New Merc Campaign Info from PDX Stream

[Wanderer2142]

Since it didn't look like the discussion was started yet, likely because no Youtube version is up yet, figured I should start a thread here to not derail the current haiku discussions in the stream thread.

Things that I noted:

• MechTech work is sequential. Meaning, if you have 2 mechs that take 33 days to fix each, it will total to 66 days. Conjecture: this may be because in the stream, the caster only had one mech bay. If this is still true for the second and third mech bays, maintaining the unit might get very... tricky. We've got only one queue, per @HBS_InspectorHound 's post below. Incoming tricky queue management.
• Ship upgrades are a separate track for upgrade time.
• Leopard landings can destroy mechs if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. Conjecture: using leopard landings to bait enemy mechs so you can squash them with your leopard? Player basically only had the head left on his spider after getting his spider squashed by his leopard, so it would conveniently destroy all salvagable pieces (except head items) if you didn't care about salvage.
• The slider for the 2 skull mission had up to 3/14 salvage, on what I thought was a destroy convoy mission. Kiva didn't move the slider to the lower end of the range, but the number on the left was 2 compared to 14 on the right. Hopefully that doesn't mean a minimum of 1/2.
• Destroyed sections are considerably more expensive to fix than damaged sections. Numbers in the video showed around $30000 CBIlls to fix an individual destroyed section on a Spider, versus $500-$1000 for installing new weapons.
• Removing destroyed stuff is considered 0 Cbills and 0 days of work.
• Upkeep costs for mechs are the same across all chassis sizes, reasoning provided by Kiva is to not punish the players for using larger mechs (it's already more costly to maintain the larger mechs by virtue of more expensive parts being used).
• SRM +2 damage (per missile) was seen in the video. Doesn't that mean +50% damage for the entire barrage (it was an SRM6)?
• Med Laser +2 damage, +25% crit was seen also.

Edit:

• Mechwarriors can only gain talents (specializations) from two trees.
• Guts 5 Mechwarriors still only have 4 health. Which means our mechwarriors are quite squishy in terms of knockdowns, or side torsos getting blown out.

Edit 2: Memory is slowly coming back...

• AOD is gone? I believe someone mentioned on the stream.

 

[Tnarien]

Locust hardpoint allocation: 2 Ballistic, 1 Energy, 2 Support
Shadow Hawk hardpoint allocation: 3 Ballistic, 1 Energy, 3 Missile, 2(?) Support

Sterling is not amused.

 

[Wanderer2142]

Does sort of bring me to wonder what in the world you could actually put in a Locust with those 2 ballistic slots. It's not like the streamer had an overflow of AC/2s lying around.

 

[Na'Shar]

I got interrupted in the middle of the stream, but IIRC the Centurion had 1 Ballistic, 2 Energy, 3 Missile and 2 support.

 

[Tnarien]

Does sort of bring me to wonder what in the world you could actually put in a Locust with those 2 ballistic slots. It's not like the streamer had an overflow of AC/2s lying around.

Fun fact, a Locust can legally mount an AC/2 if and only if it mounts zero armor.

 

[Exemplar Voss]

Both sound about right. Disappointed for the locust - can't do much with that.

What's a sterling when it's at home?

 

[Sable Phoenix]

i wonder if you will be able to equip machine guns on ballistc hardpoints and small lasers on energy hardpoints, should you so choose. its the only way some of these layouts make sense.

 

[GenTask]

Before I watch this, does the video cut out the actual intro's to the game... as in how this Merc group obtains an Argo? (trying to avoid spoilery stuff)

 

[Mojo Amok]

Evasion is really capped by the piloting skill of the individual Mechwarrior and is no longer a universal value applied to everyone like it was in the Beta. We saw fairly modest evasion values in the combat stream even from the Spider and Jenner going flat out (4 pips), but there are multiple means of getting extra pips if you invest in the pilot skill tree.

 

[Tnarien]

What's a sterling when it's at home?

I'm unsure of what is being asked here

i wonder if you will be able to equip machine guns on ballistc hardpoints and small lasers on energy hardpoints, should you so choose. its the only way some of these layouts make sense.

Nope. SLs, Flamers and MGs are only mountable on Support hardpoints.

 

[Bilbo999]

Before I watch this, does the video cut out the actual intro's to the game... as in how this Merc group obtains an Argo? (trying to avoid spoilery stuff)

The PDX stream doesn't show any actual story stuff. Don't watch any of the other streamers though if you don't want spoilers.

 

[Jack Frost]

• The slider for the 2 skull mission had up to 3/14 salvage, on what I thought was a destroy convoy mission. Kiva didn't move the slider to the lower end of the range, but the number on the left was 2 compared to 14 on the right. Hopefully that doesn't mean a minimum of 1/2.

Number of specific picks from salvage/number of random salvage items

High numbers mean less fee.

 

[Packrat]

Could the extra hardpoints be futureproofing so those models can be used with XL engines and such?

 

[Bilbo999]

Could the extra hardpoints be futureproofing so those models can be used with XL engines and such?

It's that or they didn't bother or forgot to remove them when they made machine guns support weapons.

 

[Tnarien]

Could the extra hardpoints be futureproofing so those models can be used with XL engines and such?

It's certainly possible.

It's that or they didn't bother or forgot to remove them when they made machine guns support weapons.

It definitely feels like they're double dipping, but it doesn't explain for instance the Shadow Hawk that can't use its three ballistic mounts either (yes there's a bizzaro build with triple AC2s in there, dont @ me) but doesn't have innate MGs.

 

[Brother Diogenes]

• Leopard landings can destroy mechs if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. Conjecture: using leopard landings to bait enemy mechs so you can squash them with your leopard? Player basically only had the head left on his spider after getting his spider squashed by his leopard, so it would conveniently destroy all salvagable pieces (except head items) if you didn't care about salvage.

Death from above? That's a hell of a tactic, if anybody can make that work on purpose.

• SRM +2 damage (per missile) was seen in the video. Doesn't that mean +50% damage for the entire barrage (it was an SRM6)?

Probably not +50%, unless each missile only does 4. I forget what the damage for SRMs are in this game, but on TT they're 2 each, and the base damage values in this game were multiplied by 5 before being nudged up or down for gameplay balance. I'm certain that missile damage was pared down a bit in testing, but that should still only be around a +20-25% bonus.

• Mechwarriors can only gain talents (specializations) from two trees.

Yep, they can gain the basic talents from two trees, and an advanced talent from one of those two. That was definitely something that came up a couple times in developer Q&As.

 

[mmurray821]

I learned that I will try to upgrade to a second 'Mech bay ASAP so I don't have to do just one at a time.

Wonder if you need to hire an additional tech for that....

 

[Malek Deneith]

• SRM +2 damage (per missile) was seen in the video. Doesn't that mean +50% damage for the entire barrage (it was an SRM6)?

Last we've seen base SRM damage was 8/missile so +25% actually. (That was a ++ component if I remember correctly, so highest version possible)

 

[HBS_InspectorHound]

I learned that I will try to upgrade to a second 'Mech bay ASAP so I don't have to do just one at a time.

Wonder if you need to hire an additional tech for that....

It's still one-at-a-time with more MechBays.

The additional MechBays just store more Mechs (and contribute some extra MechTech points)

 

[Wanderer2142]

It's still one-at-a-time with more MechBays.

The additional MechBays just store more Mechs (and contribute some extra MechTech points)

Well, hopefully even full repair jobs with maxed mech backs only takes like 10 days then, or having two mechbays full of mechs being fixed is going to take a loooong time to get through.