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[/quote]Story missions pay quite well, so if you're going broke while evading the main story, that might explain it. There are also a handful of early story missions that unlock some really great stuff. So if you haven't played any story missions you're missing out.[/quote]

Hey Ben! How's school!? After that one go-back to an earlier load I made some better financial decisions--I'm now $9.5 million in the black while keeping six mediums in play with their attendant costs, along with 4 MechWarriors who are well advanced in their skill trees. So doing well, which is surprising since my strategy skills peaked at tic-tac-toe. Just picked up my first variant of a Trebuchet last night, which is the first one I've seen.

Neutronbeam wrote:

Hey Ben! How's school!?

So far so good, thanks for asking. Took a final last night and solidified my A in that class, another final tonight, and one last one tomorrow. Then I'm done til fall.

Neutronbeam wrote:

After that one go-back to an earlier load I made some better financial decisions--I'm now $9.5 million in the black while keeping six mediums in play with their attendant costs, along with 4 MechWarriors who are well advanced in their skill trees. So doing well, which is surprising since my strategy skills peaked at tic-tac-toe. Just picked up my first variant of a Trebuchet last night, which is the first one I've seen.

I'm gonna have to enroll in your school of financial management. I keep running right up on "almost out of cash" and then finish a story mission to survive a few more months. I might be upgrading the Argos too fast.

BTW I'm stuck on this same mission with the trucks that everyone else is. I didn't take enough LRM ammo into battle so after killing one truck my mule was unable to do anything. And then he took a lethal headshot.

derFunkenstein wrote:

I'm gonna have to enroll in your school of financial management. I keep running right up on "almost out of cash" and then finish a story mission to survive a few more months. I might be upgrading the Argos too fast.

.

Yes, be stingy with the Argos upgrade. I look closely at the monthly costs and there are many upgrades I don't have. That said, only heavy/Assault Mech's carry "+" weapons, so if I see a 2 skull mission (med mech's), I'll crank the cash payout and just go on a milk run to help the cash.

But I also only keep 4 Mech's in the Bay and 5 pilots. I just suck up the time delay versus the cost of having extra Mech's draining on my monthly cost.

I find the challenge "overall" good, but the mission randomness is really weird.

I just did one mission (I have 3 75ton Orions and 1 90ton Hunchback) where there were 2 Shrek PPC vehicles, 2 75ton Orions and 3 Assault Mech's. I died so I reloaded and there were 2 PPC vehicles, 1 Orion and 4 65ton Mech's this time. I cleaned that up. The randomness certainly adds to the challenge.

Sargent Duck wrote:

I just did one mission (I have 3 75ton Orions and 1 90ton Hunchback) where there were 2 Shrek PPC vehicles, 2 75ton Orions and 3 Assault Mech's. I died so I reloaded and there were 2 PPC vehicles, 1 Orion and 4 65ton Mech's this time. I cleaned that up. The randomness certainly adds to the challenge.

It does seem to be pretty incredibly variable. I hit one early-ish on that threw a pair of Hunchbacks at my lance of medium (45-55T) mechs. Got wiped pretty handily, reloaded, and it was 1 Shadowhawk and two 45 tonners.

It keeps it interesting, though. Scoring headshots on those surprise heavy/assault mechs is worth it!

Waco wrote:

It keeps it interesting, though. Scoring headshots on those surprise heavy/assault mechs is worth it!

Headshots are nice but I play the more conservative route and just go straight for the legs. With my Orion heavy Mechs I can take out a heavy mech leg in shot. Assault take 2 shots, so I call one leg, call the other leg and that Mech is down with both internal leg structures exposed.

I had a dropship fall on my 75 ton Black Knight...

Had to redo an entire mission. *sigh* I don't think I was even on the red marks but maybe I was on the edge.

It's fun to acquire the new and bigger 'Mechs. I'm wondering if 4 Assault is the "best" lance or they would just be too slow. Some of the heavies like the grasshopper are actually quite mobile with jump jets.

You absolutely want to do enough of the story to have your benefactor give you the Argo. This is a massive game-changing upgrade for your mercenary company.

Since the Argo, the best thing that I've received as a story mission reward is a well-preserved 90-ton Highlander HGN-732b. I like this mech a lot, but it is slow. You cannot mount more than three jump jets (A) on the Highlander. With two or three jump jets (A), it gets just three movement pips. The 85-ton Battlemaster BLR-1g with four jump jets (H) gets five movement pips. A 60-ton Quickdraw QKD-5a with four or five jump jets (H) gets seven movement pips.

Hawkwing74 wrote:

I had a dropship fall on my 75 ton Black Knight...

Had to redo an entire mission. *sigh* I don't think I was even on the red marks but maybe I was on the edge.

It's fun to acquire the new and bigger 'Mechs. I'm wondering if 4 Assault is the "best" lance or they would just be too slow. Some of the heavies like the grasshopper are actually quite mobile with jump jets.

The same thing happened to me too! Man that was heart breaking haha. I replayed it and positioned my mechs to not be in the landing zone as the mission ended LOL.

I am enjoying using the Highlander 'Mech.

It seems like the mission where you get this 'Mech, there was a bug. The story mission made me play through 2 fights and I could not save in the middle. It made for a late Saturday night.

I have one LRM mech (currently a Thunderbolt with LRM-15 and LRM-20). I heard there is a King Crab in the game where you can mount up to 4 LRM-20's. That could be one-shotting heavies or even assaults perhaps, with Precision Strike.

Hawkwing74 wrote:

I have one LRM mech (currently a Thunderbolt with LRM-15 and LRM-20). I heard there is a King Crab in the game where you can mount up to 4 LRM-20's. That could be one-shotting heavies or even assaults perhaps, with Precision Strike.

I had an Orion that I managed to outfit with 2 LRM-20's and 1 LRM-15. It had no leg armor...or rear armor but man could that thing let the pain fly. With 3 assault mech's in my inventory now, I've since changed tactics a little bit with massive armor and full complement of medium lasers and SRM's. I can take out a 85-ton assault mech leg in one shot now.

Hawkwing74 wrote:

I have one LRM mech (currently a Thunderbolt with LRM-15 and LRM-20).

I've got Dekker (the scout) in a 55-ton Shadowhawk with: LRM15++ & LRM5+ that both feature +1 stability damage, 2xLRM ammo (240 rounds = 12 shots, total), MLaser++, Rangefinder++ (+50m view), 4x jump jets (S), and near-maximum armor. This medium mech has 7 movement pips and 1120 total armor. With the pilot's Master Tactician skill, it moves in initiative phase 4.

The rest of my lance includes a 65-ton Thunderbolt, an 85-ton Battlemaster, and the 90-ton Highlander (with LRM20++ (+2 stability damage)). I've been concentrating on knocking down enemy mechs, then using the free called shots to target the legs.

Hawkwing74 wrote:

I am enjoying using the Highlander 'Mech.

It seems like the mission where you get this 'Mech, there was a bug. The story mission made me play through 2 fights and I could not save in the middle. It made for a late Saturday night.

I have one LRM mech (currently a Thunderbolt with LRM-15 and LRM-20). I heard there is a King Crab in the game where you can mount up to 4 LRM-20's. That could be one-shotting heavies or even assaults perhaps, with Precision Strike.

It's not a bug (it's meant to feel hectic due to the prior mission)- but you can save *anytime* it is your turn in the game and pick up right where you left off.

I got kind of stuck on the mission with the trucks carrying ammo. My problem is time and money. I have played myself into a corner by spending so much on the Argo. While I have the cash in my coffers to re-spec my mechs, I don't also have the money for monthly finances. I can't even travel to another system to take a different contract because finances come due mid-trip.

For that reason, I think the only solution is to start over.

So that's what I did. I'm back to the mission where you have 15 turns to take out the comm towers and just finished that for the second time. I'm both doing much better with my finances AND I'm a better player because I understand the nuances of the combat system better. I also got an incredibly lucky break by blowing the head off the Quickdraw, so that's currently my heaviest mech. I also learned that LRMs are gold thanks to how much they knock enemy mechs off balance, and I better understand how range is represented when you're attacking.

I looked up how many story missions are left for me and there are maybe 3 remaining.

Now I'm wanting more content! I enjoyed the game and am glad I purchased but I blew through it too fast.

There's little left for me to do in regular missions. I could farm a King Crab for a LRM boat or something. It's frustrating when there's little to buy in any planetary store and you just have to roll the dice to get what you want.

Looks like I'm only about half-way through.

I would definitely be interested in buying more single-player content. Maybe put it in a different timeline so we can get more mechs.

With priority missions that take me sometimes upwards of an hour or more to complete and side-quests that aren't that long but still take me a while, I really can't complain. I backed it for $25 way back in 2015, and I'm well on my way towards getting what I paid out of it.

Here is a list of priority missions, if you're wondering how far along you are:
https://battletech.gamepedia.com/Campaign

I've been enjoying this game a ton! I had to restart, much like derFunk, after figuring out a lot of the game mechanics by reading more about the game and messing around. I kind of wish there was a little better explanation about the weapon ranges shown in the facing arc. I feel like the UI has just enough information, but I could use more. Other than that and multiple random headshots to one pilot (Poor Dekker!), I've been having a blast. I still haven't found salvage hunting to be very reliable. I think sometimes I'm over-killing 'mechs.

derFunkenstein wrote:

Looks like I'm only about half-way through.

I would definitely be interested in buying more single-player content. Maybe put it in a different timeline so we can get more mechs.

With priority missions that take me sometimes upwards of an hour or more to complete and side-quests that aren't that long but still take me a while, I really can't complain. I backed it for $25 way back in 2015, and I'm well on my way towards getting what I paid out of it.

Don't worry, the publisher is notorious for spamming DLC so there's no doubt loads of stuff on the way. I just hope that it's good stuff worth the price tag.

It's probably still going to be in the pre Clan era, though. Maybe Dark Age, but probably not since it's such a big jump. Harebrained and Piranha have both said that they want to focus on stories that haven't already been told by the other games. But that isn't actually all that limiting, because Battletech covers a massive amount of stuff on the order of Warhammer 40K or D&D.

What pushes the scaling up of contract challenge levels? Is it based on the passing of time, progress in the story, mercenary hall ranking, or some other arcane method of ensuring that each time that I start believing that the latest upgrades to my lance will make things easier, the OpFor scales up to match?

Browsing the star map under navigation, you see that each system has a base challenge level. With three priority contracts remaining in the campaign, the backwater of Weldry is up to 3½ skulls challenge level.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

What pushes the scaling up of contract challenge levels? Is it based on the passing of time, progress in the story, mercenary hall ranking, or some other arcane method of ensuring that each time that I start believing that the latest upgrades to my lance will make things easier, the OpFor scales up to match?

Browsing the star map under navigation, you see that each system has a base challenge level. With three priority contracts remaining in the campaign, the backwater of Weldry is up to 3½ skulls challenge level.

From what I can tell there are four things that determine the overall contract difficulties in combination:

1) The mechs you have - the moment you get a heavy/assault, the difficulty (that each skull represents) ramps up a little
2) Progress in the plot - this seems to determine more of the base difficulty, the number of skulls offered that 1 above adds to.
3) The difficulty of the individual systems themselves (actual skulls per mission) that are then affected by 1 & 2 above.
4) The value of the contract - generally the higher the payout, the more opposition there is, but is not always consistent.

So the trick to managing the difficulty is not to rush through the plot without developing your lance further, first...

I just finished Liberation: Smithon, but only by ignoring the secondary objectives. (Currently using 2x Quickdraw (Scout+Mid-range SRM/laser) 1x Thunderbolt (LLaser/PPC sniper) 1x Centurion (LRM boat)). Loads of single parts for more heavy mechs, but need to find them before I can finish them off - and the Dragon parts I can now buy don't seem to work any better than the Quickdraws I already have...

I might have made my game slightly easier by running 70, yes - seventy - side missions just before I got the Argo (My four man/woman crew is almost maxed out skill-wise now.)

I honestly didn't find the Liberation: Smithon mission as hard as some others. I believe that my lance for that mission had a light Jenner, a medium Wolverine and two Shadowhawks. I had moved a medium mech armed with MLasers and an autocannon up above the point where the trucks spawn. The ammo trucks seemed to blow up quite readily when struck with the autocannon from above. For the rest of the fight, I kept half of my lance around the pond to help shed the heat from non-stop energy weapons fire.


P.S.: I just thought that the Highlander was slow. I salvaged a Stalker. Without jump jets it has one movement pip. You have to install its maximum of three jump jets (A) to get to the same three movement pips that you can manage with just two jump jets on the Highlander.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

I honestly didn't find the Liberation: Smithon mission as hard as some others. I believe that my lance for that mission had a light Jenner, a medium Wolverine and two Shadowhawks. I had moved a medium mech armed with MLasers and an autocannon up above the point where the trucks spawn. The ammo trucks seemed to blow up quite readily when struck with the autocannon from above. For the rest of the fight, I kept half of my lance around the pond to help shed the heat from non-stop energy weapons fire.


P.S.: I just thought that the Highlander was slow. I salvaged a Stalker. Without jump jets it has one movement pip. You have to install its maximum of three jump jets (A) to get to the same three movement pips that you can manage with just two jump jets on the Highlander.

From what I can tell about that mission, it's all about how much damage they manage to do to you when they can see your mechs. I set up my scout QD to sprint around like a headless chicken to draw their fire over to the left, which worked, and allowed the rest of my mechs on the hill to the right to slowly kill them all over time, (I used a couple of the explosives to do that) - if they'd targeted any other of my mechs it would have hurt a lot more...

Last time I thought I hit a bug I didn't. This time I hit a bug and I'm pretty sure it's a bug. I'm playing the mission where you get ambushed coming out of the hidden facility while controlling a whole new pile of old mechs. I got almost to what I think is the final objective while artillery is falling and you're trying to get to the second LZ and I moved a mech and the game got stuck. It zoomed in to follow me walking and then just stopped. I couldn't move the screen, couldn't click on anything, just stood there. Not sure where the auto-save is. I let it sit like that for 20 minutes and then just quit, since I couldn't save. I was technically in the middle of my turn.

derFunkenstein wrote:

This time I hit a bug and I'm pretty sure it's a bug.

Painful...that would frustrate me to no end.

I'm taking a break from this game because I don't want to finish the content. I was looking on Stellaris for any mod of a Battletech style map but no one made one. Then I was googling around to try to make my own. Seems pretty difficult.

So here's hoping Harebrained will come up with some decent DLC. I'll buy it!

Thankfully the only bugs I've run into were fixed with the last patch - (disappearing mechs I just 'won' after reloading the save just after the battle). The problems I currently have with the game are of the annoying/frustrating kind rather than 'bugs', well, maybe - especially with the camera... E.g. when it resets the camera before it shows enemy weapon fire (only movement) Or refusing to keep the zoom level I want... Basic stuff for a strategy game?

Being inconsistent in the cinematics it'll let you skip, or not having a separate audio control for on ship background (tannoy) noise, (I hate) from character voice in battle (I like) are two other annoying things for me.

I'm at the last mission in the story mode and have $32,000,000 C-bills.

I guess I have enough to get the 2nd Mech Bay in the Argo...

derFunkenstein wrote:

I moved a mech and the game got stuck. It zoomed in to follow me walking and then just stopped. I couldn't move the screen, couldn't click on anything, just stood there. Not sure where the auto-save is. I let it sit like that for 20 minutes and then just quit, since I couldn't save. I was technically in the middle of my turn.

I've had similar hangs a couple of times. Alt-Tabbing to the desktop and then back to the game got it working both times.

Sargent Duck wrote:

I'm at the last mission in the story mode and have $32,000,000 C-bills. I guess I have enough to get the 2nd Mech Bay in the Argo...

I've completed Liberation: Tyrlon and Coromodir is on my contract list. I have only 5 million C-bills, but my Argo has every single upgrade possible except Med Bay 3 and the Hospital Bay. The cost of these two upgrades would exceed my available funds, even without the monthly bills coming in.

Anybody else have a bug where the mechs all turn a solid pink-purple? That's happened twice on desert maps.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

derFunkenstein wrote:

I moved a mech and the game got stuck. It zoomed in to follow me walking and then just stopped. I couldn't move the screen, couldn't click on anything, just stood there. Not sure where the auto-save is. I let it sit like that for 20 minutes and then just quit, since I couldn't save. I was technically in the middle of my turn.

I've had similar hangs a couple of times. Alt-Tabbing to the desktop and then back to the game got it working both times.

If it happens again I'll try it. Thanks for the tip!

The last mission is another two-parter. You won't have an opportunity to repair or heal between the parts, so you may potentially need up to 7 assault or heavy mechs and pilots. My reputation with the Arano Restoration is up to +349. Weldry is now a four-skull challenge level.

In hindsight, I would not have added the third mech bay.

Other than the obviously superior Highlander and Atlas II with their SLDF weapons, I like the hardpoints available on the Battlemaster and the Stalker (which makes a darned fine 84.88-ton missile boat, in my experience).