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[Darrian Wolffe]

[Darrian Wolffe]

[Darrian Wolffe]

[Darrian Wolffe]

[Darrian Wolffe]

[Darrian Wolffe]

[Darrian Wolffe]

OK, contract market is up. Talk amongst yourselves; I've been sitting in front of this monitor for 6 hours and I'm done for the night.

[Ice]

The longer bulldog contract is my pick. We can be at the front and possibly get one more of these while there. We would be in at that point drac space for C3 once completed. 60% salvage but only 20% BLC. This could also end up as a one and done as far as our participation. This is my only vote.

I do not want to go to FWLM space and be further from anywhere that doesnt have c3.
The 1 month contract would be great had we been in place to take it loser.
No pirates
Garrison duty is out for me. If it goes that far then it cant be the poisonous gas planet.

[deadlyfire2345]

Hanover is a no for me. 7 months travel for 1 month contract does not feel worth it.
Avon would be fine.
Gigantic  is a no.
Rusalka seems fun, but doubt many people would agree to that.
Maorun I like, but is not a need time from straight combat
Condors low BLC would hurt a lot if losses are seen.

Overall, feeling a skip come along.

[Hat]

Let me start by saying none of these contracts really grab me, and I'm fine moving onto May.

To me at least, the unit looks like it's in good shape with most lances being at 6 mechs and all but 1 at least at 5.  Rebalancing and restocking warehouses to an appropriate mix along with salvage to build cash reserves are my top priorities which is more easily done with more months to make acquisition checks and not having to make them at +2 or +3 TNs.  My strong preference is for a static defense mission like garrison duty or a territorial campaign mission.

Generally speaking, I am not in favor of taking on a contract against the Clans currently.  Even with a Vet and Reg tech trained in Clan tech, trying to get parts would be a nightmare.  That's even just to fix to sell meaning that salvage beyond maybe taking a part here or there is either to 1) build a reserve of parts to maybe use in future contracts many of which take up space and/or 2) selling whatever is taken as crippled which is a base 15%.  They are Operation Bulldog which would be nice to be a part of from a story perspective and could put us in a position to head to the Pentagon Worlds.  DC as employer means no end rewards.  I'd probably be reluctantly ok with one of these based on story, but my sense is my lance isn't likely to make much progress on them and quite possibly will lose ground.

I'm not in favor of a contract where ejecting means the pilot dies.  I'd be willing to consider GIGANTIC depending on what Rob shares are the mechanical effects for a Tainted (Poisonous) atmosphere.

The RUSALKA planetary assault contract is a no for me.  We get virtually nothing for transportation even at 100%, it's only 40% salvage and 60% BLC against Vet/A opponents.

MAORUN of the existing 5 would be my choice.  Again not getting much for transportation, but salvage and BLC are better (50%/100%).

CONDOR and pirate hunting could be worth it maybe if there was actually a chance that it could generate a mission to capture a jumpship.  From what I recall Rob mentioning though, he didn't think AtB actually generated those missions meaning it's got all the downsides such as poor TNs for acquisitions, 50% salvage, 10% BLC, C level equipment as salvage and no actual jackpot available if we buy enough tickets.

[Darrian Wolffe]

I'm not in favor of a contract where ejecting means the pilot dies.  I'd be willing to consider GIGANTIC depending on what Rob shares are the mechanical effects for a Tainted (Poisonous) atmosphere.

You very, VERY, much don't want to eject.

[Hat]

Btw, for lances looking for C3, MAORUN is a CC contract that will take us well into 3060 which is when C3 becomes available there.  That means flat acquisition checks starting in January of 3060 for gear, and the contract will run until Nov or Dec 3060.

[Darrian Wolffe]

BULLDOG-HANOVER: kind of in the ass end of nowhere, even for the ass end of nowhere.  1 month duration means a very high Operations Tempo: people aren't going to get 3 weeks between missions to repair their Mechs.  On the upside, there's reasonable BLC, and we'd be facing basically exclusively 2nd-line Clanners, not frontline Omnis.  The reasons to take this are the short time frame and the hope of ClanTech salvage.  Fury votes soft pass.

BULLDOG-AVON: generally a better contract than BULLDOG-HANOVER, but more financially risky.  OpFor is a mix of Omnis and 2nd-line Mechs, and we get a better salvage percentage, but we're even more likely to lose Mechs than HANOVER, and the BLC is way worse.  The base pay is way better, too, and 4 months isn't an onerous amount of time.  This is probably the Clan contract to take, if we want one.  Fury votes acceptable if Clan contract is desired.

GIGANTIC: Who even is the Duchy of Small?  Basically, this is a lot of money to sit around, on a deeply miserable and shitty nuclear wasteland of a planet.  The only upside is that there's a mech factory there (thank the TRO 3039 retcons - General Dynamics evidently has a Kintaro plant there), and the quality of opposition is likely to be kinda low.  There's not a lot to jump out at us, but as long as we aren't having to eject or abandon Mechs a lot, this isn't that terrible of an option.  It's just that the planet sucks.  Fury votes soft pass, but won't be upset by an acceptance.

RUSALKA: Reasonable BLC, and OK salvage.  This is an acceptable amount of money, and the contract length is decent.  A 5-month assault is about half the normal value.  Sure, we don't pocket a ton of money on the transport end, but we aren't *losing* any here.  If people want to angle for FWL salvage, this is the way to go.  There's nothing WRONG with this contract, it's just that the salvage isn't spectacular, and I think that people might get sick of FWL stuff on the table seeing as how the WoB contract pulled from the FWL tables as well. Fury votes soft accept.

MAORUN: Lots of money for what is sure to be an impending attack by a very serious FWL assault force.  The FWL A and B tables are practically identical, so we're looking down the barrel at pretty much the best the FWL has to throw at us, and I'm not sure that 100% BLC and base pay offsets that.  This is probably the second highest-risk contract after BULLDOG-AVON.  Soft pass.

CONDOR: We're basically attacking freedom fighters in the Chaos March here that the Feddies are calling "pirates".  Quality of opposition is likely to be similar to GIGANTIC, depending on whether they actually pull from the pirate RATs or use the FedCom RATs seeing as how they were a FedCom planet until last year.  BLC is crap, but we're less likely to really need it here.  ~$2 million/month/lance isn't all that great, but it's a short contract and we'd be in good position for future work. Fury votes soft accept.

**Side note: getting more than 50% salvage is UNUSUAL.  Having a contract in the 40-60% range isn't a reason for a contract to be considered lackluster.  Your admins and CO negotiation skill are upping the values into that 40-60% region; they'd normally be somewhere in the 25-40% range (incidentally, I figured out that this is where the rerolls went - they were changed to variable percentage bonuses in 0.47).

So Fury has soft accept votes on CONDOR and RUSALKA.  None of these contracts jumps out for a hard accept.  I wouldn't be terribly broken-hearted at a pass until May either.

[deadlyfire2345]

What I am seeing on the skip front is me (with Maorun being best if we have to choose.)
Skip for Ehreschuld and Spectre.
Skip for Fire and Fury.
Most choices per DM. Unfortunately, I wont bother those working at this time.

[Hat]

<snip>
**Side note: getting more than 50% salvage is UNUSUAL.  Having a contract in the 40-60% range isn't a reason for a contract to be considered lackluster.  Your admins and CO negotiation skill are upping the values into that 40-60% region; they'd normally be somewhere in the 25-40% range (incidentally, I figured out that this is where the rerolls went - they were changed to variable percentage bonuses in 0.47).

Anything else you're willing to share on how we should read the contracts?  It'd be nice to get some sense of what the different equipment levels translate to.  I can understand that you may not want to share the actual RATs with us and that's cool, but it'd be helpful to have a better idea of what we're facing.  For example, you referenced for the Clan contracts what was 2nd line and what was a mixture of omnis/2nd line which I wouldn't have assumed just based on C and B ratings.  Normal ranges of percentages for different contract types, so we've got at least a sense of what's in the average range and which are outliers above or below.  I checked the ruleset and didn't see anything, and I haven't played MegaMek so haven't absorbed it this way either.  I'm ok to keep fumbling along, but a better informed populace would hopefully provide more thoughtful responses.