Summary of HBS developer AMA on Reddit

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I like what I read! Thanks for the write-up! I did completely miss this.

I'm especially looking forward to end-game content to make it worthwhile to play on after the story.
I would like to have mortal enemies, headhunters, multi-mission scavanger hunts for LosTech, etc.
And yeah, more of everything in general!

What I don't want to see is a Clan DLC. Please first explore more of the Inner Sphere and make the Clan Invasion Battletech 2 (or 3).
 
ive been taking it slow and steady so i dont get to that end content too fast .... gives them some more time to get that DLC or FreeLC out there. maybe have some more backgrounds than just being a noble... also maybe having the chance to find different people to populate the Argo. i think some more contracts that take you further away than just one world which just seems to move you back and forth between 2 worlds would be nice as well
 
No one asked about updating multiplayer at all??

Seriously am I the only one who gives a crap about skirmish? It is barebones right now I really want them to expand it but No one is asking or talking about it which makes me feel like they don't update it ever. =(
 
No one asked about updating multiplayer at all??

Seriously am I the only one who gives a crap about skirmish? It is barebones right now I really want them to expand it but No one is asking or talking about it which makes me feel like they don't update it ever. =(
I kinda hope they don't as I don't want this game ruined by multiplayer crying killing the balance for the actual game. Seen that in too many other games
 
No one asked about updating multiplayer at all??

Seriously am I the only one who gives a crap about skirmish? It is barebones right now I really want them to expand it but No one is asking or talking about it which makes me feel like they don't update it ever. =(

Someone did ask about Multiplayer. They have some ideas but right now the focus is first on optimization and then some improvements to single player.
 
The most exciting thing for me was the answer to this question:

Question: Have you guys considered missions that would allow dropping more than one lance of mechs? Towards the late game it feels like an unnaturally forced restriction to have 18 mechs, 24 pilots, and only be able to utilize 4 of each, especially during some of the story missions.

Answer: Alas not. The game is wholly about a player controlling one lance. We've discussed being able to drop multiple lances and having the others "offscreen" affecting a bigger gameplay layer, though. That's just something still in "what if" land, though.
Tyler phrased this like it was a downer answer, but I was actually really excited by this - I want that!!! That Multi-lance drop would really open the game up and double down on making Battletech a strategy game first and foremost. Done right, it would add huge replay value to the Proc-Gen missions and sandbox play. I could really see Light Mechs coming alive if they had some special recon and raid missions to perform that would then open things up for your heavy hitters (ie. either create advantages and mission options for you or negate negative situations, like getting ambushed).

Minor spoilers about the final mission string (I haven't done it yet, so we're talking pretty minor)...

I haven't done it yet, but you need to drop with two lances late in the campaign on what must be linked missions, so it seems the primordial embryo of this sort of gameplay has taken form. There must at least be a UI to put together a Two lance drop, right? I'll know more later tonight!!! :)
 
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My personal hope is there's a way to tell the AI to stick to stock mechs if the 'enemy mechs modded' feature is added. I'm not a fan of overly modded mechs in the TT or even trying to use them in the game. It's one thing to replace my BJ's AC2 with a LL because I have no spare AC2 to use. But it's quite another to strip my Shadowhawk to turn it into a Trebuchet.

I'm also hoping there's a way post end game to have more random mission difficulty, or at least contract options spanning the entire game's difficulty! I'd love at times to go back and rock an early game Plague of Locusts with an assault lance. Or just send in my mediums and lights again. this would be far more fun and interesting to me than just watching the difficulty go up until suddenly it's twinked out super mechs that don't resemble stock anymore facing me
 
I just hope the LL, PPC, and lostech tweaks are in the form of making heat more reasonable, otherwise it's going to have a lot of unpleasant downstream effects for stock builds in later eras.
 
Well this is really disappointing. A lot of talk of future content (read paid DLC give us more money) and almost nothing on fixing crap that doesnt work/make sense. That sweet Paradox touch...

And reinforcements working as intended? Really?! Here is you mission its 12 mechs vs your 4 from the get go. And if you manage to kill them all you get a retarded voice message "Reinforcements incoming" oh and btw also "Victory".
 
Well this is really disappointing. A lot of talk of future content (read paid DLC give us more money) and almost nothing on fixing crap that doesnt work/make sense. That sweet Paradox touch...

And reinforcements working as intended? Really?! Here is you mission its 12 mechs vs your 4 from the get go. And if you manage to kill them all you get a retarded voice message "Reinforcements incoming" oh and btw also "Victory".

a) He said that QoL and polish are at the top of their priority list, and that's what they are actively working right now. There will be both new free content and DLC down the road, but they haven't even met to determine a roadmap yet.

b) The mechanic is working as intended, but the use of the word 'reinforcements' carries a connotation that they did not intend (ie that the extra OpFor are backup units that should arrive later, not that they are additional units that were not anticipated by the intel). They're going to reword things.
 
Well this is really disappointing. A lot of talk of future content (read paid DLC give us more money) and almost nothing on fixing crap that doesnt work/make sense. That sweet Paradox touch...

And reinforcements working as intended? Really?! Here is you mission its 12 mechs vs your 4 from the get go. And if you manage to kill them all you get a retarded voice message "Reinforcements incoming" oh and btw also "Victory".

First, Paradox has nothing to do with fixing anything. They are the publisher, not the developer.
Second, did you read the full list of things in the summary?
Technical performance issues are the top of their list of priorities and being worked on right now. FPS increase, ultrawidescreen compatibility issues etc. Press release coming soon.

They are working on cleaning up speed of animations and general dead time to speed up the game.

Reinforcements appearing at the start of missions confirmed not a bug, but it's unexpected due to poor communication. Likely changes to the difficulty rating of missions though to make them more accurate.

Weapons are being rebalanced.

High/low spirits bug- they are looking for the cause so they can fix it.

That seems like lots of "fix stuff that doesn't work" and "fix Reinforcement miscommunications"

As for DLC, you don't have to buy anything you don't want to. There's the whole modding community and any freeLC that becomes available.
 
Considered?

CONSIDERED???

What kind of UI incompetence is this??

The quote from the AMA is a little misleading. Drag and drop in the mechbays isn't only being being considered now, it was considered and tried before launch but the UI guy said there are Unity issues because, and I quote, "reasons". Whether it makes it through is up in the air until we know more about those reasons, but it may well be that there's just no way to make that feature work with the engine.
 
I just hope the LL, PPC, and lostech tweaks are in the form of making heat more reasonable, otherwise it's going to have a lot of unpleasant downstream effects for stock builds in later eras.
Unless it's a significant reduction in heat, a lot of SL and clan mechs are going to be crippled if not outright useless due to the amount of heat they produce. It's already evident in the designs already in game and they're pretty crippled in how they deal with not having the free 10 heatsinks being DHS.
 
Unless it's a significant reduction in heat, a lot of SL and clan mechs are going to be crippled if not outright useless due to the amount of heat they produce. It's already evident in the designs already in game and they're pretty crippled in how they deal with not having the free 10 heatsinks being DHS.

Isnt that supposed to be WAD? It's 3025, there are no DHS in sight, why would engine heat sinks be DHS?
 
Clan mechs are supposed to run hotter. That is the tradeoff for the superior range and damage. The fact that they can't alpha strike as often is, quite literally, the balancing factor in lore. That said, there wouldn't be anything preventing you from stripping some weapons to shove in heatsinks.
 
I think we need to remember the Lore as much as the rules.

Yes, those mechs that need the stock DHS in engines to do anything are going to be in a rough spot, relatively. But so is everything else. What they will still have is versatility. The flip side here is the various Jack of All Trade mechs that are suddenly more useful too, despite being all but useless in base TT games.

And hey, sometimes dealing with an overheat shut down to get an alpha strike is worth it for these other mechs too.

But in the novels and other fiction? Even those heat neutral clan mechs don't run heat neutral. Pilots RARELY alpha strike in any mech, EVER (Heck, remember Thunder Rift? They mention the LOCUST runs hot! that's physically impossible by TT rules!). IMHO, those mechs will finally work more as designed, and if anything are left with some redundancy.

Heck, this game made the SHADOWHAWK useful. That mech is GARBAGE in the TT game compared to most of the other stock builds out there. Here? It's worth it. So I have faith, and am not bothered by the energy thing.

Also, there's at least one item in the game that reduces heat build up on energy weapons by 15%, it does weigh 3 tons, but it's possible a '0' tonnage one might exist for some clan mechs to make up for things too. So yeah, there's ways out there.
 
The most exciting thing for me was the answer to this question:

Question: Have you guys considered missions that would allow dropping more than one lance of mechs? Towards the late game it feels like an unnaturally forced restriction to have 18 mechs, 24 pilots, and only be able to utilize 4 of each, especially during some of the story missions.

Answer: Alas not. The game is wholly about a player controlling one lance. We've discussed being able to drop multiple lances and having the others "offscreen" affecting a bigger gameplay layer, though. That's just something still in "what if" land, though.
Tyler phrased this like it was a downer answer, but I was actually really excited by this - I want that!!! That Multi-lance drop would really open the game up and double down on making Battletech a strategy game first and foremost. Done right, it would add huge replay value to the Proc-Gen missions and sandbox play. I could really see Light Mechs coming alive if they had some special recon and raid missions to perform that would then open things up for your heavies (ie. either create advantages and mission options for you or negate negative situations, like getting ambushed).

Minor spoilers about the final mission string (I haven't done it yet, so we're talking pretty minor)...

I haven't done it yet, but you need to drop with two lances late in the campaign on what must be linked missions, so it seems the primordial embryo of this sort of gameplay has taken form. There must at least be a UI to put together a Two lance drop, right? I'll know more later tonight!!! :)
Actually you don't need to drop with two lances. There just isn't any time given between missions to repair if needed, so you need to go into that with the ability to field a different lance in the second mission should you get torn up in the first.