Buildings are awfully hard to hit...

[EmptyPepsiCan]

Seriously, I can't stand these missions where I've already dealt with the opposition, but it takes another 10 minutes to finish because my mechwarriors can't manage to shoot an undefended building.

I propose a new perk - Broadside of a Barn. It would give all mechwarriors a 1,000 point to hit bonus and +200 weapon damage against buildings when there are no enemies left on the map and no more due to arrive.

How about it?

 

[Blade_mercurial]

*Checks to see if its April 1st*

I don't understand how someone can seriously take 10 min to destroy a couple buildings unless maybe you were deploying 4 locusts that had their lasers stripped out (so they were only equipped with machine guns). Or I guess its possible that your squad of 4 mechs were so severely damaged that you had very few weapons left...but that should be an exceptional circumstance where you probably attempted a mission that was borderline too hard, or you messed up somewhere along the way. In other words, not the mission's fault.

Buildings already give a substantial hit bonus; such that you should be hitting 90-95% (if not, maybe you're shooting from too far away?). They have on average 100 to 200 HP (between 4 and 8 medium laser hits to destroy). Most 'Destroy Base' missions require no more than 4 buildings to take out (sometimes only 2 or 3). So already fairly trivial to deal with...I mean, a single medium-size mech can easily be equipped with enough firepower to take out such a structure in a single turn of shooting...

 

[mjbroekman]

That must be some awful RNG. What kind of pilots are you going in with and are you moving close to the buildings or standing at sniper distances and poking with AC/2s?

I don't think I've ever had less than a 75% chance to hit a building and, even with four reasonably equipped lights, taken more an 2 rounds of focused fire to destroy a building. Usually it's more like 1-2 buildings destroyed per round.

 

[EmptyPepsiCan]

Pardon my hyperbole. My point is that killing undefended buildings is two things - a complete certainty as long as my lance has a single working energy weapon, and boring.

I'm not generally right next to the buildings after a fight, so I have to spend turns on movement, then I have to shoot them. Missing shots at undefended buildings adds rounds, which is irritating and pointless.

Why even make me go through the motions? Why not just have a button that says "Complete Mission"? We're not forced to run to the evac point if the mission is over. That's a great feature. Why not add it to killing buildings after the fight is done (in missions where there's no timer or anything else going on)?

 

[mjbroekman]

While it is a complete certainty (assuming the player is not doing something deliberately counterproductive) with one non-ammo-dependent weapon, the existence of that weapon is not guaranteed (either because the player doesn't have any or they all got blown away).

But, yeah, it would be nice if we didn't have to complete tasks that were absolute certainties. I would agree with that. Maybe that logic can be added to the evac logic ... pardon the pseudocode:

if ( all_enemies_dead and ! primary_objective.is_complete() ) {
   foreach ( player_mech ) {
      if ( has_energy_weapon_or_small_laser ) {
         primary_objective.complete();
         evac_successful();
      }
   }
}

 

[EmptyPepsiCan]

While it is a complete certainty (assuming the player is not doing something deliberately counterproductive) with one non-ammo-dependent weapon, the existence of that weapon is not guaranteed (either because the player doesn't have any or they all got blown away).

Granted, the possibility exists that a "Complete Mission" button would allow a player with no weapons to finish a mission that would otherwise be a failure. I can't see that happening very often, though. The object of the game is to remain financially solvent, and you don't do that by getting all of your weapons shot off. I think most players would withdraw long before that happened.

Either way, I can live with that if it's balanced against the elimination of needless tedium. I'd just roleplay a resolution - my mechs pounded the buildings to dust, the Leopard dropped off more ammo, a mechwarrior got out and set a fire, or whatever.

 

[mjbroekman]

Granted, the possibility exists that a "Complete Mission" button would allow a player with no weapons to finish a mission that would otherwise be a failure. I can't see that happening very often, though. The object of the game is to remain financially solvent, and you don't do that by getting all of your weapons shot off. I think most players would withdraw long before that happened.

Either way, I can live with that if it's balanced against the elimination of needless tedium. I'd just roleplay a resolution - my mechs pounded the buildings to dust, the Leopard dropped off more ammo, a mechwarrior got out and set a fire, or whatever.

Oh, I wouldn't want someone that is _incapable_ of finishing the mission to complete it successfully. That's what the withdraw button is for. But if they have, at minimum, a small laser, then the mission should complete successfully.

 

[EmptyPepsiCan]

That'd be fine.

 

[Donvale]

*Checks to see if its April 1st*

I don't understand how someone can seriously take 10 min to destroy a couple buildings unless maybe you were deploying 4 locusts that had their lasers stripped out (so they were only equipped with machine guns). Or I guess its possible that your squad of 4 mechs were so severely damaged that you had very few weapons left...but that should be an exceptional circumstance where you probably attempted a mission that was borderline too hard, or you messed up somewhere along the way. In other words, not the mission's fault.

Buildings already give a substantial hit bonus; such that you should be hitting 90-95% (if not, maybe you're shooting from too far away?). They have on average 100 to 200 HP (between 4 and 8 medium laser hits to destroy). Most 'Destroy Base' missions require no more than 4 buildings to take out (sometimes only 2 or 3). So already fairly trivial to deal with...I mean, a single medium-size mech can easily be equipped with enough firepower to take out such a structure in a single turn of shooting...

Actually there is one quite common destroy base mission (in the snow with the ridge you have to come round the end of) that has buildings up to 600 hits! and you have to destroy 5 of them, it does indeed take a significant amount of time to complete after destroying then enemies, you have to pick and choose the weaker buildings by bringing up the details on every one and then destroying the weaker ones and unfortunately the correlation between size and hits is pretty vague.
The frustrating part is that it would near on impossible to complete without destroying the enemies, so I am not quite sure what is achieved by having so many such tough buildings.

 

[EmptyPepsiCan]

I just played that mission. It was boring and unnecessary, but my guys at least shot well. Still sucked, though. Please, developer friends, just give us a "Complete Mission" button in the next patch.