On a semi-related note, is there ever a reason to have more than the default max of 8 mechwarriors? There's an Argo upgrade to 16, but I almost never need more than 6: 4 to run a mission, 2 that are healing. I can't imagine having so many injured mechwarriors I'd need 16. If that was ever the case, missions must be going so badly, I'd be broke and out of mechs anyway.
How do you pick who to hire? And do their backgrounds matter?
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Perhaps instead of having full control over their development, you hire them and find out they're all gutsy but can't shoot. That might be a variation on the rules worth exploring.
Well, I know sometimes you get to a planet and you actually get to do several missions without travel. I think I came out of one early combat mission with 3 injuries.
Later on in the game if you upgrade the Argo's engines, but not the medbay, it's actually possible for travel times between nearby systems to be much shorter than the amount of time it takes wounded pilots to heal up from one or two injuries. If you stick to a certain area, there's always the chance that you'll actually get injuries faster than you can travel around.
Likewise, if a pilot is almost killed (or survives getting cored) they're often out for 2+ months, so if you have a bad mission where a lot of pilots barely survive, if not just die outright, having more than 8 can be a major benefit.
Likewise, if a pilot is almost killed (or survives getting cored) they're often out for 2+ months, so if you have a bad mission where a lot of pilots barely survive, if not just die outright, having more than 8 can be a major benefit.
I have a pilot with some kind of mech mechanic background and every once in a while I catch him screwing around with the weapons. If I let him continue it will either ad a + and give him high spirits or destroy the weapon and and low morale.
My choices are typically based on voice and occasionally their background.
I have one pilot I chose because they came from a poor background and I thought well, here he is gone from poor to mechwarrior. He's done very well and is on his way to being promoted to a potential lance commander. I cut him no slack and put him in one of my Catapult K-2s for a while to proves his mettle and now he pilots one of my sniper King Crabs. He has more headshot kills in the KC than most of my pilots. I like to give them imaginary role play fluff as well.
I've lost all of my starting pilots except Medua at this point, over 3000 days. Glitch was the heart of the lance and Behemoth was my number one and the soul of the lance. Both are gone now and since losing Behemoth my commander semi-retired for nearly 1200 days with Medusa taking command during that time.
Slam take command of the lance sometimes. I named an award I give to my pilots annually after her. I have another up and comer named Stomp who I nicknamed Diversity Hire as he was the first white male I saw for hire after 2000 some odd days. He's earned his place without a doubt.
I have one pilot I chose because they came from a poor background and I thought well, here he is gone from poor to mechwarrior. He's done very well and is on his way to being promoted to a potential lance commander. I cut him no slack and put him in one of my Catapult K-2s for a while to proves his mettle and now he pilots one of my sniper King Crabs. He has more headshot kills in the KC than most of my pilots. I like to give them imaginary role play fluff as well.
I've lost all of my starting pilots except Medua at this point, over 3000 days. Glitch was the heart of the lance and Behemoth was my number one and the soul of the lance. Both are gone now and since losing Behemoth my commander semi-retired for nearly 1200 days with Medusa taking command during that time.
Slam take command of the lance sometimes. I named an award I give to my pilots annually after her. I have another up and comer named Stomp who I nicknamed Diversity Hire as he was the first white male I saw for hire after 2000 some odd days. He's earned his place without a doubt.
I exclusively hire Ronin or KS backers since my first run through.
I favour Davion backgrounds, but so long as there's no chance of running back to their original House, we're Golden. I also try to hire recruits and let them accumulate maximum training XP before honing their skills prior to deployment - this helps keep costs down whilst on the bench in the same way that "redundant" mechs sit in storage, rather than the mech bay.
As part of my own meta game, I keep a spreadsheet of the pilots' progress against Lance roles and will soon get to a point where I will assign a mech to each pilot too. T-Bone has already got his Wolverine - in 12 deployments he's got 21 mech kills and 9 others so he's working out great in the lightest mech of the Command Lance, C/1-75. In a month's time he'll find himself promoted to leading the Recon Lance...
I would love to have the ability to assign pilots to mechs in the game - just like the Orbats (Order of Battle) found in the TT sourcebooks. +10 immersion.
I favour Davion backgrounds, but so long as there's no chance of running back to their original House, we're Golden. I also try to hire recruits and let them accumulate maximum training XP before honing their skills prior to deployment - this helps keep costs down whilst on the bench in the same way that "redundant" mechs sit in storage, rather than the mech bay.
As part of my own meta game, I keep a spreadsheet of the pilots' progress against Lance roles and will soon get to a point where I will assign a mech to each pilot too. T-Bone has already got his Wolverine - in 12 deployments he's got 21 mech kills and 9 others so he's working out great in the lightest mech of the Command Lance, C/1-75. In a month's time he'll find himself promoted to leading the Recon Lance...
I would love to have the ability to assign pilots to mechs in the game - just like the Orbats (Order of Battle) found in the TT sourcebooks. +10 immersion.
I just rename a 'Mech to a pilot's callsign if I decide to have them be the primary pilot of that 'Mech. It's not the same, but I kind of like the idea that their name's painted across it so people know who it is that just walked over the hill in a Centurion and know just how much trouble they're in.
I go for an RP standpoint. I immediately fire pirates and scrutinize those with criminal backgrounds. I don't trust Capellans, ComStar and non-Rasalhague Snakes. I'm ok with those from the other 3 houses. Fellow Rasalhague ex-patriots are always welcome.
But Comstar is a pacifist religious order who brings instant communication to the galaxy. Why wouldn't you trust them?
Kinda like asking why wouldn't you trust Google? They only have all your email, searches, browser habits, and location history. Google one day will become Comstar. I wonder if they have a secret bunker of bleeding edge military equipment somewhere?But Comstar is a pacifist religious order who brings instant communication to the galaxy. Why wouldn't you trust them?
Typing that on the public internet? Do you want a visit from ROM agents? Because that's how you get ROM agents.Kinda like asking why wouldn't you trust Google? They only have all your email, searches, browser habits, and location history. Google one day will become Comstar. I wonder if they have a secret bunker of bleeding edge military equipment somewhere?
I mean, service techs. Yeah, that's it...
I mean Google is great. Yeah that's the ticket. (Looks out the window for unmarked black vans.)
Some KS pilots have a "Lucky" trait, I've zeroed in on one or two of them - I always wondered why they were particularly good at combat in certain instances when they either shouldn't have made the shot or been cored but instead dodged easily. After that, I pick the voices. Some of my favorites are Succubus, esp. the dead-pan "Smoked him." Our own resident real life celebrity developer, Chris Eck's eponymous character, Live Wire for the classic Southern drawl, Coach for the colorful statements punctuated by "sumbitch" and of course everyone's favorite Waifu Glitch. Ronin (yes, actually her call sign) is funny jarring - an obviously Asian pixie with an English accent.
I really hope that some backgrounds play a bigger role in Career Mode, in relation to both Faction Reputation & doing jobs for/against certain factions.
So if you hired a Merc with a strong House Kurita background, then that Merc may become increasingly difficult to manage if you are disliked by House Kurita. It might also mean you may have to leave them behind if you take jobs against Kurita.
I would also love to see Behemoth's criminal past play a role outside of Events.
So if you hired a Merc with a strong House Kurita background, then that Merc may become increasingly difficult to manage if you are disliked by House Kurita. It might also mean you may have to leave them behind if you take jobs against Kurita.
I would also love to see Behemoth's criminal past play a role outside of Events.
for me i eventually like to round out my stable to at least 16 pilots (i use pilot fatigue mod and want to be able to run at minimum 4 sorties)
when hiring i rarely look at a pilot with zero skills and really low stats.
hiring for me is part of the RP so i look at various things and weigh it all up to make a decision.
i want at least 1 skill that i am looking for at that moment
3's or better across the board.
their background....does it fit with my current commander....similar background...from same area...(for example right now my guy almost always will hire ex-Solaris jocks)
and are they purple ronin or blue kickstarter pilots.
my methods work well for me...i dont recall ever having to dismiss anyone in over 500 hours of play though i have come close a few times.
when hiring i rarely look at a pilot with zero skills and really low stats.
hiring for me is part of the RP so i look at various things and weigh it all up to make a decision.
i want at least 1 skill that i am looking for at that moment
3's or better across the board.
their background....does it fit with my current commander....similar background...from same area...(for example right now my guy almost always will hire ex-Solaris jocks)
and are they purple ronin or blue kickstarter pilots.
my methods work well for me...i dont recall ever having to dismiss anyone in over 500 hours of play though i have come close a few times.
I only rarely hire KS pilots and then only very specific ones... because: one can't customize their voices like with 'normal' random hires.
Did I mention you can customize them? A lot? (Except sex & face, that is.)
So, whenever you receive that annoying "aha" "ohyeah" women.. change her voice to the nice russian "we are doomed" and all is fine.
Oh and training a pilot from the lowest stats up will keep their salary lower overall. The most basix 3x2 and 1x3 stat one will start with an 18000C-Bill salary, raising +1000 per each skill point to a max of 49000 C-Bills.
Hiring any highly skilled Mechwarrior usually any raised stat point costs you +2000 in the base salary already. The only reason for me, to get rid of my starting crew btw.. though never Glitch. I just love Glitch! <3
Did I mention you can customize them? A lot? (Except sex & face, that is.)
So, whenever you receive that annoying "aha" "ohyeah" women.. change her voice to the nice russian "we are doomed" and all is fine.
Oh and training a pilot from the lowest stats up will keep their salary lower overall. The most basix 3x2 and 1x3 stat one will start with an 18000C-Bill salary, raising +1000 per each skill point to a max of 49000 C-Bills.
Hiring any highly skilled Mechwarrior usually any raised stat point costs you +2000 in the base salary already. The only reason for me, to get rid of my starting crew btw.. though never Glitch. I just love Glitch!
<3
I only rarely hire KS pilots and then only very specific ones... because: one can't customize their voices like with 'normal' random hires.
Did I mention you can customize them? A lot? (Except sex & face, that is.)
So, whenever you receive that annoying "aha" "ohyeah" women.. change her voice to the nice russian "we are doomed" and all is fine.
<3
You can customize just about everything, except for the KS backer pilots - name, call sign, a lot of their looks. There was one that was really annoying me but I liked her skills and general look, so changed her name, voice, coloration, uniform, etc.
Currently on my 3rd playthrough. Aiming to hire only KS backers, but they are thin on the ground at present.
520 days in and only hired 2 on top of the starting 4. Need another 2 ASAP!
520 days in and only hired 2 on top of the starting 4. Need another 2 ASAP!
Short version is that backgrounds matter so very little compared to everything else.
longer version -
What I look for depends entirely on what I need.
If i just got off a rough stretch of missions and need a pilot right away - i grab one with with best fit of skills that can get sent straight into action right away. otoh if i'm just hiring bench depth - I look for untrained (cheap) rookies that can be molded / groomed for very specific roles after an extensive training program.
In a perfect world a background trait might be enough to function as a tiebreaker between 2 otherwise mostly equal choices, but that is about it.
longer version -
What I look for depends entirely on what I need.
If i just got off a rough stretch of missions and need a pilot right away - i grab one with with best fit of skills that can get sent straight into action right away. otoh if i'm just hiring bench depth - I look for untrained (cheap) rookies that can be molded / groomed for very specific roles after an extensive training program.
In a perfect world a background trait might be enough to function as a tiebreaker between 2 otherwise mostly equal choices, but that is about it.