Campaign Difficulty: What am I missing?

[Billy Blaze]

Got this game on PS5 today and I'm really enjoying my time with it... well, in theory.
I love the systems, but what the heck is that difficulty?

The 4th mission (the assassination) was only possible with rocket-cheese.
Like, the target was far away, I locked on, and bombarded him with 30 salves of rockets.
Than a battleship came with 2 additional mechs... got them down and bombarded the target with another 10 salves.
If I would've went in guns blazing, I would be gone for good.

So yeah, good, fine, done.
Next mission, another ramp up from 7 (which was barely doable) to 9.
Weight limit is around 145, but my 50 Mech and the 35 Mech of the ai barely fill it out.
Well, I can't get more people for some reason, cause the game tells me... I can't get them in this system.
So I went to the next mission... with the same strategy and thought "That's it? That's the game?".

Before starting the kmpaing, I did "learning by doing", startet a quick random map and blasted my way through.
Difficulty 10 and I destroyed things left and right.
But the campaign is a completely different beast.
So am I missing something here?

I wouldn't call myself a bad gamer.
But here, I don't get it... reloaded multiple times, flew to different stars... with the exact same result.
Nobody to recruit, difficulty 9, and I'm only around half the weight limit.

[Mormacil]

Pilots are generally found in industrial hubs. Systems that are neither hubs or conflict zones are just filler.

[Thermal Lance]

The problem with "rockets" is that you cannot really target one part in particular. So damage tends to spread around. Missiles are nice for vehicles or boated in large quantities to overwhelm opponent but you need quite a number of them.

You' probably have less trouble using more "direct" weapons for this type of mission.

[Billy Blaze]

Originally posted by Mormacil:

Pilots are generally found in industrial hubs. Systems that are neither hubs or conflict zones are just filler.

Aaaah, the system with these lines.
Was wondering what it means, and now I can recruit.
Thanks, now I can recruit people... and I hope it helps with the difficulty.

[Lord-Knight Fandragon]

You want mech poppin' goodness?

Go with a PPC or AC10 for mid range spanking, then a couple medium lasers and some SRM4s and 6s.

The default Centurion loadout is just kinda meh. LRMs in this game are simply to limiting in many cases. Long time to lock, long time to track, spreads their damage AAALLLLL over the target, easy to lose lock, huge minimum range, yeah....they really arent all that amazing honestly. They are also heavy and HUGE.

I recall my Centurion build being AC10, 2t ammo, SRM6, 1t of ammo, both ammo in the legs, 2 ML, a couple extra heatsinks and as much armor as I could manage. Then remember to twist to spread damage and try to keep your gun arm.

If you can get a CN9AL, the energy version, even better, you lose the AC10 but gain a PPC. Lighter weapon with no ammo limits, you spend the extra weight savings on heatsinks and maybe an SRM4.

[Empukris]

Avoid LRM in the early game. There is a thread discussing in detail on how many missile missed for a nornal LRM. If imnot wrong it missed about 30% of it in average. Even if it didnt, it will spread the damage all over the place making it useless. Basically the damage is too low too slow. To make LRM you need combination of NARC/Tag with standard LRM, or LRM-stream or LRM with artemis which is losstech and can only be obtained late game or from a few special mech or mission. If you just use normal lRM without Narc or tag it will miss very often and spread the damage out. LRM with artemis can cored even fast moving light mech very consistently.

Ballistic is the best for sniping, the best one is gauss rifle.

Always hope around and look for more elite pilot. Especially with the skill cap 40+ at the very least. Hero mech is strong, do buy them if you have the money, they do come in handy on mission with tonnage limit especially like hero jenner or cicada. Thats all the tips that I wish I know early. I struggled the same way as you are, i dont know how to buy a pilot until a few mission in.

[George W. Kush]

the Centurion-A: strip mech of all equipment click max armor Head 30 Left/Right Torso 38/10 Center Torso 52/12 (or its 50/12 idr the total sorry ill have to check and edit this later) Legs 41 (or 40 which ever rounds out the Total armor to a even number) then replace everything except for 1 ton of LRM ammo or you can roll with 1 1/2 tons of each AC/10 and LRM10 ammo. though i always go thorugh ac/10 ammo faster then lrm so i usually just roll with 2 ac/10 bins 1 lrm10 bin). the centurion A despite its lack of heatsinks is like one of the only mechs ive never seen my AI overheat lol. once you get a LBX/10 Cluster or Solid you can add another lrm bin. all you need heat sink wise for the Cent-A is 2 single heat sinks or 1 double dont need to go bonkers with it. ohh if i screwed up this description of my cent-a build and your 1 ton over weight drop the m lasers for 2 s lasers you can always play around with it later

[Cyzxxikz]

also when hiring pilots, the skills numbers are good to have, but the rank of the pilot is more important imo lt<capt<major (theres technically a little more too it that you can google if you want, but a fair rule of thumb) that determines the actual skill of the pilots, where the skills shown are basically just buffs

[Billy Blaze]

Phew, this is quite a bit to take in, but thanks for the answers!

What helped at first was getting a few pilots and the fact that I'm better off using my other weapons and not just the missiles, even if I put myself into danger.

[Hand of Vecna]

Some great advice, I learned some stuff!

[Lord-Knight Fandragon]

Tips and tricks for your lancemates: Put an emphasis on thier heat efficiency.

The AI wont shut themselves down, and so will stop firing once they get to a certain heat threshold. Sooo, its best to build thier mechs with like 1 hard hitting weapon and smaller, heat efficient weapons as well as a good heat efficiency overall.

Going like 6 ML, 1 ERPPC and 2 SRM 6 on your AI Battlemaster will net you less damage from the AI than doing something like 4 ML, 1 ERPPC, 1 SRM6 and dumping a good amount of weight into heat efficiency.

[necro55]

I havent tried since the last patch, but the ai has a habit to alpha anytime it can, you can set the groups to chainfire 6 ml and nope everything shoots at once.

[Lord-Knight Fandragon]

Originally posted by necro55:

I havent tried since the last patch, but the ai has a habit to alpha anytime it can, you can set the groups to chainfire 6 ml and nope everything shoots at once.

Umm, you split them into different fire groups.

1: PPC
2: 2 ML
3: 2 ML
4: SRM6
5: SRM4

Just as an example.

AI do not use the chainfire option, they do in fact fire a whole weapons group. BUt it all goes back to heat management for your AI. Between proper fire groups, good builds with a bit of an emphasis on heat efficiency, you can make AI that actually do pretty well.

[kigraa]

the difficulty is insanily bad. some lvl 80 mission are a "Promenade in the park". and some lvl 50 is almost impossible with the same payload.
right now im doing "only the truth that stick pt 3" its insane ! more than 30 mech to destroy with 300 tones...... 0 covers...stupid AF !

[necro55]

I always go heavy on heat efficiency id rather have 10% less damage and shoot WAY more often.
But OK, i will try a setup like that. For a PPC boat like an AWS-8Q or a MAD-5(blanking on this 3 ppc marauder2) then the groups would be
1. ERPPC
2. ERPPC
3. ERPPC
4. 2 MPL
And the ai will do a lot better?
Does it matter to the ai which weapon is on what group? Like in your example if you reversed the group order would that impact the ai’s behavior at all?

[Tyrendian89]

Originally posted by Billy Blaze:

Phew, this is quite a bit to take in, but thanks for the answers!

What helped at first was getting a few pilots and the fact that I'm better off using my other weapons and not just the missiles, even if I put myself into danger.

one important tip about putting yourself into danger: Learn to manage your aggro.
Aggro is heavily based off of how much damage you did in the last few seconds. So, once you start running low on armour (you DONT want to risk taking structure damage if you can help it, things tend to go kapoof rather quickly...), start limiting your aggression - stay silent for a bit, take out a key target quickly and reposition (breaking line of sight is also very valuable for this). Give your lancemates a chance to get hit too (they usually do significantly less damage than you will, outside of very lopsided mech builds, so they attract much less fire on average). And by the same token, once you see one of your lancemates becoming very damaged (top left), order them to hold their fire - for the rest of the mission if necessary. Much better to lose a bit more armour on your other mechs than to risk losing the arm with all the good weapons in it...