Maximizing chassis salvage

[Jadedfalcon]

Do we actually know yet whether or not it's even possible to get more than one piece of chassis salvage from a mech? My understanding was that chassis salvage was an abstract thing and wasn't even necessarily a guarantee. I.E. coring the center torso vs blowing off both legs doesn't result in different pieces. You'd potentially get a "mech chassis" component of which you need X (I think they said 3?) to rebuild that mech, and you aren't guaranteed that you will get a chassis component at all in the salvage pool much less multiple based on the proportion of that mech that was destroyed. Right? Otherwise it seems like you'd be swimming in chassis components and the only real limitation would be how many kills you've had on X chassis and how much it costs to perform the rebuild.

The last Q&A I think Mitch said it's possible to salvage more than 1/3 of a chassis depending on how the mech was destroyed. I'm guessing killing the pilot results in 3, 1/3's ending up in the salvage pool.

They said you need 3 pieces of the same mech (and variant) to put together a whole mech but that there is no part A, part B, and part C. It's just 3 parts. They said to think of it as having 3 blowed up mechs and from those 3 hulks, your engineers could cannibalize and refit to make 1 usable mech.

Unless of course, I misunderstood.

 

[Visonare]

Ah I guess I missed that. That's interesting. I remember that they said mech rebuilds would take time and money, have they said anything about a limitation on how many projects mech techs can be working on at once? They said in one of the Q/A's that you can't sell mech chassis parts but can sell complete mechs, makes for an interesting economy mechanic. You'd think by mid campaign for example that you'd have killed quite a few Jenners or Firestarters, will that potentially be a source of profit?

 

[Jadedfalcon]

I was under the impression you can have 18 active mechs at any one time (possibly dependent on Argo upgrades) and an unlimited amount of mechs and 1/3parts in the cargo hold and that transferring mechs from active to reserve and vice versa costs time and money. I'm also under the impression you can sell 1/3parts and buy 1/3parts from shops as well as whole mechs.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

...but almost certainly it is more expensive to repair internal structure and lose the time which prevents you from taking fully equipped Mechs on the next mission compared to maximizing salvage and having two mech out for the next three weeks. we’re managing time and resources not just resources . I think the time aspect is what is going to dictate our salvaging goals and what we shoot for . @prussionhavic what you think?

You have an excellent point, good Sir. :bow:

Putting down the AI ~ Hard, Early and Often ~ my own version of the Powell Doctrine, will be the rule I take into my first BATTLETECH Solo-Campaign. In other words I choose to prioritize limiting damage to my own Mechs by taking down Enemy Mechs through early Fires over any other consideration.

While that will be my "Rule," there will be exceptions, often along the lines of what HonorKnight and Cyttorak001 describe above.

All too many times in the Backer Beta, when I would try to finesse the Legs or Side Torso from either an AI or fellow Backer Mech, I found that I paid a heavy price for that as the Target Mech remained hostile, slinging Fires and dealing damage to my Mechs that would never have occurred if I had just stayed true to putting down an opponent ~ Hard, Early and Often.

When it comes to exceptions to the Rule, if in the initial exchanges of Fire, I manage to take the leg of ANY Mech, while I will not automatically move to it's now strong side to take the other leg, I will weight opportunities to do so accordingly to the overall situation. Key considerations are if that Enemy Mech is the last active AI Mech, and/or I still have considerable Armor remaining on my Mechs engaged with that AI Mech.

To me it is the "OFTEN" part of my Rule that I most highly prize. The less damage to my Mechs and fewer injuries to my MechWarriors, the faster I can turn a Lance for its next Mission and the steeper the slope of experience gain for my MechWarriors. If the premium I pay for these advantages is less Salvage... fine, I can live with that.

Whether this all will work or not?

: )

THAT is an answer I am very much looking forward to finding out for myself.

 

[Ingress]

C

You have an excellent point, good Sir. :bow:

Putting down the AI ~ Hard, Early and Often ~ my own version of the Powell Doctrine, will be the rule I take into my first BATTLETECH Solo-Campaign. In other words I choose to prioritize limiting damage to my own Mechs by taking down Enemy Mechs through early Fires over any other consideration.

While that will be my "Rule," there will be exceptions, often along the lines of what HonorKnight and Cyttorak001 describe above.

All too many times in the Backer Beta, when I would try to finesse the Legs or Side Torso from either an AI or fellow Backer Mech, I found that I paid a heavy price for that as the Target Mech remained hostile, slinging Fires and dealing damage to my Mechs that would never have occurred if I had just stayed true to putting down an opponent ~ Hard, Early and Often.

When it comes to exceptions to the Rule, if in the initial exchanges of Fire, I manage to take the leg of ANY Mech, while I will not automatically move to it's now strong side to take the other leg, I will weight opportunities to do so accordingly to the overall situation. Key considerations are if that Enemy Mech is the last active AI Mech, and/or I still have considerable Armor remaining on my Mechs engaged with that AI Mech.

To me it is the "OFTEN" part of my Rule that I most highly prize. The less damage to my Mechs and fewer injuries to my MechWarriors, the faster I can turn a Lance for its next Mission and the steeper the slope of experience gain for my MechWarriors. If the premium I pay for these advantages is less Salvage... fine, I can live with that.

Whether this all will work or not?

: )

THAT is an answer I am very much looking forward to finding out for myself.

Couldn’t have said it better my self. Shoot first, shoot again, shoot some more...then wade through the smoke and rubble to see what you get.

 

[Ingress]

I was under the impression you can have 18 active mechs at any one time (possibly dependent on Argo upgrades) and an unlimited amount of mechs and 1/3parts in the cargo hold and that transferring mechs from active to reserve and vice versa costs time and money. I'm also under the impression you can sell 1/3parts and buy 1/3parts from shops as well as whole mechs.

Yes and no. You can have 16 stalls open in the Argo but that is after a lot of upgrading. At that point a lot of what this thread is mentioning will be irrelevant. You can take a complete chassis and put it in storage. Doing so will strip it of all its armor and weapons. You can also store the chassis parts as well.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

Yes and no. You can have 16 stalls open in the Argo but that is after a lot of upgrading. At that point a lot of what this thread is mentioning will be irrelevant. You can take a complete chassis and put it in storage. Doing so will strip it of all its armor and weapons. You can also store the chassis parts as well.

I had thought it was 3 banks of 6 Mechbays each.

Can anyone confirm or deny?

 

[Exemplar Voss]

I had thought it was 3 banks of 6 Mechbays each.

Can anyone confirm or deny?

This is what was on the old site:

You start the game in the Leopard Dropship which has 6 'Mech cubicles. The Argo spaceship starts with 6 'Mech cubicles, which can be expanded to 12, and then expanded further to 18 'Mech cubicles. A fully upgraded Argo can have 18 active 'Mechs

So it sounded like 3 of 6. I'm guessing you can't use the Leopard bays for anything but drops once you get the Argo.

And that seems consistent with the 'Ship upgrades' screenshot from the last video. They've got one Mechbay upgrade completed and another not. Presumably it defaults to one set of 6 bays, and the first upgrade gets you to 12 and the second to 18.

There are also 3 other upgrades under 'Repair and Refit,' not sure what those do. Presumably you can still repair without them, but the icons don't seem very informative. (An X with a box around it and a line over it, a cog with arrows moving around it, and... someone waving flags downwards, maybe? (yeah, that seems unlikely)

 

[MotoPsycho]

On the latest BATTLETECH video: Merc Life - it shows (timestamp= 1:03) 3 bays of 6 mechs each. The first is shown as currently in use, with bays 2 and 3 shown as "requires upgrade".

So as you upgrade you Argo, it does appear that you can have 18 "ready" mechs to chose from for a given mission.

 

[shadojak]

Do we actually know yet whether or not it's even possible to get more than one piece of chassis salvage from a mech? My understanding was that chassis salvage was an abstract thing and wasn't even necessarily a guarantee. I.E. coring the center torso vs blowing off both legs doesn't result in different pieces. You'd potentially get a "mech chassis" component of which you need X (I think they said 3?) to rebuild that mech, and you aren't guaranteed that you will get a chassis component at all in the salvage pool much less multiple based on the proportion of that mech that was destroyed. Right? Otherwise it seems like you'd be swimming in chassis components and the only real limitation would be how many kills you've had on X chassis and how much it costs to perform the rebuild.

This is my interpretation after rewatching a couple Q&A's. I think it will be much more abstract vs. a model that will take into account which weapon you destroyed or which side of the mech took more damage.

I dunno, this will be a very interesting game mechanic to figure out how to min/max once the game comes out.

 

[MotoPsycho]

I was under the impression you can have 18 active mechs at any one time (possibly dependent on Argo upgrades) and an unlimited amount of mechs and 1/3parts in the cargo hold and that transferring mechs from active to reserve and vice versa costs time and money. I'm also under the impression you can sell 1/3parts and buy 1/3parts from shops as well as whole mechs.

I think current speculation is that partial chassis are NOT sellable...

...with that said, don't ask me why then they would have a c-bill value during the salvage process.

 

[Visonare]

I was under the impression you can have 18 active mechs at any one time (possibly dependent on Argo upgrades) and an unlimited amount of mechs and 1/3parts in the cargo hold and that transferring mechs from active to reserve and vice versa costs time and money. I'm also under the impression you can sell 1/3parts and buy 1/3parts from shops as well as whole mechs.

This is what I was using as a reference: https://community.battletechgame.com/forums/threads/11005

The person who wrote that synopsis up says they mentioned that we wouldn't be able to sell partial chassis parts, but I haven't been back through the Q/A to confirm it.

Is salvage related to c-bills at all? I thought it was just X picks are priority picks, aka you get to actually choose them, and then the AI choose Y randoms out of the remaining from the pool. So like a mission might give you 2 priority, 3 pool salvage normally but you might be able to gamble a bit and take less C-bills for mission completion for better salvage rights. More priority salvage, more employer chosen salvage etc.

 

[HonorKnight]

I think current speculation is that partial chassis are NOT sellable...

...with that said, don't ask me why then they would have a c-bill value during the salvage process.

They’ve outright said that you can’t sell partial chassis components. It shows the price simply because thats useful information, whether for considering resale value of assembled ‘Mechs or deciding which components to salvage vs buy from vendors

 

[Prussian Havoc]

I think current speculation is that partial chassis are NOT sellable...

...with that said, don't ask me why then they would have a c-bill value during the salvage process.

I hope to be able to buy BattleMech pieces on select BATTLETECH worlds. If this is permitted, I don't see why the selling of BattleMech pieces would not be permitted ~ though such sales will be at a substantial loss, I have no doubt.

 

[HonorKnight]

Is salvage related to c-bills at all? I thought it was just X picks are priority picks, aka you get to actually choose them, and then the AI choose Y randoms out of the remaining from the pool. So like a mission might give you 2 priority, 3 pool salvage normally but you might be able to gamble a bit and take less C-bills for mission completion for better salvage rights. More priority salvage, more employer chosen salvage etc.

There are three possible rewards from missions: C-Bills, salvage, and reputation. Each contract has a maximum amount you can get on each of these three metrics, and you negotiate within those constraints. That is to say you dont get BOTH the maximum cbills and the maximum salvage, you could get half the salvage For reduced C-Bills (not necessarily half) or the max cbills and no salvage, or little to no cbills or salvage in exchange for a lot of rep.

 

[HonorKnight]

I hope to be able to buy BattleMech pieces on select BATTLETECH worlds. If this is permitted, I don't see why the selling of BattleMech pieces would not be permitted ~ though such sales will be at a substantial loss, I have no doubt.

They said you could buy pieces sometimes, but not sell them without assembling the full ‘Mech. Nobody said it makes sense, but i’m sure they had gameplay reasons.

 

[Chaon]

They said that any mech destroyed could provide up to three pieces of salvage for the chassis. We have taken that to mean depending on how it is destroyed determines how much salvage you could get.

So a mech that get taken out with a headshot, might give max three pieces of salvage.
Take out the legs and get two.
Core the centre torso and one piece.

But just because there is a chassis piece in the salvage pool doesn't mean you have to take it. Your needs might be weapon instead because you need them while the chassis piece will just be sitting around gathering dust until you get enough to rebuild the mech.

 

[Visonare]

They said you could buy pieces sometimes, but not sell them without assembling the full ‘Mech. Nobody said it makes sense, but i’m sure they had gameplay reasons.

I'm guessing it's a game economy thing. If tech time is finite and you have the choice between repairing one of your existing mech's vs building an Atlas, either to sell or use, then that presents an interesting game choice. If you can just sell any chassis piece then once you start getting assault mech chassis pieces in the salvage pool it becomes the default choice when you aren't looking for a specific part or lostech I guess. 1/3 of an Atlas would always sell for more than a large laser or LRM20 and you could just bank those c-bills until you need them for something.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

I'm guessing it's a game economy thing. If tech time is finite and you have the choice between repairing one of your existing mech's vs building an Atlas, either to sell or use, then that presents an interesting game choice. If you can just sell any chassis piece then once you start getting assault mech chassis pieces in the salvage pool it becomes the default choice when you aren't looking for a specific part or lostech I guess. 1/3 of an Atlas would always sell for more than a large laser or LRM20 and you could just bank those c-bills until you need them for something.

While we do get a number of Priority Picks, after we pick I believe our Employer will likely remove any remaining BattleMech pieces as their own Priority Selections, before Random Selections are apportioned to both our Employer and ourselves.

I could be wrong, but if we do want Mech pieces, Priority Selection is the way to go.

 

[Cyttorak001]

While we do get a number of Priority Picks, after we pick I believe our Employer will likely remove any remaining BattleMech pieces as their own Priority Selections, before Random Selections are apportioned to both our Employer and ourselves.

I could be wrong, but if we do want Mech pieces, Priority Selection is the way to go.

We don't know anything about random selection of parts. It might be truly random, without respect to part price (although that wouldn't be too realistic). OTOH, if you came to expect getting screwed by your employer, would that make the game better?