Battletech

I'm finding this game a bit weird on difficulty. The first two optional missions I did were hard (took lots of damage) but then the next 3 were trivial yawns. My skill level didn't really change across the 5 missions (in fact in the last 3 i sabotage one of my mech by refitting it incorrectly but waiting for next trip to reconfigure). The first one specirfically was pia on damage level. Hum. I would have thought the first couple of missions would be easy.
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Also could use a tip on how to ambush enemy. It seems there is no option to not move but wait and fire if enemy comes in range and that enemy always seems to see me as soon as i see them.

Originally Posted by you
I'm finding this game a bit weird on difficulty. The first two optional missions I did were hard (took lots of damage) but then the next 3 were trivial yawns. My skill level didn't really change across the 5 missions (in fact in the last 3 i sabotage one of my mech by refitting it incorrectly but waiting for next trip to reconfigure). The first one specirfically was pia on damage level. Hum. I would have thought the first couple of missions would be easy.
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Also could use a tip on how to ambush enemy. It seems there is no option to not move but wait and fire if enemy comes in range and that enemy always seems to see me as soon as i see them.

You can reserve when you see them so they move towards you first.

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Yes i know that. WHen you see an enemy has an enemy seen you ?

Originally Posted by Pladio
You can reserve when you see them so they move towards you first.

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by you
Yes i know that. WHen you see an enemy has an enemy seen you ?

Yes, unless you have a rangefinder I believe.

Originally Posted by you
Yes i know that. WHen you see an enemy has an enemy seen you ?

Yep. There's a skill that allows you to see what the radar blips actually are, and if you do so, you can shoot at them, even if no mech is close enough to actually "see" them. LRM boats (mechs with mostly LRMs) are really useful together with a mech that can "detect" these radar blips, as you can really soften up the enemy before they get to you. Even better, you can use it on any heavy tanks you get blips for, and if they're SRM carrier, you can take them out quick and painlessly with your LRM boat.
(really, until you've got heavy mechs of your own, and even after that, you should be very careful around unknown heavy tanks)

And then we have the above mentioned rangefinder, which I never found worth using.

Not happy with gog; they need to learn how to program.

Good old games needs to steal some of the workers that Valve has for Steam, I believe. It is annoying as to how more stable most Steam products are versus GoG, and I'd like to know the reason why.

NO OVERWATCH! We know where that leads: fighters (soldiers, mechs, whatever) all going on overwatch then one single fighter inching just a little bit forward in hopes of getting a bunch of shots at the enemy. Firaxis has been bending over backwards since they released XCOM:EU to find ways to get players to actually stop doing that.

The difficulty is a bit random. Certain kinds of missions (hot landing, destroy a convoy) tend to be harder than others. Special missions tend to push the mech size in missions along.

What's the problem with GOG?? I would they those games would be slightly more stable than Steam's overlay and such.

Originally Posted by Zloth
What's the problem with GOG?? I would they those games would be slightly more stable than Steam's overlay and such.

The problem with GOG is how they patch games, and forcing you to re-download every DLC with an update. Sometimes you have to reinstall the entire game just to update.

With Battetech they didn't even offer stand alone update installers until after 1.0.2

I'm using gog galaxy with battletech and it allows beta patches and does a good job of only downloading partial updates. I'll redownload the entire game in a year or two after all the patches for archive purposes. The problem I ran into is when gog services go down the game will hang during auto saves when it has to contact those services. This is something they could prevent (the hangs) but their coders need a refreshment on timeouts and async programming.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
The problem with GOG is how they patch games, and forcing you to re-download every DLC with an update. Sometimes you have to reinstall the entire game just to update.

With Battetech they didn't even offer stand alone update installers until after 1.0.2

BattleTech patches have been on the big side on Steam, too. Even that tiny one just recently to fix the no-main-story-progress bug was pretty good sized.

I just wish Steam were FASTER. Fool thing seems to spit out data in bursts quite often when downloading instead of a nice, fast, gigabit stream.

Yea on gog the 1.0.4 patch was 3 gb.

Great guns!!!

Finished it. Well, actually I want to get some rep with House Steiner and grab one or two more mechs for my collection but the story is all done.

Overall, an extremely fun game for me! There's a lot of room for improvement in the secondary parts of the game but the squad tactics and mech customization are already well done.

Stuff that needs help:

• No quicksave. Also, managing your saves gets pretty tedious unless you just hunt down the directory and delete them old saves in File Explorer.
• Not enough events with choices. You're going to have poker and movie night a LOT over the course of a campaign. (There's no voice acting so I expect they'll be adding many of these in coming months.)
• Needs some overlap with voices and animations. It's not just a waste of time - it's outright silly for a mech to stand there waiting for a voice line to get played before it finaly decides to fall over.
• The manicans. When the story is playing out, it shows the characters in the briefing room while the text plays out. Thing is, the characters' faces don't change at all - they just move in predictable, tiny loops like some cheap animatronics. It's particularly jarring with Farah who has a slight grin on her face, even as we're being told about atrocities.
• It's really hard to tell when you should move on to the next story mission. For instance, the final mission tells you that you'll need multiple lances. Oh? How many spare mechs do I need? I've got room for about two dozen. (As it turned out, I needed 0 extra mechs.)
• They need more information in-game. Unless you read up on how the game works, you've got to learn a lot of things the hard way.
• The only history you can see is how many mechs/other-than-mechs each surviving MechWarrior has killed. The way the game is set up, I'm actually more interested in what each given mech has done than each pilot!
• Can't turn off the GUI for a pretty screenshot. 3D Vision doesn't work at all (yet).

The good stuff:

• BattleMech combat is REALLY FUN! Terrain and temperature make a big difference in how a battle plays out. There's multiple ways to attack (damage, heat, and stability). Facing matters. Many mechs can even jump around!
• BattleMech customization is also REALLY FUN! They've put limits in so you can't just drop any weapon anywhere - you've got to work within the structure to build the best for your playstyle. Different mechs allow different things so finding a new kind of mech and discovering what you can stick on it gives you a lot to do outside the battle field.
• Weapons and equipment are quite well done. It's not just mechs that have variants - you can find extra good weapons and equipment, too. Weapons with extra accuracy are hugely handy early on when your pilots aren't such good shots and the targets are moving fast, for instance. And those cockpit mods that prevent injury are a must!

There's a big neutral, too: MechWarriors. You get to improve the skills of a pilot but there's really not all that much variety. When hiring, I was far more interested in what voice actor was used than starting stats.

You'll be spending the vast majority of your time in the 'good stuff' section.

Sigh. HBS sold out to paradox. Good for their pocket lousy for gamers that hate DLC.

Really? If true, that is some damn sad and awful news for honest gamers.

Think I'll put this game on the back-burner for now. It will obviously be patched at least twenty more times, and receive more expansion and paid DLC down the line.

I'm sure it will also get a Director's cut or whatever you want to call it someday also. It's getting to the point you don't want to play games on release anymore.

I doubt it will get a director cut as pardox model would be to have a dlc that turns it into the director cut and never bundle them. Knew it was a horrible sign when they partner with paradox.

Originally Posted by Zloth
I just wish Steam were FASTER. Fool thing seems to spit out data in bursts quite often when downloading instead of a nice, fast, gigabit stream.

Check your download region is set correctly. (right click tray icon, settings, downloads…)

Agreed. Unless I get completely bored, this one will be sitting in the, "to be played eventually" file for a while.