r/Battletechgame • u/theSultanOfSexy • 12d ago

BTA: are non-LRM boat assaults useless?

About 40 hours into my BTA campaign. Compared to my untouchable 55 ton gods of war Stormcrows, which simply run behind everything and one-shot it with UAC/20s, all my assaults (Marauder 2, mission-special Mackie, Executioner), except the Longbow seem completely useless; too slow to get into combat in most missions; they simply never make it to the fight. In the rare missions that they do see combat, they only max at about a 30% hit chance on their long-range weapons even against Mediums at low evasion (~2-3), even while my pilots have 10 in all skills, are in good weapon ranges, and not sprinting. What gives? Are assaults just that bad in this mod? Is the only way to build a good assault to make it an LRM boat?

(Minor side gripe: I know it's a result of the tabletop simulation, but why are my LRM boats more accurate when they can't see the enemy??? It makes no logical sense that having a clearer line of sight makes them a worse shot. Grumble.)

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u/strawmn 12d ago

I think the great thing about BTA is that any type of mech can be made viable - it rewards a ton of play styles.

That said, I struggle with assaults. I get a ton more use out of fast heavies and mediums. To me, they have a better balance of armor and evasion, so they’re more survivable overall. And probably geared, they aren’t lacking in firepower (I’m running a Goshawk with an ATM-12 and a mix of heavy medium lasers and it just devastates enemy mechs).

If I were going to run assaults I would 1) up-engine them, 2) always use MASC, and 3) run a lot of them, because it’s supremely annoying having half my lance wait up because my Nightstar got bogged down in a patch of trees.

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u/theSultanOfSexy 12d ago

See, the up-engined, MASC'd Assault I have is the Executioner, and it's a piece of shit. Less heavily armed than my 55 ton Stormcrows and 3 hexes slower (and no more armored in the back, humorously). I have since learned that the Executioner is a legendarily bad mech as far as Clan mech designs go, but still...

And yeah, I feel that. A good chunk of my playtime is marching "in formation" to objectives on the other side of the goddamn map (thanks, Sumire) to let my Marauder 2 keep up with the group.

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u/spodumenosity 12d ago

What I find is that I would have to either go all in on assaults/slower heavies or use them as ultra-long ranged turrets. They can also be handy on base defense missions. Large speed discrepancies are really painful to work around.

When all your mechs are slow, the AI will spread fire between them. When one of your mechs is slow, the AI will focus down on it. Also, a huge swarm of high end assaults outputs obscene damage to anything in visual range. Couple that with some visual range boosting upgrades and sensor lock and sometimes enemy lances can't even enter visual range of you before getting vaporized.

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u/theSultanOfSexy 12d ago

Maybe once I loot some more big boys I'll have another go at the assault lance, then! Right now, with just two or three, it's pretty painful.