Flashpoint missions LITERALLY impossible

[echo9835]

So I bought flashpoint today and loaded it up. Did the Steiner Mission set with no problem. The escort missions still suck because the APCs are driven by idiots with a death wish, but babysitting APCs is nothing new or even all that challenging. Next I allied with the Federated suns and tried their flashpoint as an ally. (not sure if being allied to a faction changes the missions). On the final level, you have 8 turns to place 3 beacons at 3 widely seperated points. To place a beacon your mech must sit in the designated zone for 2 turns. Seems easy enough right? Hell No. The beacon zones are protected by 12 assault and heavy mechs. Thats right, you have 8 turns to kill your way through 12 meaty mechs and take and hold 3 points that cannot mutually suport each other. I had the two star league reward mechs, an Atlas, and an LRM boat Stalker, normally one of the strongest, Highest DPS, toughest lances you can possibly deploy. It isnt possible to win. if your mechs stick together, you cant get the beacons. if your mechs split up, they cant kill thier way through the enemy fast enough to survive, if you run a lighter lance of mediums or fast heavies, the asault mechs make you thier ♥♥♥♥♥, it is strait up impossible. Im not super upset about the money I spent on the DLC as it adds a lot of cool stuff and flushes out the endgame quite a bit, but I am curious. DID ANYONE PLAY TEST THESE LEVELS BEFORE THEY LAUNCHED?

sincerely,
a really confused fan.

[Sketch]

Originally posted by SpectralShade:

The thing I see with these missions is: Why should we actually bother with them?
We are supposed to be a mercenary company. why should we accept missions that have a high likelyhood of being a plain loss on the bottomline from random contractors?

It just doesn't make sense.

That people are getting 'failed mission' even when they triangulate, just because their pilots doesn't reach evac is just being further silly by the devs.

I was really happy with the battletech game release, because I thought it was a good step in the right direction for finally getting a decent battletech game again.

I honestly don't think that this expansion is doing much good for the groundwork that the base game placed, though.

I mean, the mission isn't hard once you properly evaluate what is being asked of you:

Sit on 3 locations for 2 rounds, then get to the evacutation point. This is meant to make you think outside the box. This only took me two tries with the first being simply experiencing the mission before i quickly reset when I figured out what was going on.

In no way are these types of missions meant to see you battle out against 4:1 odds. They are intended to require a different solution.

I made a post with how to solve this mission without losing much of anything.

Hard modes will always be hard to people who have trouble problem solving.

[markelphoenix]

Originally posted by Gogopher:

sure ill try:

mechs and loadoout: only listing weapons and such...heat sinks the rest u will have to use ur own ideas since it is almost 100% that u wont have what i have (i have close to 30DHS and a metric s##t ton of banks and exchangers)

1-lostech highlander (the one from main mission): armed with RA-gauss rifle RT-3ml lasers +10da each, 1sl +10da/+50% crit, HD-+3 injury resist, CT-+3 Hit Defense, JJ LT-srm6 +4da +2stb LA-lrm15 +2da RL-JJ LL-JJ
2-losttech atlas (one from main mish) HD-+3 injury resist RA-2xml lasers +10 da 1xsl +10da +50%crit RT-gauss rifle+ CT- -30% stab taken gyro, JJ LT-srm6 +4da/+2stb lrm20 +2da LA-2xml +10da, 1xsl +10da,+50%crit RL-JJ LL-JJ
3-King Crab: HD-+3 Injury resist, RA nothing RT-4xml +10da, JJ, JJ CT- -30%stb gyro, JJ LT- 3xsrm6 +4da/+2stb, lrm20 +2da LA-no weapons
4-King Crab lrm boat HD- +3 resolve RA-no weapons RT-no weapons jj,jj CT-+3 hit defense, jj LT- lrm20 +2da, 2xlrm15 +2da LA-no weapons (light on weapons for a missle boat but it rolls with full armor loadout and often is on front line using its armor with the rest of the lance)

as noted all mechs have JJ and very efficient heat systems (all have DHS's, banks and exchangers...the exact ones vary as i come across better), i seldom use TT's though its worth noting i have a +1bal, +1missle in the atlas

pilots: 3xlancers, 1x vanguard (vanguard in highlander)...lancer's were straight 10's with bulwark, multi-shot, breaching shot....vanguard was straight 10's with bulwark, sensor lock, and whatever comes after sensor lock (+1 init)

turns 1-6
atlas went to west (assume north top of map) and dealt with elite lance, fire support from both lrm boat and highlander as needed
king crab (cq's mech) used vigilance (i messed up and forgot one round hence the lost arm) and sprinted to the northern most cap point-never fired its weapons until turn 5 when it jumped off center hill and then it dropped a demo
king crab (missle boat)-killed vehicles as they came unmasked provided fire support for atlas and KC sprinting
highlander provided fire support for atlas and king crab sprinting

turn 7-8 simultaneously entered 3 cap points at that point i used vigiliance exclusively on the king crab to the north, atlas took west point (enemy elite lance finished dying on turn 6)...king crab missle boat took center point...king crab cq's boat took north point...highlander roved and supported atlas (they had a king crab on western side of map that the atlas and highlander killed

2 turns to observe at that point all mechs released to fight...atlas came back to center to get ready for evac and supported cq king crabs return from norther point...king crab missle boat and highlander supported as well...king crab cq made her way to evac point

4 turns to evac...cleaned up all remaining enemy mechs and sat in evac point till map ended

enemies: 12 assualt/heavies (iirc it was 8 assualt and 4 heavies) and 4 vehicles 2xdemos and 2xppc carriers
damage to me: cq king crab lost an arm, atlas went internal in a side torso on enemies last shot, king crab missle boat went internal on a empty side torso, highlander took moderate to severe armor damage
i prefered to use called shot over vigiliance when the opportunity arose...only used vig on sprinting king crab...more or less one shotted each of the elite lance with kill order of victor first awesome last

used same mechs on the marik alliance though the atlas was running a slightly diff load out since it had an ac/20 rather than a gauss rifle...similar strat and again i entered the cap zones on turn 7 simultaneously...though on marik alliance no mech went internal and no arms were lost due to me forgetting to vigiliance a mech...and all enemy were dead by turn 10 including the two reinforcement mechs that landed almost on top of my cq king crab

thats pretty much it...it was a hard mission but entirely doable...i run the game on hardest difficulty

Thanks for the write up :-)

Given that you already wrote it up, maybe see about throwing it in the guides section of the steam community? At least get some cred for taking the time to write this up :-), as well as helping people that may come across this later.

[Gogopher]

na i dont know how to get it into guide section...bottom line is as someone said before learn to think outside the box and use what u have to complete the missions...i have fully completed two playthrus of the main game and one playthru of 90% of the flashpoint content and have never, not once lost a mission...not many people will be able to do it the way i did since i have over 700 weeks on that playthru and so much equipment that even my light and medium flavor mechs run dhs and such...my equipment is so good that of the 18 mechs i have in the mech bay not one of them runs anything less than +++ (or ++ if it is better) weapons and gear

when i say learn to play im not talking about copying my playstyle or mech builds (two of my brothers would argue my mech builds suck compared to theirs) but rather learn what is being asked for u and then apply that knowledge to the mechs and pilots u choose to use for the mission

[kyraeus]

Yeah, I'm going out on a limb here and just saying that these ARE probably broken as hell, to some degree. We have not one, but MULTIPLE people reporting issues with the difficulty, we have a KNOWN issue of the difficulty even on normal missions being ramped up by simply 'throwing extra units at you'.

The only people who actively gave advice on how to beat this within this thread (which, thank you), seem to have an overpowered level of equipment that you can only get with massive grinding... (no offense intended to you guys, but it seems to be the case, where we're talking 30 DHS, etc, etc.. that's definitely a bit of a grind or save scum to manage).

I understand they don't want to make EASY content. That's fine. I'm all for a bit of a challenge. But in order to make a successful game, you have to make content accessible to the general public. Flashpoints are kind of in the NAME of the DLC, so I have to assume everyone expects to ACTUALLY be able to beat them, even if they have to replay a couple of times. This sounds pretty much like OP was describing, a near-impossible one that's poorly playtested or not optimized properly.

I suspect some of what you face in missions is NOT handcrafted, but rather is based somehow on the force you drop with, or perhaps on what you have stockpiled? Not sure in any case, since I haven't gotten this far yet. Either way, can we maybe stop the 'Learn 2 play' posts on this and just actively continue posting helpful info? I know I'd personally appreciate it, for when I get there.

Congratulations if you don't have issues with it. Maybe you just got good RNG, or weren't facing whatever some of us were at the time you did it. Maybe just respect that others ARE having issues with it and treat them as you'd wish to be treated if you did. Kthanks.

[Silverware]

Stuck on the Davion IV Flashpoint (Normal difficulty I believe) "Target Acquisition" mission as well. Seems impossible, or at least you can't do it without sacrificing your units.

I've been trying it with a lance of 75-90 ton mechs I think? Because I'm pretty sure 100t Mechs would be too slow. As people have said, you need Mechs fast enough to reach the three spreadout beacon points but they also need to be able to take a massive amount of damage over multiple rounds. Seems like most of the people in here haven't played what the OP is referring to and thus don't understand what this whole thing looks like. Two of the three beacons have a full lance of Assault mechs ON the beacon. Meaning, they are targeting that single Mech while you are running there, then standing there for two rounds, then trying to flee. Don't forget about the other Mechs hanging around the middle. You are also being attacked from two opposite directions.. so they'll just shoot through your back in two rounds. Or take out a leg in which case you're done because then can't get around fast enough to escape anyway. Logically, it seems impossible.

There also doesn't seem to be any reason to return fire (unless you can nail headshots) because you just cannot do enough damage to make any difference, plus you're leaving yourself undefended/un-braced which makes the damage even worse.

It looks like a suicide mission to me. The first time I tried it I was able to get two beacons done, lost two mechs and both pilots died, and I had I think 1 round left to capture the third beacon (because the Mech standing in that beacon was eaten alive, being melee'd by two assault mechs and shot at at point blank by the other two.

Don't know. If they removed the 8 round time limit so I could actually try and thin their numbers, this *might* be doable. I'm sure the devs have tested it but I don't know what sort of crazy ass Lance setup or tactics they were using. I'm currently trying to find video of someone else beating this thing.

Should also add that every time you fail this mission, you have to play through the one before it, that involves running a lance of light mechs to recover something. Its not hard, its just that you have to do it over again each time you fail this impossible fourth mission.

[Gogopher]

Originally posted by Silverware:

Stuck on the Davion IV Flashpoint (Normal difficulty I believe) "Target Acquisition" mission as well. Seems impossible, or at least you can't do it without sacrificing your units.

I've been trying it with a lance of 75-90 ton mechs I think? Because I'm pretty sure 100t Mechs would be too slow. As people have said, you need Mechs fast enough to reach the three spreadout beacon points but they also need to be able to take a massive amount of damage over multiple rounds. Seems like most of the people in here haven't played what the OP is referring to and thus don't understand what this whole thing looks like. Two of the three beacons have a full lance of Assault mechs ON the beacon. Meaning, they are targeting that single Mech while you are running there, then standing there for two rounds, then trying to flee. Don't forget about the other Mechs hanging around the middle. You are also being attacked from two opposite directions.. so they'll just shoot through your back in two rounds. Or take out a leg in which case you're done because then can't get around fast enough to escape anyway. Logically, it seems impossible.

There also doesn't seem to be any reason to return fire (unless you can nail headshots) because you just cannot do enough damage to make any difference, plus you're leaving yourself undefended/un-braced which makes the damage even worse.

It looks like a suicide mission to me. The first time I tried it I was able to get two beacons done, lost two mechs and both pilots died, and I had I think 1 round left to capture the third beacon (because the Mech standing in that beacon was eaten alive, being melee'd by two assault mechs and shot at at point blank by the other two.

Don't know. If they removed the 8 round time limit so I could actually try and thin their numbers, this *might* be doable. I'm sure the devs have tested it but I don't know what sort of crazy ass Lance setup or tactics they were using. I'm currently trying to find video of someone else beating this thing.

Should also add that every time you fail this mission, you have to play through the one before it, that involves running a lance of light mechs to recover something. Its not hard, its just that you have to do it over again each time you fail this impossible fourth mission.

well i can guarentee that u can do it with 100t mechs as i stated above i completed it with 3x100t and 1x90t mechs on hard difficulty...all my mechs (i mean all 18 built mechs) run JJ's...a 100t king crab with a lancer pilot (bulwark, multishot, breaching shot) can make it to the top most cap point in 7 turns (it enters the cap on turn 7 so it will cap it at end of turn 8)...u sprint the whole way on top of the hill in center of map (use vigiliance to keep it alive) and jump off hill on turn 6...then sprint into cap on turn 7 (i cant recall if i jumped on turn 5 or 6 either way u get to cap by turn 7)

trying this mish with 75t-90t mechs while prolly doable if u have extremely good gear and mechs is needlessly harder than doing it with top of the line assualt mechs...the story mish 90t highlander has the second most avaliable tonnage in the game, the 100t atlas II from story mish has the most avaliable tonnage of any mech in the game...so those two are a must for any run...100 king crab makes excellent close quarters assualt boats and decent missle boat (highlander 733p iirc correctly (it might be the 733) makes the best missle boat with it capable of jump jetsx3, 2xlrm20's and 2xlrm 15's...although the stalker makes an excellent jump capable missle boat as well)

i run king crabs for both close quarter and missle boats due to massive amounts of armor and very generous weapon hardpoints (4xml lasers and 4xmissles both in torso mounts leaving arms as armor shields

nothing about this dlc said it was going to be easy...it is meant i think for end game runs...and although i have insanely incredible gear for my mechs (just take my word for it i was lucky and have gear most people will never see in amounts most people would cry over) i often run missions with lesser mechs and lesser pilots just for fun...these missions are totally doable with a moderately geared out lance it just takes careful planning and understanding both of what is being asked of u and what ur mechs and pilots are capable of

as far as save scumming i have kept it to an absolute minimum boardering on zero with this game...my house rule is i am free to reload if i lose a mech or pilot to a melee head shot by a mech with no arms (due im sure to computer gaming limitations the devs have choosen to roll both punching, kicking, and charging into a generic melee attack) since it is impossible in TT for a mech with no arms to headshot u in melee (unless using dfa)...i have ejected twice from a mech...once to save the pilot (1 hp left) and once to save the mech (center core breached...almost no internal left)...outside of that the only reloads i do is if im testing a build or a game mechanic im not sure about (ie making an alliance to see what happens)

game is a very good take on TT ruleset and lore...the fact u are almost always outnumbered is exactly how i dm my friends in TT...an elite lance targeting high value...highly protected targets via mech drops or dropship insertion...so its exactly what i wanted from this game...

[Churchill]

Originally posted by Gogopher:

sure ill try:

used same mechs on the marik alliance though the atlas was running a slightly diff load out since it had an ac/20 rather than a gauss rifle...similar strat and again i entered the cap zones on turn 7 simultaneously...though on marik alliance no mech went internal and no arms were lost due to me forgetting to vigiliance a mech...and all enemy were dead by turn 10 including the two reinforcement mechs that landed almost on top of my cq king crab

thats pretty much it...it was a hard mission but entirely doable...i run the game on hardest difficulty

Seems pretty decent advice, although it basically comes down to 'leave flashpoints until super endgame, farm decent gear first.' I'd suggest the other reason to leave it to endgame(ish) is you'll need max morale to headshot that many mechs.

My only query is the last part I quoted. House Marik alliance FP has a drop limit of 50 tons on the first phase. Perhaps you've confused it with another.

[rambo919]

Tried Joint Venture II but the enemy refuses to actually fight me and basically uses the initial lance as a decoy while the second lance focuses on the buildings, as soon as I manage to wipe out the initial lance (with at most one mech actually even looking in my direction) the last building falls. If all flashpoints are actually puzzles like some have mentioned here.... def not for me thanks I'll pass. Puzzleish maps are fine but if the idiot AI does not even have the vaguest level of self preservation..... unless the idea is to take pot shots at every enemy as soon as you see him but that too is just plain stupid....

This reminds me of some panzer corps maps where the devs clearly have no vaguely military minds involved and just want to create "challenging puzzles". The best example being the partially broken afrika korps dlc where the fool that created a specific map cannot understand the HUGE difference between disorderly rout and fighting retreat....

[Antar]

Originally posted by rambo919:

Tried Joint Venture II but the enemy refuses to actually fight me and basically uses the initial lance as a decoy while the second lance focuses on the buildings, as soon as I manage to wipe out the initial lance (with at most one mech actually even looking in my direction) the last building falls. If all flashpoints are actually puzzles like some have mentioned here.... def not for me thanks I'll pass. Puzzleish maps are fine but if the idiot AI does not even have the vaguest level of self preservation..... unless the idea is to take pot shots at every enemy as soon as you see him but that too is just plain stupid....

This reminds me of some panzer corps maps where the devs clearly have no vaguely military minds involved and just want to create "challenging puzzles". The best example being the partially broken afrika korps dlc where the fool that created a specific map cannot understand the HUGE difference between disorderly rout and fighting retreat....

Joint Venture II is imo by far the hardest mission in Flashpoint, with one setting (the one you describe) on the verge of impossible.

You are absolutely right, the enemy will completely ignore you, I tried spreading my lance and running to the enemies like an idiot just to try to draw their fire. But they all only care about the buildings, and I always lost by turn 6. Also in my case they always had 1 or 2 LRM tanks far behind, each destroying single building with each salvo. I failed this mission many times trying it with meds, later I returned with a lance of heavies, still was not enough.

The stupid catch of Joint Venture is the choice you make in the dialogue before the mission. The game MAKES it sound like chosing to go against lance bravo (or whatever is its name) and not the unknown lance is the good choice. WRONG!

I finally tried the second option of going against the unknown lance after a while, and especially the second mission was much easier! I had one assault mech (I think it was Awesome) against me in the first mission, but the mechs were already "there" when you start the map and did not spawned out of thin air like in the first option, so I lured them out one by one. Also there was no 4 meds drop at the end, just 4 tanks.
The second misson was then ridiculously easy, with just 2 much weaker lances coming at the base at much slower pace.

So that is it really, try going against the "unknown lance" and not the one you have intel on, like I said it was much much easier than the first option.

[rambo919]

That kinda proves my point though, there was no real thought put into the flashpoints beyond artificially creating challenges with daft (lazy?) shortcuts. There is always hope the bumps will be evened out but.... I think half of Battletech's success is it has no real competition which is the same case as with Panzer Corps. In the case of PC the later clones all suffer from immense memory leaks rendering them useless in large battles which is probably why Battletech sticks with such limited deployments. But anyway.... even I am not completist enough to suffer through this obvious cash-grab of desperation.

[Antar]

Originally posted by rambo919:

That kinda proves my point though, there was no real thought put into the flashpoints beyond artificially creating challenges with daft (lazy?) shortcuts. There is always hope the bumps will be evened out but.... I think half of Battletech's success is it has no real competition which is the same case as with Panzer Corps. In the case of PC the later clones all suffer from immense memory leaks rendering them useless in large battles which is probably why Battletech sticks with such limited deployments. But anyway.... even I am not completist enough to suffer through this obvious cash-grab of desperation.

Never played Panzer Corps, but the closest game to Battletech I know is X-Com: Enemy Unknown, which is much deeper than Battletech and better in basicaly every aspect. Battletech is lacking in many aspects, and the Flashpoint expansion is a terrible cash grab with content of the size of an average update.

[Jexvrok]

with the changes to the game i have been going for more objectives than fighting the enemy. fortunatly in carear mode, the store has a much better stock of supplies to justify taking c-bills in contract negotiation. as for flash points.... i have done a few of them and every one has been a close call. so the new changes have made the game excedingly more challenging and the learning curve is very harsh.

[markelphoenix]

In regards to drawing fire away from objectives, from my understanding, it requires you to actually fire at the attackers. Sprinting full speed will not cause them to switch from attacking their targets, opening fire with a multi-target, where you target as many as possible, should change their target prioritization.

[Big Moustache]

Originally posted by markelphoenix:

In regards to drawing fire away from objectives, from my understanding, it requires you to actually fire at the attackers. Sprinting full speed will not cause them to switch from attacking their targets, opening fire with a multi-target, where you target as many as possible, should change their target prioritization.

Nope, even on structure exposed damage they still focus on the buildings. And every restart the buildings get destroyed in the same exact order.

[xfojtik]

About that triangulate 8 turn mission (extra hard when you are Ally with somebody) - I do it on 5th try. Very annoying mission.
Some tips - Good is 95 tons Meele Banshee - 2x+60 melee damage, 5x small laser (+30 damage). +4 jumpjets. This mech is really fast. Have a lot of armor. And on close range he can give 260+5x30=410 damage
Stay with 2 mechs with rockets in nearest zone. On 2nd zone send mech with AC20+SRM6. Ond 3rd farest zone send Banshee.
In 4th turn activate nearest zone with 2 rocket mechs. It makes more breathe to another 2 running mechs.
In 6th turn activate another 2 zones.
In 8th turn decide when is mech near destruction. And do not hesitate to eject pilot. You can eject 3 pilots, need only one mech to finish mission. You will 90% need eject Banshee and Mech with AC20.
A was able finish this mission only with one mech who lost right arm+torso. It cost me AC5+++ plus 2 AC5 ammunitions + 3 coolers.
As result a gain Gauss Riffle+ - weight 2 tons less