2023/07/07 - Patch v16.3

v16.3 (aka the "Jeez It's Been Awhile" patch) has been released to the installer. This is a fairly expansive patch, so be sure to read the notes closely!

THE PERIPHERY TECHBASE UPDATE IS HERE: As hinted at with our last patch, there is a major update to the Periphery techbase. This includes more than a hundred new Periphery variants using a ton of new weapons and equipment (detailed below). Included are several mechs from the Periphery tech contest run on the BTA Discord server. Among the new tech are a roster of new weapons and weapon attachments. Go forth and conquer using these new tools!

MAJOR MECH ROSTER UPDATE: About 130 new variants have been sprinkled through the smaller Periphery states and use a bunch of new tech as described a bit below. These include chassis from the DLCs, quad mechs, new primitive mech variants, and many, many standard mech variants. A few standout chassis include the Bellerophon, the Corsair, the Goliath, the Helepolis, the Hephaestus, the Jackrabbit, the Osts (Roc/Sol/War), the standard Phoenix, the Reconquista, the 75 ton Stalker, the Von Rohrs, and the Ymir, among many others.

A FEW NEW NON-PERIPHERY MECH VARIANTS: There's a new Crusader for House Kurita, the CRD-5K. There's two new Urbies, the R100 and R69 (nice). There's a new Locust, the LCT-5V. There's two new Archers, the 4A and C 2 (the former has Arrow IVs, the latter is a Wolf's Dragoons Clantech refit). There's a new Flea, the FLE-19, which brings up an interesting issue. BTA already *had* a FLE-19 but it wasn't the canon one. That one has been renamed to the FLE-23 to make space for the canon FLE-19. If you had the old BTA FLE-19 you'll notice its designation changed in-game. This won't cause any issues with your save though, so that's good.

NEW EVENTS: We have a series of new events covering a bunch of stuff in the Chaos March wackiness between 3065 and 3067. This includes mercenary units attacking planets to conquer them and large shifts in who owns what in the area. We also have a few events in 3066 in the Rimward Periphery that introduce some new factions, see below for more information about who's joining the party!

NEW FACTIONS: In 3066 there will be a series of new events that cause a few factions to come into existence. In the New Colony Region, that area between the Magistracy of Canopus, the Aurigan Reach, and the Taurian Concordat, the Fronc Reaches will declare their independence from the Canopians and Taurians (this happens in February 3066). Then, starting around the same time there will be some unrest on the worlds conquered by the Sanctuary Alliance in the southern Taurian Concordat. Eventually, in September 3066, the Calderon Protectorate will overthrow the Sanctuary Alliance and get into a brief war with them, culminating in them reaching full size in December 3066. Both factions can be worked for and against and even allied with (they even have OpFor Specialties for fighting them). They have fully functional faction stores with some harder-to-find gear in them (Fronc sells a variety of fancy armors, Calderon sells a variety of specialty gyros; both sell at least some mechs and a few weapon types).

THE WAR FOR THE AURIGAN REACH: Once upon a time, in vanilla HBS BT, if you played the campaign mode you might remember that the Aurigan Reach is replaced as a faction with the Aurigan Directorate. You couldn't work for them but you could experience the effect of the Aurigan Restoration conquering Directorate planets one after another as Kamea defeats her uncle's forces. That's something we've wanted to do in BTA for awhile and now, we have! Thanks to WartechIIC this is possible. Patch v16.3 will reintroduce the Aurigan Directorate as an existing faction. Note that they are not employers as you are directly working for Kamea's Restoration. However, you *can* take normal generated contracts against them during downtime between campaign missions, so feel free to beat them up for their toys.

NEW WEAPONS: The Howitzer family and Gyrojet family of weapons have all been introduced as have the Chemical Pulse Lasers and the Binary Laser family. These weapons diversify what the Periphery can field against the player. The Howitzer (which comes in 4/8/12 sizes) is an artillery hardpoint weapon that has high range, is direct-fire, and fires a cluster of AoE shots at once (4/8/12 of them, depending on Howitzer size). The Howitzer has four ammo types (AoE, Slug, Canister, and Piercing) and does pretty respectable damage. The Gyrojet is a one-shot missile hardpoint weapon like Rocket Launchers but does higher damage at longer range and is direct-fire only (it's kind of a LRM Rocket, sort of). The Gyrojet comes in 10/15/20 tube sizes. The Chemical Pulse Lasers are precisely what they sound like: chemical lasers but pulse-ified. Not super exciting but they're fun to use. The Binary Laser family now includes the Medium Binary and the Small Binary Lasers (as well as improved versions). These are similar to the Large Binary Laser but for Medium/Small Lasers instead. All of these weapons appear on the new Periphery mechs introduced this patch. Also, all of these weapons appear in shops and in faction stores.

NEW WEAPON ATTACHMENTS: The Cannon/Rocket/Gyrojet Ammo Feeds have been added into shops and faction stores. These attachments are Periphery tech attachments that provide the relevant one-shot weapon the ability to accept external ammunition and thus be "reloading" weapons now. They come with drawbacks, usually damage reductions and accuracy penalties. The Rifle Revolver attachment has also been added to shops and faction stores. This attachment attaches to the Periphery Light/Medium/Heavy Rifles and turns them into "Ultra Rifles" where they fire two shots at once with a jam chance. Finally, the Laser Pulse Module has been added to shops. This attachment connects to Inner Sphere standard and ER lasers and makes them into pulse lasers as well, at the cost of increased heat and a jam chance.

NEW PILOT: Our very own BTA Wiki Team's Fulmir has arrived as his own pilot! Hurrahs!

UPDATED FLASHPOINT: Bourbon and Battlemechs is a fun little flashpoint where you can fight against HBS themselves in the guise of Mason's Marauders (led by Garrilac Mason, also known as Mitch Gitelman, head of HBS as a studio). In vanilla, during the second mission of the Flashpoint when you face off against the Marauders directly, they field four semi-special mechs against you: Koschei, Rhythm Nation, Occam's Missile, and Awesome Dragon. In BTA we reverted these to standard mechs of their type (for some reason) and I think that's a little boring so I brought them back. However, they have BTA-ified loadouts and are much more interesting to fight against now. Enjoy!

COMMUNITY CONTENT: There's some new CC this patch, including: the Draugr hero Warhammer; a 30-ton Piranha with a bunch of small lasers; an Omni Omega with brand-new HVAC/20s; there's a new Xerxes with twin Ultra Arrow IVs; the Insanity PPC turrets have been nerfed at the commissioner's request.

• The Victor has been resized to be a little narrower to match its TT proportions, where the Victor is tall and narrow and not a barn door like the MWO model is.
• Various vehicle names have been cleaned up and standardized. Enjoy?
• Rebalanced stock SRM heat slightly.
• The Internal Combustion Engine now emits an exhaust plume. Neat.jpg
• One mech in Treasure Trove B (the campaign mission) has been swapped out. Instead of a Thunderbolt the Taurians will now field a Liberty.
• Clan TAG no longer does damage.
• Railgun ammo now appears in the mechbay.
• Torso Cockpits and BA now cannot eject. They're not supposed to be able to so they can't (this also fixes BA being able to eject at all, which they're not really supposed to be able to do).
• Heat Exchangers now aren't marked as +/++ but as I/II/III.
• The weapon FCS's have had their prices increased somewhat.
• The Light/Medium/Heavy Cannons now have an actual recoil value for repeated firings. This only matters if you use Ammo Feeds with them.
• Several Catapults had their hardpoints lightly adjusted (the A1 and C4).
• Most Archers got a hardpoint update to give them Support hardpoints.
• Lots of core dll updates, including a ModTek update to 4.1.

IMPORTANT: v16.3 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: v16.3 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.