[Mechwarrior 5] Joining the party late...

[Kasey Chang]

Yeah, expanded leopard seriously mods the ship's interior... for cosmetic purposes. I think I have a different version of that, where they parked a bunch of vehicles along the central corridor so it doesn't look so f***ing empty, but did not expand the interior.

I have RTX, but after a couple missions I turned OFF all the eye candy and went for maximum frames per second instead.

[Kasey Chang]

Okay, that's it for MW5. Steam says I played 420.4 hours total. That's one campaign and two careers, so three playthroughs.

The final video uploads are getting uploaded now, and looks like there will be 52 episodes. Generally each will concentrate on 1 quest, but some of the early ones may have more than one quest included.

Apparently people do watch playthroughs, as my original MW5 videos (of which there are like 100 of them) are getting practically no views, but these, with proper keywords in the title, are getting 5-10 views each. But then NGNG, BTT, and Baradul have established audiences that gave their videos THOUSANDS of views each.

[Blackhawk]

I've thought about uploading that way, but two things hold me back. First, a 60-minute video takes about ten hours to upload. Second, if I know I'm recording for other people to see, I play like I'm being watched. That changes how I play, and not always in a way I enjoy.

[Kasey Chang]

The rumor of MW5's death has been exaggerated... Turns out there will be a DLC3, and it will at the minimum, feature a Hatchetman.

[Hyena]

The rumor of MW5's death has been exaggerated... Turns out there will be a DLC3, and it will at the minimum, feature a Hatchetman.

No, don't tell me that! I just got over it and finished my 3rd group's playthrough!

DAMMIT!

[NickAragua]

Also, a sword-wielding Highlander for some reason? Swords don't show up until like 3060 or so, which means either something really screwy is going on, or we're going to get some clan action too.

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[Hyena]

Also, a sword-wielding Highlander for some reason? Swords don't show up until like 3060 or so, which means either something really screwy is going on, or we're going to get some clan action too.

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Why did swords take so long to make it to the battle field? I find that so bizarre that no one thought to pick up an object and use it as a weapon instead of slamming a hand or a foot (which contain actuators) into another highly-armored robot before a decade post-clan invasion.... Like, didn't someone even pick up an enemy's severed arm and thwack them with their own appendage?

[NickAragua]

Why did swords take so long to make it to the battle field? I find that so bizarre that no one thought to pick up an object and use it as a weapon instead of slamming a hand or a foot (which contain actuators) into another highly-armored robot before a decade post-clan invasion.... Like, didn't someone even pick up an enemy's severed arm and thwack them with their own appendage?

Oh, ad-hoc clubs (mech arms/legs, random trees, building girders) have been around for as long as mechs with hands have been around.

But we're talking about a group of people who, collectively, took until 3028 to invent a mech-sized hatchet.

[Isgrimnur]

[Kasey Chang]

Of course, if you listen to Tex Talk Mechs, Marauder's fat PPC arms are perfectly capable of bashing mechs... And they've been built since 2612...

[Blackhawk]

As much as it made me grumble, I still have fond memories of this. One of these days I plan on going back in to play the non-story campaign, and with a different mindset as to what kind of game it is. In the meantime...

[Kasey Chang]

Sorry, but I RARELY melee in MW5. I don't see the appeal for it, to warrant paying 15 bucks for two dozen new mechs and maybe what? 3-4 new mission chain to use them? Don't feel the need at all.

[Daehawk]

I watch Sam Witwer stream on Twitch and tonight he is playing MW5. In chat is Piranha Games randomly giving out steam codes for the game free ...first come basis.

EDIT: I think someone is botting those codes away as I copied a key and pasted and hit enter in about 2 seconds and it was already a duplicate key...so someone is damn faster than even me

[NickAragua]

Well, it's been a few years, but they're still putting out new DLC. Having fought in basically every major war from 3015 to 3040, the next step is... Solaris VII.

You know what, I'm cool with it. They even got the guy who played Duncan Fisher in MW4: Mercs to reprise his role.

[Daehawk]

Shit. I totally forgot I owned Mechwarrior 5. I never played it. Dammit.

I loved MW4. I played it through 3 times at least. It was my go to for whenever someone mentions Mechwarrior. It was perfect. I played MWO a lot years ago. A LOT. Have some nice mechs from the old days. I still have my founders Hunchback. I remember having a free mech I made into a dakka dakka machine.

But I haven't played in many years now at all. I got to be too skittish to try to play with everyone else being so hard core and good at the game. Felt Id ruin the fun for everyone.

Might be time to dust off the old mechs and see whats what in there now days.

[NickAragua]

MW5 is pretty good out of the box (especially with the DLC adding more focused story content), but you'll also want some mods to go with it. The minimum ones I consider:

Wasp and Stinger (otherwise the only 20-ton mechs you'll see is Locusts and the occasional Flea)
PGI Infantry (enables infantry on PC; they're not that big a threat but it's fun to fry/stomp them occasionally)
TT Rulez AI mod (v2, for slightly smarter lancemates)
Xenopax Art Optimization
Xenopax Optimization (these two improve performance quite a bit at the cost of some hard drive space)

There's also VonBiomes, which introduces a substantial number of different environments for you to stomp around in; and Coyote's Mission Pack, which introduces a bunch of new procedurally generated contract types and exploration bits. Last time I checked, the two were incompatible for whatever reason, so you'll have to pick one or the other unless something's changed. You don't really need either of them for your first playthrough, though.

But yeah, MW5 is a lot of fun, and actually a pretty chill game. You can pick the contract difficulty by hanging out in easier zones if you're having a tough time, and there's no real time limit, except for some of the time-gated DLC mission chains, which are entirely optional. And coop is pretty easy to set up too.

[Daehawk]

Where do you get those mods?

[Blackhawk]

Where do you get those mods?

From Google.

It took me less than 15 seconds total to find all of them. Please make an effort to find things yourself before asking other people to do it for you. It'll make people much more willing to help you on the things that aren't as easy as highlighting the text and dragging it to the tab bar.

Or, as Aesop said,

As a Wagoner was driving his wain through a miry lane, the wheels stuck fast in the clay, and the Horses could get on no further. The Man dropped on his knees, and began crying and praying to Hercules with all his might to come and help him. “Lazy fellow!” said Hercules, “get up and stir yourself. Whip your Horses stoutly, and put your shoulder to the wheel. If you want my help after you've tried and failed, then you shall have it.”

[Daehawk]

What? I dont even have it installed. I was curious if the mods came from one mod site or something. Whats this post about eh?

EDIT: Also found this one. Cant find a comparison to original sound.
MW5 Realism Audio Project V2.5

Seems theres LOTs of mods for this game. Surprised me.

[Unagi]

Don't mind BH - he's just an idealist.


It is a reasonable question in that some games have most or all of their mods in the Steam Community "Workshop", whereas other games may require you to hunt them down, or get them on Nexus, etc.

In this case - a few of those listed mods are on the Steam Workshop. Others, you gotta find and install.

[Blackhawk]

Don't mind BH - he's just an idealist.


It is a reasonable question in that some games have most or all of their mods in the Steam Community "Workshop", whereas other games may require you to hunt them down, or get them on Nexus, etc.

In this case - a few of those listed mods are on the Steam Workshop. Others, you gotta find and install.

Patterns of behavior. There are few questions that aren't worth at least a cursory search before expecting other people to do the work for you.

It took under 20 seconds to determine that every one of those mods was on Nexus.

[Blackhawk]

[Daehawk]

"We are smoke jaguar" The clans are coming... I love this stuff still today. I remember the intro to Mechwarrior 2 and clan wolf and clan jade falcon, This should be fun.

I actually just installed and played the tutorial weeks ago. Ill need to replay it again. I just have too much on my plate right now.

[AWS260]

I am very late to this party, but boy is Mechwarrior 5 fun. I'm sure that stomping around making "pew pew" sounds will get old eventually, but after completing the campaign and getting well into a career, I am not there yet.

I'm curious to see how the new clans game works out. My vague recollection (based on playing Crescent Hawks Revenge 30+ years ago) is that clan mechs are very OP.

[El Guapo]

You don't need to have Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries to play this, do you?

[Hyena]

You don't need to have Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries to play this, do you?

Oddly no. It is not a DLC from what I have found online, it's a stand-alone. I'm assuming it uses the name because it's using the same (or similar enough) engine as MW5. If I'm wrong, I'll gladly be corrected.

[Isgrimnur]

[Clans] is not just a minor expansion, but a standalone game.

[Daehawk]

Looks fun. Love me some mechs. Im a Founder in MWO.

Xbox

[El Guapo]

I do love the clans. I don't think I'm supposed to (sounds like they're space fascists) but they're so much cooler than those inner sphere losers whose infighting destroyed galactic peace to begin with.

[NickAragua]

Based on the trailers/promo materials I've seen, prepare to experience a thrilling story of socially maladjusted teenagers barking at each other and at bitter older people.

But you know what, I'm looking forward to cramming 4 clan-spec ER PPCs into a Dire Wolf and going to town on some dezgra Inner Sphere surats.

[Zarathud]

I do love the clans. I don't think I'm supposed to (sounds like they're space fascists) but they're so much cooler than those inner sphere losers whose infighting destroyed galactic peace to begin with.

Except for Steiner. A Steiner Heavy Scout Lance can get all jobs done. Especially when they’re backed by a lance of Awesomes.

[Kasey Chang]

From what I can tell, they're even upgrading to Unreal Engine 5. MW5Mercs was based on UE4, IIRC. (And MWO was based on yet another engine)

[Isgrimnur]

The new engine—Unreal 5—is doing a lot of favors for the visuals and physics of stompy robots. The new audio cues and effects for lasers and the like are also above par for the series. I'm extremely optimistic and now very much looking forward to this one when it releases on October 16.

[Daehawk]

[Paingod]

For the folks who played MW:5 Mercs, did they ever fix the issues with AI?

I recall playing and being irritated with my allies. It's been years and I pretty much put it down because of that.

[GreenGoo]

Watching one of the videos, I saw a rifleman blow up, and by up, I mean literally. It left the ground and then fell back to the ground horizontal, where it *bounced* once or twice, all as one piece.

That didn't feel right to me, not for battletech. I'll take a closer look in the future and see if it truly bothers me, or was a one off or something.

Having a 'Mech fly up into the air, only to land on it's back and bounce makes as much sense as a a building doing the same thing. I realize we have enough explosive power today to do this sort of thing to a few 10's of tons of metal. But somehow 'Mechs are supposed to be gargantuan titans of unstoppable steel and it doesn't feel right to me to have them flying around like pinballs when they blow up. It doesn't help that it bounced on sand, which is extra weird imo.

[Hyena]

Watching one of the videos, I saw a rifleman blow up, and by up, I mean literally. It left the ground and then fell back to the ground horizontal, where it *bounced* once or twice, all as one piece.

That didn't feel right to me, not for battletech. I'll take a closer look in the future and see if it truly bothers me, or was a one off or something.

Having a 'Mech fly up into the air, only to land on it's back and bounce makes as much sense as a a building doing the same thing. I realize we have enough explosive power today to do this sort of thing to a few 10's of tons of metal. But somehow 'Mechs are supposed to be gargantuan titans of unstoppable steel and it doesn't feel right to me to have them flying around like pinballs when they blow up. It doesn't help that it bounced on sand, which is extra weird imo.

I noticed that exact same thing. In MW5, I seem to remember them crumpling when I blew a leg off, or teetering over before going critical. I don't remember seeing them go stiff and rattling around like a dropped plastic doll.

[NickAragua]

There's some bugs with the mech physics occasionally where if you hit one just right, it'll go flying off into orbit. Most of the time they fall to the ground like they're supposed to, but it's pretty hilarious seeing one go flying every once in a while.

For the folks who played MW:5 Mercs, did they ever fix the issues with AI?

The AI is not stellar but is passable on most missions now. You can download the "TTRulez AI" mod and that'll sort most of the AI issues.

[Daehawk]

Way back in Mechwarrior 2 you could blow legs off a mech in spectacular fashion and it would fall over like it should. Then for some reason they couldn't show that again. Its one big peeve I had with MWO when it came out. I was expecting building and terrain damage and especially blown off limbs. As I recall they just made them a greyer color...sad. And no falling over and exploding like in 4 boooooooo. MW4 stayed my high bar forever.

[Max Peck]

This preview from early September makes it sound like they are visually modelling the results of locational damage, although I suppose it's possible that it's more detailed for the player's mech than NPCs. Also, since it's still pre-release it's possible that what you're currently seeing in videos is placeholder/work-in-progress.

With the devs backing me up, I made it through the Santander trench run smoothly, and for my next attempt I went in as the sole human player, directing my Star with a surprisingly detailed list of squad commands. You get an assortment of tactical options for each individual member of your crew as well as the group as a whole, but just like with every RTS, my preferred strategy here was ‘select all and attack’.

This iteration of the assault on Santander was a much more fly-by-night affair, but by god, I still pulled it off, even after suffering two full dismemberments myself. The pirates shot off one of my arm cannons pretty early on, a severe firepower impediment, but the loss of one leg was way worse and entirely my fault. I was having a little too much fun with my mech’s jump jets, you see, and this is a game with fall damage.

After landing my 75-ton Timberwolf on my bum leg a few too many times, the old girl gave up the ghost. Switching to a third-person view, my ride wasn’t looking so hot. CEO Bullock is very proud of how Piranha has been able to represent the progressive destruction of both mechs and environments, and both were on full display as I limped through Santander. Hobbling on, my poor Timberwolf was also missing an arm. Meanwhile, bulldozing through the pirates’ flimsy little buildings let me peek through to their structures and interiors as their rooftops crumbled away at waist height. Destruction feels good in this game.

The graphical commitment to my miserable lemon of a mech, as well as the sheer difficulty increase as I lost functionality, made successfully completing my mission the second time all the sweeter. As I just barely cleared the final enemy mechs and gently feathered my jump jets to descend to an evac point down in the canyon, I felt like one of those characters in Wacky Races skidding across the finish line on their bum while holding a detached steering wheel. Hey, a win’s a win, and I can worry about mech repair when I’m playing Clans on my home PC.