Bossing Around Mad Cats for Fun and Profit: Let's Play MechCommander 2!

[Artanis]

Has anyone ever found a good use for swarm ammo in this game? Because the only thing I've ever seen it do is miss. I suppose it'd be good against someone who was AFK, maybe?

Hell, even Cash can't think of anything. In his little spiel about them, he says, "they're good for taking out lots of vehicles," which I guess they would be if I ever ran into that many vehicles. There's only one time they might be even remotely useful for that, and that one time, I'll have a Long Tom backing me up.

Oh yeah and also while we're on the subject of terrible weapons, how about heavy large lasers? Heavy mediums could theoretically be of use on a short range focus Cougar, but I have no idea what larges could be good for. I mean 18 heat, damn.

I don't get to use Cougars

As for using Large Heavy Lasers, they can sorta be used as an upgrade to (non-ER) PPCs late in the singleplayer game. Regular PPCs are hopelessly obsolete starting right about at the mission I just did, but Large Heavies have the same general balance between damage, RoF, and heat as a PPC while having better output pretty much across the board. The cost for that being 40% more heat*.



*Three slots' worth of PPCs is 10 heat, three slots' worth of LHL+Heat Sink is 14 heat. Under those circumstances, the LHL beats (non-ER) PPCs in all the "per heat" measurements as well.

Incidentally, this is the same metric I use to declare that ACs suck. ...well, that and the fact that they don't show up in screenshots worth a damn

[Johnny Blade]

Just here to cast my vote for Lightning and Thunder Lance.

[SparkMandriller]

I don't get to use Cougars

They're no good anyway. Slow lights are just stupid. Just like a heavy mech, except with much less pod space and armour! Not feeling it, guys.

I guess they fit in other Falcon mechs, though. Summoner, kinda like the Timber Wolf except not really as good! Hellbringers, which are, well, Hellbringers, though at least we don't build them. But hey, I guess Turkinas are kinda nice, and Night Gyrs are basically disco mechs, which is awesome.

(The really hilarious thing is that the stupid light show heat sinks are still better than IS ones. The clans are such cheats.)

As for using Large Heavy Lasers, they can sorta be used as an upgrade to (non-ER) PPCs late in the singleplayer game.

]

Yeah, I thought about that, but then compared them to ridiculous amounts of ERMLs, and they seem much worse. Maybe if this game had a different heat system so you could keep them as backups on mechs with long range weapons or something. Kinda sucks that you need to bring enough heat sinks for every gun you have, even though if you mix ranges you can't even fire them all at once.

[Errant_Polearm]

Compare 2 Clan ER non-large Lasers to 1 Heavy Large Lase: same space, each does half as much damage as heat produced, and the twin ER Lasers fire a little more than 1.5 times as quickly (3.0 ER versus 1.8 Heavy).

Having two weapons means not necessarily hitting with full force each time, but of course it's more likely to get some hits, so that cuts both ways. However, the special skills come into play as well, since Lasers (Standard and Heavy) are a Regular Skill (when there aren't many good choices) and ER Lasers are for Veterans (when there are more choices). There's also aimed shots and luck. By the time you have both ER and Heavy Lasers, hitting an enemy cockpit with 2.5-5 damage might not mean very much; hit him with a Heavy Laser, and you might scare him into ejecting (or just plain kill him).

Heavy Lasers are probably not as good generally, but they're not bad still Clan tech. I thought that would be good enough for you, commie sympathizer.

[SparkMandriller]

Oh, good point on the skill levels thing. I haven't played the single player in ages, so I'd completely forgotten about that. I had a look at the pilot stats when I was hoping people would be up for multiplayer, but I just assumed the skills were assigned at random. Because I'm smart like that.
Headshots, though, I dunno, I seem to remember even cockpits having ridiculous amounts of armour. I think the last time I played I had the difficulty up pretty high though, so it mighta just been that.



And how about you go murder some more civilians, freebirth?

[Errant_Polearm]

Upon further review, the head shots point is a mild stretch.

Dang it, where's that "Clanner Insults" book when I need it...

[Deliverance]

Thanks for the AARs, Artanis - they inspired me to pick up MC2 for the first time since I played the campaign through at the year of release. :)

This time, I set the difficulty level to veteran rather than the regular I used the first time around and it has proven a much more interesting campaign than I remembered it - I remembered it mostly as "pretty sucky compared to MC1's campaign, just move everybody around in one group and blast everything easily" (after all, MC1 had missions such as "capture trucks driving in several different directions before any escape" forcing you to split your group and value mobility), but after a few early scares with early Urbanmechs nearly knocking out cockpits in one lucky shot I am now almost paranoid with respect to safety and slapping on as much armour as each mech can support.

Also, it seems that higher armour penetration is needed such that relying primarily on pulse lasers (as I recall doing the first time around and as you seem to be doing now) makes for very long fights, though it is possible that I am mistaken generally higher armour on the opposition at the higher difficulty level with an increased need for armour penetration.

How do other readers deal with the increased lethality of higher difficulty levels in SP? More armour, deadlier longe range weapons, or better tactics?

My approach seems to work, but it is a very different feel - e.g. I just completed the early "get an atlas mission" by deploying two maximum armoured Zeus' stuffed with ER Large Lasers, ER Lasers, and ordinary lasers - completely forgoing sensors because using 30 or 35 out of the 160 drop limit would significantly reduce my firepower. It did prevent sneaky turrent captures by jumping, but when running in with a Zeus to capture instead the turrets usually only got off one or two shots anyhow.

Got to love those 72 heat the Zeus can handle.

[Timberwolf]

swarm missiles...

They are bloody nasty in large quantity. I shall put why in a spoiler.

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When you assault the liao palace, you run into lots of Catapults loaded to the gills with the wretched things. They were lethal, particularly to your big, slow, tightly grouped (because of the narrow pass to get there) Blood Asps. The best way to avoid them was to run as soon as they fire. Any direction will do, as long as you're not where you were. They have heavily damaged my mechs with a single salvo before and I always tool up with max armour. I hate those Catapults.

[SparkMandriller]

How do other readers deal with the increased lethality of higher difficulty levels in SP? More armour, deadlier longe range weapons, or better tactics?

Stay at long range and shoot everything with ER PPCs. And bring a book, because it takes like 10 head shots to kill a medium mech.

I found higher difficulties tremendously boring, to be honest. The AI still refused to run, so it never got close to my guys, and it never switched targets, so it was still ridiculously easy to kite.
But hey, this was a few years ago, so maybe I'm remembering things wrong and it was really great and you'll enjoy it immensely, right? Right?

The best way to avoid them was to run as soon as they fire.

You say that like you don't always run everywhere...

How is everyone on this forum so patient? I couldn't even stand using Blood Aps at all, and you walk with them?

[Timberwolf]

When I'm firing, yes, I walk as all my mechs will stay together in a nice cohesive unit, no matter how fast they can run and also will fire more often and more accurately.

Anyway, you let them fire (so walk to give the swarm lrm's a target) and then leg it asap.

Getting from A to B though, yes, running does get it done quicker

[blackouttwo]

*nudges thread* Seriously? No other comments? >_> *is not making a thinly-veiled attempt to keep the thread on the 1st Page*

[Artanis]

It probably doesn't help that I've been taking a short break for a couple days to recharge. The next installment should be up tomorrow though

[SparkMandriller]

I could start complaining about things, if you'd like. That might help keep things bumped.

So, there's only one clan assault mech in this game, how much does that suck? Especially since there isn't even a good reason for the IS to have many Blood Asps anyway. Warhawks or Dire Wolves would have not only been much cooler, but a lot more appropriate.
Oh oh oh or a Stone Rhino. I've loved them ever since I saw the name.


Mechcommander 2 was not designed specifically to please me, and is thus stupid, discuss.

[blackouttwo]

To be honest, Spark, I agree with you on the 'only one clan assault mech' thing. I mean, come on. Of all the different Clan 'mechs you could've picked for the Assault class, not only was there not a Daishi, but the Blood Asp belongs to a relatively minor clan and has little to no exposure to Inner Sphere units. A Masakari and Daishi at the least wouldn't have killed them.

[SparkMandriller]

I don't see how I'm supposed to argue with you if you agree with me.

[blackouttwo]

That's because you won.

[Artanis]

==LIAO CONTRACT, MISSION 2a==


==MISSION BRIEFING==

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TYPE: Ambush

LOCATION: Dearborn Sector - Davion Territory




TEAM:
--TWITCH, Zeus
--CLAYMORE, Lao Hu
--WORM, Men Shen



(Note: Yes, the mission was dark, and no, the screenshots aren't going to get much lighter )

==MISSION LOG==

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Liao's plan had worked: Davion had entered the war and Major Kelly was mobilizing her forces. In a move that was unusually blatant for Liao, however, Captain Cho was already launching attacks against Davion. The Dearborn sector in particular had become a hot zone, with Liao forces attacking a Davion base there.

The base had thus far held out, which was either impressively good for Davion or impressively bad for Liao. Either way, Davion was sending reinforcements that, given how the battle was going thus far, were sure to be enough to repel the Liao attack altogether. Our job was to make sure that those forces never made it to the battlefield.

Making a mental note to choose names for the lances before our next mission, I deployed the backup lance. Despite Longshot's protests over wanting to be the first to try out the new Clan energy weapons, a defensive battle was sure to be heavily tilted in my favor, especially given the terrain. It was a perfect opportunity to get the backups some experience before things heated up even more, so I sent Twitch in a Zeus, Claymore in a Lao Hu, and Worm in a Men Shen.


The mission started near dusk with the Davion convoys nowhere to be seen, so I sent Twitch and Worm east from the drop point to capture a resource building. Meanwhile, Claymore island-hopped west to survey and, if possible, capture a heavily-turreted resource base to the west.

It didn't take long for me to be glad I had sent Twitch along with Worm, because the pair quickly ran into relatively stiff resistance in the form of hovertanks, a mech, and multiple squads of power-armored infantry. Worm's Men Shen was torn apart pretty badly, but the defenders simply couldn't match up to the Zeus.





Claymore, on the other hand, had little trouble reaching his objective. The only mobile forces protecting the western RP base were a handful of light vehicles, and neither the turrets nor the vehicles were positioned to guard the turret control from an amphious(-ish) assault. Claymore took a couple of light hits, but was otherwise unscathed when he finished capturing the base.



RPs in hand, I assessed my options for where to make my stand. The Davions were certain to have road-bound vehicles, and thus the convoy was going to be following the road. With that in mind, the best place for a defensive stand seemed to be a half-built supply dump on the northwest corner of the lake, so I headed in that direction.

Twitch and Worm passed through a small town along the way which held an RP warehouse and, more interestingly, a nearby pair of enemy mechs. The town had terrible sight lines for my direct-fire energy weapons, so I ignored the mechs for the time being. The two enemy mechs followed, but seemed to be in little hurry to actually close the gap.




After clearing the depot's token defenders, I set to work preparing my own defense. It mostly involved mines.



And more mines.



I also added a long tom battery. And then more mines.






The two mechs from the village turned out to be Ullers, which the team managed to kill without blowing up their reactors, upping my OmniMech salvage count to three. Other than that, there was little to do but wait for the convoy.



The convoy included a few light mechs and vehicles that had to be killed the old-fashioned way. Otherwise though, my defense of the supply dump mostly consisted of grabbing some popcorn and watching the mines blow up the convoy.







The WHOLE convoy.





The last Davion to fall was a Vulture. It's a perfect poster child (poster mech?) for Clan superiority: superficially similar to the Catapult, but lighter, faster, tougher, and deadlier.




Fortunately, "superior" does not include "mine-immune".

When the Vulture popped, Diaz informed me that the last element of the convoy had been destroyed. I sent Longshot in the salvage craft to pick up the Vulture, and to make up for leaving her behind, I let her have some fun using the Vulture's clan tech to blow up a few buildings.




I'd now fought the Davions twice, and still hadn't had a chance to see their true capabilities, which worried me. What worried me more, however, was Commander Cho. Liao had never been good at a straight fight, instead relying on the sort of machinations that the Mandrissa was using me for. That Liao's local military commander was flinging his forces headlong at a hardened Davion base was not a good sign.

==MISSION COMPLETE==

[blackouttwo]

Ugh. Jason Cho. Don't even get me started on him.

To the salvage of the Ullers and Vulture, I say excellent.

[Timberwolf]

I do this almost exactly the same way but I bring a short range Highlander to do the jumping and then whatever I have kicking about to round out the numbers.

Works well

[blackouttwo]

When I ran this mission before I lost my disc(Should be getting a new one come Christmas ) I always just went for an old-fashioned slug-fest. Saved RPs for me to pick up all the enemy mechs. Damage and risk to my pilots be damned, I was gonna save all my C-Bills for when it mattered!

[Guancyto]

Ugh. Jason Cho. Don't even get me started on him.

Pshaw, he's not that bad.

Campaign 3 Spoilers:

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I mean, you have to pay to pick up his Cyclops, but using the 'mech in every mission thereafter just to piss off the Mandrissa? Delicious.

[blackouttwo]

Wow. I thought I was the only one who did that.

[Timberwolf]

No, really not

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I mean, by that point I already own 3 cyclops because it's that awesome and I like spares, but another will never ever hurt. Seriously, that Mech is Palerider's birthday, Christmas and just about everything else rolled into one. At least he can dish out almost as much firepower as a Shadowcat ! /sarcasm in the face of inferior spheroid tech

[SparkMandriller]

The two mechs from the village turned out to be Ullers, which the team managed to kill without blowing up their reactors, upping my OmniMech salvage count to three.

Your Men Shen is crying.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

I would have sworn I salvaged a Mad Cat in this mission.

[The_JJ]

*bump*

I know I've seen you post around Artanis.

I want more ninja explosions.

[Artanis]

*bump*

I know I've seen you post around Artanis.

I want more ninja explosions.

The bandwidth limit on the photobucket account I'm using is running a bit low, so I was trying to stretch it with a few days off. It's been about long enough though, so the next post will be up shortly

[Artanis]

==LIAO CONTRACT, MISSION 3==


==MISSION BRIEFING==

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TYPE: Search and Destroy

LOCATION: Carver V-A - ComStar Territory




TEAM:
--LONGSHOT, Zeus
--FLASH, Vulture
--DAGGER, Starslayer
--PALERIDER, Uller




(Note: I've gone with Lightning and Thunder. That's the only combo with more than one vote, plus Thunder appeared in more than half the combo votes. So there ya go )

==MISSION LOG==

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When the Mandrissa's call came in, she and Jason were arguing over strategy. Jason wanted to launch frontal attacks against Steiner and Davion. The Mandrissa wanted to stick with the tried and true Liao tactic of sneaking around until they could stick a knife in their enemies' kidneys.

The problem that Liao had on Carver V was that they couldn't call in reinforcements, while Steiner and Davion could. The only way for Liao to win was to cut off those reinforcements, one way or another. To do this, the Mandrissa planned to remove their ability to call for help in the first place.

When the Mandrissa explained how she would accomplish this, my blood ran cold: she would destroy Carver V's HPG. Nobody, not even the Clans, dared to piss off ComStar, who ran the HPG grid. If this went badly, House Liao was liable to wind up with its entire empire crippled by ComStar interdiction. The only ray of hope I could grab onto was that the HPGs were guarded by Davion forces, so maybe ComStar would buy that the HPGs had been caught in the crossfire of the war.

Either way, the team was going where I couldn't call in support, and was going to be fighting not just Davion OmniMechs, but probably Clan MechWarriors as well. That in turn meant I would be sending Longshot's newly-named Lightning lance, while Steel's newly-named Thunder lance stayed home.

Longshot was given my best fighter, a Zeus armed with Clan beams. Palerider got one of the new Ullers, and Flash got my biggest Clan mech, the new Vulture. I had fifty tons left and still needed a jumper, so I put Dagger in a Starslayer. I would have taken the Shadow Cat, but its still-irreplaceable Gauss Rifle had proven vulnerable to being blown off.


The mission started just as Carver V and its second moon were cresting the horizon. I wished that I had more time to admire the view, but my mind was forced to more practical measures. There were two objectives relatively close to the drop zone, and they were right next to a repair bay and a sensor control building. It was an obvious first target. It was also the most likely place to run into elite troops.

I was not disappointed.



Palerider was able to identify two mechs guarding the four targets, a Thor and a Ryoken. Worse, one of the enemy pilots called me up to brag about how much better he, a Clan MechWarrior, was than my "ragged band". In a way, he had a point: Clan warriors are quite literally purpose-built for combat.

He was also outnumbered two to one.







As expected, the two Clanners put up a hell of a fight, but never really had any chance to win. One of them called me from his ejection pod saying something about serving as a bondsman. I shrugged and had Diaz get started on the paperwork for hiring them as soon as we decided what to do about them, and made a mental note to check out their skills later.


Thankfully, the two Clan mechs both survived intact enough to be salvaged, and their defeat left the complex undefended.



Cash was genuinely excited about what the weapons facility held, and this time I'm not being a smartass about it: it held Clan Gauss Rifles. As much as I prefer energy weapons, I still respect something that, as Cash describes them, "can take an Atlas's head clean off."




Next up was the HPGs and the weapon facilities near them. The whole shebang was in a set of craters defended by a ring of properly-turreted firebases. I was thankful to see that at least somebody in this system knew how to build a turret battery. I was not thankful, however, to see what kind of turrets the firebases held.



I'd seen turrets with everything from SRMs to Large Pulse Lasers, but the Davions' turrets? Gauss Rifles. A little three-turret firebase held more firepower than sector command centers twice their size. Dagger was going to be in for a world of hurt capturing those things.


Once the repair bay had patched everybody up, there was nothing to do but start securing enough of the perimeter to avoid being flanked. The "ramp" down to the nearest weapons facility was guarded by a pair of firebases (plus a couple Ullers that were quickly destroyed). Dagger got to work, braving the Gauss fire to capture a strongpoint from which to meet any defenders.






Those gauss turrets came in real handy real quick as a nearby patrol and the weapon facility's defenders hit the team in quick succession.





Unlike Dagger, who had been through the turrets' field of fire quickly, the enemy mechs were held up by my own. Those that weren't cut down by laser fire were savaged by gauss rifles. Even power-armored infantry, which are normally a bitch to hit, were not safe from the ballistic weapons' scary accuracy.




This weapons facility was a letdown compared to the first: Clan Ultra Autocannon tech. Blech.




I now had three choices: a frontal assault on the HPGs from where I was; a frontal assault on the third weapons facility; or a sneak attack the HPGs from the back door in the northeast, grabbing an unguarded repair bay along the way.

It was not a particularly difficult decision.

The northeastern crater was protected, but only by a few light mechs. I guess Davion figured - or at least hoped - that all the OmniMechs and gauss turrets would keep attackers from getting that far.

The fight was about as difficult as the decision to go there.




I refrained from destroying the turret generators because the HPGs were guarded by massive batteries of autocannon turrets, and I wanted those turrets. The team headed down the channel that led to the central crater, straight to the control buildings for those turrets. The Enfield guarding them charged out to engage the team while Palerider slipped past and grabbed the control buildings.




Of course, Murphey then decided that that was a great time for a couple of Storms to show up and start spraying PPC fire at my mechs. Fortunately, the autocannon turrets helped deal with them before they could inflict too much damage.




The only thing now standing between me and the total collapse of House Liao the destruction of the HPGs was some turrets that I already owned.




And of course, Captain Cho decided to call me to brag about how his plan to cut off communications had worked. It was at that moment that I lost all respect for the man. It was the Mandrissa's idea to cut off Carver V from the rest of the Inner Sphere, and Jason had argued vehemently against such a move. And now he was claiming it was his plan?



I'd seen his like before: foolhardy, incompetent, and quick to claim other peoples' glory for himself. Things rarely ended well for such people.

I cut the channel and shook my head at Diaz. I could see in her eyes that she was thinking the exact same thing. But we had a job to do and a contract to fulfill, so we were damned well going to do it.


Our last objective was a third weapons facility, which sat in the final crater. It had roughly the same level of defenses as the second facility, but I was able to approach from an angle not covered by gauss turrets.



I didn't feel like going the long way around to grab the gauss turrets, so I decided instead to use the massive autocannon batteries surrounding what was left of the HPGs. Palerider snuck up close enough to take a potshot at the defenders and draw them to the turrets.



It was pretty much a massacre.






With the third weapons facility clear, it was time to grab its Clan LRMs and head home.




The remaining patrols on the way back were easily avoided, giving me time to admire the scenery. Carver V and its second moon provided a beautiful backdrop to the battlefield. I felt a little like Neil Armstrong, other than the whole "using giant combat machines to kill dozens of people en route to destroying the single most important piece of machinery in the system" thing.

...which, come to think of it, is absolutely nothing like what Neil Armstrong would have felt, but I digress.




I had faced Davion in a real fight, and I was impressed. They had shown much more competence in defense planning than Steiner ever did, and they were far more tenacious when the chips were down than Liao. And this is on top of the fact that Major Kelly was apparently skillful enough to get ComStar to have her defend their HPG instead of the mightly ComGuard.

Liao had gained an advantage for the time being. I only wondered how long that would last before Captain Jason threw that away.

==MISSION COMPLETE==


It's time for more audience participation! I have three choices for the next mission I do:

4a) Facility Assault: Legion
--Steiner has a factory building a new tank that might actually be worth its cost. I have to destroy the factory and all the prototypes before Steiner can deploy the thing.

4b) Acquisition: Base Hermes
--There's a Davion base that I'm supposed to take. The good news is that there isn't much left to help the defenders. The bad news is that I then have to hold it...and there isn't much left to help the defenders. Expect lots of minelayer action.

4c) Covert Ops: Orbital
--Steiner has some orbital guns that are shooting at Liao stuff. I have to sneak in and destroy them.

The next update may be a while thanks to the holidays, so there's plenty of time to vote!

[Timberwolf]

The Legion Assault is fun but big mechs needed, those things are scary. Base Hermes is also fun. The Covert ops is less so so I'd say get that out of the way first.

[Johnny Blade]

I vote for the facility assault.