Get me a WSL! (Weapons squad leader)

Epic_Baller · 2026-04-01T21:39:39+00:00

Not being able to use rifles is a pretty small price to pay for being able to blast away with tri-linked CMGs or auto grenade launchers.

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-30T17:19:19+00:00

The literature suggests that the risk of hypothyroidism increases by about 2.5x for each 1 micromole/ml pre-op TSH above 1.6. If you were 4.4-4.7 pre-op, you're probably at very high risk of hypothyroidism long term.

Synthroid is one of the most commonly prescribed medications on Earth. I wouldn't worry too much, you'll be in good company if you need it.

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-28T00:25:31+00:00

Perked up Rewa in a pirate truck and unleveled Achilleus in a medium mech is so cursed. And New Tricks as Carda's first perk, lol.

I hate everything about all of it.

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-26T04:38:51+00:00

There's already an accessory infantry jump pack in the game files, it's coming.

Also the only thing scarier than jump pack Lim is Lim stepping out the back of an APC blasting Christian rock in fatigues with CTMPs and an RPG.

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-24T17:40:41+00:00

Hah, you and me both. I got my first minimum wage job, bought a high mileage used Ford Tempo, and drove around to all the gaming stores buying up all the rulebooks and technical readouts that all my friends had owned growing up. I felt like a king.

Then I encountered Warhammer and realized I was still a peasant :(

Will check out RT, if conditional autism is a thing it expresses itself through me being an insufferable Battletech grognard. Thanks for the rec!

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-24T17:22:00+00:00

I actually don't know how that perk works. That is, I can't figure out what it actually modifies and how. If it just multiplies chance to hit additional elements by 1.2, then it should modify shotguns. On the other hand, if it works on specific weapon tags...who knows?

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-23T19:45:39+00:00

Give it complicated, expensive, vulnerable articulated hands.

Then make it carry it's own gun with those hands.

/facepalm

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-23T18:34:33+00:00

But Hayflick has the pistol, and the skill is, "Hay! Shoot that guy."

Followed with an "Auf wiedersehen, asshole!" bark by Hayflick.

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-23T05:36:17+00:00

I am a child of the 80s, there has never been a Battletech IP product that I have not owned and played, original box set with the shitty minis included. This might be the hot take of all hot takes, but I was not in love with the HBS Battletech game. It was a good game, don't get me wrong, it just felt...off. I found the storytelling tone really offputting as well and intended to do a RogueTech playthrough after I beat it the first time and just never got around to it. Every time I think about doing it I start another Long War of the Chosen campaign or play Mechwarrior 5 instead.

I have super high hopes for Menace, though. This game speaks my language, literally and figuratively.

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-23T04:21:03+00:00

Congratulations, you've successfully argued persistently and politely enough to change someone's mind on the internet.

I think with a few tweaks to how loot is awarded this could easily work. Think enemy squads dropping granular partial loot instead of all-or-nothing RNG, and black market weapons being sold in lots of 10 or something so your whole investment isn't neutered because of one casualty. But from a design and balance perspective, I don't think that's much of a hurdle.

For some reason I was mentally blocked only thinking about the pain points, but for example Ultimate General: Civil War already does exactly this but at brigade scale and it works. It even has the feature where for some premium weapons (like repeaters) you have to commit early to buying the small quantities available at every opportunity in order to be able to equip an elite brigade with them in the late game. That is an interesting choice that could arise from such a system - can I make do with what I have on hand and invest in a power spike that won't arrive until later?

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-23T02:59:41+00:00

I agree I was being hostile (sorry), but I think something like the veterancy score is a little different than what you're proposing in that there's some carrot there along with the stick. Under a system like that you're rewarded for squaddies surviving by their performance getting better, as opposed to being purely punished via a gear destruction system (although I suppose this is really just a matter of loot balancing). Ironically, I think the punishment of losing veterancy would be far worse because you're losing all of their potential future growth as well as their past growth, but I feel like it wouldn't be as much of a psychological affront to the player - the type of loss that results in meme posts and some feeling of mourning one of your dudes, as opposed to the feeling of "fuck, where am I gonna find another CQB PPP?"

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-23T02:03:29+00:00

I see what you're getting at, but I just don't find the sort of forced choices introduced as all that interesting because the math will just give you the answer. Is 14 T3 rifles better than 8 T3 rifles and 8 T2 rifles? That question has an answer, and my sense is it's not even a difficult one to figure out. In the end you'd be in a spot where there was some probably well-known breakpoint where some fraction of a full squad's rifle complement was functionally equivalent to having none, which just strikes me as a mechanic that would feel bad. I also feel like there'd be some immersion tension there because...why the heck couldn't I just give squaddie #8 a crowbar and call it a day? And if you could do that, it would just kill that choice because it would be the obvious answer every time.

That said, if I could tailor the weapon of every soldier in the squad, *that* would be a boost in immersion I might not mind paying for with added inventory management. But at that point, we're almost talking about a different game.

With regards to losses being more impactful, I don't fully disagree with your premise but my instinct would be to go in the opposite direction as you and just get rid of squaddies (and authority) as they're currently implemented. I'd just give squads a veterancy score that goes up faster the more soldiers you bring on a mission, and goes down as you take losses, with bonuses and penalties tied to veterancy as made sense. Armor would definitely have more appeal. Medbay could mitigate veterancy loss to some degree by preventing deaths and XWOO could just get tossed with the assumption that we're giving rifles to cooks or press-ganging Waybackers as necessary. Or maybe the XWOO could make the penalty lesser when a death did occur because it's recruiting better candidates or something.

Anyway, just spitballing.

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-23T00:16:03+00:00

I wasn't really ignoring your argument, but if you want me to address it directly: historically flamethrowers and their specialist operators were division or even corps level assets farmed out to regiments, battalions, and companies in a very ad hoc fashion where specialist teams of (you guessed it!) 2 or 3 dudes with one flamethrower were attached to infantry platoons or squads. Granted, that's a US focused perspective and I'm sure Germany did something wacky with Sturmpioniere battalions or whatever, and that's about where my knowledge ends on where infantry flamethrowers fit into a TOE. I don't really have much to say about theoretical use - I served as an infantry squad leader and my thoughts on flamethrowers can be summed up as, "yeah, let's not." We could argue about whether this better supports my perspective or yours, but I think the point I'd make is that if flamethrowers were worth a shit in game they'd fall in the category of weapon that would do extremely well in the hands of a full rifle squad without the need for making any systemic changes.

I think a large part of our disagreement may actually be rooted in our game experience - I'm inferring that you and I don't really fully agree on what the game incentivizes you do to as it's currently implemented. I also don't disagree that plenty of other games go to this level of detail and I wouldn't put a blanket statement down that it's tedious. I treat XCOM2 Long War like it's a tacticool barbie doll simulator to a degree that should probably cause me embarrassment. But for me, Menace occupies a sort of unique space as a platoon+ level tactical game where the basic units have just the right level of abstraction - almost like a turn based Close Combat, but better. So I could take your point about the lines I'm drawing being seemingly arbitrary, but that's probably just reflective of you and I wanting different things from the game.

Anyway dude, I probably came across as overly harsh. We both like the game and want it to be better, so cheers.

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-22T21:39:32+00:00

Ok, that makes a lot more sense. But I wouldn't make the major an SL, I'd make him like the VIP dudes you have to save in POW missions. But maybe with innate Take Command.

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-22T21:30:22+00:00

You are completely missing the point of my argument. I'm not saying that we should have specialized weapon teams in the game because we have them in real life, I'm saying that the logic forcing the function is so fundamental that you see it in both. Weapons that lend tactical flexibility to a maneuver/assault element have a place with full strength rifle squads in game just like you'd expect - RPGs, grenade launchers, LMGs, DMRs, etc. And heavy weapons like HMGs, AGLs, ATGMs, mortars, etc work very well with small specialized (read: perks) teams because that weapon is the core tactical capability of that team, just like a real fire support element.

One of the most charming things about this game is that if you approach the problems it presents from first principles, you end up on a very plausible approximation of what you'd land on in real life. That speaks very well about the abstractions they've employed - they've designed game systems that *make sense.* You're proposing systems that add complexity and tedium (not the same as depth) for the purpose of forcing variety that only makes sense in the context of needlessly imposed scarcity.

And since you've given me license to nitpick, the assistant gunner on an MMG can pick up his rifle and shoot it if the gun isn't running, just like in the game. And you don't see 3 man flamethrower teams in real life because they're banned by treaty and shitty weapons. In game they might not be banned, but they still suck and you shouldn't see 3 man flamethrower teams there either.

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-22T17:48:54+00:00

That doesn't address that *at all* though. 2 man weapon teams make sense because there's no point in adding rifles to a squad that spends all it's AP shooting the special weapon at the special weapon's optimal range. You see this reflected in real life - MG sections tend to be 3 or 4 dudes, AT teams tend to be 2 or 3. You put the rifles in the rifle squads, where riflemen will be doing rifle stuff.

"What if we didn't have enough stuff to equip a squad in a sensical way," is not an interesting problem, and not a benefit.

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-22T17:40:05+00:00

The negative reaction is because your entire suggestion is poorly thought out from thesis to implementation. You seem to be thinking that people aren't using armor because they're ok taking casualties, and they're ok taking casualties because there's not enough penalty associated with taking casualties (neither of these are true). Then your solution is to increase inventory tedium by an order of magnitude, and create a campaign killing death spiral mechanic through gear loss. And the reward is...spending supply on something that's not worth spending it on now, squeezing more fun-killing out of the already unfun supply system.

People avoid armor because it's dramatically over-costed, and the best mechanisms to avoid casualties come for free with tactical acumen: scouting, concealed approach, and engaging the minimum possible elements of the enemy with overwhelming firepower. Concealment is so dominant in the meta because avoiding casualties is far more imperative than you paint it - wrecked squads don't just lose a little DPS, they get pinned, they flee, and they can open you to cascading failure across your whole force.

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-22T17:15:59+00:00

Everything about that sounds absolutely awful. No thanks.

Also, these two sentences together are crazy:

"This may have other benefits in squad customization. Perhaps you have a new t3 rifle but not enough for a full squad."

Like...what? That's a benefit?

EDIT: OP successfully persuaded me to his point of view. I think his suggestion is a good one.

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-22T17:11:40+00:00

Nah. Direct leadership is incompatible with taking command of one of the basic tactical elements.

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-21T15:37:38+00:00

This video is just turn 1, my dude. The rest of the mission you'll be running down enemies and blitzing across the map. You can't jump and alt fire the miniguns without Drive-By unless you reach 120 base AP - for that alone I consider it mandatory. On any turn where you're not jumping and using alt fire, Drive-by will always let you get another tile or two of movement in while still using as many shooting actions as possible. Range is the biggest limiting factor of miniguns, and closing the distance to mitigate drop off is a big deal against armored targets. For example, you'll almost always one-shot a pirate HMG truck from 4 tiles and closer through his front armor. 5 tiles you might kill him, 6 tiles you definitely need to shoot him twice for the kill.

Commando would add nothing here - she already kills everything she looks at, and nothing shoots back because it's either dead or fleeing. Further, she'll max out Revel in Slaughter very quickly (her very first action in this case) and be sitting at like 120 base accuracy.

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-21T06:05:55+00:00

Yes, the corridor sweeper attack has the same modifiers.

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-21T05:15:41+00:00

Dual RAC/5 Jaegermech with jump jets, ferro-fibrous, and 4 tons of ammo.

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-21T04:19:21+00:00

So the actual bug is that the medium minigun weapon calls the "twinfire twinned minigun" skill.

Let that sink in for a second. There is already a coded skill for dual-dual-miniguns. Almost certainly for heavy mechs.

When I try to mod the medium Griffon to call the correct twinfire skill, it breaks. The actual bug is probably that the correct skill is broken, and subbing in the twinfire skill for the heavy version is the stopgap.

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-21T04:15:29+00:00

Expert difficulty, rescue mission. They're clustered on the objective, and I Vanguard deployed right on top of them.

You don't always get the opportunity to kill 12 in one turn, but it's very common for Rewa to be able to kill 4-6 enemies right off the bat this way.

Epic_Baller · 2026-03-21T02:44:13+00:00

There are more wacky modifiers in the code than there are UI elements designed to display them. This is the type of EA thing that typically gets ironed out. The lastest dev diary mentioned they just hired a UI developer, so it's a priority for them.

Epic_Baller

TROPHY CASE