Mission: "Can't Stop the Signal," perhaps the hardest mission in the game?

[Mark-R]

This is one of the new missions, where you have to place 3 beacons, wait for 2 turns, and then make it off the map. I played it at the 5 Skull level and faced 3 lances of assault mechs to start, plus 1 more lance of assault mechs that come in as reinforcements. You have 8 turns to place all of the beacons, so you have to sprint 1/2 of your mechs into the 12 enemy assault mechs.

I was able to beat it, with killing 7 of the enemy, but lost my LosTech loaded Banshee and several pieces of LosTech on my other 3 mechs.

The reward of 7 pieces of salvage did not make up for losing even 1 double heat sink.

Why would anyone ever run this mission?

[Rodrigo]

sometimes u get a decent lostech, but i figure that the devs intention was to field some super dodgy lights, i managed to do those as well with sprinting heavily armored behemots, but almost didnt, then next time i brought 2 locust a missile boat and the highlander as the bullet sponge, seems like enemies tend to avoid focusing on extremely evasive light mechs, aka 7 pips locusts and go for the sponge, if they have line of sight, regardless i also hate those missions deeply as well, still trying to find the optimal way to do em.

perhaps next time ill try 2 quickdraws with super evasive pilots + bulwark, should be able to just sit at the spots and tank the incoming hits while the boat backshots.

grasshoppers jumping around may work as well, as we all know JJ gives a huge bonus to pips and the hopper can go quite far quite fast...

just dont go full kcrabs and atlases...

[Kay Meister]

try your luck with Marauder head hunter :) or Atlas 2 with 4 SNUB PCC ++ bonus 10 dmg

[MortVent]

With the current revamp, you have to keep moving to the exit point with a couple extra rounds thrown in to observe the destruction.

A good rule of thumb is at least 2 jump capable mechs for the spots in hard to reach locations (such as the little hillside lake in the flashpoint one) and then some decent hitters running through to the others.

I just did the flashpoint with a Marauder, Archer, Highlander and Bullshark (maz). There were times I did use sprint but the primary first target was the turret generator (brings in reinforcements and cuts the incoming fire massively)

So remember target the generators vs the turrets if possible. The generators have less armor and die quicker.. and are often controlling multiple turrets

[Graygan]

Yeah... the 5 skull version of this mission is very tough. It helps to have a Marauder for the damage mitigation and to head hunt while your assaults sprint for the beacon spots. Then, just do your best to slaughter and stay alive while you place the beacons.

After that, fighting retreat to the pick up point. I usually don't do the pickup until I've killed everything and I can escape before the next wave of reinforcements can shoot at me.

[Sentient_Toaster]

A few notes with Target Acquisition in general:

* If you don't mind losing any component in the head, ejecting a pilot can be an alternative to having him try to reach the LZ -- perhaps useful if you feel that otherwise there's a serious risk of losing rare items, or having the pilot KIA

* You don't actually need to rush to escape, if you don't mind dealing with a small reinforcement wave (i.e. one lance or so).

* Three becaons need to be placed, four mech slots -- you can run three fast and jump-capable mechs, and have the fourth be something like a headhunting Marauder for fire support.