21 replies to this topic

[Elizander]

*** UPDATE: Repair and Rearm (R&R) is a feature that is no longer in the game as of December 18, 2012. All mechs will now be automatically repaired and rearmed after each match, so there is no longer any need to follow this guide. I'll just keep it here for posterity's sake. Hopefully this at least helped a few of you enjoy the game a bit more while we had R&R***

*** UPDATE: Fixed math since armor repair didn't display in the screenshots! Thanks to TheRuslan for pointing it out! Fixed images. They borked when I edited something. ***

Hello everyone. We're all here to farm c-bills and get our mechs ready for Community Warfare coming Q1-Q2 next year. C-bills are hard to come by (even for Premium Founders and such) and we all want to be more efficient in farming.

I'm not here to tell you to get premium and a Yen Lo Wang if you don't want to spend a dime. I'm going to list down some economy tips that will help you enjoy the game at the same time earning more c-bills even if you drive a heavy or assault mech. There will be compromises, but hopefully they will be acceptable ones.

Our goal is to play the mechs we want without going negative or 0 in our profits. There are some things you should first avoid when upgrading your mech. This does not apply if you just turn repair and rearm off and suicide each game.

UPGRADES AND EQUIPMENT AND HOW THEY AFFECT YOUR REPAIR COSTS

Upgrades to avoid:

Ferro Fibrous Armor

This upgrade is in all aspects INFERIOR to Endo Steel. If you need more tonnage at the cost of Critical Slots, get Endo Steel. Ferro Fibrous armor will make repairs quite unbearable if you want to repair your mechs armor. If you don't repair your armor, you won't have as much fun because you'll be running around in a paper-thin war machine.

Upgrade at your own risk:

XL Engine.

This significantly raises your 1) repairs and 2) chance to get killed. If you are not able to stay alive most games before giving significant contributions in order to get bonuses to offset the cost, then I cannot recommend getting an XL Engine.

Upgrades that are good for you:

Endo Steel - Lots of weight savings, negligable repair costs.
Double Heat Sinks - Increased heat dissipation, negligable repair costs. Subject to current balance tweaks so check patch notes frequently.

Upgrades that can be expensive but costs negated:

Artemis FCS

This increases the cost of your ammo, but you can use the 75% free reloads that the game gives you. Turn off auto-rearm and calculate your ammo needs based off having only 75% ammo instead of 100%. If you fall short, just try to put in an extra ton to make up for it.

If you have good firing discipline, 30-40 shots are more than enough to get you through a round for a dedicated LRM boat assuming you don't waste missiles into a mountainside and focus on targets that are already being hit as opposed to trying to take down an Atlas by yourself.

MANAGING YOUR REPAIRS AND REARM TO MINIMIZE MAINTENANCE COSTS

First of all, turn off your auto-repair and auto-rearm. No, we are not going to suicide farm.



You will get 75% of your ammo returned for free after each match, so do not worry about ammo. Now we will micro-manage our armor repairs. If you have a heavy or assault mech, armor can kill your income, but there is a way to minimize the hit on your profits while maintaining a relatively battleworthy mech. This is where we repair only the sections of your mech that are important!

If you are a small mech, you can repair fully without any problems, but once you get bigger the costs start to add up! So it would be great if you just repair your main torso (ideally where most of your weapons are) and just go with the free repairs for your arms and legs. Up to you if you want to repair the head.

So, I went out and got my Atlas shot up badly (sorry teammates!) for the sake of getting some screenshots and data. This is an Atlas LRM Boat with Artemis and 10 tons of LRM ammo. I will show you how I manage to not go crazy and perhaps even turn in a small profit even if you lose a game without premium or founders.

We will focus our repairs on the areas the matter. For this mech, it is the Center Torso and the Left Torso (where my missiles are at). I have no ballistic weapon and my ammo is stored in the Legs, Center Torso, Left Torso, and Head. Repairing only these sections will allow me to perform during a match without having to worry if my main weapons will get taken out too soon.

HOW TO REPAIR SPECIFIC SECTIONS OF YOUR MECH

First we turn off auto-repair and auto-rearm as stated above! (See screenshot)

Next we will 1) Go to the mechlab, 2) Select our damaged mech, and 3) Go to loadout



After we select our mech, pick the sections that you want to repair. In this case, it will be the CENTER TORSO and the LEFT TORSO. You will see a repair button. Click it. It will repair the selected section of the mech and nothing else!



You will see the repair cost of the section and just repair it! The Atlas is huge and has tons of armor, but just the Center Torso are cheap! 17k! Not bad!It displays 17k, but it does not factor in the actual Armor repair (it shows 0). I subtracted the internals and equipment repair from the difference of the before and after repair to determine that the armor cost 25,053 to repair for a total of 42,832 c-bills for the center torso. I got blown out by three lights and cored last match.



Now let's repair our Left Torso cause that's where all my missiles and launchers are! Almost 5k. Not too shabby! So our total bill right now is around 22k repairs. Now that we've fixed the math same as above, the armor cost here is actually 9,800 c-bills for a grand total of 14,592 c-bills repair cost for the Left Torso. Even if you lose a game you still earn (a little) without premium and Founders or the Wang.



Now I can take my mech back into combat!! The arms and legs are battered up but we don't really need them that much. The free repairs cover what protection it has. The important part is that my main armament and center torso have full protection.

My total repair bill is 22,571 c-bills! 34,853 c-bills! Now how much did we save? Here is the full repair and rearm cost of my Atlas after that battle:



A bank-breaking, heart-crushing 218,463 c-bills! Even if I won that match I'd practically earn nothing with Founders + Premium. Ammo alone is worth 150,300 but we solve that by disabling auto-rearm and getting 75% ammo free. Guess what? 75% of 10 tons of ammo is still more than enough to last a whole match.

Next we'll look at our armor repairs!



Cripes! Armor repairs alone can wipe out your profits and make you go into the red when you lose. If you used Ferro armor this would have been much worse. Do not get Ferro!

Now we do 68,163 - 22,571 = 45,592 68,163 - 34,853= 33,310 in savings from armor repair by fixing only the essential parts of your mech. That can mean the difference between going negative and earning a little. The difference will be much higher if you've received severe damage to your arms and legs, but that wasn't the case in this example!

One more thing that is possible is that you can click off Items Repair. All your items have fixed hitpoints and these are also restored to working levels after a match. If I click off item repair for my CT and LT, I'll save 21,851 c-bills from my repairs at the cost of having my equipment break faster -after- my armor has been breached. That would reduce my CT/LT repair bill to 35,573 c-bills from 57,424 c-bills.

Now even if you lose, you can take your Atlas Missile Boat out and be confident that you'll be in good shape to handle what comes your way. This can apply to any large mech that has the majority of the weapons in the torso since repairing the torso also allows you to survive compared to repairing an arm or leg. Remember, it's up to you to decide what parts you don't need fixed and what parts you want fixed so that you can enjoy a decent game!

Anyway, give it a try and see if it works out for you. You can take your huge mech out for a spin and still enjoy the game since you won't be too busted up when you take it out of the garage. See what costs you can tolerate to repair between matches and mix it up until you find a good balance of playability and earnings. I hope that some of you find this useful!

(Credit to the Yen Lo Wang Zombie thread here for letting me know about repairs in individual sections)

Other References:

Hunchback HBK-4SP (5x) Medium Laser (2x) SRM6
Catapult CPLT-K2 Dual AC20 Quad Medium Laser
Atlas AS7-D-DC Budget ECM Assault
Atlas AS7-D-DC Alpha 85
Mechwarrior Meme Thread!

Edited by Elizander, 18 December 2012 - 01:01 PM.

[CannonFodder86]

Wow the repair bill on that thing is insane... just repairing your CT and LT is how much it costs me rearm and repair my light mechs... andyou can repair my whole hanger twice after dieing.

i imagine that relying more on lasers or ballistic(assuming the bullets cost less than missiles) might cut the ammo cost down...

[Elizander]

CannonFodder86, on 14 November 2012 - 02:37 AM, said:

Wow the repair bill on that thing is insane... just repairing your CT and LT is how much it costs me rearm and repair my light mechs... andyou can repair my whole hanger twice after dieing.

i imagine that relying more on lasers or ballistic(assuming the bullets cost less than missiles) might cut the ammo cost down...

That's the best part. You pay 0 for ammo with auto-rearm off. Instead of 1,800 missiles I go in with 1,500. 1500 is more than enough to finish a match. The game currently gives you free ammo if you do not rearm.

Edited by Elizander, 14 November 2012 - 02:50 AM.

[TheRuslan]

As u see here, armor repair cost 0. Dont be fooled, it still takes money. Here is the bug . Re-calculate again. I agree about auto rearm.

[Elizander]

TheRuslan, on 14 November 2012 - 04:03 AM, said:

As u see here, armor repair cost 0. Dont be fooled, it still takes money. Here is the bug . Re-calculate again. I agree about auto rearm.

Ah, you are correct. I noticed it happen before but I didn't see it for that screenshot. Thankfully I have not repaired my Atlas yet. Let me do the maths.

Edit:

Thank you for pointing it out. I have updated the numbers and I provided an additional option on how to lower the repair costs to make up for the previous armor repairs that were not included due to the display bug!

Edited by Elizander, 14 November 2012 - 04:38 AM.

[DivineEvil]

The best advice that I can add for it, is that:

Use XL engines to the max. Do not buy XL engine on every mech in your inventory. When one of your mechs that you are getting experience for gets topped, take off his XL engine and place it on another mech you're planning to play actively. You can get it back when other two variants are topped, which unlocks higher efficiencies tier. It's possible to manage unlimited amount of mechs with 225, 275 and 325 XL engines for different maneurability needs.

Also, before selling a mech, take off all the equipment you might use later first, just in case. All items are sold for half the original price, thus you're losing half the CBs you've already spent on them.

Edited by DivineEvil, 14 November 2012 - 05:24 AM.

[TheRuslan]

I noticed, if u use XL engines, they get damaged to 25 % of health. It,s the lowest value that repair status gets. So, I suggest do not repair XL engine all time. U save a lot of money.

[Elizander]

TheRuslan, on 14 November 2012 - 06:12 AM, said:

I noticed, if u use XL engines, they get damaged to 25 % of health. It,s the lowest value that repair status gets. So, I suggest do not repair XL engine all time. U save a lot of money.

The quick alternative to that would be:

[MrLiNcH]

Great write-up! Did not know you could repair individual sections, thanks!

Just running a DRG-1C right now and full repairs only cost 20k-40k depending on the match, so still making a profit. But I see where assault mechs would definitely want to prioritize. 220k O_O

[Elizander]

MrLiNcH, on 14 November 2012 - 09:55 AM, said:

Great write-up! Did not know you could repair individual sections, thanks!

Just running a DRG-1C right now and full repairs only cost 20k-40k depending on the match, so still making a profit. But I see where assault mechs would definitely want to prioritize. 220k O_O

Yes, a lot of players complain of repair costs but in truth, a lot of us are going in there with mechs that are not 100% repaired and it is saving us tons of c-bills. Your fun isn't diminished if you repair the right parts or play the proper role (live long enough to deal damage despite having less armor). This works best for long-range snipers and LRM boats, but brawlers with no arm weapons can save repairs on arms/legs, equipment and ammo since you're gonna get torso-killed most of the time anyway.

[Green Mamba]

Great Post ,Been looking for someone do something like this,very nice job!

[Kiiyor]

Fantastic work, this should be added to newbie guides!

This sort of penny pinching would go a long way towards reducing the grind new players have to face to get their grubby little mitts on more powerful mechs.

I can imagine this manual doing the rounds in a mercenary company:

Budget mech livin'!
The perfect guide for today's penny pinching, duct tape wielding, dodgy solution approving, near-enough-is-friggin-good-enough mechwarrior!

[Elizander]

Gah, I broke the images when I edited it a little. Fixed now!

[Aym]

Which brings us to the point that if there is true role warfare, why oh why are assault pilots punished economically for filling an intended role? If bigger does not equal better, why is bigger punished?

[Ryft]

This is a great guide! I find that I do not lose arms (and certainly not legs) very often at all in my Atlas. Selective armor repairs are an amazing help given that I have a LOT of upgrades to go, and still have two more Atlas variants to buy.

[Elizander]

Aym, on 03 December 2012 - 01:46 PM, said:

Which brings us to the point that if there is true role warfare, why oh why are assault pilots punished economically for filling an intended role? If bigger does not equal better, why is bigger punished?

Sadly that is a different discussion altogether and it probably deserves its own thread. I know that they initially stated that all mechs would earn the same amount of c-bills net but they changed their minds halfway. This is just a guide on how to get through the current system in place though and not for debate on why the current system is like this.

Ryft, on 03 December 2012 - 09:58 PM, said:

This is a great guide! I find that I do not lose arms (and certainly not legs) very often at all in my Atlas. Selective armor repairs are an amazing help given that I have a LOT of upgrades to go, and still have two more Atlas variants to buy.

Good luck with it! I finished my Atlas grind (and kept my sanity) already so I hope you get yours done too.

[Kiiyor]

It's a travesty that this is buried! More people should read it, maybe there would be less worrying about cbill generation and more playing. And a 46% decrease in farmers </questionable statistic>

[Dendrobium]

I wish I would have read this topic before ditching my Atlas. I was either breaking even or losing on each and every match. Even after being in top 3 almost every match! I traded it in for the 4 ballistic hard point Cataphract. I like it much better but still, would be nice to have the Atlas around. I'll have to keep this one in mind from now on.

[Seigaku]

The game still spends money on repairs and rearm?

[MartianMonkey]

You don't have to repair or rearm. They tweaked how you get paid at the end of the match now.