Battletech
06-13-2018
, 08:36 AM
There has been a little bit of discussion about Battletech in the Steam thread, but I'm really enjoying the game, so I thought I'd make a thread.
Battletech has been out a couple months, and is an excellent game. Its based on the boardgame. I never played the board game, and I don't think it has affected my enjoyment at all.
Battletech is a turned based strategy game with a pretty good management portion also. I was a big fan of Jagged Alliance, X-Com and X-Com 2, and am a big fan of this. So if you've played these games, and like them, or not, why should you play Battletech?
Its quite a bit different in important and subtle ways, both tactically and strategically. For the comparison, I'll be invoking X-Com 1/2 a lot.
X-Com is about killing fast and not getting hit. You are using soldiers. They are squishy. They die quickly. You're generally fighting aliens who are also squishy. focus fire, take them down, move on.
In Battletech, you aren't using squishy soldiers. You are using, and fighting against, 30 meter tall 100 ton giant robots. You get hit. You can take hits, so can your opponent. Managing the damage you are taking is very important. Instead of trying to find the highest cover, you are examining where your mech is damaged. Can you make sure you have an undamaged side facing your enemy? Can you focus down certain parts of an enemy? Its quite a different system than X-Com.
The bottom left of this pic shows your mech. most of it is white, which means armored. One arm is already gone however, and the shoulder is red (no armor taking damage). So here is a situation where you are trying to keep your armored side facing your enemy, and he's trying to get around to your damaged side.
Along those same lines, in X-Com, a soldier is killed, and he's removed from the game. In BT, every section of a mech can be destroyed, and you can still salvage and repair it after the battle. It'll take time and money, but you can do it. Your pilots on the other hand can die. This makes for some excellent tension. How far do you push a damaged mech and risk the pilot? You can eject the pilot, guaranteeing he survives, but taking that mech out of combat. Do you risk a pilot with 1 or 2 health left getting his mech knocked down or having a right torso explode possibly killing him? While a mech may be salvaged, the weapons on the mech can be destroyed and need to be replaced with a weapon you have in storage. Have an extremely rare weapon mounted on a mech? better protect it! A mech can be replaced, a destroyed weapon cannot!
A mech with just about every part damaged and an arm blown off
Lets talk about another tactical difference from X-Com, initiative.
at the top of the screen you see 5 bars, one red, some with pips. This is initiative. In X-Com, you can move your guys in whatever order you want. In BT, you have light, medium, heavy, and assault mechs. They take turns in that order. Manipulating the order is a large part of the game. Even though your light mech can act first, does it make sense to reserve him to later in the turn. If you can knock down your opponent, one of the benefits is it drops a spot in the initiative. If you can knock down that enemy medium mech, you may be able to finish him off with a heavy before he acts.
One issue X-Com had was putting pressure on you in the tactical level. Their solutions to this were sloppy at best. X-Com 1 introduced Meld. This was a resource that expired so you had to race to get it. X-Com 2 had missions with turn timers. Both were less than ideal, and the turn timers were borderline hated.
BT introduces salvage, which works beautifully. You can buy mechs. the selection of mechs to buy is very limited, and very expensive. The better solution is salvaging mechs you've destroyed. It takes 3 pieces of salvage to make a mech. Every time you kill a mech, they drop 1 piece of salvage of that mech type. BUT! If instead of just blowing them to pieces, you just take out a both their legs, they drop two pieces of salvage for that type. Lastly, if you manage to take out the pilot, you get three pieces of salvage, which essentially gives you that mech.
Here is the tension. You are in a tough mission, but surviving. teh enemy brings in reinforcements. One of these mechs is a mech you would love to get your hands on. If you just blow him apart, you put yourself and the mission at less risk. But you really want that mech. So instead of just shooting center mass, you are now aiming for legs, arms, and shoulders. You are intentionally keeping the mech alive in hopes of taking out its pilot. All the while, its dealing more damage and you are attacking it in a suboptimal way in hopes of getting its salvage. Its a system that makes you push past points you should, which is great.
Salvage claim
Lets talk strategic layer for a couple minutes. One X-Com complaint that is heard all the time is the death spiral. BT does not have a death spiral. In BT you run a mercenary company. You lose the game if your company goes bankrupt. I have a run going where I've had two complete squad wipes. All battle mechs on the mission destroyed, all pilots killed. After that, I sold off a bunch of stuff to raise money to pay salary, perform repairs, and hire new pilots. You can go to different planets that have different mercenary contract difficulty. My squad was wiped on a level 4 planet trying to salvage some advanced mechs. It failed. I went back to some level 2 planets and rebuilt. It set me back 2-3 hours in game time, but eventually i could continue my run.
All in all, a very good game. Quite a bit different than other turn based tactics games. It has a good campaign, and if you enjoy has a lot of room for expansions. So anyone else playing and enjoying it?
Battletech has been out a couple months, and is an excellent game. Its based on the boardgame. I never played the board game, and I don't think it has affected my enjoyment at all.
Battletech is a turned based strategy game with a pretty good management portion also. I was a big fan of Jagged Alliance, X-Com and X-Com 2, and am a big fan of this. So if you've played these games, and like them, or not, why should you play Battletech?
Its quite a bit different in important and subtle ways, both tactically and strategically. For the comparison, I'll be invoking X-Com 1/2 a lot.
X-Com is about killing fast and not getting hit. You are using soldiers. They are squishy. They die quickly. You're generally fighting aliens who are also squishy. focus fire, take them down, move on.
In Battletech, you aren't using squishy soldiers. You are using, and fighting against, 30 meter tall 100 ton giant robots. You get hit. You can take hits, so can your opponent. Managing the damage you are taking is very important. Instead of trying to find the highest cover, you are examining where your mech is damaged. Can you make sure you have an undamaged side facing your enemy? Can you focus down certain parts of an enemy? Its quite a different system than X-Com.
The bottom left of this pic shows your mech. most of it is white, which means armored. One arm is already gone however, and the shoulder is red (no armor taking damage). So here is a situation where you are trying to keep your armored side facing your enemy, and he's trying to get around to your damaged side.
Along those same lines, in X-Com, a soldier is killed, and he's removed from the game. In BT, every section of a mech can be destroyed, and you can still salvage and repair it after the battle. It'll take time and money, but you can do it. Your pilots on the other hand can die. This makes for some excellent tension. How far do you push a damaged mech and risk the pilot? You can eject the pilot, guaranteeing he survives, but taking that mech out of combat. Do you risk a pilot with 1 or 2 health left getting his mech knocked down or having a right torso explode possibly killing him? While a mech may be salvaged, the weapons on the mech can be destroyed and need to be replaced with a weapon you have in storage. Have an extremely rare weapon mounted on a mech? better protect it! A mech can be replaced, a destroyed weapon cannot!
A mech with just about every part damaged and an arm blown off
Lets talk about another tactical difference from X-Com, initiative.
at the top of the screen you see 5 bars, one red, some with pips. This is initiative. In X-Com, you can move your guys in whatever order you want. In BT, you have light, medium, heavy, and assault mechs. They take turns in that order. Manipulating the order is a large part of the game. Even though your light mech can act first, does it make sense to reserve him to later in the turn. If you can knock down your opponent, one of the benefits is it drops a spot in the initiative. If you can knock down that enemy medium mech, you may be able to finish him off with a heavy before he acts.
One issue X-Com had was putting pressure on you in the tactical level. Their solutions to this were sloppy at best. X-Com 1 introduced Meld. This was a resource that expired so you had to race to get it. X-Com 2 had missions with turn timers. Both were less than ideal, and the turn timers were borderline hated.
BT introduces salvage, which works beautifully. You can buy mechs. the selection of mechs to buy is very limited, and very expensive. The better solution is salvaging mechs you've destroyed. It takes 3 pieces of salvage to make a mech. Every time you kill a mech, they drop 1 piece of salvage of that mech type. BUT! If instead of just blowing them to pieces, you just take out a both their legs, they drop two pieces of salvage for that type. Lastly, if you manage to take out the pilot, you get three pieces of salvage, which essentially gives you that mech.
Here is the tension. You are in a tough mission, but surviving. teh enemy brings in reinforcements. One of these mechs is a mech you would love to get your hands on. If you just blow him apart, you put yourself and the mission at less risk. But you really want that mech. So instead of just shooting center mass, you are now aiming for legs, arms, and shoulders. You are intentionally keeping the mech alive in hopes of taking out its pilot. All the while, its dealing more damage and you are attacking it in a suboptimal way in hopes of getting its salvage. Its a system that makes you push past points you should, which is great.
Salvage claim
Lets talk strategic layer for a couple minutes. One X-Com complaint that is heard all the time is the death spiral. BT does not have a death spiral. In BT you run a mercenary company. You lose the game if your company goes bankrupt. I have a run going where I've had two complete squad wipes. All battle mechs on the mission destroyed, all pilots killed. After that, I sold off a bunch of stuff to raise money to pay salary, perform repairs, and hire new pilots. You can go to different planets that have different mercenary contract difficulty. My squad was wiped on a level 4 planet trying to salvage some advanced mechs. It failed. I went back to some level 2 planets and rebuilt. It set me back 2-3 hours in game time, but eventually i could continue my run.
All in all, a very good game. Quite a bit different than other turn based tactics games. It has a good campaign, and if you enjoy has a lot of room for expansions. So anyone else playing and enjoying it?
06-30-2018
, 03:08 AM
