BattleTech coming back via Kickstarter

[Paingod]

The "pauses" are not the game engine doing any sort of calculations, they are built in (by design) and can be edited out - see my previous post above for a link on how to do it. I guess the designers wanted it to seem more dramatic and "weighty", which is OK the first few times. After instance 328 it starts to get very old...

Okay, they took it too far, then. I get that Mech combat looks good a little herky-jerky, but not that much. I'll have to check that out.

[LordMortis]

If the in turn pausing between actions is an actual feature then I don't want a mod. I want an innate ability to turn it off and would appreciate the thought process that went in to take the time to code it,

[AWS260]

My Dragon now consists of a head and two legs. Ouch.

[Archinerd]

I had a bug last night where I killed an enemy mechwarrior with a head shot (head not destroyed) but his mech kept fighting on forcing me to kill him again by knocking out his CT. It's a little frustrating, because instead of getting an intact Cataphract I was only able to salvage 1 piece.

In other news, I did the Smithon mission last night.
Came out with all my mechs still standing, but just barely. Thanks RNG gods, especially for the favorable rolls when Dekker was getting shot by that nasty little Jenner.
The Shadowhawk 2H was missing an arm and had no armor left on CT, RT or RL.
Dekker's Hunchback 4G looked like a dressed rabbit with only armor remaining on it's head and one back shoulder.
Behemoth's Thunderbolt 5SE took a beating and was missing the right arm and shoulder and left leg. She was fighting with just 3 medium lasers at the end.
Glitch only had a few dents in her armor, as she was hanging out at the rear providing indirect fire support in her JagerMech JM6-A. At least until she ran out of lrms.

I think part of what went wrong was I split my fire between a few heavily damaged enemies too much, and failed to take any of them down for a few turns. If I had just focused on one of them at a time I would have eliminated them much quicker and Behemoth wouldn't have gotten sucker punched in the back by an armless Panther.
Still, a win is a win.

Objectives completed;

Spoiler:

Stop convoys? Nope
Preserve Ammo Crates? Kind of
Kill enemies? Yes

[Archinerd]

If the in turn pausing between actions is an actual feature then I don't want a mod. I want an innate ability to turn it off and would appreciate the thought process that went in to take the time to code it,

According to yesterday's announcement from HBS, they are going to give us options to speed up gameplay a bit with the patch at the end of this month.

[Paingod]

I had a bug last night where I killed an enemy mechwarrior with a head shot (head not destroyed) but his mech kept fighting on forcing me to kill him again by knocking out his CT. It's a little frustrating, because instead of getting an intact Cataphract I was only able to salvage 1 piece.

Zombie Mech!

I had a really great headshot last night with an AC10. Cleaned out all the armor and the head was left with 1hp. Later in the round, a called-shot LRM20 finished the job.

As a side note, I keep trying headshots with LRM's - and even though my Called Shot Master is showing like an 18% chance to hit, I don't get any damage there attempt after attempt. Maybe 1/3 to 1/4 of the time I get a knock on the cockpit. 20 missiles, 20 chances to hit 18%. It seems like it should be more reliable.

[$iljanus]

I'm more amused than angry now about this bug which I like to call "Medusa's Very Very Unending Bad Day". I had movie night on the Argo and I believe the situation was one of the lancemates was calling out movie dialogue and I guess spoiling the movie for Medusa. The boisterous lancemate had High Spirits for a few days while Medusa was in a Low Spirit funk. When the time period for the morale modifier expired however, Medusa just kept having a case of the sads. It's been going on for weeks now and in my head he just doesn't take the same joy he once had when he was stomping and killing mechs. He's reminding me of Marvin the Robot from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

This is a known bug that can crop up after a movie night or sharing coffee between crew members. Sometimes you can have never expiring High Spirits too but it just wasn't to be for Medusa. Maybe I need to get Yang to build him a little mech puppy.

A more annoying observation is recently I've been noticing that the game is starting to slow down at times either during battle or on the Argo. A memory leak has been reported in the usual forums.

[wonderpug]

I had a bug last night where I killed an enemy mechwarrior with a head shot (head not destroyed) but his mech kept fighting on forcing me to kill him again by knocking out his CT. It's a little frustrating, because instead of getting an intact Cataphract I was only able to salvage 1 piece.

Zombie Mech!

I had a really great headshot last night with an AC10. Cleaned out all the armor and the head was left with 1hp. Later in the round, a called-shot LRM20 finished the job.

As a side note, I keep trying headshots with LRM's - and even though my Called Shot Master is showing like an 18% chance to hit, I don't get any damage there attempt after attempt. Maybe 1/3 to 1/4 of the time I get a knock on the cockpit. 20 missiles, 20 chances to hit 18%. It seems like it should be more reliable.

Elsewhere I read that only the first missile in a salvo gets to roll for the headshot. Don't know for sure if it's true but it'd explain what you're seeing.

[NickAragua]

Man, I'm rolling in it now. Up to $10M in cash, and after the spate of difficult story missions, they're now back down to three skulls. Some of these missions tell me stuff like "it may be a good idea to bring faster mechs", and my response is "yeah, whatever, I've got a Highlander with jump jets".

I'm really rolling in it now. Tried out the Battlemaster, and it works about as expected. Lots of heat, so I either fire the PPC at long range or the lasers and SRMs up close. Also tried out the Katapult (the one with dual PPCs). It's not bad, but the lack of jump jets is annoying. Pulling off the machine guns doesn't give enough room to put in real jump jet capability and, in any case, the PPCs generate so much heat that jump jets are impractical.

Encountered the laughable Banshee assault mech. The one with a single PPC, an AC/5 and a small laser. It was an assassination-type mission and took place in the deep woods, so I was able to take it (and a Locust buddy) with minimal damage. Then, I get the 'extract' objective and it's right beyond the "reinforcement" lance. Of course, I outmassed them by a factor of about two, so it wasn't much of a fight.

I still wind up fielding at least one 55-ton medium each mission, preferably with a mechwarrior who's got the skill that puts their initiative up by 1. Now that I'm facing mostly medium+ mechs, this still allows me to have one of those mechs that effectively acts twice in a row if I reserve.

There are definitely intentional pauses, and I've had the RPS-recommended fixes applied since the original dude first put them out on reddit. It's a noticeable improvement. The price is that, sometimes, the computer stutters when I blow up a lot of parts of a mech at once (think alpha strike from an assault mech that results in an ammo explosion or CT destruction or something else that results in a lot of sound effects). Still better than waiting two or three seconds after each attack.

[DD*]

The current lance:

1. Shadow Hawk SHD-2H (fire support)
   • 2xLRM10++
   • AC2++
   • 320 or 360 rounds for the LRMs – can’t remember which
   • 560 pts of armor
2. Thunderbolt TDR-5SE (general brawler)
   • PPC+
   • LRM5, one slot of ammo
   • 2xML
   • 1200 armor points
3. Quickdraw QKD-5A - probably my most effective mech
   • 5xML
   • SRM6
   • 880 armor points
4. Orion ON1-V
   • 2xAC5
   • 2xML
   • SRM2
   • 1160 armor points

For reference, I just completed story mission 3(?) where you have to blow up something big to get some help from that person. Didn't want to mess with spoiler tags.

My basic strategy could be considered somewhat cheesy, but it has worked so far and there are no prizes for second place.
In any mission, I usually move up once, then the SHD finds a nice place to hole up. The 3 “big” mechs continue the advance. Once contact is made, I try to maneuver all three of the brawlers to focus fire while hammering the target(s) with LRM rounds from the SHD. The AI almost always will focus on one or the other of the big mechs and/or spread their fire among all three. The SHD almost never lays eyes on the enemy and I think I’ve taken one or two volleys over 20+ missions. Having 3 mechs close to or over 1000 points means I can hang for a while as the LRMs rain in. Currently working to get a “real” LRM boat but the SHD is doing nicely right now.

The downside is that you are essentially spreading a whole lance’s worth of enemy fire over 3 mechs instead of 4, which can be an issue. I have run into situations where this tactic can be difficult to implement, but that seems to be more related to the difficulty slider than anything else (I dropped into a 2.5 skull mission and found 8+ mediums and light-heavies all within sensor range, all with full armor and weapons. That did not go well…)

I just got the Orion; that role was previously handled by a Hunchie (AC10 + 2 ML in place of the AC20) with 1000 pts of armor and prior to that a Wolverine with 1LL, 2ML, LRM5 I believe. All of my mechs have adequate heat sinks for at least 3 alpha strikes in any terrain but desert/moon. All have jump jets.
I put my best gunner in the SHD and my best scout pilot (+1 initiative) in the Orion – now I have a heavy that moves a phase earlier. Helps it to keep up. Having multi-target for the LRM boat and at least one/two other mechs is useful, IME.

One thing I learned – I have the training modules on the Argo, so my pilots (I keep 3 or 4 spares) are constantly getting training points. However, I don’t train them until I need them – the more highly skilled they are, the more they cost you per month. I store all of my non-essential mechs for the same reason. Since there is no real time crunch on contracts, I have a few days to pull out whatever inventory I need and prep them for combat. Similarly, if a gunner gets hurt, well I can just train up his replacement since he’s sitting in the barracks with 8000 banked training points. Currently averaging between 2M and 4M in the bank depending on the day, only a handful of Argo "tier 3" updates left. I sell pretty much every light or medium mech that I salvage unless it is really unique. Weapon inventory is also purged on a regular basis.

I implemented the “audio” fix that I posted earlier and it has made a significant improvement in combat performance. I’m debating whether to do anything with actual mech movement as that seems to be a bit more involved and I’m sure there will be additional mods (or maybe actual patches!) at some point. The improvement to combat speed just from the audio tweak is definitely noticeable and I’ve seen no adverse effects (knock on ferro-steel).

[Freyland]

I had a bug last night where I killed an enemy mechwarrior with a head shot (head not destroyed) but his mech kept fighting on forcing me to kill him again by knocking out his CT. It's a little frustrating, because instead of getting an intact Cataphract I was only able to salvage 1 piece.

Zombie Mech!

I had a really great headshot last night with an AC10. Cleaned out all the armor and the head was left with 1hp. Later in the round, a called-shot LRM20 finished the job.

As a side note, I keep trying headshots with LRM's - and even though my Called Shot Master is showing like an 18% chance to hit, I don't get any damage there attempt after attempt. Maybe 1/3 to 1/4 of the time I get a knock on the cockpit. 20 missiles, 20 chances to hit 18%. It seems like it should be more reliable.

Elsewhere I read that only the first missile in a salvo gets to roll for the headshot. Don't know for sure if it's true but it'd explain what you're seeing.

Is indeed only the first missile of the salvo.

[Sepiche]

I had a bug last night where I killed an enemy mechwarrior with a head shot (head not destroyed) but his mech kept fighting on forcing me to kill him again by knocking out his CT. It's a little frustrating, because instead of getting an intact Cataphract I was only able to salvage 1 piece.

Zombie Mech!

I had a really great headshot last night with an AC10. Cleaned out all the armor and the head was left with 1hp. Later in the round, a called-shot LRM20 finished the job.

As a side note, I keep trying headshots with LRM's - and even though my Called Shot Master is showing like an 18% chance to hit, I don't get any damage there attempt after attempt. Maybe 1/3 to 1/4 of the time I get a knock on the cockpit. 20 missiles, 20 chances to hit 18%. It seems like it should be more reliable.

Elsewhere I read that only the first missile in a salvo gets to roll for the headshot. Don't know for sure if it's true but it'd explain what you're seeing.

Is indeed only the first missile of the salvo.

Be nice if that were more apparent, but makes sense from a balance perspective. Given that any hit on the head gives the mechwarrior an injury, I'm guessing even only a 1 in 50 chance of hitting the head caused too many head hits when you have to roll it 20 times or more.

[DD*]

I’ve seen a mod that made a head hit have to inflict a certain amount of damage before the pilot would be injured. The intent was to show that cockpits are armored and you’d need to break through or degrade the armor before that piddling MG could hurt the pilot. Makes a lot of sense to me...


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[NickAragua]

There's also a cockpit upgrade that makes mechwarrior injuries from head shots less likely. Found my first one last night.

Of course, you have to trade off being able to mount an improved comms system, which means you get fewer precision shots and vigilance.

[Paingod]

There's also a cockpit upgrade that makes mechwarrior injuries from head shots less likely. Found my first one last night.

Of course, you have to trade off being able to mount an improved comms system, which means you get fewer precision shots and vigilance.

I'd trade either for the other right now, having found none of them. For all I've played and looked, the only mods I've found were the Gyro, Arm Mod, Leg Mod, and TTS (+1 Missile Acc)

[Archinerd]

I’ve seen a mod that made a head hit have to inflict a certain amount of damage before the pilot would be injured. The intent was to show that cockpits are armored and you’d need to break through or degrade the armor before that piddling MG could hurt the pilot. Makes a lot of sense to me...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm using it and it seems like a good balance.

Less Head Injuries mod on Nexusmods

[Rip]

There's also a cockpit upgrade that makes mechwarrior injuries from head shots less likely. Found my first one last night.

Of course, you have to trade off being able to mount an improved comms system, which means you get fewer precision shots and vigilance.

I just got one yesterday. Seems to be a really good one as it adds 3 injuries. As luck would have it, first mission with it took three headshots within 5 rounds. Walked away with no injuries. Screw that comms system, cockpit mods for everybody (once I can find three more).

[Rip]

There's also a cockpit upgrade that makes mechwarrior injuries from head shots less likely. Found my first one last night.

Of course, you have to trade off being able to mount an improved comms system, which means you get fewer precision shots and vigilance.

I'd trade either for the other right now, having found none of them. For all I've played and looked, the only mods I've found were the Gyro, Arm Mod, Leg Mod, and TTS (+1 Missile Acc)

Found mine at Cluff's Stand. Often seems to be good stuff there.

[DD*]

I’ve seen a mod that made a head hit have to inflict a certain amount of damage before the pilot would be injured. The intent was to show that cockpits are armored and you’d need to break through or degrade the armor before that piddling MG could hurt the pilot. Makes a lot of sense to me...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm using it and it seems like a good balance.

Less Head Injuries mod on Nexusmods

That’s the one - think I’m going to try that one tonight.

To be clear, the mod changes the injury mechanic. The cockpit slot upgrade basically gives you X number of free injuries before they impact the pilot. The underlying calculation as to whether the pilot is impacted is the same, and that calculation is the real issue, IMHO.


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[Hyena]

Does that mod also work on opponent pilots? One of my favorite things to do is LRM someone until they hit the ground Step Up punch him again till they get knocked down and then knock them down one more time to get a free Mech.

[IceBear]

I understand why pilot damage works the way it does, as this is from the tabletop game rules:

DAMAGING A WARRIOR
The following section provides a brief overview of how
damage aff ects warriors piloting or driving diff erent units. For
greater detail, see the appropriate Combat sections.
MechWarriors
Three types of damage to a ’Mech can also damage the
MechWarrior inside: head hits, falling and internal ammunition
explosions. In addition, excessive heat buildup can harm the
MechWarrior if the ’Mech’s life support system takes damage.
A MechWarrior can take up to 5 points of damage before dying
from injuries. The sixth point of damage kills the warrior.
Head Hits: The MechWarrior takes 1 point of damage
whenever the ’Mech’s head is hit, even if the hit does not
penetrate the ’Mech’s armor.
Falling: If a ’Mech falls, the controlling player must make a
Piloting Skill Roll for the MechWarrior. If the roll fails, the warrior
takes 1 point of damage. (If the MechWarrior is unconscious
or the ’Mech is shutdown, such a fall automatically damages
the warrior.)
Ammunition Explosions: An internal ammunition or Gauss
explosion causes 2 points of damage to the MechWarrior
as a result of the electric shock he receives through his
neurohelmet.
Excess Heat: When life support systems take a critical hit,
the MechWarrior suff ers 1 point of damage every turn that the
’Mech’s internal heat is 15 or higher on the heat scale at the
end of the Heat Phase. Every turn that the heat is 26 or higher
causes 2 points of damage to the MechWarrior if his or her life
support system is down.

The problem is, the slow nature of the tabletop game made it less visible of an issue that a machine gun can injure the pilot

[LordMortis]

Does that mod also work on opponent pilots? One of my favorite things to do is LRM someone until they hit the ground Step Up punch him again till they get knocked down and then knock them down one more time to get a free Mech.

Heh, I won't say its a favorite thing to do, but without having a clear explanation of how called shots work and see as how there is no such thing as a pilot skill check in this game, I play cat and mouse. I knock a mech down, let it get up for it's get up limited turn, while I attack other targets, and then knock it down again and repeat until the mech dies from which ever cause it dies from heal, legs, torso, pilot knock around, whatever. It often seems like a more efficient battle plan than shooting a fallen mech with called shots that don't show me the full math or physical attacks that can't be called and often much less damage than a weapons discharge.

[Archinerd]

Does that mod also work on opponent pilots? One of my favorite things to do is LRM someone until they hit the ground Step Up punch him again till they get knocked down and then knock them down one more time to get a free Mech.

It does as far as I know. But that doesn't stop you from using the strategy you outline above, it just makes it a tiny bit harder since a single missile won't cause an injury.
All the mod is supposed to do is set a min. damage threshold of 10 to head hits before it triggers an injury check.
Knockdowns and torso hits are not affected.

And somewhat related, I personally think lrms cause too much stability damage but I'm leaving it as is for now.

[IceBear]

Yeah...I think they tweaked lrms in the beta and based on the gameplan they announced with the patch it sounds like a balance patch is coming before the end of May. I'm think some of the damage values will be tweaked...since everyone seems to like the "pepper them with LRMs from out of sight" I'm sure it's going to be nerfed.

I think how the called shots work is if you hit (using your normal hit chance) then it rolls to see if it hit the location. If it doesn't then it rolls normally...I'm not sure if the missed targeted location is excluded or not in that second roll.

[Sepiche]

I think how the called shots work is if you hit (using your normal hit chance) then it rolls to see if it hit the location. If it doesn't then it rolls normally...I'm not sure if the missed targeted location is excluded or not in that second roll.

I think called shots just adjust the hit location percentages. If you make a called shot, I believe you can initially see the default hit percentages for each section, and then see them all change based on where you're trying to target the shot. This means you can use called shot not only to increase the chance of hitting a vulnerable spot, but to increase the chance of hitting the spots around it.

[DD*]

Generally, when I have a mech on its back I'll shoot for CT with the called shot, *unless* I've already blown one leg off. Then I'll sweep the leg. I figure if I'm shooting at center of mass, I have a better chance of hitting something else if I miss though I have no idea if the game concurs. Its been relatively effective so far, and I've just collected my 2nd Orion using this tactic, so...

[Fretmute]

Welp, just nailed my first ever first shot headshot with an AC/20.

That Jenner never saw it coming.

[Rip]

I look for a damaged torso that has ammo in it. Ammo explosions are an excellent source of pilot injuries to compliment falling down injuries. I look to see if I guys legs are weak while they are up so I can get a knockdown. I also look at leg/torso damage before I decide which side to flank. I often take off an arm/torso before the other side has been scratched.

[Bakhtosh]

Battletech white screen issue was fixed by turning off the Steam Overlay before starting the game.

[Paingod]

Last night I thought to myself "I've got three Orions, but I'm never going to see an Assault Mech if I don't try punching higher than my weight on missions" ... so I grabbed a 4.5 Skull "Eliminate Convoy" mission. I was expecting a face full of Atlas or something, but got pitted against 2 Heavies and 2 Mediums guarding four up-armored vehicles (Manticores & SRM Carriers). The opposing reinforcements dropped as the last vehicle died, and that consisted of a Demolisher and Quickdraw. Color me underwhelmed. I might need to move further down the story to crack open Assault Mechs in random missions.

To that end, I'm pushing down the storyline. I know these aren't the real mission titles. I'm terrible with names. If you've gone through the missions, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Vengeance

Spoiler:

This was almost disappointingly easy, or it could be me dropping with too much firepower. Probably the latter.

My Shadow Hawk scout moved up behind the first big hill and spotted a turret generator that we eliminated before we ran into the first Mech of the defending Lance. The Light/Medium defenders fell pretty easily, one each turn, to my combined Orion strike force. We moved up again and took out the second turret generator, and then with 6 turns left on the timer, we reduced the objective structure to cinders.

Immediately after that, a Heavy lance dropped to strike back. The Dragon moved once and never got up again after we knocked him down. AC10 fire ripped apart the others as they tried to get to us. The last Heavy, a Catapult-K2, met a grisly end of withering firepower and had it's legs sheared off.

The resulting salvage was impressive - combined with other parts I had, I walked off with three complete Mechs, including a K2. In total, I had one armor breach on a side torso of one Orion, but never came close to any real danger.

Now, I love the K2 personally and can't not use it - so I refitted it to become my new spotter. 2x+PPC, 4xJJ's, a pile of heat sinks, and very high armor all the way around. I know, deep down, that it's a poor Scout Mech because it's not fast. I don't care because I think it's awesome. My K2 and K2 Jester are my two most played Mechs in MechWarrior Online. With this build, the K2 can alpha twice, then continually fire off 1 PPC or cool down as it Sensor Locks.

The Castle

Spoiler:

Stage 1:
The Orion Trio and our new K2 were split up to stuff in a Kintaro. Darn. I had to come in with two Orions and the K2. We still plowed through this to the finish line, but got pretty beaten up as there was a lot of hostile Sensor Locking going on. It took some good maneuvering and damage distribution by exposing alternating sides to fire to keep everyone alive and we had some internal damage but no lost weapons.

Each turn, I pushed forward and took out turrets to clear the advance, and had to keep dealing with defenders coming up from the rear. It was a good battle that I wouldn't mind doing again. It was a slow crawl to the finish line, and I enjoyed it.

Stage 2:
Well, okay - so this is cool. Damn cool. During the briefing, I spend my time sweating, thinking that I'm about to engage a massive strike force with my battered Lance from the first phase of this. No way to repair and reload. We're going to die swinging.

Thankfully, that turned out to not be the case. StarLeague tech to battle! I LOVED the Light Lance's reaction when they found us.

The first half of this felt like bug squashing - and I think it was supposed to. I got myself a nicely inflated ego as my borrowed Assault Lance popped Lights and Mediums like balloons. That ego was promptly deflated when we hit the halfway point and had to square up against an opposing Assault Lance of theirs. I think, in total, they outweighed us.

That second stage was a sound beating on both sides, but we pulled through to victory with a lot of lost armor and exposed internals, a single lost arm, and no lost weapons. My Scout was down to 4 structure on his CT after a mistake I made in jumping him to "safety" that turned out not to be, and he sat out a good portion of the battle behind a large boulder, shouting words of encouragement and eating tinned rations.

Now I've got that shiny new Assault Mech to call my own, the flagship of my armada. This probably means I'll start seeing Assaults in high-end missions now as well. That's okay. I've been itching to collect some of them.

I was up until 12:45 last night finishing this last mission because I just didn't want to walk away from it. I had a good flow going and wanted to ride that wave.

I finally got a Comms Upgrade mod. It wasn't from a Store - although I think I now finally understand that maybe stars with a "Black Market" is where you can find Mech mods. I wasn't seeing them anywhere else. No. My mod came from salvage. For a LOOOONG time, I've been very focused on salvaging Mechs almost exclusively and anything else that fell into my lap was accidental. I wasn't even scrolling down the list to see what was there. Last night, though, I ran into scenarios where I had salvaged all the Mech parts I really needed and started thumbing down the rest of the inventory to find that there's actually some good stuff in there. It's not all ML's and Heat Sinks anymore. I'm seeing some ++ and +++ weapons in there. And mods. This is where my +2 Morale Gain Comms mod came from. Dammit. I should have been checking this stuff all along!

It's interesting to me that as I advance and my Mechs get heavier, different pilot skills are more appealing and I find myself wishing I had built them differently. It's probably circumstantial, though. Sometimes my Gunnery/Gunnery/Guts pilot seems to kick ass in a Heavy when I'm hitting targets with damage reduction bonuses. Other times, a Gunnery/Tactics/Tactics pilot is nice just to move earlier in the turn order - but I'm "wasting" that Sensor Lock to get it.

I think that when I start over eventually - and I'm sure I will because this has been fun - my main pilot will be Tactics/Tactics/??? and act as my primary Scout in every mission I can get him into. I plan to look through salvage lists more diligently. I want to see how the earlier missions play through, knowing more about the game now than I did then.

[wonderpug]

I look for a damaged torso that has ammo in it. Ammo explosions are an excellent source of pilot injuries to compliment falling down injuries. I look to see if I guys legs are weak while they are up so I can get a knockdown. I also look at leg/torso damage before I decide which side to flank. I often take off an arm/torso before the other side has been scratched.

How do you know what equipment is on a particular body part? I don't remember anything in the weapon/equipment list getting highlighted when I mouse over body parts.

[Paingod]

I look for a damaged torso that has ammo in it. Ammo explosions are an excellent source of pilot injuries to compliment falling down injuries. I look to see if I guys legs are weak while they are up so I can get a knockdown. I also look at leg/torso damage before I decide which side to flank. I often take off an arm/torso before the other side has been scratched.

How do you know what equipment is on a particular body part? I don't remember anything in the weapon/equipment list getting highlighted when I mouse over body parts.

I think if you hover over an enemy Mech's components for a second (or maybe click or right-click on them?) it'll show you what's built in there. It does the same for your Mechs on the paperdoll view. I use that frequently when trying to remember if I need to be worried about having an arm or torso destroyed and check to see if I'd lose anything valuable.

[IceBear]

I think you need to click on it and it'll list what's there.

There will be two paper dolls for the enemy mech when you're doing the called shot...you need to click on the area on the top one...not the one where you are selecting your target for the called shot

[AWS260]

Got a Jagermech last night. Man, that stock build sucks ass. Take the armor of a light mech, the slow speed of a jump-jet-less heavy and the lackluster firepower of its default autocannons and you get a mech that the AI targets mercilessly and breaches armor after a single salvo. After one mission like that, I replaced the default autocannons with twin AC/10s and upped the armor to reasonable levels, so at least now it can take a couple of hits without the mechwarrior complaining about armor breaches.

Thanks for posting this. I was underwhelmed by the Jagermech, particularly since it was my first heavy mech. Following your example, I've replaced those AC2/AC5s with an AC10 and an AC20, and now she hits like a Mack truck. Much more fun!

[Rip]

I think you need to click on it and it'll list what's there.

There will be two paper dolls for the enemy mech when you're doing the called shot...you need to click on the area on the top one...not the one where you are selecting your target for the called shot

Exactly. That same ragdoll is at the top anytime you target a mech. You can also right-click on a mech itself on the field and get a popup showing loadout and damage details. Hovering the cursor over an area on that will show damage for that part as well as equipment in that location.

Another info display I found by accident is if you right-click on the pilot pictures it will show you their skill levels.

[wonderpug]

Another info display I found by accident is if you right-click on the pilot pictures it will show you their skill levels.

I miss paper manuals. If it were an option, I'd probably have paid an extra $20 for a good old fashioned spiral bound manual for this game.

[LordMortis]

I found by accident

That seems to be the theme of the UI for me. That and "why isn't this consistent" sometimes you hover, sometimes you click, sometimes you right click, sometimes you can't interact at all. Sometimes escape will back you out. Sometimes it won't. <Space> isn't time time based hot key. Love the game part of the game. The IO and user feedback decisions and thought put in to them? Some of the worst I've ever seen.

[NickAragua]

The Castle

Yeah, the first part of that mission was a bit annoying, because I think the enemy units keep spawning until you get to the objective area. But, to get there, you have to break through them. And those units aren't exactly trivial - as I recall, they pack PPCs and a lot of LRMs. By the end of it, my Trebuchet was limping and the Thunderbolt I had was down to about three bars of armor.

The second part of the mission was a lot of fun, but between that and the next time you see that Atlas design, I've grown to really dislike the Atlas chassis in general. I still don't like coming up against it, but it's just way too slow for my tastes.

I had a pretty tough storyline mission yesterday. Brought my Highlander, Wolverine scout and a Thunderbolt, along with the aforementioned plot-provided Atlas. First objective is to intercept a convoy, except that all my mechs are slow as molasses. I made the mistake of sending the Wolverine up ahead to try to hold the convoy down, but no such luck: the APC got to the base where it was going, and then the Wolverine got pounded to scrap by two Strikers, a Griffin and three Bulldogs. And a bunch of LRM/20s from indirect fire. I finally got my heavies up on the ridge and started slowly dismantling the enemy units, one or two per turn. Every turn, I'd get sensor locked by turrets, catch about forty LRMs (thankfully, the hit rate wasn't too good) then blow up a tank. All that incoming fire really made me appreciate the amount of armor on an assault mech. Just as I'm about to finish off the last of the SOBs, a couple of light mechs come down the road from the west and three more tanks from the south. So I had to spend maybe six-seven rounds eating LRMs and blowing morale on Vigilance to stabilize my mechs.

So, my lance is at about middling armor, and we're starting to run low on ammo. We head to the updated objective area (blowing up turret generators with energy weapons along the way to conserver ammo). Once we get there, surprise, seven more mechs show up. Three mediums and four lights. It got to be quite a grinder. We ran out of LRMs, the Atlas ran out of AC/20 rounds, and my Highlander ran out of ammo as well. Atlas had an armor breach, Thunderbolt had an armor breach, and even the Highlander had almost no armor left. By the end, I resorted to punching enemy mechs to cool down.

Miraculously, the Wolverine pilot survived, although she'll be in the medbay for three months.

Kind of wish we had more missions like that, to be honest.

Tech and story spoiler:

Spoiler:

ER Large Lasers and Medium Pulse Lasers that are on Kamea's Atlas II are just awful. They generate an abominable amount of heat and don't really do good enough damage to compensate. She should have just kept her Kintaro, frankly.

[IceBear]

I think you need to click on it and it'll list what's there.

There will be two paper dolls for the enemy mech when you're doing the called shot...you need to click on the area on the top one...not the one where you are selecting your target for the called shot

Exactly. That same ragdoll is at the top anytime you target a mech. You can also right-click on a mech itself on the field and get a popup showing loadout and damage details. Hovering the cursor over an area on that will show damage for that part as well as equipment in that location.

Another info display I found by accident is if you right-click on the pilot pictures it will show you their skill levels.

Is there somewhere where you can see how many injuries an enemy mechwarrior has suffered? Sometimes I lose count and I'm thinking I've had a couple that needed 4 to take them out.

[coopasonic]

Is there somewhere where you can see how many injuries an enemy mechwarrior has suffered? Sometimes I lose count and I'm thinking I've had a couple that needed 4 to take them out.

I haven't found anyway to see it yet. Note that enemy mechs can have cockpit mods and presumably up to 5 health, same as your pilots.