Running a vanilla campaign and a career in BT:Revised (they're on separate physical machines - no black magic going on here I'm afraid).
I'm coming to the conclusion that the early game can be quite difficult while you are making do with inexperienced pilots and light mechs.
I've gotten through this early game and developed a team of pilots with skills of 5's and 6's. It's the Training Day missions that lead me to the conclusion that in the ongoing debate over whether it is better to sacrifice the meat to save the metal, I must disagree. Having experienced pilots in light mechs is SO much better than having inexperienced pilots in overpowered mechs.
Just came out of a 2 skull BTR recovery mission where I fully intended to drop a Flea with three other lights, rush the pick-up zone, then rush to the evac.
It didn't work out that way.
Instead, the Flea (which was my designated courier mech) found itself isolated from the rest of my lance with a Hunchback (AC20 variant), Shadowhawk and Kintaro in between. The Flea was able to lure the Hunchback away while the remainder of the lance kept the other two occupied.
What followed was around 20 or 30 rounds of death by a thousand cuts (for the OpFor). The Flea took down the Hunchback single handedly (lots of double turning, and acquisition of 6 or 7 evasion pips when sprinting for defence). The rest of the lance (a Jenner, Firestarter and Vulcan) took advantage of some cover to deny the Shadowhawk and Kintaro any firing opportunities while ducking out an back, attacking when they could.
I'm confident that the Flea would not have stood a chance with a lesser pilot.
This is just one anecdote - this is not data. YMMV.
But in order to spark yet another pointless debate - Meat or Metal?
I'm coming to the conclusion that the early game can be quite difficult while you are making do with inexperienced pilots and light mechs.
I've gotten through this early game and developed a team of pilots with skills of 5's and 6's. It's the Training Day missions that lead me to the conclusion that in the ongoing debate over whether it is better to sacrifice the meat to save the metal, I must disagree. Having experienced pilots in light mechs is SO much better than having inexperienced pilots in overpowered mechs.
Just came out of a 2 skull BTR recovery mission where I fully intended to drop a Flea with three other lights, rush the pick-up zone, then rush to the evac.
It didn't work out that way.
Instead, the Flea (which was my designated courier mech) found itself isolated from the rest of my lance with a Hunchback (AC20 variant), Shadowhawk and Kintaro in between. The Flea was able to lure the Hunchback away while the remainder of the lance kept the other two occupied.
What followed was around 20 or 30 rounds of death by a thousand cuts (for the OpFor). The Flea took down the Hunchback single handedly (lots of double turning, and acquisition of 6 or 7 evasion pips when sprinting for defence). The rest of the lance (a Jenner, Firestarter and Vulcan) took advantage of some cover to deny the Shadowhawk and Kintaro any firing opportunities while ducking out an back, attacking when they could.
I'm confident that the Flea would not have stood a chance with a lesser pilot.
This is just one anecdote - this is not data. YMMV.
But in order to spark yet another pointless debate - Meat or Metal?