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That's it, it's done, finished. Harebrained Schemes have announced that their turn-based mech strategy game BATTLETECH is done, with a last patch coming this month.

After many patches and three big expansions across, the BATTLETECH saga is coming to a close nearly two years after the full release. Speaking in a fresh update on their Kickstarter, they said "Now, with our season pass at an end, HBS is going to focus on two brand new non-BattleTech projects. Our last free update, BATTLETECH Update 1.9, will release in late February. After that, BATTLETECH will continue to maintain customer support.".

Harebrained co-founder Mitch Gitelman also released this video:

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They also released another video with a timeline of the project structure, which was actually quite cool.

With them moving onto two new projects, we will be keeping a close eye on what they're up to. Since they supported Linux with multiple games and they're now owned by Paradox Interactive who are quite a Linux-friendly publisher most of the time too. Exciting to find out what they're up to!

If you wish to pick up BATTLETECH it's available for Linux from Humble Store, GOG and Steam.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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18 comments
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Koopacabras Feb 14, 2020
Disappointing this game leaks memory. Picture this as the same as the Batman AK leaking scandal. It's still a nice game but you need more than 8gb of RAM for 1080p. I think that on windows for what I heard it doesn't happen (but it happens on MacOS). I reported that on the forums last year and they did nothing... and they knew this for a long time. saying that the game needs 8gb of RAM minimum it's a lie . they should come straight and make a statement and acknowledge that the game needs at least 12gb of RAM on Linux. There is not much PR now to be lost... making a statement won't influence in their sales at this point.


Last edited by Koopacabras on 14 February 2020 at 10:47 am UTC
Cyril Feb 14, 2020
I'm pretty excited for their next games too. :)
DMG Feb 14, 2020
I was disappointed in this game. It looks nice, but everything is so complicated. After few battles I felt boring already. It missing some better explanation and feeling of progression. But in current state of game, when I start I do not even know, where should I grow and why. What mechs should I buy and what parts should I change. Everything is so unclear, that it's become boring. But that's just my opinion.
Nanobang Feb 14, 2020
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I find it refreshing to hear that a game is going to be "done." I mean, it's a pity to hear about the memory leak Aquabat's talking about not being corrected, but nowadays it feels like I'm always hearing about games being constantly adjusted, patched, and "balanced."
14 Feb 14, 2020
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Perhaps it's time to start playing this game that I bought so long ago. :D Hopefully I love it. I loved Shadownrun: Dragonfall and likewise look forward to what they're making next.
Koopacabras Feb 14, 2020
Quoting: NanobangI find it refreshing to hear that a game is going to be "done." I mean, it's a pity to hear about the memory leak Aquabat's talking about not being corrected, but nowadays it feels like I'm always hearing about games being constantly adjusted, patched, and "balanced."

the game is still good... I just wanted to point out that in case there is ppl with 8gb of Ram reading this, just in case. If you have at least 12gb you should be fine. I don't want to sound like a jerk... we should be grateful at paradox for bringing so many games to linux... but it annoyed me because they are ignoring the multiple reports on the forums, and they made me loose a lot of time, if I knew from the start I would just have waited to when I had the extra ram module available.


Last edited by Koopacabras on 14 February 2020 at 4:48 pm UTC
Liam Dawe Feb 14, 2020
Quoting: The_AquabatDisappointing this game leaks memory. Picture this as the same as the Batman AK leaking scandal. It's still a nice game but you need more than 8gb of RAM for 1080p. I think that on windows for what I heard it doesn't happen (but it happens on MacOS). I reported that on the forums last year and they did nothing... and they knew this for a long time. saying that the game needs 8gb of RAM minimum it's a lie . they should come straight and make a statement and acknowledge that the game needs at least 12gb of RAM on Linux. There is not much PR now to be lost... making a statement won't influence in their sales at this point.
I do think their minimum should be bumped up too (which is true for A LOT of games), but I don't agree that it leaks memory. Needing more on Linux doesn't mean it's leaking, it's quite common with Unity games from all that I've tested especially when they're using some older builds too.

I played through an entire skirmish earlier, keeping in mind I have the two recent expansions and I didn't touch 7GB RAM use for the game but I have seen it hit 9GB before when playing 3-4 hours in one go but never higher than that.
Purple Library Guy Feb 14, 2020
Quoting: DMGI was disappointed in this game. It looks nice, but everything is so complicated. After few battles I felt boring already. It missing some better explanation and feeling of progression. But in current state of game, when I start I do not even know, where should I grow and why. What mechs should I buy and what parts should I change. Everything is so unclear, that it's become boring. But that's just my opinion.
What mechs to buy . . . well, as a rule, big is better. It's not perhaps quite always true, but it's a pretty damn good rule of thumb.
Pay attention to how much armour the dang things have. I occasionally couldn't resist beefing up weapons a bit extra at the expense of armour and came to the conclusion that the best defence is a good defence. And on at least one occasion I bought a big mech with glorious weaponry, didn't tweak it much, didn't look too closely at the pocket descriptions about that model, and wondered why it kept dying so fast . . . then took a look and whoops! It was totally under-armoured.

What weapons . . . Dunno. Different strokes for different folks. One thing I do notice is that one big weapon does more than two little weapons totaling the same damage, because you can punch through and do real damage in one shot instead of spreading it across the armour of different locations. This is a major reason I'm not sold on missiles--with missiles you have to basically knock out every single piece of armour on your target before you can start to hurt it because you have a ton of little impacts.
But I tend to skew towards short range effectiveness--use terrain cover to get as close as possible, rush, crush opponents with stuff like AC-20s or stacks of basic medium lasers and stuff. Called shot to the head, baby! But I believe emphasis on longer range engagement can be effective for people who can do it well (ie not me), and I have to admit the indirect fire abilities of long range missiles can be nice to soften up opponents who can't shoot back. So yeah, there are various workable approaches, which I think is a good thing.
If you're gonna have a laser hog that overheats a lot, make it a mech with a good hand-to-hand attack because you can whack the opponent while cooling down.
And if you spot weapons with a few nice bonuses, all bets are off--with a couple damage boosts, suddenly a short range missile rack can become a monstrous killer, and you should forget all your normal ideas of what weapon type is effective and hammer that "buy" button.


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 14 February 2020 at 9:13 pm UTC
Koopacabras Feb 14, 2020
Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: The_AquabatDisappointing this game leaks memory. Picture this as the same as the Batman AK leaking scandal. It's still a nice game but you need more than 8gb of RAM for 1080p. I think that on windows for what I heard it doesn't happen (but it happens on MacOS). I reported that on the forums last year and they did nothing... and they knew this for a long time. saying that the game needs 8gb of RAM minimum it's a lie . they should come straight and make a statement and acknowledge that the game needs at least 12gb of RAM on Linux. There is not much PR now to be lost... making a statement won't influence in their sales at this point.
I do think their minimum should be bumped up too (which is true for A LOT of games), but I don't agree that it leaks memory. Needing more on Linux doesn't mean it's leaking, it's quite common with Unity games from all that I've tested especially when they're using some older builds too.

I played through an entire skirmish earlier, keeping in mind I have the two recent expansions and I didn't touch 7GB RAM use for the game but I have seen it hit 9GB before when playing 3-4 hours in one go but never higher than that.

well call it the way you want... maybe "bad memory management" sounds better the problem it's that is unplayable for me with 8gb the kernel crashes with out-of-memory errors. On the forums they are also talking about extremely long loading times like a loading screen taking over 10 minutes, pretty sure that's not how it should work.
And it's not just me with ram problems if you search a forums paradox plaza, there is tons of the same reports.


Last edited by Koopacabras on 14 February 2020 at 11:04 pm UTC
TheRiddick Feb 14, 2020
First load time is fine, but if you sit there and continuously load the same save-game, watch as it slowly bogs down each load event to the point where its not enjoyable waiting for it anymore. Also causes odd stutter performance issues as time progresses (in a mission).

Pretty sure the memory leaks occur each time you enter a mission, as you go from mission to mission there is something stuck in memory that builds up over time. Believe it or not, this problem exists under windows also but its more obvious under Linux since its stuck on OpenGL for Linux (not very well optimized in certain maps like citys etc)


Last edited by TheRiddick on 14 February 2020 at 11:43 pm UTC
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