Still Early Game, 2.5 skull missions challenging, Repair times take long......doing something wrong?

[bsquared97227]

Look for the +++ variant of the TTS in the Black Market, there is a big difference between it and the ++ one.

Honestly I don't know how to get access to the black market. I have some pirate groups "liking" pretty high but not high enough to ally
(I say "some groups" because the game keeps saying "local pirate organization", but I don't know if allying with one allies with all of them.)

In some systems I see the "restricted" pirate contracts but can't see the details of them.

 

[gh0s7]

There is actually only one pirate group in the game, regardless of whatever impression you might have. If you go to the Argo's bottom selectable, you'll be able to read your current score with all the main factions, including the pirate group. You won't need to ally with them in order to have/buy access to the Black Market, but the worse your reputation with them, the more expensive the items will be; IIRC, having a top negative (-100) reputation with the Pirate faction will inflate the cost of everything in the Black Market to +1000%.

Ultimately, it's all up to the player to juggle the reputations between the factions towards whatever main goals of said player are. Want to have the option to buy regularly in the BM? Then it might be a good idea to, for every Mission and/or Flashpoint you run against them, to counter with a handful or more for the Pirates. Note that the player can't ever improve or worsen the reputation with the local government of the Periphery systems, so you can always get your rep back up with the Pirates by going to a Periphery system and running Missions for the Pirates there; just make sure that said missions will be against the local government, as I can't remember right now if it's possible to take Missions for the Pirates against a main Faction in a Periphery system.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I know that the player can take missions for the local government against a main faction, i.e. Federated Suns or Magistracy, but I can't recall if all the Pirate missions available are always against the local government or if it can also target a main faction.

 

[Jade_Rook]

Honestly I don't know how to get access to the black market. I have some pirate groups "liking" pretty high but not high enough to ally
(I say "some groups" because the game keeps saying "local pirate organization", but I don't know if allying with one allies with all of them.)

In some systems I see the "restricted" pirate contracts but can't see the details of them.

Access to the black market is through a random event. It should be more likely if the pirates like you, but I don't know a reliable way to make the event occur. You need to pay a membership fee to get in.

 

[stjobe]

Access to the black market is through a random event. It should be more likely if the pirates like you, but I don't know a reliable way to make the event occur. You need to pay a membership fee to get in.

The size of the fee depends on your standing with the pirate faction:

• Liked: (reputation +20 or more): CB 50,000
• Indifferent (reputation between -20 and +19): CB 500,000
• Disliked: (reputation below -20): CB 2,500,000

 

[ntw]

Jumping back to the AC/20 comments earlier, I had a *lot* of fun with an AC/20 equipped Shadow Hawk (BoomHawk I called it). It certainly wasn't optimal, but so, so much fun

 

[stjobe]

Jumping back to the AC/20 comments earlier, I had a *lot* of fun with an AC/20 equipped Shadow Hawk (BoomHawk I called it). It certainly wasn't optimal, but so, so much fun

The Centurion has a lore variant (CN9-AH) that trades the AC/10 and the MLs for an AC/20. It can easily be re-created in this game, and it's a lot of fun

There's also the Centurion CN9-A Yen-Lo Wang, which trades the LRM-10 and ammo for an AC/20, an extra ton of ammo, and a hatchet. Minus the hatchet, that one should be doable in this game as well (and even with the hatchet, if the CT destruction bug is still with us).

 

[Jade_Rook]

Jumping back to the AC/20 comments earlier, I had a *lot* of fun with an AC/20 equipped Shadow Hawk (BoomHawk I called it). It certainly wasn't optimal, but so, so much fun

I have had so much fun with BoomHawk builds! The extra speed is so useful with an AC/20 and I generally include jump jets too. Of course that means it has no room for other weapons, but it is great for getting rear torso shots with an AC/20.

I kind of prefer using a Wolverine so that it gets the arm accuracy bonus, but the Shadow Hawk melee bonus is also useful.

 

[ntw]

I have had so much fun with BoomHawk builds! The extra speed is so useful with an AC/20 and I generally include jump jets too. Of course that means it has no room for other weapons, but it is great for getting rear torso shots with an AC/20.

I kind of prefer using a Wolverine so that it gets the arm accuracy bonus, but the Shadow Hawk melee bonus is also useful.

^ same build
AC/20 & JJ's - no room for anything else

 

[bsquared97227]

I haven't found a good medium mech to put AC/20's on. And I don't like their short range given taht I like to try and do as much damage from a distance lol.

I got 2 PPCs and a Snub PPC on my black knight atm and it kicks ass. (got lucky with a headshot kill in one 2.5 skull mission and got all 3 components for it lol)