17 replies to this topic

[Button man]

Anyone know if they are going to do some kind of fix for this moronic, idiotic, stupid design with never ending mechs and tanks and helicopters on missions??i just had my first failure on a mission at mission hardness 34..im stuck at 230 tons still..a simple demo job..first a couple of mechs with tanks and helicopters and turrets, then 4 mechs show up with more tanks and helicopters..then 4 more mechs with tanks and helis, then more mechs and tans and helis..at that point i lost half my team and saw the writing on the wall with 6 mechs half a dozen tanks and helis...WTH!!!! either let us have more tonnage so we can bring more firepower to bear OR STOP THE STUPID ENDLESS WAVES!!!!
or is it a case of anyone involved with the game does not actually read these forums/complaints/suggestions?..

[Nightbird]

You have to edit the mechs you run and put max armor and decent weapons on them, once you do, missions are very easy.

If you have hunchbacks, put 1AC10+ 4MLs, or 2SRM6s+5MLs, or 8MLs+1SL and give them to your teammates for easy mode.

[AurioDK]

Demolition missions can be an outright pain, the trick is to totally ignore the opposing mechs and shoot at opportunity vehicles while destroying the objective and that can take a little while depending on mech and weapon load out.

So, to put it simple, destroy the objective and get the heck out. For demolition missions I never choose salvage and I avoid them if there are other available.

[Button man]

thanks for the advice guys, will do that tomorrow..i gave up mission and will retry then..i was running archer, centurion, crab and rifleman..stock i havent altered anything on any mech

[Dee Eight]

bad stock mech builds will limit your ability to handle missions as will poor choices for AI pilots. If you think difficulty 31 is bad, you're gonna hate the 93 ones...

As to your 230 ton drop weight... quickdraw with medium lasers and SRMS over a rifleman. Warhammer over an archer. Second centurion or a hunchback instead of a crab.

Edited by Dee Eight, 20 December 2019 - 11:15 PM.

[The Amazing Atomic Spaniel]

First thing I do with all mechs is to give them maximum armor and to weight it to the front. No more than 10-12 points on the back of the torso. Stock armor is too weak and sometimes too biased to the rear. The AI seems to do well with PPCs and ballistics but not so well with LRMs so the Archer isn't going to be great. Useful if some AI have an LRM5/10 to take out tanks and helicopters, but not as a primary weapon. And as people have said above, you can win demolition by tanking the damage and taking down the buildings if you can't beat their mechs. Buy lots of damage insurance!

Edited by The Amazing Atomic Spaniel, 21 December 2019 - 04:48 AM.

[FRAGTAST1C]

Never venture into a mission with stock loadout. That'll put you on a level playing field against equal odds but since the game throws so many enemies at you, you're basically handicapping yourself.

I suggest using AC10 + LRM 10 and MLs on the Centurion with full armour and some heatsinks. Give that your AI teammate who has decent defensive skills and enough Ballistic skills to make use of that AC10.

Put AC5s and MLs in the Rifleman or even two AC10s if it can take them. Squees 3.5 tons of ammo and some heatsinks with max armour.

Keep the Archer for yourself. I'm guessing it's the 4 MLs Archer? You might want to try utilising LRMs and staying a decent distance away so that your teammates will stick with you. Truth be told, you might want to swap that Archer with an Orion or something.

As for the Crab, the AI loses the arms quite a lot. So, having LL in the arms won't help you. Change the mech, unless you want to pilot it yourself.

[overheal]

Most missions if you like the Kill Everything approach is to take it nice and slowww...

In most multi objective maps you’ll get dropped on by 1-3 first response Leopard drops and several groups of tanks as you take out targets and objectives. And each area/outpost has its own defense/patrol. Getting too close to these locations will aggro the defenders, taking out an objective will trigger counter strikes usually. And all those turrets that just stack damage that you otherwise ignore and tend to only sprout out of their bunker holes when it’s inconvenient to you.

So, if you have a raid mission with 3 targets, you’ll probably see 3 first response waves (including 1 during your exfiltration). So, my approach has been to secure my printer before advancing, bc I just kill everything, methodically - if I blow up a target building while still handling defenders, the first response lance will drop on me (in a difficulty 100 map... this was a lance of 4 assault mechs that did a leopard drop on my head. Very appropriate, very oh shhhht moment)

Raising the alarm at all your objective markets in quick succession just aggros the whole map on you, plus responder spawns. They’re not infinite outside of warzones but you should expect to see a dozen of mechs or so and dozens of lesser forces, never get cocky

DO. PRIORITIZE. VTOLS.

Edited by overheal, 21 December 2019 - 04:10 PM.

[John McClintock]

FWIW I was failing badly, and had to sell a couple mechs just to repair until I figured this out... don't try and kill everything, hit and run.

Kill the objectives as fast as possible, and keeping your lance mates close to you.

Have lance mates focus fire on mechs while you take down air support and whatever tanks/turrets get close. I was mostly only shooting the mechs when I didn't have any close air/ground targets.

I was failing terribly before, when my method was "kill everything".

It seemed like there were infinite enemies... maybe I was in a war zone, IDK... LOL still learning the game.

Signal your lance mates to get in formation after you hit each target. Only stop long enough to clear out enemies in the immediate area, then run for the next objective..

Any mechs/choppers/tanks that follow you, just turn around occasionally and kill whatever is following you too closely.

[Button man]

The Amazing Atomic Spaniel, on 21 December 2019 - 01:40 AM, said:

First thing I do with all mechs is to give them maximum armor and to weight it to the front. No more than 10-12 points on the back of the torso. Stock armor is too weak and sometimes too biased to the rear. The AI seems to do well with PPCs and ballistics but not so well with LRMs so the Archer isn't going to be great. Useful if some AI have an LRM5/10 to take out tanks and helicopters, but not as a primary weapon. And as people have said above, you can win demolition by tanking the damage and taking down the buildings if you can't beat their mechs. Buy lots of damage insurance!

what i have been doing is taking the archer myself ,then focusing on all tanks and helicopters and telling AI lance to focus on one mech until it is dead and when tanks and helicopters are dead i pick biggest mech of enemy to take on

[General Solo]

According to Russ on this video at 18.30
https://www.youtube....eature=emb_logo

Demolition missions feature endless spawning

So get in , Destroy the buildings/base and get out may be the way to play it

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 21 December 2019 - 06:32 PM.

[Droknar]

Raid missions can be a pain as well depending on the layout. One raid mission I was on had the Leopard drop us right at the edge of one of the mission targets. Enemies were already shooting at my lance even before the doors were opened. Once I stepped out I saw an enemy dropship come down and added 3 more heavy and 1 light mech in an already chaotic situation. It seemed as well that the defenders at the other bases had also come over. It was like 30 tanks, some base turrets with range, 10 vtols, and 8 mechs all at once.

[Jyi]

Some of the advice here is pretty dumb, so I'll give you better tips.

These missions on the difficulty level you are at are generally pretty easy, but there are bugged ones where you may get double spawns. I have seen enemy drop 2 mech lances in almost back to back, and there's really nothing you can do about it except try to kill them. So keep that in mind.

The AI in the game is dumb as bricks, so you just have to adapt to that. It goes for the enemy and the friendlies, but it's compounded by the fact that you only get 3 lancemates while enemy gets hordes of tanks and flyers.

One bad tip I noticed is to frontload the armor on all your mechs. Do not do that. Only frontload your own mech, as the AI lancemates have absolutely no self preservation, and if they have no armor at back, they will constantly get cored from behind. You can frontload a little, but keep some 6-20 armor in the back depending of weight class (as in 6 for lights, 10+ for mediums, 14-18 for heavies and above that for assaults). Always go for armor over weapons. Max torsoes and arms, and bring legs up a little. Even on fire support mechs. AI doesn't understand the concept of fire support. It doesn't understand anything, actually. AI lancemates are tied to you by a rubberband, unless you tell them to sit at a spot. And if you do, they may get swarmed.

Also, AI doesn't understand how to use LRM's, and will never learn, no matter how highly skilled your pilots are. They are incapable of locking a target, so all the LRM's they fire will be dumbfire. Do not ever give them LRM's. Period. This also goes for the enemy, by the way, so LRM mechs and LRM carriers are generally garbage and can be dodged and laughed at. Personally, I never use LRM's in any mech, not even with Artemis, because the pinpoint dps from other weapons is always superior.

AI in the early-to-midgame are great with light to medium ballistics, lasers and SRM's. Counter to what some people said, do not give them PPC's in early-to-midgame. Once you have high level pilots, those are godly with PPC's, but the earlier ones are awful. "Why?", you may ask. Well, the lower tier pilots seem to have some sort of limitation on how often they shoot those PPC's, and since their target priorities are all over the place, they may try shooting at an enemy behind a hill. And since the AI seems to have a bad awareness regarding ground, they will often waste those rare and precious PPC-shots on splashing the ground right next to you. If they shoot at air targets, they will almost always hit, though - it's just a question of whether they will do it. The higher tier pilots shoot more often, so they become an excellent recipient of a PPC -mech.

By the way, AI is absolute garbage against enemy mechs. I can't even count the times my full assault lance has lost an arm and a leg (heh) against one or two medium mechs. The AI in the game seems to prioritize shooting off arms and legs as some sort of balancing mechanic (to not be too deadly against the player) - and like everything else in the game regarding AI, this seems to go for the lancemates as well. So, your lancemates will slowly and awkwardly take the enemy mechs apart by first shooting off their arms or legs before killing them. It sucks, and you can't do anything about it.

AI is much better against vehicles. From the beginning of the game, they have almost godly aim against vehicles, and can instantly take out multiple flyers and tanks in seconds. Just let them do their thing until they've cleared out most of them, then concentrate on enemy mechs. Enemy mechs are generally trash anyway, and only the ones with concentrated firepower are truly dangerous. Mechs like Blackjack, Centurion, Hunchback, Quickdraw, Jagermech, Rifleman, Orion, Stalker, Battlemaster or Atlas are priority targets compared to stuff like Cicadas, Archers or Victors for example. Archers especially are pure trash in most situations, as the AI doesn't seem to know how to use them effectively at all. Like, at least the Catapults seem to have an AI that tries to stay at range to lob those LRM's at you, but the devs apparently forgot to give that AI to the Archers, so they just try to walk at you... and since there are those artificial restrictions in place, they won't even shoot their medium lasers that much.

When it comes to demolition missions, the gameplay loop is basically this: clear the area of enemies, let your lancemates take care of most vehicles, then order them to concentrate fire on mechs and help them by taking out whatever component they seem to be concentrating on until all enemy mechs are dead. If the enemy has concentrated firepower, try to take out their weapons as fast as possible, then let the lancemates finish the mech. For example, take out the hunch of a Hunchback or the weapon arm of a Centurion, then just move on to dismantling the next enemy. The lancemates will eventually get to finishing off the maimed enemy mechs, and as long as they only have like a medium laser and a small laser left, they will not do much damage to your lance. Core out weak weapons platforms like Jagermechs or Riflemen asap. After area is clear, proceed to demolish buildings until next enemy spawn comes in, and rinse and repeat until mission is done.

In demolition missions, you can often use buildings as cover and the enemy will go as far as helping you in destroying them, because they are dumb. And once the mission is done, just retreat the f*ck out of there and don't concentrate too much on any additional enemy spawns, because there's no point.

Edited by Jyi, 21 December 2019 - 08:15 PM.

[Xaat Xuun]

I guess I do demolitions all wrong,
I pilot fast mech, stand at range , with lance, pull enemies away, don't engage, just let the lance do it, then run iin stomp everything, if enemy turns for me, they have exposed their backs, try and leave a stick alive, so next wave does not spawn,
easy finish, not much in repair bill.

yeah I must be doing it wrong


I found the Archer was good, up to difficulty 50, but I don't use LRM, I switched them to SRM6's. they helped build the pilots missile skills during that process. During those times, I was pretty much a lance of 2 Archers and 2 Rifleman.
After I got my hands on a GoldenBoy, things have changed.
I had let the AI pilot the GB twice, after that second time, they never get to pilot it again, DHS were not as common to buy as they are now, back then.

I just pilot 2 mechs, The GB and Nightstar, the Hired pilots varies, depending where I'm farming salvage at.

Till I bought the mauler 1R, only mech that had LRM's was the Centurion we start with, which has been used up to difficulty 84, I myself think I have only piloted it once, but mostly just been used by the Hired pilots..
Wait I think my Stalker-M still has it's LRM's, but the Stalker-F just SRM

in the difficulty 90+, I try and stick to range, I haven't done a Co-Op with my mechs yet (not anything higher then difficulty 71), but am sure it'll be easier, then with AI Pilots

The weapon skills are only damage increase, not some better knowledge how to use them, making for quicker locks, at least that's how I understand how weapon skills works.
My Ai Pilots are skill 60, 'cept for last 2 still building their skills up, but they'll be 60/60 soon, and as Jyi mentioned, they won't lock 80% of the time, even after ordered to, it's like a PUG Quickplay in MWO, they just don't press 'R', They do lock target to fire LRM, but rarely, I do have one AI that will use LRM's more often then the other 2, I like her, she's always on my flank, rarely do I need to command her to do anything, None of my other or previous pilots were like that

Raids and Assassinations , I take my time in, I actually go to the furthest base first, and try and keep range or pull them into the open, and that's that on those 2 mission types ,
Defend contracts, I avoid, unless I can co-op, nothing needs to be said there, just ask what kind of mech they want to use and make sure I have one built, or will build for them (from the choices of mechs I do have)

[The Amazing Atomic Spaniel]

Jyi, you frontload the armour because you can use the positioning commands to make sure your spend most of the fight in a firing line.

[Jyi]

The Amazing Atomic Spaniel, on 22 December 2019 - 12:05 AM, said:

Jyi, you frontload the armour because you can use the positioning commands to make sure your spend most of the fight in a firing line.

This would be all fine and dandy, but the AI is incapable of doing this effectively. Firstly, they will expose their backs even in a firing line if the target happens to go past them. Secondly, as we know, the spawns in the game are notoriously stupid, and purposefully surround your lance.

Trust me on this, in endgame, you can't frontload the armor as much on the AI as you would on your own mech.

[Unleashed3k]

About AI and lrms:
Give one of your guys a TAG and see how damn good they lock on enemies and how good they can hold a lock, I sometimes give 1 AI a TAG and then take 2 other AI with lrm60-stalker, so you can keep the 2 Stalkers away from enemies and see how the lrm take down mech by mech

[Vellron2005]

Button man, on 20 December 2019 - 09:40 PM, said:

Anyone know if they are going to do some kind of fix for this moronic, idiotic, stupid design with never ending mechs and tanks and helicopters on missions??i just had my first failure on a mission at mission hardness 34..im stuck at 230 tons still..a simple demo job..first a couple of mechs with tanks and helicopters and turrets, then 4 mechs show up with more tanks and helicopters..then 4 more mechs with tanks and helis, then more mechs and tans and helis..at that point i lost half my team and saw the writing on the wall with 6 mechs half a dozen tanks and helis...WTH!!!! either let us have more tonnage so we can bring more firepower to bear OR STOP THE STUPID ENDLESS WAVES!!!!
or is it a case of anyone involved with the game does not actually read these forums/complaints/suggestions?..

Russ said there are mission types that have endless enemies, and this was done to promote difficulty. You can't level a city and expect only slight consequences. You have to get in, do the thing, and get out. Otherwise, you get dead. That's intended in the design.

Unleashed3k, on 22 December 2019 - 02:35 AM, said:

About AI and lrms:
Give one of your guys a TAG and see how damn good they lock on enemies and how good they can hold a lock, I sometimes give 1 AI a TAG and then take 2 other AI with lrm60-stalker, so you can keep the 2 Stalkers away from enemies and see how the lrm take down mech by mech

I just bought my first Stalker yesterday, loaded it out with LRM50+4MLAS, and on boy does it wreck.. LRMs are great when in large salvos..