Christ, that mission nearly went bad. I'm starting to hate convoy interception missions, because man vehicles may be comparatively fragile but most of them hit like trucks and the mission difficulty gauge seems to not count them at all - a mission with four mechs and a mission with similarly strong four mechs plus four vehicles end up around the same reward, somehow.
I managed to get everyone out but I think the Zeus is going to be spending the entire month in the shop:
I did get my first Marauder, though, which is a plus.
The worst is when they have like 30 SRM6's.
This little dinky APC rolls up and then unleashes a hellish barrage that lasts longer than most WW1 arty strikes.
This was a chunk of LRM and PPC carriers. So in this case since the enemy took a look at my Zeus and decided "you know what? Fuck that guy in particular", and started shooting the shit out of it, even before I had the vehicles in sights they were already slamming a mass of beams and missiles into it. I basically withdrew it entirely (didn't eject because, might as well not break the head too), a couple turns in, because holy crap.
Managed to rather soundly behead an Annihilator. I have it set up with 4 various flavors of AC/10 and a bunch of ammo, but I haven't gotten to test it out yet. I know it's slow AF, but adding JJs to this thing just seemed like a waste of tonnage, so I decided to add more armor instead.
If you find yourself having trouble being in range you can always switch to UAC5s. My Annie has four of those and a LBX2 in the last ballistic hardpoint just to add insult to injury, and I often find myself being at long range for the AC5s. AC10s do have the advantage of OHKOing heads with the perk bonus but I prefer to use my Marauder for headhunting. Also if you want to see some truly ridiculous damage numbers add a TAG++ to one of your frontline brawlers, my UAC5s were hitting for 65 against a tagged target (so that's 8x65 from them alone, then something like 104 from the lone LBX2 for a total of 624).
One of the MVPs of the above was the Rifleman I had gotten in the free crate you get. Put a rangefinder in it and it just snipped people with twin AC/5s and LLs.
... wait, what? You can get a goddamn Rifleman out of the crate you get on day 2 of career? I got an Assassin which doesn't alter your starting lance's power much, same with Vulcan I've heard other people getting. But a Rifleman is a whole another story altogether.
I think that's where I got it from. It may scale based on time or something. I am like half way through the career and had a couple assault mechs already.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
So I was advancing the story a bit, and I had this mission where I had to defend a spaceport full of explosive tanks. About twelve enemies, but mostly they just run in like crazy straight for the bombs, making hitting them an annoyance, and of course buildings in this game are super fragile. However...
Jenner: "Ha ha, now I'm right next to the bomb, and if you want to kill me you will have to waste a ton of actions because I have like eight defensive chevrons and I'm tiny! And then all my friends will be here!"
Dekker, in fully decked 180 damage punch Grasshopper: "Buenos dias, fuckboy" *KRONCH*
And so, while the Highlander and the Victor went fight their heavies, Dekker was just running around turning all the lights into thermal paste.
So, I gotta say, I absolutely despise how PGI deals with XP gain (and rewards in general) in MWO. I mean, okay, Kills and playing map objectives are all well and good. Lights locking up targets, cool. Now how about a mech that distracts well over half the enemy team so your team can sweep up the distracted enemy team? Yeah, that mech gets completely shafted. What do I mean by this? Take a look at this end of match screen:
So, what are you looking at here? This is me in an Annihilator on Frozen City (Classic). The assault lance dropped completely separated from the rest of our team and were looking confused as to where to go. So, I turned around and started making my way back to the rest of my team. But, at 48kph, by the time I "regrouped" with my team, they were already 300m on the way to meet up with the enemy team. By this time, I had a Mist Lynx peeking over a notch by the dropship and targeting me for the enemy team's LRM launchers. By my count of missile tracks, there were at least 4 of them. Then a direct-fire Quickdraw decided to join on picking off the straggling Annihilator. And a SRM+small laser Marauder. And a Phoenix Hawk. By swinging my mech around as much as possible, I managed to stay somewhat in the fight long enough for my team to start taking large chunks out of the enemy team.
But, in the eyes of PGI's rewards system, I didn't do jack shit except deal 176 damage and die. Thanks PGI...thanks.
That sort of stuff is nearly impossible to evaluate effectively in an automated way that isn't also subject to trivial exploitation
Some factor on total damage taken and total ‘mech-seconds of enemy target lock.
With how some people just can't find the "R" key on their keyboards, that might not be the best idea (even though, in principle, it should be).
I dunno, incentivizing using the "R" key could be a really good thing.
From how I understood Elvenshae's suggestion, it would only benefit the mech being targetted as opposed to the mech doing the targetting. So, for example, a butthole could, in theory, just run around and not target anybody to negate the locked target tanking part of the reward calculation.
Yeah, I was going for, like, if you had 5 enemy mechs with you selected as their target for 10s each, you’d get 50 mech-seconds of credit.
PGI also made it so that if you shoot the same person enough, you autotarget them, so I’m not too concerned with the possibility of gaming the system.
So, I gotta say, I absolutely despise how PGI deals with XP gain (and rewards in general) in MWO. I mean, okay, Kills and playing map objectives are all well and good. Lights locking up targets, cool. Now how about a mech that distracts well over half the enemy team so your team can sweep up the distracted enemy team? Yeah, that mech gets completely shafted. What do I mean by this? Take a look at this end of match screen:
So, what are you looking at here? This is me in an Annihilator on Frozen City (Classic). The assault lance dropped completely separated from the rest of our team and were looking confused as to where to go. So, I turned around and started making my way back to the rest of my team. But, at 48kph, by the time I "regrouped" with my team, they were already 300m on the way to meet up with the enemy team. By this time, I had a Mist Lynx peeking over a notch by the dropship and targeting me for the enemy team's LRM launchers. By my count of missile tracks, there were at least 4 of them. Then a direct-fire Quickdraw decided to join on picking off the straggling Annihilator. And a SRM+small laser Marauder. And a Phoenix Hawk. By swinging my mech around as much as possible, I managed to stay somewhat in the fight long enough for my team to start taking large chunks out of the enemy team.
But, in the eyes of PGI's rewards system, I didn't do jack shit except deal 176 damage and die. Thanks PGI...thanks.
That sort of stuff is nearly impossible to evaluate effectively in an automated way that isn't also subject to trivial exploitation
Some factor on total damage taken and total ‘mech-seconds of enemy target lock.
With how some people just can't find the "R" key on their keyboards, that might not be the best idea (even though, in principle, it should be).
I dunno, incentivizing using the "R" key could be a really good thing.
From how I understood Elvenshae's suggestion, it would only benefit the mech being targetted as opposed to the mech doing the targetting. So, for example, a butthole could, in theory, just run around and not target anybody to negate the locked target tanking part of the reward calculation.
Yeah, I was going for, like, if you had 5 enemy mechs with you selected as their target for 10s each, you’d get 50 mech-seconds of credit.
PGI also made it so that if you shoot the same person enough, you autotarget them, so I’m not too concerned with the possibility of gaming the system.
Yeah, I actually had this happen to me tonight. Was trying to get the drop on some cored out mech. Came around a corner on Polar Highlands in my Annihilator, started opening up on the mech and got confused why he wasn't instantly dying to my autocannons.
..then the game auto re-targetted to the dude I was actually shooting at: a fresh twin-AC20 King Crab. Whoops.
| Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
I'm kind of at the point now where I want to run themed drop decks for FW.
For example, a long range deck... MAL-MX90 (2xAC/2, 4xUAC/2) HTM-27W (3xUAC/2) or HTM-27W (quad PPC) DRG-5N (3xUAC/2) PNT-10K (support Panther, though Jenner might be better for the tonnage...).
i put together a 4 UAX2 Jager mech. i was underwhelmed.
Base LBX2s or the +2 damage variant? The latter does 50% more damage than the base LBX2 and is truly a great weapon if you want to deal a bunch of damage for no heat from long range. LBX2++ does actually more damage than any LBX5 variant and almost as much as base LBX10, it's kinda weird.
Or did you mean UAC2s? Those also have a huge difference between base (25x2) and ++ (35x2).
Mirkel on
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NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
Battletech:
One of my Sensor Monkeys got himself shot up; 92 days in the hospital.
On day 2, I get an event, because he's mopey. I visit him, figuring a pep talk from the ol' CO augh'ta cheer him up.
It did! Tailspin has High Spirits for 30 days.
*Looks at the 90 days he'll still be in the hospital*
Yup. Thanks game!
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited November 2019
The injury rates continue to be way too fucking high and the recovery rates way too fucking low. There are few things more irritating to me than going into a Battletech mission, spending the first three combat rounds going for headshots and not getting one, and then my opponents land at least two headshots randomly. You are basically guaranteed to sustain multiple injuries if fights last more than a couple rounds, NPCs should simply not inflict headshots at the same rate as the player. I will accidentally get a headshot hit maybe once every 3-4 missions, but the opposing forces get them at least once every 3-4 rounds.
I really wish mechs could melee after a sprint - it really hampers how useful melee is given that you can only *walk* towards a guy and punch him.
I want a goddamn wind up sprint! Tackle that motherfucker.
On a related note, I also wish I could use JJs for melee without sacrificing everything under the belt line. DFA mods help, but not a lot...
There is a mod that does this. Or at least there was. It basically replaced one of the skills with Juggernaut and added a bunch of stuff to it like the ability to do this and it was kinda neat.
The injury rates continue to be way too fucking high and the recovery rates way too fucking low. There are few things more irritating to me than going into a Battletech mission, spending the first three combat rounds going for headshots and not getting one, and then my opponents land at least two headshots randomly. You are basically guaranteed to sustain multiple injuries if fights last more than a couple rounds, NPCs should simply not inflict headshots at the same rate as the player. I will accidentally get a headshot hit maybe once every 3-4 missions, but the opposing forces get them at least once every 3-4 rounds.
We've been over the math and confirmation bias reasons before on why the headshot rates seen are not actually any higher than the game's 1.2% expected value. But they did introduce a bug in 1.8 where pilot health/recovery is partly broken on the Argo. You still have expected health amounts in battles, but if you look in the barracks, everyone taken on a mission will be stuck at 3 health. Which means all pilots currently have longer than normal recovery times due to health stuck at 3.
SiliconStew on
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
I watched a few streamers' videos of the MW5 beta, and of all the tanks to put in the game, they put in the J Edgar. Sigh. I think it's the dumbest pun in all of BattleTech.
The injury rates continue to be way too fucking high and the recovery rates way too fucking low. There are few things more irritating to me than going into a Battletech mission, spending the first three combat rounds going for headshots and not getting one, and then my opponents land at least two headshots randomly. You are basically guaranteed to sustain multiple injuries if fights last more than a couple rounds, NPCs should simply not inflict headshots at the same rate as the player. I will accidentally get a headshot hit maybe once every 3-4 missions, but the opposing forces get them at least once every 3-4 rounds.
We've been over the math and confirmation bias reasons before on why the headshot rates seen are not actually any higher than the game's 1.2% expected value. But they did introduce a bug in 1.8 where pilot health/recovery is partly broken on the Argo. You still have expected health amounts in battles, but if you look in the barracks, everyone taken on a mission will be stuck at 3 health. Which means all pilots currently have longer than normal recovery times due to health stuck at 3.
I imagine a big part of why it feels like enemies get more headshots is because they plain do more shots because in this game you're goddamn always outnumbered at least 2:1.
And the old adage for D&D GMs holds: "a specific NPC will only be subjected to like ten rolls before leaving the campaign, a PC will be subject to over a thousand. Balance your encounters accordingly". This was a warning about insteant death effects, no matter how "low" the chance, but the basic idea holds here. An NPC pilot taking a couple random head wounds from an LRM barrage means nothing unless you can take all four or so wounds from them. A random player pilot taking a couple random head wounds from an LRM barrage means the pilot becomes unusable for a month, hurting the player for the next two missions at least.
In other news, I've been wondering whether I want the DLC for this game. I do have Flashpoint, because I got this from Humble, but I dunno if Urban Warfare+Heavy Metal are worth it - its at least 25 bucks, after all. That's an entire new game right there.
The injury rates continue to be way too fucking high and the recovery rates way too fucking low. There are few things more irritating to me than going into a Battletech mission, spending the first three combat rounds going for headshots and not getting one, and then my opponents land at least two headshots randomly. You are basically guaranteed to sustain multiple injuries if fights last more than a couple rounds, NPCs should simply not inflict headshots at the same rate as the player. I will accidentally get a headshot hit maybe once every 3-4 missions, but the opposing forces get them at least once every 3-4 rounds.
We've been over the math and confirmation bias reasons before on why the headshot rates seen are not actually any higher than the game's 1.2% expected value. But they did introduce a bug in 1.8 where pilot health/recovery is partly broken on the Argo. You still have expected health amounts in battles, but if you look in the barracks, everyone taken on a mission will be stuck at 3 health. Which means all pilots currently have longer than normal recovery times due to health stuck at 3.
I imagine a big part of why it feels like enemies get more headshots is because they plain do more shots because in this game you're goddamn always outnumbered at least 2:1.
And the old adage for D&D GMs holds: "a specific NPC will only be subjected to like ten rolls before leaving the campaign, a PC will be subject to over a thousand. Balance your encounters accordingly". This was a warning about insteant death effects, no matter how "low" the chance, but the basic idea holds here. An NPC pilot taking a couple random head wounds from an LRM barrage means nothing unless you can take all four or so wounds from them. A random player pilot taking a couple random head wounds from an LRM barrage means the pilot becomes unusable for a month, hurting the player for the next two missions at least.
In other news, I've been wondering whether I want the DLC for this game. I do have Flashpoint, because I got this from Humble, but I dunno if Urban Warfare+Heavy Metal are worth it - its at least 25 bucks, after all. That's an entire new game right there.
Almost all of the mechs in Heavy Metal are in one of the various overhaul mods; you just won't get the chassis quirks.
I should have brought this up earlier (and it's probably old news). If I have 3 operating mech bays, repairs should be parallel, not series. Three mechs with one day of work should take one day total; not three.
Also I think I'm misunderstanding how LBX weapons work. Are they basically "shotgun ballistics"? I gave one a run last night and was underwhelmed.
The injury rates continue to be way too fucking high and the recovery rates way too fucking low. There are few things more irritating to me than going into a Battletech mission, spending the first three combat rounds going for headshots and not getting one, and then my opponents land at least two headshots randomly. You are basically guaranteed to sustain multiple injuries if fights last more than a couple rounds, NPCs should simply not inflict headshots at the same rate as the player. I will accidentally get a headshot hit maybe once every 3-4 missions, but the opposing forces get them at least once every 3-4 rounds.
We've been over the math and confirmation bias reasons before on why the headshot rates seen are not actually any higher than the game's 1.2% expected value. But they did introduce a bug in 1.8 where pilot health/recovery is partly broken on the Argo. You still have expected health amounts in battles, but if you look in the barracks, everyone taken on a mission will be stuck at 3 health. Which means all pilots currently have longer than normal recovery times due to health stuck at 3.
I imagine a big part of why it feels like enemies get more headshots is because they plain do more shots because in this game you're goddamn always outnumbered at least 2:1.
And the old adage for D&D GMs holds: "a specific NPC will only be subjected to like ten rolls before leaving the campaign, a PC will be subject to over a thousand. Balance your encounters accordingly". This was a warning about insteant death effects, no matter how "low" the chance, but the basic idea holds here. An NPC pilot taking a couple random head wounds from an LRM barrage means nothing unless you can take all four or so wounds from them. A random player pilot taking a couple random head wounds from an LRM barrage means the pilot becomes unusable for a month, hurting the player for the next two missions at least.
In other news, I've been wondering whether I want the DLC for this game. I do have Flashpoint, because I got this from Humble, but I dunno if Urban Warfare+Heavy Metal are worth it - its at least 25 bucks, after all. That's an entire new game right there.
Almost all of the mechs in Heavy Metal are in one of the various overhaul mods; you just won't get the chassis quirks.
I watched a few streamers' videos of the MW5 beta, and of all the tanks to put in the game, they put in the J Edgar. Sigh. I think it's the dumbest pun in all of BattleTech.
J.
Edgar.
....
....
....
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVERCRAFT!
C'mon, how can you hate that? It's the best kind of dumb! Also, it's just a cute little vee!
I should have brought this up earlier (and it's probably old news). If I have 3 operating mech bays, repairs should be parallel, not series. Three mechs with one day of work should take one day total; not three.
Also I think I'm misunderstanding how LBX weapons work. Are they basically "shotgun ballistics"? I gave one a run last night and was underwhelmed.
Yeah, UACs fire twice, LBX weapons fire like a shotgun (though unlike shotguns in other games, these actually have same range as the base gun). LBX2++ is great (72 damage for 2 heat, 720m range) but the rest of the LBX guns aren't very impressive. One thing they do well is crits and it seems they fire last so if the bigger guns strip armor the LBXes can blow up any ammo in the exposed locations.
The injury rates continue to be way too fucking high and the recovery rates way too fucking low. There are few things more irritating to me than going into a Battletech mission, spending the first three combat rounds going for headshots and not getting one, and then my opponents land at least two headshots randomly. You are basically guaranteed to sustain multiple injuries if fights last more than a couple rounds, NPCs should simply not inflict headshots at the same rate as the player. I will accidentally get a headshot hit maybe once every 3-4 missions, but the opposing forces get them at least once every 3-4 rounds.
We've been over the math and confirmation bias reasons before on why the headshot rates seen are not actually any higher than the game's 1.2% expected value. But they did introduce a bug in 1.8 where pilot health/recovery is partly broken on the Argo. You still have expected health amounts in battles, but if you look in the barracks, everyone taken on a mission will be stuck at 3 health. Which means all pilots currently have longer than normal recovery times due to health stuck at 3.
I imagine a big part of why it feels like enemies get more headshots is because they plain do more shots because in this game you're goddamn always outnumbered at least 2:1.
And the old adage for D&D GMs holds: "a specific NPC will only be subjected to like ten rolls before leaving the campaign, a PC will be subject to over a thousand. Balance your encounters accordingly". This was a warning about insteant death effects, no matter how "low" the chance, but the basic idea holds here. An NPC pilot taking a couple random head wounds from an LRM barrage means nothing unless you can take all four or so wounds from them. A random player pilot taking a couple random head wounds from an LRM barrage means the pilot becomes unusable for a month, hurting the player for the next two missions at least.
In other news, I've been wondering whether I want the DLC for this game. I do have Flashpoint, because I got this from Humble, but I dunno if Urban Warfare+Heavy Metal are worth it - its at least 25 bucks, after all. That's an entire new game right there.
Which is why this game' head hit chance is set to less than half of the tabletop value on which it's based. Why your main character cannot ever die due to wounds and end the game. Why, barring a knockdown, pilots cannot recieve more than one wound per enemy per turn regardless of extra wounding damage done. Why you can have 20 extra reserve pilots beyond the 4 you take on missions. Why you can cheaply hire replacement pilots at every planet in the game. Why you have game mechanics specifically included to increase pilot health, negate pilot injuries, increase survival chance in situations that would otherwise kill them, and reduce recovery times. And why when they buffed damage on AC10s, they also increased head structure points to prevent that weapon from being able to one-shot the pilot, so there is still only a single weapon enemies use that can do that.
SiliconStew on
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
+3
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
And it's still a completely anti-fun mechanic because the rate is still too high. It's low enough that it will virtually never benefit the player without using Called Shot, but still high enough that the player is forced to deal with it many, many times more than the computer opponents. And as mechs carry more weapons, it only gets worse because you're outnumbered and any one of your mechs is getting shot a whole lot more by each opponent.
It was just a dumb idea to put the mechanic in Battletech. It hugely punishes the player for tanking damage, which is exactly what mechs are built for, and is no hindrance at all for computer opponents because you will defeat them and never encounter any of them again.
I remember when the base game came out, I was rolling a mostly shadow hawk lance on some two skull mission when behemoth got randomly head shot by a ppc in the first three rounds. Needless to say I loaded my last save immediately.
Headshots are tough in BT. I get why they're there. I understand how they're balanced from a game perspective. I know how to prepare for them and roll with the punches when they happen to favorite pilots. But it doesn't change the fact that every time some 2 bit pirate, WITH NO HONOR, in a commando crests a hill and fires 4 missiles at me...the inevitable lucky head shot will still annoy the shit out of me every time.
That's really my problem with them...that a single missile strike can put a pilot in hock for a month, even when the armor on the head hasn't even been breached. But then I compare it to Blood Bowl rolls...and then I don't feel so bad anymore.
Dark_Side on
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
Early on headshots suck. Later I’ve got a deep enough roster it’s just irritating.
The only one I hate is when some asshole king crab or Demolisher gets lucky and erases the mech warrior from existence. THAT stings.
A single point of damage is not knocking someone out for a month.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
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OrcaAlso known as EspressosaurusWrexRegistered Userregular
edited November 2019
Realism need not apply. The ground pressure of these mechs means even if some unobtanium allows them to move without buckling, they’d sink to the hips in anything short of meter-thick steel.
So let’s not talk about realism. Realism is a boring subject and giant stompy robots are not boring.
I just install Cockpit Mods to all of my mechs. Problem mostly solved. Though I think there's a bug currently where it uses too low Guts value for pilots in the ship, you can see it says "3 hp" for all of them when you look at them on Argo. Which also increases the time it takes for them to heal.
I do wish the pilots were cheaper to hire and had lower monthy pay, right now it costs more to pay one of my pilots than to upkeep four assault mechs which is just wrong. Battletech Extended made it so pilots get tired but they are cheaper which meant larger roster, really liked that too since it meant more different voices and more various tags triggering different onboard events.
Realism need not apply. The ground pressure of these mechs means even if some unobtanium allows them to move without buckling, they’d sink to the hips in anything short of meter-thick steel.
So let’s not talk about realism. Realism is a boring subject and giant stompy robots are not boring.
That's not actually true. Given how light mechs are (100 tons isn't all that much, current main battletanks weight over 60 tons and a loaded logging truck is 40 tons for example) and how wide their legs are they'd be fine on most surfaces. Obviously there's plenty of other unrealistic things about them but ground pressure happens to be one of the things that would work.
And it's still a completely anti-fun mechanic because the rate is still too high. It's low enough that it will virtually never benefit the player without using Called Shot, but still high enough that the player is forced to deal with it many, many times more than the computer opponents. And as mechs carry more weapons, it only gets worse because you're outnumbered and any one of your mechs is getting shot a whole lot more by each opponent.
It was just a dumb idea to put the mechanic in Battletech. It hugely punishes the player for tanking damage, which is exactly what mechs are built for, and is no hindrance at all for computer opponents because you will defeat them and never encounter any of them again.
Do you also consider mech damage "hugely punishing"? Because a mech down for repairs is at least no different and often worse than a pilot out for injuries. And the game provides very analogous mechanisms for managing and mitigating damage for both pilots and mechs. And the lack of consequences to the AI for their own mech damage is no different than their pilots.
You obviously don't, but I personally find head hits so inconsequential overall because injuries have no in-mission effects and my own anecdotal results like 0 ejections and 0 pilot deaths 1100 days into this current run say the game's head hit rate is too low to have any real consequences. So I've also stopped installing injury resist mods a long time ago because every other item for the head slot gives me more utility on the field. I also manage my pilot roster so injuries don't actually result in mission downtime or significant degredation of abilities when they rotate in. That is, I have more than enough reserve pilots to fill in for the next mission and I rotate them into battles regularly so I avoid ending up with an A team of level 10 pilots and a B team of green rookies.
The great thing about this game is if you don't like it, just install one of the several mods out there that reduce or eliminate head hit injuries.
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
Personally, I find pilots much more vital than mechs, and much harder to replace if one is benched for three weeks. If one of my mechs goes down, I can refit another and I will be roughly where I started. Maybe my composition will not be optimal, but I won't be terribly set back.
But if I give a good mech to a newbie I'm basically playing with three mechs because he will not hit a damn thing, and all he will be good for is try to soak fire. And training up people from low level gets very hard with the ever increasing level of opposition.
NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
edited November 2019
In my new Career, like just over a hundred or hundred-fifty days in, I'm having to juggle a full roster of MechWarriors due to injuries while simultaneously trying to keep four 'Mechs in fighting shape because I'm having to rotate a fifth in to take a spot when shit gets bad while the sixth slot is working on a big overhaul while also juggling expenses and trying to scrape together money...
What I'm saying is, is injuries and damage happen, and this game is fuckin' good y'all.
Also: fuck fighting on the Lunar biome. That shit is Hard Mode++ for a new career, and I spent like a month and a half in game on a planet that only had that biome.
And it's still a completely anti-fun mechanic because the rate is still too high. It's low enough that it will virtually never benefit the player without using Called Shot, but still high enough that the player is forced to deal with it many, many times more than the computer opponents. And as mechs carry more weapons, it only gets worse because you're outnumbered and any one of your mechs is getting shot a whole lot more by each opponent.
It was just a dumb idea to put the mechanic in Battletech. It hugely punishes the player for tanking damage, which is exactly what mechs are built for, and is no hindrance at all for computer opponents because you will defeat them and never encounter any of them again.
Do you also consider mech damage "hugely punishing"? Because a mech down for repairs is at least no different and often worse than a pilot out for injuries. And the game provides very analogous mechanisms for managing and mitigating damage for both pilots and mechs. And the lack of consequences to the AI for their own mech damage is no different than their pilots.
You obviously don't, but I personally find head hits so inconsequential overall because injuries have no in-mission effects and my own anecdotal results like 0 ejections and 0 pilot deaths 1100 days into this current run say the game's head hit rate is too low to have any real consequences. So I've also stopped installing injury resist mods a long time ago because every other item for the head slot gives me more utility on the field. I also manage my pilot roster so injuries don't actually result in mission downtime or significant degredation of abilities when they rotate in. That is, I have more than enough reserve pilots to fill in for the next mission and I rotate them into battles regularly so I avoid ending up with an A team of level 10 pilots and a B team of green rookies.
The great thing about this game is if you don't like it, just install one of the several mods out there that reduce or eliminate head hit injuries.
The bolded isn't exactly analogous. It takes considerably more time for a pilot to recover than it takes to repair a broken mech. Example: that screenshot I posted a week ago where my Hunchback became the decoy while the rest of my team worked on whittling away the baddies. The Hunchback ended the mission with the following destroyed parts: right arm, right torso, left arm, head. The following parts were on the verge of being destroyed: right leg, center torso. That Hunchback was repaired en route to the next contract. The pilot, however, was out for another month and a half.
EDIT - I should also add for more detail, this is with the first Medbay upgrade and the 2 initial mechbay upgrades (automation and hoists or whatever they are).
Erlkönig on
| Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
Also: fuck fighting on the Lunar biome. That shit is Hard Mode++ for a new career, and I spent like a month and a half in game on a planet that only had that biome.
It's hard mode for any career, there's just no upside at all fighting in Lunar biome ever. The only Lunar biome combat I do is for that one flashpoint. In general any hotter biome (Lunar, Martian, Desert, Badlands) sucks for the player a lot more than it does for the AI because AI gets a steady stream of new mechs in most missions that enter the battle with empty heat bar while you need to keep on killing stuff without overheating. You could do some lower heat mech builds for those fights (fillings mechs with LBX2++s would work wonders) but there's little point since they don't pay any more.
The only thing I don't agree with the injury system is;
1: why do side torso losses injure the pilot?
2: when they get cored out, why isn't the ejection system punching them out? I HATE that losing a mech to CT coring almost always kills the pilot. I'd be happier with a rare bad ejection killing the pilot or putting them near death.
Man, I wish you could offer jobs to enemies. Because I would hire this guy:
Yes, that is a dude in a Locust. After surviving a full alpha strike from a Zeus and a Highlander. And still holding on and trying to hit my rear armor, the poor man.
Whatever they were paying this dude, it was not enough.
Okay. Maybe doable, at least prod the thing and see what comes out.
What comes out: NINE 'Mechs, half of which are Mediums, with an Archer as the target.
I get into it, but having the Target's guard and its reinforcements on me from the jump? Not liking the looks of this. I down a Commando, Phoenix Hawk, and Disco Death Hunchback(!) I'm taking hits, and now I'm getting close to losing things: important arms, legs, whatever. Time to bail. I pull the Withdraw ripcord.
Bad Faith Withdrawal. No experience for my pilots (bullshit), no cash (bullshit), a Medium Laser and a small Jump Jet for my time and injuries.
Mother fucker, you weren't there! I downed a third of the enemy force before I had to bug out. They were closing in, and now I've got Yang telling me our 'Mechs are so beat up, we need to refit before we go out again! If this "retired" MechWarrior in an Archer is so important, maybe send some of your own meat to do the job.
Posts
This was a chunk of LRM and PPC carriers. So in this case since the enemy took a look at my Zeus and decided "you know what? Fuck that guy in particular", and started shooting the shit out of it, even before I had the vehicles in sights they were already slamming a mass of beams and missiles into it. I basically withdrew it entirely (didn't eject because, might as well not break the head too), a couple turns in, because holy crap.
If you find yourself having trouble being in range you can always switch to UAC5s. My Annie has four of those and a LBX2 in the last ballistic hardpoint just to add insult to injury, and I often find myself being at long range for the AC5s. AC10s do have the advantage of OHKOing heads with the perk bonus but I prefer to use my Marauder for headhunting. Also if you want to see some truly ridiculous damage numbers add a TAG++ to one of your frontline brawlers, my UAC5s were hitting for 65 against a tagged target (so that's 8x65 from them alone, then something like 104 from the lone LBX2 for a total of 624).
I think that's where I got it from. It may scale based on time or something. I am like half way through the career and had a couple assault mechs already.
So I was advancing the story a bit, and I had this mission where I had to defend a spaceport full of explosive tanks. About twelve enemies, but mostly they just run in like crazy straight for the bombs, making hitting them an annoyance, and of course buildings in this game are super fragile. However...
Jenner: "Ha ha, now I'm right next to the bomb, and if you want to kill me you will have to waste a ton of actions because I have like eight defensive chevrons and I'm tiny! And then all my friends will be here!"
Dekker, in fully decked 180 damage punch Grasshopper: "Buenos dias, fuckboy" *KRONCH*
And so, while the Highlander and the Victor went fight their heavies, Dekker was just running around turning all the lights into thermal paste.
the UAC20 Cyclops on the other hand. Premo. Kills shit dead.
Yeah, I was going for, like, if you had 5 enemy mechs with you selected as their target for 10s each, you’d get 50 mech-seconds of credit.
PGI also made it so that if you shoot the same person enough, you autotarget them, so I’m not too concerned with the possibility of gaming the system.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Yeah, I actually had this happen to me tonight. Was trying to get the drop on some cored out mech. Came around a corner on Polar Highlands in my Annihilator, started opening up on the mech and got confused why he wasn't instantly dying to my autocannons.
..then the game auto re-targetted to the dude I was actually shooting at: a fresh twin-AC20 King Crab. Whoops.
I'm kind of at the point now where I want to run themed drop decks for FW.
For example, a long range deck...
MAL-MX90 (2xAC/2, 4xUAC/2)
HTM-27W (3xUAC/2) or HTM-27W (quad PPC)
DRG-5N (3xUAC/2)
PNT-10K (support Panther, though Jenner might be better for the tonnage...).
Base LBX2s or the +2 damage variant? The latter does 50% more damage than the base LBX2 and is truly a great weapon if you want to deal a bunch of damage for no heat from long range. LBX2++ does actually more damage than any LBX5 variant and almost as much as base LBX10, it's kinda weird.
Or did you mean UAC2s? Those also have a huge difference between base (25x2) and ++ (35x2).
One of my Sensor Monkeys got himself shot up; 92 days in the hospital.
On day 2, I get an event, because he's mopey. I visit him, figuring a pep talk from the ol' CO augh'ta cheer him up.
It did!
Tailspin has High Spirits for 30 days.
*Looks at the 90 days he'll still be in the hospital*
Yup. Thanks game!
There is a mod that does this. Or at least there was. It basically replaced one of the skills with Juggernaut and added a bunch of stuff to it like the ability to do this and it was kinda neat.
We've been over the math and confirmation bias reasons before on why the headshot rates seen are not actually any higher than the game's 1.2% expected value. But they did introduce a bug in 1.8 where pilot health/recovery is partly broken on the Argo. You still have expected health amounts in battles, but if you look in the barracks, everyone taken on a mission will be stuck at 3 health. Which means all pilots currently have longer than normal recovery times due to health stuck at 3.
I imagine a big part of why it feels like enemies get more headshots is because they plain do more shots because in this game you're goddamn always outnumbered at least 2:1.
And the old adage for D&D GMs holds: "a specific NPC will only be subjected to like ten rolls before leaving the campaign, a PC will be subject to over a thousand. Balance your encounters accordingly". This was a warning about insteant death effects, no matter how "low" the chance, but the basic idea holds here. An NPC pilot taking a couple random head wounds from an LRM barrage means nothing unless you can take all four or so wounds from them. A random player pilot taking a couple random head wounds from an LRM barrage means the pilot becomes unusable for a month, hurting the player for the next two missions at least.
In other news, I've been wondering whether I want the DLC for this game. I do have Flashpoint, because I got this from Humble, but I dunno if Urban Warfare+Heavy Metal are worth it - its at least 25 bucks, after all. That's an entire new game right there.
Almost all of the mechs in Heavy Metal are in one of the various overhaul mods; you just won't get the chassis quirks.
Also I think I'm misunderstanding how LBX weapons work. Are they basically "shotgun ballistics"? I gave one a run last night and was underwhelmed.
The what now?
J.
Edgar.
....
....
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HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVERCRAFT!
C'mon, how can you hate that? It's the best kind of dumb! Also, it's just a cute little vee!
Yeah, UACs fire twice, LBX weapons fire like a shotgun (though unlike shotguns in other games, these actually have same range as the base gun). LBX2++ is great (72 damage for 2 heat, 720m range) but the rest of the LBX guns aren't very impressive. One thing they do well is crits and it seems they fire last so if the bigger guns strip armor the LBXes can blow up any ammo in the exposed locations.
Which is why this game' head hit chance is set to less than half of the tabletop value on which it's based. Why your main character cannot ever die due to wounds and end the game. Why, barring a knockdown, pilots cannot recieve more than one wound per enemy per turn regardless of extra wounding damage done. Why you can have 20 extra reserve pilots beyond the 4 you take on missions. Why you can cheaply hire replacement pilots at every planet in the game. Why you have game mechanics specifically included to increase pilot health, negate pilot injuries, increase survival chance in situations that would otherwise kill them, and reduce recovery times. And why when they buffed damage on AC10s, they also increased head structure points to prevent that weapon from being able to one-shot the pilot, so there is still only a single weapon enemies use that can do that.
It was just a dumb idea to put the mechanic in Battletech. It hugely punishes the player for tanking damage, which is exactly what mechs are built for, and is no hindrance at all for computer opponents because you will defeat them and never encounter any of them again.
That's really my problem with them...that a single missile strike can put a pilot in hock for a month, even when the armor on the head hasn't even been breached. But then I compare it to Blood Bowl rolls...and then I don't feel so bad anymore.
The only one I hate is when some asshole king crab or Demolisher gets lucky and erases the mech warrior from existence. THAT stings.
So let’s not talk about realism. Realism is a boring subject and giant stompy robots are not boring.
Ok, not a month, but 23 days every time right now in my current campaign.
I do wish the pilots were cheaper to hire and had lower monthy pay, right now it costs more to pay one of my pilots than to upkeep four assault mechs which is just wrong. Battletech Extended made it so pilots get tired but they are cheaper which meant larger roster, really liked that too since it meant more different voices and more various tags triggering different onboard events.
That's not actually true. Given how light mechs are (100 tons isn't all that much, current main battletanks weight over 60 tons and a loaded logging truck is 40 tons for example) and how wide their legs are they'd be fine on most surfaces. Obviously there's plenty of other unrealistic things about them but ground pressure happens to be one of the things that would work.
Do you also consider mech damage "hugely punishing"? Because a mech down for repairs is at least no different and often worse than a pilot out for injuries. And the game provides very analogous mechanisms for managing and mitigating damage for both pilots and mechs. And the lack of consequences to the AI for their own mech damage is no different than their pilots.
You obviously don't, but I personally find head hits so inconsequential overall because injuries have no in-mission effects and my own anecdotal results like 0 ejections and 0 pilot deaths 1100 days into this current run say the game's head hit rate is too low to have any real consequences. So I've also stopped installing injury resist mods a long time ago because every other item for the head slot gives me more utility on the field. I also manage my pilot roster so injuries don't actually result in mission downtime or significant degredation of abilities when they rotate in. That is, I have more than enough reserve pilots to fill in for the next mission and I rotate them into battles regularly so I avoid ending up with an A team of level 10 pilots and a B team of green rookies.
The great thing about this game is if you don't like it, just install one of the several mods out there that reduce or eliminate head hit injuries.
But if I give a good mech to a newbie I'm basically playing with three mechs because he will not hit a damn thing, and all he will be good for is try to soak fire. And training up people from low level gets very hard with the ever increasing level of opposition.
What I'm saying is, is injuries and damage happen, and this game is fuckin' good y'all.
Also: fuck fighting on the Lunar biome. That shit is Hard Mode++ for a new career, and I spent like a month and a half in game on a planet that only had that biome.
The bolded isn't exactly analogous. It takes considerably more time for a pilot to recover than it takes to repair a broken mech. Example: that screenshot I posted a week ago where my Hunchback became the decoy while the rest of my team worked on whittling away the baddies. The Hunchback ended the mission with the following destroyed parts: right arm, right torso, left arm, head. The following parts were on the verge of being destroyed: right leg, center torso. That Hunchback was repaired en route to the next contract. The pilot, however, was out for another month and a half.
EDIT - I should also add for more detail, this is with the first Medbay upgrade and the 2 initial mechbay upgrades (automation and hoists or whatever they are).
It's hard mode for any career, there's just no upside at all fighting in Lunar biome ever. The only Lunar biome combat I do is for that one flashpoint. In general any hotter biome (Lunar, Martian, Desert, Badlands) sucks for the player a lot more than it does for the AI because AI gets a steady stream of new mechs in most missions that enter the battle with empty heat bar while you need to keep on killing stuff without overheating. You could do some lower heat mech builds for those fights (fillings mechs with LBX2++s would work wonders) but there's little point since they don't pay any more.
1: why do side torso losses injure the pilot?
2: when they get cored out, why isn't the ejection system punching them out? I HATE that losing a mech to CT coring almost always kills the pilot. I'd be happier with a rare bad ejection killing the pilot or putting them near death.
Yes, that is a dude in a Locust. After surviving a full alpha strike from a Zeus and a Highlander. And still holding on and trying to hit my rear armor, the poor man.
Whatever they were paying this dude, it was not enough.
Me: Vulcan (COIL-M+MGs), Blackjack (AC/5+MLs), Jenner, Panther
Okay. Maybe doable, at least prod the thing and see what comes out.
What comes out: NINE 'Mechs, half of which are Mediums, with an Archer as the target.
I get into it, but having the Target's guard and its reinforcements on me from the jump? Not liking the looks of this. I down a Commando, Phoenix Hawk, and Disco Death Hunchback(!) I'm taking hits, and now I'm getting close to losing things: important arms, legs, whatever. Time to bail. I pull the Withdraw ripcord.
Bad Faith Withdrawal. No experience for my pilots (bullshit), no cash (bullshit), a Medium Laser and a small Jump Jet for my time and injuries.
Mother fucker, you weren't there! I downed a third of the enemy force before I had to bug out. They were closing in, and now I've got Yang telling me our 'Mechs are so beat up, we need to refit before we go out again! If this "retired" MechWarrior in an Archer is so important, maybe send some of your own meat to do the job.
Mother fucker, bad faith my ass.