Big changes come to Battletech in the 1.10 update

A major update to Battletech has rolled out on Steam and GOG, adding "Granular Difficulty Settings" and custom campaign mode options, a new time acceleration feature, combat speed optimizations, "quality of life improvements" in the MechLab, ultrawide monitor support, and quite a lot more.

The new difficulty settings can be adjusted at any time, and as the name suggests provide a far finer degree of control over the experience than was previously available. Here's what you can change:

Lethality - when enabled, MechWarriors that are disabled in combat will always be killed.
'Mech Destruction - when enabled, 'Mechs disabled from Center Torso destruction are permanently lost. This setting is intended for veterans and those seeking a significant challenge.
No Rare Salvage - when enabled, + and ++ items are no longer generated as salvage results (but remain purchasable in stores).
MechWarrior Progression - adjust the amount of experience that MechWarriors gain after each mission.
Advanced MechWarriors - increase or decrease the frequency of more powerful MechWarriors appearing in Hiring Halls in later parts of the game.
Enemy Force Strength - increase or decrease the baseline strength of the enemy forces you'll face in procedural contracts.
Contract Payment - increase or decrease the amount of C-Bills paid by procedural contracts across the game.
Salvage - increase or decrease the amount of salvage you may obtain from negotiation on procedural contracts.

New campaigns can be made tougher with the new Ironman Mode, which restricts you to a single, auto-updating save slot. Mechs built out of salvaged parts can now be set to start empty instead of with a stock loadout, and players seeking "a significant challenge" can also increase the number of salvaged parts required to build a new mech. New in-game events have been added, and event generation has been improved and debugged.

Turn times have been decreased overall, and individual action times can be "greatly accelerated" by pressing the spacebar. Ultra-wide monitor is apparently still a little hinky, but Harebrained said the issues are "cosmetic only," and not sufficient to delay the feature. The update also brings the Battletech Launcher out of beta, which enables Borderless Windowed Mode, Exclusive Fullscreen Mode, and Video Rendering API to be configured prior to launching the game.

The full list of additions, updates, balance changes, and bug fixes is really long, so if you want to dive into that you can do so on the Paradox forums. The list of known issues that persist in the 1.10 update is much shorter, so you can check that out below.

There is currently a small chance of the starter MechWarriors (Glitch, Behemoth, Dekker, Medusa) incorrectly appearing as hireable Ronin MechWarriors in hiring halls later in the game.
Skirmish lances created prior to updating to 1.1.0 may contain 'Mechs with old weapon & stability values.
We have had occasional reports of save game lists failing to initialize from Steam. Restarting the game should generally resolve this issue.
Some tooltips may appear visually truncated at the bottom.
A few cosmetic-only UI bugs exist when playing on an ultrawide monitor, but given the high-demand for ultrawide support we felt that these minor issues did not need to hold up its release.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.