BattleTech has been an interesting turn-based strategy game to watch, as it’s a bit different than Paradox’s other games. Similarly, it didn’t really have a big meteoric rise something like CK II or EU4 did, but it’s managed to gain a pretty strong core community of gamers who love to play it. In true Paradox fare, the game has a few DLC that range from ‘Flashpoint’ that adds a bunch of new story and mechanics, to ‘Shadow Hawk’, which is a $4 peel.
11 Best BattleTech (Nexus) Mods
While the DLCs have been a bit hit and miss, you thankfully don’t have to rely on them for added content. Modders have done their thankless job again and brought a bunch of cool stuff to BT. For the most part, a lot of the mods listed here are quality of life stuff rather than anything else, but there are a couple that significantly change how the game is played.
Keep in mind that if you’re running BattleTech on minimum requirements some of these great BattleTech mods might make your CPU bottleneck. In that case, maybe you should consider upgrading to a higher-end gaming PC.
Unfortunately, BT doesn’t officially support mods, so there’s no Steam workshop and easy click subscribe buttons. Instead, you’re going to have to install BTML/ModTek, which is essentially a mod that allows all the other mods to work. Thankfully they combined what was previously two mods into one, and that link has a nice little guide on how to do that, so it’s not too much of an issue.
#1 Random Campaign Start
If you’re looking at this guide, then you’ve probably already played the game once and now want to add a little spice on a second playthrough.
Well, instead of just getting the default mechs that you get when you start the game, you get a random pick of mechs. These are picked based on the text file setting from light mechs all the way to assault mechs, so if you’d actually like to start with different types of mechs, you can totally do that. At the same time, you can also pretty much OP yourself if you want, and if you don’t, just be aware of how many of each mech you’re allowing yourself.
The same randomness also applies to the pilots, as well as ronin/kickster mechs, which you can also adjust through the text file.
The default for each is 3 light mechs, 1 medium mech, and 4 ronin/kickster.
#2 Lore-Friendly Quickstart
Another mod made for people coming back to the game and that affects the start of the game. As you can probably guess, this little mod just takes out the start of the game, which includes the Coronation Days and Majesty Metals missions. You can still choose to watch the intro cinematic and the conversation on Leopard or you can switch that off too.
It may not seem fancy, but honestly, there should be more mods like this that cutout starting sequences that just fill in story/tutorials you’ve already done. So it’s definitely appreciated.
#3 Mercdeployments
Ok, this is a bit more of an interesting mod that changes the way the core loop of the game is played. You see, traditionally you’re planet-hopping from mission to mission, getting mad money and respect, because you’re just gangsta’ like that. Well, what if that model of earning money was changed?
Well, Mercdeployments does just that, and instead of planet-hopping, you are actually hired and deployed to one specific planet for a month (or months) of work. Similarly, instead of getting paid for every mission, you get paid by the month, so it’s basically a salary. Missions are generated as you’re on there and you take them up, possibly up to 12 in one single deployment.
Of course, the main story missions are still available to play if you like, and you could always bug-out of a deployment early. Just be aware that if you do the latter, you’re going to lose a ton of respect from the faction that hired you. If you follow through though and finish the deployment, you’ll find yourself with tons of cash, rep and salvage.
Now, at first glance, this might seem a bit tedious, but the whole point of the mod is to make the core gameplay loop more realistic and closer to being an actual mercenary. You can also just go back to doing normal missions if you like to break up the monotony as well. Either way, it definitely adds an interesting bit of flavor to the game.
#4 Pilot Health Popup
One thing that I’ve always disliked about certain types of games like these, is that they like to hide the health. This just adds another layer of information you have to keep track of and isn’t at all necessary.
Well, this mod fixes that problem by actually showing you the health of each enemy. The main thing this facilitates is killing the pilot inside the mech, rather than the mech itself since, let’s be honest, human life isn’t worth much. Having that extra bit of info available means that you can reapply your brain’s processing power to the rest of the field, and it gives you a quick idea of how to save the mech.
All that being said, I’m sure there are some people out there who think this might be cheating or just having an unfair advantage. Honestly, those people can go play their own games, if mods like these increase your enjoyment, then have at it!
#5 Configurable Camera Settings
Another nice quality of life mod, this one gives you much more control over the cameras then you get in-game.
One thing that I can certainly have less of, is when the camera decides to pan away to show me a significant action, especially when I’m in the middle of planning another one. Yes, this might be great for people who are new to the genre and aren’t familiar with the complexities, but if you’ve been around for a while, you don’t need it. Most annoyingly, BattleTech still manages to do this, even when you’ve switched over-the-shoulder shooting camera off.
With this mod, you don’t only get full control of the camera at all times, you can also get a wider range of camera angles and zoom. The mod itself comes with default settings though, so if you want to tweak it, you’ll have to go into the mod.json file and do so yourself.
#6 Fast Save Delete
Another little quality of life mod, this one is actually incredibly simple; it removes the confirmation prompt when you try and delete a save, except for the latest one.
While there have been some optimizations with recent releases, deleting saves is still a pain in the bum, especially if you throw in steam cloud saves into the mix. The confirmation dialogue alone added a lot of extra time, and if you’re like me and your neuroses make you save once every few minutes, then this mod is great. Anything that helps to organize or cleanup saves quicker is really awesome, so this one definitely gets a recommendation from me.
#7 BattleTech Enhanced – More Gear More Options
If you’re anything like me, you’re going to always want more gear and stuff to customize and throw on your mechs.
This mod is sort of like that, in that it actually takes a variety of smaller BattlTech mods and just puts them into one package. Some of the stuff you get is new Star League weapons that are way more powerful, larger and more efficient heat sinks, and large ammo bins to stick tons of ammo in. This mod also has some of its own exclusive gear as well, which is pretty cool.
Unfortunately, there is a downside, which is that this mod might not work with any other ones that also add items. There’s also a bit of an issue with the shop that causes issues with the amount/types of ammo. It’s not a deal-breaker and you might not run into it, so still worth checking out.
#8 Real Hit Chance
Another mod that might seem ‘cheaty’ when you first hear about it, but in actuality is pretty simple.
The problem is that in the game, hit chance isn’t calculated with rolls and other things, so it’s hard to know how high or low your hit chance is. This mod basically just fixes the issue and displays the proper hit chance, so you know what you’re actually doing out in the battlefield (no, I haven’t got my games mixed up, shush now!).
Again, I just want to clarify that this doesn’t alter the hit chance in the game, it just shows you a realistic value.
#9 Ammo Cookoff
So far, our list of the best BattleTech mods talked about mods that have been helpful in some way, either in terms of save management or just more stuff to use. This one is the complete opposite of that.
You see, in the future, everything is dampened by your heat control in some form. In BattleTech, a hot piece of equipment can get damaged or switch off entirely for a turn if it gets too hot. It’s a pretty good system, and it certainly makes sense, but the real problem is: it’s really not dangerous enough.
The Ammo Cookoff mod adds another layer of things you have to worry about since heat can now actually make your ammo explode. That’s right, if you aren’t careful with your heat management, say bye-bye to wherever you thought was a good idea to store your ammo.
Thankfully, it’s not as bad as all that, since having less than half of the ammo in a box means it no longer has a chance to explode. Similarly, there are two rolls, one for the heat that might normally damage a box and overheating that shuts the equipment off, the first giving a 10% chance of ammo explosion and the latter giving 20% chance. You can also go into the mod.json to make lower or raise the chance, or even remove the less than half ammo safety.
#10 Injuries Hurt
Another somewhat sadistic mod, this one is really going to make your life even more difficult.
In most BattleTech, pilots tend to either be alive . . . or dead. Ok, that may sound obvious, but what the point is that your pilot doesn’t get any negative debuffs if their arm is shredded or there’s a big pole sticking out of their thigh. Injuries Hurt changes that by actually starting to debuff the core pilot stats as they begin to lose health.
So yeah, you aren’t going to get a lot of buffs you might normally get from a pilot that’s pretty much dead. As you can imagine, this can be a massive pain in the bum, and increases the challenge tenfold, since if you have reached that point, something has probably already gone terribly wrong.
But hey, nobody said the future was easy.
#11 Roguetech
This is the big one; a total conversion mod that basically turns the game into something almost completely different, much like the EU4 mods. If that isn’t warning enough, let me make it clear that this mod will change a lot of stuff, so make sure that you finish the vanilla game first before jumping into this because it’s a doozy.
At its heart, Rougetech tries to make the game a bit sandbox-y and much, much harder. All aspects of combat and simulation have been rebalanced to make it incredibly challenging. For example, things aren’t balanced around tonnage limits anymore, but on the actual cost of your mech, so you can build some truly massive and epic things . . . provided you have the cash.
Then, of course, there’s the new ‘story’, with the narrative starting in 3039 when Helm Core technologies started to appear. Of course, the big factions are all scrambling to get this new technology, so it’s a massive free-for-all where the latest tech can cost an arm and a leg. Of course, you’re just the average merc that nobody cares about, especially so if you die.
What’s interesting is that this actually includes a collection of different BattleTech mods, and you can find the list on Nexus in case you just wanted individual mods.
Either way, it’s a pretty interesting mod that adds a ton of replayability to the game. Just again, make sure you’re ready for it because you might even need to delete your saves to get it to work.
Conclusion
As you can tell, BattleTech has a burgeoning community of modders and interesting new stuff to experience. I just wish Paradox would officially support modding, but the way their DLC is going, I don’t realistically see that happening any time soon.
Nonetheless, there are a bunch of great BattleTech mods out there, and you can still get them into the vanilla game, so mod to your heart’s content. Just make sure you don’t overheat!
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