BattleTech coming back via Kickstarter

[ColdSteel]

Well, with the Paypal funds included, they've hit the 2.5 million mark and MP will be added. I was waiting to see if they hit that to see if I wanted to back it or not. If they looked like they were not going to hit the MP goal, I would have backed it. Since MP is in, I will wait until it comes out and see what impact that actually has on the single player portion of the game before I buy it. I think they made a bad mistake there, but time will tell.

I don't think it will be a problem (famous last words, I know ). As I understand it, they aren't trying to add multiplayer to the entire game, they're just adding multiplayer arena combat on Solaris VII. Aside from consuming development resources, it should have little-to-no impact on things like play balance in the main singleplayer game. As long as they haven't seriously underestimated the budget to add the multiplayer component, I think they'll be fine.

Agreed. Plus they are successful Kickstarter veterans so they know how to budget things properly. Plus, not sure how much balancing there needs to be...all they should be doing is recreating the mechs that already exist in the pen and paper system (which has decades of balancing built into it in terms of mech designing and assigning Battle Value (BV) to each mech so that two players can pick a lance each from a set BV total (say 1000) so have fairly balanced battles.

I'm not worried about budget. I am worried about balance. MP has serious implications for SP most of the time because of balance decisions. Most of the time MP balance decisions have a detrimental effect on the fun of playing SP. I've seen it many, many times so I am indeed worried about it. I'll just wait and see what they deliver before jumping in.

[Max Peck]

Well, with the Paypal funds included, they've hit the 2.5 million mark and MP will be added. I was waiting to see if they hit that to see if I wanted to back it or not. If they looked like they were not going to hit the MP goal, I would have backed it. Since MP is in, I will wait until it comes out and see what impact that actually has on the single player portion of the game before I buy it. I think they made a bad mistake there, but time will tell.

I don't think it will be a problem (famous last words, I know ). As I understand it, they aren't trying to add multiplayer to the entire game, they're just adding multiplayer arena combat on Solaris VII. Aside from consuming development resources, it should have little-to-no impact on things like play balance in the main singleplayer game. As long as they haven't seriously underestimated the budget to add the multiplayer component, I think they'll be fine.

Agreed. Plus they are successful Kickstarter veterans so they know how to budget things properly. Plus, not sure how much balancing there needs to be...all they should be doing is recreating the mechs that already exist in the pen and paper system (which has decades of balancing built into it in terms of mech designing and assigning Battle Value (BV) to each mech so that two players can pick a lance each from a set BV total (say 1000) so have fairly balanced battles.

Yeah, that is what I was thinking. Designing a game from scratch and incorporating multiplayer balance is one thing, but they are implementing a ruleset with about 3 decades of "playtesting" and balancing behind it. If anything, the multiplayer component is an easier task (more famous last words!) than the single player game -- it's essentially the base skirmish game with netcode and no need for opforce AI.

[IceBear]

Well, with the Paypal funds included, they've hit the 2.5 million mark and MP will be added. I was waiting to see if they hit that to see if I wanted to back it or not. If they looked like they were not going to hit the MP goal, I would have backed it. Since MP is in, I will wait until it comes out and see what impact that actually has on the single player portion of the game before I buy it. I think they made a bad mistake there, but time will tell.

I don't think it will be a problem (famous last words, I know ). As I understand it, they aren't trying to add multiplayer to the entire game, they're just adding multiplayer arena combat on Solaris VII. Aside from consuming development resources, it should have little-to-no impact on things like play balance in the main singleplayer game. As long as they haven't seriously underestimated the budget to add the multiplayer component, I think they'll be fine.

Agreed. Plus they are successful Kickstarter veterans so they know how to budget things properly. Plus, not sure how much balancing there needs to be...all they should be doing is recreating the mechs that already exist in the pen and paper system (which has decades of balancing built into it in terms of mech designing and assigning Battle Value (BV) to each mech so that two players can pick a lance each from a set BV total (say 1000) so have fairly balanced battles.

I'm not worried about budget. I am worried about balance. MP has serious implications for SP most of the time because of balance decisions. Most of the time MP balance decisions have a detrimental effect on the fun of playing SP. I've seen it many, many times so I am indeed worried about it. I'll just wait and see what they deliver before jumping in.

I understand that and if it was going to be a real time game I might agree. However, as it stands, they sound like they are taking the table top game and making it into a PC game. So, the amount of armor, weapon loadout, weapon ranges, heat buildup, etc should be identical to the pen and paper game and that's been playtested to death (and other than when I ran a RPG Mechwarrior component with it) is all multiplayer. So, it's not like they are going to say, oh, this mech is unbalanced in MP we need to nerf it as those issues have already been worked through. Honestly, the pen and paper system has a section on building mechs and it's all tradeoffs on weight. Now, the only thing in the 3025 era is that it should be difficult to customize your mech from "stock" as a lot of that technology has been lost, but it sounds like you can in this game so there might be some concern there. Honestly, however, I can't think of any reason to make any changes to the single player game for mp here. If anything, changing things from how it works in pen and paper might anger more fans than anything.

In the tabletop world, it all comes down to Battlevalue (which MP will probably use too - or one of the various terms they used over the years) to assign a mathematical value to the "worth" of your mechs. Then the battle will take place between two sides with relatively equal Battlevalues. That's how they balance MP in the tabletop and don't see why they wouldn't do the same here.

[RMC]

Are there skills for the pilots that might be hard to implement in the PC environment that might need to be balanced if they want them to be included.

It has been many years since I have even looked at a battletech book, let alone played anything, so there might not be anything like that, but that would be all I could think of that might need tweaking for the PC version.

[IceBear]

Yeah...that might be the only thing if they implement something like that. I know in the tabletop version the default system is a piloting and gunnery skill. That is your base target number on 2d6 to shoot something or to avoid falling over. There were talents like Hotshot that let you roll 3d6 and keep the best two when shooting but I can't remember what the offset was.

There are more detailed stuff in the Mechwarrior rpg books so there's an established system there if they want to use it, but I agree that's about the only concern I might have but don't think any tweaks in that area for mp are going to mess up single player

[RMC]

Yeah...that might be the only thing if they implement something like that. I know in the tabletop version the default system is a piloting and gunnery skill. That is your base target number on 2d6 to shoot something or to avoid falling over. There were talents like Hotshot that let you roll 3d6 and keep the best two when shooting but I can't remember what the offset was.

There are more detailed stuff in the Mechwarrior rpg books so there's an established system there if they want to use it, but I agree that's about the only concern I might have but don't think any tweaks in that area for mp are going to mess up single player

Yeah, I think you can make a good SP game and a good MP game, but when you want the same game to work for both SP and MP it get's a million times harder, not impossible but harder to balance. I will most likely not play MP, so I just want a good SP game. <shrug> I will buy this game when it comes out, unless it becomes a real time shooter or something.

[IceBear]

I do understand your concerns as I have seen it happen in the past too. However, in those cases these were new game systems that started as single player and they added in MP later. The thing with Battletech is that the core of it is meant for MP skirmish play. For them to make a SP game they need to make sure the campaign is balanced, the individual missions are balanced and the AI isn't brain dead. All the SP game should be is a MP game vs AI

[Holman]

It's hard to imagine that a faithful computer evolution of tabletop Battletech wasn't designed to include multiplayer from the beginning. If they hadn't hit the $2.5M target, they would have gone there with DLC.

[Holman]

Kickstarter complete at $2,785,537. Hit all the marks.

IS IT OUT YET??

[RunningMn9]

This is the first time I have backed a video game pre-release. If this goes ill for me, I'm blaming all of you for making me want it.

[$iljanus]

Just got an update with a link to some pre-alpha footage which looks really nice. Developers are playing a capture the base mission. There are features missing like no melee but it's expected since it's a pre-alpha version. The mechs look really good to me and I like the little things like the sound they make as they stomp through the terrain. Also the UI looks pretty uncluttered and streamlined.Enjoy!

Fun pre alpha footage of mechs on the prowl

[Rip]

That looked really fun.

[tru1cy]

That lucky PPC head shot on his Atlas was hilarious. If that was my game I would have been pissed lol

[Rip]

That lucky PPC head shot on his Atlas was hilarious. If that was my game I would have been pissed lol

Yea, it is sweet that doing so was possible. Just hope it is very rare, I can't afford to buy a new monitor after I smash it.

[IceBear]

I suspect it's rare. I know in pen and paper you needed to roll a 12 on 2d6 to hit the head. Most of the time that wouldn't be enough to kill a pilot or blow the head off (Think the Atlas has 9 armor points on the head). You need to get through the armor to have a chance of rolling a critical hit, and then if you do make a critical hit, you need to actually hit the cockpit to kill the pilot). I actually did that once when I was running a Mechwarrior RPG for my group. The Atlas had 8 armor (they couldn't afford to completely repair it) and was marching boldly forward like a 100-ton assault mech should to repel some pirates in light mechs. I had the Wasp attack the Atlas with a medium laser and SRM-2. Roll to hit with laser...hit! Roll for hit location...12...head! 5 damage, leaving 3 armor points. Roll to hit with SRM-2....hit!....roll to see how many missles hit...both of them...roll hit location for 1st missle...12...head!...2 damage leaving 1 armor. Roll for hit location of 2nd missle....12...head...last armor point gone, 1 goes internal. Roll for critcal...crit!...roll for crit location...cockpit! Boom...dead mechwarrior and a 100 ton paperweight. Yeah, I had to duck a lot of thrown dice at me for that lucky streak.

[$iljanus]

Liked that scout mechs can be useful since they can provide targeting info for other units lacking LOS.

Also liked the way that poor Atlas went down.

[NickAragua]

That's pretty much everything I imagined the game would be when I backed it.

[Sepiche]

Only watched a bit here at work, but looks amazing.

[Grifman]

I watched the video last night, looks much better than I thought it would. Really like the job they did with the movement range and LOS indicators. Graphics looked very good and the gameplay fun, with interesting tactical decisions to be made.

[Rip]

It looked like the LOS effect of trees and hills was looking real good. I also loved the graphics of the indirect fire. Many games have them going too straight. Those had a nice obstacle avoiding arc. Looked like Mechcommander on steroids.

Throw in some nice pilot RPG elements and I'm orgasmic.

[killbot737]

Looks good so far. Can't really watch it with sound and listen to the intelligent guy in back bec-GUY IN FRONT IS LOUD AS FUCK.

[Holman]

I watched the video last night, looks much better than I thought it would. Really like the job they did with the movement range and LOS indicators. Graphics looked very good and the gameplay fun, with interesting tactical decisions to be made.

That's exactly my impression! The terrain and environment are so much more detailed than I expected.

[GreenGoo]

I assume I said somewhere in the thread that I'd buy it if it made it to release, assuming it wasn't a complete trainwreck.

That hasn't changed. Looking forward to it.

[Paingod]

I backed it because I love Mechs and really haven't had a BattleTech/MechWarrior title fail me (that I can recall).

I'm excited to see what they produce when they're taking this much time and effort to make sure they're giving themselves a lore-friendly area to work with where nothing has happened that anyone else covered in order to lay out their own story without butting against other stories.

[IceBear]

Sweet, sweet melee combat

[Smoove_B]

Yeah, I was just about to come in and post the update info - those animated shots look awesome.

[Paingod]

Update Page

Spoiler:

Don't forget to add three free days of Premium time in MechWarrior Online - code: MechWarriorOnline_Gift_2016

[GreenGoo]

Thanks for the gifs. Damn that looks sweet.

[IceBear]

Hmmmm....backer beta is just over a month away....yay

[Rip]

Crap every time I see this thread I think finally I can play it.



I will be totally stoked if it is half the game I am hoping for.

[$iljanus]

Crap every time I see this thread I think finally I can play it.



I will be totally stoked if it is half the game I am hoping for.

Well if you're a beta backer you can play half a game in a month or so! I'm excited to see what progress they've made.

[Rip]

Crap every time I see this thread I think finally I can play it.



I will be totally stoked if it is half the game I am hoping for.

Well if you're a beta backer you can play half a game in a month or so! I'm excited to see what progress they've made.

Can you still get in? If so, when is the deadline?

[coopasonic]

Crap every time I see this thread I think finally I can play it.



I will be totally stoked if it is half the game I am hoping for.

Well if you're a beta backer you can play half a game in a month or so! I'm excited to see what progress they've made.

Can you still get in? If so, when is the deadline?

It looks like the $50 tier has beta access:
https://battletech.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders/55985

[KDH]

.
Backer Beta Delayed <--- forum post

From Kickstarter Update #36:

full forum post: (15 hours ago .. in a galaxy far, far, away)

Backer Beta Delayed

Greetings MechWarriors! Klimecky back again with important news about our Backer Beta. A series of unfortunate events prevents us from hitting our target release date and, as promised in our last update, we’re letting you know as far in advance as we can. This change may come as a surprise, given it’s only a few weeks after announcing the target release date but sometimes game development throws us curve balls at just the wrong moment. As a wise man once said, “*** happens.”

Developers are constantly weighing risks vs rewards during a project, often with incomplete information. In this case we made two big decisions in the leadup to Beta and both turned out to have a bigger impact on the project than we planned for. Here’s what happened:

Our development infrastructure desperately needed an upgrade but the fixes caused lots of short-term headaches. HBS has a history of “toughing it out” and working with sub-optimal back-end tools because we want as much development time as possible to be spent on game features and fun. Eventually however, a system becomes too painful to use and we bite the bullet and pay the development price. In this case, we had two vital systems that required improvement for the Backer Beta, so we decided to “tear off the bandage”, hire a professional IT contractor, and get all the work done at once so our engineers could stay focused on the game.

Unfortunately, the infrastructure upgrade process caused several issues including delays in getting new versions of the game built. This consumed time from our Lead Engineer, our Test Lead, and myself. Without the ability to test our work in new “builds” of the game, progress slowed. It has taken the better part of 3 weeks to get back on track, but we finally feel like we've cleared the hurdle.

An upgrade to the latest version of Unity brought the game editor to its knees. Unity is the game engine we build BATTLETECH on top of and when the company updates its software, game developers need to take a hard look before deciding to take the plunge and install it. In this case, we determined that the update was required for beta because it contained performance optimizations that would greatly improve the gameplay experience for nearly all our participants and for some, make the game playable at all on their machines.

Now, we know from experience that whenever you update major software in the middle of development things WILL break, so we diligently planned time for integration and bug fixing. Unfortunately, while the upgrade succeeded in improving the game’s performance, the changes in Unity broke a lot more of our systems than anticipated - with these consequences proving more time-consuming to troubleshoot and address than any other Unity upgrade we’ve done in the past (including on previous projects). We were relieved to learn that at 2:30am this morning, our engineering and technical art team removed the final productivity sink and were able to start our Monday with a solid infrastructure and performant game editor.

As you can imagine, it’s been a frustrating few weeks in the studio. The entire project slowed dramatically just as we were attempting to hit the gas for the final weeks until Beta launch. The team continued to push as hard as they could, refusing to give up on our March 15th target date, but the slowdowns and instability were punishing. The leadership group decided to step back and take a good, hard look at the situation. We decided it was best to stop the crunch and focus on finishing the infrastructure and editor work before reviewing our quality level and reassessing the target date for the Backer Beta.

Now that our technical issues are behind us, the team is focused on quality and on delivering an experience that shows the world why HBS loves BattleTech and why everyone else should, too. As soon as we have a new target date that we can confidently announce, we’ll send out another update. We are dedicated to delivering a great Backer Beta, even if that means taking a little longer with it.

Regarding the final release date for BATTLETECH: As noted during our livestreamed dev Q&As and on our forums, once we unlocked all of our Kickstarter stretch goals, our estimated release date of May was no longer valid. Way back then we said things like "Summer 2017.” Now that we're further along, we're targeting a Late Summer / Fall release of the game - but we won't be announcing a more exact release date until we're much closer in!

Again, we deeply appreciate your support for the project.

-- Chris Klimecky, Sr. Producer

[NickAragua]

Considering that all my computer Battletech related hopes and dreams are riding on this project, I'd rather these guys take the extra time and get it done right. HBS seems like a well-disciplined organization, so I'm sure they've done their homework financially speaking.

Really happy I don't work at a game dev place though. I don't care how much I enjoy programming, if I had to crunch as regularly as these guys, I'd wind up on the five o'clock news in a "human interest story" including an interview with some neighbors who would claim that "he was such a nice guy, I just don't know what possessed him to do something like that".

[Archinerd]

Honestly, a delay of a few months doesn't make any difference to me. I have so many interesting games to play in my back log I won't get to it at release anyway.

[NickAragua]

Honestly, a delay of a few months doesn't make any difference to me. I have so many interesting games to play in my back log I won't get to it at release anyway.

Yeah, that too.

[Punisher]

Slightly disappointed, but I can live with it. Have multiple things to keep me busy for a while.. I am looking forward to this. Been a fan of the board game since BattleDroids and the original Mechwarrior was the main reason I bought my first PC. In fact I bought the game before I bought the PC and took it to the store to check compatibility.. Ended up buying the PC at PC Richards because they actually let me install the game on their demo PC to make sure it worked! I played for about 2 hours, then once I had the money went right back to them.

[IceBear]

New screenshots

[Paingod]

I really hope the gameplay lives up to what we've been seeing. I'm excited to be in on this one at the ground level.