106 replies to this topic

[General Taskeen]

For those getting into MegaMek, its best to start with the training scenarios against the AI. The AI is fairly relentless, since it is not programmed for alternate objectives that regular scenario packs were made with in booklets, and thus will hunt down your units to the last Mech/vehicle unless you retreat from the board map or destroy all of the AI's vehicles. Of course you can always find someone to play against as well.

You'll learn a about positioning, navigating the terrain, and using what you got. It requires a hefty amount of patience though. You can even go prone and hull down in many 'Mechs which reduces the ability for the enemy to hit you, while only exposing half or very little of your 'Mech. Mechs with fully actuated arms can fire in a broad range in 90 or 120 degrees to each side as they supposed to or even flip their arms in reverse.

"Hunting Dragons" is probably one of the best, but very difficult training scenario if you play as Kurita. You have four Stock DRG-1C's vs 2 Stock MAD-3D's and 2 Stock JR7-Fs. Its best played with Stock vs Stock, the way BT is meant to be played IMO and at its best as you learn the actual strengths and weaknesses already pre-built into BT Designs.



(This is where the battle begin, defending a ridge as the enemy advances. All my DRG's were in a hull-down position continually firing LRM10's and AC/2's at long range. The aftermath is clearly seen as a MAD-3D finally got up on the ridge between my Dragons, but was critically hit - AC/2's can penetrate through armor on occasion, which saved my life knocking out the Marauder's Gyro - a critically hit gyro requires piloting checks to keep your Mech upright)



(A running battle ensued with my two remaining dragons as I made a long Mobile Defense with 2 Jenners chasing while firing my Rear Medium Lasers, the objective being to separate the Lights from their Marauders. I set the trap in the small forest in the SE, holding position and took out both Jenners at close range with Kicks, Punches, and a Medium Laser on each Dragon).


My best record against the AI is 4 surviving pilots (Two Ejected), 2 Intact DRG-1C's, 2 demolished DRG-1C's, all enemy destroyed.

Edited by General Taskeen, 11 March 2015 - 02:56 PM.

[KraftySOT]

I love the isometric view I just dont have no hills in this map.

[Koniving]

Alek Ituin, on 11 March 2015 - 01:47 PM, said:

Whoa whoa whoa, what's this? You can run campaigns in MegaMek!?

And here I am just screwing around in little one off skirmishes...

Before The latest update on AI, I was doing quite a bit more than that. Through a lot of time and effort, I created civilian crowds, individual civilians, civilian vehicles, and through some painstaking effort I gave several civilian 'bots' some 'inclinations' to do things, like drive from street corner to street corner, make turns, and basically become a GTA style sandbox on a per turn basis, with enough cowardice that when a mech appeared, they'd FLOOD and RUN!

My first test campaign's first mission. This is the briefing/summary.


It'd take a bit of role playing on my part, for example if a vehicle is too close to where I'm going I'd kick it to 'accidentally' collide with it.

-------------
Physical attacks for Copper CPK-19 SecurityMech #2 (Koniving)
Kick (Left leg) at Flatbed Truck (Standard) #2 (Civilian2); needs 0, rolls 7 : hits (using Random Side table) LS (critical)
Flatbed Truck (Standard) #2 (Civilian2) takes 5 damage to LS (critical).
Armor destroyed, SECTION DESTROYED,
*** Flatbed Truck (Standard) #2 (Civilian2) DESTROYED by damage! ***
Critical hit on LS. Roll is 8; Crew stunned for 1 turns.
Critical hit on LS. Roll is 7; Crew stunned for 2 turns.

But for the most part it worked really well. With individual initiative rather than 'my turn, your turn' we had instead something more fluid and realistic. So with two mechs crossing the road (one moved, the other not yet moved), a civilian car reacted!
--------------
Car (Standard) #3 (Civilian3) must make a piloting skill check while moving in hex 1519 (reckless driving on pavement).
Needs 6 [5 (Base piloting skill) + 1 (high/low gravity) + 0 (reckless driving on pavement)], rolls 2 : fails.
Critical hit on movement system. Roll is 9; (w/ +2 bonus)
Moderate damage, +2 to driving skill rolls, -1 MP.
Skids into hex 1518.
Skids into Building #28728 in hex 1517.
Building #28728 absorbs 1 points of damage.
Car (Standard) #3 (Civilian3) takes 8 damage to RR.
Armor destroyed, SECTION DESTROYED,
*** Car (Standard) #3 (Civilian3) DESTROYED by damage! ***
Critical hit on movement system. Roll is 11; (w/ +4 bonus)
Heavy damage, +3 to driving skill rolls, 1/2 MP.
Critical hit on RR. Roll is 4; no effect.

Building #28728 in Hex 1517 is entered and has unknown basement, rolls 6: no basement.
-------------------
(Actually this was one of several cars to react, each one making it worse for the one after it).

Another traffic incident.
------------------------
Ground Car (Standard) #3 (Civilian3) must make a piloting skill check while moving in hex 1221 (reckless driving on pavement).
Needs 6 [6 (Base piloting skill) + 1 (high/low gravity) - 1 (reckless driving on pavement)], rolls 10 : succeeds.

Building #30792 in Hex 1619 is entered and has unknown basement, rolls 7: no basement.

Ground Car (Standard) #3 (Civilian3) must make a piloting skill check while moving from hex 1520 to hex 1619 (moved 3-4 hexes).
Needs 13 [6 (Base piloting skill) + 1 (high/low gravity) + 5 (moving through Hardened Building #30792) + 1 (moved 3-4 hexes)], rolls 9 : fails.
Ground Car (Standard) #3 (Civilian3) takes 10 damage to FR.
Armor destroyed, SECTION DESTROYED,
*** Ground Car (Standard) #3 (Civilian3) DESTROYED by damage! ***
Critical hit on FR. Roll is 6; Driver injured!
------------

An idea of turn orders and such.
---------
The turn order for movement is:
Koniving, Civilian3, Civilian, Civilian2, Koniving, Civilian2, Civilian3, Civilian3, Koniving, Civilian, Civilian2, Civilian2, Civilian2, Civilian3, Civilian, Civilian, Civilian, Civilian3, Civilian3, Civilian, Civilian2, Civilian3, Civilian3
-------------
(cut if off here because it was really long, over 70 civilian units in total).

Navigating through a building as per the instructions.
------------
Copper CPK-19 SecurityMech (Koniving) must make a piloting skill check while moving from hex 1236 to hex 1336 (moving through Heavy Building #24712).
Needs 9 [6 (Base piloting skill) + 1 (high/low gravity) + 2 (moving through Heavy Building #24712)], rolls 6 : fails.
Copper CPK-19 SecurityMech (Koniving) takes 4 damage to CT.
Needs 7+ to destroy Searchlight, rolls 5.
6 Armor remaining.
----------
Took some damage.


My favorite is this one. I made it through a building just fine. Confident, I step out into the rain with minimal wind and slipped in a parking lot. The mech falls. An side torso is damaged and in the skid the arm is ripped off. The mech then slams into the wall of a store before falling into the basement. Nearby, civilians leave the building they were previously 'compelled' to go to and begin fleeing.

-------
Copper CPK-19 SecurityMech (Koniving) must make a piloting skill check while moving in hex 1630 (running & turning on pavement).
Needs 6 [6 (Base piloting skill) + 1 (high/low gravity) - 1 (running & turning on pavement)], rolls 3 : falls.
Copper CPK-19 SecurityMech (Koniving) falls 0 level(s) into hex 1630
Copper CPK-19 SecurityMech (Koniving) falls on its rear, suffering 3 damage.
Copper CPK-19 SecurityMech (Koniving) takes 3 damage to RL.
7 Armor remaining.

Pilot of Copper CPK-19 SecurityMech (Koniving) "Go-cho Ota Isao" must roll 6 to avoid damage; rolls 9 : succeeds.
Skids into Building #32880 in hex 1730.
Copper CPK-19 SecurityMech (Koniving) takes 10 damage to RT.
Needs 7+ to destroy Searchlight, rolls 10.
Searchlight destroyed!
SECTION DESTROYED,
LIMB BLOWN OFF Right Arm blown off.
4 damage transfers to CT.
Critical hit on RT. Roll is (2+2) = 4; no effect.
Copper CPK-19 SecurityMech (Koniving) takes 4 damage to CT.
2 Armor remaining.
---------

Fun, no?

Now look at this from the CityTech sourcebook. It describes a very similar scenario!

Edited by Koniving, 11 March 2015 - 03:05 PM.

[KraftySOT]

Mission Debrief

Mission result - Partial Victory, all civilians escaped with minor damage, but Erwin Gale and his Wasp were knocked out. Our illustrious mission commander was found, still unconscious but alive, with a missing left foot (seriously) in the woods where his ejection apparatus lay.

Our Pegasus tank was recovered and lifted out of the woods with fairly heavy internal damage but its armor mostly intact, the entire crew made it out of the fight.



As said we let the Phoenix return to his lines. Our salvage take is 70% of over a million cbills, but both things I can take, come in far under that so we'll take both if for no other reason than spare parts. Both were very heavily damaged.

Value of salvage is 744k cbills (take that Pauleconomy!)

Yoshitora Russo, the Mechwarrior piloting the Wasp was captured and interrogated:



Ill know what the enemy mechs are going to be before the next mission like I did this one.



Shes quickly taken to the infirmary after she gives up the goods, with a sprained left arm and a bruise on her leg. We're reporting those injuries were received when the Wasp was kicked, to the Dragoons over watch committee of Merc Ops. She'll be in the hospital for at least a month. Then ill decide whether to send her back to the Dracs, or see if she wants a better job with higher pay for me.

Altogether I got out with light damage.



The only serious damage being to my Pegasus' drive train/motive system. That will be in the shop for a few weeks.

The one thing I noticed is I used ALOT OF AMMO. At least 6 tons. Thats pricey, especially the AC20 ammo and LRMs. Though I have plenty of stocks left of both since I purchased alot before I came on the contract.

Ill have to when I get back to a factory world, switch out some ACs for lasers.

462 in battle loss compensation for parts for Prowler Multi-Terrain Vehicle (Succession Wars) has been credited to your account.

462 bucks from the higher ups for repairs. Not alot but every bit helps.

Now for the best part. THE PAAAAAAY.

Besides the 744k in salvage, I got 250k for the mission, at the end of the month ill get 1.2 mil for the operations, and of the civilians I saved some of them were important Inner Sphere peeps.

Bonus: civilian vehicle

J-27 Ordnance Transport (Standard) has been added to the unit roster.

Bonus: 2 dependents

Adrianna Holmes has been added to the personnel roster.

Yasujiro Yamashita has been added to the personnel roster.

Bonus: civilian Mek

Dervish DV-1S has been added to the unit roster.

Bonus: 4 dependents

Wajdiyya bin Majid al Din has been added to the personnel roster.

Dorene Lacroix has been added to the personnel roster.

Verdi Minghetti has been added to the personnel roster.

Bill Naguib has been added to the personnel roster.

Two families, one brings a resupply truck to the table. Very happy about that, something I dont have to buy. Missions will get much bigger and much longer in the future.

The other family BRINGS A DERVISH.

WOOOO.

Sadly its the 2 SRM2, 2 LRM10 version, but more fire support is never bad, and if I have any urban ops against infantry ill have my go to guy.

Alright kids, well tune in tomorrow at the regular (I guess there isnt a regular time yet) bat time and we'll see what happens to Krafty's Fusiliers in their next mission and in the days to come.

[KraftySOT]

And it was Howard.

It wasnt the wind.

Also now had say StJobe or Koniving been playing the Opfor and not the AI, I wouldnt have done as well.

Right at the start they outgunned me quite a bit and my forces were strung out, coming to the field over the course of 8 turns. For the first 4 or so I was way outgunned. I easily could have lost my first few forces out of the gates.

Edited by KraftySOT, 11 March 2015 - 03:19 PM.

[Koniving]

SuckyJack, on 11 March 2015 - 02:49 PM, said:

I wouldn't enjoy a chance for coolant failure in MWO as we still are sitting in a game where heat dissipation isn't strong enough to match the pacing of the rest of the game and SHS is not viable on hot maps (a spider with two ML would have to wait close to two minutes to cool off while moving if he reached 99% heat.)

I refer you to this:
Example 1.
17 DHS in TT? 34 cooling per 10 seconds, or 3.4 cooling per second.
Demonstrated: In MWO it has 3.43/sec cooling after all skill trees.

Example 2.
10 DHS in TT? 20 cooling per 10 seconds, or 2.0 cooling per second.
Demonstrated: In MWO it has 2.3/sec cooling after all skill trees.

There's a reason why such B.S. and simultaneous fire can be done in MWO, when in BT you need special rules to link your weapons and fire them at the same time (which adds additional heat to them to reflect the stress it causes to the mech).

They're even more viable due to the high thresholds -- but this is also why it feels like the heatsinks are so slow and useless.

There's also a reason why mixed loadouts work really well in the source material and are garbage in MWO.

-------------
The reason for the lack of viability in SHS is the same reason we can do an immense amount of alpha strikes...

With 30 threshold, 10 SHS can cool you from 50% heat in exactly 15 seconds.
With 30 threshold, 5 DHS (assume the other 5 were destroyed) can cool you from 50% heat in exactly 15 seconds.

In MWO... 10 SHS will cool you from 50% heat in 20 seconds (without any skills). With all skills it'd be a little over 18 seconds if the threshold didn't rise, but it does... so 50% to cooldown actually takes 21 seconds -- LONGER!
In MWO... 5 DHS using this design will cool you from 50% in 23 seconds with full skills! EVEN LONGER!

Threshold is one of two causes for SHS non-viability.
The other? Heat/damage levels are supposed to be indicative of 5 to 10 seconds of use. Assuming 5 seconds of use... the AC/20 at minimum fires twice as fast. The AC/2 fires 8 times as fast. The lasers generally fire twice as fast, the PPCs fire twice as fast. We're firing at minimum twice as fast as the BT weapons are supposed to, and about 4 times as fast as they can be fired in tabletop where the rules are very loosely based on.

So there's your viability issues. Redesign that, and we have SHS viability.
That's also your source for needing double armor.

Edited by Koniving, 11 March 2015 - 04:02 PM.

[KraftySOT]

Just imagine if firing an alpha that took you to 70% heat, meant the next time you fire it, EVER AGAIN in the match, itll be a 80% heat.

Alphas would cease to be meta. It would be for extreme situations.

[Koniving]

KraftySOT, on 11 March 2015 - 03:18 PM, said:

And it was Howard.

It wasnt the wind.

"Whoop whoop whoop!" ~ Howard as he ejected from his then-prone Locust with debris on its body. His seat plowing through some enemy infantry, even as the ejection ripped his own arm and leg off.

Quote

Also now had say StJobe or Koniving been playing the Opfor and not the AI, I wouldnt have done as well.

Right at the start they outgunned me quite a bit and my forces were strung out, coming to the field over the course of 8 turns. For the first 4 or so I was way outgunned. I easily could have lost my first few forces out of the gates.

I'd be interested in taking you up on that. Ask Lordred, I have a knack with Gyro shots within the first 20 seconds. I know I need to devote some time to try the new MekHQ; all my campaigns had to be scrapped with the update due to the standardizing of units so I haven't really picked it up until the day before yesterday when talking with the Skye Rangers Fourth (Megamek) Division.

[RedDevil]

KraftySOT, are you active on the MegaMek forums?

[Koniving]

KraftySOT, on 11 March 2015 - 03:38 PM, said:

Just imagine if firing an alpha that took you to 70% heat, meant the next time you fire it, EVER AGAIN in the match, itll be a 80% heat.

Alphas would cease to be meta. It would be for extreme situations.

You would cool down -- but I believe I know what you mean. Say you have 10 DHS, hit 70% heat, and 1 of your DHS has melted. That'd be in an MWO scenario due to how PGI designed it where heatsinks give you cooling + that much extra in threshold.

In the past mechwarriors if just using the specified mech threshold as the limit, it'd still be 70% Reactor Threshold. But it'd be longer to cool (as well as you'd have melted a second DHS).

Though I'm aware that in the heatsink taxing rules, the heatsinks have their own separate threshold (I went into it extensively with two kinds of cooling in the past. Here it is. Covers Solid-Rate Cooling Strength and Deteriorating Rate Cooling Strength; two fairly advanced concepts for how to put Heatsink Taxing into a real time game like MWO).

70% of mech threshold in BT is 21 heat. Dunno what heatsinks you have, but that's 2 PPCs + an MWO-style AC/5. Bam, overtax. Assuming 10 DHS that's actually 105% of what the heatsinks could actually take at once. Heatsink melted. The next time would be 116.667% of what they could handle, bam another heatsink melted.

But yeah, do that alpha a third time and you'd actually melt 2 heatsinks at the same time for a total of 4 heatsinks lost. It's absolute hell. It's only 70% of what the Reactor can take, but it's 131.25% of what your just now 8 DHS can handle... so there goes the 2 more, and you're down to 6 DHS.

That fourth alpha? Assuming you waited until completely cold again...
175% of what your heatsinks could handle. By that point, your mech would be a ticking time bomb of an oven melting you down.

Alpha strikes as has been stated even by Paul -- after lots of us kept complaining about extreme alphas -- and this is slightly paraphrased: "Alpha strikes are supposed to be last ditch efforts by Mechwarriors in dire situations." I'd be glad to see them no longer be the meta.

Krafty, I'm tempted to send you an early test model of the Nin Kei.
That, with heatsink taxing... will rapidly show you what happens when you alpha strike. Then all that's left is dying or abandoning your mech.
(Last edit: had to add some info.)

Edited by Koniving, 11 March 2015 - 04:13 PM.

[KraftySOT]

reddevil, on 11 March 2015 - 03:54 PM, said:

KraftySOT, are you active on the MegaMek forums?

I wouldnt say active. I just ask questions when something breaks or report bugs.

Koniving, on 11 March 2015 - 03:45 PM, said:

I'd be interested in taking you up on that. Ask Lordred, I have a knack with Gyro shots within the first 20 seconds. I know I need to devote some time to try the new MekHQ; all my campaigns had to be scrapped with the update due to the standardizing of units so I haven't really picked it up until the day before yesterday when talking with the Skye Rangers Fourth (Megamek) Division.

Sweet, ill shoot you a message later and we can figure out teamspeak or IM, some way to communicate better than this forum and set that up.

[Impyrium]

Awesome read, you've inspired me to go grab MegaMek and HQ again and have a look. I've never played any campaigns with the TT but I think I have the Mercenaries book sitting about somewhere... I am curious though, how much can you do solo and against the AI how much is reliant on one's willingness to RP?

[BourbonFaucet]

Koniving, on 11 March 2015 - 03:45 PM, said:

"Whoop whoop whoop!" ~ Howard as he ejected from his then-prone Locust with debris on its body. His seat plowing through some enemy infantry, even as the ejection ripped his own arm and leg off.

Read that line in the story and thought it'd sound like Zoidberg's escape cry.

[trtw]

AUSwarrior24, on 11 March 2015 - 04:40 PM, said:

Awesome read, you've inspired me to go grab MegaMek and HQ again and have a look.

I will echo this. Hopefully someone with no TT experience can get into this

[BourbonFaucet]

By the way, did you program those civy bots and such to behave in a certain way? I wanna learn how to do these cool things with Megamek! Any reading links?

[KraftySOT]

AUSwarrior24, on 11 March 2015 - 04:40 PM, said:

Awesome read, you've inspired me to go grab MegaMek and HQ again and have a look. I've never played any campaigns with the TT but I think I have the Mercenaries book sitting about somewhere... I am curious though, how much can you do solo and against the AI how much is reliant on one's willingness to RP?

With the last few releases, its pretty much all done without you doing anything but setting it up to get the ball rolling. Beyond that its a pretty solid single player experience. Theyre trying to work out the bugs still and improve the AI.

http://bg.battletech...e-bot-thread-3/

http://bg.battletech...gainst-the-bot/

The guy working on this also has his own devbranch here:

http://bt.dylanspcs.com/

For the latest greatest Against the Bot mechanics and bug fixes.

[Koniving]

Techorse, on 11 March 2015 - 04:44 PM, said:

Read that line in the story and thought it'd sound like Zoidberg's escape cry.

Awesome and that's what I thought of too. Considering the page the story was written on was from 1987 -- I wonder if Zoidberg's escape cry was a tribute or reference of sorts?

trtw, on 11 March 2015 - 04:44 PM, said:

I will echo this. Hopefully someone with no TT experience can get into this

Did exactly that with one of TheSilken's friends over at Clan Smoke Jaguar. Though absolutely terrified of my rag-tag team of mechs including a Nin Kei (sludge sprayer, twin MGs, turreted vehicular flamers), an Urbanmech, a Cataphract 4X and a Hunchback 4G... he did really well, especially in standing up against twin Marauders (with very minor support helping the new guy from my 4X) with his Grasshopper and...not sure what the other mech was in a 1vs1vs1vs1 player free for all.

------

AUSwarrior24, on 11 March 2015 - 04:40 PM, said:

Awesome read, you've inspired me to go grab MegaMek and HQ again and have a look. I've never played any campaigns with the TT but I think I have the Mercenaries book sitting about somewhere... I am curious though, how much can you do solo and against the AI how much is reliant on one's willingness to RP?

The "ATB" tab on the campaign options will set that up, and it has a number of pre-made scenarios. From what I've seen the bots will play to those objectives. But a generic scenario the bots are a lot less cooperative.

[KraftySOT]

Techorse, on 11 March 2015 - 04:47 PM, said:

By the way, did you program those civy bots and such to behave in a certain way? I wanna learn how to do these cool things with Megamek! Any reading links?

Against the bot will handle that for yah, its a simple use of the bot functionality that tells it to run off map at a specific edge. Theres a bunch of missions like that where either you or the ai is trying to get from one side of the map to the other.

[Koniving]

Techorse, on 11 March 2015 - 04:47 PM, said:

By the way, did you program those civy bots and such to behave in a certain way? I wanna learn how to do these cool things with Megamek! Any reading links?

I didn't necessarily program. Don't have that skill set.

If you edit the bot's AI in Megamek itself when setting up the last minute things about the match, you can give them priorities such as attacking buildings or valuing a location more.

As I said I gave them inclinations. Each 'bot' had a set of priorities. Important buildings to try and attack or value more than others. Thing is without weapons they can't attack. The vehicles were given to a different bot, and they were told to value specific sections of road (you clearly cannot do this with a randomly generated map).

Honestly I expected them to arrive at the destination and flake out, but as long as each destination was within 3 hexes of each other if in a straight line or 1 hex away if part of a turn, they actually kept trying to go from one place of value to the next. In theory if they could they might just as easily try to return to a previous destination (and when closer, they did)... but the fact that vehicles can't turn for crap in place prevented ~most~ of the vehicles from doing this.

The crowds of people literally ran into the nearest building of interest and filled it.

Their reactions was the simplest: There's a bot slider for courage. I put it all the way to the left so that they'd run at the sight of an enemy.

It was far from perfect (I accidentally made a building a priority by entering the wrong hex number for the vehicles, and so a few had kamikaze rammed it! Takes 2 flatbed trucks to bring down a light building btw.)

Some links which helped me.
Regarding unusual priorities.
Bot's Strategic Objectives
More on Strategic Targets (including establishing units as targets)

I essentially told the Vehicles to attack the road at every 1 to 3 hexes.
I told the civilians who had no weapons to attack buildings or the sidewalk where possible (for traveling civies).

Civies on the street were not very good at 'patrol' routes in this regard.

They behaved perfectly on being cowardly (save for the one vehicle that tried to ram me).

Edited by Koniving, 11 March 2015 - 05:04 PM.

[BourbonFaucet]

KraftySOT, on 11 March 2015 - 04:50 PM, said:

Against the bot will handle that for yah, its a simple use of the bot functionality that tells it to run off map at a specific edge. Theres a bunch of missions like that where either you or the ai is trying to get from one side of the map to the other.

So the bots themselves have controls for that. Cool.

I also need to go and figure out the HQ software for keeping track of everything. Might be cool to play around with Megamek's features more. I was just lance on lance DM'ing with it.

Edited by Techorse, 11 March 2015 - 05:03 PM.