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 Avatar 720 wrote:
I've seen a few mentions of people getting fewer mech salvage parts than they should have in the Steam forums, and I've a weird instance of getting a whole mech--a second Shadowhawk--when I only took out both its legs, and in a previous campaign I got two Jager parts after resorting to blowing the entire thing to bits and nuking its CT.

I'm not sure if there's a small chance you might get less or more, and the 1 for coring, 2 for legging etc. is simply a baseline it works off rather than an absolute rule, or if there's actually a bug.

The only major issue I've had with the game so far is

Spoiler:

in the Liberation of Weldry campaign mission, where Kamea says "I'll send you support" but actually means "I'm going to come alone and unescorted from the opposite end of the prison and try and manfight an entire enemy lance, but you'd better keep me alive because I'm important".

I only just saved her in my first campaign, but she succeeded in getting herself killed in my second, half because she tries to walk into middle and get surrounded, all the while spreading her shots as best she can to minimise her effectiveness, and half because the game apparently has an erroneous trigger for the "breach the prison" objective and it triggered before either of the gates had even been touched and before I'd jumped inside the walls, so I basically had 2 turns of being able to do sod all to help out.

I'm thinking there may be a bug or some random chance involved as you said. A couple of people above have had different experiences than I have had and playing last night I head shot a mech and got all three parts like they said is supposed to happen but when I legged that Panther the rest of it's body was intact (should have gotten two pieces from that apparently) and another mech that I DFA'ed and hit it's head only gave me 1 piece also. Not sure what is going on but I felt better after the head shot and recovery last night.

Infected by the SJW, buggy and runs like arse. Very Disappointed.

I'm loving it, but it just ate two of my days off.

Yeah, the SRM carriers are merciless.

I like that you're allowed to define your character any way you want. I think it allowed for pronoun choice, too, IIRC.

Yeah, that was neat.


I haven't yet encountered a SRM carrier, but I did encounter a LRM carrier and was pretty unhappy with it. I was, as said in here previously, kind of expecting a nuisance and was surprised with the missiles started coming and didn't stop for a really, really long time.




I watched this tip video earlier and I find it to be handy - there was stuff in there that I didn't know about from having played the tutorial. Like, all of your "support weapons" like MGs and small lasers fire when you do a physical attack, you don't gain heat from a physical attack, exactly how evasion works, initiative order, and so on. Good use of 10 minutes if you're new to the game.

What kind of builds are you guys running? I'm still mostly in mediums all-rounders, but just got a Trebuchet which I'm outfitting into a lurm boat to support my guys.

I'm going PPC/Missile/Ballistic heavy, going for the knockdown.

I run a Hunchback P with that to capitalize on the knockdown. I'm aiming to get the pilot at +1 init so he can core any knockdowns before they can act.

It's a good idea during the salvage screen to scroll through the weapons, and see if there are bonuses that fit your play style. For a few games I had an AC 20 that did + 20 stability damage (before some Directorate fool destroyed it), and it was heaven. Everyone just fell down near me, and got cratered.

I'm still sub-300 days into the campaign, but so far I'm using the starting Shadowhawk as a pseudo-LRM Boat, fitted with 2 LRM15s and an LRM5; got the starting Blackjack in default gear; a Centurion with 2 SRM6s and an SRM6+, two medium lasers, and an MG; and a Jager with 2 AC5s, an AC2, and an AC2+. Stored the starting Vindicator, but was running with with PPC/LL, and just picked up another Vindi I'm outfitting as a brawler with some SRM6s, and heap of MLs and two SLs, alongside a good whack of heatsinks and near max armour to see how that goes.

I'm just wondering if there's a fix to me crashing after the "3 years later mission".

After the mission "3 years later", I am able to see the mission report, then the games screen goes black and starts to show the loading spinner. After a time that goes away and leaves a black screen w/ a cursor. The game freezes and crashes at that point.

You're the underpowered video card guy, right?

That's gotta be super frustrating, that it worked for part of the game and then didn't. Sorry, man.

Oh God the maintenance fees are real. I’m living paycheck to paycheck and fixing mechs/healing mechwarriors is keeping me from running more than 1 contract per period.

I love it!

I really hope they implement Ironman mode at some point.

Oddly finding that a lot of the same stuff that works great in MWO works great here. More than I'd thought given the difference in genre and mechanics.

LRMs are disappointing me.

Laser and SRM boats are murder.

Ballistics are okay.

Loving the Centurion I got from the first story mission. Good old Centurion never fails me.

My general tactic is to build a gun line with my Blackjack and Vindicator, use a Jenner to draw the enemy out, and once I got them in a nice kill zone the Jenner and the Centurion start flanking. Precision shots to take out the legs are ungodly effective. Needs nerf. I'll probably continue to tactic while upgrading weight classes over the game. Really looking forward to my first King Crab. One of my favorite mechs and none of things that leave it "meh" in MWO are going to hinder it in Battletech!

I'm getting to a point where trying to cut off the leg to maximize salvage is getting tricky. Too much damage means I'm killing the torso, too. Too little, and I'm facing an assault mech getting another turn of fire.*

*A real Free Worlds League Problem, I know...

I'm loving this game.

I just need more money, and to find worlds that aren't all 2.5 Skull in difficulty. I can't handle 6 mixed med/light + 1-2 heavies /heavy 'Mechs in each mission.

LRMs, for me, are more of a utility weapon that I use with a multi-target mechwarrior to strip evasion from the next target that the rest of my lance will then attack.

Ballistics are sweet because they help with knockdown.

YMMV.

I was able to coast through light to medium mech missions through LRM boating. Combined total of around 80lrm on 4 mechs.

Once I got to enemy heavies and the rare assault, it doesn't work nearly as well and I rely more on AC, Gauss, and SRM.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'm loving this game.

I just need more money, and to find worlds that aren't all 2.5 Skull in difficulty. I can't handle 6 mixed med/light + 1-2 heavies /heavy 'Mechs in each mission.

Don't worry, the skull-rating counts for guff all. I've had 1.5 skull missions with two lances of mediums, a Manticore, and an SRM Carrier that had converged on my lance by round 3. After hammering Withdraw, deciding it was bs, and reloading the pre-battle autosave, it put me against the Manticore and SRM Carrier again, but also mainly lights with a single medium, which was infinitely more tolerable. From what I can tell, this is the normal experience; contract difficulty RNG is pretty loose, and there are some which you'll be reloading a few times if you want to try and complete them--ignoring the people who claim "you're not supposed to be able to win every fight, suck it up and git gud".

There's also anecdotal evidence that contracts get harder with each campaign mission you complete, though considering how irrational the contract difficulty is, I'm not sure if that's true or it just feels like it's true.

It's a point of credit in the game's favour that it makes you want to replay unfairly stacked missions as opposed to giving up and calling the game horsecrap, though it would obviously be better if you didn't have to.

Also, progressing the story too early can result in the random mission RNG putting higher end enemies in. But since the story isn’t gated you can easily progress too early and end up with random missions that you can’t realistically complete.

The game is really good, but I hope post release they take a look at how swingy the random mission difficulty is.

 -Loki- wrote:
Also, progressing the story too early can result in the random mission RNG putting higher end enemies in. But since the story isn’t gated you can easily progress too early and end up with random missions that you can’t realistically complete.

I was afraid of that. The normal missions are hard to plan around. You almost never get more than one one the same planet. The second will disappear and force you to go to another so I often only get 1 mission in a month which is at best enough to break even.

I'd like to see either the normal missions be a little more rewarding, or have the game force less wasted time traveling to make managing your finances easier.

Nm

Getting really frustrated by Liberate: Smithon. My 4 medium mechs vs 8 mechs, they have turret support, plus I'm supposed to task one of my mechs to stopping 2 transports? Not sure how I'm supposed to handle this. I've taken 6 or 7 swings at it in various ways and nothing really has worked for me.

Installed and binged yesterday.

Pros:

Love the art
Love the fact its so lore intensive - so many things to click on and read and go oh yeah I remember that - everything that MWO is missing.....
Like all the characters and not sure what all the keywords do but its fun and interesting.
The campaign feels like a BattleTech novel - that's what I wanted so great

Game play I am getting the hang off - likely will need to restart the campaign at some point, injuries hurt and I missed some ways of playing more effectively earlier.

Some queries for anyone - I have six mechs salvaged in storage but can't seem to do anything with them - not even sell them? It says repair them in the Mech Bay but not an option to bring them out and I have space.

Just got my first mission to start the reconquest but a bit short on cash - how long can you leave it before there are issues?

Infected by the SJW

No idea what this means - if its about the fact that women have major roles in the story etc - well - have you read any BattleTech lore in the last thirty years!

If its about the pronoun choice - meh...does that really matter to anyone that its there - you just choose what's appropriate for the character in your head IMO.

 Mr Morden wrote:

Infected by the SJW

No idea what this means - if its about the fact that women have major roles in the story etc - well - have you read any BattleTech lore in the last thirty years!

Presumably it's because you can pick your pronoun, which is an o-o-outraaaage!

For those who dont know, you need 3 salvaged parts of the same mech (and variant! Can't build a locust m with locust v parts) and it auto builds itself. You get more parts the less destroyed the mech is (so long as it has 1 point of structure ldft its not destroyed). Blowing off both legs gets you 2 parts, a lethal headshot or pilot incap w/o breaking both right and left torso (I think from my experience it's ok to break one of them, not totally sure on it though) gets you 3, and killing the center torso gets you just one. Best way to injure the pilot is knockdown (breaking legs/stability damage), headshots, crits on ammo, or breaking the left or right torsos.

If you get stuck and have pushed the story too far too quickly a tip I saw to get around that is go into a mission, complete one objective then withdraw. Withdrawing is instant and you'll still get salvage and c-bills for it.

Currently running the grasshopper (6 flamers and MLs) double orions (one is a 20/20/10 lrm boat with damage/stability damage increases, the other a twin AC20 platform) and a highlander (mostly long range fire power). I'd like to get a king crab but I've only seen one and the armor was too low on it to knock down endlessly and injure the pilot.

 Wolfblade wrote:
For those who dont know, you need 3 salvaged parts of the same mech (and variant! Can't build a locust m with locust v parts) and it auto builds itself. You get more parts the less destroyed the mech is (so long as it has 1 point of structure ldft its not destroyed). Blowing off both legs gets you 2 parts, a lethal headshot or pilot incap w/o breaking both right and left torso (I think from my experience it's ok to break one of them, not totally sure on it though) gets you 3, and killing the center torso gets you just one. Best way to injure the pilot is knockdown (breaking legs/stability damage), headshots, crits on ammo, or breaking the left or right torsos.

If you get stuck and have pushed the story too far too quickly a tip I saw to get around that is go into a mission, complete one objective then withdraw. Withdrawing is instant and you'll still get salvage and c-bills for it.

Currently running the grasshopper (6 flamers and MLs) double orions (one is a 20/20/10 lrm boat with damage/stability damage increases, the other a twin AC20 platform) and a highlander (mostly long range fire power). I'd like to get a king crab but I've only seen one and the armor was too low on it to knock down endlessly and injure the pilot.

Thanks that's really helpful - biggest Mech I have seen so far in battle was a Quickdraw!

I’m finding a Firestarter to be a godsend on hot maps. Locking down heavier mechs through overheating and just hanging around behind their line while they focus on my bigger mechs is very effective.

You can blow off both sides of a 'Mech off and one of its legs, killing the pilot in the process, and get 3 parts. Killing the pilot without taking off both legs or killing the CT always nets 3 parts.

Sometimes it takes quite a lot of effort (spent 1/2hr savescumming an Orion and a Thunderbolt until I managed to kill the pilots by tipping them over). Took some serious damage, and nearly lost a pilot, but eventually I tore 'em apart. Got 2/3rds of the Thud and the entire Orion, so it was worth it.

 Nostromodamus wrote:
I’m finding a Firestarter to be a godsend on hot maps. Locking down heavier mechs through overheating and just hanging around behind their line while they focus on my bigger mechs is very effective.

I'm loving a humble spider with a single LL. You hide and reserve him (sensor locking for LRMs) then one turn you sneak behind a mech and double-tap with the LL on the back (you reserve it for last, then it moves first on the following turn), it's almost guaranteed to crit something, or destroy CT altogether).

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You can blow off both sides of a 'Mech off and one of its legs, killing the pilot in the process, and get 3 parts. Killing the pilot without taking off both legs or killing the CT always nets 3 parts.

It's definitely not guaranteed. Had another instance A day ago where I'd incapacitated the pilot without taking off both legs or the CT, and only getting 2 parts from it. It was only a lighter Medium and I had a part for it spare already, so I wasn't too fussed, but I'm sure now it's either a bug or intended that 3 for head/injury incap and 2 for legs is simply a cap it's still possible to get less than.

 Ouze wrote:
Getting really frustrated by Liberate: Smithon. My 4 medium mechs vs 8 mechs, they have turret support, plus I'm supposed to task one of my mechs to stopping 2 transports? Not sure how I'm supposed to handle this. I've taken 6 or 7 swings at it in various ways and nothing really has worked for me.

Same here, I ended up having to load an earlier save just to do some other contracts. It feels very unbalanced, you start in what is basically a ditch and those transports start running behind another hill only two turns in. The game is like oh use them ammo dumps, but the mechs avoid the aoe radius like the plague and those lrm turrets don't help. It isn't two skulls by a long shot. I'm just levelling my pilots some more so they miss less. Perhaps next time they could drop you on the side that doesn't give the defender a massive advantage and terrain shielding? What genius picks an insertion point like that?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr Morden wrote:

Infected by the SJW

No idea what this means - if its about the fact that women have major roles in the story etc - well - have you read any BattleTech lore in the last thirty years!

If its about the pronoun choice - meh...does that really matter to anyone that its there - you just choose what's appropriate for the character in your head IMO.

I think its what people say who are stuck at the duke nukem stage quality of video game characters and plot.

I managed to complete that mission by accepting the ammo trucks were a lost cause, and that I'd be tanking some LRMs courtesy of turret Sensor Locks, but otherwise by never actually cresting the starting hill until all the enemy mechs were dead. Not once.

I began by peeling off towards the left, where there's a lone Spider guarding a light laser turret. It should be pretty easy to take him and the turret out within a round or so unless you're very underpowdered. Don't go too far to the left, though, as the terrain is deceptive and you can be targeted by mechs and turrets in the FoW over the factory complex.

After that, I pulled right back into my starting zone and prepared to repel two more light mechs, including a Firestarter which is a priority target. You'll want your tankiest mech closest to the hill so it can eat the sensor locks and LRMs from the turrets and other mechs you can't see; having the passive skill that auto-guards/entrenches you if you don't move can be handy for reducing damage without eating an action, but judicious use of the Vigilance morale action works well, too, and with the number of mechs you're killing you should be getting morale fairly easily to refuel its use.

Hopefully you can take out the firestarter and other light before the next mechs crest the hill, and you can take them out. The most difficult enemy will be the Dragon, which took a good while to get over the hill for me, but did so alone, and I got a full mech out of the deal within a round of shooting.

That said, my pilots were fairly experienced, and I was using a loadout of 1 Medium--an LRM Shadowhawk I've been using since the beginning--and 3 Heavies: an Orion kitted out for brawling, with an AC/10, a few lasers, and 3 SRM6s; a Jager with pretty much stock loadout of 2x AC/2s and 2x AC/5s; and a Grasshopper equipped with a lightshow of max MLs and max SLs, but I took sod all damage because nothing lived long enough to do much; coming at you in groups of 1-2 really cuts their strength down.

This is what I was looking at by the middle of Round 10, just after taking down the Dragon (spoilered for size):

My Shadowhawk and Jager are hidden further down, and the reason I can see the enemy Medium on the other side is because that little bit of terrain my front-most mech is standing on is elevated just enough to see and be seen over the ridge, which I didn't know until I stood there because sometimes it's impossible to know what terrain will block LoS and what won't until you're sitting in it. The dips to either side of it are hidden, though.

I will reiterate that I was probably overgeared for the mission is terms of mechs and pilot skill, though, even though my first attempt was a complete failure after my Grasshopper was laid low by BS and I couldn't hit anything for love nor C-Bills.

Depending on the mechs you're bringing an all-med Lance might be able to pull it off, but with half the enemy mechs having PPCs and being stupidly accurate with them in my experience--point-blank PPCs is a valid strategy the AI pulls on me every time--they might take a beating when combined with LRMs every turn; moving, shooting, and bracing with Vigilance will be necessary.

Jump jets are probably the best use for this, as you can quickly gain enough evasion that Sensor Lock won't remove it all, and you gain a lot of manoeuvrability--as well as DFA for use in emergencies. Being able to JJ for 4+ Evasion chevrons, shoot, then Vigilance for the 50% damage reduction to any shots against your front/side that get through your evasion, as well as moving up the Initiative table by 1 next round, can be deadly.

It could well be that you have to load up an earlier save and grind some more, though. Taking on 2-3 skull contracts for more likelihood of heavy mechs you can salvage might be the only way, even if it means reloading a few times to get a matchup you can deal with.

It sounds like you got lucky to an extent. I tried camping the 'barrel', but all that I ended up with was endless sensor locks and LRM barrages without the enemy seriously attempting to come up the hill. Felt like a fish.