Battletech

Sludig said:

Ppc can too, ive gotten several mechs with a single ppc shot. Maybe not max armor or a crit or something.


I might experiment trying to headshot with gauss and 18% but i feel like not reliable and liable to blow it to bits first.

Outrange return fire? On table yes, but Covered here in recent pages is this games problem with not really providing a really long range game when a medium laser reaches most of spotting distance. Most hard hitting things reach that far except ac20.

So avoiding fire to me is more about blocking terrain and focus firing one mech a turn that is exposed.

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Yup, hump those ridges! This is really my only complaint about the game aside from some optimization issues. In pure table top you actually had reasons to run light/medium or more mobile heavies over high end heavies or assaults. In this campaign you just don't have it. Even missions where you are supposed to cut off convoys (which would seem to scream mobility and precision for at least one mech) you are better off just dropping the heaviest lance you have. The convoy is either not moving or moving at 1/3 their max pace until they gain visual on you, so the speed of your mechs is irrelevant because you can just path around to the front of the convoy out of sight since you can see the yellow marker that is them regardless of where they are. Then you have the fact that as soon as you do engage anything that is LRM/visual range of you can hit you from 2/3's of the map away. Finally for some reason the convoy that is supposedly shipping X doesn't actually have any actual transport vehicles. Sending a firestarter or whatever to cut off the convoy while the rest of your lance flanks is going to be running in to 2-3 Shrek PPC/SRM/LRM carriers that are the units supposedly transporting the valuables. So they get wrecked.

I hope that future campaigns actively make light to medium mech combat more viable throughout because some of the most fun in table top is piloting those fragile mechs and pulling off skillful kills/objectives as opposed to just alpha striking with your lance of atlas's.

Re edit. Its what i do now kinda. Especially when i had 3 brawl 1 lrm. Even my ranged get close. I see the npc chase and focus when someone is really hammered or exposed structure, but before that point i juggle someone closer and with less evasion or cover seems to keep the enemy juggling targets. Especially if i can get a small building or rock to block direct los.

It would be difficult to add the kind of complexity required to make lighter mechs viable. Every Battletech game I've ever played has always been about fielding max tonnage because they're always about limited deployment against a numerically superior opponent, which means your mech(s) needs to be able to take a pretty serious beating and keep going.

Gavinmad said:

It would be difficult to add the kind of complexity required to make lighter mechs viable. Every Battletech game I've ever played has always been about fielding max tonnage because they're always about limited deployment against a numerically superior opponent, which means your mech(s) needs to be able to take a pretty serious beating and keep going.

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You either need to have missions where fast screening units are necessary or some kind of imposed x many light x many medium x heavies. Otherwise if you have a limited tonnage it is almost always better to just load up on the biggest most bad ass units you can get.

Gavinmad said:

It would be difficult to add the kind of complexity required to make lighter mechs viable. Every Battletech game I've ever played has always been about fielding max tonnage because they're always about limited deployment against a numerically superior opponent, which means your mech(s) needs to be able to take a pretty serious beating and keep going.

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Totally. I think it can be done via map design and numbers tweaking on certain missions. For instance having your objective be to raid a base, however there is an outpost or two or an alternate forward base that you could send your heavier members too that actually draws out the enemy lance/s and your more mobile mechs can then hit the under staffed base in a hit and run. Turrets/vehicles should not be as threatening as they are to even a light mech and that would be what was most likely left to defend the objective base. In TT which this game cribs a ton off of vehicles are much more vulnerable to even small and medium laser fire. Not to mention that their horrible mobility in comparison to mechs and firing arc rules lead to them getting smashed without proper cover or combined arms.

But back to that mission type. It gives you two options you can either max tonnage and brute force or you could use the diversion tactic playing around mech mobility. Im sure even in that situation brute forcing would be more optimal from a salvage standpoint. But at least you have the option of playing with a whole slew of different toys and be effective.

I would run more PPC's but man are they heat generators.

I'm currently on the mission where you've gotta save the dude that's with the Queen, can't remember his name right now.

Was going fine up until my guass got blown off. Save scummed. :-/ Ever since then? Loss after loss. I get into this rut of doing worse and worse on my following attempts, I dunno what it is.

Well the missile slot on a grasshopper is head only so only an LRM 5 or SRM2/4 will fit I think, and only if you dont want a cockpit

Srm 4 fits, with ++ stability I find it worth it though with the right head I would. SO far gyro etc more important. So all I'm missing out is +view distance which I just slap on other brawler I had at the time.



My own retarded question. Is there some rule in the system that you can't knockdown solely with one mech? I keep getting soooo many rounds where my LRM boat will take them from 0 stability to full bar, but apparently a cunt hair from actually falling. Next mech can hit them with usually 1-2 missiles in a srm 4/6 and still knock them down.

yeah the unstable-before-knockdown must've been stealth-nerfed in there.

Y

Chysamere said:

Mechs must be made "Unstable" before you can knock them down. They can't go from an empty stability bar to Knocked Down in one salvo.

If you look at the mech's stability bar, there's a divider there to let you know when the mech will become unstable, and there's talents to increase it.

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Ya I knew the unsteady bar, I just never saw anything UI of course in this game that actually stated you can't just clobber the shit out of them and do it in one go. Means a few of my builds that hit the full bar in one go I might cut back say a lrm 20 to a lrm 15 if it caps stability byitself or focus on +other stats than just stability on my lrm boats.

Also solidifies some weapon choices being just a smidge of knockdown like ppc/srm so you dont max them out then let them get a turn and undo that work.

Its why I use an LRM5 on my scout- the finishing touch on whatever the LRM boat hit, if nobody else can do it for whatever reason.

Sludig said:

Y


Ya I knew the unsteady bar, I just never saw anything UI of course in this game that actually stated you can't just clobber the shit out of them and do it in one go. Means a few of my builds that hit the full bar in one go I might cut back say a lrm 20 to a lrm 15 if it caps stability byitself or focus on +other stats than just stability on my lrm boats.

Also solidifies some weapon choices being just a smidge of knockdown like ppc/srm so you dont max them out then let them get a turn and undo that work.

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Yeah, it all depends on how much stability damage you can do in one volley. My LRM boat fires 65 missiles per volley, more than enough to max out the stability bar on a non-braced mech so I run purely +dmg mods on the LRMs. No point overdoing it on the stability when you can hit harder and still do all the stability damage you need to. The damage difference is also not insignificant, 260 damage per volley with unupgraded dmg, 390 per volley with ++ dmg mods. Thats 130 damage or 5ish medium lasers.

You can straight knock a mech down without going unsteady if they already have a leg destroyed

goishen said:

I would run more PPC's but man are they heat generators.

I'm currently on the mission where you've gotta save the dude that's with the Queen, can't remember his name right now.

Was going fine up until my guass got blown off. Save scummed. :-/ Ever since then? Loss after loss. I get into this rut of doing worse and worse on my following attempts, I dunno what it is.

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Until/unless you get access to the clan double heat sinks which I don't know if they are in this game PPC are nice but hard to use effectively. Once the clan designs came into more full use in battletech it is a lot easier to run real energy heavy monsters and really use PPC effectively.

Is there anywhere to get clan heat sinks besides off the highlander?

Well the highlander is lostech doubles technically not clan per se. And no, only thi g other than normal sinks you can get more of is those hest banks or whatever.

Varia Vespasa said:

Is there anywhere to get clan heat sinks besides off the highlander?

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Yes. Star League Equipment in Relevant Shops Mod

This mod adds Star League weapons as potential items found in shops, double heatsinks can also appear, though these are also rare.

Gauss Ammo is always available in a system with former Star League presence.
Lostech equipment value has also been increased to account for the fact you can actually buy it now, expect to pay through the nose for these highly rare pieces of equipment.

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I thought they already put some of these things in in a past patch. Huh.

I think they discussed including it in the future during the Dev AMA.