Warning, the nature of this question invites mild spoilers.

I'm a little horrified that I'm stuck selling fully functional battlemechs for pennies on the c-bill. I'm still early in the campaign, yet, I only just now completed the story mission that (minimal spoiler) removes my jumpship restrictions. Has anyone progressed far enough to say whether prices ever actually improve or am I going to have to take a 90% hit on EVERY sale for the entire game?

This is worse than selling jewelry to a pawn shop...

You have access to a *lot* of salvage mechs. If you could sell them for full price then the economics of the game would be destroyed (and the storyline of starving mercs would disappear in a puff of smoke). If they did it like that then they would have to drop the frequency of salvage way down. Doesn't much matter to me which path they chose.

I'm not asking for full price, but if selling prices stay at 10% throughout the game then the economics are already broken. I've assumed that it's this way in the early game because you're a small, unknown unit with no negotiating power hanging out in the periphery; but if it's like this all the way through endgame then that ruins one of the most important aspects of the game for me - the economics.

There was a debate about this on the official forum almost 2 years ago, and everyone agreed that salvage should be more important than money in a contract negotiation. But they missed the point that salvage is so important because of scarcity, not quantity.

I'm just wanting to know if the developers missed that point too or if it gets better later in the game. But your point about quantity is valid and a good indicator that prices don't improve later in the game.

No increase in sale prices. Buy prices go from 50% markup to -10% rebate on the highest level of faction reputation. Yes, it's gamey as hell, but at least it gives some semblance of purpose to the c-bill/salvage sliders when taking a mission. Else it would be max salvage, all the time, and paying the bills with pre-owned mech components. It's not an elegant solution, but it's probably what worked best from a gameplay point of view.

That said, I'm pretty sure prices and payouts can be modded.

Personally, I would have rather seen salvage be more rare and more valuable.

Realistically, you wouldn't be able to salvage anything unless you hold the field at the end of the mission, at least long enough to conduct salvage operations. That would curtail your ability to get salvage from a lot of missions, including retrieving your own downed 'Mechs.

OTOH, that could easily land players in a sitiuation where they can't continue without reloading "failed" missions or starting over more often, so I get why the devs didn't go that way. As it is, playing on a self-imposed "iron man" mode (only using saves to exit the game and continue from the same spot later, and scrapping any 'Mechs that get CT cored), I'm already having problems keeping my merc unit going, narrowly avoiding bankruptcy a few times.

are you better off selling (scrapping) smashed mechs as opposed to buying missing salvage - to complete partial builds in storage?

is it cheaper? certainly faster than waiting for repairs.

then theres injuries, one lady was sceheduled to be out for 155 days. ouch. i just dropped her, which sucked because she had a skill ...

I'm still pretty early in the game, just got the Argo, but It cost me as much to buy a part 1/3 of a mech as I can sell the completed mech for, So that doesn't make much sense economically.

You know, I think in Mechwarrior 1 there was a game mechanic where you made more money selling advanced mechs in non industrial planets. Can't remember but I think the gamefaqs walkthrough advised on this on occasion. Also there was an variation in availability depending on the type of world, I think at least that aspect made it in this game... right?

Once you get the Argo, you can upgrade medical and techbay facilities, which shortens the repair and recuperation times considerably.

Complete mechs for sale are rare as hen's teeth and terrifyingly expensive. Once you have money to burn or desire THAT specific model, that might be an option, but early to mid-game it's a total no-go.

Parts are cheaper and encountered more frequently, but there's usually just one part for sale.

Resale values for completed mechs are higher than for the parts, plus you get to keep the stock loadout they came with.

For those desperate for money: You can manually adjust the resale value of items:

%/GOG Games/Battletech/BattleTech_Data/StreamingAssets/Data/simGameConstants/SimGameConstants.json
-> There, look for "ShopSellModifier"; default is 0.1024, change that to 9.1024 and simpy buy and resell items for massive amounts of cash. I suggest making a backup of the file beforehanded, though.

The planet tags only concern the availability of items, the only thing influencing the prices is your relationship with the sellers faction.

I posted about this on the Paradox forums - but apparently GOG won't let me post a link to it.

Basically my complaint is that salvage, mechs, and components are too plentiful and therefore too cheap. Make them more rare and sell them for closer to their actual value and you don't really impact the economic balance of the game but dramatically improve the atmosphere and realism.

Mechwarrior 1 had all of the right economic mechanics. Mech and ammo prices and availability varied considerably from world to world and this was a major aspect of the game for me. I actually focused more time on becoming a 3025 arms merchant than on mech combat. I've been wanting to build a "Mechwarrior 1" in Unity where this was the main focus of the game just as a personal pet project.

Even if prices varied per planet in BT, the abominable sell prices preclude ever ever being able to make a profit from selling a mech.

That prices are moddable is good to know. But then that ruins the balance of the game unless you can also mod salvage rates down accordingly. But knowing that the game can be modded, maybe building a mod is the answer?

You need an older user id (or higher rep? i forget) to post links. But it is easy to get around by cutting off the "http://www." and posting the rest.

Ooooh there's a whole bunch of stuff in here about salvage. No idea yet what any of it means, but maybe I can rebalance salvage / prices on my own.