The cheat protection code

[Taralan]

Okay, i know this is a deliberate code. But it annoys me badly. Was working along getting skills up a little,squad was only green so has no fallback cash. An even random battle threw up an overweight enemy and a serious run of bad luck. So I lost mechs all over. Remembered id saved just before the battle and reloaded it. It was at the end of the previous campaign mission. However i cant get past the end of it due to the cheat code. Party doesnt have the cash to withdraw, since its still charging me for the units i havent fielded for the evac, (not convinced withdrawing 3 40tonners should be costing me 160K).
And since ive moved etc, the autosave in the battle i lost is gone. So i have no way of getting the squad back at all.

Either this code needs fixing/removing or the cost needs nerfing. Because to lose everything after 6 missions with no fall back position is likely to seriously reduce people working through this game.

[Thorgrim]

Saves from previous battle cannot act like backups for your squads. As soon as the mission is completed successfully, the squad is saved and that mission cannot be saved again. You should have backed up the *squad file* after increasing stats and making repairs - creating a copy of the file in the squads folder or wherever you wish.

Hmm, maybe you should be able to access your titan roster to be able to sell any backups you might have, so you can make some money. And the transfer database.


BTW, retrieve cost is (upkeep * 4), so the bigger and better your squad (including jocks) the higher the cost.
(OTOH, retrieve cost should only be affected by the deployed team, not the whole squad...)

[LarkinVB]

ORIGINAL: Taralan


Either this code needs fixing/removing or the cost needs nerfing. Because to lose everything after 6 missions with no fall back position is likely to seriously reduce people working through this game.

I don't agree. A fallback position is

1. Saving at the start of the battle
2. Making a backup of the squad before battle.

With 1. you can flee if there is no hope, with 2. you can cheat.

So I like it the way as

3. Reloading a save game of an older battle as you tried to do

will allow to finish the same battle over and over accumulating the reward.

Send your squad file to henriksATmatrixgamesDOTcom and I try to fix it.

[Taralan]

Fair enough, not the designers fault really, i was a bit annoyed, mostly because id played thru with a squad to rookie then had a hard disk crash. So starting again, getting to green with a decent team and then losing it to this was seriously annoying, especially since it was just a quick random battle to pass a little time. Perhaps having it set an autosave at the start of battles that wasnt overwritten till the next is started would do the job.

But comments for expansions/patches...

Only have you get charged the recovery cost based on the deployed mechs - im mainly in the mess because i have 2 lights i have never equiped in the titan bay, i cant get to em to sell em and they seem to have bounced my recover cost thru the roof.

Set either a roll back position on a squad (auto back em up when on roster). Or even delete the saves from a mission when its finished, (that way i cant lose the team if i load an out of date save).

Or make the retreival costs for low end squads lower, or post em on the squad details page so you know in advance how much retrieval will cost you so can budget accordingly

Dont get me wrong i do like the game (began playing battletech about 86) but when i posted originally i was still rather annoyed from the event

[Sleeping_Dragon]

ORIGINAL: Taralan
Perhaps having it set an autosave at the start of battles that wasnt overwritten till the next is started would do the job.

I like this idea... was thinking about this post and was just going to suggest to Larkin to take a look at this exact possiblility. A second autosave that is ONLY overwritten when you start a new mission (sec=0). There have been several situatations like yours where people have abandond a current game without making any save and trying to load a save from a previously completed game; thus overwriting the autosave and effectively screwing themselves leaving the only possibility of 'saving' the squad as a squad retrieveal from the HQ.... Larkin?

[Thorgrim]

ORIGINAL: Taralan
Perhaps having it set an autosave at the start of battles that wasnt overwritten till the next is started would do the job.

But what if the next started battle is with another squad in another map?
A all-random hotseat. A MP. A netgame. (these you could get around by having one for each)

Only have you get charged the recovery cost based on the deployed mechs - im mainly in the mess because i have 2 lights i have never equiped in the titan bay, i cant get to em to sell em and they seem to have bounced my recover cost thru the roof.

The 'Titan Roster' button could be active and turn to 'Decomission Titans', where you could pick which inactive Titans you want to sell.

Set either a roll back position on a squad (auto back em up when on roster). Or even delete the saves from a mission when its finished, (that way i cant lose the team if i load an out of date save).

You have the option to save the squad when you leave the hq. No need (or want) for a autosave. That'd mean you couldn't undo changes when starting/upgrading your squads. When assigning DPs to attributes/skills, it's important to be able to discard any changes if you did something you don't like (or could do better). This allows you to experiment without commiting to the changes.
Deleting the saves I'm not sure it's even possible. Relating the saves to a given mission. Anyways, after finishing the mission, you may want to try new approaches and tactics, even if the squad is already saved and it will have no effect.
As to losing the team from an old save, don't know what you mean. You can't lose a team like that.

Or make the retreival costs for low end squads lower, or post em on the squad details page so you know in advance how much retrieval will cost you so can budget accordingly

It is lower [:)] And all you have to do is multiply your upkeep by 4. Not sure there's space to display this cost in the page.

Dont get me wrong i do like the game (began playing battletech about 86) but when i posted originally i was still rather annoyed from the event

You were not the first [:D]

[Taralan]

You have the option to save the squad when you leave the hq.
yes but the save when you leave the hq is automatically overwritten with the addition of the code saying youre on a mission, so isnt available at all once you start. Hence this discussion

Deleting the saves I'm not sure it's even possible
It is, since i have at least one game that does exactly that. All it takes is use of the file tag. Something like this must be used to make the cheat code work. For example it is possible (not knowing the exact tag code the game uses dont know how easy) to add the missions done to the tag, then at the end of the mission set it to delete any save for that squad with a lower value of mission numbers.

You were not the first
Lol nope, especially since most of the ppl i played with were playing it long before me. A friend does have a copy of battledroids, fasa's first attempt at a mech game, but that is old lol.

Got to admit tho TOS does seem to take turn based Battletech to its logical conclusion

[Thorgrim]

ORIGINAL: Taralan

You have the option to save the squad when you leave the hq.
yes but the save when you leave the hq is automatically overwritten with the addition of the code saying youre on a mission, so isnt available at all once you start. Hence this discussion

Yes, and that was already answered. Cheat protection. To go around that, manually backup the squad file. Don't see what a backup in roster would do. Except create another file for each squad. And then which would you load? Where would you load each file? Kinda messy.

Deleting the saves I'm not sure it's even possible
It is, since i have at least one game that does exactly that. All it takes is use of the file tag. Something like this must be used to make the cheat code work. For example it is possible (not knowing the exact tag code the game uses dont know how easy) to add the missions done to the tag, then at the end of the mission set it to delete any save for that squad with a lower value of mission numbers.

You're talking about campaign maps, right? What about single missions, and random missions?
And what stops you from backing up the mission save and restore it after mission completion? (not sure I understand the point of all this...)

[NorthStar]

ORIGINAL: Thorgrim


Yes, and that was already answered. Cheat protection. To go around that, manually backup the squad file. Don't see what a backup in roster would do. Except create another file for each squad. And then which would you load? Where would you load each file? Kinda messy.

The odd thing about this is that I'm not sure of the purpose of the "cheat protection" in the first place. I'm allowed to "cheat" to my heart's content within a battle, the only thing I can't do is not fight it at all, or change the results once I actually complete it! Plus, the easy and obvious work around -- and the one you even recommend -- is to manually make a back-up of the squad file prior to each combat.

Since the cheat protection is relatively limited and easy to work around anyway, why not let those of us who want to do it do it from within the interface? A reasonably simple solution would seem to be -- of course, I'm not a programmer -- to place two more options within the HQ screen: "Backup Squad" and "Restore Squad from Backup". Basically, it would just automate that which can already be done manually.

Obviously, this is a completely unimportant change, and it really in no way detracts from the game the way it is now. This is just my $0.02.

[Thorgrim]

Maybe you didn't read the part about the accumulating of rewards? [;)]
You can always cheat if you want to, just not directly in the game. As simple as that.
Playing the *same* mission over and over again *is* cheating any way you look at it. Backing up your squad before battle can be useful for beginners though.
Besides, it just doesn't look good to be able to cheat within the game. [:D]