Bonus Rewards for Timely Recovery Missions

[Amechwarrior]

Give a large C-Bill bonus if the player can complete a Recovery mission's primary objectives and extract or defeat all OPFOR in under a number of Rounds. No bonus would be awarded if the timer expires and it would act like the current Recovery missions. Time outs are not mission failures.

For example you have a Recovery mission, on landing you have an optional objective:

"Extract VIP in 5 Rounds for 50% Bonus Pay"

The exact numbers and bonus payments can all be tuned as needed and are just generalizations.

What I'm trying to do with this suggestion is add an incentive to completing a mission quickly over "kill everything, then touch the VIP box" most of us do once we've shelved the SDR for heavier units. With a tight enough limit, it would make keeping very fast units (greater than 240m Sprint) in rotation across the difficulty scale. It could encourage negotiating for more C-Bills and less salvage on higher level missions as well. I know I'm basically never taking more cash than salvage once I've gotten another medium or two under my belt in either career or SP, even with my 8 part career I'm still not tackling Recovery missions any different than a "Battle" with an extra step at the end like Destroy/Capture Base. I'd add this on to Base Captures too, give it something different than Destruction while leaving Dest. as a more combat focused contract.

If I'm going in for the pay bonus, I'm not likely to try and double dip with pilot incaps as it could cost me the bonus to "salvage fight" a target. The pay bonus would need to be large enough to make it worth passing over the 1-3 priority picks I'd be losing by not negotiating for more salvage than pay and just ignoring the bonus objective entirely.

As the difficulty of the contracts goes up, the limits could become tighter to let early game contracts teach the player how and why to attempt it while making a mistake or two. Let most of the scale be doable with a HBK speed unit, but difficulty 7-8 need SHD speeds and 9-10 slightly tighter still The endgame level contracts would get a tighter window to also signify how hard of a job it is your unit can now attempt. This also furthers keeping the very fastest units active in to the endgame.

Optionally, this could also be a bonus that depletes as rounds increment but I don't know if the current game supports this. It could be done with multiple smaller bonuses that stack, like the current ones that each raise they payout 10% individually.

"Extract VIP in 5 Rounds for 50% Bonus Pay"

At the start of round 6 it could drop:

"Extract VIP in 7 Rounds for 25% Bonus Pay"

Then it could remove itself or drop down another tier as appropriate.

Also thanks to all the @mjbroekman on Discord! Check out his post below that was where I got the idea for this post! This and the Targ. Ack. stuff was something I've been chatting about for a while and never got around to posting.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

The Contracting portion of the BATTLETECH CommandSIM is ripe for some refinement/evolution.

Contract Bonus Clauses as well as Contract Performance Constraints/Restraints on penalty of Remuneration Loss (no direct targeting of Buildings in URBAN WARFARE's City Maps as an example) would to me be great additions to BATTLETECH Contracting process. : )

 

[scJazz]

As I wrote in the Target Acquisition thread...

I've been sitting here for about 2 hours trying to think of something to add to this thread other than...

Yes please! Can we have this now?

Not coming up with anything at all!

 

[Justin Kase]

Would love to see more things timer related as well - though I had always been looking at it from the opposite side of the fence. My thought was that the longer it takes, the more enemies that shows up, with an upper limit for extraction or else face failure.

I do like the idea of carrot instead of stick though

@Prussian Havoc 's idea of Constraints / Restraints is also great. When engaging in base recovery, destroying buildings should incur some sort of deduction. Some other contracts might even benefit from stressing the extraction portion of grabbing the target and getting out before overwhelming force is brought forth - or the LZ gets too hot to land (back to the stick side of things above - but this would be a very big stick that players would not want to hang around to fight).

 

[Prussian Havoc]

I was actually a Contract Monitoring Officer during my time in Military Service.

Contract Monitoring Officers (CMO) would sometimes need to be onsite while key portions of the contracts were executed. Needless to say sometimes the CMO would be the least tactically proficient Soldier present during an Mission. Caretaking and safeguarding the CMO was a very real Contract Performance Objective. And in BATTLETECH the very occasional contract might include the requirement to bring a CMO along in the Lance’s “Fourth” Mech... or better yet, a “Fifth” (though AI) Mech.

While Contract Bonuses were often tied to Time, they could be tied to other things like Training Objectives too.

The Contract could call for the Player to “Left Seat/Right Seat Ride” (Train/Ride Along) a pair of the Employers MechWarriors. So two of the Players MechWarriors and two AI MechWarriors would execute a combat mission. Of course the whole point is to let the Employers MechWarriors “see it done right,” so if either or both of the Employer’ MechWarriors were to die on the Mission, a Contract Penalty would be triggered.

@CmdrDunsail would speak of “Side Missions.” Side Missions, especially if the BATTLETECH Map were to be of the larger variety, could be the trigger for an entire Mission/Set-of-Objectives/Clause-in-the-Contract. Maybe voluntary... maybe non-negotiable. There is a lot of room for development here.

HBS need not pursue any of it, but as the game code matures the contracting process may be one means to gain a greater swath of Player Agency by developing Contracting UI and running with the wealth of Combat System already in place.

 

[mjbroekman]

**grumble** now I need to read this again and go over all the little notes I made over the holiday ... Great post though

 

[Amechwarrior]

**grumble** now I need to read this again and go over all the little notes I made over the holiday ... Great post though

Was it you who I talked about this with on discord? I got too many discord rooms and PM lines to keep track of there.

 

[mjbroekman]

Was it you who I talked about this with on discord? I got too many discord rooms and PM lines to keep track of there.

Yep. Holidays were more hectic than I anticipated and I only got notes written down. No coherent stuff make it out of my brain. I think you captured most of what we were talking about though. My notes phrased it a bit differently though...

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As noted by @Amechwarrior , Recovery missions are especially framed in such a way that bonus rewards could be implemented for quick completion (number of turns) without engaging the opfor. However there are other ones as well. In general, it seems like the 'kill everything" mindset is what gets reinforced through the current implementation of mission rewards.

Breaking the "Kill everything" mentality
One of the major complaints about Target Acquisition as a mission type is how it victimizes the player for using strategies that work in other mission types. Namely the fact that every other mission type, outside of story missions, can be "won" by killing the opfor. Target Acquisition very much punishes that mindset with short timers.

There are multiple mission types where it would be possible to reward the player for "objective play" so that players are not constantly reinforced with "kill the opfor, then worry about the objective".

• Recovery / Rescue
  • There are really two types of recovery / rescue missions (based on contract text).
    1. "Asset Retrieval" type missions where you are explicitly told to sweep aside the defenders, get the goods, and get out. This is a "wipe out the opfor"-appropriate mission.
    2. "Biological Sample" and "Brilliant Minds" type missions where you are trying to recover the goods before the opfor does. This can be interpretted as "wipe out the opfor", but it can also be interpretted as "get in first and get out fast".
  • The opportunity here is this:
    • Giving bonus rewards to the player for completing the mission quickly (for either one)
    • Giving bonus rewards to the player for completing the mission without destroying the opfor. I will grant you that BATTLETECH is a tactical mech combat game and so some people will balk at being rewarded for avoiding combat...but at the same time, there is an element of tactical thought and execution that is required to complete a mission without destroying the enemy while still accomplishing the objective.
  • To that end:
    • Time-based Bonus rewards: Base the number of turns on what a 240m sprint speed could accomplish + 1 turn / skull (2 levels of difficulty). Reduce the bonus reward by 25% for each turn beyond that number. Players that choose light mechs will be rewarded handsomely for completing the mission quickly, while players that choose heavier mechs will be rewarded by salvage opportunities.
    • Engagement-based Bonus rewards: Base the bonus on the percentage of the opfor (garrison + reinforcements / supporting units) that is still operational. If 100% of the opfor is still functional, the full bonus is given.
• Capture Base
  • Current methodology: Kill everyone / everything before stepping in the zone.
  • The opportunity here is:
    • Encourage the player to capture the base as soon as possible by giving "side benefits" such as the dropship crushing opfor units or turrets being captured and used against the reinforcements.
    • Additionally, the reinforcements could be made to be stronger on the assumption that player is capturing some number of turrets that will then be turned against the reinforcements.
  • To that end:
    • Bring in the dropship when the player enters the zone, regardless of opfor strength. This can provide some tactical depth as you try to manuever the opfor into the danger zone before having the dropship land and crush them.
    • Once the dropship lands, have the turrets (if there are any) be 'captured' after a couple of rounds and turned on any remaining enemy units.
    • Reward the player for the number of turrets captured as well as speed of capture (turns).
• Assassination
  • Assassination missions are sort of a grey area already. Lighter, faster units are able to quickly swarm the main target and take it out before escaping, or you can choose to fight through everyone.
  • The opportunity here is:
    • Certain mission types seem to imply that the target is the only real objective and the rest of the opfor is incidental or collateral damage. Examples: "Code of Silence", "Key Personnel", "Escaping Spy" come to mind.
  • To that end:
    • For those missions where collateral damage 'could' be mitigated, reward the player for doing so with a bonus cbill reward for leaving some % of the supporting forces intact (similar to recovery above).

The objective of these suggestions is to help provide rewardable objectives for alternate play styles. I am NOT suggesting that failure conditions be added, but simply bonus objectives (hidden or otherwise) for completion based on time or engagement styles. This would make them similar to the bonus objectives of preserving a certain number of ammo crates during the story mission, or being successful is keeping all escorted vehicles alive or all base buildings intact.

 

[Amechwarrior]

Yep. Holidays were more hectic than I anticipated and I only got notes written down. No coherent stuff make it out of my brain. I think you captured most of what we were talking about though. My notes phrased it a bit differently though...

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
As noted by @Amechwarrior , Recovery missions are especially framed in such a way that bonus rewards could be implemented for quick completion (number of turns) without engaging the opfor. However there are other ones as well. In general, it seems like the 'kill everything" mindset is what gets reinforced through the current implementation of mission rewards.

Breaking the "Kill everything" mentality
One of the major complaints about Target Acquisition as a mission type is how it victimizes the player for using strategies that work in other mission types. Namely the fact that every other mission type, outside of story missions, can be "won" by killing the opfor. Target Acquisition very much punishes that mindset with short timers.

There are multiple mission types where it would be possible to reward the player for "objective play" so that players are not constantly reinforced with "kill the opfor, then worry about the objective".

• Recovery / Rescue
  • There are really two types of recovery / rescue missions (based on contract text).
    1. "Asset Retrieval" type missions where you are explicitly told to sweep aside the defenders, get the goods, and get out. This is a "wipe out the opfor"-appropriate mission.
    2. "Biological Sample" and "Brilliant Minds" type missions where you are trying to recover the goods before the opfor does. This can be interpretted as "wipe out the opfor", but it can also be interpretted as "get in first and get out fast".
  • The opportunity here is this:
    • Giving bonus rewards to the player for completing the mission quickly (for either one)
    • Giving bonus rewards to the player for completing the mission without destroying the opfor. I will grant you that BATTLETECH is a tactical mech combat game and so some people will balk at being rewarded for avoiding combat...but at the same time, there is an element of tactical thought and execution that is required to complete a mission without destroying the enemy while still accomplishing the objective.
  • To that end:
    • Time-based Bonus rewards: Base the number of turns on what a 240m sprint speed could accomplish + 1 turn / skull (2 levels of difficulty). Reduce the bonus reward by 25% for each turn beyond that number. Players that choose light mechs will be rewarded handsomely for completing the mission quickly, while players that choose heavier mechs will be rewarded by salvage opportunities.
    • Engagement-based Bonus rewards: Base the bonus on the percentage of the opfor (garrison + reinforcements / supporting units) that is still operational. If 100% of the opfor is still functional, the full bonus is given.
• Capture Base
  • Current methodology: Kill everyone / everything before stepping in the zone.
  • The opportunity here is:
    • Encourage the player to capture the base as soon as possible by giving "side benefits" such as the dropship crushing opfor units or turrets being captured and used against the reinforcements.
    • Additionally, the reinforcements could be made to be stronger on the assumption that player is capturing some number of turrets that will then be turned against the reinforcements.
  • To that end:
    • Bring in the dropship when the player enters the zone, regardless of opfor strength. This can provide some tactical depth as you try to manuever the opfor into the danger zone before having the dropship land and crush them.
    • Once the dropship lands, have the turrets (if there are any) be 'captured' after a couple of rounds and turned on any remaining enemy units.
    • Reward the player for the number of turrets captured as well as speed of capture (turns).
• Assassination
  • Assassination missions are sort of a grey area already. Lighter, faster units are able to quickly swarm the main target and take it out before escaping, or you can choose to fight through everyone.
  • The opportunity here is:
    • Certain mission types seem to imply that the target is the only real objective and the rest of the opfor is incidental or collateral damage. Examples: "Code of Silence", "Key Personnel", "Escaping Spy" come to mind.
  • To that end:
    • For those missions where collateral damage 'could' be mitigated, reward the player for doing so with a bonus cbill reward for leaving some % of the supporting forces intact (similar to recovery above).

The objective of these suggestions is to help provide rewardable objectives for alternate play styles. I am NOT suggesting that failure conditions be added, but simply bonus objectives (hidden or otherwise) for completion based on time or engagement styles. This would make them similar to the bonus objectives of preserving a certain number of ammo crates during the story mission, or being successful is keeping all escorted vehicles alive or all base buildings intact.

Ah crap, sorry for jumping the gun on that. You might just want to copy this and make it it's own thread as it has a lot of really good ideas that reach much farther than my post. Added a link to your post in my OP.

 

[mjbroekman]

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...eaking-the-kill-everything-mentality.1143494/