Battletech

Sludig said:

PS: Your smackdown in the WW2 RTS got deleted in server move, you need to re-educate duder over there.

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There is a personal interest in anything related to WW2 RTS dialogue over here.

Sludig said:

Turns out my backer level was full game not beta. Did sound like lots of chances to do feedback. You layed it out well, make sure to actually let them know! PS: Your smackdown in the WW2 RTS got deleted in server move, you need to re-educate duder over there.

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Ohhhh shiiiiiitttt #NotAllShermans

All your complains about aim and damage locations etc sound exactly like old Battletech to me? There was never any ability to try and call out specific body parts for targeting, and the entire system was based around that. The game falls apart if you can just always target center torso with dual PPC fire or whatever and blow through armor instantly; splash damage and random assignment were integral to the armor balance and loadouts of how the mechs were designed.

Do they show you any of the combat math in the UI? Are they just straight porting the old dice system over, or is like an XCOM system?

ronne said:

All your complains about aim and damage locations etc sound exactly like old Battletech to me? There was never any ability to try and call out specific body parts for targeting, and the entire system was based around that. The game falls apart if you can just always target center torso with dual PPC fire or whatever and blow through armor instantly; splash damage and random assignment were integral to the armor balance and loadouts of how the mechs were designed.

Do they show you any of the combat math in the UI? Are they just straight porting the old dice system over, or is like an XCOM system?

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Nope, it appears like a quasi dice system but there's no information except the result. You'll see "miss miss miss dodge 25 miss miss miss miss miss" from a full alpha from an atlas.

The aim thing isn't a big deal, it's just random when you get placed shots and basically everything misses all the time anyway so it's kind of pointless. In that regard the tactical element disappears entirely, because driving your mech around to say hope you blast off the left arm weapon is comically ineffective. Stuff just does not connect reliably unless you are point blank and flanking or tickling to death with missiles. On top of that there's no discernable difference with any type of cover (unless it literally blocks LOS and out of range of top down).

I'm sure it will get changed but the tactical element is completely pointless right now when you can drive up past two catapults on overwatch over three rounds, take virtually no damage and immediately destroy any mech by shooting it from behind because center torso is literally the only thing you splash to.

I still smash pen and paper mechs with friends. There must be a roll system under the hood, at the very minimum like Xcom if they are emulating the pen and paper rules. Body part targeting requires I think the Targeting Computer and comes with roll penalties. There is a ton of random types of dying in pen and paper. I've been 12/12/12 headshot killed in turn 1. And we've also had mechs that end up stripped of armor on virtually every body part but still remain functional. It should be about protracted trading. And rear armor is nothing, A rear flank will almost always bore internal, especially with any 10+ dmg weapons. Your explanation of what your experiencing, sounds like playing some rookie pilots with stock piloting/gunnery skills.

Heavy mech combat is not a quick most of the time. The biggest single strike weapons are around 20 points of damage. I just linked a random 95 ton mech, key thing to look at is the distribution of armor points. You can see the rear back has more or less the density of the head. The game distributes damage by forcing you into a location roll after you hit, where center torso is 7, other torsos are 8/6, 12 is the head. What occurs when flanked is the center torso from the rear is still a 7. The probability of a 7 is like 6/36 and a 12 or 2 is 1/36.

The game might suck, but it sounds like they are implementing the table top rules correctly with your complaint. The UI sounds like it needs this information though badly. Without a mech bay aspect to the game I bet it does feel extremely limited.

It's similar but definitely not 100% comparable, for instance medium lasers do 25 damage and something else does 100 (not really sure what because of the UI and I've never used one of the mech loadouts with it apparently).

I'm reasonably sure part of it has to do with green pilots, the stats all seem to be very low (assume you can raise them in campaign mode over time or something). Also there appears to be indication for special skills but looks like they aren't implemented or aren't available on canned noob pilots or something. I'll have to look tomorrow.

PPC maybe? They should hit hard but generate a fuckton of heat. Sounds like balance needs a lot of work. The big complaints I'm seeing too are from large mechs legging smaller mechs and having them get up, run around, and shoot you in the ass. Like a Jenner or Locust should be able to do anything at all with a damaged/missing leg.

I'm in beta. So far seems like combat is like X-com, but with mechs, but more complex combat system. Combat system is actually quite a bit deeper than the PNP board game (at least the version I played a long time ago).

These vids should give you a good idea. There's always a bit of luck involved with dice rolls obviously, but seems like fairly high skill ceiling in this game.

Terrain, LOS, movement, cover, knockdown, melee, jumping, initiative, delaying turns, and mech warrior special abilities are all equally important. There's a lot of cool electronic warfare abilities. Sensor lock seems mandatory if you want to reliably hit sprinting targets. Indirect fire and using other mechs as spotters for LRMs is awesome.

Taken at 2560*1080 but shrunk down to 1600w for easier viewing in forum. Context: below I have 4 mechs in cover in the woods at lower left. I caught an enemy mech sprinting toward me, so one of my pilots Sensor Locked it - removing defensive bonuses. My other mech now has 90% chance to hit it - except with the LRM which has a close range penalty, so I toggled it off before firing (bottom right).

See I thought there was a big thing that they had gotten the rights to the unseen.

Shame since most are imo dumb anyways and only a small handful I'd like to see. Still find it lol that a couple of them are in the oldest macross saga series. (Not sure which came first)

N/M guess the video mentions they all started from macross.

This is what I hate about copyright. Or rather, this is one of the many things I hate about copyright. Copyright law in the US sucks huge donkey nuts for anybody other than the grandson of the grandson of the creator. See Christopher Tolkien for further examples.

Dude what a bunch of horse shit. If I lived near any Harmony Gold employee I'd burn their house down.

Seriously fuck off with these 30 year old bogus copyrights on mech designs that are nothing like the current ones.

So much strife has been caused by the incredibly terrible licensing of 'macross' to Harmony Gold. Not only for Battletech, but also for the release of any 'macross' sequel series in the U.S.

Can't wait for this game. Saw this on youtube and it pulled me straight back into the game.