Need help for Dropship destruction mission.

[Zankaze]

Ok guys, I can't get past this mission. I've already figured that killing the garrison and turret generators before engaging Lady Espinosa give me better chances and in my best tries, i destroy half her team before she finishes me.
I've got 1 Dragon (Brawler), 1 Quickdraw (Fire support), 1 Jenner (Flanker) and the Blackjack as sniper.
Do you have any tips?

[Isha]

Suggestion: Do more freelance work to improve your lance.

That's the easiest thing to do. I did this mission with a full heavy lance of Grasshopper, Jagermech, Orion, and Catapult. It was easy.

[Harukage]

Espinosa's lance is pretty good for that levle, yeah. But you are a merc, not a knight.
There is a large mountain right before enemy base on your way there. Hide behind it. Enemy has mechs with different speeds, 0 jets, long road from they LZ to you and only a single narrow path they can use to climb up.
You can pick them off one by one. If you do everything right, you will only fight up to 2 mech at once.
With a spotter with sensor lock you can also bombard them with lrm when they are trying to reach you.

[Zankaze]

Originally posted by Comrade Question:

Suggestion: Do more freelance work to improve your lance.
That's the easiest thing to do. I did this mission with a full heavy lance of Grasshopper, Jagermech, Orion, and Catapult. It was easy.

That's what I've already done but I guess i could use at least one more heavy. A Jaeger instead of the Blackjack would be nice, do you know where I could farm/find one? Thank You.

Originally posted by Harukage:

There is a large mountain right before enemy base on your way there. Hide behind it. Enemy has mechs with different speeds, 0 jets, long road from they LZ to you and only a single narrow path they can use to climb up.
You can pick them off one by one. If you do everything right, you will only fight up to 2 mech at once.
With a spotter with sensor lock you can also bombard them with lrm when they are trying to reach you.

You're perfectly right, using the mountains better should be a huge help.

[Paul]

There is an LOS issue with this mission (have screen shots) if you stand on the hill in the center close to start overlooking everything The lady and her crew will drop and advance on the hill in the open because ther is a factory building with 3 stacks that block los from my units but not theres its a oneway los that made me more than a bit upset but then when i suck it up (they hit first now) i have to take out the factory first now so after i do that and suck up another free round for them i still have no los even with the factory gone OMG rage time. I lost one of the two mechwarriors that have died so far in my game on this mission and i dont load saves so..fun stuff.

[Eagle_of_Fire]

The fact that you are still using the BJ tell me you have the heck of a poorly designed lance...

I kept the BJ for a long time too considering it is the mech your own character is very attached to... But now that I know better I'd switch it over almost anything else right away. Pretty sure that you keep it as a "sniper" only because otherwise it would get shredded up close by now. Get a real mech which can follow up the rest of your squad or switch it up with a real LRM boat like a Trebuchet, Catapult or Griffin.

[Isha]

Originally posted by Zankaze:

Originally posted by Comrade Question:

Suggestion: Do more freelance work to improve your lance.
That's the easiest thing to do. I did this mission with a full heavy lance of Grasshopper, Jagermech, Orion, and Catapult. It was easy.

That's what I've already done but I guess i could use at least one more heavy. A Jaeger instead of the Blackjack would be nice, do you know where I could farm/find one? Thank You.

They're pretty common in 2.5 skull assassination missions on 2.5 skull planets. Or 3-3.5 skull missions that involve heavy lances. If you read the description of the missions they'll often give you a hint what you're facing.

[Steppenrazor]

Originally posted by Zankaze:

Ok guys, I can't get past this mission. I've already figured that killing the garrison and turret generators before engaging Lady Espinosa give me better chances and in my best tries, i destroy half her team before she finishes me.
I've got 1 Dragon (Brawler), 1 Quickdraw (Fire support), 1 Jenner (Flanker) and the Blackjack as sniper.
Do you have any tips?

your lance seems a bit.. light. id think about replacing the jenner and blackjack.

while the jenner can do some good dmg, its low armor and can have heat issues.

blackjacks ok, but getting a diffrent medium, making it an LRM boat or something would be more effective. the ac/2 on the blackjack just dont pump out enough damage to trully worry a heavy.

it also really depends on the weapon load outs youre useing on the others. but lookong at repalcing the jenner and blackjack with something heavier, with more armor and firepower will help.

[Eagle_of_Fire]

Heck, why not just use the Centurion you get with the Argo? That's the heck of a great all around mech, around ten times better than the BJ for sure and about the same tonnage... Just max armor and go close range with a lot of JJ and it will most likely greatly outperform even your Jenner.

[L37]

One thing to consider is that main enemy mech, the catapult, overheats a lot in the environment and apparently has some ammo in CT. She can be left alone, she will be able to fire like 1 ppc/turn and is not much of a threat. Once you are done with everything else, few called shots to CT from mediums should finish her off.
For me the main challenge was not the lance, but avoiding damage from turrets in the beginning. Because of that, doing this mission for the second time, i brought kintaro with whole bunch of LRMs - made things considerably easier.

[RasaNova]

If I remember right, I had a jager, centurion LRM boat, laser hunchback, and kintaro. The kintaro hit the control building, the hunchback tanked the guards with support from the jager sniping from the hills, and the cent provided artillary support from the southeast.

When Espinosa's lance arrived, I was lucky enough to core the catapult before it got to shoot, and I don't remeber the remaining mechs being too difficult.

In general, having an LRM boat to peel away armor and the jager to punch holes in whatever remains works very well, as long as you can keep the enemy at a distance.

It looks like your lance was a bit light for a story mission at that point in the game... Dragon and quikdraw probably fine for the heavy lifting, but maybe swap the jenner with a shadowhawk, and the blackjack with a 50+ ton mech (ideally long range lrm/sniper.)

[Steppenrazor]

Originally posted by Eagle_of_Fire:

Heck, why not just use the Centurion you get with the Argo? That's the heck of a great all around mech, around ten times better than the BJ for sure and about the same tonnage... Just max armor and go close range with a lot of JJ and it will most likely greatly outperform even your Jenner.

slap an ac/20 on ot with 2 med lasers and 2 tons of ammo and you go an amazing CT killer. will take out pretty much every light and most mediums in 1 turn.

or some like it as an missile boat. think its got 3 missile points. give it 3 LRMs.. or gice it 3 SRM4/6 and use it as a close it killer.

i went with ac/20.. because i love the 100 dmg to one spot.

[Steppenrazor]

when i did it.. (last night actually.. lol)

i had

Orion - ac/20, 2 med. laser. lrm-10
thunderbolt - 2 lrm 20s, 2 med lasers
dragon - i wana say ac/10 with few med lasers and srms.
quickdraw - med lasers and SRMs. (use by my scout/sensor locker. no need for long range as.. if they at long range.. i sensorlock.)

all have nearly Maxed armor. over 1000...

cant really remember the dragon and quickdraws set up. they are new, got them shortly befor the mission.

so with 4 heavys.. the mission was fairly easy. i think the dragon to enough damage in an arm to have to hit repair bay for few days.

[HighPlains Drifter]

I just hid behind the mountain you start at, and missiled the building from that point. Which worked out well, because when Lady Espinosa and her lance show up, they spawn right outside the choke point the mountain creates.

I just mopped them up one at a time.

[Zankaze]

Ok guys, In a nutshell, a heavier lance, using the mountain to my advantage and getting some serious indirect fire or a heavy alpha weapon. I will try a bit of this tomorrow.

And the Blackjack as a sniper is not bad, it has nice slots and respectable armor. Same for the Jenner which is an excellent flanker.
They are probably simply too light at this point of the game.

Thanks a lot!

[Isha]

By the time I did this mission I had a dedicated LRM boat with breaching shot and multitarget and a dedicated slock jock - so I could start doing damage before they can return fire. I shifted away from the spawn in area I was warned about at the start of the mission - I didn't even go within sensor range of it. Destroyed the turret generators quickly, dealt with the meagre garrison, then braced up for the incoming mixed squad composed of 2 mediums, a heavy, and a light (iirc). My (enemy) light was a Firestarter so I made sure I was never in threat range of his flamers. I knocked down Ms Espinosa with my Catapult 2xLRM20+ (+stab damage) and my JM6-S with 2xAC5. I cored her the next round.

Then I focused down the Firestarter, before closing to brawl with the enemy CN9. I downed it and the final medium (I don't remember if it was a Shadowhawk or a Vindicator) - which fell fast to the full alpha of my lance which was around 700 at this time.