Ironman+Career Mode=World of PAIN!

[ronhatch]

@HBS_Kiva @HBS_TheBaron

How about some new lance choices?

Funny you should mention the Cicada... I've been playing around with making the starting lance for the campaign one each of the lights that I consider strictly inferior to other mechs in the game. (And no extra mechs in the bay.) So a Commando, Locust, Panther and UrbanMech (along with modding the speeds back to 30 meters per TT move, no fudging... so I often find myself picturing the UrbanMech pilot begging the rest of the lance to "Wait up, guys!").

Today it occurred to me that career mode is supposed to be tougher and that there were two variants of the Locust and one of the Commando that I hadn't used. But that leaves one slot open, and what horrible travesty of a mech can I put there that I haven't used already??? Oh, wait! The Cicada is perfect!

I did end up going with the 3C, since I'm not quite insane enough for the 2A.

Edit: Oh, and I thought about the all-Locust option, but part of the point for me is to create a situation where I have to find a use for some of the mechs I otherwise would throw in storage or sell without a moments thought... so the variety is a big deal.

 

[Edmon]

I'm not quite insane enough for the 2A..

It's got the same armour as a locust, in worse locations...
Only slightly more firepower...
About the same speed...

And loses +1 Initiative and +2 evasion because it's not a light.

It is truly, an awful mech.

 

[mork77]

Well, i will try the tactic i used in the Campaign.

long-range mechs. I reduced the weapons for the vindicator down to PPC + 1 medium Laser. max armor. Heatsinks. Did the same with all the other mediums. keeps your pilots alive.

now, i plan on doing this with the vindicator and the Panther ( which i believe can have max armor and jumjets and still has some spce left for weapons). Jenner and Commando will be modified so that they get max jumpjets and some medium lasers, depending on space. Spider is fine as it is. They will jump in with vigilance activated, thus sprinting out of range again before someone can fire on them.

again, keeping pilots alive and not taking damage is essential. repairs and injuries cost time and time is Money!

I switched to Close combat ( and i mean Melee) only when i switched to Heavies, since their initiative is to low to make the long range tactic feasible.

I also never took missions that seemed risky. better 2 easy missions without much damage, than one difficult with a destroyed Lance.

 

[stjobe]

the lights that I consider strictly inferior to other mechs in the game. [...] Commando, [...] Panther

Hang on two seconds... You are considering the Commando and Panther "strictly inferior"? The COM-1B and the PNT-9R are the only two light 'Mechs that have a long-range option apart from the loses-a-leg-to-a-medium-laser-hit LCT-1M. The Jenner, Firestarter, Spider, and other LCTs are strictly short-range 'Mechs.

 

[D-Day]

Hang on two seconds... You are considering the Commando and Panther "strictly inferior"? The COM-1B and the PNT-9R are the only two light 'Mechs that have a long-range option apart from the loses-a-leg-to-a-medium-laser-hit LCT-1M. The Jenner, Firestarter, Spider, and other LCTs are strictly short-range 'Mechs.

Yeah, I rather like the Panther. Running as many as 3 at a time if one of my 2 mediums are being repaired.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

OK, so started a new base defence mission, worth half a million C-bills. Going great so far-even managed to clear out the Vanguard easily enough, & even managed to de-leg a Jenner without Precision Strike......oh, but now a Hunchback has turned up.....& that has become our primary target.

Sadly I needed to leave it on that Cliffhanger!

 

[IceTitan]

Cicada isn't that bad had Dekker using once for a while in campaign and did fine, even killed people with it. Just gotta tweak it a bit and it turns into a jumpless 40 ton jenner.

 

[Edmon]

Cicada isn't that bad had Dekker using once for a while in campaign and did fine, even killed people with it. Just gotta tweak it a bit and it turns into a jumpless 40 ton jenner.

The Jenner has 13.5 tons to allocate. The Cicada-2A has 6.5, which is less than half, and the aformentioned penalties for not being a Light mech.

This comparison is not even close. The Jenner is literally 2.5x the mech the Cacada is.

Be glad it's not in your starting lance in Career mode!

 

[Shake Appeal]

Most of the mechs at the "bottom" of each class are terrible because of the initiative deficit versus mechs that are only a few tons lighter. But the Cicada is a very special kind of terrible.

 

[TripleStrengthMisnomer]

The Jenner has 13.5 tons to allocate. The Cicada-2A has 6.5, which is less than half, and the aformentioned penalties for not being a Light mech.

This comparison is not even close. The Jenner is literally 2.5x the mech the Cacada is.

Be glad it's not in your starting lance in Career mode!

It all comes down to the adherence to canon and the effort to get that 3025 feel of the mechs and lore.
Yes, other than roleplay, masochism or curiosity reasons, no sane person would ever run a Cicada.
(This is where Flashpoints gets exciting as hopefully we will see user generated campaign possibilities from the Modding community where the Cicada is an integral part of the story or all you have on hand to start!)

In order to fix the Cicada, you need to be able to do something we cannot do here...engine swaps...removing that massive engine and lowering the movement profile down to a Jenner or better yet Firestarter would free up much needed tonnage to make the mech useful again despite the medium mech initiative and evasion penalty over a light.

 

[Havamal]

Is it though?

Yes.

Haha.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

Meh... who is this Baron? Some kind of Royalty?!?
I would prefer the opinion of the Bringer of Death

@HBS_TheBaron, aka Andrew of Team HBS, is the Maker of Aurigan Legends, the Man behind House Espinosa’s Grab for Power, HBS Grand Master Story Teller of Shadowrun tales both near and far...

Plus he played one of my favorite characters on later Season DFA episodes. (Which as I hear is coming back form Zombie Orpheus Entertainment for Season 4 in January 2019.... @Kereminde, AmIRight? )


Andrew’s plots and treacherous, heroes and heroines have served Team HBS well. I look forward to his “take” on BATTLETECH CLANS... in due course and at the appropriate time of course. :bow:


Seyla...

 

[HonorKnight]

@HBS_TheBaron, aka Andrew of Team HBS, is the Maker of Aurigan Legends, the Man behind House Espinosa’s Grab for Power, HBS Grand Master Story Teller of Shadowrun tales both near and far...

Plus he played one of my favorite characters on later Season DFA episodes. (Which as I hear is coming back form Zombie Orpheus Entertainment for Season 4 in January 2019.... @Kereminde, AmIRight? )


Andrew’s plots and treacherous, heroes and heroines have served Team HBS well. I look forward to his “take” on BATTLETECH CLANS... in due course and at the appropriate time of course. :bow:


Seyla...

Although with his Lethality + CT destruction settings being even more deadly than Kiva's, he may be vying to overthrow her as the God of Death!

 

[Ken-Sw]

Well my Ironman Career just came to an nasty end. Simple capture base easy win then the Dropship bringing in engineers landed on 3 of my mechs - I SWEAR there were no red markers there.

 

[Havamal]

@HBS_TheBaron, aka Andrew of Team HBS, is the Maker of Aurigan Legends, the Man behind House Espinosa’s Grab for Power, HBS Grand Master Story Teller of Shadowrun tales both near and far...

Plus he played one of my favorite characters on later Season DFA episodes. (Which as I hear is coming back form Zombie Orpheus Entertainment for Season 4 in January 2019.... @Kereminde, AmIRight? )


Andrew’s plots and treacherous, heroes and heroines have served Team HBS well. I look forward to his “take” on BATTLETECH CLANS... in due course and at the appropriate time of course. :bow:
Seyla...

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/dfa-returns-this-january.1131707/unread

 

[Ben G]

In order to fix the Cicada, you need to be able to do something we cannot do here...engine swaps...removing that massive engine and lowering the movement profile down to a Jenner or better yet Firestarter

No such major changes are needed. Just add the Assassin and Clint to the game

One of the unfortunate side effects of HBS trying to make lighter Mechs viable is that some other ones at the bottoms of weight classes are made even worse.

Cicadas, Dragons and Quickdraws were never great Mechs in tabletop, but they get extra hosed in this game. A Cicada should be a viable replacement for a Locust. Trading extra cost for more structure and melee damage.

If initiative was based on speed instead of weight class, that would help. Of course it would make Urbies and Panthers less useful. I think it would still make more sense to focus on the trade off made for a large or small engine instead of total Mech tonnage though.

 

[Kereminde]

No such major changes are needed. Just add the Assassin and Clint to the game

One of the unfortunate side effects of HBS trying to make lighter Mechs viable is that some other ones at the bottoms of weight classes are made even worse.

Cicadas, Dragons and Quickdraws were never great Mechs in tabletop, but they get extra hosed in this game. A Cicada should be a viable replacement for a Locust. Trading extra cost for more structure and melee damage.

If initiative was based on speed instead of weight class, that would help. Of course it would make Urbies and Panthers less useful. I think it would still make more sense to focus on the trade off made for a large or small engine instead of total Mech tonnage though.

Or trying, valiantly, to introduce some sort of quirks system native to chassis variants. That's probably a better fit than trying to codify by speed or by weight class, but then enters a whole different territory of "a whole lot of work to properly test and balance".

 

[draqsko]

So last night I decided to try out the new Career Mode.....coupled with my first ever Ironman run through. Lets just say that it has already been an extremely arduous adventure, & I am only 3 missions in. Let me briefly tell you my "tale of woe".

I started my career in Taurian Space, & decided to use it as an opportunity to test the new Rep System, by building my rep with the Taurians (my true loyalty is to House Kurita, but that's another story).

First two missions were a doddle, taking out a pirate lance then eliminating a group of Davion backed weapons smugglers (though I did encounter my first Hatchetman in the latter mission). This must have lulled me into a false sense of security, though, as my 3rd mission quickly went pear shaped on me.

It seemed easy enough on the surface, clear out a lance of rogue mercenaries.....but then it turned out that there was more than 1 lance on the planet (the dangers of incomplete intelligence). Suddenly my Light Lance was facing down 8 Mechs-coming from different directions......& one of these was another Hatchetman.

I prevailed in the end, but not without the death of a Mechwarrior, the loss of a Mech & injured pilots/damaged mechs almost across the board.

At present, I only have 1 undamaged mech (Jenner) & pilot, & over 1 month of waiting before the rest are operational again.

To make matters worse, even after selling off all my salvage, I am less than 1 month away from bankruptcy. Lets hope this latest Base Defense mission can drag me out of the hole!!!

If you think that is a world of pain, try starting an Ironman Career and only try doing pirate missions, or at least not any mission against another pirate group. It's rather hard to even find missions (although you'll usually find one mission at least per planet with an active pirate faction), at least in claimed space. On top of it all the normal stores will likely have increasing penalties to pricing, although once you are liked you have cheap access to the Black Market once it pops.

Started in Lindsay and finally reached unclaimed space:

Here's my rep so far mostly raided Taurians because they were there and they were Taurians (HAR! I'm a pirate, well I did one mission for Arano to pay for transit across their space):

But I'm almost always running near bankrupt and having to do skull and half missions with this:

Second to last battle has been the hardest so far, skull and half assassination mission with 2 lances (one light, one light-medium) and the target was in a Shadowhawk (with a second SHD-2H in the light-medium lance). Hard fights against another SHD-2D and a Quickdraw as well, finally starting to collect some good mechs:

But there is a good side to being a pirate, the mission descriptions are just awesome (I agree with Darius):

 

[scJazz]

I love that there is this thread about playing full on hardmode here and another one about Target Acquisition Missions being too hard over there >>>

 

[Edmon]

I love that there is this thread about playing full on hardmode here and another one about Target Acquisition Missions being too hard over there >>>

When I make the thread about a mission being too hard, I'll let you know...

Yet somehow, I doubt that day will ever come...