I don’t think they’d do s Succession Wars grand strategy game because it would overlap with Stellaris a little too much. (Although if Stellaris suddenly got “Battlemech” Armies I wouldn’t mind.
However, recreating a tabletop version of Battleforce using Hearts of Iron IV would be very interesting.
No more Kickstarters…
20% off on Paradox’s site for a bit if anyone is on the fence.
I guess 5 came out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDtVSX3I-Y4
Anyone played it?
Yeah! It’s got some quibbles, and thanks to the procgen missions it can get a bit samey if you play too much of it at once, but it’s 100% the best mechwarrior has been since, well, MW2:Mercs. Very open ended on mission design, fun destructability, the mechs feel appropriately weighty and powerful. Especially when you’re walking through an apartment block like it’s not even there.
My only complaint at this time is that it can feel like it has a somewhat limited number of mechs in the game, even though there’s 51 Mechs(with talk of more to come), because of the way the progression works - You’ll be doing missions to get more mechs, level up your outfit, etc, etc, but in those early missions, you’re gonna be seeing a LOT of commandos, Jenners, Locusts and the like before you ever see your first Atlas or Catapult, or even some of the more exotic light mechs. It also punishes you a little too harshly sometimes for trying to repair in Warzones, considering how common warzones are, and how often your contracts are inside them(for obvious reasons, I guess.)
Finished my Battletech 3025 Extended campaign. I manged to get a score of “Veteran” which according to Steam Achievements is top 0.8%.
The next campaign is going to be Battletech Advanced 3062 with the latest update.
So I installed Battletech Advanced 3062, and I’m about 100 days in to my first Merc Career with it. I think people who might have been unhappy with the current implementation of the baseline version of the game would probably enjoy this version more. Especially people who came to the game in the post 3025-era.
Notable changes from the base game:
Evasion charges no longer disappear when being fired at, which make high speed light mechs much more viable. Enemies can no longer shoot at you and overwhelm your evasion and sensor lock becomes a more critical skill. That being said, it does make the game longer.
You can Sprint and take an action other than brace, which increases player options. The 2nd tier skill in the Guts path allows a unit to sprint into melee and brace at the end of the action. Melee creates instability, which can remove evasion. That being said, friendly fire is an option in the game, which forces you to consider your firing angles and distances.
Flanking and rear attacks grant an accuracy bonus. Which makes protecting your sides and rear even more important.
Forests are now destructible and can be set on fire. The terrain becomes “rough” terrain after a couple of turns. Got enemy units hiding in forest tanking 60% damage? Burn them out. Additionally there are are more artillery and even mortar units as well as AOE weapons. So AOE damage is a thing to worry about.
You can drop up to eight mechs and start out with the ability to drop five with the last mech being 40 tons or lower. So if you prefer Clan or ComStar Organization you can now implement it. Speaking of…
Clan Tech exists and the timeline is 3062 which is near the end of the FedCom civil war. Every so often there will be occasion story bits as time goes on. A lot more advanced tech floating around. Both proper Clan Tech and the alternative tech the Inner Sphere developed in response. Pretty much the entire catalog of gear is in the game. Generally, you’re almost always better off going for max salvage because there a lot more moving parts in this version of Battletech. The only time it’s worth straight up cash is if the mission is some sort of “Snatch n’ Grab” where it’s easier to disengage than sticking around earning Battlemech kills or if you’re doing 1/2-1 skull missions where there isn’t enough loot to salvage.
Battlemechs have a lot more moving parts and the critical hit table resembles the tradition Battletech sheet more. Various actuators contribute to movement speed, weapon accuracy, and melee. The engine can be swapped out changing the mech’s movement profile. All the flavors of engine exist such as Light and XL, and Double Heat sinks aren’t as rare as they were in the base game. Ferro Fiborus and Endo Steel have their traditional places as well. Weapon hardpoints are still a thing, although I haven’t obtained an actual Omnimech so I’m not sure how they work just yet.
To re-purpose a quote from The Founder: “You’re not in the Combat Business. You’re in the Battlemech Acquisition and Refurbishment Business.” In the regular game, you destroy other Battlemechs, obtain the salvage parts, rebuild the mech and then if you don’t need/want it sell it for cash. I’m personally of the opinion that, generally, anything less than 30 tons is a deathtrap waiting to happen. Even with the new evasion and combat rules, I’ve destroyed enough Wasps, Stingers, and Locusts that I don’t think they’re worth using. I generally sell them for 150K each. Which can be a profitable way to build the company treasury to buy better mechs. Going back to refurbishment, this version will provide mechs with a full loadout. However, the standard amount of parts required defaults to 5 parts. Which is fair consider that when you sell the mech you strip it of parts. (This can be set to 3 if you’re more comfortable with the original system) Locusts, Wasps, and Stingers might be lacking, but there are enough high tech variants floating around that it’s worth assembling them for parts you strip off them before you sell the chassis.
Special note: XL engines are a thing which means if the mech loses one side torso it’s considered out of action. The unexpected upside is that there’s more salvage as a result because you had to shoot up less of the mech. The mod also adds NPC Battlemech ejection, if any unit on the battlefield takes enough damage there’s a chance that they will eject. (This affects you own units as well.) Even with the presence of that mod, one-legged, armless, Locust trying to headbutt your mech’s calves like an obnoxious toddler happen with disturbing regularity.
After playing the Battletech Extended mod, the two things are missing from 3062 that I really liked was a pilot fatigue/quirk system which force you to have a deeper roster of pilots. It basically kept track of which mechs they had proficiency in, and gave them bonuses if kept them in the same Mech long enough. After each sortie a pilot was fatigued for a number of days, so this required you to keep and train spares. It also had Officer and Command quirk which allowed for increased resolve and XP generation. The other missing feature was the “Galaxy at War” feature. Each mission you performed on a planet for one faction and against another changed a control percentage. Once the percentage became 67% the planet flipped to the new faction. There were also “priority missions” that acted like mini-flashpoints. You stayed on a planet until you completed enough missions for that faction to flip the planet, and then received bonus rewards for doing so.
I’d say if you are a fan of the original tabletop and were slightly less enthused about how different Battletech was when it came out this will make it more familiar. I’ve streamed Battletech before so I can see about streaming it and doing a Q&A sometime.
I’ve been playing this again of late, because I grabbed all the DLC on a Paradox binge a while back. I don’t remember what the specific issues were 3 years ago, but the base game with all the DLC does feel reasonably like the tabletop game.
I am, however, infinitely disappointed that the skirmish mechbay only gives you Level 1 equipment for customizing Mechs. I think if you have the DLC you can use the specialized expansion Mechs (i.e. Phoenix Hawk, Hatchetman, etc) so you can get some more variety that way, but still, I wish they had allowed Level 2 gear in skirmish since it exists in the expansions.
I’ve contemplated grabbing some mods, but honestly, I think the mod community is more fervent than I want. Some of them are making inexplicable changes for no good reason, and I really really wish there was a mod that made it more tabletop-accurate without adding a bunch of bullshit that only tryhards want.
I really think that if the skirmish mechbay had more equipment variety and maybe a “from scratch” mech builder, this would’ve fully replaced any other tactical game for me.