Bad information for individuals who find it irresistible once I bang on about BattleTech‘s pace/delay issues each single time I submit about it: the devs are planning to supply “accelerated combat options” in a month or two. More unit customisation, problem settings and UI enhancements are additionally due within the first main replace, although forward of that, they’ll be breaking out their welding torches and fixing up this factor’s barely unstable legs.
As I ultimately got here round to after a depressing first 15 hours with it, BattleTech’s a fantastic turn-based technique recreation saddled with varied presentation and efficiency points. The former’s been the primary downside for a few of us, with its mess of unneeded pauses and sluggish animations artificially battles slowing down and a saggy interface. Easy, user-made BattleTech speed fixes have already got the sport’s tempo cranked as much as one thing much more fluid and active-feeling for me, however it’ll be good to have an official toggle within the menus.
Planned as a part of Update 1, due in June or July, are ‘Accelerated combat options’, which devs Harebrained Schemes coyly explain solely as “We’re working on options for players who would like to accelerate the pace of combat missions.” That ought to appease time-starved moaners similar to myself, however these with extra time and/or endurance to spare will likely be extra within the further promise of extra Mechwarrior customisation choices.
Right now, you’re restricted to designing the look and callsigns of your commander character, with the remainder of your Mech pilots’ aesthetic outlined by the luck of the hiring retailer lottery. I’ve grown accustomed to the faces and intensely restricted voices of my still-alive beginning line-up – Glitch, Behemoth, Medusa and Dekker – and wouldn’t wish to change ’em now, however positive, on my subsequent go on the large robotic merry-go-round, it’d be good to call everybody after Twin Peaks characters or classic Transformers. ‘Audrey, launch alpha strike!”
Also promised are ‘granular difficulty settings – a set of discrete options for players to customize the challenge level of the game in different areas.’ I’m solely guessing right here, however that might cater each to people who find themselves discovering the poorly-explained tactical aspect of the sport too hardcore and wish to blast by way of the story buying new deathbots, and to individuals for whom BT is second-nature and to allow them to burn by way of the early recreation with unbelievable ease. After a sum complete of 50 hours with the sport, I’m discovering that I can do many missions with my eyes closed now, so I wouldn’t say no amping issues. In that vein, additionally promised is smoothing of problem spikes, each all of a sudden too arduous and all of a sudden too simple.
I’m most likely extra thinking about “MechLab / Store / Salvage quality-of-life improvements – Interface additions to reduce friction when buying and salvaging new items,” although. All that stuff is pretty clunky, usually with a display or sub-menu too many, and a component failing to put in and bouncing again to the components menu throughout a refit as a result of I didn’t drag it into the field simply so does my nut in.
June or July for that replace, as I say, that the devs note that the deliberate contents could change as D-day approaches. Ahead of that, someday this month we’ll get at the very least one normal bugfix patch, and the devs are at the moment investigating efficiency and stability points. “Our launch wasn’t perfect,” they acknowledge, which anybody who’s skilled startup crashes or this not significantly glossy-looking recreation making their graphics card really feel prefer it’s simply gone twelve rounds with a King Crab will testify to.
The recreation’s first patch – v1.01 – was launched yesterday in reality, and addresses a couple of minor woes similar to V-sync not working correctly, clipping points, some crashes and a someday failure for savegames to look. (Sadly this latter happens on my laptop computer, and the patch hasn’t sorted it out, although all’s properly on my desktop). Full particulars and identified points are listed here, and the devs reckon extra smaller patches will trickle out over the approaching days and weeks.
No point out of meatier modding help as but, sadly, however clearly it received’t be lengthy till somebody figures out the way to slap Warhammer 40,000 skins throughout this factor.
