Some Minor Suggestions to Improve The Game

[deathzealotzero]

Hello Fellow Battletech Fans and Crew,

I have been playing BATTLETECH off and on for the past two weeks or so and while I haven't finished the Single Player Campaign I still have a few minor suggestions to improve the game. I have read that the developers are looking to implement a few improvements into the game in the near future. I figured I put down some suggestions in this vein.

• It has been said in other threads and such that I have seen, but it would be interesting to see some sort of Mechwarrior Memorial in the Barracks similar to XCOM in that regard. It would quite interesting from a lore prospective to see Mastiff's name on the wall after that mission.
  
• I would love to have a QuickSave Hotkey similar to other games. It would save some frustration of opening the menu and saving. I know. I know. Save Scumming is a thing. But it is something I do almost always with my games.
  
• Saving Prefered Mech Loadouts, similar to Mechwarrior 4 it would be interesting if you could save favorite Mech Loadouts in the MechLabs.
  
  • An addition to the above it would be interesting for the Mechs that have them to be able to be converted in between variants. By that I mean you managed to get say a LCT-1V Locust but you really want to have a LCT-1M Locust. You just choose that option and after a period of several days plus some few thousand or so C-Bills you can convert the mech.
• I really don't know if it is possible but I would like to have something in the Star Map to give you an idea what missions will be waiting at particular planet before you jump there. It has become quite annoying when I arrive at a planet and find like one mission that is a Travel Contract to another world. Maybe even the world you just came from. I would like to have a mission that allows to focus on the planet you are now at instead of getting Travel Contracts all the time.
  
• Maybe a slightly expanded backstory for your character. For example, if you choose Betrayal as a background what happened to the people your family had been leading. Were they all killed or they just remained on their planet without the player leading them anymore. Maybe electing a new leader or something like that. Something that really isn't important but I am sure some lore-hounds out there would be interested in it.
  
• More Allied Forces in some Missions. So far in the game I have only a couple missions where you get allied forces helping you. Where Kamea helps you in the Prison Mission, and the Turrets Spaceport Mission. It doesn't have to be mechs but having some allied vehicles around would help I think in the mission.

That is all I have right now, but I may have a few more ideas later on. Thanks for reading my humble suggestions.

 

[MagnusEffect]

I like all these ideas, but especially the saving loadouts. I don't know how many hours I've spent trying to recreate loadouts I like for other mechs.

 

[FelixNix]

• I really don't know if it is possible but I would like to have something in the Star Map to give you an idea what missions will be waiting at particular planet before you jump there. It has become quite annoying when I arrive at a planet and find like one mission that is a Travel Contract to another world. Maybe even the world you just came from. I would like to have a mission that allows to focus on the planet you are now at instead of getting Travel Contracts all the time.

Couple tings with this. Firstly, If you go to the star map, and a mission is available in another nearby system, it will say "Travel contract available" with a tag coming off the system. Secondly, though it is uncommon, you can in fact get contracts for the world you are currently on. My current strategy for not dying is to do a travel contract, do all the other contracts available on the world before leaving (being that it takes less time, and that financial report is always looming), buy any rare equipment or mech-warriors before leaving, than rinse and repeat. That being said, having a higher variety of contracts available, with a list in the star map would be nice. The fact that only 2-3 contracts are available at a time is an issue for me.

 

[Dorsai]

I'd love to see ammo available in half ton increments. Minor, but useful for fine tuning a loadout.

 

[deathzealotzero]

Couple tings with this. Firstly, If you go to the star map, and a mission is available in another nearby system, it will say "Travel contract available" with a tag coming off the system. Secondly, though it is uncommon, you can in fact get contracts for the world you are currently on.

That's the problem I seem to only get Travel Contracts at any world I go to. Even one or two going back to the world I just left. I was trying to get a small headstart before I officially began the Campaign therefore was going through the four starter worlds and I only seem to get Travel Contracts. It was annoying. So yeah, a little tidbit on mission Availablity on the star map would be useful to prevent that.

That being said, having a higher variety of contracts available, with a list in the star map would be nice. The fact that only 2-3 contracts are available at a time is an issue for me.

Agreed. A longer list of available contracts would be useful.

I'd love to see ammo available in half ton increments. Minor, but useful for fine tuning a loadout.

That too...

 

[FelixNix]

I'd love to see ammo available in half ton increments. Minor, but useful for fine tuning a loadout.

That I don't know about. half ammo for an LRM is 3 shots (LRM 20), 4 shots (LRM 15), 6 shots (LRM 10) or 12 shots (LRM 5, lol). and that's all if you only carry one of those LRMs, and why would you do that? They do 4 damage each. For auto-cannons it would be more than useless, seeing as 1 ton of ammo only holds 4/8/15/24 to begin with. Maybe for the AC-2, I could see it. What I want to see is clan tech. Well... more of it.

That's the problem I seem to only get Travel Contracts at any world I go to. Even one or two going back to the world I just left. I was trying to get a small headstart before I officially began the Campaign therefore was going through the four starter worlds and I only seem to get Travel Contracts. It was annoying. So yeah, a little tidbit on mission Availablity on the star map would be useful to prevent that.

Oh, yeah. In the beginning of the game it's a bit of a drag. I would go till you get a certain mission with munitions crates, than go exploring, because at that point you can probably pick up a heavy mech, and before you meet Ms. Ariano again, the only missions you'll get will have you killing light mechs and vehicles, witch is terrible for scrap.

 

[MagnusEffect]

That I don't know about. half ammo for an LRM is 3 shots (LRM 20), 4 shots (LRM 15), 6 shots (LRM 10) or 12 shots (LRM 5, lol). and that's all if you only carry one of those LRMs, and why would you do that? They do 4 damage each. For auto-cannons it would be more than useless, seeing as 1 ton of ammo only holds 4/8/15/24 to begin with. Maybe for the AC-2, I could see it. What I want to see is clan tech. Well... more of it.

Half-ton ammo is actually a normal thing in the source material. You are thinking about it the wrong way, though; it doesn't change how many missiles fire per shot. Traditionally, one ton of ammo for an LRM 20 will give you 6 shots (or 120 missiles fired 20 at a time). . I think they tweaked the numbers for this game, but in tabletop you could easily squeeze in a half ton of ammo which would increase that shot number to 9 (or 50% increase in ammo). That's quite significant. It would also give us something to do with half a ton besides more armor or slapping on a random support weapon.

 

[L Y N X]

As your MRBC rating improves,so too should the number and variety of contracts grow from low quality to range low to higher quality.

 

[Max_Killjoy]

• Saving Prefered Mech Loadouts, similar to Mechwarrior 4 it would be interesting if you could save favorite Mech Loadouts in the MechLabs.
  • An addition to the above it would be interesting for the Mechs that have them to be able to be converted in between variants. By that I mean you managed to get say a LCT-1V Locust but you really want to have a LCT-1M Locust. You just choose that option and after a period of several days plus some few thousand or so C-Bills you can convert the mech.

Saving mech loadouts -- yes. Even between campaigns, so that if we find a loadout we like in the campaign we're running today, and start a new campaign this later, we'd be able to pull up the loadout when looking at that chassis and refit to it as a package as long as we have the right weapons, etc.

 

[CarpeMortis]

An addition to the above it would be interesting for the Mechs that have them to be able to be converted in between variants. By that I mean you managed to get say a LCT-1V Locust but you really want to have a LCT-1M Locust. You just choose that option and after a period of several days plus some few thousand or so C-Bills you can convert the mech.

I had an idea similar to this:

Sell hard points in shops.

Basically make them Items that add a specific hard point type to a location. They cost a decent amount to buy, but take forever (say a month) to install, and cost a fortune in labor.

If that location gets destroyed, then the hard point would go too, and you would have to replace it.