Getting Started

## Features

BattleTech Extended is a complete overhaul modpack based on 3025–3061 lore that adds tons of new BattleMechs and vehicles, lore-distinct factions with lore-correct lances, more varied shops, and all while maintaining vanilla balance and gameplay.

### Core Features

* Start during any major event between the years 3025 and 3061
* Full Inner Sphere map changing over time as new factions emerge
* Numerous units and mercenaries that can be fought throughout the Inner Sphere
* Over 1,000 new BattleMechs and combat vehicles from the Age of War to the Clan invasion eras
* Lore-compliant 'Mechs and 'Vees rarity that varies depending on the current date
* 'Mech factories and faction stores only accessible after allying with one
* 'Mech and pilot quirks, as well as pilots gaining affinity bonuses with the 'Mechs they pilot
* Difficulty levels with game rules that get increasingly closer to the tabletop version
* Much higher skill ceiling, with most of the difficulty being shifted to the late game
* Rebalanced 'Mechs, weapons and other equipment, as well as pilot skills

### Detailed Features

This section is still under construction and does not include all the features.
#### General

* Instead of being limited to the Rimward Periphery in 3025, the entire Inner Sphere is explorable and changes over time to cover all major events in the lore from 3025 to 3061. New wars break out, factions declare independence, Clans invade—in short, all events that lead to the FedCom Civil War.
* Most mercenary groups, garrisoned units, and factions that existed at the time in the 'Sphere are represented, and each uses BattleMechs and combat vehicles that are consistent with the lore • To that end, the mod features well over 1000 new 'Mechs and 'Vees from the Age of War to the Clan Invasion eras and fully implements Xotl's D1000 tables for BattleTech, making each faction feel exactly as intended by the lore. They are also interpolated over time, so 'Mechs become more common as they roll off assembly lines or may slowly become extinct.
* New technologies begin to appear around 3047, nineteen years after the recovery of the Helm Memory Core • New flashpoints follow the Gray Death Legion, including their discovery of this Star League artifact.
* Once allied with a faction, you can visit their factories and buy what they're making straight off the assembly line. Their inventory is determined by the source books and the date in-game.
* When starting a new campaign or career, you can select which faction to draw your 'Mechs from and the year in which to start • After completing the campaign, the difficulty rating reverts back to normal, and the game, just like in career mode, can be played indefinitely even beyond the year 3061 • By selecting a higher overall difficulty, new game rules similar to the tabletop version are applied, like to-hit penalties depending on how close your 'Mech is to overheating and 'Mechs having components (sensors, engines, etc.) that can be damaged or destroyed in combat.

#### Missions

* New contracts pit you against the Great Houses' elite units: "The A Team", "Royal Family", and "Full House". These contracts are more difficult, but the rewards, i.e. salvaged 'Mechs and other equipment, are also greater • Salvage, however, is based on the amount of structural damage to the 'Mech rather than gaining the maximum number of 'Mech parts whenever an enemy pilot is incapacitated. As such, you will need to cause the least amount of structural damage to the 'Mech in order to salvage it.
* During battle, pilots suffer from various panic states based on the damage they take and other natural factors. When panicked they have a chance to eject, which affects both your pilots and the enemies • Pilots have quirks as well, and become fatigued after battle depending on how damaged their 'Mech was, which reduce the amount of resolve accumulated each turn if they take on another mission in that state. A higher Guts skill, morale, MedTech value, and certain quirks can reduce that fatigue time.
* When in the lance, the Commander provides +2 resolve, the same as pilots with the Officer quirk. This effect does not stack, but it is a good idea to keep officers as stand-ins for your Commander • Pilots are cheaper to maintain so you can have more of them • Furthermore, pilots can gain experience with their 'Mechs the more they pilot them, resulting in diverse bonuses • Almost every 'Mech has quirks that add to the gameplay's complexity. Melee accuracy for instance is lower, but this is offset by 'Mech quirks on certain 'Mechs • You can see the pilot and 'Mech quirks/affinities by hovering over their icons in-game.
* Headshots do not always injure the pilot, reducing the number of injuries sustained from a stray missile or machine gun hit. The chance of being injured is determined by the weight of the hit and the amount of armor remaining on the Head location. A hit on a stripped Head location will always injure the pilot.

#### Skills

* Gunnery and Piloting provide a 2% bonus to-hit/accuracy, rather than 2.5% • Higher Piloting skill provides a bonus to stability • Minimum Range bonuses reduce the negative from firing in minimum range, not the minimum range itself.
* On harder difficulties, enemy pilots have more appropriate skills for the 'Mech they are piloting, and you may even come across elite units using special, stronger 'Mechs or favoring certain equipment.
* Bulwark pilots are slightly easier to hit when they are buffed by Bulwark. On Simulation+ difficulty, Bulwark is reworked to provide a defense bonus only in open terrain instead.
* Tier 2 Piloting skill is Evasive Expert, giving the ability to keep evasion when fired upon. The faster the 'Mech, the more evasion pips that can be kept. Using Jump Jets increases your kept minimum for that turn by one.
* Tier 2 Tactics skill, Master Tactician, includes the bonus of the previous Ace Pilot skill, allowing the pilot to move after shooting.

#### Weapons

* Autocannons have had their overall heat reduced, their stability damage increased, and in the AC/2s case, their damage slightly increased and their refire penalty removed.
* Improved LRMs do not have increased stability damage, and indirect fire is slightly less accurate.
* Flamers have no ammo and deal heat damage over two turns; they apply the same heat as before but not as quickly.
* Pulse lasers and Streak SRMs ignore some evasion • And lots of other minor adjustments.

#### Argo Upgrades

* Early upgrades have lower maintenance costs, but the cost gets higher with later upgrades • Training pods allow a pilot to be retrained once.
* With each Mech Bay upgrade, you can repair one more 'Mech at the same time. Automation upgrades improve the effectiveness of the extra bays.
* The Machine Shop allows you to combine variants of the same chassis with the same engine and internals. By default, this includes having the same structure (standard or endo), armor (standard or ferro), engine heat sinks (single or double), and engine rating and type (standard, XL, XXL, Light, etc.).

## Included Mods

Various mods created by the BattleTech community are included in BattleTech Extended.

Their features are usually self-explanatory, but you can learn more about them by visiting their mod page:

* Included Mods
* Included Flashpoints

* Better AI
* Bigger Drops
* BT Additional Difficulty Options
* BTML Color LOS Mod
* BT Simple Mech Assembly
* Community Asset Bundle (CAB)
* Community Fixes (cFixes)
* Give me Death
* Give them Kell
* Inner Sphere Map
* IR Tweaks
* IR BT Mod Utils
* JK System Coordinates (SUCKos)
* JK Variants
* Mech Affinity
* Mech Resizer
* Mission Control
* ModTek
* Monthly Tech and Morale Adjustment
* Movement Speed Customizer (MoveFaster)
* Navigation Computer
* Panic System
* Permanent Evasion
* Pilot Fatigue
* Repair Bays
* Skip Intro
* Stabile Piloting
* Timeline

New Events Expanded is currently a standalone mod that is officially supported. It may be integrated into a future version of BEX.

* Birth of A Legend
* Betrayal At Helm
* Fighting Ghosts
* Falcon's Fury
* Second Try
* Battle of Tukayyid
* The Raid

A more detailed list of all flashpoints can be found on this wiki.
### Other Mods

BattleTech Extended is only compatible with a few other mods. You can find a list of compatible mods on our Discord channel.
Some of them are designed specifically for BEX/BTX, and add 'Mechs and features from other modpacks. Here are six of them:

1. Custom Ammo Categories Compatibility (CAC-C) offers a partial combat overhaul and adds 12 'Mech variants & 2 new 'Mech types (Quads and LAMs),
2. Playable Tanks adds Clan vehicles and lets you hire tank crews that can pilot any type of ground vehicle,
3. Mech Pack adds over 190 new 'Mech variants and over 20 new weapons that were prototyped in the 3050s and early 3060s,
4. The Big Deal Add-On (TBD) adds 45 'Mech variants and new late-game content in the form of a series of flashpoints,
5. Flashpoints of the Inner Sphere (FotIS) adds new flashpoints taking place during the late Succession Wars era,
6. Contract Hiring Hubs adds contracts to key worlds like Terra and Outreach, as well as new contract types: long-term deployment contracts and far travel contracts.

Another mod, Mech Engineer Patch (ME), is no longer supported and added the ability to refit 'Mechs with new internals.

This page contains more information about the new chassis added by BattleTech Extended and these mods.

Besides Mech Engineer, all of these mods are compatible with each other. However, none of them are officially supported at this time.

1. ↑ Mech Engineer Patch is currently outdated and requires an older version of CAC-C (v0.1.19.5).

## Install Instructions

* Steam / GOG
* Xbox Gamepass

⚠️ *A new game save is required when installing the mod for the first time or updating from a version prior to 1.9.3.0.
Installing the full version of the CAB is also required and currently takes up around 42 GB of disk space.*

1. Download the latest version of BattleTech Extended from the official mod page.
2. Go to your BattleTech install folder. Create a folder named "Mods".
The install folder should be located in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\BATTLETECH\" or "C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games\BATTLETECH\".
3. Extract all of the files within the zip file into your mods folder. Optionally, you can also extract the Bigger Dops patch into the mods folder, overwriting when prompted.
4. Create a folder. You can label this CABPatcher for reference. This is where you will place the downloaded CAB executable file and later where the assets will be downloaded to.
This folder can be placed anywhere, even on another drive, and not necessarily in the mods folder.
5. Download the Community Assets Bundle (CAB) executable and place it within the CABPatcher folder. The most up-to-date version of the CAB can be found on Mods-In-Exile.
6. Run the program. There may be a warning dialog that says that the executable is unknown. Click on the Advanced options button and select Run Anyway.
7. Click on the Advanced Mode button. This will unlock the grayed out buttons on the user interface.
8. In the Install Target field, select the BattleTech's mod folder that you created earlier.
9. Make sure the Install Mode is set to All. Click Update CAB. This will now begin the download and installation process. This will take a while.
10. After it is done, exit the program. Go into your mods folder and into the ModTek folder.
11. Right click on the ModTekInjector program and select Run as Administrator...
12. Let it run. After that, you may now start BattleTech normally.

⚠️ *A new game save is required when installing the mod for the first time or updating from a version prior to 1.9.3.0.
Installing the full version of the CAB is also required and currently takes up around 42 GB of disk space.*

1. Download the latest version of BattleTech Extended from the official mod page.
2. Locate your BattleTech installation folder inside of the Gamepass folder.
Go into the Content folder inside. Create a folder named "Mods".
3. Extract all of the files within the zip file into your mods folder. Optionally, you can also extract the Bigger Dops patch into the mods folder, overwriting when prompted.
4. Create a folder. You can label this CABPatcher for reference. This is where you will place the downloaded CAB executable file and later where the assets will be downloaded to.
This folder can be placed anywhere, even on another drive, and not necessarily in the mods folder.
5. Download the Community Assets Bundle (CAB) executable and place it within the CABPatcher folder. The most up-to-date version of the CAB can be found on Mods-In-Exile.
6. Run the program. There may be a warning dialog that says that the executable is unknown. Click on the Advanced options button and select Run Anyway.
7. Click on the Advanced Mode button. This will unlock the grayed out buttons on the user interface.
8. In the Install Target field, select the BattleTech's mod folder that you created earlier.
9. Make sure the Install Mode is set to All. Click Update CAB. This will now begin the download and installation process. This will take a while.
10. After it is done, exit the program. Go into your mods folder and into the ModTek folder.
11. Right click on the ModTekInjector program and select Run as Administrator...
12. Let it run. After that, you may now start BattleTech normally.

## Starting a New Game

⚠️ *The campaign is fully playable in BattleTech Extended. After completing it, simply restart the game to automatically switch the campaign to career mode, where you can play indefinitely, even after the year 3061.*

### Difficulty Settings

When starting a new game, you have the option to make the overall experience easier or harder depending on what you are looking for in BattleTech Extended. The default settings are for players who already have some experience in the game, like having already played the campaign. BEX adds three additional settings to the ones you should be already familiar with.

#### Overall Difficulty

The overall difficulty can be set to Normal, Hard, Simulation, or Simulation+, with game rules getting increasingly closer to the tabletop version.

 Hard
* More balanced game mechanics
* Enemy pilots have better skills
 Simulation
* More balanced game mechanics
* Enemy pilots have better skills
* Less experience in easy battles
* Higher drop costs
* Tabletop armor restrictions
* Reworked heat system
 Simulation+
* More balanced game mechanics
* Enemy pilots have better skills
* Less experience in easy battles
* Higher drop costs
* Tabletop armor restrictions
* Reworked heat system
* Reworked bulwark
* Critable components

Note: The mod is primarily balanced for Simulation and Simulation+. In "BT\_Extended\_CE\mod.json", you can enable some or all of the features of these two difficulty modes for the other modes.
To do that, simply set to true the settings ending with "AllModes". For example, to have components in battle, edit the file like this: `"TabletopComponentsAllModes" : true,`

#### Starting Year

The starting year determines during which major event you start and what technology level you can expect in the Inner Sphere.

Notes:

* You can learn more about any event in the lore on Sarna's timeline. Each year has its own article listing the most important historical events that happened on that date.

* The technology level, or tech rating, corresponds to the relative technological sophistication of the 'Mechs, vehicles, and other equipment in the Inner Sphere.
This scale is used for better readability since the mod only covers the Renaissance and Clan Invasion eras (3025-3061):
	+ Level 1 / D Rating / High-Tech: Age of War and Succession Wars
	+ Level 2 / E Rating / Advanced: Star League and Post-3050 Inner Sphere
	+ Level 3 / F Rating / Hyper-Advanced: Clan and Post-3065 Inner Sphere

* While you can still start in 3025 and all the events above will occur over time, playing a game to cover that much of a timeline would take hundreds of hours without a mod that allows you to skip ahead in the timeline (namely BTTimeSkip).

#### Starting Planet

The starting planet determines where you start in the Inner Sphere and its periphery. This also determines which 'Mechs you begin with by giving you a roster of five 'Mechs that are more commonly found in that area of space. You can find a complete list of them on this page.

### Game Tips

#### Planet Tags

Planet tags determine what items can be found in shops; items are rolled at random but are influenced by the tags the planet has. Lostech and upgraded gear (+ to +++ gear) are more likely to be found in black markets in general. The same goes for 'Mechs.

 Chemical
 Electronics
 Industrial
 Mining
 Research
 Star League

#### Tabletop Components

On Simulation+ difficulty, 'Mechs have components in battle that can be damaged or destroyed upon receiving a critical hit. If a crit occurs in a multi-slot component in a slot that has already received a crit, it is ignored. Critical hits that damage/destroy the component are highlighted in cyan/red in the following table.