Advice request regarding salvage parts rule for new Heavy Metal career campaign

[stnylan]

So it is has been quite some time since my last ”proper” Battletech campaign – which was when I first ran through the Restoration campaign back in the day. Since then I’ve mucked around a bit in Career, generally having fun with some lower-level stompy mech-carnage as and when I desire.

With the launch of Heavy metal I am intending to start a new campaign, and am not sure about what to set the salvage parts rule. From my former campaign, and mucking around since, 3 seems to be too low for my taste. Otoh I am fairly sure I would find 7 or 8 to be too much a grind.

Equally I don’t really have time to experiment, so I thought why not ask the community their experience of choosing 4 5 or 6 parts in terms of how it impacts the progression and experience of the game, hence this thread.

Just in case it is relevant I would also play on centre torso mech destruction, and unequipped mechs.

 

[Havamal]

Just based anecdotally on reading posts, I believe a significant portion of players seem to go with 5 parts.

Based on your parameters I suspect that would be a good setting for you.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

I’ve played maybe 6 Career Attempts with everything from 3 to 5 to 8 set as my Salvage Parts Rule. While I found Pieces-of-Eight to be quite immersive and fun, it also took a lot of patience to use. One important thing to remember is with all the new Mechs (10) and Mech Variants (20’ish) that is a LOT of new sources of Mech Pieces out there. So much so that I believe it will stretch out a Pieces of Eight game too much to remain as fun.

So many new sources of Mech Pieces will be added that even Pieces-of-Five may prove too much of a delay for me.

I am seriously considering a Pieces of Four Career Attempt. The key here is that form a single Enemy Mech, I’ll never be able to salvage a whole Mech. Since an Enemy Mech only offered up 3 pieces at most, I’ll at least need to be salvaging multiple Mechs of the same Variant before I gain that chassis for my own use. That sounds like the sweet spot in a HEAVY METAL world. : )

 

[stjobe]

I've been running with 5 parts for most of my career runs, but with the additional chassis in HM I'm debating whether or not to reduce it to 4.

Edit:
3 makes it so a single headshot will give you a new chassis,
7+ makes it so not even two headshots will give you a new chassis.
4-5 means you'd likely need to kill 2-3 'Mechs to get that chassis, 4 or 5 if all are CT cores.
5+ you're looking at 3+ kills of that specific variant to get the chassis, 5+ if all are CT cores.

And remember, we're got 71 variants even before HM hits with its 10 new chassis and 10+ variants.

 

[MeiSooHaityu]

I like 5 pieces of salvage myself for current Career playthroughs.

If there are some mechs you really want to try, but are afraid the 5 piece (or higher) might be too much, you could always edit your Career starting lance in the game files. That way you could give yourself a mech or two you really want to try, and then salvage the others.

 

[jj284b]

Pieces of 8 are fine for Career mode.. It forces you to buy partial parts from stores, which means they are more relevant.. I'm also playing with "no rare salvage" option enabled, as it makes no sense to get rare salvage from AI mechs that did not use any rare weapons or items... its total cheat. overall, both options force you to spend money, which is good, because money are one of things you are trying to maximize..

 

[ntw]

I'll be going Po4 personally
enough to mean a single battle/headshot doesn't get me a new mech but not so many that it takes me forever to put them together

 

[gh0s7]

It really depends on you; do you want to get the best score? Then don't try higher than 5, otherwise it will be a real headache managing the finances and whether you'll buy a part of the mech at this store or wait until your reputation is good enough for an Alliance and the discount.

If for the challenge, then there have been several threads lately with rules for anyone to try.

 

[jj284b]

paying for part doesnt matter to the score.. it tracks your total income, so it doesnt matter if you spend it at some point or not...

 

[Jolly Joker]

In my opinion, when you play with Mech destruction, the acual number of pieces needed is much less relevan than he economy settings. A headshot will give you 3 parts, so more than 3 will need you to headshot twice, and more than 6 thrice, as has been said already.

But that strongly depends on whether you'll be able to always go for a 3-pick, which depends on salvage and credits settings, mostly.

Which means, that some things are interchangable: with poor settings, 3-4 might already offer some tough decision-making.

On the other hand, going without Mech destruction, but with strong opponent forces instead, might have the same effect (on having to be content with getting 1 piece occasionally).

Lastly, if you go for 6-8 pieces, going one piece a fight without mech destruction will take oo long anyway, so you can just as well up he difficulty to Mech destruction because you will try to incapacitate them anyway.

So all in all 4-5 is reasonable, the rest of the options deciding how difficult 4-5 will actually be.

 

[jj284b]

i kinda find it strange people dont consider option to buy partial mech parts in stores... even with 8 parts, you still have option to buy additional parts from tech worlds quite reliably. In my current campaign, i have even bought Orion-K from a store, because i found it profitable (up to that point I only had 40-50t mechs) and using it with standard setup..

Anyway, i think game would benefit a lot, if there was also option to set up number of contracts per system within difficulty menu.. I'm usually modifying this value to have 20+ contracts, so i can pick which ones are worth doing (in terms of payment, reputation gained/lost etc)... plus it means, i fight a lot more battles, therefore even 1 priority pick is fine as you eventually gather a lot of parts anyway, and with "No Rare Salvage" i don't pick any weapons as priority pick...

 

[Jade_Rook]

My preference is 5 pieces. I think it gives a good balance between salvage, c-bills, and rate of advancement. I don't want to rush through the weight class too quickly and lower part requirements make it easier to assemble mechs to sell rather than taking c-bill payments on contracts.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

i kinda find it strange people dont consider option to buy partial mech parts in stores... even with 8 parts, you still have option to buy additional parts from tech worlds quite reliably. In my current campaign, i have even bought Orion-K from a store, because i found it profitable (up to that point I only had 40-50t mechs) and using it with standard setup..

Anyway, i think game would benefit a lot, if there was also option to set up number of contracts per system within difficulty menu.. I'm usually modifying this value to have 20+ contracts, so i can pick which ones are worth doing (in terms of payment, reputation gained/lost etc)... plus it means, i fight a lot more battles, therefore even 1 priority pick is fine as you eventually gather a lot of parts anyway, and with "No Rare Salvage" i don't pick any weapons as priority pick...

Indeed, the store and Black Market can be a great resource in Pieces of Eight Missions. I purchased an Awesome in a local Black Market during just such a Mission. I wasn’t even close to having salvaged a Heavy and there I was fielding an Awesome! Great times, fun play-through. : )

 

[gh0s7]

paying for part doesnt matter to the score.. it tracks your total income, so it doesnt matter if you spend it at some point or not...

Indeed, but I have no idea how comfortable the OP is in managing the finances, between paying for the monthly charges, repairs and refits, upgrades to the Argo, and acquiring new equipment/parts/pilots, and so on. A single part for a Light mech in a neutral store starts about 180k-to-300k, I think, while Assaults go to beyond a million. Since the question is about salvage, I suggested 5 parts so that there probably won't be issues in getting all the mechs for the completion scores, so long as the best score is what matters. Even more since, with HM, there'll be even more mechs and variants, which will make completing the weight scores a bit more dependent on the RNG and grind.
If, like I've asked, getting the best score for the achievements is what it's wanted, then 5 is a good option between difficulty and multiplier. But at the end (or precisely the start, in this case ), that will be up to the player to fiddle with the difficulty options to get to the multiplier of 1.0.
If it's about to get to know and experience how the upcoming DLC will change the game and so on and the score is irrelevant, then it's to the player's content whether to make it the easiest in order to get to know the new stuff or not. 5 parts doesn't make it particularly difficult, IMO, to get the new mechs and try them out.
If it's for the challenge, there have been several players recently posting their own new Careers for other players to try too.

Personally, for me, if it's about the score I usually take 3 parts to make it easier to get all the mechs and more to sell to help boost the score too.
For roleplay/challenge, I'll take 8 parts along with Ironman and CT Destruction and Pilot Lethality and Unequipped Mechs and No Rare Salvage and Stingy Payment as the base difficulty along with whatever else I'm in the mood for; as I got to know the lore (and rules) of the tabletop and novels (this at the second half of the 90's), it impressed me how difficult it was for mercenaries to get their hands on reliable hardware and keep it.
As soon as I have HM installed, I'll start a new Davion-oriented Career with easy settings to cruise through, just to check out the new content. After that, I'll try for a new Career for a Canopian Alliance and try again to get the Legendary Achievement (ended today my Cappellan Career with 718.820 score , so only got "The One Vision" Achievement).
But that's just me.

 

[stnylan]

Thank you everyone who has replied so far. It has really given me a couple of more perspectives to consider.

So, to answer @gh0s7 question about what the aim is - it really isn't about the score. Five years ago, it might have been. Five years hence, it might be again. Right now in my life though a high score doesn't, in itself, mean anything. Rather I aim to tell a story and have fun. Fun, in this context, means the right level of challenge, but also rp. Of course, different folks find different levels of challenge "right". From an rpg point of view I can feel the attraction of a P8 campaign, but I also know that, right now, that would be too much of a grind.

I really liked the perspectives of @stjobe about minimum number of kills to get a mech, and of @Jolly Joker about how the other economic settings play into this, and also of @Prussian Havoc and others about the impact of new mechs and variants being added to the mix.

As to the other settings I was probably thinking of leaving most of them on the default - in particular salvage and credits, but switching mechwarrior progression to slow. I haven't decided yet about rare salvage, though I have sympathy to the view expressed by @jj284b .

I think I am moving towards either a 4 or 6 piece campaign, depending on whether I want mech advancement faster or slower. I guess I have about 21 or hours to decide (by the time I will be able to play).

 

[stnylan]

Forgot, thank you also for @Jade_Rook @MeiSooHaityu @Havamal and @ntw for sharing their opinions

 

[gh0s7]

Right, challenge. Alas, experiencing the several difficulty options is the best way to know which ones you'll enjoy or not. I've only taken once the Slow and Very Slow Skill Progression each, and I found either abominable; for me, that forced me to take lower-risk contracts and mostly taking forever to level-up my mechwarriors.
However, for others, those make the developing pilots a real treat, so it's really up to you whether you'll enjoy such.
I prefer to take risky missions, fighting on the edge. One rule I always take, is to carry ammo either in the same place the weapon lies and/or the next nearest torso and never on the legs, which has contributed a bit to visits to the medbay (though still less than one might think). But this one is an old group rule from when I still played TT.

I have also tried once to make a Career with Stock-only mechs, not even changing the Armour values, with No Rare Salvage which meant that I had to buy the +/++/+++ weapons; it cost me a lot of mechwarriors, and I dropped that run about two-thirds of the way in.

 

[stnylan]

Right, challenge. Alas, experiencing the several difficulty options is the best way to know which ones you'll enjoy or not. I've only taken once the Slow and Very Slow Skill Progression each, and I found either abominable; for me, that forced me to take lower-risk contracts and mostly taking forever to level-up my mechwarriors.
However, for others, those make the developing pilots a real treat, so it's really up to you whether you'll enjoy such.
I prefer to take risky missions, fighting on the edge. One rule I always take, is to carry ammo either in the same place the weapon lies and/or the next nearest torso and never on the legs, which has contributed a bit to visits to the medbay (though still less than one might think). But this one is an old group rule from when I still played TT.

I have also tried once to make a Career with Stock-only mechs, not even changing the Armour values, with No Rare Salvage which meant that I had to buy the +/++/+++ weapons; it cost me a lot of mechwarriors, and I dropped that run about two-thirds of the way in.

Aye challenge is a very individual thing. But the mucking around I have done I found Slow Progression to work quite well for me. Risk, now I tend to be quite risk averse.

Nice thought about the ammo rule, I quite like that.

 

[Zythen1975]

I usually go 5, but adding more mechs and variants I am seriously thinking 4 this time.

 

[Donvale]

My take.
Any less than 5 mech parts makes purchasing mechparts largely pointless, any more and the game tends to drag a little, hence my preference for this. However I do tie this in with Stingy salvage so you simply cannot garauntee a whole mech from one fight even if multiple are present in the opFor (you could get it by being exceptionally lucky).

If you play Stingy Salvage you have to pay Stingy Payout and vice versa, otherwise they are unbalanced and you just dial it all the way to one end every contract.

I have tried very slow mechwarrior progression, the end result is it was largely pointless training mechwarriors you jusyt buy them! Slow progression slows things down nicely but still makes home grown mechwarriors worth it.