Battletech BattleTech discussion thread: May the light of Hanse Davion guide us

[PsihoKekec]

Aerodynes can also perform altitude bombing runs and air-drops without igniting the paratroopers.

There was a joke about a player winning the fight with nothing but AC/2s. He loaded hundreds of them into Buccaneer and dropped them over the battlefield as Rods of God type of ammunition.

 

[PsihoKekec]

 

[Typhonis]

 

[PsihoKekec]

 

[Typhonis]

"The Smoke Jaguars will invade the fascist House Kurita......"

Er wrong political group. Kurita is more like mid 20th century Japanese cosplay.

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

How else is are the normies supposed to be hooked?

By calling the Kurita fascist we clearly establish who the actual bad guys are.

./s

 

[Husky_Khan]

"The Smoke Jaguars will invade the fascist House Kurita......"

Er wrong political group. Kurita is more like mid 20th century Japanese cosplay.

Huh... I'm still kinda weirded out we're only up to the fifth Mechwarrior game.

Conversely I barely remember any Mechwarrior game since Mechwarrior 2 and its fifteen or so amazing expansions besides MechCommander, so there's that as well.

 

[Brutus]

Narrative is going to be shit most likely. Jump jets would take a year to get them to fix it as well.

They fucked up the tradition of order in the games. You start with the title MechWarrior # then MechWarrior # Mercenaries.

I'm sure the mechlab will be locked down as well. Can't change the engine size, download a mod and the fame is 1000% better.

It's sad when the modders make the game better than the developers intended.

 

[bullethead]

It's sad when the modders make the game better than the developers intended.

It's super dependent on what the gameplay system is and how the modders change it.

To be real, there's a lot of games whose mod communities just keep adding tons of stuff to micromange, and there's a threshold each individual has for that kind of thing.

For example, I make a mod that adds more skills to HBS BattleTech, because that game's default skill selections are dire, and I find that more engaging than mods like MechEngineer, where you get micromanagement of internal components and what not.

 

[S'task]

Huh... I'm still kinda weirded out we're only up to the fifth Mechwarrior game.

Conversely I barely remember any Mechwarrior game since Mechwarrior 2 and its fifteen or so amazing expansions besides MechCommander, so there's that as well.

That's because there's been a LOT MORE MechWarrior games than "Five".

You have two just "MechWarrior" games with subtitles. They were actually weird RPG/Piloting hybrids. Then you had the game that more or less defined the series which was MechWarrior 2. MW2 had an expansion, Ghost Bear's Legacy, and a standalone prequel, MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries. Then came MechWarrior 3 and it's expansion Pirate's Moon. MechWarrior 4 was next and it had it's own spin off stand alone game MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries. Then the IP was in hiatus for years, you had the online arena MechWarrior game that was... controversial to say the least, and then finally MechWarrior 5.

Now, something to note, prior to MechWarrior 5, any game that had a "Mercenary" spin off had the players playing as members of a specific faction. MW2 you were either Clan Wolf or Jade Falson, and in the expansion Clan Ghost Bear. MW4 you were a House Davion loyalist. Meanwhile in MechWarrior 3 you actually started out as a Mercenary, specifically part of the Erandi Light Horse, IIRC, and continued to play as a Merc in its expansion. MW3 didn't get a "Mercenary" spinoff in part because of that but also because the Microsoft wanted to put out their own full version which is where we got MW4.

Thing is, of all these games, MechWarrior 2 Mercenaries generally was the most favorably remembered because of its at the time utterly unique gameplay which unlike prior games of the genre wasn't just a series of linear missions but rather a more open world where you chose your missions and while occasionally having story missions. MW4 was controversial due to the changes it made to the Mech lab, but was also popular enough that later games kept it's some of its terrible conventions, though they tended to soften them.

Hence why MW5 just went straight to the Mercenary formula, drawing inspiration for the HBS BattleTech game as well which had proved surprisingly popular.

That said, yeah, mods are really essential to it in many ways, though many mods end up being very finicky.

 

[Culsu]

Well, the mods are finicky since every DLC keeps screwing them up.

Also, having Smoke Jag protagonists requires a bit of moral... uh, flexibility to see them as a the good guys. I'm more interested in seeing whether we get an actual lancemate system with useful lance members that a) aren't dumb as rocks and b) you as a player get attached enough to make them integral to your game (just like you don't want to lose Glitch in the HBS game).

 

[bullethead]

I'm more interested in seeing whether we get an actual lancemate system with useful lance members that a) aren't dumb as rocks

Well, there's a whole bunch of systems that seem designed to make it easy to control the star:

 

[Brutus]

Well, there's a whole bunch of systems that seem designed to make it easy to control the star:

Oh God. They actually got the jump jets to work out of the box this time. It's a miracle.

Took them nearly a year to fix that in mw5 mercs when it first came out.

 

[GROGNARD]

I gotta reinstall my MW4: Mercs and all its mods... it's a better game overall.

 

[PsihoKekec]

 

[Blasterbot]

he did at least label them...

 

[bullethead]

In case you ever wanted to know how bad it could be if the Clans actually carved up the Draconis Combine, here you go:

Fundamental assumptions that led to this map:
-All 17 Clans had to be involved
-The Star Adders were a big party drafting this plan, so they got themselves the biggest single chunk of Combine.
-The Goliath Scorpions/Coyotes got the middle chunk as a bribe to the Wolves.
-The Goliath Scorpions/Coyotes share Luthien.
-The Smoke Jaguars and Jade Falcons conspired to sandwich the Wolves between the Ice Hellions and Steel Vipers.

I used a Python dice roll script to come up with interesting combos for that invasion grid I came up with, and got Ice Hellions + Smoke Jaguars on the first roll, then kind of worked from there. The only ones that weren't rolled were the Star Adders, Goliath Scorpions + Coyotes, and Cloud Cobra + Nova Cat (literally the only two left over).

 

[Typhonis]

So...how badly mauled would the Clans be after hitting the Combine?

 

[Simonbob]

So...how badly mauled would the Clans be after hitting the Combine?

That depends more on how much infighting there is over what the Draks do. 4 clans were taking 3/4 of the Inner Sphere, on their own.

So, likely pretty seriously smashed up.

 

[edgeworthy]

In case you ever wanted to know how bad it could be if the Clans actually carved up the Draconis Combine, here you go:

Fundamental assumptions that led to this map:
-All 17 Clans had to be involved
-The Star Adders were a big party drafting this plan, so they got themselves the biggest single chunk of Combine.
-The Goliath Scorpions/Coyotes got the middle chunk as a bribe to the Wolves.
-The Goliath Scorpions/Coyotes share Luthien.
-The Smoke Jaguars and Jade Falcons conspired to sandwich the Wolves between the Ice Hellions and Steel Vipers.

I used a Python dice roll script to come up with interesting combos for that invasion grid I came up with, and got Ice Hellions + Smoke Jaguars on the first roll, then kind of worked from there. The only ones that weren't rolled were the Star Adders, Goliath Scorpions + Coyotes, and Cloud Cobra + Nova Cat (literally the only two left over).

You would probably have to get a semi-sane IlKhan elected for this too work.

About the only canon character who could pull it off would be, as you suggested one of the Star Adders, probably Cassius N'Buta.