Video Games

[Stahlseele]

Seeing all those 80/90% to hit chances at basically max range for these weapons is insanely bad game balance.

I can understand why you would increase the typical use accuracy to 70%-85%. Doing everything right and still consistently missing shots is a really frustrating and pointless way to slow the game down. It's tedious in videogames and it's doubly so in tabletop where computers aren't already speeding everything up. But obviously if you're going to increase accuracy, you're also going to have to tinker with ranges/mobility/map size to maintain the existing weapon roles.

I, of course, know nothing of the Battletech boardgame or videogame. Just a general observation.

On the other side you have the exact same problem though.
You do everything you can do completely right, and you still get hit from straight across the map from LRM-Carriers/Mechs/Turrets you can't even see and that don't even need to have LOS to your Mechs themselves . .

They need to try and find some sort of middle-ground for this issue.

Thing is, the stability mechanic smokes people whether they're dodging or bracing and goes well beyond the Bulwark vs Evasion issue. Stock LRM boats are already scary effective and the Zeus LRMs do double stability for some dumb ass reason. Mechs need to jump jet AND brace for impact to have any real hope of coping with that and if it's focus fire from multiple mechs you're basically just fucked.

And yes, they also need to adress issues with the stability damage system.
For exactly the noted reasons.

[Whipstitch]

My move would be to first make the minimum range penalty for LRMs more punishing and then I would replace the manufacturer stability damage bonus with bonuses to shooting inside your minimum range. That way LRMs start out being pure fire support and eventually can be upgraded into being versatile and bad ass. Because right now LRMs start out as versatile and bad ass then get upgraded into fucking mjolnir. That's no bueno.

Things still wouldn't be perfect, mind you, but I don't think the situation is that bad until fairly late into single player or when people refuse to set tonnage/c-bill limits in multiplayer. That's basically the equivalent of Epic levels and you can have a decent amount of fun with the game before you ever acquire your 300+ ton Lyran scout lance.

[Stahlseele]

THAT they will reserve for the inevitable CLAN DLC . . because CLAN LRM does not have minimum reach . . No CLAN-Weapon does actually i think . .

People tend to forget that and when faced with one of the CLAN-LRM-Boat-Mechs charge right in to get under minimum reach . . and then they get blasted full force because clan pilots are better shots and they stormed into short range for the missles and there is no malus for minimum reach . .

If i had my say, i would make the LRMs impossible to fire anyhing BUT indirectly. Relegate them to support weaponry as they are meant to be, not an assault cudgel to smack down anything in their path <.<

MWLL the Crysis Wars based MECHWARRIOR made an attempt at this by having ALL LRM-Laffettes fire upwards in an angle before going down. That meant hitting anything that came into the space between the angle and the ground was basically impossible to hit, if you did not do some very complicated mech gymnastics. Making the mech crouch and then lean forwards. That made the crosshairs of course, not point at the mech and thus not give them any kind of target lock. It became a pure last measure of defense by basically dumbfiring the missles by pointing the launchers as parallel to the ground as possible.
And that still did not work on tanks because tanks usually came up to knee/pelvis height of mechs only anyway.

[Whipstitch]

You haven't seen true futility until you see a stock hunchback spawn on top of a 1 hex boulder and Brace every turn because they don't have jump jets.

[Stahlseele]

True, but i have seen, on the tabletop, such a mech try and walk through a building only to discover a 3 level deep cellar . .

[Hicks]

It is my understanding that LRMs could only be fired indirectly if you had a spotter in table top. Does the computer game have hidden infantry platoons or battlearmor? Cuz if not the spotter should always be in LOS to you; and eleminating the spotter stops the indirect LRMs.

[Whipstitch]

There's a Sensor Lock for Tactical specialist pilots that can be used to ID mechs and designate a target for being fired upon from outside standard LOS.

Plus, a lot of what makes indirect fire great is the way it lets you do fighting withdrawals with individual injured mechs. For example, I like to keep my lancemates relatively close together and to fight with the crest of a hill at my back. I don't start the fight with a designated spotter, but if one of my guys happens to get hammered by enemy fire he can hop back over the crest of the hill and break LOS while still being able to lob LRMs thanks to his 3 buddies on the other side.

[OgreBattle]

Shinobi Refle looks amazing

[CapnTthePirateG]

So do people do mixed LRM/stuff loadouts? I tend to have 1 dedicated LRM spammer and then...some other guys I guess.

[Whipstitch]

Just when dictated by hardpoints and tonnage, really, so the farther the game goes along the less I used mixed weapons. Early on it was nice to slap a medium laser or two onto mechs that would otherwise be unable to fatally alpha strike buildings, turrets and light vehicles but once you've got your Steiner Scout Lance it's all boats, all the time.

[Iduno]

Typically mixed units, partially because I run hot and need something that doesn't fire.

Although the Shadowhawk with the PPC++ that does massive stability and an LRM 5 or 10 with added stability damage is a pretty effective follow-up if the all-LRM Orion misses a lot of hits. I also run one high-damage mech to finish off downed opponents (or leg a standing opponent) and a fairly stock grasshopper.

I also haven't heard anyone mention that removing a leg from a mech doesn't slow them down much, but they do lose one box of stability (~20-25% depending on pilot).

I'm kind of glad Battletech came out when it did. My Wasteland 2 playthrough got to an annoying bug that would lose me a few hours to work around. And wasn't that interesting anymore, as my characters ran out of useful skills to max out a few hours ago.

[Stahlseele]

The first thiny anybody should always do is to get a panther, get the panther a large laser and put the panthers PPC into the shadowhawks arm.
That is always always the correct thing to do.

[Whipstitch]

I'm actually not that big of a fan of 2K-esque builds in this game. A PPC and an LRM is not without its early game utility when there's a bunch of poorly maintained vehicles and light mechs scooting around waiting to be cored out but I feel like it ages poorly because it's an undergunned setup and the heat is annoying on a mech that separates itself from heavies by having good speed and the game's most tonnage efficient jump jets. Every time you fire in this game you're either giving up Guarded, Morale Points or Evasion so if your gimmick is easy target acquisition via long range weaponry then I want you to either be a custom indirect fire Kintaro loaded to the gills with LRM5s or some heavy bastard that can plausibly facetank with Bulwark while taking the enemy lance to pound town on consecutive rounds. If you're just threatening ~60 damage while leaving your ass in the wind that's actually pretty mediocre. By contrast a short range alpha striker can last until late game by being a "scout" mech that also happens to be able to opportunistically rip off torsos in one salvo.

Speaking of HBKs, the first time I got a 4P I spent the rest of the afternoon blowing people up while humming the Sexy Boy theme.

[Stahlseele]

What do you mean with 2k esque Builds? O.o

Sell the spider, get decker into the panther, remove the PPC and replace the PPC of the Panther with a Large Laser. Now the Panther runs cooler and has no more minimum reach while sacrificing not a lot DMG-Potential and reach.
And you could even go so far as to then take out the SRM-Rack and replace it with full armor, 2 medium lasers and more than enough heat sinks to make it run cool aside from maybe jumping all the time.

Then you go to your Shadowhawk, replace the medium laser in the arm with the PPC and take out the SRM rack and ammo to make room for more Heat-Sinks and Armor and you now have a long lived mech that will rain doom upon your enemies from SOMEWHERE OVER THERE. Of course, you could do that with a Large-Laser as well, but i prefer the PPC for my long range energy choice.


Oh yes, the swayback.
The rave on legs.
The canon laser boat.
I took a 95t assault mech (Nightstar) apart with one of those little bastards in a megamek game once . .

There is simply nothing bad about that mech design at all.
Enough Medium Lasers to core out any mech in a lucky salvo.
Enough Heat-Sinks to let you run and fire all of them forever.
Enough Armor to make sure you get into reach and can stay.
No Ammo that can go boom anymore.
No single monolithic weapon that runs out on ammo either.
No single monolithic weapon that can get destroyed either.
Crit-Soaking like a boss because of all the M-Lasers/Sinks!

And it only gets better with better tech and more weight.
Hunchback 5P changes to double heatsinks, ER-Medium and Pulse-Lasers when the time comes. (This should not be in the Battletech Game as far as i know my timelines)

And then you are looking at a loong and empty stretch untill you get the Blackknight 75t heavy energy boat. (This is in the Battletech Game actually i think)

And then it is another empty and long stretch untill you get to the Clan 95t Assault Mech with Jumpjets laser-boat with targeting computer. Turkina B.

[Whipstitch]

What do you mean with 2k esque Builds? O.o

Builds that take a PPC and often scrap the autocannon like the SHD-2k. Personally, your idea sounds more defensible given you didn't say anything about scrapping the AC. Without the AC you'd be pretty badly undergunned and nobody should relegate a 55 tonner to just stepping on vehicles.

Then you go to your Shadowhawk, replace the medium laser in the arm with the PPC and take out the SRM rack and ammo to make room for more Heat-Sinks and Armor and you now have a long lived mech that will rain doom upon your enemies from SOMEWHERE OVER THERE. Of course, you could do that with a Large-Laser as well, but i prefer the PPC for my long range energy choice.

In the HBS game I'd tend to favor the Large Laser version if you're going with such a Shad. It's a worse weapon than PPCs ton for ton but if you're keeping the AC/5 you already can tip a mech that's on the edge of knockdown and an extra couple tons of armor over the PPC is actually pretty huge. Plus, to be brutally honest, from a metagame perspective you'd mostly want this thing for the early game anyway, so the accuracy bonus from lasers is actually pretty relevant for your first Shad since you still have a few dozen sprinting lights and jump jetting mediums to chew through before you start feeling undergunned.

[Stahlseele]

Ah, i see.
I had actually forgotten that the SHAWK has an AC as well, but it compliments the PPCs range-profile pretty well actually.
Both in terms of max and min range.
It stays relatively cool and has enough ammo for most missions as well.

Strangely enough, they actually managed to make the original shadowhawk, a mech so universally unloved in the whole of Battletech aside from Fluff, a pretty decent machine with their ineptitude for balancing in this game . .

And in the table-top, it's completely the opposite way with PPC/Large-Laser.
Especially once the Clan Large Laser comes into play. The PPC is just the only long range weapon for most of the early timeline that can reliably headshot one hit kill any mech up to the heavies. Only Assault-Mechs have 12 points in the head all in all, everything below has only 9 and the PPC deals 10.
Otherwise, the Large laser is 2 points less DMG, 2 points less heatproduction, but also 1 less crit slot and 3 tons less weight which you can then spend on more heatsinks and armor, which will then increase the performance of the whole mech.

[Whipstitch]

I don't actually think it really is all that poorly balanced. The biggest problems are people going all-in on boutique LRM boats that deal double stability damage and gunnery skill bloat neutering the endgame potential of evasive mech designs. Those are eminently fixable problems. Otherwise I think they've actually done a better job of "accidentally" balancing things like the Shadowhawk than the tabletop ever really did.

[Stahlseele]

Yes, because in the tabletop:
LRM5 < = USELESS!
SRM2 < = USELESS!
AC2/5< = USELESS!
Medium-Laser: Perfect Weapon basically.
5/8/3 Movement-Profile < = Bollocks!

So all in all, the Mech is one of the original unseen, beloved for its looks alone and for its role in the Battletech Novels by THE Main-Character of THE FIRST Battletech Novels.

FFS, the only 2 good variants of shadowhawk in the CBT TT / Universe are not actually canon to CBT TT / Universe!

In the HBS BTG?
LRM5 and AC2/5 and SRM2 are all very very viable weapons early on.
Especially with the to hit chances and appearantly range increases too.

In the CBT TT, Hitting anything with an LRM5 or SRM2 is . . aside from very lucky crit rolls . . barely a nuisance. Same for AC2/5. Because of movement and reach modifiers and the such.
Hell, depending on if you allow the rapidfire rules for MGs, the MGs in CBT TT can do more damage to a target than the SRM2, the LRM5 and the AC2 and AC5. Granted, at much much shorter range but still . .
The only semi worth while way of using SRM2 is when inferno ammo is allowed and you are allowed to set fires to the landscape and everything else.

[Whipstitch]

It also helps a bit that the multi-lock skill takes some of the opportunity cost out of using weapons with mixed range profiles. I mean, yeah, more often than not you'd rather focus fire and remove a threat from the board than soften up separate targets but at mlasers are so tonnage efficient that oftentimes I'll have a couple strapped on and ready to fire at close-in targets even as I'm mostly concerned with spewing LRMs into the distance.

[Stahlseele]

Oh yeah, sensor lock and multi target shot are so much more usefull than in the TT as well. Indirect fire is clost to impossible to accurately use and so is shooting at more than one target per round in 90% of the time.

[Iduno]

nobody should relegate a 55 tonner to just stepping on vehicles.

What's the point of piloting a giant robot if you aren't going to stomp everything smaller than you? The only reason my grasshopper was stomping the last few vehicles yesterday is my orion is just too slow to join in on the fun. Tonight I should be able to get the Highlander, so I can spend the weekend stomping on strikers with it.

Agreed on indirect fire LRMs being way too good. I've seen suggestions on the forums that 1) misses shouldn't lower evasion 2) increase indirect fire penalty from -3 to -5 and 3) increase the size penalty to hit from 0 Assault, 0 Heavy , 1 Medium, 2 Light to 1, 2, 3, 4. That all makes evasion more useful and LRM-spam less overpowered.

Also, someone is working on/has finished the game with only AC/2s, and no reloads. That person is insane. I mean, they're more viable in this game, but still the worst.

[Stahlseele]

People will do silly things in mechs.
I once walked a mech backwards the entire game on tabletop just to annoy my buddies and show my contempt for the enemy.
Granted, it was my favourite Dildo of Doom, so i still had more firepower in my rear arc than most heavy mechs have in their forward arc but still . .

[Whipstitch]

nobody should relegate a 55 tonner to just stepping on vehicles.

What's the point of piloting a giant robot if you aren't going to stomp everything smaller than you? .

The key word was "just." Zipping about punking strikers and taking 50 damage pot shots is fine... if you're in a light mech. But a single PPC is undergunned for a 55 tonner on tabletop and it's super undergunned in a game with Brace and Bulwark.

[Stahlseele]

When i inevitably rebuy the HBS BTG i will probably install this mod:
https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/28

[Iduno]

nobody should relegate a 55 tonner to just stepping on vehicles.

What's the point of piloting a giant robot if you aren't going to stomp everything smaller than you? .

The key word was "just." Zipping about punking strikers and taking 50 damage pot shots is fine... if you're in a light mech. But a single PPC is undergunned for a 55 tonner on tabletop and it's super undergunned in a game with Brace and Bulwark.

My (admittedly stupid) joke was that melee does double damage, and I think all hits one location, so hitting the lightest vehicle with the heaviest mech I can find might be overkill.

Also, a single gun works well against any source of guarded, as long as the pilot has the breaching shot ability. It's a terrible counter, as it only works for that one pilot, and only if you're firing a single weapon, but you really don't need much damage to knock someone down (at least 2 hits anyway). And once they're down, they lose guarded.