So post your thoughts / questions / experiences
I am 566 days (in game) into my Career.
I am starting to get together a lance of medium mechs + my first heavy 60t, but still very very early in game with what you can do.
The Argo is also coming along nicely but fitting her out and managing the monthly costs my not be mutually beneficial. New hands have had to be hired as some nicely skilled mechwarriors were KIA’d. Sadly though, the female MechWarrior with the really annoying voice is still with me and I am wondering why the others haven’t stuck a ppc in her back. I can’t afford to loose her for skills and I don’t want the cost of rebuilding her mech if I send her on a suicide mission. Maybe fate will help me.
Here is my situation at the moment.
The Argo in orbit of Apian after completing a contract
Here I have unlocked the 2nd row of mechbays. This is a two edged sword. Repairing mechs not only cost money, they can take a long time to repair depending on damage or refitting. Its good to have mechs in reserve to use to keep the money coming in, but keeping the mechbays open costs more money.
Here you can see my current assortment of mechs. My main mechs are all repaired on the top shelf and I have 3 undergoing fitting on the middle shelf. At the moment I have no need and therefore not unlocked the third level of mechbays.
And here in the mechbay you can also refit your mechs to however you desire.
My present position on the star map is Apion. You can see the bordering factions and other systems I can travel to. ON the star map you can see a contract marked that has agreed to pay for my transport costs. This is very handy as travel in game takes a long time and costs of running this lance cost me a lot each month. Travelling to a system usually costs 30,000 credits using the jump ships, so having someone pay that for you is a bonus.
Below is the contract list available at Apion. The very first contract at the top of the list is story line mission objective that, once available, you can take at any time you choose. Contracts that pay for your travel have a little planet symbol with a triangle.
The difficulty of the missions are “GENERALLY” shown by the number of skulls against the missions. Currently Apion is offering all “2 skull” level missions. That suits me fine. Maybe I will taking a 2.5 skull mission but I think that will be my limit for the while. A downside to this is that lower level missions offer lower rewards. Therefore at the moment I always have my balance sheet in the back of my mind.
If you do decide to accept a contract, there is a great mechanic to choose from as seen below. Every battle has salvage, salvage that you want or even need. You have two sliders of payment and salvage. Payment is straight forward as that is the amount you will receive excluding any mission objective bonuses. The salvage number is how many items you get first pick of out of all the salvage that is available at the end of a mission. This could be anything from heatsinks to actual battle mech frames to which you can rebuild a battlemech. After you have chosen your allocated slots of wanted salvage, you will be granted a random share of the remaining loot.
So you can play with these sliders to ask for what you need. If you have plenty of money, you can push the salvage slider to the right to ask for first dibbs on more salvage and receive less money as a consequence or vice-versa.
Here is My MechWarrior list. Not sure how my pretty face ended up with blue hair (I guess beers were involved) and you can see their RPG stats and perks gained through experience. I have hired a few extra mechwarriors to account for injuries and their associated down time. Also I am trying to have enough mechwarriors to leave my main character out of battle. As I believe if he dies, the game is over.
The Argo when you first get it (its a story line secret that is not so secret) is a right bucket when you get it. So here it is from the engineering department and the upgrades I have and I still have to get. These cost money and time to get and also cost money to maintain. So expand at the ability of your budget !
Below you can see my balance sheet which scrolls further down. My current TOTAL running costs are around 360,000 credits. You may be thinking, “Well Bogus me old mate, I can see almost 2 million in your bank.”
That is true, but considering travel can to a NEARBY system can easily take a month, repairing badly damaged mechs can take 2 months and I have had pilots out of action for over 3 months. Then consider travel costs, repair costs on top of my normal monthly outgoings and you can easily find yourself out of money real quick.
But all is well. A few dead but I am slowly expanding. My reputation is increasing and the Argo is slowly being upgraded. I need to get more powerful mechs and then … well who knows… either victory or defeat and I know which one I want.
