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Let’s Play BattleTech and rewri—wait, wrong thread. Let’s Play BattleTech: Career Mode!  You have everything an industrious mercenary commander could want: a crew of talented misfits, a lance of ancient BattleMechs, and a derelict cargo ship to call home. It’s one thing to finish a mission in one piece, more or less. But it’s another to keep your MechWarriors happy and healthy, your ‘Mechs patched up and ready for action, and your balance sheet firmly in the black. As the rumors of another war of succession intensify, the Mercenary Revew Board announces new evaluation protocols to assess the mercenary companies of the Periphery… with a score. Hey there, everyone, it’s PoptartsNinja! As some of you might surmise (from the fact that I'm running two different BattleTech LPs simultaneously), I really like BattleTech. Both the tabletop game, and the fantastic computer game produced by Harebrained Schemes. I figured it was past time someone did an LP of BattleTech, so we’ll be playing in Career Mode, a freeform game mode free of most of the trappings of the campaign. We’re playing completely vanilla and there’s going to be plenty to do, so I’m going to jump right into our difficulty settings:  We’ll be playing with a few handicaps, and one boon. Fixed Settings: With Unequipped ‘Mechs enabled, anything we salvage from the battlefield starts weaponless and without any non-integral equipment. Standard number of parts needed to assemble a ‘mech is 3, we’re set to 4 to make salvaging a little more difficult and Variable Settings: We can change the rest of these mid-campaign, but I won’t be. Enemy Force Strength shifts the difficulty values behind the scenes, but we’re keeping it on normal. This one’s a lie anyway. Easy delays the endgame so it’s quite hard, hard means the endgame comes early so it’s hard, briefly, before it’s very easy. Advanced Mechwarriors can spawn in shops at the standard rate. With Mech Destruction turned on, if I gently caress up and lose a ‘Mech it’s gone for good which might be enough to get me to take an early withdrawal from an unwinnable mission…  … Hahaha! Nope! If I lose something it means I hosed up bad or I got unlucky and I’ll just have to lump it. Contract Payment is normal, but Salvage is set to generous because even at 4 pieces I’d still like to get out of the starting ‘Mechs eventually. Mechwarrior Progression remains normal, Lethality is turned off because the game’s already deadly enough, and I like Rare Salvage because it makes some midgame choices a lot harder. We’re also going to need a character, but they won’t be seeing much action. This is our new Dear Leader:   Ajax “JSON” Othonos, gender-neutral pronouns because gently caress the MAGA chuds. Don’t worry, you won’t be seeing much of JSON, the player character’s stats don’t count towards endgame score so JSON is going to be much more of a manager than a fighter. If we have to send JSON into battle it means I’ve hosed up. JSON is from the Free Worlds League, which makes them a noble and I’m going for a theme. As a young adult, their family was betrayed and murdered and as a result they became a pirate. This gets them some nice starting stats (which we’ll hopefully never need) and they’ll start the game with 1800 combat experience which will make them (very temporarily) the best pilot in the company.  This is the Argo, our ship and—gently caress. We need to do something about that Mercenary Company name. Marauders? What are we, Sergeant Slaughter? Hold on.   That’s better! JSON and the Argonauts are open for business! It’s time to Golden Fleece the Inner Sphere of a tiny but personally significant fraction of its precious lucre! But before we can take a contract, let’s see what sort of walking garbage heaps the game has given us for Starter ‘Mechs… … Wait. … Holy poo poo!  We have hit the starter lance jackpot! The Centurion is a 50 tonner, and the best ‘Mech we can pull. Most early-game enemies start with half health, so an AC/10 is effectively an AC/20 until we start hitting about 1.5-2 skulls. The Centurion has amazing potential and will last us through the midgame, but it gets even better! The Enforcer is another solid early-game performer with an AC/10 and a large laser. It won’t be great midgame but it starts with Jump Jets and with any luck we’ll be able to trade up into a Griffin. The Jenner isn’t the best light ‘Mech, but it’s second only to the Firestarter so I’ll take it. It’s melee damage is low but it’s fast enough to generate incredible movement modifiers and squishy enough that the AI loves to shoot at it making it a fairly effective evasion tank. The Commando is a dumpster fire, this one comes with a large laser. I only have one use for this Commando: dumping it into storage so it doesn’t cost me upkeep and selling it before the end of the first pay period. But hey, they can’t all be winners! Nor do they need to be, because our last ‘Mech is what turns this start from solid to amazing. We got an UrbanMech! gently caress yeah! The game treats the UrbanMech like it’s on the same tier as the Commando and Spider. The game is loving wrong, the UrbanMech is absolutely murderous in the early game. It’s got another Autocannon/10 (giving us three total) and I guarantee it’s going to put in work. We don’t do any customizing to start, it’s a waste of time that we could be spending getting money. Now, let’s see if we got lucky with our MechWarriors…  Booster’s solid, starting with gunnery 4 is an early-game jackpot. She’s going to be a good performer and will probably live in the Centurion until she gets injured. She’s got a long pre-game history for a starter: she’s a Liao commoner, ex-merchant ship crew, and a mercenary corporal. By comparison, Ironwood is complete trash. He’s a… y’know what?  gently caress Ironwood, he’s fired.  Helllooooo Venom! We can tolerate that two gunnery for the one mission it will take to bump that up to something reasonable. She’s a Canopian commoner who served as an independent trader before joining up with us. You’ll also probably notice we can’t hire Showbiz, who’s comparable stat-wise to Booster. We’re not famous enough to hire a pilot that good, so we got exceptionally lucky. Anyway Thoth is a Davion noble and Rifle is a Canopian noble. They’re both acceptable without being exceptional, tactics is a good skill so I don’t mind it starting high even if only one of them will get to become our coveted Master Tactician. We’ll get solid performance out of them once they have a few missions under their belts. I’m also open to suggestions for Callsigns, but any changes won’t happen until after we visit our third planet. Speaking of which, where the gently caress are we?  gently caress. I knew our good luck had a price, this is not a great start. Claybrooke is mostly surrounded by skull level 3 and 4 planets, but check those planet modifiers! Former Star League Presence means interesting things in the shops while Rich means lots of missions. It’s not ideal, but it’s the early game, we’re going to descend onto this planet full of rich idiots like a swarm of money-eating locusts! If we’d been lucky, we would’ve started down here, at Independence. Independence has the same planet modifiers and puts us much closer to something very interesting.  And it could’ve been much worse!  I’ve been forced to start at Lindsay before. Anyway, our DropShip’s a I then check out the shop, and we’re immediately greeted by something I really want but can’t have:  Combined, all the missions on Claybrooke total up to 2.75 million c-bills. That King Crab will be gone if we ever visit here again. Oh well, them’s the breaks. But seriously, though, that’s not the best thing I found in Claybrooke’s shop.  What’s with this start?! Double Heat Sinks are worth their weight in gold, figuratively and literally since they weigh a ton and they cost a ton. We’ll have both of these by the time we leave this miserable dirtball. Weapons-wise there was nothing to write home about. An ER Large Laser, Medium Pulse Laser, and Gauss Rifle ammunition were the sum total of lostech weapons. I will spend 100k to buy a couple of tons of gauss ammo before we leave. It’s wishful thinking on my part but Gauss ammo is semi-rare. The ER Large Laser and Medium Pulse Laser aren’t worth considering. Speaking of LosTech, before we get any further we’re going to need to advance time by precisely one day.    That gets us a 6th ‘Mech and some free LosTech weapons. The Assassin is an interesting beast, it’s got a special module that lets it ignore a certain amount of enemy evasion which would make it very deadly to light BattleMechs if it wasn’t such a piece of under-gunned trash. The Assassin is terrible unless you luck into a very specific weapon. We did not get that weapon, so I’m going to be very hard pressed to find a use for this thing. Even the Commando is ever so slightly more dangerous as-is. I’ll still keep it available in the hopes that we get black market access in the first 4-6 months of play and luck into a black market actually having the weapon that makes it amazing, but I’m not holding my breath, in my experience coil weapons are extraordinarily rare. The LB 2-X is also a waste unless you’ve got them in numbers. It’s effectively an extremely long range SRM-4++ so massed they’re not bad, but as-is I’m probably just going to sell it. I’ll have plenty of money by the time I can even consider trying to make an LB 2-X useful. I’ve gotten LB 20-Xes out of this lootcrate before, so this is terrible luck.  Remember that Ultra AC/5 though, we’ll get use out of that later. Having spent a little over 100k hiring a newbie and buying that Gauss Rifle ammo (I have dreams, ok?!) it’s time to take a look at our available missions:  Of the seven missions here, five of them are playable. Two are Defend Base, which means they can gently caress right off, we’re not doing those on a starter planet. I’ll show you why those suck later. Of the five remaining, most are targeting the Capellan Confederation, which means the CapCom will likely become our designated punching bags this game. This could let us ally with House Mark, Steiner, Kurita, or Davion easily enough. Of those, House Davion has the best endgame shop but I’m not going to let those influence our decisions. We’ll let the money do that. Which brings us to missions, and this LP’s gimmick. We’ll be running through every available mission on a planet that I feel is viable and will be enjoyable to play and watch. That means I’ll be skipping mission types I don’t enjoy unless our funds get critically low, but it should make for interesting viewing regardless. I won’t be commenting on every mission, only ones with new mission types, when I feel a mission was fun and worthy of commentary, or if something goes dramatically wrong. Claybrooke Missions Our first mission will be Letter of Marque, as offered by Davinder Singh of the Free Worlds League.  The Marik citizens here have been suffering at the hands of a local band of brigands – remnants from a Capellan battalion that saw action in the Third Succession War. With no prospects or funds, they’ve become common criminals. You are to eliminate them, down to the last ‘Mech and vehicle.  Commander, we can expect to face experienced pilots in elderly ‘Mechs and vehicles. But be careful; there could be more of these ‘bandits’ than the Free Worlds League is letting on. This mission has a few keywords we need to watch out for. ‘Brigands’ and ‘Bandits’ often means our opposition is pirates and we do not want to piss off the pirates at this stage of the game. Fortunately, ‘Capellans’ always means ‘Capellans’ so most other keywords are moot. This is a half-skull mission, so we will immediately negotiate for more money.  The OpForce will almost certainly be some combination of half-armor light tanks, Locusts, Spiders, Commandos, and maybe a Javelin if they’re getting fancy. Of those, only the Javelin is even remotely dangerous. We’re not missing any key salvage here and in the early game you don’t want to be tempted to try for a fancy takedown when you can just kill something and move on. The only ‘Mech we have a slim chance of seeing that I’d like salvage for is the Firestarter, but in my experience those won’t show up until we do a 1 skull mission. Claybrooke 1: Letter of Marque (Commentary) After-Action Report: Battle Record To Date (Victory/Loss/Draw): 1/0/0 OpForce Casualties: 1 Flea, 1 Javelin, 1 Spider, 1 Striker tank, 1 Galeon tank, 1 Scorpion tank Allied Casualties: None Rewards & Chosen Salvage: 154,700 c-bills, 1 SRM-6 Good Random Salvage Received: 1 additional SRM-6, 2 small lasers We can’t do anything after the first mission, so we’re rolling straight into the second. A Marik family lost a large area of land on Claybrooke, thanks to dubious legal maneuvering by Capellan agents. This land includes an important ancestral military base. We need this base taken back from Liao and held until this can be sorted out. I don’t buy the ‘ancestral fortress’ part of this, but the legal maneuverings check out. Commander, a merc company coming in could resolve this quickly and prevent a large-scale conflict. Yes, good, but how much does it pay?  It’s a base capture, so I bank on turrets. Turrets often have good weapons and right now we need weapons more than we need half-skull ‘Mech parts. This does not pay off. Claybrooke 2: Contested Will (Commentary) After-Action Report: Battle Record To Date (Victory/Loss/Draw): 2/0/0 OpForce Casualties: 1 Spider, Striker tank, Galeon tank, Scorpion tank, an ant on the ground ten feet in front of the UrbanMech Allied Casualties: My Dignity Rewards & Chosen Salvage: 108,600 c-bills, 1 medium laser, 1 SRM-6 Good Random Salvage Received: Spider-5V parts, 1 small laser MechWarrior Stat Ups: Booster: Guts 4 (4/3/4/4) Rifle: Gunnery 4 (4/3/3/4) Thoth: Gunnery 4 (4/3/3/4) Venom: Gunnery 3 (3/4/3/3) A lance of pirate BattleMechs has been rampaging in Marik territory on Claybrooke. They’ve been razing population centers, burning fields and refineries, looting storage facilities. They’re clearly doing everything they can think of to drive our people out. This is terrorism, pure and simple. We need you to find them and destroy them - no escape, and no prisoners. Not much to say, Commander. Shoot to kill.  I learned my lesson. Those Double Heat Sinks are worth far more than any salvage we’ll get on Claybrooke. This mission is exactly five minutes long so this was a good call. Claybrooke 3: Last ‘Mech Standing (No Commentary) After-Action Report: Battle Record To Date (Victory/Loss/Draw): 3/0/0 OpForce Casualties: 1 Commando, 1 Javelin Allied Casualties: None Rewards & Chosen Salvage: 200,200 c-bills, JVN-10F parts Good Random Salvage Received: 2 medium lasers MechWarrior Stat Ups: Venom: Gunnery 4 (4/4/3/3) For weeks now, Capellan forces have been scouting territory near Marik-controlled land. Previous surveys of this land shows nothing of interest, yet there they are. Whatever it is that they’ve found, we don’t want them to have it. Go in there and destroy them. Commander, this could be a wild goose chase. Of course, if there’s nothing to find, they haven’t wasted the time of their own ‘Mechs.  Double. Heatsinks. This mission is extremely lucrative for the early game, which means the mission designer thinks it’s going to be hard. It’s a one skull but Firestarters are extremely rare, and since they’re the only early game salvage worth hunting for I’m not worried about taking the money. See thread title. Claybrooke 4: Name (No Commentary) After-Action Report: Battle Record To Date (Victory/Loss/Draw): 4/0/0 OpForce Casualties: 1 Spider, 1 Flea, 2 Locusts Allied Casualties: 4 points of rear center torso structure on the Enforcer. It’s not worth my time to fix it now so this damage will be ignored. Rewards & Chosen Salvage: 530,200 c-bills, SDR-5K parts Good Random Salvage Received: 1 small laser MechWarrior Stat Ups: Booster: Guts 5 (4/3/5/4), specialty changes to Defender Rifle: Guts 4 (4/3/4/4) Thoth: Guts 4 (4/3/4/4) Guts 5 unlocks the Bulwark Special Pilot Ability. With Bulwark, passive cover (trees, some weather effects) grant 40% damage reduction rather than 20%. With both Cover and Guarded, damage reduction is increased to 60%. Bulwark is so vital for the end game that all of our pilots will be getting it, but pilots on our A-Team will not share the same skill combos.  We have reliable information that a remote Marik laboratory is attempting to reverse-engineer sensitive Lyran technology in violation of the usage license. They have failed to respond to our communications that they cease and desist these unlawful operations. Therefore, we authorize you to execute the license termination clause upon that facility. What’s the big deal? It’s not like the Lyran Commonwealth is developing a new BattleMech or anything. Haa… ha… aha… This contract does not specify any retrieval, Commander. We are to bring the base down and destroy the tech with it.  Base Destruction always means turrets, and sometimes means rare ‘Mechs in defender roles. I’m willing to take a minor risk for a little extra salvage. Claybrooke 5: Cease and Desist (Commentary) After-Action Report: Battle Record To Date (Victory/Loss/Draw): 5/0/0 OpForce Casualties: 2 Jenners, 1 Panther, 4 Light Turrets (Various), 1 rock Allied Casualties: Rifle’s redneck pride, 7 points of damage on both of the Jenner’s arms, Venom 23 days injured Rewards & Chosen Salvage: 467,032 c-bills, 2 JR7-D parts Good Random Salvage Received: 1 JR7-D part, 1 PNT-9R part MechWarrior Stat Ups: Venom: Piloting 5 (4/5/3/3), specialty changes to Pilot Rifle: Guts 5 (4/3/5/4) Thoth: Guts 5 (4/3/5/4) Guts and Rifle both pick up Bulwark, Venom picks up Sure Footing. Sure Footing grants 1 bonus evasive charge after every movement, which can exceed the unit’s maximum. If the unit moves normally, it also gains stability damage reduction which makes it harder to knock down. Sure Footing is good defensively but not as strong as Bulwark. Next Time: We do some 'Mech customization on the way to our new Home Planet. Will we spend more than 3 days there? Probably not.
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Mar 21, 2020 02:25
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Table of Contents Arn Joppa Alloway Detroit Cluff's Stand Joint Venture Flashpoint Adrar White Lies Flashpoint Traveling Of Unknown Origin Flashpoint Gaucin Traveling Again Hunting Season Flashpoint Even More Traveling (Sorry)! The Tournament of Champions Next Planet - Coming soon! PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Sep 10, 2020 |
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Mar 21, 2020 02:25
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I am sure naming your character Json should be causing some kinda issue with file saving. No real reason.
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Mar 21, 2020 03:04
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I left out the dot!
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Mar 21, 2020 04:03
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I know for a fact that mechs can also be renamed, and thus I humbly request that the Urbanmech be renamed "Thrash Can" in the future, if possible.
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Mar 21, 2020 05:20
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Oh, ground floor? Sure thing!
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Mar 21, 2020 05:36
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Ooh another battletech LP.
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Mar 21, 2020 10:31
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Got an urbie start, that's a good sign. Meanwhile the Assassin's just sitting at home, waiting for a COIL to come its way
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Mar 21, 2020 11:40
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I'm a simple man, I see a new Battletech LP, I post on the front page. Sweet. I've loved Battletech for a while, but I've been pretty resistant to playing the computer game at all after a real, real bad experience with the demo however many years ago; it's just been sitting unplayed in Steam reproaching me every time I just walk past it and open up Megamek/MekHQ again. 
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Mar 21, 2020 12:23
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I do love me some Battlemechs, good to see this up finally!
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Mar 21, 2020 12:58
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BattleTech? With a career mode? By PoptartsNinja? On the ground floor? Easy posting decision. I’m going to have to try this game. MW2: Mercenaries was one of my favourite games as a kid.
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Mar 21, 2020 13:59
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Sweet, more Battletech! I haven't played it for quite a bit, so I'm interested to see what they've added with the DLCS.
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Mar 21, 2020 14:46
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One of the few games i have backed on Kickstarter and has been worth every second and penny. I love this game and this run is going to make me play along.
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Mar 21, 2020 16:18
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The random starts seem to go between certain planets. I've started on Claybrooke twice now and it's always had a shitload of lostech after Heavy Metal came out. Obviously I bankrupted myself buying it all.
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Mar 21, 2020 18:17
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I've looked at getting this game, off and on, but never pulled the trigger. Certainly pretty to watch someone who knows what they're doing take it apart.
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Mar 21, 2020 18:32
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what're coils and why does the robbit need one?
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Mar 21, 2020 19:07
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... Just wait until you see what happens on our first assassination mission. 
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Mar 21, 2020 19:09
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SSNeoman posted:what're coils and why does the robbit need one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le2eB2xtvBQ
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Mar 21, 2020 19:43
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I knew what that was before I clicked on it.  And it's true, right now the Assassin is completely useless because it's got no springs
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Mar 21, 2020 19:52
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Never saw a career mode LP of this franchise.
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Mar 21, 2020 23:08
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Is that man a redneck or a Brummie?
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Mar 21, 2020 23:21
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I vote that a pilot gets named Rooster. No reason. 
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Mar 22, 2020 04:04
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Let’s Play BattleTech: Career Mode – Arn I’m a dumbass and managed to not take a screenshot, but we’re bypassing the nearest 1 skull planet to make a double-jump to a nearby half-skull planet named ‘Arn.’ Not only can we get there more quickly than we could get to the one skull planet, but it puts us in a better position once Things start to happen on the map screen. Speed is important, and we’ll have just enough time while we travel to make a critical upgrade to the Centurion, and some minor tweaks to both the Enforcer and the Jenner.  The Centurion’s entire armament has been ripped out, save for a single medium laser in the center torso. I did buy those double heat sinks, so one of them finds a home in the Centurion’s center torso where it’s both heavily protected and gives our hottest ‘Mech an early-game edge. The Centurion’s Autocannon/10 is gone, and in place of its lovely LRM-10 we’ve fitted three of our SRM-6s. Two tons of ammo should be enough to feed them, but the game loves pulling surprises and you never know when you’ll need a little extra endurance so I opt for three tons. The rest of the tonnage we freed up by ripping out the AC/10 gets spent on armor, jump jets, and a small laser to make the Centurion a slightly better Locust puncher.  The Enforcer is largely unchanged, except the autocannon ammo has been moved from the torso into the leg for safety. It already runs cold, so I pulled out a heat sink to up the armor by a ton.  The Jenner gets a similar treatment, we’re pulling out the SRM-4 and its ammo in exchange for extra armor to make it a better tank. Yes, the Jenner is a tank. No, I won’t be able to prove it to you just yet.  In the upper right hand corner, you can see our travel time. Repairing the Jenner and Enforcer and takes a day each, but the Centurion’s upgrade takes a whopping 23 days to finish. Customization happens consecutively, our work crews can only focus on one ‘Mech at a time. Venom was injured in our last battle, and it’s going to take her 23 days to heal. Travel to Arn will take 27 days total, and since we lost a day at the very start of the campaign our Mechwarriors get paid in 29 days. That means we have enough time to reach a new planet and do a bunch of missions before I’m out money, which is good because I spent 1.2 million on those double heat sinks and we’re below a certain threshold. We really want Black Market access, and that’s expensive, I’d like to have 2 million banked by the time we leave Arn. Along the way we also finish doing basic redneck-proofing of the Argo’s power systems, so we’ll spend 90,000 c-bills to start upgrading the structural supports.  It’s unclear which is more terrifying, Commander: the Argo’s power systems or its internal structure. We can do very little to improve on the ship while it’s still in danger of buckling under even the modest forces exerted by the grav deck and the drive. Ten days before we reach Arn, we also see our first event!  Events usually have pretty logical outcomes. In this case: 1) If we order Venom to stay and complete treatment she’s probably going to pick up a negative trait of some sort but if her magic narwhal powder is Space Cocaine this will save her from her inevitable overdose. 2) If her magic narwhal powder actually does what she thinks, we’ll get a boost to our medtech rating for a month or so, which will help us if anyone gets injured. If it’s snake oil, it’ll probably make Venom sad. 3) We get Venom back early, but if we roll a bad percentage she could die or (more likely) get stuck with even more time in sickbay. I go with option 2 because it feels like it has the tamest bad outcomes.  We made Venom sad. Low Spirits makes our two command abilities cost double points if we use them with Venom mid-mission. Low Spirits is bad but 14 days is nothing and she’s not our chief killbot driver so I don’t care. Don’t spend your signing bonus on stupid poo poo, Venom. At least it’s not a 50% interest new used car. We also get an announcement that Flashpoints have started. Flashpoints are special missions that appear on the map and either offer extra rewards or unlock some bonus. The current flashpoints we have access to are Prototype which unlocks the Raven and gives us the option to steal one, Joint Venture which unlocks the Hatchetman and comes with an absolutely brutal base defense mission we can’t accomplish at the moment, and…  This is why I wanted to spawn down near Independence. This one’s on the bottom edge of the map, it’s actually a chain of flashpoints that unlock progressively better things. It doesn’t have an expiration date, but at 42 days away and 330,000 c-bills to travel there it’ll be a while before we can start it. Hopefully, we’ll have better ‘Mechs by then because flashpoint enemies don’t gently caress around. After arriving at Arn, our ‘Mechs are fully upgraded and all of our pilots are ready for action. I always check the shop first thing, but the only interesting thing is an Archer we can’t afford. None of the weapons or equipment are worth a drat. Unfortunate, but that just gives me an incentive to not spend money. I also check out the hiring hall, and we encounter our first  Ronin are semi-unique, they die forever if you kill or fire them. I probably won’t point any of these out in the future, unless we bump into War Boar. I’m going to quote part of War Boar’s gamepedia wiki article verbatim: quote:The best Mech for this pilot is the agromech, as it can handle strenuous loads much better than a battlemech and does not include an ejection pod. Joking aside, the missions on Arn aren’t very lucrative, but we do see a new employer!  Pirates are a faction everyone else hates. They’re easy punching bags and their ‘Mechs usually have half armor, but at the same time they’re also the one faction you never ever want to piss off. If you have an opportunity to do a pirate mission it’s usually best to take it just in case one of your flashpoints decides the OpForce are pirates part way through. Arn Missions  Commander, we’ve been tracking a Marik 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 Marik 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.  Arn 1: Spoiler (Commentary) After-Action Report: Battle Record To Date (Victory/Loss/Draw): 6/0/0 OpForce Casualties: 1 Enforcer, 2 Spiders, 2 Locusts, 1 Javelin Allied Casualties: Minor damage to the Enforcer’s structure, our Commando (because I remembered to sell it after this mission so we wouldn’t need to pay upkeep at the end of the pay period) Rewards & Chosen Salvage: 231,200 c-bills, 215,040 c-bills from selling our lovely Commando, ENF-4R parts, 1 large laser Good Random Salvage Received: SDR-5V parts, 1 medium laser, 1 small laser  We are offering a sizeable bounty for the head of a local outlaw. The target is a rogue Capellan MechWarrior who has attacked local government personnel and facilities in this system. We need a mercenary company to find her and take her down before she takes out her aggressions on any more of our settlements. ‘Outlaw’ usually means pirate, but as I said before: ‘Capellan’ always means Capellan. If I had to guess, Commander, I’d say the ‘outlaw’ part of this is just propaganda. Outlaw or not, though, the payout’s the same for us.  Arn 2: Frontier Justice (No Commentary) After-Action Report: Battle Record To Date (Victory/Loss/Draw): 7/0/0 OpForce Casualties: 1 Hunchback, 1 Javelin, 1 Locust, 1 Commando, The AI's Pathfinding Allied Casualties: More rear structure on the Enforcer, Booster out of action for 18 days, so our biggest casualty is time. Rewards & Chosen Salvage: 243,000 c-bills, HBK-4P parts Good Random Salvage Received: JVN-10N parts, LCT-1M parts MechWarrior Stat Ups: Booster: Piloting 5 (4/5/5/4) Rifle: Gunnery 5 (5/3/5/4) Thoth: Tactics 5 (4/3/5/5) Rifle gains the Multi-Target skill, allowing him to engage up to 3 enemies in a single attack. This is usually a waste of our time. Booster gains Sure Footing, which Venom already has. Thoth gains Sensor Lock, which allows him to spy on enemies in the fog of war or strip 2 evasion pips from something with a single action. Sensor Lock isn’t great, but it’s occasionally useful against light ‘Mechs or to take shots at turrets from outside their vision range. With Booster out of action, four days of repair on the Enforcer, and our payroll coming due tomorrow I decide to advance time. We could hire a Mechwarrior from the shop to temp, or I could go into battle myself but… that’s what I’m paying people for. It’s time to actually pay them.  Our expenses this month are 255,500 c-bills, but we’re still up nearly 400k compared to where we were at when we arrived. I’d like to be closer to 1.5 million by the time we leave, but most of the missions here just aren’t very lucrative.  Next month, I decide to take a risk and up our pay to ‘Generous.’ That gets us a bonus to morale, putting us one shy of the next tier. When we reach 30+ morale, we’ll start generating 25 of our combat-spendable resource per turn rather than just 15 which means I get to make more targeted shots. It’s expensive, and it will be even more expensive if we have to hire some extra pilots between now and the end of the next pay period, but I still feel it’s worth the risk. We also want to avoid paying extravagant wages whenever possible, though. If we pay our mercenaries too much they may decide to retire. While the clock is ticking on Booster’s injury, we have our second event. This is why it’s important to keep a little nest egg handy:  This one’s a purely negative option at the moment. We can either spend 10,000 and this event gets put back into the cue (I believe upgrading our power systems again makes it go away but I could be wrong) or we kill our morale by telling our MechWarriors to suck it up and some of them may even pick up irritating traits. If we were over a world with industry we could fix the problem for good and get a morale boost, but we’re not. Fortunately, 10,000 c-bills is chump change. Never cheap out on the health and welfare of your employees.  Back to combat! A Marik philanthropist is a patron of the arts here in Arn. A favored painter has been accused of heresy by the system’s religious police. These zealots are propped up by foreign Capellan agents. He’ll be extradited to face trial and likely execution in Capellan territory. We can’t allow that to happen, but we don’t want to incur reprisal from the religious leaders. That’s where you come in. Locate the painter, rescue him, and at the personal request of the patron, recover the painting that started this whole mess. I don’t get it. What’s so offensive about Dickbutt? Commander, I don’t pretend to understand what’s so offensive about this painting, but they take that sort of thing seriously here. As for retrieving the painting, apparently it’s worth even more after all this controversy.  This mission is worth basically nothing, with a maximum payout of 83,600 c-bills. I go for the salvage but the odds of us getting anything good is slim. Arn 3: One Man’s Art (No Commentary) After-Action Report: Battle Record To Date (Victory/Loss/Draw): 8/0/0 OpForce Casualties: 1 Jenner, 1 Firestarter, 2 Locusts, 1 Striker tank, 1 Scorpion tank, 1 Galleon tank Allied Casualties: Our relationship with the Capellan Confederation Rewards & Chosen Salvage: 9,880 c-bills, FS9-H parts, JR7-D parts, LCT-1S parts (x2) Good Random Salvage Received: We got everything on the salvage list except a small laser and an LRM ammo.  gently caress yeah, the dumb risk pays off! Even better, we’ve got four Jenner parts so we’ve finally salvaged our first ‘Mech!  I dump it straight into storage. While it’s nice having a spare Jenner, we don’t need two and I don’t want to pay the upkeep. Since it starts without weapons, we’d have to spend time setting it up anyway and odds are pretty good I’d dump it straight into storage the next time we salvage something else. MechWarrior Stat Ups: Venom: Guts 5 (4/5/5/3) Venom gets Bulwark. Commander, the local government leadership has been taking an increasingly hard line against Marik-affiliated corporate interests in the Rimward Periphery; local government leadership has recently authorized the military interdiction of assets and resources from our corporate affiliates. Their behavior is tantamount to theft, and cannot go unpunished. We need you to send a message back to them by destroying one of their munitions factories on Arn. This sort of tit-for-tat never works out well, but it means work for us.  Woah, take the money and run! Arn 4: Sending a Message (No Commentary) After-Action Report: Battle Record To Date (Victory/Loss/Draw): 9/0/0 OpForce Casualties: 2 Locusts, 1 Striker tank, 1 Scorpion tank, 4 turrets Allied Casualties: None Rewards & Chosen Salvage: 540,000 c-bills, LCT-1E parts Good Random Salvage Received: Nothing. I’m really glad I didn’t go for salvage on this one! Next Time: Goodbye, Moon Man! PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Mar 26, 2020 |
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Mar 22, 2020 04:34
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I wonder if a Bullshark is in the future's cards? Although I'm more wondering what the first Assault of the Argonauts will actually be thanks to all this random stuff.
Gideon020 fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Mar 22, 2020 |
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Mar 22, 2020 04:54
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Yeah Jenner's are absolute tanks for their weight and its weird because I'm just sitting there throwing laser beams and rockets at it and it just stays alive out of spite.
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Mar 22, 2020 05:07
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So is the idea that you're supposed to be constantly upgrading the Argo and hotswapping mechs for missions? Because those repair and upgrade times seem real harsh.
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Mar 22, 2020 05:54
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SSNeoman posted:So is the idea that you're supposed to be constantly upgrading the Argo and hotswapping mechs for missions? Because those repair and upgrade times seem real harsh. You don't necessarily need to hotswap Mechs per mission, but since a lot of them do come with less than ideal default loadouts, you want to optimize their ability to survive and kill poo poo ASAP. One of the key Argo upgrades PTN is probably leading up to is to the Mech Bay, which will make Mech upgrades complete in less time.
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Mar 22, 2020 06:06
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SSNeoman posted:So is the idea that you're supposed to be constantly upgrading the Argo and hotswapping mechs for missions? Because those repair and upgrade times seem real harsh. Career Mode's early game is all about time management. Repairs are usually quick, but customization takes a while. Injuries are much harder to manage and Meditech points are harder to come by. It's entirely possible for a pilot to eat so many injuries that they'll be out of the game for 40-50 days and you'll have to seriously consider firing them if your finances aren't solid. I have a general game plan when it comes to Argo upgrades, but one of my highest priorities is the
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Mar 22, 2020 11:31
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I am very, very upset about those bases and munitions factories not having proper roads leading to them half the time.
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Mar 22, 2020 16:42
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Where do the staff live?
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Mar 22, 2020 17:02
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SIGSEGV posted:I am very, very upset about those bases and munitions factories not having proper roads leading to them half the time. Just wait until you see the ones that are built in the middle of lakes!
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Mar 22, 2020 17:10
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Pilot name request: Bethany “Reporter” Cochrane. My first career after Heavy Metal released I had the same starting mechs plus the COIL-M for the Assassin. Game was a massive steamroll, but also my only career loss as I ordered up Gamma Pod upgrades mid-travel and let my cash on hand drop too low because I didn’t realize that you get charged jump fees at the time of jump. Went bankrupt on Iron Man with something like 12 assaults in storage I could have scrapped...
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Mar 22, 2020 17:19
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If I pick up any pilots from the deep periphery, I'll make sure to use Bethany! The only possible ways I could've gotten a better start would've been rolling a second Centurion, rolling a Firestarter instead of the Jenner, or rolling another UrbanMech in the second 'trash light' slot.
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Mar 22, 2020 17:37
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I am sad you could not get that SWEET SWEET crab 
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Mar 22, 2020 20:48
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goatface posted:Where do the staff live? Theres a barraks/crew quarters in the Argo.
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Mar 23, 2020 01:38
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PoptartsNinja posted:If I pick up any pilots from the deep periphery, I'll make sure to use Bethany! These are actually semi-fixed lances, you get one pull from each of five lists. It's possible to get a second Centurion, I think, I've just never seen it. I don't think I've gotten two of the same 'Mech in a random start. It's a nice starting lance, though, that Centurion will be functional until you're replacing your entire lance with Heavy 'Mechs, and then it'll still be worth keeping around. Personally I think you should swap out that AC/10 for an AC/20 ASAP and just rename it Yen Lo Wang, but I can't not have a Yen Lo Wang in my 'MechBay given the choice. The Jenner is one of my favorite lights for the early game, it's a little fragile and hot, but used properly it's a goddamned hammer. By the way, the lists: mediums are either a BJ-1, VND-1R, CN9-A, or ENF-4R. The lights are COM-1B, COM-2B, JR7-D, or PNT_9R, and then either a COM-1B, COM-2B, SDR-5V, FS9-H, CDA-2A, or CDA-3C, and then the last list is LCT-1M, LCT-1S, LCT-1V, UM-R60, SDR-5V, COM-1B, COM-2D. You get two mediums, and three lights. it pulls one 'mech from each list. It's ~\data\itemcollections\itemCollection_mechs_starting_N.csv, where N is 0-4. If you wanted to you could change the mechdef references to change your starting lance to include annhilators, king crabs, whatever you like!
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Mar 23, 2020 02:19
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The three commando start must be an experience.
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Mar 23, 2020 10:45
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So what makes a good mech these days? I used to rely on Missile Knockdown Spam and then called headshots, but you don't seem to be doing that.
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Mar 24, 2020 01:33
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I would be far far more into the BattleTech game if only the DLC wasn't insanely over priced.
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Mar 24, 2020 02:12
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:So what makes a good mech these days? I used to rely on Missile Knockdown Spam and then called headshots, but you don't seem to be doing that. I don't have any 'Mechs that are good at doing that. The Centurion can be a passable LRM boat, but you really need bigger 'Mechs to make that work. Stability damage has been pretty heavily nerfed, too, so knockdowns are less reliable. The headshot train is still coming, though.
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Mar 24, 2020 03:19
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