I love this game. But one thing that I have thought is you have room for 18 active mechs when you get all 3 mech bays. I typically maybe use 6 of those mechs and the other bays are just a waste. What would be really cool is having more than 1 lance of mechs, then you would have a light/meduim scouting lance and a heavy/assault lance THAT would be AWESOME if it could get worked into the game.
Any talk of allowing 2 lances?
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Not going to happen.
Some people like me suggested that you could have a secondary lance, yes but doing stuff like recon and harassment off map. Having 8 mechs on a map requires massive balance change. So something for BT 2.
Some people like me suggested that you could have a secondary lance, yes but doing stuff like recon and harassment off map. Having 8 mechs on a map requires massive balance change. So something for BT 2.
There is a few missions where you shall aid a friendly lance in combat. Hostiles always get a support team and you end up with 16 mechs taking their turn. Turns take a very long time to finish.
Personally want team to be increased to 5 or 6. Or if NPC have reinforcements then you get too. Not everyone thinks 8 or 9 baddies is a Walk in the park.
Personally want team to be increased to 5 or 6. Or if NPC have reinforcements then you get too. Not everyone thinks 8 or 9 baddies is a Walk in the park.
You may never get 2 lances in vanilla, but by modding the game you can get it...and it makes soooo much fun: just check for latest version of Battletech advanced 3062 mod on nexus mods
While the game has limited means to force variation, myself and I think many other players use house rules to add a little variety.
There is one called the Rule of Skulls, meaning you can't drop a lance with a shield rating more than 0.5 above the contract skull rating. Using this rule let's you use more mech than you might otherwise, rather than just dropping the same 4 assaults or heavies every contract. Late in a career, I usually aim for 2-4 lights (typically in the higher end of the range), 4-5 mediums, 4-5 heavies, and maybe 4 assaults. Also, some of the mods, like BEx-CE, use drop costs which reward using the lightest lance possible. Dropping 4 assaults on a 1 skull would lose money before you even get on the ground.
Once I have the second mech bay and sufficient mechs, I also typically use a one-mechwarrior-per-mech house rule where each mech has a primary driver. If a mech or a pilot is unavailable, you have to sub in a completely different mech/pilot. Eariler in a career, I do allow "utility" mechwarriors, usually newbies without a ride, who can sub in as needed when someone is wounded for a long time. As new mechs come along, mechwarriors can get promoted to a more powerful ride, freeing up lighter mechs for rookies.
Mike
There is one called the Rule of Skulls, meaning you can't drop a lance with a shield rating more than 0.5 above the contract skull rating. Using this rule let's you use more mech than you might otherwise, rather than just dropping the same 4 assaults or heavies every contract. Late in a career, I usually aim for 2-4 lights (typically in the higher end of the range), 4-5 mediums, 4-5 heavies, and maybe 4 assaults. Also, some of the mods, like BEx-CE, use drop costs which reward using the lightest lance possible. Dropping 4 assaults on a 1 skull would lose money before you even get on the ground.
Once I have the second mech bay and sufficient mechs, I also typically use a one-mechwarrior-per-mech house rule where each mech has a primary driver. If a mech or a pilot is unavailable, you have to sub in a completely different mech/pilot. Eariler in a career, I do allow "utility" mechwarriors, usually newbies without a ride, who can sub in as needed when someone is wounded for a long time. As new mechs come along, mechwarriors can get promoted to a more powerful ride, freeing up lighter mechs for rookies.
Mike
Something more than 1 lance is badly needed for me in BT along with an improved mp system.
Friend @2fisted, I think we have all the BATTLETECH Multiplayer we are going to see.
And even at that, BATTLETECH Multiplayer is the best BattleTech Computer game I have ever played. ever. I've run one 91-player Challonge Tournament and run or played in numerous smaller more nuanced BATTLETECH Multiplayer Tournaments. Twice now, I have joined and enjoyed playing @Grayson Marik 's Inner Sphere League and all the many gamers that have played and are playing it even now in its SEVENTH Season.
We've had a great run and it isn't finished yet. But more development? I just don't see it happening and in truth would prefer for Team HBS to focus on whatever it has coming next through its Game Development Pipeline. :bow:
Any talk? Yes.
At a MechCon, Mitch asked the crowd, "Wanna run two lances?" and the crowd goes YAAAAAAA and he said something to the effect of "Well, I guess we better give them what they want."
Getting there is a completely different story.
One is practical: the game was designed for 4 player run mechs. The UI is all set up for four. While the programmatic infrastructure is there, revamping the UI to cleanly do that is nontrivial.
Single player game balance becomes an issue. Again, everything is set up and balanced for 4, even if those 4 are King Crabs and Atlases packed with LosTech+++ gear. Do you get to run two lances all the time? Will they be restricted to Flashpoints? If so, will we get some kind of 'dynamic procedural micro-campaign' so we get the flashpoint-like opportunity more often? Will we have 5 skull missions distinct from 5 double-skull missions? Gotta fix the star-map filters...
Then there's fluff: How do we, in-game-canon, come to the point of having this capability? Why didn't we have it before? Frankly, this is the least difficult part. Real reason is always Because Game. In-universe reason is "because you don't have a second dropship", which is always fixable by "and now you have another dropship". If there can be a Bull Shark mech, there can be a second dropship. They didn't paint themselves into a corner that prevents it with their fluff or game asset design.
So, if the Lord Commander announces that we could have this, but we must give him money, the business case falls down to "Number of people who say shut up, take my money" times "Amount of requested money" versus "scope of work; cost of skilled manpower; time to market; burn rate; minimum viable product that doesn't look like a cheesy money grab DLC that erodes goodwill but was nevertheless expensive to deliver".
And so, off to the Steam statistics to find out how many people are still playing the game a couple months after the last DLC drop (let's call those 'nerds', or 'easy money'), and how many people actually played the last DLC for a while (likely purchasers, or 'middling easy money'). Moderate hard sell is to people that bought the base game but never bought a DLC, or people that bought it on steam sale, or even people that bought MW5Mercs but didn't buy the original BATTLETCH game. Hard sell is to new purchasers... market for turn-based big stompy robot games with overtones of Game of Thrones written by attractive and successful game development houses may be saturated. There's a well to go to... but how deep is that well?
At a MechCon, Mitch asked the crowd, "Wanna run two lances?" and the crowd goes YAAAAAAA and he said something to the effect of "Well, I guess we better give them what they want."
Getting there is a completely different story.
One is practical: the game was designed for 4 player run mechs. The UI is all set up for four. While the programmatic infrastructure is there, revamping the UI to cleanly do that is nontrivial.
Single player game balance becomes an issue. Again, everything is set up and balanced for 4, even if those 4 are King Crabs and Atlases packed with LosTech+++ gear. Do you get to run two lances all the time? Will they be restricted to Flashpoints? If so, will we get some kind of 'dynamic procedural micro-campaign' so we get the flashpoint-like opportunity more often? Will we have 5 skull missions distinct from 5 double-skull missions? Gotta fix the star-map filters...
Then there's fluff: How do we, in-game-canon, come to the point of having this capability? Why didn't we have it before? Frankly, this is the least difficult part. Real reason is always Because Game. In-universe reason is "because you don't have a second dropship", which is always fixable by "and now you have another dropship". If there can be a Bull Shark mech, there can be a second dropship. They didn't paint themselves into a corner that prevents it with their fluff or game asset design.
So, if the Lord Commander announces that we could have this, but we must give him money, the business case falls down to "Number of people who say shut up, take my money" times "Amount of requested money" versus "scope of work; cost of skilled manpower; time to market; burn rate; minimum viable product that doesn't look like a cheesy money grab DLC that erodes goodwill but was nevertheless expensive to deliver".
And so, off to the Steam statistics to find out how many people are still playing the game a couple months after the last DLC drop (let's call those 'nerds', or 'easy money'), and how many people actually played the last DLC for a while (likely purchasers, or 'middling easy money'). Moderate hard sell is to people that bought the base game but never bought a DLC, or people that bought it on steam sale, or even people that bought MW5Mercs but didn't buy the original BATTLETCH game. Hard sell is to new purchasers... market for turn-based big stompy robot games with overtones of Game of Thrones written by attractive and successful game development houses may be saturated. There's a well to go to... but how deep is that well?
Well some games like X COM have upgrades to make the squad increase in size, from 4 to 5 and finally 6. Maybe better than 2 full lances for balancing?
All I would like is a section of Vehicles, and I think I am in luck - there just might be a Mod for that. : )
I downloaded and installed the Extended 3062 Mod last night. Ex3062 includes the Mission Control mod which, among other things, allows larger drop lances. I would need to research some new Argo upgrades to use it, but the contract drop screen includes eight fillable drop slots.
Mission Control also seems to allow beefed up OpFors to counteract the increased player forces as well as larger maps, random spawns, and other features. I don't know the details, but the Mod also includes a Dynamic Withdrawal feature that seems to force the player to move to an extraction point to Withdraw from a contract rather than just teleport away.
Mission Control also seems to allow beefed up OpFors to counteract the increased player forces as well as larger maps, random spawns, and other features. I don't know the details, but the Mod also includes a Dynamic Withdrawal feature that seems to force the player to move to an extraction point to Withdraw from a contract rather than just teleport away.
Nah... an ECM Packrat and the fastest Tank I can find. (I would say the fastest Hovertank I can find... but we’ll...)
: )
Just adding some more personal notes: by having the mission control mod (thanks to cwolf) the Battletech game feels now much completed to me. Now everything makes sense: fielding bunch of mechs from every weight class with it's individual role into a battle is now possible. Also the 3 mech bays now makes much more sense now. Everything feels so complete to me.
I came back from BT 1.2 after finishing campaign more than 1 year ago, just because of this mod and insta bought all 3 DLC's because of mission control.
My very vague personal guessing is that HBS supported creator of mission control mod for realization. Because it's seems like not just JSON modification, there are more parts of the game modified just than this. Maybe it's a last gift from HBS to BT1...
I came back from BT 1.2 after finishing campaign more than 1 year ago, just because of this mod and insta bought all 3 DLC's because of mission control.
My very vague personal guessing is that HBS supported creator of mission control mod for realization. Because it's seems like not just JSON modification, there are more parts of the game modified just than this. Maybe it's a last gift from HBS to BT1...
I don’t think I’ve ever heard a better compliment for a Modder than this. :bow:
From your keyboard to @CWolfs screen. : )
I guess I'm going to have to take the contrary opinion and say I do not want to manage more than a single lance. Turned-based battles in this game with just four mechs already take upwards of 30 minutes each. I've had a few approach an hour, and this is with the game's relatively small maps. I do not need even more mechs drawing out the length of the battles.
I seems that some players feel strongly about this feature, so it's great modders have stepped up. But I don't want this in the base game. I think this is a great example of less being more.
Funny enough, I feel the same about the XCOM remake. A ton of players bemoaned only being able to use four (and ultimately 6) units whereas the original game had you managing 8-12. I think this was an improvement - I found combat in the original XCOM where I had to move 8+ units every single round exceedingly tedious and slow.
I think managing multiple lances would be best for an RTS or strategy game, not a tactical game like this one.
I seems that some players feel strongly about this feature, so it's great modders have stepped up. But I don't want this in the base game. I think this is a great example of less being more.
Funny enough, I feel the same about the XCOM remake. A ton of players bemoaned only being able to use four (and ultimately 6) units whereas the original game had you managing 8-12. I think this was an improvement - I found combat in the original XCOM where I had to move 8+ units every single round exceedingly tedious and slow.
I think managing multiple lances would be best for an RTS or strategy game, not a tactical game like this one.
I wouldn´t mind if the 2nd lance was AI controlled, which would be less of a power increase and make things faster than give us more 4 units to command.
But i do want my 2nd leopard and be able to drop a short company. Even if only for specific missions and flashpoints.
After those missions and FPs where we have an allied AI mech lance, i don´t see why we couldn´t have it.
Giving 4 elite mechwarriors in lostech mechs to this AI 2nd lance won´t ruin balance. If you do so, you´re taking a high risk putting so much valuable in AI hands and deserve a easy ride if your gamble pays off. And some missions in those alliance FPs proved that HBS can create enough challenge even to those who can drop that much.
But i do want my 2nd leopard and be able to drop a short company. Even if only for specific missions and flashpoints.
After those missions and FPs where we have an allied AI mech lance, i don´t see why we couldn´t have it.
Giving 4 elite mechwarriors in lostech mechs to this AI 2nd lance won´t ruin balance. If you do so, you´re taking a high risk putting so much valuable in AI hands and deserve a easy ride if your gamble pays off. And some missions in those alliance FPs proved that HBS can create enough challenge even to those who can drop that much.
I run a custom pack of mods which includes mission control and bigger drops... these two are game changers and I love them.
I think a full 2nd lance might be a bit much. More player mechs need to be challenged by more enemy mechs - a lot more enemy mechs - and the devs need to fit all that on the same crowded maps.
However, I can see creating an option to attach one or two light mechs or support vehicles to a lance as a ship upgrade.
However, I can see creating an option to attach one or two light mechs or support vehicles to a lance as a ship upgrade.