Harebrained Schemes' BattleTech Catch-All

Nevin73 wrote:

A good tip, if your mech has heat sinks (and most do), put some (or all) in the legs. You can't take advantage of the cooling affects of water unless your mech has heat sinks in the legs.

Whoa, I had no idea about that.

Unless I'm getting confused with MWO. I can't tell anymore.

I think that's MWO...? I don't recall that issue in Battletech. But I'll see if I can find out.

The Wiki says: Standing in water doubles the effectiveness of heat sinks. It does not say that the sinks have to be in the water themselves to be affected.

Heat sinks normally dissipate 3 heat per turn, so in water, they'd do 6. Also, colder biomes have some additional effect on heat dissipation (as do hot ones, in the other direction).

Each mech can hold 100 heat internally before overheating begins.

This thread is just loaded with good tips. Thanks everyone! I'm taking notes.

JeremyK wrote:

I loaded up the first Centurion I got from the campaign mission with a LMR20, LMR10, & LMR5. It's glorious. I'm going to upgrade the LRM10 to a 15 when I come across one. The ammo usage though...

I haven't messed around yet with customizing mechs, just using the default set ups as I'm only a few missions into the campaign. I did get this mech recently though, and am going to try this. Thanks for the idea.

I'm going to try this with my King Crab. Depends on how much ammo I can stuff in. I like to be able to fire every turn for the duration, if possible. Of course, that means staying the heck away from anything that can pierce my armor, because one ammo explosion and everything goes black.

Robear wrote:

Boudreaux, just keep the missile boat idea in your head when you come across a Trebuchet. It can become your "finisher". Put a good pilot in it so it has lots of options when to move, and then keep it well back. Use it to knock over opponents who would otherwise be able to recover out of instability, or to pound on a damaged area with a Called Shot.

Yeah, I'm sure I'd have an LRM carrier if I had the right mech. I think I have half of a Trebuchet, but I don't see them very often. In my career game I allied myself with Liao, and have mostly been bouncing around their periphery doing jobs. I have more Griffins, Wolverines, Shadow Hawks, and Thunderbolts than I know what to do with, but other medium/heavy mechs are pretty rare.

Has anyone experimented with any mods? I think I might try Roguetech after I finish this current career game. I started dabbling with some very minor mods yesterday. One changes the default weapon sounds, it's subtle with PPCs and missiles but the AC sound effects are much better. I also added a mod that makes the various LOS and attack lines different colors, so it's very easy to tell which are indirect or direct. It colors the red direct lines purple if there is a visual obstruction that impacts to-hit chance. I am not sure I even know that was a thing. It's pretty nice. I tried a third mod that frees up the camera a bit, but it does not appear to be working completely. The camera scroll speeds are much faster which is nice, but it still pulls camera control away from me which is annoying.

There are a bunch of other mods that look really interesting but are broken with the latest 1.6.x version. Mechwarrior panicking, SLDF and Lostech in shops, etc. I'll be keeping an eye on those.

Robear wrote:

Of course, that means staying the heck away from anything that can pierce my armor, because one ammo explosion and everything goes black.

Which reminds me to share Mech customization tip number zero: Never put ammunition in the center torso. And when you get a Thunderbolt, make sure to move the ammo right away.

Boudreaux wrote:

Has anyone experimented with any mods? I think I might try Roguetech after I finish this current career game. I started dabbling with some very minor mods yesterday.

I like 3025 extended. I tried Roguetech four different times, but the installation method required blood sacrifice and I was all out of goats, so I never got it to work.

I was wrong, heat sinks in the legs is MWO, sorry. But the legs is generally a good storage area for things you want to keep (ammo, heat sinks). Unless you do DFA...then don't do that.

Mr Bismarck wrote:
Boudreaux wrote:

Has anyone experimented with any mods? I think I might try Roguetech after I finish this current career game. I started dabbling with some very minor mods yesterday.

I like 3025 extended. I tried Roguetech four different times, but the installation method required blood sacrifice and I was all out of goats, so I never got it to work.

Do you have children? They'll work too.

misplacedbravado wrote:

Which reminds me to share Mech customization tip number zero: Never put ammunition in the center torso. And when you get a Thunderbolt, make sure to move the ammo right away.

Oh! I never even thought to check that! And I *love* the Thunderbolt, too. I ran 3 of them with a Trenchbucket for many missions, very successfully.

Nevin73 wrote:
Mr Bismarck wrote:
Boudreaux wrote:

Has anyone experimented with any mods? I think I might try Roguetech after I finish this current career game. I started dabbling with some very minor mods yesterday.

I like 3025 extended. I tried Roguetech four different times, but the installation method required blood sacrifice and I was all out of goats, so I never got it to work.

Do you have children? They'll work too.

I dunno, my kid is terrible at ritual slaughter, no matter how many times I show her how to hold the sickle.

I'm finally starting to play this and an in the first campaign mission - coronation day. I don't know if I'm just missing something in the UI but is there anything to give you an idea to probable damage? So far the tutorial stuff didn't tell me what a lot of the options are - targeting parts manually, doing scanning, etc... Do they explain that stuff later and for now I'm just expected to move and attack?

When you mouse over an enemy unit or have it selected, the window in the bottom right with your weapon list should update with the damage and probability to hit. (the tutorial is pretty light on useful information).

Jonman wrote:
Nevin73 wrote:

Do you have children? They'll work too.

I dunno, my kid is terrible at ritual slaughter, no matter how many times I show her how to hold the sickle.

I’ll lend you mine. Just be prepared to sacrifice a great deal more than you intended.

absurddoctor wrote:

When you mouse over an enemy unit or have it selected, the window in the bottom right with your weapon list should update with the damage and probability to hit. (the tutorial is pretty light on useful information).

How do I know how much damage each mech can take? I saw the health bars, but no numbers to relate them to.

robc wrote:

Do they explain that stuff later and for now I'm just expected to move and attack?

Nope, kind of?. Great game, lousy onboarding.

I forgive them, though.

This might cover the basics pretty well:

Looks like they didn't bother to write a manual either, or I just can't find it.

Thanks for the video.

robc wrote:

How do I know how much damage each mech can take? I saw the health bars, but no numbers to relate them to.

Right click on an enemy mech to make its portrait come up on screen, then mouse over any of the body sections to see how much armour and structure is in each piece. You will sometimes comes across poorly maintained enemy mechs whose armour points is lower than the max, so it's always worth looking at that before engaging the enemy, to see if they're already weaker.

robc wrote:

Looks like they didn't bother to write a manual either, or I just can't find it.

Thanks for the video.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/www.harebra...

JeremyK wrote:
robc wrote:

Looks like they didn't bother to write a manual either, or I just can't find it.

Thanks for the video.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/www.harebra...

Thanks, I'll take a look!

I tried getting back into MWO after playing this for a while. I was so confused by what was on the screen, the aesthetics (like UI presentation and colors) were horrible, and overall the game seems so much worse than when I enjoyed it years ago.

Woot! Finally, the Argo! Super excited and wanted to share.

Also, where is the setting to get the enemy paper doll to stay on the screen when firing? I can't seem to find it. I'm sure I'm staring at it and just can't figure out what it means or something.

I got a couple missions under my belt and made it to the ship in the campaign. I found the bay to repair one of my mechs that was pretty damaged.

After 2 missions it seems pretty good. The missions are pretty meaty and they seem to like to add more objectives as I go.

I have about 90 days to go in my Career Mode game. I'm allied with House Liao, and a Flashpoint showed up that was just titled "Liao Alliance". I'm thinking maybe this is a Flashpoint that shows up specifically if you're allied with that house, so I take it thinking it might be a pretty cool ending to my career game.

The mini-plot of the flashpoint is actually pretty interesting, and there is a Flashpoint decision after two missions that really causes me to re-think my Alliance with Liao.

Spoiler:

They are a fairly ruthless House and at times not above some pretty dishonorable things. In this case, they're really pushing it. I have the option to continue with the flashpoint, or essentially break the contract and my Alliance with Liao.

However, I stick with the Flashpoint and go into the 3rd mission. It's...almost brutally unfair. It's a 4.5-skull difficulty, so I expect it to be pretty harsh, but in this case I'm not sure it's possible to complete. The terrain is extremely limited - the map is basically a giant crater lake surrounded by ridges with very limited area for movement. The Opfor lance is on the opposite side of the crater, and a reinforcement lance spawns in after 10 turns. Both lances are a mix of heavy and assault mechs. I am bringing 3 assaults and a heavy.

I have two choices - go through the lake, where I am both slow and subject to attack from high ground. Or go around the lake, where I am limited to taking on all 8 mechs in a very tight area. No matter what I do, I get slaughtered. In both cases, I can't get in range before the reinforcement lance spawns. The Opfor liberally uses both sensor lock and LRM barrages to hit me as soon as I get within sensor range. If I go through the lake I'm too slow, and can't even get in range before at least one of my mechs is dead. If I go around, I cannot figure out a way to not take on all 8 enemy mechs at once. There is literally no other alternative that I can see. The AI is now very good (and rightfully so) at focusing fire on a single mech until it's dead, regardless of my positioning or tactics. Even if I try to kite a mech or two away from the main force, the others will still focus fire on my mechs one by one. They're also sticking together in a single force, making it almost impossible to separate them and defeat them a few at a time. This might be a by-product of the terrain.

It's kind of disappointing, and highlights for me the method HBS often uses to increase the difficulty which is to just increase the forces against you to occasionally impossible odds. It's particularly galling when I can see at least two areas that would make for much better approaches, but they are just outside the map boundaries.

Your post reminded me of my least favorite mission type I've seen so far (which is saying something in a game that has escort missions with poor ai).

Unfortunately, I don't recall the name of the mission type, but I'm sure you'll all be familiar with it. It requires defending a base, while also assaulting an enemy base. The skull level has seemingly no bearing on the actual difficulty because the enemy spawns in waves of attackers. The particular one I attempted yesterday had three! reinforcement waves. I got caught up fighting the first lance and the first reinforcement wave while attempting to sneak my LRM boat around the outside. Unfortunately, the Centurion was very slow, and helping my teammates with LRM's from the flanks was too tempting and by the time I reached the enemy base, all I could do was destroy a turret before I ran out of missiles. There may have been a way to salvage the mission, but I was already starting to take damage and another wave was due in a couple of terms, so I opted for a good faith withdrawal and got a small payout.

I admit that I didn't handle the mission well, and furthermore that I may be able to do it even with the exact same lance once I'd seen the layout and understood the way the mission worked better, but I play self-imposed ironman for the most part, so I'll just learn my lessons and move on. The difficulty spike in certain scenarios is real, though. As far as I see it, I could either fight 16 mechs with 4, or battle the first ~8 enemy mechs to a stand-still at least with two or three mechs while sending the rest of the lance to take out the enemy base. Not necessarily easy with turrets defending in its own right.

I do like the challenge, but man, that one seemed punishing.

Boudreaux wrote:

I have two choices - go through the lake, where I am both slow and subject to attack from high ground. Or go around the lake, where I am limited to taking on all 8 mechs in a very tight area. No matter what I do, I get slaughtered. In both cases, I can't get in range before the reinforcement lance spawns. The Opfor liberally uses both sensor lock and LRM barrages to hit me as soon as I get within sensor range. If I go through the lake I'm too slow, and can't even get in range before at least one of my mechs is dead. If I go around, I cannot figure out a way to not take on all 8 enemy mechs at once. There is literally no other alternative that I can see. The AI is now very good (and rightfully so) at focusing fire on a single mech until it's dead, regardless of my positioning or tactics. Even if I try to kite a mech or two away from the main force, the others will still focus fire on my mechs one by one. They're also sticking together in a single force, making it almost impossible to separate them and defeat them a few at a time. This might be a by-product of the terrain.

Each faction has a Flashpoint that requires being allied with them. I'm not familiar with this one though. Have you tried bringing Highlanders or other assault mechs with jump jets and taking the water route? The jump jets should get you through faster, and heat shouldn't be an issue. The extra evasion pips should help with the LRM barrages as well.

deftly wrote:

Have you tried bringing Highlanders or other assault mechs with jump jets and taking the water route? The jump jets should get you through faster, and heat shouldn't be an issue. The extra evasion pips should help with the LRM barrages as well.

I would try that, I don't have any assault mechs with jump jets. I have a Zeus refitted with a Gauss cannon, a Banshee (the good version, not the crappy version) and a Cyclops. The Banshee can take a ton of damage but it's noticeable slower than the rest. I only have 95 days left in my career so I doubt I will be able to put together many more assaults before then.

I've also found that since there are 8 mechs in the Opfor, at least 4 of them have sensor lock and will repeatedly knock off evasion pips until none are left. There will still be 3-4 LRM barrages coming at that point. It's really hard. I have tried 3 times and I can't get more than 2 of them down before I'm wiped out.

I wonder if ECM would help...?

Robear wrote:

I would like to say that I'd love to learn other people's tactical tricks. :-)

As someone else noted, vehicles are generally first, especially with a fast light or medium mech wrecking them by stepping on them. The vehicles that are heavier later can stand up to some solid shots and can be tough to bring down at times.

For my light mech, I always hold their turn to the very end, then move them. That way, they basically get two moves and can strike and move from danger in one go when facing larger opponents.

Don’t discount rockem sockem robots. I use punching a lot when my mechs need a turn to cool down. I rarely use death from above, but have from time to time.

Early on, CT shots are the way to go in tough fights. Drag down a mech quickly. I’ll especially work this on the light ones that some well rolled alpha shots can one shot.

I always carry a catapult or treb into battle it seems. Missle attacks can be deveatating for knocking a mech down. A downed mech that’s attacked gets a called shot on it.