297 replies to this topic

[Brain Cancer]

Luminis, on 28 April 2018 - 03:02 AM, said:

For a group of people that's all about "traditional" values and whatnot, these alt-righters whining about the "SJW agenda" of the game sure love playing the victim.

I find it disappointing that the developers didn't allow for basic, normal human hair colors. I want to make a Rasalhague Swede? Nope, no blonde for me. How about an angry redheaded Steiner from the Isle of Skye? Also nope. To some people, that smacks of forcing an "abnormal" choice in their character gameplay and is offensive to them.

It doesn't stop me from enjoying the game, but it does make me scratch my head at why you wouldn't put in such easily done options.

[MischiefSC]

Koniving, on 28 April 2018 - 07:17 AM, said:

It is...but maybe not.

Kali-Yama's Big Bore AC/20 is only 120mm... Maybe its a different one. But the largest caliber AC/5 in the lore pumping out 3 shells to net five damage at 120mm... makes me wonder. (Meanwhile, Hunchbacks before 303x that still had their original AC/20 has a 180mm Tomodzuru Mount Type 20.. so what would the BT PC do for it, make it do 40 damage? Granted, that gun is becoming extinct and is extinct by 3050... but still....

But I do get that they want these to also be somewhat practical (as sometimes you could spam blast after blast, and either damage was so scattered it was kinda worthless, or it'd net a random headshot after random headshot after random headshot in the beta.)

Like MW5 Mercs, I feel like I'll be getting into some modding to net a true Battletech experience. But this said, the game is pretty good if you haven't spent too much time trying to math out the weapons from the fluff.

Without question playability takes priority over lore and fluff. For example the ACs being rebalanced is a huge gameplay change that is a huge improvement - I have and use all 4 types of ACs instead of treating AC2s like trash and 5s being a a 8 ton ML.

I love the lore and fluff but if the game isn't also fun to play I'll just go read the novels instead.

Kaliyama Big Bore is a single slug AC20.

I run a Jag with 2 different types of AC5++ and an AC2++ and 2 MLs. One AC5 is single slug, one is like a 5 shot burst and the AC2 is like 3 rounds. Its a firehose of hate and a legging machine and *feels* like a cobbled together custom mech that requires a high gunnery, high tactics pilot to use effectively.

[Koniving]

Bleh. Sadly this means I can't use it to help flesh out what the different brands do.

On a side note, I think this makes for a missed opportunity. Mech Rifles are more one shot hits, and an 8 ton Heavy Rifle would be able to do around 50 to 60 damage in BT (60 in the old x10 for damage) in a single focused spot. It didn't carry as many uses due to the big shells, but it'd up to 90 damage against structure. Then you've got the medium and light rifles which were more situational.

Note for those not aware, BT for PC originally upped all damage by 5x, as such an AC/20 would do 100 damage and an AC/10 would do 50 damage. They then kinda screwed around a bit and smaller ACs got a 10x boost, while the AC/10 and PPC got a 7.5x boost and the AC/20 got a 5x boost. Note that mech armor was effectively brought up by 5 or 10 times tabletop values. I'll have to double check.)

So in a slight correction to the above, it'd be somewhere between 50 and 60 damage base against armor (the first AC/5 you get does 45 damage for comparison) and against structure and non-hardened buildings probably 70 damage (the Rifle doing 9 in tabletop, just shy of the 10 of an AC/10 or PPC... and in lore, the Heavy Rifle's only example used and detailed was 190mm, which puts it at 10 above the Tomodzuru and just shy of the 203mm UAC/20 used by the Ebon Jaguar; so it deserves its hefty punch.)

Rifles are not used in the military due heavily to the fact its literally hit or miss and doesn't have enough punch to warrant that risk in addition to other flaws such as extremely limited ammunition due to the large size of the shells. But they are used as cheap weapons in places where they can't afford the good ones, by people that are effectively broke....like our unit in the game and some of these backwater places. In turn, regular ACs could've gotten the option of using the rapid fire AC rule of being able to use 'em twice in succession at excess heat, jam and explosion risks. There's also the fact that they get a lot more uses per ton than a Rifle does and significantly less heat (a Heavy Rifle generates 4 times the heat of an AC/5).

So if I can figure out how to mod it, I'll be getting some rifles into the mix. The spray sort of thing for the ACs could have better done how the spray is randomized, after all BT of tabletop is front loaded, the shots could have focused better. Say you net a hit on left torso, well then the spray should heavily hit the LT, with some on the CT and arm... as I remember the original just sprayed all the body parts at random.

Edited by Koniving, 28 April 2018 - 11:53 AM.

[Luminis]

Brain Cancer, on 28 April 2018 - 10:25 AM, said:

To some people, that smacks of forcing an "abnormal" choice in their character gameplay and is offensive to them.

"Abnormal" like light brown? Or black?

I mean, c'mon, this is my in-game avatar:



Yeah, my hair is a few shades lighter IRL, but if this isn't "straight white male" enough for the whiners, I don't know what is.

Let's be real, this isn't about us guys not being represented in the game; some guys are pissed that the game represents people they resent (read: people who aren't straight, white males) and that's pretty much it. I'd just wish we could move the hell on from this nonsense because it's not doing the game any justice. Also, said people really don't need another avenue to act out their self-victimisation - well, I'd at least prefer them to do it somewhere I don't have to read it, as it's just god damn unmanly to bawl one's eyes out over the fact that a game allows people to call themselves "they" and have pink hair.

[Koniving]

Let 'em have their pink hair. Its just weird that a standard hair color, blonde, isn't available. I actually like the idea of blonde hair with black tips or somesuch. But..no blonde. Why no blond? Its in virtually every game, available to virtually every skin tone regardless of ethnicity in every game I've ever played. Except here. Why can't I be a black dude with blond hair? Or an Asian girl with blonde hair? Half the Steiner family is Blond! Something like 10% of Davions, too. But no blond. Why no blond?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Nicholas Kerensky was blond. This crackpot was blond.


There were blond men, blonde women, I even remember a Capellan girl with blonde hair.

I don't really care that non-standards have been added. There's plenty of instances of pirates dying their hair weird colors. Blue and Neon Green were among the ones I actually seen used in BT. But damn it, I'm blond. And Koniving's always been depicted with some blond hair...and fur...and a mechanical tail...but damn it where's my blond!?

[Cy Mitchell]

Viktor Drake, on 28 April 2018 - 10:17 AM, said:

I was going to also say that if you can avoid the story, you can avoid the ending of the game as well which might be someones aim. I haven't picked up the game yet but does anyone know if you can just continue to play even after you "beat" the game?

Yes, you can continue to roam the star map and do missions for hire forever.

[Koniving]

Anyone know how to tell if a contract REQUIRES travel before actually traveling? It seems like no matter where I am I have to travel, I could travel to an area ahead of time...just to travel somewhere else. I'm going to guess you can't get a job at whereever you are specifically...

[kilgor]

Is there another way to capture a 'Mech other than collecting 3 part chassis? I tend to core the CTs on the 'Mechs I fight, so I haven't tried legging or any other way to see if there is another way.

My MVP 'Mech so far is the Hunchback 4P. I dropped a Med Laser and Heat Sink it runs so cool and has max front armor. Since the weapons are all together they tend to not have quite the spread. I put my best gunner in it and let him use the precision strikes. On the mission to kill the 2 ammo trucks and 12 'Mechs, I only blew one ammo crate to kill the ammo truck and fought the rest of the 'Mechs. The 'Mech with the "Kill Me" sign on it is my Trebuchet. It's been destroyed so many times, but the LRM-15 and 10 pay oiff so much.

I still come back to MWO, because I like to control how I shoot as much as possible, but it's nice seeing the same 'Mech models in a different game.

Edited by kilgor, 28 April 2018 - 12:56 PM.

[Koniving]

Just noticed a fluff thing that bothered me.

It gives the Ares Convention, when it was ratified and what it did.
...It kinda fails to mention that the convention was thrown out some two or so years after Kerensky performed his Exodus, within months of when Minoru Kurita (a detail they did get right) declared himself as First Lord.

They don't really say one way or the other, but it sounds like its still in effect, when in fact it never was in effect for any "Succession War." Something similar to it was mutually done with no formal agreements by the third succession war...basically because there was so little left to wage war with.

[Brain Cancer]

I've got no problem with people having pink or blue hair. Or using "they" as a pronoun.

It's just annoying that I can't have a hair color that for me, is what (or say, my girlfriend) I was born with, versus something modified (she's fond of occasionally going purple). That is, the absence of such choices seems to be a deliberate one on the part of the developers, which forces people to make choices they wouldn't want with their character avatar. That's a negative in terms of the game.

And it's not like it's a difficult thing to do. That it's so trivial and almost universal across most human character generators strikes me as a deliberate attempt to remove that choice. Heck, Natasha Kerensky's a redhead. Victor Steiner-Davion's a blonde. It's not like these are uncommon hair colors in the 31st Century, right?

[MischiefSC]

It was a color pallet issue. Not a political statement.

Will probably show up in a patch.

That anyone thought it was a political statement is so dumb the very idea is in danger of choking on its own tongue.

[Luminis]

Koniving, on 28 April 2018 - 12:46 PM, said:

Anyone know how to tell if a contract REQUIRES travel before actually traveling? It seems like no matter where I am I have to travel, I could travel to an area ahead of time...just to travel somewhere else. I'm going to guess you can't get a job at whereever you are specifically...

You can tell by the little orange star in the top right corner of the rectangle representing the contract. It also tells you the travel time when looking at the contract details.

Brain Cancer, on 28 April 2018 - 01:00 PM, said:

That is, the absence of such choices seems to be a deliberate one on the part of the developers, which forces people to make choices they wouldn't want with their character avatar. That's a negative in terms of the game.

Us blondes don't get representation in one game in god knows how long and people are blowing a fuse over it. Amazing, considering less fortunate people barely get such representation at all.

That said, looking at my avatar, I'd actually classify that as "blonde". Dark blonde, sure, but still.

Anyway, I'm still more inclined to believe that's more of an issue with the lighting / colour palette than a statement (as has happened in other games), but I guess some people just need something to feel victimised over.

Edited by Luminis, 28 April 2018 - 02:06 PM.

[Koniving]

Luminis, on 28 April 2018 - 02:05 PM, said:

You can tell by the little orange star in the top right corner of the rectangle representing the contract. It also tells you the travel time when looking at the contract details.

It says the contract includes pay for my travel time, as opposed to ones that don't have it but still require travel.

Side note:
I took one such job that paid for my travel time, negotiated it, alt tabbed to check the forums, alt tabbed back and I'm looking at the end of month report.
I never went on the mission I negotiated for and now I see four or five DIFFERENT missions with different negotiations.
Did I get screwed out of that mission because the month ended while going to it?

[Ade the Rare]

Anyone know why the specs seem to be so high for what it is?

[Koniving]

Oh I see what happened.
It "Paused" the game in mid travel. First time it happened while traveling.

Ade the Rare, on 28 April 2018 - 02:16 PM, said:

Anyone know why the specs seem to be so high for what it is?

Think MWO for a minute.
But the levels are BIGGER, there's a lot more on them, there's a LOT of destruction... and finally unlike MWO which very obviously cuts your vision based on where you're looking (so everything you dont' see stops rendering, you'll notice it a lot on MWO with a wide FOV in Solaris, the map beyond the edges of your screen literally disappear and reappear as you turn).... Battletech renders everything....all the time. Kinda has to as its a 3D strategy game.

[Luminis]

Koniving, on 28 April 2018 - 02:10 PM, said:

It says the contract includes pay for my travel time, as opposed to ones that don't have it but still require travel.

Contracts that have no travel indicator don't require you to travel to different systems, though you CAN travel to different systems to take contracts there on your own. The fourth contract on the list could be launched immediately, for example.

[Adridos]

Koniving, on 28 April 2018 - 02:18 PM, said:

and finally unlike MWO which very obviously cuts your vision based on where you're looking (so everything you dont' see stops rendering, you'll notice it a lot on MWO with a wide FOV in Solaris, the map beyond the edges of your screen literally disappear and reappear as you turn).... Battletech renders everything....all the time. Kinda has to as its a 3D strategy game.

No game running made in the last 2 decades or so renders what you don't see. Don't mess with poor guy's head telling him a game draws up stuff that it does not draw up on your screen. For piles upon piles of very good reasons.

Ade the Rare, on 28 April 2018 - 02:16 PM, said:

Anyone know why the specs seem to be so high for what it is?

The game was made on a really tight budget so they cut all corners possible. The performance is in line with the beta where the game lacked a basic LoD implementation. That's hardcore budget saving but provided you have ridiculously powerful hardware, it can be gotten around, especially if you keep everything else low. But there's no real way of generating LoDs with absolutely no human involvement yet and it does take away a lot of 3D modellers' time. Provided, it is industry standard to expect and deal with it, but you really can save a lot of time/effort/money this way. It's really desperate measures so who knows just how far the rabbit hole goes on this front and what sort of details we'll uncover while setting up the mod scene for the game.

Here's a great write-up on these issues if you're at least a little bit interested in the nitty-gritty:
https://community.ba...ms/threads/9061


TL;DR: They coudn't afford a lot of things. Including a lot of normally mandatory optimisation techniques. The game was already late by over a year, which is a huge burden on developers (and the budget) prompting them to drop everything and ship already.

Edited by Adridos, 28 April 2018 - 03:06 PM.

[s0da72]

I've been enjoying the single player campaign quite a bit, it's a lot of fun. I didn't realize how powerful vehicles are, not sure if it's like that in table top. But I'm more scared of vehicles than heavy mechs.

One vehicle was some kind of SRM carrier, I think it had 12+ srm6's, Another one was a tank with dual AC 20's.

When's PGI going to release one of these vehicles in a Mech pack, sign me up..

[Metus regem]

s0da72, on 28 April 2018 - 03:22 PM, said:

I've been enjoying the single player campaign quite a bit, it's a lot of fun. I didn't realize how powerful vehicles are, not sure if it's like that in table top. But I'm more scared of vehicles than heavy mechs.

One vehicle was some kind of SRM carrier, I think it had 12+ srm6's, Another one was a tank with dual AC 20's.

When's PGI going to release one of these vehicles in a Mech pack, sign me up..

LOL the SRM carrier packs 10xSRM/6.... the Demolisher has always packed twin AC/20's, UAC/20+LB-20 or twin HGR's....

Long story short, tanks in TT have always been a serious threat... no heat build up, they always sink it every round, about the only way not to make them OP was to punish them with the vechole crit system as well as kill them as soon as structure had been killed on any facing.

Edited by Metus regem, 28 April 2018 - 03:58 PM.

[Koniving]

Adridos, on 28 April 2018 - 03:04 PM, said:

No game running made in the last 2 decades or so renders what you don't see. Don't mess with poor guy's head telling him a game draws up stuff that it does not draw up on your screen. For piles upon piles of very good reasons.

In comparison.. MWO renders an FOV of 60 to 90, looking in a singular direction, out to what effectively is around 2,000 meters or less with degrading quality as early as 300 meters.

BT renders a SIGNIFICANT area, going out well beyond the actual level into the skybox, and can be zoomed out to have almost the entire map within the same view. Something you can't do in MWO without having access to the spectator camera.

So yes, it is drawing a lot more, because unlike that one mech on the ground's little view, you can have all of River City in front of you to render at once from a bird's eye view.