Battletech

WTF is with my firestarter. In one game, he's 2/3 on melee attacks for cockpit hits. And game before he kicked something in the head. Shame since otherwise finding the all flamer build lacking.

On a 2 full skull mission and finding it rough with my firestarter, first game with quickdraw, centurion and lrm boat shadowhawk. The quickdraw being so slow kinda sad, only 2 srm slots w/ 3 medium lasers, gets hot quick. With a extra shadowhawk I picked up thinking of trying dual AC5. Already dropped the blackjack. No sentimentality here.

Basically it's destroy enemy, but reinforcements. You start in a valley extending up ahead of you and ridges with slopes on your left and right. First round if you move forward you get pinned by 3 lances forward/left/right. First play thru it was 2 panthers w/ ppc's on one side. a cicada and 6 medium laser hunchback north. And from the east an AC/20 hunchback and a handful of 20/30tonners with these 3 groups. Got ugly Quick.

second attemtp, I've got straight up the steep cliff and thinking it will keep them coming at me piecemeal enough to handle it, that spawns change every load is interesting. Just locusts and a firestarter west this time.

So out of the above mess, instead of the cicada (any good?) and the panthers, I got the other lights, just the laser hunchback and like a wolverine and other medium mech after me...... then lrm in the distance..... a grasshopper. Grasshopper next round closing in actually death from aboved the arm off my centurian and otherwise caused havoc.

I managed to pilot kill it, and I have got to say, I wish refitting with the basic ship and lv 3 mechanic skill didnt take so long ( I guess I should story instead of side quest) Because if I could refit quicker, have a couple builds on this thing I think would be sick. It has like 6 laser, 7 defensive weapon, and a a single slot size missile hardpoint..... stock has like 8 heat sinks , a few mediums, lrm 5 and a large laser. While a good boat for trying maybe triple large or 2 ppc, I think I may use it as my new murder brawler using all small lasers (smaller and only do 5 less dmg than medium) and a few mediums or maybe single ppc. Or instead of small lasers, if I think I can count on getting holes in armor on the way in machine guns. (1t of ammo easily feeds like 3 mg's for quite a few rounds, and running mg's can ditch some heat sinks)

6x20dmg small lasers and a few mediums alone is over a 200dmg alpha, and the same amount striking in melee + lasers.

I would take your Hunchback's weapons, and your ShadowHawk's weapons and swap them. In other words, make the Hunchback your LRM boat (if it has the hardpoints, which at this point I'm not sure it does) and the Shadowhawk my brawler/close in mech. Hunchback got it's name 'cause it's big and slow and can pack a mean motherfucking punch once it gets there.

Shadowhawks on the other hand (at least the one that I've got) isn't so great. One AC/2, a Medium Laser, and a Short Range Laser. It's a mean brawler, but that's all it is.

Also, P Pyratec , it's *NEVER* a good idea to have any kind of ammo sitting on top of a nuclear fusion core. Much less 480 LRM's. Also, you lucky bastard.

I dont have a hunchback, and no I dont think either variant I've seen has any missile hard points.

Ahhh, okay. Shadowhawk 2H?

If so, I can help, if not... Meh.

goishen said:

I would take your Hunchback's weapons, and your ShadowHawk's weapons and swap them. In other words, make the Hunchback your LRM boat (if it has the hardpoints, which at this point I'm not sure it does) and the Shadowhawk my brawler/close in mech. Hunchback got it's name 'cause it's big and slow and can pack a mean motherfucking punch once it gets there.

Shadowhawks on the other hand (at least the one that I've got) isn't so great. One AC/2, a Medium Laser, and a Short Range Laser. It's a mean brawler, but that's all it is.

Also, P Pyratec , it's *NEVER* a good idea to have any kind of ammo sitting on top of a nuclear fusion core. Much less 480 LRM's. Also, you lucky bastard.

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I figure if it gets cored might as well go out in a blaze of glory! It rarely gets shot at as I keep it out of harms way, just lobbing his 40 lrms per turn, but maybe I should move the ammo around a bit.

Sludig , Im not a huge fan of the Cicada, I usually don't like mechs at the bottom of their weight class. i.e. Mediums go from 40T-55T and the Cicada is a 40T mech. Both the Cicada and the Panther can pack a PPC but the Panther moves in initiative phase 4 and the Cicada in phase 3. The 5 extra tons isnt worth moving later imo.

God dammit- I flew to my next contract but forgot to start a refit on my missile boat before travelling so I was gonna reload and start the refit first, but I looked in the store just in case- a +1 stability damage lrm 15, a +1 stability damage SRM 6 and a +2 damage, +2 stability damage SRM6, and my main tank carries 2 SRM 6's... A +2 accuracy, +10 stability damage AC5 too, and I have an AC5 I havent retired yet...

So I saved it and reloaded and started the refit and travelled again and checked the store- A +50% crit LRM15, a +1 stability damage LRM15 and a +2 stability damage LRM15 (Which it says means 5 stability per missile... up to 75 stability from one weapon.

Sunova... I want both!!!


I think I sorta have to go with the stability LRMs and play knockdown with the enemy top mechs, but I'm gonna be sad about that pair of SRMs. Do you folks think buying the +50% crit LRM15 is worth it for a future mech?

Anyone else getting huge delays when clicking on any of interface buttons? Seems to take forever to accept a repair, for example.

Rockstar said:

Anyone else getting huge delays when clicking on any of interface buttons? Seems to take forever to accept a repair, for example.

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I get the same, gets worse after the game has been running for a while. Ive heard talk of a memory leak in the game, seems likely to me.

A few choices I'd like different, like right now by doing too many side missions instead of main story I'm running into massive wait times to get mechs refitted. (how does a bunch of heat sinks and a few guns take 45+ days on a vindicator)

A few missions I am not sure which part a bug will be. Like on a destroy target. I'll clear the field and at the end it says REINFORCEMENTS INCOMING (I already just blew them up) and immediately followed by mission success. So not sure if reinforcements spawned at start with the target when they shouldnt, or just the dialog bugged when it displayed etc.

For the most part though I'm pretty happy with it and killing too much of my precious time with it. There are other gripes like camera being dumb at times but it isn't something you have to fight a bunch like in an mmo or something. For a $40 indie game I think it's quite acceptable.

REALLY digging this game. Brings back all the memories but holy FUCK do some of the mech designs look shitty.

Hmm no crashes here but ymmv.

My main issue would be the dumb camera sometimes, so I dialed the action camera down a bit.

Gameplay wise, I am addicted to taking max salvage for contract negotiations.

No crashes for me either, and some but minor memory leaks.
The "reinforcements coming" is basically it presuming you hit the main target first rather than sweeping the map first. Sounds like youre sweeping the map to kill the reinforcements first, same as me. So it gives the message while its checking completion conditions. Better than the alternative, so no worries from me.
Refit times and healing times get better when you get your improved dropship.
I'm fairly happy with my current mech squad so I'm milking max faction as much as I can, myself. Canopus and Liao like me more than the Restoration does now!

Jalynfane said:

I know some folks like to hit "max armor" on the mechs when they get them, are you finding the trade off ok? It pulls a lot of armor off the legs and divvies it out to other spots, are you getting legged much?

Looks like no Splat Cats hmm

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I have been playing a 2X2 strategy on most missions that has worked excellent where I have 2 max armor brawler frontliners (currently a hunchback and a dragon) and 2 distance slingers (catapult and a trebouchet) both of which are not max armor because I trade off some armor for more heat sinks and dps on them. Has worked great on most scenarios though I did swap in a shadowhawk for speed on one of the escorts to cut off the lead vehicle getting gibbed.

Only about 8-10 missions in though so don't have anything beyond 60ish tons to pick from yet.

Running an LRM35 Centurion, a quickdraw tank with 4 ML and 2 SRM6's, and whatever of my 45-50 tonners are online at the time with 1 tank pilot and one scout pilot to target lock for the centurion.

Haven't crashed at all. But im only about 6 hours in.

What rep do I need to be at to travel into Liao space? im at Friendly with them now but still no bueno...is it gated by the story?

Only just got the dropship and havent finished the other contracts in that system, but the conversations after finishing the second storyline mission suggest you can go anywhere after that. I've been getting my Liao faction from missions in the local area.

Ok, just checked on my star map, says travel not possible to Liao space. So probably storyline blocked.