BattleTech

INTRO:

The Battletech IP is about a dystopian sci-fi future where humanity has ventured into space but not exactly achieved the prosperity that the cosmos promised. The IP actually has a lot of rich lore, and despite being sci-fi, there is a lot of focus on the improbability of otherwise absurd would-be technologies.

For better or worse, not many people could see past the most obvious things about Battletech: its giant walking war machines. This rather narrow perception of the IP was so pervasive such that when the video game scene introduced the IP, the Mechwarrior line of games was better remembered than the name of the IP itself.

Consequently, the gameplay of most Battletech-licensed games focused more on driving a BattleMech around (and they invariably carry the “MechWarrior” name somewhere in their title). Not even FASA Interactive’s MechCommander series corrected this.

Now, Harebrained Schemes – in collaboration with Piranha Games (current holder of the MechWarrior license) – is the latest game developer to try to make a game with the Battletech IP.

BACKSTORY SETTING…:

As mentioned earlier, BattleTech is set in the far sci-fi future, but it is far from being a utopian vision. Tremendous inequality is still the norm, and most nations have progressed/regressed towards inherited rule because democratic systems are just too slow for interstellar governance (or at least that was the excuse). The “greatest” of the rulers-by-inheritance are the so-called Great Houses, who rule over vast swathes of known space, which by the way is called the “Inner Sphere”.

There are a number of canonical eras in BattleTech lore. In the history of the IP, the starting era was the mid-3020s, back when BattleTech was called Battledroids. (It was renamed afterwards because Lucasfilms has a very aggressive litigation arm.) Most video games prior to this one used the 3040s and 3050s settings instead, when the Fourth Succession War and Clan invasion happened, respectively. Some even used the particularly violent Jihad era as the setting.

Curiously, quite a number of recent BattleTech-licensed video games have chosen not to start their stories in those turbulent times, but rather much earlier. In the case of this game, it is back to the mid-3020s. This is perhaps just as well, because one of the founders of Harebrained is none other than one of the creators of the BattleTech IP.

… AND SLIGHT DISAPPOINTMENT:

However, if the player expects to be partaking in one of the major Inner Sphere wars, the player would be mistaken. Instead, the game takes place in one of the Periphery regions, which are at the fringes of the Inner Sphere. Specifically, the region that is used as the setting is the “Rimward Periphery”. This region has realms that may not be as powerful as the Great Houses, but they retained a lot of their technology and capacity for warfare, more so than most other Periphery realms.

This particular backdrop in the BattleTech universe is actually FASA Interactive’s own version of the malleable and customizable setting that often appears in RPG books. Incidentally, such settings often involve a lot of chaos and upheaval, such that the consequences of anything that have happened would never lead to canonical statuses.

Therefore, there is the criticism that this game is not being ambitious in its story-telling, especially considering that its promotional trailers and intro splash suggested that it might be so.

Indeed, it would not be until after the launch of the game that Catalyst Game Labs – the current developer of the BattleTech IP – would acknowledge that the events in this game’s story campaign are canonical. (They would still have a hard time implementing the Aurigan Reach into the later eras, however.)

PREMISE:

The player can begin a playthrough in campaign mode, which contains most of the storytelling effort that Harebrained has invested into the game. However, as mentioned already, the player should not expect the story to be tied in much with the major canonical happenings in the Inner Sphere.

Indeed, the premise of the story campaign might even seem cookie-cutter to long-time followers of story-telling. A monarchy – in this case, the Aurigan Coalition – has a recent upheaval due to the betrayal of relatives – in this case, the betrayers are an uncle and a cousin – that are close to the ruling family. The ruling family – House Arano – has only one survivor, Lady Kamea. She happens to be the most prominent protagonist whose name is acknowledged by every significant character.

Such a story of betrayal has been told many times before in medieval fantasy stories. In fact, the canonical betrayal of Stefan Amaris the Usurper in the history of the Inner Sphere comes to mind. Sole survivors of betrayals are nothing new either.

Of course, the sole survivor seeks vengeance, and needs allies for this purpose. This is where the player character officially enters the story. In typical Battletech fashion, the player characters are mercenaries, i.e. skilled soldiers whose employment is temporary and disposable at worst. Although the storytelling begins with Kamea narrating that the player character carried the day in her return to power, such protagonists are ultimately consigned to the oft-overlooked nooks and crannies of documented history.

In other words, Harebrained Schemes’ writers would not be strangers to such a story; they already have made a few Shadowrun-licensed games. Shadowrunners in that IP are not that far off from the mercenaries in Battletech in terms of the impact that they would have on the story-telling, i.e. official in-universe historical records are hazy or vague as to what the protagonists did. Thus, there is the impression that Harebrained was not being particularly ambitious in utilizing the lore of the IP.

STILL STERLING PRESENTATION:

On the other hand, Harebrained still has invested considerable effort into presenting the story. This is evident in the use of music, which will be described further later. There are lavish hand-drawn artwork, animated to have dioramic appeal.

Last but definitely not least, there is the writing. Curiously, most of the storytelling is delivered through statements and remarks by characters or documentation that is written in-universe, rather than an omniscient narrator as in the Shadowrun titles.

STORY CAMPAIGN & CAREER MODE:

In actuality, most of the gameplay – including that in the story campaign – is built around the “Career Mode”. The player is the leader and main decision-maker of a small mercenary outfit. (There will be elaboration on the word “small” later; this would be a complaint, by the way.) In-universe, this outfit is called a “command”.

The mercenary command starts in rather dire straits in the story campaign. The player’s options are severely limited, and the player would be doomed if the player does not pursue the story. To do anything more, the player has to pursue the story-related missions in order to unlock more of the features that would otherwise be in a playthrough that is started in Career Mode.

The story campaign also tamps down on the composition of enemy forces, either limiting their numbers or total weight until the player has passed certain milestones in the story. The Career Mode does not have such easing-in. This gives the impression that the story campaign is one long extended tutorial for Career mode.

After the story campaign has concluded, the mercenary outfit is released from service to House Arano with honours. At this point, the playthrough reverts to the usual mechanisms of Career mode, albeit the player has a significant backer in the form of the royal house that has regained its rule.

PASSAGE OF TIME:

The Career (and story) mode depends on a simple system of time to refresh its content for the player to peruse.

The passage of time is measured in days, weeks and months; the days are presumed to be based on the standard Earth day. A week has seven days, and a month has four weeks. Going into the next month is a significant occasion, as will be described later.

The passage of weeks and days are actually not really that important in the gameplay. They are mainly there for the player to keep track of when wounded or otherwise inconvenienced pilots would return to duty and/or when BattleMechs become battle-ready. There may be the impression of urgency from some of the story-related missions, but the player can actually take his/her time performing them.

THE MERC OUTFIT - OVERVIEW:

In the Career and story modes, the gameplay is split into two major components. One component is for the battles, whereas the other is for the management of the mercenary outfit. This article would begin with the latter first, because the gameplay for the former in those modes greatly depends on the player’s managerial decisions.

THE ARGO:

The mercenary command has a space vessel of its own. Indeed, in BattleTech lore, the operation of one is essential for a competent mercenary outfit, which needs to wander through space looking for work.

Anyway, the vessel, called the Argo, is practically the mobile home of the mercenaries. This is also where the mercenaries keep, maintain and modify their Mechs.

In the story campaign, the player begins with only the Leopard, which is among the smallest dropships that an outfit can have. It is inadequate, but the player would eventually get a much bigger vessel – the Argo. Incidentally, the Argo is also the vessel that the player starts with when playing Career Mode from the get-go.

(The vessel is a one-of-a-kind vessel that was conceived for this game. For one, it is incapable of atmospheric entry, yet unlike other space-only vessels, it is not a Warship. The backstory of humanity’s mostly-forgotten past of exploratory space travel conveniently accommodates its conception.)

Anyway, the Argo is never under attack in any way during any point in the gameplay; the Rimward Periphery is not a region that is known for having a lot of Warships (or even “Pocket Warships”, which are smaller naval vessels). The region does have a considerable problem of piracy, but the player should not expect actual gameplay mechanisms about engagements in space.

Therefore, the player either would be relieved that there is no significant gameplay complication from having a very large unarmed vessel, or would be disappointed because there is a wasted opportunity for space combat. (That said, there are text-only events where the Argo does come under attack by pirates. Its only defense is the otherwise armed Leopard dropship that is attached to it.)

SIMPLIFIED MAINTENANCE:

In the Career (and story) mode, the operation of the Argo does incur costs. These are inclusive of the costs of paying the crew, paying for their board and food, keeping Mechs battle-ready and such other necessities. The player does not have to worry about the exact details, because the player has an Executive Officer (XO) that handles such things. Therefore, the maintenance costs of the Argo and its assets are only represented as a summed amount that is incurred monthly.

The costs only become higher over time, due to reasons that will be explained shortly.

RESTORING THE ARGO:

In the story campaign, the Argo is a salvaged ship, to phrase its initial state in the kindest way. Although its basic functionalities are available, many of its systems are decrepit from neglect. Fortunately, they are not completely busted, and can be restored.

Restoration takes a lot of money, but expertise is not an issue because the ship conveniently starts with a crew of specialist engineers. The player only needs to pick a restoration project to start and pay the costs up-front. The engineers then give the time to completion, and are generally guaranteed to finish it by then.

A considerable portion of the gameplay in the Career (and story) mode is the player juggling money in between spending it on the outfit’s BattleMechs or on the Argo. The latter would reduce a lot of the downtime in between missions, but each upgrade also comes with additional operational costs that are cumulative. In other words, a gradually restored Argo not only makes the pursuit of missions easier and quicker, it also increase the expenses of the mercenary outfit over time, thus necessitating the higher rate of mission-taking.

NO MANUFACTURING-RELATED GAMEPLAY:

The Argo is described as having advanced facilities for repairing and maintaining BattleMechs and a storage depot that can pack a lot of Mech parts, among other things. There is even a remark by one of the characters that its automated systems can manufacture Mech limbs rather readily.

Yet, there is no gameplay about manufacturing parts. Rather, the Argo’s facilities are implied to be the reason for how the technicians in the Mech bays can cobble together even the biggest and most sophisticated Mechs from salvaged parts.

TECH AND MEDICAL POINTS:

The effects of the facilities on the Argo are further simplified to the feature of “Tech points” and “Medical points”. Tech points determine how efficient the technicians are at modifying Mechs, whereas Medical points determine how quickly Mech pilots (called “MechWarriors” in-universe) can recover from injuries. They are also used in some random events; random events will be described later.

STORAGE:

Before describing the gameplay element of readying BattleMechs, the Argo’s storage capabilities and limitations would be described.

Firstly, the Argo has a vast cargo hold. Space limitation is not an issue, even if the player has amassed a lot of stuff. There is no cost to having a massive inventory too. (Presumably, being in a space vessel with controlled environments means that there are no issues like exposure to the elements to worry about, but that may not be so in reality.)

However, bringing the stuff out of storage for use is another matter, which will be described later. That said, most of what would be going in and out of storage are Mech parts and chassis (or “chases”, for the plural term of “chassis”).

READYING OF BATTLEMECHS – OVERVIEW:

The following sections are about getting BattleMechs ready for battle and tricking them out to suit whatever whims of the player and (hopefully) the needs of the upcoming mission. The gameplay designs of the BattleMechs in actual battles are described later.

ONLY EVER ONE LANCE:

The Argo may be able to store many BattleMechs. It can have up to three Mech Bays, allowing up to 18 Mechs to be battle-ready.

Yet, the player only ever fields a lance of BattleMechs, i.e. four of them. The player can have more than just four Mechs in Career playthroughs, but only four of them go into the battlefield. This also includes battles in Skirmish mode.

This is a considerable limitation, especially to players that have played earlier BattleTech-licensed strategy games, namely the MechCommander series. Of course, the MechCommander titles lack many of the gameplay mechanisms in Battletech in order to implement their real-time gameplay without too many complications. Yet, in those games, being able to have more than just one lance of Mechs on the ground makes for more convincing battles.

NARROWER SCOPE:

On the other hand, the setting of the Rimward Periphery means that there are not as many BattleMechs here as there are elsewhere. The numbers are certainly much lesser than, say, the numbers in the Succession Wars. Therefore, the military forces in this region of known space are much more diffused, and the battles are much less ferocious. (In-game, there are veterans of the battles in the core regions of the Inner Sphere that would mention this difference.)

The circumstances of this setting are used to narrow the scope of the battles in this game, as will be described later.

“HEAVIER IS BETTER”:

Unfortunately, the narrower scope of battles is merely a salve to any disappointment that would be had from this limitation. One of the characters in the story campaign would sum up the consequences of this limitation in just one phrase: “heavier is better”.

There are few reasons to go for lighter lances, especially in the current build of the game. Even in missions where speed is important, e.g. catching prey before they escape and exit the map, the player can compensate by having Mechs with skilled pilots and long-range weaponry knock out fleeing enemies.

There is a wasted opportunity to field Mechs of varying weight classes and coming up with strategies to have them complement each other.

MECH CHASSIS:

The chassis of a Mech determines the variety and amount of equipment and hardware that can be installed onto it.

Mech chases are kept in storage without anything on them. If the player sells them off, they are sold without the parts, which in turn partially explains their noticeably low price compared to the (often ridiculously high) price of whole Mechs. That said, the player would be doing this a lot anyway; a major component of the mercenary outfit’s income is the sale of chases of Mechs that have been completed from cobbling together partial salvage (more on these later).

There will be more statements on Mech chases, where pertinent.

COMPONENTS:

A significant appeal of the Battletech IP and its licensed games is the kitting out of Mechs. Components are installed onto the aforementioned chases of Mechs to give them weapons, armor and such other things that are important in battle.

Like in the table-top game and just about every BattleTech-licensed games, almost every component that can go into a Mech can go into other Mechs too. This seeming universality of Mech components is explained away in the lore of BattleTech as a beneficial long-term consequence of the conception and evolution of BattleMech designs.

Still, a component has to be installed into a Mech, and this takes time. More expensive components are more complex, and thus takes more time to be installed.

Curiously, removing components does not cost any time. This is useful to keep in mind, especially if the player intends to shift components around or have a Mech inherit components from a Mech that is going to be put into storage.

REMOVING AND INSTALLING COMPONENTS COST MONEY:

Both the removal and installation of components cost money. Although the player gets to preview the changes that could be had from the modification of a Mech, any actual changes to the Mech must be paid for. This is a very important consideration. Together with the time for installation, it is a limitation that prevents the player from making changes willy-nilly.

As for the magnitudes of the costs, they are proportional to the default costs of the components. Therefore, more expensive and advanced components cost more to be installed and removed. (The costs for removal are much lower than the costs of installation, fortunately.)

The Mech Bays are where the kitting out of Mechs happen and where they are kept ready for battle.

Initially, there is only one Mech Bay, which allows up to six Mechs to be readied. Although the player can field only four Mechs in any battle, the player would want to have more Mechs just in case any Mech gets damaged.

Damaged Mechs cannot be fielded until they are fully repaired. Repairs can only happen while they are in a Mech Bay, and damaged Mechs cannot be sent into storage until they are repaired either. Until then, they occupy space.

Furthermore, and this is perhaps the most important reason to have available space in the Mech bays, is that partial salvage of Mechs is cobbled together and put it into a cubicle into the Mech bays. Actually, a cubicle is not needed for this to happen, but if the player wants to use the new Mech in the future, having an empty cubicle for it would have been convenient instead of having to swap out an existing Mech for it.

Hence, there is a need for space to keep both damaged and battle-ready Mechs, as well as space for Mechs that are being modified and Mechs that would be obtained from completing partial salvage. The first Bay alone is not likely to be enough to satisfy all of these needs.

That said, the player can have up to three Mech Bays. Each will incur maintenance costs, so the player will want to carefully consider opening the second and – especially – third bay. (Opening Mech Bays also add Tech points to the Argo.)

SENDING MECHS INTO STORAGE:

When Mechs in the Mech Bays go into storage, all of the stuff on their chases is removed and their chases are stored separately. Somehow, this process happens near immediately; for whatever reason, the Mech techs of the mercenary outfit are particularly skilled at doing this. Furthermore, no costs are incurred, conveniently.

Of course, this is for the sake of gameplay expedience, specifically the clearing out of unwanted Mechs.

BRINGING MECHS IN FROM STORAGE:

Bringing Mechs from storage into one of the Mech Bay cubicles is another matter. The process takes at least one day, during which the technicians cobble the Mech together using its stock parts. This process is implied to be faster than the process of modifying Mechs beyond their stock load-outs because the chases were originally designed to be assembled together with their stock parts.

A mech that is brought into the Mech Bay in this manner would be equipped with the components of its stock design. These components are taken from storage. If there are not enough components, the Mech comes into being anyway, but without the components that are short on supply. This will not speed up the process, however.

TOOLTIPS ARE VERY IMPORTANT:

For better or worse, detailed information about Mechs is presented through tool-tips that appear when the player hovers the mouse cursor over things that are displayed in the Mech Bay screen. (This also precludes the game from being adapted so easily for the console platforms.)

For example, detailed information about a Mech’s capability in close combat is not readily visible in the Mech Bay screen. To get this, the player needs to hover the mouse cursor over the “Melee” rating bar of the Mech. The tooltip appears after half a second of waiting.

USELESS METERS:

That said, the meters that are supposed to be estimates of a Mech’s capability are quite useless to a meticulous player. Indeed, they may even be misleading.

The worst example is the meter for Heat Efficiency. Giving a Mech a Heat Bank mod causes the meter to fill out significantly, even though the benefit of the mod is a lot less than the bump in the meter would suggest.

Another example is the meter for overall range. This meter gets confused by the inclusion of both very short- and very long-ranged weapons in the same Mech with nothing else in between.

It is unfortunate though that in the official build of the game, there does not appear to be any display option for swapping the meters for the detailed numbers of the tooltips.

BODY SECTIONS:

Each Mech that is featured in this game has been designed with certain phenotypic homogeneity. Each of them is bipedal, has one head and has two arms or facsimiles of them. Their torsos are separated into three sections: left, right and center. These body sections have significance in both the Mech Bay gameplay and in actual battle.

(Actual battle also involves the rear sections of the Mechs, which will be described later.)

In the Mech Bay screen, the aforementioned sections are where the player puts components into; this is of course a simplified visual representation of the things that go into a Mech. Still, this has been the system that is used in the table-top game, and has been so for the MechWarrior games too.

The MechCommander games used systems that are different, but were maligned for simplifying things too much. For one, the MechCommander titles used RNG rolls to decide whether weapons get destroyed when the arms and torsos of Mechs become vulnerable to catastrophic damage.

Therefore, the use of sections in this game gives the player more certainty. This certainty is much needed, because a lot of the gameplay during battles is dependent on RNG rolls; there will be more elaboration on this later.

SLOTS:

Each section is represented with a number of slots. Typically, bigger Mechs have sections with more slots than smaller Mechs, meaning that bigger Mechs can mount more components.

Anyway, the slots represent the amount of space in that section; this space is not to be confused with tonnage, which is a different factor that will be described later. (The table-top game has further categorization of the slots, but the video games including this one tend to use simpler adaptations.)

Each component takes up a number of slots; the minimum is one. The rules on their sizes in terms of slots lack any narrative or technological consistency though; this stipulation is mainly for the purpose gameplay balance.

(The writers for the Battletech IP try their best to rationalize the reason for a component taking up a lot of space, but much of the explanation is still either absurd science fiction or incredulous vagueness.)

That said, any component that the designers deemed as being too overpowered if stacked in multiples would have massive size in terms of slots.

For example, the Heat Bank is a component that increases the Overheating threshold and Heat capacity of a Mech (more on these later); having many of these means a Mech can fire a lot of weapons in a few turns without overheating too early. Thus, the Heat Bank takes up more than four slots, ensuring that it cannot be installed in anything other than the torso sections and arms. There would not be much space left for other components too.

HARD-POINTS:

Hard-points are intrinsic designs in the chases of Mechs. Hard-points determine the hard limits on the types and numbers of weapons that the Mechs can wield. No matter how much tonnage that the player can scrimp and how many components that the player can squeeze into the slots, the limits due to hard-points must be observed.

CHASSIS VARIANTS:

The silhouettes of Mech chases are just that: shapes. Their actual roles in battle are determined by their systemic quirks instead; these quirks are the reason for variant models within the same chassis line. The variations are often differences in the number of hard-points.

For example, there is the Catapult chassis, which exhibit the most variation with the most obvious visual differences. The mainline series, the C-series, has the Catapult performing its intended and name-sake role: indirect-fire support. Consequently, the C-series has mostly missile hard-points. In contrast, the K-series of the Catapult line swaps the missile hard-points for energy-weapon hard-points. Thus, instead of boxes of missiles, the Catapults appear to have laser guns for ears.

Perhaps the most sought after chassis variants are those that have differences in their other statistics. The most prominent of these are Star League-era Mechs, which often have better heat dissipation than the (much more economical) models that come later.

TONNAGE:

All Mechs have a nominal weight rating; the exact canonical weights might actually be different. In the lore of the IP, the weight ratings are there for the purpose of matching the load-outs of Mechs to the output of the reactors that power them. (Unfortunately, reactors are not an upgradeable element of Mech builds.)

Anyway, the weight ratings are referred to as “tonnage”. Tonnage can be further broken down into two types: tonnage that is already taken up by the integral workings of the Mech chassis, and the tonnage that is available for things that are installed onto the chassis.

The former often determines the innate performance of the Mech. For example, the Banshee assault Mech has a lot of this for its motors and musculature that make it among the most mobile assault-class Mech. A Mech that has a lot of these is likely to have the role of fighting in close combat. Incidentally, there is not much else that the player can do with these Mechs because they do not have the spare tonnage to be equipped for any other roles.

The latter tonnage is much more interesting. This is simply because the more tonnage there is for components, the more options that the player has.

The ratios of the two types of tonnage are the main factor of difference between different Mech chasses. For example, the Awesome has the same weight rating as the Zeus, but the Awesome is known for having more capacity for components in return for slower mobility. (The Awesome is more sluggish than other assault Mechs of the same weight.)

Obviously, a Mech cannot be fielded if it goes over tonnage; the player cannot even complete its modifications until this has been solved.

Tonnage does not matter in actual battle. For example, losing an arm would have made a Mech lighter, but this will not increase its speed. (The explanation for this is that the imbalance caused by missing limbs or torso sections offsets any gain in speed due to loss of mass.)

WEAPON RANGES:

Each weapon has ranges in which it is the most effective; this effectiveness according to range is implemented as accuracy penalties that the weapon would suffer if it is used at any other range.

Conveniently, the ranges of weapons are visually represented as arcs in translucent grey. If the weapons have overlapping arcs, the overlapped regions become more opaque, thus indicating the best ranges at which the Mech can use all of its weapons.

COMMON WEAPONS - FOREWORD:

All Mechs can make melee attacks, but a Mech without guns is not going to do much in battle anyway; coming to grips with the enemy makes a Mech vulnerable to being gunned down, or even counter-charged. Therefore, all Mechs need guns for the (many) moments when close combat is not feasible.

There are many types of guns; this is one of the appeals of BattleTech (and also one aspect where it is absurd). Each type of gun comes with setbacks and advantages, and subtypes within the same type generally has statistical progressions that exchange advantages for setbacks and vice versa.

In other words, there are few sureties in the builds of Mechs. The player must keep the advantages and setbacks in mind so that the player’s Mechs can contribute to battle as efficiently as they can.

The following weapons are ubiquitous weapons that can be had in the open markets. More exotic weapons are described in their own sections later.

LASERS:

Lasers are the second-most absurd sci-fi category of weapons in BattleTech lore. The IP was conceived during the 1980s, when lasers were trending in the sci-fi genre of stories. Of course, as the years gone by, the realities of experimental laser weaponry have made sci-fi lasers seem ridiculous. The writers of the IP have never bothered to reconcile such differences, even though they put a lot of effort into explaining other sci-fi technologies in the IP.

Anyway, lasers in this game are as one would expect from lasers in video games. They are direct-fire weaponry and thus work best with clear line-of-sight. They have no recoil, so they have relatively better accuracy than other weapon types.

All lasers generate considerable heat; this setback will be a major consideration in heat management, which will be described later. Indeed, one of the best ways to decide which laser to install into a Mech is its damage-to-heat ratio.

The main appeal of lasers is that they do not require ammo, meaning that Mechs that have them can keep shooting as the lasers are functional and they are not overheating.

There are two common archetypes of lasers: medium and large. Medium lasers are meant to be used at mid-range, in which they are the most accurate weapons. They have the poorest damage to heat ratios among lasers, however. Large lasers have longer reach and better damage-to-heat ratios than medium lasers, but are notably bigger and heavier.

Small lasers are placed under the category of support weapons, which will be described later.

AUTOCANNONS:

These are practically large-calibre ballistic guns. They require ammunition, which does take up space and have weight. Still, this is par for the course and not really a setback.

The main appeal of autocannons is that they do not generate much heat. They also have high damage output per hit, more so than almost any other weapon type. They also stagger their enemies more severely than other weapons. (The gameplay element that involves staggering will be described later.)

The worst setback of autocannons though, is their size and weight. Most of them take up at least two slots each, and the lightest of them still weighs five tons.

Furthermore, there is the matter of recoil, which is systemic to all ballistic weapons. This will be explained further later, but suffice to say that this prevents them from being fired in subsequent turns.

SHORT-RANGE MISSILES (SRMS):

Short-range missiles (SRMs) are dumb-fire missiles with no guidance, and are intended to be used to hit enemies up-close, as their name suggests.

They are perhaps the most peculiar weapons; heavy autocannons operate at their ranges and can inflict more total damage, whereas medium lasers are more accurate. Thus, their main appeal is the number of missiles that they unleash per volley; at least one of them is more than likely to hit the target, even with terrible RNG rolls.

Their other appeal is that SRM launchers are among the lightest weapons around, other than medium lasers.

LONG-RANGE MISSILES (LRMS):

Missiles have been effective long-range weapons, and so they remain in the sci-fi future of BattleTech in the form of the aptly- and simply-named long-range missiles (LRMs).

Unlike SRMs, LRMs have guidance systems, which is just as well because they are meant to hammer a faraway target with their volleys. LRMs launcher can fire a lot of projectiles, which have little punch on their own otherwise.

It should be emphasized that LRMs and SRMs share the same hard-points. Therefore, it is possible that a Mech that is usually tricked out for long-range fire support can be modified for close-range combat in the next engagement. Indeed, the Mech can have both, for maximized versatility.

SUPPORT WEAPONS:

For lack of a better naming convention, weapons like Machine Guns (MGs), Flamers and Small Lasers are lumped under “Support Weapons”. What exactly they support is only clear if the Mechs that they are mounted on get involved in pugilistic engagements; there will be more on this later.

Anyway, support weapons are among the lightest weapons in the game. They are also among the shortest-ranged. However, they do punch above their weight, and/or can cripple their targets. Incidentally, there are some Mechs that have a lot of hard-points for support weapons, if the player desires a goofy but brutally effective close-combat Mech.

The actual use of support weapons in battle will be described later.

PARTICLE PROJECTOR CANNONS (PPCS):

Particle projector cannons are the most absurd sci-fi weapons in BattleTech lore. Even to this day, there is still no consensus among the writers of the IP over how exactly they work. Any explanation that they give is still very much incredulous and relies on near-magical and at best hypothetical technology.

Anyway, these are energy-based weapons like lasers; they do not use ammo and generate a lot of heat. However, they are designed to operate over very long distances. They do not seem to work well against anything in short or close ranges, even though they are direct-fire weapons.

The main appeal of PPCs is that they inflict the “Sensors Impaired” de-buff; the Sensor Lock ability is the only other means of inflicting this de-buff. Otherwise, there are few reasons to use PPCs, other than their very long ranges; they generate too much heat to be considered useful for any other purpose in battle.

RARE WEAPONS – FOREWORD:

In BattleTech lore, the many wars have caused the loss of a lot of technology, typically due to scorched-earth strategies or attacks on infrastructure that can support wars (directly or indirectly). Consequently, there are some weapons that are no longer in circulation in the open markets.

(These weapons happen to be more complex and more expensive than most others, so there was not a lot of interest in recovering the technology to make them.)

Interestingly, the player will rarely if not never encounter enemies that use these weapons, at least not in the vanilla version of the game.

ER LASERS:

Extended-Range (ER) Lasers inflict more damage, due to having better focus and more powerful energy output than standard lasers. However, they also have higher heat output.

The main reason to use them is in their name; the extended range moves lasers into the group of weapons that can be used over long distances, a group which is otherwise dominated by LRMs and PPCs.

ER PPCS:

ER PPCs are PPCs that have been given the same traits as ER Lasers. They enter the group of weapons that are meant to be used over extreme distances, which are usually the purview of LRMs. ER PPCs allow their users to hobble their enemies with impaired sensors even before they join the fight.

GAUSS RIFLES:

In BattleTech lore, unlike the other rare weapons, the Gauss Rifles are a category of weapons unto their own. After all, the other rare weapons are modifications of otherwise reliable standardized mechanisms.

The Gauss Rifles fire slivers of metal over incredible distances at incredible speeds; the impact is tremendous. They generate noticeably more heat than other ballistic weapons, but their damage-to-heat ratio is still far higher than any laser or PPC, or even LRMs for that matter. Hence, this is the main appeal of Gauss Rifles; long-range punishment with little heat in return.

However, misses are very costly; Gauss ammo is surprisingly precious, apparently because very few alloys can withstand the rigors of being launched out of the weapons. Gauss rifles are also the biggest and heaviest weapons around, challenging even AC/20’s for the spot of being among the most massive Mech-mounted weapons. (Actually, in-universe, that spot belongs to the Long Tom artillery.)

WEAPON QUALITY:

In addition to weapon types, there is weapon quality. Each weapon has different models, associated with different manufacturers. The models with better quality are more expensive and rarer in supply, of course. (For the sake of convenience, these models have been marked in-game with “+” symbols – to the chagrin of Battletech purists who prefer the model names.)

The number of “+” symbols are rough estimates though; the player will want to check the specifics of the higher-quality models to determine what bonuses that they have.

The bonuses are fixed according to the models; the player should not expect procedural generation of bonuses a la the system in looter-shooter or hack-n-slash titles. This is due to emphasis on gameplay balance (even for the single-player portion).

On the other hand, coupled with the limitation on the number of Mechs that can be fielded, this also means that the player would eventually hit a limit in power progression in his/her playthrough.

HEAT SINKS:

All Mechs have innate heat dissipation, but this is generally not enough for the weapons that it would pack (unless it is a Star League-era Mech). Thus, there are heat sinks that can be installed for supplementary heat management. Each heat sink removes heat by a specific amount over every turn; generally, this amount cannot be buffed.

Heat sinks may be small in size and weight, but multiples of them can stack up to considerable tonnage, especially for Mech builds that have a lot more energy-weapons than is wise.

There are not many variants of heat sinks. There is the standard and common version of the heat sink. Next, there is the Star League-era double heat sink, which takes up two more slots for double the amount of heat dissipation, but no additional tonnage.

ODD WORK-AROUND FOR GETTING DOUBLE HEAT SINKS:

The latter kind of heat sinks are never on sale; they are considered as extinct technology (“lostech”, to use the in-universe term). However, they can be obtained by cobbling together salvage of Star League-era Mechs (or purchasing the Mechs outright if the player is ridiculously rich). Then, the player fishes the components out of them. This works, but it can seem clumsy.

HEAT EXCHANGERS AND HEAT BANKS:

Heat Exchangers reduce the amount of heat that is generated by weapons; this is very useful for Mech builds that have more weapons than sense. Heat Exchangers weigh at least two tons each, however.

As mentioned earlier, Heat Banks increase overheating thresholds and heat capacity. Heat Banks weigh only one ton, but take up many slots.

AMMO BINS:

Ballistic weapons draw their rounds from ammo bins, which take up space and tonnage.

Amusingly, ammo bins can be installed anywhere on the Mech – including even in ridiculous locations. For example, weapons have to be mounted on the arms or torso sections, but ammo bins can be installed in the legs or even the head. (The latter choice is especially silly and unwise – both in the lore and in gameplay.) Interestingly, this option is there in the table-top game too.

There is no explanation as to how ammunition can be somehow transferred from the leg to the arms.

That said, the reason for this is expedience and risk in gameplay. Legs with ammo bins are more prone to being blown off if their armor has been stripped off, for example. Cockpits with ammo bins that are breached are more than likely to be fatal to the pilot.

There will be more explanation on the risks posed by ammo bins in battle later.

HALF-BINS FOR MG AMMO:

For most ballistic weapons, there is only one type of ammo bin for each of them. However, in the case of machine guns, there are two types: the usual one-ton bin, and the half-ton bin with half of its usual ammo amount. The latter will be quite helpful in filling out the last fractions of the remaining tonnage in a Mech.

JUMP JETS:

That Mechs are actually a lot lighter than they look is (somewhat) proven through the usage of Jump Jets, which can launch Mechs into the air. Jump Jets can only be installed on the legs and torso sections of a Mech, which is sensible.

Jump Jets considerably improve the mobility of Mechs, allowing them to climb hills (as dangerous as this would seem) and land on top of buildings that can support their weight (which is even more foolhardy).

Speaking of which, there are three types of Jump Jets, each of which is associated with a certain weight range. The “standard type” is for Mechs of 55 tons or lighter. The “heavy” type is for Mechs of 60 to 85 tons. The “assault” type is for the heaviest of Mechs. The Jump Jets for heavier Mechs have higher tonnage, thus posing a dilemma between having tonnage for jump jets and having it for other components.

However, considering the options that Jump Jets offer during fights and outside them, having Jump Jets is very much recommended, if not necessary.

COCKPIT MODS:

Cockpit mods can only be installed in the heads of Mechs. In the official build of the game, there are several of these.

The simply-named “Cockpit Mod” increases the pilot’s ability to resist injury due to hits on the head (or head-equivalent) of the Mech. Unfortunately, the presence of this mod in the game is indicative of a fickle problem in the gameplay; this will be elaborated on later.

There is the Rangefinder, which increases the viewing range of the Mech. Being able to see further makes long-ranged weapons easier to use without having to resort to indirect fire (more on this later).

Perhaps the most useful cockpit mods are the Communications Systems. These increase the Resolve gain rate of the entire team; Resolve is a major element in battle, and will be described further later.

GYRO MODS:

Gyro mods generally have zero tonnage, because they are actually modifications of the skeletons of Mech chases. They can only be installed in the center torso, and they take up enough slots to prevent the installation of just about anything else in that section.

There are three types of gyro mods. The first reduces stability damage from landed hits, which in turn make a Mech harder to topple. The second increases the chances of melee attacks landing. The third makes attacks more difficult to land on a Mech.

The wise player would likely go for the third type of Gyro, if only to increase the survivability of the Mech.

TARGETING SYSTEMS:

Next, there are targeting systems. Each system mentions which category of weaponry that it is associated with. Any weapon that is mounted on that Mech that is in that category has its hit chances improved.

Targeting systems are unbelievably heavy things: they weigh at least one ton. They can also be installed in any section, including either leg. These peculiarities are likely for gameplay balancing.

ARM MODS:

Arm mods can only go into the arms of the Mechs. These increase the potency of their melee attacks. More powerful arm mods are heavier and bigger, apparently so in order to balance against the bonuses that they give.

It does not matter which limb that a Mech uses to attack with, by the way; the bonus from the Arm Mods are still applied, if they are still around.

LEG MODS:

The least of the equipment items is the Leg Mod. This reduces the damage that is inflicted on the Mech that is performing a Death from Above attack (more on this kind of attacks later). There are very few reasons to resort to Death from Above attacks, however, so these mods are not as useful as one would think.

ARMOR:

The last yet perhaps most important aspect of a Mech is its armor. There will be more on armor later, but it should suffice to say for now that the amount of armor on a Mech is proportional to its overall durability.

Armor does have weight, so the player will want to consider balancing durability with firepower – at least for Skirmish mode. In Career mode, survivability is far more important than any other aspect of the player’s Mechs.

Firstly, this is because armor replacements are “free”. A character in the story campaign even mentions that there is enough scrap metal around to be shaped and formed into armor. This explains the cheapness of armor, but the process is also quick too; this is not so well-explained.

(In the setting of the Rimward Periphery and the mid-3020s, perhaps this is appropriate; quality and made-to-design armor is rare in this setting, in which people have to make do with what they have. In other settings, especially the ones used in the table-top game, armor replacements actually come with costs and take time to be replaced.)

Secondly, armor is the ablative layer that must be stripped away before the more fragile parts of a Mech can be damaged. The fragile bits – its internals and components – take time and money to be repaired (or worse, replaced), if they are harmed. These repairs also incur downtime between missions, further stacking wasted time and opportunities to the costs that have already been incurred.

Therefore, having lots of armor would minimize downtime by preventing repairs for internals – something that is definitely beneficial to the long-term gameplay in Career mode and the story campaign.

PARTIAL SALVAGE:

In BattleTech lore, many means of producing Mechs have been lost to wars, especially that involve wholesale targeting of infrastructure and factories. However, Mechs have also been designed to be rather durable; a few parts can survive even the worst mangling and burning of a Mech. Hence, there is the secondary economy of salvaging wreckage.

In-game, the salvaged stuff from Mechs is implemented as units of “partial salvage”. Each unit of partial salvage is associated with a Mech model (emphasis on “model”). In order to cobble together a Mech of a particular model, the player needs to find enough units of partial salvage for that model. By default, this is three. (Some players who want greater challenge have complained that this is a low threshold, which in turn allows the lucky player to gain heavier Mechs earlier than they should.)

When a Mech is cobbled together, it goes into one of the cubicles in the Mech Bays. If there is no space, the player is prompted to either send the Mech into storage, or send one of the existing ones into storage. Either way, this is not convenient, especially if the player wants to have work done on the ‘new’ Mech while also retaining any Mechs that are already battle-ready.

COBBLED-TOGETHER MECHS HAVE STOCK COMPONENTS:

In addition to getting a Mech chassis from completed salvage, the Mech also comes with its stock components.

For most of the gameplay in Career mode, this is insignificant. In the case of standard Mech models, the stock components are not likely to excite the player much, especially if the player has been collecting higher-quality ones. Indeed, the player would likely just strip them off and replace them with something else.

However, in the case of Star League-era Mechs, the player would be fishing out the rare components from them, even if the player is not interested in the chassis itself (especially if the player is already fielding heavier Mechs).

REPAIRS AND REPLACEMENTS:

A Mech can suffer damage such that its components are damaged. Damaged components can be restored, fortunately, but for a cost. Costlier components typically cost more and take longer to be repaired.

However, if a component is destroyed, it has to be removed; this incurs cost, just like the removal of any working component. There is a feature to replace the component, but this is only there for user convenience; the replacement can only happen if the player has a spare of the exact same component.

BATTLE SYSTEM – PRAISES:

The following sections are mostly positive statements on the sophistication and complexity of the battles in this game. There will be some gripes in between these praising statements, but these would be minor complaints that can be waved away. The more serious problems will be described in their own sections later in this article.

HEXES AND PLANES:

The battlefield and the combatants may have 3D modelling and sculpturing, but in actual gameplay, they are occupying flat planes of hexagonal grids. These planes and grids make up the pseudo 3-D battlefield.

Therefore, each combatant has six facings. Consequently, each combatant can only be surrounded by six others; this is important to keep in mind when mobbing enemies in melee (though of course the player only has four playable units).

LIMITED VERTICALITY:

Although height is a factor in the battlefield, there is no true spatial verticality. To elaborate, a unit can occupy a hex cell in one of the planes of hexes, but the hex cells in other vertical planes cannot be occupied by others.

In other words, the player will never see a Mech standing directly below another. Indeed, there are no structures like fly-overs that would allow this occurrence. Even natural terrain like overhanging cliffs are omitted from this game so that this cannot happen.

CIRCULAR RANGES:

Interestingly, sensor and weapon ranges are implemented as circular variables, instead of hex variables. This is not unlike what has been done in the XCOM remakes.

To elaborate, a unit projects its sensor and weapon ranges in circles that are centred on it. Any hex cell that is completely within this circle is considered as within the ranges of the sensors and weapons. Any hex cell at the peripheries of the circles must have its area covered by more than half within the circle for the cell to be considered within range.

Any unit that is occupying a cell that is within range is considered to be in range of the sensors and weapons too. The size of the unit does not matter in this regard (though it does not matter in determining line of sight, which will be described later).

MOVEMENT:

Tactical turn-based gameplay in an actual battlefield with terrain more often than not emphasizes positioning as a major factor in strategies. In turn, positioning requires movement. How a Mech can move about would consequently determine what options that it can derive from its mobility.

All Mechs can walk and sprint. Their movement distances are measured in terms of hexes, which has been described earlier. Typically, lighter Mechs can move further for either mode of movement.

Obviously, having both legs would be optimal for moving about. Losing one leg prevents any sprinting; walking distances are not affected.

Losing both legs puts a Mech out of commission, even if the pilot is still conscious and the Mech still has working arms. (Interestingly, the table-top game does have rules that allow for a Mech without functional legs to continue operating, albeit it can no longer move from where it is.)

WALK & SHOOT (& SHOOT & WALK):

A Mech can walk up to the maximum distance where its movement still counts as walking, and still be able to fire its guns. This does not affect its accuracy.

Firing weapons end the turn of a Mech. However, Mechwarriors with the Ace Pilot skill can shoot first, and then walk. This is mostly useful if the Mech’s initial position is more useful for making shots.

SPRINTING:

In lieu of making any shooting attacks, the player can choose to have a Mech sprint instead. This lets the Mech move across longer distances, and gain more evasion charges (more on these later). However, sprinting away from battle would expose the Mech’s back to enemies, so this is not always a good method of putting distance between oneself and enemies.

TURNING:

In lieu of moving, a Mech can turn in place. In this case, the Mech can turn around any number of degrees and along any arc. Of course, a Mech that stays in place is very much an easy target.

A Mech can still turn after moving. However, the amount of turning that can be done depends on the distance moved and the number of turns that have been made along the path. Longer distances and more turns before stopping leads to smaller arcs of turning at the destination. This is the reason for the aforementioned statement about the risk of sprinting away from battle.

Jet-jumping allows a Mech to turn to any facing, as if it has not moved at all. This makes Jump-Jets incredibly useful for changing the facing of Mechs while also moving, but this comes with a price, of course.

JUMPING:

Speaking of Jump Jets, these allow Mechs to move over obstacles in their path, such as walls and sheer cliff faces. The height of the jump does not matter in the gameplay; only the horizontal distance appears to matter. (Indeed, in some circumstances, Mechs can jump ridiculously high.) Jumping is also useful in battle, due to the aforementioned convenience of changing a Mech’s facing.

Another appeal of jumping is that it is not affected by terrain limitations. (Terrain effects will be described later.) Furthermore, landing is not an issue, regardless of how precarious the Mech’s landing spot is. (In the table-top game, players are required to make rolls against their pilots’ skills if they land on tricky places.)

However, jumping generates heat, as is to be expected of rocket thrusters. This heat build-up is not massive, but it is considerable enough to make shooting guns after jumping riskier than not jumping in the first place.

BRACING:

When a Mech is not able to do much other than walk in its own turn, its only remaining option is to brace. Bracing ends its turn immediately, but grants it the Entrenched and Guarded status; these will be described later.

There are few reasons to brace, especially considering that the Vigilance ability does what it does without ending the Mech’s turn. (Vigilance will be described later.)

ARMOR, AGAIN:

Armor is the first layer of “hit-points” that Mechs have, to use a video game term. When kitting out a Mech, the player can choose the amount of armor that would be in each body section; this is the amount of armor that the Mech would have at the start of the mission.

Armor cannot be replaced during battle in this game (and in the table-top game), unlike the MechCommander titles. Therefore, the player will want to utilize strategies about keeping damage to a minimum.

As for the amounts of armor that a Mech can have, they appear to be dependent on its weight rating, instead of its chassis type and model. Indeed, for example, the King Crab and the Atlas – both 100-ton Mechs – have the same armor capacities. There is a wasted opportunity to further differentiate Mech chases here, but the simplification also keeps gameplay balance between Mechs in check.

REAR SECTIONS:

The rear sections of a Mech are connected to the torso sections on its front facing. For (not-always believable) engineering reasons, the rear sections of the Mech have much thinner armor and weaker internals (more on these shortly).

(BattleTech lore has tried to explain this away as part of the heat dissipation quirks of a Mech and/or easy access to its spine and reactor. However, players who are educated mechanical engineers and technicians might notice that their rears do not always have things resembling heat dissipating elements or access panels.)

Anyway, the rear sections are not to be considered as additional sections. If any of these sections is destroyed, the front section that is connected to it is automatically destroyed too. This happens regardless of any remaining armor and internals that the front section still has.

Furthermore, any attacks that land on rear sections bypass any defences borne from the pilot’s skills; bonuses from cover still applies, unless the attacker is using Breaching Shot (more on this later).

Therefore, it is important for the player to prevent the rear arcs of his/her Mechs from coming under fire. Unless, of course, the front sections had been so badly mauled that it may be wiser to have the rear arcs facing the enemy instead.

HITS ON LIMBS:

The limbs of a Mech have no front or rear sections. If they are hit from the rear or front, all damage is applied to the same meter. However, as mentioned earlier, hits on the rear bypass skill-derived protection, so it is easier to damage limbs from the rear.

INTERNALS:

After armor has been carved away from a section, the internals of that section are now vulnerable. When this happens, the initially grey section of a Mech’s “life-bar” becomes orange.

The integrity of internals is represented in the same way as that for armor, i.e. a meter. Like armor, internal meters are on a one-way trip to zero.

DAMAGE TO COMPONENTS IN SECTIONS:

As the internal meter depletes from further hits, the game starts rolling RNGs for component damage. Any component in the affected section is at risk of being damaged; components with the most slots occupied are likely to suffer first.

Moreover, there are high-quality weapons whose bonuses are improved “critical” chances, which translate to greater likelihood of components being damaged when they land hits on exposed internals.

Damaged components have poorer performance. Considering how fickle the RNGs in this game can be, it is not in the player’s interest for this to happen to his/her Mechs.

COMPONENTS BEING DESTROYED:

Damaged components that are damaged again through the aforementioned RNG rolls are destroyed. Furthermore, as the internal meter depletes, components are certain to be destroyed. Again, bigger components go first, because they are assumed to take up the most space in that section and thus is the most vulnerable. Of course, if that section is completely trashed, all of the components there go with it.

Destroyed components definitely no longer function, and cannot be potential salvage in the case of components on enemy units.

AMMO BIN EXPLOSIONS:

Ammo bins that are destroyed automatically detonate if they have ammo left. The detonation will inflict further damage on the internals of the sections that they are in, possibly causing a cascade of ammo explosions that destroy the Mech and/or kill the pilot.

The amount of damage that is inflicted depends on the amount of ammo remaining. The exact equations are unclear, however. Still, there is the certainty that empty ammo bins do not explode.

That said, damage from ammo bin explosions inflict damage to internals. The damage is first applied to the section that the bins were in, and then to any adjacent body section if there is excess damage.

This happens as per the mechanism of damage overflow; see the next passage. However, there is one exception: the damage from ammo bin explosions always goes to internals; armor is not affected. This damage can harm components on the other body sections too – including other ammo bins.

DAMAGE OVERFLOW:

If a limb is destroyed from hits, any excess damage that the limb’s armor and internals did not absorb is applied to the next adjacent section. Armor is affected first.

In the case of legs, this goes to the center torso. In the case of arms, this goes to the left or right torso sections, whichever pertinent. This is told to the new player through a loading screen tip, however, so this might be missed if load times are very short for the player.

If the left or right torso section is destroyed, excess damage is transferred to the centre torso section. Any arm that was still attached to that section is automatically torn off too. However, the components in the torn arm are intact, if they have not been damaged earlier.

Excess damage does not flow from destroyed centre torso sections and heads, however. There is no reason to implement this anyway; the Mechs are already knocked out.

CERTAIN KNOCK-OUTS:

Speaking of which, a Mech does not need to have all of its sections destroyed in order to be removed from battle. If a Mech’s centre torso section is destroyed, it is definitely out; its spine is destroyed, its reactor is disabled and such other mechanical catastrophe.

Likewise, having the head of a Mech blown off knocks out the Mech; its pilot is very much dead. However, this occurrence is a major fluke of luck, as will be elaborated in a complaint later.

ENTRENCHED:

Entrenched is one of the few buffs that a Mech can have. Practically, it reduces damage from landed hits. The reduction is only 25%, but considering that all Mechs are on a one-way trip to the scrap-heap in a battle, any means of reducing cumulative damage would be useful. However, Entrenched only works if the hits landed on the sides or front of the Mech.

Any existing Entrenched buff is lost if the unit has ended its turn but has not done anything to have the buff applied again.

HEAT:

Heat is the main limitation on the offensive capabilities of a Mech. Just about every weapon produces heat, which accumulates in the Mech. When enough heat has accumulated to breach its tolerance threshold, the Mech starts overheating. Overheating Mechs damage their internals rapidly over every turn that they are overheating, and there is a chance that the pilot would be harmed too.

Worst of all, if the heat has accumulated beyond the maximum tolerance of the Mech – which is higher than its overheating threshold – the Mech shuts down. Although it vents out a lot of heat while shut down, the Mech is completely vulnerable to attack; chances to hit it are often very near the maximum (more on this later).

Thus, it is in the player’s interest to manage the heat build-up of his/her Mechs. The CPU-controlled opponent certainly does keep that in mind (though it would still make gambles in certain situations).

In this game, only Mechs have to deal with heat; ground vehicles do not have this issue. Hence, ground vehicles do pose a threat if they are not dealt with early in an engagement.

SHUTTING DOWN AND STARTING UP:

A Mech that has been shut down due to severe overheating is very easy to hit, in addition to having its internals being rapidly damaged. There is otherwise no other deleterious effect.

A shut-down Mech must restart on its next turn; the player does not get to keep the Mech shut down just to take advantage of its considerable cooldown. (There is a further complaint about not being able to do this later.) However, the Mech forfeits its turn.

RECOIL:

Heat is the main limitation on firing lasers, PPCs and missiles repeatedly. Recoil is the counterpart for limiting the repeated use of autocannons and Gauss rifles.

Every firing of such a weapon causes that weapon to suffer an accuracy penalty on the next firing, if the latter is attempted in the next turn. If the latter is attempted anyway, the penalty is made worse and applied to the next firing, in the turn after.

This means that sustained firing of a ballistic weapon progressively gets more unreliable. To alleviate the penalty, the weapon should not be fired for one turn.

This limitation prevents the player from exploiting ballistic weapons, which otherwise can be fired more often than energy weapons.

STABILITY & STABILITY DAMAGE:

In addition to the durability of a Mech, there is its stability. In BattleTech lore, Mechs cannot actually stand on their own without their joints being locked; even Mechs in gantries are at risk of toppling if they are not secured.

Rather during operation, they derive their balance from their gyros. The gyros in turn depend on sensory input from the pilots through their “neurohelmets”.

This works both ways. Any hits that jolt the Mech will be felt by the pilot. Sustained pummelling eventually causes the pilot to be dazed, causing the Mech to stagger. The severity of the staggering is represented as “stability damage” in game.

(Ground vehicles are not subjected to this gameplay factor, by the way.)

Anyway, the stability meter shows the percentage of stability damage that has been taken over the total amount of stability damage that the Mech can take before adverse effects set in. If the stability meter fills to 80% and above, the Mech is rendered unsteady. Unsteady Mechs immediately lose all evasion charges (more on these later), and cannot jump or run.

If the meter turns full, the next attack that does 10% or more stability damage, relative to the meter, will cause the Mech to fall down prone. (It always falls down on its back though, i.e. its rear section will never be exposed to the enemy.) A prone Mech is automatically susceptible to Called Shots, which will be described later.

The stability meter is separated into sections, with each border representing a “threshold”. The actual capacity of a Mech to shrug off staggering is determined by the number of thresholds. In turn, the number of thresholds depends on the “Guts” skill of the pilot, which will be described later.

RECOVERING STABILITY:

Some stability damage automatically goes away by the Mech’s next turn. There does not appear to be any means of causing stability damage to be completely retained, unless the Mech has already been knocked prone (more on being prone later).

Stability damage can be completely removed by having the Mech brace, but that would end the Mech’s turn. The Vigilance ability also removes stability damage outright, making this is a better alternative.

GUARDED:

“Guarded” is one of the few temporary buffs that a Mech can have. This reduces the stability damage from landed hits, as long as they came from anywhere but the rear. “Guarded” is automatically gained if the pilot has specialized in the abilities granted by the Piloting skill (more on these later). However, the buff is lost in the next turn unless the Mech does something that grants the buff again.

BEING PRONE AND GETTING UP:

Becoming prone removes the Guarded and Entrenched buffs. This is important to keep in mind, because this is the best means of defeating an enemy Mech that has a Mechwarrior with Piloting abilities.

As mentioned earlier, being prone renders a Mech vulnerable to Called Shots. However, the Called Shots are done with penalties, due to the flattened profile of the Mech. Nonetheless, being subjected to Called Shots is bad, because most enemies will target weakened sections. Furthermore, its prone profile will not lower its visibility, even if the Mech is behind partial cover.

A prone Mech must stand up upon its next turn; there does not appear to be any way to have the Mech stay prone. Unlike restarting from a shutdown, this does not cause the Mech to lose its turn. In fact, it recovers all of its stability, it can walk around and it can even shoot. However, it cannot sprint or jump.

EVASION “CHARGES”:

When Mechs have moved sufficient distances in their turns, they gain “evasion charges”. These make the Mechs more difficult to hit with shooting attacks.

Longer distances provide more charges. This means that lighter Mechs can generally gain more charges than heavier Mechs. However, there are some weighty Mechs that are designed towards fast movement, such as the 95-ton Banshee that can outpace heavy-class Mechs.

Evasion charges reduce the probability of hitting the Mech. The charges are more effective on lighter Mechs than heavier ones, but huge Mechs like the aforementioned Banshee can still be very difficult to hit if they can amass several charges (coupled with their durability, they would indeed be difficult to bring down with gunfire).

However, every attack (ranged or melee) on a Mech with Evasion charges, whether it lands or not, will remove one charge. Thus, consecutive attempts to shoot the Mech would be easier. (Emphasis on “shoot”; melee attacks on the Mech work differently, as will be described later.)

If an attack renders Mech unsteady, it loses all of its charges. This can be devastating to Mechs that have been relying on their speed not to get hurt.

All remaining evasion charges from the previous round are also lost when a Mech takes its turn. These previous charges are replaced with whatever charges that are gained from its turn.

MELEE ATTACKS:

All Mechs can make melee attacks. Even the Mechs that do not have actual arms can make melee attacks, apparently through head-butts or an upwards shove. However, Mechs that have arms – and actual fists – are better than other Mechs in the same weight range at making melee attacks. Of course, heavier Mechs inflict more powerful attacks, by default.

Mechs that have lost limbs can still make melee attacks; however, their damage output is diminished.

The main appeal of melee attacks is that they ignore evasion charges. This means that it is possible to hit a Mech that has been amassing a lot of charges, and then remove all of them by rendering it unsteady (likely through the same melee attacks).

The other appeal is that few shooting attacks from a Mech can do as much damage as its melee attack, especially in the case of the assault Mechs (whose category name already suggests what they are best good at). Indeed, it is possible for an assault Mech to outright knock out a Mech that is one-fourth its nominal weight.

BONUS FIRING OF SUPPORT WEAPONS AFTER MELEE ATTACKS:

On their own, support weapons have short ranges that make them quite useless in most ranged engagements. Indeed, without any other quirks, there are few reasons to use support weapons.

However, they do have quirks; the greatest of these is that support weapons can be fired immediately after a melee attack, whether the attack lands or not. This adds to the harm that melee attacks can inflict. Machineguns, in particular, are well primed to exploit any vulnerability after the melee attack has stripped away armor.

Another quirk is that support weapons are very accurate – which is to be expected because they are designed to fire at targets within very close ranges.

OTHER SECONDARY DAMAGE:

Certain attacks can inflict de-buffs. The most prominent example of these is the effect of hits from PPCs. The crackling electricity from PPCs strains the target’s electronics, thus imparting the “Sensors Impaired” de-buff. This de-buff can be stacked from multiple PPC hits, though the target would not likely survive to suffer the cumulative effects of the de-buff.

Another example is the use of the Precision Strike ability on enemies (more on this ability later); this reduces the initiative step of the target, which can be tactically useful. (There will be more on initiative steps later.)

INDIRECT FIRE:

Indirect fire is about shooting at enemies that a Mech has not spotted, but its allies have. The shooter will have a penalty to its accuracy for doing this, though the penalty can be reduced by improving the pilot’s Tactics skill (more on this later).

Indirect fire is especially prominent among weapons that have “extreme” ranges; such ranges include distances close to the length/width of the map. These include ER PPCs and all LRMs. Normally, these weapons can reach things outside the viewing range and even sensor range of any Mech, but cannot fire on anything that has not been spotted by allies.

ARCING FIRE:

A unit that is armed with LRMs can fire the missiles over obstacles in between the Mech and its target. The arcing of the missiles does not count towards their range limits; the vertical travel of the missiles is not an issue. (In the official vanilla build of the game, only LRMs are capable of indirect fire.)

Indirect fire is a considerable advantage for missile-armed units. However, since there is no direct line of sight, arcing fire also automatically counts as indirect fire.

ATTACKS ON FACINGS:

When a unit makes an attack on an enemy, its attack – be it weapons-fire or melee attack – would land on a facing of the target. This facing is shown as a flashing red outline on the body section diagram of the enemy. Any sections that are encompassed by the outline are potential spots that can be hit. The ones that are not encompassed generally will not be hit.

CALLED SHOTS:

A “called shot” attack allows the owning player to have the unit to focus on a specific section. This makes that section the likeliest to be hit, though there is still a percentage threshold and RNG roll involved. There will be more on this later in a complaint about the game.

Anyway, called shots are there to give the player a chance to apply and distribute damage across the body sections of an enemy. This is usually more useful in battles that happen in Career mode than the battles in Skirmish mode, because this can help the player maximize potential salvage.

Called shots cannot be used together with melee attacks, for obvious reasons. (For one, Mechs without arms would have a hard time directing their melee attacks to specific locations.)

STRAY SHOTS:

Weapons-fire can miss the target, but missed shots are not certain to be wasted. The game rolls more RNGs for missed shots, determining whether they are “upgraded” into “stray shots”. For the rolls to happen, there have to be other units that are in the line of fire, or are adjacent to the target.

If the missed shots turn into stray shots, they visibly appear to land on the other units instead. They take the damage and stability damage from these shots, and will also lose an evasion charge if they have any.

This mechanism of stray shots cannot occur for melee attacks, also for obvious reasons.

INJURIES:

The pilots are the most important parts of the Mechs, but they are also the squishiest. Even though they are ensconced in a multi-ton war machine, they can still be wounded and killed. The amount of hurt that they can take is shown as the pips under their portraits; if they run out of these, they are incapacitated, and are at the mercy of the RNG rolls.

Firstly, any attack that lands on the head from any weapon, including even machineguns, wound the pilot outright; the pilot loses one pip. However, multiple hits on the head from the same volley will only inflict one injury at the most (though of course the head of the Mech is at risk of being destroyed).

Secondly, having the Mech fall down injures the pilot too, presumably due to being jostled around in the cockpit. It is possible to knock out a Mech by causing it to repeatedly fall down. Thirdly, the explosion of any ammo bin also wounds the pilot.

CRITICAL EXISTENCE FAILURE:

Interestingly, the amount of injuries that a pilot has sustained does not affect his/her/their performance. As long as a pilot still has one pip left, his/her/their Mech can continue to function.

INCAPACITATION:

If a pilot loses all of his/her/their pips, the pilot is incapacitated. If the centre torso of a Mech is destroyed, the pilot is also incapacitated.

In the case of the player’s pilots, their fate is determined by RNG rolls, with the outcomes being revealed in the after-action reports (more on these later).

OUTRIGHT DEAD:

If a Mech’s head is destroyed, the pilot is dead. Considering that the head section of any Mech has very little armor and internal integrity, the sudden demise of a pilot during a battle is really possible. There will be a complaint about this later.

If the Mech suffers a catastrophic “Ammo Explosion” demise, the pilot also dies.

EJECTING:

In Career mode, the player has the option of having a pilot escape a doomed Mech by ejecting. Ejection of its pilot, of course, takes a Mech out of the battle. The Mech can be recovered later, regardless of the circumstances of the outcome of the mission.

Ejecting is only useful in Career mode. In Skirmish battles, there are few reasons to not have a badly wounded pilot or badly damaged Mech to just keep fighting.

TERRAIN - FOREWORD:

Terrain is an important element of battles. In Career mode, the player’s lance is always outnumbered; terrain helps in limiting the number of enemies that can attack them. In Skirmish battles, terrain can provide a major advantage (or disadvantage) against the otherwise equally powerful opponent.

There are also several aspects to terrain. Each of these is visually represented on the battlefield, sometimes in silly ways.

REGULAR GROUND:

The bulk of terrain is regular ground. This imparts no bonuses or advantages, unless there are differences in elevation, which will be described shortly.

ELEVATION DIFFERENCES:

There are very few horizontally flat surfaces in most battlefields. Flat surfaces, where they occur, are often a trait of man-made installations or locales. Military bases, in particular, have flat surfaces.

That said, most surfaces have variations in elevations. However, for the elevations to matter in gameplay, they have to be noticeably steep, e.g. the differences in elevation reach over the heights of medium Mechs. For example, rolling hills are very common, but they have little significance in combat. It may take a while for a new player to recognize the requirements for significant differences.

If the differences are significant, accuracy penalties are imparted onto units that are trying to shoot at targets that are above them, whereas bonuses are granted onto units that are shooting at targets below them.

COVER:

Terrain pieces that are designated as “cover” provide damage reduction to any unit that is in them. The reduction is only 25%, but as mentioned earlier, every bit helps.

Tall bipedal war machines have little in the way of cover. However, there are still things that can provide cover, and these are usually endemic to the planet that they are on.

Trees and forests are the most common examples of cover. Even the shortest trees can provide some protection, as one of the screenshots shows. Other planets may have terrain features that are not exactly recognizable as cover, but they still count as such. For example, Martian environments have whirlwinds (that somehow stay where they are), which provide cover in lieu of trees that cannot grow in such environments.

Strangely, forests cannot be destroyed in anyway. They cannot even be set on fire, even though the Mechs that are fighting in them are using flamethrowers, lasers and PPCs and the Mechs may be running hot enough to burn things around them.

Any terrain that provides cover also impedes movement, with the exception of jumping. Indeed, some missions happen in heavily forested regions. Moving through the forests without jumping can be tediously slow.

WATER:

There are bodies of water on some planets. They are never too deep for any Mech to wade into, conveniently.

Water does impede the movement of Mechs that are moving through it, but they also greatly improve their heat dissipation.

Water blocks the movement of most ground vehicles. Indeed, most ground vehicles are treaded and wheeled vehicles, so they could not move across water, much less into them. This is a noticeable gap in the designs of ground vehicles in this game, because in Battletech lore, there are combat-capable hovercraft.

ICE:

Some missions take place in polar regions that have ice. Mechs can move onto the ice without a problem; there are no scripts or code about them cracking and collapsing under the Mechs’ weight. There are no scripts about weapons-fire breaking the ice open too. In other words, there may be a wasted opportunity to add more tactical complexity to layers of ice.

Ice does carry a beneficial quirk; any Mech that is standing on ice has a bonus to its heat dissipation. Ice also does not impede movement, so there is no reason to not have Mechs stand on ice where possible.

CLIMATE:

The climate conditions that affect the mission area are also a major (albeit rather simple) factor in battle. These conditions determine the ability of Mechs to dissipate heat. There are very few other effects from the climate conditions of the mission area, however.

These conditions are told to the player before the start of the mission; they are even viewable before the player takes the contract. This allows the player to prepare Mechs for the mission, preferably during transit to the destination planet.

DESTRUCTIBLE BUILDINGS:

Some maps feature buildings. Most buildings can be destroyed, often by stray shots. That said, units cannot deliberately target buildings, unless the buildings are part of the objectives of their mission.

Buildings can be used to obstruct the view of enemies, especially if there are significant differences in elevation. Mechs that are next to buildings benefit from them the most.

Most buildings do not damage nearby units when they are destroyed, even though it looks like the collapsing debris could harm the latter.

EXPLODING BUILDINGS:

However, buildings that explode can harm nearby units and other buildings. Typically, these are (unwisely above-ground) fuel tanks and ammo dumps. The player is shown the expected explosion zones of these buildings; the hexes in the zones also indicate whether a Mech is at risk of being blown up by the explosions.

As for the explosions, they do not always outright destroy anything caught in them, but they will inflict severe damage. The player is not informed of the exact amount of damage that would be inflicted, however.

NO REACTOR MELTDOWNS:

In the table-top game, the MechWarrior titles and even the MechCommander titles, the reactors in Mechs explode if their containment fields are penetrated and ordnance detonates inside them. This meant that Mechs with catastrophically breached reactors can be dangerous to anything near them.

This does not happen in this game. Apparently, this game follows the canonical fluff that reactor explosions are rare if not never happen because safety systems and reactor designs merely cause reactors to lose power.

Yet, considering that there are things like exploding fuel tanks and ammo dumps, that Mechs cannot explode despite having fusion reactors can seem odd to players who like explosions.

TURRETS:

Many military bases have static defences, typically in the form of automated turrets

Turrets can be easily destroyed; they have only one body section, and they can never get any defensive buffs. After getting through their armor, there is their internals, which often number at just several points.

If the turrets are connected to generators that are above-ground (as unwise as that is), knocking out the generators automatically destroy all of them.

With such considerable frailty, turrets are not likely to do much on their own. However, their value in battle becomes clear if other units on the same side can take the heat for them.

All turrets have the Sensor Lock ability, which they will use if they cannot make an attack. Indeed, the turrets that cannot reach enemies would take their turn first, using Sensor Lock to impair enemies to give their allies an easier time.

Turrets, especially the heavier ones, can also pack tremendous firepower, thanks to their static design. For example, Heavy Sniper Turrets can pack several AC/2 autocannons. If they are not dealt with, the amount of firepower that they can dole out over the rounds eventually overwhelms any enemy.

They also never overheat. (They do not even have ammo bins either, though they presumably have limited ammo.) They cannot be attacked in melee either.

GROUND VEHICLES:

Like turrets, ground vehicles never build up any heat and do not have ammo bins that can explode. Again, like turrets, the firepower that they can dish out can be overwhelming if the player does not eliminate them as soon as possible. Indeed, vehicles like the missile carriers can pound Mechs until they are knocked down, and heavy vehicles like the Demolishers and Shreks can ruin Mechs if their shots land.

However, ground vehicles do not have as much speed over ground as Mechs do; rough terrain is especially problematic for them. They can also be attacked in melee, and incidentally, melee attacks from Mechs inflict extra damage on them; being crumpled does bad things to a ground vehicle. Indeed, even light Mechs can trash ground vehicles quite readily, assuming that the light Mechs can get close enough.

Moreover, although ground vehicles have multiple body sections, they cannot survive if just one of them gets destroyed. A ground vehicle is immediately defeated if this happens.

INITIATIVE STEPS:

The last but not least noteworthy element of battles are the initiative steps. These steps determine when and which units can move before the others.

Each round of the turn-based battles is composed of six initiative steps. The steps are numbered in reverse, from “5” to “1”. Units are parked into one of these steps according to their mobility.

Typically, light Mechs are placed under the earlier steps, usually 4; the initiative step of 5 will be described later. Medium Mechs are placed under the initiative step of 3. Heavy Mechs are placed under step 2. Assault Mechs move last; they are under step 1 by default.

The round begins with initiative step 5 first; the game checks for any units that have managed to get into this step. Any unit in this step gets to “activate” before the units in the later steps; “activate” is the in-game term for the unit’s owning player being able to direct it.

After all of the units in this step have been activated – or reserved (more on this later) – the round moves on to the next step. The process repeats again, until all steps have been accounted for.

Considering that there are some effects in combat that lasts over the turn, being able to move earlier can be a considerable advantage. Therefore, this is the main advantage that lighter Mechs get over heavier ones.

ALTERNATING BETWEEN SIDES IN THE SAME STEP:

If more than one side has units in the same initiative step, the game usually starts with the side that has the most units in this step first. After that side has activated one unit and ended its turn, the other sides get to have their turn, and so on.

However, if one side has far more units in the same step than the other sides (usually by three units or more), this side gets to activate more than one unit before the other sides get to do anything. Therefore, numerical superiority does count for something in the battles of this game.

RESERVING:

In lieu of activating units, the player can “reserve” them. This bumps the units to the next initiative step, while retaining any statuses that they have, e.g. evasion charges. This may be advantageous, especially if the player’s Mechs still have a lot of buffs that can protect them from anything that the enemy might do.

INITIATIVE STEP OF 5:

The initiative step of 5 is generally only available to light Mechs or medium Mechs with pilots that are skilled in piloting.

Usually, these are the player’s own Mechs. Through the use of the Vigilance ability, the initiative step of the player’s Mech is increased by one. In the case of light Mechs, this will definitely place them in this initiative step.

Light Mechs also have a quirk that lets them move into step without the use of any skills or abilities. If a Light Mech is reserved all the way to step 1 in the current round, it can be reserved again. This places it in step 5 of the next round. This happens in addition to its regular turn in initiative step 4, thus allowing the Light Mech to be activated more than once in that round.

OUTSIDE COMBAT:

Outside battles, units on any side all move at the same initiative step. In other words, each side moves all of its units, before the other sides do the same. This goes on, until battle is joined between at least two sides. This is when the abovementioned mechanism of initiative steps triggers. The sides that are not involved in any combat will be roped into this too.

RESOLVE:

In the Career mode, the player’s lance may be outnumbered in most situations, but as the protagonists, they have an edge that their enemies do not get. This is their “Resolve”, and the abilities that can be activated with it.

Whenever battle is joined – and they must be in combat – the Mechwarriors in the player’s employ gain Resolve. The team gets a flat increment over every turn. They can get more by defeating enemy combatants, which immediately grant Resolve as soon as they are defeated. The gain over every turn can also be improved with any Comms Systems that are installed on the player’s Mechs.

The gains go into the Resolve meter, which any Mechwarrior in the team can draw from. However, the meter can only hold 100 points of Resolve; any surplus gain is wasted. Therefore, the player will want to expend Resolve whenever it goes above whatever threshold that the player has designated for himself/herself.

USING ABILITIES:

Resolve is spent to activate the abilities of the Mechwarriors. These abilities may give buffs to their defence or to their attacks. For example, the Precision Strike ability allows a pilot to make a Called Shot, something that is usually only done on immobile enemies. Usage of these abilities can prolong the survival of the player’s Mechs, or mess up the enemy’s order of attack.

In Skirmish battles, both sides have access to Resolve and abilities, so the players would have to be doubly careful about when to use them.

BATTLE SYSTEM – COMPLAINTS:

Adaptation of table-top games for digital platforms is already fraught with a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t dilemma. If the adaptation stays true to the source material, it would be criticized for not taking advantage of the digital platform. If it has too many differences, it would be criticised by purists for being disrespectful of the source material.

The latter is a sentimental kind of complaint, of course. If the adaptation does not use the digital framework to address limitations with the table-top version, it has already failed. Unfortunately, Battletech fails more than once in this manner.

Furthermore, adaptations will always be scrutinized for how ambitious they are at utilizing the source material. Ideally, they should be using all the content there is in the source material, and add even more. This is not always the case, because of lack of resources, time and/or capability on the part of the developers. Unfortunately, Battletech is not an exceptionally brilliant case.

ONLY ONE LANCE – AGAIN:

As a reminder, the player can only field one lance. In the official build of the game, the missions are at best a series of combat encounters. The player’s forces may be outnumbered sometimes, but getting outnumbered more than two to one is a rarity. More often than not, the additional enemies often arrive piece-meal.

Thus, the player is required to be aware of the lance’s surroundings and their positions relative to the enemy so as to eliminate enemies as they come and minimize cumulative damage. There is some appeal to be had here.

On the other hand, not having the player’s forces grow beyond a lance can dampen any sense of achievement and power progression, especially in the case of players who are aware that Battletech lore does allow for battles that involve more than just a handful of Mechs.

Indeed, the game has loading screen messages that mention the existence of canonical mercenary commands that are of regiment size or even bigger. Cynical players would wonder about how much appeal that these messages could have when they unwittingly remind the player that the player could never have the kind of engagements or employment that these canonical outfits have/had.

WASTED OPPORTUNITIES FOR ROLE-BASED LANCES:

That said, the disappointment would only deepen if the player considers that the only power progression to be had is the incrementing of the total weight of the lance. Of course, there is still the matter of replacing components with more advanced ones, but there can only be so much that can be done here. Usable loot is not procedurally generated to have variable statistics, after all.

The player may also realize that there is a wasted opportunity to have lances of fixed weight classes and roles that come with those limitations.

For example, lighter Mechs may not have much punching and staying power, but they can still attack targets in order to remove their Evasion points (more on these later). With skills like Sensor Lock – especially if they had been made available to every pilot – the lighter Mechs can render enemies more vulnerable to their heavier buddies.

NO COMBINED ARMS FOR THE PLAYER’S FORCES:

Even though the player would be facing enemies that field both vehicles and Mechs, the player can only ever have Mechs.

In contrast, MechCommander 2 allowed the player to call in a vehicle, even if it is to be used as a disposable sacrificial scout. In yet another contrast, the tabletop game has long allowed the player to field units that are not Mechs, especially wheeled and tracked vehicles, as fire support or pincer attack assets.

Battletech is not such a game. This can seem like a disappointment, especially considering that there are scripts and code for controlling vehicles, at least for the CPU player. There will be more elaboration on this later.

NO AIRCRAFT:

The setting is the Rimward Periphery, which explains the sparsity of war machines. Aircraft would be rare vehicles, even though Mechs are canonically rarer. Yet, this is not a strong enough excuse for there not being any V-TOL vehicles or aerospace fighters. Canonically, the Rimward Periphery is supposed to have some presence of these war machines, even in the mid-3020s.

That they have been omitted from this game reveals the limitation of the developers’ ability to make this adaptation. (This can seem even more so when mods for the game implemented aircraft.)

AMBIGUOUS LINE OF SIGHT DETERMINATION:

Unfortunately, the mechanism and scripts that are used to determine lines of sight during battle has next to no in-game documentation. Even close observation over time would not allay the impression of how nebulous they are.

Of course, there are cases where there is obvious certainty, e.g. if a Mech is obscured by an object that is much larger than it, according to the perspective of an onlooker, that Mech cannot be targeted with direct fire from the location of the onlooker.

However, not everything on the battlefield is much larger than a Mech. For example, there are small hills that can partially obscure a Mech from enemies. The problem though, is that the mechanism that determines partial or complete obscurity does not operate on the policy of “what you see is what you get” (“WYSISWYG”, for short).

For example, a small hill will provide the same amount of cover to small and big Mechs, even if the small hill looks like it is obscuring more than four-fifths of the small Mechs from the perspective of would-be attackers that are on the same plane of height.

Including inclinations into the mix makes determination of line of sight even more ambiguous. For one, the apparent heights of the Mechs seem to matter a lot less than it would initially seem where inclinations are involved.

The example where this issue is at its worst is the story mission that takes place on the planet Itrom. In that mission, the player is told to “take advantage” of the relative blindness of the enemy forces. Although there are many large terrain features that can hide even assault Mechs from sight, there are also a lot of rolling hills that cause a lot of the aforementioned ambiguity, which in turn make it difficult to utilize the advantage that the player has.

Even the aforementioned visual aid for targeting enemies is not entirely helpful in this matter, as has been shown in some of the screenshots in this article. It is supposed to show whether the player’s Mech would be spotted after it has moved to its destination, but it will not show whether it would be spotted during the way there.

VISIBILITY OF MECHS NOT DOCUMENTED IN-GAME:

Each BattleMech has a lot of statistics, as should be evident already. Unfortunately, not all of them are documented in-game. One of these undocumented ones compounds on the aforementioned problem with ambiguity of line of sight.

This is the visibility of a Mech. The game would imply in a few messages about tactical tips that bigger Mechs are more visible, and this is indeed generally the case. How exactly so is unclear to the player because there is no rating that gives an estimate of the visibility of a Mech.

This is not a “WYSISWYG” matter either. For example, the Banshee and the Highlander appear to be as tall as, if not taller than, the heavier Atlas. However, the Atlas is actually more visible gameplay-wise. One of the screenshots in this article, specifically the one that shows assault Mechs in the aforementioned mission on Itrom, is indicative of this.

FEW REASONS TO STAY IN PLACE:

In the earlier builds of the game, there are good reasons for a Mech to stay where it is; pilots can have an ability that increases the damage resistance of their Mechs if they have not moved. This ability is called “Bulwark” in-game.

This bonus to damage resistance was considerable; the Mech can shrug off titanic amounts of damage. There were few reasons not to have pilots follow this route, especially in the Career mode.

Attempts to nerf Bulwark did not turn out well. Any diminishing of the bonus does not compensate for the lack of any movement on the part of the Mech. Ultimately, the developers made the decision to revise Bulwark such that it does not grant any bonus for staying put.

Thus, there are few reasons to ever stay put in the current build of the game. For maximized survivability, a Mech, including any that has a pilot with the revised Bulwark, must make a move to somewhere in order to gain Evasion charges.

NO ARMOR PENETRATION FEATURE:

There is no gameplay element of penetrating armor to harm the internals behind them. This means that armor must be completely removed before the internals can be damaged. This is contrast to the table-top game, where there are provisions for armor penetration.

On the other hand, the feature of armor penetration in the table-top game depends a lot on dice rolls to determine whether armor has been penetrated. Considering that the designers of this game have resorted to the use of RNGs for one too many things, there is perhaps some silver lining for not having such a feature in the game as it would have used RNGs and made the gameplay of battles even more fickle than it already is.

Yet, without such a feature, Mech builds with full armor have a considerable advantage that is not easily offset by reduced tonnage for weapons and other things. More importantly, in the official build of the Career mode, armor replacement being “free” means that full-armor builds are very much a no-brainer for efficient playthroughs.

REAR FIXATION:

As mentioned earlier, attacks from the rear can land on limbs. On the other hand, limbs cannot be deliberately targeted through attacks from the rear.

If the player makes called shots on the rear arcs of an enemy Mech, only the rear torso sections are available for selection. The limbs are not. This means that attacks on the rear can only be intended for the destruction of the Mech, or harming the pilot through the destruction of torso sections. Only flukes of luck would have attacks landing hits on the limbs from behind.

NO MANUAL SHUTDOWNS:

In the table-top game, the MechWarrior titles and even the MechCommander titles, the player has the option of having a Mech shut down, either to vent heat quickly or to hide it from the enemy’s active sensors.

This cannot happen in the official build of this game, for whatever reason. It can seem disappointing to players who know that the other games give the player this tactical option.

BIGGEST COMPLAINT - CHANCE-TO-HIT:

The worst problem with this game is its use of the typical all-or-nothing chance-to-hit system. Considering that other digital adaptations of table-top games have moved away from this frustratingly antiquated system, that Battletech does not do the same is a disappointment.

There is an attempt to try to make this system seem more sophisticated than it actually is. For one, there is the redistribution of chance-to-hit percentages when a unit makes a Called Shot on a specific body section of a target. For another, there is the aforementioned feature of stray shots.

Ultimately though, whether a shot lands or not is still dependent on a fickle RNG roll or a series of similarly fickle rolls.

MAXIMUM OF 95%:

The most prominent sign that this game’s chance-to-hit system is antiquated is that there is only ever a maximum of 95% to any chance-to-hit. This is a hold-over from the table-top rules, where the player is rarely given any certainty on the outcome of attacks. The player can try to carefully manoeuvre a Mech and give it plenty of accuracy bonuses, but this is the highest probability that it could ever get.

HITTING HEADS IS A FLUKE OF LUCK:

Perhaps the worst expression of the game’s fickleness is the matter of hits landing on the heads of Mechs.

As mentioned earlier, there is a small probability of this occurring. Since every attack that lands at least one hit on the head would hurt the pilot, there is the impression that such harm to the pilot comes from a fluke of luck. Indeed, one of the cheesiest ways to exploit this is to fire an LRM20 at the head of a target; one of the missiles might just land and inflict the intended harm. (Or they are all wasted anyway – such is the fickleness of the RNG rolls.)

Comparatively, the injury that comes from having a Mech knocked down is far less egregious because there is clear effort involved.

An even worse example is that of melee attacks or powerful weapons like high-quality PPCs and autocannons hitting the head of the Mech. Melee attacks, in particular, are likely to destroy heads outright; even a light Mech can defeat an assault Mech in such a manner (even if the light Mech seems too small to reach the assault Mech’s head).

STUPID CPU-CONTROLLED COMBATANTS:

As mentioned earlier, in Career mode and the story campaign, the player only fields a lance of Mechs and they are always outnumbered. In hindsight, this is not much of a disadvantage, because the CPU-controlled opposition is unwise and stupid.

The observant player would notice that they make a lot of tactical mistakes. For example, a light Mech that is just not designed for close-ranged combat would get too close to the player’s Mechs – even if they are assault Mechs. This sets them up for melee attacks, which as mentioned earlier, bypass evasion charges.

The player would also see CPU-controlled units with long-ranged weapons making the mistake of firing them at closer ranges where they are not very accurate.

Another common example of stupidity is not moving during their turn. This often occurs for enemy Mechs with the Bulwark ability; their decision-making scripts have not been updated to account for the changes to the ability.

The most notable example of their lack of tactical aptitude is that they do not focus their fire on a single target, even though this is the best way to take down the player’s lance.

There are plenty more examples, but they would be omitted from this article for brevity’s sake. Suffice to say, the CPU-controlled enemies in this game will not be challenging a player that is already a veteran of tactical strategy games. Rather, most of the difficulty – and frustration – would come from the fickle RNG rolls.

MISSIONS IN CAREER MODE – OVERVIEW:

In the Career mode, the player would be carrying out missions with objectives that may be something else other than encountering and wiping out the opposition. Of course, there are such straight-forward missions; the mercenary command’s XO even describes them as such, despite the brief narrative exposition about the reason for the mission.

DEFENCE MISSIONS:

Most missions require the player to knock out targets. These are quite easy, including even those where the targets would try to escape.

The tougher missions are those that require the player to defend objectives from being destroyed. This can be challenging, mainly because the player only has four Mechs for this purpose. Sometimes, the principal may be a base that does have its own defences, but sometimes it might just be a small town that would crumble under the next onslaught.

ESCORT & BABYSITTING MISSIONS:

Perhaps the most troublesome and the most frustrating missions are those that require the player to defend CPU-controlled “allies”.

The first variant of these is the escort mission. In video game history, such missions are much maligned. This is mainly because the principal is not under the player’s control and can make stupid decisions, like moving past the player’s defensive screen and into the enemy’s range. Unfortunately, the principals in this game’s escort missions are very much like that.

Then, there are the babysitting missions. The player has allies in the form of a lance of CPU-controlled Mechs. They never coordinate with the player’s group. They also complicate attempts to methodically smash enemies for maximized salvage potential.

EVACUATION:

Some missions end after the mission objectives have been met. This is usually the case for missions that are about defeating the enemy; the operational area is assumed to have been cleared of enemies such that evacuation is simple.

In other missions, the primary objectives may not involve defeating all enemies. When they are met, the player is given the objective of getting the heck out of dodge. A shaded zone appears in the battlefield, depicting where the evacuation zone is. The player has to get all of his/her Mechs there for the mission to be completed.

In practice, there is no reason to evacuate so quickly. If the player’s Mechs are still in good shape, staying around to crush the opposition is a worthwhile endeavour. Indeed, in addition to having more salvage opportunities, the player tends to get a bonus for annihilating the opposition.

Besides, there are no scenarios where the enemy forces are unending. This is the Rimward Periphery after all; war machines are preciously few.

CASH VERSUS SALVAGE:

Before starting a mission, the player can “negotiate” with the contract-giver. Despite the seeming complexity of this, it is actually a really simple gameplay mechanism: the player pushes two sliders around.

Each slider is split into a number of segments; both sliders have the same number of segments. The notches on the sliders represent the potential rewards from the mission; the rewards are counted in the number of segments, starting from the left end of the sliders to where the notches are.

The number of segments encompassed by both notches cannot exceed the number of segments of any slider. The player can have fewer segments, which represent the player trading some tangible rewards for more potential gain in reputation (more on this later).

As for what the sliders represent, one slider represents the straight monetary payment from the mission. The other represents the salvage rights that the player get. Incidentally, these two rewards are essential to the gameplay in the table-top games, and have been featured in most of the previous Battletech-licensed games too.

In regular missions, the player can choose the ratio of monetary payment to salvage rights. Knowing the type of mission that would be performed and the expected opposition will be useful in deciding on the ratios.

For example, the mission may have a high difficulty rating, thus suggesting that the player would be facing a lot of enemies in succession. In such a case, having high salvage rights would be useful. For another example, missions that have urgency – or have the player operating alongside (stupid) CPU-controlled allies – are best played with maximized payment.

The player does not get to change the payment to salvage ratio in story-related priority missions however. The ratio is always fixed. (Still, these missions have very generous rewards overall.)

BONUS PAYMENT:

Most missions have secondary objectives that can be pursued to improve the payment that is doled out. Annihilating all opposition is a common example of such objectives, if they are not already the primary ones.

However, the improvements are applied as percentage-based increases to the monetary payment that the player has agreed upon. Salvage rights do not get improved. This means that secondary objectives have the best returns only if the player has chosen to be paid more in money than in salvage. This is an unfortunate oversight in the mission designs.

WITHDRAWING:

If a mission goes poorly, the player can choose to withdraw; this ends the player’s mission in failure. However, the consequences of the failure depends on how much the player has achieved up to that point.

If the player has managed to down at least one enemy, the mercenary outfit is considered to have put in some effort and withdrew in “good faith”. Otherwise, this is reflected poorly on the outfit’s reputation (more on this later). Either way, the player does not get paid if none of the objectives have been achieved, much less receive any salvage rights.

If the player has managed to achieve some objectives, the player is given some payment and some salvage rights. This is still far less than what could be gotten from a successful mission, however.

In practice, it is a bad player indeed who would be forced to withdraw. The missions in Career mode are quite easy, especially if the player is skilled at minimizing damage to the lance while exploiting the stupidity of the CPU-controlled enemies. That is so, unless the player has a terrible bout of bad luck, e.g. autocannon shots landing on the heads of the player’s Mechs.

The player cannot withdraw from missions in the story campaign, by the way. Rather, failure simply causes the game to reload the auto-save prior to the beginning of the mission.

AFTER ACTION – FOREWORD:

The end of every mission provides the player with a report of the mercenaries’ performance. Some of the information is quite useless, such as the number of kills that a pilot has made. (The numbers of kills do not matter in their skill progression.)

Others are more important, such as any injuries that a pilot has sustained and damage to the internals of Mechs. These pieces of information also come with the estimated time to remediate things, such as the number of days expected until the full recovery of injured Mechwarriors.

After the first after-action screen, the player is shown the screen for potential salvage. Potential salvage is represented as a list, with partial salvage for Mechs being at the top first, followed by weapons and finally equipment.

NO FILTERS FOR LIST OF SALVAGE:

There are no means of rearranging the aforementioned list or filtering out things that the player is not interested in. Considering that the list of salvage can be staggeringly long, especially if the player has knocked out more than a dozen enemies, filtering and rearranging tools would have been much welcome.

POTENTIAL PARTIAL SALVAGE:

Anyway, first on the list of salvage are the partial salvages of defeated enemy Mechs. Mechs that are defeated by having their centre torsos destroyed only yield one unit of partial salvage. Mechs that are defeated by having both of their legs busted yield two units.

Mechs that are defeated with at least two of their limbs remaining (one of which is a leg) yield three units, but probably has next to no components left. Mechs that are taken out by destroying their heads but nothing else yield the most salvage.

POTENTIAL SALVAGEABLE COMPONENTS:

Defeated enemies also yield components, if they have any body sections remaining. These are in addition to the stock components that can be had from cobbling together partial salvage.

Salvageable components can also be had from arms that were torn off when their adjoined torso sections were destroyed. Likewise, any vehicles that were knocked out without having their centre sections destroyed will yield salvageable weapons too.

Keeping these conditions in mind is important if an enemy Mech is packing high-quality components.

SALVAGE RIGHTS:

One of the rewards that mercenaries get in the BattleTech lore is that they may negotiate and receive the first right of refusal to salvage that can be had from the battlefield (assuming that they control the locations where the battles took place).

In this game, the mercenary outfit somehow always has access to the salvage from any battle, or at least their employers do. Furthermore, their employers always honour their salvage agreements (and payment, for that matter). The double-crossing that can happen in the table-top games generally does not happen here.

(The story campaign does have one mission where a double-cross happens, however, and it happens early on to emphasize the dire situation that the mercenary command is in.)

Anyway, the salvage rights that is accorded to the player can be categorized into two types. First, the player gets to pick a few pieces of salvage and is guaranteed these. Second, pieces of salvage are randomly selected and given to the player; these number more than the first type, but of course they depend on fickle RNGs.

(That said, I have yet to observe a pattern to the selection of salvage for the second type of salvage rights. Priority missions in the story campaign might seem to allocate expensive pieces of salvage to the player, but this is not always the case.)

ANNOYANCES WITH PICKING SALVAGE:

There are irritating but not game-breaking problems with the feature to pick salvage. When the player picks a piece of salvage (more on this later), the list resets to its default view.

Another problem is the odd snapping of the player’s choices for the manually-selected pieces of salvage. The player has to be exact in moving their icons over to the spaces for selective salvage, or the icons return to the list and the list resets its view.

MRB RATING:

In the mid-3020s, the mercenary profession is governed by the Mercenary Review Board (MRB), which is a (purportedly) geo-politically neutral organization. They vet mercenaries, employers and job requests before matching them together for the (presumed) benefit of everyone. For this purpose, they give ratings to registered mercenary groups, with the ratings based on their known performance at carrying out missions.

(The words in parenthesis would be understandable to followers of Battletech lore. The MRB was run by ComStar, which had and still likely has a lot of secret ambitions.)

Gameplay-wise, the MRB rating is there to gate the player’s access to missions of increasing difficulty. If the player has been doing well, the rating goes up, which causes missions of greater difficulty to appear more frequently and in higher ratios to easier ones.

The rating is but one of the requirements for the offering of missions, however.

FACTIONS & REPUTATION:

The Rimward Periphery may be not as significant as the coreward regions, but it does have the interest of factions with significant power in their hands. These powers are always vying with each other – which means job prospects for mercenaries.

A mission is often offered by one of these factions, and would pit the player against another. Completing that mission successfully would result in reputation gain with that faction. The player can gain more favour if the player exchanges rewards for more reputation gain. However, if the player withdrew from the mission in “bad faith”, the player loses reputation with that faction.

As for the faction that the player aggressed against, the player always loses reputation with that faction. The player loses even more if the player chose to exchange rewards for more reputation gain with the mission-giver. (This is understandable gameplay-wise, but how the other faction would learn about this favour-currying and see it as more deplorable is unclear.)

MISSION OFFERS AND DIFFICULTIES:

The missions that a faction offers depend on the player’s reputation with that faction; this is in addition to the aforementioned requirement of the MRB rating.

Even a faction that hates the player’s guts will still offer missions, but only missions with the easiest ratings. Missions of higher difficulties are only available to the player if the faction favours the mercenaries.

Furthermore, the missions’ rewards are modified by the player’s reputation with the factions. Poor reputation inflicts penalties on the pay-outs and salvage rights, whereas good reputation applies bonuses instead.

It should be reminded here that as the player’s MRB ratings go up, missions with low difficulties become rarer. If the player intends to mend relations with one faction, this becomes progressively more difficult to do because that faction becomes less likely to offer low-difficulty missions.

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS:

In this game’s setting, there is a region within the Rimward Periphery that is not beholden to any of the major powers. This region has planets with their own governments and militaries, and they can hold their own because of their remoteness relative to the borders of the major factions.

These are simply given the catch-all name of “local governments”. The player can never curry any favour with them, nor will the player lose any reputation. In fact, they remember neither their dealings with the mercenaries or any altercations with them. This can seem a bit unbelievable.

Gameplay-wise, the local governments occur on planets that have missions of relatively low difficulty. These allow the player to find missions that can help the player curry favour with the major factions, often by taking missions that have the player working against the local governments.

MARKETS:

In addition to determining the mission offers that the player would get, reputation also determines the player’s access to the markets of the faction and the prices that the player would get. Indeed, the markets are the main reason for pursuing reputation increases.

Anyway, somehow, the mercenary outfit can do trade with the Argo in the orbit of a system that has a permanent population, i.e. an actual economy. It is implied that the dropship that is attached to it is doing the lifting of cargo, or goods are being exchanged while in orbit. In any case, the transactions can somehow happen within a day without any delays or any shipping scheduling. This simplification is, of course, for the sake of gameplay convenience.

As for the goods that are on the market, they are mainly Mechs, components for Mechs or partial salvage. Among these, Mechs are the most expensive – even prohibitively so. Indeed, it would be an unwise or desperate player that would make such a purchase (especially in the official build of the game).

The user interface (UI) for the market is mostly serviceable. There are handy filters – in fact, there are two layers of these, thus allowing the player to narrow down to specific sub-categories of components.

If there is any problem with this UI, it is that the game does not retain the filters when switching from the legal markets to the black markets.

BLACK MARKETS:

Speaking of which, the black markets are intended for late-game gameplay. These are like the legal markets, but they sell very high-end gear, including Star League-era components and Mech models.

The player does not have access to them at the beginning. Rather, the player needs to come across the random event that is about an invitation into the black markets of the Rimward Periphery. (The requirements for this invitation is unclear, but I got it after amassing several millions of C-bills.)

The player’s standing with the Pirates faction does matter, but a bad standing will not prevent the invitation from being forwarded. However, a bad standing does increase the asking price for the “letter of invitation”. Putting off the random event won’t prevent the player from having it again, but as to be expected from random events, there is no certainty that the player may get it again.

Anyway, only certain planets have Black Markets; these are marked on the Star Map user interface. Gameplay-wise, the Black Markets operate like the legal markets, but they are always operated by the Pirates faction. Therefore, the player will need to curry favour with them in order to get good prices.

Indeed, that would be a necessity. The Black Markets only sell high-quality components, and also Star League-era components too (and these are also high-quality). The player can also find partial salvage and whole Mechs for rare models, including Star League-era ones. These are very, very expensive, so the player will need all the savings that can be had.

BAD DECISIONS SINK SHIPS:

Due to the rarity of the goods on-sale in black markets, the player may be tempted to make purchases. The Black Markets have greater variation in their goods than the legal ones do, making it unlikely that the same item would appear on-sale during the next time when the player gets to the same planet again.

These factors can lead unwise players to make very poor purchasing decisions, thus risking bankruptcy, which is a game-over scenario for the Career mode.

ALLIANCES & ENEMIES:

If the player has curried enough favour with a faction, the player can ally the mercenary outfit with that faction.

Only alliances can make available the most difficult, complicated and lucrative missions, i.e. the missions with the highest rating of five “skulls”. The faction also fully opens its markets to the player.

However, this comes with a major price: the faction that actively opposes the faction that the player has allied with would become sworn enemies, and repeal all offers and services. This setback is particularly severe if the player has made an alliance with the pirates in the Rimward Periphery, who are enemies with everyone else.

However, the player should not expect trouble like ambushes and attacks on the mercenary command. The official build of the game is not that complex.

MECHWARRIORS – OVERVIEW:

The gameplay element of Mechwarriors is described so much later than other elements that concern battles. This is because it is unfortunately among the least of the gameplay designs.

In the history of the Battletech IP, its developers have realized and recognized that Mechwarriors are significant characters; pilots of humanoid war machines tend to gain some fame among followers of science fiction. Indeed, the MechWarrior RPG line of that IP is dedicated to these singular characters.

WASTED STORY-TELLING OPPORTUNITIES:

Unfortunately, this game does not do much in utilizing their presence. Of course, the story campaign has the player character being both a mercenary commander and a Mechwarrior, but the Mechwarrior titles have already done this a lot. Battletech will not raise the bar.

On its own, this would not have seemed disappointing. However, considering that Harebrained Schemes has made games with rather good story-telling and character designs like Shadowrun: Dragonfall, the story campaign in Battletech can seem underwhelming.

There are interesting characters in the story campaign of course, but none of them are the player’s Mechwarriors. In fact, the officers of the Argo are more prominent in the story-telling.

Indeed, many of the Mechwarriors in this game either do not have any writing that has been made for them, or if there is any, it is part of the efforts to fulfil the promises that have been made during the Kickstarter campaign.

EXPERIENCE POINTS:

Despite their lack of narrative complexity, Mechwarriors are still essential to the gameplay. They are the sole pilots of the Mechs after all, and they are the ones that can get the most out of the Mechs that the player has kitted out (or waste their potential, if they mismatch with the Mechs).

In Career mode, every mission that a pilot partakes in grants experience points (XP) to him/her/them. The amount that is granted depends on the difficulty rating and complexity of the mission, as well as how many objectives were met. The actual performance of the individual pilot does not matter.

SKILLS:

The XP is to be accumulated and eventually spent on the skills of the pilot. There are four skills: Gunnery, Piloting, Guts and Tactics. These skills are represented as lines with nodes, with each node representing a level of the skill.

Gunnery determines their skill at shooting things. Indeed, the only statistical bonus that this skill provides is improvement of the chance-to-hit with weapons.

Piloting determines the pilot’s ability to dodge incoming attacks, as well as the chances of landing melee attacks. It also determines the bonus distance that can be had from sprinting. Piloting also increases the number of thresholds in the stability meter, making the pilot’s Mech harder to stagger.

Guts mainly determine the chances of the pilot dying after being incapacitated. However, at certain levels of this skill, the pilot gains additional capacity for sustaining injuries. The pilot also gains reductions to the recoil penalties from firing autocannons repeatedly. The pilot also gains increases to the overheating threshold of the Mech (though how this skill does so is unclear).

Tactics appear to have the least number of effects, but that is so because its few effects are among the most potent that can be had from any skill. Firstly, there are the reductions to the penalty from indirect fire. Secondly, there is the reduction to the minimum ranges of weapons; indeed, with these, a Mech can fire weapons with decent effect at ranges that they are not designed for. Finally, there is the bonus to called shots, which make them more reliable at hitting specific sections of a target.

Each node in the skill line costs XP to be unlocked. Each subsequent node typically costs more XP to be unlocked. However, there is an eventual ceiling limit to the skills of a Mechwarrior: 10 levels in every skill. Any XP that is gained afterwards is accumulated, but is practically useless because there is nothing left to spend it on.

GAINING ABILITIES:

Other than gaining what are practically statistical bonuses or reductions to penalties, there are the abilities that can be learned from filling in certain skill nodes. These nodes are the ones at levels 5 and 8 of the skills.

Taking one of these nodes has the MechWarrior learning the ability that is associated with the node. However, the pilot can only take two of the abilities at the level 5 nodes, and only one at the level 8 nodes, thus leading to a maximum of three abilities. After reaching any maximum number of abilities, the nodes with skills revert to regular nodes.

The effects of these abilities have been described earlier, such as the historically troublesome Bulwark; refer to the sections “Resolve” and “Abilities” earlier for a reminder.

INCAPACITATION & POSSIBLE DEATH:

In Career mode, the incapacitation and murder of other pilots would not matter much to the player; there are no consequences for being bloodthirsty. (It is also their own fault for not ejecting anyway.) However, the incapacitation and deaths of the player’s own pilots are certainly significant.

If a pilot is incapacitated, he/she may die of his/her wounds; the outcome is dependent on an RNG roll (which can be partially influenced with upgrades to the Argo’s medical facilities, but it is still a matter of luck). If the pilot survives, the pilot is subjected to a very long recovery time, and may even be subjected to random events that give the pilot post-traumatic stress.

Of course, the pilot might also just die, in which case all of the effort that has been invested in the development of the MechWarrior is wasted.

RECOVERY:

When a pilot is injured, the pilot stays in the Medical bay until the pilot has fully recovered. Sustaining more wounds means a longer stay. (This means that tough pilots that have suffered a lot of wounds would be stay hospitalized longer than a more fragile pilot that has taken fewer wounds.) The player can reduce the stay by improving the Medical bay.

Injured Mechwarriors in the player’s employ are only ever cared for in the Argo’s medical facilities. The planets that the Argo goes to presumably has medical facilities, but the player cannot make use of these.

MORALE:

The mercenary outfit is composed of humans with yearnings for creature comforts and worries over their future. To represent these and their response to any concern being satisfied (or not), there is the Morale meter.

Simply put, the meter fills if the player does things with outcomes that are to the employees’ liking. The most readily doable thing that the player can do for this to happen is to splurge on monthly expenses. Likewise, the meter empties if the player does things that they don’t like; an obvious example is being stingy on the expenses.

The morale meter can also be affected by random events, which (as their name suggests already) are not always in the player’s control.

The meter is separated into multiple segments; each is 10 units long, with each unit representing a point of Morale. Having segments fully filled improves the gain rate of Resolve during battle.

RANDOM EVENTS:

During the Argo’s travels, there would be randomized occurrences of events that affect the Argo, its crew, the Mechs and their pilots. These events are mostly problems, with a limited number of possible but mutually exclusive solutions that can be taken to solve the problems.

The outcomes generally depend on the solution that the player has taken. The outcome is not always certain with any solution though. Indeed, the player could have the same random event at different times, but could get different outcomes for having taken the same option.

The player can barely see these events coming. Granted, many of these random events have pre-requisites for their occurrence. For example, events about rations being scheduled and staff cuts will happen if the player chose the smaller monthly expense options. Therefore, it would appear that the player has some modicum of control over the occurrence of these events. Ultimately though, it is still the roll of an RNG that decides whether these events occur or not.

If the random events had been any more frequent, the game would have given the impression that it is taking after FTL: Faster Than Light – an indie game that, in hindsight, is much criticized for having very fickle random events. That would not have been for the better.

VISUAL DESIGNS – THE GOOD BITS:

Battletech makes a very good first impression with its visuals. This can seem especially so during the official release of this game, due to the prevalence of hand-drawn and animated artwork.

The models in this game are also incredibly detailed; the BattleMechs, in particular, are meticulously done. It is easy to recognize each Mech from its silhouette alone, to mention a positive consequence. (On the other hand, the many variants of the same Mech chassis does not make for ready estimates of a Mech’s capabilities, at least not without checking its loadout.)

Similar effort has been invested in the animations of the Mechs. Although the Mechs all look clumsy as befitting giant walking machines, each one has its own set of animations, even if they have the same build.

For example, the Locust, Jenner, Marauder, Catapult and King Crab have digitigrade legs, but each has been animated to reflect their inertia and weight. For one, the King Crab’s strides are not as long as those of the Locust.

Of course, most of these come from the contributions given by Piranha Games, who operates MechWarrior Online. Piranha Games is a close affiliate of FASA Interactive and has people who are friends to the founders of Harebrained Schemes. Thus, it is not wrong for cynics to remark that much of the graphics of the game is owed to Piranha, especially considering that Harebrained’s previous games do not even use full 3D graphics.

Nevertheless, this is a good example of cross-collaboration between game developers (who happen to have been given separate licenses by whoever owns the BattleTech IP now).

POORLY OPTIMIZED GRAPHICS EARLY ON:

Unfortunately, even with Piranha Games’ help, Harebrained Schemes’ inexperience shows in the form of poor performance, particularly in the early post-launch builds of the game.

Many performance issues have since been addressed, especially the embarrassing ones like Mech models going bonkers. Many updates were needed over a few years, but the game runs a bit more efficiently now. Where previously the game can take more than 8 GB of RAM just to load in visual assets, the game can make do with fewer than that in its current build at this time of writing.

LITTLE ANIMATIONS FOR HUMAN MODELS:

Yet, Harebrained Schemes’ inexperience still shows to this day. This is shown by the lack of animations for the models of human characters that appear in the story campaign. This is perhaps not a surprise to players that have played Harebrained’s previous works, which have next to no animations whatsoever for characters during story stints.

The most that Harebrained could do for this game is to have the camera change positions to look at the character models when their characters are delivering their lines. This is disappointing and dissatisfying.

SOUND DESIGNS:

Interestingly, Battletech is one of very few Harebrained titles that have voice-overs. Most of its games delivered dialogue without any.

Of course, Battletech actually does the same; this can be seen in the conversations aboard the Argo. However, some priority missions do have characters doing some back-and-forth; the protagonist is conspicuously omitted from all of these.

The sound effects would be very familiar to followers of Battletech-licensed. The crackling of PPCs, in particular, would be familiar to players that remember them as guns that shoot lightning. The sounds of Mechs being destroyed are especially satisfying, though the omission of their reactor explosions does lead to a noticeable gap in the variety of sound effects.

The music is perhaps the best of the sound designs. Harebrained is fortunate to retain the services of Jon Everist, whose scores for Harebrained’s Shadowrun titles were virtually universally praised (even if the rest of the games did not).

The very good first impression made by the music of the intro splash may not be reflective of the lack of immersive storytelling. However, the other music tracks, which are mostly instrumental and orchestral, fit quite well with the themes and scenarios in this game.

SUMMARY:

This game’s Kickstarter campaign was announced during a time when doubts were brewing about the wisdom of crowdfunding video game development. However, as its case shows, euphoric expectations can overcome hesitation; there was a noticeable dearth of BattleTech-licensed games back then, and what there were would have seemed disappointingly shallow. (Mechwarrior Online comes to mind, though the game has fared better since Piranha Games took over.)

Battletech is a mostly competently designed turn-based tactical strategy game. It has gameplay that adequately emulates the fundamentals of the table-top game. However, hindsight would reveal its shortfalls and wasted potential.

The worst of these is that its gameplay depends a lot on fickle luck. There are the all-or-nothing chance-to-hit rolls. There are the random events that happen during the Argo’s travels. There is the procedural generation of missions. These examples and other designs inflate the factor of luck in gameplay that otherwise places a lot of emphasis on the player’s skill at planning and execution.

There is the impression that this game is beyond the capability of Harebrained Schemes to develop. There are notable gaps in content compared to the source material. There were performance issues after the launch of the game. Then there is the commendable but all-too-noticeable contribution by Piranha Games.

The game is perhaps best enjoyed if its license is on sale, and not played beyond the first playthrough of the story campaign. For anyone else who really wants more from this game, there are the mods for this game, all of which done by fans who have better skill and vision than Harebrained itself.