BattleTech coming back via Kickstarter

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Sat Oct 03, 2015 4:11 pm

BTW for those looking for more history on the universe or looking into the tabletop rules or rpg rules here's a page with links to official free material:

http://catalystgamelabs.tumblr.com/post ... experience

DD* · Post by DD* » Mon Oct 05, 2015 8:54 pm

In @ 50. Shadowrun tipped the scales for me...

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Tue Oct 06, 2015 7:57 am

I was in for $50 as well. I look forward to grabbing this through GoG - I prefer to have stand-alone installers that don't require a 3rd party platform. Steam works well and I don't have any real issues with it, but sometimes I don't like that it's always in the middle. I've started buying anything I can from GoG and using Steam as a secondary option.

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Tue Oct 06, 2015 11:30 am

My main concern is I have had issues with patches being late on GOG compared to Steam. Hopefully that's in the past with the new client

Archinerd · Post by **Archinerd** » Tue Oct 06, 2015 11:52 am

IceBear wrote:My main concern is I have had issues with patches being late on GOG compared to Steam. Hopefully that's in the past with the new client

May 2017 is a long way away, it could be improved by then if it's not already.

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Tue Oct 06, 2015 12:50 pm

Oh yeah, I know. Was just wondering if that generic issue is no longer the case with the new client. I default to Steam for new games because of an experience I had in the past where I needed a patch and it took forever (or so it seemed) to show up on GoG. Other than the Witcher 3 don't really have anything new on GoG to check to see if the patches are simultaneous (I figure Witcher 3 being from the same publisher makes it hard to say if it's fixed or not but it's probably not a relevant concern anymore)

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Tue Oct 06, 2015 4:11 pm

I am really tempted by the swag in the $125 level but doubt I will bother as that $75 could be used for Fallout 4, but would love a Davion hat

$iljanus · Post by **$iljanus** » Tue Oct 06, 2015 4:31 pm

IceBear wrote:I am really tempted by the swag in the $125 level but doubt I will bother as that $75 could be used for Fallout 4, but would love a Davion hat

I was just about to post the same thing about the $125 swag. I don't necessarily need it but the armored fist of House Steiner is pretty cool.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Tue Oct 06, 2015 5:55 pm

Paingod wrote:I prefer to have stand-alone installers that don't require a 3rd party platform. Steam works well and I don't have any real issues with it, but sometimes I don't like that it's always in the middle. I've started buying anything I can from GoG and using Steam as a secondary option.

We could be twins. That's me as well.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Tue Oct 06, 2015 7:06 pm

IceBear wrote:I am really tempted by the swag in the $125 level but doubt I will bother as that $75 could be used for Fallout 4, but would love a Davion hat

Yep, I'd love a hat and I'm not a huge battletech fan.

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Tue Oct 06, 2015 7:12 pm

I am hoping the hats are added as addons later

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Fri Oct 09, 2015 10:13 am

IceBear wrote:I am hoping the hats are added as addons later

Hope, they've said that's not happening. Too much work to fulfill them.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Fri Oct 09, 2015 10:17 am

Maybe they'll put hats on the mechs in-game.

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Fri Oct 09, 2015 10:22 am

Grifman wrote:
IceBear wrote:I am hoping the hats are added as addons later
Hope, they've said that's not happening. Too much work to fulfill them.

Thanks. I thought I had heard that but was too lazy to look to confirm. I might bump up my pledge at the end of the campaign if I have the money (not likely )

NickAragua · Post by **NickAragua** » Fri Oct 09, 2015 10:52 am

I got super pumped up at the idea of playing a battletech campaign, so I went searching on the internet. Hoo boy. If I want to play through a mercenary campaign instead of just random skirmishes, I apparently have to do use these disparate pieces of software:

1) Megamek for tactical battle resolution. Seems fairly usable, until you decide to do an 8 vs 8 mech battle, at which point each individual AI move (not turn!) appears to take about five minutes. Not to mention the decisions it makes aren't even that good (and I'm no battletech expert). Looks like someone wrote a shitty AI!
2) MekHQ so that you can manage your company.
3) "Against the Bot" and "Force Maker" to auto-generate your company and opposition.
4) Some kind of contract generation tool.

Basically, what winds up happening is you perform an action in one of the five pieces of software, save your changes, import then to the next one, do something else there, save it, import to the next one... yikes. Alternately, I get to join an online league full of "comic book store guys" from the Simpsons. "Worst... episode... ever."

So, I'm pumped up for someone to unify all these things and throw a nice graphical layer over it. Also, the decision to set the game in 3025 means that you don't need to put up with the fifty extra layers of rules introduced by later years. Just plain old giant robots stomping the crap out of other giant robots and maybe some vehicles/infantry/helicopters.

I also sincerely hope that the soundtrack guy ups his game a little, because I wasn't too thrilled with the Hong Kong soundtrack (the music from Seattle/Berlin was quite good though).

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Fri Oct 09, 2015 11:14 am

I'm actually pretty excited to start in 3025 too. As you say, it's a very basic game, leaving tactic as or more important than technology. If they want to have the game progress into clans timeframe, that would be fine too, but I like having the basic rules, basic mechs with basic tech. There is still enough there for me to have a lot of fun. The toys can come later.

Freezer-TPF- · Post by **Freezer-TPF-** » Fri Oct 09, 2015 3:08 pm

It's going to be hard to wait until 2017 for this one.

Archinerd · Post by **Archinerd** » Fri Oct 09, 2015 4:44 pm

Freezer-TPF- wrote:It's going to be hard to wait until 2017 for this one.

It's easier than waiting until 3025 for it to become a reality.

Max Peck · Post by **Max Peck** » Fri Oct 16, 2015 6:55 pm

I see they've added a little something-something for those interested in the table-top game:

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Sat Oct 17, 2015 7:30 pm

I just put them over. Literally. Pledged and within 30 secs they announced the $1.85 million goal had been passed

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Sat Oct 17, 2015 8:56 pm

Good for you!

By what I can see, they will also make the $2.5 million goal, but they will need a healthy final-days push to do it.

Stuie · Post by **Stuie** » Sun Oct 18, 2015 7:57 am

Grifman wrote:I just put them over. Literally. Pledged and within 30 secs they announced the $1.85 million goal had been passed

Can you kick in another 300k for the home base customization and legendary mechs/mechwarriors please?

Biyobi · Post by **Biyobi** » Sun Oct 18, 2015 2:10 pm

Stuie wrote:
Grifman wrote:I just put them over. Literally. Pledged and within 30 secs they announced the $1.85 million goal had been passed
Can you kick in another 300k for the home base customization and legendary mechs/mechwarriors please?

+1 C'mon Grif, don't be so cheap.

Doomboy · Post by **Doomboy** » Sun Oct 18, 2015 4:22 pm

Really looking forward to this. Battletech was my favorite universe until Fallout came along. I remember getting an Amiga just to play a Battletech ripoff that allowed you to make characters and mechs and fight battles and do contracts. I played that game for years. Made all the original mechs in it, and had a blast.

The only thing that I worry about with this new version, is what mechs are we going to get? I remember most of the more iconic ones from the 3025 era had to be removed because of a lawsuit from the Robotech folks. Without Marauders and Warhammers and Riflemen, it just won't be the same for me...

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Sun Oct 18, 2015 5:46 pm

Doomboy wrote:Without Marauders and Warhammers and Riflemen, it just won't be the same for me...

I remember playing those mechs in MechWarrior 2. What caused the lawsuit?

Doomboy · Post by **Doomboy** » Sun Oct 18, 2015 6:26 pm

Wow. That is so very odd. I just did a search, and they were in Mechwarrior 2. I played that game, and I have no memory of them being in it.

All I remember is that after the first Mechwarrior game, they had to remove most of the iconic battlemechs because they were basically exactly the same looking as a lot of the mecha in Robotech.

I guess there won't be a problem after all. Except for the 2 year wait.

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Sun Oct 18, 2015 7:30 pm

Yeah I want to say that those mechs are back in the mix although just realized they weren't in MW Online

Status of the unseen mechs when it comes to the tabletop game (not sure what is applicable to this game):

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Unseen

Brief explanation of why the situation came about:

When FASA created the BattleTech boardgame in 1984, the designers licensed the rights to use pre-existing Mecha from other IPs, namely the Japanese anime series' The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Fang of the Sun Dougram and Crusher Joe as visual representation of several 'Mechs and other units within the BattleTech universe (under new names and with BattleTech game stats devised entirely by FASA). However, during a series of lawsuits in 1994 FASA found out that Twentieth Century Imports (TCI), from whom FASA's rights to the images derived, might not have been in a legal position to provide these rights to FASA in the first place. The lawsuits were settled out of court.

As part of the settlement agreement, FASA forfeited the right to use the images henceforth. As this affected many core designs which have been described as the bedrock of the BattleTech universe at the time, this was a serious blow to FASA. All existing products featuring pictures of the "Unseen", be it on the cover or in the rulebooks—effectively most if not all BattleTech publications—had to be discontinued, and while numerous other designs remained that could still be depicted, this massively affected the BattleTech line.

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Mon Oct 19, 2015 9:09 am

I've seen that mess before, and it just makes me sad.

However, there are a lot of other good Mechs to work with and my personal favorite is the Catapult. Don't know why. The Giant Chicken is just very iconic to me. The Atlas seems to visually change over time to be meaner, bigger, badder - but the Chicken seems to stay the same. The first Mech I bought with in-game cash in MWO was the Catapult K2.

I'm really psyched about the possibility of both a Single Player mode and a Mercenary Campaign. I LOVE playing the role of a Mercenary Mech Commander and look forward to this with great enthusiasm. The KS is just inches from granting customized living space, which is also awesome. After that, the Legendary MechWarriors and PvP are more or less "Whatever" events for me.

I'd simply love a never-ending Mercenary sandbox with access to Solaris arena competitions against AI on a (in-game) yearly basis.

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Mon Oct 19, 2015 10:15 am

Yeah....but if you read the link it basically says that since the mechs became Unseen the artwork has been changed so the mechs can be used but won't look like the Robotech versions we all know and love

NickAragua · Post by **NickAragua** » Mon Oct 19, 2015 10:53 am

My favorite mechs, the Timberwolf and Dire Wolf are unlikely to make an appearance (being clan mechs and all), so I don't have a dog in this particular race.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Mon Oct 19, 2015 11:30 am

NickAragua wrote:the Timberwolf and Dire Wolf

NickAragua wrote:I don't have a dog in this particular race.

I see what you did there.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Mon Oct 19, 2015 8:18 pm

I like Steiner assault mechs -- Zeus and Avatar.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Mon Oct 19, 2015 9:45 pm

The old school stuff are my favourite, and that includes the Robotech ones, so that's a shame. I had a special attachment to the Warhammer and the Trebuchet when I was first involved in the game, although I preferred to replace the PPC's with large lasers on the Warhammer. I wanted to like the Rifleman but he just sort of sucked.

Crux · Post by **Crux** » Tue Oct 20, 2015 3:41 pm

I just went in for $25. Can't wait to see this become a reality!

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Tue Oct 20, 2015 4:10 pm

I enjoyed the Marauder a lot. Too bad that's apparently gone. Though in any event my favorite load-out wound up being an Atlas with two Gauss cannons, two PPCs, two SRM6s, and two ER medium lasers.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Tue Oct 20, 2015 4:18 pm

El Guapo wrote:I enjoyed the Marauder a lot. Too bad that's apparently gone. Though in any event my favorite load-out wound up being an Atlas with two Gauss cannons, two PPCs, two SRM6s, and two ER medium lasers.

The Marauder was one of my favourite miniatures. It's very iconic looking. Unfortunately, if I remember correctly, it was very iconic looking for Robotech as well.

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Tue Oct 20, 2015 4:48 pm

It might still be in the game, it just might look different:

https://www.google.ca/search?q=reseen+m ... HgodFO0GdA

Max Peck · Post by **Max Peck** » Tue Oct 20, 2015 5:41 pm

I went looking to see which mech the Marauder is, and yeah, that is about as iconic as it gets for Robotech. Right up there with the Veritech.

Appropriately, for this point in the thread, I also found this:

IceBear · Post by **IceBear** » Tue Oct 20, 2015 6:00 pm

Max Peck wrote:I went looking to see which mech the Marauder is, and yeah, that is about as iconic as it gets for Robotech. Right up there with the Veritech.

Appropriately, for this point in the thread, I also found this:

Yeah the Timber Wolf was called the MadCat by the Inner Sphere because it looked like a cross between a Marauder and a Catapult

Doomboy · Post by **Doomboy** » Tue Oct 20, 2015 10:05 pm

I'm sure that if they are back in the tabletop version by virtue of looking a little different, then they will be in the game. I don't care that they look a little different. I just want them in the game.

Cause it ain't BattleTech without them for me.