297 replies to this topic

[GabrielSun]

FireStoat, on 01 May 2018 - 10:01 AM, said:

... covered here -- https://www.reddit.c...he_hbs_devs_on/

"Headshots working as intended" pfft.

[evilauthor]

MischiefSC, on 01 May 2018 - 10:42 AM, said:

Not to mention the time. If you're doubling the players total mechs the AI is going to need its mechs doubled so you're moving from 12-16 total mechs in a mission to 32 that need moved every round. In actual practice you're talking about a 3x increase, or more, in the time it takes to play a mission.

And that's assuming the AI doesn't take MORE time than it already does to make every movement and firing decision because the greater number of units on the field means it has to account for more factors when making decisions.

[Brody319]

Personally I'd rather have the ability to bring extra assets on a mission if I choose.

Like hiring a scout who spawns in in a light mech like a Jenner under your command for that one mission.

Or hiring a lance of vehicles to follow you into combat that automatically attack targets for you.

Maybe even a fly over that reveals the map for 2-3 turns.

[evilauthor]

Oooh, I just got a King Crab captured whole (more or less) from a single mission. Pilot died/passed out from too many head hits/falling down. Ah, the dangers of piloting an assault.

[Prototelis]

Uhg.. I wish I could get a physical copy.

[IllCaesar]

evilauthor, on 01 May 2018 - 04:22 PM, said:

Oooh, I just got a King Crab captured whole (more or less) from a single mission. Pilot died/passed out from too many head hits/falling down. Ah, the dangers of piloting an assault.

Easiest way to get a pilot kill/KO is using falling down. Tactics 9 makes headshots easier but a good amount of LRMs with stability damage bonuses will give you one knockdown easily. Taking out a side torso usually provides a good amount of stability damage there so if you do it right you can get two injuries for the price of one. Then while they're down do a called shot on the leg that is either weakest or most exposed to ally fire, whichever you think is better for the situation. When the enemy gets up you sweep that leg, causing another injury. Then do called shots to its remaining side torso and you have full salvage without even getting a headshot. Relatively reliable method, though getting even just one headshot makes it so much easier.

evilauthor, on 01 May 2018 - 10:54 AM, said:

And that's assuming the AI doesn't take MORE time than it already does to make every movement and firing decision because the greater number of units on the field means it has to account for more factors when making decisions.

Yep. I know of a few games that supposedly actually had to dumb down their AI because it took too long to process a decision. Real-time games, of course, such as ARMA 3.

[Ghogiel]

Brody319, on 01 May 2018 - 02:47 PM, said:

Personally I'd rather have the ability to bring extra assets on a mission if I choose.

Like hiring a scout who spawns in in a light mech like a Jenner under your command for that one mission.

Or hiring a lance of vehicles to follow you into combat that automatically attack targets for you.

Maybe even a fly over that reveals the map for 2-3 turns.

Yeah. They do this already on both story and the faux proceedural missions. Expansions should expand and evolve both story and non story missions> there aren't many places to go once you are decked out with HGNs and KGCs, so they will need to make something interesting or there isn't really any sense of progressing> currently end game is just farming one of the 70 odd repeatable missions, imo they'll have to think of something to keep people wanting to play. And some sort of more broad spectrum battles above lance combat could be part of that something.

[kilgor]

There are some different missions, but you have to fly to different locations. Using the Navigation, I flew over to Marik space because my reputation was too low for some other factions to get the contract in Arigan space. But, not every location will have contracts or there won't be contracts available all the time. I just saved the game, then flew around until I found another area with contracts, then reloaded and went there directly.

Stability can be quite problematic the more 'Mechs you field. My King Crab, Atlas, Highlander, and Stalker all went up against the objective Assault/Heavy lance, but the reinforcements kept doing so much stability damage. Of course, it didn't help the Reinforcements were a King Crab, Atlas, Zeus, and Awesome and with plenty of missiles and high damage ballistics, I always seemed to have one 'Mech Bracing because of taking so much Stability damage on multiple 'Mechs. It's nice having Vigilance when it's available too, because it removes a lot of the Stability damage, if not all, and still lets you fire.

Edited by kilgor, 02 May 2018 - 03:07 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Koniving, on 30 April 2018 - 05:16 PM, said:

Had a Locust enemy with an ammo explosion... a Locust 1v, where the ammo's in the CT. There wouldn't be a thing left of the mech in TT. Here? He shakes it off and shoots me with a laser.

So made the ammo explosions softer is an understatement..

Yesterday I had a fight against a bunch of enemy mechs, among them 3 or 4 Thunderbolts, I think the 5S variant. I decided to try to use Called Shots to core them as quickly as possible, too many foes to play around, and I get only 3 priority picks anyway. 3 of them blow up on the first CT hit, because the LRM ammo stored there explodes.

Totally death trap, that mech.


Was not as exciting as the fight I fought with a team of Catapukt C1, Catapult K2, Jagermech and Quickdraw... I had accidentally picked a mission one "skull" higher than my usual, and I got really worried and expecting to reload when I detected a 100 ton mech. And an 80 ton Vehicle.

Once I got close enough for LOS, I identified a King Crab and a Demolisher. And 2 further 80 ton vehicles.

And then, as I was busy taking out the vehicles and slowly incapcitating the pilot of the King Crab, a bunch of heavies (70+ tons, among them a Black Knight) appeared as reeinforcement.

In the end, I managed to incapicate the King Crab's Pilot and won, with severe damage and injured pilots, but no lost mech.
And on the Salvage Screen i realize I had only 2 Prioritiy PIcks.

The 2 pieces are still in my storage, and I already got two Assaults and 2 Orions in my standard lance by now. Guess I have to pick harder fight snow.

[jss78]

I'm not quite sure how much this game needs company-level play.

What I'd welcome as a "happy medium" which probably wouldn't break the UI, is bringing the maximum to six.

Even in lore a lance is "about four" 'mechs -- might be more. If you added some drop tonnage restrictions, you might finally encourage people to use something like a flanking force of two fast 'mechs, on top of four heavy sluggers.

You could also use those extra slots for attached allied assets. Say you bring your four guys, but the mission gives you two player-controlled attached allies. If you also have a few AI-controlled allies (vehicles etc.) you might get towards a company level "feel".

TL;DR: Even two more player-controlled units could increase gameplay variety a lot.

[Angel of Annihilation]

WrathOfDeadguy, on 01 May 2018 - 10:04 AM, said:

I regret that I have but one upvote to give for this comment. I've missed out on about half a dozen full 'Mechs now. At the same time, yeah, it is silly that the second you have three parts the 'Mech is ready to rock right then and there. You should have to repair and refit before putting it into action.

I also think that there should be a rule allowing you to use one part from a different variant of the same chassis to complete the 'Mech. Most variants are just refit kits, not as-built factory originals, and they're structurally identical to the base variant save for one or two components which have been altered to accommodate the new hardware. Since the "parts" in HBS/BT are an abstraction anyway, why can't the game just assume that 2/3 means I've salvaged all of the parts unique to that variant, and the remaining third is just the common bits which I could take from any 'Mech based on that chassis? *edit: for example, why not let me build a HBK by using 2/3 4G parts and 1/3 4P part?

Yeah I had it happen to me again last night. An enemy Thud (Thunderbolt) showed up and the second it reared its ugly head it got it shot off. I mean it was a literal clean "head only" destruction with zero damage to any other parts of of the mech. I was super happy right up until we got to the Salvage and I remembered I had negotiated for 2 guaranteed, 11 random salvage. Obviously I chose 2 pieces of the Thud and since there was only about 15 pieces of total salvage I THOUGHT I had a good chance to get the third piece but nope. They gave me everything but the 3rd piece. So here we go again, got 2/3 of like 3 very powerful heavy mechs but can't seem to score the third. Worse is I am at the point where medium mechs aren't cutting it so I am struggling big time trying to make due to Hunchbacks, Wolverines and Enforcers.

I am also having the same issue as you are with the variants. I get all excited about seeing a Thud show up but it turns out is is from another variant so that is just salvage sitting there useless for I don't know how many hours. I mean I am sure eventually I will when the mech lottery but it is alot more painful that is seems like it should be.

Last gripe I have is why the hell can't I sell off the partial salvage. I mean I can buy partial salvage but as far as I can tell I can't sell it. Right now I have tons and tons of partial salvage just sitting there for mechs I won't every use. Sure when I finally get all the parts to complete the mech I have a good pay day but since I am on a budget, sometimes having cold hard C-bills right now is more important than having a completed mech, a couple months in the future.

[Angel of Annihilation]

jss78, on 02 May 2018 - 03:25 AM, said:

I'm not quite sure how much this game needs company-level play.

What I'd welcome as a "happy medium" which probably wouldn't break the UI, is bringing the maximum to six.

Even in lore a lance is "about four" 'mechs -- might be more. If you added some drop tonnage restrictions, you might finally encourage people to use something like a flanking force of two fast 'mechs, on top of four heavy sluggers.

You could also use those extra slots for attached allied assets. Say you bring your four guys, but the mission gives you two player-controlled attached allies. If you also have a few AI-controlled allies (vehicles etc.) you might get towards a company level "feel".

TL;DR: Even two more player-controlled units could increase gameplay variety a lot.

Lance is 4 mechs with is roughly equivalent to a standard armored tank platoon in real life. As far as the Company Level play, I realize it isn't for everyone but some of us like to play on that scale or even larger. What I think should happen is something like this.

1. 2-3 Major - Story Campaign battles at 12 mech company level. These would be major events such as the final battle or turning points in the Campaign. Due to size, scale and length it would make the campaign have Epic Level battles at only a few points.

2. For the Contracts you would have lance level (many), 2 lance level (moderate amount). 3 lance level (a few contracts here an there). That way you can kind of chose the way you want to play. If you like the the larger scale battles, take the bigger contract. Like the smaller lance size battles, take the lance size contracts.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

Viktor Drake, on 02 May 2018 - 07:16 AM, said:

Right now I have tons and tons of partial salvage just sitting there for mechs I won't every use.

I think I have at least one part for every 'Mech I faced throughout the early game, and I doubt I'll ever complete some of them to be able to sell 'em. Three different Locust variants, a Spider, a Jenner, a Panther, a Firestarter, a Vindicator, a partial second Blackjack (would have loved to have two of them complete early, because they're great as light fire support, but it was not meant to be because they didn't start spawning Blackjacks against me until I was in heavies), two Wolverine variants, two Griffin variants, and two different Hunchbacks. And, since I'm moving up to assaults now, we can also write off the partial Dragon, two more partial Thunderbolts, an Orion, and two different 2/3 complete Quickdraws.

Urgh.

At least I've finally got cockpit mods for 3/4 of my 'Mechs to reduce the incidence of headshot-related annoyance- two +3 injury defense mods and a +1. My best pilots are now basically invincible unless they take an AC20 to the face.

[evilauthor]

IllCaesar, on 02 May 2018 - 12:42 AM, said:

Yep. I know of a few games that supposedly actually had to dumb down their AI because it took too long to process a decision. Real-time games, of course, such as ARMA 3.

I've seen it happen in Megamek when fighting large (relatively speaking) unit battles. Of course, the AI player in Megamek is infamous for its stupidity.

That being said, I think 12 mechs per side battles might be doable in PvP matches where you face off against a human player. Since both sides have the same amount of mechs, there'd be less downtime for each player where they're waiting for the other side to make a decision. Or rather, each player would get to do stuff more frequently than they would in a mission where they're outnumbered.

[Koniving]

Would enjoy company sized gameplay in Multiplayer with vehicles and mechs.

Got a game over. Ran into situation where no more random contracts without 22 days travel plus next story mission 18 days travel plus another 18 days travel and no income wplain 21 days for finances. Supplies not worth enough without selling everything. So had to jump back. Got a panther by scrap rather than buying it. Doing much better now.

[MischiefSC]

Brody319, on 01 May 2018 - 02:47 PM, said:

Personally I'd rather have the ability to bring extra assets on a mission if I choose.

Like hiring a scout who spawns in in a light mech like a Jenner under your command for that one mission.

Or hiring a lance of vehicles to follow you into combat that automatically attack targets for you.

Maybe even a fly over that reveals the map for 2-3 turns.

A couple AI controlled assets would be great and not a balance issue. I would love that.

[Fox the Apprentice]

Koniving, on 02 May 2018 - 09:02 AM, said:

[...]
Got a panther by scrap rather than buying it. Doing much better now.

Yeah, unless I have an extra million or two laying around, I found it best to avoid buying mechs. Salvage is where it's at.

[draiocht]

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