On June 20th Paradox Interactive and Harebrained Schemes released the first major update for BATTLETECH which provided some much needed quality of life changes and other system upgrades. There was quite a huge list in this update, but let’s go over the highlights.
- MechWarrior customization. That’s right you can now make changes to MechWarriors you recruit. You can now customize the appearance, callsign, name, pronoun, and voice of all non-Ronin MechWarriors in Battletech. The starting pilots (Behemoth, Dekker, Glitch, and Medusa) are now considered Ronin so you can’t change them.
- Granular difficulty settings. A variety of settings have been added that can be adjusted at any time in the settings menu. These include:
- Lethality – when enabled, pilots that are disabled in combat will always die.
- ‘Mech Destruction – ‘Mechs disabled from Center Torso destruction are permanently lost.
- No Rare Salvage – + and ++ items are no longer generated as salvage results.
- MechWarrior Progression – adjust the amount of experience that MechWarriors gain after each mission.
- Advanced MechWarriors – increase or decrease the frequency of more powerful MechWarriors appearing in Hiring Halls in later parts of the game.
- Enemy Force Strength – increase or decrease the baseline strength of the enemy forces.
- Contract Payment – increase or decrease the amount of C-Bills paid by procedural contracts.
- Salvage – increase or decrease the amount of salvage you may obtain.
- New custom campaign mode. The following added Difficulty Settings can only be adjusted when starting a new campaign.
- Ironman Mode. Your campaign is limited to a single save game slot that automatically updates as you progress. Run out of funds or fail a Priority Mission and it’s over!
- Unequipped ‘Mechs – make ‘Mechs completed out of ‘Mech parts start empty instead of with a stock loadout.
- Parts for ‘Mech Assembly – increase the number of ‘Mech parts that must be salvaged to assemble a new ‘Mech.
- Accelerated Combat. Playes can now speed up actions.
- Cancel combat actions and selections with right-click.
- Store and Salvage Quality of Life.
- Store Link from MechLab.
- Show Already Owned Item Quantity.
- Reorganize Mechs in MechBay.
- Mech Stat Bar Tooltips.
- Tutorial Skip Mode.
- Several new events and improvements to event generation.
- Ultrawide monitor support.
Overall this is a bunch of great updates that adds more playability to the game and makes several things easier. For a list of the full patch notes go here. Make sure to check out the GameSpace review of Battletech.
