Career Mode Scoring Guide

[Prussian Havoc]

By the way...

If you have completed a campaign and, like @Prussian Havoc , have exceeded the displayed maximum score for a category, feel free to drop a screenshot in this thread for the benefit of the discussion as well as posterity's sake.

I’ll drop a screenshot of the 60k (Actual) out of 50k (Posted) Reputation Completion when I get back from the road this evening. :bow:

I’ve already posted the Mech Chassis +70,015 screen capture.

We’ll better inform a Kerensky Run by one of us, soon enough! : )

 

[TheSicknessWithin]

Nice overview, good work mjbroekman.

Good point. The only reason you'd want to land on a high-value store is just to save yourself some mouse clicks, and the real limiter to the sell/re-buy strategy is your cash and how much the sell value is eroded from the buy value (I don't know if it's the same percentage for all items, or if some items de-value more than others).

Why using mouse clicks for buying, when you have to move the pointer in between? Just mark what you want to buy with the mouse and then spam the return button, works for buying and confirming and is faster because you don't have to aim with the mouse pointer...


Regarding the score for c-bills: I forgot to mod back the starting money from my last "fun" campaign (where I didn't wanted to worry about c-bills) and startet with around 900,000,000 c-bills and had the score for c-bills maxed out at the start. So IMHO the amount of c-bills on the account counts also to the score.

 

[ronhatch]

Regarding the score for c-bills: I forgot to mod back the starting money from my last "fun" campaign (where I didn't wanted to worry about c-bills) and startet with around 900,000,000 c-bills and had the score for c-bills maxed out at the start. So IMHO the amount of c-bills on the account counts also to the score.

Ah... but it's cash acquired in any way, and the starting cash is acquired when the game begins. It's simple to test it... buy something and see if your score goes down.

 

[TheSicknessWithin]

Ah... but it's cash acquired in any way, and the starting cash is acquired when the game begins. It's simple to test it... buy something and see if your score goes down.

I didn't thought about that.
But I don't think I will need test it, I just believe you and stand corrected.

 

[Dark Khaos]

Well, I would hope they don't also want us to:

1. Avoid using our player-character wherever possible.
2. Pause and reroute our jumps to maximize systems visited.
3. Hire the maximum amount of pilots at all times to maximize XP gains, but avoid actually spending that XP (to keep monthly costs low).
4. Avoid entering into alliances because it's optimal to just game positive/negative rep instead.

Etc.

As designed, Career Mode scoring makes the player do a lot of counterintuitive, tedious, and "game-y" things that a smart merc company owner would not.

Regarding point 1 - wouldn’t the easy fix be to remove the immortality from the player-character in career mode? Realistically, if the head of a startup merc unit dies, it should sort of end that units career.

They’d have to make certain missions where the commander would have to do missions, or possibly allowing the commander access to an additional attribute to make it so he doesn’t just sit at the desk or hang out in the war room.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Thank you for this extremely enlightening post.....not that it matters too much to me, as I suspect I will come nowhere near the maximum score . I'm just happy to still be a functional company, with lots of cash in the bank, a full 1000 days into my Career .

 

[mjbroekman]

Alright, a very quick preliminary;

My 14-day remaining score was 659,115 and was well off on a couple things. My final score is 820,849.

So not only can some scores go over, they can go *way the hell over.* Also got literally every achievement for it (ugh), with a bunch of insane json edits active so there is definitely no checking.

...

Having every mech should be worth more than 76,380, I'm still missing one standard mech and at least one SLDF, and so also missing the chassis completion.

All 10 reputations are capped + or - 100, so Arano and Aurigan reputations do not count, and it is capping those at 100. The 40,000 for four positive and four negative reputations are right, but 50,000 for faction completion does go up an extra 30,000. But getting four at max without Arano counting means you can't have more than two alliances.

Both mechwarrior experience and C-bills go over. C-bills I'm almost at the ~2 billion point where it rolls over. Mechwarriors I'm not sure if/where they roll over but I have four that are over 400k experience from a single edited mission (where ~20k points came from, so it appears that all of that extra counts) along with a dozen other straight-10 pilots and the rest of the barracks full of pilots who have capped out on the simulators... but I don't think c-bills of that magnitude are legitimately possible even on the easiest settings.

My post-game score screen shows all the correct actual points for categories that go beyond the "caps." It's sort of silly that during the game they appear as caps when they really are not.

At some point resuming my normal game I'll get a real finish and hopefully see if the contracts score can go over as well. If a "point" of difficulty is each half-skull, that is another one that potentially can go quite a bit over as well, my normal save has ~250 days left and that'd only require about 50 more 4.5/5 skull missions.

Also a thought; Kerensky might not have been intended to be achieved until Urban Warfare, or even the third DLC is out. With the spoiler mechs and extra mechs from Flashpoint counting to the score, the later DLCs might be intended to add more points.

 

[mjbroekman]

Updated the top post with more information from @CSX 's informative screenshot filled post in the Kerensky thread.

 

[mjbroekman]

Ah... but it's cash acquired in any way, and the starting cash is acquired when the game begins. It's simple to test it... buy something and see if your score goes down.

Buying does not cause your score to go down. But yes. Your starting condition counts in every way. Experience, cash, mechs, reputation, all of it.

 

[Marowi]

Whilst I respect the discussion around C-Bills, the application of this knowledge cheapens (if you'll pardon the pun) any posted scores leveraging this info in my eyes. It is - as we Brits like to say - not cricket.

I agree... with Career Mode a priority for HBS, I hope they refine it for or before URBAN WARFARE. : )

Jeez, fellas -- why all this hate for the Merchant Caste?

 

[ollekurt56464]

this game is broken,,,, you cant earn 20 million every months so you get 80k Points! so this 770.000 Points is broken game!

 

[D-Day]

Good for you!

Your BATTLETECH.

Your Way.

: )

Gives me an idea for a Pirate-aligned unit - "The Burger King of Tortuga"

Jeez, fellas -- why all this hate for the Merchant Caste?

haha, probably because the pirates wanted 2.25m for access to the Black Market

 

[Freakonair]

It is impossible to be allies (in an alliance) with 4 factions. The most is 3 because you can't ally with the Arano Restoration. That being said, becoming an ally (as opposed to just staying 'Honored') is a HORRIBLE idea if you have any positive reputation with that faction's enemies because your reputation with enemies gets IMMEDIATELY dropped to 0 when you become an ally.

The BEST bet is to avoid alliances and simply work the reputation scale because there is no scoring benefit to creating an alliance.

Well thanks for the info! And here i am, after pushing arano score and leaving million cbills and loot in the dust, knowing that this did nothing :/

I will finish the current abysal career to see where it gets me playing the worst way possible.

Final thought: Is Kerensky a honorable person? Maybe to achive the score you need to be really lucky (no contracts filling on the board you cant do, looty) or you need to be cheesing your way through.

edit: what really gets on my nerve, and i saw @Edmon telling the same in one of his recent videos, is the availabillity of contracts you can't do. why blocking the mission "spots" with them? if darius would stop doing that and brought me a lower (skull) contract for every contract i cant do because of standing issues i wouldn't want to fire him on every new system i visit...

edit2: yes i know i can circumvent the issue by having positive standings to all. yesterday i looked like 2hours at the map to find a path where i get missions for both sides, to get a small increase but no decrease in standing, to build up rep. but the thing is more than difficult. i think the most essential part is the starting location. building up rep with all, while gaining MRB rating and mechs, and dont piss of a faction early.

 

[mjbroekman]

this game is broken,,,, you cant earn 20 million every months so you get 80k Points! so this 770.000 Points is broken game!

@ollekurt56464 it is not necessary to gain the full value of the c-bill category as other categories will allow you to exceed the displayed target value. Additionally, it is entirely possible that the scoring is set up in a way to make the top achievements accessible only with the next two DLC packs. There is nothing broken about it.

 

[mjbroekman]

what really gets on my nerve, and i saw @Edmon telling the same in one of his recent videos, is the availabillity of contracts you can't do. why blocking the mission "spots" with them? if darius would stop doing that and brought me a lower (skull) contract for every contract i cant do because of standing issues i wouldn't want to fire him on every new system i visit...

Yeah. That would be a great solution. @Kereminde suggested something similiar that I added to my https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-reputation-problem-1-low-reputation.1134610/ thread along the same lines.

One other thing to note, being on good terms with the pirates (without allying of course) opens up LOTS of contracts wherever the pirate faction is active.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

this game is broken,,,, you cant earn 20 million every months so you get 80k Points! so this 770.000 Points is broken game!

Broke?

No. The game is not broken.

Clearly explained and succinctly layed out in unambiguous language?

That would have removed an element of Discovery Learning about our game.

 

[mjbroekman]

Updated with some additional thoughts of mine about mission availability and reputation and optimal strategies therein.

 

[ollekurt56464]

@ollekurt56464 it is not necessary to gain the full value of the c-bill category as other categories will allow you to exceed the displayed target value. Additionally, it is entirely possible that the scoring is set up in a way to make the top achievements accessible only with the next two DLC packs. There is nothing broken about it.

ok I need wait on more dlc for get that score omg.... what a waste of time I have do now. will not support them more now bad dev!

 

[mjbroekman]

ok I need wait on more dlc for get that score omg.... what a waste of time I have do now. will not support them more now bad dev!

Sadly, I think the language barrier is getting in the way. I never said that you must wait for more DLC, I only said that the achievements may have been put in place with the plan that additional content would make them possible. Developers do that all the time. As it is, some players are able to get quite high scores with the available content, exceeding the targets for a number of scoring categories. But most players will probably never score above 'Elite' ranking because of their playstyle.

Playing with the idea that Steam Achievements are the "only" reason to play is going to make most games a lot less fun.

 

[ollekurt56464]

Sadly, I think the language barrier is getting in the way. I never said that you must wait for more DLC, I only said that the achievements may have been put in place with the plan that additional content would make them possible. Developers do that all the time. As it is, some players are able to get quite high scores with the available content, exceeding the targets for a number of scoring categories. But most players will probably never score above 'Elite' ranking because of their playstyle.

Playing with the idea that Steam Achievements are the "only" reason to play is going to make most games a lot less fun.

Its not possible for the moment get 770k and I waste my time!