch. I haven't used it once in my last three games. It is good for getting information, but it uses a mechs entire shooting phase. If I can't shoot I would rather sprint.

Other things

LRM's - The easiest wins are the ones against the 3xLRM support mech 1xLight mech. LRM's are a great support weapon but they don't do enough to be your primary way of attacking.

PPC's - Are great, they do AC10 damage at range without the chance of a crippling ammo explosion.

Flamers - Terrifying and really punish people overreaching.

Heat - There is nothing wrong with spending a turn in Brace to cool down. Moving doesn't generate heat, but sprinting does.

I have plenty more I could add but this post is already really long. The last thing I am going to put here is my opinion T1 mechs for each weightclass:

T1 Light Mechs: Firestarter, Panther

T1 Medium Mechs: Kintaro, Trebuchet, Hunchback-4P*, Centurion-A*

T1 Heavy Mechs: Quickdraw-5A, Orion*

T1 Assault Mechs: Atlas

Don't agree with anything here? Lets play a game and we can see it in action!

*Only T1 if you know how to dead-side, the Orion is possibly getting dropped since both side torsos are full of explosives. Can't wait for the mechlab to get rid of so much useless ammo in mechs.

Phrosphor fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Aug 21, 2017

# ¿ Aug 21, 2017 00:24

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

isildur posted:

We played some really awful internal builds before we got here. I'm pretty happy with it but there were a *lot* of dead ends. Still, having the ability to say 'no, this sucks, let's start over on this part' was fantastic.

This is A Good Post.

Thanks, and I am loving this build. It is a lot more fun than the last iteration, and I enjoyed that a ton already.

SO when are we gonna get to play with Protector?

"Name" : "PROTECTOR",
"Details" : "As long as you are upright and functional, adjacent allies gain BRACED (50% damage reduction against ranged attacks to the front and side).",

# ¿ Aug 21, 2017 05:23

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Zaodai posted:

I'll be glad when I get some time away from work to mess with the new build, because reading that effort post made my mind go to a place that is undoubtedly overreacting at the worthlessness of Assaults (and heavies?).

Overall though I'm glad the "50% to miss" chance on evasion went away, though. That mechanic sucked and was no fun at all. At least with evasion stacks (and lights/mediums getting baseline bonuses, etc etc) you know how and why you can't hit the little motherfuckers. Is that +8 evasion still on a 2d6 not counting whatever mods the attacker was going to have?

Take it more as, "I have yet to be impressed at assaults". Someone is going to school me with a 2xAtlas lance or something soon I bet.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2017 06:23

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Oh and to address my devaluing of heavies.

Ammo Explosions. All of my Orions have suffered catastrophic ammo explosions. The Quickdraw-5A is my new favourite mech though!

# ¿ Aug 21, 2017 07:42

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

isildur posted:

bad news about protector

it wasn't actually fun so we removed it

it's being replaced with something that is fun though!

Things being replaced with fun things is never bad news! I was initially sad to see all the cool abilities vanish from that folder, but I like the cleaner scaling ability rewards that you have added now.

4xKintaro, or 3xKintaro and a Treb is probably the meta lance at the moment.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2017 07:56

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Rygar201 posted:

Phosphor, has no one tried to just take up a position with heavier mechs and force you to move to them?

Because of the speed of the Quickdraw and being able to stack evasion on it (thanks Paradise). I can usually jump it into the perfect position and disrupt them for a turn, then when they have all turned to shoot at the QD and it has matrix dodged a turn worth of fire I can move in my other mechs and jump it back out.

Something that is probably overpowered is that sprinting in the pre-engagement phase doesn't generate heat. If I do it properly I get two turns of sprinting straight at my enemy and when we detect each other all me mechs are sitting on 5-6 stacks of evasion before I have even done anything.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2017 23:05

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

Evasion also suffers from diminishing returns:

quote:

Your base chance to hit with a ranged attack is 65% + 2.5% per point of Gunnery skill. This is then reduced for
each point of Difficulty. The first 10 points of Difficulty reduce your chance to hit by 5%
each. All points past 10 reduce your chance by 2% each.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2017 01:47

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 14, 2024 01:53

Phrosphor: Feb 25, 2007; Urbanisation

DatonKallandor posted:

At the 6th stack yes. At the 5th if you're in a light. It still means you can easily rack up 40+% dodge just from moving with an evasive move pilot even in a fairly slow mech, which seems a little excessive.

So if you think of a Gunnery 10 pilot shooting at a Light Mech with 6 Stacks of Evasion in Light cover at:

code:

Base 65% chance to hit
+2.5% per point in Gunnery: 25% bonus
Assuming this is additive you now have a 90% chance to hit.

-2 points to hit for light chassis
-8 points to hit for evasion 
Each point for the first 10 is -5%, so -50% to hit at this point

This means our chance to hit, with the best shooting score you can get, is 40% and because the light is in a forest any damage that does get through is reduced by 25%

I believe a blocked shot is another 2 points of malus to hit, so that would make it another -4% (2% penalty to hit after you pass 10 penalty points) so 36% chance to hit!

That seems really strong, but at the same time a light mech getting hit at this point is pretty much a death sentance.

I think the problem starts to become apparent (and I don't think it really is a problem.. yet) when you look at the Quickdraw.

Shooting at it with a 10 Gunnery pilot (we don't have any) is 50% (no bonus penalty to hit chassis, 6 stacks of evasion for 8 points = -40%)

That is pretty scary.

Remember though that being made unsteady instantly wipes all stacks, so you can always melee or DFA an evasive threat to remove that bonus.

Edit: However making evasive mechs unsteady is really hard unless you melee them because the piloting skill gives passive bonus's to your unsteady threshold!
Edit2: This makes me what to try a really fast lance even more, and not rely on the bulwark shenanigans I have been so far.

Phrosphor fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Aug 22, 2017

# ¿ Aug 22, 2017 02:51

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

«‹›8 »