Fighting Clans in Commander's Edition

[Magno]

So, I have fairly great pilots, great equipment on assault mechs :Doubles, +++ weapons, etc..) and its just not possible to fight the Clans. Some of these drops pit you against a full Star of 4-5 Assault clan mechs vs your 4. Unless you get a lucky head hit to equalize the numbers, I just can't fight the clans. Its either this or the game+mod drops down 2x Stars of medium and heavies. Its gross. How have other people been dealing with these clan drops in the game?

[f4fhellcat064]

Thats what happened when the clans first invaded. Until the inner sphere learned how to fight them.

[Harukage]

Not much different from normal drops really. Additional 1 or 2 enemy mechs will not change much if you really have top lance.
Moreover Clans standart mech configurations are rarely heavy on armor ( aside from things like Dire Wolf ), relying mostly on speed, pilot skill and superrior firepower. And often have subpar heat management with all the weapons and systems mounted, meaning they rarely can go with more then 2 alpha strikes before switching to volley fire.

[red255]

with the 75T maruader the chance to hit head with a level 9 tactics precise shot is 35% basically one in 3. (33 from the side) the typical head can survive two ER medium laser ++

so if we have 6 medium laser ER++ or better we can expect to remove a mech's head. the 100T Mechs like the atlas can fit a ton of weapondry. was getting a good 600 firepower on the thing. you circle around to one side and just focus fire from the left or the right, chew thru the LT or RT and then it goes for the CT burns thru pretty quick. while your maruader drops a mech every round to headshots.

[Haree]

He's asking about how to fight clans in Battletech Extended, there is no way to get 35% head shot in the mod.

The clan missions are not rated the same as Inner Sphere missions, on Hard/Simulation you will want at least a full heavy lance before you attempt it, better if you can.

I would look for the Inner Sphere missions "The A Team" and "Full House" that will be against one of the 5 great houses elite units. You are much more likely to get Los Tech based tech, so you may find double heat sink mechs, or mechs using Endo or Ferro. These will be tougher than the average Inner Sphere mission at the same level but the salvage rewards better.

If you can get hold of AMS it is useful to have it on as many mechs as possible.

Start with the low skull missions, have good pilots, share armour by withdrawing who is damaged in to places where they wont receive returning fire, and torso twist your higher armour locations towards the enemy. Always move to get max evasion AND use cover when you can. Try to expose to shoot the enemy so that the minimum amount of enemies will be able to return fire.

Use the initiative system, don't just move when it is your turn, think about if reserving and letting the enemy make the first move might allow you to take 2 turns in a row or allow a better opportunity than you have right now.

Expect losses.

[Sillyman]

I love the Battle Tech Extended mod have played it quite a bit. Decided to start a career on the clan invasion time line and it is really really good. I tried a half skull weakest mission strength possible on hard difficulty with normal unit strength against Jade Falcon, they fielded 8, 20-40 ton light mechs against me. I hade a Flash Man 75 ton, x2 Shadow Hawks, and Firestarter. I barely pulled through was the hardest battle ive ever fought. Takes a massive amount of strategy, and if it wasnt for the the Firestarter id have been slaughtered, his mellee attacks was what saved me because of all the ECM stuff going on.

[Alt-F4]

Originally posted by Harukage:

Moreover Clans standart mech configurations are rarely heavy on armor ( aside from things like Dire Wolf ), relying mostly on speed, pilot skill and superrior firepower. And often have subpar heat management with all the weapons and systems mounted, meaning they rarely can go with more then 2 alpha strikes before switching to volley fire.

The problem is that Clan mechs often mount double, if not slightly more, firepower than their Pre-Fedcom InnerSphere counterparts. Even at the peak of what the InnerSphere had to offer with XL engines, Endo-Steel, and Double Heat Sinks, - The Clan counterpart at least as fast, had greater range, and got a free LRM20 or two out of the deal. Because nothing says efficiency like anime missile swarms.
So even if you're looking at the best of what reclaimed tech had to offer - they were still only around 75-85% the firepower of a clan 'mech, and they, themselves, were often double or more the firepower of pre-helm InnerSphere designs.
Even if you figure that their weapons run somewhat hotter, Clan mechs that don't feature double heat sinks are rare things and their heat sinking capacity is easily superior to what most IS mechs sport - so their volley fire generally reduces them to parity with the best designs the IS could manage rather than serve as some kind of check against their superiority. Their volley fire is just as punishing as most IS alpha strikes.

Let's compare the simple Clan Cougar.
2x Large Pulse Lasers (12 tons)
2x LRM 10 (5 tons)
17 tons total weapon weight, 18 when you include ammunition.
The Cougar has double heat sinks, so just right there, it has something like 60 heat sinking capacity (disregarding other heat generated by mech systems).

Let's try and stuff that into our pre-helm InnerSphere design.
2x LPL = 14 Tons
2x LRM 10 = 10 tons.
We're at 25 tons and by time you add internals and -a- engine, you're pretty much into medium mech territory and you'd need to include armor. By the time you scale it into a practical platform, you're looking at a heavy 'mech - something closer to the QuickDraw - before you can even begin to field something comparable using pre-helm 'mechs. Sure, the cougar would have less armor - but that isn't the point, the point is that the amount of firepower the Cougar wields is comparable to what the Inner Sphere would mount on a 'mech twice its weight - in the class of a heavy 'mech.

Even if we cut this in half and try to stuff a single large pulse laser and a single LRM10 into an IS Light Mech - we are looking at 13 tons for weapon and ammo. Utilizing a couple different mech building rule sets, about as good as it gets using all standard IS components is a 35 ton 'mech with a 145 rated engine with right around 6.5 tons of armor and (10)+2 heatsinks. You'll be moving at just under the speed of a Thunderbolt or Shadowhawk.

Going up to XL and Endo... we get a little bit more tonnage to play with and can choose to either get an additional LRM 10 battery with 7.5 tons free for armor or engine; or an additional large pulse laser for 5.5 tons free for what I can only presume would be armor. Or, more likely - keep the same armament for 12.5 tons to play with for armor/engine/heatsink combinations. You could include light ferro for a little bit of additional shielding for the ton on armor, but we're running out of critical space at this point when utilizing double heat sinks (which would be of greater priority than even endosteel).

While this advantage does drop off to a bit as Clan designs begin to nudge up against critical space concerns, the halving of the weight of their missile launchers really begins to show through as virtually every Clan mech design can take the feature primary weapons system of a heavy, assault, or medium mech of the Inner Sphere's creme of the crop designs... scale up the engine to go faster... and strap a Catapult C-2 onto its back because why not. The very icon of Clan mech design, the "MadCat" is basically the inability of IS sensors to determine whether the thing was a Marauder or a Catapult - because that's basically what it is... a Marauder with a catapult stuck on for free.

All of this is a very long and convoluted way of saying that the way to beat the clans is the Zapp Brannigan strategy of overwhelming their kill counters.

I jest. Historically, the Inner Sphere usually had success when they could lure Clan units into ambush style attacks in urban and other confined areas where the Clan's range advantage could be checked and their lighter armor could be capitalized on. Meeting Clans on the open fields of battle is generally a bad idea.
The other thing that worked in favor of the Inner Sphere is that war is more than simply winning battles. While the Clans could generally roflstomp, their supply lines began to stretch thin and their ability to replace losses and field their superior tech began to come into play. While the Clans could face 3:1 odds and still come out on top, every round of ammunition they expended was a round of ammunition that had to be replaced from the Clan home worlds (or, perhaps they tried to set up production on conquered worlds - not sure what the canon says on this, but it would also be reasonable they would avoid doing this fearing leaks of process methods) - every tile of armor replaced was armor that conformed to its own standard - and mech chassis, even if the factory could keep up with losses, were months away from the front lines where they were needed.

Had the Helm Memory Core not been discovered, the Clan plan to invade may have actually worked and they would have held such a massive technological advantage and even industrial advantage over the Inner Sphere that they could have compelled the noble houses to negotiate what amounted to a new star league under Clan rule. But with the Inner Sphere's own rediscovery of lost technology and relative booms resulting from it - the Clans were not the saviors bringing with them the lost legacy of Kerensky - but instead a sort of foreign and twisted echo of prior wars of conquest.

[Lohengrin]

Having installed the Battletech Extended 3025 Commander’s Edition mod a couple of weeks ago and started at 3039 I have just had my first encounter with the clans.

August 3049 - Von Strang’s world. Mindful of the greater difficulty of clan missions, first time out I took a 3.5 star mission. Battle in an urban setting against 2 Jade Falcon stars for Liao. First star was a Mad Cat and 4x Vultures. Second star a Sabre Cat, Loki, Ryoken, and 2 Gladiators.

I’d read the posts about fighting the clans: stay at range, configure weapons accordingly and manoeuvre to control sight-lines. With that in mind I had built a lance to be deadly at range:

- Marauder II - 2xPPC++, 3xLL+++, Rangerfinder+++
- Annihilator - 2xSDLF Gauss, 2xAC5+++
- Atlas AS7-D - 1xSDLF Gauss, 2xLL+++, LRM10++ (+ Damage)
- Highlander 733 - 3xLRM20++ (+ Damage)

All sported max frontal armour, the TTS+++ most relevant to their primary weapon system, good heat management and upgraded Gyros++, AMS++, etc. No ECM. No JJs. Plenty of ammo.

All the pilots were fully levelled Strikers. All had 30 plus missions in the mechs they were piloting for the bonus to sensors. The Atlas and Marauder II pilots had 50 plus.

I’m not saying it was a cakewalk, but the advice to fight at range was sound and worked. An element of luck, but the opening called shot from the Marauder II cored the first Vulture at maximum range and the initial clan star was ‘neutralised’ by focused fire within three turns.

The Annihilator lost the armour from one arm - due a positioning error on my behalf - otherwise no penetrating damage.

I chose 2 Mad Cat parts, and was assigned some other mech bits, two clan gauss rifles (went straight on the Annihilator) and a few clan medium lasers.

In a way, I was pretty delighted that outnumbered IS Mechs and Pilots had proved to be more than a match for the dreaded clans. Albeit a well armed high tonnage lance of assault mechs with veteran pilots.

Second time out was a tougher urban four star mission. Another two stars: more Gladiators, fewer vultures. The Opfor almost got to touching distance and my mechs lost some limbs and two double heat sinks. In the end, however control of sight-lines and focused fire brought them down.

I collected enough parts to finish the Mad Cat chassis and some clan ER PPCs... upgrade for my Marauder II.

Thinking I’ll try something tougher next... or using some of my heavy mechs. For now I’m going to stick with my IS mechs and tactics. I’ll upgrade with the clan weapons I salvage, but I’m thinking the bonuses for pilot familiarity with the machines outweigh a bit of speed or extra free tonnage.