Company ?

[Syllas]

Hello,

first post here, i play the game since it s launch and the last expansion brings a lot to the game experience.

the game to me is a real success.

My only wish , is that one day instead of a "single" lance we will be able to drop with a full company of 3 lances.

I have the remembering when i was playing the tabletop and RPgame of an expansion called "the black widow company" describing all pilots and mechs of the company for a total of 3 lances and 12 mechs that would really be awesome to be able to deploy atleast 2 lances

my two cents

 

[mjbroekman]

HBS has stated that this game will not be more than 4 player controlled mechs due to a number of reasons including mission length (which they wanted to keep in the 30 - 45 minute range). Increasing the number of units on the battlefield would make each mission substantially longer.

 

[Havamal]

That level of addition and rework to the mechanics might require a sequel to be implemented rather than an expansion.

 

[Syllas]

well then i wouldn't mind a sequel ^^

 

[Donvale]

I am really happy with the game, but I too would love more than one lance, I really don't mind 1 or 2 hour missions at all

 

[mjbroekman]

Personally, I would hate it. If I'm going to spend 60+ minutes in a game, I want to feel tangible progress to the end of the game. One mission against the AI just wouldn't cut it unless I'm doing something insane (like taking on a lance of Hunchbacks with a lance of Locusts). One match against a human opponent? Sure, I could see that taking a significant amount of time. But I'd rather see longer stories than just longer missions.

Four 15-minute missions that make a good story are far superior to one 60-minute mission that is just one part of a story.

 

[Amechwarrior]

Personally, I would hate it. If I'm going to spend 60+ minutes in a game, I want to feel tangible progress to the end of the game. One mission against the AI just wouldn't cut it unless I'm doing something insane (like taking on a lance of Hunchbacks with a lance of Locusts). One match against a human opponent? Sure, I could see that taking a significant amount of time. But I'd rather see longer stories than just longer missions.

Four 15-minute missions that make a good story are far superior to one 60-minute mission that is just one part of a story.

I'm going to have to agree with this even if my normal mode of play is the opposite.

I've been playing with my BetterAI mod on a 8-part career, I'm about 170 days in and still rolling with the VND and three 35t units. Each and every 2 - 2.5 skull contract feels like I need to act perfectly and each mission takes a very long time. Post mission screens show an average of 25 turns. Where I was burning through 5-10 contracts in 9-15 turns in stock play, I'm getting 2-3 contracts with BetterAI. Thing is, while when the mission is done and won, I feel really accomplished. Yet physically exhausted and mentally worn down after 2-3 of these encounters. I find myself playing less when missions are longer on average when the game isn't as hard and I'm not as mentally burned out at the end. For all that, I'm only half a planets worth of jobs down. On stock I'd be on my way to the 3rd planet and end on arrival.

With more Lances comes more firepower and all such massive encounters would end up like my modded ones, where one wrong move ends with a destroyed 'Mech and dead pilot. The game works with 4v4, 4v8 and we feel it start to crack with 4v12 as the limits of evasion, stability and max armor reach their limit as more units converge on a single target. Upping everything to give the player 8 or 12 and possibly scaling the AI to that would mean we'd be possibly be going in knowing up to a third of our force is "expendable" and will be lost to the concentrated fire of 12 or even 12+ enemy forces. I really want to take some time to play with "Mission Control" to see if this pans out like it did on TT and MWO.

 

[LemurFromTheId]

To add to the posts above...

It not just the length of a mission, but the pacing. When there are multiple lances on the field on both sides, a single round is going to take a very long time. If you make a preparatory move with a mech in order to do something specific with it on the next turn, you'll need a long memory - and there's a lot that can happen in between, so planning might get difficult. And simply just moving out of combat is going to annoying, especially with the AI also needing time for its turn.

Furthermore, I don't know about anyone else, but I care about my mechwarriors. One of the reasons I care is because I can keep them alive most of the time. I can keep them alive, because there's only a limited amount of Things™ that can happen during a single round. With 20+ enemies on the field, anything can happen, and there'll be losses - constantly. This might be considered realistic and some people will like this, but I don't; it's not the game I want.

Another reason why I care about my mechwarriors is because each and every one of them can make a difference and with their individual effort can ensure our victory. That's because there are only four of them. Multiply that by three, and suddenly an individual can't really make all that much of a difference.

And then there's the salvage. With several lances and constant, unavoidable losses, salvage needs to be increased as well. Right now, when you get to pick a few priority items and then you roll the dice to see what you end up with - that's exciting. With 20+ destroyed enemy mechs and 8/40 salvage rights - not so much.

I could go on. But suffice to say: sometimes less is more.

 

[Syllas]

i read all your comments, and i m sure there is a way to make everyone happy.

- I understand "the time" problem with missions being too long for some players
- Its more difficult for me who played a lot the tabletop game with 10 or more mecha vehicules on each side to think it s impossible to manage and plan strategy for 6 7 or 8 mechs

-I keep thinking map are large enough and AI not that hard to change to allow 6 or 8 mechs on the field to give more options of gameplay, and maybe this could come ingame in the settings like an "extra difficulty" level or something like that. so people who want it could have it and people who dont will still have their game like they want it. and i think that there s no need to change the number of ennemies on the field in the endgame just in the beginning missions

- Dont think salvage is that much of a problem , i play with the option where a salvaged mech come without any equipment when you get it and my game is totally viable , sometimes its a bit annoying to travel to a specific system looking for an AC10 or even sometimes a medium laser but HEY !! its the inner sphere and battletech lore

when you have all the argo features unlocked you have 18 "ready to fight" mech and more than 20 mechwarriors if you wish so .......... so it s just so frustrating especially with all the pilot skills combo possible to be limited to a deployment of 4.

- Another idea would be to have like in others mechwarrior game a tonnage limit for a deployement .

Well anyway others little things i would like to see IG :

- more skins and camo and paint options for mechs
- ECM and antimissile system ? ( maybe its allready there i have just restart a carreer with flashpoint installed )
- Long tom ?
- maybe more rpish thingy just like having techs and medic recruitement with differents bonus and flaw ?
- other sector of the galaxy to explore
- specific faction rewards ( special chassis or version of a mech well known to be used only by one faction )

 

[unclecid]

@Syllas you know what i do with 18mechs and 24 mechwarriors?

i divide the bays into 4 lances.

and amongst others i use the Pilot Fatigue mod.
(this mod requires a pilot to 'rest' a certain number of days (dependent upon skills level) between missions otherwise they suffer penalties to skills.)

and since i got 24 pilots plus myself i have spares to replace injured.

so then i run missions on a planet until i run out of pilots, meks or missions.

then we advance the timeline, and repeat.

 

[The Shadowhawke]

We'll have to live with the lance level, even if it's a waste of potential for this game, but it really isn't the problem.

Having us field a lance and face an understrength company far too often IS the problem.



Even with upgraded equipment and elite pilots, the game gives us scenarios that are unfeasable for a single lance. I find it a waste of the game's potential to moderate difficulty simply by throwing numbers at us.

The previously unknown reinforcement lance is so overused in the game that it's a bad trope.

 

[Justin Kase]

Would be cool if they take Flashpoints a step further and make it so your MechWarriors and 'Mechs from the 1st mission can't be used in the 2nd. Then have the results of both missions determine the branch for the 3rd mission, and potentially have survivors of your 2nd lance join in as an AI lance part way through (depending on the result of the 2nd mission).

Or something like that

 

[The Shadowhawke]

@Syllas you know what i do with 18mechs and 24 mechwarriors?

i divide the bays into 4 lances.

and amongst others i use the Pilot Fatigue mod.
(this mod requires a pilot to 'rest' a certain number of days (dependent upon skills level) between missions otherwise they suffer penalties to skills.)

and since i got 24 pilots plus myself i have spares to replace injured.

so then i run missions on a planet until i run out of pilots, meks or missions.

then we advance the timeline, and repeat.

With a full house of pilots, you also have a long run of getting them all skilled up, and there's another way to do that.

I take easier difficulty missions between bigger ones, and rotate my less experienced pilots through the drops.

This allowed me to build up salvage, and produce enough revenues to jump between black market systems and buy up all the choice tech. It's put +++ weapons, heat exchangers and T&T systems on all my best builds.

All those pilots mean I can skill some up to maximize some of the mechs that are permanent fixtures in my front line mechs, especially my multiple Stalkers, which get pilots with multi-targeting and coolant vent.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

With a full house of pilots, you also have a long run of getting them all skilled up, and there's another way to do that.

I take easier difficulty missions between bigger ones, and rotate my less experienced pilots through the drops.

This allowed me to build up salvage, and produce enough revenues to jump between black market systems and buy up all the choice tech. It's put +++ weapons, heat exchangers and T&T systems on all my best builds.

All those pilots mean I can skill some up to maximize some of the mechs that are permanent fixtures in my front line mechs, especially my multiple Stalkers, which get pilots with multi-targeting and coolant vent.

Great idea!

Another benefit of spreading that experience around is that in Career Mode when the inevitable Headcapping occurs, you don’t lose a MechWarrior with 10/10/10/10-PLUS 100k worth of excess EXP...

...my Career Mode Score dropped precipitously that day and then a couple days later when I lost another of my original MechWarriors. : (

 

[Syllas]

I never got the patience to level 24 pilots all stats to 10 , i stop playing actually when i managed to collect all the chassis i wanted, or when i m getting too bored to loose pilots because of some "stupid" and "unbalanced" reinforcement lance.
i m a BIG fan of XO saying "carefull i feel it could be a trap" just after landing
But yes i use all the tricks you talked about to try to feel as much as possible that its cool to still have my firestarter or my hunchy in bay......... so i ran underated mission with novice pilot too

I just feel frustrated because the game right now is a excellent "battletech" game , and just miss a bit more to be THE "battletech" game