Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4

[Schugger]

Thanks for the answer.

...
Still, that's a surprisingly low number of contract against Clanner in what is basically the Clanner invasion year.

You are welcome :)
About contracts where you got to fight against Clanners, I don't know if MHQ takes into consideration which area is hit by the invading forces, so maybe you should change your location that you get closer to the invasion corridor. Just a wild guess here.

[dragonkid11]

So, does anyone know how to directly edit the weight limit of each tier?

I kinda want to just put the weight limit of each weight tier to the max (Light-140, Medium-220, Heavy-300, Assault-400) because I have managed to salvage a few Stormcrow (Despite all my employers being bloody cheapstake when it's come to salvaging right against clanner.) but I can't use them because my current medium lance has 4 50 ton IS mechs with SL tech.

[zulf]

Has anyone played the Noble rules? i'm looking in to them and they look interesting. any tips for the record keeping aspect? and how best to handle the different "contracts" landhold vs crusade?

[Rince Wind]

Is there a way to just unload the ammo from a unit in MekHQ? I want to sell some clan vees, but keep the ammo in them for my mechs.

[dragonkid11]

Is there a way to just unload the ammo from a unit in MekHQ? I want to sell some clan vees, but keep the ammo in them for my mechs.

Right click and click salvage.

Now loot absolutely everything you want off those vehicles to pimp your mechs in fabulous Clan tech.

EDIT:

This actually bring me a problem though, can Clan weapon used IS ammunition and vice versa? I found mekHQ to be unable to distinguish ammo from different source because the gauss rifle ammo I purchased somehow become Clantech in the warehouse and still be usable by my Hunchback modified to have IS gauss rifle.

[Rince Wind]

I know about salvage, but I thought there might be an easier way than ripping out that whole ammo bin.
After a 9mths campaign I have quite a bit of clan-stuff that is hard to maintain (i need to use my elite techs for that), some of the vees (and mechs) I sell are completly stripped.

The game does differentiate between clan and IS armor, and I think it might for some ammunitions, but not all of them. LRM ammo can be used in both clan and IS launchers, but I am not sure about the special ammo like Artemis.

[2ndAcr]

 You need to "capture" a few Clan mech techs. Makes things a whole lot easier to maintain. Plus you can add in the skill Clan Tech Knowledge to the special skills list if using Dev 43.2 or higher.

[dragonkid11]

Testing up some new stuff again to potentially boost my force.

I'm interested in buying some Battle Armor but I don't have enough omnimechs to carry them and early BA is slow, so I will leave them aside for now.

But what I'm really interested in is artillery, specifically Arrow IV with TAG to give pinpoint targetting.

Except I have absolutely no idea how artillery phase worked, and using the ballistic artillery like Long Tom and Sniper is probably gonna get myself killed more often since nobody is trained in spotting skill.

So, does anyone one here know how to use artillery?

[Rince Wind]

You need to "capture" a few Clan mech techs. Makes things a whole lot easier to maintain. Plus you can add in the skill Clan Tech Knowledge to the special skills list if using Dev 43.2 or higher.

Ohh, I need to do that. Some of my techs should have enough XP already.


Edit: Does it even work yet? Because it won't show up for the tech in question, and it does not have description yet. In the maintenance report there is still a +2 modifier for clan tech.

[2ndAcr]

 I just know it is in there to be honest. My last campaign against the Clans was before that little tid bit was released and during Clan era, I always roll a dice during a Base Attack with me the attacker, if I win the battle. 1-3 I capture 2 die 6 Clan Techs, 4-6 I get 1 die 6 Clan techs captured. If fighting a front line Clan unit, they are all Mech Techs, if a second line or Garrison unit I halve the number captured and replace with Clan Mechanics. So if I capture 10 techs, 5 will be Mech, 5 will be Mechanics.

 If it is not working correctly, you could always "copy" one of your Techs as a freeborn Clan Tech. I have done that previously, used GM edit and literally copied him as a freeborn clan tech to simulate paid tech training with the Dragoons. The only thing I did do different was I lowered his skill level 1. That was to simulate the "difficulty" in repairing Clan Tech which is newish to him.

[BrotherofRandis]

Does MekHQ ATB automatically roll for captured prisoners to defect or do we still need to roll that?

I haven't seen any defect yet is the reason I'm asking.

[BLOODWOLF]

If I remember correctly Akjosch set it that when a prison is willing to defect they will get a * next to their name (might have to widen the name column) and when you get back into HQ from a scenario it will say in your daily log "captured so and so.  Convinced to defect." or something like that.

[devorao]

I think it only rolls if you set random prisoner capture, but I am not 100% sure about it.

[Schugger]

Yep, you have to set this up in the campaign options.
if you pick up enemy MW there are not taken as prisoners most of the time.

[celem]

Trying to find my Unit Rating (the letter) and cant seem to locate it on the Dragoon's Rating tab.  On the info pane furthest down I see #(#) where the number in parentheses is my Unit Rep using InterstellarOp Beta rules. Cant figure out what the first digit represents.  Trying to work out if I can make for a industrial world and take care of some maint issues. (TLN-5V's engine is gonna go any day now and then it's RIP)

Secondly, can I not order specific Mechs from the factory?  Its 3034 and I have Limit Units and Parts by Year checked.  I can properly order parts and the Unit Market gets populated properly.  Yet its impossible for me to buy any unit whatsoever through Procurement, I get 'Unit not invented yet' even for PHX-1 or LCT-1V and similar items that should be fairly widespread.

I dont know battletech at all except through MMek really and own no rulebooks so a lot of this has been painful deduction and googlefu.  Been a lot of fun so far and managed to survive 5 years and reach Augmented Battalion in size.

[Rince Wind]

Your rating should be in the bottom left, visible from all tabs. Right next to your funds.

[celem]

Hmm yes, but thats a number.  In my case it's showing 2(24), but how do I translate that to an A-F?

edit: Aaaand, now I found the option to switch which system is used to score the unit and got a letter.  Thanks Rince wind.

edit2: Figured out procurement of new mechs too.  I just wasnt an important enough a unit to have access to the factories in the current era, managed to lift my rating to B and suddenly theres factory line units on the market and I can even procure a couple of toys.

[Schugger]

Anyone an idea how I can switch searchlights on turrets?
I added the quirk in the lobby but I can't switch them on in the battle.

[BLOODWOLF]

I last time I messed with searchlights they started out turned on, but you only seen them when you fired at a target and then MM would light up the hexes.  If its not doing that for you then since MM doesnt really have an end phase turning them on/off was moved to the movement phase as the only time they can be switched on or off.  If neither of that works then maybe they were never coded to use searchlights and Hammer will have to look at it.  I will notify him.

[Schugger]

Could be that turrets do not have a movement phase or a excluded from this phase, so your turrets either start switched on or off and you can't change it.
I have never seen Princess using searchlights at all, which would be a nasty surprise in some scenarios if she would ;)

[MoleMan]

We really, really need to sort out the Clan opponent force building, they put 2/3x the weight and bv into every fight. It's very offputting for casual players like me.

[Schugger]

MoleMan, you can set the difficulty level in the campaign setting. Default is Regular Setting, if you set this to green or ultra green you shouldn't get that man enemies.

[Rince Wind]

And you can just delete some clanners in the lobby.

Or, as I do it, go with 2 lances by default. If you drag and drop one lance on anothe in the TO&E and then only deploy the 1st one they'll both sent to any missions rolled without any reinforcement delay. The clans don't play fair, so why should you?

[BLOODWOLF]

With my scenario generator thing I'm working on making and then sharing I set it to where most of the time the clans would face your company for example with just a star (their bidding process) and in 3049 or around there a clan mech is worth at least 2-3 if not 4 IS mechs.

Clan # units/star:
5 = 1
4 = 2-3
3 = 4-7 (probabilities out of a randnumber between 1-7)

Clan # forces
3 = 1
2 = 2-3
1 = 4-7 (stars)
*for a company
*which then is multiplied if the player has larger than a company
*so player has a battalion, the clan # forces would be X 3 etc

IS opfor is reverse and more than likely to match your forces but rarely will you be outnumbered unless it is a relief duty mission where the player acts as the reinforcements for the ally bot who is facing x2 it's number.

[Twin_81]

Okay, I don't have an account on github, but I've probably encountered a minor bug in MekHQ. It seems that the 'Reinforcements' monthly event always immediately raises enemy morale by 1 rank. That could be a lucky dice roll by the enemy but this time I encountered it against Greens with A-rated company and without defeats in the month. They must've rolled 13 to achieve that morale raise.

[mcjomar]

Okay, this has likely come up before, but google is being pants and not finding the forum posts/etc.

My MekHQ is generation missions, but is currently returning "No random assignment table found for faction".
I'm fighting Lyrans in 3000 on Zebeneschamali as a Guerilla campaign for 6 months in the employ of the dracs.
It pays well, but my supplies are screwed - my recon lance just got shattered, while my mediums won the fight, but it was a little bit phyrric. I faked the two battles out by using the MegaMek army generator, and subsequently added more RATs to my AtB tab in the campaign, but it's still not returning suitable forces.
Help?

E: okay so a bunch more searching shows that the option for the RAT Generator is more likely to work than the specific rat tables (which is wierd, as I did a campaign previously on MHQ0.42 (the one I'm using now) where I used specific tables, and it worked fine?).

[RahTol]

Had the same thing happen to me. Loaded the game with pre-defined RATs and it worked fine. Playing another game (with all the same settings) and I had to switch to generated RATs.

[mcjomar]

Okay, so running for AtB MHQ 0.42 stable.
Retirement rolls - I saw in other threads I need to give bonuses to my commander to fix having my entire staff retire after one year, even when in the green?
Leadership bonuses?
Or other bonuses?
Where?
Or only on the roll window where I can customise the retirement TNs to modify the rolls for yearly retirement checks?

Is there a way to check personnel morale to see how likely they are to quit?

Is there a way to turn off retirement completely so I can manually retire members as they get too old/injured/have too many kids/etc in a way that seems to make more sense to me?
Do I have to turn off manual roll adjustment in the AtB section?
I already turned off rolling after every contract.

[Schugger]

I think there is a checkbox for retirements/defection in the AtB tab under Campaign Options.
Regarding your question for bonusses for your rolls:
If you play with shares you can pimp your rolls with a modifier up to +3, greatly increasing your chances for passing retirement/defection but you give up as much as 50% of your contract payment.
You can increase your positive modifier by +1 with an additional payout. This can become very expensive if you have an experiance Company of Vets/Elites.
These to options are all included in the basic AtB rules.

[Kovax]

There's a checkbox in the AtB options to allow modifications to Retirement Rolls.  That activates a line at the top of the retirement screen which allows you to set a global modifier.  For initial contracts, I generally set that to -2, and change that to -1 for the next 2-5 subsequent contracts, before setting it to the default "0", by which time you should have a high enough unit rating and Leadership value to help retain personnel.  Then you have the + and - arrows at the extreme right of each member's entry, which allows you to set different odds for the individual member, such as your overall unit commander (I HATE it when the overall commander decides to bug out and abandon his own mercenary unit after the first contract), which I change to a -1 for a couple of the unit founders.  Third, you've got check-boxes to allow a month's pay as a -1 reenlistment bonus.

The highest ranking officer's Leadership rating also affects the odds of retirement, and having more personnel than his rating allows will increase the odds of retirement.  Keep your personnel numbers down to a reasonable amount.

In my current campaign, I'm usually seeing retirement rolls of 3+ on Green personnel, with significantly worse odds for the Veterans.  I tend to hold off promotions for at least one or two Green techs in each category, so I can promote them to Regulars in case I lose too many Regular and Veteran techs, or my lone Elite (I avoid promoting more than one to Elite, because retirement becomes almost inevitable).  A mix of Regular and Veteran personnel, with enough Green to fill any critical gaps left by those who retire, seems to be the optimal solution, at least in my case.