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[Cthulhu]

The writing is amateurish as hell which is starting to grate on me, and at least so far in the linear part of the campaign most of the dialog options are different ways to say the same thing, which is also annoying.

Unless things improve and open up, I would've preferred just regular scripted dialog.

[Mephansteras]

Yeah, I'm not sure what the point of the dialog options is. They don't seem to do anything other than provide slightly different dialog per playthrough. Doesn't really bother me, but I'm not sure it was worth the effort on their part.

[Sensei]

The thing that's weird is why these mechs don't blow up. They go nuclear in all the other games, but in this one they don't.

Yeah in the other Mechwarrior games center torso destruction usually means a big explosion. AFAIK in the tabletop destroying the engine just means the engine shuts down. The closest thing to that in the tabletop is when a mech overheats or takes a critical hit and its ammunition explodes.

E: I've been reading around to see if there are examples of this in the fiction or something and I keep seeing this term "Stackpole effect" (going nuclear), which is a reference to a Battletech writer, so this must have some kind of basis in the tabletop or novels.

For what it's worth, note that killing a mech by destroying its center torso in this game gives you a mech chassis part. You need 3 parts to make a working chassis, so it does seem to imply there's not much of the mechs left. If you do manage to knock out the pilot without destroying the center torso, three parts of that chassis are added to the salvage pool, which constitutes a complete mech but even that has to be rebuilt. I think that seems reasonable.

As far as I can tell the lore is slightly schizophrenic on whether mechs cause huge explosions when they die. In the official Mechwarrior PC games it never happens, in the MechAssault Xbox games it always happens, and in the books I think it happens sometimes? Supposedly the fusion reactor being breached causes a dramatic enormous explosion which can damage nearby mechs but this only happens if it fails in a certain way or something.

[Viken]

The Mechs' are run on fusion power cores, if I remember the lore correctly.  Just like fission nuclear plants, if you damage them then they'll shut down, but if you damage them in a different way they can blow up.  Fusion is just that much more powerful.  Some go boom, some don't.  And the blast radius of a run-away fusion power core is pretty huge to boot.

I was really waiting for the explosion, which got me in trouble in the early game cause I always kept my mechs well away from any enemy I was about to destroy, just in case it did blow up.

[etgfrog]

My understanding was they are a vacuum fusion engine, so unless set to blow up as much as possible, there would only be a flash of blue plasma from the air rushing in and forcing it out. The lore probably changed on the whims of which would be more awsome, explosions or mechs punching other mechs in the face. It is a bit mutually exclusive because you wouldn't want to punch something that will blow up with enough force to kill you.

On another note, I'm surprised there isn't a Steiner scout lance achievement for fielding 4 atlas.

[NullForceOmega]

Pretty sure that the original (tabletop) lore is that mech mounted weapons simply lack the necessary punch to destroy the core's armor, it is stated outright in the revised rules that it takes a direct hit from something like a long-tom artillery piece to actually breach.  Tho' that's probably just a fairly smooth way to justify the Inner Sphere's need/ability to salvage mechs, as producing them in bulk is pretty much not a thing until much later in the timeline.

[Sanctume]

Anyone know the distance of each dots (hex) is? 

I am reading min, optimum and max range, but is there a range indicator in game that tells me how many m (meters?) I am from my target(s)?

[Werdna]

E: I've been reading around to see if there are examples of this in the fiction or something and I keep seeing this term "Stackpole effect" (going nuclear), which is a reference to a Battletech writer, so this must have some kind of basis in the tabletop or novels.

Haha, 'Stackpole effect', that's hilarious.  I read the original books back in high school, I faintly remember that scene.  IIRC, the pilot intentionally rigged his own Mech to blow in an outnumbered situation.  I don't recall any basis in TT, or in the first Battletech PC games (Mechwarrior, Crescent Hawks).  IIRC, coring the LT or RT on most mechs frequently led to ammo kaboom megadamage, which is what people might be mistakenly remembering.

[Sanctume]

E: I've been reading around to see if there are examples of this in the fiction or something and I keep seeing this term "Stackpole effect" (going nuclear), which is a reference to a Battletech writer, so this must have some kind of basis in the tabletop or novels.

Haha, 'Stackpole effect', that's hilarious.  I read the original books back in high school, I faintly remember that scene.  IIRC, the pilot intentionally rigged his own Mech to blow in an outnumbered situation.  I don't recall any basis in TT, or in the first Battletech PC games (Mechwarrior, Crescent Hawks).  IIRC, coring the LT or RT on most mechs frequently led to ammo kaboom megadamage, which is what people might be mistakenly remembering.

IIRC, it was probably Stackpole's novel(s) that introduced "old tech" like before there was purely fussion reactor mech battles.  he wrote in some taboo tech called Davy Crockett which is a shoulder launched tactical nuke that can obliterate multiple mechs within blast radius.  And I seem to recall the same nuke explosions from mech engines in some plot point.

[motorbitch]

davy crockett is verrry old tech then. it was developed in the 1950īs. apparently soldiers where a bit uneasy to launch a nuklear bazooka though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)

[Parsely]

I doubt soldiers operating the Davy Crockett would be any more uneasy than if they were using any other kind of field gun. Flamethrowers are more dangerous for the operators and probably needed more encouragement compared to that, I would think.

[umiman]

Hmm... the game is actually getting pretty challenging now.

For one the lightest thing it ever sends at me is a Cicada now, and even that is going the way of the dodo. Mostly fighting Wolverines and other Thunderbolts, also lots of Orions, Catapults, and Jaegermechs, which can get quite brutal. I mean, I can't oneshot them with punching any more and they pack a lot of damage.

My vaunted sniper mech loadout in a AC10 + AC10 Jaegermech which used to obliterate entire waves of enemies by itself now is barely scratching the paint off my enemies.

Also I noticed the game took off the training gloves and removed that 1/2 armour penalty for the enemies now. So now everything I fight is full strength.

I did find a new good strategy though. I learned that the morale defense skill thingy doesn't use an action, so if you activate it your mech can still move and attack, but also takes waaaaay less damage until your next turn. So what I've been doing is sending the ultra tanky (but not so tanky any more now that the enemies are all packing really scary firepower) punching mech to stand waaay in the front by himself.

Then I either brace or use the defense skill and let it tank all the damage.

The rest of my team chills out half the map away at the back sniping the enemy.

It seems to work pretty well. Usually ends with no or minimal damage.

[Chosrau]

If you're unlucky with what the enemy spawnsm even early low skull missions can get interesting.

I encountered this on a 1-skull mission:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It even had better initiative then all my mechs, so I couldn't double move in on it.

[Man of Paper]

Had my first ragereload. Doing a 1 1/2 difficulty mission after the Argo mission to attack a lance doing some training. The complement of vehicles with them were a scorpion and three strikers. All three strikers target Behemoth in her Shadow Hawk, all three hit most of their shots through 3 evasion, and all three score headshots. Then next turn starts up and the lance of light mechs focuses their fire on her, going so far as to stand next to my other mechs. The only part that receives damage is a leg , which was preweakened by missile fire already. Needless to say, the leg goes, the mech falls, and Behemoth took her fourth and final injury. Note also that this was after all but one of her weapons at 80% chance to hit missed.

I'm fine dealing with injuries and putting up with hardships, but I'm not fine with a run being put in jeopardy in the second round of an engagement because of X-Comitis. Mostly because I work 10 hours a day and can't be fucked with going through an exhaustive opening in the little spare time I have.

Still, I'm off tomorrow so I'll be doubling my playtime. Love it even though it hates me. Fun as he'll even when I'm yelling "Stooooopppppp!" at my monitor.

[etgfrog]

I'm starting to run across some of the extra equipment, like the enhanced gryo that is valued at 1.2 million, takes no tonnage, 3 slots in the center torso and gives +2 to hit defense. I'm guessing these will start to get more common as I get to the higher difficulties, still breezing through 3 skull missions because the first enemy I run across will get killed. The hunchback with someone that has the gunnery specialized, pretty much lets them hit things through guard state for the full ac20 damage. Also the firestarter is finally showing its worth by keeping a thunderbolt shut down for the entire time the rest of my group was killing other things.

And...the game now wants me to go up to 3.5 skull difficulty missions....when I only have 2.5 stars worth of tonnage