ChristopherOdd's Playthrough of Battletech

[Pyske]

[...] In fact my own starting LRM boat 'does' make an armor sacrifice to squeeze in firepower, losing two tons of armor, and I am sorely tempted to reduce it's firepower to gain back the armor. (50 ton Centurion, jump jets for high ground/mobility, LRM 20 & 15, 4 tons ammo, 8.5 tons of armor, 2 tons shy of max.)

Actually if I reduce anything to get back the armor, it would probably be the jump jets, but I am VERY fond of jump jets.

Yeah, I feel like your current design is a good one. It is sitting in a sweet spot and there is not a lot I would change about it. I’ll pull 2 JJ’s and another ton of armor to get pair of backup MLs.

 

[dougz]

If you have tips that the tutorial miss, please post them in the new threat I made about making a guide for new players.

Any guide for new players in place, yet? Would be good if the posters highlighting problems (Differences between straight red line, arcing red line and white line) could fill in the blanks.

 

[ED-209]

@ChristopherOdd: If you are reading this thread, a friendly heads up. The frontal armour on a tank is its thickest piece of armour. You do not ever want to waste morale points on a called shot to the frontal armour of an undamaged vehicle (but if that section was exposed then fair enough). Hitting it anywhere else would generally be more beneficial, so when attacking from the front you should stick with regular shots. If you do want to take a called shot on a vehicle from the front, aim for the turret. But typically you should prioritise positioning your mech so as to attack from the side or rear whenever possible.

 

[SQW]

XCOM players need to get used to the fact BT has facings and paper doll damage charts so enemies don't have just one health pool. So many streamers are stuck in the mentality of just looking at hit percentages and only look at sections on call-shots.

The 50% armor debuff of earlier enemies really gets people into bad habits.

 

[Jumbik]

True, the health bars are misleading for people with no experience with Battletech. It would be good to have a tutorial in game just for the damage calculation with armor and internals explained more deeply.

 

[Bodha]

In my opinion, the amount of extra weaponry you can get from dropping armor is minimal at best. One medium laser and the heat sinks to fire it, for four tons of armor. That's a LOT of armor! If I've got a mech that is four tons of armor underweight, I am NOT going to be comfortable advancing it to the point where it can easily be fired upon, even IF it's pilot has bulwark. Yes, the brawlers should be maximally armored, but if one of them starts to take too much damage, having a well armored support line gives them somewhere to fall back to. Also well armored support means you are far less at risk in the case of enemy surprise flanking maneuvers (not likely with the current AI, but who knows) or enemy reinforcements suddenly showing up in your rear.

In the latest Odd video, his "overarmored" Vindicator support mech, which he 'was' keeping further back, got it's arm blown off, the worst damage he suffered in the scenario. Just as a forinstance.

Ah but every ton of armor swapped for a heat sink is more dps before you overheat, or drop a bit and upgrade the weapon a bit for more dps. Its all a trade off of course and you can play the way you want. It is probably the most efficient on some missions and mine will be on others. As long as we are both having fun and arent getting hammered both pass the test.

 

[Bodha]

You are certainly right that an LRM 5 makes for a much better example as that would be the weapon of choice. I would note however that five tons is almost half the armor a 50 ton early LRM boat could carry. That is not a small sacrifice. In fact my own starting LRM boat 'does' make an armor sacrifice to squeeze in firepower, losing two tons of armor, and I am sorely tempted to reduce it's firepower to gain back the armor. (50 ton Centurion, jump jets for high ground/mobility, LRM 20 & 15, 4 tons ammo, 8.5 tons of armor, 2 tons shy of max.)

Actually if I reduce anything to get back the armor, it would probably be the jump jets, but I am VERY fond of jump jets.

Would you be willing to drop armor on an lrm boat to upgrade the lrms?

Or if you were running an ac and ppc direct fire mech would you be willing to drop armor to get 1 more heat sink to keep the heat down? Im asking about mechs that are not heat neutral of course, not those heat balanced mechs that can fire forever without overheating.

 

[Panpiper]

Would you be willing to drop armor on an lrm boat to upgrade the lrms?

Or if you were running an ac and ppc direct fire mech would you be willing to drop armor to get 1 more heat sink to keep the heat down? Im asking about mechs that are not heat neutral of course, not those heat balanced mechs that can fire forever without overheating.

My early game LRM boat does in fact drop two tons of armor. (50 ton Centurion, LRM 20 & 15, 4 tons ammo, 4 jump jets, 8.5 tons armor.) My early game direct fire ranged support (any 50 tonner, PPC, AC5, 1 ton AC ammo, 4 jump jets, 3 extra heat sinks, 10.5 tons armor) I am not so sure. I anticipate having that mech slightly forward of the LRM mech, making it a more available target. It would gain about ten heat per turn, which is tolerable for a good while. Against early game enemies, I frankly do not anticipate much more than five turns of contact with most enemy waves. By the time I get enemies 'not' hampered by partial armor, I expect I'll have replaced the chassis with a 65 tonner that could hold the extra heat sinks.

 

[Cyttorak001]

Any guide for new players in place, yet? Would be good if the posters highlighting problems (Differences between straight red line, arcing red line and white line) could fill in the blanks.

There are play tips in a thread on the main forum, and here's a tutorial I wrote in the fan creations subforum:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/illustrated-tutorial.1089758/

 

[Bodha]

My early game LRM boat does in fact drop two tons of armor. (50 ton Centurion, LRM 20 & 15, 4 tons ammo, 4 jump jets, 8.5 tons armor.) My early game direct fire ranged support (any 50 tonner, PPC, AC5, 1 ton AC ammo, 4 jump jets, 3 extra heat sinks, 10.5 tons armor) I am not so sure. I anticipate having that mech slightly forward of the LRM mech, making it a more available target. It would gain about ten heat per turn, which is tolerable for a good while. Against early game enemies, I frankly do not anticipate much more than five turns of contact with most enemy waves. By the time I get enemies 'not' hampered by partial armor, I expect I'll have replaced the chassis with a 65 tonner that could hold the extra heat sinks.

Yeah I can see having more on the direct fire mech than the lrm mech.

I see brawlers as needing the most armor, bracket builds nearly as much. Direct fire support a little behind that and lrm boats can get by with a great deal less. Mileage varies based upon tactics, but Im a big fan of 1 to 2 frontline, 1 to 2 frontline in a pinch and only 1 stay back for sure builds in the lance.

Tactics might need the 3rd mech to step up to the front from time to time or be in an exposed flanking position. The lrm boat though will never be intentionally played near the frontline.

 

[Bodha]

I thought the standard Centurion had 8.5 tons of armour - do you drop it to 6.5 or are you thinking of another Mech?

I think he is up armoring the direct fire support. Most folk tend to forget standard armor amounts on stock designs because so few rarely play them stock in the pc games.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Centurion_(BattleMech)

 

[Panpiper]

I thought the standard Centurion had 8.5 tons of armour - do you drop it to 6.5 or are you thinking of another Mech?

It may well be that the standard loadout of the Centurion is 8.5 tons of armor. I never run with standard loadouts, virtually without exception, they are sub-optimum. All 50 ton mechs can have up to 10.5 tons of armor, including the Centurion.

I see brawlers as needing the most armor, bracket builds nearly as much. Direct fire support a little behind that and lrm boats can get by with a great deal less. Mileage varies based upon tactics, but Im a big fan of 1 to 2 frontline, 1 to 2 frontline in a pinch and only 1 stay back for sure builds in the lance.

Tactics might need the 3rd mech to step up to the front from time to time or be in an exposed flanking position. The lrm boat though will never be intentionally played near the frontline.

Absolutely any front line brawler needs as much armor as it can carry, at least on the front. The rear probably won't be maximally armored, but it won't be overly light either. While the direct fire support mech will be close enough to the brawlers to have it's targets in at least medium range, my plan is to keep the LRM mech quite close to the direct fire ranged support mech. I WANT all four of my mechs to be viable targets for enemy fire. I want the enemy splitting fire, trying flanking maneuvers and the like, so as to spread that damage. I do not want the enemy concentrating all it's fire just on the two front line mechs. That is why I am so reluctant to reduce armor on my mechs.

 

[commuterzombie]

It may well be that the standard loadout of the Centurion is 8.5 tons of armor. I never run with standard loadouts, virtually without exception, they are sub-optimum. All 50 ton mechs can have up to 10.5 tons of armor, including the Centurion.

Cool, that makes sense.

 

[huilun02]

Follow this page on Twitch:
https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/BattleTech
You're welcome

Good job HBS/Paradox on distributing streamer copies. Many streamers have played off screen and learned the game mechanics

 

[Mystix]

SPOILERS! New Campaign is started

 

[sterrius]

He is only going to reach the random mission on day 21 unfortunaly. No patience to see the tutorial and the mine phase again.

 

[dougz]

There are play tips in a thread on the main forum, and here's a tutorial I wrote in the fan creations subforum:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/illustrated-tutorial.1089758/

Excellent, exactly what I was looking for, thanks!

 

[ronhatch]

He is only going to reach the random mission on day 21 unfortunaly. No patience to see the tutorial and the mine phase again.

Actually, he did both of the scripted story missions and negotiated the contract for his first random mission at the end of his second video. (I wasn't going to watch them since I'm also quite tired of those missions, but couldn't resist seeing how much progress he's made regarding tactics. He's still not that good, but at least didn't make any horrible blunders. Did the mining mission without needing any repairs to his mechs, just some recovery time for mechwarriors due to head hits.) It sounds like he intends to upload a video every day, so we should be getting a new procedural mission video today.

 

[Mystix]

SPOILERS:

Part II: https://youtu.be/9-pnrNGmb9E

Part III: https://youtu.be/1ynGk4-WtFc

 

[Tribalist]

I gotta give Christopher props for expressing his appreciation of the Game. I can't help but grin when I hear the excitement in his voice and his enthusiastic endorsement of the game and the "encounters".

Yeah, watching some of his earlier games are painful, I wish he would take more physical attacks at times. Some of his reactions though are priceless, the first time he sees the Firestarter was EPIC! But I think that overall his exploration ond reaction of the game has been very entertaining to watch, I noticed him connecting with the Characters "Decker, lets move you out of there before you die.."

I wonder if a technical manual will be shipped with the game similar to what we got when the Backer Beta was released. That would go some way towards helping with the tutorial shortcomings.

And this brings me to my last thought...

THANK YOU HBS FOR BRINGING BATTLETECH TO LIFE!
Thanks to Jordan for his original idea, the Dev's the Graphic Artists, the Writers, the Sound Crew, the Programmers, all the other people involved in production, and most of all to you my fellow backers, thank you so very much! The game looks fantastic, and hopefully in success all things will be possible.