Baradul has great videos surrounding his beloved charger melee beast mech.
He uses it for 2v2 duel missions.
I would not have been able to enjoy Battletech without his encouragement and videos.
Man you got heaps more SLDF mechs and loot in vanilla BATTLETECH than I ever did
Yeah, I do that sometimes. Kind of hard for me to resist diving in and going deep exploiting systems. 
I feel you'd get a lot of mileage out of Roguetech notwithstanding its jankiness.
Yeah, I was quite torn -- part of me wanted to just turn around and start with one of the big conversion mods (although I think it would be BEX or BTA), but I think it's time to play something else for a bit. Definitely high on the list of things to return to the next time there's a lull or I'm in the mood for mechs or tactical combat though.
Fair enough. I haven't gone back to Roguetech for months. Actually, I was keen on the Mech Commander total conversion mod for Mechwarrior 5 (but alas I only have that on Games Pass and I have no idea how modding that would work).
A new Battletech game would probably attract a bigger audience this time around given it seems to have gotten more market share in the wake of COVID and the retreat from D&D with the licensing fiasco.
Yeah, but the folks on this team have moved on, expressing burnout on this topic. There will never be a BT game with the same feel, even when we do get the next one. Sigh.
Yeah, that genuinely bums me out, because Harebrained's Battletech is easily one of my top PC games of all time. It's pretty close to the Battletech game I had dreamed of for decades (and sincerely exceeded my expectations) and I expect a sequel building upon its foundation would have been nigh-on perfection for me.
I absolutely adore this game. I'm certainly excited for Harebrained's new game coming out this year and will be snagging that on day one -- they've more than earned my confidence! -- but I can't help but hope that they'll return to Battletech someday.
I was hoping for this system to be enhanced with a CK3-like Grand Strategic overlay. That would have been amazing.
I had hoped that they would move the timeline forward to the Clan Invasion, but I guess that won't be happening.
Apparently, also, the contract that Harebrained Games had was for one game only, and the rights-holder, having seen the success of that one, is holding out for a ton of money (like $15m-$25m) for a second one, which... Yeah. (Source is Reddit)
Apparently, also, the contract that Harebrained Games had was for one game only, and the rights-holder, having seen the success of that one, is holding out for a ton of money (like $15m-$25m) for a second one, which... Yeah. (Source is Reddit)
Isn't the rights-holder here Microsoft?
"Thank you for revitalizing this IP of ours so we can charge you much more if you want to do it again" somehow isn't surprising.
Do they hold the rights to BattleTech?
Edit - Apparently, they hold the rights to the electronic games. I guess they don't get out of bed for less than $15M...
And thanks to a corporate acquisition in 2003, the Battletech/Mechwarrior IP otherwise belongs to Topps, i.e. the company best known for baseball cards.
Which is why Microsoft will never develop another BattleTech or MechWarrior game themselves. Why invest in a niche franchise where you don't own the movie or merchandising rights?
Booooo.
I wonder if Privateer Press would ever consider reaching out to Harebrained to make a Warmachine game. Would be different enough from Battletech to pose a fun design challenge and give them a lot of narrative & creative freedom, but still give us some crunchy somewhat mech-ish strategy gameplay.
Gotta say though, I really wish Creative Assembly wasn't a Games Workshop house anymore since an Iron Kingdoms setting would be an absolutely smashing fit for the Total War style of games. But maybe Harebrained could do it well with a strategic map layer and then tactical turn-based layer.
Anyway, getting sidetracked. I'm with you Robear, I would have loved to see a more robust campaign side to Battletech in a sequel, along with more variety in the size and scope of maps and battles themselves.
I had hoped that they would move the timeline forward to the Clan Invasion, but I guess that won't be happening.
That too, though I know some of the modders have been adding that content in, I haven't messed with that yet!
Which is why Microsoft will never develop another BattleTech or MechWarrior game themselves. Why invest in a niche franchise where you don't own the movie or merchandising rights?
Oh, what I wouldn't give for some nice high-production-value BattleTech/Mechwarrior movies.
Catalyst Game Labs (yes, owned by Topps) seems to be doing a good job of turning the tabletop game around. Their Mercs kickstarter, which is the 2nd or 3rd Battletech kickstarter is over $6M. The Alpha Strike ruleset is fantastic for its simplicity with surprising depth. And the minis aren't bad (not 40k good, but also not 40k expensive).
So don't count out the IP yet.
This discussion about the Battletech rights has triggered me over the Macross/Robotech IP dispute which meant for sooooo long there was a risk anyone would get sued for using the Marauder/Phoenix/Archer designs in any Mechwarrior/Battletech game.
That's quite sad we may not see another Battletech/Mechcommander game for some time. I guess we'll need to play Roguetech and other total conversion mods to fulfil our Clan war desires.
By the way, Roguetech has/had a simulated Inner Sphere / Periphery / Clans strategic map where systems could swing and change control based on where Roguetech players were taking on and completing missions. I haven't played in so long I don't know if it's been re-enabled in the latest Roguetech release.
Ooh, hadn't realized they had that level of strategic map functionality in the Roguetech mod Bfgp, I'll have to check that out sometime!
Not really a substitute for Battletech (the video game) but there is MegaMek which is a literal digital conversion of the Battletech Total Warfare ruleset (the more detailed ruleset). It works really well if you can find an opponent.
No AI for MegaMek?
I actually think there is, but I'm not sure it is very sophisticated.
I love MegaMek and I'm up for playing it any time. It does have the built in PrincessBot which does lose the plot sometimes but is good enough for a basic match.
MegaMek+MekHQ will even do the bookkeeping to run a whole mercenary campaign but I have not messed with that too much. If you thought Roguetech was complicated...
I think the *installation* of RogueTech is complicated...
I think the *installation* of RogueTech is complicated...
Robear, it's totally worth it when you take on a 1 star mission...and you get nuked in the first round 
I cleared out my mods folder and did a fresh install of BTA 3062.
On first new game creation it crashed; aside from that instance, it's worked just fine and seems to be far more stable than Roguetech.
Setting the enemy scaling to normal on BTA was probably a bad decision. I made it easier to build units with only 3 components, so as to take some of the sting out of the looting cycle.
I'm finding 1 to 1.5 star missions regularly have 12+ Opfor compositions. Battles can take an hour because BTA performance is sloowwww. But stable.
On one particularly difficult mission, they had a 60 ton Blackhawk with something stupid like 6 medium lasers (some pulse but most regular) IN EACH ARM and double heat sinking to enable alpha strikes all day long. It was scary!
I shuffled back and forth along a ridge line with elevation accuracy advantage, with an enemy Griffin (I think they're 55 ton) spawning also on the ridgeline shaving away my armour with a large laser. I was too close for it to use its LRMs to good effect. The poor Jenner pilot was busy trying to get a few sneaky rear shots on the Griffin while diverting fire away from my Blackjack (thank goodness it was a variant with 2 PPCs and the regular 4MLs) and Centurion, which I used as stationary fire platforms in an attempt to take the Blackhawk off the board. This bought me enough time to chop off an arm and side torso from the Blackhawk, reducing its threat potential by 50%.
Getting cocky, I thought I could get into the Griffin's juicy structure in the rear so the Jenner went for a melee strike, forgoing the maximum evasion pips otherwise available. That was a bad decision; not only did it fail to take down the Griffin, the mangled Blackhawk blasted a side torso and arm off on the flat-footed Jenner.
Meanwhile, my 4th mech, a Hollander with a rail gun and paper thin armour, was unable to find an elevated position to get a clear shot on the critters below. I had to bring it upfront while running the Jenner the heck away from getting blasted. That bet paid off as it scored a hit on the Black Hawk's exposed centre torso which knocked out its engine. The beast toppled over leaving 3 salvageable components! At this point, I wasn't going to extract because I wanted the chance to loot the Black Hawk components.
What then followed was a slow whittling down of the Opfor, with every pilot getting their armour shaved down with structural components exposed on just about everyone. We managed to limp home with no major losses (well, aside from the Jenner losing half of its armament albeit 2 cheap and nasty medium lasers). I had set the loot preference to 2 components and RNJesus blessed my commander with the third Black Hawk components
It got even better because as I assembled it, EVERY part was reinstated - I'd forgotten this wasn't set up like Roguetech where salvaged parts aren't necessarily replaced automatically. Thus my lance finally got its first heavy mech but a few missions into the campaign.
All the while, my teen boy was watching the nail-biting battle play out and praying alongside me the loot pinata gods would bless me. He must have found it enjoyable because he then went onto Steam and installed BATTLETECH for himself (heck, I bought it on GOG because he's been using my old Steam account for a few years now). He's a few missions in on a vanilla campaign and is already bitterly complaining about how weak his lance is
I'll be interested to see how his lance composition evolves. Right now he scoffs at the idea of missile boats and thinks light mechs are useless.
I had a terrible battle last night. My Centurion had a side torso opened up then a MRM tank with Apollo clustering ammo decided to unload everything at the exposed side torso. Alas my best pilot is injured for 120+ days and I've lost really valuable componentry. I did pick up a Chameleon 50ton in exchange that mission. I'm not going to reload in order to force myself to accept consequences.
Meanwhile the boy's vanilla campaign continues. He dislikes light mechs. He has grown to love missile boats. He uses 2 Shadowhawks as tanky can openers and finishes off with missile salvos. It's so interesting to see how the game mechanics influence styles of play.
As his mechs get bigger and tougher, he'll start to use his missile boats to knock things down, or weaken them before an alpha strike. They are useful pretty much any time you care to bring them, in the vanilla game at least.
I had to laugh when he complained bitterly about a deployment where he faced two reinforcement lances on top of the primary lance, one of which fielded a "monster" 65 ton mech. RNJesus at its finest!
Heh heh. "Take your guys and ambush these suckers. Look at them! Half dead and demoralized. Should be a cakewalk, son."
My eye always starts to twitch when I see those mission descriptions...
My recollection of vanilla BATTLETECH was that most of us found it a little incredulous the AI could spawn so many reinforcement lances yet you were capped at dropping 4 mechs, thus skewing the drop tonnage towards Steiner scout lance compositions because you needed that much extra armour to make it through any basic mission. Moreover, the need to carry sustained DPS tended to skew weapon loadouts towards energy (and MLs at 25 damage a pop for their heat rating made them irresistible). The boy got his hands on a UAC20 but he runs dry by the time he finishes up with mission objectives. I suppose there's another interesting tactical question on how to judiciously shoot your autocannons for him to consider.
With the total conversion mods, lighter tonnage might still be viable through a combination of evasion pip rework, ECM and stealth; SLDF era and Clan parts also mean you can jam more firepower into smaller mechs thus giving the player the choice of gameplay style albeit you mostly ended up with more tonnage anyway given the base game's mechanism of forcing you to combat 2-3x your drop tonnage in an artificial means of creating greater difficulty levels.
I don't really have an answer on how to solve the power creep challenge. That was supposed to be a task for the next iteration of Battletech but alas we may have to wait some time for another game.
I've been really interested in tabletop Battletech but decided to check this game out before taking the plunge, because it was a hell of a lot cheaper! 
My prior experience with the series is mostly Mechwarrior Online which I had a love/hate relationship with. I grew up tinkering with Mechwarrior 2 but never made it too far.
I love turn-based strategy, I adore tinkering with mechs and making builds in RPGs. This should be a perfect game for me, but I just can't seem to get stuck in! For one, the tutorial doesn't explain a lot, and the UI is confusing to a beginner. Alone, I could probably push though, but I'm also struggling with some pretty terrible performance on a fairly hefty PC.
So any tips for fixing the stuttering/consistent low FPS? And are there any nice guides I can follow to get me rolling? I want to love this!
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