Battletech

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Kiki

Log Wizard
2,224
1,786
I picked it up, pretty enjoyable. Wondering the best way to get assaults in the campaign now.
 

Vimeseh

Trakanon Raider
938
725
get black market access and buy them. Take full cash payments on all missions aside from clash of the titans, assassination, or the one that mentions an unusually heavy mech as ambush fodder.
 

Gavinmad

Mr. Poopybutthole
42,274
50,242
Black Market access sucks in the campaign because it's almost impossible to fix your pirate rep. I'm not paying 55 million c-bills for a bull-shark.
 

Kiki

Log Wizard
2,224
1,786
yeah I just got access to black market for 2.5 mil, but my rep is in the shitter. But I would pay pretty much anything for an Atlas or king crab.
 

Gavinmad

Mr. Poopybutthole
42,274
50,242
Save up your C-bills and buy a marauder piece by piece from the taurian marketplace, put the campaign gauss rifle on it when you get that far, put a pilot with high gunnery and called shot mastery inside, and enjoy your 33% headshot chance on a precision shot. Add in breaching shot and you can still one-shot cockpits through cover. Best way to get assault salvage, and even in the post-game I was still choosing to run a gauss marauder over a 4th 100 tonner.
 
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Vimeseh

Trakanon Raider
938
725
Black Market access sucks in the campaign because it's almost impossible to fix your pirate rep. I'm not paying 55 million c-bills for a bull-shark.

Yeah I didn't read properly, I just assume everyone at this point is playing career where you can pirate grind for like a hundred days. Pay 100 to 500k for BM access and then start buying assault pieces for 700 to 1mil. I have to actively avoid it because I went from two lights and two mediums to three assaults and a marauder by like day 950 in one of my recent careers. Makes the game boring.
 

Leadsalad

Cis-XYite-Nationalist
5,946
11,881
The HM mechs unfun the game due to how imbalanced they are.

Could try out a modpack instead:
 
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Slaanesh69

Millie's Staff Member
5,833
16,234
Yeah, I wasn't sure I was going to be into the game enough to get the expansions at that time so I didn't check the sale.

I am still pretty early in the campaign so I am still running a suite of mediums with that crappy dragon you pick up early. Heavy, my ass. I am trying to buy my way to an Awesome as it is all I have found so far.

I don't know if it is just the way I play, but I find melee to be more effective in the early game than trying to gun down opposition. Sometimes it seems you can pump serious firepower into an enemy light and it still continues to return fire even though it looks like a doll some psychotic kid just finished with - no limbs, charred and broken. Occasionally you get a decent core, but ofttimes I am left distinctly dissatisfied with the results.
 

Leadsalad

Cis-XYite-Nationalist
5,946
11,881
Yeah, I wasn't sure I was going to be into the game enough to get the expansions at that time so I didn't check the sale.

I am still pretty early in the campaign so I am still running a suite of mediums with that crappy dragon you pick up early. Heavy, my ass. I am trying to buy my way to an Awesome as it is all I have found so far.

I don't know if it is just the way I play, but I find melee to be more effective in the early game than trying to gun down opposition. Sometimes it seems you can pump serious firepower into an enemy light and it still continues to return fire even though it looks like a doll some psychotic kid just finished with - no limbs, charred and broken. Occasionally you get a decent core, but ofttimes I am left distinctly dissatisfied with the results.

Melee early on along with support weapons is how you deal with light mechs usually. They generate a lot of evasion and are hard to hit with your craptacular pilots.

This also feeds into the uncapping that HBS did for the evasion ticks which makes lights super powerful late game with maxed out pilots and rear shotting heavy+ mechs.

The campaign will force difficulty increases to the universe with each story mission you finish as well. But it also feeds you a ton of C-bills from those missions so you can go full salvage on everything else. Just keep pushing the mission difficulty you're facing and you'll get heavier stuff. I played through it twice pre-all of the DLC and was usually rolling in heavies and assaults near the end without ever using the stores for things beyond jump jets, heatsinks, and ammo.

Mechs that just barely meet/exceed the tonnage requirement for a higher class are generally pretty shitty in the vanilla turn based system.

Usually any mechs right at the border of the previous weight class I.e. 40 ton mediums, 60 ton heavies, are pretty bad. They sacrifice speed for armor and maybe 1-2 more tons for weapons. It's usually not enough of a tradeoff at the south end of the tonnage breakpoints.

 

Vimeseh

Trakanon Raider
938
725
Not to say you can't have fun with them when you get the right components. For instance the Banshee 3E is considered the worst assault by a large margin because it has such a huge engine but if you put a tactics/Piloting pilot in it with the high end arm mods and ++weapons it can one shot melee an atlas and then run away with extra evasion.

As far as mods go I personally prefer 3025 because if I wanted to slam my dick in a door I'd just do it instead of playing Roguetech. You do however need to download mission control and bigger drops individually with that mod. Mission control doubles to quadruples map size and adds allied or neutral lances to most missions. Bigger drops allows you to drop up to two lances of mechs so you can get some company level action going with both. Slams even high end pcs performance wise so YMMV.

The biggest thing from all those MoDs though is the massive amount of mechs you get to play with. Being able to run clan tech or 3060 Inner Sphere tech can be really fun.
 
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Slaanesh69

Millie's Staff Member
5,833
16,234
Not to say you can't have fun with them when you get the right components. For instance the Banshee 3E is considered the worst assault by a large margin because it has such a huge engine but if you put a tactics/Piloting pilot in it with the high end arm mods and ++weapons it can one shot melee an atlas and then run away with extra evasion.

As far as mods go I personally prefer 3025 because if I wanted to slam my dick in a door I'd just do it instead of playing Roguetech. You do however need to download mission control and bigger drops individually with that mod. Mission control doubles to quadruples map size and adds allied or neutral lances to most missions. Bigger drops allows you to drop up to two lances of mechs so you can get some company level action going with both. Slams even high end pcs performance wise so YMMV.

The biggest thing from all those MoDs though is the massive amount of mechs you get to play with. Being able to run clan tech or 3060 Inner Sphere tech can be really fun.

Am intrigued. Have very horsepower. Will see how my next few vanilla sessions go and consider.
 

Gavinmad

Mr. Poopybutthole
42,274
50,242
Slams even high end pcs performance wise so YMMV.

I ran the vanilla game without too much trouble on my ancient ass pc, but they put no effort into optimizing the DLC. Urban maps are a laggy mess and any time I fired a HM weapon my game would hitch. I haven't even bothered trying MW5 because I barely meet the min specs so even if it did actually run, it would run like shit. Breaks my heart to have a solid Mechwarrior game out and be unable to play it.
 
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Kirun

Buzzfeed Editor
<Gold Donor>
18,555
34,424
Just installed and started playing this - having a blast. I played through the tutorial when the game first came out, but the 2nd mission (where the mining company betrays you) gave my PC problems so I put it down. Ended up getting Flashpoint as part of a Humble Monthly.

Any tips for starting this to not fuck up? My campaign is set to Ironman mode with 5 parts needed for salvage and rare chance on upgraded mechwarriors. Are the other 2 DLCs worth purchasing?
 

Leadsalad

Cis-XYite-Nationalist
5,946
11,881
Ironman with 5 parts and you’re going in blind. Ooh baby what is it you’re doing.


Urban is probably meh, Heavy metal introduces uacs which are bonkers overpowered and some more mechs between them.

I’d say get them if they’re on sale somewhere. They add a lot of additional flashpoint missions as well.
 

Kirun

Buzzfeed Editor
<Gold Donor>
18,555
34,424
Ironman with 5 parts and you’re going in blind. Ooh baby what is it you’re doing.


Urban is probably meh, Heavy metal introduces uacs which are bonkers overpowered and some more mechs between them.

I’d say get them if they’re on sale somewhere. They add a lot of additional flashpoint missions as well.
Yeah, Urban Warfare hit my isthereanydeal at >50% discount. Picked it up. Best deal for Heavy Metal was only at 20%. So, I'll probably wait on that one.
 

Shmoopy

Golden Baronet of the Realm
3,835
17,225
Finished my 2nd campaign run. First was at release. This one was with all DLC. Finished in about 1/3rd the hours and 1/2 the game weeks of first run.

Got lucky Black Market access early on so just farmed 1-2 skull missions for Marauder, Warhammer, Atlas going into the 3rd campaign mission.

In retrospect should have just gone straight to all Atlas. Everything else feels so weak compared to Atlas once you have one. Except maybe the special mission reward Highlander.

Also, this run I took all long range weapons (Large Laser, LRMs, UAC-10s, Gauss Cannon, all mechs) and max jump jets always. Never got a single random pilot death and barely any injuries. Out of 100+ missions I maybe had 5 times a mech needed repairs.
 
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Kirun

Buzzfeed Editor
<Gold Donor>
18,555
34,424
Is there a way to see what the base heat/s a mech will shed? Or am I just a retard who missed it?

Game is an absolute blast. Dekker got facefucked on the second campaign mission when I tried running him around the perimeter of the jail to draw fire, so my heavier mechs could get into good firing positions. Didn't realize there's a fucking Trebuchet behind the one wall and the LRMs just clapped his Arab ass.

Speaking of campaign missions, is there a time limit to priority missions? I just got the third, but I'm waiting on 1 more piece of salvage for a Panther (in hindsight, 5 mech parts required for salvage is rough).