Can I revisit planets in Career Mode?

[Reposter]

Hi guys, I just started my Career mode and I am still at my first planet. I know the Career scoring system rewards points for every new Planet visited, but my issue is maybe I want to farm a bit on lower Skull Planets until I feel more confident of my Lance.

Is there any strategy with regards to Star Map navigation and is it advisable to revisit Planets? Are there any RNG issues as well if you revisit Planets or keep visiting new Planets?

 

[MarkDey]

I have some helpful links in my signature regarding star map navigation (and a Kerensky Career playthrough that might be helpful), and I would advise against revisiting planets for a few reasons. Not only because it is most optimal to visit new systems and keep doing that until you have reached the 170 systems needed to maximize the score, but also because there seems to be a bug with contract re-generation and once you go through the contracts listed in a given system, new ones will not appear like they should.

Also, when I say that new ones will not appear, I mean that if you do some contacts in a system and leave two remaining, and then leave, then when you revisit, there will still be two contracts available - maybe three - but they will not be the same types of contracts that you left there. Said another way, if you leave a contract in a system that is a 2 skull Battle from Liao vs Pirates, when you return, there will still be a contract available, but it may have changed into something completely different like a 1.5 skull Escort from Local Gov vs Canopus.

Best of luck with your Career run!

 

[Reposter]

I have some helpful links in my signature regarding star map navigation (and a Kerensky Career playthrough that might be helpful), and I would advise against revisiting planets for a few reasons. Not only because it is most optimal to visit new systems and keep doing that until you have reached the 170 systems needed to maximize the score, but also because there seems to be a bug with contract re-generation and once you go through the contracts listed in a given system, new ones will not appear like they should.

Also, when I say that new ones will not appear, I mean that if you do some contacts in a system and leave two remaining, and then leave, then when you revisit, there will still be two contracts available - maybe three - but they will not be the same types of contracts that you left there. Said another way, if you leave a contract in a system that is a 2 skull Battle from Liao vs Pirates, when you return, there will still be a contract available, but it may have changed into something completely different like a 1.5 skull Escort from Local Gov vs Canopus.

Best of luck with your Career run!

Some players from different forums say that in Career mode you can just stay on low difficulty Planets and just keep using Light and Medium lances. Is this true or is there some misinformation, because if Contracts do not regenerate fully this means you have to take higher difficulty planets all the way eventually?

 

[MarkDey]

Some players from different forums say that in Career mode you can just stay on low difficulty Planets and just keep using Light and Medium lances. Is this true or is there some misinformation, because if Contracts do not regenerate fully this means you have to take higher difficulty planets all the way eventually?

If you look at the first starmap in this post then you can see that there are many low difficulty planets that are clustered together. Eventually, yes, you will run out of lower difficulty planets, but odds are you will have a lance full of medium mechs, with maybe even a heavy or two, and elite pilots well before then, which would let you take care of the medium difficulty systems. What you heard elsewhere is correct, but I would say that if you were going to try that, you should visit multiple different low difficulty systems instead of visiting the same few systems over and over.

 

[Reposter]

Could you help me with the Planets with the Star Map I have attached with this post? I am trying to figure out what are the order of the Planets for this Star Map I got from the thread you linked me to.

Here are the Planets I have figured out so far:

Planet Order:

- Arn (1)
- Liu's Memory
- Alloway (2)
- Ur Cruinne
- Cygnus
- Spencer
- Bellerophon
- Detroit
- Linhauiguan
- Tincalunas (3)
- Wyeth's Glory (4)
- Repulse (5)
- Payia
- Ghorepani
- Cluff's Stand
- Adrar (6)
- Segerica
- Hibuarius (!)
- Aquagea
- Cassilda (7)
- Early Dawn (8)
- Brixtana (9)
- New Abilene
- Cate's Hold (10)
- Dainmar Majoris
- Dunianshire (11)
- Balawat (12)
- Addasar (13)

I am a little confused with the Map, need some help thanks, I am plotting out my Career route and I started on the Planet Independence. Please help with the details of the planet for this suggested route Starmap.

 

[MarkDey]

It looks like you're using the map that @ninte000 made. Scroll down to the post I linked. That has four maps, and the last one has the names of the star systems.

If you are starting at Independence, and you have the Heavy Metal DLC, then I would recommend that you do all of the missions in Independence, and then head "east" directly towards Tarragona and start that flashpoint chain of missions. Then, fly "west" back towards Independence., flying into each system on the way and doing all of those contracts. By then, the second part of that mission chain should appear and you can do that. That would be a good start, I think.

 

[Reposter]

I have seen some flashpoints, they have some Tonnage requirements for some of them. Some require Heavy or Light Mech Tonnage. It would be much appreciated if you could direct me to a detailed list or information for all the Flashpoints if you know of one, thanks much appreciated.

With regards to my travel route, I will try @ninte000 route as a first time trial, its quite complicated to plan my own route so I just test things out for now using the provided Starmap. If you wish me to use an alternate route, please help me out by providing more details, also just wondering can someone help me out with the order that @nine000 has flown after Planet Addasar? It is a bit messy the route for the Map @nine000 has provided, could use some detailed clarification assistance, thanks.

This is the route I think that @nine000 has flown:

- Arn (1)
- Liu's Memory
- Alloway (2)
- Ur Cruinne
- Cygnus
- Spencer
- Bellerophon
- Detroit
- Linhauiguan
- Tincalunas (3)
- Wyeth's Glory (4)
- Repulse (5)
- Payia
- Ghorepani
- Cluff's Stand
- Adrar (6)
- Segerica
- Hibuarius (!)
- Aquagea
- Cassilda (7)
- Early Dawn (8)
- Brixtana (9)
- New Abilene
- Cate's Hold (10)
- Dainmar Majoris
- Dunianshire (11)
- Balawat (12)
- Addasar (13)
- Fronc
- Chandan (14)
- Mcevan's Sacrifice
- Independence
- Appian
- Sacromonte
- Herotitus
- Kimi (15)
- Cavalor (16)
- Weldry
- Bringdam
- Ward
- Ichlangis (17)
- Ryans Fate (18)
- Mechdur
- Zangul (19)
- Umgard (20)
- Girondas
- Qalzi (21)

 

[MarkDey]

For a list of flashpoints and the tonnage restrictions, I would direct you to the post that I have linked in my signature.

I would recommend against using the @nintee000 map as it is old and does not include the new systems along the top of the map. Also, there is not a requirement to visit every system anymore - only 170 systems.

I feel that the determination of what the best travel route is should be left up to each player. The post I linked to should be helpful as it shows the max distance connections between systems, as well as the skull level and jump distance.

 

[Reposter]

For a list of flashpoints and the tonnage restrictions, I would direct you to the post that I have linked in my signature.

I would recommend against using the @ninte000 map as it is old and does not include the new systems along the top of the map. Also, there is not a requirement to visit every system anymore - only 170 systems.

I feel that the determination of what the best travel route is should be left up to each player. The post I linked to should be helpful as it shows the max distance connections between systems, as well as the skull level and jump distance.

@MarkDey well I am going to test the route that @nintee000 has given, mainly because trying to find my own route is quite complicated. I have looked through the difficulty of the Route until Stop point 21 for @nintee000 and it should be okay, once I reached point 21, I am going to plan my own route which is what I feel is being suggested by the Starmap given.

@MarkDey if you suggest alternate routes, could you perhaps try to enlighten me as to what I should be doing for Routes with Starmap examples. Navigating the different Planets in Career mode is different than Campaign mode which I have completed once with the Vanilla game. I am trying to research my own routes as well but I find @ninte000 route is not a bad idea until Stop Point 21. No point telling me not to follow the example but not giving something that I can understand if you are trying to assist me. Not to start an argument on anything but I need Star Map examples like the one @ninte000 has given.

 

[MarkDey]

Understood - best of luck!

 

[MarkDey]

Okay, try using the attached map for the start of your Career. I created this map assuming that you have the Heavy Metal DLC. It is designed to get you to all of the systems where you need to be at the appropriate time, while also keeping you to low skulls systems as you stated that as a preference. The blue circled systems on the map are the Heavy Metal systems, and they are numbered in order of when you need to visit them. The time it takes for the next story contract to appear for the Heavy Metal flashpoint between part 1 and part 2 is 30 days; the time between all other parts of that story is 90 days.

If a line does not have an arrow going into a system, then just fly by it. If there is an arrow, then fly into that system and do as many contracts as you can before you have to fly out and make repairs & heal up while you travel.

The days listed for each segment of the journey are only accurate if you use the travel method where you navigate past a system you want to enter, and then at the jump point of that system you pause time and click the 'Visit System' button (or whatever it's actually labeled.) Sumire will ask if you want to interrupt your journey - say yes, and it will only take you three days to get to a planet, regardless of how long the jump distance is. Coming out of the system, you'll need to spend the full amount of days as listed in the jump distance map.

Let me know if you have additional questions, and feel free to modify this route as you see fit. It's not possible to make an optimal path from the beginning of the game, simply because of all of the things that could happen, but having the maps available to plan out options is helpful. Since the maps are the same size, I have them all in a Paint.NET file and can toggle visibility between them to draw out possible routes.

 

[Reposter]

@MarkDey , okay I have already started travelling from Planet Independence. Thanks for the info, might try it out on my next Career attempt.

1 Question: When you travel from 3 Planets, is it faster than stopping in every one of the 3 Planets? So basically you can get a better score for traveling pass the first 2 planets and reach the final third planet Destination faster rather than stopping at every of the 3 Planets, is that correct?

 

[Kovax]

@MarkDey , okay I have already started travelling from Planet Independence. Thanks for the info, might try it out on my next Career attempt.

1 Question: When you travel from 3 Planets, is it faster than stopping in every one of the 3 Planets? So basically you can get a better score for traveling pass the first 2 planets and reach the final third planet Destination faster rather than stopping at every of the 3 Planets, is that correct?

Continuing on is definitely faster, otherwise you've got to spend dropship time from the jumpship to the planet, then back again. Whether that counts as "visited" or not, I can't say, because I haven't done the Career thing yet.

 

[MarkDey]

1 Question: When you travel from 3 Planets, is it faster than stopping in every one of the 3 Planets? So basically you can get a better score for traveling pass the first 2 planets and reach the final third planet Destination faster rather than stopping at every of the 3 Planets, is that correct?

Correct. The Career score only counts the jump points you visit. In the Kerensky rated Career that I recently finished, I flew past (only visited the jump point) over 100 systems, so I really only visited about 70 planets and did the contracts on them. I did ~380 contracts, which averages out to about 6 contracts per planet (that includes flashpoint contracts.)

 

[EmptyPepsiCan]

IMHO if you're just starting out there's really no reason to worry about career ratings. Frankly - again in my humble opinion - the career rating system is a meaningless piece of bolted on, meta gamey nonsense, much like Steam achievements and CoD prestige levels. And on top of all that, if you're spending lots of time farming cash and XP on low skull planets then you're making a conscious decision to accept a low rating, so why worry about it at all?

You can just set the navigation map to show .5 or 1 skull systems and visit whichever ones suit your fancy. Your best bet is to run through as many missions as you can, then cue up all the jobs that you want done in the mech bay, then head to a new system. When you get there you ought to have your lance ready to go, so do more contracts and then head to a new system. As you get more money you can also start doing stop overs in 5 skull systems to look for good gear. There's no limit (other than your finances and being hated by a faction) on where you can shop or what gear you can buy and use. When you feel comfortable with tougher missions just change the setting to 1.5 or 2 and keep on rolling. The only considerations you should really worry about are faction rep (in case you want to ally with a faction or get that coveted black market invite) and system specializations (in case you're looking for some specific gear).

 

[Kovax]

The only considerations you should really worry about are faction rep (in case you want to ally with a faction or get that coveted black market invite) and system specializations (in case you're looking for some specific gear).

Speaking of Black Market invites, what are the requirements for that and how does it occur? Is it a totally random thing if you're above some minimum qualification, does pirate reputation directly affect the chance of it happening, or is it automatic if you exceed some threshold level?

 

[EmptyPepsiCan]

As far as I know the invite is random and the price to join (and all future pricing) is tied to reputation. If you're interested in using the black market you'll want to make nice with the pirates.

 

[Reposter]

The Black Market event is random, but the amount you pay to have access to the Black Market depends on your rep with the Pirates. The worse your rep wit Pirates, the more you have to pay to get access to the Black Market.

 

[Icewraith]

The event is also much more likely to happen if you’re friends with the Pirates, on top of having to pay less.