So, after I just made 760k in my last try (here) I was feeling a bit unsatisfied with the result. I made a few significant errors and at the end I was selling off the works - right down to the last couple of spare mechs. It just felt kindof not quite worthy. So needing a goal, and clearly having too much time on my hands, I thought about the blunders I had made and what improvements were possible and decided to make a max score my goal and start a new career. Furball was in business, with a new lance and the same old crew, ready to take on the periphery.
I was a bit inspired by MarkDey's thread about Gramps run (here) to write a bit more about my latest career than I did about the last, though not nearly to the detail that he is. So this thread chronicles the journey a bit, and will be updated with more detail as I get to the end. I didn't keep detailed notes till about 300 days, so quite of bit of this is from memory, so there will be the occasional inaccuracy I'm sure - hopefully nothing terrible. Overall though, I hope this might help anyone looking to do their own attempt a bit as to what it looks like. This is going to be a multipost journey to help my writing process, but for clarification sake it is down to 212 days remaining as I write this now.
The things I knew I did wrong in the last career - missteps in navigation, errors in contracts, combined with working to get Kurita on my side; correcting should be enough to do it... but I will see.
I set the difficulty modifiers as before to get the multiplier of 1.0 - 3 parts, unequipped mechs, hard enemy force strength, generous salvage, lethality, ironman, rare mechwarriors, mech destruction, and normal pay.
The starting lance was a vindicator, centurion, panther, urbanmech and spider. Quite respectable for a new merc company and so it was off to find some contracts.
Furball started his journey on Independence, and cleared the contracts there. Not much to say, some salvage was earned and another panther added to the mech bay. First repairs to the Argo were to be structure and power - gotta get those engines running to speed things up!
Early on getting planets visited was the goal over contracts, as this gave time for Argo upgrades and repairs after planetside stops, so the first 100 days or so were pretty uneventful, though the lance improved and many systems (or at least their jump points) were visited. Crucially, access was also gained to the black markets.
Having touched most systems in the outer periphery including a big loop through Restoration space and the farthest planets Furball set sights on Canopian space and focused on those. Balancing factions worked well and I was able to keep positive reputation with the Canopians till getting to the last couple of planets. Then a quick jaunt was made to get to the last few inner neutral planets outside Capellan space. In this segment a fortuitous black market find was made: a complete MAD-2R. it took selling pretty much every stored chassis in the Argo to get it, but it was worth it. This turbocharged the headshot madness, at about day 1000. At this point Furball had already build a MAD-3D and was only running a couple of Centurions for LRM support. But with the Marauders in place the hardest contracts became reasonable and the Heavies for LRM support were skipped in favor of going straight to Highlanders.
Furball went back toward Canopian space and passed or stopped at the remaining planets there and between the Magistry of Canopus and FWL space. Almost all jump points on the left and centre sections of the map had been touched, and at this point Furball was hated by the Canopians, and Friendly with FWL. It was time to arc out toward Federated Suns space and get some Capellan and Davion contracts to improve the general reputations.
I was a bit inspired by MarkDey's thread about Gramps run (here) to write a bit more about my latest career than I did about the last, though not nearly to the detail that he is. So this thread chronicles the journey a bit, and will be updated with more detail as I get to the end. I didn't keep detailed notes till about 300 days, so quite of bit of this is from memory, so there will be the occasional inaccuracy I'm sure - hopefully nothing terrible. Overall though, I hope this might help anyone looking to do their own attempt a bit as to what it looks like. This is going to be a multipost journey to help my writing process, but for clarification sake it is down to 212 days remaining as I write this now.
The things I knew I did wrong in the last career - missteps in navigation, errors in contracts, combined with working to get Kurita on my side; correcting should be enough to do it... but I will see.
I set the difficulty modifiers as before to get the multiplier of 1.0 - 3 parts, unequipped mechs, hard enemy force strength, generous salvage, lethality, ironman, rare mechwarriors, mech destruction, and normal pay.
The starting lance was a vindicator, centurion, panther, urbanmech and spider. Quite respectable for a new merc company and so it was off to find some contracts.
Furball started his journey on Independence, and cleared the contracts there. Not much to say, some salvage was earned and another panther added to the mech bay. First repairs to the Argo were to be structure and power - gotta get those engines running to speed things up!
Early on getting planets visited was the goal over contracts, as this gave time for Argo upgrades and repairs after planetside stops, so the first 100 days or so were pretty uneventful, though the lance improved and many systems (or at least their jump points) were visited. Crucially, access was also gained to the black markets.
Having touched most systems in the outer periphery including a big loop through Restoration space and the farthest planets Furball set sights on Canopian space and focused on those. Balancing factions worked well and I was able to keep positive reputation with the Canopians till getting to the last couple of planets. Then a quick jaunt was made to get to the last few inner neutral planets outside Capellan space. In this segment a fortuitous black market find was made: a complete MAD-2R. it took selling pretty much every stored chassis in the Argo to get it, but it was worth it. This turbocharged the headshot madness, at about day 1000. At this point Furball had already build a MAD-3D and was only running a couple of Centurions for LRM support. But with the Marauders in place the hardest contracts became reasonable and the Heavies for LRM support were skipped in favor of going straight to Highlanders.
Furball went back toward Canopian space and passed or stopped at the remaining planets there and between the Magistry of Canopus and FWL space. Almost all jump points on the left and centre sections of the map had been touched, and at this point Furball was hated by the Canopians, and Friendly with FWL. It was time to arc out toward Federated Suns space and get some Capellan and Davion contracts to improve the general reputations.
- 3
