15 replies to this topic

[Not A Real RAbbi]

New people! I just realized that I have some advice for you. PAY ATTENTION!

***EDIT*** Apparently, it is necessary to reiterate what constitutes a "new player" in the "new player help" forum. If you're good and you've played less than 80 drops, or have a sub-1 KDR and have played less than 100-120 drops, you're a new player. Read this.

UNLESS you're jumping right into Community Warfare. Then disregard.

If you're a "new player" then, and playing in the public queue, and looking to make the most of the C-Bill economy, then this might be of use to you.

***END EDIT***

It has come to my attention that there are now these "Mastery Packs" out there for MC. Further, many of us may have bought one or more of the big packages (Founders, Phoenix, Urbie, etc.). And I realized, that no one ever bothered to tell me about this certain something that I learned by doing, and it has made C-Bill purchases a lot easier for me.

Say you buy the Urbanmech package. That comes with THREE variants of the mech. Each variant has the same engine, and at least one small laser. Thing is, you won't need to have a valid configuration in all three simultaneously. You're driving around downtown River City in your shiny Urbie, one of three in the barn, and the engines and small lasers and heat sinks in the other two are just collecting dust. Unlike in the real world, you can just point-and-click your way through a cost-free engine swap any ol' time you feel like it (you don't even have to pay your techs, you whip cracking son of a ______)! So, why hold on to that gear?

Something I do, and it's something I recommend to you new folks as well: Whenever I put a mech away for the day, I strip all the modules and equipment and cockpit items.

At some point, you can go into your inventory from the home screen and see how many of what you own. Omnipods, engines, heat sinks, etc. It's all there. Say you have 14 IS AC/2s in your inventory. Are you EVER going to equip all 14 of them on a single mech? Even if you found one with 14 ballistic points on it (no such critter), that's 84 tons o' gun, never minding the structure weight and engine and gyro and cockpit. Look, the VERY MOST you'll ever equip on even a TROLLOLOLOL dakka mech is MAYBE six (a certain JM6 variant has 6 ballistic points, 3 to an arm, and this CAN be done as long as you don't care for things like ARMOR). So sell the other 8. You'll never use 'em anyhow.

Went and bought the whole selection of Locusts? GOOD ON YOU! I love those squishy little bugs, too. Thing is, now you'll have like a dozen machine guns and as many small lasers and some ridiculous number of medium lasers. Ask yourself, "Self, what's the MOST of any one thing I can or will ever install on ANY mech I own?" If you have more than what your self answers to that question, SELL THE DIFFERENCE! Have two STD 160 engines? You'll only ever use one at a time, so SELL THE OTHER for a few hundred thousand C-Bills. Have 40-something single heat sinks now? You simply will not ever install that many in a battlemech. Save 12, sell the rest.

Bought a HBK-4P? Knife fighter. Nice. HOT, but nice. Drink lots of water, and sell every medium laser you ever get again. That thing already hauls what, like EIGHT of 'em? That's a lot. The other twenty you have collecting dust in the back? Bye-bye!

PPCs? Look, unless you're planning to build a Death Star (7x ERPPC Battlemaster, WILL detonate after a single alpha), you'll probably never need more than, AT MOST, four of those things. While it may be entertaining to unload a shred-an-Atlas's-center-torso-in-one-shot battlemech, and deny his pals the payback kill by killing yourself with EPIC overheat, you're not going to use that as a match strategy. You could use the money, especially in TODAY'S MWO economy. Sell what you don't need.

Am I getting through to you? Is this in any way not clear?

I built almost 10,000,000 C-Bills Saturday, just selling stuff that I had in excess. Used the proceeds to help buy a couple new mechs. And how much do you wanna bet, that right away I had a couple excess pieces in my inventory? Yup. Made a little of that money back. ;-)

Spend smart, save smart, live longer, thank me later.

Edited by TheRAbbi, 05 August 2015 - 02:32 PM.

[Wintersdark]

You can do this, if you have a hell of a lot of time to waste.

Me, I've got over a hundred mechs. I like to keep valid loadouts on all of them, all the time.

Why? I'm totally space-poor, with less than a million cbills. I could certainly use more modules, too!

But because:

1) I like to play in groups. However, there are 3/3/3/3 limits to large groups, and this means I don't always get to play the mech I want to play. Thus, I must always have at least one fully equipped mech in each weight class.
2) I like to play CW. This means I need a complete drop deck fully equipped.
3) I like to win CW. This means I need multiple drop decks fully equipped and ready to go, so I can pick builds and mechs that work best for a given map. Even more mechs!
4) OMG having to swap gear around every time I got a hankering to play a different mech would drive me totally insane, what a huge pain in the ass.
5) I'd **** it up. I'd strip my mech, switch to the next one I wanted to play, try to throw the build together and invariably forget something important.

Nah, this is something you can (and should, with Engines in particular) do when you're a new player struggling to get their first mechs, but it's hideously annoying later.

[Rogue Jedi]

as a new player, who needs every cbill I recommend sharing expensive equipment like engines (especially XL engines) between a variate of builds on a specific chassis but removing everything is likely to get frustrating with reinstalling everything each match.

I think I have something like 120 Mechs, more than 100 of them are combat ready, this is because of the frustration of having to find the engine when I want a specific Mech

[Not A Real RAbbi]

I get the CW drop deck thing, I guess. Not really familiar with CW, since it wasn't ready when last I played.

Rogue Jedi kinda said it. AGAIN, though, the thing is to strip down the mech (except for armor, which is just SUCH a pain, and you can't really sell back anyhow) after use.

When it comes to owning 100+ mechs, well, that's pretty special. I own like 1/4 of that or less. And this IS for newcomers, by the way. CW and maintaining 3/3/3/3 drop decks is a LONG way off.

But I find that setting-up a mech isn't too bad, as long as you already have the armor set up. When you start picking stuff out of the warehouse, check the box for only your owned items, and it gets a lot easier. Takes 1-2 minutes to set up any mech in my inventory. When you're PUG dropping, that's not bad at all. If you anticipate dropping with a pre-made (non-CW), you may want to have your chosen mech set up ahead of time.

And in a lot of cases, you can have 2 or 3 different mechs set up at once. 8 medium lasers are more than I use on any one mech. That'd set up two Jenners for me, or nearly all of my Locusts. The XL 265 or XL 280 engines I have, I only use really on one chassis. The XL 300 is only for Jenners. The XL 190 is only for Locusts. And so on. The PPCs aren't going on any lights, nor are any LRM 15s or 20s. And a Streak SRM-2 is not likely to get equipped on a BLR chassis. So, if I needed to, I could keep two or three different meta mechs on either side (IS or clan) set up at any given time, without compromising the above.

And THAT frees up the C-Bills to purchase modules, which can't be had with any individual mech purchase, but sometimes cost more than a lot of light mechs. Kinda important when you're starting out. Not so much, I'm sure, if you've amassed over 100 mechs in your personal stable.

But really, what new-this-year player is looking at having 100 mechs in the barn, without having blown a month's pre-tax salary on MC and packages? And if you HAVE blown the wad on MC and packages, then you likely don't give a hoot about economizing your C-Bills anyhow; you can just PAY TO WIN!

[TheLuc]

One of my very good friend just started and he still saving his precious Cbills to get that Clan Mech he like so much.. He finds the grind quite hard and he didnt choose the cheapest Mech around. To ease the painful grind I told him to not sell anything of is inventory but aim for the next Mech he wants so he can take advantage of the first victory of the day bonus and by playing lots of CW he can get more Mech Bays and other bonus that loyalty points can give. Starting a pure Clan account is quite rough, already the game is not really newb friendly and the grind just makes it worse.

So once he has four Mechs ready to rumble in CW, I told him to get modules but no consumable ones, after to unlock the elite and master skill trees for those four Mechs once the cash is available starting by the most expensive one so the others will seem like a breeze. Thing is that going for modules before unlocking the elite and master skill tree, he will already amassed the 42500 EXP needed to get the Mechs variants he wants to keep fully unlocked. Selling mech its always at a great loss but at least starting with the most expensive hurts at the beginning but after its more easy to bear.

Once all done with his four first Mechs, all of them will have an extra module slot and most probable a few Mech Bays, from there he can choose to add more modules to the Mechs he will have or get a new one to master, I was very precise that the 5th Mech to deck out and master, to do it full before jumping on a 6th one.

Economics really depends how the garage is managed or how much the player is spending, What I do in my inventory is no more than 5 weapon of same type, same goes for equipment and for engines no more than 1 of each type. Swapping an XL engine around is good but I stick with STD ones for durability and they are way cheaper. I did many mistakes and lost lots of Cbills, I got like 16 Mechs and I'm still grinding for modules. Six more radar deprivation to go without counting the weapons and other system modules I need. I hope it help too as I don't want other players being in the painful situation I am.

[Void Angel]

Stripping every 'mech every day and then having to rebuild it the very next time you play is a huge time sink. Why waste that much time when you can just focus on the ones you play regularly and strip the ones you mothball? No new player (or this veteran) wants to be spending that amount of time doing busywork for the dubious value of having the opportunity to mistakenly sell his "extra" XL engines (do not ever sell XL engines unless you have a LOT of that rating.)

PS: being able to buy c-bills is not pay to win - it is in fact the opposite. I personally hold that the c-bill economy is FAR too slow, interfering with new players and veterans alike: if you have to get involved in extracurricular things like playing with friends and/or a unit in order to stay with the game, the c-bill reward system as such is a failure. However, let's try to stick with things that are actually true. This game is not pay to win, and the day it becomes so I'll stop playing it.

[TheLuc]

Totally with you, Void Angel. The Cadet Bonus is way to small and the grind way too slow for new players, For a Vet or a ace player it doesn't change much, most have already all they need or want and amassing CBills is the only thing they have to do so they can get the next new toy.I do understand the fact the its to incite players to spend on bundles to reduce grind but as it is, its overdone.

Swapping engines only is okay but the whole setup to save CBills its true that it is a huge time sink, better off jumping in the next PUG game. If the game get the pay to win treatment, I will surely drop the game as well.

[Elizander]

When the game first launched we didn't have CW so selling spare parts to buy better parts was alright. I did that a lot and I only had 1 of any engine. Of course back then we didn't think we'd end up owning 80-120 mechs and now finding that engine or that module is quite a pain.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

Mostly only useful if you're swapping XL engines. Also good for getting rid of the STD engines from slower light mechs.

[Araevin Teshurr]

Yes! The Firestarter Mastery Pack is an excellent buy!

http://www.aces-hq.com/index.php

TeamSpeak3 Server: voip01.n1585.hypernia.net:9992

[Not A Real RAbbi]

There. Fixed it.

P.S. Yeah, I kinda realize that this isn't the best advice for those with 100+ mechs in the barn. Then again, such players have no need of "new player help", so, y'know...

Also, no one stated that the C-Bill economy is P2W. That's MC and cash packages. You know, the OTHER economy.

[Golrar]

I have 115 mechs, and I have red "INVALID" lines across half of them because I do the same as the OP. I don't strip everything, but I do strip the engine and modules. What is invariably annoying with that many mechs is when you can only afford 3 or 4 radar derp modules and you leave them equipped. When you buy a new mech to grind and you are trying to find that radar derp...enough to make you cry.

One thing I wish they would add to the mechlab, and I don't know if it has been suggested, is to save a load out. So with one click, if you have the items unequipped in your inventory, it will rebuild the load out for a particular mech, adjusting armor, DHS, weps, mods, etc. That would alleviate the annoyance of having to rebuild each piece on a stripped mech for those of us with a veritable plethora of mechs.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

^^^ THIS. So much this...

[Torezu]

Indeed. It might be a challenge, though. You know what I'd like to see? Mech Select showing quirks. I don't always remember which mechs have exactly what quirks, and it'd be really nice to see which ones a particular mech has so I can configure it to match them.

[Elizander]

I actually ran out of large lasers today and had to buy some new ones.

[Ano]

IMO, as a new player:

1. Always strip weapons, engines and (if you have them) modules from mechs you aren't using.
For the longest time, I had at most two mechs "ready to go" -- with the second being there so if (when) I had a disaster of a match and got cored in the first 90 seconds, I could quit the game, jump to the other mech and queue again rather than watching an ENTIRE match as a spectator.

Doing this means you minimise the number of weapons, engines etc you have to spend Cbills on at the time when you're probably having the most difficulty earning Cbills and have the most stuff still to buy.


2. Be wary of selling unused systems
Unless you have excessive numbers of spare components, I'd advise against selling them off too early. You don't raise *that* much money, relatively speaking, and (shock!) the sale price is much less than the cost of purchasing a new component, should you discover you needed it after all.