Phew boy oh boy. Wrapped up a 2 star mission with my 1.5 stars worth of tonnage. It was fun, but I'm not sure it was worth it.
So, there I am with my Enforcer, 2 Jenners and a Panther. Some nonstandard loadouts. One Jenner has 2 SRM6's and 2 Mlasers, my Panther has 4 MLasers and an SRM6.
It's an assassination mission. I'm hoping for some good salvage.
I take out 2 locust, a spider, a jenner, a blackjack, 2 shadowhawks, an enforcer, and then the target shows up.
A god damned Black Knight.
I chewed them up almost as fast as they could come. Lots of focused fire. Lots of maximizing my speed and hiding out in forest and mineral fields. But eventually, every single mech of mine took internal damage along the way, my Enforce lost an arm and a torso section, costing me about 120,000 C-Bills in repairs. Luckily he still had his PPC by the end, and I could hit the Black Knight with it from outside of it's sensor range. It showed up very late to the party, after everyone else had been killed.
On the bright side, nobody died, and no mechs got cored. Although one was damned close.
Sadly, I wasn't able to complete a mech either.
On the bright side, I decided to fly to a slightly easier planet (in theory), and they have enough Wolverine parts on sale for me to finish what I have if I can scrap together 1.2 Million C-Bills.
Sadly, all the missions on the planet are above it's 1.5 Average Difficulty advertising. So I'm gonna have to chance it again.
Oh the life of a mercenary. Always getting dicked around.
Finally, FINALLY! got my Shadowhawk completed. Now my lineup will be Shadowhawk SRM-brawler, Centaurion Lurmboat, Vindicator ML-brawler and finally Firestarter as my "gonna pee hot lead on you while punching you in the head" close range melee murderer. 26 hours to get to about same tonnage you have at the very start of the campaign, though I have far more experienced pilots by now.
And of course 0 flashpoints completed, so far. Heh.
Threw some ATMs and a tag on a linebacker to finally make this work. Helped to sort out that the max range is wildly optimistic so you basically have to treat them as rapid fire MRMs
Went into a 2.5 skull mission with a Vindicator, Hatchet and two Panthers. Fought a Thunderbolt, Wolverine and Jager, then 4 SRM6 carriers showed up and I had to bail, as I was already down my Vindicator and the legs on a Panther. Got 76k bills and to pick the TBolt part as a good faith withdrawal though.
Fought 2 heavies and 5 mediums with my lance of 3 mediums and 1 light and besides some scratched paint only my Shadowhawk took a few points of internal damage. I have to say that after ~30 hours of play I really like the skill changes, there's no more standing still with bulwark'd up big mechs just firing at each other like some sort of immobile gun towers. It's all about bouncing from a forest to another like drop bears on meth instead.
Could finish up a Wolverine-6R by buying a piece from the shop with 570k but I'm not sure if I want to swap out my Vindi for that. 6R has such crappy hardpoints, pretty much the only options are AC20 Hunchback wannabe (but I don't have breaching shot on anybody and I'd have to find an AC20 somewhere) or another SRM-boat.
Went into a 2.5 skull mission with a Vindicator, Hatchet and two Panthers. Fought a Thunderbolt, Wolverine and Jager, then 4 SRM6 carriers showed up and I had to bail, as I was already down my Vindicator and the legs on a Panther. Got 76k bills and to pick the TBolt part as a good faith withdrawal though.
I don’t know if it’s a career vs campaign thing, but I’m seeing a lot more SRM and LRM carriers a lot earlier than I did on earlier playthroughs. Maybe they tweaked the algorithm that determines the opfor?
Has anyone tried one of the target acquisition missions in Battletech yet? The salt I'm seeing is intensifying quite a bit. To the point where I wonder if they are onto something.
It sounds like the TA missions basically require an extremely specific loadout which is impossible to know ahead of time. Which is to say, since the OpFor is randomized, and you don't know the exact terrain you'll need to navigate, you aren't sure what the proper speed/armor ratio is until you are in it, and realize you don't have it. And it's a very narrow range of viable speed/armor loadouts. Some have you travelling a shorter distance against a more lethal OpFor. Some have you needing to travel further against lighter resistance. You send down the wrong lance and you simply cannot win.
The people I see happy with these missions appear to be people who don't mind save scumming until they've picked the exact perfect lance to take down. It's an interesting puzzle to them. Something to try repeatedly until they've cracked it.
People who want to one and done it, or are playing Ironman mode are furious. They aren't happy that the mission design has such a narrow range of viable strategies and loadouts to utilize the strategy.
Has anyone tried one of the target acquisition missions in Battletech yet? The salt I'm seeing is intensifying quite a bit. To the point where I wonder if they are onto something.
It sounds like the TA missions basically require an extremely specific loadout which is impossible to know ahead of time. Which is to say, since the OpFor is randomized, and you don't know the exact terrain you'll need to navigate, you aren't sure what the proper speed/armor ratio is until you are in it, and realize you don't have it. And it's a very narrow range of viable speed/armor loadouts. Some have you travelling a shorter distance against a more lethal OpFor. Some have you needing to travel further against lighter resistance. You send down the wrong lance and you simply cannot win.
The people I see happy with these missions appear to be people who don't mind save scumming until they've picked the exact perfect lance to take down. It's an interesting puzzle to them. Something to try repeatedly until they've cracked it.
People who want to one and done it, or are playing Ironman mode are furious. They aren't happy that the mission design has such a narrow range of viable strategies and loadouts to utilize the strategy.
I did one, and I had to fucking HUSTLE. Even with a pretty early lance (I was still running at least 2 lights at this point) I barely managed to get mechs on all 3 points in time. And that was without stopping to shoot.
Has anyone tried one of the target acquisition missions in Battletech yet? The salt I'm seeing is intensifying quite a bit. To the point where I wonder if they are onto something.
It sounds like the TA missions basically require an extremely specific loadout which is impossible to know ahead of time. Which is to say, since the OpFor is randomized, and you don't know the exact terrain you'll need to navigate, you aren't sure what the proper speed/armor ratio is until you are in it, and realize you don't have it. And it's a very narrow range of viable speed/armor loadouts. Some have you travelling a shorter distance against a more lethal OpFor. Some have you needing to travel further against lighter resistance. You send down the wrong lance and you simply cannot win.
The people I see happy with these missions appear to be people who don't mind save scumming until they've picked the exact perfect lance to take down. It's an interesting puzzle to them. Something to try repeatedly until they've cracked it.
People who want to one and done it, or are playing Ironman mode are furious. They aren't happy that the mission design has such a narrow range of viable strategies and loadouts to utilize the strategy.
I did one, and I had to fucking HUSTLE. Even with a pretty early lance (I was still running at least 2 lights at this point) I barely managed to get mechs on all 3 points in time. And that was without stopping to shoot.
I think most of the complaining I'm seeing is coming from late game TA missions. One guy was ranting about one where he was up against 12 heavy/assault mech, and a base that endlessly spawned Devastator tanks. No amount of evasion pips could preserve his mechs, but if he armored up, he couldn't make it in time.
That's the one where it's Light and Medium 'mechs only? Seems like you'd just run Jenners and Wolverines if you have them; pack a punch, take a hit and cover ground.
The grind was getting to me, so I started a new campaign with 3 parts per mech.
Ground out a number of missions, at my 2Nd planet and discovered they have 3 CN9-A parts for sale. Took 90% of my cash reserves, but I bought that sucker up so fast and strapped in 3 LRM10s that I've salvaged along the way. He was all pimped out and ready to roll on planet 3. The stream of missiles never gets old.
Found me a hilarious Mech warrior named Vodka. He sounds like he's from the planet of New Texas and his voice clips are simply the best. Never encounter it before in my main playthrough.
So who's going to be writing a series of Flashpoints for the Zathras Campaign? @TOGSolid q
I don't think I could help do Zathras without including an extended roast of Tyler Carpenter tbh. Like, name an NPC enemy Tyl Carper and make him a total moron.
Frack. Speaking of missions going sideways. Destroy the convoy. 1.5 skulls. 400K payout was not worth the loss of my Vindicator plus all the other damage i took. They ended up with an SRM and LRM carrier. I was able to kill the SRM boat before he got a shot off, but they kept sensor locking my Vindi and firing a million LRMs at it. Also didnt help they had an LRM locust, Spider and Hatchetman. That AC10 is brutal.
I just skip all the destroy the convoy missions, they never seem to be worth it to me.
I just hate hopping planets, so i try to do every job i can. It takes time away that could be spent making money. That and the cut/travel scenes take forever.
Oops, fucked up that career by getting greedy. Lost a pilot to a headshot, and lost basically all my weapons securing a Griffin. When you have "salvage naked mechs" turned on, losing all your weapons is a really bad idea? I'm having to re-learn the early game, which is actually a lot of fun.
I just skip all the destroy the convoy missions, they never seem to be worth it to me.
Destroy convoy isn't so bad, it's the escort convoy missions I avoid.
Escorts are actually pretty easy, especially early on when the enemies can't one-shot the APCs. One trick that helps a lot with them is to press Alt and scout the map for the red squares to see where the extraction point is (though you should know that already when the mission starts, honestly it's like these guys have no pre-mission briefings at all!). Then you wait to trigger the convoy before your mechs are all in good position between the convoy rally point and the extraction point. The only dicey turn is when the first convoy APC drives to the extraction point and the enemies spawn - if you are unlucky they might be behind one of your mechs and act first, though they tend to go for the APCs.
I prefer the escort missions to destroy convoy because I can move at my own pace.
Destroy convoy is a race which means you need to use lighter mechs and then you get shot to shit and spend time in the repair bay.
My mercenary company prefers to remain ship shape and bristol fashion at all times.
Salvage mechs naked doesn't even make any sense. The pieces you salvage don't eject their weapons when you destroy the mech. Of course there will be stuff lying around.
I've found I have to have a bigger stable of mechwarriors this go around though. Before I would just keep my A team going and rest out any injuries.
I just skip all the destroy the convoy missions, they never seem to be worth it to me.
I just hate hopping planets, so i try to do every job i can. It takes time away that could be spent making money. That and the cut/travel scenes take forever.
You can skip most of the travel scenes by hitting ESC - or if you are an ancient gamer like me, you can spend the time doing stretches so your back won't be a ruin after the gaming session. But yeah, early on you don't really have the luxury of just hopping around given you need all the money you can get. Means it's really hard to get good reputation going with a faction too since if you just do one faction's missions you only get 1-2 per system and that'll leave you treading water financially.
Speaking of reputations, I was aiming to ally to see what it does but then I realized that would lock me out of almost all of the Flashpoints since those are faction-specific. Not really sure what to do with that yet.
Frack. Speaking of missions going sideways. Destroy the convoy. 1.5 skulls. 400K payout was not worth the loss of my Vindicator plus all the other damage i took. They ended up with an SRM and LRM carrier. I was able to kill the SRM boat before he got a shot off, but they kept sensor locking my Vindi and firing a million LRMs at it. Also didnt help they had an LRM locust, Spider and Hatchetman. That AC10 is brutal.
Centurion made it out with nary a scratch though!
Speaking of reputations, I was aiming to ally to see what it does but then I realized that would lock me out of almost all of the Flashpoints since those are faction-specific. Not really sure what to do with that yet.
I've noticed that rep is hard to grind, and severely limits you in the early game if you try to do it. But if your rep gets too low it will start locking you out of missions too. It's not the best system from what I've seen so far. And apparently you can't skimp on money/salvage to inflate rep anymore?
Edit: Nvm, you can still drop payment/salvage to increase rep, but it proportionally affects the negative rep gain too.
I just skip all the destroy the convoy missions, they never seem to be worth it to me.
I just hate hopping planets, so i try to do every job i can. It takes time away that could be spent making money. That and the cut/travel scenes take forever.
With the new rep system, I actually find myself avoiding a lot of contracts in my new campaign. I avoid contracts from pirates, and avoid attacking Canopian targets because they helped get me out of debt.
Speaking of reputations, I was aiming to ally to see what it does but then I realized that would lock me out of almost all of the Flashpoints since those are faction-specific. Not really sure what to do with that yet.
You can break an alliance any time, you'll just lose 50 rep with that faction for it. Then you could work up to allying with someone else.
I think you have to wait like a in-game year before you can ally again as well.
SiliconStew on
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
Frack. Speaking of missions going sideways. Destroy the convoy. 1.5 skulls. 400K payout was not worth the loss of my Vindicator plus all the other damage i took. They ended up with an SRM and LRM carrier. I was able to kill the SRM boat before he got a shot off, but they kept sensor locking my Vindi and firing a million LRMs at it. Also didnt help they had an LRM locust, Spider and Hatchetman. That AC10 is brutal.
Centurion made it out with nary a scratch though!
Speaking of reputations, I was aiming to ally to see what it does but then I realized that would lock me out of almost all of the Flashpoints since those are faction-specific. Not really sure what to do with that yet.
I've noticed that rep is hard to grind, and severely limits you in the early game if you try to do it. But if your rep gets too low it will start locking you out of missions too. It's not the best system from what I've seen so far. And apparently you can't skimp on money/salvage to inflate rep anymore?
You can skimp, but you need to skimp like at least two tiers in order to get any benefit.
Frack. Speaking of missions going sideways. Destroy the convoy. 1.5 skulls. 400K payout was not worth the loss of my Vindicator plus all the other damage i took. They ended up with an SRM and LRM carrier. I was able to kill the SRM boat before he got a shot off, but they kept sensor locking my Vindi and firing a million LRMs at it. Also didnt help they had an LRM locust, Spider and Hatchetman. That AC10 is brutal.
Centurion made it out with nary a scratch though!
Speaking of reputations, I was aiming to ally to see what it does but then I realized that would lock me out of almost all of the Flashpoints since those are faction-specific. Not really sure what to do with that yet.
I've noticed that rep is hard to grind, and severely limits you in the early game if you try to do it. But if your rep gets too low it will start locking you out of missions too. It's not the best system from what I've seen so far. And apparently you can't skimp on money/salvage to inflate rep anymore?
You can skimp, but you need to skimp like at least two tiers in order to get any benefit.
Kinda sucks
Its definitely the sort of thing you want to wait on until you can afford to max it out. My strat is to usually max out money unless I want to go for salvage or rep instead.
It would be nice if some missions were kind of weighted in certain conditions, like a mission where they can't afford to pay you much, but you'll get more rep than normal if you forego your payday. Others where it makes sense to go for more Cbills or salvage.
I rarely ever saw a mission where you'd face a mixed mech lance, and it would feel a little better if you could power level a bit by getting a Heavy or Assault way before you are supposed to, instead of grinding mediums into heavies into assaults by sheer attrition. The Mechbay upkeep and risk should really be what keeps you from running all Assaults, not just the salvage you get a hold on. I'd be down with an optional rule that requires you to "buy back" your mechs lost during a mission. If you get head-capped or eject, it seems weird you can just pick up your stuff from a failed mission.
I prefer the escort missions to destroy convoy because I can move at my own pace.
Destroy convoy is a race which means you need to use lighter mechs and then you get shot to shit and spend time in the repair bay.
My mercenary company prefers to remain ship shape and bristol fashion at all times.
Salvage mechs naked doesn't even make any sense. The pieces you salvage don't eject their weapons when you destroy the mech. Of course there will be stuff lying around.
I've found I have to have a bigger stable of mechwarriors this go around though. Before I would just keep my A team going and rest out any injuries.
I think the idea behind empty mechs, which makes sense to me, is that their weapons are separate salvage. All that other equipment you see at the end of the mission. If you get that, and a fully equipped mech with 3 parts, it's double dipping.
I prefer the escort missions to destroy convoy because I can move at my own pace.
Destroy convoy is a race which means you need to use lighter mechs and then you get shot to shit and spend time in the repair bay.
My mercenary company prefers to remain ship shape and bristol fashion at all times.
Salvage mechs naked doesn't even make any sense. The pieces you salvage don't eject their weapons when you destroy the mech. Of course there will be stuff lying around.
I've found I have to have a bigger stable of mechwarriors this go around though. Before I would just keep my A team going and rest out any injuries.
I think the idea behind empty mechs, which makes sense to me, is that their weapons are separate salvage. All that other equipment you see at the end of the mission. If you get that, and a fully equipped mech with 3 parts, it's double dipping.
I never want to run a stock setup anyways so getting empty mechs is usually better, though it does mean if you get an early Hunchback you probably don't have a spare AC20 to equip it with. It's not a big deal either way though, the other salvage-related difficulty options have far bigger impact.
Posts
Glad y'all got to play!
I got to do work instead.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
That little BSW was my first mech so I've gotten really used to how quickly those guns hit and how fast they can reload.
So, there I am with my Enforcer, 2 Jenners and a Panther. Some nonstandard loadouts. One Jenner has 2 SRM6's and 2 Mlasers, my Panther has 4 MLasers and an SRM6.
It's an assassination mission. I'm hoping for some good salvage.
I take out 2 locust, a spider, a jenner, a blackjack, 2 shadowhawks, an enforcer, and then the target shows up.
A god damned Black Knight.
I chewed them up almost as fast as they could come. Lots of focused fire. Lots of maximizing my speed and hiding out in forest and mineral fields. But eventually, every single mech of mine took internal damage along the way, my Enforce lost an arm and a torso section, costing me about 120,000 C-Bills in repairs. Luckily he still had his PPC by the end, and I could hit the Black Knight with it from outside of it's sensor range. It showed up very late to the party, after everyone else had been killed.
On the bright side, nobody died, and no mechs got cored. Although one was damned close.
Sadly, I wasn't able to complete a mech either.
On the bright side, I decided to fly to a slightly easier planet (in theory), and they have enough Wolverine parts on sale for me to finish what I have if I can scrap together 1.2 Million C-Bills.
Sadly, all the missions on the planet are above it's 1.5 Average Difficulty advertising. So I'm gonna have to chance it again.
Oh the life of a mercenary. Always getting dicked around.
XFIRE:redspo0n (Yep, Zero in there) XBL: Pinkspo0n
With the way group queue works you can just get completely boned on a match up before the game even starts
And of course 0 flashpoints completed, so far. Heh.
but
those are the same mech
Could finish up a Wolverine-6R by buying a piece from the shop with 570k but I'm not sure if I want to swap out my Vindi for that. 6R has such crappy hardpoints, pretty much the only options are AC20 Hunchback wannabe (but I don't have breaching shot on anybody and I'd have to find an AC20 somewhere) or another SRM-boat.
No, one of them is a Buffalo and the other is a Bison
Four!? Sweet Jesus, that is terrifying.
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
That is the best Oosik way to go. As long as your weapons are firing nothing is a horrible showing.
Steam: betsuni7
It sounds like the TA missions basically require an extremely specific loadout which is impossible to know ahead of time. Which is to say, since the OpFor is randomized, and you don't know the exact terrain you'll need to navigate, you aren't sure what the proper speed/armor ratio is until you are in it, and realize you don't have it. And it's a very narrow range of viable speed/armor loadouts. Some have you travelling a shorter distance against a more lethal OpFor. Some have you needing to travel further against lighter resistance. You send down the wrong lance and you simply cannot win.
The people I see happy with these missions appear to be people who don't mind save scumming until they've picked the exact perfect lance to take down. It's an interesting puzzle to them. Something to try repeatedly until they've cracked it.
People who want to one and done it, or are playing Ironman mode are furious. They aren't happy that the mission design has such a narrow range of viable strategies and loadouts to utilize the strategy.
I did one, and I had to fucking HUSTLE. Even with a pretty early lance (I was still running at least 2 lights at this point) I barely managed to get mechs on all 3 points in time. And that was without stopping to shoot.
I think most of the complaining I'm seeing is coming from late game TA missions. One guy was ranting about one where he was up against 12 heavy/assault mech, and a base that endlessly spawned Devastator tanks. No amount of evasion pips could preserve his mechs, but if he armored up, he couldn't make it in time.
Ground out a number of missions, at my 2Nd planet and discovered they have 3 CN9-A parts for sale. Took 90% of my cash reserves, but I bought that sucker up so fast and strapped in 3 LRM10s that I've salvaged along the way. He was all pimped out and ready to roll on planet 3. The stream of missiles never gets old.
Found me a hilarious Mech warrior named Vodka. He sounds like he's from the planet of New Texas and his voice clips are simply the best. Never encounter it before in my main playthrough.
I may still be a wee bit salty about all that.
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
Timber Wolf has more honor than that filthy freebirth kitten.
I just hate hopping planets, so i try to do every job i can. It takes time away that could be spent making money. That and the cut/travel scenes take forever.
Destroy convoy isn't so bad, it's the escort convoy missions I avoid.
Escorts are actually pretty easy, especially early on when the enemies can't one-shot the APCs. One trick that helps a lot with them is to press Alt and scout the map for the red squares to see where the extraction point is (though you should know that already when the mission starts, honestly it's like these guys have no pre-mission briefings at all!). Then you wait to trigger the convoy before your mechs are all in good position between the convoy rally point and the extraction point. The only dicey turn is when the first convoy APC drives to the extraction point and the enemies spawn - if you are unlucky they might be behind one of your mechs and act first, though they tend to go for the APCs.
Destroy convoy is a race which means you need to use lighter mechs and then you get shot to shit and spend time in the repair bay.
My mercenary company prefers to remain ship shape and bristol fashion at all times.
Salvage mechs naked doesn't even make any sense. The pieces you salvage don't eject their weapons when you destroy the mech. Of course there will be stuff lying around.
I've found I have to have a bigger stable of mechwarriors this go around though. Before I would just keep my A team going and rest out any injuries.
You can skip most of the travel scenes by hitting ESC - or if you are an ancient gamer like me, you can spend the time doing stretches so your back won't be a ruin after the gaming session. But yeah, early on you don't really have the luxury of just hopping around given you need all the money you can get. Means it's really hard to get good reputation going with a faction too since if you just do one faction's missions you only get 1-2 per system and that'll leave you treading water financially.
Speaking of reputations, I was aiming to ally to see what it does but then I realized that would lock me out of almost all of the Flashpoints since those are faction-specific. Not really sure what to do with that yet.
Centurion made it out with nary a scratch though!
I've noticed that rep is hard to grind, and severely limits you in the early game if you try to do it. But if your rep gets too low it will start locking you out of missions too. It's not the best system from what I've seen so far. And apparently you can't skimp on money/salvage to inflate rep anymore?
Edit: Nvm, you can still drop payment/salvage to increase rep, but it proportionally affects the negative rep gain too.
With the new rep system, I actually find myself avoiding a lot of contracts in my new campaign. I avoid contracts from pirates, and avoid attacking Canopian targets because they helped get me out of debt.
You can break an alliance any time, you'll just lose 50 rep with that faction for it. Then you could work up to allying with someone else.
I think you have to wait like a in-game year before you can ally again as well.
You can skimp, but you need to skimp like at least two tiers in order to get any benefit.
Kinda sucks
Its definitely the sort of thing you want to wait on until you can afford to max it out. My strat is to usually max out money unless I want to go for salvage or rep instead.
It would be nice if some missions were kind of weighted in certain conditions, like a mission where they can't afford to pay you much, but you'll get more rep than normal if you forego your payday. Others where it makes sense to go for more Cbills or salvage.
I rarely ever saw a mission where you'd face a mixed mech lance, and it would feel a little better if you could power level a bit by getting a Heavy or Assault way before you are supposed to, instead of grinding mediums into heavies into assaults by sheer attrition. The Mechbay upkeep and risk should really be what keeps you from running all Assaults, not just the salvage you get a hold on. I'd be down with an optional rule that requires you to "buy back" your mechs lost during a mission. If you get head-capped or eject, it seems weird you can just pick up your stuff from a failed mission.
Twice on Canyon I got myself behind the main enemy push and dumped 1k+ damage, popping components, smearing mechs.. ECM FTW and junk.
Still lost both. I guess doing all the damage alone was a clue things werent going well
XFIRE:redspo0n (Yep, Zero in there) XBL: Pinkspo0n
I think the idea behind empty mechs, which makes sense to me, is that their weapons are separate salvage. All that other equipment you see at the end of the mission. If you get that, and a fully equipped mech with 3 parts, it's double dipping.
I never want to run a stock setup anyways so getting empty mechs is usually better, though it does mean if you get an early Hunchback you probably don't have a spare AC20 to equip it with. It's not a big deal either way though, the other salvage-related difficulty options have far bigger impact.