Title, basically. I've done some reading and still can't figure out why my missions are so variable. It seems I either stomp or get stomped, no in-between. I've recently picked up the game on steam sale, got the base game plus Flashpoint, Urban Warfare, and Heavy Metal DLCs. No mods. Have done a few story missions to the point where I've liberated the prison, I know the chick from the tutorial is still alive, and I've been given the big ship we rescued from the moon. I'm currently fumbling around doing 1-1.5 skull missions desperately trying to keep my finances in the black. Already had to scrap a few light mechs in transit to avoid bankruptcy. Have a few questions.
Skills - what should I be going for? Most of my guys have the split firing ability simply because I put points into gunnery because I was sick of missing shots. Seemed useful at first to get the most out of the stock loadouts but I've been trying to specialise my mechs to certain ranges and now it seems a lot less useful. What should I be going for? I'm leaning towards piloting simply because it seems to at the very least not be counter to itself - gunnery can't seem to decide if it wants to be multi target or single target, and if you're going deep on tactics it's presumably for the indirect fire bonuses - but then it gives you sensor lock, which seems like it would be better to have on literally any mech other than the one doing the indirect fire, given that sensor lock uses your fire action.
Evasive light mechs - what's the best way of stripping points of evasion? I'm really sick of having 20% hit chances. The game keeps telling me that bigger is better when it comes to mechs but the lights tend to give me a lot of trouble. The whole part damage thing makes it seem like I should be focus firing one target until it's dead and then moving on to another, but with the amount of evasion the light mechs have I can have my whole lance fire at a single mech and do bugger all damage. For all that big mechs are probably supposed to be scarier I'm at least hitting them and stripping off armour, and it just feels like a matter of time until they go down. With light mechs if I get unlucky with hits I can spend a few turns firing for very little effect.
And speaking of luck - is the game really as luck based as it seems? I got this because I wanted to break away from xcom so I'm used to luck just screwing you sometimes, but holy shit. The individual structure and armour for each part is making luck a huge factor in how well a mission goes, I've had times where I've easily pumped double the fire into a mech as it has into me yet I'm on the brink of death and they're yet to take structure damage. I know called shots are a thing if you have enough morale or if they're knocked down, but you can't guarantee either being available when you need them and as far as I know you also can't use it at the start of a mission when it would do you the most good. Even when you can use them the odds are still ridiculous - less than a 20% chance to hit the leg I'm specifically aiming at? Are you seriously calling yourself a trained pilot? Feels like the called shots I have access to at the moment should be the base firing mode and called shots should have extra effects on top of that. It really feels like no matter how well you think you're playing, you can have a moment of bad luck that bends you over - for example, the first time I played the icebox mission I took out the defences, broke through the door of the prison, and had the enemy lance activate. I only had one enemy mech in view so I had my whole lance fire at it, think I blew off an arm. Then one of the other enemy mechs walked out from behind a wall and killed a previously undamaged mech in a single salvo. Mission over at that point - just took another turn or two to realise it.
And speaking of my whole lance - how many mechs and pilots should I have? I've unlocked the second row of bays but I think i only have six mechs and five pilots. Sometimes I can go multiple missions in a row with no injuries or repairs needed, but then one bad mission leaves me too shorthanded to take contracts for nearly a month. Like I said, I came here from xcom so I'm used to losing guys but my gut feel is that mechs and mech pilots should be a lot less disposable than random soldiers.
And on the topic of contracts and bad missions, I often get through fine. But when I get fucked I get fucked hard, and it doesn't even seem to be too predictable. I took a contract last night, was a one skull mission. Started out engaging a lance of four light mechs, all in cover. Having a hell of a time just hitting them (20% hit chance, yay), and even when I managed to wing them they took less damage due to cover. It was one of the most frustrating missions I'd taken but I thought it was doable, right up until the second lance of mechs over the hill started opening up with their LRMs. Four medium mechs on my side vs six light and two medium for them, all at the same time. I lost two mechs and pilots, and the survivors were wounded and damaged. I had taken high cash to try to stay liquid but just the repairs from the mission cost more than my payout did, and then I was even further in the red from having to hire new pilots.
New mechs - what's the best way to get new mechs? I've been trying to take out legs to improve my salvage odds but even with that I'm not getting enough parts, or at least not enough from the same type - got about fifteen partially built mechs in storage and have finished maybe two. I also can't really improve my lance when the game just keeps throwing light mechs at me. I've bought a part of an Awesome and I paid out a million c-bills during one of the ship events and ended up with a part for a Black Knight, but I've never seen either in the field and I don't have the money to fly to a planet that has a part, buy it, and then fly back to a lower level planet that I can handle the missions of.
Weapons - should I be going for bigger weapons or more weapons? I played the mechwarrior games years ago and it seemed to be a pretty solid rule that bigger weapons were pretty much always better on a ton for ton basis, which was a large factor behind bigger mechs being better. However, given the mechanics of called shots and crits, it seems to me that as long as you have the weapon slots you're better off with two smaller weapons than you are with one big one - am I understanding correctly or just using the wrong weapons?
And finally, mech movement and sprinting - is there any way to increase the mech speed, and is sprinting actually worth it? I've got a few mechs that are so damn slow they can actually jump further than they can move, and sprinting adds maybe two more pips of range which is absolutely not worth it when it means giving up firing.
