I have been a big fan of Battletech since it first came out in the mid 80's and was happy to see this PC game finally get released yesterday. It still shows as pre-order on the game site but I got my preorder through Fanatical at a discount and with the preorder additional skins bonus. I haven't had a chance to play yet (download completed and installed), but the previews have been pretty encouraging. Looking forward to getting to play later this evening and reminiscing! Any other Battletech fans out there?

http://battletechgame.com/

I still have a couple of my Battletech / Mechwarrior books and even what I now consider a "battle damaged" Warhammer figure that I assembled and painted in desert camo that I used on the hex boards. It is one of my desk conversation pieces.

Not being familiar with the Battlemech series, I was really excited about this game watching the trailer, until I saw that it's turn based. Just not my thing. But then I found then:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztqhTjLVfgs

Downloading it as I type this, though it's going to be vying for game time with Frostpunk, which also released yesterday, and League of Legends.

For the quick mobile fix, there’s War Robots.

https://warrobots.net/en

Wow, the results of that first mission were tragic. Good use of music and visuals to give emotion to the story.

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I still have a couple of my Battletech / Mechwarrior books and even what I now consider a "battle damaged" Warhammer figure that I assembled and painted in desert camo that I used on the hex boards. It is one of my desk conversation pieces

Ah, the Year of 1991. Clan tech, GeoHex map with terrain, nerd BO.

Enjoying the intro campaign play. The controls are intuitive as is selecting multiple targets and assigning weapons for each. I like that you create your own customized character image, Mech colors, and a backstory that affects your beginning Mechwarrior stats and skill bonuses. Really liking it so far in all respects. Agree on the great visuals and music, good sound effects too.

I am also a fan of the Mechwarrior FPS simulator approach and will check out Mechwarrior 5 but I hope they don't go Titanfall with the speed and handling of the Mechs. Battlemechs need to move and fight more deliberately and generally not kill each other (unless WAY outclassed) within a few seconds. The one video link posted by Skull Leader is cool but is presented at a frantic pace. The second Mechwarrior 5 preview video that plays right after it I think gives a better perspective on speed and reaction expectations and it does look promising. They've definitely come a long way since the original Mechwarrior that I played with a CH products Flightstick Pro Joystick and the separate CH Products Throttle Controller way back when.

Nice timing. Just dug my joystick out to go with my new gaming laptop. Found my old Mechwarrior 4 disks as well. Missed the old Battletech days at Dave N Busters.

Been waiting for this for a while now, I was an early backer on Kickstarter. Unfortunately I have t had a chance to play it yet. Should be able to later this week hopefully.

A buddy of mine just bought it. Seems like only yesterday I played on my computer.

I have been playing for a couple of days and am really enjoying the game.

Turn based has always been my preferred method.

So far the story is interesting and the merc management aspects are fun. I would prefer a little more in depth management but a great nod to a great game.

One caveat is that the engine is taxing video cards to their max and really driving up temps. A strange phenomenon considering the engine is a tried and true engine that is not known to be a video card killer.

I wonder if the video card issue is age and/or model related? I'm running an Nvidia based EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB SSC Gaming ACX 2.0+ Cooling Graphics Card and have not noticed any spin up of the fans or heat / stress issues and I have all settings maxed. But I do recognize this is still a fairly higher end video card even with the other newer models currently available. I've had it for 2 years.

Continue to enjoy the game a lot! The story is interesting too as is talking with the other characters. After the complete intro mission I've only done three more missions so far but I expect to get some more time in later. The Mech management and particularly the selling of salvage was a little puzzling until I did a little digging and confirmed that while you can sell components as you salvage them the chassis designation of 1/3 means you need to acquire two more chassis components to be able to build or sell the salvage for that particular Mech model. At the moment I am focusing more on the C-bills and only one salvage slot but will switch up to higher numbers of salvage once I get a little further along to diversify and be able to sell and use the complete chassis once I have 3/3.

I've only played the first mission but I'm wondering if it would be wiser to get the killshot with your own character rather than letting the NPCs kill 'mechs. Or can you upgrade NPC 'mechs, too?

You can upgrade / manage all the Mechs in your inventory and it is good to give lancemates / NPCs kills too because they need XP for upgrading their skills as well. You assign who drives what Mech when you get into the actual campaign but for the very first story line mission I imagine it gives you a pre-determined amount of XP to spend before you jump into the actual campaign selectable missions where it is more performanced based. Each Mech and character has their strengths and weaknesses in their stats / skills that you want to take into consideration when assigning them to Mechs for missions, your character included.

I have been playing since it was released. It is a great addition to the franchise. It is not quite mega-mek level of detail. It is pretty good. The weapons vs hard points are nicely balanced. I never cared for ac 2,5,10,20. But their weight vs use is better balance than in mw2,mw3,mw4 etc.

I have a a special place for mw2, and mw4 mercs. Mw2 because clan jade falcon, mercs because i helped alpha and beta test mektek's expansion packs back in the day.

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Originally posted by Orguss:
I've only played the first mission but I'm wondering if it would be wiser to get the killshot with your own character rather than letting the NPCs kill 'mechs. Or can you upgrade NPC 'mechs, too?

Exp is split evenly between the lance. With 4 main traits, each trait has 2 main characteristics you can choose.

You can choose two of the lower level, and one upper level trait, the just generic bonuses through out the other traits.

The mechs and their variant hardpoints are also seeming well done between light and medium mechs
. Even the few hevy mechs i have seem to be unique between variant models.

Even upgrading the drop ship is interesting. I have not worked with faction system yet, or much of the morale system. I have done a out 60 missions but only two story line missions.

I'm extremely disappointed in the lack of voiceovers. Clicking through all these conversation pieces is annoying. I would also like it more if multiple quantities of an item were able to be selected in the store. Going through three button clicks in order to buy stuff is fine, but having to repeat it to buy an additional quantity is lame.

Yeah, I hadn't noticed that the XP was the same for all lancemates until I did a few more contracts. I can somewhat understand them wanting to try to keep the Mechwarriors somewhat balanced, but that should be something left to the player to decide. I guess they simplified it so that scout drivers can be more competitive with the harder hitters, but still they could have designed the XP system a little more robustly.

The 10 percent of actual value for selling components is completely absurd. Unless you actually need the components, you are better off taking mostly if not all credits over salvage once you get some spare parts, especially until you start going up against more Mechs. I know this should change with better reputation but still ridiculous. I've only played a few more missions so far but I keep getting contracts with no enemy Mechs in them, only vehicles, so the salvage has been parts only. On the plus side, I have gotten some good C-bill amount missions in the high 100k and low 200K range and a couple of below 100k ones.

I'm at the point where missions have 700k rewards, but I have run into those where you're just against vehicles. I tend to go for the salvage on missions that have higher base salvage and monetary compensation on low-reward or low base salvage missions. Seems to work out.

None of my guys are piloting light 'mechs. Right now, the heaviest I've got is 55t but everyone in my lance is running a medium 'mech. I don't really care about scouting out the battlefield since the game shows you where everyone is, anyway. I want firepower.

I messed up on selecting two lower traits on all but one of my current pilots. But when I get enough rep to hire higher-tier pilots, I'll make sure not to make the same mistake when selecting their skills.