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f_c_ posted:Is allying with pirates a good idea or a will it ruin my career? How much do you hate contracts
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Dec 3, 2019 16:58
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I'd stay on at least marginal terms with the pirates until I get the black market invite, after that point I'll use them as a punching bag. Even though everything becomes silly expensive, at least you'll have access and you can usually come up with enough cash for the items you really want.
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Dec 3, 2019 17:00
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Groetgaffel posted:The ultimate lance is four King Crabs, each carrying a pair of UAC20s. okay but what about the LBX-20s
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Dec 3, 2019 17:00
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Cyrano4747 posted:What's the story with getting access to the black market if you're at rock bottom rep with the pirates? Still 2.5M? Is it even possible now? I was sitting at -99 rep with the pirates and still had black market access. Then they demanded 2.5M for me to keep access. I declined and lost access. A while later, they offered to give me access again, for 2.5M. If you finish the Heavy Metal FP, all of your faction reps go up substantially, including the Pirates. It brought my price modifier from 1000% to 50%.
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Dec 3, 2019 17:25
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If you can't do some dirty deeds sometimes are you even really a mercenary? 
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Dec 3, 2019 17:30
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Lawman 0 posted:If you can't do some dirty deeds sometimes are you even really a mercenary? This is really what I wish the factions would understand. I'm going where the money is. No point getting your panties bunched because I'm doing my job. Put up or shut up. 
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Dec 3, 2019 17:39
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Cyrano4747 posted:Is there a good break point with the pirates? I'm just a hair above bottoming out with them and have been avoiding missions, but. . . . gently caress. It's just so easy to tool on them when I want some extra change. IMO -20 rep is the obvious breakpoint, both for the price increase and because the black market events get very expensive below that. In career mode you gotta gently caress over somebody, sacrificing the pirates isn't a bad call if you're trying to get 3 or 4 factions allied at the same time. Otherwise you'd just be fighting Liao forever, have fun with all that dragon salvage. f_c_ posted:Is allying with pirates a good idea or a will it ruin my career? There is no reason to ally with them. Getting the store discounts from good rep is the only benefit. El Spamo posted:I don't think this gets enough attention when discussing the various weapon effectiveness theories. Just because 2 medium lasers puts out 50 damage, and a LL++/PPC puts out 50 damage that 50 damage is going to one spot and not being distributed around over the aggregate of armor. You can still concentrate packet damage with side shots. A generic mech has the important guns on the right side, so sending your srm bombers to flank left means you can come in and take an arm or leg off with decent reliability. (Also called shots.) Which is the place where I do really love the mlas/srm build: using ace pilot and a mech 1 size down from what you're generally fighting as a jumpy flanker. Reserve, run in, take two shots in a row against a flank, jump out, and spend a turn or two cooling off.
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Dec 3, 2019 17:41
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Lawman 0 posted:If you can't do some dirty deeds sometimes are you even really a mercenary? Dirty Deeds Done For Exorbitant Prices
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Dec 3, 2019 17:45
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I can't tell you how big the pile of arms blown off from an LRM boat firing in from the side is. So big.
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Dec 3, 2019 17:48
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El Spamo posted:I can't tell you how big the pile of arms blown off from an LRM boat firing in from the side is. Are there any battlemechs made entirely out of the blown-off arms of other mechs
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Dec 3, 2019 17:53
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RBA Starblade posted:Dirty Deeds Done For Exorbitant Prices Art of the war crime! 
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Dec 3, 2019 18:03
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RBA Starblade posted:Are there any battlemechs made entirely out of the blown-off arms of other mechs https://www.sarna.net/wiki/FrankenMech
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Dec 3, 2019 18:03
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lol This told me that the original name for Battletech was BATTLEDROIDS which sounds way dumber and 80ser
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Dec 3, 2019 18:08
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RBA Starblade posted:Dirty Deeds Done For Exorbitant Prices 
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Dec 3, 2019 18:15
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Speaking of prices, how much is a c-bill worth, practically? I know it's supposed to be however long it takes to send a packet of info or whatever but like, how much is a space apple worth? A mech is like 800,000, can you just retire on like 200,000 and you're just the greediest and dumbest assholes around to keep going after your company passes 10 million?
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Dec 3, 2019 18:18
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RBA Starblade posted:Speaking of prices, how much is a c-bill worth, practically? I know it's supposed to be however long it takes to send a packet of info or whatever but like, how much is a space apple worth? A mech is like 800,000, can you just retire on like 200,000 and you're just the greediest and dumbest assholes around to keep going after your company passes 10 million? my understanding is that if you don't have a mech to defend it then someone's gonna yoink all that money from you the instant you put your Atlas out to pasture
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Dec 3, 2019 18:20
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Pattonesque posted:my understanding is that if you don't have a mech to defend it then someone's gonna yoink all that money from you the instant you put your Atlas out to pasture Couldn't they do that by hacking your space bank account anyway?
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Dec 3, 2019 18:22
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It's really easy to stay good with pirates, just do missions for them in the independent periphery. You can't gain or lose rep with local governments, so feel free to poo poo on them all day long. There's almost no reason to do contracts for local governments and every reason to work against them. It would be cool if they would eventually get occupied if you poo poo on them too much. That would lead to real mercenary problems where if you favor one side too heavily, they win and you now lose your punching bag.
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Dec 3, 2019 18:23
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RBA Starblade posted:Speaking of prices, how much is a c-bill worth, practically? I know it's supposed to be however long it takes to send a packet of info or whatever but like, how much is a space apple worth? A mech is like 800,000, can you just retire on like 200,000 and you're just the greediest and dumbest assholes around to keep going after your company passes 10 million? I believe mech prices in the game are far lower than what they probably should be. The really cheap basic Urbie is almost 1.5M.
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Dec 3, 2019 18:35
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Taerkar posted:I believe mech prices in the game are far lower than what they probably should be. The really cheap basic Urbie is almost 1.5M. Still, they're "Ancestral" military hardware, so obviously a c-bill is worth way, way more than an american dollar if you're buying a megatank (even an urbie) for 1.5 mil. I'm just wondering exactly how much I'm really making 
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Dec 3, 2019 18:37
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Sarna has you covered: https://www.sarna.net/wiki/C-Bill Apparently 3025 C-Bills are worth $11.70 in 2019 USD.
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Dec 3, 2019 18:55
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Lynx posted:Sarna has you covered: So our company's rich (esp if we pawn off the Argo and Leopard) but not gently caress You rich
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Dec 3, 2019 19:08
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Plus, I don't think much of that wealth is very liquid either. Well, the cash that the company has on hand, but even if you did get enough cash to comfortably retire, you've also got the ability to make even more cash in a lifestyle that's also fulfilling in its odd sort of way. I can totally see how a bunch of mercs keep chasing the money long after they've got enough to find a quiet tropical bungalow somewhere. edit: Sure, you can quit, but why would you want to?
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Dec 3, 2019 19:13
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El Spamo posted:Plus, I don't think much of that wealth is very liquid either. The lingering specter of an ac10 headshot
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Dec 3, 2019 19:15
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Without even trying to cheese/savescum I just salvaged a *second* Higlander 732b from a flashpoint reward. Soon I'm going to have eight 10/10/10/10 pilots trained up, I still haven't even done most of the flashpoints, and I've got  million c-bills in the bank.This game lmao 
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Dec 3, 2019 19:31
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RBA Starblade posted:Speaking of prices, how much is a c-bill worth, practically? I know it's supposed to be however long it takes to send a packet of info or whatever but like, how much is a space apple worth? A mech is like 800,000, can you just retire on like 200,000 and you're just the greediest and dumbest assholes around to keep going after your company passes 10 million? I think the best way to handwave the weird relative values of c-bills is the "universal" part of universal currency is only among the elites, and has wildly different values outside that zone. Think about it: you're a merc with a fat stack of c-bills who retires to some out of the way idyllic planet. You want to buy some apples, or heck the whole apple farm. What does the apple farmer want with c-bills? He doesn't need to talk to friends with a FTL telephone, he doesn't know anyone on another planet. Local exchange rates are gonna be terrible. On the other hand, when buying "surplus" military hardware you're dealing with some planetary governor-general who really needs c-bills. Also, I think the goal of the average battletech mercenary isn't to put together enough money to own some rural villa and get the local peasants to call you Mr Big Shot. That's the level where you started out, if you could buy your own Locust. You're trying to collect enough to buy into the interstellar nobility.
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Dec 3, 2019 19:32
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Klyith posted:I think the best way to handwave the weird relative values of c-bills is the "universal" part of universal currency is only among the elites, and has wildly different values outside that zone. Speaking of which I love how some of the planets are 'primitive' and don't have electricity and have amish people, apparently, so you're just landing on a barn and shooting your gigantic death laser at the fifty ton missile robot while some dudes in beards hope you don't shoot Bessie on accident while you claim the Extremely Important Planet Of Barns from the local government of Amish for Capella How did the fifty ton missile robot get there and somehow still have missiles to shoot you with, you ask? Are the missiles made of explosive wood? Did they charge it up with a windmill? Is there some exiled amish guy in there really pissed about his lot in life? It's a mystery.
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Dec 3, 2019 19:39
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Warmachine posted:You know, the Awesome might be a sack of poo poo, but it's my sack of poo poo now, after seeing it pop up in the Joint Venture flashpoint and deciding it was time to get me an assault mech in this particular career game. I probably took a bit more damage than I should have stripping the thing of weapons and finally killing the pilot, but picking the whole thing up after one deployment was very satisfying. I got an Awesome that is my favourite missile boat. It can take a beating, can fire four medium lasers and has two twenty missile pods. It doesn't over heat as easily as the Archer and brings more fire power than a Catapult.
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Dec 3, 2019 19:45
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Okay, an Urbie with double LB-2-Xs, twin Medium Lasers, 3 Jumpjets, and as much armor as I can cram onto the little garbage can is a fun build.
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Dec 3, 2019 19:45
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Rorahusky posted:Okay, an Urbie with double LB-2-Xs, twin Medium Lasers, 3 Jumpjets, and as much armor as I can cram onto the little garbage can is a fun build. I got the AC20 urbie and I'm putting an uac20 on it asap
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Dec 3, 2019 19:52
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https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/dev-diary-15-sharkys-machine.1292614/ Art director talks about designing the Bull Shark, which is cool because the Bull Shark (in addition to being a good robot) is also an excellent design
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Dec 3, 2019 20:06
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I thought that the 'primitive' planets were more along the lines of our modern (or 1980s-ish) Earth with a drastically smaller population. Like, they have phones and electricity and running water, but the super-advanced interstellar stuff like hovercars and missile robots are rare as gently caress. I mean, when your neighbor can project force and resources over interstellar distances, the local business of producing a space-toyota pickup looks pretty primitive.
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Dec 3, 2019 20:08
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El Spamo posted:I thought that the 'primitive' planets were more along the lines of our modern (or 1980s-ish) Earth with a drastically smaller population. IIRC a plot point in one of the novels is that the backwater planet the characters are on still uses fax machines
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Dec 3, 2019 20:13
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El Spamo posted:I thought that the 'primitive' planets were more along the lines of our modern (or 1980s-ish) Earth with a drastically smaller population. At least one world is described as having less than that and another mentions Amish settlers
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Dec 3, 2019 20:14
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There are a few oddballs like literal Amish who wanted an entire planet of buggies and candles. Most of them are religious groups. All of those still have some local outpost of whoever the titular ruler of their corner of the inner sphere is because in a universe with interstellar piracy space Amish are going to become someone else’s space slaves really fast if they’re not living under someone else’s umbrella.
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Dec 3, 2019 20:22
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Fax technology is dirt simple and super robust, so a great thing to have on a sparsely populated planet where people could be really spread out. Somewhere out there is Scientology planet, and it's weird
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Dec 3, 2019 20:24
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RBA Starblade posted:Speaking of which I love how some of the planets are 'primitive' and don't have electricity and have amish people, apparently, so you're just landing on a barn and shooting your gigantic death laser at the fifty ton missile robot while some dudes in beards hope you don't shoot Bessie on accident while you claim the Extremely Important Planet Of Barns from the local government of Amish for Capella One of the many things I like about RT is that it implements agrimechs, so yes, you do end up scrapping with Farmer Clyde and his diesel-powered cattle-herding robot.
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Dec 3, 2019 20:25
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El Spamo posted:I thought that the 'primitive' planets were more along the lines of our modern (or 1980s-ish) Earth with a drastically smaller population. That's what the tooltip in game says, anyway. The baseline for "primitive" is 20th century Earth, with some going further back. So I suppose you can end up dropping into someone's musket war in an Atlas.
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Dec 3, 2019 20:30
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Warmachine posted:That's what the tooltip in game says, anyway. The baseline for "primitive" is 20th century Earth, with some going further back. So I suppose you can end up dropping into someone's musket war in an Atlas. The harpers ferry raid only John Brown hires a BullShark 
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Dec 3, 2019 20:33
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RBA Starblade posted:Speaking of which I love how some of the planets are 'primitive' and don't have electricity and have amish people, apparently, so you're just landing on a barn and shooting your gigantic death laser at the fifty ton missile robot while some dudes in beards hope you don't shoot Bessie on accident while you claim the Extremely Important Planet Of Barns from the local government of Amish for Capella You're stomping the amish guy's cow in the name of Sheng O'Donovan, a minor step-cousin of House Liao. The other guys are acutally the men-at-arms of Gerturde Steiner-Gupta, a likewise insignificant noble. Gertrude's robots were here first, so as a political move they're calling themselves the Planetary Defense Force rather than Steiner. Gertrude doesn't want to officially claim the planet when it's not secure, because then losing it would make her look bad. Neither Sheng or Gertrude will ever set foot on the Planet Of Barns, but both of them really want to add another planet to their domains and get attention and status for conquering more worlds for their nation. The amish guy doesn't really care who nominally owns his planet, because the answer always boils down to "whoever's pointing a gun at me today". At least that's my interpretation: Battletech makes more sense the more feudal you make it. Likewise the Clans would have made a lot more sense if they behaved more like the real Mongols did, rather than the half-assed klingons and furry enthusiasts they actually are.
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Dec 3, 2019 20:35
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