MW5 Career Mode Starts.

[Hammerhead]

As the title says; which Career Mode start is your favourite and why? I’m going to start my first Career Mode run soon, and am curious what the hivemind thinks about the options.

I’m probably going to start one of the 3015 originals, but I’m not necessarily opposed to one of the DLC starts. The only reservation I have is that the DLC starts seem pretty tailored to run their respective mini-campaigns as opposed to a hardscrabble Merc unit trying to stay solvent.

What say you?

[MoleMan]

I came back recently to play, started with the FWL start and found it extremely difficult (console), the Assassin is just an awful mech in it's base config, think I took on 3-4 missions and barely made enough to cover my repairs, sold everything in the end and bought a Hunchie and cleared a few missions solo, that bought me a bit of bank to buy another medium and then we were off. But then, those are actually the most fun parts of the game, currently rolling around with a wealth of SL era heavies and it's just not as much fun.

I initially started at the RoR DLC time point when it came out, but just could not get past the final mission, the attrition was just too much for the small force I'd built up over the missions.

[csdavis715]

You forgot the Draconis Combine. If I'm looking to do a full time investment in the Career game, I'll pick Kurita or Steiner because they give me the best overall starting faction reputation, and getting hero status with all the Great Houses is a priority for me since you never know where a good mech or weapon will pop up around the map and the discounts make a big difference.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Mechwarrior5/comments/snnuj1/faction_reputation_hero_status_with_every_employer/

Cheers

[Hammerhead]

You forgot the Draconis Combine. If I'm looking to do a full time investment in the Career game, I'll pick Kurita or Steiner because they give me the best overall starting faction reputation, and getting hero status with all the Great Houses is a priority for me since you never know where a good mech or weapon will pop up around the map and the discounts make a big difference.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Mechwarrior5/comments/snnuj1/faction_reputation_hero_status_with_every_employer/

Cheers

Oops! You’re right; I totally forgot the Combine. My bad.

Though given the lack of interest in this thread, I’m content to let it die. 😁

I did just start a Career in the Combine, interestingly enough. I’ve imposed restrictions on myself to make it feel a bit more “Succession Wars” to me; no buying Mechs, no Hero Mechs, and no Lostech until the appropriate spot in the timeline for those parts to be manufactured after the Helm Memory Core.  It’s been tough, but fun as hell. I just hit Reputation 9 and still don’t have a Heavy Mech. 😂

[by_the_sword]

I just got into MW5 and I am hooked.  I played a little bit of the campaign but got bored with it, so I started a nerf career with the Capellan Confederation.  Oh man, talk about underdogs.  You start with a Cicada CDA-3C, a Firestarter, a Javelin 10N and a locust 3e. 

I eventually got rid of the Locust and got a Javelin 10F (the one with the four medium lasers).  My lance was pathetic.  I call them the Three Stooges.  Eventually I took a look at their skill sets and put them into mechs that would complement their skills, and they fared a little better.  My lance is light and fast and we do really well with hit and run (emphasis on the RUN).  At first I was skeptical about the CDA-3C, but once I figured out how to use it properly I was zipping all over the place blasting enemies with the PPC and then strafing them with the machine guns.  When I upgraded to bigger better mechs I kept going back to the CDA-C3 because I got such good results with it.  My lance was piloting an Archer, Thunderbolt, and a Centurion while I was doing my hit and run stuff.  Fun times!

[Reality]

The campaign starts are fun because you have a limited time (2 years for kestrel) to build up before the campaign starts and therefore get the most out of the handcrafted maps

If you do a 3015 start, you can easily have 12 heavies before even the earliest campaign