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[Robsoie]

Those mechs must be cheaper to build and more expendable than i thought then

[Rince Wind]

Well ... the privatly owned ones are usually family heirlooms, it is kind of a feudal society after all.
And if it is the Lyrans, you can probably buy a spot in an assault mech.

[Hanzoku]

BattleTech is the sort of game where you don't want to think too hard about the premise or the backstory behind anything and just enjoy shooting other giant robots. Otherwise you'll start in on the ground pressure of even a 20t 'Mech design, the fact that armor ablates evenly over an entire location instead of suffering penetration damage, the impossibility of the Inner Sphere economy if the number of DropShips and JumpShips in operation are taken at face value...

[Robsoie]

But having to deal with economy issue isn't what MekHQ is all about as you're running your mercs company ?
Or is the economy actually only hitting your mercs company and none else ?

[Rince Wind]

The economy works on a small scale. Kinda. If you only need to buy battle machines and spare parts, and pay some people it is ok. Where it really breaks down is if you look at it from a broader perspective.
It is not only the number of Jump- and DropShips that would have never been able to support the universal economy (they would have had trouble supplying a single planet with a medium to large population with food, and yet there are quite a few that depend heavily on food imports. And a lot of the ships were used for the military most of the time anyway.). Prices never change, because once upon a time that was a balancing factor. It makes sense that XL engines were a lot more expensive when they were reintroduced. But 30 years later when a lot of factories churn them out and they have become standard equipment they are still just as expensive. The same goes for everything. It is called Fasanomics and it doesn't make sense at all.
Changes in the backstory (mechs not being as rare during the succession wars as when the setting was introduced, among others) don't help either.

I am not sure if the payment is implemented properly in MekHQ, but I was just offered two subcontracts to my main garrison contract. Both require me to field a single lance for 5 months. Each one pays almost 250mil because it still takes my complete TO&E in account. I had to put up another lance for the 2nd one, so if I get yet another subcontract it would pay even more, yet still only require 1 lance.
I am at more than 3 billion right now, money has stopped being an issue a long time ago.

[Iduno]

Not to mention Solaris VII existing in a world in which there are too few mechs for everyone who wants to pilot one.

[Hanzoku]

And then they blow up those stunningly rare war machines for entertainment purposes on a nightly basis.

[Rince Wind]

Hovers with Rocket Launcher can be scary as hell:

Code: [Select]

Cataphract CTF-3Lr (Artemis' Hunters) must make 1 piloting skill roll(s) (100+ damage).
The base target is 4 [4 (Base piloting skill)].
    Roll #1, (4 (Base piloting skill) + 5 (100+ damage)); needs 9, rolls 9 : succeeds.
Only the RT was breached, but the LT has not armor left at all and it is very thin at the CT and head.
No more Rocket Launchers on the field, but plenty of missile carrying hovers are left.

[lastverb]

Are there any manuals on strategic side of MekHQ? Like what contract parameters mean - liaison/integrated allies, enemy equipment and skill? How mass repair works with BTH shenanigans? How refitting is supposed to work with equipment that doesn't exist i.e. ammo bins, retrofit kits for custom versions. And there are bugs that make retrofits not progressing from what I seen on github being closed multiple times, that are still there.
I get a tactical side well enough that i started using aerospace fighters. I would just like to have an option of detailed rolls for shooting (including of pilot quirks that allows to choose 2 of 3 dices) like there are for PSRs. Just have a problem when my light 130 ton lance have to extract few 10ton vehicles on moonless night (i thought that is a good idea) against medium enemy lance with a heavy mech that hits all his 9+ rolls (I have no idea why he had only 9 with 5 gunnery pilot) with PPCs against light jumping mechs from other side of map. And all that in Green/F enemy contract (I suppose it means worst for both). AI being stupid and trying to fight the enemy instead of running doesn't help.
The only contacts with BattleTech I have is playing some MW game as a child, checking out MWO and that new BT game. MekHQ seems much better than BT.

[Rince Wind]

Some of that (especially the mission parameters) are explained in the AtB xls in /docs/AtB Stuff

Extraction missions are near impossible later when the enemy comes along with advanced tech units, but it always helps to set the bot to be cowardly, to put self preservation above everything else and to go easy on the herding, so the units are spread out.
But if you have hovers or wheeled vees in wood you have lost unless you manage to kill everything.
Light lances up the difficulty, because they might meet 2 medium lances if you are unlucky (or worse), unless you play on very green. In my experience a medium lance is better equipped to take out a heavy lance than a light is against a medium one.

[Iduno]

I think the missions are based on the Strategic Ops book. That probably doesn't help you, but it's there. I think there's an excel sheet for starting that includes brief descriptions of the traits. It's in-game somewhere as well, but you have to hover over it.

I remember that the chase-type missions are terrible if you don't have a lance entirely made up of light mechs. If you're the attacker, the AI at least sits around and fights in melee. On defense, they kick you over or get ammo crits through your back armor.

[Rince Wind]

I read around on Sarna for a bit, and in the BT forums, because I want to get better at using battle armor, currently I am useless with it and I only had a squad of Raidens.
Then I remembered, that I should be able to recruit whole squads when I made paid recruitment role.

The good thing is, we finally arrived at the site of our next contract, so the admins have better things to do than contact individuals and ask if they would work for us.
The ... debatable thing is that we have 25 squads of battle armor now. Some techs as well, but probably no replacements for  at least half the armor they are using.


We also cleaned house on Galatea after fighting the WoB for 18 months. Surprisingly few C3i mechs, but I have almost 2 full lvl IIs of C3i Zephyr Hovercrafts.
We could also field at least a full company of gauss toting vees: A lance a Demons, lead by a royal Demon, a lance of Regulator IIs and two Alacorn MK VI with twi gauss Demolishers as not-really-bodyguards.

We sold most C3i mechs, without their C3i computers, because those will be very rare very soon. And while we sold more than 50 mechs and vees we still have too many, but hey, they could be usefull one of these days...
Because we took a few months off we had enough time to find a 2nd 3055 Union, and, more importantly, an Invader Jumpship and an Excalibur dropship to for the 3rd docking collar. And we are still filthy rich, though we won't make money as quickly anymore, since the last patch  reduced inflated unit costs.

[Iduno]

I read around on Sarna for a bit, and in the BT forums, because I want to get better at using battle armor, currently I am useless with it and I only had a squad of Raidens.
Then I remembered, that I should be able to recruit whole squads when I made paid recruitment role.

If I remember correctly, they use the same rules as infantry? Why not get something with a better movement rate like a Matar or Urbanmech? At least those aren't allergic to fire (not that fire is common, or that Princess knows to start infantry on fire or machinegun them).

[Rince Wind]

Because I want to use BA, not Urbies. And a lot of BA can jump just as far as Urbies anyway. Also you can't carry an Urbie on another mech, or anything smaller than a DropShip.
BA doesn't care much about machine guns, those do 2 damage to one trooper. The Raiden has 9 armor on each of the four. They suffer more from mech grade weapons though, an AC10 will kill a trooper. It will kill PBI as well, but then there are still 27 left, unlike BA.
The battle armor killed a platoon of infantry in a single turn, using flamers. An Urbie can't to that, unless he uses his 1t of ammo for special ammo.

I also try to only use the market, and I haven't seen an Urbie there for a long time. Not that I would buy it. But I just got a King Crab!

[Iduno]

Because I want to use BA, not Urbies. And a lot of BA can jump just as far as Urbies anyway. Also you can't carry an Urbie on another mech, or anything smaller than a DropShip.
BA doesn't care much about machine guns, those do 2 damage to one trooper. The Raiden has 9 armor on each of the four. They suffer more from mech grade weapons though, an AC10 will kill a trooper. It will kill PBI as well, but then there are still 27 left, unlike BA.
The battle armor killed a platoon of infantry in a single turn, using flamers. An Urbie can't to that, unless he uses his 1t of ammo for special ammo.

I also try to only use the market, and I haven't seen an Urbie there for a long time. Not that I would buy it. But I just got a King Crab!

I should have left it as just the Matar (instead of adding Urbie to the list) to make the joke more obvious.