How to bring BATTLETECH to the next level?

[Paendragon]

Battletech is already a good game one can enjoy for many hours (thank you HBS!). I have recently finished my second play-through with mods and was thinking about what was missing.


One of the most common criticisms you encounter with current Battletech from players in Steam Reviews, from streamers, online magazines - and one I am agreeing personally to as well - is that Battletech is still, generally speaking, a game where you bring your four heaviest Mechs to battle, walk towards the enemy and stomp them. Or put differently: The game does not give you many big tactical choices that win the day. Instead, you get a myriad of small ones.


Sure, there is terrain, there is ammo, there is heat management, there is different weapon ranges there is mobility, there is facing, your load out etc. However, in the big scheme of things you end up with four of your beefiest Mechs with maybe a Hopper in between for gaining LOS and drawing fire. It will rarely feel like you won the battle because you had a better lance composition, or because you outmaneuvered the enemy or you had the better strategy in the course of the mission or your pilots had a higher quality (which they have on top of all things at the end of the game).


You can`t just build a lance of eight 50to Mediums to fight the four 100to Assaults.


You can`t use a hand full of cheap tanks to block the path of the enemy lance and flank them with lighter and faster Mechs.


You can`t place a minefield or call an airstrike in the advancing path of the enemy reinforcements.


You do not have interlinked objectives like having to capture and hold one point with one lance and at the same time push for another objective in a set amount of time with a different lance or fail the whole mission. There is no need for this kind of complex mission design. It is always do A then do B then do C. Search & Destroy.


I guess most of you are already seeing where this goes. I believe that in order to make Battletech a truly excellent game, we do not only need more of the same in a different garn (though that is always a nice touch). One should expand the game in dramatic and meaningful ways that take full advantage of the systems in place and make it tactically more interesting from the perspective of a commander.


- Transform the 4-Mech-limit to a real tonnage limit.

- Introduce playable tanks and infantry and strategic tools like artillery fire.

- Expand the lance limit up to a Company of 16 vehicles.

- Increase the size of maps (simply unlock more space of the current maps?) to open up more tactical possibilities.

- Expand the flashpoint concept to a multi-lance, multi-objective, multi-mission customizable editor so the community can get creative and we can put the whole power of our mercenary company into the field when necessary.

- Factor in pilots abilities. A lance of rooks should be cheaper to deploy then a lance of your best pilots.

- Open the game up for multiplayer (Solaris expansion?)


I think in the past HBS has spoken out against expanding the scope of combat like this because they want to stay focused on the lance level tactical combat and keep it to the 30-minute frame for one mission.


However, I say this has proven too one-dimensional for many people. Why fight this point when clearly there is demand for this in the community?


Sure, you could say loading times will be long; turns will take 15 minutes instead of one minute; the already challenged AI would totally crap out. Low spec PCs would melt. Idk.


Still, I think I would take it. Just for having the chance to play this game on the next level. It feels like the lance limitation & gameplay is but the tutorial on a greater scheme of gameplay.


Maybe all/some of this needs to go into the specs for Battletech 2.


What are other players thinking?


Completely happy with the current plans? Or do you think there are opportunities lost with the limit to one lance and the fixed 400to setup? Did the DLC (Flashpoint) alleviate the Assault onslaught S&D syndrome?

 

[Jolly Joker]

Let's look at this from a different point of view. Suppose there were higher-skull missions you COULD tackle with light mechs - wouldn't this be a shortcut to better mechs and lots of money very soon? If, on the other hand, there were some preconditions necessary to be able to solve such a mission, would it make such a big difference, whether the mechs you use would be light or medium or heavy or assault?
Of course you can easily do missions that REQUIRE one Light Mech. You might have to salvage and escort something back that you could reach only in a Light Mech, for example. This would basically mean, you had to do all the shooting with three mechs, while the 4th would have to be kept back, in order to reach and extract the target.
Aside from that, lance composition due to biome, available pilot abilities and long/short range capabilities are quite important.

 

[DocDesastro]

My issue with the current state of the game is not that it constrains my options but that it's mechanics provide little or no incentive for me to do anything other than collect and deploy the heaviest mechs that I possibly can which does constrain my options. What I'd like to see are changes that introduce trade offs which result in there being no obvious 'best way' to play.

I strongly agree with that one. Mechs need maintenance and there should be a mechanism reflecting the drain on tech manpower as well as the monthly costs. The mechbay rating is such a thing although we only use it to determine how fast our jobs will be done and Yang seems to be the only person around.
Looking at the mechbay upgrades one could think of 'restrictions' made in other ways.

Imagine the following:
Yang adds a flat number to the mechbay rating - lets us say...5 - just arbitrary. Keeping a mech online thus battle-ready, this number is reduced.
Let us further imagine, that an active light mech reduces mechbay rating by 1 to reflect, that Yang has to dedicate time to maintaining the mech. Make medium mechs a 2, heavies a 3 and assaults a 5. So your mechbay rating limits your further projects. To remedy this, you could hire additional technicians via hiring hall. We have gazillions of pilots floating around so those with the 'technician' skill would qualify. You might as well be able to assign personal to certain mechs to counter mech quirks.
Imagine the situation that you might get a hold on a 'Star League' mech, such as a Highlander, a Kintaro or similar. Those are harder to maintain, as the tech is more 'alien' and hard to replace and understand. We represent this by adding to the number of mechbay rating required to maintain the mech. Assigning a tech with 'Comstar Acolyte' or 'Technical School' could remedy this as long as that tech is assigned to the 'lostech' mech.
If you used up all your mechbay rating points, you could not modify your mechs as the poor guys have no spare time left. If you go negative, the mechs degrade and suffer damage on a weekly base - this is costly and dangerous. This also makes the hab pod expansions more interesting as more crew means more techs.

Now concerning the mechbay upgrades: they should not each add a flat number to mechbay rating, but allow certain things upon unlocking them. Like a Refit Harness should enable refits. Easy as it goes. Without them - how to stabilize and balance the mechs due to having parts removed or exchanged while cold and gyros not active? I cannot imagine that they will ask a mechwarrior to man the cockpit to balance the mech for 8 hours while the techs modify parts. So, without the refit harness you are limited to stock mechs. Automation could give bonus rating per tech while scaffolds could reduce repair and refit time by - let us say: 25% per job.

These changes will of course put the crimp on people modding each new toy they get but also will encourage to spend money on Argo upgrades other than the mechbay ones and have a larger crew. Making lights easier to maintain, heavy and assault mechs will be odd in the early stages as they lock too many resources. Prepare for these kinds of operations first, before getting the big toys.

 

[wolfhoundtoo]

Vastly more complicated than the existing system and much harder for new players to adequately understand and use effectively. And (at least as far as I'm concerned) a whole lot less fun. I've seen many posts complaining about how hard it is to make enough money and to have mechs repaired adequately between missions with the current system and your proposals would seem to amp up the difficulty for not much gain.

 

[DocDesastro]

No gain? But yes, they rebalance the metagame. Currently you go heads up for the biggest machines and keep only a few pilots because you do not need more than maybe 6. You always go for the Argo upgrades that will give you more mechs and reduce repair time. With my suggestion in action this would stop. You cannot field heavier stuff unless you are prepared to do so.
Now you might take the hab pod upgrade earlier instead of automation or hangar 2 to accommodate more techs. And you will appreciate a new light a bit more since you can easily maintain it while a heavy might put you into problems in terms of manpower and money. The existing system is unintuitive and boring. A single number. The higher, the quicker - yeah, that's all.

Pray tell me: what is vastly more complicated about techs adding to mechbay rating instead of Argo upgrades doing so? I cannot see vast complications in this.
What is difficult about assigning a tech to a mech? We do this with mechwarriors on every mission. It is hard to make money? It depends. If you spend it a.s.a.p. on tech do-dads and Argo upgrades, then yes. If you go all out for salvage: then yes. But then you deserve to be bankrupt because you obviously cannot handle money. Leave the payment slider in the middle or go for +1 money. You still will get decent loot but also be afloat in money. If you want everything at all at once - yes, then you are right. Then it is almost impossible to have enough money. The problem with having to repair mechs is none. We already get the armor back in no time which is something made easier for us (although completely unnecessary in my book). One just does do not more than a single mission with one pilot and a mech per ingame day without R&R - yet we can already do unlimited missions per day.
And learning how to maneuver your mechs and picking adequately difficult missions for your lance and pilots will keep you posse together in one piece. Look at the upper right screen. There is a button called 'withdraw' - saves you from making unnecessary repairs when facing very bad odds. Or savescum. But usually you do not get big repairs when playing well. The odd bad roll - you can live with that. Yes, there is a learning curve connected with that - but then again BT is not something compared to casual games like e.g. Candy Crush or similar easy to understand games.

The game becomes not more difficult with that. Maybe a bit slower because you cannot use heavies right from the bat but you still pick the missions and make mistakes there that will cost you a campaign. You can do enough missions to pay for all bills. Campaign mode at the beginning shows this. Pay was super awful and yet you lived. Playing career on normal difficulty I have no problems with money - unless I get into a rush buying ++items in the stores or upgrade my ship at any time possible. But this is my own fault, isn't it?

[Mod edit: Posting at others not topically. No one is beholden to agree with or have the discussion others want to have.]

 

[ThatGuyMontag]

The *one* thing I hope more than anything is that they don't try to "fix" the issue people have with the move towards heavier weights by doing a numbers tweak.

First and foremost, Battletech must not become another game about endless spreadsheeting. Want to chase percentile improvements in efficiency? Play Path of Exile or Diablo. The way to add more interesting choices into *this* game is to add in more interesting mechanics.

That's one thing I loved about yesterday's stream. When they first mentioned their Ewar plans I was hoping that they decided to make ECM a chunky mechanic, and gosh darned making ECM invulnerability with a hard counter is about as chunky a mechanic as it's possible to make.

A bit more cost here, a couple of percent more damage there just won't cut it.

Mechanics like this EWar system will.

 

[Sigil]

In the end, HBS decided to make a game, not a simulation. A lot of the ideas I see on here tend to want to make the game simulate the nut-and-bolts of running a mercenary company. You want to track the cost of individual components, hire 'Tech crews, and individualize the maintenance cost of each 'Mech, play MegaMek. It's an excellent port of the table top simulation game, which at this point, has rules for just about anything you can think of.

I believe HBS is focused on making BattleTech more fun by introducing new mechanics that encourage a wider variety of play styles, provide for more interesting choices and increasing visual variety. I'm good with that.

 

[whymakemedothis]

Let's look at this from a different point of view. Suppose there were higher-skull missions you COULD tackle with light mechs - wouldn't this be a shortcut to better mechs and lots of money very soon? If, on the other hand, there were some preconditions necessary to be able to solve such a mission, would it make such a big difference, whether the mechs you use would be light or medium or heavy or assault?
Of course you can easily do missions that REQUIRE one Light Mech. You might have to salvage and escort something back that you could reach only in a Light Mech, for example. This would basically mean, you had to do all the shooting with three mechs, while the 4th would have to be kept back, in order to reach and extract the target.
Aside from that, lance composition due to biome, available pilot abilities and long/short range capabilities are quite important.

Personally I don't want to see any procedurally generated missions that force the player's hand when selecting their lance composition whether that's by requiring a specific type of mech or tonnage limits. For me there are already plenty of missions available for lighter mechs in the form of low skull systems as I believe the skull ratings are an indication of opfor tonnage rather than a straight out difficulty rating. Therefore for me the problem isn't the lack of missions for light mechs but a lack of reasons to keep those light mechs in my mech bay so as to be able to use them. Essentially every time I get a new heavy or assault mech it replaces one of the lighter chassis because in a high skull system I can use them as back ups if one of my primary mechs is damaged and in low skull systems I can use them to turn contracts into milk runs.

First and foremost, Battletech must not become another game about endless spreadsheeting. Want to chase percentile improvements in efficiency? Play Path of Exile or Diablo. The way to add more interesting choices into *this* game is to add in more interesting mechanics.

One way to add more interesting decisions is as you say to add more interesting mechanics. Another is to refine existing ones. Currently when starting a campaign you arrive at a system and you'll have several contracts of varying difficulty available. If everything goes well you'll be able to complete all of them without advancing the timeline. However most likely your lance will take damage and you will have to make a decision. Do I repair my mechs and advance the timeline so as to be able to take on another contract in this system but perhaps reducing the number of systems I'll be able to visit(and hence available contracts) before the financial report or do I look for greener pastures in a nearby system? Now that is an interesting decision already present in the game. However as the game progresses and you increase the size of your mech bay and then fill it with new mechs the frequency with which you find yourself having to make these decisions reduces until you get to a point where you almost never have to make them. In my experience that point is when I have eight or more assault mechs to choose from.

Now my suggestion of maintenance costs based on weight is a simple solution that creates a con for replacing a light mech with a heavy one where currently none exist. I do however acknowledge that would make the game harder but instead of dismissing it as 'spread sheeting' the better solution would be adding it as another difficulty option to sit alongside those 'number tweaks' which have already been added to the game such as how many mech parts required to create a new mech, pilot xp amount per mission, C-bill and salvage reward amounts etc.

 

[DocDesastro]

Personally I don't want to see any procedurally generated missions that force the player's hand when selecting their lance composition whether that's by requiring a specific type of mech or tonnage limits. For me there are already plenty of missions available for lighter mechs in the form of low skull systems as I believe the skull ratings are an indication of opfor tonnage rather than a straight out difficulty rating. Therefore for me the problem isn't the lack of missions for light mechs but a lack of reasons to keep those light mechs in my mech bay so as to be able to use them. Essentially every time I get a new heavy or assault mech it replaces one of the lighter chassis because in a high skull system I can use them as back ups if one of my primary mechs is damaged and in low skull systems I can use them to turn contracts into milk runs.
.

This is the funny point and I agree: you really won't keep lights. Because the game allows you to take the same pilots and mechs and you will want to use your best ones, right? What would be the point of having them? You still can do a 1-Star mission and stomp it with a Steiner Assault lance. The time we talk about variation we have Mech Bay 2 or even 3 unlocked and from my personal experience, things seen at my friends or in let's plays was: the light ones go to the dump unless they are a Panther or Firestarter (keeping 1 of each for points) - or you got a Cicada or Quickdraw. Why should I bring worse pilots or worse mech than I have to a mission? The game does neither prevent me from doing so nor encourage me to go for variation. If my best pilots would get fatigued for 1-3 days I would not let them do the milk runs. If Yang would insist after each mission that each mech partaking is out of commission for 2 days because of R&R, then I would not bring my best mechs there either - they earn the big cash. But since we can do any mission with any mech and several of those with the same pilots and the only thing difficulty adds is the number and size of enemies...we won't use the lights if we have alternatives. So better mechs replace the light and in the end we use heavies as reserves for damaged assaults.

The one thing silly with BT is that in career mode we get points for visiting many systems. Is this a travel simulator? Which merc company has fought on each planet in a major faction's sector? And because of this small 'reward' we want to 'farm' as many missions on a planet, scratch it from our self-made records because the game doesn't tell us that were there already, and move on.

 

[unclecid]

to me at least....all HBS needs to to is keep on doing what they are doing and i will be happy.

however IMHO all that is needed to bring BT to the next level is Official Support for Modding and full-on Modding Tools.

 

[Jade_Rook]

It seems like several of the things mentioned in this thread are already coming in 1.6 and Urban Warfare.

More variety in missions - they are revamping the Battle missions to add more variety
More uses for light mechs - the Attack/Defend missions seem like there will be a reason to have a mix of fast units attacking while larger slower units defend
More variety in gameplay - the Raven, seriously, watch the Twitch stream where they covered how ECM works
Tracking which system we have visited - added in 1.6

The devs really do want to make this game better and are listening to the forums. Not every idea is feasible and some go against other design goals.

 

[Zeusbunnyears]

Now this might be an unpopular opinion but I fundamentally disagree with everyone’s proposal to make this game tougher as it doesn’t answer mine or the OPs desire.

Placing artificial limitations on yourself (all locusts) or set of 8 to build a mech isn’t challenging...it’s grindy and boring. That’s the whole reason you are trying to find a new way to play the game. I don’t want more grind at lower levels as it artificially stretches out the game without adding value, it’s just silly. I want actual content and tactics. Why am I limited to 4 mechs? Why can’t I call in other resources like tanks, infantry, and air support?

While not a 1:1 translation, I think Warcraft/Starcraft does a good job with some of its missions by placing a twist on your normal gameplay. X units don’t work in this environment; you need to create a beachhead to land your units; defend these units while they’re being built, then use them to destroy the enemy base.

 

[stjobe]

- Grindfest for parts

At 3 parts, there really is zero grind. 5 and up, sure - but that's by player choice. Default 3 parts can't really be called a "grind" when you can get a full chassis from a single mission.

- 4 mech lance only is bad

It's the price we have to pay to get a game where you can churn out 4-10 missions in an evening instead of 2-3. For me, that's good enough reason.

- repetitive missions

At an abstract level, everything is repetitive. For me, every mission is new since it's almost always a new combination of 'Mechs, MechWarrior skills, opfor, mission parameters, and map. But sure, if you intentionally abstract it away to "kill the enemy" then fine. But then all games are repetitive.

- lack of strategic layer

I wonder what they wish for here - that our little company somehow affects the House borders? We're only alive because we are small enough to fly under the radar, if a House saw us as a potential threat we'd be done for.

- light mechs are not useful by game design

Simply false. People have won 5-star missions with lights only.

- game encourages heavy/assault only as with progression only the number of opponents grows

In the campaign, sure. In Career Mode, you can choose your own difficulty.

 

[DocDesastro]

Well...that is what I read - I just cannot take my time reading all of those, but there are repeating patterns and some point mentioned again and again and even discussed in this very forum.
Regarding the points you quoted me on my reads on the forum reviews:
lack of strategic layer seems to regard 'everything outside the tactical mission gameplay' i.e. managing the company of mercs.
The difficulty settings...well, I have my own opinion on that. Most choices are not making the game more difficult to play actually, but only serve to enhance the 'grindy' part like 8 parts of salvage over 3. Shooting those mechs for parts is not easier...I just have to do it more often. This is tedious, not rewarding.
Reducing the amount of money and XP we get...well, same here. It just makes you play the game longer but does not churn up mission difficulty. The AI cheats anyway as it comes at us with more than 4 mechs and spawns troops arbitrary. No ++ items? Well, standard 3025 feeling, nothing usual. Permadestroy mechs? Same here. It just takes longer to salvage them. Ironman? Well...for those who like it.

There are many opinions out there but I feel somewhat sad that there are so many negative ones. But then I, too, waited since Mechcommander 2 and MW for 17 years for a decent BT game.

 

[FireStoat]

In regards to the OP's title, two things immediately come to mind. More story and meaningful play decisions that involve the historic lore of the game and where it's headed in this offering of the universe, and... Combined arms for the player to control. Yes. Yes, I would very much like to salvage and field Schrek PPC carriers and missile carriers with my mechs. I've previously mentioned my strong interest in expanded PvP content for the game but I understand the staff manpower issue involving that topic.

 

[wolfhoundtoo]

No gain? But yes, they rebalance the metagame. Currently you go heads up for the biggest machines and keep only a few pilots because you do not need more than maybe 6. You always go for the Argo upgrades that will give you more mechs and reduce repair time. With my suggestion in action this would stop. You cannot field heavier stuff unless you are prepared to do so.
Now you might take the hab pod upgrade earlier instead of automation or hangar 2 to accommodate more techs. And you will appreciate a new light a bit more since you can easily maintain it while a heavy might put you into problems in terms of manpower and money. The existing system is unintuitive and boring. A single number. The higher, the quicker - yeah, that's all.

Pray tell me: what is vastly more complicated about techs adding to mechbay rating instead of Argo upgrades doing so? I cannot see vast complications in this.
What is difficult about assigning a tech to a mech? We do this with mechwarriors on every mission. It is hard to make money? It depends. If you spend it a.s.a.p. on tech do-dads and Argo upgrades, then yes. If you go all out for salvage: then yes. But then you deserve to be bankrupt because you obviously cannot handle money. Leave the payment slider in the middle or go for +1 money. You still will get decent loot but also be afloat in money. If you want everything at all at once - yes, then you are right. Then it is almost impossible to have enough money. The problem with having to repair mechs is none. We already get the armor back in no time which is something made easier for us (although completely unnecessary in my book). One just does do not more than a single mission with one pilot and a mech per ingame day without R&R - yet we can already do unlimited missions per day.
And learning how to maneuver your mechs and picking adequately difficult missions for your lance and pilots will keep you posse together in one piece. Look at the upper right screen. There is a button called 'withdraw' - saves you from making unnecessary repairs when facing very bad odds. Or savescum. But usually you do not get big repairs when playing well. The odd bad roll - you can live with that. Yes, there is a learning curve connected with that - but then again BT is not something compared to casual games like e.g. Candy Crush or similar easy to understand games.

The game becomes not more difficult with that. Maybe a bit slower because you cannot use heavies right from the bat but you still pick the missions and make mistakes there that will cost you a campaign. You can do enough missions to pay for all bills. Campaign mode at the beginning shows this. Pay was super awful and yet you lived. Playing career on normal difficulty I have no problems with money - unless I get into a rush buying ++items in the stores or upgrade my ship at any time possible. But this is my own fault, isn't it?

No it is no problem for you to have enough money. I'm just fine in that regard as well. But here in lies the basic issue: most players aren't going to be as generally good as we are (given the sheer amount of time I have and presume you have) so they take more damage either because they don't have an adequate understanding of the battle system, they are the 'stand and deliver' tactical types, they can't stand to use the withdraw button or for any of (at least) dozen of reasons.
.

 

[Havamal]

Greetings Mechwarriors,

Please avoid bickering, hyperbole, ad hominem, bandwagoning, disrespect, posting AT others personally rather than towards the topic or anything else that experience shows leads to friction and flaming.
Community members are welcome and encouraged to express respectfully phrased criticism and negative opinions, but not to make it personal or wage a campaign in doing so.
Expressing one's criticism or opinion in a respectful manner is appreciated as it helps inform the entities of community interests as they make decisions going forward, even when the respectfully phrased criticism or opinion reflects an unhappy feeling. However, it's not the same behavior as consistently posting the same negativity repeatedly in the same thread or especially across threads. Thats what would lead to such being opinion spamming which we request community members to avoid.

Thank you.

 

[DocDesastro]

Going back to the OP/topic:

I would like to present some points for the gameplay outside missions.
To present another point of view let us think as 'real' mercenaries. This is a temporary job as death is always a real possibility, so we earn money with it and we want to enjoy life after our career with a big stash full of C-Bills. We are not bound by a Clanner's sense of honor or the Kuritan way of Bushido. Our main goal is to profit from factions squabbling and take their money without being blown up or being thrown into the meat grinder. So basically spoken: we would do everything to stay alive and grab as much money as we can while doing so. That is our business: Staying alive. Making money. Let others die for ideals.

Now let us project these thoughts onto things done within the company and what we can do to enhance the game outside of battle:

1. Mechwarrior payment

Currently, we are paying our mechwarriors by level. Each point of XP raises wages by 1,000 C-Bills. These are returning costs and you pay them each month whether you have used the pilot or not. More 'realistic' would be a small wage to sustain the mechwarrior. He gets food and shelter already and can use recreational facilities (if constructed). He should have a 'hazard' payment, when going on the job. Somewhat like we pay 1,000 - 2,500 C-Bills per month flat per pilot depending on his rating rookie, regular, veteran and master which in turn should depend on the overall XP earned, not on the special skills unlocked. When going on a mission, we pay our pilots a 'hazard' fee which might be bigger, the more experienced the pilot is and danger level. The simple explanation is: a veteran might have collected a nice lump of C-Bills already and could rightfully ask: 'I own 250,000 C-Bills already. Should I risk my head in a 4-Skull battle for another 5,000? I'll do it for 25,000!'

Depending on how you treat your pilots, there might be ones wanting to leave the company, because they earned enough dough to start a new peaceful life. If the program would count the money collected by the merc and the times he was hospitalized or lost his mech and the overall company morale there could be a chance each month that a merc would say goodbye. I realize, that this is a bit harsh and might deter players not wanting to go that immersive road. So maybe having a switch in the game settings 'enhanced mechwarrior behavior on/off' could do the trick. In the metagame, this encourages players to have more pilots and swap them out a bit during missions so you have replacements, when your rookies have to step in for the vet starting a new life. Also, you will keep more money when sending in not only your best pilots. Last but not least your commander is valuable as he does not cost money nor will he leave. Pilots with the Mercenary trait seem to like this way of life and are less likely to leave.

2. Mechwarrior fatigue

Currently, our Mechwarriors are not affected by combat fatigue. No matter how many near-death experiences they have made this day, they happily jump back into the cockpit and go gung-ho again after 5 o'clock tea. There is one thing XCOM2 did very well. The program used time as a resource. The aliens evolved whether you were active or not. We have the resource time as well in the career mode as we only have limited timewindow to make our company wealthy. Now IF our pilots would accumulate fatigue for each turn in battle and at a point reach the tired or exhausted level this would mean that either we take time between missions or have a B-Team ready. Removing tiredness is easy, if you let your pilots become exhausted, it is like they would be injured. You can use tired pilots (which will have low spirits) but you cannot use exhausted ones - they are sick of it - literally - and might need double the time to recuperate.

By doing so we enhance the strategical metagame between the missions by managing our company a bit more and having more pilots is beneficial.

3. Mechwarrior traits

This has to be improved a lot. Take for instance the different origins. As someone mentioned in a steam review to quote freely: 'it is about shipping a multi-ethnic travel group around the inner sphere'. Now we know that around 3000 A.D. the different factions are not liking each other and this might be true for your personal. Do Taurians like Davions? What do Kuritans think about criminals or what does a Liao think of a Steiner Aristrocrat? And said Aristrocrat of a poor commoner of the same faction? Picking your pilots could prove more challenging, when you would have to keep an eye out for morale. To remember the game Jagged Alliance - there were mercs liking each others and some that would never work together well and even lead to threatening you to leave the company if certain persons are still around. Or both get low spirits when doing a mission together. The traits could be a pure gold mine for RPG-like enhancement of the game. I hope HBS will do something with it.

4. Mechwarrior morale

To keep this short: I like the thought, that timid pilots or those having suffered several injuries in battle punch out of their mechs. We could need a battle morale system instead of everyone fighting to their death. I have seen mods doing this and they seem to work well. Remember: they are doing a job for money and no one is paid enough to die.

Reflections on command-level decisions:
As a merc commander you want to have your company afloat with money. Therefore you won't do silly stuff that will endanger your assets beyond acceptable. Bringing 4 mechs, when you have more available could be such a silly thing. If 6 mechs can do the mission without being blown up to pieces then the costs for activating 2 more pilots could offset the repair bills for 4 shot-up mechs after same mission meeting severe resistance. Remember: You know what you will earn by contract - this is your resource to spend and you will keep the rest you don't use. Your company is your tools so use all of them, if you must and just enough to make money. In the long run, I feel, that we need vehicle assets.

These thoughts were not made by looking at gameplay or design issues but from the view of a merc commander/merc. I think this will make us feel a bit more like a merc commander. Any thoughts?

 

[samz812]

In regards to bringing a second lance, maybe you could make it a rare contract type that's more akin to a front line contract by one of the great houses in large operations where a second lance would be necessary like an assault on a major installation or something making it an optional choice for folks to pick up so those that would like to take that second lance and don't mind a turn taking a bit longer can do so and those that prefer the single lance missions can still do them.

I'm sure most folks do want to find something to do with all those 'mech's in the other 2 mech bays and not just as spare 'mech's while others are getting repaired.

 

[ThatGuyMontag]

I'm honestly not sure why people have got this big thing about having two lance drops. In principle all it does is increase the length of a drop, literally by adding a layer of makework, all while cutting drop difficulties, what with the player's ability to focus fire through LOS and initiative, which really would lead to an increase in grind. And no, increasing the number of enemies won't fix this because that will end up just being another way in which the grind is magnified.

There's absolutely no reason to ask for combined arms though because that mechanics is already on the board for HBS to implement when they have time. That it isn't in the game already is because implementing it gets in the way adding other mechanics so there is no way to treat it as just a simple fix or even something which should obviously already be in the game.

I wonder what they wish for...

I think there is at least some space for a deeper strategic layer between the Argo and the drop screens. Making strategic choices along a planetary campaign might win us resources or allies for subsequent drops and it's even in principle somewhat deliverable through the flashpoint and event systems, though clearly a bespoke strategic layer would be even more awesome.

Now my suggestion of maintenance costs based on weight is a simple solution that creates a con for replacing a light mech with a heavy one where currently none exist. I do however acknowledge that would make the game harder but instead of dismissing it as 'spread sheeting' the better solution would be adding it as another difficulty option to sit alongside those 'number tweaks' which have already been added to the game such as how many mech parts required to create a new mech, pilot xp amount per mission, C-bill and salvage reward amounts etc.

I can almost guarantee you that Kiva prototyped that option at some point during development and abandoned it as not really adding anything interesting to the game in actual play. One reason might be that rather than adding an interesting decision, it really just compounds the death spiral being negligible in a campaign doing well while potentially ending a struggling run without a shot being fired.

Imagine a different scenario where I'm against the wall and need to get a paying job to succeed. The problem is that now I can't afford to field the 'mechs most likely to give me success on this vital mission, or maybe not even be able to field a lance at all. I'd feel robbed of a chance to turn things around. If I dropped with my best lance and then failed it would feel like I gave it a shout and just couldn't cut it. Instead I didn't even have that option, just whimpered through, defeated by a spreadsheet and some bad luck.

Sure, it's possibly deliverable and may be fine as a difficulty toggle, I'm just not convinced it's going to add anything interesting over and above the toggles that exist and it has the danger of adding in a layer of busywork which has the potential of ending a run.

 

[DocDesastro]

I'm honestly not sure why people have got this big thing about having two lance drops. In principle all it does is increase the length of a drop, literally by adding a layer of makework, all while cutting drop difficulties, what with the player's ability to focus fire through LOS and initiative, which really would lead to an increase in grind. And no, increasing the number of enemies won't fix this because that will end up just being another way in which the grind is magnified.

Well..to use your 2nd best mechs as well as train a couple of pilots instead of always bringing your best crew for instance. I myself would gladly spend some more time on a mission feeling like a big battle instead of having 2-3 small skirmishes in the same time, but I guess this is my personal preference. Also, this could invite players to include some oddball designs or mechs with support function to assist your trooper mechs. There are some roles like the swift scout (now with ECM), long-range snipers that might be cast aside to make space for another beefy build.