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Contract 1, FedCom Extraction Raid

4 (100%)

Contract 2, Outworlds Alliance Recon Raid

0 (0%)

Contract 3, FedCom Recon Raid #1

0 (0%)

Contract 4, FedCom Recon Raid #2

0 (0%)

None of the above - wait a month and try again (please post to specify acceptable contract criteria)

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 4

[Anvilfolk]

Yeah, I did them manually this first time. Did people like them and find them useful, or are you fine with just a general description from each round?

Definitely useful, but not nearly enough to justify each match being a crapton of work for you so that you stop enjoying the process! We should be able to infer most things from the map & attack arrows, so why not screenshot before the final shot? Then you can let us know who got a lot of damage, who didn't, etc, much more succinctly?

Also, I'm very happy to see I'm not the only one GMing the heck out of the RNG madness that is maintenance!

[EuchreJack]

I'm wondering about automation in Against the Bot.

1) Does the program simulate Going Rogue, or do I have to generate the Pirate missions myself?

2) Does the program simulate the Infantry Support rules, or is that all on me?

[Hanzoku]

Good questions, I'll make a copy of the campaign and play around with it to see if I can find some answers. I'm guessing (probably) no to both, as it doesn't have support for playing as Noble yet, either.

[RedKing]

Or not! In the physical round, Konrad gets annoyed and kicks his head in, securing a badly savaged but otherwise intact Phoenix Hawk as potential salvage.

I love this. After what, 7-8 rounds of pumping heavy damage into that PXH, I can picture Konrad yelling "WHY! YOU! NOT! DYING!" while punctuating each word with a kick. Followed by the crunch of a cockpit and Konrad muttering, "Ehh...I think I step in someone..."

Also, Konrad knows that in an alternate universe he had two kills and is giving that FedCom hotshot the stink-eye.

I'm guessing all the Jenner damage was armor only? Fixing Jack's WLF is going to cost some pretty C-bills. He might need to switch rides for a bit.

[EuchreJack]

Or not! In the physical round, Konrad gets annoyed and kicks his head in, securing a badly savaged but otherwise intact Phoenix Hawk as potential salvage.

I love this. After what, 7-8 rounds of pumping heavy damage into that PXH, I can picture Konrad yelling "WHY! YOU! NOT! DYING!" while punctuating each word with a kick. Followed by the crunch of a cockpit and Konrad muttering, "Ehh...I think I step in someone..."

Also, Konrad knows that in an alternate universe he had two kills and is giving that FedCom hotshot the stink-eye.

I'm guessing all the Jenner damage was armor only? Fixing Jack's WLF is going to cost some pretty C-bills. He might need to switch rides for a bit.

Some contracts give compensation for damage.

I've been meaning to test the "Going Rogue".  As one trigger is suppose to be defaulting on loans, that should be easy to set up (although FM ratings lists loan defaults as equivalent to contract breaches, so I doubt it's been coded).
EDIT: I confirmed that defaulting on a loan is registered as a minus on the FM rating but not the Interstellar rating.  Does not lead to piracy unless the player wants to roleplay it.  I've tried listing the units as 'Pirate' rather than 'Mercenary', but could not see a difference.

Regarding Infantry Platoons, I thought I should warn you that they're expensive on a per-month basis.  Salary for 20-28 men each platoon will really cut into the profits.  Approximate cost of 15,000 cbills a month, or approximately 10 times the cost of the average mechwarrior.  Go for the 20-man platoons rather than higher counts.
EDIT1: Ok, I have more exact figures.  A mechwarrior costs twice as much as a soldier, if both have the same skill ranking.  So the "10 times as much" is probably quite accurate.

[Rince Wind]

What does the *p ammo for the autocannons do? One of my warriors just got AC/20p as a specialization. She is in a Stalker.


Edit:
This is awesome:

End Phase
-------------------
MechWarrior Millard Madaj (Free Worlds League) sits down with his colleagues and cracks open a beer!
MechWarrior Bojana Djorovic (Federated Commonwealth) sits down with his colleagues and cracks open a beer!

[RedKing]

Or not! In the physical round, Konrad gets annoyed and kicks his head in, securing a badly savaged but otherwise intact Phoenix Hawk as potential salvage.

I love this. After what, 7-8 rounds of pumping heavy damage into that PXH, I can picture Konrad yelling "WHY! YOU! NOT! DYING!" while punctuating each word with a kick. Followed by the crunch of a cockpit and Konrad muttering, "Ehh...I think I step in someone..."

Also, Konrad knows that in an alternate universe he had two kills and is giving that FedCom hotshot the stink-eye.

I'm guessing all the Jenner damage was armor only? Fixing Jack's WLF is going to cost some pretty C-bills. He might need to switch rides for a bit.

Some contracts give compensation for damage.

True, but unless we brought some extra gyros and engines, we're gonna have to order them and wait for them to get shipped in-theater, or kill and field-strip an appropriate "donor" Mech.

[Anvilfolk]

I think configuration people suggest for AtB so far has been that it's delivered within 1d6 days, so it's not so bad. Depends on how you're playing it!

[Hanzoku]

I'm wondering about automation in Against the Bot.

1) Does the program simulate Going Rogue, or do I have to generate the Pirate missions myself?

2) Does the program simulate the Infantry Support rules, or is that all on me?

1) Going Rogue doesn't seem to be simulated at all. I created and breached three contracts, bombing the unit's rating to -75/F, and while we're not offered contracts over two months, there's no sign of unit contracts being created.

2) The infantry support rules don't seem to be simulated. No roll from the program for the infantry platoon I created.

On delivery - gyros we can have delivered (and have), but engines are an issue. Until we're B or A ranked, we can't just buy those off the market, which means downing something with an appropriate engine and retrofitting. Times like these are when I wish we had an elite tech.

We have an elite tech as of Episode 5!

[Hanzoku]

What does the *p ammo for the autocannons do? One of my warriors just got AC/20p as a specialization. She is in a Stalker.

I'm guessing from looking at the stats and fluff year it becomes available, that the p stands for 'primitive'. At the AC/20 level, the only change seems to be that the p ammo only gives 4 shots per ton instead of 5.

In a situation like that, I'd use GM mode to change the specialization to a weapon available on a Stalker, probably by giving each weapon a number, and rolling a random number. It makes no sense that someone that has never fired a AC/20p would suddenly realize their sole purpose in life is to find one and use it like an elite gunner.

Also, what the heck happened leading up to the pilots kicking back with a beer?

[Neonivek]

I know this is greedy to ask, but make sure my guy improves his mech fixing/building/altering/designing skills along with his others >_> even if right now it is probably really lousy because I didn't start with a light mech (dang lack of light quads!)

---

I am actually impressed a lot of the time by the weapons included in the game.

Do you want to play a game where Meks BARELY exist? Well they have rules and weapons (but I thick they lack Mechs).

And goodness would sticking to early weapons be interesting given that a Small laser and AC/2 are about as powerful as it often gets.

[Rince Wind]

I'm guessing from looking at the stats and fluff year it becomes available, that the p stands for 'primitive'. At the AC/20 level, the only change seems to be that the p ammo only gives 4 shots per ton instead of 5.

In a situation like that, I'd use GM mode to change the specialization to a weapon available on a Stalker, probably by giving each weapon a number, and rolling a random number. It makes no sense that someone that has never fired a AC/20p would suddenly realize their sole purpose in life is to find one and use it like an elite gunner.

Also, what the heck happened leading up to the pilots kicking back with a beer?

They ejected and ended up on the same hex. Probably were like: Ok, our multi ton warmachine are just scrap now, and I don't really want to wrestle you or something, so why not drink a beer and watch the rest of them duke it out?

And damn, I had hoped the *p would be for something like "piercing". Maybe less damage but higher crit chance.

Who pays all these astechs anyway? I mean I have more than 100 of those "temporary astechs", some that I have dragged with me since Outreach, some that I pressed into service elsewhere. Don't they want any money?

[Hanzoku]

Well, the very first mech is actually a 100-tonner. As for primitive mechs, If you use the Against the Bot > CivilianUnits_PrimMech RAT, you can get a spread of primitive versions of different mechs.

Sarna.net Primitive Battlemechs This category gives all the models that have a primitive version somewhere. Overall, they have access to most of the same things, just in lesser quantities.

A game where you only had access to 2 or 3 damage weapons would be interesting - combat would last a lot longer, barring disproportionate crits happening.

edit:

Neonivek - Understood, and will do. I'd like to get you to Regular levels for Piloting and Gunnery first, and then I'll start putting XP into your Mech Tech skills. Once you get to regular, you can take over maintaining your own Mech.

What I'd really like to do is when we get to A-rank, and can have access to factories is sit down with you and figure out what you'd want from a quad... and then the unit builds one. 

In the far future, I'd also like to build my homebrew mech form years ago, the ARE-1S Ares, a 90t jump capable mech with two large lasers, six medium lasers and four SRM-4 packs. I recall that it should be able to jump and fire everything but the large lasers every round without heat problems, but I think it was built on a 3050+ tech base to do so.

[EuchreJack]

A game where you only had access to 2 or 3 damage weapons would be interesting - combat would last a lot longer, barring disproportionate crits happening.

I'd rather play a game where I only had access to AC-20s and PPCs, plus missiles to kill vees.  I've no interest in combat lasting longer, lol.

[Anvilfolk]

Huh, you can't buy engines until a given time? When I'm annoyed at maintenance I just put all my mechs in a maintenance facility to make the checks easier Probably cheating, huh? I must've completely skipped over those rules - MekHQ certainly allows you to do it! Also, the rating I've found on MekHQ isn't a letter, it's a number.