Loving these Flashpoints, but sometimes they're kind of annoying from a scripting standpoint.
I did a two part flashpoint. At the end of the first one, a conversation starts where they say I need to deploy again without repairing. The base we just took is under attack and we need to defend it. One of my guys makes a comment that we're pretty beat up, so our benefactors agree to lend us a "highly specialized" mech. I am then forced to bring that "specialized" mech along with me for the next mission.
Only problem?
1. I had no damage whatsoever, I was good to go.
2. The "special" mech was a lightly armed Hatchetman
3. I was running a lance of Orions...
Oh and one of the new objectives was to keep the Hatchetman alive. Whatever, I made it through but that was frustrating. I totally get the tonnage limit BEFORE a flashpoint start, but arbitrarily forcing me into a shitty mech halfway through for no apparent reason was annoying.
There was a reason. That mission is specifically to introduce players to that new mech they added with Flashpoint. The opfor is lights and mediums, so giving you a medium is fine difficulty-wise. The Hatchetman is a melee specialist, and the 130 damage it can do can kill or cripple the lights and mediums in that mission with each swing. The "keep it alive" objective just means don't get it cored out, not don't use it at all.
Hrm...I had several heavies in the OpFor, for what it's worth.
It wasn't a big deal, and the mission was still doable, but against heavies I wasn't going to even bother putting it in range of them. I did hatchet a couple locusts with it though, which was hilarious.
It's been a while, but this jogged my memory that that fp has a decision in it about who to attack in the first mission. Looks like that decision got you the harder branch in the second mission. One branch has a light +0 difficulty, battle +0, and support +0 lances. The other has battle +0, battle +1, and support +0 lances. That +1 difficulty lance is where your heavies came from.
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
Milk run occupy a base mission. I'm happily chunking turrets from distance with sensor locks until I trigger the reinforcements. The game lands them in shooting range of my lance and they get to go first and put a bunch of free damage into me. I was a little pissed about that.
That feels always so stupid, like a bunch of 50 ton ninjas leaping out of bushes. I've never lost a mech to them but there's been times when I've left my close-range specialist out there in the open with no evasion pips because I had no enemies left and then the magically teleporting wizard mech team appears and half of them get to shoot him before he gets to act.
Milk run occupy a base mission. I'm happily chunking turrets from distance with sensor locks until I trigger the reinforcements. The game lands them in shooting range of my lance and they get to go first and put a bunch of free damage into me. I was a little pissed about that.
That feels always so stupid, like a bunch of 50 ton ninjas leaping out of bushes. I've never lost a mech to them but there's been times when I've left my close-range specialist out there in the open with no evasion pips because I had no enemies left and then the magically teleporting wizard mech team appears and half of them get to shoot him before he gets to act.
That's pretty much exactly what happened. My hatchetman was already stripped of a bit of armor and the AI likes to focus fire mechs in structure, so he took 3 rounds of damage for his trouble.
My current BattleTech play through is going very nicely.
At first I was a bit choked up, because it started me way up in the top right of the map, on the Davion / Taurian border.
So I went into maximum effort mode, and took some 2 skull missions once I was able to modify my starter lance:
Stripped my Jenner of jumpjets and SRM, maxed armor, added heatsink.
Swap Panther SRM4 for LRM5 and remove jumpjets to max armor
Spider again strip jumpjets and max armor
First 2 skull mission, is an assassinate.
Land the drop, and a Firestarter comes rushing at me, so I try to keep the Spider and Jenner at max evasion, and my Vindicator and Panther target the Firestarter with some focus fire, he drops after a turn.
While I'm focusing the Firestarter, I'm noticing some Autocannon and LRM fire coming in from the fog of war. So my Jenner and Spider do some sprinting and find out its an Enforcer and a Rifleman!
I choose to focus the Rifleman first, hitting it with my Vindicator and Panther PPCs to scramble his aim, while my Jenner and Spider get behind him to penetrate his cover / entrenched / guarded buffs.
Again, he drops after 2 turns, and I then spend a turn mostly crippling the Enforcer that has been taking potshots at me.
I send the Jenner and Spider out to get some vision on the VIP Assassinate target, and low and behold, its a Orion 1V!
I try to do my best to work it from the sides and front, but he already has the 40% damage reduction skill for sitting in the trees, and his armament and defenses are just too strong to crack with my very under tonned lance.
So I finish off the Enforcer, which triggers the Orion to try and escape to his drop ship, but with the Spider and Jenner working its rear armor, along with my Panther and Vindicator now too, he doesn't get very far at all.
A couple missions later, I face my hardest test on an Extract the Artist and rescue his Masterpiece from some Pirate Religious Zealots:
My Vindicator, Enforcer, Panther, and Jenner
Enemy Jenner, Hunchback4G, Hatchetman, Wolverine, 2 Shadowhawks.
Barely finished that mission, lost a side torso on my Panther and Vindicator, and my Enforcer and Jenner were pretty beat up too. I mostly lucked out by being able to 1shot the Hunchbacks hunch off with a called shot.
So now I have over a 1000 days left, and have managed to cobble together my Vindicator, the Enforcer, and now a Shadowhawk too.
My favorite is convoy escort missions where the reinforcements come out of nowhere and go first even though they are mediums and heavies and then gang up on one convoy apc and down it goes.
Shit where the player literally has no chance is a Fuck up, not challenging game play.
So my Jenner and Spider do some sprinting and find out its an Enforcer and a Rifleman!
Sure it wasn't a Jagermech? The Rifleman became Unseen and the Jagermech was more or less it's replacement. Pretty sure the Rifleman isn't in Battletech, although I could be wrong.
I sure wish it was though. I've always had a soft spot for it since reading the Grey Death novels, and fucking Davis McCall kicking ass and taking names in one before he got his Highlander.
I guess Gray Norton was kinda cool too.
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Tynnanseldom correct, never unsureRegistered Userregular
Ill just fire another ML at him. HIT! ...wait, what? Zombie Mech?
I had that bug. I destroyed the last mech in an engagement but it didn't blow up. It wouldn't do anything but stand there, but I couldn't complete the mission, so I had to restart it.
I got the zombiemech thing as well. I verified game files and then when I was loading in aggressively clicked on continue to beat Darius's prompt.
Next time I play this I think I'll go with 4 parts. Let's me go with 2 reward salvage for more cash, and I can change my priorities to kneecapping mechs rather than headshotting them, which will let me play differently.
So my Jenner and Spider do some sprinting and find out its an Enforcer and a Rifleman!
Sure it wasn't a Jagermech? The Rifleman became Unseen and the Jagermech was more or less it's replacement. Pretty sure the Rifleman isn't in Battletech, although I could be wrong.
I sure wish it was though. I've always had a soft spot for it since reading the Grey Death novels, and fucking Davis McCall kicking ass and taking names in one before he got his Highlander.
I guess Gray Norton was kinda cool too.
Sorry, Jagermech, the variant with 2x ac5 2x ac2 2x mlas
Milk run occupy a base mission. I'm happily chunking turrets from distance with sensor locks until I trigger the reinforcements. The game lands them in shooting range of my lance and they get to go first and put a bunch of free damage into me. I was a little pissed about that.
That feels always so stupid, like a bunch of 50 ton ninjas leaping out of bushes. I've never lost a mech to them but there's been times when I've left my close-range specialist out there in the open with no evasion pips because I had no enemies left and then the magically teleporting wizard mech team appears and half of them get to shoot him before he gets to act.
That's pretty much exactly what happened. My hatchetman was already stripped of a bit of armor and the AI likes to focus fire mechs in structure, so he took 3 rounds of damage for his trouble.
That just happened to me on another Flashpoint.
First part I was tasked with taking out a heavy convoy. Thankfully I set up a nice choke point they had to go through, and I made quick work of them. I return to the Argo and am told by our benefactor that we hit the wrong convoy, and they wouldn't be paying us.
So I had a choice. I could try again with new intel to take out the right convoy. However, we believed that we were purposely given bad intel in the first place so that a rival company could take the contract. So the alternative choice was to basically storm that rival's base, take out his lance and demand our money. We'd piss off his faction, but we'd also let everyone know that we mean business, and not paying us what we're owed would mean consequences for the negligent parties.
Overall mission went well, but yeah, we were just about to finish off the base when the reinforcements dropship arrives directly behind us. Just really really annoying. They all got to go first and fire directly into our backs. We scrambled to jump jet around and get into some cover. But still, not cool Battletech...
I had initially sighed when the map came up (I wanted to avoid a lrm map), but my team had two AS7s, one of them was the ECM one. So I just followed him up to the ridge where we could peek and shoot into their base where they were camping.
So, down to 275 days left and it's been 150 days or more since another flashpoint has come up
This is really annoying as doing random contracts isn't super fun times after the 300th mission.
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H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
(Faster)
I can hear my heart beatin
(Faster)
Like a piston in my chest
(Faster)
I’m a phantom racer, justice in a steel machine of death
(Faster)
I’ll be right behind you
(Faster)
Over and over again
(Faster)
I was born to race
(Faster)
I would die to win
So for Career mode in Battletech, if you pick lethal for everyone will that also kill the character you create at the beginning if their mech gets shot to shit? Or is it like campaign mode where they end up injured for like 120 days?
So for Career mode in Battletech, if you pick lethal for everyone will that also kill the character you create at the beginning if their mech gets shot to shit? Or is it like campaign mode where they end up injured for like 120 days?
My character has been blown up in 2 mechs now. out for 90+ days each time.
Mechs were gone for good, but your main will survive. There is also a chance for other Mechwarriors to survive. Had another guy blown up with 5 health and she lived, but out for 100+ days.
Always great when an enemy Hunchback comes out to play. I immediately focus fired him when he showed up, and knocked him down twice. He still 1 shot legged my hatchetman, and then killed the pilot (my best one!)next round, after getting up from the first knockdown and having garbage aim. Then he proceeds to strip my shadowhawk of all his weapons and I have to eject the pilot. That fucker did so much damage to my ironman run it's not even funny. I'm trying to recover but the first planet I took a chance on has garbage missions, finances are getting low, and all my best mechs are in the shop for 15 plus days.
My favorite is convoy escort missions where the reinforcements come out of nowhere and go first even though they are mediums and heavies and then gang up on one convoy apc and down it goes.
Shit where the player literally has no chance is a Fuck up, not challenging game play.
They also like to do this in base defense. Yeah sure drop a lance and have them level 2 buildings before I even see them while I am still busy with the Vanguard!
It can be close at the beginning. I was 1 day away from game over at one point. Very lucky you can do all the contracts in one game day.
That's the sad part, I'm well into the mid game and should have plenty of money!
I went from almost no mediums to more mediums than i can use plus tons of cash. The secret is an LRM CN9-A mixed with a light lance. Then just start rolling in cash grinding 1-2 skull missions.
Im kinda doing the same thing with mediums. Finally have a bunch and now im just slow rolling into 3.5 skull missions to get a Heavy mech stable up.
also wander over to the restoration. Everything seems to be against the pirates or the directorate. Get that rep up for the sweet sweet increase in payouts
Yeah defend base and escort missions need to be removed from the game until they can be reworked into a viable state. Both mission types are way more annoying than fun. Meanwhile there’s a least one or two on almost every world forcing me to move on in order to avoid bullshit after the good missions are completed. Not the best game design.
Yeah defend base and escort missions need to be removed from the game until they can be reworked into a viable state. Both mission types are way more annoying than fun. Meanwhile there’s a least one or two on almost every world forcing me to move on in order to avoid bullshit after the good missions are completed. Not the best game design.
The missions are fine, they are fairly easy to complete, but with some extra effort or planning, you can also complete the bonus objective of 100% survival for max pay.
A slight tweak in AI target priority would be nice, but that might make them too easy.
Same with ambush, making it so enemy convoy required a pilot mech / shepherd like friendly convoys do.
Gnome-Interruptus on
MWO: Adamski
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Yeah defend base and escort missions need to be removed from the game until they can be reworked into a viable state. Both mission types are way more annoying than fun. Meanwhile there’s a least one or two on almost every world forcing me to move on in order to avoid bullshit after the good missions are completed. Not the best game design.
The missions are fine, they are fairly easy to complete, but with some extra effort or planning, you can also complete the bonus objective of 100% survival for max pay.
A slight tweak in AI target priority would be nice, but that might make them too easy.
Same with ambush, making it so enemy convoy required a pilot mech / shepherd like friendly convoys do.
The problems with those missions is that they're weighted to be a pain in the ass for the player no matter which side the player is on.
If you're attacking a base, you will be facing a minimum of twice as many mobile forces as you can field, plus turret backup for the base. This result in horrific damage unless the player moves very slowly and methodically, because a heavy sniper or LRM turret firing from outside visual range can fuck up even an assault lance in just a couple turns, especially if fighting mechs at the same time.
When flipped to a defense mission, the player MIGHT be lucky enough to have light turrets on their side plus light vehicles. And that's rare. And reinforcements are very likely to get dropped on the opposite end of the base from the first engagement point, which is really obnoxious with only four player mechs on the field. AND the enemy will likely be running 8 mechs at a minimum and very likely up to twelve mechs.
So base fights are obnoxious and tedious on both sides of the equation, which is terrible mission design. The game really needs to expand how many mechs you can field and let you pick where to deploy, if it's going to dump stuff on you like that.
Yeah defend base and escort missions need to be removed from the game until they can be reworked into a viable state. Both mission types are way more annoying than fun. Meanwhile there’s a least one or two on almost every world forcing me to move on in order to avoid bullshit after the good missions are completed. Not the best game design.
The missions are fine, they are fairly easy to complete, but with some extra effort or planning, you can also complete the bonus objective of 100% survival for max pay.
A slight tweak in AI target priority would be nice, but that might make them too easy.
Same with ambush, making it so enemy convoy required a pilot mech / shepherd like friendly convoys do.
An actual "good" AI with such a destroy base objective would prioritze the couple weak buildings and basically ignore the player entirely. This AI will switch target priority if you damage them at all, so in my opinion it's already as easy as it gets. The only tweak left would be to make them ignore the objective entirely, and that would not be an improvement.
But even if you moved yourself out of position to be able to immediately respond to reinforcements, losing one of the buildings is not exactly the end of the world either. As an optional objective, it's usually worth a 10% bonus, which on average for a million dollar contract with average pay set is around $50,000 or only about $10,000 if you went max salvage. So it covers your next travel cost, but missing it is unlikely to be the cause of bankruptcy.
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
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H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
Yeah defend base and escort missions need to be removed from the game until they can be reworked into a viable state. Both mission types are way more annoying than fun. Meanwhile there’s a least one or two on almost every world forcing me to move on in order to avoid bullshit after the good missions are completed. Not the best game design.
The missions are fine, they are fairly easy to complete, but with some extra effort or planning, you can also complete the bonus objective of 100% survival for max pay.
A slight tweak in AI target priority would be nice, but that might make them too easy.
Same with ambush, making it so enemy convoy required a pilot mech / shepherd like friendly convoys do.
The problems with those missions is that they're weighted to be a pain in the ass for the player no matter which side the player is on.
If you're attacking a base, you will be facing a minimum of twice as many mobile forces as you can field, plus turret backup for the base. This result in horrific damage unless the player moves very slowly and methodically, because a heavy sniper or LRM turret firing from outside visual range can fuck up even an assault lance in just a couple turns, especially if fighting mechs at the same time.
When flipped to a defense mission, the player MIGHT be lucky enough to have light turrets on their side plus light vehicles. And that's rare. And reinforcements are very likely to get dropped on the opposite end of the base from the first engagement point, which is really obnoxious with only four player mechs on the field. AND the enemy will likely be running 8 mechs at a minimum and very likely up to twelve mechs.
So base fights are obnoxious and tedious on both sides of the equation, which is terrible mission design. The game really needs to expand how many mechs you can field and let you pick where to deploy, if it's going to dump stuff on you like that.
Bolding mine.
I feel like that would require a ground-up reworking of the game design to avoid tediously long matches. I'm not wild about the fact that the game mainly seems to achieve increased difficulty by throwing disproportionate numbers at the player, but that's kind of a long-standing issue with single player strategy games, so I can live with it. But if the player's deployment forces were increased, they would increase what you're up against as well, so even a reinforced lance (~6 mechs instead of four) would result in a major time increase. From the sounds of it, just adding some ground rules about where and how reinforcements can appear, stuff like that, could pretty neatly fix the issues you guys are describing about the alternate mission types.
That said, I feel like base defense missions where you struggle with the need to move against enemies firing from long ranges (or just to engage before they can fire on the thing you're protecting) vs the need to stay close enough to your target to quickly stop enemies approaching from a different angle is old hat for the franchise, as I distinctly remember it being a source of difficulty for missions all the way back in Mechwarrior 2.
I would love the game to switch to a model where you can deploy up to 12 units, limited by a max drop tonnage of 400 (allowing a range of formations like a single assault lance, one heavy and one light, double mediums, or a full company of lights). However, I feel like that would necessitate shifting to using Alpha Strike's rules as the design basis, instead of Classic Battletech's tabletop system, at which point the scope of the work involved is more appropriate for a sequel then an expansion.
Yeah defend base and escort missions need to be removed from the game until they can be reworked into a viable state. Both mission types are way more annoying than fun. Meanwhile there’s a least one or two on almost every world forcing me to move on in order to avoid bullshit after the good missions are completed. Not the best game design.
The missions are fine, they are fairly easy to complete, but with some extra effort or planning, you can also complete the bonus objective of 100% survival for max pay.
A slight tweak in AI target priority would be nice, but that might make them too easy.
Same with ambush, making it so enemy convoy required a pilot mech / shepherd like friendly convoys do.
The problems with those missions is that they're weighted to be a pain in the ass for the player no matter which side the player is on.
If you're attacking a base, you will be facing a minimum of twice as many mobile forces as you can field, plus turret backup for the base. This result in horrific damage unless the player moves very slowly and methodically, because a heavy sniper or LRM turret firing from outside visual range can fuck up even an assault lance in just a couple turns, especially if fighting mechs at the same time.
When flipped to a defense mission, the player MIGHT be lucky enough to have light turrets on their side plus light vehicles. And that's rare. And reinforcements are very likely to get dropped on the opposite end of the base from the first engagement point, which is really obnoxious with only four player mechs on the field. AND the enemy will likely be running 8 mechs at a minimum and very likely up to twelve mechs.
So base fights are obnoxious and tedious on both sides of the equation, which is terrible mission design. The game really needs to expand how many mechs you can field and let you pick where to deploy, if it's going to dump stuff on you like that.
Bolding mine.
I feel like that would require a ground-up reworking of the game design to avoid tediously long matches. I'm not wild about the fact that the game mainly seems to achieve increased difficulty by throwing disproportionate numbers at the player, but that's kind of a long-standing issue with single player strategy games, so I can live with it. But if the player's deployment forces were increased, they would increase what you're up against as well, so even a reinforced lance (~6 mechs instead of four) would result in a major time increase. From the sounds of it, just adding some ground rules about where and how reinforcements can appear, stuff like that, could pretty neatly fix the issues you guys are describing about the alternate mission types.
That said, I feel like base defense missions where you struggle with the need to move against enemies firing from long ranges (or just to engage before they can fire on the thing you're protecting) vs the need to stay close enough to your target to quickly stop enemies approaching from a different angle is old hat for the franchise, as I distinctly remember it being a source of difficulty for missions all the way back in Mechwarrior 2.
I would love the game to switch to a model where you can deploy up to 12 units, limited by a max drop tonnage of 400 (allowing a range of formations like a single assault lance, one heavy and one light, double mediums, or a full company of lights). However, I feel like that would necessitate shifting to using Alpha Strike's rules as the design basis, instead of Classic Battletech's tabletop system, at which point the scope of the work involved is more appropriate for a sequel then an expansion.
I'm actually going to disagree here, because of one reason: the computer does all the math for you.
Alpha Strike is Good(TM) for large-scale tabletop engagements specifically because it cuts down a ton on the detail and amount of fiddly numbers and rolls compared to Classic Battletech. With a PC doing all the work and math and dice rolls, there's no reason to leverage a lighter ruleset.
This was one of my great joys when first playing BATTLETECH: being on the PC lets it have all the crunch of the Classic Battletech experience, while maintaining a relatively short play session per combat scenario.
I will agree that if the game allowed for larger-scale engagements it probably would need a bit of streamlining, but not so much that you'd need to completely abandon the modeling currently used.
Yeah defend base and escort missions need to be removed from the game until they can be reworked into a viable state. Both mission types are way more annoying than fun. Meanwhile there’s a least one or two on almost every world forcing me to move on in order to avoid bullshit after the good missions are completed. Not the best game design.
The missions are fine, they are fairly easy to complete, but with some extra effort or planning, you can also complete the bonus objective of 100% survival for max pay.
A slight tweak in AI target priority would be nice, but that might make them too easy.
Same with ambush, making it so enemy convoy required a pilot mech / shepherd like friendly convoys do.
The problems with those missions is that they're weighted to be a pain in the ass for the player no matter which side the player is on.
If you're attacking a base, you will be facing a minimum of twice as many mobile forces as you can field, plus turret backup for the base. This result in horrific damage unless the player moves very slowly and methodically, because a heavy sniper or LRM turret firing from outside visual range can fuck up even an assault lance in just a couple turns, especially if fighting mechs at the same time.
When flipped to a defense mission, the player MIGHT be lucky enough to have light turrets on their side plus light vehicles. And that's rare. And reinforcements are very likely to get dropped on the opposite end of the base from the first engagement point, which is really obnoxious with only four player mechs on the field. AND the enemy will likely be running 8 mechs at a minimum and very likely up to twelve mechs.
So base fights are obnoxious and tedious on both sides of the equation, which is terrible mission design. The game really needs to expand how many mechs you can field and let you pick where to deploy, if it's going to dump stuff on you like that.
Bolding mine.
I feel like that would require a ground-up reworking of the game design to avoid tediously long matches. I'm not wild about the fact that the game mainly seems to achieve increased difficulty by throwing disproportionate numbers at the player, but that's kind of a long-standing issue with single player strategy games, so I can live with it. But if the player's deployment forces were increased, they would increase what you're up against as well, so even a reinforced lance (~6 mechs instead of four) would result in a major time increase. From the sounds of it, just adding some ground rules about where and how reinforcements can appear, stuff like that, could pretty neatly fix the issues you guys are describing about the alternate mission types.
That said, I feel like base defense missions where you struggle with the need to move against enemies firing from long ranges (or just to engage before they can fire on the thing you're protecting) vs the need to stay close enough to your target to quickly stop enemies approaching from a different angle is old hat for the franchise, as I distinctly remember it being a source of difficulty for missions all the way back in Mechwarrior 2.
I would love the game to switch to a model where you can deploy up to 12 units, limited by a max drop tonnage of 400 (allowing a range of formations like a single assault lance, one heavy and one light, double mediums, or a full company of lights). However, I feel like that would necessitate shifting to using Alpha Strike's rules as the design basis, instead of Classic Battletech's tabletop system, at which point the scope of the work involved is more appropriate for a sequel then an expansion.
I'm actually going to disagree here, because of one reason: the computer does all the math for you.
Alpha Strike is Good(TM) for large-scale tabletop engagements specifically because it cuts down a ton on the detail and amount of fiddly numbers and rolls compared to Classic Battletech. With a PC doing all the work and math and dice rolls, there's no reason to leverage a lighter ruleset.
This was one of my great joys when first playing BATTLETECH: being on the PC lets it have all the crunch of the Classic Battletech experience, while maintaining a relatively short play session per combat scenario.
I will agree that if the game allowed for larger-scale engagements it probably would need a bit of streamlining, but not so much that you'd need to completely abandon the modeling currently used.
I'm going to disagree. Having the computer do the math for you is a huge help. However, the complexity to play optimally still increases. I'm no longer meticulously checking the facing, armor, LOS and fire arcs for 4 units, but 12! Even with the computer rolling the dice for me, I'm still managing a combinatoric explosion trying not to get rolled by the AI because instead of making sure 4 of my precious mechs aren't out of position and about to get MDK'd, I'm trying to heard 12 cats into position similarly covered. And if things scale for the opponent similarly, 24 to 36 mechs baring down on me.
At a certain point you have to simplify the ruleset, not because of the quantity of dice rolls, but because of the complexity of min-maxing the tactics and strategy.
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IceBurnerIt's cold and there are penguins.Registered Userregular
edited December 2018
Well, now that they've gone and changed it without fixing much of anything, I just want a mod to remove all specialty skills from the game entirely (including for the AI).
Yeah defend base and escort missions need to be removed from the game until they can be reworked into a viable state. Both mission types are way more annoying than fun. Meanwhile there’s a least one or two on almost every world forcing me to move on in order to avoid bullshit after the good missions are completed. Not the best game design.
The missions are fine, they are fairly easy to complete, but with some extra effort or planning, you can also complete the bonus objective of 100% survival for max pay.
A slight tweak in AI target priority would be nice, but that might make them too easy.
Same with ambush, making it so enemy convoy required a pilot mech / shepherd like friendly convoys do.
The problems with those missions is that they're weighted to be a pain in the ass for the player no matter which side the player is on.
If you're attacking a base, you will be facing a minimum of twice as many mobile forces as you can field, plus turret backup for the base. This result in horrific damage unless the player moves very slowly and methodically, because a heavy sniper or LRM turret firing from outside visual range can fuck up even an assault lance in just a couple turns, especially if fighting mechs at the same time.
When flipped to a defense mission, the player MIGHT be lucky enough to have light turrets on their side plus light vehicles. And that's rare. And reinforcements are very likely to get dropped on the opposite end of the base from the first engagement point, which is really obnoxious with only four player mechs on the field. AND the enemy will likely be running 8 mechs at a minimum and very likely up to twelve mechs.
So base fights are obnoxious and tedious on both sides of the equation, which is terrible mission design. The game really needs to expand how many mechs you can field and let you pick where to deploy, if it's going to dump stuff on you like that.
Bolding mine.
I feel like that would require a ground-up reworking of the game design to avoid tediously long matches. I'm not wild about the fact that the game mainly seems to achieve increased difficulty by throwing disproportionate numbers at the player, but that's kind of a long-standing issue with single player strategy games, so I can live with it. But if the player's deployment forces were increased, they would increase what you're up against as well, so even a reinforced lance (~6 mechs instead of four) would result in a major time increase. From the sounds of it, just adding some ground rules about where and how reinforcements can appear, stuff like that, could pretty neatly fix the issues you guys are describing about the alternate mission types.
That said, I feel like base defense missions where you struggle with the need to move against enemies firing from long ranges (or just to engage before they can fire on the thing you're protecting) vs the need to stay close enough to your target to quickly stop enemies approaching from a different angle is old hat for the franchise, as I distinctly remember it being a source of difficulty for missions all the way back in Mechwarrior 2.
I would love the game to switch to a model where you can deploy up to 12 units, limited by a max drop tonnage of 400 (allowing a range of formations like a single assault lance, one heavy and one light, double mediums, or a full company of lights). However, I feel like that would necessitate shifting to using Alpha Strike's rules as the design basis, instead of Classic Battletech's tabletop system, at which point the scope of the work involved is more appropriate for a sequel then an expansion.
I'm actually going to disagree here, because of one reason: the computer does all the math for you.
Alpha Strike is Good(TM) for large-scale tabletop engagements specifically because it cuts down a ton on the detail and amount of fiddly numbers and rolls compared to Classic Battletech. With a PC doing all the work and math and dice rolls, there's no reason to leverage a lighter ruleset.
This was one of my great joys when first playing BATTLETECH: being on the PC lets it have all the crunch of the Classic Battletech experience, while maintaining a relatively short play session per combat scenario.
I will agree that if the game allowed for larger-scale engagements it probably would need a bit of streamlining, but not so much that you'd need to completely abandon the modeling currently used.
I'm going to disagree. Having the computer do the math for you is a huge help. However, the complexity to play optimally still increases. I'm no longer meticulously checking the facing, armor, LOS and fire arcs for 4 units, but 12! Even with the computer rolling the dice for me, I'm still managing a combinatoric explosion trying not to get rolled by the AI because instead of making sure 4 of my precious mechs aren't out of position and about to get MDK'd, I'm trying to heard 12 cats into position similarly covered. And if things scale for the opponent similarly, 24 to 36 mechs baring down on me.
At a certain point you have to simplify the ruleset, not because of the quantity of dice rolls, but because of the complexity of min-maxing the tactics and strategy.
Agree to disagree. In almost every rote mission I've played, it takes me roughly no time to make a near-optimal play for each 'Mech's move. The possibility space isn't that big, and there's only so many smart moves you can make with each 'Mech each turn. Also you usually have enough time while the OpFor makes moves to plan out your next move.
I feel if you're taking more than ten seconds to put in a move for one of your 'Mechs, you're overthinking it. Most moves probably take longer to animate than they should take to plan out.
I may be an outlier in this opinion, though.
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H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
edited December 2018
You raise good points, but I feel like at this point we're splitting hairs about degrees of difference. We both seem to agree that expanding the game to company on company engagements is a bit much to expect in a free update or paid expansion, we just differ on how much streamlining it would take to make that scale of play shine.
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It's been a while, but this jogged my memory that that fp has a decision in it about who to attack in the first mission. Looks like that decision got you the harder branch in the second mission. One branch has a light +0 difficulty, battle +0, and support +0 lances. The other has battle +0, battle +1, and support +0 lances. That +1 difficulty lance is where your heavies came from.
He had mostly mediums and one heavy IIRC, he chose the easier branch and there was still at least one heavy in the second mission.
That feels always so stupid, like a bunch of 50 ton ninjas leaping out of bushes. I've never lost a mech to them but there's been times when I've left my close-range specialist out there in the open with no evasion pips because I had no enemies left and then the magically teleporting wizard mech team appears and half of them get to shoot him before he gets to act.
That's pretty much exactly what happened. My hatchetman was already stripped of a bit of armor and the AI likes to focus fire mechs in structure, so he took 3 rounds of damage for his trouble.
At first I was a bit choked up, because it started me way up in the top right of the map, on the Davion / Taurian border.
So I went into maximum effort mode, and took some 2 skull missions once I was able to modify my starter lance:
Stripped my Jenner of jumpjets and SRM, maxed armor, added heatsink.
Swap Panther SRM4 for LRM5 and remove jumpjets to max armor
Spider again strip jumpjets and max armor
First 2 skull mission, is an assassinate.
Land the drop, and a Firestarter comes rushing at me, so I try to keep the Spider and Jenner at max evasion, and my Vindicator and Panther target the Firestarter with some focus fire, he drops after a turn.
While I'm focusing the Firestarter, I'm noticing some Autocannon and LRM fire coming in from the fog of war. So my Jenner and Spider do some sprinting and find out its an Enforcer and a Rifleman!
I choose to focus the Rifleman first, hitting it with my Vindicator and Panther PPCs to scramble his aim, while my Jenner and Spider get behind him to penetrate his cover / entrenched / guarded buffs.
Again, he drops after 2 turns, and I then spend a turn mostly crippling the Enforcer that has been taking potshots at me.
I send the Jenner and Spider out to get some vision on the VIP Assassinate target, and low and behold, its a Orion 1V!
I try to do my best to work it from the sides and front, but he already has the 40% damage reduction skill for sitting in the trees, and his armament and defenses are just too strong to crack with my very under tonned lance.
So I finish off the Enforcer, which triggers the Orion to try and escape to his drop ship, but with the Spider and Jenner working its rear armor, along with my Panther and Vindicator now too, he doesn't get very far at all.
A couple missions later, I face my hardest test on an Extract the Artist and rescue his Masterpiece from some Pirate Religious Zealots:
My Vindicator, Enforcer, Panther, and Jenner
Enemy Jenner, Hunchback4G, Hatchetman, Wolverine, 2 Shadowhawks.
Barely finished that mission, lost a side torso on my Panther and Vindicator, and my Enforcer and Jenner were pretty beat up too. I mostly lucked out by being able to 1shot the Hunchbacks hunch off with a called shot.
So now I have over a 1000 days left, and have managed to cobble together my Vindicator, the Enforcer, and now a Shadowhawk too.
MWO: Adamski
Shit where the player literally has no chance is a Fuck up, not challenging game play.
Sure it wasn't a Jagermech? The Rifleman became Unseen and the Jagermech was more or less it's replacement. Pretty sure the Rifleman isn't in Battletech, although I could be wrong.
I sure wish it was though. I've always had a soft spot for it since reading the Grey Death novels, and fucking Davis McCall kicking ass and taking names in one before he got his Highlander.
I guess Gray Norton was kinda cool too.
Ill just fire another ML at him. HIT! ...wait, what? Zombie Mech?
I had that bug. I destroyed the last mech in an engagement but it didn't blow up. It wouldn't do anything but stand there, but I couldn't complete the mission, so I had to restart it.
Next time I play this I think I'll go with 4 parts. Let's me go with 2 reward salvage for more cash, and I can change my priorities to kneecapping mechs rather than headshotting them, which will let me play differently.
Sorry, Jagermech, the variant with 2x ac5 2x ac2 2x mlas
MWO: Adamski
That just happened to me on another Flashpoint.
First part I was tasked with taking out a heavy convoy. Thankfully I set up a nice choke point they had to go through, and I made quick work of them. I return to the Argo and am told by our benefactor that we hit the wrong convoy, and they wouldn't be paying us.
So I had a choice. I could try again with new intel to take out the right convoy. However, we believed that we were purposely given bad intel in the first place so that a rival company could take the contract. So the alternative choice was to basically storm that rival's base, take out his lance and demand our money. We'd piss off his faction, but we'd also let everyone know that we mean business, and not paying us what we're owed would mean consequences for the negligent parties.
Overall mission went well, but yeah, we were just about to finish off the base when the reinforcements dropship arrives directly behind us. Just really really annoying. They all got to go first and fire directly into our backs. We scrambled to jump jet around and get into some cover. But still, not cool Battletech...
Some nights this happens:
I'm still trying to finish off the last two parts of the event. Damage and assists.
Steam: betsuni7
This is really annoying as doing random contracts isn't super fun times after the 300th mission.
Better yet, hum this (okay, technically it's inspired by the film The Wraith not Racer X, but it still fits)
See, it's perfect for a backstabbing speed-freak.
My character has been blown up in 2 mechs now. out for 90+ days each time.
Mechs were gone for good, but your main will survive. There is also a chance for other Mechwarriors to survive. Had another guy blown up with 5 health and she lived, but out for 100+ days.
They also like to do this in base defense. Yeah sure drop a lance and have them level 2 buildings before I even see them while I am still busy with the Vanguard!
That's the sad part, I'm well into the mid game and should have plenty of money!
I went from almost no mediums to more mediums than i can use plus tons of cash. The secret is an LRM CN9-A mixed with a light lance. Then just start rolling in cash grinding 1-2 skull missions.
Im kinda doing the same thing with mediums. Finally have a bunch and now im just slow rolling into 3.5 skull missions to get a Heavy mech stable up.
also wander over to the restoration. Everything seems to be against the pirates or the directorate. Get that rep up for the sweet sweet increase in payouts
shame if something were to happen to them
Oh God I can't stop laughing!!!!
Steam: betsuni7
The missions are fine, they are fairly easy to complete, but with some extra effort or planning, you can also complete the bonus objective of 100% survival for max pay.
A slight tweak in AI target priority would be nice, but that might make them too easy.
Same with ambush, making it so enemy convoy required a pilot mech / shepherd like friendly convoys do.
MWO: Adamski
The problems with those missions is that they're weighted to be a pain in the ass for the player no matter which side the player is on.
If you're attacking a base, you will be facing a minimum of twice as many mobile forces as you can field, plus turret backup for the base. This result in horrific damage unless the player moves very slowly and methodically, because a heavy sniper or LRM turret firing from outside visual range can fuck up even an assault lance in just a couple turns, especially if fighting mechs at the same time.
When flipped to a defense mission, the player MIGHT be lucky enough to have light turrets on their side plus light vehicles. And that's rare. And reinforcements are very likely to get dropped on the opposite end of the base from the first engagement point, which is really obnoxious with only four player mechs on the field. AND the enemy will likely be running 8 mechs at a minimum and very likely up to twelve mechs.
So base fights are obnoxious and tedious on both sides of the equation, which is terrible mission design. The game really needs to expand how many mechs you can field and let you pick where to deploy, if it's going to dump stuff on you like that.
An actual "good" AI with such a destroy base objective would prioritze the couple weak buildings and basically ignore the player entirely. This AI will switch target priority if you damage them at all, so in my opinion it's already as easy as it gets. The only tweak left would be to make them ignore the objective entirely, and that would not be an improvement.
But even if you moved yourself out of position to be able to immediately respond to reinforcements, losing one of the buildings is not exactly the end of the world either. As an optional objective, it's usually worth a 10% bonus, which on average for a million dollar contract with average pay set is around $50,000 or only about $10,000 if you went max salvage. So it covers your next travel cost, but missing it is unlikely to be the cause of bankruptcy.
Bolding mine.
I feel like that would require a ground-up reworking of the game design to avoid tediously long matches. I'm not wild about the fact that the game mainly seems to achieve increased difficulty by throwing disproportionate numbers at the player, but that's kind of a long-standing issue with single player strategy games, so I can live with it. But if the player's deployment forces were increased, they would increase what you're up against as well, so even a reinforced lance (~6 mechs instead of four) would result in a major time increase. From the sounds of it, just adding some ground rules about where and how reinforcements can appear, stuff like that, could pretty neatly fix the issues you guys are describing about the alternate mission types.
That said, I feel like base defense missions where you struggle with the need to move against enemies firing from long ranges (or just to engage before they can fire on the thing you're protecting) vs the need to stay close enough to your target to quickly stop enemies approaching from a different angle is old hat for the franchise, as I distinctly remember it being a source of difficulty for missions all the way back in Mechwarrior 2.
I would love the game to switch to a model where you can deploy up to 12 units, limited by a max drop tonnage of 400 (allowing a range of formations like a single assault lance, one heavy and one light, double mediums, or a full company of lights). However, I feel like that would necessitate shifting to using Alpha Strike's rules as the design basis, instead of Classic Battletech's tabletop system, at which point the scope of the work involved is more appropriate for a sequel then an expansion.
He makes engine revving noises when he kills someome and has doible exhaust pipes
I'm actually going to disagree here, because of one reason: the computer does all the math for you.
Alpha Strike is Good(TM) for large-scale tabletop engagements specifically because it cuts down a ton on the detail and amount of fiddly numbers and rolls compared to Classic Battletech. With a PC doing all the work and math and dice rolls, there's no reason to leverage a lighter ruleset.
This was one of my great joys when first playing BATTLETECH: being on the PC lets it have all the crunch of the Classic Battletech experience, while maintaining a relatively short play session per combat scenario.
I will agree that if the game allowed for larger-scale engagements it probably would need a bit of streamlining, but not so much that you'd need to completely abandon the modeling currently used.
I'm going to disagree. Having the computer do the math for you is a huge help. However, the complexity to play optimally still increases. I'm no longer meticulously checking the facing, armor, LOS and fire arcs for 4 units, but 12! Even with the computer rolling the dice for me, I'm still managing a combinatoric explosion trying not to get rolled by the AI because instead of making sure 4 of my precious mechs aren't out of position and about to get MDK'd, I'm trying to heard 12 cats into position similarly covered. And if things scale for the opponent similarly, 24 to 36 mechs baring down on me.
At a certain point you have to simplify the ruleset, not because of the quantity of dice rolls, but because of the complexity of min-maxing the tactics and strategy.
PSN: theIceBurner, IceBurnerEU, IceBurner-JP | X-Link Kai: TheIceBurner
Dragon's Dogma: 192 Warrior Linty | 80 Strider Alicia | 32 Mage Terra
Agree to disagree. In almost every rote mission I've played, it takes me roughly no time to make a near-optimal play for each 'Mech's move. The possibility space isn't that big, and there's only so many smart moves you can make with each 'Mech each turn. Also you usually have enough time while the OpFor makes moves to plan out your next move.
I feel if you're taking more than ten seconds to put in a move for one of your 'Mechs, you're overthinking it. Most moves probably take longer to animate than they should take to plan out.
I may be an outlier in this opinion, though.