Campaign Rules: Against the Bot Thread #4

[Bonepart]

Thanks for the information. Now I know what to look for as being IS2, so that should help. I also think I need to break up my assault lance. I put both assaults i had in there, but now I think I'll make two lances, each with one assault and the rest heavies. I'm not at home so I can't look at my unit makeup, but in total I have 2 assaults, I think 4 lights (they tend to go boom) and the rest is a fairly even mix of mediums and heavies. 25 is my total count I believe.

I know what you mean about the enemy rating. I rolled a special mission, civilian rescue. One of my officers deployed, I think he was 4/4. One of the 3 pilots he faced was an elite in a Falconer FLC-9R packing a gauss rifle and an ER PPC. Did I mention it was raining? Mud everywhere. No jumpjets. I couldn't MOVE to get any target modifiers.

I left the civilians to their fate.

A question about training lances. I saw in the AtB rules it says in a battle Green pilots get 1 xp per turn. Reading other places it sounded like they might also get xp from just being in the lance for a week? Without a battle? Is that the case?

[NickAragua]

Correct, green pilots will get 1XP per week as long as their lance is deployed on "training" assignment, regardless of whether there's a battle or not, as long as the lance leader is an officer and at least veteran.

[Bonepart]

I suppose this is more of a MekHQ question, but when a Tech does maintenance does that count as a task for the 1xp/25 tasks?

I want to use my Vet Techs for maintenance, but one has over 30 xp and I want to get him to Elite.

[Rince Wind]

One important thing to know about training lances: the program does not check of you have enough XP to advance from green to regular, just if the pilot is currently green. So they will keep getting XP until you assign those. I happened to forget about a training lance on a longer contract, and those guys were basically veterans afterwards. Or would have been, if I didn't GM their XP away. Maybe not all of it that was over the regular threshhold...

[Schugger]

I suppose this is more of a MekHQ question, but when a Tech does maintenance does that count as a task for the 1xp/25 tasks?

I want to use my Vet Techs for maintenance, but one has over 30 xp and I want to get him to Elite.

I too always assign my best Techs for maintainance. The better die roll modifier could make a difference between a damaged gyro right before a battle and avoid other nasty surprises.
I don't think that maintainance counts as a completed task for XP. Even if it does, lets do some math.
You need 40 XP to get from Veteran to Elite Tech. You need 25 tasks for getting one XP, netting you a whopping 1000 maintainance tasks. If you do maintainance checks once every 30 days and assuming that you squeeze 8-10 'Mechs into said MechTech's maintainance cycle, he will become Veteran in only about 100 month or so.
A good HR Admin paired with Paid Recruitment rolls really helped me out right from the start in my campaign.
 

[Bonepart]

Here is a question more about playing against the bot rather than the rules.

Has anyone tried playing with sensors? Is there a way to hide units you don't have LOS to, but that will still show up on sensors if in range, and does that work at all with the bot?

[NickAragua]

There's a setting in "megamek options" somewhere, under "advanced rules". It's "TacOps double blind" and "TacOps sensor rules". From what I understand, the AI basically ignores that setting and just plays as if it had perfect info. I could be wrong though.

[zulf]

do monthly maintenance checks count toward the task completion counter for XP for your techs?

[Southernskies]

Princess doesn't handle Double Blind well.  Without a visible target, she just wanders aimlessly (or stands there).  Once a target is sighted, the entire team charges that target.  If you set an Objective in the AI lobby, she will go to that point (but still won't search for hidden targets).

[Bonepart]

How does everyone house rule the use of Aerospace? I like having a flight of ASF for support to make bombing runs, although it would seem a bit overpowered to use them all the time. Maybe treat them like reinforcements with a reinforcement role of 4+? Delay to deploy according to speed?

Playing around with them to get used to how they play on a ground map, it seemed like you really need to limit your pilots to veterans. One of my two fighters took some light damage and missed his control roll, causing him to lose 1D6 altitudes causing him to crash  #P

Bombing was kind of fun though!

Who is maintaining the Against-the-Bot rules now? Any plans to set some rules for the use of fighters?

[NickAragua]

Yeah, I generally allow myself to deploy one IS fighter lance (that's I think a max of two fighters per unit) per unit commander strategy level. That lance can then reinforce one battle per week and do not count in any way, shape or form towards victory conditions. The fighters deploy with the standard reinforcement delay (8 - local commander strategy or something like that).

The fact that you can lose the fighters so easily is enough of a disincentive in my opinion, without further artificial limitations on their deployment.  Also, bombs are frigging expensive (a single HE bomb is 5k, which is comparable to the cost of an LRM/20 salvo, and don't even get me started on the other bombs).

Aircraft definitely are fragile. I've had pretty good success with the Lucifer R20. It a) never overheats and b) it can crash at low velocities and not be turned into scrap, due to the fact that it's basically all armor. But hey, it can still drop bombs just fine. The basic rule of thumb I use is PSR = crashed aircraft, so I tend to avoid those like the plague (manuevers? How about no. Overthrust? No thanks. Drop more than two altitudes? Pass.)

I'm actually working on allowing Princess to properly use aero units on ground maps. It's a non-trivial problem to solve, which is great because I love working on AI, but I wouldn't expect it coming out any time soon. Still, it's something I like to look forward to as my aero jocks strafe hapless enemy vehicles for the eightieth time.

[bluedragon7]

There is the option to use the strat ops advanced rules for fighters, only requiring a piloting roll once the armor threshold is beaten.

I have not seen suitable AtB rules but one flight per strategy per week seems a good rule of thumb, but considering their speed I would have them appear way quicker than mech reinforcements.

Looking forward to see princess using fighters as well.

[Schugger]

I use ASF as integral parts if my deployed lances, so they do count for the lance's weight calculation. This makes deployment of heavy fighters very difficult as you can easily cross the threshold number for weight limits and you basically exchange a 'mech for an ASF.
Yes, ASF are vulnerable. Even with the armor threshold rule enabled, pretty much anything with 5+ damage hitting the side or aft will cause a PSR, which is generally not a good thing. On the other hand, they are also very difficult to hit  - I try to keep velocity at 2 minimum - and as long as Princess has something else easier to hit it doesn't look too bad.

[dragonkid11]

I have decided to try a 3045 campaign which should be enough to randomized my mecrenary unit until Clan Invasion hits full on.

I then proceed to gain a Hunchback in a special mission and then proceed to lose two of my mechs because of freak of nature accident in first campaign.

Just barely made profit in the campaign and then I lost the profit when traveling back to Outreach.

Well, at least I didn't get wipe out.

[MoleMan]

Those campaigns are the best. I crank the wages up by approx. 10x just to make sure I'm not fielding all heavy/assault lances within the first few years.

[dragonkid11]

I lost another mech to ammo explosion, AGAIN.

With the same pilot! She now have lost the unit three bloody mechs.

As soon as case is available, I'm shoving it in no matter what.

EDIT:

I think I finally understand why players that have been through introductory tech only quickly remove ammo dependence weapon as soon as they can.

I have lost another 3 battlemech to ammo explosion thanks to the sheer bad luck of this MechWarrior. At this point, I just ignore it and use GM power to restore the mech because screw this.

[Schugger]

You are doomed, dragonkidd!
"You shall no taketh away the fair share of salvage to the gods of battletech by using GM fiat!"
So speaketh the wise Blake

Prepare to face some nasty through-armor-crits, excessive number of head hits and poisoned PSR's. :D

[Southernskies]

I've been taking more decapitations lately than ammo explosions.

Last game:
Death 1: Large Laser + Medium Laser to the head (KIA)
Death 2: Ammo detonation (below 20% armour at that point, so no surpise)
Death 3: AC10 + LRM5 to the head (emergency eject)
Death 4: Failed PSR on sand dune, CT destruction.

All Heavy/Assault elements from my Command Lance (2 with Star League tech) vs a bunch of mediums and vehicles.

[dragonkid11]

Okay, now I'm getting situation where my mechs outright doesn't appear and ended up having under weight lance fighting a dozen enemies.

This is getting kinda out of hand.

[BLOODWOLF]

Okay, now I'm getting situation where my mechs outright doesn't appear and ended up having under weight lance fighting a dozen enemies.

This is getting kinda out of hand.

Is this what you have run into?
https://github.com/MegaMek/mekhq/issues/242

[dragonkid11]

Looks like it, restarting fix the issue easily.

I really feel that it is so easy to get overwhelmed by vehicles without using advanced tech stuff, simply because that double heat sink basically allow Battlemech to do twice the damage.

This run really gave me a different perspective in how introductory tech gameplay worked.

Which mean I'm going to get even more butthurt when Clanners start showing up.

Anyway, picked another contract and now I having base defense for practically months because my enemy morale decided to go from normal to invincible 3 days into the contract. My bad luck with this run seems to never end.

EDIT:

Also really wished the link at the front page didn't fail so I can download basic rule of AtB and consult it when thinga go wrong with megaHQ myself.

[Rince Wind]

The rules are in /docs/atb stuff in your MekHQ folder.

[NickAragua]

There are three things you can do to make base defense missions a little better.

One is, a base defense will automatically be the *only* mission for that week. This means you should set all your lances to "scout" mode (except the minimum other assignments required by the contract) so you have a 33% chance of each of the other lances being able to reinforce.

Second, MekHQ currently fails to generate turrets and princess doesn't use them properly anyway (although I'm hopeful both of those will change in the next dev release, since I've already coded the fixes). So you'll want to manually generate six turrets for each base defense when you get to Megamek and give them to yourself. Turrets can only go on buildings, btw. I love it when I get artillery turrets, they're great against clumps of vehicles in urban environments.

Third, you can just manually edit the contract and set the enemy morale back to something normal if you're tired of having to deal with base defense missions all the time. I'd probably get sick and tired of it too if I had to deal with a base defense mission every week.

[BlueThing]

How does everyone house rule the use of Aerospace? I like having a flight of ASF for support to make bombing runs, although it would seem a bit overpowered to use them all the time. Maybe treat them like reinforcements with a reinforcement role of 4+? Delay to deploy according to speed?

Playing around with them to get used to how they play on a ground map, it seemed like you really need to limit your pilots to veterans. One of my two fighters took some light damage and missed his control roll, causing him to lose 1D6 altitudes causing him to crash  #P

Bombing was kind of fun though!

Who is maintaining the Against-the-Bot rules now? Any plans to set some rules for the use of fighters?

I only have one Air Lance. I only bring it on missions where I'm greatly outnumbered to help make up the difference.

I also use the Strat Ops optional rule to reduce lawn dart checks after having a really bad run of luck with them.

[dragonkid11]

My initial fear for base defense is that megamek would run really slow due to loading so many units at once.

Turns out, the worry wasn't really needed and now my mechanics are working nearly everyday just to salvage useful scraps off all the vehicles I trashed in base defense so far.

You would think the local would have slower morale after some merc with a bunch of support and Capella militias pretty much kills off hundreds of you men along with several dozen million investment in military equipments.

And damn, really finding that RAT system to be quite flexible even with the limited amount of variety before 3050, I really can't wait to hit the Clanner and probably eat shit in the process soon.

[Schugger]

...
Anyway, picked another contract and now I having base defense for practically months because my enemy morale decided to go from normal to invincible 3 days into the contract. My bad luck with this run seems to never end...

Also happened to me.
I got a contract offer while enroute back to Outreach after completing my last contract and got offered a relief duty contract with 100% salvage. I usually try to plan my contracts that they start early in a month but not on the first day, so that I have enough time to get some victories under my belt before the next enemy morale roll is due. If you are lucky you can end contracts with an early victory because of enemy morale breakdown. Not possible here - I arrived at the end of the month, didn't get five victories = enemy is on steroids and attacking my base every weak. I burnt all hope for an early victory, I have a contract score of 27 just up the thrid month in this contract and enemy morale is still invincible, fatigue will bite my but when in comes to the next defection roll, but hey - the salvage is great :)

[dragonkid11]

I basically have enough spare weapons and ammo for the next several dozens contracts if I ever did that many thanks to all those base defense.

And now it's 3049, starting to see more 'lostech' on the battlefield.

Also, does anyone know what is this Edge thing on the personnel section?

[Rince Wind]

I don't know the MW RPG, but in others it is basically a luck pool you can use either reroll something or to ignore/tone down something bad. You can also specify for what it is used somewhere.

[Schugger]

The"Edge Thing" is what saves your pilot's butts against ammo explosions and through armor crits. Like the get out shit card at Monopoly.

[dragonkid11]

Thanks for the answer.

Hmmm...

Currently in the Clan Invasion era and after several dozens reroll, I finally got a contract against Clan at a very poor salvage rating of 10%.

The contract was one month though, so I just went in there and kill everything on sight. It's a nice touch to see Clanner using a mixed of Star league mech with newer Clan design in their solahma or provisional garrison or whatever. Wish I could salvage everything though...

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