Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4

[Colonel Sanders Lite]

But with the shares system, do I still have to pay dead people?
I don't mind paying people who buy out, or quit - but paying people who are dead seems confusing to me. ???

IRL:

In share based ventures, shares are inheritable by next of kin.  A share is literally ownership in the company or some specific part of that company (like all profits due to an expedition) and depriving a next of kin of their share is fraud and can lead to legal action.  A share is valid until the company buys that share out or the company goes defunct in some way.

[mcjomar]

See, detail like that we never covered by books or games, so I got a little wierded out by that one. Cheers.

E: New question - I've got a ton of prisoners. And the collection keeps growing.
Should I just start an actual prisoner collection ('I've got one from this world, one from that one, one from over there, but I haven't gotten one from there yet...' *invades*), or just start freeing these mooks?

I've managed to recruit one (surprisingly good mechwarrior), but the rest of them are firmly choosing to remain prisoner.
It's cluttering up my personnel listings. Is there something like a repatriation/ransoming system (it gets mentioned in the lore a bunch, so...?) Or is it a case of I'm stuck with either keeping them or freeing them? Or is there some kind of option for me to recruit them via negotiation or something? (Also - if I somehow survive the next 49 years, given the propensity for the RNG to keep hitting my ammo, do I get bondsmen?).

[scJazz]

You can just delete them from the roster. You will get Bondsmen fighting the Clans.

The real reason for Prisoner Capture is to allow an extra way to get personnel via the Defection roll, some extra cash on the side, and some tasks for your Doctors. After that they serve no purpose. Do whatever you want with them. This is left intentionally vague and you can RP any solution you like.

Generally speaking, I remove all prisoners at the end of a contract and I kind of keep score with them.

Still the answer is... delete them when they get annoying.

[mcjomar]

I guess I'll  'free' them and rp wise they're  passed on to my employers to deal with. Except for the ones that sign up i guess.

[BLOODWOLF]

http://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=42191.0 What do I do with these prisoners.

[mcjomar]

Nifty thanks. I've got 3 mia and it would be nice to get them back

[Dalthius]

Campaign system tab starting at line 325 explains the shares system.  I dont like shares and I dont use it.  I only pay out to my personnel when they successfully reenlist then they get a bonus like what is done in the real world military.  Not part of the program and have to do it myself but oh well.

Not many folks get reenlistment bonuses in the military. In fact, the vast majority do not. Critical positions do (some, not all). Like Mechwarriors, perhaps.

[mcjomar]

Okay, so I maybe found a bug?
I tried customising my banshee, but realised there was a better way, so I cancelled the customisation after having started it.
However, it now prevents the meklab from coming up at all when I click the "customise mek in meklab" option, so I can't customise it anymore.
Is there a fix or workaround for this?

[BLOODWOLF]

I was talking about in the real world military (was USMC 1/9) a majority if not all MOS's offered reenlistment bonuses.  Which is how I conduct my HQ campaign, just saying.

[Dalthius]

Oh I know what you meant. It's just not that way anymore. During the height of the war it was more prevalent, but that is long past. I got a bonus a couple times but not these days.

[scJazz]

Okay, so I maybe found a bug?
I tried customising my banshee, but realised there was a better way, so I cancelled the customisation after having started it.
However, it now prevents the meklab from coming up at all when I click the "customise mek in meklab" option, so I can't customise it anymore.
Is there a fix or workaround for this?

Revert to a previous save is probably the easiest. Deleting the Banshee itself and then GM adding a new one will probably work.

[mcjomar]

I'm  a bit unsure of doing that just yet as it's  missing an arm and a ppc. Maybe once i get or salvage the parts to fix it i guess.

[PurpleDragon]

yep.  I have found that you can only customize a unit if it is whole. 

[mcjomar]

I'm  able to customise broken units - I'm  currently customising my one-legged  lancelot. I just can't  customise a unit where I've  cancelled a customisation immediately after having given the order to customise it. But to play fair I'll  wait until I've  completely  repaired my banshee before i gm fix the problem. I'm  playing this tun as pseudo ironman.

[BLOODWOLF]

Oh I know what you meant. It's just not that way anymore. During the height of the war it was more prevalent, but that is long past. I got a bonus a couple times but not these days.

Re-enlistment bonus is the bonus the USMC pays out when you chose to serve for another four years.  It is still that way today.  Not a bonus to pay while your serving, only when you decide to lengthen your contract for another four years.

http://www.marines.mil/News/Messages/Messages-Display/Article/897238/mcbul-7220-fiscal-year-2016-fy16-selective-reenlistment-bonussrb-program-and-fy/

[pheonixstorm]

Might not apply to other branches though BW.

[mighty midget]

Might not apply to other branches though BW.

The US Navy does the same, based upon your rating (what other branches call MOS) your re-enlistment bonus changes.  An example of this is that personnel that operate the nuclear power plants generally get a larger re-enlistment multiplier than cooks.  I'm relatively certain that similar things happen in the other US military branches but I don't know about other countries.

[BLOODWOLF]

Yeah in the US military all branches offer re-enlistment bonuses, maybe not for every MOS (job) but, its a retention program to give people incentive to either stay in or lateral move in a field that the military considers a priority at that time.  But I know this is off subject never mind.

[Dalthius]

I've been in the USAF for 18 years. That's what I'm saying; it depends on your MOS/career field, and at this point most do NOT pay a bonus anymore. Critical career fields (EOD, pilots, Spec Forces, Nuclear, and other critically/low-manned fields) offer bonuses, and that applies to all branches. It's all about timing. Height of the war it was more common/prevalent across all branches. Now it's less common, particularly in the Army, as they are trying to pare down to post-WW2 manning levels. I'm not just making crap up ;)

[neoancient]

I've been busy over the past few months putting the finishing touches on a random unit generation system that gives a lot more control over the types of units generated than the standard RAT. This is not an announcement of that, but I state this as the background for what follows:

In preparation for the new option I've been reworking the way MHQ handles the RATs to make it more efficient and allow some of the benefits of my new system. In the process I had the idea of changing the way the RAT metadata (what MHQ uses to figure out which one to use) is stored. The new format has several advantages:

* More efficient: MHQ will only load data for the ones it is configured to use.
* Easier to maintain
* Easier to customize
* Provides additional options for custom RATs (such as the ability to have mixed unit types).

The only downside I can see is that some people are working with custom RATs and will have to redo the work required to make them available in MHQ. If anyone has put enough work into it that changing the format would be a great inconvenience, I can provide some automated conversion.

I have attached the file for Xotl's RATs using my proposed new format. Feedback and suggestions are welcome.

[SirMegaV]

Hi Neoancient, can you post the auto RAT conversion? I have quite a few of them that require conversion to your new format.

[MoleMan]

Sounds very cool, thanks neo!

[Southernskies]

The permanent injuries really pile up when the infantry gets hit.

Just had to transfer 8 soldiers to admin duties; 5 right arms and 3 left legs amputated!

[PurpleDragon]

The permanent injuries really pile up when the infantry gets hit.

Just had to transfer 8 soldiers to admin duties; 5 right arms and 3 left legs amputated!

Yes, combat really is a hurtful, deadly thing. 

[Southernskies]

Strange problem.

My saved game corrupted as some point over a few saves.  It seems to be something to do with the Hanger, as the graphical refresh hangs and "advance day" adds events inline instead of clearing the previous day.

Old (working) save and latest (corrupt) save attached.

Reloading the old save seems to fix the problem.  Between the two versions I took a lot of casualties and totally destroyed mechs, as well as added "Administration" to 90% of my combat personnel.

The save file is now over 4MB, so I presume that is also normal for a long game.

[BLOODWOLF]

That was either fixed(if it had to do with C3 or the dates for engines) in the latest version of HQ or there is a work around if the problem is java9 https://github.com/MegaMek/megamek/wiki/Known-Issues-and-Workarounds.

[Southernskies]

Tried the workaround ( megamek.l4j.ini file in my version ) and didn't seem to make a difference.

I've gone through all my saves and narrowed it down to the resolution of the battle on the 20th.  All saves prior to that battle are fine; everything after has a corrupted Hanger tab.

I tried turning off "parts by year", since the OpFor seems to be using 3039 RATs currently, but no change there.  As I'm on exchange, the only changes to the hanger are my own casualties.

I'll just revert and delete that particular battle before continuing, as it seems particular to that save point onwards.

[neoancient]

Hi Neoancient, can you post the auto RAT conversion? I have quite a few of them that require conversion to your new format.

It's not some independent utility I can share. I set aside an interim version of MHQ that does the conversion when it loads up. If you send me your data/universe/ratinfo.xml I can do the conversion and send it back in the new format, which is used in the latest release.

If your custom tables fill in areas that were missing in the previous selections, you might try out the generated RAT option in the latest release. It covers all eras from 2398-3150, and handles in-between years in a way that the older system couldn't.

[neoancient]

Strange problem.

My saved game corrupted as some point over a few saves.  It seems to be something to do with the Hanger, as the graphical refresh hangs and "advance day" adds events inline instead of clearing the previous day.

Old (working) save and latest (corrupt) save attached.

Reloading the old save seems to fix the problem.  Between the two versions I took a lot of casualties and totally destroyed mechs, as well as added "Administration" to 90% of my combat personnel.

The save file is now over 4MB, so I presume that is also normal for a long game.

It is a bug associated with an engine part. I did not look into it in detail because I found that it works in the latest version. The bug was likely fixed by Ajkosch while he was reworking repair code.

[Southernskies]

New MekHQ and updating Java appears to have fixed it.