Try turning off "Windowed Mode" in the Video menu of the Options, as a start.
Aside from turning down shadows and the dash cam, you might be able to get vanilla Battletech to run a bit more smoothly. You may need some workshop mods to tidy up some of the more egregious things like travel animations.
Roguetech and BTA are infamous for their choppy performance issues so if your machine is struggling with vanilla perhaps stay away from them. My 3070 card is still choppy as hell with BTA.
Arise thread!
I dusted off this baby for the first time in 4-5 years and started a new Career Mode.
It's still so good!
I had fond memories of the combat, managing heat and armor etc, but had forgotten just how good the music, sound and visuals were for creating the mood.
It feels like Career mode starts you off with fewer resources than the Campaign, so I've had to run with mostly light mechs. I'd never really seen the point of Firestarters before, but they are crucial part of my light mech lance.
I'm not so much trying to achieve the max score and "win" Career mode, just sandboxing it, carving out a living for my ragtag crew out in the 'verse.
I reckon this game earns "classic" status and it sux that Harebrained was yoinked off of doing a sequel.
This game is sitting on my Steam Deck, waiting for me to get to it. I know it’s gonna time suck when I get started.
This game is sitting on my Steam Deck, waiting for me to get to it. I know it’s gonna time suck when I get started.
Do eet!
It's the kinda game that I enjoy thinking about when I'm not playing. Eg the last mission I played last night before going to bed, I claimed enough salvage to get a Blackjack. Today I am musing over how to refit it, building my hype for when I can play after work later today.
If I were to try to come up with a top ten list of my favorite games of all time, it would be a hellish task to try to do, but Battletech would absolutely deserve a spot.
If I were to try to come up with a top ten list of my favorite games of all time, it would be a hellish task to try to do, but Battletech would absolutely deserve a spot.
It feels like BattleTech is to the original TTRPG like Baldur's Gate 3 is to D&D
BattleTech seems to have slipped into my all timers in a quietly competent way. I remember having some issues with performance and freezing early on, and the variety of Mechs and gear was a little sparse in places. But the potential was always there, after all the the DLC and patches, it runs perfectly, and whenever I go back to it, it feels almost perfect.
It's especially interesting comparing it to MechWarrior 5, which I've been playing a fair bit lately. They're very similar games on the galaxy layer. I can't deny being in the cockpit in the battles is a big draw, but BattleTech is otherwise just superior in every way. Especially in terms of tone. I love the painterly art, the design, the writing. You watch the intro, and you can feel the weight of hundreds of years of war conveyed through the music. Seriously, the soundtrack is spectacular.
MechWarrior 5 has butt-rock in the battles. It's awful.
I reckon this game earns "classic" status and it sux that Harebrained was yoinked off of doing a sequel.
As a counterpoint, I read an interview with the main producer of the game maybe a year after it came out, and he said that people were so burned out on the universe after working with it for so many years that many of the devs simply refused to consider working on a sequel. Maybe after some time has gone by but the impression that I got is that they put their hearts into it and needed to move on to something else. It's a shame that one (The Lamplighters League) went bust...
I agree that it is one of the perfect turn-based tactical games out there. They come around rarely and deserve to be widely played and enjoyed.
Ok, I might need to finally jump in. I was one of the Kickstarters but never jumped in. Only put 0.8 hours into it. Not sure what happened since its been over 6 years since released, probably longer since I got the key from the Kickstarter.
Which DLCs are must haves for this?
Ok, I might need to finally jump in. I was one of the Kickstarters but never jumped in. Only put 0.8 hours into it. Not sure what happened since its been over 6 years since released, probably longer since I got the key from the Kickstarter.
Which DLCs are must haves for this?
Last year I had a great time playing fresh from scratch with just the full list of official DLC installed at once. There's a million ways you can mod and tweak things, but the basic vanilla plus official DLC setup is very strong.
(I do think I might have used one or two mods to add slightly more information to the HUD, and to tweak the presentation of to hit chances, and I definitely modded in my own pilot images, but again, vanilla is still everything you'd really need.)
Protip: The Marauder is OP in vanilla.
This is my first playthrough with all the DLC and it adds a noticeable amount of variety to mission locations/terrain, mission types, available mechs, weapons.
So buy all the DLCs available?
GOG currently has the whole thing on sale for ~$21
Not sure how the DLC is priced these days, but here's a summary of what they are:
Urban Warfare: adds city maps, new missions, new mechs.
Flashpoint: adds Flashpoints (mini campaigns that can include multi-deployment missions where you can't repair/heal in between deployments), which are available in Career Mode or after finishing the campaign. Also adds new missions, new mechs.
Heavy Metal: adds new weapons, new missions, a new Flashpoint (that is basically a new campaign half as big as the main campaign), and new mechs.
Shadowhawk: adds a purely cosmetic skin for one (1) type of mech.
As a counterpoint, I read an interview with the main producer of the game maybe a year after it came out, and he said that people were so burned out on the universe after working with it for so many years that many of the devs simply refused to consider working on a sequel. Maybe after some time has gone by but the impression that I got is that they put their hearts into it and needed to move on to something else. It's a shame that one (The Lamplighters League) went bust....
That's unfortunate. I could easily believe that the development of the game was a wild ride, too -- I backed the Kickstarter, and the entire single-player campaign was originally a stretch goal!
This is one of my favorite games set in one of my favorite gaming universes, so I could enthuse about it at great length... but for the moment, I'll just recommend getting all the DLC and listening to the soundtrack. There are no mods I consider essential.
Okay, my first post in ages, but I have to second (third? fourth?) the opinions stated here about this game being a top 10 all-time.
I had never played a mech-warrior game, never even dabbled in the tabletop, nor did I particularly like any similar types of games or concepts. I watched some Vol-Tron as a kid. I'm pretty sure that doesn't count.
This game grabbed me when I was looking for moar Xcom-like experiences and I shrugged it off a couple of times before finishing the campaign. Then I restarted the campaign and played it again. I enjoyed it even more now that the early missions didn't feel so punishing as I'd learned a lot in my playthrough. I didn't finish that campaign until some of the DLC was done, and adding the DLC made that campaign ending really fresh by adding a bunch of weapons to the shops in my old save, which is sorta crazy (and I was quite sure would break my save or something - it didn't).
THEN I played some 3062 (a mod), and had a blast with it for a short while. It is much more involved, but I get the feeling that it and Rogeutech (another mod) are great for the truly dedicated.
I now catch myself watching youtube campaigns (Black Pants Legion, Pagan Horde, Baradul) when I have no time for such things.
This game infected me, and I'm glad it did.
/end unsolicited long post
It is an outstanding game. It does not have the variety of choice and mechanics that BG3 offers, but as a turn-based tactical combat game with a management overlay and a great story, it's pretty much unbeaten. As people have noted, it calls to mind just a few great games of the past. Truly a work of art.
It certainly innovates like BG3 has done.
Some stuff has already been done but they made it work so well. Some stuff is entirely new and should be copied by nearly every future rpg:
Evasion, knockdown, targeting, heat management, positioning, jumping, cover, unit customization, salvage, injury
And intra-party friction and snark. 
It certainly innovates like BG3 has done.
Some stuff has already been done but they made it work so well. Some stuff is entirely new and should be copied by nearly every future rpg:Evasion, knockdown, targeting, heat management, positioning, jumping, cover, unit customization, salvage, injury
I love how they all combine to create so many risk/reward decisions, depending on where you and your merc company are at. The Evasion/Guarded dichotomy makes light mechs viable for longer. The resolve abilities: hunker down with Vigilance and get em next turn, or push to take one off the board now with Precision Strike, but leave yourself exposed? I love how salvage also factors into it -- every big threatening mech is also a juicy salvage target so you don't always decide to blow it up ASAP.
Interesting decisions all the way down.
Also, my favourite thing about city maps: shooting the buildings that enemy mechs jump on. It's the BattleTech equivalent of yeeting people off ledges.
You know, I'm not sure I ever did that! I always have the mindset to not Kaiju my way through cities. Interesting tactic.
My only disappointment was finding out that the height of the fall didn't appear to influence the damage caused. I took out a skyscraper with a mech on top and it took the same damage I would usually see from a short building drop.
But yes, city fighting is quite amusing at times. 
I wish the urban maps didn't have such loading issues. I thought it was just because I played it on an old laptop, but I see people on youtube playing it and skipping urban scenarios because of the performance issues (especially in larger force scenarios).
And intra-party friction and snark. :-)
This hasn't been done as well in other games, so I'm loathe to encourage it whole hog, but it really is great here.
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