2024/1/26 - Patch v17.1

v17.1 (aka the "Ultralights Are Cool" patch) has been released to the installer.

NEW MECH: The Ambassador, a 15-ton ultralight with a *lot* of quirks and a very weird backstory, has been put into service. This mech is "weaponless" and cannot be fought against nor acquired via a shop or salvage. You can only get one via an event with the Word of Blake where, if you have at least 25+ rep with the WoB as well as 900+ rep with the MRB, they will contact you and offer you an Ambassador for free. Oh, and it's for your commander only, so only the Commander can drive the Ambassador. That sounds like a lot of conditions and it is, but trust me, the mech's worth it for its incredible quirks. Also, you can rarely *use* an Ambassador in the Show the Flag contracts where the allied VIP drives a modified Ambassador with a few weapons. Enjoy!

NEW MECH: The Cherub, another 15-ton ultralight, has run onto the field. This member-but-not-really of the Word of Blake Celestial OmniMech family is very unusual in that it makes use of *Battle Armor* weapons. That's right, it has BA-scale guns, the only mech in BTA to be able to do so. There's four variants, three of which use BA-scale guns and the fourth of which uses Clantech lasers (but still has BA hardpoints). It's fielded rarely by the Word of Blake 40th Shadow Division and can be purchased from their faction store.

EXTERNAL HEAT LIMIT IMPLEMENTED: This is something I've wanted for a long time and finally have the tools to implement. See, in tabletop BattleTech there's something called the External Heat Cap where you can only inflict so much heat damage to a mech from external sources (such as inferno missiles or flamers) per turn. On table, the limit is 15 heat (or 45 heat here). I've wanted something like this for awhile and finally have it in BTA. Our external heat limit in BTA is 85 heat, meaning you can only push enemies up to 85 maximum heat over their neutral value. Anything beyond 85 from *your* actions is lost. This means you can't push an enemy to 150 heat and watch them instantly die. Note that 85 was a very specifically chosen value and still provides you many benefits, heat strats aren't dead, they're just checked a bit.

TANK CRITS: For a long, long time vehicle motive crits have been broken in BTA. You'd roll crits against a tank and see ``Tracked Movement Destroyed`` then the tank would just move around as if all was fine. This was annoying and has been fixed. Tanks with damaged/destroyed motive systems should properly be reduced to a crawl, if that.

FIRST AID UPDATE: First Aid no longer takes resolve to use, this was done so you can use it out of combat should that be necessary.

KILLED THE COMMANDER...'S WOUND: You shouldn't get that wacky 999 day commander injury on the first campaign flashpoint mission anymore. It was a cool idea but caused more trouble than it was worth, should be gone now.

BREAKING NEWS!: The BTA-unique flashpoint, Breaking News, has been fixed and is now discoverable. This was discovered on stream recently but this flashpoint has been unable to spawn since we made it... in October 2019. This means we've had content that literally no one has ever seen. Get out there and find it (you have to do Yang's Big Score, Mack Attack, Smooth Criminal, and A Knight At The Omni first and in that order; the latter three are also BTA custom flashpoints that are rarely seen)! If you encounter Breaking News, let me know, I want to hear that someone's actually seen and played it.

BROWN HEAVY FLAMER IS HUNGRY: I discovered this the other day and was honestly quite sad about it, but here we are. The Heavy Flamer requires external ammunition to function. And so, it has been made thus in BTA. The ammo has been put onto any mech that uses Heavy Flamers (this includes the AoE Heavy Flamer and the standard Heavy Flamer) and is in shops as well (normal as well as the Tortuga Dominions and Circinus Federation faction stores).

SUPERHEAVIES AND QUADS KNOCKDOWN BUFF: As has been suggested, superheavies and quads are all now immune to self-knockdown from weapons fire. This means that they make excellent Heavy Gauss or Mass Driver platforms, as they should do. Enjoy!

AMMO FEEDS. AGAIN.: Ok, this is the last time I swear. The ammo feeds no longer explode, instead they just jam with a ridiculously high jam chance. Now, I don't want to hear about the damn things ever again, got it? Good.

ATTACK GROUND BUG SQUASHED: Attack Ground should work properly again! Hurrahs all around!

NEW GEAR: The M-Pod has been added. This 1 ton support hardpoint weapon is like a very short-ranged one-shot LB-15X with damage drop-off at different ranges. It's pretty goofy but it was necessary for a new mech I wanted to add.

A COUPLE OF NEW MECH VARIANTS: Speaking of the M-Pod, the Bombard BMB-01X has been added that uses M-Pods. Also I made a couple of new Dragoon variants for chuckles (they do not use M-Pods)

COMMUNITY CONTENT: Bunch of new CC in this patch, as well as some minor fixes and updates to existing CC. Included as new CC are the following: a new pilot (Kitty) and a Valkyrie II they like to drive; a Hunchback with some Claws; a pilot named GhostWolf; a pilot named Sarini; a new weapon, the Platinum Thunderbolt-20, as well as a new Xerxes to carry it; a new Dragoon and Thanatos with Platinum Thunderbolts of various sizes; some Streak MMLs and a Longbow to carry them, as well as an Awesome II just to be cool; there's a new Thunder Hawk using a new weapon, the Platinum Piercing PPC, as well as a playable Schrek tank that carries the same weapon.

• Fixed AP Gauss ammo not appearing in the mechbay.
• Fixed the FLE-14 with some new ultralight JJs. The UL JJs are in shops, rarely.
• Fixed the "Immortal Mechs" cockpit bug, probably.
• Hex sizes were finally updated properly, thanks GitHub.
• Fixed the Spirit Walker's armor type.
• Fixed a good amount of random mechs with goofed up attachments, now they have their attachments properly.
• Duels now should all properly require the proper slots used for their units, so you can't cheese them anymore.
• Lance slot ship upgrades now have better names to be less confusing.
• SRMs should now properly apply statuseffects, hurrah!
• Bunch of weapon descriptions were updated to account for multi-shot jam chances (on things like the RACs for instance).
• A couple of hero mechs have been updated to properly have the hero quirk (Merciless, Fizban).
• The AS7-S2 has been added to the Hesperus II factory store.

IMPORTANT: v17.1 is an "update" update. In this case, clear your Mods folder manually and then run the installer, it'll do the work for you.

IMPORTANT: v17.1 is not a save breaking update, your saves are compatible and will work fine.

REMINDER: This update, and others like it, are made possible by my Patreon and Ko-Fi supporters. Without their support, updates would come slower and be less impactful. If you feel like being a part of the support for BTA, you can find me on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/bloodydoves) and on Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/bloodydoves)

REMINDER: Custom mod commissions are still available if you're interested. If you'd like to get your own community content added to BTA DM me, bloodydoves, and we can work something out.

BTA Light

BTA Light has seen no changes and does not need a patch.