BattleTech coming back via Kickstarter

[IceBear]

Is there somewhere where you can see how many injuries an enemy mechwarrior has suffered? Sometimes I lose count and I'm thinking I've had a couple that needed 4 to take them out.

I haven't found anyway to see it yet. Note that enemy mechs can have cockpit mods and presumably up to 5 health, same as your pilots.

That's what I figured and why I wanted to see their injuries. Thanks...hopefully it'll be in the ease of life patch that's coming

[Rip]

I think you need to click on it and it'll list what's there.

There will be two paper dolls for the enemy mech when you're doing the called shot...you need to click on the area on the top one...not the one where you are selecting your target for the called shot

Exactly. That same ragdoll is at the top anytime you target a mech. You can also right-click on a mech itself on the field and get a popup showing loadout and damage details. Hovering the cursor over an area on that will show damage for that part as well as equipment in that location.

Another info display I found by accident is if you right-click on the pilot pictures it will show you their skill levels.

Is there somewhere where you can see how many injuries an enemy mechwarrior has suffered? Sometimes I lose count and I'm thinking I've had a couple that needed 4 to take them out.

That is also on the display you get when you right-click on a pilots picture. As well as being indicated with the little dots under the pilot photo.

[IceBear]

I mean the enemy pilots. I'll try to right click on them to see if it's there

[AWS260]

I mean the enemy pilots. I'll try to right click on them to see if it's there

I'd kind of like that information to remain hidden. It makes logical sense -- why would I be able to know how tough the enemy mechwarriors are? -- and it adds a welcome bit of uncertainty.

[IceBear]

I mean the enemy pilots. I'll try to right click on them to see if it's there

I'd kind of like that information to remain hidden. It makes logical sense -- why would I be able to know how tough the enemy mechwarriors are? -- and it adds a welcome bit of uncertainty.

True. I am feeling like I might be hitting some bugs in that area but not 100% sure. Was more for confirmation that everything is working as it should. But yeah, it makes sense not knowing.

[DD*]

I’ll have to try that click on the rag doll function - I was going from memory on a lot of the models but it is definitely worthwhile knowledge. There are a few mediums that cluster most or all of their weapons on one arm - blow that off and you basically pull their teeth. Good times.


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[$iljanus]

Just had a visually cool battle on an airless moon. The light was pretty harsh from the sun which makes sense with the lack of atmosphere and I was dropped with the sun at my back so my mechs gave off a shadow onto the lunar surface. Also liked the little touches like puffs of vapor coming from my mechs. Arctic planets are also a favorite venue of mine due to the nice scenery. Also due to the advantage in heat dissipation.

Just finished engine improvements to the Argo and that unpatched engine on the Argo finally looks whole. Looking forward to the savings I'll receive due to the reduction in travel time between stars. Next improvement is either fresh hydroponic veggies for the crew or fixing the last habitat pod on the ship.

[Hyena]

Running an assassinate Mission last night, and up til now I hadn't seen anything heavier than 60 tons. Usually it's a dragon or other some borderline Mech. I'm taking out a medium Lance that's protecting the assassination target and up walks a 75-ton Black Knight. I was able to keep him off balance by blowing both of his legs off, and then I discovered that I had only selected the 2/11 Salvage choice, so I wasn't able to get the full mech.

[LordMortis]

Black Knight. I was able to keep him off balance by blowing both of his legs off

[Hyena]

Black Knight. I was able to keep him off balance by blowing both of his legs off

Oh my GOD how did I not mean to do that??

I am ashamed.

[NickAragua]

Well, here we go.

Last mission.

Unfortunately, we have to bring Kamea and her crappy Atlas. Well, at least it can take a beating.

The rest of the lance is my dude ("Faceplant") in the Highlander, Behemoth in a Battlemaster and Blockade in a Thunderbolt.

They keep saying it'll be the last fight, and maybe so, but if we survive, we're not really the kind of guys to settle down and take up gardening.

[NickAragua]

Aaand just like that, it's over. Going to take a bit of time to process it. After all that, even though the last couple of fights weren't really too challenging (not really a cakewalk, but I only had one mech get its armor breached, plus Kamea's Kraplas got a little beat up), I don't really feel like going back to putzing around the periphery, killing random pirates, every one of whom happens to own a heavy or assault mech. The campaign missions still provide a good amount of variety over the fairly limited procedurally generated missions.

Think I'll go back to working on Megamek for a while. I've been meaning to give that bot the capability to conduct space battles.

I'm probably going to do another replay though, once a few patches and FreeLC/DLC comes out. My wallet's wide open, HBS. Damn, this was an awesome game though. Worth every penny and day spent waiting for it, ever since that kickstarter went live.

[jztemple2]

Aaand just like that, it's over.

Thanks for posting your journey, it was very entertaining

[coopasonic]

Aaand just like that, it's over.

How many in game days to finish it?

I'm *finally* seeing assault mechs. The only one I have complete is the one Kamea gave me, but at least I am running into them now. I am dropping at 4 skulls strength but haven't tried anything higher than 3.5.

[NickAragua]

624 days.

Commander Nick "Faceplant" Aragua
41 deployments
14 injuries
67 mech kills
44 other kills

Final company mech lineup:
Thunderbolt
Orion
Quickdraw
Wolverine
Battlemaster
Grasshopper
Highlander
Trebuchet

Back bench:
Thunderbolt
Katapult
Griffin
Jagermech

I also got a Banshee and a uh... assault mech I'm not fond of... from the last two missions, and a bunch of lights and mediums in storage. Enough to outfit a regiment, but it's pointless because we only ever deploy one lance at a time.

As you can see, I only have the gift Highlander and the Battlemaster for assaults, the rest are heavies and heavyweight mediums. The reality is, when I see an assault mech, I don't screw around with trying to go for leg shots or whatever, I just flank and focus fire on the torso sections. Since they're relatively rare anyway, it's tough to find enough parts. I've got pieces of a Zeus, a King Crab and two Awesome variants in the hold.

[AWS260]

My Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robot:

A Grasshopper with jump jets to get in close, arm mods to punch hard, and six flamers to keep the bad guys from shooting back. Not very practical, but so much fun.

[tgb]

I'm considering restarting the campaign, now that I have a firmer sense of how things work and effective tactics. Two questions:

1)Has anyone come up with a mod that allows you to kip the tutorial?

2)One strategy I read today is to take all contracts for maximum salvage, the theory being that you can make more selling the excess than any cash the contract may pay. Has anyone tried that?

[Freyland]

I'm considering restarting the campaign, now that I have a firmer sense of how things work and effective tactics. Two questions:

1)Has anyone come up with a mod that allows you to kip the tutorial?

2)One strategy I read today is to take all contracts for maximum salvage, the theory being that you can make more selling the excess than any cash the contract may pay. Has anyone tried that?

1) Not that I am aware of. Due to come in next big patch

2) Only issue with that strategy for me would be "how close are you to financial insolvency?" because to really make money off salvage you need to generate whole mechs you can sell. The various weapon systems and components are not going to cut it themselves. So, if you only get one mission in a financial period, you are depending on getting enough "Mech Sections" to actually make one or two mechs to sell, and if you don't, you are screwed.

[Rip]

I'm considering restarting the campaign, now that I have a firmer sense of how things work and effective tactics. Two questions:

1)Has anyone come up with a mod that allows you to kip the tutorial?

2)One strategy I read today is to take all contracts for maximum salvage, the theory being that you can make more selling the excess than any cash the contract may pay. Has anyone tried that?

1. I think there is on Nexus but I just loaded the save game from just after the three year nap. Yea, I think this is it.

https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/57

Skips the 2 tutorial missions and the 1st mission with the full lance goes strait to the ship. Will let you start a new game Make your character and watch cut scenes Puts you on the ship like you just finished all the tutorial fluff. Perfect for a second play though and modders alike

2. I would say that is true if you save all the salvage to sell in Arano territory where prices will be much better. Early on I took as much cash as I needed to stay afloat and saved all the salvage to sell after Weldry which is the first chance to see in Arano territory(after you take it of course).

I just wish I had something worthwhile to speend the money on. Sitting on around $20M c-bills atm having just finished Smithon.

[Hyena]

I usually go for full salvage or at least nothing more than one tick down. I can't tell you how many times I've been burned by dropping a great mech that I would love to add to my stable but only having two salvage spots open. And yes, I have made a bit of money selling salvaged weapons, completed mechs, and ammo. It's not as much as the full missions; I'm usually hovering right around 1 million C bills but in all honesty the only thing I've ever really used money for is the very rare occasional purchasing of a + weapon and for traveling from system to system. Other than that, the money kind of seems like an extra mechanic. Not much reason to buy anything. I'm assuming that's why they put in the upgrades to the Argo, so you could have a money sink to use all the extra C bills you've amassed.

What's even funnier is that in previous MechWarrior games, I always felt the need to amass huge amounts of money because you could always buy a new Mech or there was always something to spend it on. But my Lance is good enough to where I don't spend much on repairs.

[Archinerd]

I'm considering restarting the campaign, now that I have a firmer sense of how things work and effective tactics. Two questions:

1)Has anyone come up with a mod that allows you to kip the tutorial?

2)One strategy I read today is to take all contracts for maximum salvage, the theory being that you can make more selling the excess than any cash the contract may pay. Has anyone tried that?

Be cautious with mods right now. Some of them don't work with the new updates and some break your saves.
At least from some comments I've seen on nexus and reddit.
I've stopped using the mods I had because it seems like updates are going to be coming fairly quickly for the next few weeks and the modders aren't always on top of it.
The only one I really miss is the less head injuries one.

[tgb]

I read about the changes coming in the next patch, and think I'll hold off on restarting until it drops.

[Madmarcus]

The forum effect overwhelmed my resistance; Cookie's Crew is now operational.

[NickAragua]

My approach to salvage really depends on the scenario and offered pay. If the pay is complete crap anyway, then I jack the salvage all the way up. If the contract is an assassination of some kind, then the salvage goes up to two or three priority salvage. Otherwise, I keep it 50/50, unless I'm really hard up for cash.

[jztemple2]

The forum effect overwhelmed my resistance; Cookie's Crew is now operational.

It's the reason I got the game, although I was so weak it was the discussion about the game before it was released that got me to preorder.

[Max Peck]

I'm considering restarting the campaign, now that I have a firmer sense of how things work and effective tactics. Two questions:

1)Has anyone come up with a mod that allows you to kip the tutorial?

2)One strategy I read today is to take all contracts for maximum salvage, the theory being that you can make more selling the excess than any cash the contract may pay. Has anyone tried that?

The game generates a checkpoint save every 30 days, when the financial report comes due. If you don't need to actually reroll your commander, you can effectively restart the campaign by loading the first financial report checkpoint. That puts you 30 days into the campaign, well after the tutorial, and with no worries about messing up the game state.

Failing that, here is a reddit thread with instructions on how to edit game files to allow restarting without doing the tutorial.

Open the "milestone_003_title_coronation_palace.json" file and look for the section titled "Results" In that section you'll find "value" : 100, and change it to "value" : 105 (Don't lose your commas!)

Doing this makes it so that it'll play the first cinematic after character creation, then skip to "8 hours later" aboard the Leopard. (Skipping the tutorial missions 1 & 2)

If you want to skip the Majesty Metals mission as well, you also need to open up the "milestone_106_title_threeYearsLater.json" file, and go to the same section. But for this one, you change the "value" : 110, to "value" : 111.

If you try to skip directly to milestone 111, it'll break the game, since you acquire the Leopard at milestone 105.

I gave it a quick test, and didn't encounter any errors, but that doesn't mean there aren't any.

Edit: u/HatMadderer helpfully pointed out that you can skip directly to 114 (instead of 105, then 111), since the script for 114 also sets the variables to acquire the Leopard (With dev comments about it being for debug puropses) A quick test shows that it should work as well as the above method, albeit with less modifications.

The max salvage strategy has been working well for me, but I didn't start using it until I had a small nest egg built up to cover a few months operating costs. The big bucks are from selling off surplus mechs, so it didn't start paying off until I built up a collection of salvaged mech parts.

[Paingod]

A good weekend of BattleTech.

I chewed through a couple more story missions and did a lot of other, random fighting. The game "universe" is huge for what you need to do with it. It's a shame there's so many stars that aren't very different from each other. I hope in the expansions they give you a really good reason to explore more of them aside from chasing stores and random missions.

Some highlights...

My first random "Lunar" drop was very pretty, and very hot. My builds run middling for heat efficiency across the board, and we got to a point where everyone was firing off one or two weapons to try and keep from overheating. We faced off against a Heavy lance of Pirates, and made short work of them overall.

Protecting an dropship zone, we come under attack by the second Battlemaster I've ever faced. There's a sense of urgency here, and we pulled off a miracle shot - my Called Shot Master in the Highlander made a perfect headshot with her Gauss cannon. One second, we were feeling hemmed in and trying to push back, the next second the biggest threat on the board was tumbling forward - armor intact, except for it's head.

We're looking for work in populated systems and come across a distress call, looking for a mercenary group to deal with a Lance of old MechWarriors that refuse to give up the fight and want the war - any war, I suppose - to keep rolling. I get their perspective, I do - what else would they do, grow flowers and breed goats? We accept the contract, unsure what we're really up against. When we land, we all move up - I haven't had a dedicated scout in a while; haven't needed one. We're packing a withering amount of firepower. The first sensor blip trips. 95t. The biggest thing I've ever faced. Holy cats! A second trace moves up. 90t. Ohhhh... this'll be fun. A third and fourth pop up. 100t each. ... Um. Veterans in a full Assault lance. I've never seen this. As they come into visual, each and every one of them is armed to the teeth and heavily armored. This is not a pirate brigade. That's a Banshee, Highlander, and two King Crabs. We're pulling back and spamming missiles, desperate for cover. At one point, a King Crab gets close enough to fire off two AC20 shots, scaring the bejeesus out of my pilots, but whiffing. I wanted to slap my console and yell "SEE! That's why I don't use those things!!" Between mountains of LRM fire, AC10's, and a Catapult K2 with 2xPPC++ (+30 Stabilization Damage), we knock these guys down over and over. Two of them get cleaned out with lucky headshots, two others get knocked down so often that they black out. That's FOUR Assault Mechs defeated by incapacitating their pilots, leaving the chassis almost entirely intact. I love it. We get to the payout and are reminded that we opted for C-Bills over salvage and can pick 2 parts up off the field. #$@@#^%&*@$! I scroll through the extensive list. I don't have any parts of any of these things. I pick out two King Crab sections and load them up, hoping our contact will throw in a third part if we get lucky. We get the inventory list back and it's a slap in the face. We got those two King Crab parts, and they tossed in a couple of lasers and a whole pile of Heat Sinks. Gorram #$*^&@.

At one point I managed to piece together an 80t Victor and add it to my collection. I assumed it had to be better than my Orions. I was able to give it an identical weapons, heat, and armor setup. The only difference was that the Victor does more melee damage, but moves a phase later. 5 extra tons, just to hit harder with his hands. Dismayed, I restored my Orion from the storage bay and put the Victor away.

[NickAragua]

Yeah, it's weird, other than that Highlander, I really just don't like assault mechs that much. Too slow, and the weapons count isn't worth that much considering the number of heat sinks you have to put on to prevent them from overheating. And they don't have *that* much more armor than the heavies.

[LordMortis]

My approach to salvage really depends on the scenario and offered pay. If the pay is complete crap anyway, then I jack the salvage all the way up. If the contract is an assassination of some kind, then the salvage goes up to two or three priority salvage. Otherwise, I keep it 50/50, unless I'm really hard up for cash.

I am still learning how to do this. Skulls plus pay off mission type seem to try and give you a hint.

When I first started playing, Played for 3 salvage every time, trying to get the magic mech to improve my group in one run and was forced to advance the story line quickly to maintain the books. I'm not sure what are spoilers but I made past the storyline with munitions but had to stop upgrading the Argo and had such lousy mechs with such high repairs, that I conceded before actually running out of money.

My second play through saw me always taking one piece of salvage, so I could cherry pick that one piece. This also gives me the luxury of advancing the story more slowly. Over time through OO and through my own observations I began to see that, you know, reading the mission, will often give you clues about when it might be wise to take more salvage. It might suggest heavier mechs but with poor pilots or armor (at this point) or it will tell your specific target is a heavy. This weekend, I got back to the munitions storyline for the second time and now I'm advancing the story with around 4Million CBills and my main mechs are 75,60,60,55, An HTH Blackknight (that kicks ass), a Dragon I don't have much use for, A Quickdraw that makes for a decent LRM support mechanism, and a versatile Shadowhawk. One or two of them is usually being worked on or in queue to be worked on, so I'm usually only at optimal team after a jump. I might get two battle with that optimal team if the first battle is milk run.

When I get back to the game, new types of scenarios seem to open up. I'll be doing my first ever defensive mission, hopefully tonight, and there should be my first ever escort mission to follow.

[Archinerd]

Yeah, it's weird, other than that Highlander, I really just don't like assault mechs that much. Too slow, and the weapons count isn't worth that much considering the number of heat sinks you have to put on to prevent them from overheating. And they don't have *that* much more armor than the heavies.

I have an Atlas D that I've been putting to good use for the last few missions. I mostly use it to absorb enemy fire while I move my flankers into position. I know you don't like those though. I also have a Battlemaster but I only use it on cold maps now, runs way too hot and I can fire a PPC faster and more often if I field a Panther instead.

Most surprising to me though, is I really like the Shadowhawk in this game. Never cared for it since Mechwarrior (the first one) but I love it now. It can jump around all day doing Alpha strikes now, and Since AC5s are actually pretty good it hits pretty hard. One of my favorite moments with it was sniping a very unstable Thunderbolt from halfway across the map, taking off it's entire left side and knocking it down.

[LordMortis]

I have never valued the jumping tactic in any Battletech game like I do in this version.

[Paingod]

Now that I've got a pile of ++ Medium Lasers - +10dmg, +50% Crit, etc - I'm mounted 8 of them on my Hunchback 4P with 4 JJ's and maxed out armor, and he's kind of fun. Driven by a Called-Shot Master, that's 8 rolls for an 18% chance at a headshot. He gets pretty lucky and makes a good scout with about as much armor as I have on my Orions. As it heats up, I just scale back the number of lasers firing.

[Fretmute]

I've called it quits on this. Yesterday I ran into my fifth consecutive battle mission that featured turn one reinforcements and an enemy force that outweighed me by two to one, despite being three skulls. I'm over it. Maybe someday they'll fix it in a patch.

[Sepiche]

I've called it quits on this. Yesterday I ran into my fifth consecutive battle mission that featured turn one reinforcements and an enemy force that outweighed me by two to one, despite being three skulls. I'm over it. Maybe someday they'll fix it in a patch.

I've found the maximum payment is a better indicator of mission difficulty. It seems pretty consistent to me that the higher the payout, the more enemies you'll be facing. The skulls seem to indicate how heavy the mechs you'll be facing are. So a 3 skull mission that only pays 300K will probably only have a handful of 55 - 65 ton mechs, but a 2 skull mission that pays out 1M will probably see you facing swarms of light and medium mechs.

[Max Peck]

I've called it quits on this. Yesterday I ran into my fifth consecutive battle mission that featured turn one reinforcements and an enemy force that outweighed me by two to one, despite being three skulls. I'm over it. Maybe someday they'll fix it in a patch.

I've pretty much internalized that as bad intel, planted by the opforce in order to lure me into an ambush. I suspect that it's actually just the result of the map size being relatively small compared to the sensor range and the fact that the secondary lance is already on the map at the start of the scenario rather than being spawned at the edge of the map or brought in on a drop ship after the target is engaged. My strategy for dealing with it is to expect it, and sidle around to try and engage either the primary or secondary lance on my own terms rather than charging straight into the target and getting caught by the ambush on my flank.

[Fretmute]

I've called it quits on this. Yesterday I ran into my fifth consecutive battle mission that featured turn one reinforcements and an enemy force that outweighed me by two to one, despite being three skulls. I'm over it. Maybe someday they'll fix it in a patch.

I've pretty much internalized that as bad intel, planted by the opforce in order to lure me into an ambush. I suspect that it's actually just the result of the map size being relatively small compared to the sensor range and the fact that the secondary lance is already on the map at the start of the scenario rather than being spawned at the edge of the map or brought in on a drop ship after the target is engaged. My strategy for dealing with it is to expect it, and sidle around to try and engage either the primary or secondary lance on my own terms rather than charging straight into the target and getting caught by the ambush on my flank.

Once or twice is bad intel. It happens every time. Since I can’t fire my XO, I had to fire the game.

[LordMortis]

I've found the maximum payment is a better indicator of mission difficulty. It seems pretty consistent to me that the higher the payout, the more enemies the more tonnage/experience you'll be facing.

Or that''s my experience. Again, I've been slowly learning (or convincing myself I've been learning) to tweak my expectations by examining what is being offered to me as an indicator of what I am about to get in to. High payouts mean I'm going to be facing a lot of enemy, one way or another. If it reads like it's concentrated or like their is a big guy somewhere, I'm damned sure to ask for three salvage choices. If it reads like ambush/extended engagement then I better prepare to take on hoards and take the cash.

At this stage, I fight pretty much any 3 skull engagements while my core of mechs/pilots is in tact. Not so much when they aren't. Two of my main pilots are specialists (Sharpshooter and Brawler, I think) the other two are the top of their generalist class and as mentioned my tonnage melee, close, long, versatile for a total of 245 tons, I think. By necessity, where I am it, is not uncommon to see 2.5 skulls at about 800,000k translating to up to two lances generalist of a total tonnage of around 350 tons plus support that is lethal if not deal with (I'm not sure how support works against tonnage/payout etc. Once my primary mission was a 3 PPC 60 ton tank, on a mission I used poor judgement for, thinking it was going to be some sort of heavy mech I wanted 3 salvage for). The mission will often clue me in if that typical 350+ tons plus support is in one or two lances and I'll know very well, once I land.

Or I'm hallucinating and things are just working out the way I hallucinate to the way I want them to be.

As I start with 3 skulls I have to relearn things as I am starting to see veteran specialist pilots more and more and better armed/armored mechs. I've been way off in my thoughts a time or two.

[NickAragua]

The main trick to encountering forces beyond your capability is to recognize that they're beyond your capability and whack the "withdraw" button real hard. The one time I ran into an "extra" assault lance (seriously, 4x 80+ ton mechs), I quickly finished up the first set of lighter enemy targets (luckily, three of them were tanks), then ran away. Kamea bitched at me a little bit, but better a little bitching than getting chewed up.

I kind of wish the main storyline had a branching campaign, so you could lose a mission or two - some of those story line missions are real bears.

[AWS260]

Once or twice is bad intel. It happens every time. Since I can’t fire my XO, I had to fire the game.

I've found that bad intel swings both ways. Last night I had a four-skull mission to defeat a mercenary lance. "Expect veteran, well-armed opponents."

The OpFor was a Highlander and... a Spider. That's it.

[IceBear]

It's one of those items they say they're fixing in a patch coming this month or next