Made it to campaign meeting of dude on hollow screen. I don't want to spoiler a story but anyone that far should know what I mean. I still had a crappy argo, six crappy mechs and was struggling to make my payments every month and it was a matter of time until I collapsed, so I reset. Better early tactic plus switching my focus to 1 choice piece of salvage, everything else cash has totally changed the game. I've barely started, I'm working on my second mech bay. I have two mechs waiting to go in that bay already. I'm flush with cash. (currently about $4Mil CBills)
Falling down used to be big deal. Now, not so much. All it does is injure the pilot, slow the mech for a turn, and burn their initiative for a turn. I used to never jump, but with no risk of falling and evasion being so huge, load those mechs up with jumpjets.
Reserving turns is huge and make even the Locust in to a great mech for the right environment.
DD* wrote: Sun Apr 29, 2018 8:18 pm
IME and based on the Steam forums, there is definitely a rather loose relationship (or really, probably an RNG issue) between the number of skulls and the actual difficulty of the mission. Ran two, two skulls missions back to back. My lance is two "light" heavies (Quickdraws) and two heavy mediums, typically a Centurion and a Wolverine.
I believe both missions were "battle" types, but don't quote me. Basically, baddies are coming in or doing something here so wipe'em out - you know the drill. First mission I find a Locust (don't waste my time), a medium of some sort that I can't remember - he didn't last long - and two tanks. Walked away with nothing but paint scratches.
Mission two - full lance of mediums including a Hunchie (the AC20 variant), an Enforcer, a Wolverine, and a Centurion. All with full armor, and I dropped in the ass end of a cul-de-sac valley with no room to maneuver or flank while they were at the open "V" end. One pilot dead, one (PC) in med bay for weeks, two dead mechs and hundeds of Ks in repair costs. Yikes. That was a nasty surprise, and the dropship pilot and I are going to have words about choice of LZ going forward...
Both "two skull" missions.
I treat is as unreliable intel. I just hate getting ripped off.
DD* wrote: Sun Apr 29, 2018 10:16 pm
That would have been a great item for the devs to add in the game - "sorry boss, our intel must have been wrong on this one. We'll do better in the future." It would just be seen, rightly, as a cop out now. You can reload missions before the drop and the opfor can radically change. I think there is just too big a range for what you will face and they will need to correct that. Along with "reinforcements" that spawn in sensor range and as soon as you drop. Really, the "AI" is not very good so they just swarm you with numbers on these missions. Of course, I'm sure building competent AI is a difficult task, which is why you see stuff like this get released.
Agreed. We should also be able to judge the accuracy of those providing us with Intel unless we just assume the MRC(?) is completely useless.
I did have one two skull missing that paid 500,000 CBills where there were only mechs and one was light. Darius congratulated himself on contract on the way out. I made the mistake of thinking I'd do one more mission after that cakewalk. 750,000 CBills 2.5 skulls and I ended up against 2 nasty vehicles, a catapult, and 8 other mechs with good armor and pilots. One of my pilots died (Behemoth.
), the other three were wounded. All four mechs ended up with 10-30 day repairs that will cost more than the contract and the round took almost two hours to play.
But wow, this is the tactical game I have been waiting for. While totally different than XCom, so it's not fair to make the comparison every does, it is
way better for my $40.
