Why BT is a "not quite there" title for me

[jj284b]

Respectfully, no they are not.
A few of the reasons why are a) if they want to advance the timeline the can still rebalance the weapons if needed (like they did for 1.8/HM), b) if they advance this game down the timeline, most likely it's not like it is immediately going to advance to when Clans exist and therefore avoid having to balance most of their tech (though I suspect they have at least a few ideas and how to do that), and c) if we're taking into account a whole different game as advancing the timeline, at that point the whole of the weapons balance in the game can be reworked to make sure plus weapons don't cause issues once more advanced tech (read Clan tech because it's always Clan tech) is added.

Yet still, issue of game becoming insanely easy due to superweapons available only to player remains.. which is something i consider a major drawback of current game.. luckily, there is always option to mod the game.. But still, the whole fact they did not even include new weapons for Multiplayer speaks a lot about how they consider these weapons being "balanced"...

 

[Jolly Joker]

Sorry, when I chime in - but no one is forced to play with +++ weapons or LosTech.

And for "physics" - as doubtful this concept is, anyway - of course you may have weapons with the same base data that differ in quality, depending on manufacturer, material used, precision of crafting and so on. Lasers might focus better (less dissipation), and so on. I mean, if you look at today and compare engines that have the same specifics, say an egine with 4 cylinders of half a litre in volume each, one from 1970 and one now, well. And the fuel consumption would be better as well.

With accuracy it's even more obvious.

So I don't find that odd at all.

 

[jj284b]

Game should be balanced with all assets it provides. You cant justify bad design choice by saying "you are not forced to use it".. (i bought the expansion, why should i not play it to not make the game easy?)

As it stands, game suffers from same thing some mods suffered some time back - It gets progressively easier and easier, until it becomes boring to play. Once you have those super-weapons, you can literally wipe the floor with 12 Assaults using light mechs and never get hit.. and while this was possible even before Heavy Metal, with Heavy Metal items this becomes even trivial, as damage potential those Lights can have now is a lot higher than before.. (A LOT!) so with AI not getting any of such stuff, and Player beefed up, its not a challenge.. its turkey shot..

And with difficulty settings? These are not even set to be semihow challenging - 3 parts salvage is downright cheat, as you can get huge amount of mechs no problemo.. (same with getting rare salvage AI doesnt even have in battle) Game even doesnt count into account if you select the "hardest" settings as career multiplier is capped at 1 way sooner before you enable all settings to hardest..

Jolly Joker: regarding engines - you would be surprised about that consumption actually... today everybody is crazy about CO2 emission, not fuel consumption.. those older engines are quite often more fuel efficient than new ones, but new ones have different fuel consumption listed (usually achieved in laboratory with special car that is "adjusted" for optimal airflow to minimize drag, special tires, etc etc... far from normal) but thats quite offtopic i dont want to steer discussion that way.

 

[Jolly Joker]

You have to decide which way you want to argue. Physics, you can't, because it's neither true, nor does it make sense.

That leaves the idea that things have to be balanced. However, that's simply impossible. whichever way you turn this, someone who sinks hundreds or even more hours into the game are bound to beat the AI to pulp, whereas people who play a campaign mission here and there and maybe try to start a career with a few dozen hour will have a lot more problems. What you don't want to do under no circumstances is make the game too hard for the casual player, and that in turn means, that the game will be "too easy" for the veteran players in the longer run.

There is no real solution for that either, since the AI just doesn't learn.

Should the game be balanced with its assets?

I would answer, that it is - in a way. The good stuff is expensive, so there is a balance there. If you want to make the balance count AND you care about the score - in that way that you don't want to take more difficulty than necessary for the 100% - you have to pick those that matter in that regard: sparse economy and salvage, lots of mech parts, no +++ salvage, hard opfor ... and to hell with Ironman or Warriors dying. Them being out for months is bad enough when you play for score.

And if that doesn't cut it - it's not all that difficult to change the values for weapons to your liking. In fact, that's actually quite easy. One of the first things I did was changing the weight of the standard AC/2.

I will add that I didn't follow the whole thread, because I don't agree with OP that the game isn't quite there - so sorry, when I missed something, but I simply fail to see the problem here.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

Physics?

I don’t play BATTLETECH for its observation of the Laws of Physics.

HBS gets it more-near-correct in just about all the categories that are important to me - high quality storytelling, Big and Stompy digital artistry, BattleTech “Named” NPCs, CommandSIM, Clausewitzian Fog and Friction of War, etc.


Would I like to see HBS embrace the “Malus” at least half as much as it has embraced “Bonuses?”

Yes. IMO there should be a trade off to Weapons. Some form of Bad to go with an exceptional Good. A weapon hits harder, then it loses some range. An Accuracy Increase, then weight or Crit Spaces increases. Something like this opens up the possibility that +, ++, +++ Weapons don’t just need to be all better and better and better and better. Some of that plus’edness could be simply the gradual elimination of the Malus present in the base version.


Do I enjoy being handed bigger and better weapons with which to club the AI seals?

Sure I do, but it is a guilty pleasure now. So much so that I come to strictly enforce the “Rule of Skulls” where I make sure my Lance Skulls do not exceed a Contract’s Skull Rating. Even here lately going as far as to “Bid Away” a half Skull or more in Ironman games. :shrug:


But given all of that I must be honest with myself and you all here, all-in-all BATTLETECH is the best BattleTech computer game I have ever played. Hands down. Best computer game.

The way I see it, Jordan, Mitch, Mike and ALL of Team HBS “gets it” when it comes to BattleTech. This should come as no surprise given that Jordan and Mitch are in the mix. : )

In the past I have shortsightedly railed against those “smooth” edges of BATTLETECH that have been traded away to better entice and retain gamers-new-to-the-BattleTech IP...

...but then I look around the BATTLETECH Multiplayer Lobby (that’s part of what I really like about Multiplayer, using in-game chat and discord, you really have the chance to come to know your fellow gamers) and to a different degree even this forum, at all my fellow BATTLETECH gamers for whom BATTLETECH is their first introduction to our IP and I must admit that Team HBS was right all along.

The emphasis on Bonuses at the expense of Maluses, an AI that readily and reliably fights to the Last Mech Standing despite its mundane Weapons and sometimes its meager Armor - all these design choices have succeeded in growing and retaining the BATTLETECH fan base, all the while keeping a 30+ year gronard like myself entranced. And that is a good thing. There are more of us here today as direct result of it. It was a balancing act all along. And HBS has largely managing it pull it off quite well. Kudos Team HBS. :bow:


Does this mean we shouldn’t still champion those aspects of BATTLETECH we would like to see refined?

Heck NO! HBS has its rhymes and reasons, but one thing that has been proven again and again is that HBS listens to us. They may not (or never) make the changes we advocate for (poor QUADS, my lost Infantry!) but that is okay. After all, what doesn’t appear in BATTLETECH still might go a long, long way toward informing the builds and helping to steer the prototyping of BATTLETECH 2 ! : )

 

[jj284b]

Simple example:

Law of Physics - Recoil for Ballistic weapons.. Weight and power are two things that impact recoil of weapon. More powerful weapon is, more recoil it has. Heavier weapon is, better it is at handling recoil... So you cant reduce weight of the weapon and get less recoil when power stays the same.. that applies to all Ballistic weapons no matter what technological level they are on... 18.century muskets or 21.century assault rifles, they all have same limitations in terms of recoil and no matter what technology you use, recoil generated will be always a function of weapon power vs weapon weight....

 

[Jolly Joker]

I wouldn't necessarily subscribe to "best computer game", but it's a damn fine game with amazing customization options and lots of roleplaying potential within. I mean, I myself am toiyng with the idea of playing a career as the "Good Sarmaritan" and take contracts only FOR the Planetary Governments, none against them, forgoing Black Market and so on...

It's simply a great game.

 

[jj284b]

Lore wise - Weapons in Battletech world are assigned in certain classes that usually contain very different weapons.. For example AC5 can be fast firing autocannon or single shot gun.. they are in the same category because they have similar damage output and range... Anyway HBS ++ weapons defy this concept by introducing +5 and +10 damage bonuses that sometimes push certain weapons over into different category.. good example is ER Small Laser that exists as +10 DMG, therefore deals 40DMG which is same as Large Laser... Thing its still 0.5t heavy laser, with 150m range, anyway if we take into assumption technology level and compare it to another LosTech weapon ER Large Laser, it also only gets +10 DMG, for 55 DMG... so where ER Small got whopping 33% increase, ER Large got only 22% increase.. yet these weapons are on the same technological level...

If anything, if you increase base damage of Small Laser TWICE, it has to have some impact on the weapon.. especially when Its stats were never "magical" in original Battletech (stats for ER Small Laser are posted on Sarna.net)



As Prussian Havoc said, its guilty pleasure right now.. clubbing AI seals with nukes... but it wont keep me entertained for too long... i think it would be better if game actually provided player with some challenge, instead of making player life easier and easier..

 

[Jamey]

Like following base laws of physics

Battletech has FTL and mechs, but some weapons being better than others are what you think is physically impossible?

 

[Jolly Joker]

Simple example:

Law of Physics - Recoil for Ballistic weapons.. Weight and power are two things that impact recoil of weapon. More powerful weapon is, more recoil it has. Heavier weapon is, better it is at handling recoil... So you cant reduce weight of the weapon and get less recoil when power stays the same.. that applies to all Ballistic weapons no matter what technological level they are on... 18.century muskets or 21.century assault rifles, they all have same limitations in terms of recoil and no matter what technology you use, recoil generated will be always a function of weapon power vs weapon weight....

That's not the complete story of it. The recoil of a weapon is the counter-force applied to the projectile, and in terms of energy it doesn't matter how heavy the gun is - it's just more force needed to move it (the same distance). So a heavier weapon will have the same recoil EFFECT (in terms of kinetic energy) than a lighter weapon. How big that is depends on the energy the weapons gives the projectile.

However, the recoil has to be (and is) dampened by various means - more or less shock absorbers, but you could do it in various other ways as well, and how big the effect of the recoil is (that means, what is left of it, after the shock absorbing mechanisms did their work), doesn't have to be the same with all weapons, and some dampening systems can be better than others.

 

[Kereminde]

Is anyone else going to mention there's also that "power" of a weapon strike can often not even rely on having all that much energy put into firing it? Especially if it's a HEAP round, which I believe most AC rounds in BattleTech are supposed to be...? So it hits, penetrates due to the geometry of the projectile . . . then explodes. The "power" of the weapon is thus not necessarily purely from kinetic energy translated into impact.

Also, we're discussing physics and whether they should be real when BattleMechs wouldn't be able to move if it was realistic... consider how much weight needs to be put down with each step of a 'Mech and how small those areas of contact can be.

 

[jj284b]

recoil is not about shock per say... no need for shock absorbers its about law of action and reaction and firing a projectile generates the same force in opposite direction which needs to be handled.. weight of gun is one way how to compensate the recoil effect towards firer.. heavier weapon would have less of a felt recoil than lighter one.. if you compare M16 with M4, and fire same projectile, M16 will be easier to handle due to extra weight.

THere are few technologies that reduce recoil that are used with larger weapons. Quite interesting one was developed during WW2 when German developed artillery piece with counter-recoil mechanism.. same approach is used for today's modern artillery pieces. anyway with Autocannons it is not practical to use such system. Weight of weapon would still play a big role. so seeing a ballistic weapon that deals more damage, has twice less recoil but weights 2 ton less???? (XB-10X ++) that's almost like a perpetum mobile or space magic...


One thing i want to add so there is no confusion about it - i do not agree with OP about state of the game. I just have some balancing issues, that I would like to see adjusted (and if not, i'll most likely mod them in the future).. Cant really say "this game is not quite there" for me considering i've already spent almost 1000 hours in it

 

[Jolly Joker]

Sorry, but that's wrong.
We agree that "recoil" is the counter-force to the force used to accelerate the projectile which is basically kinetic energy, which in turn depends on the weight of the projectile and the speed it is accelerated to. That counter-force - recoil - is now transferred to the weapon and via that weapon to the ground. It doesn't matter whether this is a human or a mech (or a gun mounted on something). Now, the recoil as such is the same, no matter the weight of the weapon, if you have two weapons and both have the same weight and the same shooting power, the recoil will be equal - with the light weapon, though, it wil be faster and with a heavier weapon slower, but when it comes to the kinetic energy of the recoil, the energy that is transferred to the shoulder (or mech) is equal. You cannot decrease the recoil by making a weapon heavier.

Dampening recoil is indeed done with shock absorbers and a lot of other things - and there is no telling which kind of dameping will be used in the future. I mean, ballistic clothing dissipates the kinetic energy of a projectile, a gel-like fluid might be used as well, and so on.

 

[Kereminde]

Is it also worth noting not all autocannon models are created equal, either? The difference between an AC/2 and an AC/20 is not necessarily the projectile's kinetic impact - it's the amount of damage it does on hitting. It's a pure game term, so an AC/20 might fire one large-bore projectile or several dozen smaller ones. But in both cases it does the same effect in game rules - 20 damage. (In HBS' game rules, 100 damage.) So it's possible to have an AC/2 which fires a single projectile with more kinetic energy than an AC/20 firing dozens with less kinetic energy.

These things are, actually, modeled in-game to a degree. Different models of autocannon will fire different numbers of projectiles. (I seem to recall I am using an AC/10++ which fires three times instead of the usual AC/10 which fires once, among one of my saves.)

 

[Havamal]

Greetings Mechwarriors

If this off-topic tangent about Real world versus Battletech theorizing is going any further please take it to a topical thread, new or existing.

Thank you

 

[Prussian Havoc]

Thank you @Kai Lae. :bow:
This has been one of the most interesting threads on the forum since Friday. I’ve really enjoyed reading along and joining in.
Thank again. : )

 

[Bladewinder]

Ideas are great and all, but Unity will explode in trying to resolve company on companies action.

In Attack and Defend, the game is already visibly taxed. In Roguetech, it is working more out of the sheer will of the modders and luck. Unity is literally on a thread.

I am sure Unreal Engine could help but that means it leads to Epicgames calling dibs on Btech 2.... That I say is not good.

In the end, I still want more combined arms aspect but how the heck they are gonna balance infantry ? Because mass infantry / savannah masters are among the most dangerous things in Battletech.

 

[unclecid]

Ideas are great and all, but Unity will explode in trying to resolve company on companies action.

In Attack and Defend, the game is already visibly taxed. In Roguetech, it is working more out of the sheer will of the modders and luck. Unity is literally on a thread.

I am sure Unreal Engine could help but that means it leads to Epicgames calling dibs on Btech 2.... That I say is not good.

In the end, I still want more combined arms aspect but how the heck they are gonna balance infantry ? Because mass infantry / savannah masters are among the most dangerous things in Battletech.

not quite understanding what you mean by unity 'exploding' or 'on a thread'.
amongst other mods i am running Mission Control with Bigger Drops.
mission control randomly gives an allied ai lance and the opfor more support support lances
i have faced off against 16 opfor mechs/vee on occasion vs my lance and an ally lance.

now with bigger drops this can add a whole other lance under your control (if ya do all the upgrades)

when i do high skull attk/defend missions i take my full TWO lances with support from an ally lance and sometimes turrets against many many opfor.
game runs great.
i dont see anything indicating unity is struggling or about to break

can you please elaborate on what you mean?

 

[Kereminde]

In the end, I still want more combined arms aspect but how the heck they are gonna balance infantry ? Because mass infantry / savannah masters are among the most dangerous things in Battletech.

I had ideas for tabletop to change it up, but balance can be done by limiting the number you can field. After all, dropping infantry is theoretically easy - but logistically difficult. Say you can have up to four "Combined Arms" slots, a maximum two of which can be Vehicles, or four infantry. Or a Thumper artillery crew with a number of shots relative to how many slots you "burn" on it, or paying for aerospace support from your employer by trading a percentage cut? So at most you could drop with 8 units, 4 of which would be 'Mechs, 4 of the others being locally available vehicles or such from your employer.

Which means it would be in later-developed contracts and not ones from vanilla, and likely would be against OpFor assets which would warrant that sort of investment. (Unless contracts were rebalanced across the board, but that's a lot of work to expect. As much work as adding "quirks" or special equipment to all other 'Mechs which exist.)

And the thing is . . . how many different vehicles would people really use if given the choice? I'd wager they'd stick to PPC Carriers or LRM Carriers unless there was a specific cheesy exploiting build being done. Most everything else already in the game is kinda . . . well, not worth using from the player's side. I mean, the best vehicles you could get to them are either hovercraft and not in yet (bring me my Saladin hit squad!) or harder to get in the Periphery (Von Luckners and Behemoths . . . oh my . . .)

There's a lot of things which could be added, but the questions to ask aren't "can it be done" but "would it actually add something more than just another unit?" - often the answer can be "no". Even "Heavy Metal" wasn't immune here - if there had not been special equipment, would there really be a place for the Assassin or Vulcan in the game? The Flea? The Archer, Phoenix Hawk, and Rifleman I can all say should be in - they're some iconic things! But the trio of former 'Mechs just are additive for the sake of variety and not necessarily to do something interesting . . . until you look at the equipment. (And even then, not sold on all of those having much of a place.)

It's a personal opinion, but the first thing I'd add before combined arms are contracts which would have a reason to bring scouts or to focus more on speed instead of firepower. You know, a legitimate reason to take fast 'Mechs without inventing COIL beams... maybe higher difficulty missions which have stipulations for a timer instead of putting heavier units on the field? Maybe there's a tight drop/lift window so Sumire needs you to get the job done quickly before aerospace catches her (with the employer committing aerospace support if needed, at a -10% cost; a reverse of the +10% bonus for optional objectives?). Or maybe a test run of something in the future, where you can opt to add stipulations to the contract by . . . only dropping three 'Mechs, or only dropping under a certain weight class, to get a higher reward amount from the employer for being "more discreet"?

Regardless, I really would have tried to put development time into missions or prototyping ideas to give a feel that "just kill everything" is not an optimal solution 100% of the time. Maybe sometimes not even a viable one, no matter what you drop with. While I can come up with concepts for a while, though, most of them just are more suited for the custom-built Flashpoints instead of random-gen contracts which have to be more flexible and broad by virtue of needing to cover a great many bases.