Why can't I melee attack?!?

[BlackDragon]

I just lost a 'full kill' bonus because one of my mechs just OUTRIGHT REFUSED to launch a melee-attack on a pitiful little vehicle, INSISTING, round-after-round, to hit it with its weak-ass weapons instead. What's going on? It's MADDENING! I'm RIGHT NEXT to it, I choose 'move', I mouse over the vehicle... bam, I'm in 'firing' mode, unleashing a set of friggin' FLAMETHROWERS on an armored vehicle instead of stomping on it for an instakill attack.

I'm barely managing to keep afloat. The bonus for total destruction of enemy forces would have been VERY HELPFUL. But because of this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, time ran out before I could destroy that LAST STUPID VEHICLE!

[AbsynthMinded]

if you are in melee range and click a target unit, there's end move target things you can click on around it to confirm. Ive never seemed to have or see a problem. .

[Elysion]

Yesterday i ran into a similar problem, i had an lrm boat that was out of missiles so i rushed it up next to a mech and just.. couldnt melee it. It sat there for 3 turns (i had it blocked in) before dying with my missile boat just standing there, every turn i couldnt melee. I had assumed it was due to the terrain being screwy or something.

[Cutlass Jack]

use 'v' to target nearest melee target when in move mode. If that's not working there may be an elevation or other landscape issue at play.

As an aside, flamethrowers and other support weapons will go off on a melee attack as well. But you'd see the melee attack first, which doesn't seem to be the case for you.

[HandyVac]

Elevation also counts towards distance, so sometimes if a target in an adjacent hex is up or down a steep slope from you, you can't melee them because they're technically more than one-hex-distance away.

[Mistfox]

It's the elevation, if you are too high or low, there isn't a place to brace to stomp the bugger, you must be on the same level as him.

[BlackDragon]

I guess it MUST have been an elevation-issue, but... it wasn't as if he was down an incline or anything. Just sitting on the side of a gently rolling hill. Bah...

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by BlackDragon:

I guess it MUST have been an elevation-issue, but... it wasn't as if he was down an incline or anything. Just sitting on the side of a gently rolling hill. Bah...

lol balancing 50 tons on 2 stilts is bad enough. can you imagine someone lifting his mech' leg up to stomp....then tipping over onto his back? :)

[Near Gravity]

I've run into this issue once myself. When I looked it over afterwards, it was becaue of a blocked movement issue. The reason this happens is actually that when you make a melee attack, the game decides how you will do it. i.e. it points to a specific move and attack vector, and if that's not possible given your current position relative to the opponent, you can't melee.

What would be nice, completely aside from this, is if you could choose to move to a position then select melee as an action, which would allow you to make melee attacks from behind the opponent, and have your small support weapons engage after the melee attack on the rear armor of the opponent.

But for whatever reason, all melee attacks are from a front or flank facing, unless it's the AI making it. In which case if it's a Light Mech, it's almost always from the back. Urbies seem to particularly like this, but it only tends to work if they have a movement to make before melee. If they're right next to you, they don't move around before the melee. They will select another close target and do it however.

It's worth noting that being able to choose which vector/facing to use when making a melee attack would benefit Light Mechs considerably. Tactically speaking, if you have the option to melee from a point where structure is exposed and have support weapons, then that would be far better than a facing which is fully armored.

[BlackDragon]

I definitely agree... seems downright weird that you can't choose. Light Mechs and backstabs aside, there's also the situation (which I've encountered once or twice) where some possible melee-attack vectors leaves you in a forest or other cover, but the one the game insists on using leaves you fully exposed to fire from other mechs...

Pretty sure there's no such issue in the tabletop-game. :p