BattleTech coming back via Kickstarter

Jaddison · Post by **Jaddison** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 11:08 am

http://battletechgame.com/

They will get my money.

Arkon · Post by **Arkon** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 11:15 am

Day 1 backing for me, HBS has earned a lot of goodwill in my eyes for how well they have handled Shadowrun.

RMC · Post by **RMC** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 11:29 am

Oh HBS is doing this? There ShadowRun Hong Kong is coming out in Aug, so this would be a perfect time to announce a new game for them..

I might actually back it then. I am at work so can't follow the link, can anyone doa cut and paste for me so I can see what is being suggested for the game?

Any RPG elements or just a fancy FPS with robots instead of people?

One of the best games I played as a kid was a Battletech game where you were the pilot and could get different mechs to pilot. Maybe Crescent Hawk Inception, or something like that. So is it going to be like that type of game, or more like MechWarrior?

Zurai · Post by **Zurai** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 11:42 am

RMC wrote:Oh HBS is doing this? There ShadowRun Hong Kong is coming out in Aug, so this would be a perfect time to announce a new game for them..

I might actually back it then. I am at work so can't follow the link, can anyone doa cut and paste for me so I can see what is being suggested for the game?

Any RPG elements or just a fancy FPS with robots instead of people?

One of the best games I played as a kid was a Battletech game where you were the pilot and could get different mechs to pilot. Maybe Crescent Hawk Inception, or something like that. So is it going to be like that type of game, or more like MechWarrior?

The website says:

TACTICAL ‘MECH
COMBAT RETURNS TO THE PC.

Harebrained Schemes is pleased to announce their return to Kickstarter this Fall to partner with Backers in co-funding the creation of BATTLETECH. Jordan Weisman, the creator of BattleTech and MechWarrior, is back with the first turn-based BattleTech game for PC in over two decades. Steeped in the feudal political intrigue of the BattleTech universe, the game will feature an open-ended Mercenaries-style campaign that blends RPG ‘Mech and MechWarrior management with modern turn-based tactics.

Which is an instant buy-in from me, especially with how well Shadowrun turned out.

RMC · Post by **RMC** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 11:45 am

Zurai wrote:
RMC wrote:Oh HBS is doing this? There ShadowRun Hong Kong is coming out in Aug, so this would be a perfect time to announce a new game for them..

I might actually back it then. I am at work so can't follow the link, can anyone doa cut and paste for me so I can see what is being suggested for the game?

Any RPG elements or just a fancy FPS with robots instead of people?

One of the best games I played as a kid was a Battletech game where you were the pilot and could get different mechs to pilot. Maybe Crescent Hawk Inception, or something like that. So is it going to be like that type of game, or more like MechWarrior?
The website says:

TACTICAL ‘MECH
COMBAT RETURNS TO THE PC.

Harebrained Schemes is pleased to announce their return to Kickstarter this Fall to partner with Backers in co-funding the creation of BATTLETECH. Jordan Weisman, the creator of BattleTech and MechWarrior, is back with the first turn-based BattleTech game for PC in over two decades. Steeped in the feudal political intrigue of the BattleTech universe, the game will feature an open-ended Mercenaries-style campaign that blends RPG ‘Mech and MechWarrior management with modern turn-based tactics.
Which is an instant buy-in from me, especially with how well Shadowrun turned out.

Ohh... Nice... Yup, I think that is what that game I remember from the 80's was. Anyone know the name of it? Crescent Hawk's Inception is what I remember it called, but work and blockers do not work when looking for game data. I think you were basically a Merc unit in the inner sphere and had been betrayed or something and had to build your 'squad' back up and take out the big baddie. All turn based, and very much like the gold box games from SSI from that time period.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 11:52 am

This line is key:

the game will feature an open-ended Mercenaries-style campaign that blends RPG ‘Mech and MechWarrior management with modern turn-based tactics.

I am so in on this one!

NickAragua · Post by **NickAragua** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 11:52 am

Well, if I can't get a Mechwarrior game, this is pretty much the next best thing.

Sepiche · Post by **Sepiche** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 11:54 am

Yeah, the first game was Crescent Hawk's Inception.

IIRC you play the son of the leader of the Crescent Hawk's who worked for House Steiner. The game starts with you in a training academy to learn mech piloting until your instruction is cut short by an invasion of the planet by House Kurita. Then it opens up to you growing and managing your company while waging a guerilla war against the invaders.

Great game and way ahead of it's time in a lot of ways.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 12:08 pm

Wiki on The Crescent Hawk's Inception.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 12:15 pm

I guess I'll need to do my own Kickstarter to get the MechWarrior game where you play as the Clans and wipe out all the insufferable inner sphere douchebags in conquest.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 12:17 pm

Isgrimnur wrote:Wiki on The Crescent Hawk's Inception.

The player takes the role of Jason Youngblood,

Ugh.

a young cadet MechWarrior stationed on Pacifica

Ugh.

I guess it's nice that George Lucas did some naming consulting work outside of Star Wars, though.

Zurai · Post by **Zurai** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 12:21 pm

baelthazar wrote:This line is key:

the game will feature an open-ended Mercenaries-style campaign that blends RPG ‘Mech and MechWarrior management with modern turn-based tactics.
I am so in on this one!

Yep that's the line which sold me as well. Actually I probably still would have done a wait-and-see if it wasn't HBS, but after Shadowrun I trust 'em enough to throw in an entry-level Kickstarter pledge.

RMC · Post by **RMC** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 12:27 pm

El Guapo wrote:
Isgrimnur wrote:Wiki on The Crescent Hawk's Inception.

The player takes the role of Jason Youngblood,
Ugh.

a young cadet MechWarrior stationed on Pacifica
Ugh.

I guess it's nice that George Lucas did some naming consulting work outside of Star Wars, though.

Dude... I was like 14... This was awesome at the time... Don't be too harsh with my memories...

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 12:37 pm

El Guapo wrote:I guess I'll need to do my own Kickstarter to get the MechWarrior game where you play as the Clans and wipe out all the insufferable inner sphere douchebags in conquest.

Wait? The Inner Sphere were douchebags compared to the Clans? Never mind that the introduction of the Clans killed Battletech for many people

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 12:48 pm

Philosophically opposed factions view each other as douchebags. Yep.

RMC · Post by **RMC** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 12:49 pm

IceBear wrote:
El Guapo wrote:I guess I'll need to do my own Kickstarter to get the MechWarrior game where you play as the Clans and wipe out all the insufferable inner sphere douchebags in conquest.
Wait? The Inner Sphere were douchebags compared to the Clans? Never mind that the introduction of the Clans killed Battletech for many people

hehehe... Yeah I remember when they add the 'Elementals' which were powered armored guys that could rip apart the inner sphere mechs.

I was like, why have huge battlemechs when the elemental guys can do more.

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 12:54 pm

Wasn't it a squad of 5 elementals? Still I know what you mean. Whenever I run a Battletech / Mechwarrior campaign I still gravitate to 3025 era. I can add some advanced weapons from Star League caches as rewards without things getting overpowered (plus it adds a level of concern for players trying to protect their rare equipment )

tru1cy · Post by **tru1cy** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 1:00 pm

I'm in as long as it doesn't include the Clans or the current Dark Age stuff. Give me a game where being Dispossessed meant something

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 1:07 pm

IceBear wrote:
El Guapo wrote:I guess I'll need to do my own Kickstarter to get the MechWarrior game where you play as the Clans and wipe out all the insufferable inner sphere douchebags in conquest.
Wait? The Inner Sphere were douchebags compared to the Clans? Never mind that the introduction of the Clans killed Battletech for many people

For some reason I've always favored the Clans over the Inner Sphere, I think because it's the Inner Sphere factions that caused everything to go to pot by starting a Civil War, whereas the Clans are the descendants of Kerensky's forces, who refused to acquiesce in the destruction of the Star League, and who, once the break-up of the Star League became inevitable, went into exile rather than sign up with any of the warring breakaway states. By contrast the Inner Sphere houses all consigned people to generations of civil war and degenerating technology and standards of living.

It's also because my formative battletech memories were primarily of playing MechWarrior 2, and that Jade Falcon intro is insanely cool (and still holds up, incidentally).

The clans may well have broken the pen n' paper MechWarrior universe, but I wouldn't know since I didn't play a ton of that.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 1:15 pm

El Guapo wrote:It's also because my formative battletech memories were primarily of playing MechWarrior 2, and that Jade Falcon intro is insanely cool (and still holds up, incidentally).

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 1:22 pm

Isgrimnur wrote:
El Guapo wrote:It's also because my formative battletech memories were primarily of playing MechWarrior 2, and that Jade Falcon intro is insanely cool (and still holds up, incidentally).

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 1:33 pm

My formative time with Battletech were with the Michael Stackpole novels and the Clans were the douchebags...especially Jade Falcon :p

Guess it depends on what side you were most used to

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 1:38 pm

Campaign. Campaign? Campaign!

How long has it been since we've had a Battletech game that didn't rely on random people on the internet in order to be fun?

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 2:16 pm

Hoping for something more like this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeeyCau4MI4

NickAragua · Post by **NickAragua** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 2:28 pm

I'm pretty sure my first substantive exposure to Battletech was the Saturday morning cartoon. I thought it was so cool that I woke myself up at seven in the morning just so I could watch it. Until I figured out that I could program the VCR to tape it.

Never got into the tabletop game, but did play a lot of Mechwarrior and Mech Commander (and, uh, Mech Assault) afterwards, which cemented my dislike for both clans and inner sphere. Mercenaries are cool, though, and I do love me some clan mech parts. I never really understood that thing with lumberjack mechs though.

Arkon · Post by **Arkon** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 2:31 pm

Rip wrote:Hoping for something more like this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeeyCau4MI4

I loved MechCommander.

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 2:37 pm

Rip wrote:Hoping for something more like this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeeyCau4MI4

Pretty sure that's what they're going for, but turned based

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 2:42 pm

IceBear wrote:
Rip wrote:Hoping for something more like this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeeyCau4MI4
Pretty sure that's what they're going for, but turned based

Which would make it even more awesome. Although pausable real-time is pretty much the same thing. Hopefully "turns" play out nice graphically. Turn-based should at least make it more multiuser friendly. Although I am much more interested in a SP campaign.

RMC · Post by **RMC** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 2:44 pm

IceBear wrote:My formative time with Battletech were with the Michael Stackpole novels and the Clans were the douchebags...especially Jade Falcon :p

Guess it depends on what side you were most used to

Yup, this is my time as well. And I think your right the Elementals were teams of 5, and I think they were all 'modified' or just genetically larger than the other normal people.

Sepiche · Post by **Sepiche** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 3:02 pm

My brother and I started playing Battletech soon after 2nd Edition came out. Back then there was no such thing as a Battletech computer game, House Liao was more than just a tiny strip of territory in the Inner Sphere, and the most dangerous state in the periphery was the Rim Worlds Republic.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 3:03 pm

Sepiche wrote:My brother and I started playing Battletech soon after 2nd Edition came out. Back then there was no such thing as a Battletech computer game, House Liao was more than just a tiny strip of territory in the Inner Sphere, and the most dangerous state in the periphery was the Rim Worlds Republic.

And kids respected their elders!

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 3:24 pm

Guapo is dead to me.

IceBear wrote:Never mind that the introduction of the Clans killed Battletech for many people

So much this... Well so much this, except the BattleTech Center in Chicago used clan mechs and we made several pilgrimages to the FASA store front just to play at the BattleTech Center.

...

I'd love to see a larger Mechwarrior Campaign, either with dumbed down Mechwarrior video gaming or with TBS Battletech. I don't know that I'd kickstart one though.

I'd also love to see a larger Warhammer campain.

I love the idea of a huge strategic universe that still not only has individual geo politics on different worlds but also has tactical skirmishes.

Mr Bismarck · Post by **Mr Bismarck** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 6:23 pm

They can have my money. All of it.

They can put the Clan invasion stuff in the first expansion/DLC. So that I can ignore that pointless bullshit.

killbot737 · Post by **killbot737** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 6:23 pm

There's a whole pile of stuff in the BT universe that happened after the clans were defeated, although if you jumped ship after the clans showed up you wouldn't know about it. I mostly didn't either until Catalyst started their redoing of the rules a few years ago.

Word of Blake!

BT is definitely a candidate for the engine they used for Shadowrun. Two phased movement/fire, all sorts of effects and whatnot.

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 6:38 pm

Yeah I just got the 3150 technical readout. I picked up one of the free Mechwarrior adventures that had a misjump cause the players to jump to a parallel universe in which Kerensky never left. That might be an interesting setting to play in.

Here's a whole bunch of free Battletech stuff
http://drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?&key ... =0&pfrom=0

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 7:54 pm

IceBear wrote:
El Guapo wrote:I guess I'll need to do my own Kickstarter to get the MechWarrior game where you play as the Clans and wipe out all the insufferable inner sphere douchebags in conquest.
Wait? The Inner Sphere were douchebags compared to the Clans? Never mind that the introduction of the Clans killed Battletech for many people

The Clans are what you get if you let a 10 year old design a game. If they could have added cheat codes that literally turned off the Inner Sphere mechs during a fight it would have been only slightly less fair.

I like the idea of the Clans, and their mechs, but as far as game balance goes, the Clans destroyed it. If there were only a few Clan mechs you could balance around it, but eventually they just took over the board.

Inner Sphere mechs had a lot of give and take. If you want x, you need to give up y or z. Clan mechs were like "you want x? How many? Ok, but that means you only get 10 y's and z's, are you sure?".

In any case, here's hoping the new game is good to great.

Stuie · Post by **Stuie** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 10:38 pm

Zurai wrote:
baelthazar wrote:This line is key:

the game will feature an open-ended Mercenaries-style campaign that blends RPG ‘Mech and MechWarrior management with modern turn-based tactics.
I am so in on this one!
Yep that's the line which sold me as well. Actually I probably still would have done a wait-and-see if it wasn't HBS, but after Shadowrun I trust 'em enough to throw in an entry-level Kickstarter pledge.

I keep throwing money at my computer and it keeps bouncing off.

Definitely in on this kickstarter once they'll take my money.

MonkeyFinger · Post by **MonkeyFinger** » Wed Jul 29, 2015 10:53 pm

SO in on this.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Thu Jul 30, 2015 12:52 pm

A tactical turn based RPG with mechs made by HBS?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgFNnpB7sN0

DD* · Post by DD* » Thu Jul 30, 2015 1:50 pm

Never backed a KS before, but I'm in on this one!