I just want to address mission ratings on the random missions and the number and composition of mechs that you can face on them. Something seems a bit off.
Specifically after I got the free centurion, and loaded it out pretty effectively (AC/5, LRM20++ (+40% damage), and 2 M Lasers) I decided to try my hands at a 2 skull mission after having done only 0.5 an 1 skull missions. Mind you a 1 skull mission on average has a few tanks and at most I've seen 4 light mechs. Just remember to step on the stompy bits of the tanks and you'll be fine in medium mechs.
Well, I was in for a shock at the composition of enemy forces on a 2 skull mission! (Remember, my own rating starting the mission was 2 skulls!) I was thinking I would at most see 4 medium mechs, about 200 tons worth. Instead after 3 reloads this is what attacked me:
Attempt 1: I didn't know where the reinforcements were coming from, and I got pincered by very quickly arriving reinforcements.
Main Force:
Griffin 55T
Wolverine 55T
Centurion 50T
Jenner 35T
Reinforcements:
Firestarter 35T
Spider 30T
Commando x 2 25T each
Total Tonnage 310T
What? Wow! I might have held off on them until they pincered me, and every single light mech DFA'd one of my mechs in a single turn. (That's a different issue, but this is definately an edge case) I decided to reload at the beginning of the mission to see if my luck changed if I ambushed the reinforcements first. I was surprised to find out that the enemy mech composition had changed though:
Main Force:
Catapult 60T
Quickdraw 60T
Trebuchet 50T
Commando 25T
Reinforcements:
Jenner 35T
Locust x2 20T each
Spider 30T
Total Tonnage 300T
Wait what? Now it's throwing heavy mechs at me, and they are firing missiles clear across the map while I deal with reinforcements adding attrition damage while I fight the riff raff. Mind you none of these mechs have the 50% or 75% armor penalties you see at half or one skull missions! I noticed that the average tonnage was approximately the same. Once again I reloaded to see what i could get:
Main Force:
Trebuchet 50T
Enforcer 50T
Jaegermech 65T
Spider 30T
Reinforcements:
Jenner 35T
Spider 30T
Commando 25T
Locust 20T
Total Tonnage: 305T
This time I charged the reinforcements to take them as far away from the main force as possible. I was being peppered lightly by missiles and cannon fire, but I managed to wipe out the reinforcements before taking too much damage, and sure enough here comes the main force charging me from long range as soon as their "spotters" were dealt with. In the end I killed them without too much structural damage to my own mechs, using a large forest for cover, while they had to approach outside of it, but I had to heavily use information that I only gained during save scumming, such as where the reinforcements spawn. (I had foolishly chosen 0/3 for my salvage and got no mech parts)
Looking back, it seems that a 2 skull mission will have about 300 tons worth of mech, where a 1 skull seems to have at most 100T worth of mech and tank. Mind you the player will have 200 tons of mech at 2 skulls as well, so this makes it a little unintuitive. The idea is that if you match the skulls you should have a pretty even fight, but this is only the case if you can divide the enemy up and fight them in parts. However, once you agro one enemy on these random missions every enemy on the map charges.
After I managed to complete the mission (The first two times I couldn't manage to kill a single mech before my own mechs got crippled so I didn't want to just withdraw with bad faith) I decided maybe I should step back to 1.5 skull missions. This is what I got:
Main Force? Reinforcements? (They were surrounding me, on a mission where I was ambushing them)
Orion 75T (Come on game!)
Shadow Hawk 55T
Centurion 50T
Trebuchet 50T
Spider 30T
Firestarter 35T
Commando 25T
Total Tonnage: 320T!
Only 7 mechs, but even higher tonnage this time! Really? Plus their spawn locations were in front of me, to my left, and the Orion to my right. The bulk to my left, with me trapped in a small canyon at the start, and most of the enemy on the top of the canyon walls. The Orion was actually too much for me alone! 3 full alpha strikes barely scratched his armor, so I devised a plan B, I would trip him till the pilot dies. Go Decker! (This time I had 1/7 salvage, and scored one of the 3 Orion parts. It still had almost all of it's armor!) However, this fight nearly killed my character putting him down for 4 months, put two of my mechs out of commision for over a month, put Glitch out of commision for 2 months, as well as destroyed the only PPC that I could loot or buy since I started the game. (I've managed to replace it now, but I still have mechs in repair). Behemoth in my Centurion with the LRM20++ (+40% damage) and 3 LRM ammo slots RAN OUT OF AMMO by the end of the fight!
In short, this was 2 missions in a row, from local governments that I was on good terms with, that were supposed to be ambush/cleanup missions, that were way out of place. The jump from 1 skull missions to 1.5 skull random missions is a bit much. This could be fixed in a few ways:
First you could script the mission templates better. Having the reinforcements there immediately defies the idea that they are reinforcements and not a part of the main force. Perhaps they should spawn in only once you've done considerable damage to the main force especially when they are optional.
Second, you could better represent the mission difficulty a bit. Missions for a local government to clean up dissidents should be more reputable and have fewer of these situations. I mean, unless I've angered the government, there's little reason they would be trying to get me killed. Perhaps explaining what the tonnage range for each mission is in addition to the skull rating would be in order.
Finally, maybe I am being contracted for this kind of work, but that doesn't mean that a local government can't have forces in the area to assist you on some of these missions. Maybe even a few tanks on your side to help absorb some of the damage coming at you.
Last but not least, I want to make sure you understand that I really enjoy the game already, I just feel that there is room for improvement in how the missions generate. I have no doubt that the story missions are balanced well and tested, but some work clearly needs to be done with the random ones. Perhaps on missions where you are actually given bad intel or worse, betrayed, there could be a message give by your team back on the dropship suggesting that maybe you should cut and run. This would help newer players early on immensely, as well as explaining what you need to do to make a good faith effort better (perhaps adding a good faith tracker to the mission stats)
Anyways, now I have 2 paradox games that I lose sleep over (in the good way?) because I lose track of time while playing, this and Stellaris. Keep up the good work!
Specifically after I got the free centurion, and loaded it out pretty effectively (AC/5, LRM20++ (+40% damage), and 2 M Lasers) I decided to try my hands at a 2 skull mission after having done only 0.5 an 1 skull missions. Mind you a 1 skull mission on average has a few tanks and at most I've seen 4 light mechs. Just remember to step on the stompy bits of the tanks and you'll be fine in medium mechs.
Well, I was in for a shock at the composition of enemy forces on a 2 skull mission! (Remember, my own rating starting the mission was 2 skulls!) I was thinking I would at most see 4 medium mechs, about 200 tons worth. Instead after 3 reloads this is what attacked me:
Attempt 1: I didn't know where the reinforcements were coming from, and I got pincered by very quickly arriving reinforcements.
Main Force:
Griffin 55T
Wolverine 55T
Centurion 50T
Jenner 35T
Reinforcements:
Firestarter 35T
Spider 30T
Commando x 2 25T each
Total Tonnage 310T
What? Wow! I might have held off on them until they pincered me, and every single light mech DFA'd one of my mechs in a single turn. (That's a different issue, but this is definately an edge case) I decided to reload at the beginning of the mission to see if my luck changed if I ambushed the reinforcements first. I was surprised to find out that the enemy mech composition had changed though:
Main Force:
Catapult 60T
Quickdraw 60T
Trebuchet 50T
Commando 25T
Reinforcements:
Jenner 35T
Locust x2 20T each
Spider 30T
Total Tonnage 300T
Wait what? Now it's throwing heavy mechs at me, and they are firing missiles clear across the map while I deal with reinforcements adding attrition damage while I fight the riff raff. Mind you none of these mechs have the 50% or 75% armor penalties you see at half or one skull missions! I noticed that the average tonnage was approximately the same. Once again I reloaded to see what i could get:
Main Force:
Trebuchet 50T
Enforcer 50T
Jaegermech 65T
Spider 30T
Reinforcements:
Jenner 35T
Spider 30T
Commando 25T
Locust 20T
Total Tonnage: 305T
This time I charged the reinforcements to take them as far away from the main force as possible. I was being peppered lightly by missiles and cannon fire, but I managed to wipe out the reinforcements before taking too much damage, and sure enough here comes the main force charging me from long range as soon as their "spotters" were dealt with. In the end I killed them without too much structural damage to my own mechs, using a large forest for cover, while they had to approach outside of it, but I had to heavily use information that I only gained during save scumming, such as where the reinforcements spawn. (I had foolishly chosen 0/3 for my salvage and got no mech parts)
Looking back, it seems that a 2 skull mission will have about 300 tons worth of mech, where a 1 skull seems to have at most 100T worth of mech and tank. Mind you the player will have 200 tons of mech at 2 skulls as well, so this makes it a little unintuitive. The idea is that if you match the skulls you should have a pretty even fight, but this is only the case if you can divide the enemy up and fight them in parts. However, once you agro one enemy on these random missions every enemy on the map charges.
After I managed to complete the mission (The first two times I couldn't manage to kill a single mech before my own mechs got crippled so I didn't want to just withdraw with bad faith) I decided maybe I should step back to 1.5 skull missions. This is what I got:
Main Force? Reinforcements? (They were surrounding me, on a mission where I was ambushing them)
Orion 75T (Come on game!)
Shadow Hawk 55T
Centurion 50T
Trebuchet 50T
Spider 30T
Firestarter 35T
Commando 25T
Total Tonnage: 320T!
Only 7 mechs, but even higher tonnage this time! Really? Plus their spawn locations were in front of me, to my left, and the Orion to my right. The bulk to my left, with me trapped in a small canyon at the start, and most of the enemy on the top of the canyon walls. The Orion was actually too much for me alone! 3 full alpha strikes barely scratched his armor, so I devised a plan B, I would trip him till the pilot dies. Go Decker! (This time I had 1/7 salvage, and scored one of the 3 Orion parts. It still had almost all of it's armor!) However, this fight nearly killed my character putting him down for 4 months, put two of my mechs out of commision for over a month, put Glitch out of commision for 2 months, as well as destroyed the only PPC that I could loot or buy since I started the game. (I've managed to replace it now, but I still have mechs in repair). Behemoth in my Centurion with the LRM20++ (+40% damage) and 3 LRM ammo slots RAN OUT OF AMMO by the end of the fight!
In short, this was 2 missions in a row, from local governments that I was on good terms with, that were supposed to be ambush/cleanup missions, that were way out of place. The jump from 1 skull missions to 1.5 skull random missions is a bit much. This could be fixed in a few ways:
First you could script the mission templates better. Having the reinforcements there immediately defies the idea that they are reinforcements and not a part of the main force. Perhaps they should spawn in only once you've done considerable damage to the main force especially when they are optional.
Second, you could better represent the mission difficulty a bit. Missions for a local government to clean up dissidents should be more reputable and have fewer of these situations. I mean, unless I've angered the government, there's little reason they would be trying to get me killed. Perhaps explaining what the tonnage range for each mission is in addition to the skull rating would be in order.
Finally, maybe I am being contracted for this kind of work, but that doesn't mean that a local government can't have forces in the area to assist you on some of these missions. Maybe even a few tanks on your side to help absorb some of the damage coming at you.
Last but not least, I want to make sure you understand that I really enjoy the game already, I just feel that there is room for improvement in how the missions generate. I have no doubt that the story missions are balanced well and tested, but some work clearly needs to be done with the random ones. Perhaps on missions where you are actually given bad intel or worse, betrayed, there could be a message give by your team back on the dropship suggesting that maybe you should cut and run. This would help newer players early on immensely, as well as explaining what you need to do to make a good faith effort better (perhaps adding a good faith tracker to the mission stats)
Anyways, now I have 2 paradox games that I lose sleep over (in the good way?) because I lose track of time while playing, this and Stellaris. Keep up the good work!
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