Bex - Clan missions - Anyone else find the same as me or am I missing something?

[VenomousFangs]

After getting smashed trying a 3 skull clan mission, gave a try to about 20 clan missions on 1/2 skull difficulty. Don't know if I am missing anything here but my conclusion is clan missions are simply not worth the returns, as outlined below.

My lance of Assaults mechs includes Battlemaster, Stalker, Atlas and Cyclops with 4 x AMS (1 each mech) ECM and Cyclops for initiative bonus, average armour about 1400.

Weapons included +++ weapons like UAC 5, PPC's, Gauss Rifle with + 20 dam (95 Dam), 15 + 20 +++ LRM's on different mechs crewed by mech warriors with breaching shot to overcome bulwark / entrenchment.

Filled in with a balance of Large, Medium and small lasers all with ++ or +++ upgrades. Top it off cockpit mods with 2 x damage resist +3 and 1 x resolve gain +3 (Cyclops has Battle Computer). TTS's + 3 and gyro mods (if fitable) suited to the mech dependent on weapon load and all with double heat sinks and heat exchangers.

Crewed by mech warriors with 10 points in gunnery and 10 or 9 points in other skills.

All in all a pretty solid outfit, can take on any Inner sphere mission and usually be successful.

Now my findings with the clan missions.

To start with the 1/2 skull difficulty clan missions which, been 1/2 skull and weakest possible opposition, are supposed to be relatively easy. 5 clan mechs with usually 1 assault, 3 heavies and 1 medium, hardly what anyone would call easy. Especially given the superior weaponry, armour and sensor lock ranges which appeared to exceed mine.

The AI clearly concentrated on head shots. Of the 20 missions played 3 resulted in pilot deaths through head shots, and a quite few more had would be lethal damage to the head, saved only by the cockpit mod with damage resist +3 (although usually destroyed the mod in the process). That many lethal head shots out of 20 matches shows a fairly high hit chance to the head, seemingly better then the 10% I get on a called shot.

The clan mech firepower is such no mission was completed without serious damage to the mechs, sometimes taking an Atlas limb off in 1 shot for example. The result is repair bills well exceeding the payment for the mission. Also this means loss of rare and expensive equipment like ECM's, and/or Double heat sinks and/or +++ weapons.

The clan mechs appear to be a lot harder to hit after moving, usually 30% or under, this is with level 10 gunners with TTS's systems. Do clan mechs have addition evasion perhaps?

To top it off the salvage offered was pathetic, 1 priority pick, and 4 randoms. Could bump it up to 7 randoms but meant only 100k c bills payment, nowhere near enough to meet the repair bills and made ongoing missions not economically viable.

Final conclusion is it is a pity the clan missions are completely OP even at 1/2 skull and simply isn't worth risking top crew, rare and expensive gear and running at a loss just to gain few above spec items, good as they may be. Not likely to survive long enough to collect 4 x matching mech parts to make a clan mech either.

[HurtfulPlayer97]

Sounds like the Skull ratings for those missions is waaaay off. An Assault, 3 Heavies and one Medium is NOT a half skull mission even if they were all stock IS Mechs.

[wesnef]

Originally posted by HurtfulPlayer97:

Sounds like the Skull ratings for those missions is waaaay off. An Assault, 3 Heavies and one Medium is NOT a half skull mission even if they were all stock IS Mechs.

Difficulty in BEX seems to work on a "0-5 skulls, then 0-5 Clan skulls" scale. You need to have established mechs that can clear IS 5 skulls missions to start doing low-skull Clan. Because they're just that OP.


----
I'm still running old BEX (never updated from the version I downloaded years ago), so they've likely made changes since then, but I remember not using stuff like ECM or TTS. Just lots of big long-range guns on high-end lostech mechs. AMS on some mechs, not all.

Unfortunately, it was an Ironman Career run, so I can't load an older save to see what my mechs were like at the start of the Clan phase. The few non-Clan chassis I still have readied (Marauder, Crusader, Griffin, Phoenix Hawk, all lostech; both Bull Sharks) are stacked with Clan gear, so I don't know what their old builds are.

I know it was probably after the 1200 days was over, and all the pilots had been all-10's for months/years. And I didn't care about the $$$ because I had 100mil+ c-bills.

(I found one of my old posts from then, bemoaning the bad luck of my one mech that kept getting breaching-shot-headshot by huge guns from faaaaar away. That mech was a 90ton Mauler, with UAC5++, 2x ERLL++, 2x LRM15+2dmg.)

[pete]

Hence why I have always said that the Hams killed the game by being too overpowered and unbalanced

[Shrike]

I know this going to sound jaded, but I've done 5-skull clan missions where I finished off all enemies without any pilots wounded/killed and no need of any repairs. Don't start fighting the clans until you're comfortably and consistently beating regular 5-skull missions. Heck, make sure you've been fighting Comstar and survived, as they're like halfway between regular and clan mission difficulty.
And most importantly: learn to adapt. Clan mechs are more maneuverable, outrange you and have 5 mechs per clan star. The worst you could do is take clan mechs on head-on. Instead, focus on their scouts first, which may need multiple sensor locks to become easier targets. have a max evasion scout dart in and out of range to spot enemies, while always keeping your heavy hitters fortified and as much out of enemy sight as possible. You can offset being outgunned a bit by using the Bigger Drops patch, but remember that one also throws in extra stars/lances of opponents (and sometimes support) at times. You don't want to trigger 2 or more clan stars simultaneously.
Oh, and as to the potential rewards: I recently had a mission that yielded more than 144.000.000 C-bills. Clan mission average salvage value is easily 10 times higher than with regular missions.

[Praxis-W]

It's why I'm a fan of BTA 3062. BEX was my first mod, and I loved squaring off against the Clans, and having the whole Inner Sphere to roam. I also remember those fights being a headache with lost pilots and trashed mechs in most of my early fights.
However, at one point, I bought a new PC, and couldn't find anywhere to download the current version of BEX once I got Steam up and running again. So, I tried out BTA instead, and never looked back.
In BTA, (and probably Roguetech) they re-balanced the Clan weapons to fit the flavor of the Clans. Now their weapons still hit harder, and re lighter and smaller, but they also run hotter than their IS equivalents, while not necessarily having a significant range advantage. They are great for short duels and fights, but not always great in large, or long engagements. All Clan mechs get substantial penalties to melee as well, which you can take great advantage of when fighting them.
I like that in that mod, the Clan tech is no longer strictly better, and forces you to make more choices in how you use their gear.

[Shrike]

Well in the current (and final?) BEX version 1.9.3.7 clan weapons also produce significantly more heat than their IS counterparts. Sitting on top of hundreds of double heatsinks, the available tonnage limit to add enough DHS becomes the limiting factor in mech design

[VenomousFangs]

Originally posted by Shrike:

I know this going to sound jaded, but I've done 5-skull clan missions where I finished off all enemies without any pilots wounded/killed and no need of any repairs. Don't start fighting the clans until you're comfortably and consistently beating regular 5-skull missions. Heck, make sure you've been fighting Comstar and survived, as they're like halfway between regular and clan mission difficulty.
And most importantly: learn to adapt. Clan mechs are more maneuverable, outrange you and have 5 mechs per clan star. The worst you could do is take clan mechs on head-on. Instead, focus on their scouts first, which may need multiple sensor locks to become easier targets. have a max evasion scout dart in and out of range to spot enemies, while always keeping your heavy hitters fortified and as much out of enemy sight as possible. You can offset being outgunned a bit by using the Bigger Drops patch, but remember that one also throws in extra stars/lances of opponents (and sometimes support) at times. You don't want to trigger 2 or more clan stars simultaneously.
Oh, and as to the potential rewards: I recently had a mission that yielded more than 144.000.000 C-bills. Clan mission average salvage value is easily 10 times higher than with regular missions.

Myself or others commenting haven't found it quite so easy, although I am experienced enough to know not to go toe to toe shoot out with AI mech lances in any capacity and knocking out enemy scout/sensor lock mechs is standard tactics for me so nothing new there.

The current mix can take on 5 skull IS missions and usually win barring poor starting locale where I cannot manoeuvre, it could be my Assault mech squad is just not quite strong enough, and might need another 100 ton mech like King Crab or such.

[Shrike]

Well, not gonna lie: when I do such high end missions, it's assault mechs only. Some enemy mechs dish out close to 600 damage in a single alpha strike, which any mech needs to be able to tank. But if you manage to dish out damage from range without getting punished (too much) in return, that's where I found a winning formula. It also helps to have a mech that increases the lance's initiative as the clanners tend to have higher initiative in general.

[VenomousFangs]

Originally posted by Shrike:

Well, not gonna lie: when I do such high end missions, it's assault mechs only. Some enemy mechs dish out close to 600 damage in a single alpha strike, which any mech needs to be able to tank. But if you manage to dish out damage from range without getting punished (too much) in return, that's where I found a winning formula. It also helps to have a mech that increases the lance's initiative as the clanners tend to have higher initiative in general.

I think you said it all when stating some clan mechs deal 600 damage in 1 round, buff Assault might survive 2, if lucky 3 hits at that damage level, after that it is all over. Only problem is there are FIVE clan mechs, even allowing for only 3 to get a shot in due to good manoeuvring, your still copping 1800 damage a turn across the board to the lance, not exactly sustainable. Tactical manoeuvring has it's limits, the AI will get clear shots at you at times regardless of what you do.

If you look at my Lance layout it is well suited to ranged combat, even so the clan AI closes range in a few rounds so fighting at distance too has its limits.

[Shrike]

There's an important nuance: you do your best to
1) avoid getting hit (be evasive, use a scout to make them less evasive)
2) be protected when getting hit (stand on green/broken buildings and don't bunch up)
3) be armored enough to survive punishment (the AI CAN'T focus fire, unlike the player)
4) focus your own fire on their biggest threat (often their scout) before they get a chance to retaliate (hence the need for that nice Cyclops in your lance)
Couple the above with careful analysis of the enemy positioning and likely reinforcements and you'll start to do a lot better. Once you've leveled the playing field with clan mechs and clan weapons of your own, things become a whole lot easier.
Finally, using the bigger drops does give you the potential advantage of going 8 on 5 if you manage to not engage more than a single clan star at a time ;-)

[VenomousFangs]

Originally posted by Shrike:

There's an important nuance: you do your best to
1) avoid getting hit (be evasive, use a scout to make them less evasive)
2) be protected when getting hit (stand on green/broken buildings and don't bunch up)
3) be armored enough to survive punishment (the AI CAN'T focus fire, unlike the player)
4) focus your own fire on their biggest threat (often their scout) before they get a chance to retaliate (hence the need for that nice Cyclops in your lance)
Couple the above with careful analysis of the enemy positioning and likely reinforcements and you'll start to do a lot better. Once you've leveled the playing field with clan mechs and clan weapons of your own, things become a whole lot easier.
Finally, using the bigger drops does give you the potential advantage of going 8 on 5 if you manage to not engage more than a single clan star at a time ;-)

Any 1/2 decent player does all of that, nah, lets admit it, clans are just OP.

[Shrike]

Then let's agree to disagree. They are there to be the ultimate challenge and imho they do that nicely
Either way, nobody forces you to go fight them.