Thread title. The enemy team get's their own set of uninterrupted turns, and then they take extra turns in between your set of turns.

Why?

IMO the game difficulty is crushing. Not only is it crushing, but it's just frustrating to get interrupted all the time when you're trying to move your people around. I think it would be more palatable if everyone had thier own set of uninterrupted turns. Get rid of this nonesense where the enemy takes a turn immediately after you move any of your own mechs.

The only reason I can think of that they did this, is because it mirrors the pen & paper version of the game. If that's the case it didn't translate well to PC.

uh...they don't? At least, not that I've noticed, and I've played quite a bit (beat the campaign a few days ago, and have been playing again without reloading).

How have you determined that they're getting extra turns?

What do you mean "how have you determined"? It's obvious. Anyone that plays the game can see it.

Have you maybe confused this with xcom where you move all units at the same time?

Well it's basically a back and forth thing based on weight class and speed.

You can manipulate some of it by reserving higher initiative units to slower initiatives though.

Like I said. I beat the campaign. As far as I can tell, there's not too much double standards of mechanics. I could very well have missed something, though.

Maybe you mean Surprise movement where getting LOS or a sensor lock immediately drops you into combat mode (even if you have mechs who still haven't moved yet?) If you weren't aware of the triggers and always want to throw a scout into LOS to know who you're dealing with, maybe that's why you're seeing a movement disparity - perhaps you've been throwing your surprise turn away, whereas when the enemy gets surprise, they just maneuver.

There's also the one where, if you wipe out the visible enemies, the game ends the turn (even if you wanted to reposition or vent heat with your other mechs). Doesn't really matter for the enemy (after all, if your lance is wiped out, you're done with that mission anyway). That's another point of difference, but I doubt that's what you meant.

None of this is explained anywhere, unfortunately. You're just expected to pick it up, I guess. (They don't include a manual, and while we're forced to go through a tutorial, the tutorial doesn't explain initiative phases, turns, weapon balance, morale, etc. But hey, if you didn't know how WASD works, the tutorial has you covered.).

They don't. They use the same inititive system as you do. I have never seen them take 2 turns. Are you sure you are not confusing being out numbered 2:1 in the number of units as having twice as many turns?

It is a problem. There are some cases where some of your lance can lose a turn. The situation happens when the transition from free movement to combat movement occurs when only part of your lance has moved. For surprise contact this is sort of understandable. However, this can seriously hinder movement for some mechs in such a situation as well and split up the lance which isn't a reasonable outcome. Identical mechs can wind up moving a different distance in the same time which does not make sense. If the other mechs could at least still move but not attack I would be okay with it. Avoiding sensor lock or advancing into line of sight to spotted enemies before combat turns begin can help to avoid this most of the time but not always.

Plan for contact. If you think of a better tactical direction to approach from (better than running from where you land, straight to the target), take the turns to traverse around, *before* approaching.

Always move your spotter last. Keep your lance close enough to your spotter to be of some help. *Usually* move your slowest mechs first. Don't be in such a hurry that you always run full tilt on all your moves. When you get close to the enemy, start making half moves while keeping everyone in good tactical position.

We should all observe the Boy Scout motto: "Be Prepared".

I have noticed some odd issues where a particular Mech or 2 of mine seems to `miss` a turn for no reason, but I cannot be sure why. But I haven`t seen the other side getting twice as many turns as routine, not at all.

The turn system the game uses is definitely skewed to favor the AI and handicap the player.

As for the AI getting extra moves are you counting turrets which also each get a move/combat turn.

1.) Enemy contact should not cancel the player's turn in progress, or the rest of the round in progress, either make all rounds combat rounds or change the protocols to allow partial combat rounds to start when "enemy contact" occurs. Nothing is more infuriating than to have sensor contact on an enemy unit, bounce up into LOS on it to take a surprise shot, and lose the rest of your turn because the turn got cancelled becsuse of "enemy contact." Kind of shoots surprise as a tactic all to hell. Or to lose manuever turns due to the rest of the round being cancelled because of "enemey contact" leaving the player out of position. The same applies to dropping out of "combat mode" and losing the rest of you round to manuever your slower heavier mechs when there are still enemy mechs in the area. Especially annoying when you have a time limit to complete a mission.

2.) Be consistant across the board. The number of times I've had enemy heavies move before my mediums in the turn sequence is satounding.

3.) Spawn ALL enemy mechs onto the board at the beginning and then move them to where they are supposed to go. None of this spawn mechs onto the board "within sensor range, within sight range and they get first move to boot." Can you say unfair advantage?

Unrelated to turn sequence, increase the size of the Area of Operation. The AO on most game maps is too small to allow for creative manuevering. "Be prepared" has nothing on tactical preparation being thwarted by bad game mechanics.

Hmm...I'm not so sure of that. You could just not get LOS and maneuver your remaining mechs to a superior position (alternatively, if you don't think you can move back far enough or there's no good terrain around, go guarded). Next turn, reserve until the Assault phase (letting the enemy charge ahead and lose their turns), then shoot them. It's a free turn.

Since the AI doesn't reserve moves, that's actually skewed in your favor. Unless you have some mech tha's just blindly sprinting ahead (so don't do that), the enemy can't force you to show your hand first. You can have your pilots learn tactics until they get Master Tactician, which would let you do the same.

Heck, I do that for my scouts and damage sponges (which usually don't move at all). As I've said in the "headshot-prone Decker" thread, Decker doesn't get shot in the head much in my games...because half the time, the opponents can't shoot him. I use the AI's inability to reserve such that the only a single light mech could take a shot.

Just last night, I abused this to hell - Opponents had an Awesome and three Crabs. I had a Grasshopper, JagerS, Orion K, and Shadowhawk (dropped the LRM5, and swapped the SRM with a SRM6). By tonnage, I'm supposedly screwed. In reality, after the salvage screen, I had an Awesome and two Crabs in my mechbay. The only damage I had to repair was the Grasshopper's right shoulder - 2 days in mechbay, no crits.

It sounds like an amazing AAR until you realize that a Crab isn't dangerous to anyone if you shoot its AC/20 arms off, and the Crab can't shoot the Shadowhawk who is shooting its AC/20 arms off it if the Crab already moved that turn. So reserve until the target moved, jump and alpha, and on the next turn, jump behind cover and break LOS. In the end, the Crabs got ONE AC/20 shot off at me...hence the Grasshopper's damaged shoulder.

Theoretically, the AI could do the same, but is not smart enough to reserve turns. The turn system lets you take a lance that's over 100 tuns underweight, and beat the AI like a pinata until Assault mech salvage falls out. I agree -- that is pretty irritating. Although I'll say that I usually don't mind that much, but when you've set up an ambush line and successfully ambush a convoy...then the reinforcements spawn at your back. OUCH. And unfair.

Ahh.. but he AI ALWAYS goes into "combat mode" before "enemy contact" when the enemy is about to break LOS, and I've rarely had the AI charge full gallup into combat blowing its combat turn.

My solution is to put my scout behind cover and use "sensor lock", then strike with ppc's, AC2's, AC5's and missiles from beyond LOS. As long as you can establish LOS from the shooter to the "spotted" target and its in range, the ppc's and AC's can direct-fire beyond their own sight range. Called shot even works this way. And when I can find gauss ammo, I'll use the gauss rifle that way as well.

I prefer the pilot mastery's "shoot and scoot" ability over the initiative bonus, but to each his own. ;)

Well, yeah. Why would the AI deliberately blow an opportunity to maneuver to aO better position? I use both (obviously, not on the same character.). Ace is great for maximizing hit chances on the move. It's not so great for a scout (why load down a scout with weapons?),

My usual lance is:
General Purpose: Multi+Ace
Damage sponge: Bulwark+MacTac
Long Range Support: Breach+Bulwark
Scout/Harasser: Evasion+MacTac (evasion ends up being not that useful, but for a scout, it's the most useful of what's available.)

Necropost, but I'm having a similar issue. Just had a Thunderbolt get leg-downed, then cored, because the enemy team simply kept getting more rounds, over and over. I had a Black Knight take a turn, then a few other heavies take turns, then the Black Knight took another turn, then the other marked units out of my visual range took another turn, then the Black Kni- You get the idea.

This isn't unusual. Every few contracts I'll run into a situation in which an enemy lance just *keep going*. It's like I'm playing Battletech and they're playing XCOM, or Mechanicus, and extending their turn on kills using special abilities :P