Battletech RPG

[DevIO]

My intro to Battletech was Crescent Hawk's Inception which was an RPG and most of my nostalgia is still rooted in that. Crescent Hawk's Revenge eventually cemented my interest though it's an RTT game.

Does anyone here still have any form of interest in a BT RPG? Thinking it might be an interesting deviation from the genre norms we have right now. I barely see any scifi themed RPGS outside of JRPGs and I'm tired of sword and sorcery.

 

[Aradiel]

As a fan of the BT novels, before DA, it always seemed to me that BT was about the people on the ground. Yes, there were 'Mechs, but they were only a part of it. A FPS RPG with infantry, regular people, vehicles, land, air and space, and yes, 'Mechs, would be great, but most importantly, it would need story, intrigue, real people, with real motivations.

I'm probably expecting too much and the chances of anyone with the rights, desire, and skill to make it probably doesn't exist. Still, it would be nice.

 

[unclecid]

As a fan of the BT novels, before DA, it always seemed to me that BT was about the people on the ground. Yes, there were 'Mechs, but they were only a part of it. A FPS RPG with infantry, regular people, vehicles, land, air and space, and yes, 'Mechs, would be great, but most importantly, it would need story, intrigue, real people, with real motivations.

I'm probably expecting too much and the chances of anyone with the rights, desire, and skill to make it probably doesn't exist. Still, it would be nice.

uh....Jordan and company did this in '86 two years after launch of TT.
it is called Mechwarrior and melds seamlessly with the TT.

my battletech groups always incorporated this....when we made up pilot character sheets it wasnt just name background and gun/pilot skills.
there were a whole slew of other things to decide on.
much time was spent outside of the mech as there was in them

 

[ThatGuyMontag]

With all honesty, HBS are precisely the team to do a full Battletech CRPG. Doing one on top of the tactical game was clearly outside the scope of the Kickstarter, but that doesn't stop it being an option at some point going forward, though it clearly feels like the emphasis will be more on the merc sim sandbox for now.

It certainly would make for an interesting, if ambitious, DLC for the current game down the line. We might even get one built off the back of the event system ala Pillars of Eternity which might make for a reasonable halfway house using current tech.

 

[DevIO]

Reason this popped up in my head was that I was reinstalling some old RPGS and Strategy games -Pillars of Eternity, Divinity, Shadowrun, Banner Saga. While playing these games, my mind kept wandering back to Battletech and I started to thinking about Crescent Hawk's Inception and started to wish there was a more modern Battletech CRPG I could play.

I always play with at least some RP in mind (hence my thread about RP career mode) and min maxing for me is secondary to having an invested RP story even if it's just in my head. I know some may find this weird... but in EVERY game I play I always go through the conversations with the crew even if I know they have 0 impact and I already know the responses. I do this because in my head it's what my in game char would do. Weird I know... But I've never been 'normal'.

 

[unclecid]

@DevIO you aint the only one.

i do the whole deal....merc unit background...take time making the commander.
then roll what kind of pilots i get and adjust them with the save editor after start.
then use Random Assignment Tables to determine unit makeup and add/remove mechs to get it.
and ya...i talk to the crew.....sometimes i yell at em too.
and each commander looks at decisions differently.

 

[Aradiel]

uh....Jordan and company did this in '86 two years after launch of TT.
it is called Mechwarrior and melds seamlessly with the TT.

They certainly did part of it, much of the RP and story aspect, but it was still 'Mech combat only, and it was very limited and repetitive.

I was thinking more along the lines of something focused on the player as an individual, and while 'Mechs would certainly be in the game, they wouldn't be the only form of combat.

 

[unclecid]

They certainly did part of it, much of the RP and story aspect, but it was still 'Mech combat only, and it was very limited and repetitive.

I was thinking more along the lines of something focused on the player as an individual, and while 'Mechs would certainly be in the game, they wouldn't be the only form of combat.

we may be talking about different things.
i am talking about this:

an actual rpg....you dont even have to have mechs.
but it integrates perfectly with the TT.

 

[Aradiel]

Gameplay footage and box art.

I was talking about this DOS game. I played it in the early '90s. A few years after it was released.The combat is limited to a handful of 'Mechs. It was a while ago now, but even back then I wasn't terribly impressed with the game. Take out the BT universe, and was it worth playing at all?

My favorite game from that era was The Crescent Hawk's Revenge. I never played any board or TT games.

 

[MeiSooHaityu]

we may be talking about different things.
i am talking about this:
View attachment 463444 View attachment 463446 View attachment 463447
an actual rpg....you dont even have to have mechs.
but it integrates perfectly with the TT.

​

Gameplay footage and box art.

I was talking about this DOS game. I played it in the early '90s. A few years after it was released.The combat is limited to a handful of 'Mechs. It was a while ago now, but even back then I wasn't terribly impressed with the game. Take out the BT universe, and was it worth playing at all?

My favorite game from that era was The Crescent Hawk's Revenge. I never played any board or TT games.

I feel this is always a bit confusing. Both the mech simulator PC games and the pen and paper RPG games are both called MechWarrior. For others that may be reading this... @unclecid is posting artwork from the pen and paper RPG, and @Aradiel is posting artwork from the PC game.

 

[MeiSooHaityu]

It seems like Crescent's Hawk (Inception/Revenge) is the closest thing we ever got to a BattleTech RPG in PC gaming form. I'd love to see a new title in the genre. Maybe this is something HBS could tackle in the future? They have the experience with both the Shadow Run and BattleTech games, I think they could do a good job.

Or maybe there could be a Crescent's Hawk remaster, although I don't know who would have the rights to do it.

 

[unclecid]

what i would LOVE to see is HBS take the Mechwarrior RPG and do a shadowrun-esqe add-on for battletech.

that how we did things back in the day.....we had people-scale maps and once we went into the hangar or onto the dropship we would 'zoom out' to the mech scale maps to do battle.
the fun bits were when folks ejected and would be running about on mech scale maps hoping to get picked up and not smushed.

 

[DevIO]

A recreation of Crescent Hawks would be amazing and not far out of reach of even most hobbyist game devs with modern tools like Unity3D. Would love another crack at those 4 Kuritan Jenners that tried to assassinate me!

 

[Nichino]

In success, I'd love HBS to take what they've learned from their ShadowRun games and make a BattleTech version! (Assuming there isn't a licensing issue to do an "RPG", as I know HBS can only make turn-based.)

 

[unclecid]

In success, I'd love HBS to take what they've learned from their ShadowRun games and make a BattleTech version! (Assuming there isn't a licensing issue to do an "RPG", as I know HBS can only make turn-based.)

well.....the old mechwarrior rpg (PnP) was turn based so.........

 

[Confector Tyrannis]

Or maybe there could be a Crescent's Hawk remaster, although I don't know who would have the rights to do it.

All I need to know is this:

Who do I throw my money at to make this happen?

 

[stjobe]

Or maybe there could be a Crescent's Hawk remaster, although I don't know who would have the rights to do it.

Generally speaking, Microsoft has all the rights for digital games in the BattleTech universe.

The Crescent Hawk games were made by Westwood Studios, who got merged into EA Los Angeles, who in turn got rebranded first to Danger Close Games and then DICE Los Angeles.They are a division of EA DICE. Microsoft was a 50% partner in the original Dreamworks Interactive LLC that turned into EA Los Angeles in 2000.

 

[scorpnoire]

Hmm.. the PnP RPG has been renamed "A time of War" by now due to the ongoing confusion and the click tech episode, also called Mechwarrior (DA).

And we (a few friends and me) actually have a TT based RPG group (inspired by the famous DFA shows ) going on here and lots of fun.. so, if you ever visit the Stuttgart area in Deutschland drop m a note and feel free to zoom by.

 

[Ganggreenkhan]

I for one would love to see HBS add the RPG elements from Shadowrun to BATTLETECH. Shadowrun Hong Kong is one of the best RPGs ever made.

Maybe adding RPG elements could be the difference with BATTLETECH 2.

 

[Nelzie]

I am unsure if it would be possible for a CRPG that catches all of the aspects of Mechwarrior and Battletech together.

The Simulator games, like PGI's Mechwarrior Online and the upcoming Mechwarrior 5, have limitations. While the latter is supposed to have vehicles to destroy, there are no infantry and the former is purely giant stompy mechs. It's been that case all the way back, except for that one scene in MW2: Mercenaries, where I seem to recall escaping the clans putting you and your team into 'tanks' of a sort.

Maybe, if the game was done up with a solid turn based combat system, much like the Battletech game we're playing now, but I'd rather personally see something more on the scope and scale of Elite: Dangerous or even Star Citizen, but without so much of an emphasis on everything feeling so "career" like where it seems that they are writing the MMOs to require you to play 6 hours a day to feel any sense of progression.

All I know is that in Turn Based, you can do things with a Mech that are just not possible in Real Time (Like effectively turning facing while jumping, locking onto a target without having line of sight as we can in this game) and in Real Time, you can do things that aren't possible in Turn Based (Like fire at a target WHILE jumping between points.)

I would enjoy seeing two different RPGs put out there.

One that's a real time, MMO-like FPS-style RPG with at least a dozen or so worlds (at launch) with various interaction cities/bases/ports/jump ships and some areas you can pilot or travel from point A to B (on foot, in a vehicle, in a mech) with minimal threats and then instanced zones for missions, missions that can scale with the size of your lance and total tonnage. There'd be motorcycles, jeep-like vehicles, trucks, APCs, tanks, Aerofighters, Spacefighters, Mechs and LAMs to be good and complete!

...and another that features a good single player campaign, that's all very turn based, much like what we have currently, but with more. LAMs, Aerotech, Infantry, etc., etc., etc.