Campaign vs Career - Low Level Missions at Endgame?

[nimitzdd5]

Howdy all

Loving the game. Actually got me back into Battletech and have ordered all the tabletop stuff that released as box sets recently. Brilliant game, even in its vanilla state. Took my time with the campaign and took about 70 hours enjoying the first campaign run through, with plenty of additional missions after it was over.

One thing I want to know though, is in Campaign once you moved the critical missions forward, the entire galaxy map kept leveling up - now at endgame of Campaign the lowest is 3.5 skulls on the map. I enjoy a good challenge, and have done plenty of 5 skull missions - but I would love to go back with my leveled up pilots, high tech gear, and run some lower skull missions just to mix it up - but cant do so now.

In Career mode, is it the same - as you level up, so does the galaxy. So by end game when you are running King Crabs and Atlas', there are no 1 to 3 skull missions? Or is it unlike the Campaign, and some systems will always be low skull missions?

Thanks in advance

[Jamie Wolf]

No, in career mode all worlds have a fixed difficulty that never changes

[Corp.fox]

Career mode is the better experience. Campaign difficulty is based on story mission completed. The more you finish, the harder they get. If you want the full experience, try out mods like RogueTech or BTA 3062,

[nimitzdd5]

Appreciate both responses, and glad to hear that they are fixed. Sometimes you just want to run a 1 skull mission with 4 Atlas' - why? Cause its fun.

I have only played vanilla so far. From what I have read RogueTech changes the game top to bottom - but what about BTA 3062? Is that a good next step after about 100 hours of vanilla?

[Neithan]

First of all, if you are still enjoying the content in vanilla, doing a Career run next should probably the way to go. With all the map available, flashpoints, no campaign bounds, you get a sandbox freedom that should give enough additional incentive for now.

But if you crave for (alot) more content, there is the "big 3" of BEX, BTA and RT, with BEX being the "closest" to vanilla, and RT the farthest. Common opinion is to go with BTA as the middle ground, then see if you want a bit less, or even more.

Then there is also the "Hyades Rim" mod that offers its own campaign and additions, but far more restricted than the other mods.

I myself only played BTA after vanilla, I absolutely love it, sometimes it can even seem "too much" but then it's actually that big that you can/have to focus on specific parts, like what regions to go for, what conflicts to take part in, and what technology to hunt down.

The map, mech rooster and equipment in BTA is tenfold that of vanilla, the additions in lore fluff (both on and off canon) are vast, and the fun can easily stretch about thousands of hours (if you got the time).

[nimitzdd5]

Perfect. Thank you for the detailed response. I dont have the expansions yet, and will be picking those up before I start a new run.

Do the expansions make any difference with BEX/BTA/RT? Or are the mods completely independent from them?

Also curious, for those playing this, how many also play tabletop Battletech? I dont think there is anyone who plays where I am, but I face a similar situation with Advanced Squad Leader - I use VASSAL to play online with others with that game.

Is there something similar for Battletech? I saw some old VASSAL modules for it - doesnt sound like it gets much use?

[desrtfox071]

Originally posted by nimitzdd5:

Perfect. Thank you for the detailed response. I dont have the expansions yet, and will be picking those up before I start a new run.

Do the expansions make any difference with BEX/BTA/RT? Or are the mods completely independent from them?

Also curious, for those playing this, how many also play tabletop Battletech? I dont think there is anyone who plays where I am, but I face a similar situation with Advanced Squad Leader - I use VASSAL to play online with others with that game.

Is there something similar for Battletech? I saw some old VASSAL modules for it - doesnt sound like it gets much use?

There is MegaMek.

As for the expansions and the mods, the "big 3" do use the content from the expansions but don't need the expansions to function (as far as I know). I mostly play RT, and it uses the urban settings, additional mechs, and flashpoints from DLCs.

[Jamie Wolf]

Originally posted by nimitzdd5:

Do the expansions make any difference with BEX/BTA/RT? Or are the mods completely independent from them?

BTA and RT don't require the dlc but will expand upon them if available.

BEX I'm not sure but I think it may require the DLC, but it's been a long time since I played it last.

[nimitzdd5]

Thank you both. Ill check out MegaMek.

I think Ill give BTA a go once I have the expansions.

Thanks again everyone for the helpful responses.

[Bob of Mage]

The DLCs really shine in career mode compared to the campaign. Those flashpoints show up right from the start instead of after you are finished the story, and the wider range of mechs has more of an impact since you start with a much weaker pool of mechs in career.

I found some of the flashpoints offered enjoyable missions. It was nice having a bit of story to them, even if it was often quite short. I mean who doesn't want to pull off the largest heist of office supplies in human history?

[Mighty Matt]

You can mod the game files very easily and change it. There are some video up about how to edit the game files. It is very straight forward and you can customize a bunch of things to your liking. I can tell you already that u can change the skulls of missions. I had to in order to get influence of a nation that hated me. I made a bunch of quality of like changes for me, i.e setting scrap value of mechs to store prices so I dont have to sell them in the stores and can scrap them after missions, much faster.