Upcoming expansion: Hyades Rim

[Hobbes__]

EDIT (30/8/2019) - The first version of the Hyades Rim has been published!

{Mod edit: No unapproved links: No nexusmods links]

Hello all,

After a lot of work and help from the modding community and reusing/expanding resources such the Community Asset Bundle, Inner Sphere Map and 3025 Commander Edition, I'm very close to releasing a new expansion called the Hyades Rim.

Here are its key features:
* A setting more close to the 3rd Succession War, with the 'Mad Max' characteristics of when Battletech originally appeared
* 100 new star systems added, both canon systems (using existing info from the sourcebooks, etc.) and new systems (mainly for connection proposes).
* Nearly all of the TRO:3025 Original/Revised and TRO: Succession Wars canon 'Mechs and variants, excluding those post-3028. This is done reusing several models, specially Clan ones. Additional vehicles and their variants have been also implemented from the 3025 Edition.
* The 'Mechs are now distributed following the 3028-3057 Random Assignment & Rarity Tables 10.1. This means that some designs can now only found in specific factions like the Panther/Jenner (Kurita), Vindicator (Liao), Hermes II (Marik), etc.
* Most of the new systems have a maximum of 1.5 skulls, this was done to encourage Light/Medium usage
* 6 new pirate/rogue/renegade subfactions that only appear on the new star systems and use their own specific/custom 'Mechs. For instance, there's a pirate subfaction that mainly appears in water rich worlds and their 'Mechs are customized to take advantage of the improved heat sinking. Another subfaction is a rogue ex-Lyran unit that uses mainly Steiner models, another has EW equipped 'Mechs, etc.
* Finally, there are no other gameplay changes to the vanilla game other than those listed above. This expansion will be playable both in Campaign and Career mode.

I don't have yet an ETA but it's getting really close to release, and I thought to ask if someone has any other idea/suggestion that fits within the previous points.

 

[Justin Kase]

Very exciting

 

[Eximar]

So many talented people here.

That's an enormous undertaking. Looking forward to seeing it in action.

 

[Hobbes__]

Very exciting

Your mods (and others) contributed a lot to this, as well as your answers to my questions, so thank you a lot for your work and patience

 

[unclecid]

looking forward to it.

 

[Pode]

You might be interested in the weapon diversity mod's collection of defective / low quality / damaged weapons, so that a fully functional weapon system can become a rarer more valuable find.

 

[Justin Kase]

Your mods (and others) contributed a lot to this, as well as your answers to my questions, so thank you a lot for your work and patience

But you are taking it to the next level Very nice work!

I'm still waiting on Eck to push through the enum changes for factions to make it easier to implement them. So many plans, but I don't want to have to do them twice

 

[Hobbes__]

You might be interested in the weapon diversity mod's collection of defective / low quality / damaged weapons, so that a fully functional weapon system can become a rarer more valuable find.

This was actually my first idea for a mod months ago but I didn't like how it affected gameplay, so I stopped working on it - it just creates an additional difficulty level for no other justifiable reason. Some players like it as difficult as possible, and that's OK, I feel it sometimes as well, but I really don't want to add much more difficulty or complexity than it already exists.

I will make a list of recommended mods to use, I already have a couple of them but I won't add them to the download, so I might up adding something like weapons diversity to that list.

But you are taking it to the next level Very nice work!

I'm still waiting on Eck to push through the enum changes for factions to make it easier to implement them. So many plans, but I don't want to have to do them twice

If it means that it won't be necessary to inject the new factions anymore, that would be great! The simpler to install, the better!

 

[Blade_mercurial]

View attachment 507367


* Most of the new systems have a maximum of 1.5 skulls, this was done to encourage Light/Medium usage

This is the first Mod I have seen that REALLY sounds exciting to me (for the way I like to play, and the fact that there are NO other changes than what you describe). So hats off for making something that appears to be very focussed!

However, the maximum of 1.5 skulls on 'most' systems concerns me. Frankly, I find the 1 - 2 skull missions VERY boring! Seeing a huge swath of star systems at this level would just ruin the experience for someone like me (i.e. an experienced player; although I can't speak for everyone of course!). I don't think you need to put this limitation 'just' to encourage the use of lights/mediums. Lights & Mediums can actually handle higher skull missions quite handily (see Edmon's 4 Lights campaign for example). If you could please reconsider this 'decision' and at least have quite a number of 3 skull systems, as well as a few 4 skull systems. Even a couple of 5 skulls would be nice for variety (and frankly, not too hard to avoid for players not looking for that level of challenge).

Just my 2 cents, but thanks for posting this, I'd be interested to check it out...

 

[starscream]

Can't wait to play this

 

[Hobbes__]

I've almost finished implementation (only the shops and a few mech/systems fluff remaining) for 1.0 and yesterday I've started a whole new campaign for playtesting. First, here are a few images and info to satisfy your curiosity and I'll then answer the still unanswered questions.

Something very important I haven't mentioned - version 1.0 will only include the canon 3025 Light and Medium 'Mechs. Postponing the Heavy/Assault 'Mechs was a deliberate choice made at the beginning because of the additional work involved, since just adding the Light/Mediums required 165 new 'Mech entries, plus coming up with a working system for faction assignment. Just for an idea of the scale, that's about three times the number of lights/mediums on vanilla.

This is a outdated 'Mech list - the canon Firefly, Firebee, Hussar, Hoplite, Icarus II, Gladiator and Mercury have been added meanwhile, while other variants were removed/added.

Here's a close up of the new systems added, using Navigation's Computer to display their difficulty.

This is the current contract list for Titania. As you may see, there are now eight new subfactions (and only in the new systems added), all of which have some unresolved issues with the law.
Why eight? Because five of them are in one way or another associated with one of the Successor States (and also use the specific mech models and variants of those factions), and the remaining three are 'specialized' criminals, having a total of 80+ custom 'Mech variants that only they use (I won't say more not to spoil it).

And finally, here are my current campaign 'Mechs. I started with the Hermes II, Clint, Whitworth, Jenner, Valkyrie and a Hornet being randomly generated, then I've so far recovered a Firestarter and a Javelin.

 

[Hobbes__]

However, the maximum of 1.5 skulls on 'most' systems concerns me. Frankly, I find the 1 - 2 skull missions VERY boring! Seeing a huge swath of star systems at this level would just ruin the experience for someone like me (i.e. an experienced player; although I can't speak for everyone of course!). I don't think you need to put this limitation 'just' to encourage the use of lights/mediums. Lights & Mediums can actually handle higher skull missions quite handily (see Edmon's 4 Lights campaign for example). If you could please reconsider this 'decision' and at least have quite a number of 3 skull systems, as well as a few 4 skull systems. Even a couple of 5 skulls would be nice for variety (and frankly, not too hard to avoid for players not looking for that level of challenge).

Just my 2 cents, but thanks for posting this, I'd be interested to check it out...

This is WIP and unchartered territory, so I'll definitely be open to increase the difficulty if so required in the future. As you can read from the previous post I made the whole area a sandbox for light/medium 'Mechs, and the player will have the choice of sticking to that tonnage or getting bigger 'Mechs, although I'd rather have those appearing more in the Inner Sphere rather than in the Periphery, for canon reasons.

I'm gonna post a playtesting version in the next couple of days of those who are interested to check it out and help

 

[starscream]

This is WIP and unchartered territory, so I'll definitely be open to increase the difficulty if so required in the future. As you can read from the previous post I made the whole area a sandbox for light/medium 'Mechs, and the player will have the choice of sticking to that tonnage or getting bigger 'Mechs, although I'd rather have those appearing more in the Inner Sphere rather than in the Periphery, for canon reasons.

I'm gonna post a playtesting version in the next couple of days of those who are interested to check it out and help

I'm deff interested I'm guessing this is going to be making use of CAB this mod looks very promising

 

[Ballacraine]

Sounds great.
I would be explicit though on upload of the dependencies of this project.
I take it CAB 3025 Single Folder & BEX-CE ?

 

[starscream]

If you are focusing on 3025 time line I would go with CAB 3025 or the CAB from BTA

 

[Hobbes__]

The Hyades Rim has just been published on Nexusmods.

Nexusmods link - [Mod edit: No nexus mods links]
Its requirements are the Flashpoint and Urban Combat DLCs and CAB SingleFolder 3025, it already comes included with MechResizer.

 

[Ballacraine]

Ah right.... I can understand using a version of CAB & not making it too dependant upon other mods.
That does make sense, but is it going to be compatible with BEX-CE ?

 

[i64man]

Or would it be compatible with the XLRP mod?

 

[Hobbes__]

Ah right.... I can understand using a version of CAB & not making it too dependant upon other mods.
That does make sense, but is it going to be compatible with BEX-CE ?

Or would it be compatible with the XLRP mod?

Possibly?

It's a matter of work: those mods would need to have the complete 3025 'Mech set, the new factions and the new systems to be compatible.

This is not one of my priorities though because I prefer playing without extensive adjustments or changes to HBS gameplay, and focus instead on expanding the BT 3025 universe (factions, lore, planets) within the base game.