94 replies to this topic

[Koniving]

Because there isn't technically an official one and the one that had the most traction was sent to K-town.

I have a Commando 1-B with jumpjets, 2 ML, an SRM-2 and two machine guns and I feel awesome.

What've you built?
What've you encountered?

[Exilyth]

I'm currently waiting for HBS to release a patch before investing in their product.

From what I heard (or rather, read), HBS didn't quite implement the TT rules directly but left some minor parts out and layered their own systems on top of that (e.g. mechwarrior skills, evasion, yadda yadda). Did anyone write an overview about the differences between HBS battletech and the tabletop game rules yet?

From what I heard, ams are lostech, so missiles will be stronger.

edit: I've got battletech now.

Edited by Exilyth, 05 June 2018 - 07:32 AM.

[Bombast]

Exilyth, on 05 May 2018 - 03:14 PM, said:

From what I heard (or rather, read), HBS didn't quite implement the TT rules directly but left some minor parts out and layered their own systems on top of that (e.g. mechwarrior skills, evasion, yadda yadda). Did anyone write an overview about the differences between HBS battletech and the tabletop game rules yet?

-Mechwarrior Piloting/Gunnery skills replaced with Gunnery/Piloting/Guts(Pilot Durability)/Tactics (Catch all).
-Hard cap on front/rear armor (Can't rear load, no big deal, who would anyway)
-Melee damage linked to chassis rather than weight/actuator limits (Though, with a few exceptions, damage generally follows that line of reasoning)
-Kicks/Punchs replaced by general melee action
-Initiative system determines turn order (Lights go before mediums, and so on). Reserving pushes a mechs turn back one
-Crits shuffled: Large pieces of equipment reduced in size, CT/Leg crit count bloated, ST crit count reduced
-DHS and HS can exist on the same chassis. No minimum heat sink limit
-Walking, sprinting, and jumping generate evasion levels which reduce the chance of being hit. Evasion levels can be reduced by shooting at a target, even if you miss, making subsequent hit phases easier.
-Special equipment added (Improved Targeting Computers, Improved Comm Systems) that can be equipped for bonuses
-Stability system added - Certain weapons do 'Stability damage.' When enough stability damage is done, target fall down
-Weapon manufacturers: Some weapons have 'quirks' that add accuracy, or damage, or so on.
-Autocannons have a refire penalty: Firing an autocannon over and over decreased accuracy
-Missiles have individual rolls: Each missile fired has it's own roll to hit, so a missile system is virtually guaranteed to hit with something
-Damage adjusted: Most notably, AC/2s and AC/5s do improved damage to make them worth their weight
-Fog of War

I think those are the big things.

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From what I heard, ams are lostech, so missiles will be stronger.

Missiles are pretty powerful, especially early on. SRMs can put out a ton of damage and LRMs do a ton of stability damage, and have a high chance of inflicting injuries (Enough injuries and the mechwarrior passes out/dies). Big ballistics still carry their weight though - Punching big bloody holes in things works very well. Especially since the game has roughly the same armor/damage ratio as TT (Both are increased about equally), so you can blow mechs in half with a single AC/20 volley.

[LORD ORION]

I ended up with 2 Dragons and a K2 as my 1st heavies during my second Iron Man.
For the dragon I guess.... ;D

[Burke IV]

[Redacted]

Edited by draiocht, 09 May 2018 - 05:41 PM.
inappropriate reference

[Koniving]

The "Refire" penalty for autocannons is actually relating to the multiple shots, the first shot has the best chance of accuracy and each one reduces slightly, causing some spread in damage. It doesn't affect using the AC over and over. For example the default AC/5 fires two shots, the second shot has a tendency to not hit the same location.

[Koniving]

LRMs and SRMs do modest damage, but are pretty inferior to medium lasers. Stacking multiple launchers can help you do "stability damage" which basically if you stack on enough hits before they move, you can knock 'em over.

But in truth, missiles are kind of a joke. If you have a hit percentage for missiles of 65%, that's per missile so each missile individually has a 65% chance to hit... A number of them are gonna miss....every time.

Consider that damage and armor is up by 5x. So something with 300 armor in TT has 1,500 armor in HBS BT. So each LRM should do 5 damage... but they do 4 damage and often do only 2 damage due to glancing blows.

[Bombast]

Koniving, on 05 May 2018 - 04:48 PM, said:

LRMs and SRMs do modest damage, but are pretty inferior to medium lasers. Stacking multiple launchers can help you do "stability damage" which basically if you stack on enough hits before they move, you can knock 'em over.

Medium lasers are borderline useless once you break out of the medium weight range. They're only useful function is fishing for called headshots and finishing off legs without blowing STs off.

As opposed to LRMs, which are stability factories and, due to the hardpoint efficiency of launchers, can actually do a massive amount of damage.

LRMs are also really useful as secondary weapons, as they allow just about any mech to fire as it advances. Just about every mech should have a LRM launcher by endgame.

SRM usefulness caps out kind of early, especially once you get the minimum range skills that allow for near point blank LRM fire.

Quote

But in truth, missiles are kind of a joke. If you have a hit percentage for missiles of 65%, that's per missile so each missile individually has a 65% chance to hit... A number of them are gonna miss....every time.

And a number of them are always going to hit. Goes both ways

Quote

Consider that damage and armor is up by 5x. So something with 300 armor in TT has 1,500 armor in HBS BT. So each LRM should do 5 damage... but they do 4 damage and often do only 2 damage due to glancing blows.

Reduced damage affects all weapon systems. Hurts the big hitters hard than the swarm weapons, in my opinion - Big ACs and lasers get turned into smear weapons because they can't punch through anymore, while LRMs still operate the same way.

[Brain Cancer]

Yeah. Knockdowns are the equivalent of "stationary target" in this game, so if you can slap someone down (LRMs are great base stab damage, big ACs and PPCs are decent, small ACs not much, and lasers not at all), you're getting free called shots from the team to carve out weak spots.

You will learn this very quickly if one of your lance gets focused by a lot of LRM fire- say, a bunch of Strikers or missile boat chassis in general, or have the unfortunate experience of multiple Demolisher tanks getting too close before you see them.

[evilauthor]

Bombast, on 05 May 2018 - 05:06 PM, said:

Medium lasers are borderline useless once you break out of the medium weight range. They're only useful function is fishing for called headshots and finishing off legs without blowing STs off.

I dunno. 6 Medium Lasers in a Called Shot is potentially 150 damage to a single location, and that's before any + bonuses. That's nothing to sneeze at. Especially if they're backed by other weapons, like an SRM-6 (like on a Battlemaster) or something.

At the very least, a couple Medium Lasers give you something you can reliably use if you run out of ammo (or your ammo using weapons get blown up).

[Bombast]

evilauthor, on 05 May 2018 - 06:09 PM, said:

I dunno. 6 Medium Lasers in a Called Shot is potentially 150 damage to a single location, and that's before any + bonuses. That's nothing to sneeze at. Especially if they're backed by other weapons, like an SRM-6 (like on a Battlemaster) or something.

There's only a few chassis that can manage ML spam like this, and they're all pretty far down on the 'Good' scale. Just about every attempt I've made to make ML spam more useful than a one (Subpar) trick pony has been completely outclassed by just using Stability PPCs instead.

Quote

At the very least, a couple Medium Lasers give you something you can reliably use if you run out of ammo (or your ammo using weapons get blown up).

I'm firmly of the opinion that needing back up weapons is a sign of a bad build. Battletech, like TT, has fairly predictable match limits. You really shouldn't be running out of ammo, sans the occasional match where you come up one volley short. If you are running out of ammo, than maybe you shouldn't have wasted tonnage on medium lasers, and if your primary weapons are getting blown out, chances are, either your mech or mechwarrior are only a few seconds behind it.

Edited by Bombast, 05 May 2018 - 06:28 PM.

[Burke IV]

All of my builds are mixed and will core anything up to about a grasshopper with a single called shot. I got 6xmed laser 2xLRM10 and 2xLRM15 on my stalkers and it works just fine. Mostly it works out of sight but its perfectly good close up aswell.

[MustrumRidcully]

Some random notes:

Missiles are for stability damage to knock the enemy over, lasers are for calling shots and taking apart the enemy in a way that optimizes salvage. Or, alternative, to just take it out as quickly as possible if you don't need the mech anyway.
PPCs and ACs basically can fill both roles (though an AC20 can easily to way more damage then you intended and move from a leg removal attack to a mech removal attack.)
A single LRM 20 can bring pretty much any mech to unstable, at which point you often need just a tiny push to keel them over.

At early game, one should not discount the option of taking out the enemy pilot by knocking out side torsos and inflicting stability damage to knock him over. At later levels, you might need a head hit in there as well, because you don't just fight heavier mechs, but also tougher pilots (e.g. higher guts). Of course, with LRMs you might be able to knock an enemy over multiple times without coring him, but it's not easy.

Vehicles are glass cannons. You should take them out early, or if the are Demolishers or SRM Boats stay away until you know you have the firepower to take them out before they can shoot. Try to hit from the sides or back, since that is usually were the armor is weakest. Turrets are kinda similar to vehicles.

In MW:O, there is torso twisting, in Battletech, there is turning your mech so the enemy forces are focusing fire on one side. Once that side gets banged up, switch the side you're showing to the enemy to get the most out of your armor.
Also, if you can focus on one side of the enemy, you have somewhat more control on where you hit him, even without called shots

[Leone]

So, my favouritest mech is a BNC-3M with arm mods out to 200 damage and some six small lasers to crit seek once I've peeled the armour with that mighty blow. Oh, and it'll unstable anyone, so the next mech can just tap emwith missiles to knock it down an the rest of my team can focus fire.

Also, as an aside, I've found you can use vigilance and then sprint, allowing my Banshee to close rapidly (Nine hexes with the piloting seven sprint boost, which, by the by'll give all six evasive pips!) and brace for the incoming firepower.

Early game the SHD-any with full jumpjets and srm brawl works wonders. I still use em sometimes against assaults as my scout. Get some ace piloting and a good map an you can still reserve till the end, move last, hop out, alpha someone, alpha again an bug out.

~Leone.

Edited by Leone, 06 May 2018 - 11:47 AM.

[Koniving]

So having finally had a good, long, hard look at how HBS Battletech does Weapon variants... Doing a mod that gives a much more lore fluff friendly version of how they work and damage dealt, etc. is actually quite doable. I'm not sure if it will take additional variants, I will have to do some experimenting and investigating.

(Anyone know if it will take completely new weapons shoved into the folder and distribute them or no?)

When I'm done (probably in a couple of weeks), I should have something that'd basically thrill anyone looking to "new game plus" Battletech after beating it to death.

Not big on how the + and ++ weapons are simply superior in every sense with no give and take... its all "Gimme gimme gimme moar" and no "This is awesome, but which is better, this or that?"

Also: I got a Dragon with jumpjets so I has a flying Dragon and now I'm happy.

[MechaBattler]

As I'm progressing through the campaign. I'm honestly getting bored of the constant knock downs. It becomes "knockdown and core".

I agree with Koniving about the + weapons. When I heard they were adding different manufactures with different weapon specs. I didn't think it was a crappy upgrade scheme like so many RPGs. But then there aren't that many weapons in the game... So I guess it was necessary for the sake of variety.

[Koniving]

*******....

I hate that, I hit backspace to delete a line I'm working on and it backspaces the whole thing.

Anyway, Kali-Yama AC/20 variants in HBS BT. One does 110 damage, is AC/20 ++, does 2 shots, 50 stability damage and claims it does +10 damage and +10 stability damage with a rarity of 3. Another Kali-Yama AC/20 does 120 damage, is AC/20 +++, does 3 shots, 60 stability damage, claims +20 damage and +20 stability damage and rarity of 5 and 300,000 cbills more.

There's 11 AC/2s, 11 AC/5s, 11 AC/10s, 11 AC/20s.
9 large lasers. An Imaginary Laser.....what the? 1 ER large, 1 large pulse, 10 medium lasers, 1 ER ML, 1 MPL, 1 ER SL, 1 SPL, 9 SL, 3 flamers, 9 LRM-5s and that's about where I gave up and was moving on.

Anyway there's plenty here to work with. 11 AC/20s helps a lot, hope it will let me add more. There's 18 listed on Sarna.net and 14 or 15 of them are unique.

Imagine fighting a Demolisher with a proper Chemjet Gun... meaning that tank could shoot over walls, cliffsides, etc. like a mortar if it wanted to with its AC/20.

....There's only 1 machine gun?
....that's really disappointing...

Anyway...

Long post short because I don't feel like writing it all again... I definitely will start experimenting this weekend and next weekend I'll hopefully have something ready to share or at least have others test for feedback. It'll be about variation, give and take rather than outright "better". We'll see.

Definitely want more MG variants. Someone said they put in machine guns as a ballistic weapon rather than support, but it wouldn't trigger for melee attacks... so effectively the game should take outright new weapons rather than simply modding existing ones. So we'll see.

[evilauthor]

Koniving, on 07 May 2018 - 02:50 PM, said:

*******....

I hate that, I hit backspace to delete a line I'm working on and it backspaces the whole thing.

Before doing anything else, right click on the text box area and click Undo. That should get all your backspaced text back.

[El Bandito]

Got a question: How do you bulk delete save files? I got over 200 of them clogging my load time. I tried deleting most of them through my Steam userdata folder path, but after I deleted them, the game automatically brings back those save files! Don't tell me that I need to delete those save files one by one? Cause each one of them requires ten full seconds to be deleted in game.

NM, seems the only way is to mass delete the file without having them back up is to disable Steam cloud sync with BT, and then log out of my account for extra measure. Such hassle.

Also, are there quick save and quick load buttons? Features that are pretty much standard for modern games?

Edited by El Bandito, 08 May 2018 - 01:22 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Koniving, on 07 May 2018 - 02:50 PM, said:

*******....

I hate that, I hit backspace to delete a line I'm working on and it backspaces the whole thing.

Anyway, Kali-Yama AC/20 variants in HBS BT. One does 110 damage, is AC/20 ++, does 2 shots, 50 stability damage and claims it does +10 damage and +10 stability damage with a rarity of 3. Another Kali-Yama AC/20 does 120 damage, is AC/20 +++, does 3 shots, 60 stability damage, claims +20 damage and +20 stability damage and rarity of 5 and 300,000 cbills more.

There's 11 AC/2s, 11 AC/5s, 11 AC/10s, 11 AC/20s.
9 large lasers. An Imaginary Laser.....what the? 1 ER large, 1 large pulse, 10 medium lasers, 1 ER ML, 1 MPL, 1 ER SL, 1 SPL, 9 SL, 3 flamers, 9 LRM-5s and that's about where I gave up and was moving on.

Anyway there's plenty here to work with. 11 AC/20s helps a lot, hope it will let me add more. There's 18 listed on Sarna.net and 14 or 15 of them are unique.

Imagine fighting a Demolisher with a proper Chemjet Gun... meaning that tank could shoot over walls, cliffsides, etc. like a mortar if it wanted to with its AC/20.

....There's only 1 machine gun?
....that's really disappointing...

Anyway...

Long post short because I don't feel like writing it all again... I definitely will start experimenting this weekend and next weekend I'll hopefully have something ready to share or at least have others test for feedback. It'll be about variation, give and take rather than outright "better". We'll see.

Definitely want more MG variants. Someone said they put in machine guns as a ballistic weapon rather than support, but it wouldn't trigger for melee attacks... so effectively the game should take outright new weapons rather than simply modding existing ones. So we'll see.

I haven't tried that yet myself, but there is some manifest file that says which files exist, and if you add a new one, you need to add it to the manifest.

There are even people that have added new mech variants this way. (Not entirely new mechs, only creating a variant for an already existing chassis.)

If you want to have stuff appear on the battlefield, in salvage or store, there might be additional things to edit. (Store requires editing store inventories or "specials".)