24 replies to this topic

[FragMonkey]

So with the cadet bonus using trial mechs I've been making roughly 400,000 - 500,000 cbills per round.

Now after I've got my own mech and no more cadet bonus, I've been looking at an average of 50,000 - 100,000 cbills per round. Am I bad, or is this how its going to be for the foreseeable future? Saving up for something like a Jager and all its weapons will take 100+ rounds if I"m lucky.

[StarGeezer]

I believe you get extra C-bills and xp for various contributions made during the match. Kills obviously, but also assists, savior kills, component destruction, spotting, etc. Basically they encourage you to work together as a team...the more you do, the more you're rewarded.

[DEMAX51]

If you're not afraid to spend real money, premium time and hero mechs can help you earn c-bills faster.

[Mcchuggernaut]

Yup, your boned. It takes forever to save up for more mechs, and if you make a mistake buying expensive things while your trying to experiment and find out what works for you, your going to blow a lot of money and get stuck with no cash and a badly put together mech. I did that by selling my engine in the first mech I bought and not having enough for a new one, and then having to spend a couple weeks only using the trial mechs until I could buy an engine back. Now I have a Stalker build I am very happy with, but I have no money. My advice: Plan ahead, do your research to find out what will and won't work before you buy, and watch what the pros on YouTube and the like are running in their mechs and how they are using them. Then only after you are sure of what build you want and that you have the money, buy carefully.

[Johnny Marek Summers]

Spending MC for Premium Time and Hero Mechs works, however not everyone can fit that into their budget.

There are things you can do to maximize your earnings. Some things you can do that will help and that you will get whether you win or lose are : kills, kill assists, savior kills, spotting assists.

Kills: being the shot that puts an enemy mech down.

Kill Assist: doing damage to an enemy mech who is later killed.

Savior Kill: doing damage to an enemy mech who recently hit a friendly who has internals showing (armor stripped somewhere on his body).

Spotting Assist: targetting an enemy mech who is hit by missiles (might be limited to lrms).

Things that will increase earnings if your team WINS include capturing resources in conquest and maximizing the salvage bonus.

To maximize salvage bonuses, refrain from making kills by blowing up the CT of enemy mechs. Double legging mechs and destroying the cockpit (currently very hard) will net the most. Remember you only get the salvage bonus if your team wins the match.

Also please remember that if you leave a match before it is done, you will only get what you have earned before you left. You might miss out on Kill Assists and Savior Kills, since the mechs you hit might not have been killed yet. You will get the win or loss base, as you have earned it based on your performance throughout the match.

Edited by Johnny Marek Summers, 20 August 2013 - 09:31 PM.

[Redshift2k5]

50-100k is a bit low, but typical for players not performing many actions in a match.

If you do not get many kills or assists per match, try conquest mode and try to win by caps to collect an extra resource bonus

[Angel of Annihilation]

Redshift2k5, on 21 August 2013 - 02:07 AM, said:

50-100k is a bit low, but typical for players not performing many actions in a match.

If you do not get many kills or assists per match, try conquest mode and try to win by caps to collect an extra resource bonus

It is not low for someone not using premium. I consider myself a decent player and even with 3+ kills and similar assists plus 400-500 damage per match, I am only averaging about 100k per match now WITH premium. A average Loss now nets me 65-70k with premium and a average win is about 130-150k again with premium. That translates into about 50k for a loss and 100k for a win without premium much like the OP is averaging.

To answer the OPs question. Yes, figure your going to have to do 10 matches per million C-bills needed to buy a new mech. Also consider that each mech you buy usually needs about 3 million in upgrades to fully outfit, sometimes substancially more, especially if your a new player and haven't build up your weapons and equipment inventory yet.

That being the case, figure that the cheaper Jagers will run you about 7-8 million each for a decent working build, without an XL. The one super expensive Jager, the DD will cost you probably 10 million but comes with a small XL if you want to use it. Other size XLs for the Jaggy can run up to 4 million C-bills each so if you want a larger XL budget in this amount as well.

So figure 70-80 matches for the two variants without an XL and around 100 matches for the expensive one, then add in 40 more matches if you want to add a fast XL to your build. Total matchs for all three variants. 300 matches give or take. That should only take you about 50 hours of gameplay.

[Redshift2k5]

I'm saying its "low" because I make more than that, without premium. With practice the OP will make more too! But he's making a pretty normal income for a newer player. Maximizing assists, component destructs, kills, resources, etc will improve his income.

[Xeno Phalcon]

Without premium/hero I average about 100k ish for a good win (120k when in bruce lee mode), with one loss yesterday landing me a mind boggling 48k because of a base rush, I shudder to think what the other guys got as I was near the base and actually killed someone trying to get them off the point.


So basically, Working as Intended © , assuming you always perform at a normal level with no premium or hero mech, you'll take about 30 wins to net you a cheaper mech (Jenner?) or upwards to a mind boggling 140 wins. (if your the maso'chist type that wants a atlas K model). But thats assuming you never buy any weapons, integrated upgrades like double heatsinks or engines for the mech you currently own.

Did we mention you'll need THREE variants of a single mech (IE BJ-1, BJ-1X, BJ-3 for example) to unlock all the efficiencies for that mech? Hope you brought your grind pants.

EDIT: sometimes I wonder about our censor script on these forums when even maso-chist gets squeegied out.

Edited by Xeno Phalcon, 21 August 2013 - 04:09 AM.

[ArkNemesis]

For me, i find the best way to earn C-Bills is using... A catapult C4.
Ok i am quite new to this game, and I don't have a lot of mechs/c-bills.

But, with a simple and cheap configuration : 2xLRM10+2xSRM6+TAG+BAP, i can :
- Get assists easily with LRM : between 6 and 8 on average, 11 one time :-)
- Survive enough : good armor (heavy mech), always behind assault, when lights come to close, a good volley of SRM will almost always make them choose another target
- Inflict good damage : 300-400 is quite easy to obtain, and even sometimes I get a kill or two
- Get a lot of enemy spot thanks to BAP
- Get some TAG/NARC bonus thanks to TAG

I almost always play assault mode, and with this setup, I can get 60-70k per defeat, and 100-130k per win.
TAG bonus is good too for XP

Edited by ArkNemesis, 21 August 2013 - 04:47 AM.

[Viken]

I'm not sure how the latest "CBill nerf" went around, but I generally average between 90k-140k in my matches when I play on my RVN-3L. Usually ~200-300 damage, 1 kill loads of assists, maybe a spot or two. Most I've ever gotten from a match after my cadet bonus was ~180k.

All of this is without premium time or hero mechs.

The best way to earn cbills is as above, really. The only other thing I do is to do Assault Exclusively, because it's generally a faster game in my experience. Mileage may vary.

Edited by Viken, 21 August 2013 - 05:03 AM.

[Blacktemplar223]

As Viken was saying, The biggest things that seem to net you income now are assists, and spotting.

Assists, if you see a mech and can shoot it, go ahead and at least scrape it a bit so if someone else on your team kills it you get some nice cbills (xp is determined by how much damage you did to it).

Spotting, they seemed to have changed the logic for this here lately and it seems to be easier to get. this means if someone on your team is using lrms, and you maintain a lock on an enemy they're shooting at, you'll get spotting bonuses for larger volleys hitting home.

Ultimately the most rewards come from component and enemy kills, but as you're learning the game, the assists will help you out more until you can get your bearings and become a real killer.

Hope this helps

[scJazz]

Prior to the CB Nerf I was earning 78,384.61 per match now I get 85778.90 or about 10% more. Matches take about 30% longer currently but that isn't an issue if you quit the moment you die. It is an issue for me because I never quit early.

Figure average earnings of 85000 a match as a usable number. Earnings are hugely dependent on things like Spotting, Assists and TAG/NARC.


Given the extra 8 mechs on the field it is hugely important that you use R for lock in order to gather the Spotting Bonuses! This is the single easiest and most assured method for gaining CBills!

[Aym]

FragMonkey, on 20 August 2013 - 08:54 PM, said:

So with the cadet bonus using trial mechs I've been making roughly 400,000 - 500,000 cbills per round. Now after I've got my own mech and no more cadet bonus, I've been looking at an average of 50,000 - 100,000 cbills per round. Am I bad, or is this how its going to be for the foreseeable future? Saving up for something like a Jager and all its weapons will take 100+ rounds if I"m lucky.

We don't expect any changes to in-game earnings until Launch or after, and even then they may be balanced by "costs" like repair and re-arm... We're really not sure if this current grind is the new normal or just a new baseline with more rewards to be added later...

If you DO get too discouraged to continue it will prove a point many of us have been trying to make, so please PLEASE send a ticket into supoprt to help change the game.

[FragMonkey]

Thanks for the suggestions. I can see balancing C-Bill earnings is difficult, as they want to make money and also want to keep everyone from rapidly unlocking all the things they want.

I shall continue spamming that R key and taking pot shots at every mech I see for maximum bonuses.

Do you guys feel that Assault mode generally nets you more c-bills? I imagine the slightly faster round times should end up having a higher income over time. Also, does losing your mech in a game reduce your income in any way apart from the potential loss of kills/assists/etc?

[scJazz]

Death is meaningless and sometimes even desirable.

Flinging your blasted, out of ammo mech at the enemy cap to create confusion for fun and profit!

FYI: Just played a match testing out a joke build. Team lost... 46000 CBills... 6000 of it came from 3 Spotting Bonuses. Need I say more?

[Aym]

Assault is almost ALWAYS more c-bills per minute than conquest.

[danneskold]

if you are on the winning side, conquest earns you more for the resource bonus.

That said, assault can be fast for a cbill per minute rating....

I bought one of the cheaper hero mechs - the X5 - and used that to grind with some premium time - was great! Its a cheaper hero - so its not too hard on the wallet - its more if its your playstyle. I like fast mechs, so it worked for me.

Aside from spotting - if you just hit as many targets as you can for assist, that helps too.

Edited by danneskold, 21 August 2013 - 06:57 AM.

[Johnny Marek Summers]

As of now, you do not have to pay for the costs of repairs and reload. In closed beta you did, there are some videos on YouTube where you can see that.

As a matter of fact, Mack has a video showing how his Founder's Catapult was configured in a way so it could be a money making machine. The answer... lasers, lots and lots of lasers, because there was no rearm costs.

Oh and you don't want to spam the R key. Your lrm boats will be unhappy to lose lock before their missiles hit.

[FragMonkey]

Johnny Marek Summers, on 21 August 2013 - 06:49 AM, said:

As of now, you do not have to pay for the costs of repairs and reload. In closed beta you did, there are some videos on YouTube where you can see that.

As a matter of fact, Mack has a video showing how his Founder's Catapult was configured in a way so it could be a money making machine. The answer... lasers, lots and lots of lasers, because there was no rearm costs.

Oh and you don't want to spam the R key. Your lrm boats will be unhappy to lose lock before their missiles hit.

Am I right in assuming that if I see the red icon of the three missile-looking streaks on a locked mech, that means someone's missiles are heading toward it?

Edited by FragMonkey, 21 August 2013 - 08:09 AM.