Where do you understand that from? As far as I know, it's never been hinted at one way or another.
Developer Diaries #4: Career Mode
- Thread starter HBS_Kiva
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I'm glad it's endgame dlc, all that hard work amassing a regiment of mechs finally has a reason 
cant wait
cant wait
Actually, I had the Lord Commander himself (be still my beating heart) pull me up short on that particular bit of speculation: the next expansion emphatically is *not* the 4th Succession War. While that war is certainly important and the build up towards it has ramifications that are going to be felt in the way flashpoints are developed and presented, I'm personally actually pretty relieved that their plan is to draw out the development of the universe in that respect. That means we'll get to really soak ourselves in the feel of 3025 Battletech before getting major work from HBS that brings us into the next one.
Rollin’ into FLASHPOINT with ALL the Mechs! : )I'm glad it's endgame dlc, all that hard work amassing a regiment of mechs finally has a reason
Am I the only one who wants more uncertainties in contract difficulties?
I know many here complained their 3-skull missions suddenly turned into a 4-skull but personally, I want an even bigger variation. Sure, a military contract might have decent intel but if some rich CEO is hiring you to blow up the competition, he/she is unlikely to have a spy network on the payroll too.
I jury rigged a career mode into the vanilla a long time ago and never had any issue steam rolling the missions after getting a heavy or two. Able to anticipate the worst-case scenario thanks to the skull system meant I always know what I'm in for and that certainty took away a lot of tension.
Edit: I mentioned this months ago but 4th is hardly a time/place a single lance merc outfit can make a difference or even be noticed by the Houses. When the US military is looking for 'contractors', they aren't looking at the local classifieds. I'm curious to see how HBS can fit a decent narrative into such a limited scope in the future.
I know many here complained their 3-skull missions suddenly turned into a 4-skull but personally, I want an even bigger variation. Sure, a military contract might have decent intel but if some rich CEO is hiring you to blow up the competition, he/she is unlikely to have a spy network on the payroll too.
I jury rigged a career mode into the vanilla a long time ago and never had any issue steam rolling the missions after getting a heavy or two. Able to anticipate the worst-case scenario thanks to the skull system meant I always know what I'm in for and that certainty took away a lot of tension.
Edit: I mentioned this months ago but 4th is hardly a time/place a single lance merc outfit can make a difference or even be noticed by the Houses. When the US military is looking for 'contractors', they aren't looking at the local classifieds. I'm curious to see how HBS can fit a decent narrative into such a limited scope in the future.
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In my exploration of Missions and the notes in my Campaign Journal there is surprisingly little uncertainty. I join you both in wanting more.
At the same time... whoaaahhh boy the wailing and gnashing of teeth would be quite frightful!
Difficulty varies by planet already. Since there's no real reason to explore outside the campaign until you finish it and have very close to maxed out difficulty, you probably won't notice, but the Brinton, Calseraigne, and Hellespont systems, for instance, all have difficulty +3 over the baseline. Conversely, Ur Cruinne, Detroit and Bellerophon have difficulty -2 below the baseline. On top of that, difficulty varies by 1 point up or down when the contract is generated. So in theory at the halfway mark you could get a 4.5 skull mission in Brinton, or a 1 skull mission in Detroit.
Ahhhh thank you Kiva... my exploration of Missions has not yet gotten to Planets.
We were more discussing the nature of an N skull mission. Once you get a sense of the skull rating, mission type, and biome you are never really surprised at what will be thrown at you.
My point was, because the skull system is too accurate about the opposition, there's is little tension whether I accept a cake walk mission or a 4-5 skull because I know what's coming. Having a variation in the planet base difficulty isn't the issue here - it's the fact we know before hand what we are facing. Having a "we have zero intel on the opposition" situation should even be common for a merc contract and frankly, I wouldn't mind going in blind and suddenly finding myself outgunned and have to retreat every once in a while.
The way contract is offered also means we'll rarely find ourselves in a position we are forced to take contracts harder than we wanted to which further reinforces the big safety net feel of the 'sandbox'.
Disclaimer : I have not played the game since I completed the restoration campaign right after launch. Nor am I an expert on Battletech lore. Please excuse if some of these are already patched in / planned, or are counter to the Battletech universe (though I do believe some concessions can be made to lore designed for pen and paper for the sake of a good computer game).
The issue with the sandbox gameplay in Battletech is that it is pointless. My actions have no effect on the world. Systems do not change hands. There is no way to strategically affect the economy etc. It is a pointless repetitive grind. You have mentioned Sid Meyer's Pirates. You should borrow some ideas from them, and other similar games like StarSector, Mount & Blade etc. It should have features like -
1. Factions should be dynamic. They should have roving fleets / armies that it can send out to patrol or against it's enemies. They can make war, sue for peace, and all that.
2. There should be other persistent autonomous mercenary fleets that the player needs to contend with.
3. The player should be able to escort, intercept / fight and interact with these fleets, trade equipment or fight beside them for a price etc.
4. There should be other travelling fleets (merchants etc) that player should be able to attack for resources, causing penalties with their parent factions.
5. There should be tactical missions available in systems such as destroying industry, arms reserves etc that can affect the state of that system, such as availability and prices of equipment.
6. Contested systems can have a balance of power between the contending factions. Completing enough missions (both by player and other forces) should make the system change hands.
7. There can be dynamic missions created based on the state of the world. For instances a system facing a scarcity of food may provide a high paying mission to escort a relief fleet send from a different system.
8. There can be famous mechwarriors - mercenary captains or faction members, that you can defeat to get special equipment / mechs or recruit them to your fleet.
Edit : I just remembered I posted something similar in suggestions a long time back, lol. https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/dynamic-open-world.1096109/#post-24201959
The issue with the sandbox gameplay in Battletech is that it is pointless. My actions have no effect on the world. Systems do not change hands. There is no way to strategically affect the economy etc. It is a pointless repetitive grind. You have mentioned Sid Meyer's Pirates. You should borrow some ideas from them, and other similar games like StarSector, Mount & Blade etc. It should have features like -
1. Factions should be dynamic. They should have roving fleets / armies that it can send out to patrol or against it's enemies. They can make war, sue for peace, and all that.
2. There should be other persistent autonomous mercenary fleets that the player needs to contend with.
3. The player should be able to escort, intercept / fight and interact with these fleets, trade equipment or fight beside them for a price etc.
4. There should be other travelling fleets (merchants etc) that player should be able to attack for resources, causing penalties with their parent factions.
5. There should be tactical missions available in systems such as destroying industry, arms reserves etc that can affect the state of that system, such as availability and prices of equipment.
6. Contested systems can have a balance of power between the contending factions. Completing enough missions (both by player and other forces) should make the system change hands.
7. There can be dynamic missions created based on the state of the world. For instances a system facing a scarcity of food may provide a high paying mission to escort a relief fleet send from a different system.
8. There can be famous mechwarriors - mercenary captains or faction members, that you can defeat to get special equipment / mechs or recruit them to your fleet.
Edit : I just remembered I posted something similar in suggestions a long time back, lol. https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/dynamic-open-world.1096109/#post-24201959
Maybe in the succession war where you see roaming armies and planets changing hand but right now, you are 4 mechs in a transport. To think your merry band can affect geo-political map of IS is both silly and outside the scope of what HBS can achieve atm.
Yes, the career mode is aimless but that's the same for every single sandbox game out there. You are not the Chosen One on a quest of destiny - you are just the owner of a small-medium sized business and you've got pay rolls to do. On the flip side, we DO need more variety in what we CAN do as a small merc outfit. The current crop of contracts and how our merc can interact with the world is pretty limited.
Yes, the career mode is aimless but that's the same for every single sandbox game out there. You are not the Chosen One on a quest of destiny - you are just the owner of a small-medium sized business and you've got pay rolls to do. On the flip side, we DO need more variety in what we CAN do as a small merc outfit. The current crop of contracts and how our merc can interact with the world is pretty limited.
Ah, but that's not what I'm concerned about. Yeah, sure I can find a wide range of difficulties in mid campaign, but what's really bothering me is exactly what you describe: "There's no real reason to explore outside the campaign"!
Imagine this scenario:
- Starting Area - 0.5 to 1.5 skulls
- Independent planets in the reach - 1 to 2.5 skulls
- Independent planets bordering major realms - 2.5 to 3 skulls
- Coalition/Directorate - 2 to 3.5 skulls
- Magistracy/Concordat - 2.5 to 4 skulls
- Successor States - 3 to 4.5 skulls
- Border Zones between Major Nations - 4-5 skulls
That way you could safely build up to a strong medium lance whithin the Aurigan Reach when you start having the strength necessary to do work in the Major Nations. Also the Periphery would be almost devoid of Assault Mechs and thus closer to Lore while there would still be places on the map where you could face Steiner Scout Lances regularly.
As it is, the systems don't really offer much variation. The +-1 difficulty variation is actually working against you just as much. At the halfway point You can also find 3.5 skull missions on Hellespont and 2 Skull missions in Detroit while an average system has contracts from 2 to 3 if I understand the math correctly. That's not really enough of a difference to justify the massive detour to Hellespont and the reason I've never been there.
I actually wanted to make 'Leopard Mode' (or maybe 'hysteria mode' ^_^) a setting in Career Mode, but it's a fairly substantial engineering task to rebuild all the game systems that expect you to have the Argo. Alas. Hopefully a modder will give me the awful, awful Leopard Mode of my dreams.
a quick n dirty way to do it:
took most of the info from this thread:
game too easy? know how to use a notepad? all your DIY mod needs here
to open the star map you have to edit "milestone_114_sim_leopard_start.json" and change this in under "AddedTags":
"AddedTags" : {
"items" : [
"SYSTEM_UseEvents",
"SYSTEM_UseTime",
"map_travel_1",
"map_travel_2",
"map_travel_2a",
"map_travel_3",
"oc04_post_argo"
],
"tagSetSourceFile" : ""
},
as for the no argo part I edited:
"milestone_302_talk_haveShipWillTravel.json"
"Type" : "System_SetDropship",
"value" : "leopard" (changed from Argo)
EDIT: after Weldry I got the Argo, changed the
"Type" : "System_SetDropship",
"value" : "leopard" (changed from Argo)
entry in "milestone_303_notify_argoUpgrades" and "milestone_305_sim_argo_start" too.
replayed Weldry and now am truly running the Leopard.
has worked after recovering the Argo, not sure if it will work through the entire campaign, but right now I'm fighting for Steiner while preparing for weldry
game too easy? know how to use a notepad? all your DIY mod needs here
to open the star map you have to edit "milestone_114_sim_leopard_start.json" and change this in under "AddedTags":
"AddedTags" : {
"items" : [
"SYSTEM_UseEvents",
"SYSTEM_UseTime",
"map_travel_1",
"map_travel_2",
"map_travel_2a",
"map_travel_3",
"oc04_post_argo"
],
"tagSetSourceFile" : ""
},
as for the no argo part I edited:
"milestone_302_talk_haveShipWillTravel.json"
"Type" : "System_SetDropship",
"value" : "leopard" (changed from Argo)
EDIT: after Weldry I got the Argo, changed the
"Type" : "System_SetDropship",
"value" : "leopard" (changed from Argo)
entry in "milestone_303_notify_argoUpgrades" and "milestone_305_sim_argo_start" too.
replayed Weldry and now am truly running the Leopard.
has worked after recovering the Argo, not sure if it will work through the entire campaign, but right now I'm fighting for Steiner while preparing for weldry
given it won't adjust the story, but then there is no story in career mode, so besides some events where you won't be able to unlock the Argo option it works.
I like to have the Union added too, there is a model made for it (as seen in the transisitions) and the .json of the argo can be adjusted to make for an Union.
On the other hand: Having unlimited storage space is the real game changer (at least for now): 6 combat ready mechs are more than enough in the current campaign, that might change with flashpoint though. So sending every surplus mech to the storage gives you a regiments worth of Mechs aboard your Leopard.
I think the uncertainty in contract difficulty for me would be a larger variety in end-game enemy composition. Instead of almost always 8ish Assaults as the OpFor, maybe add in heavies, mediums and lights (which goes for vehicle sizes as well as). Sure, in order to keep the difficulty, it means more OpFor units, but shouldn't increase the length of the battle too greatly as they are squishier and changers were already made to speed up combat. (Plus those lovely models should get more use!)
My 2-cents.
My 2-cents.
The +2.5/-1.5 skulls difficulty variance is not enough. There should be planets with 0.5 skull contracts even in the end game, at the highest company rating. Variation is good. I should not be forced into going outside of easy contracts just because my rating went higher . Especially on ironman when sometimes you just need to grind a bit for money to have for repairs after harder missions.
I have often felt the expansions and DLC will not include the 4th succession war. The current mechanics just don't seem to fit a conflict on that level, IMHO.
However.... the next release of a BT game? That is where I think it makes sense to expand/create the mechanics to do the 4th succession war right.
I got my kickstarter pledge ready.
Is there anything that identifies "easy" versus "hard" systems? Is it one of the tags?