Octopus Overlords

FYI, don't trust a flashpoint's skull rating. I got beat up pretty bad a couple of times thinking I could bring in my second-tier mechs. Just bring in your heaviest stuff. And before starting any flashpoint, make sure you've got a lance of 50-tonners active, as some of them have drop weight limitations.

Ah, keep a lance of mediums and heavies around. No problem.

Kasey Chang wrote: Thu May 30, 2019 12:36 pm Ah, keep a lance of mediums and heavies around. No problem.

If it was just mediums/heavies, that'd be easy. But no, there are a couple of flashpoint missions where there's a literal 50-ton weight limit on your deployed mechs. So you want to dust off those Hunchbacks and Centurions.

With the Paradox weekend sale on Steam and Urban Warfare coming next week, maybe it’s time I finally get into this.

Just for grins, I used the savegame editor to give myself 4 gauss rifles, 8 gauss rifle ammo bins, and some extra double heatsinks as backups.

I recently captured a king crab and was playing with a "sniper build": 2 gauss rifles, 4 bins of ammo, jumpjets. It needs no heatsinks, and it has a small LRM5 for evasion stripping. Between that and the Highlander, we're making 2 headshot kills per mission. That's pretty impressive. Though a more "useful" config would be AC20 in one arm and gauss rifle in the other. (The default config was 2 AC20s and M LAS and SRMs, I think) I'll put it back to 2xAC20 later and play with that build a bit.

I wonder if equipping King Crab with 4 to 6 AC2+++ can produce similar damage. Hypothetically, it can fit, and can do similar range, and with the +++ can do enough criticals and damage. The only difference is the spread, 4 shots can land on different places instead of a single hit location.

Maybe I can put 4 PPCs? Nah, the heat would be unmanageable.

Just did one of the Steiner flashpoints, and man, it's nasty. It was the Hatchetman mission. Anyway, I sent in a full assault lance, so the hatchetman actually DECREASED my firepower. And I was up against THREE lances of mediums coming in from THREE directions. ARGH! Lost two buildings but otherwise finished it fine. OTOH, Hatchetman has 110 melee, which is assault mech level bashing. Impressive indeed.

Just found out that the same guy now has a different flashpoint on the other side of the galaxy... a 4 skull flashpoint. Eeek. And it'll take a month just to fly over. There was a different flashpoint, but it'll take me 30 days to fly over and it expires in 24 days. Hah.

EDIT: Just maxed out (10 in all four skills) one of my mechwarriors. Turns out, there's an achievement for that. And with a mech that has high damage weapons like gauss rifle or PPC, he can one shot even assault mechs from a distance. Doesn't happen that often, but often enough. While mechs with AC20 can do it, it has to do so at close range. And that's not easy.

Decided to equip my Banshee (finally managed to assemble one) with 2 PPC++'s, the ones with extra stability damage. Also gave it a +3 TTC. So a couple hits from this (and this thing doesn't miss often, esp with a sharpshooter pilot), and an LRM barrage from a support mech, and the enemy mech's on the ground facing the sky, while my other mechs kill it from a distance. It's not quite Awesome level awesome, but it can sustain fire better than the Awesome, and is slightly better armored, and definitely move faster (has jumpjets).

I've noticed that I play almost all games by hanging back and shooting if such an option is allowed. I can send my mechs in to do melee, but it's not my first option, and I tend NOT to use knife-fighting / melee builds. I have one, a 70t Grasshopper with MG, SLAS and MLAS (and arm mod) that can punch above its class, but I didn't like to use that.

EDIT: Just did the second flashpoint, the "humiliate my opponent noble's son" one. The pirates are no problem. The subsequent mission is the problem. Actually, I killed everyone quite easily, but I hate base defense missions as usually they can take a shot or two which often takes out a building or two before you can even react. Even the APCs can resist a hit or two! Any way, the final enemy mech (Cataphract) got in a lucky shot that took out my Atlas' left torso, so I lost the LRM20+++ and the SRM6+++, both of which are quite rare. ARGH! And the "rare" items I got are barely worth my troubles.

EDIT2: Did a Kurita Flashpoint... What a mistake. These guys gave me bad intel, then withheld pay because we didn't kill the guy they wanted. Basically made us do two missions for price of one. And the damage I suffered in the 2nd battle offset all the money paid, AND I lost a mechwarrior when his Atlas got cooked as I was fighting heavy vehicles (demolishers, PPC carriers, SRM carriers) as well as multiple heavy and assault mechs. My other Highlander (not the Lostech 732B, but the regular one, 733P) was heavily damaged, and I was surprised it managed to survive the battle as it was showing no armor in the front at all.

Also did a Marik Flashpoint for Captain Singh. Interesting branch point in the middle with a decision to make. I chose to be honest, and it seems to have worked out.

I decided to give RogueTech a try. OMG, it's like a whole new different game. Instead of a dozen or so parts per mech, there are now SEVERAL DOZENS. You get individual actuators and joints, from leg to knee to feet, actual engine vs engine chassis, heat sink "kits" (no more mixing double vs. single heatsinks), Frankenmechs (cobbled together from bits and pieces), periphery weapons (basically autoloading recoilless rifles). ARGH. Buying replacement parts can be overwhelming. In fact, the game keeps warning me "engines and XXXX are not repaired, please confirm". ARGH!!!!

I think I'll go for something closer to the vanilla battletech, albeit with more mechs. Maybe 3025 Extended? Now that Modtek's installed, I just have to remove the Roguetech mods.

Yeah, RogueTech is basically a total conversion of HBS:Battletech to the tabletop Battletech rule set, and I believe the tech level is somewhere around the late 3060s. It's also got an online component to it, which I'm not too crazy about. That, and you can't hit anything with rookie pilots unless you're in the short range bracket.

Battletech Extended 3025 is more my speed, all it does is add more mechs and tanks and fix a couple of bugs.

As for 4x PPC, you should look up the "Sleepy Awesome". It's hilarious.

Is the bt mod manager worth installing?

Got 3025 Extended installed. Already seeing some new mechs on the battlefield, like Rifleman, Archer, and so on. As well as some strange weapons like Binary Laser (basically, Super Heavy L LASER) Vehicles seems quite a bit harder to kill (unless you use call shot and punch through the turret armor) as they have heavy mech level armor now. And AI now knows to run away when it took a heavy hit.

Also saw an interesting addition: salvage dispute, where the employer claims first dibs on some of the mech parts salvage, but you want it in the pool. If you give it up, you gain rep and gets extra salvage thrown in. If you choose to retain, you get bad rep. Or you can sue in court, and see how the court rules (roll a dice). That makes salvage interesting.

Was able to resume the campaign save (i.e. after I finished the Arano restoration campaign) with 3025 Extended and now I'm happily doing Flashpoints with 3025 Extended. I'm not sure I really want to play Roguetech now.

The new expansion is out in a few hours. Anyone going to start a new campaign?

I'm not sure I want to go through the scripted campaign missions again, but I'll probably start up career mode (ideally once extended 3025 gets updated for compatibility).

NickAragua wrote: Tue Jun 04, 2019 9:15 am I'm not sure I want to go through the scripted campaign missions again, but I'll probably start up career mode (ideally once extended 3025 gets updated for compatibility).

This exactly. I'm not firing up the game again until the mods catch up - but I'm up for it. Career mode, not campaign.

Actually good question, does the campaign include Flashpoints and City areas now? I never finished the campaign, as I wanted to do it with all the DLC.

RMC wrote: Tue Jun 04, 2019 7:46 am The new expansion is out in a few hours. Anyone going to start a new campaign?

I'm finally about halfway through after the last DLC so yea prolly!

I hate the word "campaign"...

"Campaign" = The Arano Restoration scripted campaign, base game plus scripted "priority missions" you must complete to advance the plot.

"Career" = base game, no scripted missions. Just you, a starter lance (1 medium and a couple light mechs) and a few mechwarriors, and starting capital (depending on your starting difficulty), and un-upgraded Argo, in orbit around a planet. Choose your own path (where to travel, what missions to take, which faction to enrage or appease). The only catch is you only have 1200 days to do it.

"Skirmish" = quick battles, take a predefined lance (or a custom lance) up against a different lance with the same budget restrictions. No repair, no death, just fight, fight, fight.

So when you say "start a campaign", I'd assume you really mean career. As all the DLCs do is enhance the "base game" with more choices.

Anybody try out 1.6 with extended 3025? Does it work?

I did a mission this morning and didn't even notice I didn't have extended 3025. I think the 1.6 update unpatched mektek.

Yeah, you have to re-inject ModTek.

However, I've learned that any mods that add entirely new mech chassis graphics (e.g. Archer, Warhammer) have been borked. Apparently HBS changed the formatting on some 3d model asset file or something, so all the guys that imported and kitbashed the models from MWO are going to have to update them to the new format. So, I guess I'm playing something else for now, I just can't go back to not having Phoenix Hawks and Marauders running around.

Go into Properties / Beta and go back to 1.5.1. I'm doing that right now.

I tried patching Modtek to 7.2 and reinject, forgot to delete .modtek subdir and modtek crashed. Had to endtask it. Then once I got into a mission, none of the mechs would move (but jumpjet works, strangely). Can't shoot anything either. Restarting the mission got me the "infinite spinner". Waited a whole minute. Going back to 1.5.1 until they get that mess sorted.

NickAragua wrote: Wed Jun 05, 2019 10:24 pmHBS changed the formatting on some 3d model asset file or something, so all the guys that imported and kitbashed the models from MWO are going to have to update them to the new format.

This seems like an unwarranted change that would just mess with modders. I really hope there was a good reason - or at least not a bad reason. Even something like "We updated our design tools and that caused it to use a new format, sorry" would be acceptable.

I'll be waiting this out until the best mods catch up with the expansion content.

Reloaded a previous savegame and resumed my campaign conclusion where I just go onto various flashpoints to experience them.

I didn't see any new mechs, despite reloading all the mods of 3025 extended.

Redid a Flashpoint where I was contracted to blast a Lyran base by marking it with beacons, but the base was heavily defended with mechs. Fortunately, I can have a fellow mercenary group drop on us if I take out the anti-air turret generators. When I first did this one, I went in with half assault and half medium, hoping to use the assault mechs to grab the closest point and fire support the other two, while the two mediums split and go for the objectives. Didn't work. One medium (the one by the ocean) made it, but the other one ran into heavy opposition and got blasted.

Second time I played, I went in with 3 assault mechs and one medium mech. The medium went for the market point on water. The three assault mechs split slightly, one charge up the hill, two more went forward to occupy the first one. One's the "sniper" King Crab, and the other, Twin LRM Banshee. The runner was my Lostech Highlander. Any way, Banshee ran forward, and blasted a mech in its way. King Crab shot at the turrets. The flanker shot at a turret and took it out the next round. Highlander charged up the hill. Next turn, Banshee ignored the medium mech and blasted the generator, allowing the Leopold dropship to drop the merc company reinforcements. And they immediately started firing on all the nearby enemies. To make a long story short, Highlander was able to occupy the western point, the flanker medium Hunchback occupied the eastern point, and the Banshee and King Crab occupied the southern. Unfortuantely, Banshee got a critical hit and was knocked down, and took quite a bit of damage. The pilot was wounded despite +2 cockpit protection. I had it retreat into cover while King Crab took over as the tank. But a "last gasp" suicidal charge by the remaining Jagermech destroyed one of the King Crab's arms due to an Gauss ammo bin explosion, and I lost one of the few Guass Rifles I had. Once the base was destroyed, I was told to run for the evac point before timer expires, and all four mechs made it JUST before the deadline.

Rescuing the merc company in the subsequent mission (without pay) was done without incident. While there were quite a few mediums and heavies, with a few assaults, my lance, now composed of mech warriors with skills all in the 9's and 10's, quickly made mincemeat of the enemy mechs. While payment was zero, was able to salvage an heavy and a medium mech plus loot so still was able to not lose money.

Did another flashpoint where I have to kill this mech gladiator. The first two missions are simple enough. The third one, where it was supposed to be an one-on-one fight among 50-tonners? The guy cheated of course. He brought along a Locust, another medium, 2 vehicles, as well as his custom Crab called Big Claw King. But my Hunchback was equpped with a LLAS++ and AC10++, and my morale was high enough I was able to do a called shot every turn. And after six turns of cockpit shots, the gladiator is no more. Then it's a matter of mopping up, first the vehicles, then Locust, and ffinally, the lone survivor.

Turns out, Big Claw King is just a regular Crab refitted with an AC10, 2 flamers, and one of those ARM Mods that does +30 Stab damage. It also has a heat exchanger, even though it barely has any energy weapons. I removed the exchanger, then replaced all the weapons with ++ versions. I even added 2 MLAS and added jumpjets.

Speaking of which, it seems the game now enforces jumpjet slots. You can't mount any on a mech chassis that didn't have any. Whereas before, you can put them on EVERY mech.

Kasey Chang wrote: Thu Jun 06, 2019 10:12 amSpeaking of which, it seems the game now enforces jumpjet slots. You can't mount any on a mech chassis that didn't have any. Whereas before, you can put them on EVERY mech.

I don't know if this was being enforced by a mod I was using, but I don't think I ever knew that. I'm pretty sure I could only mount them on JJ capable Mechs ... or I just never bothered to try.

The jump jet slots thing is an artifact of Battletech Extended 3025.

Heat exchangers are *excellent* for mechs with high-heat weapons, as I recall.

Something I read but didn't quite register in my brain until now:

Head shot / pilot incap = 3 pieces of mech salvage

Lose both legs = 2 pieces of mech salvage

Chest (CT) punched out = 1 piece of mech salvage.

NickAragua wrote: Thu Jun 06, 2019 10:33 am The jump jet slots thing is an artifact of Battletech Extended 3025.

Heat exchangers are *excellent* for mechs with high-heat weapons, as I recall.

Yes, they are, but the Big Claw King rare mech only has one M LAS and 2 flamer++'s. Even after I removed the exchanger, its heat rating is still 10. IIRC, the default heat dissipation of a mech without any heatsinks is 30, and 2 flamers + 1 MLAS is way less than 30 heat. Flamers don't GENERATE any heat on the firing mech, IIRC. And MLAS has a heat of what? 12?

NickAragua wrote: Wed Jun 05, 2019 10:24 pm However, I've learned that any mods that add entirely new mech chassis graphics (e.g. Archer, Warhammer) have been borked. Apparently HBS changed the formatting on some 3d model asset file or something, so all the guys that imported and kitbashed the models from MWO are going to have to update them to the new format. So, I guess I'm playing something else for now, I just can't go back to not having Phoenix Hawks and Marauders running around.

Seems to be confirmed by guys on NexusMods, it's pinned in the discussion area for BX 3025.

1.6 Update
1.6 has broken all non vanilla modded mech asset bundles. What does that mean? Well it means we can't have a mod with anything but variants of the mechs in the base game, so Shadowhawk, Griffin, Firestarter etc. variants. So I am sorry to say that the compatibility update is waiting on the guys who made the mech bundles to figure out how to fix their mods and create a fixed version for every mech they did before Extended 3025 pushes an update.

Kasey Chang wrote: Thu Jun 06, 2019 10:50 amHead shot / pilot incap = 3 pieces of mech salvage

Seemingly even if you incapacitate the pilot by blowing 1 leg off (knocking it down), blowing off both right and left Torso sections (pilot wounded each time) and then pushing it over once. All that's left is the CT and a leg, but you'll get 3 parts?

I was thinking multiple head hits and knockdowns.

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Playing one of the first mod flashpoints: "The Raid", where you go to Tiverton and decide if you want to take on the entire black market for a chance at some juicy Lostech loot. The only problem: it's a 5-skull consecutive deployment flashpoint, where you meet up against multiple heavy and assault lances. And let's just say it's a PITA.

Attacking the base isn't that hard, once I got the knack of it. STAY BACK from the base, let the enemies come to you. Destroy the defenders (heavies), then the reinforcements (mediums), THEN the turrets, and finally, the buildings. Took me more than 20 turns, but none of my assault mechs lost more than armor.

Then the next mission is a PITA, as I finally caught up to the convoy running away. Except... It's got serious escorts. Zeus, Victor, Griffin, and Battlemaster. Plus the convoy itself has shrek PPC, Demolisher, and more. And even if ONE of those vehicles get away, you lose the mission. Once you destroy half of the escorts, second lance shows up... and this one is 2 Stalkers (LRM boats), a Zeus, and a King Crab (!)

And it's clear I brought the wrong lance. I thought I need speed to chase down the vehicles, so I brought a reasonably speedy lance: speed 5 (5 bars on movement): Battlemaster, Zeus, Victor, and Highlander. Should have kept my orginal assault lance.

My first attempt did not go well at all. Tangling with the escorts means I can't kill the vehicles. I got lucky and hit 3 out of 4, but the last one was too fast. I finally took out all the escorts, but the LRM boats are blasting me with LRM barrages that 3 out of 4 mechs lost an arm and half of their firepower. And before I can say retreat, the dropship came down and scooped up the last vehicle, and it's "Mission Failed".

In retrospect, I should have KEPT my entire assault lance. Parallel the road and run up the hill to gain LOS to the vehicles and blast them long range. Then keep climbing the hill (with jumpjets if necessary) to make the escorts come to us (the road loops around, but the mechs can cut across by climbing the mountain) and we have the height advantage. Once the convoy's dead, the escorts and support can be dealt with at leisure. The only question is when does the support lance show up.

OTOH, if I play this flashpoint through, I'd lose access to black market altogether. Not sure if it's worth the trade.

Kasey Chang wrote: Thu Jun 06, 2019 5:08 pmI was thinking multiple head hits and knockdowns.

That's what I always go for, too... but I'll take a KO through brutal dissection as well. I like to field at least one Mech packed with weaker weapons in hopes of getting additional random head shots through sheer numeric deck-stacking. Piles of LRM 5's aimed at a head. 6 Machine Guns aimed at a head. 5 Medium Lasers aimed at a head.

To date, in all the hours of playing, I think I've had one clean headshot kill where I had an enemy Mech at full health and plucked the pilot out with either a PPC or AC20 (can't remember which). When I did that, I responded with...

headshots are quite possible when you have +2 or +3 TTC, and double or triple PPC and/or gauss rifle, or close range AC20, and a pilot with call shot mastery (tactics 9) and high gunnery (9?) I think I've done 3 in the same turn once, but I was fielding an endgame lance: Awesome PPC boat (refitted with +3 energy TTC TTS), King crab with 2 gauss rifles and +2 ballistic TTC TTS, Lostech Highlander with gauss rifle, and Atlas w AC20.

EDIT; oh, and you'd want the weapons with +3 or +4 ACC (accuracy?) also.

I've had a mission where my Awesome PPC boat got 3 heatshots in three consecutive turns. Wasn't kidding. They are medium mechs, but heatshot's a headshot.

Against heavies and assaults, you need gauss rifles.

TTC? Critical chance?

Paingod wrote: Fri Jun 07, 2019 12:18 pm TTC? Critical chance?

I think he meant TTS (Targeting and Tracking System).

Correct. I keep thinking Target Computer.

FWIW, Urban Warfare has a small 15% discount over at Fanatical.

OK, so my playthroughs have been unmodded, so far. I figured I would start trying some of the popular mods with Urban Warfare, but I'm assuming none of them work at this time? Which ones would I want, and where would I watch to see when they do become compatible?

Hell, you can probably just keep an eye on this thread, I'm checking the mod pages daily.

My main interest is Battletech Extended 3025, which basically just adds a crap-ton more vehicles and mechs to the game without changing the mechanics. It also includes the "Battletech Performance Fix", which makes it so the UI doesn't lag so much when you have a lot of mechs/mechwarriors/equipment.

"eXtended Lore Rebalancing Project" adds a lot of mechs/tanks, but also messes around with weapons balance and some game mechanics.

RogueTech is basically a total conversion to TableTop and introduces a very large amount of new tech/mechanics.

All of these depend on the "Community Asset Bundle", which is basically 3D models and animation rigs of all the mechs added by the community, and that is currently the bottleneck.

FWIW, the mod "turbine" really does speed up load time. That drop ship orbiting screen? Normally takes about 30 seconds or more for "begin mission" to show up. It now takes about 15.

I went back to 1.5.1 as I don't have Urban warfare yet, to enjoy 3025 Extended. I haven't seen too many of the new vehicles, but they do show up sometimes, usually on random missions, not the Flashpoint missions. Those seem to be hard-coded.

I have 75 million C-bills in my account and I'm basically collecting mechs like Pokemon. I have one of everything in the regular game. I am still looking for the extended additions like Wasp, Ostsol, Rifleman, and so on.

I am thinking my lance has become a bit too powerful.

I nabbed a Gauss rifle in one of the Flashpoints and for grins, I put on on an Orion, along with a PPC++ (+4 ACC). Dang, that's like a sniper. kills even assault mechs dead as long as the ammo hold out.

I refitted my King Crab with 2 gauss rifles, a L LAS, and a LRM10. It's almost enough to bust a heavy turret by itself (I should change it to LRM15 and lose some armor?)

Add to the lance my Lostech Highlander (with Gausss rifle) and my LRM boat Stalker (with 2xLRM15 and 2xLRM10) with +3 Missile TTS and/or my Awesome PPC boat (3x PPC++ (+4 ACC) with +3 TTS I can take out almost any mech before they reach medium range.

The only way I can fail a mission is I didn't move tactically and got surrounded by assault mechs AND turrets, even 5 skull missions.

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I decided to start a new career in 3025 Extended. Let's see how well I do.

Kasey Chang wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2019 9:42 pm I am thinking my lance has become a bit too powerful.

I nabbed a Gauss rifle in one of the Flashpoints and for grins, I put on on an Orion, along with a PPC++ (+4 ACC). Dang, that's like a sniper. kills even assault mechs dead as long as the ammo hold out.

I refitted my King Crab with 2 gauss rifles, a L LAS, and a LRM10. It's almost enough to bust a heavy turret by itself (I should change it to LRM15 and lose some armor?)

Add to the lance my Lostech Highlander (with Gausss rifle) and my LRM boat Stalker (with 2xLRM15 and 2xLRM10) with +3 Missile TTS and/or my Awesome PPC boat (3x PPC++ (+4 ACC) with +3 TTS I can take out almost any mech before they reach medium range.

The only way I can fail a mission is I didn't move tactically and got surrounded by assault mechs AND turrets, even 5 skull missions.

No such thing as too powerful. It just means you're a good merc company to hire...