BattleTech - Prototyping Turn Order

[Silver]

In this update Jordan Wisemen talks about turn order design for Battletech and how Harebrained will handle turn-based moving and shooting. Theres a bit to digest but Jordan breaks down why the computer experience can't be exactly the same as the tabletop.

[...]

So - Where Did We End Up?

Here's the basics:

• Each weight class of ‘Mech has an Initiative value. Light ‘Mechs are the fastest, with an Initiative of 4 and assaults are the slowest, with an Initiative of 1.
• Combat rounds are divided into 5 Phases, counting down from 5 to 1. ‘Mechs are allowed to act during the Phase that matches their Initiative. (That 5th Phase is the province of extremely skilled MechWarriors piloting Light ‘Mechs.)
• Each Phase, each side takes turns choosing a ‘Mech to Activate. When a Mech is Activated, it can both move and then fire its weapons. However, once the ‘Mech fires, its turn is over and it can't act again until the next Round of combat.
• After you Activate a ‘Mech and take a turn, the game attempts to give the next action to the other side. If the enemy has units available to use in the current Phase, they get the opportunity to activate one of them. If, on the other hand, they have no more units they can activate in the phase, and you do, you'll get to go again.
• This means that if you and your opponent are both using full lances of assault ‘Mechs, every Round will be pretty predictable: You'll go, then your opponent will go, and so forth until all eight ‘Mechs have been Activated and have taken a turn.

• When the game finishes counting down Initiative values and Phase 1 units have taken their turn, the Round ends. The Phase counter resets to 5, and every ‘Mech is ready to act again.

And now the really cool part:

We think this is a neat system because it reinforces and distinguishes between the different weight classes of ‘Mechs - but the place where it really becomes really interesting is when you start reserving ‘Mechs' Phases for use later in the Round.

Any ‘Mech that isn't an assault can be held in reserve when its turn to act comes up. That temporarily sets its Initiative Value one lower. So a Light ‘Mech that normally acts in Phase 4 will instead act in Phase 3.

With this system, you can keep reserving your ‘Mechs' actions, holding an entire lance of ‘Mechs until Phase 1, if you wanted to.

What's so interesting about reserving actions? First of all, consider the case of a whole lance of Light and medium ‘Mechs being reserved until Phase 1, where they'll get to act right at the end of a Round. Then, when the round ends and a new Round starts, they'll immediately get to act again in Phases 4 and 3! (This tactic isn't theoretical - in a recent battle, I snuck up behind our Lead Designer Kevin's Centurion with a Jenner I'd reserved to Phase 1. Then, on Phase 4 of the next Round I got to make a full alpha strike right into his back armor.)

More information.

 

[Silver]

Head here if you want to add your feedback on the turn order system.

You can head over to the forum now to discuss all the crunchy details with your fellow BattleTech fans here.

 

[mercy]

All that ginormous wall of text implies problems with their turn based system or they just love to create useless TL;DR word-avalanches that a couple of us skim-read.. in 15 secs

 

[Silver]

Battletech fans love the details. From that point of view not so unusual for all the words but yeah nothing to see here if your not into that.

 

[Emerwyn]

If those are screenshots from ingame footage no matter how early/alpha it is I already don't like how it looks. Hopefully that "concept art" watermark means it's really just concept art.

 

[KaosWarMonk]

Have only read the above. Sounds interesting. Judgement still reserved but I remain hopeful.

One thing I'd really like to see is getting away from singular lance on lance match ups and using something like straight tonnage as a "balancer". TBH I dunno how it'd play out but I'd really like to try larger engagements with say.... 10 lights vs 2-3 assaults or whatever mixtures in between. Hundreds of tons of many mechs on each side rather than 4 v 4 being the top tier most of the time. I also hope they make leg shots more difficult or even the option to turn off aimed shots altogether, just random hit location based on positioning all the time.


-kwm

 

[Silver]

If those are screenshots from ingame footage no matter how early/alpha it is I already don't like how it looks. Hopefully that "concept art" watermark means it's really just concept art.

It is. Nothing is in engine yet.

 

[Feist]

I think it all sounds rather promising and given their work on Dragonfall/Hong Kong, I believe that the end result will be entertaining enough.

 

[Bedwyr]

Battletech fans love the details. From that point of view not so unusual for all the words but yeah nothing to see here if your not into that.

Yes. There's already a couple people that regret funding because they won't be using standard initiative and simultaneous fire. It's kind of sad really, but if you're married and obsessed with the One True game system then any deviation becomes a personal affront.

Ok they're not that bad. There may be others who are worse out there though. I don't have a lot of patience with my game or the highway buffoonery.

 

[utergatuk]

That sounds like an innovation in turned based combat to me... to be able to delay action an initiative round rather than a full round. Rather than an "overwatch" system, which relies on your enemy triggering it, you basically you can delay as long as you want, and take advantage of the situation in a number of ways. This would make for much better PvP combat, and more real-time-esque realism while keeping that tactical edge.

Brilliant.

 

[Bedwyr]

Just for background the Battletech initiative system works this way:

- Roll 2D6 for initiative every round. Winner has initiative.

- Loser moves a unit first (hence the initiative winner gets to react to the loser's movement for better placement). Then the winner. The two sides alternate until finished.

-- If there's an unequal number of units left and at least a multiple or more (2:1 or 3:1), then the side with more units moves that multiple. For instance the loser with twice as many units moves 2 for every 1 that the winner moves. That way the winner maintains the advantage of initiative.

- Combat fire declarations are made. Each team declares which weapons are fired in initiative order.

- Combat resolutions are made. The dice rolls and arithmetic for hits and damage is made. All fire is simultaneous so that even a 'Mech that got eviscerated has one last shot to fling into the air.

- Physical combat declarations and resolutions are made as above. This means that 'Mechs that got K.O.'d in weapons fire can't kick, punch, or charge.

- Then the round ends.


There's a few variations, especially for larger games. For instance a GM might have teams pull initiative cards (higher number has higher initiative order) for each lance or company rather than for each 'Mech. That helps gameplay progress without getting bogged down in per 'Mech initiative.


Link to the quick start rules pdf: http://www.battletech.com/downloads/CBT-Quick-Start-Rules.pdf

I hope that helps explain what Jordan was talking about and why he spent such a long time on it. This is a 30 year old system that's hung together pretty well, even if it is complicated. There will naturally be a lot of board game players who will have trouble adjusting and a few that will be hostile because "change" is threatening.

 

[screeg]

Is something added to the game by prefacing 'Mechs with an apostrophe? That's going to get old fast. In fact, it already has.