Sudden spike during career mode.

[IceTitan]

The career mode difficulty seems to have suddenly spiked for me last night.

Still fielding lights and meds but decided to buy parts for a stalker and built myself one.

So now normally field two close range shadowhawks an ac 10 centuria with srm6 and 2 meds. And the stalker with 2 ppcs, 4 meds and 4 srm 4. (can do a full alpha every second turn) and the 4 meds and 4 srms on the other rounds without overheating. ( well more or less depending if on Arid or desert worlds.).

But anyways now it seems anything about 1.5 skull spawns heavies. I jad to withdraw twice so far since ended up facing 2 heavy lances on a 2.5 skull. And 2 mix med/heavies on a 2 skull. Was a bit shocked at the sudden spike since haven't even been able to fully assemble a single heavy yet.

 

[mjbroekman]

It seems to be a random fluctuation. Before today, I was consistently running into fully armored medium lances on 2 skull missions. Today, I dropped on a 2 skull battle and it was 4 partially armored lights and a single partially armored medium.

Second example:
2-skull recovery mission.
Opfor? A partially armored Manticore tank and a partially armored Cicada.

 

[IceTitan]

Yeah the problem I'm having is I keep hitting heavy deployments that I can't handle. So its feeling like im in a limbo where only time i meet heavies they are in packs.... so no means of acquiring heavy salvage since my med lances can't handle them. All heavies i met where full armored and able to wreck the entire lance except the stalker i bought and assembled.

 

[Pherdnut]

Check their armor when you see heavies on low-skull missions. It's usually paper-thin making them a lot easier to disable. Those can be great missions for upgrading your lance. CS their torsos early or attack from the sides and pray to RNGesus to blow their weapons out and get the pilot damage going. Head hits, popping torsos and knockdowns all do pilot damage. Pilots will tend to have 4 health early on so torso pops, a stability knockdown and popping a leg can net you a complete mech. Or kill both legs for two parts if it looks like you're just going to blow the core. You can figure out what parts have weapons by right-clicking them and clicking parts in the diagram.

 

[SpenReyn]

Mission choice is a big help with this, Assassinate Missions of 1.5-2 skulls can provide heavy salvage, usually only 5 enemies until you get to 3-4 skull missions. Clean out the Mercs usually only has 4 OpFor Mechs, they're fully armored but not unbeatable. The one where you attack the lance left over from a previous battle is a good one to do at slightly above your level. Also the Mechs left over from a previous conflict. I'm fielding 150 tons right now and have to pick my missions carefully, no 2 skull missions that might involve 2 or 3 enemy lances. I ran into an Orion with full armor in an assassination mission (2 skulls?) with a panther and a locust supporting it and my target in a Quickdraw. Managed to take him down quickly with my Firestarter doing full 6 SL/melee hits, but it was touch and go at first.

 

[mjbroekman]

Yeah the problem I'm having is I keep hitting heavy deployments that I can't handle. So its feeling like im in a limbo where only time i meet heavies they are in packs.... so no means of acquiring heavy salvage since my med lances can't handle them. All heavies i met where full armored and able to wreck the entire lance except the stalker i bought and assembled.

Yep. I ran into that early in my career too. I still only had the Vindi yet I was running into fully armored medium lances. Now I have a fully armored medium lance...and I'm running into barely armored garbage at the same skull difficulty.