37 replies to this topic

[Ghost]

That's right, I've gotten my hands on MechCommander 2 for the first time and I want to play it!
While I am sorting out a few technical difficulties, the bare bones are in place and the first mission's been recorded.



What makes it a LP? Well, that's where you come in. You can sponsor a pilot and determine what upgrades he or she gets. You can even customize the 'Mechs for me if you wish. There's a decent FAQ out there for reference.

Currently I have a Starslayer, two Bushwackers and a Razorback.
There is quite the pilot selection available as well. I'll be taking Twitch in the Starslayer, Palerider in the Razorback, and Longshot in the Bushwacker on to Mission 2.

[Miles Tails Prower]

Man I played MC2 for years, competed in the Cobra League too, even went undefeated for a cycle.

It was a shame that MC2 didn't have as many fans as MC1 even though MC2 had a lot of good improvements.

If you grab some Steiner mechs. Make sure you put in one of my favorites, the Hollander with 2 PPCs and 2 armor. Or its alternate version with 2 ERPPCs and 2 heat sinks. Brings a lot of fire power for a small amount of tonnage. Plus you can bring more pilots at once, which gives a pilot more opportunities to gain the full campaign ribbon.

Edited by Miles Tails Prower, 20 November 2011 - 01:49 PM.

[Kodiak Jorgensson]

a new Mechcommander game would be cool. would have loved to made a mod for it on starcraft 2 or a better engine.

[Miles Tails Prower]

A lot of people feel that way. I can't stand mods personally, the MC2 mod was the final blow to the MSNZone MC2. All the complications, errors and lack of compatibility destroyed what remained of the community.

[Ghost]

Parts Two and Three of the nameless merc force's adventures continues. I run the Laserback on jump jets through a gauntlet of SRM turrets in a bizarre 'Mech-based version of skeet shooting.


Longshot does particularly well, and is promoted to Regular. I give her Medium Autocannon Specialization, as the Bushwacker she's piloting has one. (I'm cutting out the salvage/pilot results screens... Fraps does not like them.)

[Rohan Pony]

I remember this game!

I'll sponsor Twitch - he always was a crazy one. Wait, how do you have a Starslayer at the start?

Edited by Rohan Pony, 20 November 2011 - 04:17 PM.

[Strayed]

Rohan Pony, on 20 November 2011 - 04:17 PM, said:

I remember this game!

I'll sponsor Twitch - he always was a crazy one. Wait, how do you have a Starslayer at the start?

You can capture a starslayer in very first mission. Although I've seen mods where people have started in Timberwolfs I remember this game getting quite easy once you got a lance of blood asps (steiner assault lance taken out in less than 10 seconds )

[theginganinja]

My unit setup is always:
Hacksaw in the biggest 'Mech I care to put in the mission, acting as my short-range combat specialist
Flash, generally in the smallest 'Mech but always with sensors - I very much look forward to getting the Cyclops. Obviously, she functions as my recon specialist, and a long-range specialist due to the rarity of her best 'Mechs and their general lack of armor compared to the other two
Longshot, usually in a 'Mech right in the middle of the other two's weights. She acts, appropriately enough, as my primary long-range specialist. She gets lots of LRMs, and often an Ultra Light AC as well.
If I have room for a 4th 'Mech, it's generally fairly small (just filling those last few tons) and being piloted by Meat, acting as a mid-range specialist. He has a strange tendency to end up in a Urbanmech - somehow that always fills my drop limit perfectly

[Ghost]

Part Four and Five are now up. I discover that baiting base defenders is vastly preferable to charging into turret range, and that fixed artillery is not as useful as it might initially appear. Not fast enough on the salvage button for the second Starslayer, so I had to buy it from the salvagers later. An expensive boondoggle, it turns out, as I don't appear to have any laser specialists to use it with. Yet. I am loving LRMs even more now.

[Rohan Pony]

I find Laser and Sensor skills are worth taking. Later on, Scouting, LRM and Jump Jet. Then the good stuff like PPC and Long Range specialty.

If Twitch manages to level up, give him Medium 'Mech...he should be good in a Starslayer for quite a while.

Keep going! Good stuff. Brings back the memories...

[Rohan Pony]

P.S. Enemies don't ever lose aggro in this game. If Longshot is the first person they see, they will hunt her until she is dead. So you might want to rotate the 'mechs on point between fights.

[Ghost]

Rohan Pony, on 21 November 2011 - 04:25 AM, said:

I find Laser and Sensor skills are worth taking. Later on, Scouting, LRM and Jump Jet. Then the good stuff like PPC and Long Range specialty.

If Twitch manages to level up, give him Medium 'Mech...he should be good in a Starslayer for quite a while.

Keep going! Good stuff. Brings back the memories...

Oh yeah. Twitch is absolutely dominating in that Starslayer. I swapped out the lasers for the pulse lasers I just captured, and now that medium is a vicious brawler. Thinking of making a variant for a rookie that's just PPCs and SRMs. Mission 4's briefing and the birth of the Starslayer Mk2.



I have mission 4 recorded but the encoding will have to wait until tonight. Still working on technical issues -- the menu defaults to 800x600 resolution no matter what resolution you have the battles take place in, so I'm thinking of upsizing it gracefully to the 1280x720 that Youtube tells me it likes so much so I can squeeze it in with the regular footage. Failing that I'll just letterbox the menu parts so they'll fit in the higher resolution and carry on. All this on top of it being seemingly completely random whether or not Fraps can handle the gameplay to menu transition gracefully. I actually had some decent footage of the enormous pile of Fire Ant salvage mission 3 dropped on me.

[Rohan Pony]

Oh yeah - the changing resolutions problem. I wouldn't mind if you letterboxed the menu parts.

All those poor Fire Ants/Fleas. They're just there to die, really. They're not really good for anything in the game, especially since you already have better scout options.

One tip with the Long Tom Artillery - don't overestimate the ranges. They're more like mortars. And they track targets too slowly - most 'mechs are liable to move out of the way long before the artillery arrives. In fact, don't bother using Long Tom at all.

[Miles Tails Prower]

The only support options I ever use are repair trucks and salvage craft, the rest of the stuff is just to be fancy. The game is easy enough that your mech's and whatever capturable resources are enough to handle any threat.

The AI in MC2 was its weakness, the enemies are too predictable. You could turn up the difficulty to try and compensate but then the game just became unrealistic with head shots occuring too frequently.

[theginganinja]

Rohan Pony, on 21 November 2011 - 05:59 PM, said:

Oh yeah - the changing resolutions problem. I wouldn't mind if you letterboxed the menu parts.

All those poor Fire Ants/Fleas. They're just there to die, really. They're not really good for anything in the game, especially since you already have better scout options.

One tip with the Long Tom Artillery - don't overestimate the ranges. They're more like mortars. And they track targets too slowly - most 'mechs are liable to move out of the way long before the artillery arrives. In fact, don't bother using Long Tom at all.

Miles Tails Prower, on 21 November 2011 - 06:45 PM, said:

The only support options I ever use are repair trucks and salvage craft, the rest of the stuff is just to be fancy. The game is easy enough that your mech's and whatever capturable resources are enough to handle any threat.

The AI in MC2 was its weakness, the enemies are too predictable. You could turn up the difficulty to try and compensate but then the game just became unrealistic with head shots occuring too frequently.

For the most part, I agree with you two - almost every mission, I only use repair vehicles and the salvage craft. And, yes, you are certainly capable of doing well with just those, your drop 'Mechs, and salvaged enemy 'Mechs.
However, especially on the higher difficulties, I found both the Minelayer and Long Tom artillery - the Minelayer in particular - to be extremely useful on the "base defense" missions.

[DocBach]

I had a lot of fun with the mission creator. I made a campaign based off of Clan Ghost Bear's invasion of the Inner Sphere based on stories from the Invading Clans sourcebook. Unfortunately its long gone.

[Ghost]

The next mission has me running around at a severe topographical disadvantage. My pilots get shot in the head a few times. Poor Meat. I loot a couple Anubis 'Mechs for fire support duty. You'll see how well they do in the next mission.

[Ghost]

Mission 5 stands out to me as an example of what makes MechCommander 2 better than the original. First, it's a night mission. To my knowledge there aren't any in the first game, so we're already heading into new territory. But that's not what really sticks out to me. In this level the good stuff is centered around the lighting. You might notice that there are searchlights in this level, both as base defenses and mounted on 'Mechs. Light is dangerous during night missions in Battletech: it can grant you as well as your enemies a bonus to hit. And that's faithfully recreated here. It's the attention to detail that really earns my admiration: the searchlights on the player's 'Mechs, the way the light displayed around them grows brighter the more of them cluster together, and there's even a bit in Part 9 where the 'Mechs actually appear to use their searchlights to their advantage at around the 10:58 mark--Twitch charges in there to shine his light on the enemy before alpha striking. It's the little details that really elevate this game to the next level.

(Bit of trivia: All 'Mechs in the tabletop game have free searchlights. One of the best examples of searchlight use happens in one of the early Battletech novels, Mercenary's Star, where a Warhammer is featured using its mounted searchlight to deadly effect while night fighting in the streets of a major city.)




I think I've got the menu resolution switch worked out. It just takes a little finesse and an extra step during encoding.
As you can see, the Anubis is not too terribly bad during this mission, but the lights have a tendency to run in despite my orders to attack from long range, which means they took the damage the heavier mediums could have borne better. I have to micromanage the fragile things to the back just before the prison defenders can attack, which probably saved Palerider's bacon. I brought along Flash for this mission, and she picked up Laser Specialist when she got promoted to Regular.

Oh, and it looks like the Steiners are selling both the Highlander and the Zeus just in time for a night raid mission. Oh you guys.

Edited by Ghost, 22 November 2011 - 07:50 AM.

[Captain Nice HD]

You probably already know this, but you can free up a lot of spare cash by removing everything from the Mechs you aren't using for a given mission, giving you enough liquid capital to acquire more Mechs in the post-mission salvage screen. Since Mechs sell for more C-Bills than they cost as salvage, you can sell off those dozens of 'confiscated' bandit Fire Ants for a considerable profit. Pays off immensely in the long-run.

[Ghost]

Captain Nice HD, on 22 November 2011 - 08:10 PM, said:

You probably already know this, but you can free up a lot of spare cash by removing everything from the Mechs you aren't using for a given mission, giving you enough liquid capital to acquire more Mechs in the post-mission salvage screen. Since Mechs sell for more C-Bills than they cost as salvage, you can sell off those dozens of 'confiscated' bandit Fire Ants for a considerable profit. Pays off immensely in the long-run.

That's a good strategy. I'll keep it in mind. It's too late for my latest mission though. I just blew ~100k on buying a Shootist and turning it into a laser boat (2 ERLLs, 2 ERPPCs) for the base defense mission.




I was really just fooling around in this mission -- I could have just captured the turret and sensor controls, grabbed the resource building, and then pulled back to the forward bases to shorten the trip to the repair bay. Those Storm tanks really, really hurt.

Edited by Ghost, 23 November 2011 - 07:20 AM.