It's the other mechanics that you "had to guess" - and this was the reason to start all over again for me. Game gives you a little clue that you have to recruit 3 other pilots from beginning and rotate them from times to times with a main lance (just because they need exp too). This is the only way to stay afloat. And this is unobvious balancing mechanics, yeah.

Well, in summary I can say, that the most disappointing in this game that you have to "guess the right way" to play it. I don't wanna be a fortuneteller with a crystal orb, I just want to play may favourite lance combinations and progress in this game. The worst part in "guessing part" that it doesn't provide any variety in gameplay, because you can try to win your way, but game is gonna punish you for this.

Well, it's a part of realism. If my reconnaissance says that I have to move to a marker on a map - who am I to argue with that? I'm just a simple lance commander who only cares about tactics and not about possible appearances of heavy mech lances out of nowhere :)

It simply kills the atmosphere of this game: "Oh, it's a battle mission, so in a middle of it I gonna face an overwhelming crowd of enemies - or I have to practice mech ballet always worried not to trigger another enemy wave". This is simply ridiculous. I really love some mechanics of this game - it's fun and unpredictable, but feeling b-hurted from time to time is not the way I want to play it.

Good tactics say that you make your approach to concentrate your entire lance on each force separately. You get marks on the map for each force. Plan your approach from the intel you have. These battles are not timed, so just traverse to the side that makes the most sense to attack from, and advance slow and careful.

This is weird. You guys' Hot Landing seems quite different from mine:
1. There is no "Reinforcements" marker at the start of my map. It's "enemies straight ahead" and that's it.
2. It may be a bit shaky evidence, but judging by the loading times, the reinforcements are here from the start.
3. Expanding on that, on two occasions I found the reinforcements before finding the main target, starting the fight, while on others, I hugged a wall until finding my actual target, immediately triggering the fight and the reinforcements. Is it possible that different battle missions operate under different rules, or did I miss something?

Also, I can live with "Commander, this is a shaky mission, you'll be outgunned two to one, but we NEED you on this." possibly with some reinforcements for US, or the ability to deploy a weight-limited lance as our reinforcements once we've taken down a certain number of mechs or something. But I need it to be the exception, and I need it to be a worthwile contract. And some effing recognition while I'm at it, and maybe the option to steal a cheeky win and run away. Not "Okay Commander, I got you three contracts and oh boy they pay peanuts, but damn, that's some prime location for a trap!" just... Just do something about it! Drop us somewhere else, run some fake info, tell me to bring JJ capable 'mechs for a surprise flank. Something. Anything but "Welcome to the Spiky Bad Dragon mission. Remember to get on all fours and have fun! Venerial diseases on the spikes are not optional." damn it.

HBS has a history of starving its players, with every instance of Shadowrun you had to pretty much skip mid-game upgrades to afford bigger ones. Now that we can possibly generate potential infinite money they are going haywire. I can live with more stick, but do leave the "less stick" option on, and give more carrot. Especially if you do a job where the enemies are close to double your effing tonnage.

Unfortunately, hiring 3 more mechwarriors wouldn't do anything for me. I simply can't affort to go on such missions. The payout for this insane shootout was a bit under 350k c-bills. I got some 'mech parts, but I didn't have the leisure to fish for full 'mechs. The costs to repair my lance is 600k c-bills, as I had to buy an ac20 and ammo again. Sure, in a couple of days with more mechwarriors I could have gone and done it again, but I'd be digging myself more in debt.

I'm all for long wait times, that would give us an option to tour the periphery, but the payouts need to follow suit.

I love a hard game, but here I feel my dudes worked magic and got spat on as a just reward. Also, fighting two lances at once should be the exception, the "oh crap" moment. Not the norm. Looking at you Darius.

That guy is a traitor. It's the only way it makes sense.

Yeah, I understand that. But reinforcements can be triggered a numerous ways - you can't even predict, will your single mech movement start another stage of battle or not.
It's a common problem of scripted games. Instead of calculating battle disposition developers simply added some geo-triggers and this lead to abnormal situations like deploying reinforcements one or two turns after first contact with main forces.

There is no restrictions to count functional enemy mechs and decide to start another stage of a battle or not - and it's more realistic to understand this type of scenario. It needs more polishing and testing though, but at least it guarantees that the stages of scenario will go one after another.

I prefer not to think about scripts when I strategize (unless there's something obviously broken). It's too much like looking for exploits. I'd rather role-play my tactics as best I can. If the scripts are half-way fair and realistic, then that's usually a good way to win, too.

As I said scripts ARE broken. Reinforcements can deploy in a same turn you approach main mission marker (actually they're already deployed within battle area and waiting for trigger). If there is a PPC carrier in enemy lance this means that you totally doomed - this vechicle could shoot from one part of the map to another. One of three PPCs always hit your mech.

If there is Trebuchet or Orion in reinforcements - this also means that you will stay under LRM-15 fire (which could be very nasty because it reduces you stability). So in game design terms it could be interpreted as an unfair overpower: close enemy mechs could knock you down while far mechs will provide support fire.

Hit the Head of an enemy mech, destroyed the right torso, cut the right leg of.
Now all I need is to destroy the left torso so that I can get all 3 mech parts, and than I see that the left torso has only 2 hp but the CT IS DOWN TO 1HP.

So even with a flamer I will blast through the side torso and destroy the CenterTorso...

That's a pretty awesomely bad scenario. Well deserving of an in-game rage thread post. :)

I was gonna complain about the surprise heavy in my 1/2 star battle mission where I chose all cash because I don't need any more freaking light mech parts, but yours is much better.

any game where the AI thinks it's perfectly legitimate for your LANCE to go up against an entire COMPANY, ...yeah.

Not much rage, merely shock.

Started a new campaign with the "back of the truck, oops, a crate of new heavy metal gear" option. On my fourth solar system, so still farming 1/2 and 1 star missions for parts and cash. Have three lightweight mediums (40, 45, 45) and three lights (35, 30, 20) in my mercenary crew.

1 star battle mission. Figure I'll drop 1.5 star worth of weight (my four best mechs) with my lower tier pilots to earn some XP. Hmmm, only three enemy sighted. Must be a solid medium in the enemy forces to give 'em a 1 star weight.

Oh crap, that's a ton of LRMs flying upon contact. And that was a mighty big cannon that just missed me too.

Double crap, the light is a hard hitting Jenner. Triple crap, the other two are a Centurion (AC 10 - Ouch) and a, um, uh, Archer (2 x LRM 20).

Guess we're gonna charge that Archer, pray to the RNG gods, and hope the pilot doesn't realize what his fists can do to us with a single punch. Ignoring the Centurion for a little bit because we can't afford two full spreads of LRMs hitting us every turn.

We won thanks to lucky dice rolls for the M-Coil equipped Assassin and UAC-10 equipped BlackJack. But it's a good thing we have a 22 day flight to heal and repair. We also scored two Archer parts though we hope not to have another chance at a piece for awhile...