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[BATTLETECH/MechWarrior] Old thread, like the carcass of a cored-out Locust.
I'm liking my first heavy, a TBolt, but this Orion-V variant feels odd. I want to keep the AC10, but feel like I should refit somehow. Thoughts / what has worked for you?
For my Orion-V I downgraded the AC10 to an AC5, then stripped out the LRM, and went all in on SRMs and Medium Lasers. Maxed out the frontal armor, and then added some heatsinks.
I just picked up an Awesome. WOW this feels early, I only have the 2 heavies.
+3
Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
I just had to withdraw from a 3 and a half skull mission. I'm running 4 heavies and I aggroed all 9 mechs pretty close to one another. Was retreating over a hill and coring stuff as it came over the hill, but again a pristine battlemech gets melee cockpitted. I withdrew when it was 3 to 6 and my second bruiser took internal damage. Fucking harsh, I think I'm going to have to retreat to some easier planets to train up some more 10/10/10/10 pilots.
I tell you what, I am tired of salvaging Thunderbolts. My cup runneth over with Thunderbolts. I feel like every few missions I have a new one, whether I want it or not.
On a better note, after focusing on story missions, I saw a 4 1/2 Skull Assassination mission pop up. Figure I'll give this a spin.
Wow! There is the challenge and terror I've been missing. The map is full of canyons and mesas. To my East is a mesa to tall, I can't even figure out how or where to scale it. The good news is, neither can the AI! The group over there turns out to be 2 vehicles I never see until later, a Charger and a Quickdraw. The Quickdraw I repeatedly sensor lock and hammer with LRMs until it dies, having never fired a shot. Fun!
But by now the reinforcements have found me. And wow have they ever found me. A Highlander, an Atlas and a Thunderbolt show up ready to push my poop in. Then a Commando randomly joins them. Sure little buddy, you can play too.
The Thunderbolt I take down first rather easily. Next I focus on the Atlas, and it's terrifying me. As it so happens, a combination of ammo explosions and knockdowns end up liquifying the pilot. You know what that means. But I still haven't found the target...
At this point the enemy Highlander tries to give my Grasshopper a Highlander Burial! It survives, but barely. It's right leg and torso are almost sheered off. Except now my Highlander has the other Highlanders back! I send a Gauss slug and other assorted weaponry into it's back, nearly coring it. But not quite. None of my other guys seem quite able to get the right angle on, instead hitting arms and legs. I leap my Grasshopper back behind it when its turn comes up but still can't quite core it from behind. The Highlander melees with the poor Grasshopper again, taking all the armor off it's other torso section! Shortly after my Highlander finally takes down it's counterpart.
And then the Charger from earlier finally figured out how to crest the mesa and begins flanking me. I've also begun to take LRM fire from... somewhere? I assume that must be the target?
The Charger I take down in short order, but my missile boat is running crucially low on LRMs with only 90 left. And now the target finally shows up. A King Crab.
Taking stock, my missile boat is almost out of LRMs, my Highlander is long since out of LRMs, my Grasshopper is essentially out of the fight, and my Battlemaster has about half it's armor left. I need to make this quick.
The King Crab doesn't have LOS on me yet, so I just reserve until round 1 and force it to come to me. Most of my guys are round 2 except for my Highlander. I make an honest effort to try to aim for it's CT while knocking it down. Unfortunately, I simply cannot seem to knock it down! I remove all the armor from it's CT, but then it smartly turns it's center away from me! My Battlemaster takes a brutal AC20 hit, but thankfully that's all. The next round I blow off it's LT, exposing it's core from that angle and finishing it off.
Now I just have to make it to the evac zone. And wouldn't you know it, it's right where those two vehicles which couldn't figure out how to cross the mesa are!
Well crap. The last thing I want is to take a casualty at this point. They were both 80 tonners to which means trouble. As it turned out I had little to worry about. They never moved from the mesa establishing LOS on me until I was right on top of them. Almost literally. They turned out to be a PPC Carrier and a Demolisher which I managed to take down without them having fired a shot. A lucky thing to because by this point almost everyone was extremely low on armor.
And that's how I got my first Atlas! Not sure what I want to do with this guy, but I'll figure out something. Step one was upgrading all it's weapons. Decided to swap out the LRM20 for an LRM10++, take out a ton of LRM ammo, throw in another heatsink or two, upgraded cockpit, gyro (+3 Melee Hit) and a LLaser with +10 dmg. We'll see how that works out. I may ditch the LLaser and the AC20 for a pair of AC somethings instead. Not sure what would fit well.
+10
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I've got a main lance of an Atlas fitted with Star League tech, another Atlas with an old-school AC20, and two King Crabs. Then there's the backup lance with three Highlanders and a Stalker.
I'm pretty confident that I have enough firepower to take on the final assault now.
And for all the game's flaws, the power curve isn't one of them. Casually coring out mechs I was desperate to upgrade to at the start of the game really reinforces why an Atlas is fucking terrifying, and feels pretty damn awesome, and I've got three hundred tons of backup behind that.
Though I really do wish the game didn't match your power increase by just throwing bigger and bigger mechs at you. I've hauled these mercs across dozens of worlds to scrape together this pile of assaults, it cheapens it quite a bit when every two-bit pirate group is suddenly sporting Highlanders and King Crabs with high-level pilots.
+6
Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
I've got a main lance of an Atlas fitted with Star League tech, another Atlas with an old-school AC20, and two King Crabs. Then there's the backup lance with three Highlanders and a Stalker.
I'm pretty confident that I have enough firepower to take on the final assault now.
And for all the game's flaws, the power curve isn't one of them. Casually coring out mechs I was desperate to upgrade to at the start of the game really reinforces why an Atlas is fucking terrifying, and feels pretty damn awesome, and I've got three hundred tons of backup behind that.
Though I really do wish the game didn't match your power increase by just throwing bigger and bigger mechs at you. I've hauled these mercs across dozens of worlds to scrape together this pile of assaults, it cheapens it quite a bit when every two-bit pirate group is suddenly sporting Highlanders and King Crabs with high-level pilots.
yeah i kind of don't like the global difficulty increasing as you beat each story mission. If I want to buzz off to the periphery and do half skull missions, let me!
+5
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
Something that's bothered me about MWO.
There's a lot of inconsistency with map design pieces. Mechs are taller than cars? Check. Taller than traffic lights? Check. Wide enough to cover multiple lanes of traffic? Check. Bigger than trees? Depends on the tree.
But bigger than bushes and flora? Nope, those are as big somehow. Storm drain grates? Those are spaced wide, so humans would fall through easily?
+4
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I've got a main lance of an Atlas fitted with Star League tech, another Atlas with an old-school AC20, and two King Crabs. Then there's the backup lance with three Highlanders and a Stalker.
I'm pretty confident that I have enough firepower to take on the final assault now.
And for all the game's flaws, the power curve isn't one of them. Casually coring out mechs I was desperate to upgrade to at the start of the game really reinforces why an Atlas is fucking terrifying, and feels pretty damn awesome, and I've got three hundred tons of backup behind that.
Though I really do wish the game didn't match your power increase by just throwing bigger and bigger mechs at you. I've hauled these mercs across dozens of worlds to scrape together this pile of assaults, it cheapens it quite a bit when every two-bit pirate group is suddenly sporting Highlanders and King Crabs with high-level pilots.
yeah i kind of don't like the global difficulty increasing as you beat each story mission. If I want to buzz off to the periphery and do half skull missions, let me!
The challenge should really only be upped by increasing the number of enemies you face, not the size of them. Yeah, a five-skull mission to take out an elite pilot and his lance should have you against an assault lance, but even those should be uncommon at five skulls. Much better to keep dropping in reinforcements of lower-weight mechs; same damage potential overall, but smashing through a dozen medium mechs is a lot more satisfying than grinding through four assaults (though that would require reinforcements to work properly, and not throw every enemy on the map at you the moment you start shooting at something). As it stands now, I'm kinda done with the game because there's at least one full assault lance every mission, sometimes two, plus at least one full heavy lance. That's an insane amount of firepower for random pirates or planetary governments to have. And the appearance of tanks should be like half of what it is now; they're obnoxious damage sinks that get to ignore heat, stability, and critical damage, with the Demolishers being very risky to approach for a stomping and the Shreks incredibly annoying ultra-long-range damage.
When my lance drops onto a planet, it should really be properly terrifying for some third-rate pirate group to be facing off against four hundred tons of fully-equipped assault mechs.
I've got a main lance of an Atlas fitted with Star League tech, another Atlas with an old-school AC20, and two King Crabs. Then there's the backup lance with three Highlanders and a Stalker.
I'm pretty confident that I have enough firepower to take on the final assault now.
And for all the game's flaws, the power curve isn't one of them. Casually coring out mechs I was desperate to upgrade to at the start of the game really reinforces why an Atlas is fucking terrifying, and feels pretty damn awesome, and I've got three hundred tons of backup behind that.
Though I really do wish the game didn't match your power increase by just throwing bigger and bigger mechs at you. I've hauled these mercs across dozens of worlds to scrape together this pile of assaults, it cheapens it quite a bit when every two-bit pirate group is suddenly sporting Highlanders and King Crabs with high-level pilots.
yeah i kind of don't like the global difficulty increasing as you beat each story mission. If I want to buzz off to the periphery and do half skull missions, let me!
The challenge should really only be upped by increasing the number of enemies you face, not the size of them. Yeah, a five-skull mission to take out an elite pilot and his lance should have you against an assault lance, but even those should be uncommon at five skulls. Much better to keep dropping in reinforcements of lower-weight mechs; same damage potential overall, but smashing through a dozen medium mechs is a lot more satisfying than grinding through four assaults (though that would require reinforcements to work properly, and not throw every enemy on the map at you the moment you start shooting at something). As it stands now, I'm kinda done with the game because there's at least one full assault lance every mission, sometimes two, plus at least one full heavy lance. That's an insane amount of firepower for random pirates or planetary governments to have. And the appearance of tanks should be like half of what it is now; they're obnoxious damage sinks that get to ignore heat, stability, and critical damage, with the Demolishers being very risky to approach for a stomping and the Shreks incredibly annoying ultra-long-range damage.
When my lance drops onto a planet, it should really be properly terrifying for some third-rate pirate group to be facing off against four hundred tons of fully-equipped assault mechs.
Yeah there's a bit of the "random bandit in full daedric armor wielding a god damned artifact" thing going on.
I remember playing a couple Battletech / Mechwarrior games back in the early/mid 90s. Anyone mind helping me find the names?
One was somewhat similar to this game, where I think you are part of some kind of nobility on the run. You have a lance of mercenaries. You go from planet to planet taking contracts, killing other mechs and trying to make a name for yourself. I never beat it but it was more first person real time. Maybe came out between 92-94?
The other I just remember it being top down turn based. I remember you start at an academy and you work on building skills. Then during a training exercise in your mech the academy gets attacked. Most of the time I’d lose the mech and run away on foot, but sometimes I could get away with my mech still somewhat intact. Only other thing I remember about this one was that you (I think) track clues your father left you?
Anyways, until this year those were the only games in this universe I’d ever played.
I really really like Battletech 2018. It’s giving me some of those old vibes.
0
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
I put a decal of teeth on my Timber Wolf. 100% more fearsome now.
There's two pugs on the back of my missile shoulder mounts.
None of that beats the guy who wrote "ASS" on his mech's ass though.
I remember playing a couple Battletech / Mechwarrior games back in the early/mid 90s. Anyone mind helping me find the names?
One was somewhat similar to this game, where I think you are part of some kind of nobility on the run. You have a lance of mercenaries. You go from planet to planet taking contracts, killing other mechs and trying to make a name for yourself. I never beat it but it was more first person real time. Maybe came out between 92-94?
The other I just remember it being top down turn based. I remember you start at an academy and you work on building skills. Then during a training exercise in your mech the academy gets attacked. Most of the time I’d lose the mech and run away on foot, but sometimes I could get away with my mech still somewhat intact. Only other thing I remember about this one was that you (I think) track clues your father left you?
Anyways, until this year those were the only games in this universe I’d ever played.
I really really like Battletech 2018. It’s giving me some of those old vibes.
I remember playing a couple Battletech / Mechwarrior games back in the early/mid 90s. Anyone mind helping me find the names?
One was somewhat similar to this game, where I think you are part of some kind of nobility on the run. You have a lance of mercenaries. You go from planet to planet taking contracts, killing other mechs and trying to make a name for yourself. I never beat it but it was more first person real time. Maybe came out between 92-94?
The other I just remember it being top down turn based. I remember you start at an academy and you work on building skills. Then during a training exercise in your mech the academy gets attacked. Most of the time I’d lose the mech and run away on foot, but sometimes I could get away with my mech still somewhat intact. Only other thing I remember about this one was that you (I think) track clues your father left you?
Anyways, until this year those were the only games in this universe I’d ever played.
I really really like Battletech 2018. It’s giving me some of those old vibes.
MechWarrior 1, and BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception
LokiDon't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
Well that must have been terrifying for the pilot.
I knocked a Mech over, targeted the head with a called shot, and Glitch stomps over and casually treads on the head and grinds the pilot into the dirt.
Finished the main campaign of Battletech, was fun over all but i kind of didn't like some of the later ones...
(spoilers for the last five? or so priority missions):
I didn't like being pigeon holed into pretty dumb decisions, or at least i didn't like that i couldn't at least say 'This is fucking dumb. let's not do this.' i understand at the end of the day we are Merc's so eventually we either have to go 'welp, its dumb but lets go.' or cut and run...(and i get that it'd be *so* much work to allow us to actually 'cut and run', so i understand in the end not being able to actually *choose*) but i didn't even get the choice to call out the dumb shit... and the final mission? very anticlimactic... i had two Atlas's, a LRM stalker and the SLDF Highlander... i posted up behind a rock on the far right, waited until they started to approach, sensor locked them and then unsteady'd them with the LRM Stalker, knocked them down with the lrm20 from Kamea's atlas, then just went CT until they were dead. Rinse repeat. Although for Victoria's king crab, which i left to last, i just continually knocked down for that sweet, sweet full salvage.
But over all i had a lot of fun with it and i think i'll continue having fun with it for awhile to come, tooling around doing whatever i please.
So, in 24 days I'm gonna have a max-armor, 5-jet 3xSRM4, 1xMG, 1xML Shadow Hawk, and I am gonna put Dude the Immortal in it once he gets out the medbay, and go punch some things, because I realised that the LRM5/AC5/ML was not the greatest loadout.
I don't know if it'll be all that much more effective, but I am reasonably sure it'll kill the shit out of SOMETHING by punching it.
Edit: So, this gives me the Punchmeister (If it works!), a Cent w a LRM15+/LRM10/2ML combo, a Vindi with PPC/ML/LRM5, and an AC5/4ML Blackjack as a spotter.
What horrible failing have I overlooked here? I considered an SRM6 on the SHD, but I'd need to drop something to keep max armor, and as I understand the 4s are king of heat mountain.
dporowski on
0
Tynnanseldom correct, never unsureRegistered Userregular
That's a pretty good Shadow Hawk build
0
KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
Though I'd drop the MG for an SL and an upgrade someplace else (armour, HS, jets, SRM4-6 etc) because one MG and a TON of ammo is pretty inefficient.
Though I'd drop the MG for an SL and an upgrade someplace else (armour, HS, jets, SRM4-6 etc) because one MG and a TON of ammo is pretty inefficient.
Yeah, I just stuffed it in purely for crit seeking on melee, with the thinking I'm probably not going to punch a thing 20 times in a mission. I much prefer the ammo-free-ness of the SL, but if I'm going to go punch a thing, I want splosions. If it doesn't work out, I'll swap for an SL and a HS, since everything else is full but the ballistic points. Or SRM ammo, but I've got 2 tons in, and am hoping that'll work out with just 3 SRM4s and punching.
Edit: Further bonus, my entire left side is nothing but ablative, if you don't count JJs.
Now if I could just fix my mechs being configured like this from the factory...
dporowski on
0
KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
I think my Shadowhawk builds are like PPC plus 2xSRM4.
I still haven't touched the loadouts on the starting mechs, and when I try to take out a sensor-locked vehicle with LRMs it feels faster to just waddle over there and stomp on it.
0
KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
I still haven't touched the loadouts on the starting mechs, and when I try to take out a sensor-locked vehicle with LRMs it feels faster to just waddle over there and stomp on it.
Do some experimenting when travelling to a new system! The Shadowhawk you get is a bit too generalised. You should figure out if you want it to be a long range sniper, short range brawler or a dedicated missile boat, and refit it accordingly.
AC5+LRM10/15, ML+ as many SRMS as you can manage, a PPC plus a couple SRM4, or 2xLRM15 are good places to start.
I still haven't touched the loadouts on the starting mechs, and when I try to take out a sensor-locked vehicle with LRMs it feels faster to just waddle over there and stomp on it.
LRM5 does same damage as one small laser. There's very few situations where shooting that thing alone on anything will do much.
I still haven't touched the loadouts on the starting mechs, and when I try to take out a sensor-locked vehicle with LRMs it feels faster to just waddle over there and stomp on it.
In Battletech the key is massed firepower, especially with missiles. If you can't put out a macross missile massacre you probably shouldn't even bother. LRM5s on their own are basicly "a way to remove an evasion pip on a mech that would otherwise be out of range". It's not until you get LRM15s (preferably multiple LRM15s with stability damage) that they're a viable weapon on their own.
The key while outfitting mechs (which is very different from pretty much every stock loadout) is that every mech you own should have a very clear idea about that it's going to do.
Mixing long range and support weapons? Hell no. Putting an LRM5 on that laser/SRM boat? Nope.
Note that in the late game it can be a good idea to keep a LRM15 rack on your mid/short range assaults, IF they have Multitarget you can use your dedicated LRM-boat to make an enemy mech unstead, and then knock it down with that last LRM15 salvo while you're gutting a second mech, thus allowing your 3rd mech to take that one down.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
aw no I had a mission that was only like 2 skulls so I went in for max cash to give myself some more breathing room and it turned out there was a Thunderbolt SS there T_T
Wow. Defense: Panzyr is a steaming pile of shit that I'm assuming was never playtested.
I found the liberation mission to be fucking annoying too.
"Goto point A" I follow the directions "Oh look SRM carriers. You should engage them from a distance!" Great fucking advice, you know, if I weren't already standing on top of them. Got to sit by and watch Glitch's Thunderbolt get torn to shreds in one turn.
I still haven't touched the loadouts on the starting mechs, and when I try to take out a sensor-locked vehicle with LRMs it feels faster to just waddle over there and stomp on it.
LRMs are just not very effective against vehicles. They aren't affected by stability damage, LRMs main benefit, and they spread damage over the whole target. Even massed LRMs alone generally won't kill the 60+ ton vehicles. I can fire over 100 missiles at an 80 tonner and take off maybe half it's armor. If lrms all you've got to hit it with, they're better than nothing, but try to use direct fire weapons, the bigger, the better, and preferrably to any side but the front. Melee does double damage to vehicles which is why it's so effective.
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
I still haven't touched the loadouts on the starting mechs, and when I try to take out a sensor-locked vehicle with LRMs it feels faster to just waddle over there and stomp on it.
LRMs are just not very effective against vehicles. They aren't affected by stability damage, LRMs main benefit, and they spread damage over the whole target. Even massed LRMs alone generally won't kill the 60+ ton vehicles. I can fire over 100 missiles at an 80 tonner and take off maybe half it's armor. If lrms all you've got to hit it with, they're better than nothing, but try to use direct fire weapons, the bigger, the better, and preferrably to any side but the front. Melee does double damage to vehicles which is why it's so effective.
Counterpoint: I can hide my entire lance behind cover, Sensor Lock with one, and rain an LRM80 on any dangerous vehicles (with two mediums and a heavy, atm) without fear of reprisal.
60 ton vehicles pop pretty fast when subjected to upwards of 320 damage per turn. I'll let you know when I start running into the 80 tonners (where my missile count will likely be higher) about how that goes.
+2
Tynnanseldom correct, never unsureRegistered Userregular
Here's those LRM clustering tables, for anyone who is interested:
I still haven't touched the loadouts on the starting mechs, and when I try to take out a sensor-locked vehicle with LRMs it feels faster to just waddle over there and stomp on it.
LRMs are just not very effective against vehicles. They aren't affected by stability damage, LRMs main benefit, and they spread damage over the whole target. Even massed LRMs alone generally won't kill the 60+ ton vehicles. I can fire over 100 missiles at an 80 tonner and take off maybe half it's armor. If lrms all you've got to hit it with, they're better than nothing, but try to use direct fire weapons, the bigger, the better, and preferrably to any side but the front. Melee does double damage to vehicles which is why it's so effective.
Counterpoint: I can hide my entire lance behind cover, Sensor Lock with one, and rain an LRM80 on any dangerous vehicles (with two mediums and a heavy, atm) without fear of reprisal.
60 ton vehicles pop pretty fast when subjected to upwards of 320 damage per turn. I'll let you know when I start running into the 80 tonners (where my missile count will likely be higher) about how that goes.
Honestly you generate morale so fast mid-late game, it's worth it to just do called shots with the LRMs and burn through a side section of the 80/100 ton tanks.
Posts
For my Orion-V I downgraded the AC10 to an AC5, then stripped out the LRM, and went all in on SRMs and Medium Lasers. Maxed out the frontal armor, and then added some heatsinks.
MWO: Adamski
I feel like the Orion, (the Marauder when they drop it), and all Assaults with a ballistic hardpoint should be rocking AC/20s.
On a better note, after focusing on story missions, I saw a 4 1/2 Skull Assassination mission pop up. Figure I'll give this a spin.
Wow! There is the challenge and terror I've been missing. The map is full of canyons and mesas. To my East is a mesa to tall, I can't even figure out how or where to scale it. The good news is, neither can the AI! The group over there turns out to be 2 vehicles I never see until later, a Charger and a Quickdraw. The Quickdraw I repeatedly sensor lock and hammer with LRMs until it dies, having never fired a shot. Fun!
But by now the reinforcements have found me. And wow have they ever found me. A Highlander, an Atlas and a Thunderbolt show up ready to push my poop in. Then a Commando randomly joins them. Sure little buddy, you can play too.
The Thunderbolt I take down first rather easily. Next I focus on the Atlas, and it's terrifying me. As it so happens, a combination of ammo explosions and knockdowns end up liquifying the pilot. You know what that means. But I still haven't found the target...
At this point the enemy Highlander tries to give my Grasshopper a Highlander Burial! It survives, but barely. It's right leg and torso are almost sheered off. Except now my Highlander has the other Highlanders back! I send a Gauss slug and other assorted weaponry into it's back, nearly coring it. But not quite. None of my other guys seem quite able to get the right angle on, instead hitting arms and legs. I leap my Grasshopper back behind it when its turn comes up but still can't quite core it from behind. The Highlander melees with the poor Grasshopper again, taking all the armor off it's other torso section! Shortly after my Highlander finally takes down it's counterpart.
And then the Charger from earlier finally figured out how to crest the mesa and begins flanking me. I've also begun to take LRM fire from... somewhere? I assume that must be the target?
The Charger I take down in short order, but my missile boat is running crucially low on LRMs with only 90 left. And now the target finally shows up. A King Crab.
Taking stock, my missile boat is almost out of LRMs, my Highlander is long since out of LRMs, my Grasshopper is essentially out of the fight, and my Battlemaster has about half it's armor left. I need to make this quick.
The King Crab doesn't have LOS on me yet, so I just reserve until round 1 and force it to come to me. Most of my guys are round 2 except for my Highlander. I make an honest effort to try to aim for it's CT while knocking it down. Unfortunately, I simply cannot seem to knock it down! I remove all the armor from it's CT, but then it smartly turns it's center away from me! My Battlemaster takes a brutal AC20 hit, but thankfully that's all. The next round I blow off it's LT, exposing it's core from that angle and finishing it off.
Now I just have to make it to the evac zone. And wouldn't you know it, it's right where those two vehicles which couldn't figure out how to cross the mesa are!
Well crap. The last thing I want is to take a casualty at this point. They were both 80 tonners to which means trouble. As it turned out I had little to worry about. They never moved from the mesa establishing LOS on me until I was right on top of them. Almost literally. They turned out to be a PPC Carrier and a Demolisher which I managed to take down without them having fired a shot. A lucky thing to because by this point almost everyone was extremely low on armor.
And that's how I got my first Atlas! Not sure what I want to do with this guy, but I'll figure out something. Step one was upgrading all it's weapons. Decided to swap out the LRM20 for an LRM10++, take out a ton of LRM ammo, throw in another heatsink or two, upgraded cockpit, gyro (+3 Melee Hit) and a LLaser with +10 dmg. We'll see how that works out. I may ditch the LLaser and the AC20 for a pair of AC somethings instead. Not sure what would fit well.
I'm pretty confident that I have enough firepower to take on the final assault now.
And for all the game's flaws, the power curve isn't one of them. Casually coring out mechs I was desperate to upgrade to at the start of the game really reinforces why an Atlas is fucking terrifying, and feels pretty damn awesome, and I've got three hundred tons of backup behind that.
Though I really do wish the game didn't match your power increase by just throwing bigger and bigger mechs at you. I've hauled these mercs across dozens of worlds to scrape together this pile of assaults, it cheapens it quite a bit when every two-bit pirate group is suddenly sporting Highlanders and King Crabs with high-level pilots.
yeah i kind of don't like the global difficulty increasing as you beat each story mission. If I want to buzz off to the periphery and do half skull missions, let me!
There's a lot of inconsistency with map design pieces. Mechs are taller than cars? Check. Taller than traffic lights? Check. Wide enough to cover multiple lanes of traffic? Check. Bigger than trees? Depends on the tree.
But bigger than bushes and flora? Nope, those are as big somehow. Storm drain grates? Those are spaced wide, so humans would fall through easily?
The challenge should really only be upped by increasing the number of enemies you face, not the size of them. Yeah, a five-skull mission to take out an elite pilot and his lance should have you against an assault lance, but even those should be uncommon at five skulls. Much better to keep dropping in reinforcements of lower-weight mechs; same damage potential overall, but smashing through a dozen medium mechs is a lot more satisfying than grinding through four assaults (though that would require reinforcements to work properly, and not throw every enemy on the map at you the moment you start shooting at something). As it stands now, I'm kinda done with the game because there's at least one full assault lance every mission, sometimes two, plus at least one full heavy lance. That's an insane amount of firepower for random pirates or planetary governments to have. And the appearance of tanks should be like half of what it is now; they're obnoxious damage sinks that get to ignore heat, stability, and critical damage, with the Demolishers being very risky to approach for a stomping and the Shreks incredibly annoying ultra-long-range damage.
When my lance drops onto a planet, it should really be properly terrifying for some third-rate pirate group to be facing off against four hundred tons of fully-equipped assault mechs.
Yeah there's a bit of the "random bandit in full daedric armor wielding a god damned artifact" thing going on.
One was somewhat similar to this game, where I think you are part of some kind of nobility on the run. You have a lance of mercenaries. You go from planet to planet taking contracts, killing other mechs and trying to make a name for yourself. I never beat it but it was more first person real time. Maybe came out between 92-94?
The other I just remember it being top down turn based. I remember you start at an academy and you work on building skills. Then during a training exercise in your mech the academy gets attacked. Most of the time I’d lose the mech and run away on foot, but sometimes I could get away with my mech still somewhat intact. Only other thing I remember about this one was that you (I think) track clues your father left you?
Anyways, until this year those were the only games in this universe I’d ever played.
I really really like Battletech 2018. It’s giving me some of those old vibes.
There's two pugs on the back of my missile shoulder mounts.
None of that beats the guy who wrote "ASS" on his mech's ass though.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BattleTech:_The_Crescent_Hawk's_Inception
Steam: betsuni7
MechWarrior 1, and BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception
I've gone with a pair of elf girls either riding on my shoulders or straddling my LB20X or Gauss barrels.
I knocked a Mech over, targeted the head with a called shot, and Glitch stomps over and casually treads on the head and grinds the pilot into the dirt.
(spoilers for the last five? or so priority missions):
But over all i had a lot of fun with it and i think i'll continue having fun with it for awhile to come, tooling around doing whatever i please.
I don't know if it'll be all that much more effective, but I am reasonably sure it'll kill the shit out of SOMETHING by punching it.
Edit: So, this gives me the Punchmeister (If it works!), a Cent w a LRM15+/LRM10/2ML combo, a Vindi with PPC/ML/LRM5, and an AC5/4ML Blackjack as a spotter.
What horrible failing have I overlooked here? I considered an SRM6 on the SHD, but I'd need to drop something to keep max armor, and as I understand the 4s are king of heat mountain.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
Yeah, I just stuffed it in purely for crit seeking on melee, with the thinking I'm probably not going to punch a thing 20 times in a mission. I much prefer the ammo-free-ness of the SL, but if I'm going to go punch a thing, I want splosions. If it doesn't work out, I'll swap for an SL and a HS, since everything else is full but the ballistic points. Or SRM ammo, but I've got 2 tons in, and am hoping that'll work out with just 3 SRM4s and punching.
Edit: Further bonus, my entire left side is nothing but ablative, if you don't count JJs.
Now if I could just fix my mechs being configured like this from the factory...
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
Do some experimenting when travelling to a new system! The Shadowhawk you get is a bit too generalised. You should figure out if you want it to be a long range sniper, short range brawler or a dedicated missile boat, and refit it accordingly.
AC5+LRM10/15, ML+ as many SRMS as you can manage, a PPC plus a couple SRM4, or 2xLRM15 are good places to start.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
LRM5 does same damage as one small laser. There's very few situations where shooting that thing alone on anything will do much.
In Battletech the key is massed firepower, especially with missiles. If you can't put out a macross missile massacre you probably shouldn't even bother. LRM5s on their own are basicly "a way to remove an evasion pip on a mech that would otherwise be out of range". It's not until you get LRM15s (preferably multiple LRM15s with stability damage) that they're a viable weapon on their own.
The key while outfitting mechs (which is very different from pretty much every stock loadout) is that every mech you own should have a very clear idea about that it's going to do.
Mixing long range and support weapons? Hell no. Putting an LRM5 on that laser/SRM boat? Nope.
Note that in the late game it can be a good idea to keep a LRM15 rack on your mid/short range assaults, IF they have Multitarget you can use your dedicated LRM-boat to make an enemy mech unstead, and then knock it down with that last LRM15 salvo while you're gutting a second mech, thus allowing your 3rd mech to take that one down.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I found the liberation mission to be fucking annoying too.
LRMs are just not very effective against vehicles. They aren't affected by stability damage, LRMs main benefit, and they spread damage over the whole target. Even massed LRMs alone generally won't kill the 60+ ton vehicles. I can fire over 100 missiles at an 80 tonner and take off maybe half it's armor. If lrms all you've got to hit it with, they're better than nothing, but try to use direct fire weapons, the bigger, the better, and preferrably to any side but the front. Melee does double damage to vehicles which is why it's so effective.
Of course the game doesn’t surface this information to you at all.
Counterpoint: I can hide my entire lance behind cover, Sensor Lock with one, and rain an LRM80 on any dangerous vehicles (with two mediums and a heavy, atm) without fear of reprisal.
60 ton vehicles pop pretty fast when subjected to upwards of 320 damage per turn. I'll let you know when I start running into the 80 tonners (where my missile count will likely be higher) about how that goes.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/clustering-and-hit-tables.1073700/
Honestly you generate morale so fast mid-late game, it's worth it to just do called shots with the LRMs and burn through a side section of the 80/100 ton tanks.