RogueTech thoughts

[Panfilo]

I tried this out this morning, because it touched on a lot of ideas I had. So far I'm having a lot of fun with it. Apparently it is a somewhat controversial mod, and it does have its downsides.

The Bad
-There's so many modifiers to hit that you miss way more often, which can make the battle get kind of tedious depending on terrain. While the TT had this problem in similar situations, it was definitely something they didn't necessarily need to port over. Gunnery and accuracy mods feel more important as a result. Since you miss so much, it also really hurts ammo based weapons, particularly autocannon.

-Not sure if the AI is adjusted to take changes into account, such as how overheating affects mechs. With ammo explosions being a risk, expect to see many AI enemies with mixed load outs accidentally blow themselves up.

-The game is harder, which is good, but it's harder in a lot of ways that push the player to be risk - averse since you get nickel and dimed for everything. I'll have to play the campaign more to see if it manages to stay in that sweet spot between too easy (boring) and too hard (unfun).

The Good
-Great variety in gear and many new variants of existing mechs keep things interesting. Conversely there's also lo-tech equipment you might need to settle for like rocket Launchers and Rifles.

-Even though the AI struggles with it, I like the overheat effects since you can work around them in the right situation.

-Panic system is also neat and can potentially save the pilots rear end when they panic in a logical situation (getting almost fully dismembered) while you can also spook enemy pilots by alpha striking them from behind to try to encourage them to punch out early.

-There's a variety of ammo types that let you get a lot of of combinations of weapon effects and ammo effects. The only bummer is that they can't mod swapping ammo types so you have to commit to one type during a battle. Still, it allows for some interesting setups like having +stability damage AC/2s using live fire training ammo that trades some damage for even more stability damage to topple mechs from extreme range.

[Direbear]

As much as I aggre that the evasion is very strong, from your reply I can only assume that you didn't bother to read my arguments at all. There are definetly events where not moving (without Bulwark) is a reasonable choice...

It's reasonable only in safe situation (sniper, bulwark or enemy almost defeated). Otherwise punishment will be huge. I do stay still in some situation but if I'm fully sure that I'm safe. As I said there are no trading.

The balaning refers to the implementaition of dedicated melee weapon like chainswords or plasma lances. Having MGs and SLaser fire in addition to theese would be way to strong, especially considering the amount of support weapon hardpoints that are availabe.

Melee is gimped too right now. I can accept accuracy penalty (it was too good). But I cannot risk by my balance in melee. Casual miss gives you 20 instability (or even more). This means that you become very close to unsteady (what is certain knockdown and LOTS of damage). That's why melee becomes reasonable only for dedicated melee mechs. What is pity.

In comparison in TT hit chance for a kick was very high and piloting check was without mods. So easy to pass. Punch did not require piloting check. In most cases if you can make melee attack you should make it (if your mech is in good shape).

[Panfilo]

I think it is at a good point right now. Remember melee attacks are almost a guaranteed OHKO on vehicles if you connect, and combined with being able to melee while sprinting, and boosting your movement speed through equipment, it is easy to goomba stomp tanks. Berserker giving you Entrenched is also pretty great in my opinion.

[Just a Player]

My problem is LadyARkano is a HUGE SJW, thats mean to EVERYONE on the discord. She abuses her place a mod because she can. The mod should b boycotted udner #getwokegobroke.

[Panfilo]

What about her makes her a huge SJW? The only bad things I heard about her is that she can come off as abrasive to people, though this isn't a unique quality among modders in my observation.

[Direbear]

Well, I suppose any other modder can make compilation like Roguetech. If he wants to invest time. It does not have any rocket science.

[Ser_Chonks]

Try donZappo's Consolidated Company Commander Mod Pack
https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/136

Great compilation, with similar features (both authors use features from eachother's mod, btw)

Personal perception of it over RT:

-Feels more concise, being centered around 3025 tech (RT gives me a bit of a feature-creep feel, despite being awesome it just feels too much).
-Blends much better with the campaign, while having most features I feel are needed.
-Less prone to save problems since it rarely messes with items/mechs.
-Great AI tweaks, leading to less suicidal enemies.
-No .exe installer for anyone that doesn't like it. Makes it easier to download and see what's being updated since patches are their own package. The entire mod is less than 5mb, minus optionals (Big IS map, Marauder and Warhammer).

-If you want melee and non-3025-canon weapons/upgrades like MG variants, rockets and sensor-stuff you'd need to download other mods.
-Alters MechTech economy in a big way, scaling the numbers up because the game doesn't seem to deal well with fractional Tech income, so display looks weird. Relatively easy to tweak back to vanilla levels, at the cost of intended balance.

Still most of it is easy to switch off, tweak with a text editor or add from a standalone mod, so overall I like it more. If you're going to mod, might as well go all the way, right? :P


For melee weapons:
https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/193

For rockets:
https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/158

For other stuff (incl. mg's, rockets, and other tech) to choose from:
(just include wanted stuff in shop lists like the melee mod with a text editor)
https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/98

edit:
For some more... obscure... stuff:
https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/285

[bradm73]

Originally posted by Jeremy.Delaughter:

My problem is LadyARkano is a HUGE SJW, thats mean to EVERYONE on the discord. She abuses her place a mod because she can. The mod should b boycotted udner #getwokegobroke.

I've noticed that too, though I'm not going to go into specific details because I don't think she's worth wasting more thought energy on that usual.

Originally posted by Panfilo:

What about her makes her a huge SJW? The only bad things I heard about her is that she can come off as abrasive to people, though this isn't a unique quality among modders in my observation.

Abrasive is an understatement.

I had installed Roguetech and everything was fine. Then the 1.1 patch was release, and obviously overwrote Roguetech, but something was wrong. Since 1.1 was released, I decided to start a vanilla ironman campaign, but immediately noticed that almost none of my precision strikes or other called shots hit their intended hit locations. The vast majority of called shots hit center torso, regardless of the location called. So I did an experiment, and played about 20-30 hours into the new campaign, just going slowly to try to get better mechs, etc, but ALL called shots I made were to the left leg of an enemy mech (the leg to the right on the enemy mech graphic). It ended up being a hit ratio of less than 1 out of 5 called shots to the leg ever hit, instead going to the center torso. And while statistically, the randomness of the hit roll generator makes my scenario a possibility, there is also programming in the game to keep things from being TOO random for situations like mine.

So discovering this issue, I headed over to the Battletech discord and asked a simple question, whether or not anything in Roguetech could have lingered past the 1.1 update.

At this point, LadyAlekto called me stupid, at one point re-t-a-r-d-e-d (which was quite shocking since she's supposed to be an SJW), she asked if I had a college degree, to which I replied. She then went on to say she's a PHD with some kind of Psychiatric degree (which leads be to think that was actually a lie and that she's actually some fat dude living in her parents basement who assembles mods for video games all day and has absolutely no social life outside of her inflatable love partner and ultra-vibe pleasure 2000). Anyway, she went on to try to further belittle me and call me names for asking such a "stupid question".

Now I'm the kind of person who treats everyone with respect as much as I possibly can, and I didn't even go off on her reaction toward me in a negative way at all. I simply asked why she/he was being so hostile toward me, which she just shrugged off and kept belittling me and the whole situation.

Honestly, it was enough for me to NEVER again recommend one of her mods or any mod she is associated with. LadyAlekto's behavior was simply disgusting, and I'm shocked that she is allowed to be a mod on the Battletech discord. She brings the entire community down, and that's something that shouldn't be acceptable in any gaming community.

[Panfilo]

I've heard each Chassis has hidden traits, is that true? I know there are a bunch of 'Pirate' variants that are generally worse versions of stock mechs, but considering you can reconfigure them this isn't necessarily a problem. But if there were some hidden modifiers that affected their accuracy, stability, etc then that's a whole other issue.

While there's a lot of mech variants, it seems like ideally you want to go after the 'legendary' mechs. Since these give you the most flexibility in terms of hardpoints, they are the best platforms to min-max like crazy.

Been looking at the differences between Light, Standard, and Heavy Gauss Rifles. Light is interesting because of the extreme range, but its still a lot of weight for what it does. The regular one is solid, though it does feel a little obsolete when there's lots of weapons that are several tons lighter that do almost as well. Heavy seems TOO heavy, and for the weight investment you might as well just get an AC/20 and slap on plenty of ammo and jump jets.

[Mohrrunkel]

For the chassis traits, have a look at this:
steam://openurl/https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yUqA1CJabsT1rtSRFsJxejjW4CkuEEHJqQcxkBJk6rM/edit?usp=sharing

QuirksI know of are melee/DFA accuracy/damage/instability modfiers, mech stability, vision, camo, sensorrage, signature size and structure/armor points that were unusual for their weightclass. There might be more and some have become obsolete with the latest patch, e.g.: Walking/sprinting distance, JJ, free weight.

Some are mehh and some are realy cool. Just look at the traits the Basilisk/Hwacha gets: +50% DFA dmg, -50% DFA selfdmg. This mean dishing out 240 dmg while only taking 80 in return, before you add actuators to the party.
A minor quirk would be the 10 extra damage for a Firestarter. As a 35t mech it's supposed to deal 35 damage per punch but does 45 instead, which is even shown in the mechlab.

[Panfilo]

Those are neat. Hopefully in the future we can get a better idea of all the little bonuses a Mechwarrior and mech are getting.

I had started a new campaign with the updated mod, and it feels way harder. Repairing up salvaged mechs are super expensive; previously I would repair them and hock them at whatever backwater I was at. Now it's not even cost effective and it seems like you might as well scrap every dumpster mech you slap together before you so much as spit some polish on it.

Primitive armor and ICE engines seem like vendor trash. You'd have to be incredibly desperate to take them. Rifles aren't great but better than nothing and at least somewhat lighter than their autocannon cousins. I'm looking forward to fiddling around with different engines, either slowing the mech down to free up tonnage or upgrading it for more evasion and heat sinks.

One of my starting mechs is the 'Venom' variant of the Spider and it is probably the best light mech I've ever seen; 4 Medium Pulse Lasers and like 15 jump distance pretty much guarantee you can get flank shots on enemy mechs, and when you are fast enough you can literally catch the enemies flat footed with zero evasion making them easy targets.

[Napoleonic S]

Originally posted by Panfilo:

Those are neat. Hopefully in the future we can get a better idea of all the little bonuses a Mechwarrior and mech are getting.

I had started a new campaign with the updated mod, and it feels way harder. Repairing up salvaged mechs are super expensive; previously I would repair them and hock them at whatever backwater I was at. Now it's not even cost effective and it seems like you might as well scrap every dumpster mech you slap together before you so much as spit some polish on it.

Primitive armor and ICE engines seem like vendor trash. You'd have to be incredibly desperate to take them. Rifles aren't great but better than nothing and at least somewhat lighter than their autocannon cousins. I'm looking forward to fiddling around with different engines, either slowing the mech down to free up tonnage or upgrading it for more evasion and heat sinks.

One of my starting mechs is the 'Venom' variant of the Spider and it is probably the best light mech I've ever seen; 4 Medium Pulse Lasers and like 15 jump distance pretty much guarantee you can get flank shots on enemy mechs, and when you are fast enough you can literally catch the enemies flat footed with zero evasion making them easy targets.

The Venom can jump and dish pretty good damage but I think the Erinya still the better light mech due to better Hardpoints and better armor although it couldn't jump by default.

Anyway I started with Venom, the fugly standard blackjack, the fugly standard laser vomit hunchback and possibly the worst version of trebuchet that only has 3 laser Hardpoints and 1 missile Hardpoints with crap armor as bonus.

It's PITA to play with those mechs, the standard lasers way too often miss, the heat management is awful, the speed is awful, I had to save scum and withdraw several times to stay alive because even reconfiguring the mech was not an option in the beginning, mainly due to the way the armor repairing after battle works but also due to the high costs and literal no spare mech to use.

Overtime I salvaged some wolfhound and now I got a kayutska trebuchet which I configured to be a Melee brawler, with max armor, oversized engine (best new feature in the game), additional gears etc, I did this (turning a long ranger into a brawler) because I desparately need this kind of tank that can quickly destabilize (and outright disable/kill) enemy mechs so they can't overpower my puny mechs.

Besides the worst trebuchet I have here is so awful that I simply don't know how to configure it, just awful, need to be changed ASAP.

[Panfilo]

Yeah the Erinya was my superstar before the recent updates when you could cram it full of Advanced Materials Mk3 and have it packing the firepower of mechs twice its mass. No idea how it is now that Ferro Fibrous and Endo Steel is properly implemented. FF now only really seems worth it if you're maxing out the armor on heavier mechs since the weight savings start to look meaningful. ES is probably great on everything since it scales with the mechs weight.

A funny thing about this is that Advanced Materials was way better on smaller mechs, because getting an extra ton or two on a light mech made a big impact while on heavier mechs it was competing for space with weapons and double heat sinks.

On my current start I lucked out on starting mechs. I decided to just manually pick the Thunderbolt to make the early game less frustrating. I also ended up with the flamer Blackjack, stock Firestarter, and Venom. The Blackjack and Firestarter work really well together, especially now that some flamers can do bonus damage vs overheated enemies.

Theres an AC/10 Hunchback which is probably one of the better variants since it has better range and more lasers than the Classic Hunchie.

[Panfilo]

I've been thinking about Armor Piercing AP ammo. It was always decent but I tended to pass it up for Precision and Caseless because just HITTING your target is a hassle, and only 3 shots/ton on AC/20 is PAINFUL.

But now you can crit engines and gyros, and like the tabletop you're often more likely to kill mechs via engine crits vs simply coring them. 100% crit chance is pretty spicy. On a Rotary AC/5 you could auger out their reactor in one Salvo. That's not counting the other equipment that instantly kills the mech when destroyed, like Superchargers.

[Napoleonic S]

Originally posted by Panfilo:

I've been thinking about Armor Piercing AP ammo. It was always decent but I tended to pass it up for Precision and Caseless because just HITTING your target is a hassle, and only 3 shots/ton on AC/20 is PAINFUL.

But now you can crit engines and gyros, and like the tabletop you're often more likely to kill mechs via engine crits vs simply coring them. 100% crit chance is pretty spicy. On a Rotary AC/5 you could auger out their reactor in one Salvo. That's not counting the other equipment that instantly kills the mech when destroyed, like Superchargers.

Wait, does AP ammo can bypass armor or something? I never consider them because I don't like them having 50% less ammo.

Also doesn't ceaseless ammo give you nasty +2 recoil? I struggle to understand why is that even an option in this mod?

[Panfilo]

AP ammo has a 100% crit chance, but that's based on hitting exposed locations. However, I am ASSUMING (not certain) that if the damage to the armor spills over to the internal structure on a single shot the crit will apply. It doesn't ignore armor or anything, but guarantees that you'll knock something out from that location. So a flaking shot with an AC/20 has a really good chance of getting an engine crit since it'll probably strip through what little rear armor the target has. I only dislike them because you get half the ammo (rounded up, thank God) per ton, and it doesn't do any good if you fail to hit internal structure or miss entirely.

Caseless is good because it gives you 50% MORE ammo and it stacks with other special ammo types. So for example you take a ton of AP and a ton of Caseless and it makes up for the reduced ammo of the AP. While the recoil penalty is worse, it only applies if you shoot two consecutive turns in row. But since you have more ammo to work with and most autocannon are pretty heat efficient, you might as well just magdump into your targets regardless.

Also I tried out having a pair of RAC/2s with livefire training ammo and you can often completely fill up the stability bar with one burst. The damage penalty doesn't matter as much on very low damage weapons. But conversely it seems like a massive waste on a Gauss Rifle or AC/20.