Early career mode advice (2024)

I've just started a new career with generous salvage and hard OpFor settings. I love what the game throws at you, but the early game challenge is kind of unique because while you want to complete every mission in a system, you have these constraints:

• Starting 'mechs don't have the greatest loadout/armor settings
• Your pilots have poor skills
• An un-upgraded Argo means Repairs/Refits take longer
• A single mech bay means only 2 backup mechs

I've read a lot of general combat guides and I'm really comfortable with specific strategies when you can actually build a lance around them.

But I find that when I get a 1.5 skull mission with 2 lances of mostly Meds and a Heavy, I'm not getting out of there with only armor damage. That's after accepting that I'll probably have to just core out most of them. I've dropped with damaged mechs when it's only a few points of internal damage, but once you're getting into 3 day/10k repair bills it's a bit dicey.

So, I'm curious as to what sort of adjustments you make to your approach in the early game when you don't necessarily have optimal builds and pilots? Do you re-roll careers looking for a specific starting lance? Do you accept in-system repairs? Retry missions until you do it clean? Or does it just come down to internalising the rules and AI behaviour so you can keep the damage minimal and spread across the lance?

You can drop weapons or equipment in order to add armor which takes no time and costs little. I always do this with my starting mechs in order to get to max armor everywhere (less enough to hit an even number). This will help a bunch with survivability and limiting any repairs post battle.

I try and run every mission possible on every planet as that takes no time. I will try and avoid taking any missions against Pirates or limit them to the number of pro-Pirate missions available, getting cheap access and sell prices in the Black Market is a game changer.

Also don't be afraid to bail on a mission. If the OPFOR starts damaging you pretty bad just call it a day, much better than losing a mech or being in repair for a few months.

I usually play on the hard opfor setting which more or less makes everything one skull harder. The start of the career is always dicey. I just carefully farm 0.5-1 skull systems until I get enough mechs and pilot xp to feel comfortable moving up. I don't really move past 2 skull contracts until I've got at least 2-3 nice customized 50+ tonners. I don't even bother with any flashpoints until I've at least got multiple heavies. Always be upgrading your Argo, focusing first on mechtech point increases and faster drive. You'll also likely want/need the beta pod pretty early since pilots get chewed up pretty good in the early game. I never really lose any pilots, but early on I constantly have a bunch wounded due to a lack of co*ckpit mods early. I think there also may be a bug with injury times currently, or else they just made them way longer in Heavy Metal. In any case I had really long recovery times in my most recent playthrough.

And yeah, bail on a mission (or Alt+F4 if you want to semi-cheat) if you're in way over your head and you're gonna lose mechs/pilots.

LucidFugue said:

...So, I'm curious as to what sort of adjustments you make to your approach in the early game when you don't necessarily have optimal builds and pilots? Do you re-roll careers looking for a specific starting lance? Do you accept in-system repairs? Retry missions until you do it clean? Or does it just come down to internalising the rules and AI behaviour so you can keep the damage minimal and spread across the lance?

Click to expand...

Just as @KDubya says, taking your Starting BattleMechs and stripping off a Weapon or Heat Sink allows you to add Armor. It is important to note that such removal of something and the addition of Armor takes ZERO time. I run my first Mission only after I have performed this technique on each of my Mechs that can benefit from such Up-Armoring. After that first Mission, I look to buy Medium Lasers and some SRMs at the earliest opportunity. As soon as I have these I take up to a month or more off to better weaponize my Starting BattleMechs. Now I have Armor and a better set of the Weapons I need to more fully realize my preferred set of what amounts to Shock Tactics (Medium Lasers, SRMs and Melee.) I have found repeatedly that a month spent in Master-crafting early, will save me from having to perform costly repairs to my BattleMechs and mitigate MechWarrior Injuries and Death.

I second KDunya’s recommendation that one must be, not just willing to Withdraw from a Mission but proactive in Withdrawing before those last few Enemy shots sever your Mech’s limbs, destroy their torsos and lose you Weapons and Equipment.

Similarly the recommendation to carefully consider your treatment of Pirates is a good one. I have found that I so enjoy early access to Black Markets that I make a beeline for the Raven FLASHPOINT, complete it and gift the Raven to the Pirate Faction thereby netting me a precious 40-points of Pirate Reputation. In my previous two three Career Attempts and one Campaign Attempt, these 40-points and the bare handful I had managed to save/preserve beforehand have resulted in a Black Market invite within a month of game time. (One for free, the other two for 50k Cbills each.)

So to return to your above quote questions, Good @LucidFugue:

1.) Adjustments noted.
2.) I have never re-rolled for better Starting Mechs.
3.) I accept in-system repairs if the Risk (of Mech Damage/Loss) to Reward (of Remaining non-Pirate Missions) is worth it.
4.) I play Ironman Mode, all-but exclusively.
5.) Maximizing Evasion Chevrons, eventually adding Jump Jets to all my non-LRM Mechs, Mech Rotation so as to Share Armor, targeting Enemy Side Torsos and judicious use of Melee have all seen me to my share of Single and Multiplayer BATTLETECH Fun and Joy. : )

Early on, your #1 priority is tech points. You can try to push engines for faster transit, but they’re locked behind prerequisites and take a while to research.

When I pushed engines early, I just ended up loitering around my next planet for a few extra days waiting for repairs to finish. (Completely wasting the extra days you gain in theory from shorter transit times. Faster transit is only valuable if you’re going to arrive ready to drop.) This is double-extra-super important if playing with unequipped mechs.

Joint Venture should be completed as soon as you have tactics 6 pilots and at least one mech with a good complement of multiple SRM launchers or machine guns. You can score some great salvage from the unknown force.

Prototype can also be completed fairly early, LRMs and a fast mech to spot make the second mission much easier.

As above, drop the least likely weapons to use (Support in my case early on) and up the armour. Try to focus fire on the smallest mech first, this way you can more easily remove incoming fire in the first turn from said mech. It's usually one that'll try to flank you, so removing it helps on that front too.

I found the Phoenix Hawk to be great in the early game. The high evasion meant the OpFor wasted many attacks chasing it. Swap out for a large and two small lasers when you can for a great light fire support/backstabber. Even just flanking without firing with one can split the OpFor.

I think The Lounge is always a good Argo mod to do early. I also like Training Modules early. Hire pilots cheap and keep them trained.

This is probably more my pet peeve than actual good advice, but I try to get the Structure and Power Systems done very early. It just feels weird spending money on fuzzy dice when the engine is about to blow and your foot has gone through the floor board .

Axterix13 said:

I go for the structure and power systems pretty early as well, because they're needed for the training modules. And I want those so that I have somewhat trained backup pilots for when injuries happen.

Click to expand...

Isn’t the first training module only 10 xp per day or something? No point!

Icewraith said:

Isn’t the first training module only 10 xp per day or something? No point!

Click to expand...

That's why I need the upgrades, so I can get the better ones

A little known technique is to max out the ARGO’s Training Facilities and fill the Barracks early in a Career Mode Run. Then as hundreds and hundreds of days go by and thousands of Experience Points accrue to all those junior MechWarriors...

...you never promote them. You never choose skills and abilities for them. This insures that their Salary remains small, but each is continuously earning Experience that counts toward your Career Score.

The best part here is that if in the late game, you find yourself in need of a specifically skilled MechWarrior, then you can chose one of these “Younglings” and put all that earned Experience to use and INSTA-build pretty much any MechWarrior up to the 30k max if you’ve had them incubating that long. :bow:

Always worth investing in even a +1 Injury Resist co*ckpit/s early game to ensure you can get your mechwarriors quickly to a nice early trait/ability position, as others mentioned you will take injuries and without that you will have to fall back on lesser mechwarriors because it is quite inefficient early game using other pilots instead of your A-team.
You want to reach the nice early traits/abilities without dragging it out to allow you to hit either the more challenging contracts such as Aggressive Negotiations (certain maps) and more obvious ones such as Snitches get Stitches (but others while not as painful still tricky without hitting certain skill tree points for the mechwarriors), also separately once you hit some 1.5skl and usually 2skl contracts then having a defined A-team in key abilities-traits really helps.

For me the Injury Resist co*ckpit has made sure I have not had to fall back on other mechwarriors at that early point of the game.

Thanks for all the tips! I didn't know that dropping weapons was a 0 day change. I've cleared out 2 systems now so I've now had enough time to make some more substantial tweaks to my builds, but it's a great tip to keep in mind.
I'll also keep an eye out for co*ckpit mods. I have 4 injured Mechwarriors already. I've still got 2 of my original 4 uninjured but a stray head hit seems unavoidable unless you can pull off a perfect tactical game. That's one of the key things that stumped me. Without being able to employ very lance/ability dependent strategies you kind of have to expose yourself to some level of risk.

Argo upgrade opinions are also interesting. I tend to go:
- Repaired Power Conduits (10 days)
- Automation (2 Tech Points in 10 days)
- Mech bay 2 (3 Tech Points in 20 days, more flexibility for backup mechs salvaged at that point)
Basically trying to get as many quick tech points as I can. After that I get structural repair and either go for Drive system (30 days total) or Beta Pod and Med Bay 2 (50 days total).

I hadn't thought about throwing in the lounge early, mostly because paying extravagant expenses is cheaper in the early game and I'll get to 50 morale eventually. But Lounge/Upgraded lounge is 3 morale in 30 days, plus whatever bonuses you may get from positive events? Vigilance definitely helps in missions, especially on a pilot with Bulwark drawing fire. I find it hard to really pin down the value of a point of morale, you know?
You need Beta Pod for the Gym or Training Module 2, but I wouldn't normally get everything under Beta Pod 2 before the drive system unless I was struggling to keep on top of mech repair and pilot injuries, which is what I was trying to avoid in the first instance!

LucidFugue said:

So, I'm curious as to what sort of adjustments you make to your approach in the early game when you don't necessarily have optimal builds and pilots? Do you re-roll careers looking for a specific starting lance? Do you accept in-system repairs? Retry missions until you do it clean? Or does it just come down to internalising the rules and AI behaviour so you can keep the damage minimal and spread across the lance?

Click to expand...

I just grind easy missions that cost me nothing in repairs until I have experienced mechwarriors and a fat bankroll.

The difference with 1.8 is that mech parts are quite plentiful in the markets.

Keep an eye on your pieces of mech and don't be shy buying 1 or 2 parts to make up an decent mech upgrade.

Also look out for missions like Clash of the Titans - two assault class mechs going head to head and you are the gate crasher. Getting a leg up to an assault class mech in a 1.5 skull mission is a big boost.

Derek Pullem said:

The difference with 1.8 is that mech parts are quite plentiful in the markets.

Keep an eye on your pieces of mech and don't be shy buying 1 or 2 parts to make up an decent mech upgrade.

Also look out for missions like Clash of the Titans - two assault class mechs going head to head and you are the gate crasher. Getting a leg up to an assault class mech in a 1.5 skull mission is a big boost.

Click to expand...

Agreed.

And what I really came to treasure was that all the while I was salvaging this or that Mech Piece in my current Pieces-of-Eight Campaign, I was specifically saving 11m Cbills and donating that Prototype Raven to the Pirates, so that I could gain the Black Market Invitation and directly purchase a fully-fitted out Annihilator.

And that whole course of action drove about two-weeks of very fun and very focused gaming! : )

I like the assurance of availability for Mech Parts and Mechs under 1.8 Mech Stores. :bow:

Prussian Havoc said:

Agreed.

And what I really came to treasure was that all the while I was salvaging this or that Mech Piece in my current Pieces-of-Eight Campaign, I was specifically saving 11m Cbills and donating that Prototype Raven to the Pirates, so that I could gain the Black Market Invitation and directly purchase a fully-fitted out Annihilator.

View attachment 542075

And that whole course of action drove about two-weeks of very fun and very focused gaming! : )

I like the assurance of availability for Mech Parts and Mechs under 1.8 Mech Stores. :bow:

Click to expand...

I had an OpFor locust left in the last mission, probably one uac/5 would kill it. I still used all 4 uac5/5++, ac5+++ and 3 ML ++10 dmg. Best to be sure.

Corraidhin said:

I had an OpFor locust left in the last mission, probably one uac/5 would kill it. I still used all 4 uac5/5++, ac5+++ and 3 ML ++10 dmg. Best to be sure.

Click to expand...

Best to be sure. It’s the only way to be sure...

#peaceofmind

PRICELESS