Posted May 04, 2018
I've been thoroughly enjoying the game so far but I had to learn a lot through trial and error. I thought I'd post some tips for others that might help. The game has quite a learning curve.
1. The Star Map and the periphery systems
You can take missions out here for the different factions but those early systems are OWNED by the planetary governments, thus you never get reputation with those systems and never get better prices with them. It's also why you won't be able to negotiate contracts for reputation.
2. Negotiating contracts
I admit to being greedy on about 75% of all the missions I take and go for full salvage rights but have recently started adjusting this to near minimum pay and near maximum salvage. The reason is that predicting what forces you are actually going to get pitted against is fairly random. I've done 2.5 and 3 skull missions where I only saw light mechs. When your pay comes out to less than 100k for full salvage rights on some light mechs you may sell, it's a crappy run. However, taking home 200k and most of the salvage is pretty good but not as necessary later when you get better at Precision Strikes. Medium mechs sell for 350-500k a piece.
Other than that, usually once a month I'll take one mission at near max pay to cover my month-to-month expenses.
3. Precision Strikes
Tactics at 6 pips grants a Precision Strike accuracy bonus and at 9 grants Precision Strike Mastery, a BIG bonus to Precision Strikes. These bonuses are great, but for reference against the cockpit of a mech, no bonus is about a 2% chance to hit, the 6 pip bonus brings that to 5%, but the 9 pip bonus brings it to a whopping 18% (for me, don't know about other factors). Once every other mission, I'm able to instantly down a mech with a head shot from a PPC or an AC10 with my Tactics pilots who have the mastery. These called shot bonuses also apply vs. mechs that have been knocked down.
4. Salvaging!
What you destroy (or don't) determines how many partial pieces of a mech or equipment you can claim after a mission.
1 partial mech piece - CT (center torso) destroyed
2 partial mech pieces - both legs destroyed
3 partial mech pieces - enemy pilot incapacitated without destroying both legs or the CT
Basically, wounding or killing the pilot mech is the goal for maximum salvage. Easy ways to wound a mech pilot involve taking out a leg for a knockdown and a wound followed by destroying the LT or RT (left and right torso) and head shots. About head shots, you don't need a lot of damage but you want a lot of individual weapon systems. This gives you a better chance of striking the head.
Personally, I've used the Firestarter as my go-to pilot killer. The Firestarter can fit 6 Support Weapons like machine guns, flamers, or small lasers. Machine guns might be the best option as they have +50% chance to critical hit vs. internals, but I'm unsure if this applies to cockpit hits in any way. I was using flamers, machine guns, and medium lasers, but I've swapped to 1 large laser and the rest small lasers. This Firestarter loadout can pop 40 ton mechs and lower in a single melee attack from the back.
I'm also unsure about missiles. I think that for each missile, it has a chance to hit but each missile that hits will strike the same location for that entire SRM or LRM weapon system.
5. My most used and successful mechs so far
Early on, I wasn't too sure what to try to bring into my lance, but I found that the Blackjack, Shadowhawk 2H (the one with more armor, might have the wrong name), Vindicator, and Centurion had enough punch and armor to carry me for a while. I experimented with light mechs and found that I love the Firestarter for reasons listed above. I eventually came to own a Hunchback which has shone in some instances. Things really took off when I got a Kintaro. The Kintaro beast machine mows everything down with its huge array of SRMs. I put a pilot in that has a high piloting skill and let him run the map. I've recently come into owning a Thunderbolt which I let a tactician specialist pilot because he can bump the phase initiative by 1, so he goes during 3 instead of 2.
The current favorite lance consists of the Thunderbolt, Kintaro, Enforcer, and Firestarter. Killing a mech usually begins with the Thunderbolt doing a Precision Strike on a leg, the Kintaro running to that same side and hitting them with the SRM barrage. Usually results in a knockdown. Enforcer is the long range Breaching Shot sniper.
For weapon bonuses, I look for PPCs and ACs with +stability damage and SRMs with +damage per missile. I've seen up to +4 damage on various SRM racks.
I'm actively looking to salvage a Catapult-K2... Oh, baby!
Conclusion
Feel free to hit this thread up with questions or toss in some tips of your own. It's been hard to put the game down since release day. :)
1. The Star Map and the periphery systems
You can take missions out here for the different factions but those early systems are OWNED by the planetary governments, thus you never get reputation with those systems and never get better prices with them. It's also why you won't be able to negotiate contracts for reputation.
2. Negotiating contracts
I admit to being greedy on about 75% of all the missions I take and go for full salvage rights but have recently started adjusting this to near minimum pay and near maximum salvage. The reason is that predicting what forces you are actually going to get pitted against is fairly random. I've done 2.5 and 3 skull missions where I only saw light mechs. When your pay comes out to less than 100k for full salvage rights on some light mechs you may sell, it's a crappy run. However, taking home 200k and most of the salvage is pretty good but not as necessary later when you get better at Precision Strikes. Medium mechs sell for 350-500k a piece.
Other than that, usually once a month I'll take one mission at near max pay to cover my month-to-month expenses.
3. Precision Strikes
Tactics at 6 pips grants a Precision Strike accuracy bonus and at 9 grants Precision Strike Mastery, a BIG bonus to Precision Strikes. These bonuses are great, but for reference against the cockpit of a mech, no bonus is about a 2% chance to hit, the 6 pip bonus brings that to 5%, but the 9 pip bonus brings it to a whopping 18% (for me, don't know about other factors). Once every other mission, I'm able to instantly down a mech with a head shot from a PPC or an AC10 with my Tactics pilots who have the mastery. These called shot bonuses also apply vs. mechs that have been knocked down.
4. Salvaging!
What you destroy (or don't) determines how many partial pieces of a mech or equipment you can claim after a mission.
1 partial mech piece - CT (center torso) destroyed
2 partial mech pieces - both legs destroyed
3 partial mech pieces - enemy pilot incapacitated without destroying both legs or the CT
Basically, wounding or killing the pilot mech is the goal for maximum salvage. Easy ways to wound a mech pilot involve taking out a leg for a knockdown and a wound followed by destroying the LT or RT (left and right torso) and head shots. About head shots, you don't need a lot of damage but you want a lot of individual weapon systems. This gives you a better chance of striking the head.
Personally, I've used the Firestarter as my go-to pilot killer. The Firestarter can fit 6 Support Weapons like machine guns, flamers, or small lasers. Machine guns might be the best option as they have +50% chance to critical hit vs. internals, but I'm unsure if this applies to cockpit hits in any way. I was using flamers, machine guns, and medium lasers, but I've swapped to 1 large laser and the rest small lasers. This Firestarter loadout can pop 40 ton mechs and lower in a single melee attack from the back.
I'm also unsure about missiles. I think that for each missile, it has a chance to hit but each missile that hits will strike the same location for that entire SRM or LRM weapon system.
5. My most used and successful mechs so far
Early on, I wasn't too sure what to try to bring into my lance, but I found that the Blackjack, Shadowhawk 2H (the one with more armor, might have the wrong name), Vindicator, and Centurion had enough punch and armor to carry me for a while. I experimented with light mechs and found that I love the Firestarter for reasons listed above. I eventually came to own a Hunchback which has shone in some instances. Things really took off when I got a Kintaro. The Kintaro beast machine mows everything down with its huge array of SRMs. I put a pilot in that has a high piloting skill and let him run the map. I've recently come into owning a Thunderbolt which I let a tactician specialist pilot because he can bump the phase initiative by 1, so he goes during 3 instead of 2.
The current favorite lance consists of the Thunderbolt, Kintaro, Enforcer, and Firestarter. Killing a mech usually begins with the Thunderbolt doing a Precision Strike on a leg, the Kintaro running to that same side and hitting them with the SRM barrage. Usually results in a knockdown. Enforcer is the long range Breaching Shot sniper.
For weapon bonuses, I look for PPCs and ACs with +stability damage and SRMs with +damage per missile. I've seen up to +4 damage on various SRM racks.
I'm actively looking to salvage a Catapult-K2... Oh, baby!
Conclusion
Feel free to hit this thread up with questions or toss in some tips of your own. It's been hard to put the game down since release day. :)
