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It's an extremely bad idea. It locks you out of missions for everyone because the pirates are everyone's enemy, you don't need to ally with the pirates to get access to their faction shop (the Black Market), and there's nothing special for the alliance. None of the periphery powers (Taurians, Canopians, Pirates, Aurigans) have their own flashpoints.
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May 14, 2020 22:47
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Steam Sale on this for the weekend by the way! (75% off base game, 50% DLCs) Picked up all the DLCs I didn't have so I can dive back into it for another go.
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May 14, 2020 23:18
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PoptartsNinja posted:It's an extremely bad idea. It locks you out of missions for everyone because the pirates are everyone's enemy, you don't need to ally with the pirates to get access to their faction shop (the Black Market), and there's nothing special for the alliance. None of the periphery powers (Taurians, Canopians, Pirates, Aurigans) have their own flashpoints. Thanks! What feels "iffy" for me in regards to scoring is that I can take 5 skulls pretty regularly already (only pritate ones because my faction rep with other factions is not high enough) and there are like, 1000 more days to go. Currently lance is a reasonably final form Firestarter (total of +130 for mellee damage and 2 ER+ Small lasers) Gaus Rifle toting good atlas, an Annihilator with effectively 4 AC10 (1 UAC10 and 2 normal ones, hunting for moar UAC to deliver more dakka) with some pretty generous degrees of ammunition, heatsinks and amor and a LRM boat highlander because 4 LRMs (2X20 2X15) is plenty and i like having some armor and a good number of heatsinks on my LRM boats. The Atlas does basically "explode AC10/20 ammo duty" at very long range with the gaus rilfe and 2 LRM launchers, the annihilator explodes people center torso, the LRM boat is self explanatory and the firestarter does firestarter things. Currently outfitting a Marauder, but it kind of feels like I am not going to get much stronger.
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May 15, 2020 21:54
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I just picked this game up recently and it's really doing a good job of getting me into the franchise. Do you expect to go undefeated the whole campaign or does the difficulty ramp up later?
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May 19, 2020 14:19
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For an experienced player, it's not a very hard game and you'll almost certainly never lose a mission. You might very well lose a pilot or a Mech though, because luck can still happen to anyone.
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May 19, 2020 15:06
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Gwaihir posted:For an experienced player, it's not a very hard game and you'll almost certainly never lose a mission. You might very well lose a pilot or a Mech though, because :battletech: can still happen to anyone. FTFY
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May 19, 2020 15:59
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Mightypeon posted:Thanks! Wait till you get proper lostech on all those guys and replace the Atlas and Highlander with a Bullshark/King Crab/Anni or UAC5/ERMlas++ Marauder which deletes a mech per turn with headshots. Also UAC20/10 are available via the Davion faction store.
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May 19, 2020 16:09
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Sorites posted:Do you expect to go undefeated the whole campaign or does the difficulty ramp up later? If I were playing for score, I'd be "punching up" and taking on missions 1 skull above my level wherever possible (i.e. after collecting some solid mediums). There are big risks when doing this, especially if you go for it too early. I don't play for score because the way the game is scored is loving stupid and actively discourages you from interacting with its most enjoyable systems. The game's biggest dangers come early, and once they start regularly throwing assaults at you to try to counter what you can do you should be able to crush most any mission. There are a few exceptions based on mission type and there're a few flashpoints with "boss encounters" that contain 'Mechs that are better optimized than normal, but they're infrequent and most of them aren't that much more dangerous than standard models. After this run, I'm thinking of doing a second one with some mods in play to ramp up the enemy difficulty in the endgame. There're a few (like the one made by a goon that add SLDF 'Mechs to enemy forces) that can really make endgame lances more spicy without going completely nuts like the "more like tabletop" conversion mods usually do. We'll see if I have any energy left for that.
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May 19, 2020 23:52
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I just started following this LP, but I wanted to point out a mistake: Hit defense and evasion are not the same thing. Each point of hit defense increases the difficulty to be hit by one, i.e. 5%. Each evasion chevron increases difficulty by two. Also, from what I've read, past a difficulty 10, additional modifiers are halved and only decrease the chance to hit by 2.5%, but that may be outdated info. If someone knows for certain, please do tell. So if you have a light mech (+3), with a top gyro (+3), a rank 10 pilot (+3) and six evasion tokens (+12), you end up with +21 difficulty, or -77.5%. Base chance to hit starts at 75% and is only increased by gunnery rank, as the final difficulty modifier can't be lower than 0, no matter how much accuracy or other bonuses you get. So with a 6 gunnery enemy, that would leave them at a 12.5% cth. To get them down to 5%, you'll still need additional modifiers, such as being out of weapon range (+4). It still amounts to the same thing - evasion tanking is extremely powerful - but I think a large reason for that is how the AI only sends single token shots at evasive targets, without such considerations as to whether or not the target has already been activated this turn, or how many of the AI's buddies are left to activate that could benefit from such evasion stripping.
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May 20, 2020 01:40
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Found what I was looking for:Paradox forums posted:There's a line in the AI brain that says if their chance to hit is <40%, only fire 1 weapon to remove evasion. I haven't checked if that setting is still current, but getting your evasion high enough to trigger that behaviour is much, much easier and much more relevant than getting down to a 5% cth. Of course, you'll want enough tokens to stay below that range even after several attacks.
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May 20, 2020 02:53
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The way evasion works in the game is wonky, too. If your percentage to hit is low you've actually got a lower chance to hit than it suggests, and if it's high you've got a higher chance to hit. It's really wonky but you're very unlikely to take a hit at <40%, so if you're in the range where the enemy's only firing single shots the odds of you actually getting tagged are extremely low. I'm not sure how it all works out, I've never gone digging into the math. All I know is, thanks to the light 'Mech bonuses, as long as a Firestarter stays above 3 evasion chevrons even the best AI pilots probably aren't going to land hits.
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May 20, 2020 03:01
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Yeah, that's a good ballpark. I've been wanting to figure out what the proper numbers for evasion tanking were for a while, and now that I dug into it, I thought I'd share.
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May 20, 2020 04:01
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PoptartsNinja posted:If I were playing for score, I'd be "punching up" and taking on missions 1 skull above my level wherever possible (i.e. after collecting some solid mediums). There are big risks when doing this, especially if you go for it too early. I don't play for score because the way the game is scored is loving stupid and actively discourages you from interacting with its most enjoyable systems. I'd appreciate a post (yours or from someone else) about this, because some of the categories seem stupid/impossible, like having all the factions at extreme reputations or visiting every system when the game doesn't give you a way to track visited systems.
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May 20, 2020 12:41
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Having half the factions at max and half at min is technically possible, but yes - stupid. "Technically possible but stupid" describes a lot of ultimate achievements, especially those in games catering to people who've lived and breathed a franchise and setting for longer than many of us have been alive.
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May 20, 2020 14:38
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Fat Samurai posted:I'd appreciate a post (yours or from someone else) about this, because some of the categories seem stupid/impossible, like having all the factions at extreme reputations or visiting every system when the game doesn't give you a way to track visited systems. I don't know if the stock game does this, but there's definitely a mod called something like navigation computer that tags every planet you've visited on the starmap. I think the most stupid bits are requiring a mix of the hated and loved factions, the planet visits, and mostly the CBills number. That bit is just extremely over the top. I'd literally just edit the files and take a zero off it.
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May 20, 2020 14:43
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On the starmap, systems you have visited have little brackets around them. It's very subtle and also difficult to tell on systems with a black market. Also if you mouse over the system it says visited in the corner of the info box.
Catzilla fucked around with this message at 14:54 on May 20, 2020 |
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May 20, 2020 14:50
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Fat Samurai posted:I'd appreciate a post (yours or from someone else) about this, because some of the categories seem stupid/impossible, like having all the factions at extreme reputations or visiting every system when the game doesn't give you a way to track visited systems. You can see the planets you have and havent visited on the starmap, ones youve visited have a circle around them while the ones you havent been to are just a dot. Someone in the Battletech thread basically said in order to get Kerensky rank (which is the max score) they had to rush to heavies and basically farm 4 skull planets for 800 days, mainly for the cbills. My guess is they probably also had lances full of Marauders for most of the missions since headshotting the expensive mechs will net you cbills faster.
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May 20, 2020 14:51
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https://www.reddit.com/r/Battletechgame/comments/e860wg/kerensky_achieved_i_gotta_be_honest_with_yall/ This details how ridiculous it is to get Kerensky rank legit.
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May 21, 2020 10:55
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Let’s Play BattleTech: Career Mode – Traveling Again The next part of our Flashpoint hasn’t shown up yet, so I take the Argo over to Argos for some harder missions. With luck, we’ll have a lot of Federated Suns missions here, but I expect we won’t get too many.  As you can see, any world we’ve passed through has a (o) circle around the dot, while anywhere we haven’t been doesn’t have this circle. Black Markets and Faction Stores hide this, which is a bit unfortunate.  There’s no point in ever choosing the first option unless the Mechwarrior playing at being Dr. Murad grabs your only AC/20 or something. There’s a very slim chance the weapon will be destroyed choosing option 2, most likely it will remain fine, and there’s a chance it’ll be upgraded to a +, ++, or +++ version.  No harm done. On the way to our next planet, the next part of the Dobrev flashpoint chain pops up with a choice:  We can spend 50,000 c-bills to remove an enemy lance from one of the upcoming missions; or we can not and kill them for salvage. It’s not a hard choice.   We’ll have to backtrack to get there, so we continue on to Argos. We also hit a payday and I shell out 5622,350 c-bills.  Our reputation’s not high enough with the AFFS.  Commander, this mission should be simple. A Taurian noble is participating in a patrol, as a show of support for the troops. She’s insisted on using her ancestral family ‘Mech, which is a Cicada CDA-2A. This should make eliminating her quite easy. Recognizing the danger, her handlers have sent along an extremely heavy supporting lance. If you’re quick, and aggressive, you should be able to destroy her little Cicada before her escorts can react. Sliders: Payment 0 (c463800) / Salvage 0 (3/15) Argos 1: Flyswatter (Synopsis) After-Action Report: Battle Record To Date: Undefeated  I got tired of tracking our wins. This is a repeat of the Cicada mission, but instead of spawning an Atlas we just got a few low-end heavy ‘Mechs. OpForce Casualties: 2 Thunderbolts, 1 Dragon, 1 Blackjack, 1 Cicada Allied Casualties: None Rewards & Interesting Salvage: 510,180 c-bills, 3 TDR-5S parts, 2 TDR-SS parts, 1 DRG-1N part  The “Steiner Surprise” Thunderbolt is a downgrade from the standard model. It’s also a weirdo that moves the missile launcher to the opposite side of the torso from the standard Thunderbolt model. Into storage it goes! There’s a convoy of military weaponry being transported in the open on the planet’s surface. Normally we’d simply handle it ourselves, but Taurian leadership has caught wind of our presence and hired a highly-skilled professional mercenary to cover the convoy’s route and intercept any attackers. Being highly-skilled professionals yourselves, we thought perhaps you could pay a visit to this hired gun – and destroy the convoy while you’re at it.  There aren’t many solo operators in this region who I’d describe as ‘highly skilled.’ I wonder if it’s anyone we know? It’s just Alexandria being a bitch. By ‘Highly Skilled’ she means ‘Trash.’ Sliders: Payment +1 (c607750) / Salvage -1 (3/13) Argos 2: Professional Courtesy (Synopsis) After-Action Report: Battle Record To Date: Undefeated I thought about showing this one off, but we’ve got another convoy attack coming up that’s more interesting. OpForce Casualties: 2 Thunderbolts, 4 tanks Allied Casualties: None Rewards & Interesting Salvage: 759,687 c-bills, 3 TDR-5SE parts  The “Special Edition” TDR-5SE is also a downgrade from the standard S model, but I like it better than the Steiner Surprise. Into storage with it!  Right, so. We’re doing a little backtracking back to the Flashpoint, which is why I called this a ‘traveling’ update. 23 days is enough to finish the Assassin and since Tiverton’s a 1 skull black market planet we’ll blap some lights with it and show it off. It’ll be a while before we “need” the Assassin for an actual mission, but most of our ‘Mechs are overkill for bug squishing.  This is a choice between a Medical Point reduction, MechTech reduction, or a couple of Mechwarriors get low spirits. We can probably eat the medical point reduction, but we don’t have cockpit mods yet so I make the Mechwarriors do it and pray it isn’t our star headcapper that eats the low spirits.  Well, poo poo. At least we start work on improving the Argo’s library.  A JumpShip pilot told me there’s an off-the-books digital distribution service. They get tri-vid and books from DropShips and sell them under the table. It would be more interesting than the decade-old ‘Mech magazines Yang keeps putting in the library, anyway. We arrive at Tiverton. I’m still looking for Ultra AC/2s, but--hey there!  A UAC/20 is a gimmick weapon, but it’s a fun gimmick. That Small Pulse Laser is really good, too. It does 45 damage, the same as the stock Large Laser. I nab it for the Firestarter.  Commander, we’ve been tracking a local government lance moving through a contested area on the planet’s surface. A few hours ago, our scouts reported another lance, of unknown allegiance, on an interception course. We suspect a fight is brewing, and we’d like you to act as a spoiler. Eliminate the local government lance, and the unknown ambushers as well. We don’t want to leave any witnesses. It might make sense to hang back and see how badly they bloody each other before leaping into the fray. It’s a one-skull mission, Darius. We’re just going to steamroll this. Sliders: Payment +1 (c485350) / Salvage -1 (2/8) Tiverton 1: Spoiler (Synopsis)(Commentary)(No Commentary) After-Action Report: Battle Record To Date: Undefeated OpForce Casualties: 1 Griffin, 1 Hatchetman, 2 Commandos, 1 Jenner, 1 Javelin, 1 Spider Allied Casualties: None Rewards & Interesting Salvage: 485,350 c-bills, 2 HTC-3X parts, 1 COM-2D part, 1 JVN-10A part Since the rest of these are just chaff missions, I’m going to sum up our rewards so we can make the jump to Independence. I was wrong, there wasn’t another convoy ambush. Oh well! Total Rewards and Salvage: 2,241,005 total c-bills, 2 JR7-D parts, 1 PNT-9R part, 1 HBK-4P part, 1 FLE-15 part, 1 LCT-1S part, 1 SDR-5V part, 1 JVN-10A part    Next Time: Boba Fett? Where?!
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May 21, 2020 21:25
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That was a lot more effective than I was expecting of a light mech and one weapon.
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May 21, 2020 21:46
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Sadly it's all the Assassin is good for in game. Once you start getting into the Heavy and Assault 'Mech phase, it turns into a liability. It's weapon can't reliably one-shot things that are beefy enough to take hits, and it has trouble generating enough evasion to not get murdered by return fire. Early game it is murderous though. Personally, my favorite of the 3 freebie 'Mechs you get from the Heavy Metal crate is the Vulcan, which is a Firestarter-lite. Only 4 Support weapon slots to the Firestarter's 6 (5 once you equip a gyro), but it adds an extra 90m of range to all support weapons, so in the early to mid-game, it can serve much the same purpose as a Firestarter. Alas though, it too suffers in the late game, but this time because it's CQC Suite takes up too much room and you can't slap on a +3 hit defense gyro.
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May 21, 2020 22:39
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The CQC Suite somewhat makes up for its size by giving an insane +8 melee hit defense. It's nowhere near as good at stacking evasion as a light 'Mech, but against the few AI 'Mechs that are programmed to prioritize melee attacks (Hatchetman, Banshee) the Vulcan is a great choice.
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May 21, 2020 22:42
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A vulcan kitted out with a full rack of machine guns is a hilarious crit seeking party bus
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May 21, 2020 22:45
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I love the small lasers popping off after the Firestarter punches a mech to death, just heaping insult on injury.
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May 22, 2020 00:57
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Zeroisanumber posted:I love the small lasers popping off after the Firestarter punches a mech to death, just heaping insult on injury. Doubly so whenb it blows out another mech section on the downed mech
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May 22, 2020 01:00
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The Assassin was surprisingly satisfying to watch in action.
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May 22, 2020 01:01
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Veloxyll posted:Doubly so whenb it blows out another mech section on the downed mech The best is when it takes out the head of an already incapacitated 'Mech.
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May 22, 2020 04:03
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PoptartsNinja posted:I'm not lying when I say the Firestarter is an endgame 'Mech, it will be in every one of our lances unless circumstances force me to not bring it. Morgan Kell I'd never even considered this fit, but it just solo two-shot a Cyclops for me and I think I'm in love. Thanks, friend.
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May 22, 2020 04:24
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How often are mech pilots shot out of hand after a battle? Considering how terrifying mechs are and the amount of damage they do seems like some Atlas-traumatized infantryman would just yank them out and shoot them.
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May 22, 2020 06:30
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Zeroisanumber posted:How often are mech pilots shot out of hand after a battle? Considering how terrifying mechs are and the amount of damage they do seems like some Atlas-traumatized infantryman would just yank them out and shoot them. Then you lose their ransom!
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May 22, 2020 06:44
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I've never run the Assassin so it was nice to see it in action with a big COIL. Blap!
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May 22, 2020 06:55
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The Lone Badger posted:Then you lose their ransom! There's also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_chit but in space!
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May 22, 2020 08:55
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Mechwarriors generally try not to get a reputation for headcapping, because that gets them killed in the long run. If it happens accidentally that's one thing, but the moment a mercenary company develops a reputation for casually murdering its opponents, other military units definitely take notice and you wind up on a 'kill on sight, take no prisoners' list. That's the boat House Kurita's in, incidentally. They don't take prisoners as official state policy and their Mechwarriors often only lose once, which isn't conductive to learning but who cares? They've got more Hedge Samurai kids to throw into battle than they know what to do with. The Argonauts are a hair's breadth from being pirates so we're probably already K.O.S. in a lot of places.
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May 22, 2020 11:04
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Incidentally, why don't local governments blow the Argo out of the void as soon as it arrives in-system?
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May 22, 2020 11:13
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The Lone Badger posted:Incidentally, why don't local governments blow the Argo out of the void as soon as it arrives in-system?
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May 22, 2020 11:20
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They're murder gig-workers. Not murder self-employed. The board of Merc thingy makes it totally legitimate.
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May 22, 2020 11:26
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Mercenaries in general, yes. But the Argonauts specifically tend to work for pirates and be bad news for the local government. They've got mechs sure, but mechs are land units. No use at all if you just blow the main ship before they get a chance to land.
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May 22, 2020 11:32
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The Lone Badger posted:Mercenaries in general, yes. But the Argonauts specifically tend to work for pirates and be bad news for the local government. goatface posted:The board of Merc thingy makes it totally legitimate.
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May 22, 2020 11:35
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The Lone Badger posted:Incidentally, why don't local governments blow the Argo out of the void as soon as it arrives in-system? This is the periphery, the locals don't even realize the Argo's here until it's in orbit looking for work; after which the local (almost certainly pirate) government finds something for them to do. Or else. There's a reason the "Local Government" and "Pirate" factions use the same portrait.  I photoshopped the eyepatch onto the pirate rep so you could tell them apart in the LP.
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May 22, 2020 12:11
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Yeah in this portion of the Periphery, 'Local Government' is pretty much 'Pirate with a veneer of legitimacy'.
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May 22, 2020 12:35
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