Hiya everyone, this is probably going to be the last upgrade to my Steiner stuff for Battletech, there are some other light and medium mechs I wanna get, but I will leave the upgrades here^^

Fafnir, Crusader, Wolfhound, Ebon Jaguar, Bushwacker, Longbow, three LRM carriers and another Black Knight.

I am also here to also talk about what I was basically doing for all of December and that is MechWarrior 5 Merc's, having caught up with the dlc and been on a power trip all month thanks to the pure majesty and wonder that is Clan tech it basically has had all my attention, for the past few weeks I have spent well over 100 hours just obliterating all with the newly aquired equippent from fether salvaging from fighting the Clan's or doing the practical thing and putting my c-bills to use and requesition the glory lilke a true Lyran with my stockpile of over a billion bills.(Bare with me as I am in a full Battletech roleplay mode here still XD)

Now I have come off of the higher than life feel from all of it, but I do want to give some impressions here and maybe even give some info. Before jumping into the Clan stuff I have been obsessing over and melting everything before me like Zeus, I think the best place to start is what the game is.

With just the base game you end up running a merc company that once belonged to your dad and it is basically a run of the mil avenging story. I only played the first few missions to learn the controls to be honest. But with the Hero's of the Inner Sphere you get Career Mode... in all honestly in my opinion I think all of the dlc is a must, heck with the Legend dlc you do take part in the Forth Succession War and with said dlc you get a good amount of mech veriety, parts and so on. Now Career Mode is a sandbox expirience where you choose your starting location which also determines your starting lance and you basically just run around doing the missions you want to. I won't go full toturial here, but there is no real end game it just keeps going.

I do have to point out the ai in this game is.... well... a little slow. What I mean is the ai is great in terms of combat in landing hits a good chunk of the time, but outside of that it is mixed. These so-called mechwarriors have Fallout 4 levels of pathfinding, not only that they are terrible at keeping the mechs heat to managable levels... and have a tendancy for no reason to spin their mechs around in the middle of an intense firefight. You will need to babysit the bots and be very attentive with commands alongside of how the weapons grouping are for the mecha the bots are using.

And this does cause a few interesting situations, where even the enemy ai runs into issues where many a time they overheat their mechs which causes a temporary shutdown, giving you the perfect oppertunity to knock out the cockpit which granted does happen in lore so it is accurate at least. And if allied mecha join in helping your lance they follow you around and you can't command them at all... which leads me to another part of the ai, they will end up shooting eachother and you in the back sometimes and on missions where you have a back up lance following you around an over eager mechwarrior will get in front of you and goes down like a sack of bricks because you hit them hard into the rear armor and most of the time it is a light mech, doing two things, wasting your alpha strike and/or well aimed sniping shot and also having a good chance of knocking out said mech. So it does pay to try to be a little mindful if and when possible.

As a rule of thumb, your mechs have roughly twice as much health as you think it does and at the same time always has one hit point left at all times. Unlike a good number of mecha games, you actually do feel like you are in a hardy piece of machinery that can take a hit and dish it back, it also wants you to plan how you deal with fighting rival forces if you can. By far the best places to hit the enemy mechs are the legs and respective mechs cockpit, especially if you are trying to salvage them, either for parts or for your own use. A vital part of planning too is disabling the mech, targeting weapon systems is always a great strategy and if fighting an assault mech hitting it from the back is the best way to go if you can unless you can comfortably counter with decent mechs of your own.

Now to get to the star of this and talk about the Clan tech added in the most recent dlc and what has been occupiying me more or less all month. The story that comes with it takes place during the Clan Invasion(known as Operation: Revival by the Clans) you will end up fighting against the front most Clan Crusader forces, the bulk being Smoke Jaguar, Wolf, Jade Falcon and Ghost Bear with also the Vipers and Nova Cats sprinkled in. The Clan's given they have greatly advanced means they bring a lot to bare compared to anything you will find in the Inner Sphere.

As an example let's look at the Timber Wolf, the most iconic of all the Clan designs. It moves as fast as an Inner Sphere medium with the tonnage of a heavy at 75 tons and the firepower more compariable to an Inner Sphere assault mech, matter a fact it basicially outguns an Atlas which is a 100 ton assault mech and to be fair, kind of overrated. Add in the omipod system and the Clan double heat sinks and the Timber Wolf is quite a mech, my fav of the bunch the A configuration.

To sum it up, Clan mechs are faster, hit harder, better armored and all their equipment overall weighs less and takes up less space. For example a gauss cannon for Inner Sphere is mountable in a large slot only where as a Clan one fits in a medium slot with the Clan weapon having better range, recharge rate and gives more punch. Clan Lrm's as another can be fired at more or less point blank range, something you can't do with the Inner Sphere versions at all.

Fighting against the Clan's feels scary and that is how it should be, it greatly adds to the challenge and requires a lot more planning. No worries, you won't be facing the heavies or assaults that often, most of the time you will encounter the lighter mechs and these omnimechs are insane, they can run from 130kph to as high as around 200kph and they can bring down the heavier Inner Sphere mechs fairly well, the Fire Moth, Kit Fox and Nova are just amazing. I still remember using the Kit Fox and I was just laughing and laughing, while my lance mates held the enemies attention I would just hit the opposing side in the rear, this 30 ton mech in it's prime configuration brings down heavy and assault mechs extremely efficiently, yes you don't have the armor to take a big hit, but given you move 130kph speed is basically your armor and in maps with terrian it is a pretty effective and amazing mech hunter. Then we have the Fire Moth and I was laughing like the Joker the whole time using it, it is a 20 ton mech that goes almost 200kph and with it comes an srm 4 and six with two er medium lasers, on the surface may not look like much and armor is less than the Kit Fox, but trust me when I say that this thing cannot be underestimated, I still remember the first time I encountered a Fire Moth, at first I discounted it but then I saw it move and my jaw dropped, then two more showed up and they did some decent damage to my lance which was a lance of Atlas assault mechs, to say I was humbled would be putting it lightly, I learned never to underestimate these things.

Then we come to the Dire Wolf and it is thanks to this I went on my full power trip, I have two P configurations though one is now a back up and the other is my main assault mech. My back up and the first one has two lrm 20's, three medium pulse lasers and three extended range particle projector cannons, which by the way can fire across the map with no issue, plus in addition to ecw system there is also a probe system I put in because why not with maxed armor. The other one that is my main is badically the same though the lrm launchers and ppc's are replaced with large Clan pulse lasers and both have jump jets too. Not even my sinus infection could keep me from expirencing all this power! I felt like a real god of war, my Dire Wolf just on a casual stroll while vaporizing all that came in sight. Just for fun I even did one where the lrms were replaced by two more ppc's... yes it is as funny as it sounds.

It is also great when you put this tech into mechs of the Inner Sphere. For example after outfitting one of my fav mechs, the Night Star, using the two Clan guass cannons I brought down an Atlas with both hitting the face plate and it dropped instantly. And outfitting a Corsair which is a frankenmech with this stuff carries alot of comedy with it, a hunk of moving scrap that can bring down whole lances is just amazing and a great time. Also you can take a Rifleman (4D chasis) and turn it into a long range sniper with the er ppc's and er medium lasers.

I could go on and believe me I can, but I think you get the point, it got so addicting I had to uninstall the game XD Heck now I have almost 400 hours of playtime on it now.

To cover a few more things, the sound design is impressive, the music hits great and sound effects carry a lot of weight and the enviroments this game offers are massive, ranging from open fields to cities, valcanic worlds and fighting on worlds with no atmosphere. It all really helps bring the setting alive, that you and your mercenary lance are doing these contracts in these very hazardous zones.

Being mercenaries you are loyal to money but it is best to be in favor of at least one of the Great Houses. Honestly the best position given you fight on the side of FedCom during the Fourth Succession War, it is best to aid Steiner and Davion(Lyran Commonwealth and Federated Suns respectfully), as for me I also grew max rep with the Free Worlds League and focused on beating down House Kurita and House Liao(Draconis Combine and Capelleon Confederation respectfully) along with against independants and pirates.

Honestly with the Fourth War, it does lock you in a specific path, even if you fight as a merc lance that starts with the Confederation you always fight with FedCom.

Another negative is that sooner or later the repatition will catch up to you, even the multi-stage contracts will follow this pattern. It is great starting out as you are the starting underdog, having to build your reputation up along with your stocks and try to have three heavy lances as soon as you can before around the time the events of the 4th War starts.

There are a few things I do wish was here, it would be cool if you could do a Comstar campaign or have a planet you can govern and set up while also doing wars of your own. I am not kidding when I say I have like a hundred mechs in cold storage that just never see use on top of the massive stockpile that would make House Steiner blush.

All in all this is a game best played in small bursts, as in a few hours at a time, it isn't a bad game at all but it does show all of it's cards pretty quickly. You can mentally make up a plot as you go depending on how you tackle the individual missions, but you will get tired of your forces being called an unknown lance or unknown mercenary force. At low rep it isn't a big deal or when you are initially detected and the enemy hasn't fully seen you, but it ends up feeling like the unsung hero. I mean my lance and forces has pulled victories by the skin of it's teeth, fought through the second biggest war of the Inner Sphere, in high standing with three of the Great Houses and was one of the first to fight the Clan's and make it back. Surely some confirmation or awknowledgement would come out of it, this is a trope I hate with a passion to say the least.

It would be cool if we got a full and true rpg video game set in Battletech, plus some quad mechs would also be a cool addition, but the game still has issues from years ago that haven't been resolved. And I do my best to avoid mods for this game, not because it is bad it is just more for me to keep track of, the dlc does help the game greatly and fills in the gaps for the most part. Also as crazy as it may sound, it could be cool if we could also use vehicles like the hovorcraft to Demolisher tanks like in MechAssault.

So overall for what this game is it is pretty good and solid, I just wish a few other things were put in and yes it does have multiplayer, as far as I know there is no PvP, basically everyone forms a lance and then you tackle the campaign/career mode... as far as I know, I haven't done multiplayer to be fair. There are issues sure, but when you get into an intense fight where it is you and some reinforcements on your side clashing with a force just as big, it really works well.

Another tip and a big one is when stripping mechs it is better to move the mechs to the cold storage first, this will instantly strip the mechs of all ewuipment, weapons, everything save the armor. This is great as it will save time and c-bills, plus depending on the mechs class and how much damage it has taken(from salvaging it) you can strip it and then sell it off. The cool thing too is the mech having equipment or not does not effect the value of the mechs at all, what does is the mark ups and mark downs related to the market system and when selling you are are low balled a tad but nothing major.

Speaking of cold storage it does not cose any upkeep, the only mechs you need to worry about upkeep are the ones in your bay. The storage is only a means of building a collection more or less. Also if you do decide to pull a mech out of storage you will need to outfit the machines, good thing too as stock mech loadouts can be very hit or miss to say the least. When outfitting you add or remove armor with one point of armor being .03 tons, same with weapons and equipment, ammo and heat management... it really is a balancing act. But after you get your hands on Clan tech and mechs you can do a lot more.

Another big tip is this, unless you are comfortable with it, never ever give your ai controlled lacemates Clan anything, yes it does mean they will be way more effective but you still have to deal with the issues the bots have which often leads to the mechs they do get taking extensive damage. The best thing to do(from my expirence) is shove them into a mech that can take a pounding like a fully armored Atlas(The AS7-D variant), equip it with decent medium lasers, srm launchers an AC-20 burst fire, some ammo and heat sinks and it will give them the best chance of survival.

Anyway I hope everyone enjoy my rambling, I wasn't sure what to call this, so I just called it impressions and rolled with it.^^;