When to do story missions

[Sabi The Worst Player Ever]

I heard rumors that game becomes incredibly difficult after second story mission and that each one increass overall difficulty of the campaign like lances you face and so on, even on low risk planets like the south ones.

At one hand, I kinda want bigger mech bay so I can work on more mechs at same time, I have 4m Cbills and just grabbed Kintaro and Griffith mechs from battle mission (which went much smoother than my previous encounters with mediums, literally fried Kintaro with Firestarter before he did any real damage), plus Enforcer from one of previous battles. At the other hand, I dont want to lock myself into situation when Im going to only face like 16 mediums or heavies against my poor group of 4 people. I prefer comfortable play, you know.

So, should I push the line?

[arnaud_defrance]

You should do the first two missions quickly to unlock the ship you can actually upgrade. Afterward the difficulty depends on the numbers of "skulls" in the contracts.

It's less that the story missions get more difficult and more that there are difficulty spikes, especially at 3 skulls, due to enemies getting heavier mechs and convoys vehicles showing up with double AC/20.

Just make sure you have a full mediums lance at minimum before getting further and you should be fine. The next story missions are mostly difficult because they're sorta timed, redoing them again makes them much easier.
For non story-missions, learn to use the withdraw option: 50% reward in cash and salvage as long as you completed one objective and killed one mech/vehicle. It makes the mission with enemies reinforcements MUCH easier.

[Sabi The Worst Player Ever]

That "full mediums" is kinda a problem. I mean, I do need one mobile mech to jump around. Firestarter works great here, with 3 flamethrowers and 3 small lasers and 6 jumpjets. I heard that Griffith can actually replace scout role from light mechs. Is that actually true?

So with those mechs I listed that I already have and that amount of money, you think I can saftely take this story mission?

[arnaud_defrance]

Firestarted works well, it's the only one that perform decently later on. However you don't really need mobility like that: Jumpjets do a great job of getting wherever you want. In most missions you can also start the battle with jumpset(3/4 evasion) plus brace, then reserve till the enemies spend their actions against your nigh-impossible-to-hit and halved damage lance.

I don't have the tonnage in mind right now. You want 50-55 tons mechs in your lance to be comfortable during the missions. Is the griffith the one that can pack 6-8 jetpacks? I do know there is such a mediums mech with great mobility (it also depends on variant.)

Mid and late game though, you will have to give up the light mech for bigger ones. 250-300 armor across the body just doesn't survive when every enemies start having 600-1000+ armors.

[Sabi The Worst Player Ever]

Griffith is 55T medium with 5 jumpjets slots, 3 laser and 3 rocket slots + 1 support. Kintaro also have 5 jumpjets slots. Which mechs actually have 6-8 slots?

[arnaud_defrance]

After checking the Mech Lab, the medium mech with 7-8 jets is the Cicada, a forty-ton mech a bit on the fragile side but still with 320 armor which is more than the rest.

[Sabi The Worst Player Ever]

Okay so, with my current case of Blackjack (3x M Laser, 2x Ac/2), Centurion/Shadow Hawk (switching them in place pretty often but right now mostly sticking to Centurion - SH have equipped two short range missiles plus Ac/20 cannon, Centurion have L Laser, M Laser and 2x SRM2 + SMR6 and performing better overall, except that it cant really fire lasers more often than once due to heat problems, despite additional heatsinks installed), Vindicator (L Laser, 2x M Laser and LRM15) and Firestarter (3x Flamethrower, 3x S Laser) and Kintaro, Enforcer and Griffith in garrage, plus Quickdraw grabbed during assasinate mission, Im good to go with that story mission or I should farm more?

Also, what would you change in that squad?

[Red Dox]

Storymission 3+4 I landed with Centurion, Jaegermech, Thunderbolt and Shadowhawk. Had not really problems. Execpt stopping the fleeing trucks in mission 4 but since they were optional, who cares.

I really would get rid of the "light scoutmech" idea. Or scouting in general. I usually decide where I want to make my stand, walk there, and if I have not triggered enemies, I lure them with the swift Shadowhawk to that position. And then tear them apart as they come. If HBS really wants me to use "scoutmechs", they should give me a second lance. With just 4 mechs I take the biggest I can get.

And as already mentioned, I would push the first two story missions as fast as you are comfortable with. Getting your hands on the Argo and upgrade the various systems (mech simulators; medbay) there helps a lot more then avoiding the mission out of fear of harder battles.

[arnaud_defrance]

Ouch. For that first centurion, go pure short-range with SRM and whatever then M-laser you can fit while keeping high armor. I'm assuming it's the centurion short-range variant you get as story mission reward, that one works MUCH better with 2 SRM-6, 1 SRM-2 and a M-laser. With jetpack, use it as a finisher (break guard and remove evasion pips with your other mechs, then have the centurion blast them.)

Throw away all L-lasers, they're the worst weapons in the game. PPC is considerably better in comparison (stability damage and more importantly: reduce hit chance for mech hit by hit for one turn). Though overall, don't use heat-focusing mech till you get a second mechbay, you'll get multiple martian and lunars missions in contracts including in incoming story missions.

Scouting as stated by Red Dox isn't very useful. The best way of opening the battle is to evade-up all your mech (with jetpack) and brace, letting the others mech fire badly and expose themselves for you to kill them. Similarly at this state, you can close with vehicles with jetpack and brace to minize damage then melee them for double damage in melee bonus.

If you really want to prep for the story missions though, then beside heavy mech you can look for wolverines with 3 missiles rack. They make for pretty good LRM fighters with added S-laser for close range, with a gunnery-pilot for multi-targetted slaughter.

[Sabi The Worst Player Ever]

Okay, did that story mission, grabbed Jeagermech and Terbuchet at the mission itself, rolled eyes over new maintance cost and realized that all missions around are 3 skulls ones. Wanted to cover monthly expenses so my three mediums and light had to face 4 mediums, 4 vehicles, 2 lights and 1 heavy. At least separated them with mountain...

Now Im scared as much as I was at the beginning of the game.

What makes L Laser bad? I mean, compared to PPC it weight less, generate less heat and have only slightly lower damage (40 vs 50).

[arnaud_defrance]

PPC also have stability damage and EMC damage (reduce accuracy for 1 turn on hit), all for 2 tons and slightly more heat. PPC range also works better with LRMs, whereas L-laser are too much a jack-of-all-trade. Either you're playing long range and use PPC, or you're going close (standard) range and you want medium lasers with MUCH better damage per ton and heat.

PPC stability damage is notalby a big one if you're playing at LRM range, because LRMs are good for stability damage so... LRMs work better with PPC than L-las. Then if you're playing at long and very-long range, ballistic with AC/5 work better.

The opposition you faced made me think you went into an ambush convoy? It's better to focus on the objective and hug the map edge while proceding to main target in those cases, that way you can fulfill one objective, kill one mech/vehicle, and withdraw for 50% reward if the opposition get too though. a 50% reward is MUCH better than winning versus reinforcements that can blow up some limbs, since then you can go back another into contract pretty much immediately with no or little repair to do.

If it's too hard, look in the star map for systems with less skulls (challenge), you'll find easier contract in 2 skulls places. 2 skulls and a half are much easier than three skulls notably.

[Kai Heilos]

Do them as soon as you can :D

[Sabi The Worst Player Ever]

Originally posted by arnaud_defrance:

PPC also have stability damage and EMC damage (reduce accuracy for 1 turn on hit), all for 2 tons and slightly more heat. PPC range also works better with LRMs, whereas L-laser are too much a jack-of-all-trade. Either you're playing long range and use PPC, or you're going close (standard) range and you want medium lasers with MUCH better damage per ton and heat.

PPC stability damage is notalby a big one if you're playing at LRM range, because LRMs are good for stability damage so... LRMs work better with PPC than L-las. Then if you're playing at long and very-long range, ballistic with AC/5 work better.

The opposition you faced made me think you went into an ambush convoy? It's better to focus on the objective and hug the map edge while proceding to main target in those cases, that way you can fulfill one objective, kill one mech/vehicle, and withdraw for 50% reward if the opposition get too though. a 50% reward is MUCH better than winning versus reinforcements that can blow up some limbs, since then you can go back another into contract pretty much immediately with no or little repair to do.

If it's too hard, look in the star map for systems with less skulls (challenge), you'll find easier contract in 2 skulls places. 2 skulls and a half are much easier than three skulls notably.

I might say it wrong, it could be 2 vehicles instead of 4. And it was assasinate mission so I faced two lances + target. Somehow, nobody lost a limb, except MC and Glitch getting hit to their heads but I cant have everything going 100% smoothly in such cases.

I will keep that in mind when adjusting those new mechs I have with freshly unlocked second bay. I hope I will get things right this time.

[Shirome Artiste]

Originally posted by Kai Heilos:

Do them as soon as you can :D

Terrible idea. Story missions up the average difficulty and just scraping by because you rushed story missions means you will run into a wall, forcing you to basically idle around low-difficulty planets in hopes you get a contract.

Generally speaking, if you can stomp all over the opposition in a main mission, you can handle most of the generic contracts you'll be offered post-mission.

As a quick rule of thumb though:
Do the first two story missions ASAP: the Argo's upgrade bonuses are a big deal.
Then take it easy, get a solid lineup with mediums and, preferably, a heavy or four.
Once you've got a solid lineup going you can start knocking over main missions until you blow up the spaceship on the moon(If you reach the mission, you know what it's about). After that, it's another STOP: Grind phase! moment because now you can farm heavies to your heart's content, and possibly snag an early assault from generic missions.

It's up to everyone themselves when they feel like their roster is improved enough to proceed once more, but it's generally better to be overprepared and stomp all over a main mission than it is to barely scrape by.

Final tip: If you have to excessively reload JUST to finish a main mission(Not talking about bonus objectives, as some of them require more luck than genuine mech quality) then your lance isn't good enough to survive the post-main mission difficulty jump.

[Spookyfish]

Originally posted by Red Dox:

Storymission 3+4 I landed with Centurion, Jaegermech, Thunderbolt and Shadowhawk. Had not really problems. Execpt stopping the fleeing trucks in mission 4 but since they were optional, who cares.

Damn, where do you get your hands on all those heavies? I didn't get a heavy to drop until Story mission 5, and that was just a puny Dragon.
Needless to say, that mission was barely won with massively damaged mechs and one ejected MW.

[Sabi The Worst Player Ever]

Originally posted by Spookyfish:

Originally posted by Red Dox:

Storymission 3+4 I landed with Centurion, Jaegermech, Thunderbolt and Shadowhawk. Had not really problems. Execpt stopping the fleeing trucks in mission 4 but since they were optional, who cares.

Damn, where do you get your hands on all those heavies? I didn't get a heavy to drop until Story mission 5, and that was just a puny Dragon.
Needless to say, that mission was barely won with massively damaged mechs and one ejected MW.

I thought that Jaegermech is always present in second story mission?

Myself I managed to get 3 parts with torso destroying and knocking it down in that mission due to pilot injuries but previously I faced it during assasinate 1,5 skull mission. Yes, for some reason pirate dudes had heavy in their ranks. I was scared as hell when I saw it approaching, expecting medium mech.