Even in vanilla I love JJs since Darius' dumbass loves putting mechs on mountains, but with the mechanics and accuracy modifier changes in BTAU, JJs are even more valuable. Every one of my heavies and assaults have JJs and won't go back.

Get a shitty spawn in a killzone with mechs on both sides on a battle/assassination mission? jump jets save the day, can split your lances up and gain elevation

mech taking too much damage? JJs are a cheat code for breaking sightlines or facing your mech a specific way to mitigate/shift damage

dealing with fast lil scouts? gain elevation to negate evasion stacking and the weight difference penalty

Easy side/back shots while being able to face your mech in a good defensive position you normally wouldn't be able to from a sprint? check

Accuracy penalty goes both ways, gaining height not only makes you significantly more likely to hit but also significantly harder to hit. I can slap down lances of assaults all day with very minimal damage with lances of just heavies due to positioning.

Get a cold map/or ones with water? I got 12 heavies jumping around like spider monkeys melting torsos and arms.

Even on relatively flat maps I can get some good value out of terrain avoidance and specific positioning. Especially for retreating fire. Sometimes extra lances get spawned near a mech that's too far from your main force. Being able to retreat towards the main battle line while maintaining a flat profile towards the enemy instead of exposing your side/back while keeping up damage is incredibly useful.

Personally I'd rather lose a large laser(or a weapon of similar weight) to fit JJs + armor/add heatsinks over the extra damage simply because the utility provides significantly more value.

It's been years and I decided to get back into one of my favorite games, a game I Kickstarted almost exactly a decade ago, and...the fucking cutscenes won't play. I get about two seconds of audio and a glimpse of visuals and then it just goes dead.

Google's dumb AI says this is a known issue but I've been searching this sub and the Paradox forums and coming up with nothing. I've updated my drivers, tried installing open-source codecs, and deleted the profiles.dat file in my users folder, and still nada. I'm pretty sure my PC hardware isn't the issue with this eight-year-old double-A game, so...any thoughts?

I'm having a hard time not being annoyed that out of the million mods out there to add this or that mech to the game, or turn the characters into Pokemon or whatever, not one addresses this. You wonder what the point of a big fandom is if it can't even manage that kind of thing.

In my current BTA career, I started with a MON-70 and also had Raza5 for hire in my starting system (he specializes in the Mongoose). Naturally, this early combo became a core component of my team, eventually taking the Ace Pilot ability to wreck house. I used to be leery of light mechs, but he was so successful as a scout and backstabber that I carried Raza5 and his Mongoose into the mid and late game, supplemented by several other lights that I would have never tried otherwise: I've got Amid in a Cicada, Wolfbanes in his Commando, even got a Flea in regular rotation.

My last mission was a simple one: 4.5 skulls but only up against 4 assaults total. The mission before that had 5 simultaneous assault lances, so this was a cakewalk by comparison. Raza gets out front and positions himself to reserve down and backstab the enemy Atlas in the next round. I kept him well outside of melee range of course. The Atlas has a gauss rifle, Raza has 11 evasion pips. There are several slower targets that the Atlas will almost certainly go for.

Welp, this was an urban map, which means extra movement along roads. And for the first time in my life, I witnessed the OpFor use a charge attack. That's right, instead of using his gauss rifle, that 100 tons of Atlas sprinted up to Raza for a physical attack... and the hit connected. Charge attacks scale with the attacker's tonnage and hexes moved, which had to have been his max. I think the damage numbers were triple digits, but I don't honestly recall because I was so gobsmacked. Raza's character icon is now a blood splat.

I imagine how that would have looked in real time, with both mechs charging at full speed toward each other, the Atlas pivoting directly into the Mongoose, and the Mongoose disintegrating like an epic Nascar blowout. Props to the Atlas pilot for a one-in-a-million maneuver, I guess. Maybe we should hire that guy.

Instead, every mech in my team ditches finesse and focuses their wrath on that Atlas until it's ground down to a smoking crater (1 salvage, lol). Then we attack ground on his corpse a little just to ease the pain. The rest of the OpFor is mopped up with ease.

Miraculously, Raza5 managed to punch out and doesn't even have any injuries. (?!) But his beloved MON-70, the core of the company from day 1 and inspiration for my current light-focused company composition and playstyle, was lost and unsalvageable. Fully kitted with stealth armor, endo steel, ECM, double heat sinks, improved sensors, all gone. That mech belongs on the company's in memoriam roster.

Thanks for reading my after action report. I try to keep all my pilots in their preferred mechs, so my new priority is to find Raza a royal Mongoose!

I was away from the game for a long while, but a friend started playing himself and it made me crave replaying again. I had heard that BA in the BTAU mod had been significantly overhauled, but the times I've tried to use it so far it's felt absolutely worthless.

I was lucky enough to get a clan light omni pretty early on since I didn't start with any other ways of bringing the ISS BA I started with. So with it finally mounted and in tow, I started to run some missions and immediately ran into two major problems. The first I was able to somewhat solve, being that deploying the BA cost the entire turn of the deploying mech, potentially leaving it in an extremely vulnerable position as well as removing its firepower for a turn since I can't move or fire prior to dropping the armor. I somewhat solved this by just playing games with the initiative so the mech would drop the armor late, then go again early before enemies could attack it.

The second problem is the BA seems 100% worthless. Unless I deploy it literally right next to an enemy unit, it just doesn't do anything. Literally nothing. It doesn't shoot, or try to chase units, or move at all. It just sits there inert, maybe absorbing a couple shots, then either dies or gets left behind as the battle moves on. If I drop it literally next to an enemy, it will then swarm said enemy. But if it happens to get knocked off and the enemy leaves or is otherwise destroyed, once again the BA just sits in place for the rest of the battle.

Am I doing something wrong with it? Or is this somehow intended behavior? It seems like they're a complete waste to bring and use.

A few days ago I made a post talking about the mechbay glitch where your friends join you but are stuck in the mech bay and can’t even pause the game etc. I sold my whole mech inventory (minus heros which I’ve been told mech count isn’t relevant but did it anyways) and sold all of my equipment except a few dozen of each clan tech and kept about 200 double heat sinks and I had a friend join me last night. Hope this helps for anyone and everyone that needs it!!!

Nearly a decade since I bought this game, and I just learned that I can click the orange chevrons under the turn sequence numbers to help me prioritize kills. But you have to be pixel-perfect with hovering the tip of your mouse on the chev.

Completely new to the game and currently on the third story mission.

When arming the 'mechs, do i make sure that all armour sliders are filled, or does it differ from role to role?

All my frontliners have a ton of evasion and I try to keep my gauss snipers back, but if they get sensored or the enemy gets a glimpse of them, they get focused really fast. I can't seem to make these slow move type mechs work.

Okay, so it's kind of a meme that Darius is trying to get you killed. He's very bad at gathering intel and often drops you in really suboptimal places. Like I don't understand his thought process, but it feels like he frequently wants to place my troops in valleys or at the lowest elevation areas he can find so as to completely waste the advantage of an aerial drop. You know, real Darius tactical genius.

I can forgive him not having complete info on enemy lances, but I decide to do a mission this morning. Attack an enemy base.

Darius chose to drop in a valley. In this valley is a river acting as a moat that will cut me off from the base, so if I want to advance on the base, I have to cross the river. The base is armed with six heavy turrets, all of which can fire on my drop point starting on the first turn, and of course they're shooting downhill at a bunch of mechs being slowed by a river crossing. The base was also heavily populated by enemy mechs, and there were unexpected enemy reinforcements in hills beyond, but the important note is that EVERYTHING was uphill from me, and thus had elevation advantages to kill my ass.

I tell Darius I'm bailing on this mission as soon as I land, and he marks my extraction point as being THROUGH enemy lines, because that's where he always wants to do emergency extractions from. My heavier mechs got trashed immediately, and the lighter mechs that got across the river in time still had almost nowhere to maneuver because they were obligated to run uphill into thicker enemy opposition.

If anyone had survived this drop - and nobody did - I wouldn't have held it against the team if they doused Darius in flamer fuel and boiled the man's flesh clean off his bones one limb at a time. There are "mistakes", and then there's Darius, obviously having been paid off by the Tuarian OpFor. I can only assume that after everyone in the outfit died, he found himself a cushy job sending their people on a one-way ticket directly to Hell, and I guess what I'm asking is: is there anything other than the Rougetech mod that will allow me to take this authority to kill my entire lance away from Darius and let me choose where I drop so that there's no risk of me dropping in objectively the WORST location in the entire map?

We were attacking a STATIC location. The base did not get up and go anywhere. The river valley Darius dropped me into to be murdered in was not moving around or acting as an unknown factor. That was 100% a Darius choice. Even if it had ONLY been turrets, it still would have been an attempted murder on his part. I could put that man on trial and any jury in the galaxy would convict him for this.

I must be missing something here, panic doesn't trigger until the mech is damaged to a single salvage anyways? I tried burning them out, surrounding them and peppering with lighter damage weapons to avoid taking off limbs, these guys are pretty stubborn to stay strap in.

I would use vehicles from time to time, but nothing regular. There is nothing that could be at the same level of effectiveness Mechs.

But I think I stumbled upon a gem: DEMOLISHER 2x Gauss !

Demolisher has 2x AC20 as standard and it requires it to pass relatively close, this (Gauss) solves this problem of being able to hit enemies across the entire map and the combination with the right pilot perks makes this extremely effective.

pilot perks: Sideslip- When activated it allows you to climb any mountain or building and take a sniping position, Intensify Firepower - gain +30% damage this turn if it doesn't move, Perfect Targeting-gnore 2 evasion on enemies (massive bonus) and Overwhelming Aggression- +10% flat bonus to damage!

This is one of the best sniper builds in my opinion regardless of whether we are talking about Mechs or Vehicles.

Which vehicles do you use and in which roles? I know about the possibility of putting Meck on VITO, but that tactic has always seemed like cheating to me

Alpha testers wanted: BattleTech mod that lets an AI (Claude, ChatGPT, Local LLMs) play the game, fight you as the OpFor, and more - Windows and macOS

I've been building BTBridge, a mod that lets an AI agent play HBS BattleTech through the game's own logic rather than clicking the screen.

It can:

- Read your company, mechbay, storage, and the mechlab while you build, including unsaved edits.

- Refit and repair mechs using the game's own validation and work-order systems.

- Run the campaign loop: contracts, negotiation, missions, salvage, travel, events, pilots, stores, finances, and Argo upgrades.

- Command a lance in combat on your side.

- Command the enemy OpFor against you.

- Read mission dialogue, radio chatter, objectives, and campaign story conversations.

- Chat with you through a small in-game overlay, with an input box so you can talk back during play.

This is not screen-reading or mouse automation. BTBridge hooks into BattleTech's actual game logic and exposes structured game state and actions to an AI agent.

It works on my Windows machine. Now I need other people's setups, especially macOS players, because I do not own a Mac and the Mac build has never been run on real Mac hardware.

Downloads - v0.1 alpha:

Windows:

https://github.com/PStryder/BTBridge/releases/download/v0.1-alpha/BTBridge-v0.1-alpha-windows.zip

macOS:

https://github.com/PStryder/BTBridge/releases/download/v0.1-alpha/BTBridge-v0.1-alpha-macos.zip

Release page, notes, and checksums:

https://github.com/PStryder/BTBridge/releases/tag/v0.1-alpha

Project:

https://github.com/PStryder/BTBridge

REQUIREMENTS

- BattleTech 1.9.1 on Steam

- Vanilla game

- ModTek v4.5.1

ModTek:

https://github.com/BattletechModders/ModTek/releases

BTBridge will not currently work alongside RogueTech, BTA, or other major overhaul packs, so use a clean install.

Back up your saves first, as with any alpha mod.

WINDOWS INSTALL

1. From the ModTek zip, copy winhttp.dll, doorstop_config.ini, and the Mods folder into your BattleTech folder.

   On Steam this is usually:

   C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\BATTLETECH

2. From the BTBridge Windows zip, copy the BTBridge folder into:

   BATTLETECH\Mods\

3. Launch BattleTech to the main menu.

4. The version text should end in:

   /W MODTEK

5. Check:

   Mods\BTBridge\BTBridge.log

   It should contain:

   BTBridge 0.1.0 initialized

MACOS INSTALL - EXPERIMENTAL / UNVERIFIED

I do not own a Mac. The macOS paths and packaging have been implemented and tested synthetically, but this has NOT yet been run on real Mac hardware. I especially need Mac testers.

1. Install ModTek using its macOS instructions. ModTek launches the game through its script, configured as the Steam launch option.

   The Steam game folder is usually:

   ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/steamapps/common/BATTLETECH

2. From the BTBridge macOS zip, copy the BTBridge folder into ModTek's Mods folder, normally:

   BATTLETECH/Mods

   next to BattleTech.app.

3. If macOS quarantines the mod, run:

   xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine BATTLETECH/Mods/BTBridge

4. Launch BattleTech to the main menu.

5. Check for:

   Mods/BTBridge/BTBridge.log

If any of those paths are wrong on your Mac, please tell me. Confirming the real-world macOS layout is one of the reasons for this alpha.

Each zip also contains a fuller INSTALL guide.

WHAT TO SEND BACK

Whether it works or not, please send a comment, DM, or GitHub issue with:

- Windows or macOS

- For Macs: Intel or Apple Silicon, plus macOS version

- Mods/BTBridge/BTBridge.log

- Mods/.modtek/ModTek.log

- Mods/.modtek/battletech_log.txt

If BTBridge.log does not exist at all, that is useful information too. It means the mod never loaded.

CONNECTING AN AI

The release zips contain the BattleTech mod itself.

Connecting Claude, ChatGPT, a local model, or another MCP-capable agent uses the MCP server included in the GitHub repo. Setup is described in the README.

For this first alpha, my main goal is simply getting BTBridge to load cleanly on more machines and finding the assumptions that only worked on mine.

It is alpha software. Things may break.

When they do, the logs are exactly what I need.

Thanks!

Hired a 3/2/2/8 for his called shot bonus, but the idiot hardly gained any XP. 7 deployments, 8 mech kills, 3 vehicle kills and 112 days and only gained 320 XP. Time to dump the chump?

So I had my most experienced MW glassed by a centurion rolling double head hits in one attack, one with the ac10 and the other a laser. Freak tragedy but thats okay we can pull through this... next mission a shadow hawk DFA's my storm giant crushing the cockpit and killing my 2nd most experienced MW. This is my first modded playthrough and im just curious if this is the intended lethality or am I wildly unlucky?

The game is quite finicky to make it run flawlessly without stutters and at max performance even on high end machines.

One of the performance tips from all major mods is to install Process Lasso and set Battletech. exe Priority at High, I/O Priority at High and deselect CPU cores 0 and 1 to ensure there is no interference between background tasks and the game proper.

Process Lasso is a nice piece of software, but if you use free version, after some time, it shows splash screen at every boot. If you're annoyed with that just like I am, then there is a workaround for setting some of the options above.

To set Battletech.exe priority at always high, we need to create registry file (just copy and paste below into a notepad and save with *.reg extension. Make sure you don't save it with *.reg.txt extension):

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\Battletech.exe\PerfOptions] 

"CpuPriorityClass"=dword:00000003

After the file is saved, double click and add that information into registry. That's it! Now your Battletech will always be running with high priority!

To remove 0 and 1 CPU affinity, do the following:

Go into Battletech properties in the Steam library by right clicking the Battletech game entry. Go to Properties-General.

If your PC has 8-core CPU, enter the following line into the "Launch options":

cmd /c start "" /affinity FC %command% -popupwindow

For the 6-core CPU use the following:

cmd /c start "" /affinity 3C %command% -popupwindow

If your CPU is 4-core, enter the following:

cmd /c start "" /affinity C %command% -popupwindow

It may happen so that removing 2 cores is too much for 4-core CPU, so you may want to use this for deselecting just one core instead:

cmd /c start "" /affinity E %command% -popupwindow

Note -popupwindow at the end of the line is used to activate borderless window mode, remove it if you prefer playing in exclusive full screen mode.

Then just start the game as normal and it will not use first 2 cores by default.

I couldn't find a way to permanently change I/O priority so if that's important for you, just keep using Process Lasso. I am happy with just those two changes, the game runs as smooth as with the Process Lasso for me.

Hope it was useful for anyone.

So I'm definitely still not getting the initiative process in HBS BattleTech.

I just started a mission. All my pilots are 10s across the board. Two of them (my player character and Behemoth) have the initiative perk from Master Tactician. We're defending a base, and the base is on high ground so I take one turn to position one of my mechs (not a master tac) and then I reserve the rest, meaning they each gain 1 initiative. Now my own character and Behemoth should both have zero ambiguity about initiative.

One more turn goes by and I hit "done" because I have no necessary moves to make. Next enemy turn we make contact. I see one sensor blip, then a second, then a third, and then a fourth. No more enemies on the board. Should be my turn now, right?

Of course not. One of the enemy blips moves forward AGAIN, clearly becomes a Griffin and not just a red marker, and takes a shot. Then another one moves again. Where the eff is my initiative?

Another thing: when I have a mech knocked down, every enemy gets at least one opportunity to shoot at it, sometimes more than one. I figure that's because whenever a mech is knocked down they lose one initiative point. Sure. Gotcha. Except that if I knock an enemy mech down, it is immediately the enemy mech's turn. I've knocked down HUNDREDS of enemy mechs but only had the called shot a couple dozen times. And I don't mean I got the called shot for all my mechs, I mean one or two of my mechs might get a called shot if they're super lucky and then it's the enemy's turn again.

Sometimes I knock an enemy down and it's not immediately their turn, it's some other enemy mech's turn, but THEN it's the knocked down mech's turn to get up.

Also whenever they get into a frenzy about one mech, like if I move someone up a little too far and expose them, now it doesn't matter who's turn it was or who had the initiative, every enemy gets at least one shot at that mech now and some of them get two.

What am I missing?

(Also I'm the guy who said my player character got max injuries every single time he went out no matter what. Everyone said it was just bad luck, and sure enough the next three missions I sent him out on he came back with no injuries. I guess it was bad luck after all, but I checked: Glitch (most used pilot besides my pc) has been on 71 sorties and sustained 11 injures, most of which were 7-14 days. My pc has been on 72 sorties and had 42 injuries, nearly all of which were "deaths" avoided by plot armor. That's some pretty bad luck.)

With all the bonuses you can get for melee from skills this nasty little backstabber does two hits for 53 damage with the hatchet (in other words, basically the same as a UAC/10), and the S-XPLs each do three shots for 8 damage with +25% crit chance. Amazing for both light mech duels and for critting out opponents for salvage in regular missions.

It is even cooled enough to be heat-neutral in all but lunar environments!

The last two play sessions, I've noticed that sometimes, the last mech in the second drop ship will be locked out and assigned "ally" instead of being a player controlled mech.

It's never done this before and it nearly cost me a Stalker when the stupid AI decided it had to overheat to miss with 6 medium lasers.

Anyone have this issue?

Not something I expected of him though. He had always been fed, watered and entertained. I have assigned him to pilot LRM boats just in case, but halfway through the campaign he decided to resign... Of course we parted on good terms.

So the main feature of the iNARC is that the effects are permanent once you tag a mech for the rest of the battle.

This implies that NARC beacons wear off, but I can't for the life of me find out how long they persist.

Going back and forth on which one to use, and I'm wondering if the iNARC is worth it because you get SO much less ammo per ton for it.

This feels like a cheat that just deletes enemies.

The only mod I'm running is Moff's Ronin Library.

He's the best tank and I'm enjoying a melee build on him, but he literally moves 3 tiles while walking and 7 on a sprint. No movement happens when there's forests and cliffs.