How are salvage pieces calculated?

[The Kurgan]

I've watched SOME dev streams and read SOME of Kiva's tweets explaining mechanics, and watched some twitch streams. Everyone seems to know or have a good idea but I'm out of the loop.

Let me be clear - I'm talking specifically about mech parts, not weapon components. I know that a head shot (killing hte pilot) or knock downs (killing/injuring the pilot) using a Firestarter (cooking the pilot like bacon) or even some head stomps will net you three pieces of the mech. But does anyone know the formula?

How many arms do I shoot off before I lose a piece, how many legs, etc? I understand that the more♥♥♥♥♥♥I blow up the less♥♥♥♥♥♥I get to keep but I was wondering what I needed to bear in mind while making my tactical planning.

If anyone could enlighten me, I'd appreciate it.

[Aiden]

Center Torso = 1 salvage
Both Legs = 2 salvage
Pilot incapicated = 3 salvage.

To kill pilots, you need to headshot mechs, or injure pilots by knocking mechs down, as well as blowing up side torsos will have a chance to injure pilots.

You select your mission rewards at the start of the mission via sliders that can increase/decrease salvage and C-bills. You can also gain reputation by reducing rewards. Not sure how much rep impacts things, most i have seen is 5-10% savings on buying.

For salvage, you have the option to set it from 1-4, which allows you to select up to 4 items after the battle. This also impacts the number of random salvage items you can obtain mer mission.

[The Kurgan]

Thanks for that. I had the understanding except for that specific break down. I seen Bombadil talking about legging mechs but never seen him pull it off. Usually it's just people gunning for the head.

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by I'm Not Blade:

Thanks for that. I had the understanding except for that specific break down. I seen Bombadil talking about legging mechs but never seen him pull it off. Usually it's just people gunning for the head.

It was explained very well above, but I've noticed one thing that does not quite click (Or being incredibly disingenuous in trying to claim it is 'too easy' to get mechs).

Is the fact a "3 salvage takedown" does not automatically mean a "Whole free mech". You can cleanly kill the pilot of 10 mechs in a mission, and you can still end up with zero "free mechs".

Due to the above mentioned fact, that you are reliant on the post mission salvage gains.

Did you pilot kill an intact Catapuls? Cool! But the only 100% guaranteed way you will "Get it for free" at the end of the mission. Is if you had an incredibly high salvage contract to hand pick three pieces of salvage, and make all of them catapult salvage. (Which also means giving up on high powered weapon variants that may have been in the loot, unless you are real lucky)

And most high salvage contracts mean dunking your cash payment slider to next to nothing, or literally nothing. And lower difficulty contrats are just not good enough to get more than 2 hand picked salvage even if you take zero money.

So the more common result when not taking a mission specifically gunning for salvage over cash, is hand picking one or two bits of salavge. Then praying to the RNG it gives you more.

This for example, is why even the pre-launch streamers do not have 10 Locusts sitting in their garage after unlocking the "You killed 50 light mechs!" cheevo during a mission where they fought 4 of them at the same time.

You can win the lottery and end up with a bunch of good mech salvage as your random gains. But that's relying on a dice roll, rather than the expectation.

[Danjal]

Originally posted by ImHelping:

**snip**
(Which also means giving up on high powered weapon variants that may have been in the loot, unless you are real lucky)
**snip**

This is true regardless, but the more valuable pieces there are in the list, the higher your odds of more of them being attributed to you.

The "assigned" parts are random, not based on value.

While you may expect that the game would assign lower value parts if you cherry picked high value ones. A lucky roll may get you a full free mech on 4 randomly assigned pieces even after cherry picking other valuable pieces.

The primary "downside" here is that if you incapacitate a mech, there will also be a lot more undamaged components cluttering the list. Meaning heat sinks and jumpjets galore.

Now, here's a suggestion if you truly want to influence that RNG.

Is there ONE mech fielded that you really want to get? Destroy as MUCH as you can of the other enemies on the field. That way you effectively trim down the list of potential loot.

You're much more likely to get salvage parts if there's one mech that has 3 potential parts and the others don't have multiple salvage pieces.

Course, doing this means playing more risky as you're keeping enemies alive to damage their parts rather than destroying them quickly meaning you also incur more damage in return. Odds are? You'd be better off running a few extra side-missions instead with high salvage distribution.

Another reason to run high salvage once your bank is flush is that you could simply cherrypick high value parts and sell them on. To see if that could net you more money in the long run. I can see building up rep in an area for favorable prices, gather up high-value parts and sell them off in that region.

[nilus]

So with mech salvage, is it generic? Ie you need three XYZ salvage to make XYZ mech or are there three unique salvage parts for each mech?

[Kienan]

Yeah, it's generic. You don't need to collect three different unique parts, just three total parts for the mech in question.

[The Kurgan]

Plus they sell the generic mech pieces at random in the stores if you get desperate or unlucky. Seen steams where people were just driving around from system to system looking for ♥♥♥♥ while they had money to cushion their travel time.

[The Kurgan]

I like the way the in-game economy works, especially the way you can negoiate your contracts. Adds a lot of depth to the choices you make and ultimately how you choose to play the game. Can't wait to spend 500 hours on this. lol

[NormireX]

Do parts and weapons you get during a mission have any sort of random stats on them or if you get X part it will always be the same? I know this isn't really a loot game but it would definitley interest me more if there were random stats , carrot on a stick and all that.heh

[Ariko]

Originally posted by NormireX:

Do parts and weapons you get during a mission have any sort of random stats on them or if you get X part it will always be the same? I know this isn't really a loot game but it would definitley interest me more if there were random stats , carrot on a stick and all that.heh

There is a chance that you will find parts with a bonus attribute, such as accuracy.

[NormireX]

Originally posted by Ariko:

Originally posted by NormireX:

Do parts and weapons you get during a mission have any sort of random stats on them or if you get X part it will always be the same? I know this isn't really a loot game but it would definitley interest me more if there were random stats , carrot on a stick and all that.heh

There is a chance that you will find parts with a bonus attribute, such as accuracy.

Hmm ok, I may have to hold off and watch some gameplay before buying. Game looks great as is but there are just so many games coming out I have to kind of pick and choose at this point.

Would love to see a Battledrome remake, had so much fun with that game during study hall in jr/sr high, one of the older kids installed it on all the PCs in study hall along with the Ultima games, this was back in the day when games were mostly still DOS based. Earhsiege or Starsiege reboots would be cool as well. I need to research more on Mechwarrior 5 as well.

['Strict]

Originally posted by NormireX:

Do parts and weapons you get during a mission have any sort of random stats on them or if you get X part it will always be the same? I know this isn't really a loot game but it would definitley interest me more if there were random stats , carrot on a stick and all that.heh

As far as I've seen it's only 1 version of parts. But I haven't watched that many videos and haven't seen the later episodes yet either so I'm not gonna say it's definitely not changed later in the game =)

EDIT: Ok I take it back, there are "weapons+" so to speak.

[woodboat]

You do have to watch that there are different versions of the same mech. The AC20 and the laser versions of the hunchback do not smash together, even with duct tape. Don't get too excited and grab mech parts before you check the rest of your list of possible salvage. That ac20 +++ with 4 accuracy is worth far more than another third of a locust.

At least it tells you how many of a mech chassis you already own, by variant. You'll get mechs eventually. Specific weapons with specific extra attributes you want are much harder to randomly find (or they show up in the marketplace when you don't really have cash to spare, to be cruel).

It would be hilarious if you could cobble together some sort of frankenstein mech out of any 3 pieces. Bob, what the heck is that??? Oh that's an Urban Thunder Hawk. Ignore it, I've heard of that guy, he's about five beers short of a six pack. Just steer way around him.