BATTLETECH is an amazingly deep and complex bit of nerd history, and 2018’s BATTLETECH from Hairbrained Schemes and Paradox Interactive did a wonderful bit of service to the legendary tabletop property. The PC title offered plenty of robot-smashing and blasting action for fans and new inductees into the world of the Inner Sphere, the Clans, Space AT&T and so much more.
The first major expansion to the game, Flashpoint, offered increased difficulty in randomly generated missions that added a new series of choices and challenges to the endless career mode of the base game. And now, that strategy is about to get a lot deeper with the newest expansion, Urban Warfare.
To coincide with the release of the new DLC and the 1.6 update, Paradox and HBS also dropped a new trailer for the expansion, check that bit of coolness out down below. If you want to see more of the game, check out our review.
As the name of the expansion suggests, a major focus here will be on close-quarters urban combat. This means that BATTLETECH is about to get a lot more cramped, but in a really fun way. A vital aspect of the tactical combat in this game is movement, especially movement using jump jets and other special types of equipment to gain positional advantage over your enemies. Urban Warfare makes that much harder now as there’s tons of new obstacles to account for, and a lot more places to hide. Using the close-range maps to your advantage will be very important if you want to succeed in the battles of this new expansion.
Along with the new expansion also comes a free game update for version 1.6. The star map now has 50 more systems in it, which is a pretty big expansion of the default star systems. There’s new mech variants, like some new versions of the iconic trashcan Urbanmech. The combat gameplay has also been upgraded with new stray shots that have the potential to damage the wrong targets.
There’s a bunch more in this patch and expansion, check down below for the rundown from the developer:
- Star Map Upgrade – We’ve added 50 new systems to the Star Map, expanding it toward the more populated areas of the Inner Sphere. The Star Map also now features the ability to filter by biome and difficulty, and will indicate which systems you’ve already visited. Navigating the periphery has never been easier!
- Battle+ Encounter Type – We’ve updated our Battle encounter to bring more variety and fun to the battlefield! Battle+ includes a bunch of surprises including optional secondary objectives, and allies for friendly and enemy teams.
- Stray Shots and Collateral Damage – The battlefield is more dangerous than ever! Stray shots now have the chance to hit nearby buildings – and you won’t want one of your units standing on one when it collapses. In addition, stray shots have the chance to hit nearby enemies in the line of fire. This is true for the opposing force too, so watch your spacing. Note that this feature is not available in multiplayer.
- More Mech Variants
- UrbanMech UM-R60L – The same walking trashcan, sporting an AC20.
- UrbanMech UM-R90 – The ‘Suburban Mech’, a more energy-efficient war machine.
- Banshee BNC-3S – Slower, but packing far more guns of varying ranges.
- Catapult CPLT-C4 – Sporting dual LRM-20s to make it rain (death).
- Vindicator VND-1AA – Half the armor, twice the speed.
- BlackJack BJ-1DB – The Large Lasers on this variant can keep firing all day.
- Hatchetman HCT-3X (For owners of the Flashpoint expansion only) – Featuring SRMs, lasers, and Machine Guns to shred opponents at close range.
- New Events and Event Chains – More free events have been added to the game, including events that lead to other events. Now your decisions have short-term and long-term consequences.
Career Mode
- Added the option to start your career with a randomized roster of ‘Mechs (defaults to ON)
- Individual difficulty settings now modifies your career score.
- More missions per star system
UI
- Objective regions or avoidance zones are now color-coded with added call-out labels
- Secondary objectives are smaller to better distinguish from primary objectives
- Added team heraldry to unit call-outs
- Added team heraldry to targeting HUD
- Status floaties adjusted for less flag overlap
- Team-specific turn indicator shows above combat HUD so you know who you are waiting on
Bugfixes & Improvements
Over 1000 bugfixes and minor improvements! Here are a few examples from issues called out by the BT community…
- Dramatically reduced the Black Market price penalty for making pirates an enemy
- Contracts now display a more accurate difficulty rating
- A variety of Event bug fixes to remove Typos, Error Messages, and unfulfilled Rewards
- Fixed an issue in which combat saves reset Coolant Vent cool down time
- Company morale now affects whether certain MechWarriors can be hired
- Added more biome variety in procedural missions
- Fixed an issue with the Financial Expenditure Level changing unexpectedly and/or not respecting players’ selections
- Fixed an issue in which stores might occasionally display negatives costs of items
- Fixed Assassinate contracts that were not auto-completed after the user destroyed all enemy units
- Fixed some data loss issues for ‘Mechs in the Mechbay
- Fixed an issue that caused a random ‘Mech to disappear in the Mechbay
- Fixed an issue in which a readied Mech in the MechBay would overwrite an existing ‘Mech if the latter was moved manually to a different slot
- Fixed Battlemaster BLR-1G’s and Trebuchet TBT-5N’s left arm hardpoints that caused weapon overlap issues
- Fixed an issue in which negotiated pay and salvage levels for travel contracts would irrevocably reset upon arrival at the destination
- Fixed achievement unlocking issues and descriptions that didn’t match career mode scoring
Known Issues (to be fixed asap)
- Localization:
- A small amount of localized text has extraneous formatting. This does not affect readability.
- A small amount of new text is not localized.
- Some buildings (<1%) cannot be destroyed (Urban Warfare expansion only).
- In the Difficulty settings, the “Restore Defaults” button does not work correctly and saves changes instead.
- We believe we have a temporary fix for the AkSoundEngine.dll crash that some players have reported but we cannot reproduce this crash internally or through any of our external test groups. Thus, we are leaving it on the Known Issues list until we hear back from the community. A permanent and more robust fix is being investigated for an upcoming release.